# What are you working on???



## kat&molly

I have had enough of my girls pulling my arm sockets out
On their own they aren't too bad but together walking they are a nightmare.
Jay has always been good, Evie is ok but criss crosses me. Moll and Scruff think they're Sled dogs. So I have vowed to sort it once and for all, its all my fault for always loading them in the car because its easier, but my car is in for repair[thank you post lady] so its now or never. I've got my patient, determined head on and its off in to battle I go.:blink:

Tell us what you're working on and we'll have progress reports at the end of the week


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## sianrees1979

working on leaving dai on his own cos he just barks non stop till i get home, he's slowly getting better at being left 

it's going to take time though as he's had 3 1/2 years of going everywhere with me, i still take him when the weathers nice but i leave him at home if it's raining or too cold then i tend to hurry back home so the longest he's been left is 1 1/2 hours lately.


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## kat&molly

sianrees1979 said:


> working on leaving dai on his own cos he just barks non stop till i get home, he's slowly getting better at being left
> 
> it's going to take time though as he's had 3 1/2 years of going everywhere with me, i still take him when the weathers nice but i leave him at home if it's raining or too cold then i tend to hurry back home so the longest he's been left is 1 1/2 hours lately.


Great that hes improving


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## Pupcakes

Being confident around dogs and people. More so with Dottie, re-call with her too.

Its probably easier to list what we're not working on! :lol:


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## SpringerHusky

Going to start trying to meet new dogs on lead, Maya's been a bit of an ass lately and I think it's been influenced by Luna so need to work on greeting strange dogs. May ask if I can drop in to the puppy class on monday's at my training class to give her more socialisation.


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## Nataliee

I'm working on getting jake and daisy past other dogs without barking. Jake is doing well, daisy is so fearful though so she's going to take a lot longer


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## DoggieBag

To boil the kettle and make me a nice cup of tea. He is not doing too good at present, he keeps dropping the cup.



Currently working on recall. He has picked up getting to the end of his long line and coming back when called (even with distractions). Ordered a whistle a few days ago, so now plan on increasing that distance as and when I can.


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## Dogless

Still working on walking past other dogs nicely on lead without having to say hello (phase he has been going though recently!) and not pulling to get there when he is allowed to meet. I have been putting a huge amount of effort in for the past month or so and (touch wood!) we are there; had a lovely walk this morning and met quite a few dogs nicely. The good thing is, is that people do stop and chat when Kilo is walking nicely or sitting so he does get to greet dogs whereas they avoid us if he is being a bit excitable!


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## Leanne77

Heelwork and improving confidence with hunting. I have a HPR who goes against the grain and isnt massively interested in hunting so when we started gundog training again last week, everybody was looking at us because they're dogs shot off like bullets out of a gun when taken off lead and mine jumped around in front of me waiting for a ball or something!

I'm not working on anything with the collies but no doubt will be when we go back to obedience.


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## Twiggy

I've been working on my youngster's distance control and positions on the move in heelwork (sit - down - stand at normal pace in any order) since February.

Yesterday we went to our first show since September and she did them all brilliantly - yipee!! Just C scent to sort out now.


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## DobermannZoe

Teaching Zeus to greet other dogs politely & Recall


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## Sarah1983

Lots of things! But mainly pulling on leash. Spencer is a nightmare and we've made little progress. My fault really as I've simply put him on his harness and taken him to the woods and fields where he can have some freedom instead of working on the problem. But it's getting ridiculous now, he dislocated my hubbys shoulder and put his back out last week. So we're going to give our nice walks a miss and work on walking nicely.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've been working on my youngster's distance control and positions on the move in heelwork (sit - down - stand at normal pace in any order) since February.
> 
> Yesterday we went to our first show since September and she did them all brilliantly - yipee!! Just C scent to sort out now.


I always feel slightly ashamed that I am doing such basic stuff when I read posts like this! .


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## woody10

Been working on stopping him jumping up on people to greet them for over 2 years, still trying but I doubt I'll get there within the next 7 days 

now for something silly...
putting a treat on his nose and he has to chuck it into the air and catch it everytime - he's so far done it 4 times.... :biggrin5: 

teaching him one new dog toy word - he already knows about 20 different toys... we work on 1 a month !


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## catz4m8z

Same as always....Heidi's confidence levels.
If I could just stop her leaping into the air and doing the Chihuahua 'death scream' every time something 'scary' happens. (like a dog surprises her, or someone drops something!). Also be nice if she didnt run and whimper like a teeny abuse victim when meeting perfectly friendly dogs but I think she will be a life long work in progress TBH.


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## Dogless

catz4m8z said:


> Same as always....Heidi's confidence levels.
> If I could just stop her leaping into the air and doing the Chihuahua 'death scream' every time something 'scary' happens. (like a dog surprises her, or someone drops something!). Also be nice if she didnt run and whimper like a teeny abuse victim when meeting perfectly friendly dogs but I think she will be a life long work in progress TBH.


Didn't know it was a chi thing! We met one the other day (owner asked if she could as she was working on 'big dog' issues) on lead. We approached, her dog had a quick sniff of Kilo, he leant forwards to have a reciprocal sniff and her dog screamed like nothing I've ever heard . The Boy Wonder, being a wuss, leapt backwards and tucked himself close into my legs  .


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## BumbleFluff

Her "Wait"

Its getting better, i managed to go to my bedroom, grab something and go back downstairs to find blue still sat at the bottom of the stairs 
But my brother is annoying me. I was sorting a birthday banner on my front door so i told blue to 'sit, wait' which she did perfectly until brother thought he would try to help by calling her to him. I said no, here, sit, wait.... so he calls her over again! FFS MAN LEAVE HER ALONE

Rant over.


Also to stop her jumping up!


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## kat&molly

catz4m8z said:


> Same as always....Heidi's confidence levels.
> If I could just stop her leaping into the air and doing the Chihuahua 'death scream' every time something 'scary' happens. (like a dog surprises her, or someone drops something!). Also be nice if she didnt run and whimper like a teeny abuse victim when meeting perfectly friendly dogs but I think she will be a life long work in progress TBH.


Evie's problem as well. We have to greet anything new really sloooowly. She doesn't scream but will run if she can, pee herself or climb my legs. We've made a bit of progress.


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## bethj

I am working on Roxy's stay she is doing really well, she can stay for about 8 seconds as long as she can still se me. :biggrin:


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## Nataliee

catz4m8z said:


> Same as always....Heidi's confidence levels.
> If I could just stop her leaping into the air and doing the Chihuahua 'death scream' every time something 'scary' happens. (like a dog surprises her, or someone drops something!). Also be nice if she didnt run and whimper like a teeny abuse victim when meeting perfectly friendly dogs but I think she will be a life long work in progress TBH.


Daisy does this scream when a big dog comes near her it's so embarrassing she won't stop till we have moved away from the situation so I cannot gain her attention. I have found a way round it but it pretty much goes against what we 'should' do lol I pick her up. Only for a minute or so while I stand and chat to the other dogs owner, then once she's calmed I put her back on the ground and she will hide behind my legs and slowly comes out to sniff the other dog lol. Probably not the best way to do it but I find picking her up is the only way to break the 'fixation' on the other dog. I don't know what else to try?


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## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



I always feel slightly ashamed that I am doing such basic stuff when I read posts like this! .

Click to expand...

*Ermmm some of my 'basics' could do with some work on...LOL Take this morning, for instance, I've given up at the hydrotherapy pool trying to get Leafy to sit and wait nicely at the door. I just let her go and Mark catches her at the edge to put the jacket on just before she dives in....!!


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## moonviolet

Doing lots of creepy lurking in the trees, think I should explain.

Following a charging incident a couple of weeks ago with 2 offlead BC's, a GSD and a JRT. We'd been royally plonked back on our rear ends with all our progress with regards to fear at the very sight of all shepherding breeds(cheers mate) with a new fear added.... men shouting at dogs that won't recall. (I'll take a Chi death scream over Tink's skunk defense any day.. the scream with release of anal glands and anything that's in the bowel too)

So we've been doing lots of watching unnoticed from a safe distance, up a hill just sitting on the ground with her letting the world pass by. We've watched for hours over the last few weeks. (we were discovered by a chocolate lab fresh from a muddy puddle one day.. I got a lovely cuddle! )

2 weeks ago the sight of a GSD or BC even 200 metres away would make her tremble. This morning she calmly trotted passed a BC 5 metres away happily pretending it didn't exist. Still work in progress if she was approached with 'enthusiasm' she would be petrified, but small steps in the right direction.

Other thing we have coming up is a fun tricks display for a charity event and I've realised how rusty we have become.


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## cravensmum

Dogless said:


> Still working on walking past other dogs nicely on lead without having to say hello (phase he has been going though recently!) and not pulling to get there when he is allowed to meet. I have been putting a huge amount of effort in for the past month or so and (touch wood!) we are there; had a lovely walk this morning and met quite a few dogs nicely. The good thing is, is that people do stop and chat when Kilo is walking nicely or sitting so he does get to greet dogs whereas they avoid us if he is being a bit excitable!


I'm having to work on this too,with just Craven is wasn't too much of an issue,he still wanted to say hello every dog but I could control him.

Now with 2 strong dogs that want to say hello to every dog I am having to put some work in.

I would like to say we are getting there,but it's a work in progress.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Ermmm some of my 'basics' could do with some work on...LOL Take this morning, for instance, I've given up at the hydrotherapy pool trying to get Leafy to sit and wait nicely at the door. I just let her go and Mark catches her at the edge to put the jacket on just before she dives in....!!


This sounds awful, but I'm always heartened when I hear things like this...means that there might be hope for us all .


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## Mophie

We are as always working on heel work and recall - I think thats all we've been working on since he cames home...

Saying that the other day the gravel path was quiet he was pooped after doing a lot of zoomies and I gently drapped his lead across his back and let go - he walked to heel until his lead fell off his back and he looked at me with a face of


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I always feel slightly ashamed that I am doing such basic stuff when I read posts like this! .


I'd settle for having the very basics right now lol. Although to be honest, I really need to step up and do some more training, I've been neglecting it terribly  Been too busy just enjoying walks.


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## kat&molly

At least we are all trying to sort out our ickle problems. That has to be a positive. Right


We have had a 50/50 day out of 4 walks, I'm pleased with that as it could have been much worse, it was yesterday. Molly especially has walked beautifully at times, like I know she can.
I know our biggest problem is me I'm not consistent enough, I've given myself a big kick up the backside. Am really hoping to end this week on a big high.


I hope everyone has a good week , and we can all post our high/low points.:thumbup1:


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## hawksport

I've given up


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## Kicksforkills

A few things, my dogs are working on my patience!

(only joking)

We start classes again tomorrow.


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## paddyjulie

his barking : :

and his sit.. stay which i am doing a few times everyday


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## retepwaker

Praying to the rain god not to keep up this rain all the time but give it a rest when we have got what is needed befor i start grow web feet


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## Nicky10

Distance control especially emergency stop/down and we've been playing around with tracking a bit


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## JoJo74

I seem to be working on most things at the momment Dukes behaviour has been shocking of late so i have decided to go back to basics and we are starting with clicker training. I'm quite consistent but my OH refuses to use it which is not helpful. 

The main issue i've been really focussed on this past couple of weeks is getting him to walk past a dog without reacting. He's not too bad now if the dog is on the other side of the road and yesterday we managed to walk past a BC who was on our side of the road with no barking which pleased me.


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## ballybee

At the moment we're working on 2 things, Tummels SA and his lunging when walking past other dogs.

With the SA we've had massive improvements, to the point where Tummel has been on his own for 4.5 hours with no issues  he's doing so well and now we're trying to wean down the amount of things we have to leave him(today was a pigs ear, an antos chew, a stuffed kong and food scattered around the living room, i'd like to get it down to a kong and a chew/pigs ear).

The lunging has improved too, he's gone from lunging at any dogs he saw(just to say hello) to only really lunging if we pass a dog at close range or another dog lunges at him  Yesterday we saw loads of dogs, Tummel met 4(3 onlead 1 offlead) and apart from lunging 3 times(twice at a dog that lunged at him first and once at a dog that started barking at him) he was great, even stayed in a down at my feet while 4 different dogs went past at pretty close range(within 2m of us) and even though they all showed interest in him he didn't move, just watched them :biggrin:


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## Happy Paws2

Stopping Dillon trying to get to every dog he sees when we go for a walk, he only wants to play but I can't get him to understand he can't play on the road.


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## fortunesfool

Basics for us - heelwork, sit/stays, recalls etc. Also spent two weeks trying to knock some very vocal and stressful behaviour on the head (but not literally). Today was the first day we got through a whole day without anyone kicking off and were all rewarded with a lovely, long and stress free walk in the evening for the whole family (as opposed to just his favourite boy - the OH)


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## Bedlingtondoodle

We are 6 weeks away from a 100 mile walk, just me and Lewie. 
At the same time we are starting to work towards our summer display routines for this years dog displays.

So I am working on a few things at the same time...

but as I am still a bit chubby I think this week Lewie will be training me on how to walk miles and miles without breaking a sweat :biggrin:

Mainly scentwork for lewie


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## PoisonGirl

Supposed to be working on Xiva's down-stay but with having Montie here I haven't really put in the time. I will need to though as we are going to be up for our KC good citizen bronze test soon!

Her recal is ever a work in progress and the other day I managed to get her to com away from a man with a dog who appeared out of nowhere when I had let her off. I saw the man, I called her, she saw the man and came back :thumbup:
My problem is I am too scared to 'test' her level of recall as I am too scared of being one of those people who huff and puffs after their dog apologising for it!

We start agility on wed and back to dog classes next monday though


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## kat&molly

I think Molly is finally getting it, she still lunges to start with but calms down pretty quick, I am having to stop regular to remind her but theres lots of lovely loose lead in between. Its only taken 2 and a half years, and we aren't there yet!!!

My right shoulder is quite painful from Scruff and Evie on the other side. Think I need to keep the lead walking to shorter periods then let them burn some energy and put leads back on. Scruff is the worst and with me expecting them to walk further just frustrates us all, so hopefully shorter will make it more positive and build from that.

Hopefully that way will work better?????


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## Guest

We have weekly agility 'homework' - this week we were supposed to learn to send our dogs away from us, around a pole and back to us. Homework was given last night, Kenzie already can do it with about 85% accuracy 

Oh and we're working on our cat training. Always the cat training


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## kat&molly

How have we all done????
I've had a very mixed week. The bump I had in my car bought out lots of aches and pains- much later than I expected so I was blaming the dogs for pulling me which didn't make much sense because its not as if the dogs aren't ever on leads.
Anyway, Molly has improved by 70/80% I'm thrilled, really really chuffed. She has her moments and I stop/start all the time still but she jumps back ito position at the slightest bit of tension on the lead. I can use voice now, before, that always seemed to make her go silly, I can correct her or praise her. My Springer is nearly a pleasure to walk
Scruff has been horrendous this week, but OH has been on lots of walks with us so its always more exciting with both of us She stops quicker but isn't sure why, we'll get there. Eventually.
Evie's is a confidence thing, I've watched her more closely this week, as much as she loves her walks I'm sure she worries about going in to the 'big bad world'. She has passed people without turning in to a trembling wreck, its a start


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## Sarah1983

Glad to hear you've seen some improvements Kat&molly 

Spencers heel work has been so so really. He's doing absolutely great with the loose leash walking on a collar and short leash but put him on the harness and it's another matter. At least I can get him to the woods without arm ache now though. It's progress. 

Recall is also so so. He's doing fantastic in the fields we go to the most and in front of the flats but has selective hearing if we're somewhere not so familiar. But then that's to be expected I suppose. Need to practise in lots of different places. He will also recall on the long line with another dog in sight but not close. Whether he would completely off leash I don't know but we've got to start somewhere.

Leave it is also coming along very nicely


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## BumbleFluff

Well her 'wait' is doing fine, still more practise needed though.
When i saw Pudsey on BGT i was determined to try out some more tricks and moves, so i spent this afternoon training. I've nearly taught "hide" but she just needs to master doing it without being aided by me touching her nose. This trick has taken me soooo long to train!! Everything else took me no longer than 30mins. This has taken hours! 
We also practise walking between my legs, weaving in and out. And also touching my knees on command. That was easy, i did it once and she mastered it


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## fortunesfool

Glad to hear some people are making progress. This week Bodhi managed three lengths of a rugby field, off lead and to perfect heel but the moment the lead was back on it was like he left his brain on the field!

Managed to work on sit/stay at a distance in the house (with some brilliant mid air treat catching - although that might just be the accuracy of my throw!)

Had a bit of a nightmare walk tonight though so a bit frustrated that some of the good stuff seems to be forgotten.


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## Twiggy

I had a major break through with my little rescue pup today.

I've had her since the beginning of January and she's now about 6 months old.

Normally when I get a new pup the older girls hate them, which gives me time to get in first on the playing/bonding front but not this time!!

She's spent the last three months having mad play sessions with Tremor (who adores her) and Leafy so any competitive obedience type training has been pointless because I need her to really want to play with me.

Anyway on our walk this morning, with all four of them, puppy decided to leave the others and play tugging on the lead with me instead - YES!!


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## rona

These days, I just work on giving my boy the best time ever while he's still able 

Wish you all luck though with your youngsters


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## Labrador Laura

At the moment we are working on meeting dogs politely and not over powering them. Also walking past dogs when onlead calmly and not pulling towards them or getting over excited.

And also sitting calmly whilst food is being prepared.

But we have achieved recall and off lead heel work


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## Nataliee

We have something new to start on now... Aparently the new field we go to has some magical powers that prevent Jake from hearing me


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## SLB

Sadie: recall to a whistle. (She has good recall anyway but it's something to improve with her)

Benjie: socialisation with everything. My goal is to take him on a group walk without his muzzle on. 

- I don't have these two all the time so can't report on them weekly.

Louie: Sit to a whistle, recall whistle training (improvement yet again), directional training, heelwork, stay and wait training.. the list is endless with him once I get one thing almost sorted a previous thing crops back up

Pennie: awww she's just learning to understand the clicker, but she's learning daily - not to jump up at us when we have food, to sit and wait before her dish is placed, toilet training. She kinda knows sit on command.. but puppies and focus.. bit all over the place :lol:


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## ballybee

Progress report time lol

Tummels lunging has reduced massively, as long as he has either a harness or headcollar on...i'm currently using the harness as he can wear it and run around so no fussing with getting the headcollar done. It seems he has no interest in lunging at smaller dogs and we're working at walking past larger ones(if i stop and put him in a sit he's great or if there's some distance he's fine, it's just passing at close range without him having to stop and sit thats an issue).

Also his SA is pretty much gone, he's very comfortable with me and OH leaving the house(individually and together) and has managed 5 hours with no damage....he also doesn't touch the cats food(sits on a kitchen counter) and just spends his time playing or looking out the window(i suspect he sleeps on the couch too lol).

Also...my parents are now back(staying with them for the next 11 days until we can move to our new flat) and Tummels done really well...usually he's all over them and can't settle and god forbid we take him upstairs to bed if they're still downstairs but yesterday he got excited to see them and then he was fine, settled well(we had a good run round the golf course first) and when we went to bed he fell asleep straight away 

My wee puppy is all grown up!!!


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## moonviolet

:thumbup:Been a good week, been doing more lurking, no trembling and we are lurking closer to the main paths which is making me find more 'natural' places to be having a sit down. (but i have a way to go be the most eccentric dog owner around here, that award goes to the guy who announced that he fills his wheelie bin with water and uses it to have a bath in his back garden.)

 We've had more on lead walk pasts that have gone well and a walk with Monty a solid calm lovely BC. Hopefully more of the same this week. 

As for the tricks display we've done some practise but lets just say I shan't be proudly announcing its time and location on here :blushing:


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## kat&molly

Sounds like lots of us have had a good week:yesnod:
I think Scruff is getting worse, perhaps the stop/start frustrates her too much Might have to try with some treats but its difficult with only 2 hands and 3 dogs
MV- nowt as queer as folk eh? That made me laugh.


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> MV- nowt as queer as folk eh? That made me laugh.


He's a nice guy, but lets just say he isn't limited by the social conventions and limitations of others.


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## SophieCyde

Still recall 

He's getting so much better and we now have about 5 walks where he can be offlead but its just around other dogs , they're far more interesting than me :sosp:

Also walking past dogs on lead but that is not going too well , he just sops and refuses to move if I don't let him go over for a sniff , so embarassing.

In the house we're doing some agility work and he's taken to that a lot better


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## Dogless

YIPEEEEEEEE :crazy::thumbup:. Went to the park for some training and Kilo worked harder for me and remained more engaged with me than he has ever been . Can't explain how chuffed I am with him - one woman who had a dog that was going mental trying to get to us, then jumped all over Kilo said I must know what I was doing and had a lovely calm dog :scared:. I did say to her that I was utterly rubbish but did work really hard and today was a particularly good day :lol::lol:.

I just had to share here.....did come through the door to tell hubby bursting with enthusiasm, but he doesn't understand quite as much as fellow mad dog ladies (and gents!) .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> YIPEEEEEEEE :crazy::thumbup:. Went to the park for some training and Kilo worked harder for me and remained more engaged with me than he has ever been . Can't explain how chuffed I am with him - one woman who had a dog that was going mental trying to get to us, then jumped all over Kilo said I must know what I was doing and had a lovely calm dog :scared:. I did say to her that I was utterly rubbish but did work really hard and today was a particularly good day :lol::lol:.
> 
> I just had to share here.....did come through the door to tell hubby bursting with enthusiasm, but he doesn't understand quite as much as fellow mad dog ladies (and gents!) .


Men, some of them just dont 'get' these moments do they. I wish my OH did. Well done to you and Kilo, I love Proud moments.

I dont have many though:lol:


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Men, some of them just dont 'get' these moments do they. I wish my OH did. Well done to you and Kilo, I love Proud moments.
> 
> I dont have many though:lol:


Mine come just as I feel like we might be hitting a brick wall....every time. The boy is clever  .


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## Gemmaa

One day I'll take a photo of Freddie and he won't look like he wants to cry. 









Working on his general lack of confidence.


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## springerpete

Dogless said:


> Mine come just as I feel like we might be hitting a brick wall....every time. The boy is clever  .


Now now Dogless, you're just showing off.... Seriously, well done, it's great when all of the hard work begins to pay off.


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## springerpete

Trying to instill into Skye, the Span, that he's not allowed to pick up every damn dummy thats put out. It's hard, he's so keen at the moment, but we'll get there.


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## paddyjulie

His stay is pretty solid now..so having a go at send away..which is not so easy..especially as i'm bleeding clueless :lol: must pay more attention in class


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## Guest

Every so often Kenzie tries to test the boundaries to see if she can get away with something that she's never been allowed to get away with before. That's what I get for having a terrier I guess 

Anyway she's going through a whiney phase :mad2: Whining has always been ignored in the past and has never got her anywhere, but she's decided to try again to see if whining gets her things :incazzato: Whine because her food's on the bench, whine because she wants to lick the yoghurt pot, whine because she wants to get out of bed, whine because she wants to sit on the sofa, for everything at the moment! It's driving me loopy! :crazy:

So that's what I'm working on - ignoring her whining!!!


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## springerpete

McKenzie said:


> Every so often Kenzie tries to test the boundaries to see if she can get away with something that she's never been allowed to get away with before. That's what I get for having a terrier I guess
> 
> Anyway she's going through a whiney phase :mad2: Whining has always been ignored in the past and has never got her anywhere, but she's decided to try again to see if whining gets her things :incazzato: Whine because her food's on the bench, whine because she wants to lick the yoghurt pot, whine because she wants to get out of bed, whine because she wants to sit on the sofa, for everything at the moment! It's driving me loopy! :crazy:
> 
> So that's what I'm working on - ignoring her whining!!!


Mckenzie, have you considered earplugs, it wont stop her whining but at least you wont be able to hear it.


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## Guest

springerpete said:


> Mckenzie, have you considered earplugs, it wont stop her whining but at least you wont be able to hear it.


That is a very, very good idea springerpete! :yesnod:


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## Honey Bee

We're working on ignoring squirrels at the moment. I seemed to be plagued by the small grey furry things.  She has been awful with them to the point that its been very hard to walk her in woodland without her getting excited and I can't let her off the lead in woods at all because she tends to collide with trees in her haste to chase them. :crazy:

I've been asking her to ignore when we see one and trying to keep her attention on me, then giving her treats when she does this. We've now progressed to 6 feet of long line and she is walking past them calmly but my ultimate goal will be to let her off lead and have her completely ignore them. This may take some time but I've been through the same with pheasants and she ignores them now, so at least there is some hope.


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## Dogless

springerpete said:


> Now now Dogless, you're just showing off.... Seriously, well done, it's great when all of the hard work begins to pay off.


Pete, I still have so, so much work to do that I have to allow myself brief moments of triumph .


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## fortunesfool

Not sure the boy has learnt anything this week but the OH has learned that when I say the dog has zero recall I mean he has zero recall. Unfortunately he had to learn this for an entire hour of trying to get the little monster back. Harness order is going in, bring on the long line!

On the plus side he can sit/stay at a distance (in the house) and can catch a flying treat with alarming ease. You gotta see the positives.


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## Izzysmummy

We've been working on some off-lead heel work which is going pretty well if there's no distractions. Also working on impulse control around cats/squirrels. If on-lead she now doesn't lunge for them, her ears go up, tail up and she watches for a second but then looks back to me for a treat which I use to distract her as we walk past. All bets are off if she's off-lead though and she WILL chase the squirrels in the park!

She also met 2 youngish (9yrs old maybe) girls today and took treats off them nicely and allowed them to stroke her! And didn't bark at some 5 yrs olds who ran over saying "doggie!" she just dodged them !


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## Guest

Honey Bee said:


> We're working on ignoring squirrels at the moment.


On our walk this morning Kenzie saw something move under a tree and went sprinting off to the tree in the way she used to chase squirrels. I had to remind her there are no squirrels in NZ 

So that's how I solved the squirrel-chasing problem - move to a country without them! :yesnod:


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## Tillymint

err I have 1 day (tomorrow) to teach Tilly a trick as I'm entering her into "best trick" comp on Saturday...... I've been thinking about it all week but not actually done anything yet!
Any ideas???
I was thinking of just doing "bang" play dead, but not sure if she will do it on grass, she will do it on carpet but not on kitchen floor... but she will on kitchen floor if I put a blanket down! Maybe I should just take a blanket, get her to sit on it, then walk away, turn around & do bang.
Def need to take some mega tasty treats to get her to perform!!


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## Dogless

AAaaaaagggghhhhh today we are working on EVERYTHING :crazy:.

Kilo has been Kevin from last night - he often has days of being a stroppy teen :crazy:.

Last night I took him for his last walk on the dog walking fields; a young male pointer ran up to us, they greeted very stiffly, the pointer growled and so Kilo responded by growling and then barking in his face, so the pointer barked back etc etc. I put him on the lead and took him away but the other owner was terrified (I think because Kilo has a big bark) - there was no physical contact - just noise. 

This morning he decided to just look for trouble before his walk :crazy:. Then we went to the fields and did some good training where he did well  until a springer that he often plays with came onto the field - he was going to do a runner over there based on his body language :, but I grabbed his collar, put him on the lead and walked him over.

Then....he decided to jump up repeatedly to try and get the ball in the ball thrower that the springer's owner had, managed to grab the thrower itself and ran off with it . To his credit, he did drop it when asked and I just gave it back....but he never jumps on people .

He has just been an overexcitable little gitbag but is now asleep, so hopefully he'll wake up back to 'normal' and we'll go to the park for some training around other dogs again later .


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## hutch6

I am working on something that is possibly the complete opposite to what everyone else is working on - harnessing prey drive and getting the dog to use it's full potential when chasing. 

Running the dog over rough ground to build up the balance and agility at the moment whilst at the same time getting the retrieve down to a 'T'. Other things that work alongside that are recall, livestock breaking and building up fitness and muscle. She's only 11-12 months now but by the time the real season starts she should be good to go.


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## Dogless

Following my frustrated post this morning :crazy:....Kilo has been fab this afternoon / evening. Met a dog he plays with on our last walk, let them off and I practised his recall from playing with her a few times and he was my best boy (that's what I call him when I'm proud ). Nowt so queer as folk...or dogs .


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## Honey Bee

Dogless oh how I sympathise. This is a brilliant thread as it shows how up and down day to day training can be. You make great progress one day, only to have something happen that makes you feel really fed up. At least now we know we're not alone with this. 

Now for part two of squirrelgate.  I decided to walk with OH today and Honey's was more excited than normal as she likes having us both with her. We took her into the woods and was walking along on a loose lead when she spied a dreaded grey furry and attempted to take off but went the opposite side of a tree. This stopped her in her tracks but after this every one she saw we were back to square one with the amazing bouncing dog looking for and reacting to anything that moved. 

Another reason may be that a storm was approaching and she might have been able to sense it but thunder doesn't bother her so I think I am just making excuses for her. Back to the drawing board and more solo walks. :


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## Guest

It must be in the water Dogless - Kenzie's become the female version of a Kevin in the past few days too! Despite having excellent recall usually she's now decided that she's not going to come back when I call, even for cheese  And she's decided to eat other dogs' poo :001_unsure: And she's decided 'sit' means 'sit if you feel like sitting' :incazzato:

Time to step up the training again I guess :glare:


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## Janet92

On their own they aren't too bad but together walking they are a nightmare.


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## Izzysmummy

Well Izzy is in the bad books!

Just back from a walk in the park minus long line to see how it went! She was doing really well, recalling, off-lead heel work practise, sat nicely while a kid went past on a scooter and some people on bikes went past.

But then she spotted a couple of young kids on tricycles through the bushes and she ran off barking at them and wouldn't come back.  We had to go get her and apologise a lot to the parents. So it was back on the lead for the rest of the walk. Im so gutted and disappointed, shes been doing so well  :incazzato:! I feel bad for being cross at her, especially cos in this instance I think it's our fault as when she was a puppy she played with my cousins toddler who was on his little tricycle and she barked and play bowed and he chased her around and we didnt stop her. So although she's been doing so well with kids we've still got lots more to work on!

On the plus side she did pretty well off the long line but I'm so gutted I'm finding it hard to look on the positive side of things!


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## Dogless

This morning we had a lovely long time out and I just let Kilo play with two dogs that he knows. Bar walking there nicely, a few recalls and giving back the other dogs' toys to me when asked we didn't do any training.


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## kat&molly

Lets just say mine have been nicknamed 'Hells Angels' this week.


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## Howl

hutch6 said:


> I am working on something that is possibly the complete opposite to what everyone else is working on - harnessing prey drive and getting the dog to use it's full potential when chasing.
> 
> Running the dog over rough ground to build up the balance and agility at the moment whilst at the same time getting the retrieve down to a 'T'. Other things that work alongside that are recall, livestock breaking and building up fitness and muscle. She's only 11-12 months now but by the time the real season starts she should be good to go.


I had a nice talk to a lady about scent training so I am goint to work on harness being associated with tracking and getting Elsie trained up like Doris. Also getting them to find hidden things to make them think.

We work constantly on lead training but this week it is getting somewhere I hope. Doris has learnt where the end of the long lead is which is good. Elsie is getting really good at coming back when I say back. 
Last night she had a new trick though I said back she ran towards me with a waggy tail "treat" well done etc but she then was so please she circled me ..... repeat this a few hundred times and it gets dull quickly 

They both run forward... I say back, they look pleased with themselves run straight back to my side walk for a few steps, I praise, few more steps they run off ahead... and repeat for the whole walk :sosp:
This said I was inspired last time I walked a gbgv they just were at the end of the lead, the whole time  so maybe I am not doing too bad. 
Have also found they will train for the ball which is new and has good potential. So I am working on fetch (this is the first time in 12 months either of them have given the hint of being bothered when I throw something). So at the moment we are working on ball being fun so football and throwing is fun. Just really hoping it will build to being an aid to recall. I also want to do lure coursing so encouraging them to chase things, they have a bit but not much of a prey drive sure a few owners find that amusing 
Elsie is still working on socialising and being near horses but I see an improvement with that everyday. 
Doris we are trying to stop her telling us she needs to go outside every 5 mins. She is sneaky and you stand up to go out and she steals your seat or it bothers Elsie so Elsie leaves her chew to stand near the door too so Doris steals it and is all rrr: . Sneaky dog!


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## moonviolet

Well what a wonderful walk     

Operation: "GSDs were not put on the planet to eat Tinker" (as a title it needs work) Took a positive step or 2 today. Spotted 3 being walked together from about 50 yards away the other side of a clump of trees in an otherwise open area. I called Tink to heel and headed over to the edge of the area and sat on the bank between 2 trees and began lurking drill.

I drew her attention to them. I thought they would just walk across the open area and down the hill on the far side but no, their owner began to play fetch with them in the clearing. Tinker was nicely below threshold and happily played 'look at that'. We watched them for a good 10-15 minutes, when something unheard of occurred. Tink turned her back on them and indicated she wanted to continue her walk. This wasn't avoidance it was " I'm bored now, lets go!" 

Then right at the end of our walk we encountered another GSD as we headed to the car, I adjusted my pace so we would be behind them as the path intersect. We stayed a good 15 yards behind and her ladyship was perfectly comfortable following at this distance. Baby steps in the right direction  If we can have a few more days like this we might just get somewhere


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## Howl

^ thats fantastic! best of luck to her sounds like she is really coming round. It is so tricky getting over phobias but the first steps are always the hardest, very best of luck! 

I forgot I am also working on Operation no barking. I tried to adapt and be first bark then word etc but they get into an excited state very quickly so no bark rule is what I am aiming for. 
Me and the OH live with relatives which is making training tricky. In an ideal world I would not keep the dogs in a room with a huge window onto a street all day but it can't be avoided. 
We have tried exclusion for barking which doesn't work. The house has no clear place for exclusion and when I have used it doesn't seem to have the desired effect barking continues and then both dogs joinin. Training to a word which works but then gets used by all the family without following through so the word gets changed and I start again very frustrating. 
At the moment I am just working on what I can which is Both of you will behave and not bark at everything moving while I am in the room. I can't account for everyone else but I am determined to have some peace. 
So I am guiding the dog that starts barking (nearly always Elsie) off the sofa to the corner where I get to to face away from the window and sit. Praise and release. Which at the moment is working well Elsie has started muffling her bark and being a lot calmer.


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## kat&molly

kat&molly said:


> Lets just say mine have been nicknamed 'Hells Angels' this week.


 I'm being a tad harsh My LLW hasn't improved much. I haven't managed to cement the good stuff with Moll, lots of good bits but lots of bad as well. Scruff hasn't improved at all, for a dog that isn't half as bad as Molly ever has been, I can only be doing something wrong
Have seen a huge improvement in Scruffys barking though- I needed to do something about it as it was reinforcing to Evie that everything is scarey. We seen a neighbour today, she didn't bark, and Evie let the chap approach her for a fuss. Huge result:yesnod:
Evie's recall seems to be getting better in the few places she's allowed off. Had a rrr: moment today as she couldn't see me, I blew the whistle but the wind was in the wrong direction and she ran round in a flap because she couldn't work out where it was coming from, the relief when she found me, I couldn't help but feel smug

Well done to Kilo and Tinker - a good week.


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## Dogless

Today we went to 'Wet Nose Day' at a NT property which was really packed with people and dogs of all shapes and sizes. Kilo behaved very nicely after some initial whining with excitement when we first got there - I took him for a short walk to settle him. It was a day of positives for us:

- Watched agility and flyball without getting excited - did once but I asked him to sit and he did. This is a real improvement as he used to go bonkers with excitement when dogs ran at training class practising recalls.

- Didn't react to any dogs who barked / growled / lunged at him.

- Didn't have to try and meet every dog he saw after the first half an hour or so, just walked past without me having to ask him to leave it or sit and watch me on narrow paths.

The negative is his fixation with bitches - he will stick his nose to the ground and go deaf / attempt to tow me along whilst drooling, whining and teeth chattering if he finds a particularly good scent. Once I get his nose up off the floor he's my best boy again!!

Oh - he did get peed on by a greyhound too  .


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## Howl

Must be a good day for both of us. 
The girls had a good walk with a short stint off lead. They did a few good recalls and then went off following a scent. I recalled them they ignored. So we tried back up plan which is immitate the noise they make when they have found a scent and run. They both came down recalled treat. 
We did the rest of the walk on longlead. It wasn't perfect but the best they have been for awhile. So we are going to keep trying until we have a more consistant recall and then start extending the amount of time off lead.


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## BumbleFluff

This week i will be working on Heel and Stay (30secs) for our show on sunday. I will update in 1 week


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## sskmick

My lad is almost 7 years old I am not working on anything in particular just continuing to reinforce his training. Occasionally I will take him back through his basics just for fun and he loves the treats.


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## moonviolet

Howl said:


> So we tried back up plan which is immitate the noise they make when they have found a scent and run. They both came down recalled treat.


Oh my goodness you're a dog yodeller too :lol: I thought i was alone


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh my goodness you're a dog yodeller too :lol: I thought i was alone


Is that a noisier version of a dog whisperer  .


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## Sarah1983

Working on the same things this week really, loose leash walking and recall and proofing sit and down. Also going to work on teaching Spencer to roll over.


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## paddyjulie

Back to basics with Chester 'look at me' and i'm happy to say It's working 

My neighbors must think i'm nuts ..sit,stay,wait,look at me,leave it,come,down,stand......I'm saying them in my bloody sleep  and for some reason I go posh when giving chester his instructions ...lmao


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Is that a noisier version of a dog whisperer  .


Erm not exactly, but it does make you look like a class A loonie


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## Sarah1983

paddyjulie said:


> My neighbors must think i'm nuts .


One of mine told me the other day that I should just leave Spencer alone and let him be a dog instead of turning him into a performing monkey  I was doing some sits and downs then sending Spen off to do what he wanted (he was on his long line) and he kept going off for a minute then coming back and insisting he wanted to carry on. My poor trained chimp of a dog


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## paddyjulie

Sarah1983 said:


> One of mine told me the other day that I should just leave Spencer alone and let him be a dog instead of turning him into a performing monkey  I was doing some sits and downs then sending Spen off to do what he wanted (he was on his long line) and he kept going off for a minute then coming back and insisting he wanted to carry on. My poor trained chimp of a dog


Chester gets really excited when he sees me getting the clicker out..so he must enjoy it ..


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## Sarah1983

paddyjulie said:


> Chester gets really excited when he sees me getting the clicker out..so he must enjoy it ..


Spencer's the same. I kept giving him the option to go off and do doggy things the other day and he kept coming back to me and offering another sit or down which surely he wouldn't have done if he didn't want to.

The bloke telling me to just let him be a dog really made me wonder about peoples attitude towards training a dog though. It's not the first time I've had this sort of comment while training. Spen gets plenty of time to just be a dog and do his own thing by the way.


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## Dotte

Ok this is so embarrassing, my dog is a complete mess! 

I have to go back to basics with Bryson, right now he can't even sit on command anymore, for a treat he'll do anything but without he wont even look at me  So we have to work on: sit, down, stay, wait, give, off, come, leave it, try and make him not go mental when he meets other dogs on walks, get him to go to his pillow, not to jump up on people, to stop barking on command 

Think I might be in waaaay over my head here rrr: But after 28th of may I have summer holidays so I can really focus on his training, I hope... But I'm still not sure I can work on all this tho


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## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Ok this is so embarrassing, my dog is a complete mess!
> 
> I have to go back to basics with Bryson, right now he can't even sit on command anymore, for a treat he'll do anything but without he wont even look at me  So we have to work on: sit, down, stay, wait, give, off, come, leave it, try and make him not go mental when he meets other dogs on walks, get him to go to his pillow, not to jump up on people, to stop barking on command
> 
> Think I might be in waaaay over my head here rrr: But after 28th of may I have summer holidays so I can really focus on his training, I hope... But I'm still not sure I can work on all this tho


You can ; just break it into small stages - maybe prioritise things and take one step at a time and incorporate everything into your daily routine too such as 'sit' and 'wait' for food, to leave the house on a walk, to cross a road etc. I have so, so far to go until Kilo is as I want him but just keep plugging away .


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## Sarah1983

Dotte said:


> Think I might be in waaaay over my head here rrr: But after 28th of may I have summer holidays so I can really focus on his training, I hope... But I'm still not sure I can work on all this tho


So don't do it all at once. If there's one thing having a difficult dog taught me it's to pick your battles. Pick the one thing you most want resolved ASAP and work on that. Once that's resolved pick the next one and work on that.

God, if I thought of all the things I've yet to teach Spencer I'd sit here and cry! He's 11 months old and knows sit, down, touch and come. That's it. And we're still proofing those. Honestly, take it one step at a time and don't think you have to have him know all those things within a certain time frame.


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## Dotte

Dogless said:


> You can ; just break it into small stages - maybe prioritise things and take one step at a time and incorporate everything into your daily routine too such as 'sit' and 'wait' for food, to leave the house on a walk, to cross a road etc. I have so, so far to go until Kilo is as I want him but just keep plugging away .





Sarah1983 said:


> So don't do it all at once. If there's one thing having a difficult dog taught me it's to pick your battles. Pick the one thing you most want resolved ASAP and work on that. Once that's resolved pick the next one and work on that.
> 
> God, if I thought of all the things I've yet to teach Spencer I'd sit here and cry! He's 11 months old and knows sit, down, touch and come. That's it. And we're still proofing those. Honestly, take it one step at a time and don't think you have to have him know all those things within a certain time frame.


Hehe thanks both of yous  I do need the encouragement, Bryson can be quite the handful on his best days so we really need to work on everything. But yeah I'll take it one day at a time and one problem at a time  I just dont have time right now cuz of college and exams, but a few more weeks and we'll start properly  He wont know what hit him


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## kat&molly

Moll's LLW was good today. Scruff actually had some good moments, think I need to get her to focus on me more- not easy as shes such a nosey sod:yesnod:


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## Sarah1983

Dotte said:


> I just dont have time right now cuz of college and exams, but a few more weeks and we'll start properly  He wont know what hit him


Ah, see this is the wrong attitude to have  You DO have the time. Training doesn't have to take place in blocks of so many minutes. I practise sit or down stays while preparing Spencers dinner. A sit stay while I get ready to take him out for a walk. A down before I throw the ball. And so on. It all adds up even if it's only one repetition of behaviour at a time. And I've found it makes the dog less reliant on treats because the rewards are different things that the dog really wants at the time.


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## Dotte

Sarah1983 said:


> Ah, see this is the wrong attitude to have  You DO have the time. Training doesn't have to take place in blocks of so many minutes. I practise sit or down stays while preparing Spencers dinner. A sit stay while I get ready to take him out for a walk. A down before I throw the ball. And so on. It all adds up even if it's only one repetition of behaviour at a time. And I've found it makes the dog less reliant on treats because the rewards are different things that the dog really wants at the time.


Ah now you're just making me feel bad  But I do actually do that most days, he's not allowed his food till he sits nd stays, I dont take his lead off when we're home till he sits, I always make him sit or down when we play but I just see that as habit and good manners hehe, my main problem is that he's still so selective about when he wants to listen to me, drives me crazy! But yeah I will start incorporating small training sessions in to other parts of the day  I have to get a treat bag or something tho, so that I have treats with me all the time


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## Izzysmummy

Well Izzy is having a Kevin weekend.....
More positive with kids today, we tried to be one step ahead and get her on a lead and focused on us before passing them and managed to walk her past a little girl on roller blades with no problem (I made Tarnus do it as I've been doing the majority of kid training after work and he's not home in time so isnt as confident doing it yet)!
She did spook and bark at some people wandering through a fenced off bit that took her by surprise but she stopped barking and came away when we shouted and we put her on a lead then she said hello nicely to the people (a major achievement in itself...since her spay she is much more confident around adult strangers).

BUT.......Kevin came out and at some points she would just go deaf and not do anything we asked her, would dance near to us but not close enough for us to get hold of her and we didn't want to risk turning it into a game so just had to ignore her.  Think it's back on the longline for Izzy for a while. Sometimes she is so good, really responsive and generally a pleasure to walk with, then other times it's like a switch flicks and she turns into a teenage monster! :incazzato:


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## Howl

Sarah1983 said:


> Ah, see this is the wrong attitude to have  You DO have the time. Training doesn't have to take place in blocks of so many minutes. I practise sit or down stays while preparing Spencers dinner. A sit stay while I get ready to take him out for a walk. A down before I throw the ball. And so on. It all adds up even if it's only one repetition of behaviour at a time. And I've found it makes the dog less reliant on treats because the rewards are different things that the dog really wants at the time.


So true. Fit it in every chance you get. You will get so used to it, it's second nature. Every toilet trip, every walk, every treat and meal. I get them to sit/stay/lie down/. I ask them to do up and down a lot too during the day. Do a bit of heel on every walk. We cook a chicken every week or a big piece of pork and use it for treats just grab a bit when you walk past the fridge and do a bit of training. Or look into clicker training which works away from treats. We vary between treat and no treat so they never know if we have something.


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## Sarah1983

Dotte said:


> Ah now you're just making me feel bad  But I do actually do that most days, he's not allowed his food till he sits nd stays, I dont take his lead off when we're home till he sits, I always make him sit or down when we play but I just see that as habit and good manners hehe, my main problem is that he's still so selective about when he wants to listen to me, drives me crazy! But yeah I will start incorporating small training sessions in to other parts of the day  I have to get a treat bag or something tho, so that I have treats with me all the time


But it's all training  Every time he sits or lies down on command and is rewarded for it it's one more successful repetition. One more instance of where obeying you paid off and he got what he wants.

What do you do if he doesn't listen to you by the way?


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## Dotte

Sarah1983 said:


> But it's all training  Every time he sits or lies down on command and is rewarded for it it's one more successful repetition. One more instance of where obeying you paid off and he got what he wants.
> 
> *What do you do if he doesn't listen to you by the way?*


Hehe usually just bang my head againt the wall while begging for strength  haha joke  ah no that's where I'm never usually sure, I usually just try twice, just saying the command once (never nag like, I hate when people nag) and if he doesnt listen try disrtacting him and try again 

He's my first dog so I have so much to learn, and he's so clever but oh so stubborn, I keep buying books and read online but I still find it so hard! That's why I need people like yous to guide me and help me :001_wub:


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## Howl

I am sure if you look up stubborn you will see my twos' cheeky faces as the definition lol. 
I never let them get away with not doing something. I don't nag always 10 seconds between commands but don't let them avoid get away with it 
Today Elsie is being a monkey took me about 10 attempts to get her to lie down. 
It isn't nagging it's just letting them know ignoring you isn't an option. It pays off because the next time you ask them they do it.


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## cinnamontoast

Long term, I'm working on Zak being DA. He is having one to one sessions with Alpha Dogs and will start scent work soon. He is very much more focussed on us rather than other dogs now. 

With Bear, I am trying to get him to meet other dogs so he stops raising his hackles (wags tail, loves other dogs, just puts up his hackles ). Sadly, some foul dog bit him today, I'm afraid I gave the owner a bit of a mouthful.


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## Dogless

Well I ordered a long line last week and dug out Kilo's harness to work on this: http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/230559-stalking.html

He has never actually got to a person when displaying the behaviour, but I won't have him intimidating folk by fixating on them and beginning to stalk, and don't always want to distract / interrupt and then recall as I think that is probably alarming for people too - he needs to come back by default when he sees a person I think.

We didn't meet anyone, but practised recalls and 'waits' as we do on every walk and I did feel more confident with the longline on. I just let it drag as he is always offlead on these walks and he never went more than the 9m length in front of me anyway. The only time he does go a bigger distance is if he gets the zoomies or I throw a toy.

Anyway, we had a nice walk and then met a lovely dog that he often plays with near to the end (no owner in sight) so I let him off to play for the very short distance back to the car park. I opened the boot and recalled him and he came straight away even though the other dog was still trying to play with him. So he is my best boy again today :001_wub:. Well this morning .


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## Catz1

Ignoring the whining!!!!

I don't know if it because shes in heat or if my OH has been giving into her demands to Rio's whining has increased 10 fold and its driving me nuts :crazy:

I made her breakfast this morning and she hovered around me whining from the moment I touched her bowl. Cue me keeping the bowl on the counter until she sat at her mat in silence. That took over a half an hour. 

Then she whined and paced the sitting room from the window to the back door and wouldn't settle. I let her out to pee and she wouldn't go into the garden but whined when I closed the door. 

Out for a walk and she whined every time we stopped at a road. 

Came back and she lay at my feet watching me eat while whining. 

I know the whine, its the "Mom I want something" whine but I had cured her of doing that when she was much younger. I can almost guarantee my OH gave her treats when she demanded them (we've had that problem before) or threw her ball when she whined and her being in heat hasn't helped matters. 

Must stay strong and ignore it!


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## Dogless

Kilo was utterly fab again this afternoon when I took him to the park - it really is true that when he is good he is very, very good and when he is bad he is horrid .

I embarrassed myself...I said to Kilo 'You really are my best boy, I love you so much'  walking back to the car as he had been so fab....only to realise that there was someone just behind a gate post that we were passing .


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## Howl

Don't be embarrased  sure Kilo wasn't !


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## kat&molly

I've cheated today and not done a thing with LLW. Our weather has been so horrendous for a fortnight now, I piled them all in the car for just a run. I even had to buy new wellies-at the end of April
Hopefully a day off will have done the girls and me some good


Dogless- I wonder which one of us is worse. I was doing my singing dancing silly voice the other day. I forgot OH was there when I'm shouting 'Evie Weavie woo woos' He hasn't let me live it down yet:glare:


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I've cheated today and not done a thing with LLW. Our weather has been so horrendous for a fortnight now, I piled them all in the car for just a run. I even had to buy new wellies-at the end of April
> Hopefully a day off will have done the girls and me some good
> 
> Dogless- I wonder which one of us is worse. I was doing my singing dancing silly voice the other day. I forgot OH was there when I'm shouting 'Evie Weavie woo woos' He hasn't let me live it down yet:glare:


I swear the more time I spend talking to Kilo the less I realise that I am doing it in public . I often look like a right prat when I am trying to keep his attention off something really tempting I think . I tend to just walk when hubby comes with us and not train - bar recalls. Always recalls .


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## Howl

Your not the one running down public footpaths doing hound hunting call impressions then running away from her own dog! Lol


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## Dogless

Dogless said:


> Well I ordered a long line last week and dug out Kilo's harness to work on this: http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/230559-stalking.html
> 
> He has never actually got to a person when displaying the behaviour, but I won't have him intimidating folk by fixating on them and beginning to stalk, and don't always want to distract / interrupt and then recall as I think that is probably alarming for people too - he needs to come back by default when he sees a person I think.
> 
> We didn't meet anyone, but practised recalls and 'waits' as we do on every walk and I did feel more confident with the longline on. I just let it drag as he is always offlead on these walks and he never went more than the 9m length in front of me anyway. The only time he does go a bigger distance is if he gets the zoomies or I throw a toy.
> 
> Anyway, we had a nice walk and then met a lovely dog that he often plays with near to the end (no owner in sight) so I let him off to play for the very short distance back to the car park. I opened the boot and recalled him and he came straight away even though the other dog was still trying to play with him. So he is my best boy again today :001_wub:. Well this morning .


Quoted the above to save boring you all with the story again. We met three people today where we don't usually meet any with Kilo on a trailing longline. Think it was probably because I was totally relaxed knowing that he had to recall first go without the need for distraction / interruption of his fixated stare followed by recall but he didn't display any of his stalking behaviour at all - recalled as soon as he clocked the people, just glanced at them quickly then pottered on by. Rewarded heavily for this .

He was fab this afternoon too, so yet again my best boy .

We normally have a series of fantastic 'perfect' days followed by a Kevin day or two :crazy: so watch this space . Not that I am wishing it upon myself - if we never see Kevin again I won't complain  .


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## kat&molly

Howl said:


> Your not the one running down public footpaths doing hound hunting call impressions then running away from her own dog! Lol


You could record this for us. I run the other way but if I could impersonate the call my Teckel might come quicker, knowing Evie she'd run the other way embarressed by me.I cant look or sound any worse than I already do


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## kat&molly

I am a proper slack Alice
As the weather has been so bad OH ,,hasn't been able to work so he has joined us on our walks, he's being good really as he hates walking in the rain, but its not helping me as he lets them away with things I have been working on.

Tomorrow he will be working[ we need a skipping smilie]
LLW training is to be properly resumed.


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## moonviolet

How's everyone getting on?

The lurking is working!

It seems Tinker's security alert level is dropping. Her hypervigilance is reducing to diligent awareness of her surroundings. Over the past week we have met some new BC's and after a few weeks of lurking and observing she not displaying any avoidance when necessity dictates we pass, a little unsure for a few seconds and then she relaxes and moves on without the need to turn around and make sure they have gone. 

We have had 2 incidents that Tinker has handled surprisingly well. The first 3 offlead dogs came charging over (Tink was onlead) She froze i distracted the dogs and blocked her, then continued walking theri owner appeared with a 4th dog(GSD) on lead, i'm not sure why but he came right up to us, the track is nearly 2 car widths so no need. As he did the GSD snapped at Tink. I just cheerfully said " lets go." within a few steps her tail was back up and the spring was back in her step, (historically this would have been tail pointing to teh ground and a tight buttock shuffle for at least 15 mins.) The sad part was hearing the rollocking the GSD got and the slap round the chops. I hope you all forgive me for not returning to discuss training techniques with this guy. I feel bad for his dogs, but returning with Tinker would have been detrimental to her, but i feel really bad about it.

The other incident involved a mixed group of GSD's and Mallinois charging around offlead right near the parking area, out of site owner shouting, the dogs first ran out into the road , causing a car to brake heavily, then returned to the walking area via a very worried looking mountain biker, then most of the group began heading in the direction of their owners voice, except one that spot Tinker and me. Stopped, stared, Tinker was fearful, I asked for a sit and stepped in front of her. With that the GSD decided we weren't worth bothering with and joined the rest of the group.

Tink was left tense from this so we stepped off the path and I sat down (wet tree trunk, wet bum again) Now I'm sure I'll be told this is the wrong thing to do but this works for Tink ... she sits on my lap for a massage, I can feel the tension in the muscles, I can feel the trembling in her feet. She gets massaged till I can feel her body return to a relaxed state. Then we do some of her easy peasy cues for treats until her bounce returns only then move on. we did this and she seemed to shake it quite swiftly. 

A few young and bouncies have accosted us the last few days and although she stands still and looks unsure, it's not the " freeze, total system shutdown" it was previously, in fact she has had some lovely games of chase with new friends this week.

It's not a ripping roaring tall of progress , but even when you go 2 steps forward and one step back ... you are after acheiving a step forward 

Oh and I made a total numpty of myself ... I swear no one was around, no one at all... so i ran down the side of a local amphitheatre yodelling... forgetting or not caring (I was in the moment) how effective it is at amplifying sounds.... only to discover a group of soldiers perfectly camouflaged on the other side having breakfast and a damn good chuckle at the mad beagle lady  :blushing:

ETA: Tinker says she's not a total wuss and would like me to tell you she is completely unphased by rapid gun fire, smoke grenades, pyrotechnic flashes and the general shouting that accompany them


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## Dogless

Well done moonviolet!! Seems like Tink is really improving . And I would have paid good money to see your amphitheatre performance 

Kilo is doing well, still going on with the same stuff but he hasn't let me down (touch wood!). Or, more accurately, I haven't let him down!!


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## kat&molly

I am so glad you brought this thread back up- it spurs me on and I can have a moan on it. I really enjoy reading the battles and then seeing the progress everyone makes.
It sounds like Tink is doing well, we all know our own dogs to do whatever we think helps. One size doesn't fit all.

I've made big progress with Scruffs barking, its even working at a distance, say if I pop in to a shop, I can put my finger to my lips and say sshhh. A brilliant tip I picked up from here but I cant remember who said it
It now seems Evie is feeling safer in the house as she's started yapping now- thinks she's reallytough running at the fence barking at the neighbour- so I've got to start again
LLW training[I hate it]but I'm persevering, small improvements but not a great deal really
Onwards and backwards for me:001_tt2:


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## Malmum

I'm still working on Flynns dog reactions but until I get my own dog reactions sorted out I think I should just give up. Have just spoken to his new trainer, John (glad it's a man as he had a lady before and I think he will feel differently with a bloke holding him) and we are going to meet him on 18th May for Flynn to be assessed. I told John I need working on more, i'm sure he knows how some owners are.

So working on that and .......Flynns book, which I started at the beginning of the year and so far have only written four chapters! Lazy mummy!


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## Dogless

Kilo walks nicely on a loose lead for the vast majority of the time which I have always been happy with; but still has the odd lunge to the side to sniff, excitement when we see a dog etc (although that is hugely improved now too). I decided that this wasn't good enough with plans to add another dog to the family so for the past few days have been working on LLW again - bought the Turid Rugaas book 'My Dog Pulls, What Do I Do?'. So far Kilo is doing fantastically at it - we walked all the way across one field at the park this afternoon without the lead going tight at all for a sniff and he usually finds lots there. 
Early days but so far, so good .


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## kat&molly

Ooh that sounds promising, I've read a couple of TR books but not that one. 
I'm wondering whether to be consistent with the stop/start like I've been doing or change tactics. I'm literally stopping after every step and if I try 3 steps it goes to pot. Feels like I'm sending mixed messages to them sometimes but they are getting better at stopping when I do. I saw a neighbour today that I hadn't seen for months and he commented on how well they were walking-without any prompting from me. Perhaps we're doing better than I think!!!
Will go and order that book I think!!!

Kilo is doing really well I think


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Ooh that sounds promising, I've read a couple of TR books but not that one.
> I'm wondering whether to be consistent with the stop/start like I've been doing or change tactics. I'm literally stopping after every step and if I try 3 steps it goes to pot. Feels like I'm sending mixed messages to them sometimes but they are getting better at stopping when I do. I saw a neighbour today that I hadn't seen for months and he commented on how well they were walking-without any prompting from me. Perhaps we're doing better than I think!!!
> Will go and order that book I think!!!
> 
> Kilo is doing really well I think


It's common sense; not too far off the 'stop start' method at all but a few subtle differences that really make sense (so far!). I'll keep at it and let you know - he isn't a consistent puller but would like to stop the sudden moves for scents etc so that when I have two they walk nicely together. Hopefully .

Sounds like you are doing very well too for the neighbour to notice! .


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## moonviolet

Sounds like you are doing great K&M especially for it to be noticed and commented on by your neighbour. 

I reckon Kilo is going to be perfect nicely in time for a little ball of mayhem to join your family Dogless.

Mini update: This morning we had an up close onlead walk past with a GSD. Tink's tail lowered but didnt curl up to her belly and there was no submissive wee even when the lovely Holly turned for a sniff  madam was very proud of her bravery and trotted on like a dressage pony


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like you are doing great K&M especially for it to be noticed and commented on by your neighbour.
> 
> I reckon Kilo is going to be perfect nicely in time for a little ball of mayhem to join your family Dogless.
> 
> Mini update: This morning we had an up close onlead walk past with a GSD. Tink's tail lowered but didnt curl up to her belly and there was no submissive wee even when the lovely Holly turned for a sniff  madam was very proud of her bravery and trotted on like a dressage pony


Don't think he'll ever be perfect....but as long as he hasn't got too many bad habits to teach a pup and I can manage them both then I will be happy . We can walk past cats now which is a big improvement without any silliness unless they run!

And well done brave Little Miss Tink .


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## Dogless

The weather is so rubbish that it won't be worth going to the park to train this afternoon. So, this morning we went to the forest where Kilo just mucked about being a dog and the only training was a few recalls and 'waits'.

We have just got back from a walk to the offlead dog walking fields. He had to do some LLW using the method from the TR book that I was on about then we played fetch, rinsed and repeated several times. He did very well (my best boy again!) but there weren't any distractions apart from scents - and his nose wasn't close enough to the ground for him to lunge for a sniff!!


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> The weather is so rubbish that it won't be worth going to the park to train this afternoon. So, this morning we went to the forest where Kilo just mucked about being a dog and the only training was a few recalls and 'waits'.
> 
> We have just got back from a walk to the offlead dog walking fields. He had to do some LLW using the method from the TR book that I was on about then we played fetch, rinsed and repeated several times. He did very well (my best boy again!) but there weren't any distractions apart from scents - and his nose wasn't close enough to the ground for him to lunge for a sniff!!


Kilo is on a roll, he's proving to be a proper star lately isn't he, and the cats thing, just brilliant
I've ordered the book, gutted it wasn't on Kindle so I could read it tonight.
We've done just a bit of LLW, about 10 mins or less, not too bad so I left it at that for today. Think I'll leave walking through the village until I've read the book, it takes too long and frustrates us all. One big improvement is coming back, I know they've used the energy up but it was still always bad, now its lovely.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Kilo is on a roll, he's proving to be a proper star lately isn't he, and the cats thing, just brilliant
> I've ordered the book, gutted it wasn't on Kindle so I could read it tonight.
> We've done just a bit of LLW, about 10 mins or less, not too bad so I left it at that for today. Think I'll leave walking through the village until I've read the book, it takes too long and frustrates us all. One big improvement is coming back, I know they've used the energy up but it was still always bad, now its lovely.


He is being really fantastic, walking past a cat seems like such a minor thing I am sure but he was a lunging, screaming banshee initially upon seeing one .

It worries me when he's being this good . The thing is, the better he behaves, the more I relax and gain confidence and the more rewards he gets in terms of being allowed to meet other dogs and people. We know sufficient people in some places now that are aware that if I am recalling him and putting his lead on that I am doing it to then let him off to play as a reward . Hope he's not storing up misbehaviour to hit me with when I least expect it though .

Sounds like you're making real progress too!!


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## Dogless

You'll be pleased to know that I don't have a smug 'didn't we do well?' post today .

We had a great morning; went to the park, did three sets of the LLW training with minimal distractions and had a wander round. Kilo was my best boy again .

This afternoon was really frustrating, just got back from being out for two hours and nearly burst into tears....but went to buy chocolate instead . We went to the offlead dog walking field, did 5 minutes' training, played fetch for a bit then were joined by a friend whose dog Kilo plays with. He was a little git trying to pull over to her...but we persisted and got there nicely in the end .

After they had played for 5 minutes a small girl came in with a dog, so I put Kilo on lead. She came over and I let Kilo off....for about 3 minutes. Her dog had had puppies last week apparently and Kilo just wouldn't stop trying to hump her - not sure if bitches who have just had a litter smell like they are in season or . Anyway; Kilo was put on his lead. 

When the girl left, I had just let Kilo off again and a load of kids came in on their bikes, which they then abandoned and ran around screaming and playfighting...so I put Kilo on his lead again, poor little bugger. Then they left and another dog Kilo plays with came in - but before I could let him off, back comes the girl with the bitch who had just had pups with some of her friends....so Kilo went back on lead. I waited for 20 minutes chatting to the woman whose dog Kilo plays with whilst getting him to focus on me, sit, down etc. I then gave up and walked back with my friend to her road. 

As I came out of her road, I noticed the kids leaving the field so went back on....only for the girl to appear again "to just see who was on the field". Luckily she left and we did some training (just 5 mins) and I let Kilo run about and played fetch with him.

On the way back, some kids were climbing over the 6 ft wall into the alley by our house, which freaked Kilo out, so I turned around and went the long way...where we ran into an overexcited chocolate lab who bounced and Kilo did his high pitched frustrated bark back (which he hasn't done since the first week we were here :frown2...and finally got home. Frazzled. What a horrible and frustrating walk .


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## kat&molly

Bloody Hell- that sounds an horrendous walk for both of you
I'm not suprised it was all too much for Kilo, and I'm guessing that bitch would smell strongly of something 
Calm down, eat chocolate and I look forward to a 'Best Boy' post tomorrow


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Bloody Hell- that sounds an horrendous walk for both of you
> I'm not suprised it was all too much for Kilo, and I'm guessing that bitch would smell strongly of something
> Calm down, eat chocolate and I look forward to a 'Best Boy' post tomorrow


It was horrible; no one's fault....just really frustrating :cursing:. The worst thing is that little girl was the one who was walking the in season bitch a few weeks back (she didn't know what a season was - I asked her to tell her Dad that she might be in season - today I asked and she said that she had been according to her Dad) so Kilo had been very interested in her too when she had run over . They have 6 bitches so she says .


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## kat&molly

How dangerous is that letting a young girl out with an in- season bitch, and my horrible inner witch is imagining you running in to the pups in a few months time in the same condition


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## Dogless

Mixed bag today - went for a lovely walk on the beach; gorgeous in the main bar this http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/235073-more-labrador-woes.html#post1061987578 Kilo played for ages then we did some LLW back to the car (about 10 minutes) which Kilo was fab with. He also recalled very nicely from a schnauzer that he was playing with .

This afternoon, we went to the park, he was fab walking round and past dogs and we did two sets of our LLW training in different quiet places which he was my best boy at again. The downside was another lab incident (in the thread I have linked to a few posts down). I hate feeling like I've failed him, but will keep on working.


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## kat&molly

I read the thread, he does sound anxious around them doesn't he.
Sounds like his LLW is going really well,though
One of the reasons I'm determined to stick at it myself is more for socialising, we dont generally have a problem with other dogs but if ever we had to move somewhere more populated I'd be in trouble. Its obvious Scruff and Evie have never been used to people and other dogs. They get to meet some of the dogs that come here for grooming but I cherry pick the calmer ones, after the inital into's they aren't bothered and never play-perhaps because they have each other?

LLW training, I am doing 5/10 mins at most before I let Moll and Scruff off lead and I'm only doing it in one place, they are doing better but its obvious I need to go slowly and build it up. My book hasn't arrived yet.


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## moonviolet

I'm sorry to hear about all the challenges you are facing, Dogless. I've read your other thread and you have had lots of very knowledgable advice and i have nothing of value to add, except, do not think, even for one moment you have failed Kilo!

Politely ignoring rude, boisterous, insistent dogs is herculean task for any dog. Do not forget these dogs are failing to read or heed the messages that Kilo is giving loud and clear (and the ones you were giving on the beach too) They are the ones that are 'bringing it'. So please don't beat yourself up. 

Little Tink update: A new GSD has joined our obedience class and not only is he totally gorgeous and I have a huge doggie crush on him, his owner is lovely too. Tink and Zak had a nice little reciprocal sniff at the end of class, no fearful body language at all, the difference a controlled environment makes is huge.


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## Guest

I'm working on LLW with Kenzie at the moment too, but in a slightly different way...

Kenzie usually walks beautifully on the lead, she's just the sort of dog that's happy to tootle along. The exception to this is going out the back door, down the path, around the corner and to my car on the driveway. She pulls like a train on this tiny bit of walking because she knows the cat might be somewhere around  

For too long I've let her get away with it but recently I've decided it needs to stop! I've been turning around and going back the other way every time she pulls and it's working really well. At first we were turning around every step but now we can get all the way down to the corner without her pulling. 

It's a tiny small thing but I really want to get it sorted!


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I read the thread, he does sound anxious around them doesn't he.
> Sounds like his LLW is going really well,though
> One of the reasons I'm determined to stick at it myself is more for socialising, we dont generally have a problem with other dogs but if ever we had to move somewhere more populated I'd be in trouble. Its obvious Scruff and Evie have never been used to people and other dogs. They get to meet some of the dogs that come here for grooming but I cherry pick the calmer ones, after the inital into's they aren't bothered and never play-perhaps because they have each other?
> 
> LLW training, I am doing 5/10 mins at most before I let Moll and Scruff off lead and I'm only doing it in one place, they are doing better but its obvious I need to go slowly and build it up. My book hasn't arrived yet.


Thanks - I am much calmer about things today; think I had just had 'one of those days' yesterday (and the day before!). I am sure you'll get there with LLW....the book makes so much sense and so far I am seeing nice results. Not tested Kilo around distractions or for longer than 10 minutes at a time yet though!



moonviolet said:


> I'm sorry to hear about all the challenges you are facing, Dogless. I've read your other thread and you have had lots of very knowledgable advice and i have nothing of value to add, except, do not think, even for one moment you have failed Kilo!
> 
> Politely ignoring rude, boisterous, insistent dogs is herculean task for any dog. Do not forget these dogs are failing to read or heed the messages that Kilo is giving loud and clear (and the ones you were giving on the beach too) They are the ones that are 'bringing it'. So please don't beat yourself up.
> 
> Little Tink update: A new GSD has joined our obedience class and not only is he totally gorgeous and I have a huge doggie crush on him, his owner is lovely too. Tink and Zak had a nice little reciprocal sniff at the end of class, no fearful body language at all, the difference a controlled environment makes is huge.


Well done little Miss Tink - that sounds like very positive progress .



McKenzie said:


> I'm working on LLW with Kenzie at the moment too, but in a slightly different way...
> 
> Kenzie usually walks beautifully on the lead, she's just the sort of dog that's happy to tootle along. The exception to this is going out the back door, down the path, around the corner and to my car on the driveway. She pulls like a train on this tiny bit of walking because she knows the cat might be somewhere around
> 
> For too long I've let her get away with it but recently I've decided it needs to stop! I've been turning around and going back the other way every time she pulls and it's working really well. At first we were turning around every step but now we can get all the way down to the corner without her pulling.
> 
> It's a tiny small thing but I really want to get it sorted!


I'm sure you'll sort it - I sympathise with cat troubles .

This morning we had a good walk! We went to a forest with narrow paths where you can't see too far ahead so I popped Kilo on his longline for some of the walk (less visibility part) - we saw a lone person and he stopped then recalled to me straight away...no staring and no attempt to start stalking .

Then we saw a chocolate lab whilst he didn't have his longline on, he recalled, lab came over but not too boisterously at all and stopped then walked slowly up to Kilo when he lay down. They had a bit of a stiff greeting, then I called Kilo to come with me and the lab went back to his owner, so I am very happy with that . I am even more sure that it's the sheer enthusiasm of the approach in some cases that tips Kilo into 'bugger off' mode.


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## kat&molly

NEWS FLASH- Evie was an Angel today, I had to shout because I've never been able to say it before:blush2: We went to visit Mollys family[Mom, dad and sis] Its always exciting for her and she is pretty well behaved there, but I always end up having to put her lead on at some point because she is too interested in something. Not today, she recalled to the whistle every time straight away and got nearly 4 hours off leadhmy:
Too tired tonight when OH came home- she didn't even greet him, normally she has a zoomie in excitement. Probably a one off but it was lovely anyway.
No LLW today as they are all out of it-back to it tomorrow.
Dogless- glad that you had a better day- and a positive time with a Lab.Sure you'll work something out. I think you stay very calm- I dont like other peoples dogs upsetting mine- I'd be mortified if mine were doing it to others.
Moonviolet- Tink is doing very well, me thinks.
Kenzie- I have the same problem with Moll, a short stretch just outside the house, not because of cats, but she's on a mission- its our worst bit!!!


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> NEWS FLASH- Evie was an Angel today, I had to shout because I've never been able to say it before:blush2: We went to visit Mollys family[Mom, dad and sis] Its always exciting for her and she is pretty well behaved there, but I always end up having to put her lead on at some point because she is too interested in something. Not today, she recalled to the whistle every time straight away and got nearly 4 hours off leadhmy:
> Too tired tonight when OH came home- she didn't even greet him, normally she has a zoomie in excitement. Probably a one off but it was lovely anyway.
> No LLW today as they are all out of it-back to it tomorrow.
> Dogless- glad that you had a better day- and a positive time with a Lab.Sure you'll work something out. I think you stay very calm- I dont like other peoples dogs upsetting mine- I'd be mortified if mine were doing it to others.
> Moonviolet- Tink is doing very well, me thinks.
> Kenzie- I have the same problem with Moll, a short stretch just outside the house, not because of cats, but she's on a mission- its our worst bit!!!


WELL DONE EVIE .

Kilo was my best boy again this afternoon - we walked to the fields, did a lap of LLW. Then I let him off; his friend came in and he recalled, I put his lead on then released him to play. They played very well, his friend left and we did one more lap LLW then came home. Perfect .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> WELL DONE EVIE .
> 
> Kilo was my best boy again this afternoon - we walked to the fields, did a lap of LLW. Then I let him off; his friend came in and he recalled, I put his lead on then released him to play. They played very well, his friend left and we did one more lap LLW then came home. Perfect .


Ah, thats better
He's a good boy.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Ah, thats better
> He's a good boy.


Today has been what we both needed .


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## moonviolet

Well done Evie 
Well done Kilo


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Evie
> Well done Kilo


Feel like we should have a star chart like at school  .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Feel like we should have a star chart like at school  .


That'll be just the one star for me then:001_tt2:

I think Evie may be illAlthough she had all that time off lead, our walk was only for about an hour, along a track lined with trees so shaded. The rest of the time was spent mooching around my friends land.
She had her tea and slept , this morning she didn't want to get up for breakfast We got her up to check all over for Ticks-none and she's just sat on the patio hasn't had a wee. Dont know if I'm imagining it but her breathing looks fast
I'm going to get ready take the others for a quick walk and get her to the vets before dinner time if theres no change.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> That'll be just the one star for me then:001_tt2:
> 
> I think Evie may be illAlthough she had all that time off lead, our walk was only for about an hour, along a track lined with trees so shaded. The rest of the time was spent mooching around my friends land.
> She had her tea and slept , this morning she didn't want to get up for breakfast We got her up to check all over for Ticks-none and she's just sat on the patio hasn't had a wee. Dont know if I'm imagining it but her breathing looks fast
> I'm going to get ready take the others for a quick walk and get her to the vets before dinner time if theres no change.


Oh no ; not eating is a sign that something's amiss in this house. I really hope that she is OK or just has a minor bug. Fingers and paws crossed xx.


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## Guest

Oh no! I hope nothing's too wrong with Evie and she's back to her usual mad self soon


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## moonviolet

Poor Evie, I hope it's nothing more than a bit knackered from yesterday's excitement.

Confession time: Tink doesn't have a star chart, but her reactions are graded from 1-5. 1 being no signs of fear, 5 being extreme. Helps me keep track of her progress.


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## kat&molly

Thanks all
She just joined us for a little walk, but she's not right. Coming home she was on a mission to get back. I hope I'm over reacting, but I dont think I am. Vets at 1.45.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks all
> She just joined us for a little walk, but she's not right. Coming home she was on a mission to get back. I hope I'm over reacting, but I dont think I am. Vets at 1.45.


Best to get her checked I agree; hope she's back to herself soon x.


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## Dogless

Kilo gets a gold star this morning, I can't stop smiling . We went to the park and I could see that it was quiet, so did the first 10 minutes from the car LLW training (Kilo was fab), then put his headcollar on and walked to the lough (about 25 minutes or so). From the lough, I planned to do 10 minutes LLW training again, but we walked all the way back to where we cross the river (about 20 minutes) and he was absolutely fab....people around, but no dogs so minor distractions . After that it really bucketed down so we ran back to the car, right past some laughing workmen keeping dry in their vehicles :crazy:....Kilo loves running and ignores everything anyway when we do so .

I am chuffed with him; no head down and hound nose engaged when we are doing our LLW training .

Hopefully he'll be my best boy this afternoon too (touch wood!) .


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## kat&molly

Thanks, the time is dragging until our appt. I may have to do some housework.
Gold star for Kilo,he really is on a roll:thumbsup:
My attempts were a bit half hearted this morning,didn't want to put madam through stop/start. Needless to say Moll and Scruff took advantage of this

Hats with Dunce on for those 2, I think todayhmy:


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## Sarah1983

Still working on loose leash walking with Spencer. I've taken to using the clicker for it and have made an absolutely HUGE leap in terms of progress. He just was not getting what I wanted before, now he's realised that walking by my side will get him a click and a treat. He still has moments where he'll pull like a steam train but I can walk him without my hands and arms hurting now.

Yesterday we went for a walk with somebody else and their dog and Spen was a bit of a nightmare at first, excitement over being with another dog, plus there was a small child there and he's almost as mad about kids as he is about dogs. However, after about 15 minutes he really settled down, started sniffing around as he would on a walk with just me and began to offer walking right by my side 

Fingers crossed there's nothing seriously wrong with Evie and she's back to her usual self soon!


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Still working on loose leash walking with Spencer. I've taken to using the clicker for it and have made an absolutely HUGE leap in terms of progress. He just was not getting what I wanted before, now he's realised that walking by my side will get him a click and a treat. He still has moments where he'll pull like a steam train but I can walk him without my hands and arms hurting now.
> 
> Yesterday we went for a walk with somebody else and their dog and Spen was a bit of a nightmare at first, excitement over being with another dog, plus there was a small child there and he's almost as mad about kids as he is about dogs. However, after about 15 minutes he really settled down, started sniffing around as he would on a walk with just me and began to offer walking right by my side
> 
> Fingers crossed there's nothing seriously wrong with Evie and she's back to her usual self soon!


Thanks.
Sounds like Spencers doing well. Wish I could use the clicker but its just not possible with 3. We have improved but its slow.


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## Sarah1983

Oh, we're now working on Spencer picking up my keys. Eventually hoping to get it so I can ask him to go and find my keys and bring them to me. He has no problem picking them up, he's done it enough bloody times in order to run off with them :lol:


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## kat&molly

Just got back. Vet took a blood scrape to test and she has Piroplasmosis
Luckily he said we've caught it very early and there shouldn't be any lasting damage. She's had injections to bring her temp down to and fight the parasites. Oral AB's to start tomorrow.
So there you go, she wasn't an Angel yesterday, it must have been the start of her feeling poorly-although she really didn't seem it.

The next time she's really well behaved I'll save time and go straight to the vets:laugh:


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## moonviolet

Oh my goodness, so glad you got her checked out and caught it early. get well soon Evie.


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## Coffee

<shuffles into thread >

Can I join in here? 

We have a major issue going on and it's all my fault because I have allowed it to continue 

Alfie pulls like a tank. It's ridiculous, I've never known anything like it in my life. He pulls so badly I have to have both hands on the lead just to stay upright. I'm not proud of this obviously but just trying to explain how bad it is. I have a tear in a ligament of my shoulder which is refusing to heal due to said pulling. My arms/shoulders/back of my neck hurt ALL the time these days and enough is enough now.

I know it's my fault as I've let him do it and I've no-one to blame but myself  Being totally honest here, the reason for my laziness is we're only 10 minutes from the local park where he can be off-lead the whole time so I've been like "only a few minutes then he can be off", which is just not good enough, I know.

I've tried a Dogmatic - he hated it (even despite my slow and patient introductions - to the point where he was sticking his head in it quite happily and trotted about quite happily UNTIL the second the lead went on). I've tried a Balance Harness which I just couldn't get to grips with at all  I know now these tools are no substitute for proper training 

This morning we did the "pull and we stop dead" method which worked, sort of. Obviously following months of pulling it's going to be a hard habit to break but I am *determined*. It took us 30 minutes to do the walk to the park... he literally could not manage more than 2/3 steps without pulling. Once we got there I made him sit/wait before taking the lead off (my usual approach was "get lead off immediately, give my poor arms a break") which confused him a bit but he did it. I was NOT taking that lead off until he focused on me and sat nicely.

<sigh>

Sorry it's been such an essay  but I thought if I got it all down here it would be an added incentive for me to not give up on this.

I'm very interested in the clicker training to help with LLW, am going to go and investigate that now. We did clicker training previously for various things and he did very well with it, so I think that could be really helpful. Do I click and treat whenever the lead goes slack or does he need to be right back at my side first? All I was doing this morning was stopping and then moving on again with a "good boy" whenever there was some give in the lead but I'm not 100% sure if that was correct or not


----------



## Coffee

kat&molly said:


> Just got back. Vet took a blood scrape to test and she has Piroplasmosis
> Luckily he said we've caught it very early and there shouldn't be any lasting damage. She's had injections to bring her temp down to and fight the parasites. Oral AB's to start tomorrow.
> So there you go, she wasn't an Angel yesterday, it must have been the start of her feeling poorly-although she really didn't seem it.
> 
> The next time she's really well behaved I'll save time and go straight to the vets:laugh:


Thank goodness you caught it so early - get well soon Evie xx


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks, vet seemed very confident she'll be ok, I'll feel better when the breathing slows down.

Coffee, you've come to the right place for a whinge
Just be consistent and you'll get there- its always been my downfall and now I'm struggling with 3. We'll get there slooooowly.
Perhaps try the book Dogless recommended by Turid Rugass.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks, vet seemed very confident she'll be ok, I'll feel better when the breathing slows down.
> 
> Coffee, you've come to the right place for a whinge
> Just be consistent and you'll get there- its always been my downfall and now I'm struggling with 3. We'll get there slooooowly.
> Perhaps try the book Dogless recommended by Turid Rugass.


So far, so fab with her method - great focus on me . Kilo has never pulled consistently though; just lunged .

Get well soon Evie .


----------



## Dogless

Mixed bag again. Went to the fields, did LLW through both of them  then let Kilo off to play fetch. All good until a man came in walking a dog Kilo normally plays with and his friend's lab who always rushes at Kilo snarling and barking. I had recalled Kilo when I saw them. The man walked up and said "has Kilo met him?" (the lab). I replied that the lab didn't like Kilo at all.....he then let the lab off who did his normal rushing at us barking and snarling . Kilo didn't respond at all, he always panics and tries to run away with this one - so I left the fields.

On the way out, I met someone I know with a black lab. I said to her that I was sorry but was going to stand out of her way as we were having 'issues' with labs (hers is very young and very excitable). She stood talking for a while (whilst I was thinking please, please go away ) whilst her lab pulled towards us and I distracted Kilo with food; then when the time to come past us came she started saying that she was really scared and was I sure I had hold of Kilo (I was about 10ft away in the bushes ) and as she passed she sort of made a scream....and Kilo reacted with his really high pitched frustration barking (no posturing, pure frustration). So now I feel awful again .

I have rung the trainer again today and left a message so hope I hear back soon .


----------



## Howl

Doesn't sound bad sounds like you had a good day but with bad situations. 
E and D make frustrated noises sometimes especially on lead. 
Sounds like even though lab 2's owners didn't get the hint and both behaved like idiots by the sounds of things, he took treats and was well behaved.

Elsie did treat training next to the nosey horses today and wagged her tail at one  not angry tails just a gentle wag! She had a little bark as we were leaving but it was more excitement than fear! We kept it short and sweet only a few minutes :001_tt2:

They had a short off lead session. E came back straight away. Then walked calmly up to a man to say hello (she never says hello to strangers) he seemed happy to stroke her but I recalled her again and she came back. Then let them both off lead. They ran a circuit of the park but recalled with waggie tails, so I let them play a bit longer then popped them back on leads so we ended on a high. They met up with a two ladies and dogs. E gave a little bark but greeted the spaniel nicely. Greeted the dobe/retriever x nicely too and then when she saw D being fussed went up to the owner for some fuss . Two people and a horse all in one day! 
D was a bit of a monkey on the way back and they both weren't much good on lead on the way there. They both sat nicely though on a few occasions while I let people pass. The window/barking training is really helping E's sit and down response times because it's repeated quite frequently.


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## Dogless

Howl said:


> Doesn't sound bad sounds like you had a good day but with bad situations.
> E and D make frustrated noises sometimes especially on lead.
> Sounds like even though lab 2's owners didn't get the hint and both behaved like idiots by the sounds of things, he took treats and was well behaved.
> 
> Elsie did treat training next to the nosey horses today and wagged her tail at one  not angry tails just a gentle wag! She had a little bark as we were leaving but it was more excitement than fear! We kept it short and sweet only a few minutes :001_tt2:
> 
> They had a short off lead session. E came back straight away. Then walked calmly up to a man to say hello (she never says hello to strangers) he seemed happy to stroke her but I recalled her again and she came back. Then let them both off lead. They ran a circuit of the park but recalled with waggie tails, so I let them play a bit longer then popped them back on leads so we ended on a high. They met up with a two ladies and dogs. E gave a little bark but greeted the spaniel nicely. Greeted the dobe/retriever x nicely too and then when she saw D being fussed went up to the owner for some fuss . Two people and a horse all in one day!
> D was a bit of a monkey on the way back and they both weren't much good on lead on the way there. They both sat nicely though on a few occasions while I let people pass. The window/barking training is really helping E's sit and down response times because it's repeated quite frequently.


The first lab always rushes us like that; the owner always says he's just 'defending his pack' - against what? an onlead dog 30m away . It terrifies Kilo and I hate it, seeing as I'm battling lab issues at present. The second owner isn't stupid, but scared of big dogs - and Kilo did set up his frustrated high pitched barking - twice now in a week when he hadn't done it since November . I'll apologise and explain next time I see her .

Glad you had such a good day .


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## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Mixed bag again. Went to the fields, did LLW through both of them  then let Kilo off to play fetch. All good until a man came in walking a dog Kilo normally plays with and his friend's lab who always rushes at Kilo snarling and barking. I had recalled Kilo when I saw them. The man walked up and said "has Kilo met him?" (the lab). I replied that the lab didn't like Kilo at all.....he then let the lab off who did his normal rushing at us barking and snarling . Kilo didn't respond at all, he always panics and tries to run away with this one - so I left the fields.
> 
> On the way out, I met someone I know with a black lab. I said to her that I was sorry but was going to stand out of her way as we were having 'issues' with labs (hers is very young and very excitable). She stood talking for a while (whilst I was thinking please, please go away ) whilst her lab pulled towards us and I distracted Kilo with food; then when the time to come past us came she started saying that she was really scared and was I sure I had hold of Kilo (I was about 10ft away in the bushes ) and as she passed she sort of made a scream....and Kilo reacted with his really high pitched frustration barking (no posturing, pure frustration). So now I feel awful again .
> 
> I have rung the trainer again today and left a message so hope I hear back soon .


Aww, I know it's frustrating when you have a bad walk but the 2nd incident especially really doesn't sound like your fault. You explained you were having some lab issues, so why did she stop for a chat, especially if she's so "scared" of big dogs?  And what was with the scream as she walked past you? Yes, that's going to help keep dogs calm 

Chin up, tomorrow is another day 

Out of pure nosiness, are you looking to get Kilo into a class or a 1-2-1 trainer?


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## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Aww, I know it's frustrating when you have a bad walk but the 2nd incident especially really doesn't sound like your fault. You explained you were having some lab issues, so why did she stop for a chat, especially if she's so "scared" of big dogs?  And what was with the scream as she walked past you? Yes, that's going to help keep dogs calm
> 
> Chin up, tomorrow is another day
> 
> Out of pure nosiness, are you looking to get Kilo into a class or a 1-2-1 trainer?


I don't think she meant to shriek, was just afraid and for that I feel bad . Hoping to go to classes, would be nice to meet some dogs (must be some labs there - loads around here!) in a controlled environment and work on his (and my!) issues as I'm sure a good deal is down to poor handling. I make him sound like a nightmare I know, but in the scheme of things the lab issue isn't massive really and we had been making fab headway until this week when we've had a few bad experiences.


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## Howl

Dogless said:


> The first lab always rushes us like that; the owner always says he's just 'defending his pack' - against what? an onlead dog 30m away . It terrifies Kilo and I hate it, seeing as I'm battling lab issues at present. The second owner isn't stupid, but scared of big dogs - and Kilo did set up his frustrated high pitched barking - twice now in a week when he hadn't done it since November . I'll apologise and explain next time I see her .
> 
> Glad you had such a good day .


Thank you! 
Maybe she needs a few Kilo cuddles or a trainer! The first guy sounds like he needs to be more careful or his dog could get attacked.  
D is still full of bounce at 15 months and E at 22 months is just starting to mellow. Training counts for a lot but so do hormones  Dog walker today was telling me they get their brains at 2 hehe!


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## Coffee

Dogless said:


> I don't think she meant to shriek, was just afraid and for that I feel bad . Hoping to go to classes, would be nice to meet some dogs (must be some labs there - loads around here!) in a controlled environment and work on his (and my!) issues as I'm sure a good deal is down to poor handling. I make him sound like a nightmare I know, but in the scheme of things the lab issue isn't massive really and we had been making fab headway until this week when we've had a few bad experiences.


I don't think you have anything to feel bad about - it's not *your *fault she's scared of big dogs 

He absolutely does not sound like a nightmare at all (the lovely Kilo? Never ), stop being so hard on yourself :nono: I know it's not much consolation but the amount of niggly issues Alfie has at the moment....  ... well, we need a whole thread all to ourselves  We're having to have a 1-2-1 trainer come out to see us at home as he can't handle a. the car and b. training classes (but I'll do a seperate thread about that later)


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## Dogless

Coffee said:


> I don't think you have anything to feel bad about - it's not *your *fault she's scared of big dogs
> 
> He absolutely does not sound like a nightmare at all (the lovely Kilo? Never ), stop being so hard on yourself :nono: I know it's not much consolation but the amount of niggly issues Alfie has at the moment....  ... well, we need a whole thread all to ourselves  We're having to have a 1-2-1 trainer come out to see us at home as he can't handle a. the car and b. training classes (but I'll do a seperate thread about that later)


Kilo's OK in large groups of dogs (touch wood!) - just rapidly approaching labs and labs walked up to us on lead as explained in my 'woes' thread that I'm struggling with at present. We went to a doggy fun day a fortnight or so ago with hundreds of dogs and he was very nicely behaved all day so I am hoping that training classes will help us sort it.

It's not my fault that the woman is scared, but if I could handle Kilo better he might not have behaved like a nutjob  .


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## moonviolet

Dogless, you are too nice, truly you are. I think I would have entered fish wife mode by now in relation to that first lab. :blushing:

K&M Lots of positive thoughts heading their way to Evie. I'm glad the vet is so confident.

Coffee every one welcome in the support group.  Hope you are seeing results soon and your arms shoulders back and neck recover too.

Sarah are you sure Spencer won't nick the car? 

Howl sounds like E and D are doing well.

I've just realised as we are about to head out for our last ong walk before the weekend... Tink hasn't been over a 2/5 on her i'm a goosy girl scale all week, Hopefully this reduction of stress hormones in her system will help her if she does face challenging situation.

I know that at any time we could have another set back, but this has been a glorious week and i'm going to sniff it and roll around in it with the joy of a dog whose found some great fox poo. 

( i have been to the busier areas with care so i haven't been cheating by solely going to the more remote areas)


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## Sarah1983

Don't take this the wrong way Dogless but maybe you should have just walked off instead of standing there while she talked at you? I know, it's a terribly rude thing to do but if you think Kilo is going to react badly it might be the best thing to do in future coz people honestly don't get the hint most of the time  I had people stand there talking at me while Rupert was trying all ways to get at their dog and tear it limb from limb 

I think you're doing fine handling Kilo and from your posts he doesn't sound like a nutjob at all. If I were still out there I'd offer Spencer to try to help with the Lab issues. Although whether he'd help or hinder is another matter!


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless, you are too nice, truly you are. I think I would have entered fish wife mode by now in relation to that first lab. :blushing:
> 
> K&M Lots of positive thoughts heading their way to Evie. I'm glad the vet is so confident.
> 
> Coffee every one welcome in the support group.  Hope you are seeing results soon and your arms shoulders back and neck recover too.
> 
> Sarah are you sure Spencer won't nick the car?
> 
> Howl sounds like E and D are doing well.
> 
> I've just realised as we are about to head out for our last ong walk before the weekend... Tink hasn't been over a 2/5 on her i'm a goosy girl scale all week, Hopefully this reduction of stress hormones in her system will help her if she does face challenging situation.
> 
> I know that at any time we could have another set back, but this has been a glorious week and i'm going to sniff it and roll around in it with the joy of a dog whose found some great fox poo.
> 
> ( i have been to the busier areas with care so i haven't been cheating by solely going to the more remote areas)


Well done Tink - you must be so, so proud . I like your scale and may steal it .

I didn't say anything today as the lab was being walked by someone else, not his owner. I always try and get between them but he rushes at us again and again with his owner whilst she tries to get him. Interestingly enough he came away and stayed away with a firm word from the man walking him today. The problem is once Kilo has had a fright / set back he remains reactive and jumpy for a few days . So many dogs run loose around here and we are really used to them running up to us whilst he is onlead. It is exclusively labs which worry him so I do think handler error / anxiety is a huge factor. Hopefully the trainer will get back to me and we'll get back on the right track.

I am so, so pleased with Kilo in every other respect .


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Don't take this the wrong way Dogless but maybe you should have just walked off instead of standing there while she talked at you? I know, it's a terribly rude thing to do but if you think Kilo is going to react badly it might be the best thing to do in future coz people honestly don't get the hint most of the time  I had people stand there talking at me while Rupert was trying all ways to get at their dog and tear it limb from limb
> 
> I think you're doing fine handling Kilo and from your posts he doesn't sound like a nutjob at all. If I were still out there I'd offer Spencer to try to help with the Lab issues. Although whether he'd help or hinder is another matter!


Any advice welcome! I couldn't - I was in the bushes at the entrance to the field and she was stood across the entrance - if I had gone the other way and back through the field we would have met the one that rushes us again. I think I just need to be a bit ruder . I went back briefly in the car to pick up his toy that I realised I had dropped there and did explain briefly to the woman who was still there. In hindsight I should have asked her to go back out onto the road and then walked past her - Kilo is fine if we keep moving.

He isn't a nutjob usually...but once he is reacting it's too late to stop him. Only walking away does that which I did as soon as I could.


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## Sarah1983

Ah, not much you can do but be blunt in that sort of situation. Even then they don't always get it


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I think I just need to be a bit ruder


Channel your inner hag you know you want to.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- Have to agree with the others you really are too soft. These other people and their dogs are causing the problem. He's doing so well, dont let them spoil it.
Just Moll and Scruff tonight for a walk, Jays been to work with OH, I've taken the Dunce hats off but only to replace them with Bronze stars. My fault, think I should have left it for today.

Thanks for all the good wishes for Evie, shes a bit brighter and eaten a bit of dinner. Her breathing hasn't slowed yet though.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- Have to agree with the others you really are too soft. These other people and their dogs are causing the problem. He's doing so well, dont let them spoil it.
> Just Moll and Scruff tonight for a walk, Jays been to work with OH, I've taken the Dunce hats off but only to replace them with Bronze stars. My fault, think I should have left it for today.
> 
> Thanks for all the good wishes for Evie, shes a bit brighter and eaten a bit of dinner. Her breathing hasn't slowed yet though.


Glad that Evie's on the mend . A bronze star is better than a Dunce's hat .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Glad that Evie's on the mend . A bronze star is better than a Dunce's hat .


That depends on how you look at it The hats are large and cover eyes and mouth, they cant see or smell where they're going :001_tt2:


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> That depends on how you look at it The hats are large and cover eyes and mouth, they cant see or smell where they're going :001_tt2:


What a good idea.....:idea:. Joking aside, I met someone who's dog was reactive to others - she used to throw a towel over it's head .


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## Dogless

I have a 'best boy' report this morning . We went out early and the chances of seeing anyone at all were tiny, plus I went across car parks etc so had loads of space; so decided to do our LLW for 10 minutes up to a field that we can play on. And Kilo was fab! Then, we played fetch for a bit. After that I saw a man we know with two very friendly and well behaved dogs that Kilo sometimes plays with and he also knows I'm working with him.....so I recalled him and had him just sit and wait whilst treating him and the man went past with his dogs at heel and he was good - whined a bit because he usually gets to play with them, but good!

The man then went through a gate into some sports pitches so I let Kilo go (he couldn't get to them) and he started to head over - but I called him and he came straight away to play with his toy!!

THEN....we did LLW down to the dog walking fields - 15 mins and didn't see any dogs, so again Kilo was fab . Got onto the fields, saw a dog so just kept his attention on me and did his LLW round until they had left  and then played some fetch. The DA pug came on then so I put Kilo on lead but I couldn't get his focus and he was pulling to get over to the pug, so we left the fields.

After all that work (2 hours!) I out his headcollar on and we walked home and passed a few dogs very nicely . No labs .


----------



## Freyja

At the moment I am trying to get the iggies babies to walk sensibly on a lead well more Tabitha than the other 2. Micca diesn't walk she bounces every were but finds that easier than walking because of her bad leg Mac walks well but Tabitha gets silly and when she does she looses what little coordination she has and starts to throw one back leg out.

We are also working on getting them to stand still for the show ring which is proving to be difficult as they are like demented fleas and don't do keeping still


----------



## shamykebab

Teaching the older dog a new trick...just because! Put a treat on her nose and on the command "catch" she flicks her head back, treat goes in the air and she catches the treat. 

Only been working on it for two days so far but she's getting the hang of it. Only problem is she doesn't flick her head back far enough, so the treat isn't getting enough air for her to catch cleanly. She's a smart cookie though, I'm sure she'll have it sussed soon.

Should really take a photo of her with a treat on her nose - she gets all cross-eyed :lol:


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## kat&molly

I haven't done any LLW this morning- want to wait until Evie is better. I'll never get there at this rate. My book still hasn't arrived.

Evie's a bit better this morning, had a bit of breakfast and wanted a walk. I'm so relieved to have caught it early. Be really glad to get my naughty little girl back-its been so quiet


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I haven't done any LLW this morning- want to wait until Evie is better. I'll never get there at this rate. My book still hasn't arrived.
> 
> Evie's a bit better this morning, had a bit of breakfast and wanted a walk. I'm so relieved to have caught it early. Be really glad to get my naughty little girl back-its been so quiet


Very pleased that Evie is misbehaving again . Well, you know what I mean .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Very pleased that Evie is misbehaving again . Well, you know what I mean .


She's still quiet at the moment- but I bet by tomorrow she'll be making up for lost time, dog help me-I cant wait!!:smilewinkgrin:


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## Tigerneko

Pretty please can I join the "good day bad day" club?  i'll do an intro & explain why i'm joining in, it is gonna be a long, whingey post, but please bare with me 

Tiger will be a work in progress forever and ever. I go through very 'up and down' phases with his training, sometimes I think "Right i'm gonna power on with it, get it sorted once and for all" and i'll do it for a week or two, and then something will happen to shatter my confidence, or he just won't be making the progress i've expected him to make (I don't expect miracles but when you go 2 or 3 weeks with NO progress, it does get quite disheartening) so I just totally give up and it's back to miserable, boring on-lead street walks at times when not many people will be out, I usually opt for tea time/soap time in the evening, I can't go out very late at night because I don't feel safe, and I am NOT an early morning person - i've set my alarm for 5 and 6am many a time with the intention of an early morning walk, but I just can't get myself out of bed 

I need to work on his pulling. Tbh, I really don't think I will ever stop it. I have tried and tried and tried every method in the book, taken him to training classes, taken him to agility (where they also do a tricks/obedience routine which I thought would help) and I just get nowhere. I've got SO fed up with it, I really have given up. I've got a figure of 8 headcollar and I just use that and forget about the whole training thing. Even on the headcollar, he walks at the end of the lead but he can't actually pull, but as long as i'm not having my arm wrenched out, I don't really care any more. I know it's not the right attitude but if you really understood how much time and effort i've put in to trying to stop it, and what little (or nothing) i've got back in return, you'd probably all do the same  and I know that the headcollars and things are just training aids and shouldn't be a solution, but for me I feel like it is the only solution.

My next problem is his reaction to other dogs. The main issue with this problem is actually ME. Because we've had bad experiences in the past with other dogs (the most recent and horrendous one, a DDB being walked by a 14 year old girl which lunged at us and dragged its child owner across the street, we ended up out in the middle of a main road trying to grapple the dogs away from each other, it was terrifying ) Anyway, because of all these bad experiences - and now i'm gonna be the worlds worst dog owner and admit that at one point I was having bad walks EVERY day and coming home completely deflated and in tears nearly every day, I got so stressed and so fed up that I actually stopped walking him - I KNOW its the worst thing ever, but walking him was doing more damage than not walking him, I was such a nervous wreck that everything would set him off, i'd be shaking at the pure thought of taking him out and I really think I was beginning to get phobic about it. He picked up on my extreme panic and he was stressing, barking, screaming and reacting before i'd even got out of the house with him - which turned into another issue that needed fixing, and luckily with a lot of time, patience and waiting at the front door with him until BOTH of us were calm and building up with very, very short walks I managed to sort it out and we only have a bit of a whine on the way down the drive, which is nothing more than normal excitement really 

So, here I am now with a definite agenda to sort him (and mainly myself) out for good. We've had some decent walks recently where i've forced myself to keep calm... with the help of the rescue remedy chewing gums :thumbup: and he's managed to pass a few dogs on the other side of the road without reacting.

I'm gonna take him back to training club which is less than 5 minutes walk away and i'm gonna try and find some doggy pals to walk with. I think if I can see him walking calmly on lead with another dog, it'll do us both the power of good. I know he CAN be excellent with other dogs, and I do think that I am the main issue because my nerves and lack of confidence.

I want everyone on this thread to really spur me on and give me a kick up the bum to get some real training done. Recently i've just been sticking to a main road route and if we see any dogs, I cross the road, try my best to stay calm and praise him if he doesn't react. I know Tiger can cope with more more 'testing' situations, but i'm going back to such basics for myself really. If I know we can walk on the opposite side of the road without reaction, in theory I should gain the confidence to get closer... but it's just taking the steps towards it and actually doing it. I have got into a bit of a comfort zone and i'm struggling to help myself get out of it.

Please help fellow PFers


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> She's still quiet at the moment- but I bet by tomorrow she'll be making up for lost time, dog help me-I cant wait!!:smilewinkgrin:


Careful what you wish for .



Tigerneko said:


> So, here I am now with a definite agenda to sort him (and mainly myself) out for good. We've had some decent walks recently where i've forced myself to keep calm... with the help of the rescue remedy chewing gums :thumbup: and he's managed to pass a few dogs on the other side of the road without reacting.
> 
> I'm gonna take him back to training club which is less than 5 minutes walk away and i'm gonna try and find some doggy pals to walk with. I think if I can see him walking calmly on lead with another dog, it'll do us both the power of good. I know he CAN be excellent with other dogs, and I do think that I am the main issue because my nerves and lack of confidence.
> 
> I want everyone on this thread to really spur me on and give me a kick up the bum to get some real training done. Recently i've just been sticking to a main road route and if we see any dogs, I cross the road, try my best to stay calm and praise him if he doesn't react. I know Tiger can cope with more more 'testing' situations, but i'm going back to such basics for myself really. If I know we can walk on the opposite side of the road without reaction, in theory I should gain the confidence to get closer... but it's just taking the steps towards it and actually doing it. I have got into a bit of a comfort zone and i'm struggling to help myself get out of it.
> 
> Please help fellow PFers


Good luck - you sound determined this time and I'm sure we can all kick each other up the bum to make progress .


----------



## kat&molly

It sounds like you know what you have to do, this thread helps me and it spurs me on. Even though my girls are the worst at the moment , not a lot of progress on the LLW but I am determined to stick at it until its sorted.


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Careful what you wish for .
> 
> Good luck - you sound determined this time and I'm sure we can all kick each other up the bum to make progress .


Thanks, I really really need it!

I'm trying to figure out a bit of a plan, usually I go into his training with no real agenda or proper method but before I really do get back into it seriously, I want to make a bit of a plan of action, then I should be a little more confident and feel a little more in control.

I'm gonna contact our training club and find out when the next course starts, and I might even ask if I can just come and sit in on the rest of current course with Tiger, so I can build my confidence being sat in a room full of dogs. I have actually been there with him before and done a beginners obedience course but I don't want to jump too far ahead and do something to make me panic, so i'm just gonna start from scratch.

On monday we're gonna get on the train and head off to the beach (if it isn't howling down with rain by then) because it is a massive beach, there'll be plenty of room for me to let Tiger off in our own space without coming across any other dogs. And if we do come across anyone, I might ask if their dogs are okay and if they mind perhaps walking alongside us for a bit, i'm sure i'll look a total nutter but never mind 

i'm just fed up of being one of those anti-social walkers who have boring lonely walks. I want to get him socialised and get him to a point where I CAN take him to the park and it won't matter if we get approached by something irritating, because I can be confident he won't react. It'd be nice to be able to find a group of regular walkers or something with dogs that he can get to know and be confident to play with. Another part of my problem is that I don't know many doggy people in the area, and i'm scared of approaching them and asking to allow Tiger to socialise just in case he causes any harm. Again, it's my confidence - i'm too nervous to actually just 'go for it' with him, and i'm too shy to even approach people to ask if they mind helping or walking with us.


----------



## Coffee

It's safe to say that after 6 months of constant pulling that habit is not going to be broken quickly 

He didn't do too badly for the first few minutes, walking out of our street and onto the main road, but once we crossed the road and he knew where we were heading (the park) it got really bad and I was literally only managing 1 or 2 steps before the lead was tight and we were having to stop 

It was all a bit fiddly and messy trying to manage him, the clicker and the treats... and clicking at the right time and getting the treat out  However, this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mikki-Train...W54A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336825369&sr=8-1

has just arrived this morning and I'm hoping it will make things easier as it goes around my waist and stays 'open' when you need it to, so I can now have the lead in one hand and the clicker in the other 

We passed a chap out cleaning his car as we were literally 2 minutes away from the park and he was lovely. Told me I was doing really well and to stick with it as his dog still pulls like a tank at the age of 5 and has had his poor wife over on several occasions  Maybe just me  but I always find it nice when a complete stranger tells you you're doing well!


----------



## Coffee

Tigerneko said:


> Thanks, I really really need it!
> 
> I'm trying to figure out a bit of a plan, usually I go into his training with no real agenda or proper method but before I really do get back into it seriously, I want to make a bit of a plan of action, then I should be a little more confident and feel a little more in control.
> 
> I'm gonna contact our training club and find out when the next course starts, and I might even ask if I can just come and sit in on the rest of current course with Tiger, so I can build my confidence being sat in a room full of dogs. I have actually been there with him before and done a beginners obedience course but I don't want to jump too far ahead and do something to make me panic, so i'm just gonna start from scratch.
> 
> On monday we're gonna get on the train and head off to the beach (if it isn't howling down with rain by then) because it is a massive beach, there'll be plenty of room for me to let Tiger off in our own space without coming across any other dogs. And if we do come across anyone, I might ask if their dogs are okay and if they mind perhaps walking alongside us for a bit, i'm sure i'll look a total nutter but never mind
> 
> i'm just fed up of being one of those anti-social walkers who have boring lonely walks. I want to get him socialised and get him to a point where I CAN take him to the park and it won't matter if we get approached by something irritating, because I can be confident he won't react. It'd be nice to be able to find a group of regular walkers or something with dogs that he can get to know and be confident to play with. Another part of my problem is that I don't know many doggy people in the area, and i'm scared of approaching them and asking to allow Tiger to socialise just in case he causes any harm. *Again, it's my confidence - i'm too nervous to actually just 'go for it' with him, and i'm too shy to even approach people to ask if they mind helping or walking with us*.


I just wanted to wish you lots of luck with getting your issues sorted out 

Re: the bit in bold - look out for friendly looking people with friendly, well-behaved dogs and just grit your teeth and go and ask them  I certainly would be delighted to help any fellow dog owner in any way I could and I'd be flattered to be asked. Go on, give it a go, people might well surprise you


----------



## bethj

bethj said:


> I am working on Roxy's stay she is doing really well, she can stay for about 8 seconds as long as she can still se me. :biggrin:


Roxy can do long distences as well now  also working on food manners getting her to wait before taking the treat


----------



## Tigerneko

Coffee said:


> I just wanted to wish you lots of luck with getting your issues sorted out
> 
> Re: the bit in bold - look out for friendly looking people with friendly, well-behaved dogs and just grit your teeth and go and ask them  I certainly would be delighted to help any fellow dog owner in any way I could and I'd be flattered to be asked. Go on, give it a go, people might well surprise you


thanks 

I will do, i'm just so flippin shy in real life, I find it really difficult to approach people, especially when i've actually got Tiger with me, cos i'm usually on the other side of the road :crazy:


----------



## Dotte

Well though it was about time that I updated yous on Bry's progress  Seeing that I am just at the end of semester and have exams and assgnments I have to say Bry's training has been neglected so much, god I am actually embarrassed! But we are keeping up with the basics anyway and on his manners in the house. Or we were and then he became a teenager and I could just as well be speaking norwegian to him now (which I do once a while just for fun ) seeing how much he listens to me, woudn't even sit outside today 

We're back to working on recall on the flexi-line, we have gone from 99% recall when he was about 4 months to 0% now at 6 and a half months, so this will be one of my main focuses now. I'm also working on tackeling his extreme need to chase birds on walks. I found a great, although different way, of making it a game for us both (bonding ) and to control it. It makes me look rather demented but I don't mind he's loving it and we are only on stage 1 of it so it will take ages but I do believe it will work 

His counter surfing is going, well, he still does it but will get off now if I sound stern enough, and he's not even talking back as much as he used to 

Give/drop, well lets just say it's not working, no matter how hard we work on it he is just not giving or dropping anything!!! he'll drop toys sometimes for super high value treats but other than that never :cursing: Gaaaah! I'll keep persisting, but I'm worried we might never get there 

Also I decided that today was the day we we're gonna start working on being able to walk by dogs without Bry fixcating and goin mental, let's just say it was day one and I failed even getting him to look at the treat, but this will work (I think)..

My main problem is that I don't know how to train dogs, I know what I've read and stuff I've read here too but I do worry that I'm doing stuff wrong, but I'll do my best


----------



## Sarah1983

Not having a good day today  Just taken Spen out for a walk and at one point he absolutely freaked out. I have no idea what he freaked about, we were just walking past a house and there was nothing I could see or hear to upset him but he shot out into the road (thankfully nothing coming!) wet himself, s**t himself and was legging it off up the street dragging me behind him! I've seen him worried about things before but this was way, _way_ beyond that!

After about 10 minutes of pulling franticly to get away from whatever frightened him (I just went with him figuring it best just to get out of there given the state he was in) he calmed down and was back to his usual self  Checked him over and can't find anything to indicate he's been stung or anything so I'm absolutely baffled as to what caused his meltdown.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Not having a good day today  Just taken Spen out for a walk and at one point he absolutely freaked out. I have no idea what he freaked about, we were just walking past a house and there was nothing I could see or hear to upset him but he shot out into the road (thankfully nothing coming!) wet himself, s**t himself and was legging it off up the street dragging me behind him! I've seen him worried about things before but this was way, _way_ beyond that!
> 
> After about 10 minutes of pulling franticly to get away from whatever frightened him (I just went with him figuring it best just to get out of there given the state he was in) he calmed down and was back to his usual self  Checked him over and can't find anything to indicate he's been stung or anything so I'm absolutely baffled as to what caused his meltdown.


Oh no . I was going to ask if he'd been stung, but can't think of much else.


----------



## Dogless

Second 'best boy' post today. Fantastic trip to the park, Kilo went past lots of dogs focussing on me, no bad lab experiences - because I was more forceful and best yet did 15 minutes LLW around the outside of a field with dogs playing and walking past and he was fantastic . Gold star .


----------



## Tigerneko

This thread is making me wanna face my fears and just walk through the park, but i'm afraid all the sunshine will have brought the fair weather walkers out, so today might not be the best day  might see how we get on on the beach on monday and perhaps go to the park on tuesday morning (when all the numpties will be watching jeremy kyle ) and see how we go then. I'll see how I feel 

for now I think i'm gonna head out in a bit and go on a different route through the countryside, will stick to the roads so any dogs should be on lead 

I'll update you all in a bit


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## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Not having a good day today  Just taken Spen out for a walk and at one point he absolutely freaked out. I have no idea what he freaked about, we were just walking past a house and there was nothing I could see or hear to upset him but he shot out into the road (thankfully nothing coming!) wet himself, s**t himself and was legging it off up the street dragging me behind him! I've seen him worried about things before but this was way, _way_ beyond that!
> 
> After about 10 minutes of pulling franticly to get away from whatever frightened him (I just went with him figuring it best just to get out of there given the state he was in) he calmed down and was back to his usual self  Checked him over and can't find anything to indicate he's been stung or anything so I'm absolutely baffled as to what caused his meltdown.


Poor Spencer. I hope it's a one off. The only thing i can think of other than being stung is a smell that he associates with something bad. I had lets just say an "unpleasant experience" with a man many years ago and to this day If i smell the aftershave her wore, I have to get out of there.

Tink had a little wobble on our long walk today. A big 2 on her scale but not quite a 3. Large group walk making a racket, over excited barking and I knew there was a dog called Holly in the group from over 500 metres away.  So we stalked them muhahaha 'til Tink realised they were just stilmulated and silly and no real threat.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who opens up, supports and shares on this thread. I could hug you all


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Poor Spencer. I hope it's a one off. The only thing i can think of other than being stung is a smell that he associates with something bad. I had lets just say an "unpleasant experience" with a man many years ago and to this day If i smell the aftershave her wore, I have to get out of there.
> 
> Tink had a little wobble on our long walk today. A big 2 on her scale but not quite a 3. Large group walk making a racket, over excited barking and I knew there was a dog called Holly in the group from over 500 metres away.  So we stalked them muhahaha 'til Tink realised they were just stilmulated and silly and no real threat.
> 
> I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who opens up, supports and shares on this thread. I could hug you all


A wobble maybe, but she seems to have dealt with it very well afterwards when you stalked them .


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## kat&molly

Poor Spencer- hope it was a one off.
Tinker coped well in the end
Tigerneko- hope your walk went well-be brave.
Dotte- have lots of little breaks from revision and have fun training with Bryson. He sounds a bright little boy and needs something to do.
Coffee- this LLW is no easy fix is it? I'm doing it with 3 at the same time, it's sooo slow We have improved slightly though.

I decided this afternoon if Evie was well enough to walk she was well enough for a few minutes LLW. Bless her she isn't the brightest of dogs and I'm sure she thinks we stop to admire the view

Dogless would Kilo lend us a Gold Star please, just so that we know what one looks like. He could have it back in about 12 months:001_tt2:


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## Tigerneko

We're baaaaaaack 

What a difference a bit of confidence makes 

We also found an interesting new walk around the outskirts of the golf course (it is an actual dog walking path, there's poo bins and stuff, so we can't interfere with golfers if dogs are on leads ) and fortunately/unfortunately we didn't come across many dogs, but the ones we did come across, I stayed confident, loosened his lead and he totally ignored them  he even did the same with a cat 

I also did a bit of training with him, asking him to sit whenever a car came past and one lady gave him the biggest smile when she drove past and saw him sitting there :001_wub: and also got him sitting at kirbs again, which went well. And I also found a lovely little bridge on the golf course where I practised some sit/stays with him, he did really well!

I took a few piccies as well, it was definitely a walk to remember and a brilliant way to make a fresh start 









the view from the top of the road, I wish I had my proper camera, it's a beautiful view 









Taking a quick break from walking up the big hill 









The view further up the top of the road









The bridge on the golf course 









Having a paddle









Doing a little sit stay









And a bit further away  but he came trotting over to me after a few moments, I think I pushed my luck a little, but he did about a minute standing there 

Sorry for all the photos  but I was really impressed with him and i've had a great time, I do hope it'll help me to be more confident, because if we carry on like this, he'll have no problem 

ooh, and I forgot to add - he also met our neighbours puppy. He is a tiny little JRT and must only be about 12 weeks old. Tiger was perfect with him, a bit of bum sniffing (the poor little guy nearly got flipped into the air when Tiger tried to shove his nose up his bum :lol and a bit of face sniffing and then he totally lost interest 

I'm feeling better already


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko that is SUPERB . Well done - great pics and talk about starting as you mean to go on .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Tigerneko that is SUPERB . Well done - great pics and talk about starting as you mean to go on .


Thanks 

The walks will probably get a little bit more boring next week when i'm back to work, but i'm gonna try and start venturing through the park. I did walk through there a little bit, and only came across one dog which was quite a way away, but he ignored it  I was gonna walk through a bit further but there was a group of scrotes drinking on one of the benches so I thought it best to make a retreat 

It just reinforces to me that Tiger's problem stemmed from my problem, so I think i'm gonna need to work on myself much more than him


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## kat&molly

That looks a lovely place to walk and sounds like it went brilliantly


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## moonviolet

Tigerneko lovely pics. I'm so glad you are feeling better and it's rubbing off on Tiger. I love the little froggy leg pic


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## Dogless

Just been for a quick walk and Kilo dropped CHICKEN ON A SKEWER when asked to  . Never thought I'd see the day as he's so greedy - I was having kittens because of the skewer . Loads of praise and treats for that .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Just been for a quick walk and Kilo dropped CHICKEN ON A SKEWER when asked to . Never thought I'd see the day as he's so greedy - I was having kittens because of the skewer . Loads of praise and treats for that .


Wooohoo a whole bucket of gold stars for the boy wonder!:thumbup: :thumbup1: 

Nothing to report on our last walk. We had the world to ourselves


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Just been for a quick walk and Kilo dropped CHICKEN ON A SKEWER when asked to  . Never thought I'd see the day as he's so greedy - I was having kittens because of the skewer . Loads of praise and treats for that .


   WOW!!! Go Kilo!!! I am seriously impressed. Can you come over here Dogless and train my dog too??? :blushing:


----------



## Dotte

Decided to take Bry out for his last walk to wear him out and to work on some sits outside seeing that I have become invisible at the moment  Was prob the worst idea I have ever had, he got the most MENTAL zoomies I've ever seen running around on the flexi groweling like he was possessed and jumping up and trying to bite everything and the fu*er got me! He bit the inside of my leg and he bit me hard! :cursing: I was furious! I know he didn't mean to hurt me, and that it was just him going bonkers, but he tore my jeans and all! I don't know what to make of it but I have to make sure that will never happens again!

And then we ran in to my neighbour, Bry usually loves him, but today he went crazy, laying down and barking really meanly, like a warning, I was so embarrassed! I have no idea what is going on with him right now, but it looks like we're moving backwards


----------



## Dogless

McKenzie said:


> WOW!!! Go Kilo!!! I am seriously impressed. Can you come over here Dogless and train my dog too??? :blushing:


I think it was a healthy dose of luck; I probably asked him before he'd truly tasted what it was .



Dotte said:


> Decided to take Bry out for his last walk to wear him out and to work on some sits outside seeing that I have become invisible at the moment  Was prob the worst idea I have ever had, he got the most MENTAL zoomies I've ever seen running around on the flexi groweling like he was possessed and jumping up and trying to bite everything and the fu*er got me! He bit the inside of my leg and he bit me hard! :cursing: I was furious! I know he didn't mean to hurt me, and that it was just him going bonkers, but he tore my jeans and all! I don't know what to make of it but I have to make sure that will never happens again!
> 
> And then we ran in to my neighbour, Bry usually loves him, but today he went crazy, laying down and barking really meanly, like a warning, I was so embarrassed! I have no idea what is going on with him right now, but it looks like we're moving backwards


Oh dear; had you not really wanted to take him? Was it windy? Was he frustrated as maybe you hadn't done as much training as usual because of your revision? - they were things that used to get Kilo bonkers. If I didn't stop him he used to leap up and bite my arms, occasionally ripping my clothes but leaving some horrible bruises. I used to stand stock still once he'd started directing his craziness at me, stand on his lead so he couldn't leap and wait until that second where I saw I could catch his attention and then ask for some simple obedience - sit, down, stand a few times until he had calmed. You could also try taking a toy / tugger and redirecting him onto that when he starts. I found the key was in watching his body language for the smallest signs that he was about to start that behaviour and interestingly there was always an external trigger - leaves blowing past fast in the wind and him being unable to chase as he was on lead was the main one so I used to ask for sits / focus whenever I could see him about to get silly.

Maybe the barking was because he was still worked up? Maybe he is going through his second fear period? (I have forgotten how old he is).


----------



## Dotte

Oh dear; had you not really wanted to take him? Was it windy? Was he frustrated as maybe you hadn't done as much training as usual because of your revision? - they were things that used to get Kilo bonkers. If I didn't stop him he used to leap up and bite my arms, occasionally ripping my clothes but leaving some horrible bruises. I used to stand stock still once he'd started directing his craziness at me, stand on his lead so he couldn't leap and wait until that second where I saw I could catch his attention and then ask for some simple obedience - sit, down, stand a few times until he had calmed. You could also try taking a toy / tugger and redirecting him onto that when he starts. I found the key was in watching his body language for the smallest signs that he was about to start that behaviour and interestingly there was always an external trigger - leaves blowing past fast in the wind and him being unable to chase as he was on lead was the main one so I used to ask for sits / focus whenever I could see him about to get silly.

Maybe the barking was because he was still worked up? Maybe he is going through his second fear period? (I have forgotten how old he is).[/QUOTE]

Hehe he's 6 and a half months so he's still just a baby, I'm not angry with him anymore, but my god be bit my inner thigh it was sooooo painful!!!

I wanted to take him out, I love walking him, but he had had the zoomies earlier in out tiiiny park first so maby he was just extremely hyper? He was completely uncontrollable I didn't even think of standing on his lead (it has been so long since he did this on walks) so I just grabbed him (prob not the best thing to do) and just held hi till he calmed down, I had to do something so that he would stop biting me  He is going through a second fear period at the moment, I ust say it has been lasting for ages! And he did react to a woman wering balck earlier that day too (people wearing all black scares him, that was my bad in not sicilising him ) so maybe he's just a bit more jumpy than normal?

We'll do some recall training on our morning walk later (we slept in ) that's more fun and easy to ease back in


----------



## Dogless

Fabulous morning. Went on a very cold walk in the forest. We had been on our own for half an hour just enjoying the walk when we met a lovely little staffy x collie who was totally bonkers! The owner and I stopped and talked and then we walked on together for an hour whilst the dogs played like mad. I recalled Kilo a few times whilst they were playing and he came every time. Good boy .


----------



## Murrin

Morning all. I'm new to this thread but at present trying to housebreak my nine week old bichon...not the easiest of things! Any tips would be greatly appreciated!! X


----------



## Dogless

Murrin said:


> Morning all. I'm new to this thread but at present trying to housebreak my nine week old bichon...not the easiest of things! Any tips would be greatly appreciated!! X


Have you read this? - very useful . http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/75317-housetraining-your-pup-older-dog.html


----------



## Coffee

We did a bit better on the LLW training this morning  Only took just over 20minutes to get to the park. He was really good... still pulling of course, but we were managing 4 or 5 steps at a time (which is really good for Alfie ) before the lead was going tight and I had to stop, then he was looking back at me straight away and even came back to my side a few times  The last bit of the walk though, as the park is in view, was pretty terrible again though, it was literally only 1 or 2 steps at a time, but I can understand that, he's so excited to get in there!

The new treat bag made things much easier too, having them there right in front of me so I could give him one as soon as I'd clicked


----------



## Howl

Coffee said:


> We did a bit better on the LLW training this morning  Only took just over 20minutes to get to the park. He was really good... still pulling of course, but we were managing 4 or 5 steps at a time (which is really good for Alfie ) before the lead was going tight and I had to stop, then he was looking back at me straight away and even came back to my side a few times  The last bit of the walk though, as the park is in view, was pretty terrible again though, it was literally only 1 or 2 steps at a time, but I can understand that, he's so excited to get in there!
> 
> The new treat bag made things much easier too, having them there right in front of me so I could give him one as soon as I'd clicked


Want to swap?  Yesterday it was like both of mine had never had a days training same with one of the walks last week. They did go for a swim though and were really unusually brave around the river.


----------



## Coffee

Howl said:


> Want to swap?  Yesterday it was like both of mine had never had a days training same with one of the walks last week. They did go for a swim though and were really unusually brave around the river.


Ahh, but I didn't go on to bore you all with the rest of the walk once we were into the park  Plenty of selective deafness going on unfortunately and I'm having to find more and more weird and wonderful ways to get his attention and get him to come back 

I reached a new low of lunacy this morning... there were children on bikes coming towards us  unfortunately Alfie's way of dealing with these is to run around them in circles barking  I'm sure it's a silly excitement thing as his tail and whole lower body wags with joy but clearly it's not acceptable and not nice for the children and parents concerned.

So... picture the scene if you will... Alfie is approx. 20' in front of me and said children are approx. 30' in front of him. I called him to come and get a treat, he looked around at me and then looked all around to see if there was anything more interesting on the horizon  He spots the children and I can see from his body language he's going to run to them  So I called him again in a silly high pitched voice while getting _down on the ground on my hands and knees and started crawling towards him_   It worked, it only bloody well worked :lol: he came charging back to me tail wagging in a frenzy to check out this new game we're playing... treat was dispensed, lead clipped back on and off we went.

The parents of said children gave me a slightly scared smile as we walked past them... half "thanks for getting your over-excited dog back" - half "stay back lunatic lady" and I just beamed at them like this:


----------



## Tigerneko

I've already made a thread on it, but I thought i'd post in here too! 

I ordered a dog whistle this morning, i've decided to try and train him to it, just as a bit of a sideline to his socialisation really  his recall by voice is excellent and when I find somewhere to let him off, he never wanders very far away but I thought it would be a bit of fun and an interesting challenge  and it'll also be a bit of a backup to my voice in case he does clear off somewhere 

....and it's a really nice pink whistle and matching lanyard :thumbup: so I will also keep updated on how we get on with that 

So far we haven't been out yet today! Tiger has been out in the garden with his toys all morning and hasn't even come in yet  so I need to nip to work later and once i'm back we will go out 

Dogless - Kilo sounds to have done really well this morning! I'd love to do stuff like that with Tiger, that's my kind of goal for his training


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## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> So... picture the scene if you will... Alfie is approx. 20' in front of me and said children are approx. 30' in front of him. I called him to come and get a treat, he looked around at me and then looked all around to see if there was anything more interesting on the horizon  He spots the children and I can see from his body language he's going to run to them  So I called him again in a silly high pitched voice while getting _down on the ground on my hands and knees and started crawling towards him_   It worked, it only bloody well worked :lol: he came charging back to me tail wagging in a frenzy to check out this new game we're playing... treat was dispensed, lead clipped back on and off we went.
> 
> The parents of said children gave me a slightly scared smile as we walked past them... half "thanks for getting your over-excited dog back" - half "stay back lunatic lady" and I just beamed at them like this:


Oh the humilations we suffer for our dogs.  I have completely lost all sense of shame and embarassment over the last couple of years. In all honesty, I have to say I'm finding it all quite liberating.ut::smilewinkgrin:

Chilled out remote walk this morning for her ladyship, but there has been a notable change in her general demeanour over the past few weeks. A spring in her step, more bounce and joy of life exhibited. It feels like I'm beginning to see the dog I lost over 18 months ago  SHe is always this way at home or in class but out on walks she was always on alert, not relaxing and having fun she is making me so proud right now.

Next challenge: Focus in the presence of excited kids.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Oh the humilations we suffer for our dogs.  I have completely lost all sense of shame and embarassment over the last couple of years. In all honesty, I have to say I'm finding it all quite liberating.ut::smilewinkgrin:
> 
> Chilled out remote walk this morning for her ladyship, but there has been a notable change in her general demeanour over the past few weeks. A spring in her step, more bounce and joy of life exhibited. It feels like I'm beginning to see the dog I lost over 18 months ago  SHe is always this way at home or in class but out on walks she was always on alert, not relaxing and having fun she is making me so proud right now.
> 
> Next challenge: Focus in the presence of excited kids.


Aww, that's so wonderful to hear... all your hard work is paying off 

I thought things couldn't get more shameful after the time a group of young lads caught me hiding behind a tree squealing "where am I? Come find meeeeeee!" but I thought wrong clearly :lol:


----------



## Howl

Lost mine a long time ago. Squealing, high pitched noises and running away all seem to work for my two the sillier the better. 
Ours progressed though requiring more and more unusual ways to bring them back to them then being unreliable. 
We are getting it back now though but it's tricky. 
Last night recall was pretty good we played at running which kept them nearby and treated when they recalled, hide etc. It's like one thing goes in and another falls out though their lead skills were appalling! Both caught a strong scent which sent them both cuckoo but we took advantage as they seemed to want to cross a stream so we played in the water a bit with them. 
Can't wait to move and start training or something structured with them though because at the moment they are driving me a bit potty. ut:


----------



## Tigerneko

I'm so glad I don't have to do any of the raving looney recall stuff :lol: at least that's one thing I don't really need to work on  even though i'm working on it anyway with the whistle :lol:

I am trying to gear myself up to go out to the field with him (there shouldn't be any other dogs, i've only come across about 2 other people in a year lol) but for some reason I can't shake my nerves, and I know he'll play up to it the second I grab his lead.

Rescue Remedy time methinks :thumbup: and I dunno why, cos i'm not nervous about anything, I can just feel the nerves in my tummy


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> I'm so glad I don't have to do any of the raving looney recall stuff :lol: at least that's one thing I don't really need to work on  even though i'm working on it anyway with the whistle :lol:
> 
> I am trying to gear myself up to go out to the field with him (there shouldn't be any other dogs, i've only come across about 2 other people in a year lol) but for some reason I can't shake my nerves, and I know he'll play up to it the second I grab his lead.
> 
> Rescue Remedy time methinks :thumbup: and I dunno why, cos i'm not nervous about anything, I can just feel the nerves in my tummy


Banish those nerves and focus on your positive attitude from yesterday when he was your best boy . Have a fab walk .


----------



## Dogless

How did it go Tigerneko?


----------



## ballybee

Well now we're working on our new puppy Dante  He's got the toilet training well underway, knows sit, wee wee's and his name(well he knows Dan) all in under a week...he's so ridiculously smart  plus he's been left in the crate and been fine 

Tummels a little nervous of Dan but will play with him(very gently) and is getting used to having a puppy around.


----------



## Dogless

ballybee said:


> Well now we're working on our new puppy Dante  He's got the toilet training well underway, knows sit, wee wee's and his name(well he knows Dan) all in under a week...he's so ridiculously smart  plus he's been left in the crate and been fine
> 
> Tummels a little nervous of Dan but will play with him(very gently) and is getting used to having a puppy around.


Gold stars for lovely Tum and little Dante then .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> How did it go Tigerneko?


It went okay thanks! Could have been better but it was nobody's fault so i'm not too worried.... we had Ruby spayed a couple of years ago, and a tiny amount of tissue/cells were left behind in her body (it's not the vets fault, the cells can be anywhere, it's not common but it does happen from time to time) and it causes her to have sort of 'phantom seasons' where she gives off all the hormones but doesn't have any of the physical side of it. This happens every so often and it drives poor Tiger into a frenzy, even though he's also neutered. He ran up into my room and started shaking really violently and panting, so I just put his lead on and took him out of the house. We had to come back in once because he was back to his old tricks of screaming and barking down the drive (this wasn't anything he'd picked up from my nerves this time lol) so I turned around, went back home and waited with him until he calmed down as much as he was going to, and we left again. He was a little better but still yapped and whined more than usual.

Because of this I decided to just stick to road walking and not take him to the field or let him off anywhere in case he did a runner! But I did a little more kirb training with him - he was really good and sat first time almost every time  and I took his rubber stick along with us for him to carry and take his mind away from stressing. I did wonder if he'd react a little more because of the toy if we came across other dogs, but he didn't! If anything the toy helped him to focus on something else! We came across a lady with two yorkies when we first set off (before I gave him the toy), and he had a bit of raised hackles and stiffness at them, but to be fair - they both did it first, and there was two of them! They had a bit of a pull and did a bit of 'uffing' at each other, but I just called him, tugged his lead slightly to break him out of the stare and asked him to 'leave it', and he did. On the way back we ended up walking parallel to a man on the other side of the road with a JRT, and he stiffened up slightly and did the whole 'alert' thing, but never had a go, and I think he was initially worried that it was going to run across the road and pinch his stick  but with a bit of 'no', and 'leave it' again, he soon realised it didn't give a toss about him or his rubber stick and more or less forgot it was there  then on the way back up the road, we had the same situation with a Rottie, which initially tried to pull in his direction, so I kept glancing back and walked a little faster, but Tiger never batted an eyelid at it and the Rottie lost interest within a few seconds, so I slowed down so that they were across the road and slightly further away from us, so that Tiger could purposely see it, and he wasn't fussed in the slightest 

So, it was a shame I couldn't take him to the field but we're hopefully off to the beach tomorrow for a real tiring out session, so I wasn't too bothered 

and here he is with his beloved rubber stick! He carried it for the whole walk, usually he falls out with things after a while and wants me to carry them... but then wonders why i've taken it off him and wants it back... just to drop it again and repeat the process for the entire duration of the walk :lol: but he did really well with it tonight


----------



## Tigerneko

How is everyone doing today?

We are off on our way to the beach soon, so i'm sure i'll be back tonight with an update (and probably more photos lol) of how it went. It'd be nice if he could meet a few dogs, i've took him last year and 3 dogs literally appeared out of nowhere, they must have just legged it full pelt across the beach behind us! I didn't have a chance of getting him back in time, but he did really well with them and actually got bored and wandered away from them after a few moments, so hopefully we can have a few good experiences like this, as I truly don't believe he aggressive, I think he's just reacting to my nerves.

Best wrap up, it's gonna be bl**dy freezing :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Best morning ever .

Went to the park and managed the whole hour and a half or so on a loose lead without headcollar in the main, although I did put it on for the few parts that are so narrow that I couldn't have got enough space if I had needed it. 

If that wasn't good enough I spent ages on a big field walking with Kilo and getting his focus whilst lots of dogs walked past and he was fab; huge improvement which leads me to believe that a headcollar just adds to his frustration in a way (although I will still always use it in very crowded / stimulating places I think). A man with a black lab asked what I was doing so I explained our 'lab issue' and he walked along whilst I walked Kilo parallel to them up and down, closer and closer until we followed them on a nice loose lead . Any fixation / posturing resulted in a swift about turn, but because the lab was calm (or, if I am honest probably because I was calm and happy) Kilo didn't really bother.

And then we met a mal bitch that we see most days. They have never been offlead to play but they always just greet each other with big play bows on lead, so we let them off for 5 minutes and they had a great time.

All in all a fantastic walk .


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Best morning ever .
> 
> Went to the park and managed the whole hour and a half or so on a loose lead without headcollar in the main, although I did put it on for the few parts that are so narrow that I couldn't have got enough space if I had needed it.
> 
> If that wasn't good enough I spent ages on a big field walking with Kilo and getting his focus whilst lots of dogs walked past and he was fab; huge improvement which leads me to believe that a headcollar just adds to his frustration in a way (although I will still always use it in very crowded / stimulating places I think). A man with a black lab asked what I was doing so I explained our 'lab issue' and he walked along whilst I walked Kilo parallel to them up and down, closer and closer until we followed them on a nice loose lead . Any fixation / posturing resulted in a swift about turn, but because the lab was calm (or, if I am honest probably because I was calm and happy) Kilo didn't really bother.
> 
> And then we met a mal bitch that we see most days. They have never been offlead to play but they always just greet each other with big play bows on lead, so we let them off for 5 minutes and they had a great time.
> 
> All in all a fantastic walk .


Well done Kilo for making mum so proud  and well done to you too Dogless, it's all your hard work paying off :thumbup: Keep it up Kilo!

Continuing on with our LLW and it's getting slowly better each day - managed 18 minutes to the park this morning  it's just that last little stretch when the park is in sight that he's struggling with but it's only day 3, I'm not expecting miracles! I do think he's getting the idea though, I really do but he just finds it so hard to contain his excitement (the park! I can see THE PARK! It's right THERE!) that the urge to pull to get there ASAP is still very strong


----------



## theevos5

Just thought I would post here too,thought we had everything sorted with Alf but he seems to have completely lost his recall,he is ignoring me,has no interest in his ball,which he is usually dancing around in front of you to get you to throw it,and he is generally being a little $hit.I spent the whole walk today just seeking him out,whistling him and calling his name,when he came back I resisted the urge to put him back on his lead,so I treated him and I skipped away,whilst grinding my teeth and then turn around and he was gone again I have climbed over 2 ditches today to get him back to heel off lead and both times he stayed to heel for seconds and then jumped the ditch and was gone again. This has been a gradual thing over about 10 days that I have noticed he hasn't been as responsive so I want to get it sorted before it gets any worse

So tomorrow,he is strictly on his line being held(can't let go as once he goes,he could get tangled in the undergrowth)I once found him with his longline wrapped around a tree and he was trapped!We are going to do lots of recall games and I am going to play hide and seek around the house etc

I cannot understand how he could just lose it like thatI take tasty treats,today I had liver and bratwurst sausage for him. The worst thing about it,is when he comes back he comes flying towards you,ears flapping like you are a long lost friend and is so happy to see you.

it is so frustrating:blushing:I came home today had a little cry and felt better.

So wish me luck for tomorrow I think I may need it


----------



## BumbleFluff

I had a trick competition yesterday and got 2nd place (i only did 3 tricks because i got nervous) so today i went through all our tricks and Blue is able to do things i never even taught her  So, next time i go to a show with a trick class, i will add these tricks in too. And if there's obedience, i will enter that too because ive been too nervous to do it previously


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> Just thought I would post here too,thought we had everything sorted with Alf but he seems to have completely lost his recall,he is ignoring me,has no interest in his ball,which he is usually dancing around in front of you to get you to throw it,and he is generally being a little $hit.I spent the whole walk today just seeking him out,whistling him and calling his name,when he came back I resisted the urge to put him back on his lead,so I treated him and I skipped away,whilst grinding my teeth and then turn around and he was gone again I have climbed over 2 ditches today to get him back to heel off lead and both times he stayed to heel for seconds and then jumped the ditch and was gone again. This has been a gradual thing over about 10 days that I have noticed he hasn't been as responsive so I want to get it sorted before it gets any worse
> 
> So tomorrow,he is strictly on his line being held(can't let go as once he goes,he could get tangled in the undergrowth)I once found him with his longline wrapped around a tree and he was trapped!We are going to do lots of recall games and I am going to play hide and seek around the house etc
> 
> I cannot understand how he could just lose it like thatI take tasty treats,today I had liver and bratwurst sausage for him. The worst thing about it,is when he comes back he comes flying towards you,ears flapping like you are a long lost friend and is so happy to see you.
> 
> it is so frustrating:blushing:I came home today had a little cry and felt better.
> 
> So wish me luck for tomorrow I think I may need it


Oh no; how disheartening; good luck for tomorrow - hopefully this is only a blip.



BumbleFluff said:


> I had a trick competition yesterday and got 2nd place (i only did 3 tricks because i got nervous) so today i went through all our tricks and Blue is able to do things i never even taught her  So, next time i go to a show with a trick class, i will add these tricks in too. And if there's obedience, i will enter that too because ive been too nervous to do it previously


Well done .

This afternoon's walk was uneventful; didn't see a soul and the weather was horrendous, got frozen to the bone and soaking wet whilst Kilo did non - stop zoomies to keep warm! .

Since we have got back he has been whining and pacing by the front door non stop. I suspect an in season bitch has weed on our front lawn as there was a scent on there when we got back that he would not leave and was whining, teeth chattering and drooling like crazy. Had to drag him inside . Our neighbour's dog runs about uncontrolled and often uses our front lawn as a toilet so suspect it might be her . Tomorrow evening Kilo is going into boarding for 5 nights anyway  as hubby and I have to go to the mainland to do family stuff. Might be just as well...at least it will rain again very soon and hopefully get rid of the smell.


----------



## Dotte

Have to brag about Bry today, I went to pick him up from daycare and when Bry gets super excited he chews on the lead, wich is a horrible habit cuz he's a tough chewer and has chewed through 3 leads already  so anyway I was paying for daycare and he started to chew on the lead and I just said "leave it" once kinda distracted to be honest and guess what! He left it!!!!  I couldn't believe it! He's leave it is still so and so, and I was so prod cuz it happened infront of all the daycare people  Oh I am so proud! And then to top it off he has a horrible habit chasing leafs blowing in the wind and again I tried "leave it" pretty sternly said to be honest cuz he was mid run, but he stopped straight away and came back to me  Oh my beautiful little bubba I am so proud of him today :blushing:


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Have to brag about Bry today, I went to pick him up from daycare and when Bry gets super excited he chews on the lead, wich is a horrible habit cuz he's a tough chewer and has chewed through 3 leads already  so anyway I was paying for daycare and he started to chew on the lead and I just said "leave it" once kinda distracted to be honest and guess what! He left it!!!!  I couldn't believe it! He's leave it is still so and so, and I was so prod cuz it happened infront of all the daycare people  Oh I am so proud! And then to top it off he has a horrible habit chasing leafs blowing in the wind and again I tried "leave it" pretty sternly said to be honest cuz he was mid run, but he stopped straight away and came back to me  Oh my beautiful little bubba I am so proud of him today :blushing:


Well done Bry . Have a gold star!!


----------



## Tigerneko

Here I come with my photos again :lol: :lol: it's a long one - but it's all good :thumbup:

We had our trip to the beach today! It was a test in many different ways - firstly because we went on the train, and Tiger has never been on one before! At first he was petrified, shaking, panting and wriggling all over the place. I sat him on my knee and he settled, watching out of the window but didn't stop panting for the whole journey. I'd never thought about how he'd react to the train 

Anyway, we'd been walking and playing on the beach for about an hour and a half, when I turned round to see a totally loose, no owner in sight MAHOOSIVE Akita about 6 foot behind us, I went into total utter panic mode - Tiger was off his lead, hyped up from playing and had his toy in his mouth, the Akita owner was nowhere to be seen and there wasn't a soul anywhere else. It was like a reflex - I just grabbed Tiger's collar and kept still. Then I realised the Akita was giving me a look of "what are you doing you fool, I only want to say hi " and without even thinking about it, I just let go of Tiger  he ran over to it, dropped his toy, jumped up in it's face  had a bit of a sniff and then came back to me  BUT he forgot his ball, and the Akita went to take it :yikes: :yikes: and Tiger did me proud again - he looked at me with the cutest "but that's mine " face i've ever seen, the Akita dropped the ball and Tiger just took it back, no nastiness, no fuss! whilst this was going on, the Akita's owner appeared, running like a loony across the sand dunes  and called it away, I think he may have seen me grabbing hold of Tiger and thought there was gonna be a scene, but I actually didn't mind it being there and I wished he'd have come over to us really cos i'd have asked if they could walk along or play for a while 

A couple of minutes later I was throwing his ball for him again, and it went right into the path of another little terrier, Tiger picked up his ball, totally ignored it and returned to me! And I will not be ashamed to admit - I was praising him so much after the Akita thing, I even started crying  

He was cracking, he showed no real interest in any of the dogs, I know he spotted a few in the distance and he did have a moment when he was obviously thinking about going to visit two people on horses in the distance, but I think he realised that they were rather large dogs and thought better of it!

On the way home, I realised i'd put his Thundershirt in my bag, and I put it on him for the train journey home. He was like a different dog - he was lying flat out asleep after half an hour or so - so that was good, and I can definitely vouch for the Thundershirt if anyone is considering one!

I'll post a couple of my favorite photos of the day 

It was windy 



















Tired out










It was a beautiful day, and very quiet! We had most of the beach to ourselves...


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko....a whole chart of gold stars for you and Tiger today . That is absolutely fab - perhaps the huge wide space made Tiger feel better as well as being offlead as he had room to avoid if he wanted to? Whatever it was.....what a great day and great photos too. Well done. Sincerely .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Tigerneko....a whole chart of gold stars for you and Tiger today . That is absolutely fab - perhaps the huge wide space made Tiger feel better as well as being offlead as he had room to avoid if he wanted to? Whatever it was.....what a great day and great photos too. Well done. Sincerely .


Thanks  he has been a little gold star today 

I think the open space does help, it makes me feel better because I can see for miles around, so if anything was to head in our direction and I didn't feel like meeting them, I can just slowly wander along... apart from those who creep up behind us :lol:

I felt bad for worrying about the Akita, but the first thing to flash through my mind was all the stuff on here of Akitas being DA, and the fact I was totally on my own with it, it couldn't have been a much scarier experience but I really kept my nerve after the initial surprise lol 

I'm definitely gonna start going more often, might make it a fortnightly thing on my weekends off


----------



## SophieCyde

Just when I thought we were getting there :cursing:

We've been working on recall since murphy was a pup now and recently he's been doing soo much better , to the point that I could finally let him off near other dogs as long as they weren't 'too' close , but this week he seems to have hit another teenager stage .... he's not listening at all even for specially bought turkey breast so its back on the longline for now 

He's being quite naughty at home as well and barking a lot more so I've re-added our night walk (at about 9) to try and calm him down a little bit , we'll see how that goes ... he's currently flat out asleep which is the nicest he's been for the past few days


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Kilo

Well done Tiger Gorgeous pics too 

Naughty Naughty Alfie ...After reading Dogless' I did wonder if there coudl be an in-season bitch walked in your area causing Master Alfred's loss of recall. Either way have fun with the recall games and I wish you every success getting the lovable miscreant back on track 

We walked with a couple of doggies friend this morning, Tink was a bit lukewarm at first as we haven't seen them in months, but with minutes there was an enthusiastic game of chase going on in and out of the trees, with the occasional sniff break of course.

This evening we met a lovely rottie, with delightful doggie manners. I do hope we meet them again. They shared a slow polite approach, then the rottie play bowed and ran for Tink to chase after a "You mean me " pause Tink did . Sadly it was at the end of the walk and it was time for them to go home  but still very positive. 

No need for the fear scale today


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> No need for the fear scale today


. Fantastic!!!!

Luckily for us it has rained very hard for hours and Kilo has given up whining at the front door and pacing around!


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> Well done Kilo
> 
> Well done Tiger Gorgeous pics too
> 
> Naughty Naughty Alfie ...After reading Dogless' I did wonder if there coudl be an in-season bitch walked in your area causing Master Alfred's loss of recall. Either way have fun with the recall games and I wish you every success getting the lovable miscreant back on track
> 
> We walked with a couple of doggies friend this morning, Tink was a bit lukewarm at first as we haven't seen them in months, but with minutes there was an enthusiastic game of chase going on in and out of the trees, with the occasional sniff break of course.
> 
> This evening we met a lovely rottie, with delightful doggie manners. I do hope we meet them again. They shared a slow polite approach, then the rottie play bowed and ran for Tink to chase after a "You mean me " pause Tink did . Sadly it was at the end of the walk and it was time for them to go home  but still very positive.
> 
> No need for the fear scale today


Thanks  Tink sounds to have done fabulously today! Shame the Rottie had to go home, but every little helps!


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Continuing on with our LLW and it's getting slowly better each day - managed 18 minutes to the park this morning  it's just that last little stretch when the park is in sight that he's struggling with but it's only day 3, I'm not expecting miracles! I do think he's getting the idea though, I really do but he just finds it so hard to contain his excitement (the park! I can see THE PARK! It's right THERE!) that the urge to pull to get there ASAP is still very strong


Just had a thought, is it possible to walk past the entrance of the park? just carry on walking for a few minutes and then turn and sort of pendulum back and forthpast the entrance until he's calm.When calm he's rewarded by going in. ( sorry if this is dumb advice I'm under-caffeinated atm.)


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> Just had a thought, is it possible to walk past the entrance of the park? just carry on walking for a few minutes and then turn and sort of pendulum back and forthpast the entrance until he's calm.When calm he's rewarded by going in. ( sorry if this is dumb advice I'm under-caffeinated atm.)


that sounds a good idea  It's only similar to what I did with tiger, he used to bark and scream when we first left the house. I started taking him back inside and waiting until he was calm, sometimes i'd have go in and out of the house 10 times before we could start the walk but gradually we had to do it less and less, and now it's hardly ever a problem. My nerves used to set him off and make him worse so now I also wait until i'm calm enough lol


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> that sounds a good idea  It's only similar to what I did with tiger, he used to bark and scream when we first left the house. I started taking him back inside and waiting until he was calm, sometimes i'd have go in and out of the house 10 times before we could start the walk but gradually we had to do it less and less, and now it's hardly ever a problem. My nerves used to set him off and make him worse so now I also wait until i'm calm enough lol


I'm glad it worked and well done for sticking with it, I think patience, willpower and giving up any sense of self respect or shame up seem to be the key for doggie success, certainly the case here


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> I'm glad it worked and well done for sticking with it, I think patience, willpower and giving up any sense of self respect or shame up seem to be the key for doggie success, certainly the case here


I think they do it on purpose, they must just wait for us to try something that'll TOTALLY ruin our street cred! The little sods


----------



## Dogless

Kilo was best boy again this morning; did the whole hour and a half LLW and only used the headcollar for the narrow bits again - hubby was off and came with us  and was impressed .

Best get the house cleaned and Kilo's stuff ready for going to boarding now .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Kilo was best boy again this morning; did the whole hour and a half LLW and only used the headcollar for the narrow bits again - hubby was off and came with us  and was impressed .
> 
> Best get the house cleaned and Kilo's stuff ready for going to boarding now .


Gold stars for the boy wonder.

:crying: 5 days without Kilo updates, I always feel like i have a limb missing when i'm away from her ladyship. She however always seems to have a great time


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Kilo was best boy again this morning; did the whole hour and a half LLW and only used the headcollar for the narrow bits again - hubby was off and came with us  and was impressed .
> 
> Best get the house cleaned and Kilo's stuff ready for going to boarding now .


aww, i'll miss your stories and your support! Glad Kilo was a good boy for you this morning, I bet he was just trying to make you feel guilty for leaving him at the kennels :lol: 

Hopefully you'll have lots of good stories to come back to! I was planning on having a major clean up today (mainly my bedroom cos it looks like a squat lol) but i've been on PF all morning  i'm definitey gonna make a start soon :lol:


----------



## theevos5

Glad Kilo has been good gor you and hope he has a good time boarding.

Our walk today has been eventful to say the leastI left the house at 9.30 and have just got in.I decided that I was going to let him off and see how the ground lay incase it has just been a blip,so gave him a piece of cheese unclipped him and he ran very fast in the opposite direction,out of sight.So I found him,called him,he ignored me,tried making silly noises and jumping up and down,he carrie don going in the opposite direction,so whistled him and he came,ears flapping straight back! So I rewarded him with a treat and put his line on and carried on walking with someone and their dog,we did a whole lap,with recalls,and rewards and he was fine,so I decided to let him off in his trusted place again,and this time did a lap,and he was ok.By this time there was a lot of dogs and plenty to keep him close,he recalled away from play for a treat and no complaints at all.Put him back on and walked another lap,with recalls and treats,and then let him off the last time and he fled,very fast again out of sighttotally ignoring me and the whistle he eventually just came back to me,with someones ball that he had stolen so was back on his lead again doing more recalls.
Overall,not as bad a s yesterday but not brill

But the most eventful part of the walk was that for the last 2 hours we have had the police helicopter directly above the park,and just as were leaving,4 armed response policemen appeared in the park,totally tooled up wearing bulletproof vests So I am wondering if someone has been hiding in the woods and perhaps Alfred has been getting a scent of them and running off,maybe to them I am going to keep my ears peeled and find out what has happened.


----------



## moonviolet

theevos5 said:


> Glad Kilo has been good gor you and hope he has a good time boarding.
> 
> Our walk today has been eventful to say the leastI left the house at 9.30 and have just got in.I decided that I was going to let him off and see how the ground lay incase it has just been a blip,so gave him a piece of cheese unclipped him and he ran very fast in the opposite direction,out of sight.So I found him,called him,he ignored me,tried making silly noises and jumping up and down,he carrie don going in the opposite direction,so whistled him and he came,ears flapping straight back! So I rewarded him with a treat and put his line on and carried on walking with someone and their dog,we did a whole lap,with recalls,and rewards and he was fine,so I decided to let him off in his trusted place again,and this time did a lap,and he was ok.By this time there was a lot of dogs and plenty to keep him close,he recalled away from play for a treat and no complaints at all.Put him back on and walked another lap,with recalls and treats,and then let him off the last time and he fled,very fast again out of sighttotally ignoring me and the whistle he eventually just came back to me,with someones ball that he had stolen so was back on his lead again doing more recalls.
> Overall,not as bad a s yesterday but not brill
> 
> But the most eventful part of the walk was that for the last 2 hours we have had the police helicopter directly above the park,and just as were leaving,4 armed response policemen appeared in the park,totally tooled up wearing bulletproof vests So I am wondering if someone has been hiding in the woods and perhaps Alfred has been getting a scent of them and running off,maybe to them I am going to keep my ears peeled and find out what has happened.


O Crikey that was eventful in many ways. Maybe they were what was attracting Alf especially if they had food with them! Do you usually go to the same place for your walks? The reason i ask is because they can become super confident because it's so familiar etc. Wishing you less eventful future walks


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Just had a thought, is it possible to walk past the entrance of the park? just carry on walking for a few minutes and then turn and sort of pendulum back and forthpast the entrance until he's calm.When calm he's rewarded by going in. ( sorry if this is dumb advice I'm under-caffeinated atm.)


No advice from you is ever dumb m'dear 

It's certainly worth a try... the only thing that might make it not work is that the entrance is located at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, right in the bottom, between 2 houses (if that makes sense?) so I wouldn't be able to walk _past_ it but I could walk _back away_ but then might the spotty one get more distressed and think we're heading home 

Bit of a strange development on the LLW this morning  All was going okay-ish up to the "park is in VIEW" excitement started... same as the last couple of days really, managing sometimes up to 5 or 6 steps before he would pull to the end of the lead, I stop dead, he turns and comes back to my side, C&T and carry on.

When the park got into view this morning he pulled hard as usual, I stopped dead as usual but instead of looking back at me or backing up a little he sat down and whined  I waited to see if he would do anything else, come back to me a little or look back or whatever... but nothing. So I caught up to him and as I got into view he stood up, started walking again but again was pulling hard within 2 steps. Stop dead again. He sat down ut: I didn't C&T for this as it's not really the behaviour I want :lol: I mean yes, he's stopping and the lead is going a little slack but the sitting down is not what I want from him  This continued all the way to the park (which was about 100' or so I reckon, am not always good with distances!) and was all very odd. I guess I did allow it to happen but am I doing something wrong? Should I be giving the lead a little tug to get his attention back to me or something else?

It was all really strange and he looked like he was playing some sort of weird game of musical bumps with himself :lol:

In positive news, he DID recall away from 2 (unknown) dogs on leads; he headed in their direction before I spotted them - my heart thudded a bit but I was able to get away with running in the other direction squealing his name for him to come shooting back to me (no scrawling on my hands and knees this morning ). Popped the lead back on both times and were then able to say polite hellos (asked the owners first of course) and carry on 

The absolute best bit though (saved the best until last ) was him recalling away from a little springer spaniel we know who he LOVES but she's a nervous little thing and though she does like to play chase, Alfie plays too rough with her now  (bowling over and all that sort of roughness) so I don't let him play with her anymore. He spotted her in the distance at the same second I did and I ran away, hid behind a tree calling "come find meeeeee" and after a couple of seconds internal battle with himself he came back  He got a handful of hotdogs and a huge fuss for that one, I was so proud of him 

<looks up> god, don't I go on?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Gold stars for the boy wonder.
> 
> :crying: 5 days without Kilo updates, I always feel like i have a limb missing when i'm away from her ladyship. She however always seems to have a great time


I've never been away from him for 5 nights; hate being without Kilo - I am happy with the boarding place after that trial the other week though and when I rang up to confirm the lady said 'Kilo? Oh, he is a lovely dog' . Touch wood he'll exhibit some gold star behaviour and no silliness....I can hope .



theevos5 said:


> Glad Kilo has been good gor you and hope he has a good time boarding.
> 
> Our walk today has been eventful to say the leastI left the house at 9.30 and have just got in.I decided that I was going to let him off and see how the ground lay incase it has just been a blip,so gave him a piece of cheese unclipped him and he ran very fast in the opposite direction,out of sight.So I found him,called him,he ignored me,tried making silly noises and jumping up and down,he carrie don going in the opposite direction,so whistled him and he came,ears flapping straight back! So I rewarded him with a treat and put his line on and carried on walking with someone and their dog,we did a whole lap,with recalls,and rewards and he was fine,so I decided to let him off in his trusted place again,and this time did a lap,and he was ok.By this time there was a lot of dogs and plenty to keep him close,he recalled away from play for a treat and no complaints at all.Put him back on and walked another lap,with recalls and treats,and then let him off the last time and he fled,very fast again out of sighttotally ignoring me and the whistle he eventually just came back to me,with someones ball that he had stolen so was back on his lead again doing more recalls.
> Overall,not as bad a s yesterday but not brill
> 
> But the most eventful part of the walk was that for the last 2 hours we have had the police helicopter directly above the park,and just as were leaving,4 armed response policemen appeared in the park,totally tooled up wearing bulletproof vests So I am wondering if someone has been hiding in the woods and perhaps Alfred has been getting a scent of them and running off,maybe to them I am going to keep my ears peeled and find out what has happened.


Oooooh Inspector Beagle foiling crimes . Hopefully whatever is hiding  hmy: is the reason for his recall heading downhill!


----------



## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> O Crikey that was eventful in many ways. Maybe they were what was attracting Alf especially if they had food with them! Do you usually go to the same place for your walks? The reason i ask is because they can become super confident because it's so familiar etc. Wishing you less eventful future walks


I do usually go to the same place,every day and a couple of variations in the week.Tonight we visit a lovely walk,but he is strictly on lead as there are horses and he thinks they are huge playmates
We will see what tomorrow brings


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## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> When the park got into view this morning he pulled hard as usual, I stopped dead as usual but instead of looking back at me or backing up a little he sat down and whined  I waited to see if he would do anything else, come back to me a little or look back or whatever... but nothing. So I caught up to him and as I got into view he stood up, started walking again but again was pulling hard within 2 steps. Stop dead again. He sat down ut: I didn't C&T for this as it's not really the behaviour I want :lol: I mean yes, he's stopping and the lead is going a little slack but the sitting down is not what I want from him  This continued all the way to the park (which was about 100' or so I reckon, am not always good with distances!) and was all very odd. I guess I did allow it to happen but am I doing something wrong? Should I be giving the lead a little tug to get his attention back to me or something else?
> 
> It was all really strange and he looked like he was playing some sort of weird game of musical bumps with himself :lol:


I love to hear how young Master Spot is doing. I'd ditch the walking past idea if you can't .

Tink tried a similar thing with the loose leash thing last autumn. her variation was to stop become a statue not pulling but not coming back to my side. staring ahead like she was in a trance. I took to rustles my pocket or shuffling my feet just a soft little distracting noise nothing big or scary jsut enough for her ears to twitch, then I waited (took ages at the start) until she came back to my side. She knew where I wanted her, had it been a new thing i would have had no shame in luring her with a treat just until she understood.

Another way you could do it is if he knows the touch command. (nose touches hand) you can use that to get him in position before her gets to the end of the lead. If it's trained as a fun game at home, it becomes a positive interaction on the pavement


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## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> I love to hear how young Master Spot is doing. I'd ditch the walking past idea if you can't .
> 
> Tink tried a similar thing with the loose leash thing last autumn. her variation was to stop become a statue not pulling but not coming back to my side. staring ahead like she was in a trance. I took to rustles my pocket or shuffling my feet just a soft little distracting noise nothing big or scary jsut enough for her ears to twitch, then I waited (took ages at the start) until she came back to my side. She knew where I wanted her, had it been a new thing i would have had no shame in luring her with a treat just until she understood.
> 
> Another way you could do it is if he knows the touch command. (nose touches hand) you can use that to get him in position before her gets to the end of the lead. If it's trained as a fun game at home, it becomes a positive interaction on the pavement


See, I'm not 100% sure if he does *know* yet exactly what I want from him... it's still very early days. Ideally, I want him back at my side but at the moment I'm happy when he just turns back towards me and the lead goes a bit loose. He knows (or he should do!) that I've got a bag full of hot dogs so maybe if I were to rustle the treat bag or take a step backwards :idea: that might work?

He doesn't know 'touch' but that could be really helpful, am going to give that a go tonight  Can you clicker train it I wonder? He responds really well to the clicker... off to google!


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## Dogless

Coffee said:


> See, I'm not 100% sure if he does *know* yet exactly what I want from him... it's still very early days. Ideally, I want him back at my side but at the moment I'm happy when he just turns back towards me and the lead goes a bit loose. He knows (or he should do!) that I've got a bag full of hot dogs so maybe if I were to rustle the treat bag or take a step backwards :idea: that might work?
> 
> He doesn't know 'touch' but that could be really helpful, am going to give that a go tonight  Can you clicker train it I wonder? He responds really well to the clicker... off to google!


'Touch' is useful for quite a few things - I didn't clicker train it, but it would be easy to do! Kilo also did the statue thing for a while - in a trance like Tink. I used 'touch' or 'back'. The beauty with the TR method I'm using now is that focus on the handler is very much increased (for us anyway) and seems to make walking much more fun.


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## Guest

I am working on fitting as many of Northamptonshire's dogs as possible into the correct size harness!! I am so tired of seeing them hanging off in old, stretched or ill fitting ones!! I am making it my mission to correct them all!!!!


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## Coffee

Dogless said:


> 'Touch' is useful for quite a few things - I didn't clicker train it, but it would be easy to do! Kilo also did the statue thing for a while - in a trance like Tink. I used 'touch' or 'back'. The beauty with the TR method I'm using now is that focus on the handler is very much increased (for us anyway) and seems to make walking much more fun.


Have just found an article via google on it, it does look very simple to teach  Will make a start as soon as he wakes up from his afternoon nap


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## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Have just found an article via google on it, it does look very simple to teach  Will make a start as soon as he wakes up from his afternoon nap


It was very easy to teach .


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## Dogless

The trainer that I contacted got back to me just now; I am going along to see a class without Kilo when I get back next week .


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## ballybee

Well today Tummel and Dante were left for 2 hours today, OH came home to find a quiet, totally undamaged house(Dan was in the crate and just slept, Tummel was allowed to roam and was fine) 

Dans settling in the crate now instead of whinging and pacing, he knows sit really well and responds to his name 90% of the time now, he also knows "no" although doesn't always choose to listen to it 

Even though he's only been here a week it feels like he's been here forever!!! He's such an intelligent dog.


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## kat&molly

Dogless, my book arrived today
I've been reading some of it, I wont be able to follow all of it as I'm walking with 3, but I'm sure there will be a few things in there I can use.

I had never thought before that when they pull we are actually following them. It makes sense:idea:


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## theevos5

Well thanks to Dogless and coffee talking about clickers yesterday,it made me get mine out today for Alf on his walk.
So today,started off really bad,I did some longline recalls,worked fine no problems and he was a superstar.I took his lead off and he was totally ignoring me again.I have found the focus of his disappearing - he is digging holes totally focused on it and very hard to get away from.So he is within sight digging,but not where I want him to be,and not responding whatsoever to any commands,so I go upto him and call him he by chance looks and I click and treat,he carries on digging,so I walk away abit and call him here he looks and i am not within reach to treat so he comesgiven a treat and leave him abit and then clip him on,continually on the walk,doing recalls with clicks and treat, I let him off and he is within range for alot of the walk and at the moment when he is just about to flee,I called him,he just happened to look at me,so I clicked and he cameI was so pleased with him,as undoubtably he was on a mission to buggering off.This worked twice,so that is twice that he didn't bolt So out of 4 laps around the park today,we only had 1 bad one(yesterday was only one good one).By the end of the walk,I called him when he was digging and I wasn't near him,and he came away from the hole on his own and was treated and fussed.Everyone commented on how well he had done today and I am proud of him:smilewinkgrin:.So the targets are that as soon as his lead is off,he has to stop bolting so I think I am going to work on a sit and wait with the clicker,and another target is that we have to walk past the path that leads to where he is digging without him going off!That's going to be the hardest,but overall I feel more positive than I have for a while!


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## kat&molly

I had an amazing walk yesterday-only short on lead but I was really pleased.
I held Molly's ball as if it were a treat and she stayed calm the whole time- I've tried it before but she always tried to jump up for it. Hope it works as well today-there is a dog that can walk nicely in there somewhere!!!

Since Evie came I've had to keep my 6 Bantam chucks in a run because her prey drive is so high. They come out in the garden when we have our afternoon walk- and then they go back in because I worry a door will be left open and I'll have no chucks left. I really miss seeing them all pottering around the garden so I'm trying again. For 2 days now we get ready , Evie has her lead on and we go let the chickens out, because we're going for a walk she isn't really noticing them,I'll stick with this for a while before I move on a bit more.
She will never be allowed near them unsupervised but it would be lovely if I'm gardening to have them all out with me. 


Hope everyone has a good day.

Sorry to read Alfie's having a blip, he's been doing so well lately. Hope you get him back on track soon. Scenthounds eh:crazy:


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## theevos5

Glad Molly had a good girl walk and was focused on the ball for you,hope todays was just as good,

well today has been a strange one for Alf!I took him for a short lead walk(30 mins) before his main walk so he was focused on me and listening to me.We haven't got any problems with him walking on a short lead at all,so it was all very nice lots of praise etc,then we got to our main walk so I put him on his long line,we walked past horses etc no problems lots of clicking and treating,when it was time to let him off I sat him down,told him wait and clicked and treated and then I walked ahead,with him waiting so he had to come in the opposite direction to where he likes to bugger off so he recalled fine,got his cheese and his praise and then buggered off 

so he went into some bushes and there was obviously something tasty in there as my dog walker friend had problems recalling her dogs and they are usually angels.
As soon as Alf made eye contact with me I clicked and treated and it was enough to get him away from whatever it was they were eating.This continued for the whole walk,he stayed within range,came back when he was called.The only problem I had was when he was near these particular bushes,he kept disappearing in for a munch, but then he still came away when called.
Also,he didn't dig at all today Definitely deserves a gold star for that
He has also been playing with lots of dogs and had lots of funWe were out for a total of 3 hours
So he was much better than he has been for a while,his recall is getting better thanks to the clicker,BUT I still cannot stop him naffing off! Soi I need to find that solution that just before I know he is about to go,that I can make him stop,any ideas?


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## pika

Working on Skye's barking and getting her to ignore other dogs on walks. 

Working on Echo's shyness and pulling on the lead


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## kat&molly

theevos5-I wonder what he's eating? Is it something dead or dumped, do you know? I thought Alf liked a ball is it worth trying that, or perhaps laying a track of your own treats. 

The ball worked well for Moll again, I was really pleased then I let her off and done a bit with Scruff and Evie- a bit better. I took them all for a walk seperatly as well, its not something I do often because of time but all of them were brilliant and they really loved having special attention- I even walked them through a bit of difficult stretch of the village that is a nightmare for other dogs, they coped well and although Evie was worried she didn't try to climb my legs:thumbup:

Day3 of operation chuck went well- as I opened the gate to let them out , one of the chucks tripped and squealed, just a couple of feet from Evie, I had her lead tight but she didn't react.
Hope everyone has a good day.


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## moonviolet

Tink's had some lovely walks this week and hasn't been anything more than "unsure" and that has been shaken off almost immediately, we seem to be on a roll.

In class we worked next to the young GSD (who is a complete darling) Tink was comfortable and focussed, Last year she would have been unsure and we couldn't have worked next to them. So thats a step forward.

After class was over I was having a little chat with the gsd's owner (a few feet apart) and keeping an eye on the dogs out of the corner of my eye as you do. Body language was happy and relaxed, then the GSD sprung into a playbow.... and Tink playbowed back  I'm hoping in a few weeks I might be able to ask if we can go for a walk together without seeming to stalkerish :blushing:

Sounds like everyone is making good progress Lots of gold stars for our doggies  

Evo5 I dont' know if this would work with Alfie but with Tink i had a mental distance she was allowed from me, it started pretty small maybe 5 metres when Tink reached this distance she got recalled for a game, a mini training session lots or treats, praise and fuss. Then off we'd go again it is a bit of a faff and I had to start it when we were walking alone. When I'd built this up, recall means fun interaction, I let the distance increase little by little now the she gets to a certain distance and looks back to see if she will be recalled or allowed to go on . Just a suggestion


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## kat&molly

Tinks, doing well- sounds like a new possible friend in the making there



My girls aren't up to Gold stars yet- but I would say we've definatly moved up from Dunce hats- at least we're going the right way
Done quite well this morning, Scruff is now understanding what I want.


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## theevos5

We had a great walk today,I made livercake yesterday,and he responded well,although I would like to think it was me he wanted
Anyway,we are definitely on track,I have given my OH the weekend off walking him,as I didn't want him to do anything that may mess around with Alfs trainingand I have worked so very hard with him this week,so once he is being Alf again,hubby can have his walks back.
He had a dig today but that was acceptable as he was focused on our walk and I saw it as his reward.
He did bugger off once,but again I am thankful,as it wasn't constant!
But I will be sticking with the clicker and hopefully have him back on track and being responsive again without any buggering off.But overall,I think we are getting there.
It's such a shame as we are going to Paris in 2 weeks without Alf and my son is having him for 5 days.He will be confined to on lead walks and I know when I come back I am going to have this all over again!

Forgot to add,well done Tinks on being so good in your class with the GSD and even playbowing!How far have you come??
and also Kat&Molly,it all sounds like you are heading in the right direction too!Love the bit about the dunces hats!!


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## Coffee

Good news and not so good from me today 

In good news - with the aid of the clicker Alfie picked up 'touch' in just 2 training sessions and by yesterday evening we were trotting around the garden (well, he was trotting, I was just walking) and he was following me perfectly with a 'touch' every time I asked for it. We then moved onto touching items I pointed at and he was 100%  I kept looking around for more and more random items for him to touch, think I was having as much fun as he was :lol:

Bad news - this morning's LLW was shocking  worst it's been all week  It was literally 1 or 2 steps, then YANK to the end of the lead (tried it a little longer, then super-short and everything inbetween and it made no difference), stop dead, glance back at me (sometimes a step back if I was lucky ) and off again. Repeat x 100  "Touch" was falling on completely deaf ears, he was just awful :cryin: 

Once we got to the park I made him sit and wait until I took the lead off and he was excellent for that  I know that doesn't sound like much of an achievement  but the excitement normally goes sky-high once we're actually in the park itself so the fact that he was able to focus for the sit and wait was quite something really 

The walk itself was a bit of a mish-mash... there were a LOT of dogs we didn't know down there today (which is unusual) so there was a lot of popping back on lead until I knew it was okay for greetings and there was one particular owner who kept putting her dog onlead and walking away from us when we crossed paths so I gathered he/she wasn't up for greeting - fine, not an issue  But we seemed to be doing some bizarre dance around the park away from each other and KEPT bumping into each other so I was a bit naughtily relieved when they went  as at one point Alfie spotted them before me and shot off, ignoring my calls  but luckily, I suppose, he seems to be starting to understand that dogs on leads don't play so once he got to about 10' away from them he turned around and came back, which I was pleased about 

Oh well, tomorrow is another day!


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## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Tink's had some lovely walks this week and hasn't been anything more than "unsure" and that has been shaken off almost immediately, we seem to be on a roll.
> 
> In class we worked next to the young GSD (who is a complete darling) Tink was comfortable and focussed, Last year she would have been unsure and we couldn't have worked next to them. So thats a step forward.
> 
> After class was over I was having a little chat with the gsd's owner (a few feet apart) and keeping an eye on the dogs out of the corner of my eye as you do. Body language was happy and relaxed, then the GSD sprung into a playbow.... and Tink playbowed back  I'm hoping in a few weeks I might be able to ask if we can go for a walk together without seeming to stalkerish :blushing:
> 
> Sounds like everyone is making good progress Lots of gold stars for our doggies
> 
> Evo5 I dont' know if this would work with Alfie but with Tink i had a mental distance she was allowed from me, it started pretty small maybe 5 metres when Tink reached this distance she got recalled for a game, a mini training session lots or treats, praise and fuss. Then off we'd go again it is a bit of a faff and I had to start it when we were walking alone. When I'd built this up, recall means fun interaction, I let the distance increase little by little now the she gets to a certain distance and looks back to see if she will be recalled or allowed to go on . Just a suggestion


Well done Tinker  A new friend in the making hopefully!


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> My girls aren't up to Gold stars yet- but I would say we've definatly moved up from Dunce hats- at least we're going the right way
> Done quite well this morning, Scruff is now understanding what I want.


Well if you don't think they are up to gold stars yet i think they are definitely worthy of picking out one of the coloured ones, there are red blue green and yellow which would they like 



theevos5 said:


> We had a great walk today,I made livercake yesterday,and he responded well,although I would like to think it was me he wanted
> Anyway,we are definitely on track,I have given my OH the weekend off walking him,as I didn't want him to do anything that may mess around with Alfs trainingand I have worked so very hard with him this week,so once he is being Alf again,hubby can have his walks back.
> He had a dig today but that was acceptable as he was focused on our walk and I saw it as his reward.
> He did bugger off once,but again I am thankful,as it wasn't constant!
> But I will be sticking with the clicker and hopefully have him back on track and being responsive again without any buggering off.But overall,I think we are getting there.


 well done Alf  and of course it was you he wanted.... you were keeper of the livercake :lol:

On this morning's long walk Tink astounded me and showed no fear in the face of a collie stare, stalk, lay down and charge. In fact right up to the charge she just looked a couple of times and then carried on sniffing. I placed myself between them to intercept collie (as owners were calling out "he's friendly he's friendly") Tink nonchalantly walks around me and waits to be sniffed. (who are you and what have to done with my dog????)

Think i'm soon going to have to bite the bullet and make a plan to go to the park to handle the excited kids issue. Mind you last time i did there wasn't a kid to be seen  Would it be too weird to hang around outside the local primary school at break time? should i call them and explain?


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## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Good news and not so good from me today
> 
> In good news - with the aid of the clicker Alfie picked up 'touch' in just 2 training sessions and by yesterday evening we were trotting around the garden (well, he was trotting, I was just walking) and he was following me perfectly with a 'touch' every time I asked for it. We then moved onto touching items I pointed at and he was 100%  I kept looking around for more and more random items for him to touch, think I was having as much fun as he was :lol:


 I'm glad you were both enjoying it training things like that are addictive 



> Bad news - this morning's LLW was shocking  worst it's been all week  It was literally 1 or 2 steps, then YANK to the end of the lead (tried it a little longer, then super-short and everything inbetween and it made no difference), stop dead, glance back at me (sometimes a step back if I was lucky ) and off again. Repeat x 100  "Touch" was falling on completely deaf ears, he was just awful :cryin:


 my driveway is 30 yards down a lane .....one day it took me over 30 mins to walk that 30 yards! no landspeed record! Don't forget Alfie is young and spotty. Could you do a short walk in another direction just to practice LLW. I used to walk Tink to window shop in the junk shop and back. 5 mins in either direction and I used allow on hour for it!

Well done for getting him to sit at the park getting his focus there is a definite acheivement, well done 

Hang in there.


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## paddyjulie

Well.....it's right back to basics for me  Re training the focus on me as everything has gone so tits up I'm now sitting in the corner at the back of my training class, trying to get Chester to focus , about half an hour into the class he was becoming a little more settled so at the moment it's a case of hand targets and whenever he looks at me click and treat..hopefully next week he will be a little better and we may even get to join in


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## Skandi

LLW... we're okish.. except when another dog appears. then well she gets closed ears and PULLS! also roll over, and of course NO d*** biting sigh.

Kinda having an issue atm as I have no treats for her as she's on a special diet.. so makes it hard (not interested in a toy as a reward)


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> I'm glad you were both enjoying it training things like that are addictive
> 
> my driveway is 30 yards down a lane .....one day it took me over 30 mins to walk that 30 yards! no landspeed record! Don't forget Alfie is young and spotty. Could you do a short walk in another direction just to practice LLW. I used to walk Tink to window shop in the junk shop and back. 5 mins in either direction and I used allow on hour for it!
> 
> Well done for getting him to sit at the park getting his focus there is a definite acheivement, well done
> 
> Hang in there.


Was Tink a bad puller then? How did you combat it? Any other hints and tips greatly appreciated 

I'm going to do that from tomorrow, take a longer, random route to the park, just to practise; I think the issue is because he knows where we're going 

We've just had a lovely half an hour session with the clicker working on 'leave it' and 'wait'  He loves it, he really does... as soon as he sees me getting the clicker off the shelf his tail goes into overdrive and he sits staring at me with a right soppy look on his chops :lol: What always never fails to amaze me is how much it wears him out  It was literally only 30 minutes (possibly less) and he's now took himself off to his bed and is spark out!


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Was Tink a bad puller then? How did you combat it? Any other hints and tips greatly appreciated


Sled dog in a beagle's body would have been an apt description. No magic cure I'm afraid i did find the more traning sessions we had at home for anything at all increased our communication and her interest in me.

Playing walking games, changing the speed, taking unexpected turns, stopping to do sits, stands, downs, give paw or whatever just being a bit unpredictable. practising in the garden, on the driveway helped too.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Sled dog in a beagle's body would have been an apt description. No magic cure I'm afraid *i did find the more traning sessions we had at home for anything at all increased our communication and her interest in me.*
> 
> Playing walking games, changing the speed, taking unexpected turns, stopping to do sits, stands, downs, give paw or whatever just being a bit unpredictable. practising in the garden, on the driveway helped too.


The bit I've 'bolded' is very interesting. I sometimes feel invisible to Alfie when we're outside :crying: At home I'm his everything... the quietest call of his name and he shoots to my side; he sits outside the toilet door waiting for me to come out; he always chooses me to cuddle with on the sofa... oh I could go on all day. But I've been thinking the last few days that although he adores me, maybe our 'bond' isn't as strong as it could be  which is why I've upped the training sessions at home and in the garden.

I've also had a bit of a splurge on doggy books and amongst others am awaiting this one with much excitement:

Bonding with Your Dog: A Trainer&#39;s Secrets for Building a Better Relationship: Amazon.co.uk: Victoria Schade: Books


----------



## Skandi

Coffee said:


> I sometimes feel invisible to Alfie when we're outside :crying: At home I'm his everything... the quietest call of his name and he shoots to my side; he sits outside the toilet door waiting for me to come out; he always chooses me to cuddle with on the sofa... oh I could go on all day.


Totaly the same! Outside I think I become invisible and dumb..


----------



## Coffee

Skandi said:


> Totaly the same! Outside I think I become invisible and dumb..


I feel your pain, I really do; it's horrid isn't it? 

Even today, for a bit of a laugh/experiment, my friend that I walk with most days and I stood about 10 feet apart and we both called Alfie and he ran straight to her  What was all that about?


----------



## kat&molly

This LLW training is difficult, its taken me weeks to get to where we are now- but we are getting better. I find it hard trying with the 3 of them together, yesterday when I done seperate walks I couldn't have picked a fault with any of them So I know I just need to stick at it.

On the days I'm not working I'm going to make time for an extra walk each- we all enjoyed that yesterday

This thread was started weeks ago, its only now that I feel we're getting somewhere.

Moonviolet, you're right, they at least deserve green - because we're on the move now


----------



## Coffee

kat&molly said:


> This LLW training is difficult, its taken me weeks to get to where we are now- but we are getting better. I find it hard trying with the 3 of them together, yesterday when I done seperate walks I couldn't have picked a fault with any of them So I know I just need to stick at it.
> 
> On the days I'm not working I'm going to make time for an extra walk each- we all enjoyed that yesterday
> 
> This thread was started weeks ago, its only now that I feel we're getting somewhere.
> 
> Moonviolet, you're right, they at least deserve green - because we're on the move now


If I wore a hat I would take it off to you 

I'm struggling enough with one and this LLW malarky, you're doing fantastically to be so dedicated with 3 of them


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## kat&molly

Thankyou, but its my own fault, I've let things slide for far too long. I've always been paranoid about recall so thats been really all I concentrate on. I think they are good girls considering but now I can see, probably because of this thread ,that there are things I can improve.

I was envious of one your posts this week where you managed 5 and 6 steps with Alfie, its taken me this long to get that far.


----------



## Coffee

kat&molly said:


> Thankyou, but its my own fault, I've let things slide for far too long. I've always been paranoid about recall so thats been really all I concentrate on. I think they are good girls considering but now I can see, probably because of this thread ,that there are things I can improve.
> 
> I was envious of one your posts this week where you managed 5 and 6 steps with Alfie, its taken me this long to get that far.


It was obviously a fluke that day, he's not been as good since and today was an absolute disaster 

Recall is next on my list  It's definitely patchy. I'd say 95-98% when we're on our own... throw another dog into the mix and it drops significantly :001_unsure: He's generally worse if it's a dog we've never seen before (a NEW dog, a NEW friend) which, of course, is exactly the sort of dog he absolutely should NOT be approaching without permission as I have no idea if it's friendly, DA, scared, nervous, fearful etc etc


----------



## kat&molly

Not too bad again this morning, I discovered a new thing to try with Moll, she still has the occasional lunge and silly moment-I got her to sit each time and then she focused on me and the ball. Why is it always the silly little things that we never think of trying, that make a difference!!
Evie isn't allowed off lead along this track but when the others go off I extend her Flexi-her and Scruff are learning that they cant sniff until then. 
Every now and again I will put Moll or Scruff back on to do just 20/30 steps then let them go again.
I know its only the beginning but I really feel like we are getting somewhere now- I need to start adding little variations now like walking around a barn before we head up the track- that will be a challenge.


----------



## theevos5

Cannot even begin to describe how disappointed,deflated and pi$$ed off I am

Today I took Alf as hubby normally walks him of a weekend,but I wanted to make sure his training was kept on course and that solution was that I would take him.
So, he recalled away from digging,he recalled away from playing,chewing grass(his most fav thing ever) and I was very smugly patting myself on the back and what is it they say about being too cocky??? All this was over a period of about an hr and a half so he was reliably that whole time and then suddenly he just bolted
At that point I wasn't too bothered as he does always come back and its never been for more than a minute or 2.So I carried on walking and whistling and calling and after about 5 mins I thought I better look for him,he had gone into woods,I looked for a couple of minutes and someone shouted he had gone back to where I had last seen him and he was on his way over to me

So I treated him for coming back and then at that moment decided that if I clipped his lead on he would associate coming back as being put back on his lead so I left himhe immediately went again back in to the woods and I didn't see him again for another 10 mins.This time I immediately put him on his lead
By this time I was a bit panicky.The woods is where the armed police where searching the other day and I felt very vunerable and a little bit scared.I had no signal on my phone and I did have a bit of a wobble.

So although,Alf is here to stay and I won't consider ever not having him here.I am a bit jittery that maybe I am not good enough to sort out these issues.I have worked so hard on his recall,we have had a trainer who admitted that that was as good as we were going to get with him,he will never be 100%.I know it is his breed and I know he is headstrong and stubborn,it is just when his nose kicks in he is head down and gone I just feel like all this training has been for nothing,I am annoyed with myself and also a bit tearful and can't see a way forward,what do I do??


----------



## Coffee

theevos5 said:


> Cannot even begin to describe how disappointed,deflated and pi$$ed off I am
> 
> Today I took Alf as hubby normally walks him of a weekend,but I wanted to make sure his training was kept on course and that solution was that I would take him.
> So, he recalled away from digging,he recalled away from playing,chewing grass(his most fav thing ever) and I was very smugly patting myself on the back and what is it they say about being too cocky??? All this was over a period of about an hr and a half so he was reliably that whole time and then suddenly he just bolted
> At that point I wasn't too bothered as he does always come back and its never been for more than a minute or 2.So I carried on walking and whistling and calling and after about 5 mins I thought I better look for him,he had gone into woods,I looked for a couple of minutes and someone shouted he had gone back to where I had last seen him and he was on his way over to me
> 
> So I treated him for coming back and then at that moment decided that if I clipped his lead on he would associate coming back as being put back on his lead so I left himhe immediately went again back in to the woods and I didn't see him again for another 10 mins.This time I immediately put him on his lead
> By this time I was a bit panicky.The woods is where the armed police where searching the other day and I felt very vunerable and a little bit scared.I had no signal on my phone and I did have a bit of a wobble.
> 
> So although,Alf is here to stay and I won't consider ever not having him here.I am a bit jittery that maybe I am not good enough to sort out these issues.I have worked so hard on his recall,we have had a trainer who admitted that that was as good as we were going to get with him,he will never be 100%.I know it is his breed and I know he is headstrong and stubborn,it is just when his nose kicks in he is head down and gone I just feel like all this training has been for nothing,I am annoyed with myself and also a bit tearful and can't see a way forward,what do I do??


Firstly have a weirdy but heartfelt internet <<hug>> from me 

Secondly, don't be so hard on yourself okay? I can so relate to your post and how you're feeling, I often feel the same with Alfie - his recall is hit and miss and we can have 2 or 3 really good days and I'll think "my god, he's getting it, he really is " then we'll have a terrible walk with lots of selected deaf-ness going on and it's like a kick in the teeth and I feel right back to square one again 

All your training has definitely NOT been for nothing! Don't forget you have a Beagle - a mischievious, stubborn, headstrong monkey of a breed that a lot of owners NEVER let off the lead at all  So you're doing fantastically well that he gets all the off-lead time that he does 

All we can do, all of us, is pick ourselves up and carry on. Keep going with the training, keep working with our naughty pooches and hope we get there in the end


----------



## cravensmum

theevos5 said:


> Cannot even begin to describe how disappointed,deflated and pi$$ed off I am
> 
> Today I took Alf as hubby normally walks him of a weekend,but I wanted to make sure his training was kept on course and that solution was that I would take him.
> So, he recalled away from digging,he recalled away from playing,chewing grass(his most fav thing ever) and I was very smugly patting myself on the back and what is it they say about being too cocky??? All this was over a period of about an hr and a half so he was reliably that whole time and then suddenly he just bolted
> At that point I wasn't too bothered as he does always come back and its never been for more than a minute or 2.So I carried on walking and whistling and calling and after about 5 mins I thought I better look for him,he had gone into woods,I looked for a couple of minutes and someone shouted he had gone back to where I had last seen him and he was on his way over to me
> 
> So I treated him for coming back and then at that moment decided that if I clipped his lead on he would associate coming back as being put back on his lead so I left himhe immediately went again back in to the woods and I didn't see him again for another 10 mins.This time I immediately put him on his lead
> By this time I was a bit panicky.The woods is where the armed police where searching the other day and I felt very vunerable and a little bit scared.I had no signal on my phone and I did have a bit of a wobble.
> 
> So although,Alf is here to stay and I won't consider ever not having him here.I am a bit jittery that maybe I am not good enough to sort out these issues.I have worked so hard on his recall,we have had a trainer who admitted that that was as good as we were going to get with him,he will never be 100%.I know it is his breed and I know he is headstrong and stubborn,it is just when his nose kicks in he is head down and gone I just feel like all this training has been for nothing,I am annoyed with myself and also a bit tearful and can't see a way forward,what do I do??


Oh how I feel for you,and I wish I knew the answer. Flint does this,he's away for a couple of minutes,but he always comes back and I can live with that,I just make sure we are nowhere near roads/railways etc.

But when Craven does it,and it's always near woods,he can disappear for anything up to an hour,the annoying thing is he doesn't go far,I can usually see him or hear him,but he doesn't take any notice of me when he has the smell of something,usually a deer.
Again he always comes back,but only when he is ready,and I can't break that cycle.

Please don't be so hard on yourself though,at the end of the day Alfie is a Beagle  one of the hardest dogs to train to go offlead,and a lot of people have given up with their Beagles before Alfie's age.

No practical help I'm afraid,but you are not alone.


----------



## theevos5

Coffee said:


> Firstly have a weirdy but heartfelt internet <<hug>> from me
> 
> Secondly, don't be so hard on yourself okay? I can so relate to your post and how you're feeling, I often feel the same with Alfie - his recall is hit and miss and we can have 2 or 3 really good days and I'll think "my god, he's getting it, he really is " then we'll have a terrible walk with lots of selected deaf-ness going on and it's like a kick in the teeth and I feel right back to square one again
> 
> All your training has definitely NOT been for nothing! Don't forget you have a Beagle - a mischievious, stubborn, headstrong monkey of a breed that a lot of owners NEVER let off the lead at all  So you're doing fantastically well that he gets all the off-lead time that he does
> 
> All we can do, all of us, is pick ourselves up and carry on. Keep going with the training, keep working with our naughty pooches and hope we get there in the end


Thank you so much for this lovely posting,I was just having a we are not worthy moment,hopefully tomorrow will be better



cravensmum said:


> Oh how I feel for you,and I wish I knew the answer. Flint does this,he's away for a couple of minutes,but he always comes back and I can live with that,I just make sure we are nowhere near roads/railways etc.
> 
> But when Craven does it,and it's always near woods,he can disappear for anything up to an hour,the annoying thing is he doesn't go far,I can usually see him or hear him,but he doesn't take any notice of me when he has the smell of something,usually a deer.
> Again he always comes back,but only when he is ready,and I can't break that cycle.
> 
> Please don't be so hard on yourself though,at the end of the day Alfie is a Beagle  one of the hardest dogs to train to go offlead,and a lot of people have given up with their Beagles before Alfie's age.
> 
> No practical help I'm afraid,but you are not alone.


Thank you,the frustrating part is,that I know he does want to come to me,when he comes back is running so fast,ears flapping,tail wagging and greets me like a long lost friendmy friend who is a dog walker said,it's like he just can't help himself and the smells totally have to come first.
we are hopefully still coming to the foxhound welfare day in cheshire,so will have to find a safe place for them to have a play!


----------



## cravensmum

theevos5 said:


> we are hopefully still coming to the foxhound welfare day in cheshire,so will have to find a safe place for them to have a play!


It would be great to see you,I'm hoping that with it being a dog training centre and with all those foxhounds and other dogs that they will have a secure area to let them have a play.


----------



## kat&molly

theevos5, sorry you had a bad walk
I have to say without trying to make it sound like I'm making excuses but out of thedogs I've owned or grown up with, Evie is my biggest challenge and I swear thats because she's a scenthound.
Like Cravensmum, I missed all the puppy time because she's a rescue as well- but I really dont think even if I'd have had her from a pup she would be biddable like Molly or even my Terriers. She sounds like Flint and will always return within 2 minutes-I'm happy with that, as long as theres no roads and no livestock I let her off. If she ignores me I either walk off or fetch her back, she does panic if she cant find me.

I would love another Teckel later on and it'd be great if someone came along to tell me they had really relaxing walks with a scenthound that can go offlead anywhere.
Chin up


----------



## moonviolet

theevos5 said:


> So although,Alf is here to stay and I won't consider ever not having him here.I am a bit jittery that maybe I am not good enough to sort out these issues.I have worked so hard on his recall,we have had a trainer who admitted that that was as good as we were going to get with him,he will never be 100%.I know it is his breed and I know he is headstrong and stubborn,it is just when his nose kicks in he is head down and gone I just feel like all this training has been for nothing,I am annoyed with myself and also a bit tearful and can't see a way forward,what do I do??


First here's another hug from me. Don't be annoyed with yourself, although i understand it and i've shed more than a few tears over my floppy eared beastie. I will happily tell you all the things i've done and do and support in every way I can.

One thing I don't think i've mentioned before is if you can identify danger areas where he's often finding interesting scents, lead up in advance and have a fun training session, easy peasy stuff you know he will get right, buckets of praise lots of tasty stuff. Then move along swiftly getting well out of the area before letting him off again. Doing this with her ladyship she started looking for the interactions without bothering with the scents.

Another thought does his body language change when he goes from casual sniffing to a serious scent. Tinks tail flies up her body lowers, if i catch her at the very moment it changes I can break her concentration. Especially as she's conditioned to stay reasonably close even when off lead.

Hang in there you are doing so well and I still maintain the boys are more challenging than the girls so to have him off lead at all is a heroic feat. Wishing you a better day tomorrow


----------



## theevos5

kat&molly said:


> theevos5, sorry you had a bad walk
> I have to say without trying to make it sound like I'm making excuses but out of thedogs I've owned or grown up with, Evie is my biggest challenge and I swear thats because she's a scenthound.
> Like Cravensmum, I missed all the puppy time because she's a rescue as well- but I really dont think even if I'd have had her from a pup she would be biddable like Molly or even my Terriers. She sounds like Flint and will always return within 2 minutes-I'm happy with that, as long as theres no roads and no livestock I let her off. If she ignores me I either walk off or fetch her back, she does panic if she cant find me.
> I would love another Teckel later on and it'd be great if someone came along to tell me they had really relaxing walks with a scenthound that can go offlead anywhere.
> Chin up


Thanks
That's the thing with Alf,he doesn't care whether he can see you or not and that's hard to manipulateI do hide from him and I watch him looking for me and then if a sniff kicks in or there is some tasty grass to munch,he will go for thatThat's the great thing with us scenthound owners,we sympathise and know what we are all going through!I am also happy if Alf sticks to his normal 2mins bogging off,he is away from roads and in my opinion safe but today because he was out of sight for so long it really unsettled me!



moonviolet said:


> First here's another hug from me. Don't be annoyed with yourself, although i understand it and i've shed more than a few tears over my floppy eared beastie. I will happily tell you all the things i've done and do and support in every way I can.
> 
> One thing I don't think i've mentioned before is if you can identify danger areas where he's often finding interesting scents, lead up in advance and have a fun training session, easy peasy stuff you know he will get right, buckets of praise lots of tasty stuff. Then move along swiftly getting well out of the area before letting him off again. Doing this with her ladyship she started looking for the interactions without bothering with the scents.
> 
> Another thought does his body language change when he goes from casual sniffing to a serious scent. Tinks tail flies up her body lowers, if i catch her at the very moment it changes I can break her concentration. Especially as she's conditioned to stay reasonably close even when off lead.
> 
> Hang in there you are doing so well and I still maintain the boys are more challenging than the girls so to have him off lead at all is a heroic feat. Wishing you a better day tomorrow


Thank you,I tend to have him on and off lead,at danger places,throughout the walk,so when he is onlead we are playing lots of recall games,hide the treat etc and keep his brain going and his focus on me.I don't know whether it's a change in weather,therefore more smells,or it is the fact that there is someone seeking refuge in the woods away from police and they may have food etc there-I didn't get close enough to investigate!But this sudden change is soul destroying after all the training we have put in.
I always have very small biscuits that I throw for him to gofind and this is normally one of our distraction games to get him past certain points in our walk and he is also not allowed off lead near the killer pond where he got impaled
Like you said I am constantly watching his body language,and he too goes really close to the ground and his flag(tail) goes poker straight when he is tracking!he is incredibly fast and can be gone in seconds
I really don't want to put him back on his longline permanently as I feel he would miss out so much on what he has gained,I would prefer to work through it and hopefully find a solution or a method that works.
Love this forum and all the help and supports you guys give Thank you x


----------



## Dogless

I have just got back and picked up the Boy Wonder...so tomorrow the training begins again - we were doing so well in the main before I went that I hope it's not all been forgotten in 6 days .

It's been great catching up again with the highs and lows of this thread - loads of gold stars all round and the odd naughty black mark . The great thing is the support that everyone is gaining - so a black mark day is commiserated over and then turns into a gold star day eventually .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I have just got back and picked up the Boy Wonder...so tomorrow the training begins again - we were doing so well in the main before I went that I hope it's not all been forgotten in 6 days .
> 
> It's been great catching up again with the highs and lows of this thread - loads of gold stars all round and the odd naughty black mark . The great thing is the support that everyone is gaining - so a black mark day is commiserated over and then turns into a gold star day eventually .


Good to have you back
It really has been a great thread hasn't it.


----------



## theevos5

Wellllll.......
we have had 2 good days after our awful Saturday walk,I am in no way thinking that he may have been frightened and has decided to stay close as I know if the mood takes him again,he will be off.Yesterdays walk,me and OH went together and did lots of training,sit,stays etc and he was resonably well behaved and did not wander at all:dita:
Todays walk was excellent,did some recalls on lead etc,like I do every walk,let him off,didn't wander at all again,didn't put a paw wrong at all so he is my superstar
I know tomorrow can be a totally different walk,and that is part of the deal of owning Alf,I think I have come to the mindset that I work hard with him,we have good and bad days,not to take it too personally and just roll with it!He is a scenthound,I chose to get one!!I can't change his breeding and the other things that come with his breeding like his character,he snuggles,his non aggressive nature and his beagle arooos all outweigh his occasional bugger offI love him incredibly and today has been a good day


----------



## Dogless

Well done Alfie .

We had a gold star morning; did our hour and a half in the park all LLW and didn't use the headcollar once. Kilo was definitely my best boy .

We had a horrid 5 minutes where the lab that runs over barking and growling did so yet again - I couldn't get Kilo to lie down as he was lunging in his face, so I tried to walk off quickly but he followed us being really aggressive - I lost Kilo' focus and he responded. I left Kilo's lead long ish so he didn't feel trapped but the lab's owner grabbed it near to his collar until I asked her to let go and get her dog. She caught hers eventually and apologised to me as she always does. The consensus from the small group of nosey parkers was that labs are friendly and as hers was off lead and my dog was on I must know he is aggressive . Kilo was lip - licking and panting, so I just walked around the edge of the field until he wasn't showing any signs of stress and then carried on.


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Alfie, sounds like he may be back on track
I let Evie off somewhere yesterday that I dont normally, but no livestock or roads so I went for it. She found a scent and was running around frantic, tail whizzing 10 to the dozen. I blew the whistle and walked off- and she came, I was very proud Why does she always make me feel like there's an epic fail waiting just around the corner:ihih:


Kilo was a good boy again, but the other woman grabbing hold of him whilst her dog is running around. Flaming cheek

I came back from shopping on Saturday to see OH just leaving the house to walk the dogs- they were boinging all over the place- which I dont allow, and he knows it. I flew out the car , got them back under control and went off with him- it was quite a bad walk they played up and OH had the cheek to comment that they hadn't improved and was laughing at me. I was bloody furious with him He meant well but could have undone all the hard work I'd put in!!

Luckily yesterday and today has been back on 'track', still along way to go but we are getting there


----------



## Dogless

Well done Evie . I know what you mean about OHs undoing the work that you have put in unintentionally too......


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## moonviolet

Nice work Alfie  Gold stars 



Dogless said:


> We had a horrid 5 minutes where the lab that runs over barking and growling did so yet again - I couldn't get Kilo to lie down as he was lunging in his face, so I tried to walk off quickly but he followed us being really aggressive - I lost Kilo' focus and he responded. I left Kilo's lead long ish so he didn't feel trapped but the lab's owner grabbed it near to his collar until I asked her to let go and get her dog. She caught hers eventually and apologised to me as she always does. The consensus from the small group of nosey parkers was that labs are friendly and as hers was off lead and my dog was on I must know he is aggressive . Kilo was lip - licking and panting, so I just walked around the edge of the field until he wasn't showing any signs of stress and then carried on.


Forgive me for being the resident hag,(actually i'm beginning to enjoy "old, mean and miserable") Sorry only means something if you prevent it happening again ... and again ... and again. Which this woman is proving unwilling or incapable of doing. It's not fair on or you Kilo as this is someone you are regualrly encountering and you are possibly like me are not keen on using aversives...have you tried lobing a handful of treats before walking off or could you work on desensitising boywonder to an umbrella and use it to hide behind and break lab from hell's focus on Kilo? I guess a coat could do the same job. Or failing that i'll come over there and sort her and the nosey parkers out :ihih: In all seriousness what have you got to lose?



kat&molly said:


> I let Evie off somewhere yesterday that I dont normally, but no livestock or roads so I went for it. She found a scent and was running around frantic, tail whizzing 10 to the dozen. I blew the whistle and walked off- and she came, I was very proud


Well done Evie  surely a gold star for that one?



kat&molly said:


> I came back from shopping on Saturday to see OH just leaving the house to walk the dogs- they were boinging all over the place- which I dont allow, and he knows it. I flew out the car , got them back under control and went off with him- it was quite a bad walk they played up and OH had the cheek to comment that they hadn't improved and was laughing at me. I was bloody furious with him He meant well but could have undone all the hard work I'd put in!!
> 
> Luckily yesterday and today has been back on 'track', still along way to go but we are getting there


 Reminds me something my friend said the other day.... I train the dog, my OH untrains them !

Tink has been having it easy at the moment remote walks and classes over the weekend. A nice long walk with a doggie pal this morning and we bumped into a couple more doggie friends too. So no challenges except for the one I had this morning I gave up smoking on saturday and found a dropped cigarette packet with 2 cigarettes in on the walk today. I picked it up and put them on the bin out of doggies reach and carried on walking


----------



## Coffee

Well done Moonviolet - did you tell yourself "leave it"?   Seriously though, massive well done to you for giving up the evil weed - I know I couldn't do it 

Dogless - lovely to 'see' you back  Well done Kilo for all the fab LLW and a virtual <slap> for the lab's owner. Have to say I agree with Moonviolet - the apology is pretty worthless in my opinion if she keeps letting it happen over and over again 

kat&molly- huge gold star to Evie and credit to you too, your hard work is paying off 

thevo5 - so chuffed for you that Alfie's been better for you  Onwards and upwards!

It's been a mixed couple of days here  yesterday we didn't see a soul for almost the whole walk and Alfie was totally focused on me... he kept checking to see where I was, looking back at me and I kept hiding behind trees and bushes and calling him, whereby he would shoot to me looking all pleased with himself  At the very end as we were leaving the park he recalled away from a little JRT that we know who doesn't like other dogs. He was heading for him but I called him and ran the other way and he shot back to my side in a flash. All good.

This morning though was a bit of a disaster. He displayed some pretty odd behaviour I've never seen him do before and I'd appreciate opinions. He bolted 3 or 4 times  to the same place each time, head down, nose practically glued to the ground. It wasn't 3 or 4 times immediately one after the other... when he was coming back I was playing with him and engaging him, getting him to do some basic commands so I could try and get his focus and reward with treats and praise. Then I'd think he was fine, release him to go play/sniff/run and off he'd go again... first time he bolted immediately again but the other times were up to 20 minutes later  Now, he's not normally a dog to get a scent and shoot after it, it's not generally his 'thing'  He was even ignoring his friends, the 2 Dallies and the Beagle in pursuit of this "whatever it was"... one of my friends suggested maybe it was the scent of a bitch in season?

The LLW continues to be a work in progress  What I am finding helps things though is having the lead very short so he's pretty much 'forced' to be by my side. It seems to help in 2 ways - firstly because he's closer to me it's easier to C&T him every time we get a slack lead and secondly, when he does pull he's not able to put much strength into it so my arms/shoulders haven't been too bad these last couple of days. So, instead of having to fold up my lead 3/4 times to make it short, I've ordered a 12" Ezydog lead from Amazon so hoping that comes soon


----------



## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> Reminds me something my friend said the other day.... I train the dog, my OH untrains them !





Dogless said:


> Well done Evie . I know what you mean about OHs undoing the work that you have put in unintentionally too......





kat&molly said:


> I came back from shopping on Saturday to see OH just leaving the house to walk the dogs- they were boinging all over the place- which I dont allow, and he knows it. I flew out the car , got them back under control and went off with him- it was quite a bad walk they played up and OH had the cheek to comment that they hadn't improved and was laughing at me. I was bloody furious with him He meant well but could have undone all the hard work I'd put in!!


I am in exactly the same position hence the reasoning behind me taking Alf this weekend and not OH,I have since found out that OH has been allowing Alf to just knob off and dig whilst he has been chatting,and when he hasn't responded to his recalls,he has left him to carry on digging,hence the not listening and wanting to dig on our walks
One lady hit the nail on the head with our walking Alf,she said'that poor girl spends all week working so hard training that dog and he comes along and wrecks it every weekend'


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Forgive me for being the resident hag,(actually i'm beginning to enjoy "old, mean and miserable") Sorry only means something if you prevent it happening again ... and again ... and again. Which this woman is proving unwilling or incapable of doing. It's not fair on or you Kilo as this is someone you are regualrly encountering and you are possibly like me are not keen on using aversives...have you tried lobing a handful of treats before walking off or could you work on desensitising boywonder to an umbrella and use it to hide behind and break lab from hell's focus on Kilo? I guess a coat could do the same job. Or failing that i'll come over there and sort her and the nosey parkers out :ihih: In all seriousness what have you got to lose?


We are doing well with lying down and me stepping in front when it's just lively labs, but that wasn't succeeding today with this one being aggressive. The lady sees us and recalls her dog but he never goes back to her - then always worries that Kilo will hurt her dog I think, hence grabbing his lead to try and restrain him rather than removing her dog which does in fact solve the problem . I thought about lobbing treats but do get wary of chucking them when I don't know how the other dog is around food.



Coffee said:


> It's been a mixed couple of days here  yesterday we didn't see a soul for almost the whole walk and Alfie was totally focused on me... he kept checking to see where I was, looking back at me and I kept hiding behind trees and bushes and calling him, whereby he would shoot to me looking all pleased with himself  At the very end as we were leaving the park he recalled away from a little JRT that we know who doesn't like other dogs. He was heading for him but I called him and ran the other way and he shot back to my side in a flash. All good.
> 
> This morning though was a bit of a disaster. He displayed some pretty odd behaviour I've never seen him do before and I'd appreciate opinions. He bolted 3 or 4 times  to the same place each time, head down, nose practically glued to the ground. It wasn't 3 or 4 times immediately one after the other... when he was coming back I was playing with him and engaging him, getting him to do some basic commands so I could try and get his focus and reward with treats and praise. Then I'd think he was fine, release him to go play/sniff/run and off he'd go again... first time he bolted immediately again but the other times were up to 20 minutes later  Now, he's not normally a dog to get a scent and shoot after it, it's not generally his 'thing'  He was even ignoring his friends, the 2 Dallies and the Beagle in pursuit of this "whatever it was"... one of my friends suggested maybe it was the scent of a bitch in season?
> 
> The LLW continues to be a work in progress  What I am finding helps things though is having the lead very short so he's pretty much 'forced' to be by my side. It seems to help in 2 ways - firstly because he's closer to me it's easier to C&T him every time we get a slack lead and secondly, when he does pull he's not able to put much strength into it so my arms/shoulders haven't been too bad these last couple of days. So, instead of having to fold up my lead 3/4 times to make it short, I've ordered a 12" Ezydog lead from Amazon so hoping that comes soon


Sounds like the scent of a bitch perhaps - Kilo teeth chatters and drools like crazy if that is what it is - does Alfie do that?



theevos5 said:


> I am in exactly the same position hence the reasoning behind me taking Alf this weekend and not OH,I have since found out that OH has been allowing Alf to just knob off and dig whilst he has been chatting,and when he hasn't responded to his recalls,he has left him to carry on digging,hence the not listening and wanting to dig on our walks
> One lady hit the nail on the head with our walking Alf,she said't*hat poor girl spends all week working so hard training that dog and he comes along and wrecks it every weekend'*


Oh dear . Hope OH has been suitably reprimanded :devil:.


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## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Sounds like the scent of a bitch perhaps - Kilo teeth chatters and drools like crazy if that is what it is - does Alfie do that?


His teeth weren't chattering but yes, he was drooling & panting (I'd originally thought that was just because of the running but am thinking possibly otherwise now) and his eyes looked wild, like he was massively excited by something :001_unsure:


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet- well done keep it up I stopped for 2 months in January but started again in March.  I 'm going to get some Champix soon to do it properly next time!!!

Evos5- No wonder Alfie's been naughty for you lately
I panicked so much when I saw OH with the dogs that I left all the shopping in the car whilst we went off for a walk-it was really hot as well on Saturday, milk, meat the lot- we'll probably get food poisoning this week

Coffee-it does sound like a bitch doesn't it?

LLW was so-so today but Evie done well in this new place again. She does seem to have gotten much better lately and I think it helps that the others are good as she cant lead them astray- but I just dont think I'll ever be able to trust her like the others. 

I'm in total shock-Evie is getting Gold stars


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I'm in total shock-Evie is getting Gold stars


We all knew she was a model pupil really :ihih:.


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> We all knew she was a model pupil really :ihih:.


:laugh::laugh::laugh: Now that did make me laugh!!
Seriously , she been very good lately. Perhaps she was in a Teenage' stage when she came last year or its taken this long to settle down, I dont know, she's fussier as well. I'm not complaining, its lovely but I cant help thinking she's leading me in to a false sense of security


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> We are doing well with lying down and me stepping in front when it's just lively labs, but that wasn't succeeding today with this one being aggressive. The lady sees us and recalls her dog but he never goes back to her - then always worries that Kilo will hurt her dog I think, hence grabbing his lead to try and restrain him rather than removing her dog which does in fact solve the problem . I thought about lobbing treats but do get wary of chucking them when I don't know how the other dog is around food.


I understand about the food thing and to be honest if the dog's being aggressive they're probably not going to notice. I do hope this woman swims out of denial soon and takes responsibilty for her dogs behaviour. It's so hard on you and Kilo as you work on his lab thing as this one is repeatedly reinforcing the ideas Kilo already has about them. I had similar problems with a couple of gsd's that undid all the positive steps was taking with Tink.



kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- well done keep it up I stopped for 2 months in January but started again in March.  I 'm going to get some Champix soon to do it properly next time!!!


So far so good. over 48 hours now and a few "leave it's" and distracting onto an approved actvity and i'm doing ok 

Evening walk was good, saw a muzzled leonberger in the parking area. Muzzled because "he's a bit boisterous" One muzzle punch from him could break a rib, A quick convo about he weather and i wished them a pleasant walk as I took my time getting Tink out of the car and watched which they headed and went the other way. Promptly heard handbags coming from the other way as the leonberger was receiving a lesson in etiquette from a springer. Tink paused she hates the sounds of conflict. a cheery voice and off we went.

Did a bit of lurking and watched some noisy kids on bikes not scary from a safe distance, Tomorrow a lunchtime a slow walk past the primary school playground is planned. At least that way we can't get mobbed.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I understand about the food thing and to be honest if the dog's being aggressive they're probably not going to notice. I do hope this woman swims out of denial soon and takes responsibilty for her dogs behaviour. It's so hard on you and Kilo as you work on his lab thing as this one is repeatedly reinforcing the ideas Kilo already has about them. I had similar problems with a couple of gsd's that undid all the positive steps was taking with Tink.
> 
> That is what is more frustrating than anything - hard work being undone. This lab was one of the initial triggers for the 'lab issue' and remains a problem. I even walked a big arc around them - went on the field when they were on the path - and stopped at a distance so that the lady could get her dog back. She even said 'sorry, I know you are training' as her dog ran up and then apologised afterwards as ever. I know he's stressed for a good while afterwards as he lip licks and scans around.
> 
> So far so good. over 48 hours now and a few "leave it's" and distracting onto an approved actvity and i'm doing ok
> 
> You might find a stagbar helps - hours of chewing to keep you occupied .
> 
> Evening walk was good, saw a muzzled leonberger in the parking area. Muzzled because "he's a bit boisterous" One muzzle punch from him could break a rib, A quick convo about he weather and i wished them a pleasant walk as I took my time getting Tink out of the car and watched which they headed and went the other way. Promptly heard handbags coming from the other way as the leonberger was receiving a lesson in etiquette from a springer. Tink paused she hates the sounds of conflict. a cheery voice and off we went.
> 
> Did a bit of lurking and watched some noisy kids on bikes not scary from a safe distance, Tomorrow a lunchtime a slow walk past the primary school playground is planned. At least that way we can't get mobbed.


I predict another gold star day for Miss Tink tomorrow - think she's the best behaved dog here .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I predict another gold star day for Miss Tink tomorrow - think she's the best behaved dog here .


I failed to mention that half way through class on sunday she went on strike and had to sniff every single inch of the floor before charging back to me with a " what?!" look on her face. Totally my fault as she had been working hard and needed a break.

Then after class she tried to infiltrate the puppy socialisation class that followed ours by accepting an offer to play 

Am I a bad owner that I love this kind of naughty?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I failed to mention that half way through class on sunday she went on strike and had to sniff every single inch of the floor before charging back to me with a " what?!" look on her face. Totally my fault as she had been working hard and needed a break.
> 
> Then after class she tried to infiltrate the puppy socialisation class that followed ours by accepting an offer to play
> 
> Am I a bad owner that I love this kind of naughty?


I think it's a very endearing version of naughty .


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## kat&molly

I have to agree, Tink is a very good girl

But she needs to watch out, Evie is clicking at her heels Singing:


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## Dotte

Delighted this morning  As you prob know Bry has refused to learn "drop/give" since we got him, no matter how much high value treats I offer/lure with it just isn't as tempting as a used nappy or a plastic fork, but today we had some results  

I didn't feed him this morning cuz we were walking down to my bf's mother, it's about an hours walk so I didn't want him to walk on a full stomach, but I had his kibble in my pocket for his brekkie and he dropped EVERYTHING I wanted him to  He still turned a deaf ear to my "leave it" but he dropped it when I had the kibble in my hand 

Hehe who knew all I needed was a starving dog and kibble of the worst quality ever?


----------



## Dogless

Well done Bryson - gold star for you too .

We had a fab morning; I drove to a park that we go to now and again as it's a fair way away, but not too far from PAH that I needed to go to, so we went today. Kilo did very well with his LLW and focus on me, we met a few dogs he's met before and he had some nice play and then met a friendly black lab that came over slowly - they both sniffed and had a play and then the same again with a choc lab...no humping, no tense body language . My best boy can have a gold star . We also met a small terrier who always runs over and stays with us - 35 minutes today whilst his owner just walks around the park out of sight...she never looks back to see where he is and never, ever says 'Good morning' or even looks at you when you greet her...weird :crazy:.

We then went into PAH and Kilo walked round nicely and had some fuss off a lady he really took to which is unusual for him then _got straight on the scales for the second visit in a row _. I think we may have finally conquered the scales issue . He has dropped over a kg which I had suspected so is on extra rations because he's looking skinny again.


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## kat&molly

Well done Bryson, its amazing what a bit of 'bribery' can do 

Special Gold Stars with bells on for Kilo playing with Labs
Just goes to show the difference a polite greeting can make, you must have been really pleased .
LLW so-so again this morning. Any time I put just 1 dog on a lead its perfect, but all together and not so good OH has taken Jay and Scruff out with him to see someone, I've only got Moll and Evie so I'm going now to try a further more challenging walk through the village. See how we go, I think my timing is a bit cack as well


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## moonviolet

Dotte said:


> Delighted this morning  As you prob know Bry has refused to learn "drop/give" since we got him, no matter how much high value treats I offer/lure with it just isn't as tempting as a used nappy or a plastic fork, but today we had some results
> 
> I didn't feed him this morning cuz we were walking down to my bf's mother, it's about an hours walk so I didn't want him to walk on a full stomach, but I had his kibble in my pocket for his brekkie and he dropped EVERYTHING I wanted him to  He still turned a deaf ear to my "leave it" but he dropped it when I had the kibble in my hand
> 
> Hehe who knew all I needed was a starving dog and kibble of the worst quality ever?


Go Bryson. HE just wanted to show off his 'drop' 

Woohoo Kilo, no humping and playing what a superstar 

K&M good luck with Moll and Evie 

Got caught on phone with my mother so missed the primary school lunch time.. I'll try again tomorrow


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## Dogless

A gold star afternoon too - best boy . Off to watch a training class in a short while without Kilo to see what it is like .


----------



## Tigerneko

urgh, just had a really bad moment with Tiger!

One of my dog grooming customers just popped round to make an appointment, my mum answered the door, not expecting a bloomin dog to be standing there, and didn't grab Tiger quickly enough. I didn't see what happened but she says he had a real go at her  he hasn't caused any damage but I was upstairs and I heard a load of barking and snarling!

Unfortunately it was unavoidable. This lady knows I have a dog that doesn't mix with others very well, so I don't know why she brought her dog to the door with her. I know it's warm but she could easily have left her in the car for the 30 seconds it took to sort out a time.

Other than that I haven't been updating because there's been nothing to report! Sticking to road walks, especially with the nice weather & the amount of fair weather walkers that will be out!


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## paddyjulie

Well.......it's Day 1 of trying to sort out Chester's fear aggression...had to change our direction once on our walk away from a dog and it worked pretty well..no growling whatsoever from him..but he is extremely tired as he has been up in the fells today so, tomorrow could be a very different day....


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## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> urgh, just had a really bad moment with Tiger!
> 
> One of my dog grooming customers just popped round to make an appointment, my mum answered the door, not expecting a bloomin dog to be standing there, and didn't grab Tiger quickly enough. I didn't see what happened but she says he had a real go at her  he hasn't caused any damage but I was upstairs and I heard a load of barking and snarling!
> 
> Unfortunately it was unavoidable. This lady knows I have a dog that doesn't mix with others very well, so I don't know why she brought her dog to the door with her. I know it's warm but she could easily have left her in the car for the 30 seconds it took to sort out a time.
> 
> Other than that I haven't been updating because there's been nothing to report! Sticking to road walks, especially with the nice weather & the amount of fair weather walkers that will be out!


Aww shame the lady brought her dog to the door, Poor Tiger, I must have been a shock to find a dog on the doorstep. 



paddyjulie said:


> Well.......it's Day 1 of trying to sort out Chester's fear aggression...had to change our direction once on our walk away from a dog and it worked pretty well..no growling whatsoever from him..but he is extremely tired as he has been up in the fells today so, tomorrow could be a very different day....


A good start for Day 1, hope day 2 is as successful


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## Dogless

Well, I like the trainer (although apparently lots of people are scared of him ) and the way that his class was run. He discussed early neutering with an owner and gave them the pros and cons rather than 'neuter now' which is what I often hear and I am in awe of his very well behaved 9 month old BC that he had there tonight . So, next Tuesday the BW and I go back to school - I'm nervous but determined not to let Kilo down  .

Just the accent that I may have dramas with as the trainer's is strong and the hall is echoey Singing: .


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet-Good luck with Tink tomorrow- she'll be fine I'm sure.

I've just downloaded the book you mentioned. 

Dogless- hope the new class looks good. We have a new Trainer arrived not far away and I'm thinking of trying her out.

Tigerneko, I think one of mine would be upset at a strange dog at the door!!
Paddyjulie- good luck for day 2.

Hope the 2 Alfies have earned gold stars today

I have had a:idea: moment today!!! Why have I not realised before now that my girls dont think they should be on leads at all It's my own fault , leads are used for A to B. This afternoon I made them walk much further and over the tracks , poor Moll kept looking at me really confused!!! Every time she tried to pull down on to a different walk I made them go further. I dont want to deprive them of the free running they always have but I'm going to start making sure they earn it first.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I have had a:idea: moment today!!! Why have I not realised before now that my girls dont think they should be on leads at all It's my own fault , leads are used for A to B. This afternoon I made them walk much further and over the tracks , poor Moll kept looking at me really confused!!! Every time she tried to pull down on to a different walk I made them go further. I dont want to deprive them of the free running they always have but I'm going to start making sure they earn it first.


That seems to make sense . Good luck .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> That seems to make sense . Good luck .


It does make sense doesn't it, I'm such a dimwit at times
I've been keeping it short because they get frustrated- we're just going to have to work through it. Apart from being confused Moll was fab, once she realised she wasn't getting what she was expecting:001_tt2:


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> It does make sense doesn't it, I'm such a dimwit at times
> I've been keeping it short because they get frustrated- we're just going to have to work through it. Apart from being confused Moll was fab, once she realised she wasn't getting what she was expecting:001_tt2:


It really does; I sometimes also randomly put Kilo's lead on when he is on a walk and let him off again for walking nicely as I found before that lead on = something exciting up ahead so I'll try and pull to see what it is.


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## kat&molly

Wow, that was frustrating
I've made them all walk for over an hour- no offlead at all. Moll got it after 10 long minutes, Scruff was pretty horrendous. Evie sulked because I didn't let her sniff and roll.
I cant do that later but I will make them walk for a good hour first before I let them off. It goes against the grain for me to keep them on, and I actually feel really guilty


Can someone tell me if they think I'm doing the right thing or not


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## theevos5

Tigerneko-poor you,having to deal with a scrap at your house,silly woman,
Dogless,glad that you like the trainer and are taking Kilo to his class,hope it is a great success
Moonviolet-good luck today,with Tinks and hope you don't get waylaid again on the phone
paddyjulie-Glad that you have had a positive day with Chester,hope tomorrow is just as good
kat&molly-I took Alf out for a good walk last week before letting him off,to get him to start listening to me,and taking commands,you are training the reverse to me,Alf is crap off lead and great on lead For me it worked,he has been so much more responsive to me,so stick with it and see
coffee-hope Alfie has been a good boy LLW for you today,and he does look rather handsome in his nbew collar
Dotte-well done Bryson for dropping,you are doing really well

Well, I have been out of action for a bit(endometriosis-the bane of my life) so hubby walked him on lead last night whilst son was playing football.Today I have had a very successful dayI kept him on lead for 1 whole lap of park,doing recalls and treating he was 100%,let him off and he didn't fail me once,in that he stayed in range,he dug,but I haven't got a problem with that!It was just the fleeing when he got a sniff 
I have stopped treating randomly when he just comes upto me,I am making him earn his treats as before,I was so grateful that he was next to me I was rewarding him!But this caused other problems,in that he was constantly begging and if a dog wanted to play he was focused on my pocket and just kept coming back for a treat,whereas now I feel he is more sociable,but will break away from play when asked for a treat,but isn't ocd about it.
So today was a good day,but I am under no illusions that we have fixed our problems,they just seem to be getting few and far between


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## Dogless

theevos5 - sorry you weren't well last night, but glad that you had a good day today .

kat&molly I think you are doing the right thing - it will probably take some time to change habits I guess? I see why you feel guilty though. The only other thing that I can think of is asking for short amounts of concentration ie as soon as they show nice walking let them off, then recall, put on lead and repeat several times throughout the walk.

Today we worked on.....nothing. Went somewhere where we are unlikely to meet anyone for the morning (didn't see a soul ) and I just let Kilo muck about and potter for 3 hours with the odd 'this way' and recall because I always do that. Fancied just enjoying ourselves .


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## moonviolet

Glad you feeling better today theevos5. sounds like you and Alfie are doing great. I don't think they are ever perfect just finding ways to manage their instincts and make their behaviour acceptable for you. I'm sure there would be things Tink does that are no issue to me, but would be unacceptable to other people.

K&M I have to admit i didn't do long periods of LLW in areas where Tink could be offlead but did sections within the walk letting her off after doing well and extending how long she had to do well before I let her off. ( I gave in to my guilt)

Dogless sounds like you enjoyed a well earned walk of relaxation together 

It was absolutely baking here at lunchtime. Tink was on her back with her toes to the sky snoring, I didn't have the heart to wake her up  So that remains on the to do list. So bad me, but I haven't had a cigarette yet and haven't had the urge to chew a stag bar yet. OH has said if I want a cigarette I have to eat a piece of dried tripe first


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## kat&molly

Thanks both, I had a serious wobble today After I'd posted Itook them all out seperate up the track with a few minutes on and then off. Each of them a pleasure on their own 
This afternoon we walked further up the track , every time they pulled to a turning I made them walk on and they were fab until we came close to the next one. Eventually they earned going in to a field and down to the river to play. It convinced me I'm doing it right and it is a bad habit they've got in to because of me.. the afternoon was probably 70 % better than this morning .

Evos5 - sorry you've been poorly, that must be an awful condition to cope with. It does sound like Alfie is doing well now after his setback though. I let Evie dig sometimes- because at least I know where she is then

Dogless- they are the best days aren't they- just enjoying it all[I think I've been enjoying my walks a bit too much considering the problems I'm having now]
We are off to see Molly's family tomorrow, I get so excited because the girls love it, but I will make sure they do a good on lead walk first past all their tempations.

Hope Miss Tink coped ok today.


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## Coffee

thevo5 - so pleased to hear you had a good day today  It really helps lift your spirits doesn't it?

kat&molly - sorry your walk was so frustrating  I don't know what to advise, I don't even know if I'm doing it right myself  Doesn't feel like it at the moment... we're making no progress at all 

Dogless - I think Kilo deserved his mucking about walk after being such a star recently for you 

Very frustrating couple of days here on the LLW  We seem to be making no progress at all. It's still constant stop-start-stop-start and Alfie looks so confused all the time, like he really doesn't know what I want from him  I don't even know if I'm doing it right....here's a brief summary:

As soon as he pulls I stop dead and once he looks back or gives the lead a bit of slack I click and offer the treat at my side so he has to come back to me to get it. Simple enough right?

The last 2 days we've literally not managed anything better than 2 steps and it's getting me down a bit. Surely there should be _some_ improvement? He did well on about day 2 or 3 of this 'project' so I thought he was getting the idea but ever since then it's been awful 

I bought a new lead which came yesterday, a super short traffic lead, it's only 12" long... it's made no difference at all, only when he lunges it's actually worse as he literally takes me with him and I came home this morning with back ache to add to my aching shoulders and arms 

I've tried going straight to the park *and* taking a round-a-bout route there - makes no difference. I've tried turning around and heading in the other direction too when he pulls and if anything, that makes him worse ut:

<deep sigh>

He walks beautifully on the way home, right at my side all the way. I give him loads of praise for this and the occasional C/T... it's just at the start of the walk, he just doesn't seem to get it.

Irony overload on my way home this morning - a woman passed us and commented on his "lovely walking, what a good boy"  I admit I was slightly less than honest and just beamed and said "thank you very much" :blushing:


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## kat&molly

Crossposted, trust me to be so slow
Coffee- I wonder if you are making my mistake. They are always expecting to get to 'the place' and have fun? They play up and are still eventually rewarded for it?
I would walk to the park and then back home again- or part way, turn around try again.


Full of bright ideas I am- until its my own


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## Coffee

kat&molly said:


> Crossposted, trust me to be so slow
> Coffee- I wonder if you are making my mistake. They are always expecting to get to 'the place' and have fun? They play up and are still eventually rewarded for it?
> I would walk to the park and then back home again- or part way, turn around try again.
> 
> Full of bright ideas I am- until its my own


It's worth a try, definitely. Am getting really down about it now


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## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> He walks beautifully on the way home, right at my side all the way. I give him loads of praise for this and the occasional C/T... it's just at the start of the walk, he just doesn't seem to get it.
> 
> Irony overload on my way home this morning - a woman passed us and commented on his "lovely walking, what a good boy"  I admit I was slightly less than honest and just beamed and said "thank you very much" :blushing:


Had a random thought could be rubbish. Have you tried leaving the park a few minutes before you need to time wise so he has run off some spotty fizz. Leave the park walk a shortway going absolutely nuts about how wonderfully he's walking C+T like it's going out of style really get yoru boy thinking he's the second coming, then turn back to the park again if he does well you go in let him have a game or whatever before leaving again. If he pulls like a train turn around and go straight home.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Had a random thought could be rubbish. Have you tried leaving the park a few minutes before you need to time wise so he has run off some spotty fizz. Leave the park walk a shortway going absolutely nuts about how wonderfully he's walking C+T like it's going out of style really get yoru boy thinking he's the second coming, then turn back to the park again if he does well you go in let him have a game or whatever before leaving again. If he pulls like a train turn around and go straight home.


That is a really good idea and definitely worth a go  Thank you for the suggestion. Might make him realise that walking nicely actually *does* get him what he wants


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Crossposted, trust me to be so slow
> Coffee- I wonder if you are making my mistake. They are always expecting to get to 'the place' and have fun? They play up and are still eventually rewarded for it?
> I would walk to the park and then back home again- or part way, turn around try again.
> 
> Full of bright ideas I am- until its my own


oops :lol: great minds and all that.


----------



## Dotte

Oh god, RESULTS!

As you know I've upped Bry's "drop" training after some random break-through where he decided to stop being selfish  Well just now, and I mean like 30 seconds ago he tore the lid of his newest plastic bottle (that I superglued on to safety) and started to chew, no I have no treats with me on the sofa, he's supposed to be asleep at this time  But so I just put my hand out and said "drop it" and he did!!!!!!!  Handed it over no problem, I can't believe it! Thinking of doing a happy dance, but the I remember how much work we have ahead of us so I think I'll wait, but hey this is a serious break-through!!!


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Oh god, RESULTS!
> 
> As you know I've upped Bry's "drop" training after some random break-through where he decided to stop being selfish  Well just now, and I mean like 30 seconds ago he tore the lid of his newest plastic bottle (that I superglued on to safety) and started to chew, no I have no treats with me on the sofa, he's supposed to be asleep at this time  But so I just put my hand out and said "drop it" and he did!!!!!!!  Handed it over no problem, I can't believe it! Thinking of doing a happy dance, but the I remember how much work we have ahead of us so I think I'll wait, but hey this is a serious break-through!!!


Definite gold star moment .


----------



## moonviolet

Dotte said:


> Oh god, RESULTS!
> 
> As you know I've upped Bry's "drop" training after some random break-through where he decided to stop being selfish  Well just now, and I mean like 30 seconds ago he tore the lid of his newest plastic bottle (that I superglued on to safety) and started to chew, no I have no treats with me on the sofa, he's supposed to be asleep at this time  But so I just put my hand out and said "drop it" and he did!!!!!!!  Handed it over no problem, I can't believe it! Thinking of doing a happy dance, but the I remember how much work we have ahead of us so I think I'll wait, but hey this is a serious break-through!!!


WOoohoo go Bry!:thumbup1::thumbup:

If you do decide to do a happy dance feel free to get someone to video it


----------



## Dotte

moonviolet said:


> WOoohoo go Bry!:thumbup1::thumbup:
> 
> If you do decide to do a happy dance feel free to get someone to video it


Haha home alone at the homent and I just can't trust Bry with my camera, he just loves taking pics of him self (only reason I have so many ) but our next break-through I will


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Haha home alone at the homent and I just can't trust Bry with my camera, he just loves taking pics of him self (only reason I have so many ) but our next break-through I will


Never make a promise that you can't deliver .... I'll look forward to your next breakthrough for the entertainment value hmy:.


----------



## Dotte

Dogless said:


> Never make a promise that you can't deliver .... I'll look forward to your next breakthrough for the entertainment value hmy:.


Haha delighted now that Bry takes ages to have any break-troughs


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Haha delighted now that Bry takes ages to have any break-troughs


I reckon he's on a roll now .


----------



## paddyjulie

Well tonight were off to our usual training class...but its going to be a lot different....this time were just sitting at the back  or if outside away from everyone else  getting him to sit or do hand targets etc when people are moving around in class..or if anyone comes too near outside I have to move him away before he reacts...I have to watch for any first signs of stress(ears twitching etc) I'm going to be more stressed at the end of it than he is


----------



## theevos5

Nothing to report but good times 20 mins walk on lead,behaved impeccably,once around park on long line,held with recalls,didn't respond 100% and was worried it was going to be one of those days Let him off,he had nearly 2 hours play and walk,didn't let me down and was a very very good boy,
He is now suitably knackered and fast asleep sunbathing.
His lovely collar held out too,it's had a baptism of fire today as he has had a proper rough and tumble,so much so,his ear has been nipped and was bleeding a litlle,but his lovely collar is still in one piece:001_tt2:
Good luck tonight with [email protected],hope he is ok and not too fearful at his class


----------



## moonviolet

paddyjulie said:


> Well tonight were off to our usual training class...but its going to be a lot different....this time were just sitting at the back  or if outside away from everyone else  getting him to sit or do hand targets etc when people are moving around in class..or if anyone comes too near outside I have to move him away before he reacts...I have to watch for any first signs of stress(ears twitching etc) I'm going to be more stressed at the end of it than he is


I hope you get on well and Chester is able to relax and begin to conquer his fear.



theevos5 said:


> Nothing to report but good times 20 mins walk on lead,behaved impeccably,once around park on long line,held with recalls,didn't respond 100% and was worried it was going to be one of those days Let him off,he had nearly 2 hours play and walk,didn't let me down and was a very very good boy,
> He is now suitably knackered and fast asleep sunbathing.
> His lovely collar held out too,it's had a baptism of fire today as he has had a proper rough and tumble,so much so,his ear has been nipped and was bleeding a litlle,but his lovely collar is still in one piece:001_tt2:
> Good luck tonight with [email protected],hope he is ok and not too fearful at his class


Yay good times


----------



## paddyjulie

theevos5 said:


> Nothing to report but good times 20 mins walk on lead,behaved impeccably,once around park on long line,held with recalls,didn't respond 100% and was worried it was going to be one of those days Let him off,he had nearly 2 hours play and walk,didn't let me down and was a very very good boy,
> He is now suitably knackered and fast asleep sunbathing.
> His lovely collar held out too,it's had a baptism of fire today as he has had a proper rough and tumble,so much so,his ear has been nipped and was bleeding a litlle,but his lovely collar is still in one piece:001_tt2:
> Good luck tonight with [email protected],hope he is ok and not too fearful at his class





moonviolet said:


> I hope you get on well and Chester is able to relax and begin to conquer his fear.
> 
> Yay good times


Thanks ..it was only a month ago that we were going for his bronze ...now thats all gone out the window until I can hopefully sort this out


----------



## Dogless

A bronze, not gold, star today. Some nice LLW but much more distracted by dogs (and a very weird man ) than usual - no 'bad' behaviour; just harder work than usual!

I have noticed that when we got to the point that the lab charged us the other day (and same place he did before) there was a lot of hypervigilance and lip licking going on, so we moved through it ASAP!


----------



## Dogless

Just went for a slow plod this afternoon for 30 minutes. Started off very badly when a chi flew out of a house to attack Kilo - one fishwife yell and redirection with the toe of my shoe and an apology from a laughing cursing::cursing owner later and things got better. Nice LLW to a small field with a bit of shade, a potter in the shade and home. We'll go out properly later if Kilo is up and about.

I award a gold star for Kilo not responding to the aggressive little horror however .


----------



## moonviolet

paddyjulie said:


> Thanks ..it was only a month ago that we were going for his bronze ...now thats all gone out the window until I can hopefully sort this out


I hope his progress is swift and sustained and you can get him back working toward his bronze soon.



Dogless said:


> A bronze, not gold, star today. Some nice LLW but much more distracted by dogs (and a very weird man ) than usual - no 'bad' behaviour; just harder work than usual!


I think the heat makes it harder for them to focus Tink's mind was in cloud cuckoo land earlier.



Dogless said:


> I have noticed that when we got to the point that the lab charged us the other day (and same place he did before) there was a lot of hypervigilance and lip licking going on, so we moved through it ASAP!


We have a bogey area like that where we have been mown over by excited off lead dogs just starting their walks. So often we jog through the barrier gets us through the area quicker or train loudly :blushing:



Dogless said:


> Just went for a slow plod this afternoon for 30 minutes. Started off very badly when a chi flew out of a house to attack Kilo - one fishwife yell and redirection with the toe of my shoe and an apology from a laughing cursing::cursing owner later and things got better. Nice LLW to a small field with a bit of shade, a potter in the shade and home. We'll go out properly later if Kilo is up and about.
> 
> I award a gold star for Kilo not responding to the aggressive little horror however .


Super gold star with flashing lights for not responding to the Chi.

We did a quick circuit past the primary school earlier, there was no shade for some quality lurking. We were the on opposite side of the road just for the noise and what noise it was:lol:, I'm not sure it it was quite the level to require ear protection, but if not it was certainly approaching. She wasn't particularly bothered, but thats what i was aiming for at this point just finding her comfort zone. In honour of Chelsea... I think she can have a silver gilt medal today


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I hope his progress is swift and sustained and you can get him back working toward his bronze soon.
> 
> I think the heat makes it harder for them to focus Tink's mind was in cloud cuckoo land earlier.
> 
> We have a bogey area like that where we have been mown over by excited off lead dogs just starting their walks. So often we jog through the barrier gets us through the area quicker or train loudly :blushing:
> 
> Super gold star with flashing lights for not responding to the Chi.
> 
> We did a quick circuit past the primary school earlier, there was no shade for some quality lurking. We were the on opposite side of the road just for the noise and what noise it was:lol:, I'm not sure it it was quite the level to require ear protection, but if not it was certainly approaching. She wasn't particularly bothered, but thats what i was aiming for at this point just finding her comfort zone. In honour of Chelsea... I think she can have a silver gilt medal today


Well done Miss Tink .

Kilo responds to big dogs that show aggression towards him, but not small ones at all. Weirdly, the dogs that have drawn blood on him have been a border terrier, JRT, cocker spaniel and bichon - the BT hung on properly whilst Kilo screamed whereas the others were more nips and lunges. I was wary of hurting the chi today so was quite gentle with the toe of my shoe....but am getting utterly fed up with tiny dogs being out of control being acceptable or even funny :cursing:. If Kilo launched out of his house at a dog I am sure that no one would be amused . NOT a dig at all small dog owners BTW, we meet plenty of very nice, responsible ones too .


----------



## paddyjulie

Well everyone's Good Luck worked thankyou...he was a lot better tonight..had to take him out once at the beginning till he calmed down..he froze a few times and a few grumbles....but we did managed a min and half lie/stay off lead at the end which was mega 

Good luck everyone for tomorrow


----------



## Dogless

paddyjulie said:


> Well everyone's Good Luck worked thankyou...he was a lot better tonight..had to take him out once at the beginning till he calmed down..he froze a few times and a few grumbles....but we did managed a min and half lie/stay off lead at the end which was mega
> 
> Good luck everyone for tomorrow


That's great news .


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Alfie

PJ- good luck with Chester tonight.

Well done to Miss Tink , I think you can have a gold star as well Moonviolet- for putting up with all that noise

Dogless, I am sending a Halo for Kilo [and you], the poor boy is a saint, honestly some of the problems you have. I hope tomorrow is better for you both.

Took the girls up the track this morning, I turned around and came home after less that 10 minutes- Scruff was terrible. Molly had calmed down so really all I done was punish her and Evie- I felt awful and cant do that again but I piled them all straight in the car to go off to my friends. I need to do the same as yesterday but keep the on lead shorter.
The girls had a fab time at Molly's family place. Evie was an absolute Angel again- her best ever. It was strange every 2 minutes she kept coming and checking in with me I kept getting worried that she was feeling ill again, even tonight I keep looking at her breathing. I know she didn't get ill from Ticks there as they take 24- 48 hours to cause symptoms,but I did wonder if she started feeling ill there last time[although she didn't appear to be] and something has stuck in her memory. She does find the 5 other dogs a bit overwhelming[they are a bit wild] but they never bother her.
It didn't help just before we left she got zapped by the fence its not normally on and then 2 minutes later my friend tripped and kicked her by accident. Apart from all that I'm sure she enjoyed it.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well done Alfie
> 
> PJ- good luck with Chester tonight.
> 
> Well done to Miss Tink , I think you can have a gold star as well Moonviolet- for putting up with all that noise
> 
> Dogless, I am sending a Halo for Kilo [and you], the poor boy is a saint, honestly some of the problems you have. I hope tomorrow is better for you both.
> 
> Took the girls up the track this morning, I turned around and came home after less that 10 minutes- Scruff was terrible. Molly had calmed down so really all I done was punish her and Evie- I felt awful and cant do that again but I piled them all straight in the car to go off to my friends. I need to do the same as yesterday but keep the on lead shorter.
> The girls had a fab time at Molly's family place. Evie was an absolute Angel again- her best ever. It was strange every 2 minutes she kept coming and checking in with me I kept getting worried that she was feeling ill again, even tonight I keep looking at her breathing. I know she didn't get ill from Ticks there as they take 24- 48 hours to cause symptoms,but I did wonder if she started feeling ill there last time[although she didn't appear to be] and something has stuck in her memory. She does find the 5 other dogs a bit overwhelming[they are a bit wild] but they never bother her.
> It didn't help just before we left she got zapped by the fence its not normally on and then 2 minutes later my friend tripped and kicked her by accident. Apart from all that I'm sure she enjoyed it.


Our problems all stem from loose dogs being allowed to 'just be dogs' as folk round here seem to say. "let them fight it out", "I don't even own a lead" etc etc are daily utterances. I used to hate the breedism where we used to live, but didn't come across this constant battle that we have now - but I now don't come across much breedism; must be one or the other . The sad thing is that Kilo shows obvious signs of stress for quite a while after these things happen - because he is big people seem to think that he should be impervious to everything - whereas the opposite is true and he's very sensitive :cursing:. Anyway - it is what it is and I know that these things will continue so I am training around them.

Dunce's hat for Scruff :frown2: today but a gold star for the other two - especially Evie by the sounds of it....and despite being electrocuted and kicked .


----------



## theevos5

Poor Evie hope she did have a good day after all
Big pats on the back to Chester and Master Kilo,keep it up and finally Little Miss Tinker,who put up with all those screaming kids Brave Girl.
Nothing to report here Alf is still zonked from this mornings walkI swear if I walked him for half an hour a day he would still be the same,he just loves to sleep


----------



## theevos5

Dogless said:


> Our problems all stem from loose dogs being allowed to 'just be dogs' as folk round here seem to say. "let them fight it out", "I don't even own a lead" etc etc are daily utterances. I used to hate the breedism where we used to live, but didn't come across this constant battle that we have now - but I now don't come across much breedism; must be one or the other . The sad thing is that Kilo shows obvious signs of stress for quite a while after these things happen - because he is big people seem to think that he should be impervious to everything - whereas the opposite is true and he's very sensitive :cursing:. Anyway - it is what it is and I know that these things will continue so I am training around them.
> 
> Dunce's hat for Scruff :frown2: today but a gold star for the other two - especially Evie by the sounds of it....and despite being electrocuted and kicked .


Alf once got electrocuted off a fence after swimming,poor thing,he saw the piglets in my friends garden,must have thought they were little puppies and wanted to play and ran straight into the fence
It's true what you say here about offlead dogs,I have no doubt in my mind that given another owner Alf would most likely be off lead 100% of the time,I get told all the time to have trust in him,and to be fair he does have better recall than alot of dogs that I see daily,that are always off lead.
It's different peoples standards and expectations.Today for instance,I let him off for a play and a walk and after a while of watching,I put him back on his lead for a minute,and someone said,so soon??leave him off for more time,and I explained that upto that point he hadn't let me down and had recalled 100%,but I had watched his body language and knew the signs that he was maybe going to follow a sniff.So seconds later on lead,he does his meerkat,and then starts sniffing the air and nose twitchingI proved my case,I had set him up to succeed and he had.
he was let off again,minutes later and recalled again the whole walk


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> Alf once got electrocuted off a fence after swimming,poor thing,he saw the piglets in my friends garden,must have thought they were little puppies and wanted to play and ran straight into the fence
> It's true what you say here about offlead dogs,I have no doubt in my mind that given another owner Alf would most likely be off lead 100% of the time,I get told all the time to have trust in him,and to be fair he does have better recall than alot of dogs that I see daily,that are always off lead.
> It's different peoples standards and expectations.Today for instance,I let him off for a play and a walk and after a while of watching,I put him back on his lead for a minute,and someone said,so soon??leave him off for more time,and I explained that upto that point he hadn't let me down and had recalled 100%,but I had watched his body language and knew the signs that he was maybe going to follow a sniff.So seconds later on lead,he does his meerkat,and then starts sniffing the air and nose twitchingI proved my case,I had set him up to succeed and he had.
> he was let off again,minutes later and recalled again the whole walk


I love seeing Kilo 'being a dog' more than anything - and he gets a few hours a day offlead usually BUT I choose my areas carefully and work extremely hard on his recall. NI has the highest number of strays in the UK and the streets (even on camp) and onlead only parks / towpaths are just full of none - too - friendly dogs (and friendly ones too!!) running wild. All the problems that we have had recently have been whilst Kilo has been onlead where all dogs should be and in being approached by offlead dogs .

It's hard really - having him on lead means that a few folk think that he is aggressive (I am asked if he is vicious / cross on a daily basis). I also get a lot of 'poor dog' comments from people who don't see the hours of free running he gets WHERE APPROPRIATE.

TBH I'm not sure why so many feel the need to pry - why ask you about Alf? Say you need to let him off more? As long as someone isn't bothering me or Kilo then I don't mind what they do (as long as it isn't cruel!).


----------



## kat&molly

I always want my 'dogs to be dogs' and have fun offlead but not to the detriment of others. I'm really fortunate that I rarely have a problem, its one thing coping with my own 4 and putting them on leads but how would I keep someone else's aggressive or rude dog away-it doesn't bear thinking about
I have friends with 4 dogs and they think that its ok for them to always be off no matter where- they always tell me Evie should be as well I've worked hard on Evie's recall, but sometimes she has to stay on.
Theirs always go off hunting and are missing for hours-they spend hours driving around looking for them  Its a wonder they've never been shot. We never let our dogs mix with them.

I always tell them when I take my 4 out I prefer to come home with them:001_tt2:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I always want my 'dogs to be dogs' and have fun offlead but not to the detriment of others. I'm really fortunate that I rarely have a problem, its one thing coping with my own 4 and putting them on leads but how would I keep someone else's aggressive or rude dog away-it doesn't bear thinking about
> I have friends with 4 dogs and they think that its ok for them to always be off no matter where- they always tell me Evie should be as well I've worked hard on Evie's recall, but sometimes she has to stay on.
> *Theirs always go off hunting and are missing for hours-they spend hours driving around looking for them*  Its a wonder they've never been shot. We never let our dogs mix with them.
> 
> I always tell them when I take my 4 out I prefer to come home with them:001_tt2:


My nerves would be frazzled - I am lucky (touch wood!) in that Kilo stays close. He went off for about 2 minutes once in a forest and I started to worry .


----------



## theevos5

Another gold star today for Alf,fab recall,he even went for a sniff to the place last week that I couldn't get him away from,called him and he came bounding out.Absolutely no problems at all.However,its OH walking him tomorrow so will report back on how he has been.I have told everyone to keep an eye out and make sure,he is sticking to my training and not just letting Alf please himself!


----------



## Coffee

Another frustrating day here in LLW world 

Should I stop posting on this thread as I don't seem to be getting anywhere at the moment and I fear I am just repeating myself and/or boring you all senseless 

He did do quite well for the first half of the way and even as we were approaching the park but then we saw my friend with Alfie's pal the Beagle waiting at the entrance and all bets were off then  I literally had 2 seconds to decide what to do.... a. be pulled there (no!), b. try and get him to walk nicely there or c. let him off and let him go in and greet. 

Am not sure if I made the right choice  but I let him off and let him run to her.

The walk itself was good, some nice recalls and some nice playing and wrestling with his friends 

Bit of a grim moment at the end though; as we were walking back towards to exit there was a pigeon on the ground, just sat there. My friend and I clocked it first and approached it but in some sort of 6th sense moment, all 3 Dalmatians saw it and in the blink of an eye they had it and they killed it  We think it may have been injured anyway as it didn't even try to fly off but it wasn't nice and all 3 dogs went deaf until it was all gone


----------



## Dogless

Well done Alf - hope your spies ensure OH sticks to your regime .

Coffee; don't stop posting - sure you're just at a sticking point and it will come good soon.

Today we went to a forest where I know lots of little routes through the trees so the majority of the walk can be done in the shade. At the start in the car park we met a black lab - Kilo was on lead, the lab's owner put hers on lead. Kilo was fine with him there bar wanting to meet. I told the lab's owner that I didn't want him to greet and we had a nice chat. Then I saw no one else for the next few hours .

Might go to the park this evening.


----------



## kat&molly

Coffee, it doesn't sound like you've had the best morning, but dont stop posting[unless you want to]. I started this LLW with my girls on 10th April and it we still haven't made a lot of progress. My OH isn't interested , this is the only place I can have a good moan and at least everyone understands what you're going through.

Evos5, hope your OH behaves tomorrow with Alf
I went shopping today and took the dog leads with me so that he couldn't take them all out without me. How childish am I


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Coffee, it doesn't sound like you've had the best morning, but dont stop posting[unless you want to]. I started this LLW with my girls on 10th April and it we still haven't made a lot of progress. My OH isn't interested , this is the only place I can have a good moan and at least everyone understands what you're going through.
> 
> Evos5, hope your OH behaves tomorrow with Alf
> *I went shopping today and took the dog leads with me so that he couldn't take them all out without me. How childish am I*


Brilliant!! .


----------



## Coffee

Thanks ladies 

I just get so frustrated with it sometimes... maybe I need to work on my patience (or lack of).

I see threads on here sometimes about people with HUGE dogs and how the owners can walk them no problem at all "as it's all in the training" and I get envious  I know Alfie's not a massive dog but he is strong, *very* strong and it's just such hard work at the moment, not helped this week by this heat 

Sorry now <slaps self>, have had my little Pity Party, so will get a grip of myself now and carry on


----------



## kat&molly

Coffee said:


> Thanks ladies
> 
> I just get so frustrated with it sometimes... maybe I need to work on my patience (or lack of).
> 
> I see threads on here sometimes about people with HUGE dogs and how the owners can walk them no problem at all "as it's all in the training" and I get envious  I know Alfie's not a massive dog but he is strong, *very* strong and it's just such hard work at the moment, not helped this week by this heat
> 
> Sorry now <slaps self>, have had my little Pity Party, so will get a grip of myself now and carry on


 The patience bit is difficult, I really didn't feel like it this morning so I cheated and piled them all in the car and they had a good run
We'll have a go later when its a bit cooler.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Master Alfred

Tooo hot to do anything useful played canal, trees, trees puddle, puddle trees, trees oops, soldiers trees trees swamp all whilst tagged by Natural England . When they download that route it's going to looking the wandering of a deranged Meander-thal. Apprarently they are surveying how the site is used. Cheeky sod made some wise crack about thinking "i'd got lost." I was only an hour and a half, hardly a hike.

I have a bit of a quandary about liking person but really disliking the way their dog behaves and the lack of taking any control (not toward Tink but to many others) and they always seem to want to tag along with me and often end up in these situations where I want the ground to swallow me up. DO i say something , Do I just make excuses when they want to tag along (and risk our paths crossing)



Coffee said:


> Thanks ladies
> 
> I just get so frustrated with it sometimes... maybe I need to work on my patience (or lack of).
> 
> I see threads on here sometimes about people with HUGE dogs and how the owners can walk them no problem at all "as it's all in the training" and I get envious  I know Alfie's not a massive dog but he is strong, *very* strong and it's just such hard work at the moment, not helped this week by this heat
> 
> Sorry now <slaps self>, have had my little Pity Party, so will get a grip of myself now and carry on


He might not be a huge dog, but he's a dog that was breed to move at speed so, no offence, but in his eyes you are a slow coach  Just to break up the LLW on the way there popular pee-mail spots. you could treat him with a pause for a sniff for a few seconds before gathering him up and heading off again. (so the park isn't the only physical reward)

How is his impulse control in other areas? leaves, waits, stays etc here's a few exercises you could try.ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Impulse Control Training and Games for Dogs I know doing this sort of thing with the floppy eared one seemed to improve her in other areas.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Master Alfred
> 
> Tooo hot to do anything useful played canal, trees, trees puddle, puddle trees, trees oops, soldiers trees trees swamp all whilst tagged by Natural England . When they download it that route is going to looking the wandering off a deranged Meander-thal. Apprarently they are surveying how the site is used. CHeeky sod made some wise crack about thinking "i'd got lost." I was only an hour and a half, hardly a hike.
> 
> *I have a bit of a quandary about liking person but really disliking the way their dog behaves and the lack of taking any control (not toward Tink but to many others) and they always seem to want to tag along with me and often end up in these situations where I want the ground to swallow me up. DO i say something , Do I just make excuses when they want to tag along (and risk our paths crossing)
> *
> 
> He might not be a huge dog, but he's a dog that was breed to move at speed so, no offence, but in his eyes you are a slow coach  Just to break up the LLW on the way there popular pee-mail spots. you could treat him with a pause for a sniff for a few seconds before gathering him up and heading off again. (so the park isn't the only physical reward)
> 
> How is his impulse control in other areas? leaves, waits, stays etc here's a few exercises you could try.ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Impulse Control Training and Games for Dogs I know doing this sort of thing with the floppy eared one seemed to improve her in other areas.


I have one of those - lovely lady, dog Kilo loves to play with BUT does things like let her dog chase runners (she doesn't like them apparently....that must make it OK ) or run up to other dogs and take and destroy their toys . I am ashamed to walk with her when these things happen...but happily chat to her on our way round and enjoy Kilo having someone to play with. I always feel very self - centred about it all .


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Well done Master Alfred
> 
> Tooo hot to do anything useful played canal, trees, trees puddle, puddle trees, trees oops, soldiers trees trees swamp all whilst tagged by Natural England . When they download that route it's going to looking the wandering of a deranged Meander-thal. Apprarently they are surveying how the site is used. Cheeky sod made some wise crack about thinking "i'd got lost." I was only an hour and a half, hardly a hike.
> 
> I have a bit of a quandary about liking person but really disliking the way their dog behaves and the lack of taking any control (not toward Tink but to many others) and they always seem to want to tag along with me and often end up in these situations where I want the ground to swallow me up. DO i say something , Do I just make excuses when they want to tag along (and risk our paths crossing)
> 
> He might not be a huge dog, but he's a dog that was breed to move at speed so, no offence, but in his eyes you are a slow coach  Just to break up the LLW on the way there popular pee-mail spots. you could treat him with a pause for a sniff for a few seconds before gathering him up and heading off again. (so the park isn't the only physical reward)
> 
> How is his impulse control in other areas? leaves, waits, stays etc here's a few exercises you could try.ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Impulse Control Training and Games for Dogs I know doing this sort of thing with the floppy eared one seemed to improve her in other areas.


No offense taken  

I do let him stop and sniff / check his pee-mails (and leave some of his own ) at various intervals... mainly to give myself a break  but if I could make him think I was actually rewarding him, that I'm actually stopping *for him*, that can only be a good thing right?

His 'waits' for anything that doesn't involve food - ie. crossing the road, putting his collar on, leaving the house nicely - are all very good. Where there is food involved though it's a work in progress  "Leave it" is also something that's currently being worked on with varying degrees of success. I'll check out that link now though, thank you very much... much appreciated, as always


----------



## Skandi

Coffee said:


> Thanks ladies
> 
> I just get so frustrated with it sometimes... maybe I need to work on my patience (or lack of).
> 
> I see threads on here sometimes about people with HUGE dogs and how the owners can walk them no problem at all "as it's all in the training" and I get envious  I know Alfie's not a massive dog but he is strong, *very* strong and it's just such hard work at the moment, not helped this week by this heat
> 
> Sorry now <slaps self>, have had my little Pity Party, so will get a grip of myself now and carry on


#

Well I didn't get out of the carpark today, she just would NOT stop lunging to the end of the lead. as soon as we turn round walks perfectly. However as soon as I turn round again.. LUNGE ended up walking more backwards than forwards. hopefully this evenings walk will be better she normaly is better


----------



## kat&molly

Me thinks Scruff must be getting attached to her Dunce hat
OH wanted to come with us which I knew would make things difficult as they get more excited, so I gave him Evie whilst I had Moll and Scruff. They were terrible so I sent him away with Evie and Jay to the river. I had to make them walk past the field entrance 6 or 7 times before they were calm enough to let them off and go to OH. It was really tough but I got what I wanted in the end:thumbup:

We've had a little walk up the track tonight just 20 minutes and not too bad .Bit on lead and a bit off. I can only persevere and hope we get there


----------



## Dogless

Another mediocre walk this evening - hope moonviolet's heat theory is correct! LLW for most of it BUT lots more prompts and a little more trouble getting Kilo to focus around dogs. We got there in the end but it was harder work than it has been recently. I put his headcollar on for the narrow parts which I haven't had to do the last few times. However, he wasn't bad  - just not a gold star pupil!!


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Me thinks Scruff must be getting attached to her Dunce hat
> OH wanted to come with us which I knew would make things difficult as they get more excited, so I gave him Evie whilst I had Moll and Scruff. They were terrible so I sent him away with Evie and Jay to the river. I had to make them walk past the field entrance 6 or 7 times before they were calm enough to let them off and go to OH. It was really tough but I got what I wanted in the end:thumbup:
> 
> We've had a little walk up the track tonight just 20 minutes and not too bad .Bit on lead and a bit off. I can only persevere and hope we get there


Sounds like you had success in the end .


----------



## kat&molly

Forgot, I've also stepped up on 'Operation Chuck'. After about 2 weeks of just opening the gate to let the chickens out we go straight off for our walk. Evies been really good with this not taking any notice at all. Yesterday I sat on the patio for an hour whilst they were out, Shorthouse was on a long lead and she just lay there chilling in the shade  I'm going to take it really slow until I feel confident.


Hope everyone has a Gold Star day.
Think its about time I had one:arf:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Forgot, I've also stepped up on 'Operation Chuck'. After about 2 weeks of just opening the gate to let the chickens out we go straight off for our walk. Evies been really good with this not taking any notice at all. Yesterday I sat on the patio for an hour whilst they were out, Shorthouse was on a long lead and she just lay there chilling in the shade  I'm going to take it really slow until I feel confident.
> 
> Hope everyone has a Gold Star day.
> Think its about time I had one:arf:


I think that you can count Op Chuck yesterday as a gold star moment .

We had a gold star walk this morning. Got up and out early as I'm waiting for a new washing machine to arrive between 0800 - 1600. 10 minutes of nice LLW to where he can go offlead, lots of playing fetch, then we met a big black lab x mastiff. Put Kilo onlead, other dogs owner did the same, they had a calm meet and then a really good play . Then...10 minutes very nice LLW home. Best boy .


----------



## moonviolet

Operation Chuck sounds like a success so far , definitely a gold star, those feathery beasties move in strange and unusual ways 

Love the sound of Kilo's walk this morning sounds like the boy wonder earned a platinum star 

My challenge today is not letting my parents spoil the hound  they are weak to the brown eyed and floppy eared one... but are have firm rules with their dogs. I think it's revenge for me being pain of a kid


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Operation Chuck sounds like a success so far , definitely a gold star, those feathery beasties move in strange and unusual ways
> 
> Love the sound of Kilo's walk this morning sounds like the boy wonder earned a platinum star
> 
> My challenge today is not letting my parents spoil the hound  they are weak to the brown eyed and floppy eared one... but are have firm rules with their dogs. I think it's revenge for me being pain of a kid


Not a platinum star - no distractions around as it was so early!! We only saw the dog Kilo played with and then two on the other side of the road as we walked home. No cats, about two people and not much else! Perfect!

Best of luck .


----------



## Dogless

Easy day today - up early and only saw a car or two and nothing else - so zero distractions! Nice LLW, good recalls, lots of fetch, nice LLW back home .

Not yet been for a second walk but Kilo has been mucking about in the garden for much of the day so is fairly tired - he usually doesn't bother with the garden at all and just sleeps!


----------



## kat&molly

Kilo's had a good fun day

Not much for us , some good , some bad. OH came this morning so I just had to let the 2 bigger ones ones off as soon as I got a few good steps, I did have them on and off , even he could see they can walk well-once we've 'got there'.
One of my friends has been to the new trainer I mentioned and apparently she's fab- all positive training, reward based I got so excited I wanted to ring today- but held off, going to ask[nay beg] her to do a home visit and show me where I'm going wrong. Friend said she does Scent trailing classes as well. I'm so excited to meet her
OP Chuck is going well and on walks Evie's recall has been brilliant- it's so unnerving:scared:

Hope everyone's had a good weekend


----------



## kat&molly

Good and bad for me today.
This morning wasn't too bad , I was quite pleased. This afternoon however was appalling. OH came with us and went ahead with Jay and Evie. Molly and Scruff started screaming and pulling really bad, some of my neighbours were outside and I was so ashamed they were like that. I was only a few feet from home and think I should have taken them back indoors and kept trying. They did realise after about 5 long minutes and we managed to get some half decent walking- I had to overtake OH though. Definatly need to work on that.
Good news is I've spoken to the trainer[briefly] and she is coming on Thursday morning 

Hope everyone's had a good day


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Good and bad for me today.
> This morning wasn't too bad , I was quite pleased. This afternoon however was appalling. OH came with us and went ahead with Jay and Evie. Molly and Scruff started screaming and pulling really bad, some of my neighbours were outside and I was so ashamed they were like that. I was only a few feet from home and think I should have taken them back indoors and kept trying. They did realise after about 5 long minutes and we managed to get some half decent walking- I had to overtake OH though. Definatly need to work on that.
> Good news is I've spoken to the trainer[briefly] and she is coming on Thursday morning
> 
> Hope everyone's had a good day


Oh dear; not a good start - but sounds like it came good in the end! Good Luck for Thursday .

This morning Kilo walked nicely to the field, we didn't come across any distractions again as it was early. I wanted to go to the forest but woke up really, really dizzy and unbalanced (ears I am guessing!) so wasn't going to drive in that state!!

We have just got back from our evening walk and Kilo did very nicely indeed - LLW to the field - _we passed someone with a young dog who knows what I'm up to and told me that he's doing very well :thumbsup:_. Then we practised some stays and waits, played some fetch and LLW home. Best boy again today .


----------



## moonviolet

Parents were reasonably well behaved on saturday reward based training with home baking seemed very effective 

Waiting for the weather to cool a bit before continuing the lunchtime playground walk. So nothing to report there.

Tonight Tink was offlead chilled and snuffling about when she was charged but an enthusiastic young dog.... whose owner was calling out "sorry, sorry he's friendly" Historically Tink would have avoided, but tonight as soon as the charge was over and the sniffinf begin she chilled almost immediately.  Within a few strides they were trotting along together like old friends, so now Tink can add Reuben the soft wheaten to her friends list


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Parents were reasonably well behaved on saturday reward based training with home baking seemed very effective
> 
> Waiting for the weather to cool a bit before continuing the lunchtime playground walk. So nothing to report there.
> 
> Tonight Tink was offlead chilled and snuffling about when she was charged but an enthusiastic young dog.... whose owner was calling out "sorry, sorry he's friendly" Historically Tink would have avoided, but tonight as soon as the charge was over and the sniffinf begin she chilled almost immediately.  Within a few strides they were trotting along together like old friends, so now Tink can add Reuben the soft wheaten to her friends list


That is fantastic! Well done Miss Tink - platinum star duly awarded .


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Miss Tink, she is certainly getting very brave :thumbsup:

And well done to Kilo- nice to get a compliment from someone.  Only comment I got yesterday was why didn't I put choke chains on them I am threatening to chop their legs off and strap them to scateboards though- see how they like being pulled  Not in the right mood this morning so I'm going to use the car. Just hope this trainer is good- her name is Evie[she's Swiss], wait until she meets her name sake:laugh:

Took my treats on a walk yesterday as I always do, and took them out of my pocket to give some to Shorthouse for recalling. There was a large fly in the bag - size of a Bluebottle and it had laid eggs all over the hotdogs. :yikes:
Yuk, yuk, I'd been taking that for a walk.:laugh:


----------



## Coffee

kat&molly said:


> Well done Miss Tink, she is certainly getting very brave :thumbsup:
> 
> And well done to Kilo- nice to get a compliment from someone.  Only comment I got yesterday was why didn't I put choke chains on them I am threatening to chop their legs off and strap them to scateboards though- see how they like being pulled  Not in the right mood this morning so I'm going to use the car. Just hope this trainer is good- her name is Evie[she's Swiss], wait until she meets her name sake:laugh:
> 
> Took my treats on a walk yesterday as I always do, and took them out of my pocket to give some to Shorthouse for recalling. There was a large fly in the bag - size of a Bluebottle and it had laid eggs all over the hotdogs. :yikes:
> Yuk, yuk, I'd been taking that for a walk.:laugh:


OMG, that is disgusting  I'd have flung the bag in the air, screeched like a lunactic and legged it, flapping and squealing as I ran :lol:

I have Good News for a change   I think we've finally had a bit of a breakthrough on the LLW  I decided a couple of days ago to try it without the clicker as I was starting to suspect he was actually pulling *so* I would stop, so *he* could then stop and get the C&T  It could well have been my method or timing but it just wasn't working as it should have been so something had to be done 

So, we're now back to simple "you pull, I stop"... "loose lead, off we go again". No clicking, no treats, very little talking, apart from the occasional soft "good boy" (as I was finding when I gave him excited praise it got him all worked up and he would pull more ). He's been doing SO much better with this... today we got up to 17 steps (yes, I've been counting :lol before he pulled and the second I stop he looks back at me with (I swear!) an "oops, sorry, got a bit carried away there" expression, backs up so the lead goes loose again and off we go 

Hurrah, some progress at last :thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Woooohoooo Go Coffee and Alfie     :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Fantastic progress  gold star for Alfie and a platinum one for you


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Woooohoooo Go Coffee and Alfie     :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
> 
> Fantastic progress  gold star for Alfie and a platinum one for you


Thank you 

I'm so relieved... I was starting to think we'd never make any progress at all


----------



## Hertsgirl

Got Cookie a Gentle Leader today as I struggle to control her when she decides she wants to have a pull, fingers crossed we will have nicer walks from now on!


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly that is :arf::arf:. Can't wait to hear how Evie gets on with her namesake - could be a beautiful partnership :laugh:.

Coffee......fantastic to hear good news, 17 steps is still 14 more than you were managing .

This morning we had nice LLW to the fields (I was still a bit dizzy!), a play and a mooch in grass and buttercups that's taller than Kilo in some places now :eek6: then nice LLW back. We only saw a few people and no dogs very close by so no distractions. We are going to start classes tonight; I'm trying not to worry!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Coffee, I use the choose to heel method with the clicker for loose leash walking. I've found with the stop and go method I end up with a dog who goes to the end of the leash then stops. Start walking again, back to the end of the leash, stop. I dunno what I'm doing wrong with it but it doesn't work for me at all lol. Congratulations on your progress though 

I'm still working on loose leash walking and recall. Does work on these ever actually stop? I've also added in working on sit stay again. So far I can walk the length of my flat and come straight back without him moving so now it's time to add either distraction or duration to it. 

And we're working on toy focus since he seems to have lost interest in them lately. He still wants to carry them around in the house but outside he has little interest, will still chase one if it's thrown but then goes off to sniff.


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## fogy

Currently working on NOT pulling on the lead, shes such an excitable little dog when it comes to walkies.


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## Coffee

Dogless - good luck for tonight, am sure Kilo will be your best boy 

Sarah1983 - what's the "choose to heel" method? Sounds interesting  Funny isn't it how some methods work for some dogs and not with others? We were getting absolutely no-where with the clicker which was disappointing as I do love using it and Alfie (usually!) picks things up really quickly with it too.

fogy - welcome to the club


----------



## theevos5

Dogless,well,good luck for tonight at the training
Kat&molly-you are doing so well,your OH sounds just like mine,it's him that I need to train and not the dog!
Coffee,-so great that you have had a good day with Alfie and 17 steps is amazing
Slight brag about Alf in that we haven't had a problem with LLW for ages probably around 12 months ish,but we use a slip lead as that's what we found worked best for him,welllllll..... I have had to get a new lead for him today as he keeps slipping the slip lead as it is that loose round his neck!Hubby went to open the side gate the other day to let Alf back in after a walk and he wasn't on the other end of the lead,but was sitting patiently waiting at the gate,and a few times on our pavements walks I have noticed that he is sniffing and I am walking without him So progress,indeed.
Recall,been fab today,ran upto someone we know,she gave him a treat,which I don't allow(if only I give him treats,it's me he will seek out) and I thought oh dear,he won't leave her alone now,but called him,he came and stayed with me,even after passing her again later so great progress again.


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## Dogless

Alf; a truly fantastic day - slipping a lead because he's walking so nicely is brill. Definitely a Gold Star .

I had a phone call from the dog trainer about 15 minutes ago to say all the other dogs in tonight's class are tiny and a few have issues with large dogs intimidating them, so could I come on Thursday instead as most of the dogs are large. Not a problem, but I said to him that Kilo would have behaved nicely tonight as he tends to ignore small dogs, our excitement issues are with large dogs and he'll be a bit crazy. So; good really as I'll be tackling what I need to :thumbsup:. Can't say I'm not nervous though .

I told the trainer what I thought and he just said not to worry, bring him in on a headcollar if I use one, bring loads of treats, expect him to be a bit of a nightmare for the first two weeks or so but that we'd work on it :thumbsup:.


----------



## Dotte

Ok so today I decided I'm gonna tackle Bry's dogs reactiveness  Bry goes CRAZY when he sees other dogs, doesn't matter where we are, he just loses the plot completely! He barks, lounges, jumps, growels, none if it is vicious it's just that he wants the other dog so badly, hehe just to play really, but it is completely out of control! 

I asked the people at his daycare for some advice, and I got the same answer as usual "you have to work on his self control", god I swear if they say that to me one more time I will go crazy, it's all they ever say! Yes I know Bry is impulsive and quickly decides that I'm not worth listening to, but my god I need more than that, and I am working on it, every damn day! Any way (sorry about that little rant) she did also say that I have to avoid all dogs at the time being and work on him on my own, but I don't know what to do on our own! I know I have to start faaar away from dogs and teach him to stay calm when he sees them and focus on me instead, but I just don't know how yet... Well we are gonna start anyway, I doubt I can mess up too much, right?


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Ok so today I decided I'm gonna tackle Bry's dogs reactiveness  Bry goes CRAZY when he sees other dogs, doesn't matter where we are, he just loses the plot completely! He barks, lounges, jumps, growels, none if it is vicious it's just that he wants the other dog so badly, hehe just to play really, but it is completely out of control!
> 
> I asked the people at his daycare for some advice, and I got the same answer as usual "you have to work on his self control", god I swear if they say that to me one more time I will go crazy, it's all they ever say! Yes I know Bry is impulsive and quickly decides that I'm not worth listening to, but my god I need more than that, and I am working on it, every damn day! Any way (sorry about that little rant) she did also say that I have to avoid all dogs at the time being and work on him on my own, but I don't know what to do on our own! I know I have to start faaar away from dogs and teach him to stay calm when he sees them and focus on me instead, but I just don't know how yet... Well we are gonna start anyway, I doubt I can mess up too much, right?


Impulse control issues (and his prey drive :eek6 have been my biggest problem with Kilo - most of the things that we have needed to work on have been connected to poor impulse control. Most issues I have also found can be solved with a solid sit, down and wait so they are well worth practising wherever and whenever you can.

Kilo gets very excited when he sees some dogs (on lead only) - he ignores small dogs in the main or is mildly interested and the same goes for dogs that are old or totally ignoring him. If another dog is interested in him however....we can have lunging, barking (solved that one) pulling, whining etc etc :eek6:. A few things have helped me come a long way -

- a headcollar so that I can relax more knowing that I can hold him with a few fingers if needed or turn him gently away from distractions.
- hours spent in the park observing dogs at a distance and moving slowly closer and closer (Turid Rugaas' loose lead walking method helps immensely as Kilo's focus on me is much better than it was). I tend to walk towards a dog, feeding treats now and again, praising and keep getting closer. The second his body language changes I turn away from the dog, then around again and back towards the dog etc etc. This brings his excitement level down nicely as he's not getting frustrated. 
- hours in the park again doing basic obedience - sits, downs, stands, waits etc whilst dogs are around.
- teaching a reliable 'watch'. At first I got him to sit and watch and let dogs past, but now we can pass most of them whilst asking him to watch and treating him once he has walked past nicely. We still sit if the other dog or Kilo is being particularly excitable
- the LAT game 
- if it is a dog that he knows and will get to greet regardless of what I want (he is on, they are off) I make him sit or lie down before he is allowed to meet or his lead unclipped depending on where we are
- we are going back to training classes

It helps to walk early in the parks I go to where I tend to meet the same owners and have told them what I am up to so they don't think I'm some weird stalker!


----------



## Dotte

Dogless said:


> Impulse control issues (and his prey drive :eek6 have been my biggest problem with Kilo - most of the things that we have needed to work on have been connected to poor impulse control. Most issues I have also found can be solved with a solid sit, down and wait so they are well worth practising wherever and whenever you can.
> 
> Kilo gets very excited when he sees some dogs (on lead only) - he ignores small dogs in the main or is mildly interested and the same goes for dogs that are old or totally ignoring him. If another dog is interested in him however....we can have lunging, barking (solved that one) pulling, whining etc etc :eek6:. A few things have helped me come a long way -
> 
> - a headcollar so that I can relax more knowing that I can hold him with a few fingers if needed or turn him gently away from distractions.
> - hours spent in the park observing dogs at a distance and moving slowly closer and closer (Turid Rugaas' loose lead walking method helps immensely as Kilo's focus on me is much better than it was). I tend to walk towards a dog, feeding treats now and again, praising and keep getting closer. The second his body language changes I turn away from the dog, then around again and back towards the dog etc etc. This brings his excitement level down nicely as he's not getting frustrated.
> - hours in the park again doing basic obedience - sits, downs, stands, waits etc whilst dogs are around.
> - teaching a reliable 'watch'. At first I got him to sit and watch and let dogs past, but now we can pass most of them whilst asking him to watch and treating him once he has walked past nicely. We still sit if the other dog or Kilo is being particularly excitable
> - the LAT game
> - if it is a dog that he knows and will get to greet regardless of what I want (he is on, they are off) I make him sit or lie down before he is allowed to meet or his lead unclipped depending on where we are
> - we are going back to training classes
> 
> It helps to walk early in the parks I go to where I tend to meet the same owners and have told them what I am up to so they don't think I'm some weird stalker!


Dogless, as usual you are AWESOME!  Thank you so much! See that's the kind of advice I needed  I have a feeling we have some looong months ahead of us, but it's needed and I really want to get this under control cuz I want to be able to go to obedience classes and start agility with him after he turns one, but right now that's just impossible  Gonna copy your reply to a word document so that I can go back to it when needed  Again thank you


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Dogless, as usual you are AWESOME!  Thank you so much! See that's the kind of advice I needed  I have a feeling we have some looong months ahead of us, but it's needed and I really want to get this under control cuz I want to be able to go to obedience classes and start agility with him after he turns one, but right now that's just impossible  Gonna copy your reply to a word document so that I can go back to it when needed  Again thank you


This is more on the LAT game - it has really helped with cats, horses, kids on scooters etc etc Look at That! A Counterintuitive Approach to Dealing with Reactive Dogs « Dog Training for Dog Lovers Blog

I am sure people will have much better advice than me and will come along to save you soon!!

Training classes may be good - even if you start off sat at the back treating Bry for calm behaviour and not joining in at all. And at least your loony isn't a fit 48kg.....hence the headcollar .


----------



## Dotte

Dogless said:


> This is more on the LAT game - it has really helped with cats, horses, kids on scooters etc etc Look at That! A Counterintuitive Approach to Dealing with Reactive Dogs « Dog Training for Dog Lovers Blog
> 
> I am sure people will have much better advice than me and will come along to save you soon!!
> 
> Training classes may be good - even if you start off sat at the back treating Bry for calm behaviour and not joining in at all. And at least your loony isn't a fit 48kg.....hence the headcollar .


Hehe yeah I am kinda lucky he's only 6 kg but it makes it harder to treat and stuff while moving cuz I keep having to stop and bend down, my back is usually in bits after a good training session  Gonna get the Truid Rugaas book too, got the calming signals already (thanks to you ) but I have always belived that you can never ever have too many books


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Hehe yeah I am kinda lucky he's only 6 kg but it makes it harder to treat and stuff while moving cuz I keep having to stop and bend down, my back is usually in bits after a good training session  Gonna get the Truid Rugaas book too, got the calming signals already (thanks to you ) but I have always belived that you can never ever have too many books


I always wonder about the height thing - Kilo's collar height is just by my hand and he can just turn his head for a treat; swings and roundabouts I guess!!

You could try a target stick and teaching 'touch' to save your back a bit maybe?


----------



## Dotte

Dogless said:


> I always wonder about the height thing - Kilo's collar height is just by my hand and he can just turn his head for a treat; swings and roundabouts I guess!!
> 
> *You could try a target stick and teaching 'touch' to save your back a bit maybe?*


Hehe yeah kinda envy you there, Bry is just so small!

*You could try a target stick and teaching 'touch' to save your back a bit maybe?*

Could give that a try, I just have sooooo much else to teach him right now to make him a dog that people will actually want to be around hehe, but I'm gonna turn to good aul' Google and see what it's all about  Cuz I have like what 40 years ahead of me in nursing (only on my second year in college) and I have a feeling I'm gonna need my back


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Hehe yeah kinda envy you there, Bry is just so small!
> 
> *You could try a target stick and teaching 'touch' to save your back a bit maybe?*
> 
> Could give that a try, I just have sooooo much else to teach him right now to make him a dog that people will actually want to be around hehe, but I'm gonna turn to good aul' Google and see what it's all about  Cuz I have like what 40 years ahead of me in nursing (only on my second year in college) and I have a feeling I'm gonna need my back


From a fellow nurse - you will need it :yikes:.


----------



## kat&molly

Blimey you lot, slow down I cant keep up :laugh:

Dogless, sorry your training got changed but at least you will be getting what you want- perhaps the little dogs would have been a good idea to ease Kilo in though 
Evos5- I'm thinking of getting my OH a prong collar!! I have started to resent him coming whilst I'm trying to sort this out- he never moans but he puts me off because he isn't interested so I end up rushing and then the girls play me up. Got to tactfully ban him until I've sorted it out - and I'll carry on taking the dog leads shopping :laugh: Sounds like Alf is doing well now 

Coffee, well done on your breakthrough, lets hope it lasts. I know my problem is me, my timing is out but its difficult with 3- I stop for 1 but the others may be ok. I have some chaotic moments, amlaying my hopes that this trainer will tell me which way to turn.


----------



## theevos5

kat&molly said:


> Evos5- I'm thinking of getting my OH a prong collar!! I have started to resent him coming whilst I'm trying to sort this out- he never moans but he puts me off because he isn't interested so I end up rushing and then the girls play me up. Got to tactfully ban him until I've sorted it out - and I'll carry on taking the dog leads shopping :laugh: Sounds like Alf is doing well now


Lol!What is it with these men??my OH takes Alf for his walk every saturday and Sunday,and from what I have been told,from my spies,he just lets him wander,dig,run off,and if he doesn't recall,just carries on walking until Alf finds him It's a bloody good job I love him,but I am starting to wonder whether I should just take over the weekend walks and be done with it
Love the taking the dogs leads shopping,will have to try it:thumbsup:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I always wonder about the height thing - Kilo's collar height is just by my hand and he can just turn his head for a treat; swings and roundabouts I guess!!
> 
> You could try a target stick and teaching 'touch' to save your back a bit maybe?


My trainer always told me off for bending over to treat Moll when she was a pup- a bad habit of mine, I think it must have looked like I was 'looming' over her. A target stick is a great idea- and so easy to teach


----------



## kat&molly

theevos5 said:


> Lol!What is it with these men??my OH takes Alf for his walk every saturday and Sunday,and from what I have been told,from my spies,he just lets him wander,dig,run off,and if he doesn't recall,just carries on walking until Alf finds him It's a bloody good job I love him,but I am starting to wonder whether I should just take over the weekend walks and be done with it
> Love the taking the dogs leads shopping,will have to try it:thumbsup:


They really are harder work than the dogs sometimes. I said to mine, dont let Evie have a long lead until we get to the fields and no sniffing the verges- theres plenty of time for that when they go off, so what does he do- gives her 5 foot and she's sniffing everywhere. I'll stop moaning now


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## Dotte

kat&molly said:


> My trainer always told me off for bending over to treat Moll when she was a pup- a bad habit of mine, I think it must have looked like I was 'looming' over her. A target stick is a great idea- and so easy to teach


Ok so kinda stupid question, ok not kinda prob very stupid, but ehm how can I use a target stick to treat Bry without beinding down? I get how I can move him with it (google really is awesome) but I stil have to bend to treat him  Hehe please don't laugh at me, I know I have misunderstood something here


----------



## Dogless

Dotte said:


> Ok so kinda stupid question, ok not kinda prob very stupid, but ehm how can I use a target stick to treat Bry without beinding down? I get how I can move him with it (google really is awesome) but I stil have to bend to treat him  Hehe please don't laugh at me, I know I have misunderstood something here


You could smear PB or something on a wooden spoon / stick maybe?


----------



## kat&molly

Dotte said:


> Ok so kinda stupid question, ok not kinda prob very stupid, but ehm how can I use a target stick to treat Bry without beinding down? I get how I can move him with it (google really is awesome) but I stil have to bend to treat him  Hehe please don't laugh at me, I know I have misunderstood something here


I'm sure if I remember right, we could reach, my hand went down and Molly's head came up. Bry's not that titchy is he? Presuming if I had a Chi sized dog I'd have to bend my knees to get down but not 'Loom'. Does that make sense to anyone?


----------



## Dotte

kat&molly said:


> I'm sure if I remember right, we could reach, my hand went down and Molly's head came up. Bry's not that titchy is he? Presuming if I had a Chi sized dog I'd have to bend my knees to get down but not 'Loom'. Does that make sense to anyone?


He's small enough, I have to bend a fair bit and if I don't bend far enough he'll jump up and get it which buggs me so much hehe  Ah we'll work something out, training Bry is my main priority now to be honest


----------



## kat&molly

Dotte said:


> He's small enough, I have to bend a fair bit and if I don't bend far enough he'll jump up and get it which buggs me so much hehe  Ah we'll work something out, training Bry is my main priority now to be honest


TBH, I think Dogless' idea would be easier, smear the Peanut butter or cheese spread on and just let him have a lick


----------



## Dogless

If you see a dog and don't have time for the sit, using a stick etc, you can scatter treats on the floor - forgot to say I'd done that a few times .


----------



## moonviolet

Good grief, I go walk the dog and the thread goes into overdrive! :lol:

I was getting all excited looking forward to hearing how Kilo got on at training. I shall have to be patient now. 

As for OH's mine is more stubborn and cloth eared than Tinker by a country mile. 

Dotte I used a wooden spoon with Tinks, primula or pate worked very well smeared on it. letting it down within licking range when a treat was earned. A normal wooden spoon is great do not be tempted (like i was) to get the swish looking red silicone affair. it's non stick and indeed nothing sticks including primula which slides off onto your dogs head.

Tinks' being wonderfully brave on her walks at the moment, not going over a one ( bit unsure) on her fear scale even when a standard poodle was getting a bit bolshy trying to goad her into playing and when said poodles owner collect her, Tinks tail went back into her default position and ground sniffing resumed.

I've been a bit boring on them after sustaining a foot injury leaping over a fallen tree. So i'm on light limping and no silly stuff, with periodic pit stops. I'm not sure i should confess its currently strapped up with vet-rap


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## LexiLou2

oooh can I join as Bosley is a constant work in progress. His LLW is good, recall away from distraction good, dogs at 6metres or so and further away good...any closer questionable. He is doing really really well and will now sit and let dogs walk past just need to walk on actually walking past another dog. He is fine when we got to new places and tends to not react at all just on our normal walks hes questionable....unless hubby has him then well anything can happen!!


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## theevos5

LexiLou2 said:


> ....*unless hubby has him then well anything can happen!!*


Just by saying this alone,gives you a life time membership to this thread


----------



## Sarah1983

Coffee said:


> Sarah1983 - what's the "choose to heel" method? Sounds interesting  Funny isn't it how some methods work for some dogs and not with others? We were getting absolutely no-where with the clicker which was disappointing as I do love using it and Alfie (usually!) picks things up really quickly with it too.


The way I did it was just to have him on a long line while walking around the fields and click and treat whenever he got anywhere near what would be the heel position. Once he was offering walking next to me I started increasing duration. He quickly started to offer it at intervals on the way home too so I built it up there and now he's mostly able to keep a loose leash on the way to the fields too. As long as it's just me and him anyway. Lots of practice just walking around the block to nowhere exciting has probably helped massively too. There are videos of it on youtube but some refuse to play for me coz I'm in the wrong country 

I've ended up with a more formal looking loose leash walking than I was aiming for as he keeps glancing up at me but I can live with that


----------



## Hertsgirl

Took Cookie out tonight with her Gentle Leader and oh my goodness, I couldn't believe the difference, she was like a completely different dog! Amazing. So pleased I brought it


----------



## Tigerneko

theevos5 said:


> Lol!What is it with these men??my OH takes Alf for his walk every saturday and Sunday,and from what I have been told,from my spies,he just lets him wander,dig,run off,and if he doesn't recall,just carries on walking until Alf finds him It's a bloody good job I love him,but I am starting to wonder whether I should just take over the weekend walks and be done with it
> Love the taking the dogs leads shopping,will have to try it:thumbsup:


haha this made me laugh, reminds me of my dad! I constantly worry and panic about letting Tiger off anywhere unknown/anywhere in the countryside in case we encounter other dogs or sheep, but my dad just has no fear in him and will let Tiger off almost anywhere! He is a little more sensible when there's sheep around, but most of the time he just doesn't 'bother' about other dogs. A lot of people on here would go nuts at that and say how 'irresponsible' it is, but my dad has never had an issue with him, whereas me and my nervy 'keep him on lead and well away' approach seems to just attract trouble and make him react. But my dad is so blazé about it, I worry whenever he takes Tiger out 



moonviolet said:


> A normal wooden spoon is great do not be tempted (like i was) to get the swish looking red silicone affair. it's non stick and indeed nothing sticks including primula which slides off onto your dogs head.


This just brought the most amusing image into my head ever, I am tempted to get one, just to see Tiger with a lump of squeezy cheese on his head 

On our side of things, there hasn't been much to report! He's been out with my dad a few times and I haven't heard any tales of embarassment or horror from him so i'm guessing he's behaved himself. Saturday was FAR too hot so he stayed in the garden & 'helped' my dad dig up the garden, so that was more than enough for him, Sunday was uneventful other than him barking at an Akita which was coming out of a house as we were walking past, but it was more of a surprised bark rather than an aggressive bark, and yesterday and today have been uneventful as well.

We've been bringing our neighbours JRT puppy around to our house/letting them meet through the fence for a few days, Tiger wasn't sure of the puppy in our house at first, and was giving it 'the look' (the corner of the eye stare thing) but lost interest after a few moments, so hopefully he'll get used to him because it'd be nice for them to get along. I am going to try and do this regularly, it'd be good if he could have the pup in the house without batting an eyelid. At the moment we are just sitting pup on our knees and treating Tiger for being nice and just being in the presence of the pup.


----------



## Dogless

Today we went to one of the forest we go to a lot. Just as we got there a lady with a yellow lab that Kilo plays well with arrived so we walked round together and they had a play for and hour and a half . 

He did, however, have a bit of a scrap with a black lab - one that has given him aggro before . Today I saw the lab running ahead of it's owner (running with another person and spaniel), recalled Kilo and put him on the lead - the lab still ran over, hackles straight up and a good growl and bark, the lady ran on so dog followed her and she said sorry. Towards the end of the walk they were coming up behind us again (several routes all converge) but I decided to leave Kilo off which was probably a stupid decision, but thought the issue may have been him onlead as he has been each time we have seen the lab. Mistake . He lay down, lab ran over (whilst the owner screamed his name again and again) tail up high, hackles up, growling, got to Kilo, Kilo stood up - lab erupted into lots of teeth and noise and Kilo responded likewise. Kilo got bitten on the face and then bit the lab on the rump, black hair left on the floor but no broken skin.

The lady running with the lab's owner very sensibly told her to run on, so she did and her dog followed her luckily and Kilo didn't follow, just ran straight back to me. So, a really epic fail by me .

The lady walking with me said she knew the lab as she lives in the same area and he's known for aggro, but still, I have yet again been stupid when I should have handled things for Kilo. The lying or sitting strategy in the park has been working so well.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Today we went to one of the forest we go to a lot. Just as we got there a lady with a yellow lab that Kilo plays well with arrived so we walked round together and they had a play for and hour and a half .
> 
> He did, however, have a bit of a scrap with a black lab - one that has given him aggro before . Today I saw the lab running ahead of it's owner (running with another person and spaniel), recalled Kilo and put him on the lead - the lab still ran over, hackles straight up and a good growl and bark, the lady ran on so dog followed her and she said sorry. Towards the end of the walk they were coming up behind us again (several routes all converge) but I decided to leave Kilo off which was probably a stupid decision, but thought the issue may have been him onlead as he has been each time we have seen the lab. Mistake . He lay down, lab ran over (whilst the owner screamed his name again and again) tail up high, hackles up, growling, got to Kilo, Kilo stood up - lab erupted into lots of teeth and noise and Kilo responded likewise. Kilo got bitten on the face and then bit the lab on the rump, black hair left on the floor but no broken skin.
> 
> The lady running with the lab's owner very sensibly told her to run on, so she did and her dog followed her luckily and Kilo didn't follow, just ran straight back to me. So, a really epic fail by me .
> 
> The lady walking with me said she knew the lab as she lives in the same area and he's known for aggro, but still, I have yet again been stupid when I should have handled things for Kilo. The lying or sitting strategy in the park has been working so well.


Nope, not a fail. you tried a different strategy to see if you got a different result.

Poor Kilo it's not your or his fault you are doing as trying to avoid, to train , trying various strategies. This dog has an irresponsible owner, ihand on heart I woud buy this woman a blooming long line and send it to her if i thought she would use it and you and Kilo would get some peace.

Nice walk all in all this morning. One lowlight ... having to peel a large humping scruffy dog off Tink without even seeing it's owners, thankfully not aggressive. Oh the joys of having "a girl who can't say no!" She was unphased and slightly bemused by the whole thing.

On a brighter note we saw Murphy the GSD and Molly the BC and Tink came to me and sat to have her lead put on before they got close without being asked, previously she would have wanted to avoid and watch. 

(day 11 smoke free )


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## kat&molly

What a shame Dogless  but you tried something that could have worked, we've all done things that have backfired on us.
You wouldn't even have a problem if others controlled their dogs, next time that womans out jogging- stick your foot out and trip her up


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Nope, not a fail. you tried a different strategy to see if you got a different result.
> 
> Poor Kilo it's not your or his fault you are doing as trying to avoid, to train , trying various strategies. This dog has an irresponsible owner, ihand on heart I woud buy this woman a blooming long line and send it to her if i thought she would use it and you and Kilo would get some peace.
> 
> Nice walk all in all this morning. One lowlight ... having to peel a large humping scruffy dog off Tink without even seeing it's owners, thankfully not aggressive. Oh the joys of having "a girl who can't say no!" She was unphased and slightly bemused by the whole thing.
> 
> On a brighter note we saw Murphy the GSD and Molly the BC and Tink came to me and sat to have her lead put on before they got close without being asked, previously she would have wanted to avoid and watch.
> 
> (day 11 smoke free )


Spot on MV  Well done Tink.

Well done on still being a non- smoker. Are you using anything. Patches or Champix?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Well done on still being a non- smoker. Are you using anything. Patches or Champix?


just 3 or 4 of those little nicotine lozenges a day and photos of advanced periodontal disease, grotty lung pics never did it for me but the thought of losing my teeth seems to be much more effective :yikes:.


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## theevos5

Dogless said:


> Today we went to one of the forest we go to a lot. Just as we got there a lady with a yellow lab that Kilo plays well with arrived so we walked round together and they had a play for and hour and a half .
> 
> He did, however, have a bit of a scrap with a black lab - one that has given him aggro before . Today I saw the lab running ahead of it's owner (running with another person and spaniel), recalled Kilo and put him on the lead - the lab still ran over, hackles straight up and a good growl and bark, the lady ran on so dog followed her and she said sorry. Towards the end of the walk they were coming up behind us again (several routes all converge) but I decided to leave Kilo off which was probably a stupid decision, but thought the issue may have been him onlead as he has been each time we have seen the lab. Mistake . He lay down, lab ran over (whilst the owner screamed his name again and again) tail up high, hackles up, growling, got to Kilo, Kilo stood up - lab erupted into lots of teeth and noise and Kilo responded likewise. Kilo got bitten on the face and then bit the lab on the rump, black hair left on the floor but no broken skin.
> 
> The lady running with the lab's owner very sensibly told her to run on, so she did and her dog followed her luckily and Kilo didn't follow, just ran straight back to me. So, a really epic fail by me .
> 
> The lady walking with me said she knew the lab as she lives in the same area and he's known for aggro, but still, I have yet again been stupid when I should have handled things for Kilo. The lying or sitting strategy in the park has been working so well.


I don't think you have been stupid at all,I think you have tried a different method,that's all.This woman is behaving irresponsibly by allowing her dog to approach others knowing that there may be a scuffle,the respectful and considerate thing to do,is to either have him on a running belt or pop it on a long line,when they are approaching other dogs.You are the one that's popping him on his lead incase her dog approaches you,that's not stupid,or a fail at all.
We do have a similar issue with Alf in that he was being nipped and barked at by a GS and I had him on his lead,I later let him off to play with his playmates,not expecting the GS to bother with him and it erupted into a full blown,snarling match,Alf was unhurt outwardly but if we see a GS,his bum hits the floor and he runs round in circles on his lead in fear.But everytime I see the same dog,I leash Alf and she walks past me,with hers off lead,wrong I think,but I don't want my dog to get hurt It's a pity that other people aren't as respectful and considerate
Nice recall today from Alf,not as great as the past week or so,but he is still sticking by me and not disappearing so that's a result.
Well done Tink on your interaction today with the humping dog and not being fazed by it and well done MV for keeping off the cigs,although I did laugh at the tooth reference

Forgot to add-Hope Kilos face is ok after being bitten,I expect he will need double cuddles now!


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## Dogless

Well done Miss Tink and you moonviolet :thumbsup:.

Well done Alf .

Thanks everyone for being kind - Kilo is fine, just a few lumps and bumps around his face and head. No broken skin. I didn't expect him to retaliate and it shook me up in a way to see him take a bite at the other dog as it's something that he's never done. Talking to the lady with me (and asking her to be very honest) she confirmed that he wasn't the aggressor and she couldn't see him throwing any confrontational signals out - her lab and Kilo lay down, both looking off to the side. I think that if the woman had just kept on running it wouldn't have occurred at all to that extent but because she stopped when the growling started her dog stopped following her as he did when Kilo has been on the lead or as he did when her friend told her to run on.

I have been successfully warding off the overenthusiastic labs, but this one and the one in the park I find hard to do so as they won't take 'no' for an answer and Kilo responds to the aggression and won't stay in a sit or down.

I don't think the lady carries a lead so I'll leg it off the path if I have time next time and (if I don't) I'll just shout for her to run on I think!


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## Dogless

Just spent an hour in the park, no headcollar, lovely walking and no overexcitement when in the vicinity of other dogs; gold star! He was lip licking and looking anxious when he saw some dogs so we walked in a wider arc than normal until he looked relaxed again - I am guessing that it was related to this morning.

moonviolet hats off to you as I was a bit nervous after this morning going into the park, so thought of what you had accomplished following Tink's 'proper' attack. Must have taken a lot of courage.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Just spent an hour in the park, no headcollar, lovely walking and no overexcitement when in the vicinity of other dogs; gold star! He was lip licking and looking anxious when he saw some dogs so we walked in a wider arc than normal until he looked relaxed again - I am guessing that it was related to this morning..


Well done on the no headcollar lovely LLW. Poor boy hopefully a couple of nice incident free walks and he'll leave this mornings horrible incident behind.



Dogless said:


> moonviolet hats off to you as I was a bit nervous after this morning going into the park, so thought of what you had accomplished following Tink's 'proper' attack. Must have taken a lot of courage.


I still haven't been back where it happened on my own, so not that brave. I used to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when i saw a dog sans owner or if a dog came charging over, but over time, facing it together I think we are closer and have a better understanding and greater communication because of it. So while i would never have wished it to happen the aftermath hasn't been all bad.


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## LexiLou2

Well we had a fairly postive walk with Bos, round 95% of our walk it is wide enough for me to walk wide of other dogs, however there is a narrow passageway thing and I always dread seeing dogs in that bit.
Anyway tonight we started down this bit and could see a CKCS and a staffy and no owner trotting toward us, so I turned round with my two walked back to the wider bit and asked them to sit while hubby went to see where the owner was. Anyway no owner so rather than face 2 off lead ownerless dogs in a narrow passage we turned to walk back the way we came. As we did this 2 people came running up looking for these dogs that had escaped out of their garden. So hubby walks up with them to get the dogs and I get my two to sit, a guy walked past with 2 yapping llasos and Bos stayed sat, not a peep, then a couple came round with a ckcs spaniel youngish pup and Bos stayed sat not a peep, by this time hubbys been gone a while (turned out he knew the guy who'd lost the dogs from 17 years ago) and Lexi was getting fidgety, and Bos stayed sat, then hubby came back with this guy and the 2 loose dogs which wondered in our direction and Bos stayed say, so everyone stood chatting and Bos stayed sat (I was treating intermitantly) and finally we went on our way. This was 5 'strange' dogs, a missing 'dad' a crying baby and a hyped up fidgety Lexi, and Bos stayed calm and sat the whole time....was very pleased with him.


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## Dogless

LexiLou2, what a fantastic walk - well done Bos .


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## theevos5

That's fantastic,well done Bos and his mummy too ofcourse


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## kat&molly

Not suprised Kilo was a bit anxious, I hope it doesn't affect him too much- or you Dogless.

Well done Bosley. Good boy.

The trainer has emailed to say she will be a bit late. So, she really will see them at their worst :yikes:

I am really praying this goes well today after both walks yesterday to places we haven't been for a couple of weeks. They were horrendous, well Molly was. I think this is so ingrained in them and they can sense my frustration, I literally jumped up and down stamping my feet like a 2 year old having a temper tantrum


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Bos sounds like a big gold star for you 



kat&molly said:


> The trainer has emailed to say she will be a bit late. So, she really will see them at their worst :yikes:
> 
> I am really praying this goes well today after both walks yesterday to places we haven't been for a couple of weeks. They were horrendous, well Molly was. I think this is so ingrained in them and they can sense my frustration, I literally jumped up and down stamping my feet like a 2 year old having a temper tantrum


I hope it goes well with the trainer today.

If it makes you feel any better I have been known to go to the shed to scream on occasion :blushing:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Not suprised Kilo was a bit anxious, I hope it doesn't affect him too much- or you Dogless.
> 
> Well done Bosley. Good boy.
> 
> The trainer has emailed to say she will be a bit late. So, she really will see them at their worst :yikes:
> 
> I am really praying this goes well today after both walks yesterday to places we haven't been for a couple of weeks. They were horrendous, well Molly was. I think this is so ingrained in them and they can sense my frustration, I literally jumped up and down stamping my feet like a 2 year old having a temper tantrum


Good luck with the trainer; we have our class this evening too :eek6:.

Kilo wasn't great this morning; bit of a frustrating stop - start walk and put him onlead when I saw a dog at the far end of the field as he was just very distracted by everything this morning and in the mood to go and investigate . Really hope things are better this evening!


----------



## theevos5

Good luck Kat&Molly with the trainer today
Good luck Kilo this evening at class
Alf has been fine today,not 100% recall but still really goodHe even recalled at a point after seeing another dog he loves at the other end of the field and they were just leaving the field,he was high upon a ditch ready to jump it to go and say hello,but I called he came and I was really pleased,sounds a tiny thing,but for him,it's massive.
We more or less had the field to ourselves today,as it has rained all morning,where have those fair weather walkers disappeared to So he has had 2 hours off lead with his group of dog pals(incuding another beagle that has fantastic recall and I forgot my camera) so is knackered now and very very smelly
Something I do really need to work on is,if someone has treats,and gives him one he is jumping up at them, If they have treats and he knows he isn't getting one,he is fine and accepts this,but if they cave in and give himone,he is a nuisance.I have a rule that no one is allowed to give him treats,only me,and that was to help his recall,the theory being,if only I gave him treats,he would come to me for them and stay close!But the hard thing is,if someone who doesn't really know us randomly gives him a treat,he is the jumping up at their pockets and being a right pain.He knows he is to sit and wait for a treat,but this is out of control jumping,usually he isn't within grabbing distance to leash or tell him to sit/come-any ideas?


----------



## kat&molly

Well, she's been  No miracles[yet] but she was really nice I felt at ease and so did the girls.
We concentrated on Molly mainly- I am mixing her up, but also she's dictating and training me. She could see that Molly knows exactly what I want, so I have stick to what she's told me to do and nothing else.
Evie is a bit spoilt  , just because Scruff earnt a treat, Evie cant have one for nothing.
She's coming back next week but said how well behaved they were and she wishes all her 'problem' dogs were only as bad as these. I was really chuffed about that.
I told her about Operation Chuck, and she advised against it, saying I should manage,i.e crate or lead, some things just cant be solved and I probably would never be able to trust her because she has killed, and her breed.
It's been a lovely morning and nice to meet someone who believes in Reward training and has a genuine love of dogs.
I'll go back now and read what I've missed


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## Dogless

kay&molly, that sounds exceptionally positive - nice to know that your dogs aren't 'problems' and just a bit spoilt! Hopefully you'll make some more good inroads now .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> kay&molly, that sounds exceptionally positive - nice to know that your dogs aren't 'problems' and just a bit spoilt! Hopefully you'll make some more good inroads now .


She said most people wouldn't be bothering to sort this as they wouldn't see it as a problem 
So for this next week I'm going to concentrate on just Molly's pulling, even if that means Scruff is getting away with it for now. Its too much to be tackling all at once.
I've got to think about everything I do , I cant even throw Mollys ball for nothing, she has to do a wait or a down first.
Moll is the most beautiful Springer she's ever seen!!!

Hope it goes really well for you and Kilo tonight- and you can understand the trainer.[I really struggle with N.I]


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> She said most people wouldn't be bothering to sort this as they wouldn't see it as a problem
> So for this next week I'm going to concentrate on just Molly's pulling, even if that means Scruff is getting away with it for now. Its too much to be tackling all at once.
> I've got to think about everything I do , I cant even throw Mollys ball for nothing, she has to do a wait or a down first.
> Moll is the most beautiful Springer she's ever seen!!!
> 
> Hope it goes really well for you and Kilo tonight- and you can understand the trainer.[I really struggle with N.I]


I'm paranoid about not understanding - when I watched his lesson the echoey hall didn't help but I understood him OK when we were just talking and when he rang to cancel Tuesday. Kilo is being a bit 'Kevin' today - hopefully we'll be OK :thumbsup:.

Sounds as if the trainer fell in love with your lot .


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Well done Bos sounds like a big gold star for you
> 
> I hope it goes well with the trainer today.
> 
> If it makes you feel any better I have been known to go to the shed to scream on occasion :blushing:


I dont believe that. Tink is a good girl :hand:


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> kay&molly, that sounds exceptionally positive - nice to know that your dogs aren't 'problems' and just a bit spoilt! Hopefully you'll make some more good inroads now .


Thats something else, if anyone asked me if they were spoiled, I'd say no- its taken someone else to tell me they are.


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## Dotte

Bry update 

After deciding to start to work on Bry's dog reactiveness I kinda chickened out and avoided all dogs for a few days  Well I put my big girl shoes on today and decided to give it a go  Armed with a bag of natures menu treats we went down to the edge of our estate where there is a huge grass belt we worked on his recall at first (new word: Bikkie!) and then I saw a GSD in the distance so I got all my determination and Brys attentions and I started to treat everytime he looked at me and the GSD walked past (kinda far away) without Bry even fixating  I was so proud!!! 

Then I got bold, hehe, and decied to take him offlead for a minute, I wish I coud tell yous it went great, but it's Bry and we all know he'll never be perfect, but it wasnt disasterous  He recalled perfectly, stayed close but then he saw a pack of birds and took off :yikes: I had to sprint off after him, screaming, but as soon as all the birds were flown off he turned on the spot and came running back to me super happy :thumbsup:

So dog reactiveness still needs to be worked on, and now I have to work on his bird chasing too cuz I was literally terrified he wasn't coming back there for a moment  

But still a good training day


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I dont believe that. Tink is a good girl :hand:


Pffftttt she has her moments although to be fair it's more often hubby that causes me to retire to my screaming shed than it is Tinks 

K&M I'm glad you like the trainer she sounds great. Hope you enjoy the process. 

TheEvo5 sounds like Master Alfred is doing well.... but you i'm disappointed in you .. another beagle and no pics... honestly 

We had a great walk earlier we've been walking with people all week. So today I decided I wanted a nice quiet walk time for some fun and sittign having cuddles while admiring the view (and marvelling at my inability to spot the wood ants before I sit in their path) so we'd enjoyed over an hour of mooching and playing just chilling, we were just about to cross a track between 2 areas of woodland when we bumped into one of our trainers with a collegue i'd not met preiviously, i barely got an intro , Tink however was introduced as an exceptional beagle (that will swell her head) I made some pleasant noises then headed off.

After another 20mins we were in the valley on the last leg of our walk, which was just as well as my light limp was getting a bit more pronounced. we approached a large crossroads int eh tracks these are wide wide tracks picture 3 lane motorways , in sand. coming from my left was a dog walker, in a hi vis vest 2 dogs on long lines and 3 loose. I slipped Tink on lead as she was looking cautious and they were obiviously heading up the way we were coming from so going a U turn would have placed our backs to them, so onward was the answer... Well I coudlnt' be more impressed with this dog walker...

He asked his dogs to stop and they did... he asked me if I would like him to get them all on lead. I said no it was fine as long as they didn't charge over all at once. He then said he could let them say hello one at a time all slowly all politely and that is exactly what happened one by one after the second I took Tink offlead as she was moving forward and looking comfortable. All the dogs were calm and polite an absolute joy to meet.

So thank you to Ty, Misty, Percy, Pip and sorry little white one i didn't catch your name. After a little chat about how nice it is when people and dogs have good manners we went on our way. Tink with a big spring in her step obviously proud of what a brave girl she is 

Still unsure of the sound of very excited kids on our school walk past but it's workable.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thats something else, if anyone asked me if they were spoiled, I'd say no- its taken someone else to tell me they are.


I didn't mean it in a bad way; I have to be very conscious to make Kilo work for anything and I am sure he's also spoiled .

Dotte and moonviolet - what fantastic days!!

moonviolet - the man with 5 dogs all greeting nicely and calmly sounds like exactly the kind of person that you need to meet with Tink to boost her confidence (and yours). Being told your dog is exceptional must have made you burst with pride; it's the kind of thing that I can only aspire to .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I didn't mean it in a bad way; I have to be very conscious to make Kilo work for anything and I am sure he's also spoiled .
> 
> Dotte and moonviolet - what fantastic days!!
> 
> moonviolet - the man with 5 dogs all greeting nicely and calmly sounds like exactly the kind of person that you need to meet with Tink to boost her confidence (and yours). Being told your dog is exceptional must have made you burst with pride; it's the kind of thing that I can only aspire to .


Dogless, I know you didn't. I'm so pleased today I've been told some home truths- I needed it I think. I am still on such a 'High' from her visit, but its also due to this thread and all of you understanding these things-otherwise I think I would have given up by now. I'd be avoiding it and taking them all out in the car every time. I hope its as good for you tonight, but I realise a hall full of dogs is more difficult. It's on my list to join the classes.
Well done Dotte and Bryson.
Mustn't forget Alfie, I dont know what to suggest[because I'm hopeless] but cant you get him back to reward him before theres a problem? 
Moonviolet- wow, wow, wow- what a fantastic day for you and Tinker- why cant all multiple dog owners be like that. Mine aren't aggressive but can be a bit gobby - I'll aspire to have that much control. Have you arranged to meet up?


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## moonviolet

Well done Dotte. I like the sound of your big girl shoes well done. Sounds like you and Bryson did great.



Dogless said:


> moonviolet - the man with 5 dogs all greeting nicely and calmly sounds like exactly the kind of person that you need to meet with Tink to boost her confidence (and yours). Being told your dog is exceptional must have made you burst with pride; it's the kind of thing that I can only aspire to .


I do hope i see that dog walker again. He was great and so considerate. I must qualify the trainers comment... exceptional for a beagle is kind of like saying remedial for a border collie


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## theevos5

SWell done Bry and Dotte,even though you did have a little chase of the birds and terrified your mummy,but you did recall perfectly so that all good news
Tinker,glad you had a fab walk and met such calm and polite dogs with their lovely owner,I would make a play date for you every now so you get to see them more,and wow to being an exceptional beagle,something Alf should be trying to aspire to,massive pats on the backs and cuddle for Tinks
Now I am sitting drumming my fingers waiting to hear how Master Kilo got on
Sorry forgot about Kat&molly
Glad it went well,it sounds abit like NILIF,where the dog has to earn a treat etc by doing a command,I have adopted some of it for Alf in the past but caved in on the affection side and letting him on the sofa!lol


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## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> SWell done Bry and Dotte,even though you did have a little chase of the birds and terrified your mummy,but you did recall perfectly so that all good news
> Tinker,glad you had a fab walk and met such calm and polite dogs with their lovely owner,I would make a play date for you every now so you get to see them more,and wow to being an exceptional beagle,something Alf should be trying to aspire to,massive pats on the backs and cuddle for Tinks
> *Now I am sitting drumming my fingers waiting to hear how Master Kilo got on*
> Sorry forgot about Kat&molly
> Glad it went well,it sounds abit like NILIF,where the dog has to earn a treat etc by doing a command,I have adopted some of it for Alf in the past but caved in on the affection side and letting him on the sofa!lol


A GOLD STAR evening . We went along to the club who were extremely friendly and welcoming especially as I was slightly nervous . I watched and did some paperwork and talked with them about Kilo and what I wanted to achieve for about 45 minutes. Then I went and joined in and Kilo was a star - did everything I asked first time, every time, and kept a lovely loose lead; only heelwork at varying speeds, about turns, waits and sits...but he was really good. The woman at the end said that I had some very good work out of him and he was attentive to me :thumbsup:.

It made me realise how much stress he was under when I went to the last set of classes that I hated as I used to struggle to get his nose off the floor, he used to pant, pull towards other dogs; I used to struggle to get any focus at all....all because I used to feel so nervous there myself .

So; we joined the club and will certainly be going back . Kilo is sparked out on the sofa after his hard effort for me .


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## theevos5

Dogless said:


> A GOLD STAR evening . We went along to the club who were extremely friendly and welcoming especially as I was slightly nervous . I watched and did some paperwork and talked with them about Kilo and what I wanted to achieve for about 45 minutes. Then I went and joined in and Kilo was a star - did everything I asked first time, every time, and kept a lovely loose lead; only heelwork at varying speeds, about turns, waits and sits...but he was really good. The woman at the end said that I had some very good work out of him and he was attentive to me :thumbsup:.
> 
> It made me realise how much stress he was under when I went to the last set of classes that I hated as I used to struggle to get his nose off the floor, he used to pant, pull towards other dogs; I used to struggle to get any focus at all....all because I used to feel so nervous there myself .
> 
> So; we joined the club and will certainly be going back . Kilo is sparked out on the sofa after his hard effort for me .


I am genuinely really pleased that it all went to plan and then someWhat an
absolute superstar and it just shows the difference that the right training environment can make to the stress levels of you bothonwards and upwards now:thumbsup:


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> A GOLD STAR evening . We went along to the club who were extremely friendly and welcoming especially as I was slightly nervous . I watched and did some paperwork and talked with them about Kilo and what I wanted to achieve for about 45 minutes. Then I went and joined in and Kilo was a star - did everything I asked first time, every time, and kept a lovely loose lead; only heelwork at varying speeds, about turns, waits and sits...but he was really good. The woman at the end said that I had some very good work out of him and he was attentive to me :thumbsup:.
> 
> It made me realise how much stress he was under when I went to the last set of classes that I hated as I used to struggle to get his nose off the floor, he used to pant, pull towards other dogs; I used to struggle to get any focus at all....all because I used to feel so nervous there myself .
> 
> So; we joined the club and will certainly be going back . Kilo is sparked out on the sofa after his hard effort for me .


I'm so pleased for you  Sounds like you and Kilo had a wonderful time. I have to say our classes have been a refuge for us when everything else has been a nightmare, it's been a safe zone.

I bet you are proud of that big beautiful boy wonder of yours tonight and you should be proud of yourself too.


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## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> I am genuinely really pleased that it all went to plan and then someWhat an
> absolute superstar and *it just shows the difference that the right training environment can make to the stress levels of you both*onwards and upwards now:thumbsup:


And then some; I was nervous as the others had been such an ordeal .



moonviolet said:


> I'm so pleased for you  Sounds like you and Kilo had a wonderful time. I have to say our classes have been a refuge for us when everything else has been a nightmare, it's been a safe zone.
> 
> I bet you are proud of that big beautiful boy wonder of yours tonight and you should be proud of yourself too.


I am proud of him; he was a good boy .


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## kat&molly

Wow, that sounds brilliant. Kilo was obviously very relaxed throughout, isn't is a great feeling to get a nice trainer?


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Wow, that sounds brilliant. Kilo was obviously very relaxed throughout, isn't is a great feeling to get a nice trainer?


They were all lovely and I was so surprised at what a nice atmosphere it was - Kilo wasn't relaxed when they were all doing their recalls but all the dogs were barking and getting excited and he joined in a bit until I got his attention back. Apart from that he was lovely and relaxed and attentive and worked really well for me. Someone else was new and were told that they had a lot to practise at home before next week but I was told to just come and join in - I'm sure it won't all be such plain sailing and we will have some horrible weeks where it all goes wrong, but it was a great start. I feel guilty over the immense stress I obviously put him under in the other classes - we both hated them .

It was like you were saying yesterday about your trainer saying that your 'problem' dogs weren't really problems. I realised that we have loads to achieve but he really isn't the worst there is!

I am still on a high this morning. Not that you can tell .


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## kat&molly

I think you've done very well with Kilo, and from photos its easy to see how attentive he is to you. I'm still on my High and I went hours before you :laugh:


I think I've just been managing my lot rather than sorting a few things out, Big Evie  said considering that they are good happy dogs. She's even going to sort some Basic Gun dog lessons for the winter- something I've always wanted for Molly.
I have to teach little Evie more commands 

Roll on next week eh :thumbsup:


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I think you've done very well with Kilo, and from photos its easy to see how attentive he is to you. I'm still on my High and I went hours before you :laugh:
> 
> I think I've just been managing my lot rather than sorting a few things out, Big Evie  said considering that they are good happy dogs. She's even going to sort some Basic Gun dog lessons for the winter- something I've always wanted for Molly.
> I have to teach little Evie more commands
> 
> Roll on next week eh :thumbsup:


Onwards and upwards :thumbsup:.

I took him to our favourite spot for 3 hours, we didn't see a soul as usual and we just had a lovely walk for him to muck about - he had zoomies loads of times, so guess my very happy mood must have rubbed off or something :eek6:.


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## moonviolet

Just a lovely thing to share on our main walk today we were heading up a hill i could see a group of people at the top, it was lovely to see smiling people recall and lead up their dogs I did the same, Polite greetings and morning pleasantires were exchanged as Tink happily trotted past 2 irish wolfhounds and 5 GSDS. 6 months ago just wouldn't have happened. ( we would have had to head into the trees to allow her to watch from a safe distance) What a difference it makes when you encounter considerate people.


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## Holtie

Heelwork with my 17 week old Springer Spaniel - know the saying 'No pain no gain'? Well, my fingers certainly feel the pain when sparingly holding the reward up in front of her but the way she is coming on it's worth it! Her recall is really good as well as sit and stay. I'm doing the training with her on her own as she is distracted by the older dog but this will be useful later on when she has to learn to deal with distractions.


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## moonviolet

JTHolt said:


> Heelwork with my 17 week old Springer Spaniel - know the saying 'No pain no gain'? Well, my fingers certainly feel the pain when sparingly holding the reward up in front of her but the way she is coming on it's worth it! Her recall is really good as well as sit and stay. I'm doing the training with her on her own as she is distracted by the older dog but this will be useful later on when she has to learn to deal with distractions.


You could save your fingers by using a target stick, a wooden spoon smeared with primula cheese, pate, peanut butter,tahini. lowered for a lick when a treat is earned. It's a bit easier on the back too 

Sounds like she is coming on a treat though


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## Holtie

moonviolet said:


> You could save your fingers by using a target stick, a wooden spoon smeared with primula cheese, pate, peanut butter,tahini. lowered for a luck when a treat is earned. It's a bit easier on the back too
> 
> Sounds like she is coming on a treat though


Thank you for this great tip! :thumbsup: - I must admit it is hard on the back! 
Will certainly try this and give my poor digits a rest! The only thing I will have to do is remind myself not to lick the spoon myself after the dog has licked it!! Eeeeuwwww!


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## paddyjulie

Sorry i aint be on for a bit..been poorly  but you all sound like your doing very well..and I glad that Kilo and you dogless enjoyed the training class..

chester is a little calmer in class..but we still have a long way to go..quite often he will freeze and refuse any treats from me because his stress levels have gone through the roof  .

anyway going to have a go at putting himself in a box today :thumbsup: I find free shaping very interesting :lol:


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## Dogless

paddyjulie said:


> Sorry i aint be on for a bit..been poorly  but you all sound like your doing very well..and I glad that Kilo and you dogless enjoyed the training class..
> 
> chester is a little calmer in class..but we still have a long way to go..quite often he will freeze and refuse any treats from me because his stress levels have gone through the roof  .
> 
> anyway going to have a go at putting himself in a box today :thumbsup: I find free shaping very interesting :lol:


Just remember to let him out again  or post him to me .

Kilo was brilliant in the park this morning, LLW with no headcollar, walked nicely past other dogs, we walked for a few minutes with an old couple and their westie and he came close and ignored a lively dog trying to get to him. Really pleased; I think a good class gave me a confidence boost which is showing when I take the BW out .


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## moonviolet

Where are all the noisy riotous kids when you want them!?

Had a lovely walk earlier then headed to the canal centre for a coffee at a picnic table right next to the kids play area. 6 kids in there and barely a peep damn it i wanted noise and chaos. Never mind Tink chilled out on her mat and the coffee wasn't bad


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Where are all the noisy riotous kids when you want them!?
> 
> Had a lovely walk earlier then headed to the canal centre for a coffee at a picnic table right next to the kids play area. 6 kids in there and barely a peep damn it i wanted noise and chaos. Never mind Tink chilled out on her mat and the coffee wasn't bad


Be careful what you wish for  
Sounds like it was nice relaxing though


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## kat&molly

We had 2 'difficult' walks today, the first one because OH came :yikes:. They all get extra excited then but I took Moll and left him with Scruff and Evie. I ignored what he was doing wrong and just concentrated on Molly, following instructions from big Evie. She still had her lunging /pulling moments to start with but she calmed down really quickly. Probably 70% better than she has been. 
This afternoon I walked them through the village to another place, I'm sure Scruff is taking advantage, but I'm having to ignore it at the minute. Moll still pulled and lunged quite a lot but as she gets to the end of the lead she corrects herself by jumping back to my side , looking at me before she does it. I'm a bit of a parrot saying good girl, good girl in happy quiet voices, but even if she never gets better than this I can live with it- I'm confident she will get get better though, the Lunging and pulling today was a bit Pathetic  compared to how it has been. She didn't even pull at the turning she knew we would make- thats a first- ever 
I think me praising Molly is confusing Scruff and she's pulling more- but Scruffs problem isn't as ingrained, I think she will be much easier , later on.

Feeling like a happy bunny at the minute


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## Dogless

Another 'best boy' morning . LLW and some heelwork to the top fields - some fetch and recalls, then LLW and heelwork with some sits / waits (prancing particularly well in his UJ collar past people) to the bottom fields where he just ran about then same again home. We only saw one dog and Kilo passed it on the other side with minimum fuss :thumbsup:.

Hope everyone else is having a good weekend .


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## moonviolet

Sounds like Kilo is on a real roll at the moment.  

Yesterday we went for a nice quiet day with more unpopular walking areas.  this afternoon Tink is coming to a street party, If she is comfortable, she and some her doggie friends will be doing some tricks to entertain the kids ( kept at a distance and allowed to approach politely after) Please wish us luck.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like Kilo is on a real roll at the moment.
> 
> Yesterday we went for a nice quiet day with more unpopular walking areas.  this afternoon Tink is coming to a street party, If she is comfortable, she and some her doggie friends will be doing some tricks to entertain the kids ( kept at a distance and allowed to approach politely after) Please wish us luck.


Kilo is (touch wood ); he was fantastic again this morning .

Good luck to Miss Tink and you .


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## kat&molly

Good luck Tink and Moonviolet- you'll get the noisy kids you wanted now 
Hope it goes well .

Kilo is really doing well lately isn't he  You must be feeling very proud of him. 

We're on a roll as well- a backward one  No, not really Molly is getting a bit better- it just needs to sink in a bit more [I hope]. However as the attention isn't on her Scruff seems to be terrible- her pulling has gotten worse and I'm really hoping we get to do some work with her this week.
Got nearly home from our walk this morning before I realised we'd gone out inthe car so we had to turn back


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Got nearly home from our walk this morning before I realised we'd gone out inthe car so we had to turn back


:w00t::crazy::lol:.


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## Dogless

Kilo was just blummin fab AGAIN....can't help feeling we have a Kevin day brewing with all this good behaviour  although I hope not!! Passed a few dogs with a glance then attention straight back on me and Babycham's liver cake .

Hope Miss Tink performed her tricks well....


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## Coffee

Well done Kilo, you're a star  Dogless, you must be so proud, he's been such a good boy for you 

Hope Tinker's tricks were fabulous and she (and you too of course Moonviolet!) had a lovely afternoon 

kat&molly - great to hear Molly is making such good progress  Hope Scruff isn't taking advantage of the situation 

Things have all been a bit poor here lately on the LLW  Since we had that great day last week things have took a massive turn for the worse  This morning was particularly horrible... literally one step, YANK to the end of the lead and repeat 100 times  He was also lunging which he never normally does and it was giving my poor shoulder a right bashing. Have been in so much pain all day since getting back :crying:

<sigh>

It's been a month now... is it normal that he's still not "got" it?


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## Sarah1983

Coffee said:


> It's been a month now... is it normal that he's still not "got" it?


If you've seen no improvement at all in a month of using one method then I'd say you need to try a different one. There are plenty of methods out there, it's sometimes just a matter of finding which one works with your particular dog  I find the turn and walk in the opposite direction every time the dogs shoulder passes my knee works well most of the time yet I did it for 2 months with Spencer with no result.

Dogless, maybe Kilo is just becoming a nice, mature dog and is now getting past the attacks of the Kevins? I'm living in hope that this happens with Spencer sooner rather than later.

Moonviolet, good luck at the street party!

Kat&Molly, glad you're seeing some progress!

We met up with Milo again on Saturday and I managed to get a wonderful video of Spencer absolutely blanking me  Milo would go rushing back to his owner as soon as she called. Spencer wouldn't even twitch an ear in my direction. However, I did have some success. Didn't use our recall word as I don't want to poison it, I just acted daft and did silly things to encourage him to me and then gave him a treat and sent him off to play again. He was on his long line but I didn't want to just reel him in and force him to recall as that's how I did it with Shadow and although his recall was 100% while on a line it was still non existent off one.

Our loose leash walking is going well for the most part. He's absolutely abysmal if we're with another dog or my hubby but for me on my own he's fantastic. Have to about turn now and then as he'll forge on at times but for the most part the leash stays loose.


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## moonviolet

Aww Coffee, your poor shoulder. I'm hoping it's going to be the same with Alfie as it was with Tinks. She became the worst ever just before she got it, so by that reckoning you might almost be there, lets hope it's his extinction burst, fingers crossed. 


We're back from the street party. Tink was a star, our tricks were pretty hit and miss, I forgot half of the tricks she knows, her focus was patchy completely my fault, but she was funny and charming and loved working the crowd. we also had a pompom malfunction (never thought i'd be using that phrase)

Then came the bit I was looking forward to (optimistic it would go well), the kids were well briefed on asking permission to stroke the dog, and how and where to stroke and they were absolute stars. With a steady stream of chicken Tink begin to lap up the attention it was excellent. We gave a couple of nervous kids some confidence and the confident kids some dog sense. Very, very proud of my girl   All in all a great success she loved the crowd ,the noise, the firemen (oops no that was me) She's now flopped out, one tired happy beagle 

I'll sort out some pics later OH took them and there seems to be rather alot of my large rear end at first glance.)


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet, congratulations to you and Tinker- it sounds like it went brilliantly- the kids were really good as well, what a lovely positive experience, and I look forward to the pictures   P.S- Firemen have me swooning too 

Dogless- Kilo really is doing well, I had thought the same as said above whether perhaps he's maturing now- when all the hard work just seems to sink in and you feel all the rewards, thats how it was with Molly- and apart from the LLW she's always been a dream since-hopefully Spencer and Alfie will reach it soon. 

Coffee- sorry you're still having problems[like me ] are you sure you are being consistent with what ever you try because I know this has been where I'm going wrong? 

Molly was pretty good this afternoon, still has her moments though but I'm quite pleased with how she's going, its more a couple of minutes of silliness. Even done a bit with Scruff, she was really good- hope I can build on that, but we'll see. During walks I put them both back on at the same time for a couple of minutes and they are always brilliant.


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## Coffee

Thanks for the support, as always 

kat&molly - yes, I'm painfully consistent, I don't "allow" him to pull me at all. The second the lead goes tight I stop dead. It's just constant stop-start-stop-start with no progress at all these last few days  He does seem to know what's expected of him when I stop dead... he'll look back at me, give a little whine  and then back up a couple of steps and off we go. I just don't know if I'm actually doing it right  He seems to get frustrated when we stop and he quickly backs up so the lead goes loose so why, oh why is he not learning that if he keeps the lead loose at all times we won't need to stop at all and we'll get there much quicker? 

I've just been and dug out his Dogmatic and am thinking of having another go with that tomorrow  I don't know though... he hated it SO much before and I just don't know if it's worth all the stress but (sorry for repeating myself) my shoulders and back are just SO painful at the moment, painkillers aren't even helping anymore, it's just a constant horrible ache


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## Sarah1983

Coffee said:


> kat&molly - yes, I'm painfully consistent, I don't "allow" him to pull me at all. The second the lead goes tight I stop dead. It's just constant stop-start-stop-start with no progress at all these last few days  He does seem to know what's expected of him when I stop dead... he'll look back at me, give a little whine  and then back up a couple of steps and off we go. I just don't know if I'm actually doing it right  He seems to get frustrated when we stop and he quickly backs up so the lead goes loose so why, oh why is he not learning that if he keeps the lead loose at all times we won't need to stop at all and we'll get there much quicker?


This is the exact same problem I've had every single time I've tried to use this method. I've found none of the dogs learned to _keep_ the leash loose with it, only to loosen it when I stopped. With Spencer I've ended up with boomerang dog in the woods. He goes flying to the end of the leash, I stop, he comes back to me, I start walking, he goes flying to the end of the leash, I stop, he comes back and so on. Other times I've ended up with a dog who just sits where they are whenever I stop. Rupert once sat there for 30 minutes without once even looking round at me :001_rolleyes:

I've heard people swear by the method but I must be doing something drastically wrong coz I've not managed to get it to work with any dog I've tried it with 

I can't get Spen to accept a headcollar even taking it slowly and making it highly rewarding. As soon as I expect him to take even a single step he freaks out even though he's fine with having it on while stood still. Have you thought about one of the harnesses that attaches at the front instead?


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## Shrap

I'm working on about turns and eye contact in heelwork. And emergency stops.

I don't train nearly enough though. If I trained every day he'd get it perfectly in a week. I just cba sometimes and like to change up what I'm training.


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## kat&molly

Coffee- he sounds very similar to Moll, except being a Springer she actually jumps back in to place , only to do the same again a few seconds later
For me it took the trainer to show me where I was going wrong, I knew it was me[apart from trying with too many dogs].Your last experience with a Trainer wasn't good and they don't come cheap but is there another you could try for a home visit? Moll is still very much a WIP but after trying different things , Big Evie told me what to stick with- which was when Moll jumps back quietly say Good girl and go again- she still lunges to the end of the lead of the lead but she looks at me quicker and is back at my side before I know it and there's less 'force' behind it now.


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## Shrap

I've just done some out in the garden and he was fantastic. Left turns are brill now. His rights aren't as close as they should be. Eye contact was amazing since nothing else was going on. We did some at the farm and his eye contact was poor but it wasn't his fault, the fields were REALLY uneven and he'd probably have stumbled if he wasn't keeping an eye on the ground. He was a complete arse at the park yesterday though lol. But after 40 minutes of heelwork and recall I would be too. I didn't have his toy with me because we were practicing working around other dogs, so my friend brought her bitch out and we worked around each other - Xeva is very ball possessive so we were both working on treats, praise and releasing for a play... 

Teenagers


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## tinaK

I am working on Clover barking at bigger dogs.


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## kat&molly

We're off to Mollys family which is great for the dogs, especially Evie who hasn't been able to go off lead for nearly a week now due to the sheep being moved.
I'm having a bit of a problem though. A couple of the dogs there are suffering quite badly with what I'm presuming is Arthritis they aren't ever taken to the vets- the answer seems to be not to walk them. One was VERY ill a few weeks back and nothing was done about it-somehow he has recovered without any meds -there's other things as well, 3 of them being overweight due to a poor diet, I know these things aren't really any of my business but I find it hard to ignore and I'm forever dropping hints about decent food and supplements. I know Jay's overweight but its not for lack of effort on my part and I try to ensure she's pain free.
Its getting to a point where I will stop going I think but that will be sad for all the dogs and its the only real socialising mine get


----------



## sharloid

We're still just working on the basics but he seems to be going backwards! We're trying to get him to calmly walk past people and other dogs rather than trying to hop over to them.

Oh, and he's just learnt to spin:

Broder spinning - YouTube


----------



## Shrap

kat&molly said:


> We're off to Mollys family which is great for the dogs, especially Evie who hasn't been able to go off lead for nearly a week now due to the sheep being moved.
> I'm having a bit of a problem though. A couple of the dogs there are suffering quite badly with what I'm presuming is Arthritis they aren't ever taken to the vets- the answer seems to be not to walk them. One was VERY ill a few weeks back and nothing was done about it-somehow he has recovered without any meds -there's other things as well, 3 of them being overweight due to a poor diet, I know these things aren't really any of my business but I find it hard to ignore and I'm forever dropping hints about decent food and supplements. I know Jay's overweight but its not for lack of effort on my part and I try to ensure she's pain free.
> Its getting to a point where I will stop going I think but that will be sad for all the dogs and its the only real socialising mine get


If you get the right person from the RSPCA they might be able to do something about the fact they're not getting vet care for an ill dog.


----------



## paddyjulie

Having a go at free shaping a 'send away' he is at the point where he know that I want him to go to his mat, so I am going to have to put a word in now also...bless his little socks though I can see his little brain working so hard trying to work out what behavour I want 

might have a little fun tonight and see if I can get him to shut a cupboard door for me :mellow:

If any one knows of any clicker games can you let me know 

oh and any tips how I can get him to lay on his side..tried to lure with a treat..but he just wont do it ..Lauren wants me to train him to play dead :001_rolleyes:


----------



## Dogless

Shrap said:


> If you get the right person from the RSPCA they might be able to do something about the fact they're not getting vet care for an ill dog.


kat&molly is in France .

Not much to report - went to an absolutely packed park this morning and worked on loads of exercises around dogs, people etc and was very, very pleased with Kilo; got lots of compliments on his behaviour which was nice . Only downside was a dog that wouldn't leave us alone for a bit - she only wanted to play but it was hard work for a while!


----------



## Shrap

Ah, should have checked lol. I just assume most people are in England 

Well done Kilo


----------



## Coffee

Sarah1983 said:


> This is the exact same problem I've had every single time I've tried to use this method. I've found none of the dogs learned to _keep_ the leash loose with it, only to loosen it when I stopped. With Spencer I've ended up with boomerang dog in the woods. He goes flying to the end of the leash, I stop, he comes back to me, I start walking, he goes flying to the end of the leash, I stop, he comes back and so on. Other times I've ended up with a dog who just sits where they are whenever I stop. Rupert once sat there for 30 minutes without once even looking round at me :001_rolleyes:
> 
> I've heard people swear by the method but I must be doing something drastically wrong coz I've not managed to get it to work with any dog I've tried it with
> 
> I can't get Spen to accept a headcollar even taking it slowly and making it highly rewarding. As soon as I expect him to take even a single step he freaks out even though he's fine with having it on while stood still. Have you thought about one of the harnesses that attaches at the front instead?


Obviously while I'm not pleased you've had issues too, it is kind of nice to hear the "stop start" method hasn't worked for others too 

I'm not sure if it's that we're doing anything wrong as such, maybe it's just not the method for our dogs 

I've tried a front clip harness and it made no difference  He would just pull until the harness twisted itself around him. Also tried the Meluki balance harness and that didn't work either; though I suspect with that it was more me not being able to get to grips with it.

Well, I did get out the Dogmatic last night and did lots of treating/praise while he wore it in the house. No problems getting it on him and out this morning but then he did fuss and mess about a bit with it once we were out, which I did sort of expect to be honest. Plenty of pawing at it and rubbing himself up my legs  It was such a massive relief though to be able to actually walk with him, but I can't help feeling disappointed, like we've taken a step backwards


----------



## Coffee

kat&molly said:


> Coffee- he sounds very similar to Moll, except being a Springer she actually jumps back in to place , only to do the same again a few seconds later
> For me it took the trainer to show me where I was going wrong, I knew it was me[apart from trying with too many dogs].Your last experience with a Trainer wasn't good and they don't come cheap but is there another you could try for a home visit? Moll is still very much a WIP but after trying different things , Big Evie told me what to stick with- which was when Moll jumps back quietly say Good girl and go again- she still lunges to the end of the lead of the lead but she looks at me quicker and is back at my side before I know it and there's less 'force' behind it now.


It's definitely something I'll look into (with a lot more research this time into the training methods used ) but not for at least another month or so... funds are tight this month and I've got so much going on that needs paying out for, I just can't afford it at the moment


----------



## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Obviously while I'm not pleased you've had issues too, it is kind of nice to hear the "stop start" method hasn't worked for others too
> 
> I'm not sure if it's that we're doing anything wrong as such, maybe it's just not the method for our dogs
> 
> I've tried a front clip harness and it made no difference  He would just pull until the harness twisted itself around him. Also tried the Meluki balance harness and that didn't work either; though I suspect with that it was more me not being able to get to grips with it.
> 
> Well, I did get out the Dogmatic last night and did lots of treating/praise while he wore it in the house. No problems getting it on him and out this morning but then he did fuss and mess about a bit with it once we were out, which I did sort of expect to be honest. Plenty of pawing at it and rubbing himself up my legs  It was such a massive relief though to be able to actually walk with him, but I can't help feeling disappointed, like we've taken a step backwards


It will come; you just need to find the right method for you and the Spotty Terror . Horrible when you feel like you aren't getting anywhere though . Dare I ask how the car stuff is going so you can find training classes again if you still want to?


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Well, I did get out the Dogmatic last night and did lots of treating/praise while he wore it in the house. No problems getting it on him and out this morning but then he did fuss and mess about a bit with it once we were out, which I did sort of expect to be honest. Plenty of pawing at it and rubbing himself up my legs  It was such a massive relief though to be able to actually walk with him, but I can't help feeling disappointed, like we've taken a step backwards


If i were you I'd be tempted to take a little break, use the dogmatic for walking to the park so etc so he's not getting to pull and you aren't getting your arm stretched.

Simultaneously working at home first in the house, then garden, garage, driveway, 20 yards of pavement out the front back or side. 5 mins at time. tube of primula to his height on and off, making being by your side the most rewarding place to be and his watching for it's appearance. walking fast, slow stopping etc. a flat collar and a normal leash just draped over your wrist should work fine. (different kit from your headcollar walks) So Alfie is choosing to be near you and the lead is just a safety belt not a steering wheel. Keep it super short, but frequent.


----------



## kat&molly

We're back the girls have had a great time but Evie was stuck to me like glue, I think she gets overwhelmed by all the other dogs-even though they never bother her- perhaps she needs a break from it all

They're all beat now but we'll take little walk later. Gold stars with bells on for Kilo me thinks.


----------



## SixStar

Thought I'd join in this thread because I'm feeling very disheartened with Ozzy at the moment 

I know it's still very early days - I've not had him long and he's had a huge change in lifestyle, and he has done so well. He's fab with the other dogs - he will share his toys and isn't possessive over anything, his recall training is going better than I could ever had hoped for, and he has the perfect temperament - lets you do anything to him, and loves everybody and everything he has met.

But we're really struggling with two issues, and seem to be making next to no progress with them 

Firstly - his jumping up. He had obviously been actively encouraged by his previous owners to jump up for cuddles because he always aims for his paws on your shoulders - he means no harm, but he's just far too big and strong to be doing it. Several times he has collided with my husband and given him a nosebleed and whenever he tries to do it with me he nearly knocks me over - he's much taller than me on his hind legs, and weighs much more than me too. Turning away just doesn't seem to work - he gets all giddy and excited and will do it all the more  At the moment he's put in a 'time out' whenever he jumps up and praised immensely whenever we give him fuss and all four paws stay on the ground. He is getting better - because when he first arrived here he would jump up ALL the time - and now it only tends to be when he's very excited - either in the mornings when I first go down to them, return from being out, or if I'm making their dinner or getting their leads out ready for walks. It's obviously a very ingrained behaviour and I know it'll take time to undo, but it's just very, very painful when 65 kg (and gaining!) of Newfoundland takes a running leap at you!

Our other issue is he'll snap at food when hand fed treats. He's fantastic in all other aspects relating to food - he'll 'swap' high value food items for a ball, he'll walk away if one of the other dogs tries to take his food and he has no possessive/protection issues whatsoever, he just really grabs at food when it's offered from a hand - and it's one issue I don't really know how to fix!

When we're training I mainly use toys and play as his reward, but if I do use food, I'll drop his titbits on the floor or use squeezy cheese from a tube, or a lick of pate from a long wooden spoon, as to save my fingers - but it's something we really need to remedy, rather than avoid.

This morning my son and his girlfriend popped round. They always bring a packet of treats for the dogs and were dishing them out in the lounge whilst I was in the kitchen making the drinks - my sons girlfriend went to give Ozzy a treat and he drew blood when snapping at her fingers to get it. I know it's my fault and I should have mentioned not to hand feed him, but it just completely slipped my mind and I am mortified. There was no nastiness in it, and my sons girlfriend knew this and was fine about it, bless her heart, but I feel absolutely terrible about it 

I know it doesn't sound like it, but I really am so proud of him in general. As some of you may know, he's from Egypt and I got him after he had finished a four month stint in quarantine, where he couldn't leave his kennel, and in Egypt with his previous owners he had never left the grounds of their villa - so now living here, in the English countryside with five other dogs, is a MASSIVE change for him and he really has done so fantastically well - especially considering he's only been with us just over a month. 

If I could get these two issues sorted he really would be a dream dog - and I know we will do in time - but I just needed to vent.


----------



## Dogless

Welcome SixStar; I am sure if anyone can sort Ozzy's problems, you can. I'm sure you will have tried everything that I can suggest .


----------



## SixStar

Dogless said:


> Welcome SixStar; I am sure if anyone can sort Ozzy's problems, you can. I'm sure you will have tried everything that I can suggest .


Thanks  No please - honestly, the more suggestions I can get, the better!


----------



## Dogless

SixStar said:


> Thanks  No please - honestly, the more suggestions I can get, the better!


Well...Kilo can get horribly 'grabby' with his treats if he gets very excited when training. What I did to teach him not to is hold it in the crease between my thumb and index finger with my hand in a fist (if you can picture what I mean) or between my index and middle finger with my hand in a fist. If he snatched, then I kept my hand curled tight - after a few goes he would start to nuzzle or lick for it, at which point I released the treat and paired it with 'gentle'.

It did work very quickly and he rarely needs a reminder now, but just 'gentle' does it. Before I did it like that he'd painfully skin my fingers so that training became really sore .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Well...Kilo can get horribly 'grabby' with his treats if he gets very excited when training. What I did to teach him not to is hold it in the crease between my thumb and index finger with my hand in a fist (if you can picture what I mean) or between my index and middle finger with my hand in a fist. If he snatched, then I kept my hand curled tight - after a few goes he would start to nuzzle or lick for it, at which point I released the treat and pair it with 'gentle'.
> 
> It did work very quickly and he rarely needs a reminder now, but just 'gentle' does it. Before I did it like that he'd painfully skin my fingers so that training became really sore .


Thats what I do with mine, sometimes they snatch because they worry one of the others will pinch their treat- so I keep my hand curled tight. 
Hi Sixstar sounds like Ozzy is settling in well otherwise.


----------



## SixStar

Thanks for that - I hadn't tried holding it in a closed fist, I must admit I had visions of him just trying to grab hold of my entire fist!  But will certainly give that a go.

What I have been doing when I absolutely have to feed something by hand is placing the food on my palm, hand out flat - much like how you'd feed a horse or something! But often in his rush to grab it, he'd knock it on the floor anyway, and leave my hand dripping in slobber in the process!

He's the only dog I've ever had like this - all my others, with no intentional training, have always been very soft mouthed when taking food from my hands. Was quite the shock when I offered him a biscuit first day home and he transformed from Newfie to shark!


----------



## Sarah1983

SixStar said:


> Our other issue is he'll snap at food when hand fed treats. He's fantastic in all other aspects relating to food - he'll 'swap' high value food items for a ball, he'll walk away if one of the other dogs tries to take his food and he has no possessive/protection issues whatsoever, he just really grabs at food when it's offered from a hand - and it's one issue I don't really know how to fix!
> 
> When we're training I mainly use toys and play as his reward, but if I do use food, I'll drop his titbits on the floor or use squeezy cheese from a tube, or a lick of pate from a long wooden spoon, as to save my fingers - but it's something we really need to remedy, rather than avoid.


This is a problem I'm having with Spencer. He's not at all aggressive with it but he's clearly never been taught to take food gently and several times he's drawn blood catching my fingers as well as the treats. I've tried feeding him off the palm of my open hand which worked with Rupert to stop him catching fingers when excited, however with Spencer I almost lose my whole hand 

I'm doing pretty much the same as what Dogless suggests and while it is working it's very slow progress.


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> It will come; you just need to find the right method for you and the Spotty Terror . Horrible when you feel like you aren't getting anywhere though . Dare I ask how the car stuff is going so you can find training classes again if you still want to?


It's going no-where right now  We have such a list of niggling issues at the moment I just felt utterly overwhelmed so decided to just try and tackle one at a time. Currently (obviously!) I'm concentrating on the LLW and the car problems are next on my list 



moonviolet said:


> If i were you I'd be tempted to take a little break, use the dogmatic for walking to the park so etc so he's not getting to pull and you aren't getting your arm stretched.
> 
> Simultaneously working at home first in the house, then garden, garage, driveway, 20 yards of pavement out the front back or side. 5 mins at time. tube of primula to his height on and off, making being by your side the most rewarding place to be and his watching for it's appearance. walking fast, slow stopping etc. a flat collar and a normal leash just draped over your wrist should work fine. (different kit from your headcollar walks) So Alfie is choosing to be near you and the lead is just a safety belt not a steering wheel. Keep it super short, but frequent.


Thank you moonviolet, as always  Do you think I should start immediately with him in a collar and lead? Or try just making him follow me, using the squeezy cheese as a lure? Then progressing to collar and lead?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Well...Kilo can get horribly 'grabby' with his treats if he gets very excited when training. What I did to teach him not to is hold it in the crease between my thumb and index finger with my hand in a fist (if you can picture what I mean) or between my index and middle finger with my hand in a fist. If he snatched, then I kept my hand curled tight - after a few goes he would start to nuzzle or lick for it, at which point I released the treat and paired it with 'gentle'.
> 
> It did work very quickly and he rarely needs a reminder now, but just 'gentle' does it. Before I did it like that he'd painfully skin my fingers so that training became really sore .


I had to do this with my monster she was such a total foodie. I had to wear a glove. She nipped, chewed, pawed and dug at my hand.

The only thing I can think for the jumping up if turning isn't working is insisting on a sit. sorry I'm sure you've thought of that.

Coffee. I'd be tempted to try it with the lead on, but don't take hold of it until you have him interested in the primula.

I was talking to one of the other women about training at the street party yesterday she suggested if you are getting stuck on something, get someone to video your training session. She's been amazed what she has spotted herself getting wrong doing this. Does anyone do this?


----------



## Tigerneko

Had a moment this evening  

I'd nearly finished our walk, got to the end of my street and decided I wanted to keep walking a little longer, so carried on and went down a few different streets. As we were walking up one of the streets, a woman came out of her house a little further up the road and her dog jumped over the garden wall (it was only about 3ft high) and stood on the pavement staring at us. I felt myself panic and I just froze, Tiger picked up on me and stiffened up. The woman saw us and said the dreaded phrase "oh he's fine, he won't hurt yours"  I HATE it when people say that, I felt myself getting really angry and just went "Yeah? He will!" the dog wandered up to us and got a little bit close, Tiger lunged and snapped at its face  and then the woman decided to come and collect her dog.

It wasn't anything too scary, and now I wish i'd tried to control Tiger a little better and maybe try and put him into a sit or something but I just wasn't expecting it and I went into total panic mode, which made him worse.

It ruined the walk, I was all jumpy and nervous afterwards and just scuttled off home as quickly as I could  I wish I could control my nerves but I can't and I really don't know what to do, that situation would've been so much easier if I didn't go into a complete freak out at the mere sight of a loose dog


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko, sorry that you got surprised by the loose dog; you can't help your reaction every time - but by recognising what it is you do you can maybe come up with a 'default' for when something like that happens again - an 'about turn' away from the dog, a 'sit', a 'watch' etc. I am horrendous for getting anxious and passing it straight to Kilo so do try and have set 'things' to do in different situations .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Tigerneko, sorry that you got surprised by the loose dog; you can't help your reaction every time - but by recognising what it is you do you can maybe come up with a 'default' for when something like that happens again - an 'about turn' away from the dog, a 'sit', a 'watch' etc. I am horrendous for getting anxious and passing it straight to Kilo so do try and have set 'things' to do in different situations .


turning or walking away won't help, I have to be able to see it at all times otherwise I panic more 

Tiger would probably be alright control-wise, but I just can't keep my nerves back and it is ridiculous, I was shaking by the time it was over and there wasn't even anything to worry about, Tiger snapped and that was it, the other dog didn't react and it's owner was only a few feet away so grabbed it really quickly. I'm just like a rabbit in the headlights, I physically can't do anything, I just freeze and my brain goes into frightened panicky overdrive!

I've even thought about going to the doctor and seeing if I can have some sort of anxiety tables but I don't think it would work and I think they would just think i'm being silly


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Tigerneko, sorry that you got surprised by the loose dog; you can't help your reaction every time - but by recognising what it is you do you can maybe come up with a 'default' for when something like that happens again - an 'about turn' away from the dog, a 'sit', a 'watch' etc. I am horrendous for getting anxious and passing it straight to Kilo so do try and have set 'things' to do in different situations .


Teaching your dog that your normal reaction is a cue to turn to you for really good stuff might help too. I had to teach Rupert that me tensing up, tightening the leash and taking a deep breath didn't necessarily mean another dog was around. I simply could not stop myself from doing it


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> turning or walking away won't help, I have to be able to see it at all times otherwise I panic more
> 
> Tiger would probably be alright control-wise, but I just can't keep my nerves back and it is ridiculous, I was shaking by the time it was over and there wasn't even anything to worry about, Tiger snapped and that was it, the other dog didn't react and it's owner was only a few feet away so grabbed it really quickly. I*'m just like a rabbit in the headlights, I physically can't do anything, I just freeze and my brain goes into frightened panicky overdrive!*
> 
> I've even thought about going to the doctor and seeing if I can have some sort of anxiety tables but I don't think it would work and I think they would just think i'm being silly


That's why I think a really hard - wired 'default' might help; so you don't really need to think - it's automatic, same as the procedures that soldiers adopt when under fire etc - practised so often that it just 'comes' when needed .

You know you can do it - and have done recently; just look back through this thread .


----------



## Tigerneko

Sarah1983 said:


> Teaching your dog that your normal reaction is a cue to turn to you for really good stuff might help too. I had to teach Rupert that me tensing up, tightening the leash and taking a deep breath didn't necessarily mean another dog was around. I simply could not stop myself from doing it


That's a really good idea, i'd never thought of that! How did you do it?

I tense up and panic at all sorts of things, just seeing someone that I don't like the look of walking towards us sends me into a bit of a flap and he will often tense up at that too, so it's a method that might work for me.


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> That's why I think a really hard - wired 'default' might help; so you don't really need to think - it's automatic, same as the procedures that soldiers adopt when under fire etc - practised so often that it just 'comes' when needed .
> 
> You know you can do it - and have done recently; just look back through this thread .


Yeah it is a good idea, it's just actually doing it in the first place :lol: what sort of defaults could I use? Tonight really wasn't all that bad and I think I reacted worse than Tiger  so I need to start doing something about it.

It wasn't helped by something that'd happened earlier on, a bloke was walking across the road with a big white Akita, it stopped and tensed and both dogs were all hackles and stiffness, so that set Tiger off in a bad mood and made me slightly nervy anyway because I was paranoid about bumping into them further along the walk. Then, a big BMW with blacked out windows drove past us at a crawl and pulled up on the side of the road, I had visions of having him dognapped or have them trying to offer me money for him, so I was a bit of a nervous wreck anyway and I only went up that street to take a safer route home


----------



## LexiLou2

Sixstar, Bosley jumps up, on a much smaller scale obviously, now I insist on him sitting then give him a fuss, but its taken a while to get him to a point where her is stopping jumping.

We had a good and bad day, took them to a new forest, hardly saw anyone for 2 hours, however saw some people with a chocolate lab and two other dogs, moved Bos to the side, asked him to sit, all going well hubby said he can be dog reactive as Lexi greeted the dogs and all of a sudden the one that was off lead just pounced at me a Bos, so we had a bit of a bark and growl, however he did then walk past 2 large mastiff x's (i think) without a fuss, and then sat while a working cocker walked past (lovely family that stopped to fuss Lexi....who LOVED them). Bosley is now fine walking past dogs that are about 7 metres I think away, and is fine sitting down while dogs walk past, it just when they invade his 'space' but we will get there, he is improving.

On the upside in a forest he had his long line on trailing and his recall was 100% which would not have happened a few months ago as a forest for a terrier is like HEAVEN!


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> Yeah it is a good idea, it's just actually doing it in the first place :lol: what sort of defaults could I use? Tonight really wasn't all that bad and I think I reacted worse than Tiger  so I need to start doing something about it.
> 
> It wasn't helped by something that'd happened earlier on, a bloke was walking across the road with a big white Akita, it stopped and tensed and both dogs were all hackles and stiffness, so that set Tiger off in a bad mood and made me slightly nervy anyway because I was paranoid about bumping into them further along the walk. Then, a big BMW with blacked out windows drove past us at a crawl and pulled up on the side of the road, I had visions of having him dognapped or have them trying to offer me money for him, so I was a bit of a nervous wreck anyway and I only went up that street to take a safer route home


Whatever suits you and Tiger I guess; why not start with Sarah's idea about looking to you for a treat?



LexiLou2 said:


> Sixstar, Bosley jumps up, on a much smaller scale obviously, now I insist on him sitting then give him a fuss, but its taken a while to get him to a point where her is stopping jumping.
> 
> We had a good and bad day, took them to a new forest, hardly saw anyone for 2 hours, however saw some people with a chocolate lab and two other dogs, moved Bos to the side, asked him to sit, all going well hubby said he can be dog reactive as Lexi greeted the dogs and all of a sudden the one that was off lead just pounced at me a Bos, so we had a bit of a bark and growl, however he did then walk past 2 large mastiff x's (i think) without a fuss, and then sat while a working cocker walked past (lovely family that stopped to fuss Lexi....who LOVED them). Bosley is now fine walking past dogs that are about 7 metres I think away, and is fine sitting down while dogs walk past, it just when they invade his 'space' but we will get there, he is improving.
> 
> On the upside in a forest he had his long line on trailing and his recall was 100% which would not have happened a few months ago as a forest for a terrier is like HEAVEN!


Well done Bos . Sounds as if he's doing well - 7 metres is pretty close .


----------



## Dogless

So; I have a goal. All being well the Boy Wonder's accomplice will arrive in November - so Op Rock Steady needs to continue apace .


----------



## LexiLou2

Dogless said:


> So; I have a goal. All being well the Boy Wonder's accomplice will arrive in November - so Op Rock Steady needs to continue apace .


ooooohhhh RR puppy????


----------



## Dogless

LexiLou2 said:


> ooooohhhh RR puppy????


Yes indeed .


----------



## LexiLou2

Dogless said:


> Yes indeed .


YEY!!! Oh I'm so excited.......


----------



## Dogless

LexiLou2 said:


> YEY!!! Oh I'm so excited.......


I am JUST A TINY BIT excited too .


----------



## LexiLou2

Dogless said:


> I am JUST A TINY BIT excited too .


Kilo is going to be a lovely age, Lexi was 26 months when we got Bosley and Bosley is going to be about 2 and half when Aria comes home......I'm hoping at some point in the next 3 weeks Bosley 'grows up' lol


----------



## Dogless

LexiLou2 said:


> Kilo is going to be a lovely age, Lexi was 26 months when we got Bosley and Bosley is going to be about 2 and half when Aria comes home......I'm hoping at some point in the next 3 weeks Bosley 'grows up' lol


He'll be 25 months .


----------



## Sarah1983

Damn you Dogless, you're making me want to come back to Ireland! The lovely Kilo AND a RR puppy.



Tigerneko said:


> That's a really good idea, i'd never thought of that! How did you do it?
> 
> I tense up and panic at all sorts of things, just seeing someone that I don't like the look of walking towards us sends me into a bit of a flap and he will often tense up at that too, so it's a method that might work for me.


I started off in the house with him on leash and just did what I always did when I saw a dog then gave him a huge reward. Once he was looking to me when I did it in the house I moved into the back garden. Then the front garden. Then the street. It wasn't fool proof but it did stop him just feeding off my body language and tension on the leash and it was a hell of a lot easier than training myself not to react at all.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Damn you Dogless, *you're making me want to come back to Ireland*! The lovely Kilo AND a RR puppy.
> 
> I started off in the house with him on leash and just did what I always did when I saw a dog then gave him a huge reward. Once he was looking to me when I did it in the house I moved into the back garden. Then the front garden. Then the street. It wasn't fool proof but it did stop him just feeding off my body language and tension on the leash and it was a hell of a lot easier than training myself not to react at all.


You lie like a cheap NAAFI watch .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> You lie like a cheap NAAFI watch .


Lol! My hubby says the same thing. I don't think anything could make me want to come back there to live to be honest.


----------



## kat&molly

Wow, this thread was started on the 9th April, it's 53 pages long. That a lot of ups and downs we've all had[mostly downs for me ]
After this mornings walk I'd say we're really on the up now, Moll is doing really well- still has her silly moments and a lot of stop start but getting so much better and Scruff is starting to understand as well, I haven't started anything with Evie but she does know if she pulls we stop. 2 months to get this far- its not easy with 3!!

Moll can have a Silver star and Scruff can have a Bronze[thats a big leap from a Dunce's hat ]

Coffee hang in there if I can get this far with mine-anyone can.


----------



## Tigerneko

Sarah1983 said:


> I started off in the house with him on leash and just did what I always did when I saw a dog then gave him a huge reward. Once he was looking to me when I did it in the house I moved into the back garden. Then the front garden. Then the street. It wasn't fool proof but it did stop him just feeding off my body language and tension on the leash and it was a hell of a lot easier than training myself not to react at all.


Thanks  I will give it a go, Tiger doesn't tend to pick up on that kind of training very well, and he's not very food orientated, but if there's a toy in the equation i've got no hope. He won't listen or concentrate - he just wants the toy and will jump and bark for it, so they are also a fairly useless training tool lol and also he often won't take food from me once we're outside, I took some new treats out with us last night to try him on and he was taking them but he wasn't keen, he kept dropping them and wouldn't take them unless I practically shoved them into his mouth, and because of his height I had to lean down to give them to him, which looks stupid and I know it's a no-no for training a dog because I used to get told off for it at agility 

Tiger makes everything so difficult, i'm really struggling and having a low point with his training at the moment, i'm starting to hate walking him because it's just one crap walk after another with a dog that seems to make no progress, can't be taken anywhere nice, leaves my nerves shattered and on the look out for other dogs all the time and can't seem to get anything into his thick head 

and I can't even get a behaviourist in to help, there's only two in the area, one is rubbish and has a bad reputation and the other is my ex :mad5: :mad5: :mad5: :mad5:



kat&molly said:


> Wow, this thread was started on the 9th April, it's 53 pages long. That a lot of ups and downs we've all had[mostly downs for me ]
> After this mornings walk I'd say we're really on the up now, Moll is doing really well- still has her silly moments and a lot of stop start but getting so much better and Scruff is starting to understand as well, I haven't started anything with Evie but she does know if she pulls we stop. 2 months to get this far- its not easy with 3!!
> 
> Moll can have a Silver star and Scruff can have a Bronze[thats a big leap from a Dunce's hat ]
> 
> Coffee hang in there if I can get this far with mine-anyone can.


Well done to you & everyone who has made some form of progress, I can't wait until I can say the same


----------



## Sarah1983

Tigerneko said:


> Thanks  I will give it a go, Tiger doesn't tend to pick up on that kind of training very well, and he's not very food orientated, but if there's a toy in the equation i've got no hope. He won't listen or concentrate - he just wants the toy and will jump and bark for it, so they are also a fairly useless training tool lol and also he often won't take food from me once we're outside, I took some new treats out with us last night to try him on and he was taking them but he wasn't keen, he kept dropping them and wouldn't take them unless I practically shoved them into his mouth, and because of his height I had to lean down to give them to him, which looks stupid and I know it's a no-no for training a dog because I used to get told off for it at agility
> 
> Tiger makes everything so difficult, i'm really struggling and having a low point with his training at the moment, i'm starting to hate walking him because it's just one crap walk after another with a dog that seems to make no progress, can't be taken anywhere nice, leaves my nerves shattered and on the look out for other dogs all the time and can't seem to get anything into his thick head


Why is it a no no to bend down to give your dog treats? I've never heard that one before! It's not ideal as it gets uncomfortable but I don't see why it's such a huge no no 

I went through much the same thing with Rupert. He had zero interest in treats while out. Nor was he interested in toys. He had severe fear issues, aggression issues towards other dogs and a huge desire to chase and kill anything non human he could find. I had several trainers tell me he was untrainable and that I should either put him to sleep or accept that he was never going to be able to do anything. He wasn't untrainable, he was just extremely difficult to train.

At least you've got a dog who's interested in toys, I'm sure if you ask someone would be able to tell you how to move on from the barking and jumping for the toy and obsessing over it to actually being able to use it as a reward. Might be worth making a separate thread for that  It's something he REALLY wants so being able to use it as a reward would really help you out.


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> Well done to you & everyone who has made some form of progress, I can't wait until I can say the same


Stop right there young lady :nono::blink:. You may be having a crisis of confidence at present - which we will all do our best to help / support you with - but just look back through your posts on this thread a mere few weeks ago and they demonstrate that you have made progress. Good progress .



kat&molly said:


> Wow, this thread was started on the 9th April, it's 53 pages long. That a lot of ups and downs we've all had[mostly downs for me ]
> After this mornings walk I'd say we're really on the up now, Moll is doing really well- still has her silly moments and a lot of stop start but getting so much better and Scruff is starting to understand as well, I haven't started anything with Evie but she does know if she pulls we stop. 2 months to get this far- its not easy with 3!!
> 
> Moll can have a Silver star and Scruff can have a Bronze[thats a big leap from a Dunce's hat ]
> 
> Coffee hang in there if I can get this far with mine-anyone can.


Well done Moll and Scruff .

Not much to report for us today; a foggy, damp few hours in the forest. Not a soul seen until we reached the car park at the end of our walk .


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> i'm really struggling and having a low point with his training at the moment, i'm starting to hate walking him because it's just one crap walk after another with a dog that seems to make no progress, can't be taken anywhere nice, leaves my nerves shattered and on the look out for other dogs all the time and can't seem to get anything into his thick head


I have knocked back to the beginning with Tink many many times. I have sat on a fallen tree, psyching myself to walk back to the car, wishing i could fly there so i could avoid any negative encounters.

Right back in the beginning of this thread I was lurking. I found that so useful because I could choose a spot with good visibility where we couldn't be crept up on or startled. Playing gentle games of touch or find it, having a bit of fuss and a cuddle. When Tink saw a dog in the distance saying " well spotted" in a cheerful voice and lavishing her with treats and praise. so seeing another dog at a distance was a positive thing. Is there anywhere you could go to do a similar thing? It really really helped us turn a huge corner.

I just wanted to thank everyone on this thread. In the 2 months this thread has been going Tink has improved no end. Border collies and golden retrievers are met politely without visible fear, here reaction on seeing a GSD is to come to me sit beside me for me to put her lead on. I know this is probably humanising it too much but it's like she knows i will step in if there is anything untoward but she doesn't trust herself not to run.

It's wonderful having everyone's support and sharing in everyone's journey's I'm still working on the bogey areas of a couple of our walks. (namely the last 100 yards to the car) but there is improvement. Recently two people have commented on how far Tink has come and how much more confident she is which is lovely


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I just wanted to thank everyone on this thread. In the 2 months this thread has been going Tink has improved no end. Border collies and golden retrievers are met politely without visible fear, here reaction on seeing a GSD is to come to me sit beside me for me to put her lead on. I know this is probably humanising it too much but it's like she knows i will step in if there is anything untoward but she doesn't trust herself not to run.
> 
> It's wonderful having everyone's support and sharing in everyone's journey's I'm still working on the bogey areas of a couple of our walks. (namely the last 100 yards to the car) but there is improvement. Recently two people have commented on how far Tink has come and how much more confident she is which is lovely


I couldn't agree with you any more; this thread has made me really think through what I am doing and actually knowing that others have work to do and how they are progressing is great. On a purely self indulgent level, it is nice for people to say 'Well done' or commiserate when needed . A few people have commented to me recently about how well Kilo is doing (people who's dogs he used to pull to try and meet, but now walks nicely past) and it's in no small part thanks to this thread and those who sail within her .


----------



## kat&molly

Agree with you both there, without this thread and everyones support I'd be back to taking the girls everywhere in the car, it really has spurred me on, I'm still not there yet but I can feel its not too far away and then there are other things I want to tackle. We just used to muddle on and now we have a direction. Thanks to all of you 


Tigerneko you need to keep posting , people will help where they can


----------



## Dogless

Kilo was just fab for me again in the park; really attentive, lovely loose lead and looked at all the dogs but passed nicely for me. Really pleased with the little fella :001_wub:. I am daring to think that we're getting somewhere (touch wood) .


----------



## Sarah1983

Not really sure whether we're having a good day or a bad day today. Spencers loose leash walking wasn't too bad, he wasn't pulling. However, he's all over the place and just doesn't want to know me. Or my treats. Or the toy. If he hears another dog that's it, attention span zero. If he sees another dog I cease to exist completely! Doesn't matter how far away it is, if he spots it he's lost 

However, been doing some shaping with a tesco bag for life today, just clicking for anything he does with or to the bag. So far he's offering several different behaviours quite often. Mouthing it, putting his front paws in it, shoving it with his nose and putting his head in it. I want to shape him to put things in the bag and carry it eventually. Not for any particular reason, just coz I can. I figure I'll work on the carrying first since he's already offering to pick it up, I just need to get him to pick it up by the handles instead of wherever he happens to grab lol.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Kilo was just fab for me again in the park; really attentive, lovely loose lead and looked at all the dogs but passed nicely for me. Really pleased with the little fella :001_wub:. I am daring to think that we're getting somewhere (touch wood) .


At this rate you'll be more than happy with Operation Rock Steady by the time a new Little Man comes 

I spoke too soon today, this afternoons walk was a bit of a Train Crash  but 3 goodish ones today so I cant complain really and its training day tomorrow so that will help


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> At this rate you'll be more than happy with Operation Rock Steady by the time a new Little Man comes
> 
> I spoke too soon today, this afternoons walk was a bit of a Train Crash  but 3 goodish ones today so I cant complain really and its training day tomorrow so that will help


All ready to start over with the new little fella :yikes:.

Training day for us too - best of luck and I hope that Big Evie sees the progress you've made :thumbsup:.


----------



## SixStar

Little bit of progress made with Ozzy today regarding his treat grabbing 

Tried holding the food in a closed fist with just a little bit poking out as suggested and when using a low value treat he licked and nudged at my hand to get it, at which point I released it and added a 'nicely' command to it. He got the hang of it well - repeated several times and he cottoned on quickly 

Silly old me got carried away as usual though - I was peeling some prawns for my dinner this evening and went to give him one of the shells. Did the same technique, but the temptation of something extra special was too much for him and he grabbed at my fist and got it all in his mouth  Shouldn't have rushed him though, was entirely my fault. We'll go back to using low value kibble treats, then very slowly progress onto the higher value rewards in time! Very pleased with how well he did initially. 

He's been a sod for jumping up today though - suppose I can't have it all!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> All ready to start over with the new little fella :yikes:.
> 
> Training day for us too - best of luck and I hope that Big Evie sees the progress you've made :thumbsup:.


Big day for both of us, I feel very excited !!! Lets hope we both have that High feeling again that leaves us with some much needed confidence after


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Big day for both of us, I feel very excited !!! Lets hope we both have that High feeling again that leaves us with some much needed confidence after


I really hope so - it has made a big difference to my confidence this week .

SixStar - glad you posted; I was thinking about you this afternoon and was hoping that you'd update otherwise I'd worry that your hands had been eaten .


----------



## kat&molly

SixStar said:


> Little bit of progress made with Ozzy today regarding his treat grabbing
> 
> Tried holding the food in a closed fist with just a little bit poking out as suggested and when using a low value treat he licked and nudged at my hand to get it, at which point I released it and added a 'nicely' command to it. He got the hang of it well - repeated several times and he cottoned on quickly
> 
> Silly old me got carried away as usual though - I was peeling some prawns for my dinner this evening and went to give him one of the shells. Did the same technique, but the temptation of something extra special was too much for him and he grabbed at my fist and got it all in his mouth  Shouldn't have rushed him though, was entirely my fault. We'll go back to using low value kibble treats, then very slowly progress onto the higher value rewards in time! Very pleased with how well he did initially.
> 
> He's been a sod for jumping up today though - suppose I can't have it all!


Its a great start though


----------



## SixStar

Thanks girls  Yep, great start and I really must learn not to expect too much from him too quickly, tiny little baby steps!

Think training the husband is going to be the real challenge though  Why oh why does he think dangling the food right in front of Oz's nose but just out of reach, saying ''make sure you take it gently'' and then trying to whip the food away again when he goes to snap at it, is the way to go about things  Of course this is followed by ''OZZY! I said NICELY!!!'', a couple of sore fingers and a very moody sweary husband when Ozzy snatches and inevitably nips him. :mad2:


----------



## kat&molly

SixStar said:


> Thanks girls  Yep, great start and I really must learn not to expect too much from him too quickly, tiny little baby steps!
> 
> Think training the husband is going to be the real challenge though  Why oh why does he think dangling the food right in front of Oz's nose but just out of reach, saying ''make sure you take it gently'' and then trying to whip the food away again when he goes to snap at it, is the way to go about things  Of course this is followed by ''OZZY! I said NICELY!!!'', a couple of sore fingers and a very moody sweary husband when Ozzy snatches and inevitably nips him. :mad2:


You are definatly in the right place to moan about an OH 
Mine told me last week a Trainer shouldn't be needed- as he walked Scruff on a tight lead


----------



## Tigerneko

Sarah1983 said:


> Why is it a no no to bend down to give your dog treats? I've never heard that one before! It's not ideal as it gets uncomfortable but I don't see why it's such a huge no no
> 
> I went through much the same thing with Rupert. He had zero interest in treats while out. Nor was he interested in toys. He had severe fear issues, aggression issues towards other dogs and a huge desire to chase and kill anything non human he could find. I had several trainers tell me he was untrainable and that I should either put him to sleep or accept that he was never going to be able to do anything. He wasn't untrainable, he was just extremely difficult to train.
> 
> At least you've got a dog who's interested in toys, I'm sure if you ask someone would be able to tell you how to move on from the barking and jumping for the toy and obsessing over it to actually being able to use it as a reward. Might be worth making a separate thread for that  It's something he REALLY wants so being able to use it as a reward would really help you out.


I don't really know why it's a no-no, I remember being told about it at our old obedience class as well once, I seem to remember it was about keeping the dog moving and looking up at you, rather than having to faff around bending down, it was more to do with walking to heel than anything else, but I don't see how it'd be possible if you had a really tiny dog like a Chi 

I might ask about the toy thing, it's just getting ridiculous, to have to train him how to behave around his training reward  I think i'm just gonna keep trying him with food and see if I can find something he really wants.



Dogless said:


> Stop right there young lady :nono::blink:. You may be having a crisis of confidence at present - which we will all do our best to help / support you with - but just look back through your posts on this thread a mere few weeks ago and they demonstrate that you have made progress. Good progress .


aww thanks  tbh i'm probably just expecting too much, and the one i'm expecting too much from is myself - not Tiger at all because I know exactly what to expect from him  but I expect myself to be able to go out and stay calm if we see any other dogs and I always feel myself tense up and feel scared, so I get angry with myself and like what happened last night, I blame Tiger's reaction on my own behaviour, even though that might not be the case.



moonviolet said:


> I have knocked back to the beginning with Tink many many times. I have sat on a fallen tree, psyching myself to walk back to the car, wishing i could fly there so i could avoid any negative encounters.
> 
> Right back in the beginning of this thread I was lurking. I found that so useful because I could choose a spot with good visibility where we couldn't be crept up on or startled. Playing gentle games of touch or find it, having a bit of fuss and a cuddle. When Tink saw a dog in the distance saying " well spotted" in a cheerful voice and lavishing her with treats and praise. so seeing another dog at a distance was a positive thing. Is there anywhere you could go to do a similar thing? It really really helped us turn a huge corner.
> 
> I just wanted to thank everyone on this thread. In the 2 months this thread has been going Tink has improved no end. Border collies and golden retrievers are met politely without visible fear, here reaction on seeing a GSD is to come to me sit beside me for me to put her lead on. I know this is probably humanising it too much but it's like she knows i will step in if there is anything untoward but she doesn't trust herself not to run.
> 
> It's wonderful having everyone's support and sharing in everyone's journey's I'm still working on the bogey areas of a couple of our walks. (namely the last 100 yards to the car) but there is improvement. Recently two people have commented on how far Tink has come and how much more confident she is which is lovely


I'm waiting for the advert to come up in the paper for our local training club, it's only around the corner and it might be worth going back to, although instead of actually attending the classes, i'm thinking of asking if I can just sit at the back of the room and have him watch the dogs and get used to being around them. Being sat in a safe, controlled environment among other dogs and dog trainers might also help my confidence because I know if I actually join the class, i'll be nervous as hell to stand among them, I used to go to them a couple of years ago and I was nervy then, but i'd be even worse now. And they've got nothing to do with my sh*tbag ex  Tiger isn't all that bad at long distances, he'll have a glance and ignore them, it's just if they're at 'opposite side of the road' distance, he'll stiffen up, his ears prick up and he goes all wrinkley-browed and won't pay me any attention, especially if the other dog reacts the same. So i'm thinking sitting at the back of the room will create a similar distance (probably a bit closer) and I can do something to get him to concentrate on me. Hopefully we might also find a dog he doesn't react to that we could perhaps walk around the car park or walk home with.


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> II'm waiting for the advert to come up in the paper for our local training club, it's only around the corner and it might be worth going back to, although instead of actually attending the classes, i'm thinking of asking if I can just sit at the back of the room and have him watch the dogs and get used to being around them. Being sat in a safe, controlled environment among other dogs and dog trainers might also help my confidence because I know if I actually join the class, i'll be nervous as hell to stand among them, I used to go to them a couple of years ago and I was nervy then, but i'd be even worse now. And they've got nothing to do with my sh*tbag ex  Tiger isn't all that bad at long distances, he'll have a glance and ignore them, it's just if they're at 'opposite side of the road' distance, he'll stiffen up, his ears prick up and he goes all wrinkley-browed and won't pay me any attention, especially if the other dog reacts the same. So i'm thinking sitting at the back of the room will create a similar distance (probably a bit closer) and I can do something to get him to concentrate on me. Hopefully we might also find a dog he doesn't react to that we could perhaps walk around the car park or walk home with.


This sounds like a great idea  Hope the you see the advert soon.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> You are definatly in the right place to moan about an OH
> Mine told me last week a Trainer shouldn't be needed- as he walked Scruff on a tight lead


OH goodness don't get me started, I'd need a whole new thread for that one.


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> This sounds like a great idea  Hope the you see the advert soon.


thanks, so do I lol  I might go to the enrollment night without him and see what they say, I could ring them as they do have a mobile number but that's another one of my downfalls, i'm crap at communicating and I hate talking on the phone  

my only issue is actually getting in and out of the place, you have to go down a tiny narrow corridor and it's usually full of all the dogs and their owners who line up and wait, so it's literally like nose to nose dogs. I once had to wait in the toilets with him because he took a dislike to a few of the dogs who were leaving  

I need to have a good talk with them and see what they suggest. I know he can work in a class environment without issue as long as none of the dogs approach him, but i'm trying to think of something that will make me less nervous rather than him, because I don't think I will get anywhere with him until I can sort myself out.


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> thanks, so do I lol  I might go to the enrollment night without him and see what they say, I could ring them as they do have a mobile number but that's another one of my downfalls, i'm crap at communicating and I hate talking on the phone
> 
> my only issue is actually getting in and out of the place, you have to go down a tiny narrow corridor and it's usually full of all the dogs and their owners who line up and wait, so it's literally like nose to nose dogs. I once had to wait in the toilets with him because he took a dislike to a few of the dogs who were leaving
> 
> I need to have a good talk with them and see what they suggest. I know he can work in a class environment without issue as long as none of the dogs approach him, but i'm trying to think of something that will make me less nervous rather than him, because I don't think I will get anywhere with him until I can sort myself out.


I can understand that entirely I was really nervous and on edge after Tinks attack and we both assumed the worst about strange dogs. It's not an easy journey, but i'm sure i speak for everyone on this thread when i say we are with you every step of the way.

Do they have an email address? I find it much easier to email but if not I make notes before i make the call so i have them to refer to when I lose the plot


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> I can understand that entirely I was really nervous and on edge after Tinks attack and we both assumed the worst about strange dogs. It's not an easy journey, but i'm sure i speak for everyone on this thread when i say we are with you every step of the way.


Thanks, that means a lot 

Tiger is technically my parents dog but neither of them will walk him (my dad will take him to the countryside or the middle of nowhere on a nice day if he's not working) but my mum will not walk him at all because of how he is, so it gets left to me, and apart from a quick "has he behaved?" when I get back, I don't really get anything in the way of thanks from them and absolutely no advice or support, they really couldn't care less that he has issues that need sorting, and sticking their heads into the sand and refusing to walk him will not help. I want to go to university in the next year or two, so I don't know what is gonna happen if I do go. All I know is that he's gonna be spending a LOT of time inside, so I want to sort him out and give her no excuse not to walk him!

I know i'm whingey but if you've been there yourself, you'll know how low you end up feeling and how sometimes you just want to spill your heart out about it


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> Do they have an email address? I find it much easier to email but if not I make notes before i make the call so i have them to refer to when I lose the plot


I think they do, but I don't have much luck with emails! I've emailled a driving instructor and would you believe it - a college in the last week and neither have bothered to reply, and the trainers at the club certainly don't seem the sorts to check and reply to emails (no offence to them but I think most of them are from the days of morse code and carrier pigeons  )


----------



## kat&molly

Tigerneko said:


> thanks, so do I lol  I might go to the enrollment night without him and see what they say, I could ring them as they do have a mobile number but that's another one of my downfalls, i'm crap at communicating and I hate talking on the phone
> 
> my only issue is actually getting in and out of the place, you have to go down a tiny narrow corridor and it's usually full of all the dogs and their owners who line up and wait, so it's literally like nose to nose dogs. I once had to wait in the toilets with him because he took a dislike to a few of the dogs who were leaving
> 
> I need to have a good talk with them and see what they suggest. I know he can work in a class environment without issue as long as none of the dogs approach him, but i'm trying to think of something that will make me less nervous rather than him, because I don't think I will get anywhere with him until I can sort myself out.


Have you tried anything like Rescue Remedy? I tried it last year when doing a course, I felt it helped.


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> I think they do, but I don't have much luck with emails! I've emailled a driving instructor and would you believe it - a college in the last week and neither have bothered to reply, and the trainers at the club certainly don't seem the sorts to check and reply to emails (no offence to them but I think most of them are from the days of morse code and carrier pigeons  )


You'd be surprised my MIL is in her 70's and is a total internet junkie. Emails, skype, facebook, twitter there's no escape lol

Oh and i don't think you are whingey at all. Just get it all out it's so much healthier than letting it fester


----------



## Tigerneko

kat&molly said:


> Have you tried anything like Rescue Remedy? I tried it last year when doing a course, I felt it helped.


Yeah, i've practically got shares in Rescue Remedy! I've got two packs of chewing gum, two different sprays/bottles and the boiled sweet type things.

The chewing gums help a little bit but the rest of it was useless.



moonviolet said:


> You'd be surprised my MIL is in her 70's and is a total internet junkie. Emails, skype, facebook, twitter there's no escape lol
> 
> Oh and i don't think you are whingey at all. Just get it all out it's so much healthier than letting it fester


haha bless her, a lot of the 'oldies' at my agility class are well into FB and stuff, it certainly did surprise me when I started getting friend requests from them all lol


----------



## Sarah1983

Tigerneko said:


> I might ask about the toy thing, it's just getting ridiculous, to have to train him how to behave around his training reward  I think i'm just gonna keep trying him with food and see if I can find something he really wants.


You've already found something he REALLY wants and that he's probably going to be willing to work for. It seems silly not to use it just because you think it's ridiculous to have to teach him to behave around something that's clearly high value to him. He's clearly telling you he's not bothered by food, listen to him, use what he IS interested in and you might start seeing progress. At the end of the day it's the dog who decides what's rewarding, not us 

That's not meant to sound harsh, I just think it would make your work a hell of a lot easier if you worked with him using what he's telling you he finds really exciting and fun.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> You've already found something he REALLY wants and that he's probably going to be willing to work for. It seems silly not to use it just because you think it's ridiculous to have to teach him to behave around something that's clearly high value to him. He's clearly telling you he's not bothered by food, listen to him, use what he IS interested in and you might start seeing progress. At the end of the day it's the dog who decides what's rewarding, not us
> 
> That's not meant to sound harsh, I just think it would make your work a hell of a lot easier if you worked with him using what he's telling you he finds really exciting and fun.


I have to say i agree with Sarah on this. Tink is totally food motivated and as I've mentioned earlier in this thread I had to wear a glove when I was teaching her how to behave around treats. So it's not that different to have to do the same for a toy reward really.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I have to say i agree with Sarah on this. Tink is totally food motivated and as I've mentioned earlier in this thread I had to wear a glove when I was teaching her how to behave around treats. So it's not that different to have to do the same for a toy reward really.


I agree with you and Sarah too; I had to do lots of work with Kilo to have manners around treats and food in general - his general desperation for it told me that he'd really work for it!! Same with the chance to chase a toy - he'll ignore most things to do that; but not to play tug - it's just finding what they enjoy!


----------



## kat&molly

We've just had our 2nd lesson, all we do is a 2 hour walk and work as we go. I've enjoyed it, not as much as last week though. Scruff has been taking advantage with her recalls this past week or so I think because the focus was on Molly-mainly stopping to sniff before she comes or even ignoring me for a minute or two  So we've been working on that and Mollys heelwork she said has improved- but it will take time- we were meant to do a bit with Scruff but didn't get round to it today.
She said she's really enjoying working with us-I'm getting corrected for little mistakes I make, and I've got things to work on this next week.


Big Evie is being sucked in by Little Evie's charms :001_rolleyes:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> We've just had our 2nd lesson, all we do is a 2 hour walk and work as we go. I've enjoyed it, not as much as last week though. Scruff has been taking advantage with her recalls this past week or so I think because the focus was on Molly-mainly stopping to sniff before she comes or even ignoring me for a minute or two  So we've been working on that and Mollys heelwork she said has improved- but it will take time- we were meant to do a bit with Scruff but didn't get round to it today.
> She said she's really enjoying working with us-I'm getting corrected for little mistakes I make, and I've got things to work on this next week.
> 
> Big Evie is being sucked in by Little Evie's charms :001_rolleyes:


Good to see that improvement is being made; however slowly, and you have a structured way to work now - sounds as if Big Evie's a good 'un .


----------



## kat&molly

Agree with you all about the toy thing- for Molly its her Tennis ball and sometimes she gets a bit too giddy about it, I've been bit a few times when she has tried to grab it but now knows if she's calm she gets her prize


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Good to see that improvement is being made; however slowly, and you have a structured way to work now - sounds as if Big Evie's a good 'un .


She is good, I have someone to talk Dog with for a couple of hours and its fab.

She's even trained with the chap who clicker trains all the animals- I forgot his name Bill Bailey?? and she's trained with Chickens , how impressive is that

Good luck for tonight, hope it goes well.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> She is good, I have someone to talk Dog with for a couple of hours and its fab.
> 
> She's even trained with the chap who clicker trains all the animals- I forgot his name Bill Bailey?? and she's trained with Chickens , how impressive is that
> 
> Good luck for tonight, hope it goes well.


I'll settle for managing to train my dog before I try clickering chickens . Very impressive indeed!

Thanks; I hope it's good too (fingers crossed!).


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I'll settle for managing to train my dog before I try clickering chickens . Very impressive indeed!
> 
> Thanks; I hope it's good too (fingers crossed!).


Me too, I shant be rushing outside to try with mine :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh I'd kill for the chance to clicker train a chicken! 

I'm so jealous of you folks with your trainers and classes, I'd kill to get into a class with Spencer but so far I've found one who insists on them all being neutered and all the rest seem to be fans of the Great White Toothed One judging by all the tssting and prodding going on. There's a woman who does one to ones who's supposedly very good but I don't need or want one to ones.

Er...I seem to be very murderous today don't I?


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh I'd kill for the chance to clicker train a chicken!
> 
> I'm so jealous of you folks with your trainers and classes, I'd kill to get into a class with Spencer but so far I've found one who insists on them all being neutered and all the rest seem to be fans of the Great White Toothed One judging by all the tssting and prodding going on. There's a woman who does one to ones who's supposedly very good but I don't need or want one to ones.
> 
> Er...I seem to be very murderous today don't I?


She said dogs are a piece of cake compared to chucks, and you have to be very fast to click.
I'm only having 1-2-1 to help with LLW all 3 together, but I would like to join the classes later on and definatly in winter for some Gun dog stuff for Moll.


----------



## Dogless

AAgh what a day for the weather to be so wet and windy; I have just cooked a huge batch of liver cake (ordered too late from Babycham for training ), the house stinks :skep: and I can't leave the back door open as the rain comes in horizontally .


----------



## moonviolet

*hides from sarah and her homicidal mood*

K&M Sounds like you had a lovely lesson today and you are making steady progress. I have to admit I'd totally fall for little Evie's charms and she'd probably get away with being a complete ASBO pooch  I think my mum would think i've taken leave of my senses if i tried to clicker train her chooks, but I have been trying to persuade my 15 year old neice to clicker train her show cows, she hasn't agreed yet, but I think we'll have a go together sometime 

Dogless hope you have a great class tonight 

I'm almost at the point where i think we are ready to add another. I'm going through the whole pup, teenager, adult , oldie or foster debate in my head and getting nowhere.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> AAgh what a day for the weather to be so wet and windy; I have just cooked a huge batch of liver cake (ordered too late from Babycham for training ), the house stinks :skep: and I can't leave the back door open as the rain comes in horizontally .


Ohhh nice !!! Hope the sun comes out or the wind direction changes at the very least.

We've moved over to sardine cake it turns my stomach slightly less than livercake.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet....another dog sounds very exciting . When would you be looking to add them to your family?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> moonviolet....another dog sounds very exciting . When would you be looking to add them to your family?


It all kind of depends on the decision of which route. OH is pretty laid back( as i take the lion's share of doggie responisibilities) so when I've decided one way or anotehr we'll move forward. We're kind of ready any time now.


----------



## kat&molly

I have to admit MV I hate the treating of bigger dogs different to little dogs but she is so full of character , I've been told today to stop laughing at some of her habits as its encouraging her.

I had to bring some sheep fleece home and put it in a sock  to entice her to play tug with us and not just the other girls.

Good luck on deciding about another dog 



Dogless I hope it dries up for you- we got soaked to the skin in a storm today, I was only wearing t-shirt.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless I hope it dries up for you- we got soaked to the skin in a storm today, I was only wearing t-shirt.


This morning I spent two hours in the relentless rain in the forest, unable to see more than about 20m in places as the cloud base was so low....not the most pleasant walk ever and being very, very vigilant for anything that might appear from the gloom!!

I'll take Kilo out to get thoroughly soaked again in an hour or so, then put some dry stuff on to go to 'school' .


----------



## Sarah1983

I made tripe cake yesterday (same recipe as livercake just tripe instead). I will not be doing that again hmy:

Moonviolet, what breed you going to be looking for? Or have you not decided that yet either?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I made tripe cake yesterday (same recipe as livercake just tripe instead). I will not be doing that again hmy:
> 
> Moonviolet, what breed you going to be looking for? Or have you not decided that yet either?


Tripe cake  . I'm not that brave - can only imagine the smell .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Tripe cake  . I'm not that brave - can only imagine the smell .


I don't think you can. I mean I knew it was going to smell but this is something else entirely :frown5: Kitchen window is still wide open and there is a Yankee Candle burning in there and I can still freaking smell tripe cake. Never again! Ever! If I so much as mention thinking about making it again someone kick me!


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> I made tripe cake yesterday (same recipe as livercake just tripe instead). I will not be doing that again hmy:
> 
> Moonviolet, what breed you going to be looking for? Or have you not decided that yet either?


It's pretty much a blank page. I do love beagles and I think something of a similar size to Tink would be best for her. There's no rush still in the mulling stage.

Tripe cake... My goodness woman have you taken leave of your senses!


----------



## Coffee

Dogless - good luck at school tonight, hope Kilo is a star pupil 

Oooh Moonviolet, how exciting  Can't wait to hear more about your plans  Judging from the way Alfie adores and plays with his pal Oakley the Beagle, Dallies and Beagles can be a great twosome  

I'd love to be able to make Alfie some of these stinky cakes but he can't have tripe, liver, sardines or any sort of offal. Beef is another no-no  Does anyone know of any other stinky homemade treats? I did make him peanut butter biscuits once and he did like them but didn't go wild for them  Current treat of choice is proper sausages (I tried to cheat with those cooked cocktail ones you can get but he wasn't quite so excited about those ), but would love to find something else he goes crazy for (in a good way ).


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> I'd love to be able to make Alfie some of these stinky cakes but he can't have tripe, liver, sardines or any sort of offal. Beef is another no-no  Does anyone know of any other stinky homemade treats? I did make him peanut butter biscuits once and he did like them but didn't go wild for them  Current treat of choice is proper sausages (I tried to cheat with those cooked cocktail ones you can get but he wasn't quite so excited about those ), but would love to find something else he goes crazy for (in a good way ).


I do love a baking challenge... Shoves glasses back up to bridge of nose.... off to do some research...

well so far i've discovered that caviar is low in purines. I know he's a very pampered boy ...but maybe that's a step too far. ( other fish roe are low too)ETA except for herring


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I do love a baking challenge... Shoves glasses back up to bridge of nose.... off to do some research...
> 
> well so far i've discovered that caviar is low in purines. I know he's a very pampered boy ...but maybe that's a step too far. ( other fish roe are low too)


Something with chunks of garlic sausage, sausagemeat, pate, cheese and ham? (Not all together!!).


----------



## Dogless

A scone recipe - strong cheese scones perhaps with way more cheese than normal? Could use most things in a scone type mixture!


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> I do love a baking challenge... Shoves glasses back up to bridge of nose.... off to do some research...
> 
> well so far i've discovered that caviar is low in purines. I know he's a very pampered boy ...but maybe that's a step too far. ( other fish roe are low too)


Excellent Chef Moon, I shall look forward to your findings 

Caviar? :lol: No, even Sir Spotalot is not quite that pampered... other fish roe (is that eggs?) could be a winner though 



Dogless said:


> Something with chunks of garlic sausage, sausagemeat, pate, cheese and ham? (Not all together!!).


Garlic sausage  Now that's a good idea... that would be nice and stinky wouldn't it? The stinkier the better seems to be the rule here 

Wonder if I could just adapt one of the liver cake recipes and replace the liver with the garlic sausage/fish roe?


----------



## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Excellent Chef Moon, I shall look forward to your findings
> 
> Caviar? :lol: No, even Sir Spotalot is not quite that pampered... other fish roe (is that eggs?) could be a winner though
> 
> Garlic sausage  Now that's a good idea... that would be nice and stinky wouldn't it? The stinkier the better seems to be the rule here
> 
> Wonder if I could just adapt one of the liver cake recipes and replace the liver with the garlic sausage/fish roe?


Easily .


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> A scone recipe - strong cheese scones perhaps with way more cheese than normal? Could use most things in a scone type mixture!


He *loves* cheese, that's another excellent idea, thank you


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> It's pretty much a blank page. I do love beagles and I think something of a similar size to Tink would be best for her. There's no rush still in the mulling stage.
> 
> Tripe cake... My goodness woman have you taken leave of your senses!


I think I momentarily did. I was just thinking of nice, smelly treats for the dog, I didn't think about the awful smelling house 

Coffee, I just took a livercake recipe and adapted it to make tripe cake. And tinned dog food cake which didn't smell anywhere near as bad as tripe cake. I see no reason why you couldn't just use garlic sausage or whatever in place of the liver. Recipe I used for both my adaptations was this one.
How to Make Liver Cake | my little dog


----------



## Coffee

Excellent stuff, thank you ladies 

Off to google liver cake recipes and await with eager anticipation for Chef Moon's findings


----------



## moonviolet

DogAware.com Articles: Urate, Cystine and Less Common Urinary Stones

this seems to be the most comprehensive purine list i've found, off out with the hound now but i'll be giving the list a good once over on my return.


----------



## Coffee

Sarah1983 said:


> I think I momentarily did. I was just thinking of nice, smelly treats for the dog, I didn't think about the awful smelling house
> 
> Coffee, I just took a livercake recipe and adapted it to make tripe cake. And tinned dog food cake which didn't smell anywhere near as bad as tripe cake. I see no reason why you couldn't just use garlic sausage or whatever in place of the liver. Recipe I used for both my adaptations was this one.
> How to Make Liver Cake | my little dog


Fab, thank you  That looks wonderfully easy too


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> DogAware.com Articles: Urate, Cystine and Less Common Urinary Stones
> 
> this seems to be the most comprehensive purine list i've found, off out with the hound now but i'll be giving the list a good once over on my return.


Thank you. I'm genuinely touched at the interest shown in my picky pooch and his diet restrictions 

I have a massive list that his breeders gave me when we collected him. I've just discovered that black pudding is low in purines - bet that would be nice and stinky in a 'cake'


----------



## Tigerneko

Sarah1983 said:


> You've already found something he REALLY wants and that he's probably going to be willing to work for. It seems silly not to use it just because you think it's ridiculous to have to teach him to behave around something that's clearly high value to him. He's clearly telling you he's not bothered by food, listen to him, use what he IS interested in and you might start seeing progress. At the end of the day it's the dog who decides what's rewarding, not us
> 
> That's not meant to sound harsh, I just think it would make your work a hell of a lot easier if you worked with him using what he's telling you he finds really exciting and fun.


Do you think I don't want to make progress with him? If I thought he'd work well for a toy, i'd be using them, believe me! I tried using them at agility for a long while and we did a few exercises at our old obedience class with toys, on both occasions I was told to stop using them because I couldn't get him to focus on anything at all, all he'll do is jump and bark and nip - it's like he's in a trance. He can be posessive over toys around dogs he doesn't know (our other dog he is fine with and will let her play with them without issue) so if any of the other dogs got too close when he had his toy, or he knew that I had his toy, all hell broke loose and it made him worse, so I don't see how it'll help him around strange dogs, which is my issue. And as soon as he knows I have a toy on me, he won't settle and becomes a total nightmare on lead.

This again isn't supported or helped by my parents who wind him up and make him bark and get over excited about his toys. They think i'm being fussy and pedantic when I ask them not to wind him up   and think i'm spoiling their 'fun', to training him to behave for his toys in the first place will just be fighting one rather large, losing battle.

So I hope that helped you understand it's just 'just' because I think it's silly to train him, it's because it is HIGHLY unlikely to work in the first place.


----------



## Coffee

Tigerneko said:


> Do you think I don't want to make progress with him? If I thought he'd work well for a toy, i'd be using them, believe me! I tried using them at agility for a long while and we did a few exercises at our old obedience class with toys, on both occasions I was told to stop using them because I couldn't get him to focus on anything at all, all he'll do is jump and bark and nip - it's like he's in a trance. He can be posessive over toys around dogs he doesn't know (our other dog he is fine with and will let her play with them without issue) so if any of the other dogs got too close when he had his toy, or he knew that I had his toy, all hell broke loose and it made him worse, so I don't see how it'll help him around strange dogs, which is my issue. And as soon as he knows I have a toy on me, he won't settle and becomes a total nightmare on lead.
> 
> This again isn't supported or helped by my parents who wind him up and make him bark and get over excited about his toys. They think i'm being fussy and pedantic when I ask them not to wind him up   and think i'm spoiling their 'fun', to training him to behave for his toys in the first place will just be fighting one rather large, losing battle.
> 
> So I hope that helped you understand it's just 'just' because I think it's silly to train him, it's because it is HIGHLY unlikely to work in the first place.


Hi, hope you don't mind me butting in but I just wanted to say I think you're being a tiny bit defensive and maybe not taking Sarah1983's post in the spirit she intended it to be taken  (if that makes sense!)

You said he gets too excited around toys to be able to focus? What about (just thinking out loud here) less exciting toys? Are there any he's not as bothered about? The ones he'll ignore over the others? Maybe you could start with those and work your way up to more exciting ones? 

I do wish you lots of luck with it... I do know what it's like (as all of us here do too) when your training isn't progressing in the way you want & need it to - it's frustrating and damm hard work but we're all here to support each other


----------



## Tigerneko

Coffee said:


> Hi, hope you don't mind me butting in but I just wanted to say I think you're being a tiny bit defensive and maybe not taking Sarah1983's post in the spirit she intended it to be taken  (if that makes sense!)
> 
> You said he gets too excited around toys to be able to focus? What about (just thinking out loud here) less exciting toys? Are there any he's not as bothered about? The ones he'll ignore over the others? Maybe you could start with those and work your way up to more exciting ones?
> 
> I do wish you lots of luck with it... I do know what it's like (as all of us here do too) when your training isn't progressing in the way you want & need it to - it's frustrating and damm hard work but we're all here to support each other


I'm not being defensive at all (at least i'm not trying to be) but I have heard it time and time again to try toys, they told me to try them at agility and told me to try them at obedience, I tried to explain the same as i've just said and people always think i'm just being silly, or i'm exaggerating.... and every single time, people have agreed with me after seeing his behaviour that toys aren't the best idea. I just feel like everyone on here is gonna think i'm saying it to be lazy, so it's just slightly exasperating to have to explain it and I _know_ it sounds daft, because I would think just the same. But I know how he works and that it isn't the way.

He doesn't really have a less exciting toy, if he knows there is some form of toy then it's operation bonkers. I've tried all sorts, new toys, old toys, soft toys (no interest), squeaky toys (send him way over the edge), and even tried to use one toy that is specifically for training to try and get him to learn that tennis ball = training (he doesn't get tennis balls at any other time anyway) but it didn't work.

I know I might have sounded a bit snappy in my last post, but it's an avenue i've been down a few times and it never ever ends well, so it's just one of those things that really frustrates me because it's difficult enough to explain it in person, never mind trying to get it across on the internet


----------



## Coffee

Tigerneko said:


> I'm not being defensive at all (at least i'm not trying to be) but I have heard it time and time again to try toys, they told me to try them at agility and told me to try them at obedience, I tried to explain the same as i've just said and people always think i'm just being silly, or i'm exaggerating.... and every single time, people have agreed with me after seeing his behaviour that toys aren't the best idea. I just feel like everyone on here is gonna think i'm saying it to be lazy, so it's just slightly exasperating to have to explain it and I _know_ it sounds daft, because I would think just the same. But I know how he works and that it isn't the way.
> 
> He doesn't really have a less exciting toy, if he knows there is some form of toy then it's operation bonkers. I've tried all sorts, new toys, old toys, soft toys (no interest), squeaky toys (send him way over the edge), and even tried to use one toy that is specifically for training to try and get him to learn that tennis ball = training (he doesn't get tennis balls at any other time anyway) but it didn't work.
> 
> I know I might have sounded a bit snappy in my last post, but it's an avenue i've been down a few times and it never ever ends well, so it's just one of those things that really frustrates me because it's difficult enough to explain it in person, never mind trying to get it across on the internet


I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel you needed to justify yourself  It must be really hard for you and I do sympathise. I hope you can find a solution, I really do


----------



## Dogless

Well.....we are back from 'school' and Kilo was my best boy again . I've just spent the journey home telling him that he's the best dog on the planet, my best boy etc etc etc . He's had a nice big dinner and is recovering from his hard work on the sofa .


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry Tigerneko, without knowing the entire history of you and your dog all I can go by is what is written and your post made it sound like you simply thought it stupid that he'd have to be trained to behave around something he found highly rewarding.


----------



## Tigerneko

Coffee said:


> I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel you needed to justify yourself  It must be really hard for you and I do sympathise. I hope you can find a solution, I really do


don't worry about it, I prefer to explain myself with stuff like that so people know i'm not just saying it to be lazy 

At agility it was just getting silly. He wasn't mega interested in food, so they said to try toys. I forewarned them  and they still told me to give it a go. He ended up SO obsessed with the toy that he was jumping straight THROUGH the jumps and knocking them flying everywhere, he was jumping on top of the tunnel and refusing to go in it because he knew I had the toy, and was throwing himself off the dog walk to try and get it, he just had no control over himself and didn't care what he was doing, even when he was getting to the point of hurting himself. With food, he isn't overly enthused, but he DOES learn eventually. otherwise I wouldn't have got him to the standard of agility he was at, we only gave up because he had a fixation on a dog that he didn't like and would make a bee line to attack it every time I let him go, so couldn't be trusted off lead up there. otherwise his agility was pretty good.


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> don't worry about it, I prefer to explain myself with stuff like that so people know i'm not just saying it to be lazy
> 
> At agility it was just getting silly. He wasn't mega interested in food, so they said to try toys. I forewarned them  and they still told me to give it a go. He ended up SO obsessed with the toy that he was jumping straight THROUGH the jumps and knocking them flying everywhere, he was jumping on top of the tunnel and refusing to go in it because he knew I had the toy, and was throwing himself off the dog walk to try and get it, he just had no control over himself and didn't care what he was doing, even when he was getting to the point of hurting himself. With food, he isn't overly enthused, but he DOES learn eventually. otherwise I wouldn't have got him to the standard of agility he was at, we only gave up because he had a fixation on a dog that he didn't like and would make a bee line to attack it every time I let him go, so couldn't be trusted off lead up there. otherwise his agility was pretty good.


Poor boy, he is quite a challenge. Slow progress is definitely better than him hurting himself and such a shame you had to give up agility. It sounds like he's a boy that needs to be busy. Whether you are having a 2 steps forward day or a 1 step back we're hear to listen or to celebrate


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> Poor boy, he is quite a challenge. Slow progress is definitely better than him hurting himself and such a shame you had to give up agility. It sounds like he's a boy that needs to be busy. Whether you are having a 2 steps forward day or a 1 step back we're hear to listen or to celebrate


Yeah he is  and that's why I get as frustrated as I do, because everything I try either results in no progress or just throws up another issue. The way my parents treat him doesn't help, they encourage his hyperactivity and literally treat him like a child. Their answer to 'training' him is to shout at him when he's naughty, but they've inadvertently trained him to bark and get wound up when they tell him off, because they do this thing (and it is just as stupid as it sounds) where they shout "NO" at him, he barks back at them and they think it's 'hilarious' that he's 'answering back', so as a result, every time he does something 'wrong', they tell him 'no' and he thinks it's time to go wild and bark and jump everywhere. Then they wonder why he is difficult... and I wonder why I bother 

Yeah it was a huge shame about agility. Even the fact that the classes were run by my ex didn't put me off (got together and split up while I was there) but I couldn't carry on taking him because there was that one dog that he hated and wouldn't take his eyes off (he used to watch it go around the area and stiffen up, doing the 'stare') and even if I asked it's owner to pick it up while I sent him round, he'd still run over and jump up at her to try and get her dog, so there was no way I could carry on taking him there, and it was also causing him to react towards other the dogs because he couldn't get at that one. But - I have my own agility set so I do practise in the garden with him sometimes, so all is not lost


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko, this may sound random, but have you thought about doing a TTouch workshop or seeing a practitioner to learn some techniques - the touches do seem to help alter the emotional state of a dog. Perhaps if you could get him less extreme in his excitement reactions you could start to make progress?


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Tigerneko, this may sound random, but have you thought about doing a TTouch workshop or seeing a practitioner to learn some techniques - the touches do seem to help alter the emotional state of a dog. Perhaps if you could get him less extreme in his excitement reactions you could start to make progress?


I'm really glad you mentioned that because it's something I thought about in the past, and I know a tiny little bit about it. I know they say to touch the dog in circular motions because it's different to the usual 'stroke' and they find it calming, and when he's been having a mad half hour with my parents, I actually do sometimes sit there and massage behind/just below his ears, and he always ends up flat out on me . If I can find anywhere local to me that does it then i'll definitely look into it! I will do a quick google and see if there's any books or DVD's available on it, then I can have something to refer to at home as well. It's definitely worth a try, it certainly can't do any harm and it's useful for pretty much any situation, even if I do turn into the crazy lady who massages her dog in the street


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> I'm really glad you mentioned that because it's something I thought about in the past, and I know a tiny little bit about it. I know they say to touch the dog in circular motions because it's different to the usual 'stroke' and they find it calming, and when he's been having a mad half hour with my parents, I actually do sometimes sit there and massage behind/just below his ears, and he always ends up flat out on me . If I can find anywhere local to me that does it then i'll definitely look into it! I will do a quick google and see if there's any books or DVD's available on it, then I can have something to refer to at home as well. It's definitely worth a try, it certainly can't do any harm and it's useful for pretty much any situation, even if I do turn into the crazy lady who massages her dog in the street


I did a workshop with Kilo when he was about 6 months old (I think...can't quite recall!) which was a great day - good to actually be shown what to do rather than read about it. Maybe there's one not too far from you or a practitioner that you could have a one - off session with to learn the very basics?


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> I did a workshop with Kilo when he was about 6 months old (I think...can't quite recall!) which was a great day - good to actually be shown what to do rather than read about it. Maybe there's one not too far from you or a practitioner that you could have a one - off session with to learn the very basics?


I could snog you :lol:

I've found someone not very far from me who sounds like a decent behaviourist & does TTouch, she's very pricey (£90 for a 2 hour evening consultation.... ) but she's the only one in the area, and the only other behaviourst that isn't my ex, or the other who is an ex police dog handler and is from the school of 'stick a choke chain on it' 

I think i'll email her and see what she says.

Thank you


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> I could snog you :lol:
> 
> I've found someone not very far from me who sounds like a decent behaviourist & does TTouch, she's very pricey (£90 for a 2 hour evening consultation.... ) but she's the only one in the area, and the only other behaviourst that isn't my ex, or the other who is an ex police dog handler and is from the school of 'stick a choke chain on it'
> 
> I think i'll email her and see what she says.
> 
> Thank you


This might sound a bit random, but there are a couple of groomers around here that are TTouch practitioners, I took Tinker along and was shown the basics for the price of a wash cut and blow dry. So might be worth checking out groomers too


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> This might sound a bit random, but there are a couple of groomers around here that are TTouch practitioners, I took Tinker along and was shown the basics for the price of a wash cut and blow dry. So might be worth checking out groomers too


I'm into dog grooming myself so I know/have worked with a lot of the local groomers and none of them do it that I know of, but it's worth keeping an ear out, in case they start it or any new ones pop up, thanks


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Well.....we are back from 'school' and Kilo was my best boy again . I've just spent the journey home telling him that he's the best dog on the planet, my best boy etc etc etc . He's had a nice big dinner and is recovering from his hard work on the sofa .


Wow, well done, he just keeps getting better and better doesn't he. Really pleased it went so well.

T-Touch is something I've always wanted to try but it would be nigh on impossible finding someone here. I'm going to ask Big Evie if its something she's done, apart from my own it would certainly help a couple of the dogs I groom.


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> I could snog you :lol:
> 
> I've found someone not very far from me who sounds like a decent behaviourist & does TTouch, she's very pricey (£90 for a 2 hour evening consultation.... ) but she's the only one in the area, and the only other behaviourst that isn't my ex, or the other who is an ex police dog handler and is from the school of 'stick a choke chain on it'
> 
> I think i'll email her and see what she says.
> 
> Thank you


That's good - you never know it might just be enough to stop him getting to his 'bonkers' point if you can take him out nice and relaxed and know how to chill him out a little whilst out and about. Sometimes when I walk with Kilo and it's all been a bit bonkers and frantic with play etc we'll stop and he'll lie down for a little masssge or lean on my legs to have his ears done. It's a nice bonding thing to do if nothing else and is relaxing for the human too .



kat&molly said:


> Wow, well done, he just keeps getting better and better doesn't he. Really pleased it went so well.
> 
> T-Touch is something I've always wanted to try but it would be nigh on impossible finding someone here. I'm going to ask Big Evie if its something she's done, apart from my own it would certainly help a couple of the dogs I groom.


I am really, really pleased with him at present - keep worrying that it's the pride before the fall . We are at least due a Kevin day soon (don't want one, obviously!).

I bet Big Evie knows lots about it. Anyone who can train Circus Chickens (sounds more exciting than just chickens ) must be able to do all sorts of cool stuff .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Well.....we are back from 'school' and Kilo was my best boy again . I've just spent the journey home telling him that he's the best dog on the planet, my best boy etc etc etc . He's had a nice big dinner and is recovering from his hard work on the sofa .


I'm so glad you have found a class you love and more importantly Kilo loves 

We have a little assessment next week, our sendaways left and right need some work... possibly because I occasionally get them wrong myself :blushing:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm so glad you have found a class you love and more importantly Kilo loves
> 
> We have a little assessment next week, our sendaways left and right need some work... possibly because I occasionally get them wrong myself :blushing:


Wish we'd found one like it in the first place, rather than suffering through ones I hated and actually not really getting anywhere .

I know what you mean about getting it wrong...the only mistakes last night were mine and mine alone!! Good luck for next week .


----------



## Tigerneko

kat&molly said:


> Wow, well done, he just keeps getting better and better doesn't he. Really pleased it went so well.
> 
> T-Touch is something I've always wanted to try but it would be nigh on impossible finding someone here. I'm going to ask Big Evie if its something she's done, apart from my own it would certainly help a couple of the dogs I groom.


Companion Animal Practitioners

that is the list where I found my local one, there's loads of them all over the place! Mine is about 20 minutes away so not mega local but she's close enough and should cover my area, although she charges even more for travel costs out of a 10 mile radius!  but I might just fit into the 10 miles.


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## kat&molly

Thats a shame , the French one is just too far[this bloody country is just too big]
I may just email the trainer, see if she's done any.


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## Dogless

This morning's walk was nice - pouring with rain, didn't see anyone and played for an hour and a half or so.

This afternoon, Kevin came out with me :skep:. Headcollar went on after we saw our first two dogs and Kilo pulled, so I put him in a sit over the other side of the road, so he whined and did one high - pitched, frustrated bark . Then he tried lunging and pulling now and again on the way to the fields; sit became a foreign word that he had never heard before and I just couldn't engage him at all :mad2:. He didn't look at me for his toy when we got there (he usually skips all around me until i get it out) which is unlike him, just mooched about (and posed for a few photos!) so I am guessing that he is just tired as he has had a lot of exercise and a lot of training over the last few days. Not the worst day ever - just a blip, but at least it was today and not yesterday evening at school .


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## kat&molly

Bless him , as you say just a blip- they like to keep us on our toes don't they , and he has been such a good boy


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## kat&molly

I'm having a few concerns about Scruff, the Trainer who isn't in to Dominance stuff has said this past 2 weeks that to her it looks like Scruff thinks she's the boss over Moll and Evie- I dont see this, she's 'motherly' to Evie , they have such a lovely close bond but she plays well with Moll ,although not so much , there's never a cross word between them . I dont dismiss what she says- people outside see things we miss don't they. Its Jay who rules the roost between the dogs but she hasn't seen that as Jay has been with OH working.
There's definatly something amiss though, I'm going to watch very carefully and see if I can work it out.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I'm having a few concerns about Scruff, the Trainer who isn't in to Dominance stuff has said this past 2 weeks that to her it looks like Scruff thinks she's the boss over Moll and Evie- I dont see this, she's 'motherly' to Evie , they have such a lovely close bond but she plays well with Moll ,although not so much , there's never a cross word between them . I dont dismiss what she says- people outside see things we miss don't they. Its Jay who rules the roost between the dogs but she hasn't seen that as Jay has been with OH working.
> There's definatly something amiss though, I'm going to watch very carefully and see if I can work it out.


Maybe take some videos of them interacting so you can play it back and watch carefully?


----------



## Dogless

Kevin stayed at home today and my best boy came out for a walk . I was really, really pleased with him this morning; probably the best he's been in the park with all the dogs walking past - gold star - and he kept his lead lovely and loose. I realised today that he offers walking at heel and looking up at me frequently more and more as his default behaviour without being asked when walking along now - which I always reward :thumbup:. We had been doing some heelwork all the way along a path so I stopped and released him to sniff about, but he was enjoying the work so much that he just badgered me to carry on :aureola:. So pleased!!


----------



## moonviolet

Yay the boy wonder is back on form, ( maybe yesterday was an extinction burst?)


Quiet walk earlier, nothing to report, but I do have a couple of things from yesterday one so cute it made me so proud of my girl.

We bumped into a man we have seen before and knew his super shy little black cocker would be close by. She likes to circle away watches from a safe distance if her owner pauses to pass the time of day before rejoining him when he walks on. Tink stays with me and never bothers her. Yesterday she did she hadn't before, slowly arc toward the cocker head low, turning head away often then about 2 metres away turned her back and offered her butt for sniffing and the wee cocker slowly came over for a sniff. 

The other thing is funny, walking with Monty( the gorgeous BC) and his owner in the evening, she was laughing at me as the phrase I apprarently use most when we walk together with the dogs offlead is " off you go" She said most people around here can't get their dogs back you can't get yours more than a couple of yards away. It's a problem I love 

Hope everyone is having a fun weekend. 

I have developed a ridiculous infatuation with a rescue dog who is big and beautiful. My heart is aching for him, but my head is talking sense I hope he finds his forever home soon.

3 weeks smoke free now


----------



## kat&molly

Bless Kilo, nice when you know they actually enjoy it. :thumbup: Moll pays me a lot of attention when she's on lead but I'm sure its more a 'come on when you letting me off to tear around look' She still checks every few feet when she's off though- so I suppose thats something .

Tink is certainly getting very brave offering a sniff like that- she always sounds like such a pleasure.

We cheated this morning I took all the girls out in the car- we'll do some later though.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Maybe take some videos of them interacting so you can play it back and watch carefully?


The batteries run down too quick on my camera to record anything worthwhile.
I keep thinking about things though,such as;
When all 3 play, Scruff is always the one getting beat upby the other 2, Molly will be at her neck and Evie at her legs- she never gets annoyed ever.
We always think she's insecure because of her past-she gets called the bulldozer as you cant fuss the others without her pushing in- she is always after our attention and tries to lick us to death.
Is always on guard, in the house, garden, car , OH's van, on walks-its like she's warning everyone to stay away- but once she has met someone they cant get rid of her either.
I dont know if I'm reading too much in to it or does she think she has to look after us all


----------



## kat&molly

Sorry- well done Moonviolet on the not smoking :thumbup: Have you put any weight on?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Sorry- well done Moonviolet on the not smoking :thumbup: Have you put any weight on?


I've hidden the scales but between the ravenous constant hunger and the limp i'm sure i have, but i'm staying ostrich like about that right now


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I've hidden the scales but between the ravenous constant hunger and the limp i'm sure i have, but i'm staying ostrich like about that right now


Best thing to do, 1 thing at a time. Hope your foots better soon.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly good luck for lead training later; I'm afraid the behavioural stuff is way beyong my poor skills to comment on, but it is interesting .

moonviolet - Tink always sounds like such a good, sweet dog and well done on 3 weeks away from the evil weed :thumbup:.

One thing I forgot to mention was a little incident on our walk . As you know, Kilo isn't keen on total strangers, particularly men, going straight in for a big fuss. We were both looking over the side of the bridge today at the river - me as I often see interesting things like otters and Kilo because a squirrel had just disappeared over the side (there is a ledge a small way down). Anyhoo....a man came straight up behind us, made a grab for Kilo's head whilst saying "Hello" to him :scared:. We both jumped a mile and luckily Kilo reacted by jumping down and pulling away sharply. We then spent an awkward 20 seconds or so trying to evade this man's hands reaching for Kilo's head still whilst he asked loads of questions with me telling him in turn not to touch as Kilo didn't like strangers (on repeat, as he ignored me and my escape attempts) :mad2:. In the end, he left him alone and said "My son keeps dogs. Alaskan Malamutes, he has six, but keeps them in a barn to breed from, so his have a purpose rather than being paraded around the park"  . 

My heart was in my mouth when I saw the man grab Kilo as we both jumped, I'm very, very pleased that he just reacted as he did. I wish people would think, I really do :mad2:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> moonviolet - Tink always sounds like such a good, sweet dog and well done on 3 weeks away from the evil weed :thumbup:


Hmmm sweet enough to sneak outside with one of my new shoes and be laying on her cushion with it between her paws with an " i could have chewed it but i didn't" expression on her face.



Dogless said:


> One thing I forgot to mention was a little incident on our walk . As you know, Kilo isn't keen on total strangers, particularly men, going straight in for a big fuss. We were both looking over the side of the bridge today at the river - me as I often see interesting things like otters and Kilo because a squirrel had just disappeared over the side (there is a ledge a small way down). Anyhoo....a man came straight up behind us, made a grab for Kilo's head whilst saying "Hello" to him :scared:. We both jumped a mile and luckily Kilo reacted by jumping down and pulling away sharply. We then spent an awkward 20 seconds or so trying to evade this man's hands reaching for Kilo's head still whilst he asked loads of questions with me telling him in turn not to touch as Kilo didn't like strangers (on repeat, as he ignored me and my escape attempts) :mad2:. In the end, he left him alone and said "My son keeps dogs. Alaskan Malamutes, he has six, but keeps them in a barn to breed from, so his have a purpose rather than being paraded around the park"  .
> 
> My heart was in my mouth when I saw the man grab Kilo as we both jumped, I'm very, very pleased that he just reacted as he did. I wish people would think, I really do :mad2:.


Well done Kilo for not reacting badly to the idiot, although after what he said if Kilo had pushed him off the bridge into the river I would have thougth it too good for him.

K&M Is it a really dumb question to ask, but does it cause any issues between yoru dogs? I mean in any group of dogs or people for that matter you get different temperaments, some meeker some more forthright.


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## kat&molly

MV- Do you mean just Scruff or all my girls together? Either way dont know if I'm lucky but they all get on. When Scruff first came for foster[with her lovely 1 year old son] I had really bad scraps between her and Jay but its Jay that started it all - she has an awful temperment but accepts the others really as if they aren't there- it works quite well. Scruff now defers to Jay,she'll hang back to let Jay out the door first etc. Is that what you wanted- are you wondering what sex to go for next ?
If you mean just Scruff[sorry I'm being dim today] she is the more confident one with other dogs- think there's lots I'm missing but now I've noticed [or the trainer has] I'm watching everything. She has a bit of an issue with Moll's sister- but they've never gone further than eyeballing each other. It doesn't cause problems with people , once I've done careful greeting the others aren't really bothered- we have to stop her from pestering though.

Dogless- thats scary isn't it, Moll is quite aloof with strangers outside, she wouldn't have liked that either. Well done to Kilo.

Shame on you though for walking him when he'd be so much better off stuck in a barn sh*gging his way around N.I


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## Dogless

kat&molly hope the lead training went well .

Not much to report from this afternoon - lovely loose lead to the fields - hubby actually came with us  - a good offlead run and play with a recall game thrown in (taking advantage of hubby being there!) and then a lovely loose lead home .


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> MV- Do you mean just Scruff or all my girls together? Either way dont know if I'm lucky but they all get on. When Scruff first came for foster[with her lovely 1 year old son] I had really bad scraps between her and Jay but its Jay that started it all - she has an awful temperment but accepts the others really as if they aren't there- it works quite well. Scruff now defers to Jay,she'll hang back to let Jay out the door first etc. Is that what you wanted- are you wondering what sex to go for next ?
> If you mean just Scruff[sorry I'm being dim today] she is the more confident one with other dogs- think there's lots I'm missing but now I've noticed [or the trainer has] I'm watching everything. She has a bit of an issue with Moll's sister- but they've never gone further than eyeballing each other. It doesn't cause problems with people , once I've done careful greeting the others aren't really bothered- we have to stop her from pestering though. :


I think i'm being a bit dim too, must be that little bit of sun going to my head. What I wondered was, was it simply an observation by big Evie or something you/she thought needed addressing.


kat&molly said:


> Dogless- thats scary isn't it, Moll is quite aloof with strangers outside, she wouldn't have liked that either. Well done to Kilo.
> 
> *Shame on you though for walking him when he'd be so much better off stuck in a barn sh*gging his way around N.I *


This made me :lol: :lol: and spit wine at the screen


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> kat&molly hope the lead training went well .
> 
> Not much to report from this afternoon - lovely loose lead to the fields - hubby actually came with us  - a good offlead run and play with a recall game thrown in (taking advantage of hubby being there!) and then a lovely loose lead home .


Does Kilo get silly if your OH is there- or is it just my mad girls? Mine came this afternoon, Molly was awful again for a few minutes longer than she has been - they are all worse actually. It annoys me a bit , silly ,but when I'm the one that does all the work, that he screws up, they seem to take a step backwards.
When Moll did calm down and walk proper I let her off and done a bit with Scruff, using treats- she was amazing-I just haven't got enough hands to do it normally. She NEVER looks at me on lead so it was lovely[ a bit jumpy] but I wonder if I tried learning her the Watch me command and if a Bum bag would make it easier to dish out treats???

The neighbour commented today how much better they are doing so that was nice


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Does Kilo get silly if your OH is there- or is it just my mad girls? Mine came this afternoon, Molly was awful again for a few minutes longer than she has been - they are all worse actually. It annoys me a bit , silly ,but when I'm the one that does all the work, that he screws up, they seem to take a step backwards.
> When Moll did calm down and walk proper I let her off and done a bit with Scruff, using treats- she was amazing-I just haven't got enough hands to do it normally. She NEVER looks at me on lead so it was lovely[ a bit jumpy] but I wonder if I tried learning her the Watch me command and if a Bum bag would make it easier to dish out treats???
> 
> The neighbour commented today how much better they are doing so that was nice


He used to, simply because 9 out of 10 walks (or more) are done on our own - but recently has got much better at listening to me...although still has his moments . Don't get me onto to OHs sabotaging training though .

Sounds like Scruff did well; I bought a treat pouch and must admit find it much easier than just pockets - fine with big ones in my waterproof jacket, but otherwise a real faff!


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I think i'm being a bit dim too, must be that little bit of sun going to my head. What I wondered was, was it simply an observation by big Evie or something you/she thought needed addressing.
> This made me :lol: :lol: and spit wine at the screen


Moonviolet- I'm really sorry you wasted some wine- but at least you never choked on a *** :thumbup:
It was something she pointed out first, I know Scruff's problems but think I'm too close to notice unless its pointed out to me  I hate dwelling on all this' my dog's been through so many homes been mistreated' etc because its all in the past and now things are good for her-I'm just starting to think it's more complex and I hadn't realised. Really hate to think she's so troubled .


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- I'm really sorry you wasted some wine- but at least you never choked on a *** :thumbup:.


Now there's something i don't miss 



kat&molly said:


> It was something she pointed out first, I know Scruff's problems but think I'm too close to notice unless its pointed out to me  I hate dwelling on all this' my dog's been through so many homes been mistreated' etc because its all in the past and now things are good for her-I'm just starting to think it's more complex and I hadn't realised. Really hate to think she's so troubled .


Things may not be perfect for Scruff now, but you know 100% they are better than what has gone before, and with fresh eyes you may be in position to make them even better so that's all positive


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## Dogless

We had a perfect morning . Woke up to clear blue skies and gorgeous sun instead of the constant rain . I was going to go somewhere busy to train, but at the last minute decided to just walk to the fields to play - Kilo walked there very nicely on a lovely loose lead, we played for a few minutes and did a few recalls and then....a gorgeous 9 month old puppy that we have only met once before arrived and they played and just mooched about for well over an hour - I haven't seen the BW have as much fun in ages and the pup was a real livewire . He then walked back on a lovely loose lead alongside the pup (who was pulling) for the ten minutes it took us to reach our houses - discovered they live on the street behind ours . So; not much training at all, but a really lovely walk :thumbup:.

Hope everyone else's morning walks have been just as good .


----------



## sharloid

We have a problem with Broder that is getting worse if I'm honest. When we're sat on the sofa he'll paw us really hard (leaving scratch marks) towards him and then nip/mouth us. He'll go back and forth and bow and run around and come back and try and nip etc. Is he playing? Does he just want attention?

We've tried standing up and turning round/ignoring him but he'll just happily keep jumping and nibbling at our backs. When he lays down and stops he gets praise but he only stops after he gets bored I think, rather than because we're ignoring him. We've also tried time outs in the hallway but this isn't effective either. Especially as to get him into the hallway we have to chase him a little - which I believe will make him think it's a game!

Any ideas would be appreciated.


----------



## Dogless

sharloid said:


> We have a problem with Broder that is getting worse if I'm honest. When we're sat on the sofa he'll paw us really hard (leaving scratch marks) towards him and then nip/mouth us. He'll go back and forth and bow and run around and come back and try and nip etc. Is he playing? Does he just want attention?
> 
> We've tried standing up and turning round/ignoring him but he'll just happily keep jumping and nibbling at our backs. When he lays down and stops he gets praise but he only stops after he gets bored I think, rather than because we're ignoring him. We've also tried time outs in the hallway but this isn't effective either. Especially as to get him into the hallway we have to chase him a little - which I believe will make him think it's a game!
> 
> Any ideas would be appreciated.


When he starts could you redirect onto something he is allowed - a chew toy etc or do a bit of training with him? - sounds as if he wants to play. If you have had enough / he ignores the redirection and persists, maybe you could leave a houseline on him to lead him away so that you don't have to chase?


----------



## Dogless

Another great walk this afternoon - went to the park which was still heaving at 5pm which was what I was after for working on things and Kilo gets another Gold Star :thumbup:. I had his headcollar on on most paths, the bridge etc as there were so many kids that rush up, loose dogs etc but he still walked very nicely and did very well at looking at dogs then walking past nicely :thumbup:.

As we were going over the bridge at one point (very wide bridge) a lady with a chihuahua was coming the opposite way - it wanted to come and greet, but I didn't want Kilo to, so I was telling him 'close' and praising and couldn't have done more to get away from this woman....walking as far away as we could manage so we were skimming the wall, but the dog zipped it's way over on it's flexi and I gave up once it was on it's hind legs sniffing Kilo's bum as he finally lost his concentration on me (as you would!!). So I talked to the lady and she asked what I was doing...I said "Just teaching him to walk past other dogs nicely and that he doesn't get to greet them all" she said "Well, if you ever find out how, let me know, they are so strong they just pull you over" :scared: .


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## moonviolet

sharloid said:


> We have a problem with Broder that is getting worse if I'm honest. When we're sat on the sofa he'll paw us really hard (leaving scratch marks) towards him and then nip/mouth us. He'll go back and forth and bow and run around and come back and try and nip etc. Is he playing? Does he just want attention?
> 
> We've tried standing up and turning round/ignoring him but he'll just happily keep jumping and nibbling at our backs. When he lays down and stops he gets praise but he only stops after he gets bored I think, rather than because we're ignoring him. We've also tried time outs in the hallway but this isn't effective either. Especially as to get him into the hallway we have to chase him a little - which I believe will make him think it's a game!
> 
> Any ideas would be appreciated.


I agree that he's trying to instigate a game. A houseline could be handy, or you could leave the room frustrating but it can effective.

You might want to take a look at the "Managing arousal" and " using cues to settle dog" by Patricia McConnell on here Animal Behavior Resources Institute


----------



## moonviolet

Super gold stars for Kilo, sounds like he had a fine time this morning with the young 'un  and was doing exceptionally well this afternoon until the "mastiff in chi's" clothing muscled their way over  :lol:

Tink was a darling this morning after a lovely walk where both OH and Tink behaved themselves we went for a coffee, Tink snuggled down on her mat and didn't even get off when a couple of drakes made agressive sexual advances to a poor duck a couple of metres behind her  

This evening we had a bit of a " here we go moment" when I spotted 3 offlead GSD's and no human in sight. Weighing things up decided to stay on the path go very slowly , as turning around I coudln't keep my eye on them and they were heading our way, going off path in the bracken could mean I ended up with 3 gsd's an overwhelmed beagle and the owner unable to see let alone intervene. So Tink went on lead and we began some touches getting her focus on me, The owner appeared recalled 2 of the dogs successfully grabbing their collars, the 3rd came trotting over. I stepped in front of Tink and managed the meeting she was a little unsure but not bad. Owner apologised as he'd caught up by now, as soon as they were gone Tink was rather proud of herself for being brave bouncing along so happy , she does make me laugh. She really does wear her heart on her sleeve


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## Dogless

Well done Tink (and you - I can imagine you find it hard too!) with the GSDs; I can just imagine her trotting along all pleased with herself. She sounds like such a gorgeous sunny little dog :001_wub:. Gold star for your OH behaving too - what are you currently working on there? .


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## sharloid

Our walk didn't go brilliantly. He did walk past some people and ignored them which is good... but he also tried hopping on two legs across the road to another dog. He will walk to heel and then he gets a treat... and he's off pulling on two legs again. Help? 

A couple of meters from home he went mad and started biting the lead/harness and jumping at the OH. He stood still and the dog sat but as soon as we set off again he carried on. Seems things are going backwards!


----------



## Tigerneko

sharloid said:


> Our walk didn't go brilliantly. He did walk past some people and ignored them which is good... but he also tried hopping on two legs across the road to another dog. He will walk to heel and then he gets a treat... and he's off pulling on two legs again. Help?
> 
> A couple of meters from home he went mad and started biting the lead/harness and jumping at the OH. He stood still and the dog sat but as soon as we set off again he carried on. Seems things are going backwards!


aww, sorry you've had a bad walk! As with the pulling, treating and then off again - it just takes time! I find this with Tiger, he will walk to heel until I give him his treat, and then the second I give it to him, he's steaming ahead again. I haven't done very much with his walking to heel because his issues with other dogs and my anxiety are more important, and he has a headcollar which he doesn't pull on (he still walks out in front, but at least I don't have sore arms) but I do know where you're coming from. What treat are you using? Maybe you need to use something more high value, as it may keep him walking next to you for longer. I think my problem in that area with Tiger is that he doesn't find food stimulating enough, but I can't use toys because he is over stimulated and won't focus, so i'm trying to find a happy medium.

Don't worry, we all have bad days, tomorrow is another day and hopefully a better one


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Well done Tink (and you - I can imagine you find it hard too!) with the GSDs; I can just imagine her trotting along all pleased with herself. She sounds like such a gorgeous sunny little dog :001_wub:. Gold star for your OH behaving too - what are you currently working on there? .


A year ago i would have got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, but now it's sort of "ok i can handle this," and start using pre-charged positive words and phrases. All dog sightings in our lurking times have been acknowledged with " well spotted" ( in a "what-ho old" chum kind of tone , for some unknown reason she responds well to this.) and " what lovely dogs" just trying to keep it sunny and upbeat and it seems to work for both of us.

As for OH where do i start .... :lol:


----------



## SixStar

Really pleased at the progress made with Ozzy and his grabbing at food - he is doing well the majority of the time and takes low value treats very nicely but forgets himself with tasty things! After a correction, he'll take the next one nicely, but it's just the initial excitement that's getting in the way, but he's doing well and I'm very proud of him. My fingers are no where near as sore as they were! 

Three steps forward, one step back with the jumping up - I've been asking him to sit before being fussed, and it's very hit and miss! If he's calm and I randomly call him to me then he'll sit lovely and leans against my legs whilst having a fuss but when when he's very excited, like when I first go down to them in the morning, then he goes all giddy and everything goes out of the window! I've ordered some DAP (well now called Adaptil) spray to spritz over his bedding - I already have a plug-in in the room where he sleeps, but thought an extra boost won't harm, and might take the edge off of his craziness in the mornings! 

How's everyone else getting on? Sorry, bit late in joining in on the thread so not sure what everyone is trying to tackle. Please fill me in!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> As for OH where do i start .... :lol:


No idea; but if you manage to train to any reasonable standard you'll make a fortune out of the book you pen outlining your training methods .


----------



## Tigerneko

And now for today's walk! I took my camera with me this time so managed to get a few pictures 

I decided to have a more fun walk today & took him up to the big field. As we got to the path leading to the field, I saw a bloke with two off lead dogs (a BC and a Rottie) exiting the field. I slowed down & waited for him to put his dogs back on lead, but he didn't - & carried on walking (this is a communal area which leads out onto a steep hill that people drive down quite quickly). As the dogs got nearer I realised the 'bloke' walking them must have been about 16 years old at most! I wasn't chancing two off lead dogs with a kid & turned around & walked down a back street which took me in a circle - I was hoping he would've passed by the time i'd got round, but being in a panic, I walked quicker than I thought & as I got back to the path, I very nearly met him. He had hold of the Collie's collar but the Rottie was loose, so I turned around again & walked further back. He gave me a look but I don't care, he should have had his dogs on lead! Anyway, they passed without disaster & we carried on to the field, when ANOTHER man with a rather huge off lead dog (looked like a Mastiff x Boxer) came out the field & along the path :mad2: this time I carried on, I was really p*ssed off & decided if anything happened it'd be his stupid fault . He saw me hanging back & kindly put his dog on lead. Tiger passed & was looking but didn't react - I think because I managed to keep very calm & kept asking him to sit & treating him as we got closer to the dog. After the man passed us, he let it back off its' lead (right near the road ) & we finally made it to the field.

It was deserted (as usual) & we had the whole beautiful place to ourselves. Tiger was impeccable, recalled every time! In fact, I had more trouble getting him _away_, I kept having to tell him to clear off & play   I really wanted him to venture off a little so I could practise with his whistle 

We had a great time & I was gonna do our usual street walk on top of the run round the field, just to practise a bit of heelwork, but we got near the bottom of the road and I saw a lad with two very large, very 'typey' dogs that I often see. They're both very obviously status dogs, him and his mates parade them round with those horrid big gold 'bling' harnesses on, while they're straining at their leads. Today, one was off lead and wandering far behind him, so I gave them a VERY wide berth & cut my walk short, because on the route I'd have gone, i'd have been following him for a good 5 minutes, & Tiger was already shattered so it wasn't worth it.

On our way home, we passed a house that had an identical Patterdale in the garden. It went mad & barked & barked at us - Tiger didn't bat an eyelid! Never even looked  so he got plenty of treats and praise.

So, all in all - a good walk today, minus the few idiots that worried me a little, but it was all good 'keep calm and carry on' practise for me, & I must say I did very well because Tiger never picked up on any of my nerves, & I spotted every situation before he did & handled it the best I could.

So now for a few photos 









Exploring









Where we came from









I'm back 









Where's it gone?









The view









Wahoooooo!!









Found it!









Look! Do you like it? I do!









Hurry up woman!









Now where's it gone?









I'm sure it's here somewhere









Aha! there it is!









We had it all to ourselves, this is the top









And this is the bottom - and that is only half of the field! my battery died not long after so couldn't get any pictures of the rest of the field, but it is twice the size again at the bottom, beyond the trees  and from the top, it curves around and stretches even further, it's just miles and miles of field and there's very rarely anyone else up there, even though it's in the middle of a busy area!


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> Hurry up woman!


I love this pic 

Well done you for managing the situation when faced with such a series of challenges. That field looks a great place to walk and Tiger looks like he's enjoying himself


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> I love this pic
> 
> Well done you for managing the situation when faced with such a series of challenges. That field looks a great place to walk and Tiger looks like he's enjoying himself


Thanks! I'd already decided that it was gonna be a calm walk, I wasn't going to panic and nothing was going to bother me..... and boy was I put to the test! That was the most off lead dogs i've ever seen in one go, and although I don't make assumptions about breeds, they were all fairly intimidating dogs!

Tiger had a great time, he's been totally flat out all night. I can certainly see the difference in him from taking him for a run around walk compared to the usual street walk, but I just don't have the confidence yet to do that sort of walk with him every day, because eventually we will come across another off lead dog while i'm up there with him and I don't want to be one of those idiots that we so often post about  I only took him there because it was tea time after a rather wet, boggy weekend so I knew it would be quiet, any other time i'm not so sure. I need to take him back to training classes of some form but I don't know if I will ever be able to turn him into a dog that can approach other dogs or be off lead around them, which is what i'd love.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Tigerneko; glad you got your mojo back and had a good walk :thumbup:. Well done for overcoming those few worrying moments .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> No idea; but if you manage to train to any reasonable standard you'll make a fortune out of the book you pen outlining your training methods .


I think Amy Sutherland has beaten me to it 

How to train your husband like a dog! An hilarious book reveals that you really can keep him on a tight leash | Mail Online


----------



## kat&molly

Sounds like everyone is doing really well 

Moonviolet you've done a fantastic job with Tinker to restore confidence like you have. :thumbup:

It really hammered it down with rain yesterday so we just went out in the car and had a good run. For the afternoon we had booked our little village bar for our wedding anniversary[6th] and a group of friends came for a meal- it was a fantastic day- especially as I cant remember the last time we went out :scared:
I felt a bit guilty as the girls didn't get their afternoon walk , that never happens but they took it ok.


----------



## Dogless

We were going to go to the Mourne Mountains today; but Kilo is having an off day of sorts so we didn't. He didn't wake up until 0800 (unheard of!), ate his breakfast and just wanted to go back to sleep until 1000 . I pottered in the house until he was up and bouncing around before I took him for a walk. It is utterly unheard of for him to do that - but he did loads yesterday, plus was up mooching round and playing until his bed time last night rather than sleeping straight after dinner as usual, so pretty sure he's just tired. I just didn't want to walk him up a mountain if he's not quite right.

So....we went to the park much later than usual; loads of dogs, he did very well and I was chuffed with him :thumbup:. We then went to PAH and I was chuffed with him again - behaved very nicely and got straight onto the scales, he's regained just over a kg that he had lost which I'm pleased with as he was a tad skinny when it came off . There was a lady in PAH who's small dog was barking at Kilo (he didn't respond). I gave them loads of space and let a few people in front of me to queue so that I didn't take him close, but she was making a bit of a fuss about him being afraid of large dogs as if I shouldn't have been in there - I just said "Don't worry, I'll not bring him close" but she still wasn't very happy with me :scared: .


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Sounds like everyone is doing really well
> 
> Moonviolet you've done a fantastic job with Tinker to restore confidence like you have. :thumbup:
> 
> It really hammered it down with rain yesterday so we just went out in the car and had a good run. For the afternoon we had booked our little village bar for our wedding anniversary[6th] and a group of friends came for a meal- it was a fantastic day- especially as I cant remember the last time we went out :scared:
> I felt a bit guilty as the girls didn't get their afternoon walk , that never happens but they took it ok.


Happy Anniversary  You deserve to celebrate, it doens't hurt the dogs to have the occasional afternoon off too 

Thanks for that lovely comment, truthfully Tink wants to be brave and happy it really was more being the friend that went with her as she faced things that scared her, letting her dictate the pace. I messed up and let her down so many times along the way (never intentionally), she has taught me so much.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Sounds like everyone is doing really well
> 
> Moonviolet you've done a fantastic job with Tinker to restore confidence like you have. :thumbup:
> 
> It really hammered it down with rain yesterday so we just went out in the car and had a good run. For the afternoon we had booked our little village bar for our wedding anniversary[6th] and a group of friends came for a meal- it was a fantastic day- especially as I cant remember the last time we went out :scared:
> I felt a bit guilty as the girls didn't get their afternoon walk , that never happens but they took it ok.


Happy Anniversary .


----------



## Gemmaa

Lame boast time....Freddie walked into a room with a biiiiig box, and totally ignored it! :thumbup:

This is quite a massive deal for the boy.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Freddie :thumbup: .


----------



## theevos5

Well,we are back,me and OH have been to Paris,for some much needed time away! My son had Alf and he hasn't been off lead all week,we got back Friday,so OH took Alf for a walk Saturday morning and said he had been a superstar and then later informed me,he had been digging,so he wandered off and left him:mad2::mad2: so I fully expected him to do what he did on Sundays walk,which was bugger off:mad2:I haven't been able to let him off today as I had a hospital appointment(dreaded endometriosis again) and didn't want to be stressed for my appointment.So we had a lovely walk,on lead doing lots of focus work.Lots of recalls and lots of praise!Also we saw the GS that has had a go at Alf and it was offlead,but we just played distraction games,hide the treat,find the treat and it stopped him stressing.
So tomorrow,is the start AGAIN,of recall work!I am not expecting great things,he is bound to have that 'I'm free' moment,so shall report back tomorrow


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> Well,we are back,me and OH have been to Paris,for some much needed time away! My son had Alf and he hasn't been off lead all week,we got back Friday,so OH took Alf for a walk Saturday morning and said he had been a superstar and then later informed me,he had been digging,so he wandered off and left him:mad2::mad2: so I fully expected him to do what he did on Sundays walk,which was bugger off:mad2:I haven't been able to let him off today as I had a hospital appointment(dreaded endometriosis again) and didn't want to be stressed for my appointment.So we had a lovely walk,on lead doing lots of focus work.Lots of recalls and lots of praise!Also we saw the GS that has had a go at Alf and it was offlead,but we just played distraction games,hide the treat,find the treat and it stopped him stressing.
> So tomorrow,is the start AGAIN,of recall work!I am not expecting great things,he is bound to have that 'I'm free' moment,so shall report back tomorrow


Oh dear, more OH training required . Sounds like Alf did well today with the GSD though :thumbup:. Hope your appointment went well too.


----------



## moonviolet

Is there somewhere we can send the OH's for training? I'd been wondering why Tink had suddenly become interested in the scrunch of crisp packets... I don't think I need to continue.

Well done Alfie ignoring the GSD. Good luck getting back on track with project recall 

Well done Freddie.


----------



## Dogless

Walked to the fields late tonight, was intending to have a very quick walk as Kilo has been so tired today (didn't take him out before dinner for about the third time ever - he has been ill the other times), but we met two dogs he plays well with and another dog that was walking with them .... we were an hour and a half or so in the end  but Kilo found plenty of energy .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Walked to the fields late tonight, was intending to have a very quick walk as Kilo has been so tired today (didn't take him out before dinner for about the third time ever - he has been ill the other times), but we met two dogs he plays well with and another dog that was walking with them .... we were an hour and a half or so in the end  but Kilo found plenty of energy .


Amazing how they can find energy when it's for fun. 

We had Swallow over for the afternoon so it was beagle smackdown here , so i skipped her evening long walk and have just taken her out for a pavement trot. Had a little moment with ambush cat but nothing horrific.


----------



## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> Amazing how they can find energy when it's for fun.
> 
> We had Swallow over for the afternoon so it was beagle smackdown here , so i skipped her evening long walk and have just taken her out for a pavement trot. Had a little moment with ambush cat but nothing horrific.


your posts always make me smile I can imagine the smackdown and so wish I could see it!all those teeth and flying ears.And as for the pavement trot,I watched Alf trotting along beside OH yesterday and look back on the choking,gagging,rasping Alf with fond memories


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> your posts always make me smile I can imagine the smackdown and so wish I could see it!all those teeth and flying ears.And as for the pavement trot,I watched Alf trotting along beside OH yesterday and look back on the choking,gagging,rasping Alf with fond memories


Pictures would stop us having to imagine......you can't deny us flying ears mv .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Pictures would stop us having to imagine......you can't deny us flying ears mv .


:lol: i'll have to hang my head in shame i didn't take any today but I do have some unseen pics from before 
























I promise to take lots and lots of pics at the beagle barbecue at the end of July to make up for it


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I promise to take lots and lots of pics at the beagle barbecue at the end of July to make up for it


You BBQ beagles - I thought that you loved the breed :yikes::yikes:.

Lovely photos :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You BBQ beagles - I thought that you loved the breed :yikes::yikes:.
> 
> Lovely photos :thumbup:.


Hmmm that doesn't sound right, Beagle welfare barbecue, that sounds better


----------



## kat&molly

Great pics MV, I'm relieved you aren't going to BBQ the Beagles 

Well I got a bum bag to try with so I can feed Scruff treats- had a little go and she's brilliant but I'm going to try later with all 3 and see if I can manage :scared:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly; well done with Scruff and the bumbag .

Some time ago on this thread I posted this:



Dogless said:


> Well I ordered a long line last week and dug out Kilo's harness to work on this: http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/230559-stalking.html
> 
> He has never actually got to a person when displaying the behaviour, but I won't have him intimidating folk by fixating on them and beginning to stalk, and don't always want to distract / interrupt and then recall as I think that is probably alarming for people too - he needs to come back by default when he sees a person I think.
> 
> We didn't meet anyone, but practised recalls and 'waits' as we do on every walk and I did feel more confident with the longline on. I just let it drag as he is always offlead on these walks and he never went more than the 9m length in front of me anyway. The only time he does go a bigger distance is if he gets the zoomies or I throw a toy.
> 
> Anyway, we had a nice walk and then met a lovely dog that he often plays with near to the end (no owner in sight) so I let him off to play for the very short distance back to the car park. I opened the boot and recalled him and he came straight away even though the other dog was still trying to play with him. So he is my best boy again today :001_wub:. Well this morning .


I took Kilo off the longline again about 2 weeks ago and so far, so good (touch wood). We are just back from a brilliant and exhausting day's walking in the mountains - we saw two people (on their own about 20 mins apart) 'out of the blue' on a narrow path heading towards us, Kilo looked at them and needed just a small prompt to return to me and sit at the side of the path to let them past - none of his stalking behaviour or even too much interest as they went by. Needless to say, I'm pleased :thumbup:.


----------



## theevos5

Dogless said:


> kat&molly; well done with Scruff and the bumbag .
> 
> Some time ago on this thread I posted this:
> 
> I took Kilo off the longline again about 2 weeks ago and so far, so good (touch wood). We are just back from a brilliant and exhausting day's walking in the mountains - we saw two people (on their own about 20 mins apart) 'out of the blue' on a narrow path heading towards us, Kilo looked at them and needed just a small prompt to return to me and sit at the side of the path to let them past - none of his stalking behaviour or even too much interest as they went by. Needless to say, I'm pleased :thumbup:.


 Kat and Molly hope the bumbag worked with all 3 dogs.
Dogless,glad the BW hasn't let you down again and you have had a good day in the mountains,I shall stalk you looking for pics after this post

It was abit wishywashy with us today,but it is Alfs first day back with me taking him for an off lead walk,so was to be expected.He spent more than half his time on lead,doing recalls and the time he was off,wasn't great,really.We had a couple of occasions,where he took flight and went off to explore,neither of them within range or sightI even took chicken out today,left over from last night and thought that may have tempted him. I am looking on the positive that,his routine,is up in the air,with us being away last week and he needs to remember the rules,so I am not worrying,just yet!I know it will take a while and he will be back to being Alf again. Roll on tomorrow


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 - sure you'll have Alf back on track in no time at all; at least you were expecting and prepared for a blip rather than it hitting out of the blue .

No photos I am afraid; I took my camera but just wanted to enjoy the stunning views and listen to the birds etc etc and just 'be' today . The weather was even OK - although the sky went black the monsoon didn't hit until we had just started on the drive home .


----------



## kat&molly

Well done to Kilo. That behaviour can be worrying, I know so hopefully you've nipped it in the bud. I've had a similar thing with Scruff- butshe comes straight back to me now.

Evos5 -Hope you enjoyed Paris. Shame you're having a little blip with Alf- but I'm sure you'll soon have him back on track.

Well a bum bag and 3 leads is certainly not easy  but it did help a bit. Hopefully I can get used to it. For some reason Evie didn'tplay up for treats  So I didn't give her any.
The one thing that worked[which hasn't before] is feeding Scruff treats stopped her barking at people passing. Its something I've worked hard on but never managed to stop completly. Our village was quite busy today and she never barked at 1 person. Really pleased with that.:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

A platinum star for Scruff .


----------



## Tigerneko

Today's walk was great 

His LLW was better than normal, although that's down to good luck I think rather than training, as I haven't been focusing on it much. Also the fact that I was MUCH calmer than usual and made myself go totally 'floppy'  - I didn't tense or panic at all, and I think it has reflected in him - I watched him every step of the walk and his body language was much more relaxed as well. On the way out of the house, another chap from down the road was leaving with his dog, he doesn't walk her on lead so I did worry that she might approach us, but she's a working gundog and sticks by him constantly. Tiger has met her a good few times and he gets on well with her - but I wouldn't want to make them meet while he was on lead and she was off, and his initial 'walkies time' excitment was still in full force 

We did cut our route slightly short (and got to practise a bit of agility over a knee high fence lol) as there was a loose dog wandering around. There was a bloke a good way behind it who I think was it's owner, but they were the other side of a busy road and I wasn't gonna chance it, so changed direction. Tiger didn't spot it but I felt myself tensing up so just jigged him along with lots of happy talking and treats and he never seemed to pick up on it.

When we got back near my house, we came across 3 dogs within a very short space of time. All were on lead but there was one on either side of the street so we were totally sandwitched at one point. I made him sit and focus on me while we waited for the dog on the opposite side to gain a bit of distance, then crossed as the dog on the same side was getting close. He was watching but I did my best to distract him and kept asking him to sit, but he certainly didn't react like he has in the past, no lunging, no whining, no barking - just watching them, although his body language did go a little stiff, he wasn't too bad and focused away from the dogs and on to me quickly.

So all in all, it was good! I am starting to feel more calm and confident but it's still early days. I think once can go around without any worry, he will be far better behaved but I am starting to realise that if i'm calm, he feels more like I am in control, so I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

The only other minor disaster was that in my rush to get out of the house, I forgot poo bags..... but I MIGHT just have walked past a local dog groomer (who mucked me around and tried to give me a terrible deal employment-wise) and I MIGHT.... just might  have used a few of their leaflets as makeshift poo bags  :aureola:


----------



## Dogless

Well done Tigerneko we all KNEW you could do it :thumbup::thumbup:. Good to see the confident you back again .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Well done Tigerneko we all KNEW you could do it :thumbup::thumbup:. Good to see the confident you back again .


Thanks  i've decided now that if we see any dogs, i'm just going to ask him to sit and try to keep his focus on me (although it's hard once he's spotted the dog) and funnily enough, before we saw the 3 dogs, I was practising some 'emergency sits' mid walk, and it came in handy soon after  I need to do something on spotting another dog, even if it's just giving _my_ mind something to focus on, I figured just getting him to sit will provide something for us both to concentrate on.

I want to do something like what moonviolet has done with Tink and just take him somewhere to watch dogs going by, hopefully it'll help him if he can get used to the fact that passing dogs are nothing to get worked up about, but i'm not sure where to go with him yet, apart just sitting at the back of the training classes, but I want to be able to do it with him more than once a week. I'm sure i'll think of something


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> Thanks  i've decided now that if we see any dogs, i'm just going to ask him to sit and try to keep his focus on me (although it's hard once he's spotted the dog) and funnily enough, before we saw the 3 dogs, I was practising some 'emergency sits' mid walk, and it came in handy soon after  I need to do something on spotting another dog, even if it's just giving _my_ mind something to focus on, I figured just getting him to sit will provide something for us both to concentrate on.
> 
> I want to do something like what moonviolet has done with Tink and just take him somewhere to watch dogs going by, hopefully it'll help him if he can get used to the fact that passing dogs are nothing to get worked up about, but i'm not sure where to go with him yet, apart just sitting at the back of the training classes, but I want to be able to do it with him more than once a week. I'm sure i'll think of something


A busy park? Outside the vets? Outside a supermarket? .


----------



## moonviolet

I'm glad you are feeling positive after your walk tonight sounds like you both did great. Watching at a distance Tink deemed safe really did to wonders for her. I hope it works for Tiger too 

And a big well done to Scruff on form today 

Hope Master Alfred is settling back into routine tomorrow 

Well done BW he's really turning into a star pupil 

Nothing to report here just lovely laid back walks, a real treat. I would take madam out again but she's paws in the air and snoring so i'll take that as a no.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm glad you are feeling positive after your walk tonight sounds like you both did great. Watching at a distance Tink deemed safe really did to wonders for her. I hope it works for Tiger too
> 
> And a big well done to Scruff on form today
> 
> Hope Master Alfred is settling back into routine tomorrow
> 
> Well done BW he's really turning into a star pupil
> 
> Nothing to report here just lovely laid back walks, a real treat. *I would take madam out again but she's paws in the air and snoring so i'll take that as a no.*


Same here; but then we did have a full day out so wasn't really expecting him to stir .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> A busy park? Outside the vets? Outside a supermarket? .


The park near me is very busy but people let their dogs off lead willy nilly, and he will be approached. I stopped going there for that very reason - it is VERY well known around here for dog-on-dog attacks, and a few weeks ago a man was beaten up & knocked unconscious in broad daylight because he asked someone to recall their dog away from his and got into an argument over it, so it's not a safe option for us unfortunately, otherwise it'd be ideal.

I could try hanging around the vets, it's on the main road so we will look a bit strange just hanging around on the pavement but it's a start 

Dog walker knocked out - Local News - Pendle Today that's the article about the man in the park :yikes:


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> I could try hanging around the vets, it's on the main road so we will look a bit strange just hanging around on the pavement but it's a start :


 If there is a bench on any of the routes toward the vets that could dothe job.



Tigerneko said:


> Dog walker knocked out - Local News - Pendle Today that's the article about the man in the park :yikes:


oh crikey that's a bit scary.


----------



## theevos5

It rained for the whole 2hours we were out today Alf was very good,apart from pooing on the caretakers drive as we walked past the school!
I even had a panicky moment when I realised I had left my phone at home and thought,sods law,this will be the day I lose him!!
I am still feeling abit fragile and think he can sense itHe never let me down,was quite attentive and has been very willing to stay close! We even saw the lady who likes to throw bread in the bushes,thinking she is feeding the wildlife,when actually she is feeding all the dogshe knows she has a bag full of bread and normally likes to go and frisk her but today I said Alf here and he came!!
He is now cuddled up on the sofa,drying off and dreaming the sweet dreams of beagles
Hope everyone has a positive day and the weather is better than here


----------



## Dogless

Well done Alf ... apart from the poo on the drive .

The weather is rubbish so nice walk to the fields with nobody around, some recall training, lots of zoomies, lots of fetch and nice walking home again. Very pleasant .


----------



## moonviolet

SOrry about the weather you guys are having we have sun and a nice breeze, mind you it's been terrible for days we might have earned a little sun.

Master Alfred back on form  

Well done Sir Kilo 

I'm going to gloss over the wayward excrement. not with paint or anything. Although now i'm wondering if i should and see if i can get the Turner prize.

Madame let herself down a little earlier, but she was heavily provoked when one of the many neighbourhood cats dashed out from under my car in our driveway. Full on lunge, hackles up. The worst part is that it has a bell on , which we've been hearing for weeks, but not seeing it she didn't know the sound meant cat....now she does... Interesting times ahead i fear.


----------



## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> SOrry about the weather you guys are having we have sun and a nice breeze, mind you it's been terrible for days we might have earned a little sun.
> 
> Master Alfred back on form
> 
> Well done Sir Kilo
> 
> *I'm going to gloss over the wayward excrement. not with paint or anything. Although now i'm wondering if i should and see if i can get the Turner prize.
> *
> Madame let herself down a little earlier, but she was heavily provoked when one of the many neighbourhood cats dashed out from under my car in our driveway. Full on lunge, hackles up. The worst part is that it has a bell on , which we've been hearing for weeks, but not seeing it she didn't know the sound meant cat....now she does... Interesting times ahead i fear.


You are too funny!! But may be worth a try!Think about the money too! Everyone thought I was really sad theother day,when I said I would love to have lots of money to buy some secure fields and fill them with Beagles!Apparently I should be dreaming of spending it on exotic hoiliday and desert Islands.
Anyway back to little Miss Tink.Oh dear,she has discovered the sound of the dinner gongThat is going to take some training,me thinks. Alf is exactly the same,he has only come into contact with cats,in the garden and when one jumped out of a bush,one very dark night and frightened the life out of him,so not a very positive experience,but we don't see them often enough for it to be a problem,but heaven knows what he would do if he was offlead.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> SOrry about the weather you guys are having we have sun and a nice breeze, mind you it's been terrible for days we might have earned a little sun.
> 
> Master Alfred back on form
> 
> Well done Sir Kilo
> 
> I'm going to gloss over the wayward excrement. not with paint or anything. Although now i'm wondering if i should and see if i can get the Turner prize.
> 
> Madame let herself down a little earlier, but she was heavily provoked when one of the many neighbourhood cats dashed out from under my car in our driveway. Full on lunge, hackles up. The worst part is that it has a bell on , which we've been hearing for weeks, but not seeing it she didn't know the sound meant cat....now she does... Interesting times ahead i fear.


Kilo knows exactly what the bells mean :mad2: .


----------



## Phoolf

Currently working a lot on my pups recall and I'm planning on clicker training her to wave this weekend just for fun.


----------



## kat&molly

Pretty horrendous for us this afternoon. Feeling pretty fed up now as I've worked so hard for months. 
Scruff, was only interested in the treats occasionally, and its too difficult to try all through a walk anyway, but she's just so-'away with the fairies' like she's ignoring me completly when on lead with the others-if ever she was like that when she's off, she'd never get off 
She has to sit and wait for me to remove the lead and say it's ok to go- but a lot of times she just stands there like she hasn't heard me say sit and is staring in to space.It often takes up to 2 minutes.
I'm even considering a head collar but that would feel like going backwards after all this time, she's fine on her own. No barking again though so that was good.

Hope everyone's having a better day than me


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly; sorry that you've had a bad day - maybe Scruff is just trying it on to see what you're going to do about it? Or can't generalise the behaviour when with the others? If a headcollar helps you to regain some control I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but do understand why you would feel as if it's a backwards step.

I hope that tomorrow is better - is Big Evie coming?


----------



## Dogless

After a delayed start to playing on the fields (two of the labs that mug him were there so we waited until they finished) Kilo played with a ...... choc lab this evening :thumbup:. 

Kilo lay down, lab ran up (but stopped short - not 'in your face' at all), they did the normal sniffing, some play bows and then chased each other :thumbup:. Kilo tried to hump a few times BUT a 'leave it' and redirection onto his squeaky Kong tennis ball being thrown diverted him easily. Then I said to the lab's owner that I'd leave him to his walk, Kilo was playing still, but I just asked him to come 'This Way' and he followed me immediately :thumbup:. We played by ourselves whilst the lab was in the bottom field and they walked back through where we were on the way out - neither dog approached the other and Kilo just looked and carried on playing :thumbup::thumbup:. All sounds like a minor everyday occurence I'm sure to those who don't have 'lab issues'  but I am really pleased with the BW :aureola:.


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## kat&molly

That sounds fantastic, well done to the Boy Wonder. Woo, Woo.:thumbup:


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## theevos5

Fab post!! I feel your pride!! Well done to you both,as every boy wonder,needs a wonderful mummy!!


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## Phoolf

Recall is getting better. When Kes is on her own she comes back straight away, I've been trying when there's other dogs around or she's playing with dogs and most the time she's deaf to anything I say. Today we met two dogs and then I managed to get her to walk away with me giving her a treat every 20 yards or so, after a few minutes she made a run for it but she did well up til then. She also started playing with a nice black lab and ended up about 100 yards away and I shouted her to come back and she came at full pelt, I was delighted that she seemed to think I was more interesting than her new play friend!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> kat&molly; sorry that you've had a bad day - maybe Scruff is just trying it on to see what you're going to do about it? Or can't generalise the behaviour when with the others? If a headcollar helps you to regain some control I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but do understand why you would feel as if it's a backwards step.
> 
> I hope that tomorrow is better - is Big Evie coming?


Thanks, yes she should be coming tomorrow.She may well tell me I should still be concentrating on Moll, like she said, but I find it hard to ignore Scruff and its stopping me moving forward with Molly who still has quite a few 'moments'. Its all a bit of a mess at the minute :scared:
If I dont feel better after tomorrows lesson I think I'll get a headcollar.

School for you tomorrow?


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks, yes she should be coming tomorrow.She may well tell me I should still be concentrating on Moll, like she said, but I find it hard to ignore Scruff and its stopping me moving forward with Molly who still has quite a few 'moments'. Its all a bit of a mess at the minute :scared:
> If I dont feel better after tomorrows lesson I think I'll get a headcollar.
> 
> School for you tomorrow?


I am sure Big Evie will be able to guide you; but I don't think using a management tool on Scruff whilst you concentrate on Molly is a bad thing - it will just allow you to do one thing at a time.

It is school tomorrow, yes, and my birthday so hoping to take Kilo somewhere special for the day (hubby off so he will hopefully come too) followed by school . We were going for a meal out but going on Friday instead as I have only been to training at this club twice so far and would like to carry on without starting to miss nights already in case I lose the confidence to go back  .


----------



## kat&molly

Happy Birthday Dogless, hope you, Hubby and Kilo have a fantasticday :thumbup::thumbup:

Good choice to go training tonight- am sure I'd do the same


----------



## kat&molly

P.S My girls send you Big Birthday hugs as well- and as a special treat they want you to take them all for a nice LLW stroll today. Lucky you :scared::scared:


----------



## moonviolet

Happy birthday Dogless, Have a wonderful day with OH and the BW. 

K&M hope you have a great session with big Evie 

OH handled Tink in class last night and she passed her assessment, while i love that he gets involved I would appreciate it if he got a little more involved in training other than in class :lol: In his defense he did say that I do all the work and he comes into class and shows off. bless him


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## moonviolet

Oh Phoolf I forgot to congratulate you on Kes' wonderful recall. I bet you were over the moon at being more interesting that another dog  Hope it continues to go well


----------



## Phoolf

Thanks 

What kind of classes is Tink in? I thought about putting Kes into some local classes but to be honest it doesn't seem like she'd learn much from them as all her basics are really good. I am planning on taking her to agility when she's a bit older though.


----------



## moonviolet

Phoolf said:


> Thanks
> 
> What kind of classes is Tink in? I thought about putting Kes into some local classes but to be honest it doesn't seem like she'd learn much from them as all her basics are really good. I am planning on taking her to agility when she's a bit older though.


Last night's class was advanced obedience, it's a pretty laid back on-going thing. We keep going because it's fun, Tink loves it, it's great for her focus around other dogs, It's great for her confidence (she was attacked and became nervous) and it's great socially lots of nice people who love their dogs. We also take tink to a fun agility and a tricks/HTM class. I'm slightly addicted


----------



## kat&molly

MV- Bless your OH eh, basking in your glory  but thats more than my OH would do and I'm not sure whether I'm sad or relieved about that !!!

Phloof- welcome to the thread and congratulations on that Recall with Kes- its a great feeling.


----------



## Phoolf

moonviolet said:


> Last night's class was advanced obedience, it's a pretty laid back on-going thing. We keep going because it's fun, Tink loves it, it's great for her focus around other dogs, It's great for her confidence (she was attacked and became nervous) and it's great socially lots of nice people who love their dogs. We also take tink to a fun agility and a tricks/HTM class. I'm slightly addicted


Awww, it's great being able to do different things with your best friend. Once I'd gone through all the usual obedience training I was at a loss what to do with her in the house so started training her to do silly tricks like going in circles etc. just so we could spend some nice time together, I can't wait until she's grown up enough to do agility.


----------



## Diesel the Crazy Dal

I am off to the park while the kids are in school to work on recall with mine - last time he ran home and scared the life out of me


----------



## Dogless

Phoolf said:


> Thanks
> 
> What kind of classes is Tink in? I thought about putting Kes into some local classes but to be honest it doesn't seem like she'd learn much from them as all her basics are really good. I am planning on taking her to agility when she's a bit older though.


The thing that I find classes good for is in getting focus around other dogs (have only just started going back again - mv is the expert!), socialisation around all kinds of dogs and people, learning to ignore those who bark / growl at him etc etc. They are also giving me confidence as Kilo is actually better than I thought he was - hubby always tells me he's good, but having experienced people confirm it is great. He was also great at the basics until between about 9-11 months where he pushed his luck a fair bit - we also went to classes at that point too but I didn't enjoy them, moved house and didn't find any more until a few weeks ago .



kat&molly said:


> P.S My girls send you Big Birthday hugs as well- and as a special treat they want you to take them all for a nice LLW stroll today. Lucky you :scared::scared:


Thanks :blink::blink:.

Thanks mv too and well done for the assessment .


----------



## Dogless

Diesel the Crazy Dal said:


> I am off to the park while the kids are in school to work on recall with mine - last time he ran home and scared the life out of me


Sounds scary; have you got him on a longline now?


----------



## Diesel the Crazy Dal

Yea but he needs to be offlead so more practise the better really, crazy dal


----------



## Phoolf

Dogless said:


> The thing that I find classes good for is in getting focus around other dogs (have only just started going back again - mv is the expert!), socialisation around all kinds of dogs and people, learning to ignore those who bark / growl at him etc etc. They are also giving me confidence as Kilo is actually better than I thought he was - hubby always tells me he's good, but having experienced people confirm it is great. He was also great at the basics until between about 9-11 months where he pushed his luck a fair bit - we also went to classes at that point too but I didn't enjoy them, moved house and didn't find any more until a few weeks ago .
> 
> .


Yeah focusing around other dogs is definitely a hard one to break, she's started to get a lot calmer in the past month. Yesterday we were on an off lead walk with 8 other dogs and I had her sitting infront of me when they were running round, she was pretty focused until I told her to carry on playing. I'm lucky that I have such a great big dog park nearby with some really great owners who were happy to help with socialisation and let her test the boundaries with so many different dogs, some didn't like her, some ignored her, some played, sometimes she took play too far but she's had a steep learning curve and it's done her the world of good. I'm sure in a few months she'll try it on and forget things and need retraining but for now everyone is pretty proud of how great she is for her age.


----------



## Dogless

Diesel the Crazy Dal said:


> Yea but he needs to be offlead so more practise the better really, crazy dal


I was thinking one trailing so you can grab the pesky critter  and remind him that he comes back when you call him rather than ignoring you and bogging off .


----------



## L/C

Resource guarding and re-directed aggression. 

Over the past couple of months Ely has started to exhibit what I can only describe as protective behaviour towards myself and Gypsy. If I am approached by a strange dog and he is off the lead he will bark and growl to warn them off until he has greeted them and then he will allow them to approach me. This has only happened a handful of times as he is usually put back on the lead to greet strange dogs due to his past issues. 

However on Tuesday evening on our walk it escalated into something more serious. We were on the field when I noticed a couple walking together with a rottie so I called Ely back and popped him on the lead and had Gypsy stand next to me. The couple asked if their dog could say hello so I said he could to Gypsy if he had good manners, which they assured me he did. I released Gypsy to say hello but the rottie was sniffing so vigorously that he lifted her back end off the floor and knocked her over. Ely launched himself at the rottie and made contact before I pulled him back (he caught me off guard but I know it was my fault).

We've seen the vet for a referral to a local behaviourist (we moved away from our last one) and I've got the Jean Donaldson book on resource guarding so we move on from there.

As for the re-direct aggression - I think it's frustrated prey drive. It happens when we see cats and they run or approach us. If I can move them away before they fixate on it then all is fine. If I can't then Ely will bite at Gypsy's neck and face in frustration. I'm going to work on de-sensitizing them to cats separately and hope that will translate over into how they react when they are together (although they do feed off each other).


----------



## Diesel the Crazy Dal

Dogless said:


> I was thinking one trailing so you can grab the pesky critter  and remind him that he comes back when you call him rather than ignoring you and bogging off .


He was great just, couldnt stay though as the lady with the 3 chocolate labs came (all off lead) so he loses concentration (getting him good with other dogs is something for later :blink

Great to see him bounding about though, makes me more relaxed too


----------



## Sarah1983

Think we need to work on me being more interesting to Spen while out. At the moment he'll ignore me in favour of anyone and anything  I'm the one who walks him, feeds him, plays with him, trains him etc yet he'll happily ignore me to go to literally anyone else who might possibly show him a bit of attention. Problem is I'm not even sure where to start with it! 

Feeling a bit frustrated with it all at the moment to be honest. Doesn't help I'm not well, can't get a doctors appointment and the last thing I feel like doing is walking a dog who blatantly ignores me. Ideally I'd leave off walking him while I feel rotten but if I ask hubby to do it I know I'll get a load of huffing and puffing and tutting and Spen will only get about a 15 minute walk round the estate which isn't fair on him. 

Well done to all of you who've seen progress by the way and happy birthday Dogless, hope Kilo is extra good for you at class tonight.


----------



## Phoolf

Sarah1983 said:


> Think we need to work on me being more interesting to Spen while out. At the moment he'll ignore me in favour of anyone and anything  I'm the one who walks him, feeds him, plays with him, trains him etc yet he'll happily ignore me to go to literally anyone else who might possibly show him a bit of attention. Problem is I'm not even sure where to start with it!
> 
> Feeling a bit frustrated with it all at the moment to be honest. Doesn't help I'm not well, can't get a doctors appointment and the last thing I feel like doing is walking a dog who blatantly ignores me. Ideally I'd leave off walking him while I feel rotten but if I ask hubby to do it I know I'll get a load of huffing and puffing and tutting and Spen will only get about a 15 minute walk round the estate which isn't fair on him.
> 
> Well done to all of you who've seen progress by the way and happy birthday Dogless, hope Kilo is extra good for you at class tonight.


Have you trained him the command 'focus' (I tend to say 'look at me' rather than focus but I know a lot of people call it that)? I started off in the home with a clicker giving a treat for looking me in the eye, then started with the verbal cue 'look at me' to get her to focus on me, then when out on walks she has to do it and now she's a lot more attentive to me. Hope I'm not overstepping the mark giving suggestions which you might have already done, but I know this helped me out with that problem.


----------



## Sarah1983

Phoolf said:


> Have you trained him the command 'focus' (I tend to say 'look at me' rather than focus but I know a lot of people call it that)? I started off in the home with a clicker giving a treat for looking me in the eye, then started with the verbal cue 'look at me' to get her to focus on me, then when out on walks she has to do it and now she's a lot more attentive to me. Hope I'm not overstepping the mark giving suggestions which you might have already done, but I know this helped me out with that problem.


We've been working on "watch me" and up until a few weeks ago he was doing really well. Now it's like he's never heard it before. Well actually it's more like he doesn't even hear me give the command. Or any other command for that matter. I'm 100% certain he's not deaf as he can hear me perfectly in the house or if I open a packet of treats.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> (have only just started going back again - mv is the expert!)


Expert at _*going to *_classes beyond that I make no claims


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Expert at _*going to *_classes beyond that I make no claims


Credit where it's due I think - Miss Tink sounds like a very well behaved and lovely Beagle worthy of a platinum star although of course we don't know you and she may run amok, scattering dogs and children in her path, arooooing at all and sundry, wrecking the house and scaring the elderly and infirm  :blink:.


----------



## theevos5

Sarah1983 said:


> Think we need to work on me being more interesting to Spen while out. At the moment he'll ignore me in favour of anyone and anything  I'm the one who walks him, feeds him, plays with him, trains him etc yet he'll happily ignore me to go to literally anyone else who might possibly show him a bit of attention. Problem is I'm not even sure where to start with it!
> 
> Feeling a bit frustrated with it all at the moment to be honest. Doesn't help I'm not well, can't get a doctors appointment and the last thing I feel like doing is walking a dog who blatantly ignores me. Ideally I'd leave off walking him while I feel rotten but if I ask hubby to do it I know I'll get a load of huffing and puffing and tutting and Spen will only get about a 15 minute walk round the estate which isn't fair on him.
> 
> Well done to all of you who've seen progress by the way and happy birthday Dogless, hope Kilo is extra good for you at class tonight.


This post could have been written by me!! about Alf,we are slowly getting there,,we used the clicker, if he so much as looked at me,I would click and treat,and he associated that with good things and comes bounding over,ears flapping for his livercake,I run the other way, once I have made eye contact and he always chases me.I make silly noises and he runs to me!! I also changed the command to Alfie here,so we started afresh with a new command,one that he hadn't ignored before. We play find the treat,so I hide them in bushes and says,go see,this is really good to get him away from a group of dogs or if he shows interest in a dog,that is in the distance.With Alf we are constantly working on distracting him,from buggering off!
we had got to the point where he was just 100% totally ignoring me! The worst part about it was also,OH does the weekend walks and it was brought to my attention that when he walks Alf he was pretty much just allowing him to do what he wanted,no recalls,if he didn't come he left him and carried on walking,and Alf had to go and find him!Which if I call him,if he didn't come I would go and get him as I wanted him to do what he was told!
Sympathise with you feeling unwell,I suffer from endometriosis and I am yet again unwell,and I have to make myself get out for a walk,today I was actually in tears coming home because of the pain.But as you say the alternative with the OH is not worth the hassle.Hope you get your appointment and feel better soon
Also know what you mean about the deafness thing,how could he not come when I shout here,but if I say,wanna bickie,he is there,lightening fast!!

Dogless-happy birthday,hope you all had a great day out and hopefully you were spoilt rotten.Hope you have a positive night at training
Tinks-Well done on the assessment,lol at the OH stealing all the credit
kat and Molly-Good luck today with Big Evie
Diesel the Crazy Dal-welcome and I second the long line suggestion,we used one for arouind 12 months,Alf still had complete freedom,but it was there when I needed to grab it
Phoolf-welcome and it sounds like your girl is learning the doggie rules of playshe sounds lovely
Today Alfred was a good boy,he disappeared once,for around 30 secs,he was right by me but in undergrowth.Apart from that he was out for 2 hours,offlead and was so well behaved.Came when called.had lots of socialisation,he played with a 9 month old boxer pup and they played so lovely.There were 2 other beagles today,so he has had lots of slobbers and smackdown wrestling as MV would say!!I am very proud of him today and hope it isn't a commentators curse when I say that it didn't take long for him to settle down after us being away


----------



## theevos5

Dogless said:


> Credit where it's due I think - Miss Tink sounds like a very well behaved and lovely Beagle worthy of a platinum star although of course we don't know you and she may run amok, scattering dogs and children in her path, arooooing at all and sundry, wrecking the house and scaring the elderly and infirm  :blink:.


You know somehow I think Tink watches MV do all these things!!! I think Tink is a little angel,whereas her mummy


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> This post could have been written by me!! about Alf,we are slowly getting there,,we used the clicker, if he so much as looked at me,I would click and treat,and he associated that with good things and comes bounding over,ears flapping for his livercake,I run the other way, once I have made eye contact and he always chases me.I make silly noises and he runs to me!! I also changed the command to Alfie here,so we started afresh with a new command,one that he hadn't ignored before. We play find the treat,so I hide them in bushes and says,go see,this is really good to get him away from a group of dogs or if he shows interest in a dog,that is in the distance.With Alf we are constantly working on distracting him,from buggering off!
> we had got to the point where he was just 100% totally ignoring me! The worst part about it was also,OH does the weekend walks and it was brought to my attention that when he walks Alf he was pretty much just allowing him to do what he wanted,no recalls,if he didn't come he left him and carried on walking,and Alf had to go and find him!Which if I call him,if he didn't come I would go and get him as I wanted him to do what he was told!
> Sympathise with you feeling unwell,I suffer from endometriosis and I am yet again unwell,and I have to make myself get out for a walk,today I was actually in tears coming home because of the pain.But as you say the alternative with the OH is not worth the hassle.Hope you get your appointment and feel better soon
> Also know what you mean about the deafness thing,how could he not come when I shout here,but if I say,wanna bickie,he is there,lightening fast!!
> 
> Dogless-happy birthday,hope you all had a great day out and hopefully you were spoilt rotten.Hope you have a positive night at training
> Tinks-Well done on the assessment,lol at the OH stealing all the credit
> kat and Molly-Good luck today with Big Evie
> Diesel the Crazy Dal-welcome and I second the long line suggestion,we used one for arouind 12 months,Alf still had complete freedom,but it was there when I needed to grab it
> Phoolf-welcome and it sounds like your girl is learning the doggie rules of playshe sounds lovely
> Today Alfred was a good boy,he disappeared once,for around 30 secs,he was right by me but in undergrowth.Apart from that he was out for 2 hours,offlead and was so well behaved.Came when called.had lots of socialisation,he played with a 9 month old boxer pup and they played so lovely.There were 2 other beagles today,so he has had lots of slobbers and smackdown wrestling as MV would say!!I am very proud of him today and hope it isn't a commentators curse when I say that it didn't take long for him to settle down after us being away


Thanks; the weather is a bit pants so we went for a normal walk (hubby rarely 'does' walks with us at the best of times ) - forecast is even worse for tomorrow so we'll have a whole day together somewhere lovely when we're less likely to get swept away  .

Well done Master Alfred on your exemplary behaviour today .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Credit where it's due I think - Miss Tink sounds like a very well behaved and lovely Beagle worthy of a platinum star *although of course we don't know you and she may run amok, scattering dogs and children in her path, arooooing at all and sundry, wrecking the house and scaring the elderly and infirm * :blink:.


OH dear oh dear oh dear. I fear today the second part of this is nearer to the truth. She spotted the some canada geese beside the canal before i did this morning (obscured by bracken and brambles) charged at them no barking just they belong in the water not on the bank, unfortunately at the same time an older chap in a kayak was approaching the very spot the group of 5 geese jumped in with some gusto.

A total fail on my part just not observant enough because she ignores ducks and swans I wasn't on alert, the geese haven't been there for months and apparently they are now on the training 'to do list'

I apologised to guy in the canoe he couldn't reply for laughing. So i guess he wasn't too upset and the geese were calmly swimming about to no lasting harm there.

As for the house she did steal a bubble wrap bag earlier and charge around with it until i started walking toward the kitchen... then suddenly bringing it to me looked like a good idea. so defintiely no halo for this Madame today.



theevos5 said:


> .There were 2 other beagles today,so he has had lots of slobbers and smackdown wrestling as MV would say!!I am very proud of him today and hope it isn't a commentators curse when I say that it didn't take long for him to settle down after us being away


Any pics? 

Sarah and Evos5 hope you are both feeling better soon


----------



## Tigerneko

well there's a big black cloud looming over, i'm off for a nice quiet walk


----------



## kat&molly

Hope everyone's had a good day - sounds like Miss Tink has had a bit of fun 

We'vehad a good lesson withthe Big Un.
I told her how frustrated I'm getting and she agreed a headcollar would be a great idea, I'm starting to think I should have used 1 in the beginning with Scruff instead of doing a bad job of multi-tasking like I have been doing.
We've discussed some of Scruff's habits and she is convinced she thinks she's in charge of us all- we're to stop giving her attention when she demands it- or pushes in when fussing the others.
Played lots of games with Molly's new Very high value toy-just a Tennis ball with a handle. I have apparently done a great job with her so nice to know I've got something right  We're doing a bit of Gun dog stuff next week 

And my little Evie is just the class clown :tongue_smilie:

Hope you have a good class Dogless.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Hope everyone's had a good day - sounds like Miss Tink has had a bit of fun
> 
> We'vehad a good lesson withthe Big Un.
> I told her how frustrated I'm getting and she agreed a headcollar would be a great idea, I'm starting to think I should have used 1 in the beginning with Scruff instead of doing a bad job of multi-tasking like I have been doing.
> We've discussed some of Scruff's habits and she is convinced she thinks she's in charge of us all- we're to stop giving her attention when she demands it- or pushes in when fussing the others.
> Played lots of games with Molly's new Very high value toy-just a Tennis ball with a handle. I have apparently done a great job with her so nice to know I've got something right  We're doing a bit of Gun dog stuff next week
> 
> And my little Evie is just the class clown :tongue_smilie:
> 
> Hope you have a good class Dogless.


I'm glad you got on great with Moll  she sounds like a clever girl I bet you are both going to love the gundog training 

I hope Scruff adapts well to the new approach. As for little Evie every class needs a clown


----------



## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> OH dear oh dear oh dear. I fear today the second part of this is nearer to the truth. She spotted the some canada geese beside the canal before i did this morning (obscured by bracken and brambles) charged at them no barking just they belong in the water not on the bank, unfortunately at the same time an older chap in a kayak was approaching the very spot the group of 5 geese jumped in with some gusto.
> 
> A total fail on my part just not observant enough because she ignores ducks and swans I wasn't on alert, the geese haven't been there for months and apparently they are now on the training 'to do list'
> 
> I apologised to guy in the canoe he couldn't reply for laughing. So i guess he wasn't too upset and the geese were calmly swimming about to no lasting harm there.
> 
> As for the house she did steal a bubble wrap bag earlier and charge around with it until i started walking toward the kitchen... then suddenly bringing it to me looked like a good idea. so defintiely no halo for this Madame today.
> 
> Any pics?
> 
> Sarah and Evos5 hope you are both feeling better soon


No pics of the beagles I am afraidall well behaved and off lead too!
thanks for the feeling better wishes,have spent the afternoon asleep,as had no sleep last night,so now having beagle cuddles
Love this post about Tink as it shows her character as well as being little Miss Tinker!
Glad the guy in the canoe saw the funny side with the geese!

Kat and Molly-glad the training went well with Molly I am sure you are both going to love the gundog training.i bet it's going to be hard to not fuss Scruff as those ears are just dying for a nuzzle,but the same theory seems to have worked for Malmum so good luck x


----------



## moonviolet

theevos5 said:


> Love this post about Tink as it shows her character as well as being little Miss Tinker!
> Glad the guy in the canoe saw the funny side with the geese!


Not only is she not angelic, she is ungrateful 







Yes I was baking and refilling her treat stock in the freezer, and she was being a monkey 

Hope the beagle cuddles are doing the trick.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks both,I am excited about the Gun dog stuff- I have instructions o teaching better directions than I already do 
I'm hoping Scruff will startto improve- I dont think we've to take it to the extremes Malmum has had to, Thank God that sounds hard for her, but sort of along the same lines I suppose.
Hope you feel a bit better now Evos5 and Sarah.
Sounds like lots of Beagles had fun today.


----------



## Tigerneko

We're baaaaack 

had a mixture of good and bad in this walk!

his heel and loose lead walking was fantastic, I was wandering along feeling very proud, thinking "aww I wish everyone on PF could see how well we are doing" and then realised I had my camera phone in my bag  so I videoed it :thumbup: I was stopping every time he lurched ahead and either gently pulling him back to me (a few times he just stood there, straining on the headcollar not going anywhere) and then he cottoned on to it and kept returning to my side. On the way back, we had a lovely loose lead for most of the walk!

the only time I struggled was when he heard a little dog yapping in the distance, he wouldn't focus on me and was trying to look for where the noise was. Then a man walked towards us with two Greyhounds - and he was the worst he's been in a while, he was growling and 'uffing' at them  and really, really wasn't willing to listen to me  after that, he just lost interest and didn't walk on his lead very well either but we were only a few minutes from home so I suppose I can forgive him!

The majority of the walk was lovely, we didn't see any other dogs apart from the Greyhounds, so it's a shame he reacted like he did because I definitely wasn't tense or nervy and we were having a nice, happy, relaxed walk.

Anyway, here's the video - look at that lovely loose lead  and excuse my baby voice


----------



## kat&molly

That looks lovely LLW.


----------



## moonviolet

:001_wub: Tiger 

Thats beautiful LLW well done. 

If he was jsut having a little growl and a bit of an 'uff. I'd take that as an "I don't like the look of them, can we get out of here?" It's ok if he doesn't like every dog


----------



## Dogless

Well done again Tiger and human . You're on a roll . Lovely LLW!

My beautiful BW was fantastic for me again at school .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> My beautiful BW was fantastic for me again at school .


Aww BW giving his mum a lovely Birthday present, Good lad


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> :001_wub: Tiger
> 
> Thats beautiful LLW well done.
> 
> If he was jsut having a little growl and a bit of an 'uff. I'd take that as an "I don't like the look of them, can we get out of here?" It's ok if he doesn't like every dog


Thanks, I am still really proud of him, I keep watching it back  it's only a bit of LLW but once of a time, I would have barely been able to keep hold of him and he also used to lunge off the kirb and into the road, he dragged me into the road on quite a few occasions, so to have him sitting at the kirb and walking nicely across the road is such an improvement.

As for the Greyhounds, you're definitely right, he probably just wasn't sure of them, plus he was trying to figure out where the other yappy dog sound was coming from, so perhaps he blamed them  I just wish we could walk past a few more dogs with no reaction, he isn't out and out aggressive because there are plenty of dogs he does get along with but I just can't trust him around 'strange' dogs outside and it does make walks a little difficult.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Well done again Tiger and human . You're on a roll . Lovely LLW!
> 
> My beautiful BW was fantastic for me again at school .


Well done Kilo, me thinks he's more Wonder Boy than the other way round 

And think yourself very lucky, I got told by BE not to bother entering Evie for any Obedience shows in the near future- I don't know what she means :blink:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well done Kilo, me thinks he's more Wonder Boy than the other way round
> 
> And think yourself very lucky, I got told by BE not to bother entering Evie for any Obedience shows in the near future- I don't know what she means :blink:


I think it's the way the training classes are run - the ones I have gone to before have 10 minutes or so where you practise 'sit' for example, then 'down' etc but Kilo is the kind of dog that will do a couple perfectly then get bored and distracted and sniff the floor, start to play up etc. These sessions keep everything mixed up and moving along and Kilo is really attentive . Definitely not obedience show stuff  but nevertheless I'm chuffed with him!!

BE sounds funny .


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> And think yourself very lucky, I got told by BE not to bother entering Evie for any Obedience shows in the near future- I don't know what she means :blink:


Is it bad that the more you paint Evie(little) as a free spirit, bit of a rebel, class clown etc the bigger my crush on her gets. :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::blushing:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Is it bad that the more you paint Evie(little) as a free spirit, bit of a rebel, class clown etc the bigger my crush on her gets. :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::blushing:


Mine too .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I think it's the way the training classes are run - the ones I have gone to before have 10 minutes or so where you practise 'sit' for example, then 'down' etc but Kilo is the kind of dog that will do a couple perfectly then get bored and distracted and sniff the floor, start to play up etc. These sessions keep everything mixed up and moving along and Kilo is really attentive . Definitely not obedience show stuff  but nevertheless I'm chuffed with him!!
> 
> BE sounds funny .


Good trainers really are worth their weight in Gold I think.It makes such a difference as you've seen.Because we're training as we go the girls dont realise they're 'working' - they think she comes here just for their entertainment, she's like a friend to them and they trust her. 
I reckon Kilo would do well in some OB shows.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Good trainers really are worth their weight in Gold I think.It makes such a difference as you've seen.Because we're training as we go the girls dont realise they're 'working' - they think she comes here just for their entertainment, she's like a friend to them and they trust her.
> I reckon Kilo would do well in some OB shows.


I don't  he has a rubbish handler for a start .


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Is it bad that the more you paint Evie(little) as a free spirit, bit of a rebel, class clown etc the bigger my crush on her gets. :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::blushing:


We're terrible really, she has us sucked in so bad and we can't help but laugh at the things she does, personality by the bucket load.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I don't  he has a rubbish handler for a start .


:nono: Not true, and you've got loads of patience.


----------



## moonviolet

In class a while back I handled a collie cross for a few minutes. Oh my word that was a different experience. That intent eager gaze gave me stage fright and left me in no doubt i'm not handler enough for a BC :lol:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> :nono: Not true, and you've got loads of patience.


I do have loads and loads of patience, that is true....handling skills are lacking at times though .



moonviolet said:


> In class a while back I handled a collie cross for a few minutes. Oh my word that was a different experience. That intent eager gaze gave me stage fright and left me in no doubt i'm not handler enough for a BC :lol:


I was watching a Collie last week, his gaze never left his owner's face - looked as if his eyes were boring into him. Kilo's eyes rarely leave my.....treat pouch :crazy:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I do have loads and loads of patience, that is true....handling skills are lacking at times though .


I bet if it was something you wanted to do you could excell. Just a matter of patience and practise 


Dogless said:


> I was watching a Collie last week, his gaze never left his owner's face - looked as if his eyes were boring into him. Kilo's eyes rarely leave my.....treat pouch :crazy:.


I felt such pressure, like this dog's whole world rested on my next word or hand signal. I really do admire them but i can't handle that pressure :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I bet if it was something you wanted to do you could excell. Just a matter of patience and practise
> I felt such pressure. Like this dogs whole world rested on my next word or hand signal. I really do admire them but i can't handle that pressure :lol:


I couldn't handle it either I don't think :crazy:. Happy with my easily distracted, have to work to keep his focus, bred to be independent, hound .


----------



## kat&molly

Collies are very intense aren't they, Molly can be , having that similar working ethic but its not quite as 'serious'.I think she would be if I put the work in.
I would love to do some OB shows, I'd work for it but they're always too far away. I'm going to 1 next month, I'm very excited but its more Best Bitch etc and BE has said I should enter Molly.:blink:
She will be doing a display with her own dogs , so I'm looking forward to seeing that.


Do you do any shows MV?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Do you do any shows MV?


No, I happily join little tricks displays for local fetes and things, but I don't do anything competitive. I don't really handle that sort of pressure well and either crumble or take it too seriously, i'm more likely to be found in the "have a go" agility ring or watching others showing  Who knows I may get tempted one day.


----------



## Diesel the Crazy Dal

Along with the recall i started to get him into different commands like walk, jump, speak etc. He really will do ANYTHING for a treat 

(please excuse my background mess of end of year accounts - please feel free to do them for me )


----------



## theevos5

Diesel the Crazy Dal said:


> Along with the recall i started to get him into different commands like walk, jump, speak etc. He really will do ANYTHING for a treat
> 
> (please excuse my background mess of end of year accounts - please feel free to do them for me )


The fact that the end of year accounts are not put on a high shelf out of the way of a chewing pupster always gets a gold star in my book!! Mine have always been confined to out of reach places just case Alf wanted to munch on some receipts!!
Diesel is gorgeous by the way


----------



## theevos5

We had a great walk today,not much to tell,not once did he let me down,it was very wet,he now smells of wet dog and so does my house! Gold star day!!!


----------



## Dogless

Went to a forest this morning - hubby declined and stayed in bed, funnily enough (he's on days off); saw someone else on their own crazy enough to be out in this weather - Kilo recalled and sat nicely to let them past, so very pleased again that he didn't exhibit his stalking behaviour . Other than that we didn't do much - Kilo tore around just exploring and met one dog who wanted to sniff and move on which Kilo did and one dog who wanted to play but we were near to the end of our walk so I let him have a quick greet and brief chase game then called him away with me, which he did. So a good boy again .

Well done to Alfie too!


----------



## moonviolet

Diesel is a beauty  Looking forward to hearing more about him and seeing lots of pics


----------



## Tigerneko

Not much to report today! LLW good again and he really made me smile when he went ahead of me a little & I asked him to heel, I didn't realise we'd got to a kirb and he got confused with his commands and sat very nicely for me :lol:  and by the end of the walk, he sat every time we stopped at a kirb without even having to ask him  this is really, really good considering he used to just lurch out into the road and drag me with him, what a turn around 

he wasn't too bad with other dogs, but the first one I couldn't distract him from, the second one I don't think he even noticed and the third he did ignore :thumbup: so plenty of treats for that!

There's an advert in the paper today for our local training club, they're having their next enrolment night on Tuesday.... I really don't know whether to go back or not. I think i'm going to go along without him (they do say you don't need to bring your dog) and explain his issues and ask what they'd recommend. They might say that it isn't the right environment, but they might say we'll just start to gradually introduce him. This is the place with the narrow corridor where all the dogs wait, so i'm going to mention this and ask if there is any way around it, as it will definitely be too much for him. We have actually been there before but it was a couple of years back now so I doubt they will remember us.

What do you lot think? I really do want some thoughts on this because I just don't know whether to do it or not!


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> Not much to report today! LLW good again and he really made me smile when he went ahead of me a little & I asked him to heel, I didn't realise we'd got to a kirb and he got confused with his commands and sat very nicely for me :lol:  and by the end of the walk, he sat every time we stopped at a kirb without even having to ask him  this is really, really good considering he used to just lurch out into the road and drag me with him, what a turn around
> 
> he wasn't too bad with other dogs, but the first one I couldn't distract him from, the second one I don't think he even noticed and the third he did ignore :thumbup: so plenty of treats for that!
> 
> There's an advert in the paper today for our local training club, they're having their next enrolment night on Tuesday.... I really don't know whether to go back or not. I think i'm going to go along without him (they do say you don't need to bring your dog) and explain his issues and ask what they'd recommend. They might say that it isn't the right environment, but they might say we'll just start to gradually introduce him. This is the place with the narrow corridor where all the dogs wait, so i'm going to mention this and ask if there is any way around it, as it will definitely be too much for him. We have actually been there before but it was a couple of years back now so I doubt they will remember us.
> 
> What do you lot think? I really do want some thoughts on this because I just don't know whether to do it or not!


Before I answer, please bear in mind I'm just back from my birthday meal and 'slightly' worse for wear :crazy:. In terms of the training; nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was really hesitant to join the club that I just have because our last training classes were a horrible experience, but am so glad that I did. I went without Kilo for the first night which I did find valuable as not having to worry about his behaviour meant that I could observe and discuss things without any pressure. There is also a narrow corridor at ours and also some DA or just plain nervous dogs - daft as it sounds we go in one by one and start to walk around on the floor to avoid a bottleneck and at the end we walk the floor again and filter out one by one to avoid any meetings in such an enclosed space.

If they won't remember you - clean sheet and you have nothing to lose!


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Before I answer, please bear in mind I'm just back from my birthday meal and 'slightly' worse for wear :crazy:. In terms of the training; nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was really hesitant to join the club that I just have because our last training classes were a horrible experience, but am so glad that I did. I went without Kilo for the first night which I did find valuable as not having to worry about his behaviour meant that I could observe and discuss things without any pressure. There is also a narrow corridor at ours and also some DA or just plain nervous dogs - daft as it sounds we go in one by one and start to walk around on the floor to avoid a bottleneck and at the end we walk the floor again and filter out one by one to avoid any meetings in such an enclosed space.
> 
> If they won't remember you - clean sheet and you have nothing to lose!


:lol: :lol: you talk better sense with a drink (or 5) down you than I do when i'm sober as a judge  hope you had a nice time!

I might suggest the walking in and out thing, that's a good idea. Everyone tends to gather in the corridor before the end of the previous class, so if I just aim to turn up for the exact time of our class, I might even be able to avoid the waiting in the corridor. It's either that or I could just wait outside the doors until everyone goes in, but that's not much good in the rain  if it was a little less enclosed then i'd definitely go back without hesitation, but I just need to explain to them that waiting inside that corridor is just far too much for Tiger and far too much for my nerves to handle. Hopefully if they are any good then they'll have an idea of what to do.


----------



## moonviolet

Well Done Tiger  sounds like you are doing great with him.



Tigerneko said:


> :lol: :lol: you talk better sense with a drink (or 5) down you than I do when i'm sober as a judge  hope you had a nice time!
> 
> I might suggest the walking in and out thing, that's a good idea. Everyone tends to gather in the corridor before the end of the previous class, so if I just aim to turn up for the exact time of our class, I might even be able to avoid the waiting in the corridor. It's either that or I could just wait outside the doors until everyone goes in, but that's not much good in the rain  if it was a little less enclosed then i'd definitely go back without hesitation, but I just need to explain to them that waiting inside that corridor is just far too much for Tiger and far too much for my nerves to handle. Hopefully if they are any good then they'll have an idea of what to do.


I was thinking the same about Dogless, bit of a legend. 

I'd definitely suggest the walking in thing, I also like you idea about arriving as close to the start of class as possible less time for mishaps 

I had an eventful walk this evening I'll fill you all in tomorrow i'd like your opinions on something.


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> Well Done Tiger  sounds like you are doing great with him.
> 
> I was thinking the same about Dogless, bit of a legend.
> 
> I'd definitely suggest the walking in thing, I also like you idea about arriving as close to the start of class as possible less time for mishaps
> 
> I had an eventful walk this evening I'll fill you all in tomorrow i'd like your opinions on something.


thanks, I am starting to feel much more positive about going out with him, tbh it just used to be a horrible scary stressful chore, but he is getting easier by the day at the moment and I think 99% of it is to do with my confidence going up a little. I just wish to god that we could walk past dogs on the other side of the street without him tensing up and focusing on them because when he's really sort of 'locked on' I can't distract him at all without tugging on his lead, which I feel a little mean for but i've got to break his stare somehow, and he's on a headcollar so I only need to pull very slightly, it's not a yank or anything.

Hope everything went okay with your walk, look forward to reading and hopefully helping somehow


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> :lol: :lol: you talk better sense with a drink (or 5) down you than I do when i'm sober as a judge  hope you had a nice time!
> 
> I might suggest the walking in and out thing, that's a good idea. Everyone tends to gather in the corridor before the end of the previous class, so if I just aim to turn up for the exact time of our class, I might even be able to avoid the waiting in the corridor. It's either that or I could just wait outside the doors until everyone goes in, but that's not much good in the rain  if it was a little less enclosed then i'd definitely go back without hesitation, but I just need to explain to them that waiting inside that corridor is just far too much for Tiger and far too much for my nerves to handle. Hopefully if they are any good then they'll have an idea of what to do.


Or does the place where the training is held have another entrance? A fire exit that you could come in through? It probably won't be necessary after the first few weeks when you and Tiger are feeling happier anyway.


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> thanks, I am starting to feel much more positive about going out with him, tbh it just used to be a horrible scary stressful chore, but he is getting easier by the day at the moment and I think 99% of it is to do with my confidence going up a little. I just wish to god that we could walk past dogs on the other side of the street without him tensing up and focusing on them because when he's really sort of 'locked on' I can't distract him at all without tugging on his lead, which I feel a little mean for but i've got to break his stare somehow, and he's on a headcollar so I only need to pull very slightly, it's not a yank or anything.
> 
> Hope everything went okay with your walk, look forward to reading and hopefully helping somehow


So glad you are feeling more positive and enjoying you walks more  I think you are doing great. If you can get back into classes and have him focus on you around other dogs it may help with the pavement thing.

My evening walk was slightly surreal the weather changed from bright hot sun to strong wind and lashing rain without a moment's notice.

We had a lovely positive moment when we were found ourselves walking parallel in opposite directions to a pair of collies that Tink had run once run from and been chased last year(only through curiosity nothing malicious, handler error on my part).

The collies started to come our way I'm watching Tink, she looks to me to be released to go say hello  (her response if she doesn't want to interact is to sit and lift a paw and wait for me to put her lead on) now she was standing looking at the collies then looking at me. So I said off you go and she met them part way sniffs all round and return to owners  The BC's owner then called out have "She's doing well." I said thanks and he asked me if i'd seen this.









Bumbled on having some and games, I can run again now, as badly as before I hurt my foot So we had a game of "run, walk, stop" with Tink at a loose heel she loves it and I guess i get more exercise than I would if she would deem fetch an acceptable game for on a walk.

Turned a right angle at the end of a path and saw a woman with leads in her hand, no dogs in sight. She begins looking around for her dogs. Didn't know what they were , if we would even see them, should I lead up in case. I decided not to. Then, from the bracken appears a chocolate lab and a muzzled leonberger who come our way at great speed, (owner of course attempting ineffectively to recall) the distance is short, so nothing to do but take a deep breath.

Tink looks unsure but not terrified she crouches and wees, this was not a "tail tucked pee on the tail" wee this was just like a normal "I need a wee squat." I stepped in front of her this had the effect of slowing the dogs and their greeting, while enthusiastic and rude, wasn't horrific.

The owner made no apology for the charge and made a comment about Tinker being 'timid' I explained that I would be too when charged at by a strange dog of that size having been previously attacked by a large hairy dog. All she then wanted to do was explain that the muzzle was so he didn't bite joggers...( I guess it's ok to chase them then)

We went on our way .. moments later she's shouting in recall again I turn and the leo is charging in our direction again. when I turned he did actually recall this time. Good boy  as soon as we were walking away i was telling her how well she did and she was all tail up and trotting. If she had been level 3 or above scared it takes her at longer to shake it (often a massage to see her tail above her hocks)

Anyway to my question, during this Tink while unsure didn't look terrified, she wasn't frozen and her wee appeared calculated rather than involuntary, Could this be part of a coping thing?

Random picture for getting this far  Tink looking slightly bored , I hope you aren't


----------



## Dogless

Wow; well done Tink! Sounds as if she has improved massively (and lovely photos). Perhaps the wee is some kind of calming or displacement mechansim for Tink? Same as sniffing the floor? I have no idea at all, but the fact that it wasn't one of her terrified wees is fantastic .


----------



## kat&molly

Sorry MV I've no idea either [helpful aren't we ] but it sounds like she coped really well again  
Those pics are lovely, Tinks looking fab


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Or does the place where the training is held have another entrance? A fire exit that you could come in through? It probably won't be necessary after the first few weeks when you and Tiger are feeling happier anyway.


Yeah I think it might do, i'll have a word and see what they say. Hopefully this will be a situation they've come across before, I wouldn't imagine there are a lot of dogs who would be comfortable stuck in a narrow corridor full of other dogs with nowhere to go.

Well done mv and Tink! The weeing certainly doesn't sound like it was through fear, you would have known straight away if it was  I agree that it's probably a displacement thing  well done to both of you on being so brave with the big muzzled leo, i'd have been petrified.... I think i'd have been the one weeing


----------



## moonviolet

Thanks everyone, sometimes I wish we could just ask them 



kat&molly said:


> Sorry MV I've no idea either [helpful aren't we ] but it sounds like she coped really well again
> Those pics are lovely, Tinks looking fab


Aww thanks she isn't looking too bad, her butt makes me laugh, firstly is well muscled so sticks out a bit then to top it off her butt hair is kind of fluffy and makes it look like she is wearing frilly knickers   :lol:

The Leo just looked young, exhuberant and under stimulated, but such a beautiful boy , bit of a shame really and his owner looked a little overwhelmed.


----------



## kat&molly

I managed to get Scuff a head collar today - its not the best fit but doesn't seem to cut in under her eye. It was the smallest size and for Beagle/Cocker but her head is skinnier than those breeds.
I've tried it indoors for a couple of minutes, twice now. Its a constant stream of treats and Scruff being Scruff thinks its an excuse to jump all over me, think she's a bit worried about what I'm doing to her as well. I've bought some squeezy cream[cant get cheese] and some different meat chunks especially for this. Do I just continue to take it slowly- is there anything else to help. Any ideas please?

I groomed a Russian Black yesterday, a first for me, dont think I've even seen one before. He was gorgeous, huge and named Dennis
Like lots of dogs he didn't like his paws touched, and it was quite worrying not to be able to see his face to see how uncomfortable he was with it. He was fine and some treats helped but was really strange. I'll remember to keep some hair clips in the parlour for next time.!!!


----------



## shamans

teaching him to sit. Still hasn't learned :/ but I do think he is intelligent.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I managed to get Scuff a head collar today - its not the best fit but doesn't seem to cut in under her eye. It was the smallest size and for Beagle/Cocker but her head is skinnier than those breeds.
> I've tried it indoors for a couple of minutes, twice now. Its a constant stream of treats and Scruff being Scruff thinks its an excuse to jump all over me, think she's a bit worried about what I'm doing to her as well. I've bought some squeezy cream[cant get cheese] and some different meat chunks especially for this. Do I just continue to take it slowly- is there anything else to help. Any ideas please?
> 
> I groomed a Russian Black yesterday, a first for me, dont think I've even seen one before. He was gorgeous, huge and named Dennis
> Like lots of dogs he didn't like his paws touched, and it was quite worrying not to be able to see his face to see how uncomfortable he was with it. He was fine and some treats helped but was really strange. I'll remember to keep some hair clips in the parlour for next time.!!!


I have found with Kilo that, once a new bit of kit is on (headcollar, running harness etc) that getting out for a short, very 'jolly' walk with loads of encouragement and treats is the best thing - stops him worrying about the new thing. Maybe that would work?

My cousin has a Russian Black Terrier; never met him as not been to see her in years (she's German) but he looks HUGE in the photos that she sent me .



shamans said:


> teaching him to sit. Still hasn't learned :/ but I do think he is intelligent.


Welcome to the thread; I'm sure your dog will get there with a bit of patience. What is he called?


----------



## shamans

Dogless said:


> Welcome to the thread; I'm sure your dog will get there with a bit of patience. What is he called?


Hello 

Yes it has only been 3 training sessions as off now. My dog is called biscuit


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I managed to get Scuff a head collar today - its not the best fit but doesn't seem to cut in under her eye. It was the smallest size and for Beagle/Cocker but her head is skinnier than those breeds.
> I've tried it indoors for a couple of minutes, twice now. Its a constant stream of treats and Scruff being Scruff thinks its an excuse to jump all over me, think she's a bit worried about what I'm doing to her as well. I've bought some squeezy cream[cant get cheese] and some different meat chunks especially for this. Do I just continue to take it slowly- is there anything else to help. Any ideas please?


I dont' know if this is of any use Jean Donaldson gets conditioned emotional response while fitting Gentle Leader - YouTube

I bet you won't forget the clips for Dennis' next appointment.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks both, Dogless your way may work if I try without the others first I think. But I'll look at that clip Moonviolet- with Scruff anything goes
Wished now if I could take a pic of Dennis to share.


Hello Shamans , just seen your little pup in the other thread and he's gorgeous. Good luck with him.


----------



## moonviolet

shamans said:


> Hello
> 
> Yes it has only been 3 training sessions as off now. My dog is called biscuit


What a sweetie, great name


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I dont' know if this is of any use Jean Donaldson gets conditioned emotional response while fitting Gentle Leader - YouTube
> 
> I bet you won't forget the clips for Dennis' next appointment.


Thats clever , that clip. I'll try- bet I dont make it look that easy though.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thats clever , that clip. I'll try- bet I dont make it look that easy though.


Well she does have a little more practise than us 

Had what was a wonderful walk with Tink and OH. She actually swam all of 2 strokes in a particular deep puddle, but had a slightly horrid blip at the end. There is a house opposite the the common that was sold a couple of months ago to some people who have been less than strict with keeping their dog in.

On more than one ocasion in the past she has followed us. Tink is a little unsure of her (another of her foibles is dogs without humans) and when I say followed us i mean for a whole hour, she has tried repeatedly to get in the car when we have been leaving, previously I have just ushered her toward her home until she went back in by herself (it's a no through road with next only walkers, mountain bikers etc using it. So infrequent slow moving traffic.

On the day she kept trying to get in the car. I took her home and rang the doorbell and said she was trying to get in my car and she had followed me on walks and while she was a lovely dog i didn't want to be responsible for her or for anything happening to her. I got a mouthful about how others don't mind and basically told i was mean spirited for objecting to walkign hteir dog without being asked. Well at this point I mentioned their legal obligation to prevent their dog straying and had the door slammed in my face.

Other dog walkers have had her follow them and have called the number on her tags and been asked to drop her off when they have finished their walk and one was asked if they could hang on to her for a couple of hours as no one was around to collect her.

Today we were on the MOD land and this dog appears hackles raised giving it some territorial style barking and has a JRT in tow.. no humans around, Tink more than a little uncomfortable I sent OH off with her while I distracted the dogs. I know talking to the people will do no good should I go to the dog warden on monday?

Tink shook it off after I had ushered the dogs home and she had had a massage and shed loads of happy talk, and "easy peasy you're a winner games." Remember I mentioned the swimming....lets just say on lap cuddles seemed a less brilliant idea as i returned to the car with a wet t-shirt and jeans


----------



## Lola71

We are currently working on heelwork, i know im not always consistent with it which is why she sometimes wanders off!! Must try harder :nono:


----------



## Dogless

Well done again Miss Tink!! I think you are probably at the Dog Warden stage with the loose dog, we have one that does the same here - then sees off any dog that tries to play with Kilo which is a shame. The owner doesn't give a monkey's either. Strange people :.

We have had two nice walks to the fields today with some fetch, recall training and not really anything else - just relaxing walks in the rain . This afternoon a dog that he plays with came at about the same time as us, so they had an hour's mucking about and I had some company which is nice .

Our 'blip' was the 3 year old that I've posted about before who hounds us, hounding us again - parents don't care. Hate it - Kilo is truly scared of the little fecker .


----------



## kat&molly

Lola71 said:


> We are currently working on heelwork, i know im not always consistent with it which is why she sometimes wanders off!! Must try harder :nono:


I've got Gold stars for my inconsistency


----------



## kat&molly

Seems we've all had a Blip' today then.

We walked up the track , Evie on lead always here, but we get to the top and theres sheep wandering around - they've come out of a field that the farmer hasn't bothered to put gates on. Moll and Scruff are ok when they're where they should be but I dont even want to leash them up and walk past- or scare the sheep in to running. This sort of thing is a common occurance lately.

Just had Scruff poking her nose through the headcollar.


----------



## kat&molly

The next Jean Donaldson I'm not. 
She was completly comfortable wearing it all done up , stream of treats, so I took her outside on alead just a 3 minute walk- but she wasn't happy.
Obviously went too fast.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> The next Jean Donaldson I'm not.
> She was completly comfortable wearing it all done up , stream of treats, so I took her outside on alead just a 3 minute walk- but she wasn't happy.
> Obviously went too fast.


It's so hard to stop when it's going well. I think hand on heart there isn't one of us that hasn't gone too fast from time to time.


----------



## kat&molly

I'm going to get off my backside and take the girls somewhere nice this morning. We haven't been since I had Evie. Its got a big lake so Molly the water demon will be in her element.

Really need to find some new walks around here, there must be hundreds I'm missing , but I have such a bad sense of direction that I either get lost or end up in someone else's garden.I even wandered in to chateau grounds once

Hope everyone has a great day.


----------



## Phoolf

Started teaching Kes to wave yesterday, just did a quick 3 minute clicker session getting her to give her paw higher and higher up, after a few repetitions she could do it without my hand there. I've made a hand signal for her to wave and she managed to do 3 waves of a hand before getting bored and needing to move on. Will do some more later but I think it'll be cracked in 2 or so more clicker sessions. So cute. After the session she was sitting near the sofa and kept offering me a high paw. Maybe I can turn this into her learning how to high five too. Silly I know, and not useful in any way but it helps keep her stimulated and means she can bond with me more and get some great treats.


----------



## Phoolf

kat&molly said:


> I'm going to get off my backside and take the girls somewhere nice this morning. We haven't been since I had Evie. Its got a big lake so Molly the water demon will be in her element.
> 
> Really need to find some new walks around here, there must be hundreds I'm missing , but I have such a bad sense of direction that I either get lost or end up in someone else's garden.I even wandered in to chateau grounds once
> 
> Hope everyone has a great day.


To find new walks I usually go on google maps and keep zooming out looking for large, green spaces. Discovered half the parks I go to that way.


----------



## sharloid

moonviolet said:


> I know talking to the people will do no good should I go to the dog warden on monday?


What a cheek that man had! If there was a wondering dog without an owner I'd definitely call the dog warden. I thought dogs had to be in control of whilst out anyway?

We're currently working on loose lead walking/not pulling to everything exciting/becoming calm around other dogs.

We spoke to the trainer after class on Friday and she gave us a few pointers but I can tell it's going to be a long road ahead of us. He's a quick learner usually but he's so stubborn!


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## fortunesfool

The simple things, getting used to a towel. When we first got bodhi he hated anyone going near him with a towel which as you can imagine isn't ideal in this weather. Today we got dry legs and even round his head. Still takes two of us, one to dry and one to hold the hot dog but given he was pretty aggressive about it to start with it feels like a wee victory.

It's the little things that sometimes make all the difference


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## moonviolet

Phoolf said:


> Silly I know, and not useful in any way but it helps keep her stimulated and means she can bond with me more and get some great treats.


I don't think it's silly at all, no time spent communicating with your dog is ever silly, it helps with focus for the essential stuff  It's all tricks to the dog after all.

I've found having a collection of tricks handy when confronted by children that I have observed to be too rough to pet my dog (and parent unwilling to guide them), getting her to do a few tricks for them instead works quite nicely, it's also lovely for children who are nervous of dogs to be able to see them doing fun sweet things.


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## Guest

I think tricks are great and my dog knows quite a few :yesnod: In fact I've found some of her tricks really handy since we've started agility. I use things like turn, spin, dance, touch as warm ups and also to get her excited and ready to go. And after all, that's really all agility is - a series of tricks!


----------



## Dogless

Today we went to the park for the first time in a while as the weather has been so bad that no one would have been there! Today it was packed with dogs and people and.....we had an absolute gold star morning, every dog was passed with no pulling or silliness, even the ones that wanted to play . They were looked at, then Kilo looked to me and I moved him on past .

Hubby came with us which is an unusual event in itself  and even he noticed how good Kilo was . So, I declare today the most successful park walk so far and the BW earned a cow's ear for his troubles .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Today we went to the park for the first time in a while as the weather has been so bad that no one would have been there! Today it was packed with dogs and people and.....we had an absolute gold star morning, every dog was passed with no pulling or silliness, even the ones that wanted to play . They were looked at, then Kilo looked to me and I moved him on past .
> 
> Hubby came with us which is an unusual event in itself  and even he noticed how good Kilo was . So, I declare today the most successful park walk so far and the BW earned a cow's ear for his troubles .


Congratulations  What a wonderful boy Kilo is becoming with your patient dedicated guidance


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Congratulations  What a wonderful boy Kilo is becoming with your patient dedicated guidance


We will get there I hope .


----------



## kat&molly

Phoolf said:


> To find new walks I usually go on google maps and keep zooming out looking for large, green spaces. Discovered half the parks I go to that way.


That would be great if I could read a map 
Well done teaching Kes to wave. Personally I dont want to teach tricks but if owner and dog are happy then thats got to be a good thing, and certainly not useless.
Well done to Kilo[again]- great that your OH noticed- that would be praise indeed in this house 

We've had a great morning- I even let Evie off , very brave of me somewhere new, and she was brill. I'll upload some pics later.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> That would be great if I could read a map
> Well done teaching Kes to wave. Personally I dont want to teach tricks but if owner and dog are happy then thats got to be a good thing, and certainly not useless.
> Well done to Kilo[again]- great that your OH noticed- that would be praise indeed in this house
> 
> We've had a great morning- I even let Evie off , very brave of me somewhere new, and she was brill. I'll upload some pics later.


Well done Evie - gold star .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Well done Evie - gold star .


Now theres something you dont hear every day :laugh:


----------



## Coffee

<little wave>

Sorry, I haven't posted on this thread for ages now (have still been reading though) as I haven't really had anything to report  We're still using the Dogmatic for all lead walking and while I still feel a bit of a failure it's making life SO much easier. He still fusses a little bit when it first goes on but is fine after a minute or 2 

Our new, constant, ongoing task now is his recall away from other dogs. I do, always, try to keep my eyes peeled and get him back and back on the lead if I spot another dog that I don't know but sometimes he's quicker than me and is gone in the blink of an eye  He is getting much better now though at reading other dogs' body language / signals and will always come away if the other dog makes it clear he doesn't want to play or interact... but I'm guessing this isn't really acceptable, that he shouldn't be approaching them in the first place  Or is it okay if he walks up slowly, tail wagging (as he always does) but then comes away immediately if the other dog ignores him or makes it clear he's not interested? So many people tell me I worry too much but from all I read on here about unwanted dogs approaching without permission, being one of "those" owners is the last thing I want.


----------



## Dogless

Coffee said:


> <little wave>
> 
> Sorry, I haven't posted on this thread for ages now (have still been reading though) as I haven't really had anything to report  We're still using the Dogmatic for all lead walking and while I still feel a bit of a failure it's making life SO much easier. He still fusses a little bit when it first goes on but is fine after a minute or 2
> 
> Our new, constant, ongoing task now is his recall away from other dogs. I do, always, try to keep my eyes peeled and get him back and back on the lead if I spot another dog that I don't know but sometimes he's quicker than me and is gone in the blink of an eye  He is getting much better now though at reading other dogs' body language / signals and will always come away if the other dog makes it clear he doesn't want to play or interact... but I'm guessing this isn't really acceptable, that he shouldn't be approaching them in the first place  Or is it okay if he walks up slowly, tail wagging (as he always does) but then comes away immediately if the other dog ignores him or makes it clear he's not interested? So many people tell me I worry too much but from all I read on here about unwanted dogs approaching without permission, being one of "those" owners is the last thing I want.


Hello again . Don't feel like a failure for using a training aid - you haven't given up on training have you? You're just giving yourself a hand!

As for Alfie's approaching dogs; I'd have no dramas with him approaching like that at all if I was walking and if he comes away straight away rather than pestering it's not a dire situation at all, but if I were you I'd carry on working. I am like you though and worry to a huge degree, when no one else seems to bother  If he is still entire like Kilo is you may well find that you start needing to restrict which dogs he mixes with for a while at some point in the near future - Kilo may as well have a target on him at present due to his hormones and we have had a number of dogs reacting very badly to him indeed .


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Hello again . Don't feel like a failure for using a training aid - you haven't given up on training have you? You're just giving yourself a hand!
> 
> As for Alfie's approaching dogs; I'd have no dramas with him approaching like that at all if I was walking and if he comes away straight away rather than pestering it's not a dire situation at all, but if I were you I'd carry on working. I am like you though and worry to a huge degree, when no one else seems to bother  If he is still entire like Kilo is you may well find that you start needing to restrict which dogs he mixes with for a while at some point in the near future - Kilo may as well have a target on him at present due to his hormones and we have had a number of dogs reacting very badly to him indeed .


Thanks Dogless 

I just wish he would "get" the concept of LLW  I see other people walking along lovely with their dogs and I do admit to the odd pang of envy  Funnily though, out of all the people I've asked how they've done it (yes, I have no shame ) not one of them has actually "trained it"  The answers I've had have either been "oh he's always just walked nicely like this" or "oh he pulled like a train when he was younger and just got better with age".

He's definitely not a "persterer" which I'm thankful for. He's starting to realise too that dogs on lead = they'll be no fun  and will always come away after the briefest of sniffs. I'll keep working on it though as ideally I'd like him not to approach at all, unless I've said it's okay.

Funny you should say that about the entire thing as we had a small issue a couple of weeks ago with a chocolate lab. Now, this boy has always had issues with all other dogs and will go for everything. The lady owner is lovely and we often call greetings from opposite sides of the field. I saw her this one morning with the dogs (she also has a yellow lab who has no issues at all) and luckily we'd only just arrived at the field and Alfie was still on the lead. She approached me though and at about 20' feet away she asked if her boy could come and say hello to Alfie as "he's been so much better recently"... I of course said yes so she let hers off the lead and over they came. Bit of nose sniffing, all was nice, lady looked thrilled to bits... when suddenly he just changed in the blink of an eye and went for Alfie, growling and snarling. Poor Alfie screamed and tried to hide behind me, the lab's owner grabbed him (no harm was done, there wasn't a mark on Alfie), full of apologies (I felt ever so sorry for her, she was almost in tears ) and it turned out, after a bit of a chat, all the dogs he'd been better with recently were girls and Alfie is, like Kilo, still intact. Wonder if that could have been the cause of his aggression


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> <little wave>
> 
> Sorry, I haven't posted on this thread for ages now (have still been reading though) as I haven't really had anything to report  We're still using the Dogmatic for all lead walking and while I still feel a bit of a failure it's making life SO much easier. He still fusses a little bit when it first goes on but is fine after a minute or 2
> 
> Our new, constant, ongoing task now is his recall away from other dogs. I do, always, try to keep my eyes peeled and get him back and back on the lead if I spot another dog that I don't know but sometimes he's quicker than me and is gone in the blink of an eye  He is getting much better now though at reading other dogs' body language / signals and will always come away if the other dog makes it clear he doesn't want to play or interact... but I'm guessing this isn't really acceptable, that he shouldn't be approaching them in the first place  Or is it okay if he walks up slowly, tail wagging (as he always does) but then comes away immediately if the other dog ignores him or makes it clear he's not interested? So many people tell me I worry too much but from all I read on here about unwanted dogs approaching without permission, being one of "those" owners is the last thing I want.


Nice to have you back,
Don't feel a failure at all. He's still young and silly I dont' think i was getting any consistency with Tink's LLW until she was 18months and we still have the odd wobble. It will come 

With the approaching thing. I don't ask permission formally of every dog's owner. Just looking at them and their body language kind of says whether they are happy for the dogs to interact or not. Tink has learned over time (she is heading toward 3) to look back for permission before she says hello, this also means she breaks eye contact, doesn't rush etc.

ETA: Doggie friends have different rules the stuff above is for new or acquaintance dogs.


----------



## Dogless

Another nice walk to the fields, saw a few dogs on the streets on the way there and back that were looked at briefly then passed without any nonsense. When we got to the fields a dog Kilo sometimes plays with was there - they greeted each other, then Kilo just went off doing his own thing and playing fetch with me, no interest in playing with the other dog. I have noticed that he is becoming far less interested in general play and far more selective - plays with dogs that 'do' chases but uninterested in most other types of play now. He always wants to greet, but then usually just walks away. He must be growing up .


----------



## Zoojie

I'll join in if nobody minds!

I've had a bit of a rough time with Loki lately - since he was attacked a few months ago he's just got really nervous of everything (and was fairly nervous of most things in the first place!) Dogs and cars set him off most - particularly by our house (but not on main roads, strangely enough). 

We're doing 'look' training with his reward being treats and walking away when his attention is back on me. Fortunately I've now found somewhere nice to walk with less dogs where I can take them for relaxing walks, so at least he has now got some stres-free options  
We are using a muzzle on the training walks where I know I'm going to see things that may set him off if I'm not far enough away - and it still amazes me how people will see me walking away from them and getting Loki's attention, and still walk straight at me! (when I'm in the middle of a field away from all paths up to my armpits in long grass). I'm still attempting to judge the distance that will set him off, but his reaction time has slowed I think, and it'll just keep getting better with practice. There have been some nice people who will stop for me until I have his attention back. 

He managed to calmly meet the gardener after 20 minutes of back and forth the other day, and yesterday met a friend of mine (who is fantastic and was a great influence, so calm!) in about 2 minutes - hooray! Such a difference. And most of the time now it's just a couple of 'woofs' (not proper barks) as long as they're not walking directly at us. 

With Amber it's recall training on the longlead and also being able to just get her attention away from nice smells - I'm not expecting great results on that one! But she's been really good anyway, and hopefully will improve with age. I have a horrid suspicion we're approaching the teenager stage (9 months) with her, so it's concentrating on the basics again, I'm trying to not ignore her when I know Loki has the bigger issues, because that'll just mean trying to fix things with her after he's better!

You'll have to please remind me that they're only 18 and 9 months respectively, because I do expect a lot from them  but I know these things aren't going to fix themselves quickly  especially with Loki, poor boy. 

I feel most sorry for some of my friends though, who are being dragged out to stand on paths by my house for 30 minutes for me to do distraction training!! 
... saying that, anyone live in Wiltshire and fancy lending a hand? 

(bit of an essay there, sorry!)


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## sharloid

I had a good walk with Broder tonight. It was only short but he's improving. As I've posted before we're having problems with him lunging (he's too friendly and wants to play with everything) and pulling. He walked on a loose lead (whilst having lots of treats - but it's better than nothing) all the time except when he saw a dog or a cat. He stood to attention at a few dogs but didn't pull. I just didn't move and waited for him to sit by me so we could walk on. Then we passed two westies that were growling at him. He jumped forward once, and then just sat in front of me waiting for his treat. 

I came back with a big smile on my face.


----------



## Tigerneko

crap walk tonight  it's left me in a really, really, really bad mood, I just want to burst into tears but I can't 

First off I had him on a new lead (a figure of 8 headcollar type thing) which I was really excited about, it's similar to his other figure of 8 but it's 2 or 3 times as long, so it gives him more sniffing space in grassy areas, and we can also practise distance sits and things whilst on lead (we do have a longline for that but I don't usually carry it with me). Anyway, the design of the new lead is slightly different to the other one, and he hates it. It doesn't feel as safe and he keeps walking into my legs, he tripped me up three times  so I tried walking him on the other side, but he figured out how to pull on it straight away 

So, I was wandering along feeling rather disappointed with this amazing lead (which I nearly ordered 2 of, now i'm glad I didn't) and a couple came out of their house on the same side of the road with 2 Labradors. They were about 12 foot in front of me, and there were parked cars along the road so I had nowhere to go. I stopped for a second and decided to keep Tiger on the inside as they passed on the outside, as that was the best I could do. Anyway, they walked past with one of the dogs right next to us and Tiger just went mental, up on his back legs, snarling and barking :crying: I feel really terrible but I just didn't know what to do, so I really bellowed "NO! STOP IT!" at him  and I know it's not his fault but I was already annoyed with this lead I was so excited about, and they just appeared out of their house so it happened too quickly for me to be able to cross the road or do anything about it, I didn't even have time to say anything to the owners 

Again, I know it's not his fault but it's just made me so, so miserable. We are supposed to be getting a pup in 6 weeks and it feels like the most stupid, terrible idea in the world, but my selfish mum and dad just want what they want and think he'll be fine - but I am not at all happy about it after tonight. I've always had my reservations about the idea and I wish they could have waited or done the sensible thing and get Tiger's behaviour sorted first, but they just think 'it'll be fine'.

I am now wondering whether a training class is the right thing for him, or whether I should try ringing some behaviourists from further afield and see if they will be kind enough to come out and do some one to one with us.

Hope you haven't minded listening to my rant and i'm so sorry to just be moaning and whinging on this thread again, but I have nobody else to talk about it to, and I feel so, so miserable tonight 

Rock bottom has definitely been reached.


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> Hope you haven't minded listening to my rant and i'm so sorry to just be moaning and whinging on this thread again, but I have nobody else to talk about it to, and I feel so, so miserable tonight
> 
> Rock bottom has definitely been reached.


Never ever going to mind, that what this thread is here for. We all understand  I'm really sorry you had disappointing walk you and Tiger seemed to be making progress before. Have a good vent have a cry whatever you need to get it all out hun.

I really wouldn't right off class just yet. You could ask if it's ok if you arrive a few minutes late and arrange to have the spot nearest the door left clear for you and Tiger. So all the other dogs are focused and working when you go in and you are in a place you can easily take Tiger out if he needs a break. A lot can happen in 6 weeks. (((hugs)))

Well done Broder sounds like you are making progress.

Welcome to the thread Zoojie. Sounds like you have your hands quite full, but have plans and friends in place  I'll try to resist coming and stealing Amber when your not looking


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Never ever going to mind, that what this thread is here for. We all understand  I'm really sorry you had disappointing walk you and Tiger seemed to be making progress before. Have a good vent have a cry whatever you need to get it all out hun.
> 
> I really wouldn't right off class just yet. You could ask if it's ok if you arrive a few minutes late and arrange to have the spot nearest the door left clear for you and Tiger. So all the other dogs are focused and working when you go in and you are in a place you can easily take Tiger out if he needs a break. A lot can happen in 6 weeks. (((hugs)))


I absolutely agree with this. Tigerneko, don't despair; the lead being more difficult to use and a disappointment probably wrong footed you and Tiger - if he wasn't happy wearing it then he was out of his comfort zone to start. We have all had horrendous walks and you CAN make progress again with Tiger. Tomorrow is another day xx.

Well done Broder - gold star!

Welcome Zoojie; look forward to seeing progress - this thread shows everyone's ups and downs .


----------



## Shrap

Well we popped along to training class today as no Schutzhund. Did a lot of heelwork which Dino was really good with. Still to work on eye contact and brush up a little on turns but for the most part he was excellent.

He had a go on the A frame for the first time, he's never seen it before and was great. He even retrieved over it for me 

All in all a good day 

Chin up to everyone having one of "those" days. 

Tigerneko maybe you can practice with the lead in the garden to get to grips with it? There wasn't much you could have done in the situation you were in and to keep him under control is all you can do. Maybe you can get one of the red leads that says "warning" or something on it? Or if you don't mind looking stupid you could get a T shirt that says "My dog is dog aggressive, please help by giving me enough time to cross the road!"


----------



## Dogless

Went to the park today (before the rain set in again ) which was busy and Kilo was as good as yesterday - think it is one of those 'lightbulb' moments where you realise that something is no longer such a issue and your work is paying off . Touch wood .

We met his husky friend and I let him off to play in the bit where dogs are allowed off which was nice (the husky is walked offlead anyway...I know!). I haven't seen the woman to chat to for ages as she often walks with the woman with the lab who always makes a beeline for us to attack Kilo, but she was on her own today. I talked to her about the lab and how distressing and potentially damaging it is to have him behaving like this - she said it isn't just Kilo; apparently he dislikes lots of dogs and behaves in that manner towards them .

I also met a woman who goes way out of her way to avoid us, but talks to everyone else - and I have been told it is because she's scared of Kilo. She was on the other side of the fence to us and we said morning to each other, she was really nice and asked if Kilo was vicious; I replied that he was fine and she said that she normaly avoided us as she had owned a lab that would attack any dog he came across and Kilo looked like him. He behaved nicely, so hopefully she feels slightly better about us now too .


----------



## kat&molly

Kilo is really being all growed up now isn't he  Lovely that you were able to put the other womans fears to rest as well- we dont always get the chance!!

LLW wasn't too bad today, I was 'quite' pleased. I still haven't got Scruff used to the headcollar[I'm not using it on walks yet] though. OK indoors and on the front path but no further-at this rate I'll end up with a dog too fat to pull!!!
I also have an issue walking Moll the first 20-30 metres from the door where she lunges- then gets better at a certain point. Trainer said I have to dedicate a whole afternoon to sorting it- bringing her back in when she tries. Tomorrow afternoon has been left free to do it.

Nice to see some newbies on this thread as well


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Kilo is really being all growed up now isn't he  Lovely that you were able to put the other womans fears to rest as well- we dont always get the chance!!
> 
> LLW wasn't too bad today, I was 'quite' pleased. I still haven't got Scruff used to the headcollar[I'm not using it on walks yet] though. OK indoors and on the front path but no further-at this rate I'll end up with a dog too fat to pull!!!
> I also have an issue walking Moll the first 20-30 metres from the door where she lunges- then gets better at a certain point. Trainer said I have to dedicate a whole afternoon to sorting it- bringing her back in when she tries. Tomorrow afternoon has been left free to do it.
> 
> Nice to see some newbies on this thread as well


Don't envy you tomorrow afternoon - I once spent a looooong time going up our front path where Kilo would start to jump about and tug on his lead, returning to the house, door shut, lead off. Pause. Lead back on, up the path etc etc. It only took that one evening, but I was :incazzato::incazzato:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Don't envy you tomorrow afternoon - I once spent a looooong time going up our front path where Kilo would start to jump about and tug on his lead, returning to the house, door shut, lead off. Pause. Lead back on, up the path etc etc. It only took that one evening, but I was :incazzato::incazzato:.


I'm not looking forward to it- but its good to know you sorted it.
Big Evie said I can have a cup of tea when I'm fed up and need a break :laugh:


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Blimey! what AREN'T we working on!!

the usual 'puppy' stuff with Paddy,recall, not eating everything, not to jump up etc

the 2 things I need advice with are 1) when Paddy see something he wants to investigate on lead and won't walk on, he just drops to the ground and will not move often facing the wrong way. I tempt him along with treats but we are going thru so many treats, what else can I do?

2) Pepper keeps growling at some strange dogs/people when we're out. She didn't do this as a lone dogs, and there is no pattern I can see but it's not helpful when Paddy copies.

Any Advice?
:crazy:


----------



## moonviolet

Feeling a bit exhausted today. why oh why oh why when my dog is on a feck off bright red lead would you let your GSD run 100 yards to us closesly followed by your large lab cross. Tink peed before tucking her tail and looking thoroughly miserable. " CATO CATO CATO... HE'S ALL RIGHT" well, good for bl**dy Cato. 

I'm making happy noises and sounding like a frigging kids TV presenter vomiting rainbows trying to convince Tink that being invasiively bothered at both ends is a wonderful thing. I did at least manage to say she was scared because she'd been previously attacked by a GSD at which point they said " Come along Cato " and did Cato come along ... did he feck.

When eventually their dogs left us alone. Tink had a big shake and did a little zoomie then carried on like nothing happened. So proud of her and so glad I gave her some valerian drops this morning (always do on sunny days). Later on we bumped into Oscar the lovely, but total nutjob cockapoo and they had a lovely game of chase until he got a little overexcited and wanted a hump bless him. So I guess it was good but unnecessarily challenging.


Hi hahgiwoofa welcome to the thread.

i'd be tempted to take Paddy out on his own and just stand there and wait and wait and wait until Paddy worked it out, the moment he got up and faced the right way tons of praise and a treat. If your patience aren't up for that a positive interesting noise like a toy squeaker just soemthing to get his attention.

It's hard to say without knowing what is triggering Pepper. Are you tensing at all? maybe make a note of the times she growls time of day, description of the dog , pricked ears, hairy, black etc etc and if it's a person, man women hat glasses drunk etc etc
It might make spotting something easier.


----------



## Dogless

MV - your walk sounds fairly horrendous BUT - Miss Tink seems to have had a quick recovery and to be doing far better than not too long ago which must be a positive. I can fully understand why you are so annoyed as these things can really set you back....but it sounds as if it didn't, which is testament to all your lurking and training . 

We didn't see anyone else out in the big storm this afternoon funnily enough :crazy:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> MV - your walk sounds fairly horrendous BUT - Miss Tink seems to have had a quick recovery and to be doing far better than not too long ago which must be a positive. I can fully understand why you are so annoyed as these things can really set you back....but it sounds as if it didn't, which is testament to all your lurking and training .
> 
> We didn't see anyone else out in the big storm this afternoon funnily enough :crazy:.


It really is hugely positive, not really the way i want to test her progress, call me a control freak, never mind seems no harm was done.

I'm not very surprised you didnt' see anyone else ... nutter !


----------



## Zoojie

So had a fairly good walk this morning, just avoided all and sundry as Loki was a little hypo-puppy-mode today and his tolerance levels had lowered so people couldn't get as close!Lots of walking through long grass and avoiding paths.

Lunchbreak did not go well though. Something I'm struggling to teach is to not react at cars which is 100x worse near our house. So obviously postman had to turn up! Took ages for Loki to calm down - I stood and waited till his attention was on me as there was no way I'd have had any effect on him doing anything else, was just too close. Took about 10 mins for him to stop yelping and actually pay attention. I'm getting very good at staying calm 

On the bright side, Amber is going to be totally bombproof as I can call her back and get her attention while Loki freaks out, and is starting to just auto focus me when he gets set off! Which is great for her recall/beagle focus 

Hope Tink is ok! Trust me I know how you feel about those situations!


----------



## Dogless

Zoojie said:


> So had a fairly good walk this morning, just avoided all and sundry as Loki was a little hypo-puppy-mode today and his tolerance levels had lowered so people couldn't get as close!Lots of walking through long grass and avoiding paths.
> 
> Lunchbreak did not go well though. Something I'm struggling to teach is to not react at cars which is 100x worse near our house. So obviously postman had to turn up! Took ages for Loki to calm down - I stood and waited till his attention was on me as there was no way I'd have had any effect on him doing anything else, was just too close. Took about 10 mins for him to stop yelping and actually pay attention. I'm getting very good at staying calm
> 
> On the bright side, Amber is going to be totally bombproof as I can call her back and get her attention while Loki freaks out, and is starting to just auto focus me when he gets set off! Which is great for her recall/beagle focus
> 
> Hope Tink is ok! Trust me I know how you feel about those situations!


Sounds as if you got there in the end though.....staying calm really does help doesn't it? .


----------



## Zoojie

Dogless said:


> Sounds as if you got there in the end though.....staying calm really does help doesn't it? .


Hah, yeah it does. Just wish Loki knew that! It doesn't help that we don't get many cars down our road, so can't really put specific time aside to sit and train at the side of the road. Hmm...

Still, practice and all that!


----------



## Dogless

Well, I am loathe to say it in case we take a step back ...but Kilo's grown up behaviour continued this morning . Nice calm walk to the fields, passed a collie and woman that we know that he sometimes decides he wants to try and meet and I have to distract him to get him past nicely.....but he looked at them and walked calmly past; the woman and I had a nice chat and she said well done .

Then we played, walked and did some recalls, waits and stays on the fields and our friends came on with their dog for 20 minutes or so which was nice. Kilo greeted her with a play bow and then she played with her frisbee and he played with his ball on a rope - they ran around a bit together but she is never particularly interested when her frisbee is in the picture!

So...great so far and we'll be off to the park later...hubby is on nights tonight so may be able to come which would be nice (very rare!) .


----------



## Dogless

Zoojie said:


> Hah, yeah it does. Just wish Loki knew that! It doesn't help that we don't get many cars down our road, so can't really put specific time aside to sit and train at the side of the road. Hmm...
> 
> Still, practice and all that!


Could you go somewhere like the supermarket car park and train around loads of cars maybe? I used to go to Morrison's quite a lot for socialisation - people of all shapes and sizes, trolleys, buggies, folk on crutches, cars etc etc.


----------



## Sarah1983

It seems that Spencer has well and truly hit the Kevin stage now  All the training I've done with him has gone out the window. His recall is non existent, his loose leash walking...well if I keep reminding him he can do it but with an air of eye rolling and "oh for gods sake!" and I cease to exist in favour of absolutely anything and everything while out now. I don't think there's much I can do except keep on being consistent and keeping up the training is there?

Well done to Tink for not getting too upset about being mobbed by two strange dogs and to Kilo for apparently growing up!


----------



## Zoojie

Dogless said:


> Could you go somewhere like the supermarket car park and train around loads of cars maybe? I used to go to Morrison's quite a lot for socialisation - people of all shapes and sizes, trolleys, buggies, folk on crutches, cars etc etc.


Strange thing is he's fine, loose lead walks around carparks, pavements with heavy traffic etc. just country roads with little traffic (like ours) and he goes mental. Makes it very awkward to train lol!

I'm hoping one say he will be able to play nicely with other dogs like Kilo


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It seems that Spencer has well and truly hit the Kevin stage now  All the training I've done with him has gone out the window. His recall is non existent, his loose leash walking...well if I keep reminding him he can do it but with an air of eye rolling and "oh for gods sake!" and I cease to exist in favour of absolutely anything and everything while out now. I don't think there's much I can do except keep on being consistent and keeping up the training is there?
> 
> Well done to Tink for not getting too upset about being mobbed by two strange dogs and to Kilo for apparently growing up!


Maybe . We'll see.......probably won't be long until he has a new 'thing' although I hope not!

Sorry to hear that the dreaded Kevins have arrived :incazzato: I can't think of anything that you can do that you aren't already doing - hope that they don't last long and your patience holds out .


----------



## Dogless

Zoojie said:


> Strange thing is he's fine, loose lead walks around carparks, pavements with heavy traffic etc. just country roads with little traffic (like ours) and he goes mental. Makes it very awkward to train lol!
> 
> I'm hoping one say he will be able to play nicely with other dogs like Kilo


Ah I see - much trickier - like Kilo being very alert if a person without a dog appears when we are in the middle of nowhere whereas he ignores everyone where it is busier and he expects people to appear.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sorry to hear that the dreaded Kevins have arrived :incazzato: I can't think of anything that you can do that you aren't already doing - hope that they don't last long and your patience holds out .


I just keep telling myself he can't possibly be as bad as Shadow was. But yeah, I hope this phase passes quickly and I soon have a nice, well mannered, obedient dog. Well...I can dream lol. I'm just trying to be as patient and consistent as I can. Lots of practice with lots of different rewards as well as making sure he gets time to just be a dog.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I just keep telling myself he can't possibly be as bad as Shadow was. But yeah, I hope this phase passes quickly and I soon have a nice, well mannered, obedient dog. Well...I can dream lol. I'm just trying to be as patient and consistent as I can. Lots of practice with lots of different rewards as well as making sure he gets time to just be a dog.


Sometimes it's hard isn't it when they are being 'Kevin' to remain patient with the training? It is often so tempting to take them somewhere where they can 'just be a dog' a bit too often...but I have to remind myself that I actually want a trained dog too not just an eternal adolescent . I try and let Kilo just muck about once a day as far as possible and dedicate the other walk to training - although I make that as fun as possible too!!

Not sure why I'm rambling on at you; you know far more than I do anyway about these things  .


----------



## kat&molly

MV- sounds ghastly for you and Tink yesterday- but your training is paying off isn't it- you'll never be able to stop these numpty's. You cope much better than I would do.

Well done to Kilo, he's a proper star lately.:001_wub:
I secretly want to send you one of theserrr: but it would show me up for being so childish and jealous at your progress , well done. Zoojie, I have that problem with one of mine, odd cars, people, anything really, I'm making big progress now by distracting her with treats and staying calm[not always easy] Its taken a long while to get to this stage though.

I've just done mytraining and coming back indoors withMoll, made harder for her because OH took the other girls out first- it took 20 minutes to get where I wanted without pulling I was really pleased. The big test is now, I'm going to try with OH and the other girls


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> MV- sounds ghastly for you and Tink yesterday- but your training is paying off isn't it- you'll never be able to stop these numpty's. You cope much better than I would do.
> 
> Well done to Kilo, he's a proper star lately.:001_wub:
> I secretly want to send you one of theserrr: but it would show me up for being so childish and jealous at your progress , well done. Zoojie, I have that problem with one of mine, odd cars, people, anything really, I'm making big progress now by distracting her with treats and staying calm[not always easy] Its taken a long while to get to this stage though.
> 
> I've just done mytraining and coming back indoors withMoll, made harder for her because OH took the other girls out first- it took 20 minutes to get where I wanted without pulling I was really pleased. The big test is now, I'm going to try with OH and the other girls


Don't worry...I am sure he's giving me a break before coming up with something else we need to work on . I hope not, but.....don't want to tempt fate .

Well done with Moll today, Big Evie will be proud . Good luck for 'the big test' with OH and the others .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Don't worry...I am sure he's giving me a break before coming up with something else we need to work on . I hope not, but.....don't want to tempt fate .
> 
> Well done with Moll today, Big Evie will be proud . Good luck for 'the big test' with OH and the others .


I think he's thrown most things at you now. and he's come out the other side.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I think he's thrown most things at you now. and he's come out the other side.


He has . I think in the main it's down to my incompetence that some of them have become 'issues' when someone better would have spotted signs and stopped things before they started . Hopefully I'll be better for the new pup .


----------



## moonviolet

Well apparently i wasn't the only one who found my performance yesterday vomit inducing... in a delayed reaction Tink woke me up at 3 this morning so i could watch her bring up all those rainbows and unicorns  Spent the rest of the night on the sofa keeping an eye on her. By 9.30 am was she well rested, total completely back to her usual self, me not some much 

Well done, everyone for those seeing results and those keeping their heads in the face of challenges.

And for everyone who like me has cringed at the saying " There are no bad dogs just bad owners" have a read of this and take heart. 
Just bad owners…?

I lost count of the times i've been asked " she's very timid,is she a rescue?" and got dirty looks when i say no, made me feel about an inch tall.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well apparently i wasn't the only one who found my performance yesterday vomit inducing... in a delayed reaction Tink woke me up at 3 this morning so i could watch her bring up all those rainbows and unicorns  Spent the rest of the night on the sofa keeping an eye on her. By 9.30 am was she well rested, total completely back to her usual self, me not some much
> 
> Well done, everyone for those seeing results and those keeping their heads in the face of challenges.
> 
> And for everyone who like me has cringed at the saying " There are no bad dogs just bad owners" have a read of this and take heart.
> Just bad owners…?


Pleased to hear that Miss Tink is OK....and hope that you get a good night's sleep tonight . I have been asked if Kilo is a rescue before now when he ducks from the reach of strangers who believe that grabbing a dog's head is a polite introduction and have always felt like a real failure as their own dog pesters me for fuss, which is what they see as 'normal'. I realise now that it is normal for their dog, but not mine!

ETA; what a great article - real food for thought and a comfort to bungling idiots like me!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sometimes it's hard isn't it when they are being 'Kevin' to remain patient with the training? It is often so tempting to take them somewhere where they can 'just be a dog' a bit too often...but I have to remind myself that I actually want a trained dog too not just an eternal adolescent . I try and let Kilo just muck about once a day as far as possible and dedicate the other walk to training - although I make that as fun as possible too!!
> 
> Not sure why I'm rambling on at you; you know far more than I do anyway about these things  .


Ha, I doubt that Dogless, my last definite adolescent was when I was an adolescent myself! I just remember all the tears when he'd "run off" and the frustration of him never doing anything I wanted and blatantly ignoring me. He turned out alright in the end though.

It is really difficult to remain patient sometimes and there are times when I could cheerfully tie him to a tree and walk off lol. I will bloody work through this though. Just made some liver cake and we're going to go out in a bit and work on some loose leash walking and recall.


----------



## kat&molly

Great link MV- I'm thinking of getting a large sandwich board made now with the words'Its not my fault' written on.

As I feared this big test with the other girls there didn't go well.OH didn't come[I left him cooking]
It took 8 turn around and come backs to pass the 'naughty' section- then it must have taken another 40 minutes of coming back to get past a patch of grass without Molly lungingI felt really guilty as Scruff and Evie never put a foot wroung in that time- but they had to keep coming back with me. I dont see how else I can do it???? I just keep coming back to the same problem of when they're all together.
We did eventually manage a half decent walk after all the tooing and froing but :incazzato::incazzato:
This is for Molly--rrr:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Great link MV- I'm thinking of getting a large sandwich board made now with the words'Its not my fault' written on.
> 
> As I feared this big test with the other girls there didn't go well.OH didn't come[I left him cooking]
> It took 8 turn around and come backs to pass the 'naughty' section- then it must have taken another 40 minutes of coming back to get past a patch of grass without Molly lungingI felt really guilty as Scruff and Evie never put a foot wroung in that time- but they had to keep coming back with me. I dont see how else I can do it???? I just keep coming back to the same problem of when they're all together.
> We did eventually manage a half decent walk after all the tooing and froing but :incazzato::incazzato:
> This is for Molly--rrr:


Oh Molly :incazzato::incazzato:. I'm sure she'll get it in a few more sessions :yesnod:. Pour yourself a nice glass of wine...you deserve it today :sosp: .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Oh Molly :incazzato::incazzato:. I'm sure she'll get it in a few more sessions :yesnod:. Pour yourself a nice glass of wine...you deserve it today :sosp: .


I've already got one- I needed it!!
Do you think its unfair to keep doing the same thing and putting Scruff and Evie through it as well? I feel a bit guilty.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I've already got one- I needed it!!
> Do you think its unfair to keep doing the same thing and putting Scruff and Evie through it as well? I feel a bit guilty.


Not so much unfair, but I would worry that they might associate leaving nicely with being taken back in and start to offer other behaviours, or get frustrated and confused as to what you want from them. Very difficult one as you obviously need to walk them all. Any chance that you and hubby can do more together maybe so you can practise leaving all together but just bring Moll back for pulling?


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry this is shameless. nothign to report tonight, easy walk didn't see a soul (the England game started while i was out :lol: ) had the world to myself. 

What i did want to say was 1 month without the evil weed woohooo


----------



## Tigerneko

Just a quick update as i'm very tired 

We have enrolled in a training class at the training club I was talking about! I mentioned the fact that I was very nervous and anxious and she said it'll be fine. The only problem is, the course doesn't start for another 2 weeks and on the evening it starts, i've got a talk and tour of the police station (and no i'm not in trouble  i'm applying to become a Special!) so I can't take him myself, but i've FINALLY managed to get my parents on board with his training (after some very harsh words and a reality check - I felt like I was the parent lol!) so my mum has kindly offered to take him along for the first night for me, but I will see - I am expecting an excuse, but I do hope she proves me wrong 

I hope everyone is getting on okay, i've been a busy bee today so haven't had time to stop and read!


----------



## Guest

Lots of training going on here at the moment!!!

I'm having a pretty intense time with Kenzie and Tala. It's sort of a last ditch effort while looking into behaviourists. I like to think there's still hope for the two of them because Kenzie will completely ignore Tala as long as I'm offering food, and I can also get Kenzie to 'leave' Tala when outside (on a lead) provided there's about a metre to get around her. Tala is completely uninterested in Kenzie but my usually-fiesty cat just won't tell Kenzie off  What I'm really struggling with is how to progress from being calm when food is offered, to being calm when food isn't offered. But still, if she will ignore Tala for food that's a good sign, don't you think?

Also working on leave/recall to stop scavenging as mentioned in another thread over in training. She was really good coming away from orange peels at the park this morning. Would love some ideas for good 'leave games'


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Not so much unfair, but I would worry that they might associate leaving nicely with being taken back in and start to offer other behaviours, or get frustrated and confused as to what you want from them. Very difficult one as you obviously need to walk them all. Any chance that you and hubby can do more together maybe so you can practise leaving all together but just bring Moll back for pulling?


Thats what I'm worried about, Scruff kept looking at me , she couldn't understand what was going on- and she is always good on this stretch. I'll see if OH is able to help today- if not the trainer comes tomorrow.

Tigerneko- great that you've got your parents on board- perhaps they will realise things need sorting before the pup comes.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Sorry this is shameless. nothign to report tonight, easy walk didn't see a soul (the England game started while i was out :lol: ) had the world to myself.
> 
> What i did want to say was 1 month without the evil weed woohooo


A big WELL DONE to you- I know how big a whole month is.
:thumbup1::thumbup1:


----------



## kat&molly

McKenzie said:


> Lots of training going on here at the moment!!!
> 
> I'm having a pretty intense time with Kenzie and Tala. It's sort of a last ditch effort while looking into behaviourists. I like to think there's still hope for the two of them because Kenzie will completely ignore Tala as long as I'm offering food, and I can also get Kenzie to 'leave' Tala when outside (on a lead) provided there's about a metre to get around her. Tala is completely uninterested in Kenzie but my usually-fiesty cat just won't tell Kenzie off  What I'm really struggling with is how to progress from being calm when food is offered, to being calm when food isn't offered. But still, if she will ignore Tala for food that's a good sign, don't you think?
> 
> Also working on leave/recall to stop scavenging as mentioned in another thread over in training. She was really good coming away from orange peels at the park this morning. Would love some ideas for good 'leave games'


Its great that you're looking for a behaviourist. Sometimes it needs 'Fresh' eyes to see things- its certainly helping me.I really hope you get it sorted


----------



## moonviolet

McKenzie said:


> Lots of training going on here at the moment!!!
> 
> Also working on leave/recall to stop scavenging as mentioned in another thread over in training. She was really good coming away from orange peels at the park this morning. Would love some ideas for good 'leave games'


I don't know if you have seen this?
"It&#39;s Yer Choice" - YouTube


----------



## Guest

kat&molly said:


> Its great that you're looking for a behaviourist. Sometimes it needs 'Fresh' eyes to see things- its certainly helping me.I really hope you get it sorted


Yes, I feel the progress has plateaued and I'm just not sure where to from here. I've contacted two, although they both sort of said it's a difficult problem and they're not sure how much they can help. One offered to come and meet us and see the extent of the problem and not charge anything if they didn't think there was much they could do, and the other said they've had some clients who could overcome it and some who couldn't. So I'm still a bit stuck with what to do.



moonviolet said:


> I don't know if you have seen this?
> "It's Yer Choice" - YouTube


Thanks! That's really helpful, I will definitely try some of those ideas


----------



## L/C

Feeling a bit smug as we had a really good walk this morning.

First we saw a cat (that walked down the pavement straight towards us not a care in the world ). I told them to leave and crossed the road which they did beautifully. Some staring and a bit of dancing about from Gypsy but no barking or rearing up on her hind legs and no frustrated mouthing from Ely.

Then when we got to the field we did some clicking and treating for calm behaviour while he watched the other dogs running around and gradually decreased the distance. For the first time he ages he was actually able to go up and mix in the group (on lead) without lunging at any that were playing because he's over stimulated. 

Yay!


----------



## kat&molly

Sounds great L/C.

I've done 5 walks today
OH was working so I couldn't ask him to help. To be honest I'm not sure if I could have coped with him tagging behind me with Scruff on a tight lead. Annoying really as he would help but he wouldn't do things how I ask him to and that would wind me up.
So I done 3walks with just Moll and kept turning round and coming back when she pulled/lunged. She catches on quick but has a bit of aproblem controlling herself, It was harder with them all together but better than yesterday, It still feels like I've got a long slog ahead.
I may ask Evie tomorrow if we can leave the gun dog stuff and work on this.
A different neighbour commented today that they were doing better though so that was nice.
Hope everyone's had a good day.


----------



## Leanne77

I've just started working on a 'take cover' command which means I basically want the dogs behind me so that if there is an approaching dog which I think might spell trouble, I can get the dogs behind me so I can deal with it.

Trouble is they keep wanting to go into the heel position but they are slowly getting to understand.


----------



## smokeybear

Have you tried putting a treat bag behind you to dispense food from there when they do it?

Or you can do the same thing with a ball dropper.

Alternatively get them to target your bum!  

You can do this by asking them to nose touch a patch you can then velcro to your trousers (one on each cheek) and then gradually cut the patches smaller.

Just a thought..............


----------



## Dogless

Well done Moll....gold star if the neighbours have noticed .

We haven't done much; a walk where we didn't meet a soul this morning and a nice one this afternoon where Kilo walked very nicely on the lead, passing dogs without fuss and we met a lovely whippet who had been in his new home since last night and then one of Kilo's two Vizsla friends....so I let him off to play for a while even though I had intended it to be a quick lead walk. Big softie that I am .


----------



## Leanne77

smokeybear said:


> Have you tried putting a treat bag behind you to dispense food from there when they do it?
> 
> Or you can do the same thing with a ball dropper.
> 
> Alternatively get them to target your bum!
> 
> You can do this by asking them to nose touch a patch you can then velcro to your trousers (one on each cheek) and then gradually cut the patches smaller.
> 
> Just a thought..............


Not tried putting the whole treat bag behind me, but I do lure them behind me with a treat, say the command and then click. The treat bag idea is a good one though, never thought of that.

They are going behind me quicker and are losing the desire to go into the heel position but I still have to lure them yet.

Just out of interest SB, I have a question. Normally when a dog approaches and I think Flynn might get arsey, I sit him, face him, have a treat/toy and try and block the other dog. This isnt working so I was wondering if the fact that i'm facing Flynn rather than the approaching dog is where i'm going wrong


----------



## Zoojie

So, I have got me and Loki booked in for a 1-1 with a different trainer. They're really nice, I went to agility with them before and cancelled but couldn't get hold of them to tell them why. 
Contacted them again a couple of weeks ago, and with some issues in communication, finally spoke to them today  explained the situation, and they said to bring him back for a 1-to-1 with one of the trainers to see if there's any classes we can take him to and methods to practice. 

Amber will be starting agility tomorrow night in Loki's old booked place with these trainers- fortunately I have a lot of the basics already down with her - 'touch' and following my hand, 'around' to go around the poles/fence/tree or whatever (and using tangle-prone longlines, this comes in handy!), 'jump' though I don't use this one much, she tends to bounce anyway so just put a command to it and she knows it quite well, just being careful with puppy bones. She has fairly good recall and a heel - but these depend on treats and distractions! Was practising them all today and she's still fairly good.

Will let you all know how i get on tomorrow!!

Today was a good walk though. This evening went over to dog park, and managed to get two very nice sits and waits from my two very well behaved dogs  the people walking past didn't have dogs, which kind of cements my thoughts that Loki only barks at people near the house (which will be harder to fix) and other dogs anywhere. 
Before this, stood in the carpark for a while watching cars come and go, and he quickly calmed down. Same at home, watched a horserider in the paddock by the house until Loki was calm. 

So all in all, a very good day for progress with my two lovable pups :001_wub: and some more hope in me for Loki to improve in his reactions to things everywhere!


----------



## smokeybear

Leanne77 said:


> Not tried putting the whole treat bag behind me, but I do lure them behind me with a treat, say the command and then click. The treat bag idea is a good one though, never thought of that.
> 
> *Well if they know the bag is there and they get fed from there there is no reason to elsewhere. *
> 
> They are going behind me quicker and are losing the desire to go into the heel position but I still have to lure them yet.
> 
> Just out of interest SB, I have a question. Normally when a dog approaches and I think Flynn might get arsey, I sit him, face him, have a treat/toy and try and block the other dog. This isnt working so I was wondering if the fact that i'm facing Flynn rather than the approaching dog is where i'm going wrong


Have you considered giving a "let's go" command and then running backwards with Flynng coming towards you so you can keep an eye on the approaching dog?

Or have I got it wrong.

Are you saying currently that you face your dog whilst approaching dog is behind you so to speak?


----------



## toffee44

Apparantly 6am is not a suitable walking time in Dylan and Busters books. Need to work on getting them up in the morning. I had to put leads on while on their beds this morning!! Normally they go out later in the day. Didnt know dogs could tell the time.


----------



## Sarah1983

We're currently working on lying down with head on paws/floor. Started shaping it last night, tonight he's been offering it. Also working on closing the door but that's not going too well, he wants to interact with everything BUT the door. I tried taping a piece of paper on as a target but he just wanted to shred it lol. He might be an a**hole on walks at the moment but I'm having a blast with him at home.

Leanne, with Rupert I always had him behind me with my back to him and I faced the approaching dog. Found I could see it off much more effectively that way and Rupert also seemed more comfortable with that than me facing him. Not that he was particularly comfortable with either but every little helped.


----------



## theevos5

We haven't been around much as Alfs recall has been fine and secondly I have been really poorly again so his walks have been shared around the family,so it's a good job he is behaving himselfHopefully I will be well enough to take him out tomorrow
Have been following everyones progress though and it's lovely to read all the positive posts and progress our pupsters are making


----------



## sharloid

The walk tonight went well. No rearing up at all and every time he got to the end of the lead he came back to the side of me (heavily influenced by treats I must say!). Still, it makes me happy that I'm seeing an improvement so soon.


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> We haven't been around much as Alfs recall has been fine and secondly I have been really poorly again so his walks have been shared around the family,so it's a good job he is behaving himselfHopefully I will be well enough to take him out tomorrow
> Have been following everyones progress though and it's lovely to read all the positive posts and progress our pupsters are making


I liked the 'Alf being a star' aspect of your post, not the fact that you are ill. Hope that you are on the road to feeling better again xx.


----------



## moonviolet

Blooming brilliant day, 2 great walks, one of which with the gorgeous Monty. Tink was happy, brave and well-ish behaved she did roll in some horse poo but stopped when asked. Lovely class great focus even with some new and very bouncy dogs in class. Plus I got to drool over an RR pup.



theevos5 said:


> We haven't been around much as Alfs recall has been fine and secondly I have been really poorly again so his walks have been shared around the family,so it's a good job he is behaving himselfHopefully I will be well enough to take him out tomorrow
> Have been following everyones progress though and it's lovely to read all the positive posts and progress our pupsters are making


Liked because gorgeous is behaving himself not becaus eyou have been unwell  Hope you are well enough to enjoy a walk together tomorrow.


----------



## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> Blooming brilliant day, 2 great walks, one of which with the gorgeous Monty. Tink was happy, brave and well-ish behaved she did roll in some horse poo but stopped when asked. Lovely class great focus even with some new and very bouncy dogs in class. Plus I got to drool over an RR pup.
> 
> Liked because gorgeous is behaving himself not becaus eyou have been unwell  Hope you are well enough to enjoy a walk together tomorrow.





Dogless said:


> I liked the 'Alf being a star' aspect of your post, not the fact that you are ill. Hope that you are on the road to feeling better again xx.


Thanks guys,Alf has been especially cuddly,he knows I am not so good and has behaved impeccably.Fingers crossed for a walk with him tomorrow,at the moment I am findingit is hard enough trying to walk tiny distances


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 - hope you are well enough for a walk today xx.


----------



## Leanne77

smokeybear said:


> Have you considered giving a "let's go" command and then running backwards with Flynng coming towards you so you can keep an eye on the approaching dog?
> 
> Or have I got it wrong.
> 
> Are you saying currently that you face your dog whilst approaching dog is behind you so to speak?


Yes, that is correct which, thinking about it, perhaps hasnt been a good idea as I cannot see where the dog is! Think I may have answered my own question!


----------



## Dogless

Leanne77 said:


> Yes, that is correct which, thinking about it, perhaps hasnt been a good idea as I cannot see where the dog is! Think I may have answered my own question!


I'm glad you posted this as I have been working on similar and facing the same way as you.


----------



## Dogless

Not done much in the way of training today. Did some heelwork and otherwise just LLW to the fields and some recall training, but mostly play and then same back again. We were out for an hour and a half or so but didn't see anyone / anything because the weather is rotten! I'm not taxing Sir Kilo's brain today as I want him to save his focus for school tonight .


----------



## smokeybear

Leanne77 said:


> Yes, that is correct which, thinking about it, perhaps hasnt been a good idea as I cannot see where the dog is! Think I may have answered my own question!


There are pros and cons to each approach.

If you put yourself between the two dogs it means potentially then can still eyeball and you have no control over an unseen dog.

If you ask the dog to come to you, you can keep your dog's focus on you AND see what the dog is doing. However

for some dogs, especially in close proximity, they would look over their shoulder at the approaching dog.

So do what suits you and your dogs best.


----------



## kat&molly

Feel a bit disappointed , didn't seem like we done much today, learnt a new game to help Moll with her [lack of] impulse control and enjoyeda nice walk- but nothing else really.
Evos 5 hope you're feeling better.

Have a good evening at School Dogless.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Feel a bit disappointed , didn't seem like we done much today, learnt a new game to help Moll with her [lack of] impulse control and enjoyeda nice walk- but nothing else really.
> Evos 5 hope you're feeling better.
> 
> Have a good evening at School Dogless.


Thanks . Was Big Evie impressed with Moll's progress though? .


----------



## theevos5

Thanks Dogless and Kat and Molly,I am feeling great today pain level 1
so myself and Alfred had a lovely walk,he was so well behaved,I think at 1 point he was considering going,as he was hanging behind and also looking backwards,but that was soon solved by me carrying on walking forwards and throwing livercake in front and telling him to go find!Taking him further away from what he was focusing on!
He had a play with a boxer puppy,about 8months,he is all legsand he loves playing with Alf and his owner said that after they played on Monday the puppy was flat out all afternoon(remember the feeling well of wanting a tired pup)and he also saw a couple of his doggie mates,as the weather was pretty miserable so not many people around.He also did some ball retrieves and generally burnt off lots of energy,hence the tired,smelly,wet dog,all cuddled up:thumbup:

Good luck tonight Dogless,hope the BW is as usual a superstar!
Kat and Molly,sorry you feel disappointed today,but just think it is all steps in the right direction and better to be disappointed by what you didn't do rather than something that the dogs did do!!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Thanks . Was Big Evie impressed with Moll's progress though? .


Yes she did notice- so that was good.
Our new game involves places thetennis ball [with a handle] a short distance away and we have to walk calmly up and let her take it- every time she pulls I turn around and walk further away and start again. Its really difficult for Moll at the moment , she tries so hard but cant help herself it takes 2 or 3 go's . So its something really good to be working on.

I think I'd like to join the classes now amongst other dogs, so all my attention is on Moll and I'm not having to watch the others as well. Big Evie seems to think the LLW is a case of time and consistency and it will come. I know we've improved and I dont always realise it because its still a constant stop/start.


----------



## kat&molly

theevos5 said:


> Thanks Dogless and Kat and Molly,I am feeling great today pain level 1
> so myself and Alfred had a lovely walk,he was so well behaved,I think at 1 point he was considering going,as he was hanging behind and also looking backwards,but that was soon solved by me carrying on walking forwards and throwing livercake in front and telling him to go find!Taking him further away from what he was focusing on!
> He had a play with a boxer puppy,about 8months,he is all legsand he loves playing with Alf and his owner said that after they played on Monday the puppy was flat out all afternoon(remember the feeling well of wanting a tired pup)and he also saw a couple of his doggie mates,as the weather was pretty miserable so not many people around.He also did some ball retrieves and generally burnt off lots of energy,hence the tired,smelly,wet dog,all cuddled up:thumbup:


Glad you're feeling better. That sounds a great walk.


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 - so glad that you are feeling much better and Alf was on gold star form :thumbup:.



kat&molly said:


> Yes she did notice- so that was good.
> Our new game involves places thetennis ball [with a handle] a short distance away and we have to walk calmly up and let her take it- every time she pulls I turn around and walk further away and start again.


I may try that game; have seen it recommended before but only done it once as I am always trying to improve Kilo's impulse control, it's much, much better but every little helps (so Tesco would have you believe anyway...) . I am pleased that Evie can see your work paying off - do you have good group classes near to you now that you are feeling ready?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> theevos5 - so glad that you are feeling much better and Alf was on gold star form :thumbup:.
> 
> I may try that game; have seen it recommended before but only done it once as I am always trying to improve Kilo's impulse control, it's much, much better but every little helps (so Tesco would have you believe anyway...) . I am pleased that Evie can see your work paying off - do you have good group classes near to you now that you are feeling ready?


Evie runs her own  I fancy doing some obedience I think for now, still want to do some gun dog stuff but we may need to brush up on some things.
Thing is as much as I love all my girls and wouldn't be without them , I am missing some 'Moll and me ' time- she'd love it I know.
She said the game is based on some little kids getting 1 sweet and being told if they want they can eat it but if they wait they can have 2. Some of them pick up the sweet and sniff it and lick it and try really hard to resist.:lol:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Evie runs her own  I fancy doing some obedience I think for now, still want to do some gun dog stuff but we may need to brush up on some things.
> Thing is as much as I love all my girls and wouldn't be without them , I am missing some 'Moll and me ' time- she'd love it I know.
> She said the game is based on some little kids getting 1 sweet and being told if they want they can eat it but if they wait they can have 2. Some of them pick up the sweet and sniff it and lick it and try really hard to resist.:lol:


I think you'd love sharing some Moll and me time in classes.

Evos5 i'm glad you felt well enough to go out with Alfie today and well done lad 

Good luck for tonight Dogless and BW

I was a bit to tired to explain why yesterday was so brilliant. On walk with Monty our path crossed the lady who walks her 8 dogs. She was walking with her friend who has 2 dogs. With shoulder high bracken visibility is limited so when 2 dogs came up our path we didn't click who it was as we got to the crossroads we saw the other 8 dogs. One of whom is Murphy the very calm GSD. Tink stood beside Monty and waited for inspection, her body language was calm and the group were incredibly good at no time did more than 2 dogs approach so there was no outnumbering, Once all sniffs were carried out we all went on our way.

The lady with the 8 was very impressed as not so long ago I was waving to her as i lurked in the trees  We also bumped into Winston, Steve, Sophie and more,

Today we met up with Ellie, Tinks big pointy dog friend. much zoomies! so I have one sleepy pooch.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet, Tink seems to have come so far it's unbelievable - and fantastic to hear :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> moonviolet, Tink seems to have come so far it's unbelievable - and fantastic to hear :thumbup:.


TO be fair i dont' think she would have been so brave without Monty there. It's also a lot to do with the nature of the approach. The dogs were all sort of stationary in the crossroads of the paths just mooching, while the 2 that came to greet us were recalled. So there was no charging just nice slow sauntering hellos. no excitement or tension. Had all 10 dogs been charging toward us things would not have been so pretty.


----------



## kat&molly

That sounds brilliant- well done Miss Tink.
Hats off to you Moonviolet for all that hard work.:thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## theevos5

fab times,for you and Tink,it is testament to all your hard work and gentle introductions that has helped Tink gain her confidence again.She is a very lucky girl to have such a wonderful (if slightly mad!!)owner.How did she enjoy her homemade treats last week?Just baked some more livercake for Alf as it is really working with his recall,did you ever post the recipes for your treats or are they a guarded secret


----------



## moonviolet

Thanks Dogless and K&M



theevos5 said:


> fab times,for you and Tink,it is testament to all your hard work and gentle introductions that has helped Tink gain her confidence again.She is a very lucky girl to have such a wonderful (if slightly mad!!)owner.How did she enjoy her homemade treats last week?Just baked some more livercake for Alf as it is really working with his recall,did you ever post the recipes for your treats or are they a guarded secret


:blushing: Aww too kind. She's just such a joyful open hearted dog, she has given me far more than i can ever give her.

I posted a few recipes, but you must bear in mind that I once(accidently) gave Tink a bit of pocket fluff instead of a treat and she didn't seem to mind, discerning she is not. 

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/241519-home-made-treats-biscuits.html#post1062064906


----------



## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> Thanks Dogless and K&M
> 
> :blushing: Aww too kind. She's just such a joyful open hearted dog, she has given me far more than i can ever give her.
> 
> I posted a few recipes, *but you must bear in mind that I once(accidently) gave Tink a bit of pocket fluff instead of a treat and she didn't seem to mind, discerning she is not. *
> 
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/241519-home-made-treats-biscuits.html#post1062064906


This rings truemust be a beagle thing!I once gave Alf the lid off a pen and I only noticed because it was blue,as he was quite happily chewing on it
Thanks for the recipes,off to have a look:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

School was OK; not a gold star evening - Kilo did everything I asked of him when I asked him to do it, so certainly not awful, but it was much harder work tonight. A bitch weed on the floor at the start of class and then another bitch ran around doing an excitement wee which really stank so Kilo spent a bit of time with his teeth chattering and drooling trying to get to smell the floor; he hasn't had his nose on the floor since we started going there . It wasn't on the floor much at all really but I had to work on keeping his focus really hard, and we didn't quite have that 'connection' between us tonight.

Hopefully next week he'll be back to gold star form :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> School was OK; not a gold star evening - Kilo did everything I asked of him when I asked him to do it, so certainly not awful, but it was much harder work tonight. A bitch weed on the floor at the start of class and then another bitch ran around doing an excitement wee which really stank so Kilo spent a bit of time with his teeth chattering and drooling trying to get to smell the floor; he hasn't had his nose on the floor since we started going there . It wasn't on the floor much at all really but I had to work on keeping his focus really hard, and we didn't quite have that 'connection' between us tonight.
> 
> Hopefully next week he'll be back to gold star form :thumbup:.


He did have some challenges there and you managed to get him to work in the face of them so gold star for you


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> School was OK; not a gold star evening - Kilo did everything I asked of him when I asked him to do it, so certainly not awful, but it was much harder work tonight. A bitch weed on the floor at the start of class and then another bitch ran around doing an excitement wee which really stank so Kilo spent a bit of time with his teeth chattering and drooling trying to get to smell the floor; he hasn't had his nose on the floor since we started going there . It wasn't on the floor much at all really but I had to work on keeping his focus really hard, and we didn't quite have that 'connection' between us tonight.
> 
> Hopefully next week he'll be back to gold star form :thumbup:.


Shame, must have been hard for him to concentrate- at least he still worked well
I bet a few months ago it would have been much harder???


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> He did have some challenges there and you managed to get him to work in the face of them so gold star for you


Very kind, but not tonight....I'll take bronze though :thumbup:.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> School was OK; not a gold star evening - Kilo did everything I asked of him when I asked him to do it, so certainly not awful, but it was much harder work tonight. A bitch weed on the floor at the start of class and then another bitch ran around doing an excitement wee which really stank so Kilo spent a bit of time with his teeth chattering and drooling trying to get to smell the floor; he hasn't had his nose on the floor since we started going there . It wasn't on the floor much at all really but I had to work on keeping his focus really hard, and we didn't quite have that 'connection' between us tonight.
> 
> Hopefully next week he'll be back to gold star form :thumbup:.


Aw it sounds like you both did really well in quite a challeging situation. I'd struggle to distract ely from that and he's 5 with no plums!

So well done to you and Kilo.


----------



## theevos5

I too,think that you both did well,with such a massive distraction,Kilo because he managed to give you some focus in what must be a really testing situation,and yourself,because you didn't say that you hated it,you are talking about next weeks lesson,so thats a positive!!If you look at how far you have come and how he would have been a couple of months ago,you have both done brilliantly!

a star is a star no matter what colour whereas it could have been the naughty step!


----------



## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> I too,think that you both did well,with such a massive distraction,Kilo because he managed to give you some focus in what must be a really testing situation,and yourself,because you didn't say that you hated it,you are talking about next weeks lesson,so thats a positive!!If you look at how far you have come and how he would have reacted a couple of months ago,you have both done brilliantly!
> 
> a star is a star no matter what colour whereas it could have been the naughty step!


No; I didn't hate it - the one woman who assists the trainer made a point of saying "See you next week" . I just need to make sure I go in a positive frame of mind next week so that we pick it up again!


----------



## Zoojie

Firstly - well done Dogless for staying positive even with the hardest of distractions  

I'm a very proud Beagle mum today! First ever time Amber has tried agility (though I practice the basic skills at home, she doesn't know the equipment) and she was doing FANTASTIC through the weaves, through the tunnel, and getting position over the bridge thing 

All of this was around distractions she's never seen before - a large amount of dogs in a new place - and her focus was on me (with the exception of a few nice smells on the floor), her waits while I move to the equipment were fantastic and she did all of it off lead, with 100% recall!! Even when another dog started chasing her, she came straight back :001_tt1:

Considering she barely knew 'sit' when we got her 2 months ago, I call this a HUGE success and she's had a lot of cuddles. She's asleep curled up on OH's backpack now. 

Hopefully going to keep this up!!


----------



## Dogless

Zoojie, that sounds fantastic :thumbup:.


----------



## Shrap

Taught Dino to shut the door just there. He picked it up immediately. Must have been really in the mood. He's now off searching for treats. I put him in a sit wait and when I told him to go find it he ran to the common spot he finds one in lol. Now he's looking everywhere for the others.

With shutting the door I haven't told him the command yet and will need to get him to do it without me next to the door. Will do some of that later or tomorrow 

Haven't done any heelwork really, fancied a break. Doing some retrieve work and he's managing to hold the item while sitting in front of me now, so need to build on that


----------



## Shrap

Zoojie said:


> Firstly - well done Dogless for staying positive even with the hardest of distractions
> 
> I'm a very proud Beagle mum today! First ever time Amber has tried agility (though I practice the basic skills at home, she doesn't know the equipment) and she was doing FANTASTIC through the weaves, through the tunnel, and getting position over the bridge thing
> 
> All of this was around distractions she's never seen before - a large amount of dogs in a new place - and her focus was on me (with the exception of a few nice smells on the floor), her waits while I move to the equipment were fantastic and she did all of it off lead, with 100% recall!! Even when another dog started chasing her, she came straight back :001_tt1:
> 
> Considering she barely knew 'sit' when we got her 2 months ago, I call this a HUGE success and she's had a lot of cuddles. She's asleep curled up on OH's backpack now.
> 
> Hopefully going to keep this up!!


Sounds absolutely fantastic. She's a real credit to you!


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Zoojie and they say beagles are untrainable  sounds like Amber is a natural. 

Shrap, Dino sounds like a proper bright boy  shutting the door is goign to be a handy skill and I love the clever cheeky boy running to the spot you often hide a treat.


----------



## Shrap

Thanks  I dunno how many times I sit down to watch a movie and then mum starts hoovering.... I'll be able to tell Dino to shut the door lol


----------



## Tigerneko

Well, tonight was a bit different! I asked my dad to come on the walk with me and actually walk Tiger, because I wanted to see if he reacted any differently towards other dogs with my dad handling him (who will keep calm) rather than scaredy nervous anxious little me  and guess what!!!!!!!!





















we didn't come across a single other dog  :mad2: but to be fair, it was after 9pm, it was raining and the football was on, so nobody in their right mind was out except me  so I am going to try the same again tomorrow and hope we come across some dogs! I think it was the first time i'd EVER walked Tiger and was praying for another dog to come along  i'm usually praying for them all to beggar off :lol:

As much as I wanted my dad to walk with us this time, I didn't enjoy him being on the walk at all  I wanted to do our normal route, but because it was raining, football was on and he is a lazy git, he wouldn't do my route and we ended up doing a really crappy short route, all because he couldn't be ar$ed and wanted to get home. He didn't have a clue how to handle Tiger, he was allowing him to pull ahead on his headcollar (despite me telling my dad every 5 seconds not to let him do it and to keep him walking by his side) and when I told my dad to ask Tiger to sit at the kirb before we crossed, he asked him once and because Tiger didn't respond immediately, he pushed his bum down as though he was a puppy  again just because he couldn't be ar$ed to be patient - so I gave him a severe telling off, made him walk back and bl**dy well do it again, properly  he was also completely perplexed by the idea that I had brought treats out with me.

I do not know how this man expects to train a puppy :nonod: I can see this being left down to me as well


----------



## Guest

I've been doing quite a bit of 'informal' training with Kenzie over the past few days. I've got a container of treats at my computer desk where I usually am, and have been doing lots of random recalls, dropping treats and asking her to leave etc.

I've also been doing lots clicking and treating when the cat is around and Kenzie focuses on me instead of her. I'm in no doubt that the work I've been doing IS working, it's just very, very, very slow progress! 

Some things I've noticed recently are that when the cat comes to greet us when Kenzie and I come home after a walk, Kenzie will look at the cat but then turn around and look at me for her treat, even if I don't tell her at that point to leave. Today Kenzie was looking at the cat and looking at me and only lunged at Tala once when we were very close to Tala and there was no whining at all. Previously she'd be whining and lunging from the second I got her out of the car. She also doesn't make a mad dash for the door every time it is opened to try to get to Tala like she used to. All little things but I need to cling to the little things! Still looking for a behaviourist.


----------



## kat&molly

McKenzie said:


> I've been doing quite a bit of 'informal' training with Kenzie over the past few days. I've got a container of treats at my computer desk where I usually am, and have been doing lots of random recalls, dropping treats and asking her to leave etc.
> 
> I've also been doing lots clicking and treating when the cat is around and Kenzie focuses on me instead of her. I'm in no doubt that the work I've been doing IS working, it's just very, very, very slow progress!
> 
> Some things I've noticed recently are that when the cat comes to greet us when Kenzie and I come home after a walk, Kenzie will look at the cat but then turn around and look at me for her treat, even if I don't tell her at that point to leave. Today Kenzie was looking at the cat and looking at me and only lunged at Tala once when we were very close to Tala and there was no whining at all. Previously she'd be whining and lunging from the second I got her out of the car. She also doesn't make a mad dash for the door every time it is opened to try to get to Tala like she used to. All little things but I need to cling to the little things! Still looking for a behaviourist.


That sounds like progress :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko; best of luck training your Dad .

McKenzie - sounds like real progress with Tala - sure you'll get there :thumbup:. I couldn't even begin to imagine getting Kilo OK around a cat .


----------



## Guest

I just spoke to my mum about getting a behaviourist in for Kenzie and Tala. Her opinion (not that she knows anything about dogs) is that Kenzie's made huge progress in the past 6 months and it's just going to take more time, and there's no need for a behaviourist. Part of me really wants to agree with that, but the other part of me feels guilty that I'm not doing everything I can for both their sakes


----------



## kat&molly

McKenzie said:


> I just spoke to my mum about getting a behaviourist in for Kenzie and Tala. Her opinion (not that she knows anything about dogs) is that Kenzie's made huge progress in the past 6 months and it's just going to take more time, and there's no need for a behaviourist. Part of me really wants to agree with that, but the other part of me feels guilty that I'm not doing everything I can for both their sakes


Were it me I'd have wanted it sorted by now but It does sound like you're getting somewhere. Perhaps review it in another couple of months and if you haven't moved forward get help then.


----------



## Zoojie

moonviolet said:


> Well done Zoojie and they say beagles are untrainable  sounds like Amber is a natural.
> 
> Shrap, Dino sounds like a proper bright boy  shutting the door is goign to be a handy skill and I love the clever cheeky boy running to the spot you often hide a treat.


Haha, unfortunately though the stereotype that they never shut up seems to be true  she was 'woowooooooo'ing a lot! We can work on that though


----------



## moonviolet

Zoojie said:


> Haha, unfortunately though the stereotype that they never shut up seems to be true  she was 'woowooooooo'ing a lot! We can work on that though


I think i must have a defective one. Tink is pretty quiet


----------



## L/C

McKenzie said:


> I just spoke to my mum about getting a behaviourist in for Kenzie and Tala. Her opinion (not that she knows anything about dogs) is that Kenzie's made huge progress in the past 6 months and it's just going to take more time, and there's no need for a behaviourist. Part of me really wants to agree with that, but the other part of me feels guilty that I'm not doing everything I can for both their sakes


It sounds like she is making progress - realistically do you think there is anything else that a behaviourist could tell you to do or show you what to do? Or would it boost your confidence to have someone tell you that you're doing the right thing and help you carry on? I think it sounds like the two of you are doing great. :thumbup:


----------



## Guest

L/C said:


> It sounds like she is making progress - realistically do you think there is anything else that a behaviourist could tell you to do or show you what to do? Or would it boost your confidence to have someone tell you that you're doing the right thing and help you carry on? I think it sounds like the two of you are doing great. :thumbup:


I must admit this was one of my concerns - I do know a little bit about training (thanks to this forum!) and am pretty sure I'm on the right track. The worry is that a behaviourist might not have any 'magic answers' other than what I'm already doing. I do feel a bit stuck right now as I'm not sure how to get her from wonderful behaviour when Tala is fairly still and I have treats, to getting her to ignore/leave the cat when I don't have treats and to stop her wanting to chase when Tala moves. The other thing that worries me is that both behaviourists I emailed said sometimes there's not much they can do - what if this is as good as it gets for Kenzie and Tala? 

Sorry, real moan session!


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## kat&molly

A little vid of Kenzie being calm with treats and a bit where she acts up. The clever peeps[not me] on here may see something you miss- and save you some money.


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## Shrap

McKenzie said:


> I must admit this was one of my concerns - I do know a little bit about training (thanks to this forum!) and am pretty sure I'm on the right track. The worry is that a behaviourist might not have any 'magic answers' other than what I'm already doing. I do feel a bit stuck right now as I'm not sure how to get her from wonderful behaviour when Tala is fairly still and I have treats, to getting her to ignore/leave the cat when I don't have treats and to stop her wanting to chase when Tala moves. The other thing that worries me is that both behaviourists I emailed said sometimes there's not much they can do - what if this is as good as it gets for Kenzie and Tala?
> 
> Sorry, real moan session!


Is she always on a house line? Do you have anywhere you can use for a time out when she tries to chase? If chasing is quite ingrained some negative consequences may help, nothing harsh, just to make it more of a distinction between incorrect and correct behaviour. 
Chasing is a strong instinct and if nothing else happens when she does this other than it doesn't work, well, she's a terrier, she'll just keep trying!

If I chase - 1. It doesn't work
- 2. I get secluded from mum+fun.

If I'm calm - Treats and praise! Yay!

Obviously it sounds simple in principle and in reality it's slightly different but you can adjust it and it sounds like you're making a lot of progress. It took a while for Dino and Pablo to get on like they do now, and that was with Dino growing up as a pup with him.

As long as both of them are happy and they have safe places to relax I wouldn't bother with a behaviourist. There isn't much else they can tell you to do.


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## Dogless

I don't normally post about our runs as we go to a forest and just run - rarely see anyone and not much to report! This morning the weather is really atrocious and I decided that, instead of a walk I'd brave an hour's running in the park with all the distractions about . I used just his collar and lead instead of our Cani-X kit as he runs naturally to heel anyway and I'd feel a prat in the park with the kit on, plus the line is too long and the harness doesn't offer close enough control; the hard bit with his harness was getting him out in front and pulling, bizarrely enough :scared:.

We only saw a couple of workmen and a couple of people walking and then two people walking their dogs; both dogs ran over to us so I stopped as the first one (pom) is prone to chasing us nipping when we are walking anyway so I didn't want to add to his excitement and the second one was a puppy who wanted to jump about. All in all it was a nice change and I might run in the park more often as it's better underfoot when the weather is this bad .

I was musing as I was running and was thinking that no wonder it is hard to get many dogs walking to heel as our walking pace is just not natural to them. My decent running pace is a nice, steady trot for Kilo (doesn't even pant - just looks at me like _seriously? is this all you've got _) which is the pace he also goes at by choice when offlead on a longish walk.


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## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> I think i must have a defective one. Tink is pretty quiet





Zoojie said:


> Haha, unfortunately though the stereotype that they never shut up seems to be true  she was 'woowooooooo'ing a lot! We can work on that though


Alf is noisy!But only in certain situations,he is a noisy when he plays.he is noisy when he is desperate to get off lead,he is noisy if he sees horses(ask Cravensmum),but he isn't noisy in the house,or garden everI just need to find the off switch and take the batteries out


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## moonviolet

theevos5 said:


> Alf is noisy!But only in certain situations,he is a noisy when he plays.he is noisy when he is desperate to get off lead,he is noisy if he sees horses(ask Cravensmum),but he isn't noisy in the house,or garden everI just need to find the off switch and take the batteries out


Tink will bark at if people are being too noisy in the lane, but stops when asked. will give it her version of an arooorooo when she gets out of the car at any of her training venues other than that she's pretty chilled. She even lies down and politely waits for me to put my boots in before putting her collar and lead on for a walk (mum even asking does she even want to go for a walk) ... Sometimes I think I've overdone the relaxation stuff but she was a nutter pup and I'm not sure I could have handled a full sized giddy girl who couldn't focus or listen.


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## Zoojie

theevos5 said:


> Alf is noisy!But only in certain situations,he is a noisy when he plays.he is noisy when he is desperate to get off lead,he is noisy if he sees horses(ask Cravensmum),but he isn't noisy in the house,or garden everI just need to find the off switch and take the batteries out


Oh yeah it's just over excitement or frustration, not random at all and I know a lot of agility dogs who just don't stop barking as they go round 

In the house it's just exciting things - we are working on the calmness but she's only little and she's made amazing progress in the time she's been with us 

Looking forward to some focus training walks seperately this weekend - gives Amber a chance to meet new dogs calmly, and Loki to work on his reactivity. 
May do a town walk with Amber if it's nice out - she needs to meet people and not jump up!


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## Shrap

I can't believe how differently I'm going to be training my next pup. With Dino he's SO calm and it took so much work to get him like that as he was the terror of the litter. He does have great drive when I want him to but I still feel I flattened him a bit too much. I focused too much on calm and not enough on bringing out his prey drives when he was younger.

My next one is going to be certified insane. The only work I will do will be focus work and constant play. So that she's crazy but focused on me. Heelwork will be the first thing I do this time...

Don't even have a puppy on the cards yet but already planning our training routines lol.


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## kat&molly

*creeps in quietly and whispers*
That yesterday afternoon, this morning and just now has definatly seen a bit of improvement in the LLW.Still a lot of stop/start and get them back in to position but gosh I think the penny is finally dropping :thumbup::thumbup: I've been getting between 10 and 20 steps of nice walking in between. Doesn't sound a lot but it is for us.
As for Evie I'm trying to convince her that gamboling down the street whilst on a short lead is not allowed- she's mostly got it but does like to try it on sometimes


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> *creeps in quietly and whispers*
> That yesterday afternoon, this morning and just now has definatly seen a bit of improvement in the LLW.Still a lot of stop/start and get them back in to position but gosh I think the penny is finally dropping :thumbup::thumbup: I've been getting between 10 and 20 steps of nice walking in between. Doesn't sound a lot but it is for us.
> As for Evie I'm trying to convince her that gamboling down the street whilst on a short lead is not allowed- she's mostly got it but does like to try it on sometimes


Does a quiet little happy dance and a few silent whoops! Don't want to jinx anything.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> *creeps in quietly and whispers*
> That yesterday afternoon, this morning and just now has definatly seen a bit of improvement in the LLW.Still a lot of stop/start and get them back in to position but gosh I think the penny is finally dropping :thumbup::thumbup: I've been getting between 10 and 20 steps of nice walking in between. Doesn't sound a lot but it is for us.
> As for Evie I'm trying to convince her that gamboling down the street whilst on a short lead is not allowed- she's mostly got it but does like to try it on sometimes


I'll whisper a very muted well done too...touch wood that they have 'got it'. Well done .


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## kat&molly

Thanks, its such a relief to be moving forwards at last after being stuck for so long- we seemed to get to our off lead part really quick.
Am a bit worried about our nextwalk just in case.


Zoojie- well done with Amber, she sounds like she's doing brilliantly.


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## sharloid

Tonight's class mainly went well. He walked to heel really well and we kept his attention. He's also pretty good at staying. The bad part was when we were practicing recall. The OH went to the other side of the hall and called him over. Broder ran in his general direction but ran straight past him and proceeded to bite his lead and rag it and wouldn't let go. This happens often if we ever try to run or he gets over excited. 

At the end of the class all the other people were staying to practice off lead recall together but the trainer said Broder's not ready so we left. I know she's right and he would of just ran around crazily after the other dogs but it still upset me. 

It seems some people don't bother trying with their dogs and they're really well behaved whereas I'm trying really hard and I've got a badly behaved dog. I wonder what I'm doing wrong!!


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## Dogless

sharloid said:


> Tonight's class mainly went well. He walked to heel really well and we kept his attention. He's also pretty good at staying. The bad part was when we were practicing recall. The OH went to the other side of the hall and called him over. Broder ran in his general direction but ran straight past him and proceeded to bite his lead and rag it and wouldn't let go. This happens often if we ever try to run or he gets over excited.
> 
> At the end of the class all the other people were staying to practice off lead recall together but the trainer said Broder's not ready so we left. I know she's right and he would of just ran around crazily after the other dogs but it still upset me.
> 
> *It seems some people don't bother trying with their dogs and they're really well behaved whereas I'm trying really hard and I've got a badly behaved dog*. I wonder what I'm doing wrong!!


I think we all feel like that at times; I sometimes ask people how they got their dog to ignore others, LLW etc etc and they look at me with puzzlement and say that they didn't - the dog has always just done that :mad2:.

Kilo also used to tug his lead and jump up and even bite at my arms if he got very frustrated and excited which used to hurt. When we were out and he did it, I found eventually that attaching the lead to a lamp post / tree etc and walking far enough away for him not to reach me worked a treat within about 3 or 4 walks. If he started as I walked back I would back off again. I used to just head for a lamp post / tree and he would stop and has never done it again. I also used to stand on his lead so that he couldn't reach me and waited for him to calm enough to listen and ask for a few basic obedience exercises like 'sit', 'down', 'touch'.

To stop it getting to that stage I would look for his triggers and get his attention before he got over stimulated. He still (and always has done) goes batshit in classes when everyone recalls - until this week, when the trainer gave me a hand and for the first time he watched not exactly calmly but quietly and without jumping around!! His recall is good in class; but all the noise and running gets him really hyped up.


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## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> Tonight's class mainly went well. He walked to heel really well and we kept his attention. He's also pretty good at staying. The bad part was when we were practicing recall. The OH went to the other side of the hall and called him over. Broder ran in his general direction but ran straight past him and proceeded to bite his lead and rag it and wouldn't let go. This happens often if we ever try to run or he gets over excited.
> 
> At the end of the class all the other people were staying to practice off lead recall together but the trainer said Broder's not ready so we left. I know she's right and he would of just ran around crazily after the other dogs but it still upset me.
> 
> It seems some people don't bother trying with their dogs and they're really well behaved whereas I'm trying really hard and I've got a badly behaved dog. I wonder what I'm doing wrong!!


Don't get upset, at least your trainer is sensible enough to realise he isn't ready and not set him up for failure by trying to get him doing it  As for the last part, I often wonder the same! All these people who do no training and have wonderfully well behaved dogs. And then there's me with my hooligan who I'm sure people think has never had a moments training in his life :mad2:


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## Tigerneko

Evening all 

had a very quiet walk tonight! Unfortunately (or maybe not lol) my dad is working tonight so obviously he couldn't come on the walk - and I don't think he would anyway, the rain is bouncing down and it's been non stop since this morning!

That worked fine for me though, I put my new waterproof pants to the test :thumbup: and put Tiger's hi-vis coat on, and out we went! We went along our normal road route (where we usually come across quite a few on-lead dogs) and didn't see anyone else! The only people we did see were people running from their cars to their houses :lol:

I felt really good towards the end of our walk, I was so badly soaked through that my waterproof coat no longer felt waterpoof (although the pants were great LOL), Tiger was dripping wet and I had to walk with my head down and my hood pulled right over my face to stop my face and eyes getting drenched. I looked up for a few seconds to see a bloke in a car, we sort of made eye contact as I walked past and he gave us a lovely warm, sympathetic smile  it's silly but I was really touched by it, the amount of people who just ran past us as quick as they could, and the amount of cars that purposely tried to drive through puddles and soak us, it was lovely to see someone showing some hint of friendliness 

so, a very uneventful, wet and miserable walk.... but I actually really enjoyed it! I just wish my hood would stay up :lol:


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## SophieCyde

Hello ,
Got some quite positive news from over here :thumbup:
Not sure if I mentioned on here before but we've been working on desensitizing (not sure if thats spelt right haha) murphy to the rain , he's always been awful in rain and its hard enough getting him out in the garden with a bit of drizzle neverm ind going for a walk , anyway he's a bit of a nightmare without walks (very vocal and hyped up) so we didn't really want him missing them due to the weather.

Anyway we've been doing things like taking him to new,exciting places when its raining to take his mind off it and even carrying him away from the house and letting him walk back 

Today we went out in pouring rain and he was great , we just went down the local park but it was completely empty due to the weather so I let him off lead as well , he did some mad zoomies but his recall was really good so all in all a good day  On the way home he even walked through the puddles :scared::scared: which is unheard of for my little diva dog  I was walking along with a big proud smile on my face , probably looked like a complete weirdo wandering around in the pouring rain grinning like a maniac


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## Guest

I thought today I'd get some video of Kenzie when Tala is around. In typical Kenzie fashion she was a star as soon as I turned on the camera  So here's a video of Kenzie being really good! Basically she gets clicked and treated whenever she looks at me. There's a period in the middle when she spends a while staring at Tala, but she doesn't move, doesn't whine and her body is fairly relaxed so that's good. For the whole of the video Tala is just out of the shot.

I'm going to try to get some video of her being bad tomorrow! And then I'll start a thread to get some opinions on her behaviour and what else I could try.

[youtube_browser]m9hRMiKGtlo[/youtube_browser]


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## kat&molly

Kenzie's quite calm there:thumbup: are you able to distract her when she gets fixated?


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## Shrap

I would divert her attention else where when she starts fixating. Even throwing something noisy across the other side of the room so she has to break eye contact.


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## Tigerneko

Shrap said:


> I would divert her attention else where when she starts fixating. Even throwing something noisy across the other side of the room so she has to break eye contact.


I agree with this, maybe it's just the way I see it but I would not allow her to fixate at all. In my terrier experience, if you give them an inch they take a mile, so it'd be absolute zero tolerance for me, but then again Tiger, is very stubborn and very ridiculously strong willed, so if I want to get anywhere with Tiger, I have to adopt the zero tolerance policy every time 

She is doing very well though - at no point does she lunge or pull forward or strain on the lead. She's obviously relaxed and not tempted by her too much. You are making amazing progress  well done!

I'm thinking of going up to the field today with Tiger and hope for some off lead time, it's not raining any more (at the moment) but it's very windy, and the field is going to be like a bog, so I doubt anyone else will be up there! I shall just don my waterpoof pants again and all will be fine


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## kat&molly

Another good walk again today.:thumbup:

I think my breakthrough has been having Scruff on the same side as Moll- she copies her and gets back in to position ,mostly,if they dont I walk a few steps backwards so that they have to as well. Even when they do pull there isn't the force behind it now.
Just need to keep it up now and cement it really.
I cant believe its taken nearly 3 months of hard slog, its been so frustrating at times , and I dont know how many times I wanted to quit and go back to using the car.
It's thanks to everyone on this thread that I have kept going- but especially Dogless, Moonviolet and Evos5-cheers Girls.:thumbup:

P.s No Gamboling from Evie whilst she was on a short lead either :001_cool:


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## moonviolet

McKenzie you strike me as the sort who likes to set her sights high  
http://canineconfidence.com/2012/02/17/friday-find-cat-vs-dog/
I thought it might make you smile. I agree with the others Kenzie is doing well but i'd definitely distract when she begins to fixate.

Tigernelo hope your magic pants do the trick and you have a wonderful walk in the field this afternoon 

Kat and Molly I am truly in awe of you. I found it hard enough to get one lil beggar to walk nicely on a lead , to have 3 walking well is an incredible acheievement. Glad i could be here in support and frankly awe


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## Zoojie

So, bit of a cruddy start to things today. As soon as we walked out the house a man was walking down the lane and Loki started barking. When he starts barking I just stand and wait for his attention to come back (usually only takes a minute) and treat him when he's calm. No point talking to him or cajoling his attention away as it's already too late.

This bloke walked past shaking his head and then was talking to some horse riders and pointing at us. Obviously saying not nice things, but it's frustrating when I was literally outside my front door and nowhere near him. I know barking looks bad, but I wish I could just tell them I'm working on it! :mad2:

But still, went on to have a really nice walk, had a little off lead time as we were alone in the woods and practised recall. Both did really well. Was out for about 2 hours. Had to all have baths when we got back though, covered in mud - was ankle deep in places!! Saw loads of people but managed to dive into the woods out of the way and Loki didn't react much, came away quite well.

Just got to start saving to move I think, no point until he's better as we'll have the same issues, but when he's improved we can move somewhere were we don't have a bad reputation. It's sad as if given the chance to calm down and greet nicely, he's great. The other day we had a carpet cleaner come round, and Loki had his muzzle on to start with as a little growly, but after about 10 minutes was calm and sitting on the sofa with me, and after half an hour was being fussed and played with! 

Also yesterday evening met a nice lady who had two dogs, one who was also muzzled, and the other was fine (same situation as me!) so we exchanged details and may meet up to practice - matching one good dog with one grumpy one for distraction training 

Ok, cheered myself up a tiny bit reading that back - far more good than bad in the grand scheme of things. Just got to ignore the grumpy wotsits round here.


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> McKenzie you strike me as the sort who likes to set her sights high
> Friday Find: Cat vs Dog
> I thought it might make you smile. I agree with the others Kenzie is doing well but i'd definitely distract when she begins to fixate.
> 
> Tigernelo hope your magic pants do the trick and you have a wonderful walk in the field this afternoon
> 
> Kat and Molly I am truly in awe of you. I found it hard enough to get one lil beggar to walk nicely on a lead , to have 3 walking well is an incredible acheievement. Glad i could be here in support and frankly awe


Awww, thanks MV. I am feeling a ickle bit proud of myself I have to admit.
That cat and dog link is fab-even OH liked it.

Zoojie- I think sometimes we just have to ignore what others think, I know its hard I've had comments myself and its not nice. You'll get there.


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## Phoolf

I'd like to get Kes jogging with me round the park but everytime I try and jog she wants to jump up and bite me. Probably over excited. Any tips on how to get her to run?


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Another good walk again today.:thumbup:
> 
> I think my breakthrough has been having Scruff on the same side as Moll- she copies her and gets back in to position ,mostly,if they dont I walk a few steps backwards so that they have to as well. Even when they do pull there isn't the force behind it now.
> Just need to keep it up now and cement it really.
> I cant believe its taken nearly 3 months of hard slog, its been so frustrating at times , and I dont know how many times I wanted to quit and go back to using the car.
> It's thanks to everyone on this thread that I have kept going- but especially Dogless, Moonviolet and Evos5-cheers Girls.:thumbup:
> 
> P.s No Gamboling from Evie whilst she was on a short lead either :001_cool:


Not much to say apart from....WELL DONE!!! :thumbup: AMAZING!!!!!



Phoolf said:


> I'd like to get Kes jogging with me round the park but everytime I try and jog she wants to jump up and bite me. Probably over excited. *Any tips on how to get her to run*?


I put what worked for me in post 900 - about a page or so back I think. Is she not only 5 months old? (Sorry if I have completely the wrong dog ). If she were mine I'd wait until she was a year old to start running with her and build up gradually so that you don't harm her developing musculoskeletal system.


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## Phoolf

Dogless said:


> Not much to say apart from....WELL DONE!!! :thumbup: AMAZING!!!!!
> 
> I put what worked for me in post 900 - about a page or so back I think. Is she not only 5 months old? (Sorry if I have completely the wrong dog ). If she were mine I'd wait until she was a year old to start running with her and build up gradually so that you don't harm her developing musculoskeletal system.


She is only 5 months but honestly I don't have much stamina, I'd just like to jog for 30seconds-1 minute if needed to get her away from distractions etc. Half the dogs on the dog park we go to don't get on with Kes with her being a puppy so it's useful for us to walk in opposite directions so I'd like her to jog away so she's out of sight and less likely to want to annoy them.


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## Dogless

Phoolf said:


> She is only 5 months but honestly I don't have much stamina, I'd just like to jog for 30seconds-1 minute if needed to get her away from distractions etc. Half the dogs on the dog park we go to don't get on with Kes with her being a puppy so it's useful for us to walk in opposite directions so I'd like her to jog away so she's out of sight and less likely to want to annoy them.


Ah, I see - thought you meant full - on runs with her! Maybe lure her away with a toy / food so she follows your hand if you don't have the time to stop and do what I had to to stop Kilo jumping and biting?


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## Dogless

This morning's walk was nice; went to the fields and met the 9 month old puppy that Kilo loves to play with (a few folk were out today as the rain was more drizzle, less deluge!) and we were out for almost two hours. The BW behaved very well for me :thumbup:.


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## Phoolf

Dogless said:


> Ah, I see - thought you meant full - on runs with her! Maybe lure her away with a toy / food so she follows your hand if you don't have the time to stop and do what I had to to stop Kilo jumping and biting?


To be fair before I got her I couldn't even run to the end of the road, now I can jog for a short time and not be panting, but it will probably take me until she's 1 to be able to run more than a minute anyway.  At the moment I do 'look at me' when there are distractions coming up or going past (bikes, joggers, other dogs etc) and it seems to work really well, it would just be good to teach her how to jog. I mean safety wise if someone nasty was around and we needed to get away quickly she would need to know how to run instead of nipping me every few seconds and slowing me down.

I'll read back on how you managed to work it out. Thanks.


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> This morning's walk was nice; went to the fields and met the 9 month old puppy that Kilo loves to play with (a few folk were out today as the rain was more drizzle, less deluge!) and we were out for almost two hours. The BW behaved very well for me :thumbup:.


Thanks Dogless.
Sounds like Kilo enjoyed himself.
Its really hot here today, which is unusual as we've been having a British summer so far. I keep hearing how bad it is in some places in the UK.


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## DavieB

kat&molly said:


> I managed to get Scuff a head collar today - its not the best fit but doesn't seem to cut in under her eye. It was the smallest size and for Beagle/Cocker but her head is skinnier than those breeds.
> I've tried it indoors for a couple of minutes, twice now. Its a constant stream of treats and Scruff being Scruff thinks its an excuse to jump all over me, think she's a bit worried about what I'm doing to her as well. I've bought some squeezy cream[cant get cheese] and some different meat chunks especially for this. Do I just continue to take it slowly- is there anything else to help. Any ideas please?
> 
> I groomed a Russian Black yesterday, a first for me, dont think I've even seen one before. He was gorgeous, huge and named Dennis
> Like lots of dogs he didn't like his paws touched, and it was quite worrying not to be able to see his face to see how uncomfortable he was with it. He was fine and some treats helped but was really strange. I'll remember to keep some hair clips in the parlour for next time.!!!


I groomed my own Russian black terrier a few weeks ago! Im never doing it again, really need to find a breeder prepared to do a breed standard cut for me. Only reason I shaves him so short was the heat wave we had. Ive decided now though he can stay in or drink plenty the next one I'm not doing this to him ever again. I had one groomer refuse to do him as shes new to the job... How exactly do you go about learning or do some people only want to groom toy breeds I wouldn;t mind her practicing on him. He's under 6 month in this picture.


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## Sarah1983

Just had a great training session out front with Spencer. Nothing really formal, just asking him for sits, downs, recalls, stays and targeting my hand as we had a walk around the block. He can be soooo responsive when he wants to be and even when I send him off to do his own thing he'll come back a minute or two later and offer me a down or jab my hand with his nose to try and get me to engage with him again.

Not taken him for his proper walk yet, hoping he's as good for me then as he was out front but I won't hold my breath lol.


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## kat&molly

DavieB said:


> I groomed my own Russian black terrier a few weeks ago! Im never doing it again, really need to find a breeder prepared to do a breed standard cut for me. Only reason I shaves him so short was the heat wave we had. Ive decided now though he can stay in or drink plenty the next one I'm not doing this to him ever again. I had one groomer refuse to do him as shes new to the job... How exactly do you go about learning or do some people only want to groom toy breeds I wouldn;t mind her practicing on him. He's under 6 month in this picture.


The RB I groomed was in a pretty poor state- so I had to clip him really short-the only bit that wasn't matted was the long fringe The owner has promised to bring him back before he gets bad next time.
If you find a good groomer willing to do yours ask them if you can pay to stay for the day and be taught how to do it yourself? Wish I'd got a pic of Dennis he was lovely, your's looks a handsome lad.


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## hahgiwoofa

anyone have any tips on training 2 dogs?

at the mo I'm separating them and doing one at a time, but would hope eventually to teach them when I'm directing commands at them or the other one - just no idea how to do that yet.....


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## Dogless

Well done Sarah and Spen .

We didn't have that great a day today. Went out for a short walk this morning to the fields, played and then went out for the day to a charity dog walk / fun day. As soon as we got there and out of the car, Kilo was anxious; wouldn't take treats (very unusual!) and was lip licking and just avoiding everything by gluing his nose to the floor - so I took him for a quiet walk round the car park etc to settle. When he was better I took him to register for the walk, which was a marquee in a narrow gap where all people and dogs had to get through to enter the area of the stalls etc he was very anxious again, trying to pull backwards away from the people behind the table - they were leaning over looking at him and making those 'kissy' noises which for some reason he *hates*.

After that I didn't join the crowd waiting for the walk, but stood to one side on some grass to give Kilo some space; he calmed down and I had a nice chat to a lady whilst Kilo and her dog ignored each other. He was OK - ish on the walk but definitely still not totally happy, although greeted all the dogs who zipped across on their flexis etc to greet him nicely. He was also trying to pull ahead which isn't like him, but settled towards the end.

When the walk finished we went into the main area again and I found somewhere to sit away from all the action so that Kilo could just watch the world go by and chill out - which worked and he lay down and properly relaxed. We then went and watched the agility demo and again he relaxed properly.

So; not a great day - I was going to stay and watch the fun dog show but I think Kilo had had enough and I didn't want to stress him anymore. All I can think is that the disco was very, very loud which maybe freaked him out as we've been to loads of these kind of events before, so nothing massively new.

We had one crappy moment getting back from the walk and having to go through the narrow gap by the marquee again as there was a lab being held by a child there whilst a group chatted. The lab was up on his hind legs pulling to greet every dog that went through and Kilo was doing his best avoidance tactics- he managed to get to him so greeted Kilo by putting both his paws and head on Kilo's back and leaving them there whilst he sniffed etc. Kilo did a growl and his huffy noise which means unless this situation changes rapidly I am going to bark. The lab was hastily pulled away and there was a lot of muttering directed at me about having an aggressive dog at an event like this :incazzato:, which is a shame, but never mind .

Well....that turned into an essay . I feel better now :yesnod:.


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## diefenbaker

I know this sounds basic but I'm working on 'paw'. I don't really see it as an important thing but it just gives another thing to do when out and about to get his focus. His two default behaviours are sit and down and obviously once he's gone down there's no chance. Had a good session yesterday tho.. will see what he's remembered today.


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## diefenbaker

Phoolf said:


> She is only 5 months but honestly I don't have much stamina, I'd just like to jog for 30seconds-1 minute if needed to get her away from distractions etc. Half the dogs on the dog park we go to don't get on with Kes with her being a puppy so it's useful for us to walk in opposite directions so I'd like her to jog away so she's out of sight and less likely to want to annoy them.


This is not jogging.. it's enticing.. and it's compulsory to wave your arms in the air and run in a snaking pattern making whooping noises. Upload a video to confirm you are following these instructions.


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## kat&molly

Dogless thats a shame, poor Kilo always seems to cop the blame. I dont know how you keep your temper sometimes but it does sound like he coped very well considering all that.



We've had a good day today, I dont say that very often, but took the girls off to the lovely lake we went to last week- and walked the side where there weren't any fishermen- hidden behind some reeds were 2 fishing rods in the water but I saw them too late and Molly came out wrapped in line  I panicked and untangled her , she'd managed to pull off loads of line. The fishermen were nowhere to be seen , so I couldn't apologise to anyone.
Evie had lots of off-lead and was an angel:yesnod:
Done a walk just quite a long stretch through the village and I counted 22 stops Hope I can get that down this week.


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## WhippetyAmey

Hiya,

Thought it was about time I join in on this 

We are currently trying to work on Merlin walking past dogs nicely, without having to meet every single one. (Mainly through more socialisation at a distance and getting him to focus on us) It is going okay, although he can sometimes spot them sooner than we can, and then it's harder to regain focus. 

Also his recall - which is just an on-going thing. Although after walking the other weekend with PinkEars and Newfiesmum and this weekend with AdMed, I'm beginning to think it's only when we're alone, as soon as he is with another dog he is miles better about not having to see everyone and everything. He comes back every time straight away without distraction and we are working now on, I'll look up, check your okay and then come, to coming immediately without thinking. 
With distractions it is still very much breaking the focus and getting him to remove the deaf-ears!

On the other hand his jumping up is getting miles better, minus a set back on Friday by my sister (ages 38/39) who when he did a little jump (not up, just before he reached her properly) actually grabbing his feet and putting them on him!  She's old enough to know better. The very next person he saw he jumped up at, after not doing it once all day. 

Love reading how every one is getting on - going to have to catch up on people's progress now as haven't read all pages


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless thats a shame, poor Kilo always seems to cop the blame. I dont know how you keep your temper sometimes but it does sound like he coped very well considering all that.
> 
> We've had a good day today, I dont say that very often, but took the girls off to the lovely lake we went to last week- and walked the side where there weren't any fishermen- hidden behind some reeds were 2 fishing rods in the water but I saw them too late and Molly came out wrapped in line  I panicked and untangled her , she'd managed to pull off loads of line. The fishermen were nowhere to be seen , so I couldn't apologise to anyone.
> Evie had lots of off-lead and was an angel:yesnod:
> Done a walk just quite a long stretch through the village and I counted 22 stops Hope I can get that down this week.


Well done kat&molly - your lot are being fantastic! - and welcome Whippety Amey!

I think Kilo cops the blame a lot as he is big. I do go over and over things to see what I have done wrong - today the fact that it was Kilo's nemesis breed and colour probably didn't help and the fact I couldn't get Kilo away before it happened was also my error. To be fair though it was just a grumble, no teeth bared, hackles etc so no big deal to me! We also had a fair few people saying "Is that a Rhodesian Ridgeback?" today and when I said "Yes" the people asking inevitably made a strange ooohh eeerr noise and hurriedly pulled their dogs away - something I haven't encountered since being over here but did get quite a lot where I used to live. It suited me today TBH with Kilo not being happy - he only wanted to sniff and move on or totally ignore!!


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## Phoolf

diefenbaker said:


> This is not jogging.. it's enticing.. and it's compulsory to wave your arms in the air and run in a snaking pattern making whooping noises. Upload a video to confirm you are following these instructions.


:lol: If she was training to be an attack dog that would be perfect.


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## moonviolet

Well done Sarah and Spen i hope he's as good on his walk 

K&M eek about the fishing line Glad you were able to extricate Moll with no harm done. Evie being good offlead  thats great. GOod luck with the 22 stop count down 

Diefenbaker. Paw might be basic but I found it useful when Tink managed to get a tick between her toes earlier this week.

Welcome to the thread Amey  looking forward to hearing how you are progressing with gorgeous young Merlin.

Sorry to hear you didn't have a wonderful time at the fun day. It doesn't sound all bad, but just unnecessarily stressful in parts. I think to avoid the " fancy bringing an aggressive dog " etc etc comment I'm afraid you may need to consider a pre-emptive " Will you kindly get your dog under control." 

Nothing interesting today, but i did mention in another thread that i was going to a retirement home yesterday with a couple of friends and their dogs. Just to do a few tricks and meet the residents.

She's not used to the audience being so close, nor am i and had visions of collisions, but she soon settled and did a few bits very nicely. She settled into the place well and was happy with the attention she got. I took her outside to cool off. She settled nicely when we all had a cup of tea. We've been asked back so thats a good sign


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Sarah and Spen i hope he's as good on his walk
> 
> K&M eek about the fishing line Glad you were able to extricate Moll with no harm done. Evie being good offlead  thats great. GOod luck with the 22 stop count down
> 
> Diefenbaker. Paw might be basic but I found it useful when Tink managed to get a tick between her toes earlier this week.
> 
> Welcome to the thread Amey  looking forward to hearing how you are progressing with gorgeous young Merlin.
> 
> Sorry to hear you didn't have a wonderful time at the fun day. It doesn't sound all bad, but just unnecessarily stressful in parts. I think to avoid the " fancy bringing an aggressive dog " etc etc comment I'm afraid you may need to consider a pre-emptive " Will you kindly get your dog under control."
> 
> Nothing interesting today, but i did mention in another thread that i was going to a retirement home yesterday with a couple of friends and their dogs. Just to do a few tricks and meet the residents.
> 
> She's not used to the audience being so close, nor am i and had visions of collisions, but she soon settled and did a few bits very nicely. She settled into the place well and was happy with the attention she got. I took her outside to cool off. She settled nicely when we all had a cup of tea. We've been asked back so thats a good sign


You are right; I now say it to adults, but it felt harsh for some reason saying it to a child . My fault it happened - but it was only a swift growl and a huff and it was done, so not too bad. Not sure what people expect really when their dog jumps on another one .

I am pleased that Miss Tink's visit to the home went well (thought it would, she is always so good!) and that you have been asked back, she sounds like a real charmer .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You are right; I now say it to adults, but it felt harsh for some reason saying it to a child . My fault it happened - but it was only a swift growl and a huff and it was done, so not too bad. Not sure what people expect really when their dog jumps on another one .
> 
> I am pleased that Miss Tink's visit to the home went well (thought it would, she is always so good!) and that you have been asked back, she sounds like a real charmer .


I guess you could sugar coat it for a child or :devil: suggest they might ask a parent to help them if they can't hold onto their dog properly :devil:

I did take Tinks 'magic mat' with us yesterday. She will opt to go lay on it when she needs a break or wants to chill and she was on a houseline...or she may well have been off sniffing everything


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## Sarah1983

Well, back from Spencers main walk. We went back to the woods where we saw the boar, not been there all week but thought I'd be brave today. Spencer was brilliant! We just hurried through the woods both ways coz he was clearly uncomfortable (and to be honest I was a bit jumpy too!) but once up on the fields he was absolutely fantastic. He spent about 5 minutes just running laps around me on the long line but once he'd gotten that out of his system he wanted to work with me. He also startled another deer but again paid no attention to it as it went bounding off across the field.

The only thing that spoiled the walk was how wet it was. It was pouring with rain and wading through a sea of thigh high grass meant the pair of us came home looking like drowned rats. And now we're home the sun's come out 



Dogless said:


> Not sure what people expect really when their dog jumps on another one .


They expect the other dog to welcome their dog with open arms, after all it's "just saying hi!" (to be read in that hurt and indignant tone of voice they so often use). Sorry you didn't have a great day, hopefully he's just having an off day for some reason.

Kat&Molly, glad you had a good walk except for the fishing line. The stops will get fewer and fewer until one day you hopefully won't have to stop at all.

Moonviolet, sounds like everyone enjoyed themselves at the retirement home 

Amey, we're still having the same problem with Spen, people encourage him to jump up which means he's getting all confused about whether he can jump or not :incazzato:


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## kat&molly

Dogless I hope you're feeling a bit better- its a good job we have this thread some days. Who'd have thought it would be this popular.

Sarah- Sounds like Spencer left Kevin in a cupboard today - I wonder how mine would cope seeing a Deer[touch wood we never have whilst out walking] but I'm sure they'd think it was Christmas.

Well done Miss Tink and Moonviolet- sounds like it went well, it must be a lovely rewarding thing to do bring a smile to the faces of all the old folks.

Welcome Amey and Diefenbaker.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless I hope you're feeling a bit better- its a good job we have this thread some days. Who'd have thought it would be this popular.
> 
> Sarah- Sounds like Spencer left Kevin in a cupboard today - I wonder how mine would cope seeing a Deer[touch wood we never have whilst out walking] but I'm sure they'd think it was Christmas.
> 
> Well done Miss Tink and Moonviolet- sounds like it went well, it must be a lovely rewarding thing to do bring a smile to the faces of all the old folks.
> 
> Welcome Amey and Diefenbaker.


I'm feeling fine; just wish I knew what had got Kilo so stressed! Must have been the music. I'll probably never know .

Well done on your main walk Sarah .


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## kat&molly

Just had an email reply from Big Evie as I'd enquired about joining one of the obedience classes. She has offered me a 1-2-1 doing Scent work, tracking etc- Molly would love that or join the class doing;
Heelwork,recall, retreive,body awareness exercises[]sendaways, positions and distance work.

I cant afford to do both and I dont know which one to do. Should I go with what I think Moll would enjoy more especially being a Springer.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Just had an email reply from Big Evie as I'd enquired about joining one of the obedience classes. She has offered me a 1-2-1 doing Scent work, tracking etc- Molly would love that or join the class doing;
> Heelwork,recall, retreive,body awareness exercises[]sendaways, positions and distance work.
> 
> I cant afford to do both and I dont know which one to do. Should I go with what I think Moll would enjoy more especially being a Springer.


What does Big Evie think would be best for Moll? Or is it entirely up to you?


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## kat&molly

It is up to me but I think she would prefer I do the 1-2-1-, she thinks Mollys really bright and has always singled her out to learn new stuff when she comes here.
Plus I only enquired about doing an OB class and she's thrown this in,so I suppose that tells me really doesn't it?


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> It is up to me but I think she would prefer I do the 1-2-1-, she thinks Mollys really bright and has always singled her out to learn new stuff when she comes here.
> Plus I only enquired about doing an OB class and she's thrown this in,so I suppose that tells me really doesn't it?


Looks like it does - Moll would still be learning control, but just in different, more exciting ways I guess?


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Looks like it does - Moll would still be learning control, but just in different, more exciting ways I guess?


I suppose so and probably better suited to her- Thanks at least thats helped me decide


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## LexiLou2

Need some advice on a situation that arose today, I think I did the right thing but I'm not sure.
Walking our two (we only picked them up from the kennels this morning so the fact we had a good walk is brilliant as normally Bosley is like a coiled spring)

Anyway we ended up down a track walking behind a couple with a staffie walking r-e-a-l-l-y slowly, staffie was on lead but they were taking up the whole path so we dropped back and I did some reward training with Bos for looking at the dog and being calm, anyway 5 mins later they realise we are behind them and go and sit on a wall to let us past, Hubby went past first with Lexi, and their staffie started lunging barking snarling etc, Lexi couldn't care less and walked past, but in these situations Bosley tends to be worse, the people with the staffie are sat going "no, oh come on stop it now" in other words not doing a lot, so I get Bosleys attention and start to walk past, now what I've found with Bos is if he looks at the other dog and starts to get tense, if I ask him to sit it breaks his attention and he'll sit, so normally we will sit 3 or 4 times just walking past a dog as it keeps him calm, but means we go quite slow, so I did that kept asking him to sit, kept him calm and he didn't make a peep at this other dog which was brilliant BUT it took us maybe 30 seconds or so to get past this dog and the longer we were there the more wound up the other dog got, and the owner ended up calling me a stupid bi*ch asking me is I did it on purpose so I just said he was in training, but now I feel bad as her dog got so wound up, but if I had just walked past and not done my sit etc Bos would have ended up barking and lunging and what was a good expereince for him would have been bad, so did I do the right thing by my dog, or should I have just got him out of there for the sake of the other dog, I mean they could have got up and walked the other way, they chose to stay sat there.


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## Sarah1983

I used to just hurry past in that sort of situation. I figured the other dog reacting badly would stress Rupert out even more and it wouldn't be fair to the other dog for me to hang around trying to train and stressing it out even more. It's a tough call really but I think a lot of people would have reacted like the staffies owners to be honest. But if someone had done what you did while I had Rupert I'd have moved away if possible coz it certainly would have caused a reaction with him.


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Just had an email reply from Big Evie as I'd enquired about joining one of the obedience classes. She has offered me a 1-2-1 doing Scent work, tracking etc- Molly would love that or join the class doing;
> Heelwork,recall, retreive,body awareness exercises[]sendaways, positions and distance work.
> 
> I cant afford to do both and I dont know which one to do. Should I go with what I think Moll would enjoy more especially being a Springer.


I think Evie was hinting too  I think you'd both have great fun, it's always been soemthing you have mentioned.

There's no reason you couldn't join an OB class in the future if you were still intrigued.

I'm currently uploading a video of a body awareness exercise. Tinks doing well, OH not so well! He is meant to turn on the spot and Tink is supposed to remain in front of him, pad her front feet on the spot and aim toward crossing her back legs. When he stops she should be directly in front of him, hence the 'adjustments'

It's done here's it is  as I say a work in progess with a bit of handler error


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## LexiLou2

I did think that to be honest that I should have just hurried past, but they weren't doing anything really to stop the dog except a oh be quiet, they didn't have it on a short lead, it was lunging to the full length of the lead and they could have moved if they wanted to, catch 22 i suppose if Bosley had reacted then I guess they would hve probably commented too. Its hard because having a reactive dog myself I would have never a) just sat there b) allowed my dog to act that way unchecked c) commented negatively on someone training, I would have probably just asked if they could hurry up as he is dog reactive.


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## moonviolet

LexiLou2 said:


> BUT it took us maybe 30 seconds or so to get past this dog and the longer we were there the more wound up the other dog got, and the owner ended up calling me a stupid bi*ch asking me is I did it on purpose so I just said he was in training, but now I feel bad as her dog got so wound up, but if I had just walked past and not done my sit etc Bos would have ended up barking and lunging and what was a good expereince for him would have been bad, so did I do the right thing by my dog, or should I have just got him out of there for the sake of the other dog, I mean they could have got up and walked the other way, they chose to stay sat there.


It sounds like you did right by your dog, but it would have made it longer and more stressful fo rthe staffie owners. what were they doing ( if anything) to try distract/manage their dog?

I dont' think you were wrong, I just think the sitting is not ideal.Could you maybe work toward a way of distracting Bos that means he walks past a little faster. hand touches or something to keep things moving along maybe.


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## WhippetyAmey

I've been reading through this all evening (although I'm nowhere near done, because I keep getting distracted by thinking about if I tried some of the methods) but I have to say it's brilliant and it makes me feel like I'm not the only one of PF that has a less than perfect dog! 

I think the main thing is a lot of people have/had problems with their dog wanting to see others, which I really thought was just a Merlin thing from not meeting as many dogs when very young as I'd have liked him to! 

Really nice to know I'm not alone!


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## theevos5

Well,it seems we may have a bit of a problem OH took Alf out today and he saw a staffie that is un neutered around a year old and Alf,went for it

Going back to last weekend,OH said this staffie came over to play with a group of them,where Alf was playing,and I don't know what happened as I was not there but whether the staff spooked him,whether he felt he needed to p-rotect the groupAlf turned round and went for it!OH said the staff was really well behaved didn't fight back,(luckily) and OH got Alf away,apologised and said those fateful words'he hasn't done that before!! I don't know why that happened' the other owner was fantastic and went on his way.But today the same staffie comes over and he did it again OH put him on his lead and apparently he was really making alot of noise,the man tried to introduce his dog to Alf but he was not being very friendly
He plays with staffie bitches and dogs,so it can't be he is frightened of the breed and has not had a bad experience with one,we have not encountered this before and I don't know what to do.He is 3 in September and is neutered.Please help!!


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## LexiLou2

moonviolet said:


> It sounds like you did right by your dog, but it would have made it longer and more stressful fo rthe staffie owners. what were they doing ( if anything) to try distract/manage their dog?
> 
> I dont' think you were wrong, I just think the sitting is not ideal.Could you maybe work toward a way of distracting Bos that means he walks past a little faster. hand touches or something to keep things moving along maybe.


Nothing, they were letting it lunge to the full length of it lead barking snarling etc.

We are working on getting him past faster and for a calm dog that isn't barking he is fine will walk past and look at that, watch me good boy etc and if I can put distance between me and the dog barking or not hes fine but when the dog is barking and its a narrow lane etc his reaction tends to be worse so we have to go back to the sitting, but we don't meet that many reactive dogs and when we do they tend to be doing something to correct their dog and me mine and we avoid each other where as they were sat there doing nothing not correcting, not moving.


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## sharloid

Tonight's walk was good until the end. Not much pulling and didn't rear up. As we were heading back an old lady was fussing him and he started jumping. That was fine, the lady asked him to sit and he did. She told him he was a good boy but didn't pat him or fuss him and walked off. Then Broder started lunging, jumping, scratching and nipping (not at the lady - at my OH). 

I think we're going to have to consider seeing a behaviorist. I know it's been recommended that we tie him to a tree/lamp post but we walk him on a chain lead and I keep forgetting to take the police lead. I'm a bit worried too as it's the police lead that he mostly bites.


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## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> Well,it seems we may have a bit of a problem OH took Alf out today and he saw a staffie that is un neutered around a year old and Alf,went for it
> 
> Going back to last weekend,OH said this staffie came over to play with a group of them,where Alf was playing,and I don't know what happened as I was not there but whether the staff spooked him,whether he felt he needed to p-rotect the groupAlf turned round and went for it!OH said the staff was really well behaved didn't fight back,(luckily) and OH got Alf away,apologised and said those fateful words'he hasn't done that before!! I don't know why that happened' the other owner was fantastic and went on his way.But today the same staffie comes over and he did it again OH put him on his lead and apparently he was really making alot of noise,the man tried to introduce his dog to Alf but he was not being very friendly
> He plays with staffie bitches and dogs,so it can't be he is frightened of the breed and has not had a bad experience with one,we have not encountered this before and I don't know what to do.He is 3 in September and is neutered.Please help!!


It may be the staffie's age and fact that he is entire. Kilo seems to have had a target painted on him from about 14 months or so, although (touch wood!) things seem to be settling a bit now. The same few offlead dogs have flown at him when he has been onlead and not even facing them and when he has been offlead with dogs he knows a few 'new' dogs running over to join in have taken a disliking to him. I am having to manage him very carefully at present in terms of who he plays with and maybe the staffie's owner will have to do the same?

I guess all you can do is avoid this particular dog for the time being?

LexiLou2 - You sound as if you were stuck between a rock and a hard place. I think I would have hurried past, but do see why you did what you did.


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## Dogless

sharloid said:


> Tonight's walk was good until the end. Not much pulling and didn't rear up. As we were heading back an old lady was fussing him and he started jumping. That was fine, the lady asked him to sit and he did. She told him he was a good boy but didn't pat him or fuss him and walked off. Then Broder started lunging, jumping, scratching and nipping (not at the lady - at my OH).
> 
> I think we're going to have to consider seeing a behaviorist. I know it's been recommended that we tie him to a tree/lamp post but we walk him on a chain lead and I keep forgetting to take the police lead. I'm a bit worried too as it's the police lead that he mostly bites.


How about getting him to sit / do a few focussed exercises / having a game of tuggy as someone turns to walk off?


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## theevos5

Dogless said:


> It may be the staffie's age and fact that he is entire. Kilo seems to have had a target painted on him from about 14 months or so, although (touch wood!) things seem to be settling a bit now. The same few offlead dogs have flown at him when he has been onlead and not even facing them and when he has been offlead with dogs he knows a few 'new' dogs running over to join in have taken a disliking to him. I am having to manage him very carefully at present in terms of who he plays with and maybe the staffie's owner will have to do the same?
> 
> I guess all you can do is avoid this particular dog for the time being?


Thanks Dogless,I am sorry that you have experienced the other side of the coin with Kilo,and am very grateful for your advice.
I am lucky in that I think the staffie may be a weekend walker,so I haven't come across him yet.OH said the dog was totally lovely,didn't fight back,and the owner was really friendly and understanding! It just leaves a nasty taste in my mouth when it happened,as I have always said what a lovely character Alf is.
I did wonder whether it was the entire thing,that may have sparked it,that is why I mentioned it.
I will tell OH to keep Alf away from the dog for now,so as not to escalate any behaviours!


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## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> Thanks Dogless,I am sorry that you have experienced the other side of the coin with Kilo,and am very grateful for your advice.
> I am lucky in that I think the staffie may be a weekend walker,so I haven't come across him yet.OH said the dog was totally lovely,didn't fight back,and the owner was really friendly and understanding! It just leaves a nasty taste in my mouth when it happened,as I have always said what a lovely character Alf is.
> I did wonder whether it was the entire thing,that may have sparked it,that is why I mentioned it.
> I will tell OH to keep Alf away from the dog for now,so as not to escalate any behaviours!


It doesn't mean Alf isn't a lovely dog at all; Kilo has started to respond when he didn't the first few times it happened, but I still think he is lovely . From my point of view I am always understanding the first once or twice but then get cross when owners let it happen time and again, with increasing aggression from their dog (thinking of one black lab in particular :incazzato as it has left me with a dog that is wary and can posture and be a bit reactive with black labs at present. I know that you wouldn't let Alf wade in time and again if it sounds like that is what I am saying...just giving my example .

It may not be the problem at all; I'm certainly no expert (wouldn't be on this thread if I was ), but those are just my thoughts.


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## moonviolet

theevos5 said:


> Thanks Dogless,I am sorry that you have experienced the other side of the coin with Kilo,and am very grateful for your advice.
> I am lucky in that I think the staffie may be a weekend walker,so I haven't come across him yet.OH said the dog was totally lovely,didn't fight back,and the owner was really friendly and understanding! It just leaves a nasty taste in my mouth when it happened,as I have always said what a lovely character Alf is.
> I did wonder whether it was the entire thing,that may have sparked it,that is why I mentioned it.
> I will tell OH to keep Alf away from the dog for now,so as not to escalate any behaviours!


I think you are right to ask Oh to keep Alf away from this staffie, don't assume that what Alf is doing is entirely unprovoked. without being there you haven't seen the approach and what has passed between them before Alfie went for the staffie.


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## theevos5

Dogless said:


> It doesn't mean Alf isn't a lovely dog at all; Kilo has started to respond when he didn't the first few times it happened, but I still think he is lovely . From my point of view I am always understanding the first once or twice but then get cross when owners let it happen time and again, with increasing aggression from their dog (thinking of one black lab in particular :incazzato as it has left me with a dog that is wary and can posture and be a bit reactive with black labs at present. I know that you wouldn't let Alf wade in time and again if it sounds like that is what I am saying...just giving my example .
> 
> It may not be the problem at all; I'm certainly no expert (wouldn't be on this thread if I was ), but those are just my thoughts.


No we wouldn't let Alf wade in,and that is exactly what he has been doing!! 
If I ever see another dog he is leashed and he has never approached the said staffie,it's the staffie that has come over to him,without aggression.Then it has kicked off from there.
I will just have to be more vigilant and hope that it doesn't happen again.I will ensure he is put on his leash if we see him and we will play some distraction games in the bushes,
I do still think he is lovely I guess that more than anything I didn't think he was capable of any aggression I and am embarrassed by his behaviour!To me he has always been a big soft lump


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## Dogless

theevos5 said:


> No we wouldn't let Alf wade in,and that is exactly what he has been doing!!
> If I ever see another dog he is leashed and he has never approached the said staffie,it's the staffie that has come over to him,without aggression.Then it has kicked off from there.
> I will just have to be more vigilant and hope that it doesn't happen again.I will ensure he is put on his leash if we see him and we will play some distraction games in the bushes,
> I do still think he is lovely I guess that more than anything I didn't think he was capable of any aggression I and am embarrassed by his behaviour!To me he has always been a big soft lump


I was surprised the first time Kilo had handbags - when he was bitten by a bichon. It was the first time that I'd seen him looking truly scary .

Might be well worth talking to the staffie's owner if you or your OH sees him again to tell him your thoughts on the matter....I see the emphasis with Kilo as being on me to vet who he plays with and socialises with as it is me who has chosen to keep him entire and I know that, especially at his age, it can provoke reactions in other dogs.


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## Sarah1983

Sometimes two dogs just don't get on for reasons known only to themselves. I'll expect my dog to be best buddies with every dog he meets when I'm best buddies with every person I meet  I think all you can really do is avoid this dog and hope the other dogs owner has the sense to stop hers running up to you.

And as Moonviolet has said, it could be the staffie is doing something to provoke him that you're missing. Body language can be so subtle that it's easy to miss something and think one dog is causing the problem when in fact the other dog is.


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## moonviolet

theevos5 said:


> No we wouldn't let Alf wade in,and that is exactly what he has been doing!!
> If I ever see another dog he is leashed and he has never approached the said staffie,it's the staffie that has come over to him,without aggression.Then it has kicked off from there.
> I will just have to be more vigilant and hope that it doesn't happen again.I will ensure he is put on his leash if we see him and we will play some distraction games in the bushes,
> I do still think he is lovely I guess that more than anything I didn't think he was capable of any aggression I and am embarrassed by his behaviour!To me he has always been a big soft lump


I can imagine what a surprise it is. I tend to think if Alf meant to hurt this dog he would have, For whatever reason he wants this dog out of his face. So if you don't need to be in close proximity don't be.


----------



## theevos5

Dogless said:


> I was surprised the first time Kilo had handbags - when he was bitten by a bichon. It was the first time that I'd seen him looking truly scary .
> 
> Might be well worth talking to the staffie's owner if you or your OH sees him again to tell him your thoughts on the matter....I see the emphasis with Kilo as being on me to vet who he plays with and socialises with as it is me who has chosen to keep him entire and I know that, especially at his age, it can provoke reactions in other dogs.





Sarah1983 said:


> Sometimes two dogs just don't get on for reasons known only to themselves. I'll expect my dog to be best buddies with every dog he meets when I'm best buddies with every person I meet  I think all you can really do is avoid this dog and hope the other dogs owner has the sense to stop hers running up to you.
> 
> And as Moonviolet has said, it could be the staffie is doing something to provoke him that you're missing. Body language can be so subtle that it's easy to miss something and think one dog is causing the problem when in fact the other dog is.


I think the hardest thing is going to be stopping the staffie approaching Alf as that has been what has happened so far! Even last week when Alf had been offlead playing and the dog tried to join in playing and he had a proper go at it,OH leashed Alf whilst one of the other dog owners kept hold of the staff to make sure nothing else happened,and he stood there with the dog,until the owner came and as soon as he handed the staffie over,the guy just let him go again  
I am not taking him tomorrow as I have a hospital appointment so my son will take him,so he will have an onlead walk(just incase) so it will be Tuesday before we go again(fingers crossed)


----------



## DavieB

Dogless said:


> Well done kat&molly - your lot are being fantastic! - and welcome Whippety Amey!
> 
> I think Kilo cops the blame a lot as he is big. I do go over and over things to see what I have done wrong - today the fact that it was Kilo's nemesis breed and colour probably didn't help and the fact I couldn't get Kilo away before it happened was also my error. To be fair though it was just a grumble, no teeth bared, hackles etc so no big deal to me! We also had a fair few people saying "Is that a Rhodesian Ridgeback?" today and when I said "Yes" the people asking inevitably made a strange ooohh eeerr noise and hurriedly pulled their dogs away - something I haven't encountered since being over here but did get quite a lot where I used to live. It suited me today TBH with Kilo not being happy - he only wanted to sniff and move on or totally ignore!!


I've never encountered a bad rhodesian ridgeback see them occasionally on my walks and a couple of times at the vets. They seem good well balanced dogs. I'd never do that to someone on finding out what their dog is. Pretty rude imho if he's done nothing wrong.

A lot of folks are unsure of Yuri as he is so big and still a bouncy pup as he's only 7 months old.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks Moonviolet for the vid, I had no idea!! Bless Tink ,she looks so focused and happy that her tail never stops and its lovely that your OH takes an interest.
I should have realised Big Evie wouldn't be so keen on the OB classes- she has already mentioned doing some scent work before. Am also sure with me going there to the training field and just having Moll to concentrate on we'll do much better. I'm excited now.

Evos5 I'm sorry Alf's having a problem with the Staff but we cant all like everyone can we.
I think you should be careful about 'playing distracting games in the bushes' as Gawd knows what people will think :yesnod:

We've got a very heavy drizzle here this morning


----------



## DavieB

This wasn't really something I was actively working on but Yuri learned he can swim this morning. He always paddled but was too unsure to go past a drop off where he couldn't reach the bottom. On this mornings wak at 530am the park was quiet as usual but the water level was really high due to high rainfall so Yuri wouldn't realise the depths were different I threw his stick in a few times increasing each time until he had to swim eventually chucking it out about 15 meters out he swam and got it all proud I couldn;t keep him out the water after that he was jumping off jettys and high bans and all sorts  He was all proud of himself lol.


----------



## kat&molly

DavieB said:


> This wasn't really something I was actively working on but Yuri learned he can swim this morning. He always paddled but was too unsure to go past a drop off where he couldn't reach the bottom. On this mornings wak at 530am the park was quiet as usual but the water level was really high due to high rainfall so Yuri wouldn't realise the depths were different I threw his stick in a few times increasing each time until he had to swim eventually chucking it out about 15 meters out he swam and got it all proud I couldn;t keep him out the water after that he was jumping off jettys and high bans and all sorts  He was all proud of himself lol.


Well done Yuri- there'll be no sropping him now.
I love to see mine in the water. My Springer and Teckel swim, the Terrier x paddles and the JRT wallows in the mud at the bottom like a Hippo!!


----------



## MyMillie

Everything!!....nipping/biting, jumping up, grooming, barking when she cant get to play with every dog/human etc etc... phew! this pup is hard work....lol


----------



## moonviolet

MyMillie said:


> Everything!!....nipping/biting, jumping up, grooming, barking when she cant get to play with every dog/human etc etc... phew! this pup is hard work....lol


Not much then  Pups are a challenge  how is it all going?


----------



## Tigerneko

hello 

I went out for my tea last night so didn't have time to update, but I really wanted to!

We had one of the best walks we've ever had  it got off to a bumpy start because there was a guy with a SBT who appeared round a corner before we had chance to cross, so we had to walk right past it. Tiger had a good old kick off at it, he was much worse than he was last time we had to pass another dog closely, but the Staffy reacted as well so I don't blame him entirely - but I dunno who reacted first, but it doesn't matter now.

We nipped to the pet shop whilst out and he managed to wipe the nose band off his figure of 8 headcollar, so it turns its self into a slip lead as like safety thing, so that they can't escape. On the way out, I decided since he had been walking better that i'd try walking him home on the slip and see how he did. He was excellent! He was so much more relaxed and happy without the headcollar (although it was neccessary, he wouldn't be walking as well as he was without it) and he walked so nicely, I had to slow down for him at one point, he was trailing behind and just ambling along nicely  he wasn't walking right to heel, he was walking slightly in front and further out, but the extra bit of space seemed to make him better, and every time I called him, he came to walk right by me again 

Anyway, here's the biggy - he IGNORED 5 different dogs! I decided to take a little bit from what Malmum has been doing with Flynn, and instead of talking to him and trying to distract him (so giving away the nerves in my voice) I just ignored him, and let the lead go to full length, and because he was walking nicely, there was no tension on the lead, so he totally ignored them  there was one little poodle which he did fixate on, but he was much easier to distract 

I'm waiting for a behaviourist to give me a ring, as I still think he needs help (and so do I!) because I want to be able to pass dogs without crossing the road all the time, and I think it is manageable 

tomorrow is also a big day - my DAD is taking him for a walk :thumbup: he has some friends at work who go on proper walks (this one is estimated to be 4-6 hours, so should hopefully tire Tiger out! But last time he did it, he came home and went straight for his ball ) and they are also taking their dogs! He's met these dogs before and gets along with them, so hopefully tomorrow will be really good for him. I am working so unfortunately I can't go, but it might do Tiger some good to go out with my dad who is more confident than me.

so, i'm feeling good today  and definitely a BIG GOLD STAR for Tiger


----------



## Dogless

WELL DONE TIGERNEKO . Have a Platinum star!!!! That sounds like a fabulous walk and hopefully now your confidence has taken a boost you can continue doing as well. With the behaviourist input and training classes the only way is up .


----------



## kat&molly

Brilliant Tigerneko- sounds really positive and great news that your Dads going to take him for a walk.


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> WELL DONE TIGERNEKO . Have a Platinum star!!!! That sounds like a fabulous walk and hopefully now your confidence has taken a boost you can continue doing as well. With the behaviourist input and training classes the only way is up .


Yeah I can't wait! I am really trying to tackle it head on now, especially since we are getting this bloomin pup  (my dads grand idea) and I want to be able to walk them together. I have no worries about him accepting the pup at home, I am just more worried about pup copying him and it'd be such a shame if we couldn't take them for a walk together, or I ended up with 2 Tigers  :yikes: so hopefully with the training classes AND the behaviourist we should get somewhere 

I talked to my mum last night about it and she was really unhelpful, for all she reckons to be a doggy person, she just looked at me like I was an idiot when I said i'd contacted this behaviourist. She said she'd love to see Tiger being better with other dogs, so I asked her if she wanted to come along with me when this behaviourst comes, and her exact words were "I just can't be ar$ed with it all", so that pretty much sums up her attitude towards her dog  and that is just why I don't talk about it with my parents, because when I do, they just rubbish it. They don't seem to believe in making an effort  and when I told her that I wasn't gonna just give up on him and that I think he can learn to be better, she just got up and walked away - guilt? I think so 

anyway, time for work now 

hope you all have a good day  x


----------



## theevos5

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Moonviolet for the vid, I had no idea!! Bless Tink ,she looks so focused and happy that her tail never stops and its lovely that your OH takes an interest.
> I should have realised Big Evie wouldn't be so keen on the OB classes- she has already mentioned doing some scent work before. Am also sure with me going there to the training field and just having Moll to concentrate on we'll do much better. I'm excited now.
> 
> Evos5 I'm sorry Alf's having a problem with the Staff but we cant all like everyone can we.
> I think you should be careful about 'playing distracting games in the bushes' as Gawd knows what people will think :yesnod:
> 
> We've got a very heavy drizzle here this morning


I think Molly with have a great time at gundog training and so will you,we dabbled for a while with Alf and he loved it,it was just his recall that let him down so we may venture again!
I too,loved Tink tail in the video,that is one happy princess
I will be careful in the bushesdidn't realise how it read till you pointed it out!!
and the weather Kat and Molly is looking good for this week,here is an update sent to me to make jealous that I am not there!








Have a good day everyone and I hope it is all positive for you all


----------



## kat&molly

You haven't been missing much Evos5 with this Summer so far, the temperatures have been more bearable though. What site have you taken that from- I always look on theMeteo France and its blooming hopeless?
What sort of things did you do with Alf at GDT? I'm so excited I'll end up blubbing like sad sack at seeing Moll in her element 

Good luck at the hospital.


----------



## kat&molly

So much for improving bit by bit 27 stops this morning as opposed to yesterdays 22, but I'm not disappointed as I think there is an element of competition between Moll and Scruff walking next to each other , hopefully that will get better. It actually looks quite cute when they do a syncronized [?] about turn at the same time.

Hope everyones having a good day.


----------



## Sarah1983

22, 27, not much of a difference between the two really and you're bound to get fluctuations in how often you have to stop. Sounds like you're doing well 

Had another fab training session on a walk around the block. Had to take a step back with the stays today as for some reason he was coming tearing to me when I got to a certain distance but I'll build back up to where we were. I'm thinking the little bugger is enjoying recalls. He keeps going to the end of the long line, turning to stare at me for a moment then racing back as fast as his legs will carry him :lol:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly you still sound as if you are doing really well - far fewer stops that you were doing still .

Sarah, Spen sounds as if he is also coming on in leaps and bounds - maybe Kevin has decided to take a back seat?

We didn't do much today - went to a forest, saw no one (luckily, as I fell over and was coated from head to toe in mud up one side of my body and had to sit on a towel on the way home to try and preserve the car ) had a nice walk and came home .


----------



## moonviolet

Just a couple of silly little things from our walk this morning. A BC was barking intensely up a tree, at a squirrel. Madam historically would have tensed at the intensity (it was part of the events that lead up to her attack and any one of them alone would cause her to become wary) not today, jumped on a log ran along it wagged her tail looked for praise :lol:

Calm greeting with a different unknown BC offlead :thumbsup:


K&M I agree with Sarah just a minor fluctuation 

:lol: Spen going to have the the fastest recall in the west


----------



## Sarah1983

I'm actually thinking the sudden uprising of Kevin was due to my attitude to be honest. He's definitely still around but nowhere near as prominent. I've been on anti depressants for a few months and ran out due to the med centre here having no appointments for over a month and I kinda slipped back. Back on the meds now though and have been doing a lot more training and playing with Spencer than I was. He's still pushing the boundaries and has the odd deaf moment but it doesn't seem like he's anywhere near as bad as he was a couple of weeks ago.

Moonviolet, sounds like Tink is doing awesome! And yeah, I think Spen is aiming for the fastest recall in the west lol. He's gone from simply trotting to me to sprinting to me.

Dogless, how did you manage not to see anybody while covered in mud? Whenever something like that happens to me I can guarantee I'll run into 10 times more people than I would if I hadn't fallen. Hope you didn't hurt yourself though!


----------



## theevos5

kat&molly said:


> You haven't been missing much Evos5 with this Summer so far, the temperatures have been more bearable though. What site have you taken that from- I always look on theMeteo France and its blooming hopeless?
> What sort of things did you do with Alf at GDT? I'm so excited I'll end up blubbing like sad sack at seeing Moll in her element
> 
> Good luck at the hospital.


We did water retrieves with Alf hence him being a very rare swimming beagle We got him used to the sound of the gun etc as well,so no firework trauma in our house dummy retrieves etc,whistle training
I used to go and join the evening class as well with Alf,just to socialise him and accept that not every dog is a playmate,as the gundogs were really good they just sat like statues while he used to try and initiate play, and I would watch the proper dogs,do their stuff,and I was astounded,I loved it!!here is the website
dog training Wirral, gundog training Wirral, MAP Working Gundogs, Gundog Club, Gundog Training, Instruction, Tuition, Obedience, Dogs for Sale, Stud, Scotland
as for the weather we usually use Météo France : Prévisions METEO GRATUITE à 12 jours - Aujourd'hui lundi 25 juin 2012
but that link was from French Entrée-Limousin | Facebook
hospital was bleeughh,sent away with an injection and some more tablets to match the growing collection at home


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm actually thinking the sudden uprising of Kevin was due to my attitude to be honest. He's definitely still around but nowhere near as prominent. I've been on anti depressants for a few months and ran out due to the med centre here having no appointments for over a month and I kinda slipped back. Back on the meds now though and have been doing a lot more training and playing with Spencer than I was. He's still pushing the boundaries and has the odd deaf moment but it doesn't seem like he's anywhere near as bad as he was a couple of weeks ago.
> 
> Moonviolet, sounds like Tink is doing awesome! And yeah, I think Spen is aiming for the fastest recall in the west lol. He's gone from simply trotting to me to sprinting to me.
> 
> Dogless, how did you manage not to see anybody while covered in mud? Whenever something like that happens to me I can guarantee I'll run into 10 times more people than I would if I hadn't fallen. Hope you didn't hurt yourself though!


No idea Sarah - I have only ever seen one person in the distance on that walk though...so chances were low . I usually mange to see someone when I'm in a state and had planned to pop into a shop on the way back...but decided not to . I'm not hurt - bit sore and bruised as it was a really 'proper' fall  but nothing bad at all. Kilo didn't help when he ran over all excited to jump on me and lick my face  .

Glad you're feeling better and it's affecting Spen positively!


----------



## kat&molly

Just a minor fluctuation you all think eh- well OH and Jay were with us this afternoon and I lost count but it was around 80 :incazzato:
I dont understand why its so bad when they're with us-but Scruff after being so good this past week or so was on a mission- really wanting to be in front.
Not too disappointed because I always expect it now , we just have to keep at it I suppose?

Sounds like everyones doing well. Dogless , sorry you fell, I'm doing well, I haven't had a tumble for a couple of months now.[Famous last words]
Glad you're feeling better Sarah- Spencers recall sounds fab.
Well done to Tink- she's getting to be a little show off now.
Evos, hope the extra meds help-off to look at your linky.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Just a minor fluctuation you all think eh- well OH and Jay were with us this afternoon and I lost count but it was around 80 :incazzato:
> I dont understand why its so bad when they're with us-but Scruff after being so good this past week or so was on a mission- really wanting to be in front.
> Not too disappointed because I always expect it now , we just have to keep at it I suppose?


It's that lack of generalisation again imo. It's one thing to walk nicely when it's just you and them but add your OH to the equation and it's a completely different exercise. I have the same problem with Spencer and coz my hubby so rarely comes out with us it's something I find extremely difficult to work on. It's the same when we go out with his friend Milo although he's getting a bit better with that now.

You'll get there, it's just a matter of having to lower your expectations when something changes


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> It's that lack of generalisation again imo. It's one thing to walk nicely when it's just you and them but add your OH to the equation and it's a completely different exercise. I have the same problem with Spencer and coz my hubby so rarely comes out with us it's something I find extremely difficult to work on. It's the same when we go out with his friend Milo although he's getting a bit better with that now.
> 
> You'll get there, it's just a matter of having to lower your expectations when something changes


I'm not too upset really- except it always makes me look like a fibber to OH, I tell him how well they're doing and then they let me down!!
I do feel in control now though and feel that we will get there, eventually.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I'm not too upset really- except it always makes me look like a fibber to OH, I tell him how well they're doing and then they let me down!!
> I do feel in control now though and feel that we will get there, eventually.


Lol, it's the same here. I go on to hubby about how nicely Spen walks, how well behaved he is etc and then he comes out with us and I'm immediately turned into a liar!


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Hey everyone,

nothing really to report this end yet, only just got back from work - going to eat and then take the little man out for his evening walk. Although our Landlord wanted our windows painted to match next doors, so this has happened today, and apparently Merlin only barked once at the painter once when he scared Merlin by saying hello to him through a window and was calm throughout the rest. Normally he is a bit barky for the first two minutes, just so you know he's there 

Glad no one was out on your walk Dogless! :ciappa: I laugh now but I fell over the other day whilst lots of people were watching!

Moonviolet - The video of Tink is so lovely, she looks so focused! Glad the meeting with the BC's went well. Esp. the barking one!

Sarah - Glad Spenc is getting better. Hopefully less and less Kevin days/moments!

We're now going to go and try and have some more recall practice... sometimes feel at a bit of a loss especially when his neither too bothered about food nor toys when outside very much. Moonviolet - made some of your carrot, celery and cheese treats yesterday (not that they look as good as yours ) so will have to see if this helps!

Will update later!


----------



## simplysardonic

I haven't read all 99 pages eek but today I started on Rogue's training. So fare we've had 2 5min 1 to 1 sessions, just learning 'sit' for now, & it went really well, so I'm very chuffed with her


----------



## Reverie

Thought I should join in on this thread 

We are working on... well, everything really, you know how it is with pups :thumbup:

Most of all I'd like to sort out her barking at people when we are walking on the streets. We had a little bit of progress today- she was barky when we first started out and then well behaved for the rest. 

Also working on 'down' without me physically having to put my hand on the floor.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It's that lack of generalisation again imo. It's one thing to walk nicely when it's just you and them but add your OH to the equation and it's a completely different exercise. I have the same problem with Spencer and coz my hubby so rarely comes out with us it's something I find extremely difficult to work on. It's the same when we go out with his friend Milo although he's getting a bit better with that now.
> 
> You'll get there, it's just a matter of having to lower your expectations when something changes





Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, it's the same here. I go on to hubby about how nicely Spen walks, how well behaved he is etc and then he comes out with us and I'm immediately turned into a liar!


Totally agree with your posts above. Hubby comes out with us on probably about 1 in 15 - 20 walks and Kilo never behaves quite as well as he does with just me, but is getting there!!

Well, I went to the park this evening when I knew it would be fairly quiet but decided that, for once, I was leaving my treat bag behind and would take 3 (high value) treats. Kilo was fab - we met an Irish Terrier in one of the only two narrow parts who always goes absolutely batshit at Kilo, but we passed today with just a bit of dancing and then two huffs in response (from the BW, not me ), which was actually good as they have had full - scale shouting matches before now  . Kilo doesn't start it, but has started to react to some dogs now barking at him which I am obviously working hard on. So he got a treat for that.

Second treat was for going nicely past some offlead dogs running around without wanting to join in the fun.

Third treat was saved until I could see the way up to the car was pretty clear (loads of space at that point anyway if needed) and we did some heelwork.

So....a good day and whatever problem he had yesterday seems to have been specific to that event, thank goodness (and touch wood!).


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Okay so we're back and have had some good points and bad points. 

We did some training with him, we are trying to work on really simple stuff, but getting him to stand and then sit at a distance. My thinking is that if he has to work harder on these commands and remain more focused on us, maybe he won't want to run over to people so much.

There was a man with a small dog who was walking on a lead, but quite a way away and saw us and took the dogs lead off. He kept coming closer and Merlin was doing really well until the dog started running over to Merlin.

Merlin then went to run over to it, and I think surprised the dog more than anything, because he does run quite full-pelt at the other dogs... and the dog started growling and was really unhappy (the owner sort of faffed around, and meakly called his dog), whilst we tried to grab Merlin who was having a wail of a time playing... lots of play bows, jumping over the dog and running round him asking him to play - didn't pick up on the dogs body language at all? 

On the upside, he did do some nice heel work, and did come when calls, even when he spotted some people who were within hugging range... 

He also finally got the fact I wanted him to sit stay and then stand and NOT move! I always ask him to stand and he stands and tries coming to me... finally today he got it 

The problem with Merlin (among others!) is that he is fine in big crowds or with lots of people around... but when there is only one or two, it's just SO EXCITING!... I just don't know how to over-come it, because if we're out all day, he is fine and gets bored of them, but the next day he is exactly the same... is it something he'll just get better at with age?

Here is him doing his stay and leave while I throw some treat practically next to him!










Sorry bit of an essay that one!


----------



## kat&molly

simplysardonic said:


> I haven't read all 99 pages eek but today I started on Rogue's training. So fare we've had 2 5min 1 to 1 sessions, just learning 'sit' for now, & it went really well, so I'm very chuffed with her


Thats cheating, you have to read all 99 pages before you can post and tell us all what you're up to.:001_tt2:
Only joking  hope she does well for you- if I could go back with Moll I'd cetainly do a few things differently.


----------



## Dogless

WhippetyAmey said:


> Okay so we're back and have had some good points and bad points.
> 
> We did some training with him, we are trying to work on really simple stuff, but getting him to stand and then sit at a distance. My thinking is that if he has to work harder on these commands and remain more focused on us, maybe he won't want to run over to people so much.
> 
> There was a man with a small dog who was walking on a lead, but quite a way away and saw us and took the dogs lead off. He kept coming closer and Merlin was doing really well until the dog started running over to Merlin.
> 
> Merlin then went to run over to it, and I think surprised the dog more than anything, because he does run quite full-pelt at the other dogs... and the dog started growling and was really unhappy (the owner sort of faffed around, and meakly called his dog), whilst we tried to grab Merlin who was having a wail of a time playing... lots of play bows, jumping over the dog and running round him asking him to play - didn't pick up on the dogs body language at all?
> 
> On the upside, he did do some nice heel work, and did come when calls, even when he spotted some people who were within hugging range...
> 
> He also finally got the fact I wanted him to sit stay and then stand and NOT move! I always ask him to stand and he stands and tries coming to me... finally today he got it
> 
> *The problem with Merlin (among others!) is that he is fine in big crowds or with lots of people around... but when there is only one or two, it's just SO EXCITING*!... I just don't know how to over-come it, because if we're out all day, he is fine and gets bored of them, but the next day he is exactly the same... is it something he'll just get better at with age?
> 
> Here is him doing his stay and leave while I throw some treat practically next to him!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry bit of an essay that one!


That sounds good in the main - the bit I have bolded has been our problem too, but not in terms of running over to be friendly, but in terms of being suspicious - this thread here explains it http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/230559-stalking.html I used a longline and harness to manage it (touch wood not used it for weeks!) - maybe that would work for you too?

In terms of the small dog it sounds as if Merlin was just way too over excited...maybe try to manage calmer greetings at closer proximities so he doesn't get the chance to pelt over quite so fast? Not sure TBH.


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Dogless said:


> That sounds good in the main - the bit I have bolded has been our problem too, but not in terms of running over to be friendly, but in terms of being suspicious - this thread here explains it http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/230559-stalking.html I used a longline and harness to manage it (touch wood not used it for weeks!) - maybe that would work for you too?
> 
> *In terms of the small dog it sounds as if Merlin was just way too over excited...maybe try to manage calmer greetings at closer proximities so he doesn't get the chance to pelt over quite so fast? Not sure TBH.*


*
*

I agree with this, but the thing is, we've done this a few times before, when he's been onlead we've met some people, they've been fine (calm) with the other dog and then let them off-lead and his speed freaks some dogs out... and sometimes he can't stop himself because his all legs and jumps over them  then they get annoyed with him.... It's almost like he saves his energy just in case he meets another dog  I may have to go back to on-lead meeting and then bringing him back every time he gets too OTT.

Wish we had more dogs to practice on though


----------



## Dogless

WhippetyAmey said:


> [/B]
> 
> I agree with this, but the thing is, we've done this a few times before, when he's been onlead we've met some people, they've been fine (calm) with the other dog and then let them off-lead and his speed freaks some dogs out... and sometimes he can't stop himself because his all legs and jumps over them  then they get annoyed with him.... It's almost like he saves his energy just in case he meets another dog  I may have to go back to on-lead meeting and then bringing him back every time he gets too OTT.
> 
> Wish we had more dogs to practice on though


It will probably come with maturity too. Kilo's speed when he gets going really freaks some people and dogs out as well; I only let him go bonkers with large dogs that we know well as he is like a runaway freight train - the owners usually say "Bloody hell, he's got some speed for a big dog " or one the other day said "I thought he was a goner " about their dog (Kilo jumped over them too). We don't know enough dogs either really at all .

On a different note, Kilo was just going a bit mad and went to leap at me; I raised my hand (to fend him off), he changed direction and got clocked round the ear. He yelped (surprise I think - hope ) and got really scared and hid in between my knees and scuttled around with head and tail down and all his playfulness vanished . I felt awful and burst into tears . He's OK now but hope he doesn't think I am a dog batterer now  . Wish we could explain sometimes!


----------



## Zoojie

Hey all 

Bit of a good mood tonight - met the behaviourist and Loki was BRILLIANT! We did some basic 'watch me' stuff, and heel work (maintaining focus) and he basically reinforced the fact that I'm doing the right stuff, but is going to show me how to advance at a pace suitable for Loki.

I'm very happy - because it means I was right and Loki isn't aggressive, just very nervous. This is far easier to fix than outright aggression, though I'm still in it for the long haul 

I :001_wub: my dogs.


----------



## Dogless

Zoojie said:


> Hey all
> 
> Bit of a good mood tonight - met the behaviourist and Loki was BRILLIANT! We did some basic 'watch me' stuff, and heel work (maintaining focus) and he basically reinforced the fact that I'm doing the right stuff, but is going to show me how to advance at a pace suitable for Loki.
> 
> I'm very happy - because it means I was right and Loki isn't aggressive, just very nervous. This is far easier to fix than outright aggression, though I'm still in it for the long haul
> 
> I :001_wub: my dogs.


What fantastic news, can't wait to hear all your progress reports .


----------



## Tigerneko

100 pages.... well done everyone! We have all made so much progress.... well, some of us have only made a tiny bit   but we're on our way :thumbup:

Tonight was good again, 90% of the walk was loose lead on his slip lead, he tried to pull every few minutes but I just kept stopping and waiting. He was brilliant on the roads, he did lurch out once - but I gave him a telling off  (more the shock than anything, he hasn't done it since last year) and I made him walk back and sit at the kerb before we moved anywhere.

He wasn't as good with other dogs as yesterday, he kept fixating on them, but he didn't show any reactive behaviour, so I need to keep working on breaking the stare - but it might just be something he forgets in time because dogs being nothing to worry about is still very new to both of us  I was FAR more relaxed tonight, even when we saw other dogs I didn't panic too much.

The behaviourist hasn't got hold of me yet so haven't sorted anything on that front yet but i'm in no rush. I've got two weeks off work though after this week so i'd like to fit a couple of sessions in during my holiday, so hopefully he will contact me soon 

I made a video yesterday of Tiger's good walking again, so I will upload it later!

Whippetyamy, I think Merlin will grow out of it in time, maybe just try to keep taking him to quite highly populated areas (maybe a walk through town?) and just try and desensitize him to people so that they just become part of the background


----------



## Dogless

Well done Tigerneko; real progress - you should be very proud! :yesnod:.


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Well done Tigerneko; real progress - you should be very proud! :yesnod:.


Thank you 

I think I am proud, it just doesn't feel real yet. I'll start really feeling good in a week or so if he keeps it up, at the moment i'm just in denial :lol: and I keep wondering if it's just a one off  there's still a long way to go, we'd have no chance of him passing another dog on the same side of the street but to be able to walk on the other side without much fuss is brilliant in itself!

Here's the video I did yesterday, excuse my baby voice again  but I was so happy with him  it's nothing amazing... well, it is to me


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko - I had it on mute so can't comment on the baby voice  but you certainly have Tiger's attention .


----------



## hahgiwoofa

as a slight aside from topic...

does anyone have any tips on dealing with adolescent pups who can do it, but wont?

and, I've just noticed that Pepper does a weird teeth chattering thing when you're training her not sure how long she's been doing it, what does it means? Is she confused, excited, nervous...?

It's really bothered me in case I'm distressing her in some way!!


----------



## Dogless

hahgiwoofa said:


> as a slight aside from topic...
> 
> does anyone have any tips on dealing with adolescent pups who can do it, but wont?
> 
> and, I've just noticed that Pepper does a weird teeth chattering thing when you're training her not sure how long she's been doing it, what does it means? Is she confused, excited, nervous...?
> 
> It's really bothered me in case I'm distressing her in some way!!


Patience and consistency I guess - I'll tell you when I've cracked it .

Kilo teeth chatters when he is very excited - on arrival at the beach for example, and whenever he smells a bitches' urine or encounters an in season bitch - so, another form of excitement!


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Tigerneko - *I had it on mute so can't comment on the baby voice*  but you certainly have Tiger's attention .


thank god for that :lol: yeah he's been doing really well. For yesterdays and todays walk, I haven't been using any treats except praise, toys are too much of a stimulant for him and he won't focus on any commands, but he's not interested enough in food, so I decided to see how we go with just verbal praise, and it seems to be going okay so far


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Dogless said:


> Patience and consistency I guess - I'll tell you when I've cracked it .
> 
> Kilo teeth chatters when he is very excited - on arrival at the beach for example, and whenever he smells a bitches' urine or encounters an in season bitch - so, another form of excitement!


Thanks, she does love interaction like when we do agility training so I hoped it wasn't a bad reaction, but I'd never noticed it til this morning!! How odd!!!

I'll keep plodding on with Paddy (she says banging head against wall) I think it doesn't help that our village is quite rural and so all the fields are covered in rabbits and rabbit poo - very distracting for an 8 month old with a sniffy nose!!


----------



## Tigerneko

ooh, something else I meant to add  

It might sound silly, but there is this one particular song that has helped me a lot through all this as well. Whenever i'm feeling a bit crappy about it all or just need geeing up, I stick it on, and it really spurs me on, I see so much of me and Tiger in the video - the first time I watched it I cried  and sometimes the song comes on at work, and quite a few times i've got all teary on the shop floor  I just love it, the song and the video mean so much:

Will Young - Come On - YouTube


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> ooh, something else I meant to add
> 
> It might sound silly, but there is this one particular song that has helped me a lot through all this as well. Whenever i'm feeling a bit crappy about it all or just need geeing up, I stick it on, and it really spurs me on, I see so much of me and Tiger in the video - the first time I watched it I cried  and sometimes the song comes on at work, and quite a few times i've got all teary on the shop floor  I just love it, the song and the video mean so much:
> 
> Will Young - Come On - YouTube


I'll have to watch that tomorrow; I'm feeling fragile tonight .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> I'll have to watch that tomorrow; I'm feeling fragile tonight .


Yeah, save it - I am blubbing my eyes out now, I knew I shouldn't have put it on - it's the video that really sets me off  I had tears running down my face within 4 seconds of it starting


----------



## moonviolet

Tigerneko said:


> Yeah, save it - I am blubbing my eyes out now, I knew I shouldn't have put it on - it's the video that really sets me off  I had tears running down my face within 4 seconds of it starting


:crying: wonderful video and I needed a little cry. Yesterday Tink's hero lost his fight with cancer. Wonderful Dobe called Eriq. Who brightened the day of all who knew him. Who was an ambassador for his breed, Eriq you will be missed. Run, pain free at the bridge and try not to raid the treat bags of everyone who comes there!


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> :crying: wonderful video and I needed a little cry. Yesterday Tink's hero lost his fight with cancer. Wonderful Dobe called Eriq. Who brightened the day of all who knew him. Who was an ambassador for his breed, Eriq you will be missed. Run, pain free at the bridge and try not to raid the treat bags of everyone who comes there!


aww mv, what a shame  Run free Eriq, i'm sure he'll be having a blast up at the bridge x


----------



## kat&molly

Doesn't seem right to like your post MV.
Run free Eriq, sounds like you were a wonderful boy.xx


----------



## kat&molly

A hundred pages seems like a bit of a milestone.
As my LLW is getting under control now I'm thinking about what else I can improve or add.
For Molly its the impulse control mainly. As a pup she always had to wait whilst I threw retrieves but it got dropped so we've been working on that lately and doing well just occasionally does she find it too hard to wait. I also have to work on delivering articles to hand, something I've never bothered about till now. Not quite sure where to start though.
Scruff- this barking at people in the street is going well if I use my treats- if I'm a bit slow to get them out I can say 'whats this' and get her attention. So I really want to break this awful habit for good.
Evie-erm , erm, I'm not sure if its me but I dont think she wants to learn anything.  I make the girls wait for treats now at night when we do chuckywoos , she turns around and walks off , like they just aren't worth working for!! And she's a greedy girl so its a bit strange.

I think we've all improved those who posted lots. I wonder how Coffee's LLW is going with Alfie?


----------



## Dogless

Run free Eriq xx.

kat&molly - no idea what to do with Evie :crazy: but looking forward to hearing what you come up with .

We had two good walks today, met some dogs that Kilo plays well with and women that I like on the way to the fields this morning, so just had a nice, relaxing time there whilst the dogs just mucked about being dogs .

This afternoon I went to the park again and again decided to take only three treats - Kilo did really well, I was very proud - plenty of dogs and people out, most of whom we see pretty often . We met a little boy out walking a mini schnauzer with his Grandma who asked his name and said "That's a shame, I would have caled him Mr Fluffyhead" . We also saw an elderly couple that we see frequently. We were in a narrow part so I sat Kilo to let them past and they told me how well I was doing with him, which was fantastic - and then I felt almost sad that strangers were following his progress and had more of an idea of what he is like on a daily basis than hubby who is on a night tonight but had declined a walk like usual .

And....COFFEE WHERE ARE YOU???????


----------



## kat&molly

That sounds a good day for you Dogless- isn't it nice when people notice, my OH offered to come both times with me today- but after yesterday I politely declined But I know what you mean- wish mine would sometimes take an interest but then when he does its to contradict what I say or do-cant win.
We had 37 stops this morning but 23 this afternoon- so getting back on track slowly.
Done some retreives with Moll in the garden today but kept her on lead and got her to hold the toy and present it, certainly not learned yet but good going.

Was thinking of getting Evie her own little flock of sheep- that'd keep her more than happy.:laugh:


----------



## moonviolet

101 pages K&M you started a thread that became an epic legendary saga  and a source of inspiration and support 

Sounds like Kilo is doing so well it's lovely that other people are noticing and givign you compliments. I'm not sure which is more frustrating , an OH who takes little interest or one who shows off all your hardwork for 1 hour once a week!)

I was doing so much more lurking when this thread began now, I lurk for no more than a few minutes at a time, often a pause and a motivational pep talk does the trick now 

Hope Coffee and Alfie are doing ok


----------



## Sarah1983

Not such a good day today. Spent most of the afternoon in bed feeling rotten but took Spen for a quick walk this evening. Kevin came out to play though and more attention was paid to an empty Carpi Sun carton than to me  Then in the flat he's been wandering around looking for things to steal. Ah well, we've had a few good days so I suppose it was about time there was a bad one.


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Moonviolet - I'm sorry about Eriq, he sounded lovely  Run free Eriq  

Dogless -  I'm feeling for you, I know how you feel, OH comes out with us, but never listens to anything I say....  But at least even strangers are acknowledging how well you are doing with Sir Kilo! Obviously the three treats are working well 

We had quite a nice walk today, floor was very wet and so didn't do any training really as Merlin doesn't like the wet/rain on the nicest of occasions  but we were doing a bit of normal walking and recall and Merlin was doing a whippety run in a big circle and suddenly these two border collies were running with him - literally appeared from no where! The man grabbed one of them and held him until we came nearer and Merlin was running about with the other one, he then said sorry this one can be a bit over the top sometimes, so I laughed and said so can Merlin, so he let him off and they all had a brilliant time running around, but Merlin was running and running and running so much and slip sliding on the grass that by the time I picked him up to get in the car he was SOAKING. I picked him up and he was literally dripping...  

Nice for him to have some doggy time, I noted the time and will have to remember to go there around that time (Not that I'm desperate for doggy friends! ) 

Sorry bigg essay!


----------



## Tigerneko

Evening all 

Well, i've felt a little strange today since I haven't been out with him!

My dad took him out with his friends and their 3 dogs! He was beautifully behaved with them and played very nicely! He was even off his lead in a field full of sheep and never batted an eyelid (I would NEVER have done this, this was my dad getting overly confident and I told him he shouldn't really have done it as it could have got Tiger into massive trouble ) so all in all a fab day for Tiger!

However, his off lead behaviour was just what I expected, he _is_ good off his lead and I already knew that, but at least it shows he is not dog aggressive, just lead aggressive! My dad did say he was fine unless he was on his lead, then he wasn't as good, so this still needs working on.

The behaviourist still hasn't rang me yet, I might give him a ring on Thursday... I left my mobile and my house number for him though!


----------



## Tigerneko

Sarah1983 said:


> Not such a good day today. Spent most of the afternoon in bed feeling rotten but took Spen for a quick walk this evening. Kevin came out to play though and more attention was paid to an empty Carpi Sun carton than to me  Then in the flat he's been wandering around looking for things to steal. Ah well, we've had a few good days so I suppose it was about time there was a bad one.


aww don't worry about it 

his naughtiness was probably due to his shorter walk. I don't mean that in a nasty way because you were ill so it's not your fault, but he would probably have had a little excess energy he needed to expell, and kevin appeared and took it upon himself to do it 

Don't worry about it, i'm sure you'll notice him get better once you are better and he's back to his usual walks, he's just trying to find little ways of entertaining himself  tomorrow is another day


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Not such a good day today. Spent most of the afternoon in bed feeling rotten but took Spen for a quick walk this evening. Kevin came out to play though and more attention was paid to an empty Carpi Sun carton than to me  Then in the flat he's been wandering around looking for things to steal. Ah well, we've had a few good days so I suppose it was about time there was a bad one.


I hope you're feeling better soon. You were due a Kevin day - but they do seem to be getting much fewer and further in between them .

Tigerneko; sounds very positive indeed  (apart from offlead in a sheep field ).

MV - pleased to hear your less of a lurker :sosp: now .

WhippetyAmey - sounds as if at least Merlin had some fun with dogs that could cope with his whippety ways .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Tigerneko; sounds very positive indeed  (apart from offlead in a sheep field ).


I know  that's my dad for you, he can't do anything without taking some sort of daft risk! He said they were quite a way in the distance but if one had started running or made a load of noise, it could have easily been tempting enough to send him running over - Tiger might be a bit of a buffoon :lol: but he's still very much a terrier!

Another thing that hacked me off was that one of the dogs they took out with them was in season  I tried to explain the various problems of this but it went in one ear and out the other, he just said "oh well they never bothered her" :mad2: but hey ho, it was my dad's friend so it was no use saying it to my dad really! I just hope he doesn't do the same with pup once she starts her seasons.

Anyway, Tiger behaved very well with the other dogs and i'm really pleased with that. Everyone came home in once piece so not to worry


----------



## theevos5

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like Kilo is doing so well it's lovely that other people are noticing and givign you compliments. *I'm not sure which is more frustrating , an OH who takes little interest or one who shows off all your hardwork for 1 hour once a week!*)


You forgot the one about the OH who manages to ruin a weeks worth of training in one walk!! I have the gold star trophy with bells on for my OH for that award!

As MV has said KatandMolly,what a great thread  and the amount of support shown has been a great help at times for myself(remembering when Alf buggered off for 20 mins whilst I was left feeling vulnerable in the woods searching for him) and I came on here and was given virtual hugs and hankies to wipe away those tears!

Our walk today has been fab,Alf has been a star,I took the clicker out,for his recall and I also took the whistle,he disappeared into a ditch at one point and I thought he had done his marvellous Mervins Magical moment of madness act!!never to be seen again:dita:,and someone I was with said use your whistle(in my defence its been that long since I have had to use it) and out he sprang from the bushes like a spring lamb!!running towards me,ears flapping and sat at my side!So no problems there
We haven't seen the staffie,so nothing to report there
Just need to nail this jumping up at people for treats now,
Coffee,hope you and Alf are ok and he is being a good boy with his LLW


----------



## Shrap

Totally could not be bothered today. Went out feeling all happy that Dino was getting a playdate with his 2 lab pals. Quickly got peed off that today he felt like forgetting all his lead manners, all his dog manners, and "what was that mum? come? hmm, i'll think about it, walk slowly towards you, stop for a sniff and then sit a metre away from you"

It's SO unlike him. He's normally perfect! We've never had a problem with lead walking, I trained him from day 1 so it never became a habit. His recall has only failed a few times during his teenage stage. And he's always come flying back mid play if I called. Honestly just could NOT be bothered with his pish the day!


Need a long line. Badly. Not letting him get into the habit of ignoring me.


----------



## Shrap

Glad some people had good days and Sarah I feel your pain!


I guess I'm lucky Dino is out cold now


----------



## Tigerneko

Shrap said:


> Totally could not be bothered today. Went out feeling all happy that Dino was getting a playdate with his 2 lab pals. Quickly got peed off that today he felt like forgetting all his lead manners, all his dog manners, and "what was that mum? come? hmm, i'll think about it, walk slowly towards you, stop for a sniff and then sit a metre away from you"
> 
> It's SO unlike him. He's normally perfect! We've never had a problem with lead walking, I trained him from day 1 so it never became a habit. His recall has only failed a few times during his teenage stage. And he's always come flying back mid play if I called. Honestly just could NOT be bothered with his pish the day!
> 
> Need a long line. Badly. Not letting him get into the habit of ignoring me.


aww noooo! Don't worry about it! Dino sounds like SUCH a good boy, he is usually fantastic! Do you think there could be any reason for him not being so responsive? Maybe he's feeling a little under the weather? I hope he does a little better for you tomorrow, hopefully it was a one off  but if it carries on again, a long line would definitely be a good idea just to stop it from becoming habit. How old is he now?


----------



## kat&molly

11 stops this morning woo woo


----------



## Phoolf

Shrap said:


> Totally could not be bothered today. Went out feeling all happy that Dino was getting a playdate with his 2 lab pals. Quickly got peed off that today he felt like forgetting all his lead manners, all his dog manners, and "what was that mum? come? hmm, i'll think about it, walk slowly towards you, stop for a sniff and then sit a metre away from you"
> 
> It's SO unlike him. He's normally perfect! We've never had a problem with lead walking, I trained him from day 1 so it never became a habit. His recall has only failed a few times during his teenage stage. And he's always come flying back mid play if I called. Honestly just could NOT be bothered with his pish the day!
> 
> Need a long line. Badly. Not letting him get into the habit of ignoring me.


Kes had an off day too, like she'd completey forgot her recall, but the next day it was back to normal. I think sometimes these blips happen, don't be too annoyed.


----------



## L/C

Ely is doing really, really well. We have been working with a lovely lady with a GSD to overcome his guarding to them and he's making real progress. His reactivity to dogs playing is also decreasing - we approach slowly and I get him to sit and watch me periodically so he is calm and under control and he can see how many dogs there are before he gets to them. Today we were in the middle of a group (all relatively calm) and I could keep his focus and do simple exercises with him. :thumbup:

On monday I finished work early so we went on a long walk (about 3 hours) and he was almost perfect. Ignored the squirrels, we walked with a man with a saluki lurcher and they interacted very calmly and pottered about sniffing together and we then met up with a couple with a cocker spaniel and they all had a great time bounding around in and out of the woods. The only downside was he fell in the lake and I had to go in and get him out! 

The only real problem is his guarding of Gypsy - he still gets very agitated if he perceives another dog as threatening her. She's a very vocal player (growls and barks) and he seems to think when she does that, that she is distressed. It's worse if the other dog plays rough and she tells them off.  Not sure how to proceed from here - currently working on general resource guarding and impulse control as well as CC while he watches Gypsy play from a distance.


----------



## Guest

So great to read all the positive posts!

Today Tala was sitting on the back doorstep opposite her food bowl as I came home with Kenzie after our walk. Kenzie was far more interested in seeing if Tala had left any food for her than the fact Tala was sitting there! :thumbup: Except then Tala got up and moved so Kenzie lunged at her  But I still count it as a success!

GOT to get some videos of Kenzie's behaviour tomorrow for advice.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> Ely is doing really, really well. We have been working with a lovely lady with a GSD to overcome his guarding to them and he's making real progress. His reactivity to dogs playing is also decreasing - we approach slowly and I get him to sit and watch me periodically so he is calm and under control and he can see how many dogs there are before he gets to them. Today we were in the middle of a group (all relatively calm) and I could keep his focus and do simple exercises with him. :thumbup:
> 
> On monday I finished work early so we went on a long walk (about 3 hours) and he was almost perfect. Ignored the squirrels, we walked with a man with a saluki lurcher and they interacted very calmly and pottered about sniffing together and we then met up with a couple with a cocker spaniel and they all had a great time bounding around in and out of the woods. The only downside was he fell in the lake and I had to go in and get him out!
> 
> The only real problem is his guarding of Gypsy - he still gets very agitated if he perceives another dog as threatening her. She's a very vocal player (growls and barks) and he seems to think when she does that, that she is distressed. It's worse if the other dog plays rough and she tells them off.  Not sure how to proceed from here - currently working on general resource guarding and impulse control as well as CC while he watches Gypsy play from a distance.


Sounds like its going well with Ely.Well done.


----------



## L/C

McKenzie said:


> So great to read all the positive posts!
> 
> Today Tala was sitting on the back doorstep opposite her food bowl as I came home with Kenzie after our walk. Kenzie was far more interested in seeing if Tala had left any food for her than the fact Tala was sitting there! :thumbup: Except then Tala got up and moved so Kenzie lunged at her  But I still count it as a success!
> 
> GOT to get some videos of Kenzie's behaviour tomorrow for advice.


Go Kenzie - it really does sound like she is improving. It's obviously the movement that's the trigger, rather then smell or sight which is encouraging. I don't really have any tips but I'll contrast it with Gypsy who just the sight or smell of a cat sends her crazy. So there is light at the end of the tunnel!


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Sounds like its going well with Ely.Well done.


Thanks - I'm doing my best. It's been 2 years and just when I think we've turned a corner he comes up with a new issue to stump me!

Well done you and Moll too - soon it will be no stops!


----------



## moonviolet

Has anyone got some vallium going spare? 

Glad everyone is making progress. I'm goign to have one of those therapeutic vents in a minute... after the camomile tea has begun to work it's magic.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Has anyone got some vallium going spare?
> 
> Glad everyone is making progress. I'm goign to have one of those therapeutic vents in a minute... after the camomile tea has begun to work it's magic.


Oh no!

Maybe wine instead of camomile?


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Has anyone got some vallium going spare?
> 
> Glad everyone is making progress. I'm goign to have one of those therapeutic vents in a minute... after the camomile tea has begun to work it's magic.


Bad morning.


----------



## moonviolet

Deep breath... hmm maybe another one will do it. Inhale..... pause....... ex- hallllleeeee. Ok thats better.

Near the end of our walk today, it was a great walk, limp better i'm back to my loonbag self running about jumping hiding spahing in the puddles and generally being joyful.(when no one is watching) I was about to join the main track to the entrance from a side track when a woman with 2 lurchers on lead aspringer offlead and baby in a backpack ( specifically designed affairwith framework and all sorts) Tink was a little unsure as we hung back and let them pass (I was rather in awe of her controlling that little lot) wanting to give htem some space and not be right up their backsides i crouched down and was playing touch and paw and just silly things.

I saw a woman coming with 2 offlead dogs in brand new neon pink backpacks, decided to stay put and let them pass too (or that was the plan.) Until the dogs spotted us and charged over. Tink was a star and just blanked them completely and maintained her focus on me. The husky nearly knocked me over, it's sniffing was so boisterous, only then did the woman try to call them back. Eventually they went I didn't even speak to the woman as in all honesty I'd just worked on maintaining Tinks focus and hand on heart. I relaly could do without 

Just as i was congratulating Tink on a job well done I noticed coming up the track the woman with the lead reactive Doberman and the lurcher that is very prey-ish around smaller dogs.... that the sound of handbags I decided to leave them all to it and went off track through the brambles. got back to teh car complete with a few scratches and various vegetation samples hanging from my hair and clothing.

Drove home kicked my shoes off put the kettle on and was about to chill out when heard my neighbour shouting that one of his dogs had escaped and was heading for the main road.... so on went my shoes and i headed out my front door ( on the main road) so i could head her off ... well she was 4 yards from the main road when I got to the top of the lane. thankfully she knows me came to me and let me pick her up (she's the one I babysit from time to time) Apparently it's my fault she ran toward the road because I replaced my garden fence(with solid fencing as I got fed up with everyone walkign up the lane gawping!) and when his dog escapes she can't see Tinker anymore so does come into my garden gate well maybe the 10 times she did come to my garden should have been warning enough you need to take more frigging care * rocks gently in the corner*


----------



## L/C

And deep breath (with stiff drink). It sounds like you and Tink coped really well - she's clearly developing really good coping skills so that's a real credit to you. :thumbup:

As for your neighbour?!  Not sure what else you can do in that case it's their own stupid fault but unfortunately it's the poor little dog that will suffer.


----------



## kat&molly

That sounds a bit fraught today. Well donr to youand Tink though for staying calm.
As for your neighbour- I wonder sometimes which planet these people come from.

I hope you're feeling a bit calmer now.


----------



## moonviolet

I swear one day I'm going to deny finding her and keep her. She is lovely and has so much potential.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I swear one day I'm going to deny finding her and keep. Her she is lovely and has so much potential.


Is it Swallow the little Beagle.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Is it Swallow the little Beagle.


Yes Tink's dancing partner.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Yes Tink's dancing partner.


Shes gorgeous you should kidnap her.:yesnod:


----------



## Dogless

Well done kat&molly, L/C, McKenzie - gold stars .

Dunce's hat for Dino :sosp: but hopefully just a horrid Kevin day not to be repeated. Good idea about the long line though!

mv - what a morning and you'd better get rid of your fence pronto :yesnod: .

We had a fairly disastrous morning, but not training - wise - just bad luck  .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - what a morning and you'd better get rid of your fence pronto :yesnod: .
> 
> We had a fairly disastrous morning, but not training - wise - just bad luck  .


but, but i like my fence... 

Oh dear i guess we had both been on quite the roll lately.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> but, but i like my fence...
> 
> Oh dear i guess we had both been on quite the roll lately.


We had - pride before a fall and all that .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> We had - pride before a fall and all that .


Hope it's nothign that's set Kilo back too much. Bouncing around the brambles with Madam she seemed to shake it ok so i'll probably give her valerian drops before we go out later and hopefully it'll all be ok.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> We had - pride before a fall and all that .


Hope everythings ok.
Its sooo hot here today, I keep needing a break from cleaning the Chucks out-


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Hope it's nothign that's set Kilo back too much. Bouncing around the brambles with Madam she seemed to shake it ok so i'll probably give her valerian drops before we go out later and hopefully it'll all be ok.





kat&molly said:


> Hope everythings ok.
> Its sooo hot here today, I keep needing a break from cleaning the Chucks out-


Hasn't set Kilo back at all....just a bad day :incazzato: http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/243808-disastrous-day-pictures.html


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Oh MV - I think today is just one of those days to be honest... you can't do right for doing wrong (or whatever the saying is!)  At least Tink did well and maintained focus through it. 

K&M - 11 stops is soo great! We've started the stopping and starting method with Merlin, he doesn't pull a lot, just now and again, but better to knock it out early I guess!

Dogless - Poor Kilo and you with the flies.. I have to admit I really can't stand flies, especially when they buzz around your head...  At least you've got electricity now though  P.S Kilo has such big teeth  :001_wub:

We've had an eventful day... Was supposed to go to work (well I did go) but then have a lot of stuff going on in my personal life, so they said I could take the rest of the week off as holiday if I wanted, so I came back home (waste of petrol). We then took Merlin out for one of our special walks - only a 10 minute drive, but we only go there when we have the time to walk far i.e weekends and not weekdays. 

We got there with only a little of dribble in the car (massive improvement), but then Merlin decided today he wasn't going to eat any of the treats I brought with us, I has some kiwipeak treats and some cakey treats I made from MV recipe and some other beefy treats... he wouldn't take any of them 

We then tried to do a bit of recall, and although he came... he would come up, I would say good boy and off he'd go again, normally he looks for a treat in my hands... 

Then I thought okay... not hungry, maybe a toy - I carry with me this small-ish squeeky bone - I squeeked it and nothing. Squeeked it again, he came to me, I threw it, he walked (Yes, a whippet, walking!!) to it, sniffed it and carried on.   We then gave up and I didn't do any training because I couldn't get his attention at all... He would come when I said come, and he would change direction when I said his way, but other than that nothing.. 

We did meet a year old lab though when we were walking, which was really good, again another one that could keep up with his whippety ways!  Meeting the larger dogs/younger dogs is very good, but I keep thinking we need to improve on the little dogs, not just avoid them!

We also met a man on his own walking, and Merlin went over to him stood there looking - no jumping up and then when I said move on, he did


----------



## Dogless

Well done WhippetyAmey - see, you do meet doggy friends for Merlin and it's good that he didn't jump up too . Maybe he didn't take treats as he still felt 'off' from the journey if he drooled? I hope that you are OK with needing time off work and whatever is happening xx.


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Dogless said:


> Well done WhippetyAmey - see, you do meet doggy friends for Merlin and it's good that he didn't jump up too . Maybe he didn't take treats as he still felt 'off' from the journey if he drooled? I hope that you are OK with needing time off work and whatever is happening xx.


We've been lucky with seeing dogs for the last two days, and I think more effort on our part to stay out until we meet a dog! 

I don't know regarding the treats, he does get quite car sick, and we've been building up the journeys and we've got him a thundershirt... he doesn't throw up now really, but the dribble is normally unbelievable... it's like we own a *insert very dribbley dog breed*! And normally he's fine with eating treats once out of the car, so I don't know...

and thank you, I'll be fine - always am.


----------



## moonviolet

WhippetyAmey said:


> Oh maybe a toy - I carry with me this small-ish squeeky bone - I squeeked it and nothing. Squeeked it again, he came to me, I threw it, he walked (Yes, a whippet, walking!!) to it, sniffed it and carried on.


Are you sure he hasn't been talkign to Tinker this is her reaction to toys outside the home always! You said it was one of your special walks, could it simply be he was simply a little overwhelmed, different sights, smells etc and was just taking it all in.

Positive thoughts to you about the other stuff.


----------



## theevos5

Knowing that I have 10 days max until I am poorly again,I decided to paint kitchen and conservatory today.Alf has been a star!! Although we have renovated the house in France,we have an indoor and outdoor kennel over there for him to keep him confined when there is dangerous stuff going on,but,here we don't have that luxury,so was wondering how he would be,but he has been an angel.:001_wub:

On his walk however, fantastic recall,but he did jump up at someone,who had a carrier bag with treats in and he ripped her bag,so all she was left holding was the handle I took my clicker and clicked as soon as he sat,but he just started jumping up at her,knowing that her bag was full of goodies.We had livercake,but whatever she had was worth more.I lost my rag after he ripped her bag and put him on his lead as I was so embarrassed so I am going to try and be calmer tomorrow and hope that we can sort this out.
Mv Send Swallow here!!! They will never find her and we have been looking for a sister for Alf
Dogless,I read your post about the flies,how awful for you both,glad you have electric again
K&M Wish it was very hot here!!! Glad you had less pulls today!!
WhippetyAmey-hope you are ok,feel free to pm if you want to vent!! and well done Merlin for not jumping up!! Please have a word with Alf!!


----------



## WhippetyAmey

moonviolet said:


> Are you sure he hasn't been talkign to Tinker this is her reaction to toys outside the home always! You said it was one of your special walks, could it simply be he was simply a little overwhelmed, different sights, smells etc and was just taking it all in.
> 
> Positive thoughts to you about the other stuff.


You're probably right about the walk, and we did take a different route today, so this could be the reason.... Can't believe I didn't think about it!


----------



## Dogless

Naughty Alf . I wonder what could be more tasty than liver cake? .

Apart from that incident ....he gets a gold star for his recall and good behaviour whilst you get all DIY tastic .


----------



## moonviolet

Damn my mother and her superstitions!!!(love you really mum:001_wub
Yes I've scoffed your theory that bad things happen in 3's. Today I eat humble pie, today Mum you were right.

Ok, lets give the attitude an adjustment. Today 3 things have happened and they have had positive outcomes. Although I think being surrounded by 4 offlead GSD crosses (owners out of sight)when Tink was on lead caps today nicely, it took an awful lot of happy talk to shake it off, then a nice cuddle to re-chill but we did it 

(for anyone joining this thread a million pages in Tinker was attacked/injured by a GSD and we have been aiming at all positive GSD interactions, with varying amounts of success ever since)


I wonder if I can do a rain dance before my evening walk...

Now where's the gin.....



Well done-ish Alf. I do wonder what was in that bag. Sarah1983's tripe cake?


----------



## Dogless

I pre - ordered a book (and promptly forgot about it ) several months ago which has now arrived - "Life Skills For Puppies" by Helen Zulch and Daniel Mills. It looks good at a glance .


----------



## kat&molly

Evos 5 - sorry I know I shouldn't laugh but I could picture this poor woman left holding just a handle  I'd have been livid if mine done it though.
It got up to around 35 today I think, I've only just been able to walk the girls. A bit cooler tomorrow hopefully.
W.Amey hope you're ok. Merlins doing well.
Well done to Tink again.

9 stops tonight:thumbup: they walked lovely and I was so proud of them.
Have been doing a bit with Moll try to get her to deliver the ball to hand , she got it whilst on lead so tonight I done a coupl of reallyshort ones on our walk and she done them- still needs work and polishing but am really pleased with her.


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> I pre - ordered a book (and promptly forgot about it ) several months ago which has now arrived - "Life Skills For Puppies" by Helen Zulch and Daniel Mills. It looks good at a glance .


ooh that sounds interesting! Do let me know what it's like, it could come in handy for our pup 

Tonight's walk was fabulous! Nothing much to report behaviour wise, it was just lots of fun  we went up to the big field and had lots of off lead time  his recall was perfect as usual, I have more trouble trying to get rid of him than I do getting him back :lol: takes about 5 times of me saying "go and play, go on, good boy" before he'll go anywhere, and he only goes about 20ft away at the very most!

The only other dog we did come across was on a flexi lead further down the field, so I put him back on before he spotted it and we did some LLW through the long grass and sort of followed the man at a distance until I knew he'd left the field, then let Tiger back off again. On the way in, we did pass another dog on a flexi (I think it was the same dog actually) on the narrow path. I walked off the path and into the grass to let the man past. Tiger didn't even notice the dog, but I think that was more to do with the wall of thigh-high grass i'd walked him into  but he got loads of praise all the same, just in case he had seen it and ignored it.

I also made a very grave error while we were out - I started playing chase with his lead.... we've now got one very wet sloppy lead and a sore thumb, because he got stupid, jumped up at my hand for the lead and nipped my thumb  i'm sure he didn't mean to but it bloody hurt and i'm afraid he got told off, and the lead was played with no more!

LLW was okay, not brilliant though. He pulled a lot on the way there and lurched out into the road once  but he knew where we were going so he was over excited. He also pulled quite a bit on the way back. It wasn't as strong as on the way there, but it was more frequent, so we were stopping more. Nothing compared to how he used to be though


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly 9 stops !!!!! That is wine - worthy .

Tigerneko - well done to you and Tiger too, you are still making good progress .


----------



## Tigerneko

oh, I meant to say as well - THE FLIES! THE BLOOMIN FLIES!

it is definitely not just you! they were everywhere! Must be something to do with the dampness and the humidity, it must bring them out?


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> oh, I meant to say as well - THE FLIES! THE BLOOMIN FLIES!
> 
> it is definitely not just you! they were everywhere! Must be something to do with the dampness and the humidity, it must bring them out?


I abandoned some 'waits' and 'stays' we were practising on this evening's walk as flies kept landing on Kilo and he couldn't focus. There is a huge thunderstorm raging now so hopefully it will clear the air. Tomorrow is meant to be foul weather....so shouldn't have any critters out!!


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> I abandoned some 'waits' and 'stays' we were practising on this evening's walk as flies kept landing on Kilo and he couldn't focus. There is a huge thunderstorm raging now so hopefully it will clear the air. Tomorrow is meant to be foul weather....so shouldn't have any critters out!!


yeah I didn't wanna hang around too long either, i'm actually terrified of flies -   when they buzz in my ear, I yelp and flap my arms, I couldn't stop it if I wanted to, it's become a reflex 

I've just noticed a disgustingly pungent odour..... looked down and Tiger is sat next to me, I didn't see him rolling in anything so god only knows why he smells so bad but he truly reeks!! :lol: :scared: I think he might be getting bathed tomorrow :hand:


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko said:


> yeah I didn't wanna hang around too long either, i'm actually terrified of flies -   when they buzz in my ear, I yelp and flap my arms, I couldn't stop it if I wanted to, it's become a reflex
> 
> I've just noticed a disgustingly pungent odour..... looked down and Tiger is sat next to me, I didn't see him rolling in anything so god only knows why he smells so bad but he truly reeks!! :lol: :scared: I think he might be getting bathed tomorrow :hand:


Good job you don't walk Kilo then; the pair of you wouldn't get anywhere :crazy::w00t:.

Sounds like Tiger had a sneaky roll.....with any luck :sosp: it was as the dog went past which is why he didn't notice...but you praised him for it so....dogs are now a cue for rolling in smelly stuff rrr: .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> kat&molly 9 stops !!!!! That is wine - worthy .
> 
> Tigerneko - well done to you and Tiger too, you are still making good progress .


Definatly wine -worthy :yesnod:
Well done Tiger.


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Good job you don't walk Kilo then; the pair of you wouldn't get anywhere :crazy::w00t:.
> 
> Sounds like Tiger had a sneaky roll.....with any luck :sosp: it was as the dog went past which is why he didn't notice...but you praised him for it so....dogs are now a cue for rolling in smelly stuff rrr: .


If I had Kilo with me, i'd put a hat on the floor and have people drop money in it for our amazing HTF (heelwork to flies) dance routine 

LOL I wish they were! It'd be better than a cue for handbags :lol: although I doubt i'd be saying that after a week, i'd be begging for the handbags to make a comeback :ciappa:


----------



## Dogless




----------



## kat&molly

Kilo, I hope Coffee's not in the water she'll be wet 

Big Evie has had to cancel our lesson for this morning, boo hoo she's going off to collect a new Collie pup. Personally I think Molls training is more important  Joking, I know shes had some problems arrangement wise so it cant be helped. I was really looking forward to it though.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Big Evie has had to cancel our lesson for this morning, boo hoo she's going off to collect a new Collie pup. Personally I think Molls training is more important  Joking, I know shes had some problems arrangement wise so it cant be helped. I was really looking forward to it though.


 how exciting for Big Evie but such a shame for you.

Tink had class last night and OH came and handled, he'd probably fall asleep if he just watched. Gold stars for both of them. Tink's focus is so good now. I never thought the dog that cantered around the hall at every momentary pause would ever be so good. It's definitely helped by her love of her magic mat.


----------



## kat&molly

Bless Tink, she's such a star:001_wub:
And a Gold star for your OH  Mine is wearing Scruff's Dunce hat-in fact it was his to start with, Scruff just borrowed it for a few weeks 

Is it a Trick class you do? Big Evie run some and apparently her dogs do TV commercials- I haven't quizzed her about it yet.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Is it a Trick class you do? Big Evie run some and apparently her dogs do TV commercials- I haven't quizzed her about it yet.


No, this one is an obedience one, although being on-going we get to request things. We've explored all sorts of things as pretty much every activity has set of cues and needs obedience. The body awareness stuff looks quite circus but actually helps prevent injury and can help a clumsy dog gain control.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> No, this one is an obedience one, although being on-going we get to request things. We've explored all sorts of things as pretty much every activity has set of cues and needs obedience. The body awareness stuff looks quite circus but actually helps prevent injury and can help a clumsy dog gain control.


I thought the body awareness clip you showed looked quite interesting- I'm just not up on these things anymore, living in the back of beyond. And I agree its all obedience at the end of the day. I've let a lot slip with Moll but she's really picking up this impulse control stuff and it cant have been easy for her.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I thought the body awareness clip you showed looked quite interesting- I'm just not up on these things anymore, living in the back of beyond. And I agree its all obedience at the end of the day. I've let a lot slip with Moll but she's really picking up this impulse control stuff and it cant have been easy for her.


I sympathise with Moll on the impulse control. I go to the post office in the next village most days and have to walk past this lovely little bakery, well soem days i manage to walk past and others I just have to go in and get something  and i know i dared to weigh myself yesterday that should help with the impulse control for a while

We are so lucky our trainer is good, I swear if she moves I'll be following her, is that too stalkerish? :blushing:


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> I thought the body awareness clip you showed looked quite interesting- I'm just not up on these things anymore, living in the back of beyond. And I agree its all obedience at the end of the day. I've let a lot slip with Moll but she's really picking up this impulse control stuff and it cant have been easy for her.


Go Moll! And you of course.  We've started doing impulse control work with Ely to help with his guarding and it's made such a difference! I never really bothered before as all of his training was mostly to do with confidence building but it's really helped to make him more responsive to me.

I know what you mean about OH's mine has a day off today so will take the dogs out later so I can have a lie in. Before I left for work I had to take him through Ely's routine for approaching other dogs and impress upon him how he needs to put Gypsy on the lead in squirrel areas. I'm not holding out much hope though. 

We had another really good walk for Ely yesterday. Lots of good focus work and calm behaviour when Gypsy was playing. But we went out with my room-mate and her bulldog who has lots of issues that she just doesn't have the skill to work on. He's DA with bigger dogs and has started lunging at men when we're walking around which is very bad. When we looked after him for 2 weeks when she was in San Francisco I spent the time working on his DA and he got much better (the lunging has only started in the last couple of weeks). But she hasn't carried on with any of that since and tbh sometimes he only gets walked when she either pays for a dog walker or I take him. Occasionally she comes out with us but not often. He's also developed a bit of SA as she goes away so often and has started toileting in the house when she isn't there.


----------



## kat&molly

I sounds like your room mates little Bulldog is really suffering-poor little man.
Such a shame as these things only get worse as you can see. Our Scruff had these barking and lunging problems when she came but is getting much better now.

Ely is doing really well :yesnod: the impulse control stuff is good isn't it? Now that Moll's actually having to show some restraint I think she prefers it. It may even be having a positive effect on her Heelwork too.


----------



## Guest

Can I add a silly success? 

My silly moo never learnt to jump onto things like beds or sofas, so for the past week or so I've been trying to teach her to jump onto the bed by putting her bedtime biscuits on the bed and 'supporting' her efforts to jump. Today she did it all by herself, not once but twice!!!  

It's really quite sad what gets me excited!


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Ely good luck with OH. I confine mine's efforts to a class once a week where someone else supervises him 



McKenzie said:


> Can I add a silly success?
> 
> My silly moo never learnt to jump onto things like beds or sofas, so for the past week or so I've been trying to teach her to jump onto the bed by putting her bedtime biscuits on the bed and 'supporting' her efforts to jump. Today she did it all by herself, not once but twice!!!
> 
> It's really quite sad what gets me excited!


Yay well done Kenzie  

Honey I will be running around whooping if Tink ever rolls over and i'm not talking on cue, i'm talking at all!

She's rolled over once by accident and looked bemused and disorientated and never has since.


----------



## theevos5

Gold star today on the recall.
The jumping up he can have a pat on the head but not a star of any colour yet!!

This is something that he has always done,but recently the need to get near other peoples treats has been greater! So it has always been managed by no one is allowed to treat him only me,so whether they have treats or not,he has accepted that,but I think a few people may have slipped him some treats,feeling that I am being wicked and this is the result.Once he knows that there is a chance,he is a total pest!
So today,what I have done is,when Alf approaches anyone,or makes any attempt to jump up,I have called him to me,trying not to have an angry voice!lol!and then clicked and treated the recall,but if he has sat politely by someone,I have clicked and I have thrown a treat in his direction,sort of half way between him and me,making it a game as after he has eaten the treat the first thing he does is come back to me for another!Thus distracting him and rewarding him for being polite! I guess it is gonna be a long haul again!

Saying that,whilst I was putting his lead on today,I felt something in my pocket and it was another beagle having a feast whilst I was distracted so feel sort of thankful,that it isn't just Alf,but if he did low level scavenging,I would feel better than this jumping up he is doing.
Hope everyone has had a good day,just been informed by OH he is working this weekend,so that gives me the chance to keep on with Alfs training rather than him having the weekend to be unruly! But it also gives me the chance to meet the staffie that he has taken a dislike to


K&m sorry your lesson was cancelled,shame on Big Evie
MV keep up the impulse control at the bakers and let me know your tips,because I just can't resist that warm bread smell,and I am a sucker for a danish pastry


----------



## Tigerneko

McKenzie said:


> Can I add a silly success?
> 
> My silly moo never learnt to jump onto things like beds or sofas, so for the past week or so I've been trying to teach her to jump onto the bed by putting her bedtime biscuits on the bed and 'supporting' her efforts to jump. Today she did it all by herself, not once but twice!!!
> 
> It's really quite sad what gets me excited!


Well done Kenzie! Brilliant work 

Today has been the icing on the cake - I SO wish I could have taken a few photos.

We went out this morning (managed to get my mum and dad out as well! result!) to a lovely stately home & it's grounds called Towneley Park which isn't too far from us. We walked around the grounds of the house and then wandered into the park. Tiger was off his lead for much of the time and was chasing his rubber stick (which he eventually broke ) up and down. We came across a couple with a Border Terrier on a Flexi Lead, who lay down on the floor as soon as he saw our two (we took Ruby along with us as well) so we put both back on the lead. Their dog was pulling to say hello to Ruby so we allowed them to, Tiger was also pulling to say hello, so after asking their permission - we allowed him to approach the dog, both of them on lead! He had a quick sniff and then backed off     we ended up getting chatting to the couple about their dog and Ruby as she also has a lot of Border in her. My dad wandered about 10ft away with Tiger and let him off his lead to chase his stick. He made no effort to approach the dog and was more interested in his stick!

He then went on to ignore 3 other dogs while on lead - and we were passing them on the same path! once we were happy he was ignoring them all, we got to a wider grassy section and let him off. He ignored every dog, came back to us when called and was more interested in his toy.

Near the end of the walk, my mum and dad had wandered ahead as I was playing with Tiger, and I noticed a large dog (looked like GSD x Lab or something) come flying towards us while Tiger was playing with his toy. I panicked for all of a second and then just sort of thought "whatever happens will happen" and just allowed the dog to approach him - he was perfect! They had a good bum sniff and a bit of a look at each other and then the other dog ran off. I was a bit disappointed really, I would've liked it if they'd have played together, but never mind 

All in all, it's been amazing! I can't wait for tonight's walk now either, I am tempted to take him to a different field where there are a few regular dog walkers, he's not as bad as i've made him out to be and I think I just need to trust him a little bit more. I desperately want to make a few dog walking friends but just don't know how to go about it


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> I sounds like your room mates little Bulldog is really suffering-poor little man.
> Such a shame as these things only get worse as you can see. Our Scruff had these barking and lunging problems when she came but is getting much better now.
> 
> Ely is doing really well :yesnod: the impulse control stuff is good isn't it? Now that Moll's actually having to show some restraint I think she prefers it. It may even be having a positive effect on her Heelwork too.


I know - I really wish I'd started it sooner! Good on you Moll.

I feel very sorry for poor bulldog but there's not much I can do - I can't take on a DA and verging on HA aggressive dog if he isn't mine, it's just too much work. I've already put a programme in place to work on his resource guarding but that's because it was putting my 2 at risk. But even that is mostly management as no one else in the house will stick to it.

She's going abroad for a year in September and taking the dog back to the states to live with her parents. Who have a boxer that they don't walk. 

OH did walk them this morning but didn't take Ely as he went to the place that you have to walk up the main road to get too (and is too much for Ely). So poor Ely has only had a short walk this morning when he would have had an hour normally. 

Gold stars for Alf, Kenzie and Tiger!


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Kenzie - yay! Glad she's finally learning to jump up! 

Tigerneko - Glad it's gone well, meeting so many dogs in one go is great  Wish Merlin was not interested in dogs though 

Evos - Glad Alf is doing well 

Today I'm feeling a little more with it than yesterday, and everything that needed sorting personal-life wise is getting there... So we decided to go to Thetford forest! 

We had a mini-celebration this morning, when I was in the shower and OH went to the shops - I was in the shower thinking that's wierd OH must have gone and Merlin isn't here whining. Got out of the shower, couldn't hear any whining or pining like he normally does when OH goes... so I walk into the lounge to see Merlin just laying there, happy as larry munching on his toy!  He's never good when OH leaves, when both leave his fine, but OH leaving he cries like mad. But not this morning! Wooo hoo!! 

Then went to the forest and he was very good in the car, again not too much dribble.... but not interested in treats again. We stopped off at the pet shop to get some new treats as I was worried they'd gone off or something was wrong with them. Got lots of different ones he normally likes and he wasn't interested AT ALL. 

He would come when asked (mostly), change direction when asked, bike came past and he had no reaction, but treats?! No way. This isn't making it easy, because although he does come, we were trying to get him to come quickly and only treating the straight away coming... but he doesn't register this, because isn't interested.

Tried with a toy and got the same response as last time.  I really don't have a clue what's going on... 

Also met quite a few people and only jumped up once - which is great. He is getting it, but I wish he would be a bit more attentive to us...


----------



## L/C

WhippetyAmey said:


> Kenzie - yay! Glad she's finally learning to jump up!
> 
> Tigerneko - Glad it's gone well, meeting so many dogs in one go is great  Wish Merlin was not interested in dogs though
> 
> Evos - Glad Alf is doing well
> 
> Today I'm feeling a little more with it than yesterday, and everything that needed sorting personal-life wise is getting there... So we decided to go to Thetford forest!
> 
> We had a mini-celebration this morning, when I was in the shower and OH went to the shops - I was in the shower thinking that's wierd OH must have gone and Merlin isn't here whining. Got out of the shower, couldn't hear any whining or pining like he normally does when OH goes... so I walk into the lounge to see Merlin just laying there, happy as larry munching on his toy!  He's never good when OH leaves, when both leave his fine, but OH leaving he cries like mad. But not this morning! Wooo hoo!!
> 
> Then went to the forest and he was very good in the car, again not too much dribble.... but not interested in treats again. We stopped off at the pet shop to get some new treats as I was worried they'd gone off or something was wrong with them. Got lots of different ones he normally likes and he wasn't interested AT ALL.
> 
> He would come when asked (mostly), change direction when asked, bike came past and he had no reaction, but treats?! No way. This isn't making it easy, because although he does come, we were trying to get him to come quickly and only treating the straight away coming... but he doesn't register this, because isn't interested.
> 
> Tried with a toy and got the same response as last time.  I really don't have a clue what's going on...
> 
> Also met quite a few people and only jumped up once - which is great. He is getting it, but I wish he would be a bit more attentive to us...


Thetford forest - I'm so jealous, used to go mountain biking there when I was at uni. It's lovely.

Ely wasn't interested in treats outside when we first got him - he was too stressed and over stimulated for them to register and he can still get like that. The things that get through to him now are liver cake and sardine cake, the smellier the better. Treats from a packet just won't do it. The other thing that works sometimes is his Kong Air Ball. We then do a few simple focus exercises like 'watch me' and I don't ask him to do anything too taxing. Is Merlin just too interested in everything else? Is he looking for things to chase/hunt?

David Ryan has a really interesting comment in "Stop! How to Control Predatory Chasing in Dogs" about imagining you were about to do the best thing in your life (his example is scoring the winning goal for England), would you be distracted by someone waving a biscuit? I try to remember that now when I can't get the attention of my dogs outside.


----------



## WhippetyAmey

L/C said:


> Thetford forest - I'm so jealous, used to go mountain biking there when I was at uni. It's lovely.
> 
> Ely wasn't interested in treats outside when we first got him - he was too stressed and over stimulated for them to register and he can still get like that. The things that get through to him now are liver cake and sardine cake, the smellier the better. Treats from a packet just won't do it. The other thing that works sometimes is his Kong Air Ball. We then do a few simple focus exercises like 'watch me' and I don't ask him to do anything too taxing. Is Merlin just too interested in everything else? Is he looking for things to chase/hunt?
> 
> David Ryan has a really interesting comment in "Stop! How to Control Predatory Chasing in Dogs" about imagining you were about to do the best thing in your life (his example is scoring the winning goal for England), would you be distracted by someone waving a biscuit? I try to remember that now when I can't get the attention of my dogs outside.


Thetford was really lovely, although a little busy, I was quick shocked.

Merlin has never been majorly foody, when we first got him he wouldn't take treats at all. And it wasn't until he was about 13-14 weeks until he started taking treats outside.

I tried some homemade treats with him and he wasn't interested, so I didn't bother today, but he wasn't really hunting or looking for things to chase. I swear his crossed with a beagle - his nose was on the ground most of the time! He does a certain stance just before his about to run and he didn't do that at all. The thing is, even when I held out my hand for the treat he didn't even sniff...  If we need him to come and he doesn't, we turn and run, which works... I don't know, his eating and drinking like normal, just not into toys or treats? I must own the wierdest dog in the world!


----------



## L/C

WhippetyAmey said:


> Thetford was really lovely, although a little busy, I was quick shocked.
> 
> Merlin has never been majorly foody, when we first got him he wouldn't take treats at all. And it wasn't until he was about 13-14 weeks until he started taking treats outside.
> 
> I tried some homemade treats with him and he wasn't interested, so I didn't bother today, but he wasn't really hunting or looking for things to chase. I swear his crossed with a beagle - his nose was on the ground most of the time! He does a certain stance just before his about to run and he didn't do that at all. The thing is, even when I held out my hand for the treat he didn't even sniff...  If we need him to come and he doesn't, we turn and run, which works... I don't know, his eating and drinking like normal, just not into toys or treats? I must own the wierdest dog in the world!


My greyhounds both sniff a lot too and it's one of the hardest things to distract them from - so I use sniffing as a reward. When they recall or follow a command they are then released to 'Go sniff.' If sniffing is what floats Merlin's boat I would start assigning that to a command and using it as a reward.

To get Ely interested in food outside I withheld his meals and used them as training treats - so he only got fed on walks. Now I don't feed them until after their walks so he is always hungry when we're out and so more likely to pay attention to me.


----------



## kat&molly

Sounds like everyones doing well :thumbup:

No training today at all its just too hot. Took the girls off in the van to the lovely lake with a nice shady walk. Its worked and they've all come back much cooler. I wanted to jump in as well!!
Thats all they'll begetting today but we were there a couple of hours.

Moonviolet good luck with your Impulse control- but if my mad Springer girly can do it so can you.

Have a good evening at school Dogless.


----------



## Dogless

Well done to everyone - good day for all :thumbup:.

I award Kilo a gold star for his performance at school tonight too; he was my best boy and is now sleeping soundly on the sofa .


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## kat&molly

Well done big Fella.:thumbup:

Tell me what sort of stuff you do in class please, because I'm nosey and be interesting to see if I know what it all is.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well done big Fella.:thumbup:
> 
> Tell me what sort of stuff you do in class please, because I'm nosey and be interesting to see if I know what it all is.


Tonight we did heelwork at various speeds and a bit of 'follow the leader' passing other dogs closely with sits, downs etc thrown in; some door manners; some walking your dogs around LLW whilst all the others work on getting their dogs focussing on them; some stays; some unclipping the lead whilst in a sit and then clipping back on - for dogs that run when lead unclipped, but I have always made Kilo wait to be released so OK with that.

Each week we do lots of heelwork and focus work but the other exercises are varied each week (so far - only on week 5!).


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Dogless said:


> Tonight we did heelwork at various speeds and a bit of 'follow the leader' passing other dogs closely with sits, downs etc thrown in; some door manners; some walking your dogs around LLW whilst all the others work on getting their dogs focussing on them; some stays; some unclipping the lead whilst in a sit and then clipping back on - for dogs that run when lead unclipped, but I have always made Kilo wait to be released so OK with that.
> 
> Each week we do lots of heelwork and focus work but the other exercises are varied each week (so far - only on week 5!).


Ohh that sounds really interesting  Well Done Kilo - big gold stars for you :thumbup:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Tonight we did heelwork at various speeds and a bit of 'follow the leader' passing other dogs closely with sits, downs etc thrown in; some door manners; some walking your dogs around LLW whilst all the others work on getting their dogs focussing on them; some stays; some unclipping the lead whilst in a sit and then clipping back on - for dogs that run when lead unclipped, but I have always made Kilo wait to be released so OK with that.
> 
> Each week we do lots of heelwork and focus work but the other exercises are varied each week (so far - only on week 5!).


It sounds good and I understood it all.
I make mine wait when unclipping leads and when I open the car and they're really good but Sunday at the lake Evie dodged past me and I had to rugby tackle the little sod


----------



## moonviolet

Well done everyone sounds like it's been a pretty good day all in all.



kat&molly said:


> It sounds good and I understood it all.
> I make mine wait when unclipping leads and when I open the car and they're really good but Sunday at the lake Evie dodged past me and I had to rugby tackle the little sod


Trust Evie 

I have another body awareness video for you ...sorry about the ludite with her phone the wrong way


----------



## Tigerneko

went up to the field for another hour tonight!

He was fab, I took plenty of photos so will post them later 

A lady came towards us with a very large (not fat - just enormous!) male chocolate Lab and put him on lead when she spotted us, so I recalled Tiger and put him back on. We stood back in the long grass and let them pass. The Lab fixated on Tiger and tensed up - but my star boy just ignored it!

The same could not be said for the cat that shot out of a garden in front of us on the way home though  so sadly I had an unruly crazed beast on the end of a lead for the last 2 minutes but I can live with that, as long as it wasn't a dog 

Got some fab pictures of him, I can't wait to put them up


----------



## Sarah1983

Any tips on teaching that sort of thing Moonviolet? Mine seems to think his body ends just behind his front legs 

Kevin has put in several appearances today unfortunately. We had a nice enough walk this afternoon although I didn't realise just how hot it was until we got to the fields, if I had I'd have walked him this evening instead. Spencer just flopped down on the floor in the stairwell when we got home and I had to persuade him to get up the stairs and into the flat 

Outside of the flats on toilet walks he's been horrendous though. Head down, shoulder to the ground "we're going this way!" or digging in his paws and refusing to budge because he wants to sniff something for ridiculous lengths of time then pee over it then sniff it some more. Recall? What's that? And apparently I am far less interesting than an empty Capri Sun carton (again!) which is a little humbling :frown: I mean I can deal with being less interesting than sheep and ducks and deer and rotting, maggot filled hedgehog corpses but this is a new low! I gave up in the end and we played 101 things to do with a Capri Sun carton, figured I might as well get some use out of an object he was so interested in.

He's even been a pain in the house. We don't have a rule against him getting on the sofa although he normally doesn't bother. However today he has been getting up and insisting on lying or sitting on me. Then once he's up and positioned just how he wants to be he sloooooowly wriggles onto his back, across the couch and off the edge, landing on his side on the floor. Then he repeats it. And repeats it. I swear one day I will have a normal dog! 

He's also run off with tissues, my book, my magazine, my bottle of coke and my phone and attempted to raid the laundry basket. However he did come and shove a tissue in my hand this morning then went to the fridge and stood there looking expectantly at me for his reward.

So while not the best day he's certainly kept me amused with his naughty behaviour.


----------



## Tigerneko

Sarah1983 said:


> Any tips on teaching that sort of thing Moonviolet? Mine seems to think his body ends just behind his front legs
> 
> Kevin has put in several appearances today unfortunately. We had a nice enough walk this afternoon although I didn't realise just how hot it was until we got to the fields, if I had I'd have walked him this evening instead. Spencer just flopped down on the floor in the stairwell when we got home and I had to persuade him to get up the stairs and into the flat
> 
> Outside of the flats on toilet walks he's been horrendous though. Head down, shoulder to the ground "we're going this way!" or digging in his paws and refusing to budge because he wants to sniff something for ridiculous lengths of time then pee over it then sniff it some more. Recall? What's that? And apparently I am far less interesting than an empty Capri Sun carton (again!) which is a little humbling :frown: I mean I can deal with being less interesting than sheep and ducks and deer and rotting, maggot filled hedgehog corpses but this is a new low! I gave up in the end and we played 101 things to do with a Capri Sun carton, figured I might as well get some use out of an object he was so interested in.
> 
> He's even been a pain in the house. We don't have a rule against him getting on the sofa although he normally doesn't bother. However today he has been getting up and insisting on lying or sitting on me. Then once he's up and positioned just how he wants to be he sloooooowly wriggles onto his back, across the couch and off the edge, landing on his side on the floor. Then he repeats it. And repeats it. I swear one day I will have a normal dog!
> 
> He's also run off with tissues, my book, my magazine, my bottle of coke and my phone and attempted to raid the laundry basket. However he did come and shove a tissue in my hand this morning then went to the fridge and stood there looking expectantly at me for his reward.
> 
> So while not the best day he's certainly kept me amused with his naughty behaviour.


aww bless you, I know I shouldn't, but I couldn't help laughing at your post - you make him sound so comical  and he reminds me of Tiger in a lot of ways! The worlds longest sniffing sessions are a frequent feature of our walks, most of the time it must be another dogs pee because there is literally nothing there to look at, yet he is totally fascinated and just cannot pass by without investigating  fetching you the tissue and expecting a treat is so cute, i've actually got a book of 'dog tricks' that shows you how to teach them to do that on a sneeze (or sneeze-like sound) and it's one of the highest level tricks, so you have yourself one clever boy there


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Spen does seem to be hit with the kevins at the moment. Well done on improvising with teh capri sun carton :thumbup:

We've done lots of bodyawareness things... backing up is probably the simplest doing it along a wall to helps them go straight, You'll probably find he tends to veer in one direction, like us they do seem to favour one side of their bodies over the other.

Tight turns around a chair, tree, bollard. leg weaves and figure8's

This is quite a good video and similar to how we were taught.
How to teach rear end awareness and pivoting - YouTube


----------



## Tigerneko

This one was shortly before he savaged me, I can't believe how evil he looks on it  possibly another thing for the Daily Fail 










hard to believe that seconds before he was actually pulling this face









 :lol:

Anyway, he took his favourite rubber stick with him, which deteriorated in health over the walk.... it started like this:










and then went from this:










to this:










which as you can see, he was very pleased with himself for 

at one point, it also ended up in here:










where I had to rescue it from, I thought I was gonna fall and break my leg, below it is totally uneven ground which vanishes here and there and drops down god knows how far, now I look back on it I was a bit daft and I should've left it, but Tiger's little face looked so disappointed 

But he was so happy to have it back!










In the end, I lost one of the pieces again in another ridiculous prickly bush, so I just left it  so I need to order another rubber stick! After this we headed home, but I managed to get a lovely shot of the field...










and the lovely Pendle Hill in the distance, I have a stunning view of it from my house


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## Sarah1983

Tigerneko said:


> aww bless you, I know I shouldn't, but I couldn't help laughing at your post - you make him sound so comical  and he reminds me of Tiger in a lot of ways! The worlds longest sniffing sessions are a frequent feature of our walks, most of the time it must be another dogs pee because there is literally nothing there to look at, yet he is totally fascinated and just cannot pass by without investigating  fetching you the tissue and expecting a treat is so cute, i've actually got a book of 'dog tricks' that shows you how to teach them to do that on a sneeze (or sneeze-like sound) and it's one of the highest level tricks, so you have yourself one clever boy there


I think we may have the same book lol. He's certainly intelligent, not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing sometimes! However, he'd much rather shred tissues than fetch them, even if bringing them to me does get him treats. He makes me laugh a hell of a lot. When we're training he's usually deadly serious and intent on what we're doing but when he's not "working" he's a different dog.

Thanks moonviolet, will check that out tomorrow, would be nice if Spen knew his rather hefty back end existed


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet, Tinks so good, and it looks like she's really enjoying it, and that Corgi's gorgeous.
Sarah , Spencer does sound like a bit of a character- bet you need eyes up your backside with him. Alot like a certain little dog I know She's got much better lately but can be very determined when she wants to be- I'm going to try her later with the clicker-it should be fun. I bet he would enjoy the awareness exercises, at least he will work for you.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah, I did a T Touch workshop that had some body - awareness stuff in - not sure if you can find anything about that online? It was very interesting and I still do some now, although not as much as I perhaps should, so maybe I'll take mv's lead and step it up again? The woman who took the workshop also suggested that massages and touching the dog's extremities regularly would help, especially with large fast - growing dogs.

Tigerneko; not much to say apart from I'm proud of you and the pictures are lovely!!

I forgot to mention yesterday afternoon that when I went to the fields I met someone with two dogs that I know, one of whom the owner said is in season (the other will be soon too), they also live very close to the fields, so think I probably need to avoid the fields for a few weeks now unless it's pouring with rain as I can't risk Kilo following the scent back to their house or meeting them offlead as has happened before . It's a shame as it's the only place where he can go offlead within walking distance that is people and traffic free during the week .


----------



## DavieB

Dogless said:


> Sarah, I did a T Touch workshop that had some body - awareness stuff in - not sure if you can find anything about that online? It was very interesting and I still do some now, although not as much as I perhaps should, so maybe I'll take mv's lead and step it up again? The woman who took the workshop also suggested that massages and touching the dog's extremities regularly would help, especially with large fast - growing dogs.
> 
> Tigerneko; not much to say apart from I'm proud of you and the pictures are lovely!!
> 
> I forgot to mention yesterday afternoon that when I went to the fields I met someone with two dogs that I know, one of whom the owner said is in season (the other will be soon too), they also live very close to the fields, so think I probably need to avoid the fields for a few weeks now unless it's pouring with rain as I can't risk Kilo following the scent back to their house or meeting them offlead as has happened before . It's a shame as it's the only place where he can go offlead within walking distance that is people and traffic free during the week .


It's a touch disappointing that this can ruin your walk  not your fault after all.

I went to a different park today to meet Shrap and Dino but she couldn't make it (someone stole my phone last week and I only got a new one yesterday so we had been communicating through pm's and i never checked mine before I left lol) so me and Yuri walked alone he normally goes paddling every day on his walks but no lakes on this walk so he found a big puddle and jumped up and down in it lol. Oh and we bumped into 2 vicious little snappy JRT's If my dog snapped and snarled and barked like these little **** did I'd get reported. Yuri took it in his stride wish he'd learn to bark back at them though he's only young though I guess.


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## kat&molly

Forgot to say well done to Tiger- that sounds brilliant.:thumbup:

Dogless- I really dont understand these people.


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry if this is boring, but i wanted to share another little video which i think shows Tinker's happy go lucky and "wooo I got it right" nature. when every dog in the big wide world terrified her. Those in class were immune and this was the dog we knew she could be again.

It's another little video of Tink at training. This one she has to find a cloth OH has hides behind the furthest chair, the red thing in the middle is Tink's training bag which actually contains some low value treats, then our trainer and her dog add an extra distraction (unintentionally) and knock me down with a feather the beagle remains pretty focussed.

I'll compile some outtakes for you all to have a giggle, so you don't get the impression she is a total angel 

 Hope it plays ok photobucket is being a bit grumpy for me today.


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## WhippetyAmey

MV - I love the video's of Tink! Love how excited she is when doing training, that video about the body awareness, think we will have to try that. 

Although, Merlin isn't clumsy in general, but when he recalls, one day I think he will break my leg. He runs at you full pelt and sometimes doesn't stop in time 

God knows what we are going to do today... I've got a few bits to sort out, but I just feel lately that Merlin is not focused on us at all. Not sure how to get him focused again, or whether he is going through the fear period. As he's not been looking at us in the eye at all and a few things have spooked him lately - which is majorly unusual, as normally he is so over confident... 

Not really sure how to improve it, would try and do some training but since M won't take treats (even inside it seems) not sure what to do... may not give him lunch and then do some training around 3 with kibble... 

Need some ideas me thinks!


----------



## moonviolet

WhippetyAmey said:


> MV - I love the video's of Tink! Love how excited she is when doing training, that video about the body awareness, think we will have to try that.
> 
> Although, Merlin isn't clumsy in general, but when he recalls, one day I think he will break my leg. He runs at you full pelt and sometimes doesn't stop in time
> 
> God knows what we are going to do today... I've got a few bits to sort out, but I just feel lately that Merlin is not focused on us at all. Not sure how to get him focused again, or whether he is going through the fear period. As he's not been looking at us in the eye at all and a few things have spooked him lately - which is majorly unusual, as normally he is so over confident...
> 
> Not really sure how to improve it, would try and do some training but since M won't take treats (even inside it seems) not sure what to do... may not give him lunch and then do some training around 3 with kibble...
> 
> Need some ideas me thinks!


I'll probably sound a little 'special' but when all else fails I sit with Tink either on my lap or down on the ground with her. Gently stroking just letting her take it all in. Now the for the really 'special' bit i aways try to think of all good ways she has influenced life and general happy thoughts. I do think this influences the way you touch. I find just slowing down and taking a few moments to connect helps.

I found this ttouch earwork video it's posted by a ttouch level 2 practitioner and has been included in the blog of another level 2 practitioner so it's not just Mabel down the road.

Friday Find: TTouch Ear Work

Might be something you could try at home with Merlin.


----------



## kat&molly

DavieB said:


> It's a touch disappointing that this can ruin your walk  not your fault after all.
> 
> I went to a different park today to meet Shrap and Dino but she couldn't make it (someone stole my phone last week and I only got a new one yesterday so we had been communicating through pm's and i never checked mine before I left lol) so me and Yuri walked alone he normally goes paddling every day on his walks but no lakes on this walk so he found a big puddle and jumped up and down in it lol. Oh and we bumped into 2 vicious little snappy JRT's If my dog snapped and snarled and barked like these little runts did I'd get reported. Yuri took it in his stride wish he'd learn to bark back at them though he's only young though I guess.


You've edited your post.Thats the 2nd one of yours in 2 days I've spotted having a pop at smaller dogs. People can take offence you know


----------



## DavieB

ive no issue with smaller dogs, sorry lol. I had lhasa apsos growing up and love the little things but being small is not an excuse for (some) people not to train as well. 

I don't remember doing it before if I offended anyone I apologise.

Ive had a look through my posts I see one saying small dogs are nippier and more likely to bite (in my experienec this is true) and another saying toy dog owners are wary of Yuri, if I was a toy dog owner I'd be wary of Yuri lol, he has no idea how big and heavy he is he thinks he's a cat lol. 

I think socialisation is often not carried out correctly with toy dogs for definite round my are anyway, I think the attitude is they can't do anyone any harm whats the point.


----------



## kat&molly

I agree a lot of people do think that having a smaller dog means they dont have so train it- but you'll find its not like that on here and most of us work hard.
You should be proud that Yuri doesn't react to smaller dogs going off at him- always better to walk away showing yours is the better trained.


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet, Tinks really good, even though she's enjoying it she does it calmly When we play this with Moll she gets so excited that her tail sends everything flying!!
You would think its the sort of thing Evie would like


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet, Tinks really good, even though she's enjoying it she does it calmly When we play this with Moll she gets so excited that her tail sends everything flying!!
> You would think its the sort of thing Evie would like


It's taken a while to get things calm enough to eb useful that said.. her 'podium' (celebrations tub for the uninitiated) is weighted and her mat has to have a non slip yoga mat under it both because of her "gusto"

Hmm what would Evie like... I think Evie would like a team of custom trained humans to cater for her every whim


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> It's taken a while to get things calm enough to eb useful that said.. her 'podium' (celebrations tub for the uninitiated) is weighted and her mat has to have a non slip yoga mat under it both because of her "gusto"
> 
> Hmm what would Evie like... I think Evie would like a team of custom trained humans to cater for her every whim


Tinks gusto 

Evie, you're right. Every time I ask her to do something , she stops, looks at me and I can see her mind whirring as she's deciding whether or not to comply!!


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Tinks gusto
> 
> Evie, you're right. Every time I ask her to do something , she stops, looks at me and I can see her mind whirring as she's deciding whether or not to comply!!


 I know that face. I still get it from time to time from her ladyship while the pros and cons are placed on the "effort Vs reward" scales.

Tink wants to be shown the reward... Mean mum just puts the treat bag away and puts the kettle on. Has a cuppa , then tries again .


----------



## Zoojie

So agility did not go too well last night with amber!!

We do it in a horse training ring and there were too many disgusting things to smell lol! So a very distracted Beagle. Still, apart from that and the echoing call of 'loose dog' to fanfare my bumbling chase after her, she did manage to do all the activities. 

Room for improvement 

She then decided last night at around 1am that she needed to go out. She's not a whiner or a scratcher , and doesn't normally need to go out at night. Ended up peeing on OH's pillow! Friggin' HILARIOUS! He wasn't impressed, but only ourselves to blame. I've been told I have to clean the pillow though hehe.

Loki is doing ok, practicing some watches and stuff and trying to get him calm by the house to start with


----------



## moonviolet

Zoojie said:


> So agility did not go too well last night with amber!!
> 
> We do it in a horse training ring and there were too many disgusting things to smell lol! So a very distracted Beagle. Still, apart from that and the echoing call of 'loose dog' to fanfare my bumbling chase after her, she did manage to do all the activities.
> 
> Room for improvement
> 
> She then decided last night at around 1am that she needed to go out. She's not a whiner or a scratcher , and doesn't normally need to go out at night. Ended up peeing on OH's pillow! Friggin' HILARIOUS! He wasn't impressed, but only ourselves to blame. I've been told I have to clean the pillow though hehe.
> 
> Loki is doing ok, practicing some watches and stuff and trying to get him calm by the house to start with


Ermmm well done loki 

I'm trying so hard not to laugh but :lol :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: I can't help loving the naughty beagles. Oops at the pillow. 

It's not quite as exciting as smelly horse poo, but our obedience class is the last of hte evening 2 are run prior with the puppy one being directly before us so lots of dropped treats, doggies smells and even the occasional cleaned up puddle (floor is thoroughly mopped after all classes finish.) we always take Tink for a little tour of the hall before class begin. I wonder if you could do a similar thing with the arena and Amber.


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## kat&molly

Great post Zoojie, we do need a sense of humour don't we.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Ermmm well done loki
> 
> I'm trying so hard not to laugh but :lol :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: I can't help loving the naughty beagles. Oops at the pillow.
> 
> It's not quite as exciting as smelly horse poo, but our obedience class is the last of hte evening 2 are run prior with the puppy one being directly before us so lots of dropped treats, doggies smells and even the occasional cleaned up puddle (floor is thoroughly mopped after all classes finish.) we always take Tink for a little tour of the hall before class begin. I wonder if you could do a similar thing with the arena and Amber.


I try and get to our lessons first and do a little tour so Kilo can get his sniffs in too; does seem to help!


----------



## kat&molly

A mixed day for us, mostly good though.
23 stops this morning so not brilliant but not too bad.
Practicing Mollys retreives, just short distances and I can get her to come back to me rather than drop it about a metre away, I've dropped the sit/present as that was just rushing it. Just need to build up distance slowly now- she learns so easy it spoils me for the other girls.
We took a different route for LLW this afternoon , I expected them to be really bad with different smells and pulling but they were quite good.

I got the clicker out for a bit of target stuff with shorthouse. Peanut butter on the end of a stick - what could be simpler? She had 4 licks then walked off- I got the other girls out hoping the competition would help but no chance. Its a good job she cant talk because I know where she would have told me to shove my clicker and PB


----------



## WhippetyAmey

So we are at a bit of a stand still with the training - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/244149-merlins-having-strange-moment.html#post1062097983 Hopefully it's just a bit of a week lapse and it will go back to normal, but I don't know!

Did take him to Milton park today though, and he did everything I asked and met a few doggies, one who got very upset when Merlin tried to mount him and came away when asked which was good...

Just need to find a reward to suit him!


----------



## Starlite

we are attempting 

"STOP LICKING THE BABIES FACE FOR CRUMBS!"

its not going well :lol:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly - you seem to be making steady progress....still no idea what you should do with Evie though; she's certainly a (lovable!) character  .

WhippetyAmey - maybe Merlin is just maturing a bit and you need to find a reward that really, really works like sniffing about, going offlead, getting to play with another dog? At about that age Kilo stopped scavenging (in the main ) and eating anything and became a little more 'discerning'.

We haven't done any training today - went to our favourite spot _and persuaded hubby who is on leave to come  _. He has now seen one of the places that I go on about, but we went for 2 hours rather than one of my mammoth wandering sessions :aureola:.

Putting off our second walk until later as we got back late from our trip and Kilo is zonked still and I also don't want to bump into the in season bitch who is walked around the same time as I walk. It's chucking down so MAY risk the fields in the morning, but possibly not. Hard to know what to do.


----------



## Phoolf

Just had a nightmare walk round the park. When we arrived there were about 11 dogs so she was off chasing the younger ones but after a while half of them left and she was an absolutely terror, nipped at a few dog walkers hands, jumping up on everyone, had to go on lead after a short while because she was being such an arse. Putting it down to the heat but I'm really not in the mood today, felt like having a little sob.


----------



## kat&molly

I hope the rain washes the scent of the bitch away- I think I would have to say something were it me . Pleased that you managed to get your OH out , my walks always seem a bit shorter when mine comes as he complains everythings a marathon.

As for Evie I may just have to accept she's happy in her own little world. Her recall is now really good, still cant trust her like the others but even yesterday at the lake she ran off in to some dense woods , I knew there was no livestock, but I could hear her yipping, so I blew the whistle and walked off, she came back within a minute. Not bad for a nose on legs really.:thumbup:


----------



## kat&molly

Phoolf said:


> Just had a nightmare walk round the park. When we arrived there were about 11 dogs so she was off chasing the younger ones but after a while half of them left and she was an absolutely terror, nipped at a few dog walkers hands, jumping up on everyone, had to go on lead after a short while because she was being such an arse. Putting it down to the heat but I'm really not in the mood today, felt like having a little sob.


Sorry you had a bad walk, I hope tomorrows better for you.


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## Phoolf

kat&molly said:


> Sorry you had a bad walk, I hope tomorrows better for you.


I'm sure it will be, she's been restless all day so it shouldn't have come as a surprise.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I hope the rain washes the scent of the bitch away- I think I would have to say something were it me . Pleased that you managed to get your OH out , my walks always seem a bit shorter when mine comes as he complains everythings a marathon.
> 
> As for Evie I may just have to accept she's happy in her own little world. Her recall is now really good, still cant trust her like the others but even yesterday at the lake she ran off in to some dense woods , I knew there was no livestock, but I could hear her yipping, so I blew the whistle and walked off, she came back within a minute. Not bad for a nose on legs really.:thumbup:


I'm still unsure - Kilo has been out doing some very serious air scenting in the garden and the wind is coming from the direction of their house, so definitely no offlead tonight as they live close to the fields.


----------



## SixStar

Not updated in a while... I barely have any fingers left to type with! 

The not jumping up is going brilliantly, 98% of the time all four paws will stay firmly on the ground, he's doing really well with that. The grabbing for treats though, not so good... 

He had been doing quite well, but he got my fingers really badly a couple of times, really skinned them and made them bloodied and very, very sore. Because we're doing so much training and socialisation, we couldn't really go without treating, so I started dropping them on the floor for him again (just whilst my fingers healed!), but now he's into an odd phase where he'll go berserk frantically looking around and sniffing the floor for the treat even after he's already eaten it, and it takes an absolute age to get his attention back again.

We've also had a HUGE set back with getting him accustomed to livestock  Our house is surrounded by fields, and since he has been home, sheep have occupied the feilds and Oz has never paid any attention to them at all, just hasn't been bothered by them in the slighest. On Wednesday though the farmer moved cows into the field that our garden backs onto and Ozzy is memorised by them - the cows are much more confident than the sheep and come right up to the fence (chain link, so completely see-through) and he gets SO frustrated - running up and down the fence line, whining and whining. And if he's in the house and he hears a cow moo he'll even start pacing around and scratching at the back door to go out, or he'll start barking if it's the middle of the night. He gets SO worked up by them - he doesn't want to harm them, he just gets so over excited and doesn't know what to do with himself.

Today I took him out into the garden on his lead and tried to do some work with him - I clicked and treated him every time he looked at the cows and back at me, and he was very good and calm. We got about quarter of a way up the garden (about fifty foot) so a fair distance away from the cows, and he was standing nicely - looking at the cows and back at me constantly for a treat. Then one moo'ed and that was it - concentration gone, bouncing up and down, lunging forward to go up to the end of the garden, and nothing was getting his focus back. I called it a day and took him back indoors, gave us both some time apart to chill out and then went we'd both relaxed again, we headed out for our walk.

He was a nightmare  He wanted to go after EVERY thing that moved - sheep, pheasants, pigeons, rabbits - stuff he's never been in the slightest bit interested in before. We live right out in the countryside so can't walk for more than a few minutes without coming across some wildlife or livestock, and he was just reacting to everything we saw. I tried to distract him with a treat with no luck, but then he suddenly snapped at it and got my fingers badly again. I got cross at him, got cross at myself for getting cross at him and just took him back home, cutting our walk short - pretty much dragging him the whole way back as he kicked up a stink over everything. There were times he did relax and walk nicely but I was so stressed out I completely ignored him, not even treating him when he was being good, so I've probably made him take an even further step back now :frown:

I'm saddened to admit I'm struggling. Really, really struggling :crying::crying:


----------



## Dogless

SixStar; it sounds as if everything really is a struggle right now - no idea really what to suggest bar maybe a trip in the car to a much less stimulating walking spot fairly often to give yourselves a break and build your bond back up? I'm really sorry to hear how hard you are finding it .


----------



## Phoolf

SixStar said:


> Not updated in a while... I barely have any fingers left to type with!
> 
> The not jumping up is going brilliantly, 98% of the time all four paws will stay firmly on the ground, he's doing really well with that. The grabbing for treats though, not so good...
> 
> He had been doing quite well, but he got my fingers really badly a couple of times, really skinned them and made them bloodied and very, very sore. Because we're doing so much training and socialisation, we couldn't really go without treating, so I started dropping them on the floor for him again (just whilst my fingers healed!), but now he's into an odd phase where he'll go berserk frantically looking around and sniffing the floor for the treat even after he's already eaten it, and it takes an absolute age to get his attention back again.
> 
> We've also had a HUGE set back with getting him accustomed to livestock  Our house is surrounded by fields, and since he has been home, sheep have occupied the feilds and Oz has never paid any attention to them at all, just hasn't been bothered by them in the slighest. On Wednesday though the farmer moved cows into the field that our garden backs onto and Ozzy is memorised by them - the cows are much more confident than the sheep and come right up to the fence (chain link, so completely see-through) and he gets SO frustrated - running up and down the fence line, whining and whining. And if he's in the house and he hears a cow moo he'll even start pacing around and scratching at the back door to go out, or he'll start barking if it's the middle of the night. He gets SO worked up by them - he doesn't want to harm them, he just gets so over excited and doesn't know what to do with himself.
> 
> Today I took him out into the garden on his lead and tried to do some work with him - I clicked and treated him every time he looked at the cows and back at me, and he was very good and calm. We got about quarter of a way up the garden (about fifty foot) so a fair distance away from the cows, and he was standing nicely - looking at the cows and back at me constantly for a treat. Then one moo'ed and that was it - concentration gone, bouncing up and down, lunging forward to go up to the end of the garden, and nothing was getting his focus back. I called it a day and took him back indoors, gave us both some time apart to chill out and then went we'd both relaxed again, we headed out for our walk.
> 
> He was a nightmare  He wanted to go after EVERY thing that moved - sheep, pheasants, pigeons, rabbits - stuff he's never been in the slightest bit interested in before. We live right out in the countryside so can't walk for more than a few minutes without coming across some wildlife or livestock, and he was just reacting to everything we saw. I tried to distract him with a treat with no luck, but then he suddenly snapped at it and got my fingers badly again. I got cross at him, got cross at myself for getting cross at him and just took him back home, cutting our walk short - pretty much dragging him the whole way back as he kicked up a stink over everything. There were times he did relax and walk nicely but I was so stressed out I completely ignored him, not even treating him when he was being good, so I've probably made him take an even further step back now :frown:
> 
> I'm saddened to admit I'm struggling. Really, really struggling :crying::crying:


So sorry to hear you're having a hard time with him  I don't know all the back story but have you tried him on something like a halti or gentle leader collar/harness so he can't pull/bite?


----------



## kat&molly

I'm really sorry you're struggling at the minute Sixstar, really dont know what to say. Perhaps posting in the behaviour section as well may bring some ideas?
Are the cows likely to be there long? Hope you can sort something soon.


----------



## SixStar

Dogless said:


> SixStar; it sounds as if everything really is a struggle right now - no idea really what to suggest bar maybe a trip in the car to a much less stimulating walking spot fairly often to give yourselves a break and build your bond back up? I'm really sorry to hear how hard you are finding it .


Thanks x

I knew it'd be a challenge but this is really trying, and to be honest, I've been mulling it over for a couple of weeks but bit the bullet today - I spoke with the breeder of my Bernese pup, and I've made the decision to give come off the waiting list for a puppy this year. It's not realistic, I do not like to take on a new dog whilst I have an existing one with problems that need sorting. I have to be honest, I wasn't expecting Ozzy to be this difficult, so I'd hoped I could still go ahead with the puppy, but it'd be too much - and obviously Ozzy is already here so he has to come first.

I daren't say it, but I think I'm almost feeling a little bit of resentment towards him at the moment - I know that's a horrible thing to say, and I don't truly mean it, it's just I had my heart set on this new puppy and I'm saddened that it cannot go ahead. It's not Ozzy's fault I know, but I don't think it's helping matters at this very minute. I haven't had the patience I should have, and I need to snap out of it. I look at him now and I could cry - thinking back the past few days I haven't been as understanding with him as I should have been 



Phoolf said:


> So sorry to hear you're having a hard time with him  I don't know all the back story but have you tried him on something like a halti or gentle leader collar/harness so he can't pull/bite?


Thank you.

Quick bit of back ground - Ozzy is a three year old Newfoundland, I've had him about 2.5 months now. He is a private rehome, of sorts. Our initial issues were jumping up (now pretty much sorted as I say) and snapping - not nastily or aggressively - at treats when had fed. He doesn't ever bite with meaning, it's just grabbing carelessly at food.

I have a dogmatic head collar which helps with control and pulling, thanks for the idea though


----------



## SixStar

kat&molly said:


> I'm really sorry you're struggling at the minute Sixstar, really dont know what to say. Perhaps posting in the behaviour section as well may bring some ideas?
> Are the cows likely to be there long? Hope you can sort something soon.


Thank you. Cows are generally here from May (they're a little late this year) until October.

I might do that, thanks


----------



## Dogless

SixStar said:


> Thanks x
> 
> I knew it'd be a challenge but this is really trying, and to be honest, I've been mulling it over for a couple of weeks but bit the bullet today - I spoke with the breeder of my Bernese pup, and I've made the decision to give come off the waiting list for a puppy this year. It's not realistic, I do not like to take on a new dog whilst I have an existing one with problems that need sorting. I have to be honest, I wasn't expecting Ozzy to be this difficult, so I'd hoped I could still go ahead with the puppy, but it'd be too much - and obviously Ozzy is already here so he has to come first.
> 
> I daren't say it, but I think I'm almost feeling a little bit of resentment towards him at the moment - I know that's a horrible thing to say, and I don't truly mean it, it's just I had my heart set on this new puppy and I'm saddened that it cannot go ahead. It's not Ozzy's fault I know, but I don't think it's helping matters at this very minute. I haven't had the patience I should have, and I need to snap out of it. I look at him now and I could cry - thinking back the past few days I haven't been as understanding with him as I should have been


It is perfectly understandable to feel resentment - you are human, and it's human nature to feel anger at what you see as the source of your disappointment. I think that you have done the very best thing for all concerned - but also understand how much you have been looking forward to the pup and can only imagine how upset you feel . I think that you are doing yourself a disservice - you have already come so far and have committed fully to seeing Ozzy's training through despite the challenges. Wish there was something I could do to help even in a small way.


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## WhippetyAmey

Oh SixStar  really sorry it's not going so well and especially about having to come off the list for the pup... Does the breeder have regular litters, or is it few and far between? 

It really is completely understandable you feeling the way you do, any normal person would.. 

I really don't know what to say, other than like Dogless said about seeing less and building up to them... What about if you worked on the things that never used to bother him like the pheasants etc. and build up to the Cows.. 

Just an update on us, we did no training because I've been trying to find what makes Merlin tick, I think I may have to treat with the sniffing, but Merlin did COCK HIS LEG!! He's been doing it off and on, and we keep saying, oh no there was a bit of tall grass must have tickled him and making excused, but this one was a proper cock of the leg - I am proud


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## SixStar

Dogless said:


> It is perfectly understandable to feel resentment - you are human, and it's human nature to feel anger at what you see as the source of your disappointment. I think that you have done the very best thing for all concerned - but also understand how much you have been looking forward to the pup and can only imagine how upset you feel . I think that you are doing yourself a disservice - you have already come so far and have committed fully to seeing Ozzy's training through despite the challenges. Wish there was something I could do to help even in a small way.


Thank you, honestly it's a big help just having people to listen who understand 

I've been thinking where I could take him where we're unlikely to meet any other dogs or walkers, but that isn't quite so rural and full of wildlife - the beach would be ideal but unfortunately dogs are banned may till september  I think I'll get up and take him over to one of the playing fields in the town tomorrow morning, if we're there early enough we'll hopefully miss the dog walkers since it's a weekend, and there shouldn't be too many distractions, so we can just have a nice walk and a play.

He's a lovely dog, he really is, and I know already that I couldn't bear to be without him, we just need to knuckle down.


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## kat&molly

Really sorry you've had to postpone the new pup. Its understanderable to feel a bit of resentment, I'd be upset at having to make that decision as well.
I hope you feel better for writing it all down , please keep us updated.


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## SixStar

WhippetyAmey said:


> Oh SixStar  really sorry it's not going so well and especially about having to come off the list for the pup... Does the breeder have regular litters, or is it few and far between?
> 
> It really is completely understandable you feeling the way you do, any normal person would..
> 
> I really don't know what to say, other than like Dogless said about seeing less and building up to them... What about if you worked on the things that never used to bother him like the pheasants etc. and build up to the Cows..
> 
> Just an update on us, we did no training because I've been trying to find what makes Merlin tick, I think I may have to treat with the sniffing, but Merlin did COCK HIS LEG!! He's been doing it off and on, and we keep saying, oh no there was a bit of tall grass must have tickled him and making excused, but this one was a proper cock of the leg - I am proud


Thanks Amey, litters are few and far between but as much as I'd like to, I know it'd be a huge mistake going ahead. My heart was telling me to go ahead and it'll be fine, but my head was being sensible! Hopefully next year or the year after, the situation will be different and we'll be in a better position to take on another pup.

It's just so tricky because he can't not see the cows, and other livestock/wildlife, we're surrounded by them here. First time I've ever said it but I wish we lived in a city 

Aww big boy Merlin, bless his heart.


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## moonviolet

Sixstar Sorry to hear you are having a hard time with Ozzy. nothing terribly helpful to add, but always here to listen. Hope today was a blip, and the walk was so intense as a result of the incident in the garden. 

Hopefully the cows will settle and come over to the fence less over the next few days. Such a shame about the pup but i think you are being realistic and responsible doesn't make it hurt any less. 



Amey: your wee pup is growing up


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## theevos5

Sixstar,I really feel for you,and can understand how frustrated you must feel,but you have done a wonderful thing rehoming Ozzy,you have made headway on the jumping up and nipping and I am sure you will get these issues sorted with time.I think the clicker is a good idea,and maybe if you did short sessions a couple of times a day in the garden,to try and hold his focus,so if you manage to get say 5 positive clicks,leave it at that and try and build it up!.It sounds like a really hard situation to be in as,you are having the hassle of a stressful walk and then you probably aren't able to relax when he is in the garden either.
I do feel that you have made the right decision,against getting your pup,but that won't stop you feeling sad about it.You are after all human!
Just wanted to say,I found great support on this thread and everyone is so great at passing the hankies,when we need them,so keep posting,as I always felt that much better after writing it down!
Hope you have a more positive day tomorrowx


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## SixStar

Thanks all, you really are all such a lovely bunch, it's so nice to have support like this  xx

He's just come up to me, put his head on the arm of the sofa and sighed... I've got to remember he's probably finding this much harder than I am. Such a big change for him. He's such a lovely soppy boy... we'll get there, I know we will. 

Onwards and upwards, tomorrow is another day


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## kat&molly

I wondered if something like Rescue Remedy would help in the short term?
I hope today is better for you.


----------



## DavieB

Met shrap today for a walk with Dino. Yuri was so happy to have a walking mate he never obeyed one command from me  He really did rip the hole lol, should have taken a bag of cheese to keep him focused lol.


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## moonviolet

DavieB said:


> Met shrap today for a walk with Dino. Yuri was so happy to have a walking mate he never obeyed one command from me  He really did rip the hole lol, should have taken a bag of cheese to keep him focused lol.


Don't they look lovely together, looks like great socialisation and you've identified his obedience cues need more proofing.


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## Dogless

We had a very successful walk in the park, passed all dogs with no distraction and no excitement bar a mini schnauzer who was going mad with joy at seeing another dog; they had a quick meet once I'd made sure Kilo would walk over calmly and a lab that he barked at who was offlead and approached with a hard stare, tail straight up in the air and hackles raised. I got between Kilo and him, but the lab skipped round me, they had a quick sniff, lab growled, Kilo hackled up and gave two quick barks but stopped when the lab backed off so not too bad (apart from my terrible handling skills for not keeping them apart). The lab's owner was round the corner calling him, but he didn't take any notice. So - a successful morning.

I have been wracking my brains to see if there is anywhere I can hire or use for training / Kilo offlead whilst this dog is in season - her sister usually comes in soon after apparently so it's potentially a fairly long time. Shame as I use the fields daily and the nearest offlead place is 25 minutes away . I don't go at the weekend as it gets pretty full of bikes / motocrossers so rely on the fields - plus we meet dogs to play with on the fields; but not much use moaning as they are everyones' to use! I think I'll probably still go whenever it's pouring with rain - really undecided though.


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Kilo- but it sounds like you're in for a long few weeks unless you come up with somewhere.


23 stops again this morning, so we haven't really progressed at all this week. Perhaps its just going to take longer as theres the 3 of them.
Molly has got this holding on to the ball and coming right back to me sussed now. :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Well I tried the fields. I waited until it had rained solidly for 3 hours and then went out in the downpour armed with a new toy. Took Kilo round on lead and he didn't seem to pick up any interesting smells, so I let him off and we played and trained for just over an hour. We had a great time, but I stayed in the far corner where I can see over both fields and both entrances and kept my eyes peeled . They usually walk at about 1630 so I went very early!


----------



## moonviolet

I'm so pleased may it rain at the right times for the next few weeks 

Lovely walk despite a serious case of the sniffles. Everyone who went to the old folks home has a cold now, you know what they say, no good turn goes unpunished  

Tink was quite brave, staying beside me offlead being greeted by even multiple dogs without being more than a touch shy for a moment. Attempted to shoulder smear some fox poo but missed  

Had a little training session in a nice quite clearing, took a little while to get her focus totally, she still tends to be very aware of her surroundings, but we managed some body awareness and some distance stuff, then rounded off with some silly stuff that she finds easy. one of the nicest weekend walks in ages, despite me breathing a little like darthvader.


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## Dogless

Tink sounds as if she's really coming on brilliantly mv - you must be so pleased . Glad you had such a good walk, despite the sniffles.

I went for a run tonight without Kilo so went across all these sports pitches etc where dogs aren't allowed.....only to find the man that makes the rules exercising his dog on there :yesnod:. Food for thought - guess it is because our top dog walking area has been closed and is now a building site...which is why those fields are of such great importance to me now!


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## kat&molly

Dogless- I'm glad you managed to go to fields without a problem- for now, and it seems rules only to some people.

Moonviolet- sounds like a lovely walk, Tinks not just coping she's being really brave.

Not the best afternoons walk for me. Feeling tired and not fancying LLW , OH came and we went in the van so the girls could just run. Sheep have been moved so Evie got some off lead as well. She was ok but went in to an empty field and picked up a scent and was running round in big circles with her flag at full mast She ignored the whistle and I know she would come eventually but I was a bit annoyed at being ignored so went to fetch her. I even picked her up so she couldn't sniff at allrrr: Thats what I get for saying yesterday how good her recall has been!!
And more judgement on me, after all my hard work this week trying to cement this retrieve with Moll- he thought I wasn't looking and I heard him telling her to 'drop' the ball so he could throw it:incazzato::incazzato:
This is the reason I stopped teaching Moll new stuff because he ruins everything- I swear sometimes he does it deliberatly- I dont know why.

Sorry for the whinging but I needed it.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- I'm glad you managed to go to fields without a problem- for now, and it seems rules only to some people.
> 
> Moonviolet- sounds like a lovely walk, Tinks not just coping she's being really brave.
> 
> Not the best afternoons walk for me. Feeling tired and not fancying LLW , OH came and we went in the van so the girls could just run. Sheep have been moved so Evie got some off lead as well. She was ok but went in to an empty field and picked up a scent and was running round in big circles with her flag at full mast She ignored the whistle and I know she would come eventually but I was a bit annoyed at being ignored so went to fetch her. I even picked her up so she couldn't sniff at allrrr: Thats what I get for saying yesterday how good her recall has been!!
> And more judgement on me, after all my hard work this week trying to cement this retrieve with Moll- he thought I wasn't looking and I heard him telling her to 'drop' the ball so he could throw it:incazzato::incazzato:
> This is the reason I stopped teaching Moll new stuff because he ruins everything- I swear sometimes he does it deliberatly- I dont know why.
> 
> Sorry for the whinging but I needed it.


Three words....Glass. Of. Wine :yesnod:.

It is just soooooo irritating when your training gets undermined :incazzato:. I moan that hubby rarely comes on walks (declined both today for instance even though he is on leave) but sometimes it's a blessing :rolleyes5:.


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## WhippetyAmey

I have to say, the last two walks with Merlin I've gone without the OH and it has made such a difference, his been a lot better behaved and everything has just gone better 

Today we have started using the sniffing as a treat... I'm just building up the word so he knows what it means, but I have basically spent the whole work saying 'sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff'


----------



## Dogless

Good walk this morning in the park - persuaded hubby to come so we stopped for a coffee in the rain . Kilo walked very nicely past dogs without treats or distraction needed again. The only one that we had issues with was an offlead choc lab; not for excitement but fear. I could see he was uncomfortable so gave him loads of room, but he froze, clamped his tail between his legs and then employed his tactic of lying down. I let him do it as he just watched the lab go past - seems wrong to keep him going towards what he is afraid of and ignoring his coping strategy - but should I be distracting and getting him past regardless?


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## emmaviolet

Wow what an amazing thread!

Well done everyone for the progress they are making with their lovely dogs!

I just really wanted to say to sixstar that i understand your situation completely.
I was and am on the list for a breeder, i thought maybe i would be getting a puppy this year but alfie just wasn't ready at all, a few things with pulling on the lead and too enthusiastic to other dogs and people and i just knew it wasn't the right time for everyone so i had to decline the puppy. It was very hard especailly seeing the pups afterwards but you have to do whats best.

The breeder was lovely about it and we are still in touch and she said when the time is right for me to let her know, she may have a litter or a litter sired by her dog from another kennel. 

Keep going with ozzy, he'll do you proud and then you can have that puppy at the right time and enjoy it even more!


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Good walk this morning in the park - persuaded hubby to come so we stopped for a coffee in the rain . Kilo walked very nicely past dogs without treats or distraction needed again. The only one that we had issues with was an offlead choc lab; not for excitement but fear. I could see he was uncomfortable so gave him loads of room, but he froze, clamped his tail between his legs and then employed his tactic of lying down. I let him do it as he just watched the lab go past - seems wrong to keep him going towards what he is afraid of and ignoring his coping strategy - but should I be distracting and getting him past regardless?


Obviously I'm no expert but I've found with both Rupert and Spen that letting them stop, watch whatever is worrying them and letting them deal with it in their own way and at their own pace has had good results. Didn't work with Rupe and other dogs as he just fixated and wound himself up but it worked well with his other fears. So I suppose it depends on the dog really, if Kilo isn't working himself up even more by lying down and watching the other dog then personally I'd let him do that where possible. If he's working himself up I'd distract and move him _away_ rather than try to get him past for now.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Obviously I'm no expert but I've found with both Rupert and Spen that letting them stop, watch whatever is worrying them and letting them deal with it in their own way and at their own pace has had good results. Didn't work with Rupe and other dogs as he just fixated and wound himself up but it worked well with his other fears. So I suppose it depends on the dog really, if Kilo isn't working himself up even more by lying down and watching the other dog then personally I'd let him do that where possible. If he's working himself up I'd distract and move him _away_ rather than try to get him past for now.


No, his anxiety lessens when he is allowed to lie down and he will stop fixating - think I'll let him do it unless we're in a narrow space where the other dog needs to pass in which case I'll move back the way we came if it happens!


----------



## PinkEars

Dogless said:


> Three words....Glass. Of. Wine :yesnod:.
> 
> It is just soooooo irritating when your training gets undermined :incazzato:. I moan that hubby rarely comes on walks (declined both today for instance even though he is on leave) but sometimes it's a blessing :rolleyes5:.


I find Walt is much better behaved when its just me! When i hear stories about him when OH takes him out! I'm like why did you let him do that? I always make a point if i see another dog onlead calling him back and putting him on also. OH doesnt tend to do it. If i see another dog offlead i also call him back because often if its a dog he doesnt know he will be scared and either run off or just be really uncomfortable. Other times he is happy to play but you have to watch him because he gets to over excited and his chase instinct kicks in and he nips at them. ITs safer to call him back and let him play once the situation is assessed! Otherwise he will never learn or feel secure. Anyway rant over!

Anyway i am working on Walts fear of dogs and then chase instinct ( small dogs get caught quickly). He is doing well, on my run walk this morning i called him back every time i saw anything coming our way and he came back every time. The only reward he got was a good boy and stroke! I let him off again as soon as they had passed. As i was running we didnt have time to stop/ play and chat and sometimes i think its me stopping and chatting to people that gets him anxious! He didnt seem scared of anything this morning!


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## theevos5

this doesn't even come close to how I feel!!!

It was OH day for walking him today as he is a weekend dad! Usually I dread it,as he will come home and tell me,how awful he has been and I am cringing at the thought of him maybe wrecking that weeks training in one walk But I sent my youngest son with him so he could keep an eye on him and they took videos and pics of the walk and I am thrilled!!! He was great recalled all the time,and even better they didn't see the staffie so a great walk!! I have posted some pics here
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/244447-i-just-love-him-bits.html#post1062101494
Hope everyone else has a good day even though the weather is grim!


----------



## Sarah1983

We've just had the opportunity to practise around a major distraction, a cat! We very, very rarely see cats around here due to the rules and Spen gets very excited when we do. This one was quite a distance away so he could still focus despite being very interested. He even recalled from the end of his long line where he was standing watching it  He also stayed focused on me while a couple with a child and a load of shopping passed about 10ft away. He looked at them a few times but carried on working with me.

So despite his Kevin moments earlier in the week it really seems like we're getting somewhere.


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## kat&molly

Sounds like everyones doing well.
Dogless , I used to rush past with my girls until Big Evie was here one day and she made me stop, that seems to suit them better. I'm calmer as well 
We often get dogs come flying out of houses and charge at us, my girls aren't brave even when they're all together. This morning we got a new dog it was a huge Beauceron- he looked rather menacing, hackles up and I didn't know whether he'd stop or dive in to attack.  All the girls went mad trying to get to him in not a friendly way- they've never done that before , I thought Blaady Hell , girls if you're going to try and go for a dog pick something a bit smaller hmy: Really strange.
23 stops again this morning, dont know why thats our 'magic' number
Have decided to just use the training toy just for me and Moll- and hope she learns 2 sets of play/work. No point trying to educate my OH :crying:
Well done Alf on recalls. Spencer and the cat-brilliant. Walt for being a good boy Some kisses for Kilo


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## Dogless




----------



## SixStar

Sarah1983 - Well done Spencer!  I'll send my greyhounds to you for recalling from cat training!  

theevos5 - pleased to hear you've had a good day with Alfie. Just looked through the pics, they're gorgeous. What is the name for the colour Alfie is? Is it lemon?

Well done to everyone else too - not managed to read through everything yet - just skimmed 



kat&molly said:


> I wondered if something like Rescue Remedy would help in the short term?
> I hope today is better for you.


I've been using a DAP collar (well, a cheapy nylon collar sprayed with DAP because the proper ones weren't big enough!) and I've got the DAP diffusers plugged in at home (for Jake and his hydrotherapy) but it can't hurt to try some Rescue Remedy too - I think I'll join him with that actually! 

Well yesterday we got up early and drove into the town to one of the playing fields as planned - got there at 6 and the place was empty so we went into the tennis court and he had a good romp around with his football - I didn't want to do any training or work with him, so we just had a play in there rather than going for a walk around the field, and it was really lovely just to spend a bit of time enjoying him for once! We didn't see anything that might have triggered him off, so was nice and relaxing and he was thoroughly worn out!

We did the same this morning, and again, no one about so we went into the tennis court for a run around - as soon as we got in there and I let him off, a magpie landed on the top of the fence, he went to run after it but I squeaked his toy and he came straight back to get that instead 

I think, for the short term at least - driving out early to one of the playing fields is the way to go - both yesterday and today after having a good run around, he's been so much more relaxed in the house and even when he's heard the cows moo'ing he's not been as reactive - he'll go to the back door and ask to go out, but I redirect him onto something else and he doesn't get as far as whining and barking.

I've also decided not to let him out into the garden for the time being - I'll take him out onto the drive on his lead for toilet breaks, we'll continue going to the playing fields in the morning so he can have a good tear around and then he can join us on our last little walk of the day when it's dark and there won't be as much to react to - obviously it's a shame he's not going to be able to use the garden, or enjoy the fields where we live, for a while but I think it's the way forward.

I'm hoping, if he continues hearing the cows but not being allowed out to see them, and he's well exercised (I've not been able to wear him out as much as I have done these last two days - lead walks just don't cut it for him - he's not been off a longline on a walk yet, and he never seemed to run around in the garden!) so much calmer anyway, then he'll just get use to them and accept them. And then in a week or so I plan to start giving him things like stuffed Kongs out in the garden, so he's near them, but hopefully distracted!

Daft question but I've never had need to use them before - how busy do the town parks/playing feilds tend to get in the mornings?  I'm presuming they've been quiet these last two days because it's obviously been the weekend - I'm thinking during the week will be much busier with the before work dog walks? What time do you find the quietest?


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## SophieCyde

At the dogs trust open day today we did an agility taster and he took to it well , he did the dog walk straight away so we've took the card for the place that runs the agility and I think we're going to be starting


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## Dogless

Well done everyone - SixStar your plan does sound like a good one; should prevent things getting too stressful again. I have no idea about playing fields though I'm afraid!

This evening I went around the 'No Dogs Allowed' fields  after seeing the man that makes the rules exercising his own dog there yesterday along with many others. Didn't allow Kilo onto any pitches, there's loads of room (about 10 - 15m around the edges - and it lessened the immense worry of running into an in season bitch as it hasn't rained enough today (just drizzled) plus the wind is coming from their direction. I have out an ad in a few places for a field / land to rent for walking and will ask the butcher if he knows anyone when I next go too - really fed up of the amount of in season bitches walked here; they are always getting 'caught' with some folk seeming rather too pleased with an 'accidental' litter.

Tonight I have done more work on Kilo's impulse control and he did very nicely; I am chuffed with him yet again at present .


----------



## theevos5

SixStar said:


> Sarah1983 - Well done Spencer!  I'll send my greyhounds to you for recalling from cat training!
> 
> theevos5 - pleased to hear you've had a good day with Alfie. Just looked through the pics, they're gorgeous. *What is the name for the colour Alfie is*? Is it lemon?
> 
> Well done to everyone else too - not managed to read through everything yet - just skimmed
> 
> I've been using a DAP collar (well, a cheapy nylon collar sprayed with DAP because the proper ones weren't big enough!) and I've got the DAP diffusers plugged in at home (for Jake and his hydrotherapy) but it can't hurt to try some Rescue Remedy too - I think I'll join him with that actually!
> 
> Well yesterday we got up early and drove into the town to one of the playing fields as planned - got there at 6 and the place was empty so we went into the tennis court and he had a good romp around with his football - I didn't want to do any training or work with him, so we just had a play in there rather than going for a walk around the field, and it was really lovely just to spend a bit of time enjoying him for once! We didn't see anything that might have triggered him off, so was nice and relaxing and he was thoroughly worn out!
> 
> We did the same this morning, and again, no one about so we went into the tennis court for a run around - as soon as we got in there and I let him off, a magpie landed on the top of the fence, he went to run after it but I squeaked his toy and he came straight back to get that instead
> 
> I think, for the short term at least - driving out early to one of the playing fields is the way to go - both yesterday and today after having a good run around, he's been so much more relaxed in the house and even when he's heard the cows moo'ing he's not been as reactive - he'll go to the back door and ask to go out, but I redirect him onto something else and he doesn't get as far as whining and barking.
> 
> I've also decided not to let him out into the garden for the time being - I'll take him out onto the drive on his lead for toilet breaks, we'll continue going to the playing fields in the morning so he can have a good tear around and then he can join us on our last little walk of the day when it's dark and there won't be as much to react to - obviously it's a shame he's not going to be able to use the garden, or enjoy the fields where we live, for a while but I think it's the way forward.
> 
> I'm hoping, if he continues hearing the cows but not being allowed out to see them, and he's well exercised (I've not been able to wear him out as much as I have done these last two days - lead walks just don't cut it for him - he's not been off a longline on a walk yet, and he never seemed to run around in the garden!) so much calmer anyway, then he'll just get use to them and accept them. And then in a week or so I plan to start giving him things like stuffed Kongs out in the garden, so he's near them, but hopefully distracted!
> 
> Daft question but I've never had need to use them before - how busy do the town parks/playing feilds tend to get in the mornings?  I'm presuming they've been quiet these last two days because it's obviously been the weekend - I'm thinking during the week will be much busier with the before work dog walks? What time do you find the quietest?


Alf is lemon and white or tan and white according to who you speak to!! Apparently lemon and whites have a black nose and tans have a pink but again,it depends who you speak to!!

I was so pleased to read you post that you seem to have found a solution,to make your life and Ozzys so much more enjoyable! It is a small price to pay getting up early to be able to enjoy him again!!Also it sounds like he is getting a great amount of exercise as he is clearly behaving better.Something that I have noticed with Alf,if there are horses around,I won't let him off as he sees them as giant dogs and play bows and tries to initiate play and so,if he has to stay on his lead,I find that he is shall we say,more mischievious than usual
I can't comment on the quiet times for the fields,as I go,later on between 9.30and 12pm when it is busier for socialisation reasons.


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## WhippetyAmey

K&M - With the getting to the same amount of time stopping just think of it like losing weight, the first few pounds are easy, but as soon as you have less to loose it gets harder... if that makes sense! 

SixStar - That sounds like a good way to do things for the time being, hopefully being tired and calm will help. Merlin is always a lot better after a good walk - in almost every way 

Sarah glad the cat recall has worked - this is now something we've got to do with Chase.. realised this afternoon she is very cat reactive, which is a slight problem as next door have a LOT of cats.

Evos5 -  Woo hoo for Alf, very good boy 

So we now have a LOT of problems... here are the list;

Pulling like a steam train - Chase
Ball Obessesion - Chase
Slight Toy Aggression - Chase
Recall - Merlin
Staying close and coming right up to use when called - Chase
Reacting to cats - Chase
Changing from Bakers - Chase (Not really training, but she is BONKERS right now)
More dog-socialisation - Merlin

As you can see, most is Chase, but at the moment it is almost pointless in trying most of the training, she is so OTT, I know the breed is, but the Bakers certainly isn't helping. 

I'm fine with most of these things, put the pulling is unreal, I don't know how to stop it really, the stopping will be so slowww.. because if I stand still she lays down, as soon as I take a step she is at the end of the lead again... 

So I'm going to try the few steps and click training, but she doesn't seem overly foody, although obviously only first day of coming home so not doing too much. 

My brother has said he may/could have Chase, but to be honest.. I don't think she's going anywhere. I don't think I'd trust him enough to look after her. 

We are now her 4th/5th home in her 3 1/2 years of life..  so am not going to be letting her leave me thinks.


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## moonviolet

Well done everyone on their progress and plans  Forgive me for not commenting individually I will do better when my head isn't full of snot (sorry if you were eating) One advantage of this cold is yesterday I couldn't smell the delights as I walk past the bakery so resisting was easier. I guess that's my little insight into life as a dog following your nose.

Not much to report Tink continues to handle things well even the 3 tiny JrtxChi that charged up to her barking all the way. I crouched and distracted them. she lifted her head and completely blanked them. The owners did try to recall, and did apologise, means little if they are going to do it every dog they see. So pleased she handled it so well at the height of her fear, she would have headed for the hills.

Saw another Beagle this morning Tink was beside herself wanting to say hi, was quite funny stamping on the spot looking at him. looking at me looking at him, looking at me. At this point his owners spotted us and we smiled and head toward each other and Tink was given permission to approach it wasn't until she got close I realised their size difference he was huge not fat, but big and really really chunky. I swear his tail was thicker than the average lab's. They thought Tink was a pup 

Practised some stops and distance commands. Honestly you have never seen a dog go into a down more reluctantly if i videoed it you'd think it was in slow motion. Sits and stands are ok. She's never been the biggest fan of downs unless she was on something soft and comfy, blooming Diva.


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## diefenbaker

I'm revisiting heelwork. To be honest.. I was never very good at it.. and maybe didn't really do it at all. But I got inspired by a video in another thread. I don't need him to be that good just good enough to stick like glue for a minute when necessary. Just working in the conservatory at the moment.


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet, hope you're feeling better this morning.


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## kat&molly

Sixstar- that sounds much more positive , glad you're seeing some results already. I know its early days but still...

Dogless- that would be great if you could rent some land nearby- it would save the hassle you keep having.!!!

W.A- It seem like the diet thingy-I hope you're right.
You may see a big change with Chase once she's off the Bakers- its amazing how much difference a bad food can make. Perhaps getting her used to a head collar for the moment would help until you can see where you're at?

MV- Moll is the opposite and doesn't like sits! She drops really fast in to downs- I've always used downs but now lately I'm asking for sits and she tries to leave her bum off the floor a few inches- I think its for a head start on things


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Sixstar- that sounds much more positive , glad you're seeing some results already. I know its early days but still...
> 
> Dogless- that would be great if you could rent some land nearby- it would save the hassle you keep having.!!!
> 
> W.A- It seem like the diet thingy-I hope you're right.
> You may see a big change with Chase once she's off the Bakers- its amazing how much difference a bad food can make. Perhaps getting her used to a head collar for the moment would help until you can see where you're at?
> 
> MV- Moll is the opposite and doesn't like sits! She drops really fast in to downs- I've always used downs but now lately I'm asking for sits and she tries to leave her bum off the floor a few inches- I think its for a head start on things


It would and hubby agrees. I can bang on as much as I like about people who walk their in season bitches at popular times where most people go to walk their dogs - but it won't change the fact that they still do unfortunately and the fields are for us all so they have every right to use them whenever they want to, even if it's being unfair on the other users and their own dogs :cursing:. There are dogs that Kilo plays with there though so I won't abandon them altogether or he'll never get any canine interaction!


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> It would and hubby agrees. I can bang on as much as I like about people who walk their in season bitches at popular times where most people go to walk their dogs - but it won't change the fact that they still do unfortunately and the fields are for us all so they have every right to use them whenever they want to, even if it's being unfair on the other users and their own dogs :cursing:. There are dogs that Kilo plays with there though so I won't abandon them altogether or he'll never get any canine interaction!


I think its something that will keep happening.
I'd never put a bitch of mine at risk like that and think its really sad that others do.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I think its something that will keep happening.
> I'd never put a bitch of mine at risk like that and think its really sad that others do.


There seem to be two camps; one that carries on walking them regardless (the current one) without any idea of the chaos that can be caused and stop to talk to you then just cheerily mention that theirs is in season so you'd better watch out please - absolutely not realising that others will have to change their plans totally.

The others walk them regardless (or let their small kids walk them) and don't mention anything until a dog gets very, very interested in them then 'casually' ask whether we want to breed from Kilo :cursing:.


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet, hope you're feeling better this morning.


If mucus was gold i'd be a very very wealthy woman. I haven't had a cold in 5 years, this one is making up for lost time. I can't even smell menthol! I'm still well enough to get out with Tink so i can't be too bad 



kat&molly said:


> MV- Moll is the opposite and doesn't like sits! She drops really fast in to downs- I've always used downs but now lately I'm asking for sits and she tries to leave her bum off the floor a few inches- I think its for a head start on things


 maybe Moll is mishearing "sit" as "set"  That said the princess will try to get away with a hoversit if the ground is wet.

Good luck with the heelwork Diefenbaker the video was really impressivelook forward to seeing yours  

Idiots who let their inseason dogs offlead seem to be everywhere. THere was one here at the weekend being walked in a very popular walking area. charging off out of site.hmy:

WA hope chase comes done off the ceiling soon 

Sixstar sounds like a great plan, hope you find the courts quiet one weekdays too.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> If mucus was gold i'd be a very very wealthy woman. I haven't had a cold in 5 years, this one is making up for lost time. I can't even smell menthol! I'm still well enough to get out with Tink so i can't be too bad
> 
> maybe Moll is mishearing "sit" as "set"  That said the princess will try to get away with a hoversit if the ground is wet.
> 
> Good luck with the heelwork Diefenbaker the video was really impressivelook forward to seeing yours
> 
> Idiots who let their inseason dogs offlead seem to be everywhere. THere was one here at the weekend being walked in a very popular walking area. charging off out of site.hmy:
> 
> WA hope chase comes done off the ceiling soon
> 
> Sixstar sounds like a great plan, hope you find the courts quiet one weekdays too.


The only time I ever get flu or a cold is when I fly back to the UK for family emergencies.
The last time , I was in bed half dying at my MIL's and got up to a house full of firemen , there to check smoke alarms. I walked down the stairs looking like a sweaty scarecrow. Gutted


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> The only time I ever get flu or a cold is when I fly back to the UK for family emergencies.
> The last time , I was in bed half dying at my MIL's and got up to a house full of firemen , there to check smoke alarms. I walked down the stairs looking like a sweaty scarecrow. Gutted


Oh that is just too cruel.

My little firemen "thing" started when I was in London and there was a big drill on the Canary Wharf estate shortly after 9/11 and i was trying to lock up our building and a big rather beautiful fireman, with a large fire axe in one hand, took my arm and masterfully said "leave it , come with me now." :001_tt1::blush2:hmy: :blushing:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Oh that is just too cruel.
> 
> My little firemen "thing" started when I was in London and there was a big drill on the Canary Wharf estate shortly after 9/11 and i was trying to lock up our building and a big rather beautiful fireman, with a large fire axe in one hand, took my arm and masterfully said "leave it , come with me now." :001_tt1::blush2:hmy: :blushing:


I'm not jealous:001_tt2:

Much:crying:


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## L/C

moonviolet said:


> If mucus was gold i'd be a very very wealthy woman. I haven't had a cold in 5 years, this one is making up for lost time. I can't even smell menthol! I'm still well enough to get out with Tink so i can't be too bad


That really made me laugh...and gave me a horrible mental image. :lol:

Glad everything seems to be going well for everyone - this thread moves way too fast for me to keep up with. 

Sixstar - I know things are going well but have you heard of BAT by Grisha Stewart? She uses it for reactive dogs and frustrated greeters and it sounds like Ozzy is a bit frustrated about seeing the cows. I went to a seminar she held last year and I'll see if I can dig out my notes this evening. It might be worth a google though.

Bad walk this morning.  And it was Gypsy not Ely that was the problem. She has a horrible habit of fixating on one dog and she becomes obsessed with playing with them. She will follow them around play bowing and barking at them and not give the poor thing a moment's peace. She becomes completely deaf to me or anything else and will ignore other dogs that want to play with her. It also winds Ely up as he thinks there is a problem that he needs to sort out.

As soon as I see them I put her back on the lead but because of where we walk people can pop out of bushes so I don't always see them until too late. I try to put her back on the lead once she starts but can't always catch her immediately. :cursing: We're going back to proofing her recall but how do I break her obsession with another dog? She does it to 2 dogs - a collie and a collie x and they are ball obsessed so not interested in playing with her at all. I think it's something to do with the constant running after the ball that stimulates her interest.

Help!


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## SixStar

Thanks everyone - playing field was fairly busy this morning at half six so considering setting out earlier tomorrow, or maybe trying somewhere new - tricky situation though - go out into the quiter spots and we'll see the wildlife we're trying to avoid, stay in the busier town parks and there's no wildlife but too many people and dogs! 

Oz did jump up this morning which he hasn't done for a while but got straight down when told and didn't try again.  Has been a bit whiny today but he didn't manage to have a good run this morning so probably why - have done a lot of basic obedience in the house today though, and he's had a play with the Kong Wobbler, and he's much more settled now - been as good as gold whilst I gave him a good brush through, and the top half of the stable door is open in the kitchen at the moment and he's not up on his back legs trying to see out into the garden so largely very pleased with him today - he's been a good lad and it's been a good day. 



L/C said:


> Sixstar - I know things are going well but have you heard of BAT by Grisha Stewart? She uses it for reactive dogs and frustrated greeters and it sounds like Ozzy is a bit frustrated about seeing the cows. I went to a seminar she held last year and I'll see if I can dig out my notes this evening. It might be worth a google though.
> 
> Bad walk this morning.  And it was Gypsy not Ely that was the problem. She has a horrible habit of fixating on one dog and she becomes obsessed with playing with them. She will follow them around play bowing and barking at them and not give the poor thing a moment's peace. She becomes completely deaf to me or anything else and will ignore other dogs that want to play with her. It also winds Ely up as he thinks there is a problem that he needs to sort out.


Sorry to hear you didn't have a good walk today. I will have a google on Grisha Stewart, never heard of her before. Thanks 



moonviolet said:


> Oh that is just too cruel.
> 
> My little firemen "thing" started when I was in London and there was a big drill on the Canary Wharf estate shortly after 9/11 and i was trying to lock up our building and a big rather beautiful fireman, with a large fire axe in one hand, took my arm and masterfully said "leave it , come with me now." :001_tt1::blush2:hmy: :blushing:





kat&molly said:


> I'm not jealous Much:crying:


My husband is a firefighter :001_tt2:


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Today has been a little better with the terrible two, but a little miss is still bouncing off walls. 
I've been back at work today, so OH has had them, we went out this morning and I walked with them for about 40 minutes and then I left them out there while I went to work. She's had another walk, around 2, on her own, as I think Merlin needs his space a bit. Then going to take them both out tonight, when it hopefully stops raining.

However this evening when I got home Merlin has decided it is playtime and Chase WILL play. He then got very frustrated, and has done a lot of frustrated barks because she won't play.  Then she got very annoyed and got right in her face and did this horrible bark growl thing, which I think was frustration, but still horrible to watch. Then he tried to get right in her face and she reacted. 

I know it will take time and it's just a matter of patience, but Chase has so much energy and Merlin would LOVE to play... I just wish they'd work it out  

For the moment when we have play-time one is in the crate whilst the other plays, because every time Chase moves quickly Merlin thinks she wants to play with him... 

But when it's just down time there are toys about, or Chase finds them, I'm wondering whether to be mean and have a no toy couple of days may be better, so she will have be more willing to do something with Merlin, or to just let it go?

Decided Chase is having a sprinkling of Bakers (if that) and 90% Acana, because I can't deal with the transition and want it to be over asap! Also, Merlin keeps trying to eat it!

On the bright side, I do now have two beautiful mutts. They just need their owner to put more effort in!


----------



## SixStar

I hadn't realised you'd got a new dog Amey!  Where are all the details?!


----------



## WhippetyAmey

SixStar said:


> I hadn't realised you'd got a new dog Amey!  Where are all the details?!


They're here 

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/244345-guess-whos-coming-stay.html

As happy as I am about it, I am also really really upset, because before we gave her back to her home we had a very long conversation about how I would hate to give her back for her to have to give her up again and resettle her etc.. and they assured me it wouldn't happen, and guess what?!


----------



## SixStar

WhippetyAmey said:


> They're here
> 
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/244345-guess-whos-coming-stay.html
> 
> As happy as I am about it, I am also really really upset, because before we gave her back to her home we had a very long conversation about how I would hate to give her back for her to have to give her up again and resettle her etc.. and they assured me it wouldn't happen, and guess what?!


Ah she's a real sweetie - has landed on her paws with you now


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## WhippetyAmey

SixStar said:


> Ah she's a real sweetie - has landed on her paws with you now


We're her 5th/6th home in 3 1/2 years.. so I think she's staying put!


----------



## Dogless

L/C all I can think of is a longline at present - sorry, I'm a bit rubbish .

WhippetyAmey; sorry that you are having a few settling in issues - I'm sure you'll get there and Chase will settle once more secure .

SixStar - pleased to hear you've had a better day.

We have had a good day today, one offlead walk and one in the park - a brief bark when we were persued by a vile child old enough to know better until his mother noticed and told him off :cursing: but otherwise Kilo behaved very nicely .


----------



## kat&molly

Sixstar- you lucky devil  Some people have all the luck 

Amey- Dont worry the dogs will get there and sort themselves out. Merlin and Chase must be overwhelmed wondering whats going on at the minute. I'd do the same with the food as well.

L/C sorry you had a bad walk- it does sound like a recall problem .Do you use a whistle? I find it more effective than my voice. 

22 this morning and 23 stops this after- hardly progress is it.
And we saw a mahoosive snake- luckily before I let the girls off.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> L/C all I can think of is a longline at present - sorry, I'm a bit rubbish .
> 
> WhippetyAmey; sorry that you are having a few settling in issues - I'm sure you'll get there and Chase will settle once more secure .
> 
> SixStar - pleased to hear you've had a better day.
> 
> We have had a good day today, one offlead walk and one in the park - a brief bark when we were persued by a vile child old enough to know better until his mother noticed and told him off :cursing: but otherwise Kilo behaved very nicely .


You think you're rubbish,I never even thought of a long line

Any joy with enquiries?


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> You think you're rubbish,I never even thought of a long line
> 
> Any joy with enquiries?


Not yet....best bet I am hoping will be asking the butcher (they are on a farm) about who to approach. I have ordered some chicken carcasses so will ask when he rings to say they are in. I braved the fields today (well, top field) as the rain / wind were in my favour again.


----------



## L/C

Yep I think it's back to the chase recall problem. I posted a quick question in training and behaviour about conditioning a reward so I think we're going to use that and the program in the David Ryan book to proof her.

Wish me luck!

Dogless - I hope you get something sorted for you and Kilo.


----------



## Dogless

Good Luck L/C; I'll look forward to hearing about how you get on.

We had a great walk this morning - I didn't want to brave the fields as it hadn't rained overnight and was just drizzling this morning (starting now for the rest of the day though ) plus there wasn't much wind. I found a park with big, open fields only 15 minutes' drive away so went there...it was pretty empty when I arrived and we had a good walk and some play. Just about to head off when I met a really nice man with a staffy so let Kilo off for a play - then loads more friendly dogs and owners arrived so Kilo had a whale of a time paying in a group which he hasn't done in ages and he behaved very nicely . The owners I met said that they go most days at the same time, so something to bear in mind .

I went for my chicken carcasses, but the butchers was packed and a young lad that I hadn't met before was serving so I didn't ask about farmers, but will hopefully next time I go.


----------



## kat&molly

Good luck L/C with the training.

Sounds like Kilo had a great time- I love to see lots of dogs playing nicely.

Evie and her Gamboling is becoming a problem . I only let her do it when the lead has been extended but its just constant now. It only used to be at the beginning and end of a walk for some reason? Big Evie went through every scenario and said she thinks its just 'Evie's tic' Something she does full stop, but I dont know how she's got fur left on her back and shoulders. Its not just grass now its gravel ,any surface. 
I have come to the conclusion its now out of frustration at being on lead so much-which I hate but I dont have a choice with the sheep- and there were more again yesterday on the track. I feel really sorry for her as she was getting much more free running than now.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Good luck L/C with the training.
> 
> Sounds like Kilo had a great time- I love to see lots of dogs playing nicely.
> 
> Evie and her Gamboling is becoming a problem . I only let her do it when the lead has been extended but its just constant now. It only used to be at the beginning and end of a walk for some reason? Big Evie went through every scenario and said she thinks its just 'Evie's tic' Something she does full stop, but I dont know how she's got fur left on her back and shoulders. Its not just grass now its gravel ,any surface.
> I have come to the conclusion its now out of frustration at being on lead so much-which I hate but I dont have a choice with the sheep- and there were more again yesterday on the track. I feel really sorry for her as she was getting much more free running than now.


Poor Little Evie; will she carry a toy maybe to keep her engaged? I really wouldn't know what to do, but it must be quite distressing for you.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Poor Little Evie; will she carry a toy maybe to keep her engaged? I really wouldn't know what to do, but it must be quite distressing for you.


No she wont. I even got a rabbit fur dummy for her before- but she got bored and she's not daft she knows its not real.
Its harder because she sees the others running around. Would something like a 50 foot long line be practical for a little dog- I've never used one only the 5m flexi?


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> No she wont. I even got a rabbit fur dummy for her before- but she got bored and she's not daft she knows its not real.
> Its harder because she sees the others running around. Would something like a 50 foot long line be practical for a little dog- I've never used one only the 5m flexi?


No idea; maybe a long length of something light and water repellant like a washing line? Kilo's long line gets heavy when wet.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> No idea; maybe a long length of something light and water repellant like a washing line? Kilo's long line gets heavy when wet.


Thats a good idea, I'll pick some up tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if the Gamboling decreases.Thanks


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Good luck L/C with the training.
> 
> Sounds like Kilo had a great time- I love to see lots of dogs playing nicely.
> 
> *Evie and her Gamboling is becoming a problem *. I only let her do it when the lead has been extended but its just constant now. It only used to be at the beginning and end of a walk for some reason? Big Evie went through every scenario and said she thinks its just 'Evie's tic' Something she does full stop, but I dont know how she's got fur left on her back and shoulders. Its not just grass now its gravel ,any surface.
> I have come to the conclusion its now out of frustration at being on lead so much-which I hate but I dont have a choice with the sheep- and there were more again yesterday on the track. I feel really sorry for her as she was getting much more free running than now.


You've probably said this somewhere back in the monster thread - but what do you mean by that?


----------



## kat&molly

This;








I know lots of dogs like a good roll but she sort of tucks her head in and goes in to a gambol/sort of mini somersault:blink:- I dont know how she hasn't broke her neck. She will also crawl along on her stomach but on her knees- even our Trainer hasn't ever seen a dog do all this!!


----------



## L/C

How strange! :blink:

I don't have any ideas I'm afraid except maybe the long line. Oh and if you're going to use something like washing line (or any thin line) then wear gloves!


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I know lots of dogs like a good roll but she sort of tucks her head in and goes in to a gambol/sort of mini somersault:blink:- I dont know how she hasn't broke her neck.


Wonder if this is the same thing Rupert used to do, he'd be running along and would just suddenly duck his head and flip himself onto his back. Once he was down and rolling he'd manage to sort of flip himself around practically on his head :blink: I used to tell him he'd break his neck one day. We never figured out why he did it. Tried him on and off leash, without the muzzle, without the harness, without the harness and the muzzle and nothing made any difference.


----------



## hahgiwoofa

trying to keep Paddy still and quiet whilst I try to do ANYTHING with Pepper on her own is proving to be a challenge both with assistance, and especially alone...

How do u teach an 8 month old Pup that it's not 'all about him' and to wait his turn??! :blink:


----------



## moonviolet

hahgiwoofa said:


> trying to keep Paddy still and quiet whilst I try to do ANYTHING with Pepper on her own is proving to be a challenge both with assistance, and especially alone...
> 
> How do u teach an 8 month old Pup that it's not 'all about him' and to wait his turn??! :blink:


Have you heard of Susan Garrett's crate games? I need to go make dinner i'll be back in a bit


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Wonder if this is the same thing Rupert used to do, he'd be running along and would just suddenly duck his head and flip himself onto his back. Once he was down and rolling he'd manage to sort of flip himself around practically on his head :blink: I used to tell him he'd break his neck one day. We never figured out why he did it. Tried him on and off leash, without the muzzle, without the harness, without the harness and the muzzle and nothing made any difference.


How strange- that sounds just like Evie 
When she first came we thought it was just sheer enjoyment at being walked as I'm sure she'd never had them before. From her expression in the photo it looks like sheer bliss. Off lead she may only do it once or twice now its off the scale.
Did you ever think Ruperts was out of frustration?


----------



## cravensmum

kat&molly said:


> How strange- that sounds just like Evie
> When she first came we thought it was just sheer enjoyment at being walked as I'm sure she'd never had them before. From her expression in the photo it looks like sheer bliss. Off lead she may only do it once or twice now its off the scale.
> Did you ever think Ruperts was out of frustration?


Craven does it when he's on his longline,I have always assumed it's frustration at not being able to run free.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> How strange- that sounds just like Evie
> When she first came we thought it was just sheer enjoyment at being walked as I'm sure she'd never had them before. From her expression in the photo it looks like sheer bliss. Off lead she may only do it once or twice now its off the scale.
> Did you ever think Ruperts was out of frustration?


We did wonder about it but he never seemed frustrated, he just seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself. We thought at first that maybe the muzzle or harness were making him uncomfortable so tried him without those. Then we tried him off leash and he still did it. He spent more time on his back in the grass than he did on his feet!


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks both- be interesting to see how she is on some long line.


----------



## DavieB

Started Yuri on the RAW diet tonight. Gave him a fish and a chicken breast! Lets see how this goes. I bought this stuff. I need to find a cheaper butcher.


----------



## Dogless

DavieB said:


> Started Yuri on the RAW diet tonight. Gave him a fish and a chicken breast! Lets see how this goes. I bought this stuff. I need to find a cheaper butcher.


Lucky Yuri . It might be best to start of feeding one protein source at a time - then if he has any problems you know what it can be attributed to.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thanks both- be interesting to see how she is on some long line.


Hope Evie responds well. Sorry I didn't have anything useful to add but moral support

I mentioned Susan Garretts crate games earlier. Here's the link i wanted to share. I confess i've adapted it a little and used a mat instead of a crate.

Say YES to Tess: Crate Games with Susan Garrett


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Hope Evie responds well. Sorry I didn't have anything useful to add but moral support
> 
> I mentioned Susan Garretts crate games earlier. Here's the link i wanted to share. I confess i've adapted it a little and used a mat instead of a crate.
> 
> Say YES to Tess: Crate Games with Susan Garrett


Thanks Moonviolet. I think she'll be be a pain in the rump with more room to squeeze in to the smallest places but at least she'll be happier.
Hope you're feeling better today.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Moonviolet. I think she'll be be a pain in the rump with more room to squeeze in to the smallest places but at least she'll be happier.
> Hope you're feeling better today.


Much better thanks you, but voice is going now, one minute barry white reincarnated the next nails on an blackboard :lol:

I forget to mention i'm brushing up on lots of tricks as i've just been reminded that we're doing a little display at a school fete on saturday :frown2:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Much better thanks you, but voice is going now, one minute barry white reincarnated the next nails on an blackboard :lol:
> 
> I forget to mention i'm brushing up on lots of tricks as i've just been reminded that we're doing a little display at a school fete on saturday :frown2:


I like Barry White. 
Ooh some photos for us then of Tink strutting her stuff.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Much better thanks you, but voice is going now, one minute barry white reincarnated the next nails on an blackboard :lol:
> 
> I forget to mention i'm brushing up on lots of tricks as i've just been reminded that we're doing a little display at a school fete on saturday :frown2:





kat&molly said:


> I like Barry White.
> Ooh some photos for us then of Tink strutting her stuff.


Tink's a bit of a local celebrity . Reckon she'll be happy as long as you don't make her wear that pom pom necklace again .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Tink's a bit of a local celebrity . Reckon she'll be happy as long as you don't make her wear that pom pom necklace again .


SHe needs to think herself lucky, the trainer is trying to get us in clown outfits I'd take her pompom collar over that any day! and i have tried it  :biggrin:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> SHe needs to think herself lucky, the trainer is trying to get us in clown outfits I'd take her pompom collar over that any day! and i have tried it  :biggrin:


Who would try their dog's accessories  :skep: .

As for clown outfits....waaaaaay too scary :skep:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Who would try their dog's accessories  :skep: .
> 
> As for clown outfits....waaaaaay too scary :skep:.


It just so happens Tink and I have the same neck size, I never can remember the measurement, I do get some funny looks in pet shops when I test the collars  :frown2:

I'm the same clowns terrify me :skep::scared:


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> SHe needs to think herself lucky, the trainer is trying to get us in clown outfits I'd take her pompom collar over that any day! and i have tried it  :biggrin:


Pictures - we definitely need pictures....


----------



## Dogless

A good walk this morning; went to one of our beloved forests and went right into the trees away from the paths for the morning - wanted some solitude and relaxation. I had that  and Kilo zoomed in huge circles for the whole walk, really off on one this morning but he loved it so I'm happy . We only saw one person right at the start of the walk - I loved the park yesterday but it is nice to relax and not always be aware of kids, cyclists, runners, walkers, dogs on lead, the dynamics of the group play - making sure that Kilo isn't being bullied or bullying etc etc :crazy:. I'm sure it's only me that worries so much - yesterday there was a dog who was obsessed with a tiny Yorkie every time it ran and really fixated on it in a prey - type way but neither owner seemed bothered :. Kilo also had a growl at a dog that was really pestering him when he'd been playing for ages and was tired twice at which point I took him home as I didn't want him to take it further as the owner of that dog was also oblivious and also thought it was quite funny. So.....nice quiet walk today :thumbup1:.

mv...pics .


----------



## moonviolet

I don't blame you for having a lovely relaxing time in the woods today. I too, am on alert when dogs are playing, So many people jsut talk and dont' watch and then wonder why Fido is growling at Fluffy.

I heard those wonderful words " she just wants to play" today. (I thought evil thoughts along the lines of "i just want to bop you on the nose.") After his lurcher charged growling trying to make tink run and be it's play thing.

I really did try to help the owner out. we were walking in opposite directions him on a sandy track me on a path on the other side of a wide swathe of grass (easily 10 metres width between our paths), both dogs off lead. I spotted his dog fiaxating on Tink who was bouncing a little animatedly, So i called her back to me and asked he to sit which she did and we were going to stay still until they passed. Did he even look at his dog... nope.. next thing incoming " she only wants to play" was followed by " i dont' know why she does that." 
 Tink is happy to play with sighthounds and lurchers with manners and strong supervision.

What's wonderful is she is getting so good at shaking this sort of incident off not even requiring a cuddle and a butt massage today, straight onto some easy peasy training cues to get her enthusiasm back up and off we went. Halfway through teh walk the looming fete came to mind so I'm the loon who was doing, leg weaves, through arm jumps, spins, twists etc on the edge of the heath:blushing:

I'll try to persuade OH to come on Saturday to take some few pics


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I don't blame you for having a lovely relaxing time in the woods today. I too, am on alert when dogs are playing, So many people jsut talk and dont' watch and then wonder why Fido is growling at Fluffy.
> 
> I heard those wonderful words " she just wants to play" today. (I thought evil thoughts along the lines of "i just want to bop you on the nose.") *After his lurcher charged growling trying to make tink run and be it's play thing.
> *
> I really did try to help the owner out. we were walking in opposite directions him on a sandy track me on a path on the other side of a wide swathe of grass (easily 10 metres width between our paths), both dogs off lead. I spotted his dog fiaxating on Tink who was bouncing a little animatedly, So i called her back to me and asked he to sit which she did and we were going to stay still until they passed. Did he even look at his dog... nope.. next thing incoming " she only wants to play" was followed by " i dont' know why she does that."
> *Tink is happy to play with sighthounds and lurchers with manners and strong supervision.
> *
> What's wonderful is she is getting so good at shaking this sort of incident off not even requiring a cuddle and a butt massage today, straight onto some easy peasy training cues to get her enthusiasm back up and off we went. Halfway through teh walk the looming fete came to mind so I'm the loon who was doing, leg weaves, through arm jumps, spins, twists etc on the edge of the heath:blushing:
> 
> I'll try to persuade OH to come on Saturday to take some few pics


Oh good girl Tink! I'm sure you didn't look mad - just accomplished with your expertly trained dog! 

Lots of dogs find the play style of sighthounds (esp the bigger ones!) intimidating. They're so fast that it scares other dogs cause they can't get away (not to mention the barging and nipping lots of them like to do!). Gypsy is only allowed to play with dogs that are very confident, she plays with a miniature schnauzer called Schbert who loves to chase her, but she loves to be chased rather then chase.

Unfortunately there used to be a man who had a female doberman, Bella, who had a very poor recall and used to love to run up to us and play bow to Gypsy. But if Gypsy reciprocated then she would panic and run off completely ignoring her owner.  If I noticed Bella before she got to us I would put Gypsy on the lead or in a wait but then she would constantly be trying to entice Gypsy to play and poor Gypsy would be going mad with frustration. Luckily they seem to have moved now so we don't have that problem.


----------



## kat&molly

Pleased you had a lovely relaxing walk Dogless- I love the peace and quiet me.
Well done to Tink for being brave[again] Looking forward to you and Tink in clown outfits:thumbup1: She must be daft as a brush letting you do that My very first dog would stand for being dressed up in anything- as long as I gave her a Quality Street 

Another bad walk this morning, going up the road doing LLW , and we come up on more loose sheep Evie screams this high pitched squeal ,its awful. They turned off in to an empty field but all thoughts of walking nicely had gone out the window.
Haven't been out today for some washing line as I had a client and now I'm decorating. Have to be tomorrow now.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Oh good girl Tink! I'm sure you didn't look mad - just accomplished with your expertly trained dog!


 There were a fair few unplanned pauses for interesting sniffs



L/C said:


> Lots of dogs find the play style of sighthounds (esp the bigger ones!) intimidating.


This is the strange thing. Tink plays with what her owner thinks is a bull lurcher she is a big beautiful muscular girl, She plays great with Tink possibly because Tink is simply too short to barge :lol: Tink cuts all the corners to keep up, when it's her turn to chase, it's wonderful to watch. So i do understand about play styles, but the dog today, well it might as well have been charging a squirrel. It wasn't equal 'play' it was after, but simply a thing to chase.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> There were a fair few unplanned pauses for interesting sniffs
> 
> This is the strange thing. Tink plays with what her owner thinks is a bull lurcher she is a big beautiful muscular girl, She plays great with Tink possibly because Tink is simply too short to barge :lol: Tink cuts all the corners to keep up, when it's her turn to chase, it's wonderful to watch. So i do understand about play styles, but the dog today, well it might as well have been charging a squirrel. It wasn't equal 'play' it was after, but simply a thing to chase.


Oh I'm sure you do - I was trying to agree with you!  Gypsy usually plays wonderfully but sometimes can act just like the lurcher you described so I quickly scoop her up and take her hooligan self away.


----------



## Sarah1983

I think we need to add not pestering the vet to our list of things to work on. Had the mobile vet out today (hubby in hospital, I can't drive, Spen needed to see a vet) and Spencer was a pain in the backside! He was convinced the vet wanted to see every single dog toy we have and that the vets bag was a suitable new toy. He never managed to get it coz I could see him keep eyeing it up lol. He got lots of fusses off the vet though and even did some sits and downs for him in return for treats. Said he's very well trained. I don't think I want to know what the dogs he usually sees are like if Spen's well trained 

Have to say I was very impressed with the vet and think we may switch to using him. I expected him to be really expensive as he charges travel costs and a call out fee as well as cost of treatment but his visit today cost no more than it would have cost us at our usual vet. Nor did he push neutering on me or any brand of food or anything else. He asked about Spens broken tail, not that I could tell him much, it was broken before we got him. That led on to where we got him from and whether he'd be coming to the UK with us when we get posted or whether he'd be rehomed again. Told him Spencer's stuck with us now. Get the impression he doesn't have a high opinion of those who rehome coz they're posted back to the UK. Can't say I do either though to be honest.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - hope that Spen and your hubby are OK; and at least he is friendly towards the vet :thumbup1:. As I'm sure you experienced, even people here rehome that are moving back to the mainland. I think that often it's the excuse they need to get rid of a dog that they wanted then regretted, has problems and they want a new one, or can no longer be bothered with. And the huge stray cat population as they just get left behind.....

kat&molly - what an awful walk . Chin up...Big Evie will be there tomorrow .

mv - Miss Tink is doing so well. It was a lurcher that Kilo told off twice yesterday as he kept charging him growling and nipping and nudging so he could chase him. We had been in the park for hours, it was muggy and Kilo just wasn't up for any more chasing, he was in 'potter and sniff' mode! As I said, I took him away after the second big rumbling growl as the dog wasn't going to take the hint!


----------



## PinkEars

Dogless said:


> Sarah - hope that Spen and your hubby are OK; and at least he is friendly towards the vet :thumbup1:. As I'm sure you experienced, even people here rehome that are moving back to the mainland. I think that often it's the excuse they need to get rid of a dog that they wanted then regretted, has problems and they want a new one, or can no longer be bothered with. And the huge stray cat population as they just get left behind.....
> 
> kat&molly - what an awful walk . Chin up...Big Evie will be there tomorrow .
> 
> mv - Miss Tink is doing so well. It was a lurcher that Kilo told off twice yesterday as he kept charging him growling and nipping and nudging so he could chase him. We had been in the park for hours, it was muggy and Kilo just wasn't up for any more chasing, he was in 'potter and sniff' mode! As I said, I took him away after the second big rumbling growl as the dog wasn't going to take the hint!


This is what i am working on with Walt. The trainer in class last week said its common in sight hounds, collies and i think she said german sheppards to chase and nip. Its like they are rounding them up or chasing to catch! Its not the type of play i want to encourage at all. Most of the time Walt is happy to be chased and as soon as i see him chasing another dog i put a stop to it as he gets over excited and often the other dog does not appreciate it. So thats what i am working on at the moment!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - hope that Spen and your hubby are OK; and at least he is friendly towards the vet :thumbup1:. As I'm sure you experienced, even people here rehome that are moving back to the mainland. I think that often it's the excuse they need to get rid of a dog that they wanted then regretted, has problems and they want a new one, or can no longer be bothered with. And the huge stray cat population as they just get left behind.....


They're both fine thanks  Spen had a tiny little hotspot that he's turned into a wound the size of a pound coin and will not leave alone. Hubby's in hospital for tests to try to get to the bottom of why he snores loud enough to wake the dead. And yeah, least he's friendly towards the vet lol, I suppose that's much better than him wanting to tear him limb from limb.

I do think moving is an excuse to get rid of a pet for many people. I know sometimes it's unavoidable but a lot of the time they could easily take the pet with them. Especially now it's even easier to travel within the EU with one! I just can't imagine rehoming Spencer unless there was really no other option.


----------



## Tigerneko

Afternoon all, long time no post :lol: i've got loads to catch up on!

I haven't been posting much purely because I haven't had much to say! Tiger had his first training class last night, but I couldn't take him because I was at a police recruitment event and unfortunately they totally clashed - same day, same time  so my parents actually took him along for me! They said he was really well behaved, he had handbags with an Am Bull, but only once the trainer lent it's owner some cheese as it wasn't interested in the treats he had brought for it. Other than that he'd been ignoring it! And imo the best result of the night - my mum said she really enjoyed watching (my dad handled Tiger, my mum took Ruby along for the trip out   and watched at the back) and she said she'd like to come along with us every week, so that is a turn up for the books!

Walks have been quiet, just been up to the field and not really come across many other dogs. We saw a Collie yesterday but it was far in the distance and was also off it's lead, so I didn't worry too much about putting Tiger back on, I don't think he could be bothered to run all that way to it when I had a bag full of toys 

My dad should be back from work any time soon so i'm gonna pester him to go along to the big park we went to last week and try and make some more doggy friends, or even just do some distraction work.

Hope everyone is doing well, well done to Tink for handling the daft Lurcher so well  and well done to Spencer for making a new friend :lol: kat&molly, sorry about your walk  i'm glad I don't live too close to any sort of livestock otherwise that'd be a whole new list of issues! Hope your next walks are a little bit better


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko; sounds as if things are really looking up :thumbup1: .



PinkEars said:


> This is what i am working on with Walt. The trainer in class last week said its common in sight hounds, collies and i think she said german sheppards to chase and nip. Its like they are rounding them up or chasing to catch! Its not the type of play i want to encourage at all. Most of the time Walt is happy to be chased and as soon as i see him chasing another dog i put a stop to it as he gets over excited and often the other dog does not appreciate it. So thats what i am working on at the moment!


Kilo doesn't normally mind at all TBH as he adores playing with fast pointy dogs - but likes to chase as well as be chased and also he had just had enough yesterday from playing with other dogs for so long! There was a whippet there too yesterday - the little bursts of whippety runs always make me smile .


----------



## Phoolf

I'm working on Kes' recall at the moment especially with distractions and when playing with other dogs. I just went on a walk with mad max the boxer and Kes and took the clicker and some slices of hot dog with me. I tried a calm walk to the park and kept recalling her every now and again so she was in the habit and amazingly when we got there and they were playing madly she started coming back to me when called, Max who has never been clicker trained even started coming and sitting down too. Usually when they're together the only thing that gets them back is showing Max his ball which he's obsessed with. Definitely carrying on with this tact so that eventually she will not go running up to other dogs when off lead etc.


----------



## Dogless

I am currently working on not stoving some kids' heads in as they have been hanging about for ages banging on the fence and 'barking' every time I try to let Kilo into the garden this evening driving him demented so he is shut inside :mad5::mad5:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I am currently working on not stoving some kids' heads in as they have been hanging about for ages banging on the fence and 'barking' every time I try to let Kilo into the garden this evening driving him demented so he is shut inside :mad5::mad5:.


I hope they've gone now?

More bloody sheep this afternoon- we had to turn back and take a different route. Luckily Evie never spotted them so no screaming- shes ok when they just stand there but when they run thats it
OH came but I was a meanie and never let him throw Mollys toy. It wasn't worth me counting steps with him there- so been a bad LLW today.
I'm going over to Big Evie tomorrow- really looking forward to just spending some time with Moll.

Well done to Kes and Tiger.:thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I hope they've gone now?
> 
> More bloody sheep this afternoon- we had to turn back and take a different route. Luckily Evie never spotted them so no screaming- shes ok when they just stand there but when they run thats it
> OH came but I was a meanie and never let him throw Mollys toy. It wasn't worth me counting steps with him there- so been a bad LLW today.
> I'm going over to Big Evie tomorrow- really looking forward to just spending some time with Moll.
> 
> Well done to Kes and Tiger.:thumbup1:


I went out and mowed the lawn - it's been the driest day we've had in ages, but the ground was still too wet really. Thought they'd bugger off with no dog out to torment :mad5:.

I'm pleased Evie didn't spot the sheep this afternoon, but I think you can definitely write off the LLW today :frown2:. Hope you and Moll enjoy your training tomorrow .


----------



## kat&molly

I left Evies harness off today just to see and she only done her gymnastics about 6 times
So it seems shes taken a dislike to it for some reason. I'm sure it doesn't rub her and she's had it for about 4 months now. So I'll have to get her a new one perhaps a different material and see how she goes- I'll still get some long line for her anyway tomorrow. Strange girl.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I left Evies harness off today just to see and she only done her gymnastics about 6 times
> So it seems shes taken a dislike to it for some reason. I'm sure it doesn't rub her and she's had it for about 4 months now. So I'll have to get her a new one perhaps a different material and see how she goes- I'll still get some long line for her anyway tomorrow. Strange girl.


Just had a mad thought. Could it be that her harness is building static and she's getting shocks. A friend had that happening with a coat on one of her dogs. Hope you have a lovely time with Moll and big Evie tomorrow.

Tigerneko sounds like Tiger was a star and your parents did good too 

L/C sorry if i got the wrong end of the stick 

Dogless have you considered a roof mounted water cannon? I have considered one from from time to time. I'm guessing you might be better placed to procure one than me:biggrin:

Had class tonight OH wasn't too bad :lol: well until he overheard me and the head trainer discussing how Tink had improved. then everything went to hell in a hand basket.
Notably she told one of the other dog owners off for being too silly  He was jumping and screaming and making quite a scene ( totally OTT, bit of an attention seeker)for a recall with distraction. So Tink trots down there gives him one big bark then toddles back with a "that told him" look on her face. :lol: :lol: :lol: i know I shouldn't have laughed but it was like she read my mind.

oh and i didn't have my wits about on the quick walk before class, didn't notice the soliders who had dug in, until i was almost falling into a freshly dug hole with 2 of them, much blushing and apologies on my part :blushing: :biggrin:


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet, I would never have thought of static- I'll tryand get another today.
:thumbup1: to Tink, sounds like she had that chap weighed up.
As for falling in holes with soldiers, I bet you looked like this 

Good advice for Dogless- she could even take to the park with her


----------



## Dogless

Hope everyone had a good day; we had two good walks and school . Last one until first week in August though .

But....only 5 of us turned up and we had a go at Rally Obedience UK Rally - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK it was great fun and hopefully it will be introduced once a month :thumbup1:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Hope everyone had a good day; we had two good walks and school . Last one until first week in August though .
> 
> But....only 5 of us turned up and we had a go at Rally Obedience UK Rally - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK it was great fun and hopefully it will be introduced once a month :thumbup1:.


We had a good day, lovely quite walks but my goodness how humid. No embarassing moments, Thankfully.

We occasionally have a dabble with Rally-O we've always enjoyed it too. Shame about the break


----------



## WhippetyAmey

Hey,

Sorry not got round to posting, been a hectic few days with Chase... can't really decide how it's going.

Chase is very full-on, but this is calming down a lot, I think the bakers is beginning to subside, but it's been a very trying few days. 

With the LLW we have literally been teaching her by me, and then a step and so on. Which is fine, but we are still in very very very easy stages. 

Merlin's recall with another dog around is getting a LOT better, but still needs improving, but his doing very well and not too put out about Chase, however;

We went for a walk today, and he was chasing her and then she started chasing him, still very playful, and then all of a sudden it was like she got too excited and just turned and started attacking, but proper biting, snarling, hackles up and everything. It was so wierd though, because they haven't played together before and they were having fun, and she just turned. Merlin was fine, very wet from her trying to grab him, but fine. He ran towards us when she did it, and we got him and then blocked her to stop her getting to him. They then had a calm 5 minutes with us sitting with them calmly and then we let them go again, and they were fine... 

It just doesn't make any sense, because his normally all over her so she gets a bit shirty, which is acceptable, but he was barely near her...Unless I missed some kind of other body language. 

We have also decided we're going to have to move closer to my job, which although better for me, means finding somewhere to let us keep two dogs. 

Not a good day today


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> We had a good day, lovely quite walks but my goodness how humid. No embarassing moments, Thankfully.
> 
> We occasionally have a dabble with Rally-O we've always enjoyed it too. Shame about the break


It was pouring this morning, but got really humid this afternoon here too; I went for a run after school and am still a bit warm now .


----------



## moonviolet

WhippetyAmey said:


> Hey,
> 
> Sorry not got round to posting, been a hectic few days with Chase... can't really decide how it's going.
> 
> Chase is very full-on, but this is calming down a lot, I think the bakers is beginning to subside, but it's been a very trying few days.
> 
> With the LLW we have literally been teaching her by me, and then a step and so on. Which is fine, but we are still in very very very easy stages.
> 
> Merlin's recall with another dog around is getting a LOT better, but still needs improving, but his doing very well and not too put out about Chase, however;
> 
> We went for a walk today, and he was chasing her and then she started chasing him, still very playful, and then all of a sudden it was like she got too excited and just turned and started attacking, but proper biting, snarling, hackles up and everything. It was so wierd though, because they haven't played together before and they were having fun, and she just turned. Merlin was fine, very wet from her trying to grab him, but fine. He ran towards us when she did it, and we got him and then blocked her to stop her getting to him. They then had a calm 5 minutes with us sitting with them calmly and then we let them go again, and they were fine...
> 
> It just doesn't make any sense, because his normally all over her so she gets a bit shirty, which is acceptable, but he was barely near her...Unless I missed some kind of other body language.
> 
> We have also decided we're going to have to move closer to my job, which although better for me, means finding somewhere to let us keep two dogs.
> 
> Not a good day today


I didn't like your post because it was good, but more that I was glad you were back 

I'm glad the Baker's high is subsiding a bit 

I found this video the other day then lost it. It's techinique to help stop yo yo-ing. "Silky leash" is a similar thing. I have a couple bogey places where Tink want's to get to the car and her LLW gets a little weak and wanted to condition soemthign different to address it. Stop pulling and "Yo-yoing"- clicker dog training - YouTube

Good to hear Merlin's recall is coming on. 

It really does sound like Chase was over stimulated and possibly over tired as she's probably not fully relaxing yet and more prone to over reacting.


----------



## Sarah1983

Glad everyone seems to be seeing improvements. Dogless, sucks about the break from class but at least it's only a few weeks 

Today we're working on how to navigate while wearing a cone of shame. I am bruised to hell, Spencer is either sulking or stuck on a wall or piece of furniture panicking and I'm at my wits end with the bloody thing! I've resorted to taping a gauze pad onto his leg and putting a sock over it while I'm here, just so he's not miserable and I'm not sounding like a broken record going "leave it, leave it, leave it" every few seconds. Tried one of the inflatable collars but coz of where the cut is he can still get to it with that on  I know it's not really a training issue but thought I'd vent to the lovely people here.

He looks so innocent but believe me, when attached to a large, bouncy Labrador with no sense of personal space a cone collar is a lethal weapon.


----------



## moonviolet

Poor boy, poor you.

But he looks so happy in the pic! Hope he heals nice and quickly, so neither of you are suffering the cone and the chaos it causes for long.


----------



## kat&molly

Hi everyone, still busy decorating so didn't have time to update yesterday.
Unbeknown to me Big Evie cancelled our lesson yesterday morning due to really heavy rain, the training ground is outside. I left home and didnt get the email- luckily when she never got a reply she turned up but it had stopped by then.
We had a great lesson, with lots of hidden retreives. We do these at home but Evie was mean and did lots of hard ones, in the agilty tunnel and above ground. I know a lot of its instinct but she was amazed at how well Moll done. As she's been taught using my cack handed ways , the way she searches needs some tidying up and she constantly comes back to ask me which way- very sweet but not necessary 
I bought a gundog dummy in the hope of something new that we'd never made a mistake with and she didn't drop it once upon delivery.
I hope everyone had a good day yesterday, going back to read what I've missed now.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, you had a good day, shame about the break though.
That Rally-O looks good fun, I wouldn't mind a bit of that myself. Probably a good job I'm not in the UK as I think I'd be out doing different classes every night!!

How does Spencer manage to look happy wearing that cone even though he's not  I hope he heals quickly for both your sakes.

Amey, I agree with Moonviolet she does sound over stimulated. Hope things get easier but it is still early days.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Amey for all your work with Chase; I think mv gave good advice and I'm sure it will come good as she settles.

Sarah; poor bruised you and Spen - even though he's still smiling!

kat&molly - really pleased that you had a good training session, sounds as if Moll was fantastic :thumbup1:.


----------



## kat&molly

A couple of my rubbish pictures from yesterday- its agorgeous piece of land to be working on.
Waiting for Big Evie, Moll couldn't understand what we were doing there.








Just one side of the land








Molls retreive from the tunnel








Not straight on but a delivery to hand









No LLW yesterday morning as more bloomin sheep loose and afternoon we had 31 stops- be back to square 1 at this rate.:frown2:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly - lovely to see Moll in her element! Are you going to train there weekly now with Big Evie or was it a 'special'? I'm sure you'll get there with the LLW but the sheep would be a big, big drama for us too .


----------



## kat&molly

I'm hoping to go for as long as I can afford it hopefully. Its 25 euros for 1-2-1 but I gave 30 as we always get extra time. Thats not a bad price I dont think.
As for the sheep its really becoming a problem. The farmers mother died last year and things seem to have gone to pot since. I expect the occasional breakout from live stock so am always on guard. Luckily the other 3 are ok and I can recall and put them back on lead- but with Evie getting so hyped up it may spread to the others? Thats my worry. Evies ok now as long as they're in the field but when they're somewhere they shouldn't be she screams like a demented thing. Wish I could avoid them.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer says a dog has to keep up appearances and as he's been called the worlds happiest Labrador on another forum he cannot allow his unhappiness to be captured on camera.

Kat&Molly, we had about 30 stops during the 5 minute walk to the field last night  And we had about the same number on the way home! I ended up walking along asking Spencer what had happened to all his training, telling him that we'd put too much time and effort in to have it all go to pieces and so could he please give me a little bit of focus and keep the damn leash loose. I didn't realise there were people behind me till I heard giggling 

Lovely pictures and I feel your pain with the sheep. Whenever Rupert spotted sheep he screamed, bucked, reared, lunged and basically fought me with everything he had to try and get at them.


----------



## L/C

Whippetty Amey - It sounds exactly like over stimulation to me. Ely undergoes something similar, all the running can be too much for him and he tries to grab the other dog to stop them moving. If Merlin was just wet then Chance has very good bite inhibition (which Ely doesn't always) as whippet skin is so thin it would have torn with the lightest pressure (as I'm sure you know!).

We have had two very good days of walks. Yesterday morning we met up with a group of dogs that include Bon the collie x that Gypsy is obsessed with and Max the GSD that we've been working with for Ely. Gypsy had a brief bark and bother of Bon but we kept on walking and I called her away and she contented herself with mad zoomies around us. :thumbup1: It seems like as long as we're walking as a group and not standing in one place she can control herself. 

Then Max ran off and his owner called him back and he approached Ely face on. This is a classic trigger for guarding for Ely but I got his focus and we did a sit and watch me and while he wasn't completely relaxed there was no stiff body language and no vocalising at all. :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

L/C - very good to hear how well the last few days have gone :thumbup1:.

mv may I have some 'nervous dog' advice please? A while ago I met a lady with a rescue dog - she explained to me that he was scared of other dogs, so I said that I'd keep Kilo away. The other day they came onto the fields; I usually put Kilo on a lead and let them have their walk in case he goes after the tennis ball that she throws or over to the dog. On this occasion I didn't as Kilo was playing with another dog so I knew that he wouldn't go over. They were walking on one side of the field and Kilo and the other dog ran down the other side - so about 20m separation. The woman looked really cheesed off and put her dog on the lead - neither of our dogs looked at hers and hers seemed perfectly relaxed.

Yesterday I was playing and training with Kilo on the field. I was poo picking when I heard a bit of a noise. The woman was walking with her dog and child on the other side of the fence and Kilo had run to within about 5m of them and was watching them - I called him back and threw his toy and apologised, but the woman was pretty annoyed again I think although her dog looked relaxed still. The commotion had been her grabbing her child to take him further from Kilo.

So...the purpose of that ramble is how much distance is 'enough'? I'd remove Kilo from the field when they come in if needed, but the dog always looks relaxed and Kilo has never run up / barked or anything like that. Wise words from you as the owner of a dog who can be nervous of others please!


----------



## moonviolet

K&M Gorgeous Pics of Moll 

L/C glad you had some lovely walks makes all the challenging days worth it 


To be honest you haven't done anything wrong at all ,been more than accomodating. It all seems a little odd to me to be honest. I never expected anyone to do more than stop their dog charging at/jumping on Tink. It was my responsibility to ensure she had the space she needed.

I suspect that her dog is fine. You would be in no doubt if you saw Tink when she was uncomfortable and all the nervous dog i know are the same, either a tucked tail and attempted avoidance or a stiff tail with "go away" barks. 

If she needed more than 20 metres I wouldn't be throwing a ball in the direction of other dogs playing thats for sure. In fact i wouldn't be throwing a ball in the presence of other/strange dogs, I'd be avoiding anything that could cause competition or tempt other dogs to charge over.

I think the fence incident was the most enlightening... I don't think it is the dog who is uncomfortable around Kilo, but the woman, as pulling her child further from fence wasn't for the dog's benefit and If the dog is as nervous as she said I'm sure it would have been apparent from the dog's body language.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> K&M Gorgeous Pics of Moll
> 
> L/C glad you had some lovely walks makes all the challenging days worth it
> 
> To be honest you haven't done anything wrong at all ,been more than accomodating. It all seems a little odd to me to be honest. I never expected anyone to do more than stop their dog charging at/jumping on Tink. It was my responsibility to ensure she had the space she needed.
> 
> I suspect that her dog is fine. You would be in no doubt if you saw Tink when she was uncomfortable and all the nervous dog i know are the same, either a tucked tail and attempted avoidance or a stiff tail with "go away" barks.
> 
> If she needed more than 20 metres I wouldn't be throwing a ball in the direction of other dogs playing thats for sure. In fact i wouldn't be throwing a ball in the presence of other/strange dogs, I'd be avoiding anything that could cause competition or tempt other dogs to charge over.
> 
> I think the fence incident was the most enlightening... I don't think it is the dog who is uncomfortable around Kilo, but the woman, as pulling her child further from fence wasn't for the dog's benefit and If the dog is as nervous as she said I'm sure it would have been apparent from the dog's body language.


Thanks - I did suspect that I wasn't doing wrong and have watched her dog's body language carefully, he just walks calmly offlead by his owner's side and doesn't appear afraid at the distance we have been from him. He may well be if he is approached but I haven't let Kilo approach so I don't know that. I did want to ask the woman but she blanked me yesterday evening and this morning when I passed her and said "hello" so I am guessing she is annoyed.

The problem may be that Kilo does have a very intense stare, even when his mouth is open and relaxed and he is watching without being alert if that makes sense. The only other thing that I can think is that she lives on the bottom of our street and may be seeing his reaction to running cats   and assuming that he reacts a similar way to dogs or kids . We have passed on the street both with dogs a few times though. Who knows? I'll try and talk to her maybe next time I see her.

ETA Kilo is nervous of labs still and I can tell instantly when he is feeling uncomfortable.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Thanks - I did suspect that I wasn't doing wrong and have watched her dog's body language carefully, he just walks calmly offlead by his owner's side and doesn't appear afraid at the distance we have been from him. He may well be if he is approached but I haven't let Kilo approach so I don't know that. I did want to ask the woman but she blanked me yesterday evening and this morning when I passed her and said "hello" so I am guessing she is annoyed.
> 
> The problem may be that Kilo does have a very intense stare, even when his mouth is open and relaxed and he is watching without being alert if that makes sense. The only other thing that I can think is that she lives on the bottom of our street and may be seeing his reaction to running cats   and assuming that he reacts a similar way to dogs or kids . We have passed on the street both with dogs a few times though. Who knows? I'll try and talk to her maybe next time I see her.
> 
> ETA Kilo is nervous of labs still and I can tell instantly when he is feeling uncomfortable.


It could simply be she's scared of big dogs nothing you or Kilo have done at all.

Keep up the desensitization and counter conditioning programme with this lady and she may improve  :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> It could simply be she's scared of big dogs nothing you or Kilo have done at all.
> 
> Keep up the desensitization and counter conditioning programme with this lady and she may improve  :lol:


That is what I sort of assumed yesterday but it does help to have another perspective. Lots of people are wary of Kilo's 'look' - you can see how 'intense' he is even from my sig pics when he is simply looking at me.


----------



## Dogless

Just had half an hour's playing tug in the garden - Kilo was woken by the bloody kids barking at the fence again and screaming so I thought we'd go out and play tug so he doesn't worry and bark and also so we don't satisfy the little horrors by getting a big reaction :mad5:. It worked as he didn't bark, even when they climbed the tree behind our fence so they could look down into our garden and shout witty things like "Awwww don't kill him"  when I said "Dead" - my cue for him to release the tug toy.

Love summer hols .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Just had half an hour's playing tug in the garden - Kilo was woken by the bloody kids barking at the fence again and screaming so I thought we'd go out and play tug so he doesn't worry and bark and also so we don't satisfy the little horrors by getting a big reaction :mad5:. It worked as he didn't bark, even when they climbed the tree behind our fence so they could look down into our garden and shout witty things like "Awwww don't kill him"  when I said "Dead" - my cue for him to release the tug toy.
> 
> Love summer hols .


They sound like little charmers. You can really see how incidents like that trampoline related one happen. 

I wonder what their parents think they are doing, Think i might be tempted to threaten to film them.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> They sound like little charmers. You can really see how incidents like that trampoline related one happen.
> 
> I wonder what their parents think they are doing, Think i might be threaten to film them.


Their parents may be the drunk ones from last night who barked at the fence when Kilo was out having his bedtime wee . The delights of living on a corner I guess although I am lucky as this is a quiet street! Loads of the kids are feral. Completely .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Their parents may be the drunk ones from last night who barked at the fence when Kilo was out having his bedtime wee . The delights of living on a corner I guess although I am lucky as this is a quiet street! Loads of the kids are feral. Completely .


Did you give that roof mounted water cannon any thought? I really wonder why some people have kids they do seem to be nothig more than a terrible inconvenience to them.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, I agree with MV, it sounds more like the woman herself has got a problem  As for the kids, you dont want to know what I think  but I hope the rest of the holidays pass quietier- hopefully they'll get bored soon of annoying you and Kilo.

26 stops yesterday morning  OH came on the afternoon so not worth counting. I did actually get him to take the toy from Molls mouth and ignore her if she dropped it so that was good- I only hope he keeps it up!! Moll is a bit of a bugger though, she will look at me as if to say'do I have to do what he tells me'

Still decorating, we were only doing the sitting room but as is always the way it makes the other rooms look a bit grubby so I shall be upside down for weeks now, good job its only a small house!!

MV, how many weeks now? And how is the Impulse Control going?
L/C sounds great:thumbup1:

Have a good Doggy day everyone.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Still decorating, we were only doing the sitting room but as is always the way it makes the other rooms look a bit grubby so I shall be upside down for weeks now, good job its only a small house!!
> 
> MV, how many weeks now? And how is the Impulse Control going?
> L/C sounds great:thumbup1:
> 
> Have a good Doggy day everyone.


This house has been in a state of flux for 5 years now  i'm sure we'll finish it one day. :biggrin: Hope the rest of the decorating goes smoothly 

Love Moll asking you if she should do what OH says :lol:

It'll be 7 weeks at 4.15 this afternoon  Haven't had any big family events this summer so that has helped :lol:

No Bakery visits this week, but I think they are going to make me pay for the window cleaning :drool::lol: :blushing:


----------



## L/C

Feel sick. Ely has just attacked another dog - Hamish - who is 14 years old.  We were out with my roommate and her dog and I'd stupidly taken off Ely's harness and muzzle (harness cause he it got wet and muzzle so we could play ball). Hamish and his owner came into the place where we were (an old lady) and Ely and Gypsy went to say hello to Hamish - they see him all the time and are great friends so I supervised but didn't think there was a problem. But roommate didn't put Squishy on a lead and he's bowled over and started a fight. Ely slipped his collar when Luke grabbed him and he tore hair out of Hamish. I tackled him and held him down so we could get him back on the lead while Hamish and his owner left. After all the dogs were controlled I went after them - she was very nice about it and said these things happen and it was partly Hamish's fault (bit Squishy first) and we checked him over - he didn't seem to have any wounds and he took lots of treats from me while I was checking him. I told her if he needed to go to the vet then to take him and we would pay any and all bills and I'm going to call her this afternoon to make sure he's alright.

Sorry for the stream of conciousness posting - I feel absolutely wretched. Can't believe I was so stupid.


----------



## Dogless

L/C that sounds horrible; you couldn't have predicted that particular set of circumstances amongst dogs who normally get on with each other. Thank goodness Hamish wasn't hurt and his owner was OK too. All you can do is learn from it and move on I guess. Far easier said than done I know and I really hope that you are feeling OK soon xx.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh L/C It's so easy to let your guard down for a moment, especially with dogs that have got on well in the past. It sounds like you managed the situation well and everyone walked away ok. Don't beat yourself up :0
Hope you are feeling calmer now.


----------



## L/C

Thanks for all the nice words, I think I relaxed a bit too much because he's been doing so well but he's far from cured. We're going to see the behaviourist again asap.

I just spoke to Hamish's owner and she said he's ok - a bit shaken up but no injuries. I left her my number and said she had to call if anything changed and he needed to go to vet.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C, am so sorry it happened , you've had such a good few days. But sometimes with the best will in the world these things happen. At least the owner is ok about it and there aren't any injuries to Hamish.
Sounds like your room should have put Squishy on ? and Ely was defending him?
Hope you're feeling calmer now.


----------



## Coffee

I'm so sorry I've been AWOL for the last couple of weeks 

Dogless, I've just seen your pics for me and I am genuinely touched, thank you so much for thinking of me :crying:

I've had a hell of a couple of weeks here and training has all gone a bit to pot 

Firstly my landlord has put our house up for sale and I've been absolutely in pieces. Won't bore you with the gory details  but we can't rent in the normal way, we have really bad credit and last 2 houses we've rented we've had to pay 6 months rent in advance but we just can't afford it now and I'm so scared of what's going to happen.... especially now we've got Alfie and so many listings say "no pets" - I know we can offer a higher deposit but that's again more money we just don't have 

Secondly, and please don't anyone shout at me, my fragile state of mind at the moment couldn't cope with it  we decided to have Alfie neutured. I'd been thinking about it for a while and of course, his age was the main thing putting me off. I'd spoken to his breeder and various other people for advice and was still unsure... but then what decided it for me was when he went for 2 smaller, male dogs (seperate incidents) and this horrified me - he has never, ever had any issues with other dogs, in fact, his love for other dogs was one of our issues in that he just used to completely ignore me when there was another dog around, so desperate was he to say hello and play. 

It was 9 days ago since we had it done and to be honest I'm still unsure if I've done the right thing but it's too late now. It didn't all go smoothly either, on the Monday (4 days post op) his whole lower region swelled like a huge balloon and he was crying, shaking and whimpering in pain. Cue panicy phone call to the vets and some painkillers were prescribed with strict instructions for minimal exercise for another week. He's loads better now, all swelling has gone and check-up on Thursday was great, he's healing lovely. He's full of beans of course so keeping him occupied and happy in the house is proving a challenge 

So... anyway, that's where I've been for the last 2 weeks.... desperate about the house, worried for Alfie if I've done the right thing and generally feeling very low and sad. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go on and I'm aware that half of what I've said is not even 'dog chat' material


----------



## kat&molly

I've just got Evie a new harness after trying a few different shops this week.
Only problem is its the same material as the other one-its all I could get but a different design. She's been so much better without one but its not really safe with a flexi. If this doesn't work I've have to go in to a bigger town next week sometime.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> L/C, am so sorry it happened , you've had such a good few days. But sometimes with the best will in the world these things happen. At least the owner is ok about it and there aren't any injuries to Hamish.
> * Sounds like your room should have put Squishy on ? and Ely was defending him?*
> Hope you're feeling calmer now.


Yes that's exactly what happened. I've said now that I can't walk with her any more as the three dogs together is just too much. Really I just can't trust her to be responsible and every time something like this happens it makes Ely worse again and puts other people's dogs at risk.


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> So... anyway, that's where I've been for the last 2 weeks.... desperate about the house, worried for Alfie if I've done the right thing and generally feeling very low and sad. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go on and I'm aware that half of what I've said is not even 'dog chat' material


So very happy to see you back (((((hugs))))))

Sorry you've been having a horrible time  We're not exactly strict about dog chat on this thread or everyone wouldn't know I've given up smoking and I'm learning how to walk past the bakery without walking in. I hope you find a solultion to the housing situation soon I can imagine how worrying it is.

As for Neutering Alfie i don't have a moment's doubt that you have weighed up all the pros and cons and made the best decision you can with the inofrmation available. That's the best any of us can do with decisions of any type.  Glad to hear he is recovering now.

As i said before very very pleased to see you back 

PS: all out door activites were cancelled at the summer fayre and not enough space for us inside, but not before i got dressed up so there might be a couple pics later


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> So very happy to see you back (((((hugs))))))
> 
> Sorry you've been having a horrible time  We're not exactly strict about dog chat on this thread or everyone wouldn't know I've given up smoking and I'm learning how to walk past the bakery without walking in. I hope you find a solultion to the housing situation soon I can imagine how worrying it is.
> 
> As for Neutering Alfie i don't have a moment's doubt that you have weighed up all the pros and cons and made the best decision you can with the inofrmation available. That's the best any of us can do with decisions of any type.  Glad to hear he is recovering now.
> 
> As i said before very very pleased to see you back


Thank you for the hugs, they're much appreciated  xx

I really did, I researched so much and drove myself a little bit mad weighing it all up in my mind. I read so much about the pros and cons my head was spinning. I have to accept now that it's done, I can't go back, and hope it does have the desired effects of calming him down a little around other dogs, especially the agression to little, male dogs - I was beyond horrified at that and came home the first time and cried my eyes out


----------



## Dogless

mv - don't you dare wriggle out of the photo shame :frown2:.

Coffee; it's so nice to have you back but I am very sorry indeed to hear what an awful time you have been having . It's times like this that I wish I could help in some way - but can't . Please don't beat yourself up - and why on earth would anyone shout about Alfie being neutered? You have made the best decision for your dog after much careful thought and I truly hope that it makes a difference. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty about it.

Please don't be a stranger to the thread......


----------



## Dogless

Not sure if you recall that I had bought this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Skills...4467/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341668135&sr=8-1

I finished reading it yesterday and have to say I thought it was very, very good :thumbup1:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - don't you dare wriggle out of the photo shame :frown2:.


Please bear in mind the "mime style" makeup was going to be added when we arrived. I couldn't face the full on clown look. Here's a little collage of before we left... only to turn around and come home :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Tried to rep you mv but I need to spread it around apparently . Fab photos - your outfit is much better than the full - on scary clown look  - really good and what a shame you never got to perform .


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> mv - don't you dare wriggle out of the photo shame :frown2:.
> 
> Coffee; it's so nice to have you back but I am very sorry indeed to hear what an awful time you have been having . It's times like this that I wish I could help in some way - but can't . Please don't beat yourself up - and why on earth would anyone shout about Alfie being neutered? You have made the best decision for your dog after much careful thought and I truly hope that it makes a difference. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty about it.
> 
> Please don't be a stranger to the thread......


<sniff>

Aww, you're so lovely, thank you  Do you know any wealthy business type people who might be interested in buying a lovely house in the West Midlands as an investment, so they can continue to rent it to us?  Do send them my way if you do!

Well, you know there's a lot of people on here with very strong beliefs about younger dogs being neutured too early... that's why I didn't even mention we were going to get it done, I just wasn't up for a big debate about it 

I promise not to be a stranger  The spotty one is allowed off lead from Monday  so I'm sure I'll be back with my tales of woe and recall issues


----------



## Coffee

Fabulous photos moonviolet  They really made me smile 

Such a shame you didn't get to perform though!


----------



## moonviolet

You guys are too kind. I have to say Tink looks cute in pompom collar mark 2, but I can't can't stop seeing my bakery thighs :lol:

Coffee I look forward to hearing anything about Alfie,as you know I have a huge spotty soft spot


----------



## Coffee

Bit poor quality as this was taken on my phone but this was poor spotty in the dreaded "cone of shame" the evening he came home from the vets. Have you ever seen anything so sad? :cryin:


----------



## Coffee

Then we had to invest in a bodysuit as he was so stressed in the cone  can't say he was much happier in that though!


----------



## moonviolet

Aww Coffee Alfie just need to be snuggled in those pics. So glad he's on the mend now


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Aww Coffee Alfie just need to be snuggled in those pics. So glad he's on the mend now


He was so sad, it was horrible to see him like that but he's 100% better now, back to his normal, slightly bonkers, self  Daughter and I have been taking it in turns to sleep on the sofa with him for the last week and a bit as he didn't fit in his crate with the collar on (!) and when he really put his mind to it, he could shake hard enough to make it come off  and the bodysuit was slightly on the large side so, with determination, he was able to wriggle out of it


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> He was so sad, it was horrible to see him like that but he's 100% better now, back to his normal, slightly bonkers, self  Daughter and I have been taking it in turns to sleep on the sofa with him for the last week and a bit as he didn't fit in his crate with the collar on (!) and when he really put his mind to it, he could shake hard enough to make it come off  and the bodysuit was slightly on the large side so, with determination, he was able to wriggle out of it


Awww bet it felt like nothing could be easy. I slept on the sofa when Tink was spayed and was completely guilt ridden putting her through it.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Awww bet it felt like nothing could be easy. I slept on the sofa when Tink was spayed and was completely guilt ridden putting her through it.


Yes, that was *exactly* how I felt too, I felt awful and have shed more than a few tears this last week, sobbing on poor daughter "but he didn't even choose or want this done, it was all meeeee" 

Am a bit worried what he's going to be like on Monday when the cone can come off (to be fair, it's only on him at bedtime now) and he can go back in the crate, how he's going to be with that, after not being in it for well over a week


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry you're having such a crappy time Coffee, hope things improve for you soon. 

Great pics MV 

L/C I had a few similar incidents with Rupert and dogs he usually got on with. Something would happen and he'd get all defensive and go on the attack. It's not nice and it really did stop me trusting him with any dogs, even those he knew well and had never had an issue with.

Horribly quiet here at the moment. Struggled to sleep last night with no Spencer to cuddle up to. Got up this morning and automatically got dressed to take him out. Had to do all the washing by myself too! I couldn't go with them to kennels last night, our cars off the road at the moment and the guy who took hubby and Spen had to take his kids too so no room for me. Apparently Spen was his usual self, thought he was there to play, happily accepted fusses from everyone and went into his kennel with no problems. I still feel bloody horrible about putting him in there though.

Oh, and it looks like I was right about his intentions towards cats. Hubby said they came face to face with one just sitting there and Spen got all wiggly and waggy and happy. No aggression, just playfulness.


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet those photos are fab- you and Tink are both stars :thumbup1:
Such a shame you never got to do the display though. Be sure to tell us when the next one is.

Coffee, great to see you back with us, am sorry you're having some problems and I hope you get them sorted soon. No-one here will shout about you neutering Alfie, you've done what you think is best for your dog. Fingers crossed it helps.

Sarah it must be really strange without Spencer- but look on it as a chance to give those bruises from the cone to heal.

L/C isn't your room mate moving out soon? You may see a difference then as well.?

Dogless- hope you've had a good day with the BW.

26 stops this afternoon and with the new harness gymnastics increased by a third.


----------



## moonviolet

Hope everyone had a wonderful day. 

We had a good one except for a little incident this evening when we were charged from behind at a gazillion mph by a lurcher. With the ground so waterlogged i didn't hear anything until Tink changed from trotting to running tail tucked i turned to see this dog no more than 5 metres from me. I employed the voice of doom and the dog turned tail and ran.... so did it's owner... a good 20 meters further back....  I call out to suggest he get a long line, if he had no control. and had "He wouldn't do any harm" as a reply. :mad5: Well at least he must have felt some guilt and watching him trying to run up that slippery hill was quite a reward. He only fell over twice. I know it was sadistic to watch, but fat chance I was turning my back on him and his dog.

On the bright side as i employed the voice of doom Tink sat peering aroound a nearby tree and waited for me to catch up. Buckets of praise and a few daft games and she had shaken it off.

ETA I must credit Sarah1983 for the term Voice of doom


----------



## Dogless

mv I need to add 'voice of doom' to my 'things to work on' list . Tink is doing brilliantly though - just bouncing back .

We had two very wet walks - very pleasant and solitary .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv I need to add 'voice of doom' to my 'things to work on' list . Tink is doing brilliantly though - just bouncing back .
> 
> We had two very wet walks - very pleasant and solitary .


I always hope it'll be the last time I have to use it. Scares me a little and I think it may be shaking my teeth loose 

Tink really is a little star. I'm so lucky to have her.


----------



## hahgiwoofa

moonviolet said:


> Hope Evie responds well. Sorry I didn't have anything useful to add but moral support
> 
> I mentioned Susan Garretts crate games earlier. Here's the link i wanted to share. I confess i've adapted it a little and used a mat instead of a crate.
> 
> Say YES to Tess: Crate Games with Susan Garrett


Thanks for the link, I had a look, but the only prob I have is that I don't use a crate.

(It may sound a bit lame but Pepper had such a bad and extreme reaction to being in the dog shelter where we found her that the mere suspicion of being put in/near a cage and she has a meltdown that is too emotional for either of us - when she had be left at the vets for a tooth out they had to sedate her to get her in their crate for me to be able to leave)

Can the same things be done but using the dogs bed?


----------



## moonviolet

hahgiwoofa said:


> Thanks for the link, I had a look, but the only prob I have is that I don't use a crate.
> 
> (It may sound a bit lame but Pepper had such a bad and extreme reaction to being in the dog shelter where we found her that the mere suspicion of being put in/near a cage and she has a meltdown that is too emotional for either of us - when she had be left at the vets for a tooth out they had to sedate her to get her in their crate for me to be able to leave)
> 
> Can the same things be done but using the dogs bed?


Absolutely it can. I've done it with a bed as it's more portable and convenient


----------



## hahgiwoofa

fantastic!!:biggrin:

will give it a go.

had a bit of an issue with Paddy today, and it's got me a bit worried.

He's a big dog up on his hind legs, and today we were in the field (which is sealed by a gate at both ends, and I thought we were alone which is the only reason I let him off lead) He saw a kids (about 13) and ran up to him and started jumping up at him and would not stop (no biting). Luckily the kids said he has a dog too, and stood stil til I got him back on the lead.

Just feeling a bit disheartened that I'm never gonna be able to let him off lead anywhere without risking the same thing and him getting a bad name for himself.


----------



## Dogless

hahgiwoofa said:


> fantastic!!:biggrin:
> 
> will give it a go.
> 
> had a bit of an issue with Paddy today, and it's got me a bit worried.
> 
> He's a big dog up on his hind legs, and today we were in the field (which is sealed by a gate at both ends, and I thought we were alone which is the only reason I let him off lead) He saw a kids (about 13) and ran up to him and started jumping up at him and would not stop (no biting). Luckily the kids said he has a dog too, and stood stil til I got him back on the lead.
> 
> Just feeling a bit disheartened that I'm never gonna be able to let him off lead anywhere without risking the same thing and him getting a bad name for himself.


Can you use a longline and harness at all? Kilo went onto one for a period recently as he was displaying stalking behaviour towards lone people - it did help.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Can you use a longline and harness at all? Kilo went onto one for a period recently as he was displaying stalking behaviour towards lone people - it did help.


I agree with the longline and would also suggest a recall and a fun game of tug or a tasty treat whichever floats his boat, conditioning him to come to you when he sees people


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I agree with the longline and would also suggest a recall and a fun game of tug or a tasty treat whichever floats his boat, conditioning him to come to you when he sees people


That is what I meant; should have elaborated .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> That is what I meant; should have elaborated .


I thought you did, I'm being very detailed today, after being accused of not explaining thoroughly by OH this morning


----------



## hahgiwoofa

moonviolet said:


> I agree with the longline and would also suggest a recall and a fun game of tug or a tasty treat whichever floats his boat, conditioning him to come to you when he sees people


Yeah, he has a harness, and when I let Pepper off the lead I usually knot the 2 leads together to give him longer line, I always have freshly baked liver or pilchard cake in my pocket (which makes me irresistible to men!! Lol!) and a squeaky!

Again, I will work on it, We;ve only had him 7 weeks so I'm just being impatient as usual! :frown2:


----------



## kat&molly

Hope everyones ok and well done to Tink 

Our LLW really isn't improving beyond the initial breakthrough we had- average seems to be around 26 so I must try and see whats going wrong there.
Scruffs barking at people really has got much much better- by about 95%, I'm really pleased about that as it was annoying and embarressing.Its better for Evie as well.

One room is finished. Phew. I hired the carpet cleaner on Saturday to clean 2 large rugs. I thought that it wouldn't hurt the girls to eat bonier meals outside when its not raining- guess which certain little dog decided she wasn't having any of that and snuck in to eat her bit of carcase on my nice clean rug :frown2:

Moonviolet could you put your voice of Doom to use and shout Sixstar to let us know how she's doing with Ozzy


----------



## moonviolet

*OI SIXSTAR*

How you are doing with Ozzy?

Do you think that was loud enough? I hope it didn't scare her.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> *OI SIXSTAR*
> 
> How you are doing with Ozzy?
> 
> Do you think that was loud enough? I hope it didn't scare her.


Blimey I heard you from here.


----------



## kat&molly

Had to help Scruff have a poo this morning because some grass was stuck.
The things we have to do eh?:frown2:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Had to help Scruff have a poo this morning because some grass was stuck.
> The things we have to do eh?:frown2:


Oh the glamour of loving dogs:lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Coffee

kat&molly said:


> Had to help Scruff have a poo this morning because some grass was stuck.
> The things we have to do eh?:frown2:


Oh yes, I've had to do that a few times 

This morning was Alfie's first off-lead walk following his neuturing and I admit, I was a bag of nerves  But he was an absolute superstar - he didn't stray far from my side, was looking back for me almost constantly and came when called, first time, every time   We met 2 dogs we know and after a quick hello sniff he came away as soon as called and even (saved the best until last!) recalled away from chasing a rabbit <keels over>

I'm sure it's just a happy coinsidence... surely any post-neuturing behaviour changes wouldn't be apparent so quickly?  Not that I'm complaining but don't want to get my hopes up in case our walk later is a disaster 

Hope everyone else is well and having a good day


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Oh the glamour of loving dogs:lol: :lol: :lol:


Do you think Paris Hilton has some minion to do these things for her 

Coffee, sounds like Alfie was a good boy. Never having boys before I dont know but I think if it works the timescale varies. Not much help was I  but I would treat it as a fluke and then you cant be too disappointed if hes a bit naughty later and if hes good its a bonus


----------



## moonviolet

Hellish walk teeth almost knocked out by some out of control labrador walked by a 'professional' dog walker who was on her phone. 

Appraently it's "not her fault because it's not her dog" and " but i've said sorry" so that makes it ok. Where do these idiots come from.?


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Hellish walk teeth almost knocked out by some out of control labrador walked by a 'professional' dog walker who was on her phone.
> 
> Appraently it's "not her fault because it's not her dog" and " but i've said sorry" so that makes it ok. Where do these idiots come from.?


Professional? While on the phone?  I rarely answer my phone when I'm walking Alfie as I need eyes in the back of my head and need to concentrate on what he's doing... never mind someone who is PAID to look after someone else's dog. God, I bet you were fuming  Did it leap at you then and bang your face?


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Professional? While on the phone?  I rarely answer my phone when I'm walking Alfie as I need eyes in the back of my head and need to concentrate on what he's doing... never mind someone who is PAID to look after someone else's dog. God, I bet you were fuming  Did it leap at you then and bang your face?


Yep repeatedly. I'd turned pushed it off numerous times. I turned to check on Tink who was less than impressed and it caught me in the face. Less than impressed was an understatement and I still can't feel the tooth that got clouted properly, but at least the bleeding has stopped.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Yep repeatedly. I'd turned pushed it off numerous times. I turned to check on Tink who was less than impressed and it caught me in the face. Less than impressed was an understatement and I still can't feel the tooth that got clouted properly, but at least the bleeding has stopped.


 bloody hell - the tooth isn't loose is it?

That is absolutely disgraceful... I'd be mortified if Alfie jumped at someone _once_ and would be falling over myself to grab him sharpish and apologise unreservedly, never mind _numerous_ times


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Hellish walk teeth almost knocked out by some out of control labrador walked by a 'professional' dog walker who was on her phone.
> 
> Appraently it's "not her fault because it's not her dog" and " but i've said sorry" so that makes it ok. Where do these idiots come from.?


Thats awful, stupid bloody woman-imagine if that were a child.
Hope your tooth's ok.


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> bloody hell - the tooth isn't loose is it?
> 
> That is absolutely disgraceful... I'd be mortified if Alfie jumped at someone _once_ and would be falling over myself to grab him sharpish and apologise unreservedly, never mind _numerous_ times


I don't think so but the gum is a bit swollen  She tried to say it was my fault!!!!! saying i shouldn't have bowed my head. I tipped my head to keep an eye on my dog :mad5: It wasn't until i mentioned that would be expeting her to pay for any dental work should it be necessary did she bother to come over and put the damn dog on lead. That's when she bleated but i said sorry. I said I can't pay my dentist with sorry, can I? I know who she is so thought as i wasn't getting any sense out of her and just wanted to get home I just left. I doubt she has insurance either.


----------



## Dogless

mv I would be so :mad5::mad5::mad5:. It was bad enough when the setter a few months ago tore my clothes but to hurt you enough for possible dental work is awful. If that had been my dog I would have been so, so mortified and so very sorry it is unreal :frown2:. And prepared to foot any bills, obviously!

kat&molly - we had a dangleberry situation yesterday too :frown2:.

Coffee - :thumbup1::thumbup1::thumbup1:. I'd treat it as a blip too so that you aren't disappointed later BUT .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv I would be so :mad5::mad5::mad5:. It was bad enough when the setter a few months ago tore my clothes but to hurt you enough for possible dental work is awful. If that had been my dog I would have been so, so mortified and so very sorry it is unreal :frown2:. And prepared to foot any bills, obviously!


But it's not her dog so clearly it's not her fault.... :mad5: I did try to explain she was being paid to take responsibilty but the concept was quite alien to her.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> But it's not her dog so clearly it's not her fault.... :mad5: I did try to explain she was being paid to take responsibilty but the concept was quite alien to her.


Wonder if the owners know what a rubbish walker they're employing?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> But it's not her dog so clearly it's not her fault.... :mad5: I did try to explain she was being paid to take responsibilty but the concept was quite alien to her.


It's unbelievable really :frown2: .


----------



## kat&molly

Coffee said:


> Wonder if the owners know what a rubbish walker they're employing?


Whoever is employing her cant have vetted her very well surely? I'd want to know the ins and outs of a cats ar*e before I trusted someone with mine


----------



## Dogless

I am pleased to report a Gold Star day :thumbup1:. Quiet walk where we saw one person in the forest this morning and Kilo just zoomed about. This afternoon I braved the park as I knew it would be packed as the rain was holding off . I got into my super - calm mindset and plunged in amongst all the dogs, kids, scooters, runners, footballs whizzing etc etc....and the BW was blummin' fantastic . Shaky start when a springer tried to get into the boot with Kilo...luckily the tailgate guard was still locked as he went batshit. The springer's owner was unimpressed...but then I was unimpressed that a wet muddy spaniel jumped on my car so we were even .

mv - how's your dental health?!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Kilo . Dogs that try to jump into the car is one of my pet hates. I do hope you gave the owner a nice hard stare :lol:

I can't bite down on that tooth and it hurts if i accidently brush my tongue against it. i'm sure it'll be better in a few days, it's the attitude of the woman that really hacks me off and she's the type that with be telling her version of the truth to all and sundry...  Just as well i have broad shoulders.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Kilo . Dogs that try to jump into the car is one of my pet hates. I do hope you gave the owner a nice hard stare :lol:
> 
> I can't bite down on that tooth and it hurts if i accidently brush my tongue against it. i'm sure it'll be better in a few days, it's the attitude of the woman that really hacks me off and she's the type that with be telling her version of the truth to all and sundry...  Just as well i have broad shoulders.


I really hope it does get better; may be worth a dental check just in case it has a very fine crack or something? I'm sure your big enough and scary enough to not need advice from me though . The dog walker's story may enhance your reputation and folk with unruly dogs will stay away...the lady with the beagle who savagely attacks dogs using her teeth .

The owner gave me a very hard stare indeed as Kilo erupted into his best scary beast impression and a shake of his head :frown2: as he called his dog away and put them in his car .


----------



## Coffee

Dogless, I can't get over the owner giving YOU the evils when their dog was being so rude  If Alfie ever did that (unlikely I know, can barely get him in our own car!) I'd be horrified and apologising and telling him "serves you right" for Kilo expressing his displeasure


----------



## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Dogless, I can't get over the owner giving YOU the evils when their dog was being so rude  If Alfie ever did that (unlikely I know, can barely get him in our own car!) I'd be horrified and apologising and telling him "serves you right" for Kilo expressing his displeasure


Kilo really protects his space in the car . I think if Alfie voluntarily started to try and get into vehicles you'd be a very happy person indeed . Dare I ask whether that has improved at all or have you just had waaay too much going on to work on it?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I really hope it does get better; may be worth a dental check just in case it has a very fine crack or something? I'm sure your big enough and scary enough to not need advice from me though . The dog walker's story may enhance your reputation and folk with unruly dogs will stay away...the lady with the beagle who savagely attacks dogs using her teeth .
> 
> The owner gave me a very hard stare indeed as Kilo erupted into his best scary beast impression and a shake of his head :frown2: as he called his dog away and put them in his car .


Honestly one day i'm going to lose the plot and go jump in their car and see how they like a random stranger in their car :lol: Or maybe run up to them start nudging them and shouting " lets play lets play!" int heir faces.... hmmm maybe it'll be time for the strait jacket then.

FOrgot to mention the standard poodle called " Boris, BORIS, *BORIS BORIS*"
Deep cleansing breaths, thats my 3 surely it's someone elses turn now?:biggrin:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Honestly one day i'm going to lose the plot and go jump in their car and see how they like a random stranger in their car :lol: Or maybe run up to them start nudging them and shouting " lets play lets play!" int heir faces.... hmmm maybe it'll be time for the strait jacket then.
> 
> FOrgot to mention the standard poodle called " Boris, BORIS, *BORIS BORIS*"
> Deep cleansing breaths, thats my 3 surely it's someone elses turn now?:biggrin:


At least he didn't scratch the car like the dog that jumped up at the driver's side when I was talking to the owner did not long ago .

I love the name Boris for a dog . But just Boris, not Boris said repeatedly and with increasing volume. That would sound daft .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, you were brave battling that lot with Kilo  He's proper rock steady now isn't he.
My girls are ferocious if another dog comes near 'their' car- and a Spaniel jumping all over it is the last thing you want, I'm sure they only come in wet and muddy shades.
Moonviolet- I always think of spiders when I hear the name Boris- but I dont know why?:skep: I hope your tooth feels better soon, Evie [] caught my front tooth a while ago- an uppercut and it was really painful for a couple of days.

18 stops earlier so a bit of a result, and I'm sure its down to 'competition' between Moll and Scruff trying to get ahead- they cant be too bad as I'm holding 2 leads with 1 hand but now they've got the gist of what I want I might swap Scruff back to the other side just to see.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless, you were brave battling that lot with Kilo  He's proper rock steady now isn't he.
> My girls are ferocious if another dog comes near 'their' car- and a Spaniel jumping all over it is the last thing you want, I'm sure they only come in wet and muddy shades.
> Moonviolet- I always think of spiders when I hear the name Boris- but I dont know why?:skep: I hope your tooth feels better soon, Evie [] caught my front tooth a while ago- an uppercut and it was really painful for a couple of days.
> 
> 18 stops earlier so a bit of a result, and I'm sure its down to 'competition' between Moll and Scruff trying to get ahead- they cant be too bad as I'm holding 2 leads with 1 hand but now they've got the gist of what I want I might swap Scruff back to the other side just to see.


He's not rock steady yet...but I feel like we're getting somewhere :thumbup1: .

Well done with the 18 stops....I'm certain you'll crack it . Or crack up trying......


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Kilo really protects his space in the car . I think if Alfie voluntarily started to try and get into vehicles you'd be a very happy person indeed . Dare I ask whether that has improved at all or have you just had waaay too much going on to work on it?


I'd be over the moon :lol:

We had started very slowly working on it a couple of weeks ago. I was taking him out to the car on his slip lead (so he knew the difference between going out for a walk and 'car training'... well that was the idea anyway ) and he was happy to jump into the boot and find the treats I'd thrown in there. I did this for 10 minutes or so every day for a week and my next step was to get H to come out and start the engine and see how that went down  But then of course we had the trip to the vets for his op. and he was massively distressed that day on the way there (probably picking up my tension too because even that morning I was having doubts ). He was okay when we brought him home that evening but was still groggy from the GA. Repeat then last Thursday for his check up and I guess we'll now have to go back to step one; throwing treats in and massive praise when he gets in to get them 

Thanks for asking though


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> I'd be over the moon :lol:
> 
> We had started very slowly working on it a couple of weeks ago. I was taking him out to the car on his slip lead (so he knew the difference between going out for a walk and 'car training'... well that was the idea anyway ) and he was happy to jump into the boot and find the treats I'd thrown in there. I did this for 10 minutes or so every day for a week and my next step was to get H to come out and start the engine and see how that went down  But then of course we had the trip to the vets for his op. and he was massively distressed that day on the way there (probably picking up my tension too because even that morning I was having doubts ). He was okay when we brought him home that evening but was still groggy from the GA. Repeat then last Thursday for his check up and I guess we'll now have to go back to step one; throwing treats in and massive praise when he gets in to get them
> 
> Thanks for asking though


Hope you can get back on track now he's recovering from his plum-ectomy. It would be wonderful if he could be comfortable or at least tolerate a car journey. Good luck with the process 

Thankfully a nice quite last walk only saw one other dog and that was lovely old Max 13 years young, charming old gentleman. other than that we had the world to ourselves


----------



## L/C

Bloody hell - I don't check the thread for a day and I come back and MV has had all her teeth knocked out by a lab and a spaniel has tried to steal Dogless' car! 

We did the first day of the couch to 5k programme today - it went well. I took both dogs and Gypsy loved it. Ely took a while to get used to what we were doing but once he settled into the rhythm was great. Apparently he's learnt that me clicking my tongue and saying "On by" (am I a shepherd - maybe) means he has to focus on me and not stop to sniff and mark. I didn't consciously teach that so I'm not sure where he picked it up from.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Bloody hell - I don't check the thread for a day and I come back and MV has had all her teeth knocked out by a lab and a spaniel has tried to steal Dogless' car!
> 
> We did the first day of the couch to 5k programme today - it went well. I took both dogs and Gypsy loved it. Ely took a while to get used to what we were doing but once he settled into the rhythm was great. Apparently he's learnt that me clicking my tongue and saying "On by" (am I a shepherd - maybe) means he has to focus on me and not stop to sniff and mark. I didn't consciously teach that so I'm not sure where he picked it up from.


Kilo got 'on by' very quickly too; not sure why either . Afraid of being left? Glad your run went well; I swam today so no running for us!


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> Bloody hell - I don't check the thread for a day and I come back and MV has had all her teeth knocked out by a lab and a spaniel has tried to steal Dogless' car!
> 
> We did the first day of the couch to 5k programme today - it went well. I took both dogs and Gypsy loved it. Ely took a while to get used to what we were doing but once he settled into the rhythm was great. Apparently he's learnt that me clicking my tongue and saying "On by" (am I a shepherd - maybe) means he has to focus on me and not stop to sniff and mark. I didn't consciously teach that so I'm not sure where he picked it up from.


Well done for starting that programme-I quite like the sound of it myself-

Its just the running bit that puts me off


----------



## kat&molly

We haven't done anything today. I took the girls to the lake just so the Shorthouse got some off lead time- and she had a great time.
I've noticed she's put a bit of weight on not fat but not as lean as she was, I've cut her food a bit but really its because of no off lead time.

Hope everyones had a trouble free day and Moonviolet your mouth is a bit better today.


----------



## Dogless

Nothing to report really! A solitary forest walk this morning which was nice, then went to the fields this afternoon and met a man and a dog Kilo plays with quite a lot - 45 minutes later....two tired dogs .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Nothing to report really! A solitary forest walk this morning which was nice, then went to the fields this afternoon and met a man and a dog Kilo plays with quite a lot - 45 minutes later....two tired dogs .


Sounds heavenly  I returned to my usual walking time, after the morning walkers, before the paid dog walkers and my more anti social routes and saw no one, bliss.

Had a bit of an ad hoc training session when dubbin my new winter boots. I unfastened the buckles to do a thorough job and the jingling sounded like a cat bell. Cue Tinker barking like a loon, stopped got madame's attention and began again whilst dropped treats for her to clear up. She picked up on that nice and quickly, don't suppose it'll work for the real thing, mind.

K&M Mouth still sore, but improving thanks for asking


----------



## Coffee

I am very jealous of you lucky people who are able to have quiet, solitary walks where you don't see another soul  I wouldn't do it every day, but to be able to just mooch along on our own would be absolute bliss every now and then.

We went out this morning with my friends and the 2 Dallies and the Beagle and it was complete chaos! The dogs were all so happy to see each other again, cue much over-excited playing and a VERY tired Alfie when we got home  He wasn't as good as he was yesterday  but he wasn't *too* bad either, just very excited


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> We went out this morning with my friends and the 2 Dallies and the Beagle and it was complete chaos! The dogs were all so happy to see each other again, cue much over-excited playing and a VERY tired Alfie when we got home  He wasn't as good as he was yesterday  but he wasn't *too* bad either, just very excited


Sounds like he was pretty good, considering he was having reunion party


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like he was pretty good, considering he was having reunion party


He was really, until it was time to come home and out came the head collar  There is no other way to describe it... he *sulked* all the way home like a stroppy toddler who's been taken home from a party


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> He was really, until it was time to come home and out came the head collar  There is no other way to describe it... he *sulked* all the way home like a stroppy toddler who's been taken home from a party


You tell him Auntie Moon says it's always wise to leave a party before the fights break out or the clearing up needs doing


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> You tell him Auntie Moon says it's always wise to leave a party before the fights break out or the clearing up needs doing


Fabulous advice :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sounds heavenly  I returned to my usual walking time, after the morning walkers, before the paid dog walkers and my more anti social routes and saw no one, bliss.
> 
> Had a bit of an ad hoc training session when dubbin my new winter boots. I unfastened the buckles to do a thorough job and the jingling sounded like a cat bell. Cue Tinker barking like a loon, stopped got madame's attention and began again whilst dropped treats for her to clear up. She picked up on that nice and quickly, don't suppose it'll work for the real thing, mind.
> 
> K&M Mouth still sore, but improving thanks for asking


I found a cat collar the other day and picked it up to return to the owner (lives on our street). Kilo was looking everywhere for the cat as I carried it :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## Tigerneko

Hello everyone, just checking in with a bit of an update 

Had Tiger's second training class tonight, he was astonishing! I wasn't there last week but the trainer kept commenting the whole night saying she can't believe how good he is compared to last week 

He made friends.... ON LEAD! with the most beautiful American Bulldog bitch, gosh I am in love with her, she's stunning  she's white with lots of orangey tan coloured patches, and she's so pretty  her and Tiger met while they were both on lead, and they were just fine! He told her off once because she must have caught him off guard by approaching him from sideways to sniff his head, so I think she spooked him slightly, but they were fine - we were sharing treats between them and everything. Her owner is such a lovely chap, he looks like exactly the kind of dog & owner combination you'd cross the road from, but he is so lovely. I panicked a bit and told Tiger off when he gave Tara (that's her name ) that bit of a bashing, but her owner was like "hey, don't worry about it, it was her fault and she needed telling", he is so laid back. It was funny cos I didn't feel an ounce of worry about letting them meet one another, I get more panicky when I spot a dog over the other side of the road, so I really surprised myself too!

Also, the class before us is a puppy class, and we were all waiting outside for them to finish (thank god it wasn't raining for once lol) and as they were coming out, Tiger was straining on his lead to see them, and a guy walked up to us with a Springer pup, Tiger and the pup also met while on lead and again, he was perfect! He was a little bit heavy with the poor little thing, he nearly knocked her off her feet trying to sniff her  but there was no malice in it, he's just like a bull in a china shop  he also had a good sniff at a few of the other puppies (including the cutest white Bulldog pup ever lol) and was fine with them too 

He was top of his class and the trainer kept getting us to demonstrate stuff  which was embarrassing :lol: but I felt really proud! On the way out we had a bit of a disaster, the trainer was giving all the dogs hotdog sausages and cheese at the end of the class, and when he saw all the other dogs being given the food, he went berserk  we had to walk out through the narrow corridor (which all the next class had lined up along) and I practically had to string him up on his lead to stop him from going mental, he was just lunging and screeching and making the most horrific noises, snapping at all the dogs he'd previously got along with, it was like a switch had flicked in his head and he didn't settle the whole way home  so it was a bit of a disappointing end, but i'm trying not to think about it, he was so perfectly well behaved with his new friend and all the puppies he met, so I am proud of him for that  i'll just have to think ahead and perhaps try and keep him away from the trainers treat giving thing at the end, because I think seeing all the other dogs get the tasty treats is what set him off  

she gave him the first treat, so maybe she would be better waiting until last next time, if she wants to do it? Once he knew she had them, he was pulling towards her for another one, and it must have hacked him off seeing all the other dogs get them, so perhaps if she leaves him until last, he won't be as bad? I dunno but i'll have a word with her next week, I know she's only trying to be nice by handing the special treats out at the end but it did set Tiger off, and I am going there to stop that sort of behaviour, not have it happen more often.


----------



## moonviolet

Sounds like Tiger did fantastic in class and all those on lead meetings which can be so challenging for so many dogs. 

To be honest i'd be a little cross with the trainer if she wants to treat the dogs, which if i'm honest i'd prefer they didn't, it should be done when you are still spread around the hall not when they are all scrunched up walking out. It's a recipe for conflict.  It does seem rather an unwise thing for a trainer to do.

You must have been bursting with pride being asked to demonstrate things  Well done. Did either of yoru parents come this week, you said they enjoyed it last week ?


----------



## Dogless

Tigerneko; what a fab update - sounds as if Tiger is nowhere near as bad as you thought . Hopefully it will do your confidence the world of good :idea:.

Not sure about the treat thing TBH; I wouldn't have been chuffed myself, but if she's going to do it I'd probably want to be first but then waste no time getting out of the door before Tiger saw any others getting them if that is what upset him.


----------



## kat&molly

Tiger done really well, does sound like the treat thing was just a bit too much. Seems a bit of a dangerous thing to do with a lot of unknown dogs together like that, think I'd tell the trainer that I'd like to leave a bit early before they do that again.


Lots of PF dogs going through it at the minute 
One of the first dogs I groomed, a little Westie called Peter passed away yesterday. He'd been ill lately and bounced back only to lose the fight this time. Run free little Man xx


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Tiger done really well, does sound like the treat thing was just a bit too much. Seems a bit of a dangerous thing to do with a lot of unknown dogs together like that, think I'd tell the trainer that I'd like to leave a bit early before they do that again.
> 
> Lots of PF dogs going through it at the minute
> One of the first dogs I groomed, a little Westie called Peter passed away yesterday. He'd been ill lately and bounced back only to lose the fight this time. Run free little Man xx


RIP Peter.


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like Tiger did fantastic in class and all those on lead meetings which can be so challenging for so many dogs.
> 
> To be honest i'd be a little cross with the trainer if she wants to treat the dogs, which if i'm honest i'd prefer they didn't, it should be done when you are still spread around the hall not when they are all scrunched up walking out. It's a recipe for conflict.  It does seem rather an unwise thing for a trainer to do.
> 
> You must have been bursting with pride being asked to demonstrate things  Well done. Did either of yoru parents come this week, you said they enjoyed it last week ?


Yes, both my parents came along! They spent more time chatting to everyone else than they did actually listening to what the trainer was saying but i'm glad they went.

Yeah I wasn't happy about the treats thing, she never bothered to ask if Tiger was allowed one in the first place, I don't really like strangers giving him food because once he knows they've got something, he's a pain in the bum and pulls towards them all the time and I don't want him developing habits like that. Everyone all had their own treats so I really don't understand her need to give them out, obviously she was just trying to be nice but it was a bit of a daft thing to do. She'd be much better off just giving them all a fuss instead, or if she insists on handing out treats - give them to the owners to give to the dogs after they've left or something.

I was really proud of him, he got on SO well with the AB bitch, they had a really good sniff at each other for a few minutes and then just stood together watching the world go by  she jumped up at me once and I was giving her a fuss, and he never bothered at all  so a good result really apart from the bloomin food thing!



Dogless said:


> Tigerneko; what a fab update - sounds as if Tiger is nowhere near as bad as you thought . Hopefully it will do your confidence the world of good :idea:.
> 
> Not sure about the treat thing TBH; I wouldn't have been chuffed myself, but if she's going to do it I'd probably want to be first but then waste no time getting out of the door before Tiger saw any others getting them if that is what upset him.


Yeah it's really helped me to feel better, i've been feeling a little more relaxed anyway recently (probably something to do with having 2 weeks holiday from work lol) so everything helps.

We had a scary situation a few nights ago on a road walk, some flippin scrotes came out of a sidestreet with a Staffy/Mastiff type and a Chocolate Lab, neither of them on a lead turning onto the main road :cursing: me and Tiger were walking along the road as she came round the corner with her dogs - the dogs literally walked into each other because they appeared round the corner at the exact time we approached. I think Tiger was too surprised to react but the woman grabbed both the dogs and backed around the corner. I just sort of froze and decided to cross the road instead of walk past them so closely, I lost my temper with them a little bit  and snapped "why are they not even on a fecking lead?" and she said "they're not on a lead cos they don't attack"    never mind the fact that she was on a main road with them..... silly woman :nonod: nothing bad came of it but it took me by surprise a bit and I was shaking the whole way home 

Kat&Molly, i'm so sorry about little Peter  I groom a very old Cavalier, I think he's about 14 and every time I have him I do always wonder if it'll be the last time I see him, he is deaf and nearly blind, he doesn't have a clue what's going on, bless him 

I think I will maybe look at leaving a bit sooner next time. We were stood at the back of the room as well so it didn't help that we had to pass all the other dogs. If it happens next time i'll be a little more prepared for it, just wasn't expecting it after he'd been behaving so well before!


----------



## moonviolet

You and Tiger seem to be on a roll. So glad things are going well.


K&M RIP Peter, run free wee chap.


----------



## kat&molly

Guess who has left the ignition on the car all night and now its dead as a do-do

No training for us today.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Guess who has left the ignition on the car all night and now its dead as a do-do
> 
> No training for us today.


Oh no, thats poo  I left mine unlocked Tuesday night, shhh don't tell OH )


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear kat&molly I hate doing things like that .

We had a good walk this morning; not venturing out as it's marching day today so went to the fields and met Leo as soon as we got there pretty much so Kilo got to play and just sniff about with another dog and an hour and a half later is tired and content .

Walked past our ginger nemesis cat without fuss too .


----------



## kat&molly

Well done to Kilo with the cat.

It will maybe teach me a lesson, I'm always doing it, switching ignition on to do the windows up and leaving it on- first time I've run the battery down though!!!
Big Evie has another visit near me tomorrow so could come to me BUT the weather is looking like pants 

Going to give the girls a really good walk as I had them loaded in the car and had to get them back out.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Kilo on the ninja ginja 

We're missing our BC friend and his owner for a few weeks, they are in Cornwall and I really miss having someone on my wavelength, we never arrange to meet just usually do a couple times a week. 

It's easy to find nice people, but who are horrible inconsiderate dog walkers, I have found myself over time avoiding more and more people, as they are involved in preventable incidents and me left feeling horribly uncomfortable. Making "i'm sorry" faces at the poor victim. Other than this one person i'm truly happier jsut having a ball with Tink. It's hard because i'm happy to have a quick hello and go on my way but all too often i hear the words " which way are you going?" I've tried replying honestly, changing my route to the lest pleasant route, even once pretending I didn't here to the question, but somehow i seem to and up with these people tagging along. 

I'm not anti social exactly i just like my space, So i'm working on a decision

Do I ?

A: Risk offending these people by telling them i dont' want to walk with them and why, Educating them on a bit of dog walking etiquette

B: Risk offending these people by darting in the opposite direction when I see them ... in the style of tokyo residents in the face of a Godzilla attack.

C: Risk offending them by trying to politely say i'd rather walk alone.

D: Grin and bear it, and miss being a loon bag as i walk sensibly and cringing at those preventable incidents.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Kilo on the ninja ginja
> 
> We're missing our BC friend and his owner for a few weeks, they are in Cornwall and I really miss having someone on my wavelength, we never arrange to meet just usually do a couple times a week.
> 
> It's easy to find nice people, but who are horrible inconsiderate dog walkers, I have found myself over time avoiding more and more people, as they are involved in preventable incidents and me left feeling horribly uncomfortable. Making "i'm sorry" faces at the poor victim. Other than this one person i'm truly happier jsut having a ball with Tink. It's hard because i'm happy to have a quick hello and go on my way but all too often i hear the words " which way are you going?" I've tried replying honestly, changing my route to the lest pleasant route, even once pretending I didn't here to the question, but somehow i seem to and up with these people tagging along.
> 
> I'm not anti social exactly i just like my space, So i'm working on a decision
> 
> Do I ?
> 
> A: Risk offending these people by telling them i dont' want to walk with them and why, Educating them on a bit of dog walking etiquette
> 
> B: Risk offending these people by darting in the opposite direction when I see them ... in the style of tokyo residents in the face of a Godzilla attack.
> 
> C: Risk offending them by trying to politely say i'd rather walk alone.
> 
> D: Grin and bear it, and miss being a loon bag as i walk sensibly and cringing at those preventable incidents.


I know how you feel; think I've told you about the lovely woman and dog who I often avoid or cringe at when I walk with her as she lets her dog chase runners etc and sees nothing wrong in it.

You could avoid as I do unless seen. When seen I walk along cringing but making sure I recall Kilo for runners etc and saying thing like "Don't you worry about her chasing runners?". I keep meaning to say something like "I'll walk alone today if you don't mind; I'm just working on a few things with Kilo" - but I never do as the woman is always so happy to see us and says how lovely it is to have company .


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Well done Kilo on the ninja ginja
> 
> We're missing our BC friend and his owner for a few weeks, they are in Cornwall and I really miss having someone on my wavelength, we never arrange to meet just usually do a couple times a week.
> 
> It's easy to find nice people, but who are horrible inconsiderate dog walkers, I have found myself over time avoiding more and more people, as they are involved in preventable incidents and me left feeling horribly uncomfortable. Making "i'm sorry" faces at the poor victim. Other than this one person i'm truly happier jsut having a ball with Tink. It's hard because i'm happy to have a quick hello and go on my way but all too often i hear the words " which way are you going?" I've tried replying honestly, changing my route to the lest pleasant route, even once pretending I didn't here to the question, but somehow i seem to and up with these people tagging along.
> 
> I'm not anti social exactly i just like my space, So i'm working on a decision
> 
> Do I ?
> 
> A: Risk offending these people by telling them i dont' want to walk with them and why, Educating them on a bit of dog walking etiquette
> 
> B: Risk offending these people by darting in the opposite direction when I see them ... in the style of tokyo residents in the face of a Godzilla attack.
> 
> C: Risk offending them by trying to politely say i'd rather walk alone.
> 
> D: Grin and bear it, and miss being a loon bag as i walk sensibly and cringing at those preventable incidents.


You must look _too_ friendly moonvoilet, if all these randoms want to walk with you :001_tt2: You need to practise more snarling faces in the mirror at home before you go out 

Seriously though, I'd just say something like "oh sorry, I need to walk alone today as we're doing some training... got our Good Citizen test tonight" or something along those lines.

We had a good walk this morning  Met a little puppy called Beau who the last time we saw was on her very first walk so I just allowed Alfie and her a quick sniff and moved on. She's 5 months old now and was well up for some silly, mad playing so they had a lovely half an hour of madness and we left them while on a high note  and he is now curled up fast asleep and snoring


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet, I'm going with C because I'm a miserable sod 

Even when I visit 'Molly's family' it really is only for the girls- Moll gets sooo excited to see them and Evie gets a really good off lead run up the tracks with lots of empty fields. The only thing that spoils it is my 'friend talks non-stop, jabbering away in my ear, all I want to do is take pics and watch 8 dogs having a good tear around. Sounds mean 

We just had a lovely couple of hours and some sheep have been moved so Evie's had a good off lead run.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Well done Kilo on the ninja ginja
> 
> We're missing our BC friend and his owner for a few weeks, they are in Cornwall and I really miss having someone on my wavelength, we never arrange to meet just usually do a couple times a week.
> 
> It's easy to find nice people, but who are horrible inconsiderate dog walkers, I have found myself over time avoiding more and more people, as they are involved in preventable incidents and me left feeling horribly uncomfortable. Making "i'm sorry" faces at the poor victim. Other than this one person i'm truly happier jsut having a ball with Tink. It's hard because i'm happy to have a quick hello and go on my way but all too often i hear the words " which way are you going?" I've tried replying honestly, changing my route to the lest pleasant route, even once pretending I didn't here to the question, but somehow i seem to and up with these people tagging along.
> 
> I'm not anti social exactly i just like my space, So i'm working on a decision
> 
> Do I ?
> 
> A: Risk offending these people by telling them i dont' want to walk with them and why, Educating them on a bit of dog walking etiquette
> 
> B: Risk offending these people by darting in the opposite direction when I see them ... in the style of tokyo residents in the face of a Godzilla attack.
> 
> C: Risk offending them by trying to politely say i'd rather walk alone.
> 
> D: Grin and bear it, and miss being a loon bag as i walk sensibly and cringing at those preventable incidents.


I usually say - "Well we'll/I'll let you get on with your walk." Call the dogs and walk off. If they want to walk with us then I explain about Ely's issues and say it would stress him out too much. :001_tt2:

We had a very good walk this morning. Lots of calm behaviour and polite greeting from Ely. :thumbup: Even when a very rude cocker/cavapoo crashed into his legs and then kept running underneath him all he did was grumble.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> I usually say - "Well we'll/I'll let you get on with your walk." Call the dogs and walk off. If they want to walk with us then I explain about Ely's issues and say it would stress him out too much. :001_tt2:
> 
> We had a very good walk this morning. Lots of calm behaviour and polite greeting from Ely. :thumbup: Even when a very rude cocker/cavapoo crashed into his legs and then kept running underneath him all he did was grumble.


Well done Ely sounds like he was exceptional with c'poo. I have to admit i probably offended someone this morning, the Military were quite active this morning and we were crossing a track where they had been going up and down so i'd put Tink on lead ( too precious to take risks) and i encountered a charging c'poo and instinctively i stepped in front of Tinker it's become second nature, You should have seen the look i got when the owner decided to call Mickey back and my tact setting seemed to drop and I said " I'm sorry she's a little nervous when she's on lead and dogs charge at her."

Maybe I should just embrace my urge to be the dog walking etiquette police and hand out informative leaflets :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

We dont have much trouble here with other dogs but there are quite a few houses that we walk past and dogs come charging out at us- people seem to think because its rural they dont need gates and fences.


LLW, yesterday, I swapped Scruff on to the other side to walk with Evie, Moll was much better only surging forward a few times but Scruff was quite bad really. I've never walked Molly on the left or Evie on the right so I dont think I've got that option of swopping. Oh well.

I threw a retreive for Moll yesterday and I didn't see where it landed-next thing was she flew over in to a field full of sheep to get her toy- and came straight back out.

Have a good day everyone, dont think we'll be having a lesson today as its awful weather.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Well done Ely sounds like he was exceptional with c'poo. I have to admit i probably offended someone this morning, the Military were quite active this morning and we were crossing a track where they had been going up and down so i'd put Tink on lead ( too precious to take risks) and i encountered a charging c'poo and instinctively i stepped in front of Tinker it's become second nature, *You should have seen the look i got when the owner decided to call Mickey back and my tact setting seemed to drop and I said " I'm sorry she's a little nervous when she's on lead and dogs charge at her." *
> 
> Maybe I should just embrace my urge to be the dog walking etiquette police and hand out informative leaflets :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


I used to be polite when Ely was scared but since he's started guarding I'm a lot more rude because although he's muzzled I don't want him rehearsing the behaviour. I told the owner of one particularly persistent lab that if she didn't get her dog then I would take the muzzle off.  I wouldn't have but I was just so annoyed and Ely was going berserk - the dog had knocked Gypsy over, jumped up at me and nipped me to get treats out of my hand that I was using to distract Ely and he was frantic with worry.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> I used to be polite when Ely was scared but since he's started guarding I'm a lot more rude because although he's muzzled I don't want him rehearsing the behaviour. I told the owner of one particularly persistent lab that if she didn't get her dog then I would take the muzzle off.  I wouldn't have but I was just so annoyed and Ely was going berserk - the dog had knocked Gypsy over, jumped up at me and nipped me to get treats out of my hand that I was using to distract Ely and he was frantic with worry.


I sometimes worry that mine dont have that much socialisation with other dogs, and then I read the problems some of you have and I think I'm grateful.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I sometimes worry that mine dont have that much socialisation with other dogs, and then I read the problems some of you have and I think I'm grateful.


I guess you have to take the bad with the good and today was very good 

Just as i was about get some " Will you all just s*d off and leave me alone and that goes for your dog too!" T-shirts printed up (snappy slogan don't you think ) I bump into Phil with Hetty and Jasper not only are they 2 of the nicest laid back friendly dogs you could imagine, good for a little game of chase or just a mooch and a sniff together , but Phil is one of those people that just being in his presence makes you feel happier and more relaxed. We had a lovely walk together for a couple of hours.

I feel completely refreshed and faith is somewhat restored. Although i did have to call a certain beagle back as she was about to chase a mountain bike to show off for her friends, I'll have to keep an eye on that.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> I sometimes worry that mine dont have that much socialisation with other dogs, and then I read the problems some of you have and I think I'm grateful.


The vast majority of the dogs we meet are fine and the ones that cause a problem aren't aggressive (which was a massive issue in Holloway) just untrained. And while it's rude Ely's responses are disproportionate - and if the owner showed willing and tried to catch them I'd be a lot more laid back about it.

ETA: And this morning we bumped into a lady who has 2 greyhounds and a collie x who we only see occasionally as she walks later then us (I was out later as I was a little worse for wear after a heavy night ). So we walked together and Gypsy played chase with the collie while Ely and the other greyhounds mooched around. It was lovely.


----------



## kat&molly

I know you're both right, just sometimes when I read things on here I think 'OMG how would I cope with that scenario when I'm walking so many dogs, sometimes Jay is with us so thats 4. I can cope with mine but if someones dogs came at us it would be difficult.


----------



## Dogless

Last night we met the same dog as in the morning so Kilo got another hour's play in . After that I did some work on Kilo waiting whilst his toy is thrown before he is allowed to fetch it - he is getting better! This morning we went to the forest and just mooched, so not much to report apart from that it was very pleasant .

It was weird not having school last night too .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Last night we met the same dog as in the morning so Kilo got another hour's play in . After that I did some work on Kilo waiting whilst his toy is thrown before he is allowed to fetch it - he is getting better! This morning we went to the forest and just mooched, so not much to report apart from that it was very pleasant .
> 
> It was weird not having school last night too .


Mollys gotten really good now at waiting for the toy to be thrown- it took a while though, and she wont do it for OH


----------



## JulieSS

We're just working on being brave outdoors. He's a bit of a coward and whines for the first half of the walk, stops and tries to turn around to the house  .


----------



## moonviolet

JulieSS said:


> We're just working on being brave outdoors. He's a bit of a coward and whines for the first half of the walk, stops and tries to turn around to the house  .


If i'm right, you have Marvel the gorgeous boerboel on the puppy thread who totally made my heart melt.

He's quite young isn't he? I'd not panic about getting anywhere, but giving him time and support to handle everything around him. If you can find a nice wide pavement with a bench or quite corner of the park and just let him take it all in. Even just spending time on the doorstep watching the world go by. Just exposing him to what he can handle before exposing him to more.

At his age it's all about the quality of the experience not the distance travelled, if that makes sense.


----------



## thronesfan

Unfortunately Cookie has a touch of kennel cough, so we can't go out to the park to meet other dogs (she needs to learn how to greet dogs nicely), but we can do some recall work in the garden. She has learned sit, paw, down, and stay this week, although results may vary! :001_rolleyes:


----------



## Lola71

Our walking to heel has come on in leaps and bounds now. This morning i noticed a definite improvement and i also noticed that i had her attention more as she wasn't predicting which way we were going or whether we were going to go our usual pace or faster or slower. I also noticed that when we approached another dog who was stood with its human outside of their back garden, she paid less attention to it and continued walking alongside me. 
Im now thinking that maybe we could achieve our gold after all! Also been practising our 'down' from a distance instead of when she is sat in front of me.


----------



## Dogless

thronesfan and Lola71 - sounds as if your training is going very well . Hope Cookie recovers soon.

This afternoon I was going to just do a lead walk, but we bumped into one of the vizslas (and owner!) so we decided to walk together and went where we could let them off, so Kilo got yet another play - he's doing well for playmates this week; some weeks he has none!


----------



## Dogless

A Gold Star day yesterday - working on waiting whilst toy is thrown still, did some recall and heelwork and plenty of playing on both walks. Met one of the Vizslas again in the afternoon so Kilo got to play with another dog yet again .

This morning......a PLATINUM star! We went out for a few hours and spent most of the walk not seeing anyone, just playing fetch and walking around then a lovely lady we know with an elderly sheltie that Kilo has met plenty of times came onto the field. He did his "A Dog!!!! A Dog!!!!" so I put him on lead and walked around the field for a few minutes until he was completely calm and walking nicely and focussing on me, then sat him and let him off and......._he walked over to the dog and owner slowly, checking back with me the whole time, ignored the sheltie initially as the sheltie looked away from him - then they had a brief sniff and.....Kilo just wanted his ball thrown _. I am so, so pleased - stood and threw Kilo's ball whilst I had a nice chat then had a pleasant walk back. Definitely my best boy today :001_wub:.

Hope everyone else is having a good weekend .


----------



## moonviolet

That sounds fantastic. Well done Kilo. 

We've had lovely walks so far this weekend and I was treated to a fly past by the red arrows. It probably wasn't just for me and Tink, more likely for Farnborough Airshow.


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Kilo, that is brilliant.

Moonviolet how lovely to see the Red Arrows, lucky you and Tink.

I've been feeling a bit frustrated over not cracking this bit of LLW, so this morning I cheated and took them out in the car- so I could open the boot and let them run.


In a fit of idiocy I bathed all the girls this afternoon as it was sunny, just after I'd finished it rained and they all had a mad zoomie around the garden- then I took them to the fields so Evie could run off lead and they all lay down in the filthiest puddles ever hmy:
I dont know why I botherrrr:


----------



## moonviolet

I think we had better give this lil beagle a big old shiny star... "Leave and recall from disembodied deer head," followed by "recall from deer legs." Have now been achieved :lol:.

So proud of her and frankly relieved I momentarily had visions of her trotting to the car with a deer head hanging by the ear from her mouth  Just a deep breath a smile and trust in the training 

I suspect letting Tink choose the route and our finding these delights was no coincidence :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Well Bloomin done to Tink, a big shiny star with some bells on.

Hope I never have that test with Evie.hmy:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well Bloomin done to Tink, a big shiny star with some bells on.
> 
> Hope I never have that test with Evie.hmy:


Or with Kilo . Well done Miss Tink; you are definitely PF's star pupil .

Our second walk was OK; Kilo and a spaniel that had met before without issue had some staring, posturing and handbags at each other, but neither dog touched the other (was obvious it was noise and posturing and nothing else), the other owner and I put them back on lead, we apologised to each other, both thought it was 50/50 over who 'caused' it, we went to opposite ends of the field and then let both dogs off again to get on with our (separate!) walks. So - just one of those things, no harm done.


----------



## SixStar

Quick little update on my hooligan!

All eight fingers and two thumbs still present and accounted for, the grabbing for food has improved ten-fold! He gets nothing but pieces of kibble now for rewards - not the high value treat I'd like to use, but he's not so eager to get it and takes it nicely, so we're going with what works.

He is still incredibly reactive to the cows - I really think we're just going to have to ride it out until they're gone again for the winter - he's a different dog when he's out in the garden and can see them - completely unworkable, and I just can't do anything with him. We've got as far as eating a stuffed Kong on the patio right outside the back door, but any further up the garden and everything goes to pot.

Walks are improving, slowly but surely. I am still taking him to the playing field in the town early in the morning for a good romp about, and then we come back and go for a walk straight away. I've found if I take him somewhere he can have a good tear about without distractions (the tennis courts, albeit it at 5am!) and get rid of all his energy then he is MUCH easier to work with, and MUCH calmer on a walk. Every time he clocks a bird/rabbit/sheep etc, I say ''oh what's that Ozzy?'' so he looks at me and then he gets a click and treat. Really I think it's only working because he's so pooped from the romp around (he's still rather unfit ) and couldn't really care less, but nevermind!

We both knock back the Rescue Remedy before heading out :lol: and I have Adaptil spray spritzed on everything possible - his collar, dogmatic, harness and the lead! 

I had him bathed at the groomers because he won't go upstairs (and as I'm sure you can imagine, if he says he's not going up, then there's no arguing with an eighty kilo dog!). The groomer said he was as good as gold, and he looks absolutely scrummy now - sure you'll agree  Groomer took these to show me he'd behaved because I was worried sick he'd make a nuisance of himself!


----------



## kat&molly

Doesn't Ozzy look scrumptious , after being groomed.
It must be difficult with the cows there, I could just imagine Evie if I had sheep next doorhmy:


----------



## Dogless

SixStar it is fabulous to hear that you are making such good progress - really fabulous .

Ozzy looks really gorgeous after his groom - and like butter wouldn't melt :aureola:Singing:.


----------



## moonviolet

I'm so gald all your digits are intact SixStar. His improvement with taking food sounds great and show's he's learning impulse control 

How gorgeous does he look in those pics so much character and cheek in the first and just adorably angelic in the second


----------



## kat&molly

LLW wasn't tooo bad this morning.

Why do they have to make up their own rules????
Theres a few certain places now that Scruff runs back and expects a treat Shes been getting one just for cheek but I dont know where its come from


----------



## Dogless

Our walk was nice this morning - empty fields so some 'waits', 'stays', recalls and lots of playing fetch and tug .

Yesterday the lady with the sheltie asked if I had met a 20 week old black lab pup - she said she felt awful as it wouldn't take 'no' for an answer and her dog had really told it off. I said that I hadn't then (talk of the devil) on the way to the fields this morning with Kilo on a lead (alongside a road) we approached a corner only to see a very enthusiastic black lab pup pelting towards us with the owner trying to grab his collar initially. The pup jumped all over Kilo's head and back - at the point at which Kilo went from looking fairly neutral and relaxed to mouth tightly closed and tail out stiff as a board the owner managed to get his pup. He told me that his dog just had to say hello to everyone - I said that I was working hard on Kilo's behaviour around black labs and his pup was about to get a less than pleasant experience which I was very much trying to avoid for both dogs. The man just smiled and said he was too friendly but I hope some of what I said went in!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Our walk was nice this morning - empty fields so some 'waits', 'stays', recalls and lots of playing fetch and tug .
> 
> Yesterday the lady with the sheltie asked if I had met a 20 week old black lab pup - she said she felt awful as it wouldn't take 'no' for an answer and her dog had really told it off. I said that I hadn't then (talk of the devil) on the way to the fields this morning with Kilo on a lead (alongside a road) we approached a corner only to see a very enthusiastic black lab pup pelting towards us with the owner trying to grab his collar initially. The pup jumped all over Kilo's head and back - at the point at which Kilo went from looking fairly neutral and relaxed to mouth tightly closed and tail out stiff as a board the owner managed to get his pup. He told me that his dog just had to say hello to everyone - I said that I was working hard on Kilo's behaviour around black labs and his pup was about to get a less than pleasant experience which I was very much trying to avoid for both dogs. The man just smiled and said he was too friendly but I hope some of what I said went in!


Oh dear I do hope some of what you said sinks in.

We had a lovely wet walk this morning. Briefly crossed paths with doggie friends Harry and lucy and new friend Poppy who we enjoyed a muddy game of chase with before we headed back on our way 

Did some sendaways and distance control, handy for taking a few pics :lol:
All in all a lovely walk especially as it was a welly day so lots of wading in puddles for me, occasionally Tink deigned to join me. more often she just looked at me with an air of embarassment.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh dear I do hope some of what you said sinks in.
> 
> We had a lovely wet walk this morning. Briefly crossed paths with doggie friends Harry and lucy and new friend Poppy who we enjoyed a muddy game of chase with before we headed back on our way
> 
> Did some sendaways and distance control, *handy for taking a few pics* :lol:
> All in all a lovely walk especially as it was a welly day so lots of wading in puddles for me, occasionally Tink deigned to join me. more often she just looked at me with an air of embarassment.


Erm, where are they?  .


----------



## PinkEars

kat&molly said:


> LLW wasn't tooo bad this morning.
> 
> Why do they have to make up their own rules????
> Theres a few certain places now that Scruff runs back and expects a treat Shes been getting one just for cheek but I dont know where its come from


Lola does that all the time, she will randomly come back to me and sit expecting a treat! I keep telling her that she only gets one when i actually call her back but she just keeps on doing it! I am happy really that she feels the need to keep popping over even if it is for her own gain!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Erm, where are they?  .


Well if you insist 




























Not great pics but you did ask


----------



## Dogless

mv they are lovely pics; especially the first one .


----------



## kat&molly

She is lovely MV.
Evie couldn't stand still like that- she hasn't got time.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> She is lovely MV.
> Evie couldn't stand still like that- she hasn't got time.


I always picture naughty Evie as a total whirlwind - makes her even more adorable!! Kilo on the other hand strikes a pose whenever the camera comes out .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I always picture naughty Evie as a total whirlwind - makes her even more adorable!! Kilo on the other hand strikes a pose whenever the camera comes out .


We know Kilo's a poser. Mollys attitude is more 'ok I'll stand here whilst you take pic but hurry up and play with me 

Evie IS a whirlwind-doesn't like the camera so most shots are bits of ear or just a fuzz. Love to see her off lead though, great to watch.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> We know Kilo's a poser. Mollys attitude is more 'ok I'll stand here whilst you take pic but hurry up and play with me
> 
> Evie IS a whirlwind-doesn't like the camera so most shots are bits of ear or just a fuzz. *Love to see her off lead though, great to watch*.


I don't think any of us believe you without video evidence :scared:. Subtle enough hint? :aureola:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I don't think any of us believe you without video evidence :scared:. Subtle enough hint? :aureola:.


Not sure the batteries last long enough but I'll try.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv they are lovely pics; especially the first one .





kat&molly said:


> She is lovely MV.
> Evie couldn't stand still like that- she hasn't got time.


Thanks for the kind comments. they are only phone pics so not great quality. She is not a poser but she is a camera tolerater... like Moll.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I don't think any of us believe you without video evidence :scared:. Subtle enough hint? :aureola:.


I second this  :yesnod:


----------



## simplysardonic

Hi peeps,
I could do with a bit of advice as I'm feeling as though I am a useless owner right now. 
From being a little angel over the first 2 weeks Rogue has become a bit of a hooligan, she has still not learned bite inhibition & training's gone down the pan
We have 2 or 3 5-minute training sessions a day, which I don't think is excessive but she seems to have lost her focus. 
Her 'sit' is perfect but she has started ignoring all other commands she has been taught & is just wandering off in the middle of training sessions
I've tried tastier treats & tried to make myself more interesting.
It's disheartening reading the updates of her littermates & how well they seem to be doing while we're struggling


----------



## x clo x

im currently working on retrival work with asbo, and random trick teaching with daphni, she has learnt sneeze, which seems her favourite trick, im trying to direct her to doing more useful things like the good citizens awards, but she prefers fun stuff.


----------



## Dogless

simplysardonic said:


> Hi peeps,
> I could do with a bit of advice as I'm feeling as though I am a useless owner right now.
> From being a little angel over the first 2 weeks Rogue has become a bit of a hooligan, she has still not learned bite inhibition & training's gone down the pan
> We have 2 or 3 5-minute training sessions a day, which I don't think is excessive but she seems to have lost her focus.
> Her 'sit' is perfect but she has started ignoring all other commands she has been taught & is just wandering off in the middle of training sessions
> I've tried tastier treats & tried to make myself more interesting.
> It's disheartening reading the updates of her littermates & how well they seem to be doing while we're struggling


I think it might just be one of those times where you need to keep being consistent and get through it - Kilo had a few 'blips' where he'd do the same. Maybe shorten the sessions even further or mix them up lots? Hope mv will answer - she's the training expert on this thread :thumbup:.



x clo x said:


> im currently working on retrival work with asbo, and random trick teaching with daphni, she has learnt sneeze, which seems her favourite trick, im trying to direct her to doing more useful things like the good citizens awards, but she prefers fun stuff.


'Sneeze' sounds cute .


----------



## moonviolet

simplysardonic said:


> Hi peeps,
> I could do with a bit of advice as I'm feeling as though I am a useless owner right now.
> From being a little angel over the first 2 weeks Rogue has become a bit of a hooligan, she has still not learned bite inhibition & training's gone down the pan
> We have 2 or 3 5-minute training sessions a day, which I don't think is excessive but she seems to have lost her focus.
> Her 'sit' is perfect but she has started ignoring all other commands she has been taught & is just wandering off in the middle of training sessions
> I've tried tastier treats & tried to make myself more interesting.
> It's disheartening reading the updates of her littermates & how well they seem to be doing while we're struggling


On no you broke the cardinal rule.... _The Comparison Trap _.. never ever allow yourself to be lured into it! ! !

First take lots of deep breaths, You are going to get through this and Rogue is going to grow up into a gorgeous dog.

She is going through the crocodile phase, investigating the world with her mouth. As Dogless says just be consistent and hang in there it will come. 
which approach are you taking? I found the high pitched yelp made Tink way too excited. I kept a nylabone in my pocket, if i didn't get her attention with it straight away a little smear of peanut butter or tiny cube of cheese smooshed onto it usually did the trick.

If she can't focus for a 5 minute training session, change from 3x5 minute session to more sessions of, perhaps, 2 successful repetitions of whatever you are working on.

( Thank you Dogless, but I'm not sure about expert  )


----------



## kat&molly

simplysardonic said:


> Hi peeps,
> I could do with a bit of advice as I'm feeling as though I am a useless owner right now.
> From being a little angel over the first 2 weeks Rogue has become a bit of a hooligan, she has still not learned bite inhibition & training's gone down the pan
> We have 2 or 3 5-minute training sessions a day, which I don't think is excessive but she seems to have lost her focus.
> Her 'sit' is perfect but she has started ignoring all other commands she has been taught & is just wandering off in the middle of training sessions
> I've tried tastier treats & tried to make myself more interesting.
> It's disheartening reading the updates of her littermates & how well they seem to be doing while we're struggling


Agree with Dogless, dont get disheartened. Moll was a grotty pup until she was 5 months old then everything fell in to place and I've never looked back - I'm sure Rogue wont be that bad though. MV will help.


----------



## simplysardonic

Thanks guys, feeling a little better after our wet walk.
I'm currently using the turn my back on her & ignoring her when she bites, as are the rest of the family, although youngest son tends to forget the house rules & squeals & flaps his arms about, which makes her over excited.
Will try the shorter sessions, I'm also practising calling her to me & giving her a random command & treating so she doesn't 'forget' things


----------



## kat&molly

I learnt 2 things yesterday,
A, the video bit on the camera does work,
B, I dont know what I'm doing.
Thought I was filming the mad bits on the track we walked but Hadn't pressed the button.

So 2 very short clips to bore you with in the fields!!


And a recall to whistle[if I've done this right]


----------



## moonviolet

Great videos K&M oh my word how animated is Evie have an even bigger crush now :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:

Love their eager faces lolling tongues and wagging tails on the whistle recall


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks MV- think I need some practice 
But you can see the trouble I have getting pics of her-whoosh and she's off

Might even get OH to film some LLW -to see whats going on.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thanks MV- think I need some practice
> But you can see the trouble I have getting pics of her-whoosh and she's off
> 
> Might even get OH to film some LLW -to see whats going on.


Thats definitely "don't dare blink" speed. 
Tink can move at that speed, but thankfully seems to save it for games of chase.

It's a good idea once i've got over the squirming at seeing myself from the outside, I've picked up on lots of things Tink and I were doing.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Thats definitely "don't dare blink" speed.
> Tink can move at that speed, but thankfully seems to save it for games of chase.
> 
> It's a good idea once i've got over the squirming at seeing myself from the outside, I've picked up on lots of things Tink and I were doing.


I found it really difficult- I was trying really hard not to vet my awful voice on the clips and found I couldn't even talk to the girls- so I must jabber away a lot.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I found it really difficult- I was trying really hard not to vet my awful voice on the clips and found I couldn't even talk to the girls- so I must jabber away a lot.


All i can say is usually turn the sound off on my videos


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> All i can say is usually turn the sound off on my videos


Now theres a challenge- to find the mute button.:scared:


----------



## Tigerneko

Evening all!

Just dropped in for a rant as per usual!!

Had our training class again tonight and after last weeks cock up with the cheese (if you didn't see/cant remember - the trainer basically handed out cheese to all the dogs last week, Tiger didn't like the other dogs getting the cheese and reacted horribly on the way out, turned into an utter monster!) so this week I was prepared for it, I saw her heading our way with the piece of cheese and said "ooh don't give him any, he went nuts at the other dogs after that last time"

and do you know what she did?

she went "...oh" and gave it to him! TOTALLY ignored me! HOW RUDE!

I had to distract him like mad while she was giving the cheese out to the other dogs (didn't work though!) and luckily there was nobody near the door so I made a quick exit before he could start.

I'm gonna really have words next week, I can't believe she ignored me :frown:


----------



## Dogless

k&m - Evie really is a whirlwind just as I imagined; love her even more now too like mv does .

Tigerneko; what a shame - maybe go early next week and REALLY make your point :mad2:.

Our morning walk was lovely and we didn't see a soul. Had a short onlead effort before the BW's dinner and got rushed by a black greyhound at full pelt (right by a road)  and a doodle. Kilo cowered and whirled around in fear as the grey was in his face and the doodle underneath him . Apart from that blip - a good day. Training...nil .


----------



## Tigerneko

Dogless said:


> Tigerneko; what a shame - maybe go early next week and REALLY make your point :mad2:.


Thanks! I think I might! I can understand she's just trying to make it a bit of fun but I am the dogs owner and if I say no, then the trainer should respect that.

We also did an activity where there was half of us on either side of the room and we had to walk across and between one another (so you passed two dogs on either side) and she paired Tiger up with a young DDB who has some aggression issues with other dogs, it wasn't a brilliant idea given that Tiger can be reactive, and it wasn't good on my part either because I did feel myself starting to panic  she knows Tiger can be a bit of a grouch sometimes and she also knows the DDB have problems so why she made us walk past each other at close range, I really don't know. Nothing came of it but I felt one of those rumbling sort of growls through the lead so if the DDB would have lunged at him, all hell would've broken loose 

I also got annoyed when we were doing a 'leave it' activity with a toy, another owner with a Bulldog allowed it to walk up to Tiger while he was engrossed in playing with the toy (it was one the trainer lent to us as he wasn't interested in his own one ), I said to the owner "no, don't let her near him" .....ignored!!! so I went "DON'T let her near!!!" ....still ignored! Tiger decided he no longer liked this dog near his toy and snapped at her - he gasped and pulled her away from him    I couldn't even say anything, I was so annoyed 

Other than those few little blips, he was perfect and greeted them all nicely, but it's really annoyed me because everything that went 'wrong' was totally preventable and down to other people's stupidity


----------



## simplysardonic

Well, Rogue has gold stars all round today:thumbup:
Had a lovely time socialising her this morning, although she wasn't keen on the swans (we have a lot of them round here, they hang out in town waiting to get fed). She met & politely greeted various dogs & enjoyed lots of children fussing her at the primary school.
We had a brief training session of about 2 minutes this afternoon & she was amazing, completely focused.
I'm so proud of my girl:001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

simplysardonic - what a difference a day makes :thumbup: . Glad you've had a good one, well done to you both .


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Tiger what a shame don't let it get you down. I'd definitely have a word with the trainer, but Tiger did do well  Think about it. (assuming i've understood correctly)when you passed the DDB , he growled to telling you he was uncomfortable and you the DDB crossed and kept going. He didn't kick off he wasn't made to pause and greet. Just ships that passed and nothing horrible happened.  Kind of a result with the most challenging dogs in the class 


Dogless: Glad you had a good day in general. The pics in the woods were gorgeous, Kilo has a very attractive rump :blushing: He's such a handsome lad.
Poor Kilo this evening I dont' know what to say really it's so infuriating


----------



## Tigerneko

moonviolet said:


> Oh Tiger what a shame don't let it get you down. I'd definitely have a word with the trainer, but Tiger did do well  Think about it. (assuming i've understood correctly)when you passed the DDB , he growled to telling you he was uncomfortable and you the DDB crossed and kept going. He didn't kick off he wasn't made to pause and greet. Just ships that passed and nothing horrible happened.  Kind of a result with the most challenging dogs in the class


thanks  I won't let it bother me, but I will say something to her next week because i'm not happy that she didn't take any notice. I know it's only a piece of cheese   but i've worked so hard and come so far with Tiger that I don't want to put him in a situation which is likely to make him react.

Yeah, I am proud that nothing major happened with the walk past activity, it's just me looking back on it and thinking 'what if', I just felt it was a step too far maybe at the moment, but i'll try and draw some confidence from the fact that nothing did happen


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- poor Kilo He done well not to lash out.

Tigerneko- Do as already said get there early and tell the trainer FIRMLY that Tiger must not have the treats- and leave earlier, dont give her the chance.

Poor Moll and Evie are suffering with scratching, its a time of year, enviroment thing. Last year I went the jab and anti inflam tab route but didn't want to do that again so yesterday I managed to get some antihistamine, from the Pharmacy for dogs. Really hoping they help , Moll is especially bad- no broken skin[yet] but it must be driving her mad. So between meds for Jay and supplements twice a day and these 2 also twice a day, I'm a bit :crazy:

Going to take the girls to the lake for a good blast.
Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly - poor itchy dogs . Hopefully a good soaking in the lake will help.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> kat&molly - poor itchy dogs . Hopefully a good soaking in the lake will help.


Well if nothing else they'll forget to scratch for a bit!!
You'll know. With antihistamines do they have to get in the system or should they work more or less straight away?


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well if nothing else they'll forget to scratch for a bit!!
> You'll know. With antihistamines do they have to get in the system or should they work more or less straight away?


Straight away for humans; guessing it's the same for dogs?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Straight away for humans; guessing it's the same for dogs?


Thought it might be.
I dont think its going to be enough for Moll.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thought it might be.
> I dont think its going to be enough for Moll.


Oh poor Moll . Not sure what else to suggest bar vet.


----------



## moonviolet

I forget to congratulate on little Rogue on getting her array of gold stars yesterday 

Poor Moll and Evie. Is it all over generalised or all over. I'm not suggesting you try these things, but I have bathed unbroken skin with camomile infusion and used calendula ointment both topically with good results.


----------



## kat&molly

I'll see how we go today- its flared up quickly, theres no marks on her skin just red where she keeps chewing.
Last year the vet said she's very sensitive. We've got this dog show on Sunday, its only a fun one but I'm really looking forward to it and wanted to put Moll in a couple of the classes just to see how she does. I've been trying to tidy her up but she cant keep still.
I have got a course of Anti inflams from last time so I'll give it today and maybe start her on those tomorrow.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I forget to congratulate on little Rogue on getting her array of gold stars yesterday
> 
> Poor Moll and Evie. Is it all over generalised or all over. I'm not suggesting you try these things, but I have bathed unbroken skin with camomile infusion and used calendula ointment both topically with good results.


Its all over. I bathed Moll sunday in a special soap, begins with D, I forget the name- but no help.
Can I get those things in a health shop-really dont want to use meds as it will be ongoing now until winter.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Its all over. I bathed Moll sunday in a special soap, begins with D, I forget the name- but no help.
> Can I get those things in a health shop-really dont want to use meds as it will be ongoing now until winter.


Yes camomile tea bags, I use 2 just let them brew for 10 mins and give them good squeeze. Most health shops carry calendula lotion, cream or ointment.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Yes camomile tea bags, I use 2 just let them brew for 10 mins and give them good squeeze. Most health shops carry calendula lotion, cream or ointment.


Thanks, try and get some whilst I'm out.
If I ever get this backside in gear.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thanks, try and get some whilst I'm out.
> If I ever get this backside in gear.


I was thinking the same thing... i don't seem to have made it to the post office yet


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I was thinking the same thing... i don't seem to have made it to the post office yet


It wasn't my fault, Darcy cat had gone to sleep on my freshly ironed shorts- I've had to find something else to wear.


----------



## kat&molly

We've had a blast at the lake- or rather the girls have. Evie's been an angel, lots of swimming, good recalls and constant checking where I am.:thumbup: My has she run those little legs though- I did feel a bit guilty because when she got wet I could see her weight is fine, quite slim, poor buggers been on rations for a week. I'll have to clip her off soon. Wouldn't hurt to get get a bit off Scruff though.
Its really hot today so I went to the bar for 1/2 of nice cold beer- right next to the lake. It was quiet just the owners sat outside having lunch, the girls all greeted their Poodle nicely and I sat a good distance away , poor Evie was petrified of just 2 people, I had to extend her flexi to give her more space- I threw her some treats which she wouldn't touch so I only stayed 10 minutes. Poor girl. 

MV- I got the Camomile tea but I dont know what to do with it-help please?
Theres a decent shop near to training tomorrow so I'll look for the cream there.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly - that sounds fabulous; wish we could have joined you!!

PLATINUM star for Evie :thumbup: .


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> We've had a blast at the lake- or rather the girls have. Evie's been an angel, lots of swimming, good recalls and constant checking where I am.:thumbup: My has she run those little legs though- I did feel a bit guilty because when she got wet I could see her weight is fine, quite slim, poor buggers been on rations for a week. I'll have to clip her off soon. Wouldn't hurt to get get a bit off Scruff though.
> Its really hot today so I went to the bar for 1/2 of nice cold beer- right next to the lake. It was quiet just the owners sat outside having lunch, the girls all greeted their Poodle nicely and I sat a good distance away , poor Evie was petrified of just 2 people, I had to extend her flexi to give her more space- I threw her some treats which she wouldn't touch so I only stayed 10 minutes. Poor girl.
> 
> MV- I got the Camomile tea but I dont know what to do with it-help please?
> Theres a decent shop near to training tomorrow so I'll look for the cream there.


Sounds like you had a lovely time by the lake. I went near the canal and became lunch for vampire midges.... need to up my garlic uptake. TInk had a fun time. Little spooked by a group of goldies she avoided and they respected her Greta Garbo wish to be alone. 

I get a heat proof bowl bung a couple of bags in pour over boiling water and leave it until it's cooled , then used a cloth just to bathe any particulary bad areas our you could even use it as a rinse (good for blonde hair too incidently, no use for me those light ones aren't blonde) I find the cloth easier, as it's usually been the undercarriage that's been worse affected. no need to rinse off.

Poor Evie so sad seeing dogs scared


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> kat&molly - that sounds fabulous; wish we could have joined you!!
> 
> PLATINUM star for Evie :thumbup: .


You and Kilo would love it, its a gorgeous spot. Evie's first Platinum as well me thinks.
She has been really good I suppose in the recall department lately, but I felt proud of her today, not bad for a dog of her breed and the fact she's only been with us for a year. I know 2 other Teckels that the owners have had from pup, 5 years old and they have never been let off.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like you had a lovely time by the lake. I went near the canal and became lunch for vampire midges.... need to up my garlic uptake. TInk had a fun time. Little spooked by a group of goldies she avoided and they respected her Greta Garbo wish to be alone.
> 
> I get a heat proof bowl bung a couple of bags in pour over boiling water and leave it until it's cooled , then used a cloth just to bathe any particulary bad areas our you could even use it as a rinse (good for blonde hair too incidently, no use for me those light ones aren't blonde) I find the cloth easier, as it's usually been the undercarriage that's been worse affected. no need to rinse off.
> 
> Poor Evie so sad seeing dogs scared


Midges never get me, I obviously dont taste good.
I'll try the cloth way later, she's sparko at the minute-too tired to scratch.
Dont know how I'll ever move forward with Evie- the other week I took her in a shop to try the new harness-just 1 girl there working and you've never seen seen a dog shake like it.  She's MUCH better with people she knows now and even the neighbours- but anyone strange, no chance.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Midges never get me, I obviously dont taste good.
> I'll try the cloth way later, she's sparko at the minute-too tired to scratch.
> Dont know how I'll ever move forward with Evie- the other week I took her in a shop to try the new harness-just 1 girl there working and you've never seen seen a dog shake like it.  She's MUCH better with people she knows now and even the neighbours- but anyone strange, no chance.


So glad her recall and checking in are coming on so well, she sounds very bonded with you 

This is an unfinished thought, I really do need to learn to think ,edit thoughs and only then post, but until then please bear with me.

I'm wondering is you could adapt my approach to Tink's dog fear.

I guess you could try recruiting some stooge humans (bribery with food and some wine when their done?) first working on finding Evie's threshold distance and just chilling there. Letting her look then encouraging her to look back at you treating her when she looks away(LAT game) short sessions, or even somewhere in the village that is a set off a quiet thoroughfare. Somewhere she can have enough distance to be calm and just watch without interacting.
Just seeing if over time she is able to tolerate being closer. never closing the distance or the upping human intensity at the same time... If one gets harder making the other easier. Does that make any sense?

I have to admit i have and still do use a herbal calmitive for times I know we will be likely to encounter challenging situations. (busier walks and weekend walks and all walks for a couple of days after a bad one) I tried a few things and found Dorwest organic valerian compound the best for Tink. Didn't make her dopey just more balanced and able to cope with challenges.

I just had an oh heck moment, school hols start next week challenging days ahead. I love polite dog savvy kids and TInk doesn't mind them, but the charging screamers that have never been taught the meaning of the word no are something of a challenge.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> You and Kilo would love it, its a gorgeous spot. Evie's first Platinum as well me thinks.
> She has been really good I suppose in the recall department lately, but I felt proud of her today, not bad for a dog of her breed and the fact she's only been with us for a year. I know 2 other Teckels that the owners have had from pup, 5 years old and they have never been let off.


Tut tut, you were having us on all this time with the 'naughty Evie' thing  - she is a very good girl in the Teckel stakes by the sounds of it :aureola::aureola:.

Are you seeing Big Evie tomorrow?


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet you're a star.
I've thought about some stooges and as nice and friendly as my neighbours are they wouldn't understand a dog problem- I do have clients who come for grooming and I thought about asking Big Evie if we could observe some of her classes, the piece of land is huge so we could do it to suit shorty- I'm sure she would be glad to help and her classes are only small . And I've got Valerian. What do you think?

I've got some Camomile cooling.
You've really been a Mine of useful information and help today, I'm really grateful. Whatever it is you work at I think your wasted and should be doing something with dogs and numpty people because you have loads of patience and knowledge.:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet you're a star.
> I've thought about some stooges and as nice and friendly as my neighbours are they wouldn't understand a dog problem- I do have clients who come for grooming and I thought about asking Big Evie if we could observe some of her classes, the piece of land is huge so we could do it to suit shorty- I'm sure she would be glad to help and her classes are only small . And I've got Valerian. What do you think?
> 
> I've got some Camomile cooling.
> You've really been a Mine of useful information and help today, I'm really grateful. Whatever it is you work at I think your wasted and should be *doing something with dogs and numpty people because you have loads of patience and knowledge*.:thumbup:


Agreed . Platinum star for mv today :thumbup:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Tut tut, you were having us on all this time with the 'naughty Evie' thing  - she is a very good girl in the Teckel stakes by the sounds of it :aureola::aureola:.
> 
> Are you seeing Big Evie tomorrow?


Yes we see the Big Un tomorrow.:thumbup:

I wish I could credit my fabulous training skills to Evies recall- but I cant I'm sure its because she's too fearful to go too far and she does take a lead from the other girls which helps. She definatly has a mind of her own though- at the side our house is the old pigsty now a sort of utility room, I have to go out the gate but theres no road and the girls like to come when I load the washing machine, that little sod is always losing the privilage because she runs to the neighbours garden to say hello to their dog- she will not stop or come I have to fetch her,,every time!!!
So she loses the right to come the next few times- the first time I allow her again she's always good but never the 2nd-and so it starts again.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> So she loses the right to come the next few times- the first time I allow her again she's always good but never the 2nd-and so it starts again.


You have to admire her spirit .

We had a good day today; hour and a half to the fields this morning - no one seen as the weather was vile and did some recalls, waits, stays etc etc.

This afternoon we went to the forest and I had a real heart - stopper of a moment . Went round a corner and Kilo suddenly got his nose up in the air, ears back and a trot on....and then I saw....3 sheep about 15m away :yikes::yikes: that must have escaped from nearby fields. I called Kilo in my best 'I mean it' voice without trying to sound panicked...and back he came bless him . *Thank goodness* they didn't move or he would have seen them :scared::scared: - that's all I was thinking whilst looking at them.....don't move, don't move, don't move :scared::scared::scared:. So, lead on until far past that point and way in front of it on the way back! I was going to call in at the nearest farm and report it to them BUT I didn't as last time I did that the farmer said that if his sheep were in any way hurt or showing signs of shock / being chased (Kilo didn't even see those, never mind chase) he'd report me and wrote down my car reg number :mad2:. So I didn't and now feel really guilty .


----------



## kat&molly

Loose sheep  Good Boy Kilo.
I dont bother to tell the farmer here as its a daily occurance here now- my eyes are on stalks everywhere we go!!!









P.s Think I might need a star- not Platinum like MV but maybe Silver as I'm practising my Impulse Control------ I've stayed out the Rehoming thread.:thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet you're a star.
> I've thought about some stooges and as nice and friendly as my neighbours are they wouldn't understand a dog problem- I do have clients who come for grooming and I thought about asking Big Evie if we could observe some of her classes, the piece of land is huge so we could do it to suit shorty- I'm sure she would be glad to help and her classes are only small . And I've got Valerian. What do you think?
> 
> I've got some Camomile cooling.
> You've really been a Mine of useful information and help today, I'm really grateful. Whatever it is you work at I think your wasted and should be doing something with dogs and numpty people because you have loads of patience and knowledge.:thumbup:


:blushing: Too kind.
I love the idea of watching classes, I think humans with dogs would be good because stooge human smigh tbe tempted to look at her, where as humans focusing on their on dogs will be less likely to 

A trained monkey could do what i do these days and to be honest i like it that way  I did all the career thing until my head almost exploded and life lost all it's joy. Now i pay few bills and spoil hubs and hound.

I still have a narrow slither of doggie knowledge (mainly about fear and a little about herbal health) as those are things that have been quite important to me. Beyond that my knowledge is pretty average. I'm more than happy to share what i've tried and tested but if they dont' work its back to the books :blushing: and trial and error.

Dogless:Eek loose sheep!!! If that was the response you got last time , I dont' blame you for staying out of it.

K&M: impulse control award of cream buns and a big glass of wine for staying out of that threadI tried sittign on my hands, but they escaped twice.


----------



## L/C

Gypsy learned down! It doesn't sound much but I've been trying to teach her since we got her as she's never trusted her leg enough to do it. At the moment it's only in our bedroom, with luring and on our bed but it's the first time she's ever done it so I'm ever so proud.

Everyone seems to be doing very well! :thumbup: Big good boy to Kilo for the sheep - luckily my two are terrified of sheep so I don't panic too much when we see them. And observing a class sounds like it would work really well for Evie - hope you can work something out for her.

Is the rehoming thread the one about Noodle? I ventured in briefly but it all went a bit shouty so I ran back out.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> Gypsy learned down! It doesn't sound much but I've been trying to teach her since we got her as she's never trusted her leg enough to do it. At the moment it's only in our bedroom, with luring and on our bed but it's the first time she's ever done it so I'm ever so proud.
> 
> Everyone seems to be doing very well! :thumbup: Big good boy to Kilo for the sheep - luckily my two are terrified of sheep so I don't panic too much when we see them. And observing a class sounds like it would work really well for Evie - hope you can work something out for her.
> 
> Is the rehoming thread the one about Noodle? I ventured in briefly but it all went a bit shouty so I ran back out.


Yep, thats the one.:laugh:

Well done Gypsy.:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Gypsy learned down! It doesn't sound much but I've been trying to teach her since we got her as she's never trusted her leg enough to do it. At the moment it's only in our bedroom, with luring and on our bed but it's the first time she's ever done it so I'm ever so proud.
> 
> Everyone seems to be doing very well! :thumbup: Big good boy to Kilo for the sheep - luckily my two are terrified of sheep so I don't panic too much when we see them. And observing a class sounds like it would work really well for Evie - hope you can work something out for her.
> 
> Is the rehoming thread the one about Noodle? I ventured in briefly but it all went a bit shouty so I ran back out.


I think that, had he seen the sheep, or they had moved it would have turned into a very scary event indeed . Not going back to that forest for a while!

Well done Gypsy  :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Gypsy  

We had class tonight, I had to step off the subs bench as hubs wasn't home. Tonight was a review of everything we'd done over the last few weeks, circuit training style. The girl did good, however she needed to be reminded of her off switch since coming home. I hadn't zipped up her training bag and have had her scent cloth, bunny toy and finally her mat brought to me... Which she is now chilling out on  Like a kiddie who didn't want the party to be over.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Well done Gypsy
> 
> We had class tonight, I had to step off the subs bench as hubs wasn't home. Tonight was a review of everything we'd done over the last few weeks, circuit training style. The girl did good, however she needed to be reminded of her off switch since coming home. I hadn't zipped up her training bag and have had her scent cloth, bunny toy and finally her mat brought to me... Which she is now chilling out on  Like a kiddie who didn't want the party to be over.


Bless Tink, she's happy in her work.
I bet you enjoyed the training yourself- I'd find it hard if my OH were training and I could only watch- not that he ever would.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Bless Tink, she's happy in her work.
> I bet you enjoyed the training yourself- I'd find it hard if my OH were training and I could only watch- not that he ever would.


I confess i do nag a bit and have to try to zip it! I can see him letting me take over soon. At least we are on the same page for all the basics


----------



## kat&molly

Tha would be me, I think I'd nag.

Its raining again this morning- so I dont know if I'll be having a lesson.
I'll get ready and see what happens- am beginning to think I'm not meant to have them.


----------



## kat&molly

Well, we got there as luckily the rained stopped but again it was so heavy on the way that my wipers couldn't keep up.

I think someone must have pinched my girls brain today :scared: she would not release the dummy to me at all, we tried with 2 toys and walked off when she played up -but still she done it every time!!!
She was just so over stimulated with it all, done everything else asked of her just the release  She does it with OH and might occasionally try it on with me but never like this. Oh well she had fun anyway.
Big Evie said not to worry, make sure its game over if she tries it during this next week.

She thinks its a good idea to take Evie and observe some classes and she'll have a word before hand so that people dont look at her!!

We stopped on the way back at a river with a lovely walk, a few people dotted about having picnics, but we didn't get too close and I think because we kept moving she wasn't too bad- still worried but I've seen her worse.


----------



## Dogless

Glad you had a good walk kat&molly and a Dunce's hat for Moll . Hope you find her brain :scared: .

The observation does sound good for Evie - especially if folk are asked not to pay her any attention first.


----------



## Dogless

A gold star for Kilo today.

Went to the forest this morning and had a nice walk bar the mal incident mentioned on another thread but no harm done.

This afternoon I was just going to the fields to do a bit of training and play. When I got there there were a few people, the DA pug on a lead and a BC that takes real exception to dogs approaching it's ball. Rather than avoid I decided to walk around the fields a little with Kilo onlead and after some minor excitement initially at the ball whizzing abut chased by a dog he settled nicely and relaxed . 

After that I walked up to the top sports pitches (fab LLW) where I met a lady I know with two dogs Kilo normally plays with and another lady with a BC and a black lab. The two dogs we know dashed over to greet (not ideal with Kilo onlead but OK as he's familiar with them) and I then walked over to the two women. They asked if Kilo wanted to go offlead and I explained about our black lab 'thing'. The lady with the lab said hers was iffy with entire males and when he got to within about 5m of Kilo his hackles raised and he started to grumble (Kilo didn't react and the lab was called away so all good) - so I told the lady we'd go on our way but said I might walk parallel around the field if OK to work on Kilo's focus - which she said was fine. So....we walked around very calmly and relaxed and followed them closely for the last part and Kilo did fab :thumbup::thumbup:. 

We the did some heelwork on the way home. best boy today .


----------



## Coffee

Well done Kilo  :thumbup:

We've had a pretty shocking week  :crying:

Mon, Tues and Wed - Alfie was just awful. Kept bolting off after nothing  and would absolutely not come back and once I was catching up with him was dancing away, just out of reach - he knew I'd be putting him back on the lead I swear  Just could not get his focus or attention on me at all  Did meet up with a DDB and her owner yesterday though on our way out of the park and it all might have become clear... she informed me her girl was just finishing her season and she'd only been walking her this week after keeping her at home for the last 2 weeks...

I don't know... maybe it was that, maybe not. Would be easy to blame that but who knows? It's been 3 weeks now since he was neutured... am I right in thinking in-season bitches will still "effect" him for some time yet? 

Today though he was my best boy (copyright Dogless )... think he possibly might have known mummy was heading for a nervous breakdown if we had another bad walk  but he was good as gold this morning, stayed near to me, came back immediately when called and generally was a pleasure to be around


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Kilo- that sounds brilliant.:thumbup:


Coffee, does sound like you've had a rough week, sounded better today, hope it continues for you.
I think he could always be affected by in season bitches though- neutered or not. It could get better though as its only been a few weeks.


----------



## moonviolet

Sounds like Moll enjoyed her class a little too much  Reminds me of tink ( more than once) being so excited that she just couldn't possibly do a stay and cantering around the hall in her best look at me style.

I'm glad Big Evie us on board with letting little Evie watch some classes. I really hope it helps.

Sounds like Kilo did great today, glad the parallel walking worked 

Coffee your week sounds hellish. It does sound like it was the inseason bitch causing the issue. Hopefully today is a sign of good things to come 


This evening I had a lovely 2 hours stroll with Tinks BC friend Monty and his owner who are back for a few days. It was bliss to walk and talk with a dog saavy responsible owner. Who doesn't think I am odd not allowing Tinker to chase the group of mountain bikers we just kept bumping into. Tink actually didn't try to chase so it's that was good, but i'm definitely going to be monitoring her on an ongoing basis. 

Saw somethign very odd at the end of the walk... a young (not unattractive man) in smart shorts and a nice white shirt walking toward the carparking area from the common with no shoes on. Not carrying shoes. Walking rather tentatively. I tried to make eye contact to ask if he was ok but he didn't appear to want to interact and didn't seem in any distress other than the tentative walking, he then walked out onto the road and was last seen walking along the verge... most peculiar.


----------



## Catz1

Can I join this thread 

Having a really rough time with Rio lately. 

Her whining has continued despite me completely ignoring her and I can't seem to get her to focus at all. 

In training classes she will lean to look around me at everyone else no matter what toy or treat I have in my hand. 

I feel like she just doesn't want to be with me all of a sudden. She doesn't seem to be engaging with me at all. 

She still follows me if I leave the room but she sleeps away from me and doesn't seek out affection like she normally does. 

Nothing major has happened and shes in good healthy so it must be something I'm doing/not doing. 

We are pretty much working on all the basics again now.. 

Hope posting my progress in this thread will keep me motivated.
I've never had so much difficulty with a dog


----------



## Dogless

Catz1 said:


> Can I join this thread
> 
> Having a really rough time with Rio lately.
> 
> Her whining has continued despite me completely ignoring her and I can't seem to get her to focus at all.
> 
> In training classes she will lean to look around me at everyone else no matter what toy or treat I have in my hand.
> 
> I feel like she just doesn't want to be with me all of a sudden. She doesn't seem to be engaging with me at all.
> 
> She still follows me if I leave the room but she sleeps away from me and doesn't seek out affection like she normally does.
> 
> Nothing major has happened and shes in good healthy so it must be something I'm doing/not doing.
> 
> We are pretty much working on all the basics again now..
> 
> Hope posting my progress in this thread will keep me motivated.
> I've never had so much difficulty with a dog


Welcome - sorry to hear you are having a rubbish time, but what I do like about writing it all down is you do see the ups and downs and realise that there are more ups than you remember .


----------



## L/C

I am working on my own impulse control bout not going drinking on a school night. I will make a more sensible post when I've had coffee.


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## Dogless

L/C said:


> I am working on my own impulse control bout not going drinking on a school night. I will make a more sensible post when I've had coffee.


As soon as I saw your name I was thinking "How's the head?" :crazy:.


----------



## kat&molly

Catz, sorry you're having some problems, but as you say keep posting as it does help with motivation and you may start to see some results.

I think my problem with Moll yesterday was because I'd kept the dummy for training only as its the only thing we'd never made a mistake with.It probably made its value too high so I'll have to use it for some training during this next week-most people have the opposite problem but Moll doesn't need something to be special to retreive it!!! It didn't occur to me until last night- so I've borrowed the Dunces hat for the day:tongue_smilie:

Moonviolet- I'm going to start keeping a scorecard on you and Dogless for these'Nowt as queer as folk' people that you see on walks- you are in the lead at the moment as I think knowing a chap who bathe's in a wheelie bin might take some beating :crazy:


----------



## moonviolet

Catz1 said:


> Can I join this thread
> 
> Having a really rough time with Rio lately.
> 
> Her whining has continued despite me completely ignoring her and I can't seem to get her to focus at all.
> 
> In training classes she will lean to look around me at everyone else no matter what toy or treat I have in my hand.
> 
> I feel like she just doesn't want to be with me all of a sudden. She doesn't seem to be engaging with me at all.
> 
> She still follows me if I leave the room but she sleeps away from me and doesn't seek out affection like she normally does.
> 
> Nothing major has happened and shes in good healthy so it must be something I'm doing/not doing.
> 
> We are pretty much working on all the basics again now..
> 
> Hope posting my progress in this thread will keep me motivated.
> I've never had so much difficulty with a dog


Hi catz1,

Pull up a chair, Sorry your having a rough time.

I'm really sorry, i don't remember much about Rio, maybe we need more pics (shameless aren't i?) How old is she? has anything changed? your routine? anything new in the house?

How is her body language when she looks around you in class. excited looking for playmates or stimulated by other others, or possibly alert stiff checking for danger?

Hope you'll find the thread as helpful as i do. Place to let it out and be listened to, shared ideas of things we've had work or read about and lovely to share successful days too so we can celebrate togehter 

I've been thinking about that young man (not in a Mrs Robinson way) I suspect he may have been moving between 2 pubs by a scenic route, without shoes, I've done some pretty strange things moving between pubs  So it feels vaguely plausible.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> As soon as I saw your name I was thinking "How's the head?" :crazy:.


It's been better but it's also been worse - not sure what that says about me! :lol: I've made it into work though so I think that counts as a moral victory.

mv - you seem to run into a lot of attractive young men atm. First the soldiers now this...


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> It's been better but it's also been worse - not sure what that says about me! :lol: I've made it into work though so I think that counts as a moral victory.
> 
> mv - you seem to run into a lot of attractive young men atm. First the soldiers now this...


Well done , should we whisper?

The problem with running into attractive young men at my age is you think things like .. i'm old enough to be your mother and if i were 20 years younger   How the hell did i get this old !


----------



## Catz1

Thank you all for the lovely welcome! 

Rio is a 2 year old GSD. I really don't post enough about her!

Shes just seems more interested in what everyone else is doing. She will lean from one side to the other very relaxed like I'm blocking her view of the tv or something. 

I try move around the room in an energetic way so she has to stay focused on me but she looks over her shoulder or between my legs and eventually lies down and whines when I won't let up. 

Its like shes says "Ugh mam just stop!" like a stroppy teenager 

Its not just dogs she stares at, its their owners too even if they don't have their dog with them. People going to the bathroom are riveting enough for her to blank me. 

The only big change is the new kitten. Could that be something to do with it? The get along very well but I won't rule anything out. 

We are back to working on focus with a marker word. Going to practice that as many times as we can fit it into the day so we get that intense look she used to have back. 

Pulling out the big guns as well (turkey).


----------



## Dogless

A mixed day today - Kilo has been on his own a lot but as good as gold.

We went to the fields for an hour this morning for lots of play and training - then I went to the doc; got back and had a little play with Kilo. Then I went swimming, got back had lunch and would have played with Kilo had he not glued himself firmly to the sofa . Then....went to the hospital for x rays and went to the blood donation drop in centre, then to PAH for tripe :crazy:. Finally home and took Kilo out for an afternoon walk, which is where the mixed part comes in.

He was walking along nicely and ahead I saw a man with his choc lab that ALWAYS runs up to us (on the street, so Kilo on lead). True to form, he saw us, tried to recall his dog, failed and the dog ran up - Kilo barked his head off and got really excited unfortunately. I had a few tears of frustration because every time I make massive progress with the 'lab problem' I see this man and it has the same outcome every time and our training is set way back . He also used to speak to me but now I can't take any more of the foul looks and mutterings  . I tried to talk to him today to explain a little but got blanked and he walked off.

After that we met a bulldog who ran up to us which was not ideal but fine - his owner came chasing after us asking us to stop or he'd just follow. I stopped briefly but said that I liked to keep him moving as I try not to have onlead meetings - she thanked me and said that he just liked to say hello.

Then - got to the fields, had a nice walk and a nice walk home! Hubby rang and I had a real rant about the lab :crazy:.

Anyway...the BW is now asleep and I'm contemplating a run but may give it a miss .


----------



## kat&molly

Oh Dogless.
I'm so sorry you've had yet another problem because of a Lab not under control. It really is a wonder Kilo is as good as he is. I dont understand why the man gets stroppy with you when its his dog [and him] that cause the problems.
I hope you're feeling better.

Just read about Xiva- brings it home how our dogs really are only on loan to us.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Oh Dogless.
> I'm so sorry you've had yet another problem because of a Lab not under control. It really is a wonder Kilo is as good as he is. I dont understand why the man gets stroppy with you when its his dog [and him] that cause the problems.
> I hope you're feeling better.
> 
> Just read about Xiva- brings it home how our dogs really are only on loan to us.


I think the man gets stroppy (as do the other owners) because their dogs 'just want to say hello' and 'everyone knows labs won't do any harm' - partly I think it's also embarrassment at being unable to control their dogs. That's why Kilo is on a bloody lead - firstly because we are BY A ROAD and secondly because I KNOW that he wouldn't walk nicely to heel and ignore cats, dogs etc .

Thing is, he isn't good when an offlead lab gets in his face any more - makes a racket when he is onlead (which I absolutely understand). There are about 5 labs that we see regularly that are out of control; our one neighbour's was wandering in the street twice today and I've hardly been about! One of the big problems here is the streets tend to be quiet (a few busy main roads) and everyone knows everyone so there are always just loose dogs causing chaos. I went for a run to clear my head because it's really, really got me down tonight for some reason . Every time I think that we are nearly there. Every single bloody time .

Thanks for listening to my rant . Hubby is beginning to understand my disappointment and frustration too when we talked on the phone earlier which helps a little.

The Xiva thread has really made me think too .


----------



## kat&molly

Well you're a more patient person than me- I would have given in a long time ago and used the car every time to take Kilo out, I know its not the answer though. I dont have one.
Moonviolet will be along and say you really do need to release your inner Hag
I hope you're ok after having x-rays.


Hi Catz- is Rio always like that or just when you're trying to train?


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well you're a more patient person than me- I would have given in a long time ago and used the car every time to take Kilo out, I know its not the answer though. I dont have one.
> Moonviolet will be along and say you really do need to release your inner Hag
> I hope you're ok after having x-rays.


The fields are only a 10 minute walk away and I do like the pavement walk there for training - usually. I'm going to approach the lovely woman we met yesterday afternoon next time I see her and see if she'll let me lurk again; I think she will as it doesn't affect her dogs' walk at all and she was very nice. To be fair, we haven't had a bad day in terms of reaction like this for a while - just really got to me for some reason .

I am fine thank you; just part of my general skeletal decreptitude and me trying to dodge Mac The Knife for as long as possible :crazy:.


----------



## L/C

How frustrating!  You'd think the bloke would have a bit more sense by now. Hope you're feeling a bit better about it now.

It's tragic about Xiva - I can't imagine how upset Poison Girl must be feeling. I really, really hope she doesn't blame herself.  

We had a good walk this evening. Started off a bit bad - we walked onto the field and saw the rotty that Ely had his initial spat with. So we moved off the path and were doing focus exercises (sit and watch me) but the bloody woman who walks him didn't pay any attention. It ran up to say hello and Ely obviously remembered it from before because he went stiff and started growling.  I blocked the rotty and used the voice of doom and it stopped. The woman then seemed to recognise us and ran over to get him.  BUT Ely didn't lunge or try to pin it so I think we've made a little bit of progress.

There were no other dogs after that so I let him off and we played ball - he and Gypsy ran around like loons together which was nice as they don't often play together. We then met up with a lady who has 2 greyhounds (9 and 10) one of who can go of lead. He is the most adorable old gentleman and is wonderful with my 2.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - that sounds pretty good; not ideal that the rottie ran up at all - but Ely behaved nicely by the sounds of things .

As for the man tonight; not sure he'll ever learn - most dogs run up to most others here and he has seen loads of other dogs run up to Kilo in the street whilst he is onlead without him reacting (which I still don't like, but he actually doesn't mind) - which may be part of it BUT the thing is if your dog ran up to another whose owner was actively trying to get away and keep her dog's focus then the dog made a racket as your dog jumped in it's face....you'd surely do your best to make sure it didn't happen again?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless I have a mission for you, should you choose to accept it, this post won't self destruct in 60 seconds (budget cutbacks)

This is a stealth mission, however feel free to recruit allies to ensure your mission is successful

1, Print copious copies of this http://www.dogsinneedofspace.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Dinos-Poster.pdf

2, Gather drawing pins, tape, staple gun etc

3, Wait for nightfall, change into stealth gear and grab supplies

4, Blanket every possible surface in walking areas with posters

I honestly don't know how else we can get through to nitwit owners than putting the truth in their face.

The setbacks really kick you in the guts i remember once after a " he's friendly" GSD trotted over tink trembled peed on her tail the dog was try to prise her tail up. All the while i'm asking this guy to please take his dog away, eventually he did. I went of path into the trees and wept my heart out and I just didn't know how i was going to find the strength to walk back to the car.



Catz1 said:


> Thank you all for the lovely welcome!
> 
> Rio is a 2 year old GSD. I really don't post enough about her!
> 
> Shes just seems more interested in what everyone else is doing. She will lean from one side to the other very relaxed like I'm blocking her view of the tv or something.
> 
> I try move around the room in an energetic way so she has to stay focused on me but she looks over her shoulder or between my legs and eventually lies down and whines when I won't let up.
> 
> Its like shes says "Ugh mam just stop!" like a stroppy teenager
> 
> Its not just dogs she stares at, its their owners too even if they don't have their dog with them. People going to the bathroom are riveting enough for her to blank me.
> 
> The only big change is the new kitten. Could that be something to do with it? The get along very well but I won't rule anything out.
> 
> We are back to working on focus with a marker word. Going to practice that as many times as we can fit it into the day so we get that intense look she used to have back.
> 
> Pulling out the big guns as well (turkey).


What a monkey. let us know how it's going. 

The Xiva thread really brings it home how precious and fleeting our time with our dogs is.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C - that sounds pretty good; not ideal that the rottie ran up at all - but Ely behaved nicely by the sounds of things .
> 
> As for the man tonight; not sure he'll ever learn - most dogs run up to most others here and he has seen loads of other dogs run up to Kilo in the street whilst he is onlead without him reacting (which I still don't like, but he actually doesn't mind) - which may be part of it BUT the thing is if your dog ran up to another whose owner was actively trying to get away and keep her dog's focus then the dog made a racket as your dog jumped in it's face....you'd surely do your best to make sure it didn't happen again?


You'd think so but the stupidity and ignorance of people never fails to astound me.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless I have a mission for you, should you choose to accept it, this post won't self destruct in 60 seconds (budget cutbacks)
> 
> This is a stealth mission, however feel free to recruit allies to ensure your mission is successful
> 
> 1, Print copious copies of this http://www.dogsinneedofspace.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Dinos-Poster.pdf
> 
> 2, Gather drawing pins, tape, staple gun etc
> 
> 3, Wait for nightfall, change into stealth gear and grab supplies
> 
> 4, Blanket every possible surface in walking areas with posters
> 
> I honestly don't know how else we can get through to nitwit owners than putting the truth in their face.
> 
> The setbacks really kick you in the guts i remember once after a " he's friendly" GSD trotted over tink trembled peed on her tail the dog was try to prise her tail up. All the while i'm asking this guy to please take his dog away, eventually he did. I went of path into the trees and wept my heart out and I just didn't know how i was going to find the strength to walk back to the car.


I thought of doing that .

That is why I post here; you all understand these things . He did well with the black greyhound and doodle the other day although he was uncomfortable - he truly only gets this bothered by labs. Not sure which is worse, a dog who is peeing themselves or one that is shouting - both make me feel really sad; even sadder when I know that that man (and the other owners who don't give a monkey's) most probably thinks that my horrible aggressive dog is having a go at his lovely friendly dog who only wants to say hello . Good job I don't have wine tonight or I'd be even more morose about things .

Fresh start AGAIN tomorrow .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> L/C - that sounds pretty good; not ideal that the rottie ran up at all - but Ely behaved nicely by the sounds of things .
> 
> As for the man tonight; not sure he'll ever learn - most dogs run up to most others here and he has seen loads of other dogs run up to Kilo in the street whilst he is onlead without him reacting (which I still don't like, but he actually doesn't mind) - which may be part of it BUT the thing is if your dog ran up to another whose owner was actively trying to get away and keep her dog's focus then the dog made a racket as your dog jumped in it's face....you'd surely do your best to make sure it didn't happen again?


People just dont seem to have the sense though do they- I cant believe how incredibly selfish people are these days- I must be getting old.

L/C - Ely coped well with that. Hope you're feeling better.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> People just dont seem to have the sense though do they- I cant believe how incredibly selfish people are these days- I must be getting old.
> 
> L/C - Ely coped well with that. Hope you're feeling better.


Fit as the proverbial, although I am sitting at home baking sardine cake rather then out at the pub. Take from that what you will.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I thought of doing that .
> 
> That is why I post here; you all understand these things . He did well with the black greyhound and doodle the other day although he was uncomfortable - he truly only gets this bothered by labs. Not sure which is worse, a dog who is peeing themselves or one that is shouting - both make me feel really sad; even sadder when I know that that man (and the other owners who don't give a monkey's) most probably thinks that my horrible aggressive dog is having a go at his lovely friendly dog who only wants to say hello . Good job I don't have wine tonight or I'd be even more morose about things .
> 
> Fresh start AGAIN tomorrow .


Maybe we should try to organise a mass postering campaign, same night all over the country. Parks and popular walking areas. who knows we might get to sell our story to the sun  but i doubt it :lol:


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Maybe we should try to organise a mass postering campaign, same night all over the country. Parks and popular walking areas. who knows we might get to sell our story to the sun  but i doubt it :lol:


I think we should.

I am late with Gypsy's training session tonight and she's headbutting the laptop to get my attention. :lol: Maybe I should go...


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Maybe we should try to organise a mass postering campaign, same night all over the country. Parks and popular walking areas. who knows we might get to sell our story to the sun  but i doubt it :lol:


I was thinking of a petition that makes it law that everybody with a dog has to join PF. We'll soon sort the buggers out.


----------



## moonviolet

Cripes have I had a "Tonight Pinky we take over the world" moment? Didn't know I had it in me.

I wonder if I should suggest it to GoodVic2


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Cripes have I had a "Tonight Pinky we take over the world" moment? Didn't know I had it in me.
> 
> I wonder if I should suggest it to GoodVic2


I dare you.

Dogless , I hope today is better for you and the big fella.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I dare you.
> 
> Dogless , I hope today is better for you and the big fella.


Thanks; not sure what was up with me last night .

We headed out fairly early for a few hours - walked to the fields, spent an hour there doing waits, recalls, stays etc but mostly just mucking about. I can relax there more on weekend mornings as it's very unusual that anyone else ventures out early doors! Then we walked up to the top fields, passed a GR and Yorkie very nicely and walked around the top fields and finally home. Kilo then 'helped' me to mow the lawn so has only just decided to sleep which is very late for him so he probably won't move until pretty late now!

We did have a good success this morning - someone came into the dog fields to empty a poo bin and to Kilo lone person without dog not saying hello was a previous stalking candidate. Today he looked at him very alertly, looked back at me, was recalled and then his toy thrown for him, so very pleased with him . Best boy!


----------



## moonviolet

Glad you and the boy wonder had a good morning. We've had a good day nice weather, nice walks ( i'm glossing over clearing poo bags and broken glass from the car parking area).

I have a little shaping session planned before curling up with a glass of wine, a film and the cuddle of a warm beagle


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Glad you and a the boy wonder had a good morning. We've had a good day nice weather, nice walks ( i'm glossing over clearing poo bags and broken glass from the car parking area).
> 
> I have a little shaping session planned before curling up with a glass of wine, a film and the cuddle of a warm beagle


We had a good afternoon walk too; saw and stalked the lovely lady with her black lab and Kilo did great, passed loads of kids and dogs . Finished badly just a few metres from home when the little kid that taunts him appeared - not too awful, Kilo got anxious so I turned around to give him space and get the hell outta dodge before the kid had time to get on his bike and give chase. As we were making our escape someone that I used to work with and Kilo loved saw us (not seen them in almost a year!) and approached us - Kilo panicked and barked like he wanted to take his head off but was backing away rather than lunging. I explained hurriedly and he said he'd see us another time. But . Two afternoons in a row. To top it off, this happened outside the house of the man who lets his dog run up to us and he was in his porch about to take his lab out . Feeling awful and wondering whether I panicked Kilo, whether he was still stressed from yesterday or what. Hubby is getting fed up of me  .

Added to that I think my mental health is a little blummin precarious right now :crazy::crazy: so I'm exercising like a demon trying to keep that at bay :crazy::crazy:.

Oh well, glass of vino and back to the training tomorrow. Cheers mv .


----------



## moonviolet

I can't blame you for being a bit tense. I saw the guy with the 4 dogs who chased Tink the other day and I'd be a big fat fibber if i claimed my heart didn't sink and my shoulders didn't tense. Just about-faced took another track and no harm done.

Sounds like a nasty combination of stressers at the end of your evening walk  

Well if lab man was watching, he might get the wrong end of the stick and avoid you and Kilo there are times when getting the desired result is more important than why people are doing what you need them to do. 

I hope the exercising helps and theres further support available if you feel it may help. I'm only a pm away if you ever want an ear.

It's a shame your classes aren't running through the summer. I found them such a sources of comfort when times were challenging. Just being in the company of dog people was comforting. We have an assessment next week. 

Enjoy the vino sometimes you'll have a run of bad days and it'll all seem too much but hang in there the universe loves balance... the good times will come back


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I hope the exercising helps and theres further support available if you feel it may help. I'm only a pm away if you ever want an ear.
> 
> It's a shame your classes aren't running through the summer. I found them such a sources of comfort when times were challenging. Just being in the company of dog people was comforting. We have an assessment next week.
> 
> Enjoy the vino sometimes you'll have a run of bad days and it'll all seem too much but hang in there the universe loves balance... the good times will come back


Thanks mv; you are lovely . We haven't had a run of bad days in absolutely ages so were due some - I'm sure we'll have some best boy days again soon; I was wishing that class was on so much on Thursday - just one more week off then they are back on .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Thanks mv; you are lovely . We haven't had a run of bad days in absolutely ages so were due some - I'm sure we'll have some best boy days again soon; I was wishing that class was on so much on Thursday - just one more week off then they are back on .


Oh thats good 

So much for my planned training session, the traitor is flopped out on the couch with OH. They are all loved up, as he was in Glasgow for a few days this week.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh thats good
> 
> So much for my planned training session, the traitor is flopped out on the couch with OH. They are all loved up, as he was in Glasgow for a few days this week.


You have a dog that is awake at this time of night usually???? .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You have a dog that is awake at this time of night usually???? .


Yeah, but she doesn't do mornings  drags her self out of her pit for a pee and a light snack at 9am can be coaxed to walk at 9.30 but 10's better if you don't mind :lol:

Works out ok as I get errands done while she lies in.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Yeah, but she doesn't do mornings  drags her self out of her pit for a pee and a light snack at 9am can be coaxed to walk at 9.30 but 10's better if you don't mind :lol:
> 
> Works out ok as I get errands done while she lies in.


I see; Kilo is an early bird as am I .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I see; Kilo is an early bird as am I .


I only sleep about 5.5-6 hours tops so I'm a bit of both


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, I'm sorry Kilo got upset-hopefully MV's right and it means the Lab man will avoid you. Give yourself a break from the stress and go off somewhere quiet with the boy and have a relaxing couple of hours-it will do you both good. I hope you're okay.

Glad you enjoyed your walk MV, apart from poo and glass!!!

Moll and I are off to the fun dog show today.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless, I'm sorry Kilo got upset-hopefully MV's right and it means the Lab man will avoid you. Give yourself a break from the stress and go off somewhere quiet with the boy and have a relaxing couple of hours-it will do you both good. I hope you're okay.
> 
> Glad you enjoyed your walk MV, apart from poo and glass!!!
> 
> Moll and I are off to the fun dog show today.


Have a lovely day and Good Luck to Moll! .


----------



## moonviolet

Good luck Moll and have a great time. Pics please 

Good idea from K&M about going somewhere quiet today. Take a bit of time to reset and regroup.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Good luck Moll and have a great time. Pics please
> 
> Good idea from K&M about going somewhere quiet today. Take a bit of time to reset and regroup.


Didn't quite do that but had a thought :idea:. Thought if we did something that Kilo really enjoys but around where the few stressful things had happened it might help. So, instead of going to a forest to run I decided to run around here and we had a fab time - helped that it was early doors on a Sunday so we never saw a soul . Ran to the sports pitches and I ran round and round the track on the outside for 25 minutes so Kilo could be offlead and have a good zoom, poo, sniff etc. Then onlead and a 40 minutes run on lead on the pavement with the BW behaving impeccably , then back to the sports pitches just for 5 minutes offlead as the BW often likes a bit of a zoom after behaving in such a controlled manner....and then we ran home. Really lovely morning .


----------



## moonviolet

So glad you both had a great mornng sounds like it was just what you both needed  We're off for a mooch in the woods in a minute. i'll be avoiding the main tracks *shakes fist at the sun *  :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Apart from my meltdown about kids (hysterical thread!) we actually had a good afternoon walk . The theme at present is brilliant mornings and bad afternoons - so I'll try and get out of here for both walks tomorrow....we need a break :crazy::crazy:.

kat&molly I can't wait to hear how Moll did today .

ETA: After seeing Nupafeed 'Stress Less' in a post by SB the other day I had a look and ordered some; started it today to see if it will help to take Kilo's anxiety down a notch with the current loose dogs / kids torturing chaos going on.


----------



## moonviolet

It's such a tough situation with the kids, hard to know how to handle it without exacerbating the situation. 

I had my first summer hols related incident this morning. I was sat in one of our lurking spots, I'm quite visible there. There was a group of people adults kids and one dog probably 6 or 8 adults similar number of kids walking along a track that headed off to the left of us. They started passing no problems the dog stayed with the lead adults, then suddenly the kids started charging our position waving sticks and screaming. I think they were heading toward the pond that's there, but as you can imagine. a bit off putting when you are only 15 inch tall! we decided to vacate before they arrived... they called the adults over and decided it was the perfect set up for a picnic. I guess i'll get that spot back when the rain returns :lol:

Tink was a star although unsure trotted along beside me nicely as we left them to it. So golds stars for her ladyship.

I went back to the start of the thread discovered that Tink hasn't used the skunk defense since late March   Can't say i miss the smelll of anal glands.

I'd not heard of Nupafeed 'Stress Less' had to go have a look. Looks very interesting. please let me know how you get on 

Had a lovely evening walk. Bumped into a lovely DDBx we see from time to time and saw the painfully shy staffie from a distance. I've seen them around at a distance a few times. 

Yesterday, it almost broke my heart. I saw her charged on lead by a spaniel the poor thing was pulling and lunging trying to get away and the spaniel's owner did the half hearted recall thing and carried on walking, i wanted to go bop him on the nose it was clear to me 50yards away the distress his dog was causing, how can anyone think that is an ok what to behave.

We do seem to be having a gentle tide turning among the regular. Planting seeds and we are all gently finding each other and swapping stories and hints and there are interesting times ahead. 


Hope K&M had a great time today.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> It's such a tough situation with the kids, hard to know how to handle it without exacerbating the situation.
> 
> I had my first summer hols related incident this morning. I was sat in one of our lurking spots, I'm quite visible there. There was a group of people adults kids and one dog probably 6 or 8 adults similar number of kids walking along a track that headed off to the left of us. They started passing no problems the dog stayed with the lead adults, then suddenly the kids started charging our position waving sticks and screaming. I think they were heading toward the pond that's there, but as you can imagine. a bit off putting when you are only 15 inch tall! we decided to vacate before they arrived... they called the adults over and decided it was the perfect set up for a picnic. I guess i'll get that spot back when the rain returns :lol:
> 
> Tink was a star although unsure trotted along beside me nicely as we left them to it. So golds stars for her ladyship.
> 
> I went back to the start of the thread discovered that Tink hasn't used the skunk defense since late March   Can't say i miss the smelll of anal glands.
> 
> I'd not heard of Nupafeed 'Stress Less' had to go have a look. Looks very interesting. please let me know how you get on
> 
> Had a lovely evening walk. Bumped into a lovely DDBx we see from time to time and saw the painfully shy staffie from a distance. I've seen them around at a distance a few times.
> 
> Yesterday, it almost broke my heart. I saw her charged on lead by a spaniel the poor thing was pulling and lunging trying to get away and the spaniel's owner did the half hearted recall thing and carried on walking, i wanted to go bop him on the nose it was clear to me 50yards away the distress his dog was causing, how can anyone think that is an ok what to behave.
> 
> We do seem to be having a gentle tide turning among the regular. Planting seeds and we are all gently finding each other and swapping stories and hints and there are interesting times ahead.
> 
> Hope K&M had a great time today.


Sounds like you and Miss Tink are starting a ripple of considerate dog walking.....hopefully it will become a tidal wave . I also hadn't realised that it had been four whole months of no skunk defence - platinum stars...never mind gold; I truly am over the moon for you .

I'll let you know about the 'stress less' - have to give half dose for three days then full and says to expect results within three days to a week of the full dose being given. It's worth a shot just to get a handle on his anxiety at present if I can, poor little bugger, I feel so upset for him.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Sounds like you and Miss Tink are starting a ripple of considerate dog walking.....hopefully it will become a tidal wave . I also hadn't realised that it had been four whole months of no skunk defence - platinum stars...never mind gold; I truly am over the moon for you .
> 
> I'll let you know about the 'stress less' - have to give half dose for three days then full and says to expect results within three days to a week of the full dose being given. It's worth a shot just to get a handle on his anxiety at present if I can, poor little bugger, I feel so upset for him.


Well I was alone banging my head against the trees. Now unrest has been expressed by:
P who has had his testicles used as a springboard and was left on the ground struggling for breath didn't take took much persuading that perhaps we shouldn't say "that's ok" in as many situations as we tend to. This incident was witness by J who is a lady in her 70's and walks with her stick and her dog is elderly.
K my friend with the BC.

I do hope the 'stress less' helps it's so upsetting seeing them in distress.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well I was alone banging my head against the trees. Now unrest has been expressed by:
> P who has had his testicles used as a springboard and was left on the ground struggling for breath didn't take took much persuading that perhaps we shouldn't say "that's ok" in as many situations as we tend to. This incident was witness by J who is a lady in her 70's and walks with her stick and her dog is elderly.
> K my friend with the BC.
> 
> I do hope the 'stress less' helps it's so upsetting seeing them in distress.


I hate it . Doesn't help that my stress levels seem through the roof at present (no reason why they should be) so I am probably not helping but am doing my very best not to let the BW down more than I already have.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I hate it . Doesn't help that my stress levels seem through the roof at present (no reason why they should be) so I am probably not helping but am doing my very best not to let the BW down more than I already have.


Don't you dare say you have let Kilo down. I just won't have it!!!! Can you honestly say you haven't tried your very best for Kilo in every situation. That's as much as anyone can do. It doesn't always work out the way we want, life's sh1te like that sometimes.

Might I suggest, if possible, get in the car go quiet places for the next 2 weeks. Just have a "summer holiday" play, run, jump, have fun, rediscover the joy of dog ownership and Kilo time to destress too. Then slowly start again, almost like you would with a pup.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Don't you dare say you have let Kilo down. I just won't have it!!!! Can you honestly say you haven't tried your very best for Kilo in every situation. That's as much as anyone can do. It doesn't always work out the way we want, life's sh1te like that sometimes.
> 
> Might I suggest, if possible, get in the car go quiet places for the next 2 weeks. Just have a "summer holiday" play, run, jump, have fun, rediscover the joy of dog ownership and Kilo time to destress too. Then slowly start again, almost like you would with a pup.


I was planning that - we go somewhere every day in the car usually and have fun, but tend to stick around more at the weekend as my nice quiet walks fill with moto - x and MTB riders. Mornings here are no dramas (touch wood!) - not a soul about until about 1000 at least!

I'm being a drama queen probably, but 3 bad afternoons in a row have got me down . The kids have been bothering us for weeks but this week seems to have reached a peak. I'll try and de stress my lovely boy with loads of quiet time - we were doing so, so well so I am sure I can get back on track. I have always tried my best for the BW, that much is true.

Thank you mv you are fantastic .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I'm being a drama queen probably, but 3 bad afternoons in a row have got me down . The kids have been bothering us for weeks but this week seems to have reached a peak. I'll try and de stress my lovely boy with loads of quiet time - we were doing so, so well so I am sure I can get back on track. I have always tried my best for the BW, that much is true.
> 
> Thank you mv you are fantastic .


Not a drama queen at all, just upset, a perfectly normal human emotion when someone we care about is being hurt in some way. Stress is when we feel unable to find a way to stop it.

Sometimes withdrawal is the wisest tactic, until we feel sufficiently recovered. No different that a physical injury I suppose.

Oops i'm rambling again.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, I've just read your other thread and things sound really stressful at the minute You try so hard with Kilo and I'm really sorry thats its stressing you both out. Moonviolet is right[as usual] you need to get away for walks and have some fun. Look forward to hearing how the Nupafeed helps.

Moonviolet, that sounds brilliant for Tink not releasing her glands since March- if you can bring her back like that there is really hope for Evie-I'm going to take a leaf out of your book and do some lurking.

We had a fantastic day yesterday, Moll didn't get placed in her 2 classes I'd entered her in- but it was all running so late, it was hot and she really couldn't be bothered with it, I couldn't keep her attention at all. Spaniels just weren't the Judge's cup of tea anyway- that was obvious. I dont think its our sort of thing.
I was more chuffed at all the socialising she had, I'd been starting to worry that Scruff and Evies issues were rubbing off, but she was fab with everything, people fussing her, dogs saying hello, even a young girl-she was very dog savvy  She was just such a pleasure the whole day- except for when she stole a ball off a table that was for sale so I had to buy it
By complete coincidence- I heard a chap calling his dog Billy-turned round and it was a Springer. I approached the chap and it only turned out to be Molls brother!!! I'd never met the man and I last saw Billy when he was about 12 weeks old!!He's turned out lovely, like Moll and we spent ages comparing them- we were really excited by it but the dogs were definatly underwhelmed


----------



## kat&molly

We have some holiday makers in the village- they aren't really doing anything annoying but its all extra people for Evie to have to deal with. We had no choice but to pass some the other day, they were playing tennis and even Moll freaked out I think by the rackets being waved about. They stopped playing for us to pass but it was really difficult.
I had planned to come around the other way and stand at a distance and trying to get closer, slowly.

Anyway, I walked all the girls before leaving yesterday and said to OH NOT to go that way on the afternoon but to go down the road to a different walk, I explained why and how I wanted to deal with it.
So what did he do- he took them that way TWICE


----------



## moonviolet

Sounds like a fun time at the show yesterday. I'm glad Moll was laid back and took it all in her stride, even seeing her brother :lol:
Obviously, being so good, she thought she deserved a treat and chose a new ball 

Tennis rackets must being brandished must me a pretty intimidating sight. Sorry OH didn't listen, do they think we say these things just to hear our own voices.
I hope the lurking works as well for Evie as it does for Tink. Tink is spoiled and gets to sit on my lap, but to justify that, I will say you get physical feedback. I could feel 'micro' trembling that I couldn't see. But getting down and sitting with her was good too. I do think physical contact is good and without sounding too fluffy thinking positive thoughts liek " i'm here for you" , " we are going to get through this together" not because I think they are telepathic, I do think it's puts you in a good mindset and does change the way you touch or speak.

When Tink is really tense she responds best to a calm silence and comforting touch, when she is unsure she can be chivvied out of it with happy chatter. I say things like " well spotted" she looks at me I treat. (I found people looked a bit offended if they overheard me saying "look at that" ) and if closer tend to say " what a nice looking dog" and again treat when Tinker looks at me. 

I really hope you adn Evie find lurking successful and you get to share a journey (oh heck, I sound like a TV reality show) like the one Tinker and I are sharing


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks MV. I'm going to get a couple of rackets and play in the garden- I dont even like flipping tennis but its for a good cause.

I am determined to get some confidence in to Evie its awful to see her so nervous around people. Maybe one day even she could come to a show.

Dont know why I'm shocked that OH ignored me yesterday-I should know by now. According to him the girls passed by ok, but I'm sure he has to be lying and say that because he knows he was wrong to do it.

I am unbelievably shattered today , too much sun yesterday. I think Molls still a bit tired as well but being a Springer she's not going to admit that


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly the show sounds like a great success as a socialisation exercise and just a good day out - must have been good to see Moll's brother! Shame about your OH though . I think sometimes they ignore us because they want to prove us wrong, then get surprised when what they have been told is, in fact, true :crazy:.

We went to the forest today as we do on most weekdays and had a lovely quiet walk. I was paranoid about running into that woman with the mal again, even though I had never seen her before so not a common occurrence . My stress is off the scale :crazy:. It is absolutely pouring here today which I'm chuffed to bits with from a 'kids' point of view .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> We went to the forest today as we do on most weekdays and had a lovely quiet walk. I was paranoid about running into that woman with the mal again, even though I had never seen her before so not a common occurrence . My stress is off the scale :crazy:. It is absolutely pouring here today which I'm chuffed to bits with from a 'kids' point of view .


I'm not surprised you are feeling stressed, feeling under attack at home as well as out an about, where the heck do you go for respite. So glad you had a nice quiet walk, but I can't blame you for being on alert. Glad its' raining at least you may get some peace at home, it really should be a sanctuary from the outside world.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm not surprised you are feeling stressed, feeling under attack at home as well as out an about, where the heck do you go for respite. So glad you had a nice quiet walk, but I can't blame you for being on alert. Glad its' raining at least you may get some peace at home, it really should be a sanctuary from the outside world.


Still bucketing down - forecast for tomorrow too! I'm jealous of everyones' sun on one hand and on the other I'm pleased that the weather is atrocious here. Kilo is very relaxed and sleepy today which is nice rather than listening for the smallest sound.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Still bucketing down - forecast for tomorrow too! I'm jealous of everyones' sun on one hand and on the other I'm pleased that the weather is atrocious here. Kilo is very relaxed and sleepy today which is nice rather than listening for the smallest sound.


That's so much better  I know when Tink is on edge i am too.

We played dodge the groups of excited children and woohoo dogs and were pretty successful. Watched a few lurker style 

Bumped into a man, I only see once in a while and he commented on the shine on Tink's coat which was nice 

so a pretty good walk all in all.


----------



## L/C

My target stick (with built in clicker) and whistle arrived! I am very excited.

Dogless - I'm sorry things have been so fraught and I'm happy Kilo's been a bit more relaxed. If possible can you keep him in/go to isolated walks and avoid too much stimulation so his adrenaline levels have a chance to drop? It should hopefully make him a bit less reactive. When Ely is having a run of bad days I tend to isolate him, avoid exciting games (fetch, chase etc.) and do a spot of T Touch to make him relax. I think it can take up to 3 days for dog's adrenaline to drop back to baseline so I use that as a guide.


----------



## Beth17

Can I just say I keep having a nosey at this thread and you're all doing so well that it's really inspired me to knuckle down with my two especially now I have Sam. Oscar is pretty good with general things but like most dogs he has his quirks and bits that we should work on and improve and i'm actually going to sit and make a bit of an action plan just so we can be that bit better.

So thank you for the non intentional kick up the bum


----------



## Coffee

Dogless, I'm sorry things are so stressful for you at the moment  I really do feel your pain and as one who has and still is battling some mental health issues of my own  I'm a pm away if you ever want to 'talk' xx

I hope you can get some lovely, quiet, uneventful walks under your belt to get your confidence back on track


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Can I just say I keep having a nosey at this thread and you're all doing so well that it's really inspired me to knuckle down with my two especially now I have Sam. Oscar is pretty good with general things but like most dogs he has his quirks and bits that we should work on and improve and i'm actually going to sit and make a bit of an action plan just so we can be that bit better.
> 
> So thank you for the non intentional kick up the bum


Hi Beth glad we could be of service  If anyone else wants a kick i'm sure we can oblige :lol: :lol: :lol:

if you ever feel like sharing your challenges or successes we'll be here 150 pages and we're still here anyone would think we have nowhere better to be :lol:

*waves to Coffee* how are things ?


----------



## Coffee

*waves back to moonviolet* 

I don't like to tempt fate but things are pretty good on the Spotty front  We've had <counts on fingers> 5 days in the row now of good walks with no incidents and no bolting off... am hoping that doesn't mean a Walk From Hell is just around the corner though


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> *waves back to moonviolet*
> 
> I don't like to tempt fate but things are pretty good on the Spotty front  We've had <counts on fingers> 5 days in the row now of good walks with no incidents and no bolting off... am hoping that doesn't mean a Walk From Hell is just around the corner though


*whispers* that's great to hear.  Have you restarted operation cars aren't scary yet or just gathering strength in preparation?

I think fate has already been tempted and has knocked off and headed to the pub, we should be fine 

Hope everything esle has been sorted now too .


----------



## Dogless

Thanks L/C - that's what I'm doing; just letting things settle if I can.

Went to the park today as it's still pouring so not usually a soul there in this awful weather. We saw two dogs that we know and not a flicker from Kilo and just a nice wave from the owner - there were also few groups of kids (on holiday!) and again not a flicker. No signs of anxiety at all so maybe things aren't as bad as I feared . Me? I'm headed to the loony bin  :crazy:.

Well done Coffee - sounds as if the spotty one's doing well .


----------



## Coffee

Haven't started Operation Car again yet  am trying to build myself back up for it. Everything else in the land of Coffee is still all a bit crappy but thanks for asking  Had to go back to my GP last week as everything was all just getting too much and am sadly back on my anti-Ds after being off them for over a year 

Sorry, seem to be sharing a little *too* much


----------



## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Haven't started Operation Car again yet  am trying to build myself back up for it. Everything else in the land of Coffee is still all a bit crappy but thanks for asking  Had to go back to my GP last week as everything was all just getting too much and am sadly back on my anti-Ds after being off them for over a year
> 
> Sorry, seem to be sharing a little *too* much


You can share anything you like on this thread - it's like a little supportive place of sanctuary when everything else is getting controversial and judgemental  .


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## kat&molly

Dogless, that sounds like another good walk today- I hope you are ok?

Coffee, I hope things improve for you soon- sounds good on the spotty front.

L/C- the new Target stick sounds good-let us know how it goes.

Moonviolet- lovely to get a compliment on Tinks condition.

Beth17- how nice that our waffling gives you inspiration  I dont think about people lurking on this thread-but I suppose a few must do.


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Things seem to be going well with our 2, Paddy had his first pre-agility class yesterday -seemed to enjoy it, and did really well.

Still having trouble stopping him jumping up at people though, not aggressively, but in a 'hey, how u doing?' kinda way


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## kat&molly

Thought I'd share a few of yesterdays pics on this thread.

Moll just after we'd arrived.









Completly underwhelmed at meeting her Brother









Big Evies very bold Red Merle pup[shes learning impulse control and body awareness already-14 weeks old.








A family of Afghans- I love these-the owners said they are hard work and no off lead-my dreams are dashed.








Another breed I really like[but dont know a lot about-yet] A small Munsterlander-







I thought he was stunning.
I hope you like them.


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## Dogless

Fantastic photos - love, love the Afghans and the one of Moll going crackers with excitement at meeting her brother .


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## moonviolet

L/C :I forgot to say when i read about your new target stick I pictured a a magic wand. Love the idea of an onboard clicker.

Coffee: Lets say operation car is still in the planning stage  Remember plan-do-review (yes, i was subject to some corporate brainwashing in the past) Honey as far as i'm concerned share as much as you feel you want to. ( and pm if you ever want a friendly ear.) 

K&M : Moll is such a pretty girl . I wonder what Molls brother did to her as a pup to receive that cool reception. The Afghans are lovely, but i'm not big on grooming, so I shall I admire from afar. Big Evie's little Merle is very sweet.


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## kat&molly

Moll does look a bit uncomfortable doesn't she? I think it may be because a strange man is holding her lead. They had no interest in each other at all but were ok together- Billy tried to play with lots of dogs, but not Moll.

The owners of the Afghans bath them every week and do a good brush through- I love them but it would be really difficult having a breed that I couldn't let off the lead-Evie's enough of a worry.


----------



## L/C

Well I was all excited to do a training session with my new wand  but it took me over 2 hours to get home!  Central line was suspended and overground was also buggered so had to get two trains and a bus.

4 days to go to the Olympics and they are both main routes to Stratford....It's going to be fun.

Kat&Molly - those photos are lovely. Have to say I've never been a fan of Afghans all the ones I've met have been loopy!


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## moonviolet

Had a lovely evening walk a bit warm, but im not complaining  I took a moment at one of our lurking spots just to enjoy the evening. I sat on a tree stump and Tink asked to sit on my lap who am I to say no.  Nice to have a cuddle just because. I took a couple of pics, One of the view then I took one of us It appears I require longer arms to get a normal pic, but i quite like the result.

Only little cloud was on the last few yard to the car we were followed by a dog that wasbarking intently for it's balls. Nothing wrong int hat but was enough to unsettle Tink. Think i might start running those first/ last few yards always seems to be the danger zone. I would hang around but truth is lots of people let their dogs straight out of their cars overexcited offlead charging up to anyone/everyone. So it's just a case of getting it done as swiftly and painlessly as possible.

Here's the pics









and us


----------



## L/C

So cute! :001_wub:


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> So cute! :001_wub:


I want to live in soft focus sod HD !


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I want to live in soft focus sod HD !


But darling you look gorgeous in either!


----------



## L/C

I didn't get to walk the pooches tonight as London transport failed me but here's a few pics that the OH took while playing with his camera:




























This is my favourite - it sort of sums up Ely's personality:


----------



## moonviolet

Great photos. Gypsy looks less than impressed at the impromptu photo session. Ely in that last pic looks a right clown.


----------



## Dogless

I do love pointies :001_wub:. That has started my day off nicely, especially the last one. Ely looks :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet, I really like the pic of you and Tink-think its lovely 

Lovely pics- especially Ely being a clown. You're going to have fun during the Olympics aren't you We get invaded here starting from around now , our closest town becomes a no-go area because its just too busy. There is a festival on which we don't even bother with anymore as its typical French in that its exactly the same every single year


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Great photos. Gypsy looks less than impressed at the impromptu photo session. Ely in that last pic looks a right clown.


I think it's disgust at the fact she's had to stop and isn't running about! :lol: It was a late one because of the heat and I think she was a bit bored that she'd been in the house all day.



Dogless said:


> I do love pointies :001_wub:. That has started my day off nicely, especially the last one. Ely looks :crazy::crazy:.


He is a clown - he's so clumsy, all legs and tail. I have some photos of Gypsy running and she's all grace and coiled potential. Not Ely. 



kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet, I really like the pic of you and Tink-think its lovely
> 
> Lovely pics- especially Ely being a clown. You're going to have fun during the Olympics aren't you We get invaded here starting from around now , our closest town becomes a no-go area because its just too busy. There is a festival on which we don't even bother with anymore as its typical French in that its exactly the same every single year


Yeah not looking forward to it. They had a dress rehearsal for the opening ceremony and they set off fireworks and really loud music at half midnight! Bearing in mind we're nearly 2 miles away!

I've changed my working hours from 10 - 6 to 7 - 2. I'm going to be grumpy!


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## kat&molly

26 stops again this morning :crazy:[i love this smiley]

If anyone has any ideas to stop this competition of trying to be in front between Moll and Scruff- I'd love to hear them. It doesn't seem to involve Evie, shes like Dolly Daydream.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> 26 stops again this morning :crazy:[i love this smiley]
> 
> If anyone has any ideas to stop this competition of trying to be in front between Moll and Scruff- I'd love to hear them. It doesn't seem to involve Evie, shes like Dolly Daydream.


I have been reading up a little as you never know if another dogmight decide to make this place home

This looks interesting, Happy Together: How to Train Successfully in a Multi-Dog Household | Karen Pryor Clickertraining

Here's the bit on LLW for multiple dogs

_Training behaviors that several dogs will do together

Training dogs one at a time is a great way to teach them to do behaviors on cue when they are on their own. Some behaviors will be called for when other dogs are around, though. Polite leash walking, also called loose-leash walking, is an excellent example. Even if you train each of your dogs to walk beautifully on leash when alone, you may find that when you try to walk two or more of your dogs together you wind up pulled in all directions.

To prevent this problem, it's important to "proof" behaviors that will be done in a group so that each of your dogs learns to do the behaviors properly even in the company of your other dogs. As with all other training, you can achieve this goal by raising criteria gradually. Here's an outline of one way to train polite leash walking for multiple dogs.

Teaching loose-leash walking

1. Teach each dog individually how to walk politely on leash.

Dogs are not born knowing how to walk on leash. A good first step is to teach a dog that staying close to you earns clicks and treats. One way to maximize the odds that the dog will stay close to you is to start in an environment like a bathroom, which is so small that the dog has nowhere else to go, and click and treat the dog whenever the leash is in a loose J-shape. From there, gradually progress to larger rooms, and then practice around your entire home. Once the behavior is solid indoors, begin to practice in the back and front yards, and, finally, on the sidewalk and in other environments where there are many distractions. It can be helpful to set up fake distractions for your dog indoors to prepare for the transition to the more exciting outdoors.

Practice until you can go many yards without a click or treat while the leash stays in a nice J-shape, first in relatively boring environments, and then in more exciting environments. Each time you change environments, go back to clicking and treating for a J-shaped leash while you are standing still, and build back up from there. If you find your dog cannot stay by your side, you're probably raising criteria too quickly.

2. Begin working with two dogs at once.

Once at least two of your dogs have learned to walk politely on leash individually-even in exciting environments-you can start walking them together. Have a different handler for each dog, at least initially, if possible. As always, it's important to make things easier in other ways now that you have added a big distraction (the other dog) to the environment, so start out in a relatively boring place and click and treat for a J-shaped leash while you are standing still, and then after a single step, and so on.

Practice until both dogs are able to walk politely, first simply in each other's presence and then while walking side by side while each handler clicks and treats. Graduate to having just one handler hold both dogs, and build up again until the dogs can walk together nicely for extended periods in a boring environment. Then go back to two handlers, this time in a more exciting environment, clicking and treating for relatively easy behavior at first. Gradually raise criteria until a single handler can walk both dogs together outdoors while the leashes stay in a J-shape.

3. If you have more than two dogs, work every possible combination of dogs separately before you walk them all together.

Repeat step 2 with every possible combination of dogs. For example, if you have three dogs (let's call them Fido, Spot, and Rover), practice with Fido and Spot, then with Fido and Rover, and finally with Spot and Rover, until each pair of dogs walks well together. Only then should you try to walk all three dogs at once. When you do advance to walking all three dogs at once, it's best to start with three handlers, and then work each possible pair with one handler while a second handler walks the third. Only then put all three leashes in the hand of a single handler. The same principle applies if you have four, five, or more dogs: work each pair, then each trio, etc.

Not just for polite leash walking!

The principles described above can be used for any situation involving multiple dogs, including greeting visitors at the door, staying on mats during meal times, and waiting for permission to go through doors, to name just a few. When training these kinds of behaviors, remember to increase criteria gradually, and make everything else easier each time the environment gets harder or a new dog gets added in.
_

Don't know if this is any help, it does advise a handler for each dog to start.

Dolly Daydream was one of my nicknames as a kid , can't think why.

L/C I used to live in Stepney. I can't even imagine how insane it's going to be.


----------



## 1990steph

Well I have 2 doggies.

Benji (lab) i just need to work on him liking kids.

Murphy (lurcher) he has a lot of problems:
1-play biting
2-scared of people
3-scared of environments
4-scared of anything that's new
basically he is scared of everything and is always on his toes.

He needs a lot of work but he will be a great doggie like my lab when I have finished his teaching. In 4 weeks I have taught him:
1-recall
2-not to bother the cats
3-walk down Lochmaben high street (even though he isn't totally relaxed)
4-he is getting better on the lead

Hopefully in another 4weeks time that list will be cut down  For being a rescue doggie and hardly having any socialization he isn't too bad in house with the washing machine ect and his recall his getting there. he is great when its just me haha won't listen to me if the OH is there 

This is the pair of them in the car. Murphy hates the car so going to have to work on that first as the boys come with us places quiet a lot


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks MV.
Thing is, they really are good on their own. Even OH said when he walked Scruff on Sunday with Jay and Evie that she was a dream, I think hes telling the truth . Said there wasn't any silliness like there normally can be, I often have to walk away and sit down before we even leave the house .
Maybe I should do more singuraly though- and there was something in that article I want to try. Let you know how it goes.


----------



## kat&molly

Hi Steph, lovely dogs.
You should read some of Moonviolets posts on this thread[I know its long] for things she done with Tinker.


----------



## moonviolet

Hi Steph,

Murphy and Benji look lovely  Best wishes on helping Murphy's confidence  

K&M I think you thread now has a life of it's own , possibly a postcode of it's own. It'll soon be needing appendices and an index :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Hi Steph,
> 
> Murphy and Benji look lovely  Best wishes on helping Murphy's confidence
> 
> K&M I think you thread now has a life of it's own , possibly a postcode of it's own. It'll soon be needing appendices and an index :lol:


It has grown hasn't it.
I think you'll start charging consultation fees at this rate with all the advice you give us 

I hope Dogless has gone off for a long peaceful walk.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> It has grown hasn't it.
> I think you'll start charging consultation fees at this rate with all the advice you give us
> 
> I hope Dogless has gone off for a long peaceful walk.


:lol: I just point out other peoples wisdom or share things i've tried and found successful, nothing special i'm just happy if it's helpful.


----------



## moonviolet

Shamelessly adding a couple pics from this morning because I'm really proud of how Tink is coping with the 'first week of the hols invasion'. We did avoid the very busiest area down by the canal and the campsite. We'll work toward that when the novelty has worn off a bit .

We did bump into a couple of doggie friends who Tink delighted charging through the puddles with. I sowed a few more dog walking manners seeds.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Tink and mv - keep spreading the word. Gorgeous photos too .



kat&molly said:


> 26 stops again this morning :crazy:[i love this smiley]
> 
> If anyone has any ideas to stop this competition of trying to be in front between Moll and Scruff- I'd love to hear them. It doesn't seem to involve Evie, shes like Dolly Daydream.


I have :idea:. Pick them up - one under each arm :crazy:.



kat&molly said:


> It has grown hasn't it.
> I think you'll start charging consultation fees at this rate with all the advice you give us
> 
> I hope Dogless has gone off for a long peaceful walk.


Yep; as seen from my photo thread - hours and hours pottering and seeing not a soul. Bliss . Not done second one of the day as he's still lazing about so will go for a short leg stretch later if he needs one (hoping kids indoors by then!!).


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely pics of Tink MV- she does like posing on logs doesn't she.
Well done for more 'spreading the word'- I can just see you having a door to door campaign soon:lol:

Glad you glad a good day today:thumbup1:
I did think about picking them up -I think we'd get there quicker.:yesnod:
But there was the little problem of being an arm short


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Lovely pics of Tink MV- she does like posing on logs doesn't she.
> Well done for more 'spreading the word'- I can just see you having a door to door campaign soon:lol:
> 
> Glad you glad a good day today:thumbup1:
> I did think about picking them up -I think we'd get there quicker.:yesnod:
> But there was the little problem of being an arm short


Backpack for one of them or pram with them all in then.....just play the mad dog lady to the max :crazy:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Backpack for one of them or pram with them all in then.....just play the mad dog lady to the max :crazy:.


Your day out has done you good- you're having some brilliant ideas tonight-I like the pram one best , I'll just have to pile a load of house bricks on top to keep the buggers in


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Your day out has done you good- you're having some brilliant ideas tonight-I like the pram one best , I'll just have to pile a load of house bricks on top to keep the buggers in


It has; my anxiety levels have gone down (touch wood!) as have the BW's . Just about hanging onto what's left of my sanity by my finger nails :crazy:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> It has; my anxiety levels have gone down (touch wood!) as have the BW's . Just about hanging onto what's left of my sanity by my finger nails :crazy:.


You need to take lots more days like today.
Avoiding the horrible kids may be the best thing to do for now.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> You need to take lots more days like today.
> Avoiding the horrible kids may be the best thing to do for now.


I know; 'our' forest is a 50 minute drive, but worth it!!


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Lovely pics of Tink MV- she does like posing on logs doesn't she.
> Well done for more 'spreading the word'- I can just see you having a door to door campaign soon:lol:


She loves to run along a log or stand on a stump just another of her many quirks :lol:
Think i'll go for a poster campaign first 
I can't stop picturing your dogs in a pram now I did it with my JRT but i was only 10 

Dogless, glad 'your' forest is beginning to work it's restorative magic on both you and the BW  definitely worth the drive.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> She loves to run along a log or stand on a stump just another of her many quirks :lol:
> Think i'll go for a poster campaign first
> 
> Dogless, glad 'your' forest is beginning to work it's restorative magic on both you and the BW  definitely worth the drive.


There are a few closer but they're fairly busy....but......

This is my forest. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My forest is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My forest, without me, is useless. Without my forest, I am useless. 
My forest is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its trees, its paths, its bogs and its streams............

^^^^^ Not quite the same impact as the original. Hooah :crazy:.


----------



## Dogless

Had a good leg stretch just now; it's raining again so not many people out. There were three kids out playing on another street and Kilo didn't show any interest which is promising . Now I'm having cuddles with my best boy :001_wub:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Had a good leg stretch just now; it's raining again so not many people out. There were three kids out playing on another street and Kilo didn't show any interest which is promising . Now I'm having cuddles with my best boy :001_wub:.


Its good that it didn't upset him, good boy.

Its been ridiculously hot here today. My girls haven't had a lot, still hot now.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Had a good leg stretch just now; it's raining again so not many people out. There were three kids out playing on another street and Kilo didn't show any interest which is promising . Now I'm having cuddles with my best boy :001_wub:.


Awww nothing quite like you done good cuddles. 

We've just played with a box... today i brought out a big strong storage box and madame decided it was her plinth, she jumped onto and offered a sit, stand, both paws and finally she managed to offer a down, with her butt hanging off one side and her head and paws off the other :lol: :lol: :lol: All to distract her from the wee one's incessant barking across the lane, she gets a gold star for this one.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Awww nothing quite like you done good cuddles.
> 
> We've just played with a box... today i brought out a big strong storage box and madame decided it was her plinth, she jumped onto and offered a sit, stand, both paws and finally she managed to offer a down, with her butt hanging off one side and her head and paws off the other :lol: :lol: :lol: All to distract her from the wee one's incessant barking across the lane, she gets a gold star for this one.


Gold Star for Madam Tink-think we need some pics of her doing her stuff
Is it tonight you have training MV? Who's got the reins-you or OH?

I'm going to email Big Evie about training tomorrow-its far too hot to be standing out in full sun at these temperatures.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Gold Star for Madam Tink-think we need some pics of her doing her stuff
> Is it tonight you have training MV? Who's got the reins-you or OH?
> 
> I'm going to email Big Evie about training tomorrow-its far too hot to be standing out in full sun at these temperatures.


I'll get the big box out and take some later. :lol:

It is tonight not until 8.30, so hopefully it will have cooled off a bit. I'm not sure who's going to be handling possibly me as, OH spends lots of time in air conditioned offices and cars and wilts in the heat, poor flower


----------



## kat&molly

Ah, but you're so thoughtful to be stepping in to the breaches like that.:smilewinkgrin:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Ah, but you're so thoughtful to be stepping in to the breaches like that.:smilewinkgrin:


well the closest i get to air conditioning in the house it opening the firdge for a cold drink, although I have to say I'm kind of wishing I didn't need to bake a sour dough loaf today.


----------



## ballybee

Well with Tummel we are still having issues with his lunging at other dogs when onlead, he's actually started being reactive but if he has his headcollar on then he's really good so at least I can use that for now. As always with Tummel recall training is still ongoing( he does do it but it's in his own time) and that's about it!!!

Dans training is going well, right now I'm working on him standing for me(we might be showing him) and just keeping up all his other training


----------



## moonviolet

ballybee said:


> Well with Tummel we are still having issues with his lunging at other dogs when onlead, he's actually started being reactive but if he has his headcollar on then he's really good so at least I can use that for now. As always with Tummel recall training is still ongoing( he does do it but it's in his own time) and that's about it!!!
> 
> Dans training is going well, right now I'm working on him standing for me(we might be showing him) and just keeping up all his other training


Sounds like Dan is coming along lovely. Have you done any showing before? All sounds very exciting.

Just wondering with Tum is he reacting to the other dog or getting frustrated by not being able to go and interact? Sounds like the headcollar is a great tool for managing it while you work on it.


----------



## ballybee

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like Dan is coming along lovely. Have you done any showing before? All sounds very exciting.
> 
> Just wondering with Tum is he reacting to the other dog or getting frustrated by not being able to go and interact? Sounds like the headcollar is a great tool for managing it while you work on it.


Lol no never shown but when we picked up Dan the breeder said he was the one boy she would have kept for show 

I'm not sure why he's getting reactive but I think it might be out of fear after being attacked by a larger dog a few months back and he was onlead...I think he's lunging then panicking if the other dog tells him off and then reacting accordingly  but lime I said the dogmatic has helped massively and we can walk past small dogs without too much fuss without it.


----------



## moonviolet

ballybee said:


> Lol no never shown but when we picked up Dan the breeder said he was the one boy she would have kept for show
> 
> I'm not sure why he's getting reactive but I think it might be out of fear after being attacked by a larger dog a few months back and he was onlead...I think he's lunging then panicking if the other dog tells him off and then reacting accordingly  but lime I said the dogmatic has helped massively and we can walk past small dogs without too much fuss without it.


I don't have any answers but I read loads of doggie things and often find myself saying oooohhh so and so might find this helpful.  As i have shared until everyone is quite possibly bored to death it's fear of other dogs i have and do work on with Tink. I just try to make every single experience positive, even when i see her catch sight of another dog on the horizon, she gets a "well spotted" and back to me for praise and a treat. 

Sounds like you and Dan will be embarking on a lovely new experience together


----------



## L/C

Hey Ballybee - it sounds like he's scared rather then a frustrated greeter but I would recommend trying BAT by Grisha Stewart.

The basic premise it that you reward him by moving away from the other dog rather then with treats so that the behaviour becomes self rewarding. If you can line up a stooge dog it would be easier but you can do it with other dogs that you spot in the park/out on walks.

Walk him towards the dog and then as you notice him start to tense up (the easiest sign to spot is his mouth closing and becoming tense) then turn around and walk away. I do it with a cheery - "This way!". 

If there's no way to avoid the other dog (haven't seen them in time, they've popped out from behind a bush) I get Ely to sit and watch me (it's his pair of default behaviours) and I click and treat for a relaxed mouth. I also click and treat for maintaining his focus on me - basically when a dog goes past he gets rapid reinforcement for everything he does that is relaxed and not focused on the other dog. 

Rewarding relaxed body language has meant that he's displaying it more - we've only been doing this for just over 2 weeks (after the disastrous encounter with Hamish) and I started in the house and garden. Then progressed to quiet places on walks, I would do a bit of T Touch ear and jaw work and then click and treat for relaxing. He's come on in leaps and bounds. We haven't had so much as a grumble at another dog since and I've figured out that he's only defensive around male dogs his size or bigger. We were assaulted by a barking bichon and OES today but as they were both female he didn't turn an ear.


----------



## kat&molly

From your article and clip yesterday Moonviolet, I watched the handler using treats and luring the dog right back then treatingwhen the dog was in the right position. I tried it this morning[was a bit awkward] with Moll and Scruff on the same side- Moll doesn't normally take treats outside but she took a few so that was good. Scruff was more responsive and when she was Moll walked better- did get a bit bored the nearer we got. Its really hard to keep focus all the way there as I'm sure 1 is too busy worrying about how far in front the other is.
I shall persevere and see how it goes. We could practice more in the garden but its too bloomin hot.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C Sounds like the BAT and TTouch combo is really working for Ely 



kat&molly said:


> From your article and clip yesterday Moonviolet, I watched the handler using treats and luring the dog right back then treatingwhen the dog was in the right position. I tried it this morning[was a bit awkward] with Moll and Scruff on the same side- Moll doesn't normally take treats outside but she took a few so that was good. Scruff was more responsive and when she was Moll walked better- did get a bit bored the nearer we got. Its really hard to keep focus all the way there as I'm sure 1 is too busy worrying about how far in front the other is.
> I shall persevere and see how it goes. We could practice more in the garden but its too bloomin hot.


I agree it's too hot, i'm goign to go clean windows rather than put the oven on, but i need to make sardine cake for tonight so it's going to be unavoidable and i've dough that needs baking too.

Hope with some practise it helps it's worth a try 

Lovely walk in the woods, was surprisingly quiet.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> L/C Sounds like the BAT and TTouch combo is really working for Ely
> 
> I agree it's too hot, i'm goign to go clean windows rather than put the oven on, but i need to make sardine cake for tonight so it's going to be unavoidable and i've dough that needs baking too.
> 
> Hope with some practise it helps it's worth a try
> 
> Lovely walk in the woods, was surprisingly quiet.


Cleaning windows and Ovens are dirty words.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Cleaning windows and Ovens are dirty words.


Indeed, both need a clean  i either get a 'real' job and pay someone to do these things or do them myself... it's a small price to pay not to be on public transport on days like this.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Hey Ballybee - it sounds like he's scared rather then a frustrated greeter but I would recommend trying BAT by Grisha Stewart.
> 
> The basic premise it that you reward him by moving away from the other dog rather then with treats so that the behaviour becomes self rewarding. If you can line up a stooge dog it would be easier but you can do it with other dogs that you spot in the park/out on walks.
> 
> *Walk him towards the dog and then as you notice him start to tense up (the easiest sign to spot is his mouth closing and becoming tense) then turn around and walk away. I do it with a cheery - "This way!".
> 
> If there's no way to avoid the other dog (haven't seen them in time, they've popped out from behind a bush) I get Ely to sit and watch me (it's his pair of default behaviours) and I click and treat for a relaxed mouth. I also click and treat for maintaining his focus on me - basically when a dog goes past he gets rapid reinforcement for everything he does that is relaxed and not focused on the other dog. *
> 
> Rewarding relaxed body language has meant that he's displaying it more - we've only been doing this for just over 2 weeks (after the disastrous encounter with Hamish) and I started in the house and garden. Then progressed to quiet places on walks, I would do a bit of T Touch ear and jaw work and then click and treat for relaxing. He's come on in leaps and bounds. We haven't had so much as a grumble at another dog since and I've figured out that he's only defensive around male dogs his size or bigger. We were assaulted by a barking bichon and OES today but as they were both female he didn't turn an ear.


I do this; it is a good strategy I think!

Had a lovely walk this morning - went to the park early. Lots of dogs as it wasn't raining for once but all onlead as they are meant to be there or off and walking to heel bar one and only a few kids. I just kept my distance from everyone apart from the people we know 'well' and let Kilo just potter. The 'bar one' was a choc lab that was barrelling in our direction but 'luckily' (for me anyway) a lad came past on a skateboard and the lab diverted to chasing that . I don't know if the Nupafeed is working already or I want it to be, but Kilo didn't tense or tongue flick with anxiety when the lab was on the way over which is brilliant. He also sisn't bat an eyelid at any kids, so it actually does seem specific to the little gits here. I hope so. He did lie down for a springer that was dragging the kids holding it over but the adult with them got them all under control so we went on our way. It was very nice.


----------



## kat&molly

That sounds it went really well. Poor scateboarder though.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> That sounds it went really well. Poor scateboarder though.


I felt awful for being relieved when the dog switched targets - but was ....owner didn't even call 'sorry' to the poor lad, just wandered along so I am guessing it was fairly normal .


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> L/C Sounds like the BAT and TTouch combo is really working for Ely
> 
> I agree it's too hot, i'm goign to go clean windows rather than put the oven on, but i need to make sardine cake for tonight so it's going to be unavoidable and i've dough that needs baking too.
> 
> Hope with some practise it helps it's worth a try
> 
> Lovely walk in the woods, was surprisingly quiet.


It really, really is. I've been trying to keep his stress levels down - so playing ball every third day and socialising with the dog group every other day and when we do it's walking together rather then standing around while the dogs mill about in a big group. He seems much calmer.

I've also been working on his default behaviours (thank you Control Unleashed!) so that whenever he starts to feel stressed he gives me a sit and makes eye contact.

Here is him doing it when he had spotted a dog that I hadn't seen approaching us:












moonviolet said:


> Indeed, both need a clean  i either get a 'real' job and pay someone to do these things or do them myself... it's a small price to pay not to be on public transport on days like this.


I've been off work since Monday and have to back tomorrow - dreading the commute.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> It really , really is. I've been trying to keep his stress levels down - so playing ball every third day and socialising with the dog group every other day and when we do it's walking together rather then standing around while the dogs mill about in a big group. He seems much calmer.
> 
> I've also been working on his default behaviours (thank you Control Unleashed!) so that whenever he starts to feel stressed he gives me a sit and makes eye contact.
> 
> Here is him doing it when he had spotted a dog that I hadn't seen approaching us:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I've been off work since Monday and have to back tomorrow - dreading the commute.


Tink comes to me sits looks up at me and lifts a paw, thats my signal she's uncomfortable wants her lead on so the hag lady (me) can get her out of there/protect her. 

I really dont' envy you and the central line used to be the worst. I do remmber it being 45degrees on bethnal green tube platform regularly in summer, I can't imagine it's got much better. So i'm wishing you cool breezes and empty tubes and buses.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- looks like thats doing some good with Ely. Good luck with the commuting.


Now a WARNING.
white wine is bad for your health I was just packing shopping away at the supermarket when a bottle exploded-literally on the conveyor belt Luckily I was turned away putting stuff in bags else I dont think I'd be sat here, the cashier wasn't hurt either.
This is because of the heat The car was sooo hot coming home it felt like I was carrying bombs!!!


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> L/C- looks like thats doing some good with Ely. Good luck with the commuting.
> 
> Now a WARNING.
> white wine is bad for your health I was just packing shopping away at the supermarket when a bottle exploded-literally on the conveyor belt Luckily I was turned away putting stuff in bags else I dont think I'd be sat here, the cashier wasn't hurt either.
> This is because of the heat The car was sooo hot coming home it felt like I was carrying bombs!!!


 I will make sure that the wine out on the table atm does not stay in the bottle long enough to be dangerous. :001_tt2: Hang on - is rose safer?

Glad no one was injured!


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> I will make sure that the wine out on the table atm does not stay in the bottle long enough to be dangerous. :001_tt2: Hang on - is rose safer?
> 
> Glad no one was injured!


 I think it was because its a fizzy wine- I shall change to flat now. I think you should be safe:001_tt2: but its about 37 degrees here and I'd love a nice cold glass of wine and lemonade but I'm too scared to open the bottle:w00t:


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> I think it was because its a fizzy wine- I shall change to flat now. I think you should be safe:001_tt2: but its about 37 degrees here and I'd love a nice cold glass of wine and lemonade but I'm too scared to open the bottle:w00t:


I'm having one in your honour...


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> I'm having one in your honour...


Thanks, your all heart.:lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Phew, I done it.

I am such a brave cookie.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Phew, I done it.
> 
> I am such a brave cookie.


No injuries or limbs lost? You are a credit to all of us daytime drinkers everywhere!


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> No injuries or limbs lost? You are a credit to all of us daytime drinkers everywhere!


I'm an hour in front-so its early evening for me.

Plus theres an old song called 'Its 5 o'clock somewhere'. I use that excuse if I need to!!!


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> I'm an hour in front-so its early evening for me.
> 
> Plus theres an old song called 'Its 5 o'clock somewhere'. I use that excuse if I need to!!!


If anyone asks why I'm having wine I shall just say - "I'm having a drink with my good friend kat&molly, it's not my fault if she's in France and therefore an hour ahead!"

We have a down in the kitchen and the garden. Next stop a verbal command for it!


----------



## moonviolet

Right who's pouring? I deserve one, inside of downstairs windows all clean now. Tink took her role as supervisor pretty lightly really and slept on the job. :lol:


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Right who's pouring? I deserve one, inside of downstairs windows all clean now. Tink took her role as supervisor pretty lightly really and slept on the job. :lol:


Well the rose's done (there was only one glass left) but there's a bottle of white in the fridge...

What? It's my day off and I'm not off out to the cinema till 7...


----------



## Dogless

Had a successful little potter this afternoon to the fields where we met our friend and their dog - the dogs pretty much ignore each other bar the odd sniff but it was still nice to have a little company because we rarely do.

So....possibility of a pup in late September / early October....I have forwarded the breeder's message about it to hubby so we can discuss later (won't see him for a few days). Question is, is Kilo 'good' enough? Not sure if it will be better to neuter as we are after a boy (will discuss that with breeder). Loads swirling round in my head but am almost worried now that it has actually come fairly close. Thoughts? (Won't be offended by anything as long as it's polite!!!).


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Had a successful little potter this afternoon to the fields where we met our friend and their dog - the dogs pretty much ignore each other bar the odd sniff but it was still nice to have a little company because we rarely do.
> 
> So....possibility of a pup in late September / early October....I have forwarded the breeder's message about it to hubby so we can discuss later (won't see him for a few days). Question is, is Kilo 'good' enough? Not sure if it will be better to neuter as we are after a boy (will discuss that with breeder). Loads swirling round in my head but am almost worried now that it has actually come fairly close. Thoughts? (Won't be offended by anything as long as it's polite!!!).


About the is Kilo good enough. Not the best person to ask as we specifically got a second dog to help Ely out with some of issues (not the best idea I know but it was that or take him back ) but I think Kilo does sound good enough. Would it help to think of what behaviours you would be most worried about pup picking up and then seeing how bad they really are? I have to say our two don't seem to have taught each other any behaviours but I don't know how impressionable a pup would be.

Don't know about neutering - is it specifically the hormone spike you're worried about? Is there anyone on here that has multiple intact males together that you could ask?


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> About the is Kilo good enough. Not the best person to ask as we specifically got a second dog to help Ely out with some of issues (not the best idea I know but it was that or take him back ) but I think Kilo does sound good enough. Would it help to think of what behaviours you would be most worried about pup picking up and then seeing how bad they really are? I have to say our two don't seem to have taught each other any behaviours but I don't know how impressionable a pup would be.
> 
> Don't know about neutering - is it specifically the hormone spike you're worried about? Is there anyone on here that has multiple intact males together that you could ask?


Bar the current 'blip' with kids and his fear of labs then he is a very good boy - I realise that when I read back through this thread; just having a bad week so doubting myself!!

I will discuss neutering with the breeder as she has a few entire males and knows the breed inside out. It is the hormone spike really as lots of dogs currently react badly to Kilo (although it seems to be wearing off) for no other reason than that he is entire, that I can see and I do watch his body language etc like a hawk as he can start to posture when feeling threatened. I was just wondering about the dynamic when the new dog gets to around 14 months or so which is when it became noticeable with Kilo.

Do you mind me asking what issues of Ely's were helped? I am guessing it was his confidence as he was terrified to go out wasn't he?


----------



## L/C

I think you've answered your own question about whether or not he is good enough.  And the breeder is the best person to tell you - she will know her lines and potential issues and have experience of managing multi-dog, entire households.

It was his confidence. He got better for a while and then had a very bad encounter with a staff x and was set back massively. It had got to the point where we could barely walk him and as we lived in a first floor flat with no garden it wasn't a situation that could carry on. Gypsy (then called Angel ) was looking for a foster home while she recuperated and seemed perfect (pretty bombproof and a bit bossy) so we offered. It made a difference almost immediately - he still had a very small comfort zone but he would leave the house during the day. Gradually with a lot of work it expanded to the park, Hampstead Heath, Highgate woods etc. and eventually to going for walks around the block with only me or my OH with him (so not both of us everytime). It was so stressful that it nearly split us up and I spent a lot of time in tears.

Looking back on it I'm not sure how we coped for so long and realistically the rescue probably should have taken him back when we first called for help about the issue. He's not a dog suited for central London living - the best thing we've ever done for him is move here. He spent this morning with just me in a park a half hour walk away from our house running through the woods and splashing through ponds.

So, not the most responsible decision (you should only get a dog for you and not your dog etc.) but I don't know who would have taken on a 5 year old greyhound with fear issues and an auto-immune condition otherwise and he had already been in kennels for nearly 4 months when we took him. I feel guilty about him living with us in Holloway all the time and for all the bad advice I took at first (flooding him, dragging him to make him walk) and it makes me really sad to think about how scared he must have been. 

Anyway - enough about me. I think that you and Kilo need to be ready for a pup - he seems to be but do you feel confident enough for a new dog in a few months time?


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> I think you've answered your own question about whether or not he is good enough.  And the breeder is the best person to tell you - she will know her lines and potential issues and have experience of managing multi-dog, entire households.
> 
> It was his confidence. He got better for a while and then had a very bad encounter with a staff x and was set back massively. It had got to the point where we could barely walk him and as we lived in a first floor flat with no garden it wasn't a situation that could carry on. Gypsy (then called Angel ) was looking for a foster home while she recuperated and seemed perfect (pretty bombproof and a bit bossy) so we offered. It made a difference almost immediately - he still had a very small comfort zone but he would leave the house during the day. Gradually with a lot of work it expanded to the park, Hampstead Heath, Highgate woods etc. and eventually to going for walks around the block with only me or my OH with him (so not both of us everytime). It was so stressful that it nearly split us up and I spent a lot of time in tears.
> 
> Looking back on it I'm not sure how we coped for so long and realistically the rescue probably should have taken him back when we first called for help about the issue. He's not a dog suited for central London living - the best thing we've ever done for him is move here. He spent this morning with just me in a park a half hour walk away from our house running through the woods and splashing through ponds.
> 
> So, not the most responsible decision (you should only get a dog for you and not your dog etc.) but I don't know who would have taken on a 5 year old greyhound with fear issues and an auto-immune condition otherwise and he had already been in kennels for nearly 4 months when we took him. I feel guilty about him living with us in Holloway all the time and for all the bad advice I took at first (flooding him, dragging him to make him walk) and it makes me really sad to think about how scared he must have been.
> 
> Anyway - enough about me. I think that you and Kilo need to be ready for a pup - he seems to be but do you feel confident enough for a new dog in a few months time?


I did; right up until this week - have been discussing it with OH and contacted Kilo's breeder at the beginning of this year to go onto her waiting list so most definitely not a rushed decision. Really not sure what is up with me this week; having some sort of crisis :crazy:.

Thanks for telling me about Ely and Angel....glad you changed her name; seems like tempting fate otherwise .


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I did; right up until this week - have been discussing it with OH and contacted Kilo's breeder at the beginning of this year to go onto her waiting list so most definitely not a rushed decision. Really not sure what is up with me this week; having some sort of crisis :crazy:.
> 
> Thanks for telling me about Ely and Angel....glad you changed her name; seems like tempting fate otherwise .


Maybe just give it a bit then? Don't stress yourself about it and make a decision when you're feeling a bit more centred? It's been a bit of a stressful week for you. I'm sure you won't but don't go ahead with it if you aren't 100 per cent sure about it. OH was never convinced about a second dog and it took him a long time to bond to Gypsy - especially as he was quite difficult when we first got her. Even now I think he likes Ely more (he's more cuddly and demonstrative) and Gypsy is definitely my girl.

We had to change her name - she is certainly no angel!


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Maybe just give it a bit then? Don't stress yourself about it and make a decision when you're feeling a bit more centred? It's been a bit of a stressful week for you. I'm sure you won't but don't go ahead with it if you aren't 100 per cent sure about it. OH was never convinced about a second dog and it took him a long time to bond to Gypsy - especially as he was quite difficult when we first got her. Even now I think he likes Ely more (he's more cuddly and demonstrative) and Gypsy is definitely my girl.
> 
> We had to change her name - she is certainly no angel!


I had made a definite decision (joint with OH) and was absolutely solid on it - I would never add a dog if not certain. That is why I don't understand this feeling of almost panic....may be the push I need to sort my mind out once and for all rather than lurching from high to low and everything in between all the time. Flamin exhausting!! hmy:.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I had made a definite decision (joint with OH) and was absolutely solid on it - I would never add a dog if not certain. That is why I don't understand this feeling of almost panic....may be the push I need to sort my mind out once and for all rather than lurching from high to low and everything in between all the time. Flamin exhausting!! hmy:.


Just take the time you need - don't be rushed into anything. If you need to talk to your GP then I would go and have a chat. I think everyone has that "What have I done!" after they bring pup/new dog home though. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Just take the time you need - don't be rushed into anything. If you need to talk to your GP then I would go and have a chat. I think everyone has that "What have I done!" after they bring pup/new dog home though. :lol:


The breeder is great - no pressure. I am certain it's right when I look back at how we came to the decision. I think that this kids tormenting us has just really knocked my confidence but the last 2 days have demonstrated that it isn't all kids, so we have less of an issue than I thought. I think because I think too much  that I am having that 'what have I done?' . Felt the same before collecting Kilo too - just in case I didn't do right by him!

ETA thanks for listening to my ramblings....good job you have wine!!


----------



## moonviolet

I have to agree with everything L/C has said. 

As you know I've found myself sitting on the second dog fence so long i've got splintered. So i think a bit of a "can i do this?" panic would be perfectly normal when you name is on the list. I know I had an " Am I doing the right thing?" panic before we picked you Tinker. Conscientious people do tend to worry  and yup L/C i definitely had the puppy blues 

Try out the decisions in your head see how you feel. It's not a now or never thing. I recently postponed a minor surgery because I just wasn't in a good mental place for it. I'll reschedule when i'm ready.


----------



## Catz1

Wow this thread moves fast 

I'm glad everyone is having some sort of success and Dogless how exciting about your new puppy 

I've had a break through with Rio this week. 
I was telling the truth when I said there was no major change in her routine but I didn't factor in all the family stuff that has been going on with my OH's father.

I guess I didn't think it would effect her as shes never around when things go wrong but obviously the stress myself and my OH are feeling in spilling over into our home life and she is feeling it. 

We were working on focus this week but she was exhibiting some avoidance behaviour (shifting eyes, sniffing, scratching) so I've dropped that am instead working on touch. 

This is going pretty well and she is showing a lot more confidence in touching my palm rather then looking into my eyes. 

I've been thinking about changing the way I train this week too but I'm not sure if it will confuse her. 

Basically I feel like there is a hint of frustration in my voice lately no matter how hard I try to control it and it is tainting my commands so maybe a whistle will work better? 

I dunno if that's a stupid idea but I want to get that enthusiasm back into our training session and she has no bad association with a whistle. 

Anyone use a whistle for things like recall? Is it hard to pick up? 

Would changing to the whistle be overly confusing for a 2 year old?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I have to agree with everything L/C has said.
> 
> As you know I've found myself sitting on the second dog fence so long i've got splintered. So i think a bit of a "can i do this?" panic would be perfectly normal when you name is on the list. I know I had an " Am I doing the right thing?" panic before we picked you Tinker. Conscientious people do tend to worry  and yup L/C i definitely had the puppy blues
> 
> Try out the decisions in your head see how you feel. It's not a now or never thing. I recently postponed a minor surgery because I just wasn't in a good mental place for it. I'll reschedule when i'm ready.


You are right - way too conscientious at times . OH and I have tried out the decisions a million times and it has always felt right. I think it's a rush of panic and excitement - not sure why the panic really....apart from that I would never lightly give a dog up so once I have a second pup I am fully committed.


----------



## Dogless

Catz1 said:


> Wow this thread moves fast
> 
> I'm glad everyone is having some sort of success and Dogless how exciting about your new puppy
> 
> I've had a break through with Rio this week.
> I was telling the truth when I said there was no major change in her routine but I didn't factor in all the family stuff that has been going on with my OH's father.
> 
> I guess I didn't think it would effect her as shes never around when things go wrong but obviously the stress myself and my OH are feeling in spilling over into our home life and she is feeling it.
> 
> We were working on focus this week but she was exhibiting some avoidance behaviour (shifting eyes, sniffing, scratching) so I've dropped that am instead working on touch.
> 
> This is going pretty well and she is showing a lot more confidence in touching my palm rather then looking into my eyes.
> 
> I've been thinking about changing the way I train this week too but I'm not sure if it will confuse her.
> 
> Basically I feel like there is a hint of frustration in my voice lately no matter how hard I try to control it and it is tainting my commands so maybe a whistle will work better?
> 
> I dunno if that's a stupid idea but I want to get that enthusiasm back into our training session and she has no bad association with a whistle.
> 
> Anyone use a whistle for things like recall? Is it hard to pick up?
> 
> Would changing to the whistle be overly confusing for a 2 year old?


I added a whistle recall after I was ill at chrimbo - totally lost my voice and realised that I wouldn't be able to recall Kilo so stuck to a secure field . It was pretty easy - I blew it just before placing his meals down, randomly around the house and garden and treated, then progressed to outside and slowly built it up - waiting until he was on the way back or not distracted at first and increasing the criteria slowly.


----------



## L/C

I'm trying to train a whistle recall atm but it's slow going as Ely is scared of it. So at the moment we are blowing it through a towel and using much the same technique as Dogless did.


----------



## Catz1

Do you use a certain type of whistle or will any sort do?


----------



## Dogless

Catz1 said:


> Do you use a certain type of whistle or will any sort do?


I believe that any sort will do - I have an ACME but can't remember which pitch it is (and whistle is in the car - will look next time I go out. Well, if I don't forget ).


----------



## L/C

I have a clix 2 tone dog whistle (I think it's clix) I tried a regular sports one but it was very shrill and even blown through the towel was too much for Ely. The dog one seems a softer pitch.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, what a dilemma. I agree with the others,and you've had a bad week because of the kids- think I'd be pretty stressed myself. The other problem you have with Labs, isn't yours or Kilo's fault either.
I know you'll do the right thing, you're sensible- not like me with too many dogs:001_tt2:
I have only got an extra 2 because of fostering really.If I'm honest I never actually wanted to keep Scruff- but she had a lot of issues and was lined up to be rehomed with 3 kids under 5 years old  I thought she'd been through enough so I kept her. I love her and she's not going anywhere-just sometimes I find her a bit too full on. 

Catz1- I got my whistle in a hunting shop. Dont know what sort.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless, what a dilemma. I agree with the others,and you've had a bad week because of the kids- think I'd be pretty stressed myself. The other problem you have with Labs, isn't yours or Kilo's fault either.
> I know you'll do the right thing, you're sensible- not like me with too many dogs:001_tt2:
> I have only got an extra 2 because of fostering really.If I'm honest I never actually wanted to keep Scruff- but she had a lot of issues and was lined up to be rehomed with 3 kids under 5 years old  I thought she'd been through enough so I kept her. I love her and she's not going anywhere-just sometimes I find her a bit too full on.
> 
> Catz1- I got my whistle in a hunting shop. Dont know what sort.


Been going through my emails, lists, conversations with OH, threads on here and realised that it isn't a dilemma really; just having a 'moment'. Sorry everyone. Prone to drama this week .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Been going through my emails, lists, conversations with OH, threads on here and realised that it isn't a dilemma really; just having a 'moment'. Sorry everyone. Prone to drama this week .


We're all allowed the occasional moment, just don't make a habit of it  At least yours didn't cause someone to unravel before your eyes :blushing:

Ok things not going to plan tonight, took madam out for a quick leg stretch before class got to the car and a cat ran out from under it a few indignant "uffs" and she was distracted from it scarpering at speed. Took her out she found a dried up puddle with "beauty mud", she is thigh high in black mud. i'll get off what i can before cutting treats and OH has just called and is 'going slow' on the M1 :lol: and did i remember it's assessment week :lol: :lol: :lol: wish me luck


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> We're all allowed the occasional moment, just don't make a habit of it  At least yours didn't cause someone to unravel before your eyes :blushing:
> 
> Ok things not going to plan tonight, took madam out for a quick leg stretch before class got to the car and a cat ran out from under it a few indignant "uffs" and she was distracted from it scarpering at speed. Took her out she found a dried up puddle with "beauty mud", she is thigh high in black mud. i'll get off what i can before cutting treats and OH has just called and is 'going slow' on the M1 :lol: and did i remember it's assessment week :lol: :lol: :lol: wish me luck


I won't . I unravelled long, long ago .

Good luck! Maybe Tink has coated herself in beauty mud to impress at class :idea:.


----------



## kat&molly

Tink just wants to look pretty for class. Good Luck.


----------



## moonviolet

We passed  
we did:
Left and right sendaways to target and down
Find and retrieve/indicate scentcloth.
Body awareness with podium: front paws on turning to remain 'in front' and sendaway back paws onto podium 
Send to mat
Recall from mat
Offlead heelwork slalom through other handlers
Remain on mat while other dogs are recalled and do their heelwork slalom.

Think that was it  and there's a new class we can get involved with if we like a 'games' class i'm not sure what it entails yet but what the hell :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Well done  - of _course_ Tink and you passed; Tink is the star pupil on this thread by a long mile - a platinum star dog :thumbup: .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Well done  - of _course_ Tink and you passed; Tink is the star pupil on this thread by a long mile - a platinum star dog :thumbup: .


She absolutley is- I never doubted that she wouldn't pass.well done young lady, what a good girl you are.

Evie thinks you're a bit daft being soo good though-she said its more fun being naughty and shes threatening to send some 'virtual naughty vibes.'hmy:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Well done  - of _course_ Tink and you passed; Tink is the star pupil on this thread by a long mile - a platinum star dog :thumbup: .





kat&molly said:


> She absolutley is- I never doubted that she wouldn't pass.well done young lady, what a good girl you are.
> 
> Evie thinks you're a bit daft being soo good though-she said its more fun being naughty and shes threatening to send some 'virtual naughty vibes.'hmy:


She was hard work last night, probably the heat and hyped from from the cat incident. Keeping her focus was a real challenge.

I forgot to mention she managed recall from cadets who were whistling her over, on her leg stretch last night.

_Dear Evie

I know I'm letting the side down, but it's my tummy you see. I lovez to eat, there is nothing I lovez morez than eating and Evil Mum knows this, uses it her advantage.

Love Tinker _


----------



## kat&molly

Miss Goody two shoes Tinks,
Zis is your downfall the foody fing. My mum has no secret weapons she can use on me- I know this and so does she.I have her just where I need her, she calls me an 'obstinate little sod' but shes always laughing when she says it so maybe I is good really.



We are off training, Big Evie said it wouldn't be a problem but I'm not staying if I think its too hot. Weather is meant to break tomorrow- I cant wait.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Miss Goody two shoes Tinks,
> Zis is your downfall the foody fing. My mum has no secret weapons she can use on me- I know this and so does she.I have her just where I need her, she calls me an 'obstinate little sod' but shes always laughing when she says it so maybe I is good really.
> 
> We are off training, Big Evie said it wouldn't be a problem but I'm not staying if I think its too hot. Weather is meant to break tomorrow- I cant wait.


Hope there is some shade and a lovely cooling breeze, and you have a great time.


----------



## moonviolet

Well i had an insight today.... At the end of our morning walk i was heading toward the only bin to deposit Tink poobag and there was a woman by it with her mini schnauzer. Letting them have a long slow through sniff. As i dont' let Tink approach strange dogs on I walked slowed waiting for them to move along......hung back waiting for them to move. I was beginning to get a little impatient and i just wanted to get close enough to sling the bag.... I think i may have sighed. she then suddenly looks and me and says "Is that a boy." pointing at Tink , I said no .... "Oh that's ok mines in season." hmy::mad2:

I replied with something to the effect " well there will be lost of boys going mad following her scent out there today."
her: " SHe's a breeders dog she knows what she's doing."

I lobbed the bag toward the bin ( miraculously getting it in ) and mumbled soemthign to the effect " This isnt' a place i'd bring an in season bitch" and walked off.

Hope no boys follow her scent back to the road  it's not even like it's a relatively safe car park 

Other than that lovely walk , didn't really see a soul, found a nice spot to sit in the shade with a wonderful cool breeze and watched dragonflies. I'm not sure Tink even noticed them.

This was at the busiest place I park. (I take the more anti social routes)


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Well i had an insight today.... At the end of our morning walk i was heading toward the only bin to deposit Tink poobag and there was a woman by it with her mini schnauzer. Letting them have a long slow through sniff. As i dont' let Tink approach strange dogs on I walked slowed waiting for them to move along......hung back waiting for them to move. I was beginning to get a little impatient and i just wanted to get close enough to sling the bag.... I think i may have sighed. she then suddenly looks and me and says "Is that a boy." pointing at Tink , I said no .... "Oh that's ok mines in season." hmy::mad2:
> 
> I replied with something to the effect " well there will be lost of boys going mad following her scent out there today."
> her: " SHe's a breeders dog she knows what she's doing."
> 
> I lobbed the bag toward the bin ( miraculously getting it in ) and mumbled soemthign to the effect " This isnt' a place i'd bring an in season bitch" and walked off.
> 
> Hope no boys follow her scent back to the road  it's not even like it's a relatively safe car park
> 
> Other than that lovely walk , didn't really see a soul, found a nice spot to sit in the shade with a wonderful cool breeze and watched dragonflies. I'm not sure Tink even noticed them.


Oh what a silly woman.  I hope it didn't cause any problems - Ely's been neutered for over 2 years now and he still gets _very_ excited (ahem! ) when he catches scent of a bitch in season. I'd be very annoyed if someone was that inconsiderate.

And well done to you and Tink - of course you would pass (heat and cat aside!).


----------



## kat&molly

Whata Muppet-It still shocks me that people take risks like that- and God help any owners in the area with males.


We've been training and had quite a bit of shade but didn't do too much. I had the others with me so Scruff had a mooch about and Evie got a 10 metre line.Feel a bit disapointed as we were doing the same thing again and its the sort of thing I already do here anyway on walks, and in the house Molly loves it but theres more to it than just Blind Retreives.
I am going to take the Rabbit fur dummy next week and Big Evie is going to try with Little Evie. It would be good if she could get her interested in scent work- I've never been able to.

We stopped and had a nice walk along the river again so the girls are all chilled out and cool now-I'm not though.

L/C- did you have trouble commuting today?


----------



## moonviolet

I really don't think the woman understood at all.  probably just thinks i'ma snotty cow, truth is i can be sometomes so she's not far wrong :lol: :lol:

Sorry to hear you are feeling a bit disappointed, it might not have been the best time to introduce soemthing new or more challenging with the heat, but still seems a shame to jsut do what you already do 

I'm quite excited to hear how little Evie wraps big Evie around her little paw.... I have visions of Little Evie hiding the dummy for Big Evie to find :lol: :lol:

You resisted the temptation to join them in the river? You shoudl have taken Rona's impressive lead and waded on in  You too would be cool now!


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I really don't think the woman understood at all.  probably just thinks i'ma snotty cow, truth is i can be sometomes so she's not far wrong :lol: :lol:
> 
> Sorry to hear you are feeling a bit disappointed, it might not have been the best time to introduce soemthing new or more challenging with the heat, but still seems a shame to jsut do what you already do
> 
> I'm quite excited to hear how little Evie wraps big Evie around her little paw.... I have visions of Little Evie hiding the dummy for Big Evie to find :lol: :lol:
> 
> You resisted the temptation to join them in the river? You shoudl have taken Rona's impressive lead and waded on in  You too would be cool now!


hmy: Your right, she'll either hide it from her or sit there looking at her as if to say you want it you find it[like she does with me:001_tt2:]

Every time for 3 weeks now its been the same

I did go in the river with them last night- my trainers are still wet


----------



## Dogless

What a silly woman that was mv :cursing:.

kat&molly, sorry you were disappointed with training - but at least the walk sounds nice.

We went to 'our' forest for half a day again. It was bliss; not a soul - we saw hares, little fox cubs, frogs, rabbits, squirrels.....lovely!! AND it was sunny .

After about 2 hours I heard a helicopter going round and round over the forest searching for something - it then flew low and circled over and over us for ages and I got a wave; I hadn't told hubby where we were going, but it turns out he was getting some training hours in, was heading North, had seen our car by the side of the road and decided to find us . It's both depressing and comforting that you can be found anywhere these days .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> What a silly woman that was mv :cursing:.
> 
> kat&molly, sorry you were disappointed with training - but at least the walk sounds nice.
> 
> We went to 'our' forest for half a day again. It was bliss; not a soul - we saw hares, little fox cubs, frogs, rabbits, squirrels.....lovely!! AND it was sunny .
> 
> After about 2 hours I heard a helicopter going round and round over the forest searching for something - it then flew low and circled over and over us for ages and I got a wave; I hadn't told hubby where we were going, but it turns out he was getting some training hours in, was heading North, had seen our car by the side of the road and decided to find us . It's both depressing and comforting that you can be found anywhere these days .


Wow thats brilliant- nowheres safe Is Kilo used to Copters? my girls would have freaked[think I would as well]


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> We passed
> we did:
> Left and right sendaways to target and down
> Find and retrieve/indicate scentcloth.
> Body awareness with podium: front paws on turning to remain 'in front' and sendaway back paws onto podium
> Send to mat
> Recall from mat
> Offlead heelwork slalom through other handlers
> Remain on mat while other dogs are recalled and do their heelwork slalom.
> 
> Think that was it  and there's a new class we can get involved with if we like a 'games' class i'm not sure what it entails yet but what the hell :lol:


Massive well done  I am hugely impressed 

Dogless, I think it's only natural to be having a bit of a puppy wobble after everything you've been through with the horrible kids  You work SO hard with Kilo, every day... I wish I had that level of commitment myself  don't ever doubt yourself, that you're not good enough for another one; you definitely are


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Wow thats brilliant- nowheres safe Is Kilo used to Copters? my girls would have freaked[think I would as well]


Yes; he's used to aircraft and firing ranges, from coming to work with me as a pup and they are always overhead here - constant background noise. He used to try and chase the odd one as they came in to land here as they go very, very low over the dog walking field but doesn't any more!


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Dogless Hubby finding you is lovely, but as much as i'd find it a sweet thing to do, if i'm totally honest I'd be noo leave me alone! I think that comes from growing up in the middle of nowhere, i do like quiet time away from humans. i'm quite possibly undersocialised  

Thank you Coffee. hand on heart she is only as good as she is because of the attack, i would never had carried on classes the way i have, if it hadn't been the only place I saw her totally relaxed and filled with boundless joy.

Now, of course, i'm totally addicted and signed up for another course, I can honestly say I'm over shoes if i could (afford and find) a class for every day of the week I would. I'm very lucky in finding a trainer who is totally on my wavelength and has a soft spot for the floppy eared one.

If i ever get the house with the enclosed cricket pitch and fenced tennis court I can see it becoming a lovely doggie place.  We can all dream


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh Dogless Hubby finding you is lovely, but as much as i'd find it a sweet thing to do, if i'm totally honest I'd be noo leave me alone! I think that comes from growing up in the middle of nowhere, i do like quiet time away from humans. i'm quite possibly undersocialised
> 
> Thank you Coffee. hand on heart she is only as good as she is because of the attack, i would never had carried on classes the way i have, if it hadn't been the only place I saw her totally relaxed and filled with boundless joy.
> 
> Now, of course, i'm totally addicted and signed up for another course, I can honestly say I'm over shoes if i could (afford and find) a class for every day of the week I would. I'm very lucky in finding a trainer who is totally on my wavelength and has a soft spot for the floppy eared one.
> 
> If i ever get the house with the enclosed cricket pitch and fenced tennis court I can see it becoming a lovely doggie place.  We can all dream


I grew up in the middle of nowhere too; think that's why I struggle here!!

I don't think he found me to be lovely TBH - think it was a good training opportunity hunting for someone. He's never tracked us down before so I'll let him off the shattering of our complete tranquility. Just this once . Shows how when you think you are completely hidden technology can hunt you out - we were down a small path at least an hour and a half's walk in from the road.

Kilo is snoring his head off now, he ran and ran and ran this morning . Hopefully won't need another walk until late tonight when the kids are inside!


----------



## L/C

Commute was fine thanks. I decided to get the overground rather then the tube even though it means I have to leave earlier, as it's air conditioned and outside! Had to go to Westminster at lunchtime though so still got my unpleasant sweatiness quota in!

Glad you had a good walk Dogless - impressive that your hubby managed to find you. I take it there's all sorts of technological wizardry involved?

It's all gone Olympic mad here in Shepherds Bush - the torch is passing through this afternoon and there's all sorts of exciting stuff going on in the shopping centres! Stiltwalkers, music, games and lots and lots of security at Westfield. There was an adorable sniffer dog there who I got to watch work and his handler answered loads of questions for me.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Commute was fine thanks. I decided to get the overground rather then the tube even though it means I have to leave earlier, as it's air conditioned and outside! Had to go to Westminster at lunchtime though so still got my unpleasant sweatiness quota in!
> 
> Glad you had a good walk Dogless - impressive that your hubby managed to find you. I take it there's all sorts of technological wizardry involved?
> 
> It's all gone Olympic mad here in Shepherds Bush - the torch is passing through this afternoon and there's all sorts of exciting stuff going on in the shopping centres! Stiltwalkers, music, games and lots and lots of security at Westfield. There was an adorable sniffer dog there who I got to watch work and his handler answered loads of questions for me.


Glad you survived the commute - I was thinking about you this morning!!

Yes; the helicopter is full of whizz bang technology .


----------



## moonviolet

Had a lovely walk this evening, 2 hours with Monty the gorgeous BC. It was still warm so headed to the canal for an intial paddle to cool the *dogs* before the rest of our walk. Notice the emphasis on the dogs, not quite how things panned out. :blushing: 

It's worth mentioning neither dogs are swimmers, just paddlers. Monty's mum was throwing his ball in the shallows when out of the blue Monty jumps at the ball knocking it into the middle of the canal.... cue 2 slightly eccentric women and one long stick attempting to retrieve the ball... lets just say we aren't going to be winning field trials any time soon. Seeing as i was already thigh deep in the water thought i'd try to tempt her ladyship in... she was having none of it, Epic fail! But I did get a lovely "welcome back to dry land" dance from her.  

Nice chilled out walk only saw a couple other people on our side of the canal. was very relaxing  OK we did get a few looks wading in the canal but Monty loves his ball so we had to try :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- I'm jealous you got to watch a sniffer dog at work- no pics?
I must say from the bits I've seen on the tv of the stadium etc it does all look impressive.London must be a great place to be at the moment-if you're a tourist.

Moonviolet- would have loved the giggle at watching you retreiving the ball-for the dog
Scruff and Jay wont swim and I wish they would-especially in this heat. Jay wallows in the shallow bits stirring all the mud up-and always comes out filthy Scruff will splash about and chase the others but wont go deep
Moll is a brilliant swimmer and sometimes whines on her way out to fetch the ball- Evie must think theres a hunt on and excitedly follows her out, only to get disappointed when its only a ball-falls for it every time .
We went to the river last night again- 3 different river walks yesterday.

More wet trainers:001_rolleyes:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- would have loved the giggle at watching you retreiving the ball-for the dog


The most embarassing part is that we didn't even get it. i failed to commit to wading out waist deep. There were some canoes going up and down too.

No wet trainers for me took them off tentative paddled out until a found a sunken treee and tiptoed along it. Me standing on it released lots of air bubbles so it looked like some monster had been disturbed. It was a bit like something out of last of the summer wine.  :lol: :lol:
At least Evie will be more impressed with Tink watching me attempting to do a water retrieve . :skep: At least we were all nicely cooled and Tink certainly had the best run around she's had in days.

3 rivers walks sound like a perfect plan for the hot weather. I watch swimming dogs with great awe and just a little envy. A while back I saw an amazing springer that would duck dive for a sunken object, the owner said he only found out by accident. When I child threw a stone in and his dog swam over dived and retrieved it. I watched them for ages.

Tink's definitely in Scruffs camp and I do watch her for barrier frustration, but she gets bored quickly and finds something to sniff. In many ways I suppose she's quite a well adjusted dog I'm beginning to appreciate it more now her fear is predictable/managable.

On the wet trainers front, very sensibly Monty's mum has started walking in swimming shoes.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> L/C- I'm jealous you got to watch a sniffer dog at work- no pics?
> I must say from the bits I've seen on the tv of the stadium etc it does all look impressive.London must be a great place to be at the moment-if you're a tourist.


When I first stopped to watch one of the policemen (not the lovely handler) rather aggressively came over and asked me what I was doing. Didn't think I'd chance my arm with my camera phone!

I have just enrolled Gypsy in some classes!  They're run by Ely's behaviourist so I thought since madam has been doing so well at home I'd see if she could do it in front of other people.

Bit worried now - the first one is in 12 days!


----------



## Dogless

L/C - hope Gypsy's classes go well; sure they will!

We have had two good walks today - went to the fields this morning and did some impulse control stuff then lots of playing.

This afternoon went to the sports pitches and walked around the general area of them; it was raining so no kids out in our street. We saw the black lab and collie who we 'stalked' before and just did heel and focus work around them with Kilo nice and relaxed , then we passed a beagle who stared hard at Kilo which normally gets him excited and a bit reactive but he just went on past , THEN we saw a big group of kids heading towards us and....nothing . Could it be the Nupafeed I wonder - Kilo is more focussed and relaxed definitely; maybe because I want it to be working so am feeling calmer myself??

A good day .


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## kat&molly

L/c - exciting times , some classes.

Dogless I'm pleased you've had a good day- hope it continues.

Not much for us at all, it really had been so hot that I pile them in the car , drive less than a minute away- it would 15 minutes LLW- on to a shady track down to the river.. I hope the storm comes tonight.


----------



## businessdegree

trust me, i like your doing just fine you don't have to stress yourself out about it you could take life easier than that a little bit and i think that these things have there time and they pass by, without you realizing the progress and good luck


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## moonviolet

L/C: Probably wise not to upset try filming in that situation. They must be pretty tense up there at the moment.

Fun times ahead  I hope you and Gypsy have a great time. Careful classes can be addicitive 

Dogless: so glad you and BW had a good day, sounds like it was a platinum star day 

K&M: Hope the weather breaks, although you might come back to the LLW refreshed from the break. 

We had been bobbling along on a nice even keel, but today we had a high and a low and then returned to our even course.

The high was this morning we began our walk walking toward the barrier up a short track a man was putting the wheel on his bike as his 4 dogs played in the track, 3 of whom were GSD's. We stopped and i'll just called out " I'll wait." I don't think he'd even noticed us. he sad there was no need to wait and called his dogs back jheld their collars, The politely wait for us to pass, I explain tink was nervous and to my surprise he replied that he thought it was very wise not to walk through 4 unknown dogs even if Tink wasn't nervous  so nice to meet someone sensible  Tink trotted past looking relaxed and comfortable, I'll forgive her for making me look like a liar :lol: 

Sadly tonight jsut a few minutes into the walk we charged from behind by a BC and young GSD, they did recall when I asked the owner to call them by which time Tink had taken cover in the bracken, should I really had had to ask when Tink clearly ran in fear 

My wee star bounced back within minutes and we met up with Monty, she got to have a good run around which really shook off some of that tension. The rest of the walk was lovely and her ladyship is now on the sofa on her back paws to the sky.


----------



## SophieCyde

Well we're back off lead again , a bit anyway ... but only in places where there is nowhere for him to run away to  I think that I had been too confident in him coming back just for a biscuit so we've been doing some recall 'games' to make it a bit more engaging for him and he seems to be focusing on me a little bit more so I'm happy with that  

@moonviolet , sorry to hear about her being scared but at least she bounced back bless her


----------



## moonviolet

SophieCyde said:


> Well we're back off lead again , a bit anyway ... but only in places where there is nowhere for him to run away to  I think that I had been too confident in him coming back just for a biscuit so we've been doing some recall 'games' to make it a bit more engaging for him and he seems to be focusing on me a little bit more so I'm happy with that
> 
> @moonviolet , sorry to hear about her being scared but at least she bounced back bless her


Thank you, she is becoming quite resilient and then walking with her mate Monty helped her relaxed. They are quite funny,once greeting is done they pretty much ignore each other, but are both more relaxed for the company.

Sounds like your recall games are working I bet Murphy is loving them they do make walks more fun if you ask me I adore being fun and bit silly with my dog  I love them and swear by them. OH and I still play "Tinker tennis" when we both take her out. she loves it and i still try to hide behind trees, in the bracken etc If i don't think she is staying aware of me, but these days she often turns the moment my footsteps pause.


----------



## Dogless

SophieCyde - pleased to hear that you're making progress with Murphy's recall again.

mv - amazing how Tink has begun to bounce back from setbacks and take things more in her stride; massive credit to you for all that you have achieved.

kat&molly - I hope that the storm came!

Yesterday was great and this morning was too. I took the BW for a run; as I went up a road with no turnings off and no way back apart from back the way we came I heard the familiar sound of the man with the choc lab trying and failing to recall him :001_rolleyes:. He didn't reach us as we were too far away or moving away too fast to bother with I think BUT I knew we'd have to run past on the way back. By some miracle the man put the lab on the lead . So I steeled myself (easier to do when running as you can't really hold your breath and tense), crossed the road for maximum space, just ran past and said "morning" in my happiest most cheerful voice. The lab looked at Kilo and he...bounced half heartedly once and ran on . No anxious behaviour bar that one quick bounce .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless, Sounds like a great run, but are you sure you weren't hallucinating on the way back? *THE* choc lab on lead , surely not :lol:

Shameless photo sharing  Tink and Monty as you can see not impressed at having to stop for a poorly lit phone pic


----------



## Dogless

mv; think the lead went on as the fire engines were on their way out - he doesn't have a lead on for cars but fire engines must be the limit . I was chuffed. Hopefully the man will make connection between lead on rather than approaching us makes for a stress free experience for all .

I love Tink's expression in the photo .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I love Tink's expression in the photo .


:lol: I thnk it's her " are you done yet?" face. She wanted to get back to something smelly i'd called her away from 

I think she was having a "withering look" day this is another from yesterday


----------



## Coffee

Oh look at Tink's sleepy face in that last one :001_wub: She is SO saying "will you sod off with that bloody camera, I am trying to rest here woman" 

Well, we have finally started "Operation Cars Are Not The Most Evil Things Ever" (title needs some work I admit)... better late than never eh? 

I won't update about this every day ("thank god" they all cry) as we will be doing this r e a l l y s l o w l y and will be sticking to the same 'stage' for a good couple of weeks at a time I would think. Today, "Stage 1" I took him out to the car on his slip lead and he knew it wasn't a normal walk, probably as I had the car keys in my hand, and it didn't start well. He started jumping up at the car, whining and barking... anyone else might have took this as excitement of getting in the car. I knew different 

Opened up the boot and gave him a treat and a "oooh, look what's this" in a silly, excited voice and after a couple of seconds he jumped in. Threw in a couple of treats and he gobbled them up and leapt straight back out again. Repeated this for several minutes until he was actually happy just to sit there in the boot while I fed him treats and talking to him in a happy, but calm, voice... all gently "what a good boy, who's my best boy" and all that sort of thing. I'm kind of winging it really and hope I'm doing it "right"  I *think* I am as after another few minutes I asked him for a "down" (not 100% convinced he would) but he lay down immediately and was happy to stay there for another few minutes for a few more treats and gentle praise :thumbup:

Not getting too excited as this was the stage we were at last time but it's a good start all the same  Am going to repeat today every day for at least 2 weeks (I think last time my mistake was going too fast) and then *hopefully* start working on actually closing the boot door...


----------



## moonviolet

Yay, progress is progress, no matter how slow and often the slow progress is the solid type, slow growing trees and all that.

Has Alfie always been scared of car rides or do you thiknk something scared him. If he's always been car sick i'd definitely consider something ginger to settle his tum when you get to the going to a short ride stage.

it's a great idea to do short session(s) every day  Random related thought how is Alfie's balance? Improving it may help him cope with cornering etc.

and Lady i for one would be happy to here daily updates especially if once in a whiel we got the occasional pic of him in all his spotty loveliness.


----------



## Dogless

Sounds like a promising start Coffee - second mv's subtle hint for pictures and updates .

Our second walk was great - went to the fields; it was pouring so didn't see anyone or anything bar one runner so was a relaxing hour or so  . Kilo is still definitely on the alert far less still, a more relaxed dog .


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Yay, progress is progress, no matter how slow and often the slow progress is the solid type, slow growing trees and all that.
> 
> Has Alfie always been scared of car rides or do you thiknk something scared him. If he's always been car sick i'd definitely consider something ginger to settle his tum when you get to the going to a short ride stage.
> 
> it's a great idea to do short session(s) every day  Random related thought how is Alfie's balance? Improving it may help him cope with cornering etc.
> 
> and Lady i for one would be happy to here daily updates especially if once in a whiel we got the occasional pic of him in all his spotty loveliness.


Aww, you're so lovely <sniff> 

He's never sick... sometimes I wish he was, that might be easier to cope with  He cries/screams/whimpers/barks (yes, all at once - this noise needs to be heard to be believed ) for the entire journey while also throwing himself from one side of the car to the other and back again... obviously I don't actually _allow_ him to do that, I sit in the back with him and hold him by his collar/lead (which is tricky now, he's so big) but that's what he would do if allowed.

He genuinely seems terrified of the car  and I really think it all goes back to the day we picked him up. He cried and whimpered all the way home that day and of course I didn't worry about it at the time, figuring of course he's going to be unsettled after leaving his mum and littermates for the first time. I honestly think now that he associates the car with feeling unhappy 

His balance is fine, I think  How would I know if it was dodgy?! He balances very well on 3 legs several times a day doing his big-boy wee-wees 

Oh go on, seeing as it's you 

Resting mid walk the other day:


----------



## Dogless

I did a TTouch workshop and learnt about some body awareness stuff; it was great - if there's a workshop near you it's a very interesting day!


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## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Sounds like a promising start Coffee - second mv's subtle hint for pictures and updates .
> 
> Our second walk was great - went to the fields; it was pouring so didn't see anyone or anything bar one runner so was a relaxing hour or so  . Kilo is still definitely on the alert far less still, a more relaxed dog .


Am so pleased that you're sounding so much more upbeat  It's amazing how much these pooches effect our general mood isn't it?

Just one more then  (was saving these for a Happy Birthday thread next weekend :lol: so will just have to pretend when I post them next week that you've never seen them before okay )


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## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Am so pleased that you're sounding so much more upbeat  It's amazing how much these pooches effect our general mood isn't it?
> 
> Just one more then  (was saving these for a Happy Birthday thread next weekend :lol: so will just have to pretend when I post them next week that you've never seen them before okay )


Oooh I love that one .


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> I did a TTouch workshop and learnt about some body awareness stuff; it was great - if there's a workshop near you it's a very interesting day!


Sounds interesting... will have to have a Google 

The puppy training classes we went to all those months ago were run by a TTouch person and we all got a training book from her and I'm sure there's some TTouch stuff in it... must look it out


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## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Oooh I love that one .


I do too  It was just one of those lucky snaps, when you take about 5 or 6 one after another and you get one really nice one! Was only on my phone too so I was chuffed at how it came out.

Ask me what he was doing.....  Watching a butterfly :lol:


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## SpringerLex

Rico is my shadow and we are trying to work on me not being around him as much as when I go out, even to the toilet he opens the door and comes after me. This is a dog that can do the following

Open the car windows (Thank God for a child lock)
Open every single door in the house, including the front door.
Open the lower cupboards.
Turn on the taps.
Reach things that are at the very back of the cabinets.
Open the ferrets cage...(This is relatively new...but still annoying)

So...along with the other five we are working on making Rico a less shadowy boy where his Mum is concerned.


----------



## Coffee

SpringerLex said:


> Rico is my shadow and we are trying to work on me not being around him as much as when I go out, even to the toilet he opens the door and comes after me. This is a dog that can do the following
> 
> Open the car windows (Thank God for a child lock)
> Open every single door in the house, including the front door.
> Open the lower cupboards.
> Turn on the taps.
> Reach things that are at the very back of the cabinets.
> Open the ferrets cage...(This is relatively new...but still annoying)
> 
> So...along with the other five we are working on making Rico a less shadowy boy where his Mum is concerned.


I think you need to change his name to Houdini


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## kat&molly

Dogless, things are sounding good. Are the holy terrors still playing up or have they got bored?

Lovely pics of Miss Tink MV. She always looks such a sweety.

Coffee- that last pic of Alfie is lovely. Good luck with the car training- sounds good so far.

Wow-springerlex- Rico is a determined boy isn't he.

Even though the temperatures were lower today it was still very muggy. I really do live in the wrong country- all I do is moan about the heat. So hardly any training again today:001_rolleyes: but I did manage to talk OH in to getting a pool for the girls-its only taken about 3 months to wear him down. After the price of that and the 15 bags of sand to go underneath it, I'm not allowed to have any more ideas for 6 months.


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## hahgiwoofa

good lord! that is one talented pooch!! Pepper used to follow me to the loo, but I made her 'stay' when i got up & left & if she followed I COMPLETELY ignored her til she was back on her cushion, doesn't do it now x

I'm needing advice on stopping jumping up (in curiosity not aggression) at people, especially strangers


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless, things are sounding good. Are the holy terrors still playing up or have they got bored?
> 
> Lovely pics of Miss Tink MV. She always looks such a sweety.
> 
> Coffee- that last pic of Alfie is lovely. Good luck with the car training- sounds good so far.
> 
> Wow-springerlex- Rico is a determined boy isn't he.
> 
> Even though the temperatures were lower today it was still very muggy. I really do live in the wrong country- all I do is moan about the heat. So hardly any training again today:001_rolleyes: but I did manage to talk OH in to getting a pool for the girls-its only taken about 3 months to wear him down. After the price of that and the 15 bags of sand to go underneath it, I'm not allowed to have any more ideas for 6 months.


We have either been out early before they get up, out in the car or it has been raining, so we have had some respite (touch wood!).

Well done on your pool idea - photos are required .


----------



## SpringerLex

Coffee said:


> I think you need to change his name to Houdini


Oh you should have been there the day I came back home after leaving for five minutes to find all six dogs out of my room running around. I found two of them in the bathroom in the bath with the cold tap running and them having a ball, the cereal cupboard was open and there were two heads stuck in boxes of frosties and cheerios. One is in the living room munching on a box of cat biscuits that had been stolen from an open cupboard and Rico sitting perched on the sofa with a box of crunchie nut


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> We have either been out early before they get up, out in the car or it has been raining, so we have had some respite (touch wood!).
> 
> Well done on your pool idea - photos are required .


Well done for avoiding the horrors- best way me thinks.

I cant fill the pool yet as I didn't get a cover and I'm worried about the cats and maybe even Moll once she realises what it is.Really hoping I can tempt Little Fat Dog in so that it helps with her Arthritis.
They better like it or I'm in trouble.

Springerlex- I'd loved to have seen that.


----------



## moonviolet

Gorgeous Pics of Alfie, Coffee. He's growing up so very handsome.

K&M, what lucky girls with their own pool 

Dogless SO glad you ahve had a bit of a break from the horrors.



hahgiwoofa said:


> good lord! that is one talented pooch!! Pepper used to follow me to the loo, but I made her 'stay' when i got up & left & if she followed I COMPLETELY ignored her til she was back on her cushion, doesn't do it now x
> 
> I'm needing advice on stopping jumping up (in curiosity not aggression) at people, especially strangers


Are they off/onlead when this happens? what have you tried?



SpringerLex said:


> Oh you should have been there the day I came back home after leaving for five minutes to find all six dogs out of my room running around. I found two of them in the bathroom in the bath with the cold tap running and them having a ball, the cereal cupboard was open and there were two heads stuck in boxes of frosties and cheerios. One is in the living room munching on a box of cat biscuits that had been stolen from an open cupboard and Rico sitting perched on the sofa with a box of crunchie nut


Oh my goodness you have criminal team there 

Other than an minor incident between an out of contro ldog, charging at Monty and him giving said dog a warning it's been a lovely day.


----------



## Dogless

Well; I do think that the Nupafeed is having an effect.

Went to the fields this morning (hubby came - first time for weeks ). Had an hour or so playing, doing some recall games etc. 

Then..the bits that make me think again that the Nupafeed works. Saw a dog that always eyeballs Kilo on the way to the fields - a bit of interest shown, then we walked on; way less excitement than normal. On the way back we first saw the vizsla he loves who came bombing up to us (he was onlead - by the road); he greeted very calmly and without stress even though his head was being jumped on and the vizsla's owner commented that he was very relaxed today. Then we saw another dog he normally gets to play with who was pulling his owner over to see us, but Kilo sniffed about and then greeted calmly rather than focussing on the dog and THEN we saw a collie that he knows - and just watched him go past, no excitement. 

I am so, so pleased with him .


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Well; I do think that the Nupafeed is having an effect.
> 
> Went to the fields this morning (hubby came - first time for weeks ). Had an hour or so playing, doing some recall games etc.
> 
> Then..the bits that make me think again that the Nupafeed works. Saw a dog that always eyeballs Kilo on the way to the fields - a bit of interest shown, then we walked on; way less excitement than normal. On the way back we first saw the vizsla he loves who came bombing up to us (he was onlead - by the road); he greeted very calmly and without stress even though his head was being jumped on and the vizsla's owner commented that he was very relaxed today. Then we saw another dog he normally gets to play with who was pulling his owner over to see us, but Kilo sniffed about and then greeted calmly rather than focussing on the dog and THEN we saw a collie that he knows - and just watched him go past, no excitement.
> 
> I am so, so pleased with him .


Well done Kilo  Must say, all those calm greetings and meetings are very impressive  Alfie's reactions to other dogs, especially ones he knows "A DOG, IT'S A DOG, IT'S ANOTHER DOG!!!!!! "  is still very much a work in progress 

We had a great walk this morning too :thumbup: just me and the Spotty one, didn't see another soul... played lots of silly hiding games to keep him focused on me, bit of fetch with his frisbee, some training (just sits and downs etc for treats and praise)... it was lovely  Tiny blip at the end as we were leaving the field... he caught a pigeon  and would not come away from it until it was well and truly dead, then he kept barking at it and poking it with his paw... then the stupid sod starting play bowing at it, wanting it to play I think  Finally managed to get him to come away by running in the opposite direction, squealing his name like a lunatic


----------



## Zoojie

Haven't posted here in a while 

So Loki is getting on ok with the behavioural sessions we've got from the people who we do agility with. We've had 5 or so sessions now, and there has been some improvement! :thumbup:
Been abusing the fact the neighbours are back by walking past their gate repeatedly to get Loki immune to their dogs barking - unfortunately they do have a habit of running loose so I have to keep an eye out when I first get out the door otherwise we get mobbed and there have been a couple of moments that they just charge over when I have Loki on the lead and just cause trouble (I did have a miserable session that brought me to tears on Friday). But never mind, it's a setback but not a permanent one, as demonstrated by Loki today 
Had a great walk this morning as it's a bit less sunny I dared the dog walking park and practised ignoring other dogs with both of them. Went through a lot of treats as Loki was being so good :

Amber is FANTASTIC at agility. She's been really great, picking up everything really quickly and I can spend the whole session with her offlead and she won't run off (too much!) I'm really impressed with her  and for obedience we are being put forward for silver for definite and doing bronze/silver on the same day as she's got all the commands brilliantly :thumbup: She'll be 1 year old next week, and we'll have had her 4 months! Mega proud 

My target is to have Loki able to recall away from other dogs and do a whole walk without being distracted by other dogs at a distance by Christmas. It seems like a long time for a simple thing, but if we manage that then decreasing distance will be easier.


----------



## Dogless

Sounds as if everything's going brilliantly Zoojie - well done :thumbup:.

Our second walk today was just around the streets, up to the sports pitches etc for an hour or so. Every man, child and his dog had taken advantage of a break in the rain and Kilo was fab; very calm indeed, even around kids with a football rattle and toy gun that they were 'firing' as they ran about :thumbup:. He just looked at all the dogs he passed and resumed sniffing or looked at me. I didn't let him off as there were loads of kids on the pitches and loads of dogs about, but he had plenty of offlead this morning and it was a good training opportunity - did some sits, downs, heelwork etc and no signs of stress at all :thumbup:. 

I am beginning to wonder whether the kids that he barked at that i thought was for no good reason the other day are in fact some of those that torment him through the fence and he recognised their voices / smell or something. Or maybe he was just stressed that day. Who knows; but I am so pleased with him; my best boy today .


----------



## L/C

Just caught up with the thread - I am a bit  at SpringerLex and the band of merry criminals that she houses! But big :thumbup: to everyone else - it all seems to be going very well.

We had a pretty quite weekend as the in laws were up and staying with us. The pups were on their best behaviour though - we had no food thieving or sofa hogging and they even sat and waited patiently while we had a bbq without any attempt to sneak any meat!

We also now have a down in the park! Less luck at attaching a command to it - that still seems to be a sticking point but she's generalised the hand signal very well.

Now a couple of gratuitous photos.

In the garden, waiting hopefully for a dropped sausage or two:










When we started our walk there was no one around so Ely got to play ball and have a run:










And then we bumped into Sasha and the dachshunds, not a great photo:


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## kat&molly

A busy weekend, not been around much.

Sounds like everyones doing well. Dogless good to hear Kilo is nice and calm- it must make walks much easier when faced with some of the challenges others like throwing at you. How long can he have the Nupafeed for?

L/C- thats a lovely pic of Ely- we could use his head as a smilie-like this one

Zoojie- sounds like your 2 are doing fab.

Going to get a cover for this pool today. I'm not sure it was one of my best ideas. Its rather large-at over 3 metres wide and 77cm high.:blink:

Had 3 of the neighbours over last night for a little BBQ-Evie is getting quite good with people she knows now- and treated this lot to her funny zoomies and teddy throwing in the garden.
Off to Molly's family this morning, just going to do the big walk that Evie enjoys , a quick coffee and come away-see how she copes with that.


----------



## Dogless

Have a nice time today kat&molly . It's great to hear about Evie's progress with people, bless her.....and that pool does sound pretty big .

I believe that the Nupafeed can be given indefinitely - my plan is to give it daily still until I think that Kilo is chilled again, then just at times of extra stress.


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## kat&molly

I shall give Evie a Valerian today, I think its just the fact of 5 extra dogs- who are quite hyper. If shes still bothered today I'll ask her to visit here with a dog or 2 at a time and do a walk here.
Must remind Big Evie- I still haven't received her schedule of classes to see which would be the best to go lurking at.

As for the pool I had seen a large paddling one that would have been good, but with the heat last week they sold out.
I can see me having to pretend I love it for myself


----------



## hahgiwoofa

moonviolet said:


> Are they off/onlead when this happens? what have you tried?


The lead makes no difference! anyone comes near he jumps up to greet them, and if he's off lead when someone unsuspecting happens across our path he will chase and jump up, so I'm scared to let him off unless I know we're alone. I know he's only a baby, but people are not all so understanding, especially when he's the size of a donkey!!

I've tried saying 'off' or 'no' whenever he does it, we cross our arms and ignore him til he stops. TBH with us he's getting it because we're consistent. It's other people because they all act differently. I don't want him getting a bad rep because he's not an aggressive dog, just too curious and super excited for his own good!


----------



## kat&molly

Evie done good today.If that was down to the Valerian or she's getting used to the dogs, I dont know. 2 of them are barky- in excitement and thats what she doesn't like - so she ran to me a couple of times for reassurance but quickly recovered and ran on. She's been so good and didn't need the lead on once. She's such an angel.

I half filled the pool this afternoon,but got Evie in with me for a couple of minutes beforehand- she doesn't know what to make of it yet but didn't seem scared


















Moll seems a bit quiet tonight.

Hope everyones had a good day.


----------



## [email protected]

Yep, been working on distance control too and she has come on a treat. I seem to be able to keep her attention on me more and more rather than distractions but she doesnt like the cows coming too close to us and will launch herself at them on the lead......mind you they are intimidating close up to me too!!


----------



## L/C

K&M - blimey that's a pool and a half, a lot bigger then the paddling pool I was trying to get for these two! But good girl Evie for doing well with her confidence.


----------



## moonviolet

hahgiwoofa said:


> The lead makes no difference! anyone comes near he jumps up to greet them, and if he's off lead when someone unsuspecting happens across our path he will chase and jump up, so I'm scared to let him off unless I know we're alone. I know he's only a baby, but people are not all so understanding, especially when he's the size of a donkey!!
> 
> I've tried saying 'off' or 'no' whenever he does it, we cross our arms and ignore him til he stops. TBH with us he's getting it because we're consistent. It's other people because they all act differently. I don't want him getting a bad rep because he's not an aggressive dog, just too curious and super excited for his own good!


I think I'd have him come to me every time we saw someone for a game of tug or hand touches loads of praise and treats. With the hope of being more fun than person over there could possibly be. If the person is at close quarters i think i'd pop him on lead and ask for a sit or down and again lavish with praise and treats.

K&M that is one serious pool  So glad Evie had a good day 

Dogless. The nupafeed (or the placebo effect by proxy) soudns like it's doing great.

Tink had a great weekend and nothing noteable to report today, She is beggining to pull toward dogs as we pass on lead, I knew i'd get new issues as her confidence returned :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Not much to report today - lovely walk in a forest this morning. Had some chaos in the car park with two dogs running up to me barking (owner way behind) then jumping at the car when they heard a dog in there; cue Kilo going extra mad barking and whining. The woman called them and said "One word from me and they do as they please" and proceeded to chase them around smacking them hard with a ball launcher to try to get them close enough to her to get their choke chains on and into her car (no collars). I left Kilo in funnily enough until they were driving away :w00t:.

Lead walk this afternoon with Kilo in a nice calm state .

k&m - brill pool and well done to Evie .

mv - even though you now have a small 'issue' - must be ice to have one related to confidence rather than lack of!


----------



## Zoojie

Just a quick update from me on Amber - today at obedience I was filling the spare moments (as per usual) with some tricks to keep her attention on me. After the class, we were approached by one of the trainers, who asked if we would like to join their trick demonstration team for some simple displays  it'll be some practice after obedience classes, and will be displayed at local rescue centres open days and such, but I'm so proud!

Amber will be One next week, and we'll have had her four months. Four months from not even knowing sit, to actually being asked to stand in front of people and do things like spin, jump, beg, play dead, and weave through my legs ! WOOHOO! 

and all it took was a few hotdogs


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Not much to report today - lovely walk in a forest this morning. Had some chaos in the car park with two dogs running up to me barking (owner way behind) then jumping at the car when they heard a dog in there; cue Kilo going extra mad barking and whining. The woman called them and said "One word from me and they do as they please" and proceeded to chase them around smacking them hard with a ball launcher to try to get them close enough to her to get their choke chains on and into her car (no collars). I left Kilo in funnily enough until they were driving away :w00t:.
> 
> Lead walk this afternoon with Kilo in a nice calm state .
> 
> k&m - brill pool and well done to Evie .
> 
> mv - even though you now have a small 'issue' - must be ice to have one related to confidence rather than lack of!


She sounds like the sort of woman i'd like to chase with a ball launcher   Do these people really truly lack basic logic, If i clout my dog with a ball launcher are they going to want to come near me?:nonod::nonod:

I'm almost proud of Tink's little issue. I am working on it and if she's showing interest I'm asking for a sit and letting people/dogs pass. well that's the plan except some daft woman this morning then promptly brought/was brought by her dog saying " you want to say hello?"  In the time we were walking all 4 wheels of my car were peed on...


----------



## kat&molly

MV- thats a nice 'ickle problem' to have. Brave Tink.
I noticed yesterday on the walk that Evie didn't come and check in with me like she has done on previous occasions-her recall was ok and she didn't go too far but obviously felt braver -not necessarily a good thing .

I was quite proud of them though, after the walk all 3 just settled down at my feet whilst I had a coffee- the others were pestering and jumping all over me,I always come home filthy and they scratched my car door again.


Zoojie- thats brilliant, you must have worked hard to achieve that in such a short time.:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> She sounds like the sort of woman i'd like to chase with a ball launcher   Do these people really truly lack basic logic, If i clout my dog with a ball launcher are they going to want to come near me?:nonod::nonod:
> 
> I'm almost proud of Tink's little issue. I am working on it and if she's showing interest I'm asking for a sit and letting people/dogs pass. *well that's the plan except some daft woman this morning then promptly brought/was brought by her dog saying " you want to say hello?" * In the time we were walking all 4 wheels of my car were peed on...


That's my main drama when I'm trying to make Kilo understand that he doesn't get to meet every dog that he likes the look of....that and loose dogs coming up to him and doing the same.

zoojie - that awesome!! Two 'trick Beagles' on PF now :thumbup: .

mv - sounds as if your lot all deserve gold stars. I'd be really annoyed about the car door though .


----------



## moonviolet

Zoojie said:


> Amber will be One next week, and we'll have had her four months. Four months from not even knowing sit, to actually being asked to stand in front of people and do things like spin, jump, beg, play dead, and weave through my legs ! WOOHOO!
> 
> and all it took was a few hotdogs


Had to rep you for this.  We would, of course, love to see some pics  (I'm sorry i'm an addict)

K&M sounds like your guys did you proud. going to have to watch that little Evie monkey as it becomes more familiar 

We start a new class tonight, Games class. It's new to the trainer too, so all bit experimental  Should be fun, she is a great trainer


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Had to rep you for this.  We would, of course, love to see some pics  (I'm sorry i'm an addict)
> 
> K&M sounds like your guys did you proud. going to have to watch that little Evie monkey as it becomes more familiar
> 
> We start a new class tonight, Games class. It's new to the trainer too, so all bit experimental  Should be fun, she is a great trainer


What sort of games? Sounds interesting!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> What sort of games? Sounds interesting!


Honestly, i don't know. this is the limit of the info i have :lol:

"_Would you like to improve your dog's obedience, impulse-control, body awareness and confidence or would you just like to enjoy a fun activity with your dog? If the answer is Yes, join the GAMES class."_

So I thought, what the heck


----------



## kat&molly

Is this in addition to your other class MV? Hope you and Tink enjoy it.


I keep thinking about my training and I dont know what to do. I will go this week as I'd like to see if Evie takes to this scent work, but we just aren't doing anything- in fact Mollys getting away with things that are causing me more problems during the week.
When Big Evie was coming here we weren't really doing anything- it got so that I was paying for someone to come for a walk with us- but I put that down to the other dogs being there, so thats why I wanted the 1-2-1.
I knew she wasn't a Gun Dog trainer- but that doesn't stop her teaching me the basics does it? I know shes capable as shes achieved fantastic things with her own and I really like her as a person. Feel really bad for thinking this but I didn't even look forward to going last week. I dont know what to do.


----------



## moonviolet

Yes this is in addition, to her wednesday nights. She's a busy girl :lol:

It's such a shame you feel this way. we had a bit of a fug with our old trainer, she seemed to have lost enthusiasm for what she was doing. 
I'd try to have a chat with her about your expectation and goals. Maybe go with a list of the things you'd like to learn, it's your 1-2-1 session after all. See if you can both get back on the same page.


----------



## ballybee

ok a wee update

Dan is still going great, OH took him out shooting(just had him sitting in the car) and he retrieved a few birds with no encouragement and dropped them to hand(at 17 weeks old!!!) and also retrieved a live pigeon(exhausted racer) for OH who nursed it back to health and let it go again. He's starting to really get the whole "stand a wait there" thing for showing and looks gorgeous  i'm only working on him standing with me touching him all over at the moment, then it'll be OH touching him then his breeder and i'll get advice from her.

Tummel has done well too, i've been doing specific training walks just to get him focusing on me and he's doing fairly well....recalls still an absolute farce but he's getting faster now. I've also been weaning us off the dogmatic and instead of clipping the lead to the half check just using it as a flat collar to which he seems to be pulling less and is walking closer to me....haven't seen any dogs yet though and certainly wouldn't take that chance with him yet.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Yes this is in addition, to her wednesday nights. She's a busy girl :lol:
> 
> It's such a shame you feel this way. we had a bit of a fug with our old trainer, she seemed to have lost enthusiasm for what she was doing.
> I'd try to have a chat with her about your expectation and goals. Maybe go with a list of the things you'd like to learn, it's your 1-2-1 session after all. See if you can both get back on the same page.


Thanks- I will take my list, think I'll even say I dont want any retreiving at all this week-I'll carry on working on it at home for now and sort the problems in a 'less exciting' enviroment.

That Tink is a 'Busy Beag'.
Well done Ballybee- sounds like Dan's going to be a star.


----------



## moonviolet

My goodness Dan sounds like a puppy genius  it's amazing how some of their skills seem to simply be hardwired and it's up to us to simply guide them  You must be so proud him.

Sounds like Tummel is making nice progress too  having specific training walks is good I dont' do that so much as have a sections at the start middle and end of our walks at the moment. I'm going to be back on full training walks with the odd earned breakout session if her ladyship develops more confidence related issues


----------



## ballybee

moonviolet said:


> My goodness Dan sounds like a puppy genius  it's amazing how some of their skills seem to simply be hardwired and it's up to us to simply guide them  You must be so proud him.
> 
> Sounds like Tummel is making nice progress too  having specific training walks is good I dont' do that so much as have a sections at the start middle and end of our walks at the moment. I'm going to be back on full training walks with the odd earn breakout session if her ladyships develops more confidence related issues


Dan is an amazing puppy, we expected some working ability as his dad was imported from a working kennel in Italy but he's been retrieving and dropping to hand since we got him at 7 weeks old!!! Literally the night we brought him home he was playing fetch  He's really starting to look like a spinone now and he is a very handsome boy 

With Tummel i'm building upto doing training on a proper walk but if he's offlead he tends to start ignoring me after a while so these training walks are a combination of LLW then doing some commands onlead then doing the same commands offlead(just repetitive downs, sits etc) then he's allowed a roam withing a boundary(i just say "not too far" and he'll not go too far if i'm staying still) and do some recalls with him. With him being half hound i'm never expecting him to be doing everything i ask quickly and quietly but i need him to realise he has to focus more on me....i've taken to turning and walking away when he's ahead and ignoring me so he gets a fright when he turns round and i'm off in another direction and comes running back


----------



## moonviolet

Goodness knows how many pages back I said i'd been doing some shaping with Tink and promised some pics. Well clearly the ironing and the trip to post office were less important than taking some photos of us doing some shaping with the big box :lol: si better late than never here are some pics.


























Then a few with just the lid and the ironing as an attractive display to the left :lol:


























Terrible light and shaky pics, but i think you get the gist


----------



## Dogless

ballybee - Dan sounds like a little star, and Tum is getting there too .

kat&molly - I second talking to Big Evie; maybe she doesn't quite know what you are hoping to gain or needs reminding?

mv - lovely photos of Tink and the box and the Games class sounds intriuging.

We spent an hour and a half in the park this morning. Kilo was very calm, very well behaved and I couldn't have been more pleased with him. Gold star for my best boy .


----------



## moonviolet

Well i'm hoping it will be up our street as we were talking about training and activities a while back and i was saying i absolutely love having fun with Tinker, but I don't want to compete.

I am competitive and it take it seriously and thats fine when it's something I compete at myself but i don't feel it's appropriate for Tinker, she is a beagle she will always pause to sniff something at the wrong moment, it's one of the many lessons she has taught me, to stop being so damn intense, it's ok to lighten up and muck about sometimes  I will let you know how we get on 


On our walk earlier Tink spooked at the distant jingle of some tags. I think there is a specific pitch that spooks her. So another thing on my be aware list. It's defintiely not all jingly tags. I can sort of understand I had a bad experience years ago and the smell of a certain aftershave (thankfully unfashionable now) makes my flesh crawl and if possible I want out of there.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well i'm hoping it will be up our street as we were talking about training and activities a while back and i was saying i absolutely love having fun with Tinker, but I don't want to compete.
> 
> I am competitive and it take it seriously and thats fine when it's something I compete at myself but i don't feel it's appropriate for Tinker, she is a beagle she will always pause to sniff something at the wrong moment, it's one of the many lessons she has taught me, to stop being so damn intense, it's ok to lighten up and muck about sometimes  I will let you know how we get on
> 
> *On our walk earlier Tink spooked at the distant jingle of some tags. I think there is a specific pitch that spooks her. So another thing on my be aware list. It's defintiely not all jingly tags. I can sort of understand I had a bad experience years ago and the smell of a certain aftershave (thankfully unfashionable now) makes my flesh crawl and if possible I want out of there.*


It is amazing - there are a few smells / sounds that just transport me somewhere awful for a few moments. Very evocative. At least you are aware now and I'm sure you'll get Miss Tink confident in no time - or coping at least. You pair are amazing really; quite an inspiration .

After much consideration of why and how my sudden 'wobble' happened when I had been so sure we have remained on the waiting list for little Rudi - hope there are enough boys in the litter - and have asked the breeder for some advice on neutering Kilo or leaving him entire.


----------



## Coffee

Afternoon all 

MV - gorgeous pics of Tinker as always, but 'scuse my stupidness - what are they all about, on the box? 

Dogless - Am so glad you're feeling better and still ready and hoping for a little bro' for Kilo  Love the choice of name too :thumbup:

kat&molly - I definitely agree with Dogless and Moonviolet - have a chat with your trainer and explain your concerns... hope you can get it resolved one way or another 

ballybee - little Dan is coming along wonderfully by the sounds of him and how fab that you're able to walk Tummel with his dogmatic less - am quite jealous  The only time Alfie walks nicely without his headcollar is on the way home from walkies when he's tired 

Day 4 of Car Training here and it's all going nicely (I think!) - just been out now for our latest session and had a bit of an incident  I had to put the treats down on the floor so I had one hand to open the boot and one hand to hold Alfie's lead and the second the boot was open in he jumped perfectly happy  but he jumped a little too quick and I lost my balance for a second and stepped back to right myself, stood on the tub of treats and they went everywhere all over the driveway  The amazing thing was though, Alfie stayed where he was in the boot watching me scrabbing around on the ground picking them all up... he didn't even attempt to jump out to hoover them up  

Dare I even think it... was sitting in the boot waiting nicely for the treats he knew would be coming preferable to jumping out to collect all the treats off the floor? It would appear so :thumbup:


----------



## ballybee

i have an update already 

Today we walked through Anstruther and Pittenweem, there were lots of people and dogs, Tummel was doing really well on his headcollar(had an incident with a springer but heyho), however both Tummel and Dan were missing out on meeting people because of the dogmatic(even with me explaining what it was they weren't ok with him being close) so i took it off....he walked on a LL  then when we hit Pittenweem there were loads of dogs, every time one was coming close i made Tummel sit and leave and guess what.......every time without fail he sat and left it :scared: we only had 1 lunge but it was a dog we'd already met and i hadn't seen it running up :thumbup:

both dogs got lots of nice comments and tons of fuss...best one for me was a 6 YO bou came over and asked if he could say hello/have a cuddle with Tummel and Dan, i even let him take a few treats and get them doing tricks  It was fantastic as even though Tum had the dogmatic on at the time the boy wasn't phased at all, he just asked what it was and why Tummel needed one 

So all in all...a good day :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Coffee - that is fab; Gold Star day for the spotty youngster :thumbup: .

We just went for a run for an hour this afternoon in the pouring rain; nothing to report . Did some training (going over basics) in the garden first and the BW was a good dog.


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> MV - gorgeous pics of Tinker as always, but 'scuse my stupidness - what are they all about, on the box?


hte white thing Tink is standing sitting laying on is a box. 
We were doing some free shaping. Basically, you introduce a prop and click and treat interactions with the prop, from that if you want a specific interaction you can begin to guide them only clicking and treating as they do things that move toward it. I hope thats clear i'm quite rubbish at explaining things.



Coffee said:


> The amazing thing was though, Alfie stayed where he was in the boot watching me scrabbing around on the ground picking them all up... he didn't even attempt to jump out to hoover them up
> 
> Dare I even think it... was sitting in the boot waiting nicely for the treats he knew would be coming preferable to jumping out to collect all the treats off the floor? It would appear so :thumbup:


woohoooooo :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: sounds like you are making some serious progress


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> hte white thing Tink is standing sitting laying on is a box.
> We were doing some free shaping. Basically, you introduce a prop and click and treat interactions with the prop, from that if you want a specific interaction you can begin to guide them only clicking and treating as they do things that move toward it. I hope thats clear i'm quite rubbish at explaining things.
> 
> woohoooooo :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: sounds like you are making some serious progress


Ahh yes, I know exactly what you mean now  Have done similar with Alfie in the past with a cardboard box and square of carpet... it's good fun isn't it?

I do hope so  Tempting to move onto the next stage of closing the boot but am not going to just yet... am going to take it very slowly, slowly, gently, gently


----------



## 1290423

You dont needme to tell you that you are better training themseperately then together!

i still often walk mine seperate even as when together its often a race to see who can get in front


----------



## sharloid

Broder's getting better at walking on a loose lead and we haven't had any incidents where he's bit the lead for a few weeks. 

We're still not getting anywhere when he sees other dogs though. He goes mad to get to them and tries to play. I don't know what to do!


----------



## Coffee

sharloid said:


> Broder's getting better at walking on a loose lead and we haven't had any incidents where he's bit the lead for a few weeks.
> 
> We're still not getting anywhere when he sees other dogs though. He goes mad to get to them and tries to play. I don't know what to do!


How old is Broder?

Alfie still gets stupidly excited at other dogs  but if it's not appropriate for him to greet I just move him along quietly. He needs to understand he can't say hello to every dog HE wants to. I'll sometimes turn the other way or cross the road or give the other dog/owner a very wide berth - Alfie's excitement is worse the nearer the other dog is!

Sorry, I'm assuming you mean when he's on the lead. Am I right? Or is it off-lead you're having issues with?


----------



## kat&molly

Blimey, everyones doing really well- except for me-. Its hot and I've been working- so its all about keeping cool, and going to the rivers, especially as the pool is proving to be a chocolate teapot- Moll avoids it I'm sure she thinks its a big bath :scared:

Dogless, I'm glad you're over that little wobble-but it is understanderable. Another dog is a huge commitement and I really do think Kilo has thrown lots of challenges at you, he hasn't exactly been the easiest of pups- no offence meant by that -but you've worked really hard and I bet you've learnt loads along the way. We'll soon be reading all about Rudi's training progress on this epic thread.

Ballybee- that sounds like fabulous progress.

Coffee- that sounds great. Slowly, slowly, Catchee monkey- you'll get there.:thumbup:

Hope Miss Tink is enjoying her new class-the photos were lovely

L/C- is the commute easy- London looked dead on the news.

For me, I will speak to Big Evie, I'm not aiming for anything high, it would be difficult to do working trials etc here, I just want to work Molls brain a bit and make things more interesting for her. We'll see what Thursday brings.


----------



## Dogless

I knew he wouldn't be easy; no offence taken at all - if I was a better, more experienced trainer then some of those stumbling blocks would have been minor, but the poor boy is stuck with me . He has been exceptionally easy in so many respects and the total opposite in others. No middle ground at all with the BW .

Looks like the pool is going to be a large garden ornament . They might all come round to it.......


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I knew he wouldn't be easy; no offence taken at all - if I was a better, more experienced trainer then some of those stumbling blocks would have been minor, but the poor boy is stuck with me . He has been exceptionally easy in so many respects and the total opposite in others. No middle ground at all with the BW .
> 
> Looks like the pool is going to be a large garden ornament . They might all come round to it.......


Are they known as a 'challenging' breed ? I've never even met one.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Are they known as a 'challenging' breed ? I've never even met one.


They are - but so are so many breeds! Lots of knowledgeable folk discussed all the pros and cons with me before we got him. I truly think a second one will be easier (touch wood!) as I have found out what makes them 'tick' a little more hopefully with the BW.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Blimey, everyones doing really well- except for me-. Its hot and I've been working- so its all about keeping cool, and going to the rivers, especially as the pool is proving to be a chocolate teapot- Moll avoids it I'm sure she thinks its a big bath :scared:


Just about to leave for class but i was wondering, if no one else is interested in your big bath should i send Wheelie bin man over?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> They are - but so are so many breeds! Lots of knowledgeable folk discussed all the pros and cons with me before we got him. I truly think a second one will be easier (touch wood!) as I have found out what makes them 'tick' a little more hopefully with the BW.


Exactly. Look at the rep Springers have-perhaps I've been 'lucky' with Moll- I'll never know until I have another but I've seen her 'family' who have no direction at all, if they were ambassadors for the breed nobody would own one.:scared:

I think your 2nd will be easier- but you are doing a fab job with the BW.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Just about to leave for class but i was wondering, if no one else is interested in your big bath should i send Wheelie bin man over?


:lol: Might as well- but is he handsome? Or even a Fireman.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Exactly. Look at the rep Springers have-perhaps I've been 'lucky' with Moll- I'll never know until I have another but I've seen her 'family' who have no direction at all, if they were ambassadors for the breed nobody would own one.:scared:
> 
> I think your 2nd will be easier- but you are doing a fab job with the BW.


I think if I wasn't so hard on myself and didn't worry about things that don't seem to concern the majority of dog owners that I meet then things would have been much easier anyway .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I think if I wasn't so hard on myself and didn't worry about things that don't seem to concern the majority of dog owners that I meet then things would have been much easier anyway .


You are hard on yourself- I understand in a way because no-one wants to see a large breed out of control, and we dont want people to think badly of our dogs.

Evie, gets away with murder really, its all wrong I know and would never stand for it from Molly.

Me thinks you need a Teckel.:scared:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> You are hard on yourself- I understand in a way because no-one wants to see a large breed out of control, and we dont want people to think badly of our dogs.
> 
> Evie, gets away with murder really, its all wrong I know and would never stand for it from Molly.
> 
> Me thinks you need a Teckel.:scared:


A Teckel :scared:. I like a challenge.....but a Teckel :yikes:.


----------



## sharloid

Coffee said:


> How old is Broder?
> 
> Alfie still gets stupidly excited at other dogs  but if it's not appropriate for him to greet I just move him along quietly. He needs to understand he can't say hello to every dog HE wants to. I'll sometimes turn the other way or cross the road or give the other dog/owner a very wide berth - Alfie's excitement is worse the nearer the other dog is!
> 
> Sorry, I'm assuming you mean when he's on the lead. Am I right? Or is it off-lead you're having issues with?


He's 9 months now. It's not often that he gets to meet other dogs and aside from sniffing and walking on he doesn't get to play with any very often.

As soon as he sees one he'll be on his back legs trying to pull to get to it! He's always on lead too.


----------



## kat&molly

sharloid said:


> He's 9 months now. It's not often that he gets to meet other dogs and aside from sniffing and walking on he doesn't get to play with any very often.
> 
> As soon as he sees one he'll be on his back legs trying to pull to get to it! He's always on lead too.


Sorry, wish I could help. I think its his age and one of those things everyone has to go through- its hard work trying to make them realise they cant play with every dog they meet. 
Harder with a breed that cant go off lead though. Do you have anywhere secure where he can tear around to release some frustration with another dog you know?


----------



## Beth17

Right well I sat down and made my list of things to work on and wish I hadn't now :eek6:

I'm going to brush up on Oscars general obedience both inside and outside of the house, get a solid 'leave it' and practice recall to keep it as best as it can be. I'm also going to start working on his occasional resource guarding as well as reinforce his loose lead walking and impulse control when meeting new dogs or in new places.

I also have to carry on with Sam and his general obedience as well as practising loose lead walking. I am trying to get him to stop biting Oscars' ankles and also have to ensure we carry on socialisation as he is doing so well and also practice LLW with the both of them as they tend to make each other worse, I nearly ended up on my bum today 

Then when we have done everything practice in every possible situation and make it bombproof.

Not much then eh!

Well i've got all my training books so better get started


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> :lol: Might as well- but is he handsome? Or even a Fireman.


For an older man he's not too bad at all. Easy to chat to about nothing and everything. He's not a fireman, actually he's a photographer.

Tinks class was good fun, we've done similar things before, lovely small class only 5 of us Tink, 2 adult BC's one of whom is a foster who is very nervous, but not at all aggressive. 1 adolescent BC 9 months who is quite noisy and Arnie the Staffie 9 years young and still full of bounce. So it's a good class for Tink as she'll be working around BC's who she can still be very cautious off (Monty being the exception)

Sharloid. what are you trying? when he sees another dog and rears up? Do you ever get to walk with other dogs?

Beth17 Just a couple of things  sounds like you have goals and a plan let us know how you get on


----------



## Guest

Well I think McKenzie's going through her second (or is it third???) teenage stage  Or, more likely, I've gotten slack with the training!!! 

She was a holy terror on our walk this morning, completely ignoring half my attempts to recall her and then when she knew she was in trouble bouncing around me so I couldn't get her lead on :sneaky2:

Then when I gave her breakfast she broke her wait and started gobbling away before I said ok! And did the same thing this afternoon with a treat :mad2:

So it's back to basics here! She's been steadily getting naughtier for a little while now, particularly with ignoring recall unless it suits her.

I took chicken on our walk this afternoon and her recall was much better!


----------



## Dogless

Oh Kenzie :hand:. It's probably because you posted that thread about how everything had come together so she decided to embarrass you :devil:. Only joking, hopefully she was just having an off day and will be back on obedient form today.


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> Oh Kenzie :hand:. It's probably because you posted that thread about how everything had come together so she decided to embarrass you :devil:. Only joking, hopefully she was just having an off day and will be back on obedient form today.


I think she sometimes needs a little reminder that she can't do as she likes!  She was funny this evening - I put her bowl down and asked her to wait and then went back in the kitchen to put a few things away. Usually she'll sit and stare at her food but she actually moved so she was peering around the kitchen door at me :lol: I think she was checking that I hadn't forgotten her :lol: But she didn't break her wait! :thumbsup:


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## kat&molly

Great that you enjoyed your class MV. I could do with a decent photographer in this house as I'm hopeless.
I have suggested to OH that he gets his friend with a machine to dig a big hole and bury the 'bath'. Moll would like it then.
He's ignoring me.:001_tt2:


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Great that you enjoyed your class MV. I could do with a decent photographer in this house as I'm hopeless.
> I have suggested to OH that he gets his friend with a machine to dig a big hole and bury the 'bath'. Moll would like it then.
> He's ignoring me.:001_tt2:


Well I know Wheelie bin man isn't afraid of a bit of hard work. Maybe he'd dig the hole in exchange for a bath... but ... i'd miss the stories , his income comes from wedding photography and he has the best wedding drama stories.

McKenzie, maybe Kenzie's been reading your thread about your pup, and she is kindly reminding you of the challenges ahead :lol:


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## kat&molly

There is a sort of pattern to our LLW. We seem to have 26 stops every time, or there abouts, we start well they walk lovely for a good few steps then push forward. I call them 'back' in to position only to do the same thing all over again.

And this reluctance from Moll to release the ball to my hand- I say thankyou-she pulls back so I just say Ah ah and walk off so that she doesn't get another throw. Its not working

I've got to put more work in- but its really hot again already. I can work indoors on this though.

Just fancied a moan.:001_tt2:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> There is a sort of pattern to our LLW. We seem to have 26 stops every time, or there abouts, we start well they walk lovely for a good few steps then push forward. I call them 'back' in to position only to do the same thing all over again.
> 
> And this reluctance from Moll to release the ball to my hand- I say thankyou-she pulls back so I just say Ah ah and walk off so that she doesn't get another throw. Its not working
> 
> I've got to put more work in- but its really hot again already. I can work indoors on this though.
> 
> Just fancied a moan.:001_tt2:


Is the ball of higher value to her than a treat? I swear I'd be totally stuffed if i had a non-food motivated dog. I'd know nothing :lol: I guess you could swap teh ball for a toy .. or erm another ball... see i'm flying blind here!

on teh LLW Can you predict when they are going to maek the push and put a preepmtive strike in to keep them loose so you don't need to stop?( that sounds way more aggressive than I mean, with Tink i'll ask for a touch or jsut make a little noise to get her attention ( i dont' know how this would work with 3) see i'm rubbish today :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Is the ball of higher value to her than a treat? I swear I'd be totally stuffed if i had a non-food motivated dog. I'd know nothing :lol: I guess you could swap teh ball for a toy .. or erm another ball... see i'm flying blind here!


The ball or any retreive item is higher than God to Moll  I am going to try the other ball- and hope it doesn't encourage her to spit one out for the other.
You would think as its so high in value that we could use it for anything including LLW - but she's too clever and knows there isn't a retreive to be had.
If I let her carry it she goes on a mission- I've tried little bits of tug as we walk along- and its hard to keep her interest as its not being thrown.


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Is the ball of higher value to her than a treat? I swear I'd be totally stuffed if i had a non-food motivated dog. I'd know nothing :lol: I guess you could swap teh ball for a toy .. or erm another ball... see i'm flying blind here!
> 
> on teh LLW Can you predict when they are going to maek the push and put a preepmtive strike in to keep them loose so you don't need to stop?( that sounds way more aggressive than I mean, with Tink i'll ask for a touch or jsut make a little noise to get her attention ( i dont' know how this would work with 3) see i'm rubbish today :lol:


You're never rubbish!! I've tried saying Ah ah and they just ignore me. On their own they listen, I do know my timing is often out though, and I did try harder to be be more aware of that this morning. They still are much better than they were-its this last 'push' we need to get past.
OH has been busy so I haven't asked him to film me yet- but hopefully this weekend he can.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> You're never rubbish!! I've tried saying Ah ah and they just ignore me. On their own they listen, I do know my timing is often out though, and I did try harder to be be more aware of that this morning. They still are much better than they were-its this last 'push' we need to get past.
> OH has been busy so I haven't asked him to film me yet- but hopefully this weekend he can.


TInk knows ah ah and oh noooo ( in the style of a teletubby according to OH) so I tried pretty random noises, squeaks,kisses noises, novel noises that made her look up at me (usually like i was devoid of my senses)

With her it really is when she is more focussed on the surroundings than me. Thats why we have issues with the bogey barriers as she is focussed on not being mown down by "woohoo we're out for a walk" dogs who have jsut been let out of the car to charge down all the dogs/people who are finishing their walks tired and chilled.


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> TInk knows ah ah and oh noooo ( in the style of a teletubby according to OH) so I tried pretty random noises, squeaks,kisses noises, novel noises that made her look up at me (usually like i was devoid of my senses)
> 
> With her it really is when she is more focussed on the surroundings than me. Thats why we have issues with the bogey barriers as she is focussed on not being mown down by "woohoo we're out for a walk" dogs who have jsut been let out of the car to charge down all the dogs/people who are finishing their walks tired and chilled.


So I should try some random words and see if I get a response, I cant do a Teletubby voice though.:001_tt2: I tend to use my headmistress voice because Moll would get silly but she's much better now so I could use a bit of excitement. This LLW is so boring and frustrating for them[and me] jazzing it up might just help. Thanks MV.[again]


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> So I should try some random words and see if I get a response, I cant do a Teletubby voice though.:001_tt2: I tend to use my headmistress voice because Moll would get silly but she's much better now so I could use a bit of excitement. This LLW is so boring and frustrating for them[and me] jazzing it up might just help. Thanks MV.[again]


It's worth a shot. if they do pick up on our mood (which i think they do ) if we begin to behave liek this LLw stuff is fun and we enjoy doing it, it may help them believe it too. Worth a shot 

I save my headmistress voice for OH :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## kat&molly

It definatly is worth a try and at least I dont need extra hands


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## Dogless

Another Gold Star day for the BW . Quiet forest walk this morning then this afternoon we left the house past loads of kids with their puppies (has been a summer holiday craze of getting them) very calmly...then the skies opened and everyone went in . On our way to the fields I met a woman with a reactive large entire male who waved at me, I waved back and realised she was waiting for us. Her dog was staring at Kilo hard which usually affects him, plus making leaps towards us and growling. So; I took nice calm breaths, made sure Kilo's lead was slack and approached in a big wide arc stopping a few metres from them....Kilo just looked at the dog, sniffed about a bit and sat down. Not one hint of excitement or anxiety. I love my boy . On the way back we met a dog he plays with a lot - nice, calm greet and moved on.

Nupafeed or placebo effect for me - who knows but I like it .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Another Gold Star day for the BW . Quiet forest walk this morning then this afternoon we left the house past loads of kids with their puppies (has been a summer holiday craze of getting them) very calmly...then the skies opened and everyone went in . On our way to the fields I met a woman with a reactive large entire male who waved at me, I waved back and realised she was waiting for us. Her dog was staring at Kilo hard which usually affects him, plus making leaps towards us and growling. So; I took nice calm breaths, made sure Kilo's lead was slack and approached in a big wide arc stopping a few metres from them....Kilo just looked at the dog, sniffed about a bit and sat down. Not one hint of excitement or anxiety. I love my boy . On the way back we met a dog he plays with a lot - nice, calm greet and moved on.
> 
> Nupafeed or placebo effect for me - who knows but I like it .


To be that dramatic i think there has to be soemthing in the nupafeed  what a brilliant boy wonder


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- thats brilliant.
Shame about the influx of puppies though.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- thats brilliant.
> Shame about the influx of puppies though.


I saw one brought home to a house on our street and saw it the very next day struggling to keep up with it's young owner who was going full pelt on her rollerblades dragging it . They already have a dog that only gets out when it escapes....


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I saw one brought home to a house on our street and saw it the very next day struggling to keep up with it's young owner who was going full pelt on her rollerblades dragging it . They already have a dog that only gets out when it escapes....


 That must be so hard to watch


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I saw one brought home to a house on our street and saw it the very next day struggling to keep up with it's young owner who was going full pelt on her rollerblades dragging it . They already have a dog that only gets out when it escapes....


Poor pup. How are kids ever meant to learn.


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## Dogless

T'is the norm here it seems . Forgot to say that Kilo's breeders have advised that there is no need to neuter him as long as we aren't going to bring a bitch in. Which we are not. They will let me know when the dam is confirmed in whelp . Fingers crossed she has lots of boys .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> T'is the norm here it seems . Forgot to say that Kilo's breeders have advised that there is no need to neuter him as long as we aren't going to bring a bitch in. Which we are not. They will let me know when the dam is confirmed in whelp . Fingers crossed she has lots of boys .


Oh fingers crossed  So excited for you.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh fingers crossed  So excited for you.


I'm chuffed that I have found the dog training club that I have too; Kilo's puppy classes were awful but I have seen some of a class where we go and it seemed excellent.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I'm chuffed that I have found the dog training club that I have too; Kilo's puppy classes were awful but I have seen some of a class where we go and it seemed excellent.


Puppy classes certainly vary. There was one man, purporting to be a trainer, around here that was prosecuted for breaking a dog's leg during a class.:


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Puppy classes certainly vary. There was one man, purporting to be a trainer, around here that was prosecuted for breaking a dog's leg during a class.:


Wow . It was the uncontrolled nature of the socialisation that was dreadful at ours - there were two dogs that were 7 and 8 months old and the one 7 month old black lab was allowed to chase and bully Kilo mercilessly; he used to tear under the chairs with his tail between his legs and I refused to pull him out. The lab used to snap at him whenever he passed on lead too. The lady eventually rehomed him due to his aggression issues. Looking back I think it was the start of Kilo's black lab issues.

We were also taught to get a reliable drop by scruffing a puppy and shaking it until it let go of an item. I refused to let Kilo be used as a demo and refused to participate. I showed the woman that I could get him to swap an item for a treat instead .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Wow . It was the uncontrolled nature of the socialisation that was dreadful at ours - there were two dogs that were 7 and 8 months old and the one 7 month old black lab was allowed to chase and bully Kilo mercilessly; he used to tear under the chairs with his tail between his legs and I refused to pull him out. The lab used to snap at him whenever he passed on lead too. The lady eventually rehomed him due to his aggression issues. Looking back I think it was the start of Kilo's black lab issues.
> 
> We were also taught to get a reliable drop by scruffing a puppy and shaking it until it let go of an item. I refused to let Kilo be used as a demo and refused to participate. I showed the woman that I could get him to swap an item for a treat instead .


I liked because you refused to let Kilo be used as a demo and showed them you coudl get Kilo to swap, I jsut dont' get the mentality od some people.

Great class tonight moving on from finding and retrieving a scentcloth, we're doing it with car keys. As soon as i added something fabric for her to pick them up by, Tink got it right away  Trainer rolled her eyes and said we were meant to progress to that over the next 6 weeks, oops. So we'll be working on finding by scent and name of object 

But there has to be balance, in a heelwork exercise there were toys and chews on the floor there was a chew ontop of a box at perfect nose height.... wwhich was swiped effortlessly by a certain beagle. She did however drop it. So not entirely terrible.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I liked because you refused to let Kilo be used as a demo and showed them you coudl get Kilo to swap, I jsut dont' get the mentality od some people.
> 
> Great class tonight moving on from finding and retrieving a scentcloth, we're doing it with car keys. As soon as i added something fabric for her to pick them up by, Tink got it right away  Trainer rolled her eyes and said we were meant to progress to that over the next 6 weeks, oops. So we'll be working on finding by sight and name of object
> 
> But there has to be balance, in a heelwork exercise there were toys and chews on the floor there was a chew ontop of a box at perfect nose height.... wwhich was swiped effortlessly by a certain beagle. She did however drop it. So not entirely terrible.


You pair of swots; even dropping the chew is exemplary . Class really sounds fun; one thing that Kilo is really good at and enjoys is finding and retrieving objects by name - he knows loads of his toys....but nothing useful!! .


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## kat&molly

Dogless, thats great that you dont have to neuter, fingers crossed for lots of boys for you.

Sounds like Tink done well with scentwork-and pinching treats, that girl certainly likes her food.

I've been having a massive rethink on this whole Gun dog stuff.
Moll gets so overstimulated- I tried different things yesterday to get her to release but she just held fast-its frustrating. I think shes getting mixed messages with OH letting her drop the ball and me wanting her to hold it-the last 2 classes have encouraged this hanging on as she would only try it on very occasionally with me .
I know its her breed but she is obsessed with retreiving and it doesn't seem healthy sometimes. Am wondering about obedience after all or even agility- not something I ever considered for Moll but she got excited watching the other dogs do it at the show.
The more I think about it the more it appeals , try to widen her one track mind a bit.

I am looking forward to seeing if Evie is up for a bit of scent work today-it should be a good laugh if nothing else.


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> You pair of swots; even dropping the chew is exemplary . Class really sounds fun; one thing that Kilo is really good at and enjoys is finding and retrieving objects by name - he knows loads of his toys....but nothing useful!! .


Mollys the same-knows names of toys and teddys.
Nothing useful here either


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You pair of swots; even dropping the chew is exemplary . Class really sounds fun; one thing that Kilo is really good at and enjoys is finding and retrieving objects by name - he knows loads of his toys....but nothing useful!! .


Well that can easily be changed, the only down side is the slobber bath everything gets :lol:

K&M You know what i'm going to say  Have a go  thats the only way to know whether you and Molly would enjoy things. I suspect Molly will love doing anything with you 

Would it be less confusing for Molly (and OH) if balls are dropped and dummies are retrieved to hand. (Sorry if you have tried this)


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well that can easily be changed, the only down side is the slobber bath everything gets :lol:
> 
> K&M You know what i'm going to say  Have a go  thats the only way to know whether you and Molly would enjoy things. I suspect Molly will love doing anything with you
> 
> Would it be less confusing for Molly (and OH) if* balls are dropped and dummies are retrieved to hand. (Sorry if you have tried this)*


That's a good idea .


----------



## kat&molly

It is a good idea- I hadn't thought of trying that.

It just feels like its not 'fun' at the minute-its not for me and I dont see how it is for Moll as its not controlled and she gets manic.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> It is a good idea- I hadn't thought of trying that.
> 
> It just feels like its not 'fun' at the minute-its not for me and I dont see how it is for Moll as its not controlled and she gets manic.


I'd be like you, there's excitement and there's over excitement, I'm not really comfortable seeing dogs bordering on mania. So maybe it is time to try something different and give the retrieving a break.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I'd be like you, there's excitement and there's over excitement, I'm not really comfortable seeing dogs bordering on mania. So maybe it is time to try something different and give the retrieving a break.


Thanks, I felt like it was just me moaning.
I think its been made worse by the 2nd and 3rd week was when Moll started not giving the ball up- she jumps up and sometimes grabs me-it hurts. Big Evie said it was all ok because it meant she was interested- I disagree and think we should have left it for then and done something else- now its become ingrained.
Moll is such a well behaved girl I dont like it like this so I'll insist on something else for today.
Hopefully I'll come back in a better mood.
Have a nice day everyone.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thanks, I felt like it was just me moaning.
> I think its been made worse by the 2nd and 3rd week was when Moll started not giving the ball up- she jumps up and sometimes grabs me-it hurts. Big Evie said it was all ok because it meant she was interested- I disagree and think we should have left it for then and done something else- now its become ingrained.
> Moll is such a well behaved girl I dont like it like this so I'll insist on something else for today.
> Hopefully I'll come back in a better mood.
> Have a nice day everyone.


They other thing that might be worth working on "go wild and freeze"... a bit like musical statues as a kid.  I think it could easily be adapted to include a ball after you have trained the basic game 

There are various versions 
Raising K9: September Morn's GO WILD & FREEZE Game

http://www.deesdogs.com/documents/LoweringArousal.pdf

Have a great day


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## kat&molly

We're back, I asked to do Agility today

Moll done 'quite' well- she wasn't completly focused all the time but Big Evie said she was good for the 1st time and excitement and focus should improve. She was really keen on working for treats though and that made a pleasant change. 
I'm going to stick with this for a few weeks and see how she takes to it- I'm disappointed because its not Gun dog stuff but its for the best at the minute I think, we can always go back to it.

We even gave Scruff a little go at the end - just 1 litle jump and she may enjoy it- so Big Evie said she can do some as well every week.

I decided against the scent work for Evie this week as it would have just wound Moll up. Another time though.

Thanks for the links MV- I'll have a read.


----------



## Beth17

Well we had a nice walk on lead through the woods with the boys behaving until we saw a couple with a pair of Westies which would have be fine had they not stopped to try and chat. I had moved them over to the side and as i've seen them before mentioned that Oscar at the moment can be a bit grumpy on lead when with Sam thinking they'd get the hint; not so much.

They let theirs wander over on flexis which meant we got tangled up and although Sam got to say hello to another dog it really wasn't a greeting that was needed especially when she started asking if Sam was a puppy and how old was he etc.

Oscar meanwhile I could see was a bit tense as the one of the dogs was right in his face but we were stuck and couldn't really move anywhere so I again repeated he wasn't good and then had to drag them away which then led to them becoming frustrated and playing up; cue lots of sits and downs etc to get their focus back.

Other than that it wasn't bad the sun was shining and Sam only tried to bite Oscars' lead once or twice. Next time i'll just have to not worry about offending people and ask them not to bring their dogs over.

God I sound like a cow I do like the boys to meet dogs just not all the time and not in confined places on leads.


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> . Next time i'll just have to not worry about offending people and ask them not to bring their dogs over.
> 
> God I sound like a cow I do like the boys to meet dogs just not all the time and not in confined places on leads.


Oh come join us and embrace your inner hag.  Throw off the bonds of being a 'nice sweet girl'. With good manners and dignity say "Nice/awful weather, running late can't stop and chat, have a nice walk." without pausing for any sort of reply, keep on walking


----------



## Dogless

We have had a superb day .

Spent a whole morning in 'our' forest where we, as usual, didn't see a soul. Then this evening just a quick onlead walk before training - we passed the big group of kids and their puppies again very calmly, very nicely and walked past a few dogs very calmly too .

Then...we went back to school tonight; again Kilo was very, very calm and focussed. Noticeably less excited than usual - has to be the Nupafeed. 

He is my very best boy today - just told him he was the best dog on the planet and gave him half a chicken for his dinner :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless I am so glad you and BW had another great day. The Nupafeed and your kind, consistent, patient, training, you do yourself a disservice not mentioning it


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless I am so glad you and BW had another great day. The Nupafeed and your kind, consistent, patient, training, you do yourself a disservice not mentioning it


. Thank you. I'd do anything to see him right. I know the folk on this thread understand exactly what I mean.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, really pleased you had a good day. And back at training already- those weeks went quick-Well done and a big kiss for Kilo.



We had a lovely afternoon walk yesterday, I dont always take a ball on walks but just lately I've taken something every time for this retreive training.
Decided to leave it behind- it was lovely. Done some LLW and some training in a big field.

I 'jazzed' up the LLW yesterday- it really helped. Really hard work with 3 but good results. Hope I haven't spoken too soon for this morning.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> We had a lovely afternoon walk yesterday, I dont always take a ball on walks but just lately I've taken something every time for this retreive training.
> Decided to leave it behind- it was lovely. Done some LLW and some training in a big field.
> 
> I 'jazzed' up the LLW yesterday- it really helped. Really hard work with 3 but good results. Hope I haven't spoken too soon for this morning.


Glad you had a lovely afternoon yesterday and jazzing up LLW helped although i now have a mental picture of you walking down the street like something out of the musical Chicago, complete with high kicks, fringing and sequins


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Glad you had a lovely afternoon yesterday and jazzing up LLW helped although i now have a mental picture of you walking down the street like something out of the musical Chicago, complete with high kicks, fringing and sequins


I think we nearly looked like that-I just left the sequins at home.

Feel a bit daft for not making it more exciting before but Moll would just go stupid if I so much as spoke to her-she is much better now though.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I think we nearly looked like that-I just left the sequins at home.
> 
> Feel a bit daft for not making it more exciting before but Moll would just go stupid if I so much as spoke to her-she is much better now though.


I htink we can all fall into the "this is serious training" and "this is fun" way of thinking when of course it's all as foreign to our dogs and how we present it shapes their attitude to each activity


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I htink we can all fall into the "this is serious training" and "this is fun" way of thinking when of course it's all as foreign to our dogs and how we present it shapes their attitude to each activity


I agree- I tend to have my 'I mean it' head on for LLW- but look where its got me-nowhere.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I agree- I tend to have my 'I mean it' head on for LLW- but look where its got me-nowhere.


Tink is terrible when I'm serious about things. If dogs had a middle finger and could blow a raspberry she would show me both! I think I've mentioned on here before that Tink has taught me to relax and enjoy more, to save the serious for when it is really needed not the other way around.

Going to work on some "by name retrieves" over the next few days. We did do a few blind retrieves out on our walk yesterday morning, placing the keys not throwing :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

I think I've been copping the 'middle finger and Raspberry treatment'

Another good walk- lost some focus toward towards the end but still good- Moll and Scruff get a tiny bit silly and worry about the other pinching treats.It is really hard though, I may look in to a walking belt.


Moll loves Blind Retreives- but I dont know how she'd react to picking up metal etc. Some objects that aren't 'her' items might be good.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moll loves Blind Retreives- but I dont know how she'd react to picking up metal etc. Some objects that aren't 'her' items might be good.


I've added a little fabric lanyard to my keys for Tink to pick them up by. there would be no way her teeth would touch metal, Can't say I blame her.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly - really pleased that your LLW is working....keep imagining 'Singing In The Rain' for some reason though .

Another good morning in the park this morning - lots of dogs there but Kilo was my best boy apart from being a little challenging and excited when a lady kept hitting a tennis ball with a racquet right past us for her dog to chase :scared:.


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## Sarah1983

Well, I am reunited with my beloved Spenny Benny. At first I thought we were going to be going right back to the basics with training as he was basically sticking his finger up at me and telling me to sod off. But a couple of short sessions with the clicker seem to have brought him back up to speed. And I was very brave during the last one, I took all my courage, said a prayer to whatever powers that be might be listening and unclipped his leash  We were only in front of the flats where it's fairly safe and where he's been off leash with hubby but I needn't have worried. He had a little happy dance, ran across to the tree, had a pee and then hurtled back to me to skid to a stop in a down at my feet. We practised some sits, downs and recalls and he behaved no different to how he does on leash  I think a gold star might be in order!



moonviolet said:


> I've added a little fabric lanyard to my keys for Tink to pick them up by. there would be no way her teeth would touch metal, Can't say I blame her.


I wish Spens bloody wouldn't, I'm not allowed to carry my own keys up the stairs to the flat! He almost ripped them off my jeans earlier coz I forgot that rule.

Now I need to catch up with how everyone's been doing!


----------



## moonviolet

Definitely a gold star for Spencer  thats great after a long break  I did giggle about Spencer trying to rip your keys of yours jeans, I doubt Tink will ever be quite that keen.


----------



## kat&molly

Gold star for Spencer- that must have been a relief. 
I bet you've really missed him.

Too hot to practice more LLW so we went to the fields with the river- no ball. Done a bit of training with Moll, always much easier when I can let Evie off for a tear round.
Done some Blinds usuing the whistle[it has a lanyard] and my Inhalor, didn't have anything else:scared: She was reluctant as first but soon caught on - she enjoyed it without being manic.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Too hot to practice more LLW so we went to the fields with the river- no ball. Done a bit of training with Moll, always much easier when I can let Evie off for a tear round.
> Done some Blinds usuing the whistle[it has a lanyard] and my Inhalor, didn't have anything else:scared: She was reluctant as first but soon caught on - she enjoyed it without being manic.


Well done Molly. 

I guess with the novel objects they have to think about how to pick up and carry


----------



## paddyjulie

Have not posted on here for a while..at the moment were working on a formal retrieve .....and I need to get him to do a wave by next week :lol: :lol:

and to my suprise we managed to walk past 2 JR terriers (females)yesterday with not even a grumble ..no lunging , nothing but then he went ape at 3 collies  but hey its work in prgress and his balls are slowly starting to come back so hopefully things will improve


----------



## Dogless

Gold stars for Spen, Chester and Moll .

Went to the fields this afternoon and met two dogs Kilo plays nicely with on the way - so no training bar sitting calmly and nicely before being let off to play. It's been a while since he's had a play with other dogs, so it was nice .


----------



## kat&molly

It must be nice for those of you seeing your dogs playing with others outside-mine never do- I'm guessing thats because they've got each other and do their playing indoors. Even when we visit Molls family they dont all play together. Am curious now.



I'm going to take some random stuff to the fields tomorrow for retreives.


OH wouldn't notice if a slipper was missing would he


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> It must be nice for those of you seeing your dogs playing with others outside-mine never do- I'm guessing thats because they've got each other and do their playing indoors. Even when we visit Molls family they dont all play together. Am curious now.
> 
> I'm going to take some random stuff to the fields tomorrow for retreives.
> 
> OH wouldn't notice if a slipper was missing would he


Kilo used to play with any and every willing dog. Now he plays with a select few as long as they will chase and be chased and mostly likes to meet, have a sniff and then do his own thing around others. Unless he sees them eating something vile. Then he has to investigate.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Kilo used to play with any and every willing dog. Now he plays with a select few as long as they will chase and be chased and mostly likes to meet, have a sniff and then do his own thing around others. Unless he sees them eating something vile. Then he has to investigate.


It will be interesting to see how it changes when little Rudi comes along


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I'm going to take some random stuff to the fields tomorrow for retreives.
> 
> OH wouldn't notice if a slipper was missing would he


I imagine it will rather depend on whether it returns.... " are you sure you had a pair? honey, have you always a second foot?"

Had a little gold star moment at the start of our walk. had to pass a friendly but keen GSD on lead who pulled ( themself and owner) toward us. We didn't pause didn't hesitate or flinch we jsut kept on walking like they were invisible I smiled and said morning so proud of my girl  Then just flumped about in the woods with silly games and a couple of key retrieves thrown in .

This evening 2 glorious hours with Monty and his mum. She adores him even if he barely notices she's there :lol:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> It will be interesting to see how it changes when little Rudi comes along


I was talking about that to the man we were with earlier; wondering whether Kilo will join in the puppy walls of death . He likes puppies and is tolerant so I am hoping that that will be the case with Rudi. Fingers crossed .



moonviolet said:


> I imagine it will rather depend on whether it returns.... " are you sure you had a pair? honey, have you always a second foot?"
> 
> Had a little gold star moment at the start of our walk. had to pass a friendly but keen GSD on lead who pulled ( themself and owner) toward us. We didn't pause didn't hesitate or flinch we jsut kept on walking like they were invisible I smiled and said morning so proud of my girl  Then just flumped about in the woods with silly games and a couple of key retrieves thrown in .
> 
> This evening 2 glorious hours with Monty and his mum. She adores him even if he barely notices she's there :lol:


Well done with the GSD - can't believe how far you and Miss Tinks have come. It really is amazing .


----------



## LottieLab

Julie is working on recall with him and I'm trying to get him to stay. But he's doing ok!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I was talking about that to the man we were with earlier; *wondering whether Kilo will join in the puppy walls of death .* He likes puppies and is tolerant so I am hoping that that will be the case with Rudi. Fingers crossed ..


Now there would be a sight to share 



Dogless said:


> Well done with the GSD - can't believe how far you and Miss Tinks have come. It really is amazing .


 It's an awful lot to do with her nature to be fair. She is such a little trooper


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Now there would be a sight to share
> 
> It's an awful lot to do with her nature to be fair. She is such a little trooper


I'm sure you'll hear my wails of despair as a big, clumsy pup and a big, clumsy Kilo threaten to demolish the place . Failing that..photos :scared:.

Miss Tinks really is a trooper, she is fabulous. I have never really had a soft spot for Beagles, but she has totally won me round!


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Tink[again] A GSD as well.  That Monty doesn't know what he's missing.

Dogless- I think you should push all the furniture up against one wall- you'll need the space.

I could chop OH's foot off before we leave for our walk but Moll has got a good nose so I dont think theres any danger of losing a slipper- however- it wont be my fault if she wants to try some water retreives


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well done Tink[again] A GSD as well.  That Monty doesn't know what he's missing.
> 
> Dogless- I think you should push all the furniture up against one wall- you'll need the space.
> 
> I could chop OH's foot off before we leave for our walk but Moll has got a good nose so I dont think theres any danger of losing a slipper- however- *it wont be my fault if she wants to try some water retreives*


:devil::devil::devil:


----------



## thronesfan

Trying to teach Cookie to walk to heel - she can do it practically perfectly in the back garden, but set foot out the front door and she pulls like a train.

Her recall is improving and I'm happy to let her off the lead to play with certain other dogs. She is much calmer around other dogs off the lead (on lead she whines and barks quite a lot), and some of the regular dog walkers we meet are impressed with how well she's doing. I'd be much happier if she was better on the lead though - sometimes she howls like she's being tortured when all I'm trying to do is leave the park to go home.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

I've never posted in here before but often come and have a snoop to read how well you're all doing with your stars 

To be honest I feel too ashamed to post as you are always working hard on doing the very best for your dogs and improving their behaviour and confidence, where as I just tramp about the countryside watching the pickles pretty much do what the hell they like 

Reading this, I think I need to be more interactive with them on walks. Don't get me wrong, they're not running wild. Their recall is good and I never let them approach on lead or nervous looking dogs as I know they can be a bit too playful for some dogs.
They also regularly 'check in' with me on their own accord and always praise them for doing this, but do very little actual 'training' with them when out on walks.

I think I would probably do a lot more if I just had one dog but because they are always playing with each other, I just leave them to it 

You've inspired me to do more though..... so watch this space!!!

Don't ask me about how lead walking from our house is going though....... lets just say I now have scars to show for my failings


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## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> I've never posted in here before but often come and have a snoop to read how well you're all doing with your stars


Hello! nice to see you here  



foxyrockmeister said:


> To be honest I feel too ashamed to post as you are always working hard on doing the very best for your dogs and improving their behaviour and confidence, where as I just tramp about the countryside watching the pickles pretty much do what the hell they like
> 
> Reading this, I think I need to be more interactive with them on walks. Don't get me wrong, they're not running wild. Their recall is good and I never let them approach on lead or nervous looking dogs as I know they can be a bit too playful for some dogs.
> They also regularly 'check in' with me on their own accord and always praise them for doing this, but do very little actual 'training' with them when out on walks.
> 
> I think I would probably do a lot more if I just had one dog but because they are always playing with each other, I just leave them to it
> 
> You've inspired me to do more though..... so watch this space!!!


As long as you can recall your dogs when you need them and they aren't terrorising everyone on the area you are doing better than most  jsut tonight i saw some poor bloke almost fall of his bike when a an offlead dog charged across the road at him barking intensely (albeit a no through road it's quite busy with cars belonging to walkers, cyclists, dog walkers etc). You have nothing at all to be ashamed of. I interact with Tink because i love her being offlead and if didn't interact she's probably be off following mountain bikers scent trails (strangely more interesting to her than deer, fox, rabbit, squirrel etc)if you are all enjoying it there is no reason to change anything unless you want to 



foxyrockmeister said:


> Don't ask me about how lead walking from our house is going though....... lets just say I now have scars to show for my failings


 I won't ask but if you ever want to talk about it we're here to listen even if you just want to vent and we are all really supportive 

PS Tink says thank you for the compliments Dogless and K&M.


----------



## Dogless

We had a good run this morning; Kilo was a little too interested in a lad on the other side of the sports pitches who was doing fartlek training and making all manner of weird noises and sudden moves, so he went back on lead and we did extra laps until he'd finished and Kilo could zoom about free before we went onto the pavement part of the run.

I'm debating whether or not to go to a fun dog day / fun dog show (not to enter) today - we usually go to any that I see for socialisation but he was a bit stressed at that last walk we did for some reason so not sure as he's doing very well with being chilled at present and I don't want to ruin things. It's only 15 minutes away so I might go and come home if he shows any signs of stress. That and black clouds are gathering and the forecast isn't good .

FRM; the Pickles sound as if they are well under control when out walking. I interact with Kilo a huge amount as he's obviously an 'only' dog, plus I enjoy it!


----------



## moonviolet

I can't say I blame Kilo for being slightly intrigued by the strange man, making sudden moves and weird noises. I'm quite sure i would have been distracted too!

I can see why you are in 2 minds about the fun dog day/show. Think you have to go with your gut on this , You know Kilo and where he's at right now. I would be tempted to go, try to find a quiet spot for him to acclimatise, but, as you say, leave if he shows any signs of stress.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I can't say I blame Kilo for being slightly intrigued by the strange man, making sudden moves and weird noises. I'm quite sure i would have been distracted too!
> 
> I can see why you are in 2 minds about the fun dog day/show. Think you have to go with your gut on this , You know Kilo and where he's at right now. I would be tempted to go, try to find a quiet spot for him to acclimatise, but, as you say, leave if he shows any signs of stress.


He did just keep fixating on him when he started to sprint - never ran towards him but I wasn't comfortable with the intensity with which he was watching at times. I've seen that look before he chases something .

He was so, so chilled at training and has always been chilled at these fun dog shows apart from the last one and has been lovely and calm in the park and around here for so long apart from the horrid week where the kids were awful....just don't want to push things. I'll see! It's from 11 - 3 but I don't want to register him for any classes so no rush.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> He did just keep fixating on him when he started to sprint - never ran towards him but I wasn't comfortable with the intensity with which he was watching at times. I've seen that look before he chases something .
> 
> He was so, so chilled at training and has always been chilled at these fun dog shows apart from the last one and has been lovely and calm in the park and around here for so long apart from the horrid week where the kids were awful....just don't want to push things. I'll see! It's from 11 - 3 but I don't want to register him for any classes so no rush.


It does sound like that was the mother of all distractions and in truth if Kilo saw that sort of behaviour in a dog, it would be "chase me" behaviour! So while the fixation is not desirable the fact he didn't act on it is a huge positive.

If you aren't "feeling it" don't go and if it's raining and he can't run about to keep warm it could be pretty miserable.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- I think I'd have been intrigued by that as well 

FRM- your dogs sound fine-like MV said as long as they recall and aren't causing bother I wouldn't worry unless you want to train. Its more difficult with more that 1 though. I am always doing stuff with Moll but thats because shes the one that wants to.

Not too bad LLW this morning- not as good as the past 2 mornings- but that was my fault as I was tired.


----------



## Dogless

We didn't go; it's raining on and off and for some reason I feel utterly, utterly wiped out today. Bar a bit of food shopping that I had to do and a quick game of footie with the BW just now we've done absolutely zilch since our run. Very lazy.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> We didn't go; it's raining on and off and for some reason I feel utterly, utterly wiped out today. Bar a bit of food shopping that I had to do and a quick game of footie with the BW just now we've done absolutely zilch since our run. Very lazy.


It's not lazy it's recuperation  and very important it is too


----------



## Coffee

Afternoon all <waves> 

All is still going okay here with the car training. I tried closing the boot a little bit yesterday, just lowering it a few inches and he panicked  Lifted it back up, dispensed more treats and words of praise, tried lowering it again. He was very aware of it being moved (albiet literally only a couple of inches) and it's got me thinking now whether to actually try and just have him on the back seat in a seat-belt harness instead  I just can't imagine him being happy to be "enclosed" in the boot. Just me reaching up my arm towards it has him super aware and alert.

Another small problem I have - not exactly training related though - he has developed a fairly significant sized lump on the side of his willy  (sorry!). I was keeping an eye on it and hoping it might go away but this morning it seems bigger and is also now angry red looking. I'm so reluctant to get him in the car to go to the vets (appointment made for Monday morning) and undo all my good work of the last week... I'm considering walking him there instead. It would be a good hour walking each way - do you think that's too much, all onlead? He has longer walks than that, practically every day but never that long onlead. Do you think it would be okay? I just know if we take him in the car it's going to be completely back to square one and the last week of work might as well not have happened


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Aww, thanks for welcoming me! 

And thanks for the reassurance that the pickles are ok! They are very good with their recall and definitely don't cause a nuisance to other people, mainly because we very rarely see any other people!! 
Having said that, we have just got back from a walk in the forest and we were walking along a track that I have never seen anyone else on before and all of a sudden 3 young children came tearing down the track towards us screaming their heads off  I called the Pickles back and they came straight away, so I put them on their leads and moved to the side of the track. They were pulling on their leads and the kids were all "OOooh doggies, ahhhh, I love doggies etc etc!!" and then all of a sudden Branston started growling at one of them  The kids seemed quite sensible and just carried on walking and warned me that the rest of their family were following on behind so I stayed where I was and kept the pickles on their leads until everyone had passed.

As soon as they were passed I let them off and we carried on our merry way. It's strange though, it's not the first time that Branston has taken a dislike to children and I am a bit worried about it. He would never approach one and always comes to me when I call him so I'm not concerned that he is a danger, I'm just confused as to why he randomly acts like this towards certain children 

Aside from that we had a good walk, they were offlead all the time and did their usually regular 'check ins' with me and I threw a few extra recalls in just for the hell of it! 

Dogless - I don't blame you for not going, especially if it's raining! We all need a lazy day from time to time and I expect your idea of lazy is most people's idea of quite active :lol:

Moonviolet - I will one day get back to the trying to walk Branston from home but I have to confess I have given up at the moment. Our street is so busy with it being summer hols at the mo that I just think I'd be asking for (even more) trouble  
Plus now I actually have a bit of tan, the scars on my arms are very noticeable and I don't want any more!!!! :lol:

Coffee - That's a really difficult one, I don't think that an hour's onlead walk would be too much for Alfie though, does he walk well on the lead? It might be preferable to the car


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Afternoon all <waves>
> 
> All is still going okay here with the car training. I tried closing the boot a little bit yesterday, just lowering it a few inches and he panicked  Lifted it back up, dispensed more treats and words of praise, tried lowering it again. He was very aware of it being moved (albiet literally only a couple of inches) and it's got me thinking now whether to actually try and just have him on the back seat in a seat-belt harness instead  I just can't imagine him being happy to be "enclosed" in the boot. Just me reaching up my arm towards it has him super aware and alert.


I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water just yet... I think you just moved a little fast for your boy. just go back for a few days to him in the car receiving treats, once he's comfortable with that again just touching the door, and treat don't move it, do this until he's totally comfortable with you touching the door before you even think of moving it again.

With any desensitising / counter conditioning you stop the minute the dog shows stress and go back a few steps. You can't hurry it,

I dont' know if you might find it helpful to recruit a family member to sit in the car while you are doing your training. So he's not alone in there and when the times comes (days, weeks, months from now) for closing the door there isn't a time where he's in there alone before you can get in, and they can treat immediately when the door closes.



Coffee said:


> Another small problem I have - not exactly training related though - he has developed a fairly significant sized lump on the side of his willy  (sorry!). I was keeping an eye on it and hoping it might go away but this morning it seems bigger and is also now angry red looking. I'm so reluctant to get him in the car to go to the vets (appointment made for Monday morning) and undo all my good work of the last week... I'm considering walking him there instead. It would be a good hour walking each way - do you think that's too much, all onlead? He has longer walks than that, practically every day but never that long onlead. Do you think it would be okay? I just know if we take him in the car it's going to be completely back to square one and the last week of work might as well not have happened


Poor boy with a lumpy winky 

I would the walk it, it's not like you are doing it daily and I really don't think a one off would do terrible harm.


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Aww, thanks for welcoming me!
> 
> And thanks for the reassurance that the pickles are ok! They are very good with their recall and definitely don't cause a nuisance to other people, mainly because we very rarely see any other people!!
> Having said that, we have just got back from a walk in the forest and we were walking along a track that I have never seen anyone else on before and all of a sudden 3 young children came tearing down the track towards us screaming their heads off  I called the Pickles back and they came straight away, so I put them on their leads and moved to the side of the track. They were pulling on their leads and the kids were all "OOooh doggies, ahhhh, I love doggies etc etc!!" and then all of a sudden Branston started growling at one of them  The kids seemed quite sensible and just carried on walking and warned me that the rest of their family were following on behind so I stayed where I was and kept the pickles on their leads until everyone had passed.
> 
> As soon as they were passed I let them off and we carried on our merry way. It's strange though, it's not the first time that Branston has taken a dislike to children and I am a bit worried about it. He would never approach one and always comes to me when I call him so I'm not concerned that he is a danger, I'm just confused as to why he randomly acts like this towards certain children
> 
> Aside from that we had a good walk, they were offlead all the time and did their usually regular 'check ins' with me and I threw a few extra recalls in just for the hell of it!


Branston probably felt trapped on lead so was unable to practise avoidance and put what he considered a safe distance between him and these children, he understandably found a bit too intense running up screaming, probably staring at him and Lily. So he growled to tell them to keep back and it told you he was uncomfortable, it's really important you never tell him off, that you show him you are on his side and you will ensure his safety. Moving away if you can, blocking the children if you can't. If you are dog, Kids can be really confusing, screaming unpredictable creatures touching clumsily etc.



foxyrockmeister said:


> Moonviolet - I will one day get back to the trying to walk Branston from home but I have to confess I have given up at the moment. Our street is so busy with it being summer hols at the mo that I just think I'd be asking for (even more) trouble
> Plus now I actually have a bit of tan, the scars on my arms are very noticeable and I don't want any more!!!! :lol:


:lol: @ the tan. best set yourself up for success and wait for the summer( such as it is) to be over.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water just yet... I think you just moved a little fast for your boy. just go back for a few days to him in the car receiving treats, once he's comfortable with that again just touching the door, and treat don't move it, do this until he's totally comfortable with you touching the door before you even think of moving it again.
> 
> With any desensitising / counter conditioning you stop the minute the dog shows stress and go back a few steps. You can't hurry it,
> 
> I dont' know if you might find it helpful to recruit a family member to sit in the car while you are doing your training. So he's not alone in there and when the times comes (days, weeks, months from now) for closing the door there isn't a time where he's in there alone before you can get in, and they can treat immediately when the door closes.
> 
> Poor boy with a lumpy winky
> 
> I would the walk it, it's not like you are doing it daily and I really don't think a one off would do terrible harm.


Do you know what, you are absolutely right. I rushed it a bit didn't I?  <slaps self>

Have just been out now and I didn't even attempt to touch the boot (apart from to open it for him to get in of course!) and he was fine, as happy as he's been all week  Will carry on for the next few days the same before I try to touch the boot again and will take it super slowly as per your excellent advice  

I'm going to get my daughter to sit in the car with us tomorrow... I do think that will help... he adores her. She's at work today so couldn't help out but she'll be happy to do it when she's here. I was already thinking of having her in the car when it comes to closing the door, for the exact reasons you said, but now am thinking it would be better to have her in as much as possible so he doesn't get over-excited if she just appears for the first time... if that all makes sense!

Thanks moonviolet, you're such a great help you really are 

FoxyRM - he's not too bad on the lead, we do have to use a head collar though, I can barely hold him without it  Have decided, am definitely going to walk him to the vets on Monday... would hate to undo all our good work this last week and as a one-off it shouldn't be a massive issue


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Dogless - I don't blame you for not going, especially if it's raining! We all need a lazy day from time to time and I expect your idea of lazy is most people's idea of quite active :lol:


I have been getting a bit too obsessed on the exercise and food front like the bad ol' days so am worn out I reckon - have had nothing in the tank for the past few days when running and swimming . Going to treat myself to something nice to eat tonight and a glass or two of vino as I got into my post Afghanistan jeans today so deserve a treat .

I would imagine as mv said that Branston felt a little trapped today with the kids; Kilo can be the same.

Coffee - I'd walk to the vet, definitely, it would be a shame to undo your good work so far.

Our walk this afternoon (once I dragged my lazy arse out ) was good - we met the same dogs as yesterday so the BW got an hour or so's play again...he goes for ages without any then gets a few days in a row. Like buses .


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Do you know what, you are absolutely right. I rushed it a bit didn't I?  <slaps self>
> Thanks moonviolet, you're such a great help you really are


We have all rushed at times, I know i have.

Thank Tink she has been a rigorous Teacher  :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Foxy, Rupert took a dislike to 2 little girls here and I have absolutely no idea why. He was always wary of noisy, fast moving kids but these were calm, quiet and sensible yet he reacted badly to them every time he saw them 


Coffee said:


> Do you know what, you are absolutely right. I rushed it a bit didn't I?  <slaps self>
> 
> Have just been out now and I didn't even attempt to touch the boot (apart from to open it for him to get in of course!) and he was fine, as happy as he's been all week  Will carry on for the next few days the same before I try to touch the boot again and will take it super slowly as per your excellent advice


If he's becoming hyper aware whenever you reach up to close the boot then start there, reach up but don't actually do anything except that and reward him for it. Real baby steps.

And I'd walk him to the vets, not worth undoing all your hard work if it's in walking distance. Just another thought, have you tried buses with him? I could get Shadow on a bus or train but not in a car. Think it was the enclosed space with him. Just thinking it might make things easier for future vet visits if he's happy on a bus.

Today Spen and I have worked on easy stuff around sheep. Since they've invaded our usual walking place I thought I'd turn it into a training opportunity. He didn't do too badly, was clearly distracted by them but was able to respond to me even if he was slower than normal.


----------



## Coffee

Sarah1983 said:


> Foxy, Rupert took a dislike to 2 little girls here and I have absolutely no idea why. He was always wary of noisy, fast moving kids but these were calm, quiet and sensible yet he reacted badly to them every time he saw them
> 
> If he's becoming hyper aware whenever you reach up to close the boot then start there, reach up but don't actually do anything except that and reward him for it. Real baby steps.
> 
> And I'd walk him to the vets, not worth undoing all your hard work if it's in walking distance. Just another thought, have you tried buses with him? I could get Shadow on a bus or train but not in a car. Think it was the enclosed space with him. Just thinking it might make things easier for future vet visits if he's happy on a bus.
> 
> Today Spen and I have worked on easy stuff around sheep. Since they've invaded our usual walking place I thought I'd turn it into a training opportunity. He didn't do too badly, was clearly distracted by them but was able to respond to me even if he was slower than normal.


Thanks Sarah 

I've never took him on a bus  but would be worth a try wouldn't it? If, god forbid, he kicked off and went crazy I could just get off at the next stop. Would certainly make life a little easier if I could take him on buses, absolutely 

Well done Spen... hope he can get used to them and get to ignoring those pesky sheep soon!


----------



## kat&molly

Coffee- I hope Alfies willy is ok.
I bet he'll enjoy his walk to the vets- all those different sights and smells.
Think I've always been really lucky with dogs and cars- I'm sure thats because there's always been another dog to show them its good. The lid coming down can be scary- I'm sure they think its aiming for them.
Hope you continue to do well.

OH and Jay came with us this afternoon-I didn't take his slippers I let Molly take her ball instead She hasn't had it since wednesday and I felt guilty for depriving her, but all she wanted was retreives- not interested in anything else- I was late with a 'leave' command and she grabbed the ball and bruised my hand. I'd feel bad stopping it completly - shes lovely without it and we do some lovely training.

Enjoy your wine Dogless- I reckon you've earnt it.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> Branston probably felt trapped on lead so was unable to practise avoidance and put what he considered a safe distance between him and these children, he understandably found a bit too intense running up screaming, probably staring at him and Lily. So he growled to tell them to keep back and it told you he was uncomfortable, it's really important you never tell him off, that you show him you are on his side and you will ensure his safety. Moving away if you can, blocking the children if you can't. If you are dog, Kids can be really confusing, screaming unpredictable creatures touching clumsily etc.
> 
> :lol: @ the tan. best set yourself up for success and wait for the summer( such as it is) to be over.





Dogless said:


> I would imagine as mv said that Branston felt a little trapped today with the kids; Kilo can be the same.
> 
> .





Sarah1983 said:


> Foxy, Rupert took a dislike to 2 little girls here and I have absolutely no idea why. He was always wary of noisy, fast moving kids but these were calm, quiet and sensible yet he reacted badly to them every time he saw them
> .


Thanks guys, I can understand him feeling a bit trapped and defensive on his lead but while the kids were being all screamy and excitable he was actually pulling on the lead with a waggy tail, all excited like he wanted to play, but when they stopped he just took a dislike to one of the children 

It's strange - he's the same with one of my friend's daughters and she is very good around the dogs, always calm and never approaches them. Lily adores her and she adores Lily but Branston growls everytime she moves even if she's the other side of the room. Me and my friend have joked that her daughter must be possessed and Branston can sense the devil in her! But being serious it is a bit of a worry when there doesn't seem to be a reason for it.

I never tell him off for it, he is obviously doing it and feeling uncomfortable for a reason, I just wish I knew what it was so I could tackle it 

But then again, we are talking about a dog who goes mental at the smell of cooking lamb, so what hope do I ever have of understanding what goes on in his head at times :lol:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> I have been getting a bit too obsessed on the exercise and food front like the bad ol' days so am worn out I reckon - have had nothing in the tank for the past few days when running and swimming . Going to treat myself to something nice to eat tonight and a glass or two of vino as I got into my post Afghanistan jeans today so deserve a treat .
> .


I bet I couldn't get in to your post Afghanistan jeans but I'm having a celebratory glass of vino for you anyway! :crazy:


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> I bet I couldn't get in to your post Afghanistan jeans but I'm having a celebratory glass of vino for you anyway! :crazy:


I met my very honest friend when I walked to the shop for wine and Maltesers. She said "You're doing it again. I can tell"  . Cheers :thumbup:.


----------



## L/C

*Coffee* - another vote for walking. Gypsy hates every form of transport that I have tried her with (trains, tube, car, bus and on one memorable occasion boat ). I'm not sure why but she just gets very stressed out. She will calm down if she has space to lie down but never really relaxes. As a result we try to walk everywhere we can! I'd be a bit wary of buses unless you have a lot of space on them for him to sit/lie down as it can be difficult for them to balance.

*FRM* - my two don't have much experience of kids but they are getting used to the ones that play outside on our street. Two of them are appallingly behaved around dogs and I won't let them interact but the other two are very good and listen very well to what I tell them. If he's uncomfortable I wouldn't push him - has he ever had a bad experience with a child?

*Dogless* - I'm impressed by the post Afghanistan jeans but it sounds like it might not be the healthiest thing for you? Ignore me if I'm over stepping but I hope you're ok.

Two gold star days for the wonder twins. Yesterday we went for a long walk and we were having our sitting, relaxing, watching the world go by at the end of the walk to let Ely be comfortable outside. Suddenly two huge mals showed up offlead, no owner in sight and muzzled. Both were also entire males as far as I could tell. Ely and I were sitting on the grass while Gypsy was splashing in the pond and playing with OH. I kept Ely in the down while the two mals wandered over to try and sniff him - he was quite tense so I kept myself between him and then until the owner finally turned up and called them away. Ely was calm throughout it, no growling or vocalising and no hard stares and afterwards he got up, had a shake to relive the tension and seemed to get over it very quickly. During the walk I did lots of down stays with Gypsy and also targeting and touch work around distractions. She was a little star. :thumbup:

Today I took them out on my own and had a little training walk. We did some desensitisation with buses and air brakes for Ely and then moved onto the field for some down stays and distraction recall for both of them. I had them both in a down stay and was walking away, around and even picking up the leads and walking away and they didn't move. A man walking a lab on a lead complimented me and asked who my trainer was - which was nice. I sort of blushed and said I'd taught them myself. At the end of the walk Gypsy had a game of chase with Murphy the lab x and while Ely got a bit excited there was no lunging and he was easily distracted to play sniffing and finding games with me. Madam also recalled mid chase when we needed to go.

So a very good weekend.


----------



## kat&molly

Typical!!! OH is threatening to turn the 'Big bath' in to a fish pond- so I went and got an inflatable chair and today was going to have a loll about in it proving to him it would be used-and its tipping it down




And shock horror I've just been teaching Evie to spin- and she got it really quickly.
Not the sort of thing I'd normally teach but hey ho. Perhaps I need to think outside my own box for Madam.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C sounds like a brilliant weekend  really sound slike all your work and patience is coming together 

Dogless, Please take care of yourself, in all ways. I'm glad you have a very honest friend they are are very precious if we are going a little off course.



kat&molly said:


> Typical!!! OH is threatening to turn the 'Big bath' in to a fish pond- so I went and got an inflatable chair and today was going to have a loll about in it proving to him it would be used-and its tipping it down


:lol: Well isn't that just typical. I'm now picturing you sat in your inflatable chair with an umbrella going "see see it is being used." :lol:



kat&molly said:


> And shock horror I've just been teaching Evie to spin- and she got it really quickly.
> Not the sort of thing I'd normally teach but hey ho. Perhaps I need to think outside my own box for Madam.


I was the same with Tinker, i had intended to train all the good manners things nothing too advanced, maybe have a dabble at agility, she had different ideas.


----------



## thronesfan

Took Cookie to the park this morning and we had the place to ourselves so I let her off lead for a run and a bit of recall practise. Then a man we know came into the park with his dog - I usually keep her on the lead when he's around as he likes to do some training with his dog and Cookie would interfere, but today he let her join in. He was getting both dogs to sit and stay, then throwing tennis balls and sending them to fetch them. Cookie was very good, even dropping the ball on his command (she won't do that for me!).

Another dog walker we know came along and was watching the dogs, and she commented that someone must have trained Cookie in the past (she was showing off shaking paws and doing her 'sit up and beg' pose), but I said "No, I taught her all that". So I was very proud of her today :thumbup: well, until she found a gap in the fence and went into next door's garden and couldn't figure out how to get back. I had to go round and collect her (second time this week :blush. We've blocked up one hole already, but there's obviously another one somewhere...


----------



## Dogless

L/C - the two pointy twins sound as if they were brilliant today, really good - and even better that someone noticed too :thumbup:. 

kat&molly - as soon as the pool became a fish pond you KNOW all the dogs would be interested . Like the chair idea next time it's sunny though .

thronesfan - good day for you too .

So far today we have been for a longish run early this morning - saw no one so nothing to report . No one has overstepped the mark on this thread either and I am hoping to regain my middle ground approach again soon :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Just an example of why i have to keep my monkey mentally stimulated... Yesterday evening, Tink disappeared into the hall, nothing unusual in that she likes to do an evening house patrol before she settles for the night. I heard some snuffling, didn't think much of it, then heard some other noises so went to investigate. 
I was greeted by Tink carrying a small ziplock bag which contained some kibble and a chew( kibble low value treat for building up leave exercises and chew was one of the ones from the distraction exercise), The little monkey had opened her zipped up training bag, which she had never done before. snuffled about in there until she found the bag and then was bringing it in, whether to me or to tear the bag open to get the chew we will never know :lol: but she happily handed it over 

Clearly it was her chew, she earned it on Wednesday and I was neglectful not letting her have it. We joked on Wednesday that now she is trusted with the car keys She'll be driving in no time... sometimes I wonder


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Just an example of why i have to keep my monkey mentally stimulated... Yesterday evening, Tink disappeared into the hall, nothing unusual in that she likes to do an evening house patrol before she settles for the night. I heard some snuffling, didn't think much of it, then heard some other noises so went to investigate.
> I was greeted by Tink carrying a small ziplock bag which contained some kibble and a chew( kibble low value treat for building up leave exercises and chew was one of the ones from the distraction exercise), The little monkey had opened her zipped up training bag, which she had never done before. snuffled about in there until she found the bag and then was bringing it in, whether to me or to tear the bag open to get the chew we will never know :lol: but she happily handed it over
> 
> Clearly it was her chew, she earned it on Wednesday and I was neglectful not letting her have it. We joked on Wednesday that now she is trusted with the car keys She'll be driving in no time... sometimes I wonder


I love her - she is fab . I'd put the car keys out of reach if I were you....just in case :scared:.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Just an example of why i have to keep my monkey mentally stimulated... Yesterday evening, Tink disappeared into the hall, nothing unusual in that she likes to do an evening house patrol before she settles for the night. I heard some snuffling, didn't think much of it, then heard some other noises so went to investigate.
> I was greeted by Tink carrying a small ziplock bag which contained some kibble and a chew( kibble low value treat for building up leave exercises and chew was one of the ones from the distraction exercise), The little monkey had opened her zipped up training bag, which she had never done before. snuffled about in there until she found the bag and then was bringing it in, whether to me or to tear the bag open to get the chew we will never know :lol: but she happily handed it over
> 
> Clearly it was her chew, she earned it on Wednesday and I was neglectful not letting her have it. We joked on Wednesday that now she is trusted with the car keys She'll be driving in no time... sometimes I wonder


Fab stuff :lol:

I'd say she was clearly thinking:

"Hmmm, I'm sure I should have had this the other night  I'll just take it into Mummy now (damm my lack of oposable thumbs) so she can open this bag quick sharp and I'll forgive her this one indiscretion and we'll say no more about it. As long as it doesn't happen again of course..."


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Fab stuff :lol:
> 
> I'd say she was clearly thinking:
> 
> "Hmmm, I'm sure I should have had this the other night  I'll just take it into Mummy now (damm my lack of oposable thumbs) so she can open this bag quick sharp and I'll forgive her this one indiscretion and we'll say no more about it. As long as it doesn't happen again of course..."


:lol: How i'd love to see her thoughts in bubbles like in cartoons.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

L/C said:


> *
> FRM - my two don't have much experience of kids but they are getting used to the ones that play outside on our street. Two of them are appallingly behaved around dogs and I won't let them interact but the other two are very good and listen very well to what I tell them. If he's uncomfortable I wouldn't push him - has he ever had a bad experience with a child?
> *


*

No, he's never had a bad experience with a child. but he's not had a huge amount of experience with them either. My friend's daughter who he really dislikes is very good with them, she is only 6 but they had a dog up until last year. Lily adores her but Branston is very odd towards her. Other than than that they haven't had much to do with many children apart from my nephew and niece but they are both under 2.
I don't really know what I can do about it as I don't know any children I can use to try and build his confidence! Like you say, I don't want to push him so I think I'll have to accept that he's not reliable around children and just try to avoid stressful situations for him. 
Could be interesting in a couple of weeks - we're going camping with a big group of friends including 5 children ranging from 6 months to 6 years (my friend's daughter that Branston's funny with included) 



moonviolet said:



Just an example of why i have to keep my monkey mentally stimulated... Yesterday evening, Tink disappeared into the hall, nothing unusual in that she likes to do an evening house patrol before she settles for the night. I heard some snuffling, didn't think much of it, then heard some other noises so went to investigate. 
I was greeted by Tink carrying a small ziplock bag which contained some kibble and a chew( kibble low value treat for building up leave exercises and chew was one of the ones from the distraction exercise), The little monkey had opened her zipped up training bag, which she had never done before. snuffled about in there until she found the bag and then was bringing it in, whether to me or to tear the bag open to get the chew we will never know :lol: but she happily handed it over 

Clearly it was her chew, she earned it on Wednesday and I was neglectful not letting her have it. We joked on Wednesday that now she is trusted with the car keys She'll be driving in no time... sometimes I wonder

Click to expand...

Nice work Tink! You tell mum that she'd clearly forgotten something :lol: 
Sounds very much like something Lily would do 

We've just got back from a lovely walk, found a new place to go, which was really nice. I've even managed to get hubby to come out walking with us at the weekend so it was a proper 'family outing'!
Nothing exciting to report, the only time we had to put them on their leads was to walk through a farm yard. I had Branston and he was pulling like a train so I thought I'd take the opportunity of only having one of them to lead to try and work on his LLW  Everytime he pulled, I stopped, turned around and walked the other way, once LLW turned back to walk the way we were going.... But as soon as I turned him he started pulling like mad again...stopped...turned....LLW.... turned.... pulling....stopped...turned....etc etc etc. He just doesn't seem to get it! What am I doing wrong?*


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> :lol: How i'd love to see her thoughts in bubbles like in cartoons.


I'd dread to think some of the things Alfie might think about me  Think I'm better off in ignorant bliss :lol:

"Ah, excellent we're off out to the car boot again. Yes I hate it of course but it's bloody marvellous, the steady stream of treats she throws at me. Sucker."

"Oh for gods sake, stop kissing me you stupid cow. I will bitey face. I will. I WILL. GET OFF ME."

"FFS, she's singing again. I'm not bloody dancing with you. Oh treats. Oh okay then. Stop effing singing though, it's awful... don't you even CARE how much more sensitive my ears are than yours?"


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> No, he's never had a bad experience with a child. but he's not had a huge amount of experience with them either. My friend's daughter who he really dislikes is very good with them, she is only 6 but they had a dog up until last year. Lily adores her but Branston is very odd towards her. Other than than that they haven't had much to do with many children apart from my nephew and niece but they are both under 2.
> I don't really know what I can do about it as I don't know any children I can use to try and build his confidence! Like you say, I don't want to push him so I think I'll have to accept that he's not reliable around children and just try to avoid stressful situations for him.
> Could be interesting in a couple of weeks - we're going camping with a big group of friends including 5 children ranging from 6 months to 6 years (my friend's daughter that Branston's funny with included)


 I tend to think you might be wise to do some desensitising before you go. If you have a local park with a play area in it it might be worth going sitting on the furthest bench and playing "look at that" Look at That! A Counterintuitive Approach to Dealing with Reactive Dogs « Dog Training for Dog Lovers Blog Slowly moving closer but always keeping him at a distance he considers safe. 


foxyrockmeister said:


> Nice work Tink! You tell mum that she'd clearly forgotten something :lol:
> Sounds very much like something Lily would do


I think I might be on a warning for such neglectful behaviour.



foxyrockmeister said:


> Everytime he pulled, I stopped, turned around and walked the other way, once LLW turned back to walk the way we were going.... But as soon as I turned him he started pulling like mad again...stopped...turned....LLW.... turned.... pulling....stopped...turned....etc etc etc. He just doesn't seem to get it! What am I doing wrong?


You may not be doing anythign wrong , if it's really not working, it might be worth trying a different approach. I've found Silky Leash helpful Simple leash walking - Silky Leash part 1 Ahimsa Dog Training Seattle clicker training - YouTube

Coffee, you have a point it's probably just as well i dont know what the little monkey is thinking  I may never sleep sound in my bed again :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :lol: How i'd love to see her thoughts in bubbles like in cartoons.


Sometimes I wish I knew what Kilo was thinking...at others I truly believe that ignorance is bliss .

FRM; have you looked at the Turid Rugaas book I'm always banging on about? Or didn't it help either? .

We just had a truly gold star walk. Every man, woman, child and dog is out as there has been a break in the rain. We set off and sailed past noisy kids without a worry. Then down the street comes the yellow lab that is always allowed to rush up to dogs barking and snarling whilst the owner says he's "protecting his pack", "just being gobby", or that Kilo needs to understand who the "top dog" is BUT he was being walked by another woman I know who is looking after him for a few weeks - _on a lead, headcollar and muzzled_ :thumbup:. He went mental at the BW who....didn't react!!! Result!!!

Then, we saw kids in the play park....no stress . Then a dog he knows and likes, brief calm meet and walked on . Then I saw a couple out with their small kids on bikes and two dogs. Kilo didn't pay much attention to them at all, then the lady stopped across the street to tell me she'd seen us walk past her house loads of times and thought that Kilo was beautiful and well behaved . I thanked her and then we had a quick discussion about on lead meets not being the best (I had kept my distance) and about loose dogs running up.

After all that we went to the fields where we had them to ourselves as they were waterlogged, played some games, did some heelwork and walked home past more kids, runners etc without any stress at all.

My best boy .


----------



## moonviolet

Whats better than stars? I think Kilo is beyond platinum today  What a blooming legend   



Dogless said:


> then the lady stopped across the street to tell me she'd seen us walk past her house loads of times and thought that Kilo was beautiful and well behaved . I thanked her and then we had a quick discussion about on lead meets not being the best (I had kept my distance) and about loose dogs running up.


Are you planting little seeds of rebellion there


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> I tend to think you might be wise to do some desensitising before you go. If you have a local park with a play area in it it might be worth going sitting on the furthest bench and playing "look at that" Look at That! A Counterintuitive Approach to Dealing with Reactive Dogs « Dog Training for Dog Lovers Blog Slowly moving closer but always keeping him at a distance he considers safe.
> I think I might be on a warning for such neglectful behaviour.
> 
> You may not be doing anythign wrong , if it's really not working, it might be worth trying a different approach. I've found Silky Leash helpful Simple leash walking - Silky Leash part 1 Ahimsa Dog Training Seattle clicker training - YouTube
> :





Dogless said:


> FRM; have you looked at the Turid Rugaas book I'm always banging on about? Or didn't it help either? .


Thank you both, I'm going to do some swotting


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Whats better than stars? I think Kilo is beyond platinum today  What a blooming legend
> 
> Are you planting little seeds of rebellion there


Learning from you . I said I was keeping my distance as I didn't like onlead meets and she said that I was absolutely right she doesn't like them either - people assume her dogs are OK as they are calm but she said you have to watch one of them with onlead greetings.

The BW has really made a complete turnaround from the awful week with the kids making our lives a misery (touch wood they are on hols or have given up). I think the Nupafeed has really helped, genuinely.


----------



## thronesfan

Coffee said:


> "FFS, she's singing again. I'm not bloody dancing with you. Oh treats. Oh okay then. Stop effing singing though, it's awful... don't you even CARE how much more sensitive my ears are than yours?"


:laugh: I was singing along to the national anthem during an Olympic medal ceremony yesterday - Cookie gave me such a dirty look! (Oh wait, she's an Irish girl so maybe it wasn't my singing, maybe she's not a fan of Team GB... :lol



Dogless said:


> We just had a truly gold star walk...


Nice work Kilo! :thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Learning from you . I said I was keeping my distance as I didn't like onlead meets and she said that I was absolutely right she doesn't like them either - people assume her dogs are OK as they are calm but she said you have to watch one of them with onlead greetings.
> 
> The BW has really made a complete turnaround from the awful week with the kids making our lives a misery (touch wood they are on hols or have given up). I think the Nupafeed has really helped, genuinely.


I'm so pleased you are the BW are having a better time You work so hard and my word haven't you been tested. I hope the kids are finding better more positive things to do with their time. I think i might give the nupafeed a go.

I really have found in many cases it's like the elephant in the room, and once when someone mentions it it's like a huge sigh of relief.

Then those that get the gentle hag treatment, I mentioned the last week that Monty got charged by a dog that came out of tehir car like it was shot from a cannon and his had a bit of a grizzle at them. Well i did suggest that pop their dog on lead when they bring them out of the car to protect their dog and otehrs.... Yesterday they arrived as we were leaving and the dog was on lead until we got past :thumbup: :thumbup: then we turned to watch it let off lead and zooooooooooooooommm so much more pleasant that the week before


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- thats fantastic, I bet you're sat there with a big grin on your face now:thumbup:
And how nice to get a compliment.

L/C- I missed your post- what a brilliant weekend with the dogs. Result.
We should celebrate that- Its five o'clock somewhere.

Moonviolet you've taught that young lady too well 

I was thinking today about how confident Evie has got with us and in the house. Lots of little things but even the hoover- if shes eating a chew I have to go around her as she wont move and today she came and sat behind it for the heat blowing out of the motor


----------



## Dogless

Aaaaaaagggghhhh :mad2::mad2:. Knew I shouldn't have said it had stopped. The little barstools were out the back and started barking as soon as I opened the back door to cook dinner...I snapped "stop barking at my dog"  which I try not to do and got that annoying mocking "ne nene nene ne" in response . 

They then moved on to another dog down the street .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Aaaaaaagggghhhh :mad2::mad2:. Knew I shouldn't have said it had stopped. The little barstools were out the back and started barking as soon as I opened the back door to cook dinner...I snapped "stop barking at my dog"  which I try not to do and got that annoying mocking "ne nene nene ne" in response .
> 
> They then moved on to another dog down the street .


Little sh*ts, dont let them get to you.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Aaaaaaagggghhhh :mad2::mad2:. Knew I shouldn't have said it had stopped. The little barstools were out the back and started barking as soon as I opened the back door to cook dinner...I snapped "stop barking at my dog"  which I try not to do and got that annoying mocking "ne nene nene ne" in response .
> 
> They then moved on to another dog down the street .


Little arseholes.

FRM - I can't add anymore advice to the brilliant mv. One thought - is it noise or movement that he reacts to more? If possible I might try and start somewhere he could hear rather then see kids and then build up to actually seeing them but that's because mine are more stimulated by movement then sound.

K&M - it's now almost 8:30 now so I feel justified in a sneaky glass of white!

I have just realised that it is almost a month since we have had any sort of incident with Ely and another dog. No lunging or growling or any aggressive behaviour of any sort. We've had some hard stares and stiff body language but he's been easily distracted from that.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> I have just realised that it is almost a month since we have had any sort of incident with Ely and another dog. No lunging or growling or any aggressive behaviour of any sort. We've had some hard stares and stiff body language but he's been easily distracted from that.


I was just thinking that earlier - very well done :thumbup:.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I was just thinking that earlier - very well done :thumbup:.


I think before that I was just pushing him too hard and wanting him to be 'normal' (for lack of a better word). Since we've stopped doing the whole standing in a group while the dogs socialise he's been a lot calmer and less hyped. As nice as it was for Gypsy to be able to play like that it just wasn't an environment that he was ever going to do well in - I'm also fairly sure it was over stimulating Gypsy too - her obsessive barking and chasing has been better in the last couple of weeks.

What I really needed to do was to look at what he actually needed rather then what I thought he should need. Calm greetings and moving on or mooching around together sniffing is much more his speed.


----------



## Hagar100

Dogless,
I look at your dog and my friend has the exact dog like yours, wow!!:thumbup:
I will try to bring you a picture.
Her dog's name is Bambi, and I love her so much, it's like a lightning, very light and quick and likes to play all day. It has lots of energy, How are you handling with it?


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> What I really needed to do was to look at what he actually needed rather then what I thought he should need. Calm greetings and moving on or mooching around together sniffing is much more his speed.


Very wise words indeed; I looked at Kilo's training in much the same way a while back - takes the pressure off both dog and human I think.



Hagar100 said:


> Dogless,
> I look at your dog and my friend has the exact dog like yours, wow!!:thumbup:
> I will try to bring you a picture.
> Her dog's name is Bambi, and I love her so much, it's like a lightning, very light and quick and likes to play all day. It has lots of energy, How are you handling with it?


A warm welcome to PF. We all like pictures on here . Mine is called Kilo - loves to play too, very quick, full of beans but nice and lazy in the house and can usually be found sleeping. I love him even though he can be a challenge .


----------



## kat&molly

Brilliant L/C- it usually takes me a lot longer to have these light bulb moments

Evie has got this 'spin'- but will she ever WANT to do it without the lure?
Might work on 'give me paw' after as she's quite neurotic about them being touched.

I bought a new dog bed the other day- just one to try for size and suitability- its been really popular.
Watching tele last night, and Evie managed to drag this bed thats 3 times bigger than her up 2 steps and in to the sitting room-so she could lie on it.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Evie has got this 'spin'- but will she ever WANT to do it without the lure?
> Might work on 'give me paw' after as she's quite neurotic about them being touched.
> 
> I bought a new dog bed the other day- just one to try for size and suitability- its been really popular.
> Watching tele last night, and Evie managed to drag this bed thats 3 times bigger than her up 2 steps and in to the sitting room-so she could lie on it.


I love Evie! 
Will she do it without the lure?.... maybe  if she understands what you are asking her to do and knows it's a rewarding thing to do, treat/praise/game

Got to admire a dog that knows what they want and where they want it  At least you haven't been 'trained' by your dog to place the bed where they want it outside on a sunny day  :blush:


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Brilliant L/C- it usually takes me a lot longer to have these light bulb moments
> 
> Evie has got this 'spin'- but will she ever WANT to do it without the lure?
> Might work on 'give me paw' after as she's quite neurotic about them being touched.
> 
> I bought a new dog bed the other day- just one to try for size and suitability- its been really popular.
> Watching tele last night, and Evie managed to drag this bed thats 3 times bigger than her up 2 steps and in to the sitting room-so she could lie on it.


Well it's only taken me two years - so not that great.  I think for a long time I thought if I could address his issues he'd be a dog like everyone else's but I'm not sure you can really ever completely undo the sort of start he had.

When I'm trying to fade a lure I'll start to incorporate a hand signal that I can originally do with the lure (usually hidden but so they can still smell it) and then once they are reliably doing it with the hand signal/lure start to take the lure away, click and then treat after they've performed the behaviour. So for teaching Gypsy down I had the lure in my hand while pointing at the floor and when she was reliably performing the down I started fading it so she got the reward after she was already down.

Does that make any sense?


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks both- yes it does make sense.
I am amazed she's got it- really- she has such an air of 'nah- not worth working for-.
Suppose I just need to find the right things to do. A down with a lure we haven't managed at all.


----------



## Dogless

You just have to love Evie .

We had a gold star morning - hour and a half in the park, lots of dogs about, lots of kids, bikes etc as it was a rare occasion when it wasn't raining. No loose dogs ran up to us either :thumbup:. The BW was cool, calm, collected and sailed past everything or sat to let people / dogs etc past us. Very proud of my best boy this morning .


----------



## Coffee

OMG, I am like this today:    

Had the trip to the vets this morning for Alfie's poor lumpy willy  (won't bore you all with that but if anyone does want to know how he got on then please just ask ) and walked him there as I mentioned previously I was going to.

It made ALL the difference :thumbup:

Previous visits to the vet have been SO mega stressful, he would kick off the second we got to the door, barking, lunging, growling at the other animals  He would literally bark non stop for the entire visit. He used to have to be muzzled so the vet could look at him, no matter what the issue was, as he would try to snap the second the vet got near him 

He was a 100% better this morning  so I now know it was the car journey there that was stressing him out so much, not a huge hatred for the vets  He went in quite happily, sniffed about, sniffed hello to 2 dogs in the waiting room... all without a peep. Even managed to get him on the scales to be weighed, which I haven't managed to do for months as he would be so agitated (and despite my worry the other day that he was looking chubby he'd actually lost 1.5 kilos, going from 30kg to 28.5kg).

Called in for our appointment and he went in quite happily... even the vet said, pointing at him "wow, this is better, what's going on?!" (he was getting himself quite a reputation there I think ). He let the vet fuss him (first time ever!) and when I held him up so he could check out the lump he just gave a tiny, low, growl in the back of his throat... just a warning "don't get too close buddy" type thing. As soon as I let him down and the vet took a step away he was fine again. No muzzle required 

I can't tell you all how relieved I am. I could cry actually!  I used to get myself in such a state at the thought of vet trips because of how he behaved (I barely slept a wink last night) and to know that he can handle future trips okay as long as we can walk there is such a load off my mind


----------



## kat&molly

Coffee- that is Fantastic:thumbup::thumbup: A platinum star for the boy- with some bells on. Hope his lumpy willy is ok?


Evie done a spin without the lure.
Me thinks Miss Tink needs to watch out-my little girl will be along to knock her off the top spot.:arf:


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee I'm so chuffed for you  I bet you are so in love with your spotty boy today    go on tell us about his willy, i'll be wondering otherwise. 



kat&molly said:


> Evie done a spin without the lure.
> Me thinks Miss Tink needs to watch out-my little girl will be along to knock her off the top spot.:arf:


 DO you know what if you have half as much fun and i have with Tink, Evie can be the queen with our encouragement and blessing 

The little darling woke me at 2 am so we could both go outside to see if we could spot the owl that was making all the noise :lol: So sweet how she wants to share these things 

Had a fun walk up and down and up and down some killer hills you can guarantee you dont' see any other nutter doing this walk :lol: still having a little issue with the last few yards to the car, i know it's just her wanting to get there before being charged by dogs beng let straight out of cars charging her so i'm goign to indulge her for a bit and jog it. Seems such a shame to ruin lovely walks with this bogey bit.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Coffee I'm so chuffed for you  I bet you are so in love with your spotty boy today    go on tell us about his willy, i'll be wondering otherwise.
> 
> DO you know what if you have half as much fun and i have with Tink, Evie can be the queen with our encouragement and blessing
> 
> The little darling woke me at 2 am so we could both go outside to see if we could spot the owl that was making all the noise :lol: So sweet how she wants to share these things
> 
> Had a fun walk up and down and up and down some killer hills you can guarantee you dont' see any other nutter doing this walk :lol: still having a little issue with the last few yards to the car, i know it's just her wanting to get there before being charged by dogs beng let straight out of cars charging her so i'm goign to indulge her for a bit and jog it. Seems such a shame to ruin lovely walks with this bogey bit.


Are you sure you want to know? 

He has an abscess :scared: on the side of his neturing scar... quite common apparently. Nothing to be concerned about :scared: According to the vet, from the size of it and how long it's been there, we have approx. 3-4 days before it will burst  and apparently Alfie will deal with it himself then, cleaning it all up. When it does burst I need to call up and they will give him some anti-biotics, just to be on the safe side. Nice eh? 

Aww, bless Tinker. Do you know what, with everything she's been through and how far you two have come, I'd be inclined to indulge her in this one too  I'd make it fun too, talking to her in a silly, high voice and then giving a treat or 2 when you get to the car so she sees that last bit of the walk as a "good thing". Sorry, you probably already do that anyway


----------



## kat&molly

Only joking MV, she'll never be that good.
I know it doesn't sound much-especially as I haven't even got a down but I have got a spin,it's just apart from sit I think its the only thing she's learnt from me- everything else she has copied from the other girls.

Evie being Evie- there is no speed to it and she does it in her own sweet timeSinging:


Coffee- I bet Alfie is shattered after all that.


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Are you sure you want to know?
> 
> He has an abscess :scared: on the side of his neturing scar... quite common apparently. Nothing to be concerned about :scared: According to the vet, from the size of it and how long it's been there, we have approx. 3-4 days before it will burst  and apparently Alfie will deal with it himself then, cleaning it all up. When it does burst I need to call up and they will give him some anti-biotics, just to be on the safe side. Nice eh?


Oh the endless glamour of dog ownership! At least it's nothing sinister, a bit grim but not sinister :lol: Hope it pops soon and you aren't willy gazing for too long :lol:



Coffee said:


> Aww, bless Tinker. Do you know what, with everything she's been through and how far you two have come, I'd be inclined to indulge her in this one too  I'd make it fun too, talking to her in a silly, high voice and then giving a treat or 2 when you get to the car so she sees that last bit of the walk as a "good thing". Sorry, you probably already do that anyway


Think its' a great idea i have recently invested in some move supportive undergarments for this :lol: Hopefully we'll get her taking treats when i'm making a prize prat of myself, at the moment she isn't comfortable enough to take them.


----------



## kat&molly

Coffee , Evie had a similar thing[except she hasn't got a willy] but it was under her spay scar- soon cleared with AB's


----------



## L/C

Bursting willy abscesses? What glamorous talk. :lol: Glad the vet visit went so well and that walking was the right thing to do - I'm currently debating that very issue for Wed as we have our first class. It's an hour walk or a 10 minute train ride - not sure what to do. 

mv - I concur with you and Coffee, I think I would indulge Tink in this and see if you can make her more comfortable slowly. Are you often assaulted in the car park?

K&M - Go Evie! I'm very impressed.

Off work today as I had a bug overnight (it's been going round the office) so the pointy twins were subjected to another training walk. Practised some more down stays and they were very good - even when a GSD ran past neither of them broke it (Ely did keep an eye on him though). Then I released Ely and kept poor Gypsy holding her stay while he mooched around and sniffed. She is doing very well with distractions and she's generalised the down very well. Still have a problem with a verbal command though and I'm hoping that classes will help with that.


----------



## Sarah1983

Had quite a nice walk with Spen today. Didn't do our usual one as I trekked up to Aldi this morning and am knackered from walking back with a huge heavy backpack. It's all bloody uphill on the way back! But we were out for an hour so it's not like he just had a piddly little trot around the block. Thought we were going to be attacked at one point. Came out of the woods and onto the road and suddenly two collies are charging towards us snarling and barking dragging their owner behind them :scared: I picked up the pace slightly, told Spen to "let's go" in a cheery voice and to his credit although he looked at the dogs and whined he actually did walk on with me. And thankfully their owner managed to hook herself around a lamp post.

My main work at the moment seems to be defending the fact that I don't follow dominance theory and have no desire to show my dog who's boss, claim stuff from him and just generally be an ass with him 



kat&molly said:


> Thanks both- yes it does make sense.
> I am amazed she's got it- really- she has such an air of 'nah- not worth working for-.
> Suppose I just need to find the right things to do. A down with a lure we haven't managed at all.


She may be like Rupert. It took me several years to teach him down but ask him to do something that involved running, jumping, spinning or anything like that and he picked it in a flash. They may have just been pointless tricks that many people think are degrading but he loved to do them 

Coffee, glad Alfie was so much better at the vets. Just goes to show how being stressed about one thing can lead to big problems with something else doesn't it? At least now you know he doesn't hate the vets  Glad he's going to be okay although have to say I wouldn't relish the thought of a burst abscess anywhere, never mind somewhere like that 

Dogless, sorry you're having such trouble with kids still, I'd have had a good hiding for doing stuff like that when I was a kid yet these days it seems kids are too precious and fragile even to be taught right from wrong 

L/C sounds like you're doing great  The way I teach a verbal command is to give it, wait a couple of seconds then give the hand signal (assuming of course the dog knows a hand signal for the behaviour). The verbal sort of becomes a cue that the hand signal is coming and the dog starts pre-empting it and so performing the behaviour to the verbal cue. Or that's how it's seemed to work for me anyway.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> mv - I concur with you and Coffee, I think I would indulge Tink in this and see if you can make her more comfortable slowly. Are you often assaulted in the car park?


I try to park in the most out of the way spots , but it has happened frequently enough in the past for her to spot the car and want to get there as fast as possible, its' not like it's full on sled dog, but i would descibe it as more taut lead than loose lead if that makes sense.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Sounds like a good day all round for everyone :thumbup:

Coffee - That sounds like a fantastic stress free vet trip, you must be soooo relieved. If only I could have the same with my two, last time Lily went to the vet thankfully it was my hubby who took her as I don't think I could have coped, apparently she went wild, sh1t herself (literally) emptied her anal galnds all over the vet  tried to bite him, squealed like a pig going to slaughter and then left the vet in a room full of hair, poo, saliva and anal gland emptyings  Maybe I should walk them there next time (they're not stressed by the car at all but they might be knackered as it would take us about 3 hours :lol: ) 
Glad to hear lumpy willy is nothing serious, very excited to hear about 'burst day'!!!

Moonviolet - Let me know where it is you walk, just so I can come and witness crazy lady skipping joyously back to the car with beagle :lol: Seriously though, sounds like she's doing so well that a jog back to the car can't be a bad thing 

Well, having been inspired by all your good work I have decided to do a bit more training with the pickles on walks, so set off today with great intentions! Armed with goodies I decided I'm going to try really hard to achieve a LLW with them both, so everynow and then during our walk I just put one of them back on the lead, even though they didn't need to be, and went back to basics with LLW training, lots of stopping, lots of praise and treats when they managed more than about 2 steps!! They both did REALLY well, I was so pleased with them. Don't get me wrong, my idea of REALLY well is probably very different to yours and if you'd seen me you'd probably have thought they were cr4p!! But I was please with them, especially considering that whichever one I was TRYING to train, the other one was off lead sniffing and looning about as usual, so quite a distraction 

So, I was feeling quite chuffed and motivated to do this everyday just for 5 minutes at a time with each of them every now and then during our walk, do you think that's a good idea?

THEN......... got home in the car only to find they have closed off our road for roadworks so impossible to get on our drive. I had to park the car around the corner and walk home with them along THE street and past all the roadworks  "OK" I thought to myself "We can do this. They are tired after their walk anyway, it's not the same as when we leave home to go out. They've done so well with their lead work today. I am not letting them feel my anxiety. Come on pickles lets walk home, nice and calm and sensibly."
Well..... Lily didn't do too bad, she was pulling but not horrendously. Branston? Different story... pulling so hard he was choking himself, then when I try to get him to walk to heel he tries to attack Lily  Why does he do this? If it's just me he attacks me and if we've got Lily with us he attacks her  As soon as we got home, nice as pie, best of friends, waggy tail "that was a fun walk mum!!" 

Kinda put a downer on what had been a really nice, productive walk  No stars for us.


----------



## Born2BWild

I'm working on my Terriers reactivity to other dogs ... Firstly, we have to eliminate any pain related issues as she is displaying stress signals (panting, sniffing, head shaking, whining) and once we have concluded whether it is pain related or not we will be moving on to the next step...all very little steps to BAT with her


----------



## petrus

SpringerHusky does Spike get's along with the dogs? How did you manage that? I am trying to present my Cat that has 3 years old to my Dog that has 13 years... and grrrrrrrr i try every single day to put them together but... the dog still shows his teeth's... i am thinking in getting a "dog muzzle"... and then try it... but am yet a bit afraid...any advice?


----------



## Coffee

foxyrockmeister said:


> Sounds like a good day all round for everyone :thumbup:
> 
> Coffee - That sounds like a fantastic stress free vet trip, you must be soooo relieved. If only I could have the same with my two, last time Lily went to the vet thankfully it was my hubby who took her as I don't think I could have coped, apparently she went wild, sh1t herself (literally) emptied her anal galnds all over the vet  tried to bite him, squealed like a pig going to slaughter and then left the vet in a room full of hair, poo, saliva and anal gland emptyings  Maybe I should walk them there next time (they're not stressed by the car at all but they might be knackered as it would take us about 3 hours :lol: )
> Glad to hear lumpy willy is nothing serious, very excited to hear about 'burst day'!!!
> 
> Moonviolet - Let me know where it is you walk, just so I can come and witness crazy lady skipping joyously back to the car with beagle :lol: Seriously though, sounds like she's doing so well that a jog back to the car can't be a bad thing
> 
> Well, having been inspired by all your good work I have decided to do a bit more training with the pickles on walks, so set off today with great intentions! Armed with goodies I decided I'm going to try really hard to achieve a LLW with them both, so everynow and then during our walk I just put one of them back on the lead, even though they didn't need to be, and went back to basics with LLW training, lots of stopping, lots of praise and treats when they managed more than about 2 steps!! They both did REALLY well, I was so pleased with them. Don't get me wrong, my idea of REALLY well is probably very different to yours and if you'd seen me you'd probably have thought they were cr4p!! But I was please with them, especially considering that whichever one I was TRYING to train, the other one was off lead sniffing and looning about as usual, so quite a distraction
> 
> So, I was feeling quite chuffed and motivated to do this everyday just for 5 minutes at a time with each of them every now and then during our walk, do you think that's a good idea?
> 
> THEN......... got home in the car only to find they have closed off our road for roadworks so impossible to get on our drive. I had to park the car around the corner and walk home with them along THE street and past all the roadworks  "OK" I thought to myself "We can do this. They are tired after their walk anyway, it's not the same as when we leave home to go out. They've done so well with their lead work today. I am not letting them feel my anxiety. Come on pickles lets walk home, nice and calm and sensibly."
> Well..... Lily didn't do too bad, she was pulling but not horrendously. Branston? Different story... pulling so hard he was choking himself, then when I try to get him to walk to heel he tries to attack Lily  Why does he do this? If it's just me he attacks me and if we've got Lily with us he attacks her  As soon as we got home, nice as pie, best of friends, waggy tail "that was a fun walk mum!!"
> 
> Kinda put a downer on what had been a really nice, productive walk  No stars for us.


I will keep you posted on status of said abscess... would you like pics?  :lol:

Aww, I'm sorry to hear your walk ended on a bad point  Sorry if I've missed previous posts but does Branston have a "history" with this then? Honestly don't know what to suggest about attacking you or Lily but would a head collar help for the pulling?

Don't be too disheartened... try to take the positives from the walk with the LLW training  You should be chuffed with yourself for that and I think your idea of 5 minutes of training, taking it in turns, is an excellent one :thumbup: You're better than me... I've pretty much given up on trying to teach LLW to Alfie and rely completely on his head collar now


----------



## Coffee

L/C - I'd say if you could get away with a 10 minute train ride, then go with that but if walking there will help to make the class better (if it helps to make the pooch a bit tired and calmer) then go with that  You know your dogs best 

Sarah - sounds like Spen did really well with the rude collies, you should be proud of that  I have a few friends that think dogs should be shown "who's boss" and all that crap. I just smile vacantly, nod politely (as they're not worth arguing with) and carry on doing things my own way


----------



## moonviolet

FRM you get a gold star and the pickles do for the body of the walk.

The road works sound a bit of a nightmare. Were they noisy? i know collies can be super sound sensitive and i think it's safe to assume there's some BC in the mix. If so it's quite possible the sound was the trigger.

I dont' know if you have read this or anything similar but it's an interesting read might be useful for understanding Branston's agression. understanding why if possible is a great help in managing, avoiding, or desensitising and counter conditioning.

ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Aggression in Dogs


----------



## Sarah1983

Coffee said:


> I have a few friends that think dogs should be shown "who's boss" and all that crap. I just smile vacantly, nod politely (as they're not worth arguing with) and carry on doing things my own way


Normally I'd agree but when people are telling someone that their dog who gets upset when they leave and who chews is being dominant, that it's having a tantrum because it wants its own way and they need to "claim" things from it and other rubbish like that I can't just sit there and say nothing. Not that me saying anything has made any difference though 

I just nod, smile and carry on when people tell me I'm doing it all wrong with Spen though lol.


----------



## Coffee

Sarah1983 said:


> Normally I'd agree but when people are telling someone that their dog who gets upset when they leave and who chews is being dominant, that it's having a tantrum because it wants its own way and they need to "claim" things from it and other rubbish like that I can't just sit there and say nothing. Not that me saying anything has made any difference though
> 
> I just nod, smile and carry on when people tell me I'm doing it all wrong with Spen though lol.


Gah, how frustrating  Sounds a bit like that "trainer" I had who told me Alfie was just "being silly" when he kicked off in the car and that I should spray him with a water pistol to show him it wasn't acceptable :scared:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Coffee said:


> I will keep you posted on status of said abscess... would you like pics?  :lol:
> 
> Aww, I'm sorry to hear your walk ended on a bad point  Sorry if I've missed previous posts but does Branston have a "history" with this then? Honestly don't know what to suggest about attacking you or Lily but would a head collar help for the pulling?
> 
> Don't be too disheartened... try to take the positives from the walk with the LLW training  You should be chuffed with yourself for that and I think your idea of 5 minutes of training, taking it in turns, is an excellent one :thumbup: You're better than me... I've pretty much given up on trying to teach LLW to Alfie and rely completely on his head collar now


Ooh yeah, burst willy abcess pic's just what I need to see :thumbup: :lol:

Yes, Branston has history of ridiculously crazy stupid behaviour on lead when walking down our street (he goes a bit loopy, spinning, jumping and biting). I've put it down to excitement before as we are normally just leaving home to go for a walk, but today we had been out for 2 hours and were on our way home. I've tried him with headcollars but it seems to make this particular situation 10 times worse. He really hates it and gets in a right state, even though I tried really hard to introduce it gently and slowly 



moonviolet said:


> FRM you get a gold star and the pickles do for the body of the walk.
> 
> The road works sound a bit of a nightmare. Were they noisy? i know collies can be super sound sensitive and i think it's safe to assume there's some BC in the mix. If so it's quite possible the sound was the trigger.
> 
> I dont' know if you have read this or anything similar but it's an interesting read might be useful for understanding Branston's agression. understanding why if possible is a great help in managing, avoiding, or desensitising and counter conditioning.
> 
> ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Aggression in Dogs


Aww thanks for the stars, don't think we really deserve them though 

I don't think the roadworks were the trigger really, he does the same thing everytime we walk down the street regardless of whether it's busy or quiet. He is quite noise reactive generally though, and you're right there's a lot of collie about him in looks and temperament. 
It's not really aggression though, it's more overexcitement. I can't really describe it but he's not nasty, snarly, bitey, he's silly, leapy, squealy, spinny, nippy if you can picture that!! 

Thanks for the link though I will have a look and see if any of it seems to fit with his behaviour


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> I don't think the roadworks were the trigger really, he does the same thing everytime we walk down the street regardless of whether it's busy or quiet. He is quite noise reactive generally though, and you're right there's a lot of collie about him in looks and temperament.
> It's not really aggression though, it's more overexcitement. I can't really describe it but he's not nasty, snarly, bitey, he's silly, leapy, squealy, spinny, nippy if you can picture that!!
> 
> Thanks for the link though I will have a look and see if any of it seems to fit with his behaviour


What do you think he was "excited" about? What was he pulling toward?

Sorry if i got the wrong end of the stick but the word you used was attacked Lily and if Lily is not there attacks you. It sounds to me like it is frustration based and if you are getting bruises it's not a totally inhibited bite.

If he laid his teeth on you in play would he bruise you?


----------



## Coffee

foxyrockmeister said:


> Ooh yeah, burst willy abcess pic's just what I need to see :thumbup: :lol:
> 
> Yes, Branston has history of ridiculously crazy stupid behaviour on lead when walking down our street (he goes a bit loopy, spinning, jumping and biting). I've put it down to excitement before as we are normally just leaving home to go for a walk, but today we had been out for 2 hours and were on our way home. I've tried him with headcollars but it seems to make this particular situation 10 times worse. He really hates it and gets in a right state, even though I tried really hard to introduce it gently and slowly


Hmmm, gosh I don't really know what to advise. I bet you've tried everything and anything to deal with it. If it were me I'd probably just go with getting him home asap and ignoring all the sillyness but I doubt that would actually help. Did something happen to kick it off? How long has he been doing it? Is it just on that stretch of road? Oooops, sorry for all the questions!


----------



## Dogless

Busy days and gold stars for everyone today  - even Branston FRM as he did so well otherwise . When Kilo was younger he used to get so frustrated and excited over some things that he'd jump and nip me; it stopped at around 9 months with lots of distraction and obedience type training.

Coffee when I read yours I was :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: for you and the spotty teen with his poor willy abscess. 

Sarah, sounds like Spen was a star - loads of dominance theorists here too, maybe because there are so many "mens' men"  about in this kind of environment.

kat&molly - Evie is :aureola::aureola: and so are the pointy twins L/C - really impressive by the sound of it for all of them. Productive day had by loads of us today.

mv - I am with indulging Tink with the barrier bogey part as well...two words though. Shock Absorber .

We had a walk to the fields, past noisy kids, played some retrieval and recall games and came home this afternoon. Kilo seems a little tired so nothing very taxing.

L/C - hope you are feeling better!!


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> What do you think he was "excited" about? What was he pulling toward?
> 
> Sorry if i got the wrong end of the stick but the word you used was attacked Lily and if Lily is not there attacks you. It sounds to me like it is frustration based and if you are getting bruises it's not a totally inhibited bite.
> 
> If he laid his teeth on you in play would he bruise you?


I'd agree that it sounds more like frustration/over stimulation rather then excitement (at least not happy-excitement). Ely does something similar if he sees something that he can't chase and he will re-direct onto Gypsy if she is with him (grabbing and biting - inhibited bite but bite all the same). It's frustration that he's restrained and he can't get to what he wants.

ETA: Yes feeling much better thanks Dogless - think it was a 24 hour thing.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah, sounds like Spen was a star - loads of dominance theorists here too, maybe because there are so many "mens' men"  about in this kind of environment.


I could understand a bit more if it were the men but it's the women who are the worst for it here! Or at least the most vocal about it anyway. It's bizarre just how fanatical some of them seem to be


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I could understand a bit more if it were the men but it's the women who are the worst for it here! Or at least the most vocal about it anyway. It's bizarre just how fanatical some of them seem to be


I know what you mean about fanatical - the amount of stuff you hear on a daily basis is insane. Kilo got really excited when I recalled him the other day (no idea why other than zoomies) and jumped up at me. I turned as I saw him go to do it so he ended up bouncing off my back (before realising it was wrong and going into a 'good boy' sit ). This man and his wife started to tell me how dangerous and dominant he was as he was trying to get on my back and climb up higher  . I just smiled and said I thought it meant he was being ill - mannered and over excitable.....

The same lady also told me that she couldn't bond with their black lab puppy; she said she alpha rolled her every time she showed any dominance at all but the pup still didn't do as it was told...


----------



## ballybee

Well I have good and bad updates

good - Tummel is back on a sliplead and is ten times better!!! he barely pulls, never lunges and best of all...will leave other dogs if told to  We had a border terrier come running over and even though Tummel was getting a bit nervous he left it(it was saying hi to Dan less than 2ft away from Tummel) when told while i had to convince the owners to get their dog...they kept saying "it's fine he's submissive" to which i kept replying "that doesn't matter mine isn't always good with dogs when he's onlead"....this resulted in the man and his wife argueing while their small daughter came and got the dog with an apology  Tummel also managed to onjly do a wee playbow when 2 small dogs started barking at him(no lunging/barking at all).

Now the bad...i took them both for a walk last night and both of them decided to have terrible recall, this is very abnormal for Dan, don't know if the teenage stage can start as young as 18.5 weeks or if he was just excited as the 2 of them haven't really been for a proper offlead walk together for a while but either way they weren't very good, it improved a wee bit and we ended the walk on good terms.

So i now need to work on getting recall from them when offlead together.

Dans still doing fine, we've not got anything new to report on him


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I try to park in the most out of the way spots , but it has happened frequently enough in the past for her to spot the car and want to get there as fast as possible, its' not like it's full on sled dog, but i would descibe it as more taut lead than loose lead if that makes sense.


I have a couple of places like this as well-its not nice is it?
Good luck with the jogging

Trying to catch up- slow down you lot


----------



## CaveDweller

Me? I'm working on everything. My newest collie pup is only 10weeks old so I'm getting his basic commands nailed. He is having his 2nd lot of injections tomorrow morning but I have still taken him out (carrying him) to get him used to all the noises and smells.

He is getting on well but a typical puppy "oh this is interesting"...3seconds later..."oh this is even better"...another 3seconds later "I think I'll chew that then chase after their ankles for a bit"...


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I know what you mean about fanatical - the amount of stuff you hear on a daily basis is insane. Kilo got really excited when I recalled him the other day (no idea why other than zoomies) and jumped up at me. I turned as I saw him go to do it so he ended up bouncing off my back (before realising it was wrong and going into a 'good boy' sit ). This man and his wife started to tell me how dangerous and dominant he was as he was trying to get on my back and climb up higher  . I just smiled and said I thought it meant he was being ill - mannered and over excitable.....
> 
> The same lady also told me that she couldn't bond with their black lab puppy; she said she alpha rolled her every time she showed any dominance at all but the pup still didn't do as it was told...


It's bizarre isn't it? Where the hell do they get it all from? I've actually had several people tell me I need to stamp out Spencers enthusiasm when he does stuff. Apparently racing to me as fast as his legs can carry him and dropping at my feet is a bad thing because he's too excitable while he's doing it 

Poor pup, going by what people here see as dominance she'll be being alpha rolled 20 times a day! And some of what counts as dominance is bloody ridiculous :nonod: I think I have the most dominant dog who ever lived.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> What do you think he was "excited" about? What was he pulling toward?
> 
> Sorry if i got the wrong end of the stick but the word you used was attacked Lily and if Lily is not there attacks you. It sounds to me like it is frustration based and if you are getting bruises it's not a totally inhibited bite.
> 
> If he laid his teeth on you in play would he bruise you?


He's just pulling forward - to get where we're going as fast as possible, but then when the lead stops him he reacts by.... I'm not sure what the right word to use is really  'Attack' probably gave you the wrong idea as it's not aggressive as such that he is growling or snarling. He acts in an excited way but not happy excitement if you know what I mean? he's jumping, spinning, yelping and nipping.

He has broken the skin on my arms when he does it, although more of a scrape rather than a puncture wound, he nips rather than bites but it does hurt and no, he wouldn't do that to me at any other time, their bite inhibition is normally very good as they playfight such a lot 



Coffee said:


> Hmmm, gosh I don't really know what to advise. I bet you've tried everything and anything to deal with it. *If it were me I'd probably just go with getting him home asap and ignoring all the sillyness *but I doubt that would actually help. Did something happen to kick it off? How long has he been doing it? Is it just on that stretch of road? Oooops, sorry for all the questions!


That's pretty much what I do! He's been doing it for about 6 months now, but in that time only a handful of times as I tend to avoid the areas where it happens. It's worse on our street if I try to walk them from home (99.9% of the time we go in the car) .



L/C said:


> I'd agree that it sounds more like frustration/over stimulation rather then excitement (at least not happy-excitement). Ely does something similar if he sees something that he can't chase and he will re-direct onto Gypsy if she is with him (grabbing and biting - inhibited bite but bite all the same). It's frustration that he's restrained and he can't get to what he wants.
> 
> ETA: Yes feeling much better thanks Dogless - think it was a 24 hour thing.


This sounds very similar to Branston, I think it is a frustration thing, but I don't know what he's frustrated about!

It's not everytime he's on the lead, I can put him onlead when we're out walking, if there are other dogs or livestock or roads etc and he's fine (he pulls but he's fine).
I can walk from my parents house, they live out in the sticks, with him onlead, and again he's fine other than pulling. Our street is busy but not always and he's always the same even if it's quiet. I don't know whether it's just an association thing now with our street that he can't get over, maybe it goes back to the mobile phone incident


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> He's just pulling forward - to get where we're going as fast as possible, but then when the lead stops him he reacts by.... I'm not sure what the right word to use is really  'Attack' probably gave you the wrong idea as it's not aggressive as such that he is growling or snarling. He acts in an excited way but not happy excitement if you know what I mean? he's jumping, spinning, yelping and nipping.


I don't like using human equivalents, but would you describe it as being a little like a toddler stamping feet and thumping mum's thigh with their fists when they can't do the thing they want. Trying to get the picture in my head.

This is the descripstion of frustration-elicited agression from teh ASPCA site I lonked earlier. ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Aggression in Dogs

_Frustration-Elicited Aggression

Dogs can be like human children in that when they get frustrated, they sometimes lash out with aggression. A dog whos excited or aroused by something but is held back from approaching it can become aggressive, particularly toward the person or thing holding her back. For instance, a frustrated dog might turn around and bite at her leash or bite at the hand holding her leash or collar. Over time, the dog can learn to associate restraint with feelings of frustration so that even when theres nothing to be excited about, she tends to react aggressively when restrained. This explains why some normally friendly dogs become aggressive when put behind a gate, in a cage or crate, in a car, or on a leash. Likewise, a dog who loves people can still show surprising levels of aggression when her pet parent lifts her up so that guests can enter or leave the home. Male and female dogs are equally prone to frustration-elicited aggression, and this type of aggression occurs in both puppies and adults. 
_

Do you think it's simply your stretch of pavement or any busier road?

Sorry if i'm being a pain


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> I don't like using human equivalents, but would you describe it as being a little like a toddler stamping feet and thumping mum's thigh with their fists when they can't do the thing they want. Trying to get the picture in my head.
> 
> This is the descripstion of frustration-elicited agression from teh ASPCA site I lonked earlier. ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Aggression in Dogs
> 
> _Frustration-Elicited Aggression
> 
> Dogs can be like human children in that when they get frustrated, they sometimes lash out with aggression. A dog whos excited or aroused by something but is held back from approaching it can become aggressive, particularly toward the person or thing holding her back. For instance, a frustrated dog might turn around and bite at her leash or bite at the hand holding her leash or collar. Over time, the dog can learn to associate restraint with feelings of frustration so that even when theres nothing to be excited about, she tends to react aggressively when restrained. This explains why some normally friendly dogs become aggressive when put behind a gate, in a cage or crate, in a car, or on a leash. Likewise, a dog who loves people can still show surprising levels of aggression when her pet parent lifts her up so that guests can enter or leave the home. Male and female dogs are equally prone to frustration-elicited aggression, and this type of aggression occurs in both puppies and adults.
> _
> 
> Do you think it's simply your stretch of pavement or any busier road?
> 
> Sorry if i'm being a pain


You're not being a pain at all! I'm really grateful for your help 

I think that above quote may have nailed it. I think it is a frustration thing but I just can't understand why.
He's only ever done it on our street, which is why I wonder whether it goes back to the mobile phone incident or whether that was just a coincidence.

Actually he has done it at one other time and that was on the beach, I had to put him on the lead to walk back to the car as there were loads of people about, I was with my mum and the rest of the group including Lily and Nell had got ahead of us so I think that was a definite frustration thing that he wanted to catch them up. But that is the only other occasion he's done it and it did also involve his headcollar, which I haven't used since.

I'm making him sound like he's a total nightmare, but this really is a very infrequent thing (but maybe that's just because I avoid walking him on our street  )


----------



## moonviolet

I don't think he's a nightmare at all, he's a lovely dog who responds in an undesirable way in a given situation.

How is his impulse control? For instance, If you ask him to wait, then throw a ball would he be able to wait to be sent to fetch the ball?

Here's a list of Impulse control games that help dogs gain self control. The "Settle" one would be good for training the Pickles having one to chill on their bed while the other gets trained 

ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Impulse Control Training and Games for Dogs


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> I don't think he's a nightmare at all, he's a lovely dog who responds in an undesirable way in a given situation.
> 
> How is his impulse control? For instance, If you ask him to wait, then throw a ball would he be able to wait to be sent to fetch the ball?
> 
> Here's a list of Impulse control games that help dogs gain self control. The "Settle" one would be good for training the Pickles having one to chill on their bed while the other gets trained
> 
> ASPCA - Virtual Pet Behaviorist - Impulse Control Training and Games for Dogs


Moonviolet, you are a complete and utter star! 

I have just read through some of the links that you have posted and have basically turned into one of those annoying nodding dog things people have on their parcel shelves.......'mmm yep, that's familiar...hmmm yes he does that, errrm yep think I need to work on that....etc etc'

It all seems so obvious when you read it and I feel a bit rubbish for not realising the problems and doing more about it before now  There are some great training tips on there and I am determined to work my way through them.... I have my work cut out me thinks but I'm going to enjoy doing it and hopefully making some progress 

I think I've just been beetling along in my happy little world with the pickles' generally being fab in their normal daily activities, but I realise that I am avoiding things that other people would consider 'normal' and that is ultimately going to prevent us from doing certain things that I would love to do easily and free from stress 

Oh, and to answer your question - his impulse control is 'variable'!:lol: he does know 'wait' and is generally very good if commanded but sometimes he is overwhelmed with excitement. He is also definitely one for barging through doors and gates and launching himself out the car like a bullet from a gun! Another thing we're working on  In fact I made him get back in the car 4 times today when we went out until he got out sensibly and didn't dislocate my shoulder while I tried to shut and lock the car :thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> It all seems so obvious when you read it and I feel a bit rubbish for not realising the problems and doing more about it before now  There are some great training tips on there and I am determined to work my way through them.... I have my work cut out me thinks but I'm going to enjoy doing it and hopefully making some progress


It's easier when you are sitting back from things, I'm happy I am helpful, dog knows i make little contribution to society in general :lol:


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> It's easier when you are sitting back from things, I'm happy I am helpful, dog knows i make little contribution to society in general :lol:


Society's loss is this thread's gain  We'd be lost here without you and your excellent advice


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Society's loss is this thread's gain  We'd be lost here without you and your excellent advice


Stop it, everyone here gives wonderful advice and support. As I've said before I just give links to other's wisdom and what I have tried/would try. I am blessed with time to research. I also believe if you approach things with gentleness, patience and keeping your dog under threshold if something doesn't work, it's also unlikely to do any harm.


----------



## kat&molly

Coffee said:


> Society's loss is this thread's gain  We'd be lost here without you and your excellent advice


Couldn't agree more, Moonviolet has been our Canine Consultant on many occasions- I for one am really grateful.
Its a bit sad that I'm only here with tissues, virtual cream cakes and wine

FRM- I've been there and felt daft when things have been pointed out to me but Sometimes we're just too close to see the obvious.
Its great when you start seeing improvements though.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Couldn't agree more, Moonviolet has been our Canine Consultant on many occasions- I for one am really grateful.


I agree too; I'm useless at contributing anything helpful to anyone else...glad mv is here .

We were up and at 'em at 0530 today to have a nice long - ish run. Nothing to report apart from the BW was particularly zoomie this morning :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I agree too; I'm useless at contributing anything helpful to anyone else...glad mv is here .
> 
> We were up and at 'em at 0530 today to have a nice long - ish run. Nothing to report apart from the BW was particularly zoomie this morning :crazy::crazy:.


 Thats a bit early.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thats a bit early.


I love early . I also have a doc's appointment in an hour or so to see how far advanced my decrepitude is from those x - rays the other week and wanted to run and have a nice long break until I fed the BW as I'm paranoid about bloat . He's happily snoring next to me on his back whilst I tickle his chest :001_wub:.


----------



## Born2BWild

So...I'm meant to be waiting for tests on my Terrier, Cleo, to eliminate any pain that could be causing her dog reactive aggression...nice quiet walks around the farm where I live, so we don't bump in to any dogs, to help Cleos' stress levels remain low until we know her results...

Well, Cleo thought otherwise!

I let her out as normal to go toilet yesterday and thought nothing of it until my Greyhound started barking continuously...I stepped outside and saw Cleo had gone (jumped our garden wall) - I called her and just outside a man appeared, on a bike, with his Labrador. I immediately thought "oh sugar lumps, has Cleo reacted in any way?" might I add the man shouldn't of been walking his dog up the private drive - completely unexpected situation. When I ran out my gate to get Cleo she was happily playing with this lab! Not a grudge in site...she didn't come when called as she was clearly having too much fun! I had to use a drop on command to catch her! 

The only thing different is that since Saturday she has been wearing a Bio Flow collar - mainly to help ease any pain in her previously broken leg...

This is VERY early days, and it's all about taking tiny weeny steps but it was so nice to see a glimpse of the dog friendly Cleo that I used to know


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I agree too; I'm useless at contributing anything helpful to anyone else...glad mv is here .
> 
> We were up and at 'em at 0530 today to have a nice long - ish run. Nothing to report apart from the BW was particularly zoomie this morning :crazy::crazy:.


Please stop it, I think we all help each other I just have a pretty good memory(makes up for other failings) and a huge number of bookmarked websites. Often I'm found mumbling " I know I saw something about this the other day. i'm sure i saved a link here somewhere"

My start was less virtuous, Tink woke me at 6 to go out for a wee, she's gone back to bed and i'm printing off some work, posting here and drinking coffee. maybe we should meet in the middle


----------



## kat&molly

Born2bwild- that sounds positive.I hope Cleo continues to do well. I use a Bio-Flow on my JRT and I'm not sure it helps her but lots of people swear by them.


Dogless- hope the x-rays are ok and you aren't too decrepid.


----------



## moonviolet

Born2BWild said:


> So...I'm meant to be waiting for tests on my Terrier, Cleo, to eliminate any pain that could be causing her dog reactive aggression...nice quiet walks around the farm where I live, so we don't bump in to any dogs, to help Cleos' stress levels remain low until we know her results...
> 
> Well, Cleo thought otherwise!
> 
> I let her out as normal to go toilet yesterday and thought nothing of it until my Greyhound started barking continuously...I stepped outside and saw Cleo had gone (jumped our garden wall) - I called her and just outside a man appeared, on a bike, with his Labrador. I immediately thought "oh sugar lumps, has Cleo reacted in any way?" might I add the man shouldn't of been walking his dog up the private drive - completely unexpected situation. When I ran out my gate to get Cleo she was happily playing with this lab! Not a grudge in site...she didn't come when called as she was clearly having too much fun! I had to use a drop on command to catch her!
> 
> The only thing different is that since Saturday she has been wearing a Bio Flow collar - mainly to eliminate any pain in her previously broken leg...
> 
> This is VERY early days, and it's all about taking tiny weeny steps but it was so nice to see a glimpse of the dog friendly Cleo that I used to know


Corrr! This post was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for this time of the day 

I understand how wonderful it is to see the dog you knew. it's so comforting to see they are still there  Even if she was a bit of a monkey i bet you were smiling ear to ear. Hope you get the results soon so you know how to move forward


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I love early . I also have a doc's appointment in an hour or so to see how far advanced my decrepitude is from those x - rays the other week and wanted to run and have a nice long break until I fed the BW as I'm paranoid about bloat . He's happily snoring next to me on his back whilst I tickle his chest :001_wub:.


Hope you get on ok at the doc's.


----------



## Born2BWild

moonviolet said:


> Corrr! This post was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for this time of the day
> 
> I understand how wonderful it is to see the dog you knew. it's so comforting to see they are still there  Even if she was a bit of a monkey i bet you were smiling ear to ear. Hope you get the results soon so you know how to move forward


Yeah! I would of loved to of let her play a bit longer but didn't want to push it and the man wasnt very talkative so it would of been awkward!

I walked back to my house cuddling her and making lots of fuss of her to enable her to realise that she had just displayed the correct behaviour...

I smiled...and smiled...and smiled a bit more 

Lets hope we're on the road to a happier Cleo...just got to wait for the tests (she's going in Thursday) and go with the flow...


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Hope you get on ok at the doc's.


Not been for a year (apart from to get the x - ray referral).

It will go along the lines of...

"Hmmmm....are you still running?"
"Yes"
"You do know you shouldn't be don't you?"
"Yes"
"Are you going to stop?"
"No"
"Do you want that appointment with the surgeon yet?"
"No thanks"
"Well, make sure you come back if things deteriorate"
"I will, thanks for your time".

Then I usually get an MRI referral...and a follow up for results....

Then I won't darken their door for another year bar for repeat prescriptions (touch wood!) until it's all due again .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Not been for a year (apart from to get the x - ray referral).
> 
> It will go along the lines of...
> 
> "Hmmmm....are you still running?"
> "Yes"
> "You do know you shouldn't be don't you?"
> "Yes"
> "Are you going to stop?"
> "No"
> "Do you want that appointment with the surgeon yet?"
> "No thanks"
> "Well, make sure you come back if things deteriorate"
> "I will, thanks for your time".
> 
> Then I usually get an MRI referral...and a follow up for results....
> 
> Then I won't darken their door for another year bar for repeat prescriptions (touch wood!) until it's all due again .


:hand::nono:

Naughty naughty.

Not like i can comment, i've never made it through the door of my current doctor's practise, OH dropped off the forms :lol:. I'm happy to live with the consequences of my choices. I did allow my hypochondriac friend to talk me into free blood pressure monitoring when we were in the pharmacy the other day (she needed more supplies) BPM 62 and pressure normal (can't remember exactly) i can't be going too far wrong.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :hand::nono:
> 
> Naughty naughty.
> 
> Not like i can comment, i've never made it through the door of my current doctor's practise, OH dropped off the forms :lol:. I'm happy to live with the consequences of my choices. I did allow my hypochondriac friend to talk me into free blood pressure monitoring when we were in the pharmacy the other day (she needed more supplies) BPM 62 and pressure normal (can't remember exactly) i can't be going too far wrong.


I have found that the more you are examined, the more is found wrong - concern has been voiced about low pulse (got referred to a cardiologist), low BP, some dodgy blood results etc . I had a fair few routine medicals etc in the Army then have had a few major accidents and ops to try and mend bits  but (touch wood!) haven't visited for being 'ill' for many, many years - at least a decade. Anyhoo....I'm off .


----------



## Dogless

Just took Kilo for what was going to be a quick extra walk as his first one was so early today and met a lady with a nervous rescue dog on the way. They walked fine on the lead near to each other with no dog showing any stress so we decided to let them off when we got to the fields - they ignored each other at first and just did their own thing (still relaxed though) then started to interact a bit and finally play with toys together :thumbup:. The woman said her dog doesn't play with others as he's too scared but he got brave enough to nick Kilo's ball from his mouth....they had an hour together and were very relaxed. It was lovely. Just right for the BW as it was calm interaction - they both chased toys, and Kilo tried to get the other dog to chase him but he wouldn't so he didn't try to play chases again. Then we walked calmly back together as they live on the street behind us . The icing on the cake was passing loads of other dogs on the street with no excitement at all - even towards the ones he knows and gets to play with usually! What a nice walk!


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Kilo :thumbup: and how lovely of him to play nicely with a scared dog.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well done Kilo :thumbup: and how lovely of him to play nicely with a scared dog.


Suits him better than big bouncy dogs in his face actually - he does like some space. Chases he will play all day whether with toys or dogs - but dogs that want to wrestle or don't let him do his own thing aren't always a good match.


----------



## Beth17

Uh oh my little boy is growing up  

Sam has discovered his testosterone and now thinks it is fun to try and hump and growl at the same time which although amusing to watch needs to be stopped. So we've been standing up and ignoring him or distracting with toys which so far seems to be working; i'm just waiting for when he decides to try it with Oscar, i'm not sure he'll be quite as forgiving 

I've also hunted out Oscar's old harness for Sam as he is pulling like a steam train now and whilst we're working on his lead work I don't want him choking himself to death.

Oh the joys of having a growing puppy :mad2:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless thats lovely, It was always so wonderful for Tinker when she met a dog that had such good social skills and would adapt their interaction and play to suit her. Her progress always was boosted after 

So super duper Platinum stars for Kilo :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Beth, they grow up so fast where has your innocent pup gone :lol:
Sounds like you have a plan that's working 


I tried jogging to the car at the end of our morning walk or should I, more honestly, say uncoordinated giddy canter! It worked a treat madam loved it. (probably too busy laughing to be scared!) on an even brighter note no witnesses :thumbup:


----------



## kat&molly

Pleased that worked better for Tinker MV- but you shouldn't speak too soon, the world and his wife could turn out to watch you tomorrow


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Pleased that worked better for Tinker MV- but you shouldn't speak too soon, the world and his wife could turn out to watch you tomorrow


It'll be me trying to get to, and into the car as fast as possible then :lol: :lol:
Nothing much funnier than me trying to move as fast as Usain Bolt, it'll end it tears!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Afternoon all 

Dogless - sounds like Kilo was an absolute star this morning :thumbup: Hope you got on ok at the doc's and your decrepidness hasn't advanced any further!

MV - Sounds like the jog to the car, did the trick for Tink, my two think it's hilarious when I run, it happens so infrequently that I don't think they really understand what I'm doing but it's great fun :lol:

B2B - Great to hear your girl seems to be feeling better, even if does mean that escapsim is now on the agenda! 

Beth17 - Oh dear, I hated the teenage phase, hang on what am I saying? We're still in it  Hopeyou have better luck with the pulling than me !


Well, I only had time for a 1 hour walk in the forest before work today but still determined to fit some training in with the fun times so did same as yesterday, spent a bit of time with each of them on lead trying to achieve some LLW. I have to say that Lilypig was an absolute STAR!! she was really good, barely pulled at all :thumbup: 
Branston pickle? slightly different story but not TOOO bad  He does just seem so excited/overwhelmed/interested in everything else to really listen to me. He really is a bit of an overgrown puppy 

So I think some definite focus training is required. I've just been printing off some of the links that MV posted yesterday with some great training tips for impulse control and focus..... I'm at work and should be writing up patient notes but this is much more interesting and important :lol:

I've decided that I'm not going to attempt the street walking (not that sort of street walking :hand again yet. I'm going to continue with LLW training when we're out and about in quiet places where he is relaxed and happy and do some of the other training at home until I we have a solid 'watch' and 'settle' at home. Once I've achieved this, I'll try to gradually introduce some street walking.

I might start taking Lily out on her own for some LLW training on the streets though, she pulls but doesn't do crazy spinny bitey things so I figured if I can at least get her walking well on her own, some of it may rub off on him?? 

Hey ho, I can but try!!


----------



## Dogless

mv - if I lived close and knew where you walked I'd stake the place out tomorrow to watch the spectacle :scared:. As long as Tink enjoyed it and took her mind off barrier bogeys that's the important thing .

FRM - I like your air of resolve....I am expecting great things from the Pickles :aureola:.

Beth17 - hang on in there!

My x ray reports have gone astray...I was told to wait a week so waited two and a half to be sure....but no results (fairly sure what they will say anyway). I was told about running again though and may well allow Mac the Knife to remove some debris from my ankle joint at some point in the near future as it's getting tiresome; but not yet decided .


----------



## L/C

FRM - that sounds great! Well done to Lilly, she's a little star. Impulse control is a really, really useful skillset to develop for your pup. Ely has been much more responsive since we started basic impulse control exercises and he's had a lot more tools to help him cope with unexpected and scary things that happen when we're out and about.

One thing I would really recommend is an exercise from control unleashed - conditioning a default behaviour. I bang on about this all the time but it's really helpful - basically I selected sit and watch as the behaviours I wanted and then I started rewarding those whenever he performed them. So even if I hadn't asked for it - if he sat or made prolonged eye contact he got a reward. Then I started making things he wanted conditional on these behaviours - so for food, to go out the door, to sit on my lap eek but (and this is key) I wouldn't ask for them, I would just wait for him to display it and then give him what he wanted. This means he defaults to this behaviour when he gets stressed.

ETA: Hope you get your results soon Dogless and that you don't have to go under the knife too soon!


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> FRM - that sounds great! Well done to Lilly, she's a little star. Impulse control is a really, really useful skillset to develop for your pup. Ely has been much more responsive since we started basic impulse control exercises and he's had a lot more tools to help him cope with unexpected and scary things that happen when we're out and about.
> 
> One thing I would really recommend is an exercise from control unleashed - conditioning a default behaviour. I bang on about this all the time but it's really helpful - basically I selected sit and watch as the behaviours I wanted and then I started rewarding those whenever he performed them. So even if I hadn't asked for it - if he sat or made prolonged eye contact he got a reward. Then I started making things he wanted conditional on these behaviours - so for food, to go out the door, to sit on my lap eek but (and this is key) I wouldn't ask for them, I would just wait for him to display it and then give him what he wanted. This means he defaults to this behaviour when he gets stressed.
> 
> ETA: Hope you get your results soon Dogless and that you don't have to go under the knife too soon!


I won't for many years for my back if I can help it, don't worry - have avoided it for 5 so far .


----------



## foxyrockmeister

L/C said:


> FRM - that sounds great! Well done to Lilly, she's a little star. Impulse control is a really, really useful skillset to develop for your pup. Ely has been much more responsive since we started basic impulse control exercises and he's had a lot more tools to help him cope with unexpected and scary things that happen when we're out and about.
> 
> One thing I would really recommend is an exercise from control unleashed - conditioning a default behaviour. I bang on about this all the time but it's really helpful - basically I selected sit and watch as the behaviours I wanted and then I started rewarding those whenever he performed them. So even if I hadn't asked for it - if he sat or made prolonged eye contact he got a reward. Then I started making things he wanted conditional on these behaviours - so for food, to go out the door, to sit on my lap eek but (and this is key) I wouldn't ask for them, I would just wait for him to display it and then give him what he wanted. This means he defaults to this behaviour when he gets stressed.
> 
> ETA: Hope you get your results soon Dogless and that you don't have to go under the knife too soon!


Thank you  That sounds like a really good thing to do. I've started on 'watch' and just getting him to focus on me more. He's very food orientated so I'm going to buy some yummy treats on my way home from work today to work with :arf: 
Soon, he won't be able to take his eyes off me :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - if I lived close and knew where you walked I'd stake the place out tomorrow to watch the spectacle :scared:. As long as Tink enjoyed it and took her mind off barrier bogeys that's the important thing .


See I have to be careful with you, If I give out too many military locations you might send out spies  :scared: :lol: 

And "does not decided yet" regarding your ankle mean, put off until it's completely intolerable by any chance? Can't say i blame you.

FRM what a different tone to your post today  So positive 

L/C great advice about default behaviour


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> See I have to be careful with you, If I give out too many military locations you might send out spies  :scared: :lol:


She has a network - she will find you. :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> She has a network - she will find you. :lol:


Cripes:scared: It's almost enough to make you wear a tin foil hat


----------



## Coffee

Who wants an update on Alfie's abscess? :lol:


----------



## L/C

Coffee said:


> Who wants an update on Alfie's abscess? :lol:


Oooh I do! I do!


----------



## Coffee

L/C said:


> Oooh I do! I do!


It burst this morning :scared: Am sooo glad we went to the vets yesterday so I knew what was coming or I'd have had a complete panic attack :lol:

Alfie has been dealing with it nicely all day... it's looking nice and clean but OMG... the hole that's been left has to be seen to be believed :scared:

Hot-footed it to the vets this morning to get the anti-biotics as told yesterday and was told that what I described was what he would expect it to look like and that it would start to heal over the next few days.

It's a bit grim I have to say


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> It burst this morning :scared: Am sooo glad we went to the vets yesterday so I knew what was coming or I'd have had a complete panic attack :lol:
> 
> Alfie has been dealing with it nicely all day... it's looking nice and clean but OMG... the hole that's been left has to be seen to be believed :scared:
> 
> Hot-footed it to the vets this morning to get the anti-biotics as told yesterday and was told that what I described was what he would expect it to look like and that it would start to heal over the next few days.
> 
> It's a bit grim I have to say


Yay now poor boy can heal up  You'll be amazed how fast


----------



## L/C

No pics? :lol:

At least you knew what was happening and didn't think it was some sort of terrible flesh eating disease! Clever Alfie and his cleaning ability. :sosp:


----------



## Coffee

I could do pics. You want pics? Do you really? :lol:


----------



## L/C

Coffee said:


> I could do pics. You want pics? Do you really? :lol:


Ummm.... :scared:


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Yay now poor boy can heal up  You'll be amazed how fast


Ooooh I do hope so mv  It looks awful at the moment, so big and gaping


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> She has a network - she will find you. :lol:


I recognise the odd place or two in photos - memories of cross country races are magically conjured :scared:. Good times. If painful!

Coffee - very pleased the spotty one's willy is on the mend .


----------



## Dogless

We just did a calm onlead potter this evening as the BW has had a day or non stop running on his other two...went past noisy kids and dogs with no bother . Kilo has been a star today .


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Ooooh I do hope so mv  It looks awful at the moment, so big and gaping


Yup  unlike inferior humans, dogs make their own vitamin C, which aids healing and they heal up super quick


----------



## Sarah1983

Poor Alfie, fingers crossed it heals quickly.

The Spendog has been a complete and utter ******* today. Didn't get off to a great start when our new upstairs neighbour came knocking at half 7 this morning, she'd locked herself out and asked to borrow our phone. Wouldn't have been a problem but she had her 1 year old daughter with her. Having an adult visitor sends Spen loopy enough, having a small child visiting sent him into orbit :scared:

Then later on there were people on the balcony above us and Spen couldn't figure it out so stood out there barking. When it was time for his walk the removal blokes were carrying furniture up the stairs to the flat above and he decided to launch himself at one of them scaring the poor bloke half to death. 

Walk was fine until he realised we were meeting Calvin, once he knew where we were going the head went down and he pulled like a steam train. Met Calvin where he works, Spen said hi to all 3 people who were there quite nicely to say he was so excited. When it came time to leave it took me about 20 attempts to get through the baby gate across the entrance (hubbys boss has his dog in a lot) because he was insistent that he was going to hurl himself through it at 100 miles an hour dragging me behind him. Got there in the end though. 

Then he pulled like a steam train all the bloody way home. I don't understand why us walking together is a signal to pull. Neither of us allow it when alone and he doesn't get away with it when we're walking together either yet we just can't seem to put a stop to it


----------



## Coffee

Dogless - Sir Kilo is just going from strength to strength these days... you must be so proud of him 

mv - ooooh, clever canines. I never knew that!

Sarah - urgh, sounds like one of those days you'll be glad to see the back of. Tomorrow is a new day and I hope it's a better one for you  I don't have much advice to offer I'm afraid... Alfie is very excited by visitors and barks at things he doesn't understand but I can highly recommend a head collar for the pulling


----------



## kat&molly

Coffee- that burst quick, hope its soon healed up.

Dogless- Kilo is back on great form 

FRM- sounds positive.

Sarah- you know I've said I have the same thing if OH is with us x 4:scared: I dont know if they get more excited because 'all their people' are together 

Evie cant/wont do a spin today. Not worth working for.:arf:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - Kilo's behaviour is a little worse when hubby and I are together too. I think it might be because the sole focus isn't on him; not sure but as hubby walks with us so very rarely I don't worry too much!

Coffee and kat&molly - yep, the BW is back on form...some set back that was though .


----------



## kat&molly

It was a set back but hes always fine until he gets hassled. At least its all behind him now.


----------



## Born2BWild

I now need to work on both my dogs manners...they stole a yummy scrummy flapjack that I was looking forward to all day...I did laugh though as butter wouldn't melt looking at their apologetic little faces


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> It was a set back but hes always fine until he gets hassled. At least its all behind him now.


I do hope it's behind him. A sad fact is hassle is always going to happen from time to time - it's just teaching him to shrug things off a little more than he does.



Born2BWild said:


> I now need to work on both my dogs manners...they stole a yummy scrummy flapjack that I was looking forward to all day...I did laugh though as butter wouldn't melt looking at their apologetic little faces


Oops :scared:.


----------



## kat&molly

A few from Molls training today.
Come on mum what we doing?









Waiting.









Searching









Found it.


















A group shot.









Oops!!!


----------



## Dogless

Lovely, lovely photos kat&molly; Moll looks as if she loved it....as for Evie and her refusal to pose.....yet another thing that makes me love her. She is just so rebellious .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Lovely, lovely photos kat&molly; Moll looks as if she loved it....as for Evie and her refusal to pose.....yet another thing that makes me love her. She is just so rebellious .


Moll does enjoy it but is much calmer than if we use her things.

As for Evie....I give up:laugh:


----------



## moonviolet

Gorgeous Photo's K&M Mools looks to be in her element  Love the group shot, Eve was heading back to her trailer aftet discovering the others has negotiated a big fee :lol: 

Evie is a legend


----------



## kat&molly

Evie is just a little booger. Its a good job I have a sense of humour with that dog!!
Is it me? Have I actually got a dog thats untrainable? I know she's not 'dim'- she picked up the spin so quick- but wont do it now.

Hope you had a good class MV?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Evie is just a little booger. Its a good job I have a sense of humour with that dog!!
> Is it me? Have I actually got a dog thats untrainable? I know she's not 'dim'- she picked up the spin so quick- but wont do it now.
> 
> Hope you had a good class MV?


Hmmm that Evie, she is a challenge thats for sure. She is an independant thinker.

Dogs sort of learn to learn the more they do the quicker they learn. Different learning styles suit different dogs. Tink is better with shaping (what she is offering) than luring her to do what I want. Capturing is useful for things where they offer you the finished product a 'bow' is a stretch, when they lay down nicely on a bed, they've offered a settle and you can name and reward it etc maybe capturing her doing somethings you like her doing and rewarding would help. I'm rambling again Evie is something of an enigma 

Class was great last night Tink was focussed, even after being lunged and screamed at as we entered the foyer, not quite sure why this dog's fosterer thought it was a great idea to have them right behind the main door in ambush position!

Anyway madam shook it off and performed well some old things some new. I love the structure of these classes very well planned and lots of handler freedom. So if I think Tink has had enough of an activity it's perfectly acceptable just play for a few minutes or let her chill on her mat etc before the next. The aim of the class is to have fun with your dog and we were certainly having fun. 

Should I be worried that the trainer called me a mad dog lady?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Should I be worried that the trainer called me a mad dog lady?


No. You should be honoured .


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely that you're enjoying class- even if poor Tink got charged. 
I dont know what 'a mad dog lady ' is so I couldn't possibly comment.


I will try to do some capturing - might take days to get something good from her though. It may be a way of getting a 'down' from her.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Lovely that you're enjoying class- even if poor Tink got charged.
> I dont know what 'a mad dog lady ' is so I couldn't possibly comment.
> 
> I will try to do some capturing - might take days to get something good from her though. It may be a way of getting a 'down' from her.


Oh don't 'poor' Tink she barked back at it. She never would in the real world ,but training related environs she has a voice in these matters. I was a bit miffed about it as the woman was pacing up and down behind hte door theres a corner it would have been easy to have done so off to one side. The door is glass , it was tipping down with rain and I paused so i knew she saw me and she turned and went away, I fumbled with the door handle , by the time i had engineered me, Tink, our training bag and her mat through the narrow door , she and her dog had returned and were inches from us.

With Evie maybe you could do some slow shaping, when she is doing almost what you want


----------



## L/C

The classes that we were enrolled on have been cancelled as not enough uptake (I was the only one) so no class tonight.  Guy who runs them is supposed to be calling me back so we can sort something out as I've already paid for them (£100!).

Really disappointed.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

L/C said:


> The classes that we were enrolled on have been cancelled as not enough uptake (I was the only one) so no class tonight.  Guy who runs them is supposed to be calling me back so we can sort something out as I've already paid for them (£100!).
> 
> Really disappointed.


Oh no, that's a real shame 

I wanted to ask you all actually - what sort of classes are you all doing with your dogs?

The pickles went to puppy classes and then on to do their KC Bronze good citizen but then we stopped going. 
I think it might be worth me doing something with them again, especially Branston to get him more used to 'busy' situations with other people and dogs, but I'm not sure what sort of class I should look for?


----------



## L/C

foxyrockmeister said:


> Oh no, that's a real shame
> 
> I wanted to ask you all actually - what sort of classes are you all doing with your dogs?
> 
> The pickles went to puppy classes and then on to do their KC Bronze good citizen but then we stopped going.
> I think it might be worth me doing something with them again, especially Branston to get him more used to 'busy' situations with other people and dogs, but I'm not sure what sort of class I should look for?


This was supposed to be just a basic class to start off with to get Gypsy used to the environment and see if she can work in it (she knows most of the commands but it would be a more distracting environment although she can do it in the park). If she could we would move up to the next one with more complicated commands.

We've tried an out door class before but the trainer wasn't very good and progressed much too quickly for Gyspy. She didn't seem to understand how to motivate her - I don't think she had too much hound experience!

ETA: What I would look for would be classes run by a trainer you trust (observe first!). A good place to look would be for an apdt class or a kennel club one - of course you get amazing trainers who aren't accredited by either one! Ask for recommendations from other dog owners but always check it out for yourself.

APDT

Kennel Club


----------



## kat&molly

Oh LC, how disappointing- I hope they come up with something soon. I'd be gutted.

FRM- I started Agility with Moll last week, not what I intended, we were doing Gun dog stuff but she got over stimulated with it and was too manic.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Hmm, I've been thinking about agility for Branston too, do you think that would be as beneficial as training classes for him? I guess it might be better as it'll be more fun? I couldn't do agility with Lily though because of her legs, so maybe a class for her and agility for him, variety is the spice of life eh!

I'm completely crap at new situations though, I'm really nervous of being the 'new girl' and of being rubbish at something  I know this is lame and at my age I need to man up, but I'll need some psyching up to approach an agility group  

I have found one on the island that looks good though, but I'm scared


----------



## kat&molly

I do mine in a 1-2-1 for the moment. Could you ask for 1 lesson like that see what the trainer thinks?


----------



## Beth17

I'm exactly the same I hate being the new person as I'm quite shy and we start Sam's puppy classes next week, I am terrified especially as he'll probably be the eldest there and completely show himself up 

On another note he managed to pull out a baby tooth today by playing tug on his lead whilst we were out, cue blood everywhere :mad2:

Oscar on the other hand has been good as gold so far! It won't last


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> The classes that we were enrolled on have been cancelled as not enough uptake (I was the only one) so no class tonight.  Guy who runs them is supposed to be calling me back so we can sort something out as I've already paid for them (£100!).
> 
> Really disappointed.


What a shame  Hope you can sort something out.



foxyrockmeister said:


> Hmm, I've been thinking about agility for Branston too, do you think that would be as beneficial as training classes for him? I guess it might be better as it'll be more fun? I couldn't do agility with Lily though because of her legs, so maybe a class for her and agility for him, variety is the spice of life eh!
> 
> I'm completely crap at new situations tho, I'm really nervous of being the 'new girl' and of being rubbish something  I know this is lame and at my age I need to man up, but I'll need some psyching up to approach an agility group
> 
> I have found one on the island that looks good though, but I'm scared


I'd start by finding a trainer that you like the sound of on paper/website and getting in touch. Chatting to them about your dogs and your needs. They will probably be able to guide you.

THis is for FRM and Beth17 I'm always a little nervous when I start a new class, especially if it's at a different venue, but remember everyone is a little nervous. it's not a competition you only need to focus on your dogs improvement week by week. Don't even watch others taking part, if you are watching them you aren't focussing on your dog (it's a bit like going on a date and looking at all the others in the restaurant!)

As L/C has said go along and watch gauge the atmosphere of the class. Our advanced class is pretty laid back, we all will each other to do well and congratulate each other (much like this thread) there's a fair bit of humour too. I've been to other classes where none of the owners spoke to one another and the tension in the room was palpable.

Currently we go to an obedience class, games class and a tricks class. Periodically an agility class, we're looking for new one at the moment.


----------



## Beth17

You're right brilliant pep talk moonviolet :thumbup: 

Time to be brave as everyone will be in the same boat as we are all starting the same night and I'll just end up not doing anything. You never know might make some new friends out of it


----------



## Dogless

L/C - massively disappointing.

FRM - I was petrified before going to the classes that I currently do as the last lot were awful that I went to. Instead I found myself joining a friendly dog training club and I actually look forward to going - because I like it, Kilo likes it and the whole experience is a world away from the stressful environment of the last place. We just do general obedience and manners and it's mixed up a lot - for instance we had a go at Rally - O a few weeks back which was fun. I went to meet the trainer and watch a class first, then on our first night I sat at the side with Kilo filing in paperwork and chatting to one of the trainers about what I was hoping to achieve and then we joined in at the end. With Branston's poor impulse control (Kilo's was very poor, but getting better with lots of work) I probably wouldn't try agility at first, it would probably overwhelm him I would have thought.

Beth17 - go for it. It is true that we are all in the same boat, but you're only 'new' until the next person joins!

This morning we went to the park - loads of dogs, kids etc as it was sunny and the BW did me proud . We only had one minor incident; he was lying down on a field chilling out and an overexcited dog came and jumped on him from behind, he stayed lying down, but then got boxed around the face so got up, but didn't react at all bar moving himself behind me.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> FRM - With Branston's poor impulse control (Kilo's was very poor, but getting better with lots of work) I probably wouldn't try agility at first, it would probably overwhelm him I would have thought..


I tend to agree with this some normally chilled dogs become over excited loons in the agility atmosphere if you have a dog that can be overwhelmed it is likely to be too much too soon



Dogless said:


> This morning we went to the park - loads of dogs, kids etc as it was sunny and the BW did me proud . We only had one minor incident; he was lying down on a field chilling out and an overexcited dog came and jumped on him from behind, he stayed lying down, but then got boxed around the face so got up, but didn't react at all bar moving himself behind me.


Wow your boy needs considering for sainthood for that one! he doesn't get a star he is a blooming star    :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I tend to agree with this some normally chilled dogs become over excited loons in the agility atmosphere if you have a dog that
> 
> Wow your boy needs considering for sainthood for that one! he doesn't get a star he is a blooming star    :thumbup:


Kilo would be an overexcited loon at present I think in that atmosphere. He can stand ringside and watch agility and flyball nicely with me or dogs and people running doing recalls BUT if we stand in a line to do a recall where I run or amongst the excited dogs he can be a real handful.

He is a funny dog - when we are on a good 'run' he is pretty much a fantastic dog who isn't phased by too much and takes things in his stride. When we are having a bad one he can be so reactive and excitable it's untrue, he doesn't 'do' in between. Had that dog been a black or choc lab I think the outcome would have been different.

As I have said before, it's trying to equip him with the ability to bounce back from setbacks better rather than training going way, way back and us struggling for days that I'd like to achieve.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> As I have said before, it's trying to equip him with the ability to bounce back from setbacks better rather than training going way, way back and us struggling for days that I'd like to achieve.


In general over excited dogs Tink just sort of stands there with an " what the hell are they on" bemused look. If like last night it's rammed in her face she'll either become a statue or, particularly if it's a BC, bark at them. She brilliantly shook it off and as soon as I dropped her mat she placed herself calmly on it and focussed throught out the class. Unfortunately the BC didn't and was attempting to have a good stare at her on and off all through the class. She didn't even notice. It's quite possible it's never been socialised with floppy eared dogs who knows. It was his last week as he has been found a forever home, hope they know what they have taken on and have the necessary skills and support.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> In general over excited dogs Tink just sort of stands there with an " what the hell are they on" bemused look. If like last night it's rammed in her face she'll either become a statue or, particularly if it's a BC, bark at them. She brilliantly shook it off and as soon as I dropped her mat she placed herself calmly on it and focussed throught out the class. Unfortunately the BC didn't and was attempting to have a good stare at her on and off all through the class. She didn't even notice. It's quite possible it's never been socialised with floppy eared dogs who knows. It was his last week as he has been found a forever home, hope they know what they have taken on and have the necessary skills and support.


Days like today when all was well in Kilo's world he will just stand and look bemused or move away - but calmly - and remain totally chilled and able to focus on me. On a 'bad' day he would have barked his head off (or if it had been a lab) at the overexcited dog and then remained in an anxious state for the remainder of the walk - hard to get to focus and hypervigilant. We are getting there, it's just avoiding loose dogs charging us whilst he's on lead which seems to be the real key.


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Kilo, what a good lad.

I'm hoping if this agilty goes ok we can join the class- will see how the next few weeks go. It doesn't bear thinking about to put her in a Gun dog class though.:scared:


----------



## Coffee

Awww, L/C, how disappointing for you  Do you think it was the initial up front cost that might have put people off? £100 does seem quite a lot to pay in advance.

Dogless, Kilo just keeps on going doesn't he?  What a boy! 

Not much to report from me  Good walk this morning, no problems  Still continuing with the car training... haven't even attempted to touch the boot since last week  Am going to try reaching up towards it very slowly in the next few days and see what sort of reaction I get...

I can't wait until we can go back to classes... that's my ultimate aim for all the car training we're doing... there's nothing within walking distance unfortunately. 

In abscess update  it's still looking very open and a bit grim but he's bothering with it much less today so hopefully that's a good sign


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Pleased that worked better for Tinker MV- but you shouldn't speak too soon, the world and his wife could turn out to watch you tomorrow


Damn damn damn :lol: ont eh way back to the car we encountered a whole gathering for an orienteering event then one of my trainers pulled over in her van for a chat... there was no running today!

2 great walks though and now off to class


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> With Branston's poor impulse control (Kilo's was very poor, but getting better with lots of work) I probably wouldn't try agility at first, it would probably overwhelm him I would have thought.





moonviolet said:


> I tend to agree with this some normally chilled dogs become over excited loons in the agility atmosphere if you have a dog that can be overwhelmed it is likely to be too much too soon


I think you're probably right, his brain would probably go into overdrive and explode if faced with agility right now :crazy:

I'm going to have a look around and see if there are any suitable classes nearby, what would they be advertised as? I don't really want to go back to the KC good citizen classes we were going to, they were ok for puppy and Bronze but I don't think the trainers were particularly well experienced for dealing with specific problems as such if you know what I mean?

I didn't walk the pickles at all today  because I've been over in England visiting a friend whose husband has just left her  So hubby was on walk duty, he said he did some lead work with them and they were 'ok' but to be honest that could mean anything from him! 

Before I left this morning though I did make some time to start some impulse training with them from the link MV gave me the other day. They did really well, Branston especially :thumbup:

"oh, I know it's there, but I can't have it, oh I can't look, oh please let me have it"









Take it! mmmmm nom nom nom









and this is teaching him 'watch' I have a treat held out at arms length to my right but he is focusing on me :thumbup:









and Lily doing the same









I was really pleased with how quickly he got 'watch' it's a new one for him and he did really well, kept quite calm through all of it.
Lily was actually harder, she wasn't listening and everything I asked her to do she just rolled over  and then if I got down onto the floor she just started humping me!!!

It seems I can only have one of them performing well at one time :lol:
Still, I think for our first day, it went well


----------



## moonviolet

FRM, sorry about your friend 

What a wonderful start to the impulse work  

In that first pic Branston is doing great , he's avoiding the treat. when he trusts himself a little more he'll be able to look at you. Fab fab start. His watch is beautiful  As is Miss little legs' big gold stars for the pickles.

Don't panic about Lily, it's all new, confusing , bit like first day at school. The humping is a bit of release of tension.

These games at the moment are probably like a really hard pub quiz, so give them something fun as a release between them a little tuggie fetch, silly tricks they know well and get right every time to give them an " I know this one" moment.

Local vets may have a noticeboard and pet shops are usually quite good to ask about the reputation of trainers (at least if they are as gossipy as mine :lol


----------



## kat&molly

FRM- That looks great.

Well we've just come back from our 2nd lesson and I'm still not sure its for Moll really. Her focus and concentration is a bit lacking- she picks it up easy enough and we put 3 jumps and the tunnel all together today.
Big Evie thinks I'm worrying too much but I dont want to do something if Molls hearts not in it.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly; no idea what to say about the lessons - maybe try a few more and if Moll still doesn't seem to enthused then try something else?

We spent the morning in 'our' forest this morning just mooching. Didn't see a single person as always and it was so, so peaceful that a pair of peregrine falcons were circling above us riding the thermals at one point and each time they had to use their wings you could hear the sound of them beating. That is true tranquility .


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks Dogless- I will give her a few weeks more I think.


I'd love to invade 'your' forest- it sounds like Heaven.


----------



## Beth17

Well the weather is lovely today and so we just went up to the field and had a mooch about. Sam was also able to meet a few people and dogs. 

I don't want to count my chickens before they've hatched but so far I haven't met a dog or person Sam doesn't love, he's such an attention seeker 

Only a slight bit of posturing and noise from Oscar when a dog seemed to be eyeballing Sam but he came away when called so not a huge issue. I apologised and we moved on, a bit embarrassing as he's been so good lately but oh well tomorrow will be better.


----------



## Born2BWild

Ok so here's Cleos update;

Went to the vets today (first time using my new vet - Hollistic vet practices, very impressed) and Cleo had her blood tests done to test for anything tht may have triggered her reactive behaviour (she took that all in her stride and barely noticed it happening!) 
There were several dogs there on arrival and departure - and I was very impressed with Cleos behaviour...

She voluntarily offered to sniff 2 of the dogs - the other dogs she was stressing about and starting to react to - I refocused her and managed to get her to do sit and down stays - she was whining a lot quite loudly but didn't snap at all!

My BAT book has just come through so going to read that thoroughly!!

Cleos results will be back tomorrow afternoon/Saturday morning...

I guess it's only natural to feel nervous about them!

I will keep you all updated on results and where we go from here


----------



## thronesfan

I'm signing Cookie and myself up to a basic obedience course starting next week (assuming there's space available for us). I think she already knows a fair bit of the stuff that will be covered, but there's room for improvement. I think the socialisation with other dogs will be good for her and there are a few things I'm struggling to teach her, so could use some help.

She's an intelligent dog and I think she needs to be using her brain more to stop her getting bored and I need some more ideas on activities to give her to do. Today I shut her in the house while I hid her breakfast kibble around the garden - she had a great time sniffing it all out.


----------



## moonviolet

K&M Sorry you aren't feeling that Moll is enjoying agility as much i'd give it a few more weeks. Could it be your uncertainty of whether she enjoying it is rubbing off on her? 

i was thinking today how close the running, jumping, turning, balancing along the trunks of fallen trees, ducking under thick bracken Tink does on some walks is like agility... and the natural agility a flushing dog would use.

Dogless that sounds heavenly.

Beth17, Sounds like Sam is coming along a treat and well done Oscar for coming away from the dog that was eyeballing Sam. 

B2BW, sounds like you have everything in hand , keep us updated.

Thronesfan, Good luck with the classes when do they start?

Fun class last night, some RallyO, putting toys away in a box at increasing distance, key fetches, stay exercises OH was quite well behaved :lol:

THis mornings walk was lovely. other than the I'm on my mobile man and his growlly snappy little min pin it's dobermann back up...Tink hid behind a tree, I body blocked and had both dogs stopped in front of me, owner didn't even pause on his social call to call them back or speak to me  once he caught up and passed. Her ladyship rejoined me quite happily. No harm done, but still could be a problem if another dog doesn't take kindly to small dogs charging, shouting and growling. I know Monty wouldn't take kindly to it.

Soon after this she cantered into what was a rather boggier puddle than she had expected it to be and was momentarily stuck :lol: She really did look like she had been painted black from halfway down a few runs through the wet grass sorted that out.
The running return to the car was successful again and woohoo no witnesses today


----------



## Dogless

mv - I am so impressed with Miss Tink; and would still pay to see your crazy run to the car .

Our second walk today was a calm onlead one in preparation for school. Made a big effort to get to school as my usual route was closed in parts for the Ulster GP. Then...only I turned up so waited a while talking to two people who come to help out and do the class after ours and came home again. Disappointing, but never mind.


----------



## kat&molly

Beth17- That sounds good 

B2BW-At least you haven't got long to wait for results. Sounds a good vet.

Thronesfan- Hope you can fit in the class.

Moonviolet- Tink coped well again. I find it shocking to read on here sometimes how rude and ignorant some people are. No photos of a Black Beagle?

Think I'm probably feeling guity about the Agility- I know what Moll would rather be doing and I'm the one not allowing it 
I was expecting more excitement - she doesn't dislike it, and she did go through the tunnel a couple of times without asking. Big Evie thinks she's doing well- perhaps it is just me.

You said you were looking for an Agility class, have you done it before with Tinker?

Hope Dogless is having a good class.


----------



## kat&molly

Crossposted Dogless- where was everyone?


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Crossposted Dogless- where was everyone?


No idea; the main trainer is away which means a lot of folk don't go - although I like the others too. Maybe some come from my direction too and didn't want to go round the houses? Maybe the Olympics? Who knows....

Perhaps you do feel guilty when it comes to the agility; if Big Evie thinks she's doing well Moll probably is!


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- Tink coped well again. I find it shocking to read on here sometimes how rude and ignorant some people are. No photos of a Black Beagle?


 Just got back from our evening walk we met up with monty and his owner and we can beat" mobile phone man".... with "out of his depth Father." we encountered them on a track that is wide enough for a car so perfectly sufficent to choose a side and walk past with no issues.... not so for out of his depth dad ... with 3 labs and 3 kids 2 of whom were driving remote control cars. we had to weave through them there was a mumbled "sorry" from dad when Monty spooked at the remote control car being driven at him. I kept blocking the dogs as they were just annoyingly protracted in their sniffing and I'd put Tink on lead, we jsut kept on moving and eventually we managed to untangle ourselves.


kat&molly said:


> Think I'm probably feeling guity about the Agility- I know what Moll would rather be doing and I'm the one not allowing it
> I was expecting more excitement - she doesn't dislike it, and she did go through the tunnel a couple of times without asking. Big Evie thinks she's doing well- perhaps it is just me.


 If she's going through the tunnel without asking I really don't think you have too much to worry about.



kat&molly said:


> You said you were looking for an Agility class, have you done it before with Tinker?


 We've been to a few classes here and there so know the very basics. Last year at a fun dog show we popped around the "have a go" agility course and were given a card and asked to contact them never did anything about it . Now OH is thinking of having a break form his obedience class and having a go at agility instead.

Dogless sorry you didn't have your class... such a shame.


----------



## Born2BWild

Thank you for your comments 

Hopefully we are on the right road to a happier, stress free, Cleo!


----------



## Born2BWild

Update on Cleo -

Had results, kidney and thyroid panel normal but something to do with the bile in the liver has come up ?

She has to go back on Thursday for blood tests at 9:30 (I have to starve her for 24 hours) and then she'll have a meal and be blood tested at 11:30 - the test results she's just had would indicate a liver disfunction and could have an impact on her behaviour...

She was quite stressed going to the vet and I gave quite a few treats for her good behaviour during sit and down stays so that may have played a role in the results...

I'm hoping for good results!!


----------



## Dogless

Born2BWild - I didn't 'like' your post for the liver test being wonky; it was for the fact that you're one step closer to discovering what is wrong / influencing behaviour. I do hope Thursday goes well - paws crossed!


----------



## Dogless

We have had a nice day - long walk this morning as we went to the fields but they were working over the road and using the fields to park a few JCBs and the gate was open, so walked up to the sports pitches; then Kilo went offlead and we played with his Kong Ring Zinger thingummy which he loves. We saw no one on the fields and just had a relaxed time.

This afternoon an onlead training walk and the BW did fab; didn't bat an eyelid at a JRT going bonkers at him :thumbup:.

I met a crazy woman this morning on the way home....I was walking along and saw a little JRT straining like mad to come and meet Kilo; he was doing well and uninterested but I crossed the road. And the woman followed me. So...I crossed the road. And the woman followed me :mad2:. I said "I hope you don't think I'm being rude but I'm training my dog". The woman said "Mine wants to meet". I replied "I'm teaching him that he doesn't get to meet every dog he sees". So she says "She's a girl, not a dog" in a very offended tone....and my final word? "OK, but I still don't want them to meet". She gets points for persistence at least .


----------



## Born2BWild

Dogless said:


> Born2BWild - I didn't 'like' your post for the liver test being wonky; it was for the fact that you're one step closer to discovering what is wrong / influencing behaviour. I do hope Thursday goes well - paws crossed!


I agree, the whole point in getting the tests done were to eliminate or pick up on any health issues - I just need answers for her drastic behaviour change - in some ways it would help if there was a small problem so I have answers and can work on solving it!! We shall see...I hope that there is nothing major


----------



## foxyrockmeister

B2B - Sorry to hear there may be something wrong with Cleo, but like you say hopefully it may give you some answers to her behaviour change. Fingers crossed it's nothing serious and can be sorted easily. Keep us posted.

Dogless - Sounds like BW's been a star again today, even with crazy JR lady :crazy: You and MV seem to attract the loonies on your walk don't you :lol: Maybe I don't notice any of these odd and rude people people because I am one of them :yikes: :lol:
Only kidding, I know why I don't come across these annoying dog owners, it's because I avoid places with other people and dogs, and now I'm paying the price for it with a pair of pooches that can't handle any form of excitement 

We've had a good couple of days, been working on LLW, just alternating them back on their leads for 5mins at a time while out in quiet places, and they're definitely getting the idea :thumbup:

I've been working on the impulse and focus stuff at home and Branston has been doing brilliantly. I've started incorporating 'watch' into everything we do :lol: He has to 'watch' before I take his lead off, he has to 'watch' to get his bedtime treat and for his dinner, he has to 'watch' to go out the back door etc etc and he's doing really well, he's started to do it without me asking now, which I think is a good thing!

Lily's not so good with the focus stuff  but then she's more trustworthy when we're out so I'm not so worried. I think I'll focus on getting Branston rock steady first and then work on the little white loony who's just doing her own thing !!!


----------



## Dogless

FRM; sounds as if the Pickles (especially Branston) are really stepping up to the plate :thumbup:.

I do seem to meet loonies - on our forest walks we tend not to meet a soul and often on our field walks too....but when I go to the park for training or am walking to and from the fields we do meet people; and many of them are flippin' bonkers. I'd rather not - but do it so Kilo is used to it. I am half waiting for a thread to be started about a miserable cow of a ridgie owner who wouldn't let her dog meet a lovely friendly JRT today :scared:.


----------



## Born2BWild

foxyrockmeister said:


> B2B - Sorry to hear there may be something wrong with Cleo, but like you say hopefully it may give you some answers to her behaviour change. Fingers crossed it's nothing serious and can be sorted easily. Keep us posted.
> 
> Dogless - Sounds like BW's been a star again today, even with crazy JR lady :crazy: You and MV seem to attract the loonies on your walk don't you :lol: Maybe I don't notice any of these odd and rude people people because I am one of them :yikes: :lol:
> Only kidding, I know why I don't come across these annoying dog owners, it's because I avoid places with other people and dogs, and now I'm paying the price for it with a pair of pooches that can't handle any form of excitement
> 
> We've had a good couple of days, been working on LLW, just alternating them back on their leads for 5mins at a time while out in quiet places, and they're definitely getting the idea :thumbup:
> 
> I've been working on the impulse and focus stuff at home and Branston has been doing brilliantly. I've started incorporating 'watch' into everything we do :lol: He has to 'watch' before I take his lead off, he has to 'watch' to get his bedtime treat and for his dinner, he has to 'watch' to go out the back door etc etc and he's doing really well, he's started to do it without me asking now, which I think is a good thing!
> 
> Lily's not so good with the focus stuff  but then she's more trustworthy when we're out so I'm not so worried. I think I'll focus on getting Branston rock steady first and then work on the little white loony who's just doing her own thing !!!


Thank you  I will keep you all updated...bless her, I love her so much!


----------



## moonviolet

B2BW I hope the tests on thurs clarify things and It turns out to have a simple solution.

Dogless. Kilo really a star and clearly not projecting scary big dog to loonies with JRT's :lol: maybe he's being just a bit too good   Are you sure she hasnt followed you home... have you checked the doorstep... she might be planning an ambush. :lol: 

FRM, So pleased to hear the Pickles are doing well with their LLW and that Master Branston is excelling at the impulse and focus work.  There might be something else that pushes Miss lil Legs' buttons. Hope you are having fun with it too  

This mornings walk was lovely as it was warm i headed to a shady valley on the dark side of the hill, where the dew doesnt' evaporate until the afternoon and the air stays nice and cool. It's not the easiest wallk and so i didn't see or hear a soul, bliss. We did see a fox, Tink spotted it first, I saw her stop in a very stiff pont I immediately asked for a sit. Which she did in slow motion enough time to slip her lead on then turn to see what she had spotted. It turned and trotted away and she didn't seem overly bothered. Successful jog to teh car one witness... no visible camera 

I was going to say no loonies tonight, but it's not strictly true, we were bothered by the overweight boxers we had previously been repeatedly charged at while their owner talker to her friend and fixed her hair at the wnd of one of our walks and the stat of theirs. Thankfully today it was the other way around and the 100yards they charged to get to us seemed to have almost wiped them out. They slowed when i blocked, then actually managed a polite greeting and headed back to their owner.... who surprise surprise, was on her phone. 

The rest of the walk was lovely relaxing saw a few people from a distance. but no bother. A no witness happy jog to car


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer seems to have well and truly morphed into Kevin :crying: He has been a real a**hole while out the last couple of days. I dunno whether it's just that he's gotten used to having nothing done with him on walks or whether it's adolescence taking hold with a vengeance but he's driving me absolutely nuts. Recall has gone, attention to me has gone, checking in with me has gone and don't even get me started on the towing me along behind him behaviour that's re-emerged!

So tonight we've gone right back to basics and have been practising recall and attention to me both in the house and outside of the flat. I have a feeling he's gotten "go play" a hell of a lot when he's offered attention to my hubby while I've been away so I'm hoping it's just that and with a bit of a reminder he'll be back to happily offering me stuff coz he wants to interact rather than go off and ignore me. I don't expect his undivided attention at all times but up until now he's at least looked for me every so often, now I don't think he'd notice if I went up in a puff of smoke!

And to top it all off he's eaten his tripe too quickly, thrown it all back up 10 minutes later and eaten it again :incazzato: I think I'm just gonna go to bed and hope tomorrow is a better day lol. Sorry for the rant folks and a gold star if you actually got this far.


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## moonviolet

The tripe thing made my stomach spin! They are seriously grim sometimes. Just as well we love them.

I have no doubt in your abilities to get Kevin (previously known as Spencer) back on track . You must be exhausted all you've been through the past few weeks. ( How's your Dad doing now?) You have the knowledge and the skills to tackle Spencer and so much more  A good night's sleep and I'm sure it'll all look better in the morning


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh the tripe thing made my stomach turn too. Tripe is bad enough first time round, I don't want to see it second time round!

My dad's doing great thanks, pretty much back to his old self now. Had to have the shunt put back in but just like the first time it was like someone had waved a magic wand, soon as the shunt was in my dad was back. His short term memory is terrible but as we all said, he's bloody lucky to still be here never mind come through it as well as he has! We can live with him asking what day it is 20 times a day.

I'm always a bit low after coming back from seeing my family (homesick and it seems so lonely here after a house full of people) and I'm not sleeping well so I don't think that's helping with the Spen situation, I've not got the patience I usually have right now and they always seem to behave worse when you're not at your best. I dunno whether they actually do or whether it just feels like they do lol. I'm sure in a week or two I'll be fine and will wonder what I was getting so uptight about.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh the tripe thing made my stomach turn too. Tripe is bad enough first time round, I don't want to see it second time round!
> 
> My dad's doing great thanks, pretty much back to his old self now. Had to have the shunt put back in but just like the first time it was like someone had waved a magic wand, soon as the shunt was in my dad was back. His short term memory is terrible but as we all said, he's bloody lucky to still be here never mind come through it as well as he has! We can live with him asking what day it is 20 times a day.
> 
> I'm always a bit low after coming back from seeing my family (homesick and it seems so lonely here after a house full of people) and I'm not sleeping well so I don't think that's helping with the Spen situation, I've not got the patience I usually have right now and they always seem to behave worse when you're not at your best. I dunno whether they actually do or whether it just feels like they do lol. I'm sure in a week or two I'll be fine and will wonder what I was getting so uptight about.


I'm glad your dad is doing so well, it must have been a real tear to go back to your boys, when your Dad was still recovering from the second surgery. Your Dad must be one tough cookie. It's hardly surprising you feel homesick. A busy family household is lovely but don't forget how difficult it can be to have a moment's peace or having to follow the "habits of the house".

Sorry you aren't sleeping well. I think you are probably right if you aren't getting the time for your head to do it's "filing" and your body to relax and repair even little challenges become much harder to overcome. Have you ever tried meditation? It's not sleep, but I've found it useful at times when sleep was elusive.

It's so true about them behaving worse when you don't have the patience and you're right we see fault, when we are in that mindset, that we would shrug off or deal with easily otherwise. Hope it's all looking better this morning and you managed to get some quality sleep


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## kat&molly

Sarah, I hope you've had a good nights sleep. Great that your Dads doing well- its not easy being so far away.

Moonviolet- hope everyone isn't out to witness you today. How many weeks now?

B2BW- Hope Cleos tests bring some fixable answers for you.

Not much for us-just nice walks its blimmin hot- have had a result and got Moll in to the big bath though. Its a start.


----------



## kat&molly

sonicsweve said:


> I am 13y and desperately looking 4 volunteer work,dog walking/work with animals.
> I have exp. with rabbits, fish and chickens(pets)
> I have cat, guineapig,hamster,fish sat.
> I have looked after ahyper! dog for 2nights.
> A relative of mine also owns a donkey which I have fed/walked etc
> I have walked plenty of dogs and taught basic commands e.g sit stay bed
> I have also looked after/dealt with a geriatric SICK CAT for 2 weeks! so I am prepared for the worst. I do not mind "cleaning up"
> 
> Willing to work with:
> Dogs,Cats,Sm animals,Reptiles,Fish,Birds,Farm animals
> Will also accept mucking out/feeding/grooming horses & donkeys.
> I am looking for work within the W'ton/Cheshire area.
> Pls be aware I am at school 5 days/wk but am available at w/ends and afterschool
> I am willing to travel to homes/shelters within the cheshire area to groom,walk,feed etc
> 
> Does anyone know of ANYWHERE I can work please?
> Most shelters within distance have a 16/18 year limit so I am restricted.
> 
> Thanks


Hi there, if you start a new thread someone may have some ideas for you. Good luck and I hope you find something.


----------



## Dogless

sonicsweve; I think that the problem with finding work will be your age unfortunately - shelters etc have limits due to insurance requirements. I'm also not sure that you'll find many private jobs either (even voluntary) - I'd never let someone your age walk my dog although I am sure that you are really responsible and I admire you looking for work. 

If you really want animal experience could you perhaps find a friend or family member with some animals that they are are happy to let you care for with them?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - so pleased that your Dad is doing well. Kilo becomes Kevin when I don't feel myself and as patient as usual, maybe Spen is just picking up on that? I'm sure you'll get the teenager back under control.

mv - don't say Kilo is being too good and jinx things.....I like it!! Your nice, dewy walk where you didn't see a soul sounds lovely; utterly peaceful. Well done for successfully dealing with the boxers too!

kat&molly - pleased you've had success with the big bath - have you had your inflatable chair on it yet?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- hope everyone isn't out to witness you today. How many weeks now?
> 
> Not much for us-just nice walks its blimmin hot- have had a result and got Moll in to the big bath though. Its a start.


 Hope now Moll has had a taste of the wonders of the big bath she'll be happier using it to cool off.

I have a plan for today.. wear shorts and scare everyone away with my doughy white legs :scared:

Not sure how many weeks now, but it will be 3 months next sunday  



Dogless said:


> mv - don't say Kilo is being too good and jinx things.....I like it!!


You could always put a little light lunacy on command... could prove handy :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

3 months- thats fantastic :thumbup::thumbup:
I think thats meant to be the hardest part over with then.


----------



## Sarah1983

Thanks folk, feeling a little bit better today so hopefully Kevin will go back into hiding. 

Ran into another dog this morning, looked like some sort of spaniel or spaniel mix. No other owner in sight, just the dog. The meeting went well, polite sniffing and so on. Then Spen got all playful and bouncy and ended up getting told off by the other dog. He calmed down a bit and they went back to sniffing each other. Seems he's learning.


----------



## Dogless

sonicsweve said:


> I am 13y and desperately looking 4 volunteer work,dog walking/work with animals.
> I have exp. with rabbits, fish and chickens(pets)
> I have cat, guineapig,hamster,fish sat.
> I have looked after ahyper! dog for 2nights.
> A relative of mine also owns a donkey which I have fed/walked etc
> I have walked plenty of dogs and taught basic commands e.g sit stay bed
> I have also looked after/dealt with a geriatric SICK CAT for 2 weeks! so I am prepared for the worst. I do not mind "cleaning up"
> 
> Willing to work with:
> Dogs,Cats,Sm animals,Reptiles,Fish,Birds,Farm animals
> Will also accept mucking out/feeding/grooming horses & donkeys.
> I am looking for work within the W'ton/Cheshire area.
> Pls be aware I am at school 5 days/wk but am available at w/ends and afterschool
> I am willing to travel to homes/shelters within the cheshire area to groom,walk,feed etc
> 
> Does anyone know of ANYWHERE I can work please?
> Most shelters within distance have a 16/18 year limit so I am restricted.
> 
> Thank


I'm afraid that posting the same again and again on this thread probably isn't going to get you very far; as I have said before there are age limits for insurance purposes and I don't know many people that would allow a 13 year old to walk their dog, even though you do seem responsible. You only have to read this thread to see why it wouldn't be a good idea with all the lunatics or out of control dogs you could run into, never mind controlling a large dog. Also the issue of owner liability should something happen and an adult has allowed a young person to walk the dog alone.

All I can still suggest is finding a friend or relative who will let you help care for their animal / animals. You could also maybe look into doing a sponsored event to raise money for animal rescue - that way you'd be helping the animals even if you can't work at the centre yet.


----------



## kat&molly

We've just had the worst walk ever.

Walked up to the field that has the river access for the girls to cool off. Because of stray sheep I always check first before letting Evie off and it was clear, or so I thought , 1 came from the other side and all 3 took off after it. After a couple of screams and blows on the whistle Moll and Scruff came back- but no Evie , all I could hear was her yapping-no way would she have come back.

I had to cross the river, climb a barbed wire fence and walk through undergrowth to find her. The poor sheep had stopped and madam was about 2 metres away barking at it, luckily it didn't bolt and I managed to grab her quick.

Think my breathing has just about returned to normal.


----------



## Coffee

kat&molly said:


> We've just had the worst walk ever.
> 
> Walked up to the field that has the river access for the girls to cool off. Because of stray sheep I always check first before letting Evie off and it was clear, or so I thought , 1 came from the other side and all 3 took off after it. After a couple of screams and blows on the whistle Moll and Scruff came back- but no Evie , all I could hear was her yapping-no way would she have come back.
> 
> I had to cross the river, climb a barbed wire fence and walk through undergrowth to find her. The poor sheep had stopped and madam was about 2 metres away barking at it, luckily it didn't bolt and I managed to grab her quick.
> 
> Think my breathing has just about returned to normal.


Oh god, poor you  I think a sheep in such close quarters as that would be a test for most dogs... I'm positive I wouldn't have a hope of getting Alfie back in that situation.

Hope you're feeling calmer soon. I recommend wine. And chocolate. Followed by more wine.

<hugs>


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly - that is a real nightmare . At least Scruff and Moll recalled and you only had Madame Evie to worry about. I can imagine the horror of it though. Stiff drink prescribed.


----------



## kat&molly

I know most people would say its my fault and it is -but I do wish this farmer had a bit more regard for his livestock- we had to turn around again this morning.
Evie was so hyped when I got her back, it took a while for her to calm down. I just feel that in this sort of situation she needs managing and no amount of Recall training would ever stop her wanting to go???

I'm grateful as it could have been worse and really proud of Moll and Scruff.


Got a large glass of wine here.


----------



## Dogless

Good day today in the main :thumbup:. Longish run at 6 this morning so very peaceful; walk to the fields this afternoon, walked there very nicely, passed some kids playing and shouting "I like your doggy" with no stress at all, passed some dogs. Then lots of offlead and some tummy rubs etc as the BW was being a soppy bugger . _mv he is not being too good...we've had our fair share of bad days I reckon ._

Been out in the garden, no taunting from kids - lots playing, but Kilo doesn't react to that.

Then the 'in the main' part....we met a right smartarse . A dog comes running over (by the road, Kilo onlead, dog offlead - same old story!). I ask the owner to please call his dog. He did, but his dog didn't respond. Kilo is starting to look unhappy so I am walking away and I ask the man again to get his dog, a half - hearted call and still his dog doesn't respond. So, a little more desperately I ask him to get him - he does but says "He's just being friendly". I explained that Kilo wasn't always happy with dogs running up to him when he was onlead and I was trying to work on him getting less stressed. The man said "I know a really good way of doing that"....."Train your dog" . There I was, all naive, thinking someone wanted to give some helpful advice . Mug .

The BW is currently doing his best to be a one dog demolition team as there is a bluebottle about - no job too small or wall too solid :scared:.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I know most people would say its my fault and it is -but I do wish this farmer had a bit more regard for his livestock- we had to turn around again this morning.
> Evie was so hyped when I got her back, it took a while for her to calm down. I just feel that in this sort of situation she needs managing and no amount of Recall training would ever stop her wanting to go???
> 
> I'm grateful as it could have been worse and really proud of Moll and Scruff.
> 
> Got a large glass of wine here.


Kilo gets so, so hyped when he has chased (went after a deer once, and once only I hasten to add! and after the hunt incident) and becomes pretty much unmanageable. I came to the conclusion a while ago that, although I will continue to work very hard with recall training that I will always manage the situation - I only ever run with him attached to me now in the forest where we saw the deer as they are everywhere. He still desperately wants to go if we see them and his excitement levels go through the roof.

ETA: We have seen loose sheep in two different forests over the last fortnight - can happen anywhere. Kilo didn't see the first lot, thank goodness, saw the second one but was at a distance and I sprinted as hard as I could in the opposite direction making all manner of noises as he had gone into a very stiff, fixated point...he came, bounced off me and ran back towards the sheep, then turned on his heels and ran back to me at which point I managed to grab his collar. The third time i spotted fresh sheep poo on the track and put his lead on before we came across them.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Good day today in the main :thumbup:. Longish run at 6 this morning so very peaceful; walk to the fields this afternoon, walked there very nicely, passed some kids playing and shouting "I like your doggy" with no stress at all, passed some dogs. Then lots of offlead and some tummy rubs etc as the BW was being a soppy bugger . _mv he is not being too good...we've had our fair share of bad days I reckon ._
> 
> Been out in the garden, no taunting from kids - lots playing, but Kilo doesn't react to that.
> 
> Then the 'in the main' part....we met a right smartarse . A dog comes running over (by the road, Kilo onlead, dog offlead - same old story!). I ask the owner to please call his dog. He did, but his dog didn't respond. Kilo is starting to look unhappy so I am walking away and I ask the man again to get his dog, a half - hearted call and still his dog doesn't respond. So, a little more desperately I ask him to get him - he does but says "He's just being friendly". I explained that Kilo wasn't always happy with dogs running up to him when he was onlead and I was trying to work on him getting less stressed. The man said "I know a really good way of doing that"....."Train your dog" . There I was, all naive, thinking someone wanted to give some helpful advice . Mug .
> 
> The BW is currently doing his best to be a one dog demolition team as there is a bluebottle about - no job too small or wall too solid :scared:.


:scared: Well, now you know, you need to train that boy- what a cheeky git


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Good day today in the main :thumbup:. Longish run at 6 this morning so very peaceful; walk to the fields this afternoon, walked there very nicely, passed some kids playing and shouting "I like your doggy" with no stress at all, passed some dogs. Then lots of offlead and some tummy rubs etc as the BW was being a soppy bugger . _mv he is not being too good...we've had our fair share of bad days I reckon ._
> 
> Been out in the garden, no taunting from kids - lots playing, but Kilo doesn't react to that.
> 
> Then the 'in the main' part....we met a right smartarse . A dog comes running over (by the road, Kilo onlead, dog offlead - same old story!). I ask the owner to please call his dog. He did, but his dog didn't respond. Kilo is starting to look unhappy so I am walking away and I ask the man again to get his dog, a half - hearted call and still his dog doesn't respond. So, a little more desperately I ask him to get him - he does but says "He's just being friendly". I explained that Kilo wasn't always happy with dogs running up to him when he was onlead and I was trying to work on him getting less stressed. The man said "I know a really good way of doing that"....."Train your dog" . There I was, all naive, thinking someone wanted to give some helpful advice . Mug .
> 
> The BW is currently doing his best to be a one dog demolition team as there is a bluebottle about - no job too small or wall too solid :scared:.


Hang on a minute... 

_His_ dog was annoying yours.... _his_ dog failed to recall.... _his_ dog was ignoring him.... _his_ dog wasn't even on a lead and he told YOU to train your dog?  Oh no, I'm sorry. Stupidity like that doesn't even warrant a polite response; I'd have told him to eff off


----------



## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Hang on a minute...
> 
> _His_ dog was annoying yours.... _his_ dog failed to recall.... his dog was ignoring him.... his dog wasn't even on a lead and he told YOU to train your dog?  Oh no, I'm sorry. Stupidity like that doesn't even warrant a polite response; I'd have told him to eff off


I wasn't that annoyed TBH, think he was just embarrassed....felt a bit daft for believing he might have a gem of a tip though :scared:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Kilo gets so, so hyped when he has chased (went after a deer once, and once only I hasten to add! and after the hunt incident) and becomes pretty much unmanageable. I came to the conclusion a while ago that, although I will continue to work very hard with recall training that I will always manage the situation - I only ever run with him attached to me now in the forest where we saw the deer as they are everywhere. He still desperately wants to go if we see them and his excitement levels go through the roof.
> 
> ETA: We have seen loose sheep in two different forests over the last fortnight - can happen anywhere. Kilo didn't see the first lot, thank goodness, saw the second one but was at a distance and I sprinted as hard as I could in the opposite direction making all manner of noises as he had gone into a very stiff, fixated point...he came, bounced off me and ran back towards the sheep, then turned on his heels and ran back to me at which point I managed to grab his collar. The third time i spotted fresh sheep poo on the track and put his lead on before we came across them.


Thanks  Kilo was good for coming back like that.
I'm disapointed because I know she'll never be trustworthy but its put us back. I'll just have to be more vigilant.


----------



## sonicsweve

Sorry... how do i start a new thread


----------



## Dogless

sonicsweve said:


> Sorry... how do i start a new thread


Click on whatever section you want a thread in like 'Dog Chat', 'Dog Walking', 'Dog services' etc then look at the top left of your screen. There's a blue 'New Thread' icon - click and you can start one.

Have you seen peoples' replies to you on this one at all?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I know most people would say its my fault and it is -but I do wish this farmer had a bit more regard for his livestock- we had to turn around again this morning.
> Evie was so hyped when I got her back, it took a while for her to calm down. I just feel that in this sort of situation she needs managing and no amount of Recall training would ever stop her wanting to go???
> 
> I'm grateful as it could have been worse and really proud of Moll and Scruff.
> 
> Got a large glass of wine here.


Moll and Scruff did so well.  It must have been so scary.You need to borrow My parents psycho house sheep, too old and too wise they don't run for no dogs they happily stick together and face them down! Even though these are really the only sheep Tink has encountered. I wouldn't trust Tink with normal sheep of the running kind. Hope the wine has calmed your frazzled nerves.



Dogless said:


> Good day today in the main :thumbup:. Longish run at 6 this morning so very peaceful; walk to the fields this afternoon, walked there very nicely, passed some kids playing and shouting "I like your doggy" with no stress at all, passed some dogs. Then lots of offlead and some tummy rubs etc as the BW was being a soppy bugger . _mv he is not being too good...we've had our fair share of bad days I reckon ._


 lol fair point well made 


Dogless said:


> Then the 'in the main' part....we met a right smartarse . A dog comes running over (by the road, Kilo onlead, dog offlead - same old story!). I ask the owner to please call his dog. He did, but his dog didn't respond. Kilo is starting to look unhappy so I am walking away and I ask the man again to get his dog, a half - hearted call and still his dog doesn't respond. So, a little more desperately I ask him to get him - he does but says "He's just being friendly". I explained that Kilo wasn't always happy with dogs running up to him when he was onlead and I was trying to work on him getting less stressed. The man said "I know a really good way of doing that"....."Train your dog" . There I was, all naive, thinking someone wanted to give some helpful advice . Mug .


Well someone is swimming in a very famous Egyptian river 

ETA:forgot my bit lol

Lovely walk this morning OH came and commented on how confident Tink was even in areas where she had been hypervigilant in the past. which was really nice. She behaved really well and it was a lovely stress free walk.

This evening another date with Monty, bit of a surprise when Monty left his ball for a few moments to play a little chase with Tink, made her day :lol:

She didn't make me laugh this afternoon when she 'helped' OH digging potatoes :lol:


----------



## Dogless

mv - lovely that your OH has noticed such a change in Miss Tink's confidence, you must be very proud. I am of you both .

Not much to report today. Late walk this morning as MIL is extremely ill and hubby is on the mainland and I was on the phone etc so spent ages out as I felt guilty - had the fields to ourselves (rotten weather) and only saw a few dogs on our way to and from. The BW was very nicely behaved.

This evening we just went to the sports pitches and did some impulse control work and lead work there and back. Spent ages again for the fresh air and my sanity - or lack of :scared:. Saw some very noisy and fast - moving kids on scooters, but although Kilo was interested he behaved well again (put him on lead - way too much fast movement and exciting noises as they were taking turns down a steep slope and screaming with delight!).

So....he has been my best boy again today.


----------



## moonviolet

I'm terribly proud of my girl. she is such a star. I know she'd be some people's idea of a nightmare, but she is a dream to me. 

Sorry to hear about your MIL it must be a comfort for Hubby to be there. 
I'm glad Kilo is doing so well. Definitely gold stars for behaving well around the scooters and squealing, thats got to rate pretty high on the distraction scale. He really is a boy wonder. :thumbup:

Not much to report here, She handled a bouncy boxer with rather good grace... both times  and ignored the copious quantity of olympic inspired mountain bikers but all that being good is very tiring and is snoring, 4 paws to the sky.


----------



## Dogless

We were out for much longer than planned again this morning - went to the fields and did some impulse control training, recalls (as ever!!) and lots of play. We were about to leave when we met a very cute 20 week old black lab puppy - all squirmy and wriggly so we let them play for about half and hour. As Kilo had been out running around for ages he wasn't that playful, but still ran around with the pup a bit. I think he's growing up a bit too - the puppy was one that didn't take 'no' for an answer and bounced on Kilo constantly....he usually puts up with anything a puppy gives, but today told him off with a quick growl and held him still with his paw for a couple of seconds. No hackles or anything, just a warning - I am actually pleased as usually he just walks away with his tail and head down whilst still letting puppies clamber on him. The telling off worked and then they went back to playing - much better!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> We were out for much longer than planned again this morning - went to the fields and did some impulse control training, recalls (as ever!!) and lots of play. We were about to leave when we met a very cute 20 week old black lab puppy - all squirmy and wriggly so we let them play for about half and hour. As Kilo had been out running around for ages he wasn't that playful, but still ran around with the pup a bit. I think he's growing up a bit too - the puppy was one that didn't take 'no' for an answer and bounced on Kilo constantly....he usually puts up with anything a puppy gives, but today told him off with a quick growl and held him still with his paw for a couple of seconds. No hackles or anything, just a warning - I am actually pleased as usually he just walks away with his tail and head down whilst still letting puppies clamber on him. The telling off worked and then they went back to playing - much better!!


That sounds wonderful. There is something beautiful about unstressed gentle guidance given from an adult to a pup, it's so totally different from a stressed reaction. Uncle Kilo  and what a wonderful hint of how he will be with his little brother. So good .

Well I had limited time this morning so decided to do a little more running in our walk, i've been slowly adding a few sections of running ( in the most clumsy oaf friendly areas) I'm very lucky as running with me seems totallly natural to Tink and she comfortably canters alongside me. I think i might be getting better at this malarky Stopped for Tink to cool off in a couple handily placed ponds. Saw a lovely orange roan spaniel on one of our walking sections her owner seems horrified that she had got wet :lol: :lol: I guess he didn't want to ruin his tan loafers. Then when he warned me that there was a pond that way, like i was going to avoid it. I thought he was goign to faint when i said that i was heading that way for Tink to run through and cool off and i was tempted to kick off my shoes and join her.... It's not that feral to do that, right?


----------



## Sarah1983

Looks like Kevin is here to stay for a while  Spen is back on the long line as he has decided he is going to completely and utterly ignore us while out. I suppose I've been lucky up to now, he's 15 months old and has been great so far. Now it seems he's really finding his feet and pushing his luck. He's even playing up in the house at times. Anyone know what age they generally leave the Kevin stage behind? 

On the plus side he gets all excited when he sees the nail clippers come out, he was offering me his paw before I'd even sat down last night. Managed to get several of his nails cut without anyone holding him or distracting him. He doesn't make a fuss about them being done, he just likes to stick his nose in or shove his head in your face.

MV, I'd have kicked my shoes off and gone paddling with Tink. He'll I'd go swimming if it were deep enough and I had a change of clothes lol. Tink's come such a long way, she doesn't sound like a nightmare to me. I think you've done a great job with her.

Dogless, glad you and Kilo had a good experience with the pup. And hopefully the pup learns a few manners and doesn't grow into one of these problem Labs you keep encountering. Ignore the idiot with the out of control dog suggesting you train your dog 

Kat&Molly, I know what you mean about being upset about Evie not being trustworthy, I was in the same position with Rupert. Even if he'd been okay with other dogs he'd have been stuck on a long line coz of his prey drive. It's a pain in the backside, especially when livestock seem to wander regularly or you live where deer are all over the place.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Looks like Kevin is here to stay for a while  Spen is back on the long line as he has decided he is going to completely and utterly ignore us while out. I suppose I've been lucky up to now, he's 15 months old and has been great so far. Now it seems he's really finding his feet and pushing his luck. He's even playing up in the house at times. Anyone know what age they generally leave the Kevin stage behind?
> 
> On the plus side he gets all excited when he sees the nail clippers come out, he was offering me his paw before I'd even sat down last night. Managed to get several of his nails cut without anyone holding him or distracting him. He doesn't make a fuss about them being done, he just likes to stick his nose in or shove his head in your face.
> 
> MV, I'd have kicked my shoes off and gone paddling with Tink. He'll I'd go swimming if it were deep enough and I had a change of clothes lol. Tink's come such a long way, she doesn't sound like a nightmare to me. I think you've done a great job with her.


Well done getting Spencer comfortable, no, thats beyond comfortable that sounds positively enthusiastic about , having his claws clipped. I think it's a wonderful show of trust 

My parents have had a couple of labs and they were still quite adolescent until they were 2 although it was phases rather than constantly Kevins after that the phases dimimished in longevity and frequency, sort of "can i do this now?" testing whether rules were permenant or not.

I'm glad i'm not the only one who isn't ashamed to had the occasional paddle. I have been thigh deep in the canal to rescue a ball that went to far, who'd have dogs that dont' swim :lol: As yet i've not been swimming but i don't rule it  Life's too short not to be grasping the fun.

The nightmare reference was more about her mind needing to be stimulated. I can see how easily she could become a challenge and would find her own "problem solving" activities if i didn't find them for her.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> That sounds wonderful. There is something beautiful about unstressed gentle guidance given from an adult to a pup, it's so totally different from a stressed reaction. Uncle Kilo  and what a wonderful hint of how he will be with his little brother. So good .
> 
> Well I had limited time this morning so decided to do a little more running in our walk, i've been slowly adding a few sections of running ( in the most clumsy oaf friendly areas) I'm very lucky as running with me seems totallly natural to Tink and she comfortably canters alongside me. I think i might be getting better at this malarky Stopped for Tink to cool off in a couple handily placed ponds. Saw a lovely orange roan spaniel on one of our walking sections her owner seems horrified that she had got wet :lol: :lol: I guess he didn't want to ruin his tan loafers. Then when he warned me that there was a pond that way, like i was going to avoid it. I thought he was goign to faint when i said that i was heading that way for Tink to run through and cool off and i was tempted to kick off my shoes and join her.... It's not that feral to do that, right?


What???? Tan loafers???? Pond avoidance - that's odd, not going in with the dog .

I am pleased, I thought I'd have to constantly stop our pup - to - be tormenting Kilo (sure I'll still have to) but it was nice to see him putting a stop to the antics for once. He did let him run off with his toy - but I quite like that as it's good that he isn't possessive over them.



Sarah1983 said:


> Looks like Kevin is here to stay for a while  Spen is back on the long line as he has decided he is going to completely and utterly ignore us while out. I suppose I've been lucky up to now, he's 15 months old and has been great so far. Now it seems he's really finding his feet and pushing his luck. He's even playing up in the house at times. Anyone know what age they generally leave the Kevin stage behind?
> 
> On the plus side he gets all excited when he sees the nail clippers come out, he was offering me his paw before I'd even sat down last night. Managed to get several of his nails cut without anyone holding him or distracting him. He doesn't make a fuss about them being done, he just likes to stick his nose in or shove his head in your face.
> 
> MV, I'd have kicked my shoes off and gone paddling with Tink. He'll I'd go swimming if it were deep enough and I had a change of clothes lol. Tink's come such a long way, she doesn't sound like a nightmare to me. I think you've done a great job with her.
> 
> Dogless, glad you and Kilo had a good experience with the pup. And hopefully the pup learns a few manners and doesn't grow into one of these problem Labs you keep encountering. Ignore the idiot with the out of control dog suggesting you train your dog


Really good that Spen is settling in good and proper...even if he's turned into a teenage monster . I am certain you'll have him back to good Spen in no time at all.

I don't think that the pup will be one of 'those' labs - we put our dogs on lead as we saw each other, walked up to each other calmly, had a little chat and then let the dogs off . Having lived here, you know how rare that is on those fields!!


----------



## kat&molly

Hi everyone, I've been really busy with work, that I'm shattered, but today we grabbed the chance to bog off to Moll's family for a couple of hours, its lovely as Evie can go off lead and I dont have any worries with livestock. I had intended to give her a Valerian dose this morning and completly forgot.
She coped well, did tell Molls Dad off for bouncing right in her face rrr: he soon went away. I should have prevented it but was too busy trying to stop them scratching my car again. They're all crashed now for the moment.

MV- I think its the law to go paddling with the dogs-I always do but have this silly fear of something under the water biting me and thats why I always wear my trainers. Wouldn't mind I've never even seen a fish there never mind Jaws.:laugh:

Dogless- how good of Kilo with the puppy. I like the 'Uncle Kilo' -it suits him.

Sarah,sorry Kevin has moved in- I'm sure he'll vacate the building soon. Brilliant that he's keen to have his nails done though- I see so many dogs[being a groomer] that are terrified of them being touched.


----------



## Sarah1983

Thanks all, I'm sure we'll get through the Kevin stage. Even if it does last another 9 months :yikes: We've had the odd moment before but nothing like this. 

I think the success with the nails being clipped is due to him never having had them done before I got him and me taking it very slowly so all he's ever known is it being highly rewarding. His nails are too long at the moment but I figure if I can get a bit off regularly they'll soon be at a good length.


----------



## kat&molly

out of the 97 photos I took today -I got this of Scruff, its one of the best I've ever taken of her, shame I cut her feet off though.


----------



## Dogless

Lovely photo - even without feet!!


----------



## Dogless

Another good walk for our second one - took Kilo's Fluggie and used it for tug when I wanted to distract him from a ball being thrown very close by with a rapid spaniel in hot pursuit (he was still onlead though) and it worked a treat rather than fixation on the ball. I am keeping his Fluggie for dog school nights and training only so it retains a nice high value for him. Other than that, passed kids no worries and dogs no worries. Gold star .

I however need a dunce's hat for letting my competitive nature get the better of me today. I raced someone in the pool today who issued a challenge but they were very tenacious indeed and I really had to up the pace over the last km to make sure I won :devil:....then went for my run tonight nice and slow and steady and on the way back saw someone I knew in the distance running a similar pace and upped mine a bit . Although I did see sense and turn off down a different road as soon as I could before the tank emptied completely and I broke myself .


----------



## Born2BWild

Hii,

Just an update...

Whilst waiting for Cleos tests/results we have also been working on BAT training techniques and have found this technique very helpful...

The technique I have been using is as follows;

A technique that is proving successful with Cleo:

Basic BAT (Behaviour Adjustment Training) set-up;

1) Choice point (training zone) - dog notices the trigger from a safe distance - so pick a distance where your dog is below threshold and not likely to react. Look for loose lead and being under threshold.

2) Wait for a good choice - "replacement behaviours" being:
- Head turn
- Sniff ground
- Body turn
- Scratch
- Yawn
- Shake-off
- Soften eyes
- Ears to neutral
- Lip-lick
- Play bow

3) Mark - you need to mark the good choice at the precise moment, for example, a clicker and treats.

4) Functional reward - distance from trigger - walk or jog away from the trigger on a loose leash.

5) Optional bonus reward - food or toys - after the functional reward.


----------



## Dogless

Born2BWild said:


> Hii,
> 
> Just an update...
> 
> Whilst waiting for Cleos tests/results we have also been working on BAT training techniques and have found this technique very helpful...
> 
> The technique I have been using is as follows;
> 
> A technique that is proving successful with Cleo:
> 
> Basic BAT (Behaviour Adjustment Training) set-up;
> 
> 1) Choice point (training zone) - dog notices the trigger from a safe distance - so pick a distance where your dog is below threshold and not likely to react. Look for loose lead and being under threshold.
> 
> 2) Wait for a good choice - "replacement behaviours" being:
> - Head turn
> - Sniff ground
> - Body turn
> - Scratch
> - Yawn
> - Shake-off
> - Soften eyes
> - Ears to neutral
> - Lip-lick
> - Play bow
> 
> 3) Mark - you need to mark the good choice at the precise moment, for example, a clicker and treats.
> 
> 4) Functional reward - distance from trigger - walk or jog away from the trigger on a loose leash.
> 
> 5) Optional bonus reward - food or toys - after the functional reward.


I have just read your post with the above info on Cloversmum's thread and copied and pasted for future reference. I think it would be great for Kilo - I already know his threshold in terms of distance from various things and reward head turns towards me or sniffs at the ground when he sees something that fixates him and do move away as a reward....but your post has been very useful. Thank you - and I am pleased that it's helping Cleo.


----------



## Born2BWild

Dogless said:


> I have just read your post with the above info on Cloversmum's thread and copied and pasted for future reference. I think it would be great for Kilo - I already know his threshold in terms of distance from various things and reward head turns towards me or sniffs at the ground when he sees something that fixates him and do move away as a reward....but your post has been very useful. Thank you - and I am pleased that it's helping Cleo.


You are so very welcome  I got this technique from BAT by Grisha Stewart - fantastic book and on amazon for about £6-7 - best thing I've ever bought  xx


----------



## Dogless

Born2BWild said:


> You are so very welcome  I got this technique from BAT by Grisha Stewart - fantastic book and on amazon for about £6-7 - best thing I've ever bought  xx


I actually have it on order from Amazon - am very much looking forward to reading it.


----------



## Born2BWild

Dogless said:


> I actually have it on order from Amazon - am very much looking forward to reading it.


Great  It'll be one of the best things you would've bought!! Great read and a great way of training xx


----------



## moonviolet

Gorgeous pic of Scruff K&M

Dogless gold star for Kilo and and big waggly finger:hand: for you and some tuts thrown in :lol: :lol: 

B2BW glad you are finding BAT training helpful for Cleo  

Tink hasn't really bothered about mountain bikers seeing so many of them but thanks to some extra squeaky ones zooming past us a little closer (her on lead) than I would have chosen she is now showing a desire to chase, so i'll be working on that every at every oppotunity  Other than that nice walk this evening.


----------



## kat&molly

Good boy Kilo. And naughty, naughty Dogless. Evie had the Dunces hat last for the sheep incident- so she's put it in the post for you. You cant use it for long though- she's bound to need it back soon.:ihih:

MV- I'm sure you'll soon sort Tink and the bikes- its such a big temptation for them isn't it. Scruff's the same.

Dogless and Moonviolet , dont know if you can remember the little dog Lily I fostered last year at the same time as Evie? A little Poodle cross. I could have quite easy kept her as well- but it was obvious she had probably been an only dog- there was never any problem with mine because they ignored her but she didn't 'fit' in. She landed on her feet and has a fab home, a proper little Diva now-I may be having her for the week next week- apparantly she has a big problem with other dogs she meets outside the home and barks like mad. It didn't happen when she was here , I always feel like its something I kept back but I didn't. Anyway it should be fun.


----------



## kat&molly

Just found this from the first day


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> MV- I'm sure you'll soon sort Tink and the bikes- its such a big temptation for them isn't it. Scruff's the same.
> 
> Dogless and Moonviolet , dont know if you can remember the little dog Lily I fostered last year at the same time as Evie? A little Poodle cross. I could have quite easy kept her as well- but it was obvious she had probably been an only dog- there was never any problem with mine because they ignored her but she didn't 'fit' in. She landed on her feet and has a fab home, a proper little Diva now-I may be having her for the week next week- apparantly she has a big problem with other dogs she meets outside the home and barks like mad. It didn't happen when she was here , I always feel like its something I kept back but I didn't. Anyway it should be fun.


I'm hoping the olympic inspired ones, who seem to have sprung out of the woodwork and have terrible etiquette in comparison to the regulars return to the woodwork. The regulars are in general pretty considerate but this new wave zoom by so close, even when it's a track that could accomodate the largest army vehicle, I daren't have Tink sit for fear of her tail being run over.

It'll be lovely to see Lily again if you do have her. What a shame she is barking at other dogs now, new behaviours can start at any time. I received an email about this workshop ( subscribed to site) thought it sounded great. 
"My dog hates other dogs" soemone might see it who may find it useful.


----------



## kat&molly

That sounds good MV- wish I could go to things like that,it may help me remember things!!! I read lots of dog behaviour books, its nearly all I do read, but forget everything
Off to see if the book B2BW recommended is available on Kindle- just to waste more money


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Off to see if the book B2BW recommended is available on Kindle- just to waste more money


The Grisha Stewart one? It is, I've been sorely tempted myself for a while. Not coz I need it really, just coz I like to read stuff like that.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> The Grisha Stewart one? It is, I've been sorely tempted myself for a while. Not coz I need it really, just coz I like to read stuff like that.


Oh goody, I'll get it then.

I'm currently reading a James Herriot vet book I'd missed.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Oh goody, I'll get it then.
> 
> I'm currently reading a James Herriot vet book I'd missed.


Ooh, I love James Herriot!


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> That sounds good MV- wish I could go to things like that,it may help me remember things!!! I read lots of dog behaviour books, its nearly all I do read, but forget everything
> Off to see if the book B2BW recommended is available on Kindle- just to waste more money





Sarah1983 said:


> The Grisha Stewart one? It is, I've been sorely tempted myself for a while. Not coz I need it really, just coz I like to read stuff like that.


I have an ever growing list. I suspect my looming*cough*th birthday will be celebrated with lots of behaviour books.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Ooh, I love James Herriot!


Me too. Tricky Woo cropped up the other day.:lol:
I've also just spotted another that slipped through my net.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I have an ever growing list. I suspect my looming*cough*th birthday will be celebrated with lots of behaviour books.


You should write one for the rest of us.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm hoping the olympic inspired ones, who seem to have sprung out of the woodwork and have terrible etiquette in comparison to the regulars return to the woodwork. The regulars are in general pretty considerate but this new wave zoom by so close, even when it's a track that could accomodate the largest army vehicle, *I daren't have Tink sit for fear of her tail being run over.*
> .


Why do they do that????? We have the same problem .

kat&molly I do remember Lily - best of luck getting her sorted...if you can semi - tame Evie  then you can do anything .

I fancied a hill walk today so we went for our Wet Walk, but the gate is still padlocked and the moors are still full of sheep - no worries as we just went into 'our' forest from that direction which we haven't done for a while and had a really lovely morning despite the rain! I got some poor quality pics on my phone between the showers:


----------



## kat&molly

Glad you had a good morning Dogless-Kilo looks fab and you can fit a whole [much bigger] dog in to a photo- unlike me!!

I dont think I can sort Lily.
I suspect its because shes the only dog and quite small they take her everywhere, really busy places because they've got little kids. Its probably too much for her.

And semi tame Evie- nah, she'll always be feral.:laugh:


----------



## Beth17

I have also been eyeing the Grisha Stewart book just don't know if I can bring myself to spend more pennies 

Sam is being a delinquent today :mad2: I think it's because he knows we have puppy class later. Not only was he pulling like a train, he was lead biting, rolling around on the floor and when we got home decided to make the hole he has dug even bigger. 

One plus though is that after a while of stop starts he started to look back at me much more quickly so we will get there eventually! The hardest thing is trying to get his attention.

And Oscar bless him was just on a go slow today and decided that dawdling across roads when a car is heading towards us is a good idea :sosp:

They have now both been giving some dried beef scalp to keep them out of trouble :ihih:

Sounds like everyone else is doing well though


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> You should write one for the rest of us.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :blink: I don't think I have sufficient bredth of experience, All I could really write is my journey with Tink. Everything else I know is just observation and reading.

I'm a great believer in using the kindest methods possible, giving options, but making the one you want the dog to choose to be the most attractive. If after giving your first plan a fair crack it doesn't work, if you've been gentle you are unlikely to have done any harm. Unlike the fallout some harsh methods can leave you with.

i think many people (in general dog owning population not PF) forget that their relationship with their dog is a 2 way thing and it is vitally important that we listen when they tell us they are uncomfortable, scared, tired, not interested, overwhelmed etc.

Had a fun training session with Tinker earlier, she was in a restless mood, I could see her focus was fragile so only did one or 2 reps of a couple of things then just played "tickle" if i'd persevered it would have become work rather than fun for both of us. Sorry this has turned into a bit of a ramble.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Why do they do that????? We have the same problem .


I wish i knew...Although i honestly believe it's a lack of control of their equipment in some cases. They aren't even meant to be off the tracks designed for vehicular use here according to Byelaws from the secretary of state but there is a whole series of trails through the trees that then cross the main paths, which they do at great speed, there is going to be a horrible accident one day. 


Dogless said:


>


I swear your boy gets more handsome each day.


----------



## L/C

Not posted for a while - nothing to report really. Just wanted to recommend the Grisha Stewart book - I've been on a seminar she taught (about a year ago now) and it was very good. I use her techniques with Ely and I can't recommend them enough! :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Just been for our second walk of the day - onlead and gentle. We saw lots of noisy kids and a fair few dogs, Kilo was a star . The Fluggie was deployed when two dogs were excitedly pulling towards us and Kilo got excited too; pulled him to the side and had a quick game .

This afternoon I appeared downstairs to go for a run and Kilo took one look at me and hightailed it to the sofa . Normally he goes to the front door to see if he can come too so he must have been tired...wasn't going to take him anyway as we'd only been home about 3.5 hours and the weather had suddenly got hot .


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## foxyrockmeister

Hi all  Well the pickles have been doing quite well over the last few days, I've just been continuing on with the little things like extra lead walking sessions during our walks and some focus training at home :thumbup:

Branston's focus training at home is brilliant (much better than Lily) I think because he is quite food oriented and wants to do whatever he has to do to get the reward, but out on a walk he just loses all interest in what I'm asking as he's so interested in everything around him! It's really hard work to get him to do a 'watch' when we're out but I guess it's just perseverance required!!

At the weekend me and the hubby took the pickles out seperately, he took Lily and I took Branston somewhere else. It was actually really nice to go for a walk with just one dog, I feel a bit guilty saying that, but he was a lot more focused on me and I felt like we had a really good 'quality time' walk. Hubby said the same for Lily so I think we're going to try and do it more often. My friends thought it was hilarious that we went for separate walks at the same time - I think they thought me and hubby had had an argument 

Ou walk today... There was a bird scarer going off nearby, it wasn't that close and not particularly loud but since her 'firework runaway' incident Lily has been absolutely petrified of loud bangs. The good news is that her response to being frightened was not to run away but to stick to me like glue. She was literally attached to my leg the entire walk and constantly looking up at me for reassurance. I wasn't sure what the best thing for me to do was, but I went with just ignoring the noise, ignoring her and walking as normal. I thought if I fussed or reassured her I would just make her more anxious that there was good reason to be scared. 
Branston was paying no attention to the bird scarer at all and just being his normal loony self. I tried throwing the ball for Lily but she wouldn't play 
She did get a bit better towards the end of the walk but was clearly very worried. 

I'm not sure whether I should avoid this area knowing that the bird scarer is there, or use it as a training opportunity to try and get her over her fear.... maybe reward her everytime it bangs? Or am I best to do as I did today and just carry on as normal?


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## Dogless

FRM; what excellent progress - don't feel bad for saying that you liked walking with just one dog, it must have been lovely to bond a little better and have undivided Pickle attention .

Not sure about the bird scarer - I'd probably just carry on as you did today without any fuss; that's what I used to do if there were any particularly loud bangs on the ranges when Kilo used to come to work and he disregards any bangs at all now no matter how close or loud. Kilo wasn't petrified though - he'd stick to me and be a bot worried but still function - no lip licking or really bad anxiety signals. I suppose it depends quite how bad Lily was.


----------



## Beth17

Well done Kilo and the pickles!

Well we've been back from puppy classes for an hour or so now and Sam is absolutely shattered 

We really enjoyed ourselves and I'm really proud of Sam! I went with my mum for a bit of moral support and there were only 7 dogs in the class including Sam and a 5 month old GSD so he has someone his own size to play with. We didn't do much today mainly paperwork and a small socialisation session and then the trainer explained everything which meant a bit of impulse control from the pups, Sam was a little star didn't fuss or wriggle about too much and played really gently with a tiny yorkie pup.

The trainer also explained to the rest of the class how Sam would be being taught slightly differently as they use clicker training but made sure to emphasise to the class not to feel sorry for him and he is just as much dog as a hearing puppy and that he has picked up his body language skills without a problem.

All in all a brill night and really looking forward to next week  I definitely want to get him to gold good citizen just to show he is no different .

Oh and on the way out we saw the most gorgeous Ridgeback pup :001_wub:


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## Dogless

Beth17 that sounds fab; are you training Sam using a light instead of a clicker?


----------



## Beth17

foxyrockmeister said:


> Ou walk today... There was a bird scarer going off nearby, it wasn't that close and not particularly loud but since her 'firework runaway' incident Lily has been absolutely petrified of loud bangs. The good news is that her response to being frightened was not to run away but to stick to me like glue. She was literally attached to my leg the entire walk and constantly looking up at me for reassurance. I wasn't sure what the best thing for me to do was, but I went with just ignoring the noise, ignoring her and walking as normal. I thought if I fussed or reassured her I would just make her more anxious that there was good reason to be scared.
> Branston was paying no attention to the bird scarer at all and just being his normal loony self. I tried throwing the ball for Lily but she wouldn't play
> She did get a bit better towards the end of the walk but was clearly very worried.
> 
> I'm not sure whether I should avoid this area knowing that the bird scarer is there, or use it as a training opportunity to try and get her over her fear.... maybe reward her everytime it bangs? Or am I best to do as I did today and just carry on as normal?


Difficult, would it be worth trying a sound desensitisation cd and build that up and then maybe take her back? I think I would have done the same as you did and carried on as normal.


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Beth17 that sounds fab; are you training Sam using a light instead of a clicker?


Not yet although I have got a small torch that I'm thinking of trying him with to see how he goes, at the moment I just use a thumbs up but obviously timing is sometimes off as I have to do this whilst trying to sign


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Not yet although I have got a small torch that I'm thinking of trying him with to see how he goes, at the moment I just use a thumbs up but obviously timing is sometimes off as I have to do this whilst trying to sign


It will be really interesting to hear how he does...have you got a vibration only collar too for recall or anything like that? You don't have to answer my questions, I am being nosy - genuinely intrigued though .


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> It will be really interesting to hear how he does...have you got a vibration only collar too for recall or anything like that? You don't have to answer my questions, I am being nosy - genuinely intrigued though .


It's alright I like people being interested in the boys 

At the moment he's following Oscar and I'm teaching him to check in with me although when the teenage stage kicks in this will be harder. He's also got a longline for when he can't go completely off.

I've looked at the collars and think they look good but think I'd like to try it without first and see how we go, plus I can save a bit of money if he doesn't need one


----------



## L/C

Frm - I have a similar issue with ely, on my phone atm but. will post properly when I get home.


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## L/C

Right - back from the pub o not an alcoholic I promise!).

FRM - can you describe Lily's body language in a bit more detail? If she is reacting and very scared then it is quite possible that she is over threshold and won't learn anything anyway so whatever you do won't make much difference.

First thing I would do would be to avoid the scary noise for the time being. Lily's adrenaline levels will have been raised by the scare and in dogs it takes much longer for them to drop back to baseline (around 3-5 days) so she is going to have a much lower threshold for reacting to things over the next few days. This means she might be much jumpier and more nervous of all loud bangs. This is a good link for reading up a bit on stress in dogs.

I would stick to low impact walks in familiar places to let her relax and try to keep her adrenaline levels down as well - so no ball games. A game I play with Ely when we are having a quiet day is "Find it." I scatter treats in long grass for him to sniff out when we are at the park and I hide them around the house as well so he gets lots of stimulation without the accompanying spike of adrenaline levels.

Fear of loud sudden noises is difficult to combat as it's not something that traditional training methods work very well with (or at least haven't for me) as part of the problem is the "suddeness" of it. We've tried the fireworks/desensitization cds and he is fine with them, no reaction at all. But yesterday evening he was scared by someone suddenly opening a rattly garage door when he wasn't expecting it and now we have a situation where he is nervous to walk down that street.

My strategy would be to avoid the area if you know the bird scarer is going off *unless* there is a way to get close enough for her to hear but not so close that she starts to react (no idea if that is even possible!). If you can do that I would do some basic T Touch (if she enjoys being handled), I usually choose the ears as Ely is partial to an ear rub, to encourage her to relax and then when she starts to offer some relaxed body language - click and treat. Don't try to move her closer to the noise, let her set the pace and if she starts to look tense at all then move away until she relaxes again. This is likely to be a slow process and is probably best done without Branston (unless he gives her confidence) as he's likely to get bored! It is worth doing though as hopefully it will give her a few more coping skills and a bit more confidence.

If you are out and about and there is an unavoidable loud scary noise (there often is for us as Ely is always coming up with new and exciting scary things!), then there is nothing wrong with reassuring or comforting Lily. I'm not sure where the idea came from that you shouldn't or that it will somehow train your dog to exhibit fear or stress behaviour but it won't. Fear is an aversive - the idea that you could reinforce it is frankly bizarre but it's one of those things that has gained the status of truth because it is repeated so often. Patricia Mcconnell argues against it much more eloquently then I can. Redirecting might help if Lily is able (I would suggest a few basic commands rather then a game of tug or anything like that) but failing that removing her from the situation and then calming her down is, imo, the best strategy. Ely pulls like a train to get out of situations that really scare him and I don't try to stop him as by that point he's over threshold and far too frightened to do anything else.

Hope some of that helps. I'm sure I've forgotten something/rambled on/don't make sense so ask if you need to!


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## foxyrockmeister

Thank you L/C that is all really helpful 

Her fear of loud noises isn't as bad now as it was in the 1st few weeks after her big scare, she really was petrified for a while... shaking, hiding etc where as now if there is a sudden unexpected loud noise she will jump then run to me and sort of huddle up to me, she's a very 'in your face' sort of dog anyway and when she's frightened she tries to get as close to me as possible, licking my face but with her ears and tail clamped down, so not in a happy way.

On the walk the bird scarer really wasn't that loud, it must have been quite far away. In fact if it hadn't been for her behaviour I probably wouldn't have even noticed it, but once I realised something was up with her I heard it and saw that was what was causing her anxiety.

She wasn't 'petrified', the best way to describe her body language really would be that she was doing the most perfect heel work you can imagine :lol: she was glued to my leg with her head turned looking up at me, her tail was down as were her ears, but she wasn't shaking or jumping up.

That's interesting what you say about not ignoring them as that is something I have always thought you were supposed to do. I find it hard to do as my instinct is to try and comfort her if she is frightened, but I had been told by doing that I would make her more anxious as it's as though I'm acknowledging that whatever is happening is in fact scary, where as if I carry on as normal and pay no extra attention she will hopefully realise that there is nothing to be worried about?


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## L/C

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you L/C that is all really helpful
> 
> Her fear of loud noises isn't as bad now as it was in the 1st few weeks after her big scare, she really was petrified for a while... shaking, hiding etc where as now if there is a sudden unexpected loud noise she will jump then run to me and sort of huddle up to me, she's a very 'in your face' sort of dog anyway and when she's frightened she tries to get as close to me as possible, licking my face but with her ears and tail clamped down, so not in a happy way.
> 
> On the walk the bird scarer really wasn't that loud, it must have been quite far away. In fact if it hadn't been for her behaviour I probably wouldn't have even noticed it, but once I realised something was up with her I heard it and saw that was what was causing her anxiety.
> 
> She wasn't 'petrified', the best way to describe her body language really would be that she was doing the most perfect heel work you can imagine :lol: she was glued to my leg with her head turned looking up at me, her tail was down as were her ears, but she wasn't shaking or jumping up.
> 
> That's interesting what you say about not ignoring them as that is something I have always thought you were supposed to do. I find it hard to do as my instinct is to try and comfort her if she is frightened, but I had been told by doing that I would make her more anxious as it's as though I'm acknowledging that whatever is happening is in fact scary, where as if I carry on as normal and pay no extra attention she will hopefully realise that there is nothing to be worried about?


All I can say is that it's never worked for me. If he's not too frightened then I will get down to his level, stroke him to reassure him and talk in a 'jolly' voice to him to get past the initial fright and then we can carry on. Completely ignoring it always made him worse as he didn't know what to do and his default reaction was to freeze and once he's frozen he's reached a stage where the only option is to go back home. There is absolutely no moving him when he's decided.

It sounds like Lily is uncomfortable and unhappy (was she lip licking or yawning?) and my gut reaction would be to avoid putting her in that situation. If you have other places that you can walk then I wouldn't want to subject her to an outing that upset her. If you can find a way to work on it with her as I described in my last post - that would be ideal but otherwise I would avoid stressing her out if you don't have to. Dogs are good at making associations with places and you may find she is more apprehensive the next time you go there anyway. If you go there repeatedly and there is always a bird scarer then she may well form very negative associations with that walk and even start to back chain it (so not want to go in the car or turn a certain way out of the door if that is way you usually turn for that walk). Possibly extreme scenarios but all ones I've encountered when Ely has had repeated, low level frights.

What sort of personality does Lily have? Is she generally quite a calm dog or does she tend towards more highly strung?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

L/C said:


> All I can say is that it's never worked for me. If he's not too frightened then I will get down to his level, stroke him to reassure him and talk in a 'jolly' voice to him to get past the initial fright and then we can carry on. Completely ignoring it always made him worse as he didn't know what to do and his default reaction was to freeze and once he's frozen he's reached a stage where the only option is to go back home. There is absolutely no moving him when he's decided.
> 
> It sounds like Lily is uncomfortable and unhappy (was she lip licking or yawning?) and my gut reaction would be to avoid putting her in that situation. If you have other places that you can walk then I wouldn't want to subject her to an outing that upset her. If you can find a way to work on it with her as I described in my last post - that would be ideal but otherwise I would avoid stressing her out if you don't have to. Dogs are good at making associations with places and you may find she is more apprehensive the next time you go there anyway. If you go there repeatedly and there is always a bird scarer then she may well form very negative associations with that walk and even start to back chain it (so not want to go in the car or turn a certain way out of the door if that is way you usually turn for that walk). Possibly extreme scenarios but all ones I've encountered when Ely has had repeated, low level frights.
> 
> What sort of personality does Lily have? Is she generally quite a calm dog or does she tend towards more highly strung?


Definitely not a quiet calm dog! I would most definitely describe her as highly strung!!

I don't think she was lip licking or yawning on the walk. She is a very licky dog in general and does get very face licky at home if she is worried about something though.

I think you're right, I'll just avoid that walk for a while, it won't be long before they have sheep back on the fields anyway. There are plenty of other places we can go  I was just worried that I would be doing the whole 'avoiding difficult situations rather than working on the problem' thing, like I've done with the lead walking and Branston's problem with our street!

She is slowly getting better with noises anyway and is no where near as frightened as she was a few weeks ago, so hopefully she will continue to improve the further that horrible horrible night disappears into the distant past 

She's never going to be a lover of fireworks and thunder but I think she will be manageable.

Thank you again for your help


----------



## L/C

foxyrockmeister said:


> Definitely not a quiet calm dog! I would most definitely describe her as highly strung!!
> 
> I don't think she was lip licking or yawning on the walk. She is a very licky dog in general and does get very face licky at home if she is worried about something though.
> 
> I think you're right, I'll just avoid that walk for a while, it won't be long before they have sheep back on the fields anyway. There are plenty of other places we can go  I was just worried that I would be doing the whole 'avoiding difficult situations rather than working on the problem' thing, like I've done with the lead walking and Branston's problem with our street!
> 
> She is slowly getting better with noises anyway and is no where near as frightened as she was a few weeks ago, so hopefully she will continue to improve the further that horrible horrible night disappears into the distant past
> 
> She's never going to be a lover of fireworks and thunder but I think she will be manageable.
> 
> Thank you again for your help


I don't think it's avoiding - as I said noise fears can be hard to work on as you can't always predict (or sometimes even hear yourself!) the trigger. It is also a long slow process - I've been working on Ely's noise phobias for over 2 years now and we can still be set back quite significantly when we come across an unexpected noise.

If it isn't significantly impacting on her quality of life then sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 Sounds like a wonderful class what a clever boy Sam is adapting his playstyle for a yorkie pup.

Like Dogless I'm completely fascinated and I really hope you stick around and share all the challenges and joys with us 



foxyrockmeister said:


> That's interesting what you say about not ignoring them as that is something I have always thought you were supposed to do. I find it hard to do as my instinct is to try and comfort her if she is frightened, but I had been told by doing that I would make her more anxious as it's as though I'm acknowledging that whatever is happening is in fact scary, where as if I carry on as normal and pay no extra attention she will hopefully realise that there is nothing to be worried about?


Great advice from L/C 

There is a difference between coddling and reassuring, I personally avoid getting into my "Poor baby" territory and go for happy chatter in my case it seems to come out as something from a "carry on" film script eg. "My wasn't that a big one? " there is method in my madness. saying stuff like that makes me smile/laugh, which comes out in my tone.

When you are doing the exercises at home with Branston are you always doing them in the same place, have you tried the garden, building the level of distraction slowly. I do a lot of exercises out on walks I tend to find a quieter area at first and then just sit for a few minutes and let Tink take in the sights, smells, sounds before doing some easy peasy familar stuff before trying the harder things

.Had a great class tonight, it was quite warm but Tink's focus was surprisingly good, then after helping to clear up spent the best part of an hour chatting to the trainer in the car park don't normally get a chance to chat like that was really nice


----------



## kat&molly

Beth- sounds like Sam is doing really well. I must have missed something as I didn't realise he was deaf, looking forward to hearing how his training continues.

Some great advice there L/C. Have you heard about the new training classes yet?

Glad you enjoyed class MV- its hot here as well, praying for a storm.

Dogless- you've broke Kilo. 

Not any LLW for us- we drive to a walk and the river because its quicker in the heat. Am doing some impulse control stuff with Moll and this ruddy Tennis ball.

Over 200 pages now.

Had a mahoosive spider in the kitchen this morning- Scruff was scared of it- what a brave Terrier.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Great advice from L/C
> 
> There is a difference between coddling and reassuring, I personally avoid getting into my "Poor baby" territory and go for happy chatter in my case it seems to come out as something from a "carry on" film script eg. "My wasn't that a big one? " there is method in my madness. saying stuff like that makes me smile/laugh, which comes out in my tone.


I make up little songs and sing them to Ely. 



moonviolet said:


> Had a great class tonight, it was quite warm but Tink's focus was surprisingly good, then after helping to clear up spent the best part of an hour chatting to the trainer in the car park don't normally get a chance to chat like that was really nice


Ah that sounds great.



kat&molly said:


> Some great advice there L/C. Have you heard about the new training classes yet?


No nothing and I'm getting a bit pissed off now. I emailed him on Monday to try and find out what was going on but haven't heard anything back. It's been 2 weeks since he first cancelled them.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> There is a difference between coddling and reassuring, I personally avoid getting into my "Poor baby" territory and go for happy chatter in my case it seems to come out as something from a "carry on" film script eg. "My wasn't that a big one? " there is method in my madness. saying stuff like that makes me smile/laugh, which comes out in my tone.
> 
> When you are doing the exercises at home with Branston are you always doing them in the same place, have you tried the garden, building the level of distraction slowly. I do a lot of exercises out on walks I tend to find a quieter area at first and then just sit for a few minutes and let Tink take in the sights, smells, sounds before doing some easy peasy familar stuff before trying the harder things


Carry on films it is then! Can I throw in a bit of Monty Python too?! :lol:

So far I have always been doing Branson's training in the same place at home, so I will start varying that a bit. I do always do some while we're out too, I've been getting him to do a 'watch' before I take his lead off for example, it just seems like we are a very long way off me achieving a 'watch' or any sort of focus from him when there is something exciting nearby!


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## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Carry on films it is then! Can I throw in a bit of Monty Python too?! :lol:
> 
> So far I have always been doing Branson's training in the same place at home, so I will start varying that a bit. I do always do some while we're out too, I've been getting him to do a 'watch' before I take his lead off for example, it just seems like we are a very long way off me achieving a 'watch' or any sort of focus from him when there is something exciting nearby!


 oh Monty Python I haven't tried that yet...I seem to naturally hover between carry on and "are you being served?" I think I may have been over exposed to camp-ness for a number of years.

The ultiimate at home distraction for Tink is a natural history channel on the TV in the background :lol:


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## Dogless

L/C - what fab advice you give; mv has company as the thread oracle .

FRM; the boy Branston is doing fab .

kat&molly - can't believe how this thread has grown...and I hope the spider doesn't come back .

Good walk this morning - passed dogs no excitement then impulse control training and play on the fields. I am guessing we won't see anyone this afternoon as it's really stormy.

Hubby got home this morning; unfortunately whilst he was on the ferry last night his Mum took a turn for the worse, went back into theatre and is now on ITU. She is critical, however more likely to survive than not - so he's upstairs packing a bag and we are waiting on a flight this afternoon. Docs have said she is likely to spend months in hospital so I'm exploring options of going over if needed, what to do with Kilo etc etc. Very worrying times - hate being useless and not being able to do anything..


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## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C - what fab advice you give; mv has company as the thread oracle .
> 
> FRM; the boy Branston is doing fab .
> 
> kat&molly - can't believe how this thread has grown...and I hope the spider doesn't come back .
> 
> Good walk this morning - passed dogs no excitement then impulse control training and play on the fields. I am guessing we won't see anyone this afternoon as it's really stormy.
> 
> Hubby got home this morning; unfortunately whilst he was on the ferry last night his Mum took a turn for the worse, went back into theatre and is now on ITU. She is critical, however more likely to survive than not - so he's upstairs packing a bag and we are waiting on a flight this afternoon. Docs have said she is likely to spend months in hospital so I'm exploring options of going over if needed, what to do with Kilo etc etc. Very worrying times - hate being useless and not being able to do anything..


Thank you all for your nice words. 

Dogless - sorry to hear about your MIL. It's very worrying and I hope you hear some good news soon. Your hubby must be beside himself.


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## Beth17

Dogless sorry to hear about your MiL must be an awful worry for you all, hope she starts to feel better soon.

Well we had a good walk this morning apart from Oscar spoiling it slightly at the end. We got absolutely soaked but the boys had the whole field to themselves and were playing nicely together and staying fairly close. However just as we were heading back to the car in a slightly wooded path with nowhere to move a couple of labs that we know appeared and greeted Sam, Oscar was on lead and kept away from them but still decided to be gobby.

I'm not sure what to do with him whether to get bloods done etc to see if it's a medical reason for being grumpy however I'm almost sure he's just being possessive as he was fine before Sam arrived. Maybe the behaviourist route but am I then just being a bit melodramatic? I just don't want him practising this behaviour.

I think his behaviour gets me down more as I have always been so proud of him and how he gets on with almost any dog and suddenly I don't feel I can trust him; and he's unpredictable as to which dog he decides to take issue with :mad2:

Off to look at the Grisha Stewart book again...


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## Dogless

Thanks for your wishes for MIL; it's hubby's birthday and our wedding anniversary too so he's worrying about that - more to focus on small stuff I guess as I've obviously told him that it's utterly unimportant in the scheme of things. 

Beth17 have you discussed Oscar's behaviour with the trainer you see for Sam maybe just to get another perspective?


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Beth17 have you discussed Oscar's behaviour with the trainer you see for Sam maybe just to get another perspective?


No I haven't, think as last night was our first night I was concentrating on Sam behaving  However when we go next week I will have a word with him at the end if I can as I believe he does deal with aggression etc.


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## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> No I haven't, think as last night was our first night I was concentrating on Sam behaving  However when we go next week I will have a word with him at the end if I can as I believe he does deal with aggression etc.


Sorry - I forgot it was your first night; had a stupid moment!!


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## kat&molly

Dogless- hope your MIL picks up, what a worry.


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## moonviolet

Dogless i'm sorry thing haven't improved with your MIL. It must it's so hard when she see our loved ones in distress and can do little to alleviate their pain. 

Beth17 how was the interaction between Sam and the labs ? you are going to need 2 pairs of eyes :lol:


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## foxyrockmeister

So sorry to hear about your MIL Dogless, I hope she picks up soon, I know what you mean about feeling useless it's such a difficult time.

Nothing exciting to report here today, we had a lovely walk earlier, bit of LLW training, bit of Focus training, and lots of charging about like a pair of loonies as usual! Only down point was Lily being frightened by what sounded like a lorry tipping a big load of rubble or something, she ran to me and was shaking, so I did lots of happy silly noises (can't remember if it was Carry on, Monty Python or Black Adder!!) and carried on. It was a one off noise and she did settle again  I'm just pleased that when she is frightened she runs _to_ me and not away 

The pickles are getting all excited at the moment as we are packing all their things into the car ready for our camping holiday tomorrow :thumbup:


----------



## Beth17

moonviolet said:


> Beth17 how was the interaction between Sam and the labs ? you are going to need 2 pairs of eyes :lol:


Oh I know I don't know how people do it with more than 2 

Sam greeted them as he usually does he often gets down low to floor and gives what looks like very appeasing behaviour and then will loosen up and want to play.

The labs just wanted to have a sniff they are both quite big males though, whether that had anything to do with it as it does seem to be males that Oscar takes exception to most of the time.


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## Born2BWild

Cleo goes for her fasting blood test then a normal blood test 2 hours after once she's eaten tomorrow...she is staring at me as if to tell me she is hungry! I feel so bad lol but it's all to help her...I hate needles and would find it hard having one let alone 2 in the space of 2 hours...poor girly!!


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## thronesfan

Had my first training class tonight (no dogs at the first class, just an intro to the club rules and techniques). It seems a bit old school but the trainers were friendly and their dogs were happy. I'll see how we get on. Got our homework for next week (watch me, sit, down). Cookie can already sit and lie down, but not necessarily where/when you want her to!  I'm expecting her to go nuts when faced with a room full of dogs and people, so next week should be an experience...

Dogless, I hope you have some more positive news about your MIL soon.

And I hope the Pickles have a good time on their camping trip!


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Oh I know I don't know how people do it with more than 2
> 
> Sam greeted them as he usually does he often gets down low to floor and gives what looks like very appeasing behaviour and then will loosen up and want to play.
> 
> The labs just wanted to have a sniff they are both quite big males though, whether that had anything to do with it as it does seem to be males that Oscar takes exception to most of the time.


I wondered if that was the case, labs can often be clumsy greeters and not always take much notice of the calming signals being sent their way.

Sorry Dogless I forgot to say congratulations on your anniversary and best wishes to your Hubby. I hope it's not too long before you can enjoy a postponed celebration.


----------



## kat&molly

B2BW- hope everything goes well for Cleo today, when do you get results?

Dogless- belated Anniversary wishes, look forward to celebrating when things are more settled. How is your MIL?

Thronesfan- hope your new classes are helpful.

FRM- enjoy camping.

Beth- hope you get to the bottom of Oscars problems.

Off to agility- hope Moll enjoys it more today.

Have a good day everyone- its still hot here, no storm for us.


----------



## kat&molly

Anyone want a dog.:laugh:


----------



## Born2BWild

kat&molly said:


> B2BW- hope everything goes well for Cleo today, when do you get results?
> 
> Dogless- belated Anniversary wishes, look forward to celebrating when things are more settled. How is your MIL?
> 
> Thronesfan- hope your new classes are helpful.
> 
> FRM- enjoy camping.
> 
> Beth- hope you get to the bottom of Oscars problems.
> 
> Off to agility- hope Moll enjoys it more today.
> 
> Have a good day everyone- its still hot here, no storm for us.


Thank you, I should know her results either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday morning. I will let you know as soon as I know xx


----------



## Born2BWild

kat&molly said:


> Anyone want a dog.:laugh:


Oh dear!! lol xx


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Anyone want a dog.:laugh:


Pick me pick me! I loves the naughty ones ut::w00t:

B2BW, hope she copes with the tests better than you or I would and the results clear things up.

K&M, Have a great time at agility with Molly

Thronesfan, good luck with yoru homework.

FRM Have a lovely camping trip ..... need i say it ? PICS PICS PICS


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Anyone want a dog.:laugh:


I'll swap you -


----------



## Tarnus

L/C said:


> I'll swap you -


I love how Gypsy is just lying there trying not to look, as if saying "it wasn't me, honest!"


----------



## Tarnus

I don't tend to post much in this thread but figured I would as I had a mini breakthrough with Izzy this morning! My OH might have already mentioned in here previously about her issue with running off with a ball when she doesn't want to leave the park, well this morning she started doing it which usually means I have to throw treats at her until she drops her ball and I can dash in to steal it back to get her to focus again. After our successful training class last night where we started on doing a down on recall, I thought I'd see if she would do it despite running around with her ball, and lo and behold she did!!  every time I threw my hand up and said "DOWN" she would stop and drop pretty much instantly and look at me, which she never does (usually when I try and get her to stop/sit/down while she's monkeying she just darts off away from me) so I started throwing in a WAIT and a STAY and after about 5 failed attempts, I managed to get her doing a down-stay while I walked up to her and put her lead on, which I can tell you she has NEVER let happen in the last 15 months!! :thumbup: I'm hoping this is the start of our monkey starting to mature, but I doubt it


----------



## Dogless

Woohooo Tarnus :thumbup::thumbup:. That's a great breakthrough.

FRM - have a fab holiday!

Oh Evie, naughty Evie...I love her!

Kilo was a gold star boy this morning - went to the park (staying out of our forests at present whilst MIL so critical as I have no mobile signal and can be out of reach for the best part of a day) and Kilo was......chilled. Totally. It was one of those days when I was chuffed when I saw kids or dogs heading our way as I knew he would behave and I could reward him for it. Best boy. As for me....I have just had my second shower of the day as I got 'bombed' by a bird :scared: :arf:. Lucky charm I hope .


----------



## kat&molly

Naughty Ely- and no I'm not swapping- I'm posting my own to Moonviolet.:scared:

Well done Kilo-that sounds fantastic, very chilled. Had to laugh at being bombed, still its meant to be lucky. Hope everyone turns up for training tonight.

That was great from Izzy- you've every right to be chuffed- sometimes we just have to change tactic as they get wise to blackmail.


Moll was 'better' today. Think a lot of the problem is taking Evie and Scruff with me its too much of a distraction. They both keep playing up because they haven't got my attention 
About 20 minutes from the end I put them both on short leads and staked them down, Moll knuckled down then and done really well-actually seemed to be really enjoying it so next week I'll have to leave the others at home- they wont like it but dont think I've got a choice.


----------



## Carey

Following a recent attack on my beagle cross Sally...

Work is in progress on helping Sally get her confidence back. Poor Sally is terrified on lead or off lead, constantly looking behind her, and scanning the distance for any other dogs in the area. She just will not relax and enjoy her walks anymore. At worst she just sits or stands and trembles from head to foot with her lovely pointy beagle tail firmly clamped between her back legs... it is heart breaking. 

Sally is a rescue dog, approx 7 years old (the RSPCA had no history on her, as she was a stray). Since bringing her home from the centre, she has blossomed into a confident, happy dog and was always very sociable with any other dogs that I had allowed her to mix with on her walks. I have had her confidently off lead in open/off road areas for quite a while now, and she enjoyed all of her three daily walks, as I did so much! 

I keep returning to the field that the incident took place, as I believe, this will help Sally overcome her fears (rather than avoid it forever) - but am I doing RIGHT by doing this? 

Yesterday I took her to a large wooded area, that we had not been to before, and she was much better and eventually, she actually started to relax and enjoy smelling the ground again (nostrils firming following the fantastic smells of foxes and rabbits) - however, one sight or smell of another dog and she stopped and started shaking again... 

The attack by two other dogs happened on one of my husbands walks with her, so I did not witness it, but I gather the two dogs attempted to 'round her up' and attempted to get her down on the ground. Sally was so scared she ran off and bolted out of the gate of the field. I took my husband 45 minutes to find her and she (and HE) were terrified. 

Going to another new dog walk tonight, fingers crossed she will be a little braver?


----------



## moonviolet

Carey said:


> Following a recent attack on my beagle cross Sally...
> 
> Work is in progress on helping Sally get her confidence back. Poor Sally is terrified on lead or off lead, constantly looking behind her, and scanning the distance for any other dogs in the area. She just will not relax and enjoy her walks anymore. At worst she just sits or stands and trembles from head to foot with her lovely pointy beagle tail firmly clamped between her back legs... it is heart breaking.
> 
> Sally is a rescue dog, approx 7 years old (the RSPCA had no history on her, as she was a stray). Since bringing her home from the centre, she has blossomed into a confident, happy dog and was always very sociable with any other dogs that I had allowed her to mix with on her walks. I have had her confidently off lead in open/off road areas for quite a while now, and she enjoyed all of her three daily walks, as I did so much!
> 
> I keep returning to the field that the incident took place, as I believe, this will help Sally overcome her fears (rather than avoid it forever) - but am I doing RIGHT by doing this?
> 
> Yesterday I took her to a large wooded area, that we had not been to before, and she was much better and eventually, she actually started to relax and enjoy smelling the ground again (nostrils firming following the fantastic smells of foxes and rabbits) - however, one sight or smell of another dog and she stopped and started shaking again...
> 
> The attack by two other dogs happened on one of my husbands walks with her, so I did not witness it, but I gather the two dogs attempted to 'round her up' and attempted to get her down on the ground. Sally was so scared she ran off and bolted out of the gate of the field. I took my husband 45 minutes to find her and she (and HE) were terrified.
> 
> Going to another new dog walk tonight, fingers crossed she will be a little braver?


Hi Carey, I posted on your thread  You can do lots to help your girl I kind of reeled off lots of stuff on there, it's probably a bit of an doverload, so if you would like me to going into more detail I'll be delighted to go through I've tried and had succcess with.


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## Dogless

We have just been to the fields - walked nicely there and back, had some play. We met that black lab puppy again and I am in two minds about whether or not to let them interact any more. Nothing bad happened but we saw them coming and both put the dogs on lead again as Kilo was going to run over I think and I didn't want that. Kilo lay down (relaxed - not his 'stalking' play lying) and the puppy jumped all over him. He stood up and gave a big growl again and a bit of an air snap like last time - and then all was OK again BUT Kilo didn't really want to play (fine). The problem was that whenever he stood still the puppy was constantly, constantly jumping up and licking his mouth; I had to keep him moving chasing his toy otherwise his posture was stiffening and he just kept turning his head away - he even had his hackles up once or twice. I know the puppy was being a puppy but if he had been mine I think I would have stopped him being quite so persistent. Kilo was clearly getting fed up so we let the pup and owner walk on; I may avoid them in future or just ask the owner to distract the pup a little more perhaps.


----------



## moonviolet

I feel left out i dont' have any pics of Tink's destruction., Its not like she hasn't done her fair share :lol: thankfully not lately ( cripes have I tempted fate) 

Well Done Tarnus, by jove i think she's getting it 

K&M, I'll be watching for the postie impatiently   I'm glad you had a better time with Molly, I think you are probably wise leaving Scruff at home next time.. clearly Evie will be with me by then :lol:

Dogless, glad you had a good morning, and even a lucky bombing  I'm with you on the puppy thing this afternoon. Tink is incredibly patient with pups but I always move off when i can see her getting uncomfortable. I dont' want either of them to have a bad experience.  In future maybe avoid or if not possible a quick sniff and maybe say you're out to do some training for your classes then move along politely. Hope everyone turn up tonight and you have a good one.

Our class last night Tink was funny she really is too bright for her own good soemtimes. One of the exercises was offlead heel, when you get to a carpet tile stop and ask for a sit, ideally immediately verbal cue only in heel position, Madam cottoned on after the second one, charged to the 3rd tile and sat there waiting for hubby :lol: :lol: So her challenge was to remain at heel and arrive at the carpet tile simultaneously with hubby  

Really fun walk this morning, saw a few dogs but no rudies, trained and played all the way, she was in a really chilled happy responsive mood. Played *"follow/touch" all the way, through the bogey barrier. couldn't have run it or i would have mown down a Dad and his kids.

* " Follow/touch" dont' know if it has a proper name basically it's touch but when my palm isn't facing her she is to follow the direction the back of my hand indicates offlead this includes sendaways to objects or around them on lead jsut helps to keep her interest in being the heel position.


----------



## Born2BWild

Update:

Cleo had both sets of blood tests this morning and loved the vets and visa versa! She is always so pleased to go there regardless of what she is having done! The vet said she is lovely and it amazes her how lively and happy Cleo is to be at the vets!
There was one dog she briefly met in the waiting room - she barked but didn't snap - she then whined the whole time until it was her turn to go in!
I then had to walk a clients dog - to enable me to get there on time I decided to take Cleo, I muzzled her to begin with upon greeting (she had never met this dog before - a yellow bouncy Labrador) - The other dog pounced on Cleo and was harassing her a bit - she snapped once with the muzzle on but it was more a "get off me" then a "I want to eat you" snap lol.
Within 5 minutes they became very good friends - Cleo was un muzzled for the rest of the walk, we met other dogs and perhaps my clients dog wasn't the best of dogs to walk Cleo with as she wants to play with every dog she meets and gets very bouncy so influencing Cleo a little but I regained Cleos attention and all she did was whine and let out a few barks - I put in to practice some of the BAT techniques - waiting for her to make a good choice (head turn, sniff ground) and she made plenty! 
I love her lots and I am so so proud - lets hope the tests come back ok ...


----------



## kat&molly

Hello Carey, poor Sally- I hope you can regain some confidence soon. What is she crossed with? And we love photos here.

Dogless-Kilo didn't seem too chuffed about being pestered did he- sometimes pups just dont know when to stop do they.

B2BW-wish my girls were happy to go to the vets.

MV- Clever Tink, Molls like that has to try and anticipate everything I do. The follow/ touch sounds good.

Have just stuck the last postage stamp on Evie.


----------



## Dogless

B2BW - sounds like a successful day and fingers crossed for the results.

We have just been to dog school and the BW was fantastic - my best boy. We got a few 'perfects' - only for really simple stuff, but still nice to hear . Something else that was nice was I was talking to a man there who said his friend has a RR bitch - said he was telling him about the one in his class (Kilo ) and said he told him that he was a lovely big article, totally devoted to his owner :001_wub:. He said every time someone else comes into the hall he looks at me and I felt like crying, daft idiot that I am .


----------



## Born2BWild

Thank you  A great day  xx


----------



## moonviolet

B2bW You must be proud of how Cleo was at the vet's. Sounds like you have a good handle the BAT techniques 

K&M I'm going to get up early and sit on teh doorstep awaiting my package 

L/C those dogs are innocent I tell you , there were possessed by mischief demons look at the eyes :lol:


Dogless Sounds like class great and what a wonderful thing to have said about Kilo's relationship with you


----------



## Dogless

Nothing dog - related at all, but thought I'd tell you lovely lot that MIL is still very critical, but stable, which is good. Fingers crossed. Maybe the bird bombing worked.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Nothing dog - related at all, but thought I'd tell you lovely lot that MIL is still very critical, but stable, which is good. Fingers crossed. Maybe the bird bombing worked.


That is good news maybe there is some truth in that old wives tale


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> That is good news maybe there is some truth in that old wives tale


Maybe . My Grisha Stewart book arrived today too :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Maybe . My Grisha Stewart book arrived today too :thumbup:.


Oh thats good. it's on my list, I do love her Silky leash technique.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh thats good. it's on my list, I do love her Silky leash technique.


I hadn't heard of it until you posted about it; I like that and all that I've read about BAT on here and online articles so am looking forward to finding out more.


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## kat&molly

Dogless-good news on your MIL, lets hope its onwards and upwards for her now.
Sounds like you and the BW had a great class- what a lovely compliment to get- always nice when someone else notices these things.

I'm going to download the BAT book when I've finished the James Herriot ones. Might have to try taking notes on important stuff to help me remember  It doesn't bode well for my latter years if I forget everything I read now at 41.:scared:


My neighbour called in yesterday and she had her little Staffy with her, came indoors to ask me if I'd got anything as her dog had fleas.:scared: I rushed the dog out to the parlour and bathed her. I did say I'd had the same problem last week, it was no easy task for me to bath 4 dogs and blitz the whole house- so I'm praying none jumped.
Really dont know what she was thinking.

MV- hope you and Miss Tink are ready for a whirlwind to land on you.:scared:


----------



## Dogless

kay&molly your post made me itch :scared::scared:.


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## moonviolet

K&M, Thats terrible hope none of the blighters jumped ship.

People just don't think about anything except how things affect them. It's like they are stuck in the egocentric stage of development unable to show empathy or compassion to even see something from anothers point of view, without having it laid out for them. I wonder if she actually picked up what you were subtly saying when you said how hard it was to bathe 4 dogs and blitz the house 

Another sad thing, while i'm lamenting the state of society, is the suspiscion the offer a kindness is met with. The other day I was doing my grocery shop and it was quite busy and there were queues I was approached by the checkout manager as they were opening a till, I had just got to the indicated till with my a reasonable trolley load, when an older couple pulled up behind me they only had a few items, less than 20, So I offered to let them go first and then spent the next 5 minutes explaining that I had no malicious ulterior motive 

Tornado proofing the house as we speak


----------



## Dogless

We mostly had a nice walk this morning - fields again - walked there well, passed dogs nicely, met the lady with the nervous rescue that Kilo played with which was nice . When we got there, there was a dog on lead in there which was good for some training to focus on me and I was pleased with the BW. The owner and I waved at each other and he was trying to do the same as me by the look of things. Then an hour or so's impulse control stuff and some games.

At the end it was unfortunately spoilt; we met the two choc labs that are our nemesis (not met them in ages).....they came belting up from the bottom field (owner not yet onto the fields). I put Kilo on his lead but instead of his normal over excitement and attempts at anxious humping he hid in between my knees with his tail down. I couldn't get rid of the labs as usual as one was jumping on Kilo or me as I pushed the other one away. I got all flustered after being belted in the face by one of them with their head (stupid) and Kilo came out from between my legs as I tripped up and just whirled around and around with his tail clamped between his legs. I righted myself and he went back between my knees again but I just couldn't get rid of these two so sort of stumbled my way towards the gate to escape with them folllowing. The owner appeared as we were leaving and the dogs ran over to her luckily but it left me feeling so disappointed as I've put so much work in and I'm afraid we're back a few steps now and I still failed to protect Kilo properly .

In a way it is good I _think_ that he chose to hide between my knees as he has stopped deciding to take matters into his own hands - however I showed him that actually I don't do a very good job of keeping invaders away . Poor little bugger .

Feel even grumpier now; just got changed to go and have my hair cut and looked in the mirror to see nice scratches from claws across my neck - looks like someone's tried to slit my throat!! I'm sure a good haircut will restore my good mood!


----------



## moonviolet

For crying out loud:mad2:::cursing::mad5::incazzato:.
I was loving reading about your morning thinking how lovely it is to see someone else training their dog, taking pride in their behaviour. .... then the chocolate holigans arrived  I have had the exact same experience with a pair of chocolate labs and truly there is nothing you can do as soon as get one away the other is all over you, the voice of doom has no effect because these dogs are likely shouted at day in day out. There is no more you could have done. I'd seriously consider taking pics of your scratches and contacting the dog warden... "dangerously out of control" does not always mean agressive. If you were a frail older lady, with thinner skin can you picture the injuries you would have then?

Hope you get pampered at the hairdresser and walk out feeling glamourous and renewed


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## kat&molly

Dogless.
I really dont know what else you could have done to avoid it and protect Kilo  MV's right a less robust person would have come off worse than you.

Hope your haircut cheers you up.


----------



## moonviolet

Went to the woods this morning, Quite expecting to be rained on when the sun burned through and was very glad of the shade of the trees, saw 3 dogs at a distance, 2 mountain bikers and a rambler. the rest of the walk was solitary bliss  Tink was a star we ran walked played trained had a wonderful walk, neither of us on high alert like we used to be, dreams do come true.


----------



## Born2BWild

I have figured, some of the time, it's other dog owners provoking my dogs behaviour!

So I go for a training walk and everything is going well, we met a ridgeback, trio of collies and a labrador, all fine until BOOM a big bouncy spaniel is on route to us - I could tell Cleo wouldn't like him as she was already going tense, panting, whining etc so I called to the owner to get her dog, all I could hear her saying is "Billy here" repetitively, I shouted "get your dog unless you want it bitten" so she says back "oh it's fine he is fine with dogs" by this point I'm fired up and scream "yes but mine isn't with out of control bouncy dogs" by this point her dog reaches us and all hell breaks loose...it's pouncing on Cleo, running around her, nipping at her ear as if to say chase me and completely wound her up - she was muzzled so no contact was made - but this dog was completely out of control! It wouldn't let us walk away and was really winding Cleo up - finally the owner gets to us and frantically tries grabbing her dogs collar but failed and started having a go telling me to stop my dog having a go at hers even though she had no control over her dog - she eventually caught her dog and tutted - I said my dog isn't the problem, I said she shouldn't have her dog loose if she can't catch it as if it does that to the wrong dog it will end in a dog bite she then went on to say I shouldn't be walking Cleo in public places, I started walking off and shook my head and said "it's owners like you that provoke dogs like mine and at least I'm addressing my dogs problems - good luck getting your dog back in future" Grrrrrrrr :mad2: I'm so worked up about it! I wasn't in the wrong was I? She's now potentially undone all my hard work


----------



## moonviolet

Born2BWild said:


> I have figured, some of the time, it's other dog owners provoking my dogs behaviour!
> 
> So I go for a training walk and everything is going well, we met a ridgeback, trio of collies and a labrador, all fine until BOOM a big bouncy spaniel is on route to us - I could tell Cleo wouldn't like him/her as she was already going tense, panting, whining etc so I called to the owner to get her dog, all I could hear her saying is "Billy here" repetitively, I shouted "get your dog unless you want it bitten" so she says back "oh it's fine he is fine with dogs" by this point I'm fired up and scream "yes but mine isn't with out of control bouncy dogs" by this point her dog reaches us and all hell breaks loose...it's pouncing on Cleo, running around her, nipping at her ear as if to say chase me and completely wound her up - she was muzzled so no contact was made - but this dog was completely out of control! It wouldn't let us walk away and was really winding Cleo up - finally the owner gets to us and frantically tries grabbing her dogs collar but failed and started having a go telling me to stop my dog having a go at hers even though she had no control over her dog - she eventually caught her dog and tutted - I said my dog isn't the problem, I said she shouldn't have her dog loose if she can't catch it as if it does that to the wrong dog it will end in a dog bite she then went on to say I shouldn't be walking Cleo in public places, I started walking off and shook my head and said "it's owners like you that provoke dogs like mine and at least I'm addressing my dogs problems - good luck getting your dog back in future" Grrrrrrrr :mad2: I'm so worked up about it! I wasn't in the wrong was I? She's now potentially undone all my hard work


Oh hun well done for saying your piece honestly, there needs to be more education for the " My dog is Friendly " brigade... YOu dog is not friendly, it's an out of control, rude bully that is ignoring my dog(s) saying please leave me alone, it's ignoring you calling it back, it's a law unto it's blooming self, show some repsonisibilty and train your damn dog!

I randomly print off things and put them up in random places. they dont' last long but even if one person reads it and gets the message it's well worth it.

These 2 are great posted together... think its' time to print off another lot 
http://www.dogsinneedofspace.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Dinos-Poster.pdf

http://www.dogsinneedofspace.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Dinos-The-Rules.pdf

While Tink never growled or snapped she still needed space from the M.D.I.F brigade, Her reaction was to either run and hide, if chased she would release her anal glands in fear or if on lead to pee on her own tucked tail.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> For crying out loud:mad2:::cursing::mad5::incazzato:.
> I was loving reading about your morning thinking how lovely it is to see someone else training their dog, taking pride in their behaviour. .... then the chocolate holigans arrived  I have had the exact same experience with a pair of chocolate labs and truly there is nothing you can do as soon as get one away the other is all over you, the voice of doom has no effect because these dogs are likely shouted at day in day out. There is no more you could have done. I'd seriously consider taking pics of your scratches and contacting the dog warden... "dangerously out of control" does not always mean agressive. If you were a frail older lady, with thinner skin can you picture the injuries you would have then?
> 
> Hope you get pampered at the hairdresser and walk out feeling glamourous and renewed


I know their owners, see them almost daily and they are very nice; simply don't appreciate the harm or stress that can be caused I don't think. I said to them many many months ago that Kilo and their dogs shouldn't play together if they didn't mind because of all the immense overexcitement and the humping he did which i was working on and they agreed. Problem is is that last time we saw them they kept jumping all over Kilo and another walker I was standing with kept intercepting them for me whilst I controlled Kilo. The man laughed and always says things like "sorry, those two out of control dogs are mine" but doesn't quite see the stress that's caused. I think because they're so friendly it's seen as the dog that doesn't want to be jumped on's problem. I didn't want to talk today as I was just so upset I left as fast as I could.


----------



## Born2BWild

moonviolet said:


> Oh hun well done for saying your piece honestly, there needs to be more education for the " My dog is Friendly " brigade... YOu dog is not friendly, it's an out of control, rude bully that is ignoring my dog(s) saying please leave me alone, it's ignoring you calling it back, it's a law unto it's blooming self, show some repsonisibilty and train your damn dog!
> 
> I randomly print off things and put them up in random places. they dont' last long but even if one person reads it and gets the message it's well worth it.
> 
> These 2 are great posted together... think its' time to print off another lot
> http://www.dogsinneedofspace.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Dinos-Poster.pdf
> 
> http://www.dogsinneedofspace.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Dinos-The-Rules.pdf
> 
> While Tink never growled or snapped she still needed space from the M.D.I.F brigade, Her reaction was to either run and hide, if chased she would release her anal glands in fear or if on lead to pee on her own tucked tail.


You're so right, Cleo gave plenty of warnings and then was so wound up she couldn't control herself let alone me being able to refocus her!

The owner was so oblivious and incompetent it was so frustrating!

That's a very good idea, may keep a stash of those to hand out to the people who irritate me lol.

I walked away feeling like it was mine and Cleos fault but upon looking back at the situation I gave plenty of warning in time for her to get her dog, if Cleo had bitten her dog (thankfully she was muzzled) the blame would of been pointed at me, not her bouncy, out of control, disobedient dog who didn't even know his name!!

So glad to have people to talk to on here who are all sensible and understand dogs!


----------



## ballybee

Well i've seen some improvement in Tummel, today while heading home after our walk we encountered an elderly lady with a beautiful greyhound, i moved up to the side and put Tummel in a sit/stay which he did, the lady did try to encourage a meet between the dogs but i just stood my ground and told her Tummel wasn't good with dogs when onlead which she accepted, Tummel did lunge and bark a few times but i firmly believe if i'd told him to leave her he would(i said leave it as we went to move on and he just stopped acting up immediately) so i accept the blame for that one 

In general Tummels much better, his recall is a lot better, he's focusing on me more and listens to me more often, he has even engaged in a game of fetch twice now with me where he not only retrieved and returned but he also went SWIMMING to retrieve this obviously amazing stick :scared: He's even more patient when we're out and i decide to stop for whatever reason(picking up poo/having a wee sit to watch the world go by etc).

Dan is exactly the same, he's not as responsive as he has been but he's still really good and loving life 

oh also, Tummels back on a collar(indi dog half check with a D ring) and is doing well, i'm just using it as as flat collar and he's really calm, doesn't pull and is more responsive to me whereas before he went back on a slip lead he would ignore me(almost as if because i had him on a lead he didn't need to listen  ). I do still love the slip lead but i'm very glad i can use a collar and lead too


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## thronesfan

Born2BWild said:


> I said my dog isn't the problem, I said she shouldn't have her dog loose if she can't catch it as if it does that to the wrong dog it will end in a dog bite she then went on to say I shouldn't be walking Cleo in public places


No way were you in the wrong - you're being a responsible owner, while that other owner is riding her luck. What's she going to do if her dog bounds up to a kid (knocking it over/off its bike), or someone riding a horse, or like you say, an aggressive dog that's not on lead/muzzled. I know Cookie's recall isn't perfect, so I will keep her on lead until it seems safe for her to be off (checking with other owners that their dog is happy to play/making sure there are no small kids running around, etc). Obviously I can't know if someone else is about to appear on the horizon, so I keep looking around and calling her back randomly.

----------

I am really struggling to get Cookie interested in the work we're supposed to be doing for her training class next week. She's spent most of the day sleeping. I thought she might be more into it if we went outside (when she was actually awake), but eating grass and chewing twigs was more fun. I think we've managed about 5 minutes of good work. When I put her in the down position, she flops over and refuses to get up again. When I get her to stand, she instantly sits again, and when I tell her to sit she sits, then flops down. She'll do a really good 'watch', then the next time I try it she'll look everywhere except at me.

I've just given her her favourite squeaky toy to play with for a bit (giving me a headache, but it's got her out of her basket) - I'm hoping I can take it away, do a spot of training, then give it back...


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I know their owners, see them almost daily and they are very nice; simply don't appreciate the harm or stress that can be caused I don't think. I said to them many many months ago that Kilo and their dogs shouldn't play together if they didn't mind because of all the immense overexcitement and the humping he did which i was working on and they agreed. Problem is is that last time we saw them they kept jumping all over Kilo and another walker I was standing with kept intercepting them for me whilst I controlled Kilo. The man laughed and always says things like "sorry, those two out of control dogs are mine" but doesn't quite see the stress that's caused. I think because they're so friendly it's seen as the dog that doesn't want to be jumped on's problem. I didn't want to talk today as I was just so upset I left as fast as I could.


I dont' blame you for not saying anything there have been sometimes. i've been such a horrible mix of frustation upset and anger, I just had to get away and it's the right thing to do, we do what is best for our dogs.

I wonder... whether if we approached organisers of DINOS UK, we could all help with an DINOS awareness week. I wonder if one of the large dog organisations/rescue/training etc would be interested getting involved and of course forum members here on other forums could get involved with postering and for the non-ludites who use facebook would be a great portal for support too. In truth it needs to get to the places where people walk their dogs. There i go rambling again


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## Born2BWild

Could today get any worse?

Got a call from vet - Cleo has got a problem, the bile reading was abnormal and could be 1 of 4 things including something to do with pancreatitis...I will hear from the vet who has been working with her on Monday as she is away at the moment so the other vet spoke to me to let me know the results...


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## Dogless

B2BW - how worrying; hope you get clear info soon.

We had a few hours in the very busy park this afternoon / evening - the BW was :aureola::aureola::aureola:. I got a compliment from a man with 3 dogs on how well behaved Kilo was - just what was needed today . We did meet Mr Know-It-All "Ah. An African Lionhound"....but his wife is getting better with her distraction techniques and moving him along luckily  .

ETA: Sod all to do with dogs, but I went intending to have my mid length hair trimmed and came away with a cut like the attached pic....but not that colour. I love it _and crucially went to show my best friend before I went for a run and ruined it!!_


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## Dogless

I could scream :mad2::mad2:. Went out running early this morning and on our way back in passed a lab that we see almost daily without any issues and have run past before....and Kilo barked at it . The lab didn't even look at him, walked beautifully to heel. Maybe it was because of yesterday or maybe just a bad day.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> B2BW - how worrying; hope you get clear info soon.
> 
> We had a few hours in the very busy park this afternoon / evening - the BW was :aureola::aureola::aureola:. I got a compliment from a man with 3 dogs on how well behaved Kilo was - just what was needed today . We did meet Mr Know-It-All "Ah. An African Lionhound"....but his wife is getting better with her distraction techniques and moving him along luckily  .
> 
> ETA: Sod all to do with dogs, but I went intending to have my mid length hair trimmed and came away with a cut like the attached pic....but not that colour. I love it _and crucially went to show my best friend before I went for a run and ruined it!!_


Love the hair   I bet your friend loved it, Did it survive the run?

Did you congratulate Mr Know-it-all's wife on how well behaved her hubby is when she brings him out :lol:

B2BW hope it turns out to be easily treatable.


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## kat&molly

Dogless, love the hairdo- you should have had that colour though and been similar to Kilo.

MV- Lovely pic of Miss Tink, and looks a great shady place to walk.
I dont think an Awareness Week is a bad idea at all- got to be worth a try? Shame I couldn't get involved- but I'd enjoy reading about any difference it made.:thumbup:

B2BW-Easier said than done I know, but try not to worry until you know whats going on with Cleo

So bloomin hot here around 40 degrees, and I've got to groom a St.Bernard today.

Thought I'd have a little chill on my floaty chair yesterday- within 2 minutes Molls face was looming over the top-so I had to play ball in the water with her instead. How selfish of her wanting to play in her own pool:arf:
Think OH is going to do the steps today- so hopefully that'll get the others in.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Love the hair   I bet your friend loved it, Did it survive the run?
> 
> Did you congratulate Mr Know-it-all's wife on how well behaved her hubby is when she brings him out :lol:
> 
> B2BW hope it turns out to be easily treatable.


My hair got sweaty and then heavily rained on and then I ran again this morning. Have just managed to wash it and do a very passable job myself, luckily. I was dreading not being able to get it looking nice as it's so short and I'm so rubbish at doing hair .

I should congratulate the man's wife...heard the poor lady being shown the ridge and getting a lecture on it yet again as we walked away.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless, love the hairdo- you should have had that colour though and been similar to Kilo.
> 
> MV- Lovely pic of Miss Tink, and looks a great shady place to walk.
> I dont think an Awareness Week is a bad idea at all- got to be worth a try? Shame I couldn't get involved- but I'd enjoy reading about any difference it made.:thumbup:
> 
> B2BW-Easier said than done I know, but try not to worry until you know whats going on with Cleo
> 
> So bloomin hot here around 40 degrees, and I've got to groom a St.Bernard today.
> 
> Thought I'd have a little chill on my floaty chair yesterday- within 2 minutes Molls face was looming over the top-so I had to play ball in the water with her instead. How selfish of her wanting to play in her own pool:arf:
> Think OH is going to do the steps today- so hopefully that'll get the others in.


Never happy are you?  . First it's the dogs' pool, then yours . It's good that Moll's using it and hopefully the others will be motivated by the steps .

As for grooming a St Bernard; I can only imagine that's a long job? :scared:.


----------



## dobermummy

Dogless- love the hair but think we need to see a photo of you 

B2BW- all fingers and paws crossed here that its nothing too serious

Ive decided to start running with Mouse, this will be fun, he loves to walk / run under my legs and feet so can see some falling happening. And he is so much faster and fitter than me i hope he learns the stop command fast


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Never happy are you?  . First it's the dogs' pool, then yours . It's good that Moll's using it and hopefully the others will be motivated by the steps .
> 
> As for grooming a St Bernard; I can only imagine that's a long job? :scared:.


It will be a long job- tried to get hold of the owners last night to come extra early because of the heat, but they were out. The parlours cool for a while yet this morning but may need to do her in 2 visits. Plus she's 9 years old and too long might be too much for her anyway.

I had my hair cut short last year but I hated it it looked awful for a few months as I'm hopeless with hair. OH said I looked like a man.:scared:


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## dobermummy

kat&molly said:


> It will be a long job- tried to get hold of the owners last night to come extra early because of the heat, but they were out. The parlours cool for a while yet this morning but may need to do her in 2 visits. Plus she's 9 years old and too long might be too much for her anyway.
> 
> I had my hair cut short last year but I hated it it looked awful for a few months as I'm hopeless with hair. OH said I looked like a man.:scared:


Good luck with the grooming, sound a big job for both you and her.

Im rubbish with hair and can only just tie mine up :lol: though i did shave some off which felt liberating


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## Dogless

dobermummy said:


> Dogless- love the hair but think we need to see a photo of you
> 
> B2BW- all fingers and paws crossed here that its nothing too serious
> 
> Ive decided to start running with Mouse, this will be fun, he loves to walk / run under my legs and feet so can see some falling happening. And he is so much faster and fitter than me i hope he learns the stop command fast


No chance :scared:.

Not sure how much running you have done but 'stuff that I find useful' (and often learnt the painful way ) is as follows:

- Onlead teach them that sudden stops for sniffing etc is not allowed; I use 'on by' and it was learnt very quickly.
- 'Left', 'Right' and 'Steady' are really good for the dog to know.
- Kilo used to try and bully me across to where he wanted to go by shoulder barging (think that's a very RR thing); I just used to stand my ground and bully him back and he stopped soon enough.
- When he gets onto my heels as he used to quite a lot (and did this morning ) I run with them flicking up a little more - not to hurt him but just to catch him and make it annoying for him to carry on.
- I find it useful to go somewhere where he can get some good offlead near to the start of the run to get any sniffing, toileting, zoomies done and then he's content for the pavement bits. Sometimes I go at the end too so that he can release any energy he might have from behaving so well!!
- Although Kilo, like Mouse, is clearly much faster and fitter than me too, I have found that my running pace is actually far more natural for him than my walking pace and he settles into a nice trot  at heel. I have to put up with the odd withering "is that all you've got, feeble human?" look though .

You probably know all that anyway .


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## dobermummy

Dogless said:


> No chance :scared:.
> 
> Not sure how much running you have done but 'stuff that I find useful' (and often learnt the painful way ) is as follows:
> 
> - Onlead teach them that sudden stops for sniffing etc is not allowed; I use 'on by' and it was learnt very quickly.
> - 'Left', 'Right' and 'Steady' are really good for the dog to know.
> - Kilo used to try and bully me across to where he wanted to go by shoulder barging (think that's a very RR thing); I just used to stand my ground and bully him back and he stopped soon enough.
> - When he gets onto my heels as he used to quite a lot (and did this morning ) I run with them flicking up a little more - not to hurt him but just to catch him and make it annoying for him to carry on.
> - I find it useful to go somewhere where he can get some good offlead near to the start of the run to get any sniffing, toileting, zoomies done and then he's content for the pavement bits. Sometimes I go at the end too so that he can release any energy he might have from behaving so well!!
> - Although Kilo, like Mouse, is clearly much faster and fitter than me too, I have found that my running pace is actually far more natural for him than my walking pace and he settles into a nice trot  at heel. I have to put up with the odd withering "is that all you've got, feeble human?" look though .
> 
> You probably know all that anyway .


I didnt know any of it  im very much starting out as i really cant run very far or well so thought having Mouse attatched to me wont give me much choice other than just keep going   i hope you are all prepared for lots of funny updates and cries for help :lol:


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## Dogless

dobermummy said:


> I didnt know any of it  im very much starting out as i really cant run very far or well so thought having Mouse attatched to me wont give me much choice other than just keep going   i hope you are all prepared for lots of funny updates and cries for help :lol:


Mouse will probably surprise you - Kilo did. Not sure if I have posted this for you before or sent in a PM? Loads of good advice and training plans: Get-Started Schedules - Beginners - Runner's World

Start slowly and build up gradually even if you feel that you can do more - and have a decent pair of shoes . Kilo could also get a bit batty with sudden changes in pace - if I suddenly sped up he got too excited, but is over that now .


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## dobermummy

Dogless said:


> Mouse will probably surprise you - Kilo did. Not sure if I have posted this for you before or sent in a PM? Loads of good advice and training plans: Get-Started Schedules - Beginners - Runner's World
> 
> Start slowly and build up gradually even if you feel that you can do more - and have a decent pair of shoes . Kilo could also get a bit batty with sudden changes in pace - if I suddenly sped up he got too excited, but is over that now .


Thank you  
I think im more excited than i should be about starting running  when im on here complaining about it just remind me of this :lol:


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## Sarah1983

Must have been a day for out of control dogs yesterday, I took Spen out for a quick walk round the block after I'd had dinner and got mobbed by two dogs in the space of 2 minutes. One was a chocolate Lab, the other a spaniel of some sort. We've encountered the spaniel before and again, no owner in sight although someone did eventually come looking for her. The Lab owners were sitting at the other end of the grassy area having a bbq and ineffectively calling her. One of the kids went to come and get her and was told to leave her alone, she wasn't doing any harm. Now okay, Spen is friendly and she was friendly so it's not a huge issue but I don't freaking appreciate the fact their dog was darting around him trying to get him to play while he's on leash and I'm trying to walk him away! Then as we were coming back in she came charging over again!

Dogless, hopefully your encounter just results in a minor setback for a few days. I know how frustrating and annoying it is when you've put in a ton of work and some numpty comes along and ruins it all  I honestly don't think people understand just how much damage an out of control friendly dog can do, mental or physical.

B2BW, I used to get that sort of thing all the time with Rupert. Never mind that I had him leashed, muzzled and under as much control as possible, it was always my fault when someones out of control dog came charging over and it all kicked off. 

Stupidly hot here today so no long walks until it cools down. Spen's got his paddling pool up on the balcony so he'll be fine. Think we'll do some training in the house later, try and get a bit of focus back with him since he's blatantly ignoring me while out at the moment


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## ballybee

Well this morning Tummel has been fantastic!!! Took him for a walk and a trip to the petshop alone and he was great, we even met a dog we've passed loads of times and Tummel was very good so he must be reacting to protect Dan...any ideas on how to stop this??

In the petshop he was amazing, usually he whines, pulls, steals etc but today he sat with me and only tried a see nibble on a bit of rawhide sticking out!!! And even though there were loads of people about he didn't try to act up at all 

So chuffed with him


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## Born2BWild

Thank you all for your comments - I have put her on Naturesdiet just to make it easier on her liver as its got lower protein and fat levels than the kibble (Applaws) until I know whats actually wrong - she is used to ND as she sometimes has it mixed in with her kibble - she is still have her chicken wings, legs etc.

My problem is I ALWAYS think the worst before knowing...so I'm just chilling out and carrying on as normal until we know what is wrong.

I am so grateful for your kind comments, you guys and girlies are amazing and I'm so glad I have you to talk to! xx


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## ballybee

Ok, i definately think Tummels lead reactivity is due to Dan, we took the boys out for a lovely sunny walk and Tummel went for a spaniel that got too close to Dan(he did however allow a collieX and a choccie lab to greet and walk on, and got to meet the collieX(he did growl but that was because the dog was away to hump him)).

However i took him out for a socialising/training walk and we encountered 10 dogs, Tummel left all 10 when told(loose lead, sitting and standing and even walking past) and even had a quick hello with one of them  The best bit was walking past a big poodle who followed us and Tummel didn't look back once :thumbup:

So, from now on i'll be using the dogmatic when i have both the boys and i have a few ideas regarding training Tummel to be calm(main one being only allow a quick meet then walk on) both on his own and with Dan.


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## Beth17

ballybee said:


> Ok, i definately think Tummels lead reactivity is due to Dan, we took the boys out for a lovely sunny walk and Tummel went for a spaniel that got too close to Dan(he did however allow a collieX and a choccie lab to greet and walk on, and got to meet the collieX(he did growl but that was because the dog was away to hump him)).
> 
> However i took him out for a socialising/training walk and we encountered 10 dogs, Tummel left all 10 when told(loose lead, sitting and standing and even walking past) and even had a quick hello with one of them  The best bit was walking past a big poodle who followed us and Tummel didn't look back once :thumbup:
> 
> So, from now on i'll be using the dogmatic when i have both the boys and i have a few ideas regarding training Tummel to be calm(main one being only allow a quick meet then walk on) both on his own and with Dan.


Tummel sounds exactly like Oscar who at the moment doesn't appreciate some dogs trying to say hello to Sam, when he's on his own he's fine. :mad2:

If you find a magic cure please let me know


----------



## Dogless

Meant to go for a run this morning but woke up at 7 so too late as it was already warming up and I didn't want to run the BW for an hour and a half. Went to the fields intstead and did lots of games and recall and impulse control stuff.

On the way back a few streets from home we were ambushed by a young choc lab that I am always returning home (no collar) - luckily Kilo isn't afraid of her but I still did a funny dance all the way home blocking the lab whilst Kilo stayed behind me; it worked today but was exhausting :scared:. Then when I opened the door to put Kilo inside and fetch a slip lead the lab dodged past me and into the house for a lap of honour :crazy:. Eventually I got Kilo in, lab out, slip lead on lab and went to return her :thumbup:. The lady is normally quite rude and I dread taking the dog back but today she was very smiley and said "Thanks ever so much for bringing her back" :yikes:. Must be the weather .


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## dobermummy

after a terrible walk yesterday and a good cry when i got home  today is a new day and hopefully Mouse will be happier to do a little one on one training with me in the shaded front garden.


----------



## moonviolet

Headed out early this morning for a mooch in the woods, shady valley and the 'good' ponds before too many people were about and the dew was still on the grass. We had lots of pitstops for drinks in shady spots and any place there was a breeze the first hour was bliss other than a couple considerate mountain bikers we didn't see anyone. Then on the return leg the rest of the world had come out and we saw a fair few people heading out. I took evasive action and made route changes where possible. I just wasn't feeling sociable and dogs can be much more reactive when hot etc. Tink doesn't seem to fair too badly in the shade of the trees.

Unfortunately there was jsut a short stretch where alternate routes weren't possible So when i spied 2 choc labs and a groul of people i slipped her ladyship on lead and "staked my claim" to one side of the wide track. In their defence they did try to call their dogs back, and when that didn't work they did come charging over to collect them, but the noise and fuss they made about it. Flapping arms and shrieking there really was no need for such abject panic. I just didn't feel like engaging with them ( dogs or humans) and clearly Tink didn't either we just kept on going her trotting alongside me as if they didn't exist :lol: leaving all the mayhem behind us. Then as we passed the rear of their group a friendly terrier on flexi charged at Tink, again we just kept moving as they screamed at their terrier " be friendly be friendly"

This heat seems to be doing strange things to people around here.

I'd like to say her good behaviour continued to the bath she got after her walk, but she still hates it. She had rolled in something fragrant ,I usually patch was I thought she might appreciate being cool... I was mistaken.


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## Dogless

mv - the big point that I took from your post was that, despite all the chaos* "I just didn't feel like engaging with them ( dogs or humans) and clearly Tink didn't either we just kept on going her trotting alongside me as if they didn't exist" *. Well done to a very calm, very well behaved Tink apart from rolling in something vile .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - the big point that I took from your post was that, despite all the chaos* "I just didn't feel like engaging with them ( dogs or humans) and clearly Tink didn't either we just kept on going her trotting alongside me as if they didn't exist" *. Well done to a very calm, very well behaved Tink apart from rolling in something vile .


It really is such a marked difference, it was the look of her face when she looked up at me as if to say " What's their problem?" Keeping moving seems to be a good thing with Tink stopping almost makes us become part of their chaos, moving we are following the beat of our own drum and Tink repsonds so well.

Yesterday morning she got over her fear of a snorting pug and was actually engaged in a very short game of bow and chase in a clear cooling puddle. Yesterday evening we met Duke the harlequin GD, They met beautifully off lead before his owners appeared who were very apologetic as they hadn't thought anyone was out at that time. We saw 2 offlead huskies (historically would have been in the pricked eared super scary category) and there was no nervous body language. I popped her on lead as she's not worth risking if she was spooked. She's doing so well but i'm determined not to let complacency creep in.


----------



## ballybee

Ok I'm basically 100% sure Dan is the cause of Tumms issue, today Tummel met 2 new dogs onlead and was great, then met and had a play with an old chum offlead and was exemplary, the Tummel that was friendly and never responded to any aggression was out in full force!!! 

Had Dan out working on being able to walk past dogs with no lunging, saw 2 dogs and got past both with nothing more than Dan being at the end of the lead watching them....no lunging at all 

Eta- one of the new dogs was an entire male GBGV(gorgeous boy) and they both loved each other, just need to see how Tummel is alone offlead with an entire male to be 100% sure Dan is the cause of his aggression issues


----------



## moonviolet

ballybee said:


> Ok I'm basically 100% sure Dan is the cause of Tumms issue, today Tummel met 2 new dogs onlead and was great, then met and had a play with an old chum offlead and was exemplary, the Tummel that was friendly and never responded to any aggression was out in full force!!!
> 
> Had Dan out working on being able to walk past dogs with no lunging, saw 2 dogs and got past both with nothing more than Dan being at the end of the lead watching them....no lunging at all


It's great that you have identified that it's specifically when Dan is with you too. I'll be reading your progress with great ineterest as being a bit of a one dog wonder i clearly have lots to learn about multiple dog households.

Sounds like your boys are doing great seperately, Sorry if i start asking annoying questions ( it's quite a strength of mine) when you walk tehm together is it every dog that approaches Dan or ones exhibiting specific behaviours, too direct, too bouncy etc ?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> It really is such a marked difference, it was the look of her face when she looked up at me as if to say " What's their problem?" Keeping moving seems to be a good thing with Tink stopping almost makes us become part of their chaos, moving we are following the beat of our own drum and Tink repsonds so well.
> 
> Yesterday morning she got over her fear of a snorting pug and was actually engaged in a very short game of bow and chase in a clear cooling puddle. Yesterday evening we met Duke the harlequin GD, They met beautifully off lead before his owners appeared who were very apologetic as they hadn't thought anyone was out at that time. We saw 2 offlead huskies (historically would have been in the pricked eared super scary category) and there was no nervous body language. I popped her on lead as she's not worth risking if she was spooked. She's doing so well but i'm determined not to let complacency creep in.


She's really transformed - keeping moving is usually our key; although if he's going to react whilst we're running I have to stop as he has so much momentum with us both moving forwards and it excites him more. I KNOW he'll probably react if we stop, but if we keep going I'm afraid that we'll be out of control and poor moggy for example may have a very bad day :scared:.

Kilo is very suspicious of bulldogs and pugs too - the snuffling and snorting I think.

I forgot to say that the mad people are out in force....

Yesterday in the park mother and daughter with a small fluffy dog (cockapoo I think - cute!): "Mummy that dog looks like a camel"
"Yes darling, it's an ugly thing"
"It looks like it wants to eat our dog" (sat to the side of the path)
"It probably does, viscious thing - look at the muzzle it's wearing" (headcollar)
"What breed is it"
"It's not a breed darling, it's a mutt"

Tickled me....love it when people just talk about you as if you're invisible :scared:.

The second one was a man who let his lab offlead (onlead park) who came charging at us as she was obviously going to with the man saying "No, No". He collected her said sorry....and did the same again. Luckily it was a yellow one so Kilo was fine!

The THIRD was a man who's little girl came round to our gate (bearing in mind you need to come through our front garden to get there) to hold her small, barking dog up to it for Kilo to 'meet'. Kilo did meet it, loudly, and the girl shrieked. I said sorry, I don't know why . A few minutes' later a man is at the gate 'barking' - so Kilo raced around going mad....the man was I am guessing the girl's Dad; said he was giving Kilo 'a taste of his own medicine' :scared:.

Think that must be my fair share of lunatics for the year :scared::scared:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> She's really transformed - keeping moving is usually our key; although if he's going to react whilst we're running I have to stop as he has so much momentum with us both moving forwards and it excites him more. I KNOW he'll probably react if we stop, but if we keep going I'm afraid that we'll be out of control and poor moggy for example may have a very bad day :scared:.
> 
> Kilo is very suspicious of bulldogs and pugs too - the snuffling and snorting I think.
> 
> I forgot to say that the mad people are out in force....
> 
> Yesterday in the park mother and daughter with a small fluffy dog (cockapoo I think - cute!): "Mummy that dog looks like a camel"
> "Yes darling, it's an ugly thing"
> "It looks like it wants to eat our dog" (sat to the side of the path)
> "It probably does, viscious thing - look at the muzzle it's wearing" (headcollar)
> "What breed is it"
> "It's not a breed darling, it's a mutt"
> 
> Tickled me....love it when people just talk about you as if you're invisible :scared:.
> 
> The second one was a man who let his lab offlead (onlead park) who came charging at us as she was obviously going to with the man saying "No, No". He collected her said sorry....and did the same again. Luckily it was a yellow one so Kilo was fine!
> 
> The THIRD was a man who's little girl came round to our gate (bearing in mind you need to come through our front garden to get there) to hold her small, barking dog up to it for Kilo to 'meet'. Kilo did meet it, loudly, and the girl shrieked. I said sorry, I don't know why . A few minutes' later a man is at the gate 'barking' - so Kilo raced around going mad....the man was I am guessing the girl's Dad; said he was giving Kilo 'a taste of his own medicine' :scared:.
> 
> Think that must be my fair share of lunatics for the year :scared::scared:.


Cripes is there something in the water there?

Mind you, i'm still not quite sure why I made a suggestive comment about disciplining that boxers owner yesterday. I blame the friend I was talking to the day before, we were discussing whether we'd rather clean toilets or spank high court judges for a living :lol: As you do :blush:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Cripes is there something in the water there?
> 
> Mind you, i'm still not quite sure why I made a suggestive comment about disciplining that boxers owner yesterday. I blame the friend I was talking to the day before, we were discussing whether we'd rather clean toilets or spank high court judges for a living :lol: As you do :blush:


There's always something in the water here.....:scared:. I loved your comment; poor man!!


----------



## ballybee

moonviolet said:


> It's great that you have identified that it's specifically when Dan is with you too. I'll be reading your progress with great ineterest as being a bit of a one dog wonder i clearly have lots to learn about multiple dog households.
> 
> Sounds like your boys are doing great seperately, Sorry if i start asking annoying questions ( it's quite a strength of mine) when you walk tehm together is it every dog that approaches Dan or ones exhibiting specific behaviours, too direct, too bouncy etc ?


Lol questions are fine. At the moment it seems to be most if not all dogs that approach although the ones we already know it seems Tummel is just lunging with none or little intent. If the dog is calm he'll allow a very quick meet then tells the dog to bugger off, if the dog isn't calm he pretty much instantly goes for it.

I can understand a bit as a JRT went for Dan last month...Tummels already wary of JRTs after being attacked so this was probably too much for him and now he's very protective of Dan  it's quite sweet I suppose and it's only dogs, he'll let anyone pet Dan


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## dobermummy

ballybee said:


> Lol questions are fine. At the moment it seems to be most if not all dogs that approach although the ones we already know it seems Tummel is just lunging with none or little intent. If the dog is calm he'll allow a very quick meet then tells the dog to bugger off, if the dog isn't calm he pretty much instantly goes for it.
> 
> I can understand a bit as a JRT went for Dan last month...Tummels already wary of JRTs after being attacked so this was probably too much for him and now he's very protective of Dan  it's quite sweet I suppose and it's only dogs, he'll let anyone pet Dan


i know its a problem and you need to address it but my first reaction was 'aahhh how sweet' 

i hope you find a way to sort it out


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## L/C

Ballybee i've been working on a similar problem with ely, on my phone atm but whem I'm back home I'll post more.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- the heat has bought even more nutters out for you to deal with. I hope you and the 'mutt' are ok. 

MV-Tink is doing so well now- I bet you never thought you'd get this far with her after what she's been through.

Moll and I left early for a dog show today in aid of one of the rescues-it took me longer to get there than it should -nothing at all to do with the fact that I cant follow instructions from a sat nav.
We only stayed about 2 hours as it started to get really hot- there was a lake there so madam spent most of that time swimming. I didn't even enter any classes, I felt sorry for some of the dogs there with the heat.

Some of you will remember me grooming Dennis, the Russian Black Terrier. His owners were there today- he died. He was fine one day, had a stroke the next and the vets couldn't save him. He was only 6 years old.

DM- am looking forward to hearing how you and Mouse get on with the running- keep thinking about it myself- not got past that yet though.


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## Dogless

Oh no, RIP Dennis .

We went to a park we'd never been to before near dog school for some socialisation - it was packed :scared:. The BW did fabulously, really, really pleased with him. There were kids, a pipe band, loads of dogs and donkey rides. He didn't show much interest in the donkeys but we didn't linger near them as I thought if he did get spooked I didn't want him to go bonkers at them with small kids atop :scared:. Sure the donkeys were bombproof TBH as lots of dogs were chasing around them but wasn't risking it :scared:. I sat for a while on a bench and watched other people and their dogs which I like  including a poor terrified mini dachshund who was fearful and barking at everything but getting dragged along by it's owner - it even fell down a drain and just got dragged out without pause  then barked like mad at some kids (horrid obnoxious ones that I did a huge arc around) who wanted to stroke it - the man just hauled it along then let them all crowd round; it was petrified .

There were some real prats out, but when aren't there? .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Oh no, RIP Dennis .
> 
> We went to a park we'd never been to before near dog school for some socialisation - it was packed :scared:. The BW did fabulously, really, really pleased with him. There were kids, a pipe band, loads of dogs and donkey rides. He didn't show much interest in the donkeys but we didn't linger near them as I thought if he did get spooked I didn't want him to go bonkers at them with small kids atop :scared:. Sure the donkeys were bombproof TBH as lots of dogs were chasing around them but wasn't risking it :scared:. I sat for a while on a bench and watched other people and their dogs which I like  including a poor terrified mini dachshund who was fearful and barking at everything but getting dragged along by it's owner - it even fell down a drain and just got dragged out without pause  then barked like mad at some kids (horrid obnoxious ones that I did a huge arc around) who wanted to stroke it - the man just hauled it along then let them all crowd round; it was petrified .
> 
> There were some real prats out, but when aren't there? .


My goodness Kilo goes to the top of the class. That is beyond distraction donkey sand a pipe band... :lol: that is extreme socialisation. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

That poor daxie  What can be done about these people


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> My goodness Kilo goes to the top of the class. That is beyond distraction donkey sand a pipe band... :lol: that is extreme socialisation. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
> 
> That poor daxie  What can be done about these people


It was awful; he was the smallest I have ever seen and just utterly, utterly overwhelmed  and totally stressed out. I suppose it's easier to watch Kilo for signs of stress with him being bigger, but this poor little dog couldn't have made his feelings any clearer . I knew Kilo would be fine with the pipes and drums - load noises are something he got well used to at work....donkeys I wasn't sure and as I said didn't hang about by them for too long!!


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## kat&molly

That poor little dog  Cant people see when their own dogs are petrified.

Well done to Kilo though- that was brilliant.:thumbup:


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## ballybee

Got both boys to say hello to a dog today, no aggro at all Dan said hello while Tummel was sniffing a patch of grass then Tummel said hello and tried to play  We'd passed this dog once before but the boys hadn't been able to greet so my theory of one greeting at a time seems to be a good one 

Ok it was only a wee dog but we can work our way up :thumbup: All 3 dogs were eager to play but the other dogs owner had somewhere to be


----------



## Dogless

A mixed morning again; went to the fields (still going to places with a phone signal but may crack and go to a forest very soon - maybe even this afternoon!!). We had about 45 minutes on our own, Kilo wasn't very interested in playing today but we were pottering so all OK. Then met a woman with two dogs that we know so they had a bit of playing together for a few minutes. A man that we know with another dog that we know well came in - ideal as I like to use them for training because if we have a fail and Kilo runs up then I know people and dogs are friendly. Anyhow we didn't have a fail so all was going well :thumbup:.

The man then tells me that his wife is coming along in 5 minutes or so with another dog - an entire male black lab. They had last met before our lab issues began; so I explained to the man that I'd take Kilo away - trying to keep him away from them again just for a few days after our choc lab experience. Before I could however they came onto the field. Kilo was onlead and he lay down - the lab approached offlead and stood over Kilo very stiff and his hackles went up; Kilo's hackles then went up. The lab growled, Kilo stood up and growled....and the lab was retrieved and put on the lead. I had to rather unceremoniously drag Kilo off the field as the lab and him were still staring at each other - he kept looking away and walking with me but each time he looked back to check he was still being started at, so started posturing again and really wanted to get to the lab (no hackles so whether it was overexcitement??). Managed to get enough distance to get a good sit from him and put his headcollar on and we came home. 

Not awful by any means; just not ideal .


----------



## moonviolet

ballybee said:


> Got both boys to say hello to a dog today, no aggro at all Dan said hello while Tummel was sniffing a patch of grass then Tummel said hello and tried to play  We'd passed this dog once before but the boys hadn't been able to greet so my theory of one greeting at a time seems to be a good one
> 
> Ok it was only a wee dog but we can work our way up :thumbup: All 3 dogs were eager to play but the other dogs owner had somewhere to be


That's very interesting, and defintiely a wise approach, often dogs can be on edge when simultaneously being greeted by 2 dogs. 



Dogless said:


> The man then tells me that his wife is coming along in 5 minutes or so with another dog - an entire male black lab. They had last met before our lab issues began; so I explained to the man that I'd take Kilo away - trying to keep him away from them again just for a few days after our choc lab experience. Before I could however they came onto the field. Kilo was onlead and he lay down - the lab approached offlead and stood over Kilo very stiff and his hackles went up; Kilo's hackles then went up. The lab growled, Kilo stood up and growled....and the lab was retrieved and put on the lead. I had to rather unceremoniously drag Kilo off the field as the lab and him were still staring at each other - he kept looking away and walking with me but each time he looked back to check he was still being started at, so started posturing again and really wanted to get to the lab (no hackles so whether it was overexcitement??). Managed to get enough distance to get a good sit from him and put his headcollar on and we came home.
> 
> Not awful by any means; just not ideal .


Actually i think Kilo did well, it would be rather foolish to walk away from a dog that was posturing at you without checking behind you to make sure they hadn't broken free, but the fact he was looking away and walking with you is great. It would have been nice if he looked back to find the lab wasn't posturing but and OH said to me life isnt' a big game of SIMs you know :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Actually i think Kilo did well, it would be rather foolish to walk away from a dog that was posturing at you without checking behind you to make she they hadn't broken free, but the fact he was looking away and walking with you is great. It would have been nice if he looked back to find the lab wasn't posturing but and OH said to me life isnt' a big game of SIMs you know :lol:


True - he really strained to go towards the lab though for 10m or so. I was very pleased that he just hackled and growled rather than launch into a full - on 'go away' noise and handbags display and remained lying down until the lab stood right over him and hackled; he must cause this with his anxious vibes. Had a good shake off when we left the field (does that a lot when he has been stressed) BUT trotted home without showing any signs of anxiety.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> True - he really strained to go towards the lab though for 10m or so. I was very pleased that he just hackled and growled rather than launch into a full - on 'go away' noise and handbags display and remained lying down until the lab stood right over him. Had a good shake off when we left the field (does that a lot when he has been stressed) BUT trotted home without showing any signs of anxiety.


He did do exceptionally well. :thumbup:
I love the shake off and i'm trying to get it on cue now.  what is unfortunate is that the lab woamn probably is blissfully unaware that her dog was being provocatively.

I'd just put Tink in the car after a particularly amusing jog to the car, picture me cantering with a carrier bag overflowing with weekend rubbish and poo bags, when a couple reversed up to the barrier opened the car door let four dogs out before driving back down the track to park   So glad we weren't a few moments later.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> He did do exceptionally well. :thumbup:
> I love the shake off and i'm trying to get it on cue now.  what is unfortunate is that the lab woamn probably is blissfully unaware that her dog was being provocatively.
> 
> I'd just put Tink in the car after a particularly amusing jog to the car, picture me cantering with a carrier bag overflowing with weekend rubbish and poo bags, when a couple reversed up to the barrier opened the car door let four dogs out before driving back down the track to park   So glad we were a few moments later.


I'm going to make the trip over and hide just to see the end of your walks . Close call today - no idea what goes through some folks' heads :scared:.

The labrador's owner is petrified of dogs apart from her own - she is lovely but always freezes when she sees Kilo and sort of shrieks when she has to come past - always says "I'm scared, have you got him etc etc" so I really didn't want him to have handbags - for him mostly, but also for her! He is a friendly dog with no recall as "He always goes to see other dogs to play and comes back when he's ready".


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I'm going to make the trip over and hide just to see the end of your walks . Close call today - no idea what goes through some folks' heads :scared:.
> 
> The labrador's owner is petrified of dogs apart from her own - she is lovely but always freezes when she sees Kilo and sort of shrieks when she has to come past - always says "I'm scared, have you got him etc etc" so I really didn't want him to have handbags - for him mostly, but also for her! He is a friendly dog with no recall as "He always goes to see other dogs to play and comes back when he's ready".


oh thats not terribly ideal  People are so very odd.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> oh thats not terribly ideal  People are so very odd.


I said "What if he meets a dog that isn't so friendly?" and she said it's what she dreads. I know we all (or I do) dread that 'fail' where for whatever reason your dog goes tanking over to another only to find a less than friendly reception and something bad happening....I do my very best to prevent it though.

I also tried to explain it by saying Kilo had been very scared by those two choc labs the other day - I was met with laughter and "Those two? They're daft as brushes, so soft". I KNOW they are - but that makes no odds.


----------



## Born2BWild

Little update on Cleo - Spoke to her vet today and the next step is to find out what disfunction she actually has and whether its primary or secondary...she said her age is in our favour as whatever it is hopefully we can maintain/treat to enable her to live a long and healthy life. The vet is speaking to a specialist to see which route to take - they could do further blood tests to test for specific diseases, give an ultrasound or biopsy. I would prefer them to try the ultrasound first as a biopsy is very invasive and I would want that to be the case if the other tests hadn't revealed anything...so we face a long road but I know my little Cleebee is a fighter and if any dog could do this it would definitely be my little princess ... xx


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I also tried to explain it by saying Kilo had been very scared by those two choc labs the other day - I was met with laughter and "Those two? They're daft as brushes, so soft". I KNOW they are - but that makes no odds.


Meaning no harm and doing no harm are different things. Even now a friendly, but enthusiastic GSD could put Tink back in basket case territory.



Born2BWild said:


> Little update on Cleo - Spoke to her vet today and the next step is to find out what disfunction she actually has and whether its primary or secondary...she said her age is in our favour as whatever it is hopefully we can maintain/treat to enable her to live a long and healthy life. The vet is speaking to a specialist to see which route to take - they could do further blood tests to test for specific diseases, give an ultrasound or biopsy. I would prefer them to try the ultrasound first as a biopsy is very invasive and I would want that to be the case if the other tests hadn't revealed anything...so we face a long road but I know my little Cleebee is a fighter and if any dog could do this it would definitely be my little princess ... xx


Hope the vet can narrow it down with an ultra sound or blood test and Cleo is being treated and back on form asap


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## Dogless

I hope that something conclusive is found with Cleo soon so that you know what you are dealing with and can get on with the business of sorting it xx.

We went and sought sanctuary for 2 1/2 hours in 'our' forest this afternoon / early evening. Got caught in two belting thunderstorms - one about two minutes into the walk and one about 20 minutes from the end, just as we were pretty much dried off :mad2:. Travelled home soaked to the skin and freezing cold at 12c - and when i got back here it was 22c....nothing as odd as NI weather :scared:. I fed Kilo and headed out for a run and he looked worried and ran to the sofa again .


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## ballybee

Well after our good start this morning thought I'd take the boys over to mums to see my gran and her dog. Went in and Tummel did growl/lunge but I'm pretty sure that's more to do with a strange dog in what he sees as "his" house. Kept Tum onlead and let Dan off to say hi and interact. After a few mins Tummel is calm and gets off, all 3 dogs are milling around and interacting when grans dog suddenly snarls and airsnaps at Dan! Tummel was right beside the dog and airsnapped back then walked off( very reasonable response I feel).

I think nothing of this as it didn't escalate so i let the boys into the garden to give grans dog some space. OH has now told me my parents and gran were all blaming Tummel for the incident 

This isn't the first time though..when my aunt and her 2 dogs come over they always start everything and it's always Tummel that gets blamed, I think my parents feel they can blame my dog and not start a fight 

I personally think Tummel handled the whole situation perfectly, he protected Dan and warned the offending dog that his behaviour wasnt ok


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## kat&molly

We aren't really doing anything, its just sooo hot. I take the girls out in the car for a good run early morning, I'm busy grooming and then I take them out late when its a bit cooler- so its a bit boring for them at the minute.
I do play with Moll in 'her' pool though. After playing and cooling her down yesterday I thought I'd have a little chill on the floaty chair. She didn't like this and I kept seeing her head popping up all around me giving me the Spaniel eyes.
OH hasn't done the steps how I asked, he's done 1 big one outside and the same inside- good for Moll but not the others.:mad2:

Have a good day everyone.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> We went and sought sanctuary for 2 1/2 hours in 'our' forest this afternoon / early evening. Got caught in two belting thunderstorms - one about two minutes into the walk and one about 20 minutes from the end, just as we were pretty much dried off :mad2:. Travelled home soaked to the skin and freezing cold at 12c - and when i got back here it was 22c....nothing as odd as NI weather :scared:. I fed Kilo and headed out for a run and he looked worried and ran to the sofa again .


I'm glad you got a little quiet time , I mean dog walks can't all be pipe bands and donkey rides :lol:Flipping heck 12c and thunderstorms seems a bit out of order! Do you think Kilo is suggesting you are over doing it a bit 



ballybee said:


> I think nothing of this as it didn't escalate so i let the boys into the garden to give grans dog some space. OH has now told me my parents and gran were all blaming Tummel for the incident


Sounds like normal dog interaction your grans dog said "Bug off Dan" and Tummel said " Oi he's just a kid."

Family are so much harder than dogs


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## Beth17

Morning all been a hectic few days but yesterday was able to walk the boys with my mum at the field and although quiet so they got a good run Sam was able to meet a couple of dogs. I kept Oscar on the lead and away a little bit and instead of fixating on what they were doing he was happy to just have a sniff and mooch about by me so that's positive! 

This morning Sam decided to have eggs for breakfast and shared them with Oscar  That will teach me not to put them further back on the counter! I keep forgetting how tall he is but luckily there were only a few eggs left in the box 

Off out for our walk in a minute so fingers crossed it's a quiet one again.


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## L/C

Phew - it's been a bit mad here with work and homelife so I haven't been posting too much. Plus Gypsy chewed the laptop charger (thankfully when it wasn't plugged in!) so I'm restricted to the desktop at home which is in the hottest room in the house!

Ballybee - it sounds like Tummel is resource guarding Dan and Beth17 it sounds like the same for Oscar and Sam. While it is tempting to see it as protective it's a behaviour that can quickly escalate and get worse. Ely guards me and Gypsy when we're out and his behaviour quite quickly went from growling and running them off until he'd had a chance to greet them to lunging and making contact with an inhibited bite. Now Ely also suffers from a lack of socialisation but guarders who are not listened to (and rude dogs often don't listen) will escalate their behaviour.

The usual first strategy with resource guarders is to remove the resource and re-introduce lower value items slowly while using CC. Obviously this is much more difficult when the resource is you or your other dog!

The strategy that we've developed with Ely is first to manage and control the situation. Unless I know the other dog(s) and I know that they are polite and unlikely to provoke a guarding response then I do my best to avoid and prevent the meeting. This was especially important at the beginning when he would tip over into a threat display quite easily. I am also controlling his adrenaline levels to keep him calmer and below threshold - so limited interaction with other dogs (it hypes him up), limited chase and fetch games, scenting games to occupy his mind and frequent stops on the walk to sit down and relax.

Once I was convinced that his adrenaline levels had dropped we started a basic programme of de-sensitisation and counter-conditioning. We first worked on his guarding of me and then moved onto adding Gypsy. I was lucky in being able to recruit other dog walkers to be stooge dogs for me for specific training sessions and so I could work on what we'd built on general walks.

I would recommend the look at that game once you have figured out his threshold. You'll need to have Dan or Sam with you and as soon as your older dog looks at the other dog and is calm then click and treat. Gradually reduce the distance as they are able. Your ultimate goal is for them to see a dog approaching the pup as a good or at least neutral thing.

I would recommend Jean Donaldson's book on resource guarding (Mine!) although it deals more with guarding from humans then other dogs it will give you strategies to put in place and will show you just how gradual a process it needs to be.


----------



## Dogless

Be careful k&m....Moll will burst your chair if you carry on!

Ballybee - sounds as if Tum's behaviour was fine to me, but there's nothing more complex than family politics .

Beth17 - how lovely of Sam to share his eggs, what a generous boy he is; is it wrong that his naughtiness makes me love him?

L/C - what a great post.

This morning the weather was beautiful - knew the forecast was horrid for later and the black clouds have just gathered and first few rumbles of thunder are starting!! We spent the whole morning in the park - because we stayed out much later we saw loads more dogs than usual and I was really pleased with Kilo - a real gold star day. He will now ignore or look at then pass nicely all dogs apart from black and chocolate labs - I take a nice wide arc around those when he starts to show anxiety and he passes without fuss then. Sometimes he lies down and I just let him as long as we're not in the way and he's not lunging or barking.

We had one blip - sat on a bench in the sunshine, watching boats come into the marina, kids feeding the ducks etc with Kilo sitting with his head on my lap for fusses and getting loads of compliments on his good behaviour . No tension whatsoever when kids dogs or anything went by ...until a man with a pug let it zip over on it's flexi and stand head to head with Kilo staring directly into his eyes and making that horrible choking noise that very flat faced pugs make in the heat. The BW leapt onto my lap :scared: and started barking, so the man took his dog away muttering. I felt a bit embarrassed about it until the old lady on the next bench along said "Don't worry about it darling, he was an eejit letting his dog get in your lovely boy's face like that. He's mustard that man, he really is" . 

The BW has never leapt onto my lap before; it was great having his backside in my face and furiously wagging tail smashing me around the head  :crazy:.

Apart from that I realised quite how far we have come today in the dog excitement stakes - a very long way :thumbup::thumbup:.


----------



## Dogless

Fields this afternoon; not a soul out as we got caught in a thunderstorm. Again :scared:. 

This evening the little gitbags that some call children have been 'barking' at Kilo again  and I have had one of 'those' conversations with my mother - now feeling guilty as she is always well meaning but sometimes less than tactful......


----------



## Beth17

Well had a good pretty uneventful walk this morning which was nice we just mooched around with only a couple of attempts at wrestling.

Had puppy classes tonight and Sam did me proud we practised some lead walking and also a quick bit of recall which involved recalling past the other pups and distractions to the owner. When it was his turn he came straight towards me but then veered off to see a pup but once he caught sight of me again he came charging towards me so I was really pleased with him. 

He was also playing really nicely with the other pups as well but bless him he doesn't realise how big his feet are 

Oh and I think he may have found himself a pretty GSD girlfriend :blushing:


----------



## GermanShepardOwner

Been doing training all afternoon with my 3 dogs! Im doing a canine first aid lecture tomorrow, so taking them in for the demos and practicals. 

They are usually brilliant but its a large group tomorrow and my male GSD has been acting up recently. Ive only had him a few months so hes still settling really, so cant blame him i suppose!

Wish me luck!


----------



## moonviolet

Poor Kilo, pugs do make some quite disturbing noises in the heat. I was lucky enough to walk with one for a short distance on saturday and Tink seemed to get over her fear of the snorting, as i said even having a little chase in the water once they had cooled down somewhat.Be nice if you could find a nice ug owner willing do take a little parallel walk. Kilo's quite a size to cat leap onto your lap. Are you keeping yourself under observation in case of concussion from his tail? :lol: 

He really is handling parklife so very well. My local park is filled with a funfair currently I've had madam watching it from the other side of the canal... it's quite boring apparently certainly less interesting than sniffing goose poo.

Maybe you should try to be scarily friendly with the barking children.... sort of Hansel and Gretal's witch in the woods friendly  :devil:

I'm not even going into the complexities of families, completely beyond me.

Tink was a star in class this evening maintained focus in the company of excited bc's, this would have been challenging historically. She's doing nicely with the exercises progressing consistently toward the end goal of each well. 

I have to say as her confidence returns on walks i'm working harder to ensure i'm still the most interesting thing in the world I did however come second to a discarded frying pan than had been used to cook bacon (by the smell of it)


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## Dogless

Well done to Sam and Tink at classes - fabulous :thumbup: .

mv - I have experience of coming second to a discarded frying pan in the woods too . As bad as it is for the ego :scared: I think it's a fair one.....it's also nice to have another small problem caused by Tink gaining confidence .

GSOwner - hope the lecture went well :thumbup:.

We had a great walk this morning - went to the fields and played and did some impulse control stuff for just over an hour. As we were walking home we met a woman with a sheltie that we'd met before with her kids; we got talking and I told her about the dramas we were having with kids around here - she asked if we'd like to walk with her so we did for about half an hour and her lovely dog - savvy kids. Kilo was nervous initially but after 5 minutes able to totally relax around them when he realised they weren't going to tease him / come running at him etc (ignored them mostly) although got a bit obsessed with the little boy's pocket...he had Love Hearts it turns out. Greedy dog!! Best yet, she said she always walked at the time we met her and to join them if we ever wanted to. Very positive.

Another positive is that when he was getting a little stressed initially he'll give a head turn away when prompted so hopefully he'll start to offer it automatically as I reward it with distance from the stressor (from the fab BAT manual - not finished it yet, but I love it!!).


----------



## toryb

With Millie im working on her recall and he general manors as she can be a little bit bouncy/in your face 

With Lottie we are working on 'down' 'sit' (which is is doing really well with!) and toilet training. After her next Jab on friday im going to start working on her recall...in the house/garden its already better than Millies!


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## Sarah1983

Discarded frying pans in the woods? Seems a long way to go just to ditch a dirty frying pan :lol:



> The BW has never leapt onto my lap before; it was great having his backside in my face and furiously wagging tail smashing me around the head


Sadly this is something I'm very familiar with. Both Rupert and Spen have been guilty of it 

I'm wondering at the moment whether I'm being overly cautious or paranoid. I've been working on Spencers recall since I got him and he's generally really good with it. Has the odd occasion where he's slow and distracted but even then he makes his way to me. But I find myself keeping him on leash "just in case" we see another dog close by and he takes off to go see it. Dogs at a distance don't see to be an issue, he'll recall away or walk in a different direction while on the long line, it's literally just if they're close. And we don't very often see another dog on the fields where I walk. Other people think I'm expecting too much and say if he does happen to run up to another dog it's not ideal but not the end of the world and accidents happen. So what do you guys think? Let him off when it's clear and just keep an eye out and hope for the best while continuing to train? Or keep him on a long line? 

We had a very nice walk today. Temperature has dropped massively and it's even rained a little so we went up to the fields. After a mad 5 minutes where he just let off steam he was great. Checking in with me regularly, recalling whenever I whistled and just generally being a pleasure to walk. On the way home through the woods we ran into 3 women and a child. One of the women seemed frail and was being helped along by another. The path narrows just before we encountered them so I stopped at the wider part to let them all pass since Spen will still occasionally jump on people. Took about 10 minutes for them to walk about 50 metres and pass us but I ran Spen through some of his tricks and to his credit he didn't show any signs of getting impatient or anything. Nor did he try to jump on them as they passed


----------



## moonviolet

Class was great and challenging , I was off the sub's bench again, we've been slowly upping the distractions to her " find and retrieve car keys" we've worked up to her ignoring an open container of kibble, she's successfully retrieving and ignoring the kibble so last night was time to go for higher value food in a closed container namely fish treats.... that proved more challenging made sure container was beyond where the keys were at first, but nope... those lovely smelly fishy treats proved too much. So back to on work the food based impulse control exercises, I should have seen that damn frying pan as a clue :lol: Other than that she was pretty good.

Toryb sounds like things are coming on nicely with your new addition 

Sarah, sounds like Spencer is doing well, if there's a place with good visibilty, i'd be tempted to try some short offlead sessions, when he's defizzed and paying attention maybe start a little training session and once he's in the flow just unclip the line with as little drama as possible. and see how it goes.


----------



## Coffee

Afternoon all <waves>

Haven't been on this thread for ages  have had a mad busy week or so... senior school uniform shopping for son  (whataripoff.com) and daughter getting her GCSE results this morning  and trying to keep her calm for the last few days - she's been a nervous wreck  All good stuff though - 2 As, 5 Bs and 2 Cs... what she needed to get into 6th form for her A Levels so am very proud of her 

Still working on Operation Car with Alfie and it's going fine :thumbup: but not really making any progress. He will now allow me to reach my arm up towards the boot and touch it - he's very "aware" of this though and doesn't take his eyes off me but he will at least stay sitting in the boot. I don't know... <sigh> I just can't see him ever being comfortable enough to allow the boot to be closed. I do think that trip we did to the training class that night has just caused too much damage 

Don't shout at me Moonviolet  but I've just ordered this:

STEEL FRAMED FOLDING FABRIC DOG CRATE | eBay

and am planning on putting it on the back seat of the car instead for him. Am going to start letting him on the back seat from today in our car training sessions and see how he is with that. When the crate comes I'm going to set it up in the house and hopefully get him happy with it (treats and goodies in there) for a week or so before I put it in the car and see if he'll go in it.

Have also bought some Rescue Remedy for him today but am saving that until the next stage of car training... actually starting the engine 

Right, off to catch up on the last few pages and see how everyone else has been getting on :thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Don't shout at me Moonviolet  but I've just ordered this:
> 
> STEEL FRAMED FOLDING FABRIC DOG CRATE | eBay
> 
> and am planning on putting it on the back seat of the car instead for him. Am going to start letting him on the back seat from today in our car training sessions and see how he is with that. When the crate comes I'm going to set it up in the house and hopefully get him happy with it (treats and goodies in there) for a week or so before I put it in the car and see if he'll go in it.
> 
> Have also bought some Rescue Remedy for him today but am saving that until the next stage of car training... actually starting the engine
> 
> Right, off to catch up on the last few pages and see how everyone else has been getting on :thumbup:


Hi i was jsut wondering how you were getting on. I'm not going to shout at you at all, I think it's a brilliant idea  I love the thought of getting him used to it the house first  I think it could be brilliant, my only concern is where are the kids going to go? in the boot or on the roof? :lol: Handy for family barbecues etc as you can take it out of the car and he has his 'sanctuary' where he can go when he wants some peace/ you want him to settle.


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> Hi i was jsut wondering how you were getting on. I'm not going to shout at you at all, I think it's a brilliant idea  I love the thought of getting him used to it the house first  I think it could be brilliant, my only concern is where are the kids going to go? in the boot or on the roof? :lol: Handy for family barbecues etc as you can take it out of the car and he has his 'sanctuary' where he can go when he wants some peace/ you want him to settle.


God knows where the kids are going to go :lol: I think one will still fit in the back next to the crate so we'll have to toss a coin to see who gets to go in the boot/footwell/walk and meet us there :lol:

Am so pleased you think it's a good idea :thumbup: I did think about a 'normal' crate first but they won't fit  (his home crate i2 42") but this one will 

Kibble is a lot easier to ignore than anything else isn't it?  I wouldn't say poor Tink was to blame though actually... not her fault she has a Beagle "super sniffer" nose  Alfie can _just_ about ignore kibble when we practise "leave" but he's still yet to progress to anything more interesting than that and that's after months of trying!


----------



## Dogless

mv - Tink sounds as if she's doing superbly at classes; can't really blame her for really wanting the stinky food and I'm sure she'll be ignoring it in no time .

Coffee - good idea on the car training; maybe you'll have to put the kids on Gumtree as you can "no longer give them what they need" then you don't need to worry about space in the car :scared:.

We have spent all day in 'our' forest today - just showers until we reached the car when a deluge occurred; so we managed damp instead of drenched today :thumbup:. It's school tonight - hope the BW isn't too tired, he was just so full of enthusiasm for life that I didn't want our forest trip to end . Got home and realised I have no liver cake in the freezer and no liver to make any (order will be at butcher's tomorrow) :scared: so I have made some Tuna and garlic cake - never made it before but it STINKS so should do the trick!!


----------



## Coffee

Mmmm tuna and garlic - sounds yummy  The smellier the better is the motto here for pretty much everything so if Kilo is anything like Alfie I'm sure it will go down a storm 

Free to any home (doesn't need to be good)... teenager, 16 years. No longer have the room due to change in circumstances. Strops about quite a lot, apart from when she wants something. Doesn't tidy up after herself. Very rarely makes the long and difficult journey from bedroom to washing basket. Takes hours in the bathroom. Does have a part time job so is out of the house for about 10 hours a week but the complaints after each shift will make you think she's just done 12 hours down the pit. 

Do you think I'll get many offers?


----------



## Dogless

Coffee said:


> Mmmm tuna and garlic - sounds yummy  The smellier the better is the motto here for pretty much everything so if Kilo is anything like Alfie I'm sure it will go down a storm
> 
> Free to any home (doesn't need to be good)... teenager, 16 years. No longer have the room due to change in circumstances. Strops about quite a lot, apart from when she wants something. Doesn't tidy up after herself. Very rarely makes the long and difficult journey from bedroom to washing basket. Takes hours in the bathroom. Does have a part time job so is out of the house for about 10 hours a week but the complaints after each shift will make you think she's just done 12 hours down the pit.
> 
> Do you think I'll get many offers?


Have you tried breed rescue? They may be your best bet.


----------



## Sarah1983

Okay, so Spen has apparently done a complete turn around on the "I'm ignoring you" thing today. Had him out front for a pee and a sniff around and all he wanted to do was some training. I kept telling him "off you go" (his release cue) but he kept coming straight back to lie in front of me staring at me. So we practised stays. In a down stay I can walk about 5 steps away from him and stand there for 5 seconds now. I can also walk right around him once. Sit stay isn't so hot, he has a tendency to lie down or get up and come to me then offer a down. So I think more work on sit is needed. We spent about 15 minutes working on stay with a few hand targets thrown in then came inside where he decided he wasn't finished and was going to fetch me things. 3 bottles of shower gel and a toilet roll later I got up and shut the bathroom door :lol: 

I've gotta admit, I love it when he's like this, all eager to interact and be doing something. He's an absolute joy to work with. Even if some people do think I'm mean for "forcing him to work like that" :mad2: Bloody idiots, wagging tail, bright eyes and a grin do not equal a dog being forced to do anything! If anything it was me being forced to do the training since every time I sent him away he came back for more!

Coffee, hope the car training goes well for you. It could well just be an issue with the boot. Neither Spen or Rupert have been keen on us closing the boot although both were fine once it was actually shut. Hopefully the crate helps.

Moonviolet, how can a nose on legs be expected to resist stinky fish treats?  Good luck with the impulse control. 

Dogless, hope you have a good class tonight and Spencer says he's never had tuna cake but pilchard and garlic cake is good.


----------



## Dogless

Kilo says to tell Spen that he must get his human to make some stinking tuna and garlic cake; it was a hit . The BW was fantastic for me tonight - very good boy :thumbup::thumbup:.

I'm pleased that Kevin decided to have the day off Sarah and keen, enthusiastic Spen returned....long may it last :aureola::aureola:.


----------



## springerpete

Trying to teach Flyte to drive, of course its not a bit of good trying to teach Skye the same, even with modification to the car he's never going to be able to reach the pedals.
If I can pull it off it'll make my life so much easier, no more early mornings for one thing, not sure about getting insurance for him though......


----------



## Sarah1983

springerpete said:


> Trying to teach Flyte to drive, of course its not a bit of good trying to teach Skye the same, even with modification to the car he's never going to be able to reach the pedals.
> If I can pull it off it'll make my life so much easier, no more early mornings for one thing, not sure about getting insurance for him though......


If you figure it out Pete let me know! Then I could get my hubby to teach Spen to drive and he could take me places lol.

Dogless, I think I'll try the tuna and garlic cake. Did you just follow the liver cake recipe? How much tuna did you use? I'm also glad Kevin had the day off, hoping Spen will be like this more often!


----------



## Dogless

springerpete said:


> Trying to teach Flyte to drive, of course its not a bit of good trying to teach Skye the same, even with modification to the car he's never going to be able to reach the pedals.
> If I can pull it off it'll make my life so much easier, no more early mornings for one thing, not sure about getting insurance for him though......


Guess you managed to get him washing up then?


----------



## springerpete

Sarah1983 said:


> If you figure it out Pete let me know! Then I could get my hubby to teach Spen to drive and he could take me places lol.
> 
> Dogless, I think I'll try the tuna and garlic cake. Did you just follow the liver cake recipe? How much tuna did you use? I'm also glad Kevin had the day off, hoping Spen will be like this more often!


Tuna and garlic, that sounds yummy, far too good for dogs, send me the recipe...........


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> If you figure it out Pete let me know! Then I could get my hubby to teach Spen to drive and he could take me places lol.
> 
> Dogless, I think I'll try the tuna and garlic cake. Did you just follow the liver cake recipe? How much tuna did you use? I'm also glad Kevin had the day off, hoping Spen will be like this more often!


I just made it up - tin of tuna, about the same of flour, a clove of garlic, an egg, some milk until cakey consistency - whizzed it all up then 160c for 40 minutes. Delicious. Apparently!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I just made it up - tin of tuna, about the same of flour, a clove of garlic, an egg, some milk until cakey consistency - whizzed it all up then 160c for 40 minutes. Delicious. Apparently!!


Cheers, will give that a shot tomorrow when we've got some more garlic in.


----------



## Beth17

Well we had a lovely walk today enlisted my mums help again with the boys and only one heart in mouth moment when Sam's longline slipped from my hand and he legged it over to a couple of dogs a fair distance away  luckily we know them and once he said hello he quickly came charging back which I was really pleased with as he usually tries to follow them; lots of treats and praise given 

Oscar was also a good boy as he went after him but stopped and then came away and didn't feel the need to interrupt their meeting so another positive step.

Took Sam for his weigh and worm today the fat little thing is now just under 20kg  I hope he starts to slow down soon 

Sounds like you had a really lovely walk and good class Dogless! :thumbup:

And well done Spencer for being such a good boy


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah, I love it when they are in that mood, craving the interaction. Spencer has returned   I love the random fetching :lol:

Dogless, well done on a great class, glad the tuna cake was popular.

We had a training session this morning and her ladyship was brilliant, key retrieves from the house, with food in containers working up in value from kibble to fishskins. Impulse control with sardine cake (Tink's favourite) in the garden and other bits and bats.

Lovely walks, nothing to report no frying pans 

Beth  Sounds like Sam is growing like a weed   Well done on him coming back


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah, I love it when they are in that mood, craving the interaction. Spencer has returned   I love the random fetching :lol:


You might not if you had to live with it lol. He takes his role as a retriever VERY seriously indeed and will bring me literally anything he can get hold of.

Still think this one was the best though :lol:









Glad Tinks training session went well.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah if you could just get him to fill and boil it that would be very useful!! The shower gel made me smile; Kilo would squeeze it and shake :scared:.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> You might not if you had to live with it lol. He takes his role as a retriever VERY seriously indeed and will bring me literally anything he can get hold of.
> 
> Still think this one was the best though :lol:


That is such a great photo, some dogs just long to 'work'  could you harness it for useful things? loading the washing machine was the first thing that sprang to mind.

Today we are celebrating Tinker's 2nd "Lucky to be alive" day. we're starting with a nice tummy rub


----------



## Dogless

Hope Tink has a lovely relaxing 'lucky to be alive' day - I'm sure you'll make sure she is pampered!! Must be amazing to look back and see how far you have come with her.


----------



## Coffee

Enjoy your day with Tink today MV, hope you both have a lovely relaxing day and can look back on the last 2 years with a "wow, look how far we've come" air about you  xx


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> That is such a great photo, some dogs just long to 'work'  could you harness it for useful things? loading the washing machine was the first thing that sprang to mind.
> 
> Today we are celebrating Tinker's 2nd "Lucky to be alive" day. we're starting with a nice tummy rub


He carries the washing down to the cellar for me and then carries the dry clothes back up. Not got him loading or unloading it yet though. I figure there are a hell of a lot of things I could teach him to do that aren't necessary but will probably satisfy his desire to "work".

Dogless, at one point Spen would probably have run off with it, chomped and burst the bottle and ended up with shower gel all over. The fact he's now (usually) bringing things to me instead is a huge step.

Happy 2nd Lucky to be Alive Day Tink


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> He carries the washing down to the cellar for me and then carries the dry clothes back up. Not got him loading or unloading it yet though. I figure there are a hell of a lot of things I could teach him to do that aren't necessary but will probably satisfy his desire to "work".
> 
> Dogless, at one point Spen would probably have run off with it, chomped and burst the bottle and ended up with shower gel all over. The fact he's now (usually) bringing things to me instead is a huge step.
> 
> Happy 2nd Lucky to be Alive Day Tink


Kilo brings things to me, but I have to be very careful to keep praise 'low key' - anything too excited and he gets all giddy and playful!! Even at training I have to try not to be next to a certain lady as she goes really loud, high - pitched and squeaky and praises her dog really excitedly for ages; her dog goes all giddy but is tiny - but the noises also get Kilo all daft and we lose focus totally as he starts to dance about :crazy:.


----------



## dobermummy

Happy 2nd Lucky to be alive day Tink, we expects photos later 

Mouse is so much better at running than me  and i have learnt very fast not to run with him and let the kids cone on their bikes because i am the slowest and none will stop at my speed  

When its just me and Mouse he is better, he still tries to run into my legs and cross sides or get under my feet but a lot less than to start with. He focuses on me well and ignores pretty much everything else going on. im also getting a bike attatchment for him for extra and different exercise for us both


----------



## moonviolet

Thank you everyone for all your well wishes. I do sometimes forget how far we've come. OH is quite good at reminding me. For instance last ( he joined us for a walk) and as we arrived there was some dogs barking in the car parking area, 2 dals and 2 bc having a bit of an onlead vocal exchange as they returned to their cars. Tink happily came out of the car and we went on our walk... nothing to it ... but at one time that would have been enough for her to curl up at the back of her crate and not want to walk.

She has done so well and has taught me so much, not least about patience :blush: and despite it being horribly challenging at times and quite frustrating, I think we have a better understanding and greater communication than we would ever have had without that day. She's my little trooper 

I think she may get to choose the route on one of her favourite walks today. I better get ready she loves the hills. 


Sarah, Spencer is doing so well with you, i'm sure you can see how others would find him hard to handle. I have a little Spencer crush growing here 
Tink prefers to rifle the sorted laundry piles, identify her favourite bra (yes she does have one) grab it and charge arounnd with it, preferably taking it into the garden for a victory lap or two.

Dobermummy you may be slower than Mouse, he has got four legs after all , I'm a bit rubbish at the running and can get away with a giddy canter Tinkers shorter legs are more forgiving ! but i'm awe at the planned cycling i'm not great with a bike, I tried to make a concerted effort just before we got Tink and I ended up hitting a hidden tree stump and going over the handlebars :lol: :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Hi Everyone.
I will try and catch up at some point today to see how everyones doing, I've just been really busy .

We had agaility yesterday, just Moll on her own and she was Fantastic Big Evie was blown away with how good she was and there was no doubt she enjoyed it. Such an enjoyable lesson.

I found a couple of fleas again last night. So today after I have groomed the St. Bernard [part 2] I have to bath my own 4 and blitz all the house :cryin: I have been and told the neighbour- and said if she finds any to bring her dog across and use the other entrance away from my girls.
Lily is coming tonight for the week[she's renamed Tullulah :blink:].I can just see OH calling her that:laugh: I think she gets away with murder now- even allowed to chase sheep because she doesn't do anything to them. She'll be spending a week on lead here.

Happy 'Lucky to be alive' day to the lovely Miss Tink.

Sarah a lovely pic of Spencer-does he want to come and help me with some housework today.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Hi Everyone.
> I will try and catch up at some point today to see how everyones doing, I've just been really busy .
> 
> We had agaility yesterday, just Moll on her own and she was Fantastic Big Evie was blown away with how good she was and there was no doubt she enjoyed it. Such an enjoyable lesson.
> 
> I found a couple of fleas again last night. So today after I have groomed the St. Bernard [part 2] I have to bath my own 4 and blitz all the house :cryin: I have been and told the neighbour- and said if she finds any to bring her dog across and use the other entrance away from my girls.
> Lily is coming tonight for the week[she's renamed Tullulah :blink:].I can just see OH calling her that:laugh: I think she gets away with murder now- even allowed to chase sheep because she doesn't do anything to them. She'll be spending a week on lead here.
> 
> Happy 'Lucky to be alive' day to the lovely Miss Tink.
> 
> Sarah a lovely pic of Spencer-does he want to come and help me with some housework today.


Welcome back . Brilliant that you finally had a really fantastic session with Moll - you were starting to sound so disheartened .

Bad news about the fleas - how frustrating :cryin:. And Tullulah  - definitely onlead if she's allowed to chase sheep  :nono:. That's awful! Shame she isn't allowed off though just so you can record OH recalling her :crazy:.


----------



## Dogless

dobermummy said:


> Happy 2nd Lucky to be alive day Tink, we expects photos later
> 
> *Mouse is so much better at running than me*  and i have learnt very fast not to run with him and let the kids cone on their bikes because i am the slowest and none will stop at my speed
> 
> When its just me and Mouse he is better, he still tries to run into my legs and cross sides or get under my feet but a lot less than to start with. He focuses on me well and ignores pretty much everything else going on. im also getting a bike attatchment for him for extra and different exercise for us both


I'd be recommending the vet if he wasn't :crazy: . Wait until you do get very fit and you are running along really strongly, feeling really proud and you get 'the look' of disdain that it's all you can manage - nothing quite like it for the ego :cryin: .


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah, Spencer is doing so well with you, i'm sure you can see how others would find him hard to handle. I have a little Spencer crush growing here


Oh god yeah, I can certainly see why some would find him hard to handle. All that energy, intelligence and desire to be doing something can be a recipe for disaster! I think in the wrong home he could easily become a problem dog purely out of boredom. He'll only be a pet here but at least I'm willing to put in the effort needed to fulfil his needs.

As for your Spencer crush, I'll send him to you next time Kevin puts in an appearance  And I think it's fantastic how far you and Tink have come. I keep a log of Spens little achievements coz when you live with them and see their behaviour every day you just don't really notice the changes. It's nice to be able to go back and look at how far you've come.

Dogless, I have to keep things fairly low key with Spen if I don't want him going a bit loopy. There are times I do get all silly with him but I tend to save it for the really spectacular things and times where him getting the zoomies doesn't matter.

Dobermummy, you're braver than me daring to bike with your dog. I'd likely end up over the handlebars into a clump of nettles or something knowing my luck.

Kat&Molly, Spen would add to your housework rather than help with it lol. He sheds yellow hairs everywhere, shreds any papery stuff he can get hold of and will walk mud into your house on even the driest of days.


----------



## L/C

Well I haven't posted an update for a while but we've had a few really good days. :thumbup:

I've been working on down stays with both of them and I can now put them both in a down stay together and walk away for 10 steps and then wait 10 seconds. Their work with distractions is also very good - one day last week they both ignored a westie that came up and was jumping all over them and this morning they ignored Coco and Penny (the very vocal dachshunds) and kept their focus on me.

Ely has come on in leaps and bounds. Last week he ignored two, rude adolescent, un-neutered males who were very pushy and wouldn't leave him alone and we've also been meeting a small group of reliable dogs and walking with them (moving along - not standing in a group which is one of his triggers). This morning there were slightly more dogs then usual (but all steady reliable ones that we know) so we were walking with Max the lurcher, Bojangles the OES and Joplin the Newfie (so with my two 5 in all when there's usually 4).

We were jumped by 2 dogs (one an un-neutered adolescent male!) who were friendly but rude. I stood at the back with Ely and Max and his owner (he can be reactive on lead) and asked the guy to call his dogs. Which he couldn't. The male went up to Max who lunged and pinned him (lots of noise - no damage) but Ely didn't move! He went stiff but I was able to distract him and he didn't try to join in. This was a classic trigger situation for him so I was very proud. :thumbup:

Still no word on the classes or a refund though. Getting very annoyed.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Well I haven't posted an update for a while but we've had a few really good days. :thumbup:
> 
> I've been working on down stays with both of them and I can now put them both in a down stay together and walk away for 10 steps and then wait 10 seconds. Their work with distractions is also very good - one day last week they both ignored a westie that came up and was jumping all over them and this morning they ignored Coco and Penny (the very vocal dachshunds) and kept their focus on me.
> 
> Ely has come on in leaps and bounds. Last week he ignored two, rude adolescent, un-neutered males who were very pushy and wouldn't leave him alone and we've also been meeting a small group of reliable dogs and walking with them (moving along - not standing in a group which is one of his triggers). This morning there were slightly more dogs then usual (but all steady reliable ones that we know) so we were walking with Max the lurcher, Bojangles the OES and Joplin the Newfie (so with my two 5 in all when there's usually 4).
> 
> We were jumped by 2 dogs (one an un-neutered adolescent male!) who were friendly but rude. I stood at the back with Ely and Max and his owner (he can be reactive on lead) and asked the guy to call his dogs. Which he couldn't. The male went up to Max who lunged and pinned him (lots of noise - no damage) but Ely didn't move! He went stiff but I was able to distract him and he didn't try to join in. This was a classic trigger situation for him so I was very proud. :thumbup:
> 
> Still no word on the classes or a refund though. Getting very annoyed.


Wow L/C blooming heck they sound like really great days. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: looks like your hard work is paying off  

K&M Sorry you are back on the flea eradication mission  what a pain

So glad you and Molls had a great time at agility   so pleased you jumg in there, sounds like it's really clicked now 

"Tallulah" :lol: :lol: :lol: I can't see my OH calling that.

We had a lovely day. Nice walk in one of tinks favourite places this morning ( have pics will post when photobucket stops having a tantrum.) This evening had a great training walk. on lead, offlead heel work. stops and distance work then some silly stuff just for fun. Got home to find an email from our games trainer asking if we'd be available to do a display ...... on MONDAY!!! at a little local fun day , apparently the organisers have been let down by another training school at late notice, I've agreed in a fit of enthusiasm, I don't have to dress up for this one ... at least I haven't been told that yet :lol:


----------



## Dogless

L/C - your two seem to be going from strength to strength; it's so good to see someone's hard graft yielding results, genuinely makes me happy!

mv - sounds like you had a great day and can't wait for the oics - madam T stood on something perhaps? . Best get your tricks polished up for Monday and dig out that pom pom collar :scared: :thumbup:.

We had two superb walks today - one locally mostly onlead working on focus mainly but with lots of time to stop and sniff as a reward and 20 minutes or so offlead to blow off some steam in the middle. Park this afternoon and the BW didn't put a paw wrong, even when we couldn't get rid of a loose dog for 5 minutes...I asked the man to get his dog as he was just texting away and having a *** ignoring him. He declined not very politely :mad2: then the dog chased an old fella growling before finally going to see what his owner was up to .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - sounds like you had a great day and can't wait for the oics - madam T stood on something perhaps? . Best get your tricks polished up for Monday and dig out that pom pom collar :scared: :thumbup:.


Tink on something I dont' know what you mean, not like she has an "on things" fetish :lol: :lol: just scanning through the pics... on a fallen tree, on some big tree roots, on a 'tuffet', on a rock...:lol: :lol:



Dogless said:


> We had two superb walks today - one locally mostly onlead working on focus mainly but with lots of time to stop and sniff as a reward and 20 minutes or so offlead to blow off some steam in the middle. Park this afternoon and the BW didn't put a paw wrong, even when we couldn't get rid of a loose dog for 5 minutes...I asked the man to get his dog as he was just texting away and having a *** ignoring him. He declined not very politely :mad2: then the dog chased an old fella growling before finally going to see what his owner was up to .


 Sounds like you and the BW did great, shame about texting *** man


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- Fantastic, especially Ely. :thumbup:

Dogless- I haven't caught up yet, but it sounds like the Big Fella is doing great. Are you still giving the Nupa feed? I thought about something likethat for Evie's confidence but I think ifshe were feeling really brave she'd give me more problems.

MV- how exciting. I hope you dont get rained off again- we'll need piccies.

Well madam landed early, so 5 dogs were bathed and my vacuum packed up just as I started so had to rush out and buy a new one I only swa 3 fleas so hopefully thats nipped it in the bud.

OH is refusing to use her name and just calls her Lily- I can only manage Lula


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> L/C- Fantastic, especially Ely. :thumbup:
> 
> Dogless- I haven't caught up yet, but it sounds like the Big Fella is doing great. Are you still giving the Nupa feed? I thought about something likethat for Evie's confidence but I think ifshe were feeling really brave she'd give me more problems.
> 
> MV- how exciting. I hope you dont get rained off again- we'll need piccies.
> 
> Well madam landed early, so 5 dogs were bathed and my vacuum packed up just as I started so had to rush out and buy a new one I only swa 3 fleas so hopefully thats nipped it in the bud.
> 
> OH is refusing to use her name and just calls her Lily- I can only manage Lula


k&m - sounds like a madhouse :scared: .

I am still using the Nupafeed - I gave it continuously for a month twice per day and now give it once per day and before anything like school or a walk here when lots of kids are out. Soon I'm going to give it solely before anything stressful / a busy environment etc. It really does seem to have helped - whether placebo for Kilo's neurotic owner because I believe he's being supported or the liquid itself I don't know but he really is calmer and more focussed with it.


----------



## kat&molly

Boo Hoo- if it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all
I had to clip Lula today, her fur was quite bad for matts, and what did I find, lots of fleas. My shampoo is good but fleas hide in the matts and escape, I can only assume she came with them.
So Operation Flea, part 3 tomorrow. Honestly I feel frazzled at the moment.

I was quite suprised at the reactions yesterday when she came. None of my girls seemed pleased to see her at all- they were never 'friends' but all managed to rub along together nicely, apart from a few days when Lula was in season. Evie especially, and she was in the same run/kennel at the refuge. Things are calmer today but I shall have to be careful and not leave them alone together as I think the slightest thing could escalate in to a fight.

And yes, I'm thrilled with the Agilty, I know its not what I wanted but Moll did seem really keen this week. As long as she enjoys it I'm happy to continue- its nice to do something just me and her- except I have to share my dog with that Big Evie as she adores Moll and vice versa.

Hope everyones had a better day than me.


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## Beth17

Sorry to hear about the fleas k&m what a nightmare  Hopefully you you can sort them out and also the girls will start to come round to the visitor 

Had a lovely day today a nice quiet walk this morning and then went to a fun dog show put on by the rescue I got the boys from. It was fantastic socialisation for Sam and he got a couple of thirds in best puppy and best rescue story  Oscar also came up for a couple of hours and was good as gold especially as he was quite excited; we have lots of lovely goody bags to go through now 

Also a pet photographer up there and got a few pictures taken of the boys so hopefully they will turn out well and I'll be able to order some!

They are both crashed out now and I get to have a quiet night


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## moonviolet

Oh K&M you are having a hard time with those pesky critters   I hope you have them blitzed once and for all soon.

I hope it's not too much hardship keeping Lily and the others separated, but it does sound like it's necessary.

On a brighter note it's great you are enjoying agility, you may find that when she's been doing that a while she will approach the gundog things in a more controlled manner. Sometimes getting the communication and control in a slightly less exciting activity will transfer to a more exciting one. 

Beth, It's sounds like a great doggie day, well behaved dogs, rosettes and goody bags too ( no pics?)

We received a plan of what we are doing on monday (weather permitting) so we are polishing things up at every opportunity. I must have looked a right nutjob sending Tink to push over a water bottle on our evening walk, and throwing my car keys into the bracken etc. Needs must ! Talking of weather permitting, had a big thunderstorm this afternoon, her ladyship rolled over and sighed then went back to sleep. So glad she isn't bothered.

As I type this i'm reinforcing her "mat of gratuitous treats" if she decides not to to anything else on monday i'll be chuffed if she just lays on her mats :lol:


----------



## bordie

my dog....................................


----------



## Dogless

k&m - more fleas? . How horrible :mad2:.

Beth17 - sounds like you had a great day and your boys did well; hope they like their goodies .

mv - car keys into the bracken? :scared: brave lady .

Great walk yesterday morning in the park - real gold star morning :thumbup:. Yesterday afternoon wasn't good but not behaviour - wise. As soon as we were round the corner from the house Kilo was nose to the ground, whining, drooling and pulling. We then met someone who hastily grabbed their offlead dog who was trying like mad to reach us - in season according to the owner . Walked to the offlead fields but they had obviously taken same route. Went on in case they hadn't gone on there but they clearly had; so obviously didn't let him off and left the fields to go onto the onlead fields where they hadn't been, but the wind was coming from the direction of the offlead ones so he just whined and air scented a lot. Came home as he was stressed via a different route. So - not great :mad2:. 

On the way back we met someone who had lost their male dog....told them where the in season bitch lived (just behind us) and I am guessing that they found him there! It hasn't rained so certainly won't be walking that route or using the fields this morning!


----------



## kat&molly

Beth-that sounds a great day with your 2- hope you get some nice photos from it.

Moonviolet- I've got my fingers crossed that the weather holds out for tomorrow.

Dogless People are so inconsiderate. I hope its not someone who lives close by and you get some rain to wash the scent away.

I hadn't thought about the control passing over like that MV Think though, Agility is Big Evie's forte[she's had a worldchampion dog] and I'm learning how and why we do things a certain way-I was never really happy with the way the Gun Dog lessons went, and feel its best to forget them 

Lula is a little Devil. I dont think she has the lead on much at home-she screams and barks and attacks it.Wow ,she can pull for a little one-much worse than my 3 BEFORE I started the LLW training.:scared:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Lula is a little Devil. I dont think she has the lead on much at home-she screams and barks and attacks it.Wow ,she can pull for a little one-much worse than my 3 BEFORE I started the LLW training.:scared:


Bet Evie's chuffed - makes her seem :aureola::aureola::aureola:.

The woman does live near me - I have three ways to get out of our street ; two past her house and one that isn't but is on the route she takes. She walks down our street past the house a lot too...so I'm just hoping for rain!! Wouldn't have been so bad if she wasn't out at about the most popular walking time!


----------



## kat&molly

Just seen Dogless- she lives behind you-lovely

L/C-I liked the names of those dogs you mentioned-Bojangles and Joplin Better than some of the French owned ones I get through my doors, had a Poodle yesterday called Olamp:laugh:


----------



## Beth17

moonviolet said:


> Beth, It's sounds like a great doggie day, well behaved dogs, rosettes and goody bags too ( no pics?)


Well if you insist 

None from the actual day but just a couple at home with their rosettes!

















They then had to be whisked away as Sam decided they looked quite tasty


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - car keys into the bracken? :scared: brave lady .


I feel should qualify this a short distance into thin bracken still visible to me not to the floppy eared one. I'm not that brave

Poor Kilo the aroma must be driving him mad, but you had control so whilst not a test you want there is still a positive to be drawn from it. Hope it's nice and wet at the times they want to walk her and they decide to stay in and exercise her at indoors 

K&M I didn't definitely keep up the agility with Big Evie and Moll. But you could if you fancied it research and do some more of the gundog work yourself. If I remember rightly "Grandad" on here was a great fan of Leslie Grahams pet gundog books. Gundog Trainer Wiltshire | The Pet Gundog

Sounds Like Lula is trying to out "Evie" Little Evie and doing so quite impressively!

I'm just waiting for her ladyship to sleep off breakfast before we have another training session and i think i may be painting some props later. Trotting about on a celebrations tub has a less than impressive air :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Went for a long walk (well, I walked; Kilo had mammoth running urges this morning) in 'our' forest this morning. Off to a BBQ shortly .


----------



## Dogless

Went to the BBQ, but came home to walk and feed Kilo (only a few houses away!). Walked a different route to yesterday around the top sports pitches, but seems like the in season bitch had also been there from Kilo's reaction so looks like I'll have to put him in the car and drive to all walks for a while. Never mind, I only usually drive to somewhere once per day but twice won't hurt in the short term I guess!!


----------



## moonviolet

Oh dear, At least you know the cause I suppose. 

I've been getting slightly carried away with props, much painting and varnishing with little traning sessions between coats. Shortened our evening walk and did a run through of the whole thing she was great. :thumbup: Hope she does as well tomorrow


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh dear, At least you know the cause I suppose.
> 
> I've been getting slightly carried away with props, much painting and varnishing with little traning sessions between coats. Shortened our evening walk and did a run through of the whole thing she was great. :thumbup: Hope she does as well tomorrow


Wishing you the very best of luck....what sort of props? Or do we have to wait for the PICTURES :thumbup::thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Wishing you the very best of luck....what sort of props? Or do we have to wait for the PICTURES :thumbup::thumbup:.


Nothing fancy, just her celebrations tub podium is now silver. Her kit box is now gold. She has a mini picnic basket to stand in (I'm not sure why she would stand in a picnic basket it was either that or a small crate thing. I'm not quite sure what i was thinking (paint fumes maybe) but it looks cute, she's happy getting into it and it's better than the shallow cardboard box I was using. Coloured the water in her "bottle bowling" bottles. Wiped down her gym ball. Sorted out a bag and some toys for a blind key retrieve.

Now to make a list of everything I need to take :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Nothing fancy, just her celebrations tub podium is now silver. Her kit box is now gold. She has a mini picnic basket to stand in (I'm not sure why she would stand in a picnic basket it was either that or a small crate thing. I'm not quite sure what i was thinking (paint fumes maybe) but it looks cute, she's happy getting into it and it's better than the shallow cardboard box I was using. Coloured the water in her "bottle bowling" bottles. Wiped down her gym ball. Sorted out a bag and some toys for a blind key retrieve.
> 
> Now to make a list of everything I need to take :lol:


Are you wearing anything bonkers or going as 'you'?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Are you wearing anything bonkers or going as 'you'?


Thankfully just normal. Organised through the slightly less mad trainer  Just got a text saying we have reserved parking. A part of me is praying for rain a part of me is looking forward to having fun :blush:


----------



## ballybee

Today was the scottish spinone clubs AGm and funday so we went along with the boys, Tummel was on his dogmatic(just in case) but was actually really good with all the other dogs, he did pull a bit and was really bad for constantly lunging at a wee old springer(neutered male, all the entire dogs were far too interested in him including Dan).

Dan was fantastic, he was so calm about all these dogs and his breeder was very impressed. None of his littermates came along but there was another puppy who he made friends with  He won naughtiest puppy and got 2nd place in dog the judges would most like to take home in the fun show too  Didn't bother entering Tummel as the only class he'd be any good in would be most disobediant and when he's in a group on dogs he doesn't know he's the opposite of the class 

Oh put them both in the fun scurry, Dan managed a retrieve of a 2lb dummy in 58 seconds, Tummel just got upset as i wasn't there and he kept getting out of the scurry to come find me 

So all in all...a good day was had


----------



## moonviolet

ballybee said:


> Today was the scottish spinone clubs AGm and funday so we went along with the boys, Tummel was on his dogmatic(just in case) but was actually really good with all the other dogs, he did pull a bit and was really bad for constantly lunging at a wee old springer(neutered male, all the entire dogs were far too interested in him including Dan).
> 
> Dan was fantastic, he was so calm about all these dogs and his breeder was very impressed. None of his littermates came along but there was another puppy who he made friends with  He won naughtiest puppy and got 2nd place in dog the judges would most like to take home in the fun show too  Didn't bother entering Tummel as the only class he'd be any good in would be most disobediant and when he's in a group on dogs he doesn't know he's the opposite of the class
> 
> Oh put them both in the fun scurry, Dan managed a retrieve of a 2lb dummy in 58 seconds, Tummel just got upset as i wasn't there and he kept getting out of the scurry to come find me
> 
> So all in all...a good day was had


Sounds like a great day  the sort of day you need pics of 

Lovely that Dan's breeeder was impressed  I bet that felt good


----------



## moonviolet

Hmmm they forecasted rain, it's grey but there's a hint of sun behind the clouds.... oh dear i may actually have to do this thing :lol:


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Hmmm they forecasted rain, it's grey but there's a hint of sun behind the clouds.... oh dear i may actually have to do this thing :lol:


Good Luck . We have gales and torrential rain here so you'd be off the hook .


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## kat&molly

Good Luck for today Moonviolet, am sure the Lovely Miss Tink will do you proud:thumbup: Look forward to piccies later.


Well I finished round 3 of de-fleaing- so my fingers are crossed thats it!!!
Work is quieter for me this week, I'm pleased about that for now with Lula being here and the weather is a bit cooler so hopefully I can get some work done with the girls. I borrowed a couple of jumps off Big Evie a couple of weeks ago ,it'll be interesting to see who wants to have a play.
Lula is an Angel indoors, she's settled like she never went away which is nice, I expected her to be upset for a few days but she hasn't been.
Once outside though she's a demon, she screamed all the way to our walk in the car yesterday. She screams pulls bites on the lead as well- I just kept stopping and she soon caught on, not the pulling but I dont think its worth me insisting on that as it wont be continued once she goes home.


Thanks for the book rec. MV, I can remember Grandad mentioned it but I forgot what it was called. Off to look it up.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Good Luck . We have gales and torrential rain here so you'd be off the hook .


If you send it now, do you think it would make it by 2pm?

I do this everytime, vacillate between this is going to be fun and why on earth have I agreed to do this.

At least the rain will have watched the comely young lady dog's come hither fragrance away, hope the weather calms enough to enjoy it


----------



## moonviolet

K&M I hope thats the very last of the fleas. It's nice that Lula has settled in the house, but she sounds a "challenge" outside.

Glad it's a bit cooler and work is a bit quieter so you can have some fun rahter than just try to get cool 

Thank you for the luck i think we will be using all the luck we can get, she'll either be a darling or a Diva.


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## kat&molly

I have a couple of concerns about Lula- would you say anything??

1. She's fed on Pedigree Chum- it isn't my place to say anything about that I know but her teeth have gotten awful in this past 12 months.

2. Her harness is very tight, it must restrict her breathing- would you be offended if I sent another one back that fits?

3. Her fur was terrible and I've had to clip her really short- its not good as her fur is thin and she'll feel the cold or could get sun burnt now. Plus the flea thing- their house will need doing as I'm positive she came with them.

I dont know what to do.

Dogless- I hope the rain washes all the scent away.
MV- Tink will be a Darling- I bet you'll be pleased you've done it later.


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## Beth17

Good luck to both of you moonviolet! 

Going to take the boys out in a bit when the rain has eased off. Going to walk them separately again and do some lead work with Sam as he's getting quite good when he is on his own.

Yesterday we only had a slow wander around the block and that was enough for him after saturday


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I have a couple of concerns about Lula- would you say anything??
> 
> 1. She's fed on Pedigree Chum- it isn't my place to say anything about that I know but her teeth have gotten awful in this past 12 months.
> 
> 2. Her harness is very tight, it must restrict her breathing- would you be offended if I sent another one back that fits?
> 
> 3. Her fur was terrible and I've had to clip her really short- its not good as her fur is thin and she'll feel the cold or could get sun burnt now. Plus the flea thing- their house will need doing as I'm positive she came with them.
> 
> I dont know what to do.
> 
> Dogless- I hope the rain washes all the scent away.
> MV- Tink will be a Darling- I bet you'll be pleased you've done it later.


How horribly awkward  I think it depends a little on their owners, if they a inexperienced "sponges" ready to soak up advice gently given. I'd go for it. If they aren't it becomes a ballet on eggshells.

I'd try to make most it it general conversational rather than directed at them... talk about work and how the dogs that a groomed regularly are a breeze to clip ( or whatever) Then about the teeth say something about another dog who's teeth have seen huge improvement using / doing xyz these things will hopefully be anough to draw their attention without being confrontational etc

Or...

go for the official looking sheet

Type up and print out a health check sheet from taking her into your care something like SDH daily dog health check http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/134938-your-dogs-daily-health-check.html

1) EYES. These should be clear without any discharge or redness as this could be a sign of infection.

2) EARS. The insides of your dogs ears should be clear with no odour. A Dogs ears should be cleaned regularly to avoid any infection especially dogs with dropped ears such as spaniels.

3) MUZZLE. The nose should be free of discharge.

4) TEETH AND GUMS. Gently lift your dogs lips, the gums should be pink. Teeth should be clean and white with no yellow plaque or tartar and there should not be a bad smell. There are products on the market for keeping teeth clean, but always get your vet to check the teeth if you are concerned,and clean if necessary. Also check for bleeding gums.

5) COAT AND SKIN. The coat should be free from tangles,and shiny looking. There should be no evidence of flaking skin. A good brush will help stimulate the skin.

6) BODY CHECKS. Run your hands through the coat to check for any lumps of wounds. Part the hair to look for signs of fleas or ticks. Check dogs testicles and bitches mammary glands for any unusual swelling.

7) WEIGHT. know the weight of your dog,and monitor it regularly (Your vet will usually do this for you on any visits free of charge) If you can feel the ribcage then you have probably got it right.

8) PAWS. Check the pads for open cuts,splinters or seeds. Nails should be short and healthy looking without any splitting.

9) UNDER THE TAIL. Hold up the tail and check for any signs of discharge or soreness. The anal glands might occasionally need emptying a job for your vet.

10) ENERGY. Your dog should always look alert.[/QUOTE]

You could edit to include any pertinent points, fill it out give it to them i dont' know if any of this is helpful.


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet- you are a star.:thumbup: I will print all that and say its something I give to all my clients, that way I'm not being picky am I?
She is a really nice lady, and does adore Lula[a bit too much] she's never had a dog before so maybe doesn't realise some things. I'm even going to actually print some of those off for other clients- a Fab idea.:thumbup:

The harness thing I might buy a pretty new one and apologize that Evie chewed the other. Shes a little Devil that dog.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- you are a star.:thumbup: I will print all that and say its something I give to all my clients, that way I'm not being picky am I?
> She is a really nice lady, and does adore Lula[a bit too much] she's never had a dog before so maybe doesn't realise some things. I'm even going to actually print some of those off for other clients- a Fab idea.:thumbup:
> 
> The harness thing I might buy a pretty new one and apologize that Evie chewed the other. Shes a little Devil that dog.


Great idea about the harness and very generous, poor Little Evie taking the fall again :lol: from what you say it's just a lack of knowledge i'm sure a little support in your professional capacity will be much appreciated.

Beth thanks for the good luck, still no rain here hope you have a lovely walk with the boys later


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly; I agree with mv - the 'health check' info is very non confrontational and you aren't directly criticising. Perhaps you could offer some 'groomer's tips' about the coat and also say that's something that you discuss with all clients? Very generous of you to buy a new harness too.

We have just been to the fields and Kilo went offlead for an hour or so no probs as the weather's so foul it seemed to have eradicated all the eau de season :thumbup:.


----------



## kat&molly

Glad you got a decent walk in Dogless- bet the awful weather keeps others indoors as well.
I'm sure she'll take it all ok, she is really nice. They say dogs are like their owners and shes a Dizzy, hyper sort of person- which is just how Lula's turned out.

Perhaps they both eat Pedigree Chum.:laugh: 

Beth have a good day with the boys- my girls are lovely when walked seperate.


----------



## moonviolet

So glad i agreed to go today. The event was pretty quiet but other than the proximity of the BBQ and the wealth of lovely sniffs Our display went well and I think we all all enjoyed it. Here's a few pics

Podium work









George shows his impulse control with a wait before fetching his much loved ball.









Tink does a key retrieve from bag ... with a dramatic pause to build hte tension :lol:









Flynn retrieves his ball from a crate of playpen balls









Lenny does a little freestyle routine.









Tink loves bottle bowling 









We had fun, even if there was barely anyone there to watch :lol:


----------



## Dogless

That looks like great fun mv and I LOVE Tink's attentive expression during the podium work - it must make you so proud. She was obviously really well behaved today - a BBQ is some distraction :scared:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> That looks like great fun mv and I LOVE Tink's attentive expression during the podium work - it must make you so proud. She was obviously really well behaved today - a BBQ is some distraction :scared:.


She was wearing her training lead for a reason :lol: The ring was open sided and that bbq smelled so good :lol: Sadly one fo the dogs that was coming was ill  So it was only 3 mad dog ladies 2 of whom are trainers and lil old me :lol:


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## Beth17

Lovely pictures all the doggies look like they did brilliantly!

It's a shame there weren't more people to watch you but a great way to build confidence for the next one


----------



## sligy

We have loads to work on, mostly not barking at the telly but fingers crossed this is much better in only a couple of weeks! 
Also Hugo has a complete meltdown when i empty the bin, he is totally petrified of black bin bags, this causes quite a problem walking him on bin day  have no idea what that is about. 
And not running off with things to chew them, its mainly little things like letters but its rather annoying trying to piece the mail back together after he has got hold of it (no amount of asking the mail man to leave mail in the porch seems to work) . Also that cables are not to be chewed. 
But its a slow but gradual process


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Lovely pictures all the doggies look like they did brilliantly!
> 
> It's a shame there weren't more people to watch you but a great way to build confidence for the* next one *


It was lots of fun , I jsut hope hte next one isn't too soon :lol: I'm not sure Tink or OH could put up with in me in " preparation " mode too often. :lol:


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## Beth17

Had good walks with both the boys today whilst the rain took a break, walked Oscar up to the field where he got some offlead frisbee fun and socialisation, he recalled everytime and was just brill!

Sam also had a good walk his lead work when on his own is starting to come along nicely now. Only one hiccup Sam was onlead and a terrier came around the corner with owner a few feet back we stopped and the terrier had a sniff then decided to have a go and nip him  I was not best pleased especially when the man just said 'oh benjie' :mad2: 

Well we carried on and met a lovely flatcoat straight after and he had a play with her, then on the way home I purposely went back to where we met this dog and he seemed fine, not hesitant at all and got lots of praise so hopefully he should be ok I'll just keep an eye on him.

On another note when practising general obedience Sam is almost too enthusiastic which means he is launching himself into downs and hi5's etc. Although his enthusiasm is lovely it's making it harder to get him to focus as he's working through what he knows so quickly trying to guess what I want from him I can't keep up


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## kat&molly

Fantastic photos MV-love Tinks face, I bet your heart stopped when she paused Looks like they were all focused and enjoying it.
I think you're really brave, dont think I could stand up and do that in front of people.:thumbup:


----------



## Lola71

After our fab 2nd place at the local show yesterday i have decided that i need to get her more used to other people checking her over. She happily does it at our training class, although i guess she is familiar with the trainers but yesterday she looked really worried about having a stranger trying to look at her teeth so i am going to make a point of getting more people to do it, i will enlist the help of friends and neighbours when we are out walking i think!
She was really good with the other dogs there, and didn't really react to many apart from if they were small and quite jumpy. She was very well behaved in the ring and stood quietly in line with all the other dogs and ignored them which i was a bit worried about to be honest.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Fantastic photos MV-love Tinks face, I bet your heart stopped when she paused Looks like they were all focused and enjoying it.
> I think you're really brave, dont think I could stand up and do that in front of people.:thumbup:


To be honest if we'd just gone down the park to practise there would have been more people watching :lol: :lol: :lol: I just treated it like a class and focussed on Tinker.

As for the pause she had got the keys picked them up and they had caught a little on the zip and being so soft mouthed she dropped them ( you can se a the little blue lanyard on the left of the bag is you look close), there was a noise, a very large motorbike starting, she just had to check it was ok, then she looked at me and I confess I bribed , I showed her what was in it for her then asked again, Sadly the angle on the chest scratch pic as she's dropped teh keys into my left hand.

I don't think i mind doing my thing with Tink preferably with reheasal next time, but doing the bit on the mic would turn me into a gabbling buffoon.


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## kat&molly

I think Tink done well to continue- especially with a motorbike noise, they can be enough to scare anyone.
I hope you treated her to a BBQ sausage.


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I think Tink done well to continue- especially with a motorbike noise, they can be enough to scare anyone.
> I hope you treated her to a BBQ sausage.


She had lots of tuna cake and yes, she did have part of a bbq sausage. She was wiped out when we got home around 4. I thought that was going to be it for the day but at 7pm she jumped up ready for a walk, I took her out thinking it would be a short sniff and mooch but nope, It was zoomie central very pleased with herself 

ETA:

Tinker: " ... the BBQ is over there!"


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## kat&molly

Awww, bless Tink- she was obviously starving to death:laugh:

Wow, is it nearly Saturday yet.:scared:
Lula is just horrendous outside- I can understand why the rest of the family voted to not take her on holiday.
This afternoon I will have to put her in the parlour [perhaps in a crate?] and take her once I've taken my girls out-I know she'll scream the place down but she'll have to I think. To be fair she's obviously not used to being stuck on lead and perhaps Pedigree food is sending her a bit cuckoo- I know it would Moll if she was having that.
Even when she came last year for foster I always said she was a bit of a Diva- but not like this.
Be interesting to see how she is on her own .


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Awww, bless Tink- she was obviously starving to death:laugh:
> 
> Wow, is it nearly Saturday yet.:scared:
> Lula is just horrendous outside- I can understand why the rest of the family voted to not take her on holiday.
> This afternoon I will have to put her in the parlour [perhaps in a crate?] and take her once I've taken my girls out-I know she'll scream the place down but she'll have to I think. To be fair she's obviously not used to being stuck on lead and perhaps Pedigree food is sending her a bit cuckoo- I know it would Moll if she was having that.
> Even when she came last year for foster I always said she was a bit of a Diva- but not like this.
> Be interesting to see how she is on her own .


I feel a bit sorry for Lula, it sounds like her new owner loves her very much but doesn't full know how to translate that love into the things Lula needs 

Hope she settles ok in the parlour while you take your girls out ( i bet they look like angels now) and she is better on her own. I htink i would try a little training jsut so i could keep my sanity the rest of the week. Very very good luck


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I feel a bit sorry for Lula, it sounds like her new owner loves her very much but doesn't full know how to translate that love into the things Lula needs
> 
> Hope she settles ok in the parlour while you take your girls out ( i bet they look like angels now) and she is better on her own. I htink i would try a little training jsut so i could keep my sanity the rest of the week. Very very good luck


I feel sorry for her- she has soooo much energy, but is as quiet as a church mouse indoors. I think she wears herself out and then just sleeps. Her owner did say when she took her on that she'd take her training-but she hasn't.
I'm going to take her with me to Agility on Thursday for Big Evie to see- she offers her first lesson free, maybe I can talk her owner in to that? Its sad that she couldn't go on holiday with them, the mother wanted her there.
She did used to play up when she saw sheep here, but I let her off the lead when we were away from them- I daren't now, she checks all the fields to look for them, obsessed because she's been allowed to chase.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I feel sorry for her- she has soooo much energy, but is as quiet as a church mouse indoors. I think she wears herself out and then just sleeps. Her owner did say when she took her on that she'd take her training-but she hasn't.
> I'm going to take her with me to Agility on Thursday for Big Evie to see- she offers her first lesson free, maybe I can talk her owner in to that? Its sad that she couldn't go on holiday with them, the mother wanted her there.
> She did used to play up when she saw sheep here, but I let her off the lead when we were away from them- I daren't now, she checks all the fields to look for them, obsessed because she's been allowed to chase.


It's such a shame  poor girl again it's very good of you taking her on thursday. It would be wonderful if you could encourage the owners to take her to training it's so rewarding seeing them blossom.

This mornings walk was so interesting madam still seems to be on cloud 9. ( i'm beginning to picture her saying " dahhhhling don't you know I belong on the stage" it seems to have given her such a boost, we had saw lots fo dogs we had never seen before. She spotted an offlead GSd ( incredibly well behaved off lead) heading in the opposite direction on a parallel path. there was a mutual acknowledgement of each others existence then both Tink and beautiful GSD looked away and carried on. A flicker of unsure in Tinks body language, a positive word and it melted away :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Then there was a a wirehaired lurcher, Tink was a little less sure and sat and lifted a paw, so i popped her onlead and we carried on, Less than a minute later she literally shook it off and I let her off again.

Then comes the funniest we saw a lovely looking staffie with a male owner and his young daughter, maybe 3 ish. I put Tink on lead as Staffie's often have enthusiastic greetings, He called over and said his dog was ok, I explained about Tink being unsure of being run at, and why so he walked his dog over at heel ! let Tink back off and they greet beautifully had a short game of chase, Daisy is 10 and doens't really liek chase and prefers to wrestle but when tink didn't respond to a little shove she went back to sniffing... then Tink spotted the child and decided to put on a show... jumping onto a fallen tree trotting along it and back again while the little girl giggled and clapped. what have I created ? :lol: :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Awww, Bless.:001_wub:
What a little show off she is, bet that little girl loved it.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Awww, Bless.:001_wub:
> What a little show off she is, bet that little girl loved it.


I've always encouraged her to do a trick rather than be petted, She doens't enjoy beng fussed by strangers when we are out and about ( unless she is on the mat of gratuitous treats) she'd rather being doing things so I have always encouraged her to do a trick or two for kids instead. She loves to be adored from a safe distance :lol: until she knows you better.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I've always encouraged her to do a trick rather than be petted, She doens't enjoy beng fussed by strangers when we are out and about ( unless she is on the mat of gratuitous treats) she'd rather being doing things so I have always encouraged her to do a trick or two for kids instead. She loves to be adored from a safe distance :lol: until she knows you better.


Thats a good idea- I could try getting Evie to run through her whole book of tricks, erm thats just a spin then-and she doesn't even do them on Tuesdays and Wednesdays:laugh:
I just tried some jumps in the garden, I had the height at about 10cm to start with. Lula and Scruff done it no problem- I put it higher for them and they done it fine. Evie wouldn't even do the 10cm.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thats a good idea- I could try getting Evie to run through her whole book of tricks, erm thats just a spin then-and she doesn't even do them on Tuesdays and Wednesdays:laugh:
> I just tried some jumps in the garden, I had the height at about 10cm to start with. Lula and Scruff done it no problem- I put it higher for them and they done it fine. Evie wouldn't even do the 10cm.


Aww Evie is a legend


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Thats a good idea- I could try getting Evie to run through her whole book of tricks, erm thats just a spin then-and she doesn't even do them on Tuesdays and Wednesdays:laugh:
> I just tried some jumps in the garden, I had the height at about 10cm to start with. Lula and Scruff done it no problem- I put it higher for them and they done it fine. Evie wouldn't even do the 10cm.


I luffs Evie. :001_wub: I think I might want me a Teckel. :scared:


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> I luffs Evie. :001_wub: I think I might want me a Teckel. :scared:


I know, there is just something about her- shes just fab
I'm not brave enough for another one though :scared:


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## Sarah1983

We have progress! Spen has always been hugely excited around other dogs and a bit well...let's say over enthusiastic shall we? in his interactions. Anyway, today I took him up to the nearby field for a bit of a change. We don't often go there coz it's a bit of a boring walk to be honest. But today we met another dog, one who was friendly and more than happy to play with him. Only problem was she was small enough to walk underneath him without ducking so I was a bit concerned as he can be a bit rough. I needn't have worried though, he was a perfect gentleman. He didn't try to hump her, he didn't splat her and he didn't try to force her to wrestle after she'd said no. They spent about 10 minutes running around chasing each other while her owner and I tried to have a conversation in a mixture of German and English. His English was far better than my German I'm ashamed to say  

Last night wasn't so nice though. Hubby was getting ready for bed, I went to the bathroom and while I was in there could hear Spen rummaging around in the kitchen bin. Figured hubby would stop him but he didn't. Came out of the bathroom to find Spencer with a cooked chicken carcass in his mouth :mad2: Took it off him, checked the bin and found he'd eaten all the skin and other bits we don't eat before going for the actual carcass. His poops aren't quite solid today but other than that he doesn't seem to have had any nasty side effects. 

Kat&molly, Evie sounds fantastic. You seem to feel about her the way I felt about Rupe, I loved him but have another? Oh good God no! lol. I hope you manage to get something sorted for poor Lula, I'm sure her owner loves her but she doesn't seem very responsible about it. Do you think her owner will listen to you if you give her advice?

Moonviolet, seems you're well on your way to having yourself a little diva there. Fancy showing off in front of children like that :thumbup: Love the pics and glad you had a good time even if there weren't many people watching.

Beth17, I have the enthusiasm problem with Spencer. It's lovely to see that he's so keen on training but trying to get him to focus on one thing instead of throwing everything he has at me so fast my head spins isn't easy. He is slowly starting to calm down and think a bit now though. Unless I get his box out, then he's offering me one leg on, 2 legs on, 3 legs on, 4 legs on, 4 legs and a nose touch, 3 legs and a nose touch and everything else he can think of before I've even put the damn thing on the floor! Apparently he REALLY likes 101 things to do with a box :crazy:

Dogless, hope this bitch is out of season quickly so things can get back to normal with Kilo. Why on earth people feel the need to take them to the one off leash place they have there is beyond me. Then again I never understood why people insisted on taking their dogs to the on leash field and letting them off leash either. But they did and ruined many a walk for me and Rupert.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh, and a Spencer pic I think you might like. I honestly had absolutely nothing to do with this. The sheet was on top of his crate and he pulled it down onto himself.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh, and a Spencer pic I think you might like. I honestly had absolutely nothing to do with this. The sheet was on top of his crate and he pulled it down onto himself.


I'm so glad Spencer is beginning to show what a considerate gentleman he can be with your guidance and what a seriously adorable pic


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah,thats a lovely pic of Spencer- he looks erm Angelic. Sounds like he's doing really well-perhaps Kevin is leaving the building?


I took Lula out before my girls- she was better, not quite so 'wild'. Every time she barked or spun round in circles biting the lead I just stopped dead- she only done it 3 or 4 times. Constant looking for sheep though, up on her back legs like a Meercat at every field we pass-it was impossible to distract her. Every other time on the walk I managed to get her attention I gave her treats and lots of praise- it wasn't much though.
Brought her back and put her in a crate in the parlour, when I came back she was only whining- not screaming.:thumbup:
She doesn't sniff when she's out- I've never had a dog that doesn't love new smells.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Sarah,thats a lovely pic of Spencer- he looks erm Angelic. Sounds like he's doing really well-perhaps Kevin is leaving the building?
> She doesn't sniff when she's out- I've never had a dog that doesn't love new smells.


Oh I hope Kevin is leaving the building! There's a dog walk on Sunday I'm hoping to go on so we'll see how he behaves then.

Could Lula be way over threshold while out? All the barking, spinning, biting at the leash and lack of interest in sniffing and normal doggy things could be because she's completely overwhelmed. Rupe didn't sniff on new walks, he was too busy looking out for Rupert eating monsters. It would take him several days or even weeks of doing the same walk before he'd be relaxed enough to sniff. His was fear but if Lula's been allowed to chase sheep it could be excitement instead.

Course it may be nothing of the sort but thought I'd throw that out there.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh I hope Kevin is leaving the building! There's a dog walk on Sunday I'm hoping to go on so we'll see how he behaves then.
> 
> Could Lula be way over threshold while out? All the barking, spinning, biting at the leash and lack of interest in sniffing and normal doggy things could be because she's completely overwhelmed. Rupe didn't sniff on new walks, he was too busy looking out for Rupert eating monsters. It would take him several days or even weeks of doing the same walk before he'd be relaxed enough to sniff. His was fear but if Lula's been allowed to chase sheep it could be excitement instead.
> 
> Course it may be nothing of the sort but thought I'd throw that out there.


Yes, you're probably right,I think she's constantly on a mission so is too overwhelmed. I'm trying to make sure we only walk past empty fields at the minute. Luckily there haven't been any 'free range' so far.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I know, there is just something about her- shes just fab
> I'm not brave enough for another one though :scared:


I love her from your posts...but don't think I'd have the minerals to actually own a Teckel .



Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, hope this bitch is out of season quickly so things can get back to normal with Kilo. Why on earth people feel the need to take them to the one off leash place they have there is beyond me. Then again I never understood why people insisted on taking their dogs to the on leash field and letting them off leash either. But they did and ruined many a walk for me and Rupert.


Spen sounds as if he was fantastic for you today - he's turning into a lovely gent . I don't understand any of these things either  :mad2:.

mv - Tink is going all Hollywood on us; I love her too - bless her for entertaining that little girl today! It's when she starts to demand a rider and dressing room that things have one too far.....:aureola:.

Beth17 - I am developing a huge Sam crush!

We have had two superb walks today - not a paw wrong from the BW :thumbup:. On our second one 'the labs' came after I'd only thrown Kilo's toy twice  :scared: but I saw them before they saw us so we left the field, went into the onlead one and came back for lot of offlead once they'd gone.

But more exciting than that.....our agility set arrived and...it's a hit so far :thumbup::thumbup:. I've only had the hurdle and jumping hoop set up so far and the BW loves them, we have had fun . I have to use lots of praise and frequent breaks for little games of football as a reward as Kilo does tend to get anxious about what he is supposed to do if I don't take things slowly and make what I want totally clear. Hubby thinks I'm mad .


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## Beth17

Love the pic of Spencer so adorable 

Unfortunately didn't get to class tonight as the traffic was really bad so I'm a bit disappointed  It's not missing the training as such that's a shame but more missing out on the socialisation aspect for Sam. 

I'm sure he doesn't mind though and I'll just have to hunt out some extra doggies for him to say hello to tomorrow


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## kat&molly

Dogless- how exciting, agilty stuff. What bits have you got- and I think we need some pics of the BW doing his stuff. Is he as good as Evie yet?:laugh:
I dont think I have the minerals to own a Teckel either- all I've got is a sense of humour which I need- any other dog would have me pulling my hair out by now but she just makes me laugh. Dont know if its a Teckel thing or an Evie thing- I dont think I want to find out though.

Beth- its always disappointing to miss training. I'm having some doubts about my own tomorrow.

We've had our 2nd scrap this morning between Lula and Jay. I had a bit of trouble splitting them because Evie got upset[I think] and tried to stand in the middle to stop it. I never have trouble with my girls because they all defer to Jay-really its amazing that she's stood for so many foster dogs here- but her and Lula do clash now.


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## moonviolet

Dogless. sounds like Kilo is enjoying the agilty equipment. I agree with K&M pics please  



Beth, Sorry you missed class it's always a shame to miss one. 

K&M sounds like the next 3 days are going to be long ones  Lula really is quite a disruptive presence. I hope this is the last scrap and she goes home without further incident  

We had games class last night. Tink is doing well with the excitement of the BC's. She still finds their highest pitched frustrated yips distracting and her ears flap, but with a little glance to check they aren't coming over to 'get' her she's able to disregard and focus again. Their other array of noises seems to be of no concern to her.  She definitely had a good time with dog in a box, daft creatureand when she was given a pressie for taking part on monday she was a very happy dog


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## Beth17

Well it's absolutely peeing it down here again this morning so think we'll go out for a shortish walk and just do some training inside. I'll take them for their run later as it should hopefully have cleared by then 

K&M That sounds quite stressful. I hope things calm down between the girls for the rest of Lula's visit for you 

Dogless I have an agility jump for Oscar he does a couple and then gets bored and wanders off :mad2: Oh well when he's older Sam will just have to be my agility champion :thumbup:

ETA Well done Tink!


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## kat&molly

How Lovely that Tink got got a pressie for taking part on Monday- let me guess, I bet she's eaten it.

Beth- I wouldn't fancy my chances -doing agility with a deaf dog. My trainer has more trouble with me than Molly. I'm left handed and find it very difficult


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## Coffee

Afternoon all 

kat&molly - bet you're counting down the day until Lula goes home  Hope the rest of her visit is incident free.

Dogless - I demand pics! Oh okay then... I'll ask nicely  pics of Kilo with his new agility stuff would be FAB 

Sarah - that is one seriously adorable photo, I love it 

MV - well done Miss Tink for ignoring those cheeky BCs, she's come SO far. What was her present? Any pics? 

Alfie's travel crate finally arrived yesterday (despite the tracking on Saturday morning saying "out for delivery" and I got all excited ) and he was a bit wary at first but I think it was because the bottom felt a bit funny so I've put an old quilt in there so it's more comfortable under foot  and he's much happier now. Have had a few great sessions with me throwing in treats and him going in to get them 

This was earlier this afternoon:










But better than that... he's just spent the last hour in there fast asleep :thumbup:  :thumbup: 

Haven't tried closing the flap/door yet though... baby steps and all that


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## moonviolet

Coffee said:


> Afternoon all
> 
> Alfie's travel crate finally arrived yesterday (despite the tracking on Saturday morning saying "out for delivery" and I got all excited ) and he was a bit wary at first but I think it was because the bottom felt a bit funny so I've put an old quilt in there so it's more comfortable under foot  and he's much happier now. Have had a few great sessions with me throwing in treats and him going in to get them
> 
> This was earlier this afternoon:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But better than that... he's just spent the last hour in there fast asleep :thumbup:  :thumbup:
> 
> Haven't tried closing the flap/door yet though... baby steps and all that


That's gorgeous and excellent     my word he is a handsome boy. Do try to maove it aroudn inside the house and garden if possible before putting it in the car and stick to those baby steps. it really could make a difference for his whole lifetime


----------



## Coffee

moonviolet said:


> That's gorgeous and excellent     my word he is a handsome boy. Do try to maove it aroudn inside the house and garden if possible before putting it in the car and stick to those baby steps. it really could make a difference for his whole lifetime


He said "thank you very much and do you come here often?" :scared: he's very cheeky, sorry about that.... 

Excellent idea... will try it in every room and the garden if it ever stops raining 

Have ordered some DAP spray for it for when I finally move it to the car... figured it can't hurt


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## Dogless

Well done to Miss Tink with the BCs and handsome spot with his crate.

I don't have any photos of the new stuff and it's chucked it down for most of today so not used it. The agility set I got is this one: Complete Agility Fun & Exercise Set: agility dog toys at zooplus

Had two fab walks today including a recall from a full pelt run towards two dogs Kilo likes to play with on the fields - big treat jackpot for that :thumbup: .


----------



## Coffee

Dogless said:


> Well done to Miss Tink with the BCs and handsome spot with his crate.
> 
> I don't have any photos of the new stuff and it's chucked it down for most of today so not used it. The agility set I got is this one: Complete Agility Fun & Exercise Set: agility dog toys at zooplus
> 
> Had two fab walks today including a recall from a full pelt run towards two dogs Kilo likes to play with on the fields - big treat jackpot for that :thumbup: .


That looks like lots of fun :thumbup:

Wow, well done Kilo and you too of course  Alfie will now, 9 times out of 10, recall away from approaching dogs he doesn't know or dogs that he knows don't play/interact... but dogs he knows and plays with? Not a chance unfortunately  Amazing stuff Kilo, I am seriously impressed


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## Twiggy

I was delighted with little Holly Bolly the Collie (my rescue pup) today. She joined my Wednesday afternoon group and we were in the barn as it was raining. The last time she joined the class she wasn't remotely interested in any aspect of training and in fact went to sleep...!! Today she was quite animated and did all the exercises, heelwork, recall to front and a finish, recall to heel, retrieve, distance control and scent; obviously in puppy fashion but she did it - yipee!!

She's flat out and fast asleep on my bed now....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I was delighted with little Holly Bolly the Collie (my rescue pup) today. She joined my Wednesday afternoon group and we were in the barn as it was raining. The last time she joined the class she wasn't remotely interested in any aspect of training and in fact went to sleep...!! Today she was quite animated and did all the exercises, heelwork, recall to front and a finish, recall to heel, retrieve, distance control and scent; obviously in puppy fashion but she did it - yipee!!
> 
> She's flat out and fast asleep on my bed now....LOL


I don't suppose you'd like a delightful young ridgie as a holiday guest? :devil:. What an achievement!!


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I don't suppose you'd like a delightful young ridgie as a holiday guest? :devil:. What an achievement!!


Kilo can come and stay with 'Auntie Twiggy' whenever he likes....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Kilo can come and stay with 'Auntie Twiggy' whenever he likes....LOL


I'll bear that in mind; he's being my best boy at present (touch wood!) so I'll keep him ....:aureola:.


----------



## Beth17

Well not the best day got absolutely soaked this morning and Sam decided throw a doggy temper tantrum because he couldn't play with a dog we had passed. I have never heard anything so horrific in my life  He was howling, barking and screaming and having a right paddy, it was rather embarrassing 

Oscar has also been a grump today and not settling, are we due a full moon? 

Oh well there's always tomorrow!

Well done Kilo for recalling :thumbup:

Coffee what a very handsome spot you have there :001_tt1:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Well not the best day got absolutely soaked this morning and Sam decided throw a doggy temper tantrum because he couldn't play with a dog we had passed. I have never heard anything so horrific in my life  He was howling, barking and screaming and having a right paddy, it was rather embarrassing
> 
> Oscar has also been a grump today and not settling, are we due a full moon?
> 
> Oh well there's always tomorrow!
> 
> Well done Kilo for recalling :thumbup:
> 
> Coffee what a very handsome spot you have there :001_tt1:


Definitely worth writing off your day I think.....Kilo had the odd tantrum as a pup that sounded as if I was abusing him :scared::scared:.

Hope we'll have some better weather tomorrow - it's been really hammering down today here too. Still didn't stop me thinking that going for a run after donating a unit of blood was a good idea....I was fine, hubby wasn't best pleased  . Bit tired now but certainly not going to admit it!!


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Well not the best day got absolutely soaked this morning and Sam decided throw a doggy temper tantrum because he couldn't play with a dog we had passed. I have never heard anything so horrific in my life  He was howling, barking and screaming and having a right paddy, it was rather embarrassing
> 
> Oscar has also been a grump today and not settling, are we due a full moon?
> 
> Oh well there's always tomorrow!
> 
> Well done Kilo for recalling :thumbup:
> 
> Coffee what a very handsome spot you have there :001_tt1:


:lol: :lol: Yup i think it's fullest tomorrow/friday nights

Oh Sam his first teenage tantrum? He's growing up :lol:

In class tonight Tink was proving that sometimes you can be too successful. we have worked an awful lot on her relaxation, pretty much everywhere. Tonight she decided to show just how successful we have been. Sadly during an impulse control exercise when she should have been in a "sit wait" with distractions being slowly increased Tink was apparently in a "sit wait, then periodically slide into a down tuck a paw" :lol: Everything else was pretty good though so I guess we can let her off 

Dogless: donating blood then running is not a great idea :nonod: :nonod: :nonod:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :lol: :lol: Yup i think it's fullest tomorrow/friday nights
> 
> Oh Sam his first teenage tantrum? He's growing up :lol:
> 
> In class tonight Tink was proving that sometimes you can be too successful. we have worked an awful lot on her relaxation, pretty much everywhere. Tonight she decided to show just how successful we have been. Sadly during an impulse control exercise when she should have been in a "sit wait" with distractions being slowly increased Tink was apparently in a "sit wait, then periodically slide into a down tuck a paw" :lol: Everything else was pretty good though so I guess we can let her off
> 
> Dogless: donating blood then running is not a great idea :nonod: :nonod: :nonod:


Bless Tink; being too successful isn't too bad a problem. Kilo does that too in class when he decides that the sit / wait is taking too long - only he doesn't slide he throws himself to the floor with a massive thump as it's wooden just so everyone sees . Don't think we could do it with a high level of distraction though. That is most impressive!!

I just hydrated very well, waited about 6 hours and ran at a slow and easy pace. As I showed hubby the website doesn't say that you can't, just that your performance may be affected and there may be bleeding from the site or fainting and that 'you may wish to wait until the following day'. I told him that I didn't wish to . My veins are apparently big enough to give platelets so will do that next time as I get to keep my red cells .


----------



## kat&molly

Beth, had to laugh at Sam having a tantrum, these dogs certainly know how to embarress us dont they. Hope the boys are better today. 
Funny because Molly was a bit naughty yesterday-not like her at all but seemed to have a 'cock a deaf un day'

MV- I think you've certainly trained Tink well to relax.

Dogless- that was not a good idea at all.:nono:

We are going training, if it doesn't rain. I'd contemplated not going because there are sometimes sheep in the field next to training-but it'll be good for Big Evie to see Lula at her worst. I feel a stressful lesson coming on today.
She is also bad with other dogs outside, like I'd been told. She tried to have a go at the neighbours Staffy. It woldn't have been so bad if the neighbour had recalled her dog.
Really am determined to try and get her owner to consider some trianing for her now- I've always said she can come here if needs be but I'm not so sure after the fights with Jay. Jay isn't the healthiest of dogs and I dont think it would take much to cause serious damage.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I just hydrated very well, waited about 6 hours and ran at a slow and easy pace. As I showed hubby the website doesn't say that you can't, just that your performance may be affected and there may be bleeding from the site or fainting and that 'you may wish to wait until the following day'. I told him that I didn't wish to . My veins are apparently big enough to give platelets so will do that next time as I get to keep my red cells .


Oh my word, what it's to be done with you superwoman.

On the sit waits, Tink is ok with people moving around jumping running etc. toys placed down, dropped thrown, rolled passed, but food that is the toughie for her, if she was "doing" something she's pretty good at focussing on the task in hand but waiting is boorrrrrringggggggg and that food smells so good. But for now forget the distractions we're back the the basics of staying sat :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> :lol: :lol: Yup i think it's fullest tomorrow/friday nights
> 
> Oh Sam his first teenage tantrum? He's growing up :lol:
> 
> In class tonight Tink was proving that sometimes you can be too successful. we have worked an awful lot on her relaxation, pretty much everywhere. Tonight she decided to show just how successful we have been. Sadly during an impulse control exercise when she should have been in a "sit wait" with distractions being slowly increased Tink was apparently in a "sit wait, then periodically slide into a down tuck a paw" :lol: Everything else was pretty good though so I guess we can let her off
> 
> Dogless: donating blood then running is not a great idea :nonod: :nonod: :nonod:


Even obedience champions have been known to slide into the down from the sit - usually when they are leading the class and you've travelled 150 miles to get to the show....LOL

I haven't begun to teach the pup stays yet; I'll do it over the winter. I don't want to put the mockers on what enthusiasm I'm now beginning to generate. The play still needs to be much stronger although yesterday she didn't leave me to visit any of her 'friends' which was a plus.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Even obedience champions have been known to slide into the down from the sit - usually when they are leading the class and you've travelled 150 miles to get to the show....LOL


  well she's clearly in good company   little diva. :lol:

It's lovely hearing how Holly Bolly  is coming along.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> well she's clearly in good company   little diva. :lol:
> 
> It's lovely hearing how Holly Bolly  is coming along.


Thank you. I absolutely adore her. My twin sister is battling cancer at the moment, which is a massive worry, and Holly is my little ray of sunshine to lift the gloom.

She's very interesting to train and makes me think out of the box. I've had some brilliant dogs in the past and also some very difficult dogs but Holly is certainly different and tried and tested techniques simply don't work with her, so she makes me use what little bit of brain I have left.
Yesterday she was super, today she may well say that any toy, tuggy or tit-bits I offer are of no interest whatsoever....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Thank you. I absolutely adore her. My twin sister is battling cancer at the moment, which is a massive worry, and Holly is my little ray of sunshine to lift the gloom.
> 
> She's very interesting to train and makes me think out of the box. I've had some brilliant dogs in the past and also some very difficult dogs but Holly is certainly different and tried and tested techniques simply don't work with her, so she makes me use what little bit of brain I have left.
> Yesterday she was super, today she may well say that any toy, tuggy or tit-bits I offer are of no interest whatsoever....LOL


 Sorry about your sister very best wishes for her to be strong and successful in her battle. Holly sounds a wonderful challenge and just what you need to keep you strong for your sister.

Every dog seems to have something new to teach us, it sounds like Holly has been talking to Kat & Molly's Little Evie


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy Holly Bolly sounds like a fab little character - it's lovely to hear of her progress. I also sincerely wish your sister well with her battle.


----------



## Beth17

Well had an interesting walk this morning but the boys did me proud 

Decided to walk them down a different route today and go around a grand house owned buy the council but whose gardens are open to dogs. It's an onlead area and I obviously kept my two onlead, you can see where this is going can't you 

I made the mistake to go when it was sunny cue the boys be bombarded with off lead dogs trying to sniff their bum and following us and cue me trying to keep walking forward with 50kg of Boxer bouncing around :lol: I said to one lady why I was keeping the boys away and she simply said oh mine's much worse when onlead this is as her shih tzu is following us and she is weakly calling her :mad2:

Got around the corner and then got bombarded by 4 little terrier types and a collie all off lead ignoring owners calling them and then the collie curled it's lip at Sam, again the owners take six hours to walk over and retrieve their dogs. The trouble is if Oscar or Sam decide to retaliate because they're onlead they're probably going to get the blame. 

Anyway the boys did me proud and although bouncing around they regained their composure quickly and didn't start to play up because of frustration, Oscar also didn't make a single noise at the other dogs which I was proud of :thumbup: Such good boys.

I then got home and went for a shower came down to find Sam taking the cellophane off of a box of chocolates put out of his reach  Couldn't understand how he'd reached but I simply had to wait around for awhile and then I found out...


----------



## L/C

Twiggy - Holly sounds great! Best wishes for your sister and I hope you hear something good soon.

Beth17 - Sam is a clever boy and shameless to do it in front of you!


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 - although you had a frustrating time on your walk it sounds as if the boys were brilliantly behaved - well done!! 

Sam :001_wub::001_wub:. Seems like Evie's got competition for loveably naughty .


----------



## moonviolet

Beth, sounds like your boys did you proud, despite being put so some serious challenge. I when you said about the Shih Tzu it reminded me of something i saw a while back ... not something i'd recommend saying but it did make me have a wry smile. Small dog yapping at large dog, large dog on lead bouncing but still under control, small dog's owner making all the usual ho ho he think's he's a rottweiller type comment , large dog's owner getting frustrated but with a calm polite helpful tone asks " are you coming to collect your dog or would you like me to flick them back to you with my foot?" needless to say the small dog's came to collect with great haste. SOme people can get away with saying shocking things.

Well, look at Sam the amazing problem solver    i had to laugh :lol: :lol:


----------



## Beth17

I'd never have the guts to say something like that, wish I could sometimes though 

Yes he's far too clever for his own good :lol:


----------



## Dogless

This morning we went to 'our' forest and hubby came too :scared:. Second time ever - lovely relaxing walk.

We have just got in from using the agility stuff in the garden again - lots of short sessions interspersed with football and a bit of obedience training. I've raised the hurdle and hoop jump by several small increments and added the rigid bit of the tunnel (not attached the collapsible bit yet - taking it slowly!). Kilo is LOVING it - really focussed and his squeaky Kong ball is his reward . An hour went by very fast! Not sure whether to give him a quick walk before school - I'll see but he's comatose on the sofa right now and I don't want him in lie on the floor mode .

On a sad note, my best friend who I've known for years moved out today - nice that she was here when I got here though so I was lucky :thumbup:. I might have to make a new friend .


----------



## Dogless

School was very busy tonight; fair few new dogs, lots going on......




.....and the BW was fantastic for me :thumbup:. My best boy :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:.


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## moonviolet

Yay, Kilo really is living up to his Boy Wonder name 

Madame had a mini wibble today when she spotted the lurcher and dobe we've had problems with in the past (thankfully with their female owner who keeps them under control), but she shook it off well and we finished the walk in the company of a lovely lady and her older lab.

Certainly no ill effects shown on this evening's walk. She hasn't had any valerian in weeks now with the exception of a half dose on monday prior to the display.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Yay, Kilo really is living up to his Boy Wonder name
> 
> Madame had a mini wibble today when she spotted the lurcher and dobe we've had problems with in the past (thankfully with their female owner who keeps them under control), but she shook it off well and we finished the walk in the company of a lovely lady and her older lab.
> 
> Certainly no ill effects shown on this evening's walk. She hasn't had any valerian in weeks now with the exception of a half dose on monday prior to the display.


He is being fantastic (touch wood)! He was so focussed on me tonight even with so much happening.

Well done to Miss Tink - at least you had the lady owner today and finished on a positive note; the BW only has the Stress - Less before class, busy walks etc now after a month of twice a day for max dose too.


----------



## cinnamontoast

I'm working on getting Bear to play/run round with Brig rather than obsess about the ball being thrown constantly.

With Zak, I'm increasingly throwing the ball at crows or in the direction of dogs in the distance. He is lots calmer when cuddled, so OH and I have finally agreed that this is the way forward. We probably look a bit stupid, but I don't care. The trouble has been that I don't do the majority of the walks, but I have strong ideas on what should happen. I'm now delighted that we've gone the way I wanted, reassurance rather than anything else.


----------



## moonviolet

cinammontoast said:


> I'm working on getting Bear to play/run round with Brig rather than obsess about the ball being thrown constantly.
> 
> With Zak, I'm increasingly throwing the ball at crows or in the direction of dogs in the distance. He is lots calmer when cuddled, so OH and I have finally agreed that this is the way forward. We probably look a bit stupid, but I don't care. The trouble has been that I don't do the majority of the walks, but I have strong ideas on what should happen. I'm now delighted that we've gone the way I wanted, reassurance rather than anything else.


I have spent many many hours "lurking" watching other dogs from a safe distance Tink on my lap having a massage, particularly butt rubs as this is where she holds her tension. This and the valerian have been the things that have given her the greatest progress. I will never forget the first time she hopped off my lap and actually wanted to move toward the dog we were watching. When we started doing this the trembling you could feel, even with the dog we were watching at hundreds of yards away, was heartbreaking. I'm a great believe in reassurance, cuddles, rubs, warm soothing voice. I hope you see some progress It's horrible seeing them so stressed.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- lovely to hear how Holly is coming on- sounds like she is doing really well even if she makes you work harder. Very best wishes for your sister's recovery.

Dogless- Kilo really is such a star nowadays. Fantastic that hes enjoying his agility, and enjoys his toy as a reward, I couldn't do that with Moll, we'd lose focus completly 

Beth- lovely pics of Sam- what a cheeky monkey he is. I love that sort of naughtiness in dogs, just as well with my little Madam.

Moonviolet-Tink shook her little wobble off well- she really is getting brave.:thumbup:

Cinammontoast- I have the same problem with Moll and her ball. Springers eh?? I have started letting her do hidden retreives with different things. She really enjoys it but doesn't get as silly as when we use the ball.
I've found now that sometimes I dont let her have her ball at all and I'm sure she feels a bit of relief- as if she's off dutyand its ok to do other stuff.


----------



## kat&molly

MV- I loved that Shih-Tzu story.

Moll done fantastic at Agility yesterday. Big Evie was just blown away by how well Moll is taking to it now. We still haven't learnt everything yet but we made huge progress on the see saw, and she just loves the walk way for some reason and shes so fast on it. An hour and a half lesson with little breaks in between , its lovely that despite our slow start Moll is now enjoying it.
I did wonder whether Big Evie has come across our thread as she said the same as Moonviolet yesterday in that maybe later on we could go back to Gun Dog stuff because Moll will be learning lots of control doing this.

Now for the bad bit.
Just after setting off to come home, its about 40 minutes in the car just 1 long run on a main road, my little Brum Brum decided to break down. I had forgotten to pick up OH's mobile so couldn't call anyone. I had to walk home with 4 dogs.Trying to aviod the main road with the girls I took a little detour through some fields- and me bieng me got lost - big time. 
I left the car at 1.15. At 6.30 I finally stumbled in to a bar in complete agony, in a small village- about 10 minutes away from where I left the car.
Rung OH to come and get me, we went to the car , he tightened up a fuel pipe which had come loose and I drove it home.
I dont think I've ever been so scared and had visions of us all sleeping in a field
The girls thought it was a great adventure but I think even they were glad to get home and its a good job they are able to cope with some heat- it was about 30 degrees, I found places for them to drink from, even if some were private but I was nearly dying of thirst.

I am such an idiot at times.


----------



## moonviolet

K&M what a day of highs and lows. So glad you and Molly are having a fab time at agility now 


I'm glad you are all ok after the misadventure on the way home, sounds like it was pretty stressful in that heat but well done on finding places for the dogs to drink, who cares who they belonged to animal welfare comes first. I hope youa re ok , being out in the sun all that time probably wasn't great for you either.

Now for your naughty car : I hope you've given it a good talking to, mention the crusher and being recycled into something it would consider demeaning


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Beth, sounds like your boys did you proud, despite being put so some serious challenge. I when you said about the Shih Tzu it reminded me of something i saw a while back ... not something i'd recommend saying but it did make me have a wry smile. Small dog yapping at large dog, large dog on lead bouncing but still under control, small dog's owner making all the usual ho ho he think's he's a rottweiller type comment , large dog's owner getting frustrated but with a calm polite helpful tone asks " are you coming to collect your dog or would you like me to flick them back to you with my foot?" needless to say the small dog's came to collect with great haste. SOme people can get away with saying shocking things.
> 
> Well, look at Sam the amazing problem solver    i had to laugh :lol: :lol:


A friend of mine who has GSDs, BSDs and Collies (all highly trained) has a stock answer if his dogs are harrassed out on a walk. It goes something like this - "I should call your dog back. This one has a nasty disease. His litter brother died last week".


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks MV.
I'm pretty tired and achy this morning- the girls aren't playing up for their walk yet either.

The worst thing is, OH is now saying its too far for me to be going on my own with the dogs.

If I had the mobile on me I couldn't have called anyone- a couple of friends are both away ATM and some people you just wouldn't ask would you?
I didn't know the number of the house where OH is working, I have got breakdown cover but, if the car couldn't have been repaired on the spot, would they take 4 dogs? I doubt it and I wouldn't just leave them.
I will give the car a good talking to - after I've been shopping.

I've really excelled myself this time in my lack of navigation skills.
Dunces hat for me- for the next month I think.:scared:


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> MV- I loved that Shih-Tzu story.
> 
> Moll done fantastic at Agility yesterday. Big Evie was just blown away by how well Moll is taking to it now. We still haven't learnt everything yet but we made huge progress on the see saw, and she just loves the walk way for some reason and shes so fast on it. An hour and a half lesson with little breaks in between , its lovely that despite our slow start Moll is now enjoying it.
> I did wonder whether Big Evie has come across our thread as she said the same as Moonviolet yesterday in that maybe later on we could go back to Gun Dog stuff because Moll will be learning lots of control doing this.
> 
> Now for the bad bit.
> Just after setting off to come home, its about 40 minutes in the car just 1 long run on a main road, my little Brum Brum decided to break down. I had forgotten to pick up OH's mobile so couldn't call anyone. I had to walk home with 4 dogs.Trying to aviod the main road with the girls I took a little detour through some fields- and me bieng me got lost - big time.
> I left the car at 1.15. At 6.30 I finally stumbled in to a bar in complete agony, in a small village- about 10 minutes away from where I left the car.
> Rung OH to come and get me, we went to the car , he tightened up a fuel pipe which had come loose and I drove it home.
> I dont think I've ever been so scared and had visions of us all sleeping in a field
> The girls thought it was a great adventure but I think even they were glad to get home and its a good job they are able to cope with some heat- it was about 30 degrees, I found places for them to drink from, even if some were private but I was nearly dying of thirst.
> 
> I am such an idiot at times.


Oh no that sounded horrendous. That's the trouble with us dog walkers and cars; they usually break down in the most inaccessible or inconvenient places. Poor you.

I'm with Green Flag breakdown because they are about the only company that will agree to travel dogs in their pick up vehicles but I'm in the UK of course.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thanks MV.
> I'm pretty tired and achy this morning- the girls aren't playing up for their walk yet either.
> 
> The worst thing is, OH is now saying its too far for me to be going on my own with the dogs.
> 
> If I had the mobile on me I couldn't have called anyone- a couple of friends are both away ATM and some people you just wouldn't ask would you?
> I didn't know the number of the house where OH is working, I have got breakdown cover but, if the car couldn't have been repaired on the spot, would they take 4 dogs? I doubt it and I wouldn't just leave them.
> I will give the car a good talking to - after I've been shopping.
> 
> I've really excelled myself this time in my lack of navigation skills.
> Dunces hat for me- for the next month I think.:scared:


Maybe you need to do some of this CaniX UK: official website of Canicross UK, CaniX Team UK, EuroCaniX 2012 Cirencester 15th European Cani-Cross and Bikejor Championship 

It sounds like you all deserve a lazy day with some mild mooching later.

Maybe give you breakdown provider a call and ask what would happen in the case of you breaking down with the dogs with you? Would be such a shame to stop your classes now you are enjoying them so much.


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## kat&molly

MV- are you trying to kill me.:scared: After yesterday I'm not even thinking about any exercise for a while.
I will ring the Breakdown people and see what they say-something I should have done already.

Twiggy- thats good to have peace of mind in knowing that someone will come out with dogs.


On our travels yesterday, Scruff flushed what I think was a Hare, she didn't spot it running off, and it ran in to a field of gorgeous white/ cream cows who were all lay down.:scared: It ran through the middle of them and the cows just parted to let it go.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - what a nightmare :scared:. Pleased that you are OK and Moll sounds as if she's doing superbly :thumbup:.

We had a fabulous walk in the park this morning; zillions of dog walkers were out to try and beat the rain (we did, just!!). Kilo was really, really good - a few people we know commented on how well he was doing . All dogs were approached and passed on a nice loose lead, without excitement or anxiety - apart from a choc lab that I went in a big arc around. We walked for about 15 minutes with a woman and her three CKCS and she fell in love with the BW - asked if he'd always been this good since a pup so we must have done well :thumbup::thumbup:. Definitely a gold star morning :thumbup:.


----------



## L/C

K&M - Oh my! What a day! I hope the breakdown cover can give you a good answer and that you don't have to give agility up. It would be a shame when Moll is doing so well.

A great walk for the pointy twins today. We met up with Missy and Bon for an amble - Bon is one of the dogs that Gypsy is obsessed with chasing and barking at while he is playing with his ball so we usually avoid them while he's playing. Today he was playing as we walked and Gypsy went to chase him but recalled straight to me when I asked. We had two incidents when she wanted to chase him but came back and the rest of the time she was happy enough walking along and sniffing with the occasional zoomies with Missy. :thumbup: There was no fixating or obsessive chasing at all.

Ely continues to go from strength to strength and we haven't had any incidents for about 2 months now.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- what a fantastic compliment to get- it makes it all worth the hard work to have someone else notice.:thumbup:

Better than the one I got yesterday- which upset me a bit. The neighbour Roger called just as I was leaving, I told the girls to stay in but Lula slipped out the door with me. Roger said'Wheres that one come from?' I explained its Lula and shes just here for the week. Well he said, it looks like you've got another one that doesn't do as she's told!!!
That really wasn't fair, my girls aren't angels, but I think they are pretty good on the whole.

L/C- you've come a long way with the Pointy Twins. You must be feeling pretty chuffed.:thumbup:


I just called in to the insurance and asked them about the dogs should I breakdown.They laughed as no-ones ever asked them before- can see them laughing about the 'Mad English woman'.
Anyway, my car would be put on a trailor and the dogs would have to stay in their own car. A good result me thinks.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- what a fantastic compliment to get- it makes it all worth the hard work to have someone else notice.:thumbup:
> 
> Better than the one I got yesterday- which upset me a bit. The neighbour Roger called just as I was leaving, I told the girls to stay in but Lula slipped out the door with me. Roger said'Wheres that one come from?' I explained its Lula and shes just here for the week. Well he said, it looks like you've got another one that doesn't do as she's told!!!
> That really wasn't fair, my girls aren't angels, but I think they are pretty good on the whole.
> 
> L/C- you've come a long way with the Pointy Twins. You must be feeling pretty chuffed.:thumbup:
> 
> I just called in to the insurance and asked them about the dogs should I breakdown.They laughed as no-ones ever asked them before- can see them laughing about the 'Mad English woman'.
> Anyway, my car would be put on a trailor and the dogs would have to stay in their own car. A good result me thinks.


I don't think I like Roger . Result on the breakdown issue...even if your record probably has 'mad' on it so they have to come to you in pairs :scared:.

It was lovely to get a compliment; I said to the one woman that she notices every little change in Kilo (she always comments) whereas hubby doesn't  :aureola:.

L/C - the pointies are doing so well :thumbup:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I don't think I like Roger . Result on the breakdown issue...even if your record probably has 'mad' on it so they have to come to you in pairs :scared:.
> 
> It was lovely to get a compliment; I said to the one woman that she notices every little change in Kilo (she always comments) whereas hubby doesn't  :aureola:.
> 
> L/C - the pointies are doing so well :thumbup:.


I dont think I like Roger either- for him.rrr: 
And my OH is the same- no interest at all- his names also Roger, he can have one as well.rrr:


----------



## Beth17

Dogless what a lovely thing for her to say! You must be really proud of your boy and yourself 

k&m Roger sounds like a bit of a pleb :001_rolleyes:

Well done L/C and pointies! :thumbup1:

We had a lovely quiet walk with no drama, good behaviour and just some fuss from passers-by :thumbup:

It won't last :001_tongue:


----------



## moonviolet

Hope everyone's having a good weekend. After a mad afternoon/evening moving furniture yesterday. I'm feeling the after effects today so our morning walk was rather a sedate affair for me at least, no giddy cantering or mad last dash to the car and what was wonderful was although Tink was definitely a little tense, there was no pulling and she was easily distracted and managed the whole 20 yards at heel. :thumbup:

I did find myself thinking " where is everybody ?" there were plenty of cars around but didn't see runner, montain biker, human or dog. I even ventured to the areas I'd ordinarily avoid at weekends, Still not a soul maybe it's me.

Put in a lovely Zooplus order, for lots of "gorgeous" smelly and slightly less smelly treats lots of fun food distractions for her impulse control.

Oh and madame rolled in another ration pack... today she is leek and potato soup flavoured  Odd thing to roll in, but beats fox poo, which she walked passed and certainly less dramatic than the beef goulash.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Hope everyone's having a good weekend. After a mad afternoon/evening moving furniture yesterday. I'm feeling the after effects today so our morning walk was rather a sedate affair for me at least, no giddy cantering or mad last dash to the car and what was wonderful was although Tink was definitely a little tense, there was no pulling and she was easily distracted and managed the whole 20 yards at heel. :thumbup:
> 
> I did find myself thinking " where is everybody ?" there were plenty of cars around but didn't see runner, montain biker, human or dog. I even ventured to the areas I'd ordinarily avoid at weekends, Still not a soul maybe it's me.
> 
> Put in a lovely Zooplus order, for lots of "gorgeous" smelly and slightly less smelly treats lots of fun food distractions for her impulse control.
> 
> Oh and madame rolled in another ration pack... today she is leek and potato soup flavoured  Odd thing to roll in, but beats fox poo, which she walked passed and certainly less dramatic than the beef goulash.


I've spent most of today pulling thistles and ragwort out of the back paddock and now my back aches. I did have a break this afternoon and trained the dogs.

Talking of treats, I went and collected the two old girls food from the Natural Dog Food Company yesterday afternoon and he gave me loads of packets of natural chicken treats. They all seem to like them....


----------



## Dogless

mv - sounds lovely that you didn't meet anyone; at least Tink hasn't rolled in 'treacle track pad'....I'd wish you luck ungluing that from her :scared:.

Twiggy - you have been far more productive than me and I'm pleased the treats have gone down well.

We have had a superb day. Started at the park - first amazing thing was that hubby decided to come with us :scared:. Second was that Kilo was absolutely fantastic for me *and hubby noticed that he isn't excited / anxious etc anymore over things that he used to be :scared: :thumbup::thumbup:.*

Then we went straight to PAH to get some tripe and a few veggie hedgies and to weigh the BW - and he behaved like :aureola::aureola:. Sat beautifully for all the staff with his big, liquid eyes and droopy sad starving dog ears as he knows they dispense treats to poor neglected pups . His favourite girl wasn't there but he found someone else who he decided he would bestow the honour upon of being allowed to fuss him massively .

This afternoon we did some stuff with our fun agility things - was going to try the collapsible bit on the tunnel but it was too windy - mixed with some footy and obedience.

This evening we went to the fields for an hour or so - walked nicely there and back and just played and pottered.

So - a nice day .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> mv - sounds lovely that you didn't meet anyone; at least Tink hasn't rolled in 'treacle track pad'....I'd wish you luck ungluing that from her :scared:.
> 
> Twiggy - you have been far more productive than me and I'm pleased the treats have gone down well.
> 
> We have had a superb day. Started at the park - first amazing thing was that hubby decided to come with us :scared:. Second was that Kilo was absolutely fantastic for me *and hubby noticed that he isn't excited / anxious etc anymore over things that he used to be :scared: :thumbup::thumbup:.*
> 
> Then we went straight to PAH to get some tripe and a few veggie hedgies and to weigh the BW - and he behaved like :aureola::aureola:. Sat beautifully for all the staff with his big, liquid eyes and droopy sad starving dog ears as he knows they dispense treats to poor neglected pups . His favourite girl wasn't there but he found someone else who he decided he would bestow the honour upon of being allowed to fuss him massively .
> 
> This afternoon we did some stuff with our fun agility things - was going to try the collapsible bit on the tunnel but it was too windy - mixed with some footy and obedience.
> 
> This evening we went to the fields for an hour or so - walked nicely there and back and just played and pottered.
> 
> So - a nice day .


Yes I can just imagine Kilo twisting the staff at PAH right round his little paws (have to say I'd be a sucker for those big eyes too!!).

I remember the first agility show I took Twiggy to. She'd only been doing it about 3 weeks on home made equipment, which consisted of a very steep seesaw (made by hubby so daren't complain), two jumps, a child's play tunnel and tomato canes as weaving poles..!! I entered her in the jumping class and then realised there was a collapsable tunnel, so I hung my coat over a deck chair to practice. Needless to say we got eliminated at the collapsable tunnel - happy days.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes I can just imagine Kilo twisting the staff at PAH right round his little paws (have to say I'd be a sucker for those big eyes too!!).
> 
> I remember the first agility show I took Twiggy to. She'd only been doing it about 3 weeks on home made equipment, which consisted of a very steep seesaw (made by hubby so daren't complain), two jumps, a child's play tunnel and tomato canes as weaving poles..!! I entered her in the jumping class and then realised there was a collapsable tunnel, so I hung my coat over a deck chair to practice. Needless to say we got eliminated at the collapsable tunnel - happy days.


Kilo is absolutely loving the fun stuff we have, really loving it! I am not sure how he'll go with the collapsible bit to the tunnel though....I love your stories as you make people like me realise that everyone started somewhere; even those who have become as successful as you have .

It's the eye / ear combo that Kilo does so well - just totally relaxes his ears as if he hasn't the strength to keep them up so they droop flat against his head and looks up with those sad, underfed eyes :aureola:.


----------



## kat&molly

Sounds like everyones having a good day.

Twiggy - how lovely- I never get free stuff for the dogs, even better that they all like them.

Dogless- your OH noticed Kilo doing brilliantly. You must have been chuffed.

Moonviolet-Leek and Potato flavour. We'll never understand our dogs reasoning will we. Great that you didn't have to run today-sounds like she coped well.

I've had a good day-I took Lula home. Phew!! I can relax now, no more fights.
Her owners hadn't got back so I had to leave her indoors with some dinner. She was looking over the top of the door as I left- made me feel guilty. I've left a note asking if she will ring me tomorrow-I'm not quite sure what to say or whether its my place to say anything at all.
I'm sure some of its got to be diet related as she's more 'hyper' than energetic.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - thanks goodness you have taken Lula home, now you can relax a little. I hope the owner does call you - she sounds very well meaning and caring so hopefully will take some advice on board.



kat&molly said:


> Dogless- your OH noticed Kilo doing brilliantly. You must have been chuffed.


It must be a marked difference for him to notice. I nearly took a conniption :scared:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- if yours has noticed- theres still hope for me, one day.
*goes off to google the word conniption*

Moll from this week.
I like it up here mum.


















And do I get treats for showing off.









OH has calmed down about me going to Agility. He did ask why the trainer couldn't come here though. Men


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- if yours has noticed- theres still hope for me, one day.
> *goes off to google the word conniption*
> 
> Moll from this week.
> I like it up here mum.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And do I get treats for showing off.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> OH has calmed down about me going to Agility. He did ask why the trainer couldn't come here though. Men


Great photos! You could tell him that of course Big Evie could come to you if he was prepared to build you a full agility course.....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Great photos! You could tell him that of course Big Evie could come to you if he was prepared to build you a full agility course.....


Great pics of Molly.

No don't suggest OH builds you any agility equipment, he won't get it right. Mine certainly didn't and I felt obliged to use it - the see-saw was far, far too steep - the dog walk was too narrow and too high - and the tyre and frame were positively dangerous...!! I had to be very, very tactful when I replaced it all.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy, Hope you aren't feeling the effects of pullign the ragwort and thistles. The ragwort is terrible around here the last couple of years I remember as a kid, pulling it to earn pocket money.

Dogless how brilliant that OH noticed the improvements, gold stars for him and Kilo 

K&M gorgeous Pics of Molly. Glad OH is coming around about going to classes, it's nice that he's concerned.... I asked mine if he's concerned about me driving to and from my tuesday class, after chatting I don't get home till quite late. His reply.... " not really, you can look after yourself." which is backed up by the fact he's often asleep when i get back :lol:

Nice walk this evening OH broke a record 2 walks in one day


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy, Hope you aren't feeling the effects of pullign the ragwort and thistles. The ragwort is terrible around here the last couple of years I remember as a kid, pulling it to earn pocket money.
> 
> Dogless how brilliant that OH noticed the improvements, gold stars for him and Kilo
> 
> K&M gorgeous Pics of Molly. Glad OH is coming around about going to classes, it's nice that he's concerned.... I asked mine if he's concerned about me driving to and from my tuesday class, after chatting I don't get home till quite late. His reply.... " not really, you can look after yourself." which is backed up by the fact he's often asleep when i get back :lol:
> 
> *Nice walk this evening OH broke a record 2 walks in one day*


Something in the air today, clearly...all the OHs are being :aureola:.


----------



## kat&molly

Whats with the OH's- even mine came yesterday afternoon.

I'm just starting to feel 'normal' again from Thursday, all that walking on top of running around agility justabout finished me off. Because I had 3/4 trousers on, the bottom of my legs look like I've been slashed with a knife.
I keep wondering how many miles I actually covered in 5 and 3/4 hours


Hope everyone has a good day.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Whats with the OH's- even mine came yesterday afternoon.
> 
> I'm just starting to feel 'normal' again from Thursday, all that walking on top of running around agility justabout finished me off. Because I had 3/4 trousers on, the bottom of my legs look like I've been slashed with a knife.
> I keep wondering how many miles I actually covered in 5 and 3/4 hours
> 
> Hope everyone has a good day.


Hmmm yours too .. thats spooky, think they could have been effected by the full moon?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Hmmm yours too .. thats spooky, think they could have been effected by the full moon?


It was a blue moon after all......


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> It was a blue moon after all......


I think that says it all.


----------



## Dogless

Great morning in the park again; hubby still on sofa in dressing gown on our return so we can safely say that the blue moon's influence has worn off :scared:. Loads of dogs out again; every other person seemed to have a black lab and Kilo behaved very nicely indeed - wide arc around some but all the same very little anxiety and no playing up! 'The' lab was there but with his more sensible owner this time so was put on a lead :thumbup:.

I was stood with an elderly man and his westie watching a Kingfisher and Kilo was getting massive fusses (he likes elderly folk for some reason!) and along came a man with his son on a bike and small dog. They crossed to the other side of the path (about 8m wide - loads of room) and he gripped his son's bike and dog whilst giving me awful stares and telling his son not to come near us (how he could with the grip on the bike anyway I don't know ). His son asked him if Kilo would bite him and he said yes he was a very dangerous dog....the old man said "Of course he doesn't bite, don't be daft, he's just large"  .

On the way back to the car we met a man with an in season bitch who we'd also met yesterday. They had walked the way that we needed to go so a large delegation from a black and chocolate labrador 'Improve The Speed and Excitability Of Your Approaches' symposium or a herd of cats doing sprint drills could have passed and he would have been oblivious. Eyes and ears off, nose on  :aureola:.


----------



## dobermummy

Kilo is doing so well  and it was really nice of the old bloke to stick up for him, i bet that made you smile. My response if people are like that is 'My dog doesn't bite, but i do'


----------



## Dogless

dobermummy said:


> Kilo is doing so well  and it was really nice of the old bloke to stick up for him, i bet that made you smile. My response if people are like that is 'My dog doesn't bite, but i do'


I have found that all of the elderly folk adore him - I honestly think that they are from an age where people didn't get 'status' dogs to intimidate folk so the concept that he would be dangerous doesn't occur to them. Loads of young people are wary of him.


----------



## moonviolet

Glad you had another good walk this morning. I really dont' know why people have kids and then use them as a human shield to make snide comments they'd never have the testicular fortitude to make without them  What a nice old man to say something in Kilo's defence. 

The influence of the blue moon has waned here too, but truth be told it was nice not having to explain what/ why i'm doing things. 

Tink defaulted into her own game of look at that this morning. Seeing a dog on an adjacent path she sat looked at the dog, then looked up at me. I honestly wouldn't like to say whether she was unsure or simply fancied a couple of treats, but it's pretty nice default.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- another in season bitch. How nice of the old chap though-Kilo picks his friends wisely.

Moonviolet- That Tink's a girl who knows what she wants. She's certainly not daft is she.

The Blue Moon must be above my house.
OH came with us this morning, he nearly had a heart attack at the long route I wanted to go on but he still came.
This afternoon I persuaded him to drive us out somewhere different and look for a river walk. We found a lovely spot and all the girls had a great run. I called Evie to put her lead back on- she stopped dead-and sat, with her back to me:001_tt2: while I went and clipped her on.
I must be the only owner with a good recall.


And.. Lula's mum rang. She was lovely about what I said, I didn't really mention the sheep or food. She said shes been avoiding taking Lula anywhere there may be dogs or out in the car because of her screaming and whining.
She's going to ring Big Evie as she wants to sort the problems out, she really is a nice woman and adores that dog so I've got my fingers crossed.


----------



## Dogless

k&m what fabulous news that Lula's owner is going to contact Big Evie - well done!! But where are the photos of the lovely spot that you have found?????  .

And, yep, another in season bitch. They just seem to be walked as normal over here .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m what fabulous news that Lula's owner is going to contact Big Evie - well done!! But where are the photos of the lovely spot that you have found?????  .
> 
> And, yep, another in season bitch. They just seem to be walked as normal over here .


I'm thrilled about Lula's mum- she never took offence at all, I did say I use a trainer myself as we all have problems.
I left my camera, my whistle and treats in the van as it didn't look suitable for a good walk- I got that wrong. Hopefully we'll go again.

Still cant get my head around people walking in season bitches in busy places.


----------



## Sarah1983

Wow, looks like my being lost for 3 hours has been put well and truly to shame! Glad you got back okay in the end!

The blue moon apparently had no influence on my hubby. Safe to say he doesn't come out with us even once in a blue moon I guess.

As you saw from my other thread Spen has been excellent today. First full off leash walk on our own and he was sooooo good. I stacked the odds in my favour by walking him when we hardly see anyone and taking banana bread with me but that's beside the point. He did kinda spoil it at the end. We ran into the elderly shepherd and beagle we sometimes see. The beagles extremely barky but stays away and the shepherd is friendly enough but elderly and Spen is too much for her. But she comes to say hello anyway, he bounces at her and she does the canine equivalent of beating him up with her walking stick. Ah well, might teach him some manners to be yelled at by an old lady.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Spen!!!!!! I have a picture of the GSD being like Maggie Thatcher with a big, sturdy handbag that Spen gets clocked with :scared::scared:.

We had three lots of doing bits of agility and footie in the garden today; consequently this afternoon's walk on the fields was a fairly sedate sniff and potter affair for the BW and shorter than usual! Still not introduced the collapsible part of the tunnel as Kilo launched himself into the tunnel rather too enthusiastically this afternoon, it came unpegged and he carried on running wearing it for a while which sent him into a bit of a panic, true Kilo style :scared:  . So....I spent a while getting him used to it being a good thing again .

He has started to go into the garden and run through the tunnel or do a jump and then look at me expectantly, so he must like it!


----------



## Beth17

Well today Oscar was a star, Sam on the other hand... Lets just say I had to cut his walk short


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Well today Oscar was a star, Sam on the other hand... Lets just say I had to cut his walk short


Oh dear Sam....in the dog house again :scared:.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Oh dear Sam....in the dog house again :scared:.


We have well and truly hit teenager phase :thumbdown:

He was lunging, weaving, biting his lead, trying to run on his lead and bouncing back, commando crawling along the floor, refusing to move whilst crossing the road because something smelt nice. Trouble is other people give you funny look when you have to drag a puppy out of the way of traffic 

All is forgiven now though as he is asleep so I have 12 hours or so of peace :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> We have well and truly hit teenager phase :thumbdown:
> 
> He was lunging, weaving, biting his lead, trying to run on his lead and bouncing back, commando crawling along the floor, refusing to move whilst crossing the road because something smelt nice. Trouble is other people give you funny look when you have to drag a puppy out of the way of traffic
> 
> All is forgiven now though as he is asleep so I have 12 hours or so of peace :thumbup:


Oh dear!! Funny how fast we forgive though isn't it? Until the next time :scared:.


----------



## moonviolet

K&M thats wonderful about Lula's owner  

Sarah do you think the blue moon had an effect of Spencer instead of OH :lol:
Spen really did do very well today and it sounds like he received some canine guidance  in the shape of the Iron lady :lol:

Dogless I think Kilo is loving his agility set  There is something lovely about then choosing to do these things.

Beth, At least Oscar was good  I'm sure Sam will be as good as his big bro... one day 

I was rather odd my Thundershirt thread from Feb was resurrected. Tink is totally a different dog. It really did remind me how far she has come.

This evenings walk was another " where is everybody" walk. I know it wasn't the most pleasant with the humidity being over 90%, but there was a breeze on teh top of the hill that made up for it. Tink ran jumped, balanced bounded and sniffed of course, and was relaxed and happy and a total joy to walk. No ration packs were rolled in today


----------



## L/C

Go K&M - making converts one person at a time. It's great that Lula's owner listened to you - hopefully she'll be a calmer and less manic pup.

Sarah - I missed your other thread but that's great news about Spen! You must be really chuffed with him. When is his next outing?

Beth - any hints on what Sam did to be such a bad boy? ETA: I took so long writing this post that you already answered that! :lol:

We had another excellent walk today. A bit of a wobble at first because someone had dumped a load of bread and rice on the field.  Gypsy's leave is perfect when training but goes to pot when she finds food outside. 

After we walked (dragged) away from that things went very smoothly. I'm teaching Gypsy send aways at the moment which is going quite well. I'm using a method recommend to me by an agility trainer and we're doing well with the dashing to the mat in a straight line so I need to add the down at the end next.

We met Max the GSD (our stooge dog) and Ely was able to mix with him relaxed and off the lead. He was relaxed and lying down munching some grass when Max got a bit pushy and came and stood over him. Ely gave a small growl and Max listened and backed off straight away and no further tension. :thumbup: A bit later another dog came and launched herself at Max which caused an altercartion (as it would!) and Ely stayed calm and stood behind me while it was sorted out. Gypsy went into a down and stayed there too so I was very pleased.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah do you think the blue moon had an effect of Spencer instead of OH :lol:
> Spen really did do very well today and it sounds like he received some canine guidance  in the shape of the Iron lady :lol:


I bloody hope not :scared: I don't want him only behaving once in a blue moon! He's received canine guidance from this one every time he's met her and he just doesn't seem to get it  It's her choosing to come to him every time, think she just wants a polite hello and to be on her way though while Spen just wants to play.



> Sarah - I missed your other thread but that's great news about Spen! You must be really chuffed with him. When is his next outing?


That'll be tomorrow  Whether on or off leash depends how busy it is though. Popular area with joggers and cyclists and while he's getting there with not jumping at them or running with them he's not quite there.



> He has started to go into the garden and run through the tunnel or do a jump and then look at me expectantly, so he must like it!


Lol, beware of creating a monster! Half the time I end up doing some training with Spen on his toilet walks because he insists on it. We'll get out there and he'll start offering downs, sits, nose touches, recalls and anything else he can think of while I keep telling him "off you go"  It's lovely to see them so enthusiastic about things though isn't it?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- poor Kilo getting in a panic- but admit it , you've been crawling through the tunnel haven't you. Our tunnels at training dont have the collapsible bit on. I wish Moll would be that focused in the garden though I could justify nagging OH for a kit as I showed him your link. She thinks the garden is for throwing balls as OH always plays with her when he comes home from work- I have a job getting her to focus to just do the 2 jumps here.
Beth- Evie does that commando crawl as well-it doesn't look comfortable does it. Hope young Sam is better for you today.

L/C- your 2 are doing great now. Must be a great feeling.

Moonviolet- are you scaring everyone off. Sounds like a nice peaceful walk though.

Hope Spencers off lead continues to go well.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- are you scaring everyone off. Sounds like a nice peaceful walk though.


Quite possibly   i'm very scary! Although i think the summer walker/runners/mpuntain bikers are tailing off now and I originally chose that time to walk because it was so quiet and so wonderful. Hearing the birds, the breeze in the trees, being free to be a bit of a nutty cow without witnesses


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Quite possibly   i'm very scary! Although i think the summer walker/runners/mpuntain bikers are tailing off now and I originally chose that time to walk because it was so quiet and so wonderful. Hearing the birds, the breeze in the trees, being free to be a bit of a nutty cow without witnesses


Nutty cows are us.
I'm off to do some LLW with a bit of Jazz thrown in.:thumbup:

Love, love the new siggy. Wish I could do mine.


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Nutty cows are us.
> I'm off to do some LLW with a bit of Jazz thrown in.:thumbup:
> 
> Love, love the new siggy. Wish I could do mine.


I love being a bit nutty Have **** with the jazzy LLW.

I got a bit brave with my siggy this time and did it with picasa, before i've done it with PicMonkey - Photo Editing Made of Win as a collage.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> *Lol, beware of creating a monster! Half the time I end up doing some training with Spen on his toilet walks because he insists on it. We'll get out there and he'll start offering downs, sits, nose touches, recalls and anything else he can think of while I keep telling him "off you go"  It's lovely to see them so enthusiastic about things though isn't it?*




That made me laugh and it's very true. My sister and I have had a few that found walks boring (particularly Twiggy) and would prefer to do heelwork for an hour.....!! Wonderful attitude but it gets a tad wearing after a while.


----------



## moonviolet

moonviolet said:


> I love being a bit nutty Have **** with the jazzy LLW.


I do not know what evil typo monkey got this censored. :blush:


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> That made me laugh and it's very true. My sister and I have had a few that found walks boring (particularly Twiggy) and would prefer to do heelwork for an hour.....!! Wonderful attitude but it gets a tad wearing after a while.


Yeah, it's great that they want to work with you but it does get a bit much at times. I usually do a couple of things then send him off again, a couple of minutes later he's back asking for more. Unless there are other dogs around, then I'm a distant memory. If that! lol.


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, beware of creating a monster! Half the time I end up doing some training with Spen on his toilet walks because he insists on it. We'll get out there and he'll start offering downs, sits, nose touches, recalls and anything else he can think of while I keep telling him "off you go"  It's lovely to see them so enthusiastic about things though isn't it?


Gypsy has started to do this now. We paused on our walk this morning to let Ely chase his ball and this obviously wasn't stimulating enough for madam and she started touching things to get me to do some training. :lol:



kat&molly said:


> L/C- your 2 are doing great now. Must be a great feeling.


Yes I'm very proud. We had a little blip this morning with a bit of Gypsy's obsessive barking at Bon but she recalled as I walked away with Ely so she was at least aware of where I was!


----------



## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> Gypsy has started to do this now. We paused on our walk this morning to let Ely chase his ball and this obviously wasn't stimulating enough for madam and she started touching things to get me to do some training. :lol:


I suppose we should look on the bright side, if our dogs are so interested in training with us they're highly unlikely to be disappearing over the horizon right? That doesn't really help when I've got someone having a go at me for "forcing" my dog to work and never letting him be a dog though


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> I suppose we should look on the bright side, if our dogs are so interested in training with us they're highly unlikely to be disappearing over the horizon right? That doesn't really help when I've got someone having a go at me for "forcing" my dog to work and never letting him be a dog though


I've heard that one too, usually from someone whose dog is temporarily AWOL. I change the subject with a well timed.." how long since you saw them, what direction were they heading"


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> I suppose we should look on the bright side, if our dogs are so interested in training with us they're highly unlikely to be disappearing over the horizon right? That doesn't really help when I've got someone having a go at me for "forcing" my dog to work and never letting him be a dog though


Do people really say that?!


----------



## Beth17

Sam has redeemed himself :thumbup: took him up the field on his longline and he was as good as gold he was playing nicely, greeting other dogs and just being a little star :biggrin: He is now running around like a loony in the garden!

Oscar was also a good boy today we went up through the woods and met quite a few dogs and some of his friends absolutely no grumbling what-so-ever and was having a good play. It's lovely to see him relax on a walk because I didn't have Sam there! 

I am a bit worried about his back end though although probably worrying about nothing but he does seem to be walking funny. Going to put a thread in the health section. 

The only downside to the morning was the bug that I managed to inhale


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Do people really say that?!


Oh yes they most certainly do. Usually it's jealousy or because their dogs are totally out of control.

Personally my dogs are never trained on a lead so they don't actually have to come anywhere near me if they don't want to.

I've just done a C scent with Tremor and as the other three were trying to break the kitchen door down, they all had a turn including the pup.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 - glad to hear that the boys are back on form but sorry that you are worried about Oscar's back end .

We had an hour and a half just playing offlead in the fields this morning and a very nice, polite walk there and back. The weather was lovely this afternoon, so I decided that we'd get out and explore a new walk after I'd been swimming; it was lovely .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Beth17 - glad to hear that the boys are back on form but sorry that you are worried about Oscar's back end .
> 
> We had an hour and a half just playing offlead in the fields this morning and a very nice, polite walk there and back. The weather was lovely this afternoon, so I decided that we'd get out and explore a new walk after I'd been swimming; it was lovely .


So where are the pics then - you know I need a regular fix of Kilo in stunning scenary....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> So where are the pics then - you know I need a regular fix of Kilo in stunning scenary....LOL


Just for you . http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/257889-photos-lovely-afternoon.html

Might go to the mountains tomorrow as good weather forecast again!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Just for you . http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/257889-photos-lovely-afternoon.html
> 
> Might go to the mountains tomorrow as good weather forecast again!


Oh goody, goody and don't forget your camera.

Ireland is so beautiful. I was over there judging just outside Dublin two years ago and last year judging and instructing a few miles south of Belfast. Sadly on both occasions I didn't really get a chance to see the countryside.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh goody, goody and don't forget your camera.
> 
> Ireland is so beautiful. I was over there judging just outside Dublin two years ago and last year judging and instructing a few miles south of Belfast. Sadly on both occasions I didn't really get a chance to see the countryside.


It is, but there is surprisingly little countryside access in NI unfortunately. The beautiful scenery taunts you as you can't walk through much of it!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It is, but there is surprisingly little countryside access in NI unfortunately. The beautiful scenery taunts you as you can't walk through much of it!


I didn't realise that - what a shame.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I didn't realise that - what a shame.


There isn't a network of footpaths etc the same as the mainland (apart from more touristy areas), so a lot of areas available to the public are really busy. I live rurally surrounded by farmland yet have to drive to take Kilo for a walk - there are parks, forests, NT land and routes through the mountains but no open access.


----------



## moonviolet

We have had a uncommonly sociable day today. I thought it was time to venture into the more heavily doggie populated area today and we happened upon quite a gathering of friendly dogs, we know well ( allthough not usually meeting them all at once) I thought it might be a little much for her ladyship so i watched her closely ready to veer off and give a cheery "morning" safe in the knowledge they all knew Tink and wouldn't be offended, One of the dogs, a particular fave of Tinks broke from the group greeted Tink politely after some mutual sniffs, accompanied Tink into the group. After a brief chat and a play for Tink, i began to make my excuses ( I hate being stationery too long) the group broke and we walked on with 3 of Tinks frends for a lovely walk.

This evening we met up with the Gorgeous Monty and his mum, who had been part of the group this morning, although not the ones we walked with, and it was lovely when she had said how impressed she was with Tink in the group this morning. It's lovely when others notice progress. 

Is it terrible to admit that while it was nice to be sociable... I really missed alone time with my hound :blush:


----------



## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> Do people really say that?!


Oh yes. I've had a couple of people make comments about how I should just let Spencer "be a dog" and how forcing him to work is unfair and cruel.

I've also had a few say about how I should be punishing him for being too enthusiastic :scared: That really worries me to be honest. I love his enthusiasm while working with me, the fact that he'll come racing to me as fast as his legs will carry him or throw himself into a down before the word is fully out of my mouth. I don't see what's wrong with that sort of enthusiasm but these people think he should be doing it calmly and in a more controlled fashion  Okay, their dogs probably look more "well behaved" than he does but they give a lot of calming signals while Spen gives me a grin, a wagging tail and practically quivers with eagerness. I know which I prefer.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Oh yes they most certainly do. Usually it's jealousy or because their dogs are totally out of control.
> 
> Personally my dogs are never trained on a lead so they don't actually have to come anywhere near me if they don't want to.


Spen's either off leash or on a 10m line so he's hardly being forced to come and lie at my feet and stare a hole in my head like he does when he wants to do something with me. He often goes trotting off to a distance, turns and waits for me to notice him then comes sprinting back at full speed. Then he sits there looking at me as if to say "Did you see that fantastic recall I just did? Now how about a treat?" Never fails to make me laugh.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Spen's either off leash or on a 10m line so he's hardly being forced to come and lie at my feet and stare a hole in my head like he does when he wants to do something with me. He often goes trotting off to a distance, turns and waits for me to notice him then comes sprinting back at full speed. Then he sits there looking at me as if to say "Did you see that fantastic recall I just did? Now how about a treat?" Never fails to make me laugh.


Spen sounds very much my sort of dog....!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Spen sounds very much my sort of dog....!!


He's great, very much my sort of dog too  Had a lot of people say they couldn't be doing with him though.


----------



## Beth17

We have had another non eventful walk which is just the way I like them. Took both boys out today on a different route and although had a bit of pulling to begin with they soon settled down. They have now flaked out after a wrestle in the garden. 

Hope everyone else has a good day!


----------



## Dogless

Well done mv for managing to be sociable....you haven't quite scared everyone off :scared: . I like it now and again but do prefer solitude too!

Beth17 - glad the boys are still being good.

Well, we went to the mountains today, but it didn't quite go as planned. We were just over an hour into our walk when the narrow path that we were on (fenced both sides, running between fields) was suddenly blocked by some cows with calves and a huge bull complete with ring in the nose....so, discretion being the better part of valour, we turned around and retraced our steps . The walk that I'd planned was about the only mountain route in the area that allows dogs, so we retraced our steps for about 40 minutes until we picked up the Ulster Way and walked some of that instead, which was still lovely. Not a complete disaster and we put about 5 hours walking in, so I am letting myself off my run tonight as it was pretty hilly .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done mv for managing to be sociable....you haven't quite scared everyone off :scared: . I like it now and again but do prefer solitude too!
> 
> Beth17 - glad the boys are still being good.
> 
> Well, we went to the mountains today, but it didn't quite go as planned. We were just over an hour into our walk when the narrow path that we were on (fenced both sides, running between fields) was suddenly blocked by some cows with calves and a huge bull complete with ring in the nose....so, discretion being the better part of valour, we turned around and retraced our steps . The walk that I'd planned was about the only mountain route in the area that allows dogs, so we retraced our steps for about 40 minutes until we picked up the Ulster Way and walked some of that instead, which was still lovely. Not a complete disaster and we put about 5 hours walking in, so I am letting myself off my run tonight as it was pretty hilly .


Well I hope you took a piccy of the bull snorting and pawing the ground before you turned and ran like hell....!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I hope you took a piccy of the bull snorting and pawing the ground before you turned and ran like hell....!!


Nope :scared:. Didn't run either in case they chased, just walked rapidly with lots of good glances behind....the BW kept trying to stop and sniff :mad2:. I didn't take any photos in the end, was disappointed!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Nope :scared:. Didn't run either in case they chased, just walked rapidly with lots of good glances behind....the BW kept trying to stop and sniff :mad2:. I didn't take any photos in the end, was disappointed!!


Yes I've had a few close encounters with bulls over the years; they terrify me.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes I've had a few close encounters with bulls over the years; they terrify me.


It was the fact that we were in a narrow space with no way out and they had calves with them :scared:. I'm not too concerned without Kilo although I wouldn't have pushed through them today - no way jose!! - but with a dog....eek!!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Nope :scared:. Didn't run either in case they chased, just walked rapidly with lots of good glances behind....the BW kept trying to stop and sniff :mad2:. I didn't take any photos in the end, was disappointed!!


Yikes.:scared: Thats a bit scary, touch wood , I;ve never encountered them. And why do dogs do that, want to stop and sniff at the worst moments.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Yikes.:scared: Thats a bit scary, touch wood , I;ve never encountered them. And why do dogs do that, want to stop and sniff at the worst moments.


I have a dog with good sense it seems. When we encountered wild boar he was practically dragging me out of there!

Glad you're okay Dogless, I'd have been bloody terrified!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It was the fact that we were in a narrow space with no way out and they had calves with them :scared:. I'm not too concerned without Kilo although I wouldn't have pushed through them today - no way jose!! - but with a dog....eek!!


My sister and I had a nasty encounter with a bull in Worcestershire about five years ago.

We were instructing all week and staying in our caravans on site. The dog walking wasn't brilliant and although there appeared to be plenty of footpaths and bridleways most were blocked.

We had six of our own collies with us and my sister being my sister insisted we were up every morning at 6.00am to walk our dogs before we started instructing, then again at lunchtime and again in the evening.

Anyway this particular evening she decided we would try a completely different direction where there appeared to be a decent bridleway. We trudged for ages through nettles etc. down a track and then came to a gate before open fields. There was a big sign saying "beware of the bull" but sis was convinced the field was empty so off we went. We got almost across the first field towards an open gate when I noticed cows and sure enough in the middle of them was an enormous bull. We quickly and quietly put all the dogs on lead, told them to be quiet and sort of backed across at least 10 acres the way we had come.

I said a few choice words once we were safely out of the field...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> My sister and I had a nasty encounter with a bull in Worcestershire about five years ago.
> 
> We were instructing all week and staying in our caravans on site. The dog walking wasn't brilliant and although there appeared to be plenty of footpaths and bridleways most were blocked.
> 
> We had six of our own collies with us and my sister being my sister insisted we were up every morning at 6.00am to walk our dogs before we started instructing, then again at lunchtime and again in the evening.
> 
> Anyway this particular evening she decided we would try a completely different direction where there appeared to be a decent bridleway. We trudged for ages through nettles etc. down a track and then came to a gate before open fields. There was a big sign saying "beware of the bull" but sis was convinced the field was empty so off we went. We got almost across the first field towards an open gate when I noticed cows and sure enough in the middle of them was an enormous bull. We quickly and quietly put all the dogs on lead, told them to be quiet and sort of backed across at least 10 acres the way we had come.
> 
> I said a few choice words once we were safely out of the field...!!


I hate that feeling when an empty field turns out to be occupied :scared::scared:.

I can imagine just the sort of conversation I would have with my sister should she pull a stunt like that - how scary :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I hate that feeling when an empty field turns out to be occupied :scared::scared:.
> 
> I can imagine just the sort of conversation I would have with my sister should she pull a stunt like that - how scary :scared:.


That was quite a mild stunt by my sister's standards.

When the kids were small we took them all to Windsor Safari Park. We were standing looking at the elephants and my little neice, aged about 4, dropped the toy she was carrying between the first and second barrier. My sister lent over to retrieve said toy and one of the buttons on her new trousers pinged into the enclosure. One of the elephants picked it up with his trunk and before I could stop her she was over both barriers in with the elephants to get it back. She drew quite a crowd and it's a wonder we weren't all asked to leave.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That was quite a mild stunt by my sister's standards.
> 
> When the kids were small we took them all to Windsor Safari Park. We were standing looking at the elephants and my little neice, aged about 4, dropped the toy she was carrying between the first and second barrier. My sister lent over to retrieve said toy and one of the buttons on her new trousers pinged into the enclosure. One of the elephants picked it up with his trunk and before I could stop her she was over both barriers in with the elephants to get it back. She drew quite a crowd and it's a wonder we weren't all asked to leave.


You make her sound bonkers :scared: - in a good way!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You make her sound bonkers :scared: - in a good way!!


Yes she was totally bonkers in her younger days and was always trying to kill me on various horses.

The funny thing was with the button in the elephant enclosure, it was totally useless as the elephant had scrunched it up...LOL


----------



## Zoojie

Just quickly popping my head into the thread to say that I'm still alive, still working hard, and just doing too much to keep concentration!

Loki has made fantastic progress, barely recognise him now down the park. Still a lot of work to be done, but it's gone from losing his mind barking to just a woof and then looking to me. We've been praised by the 1-1 trainer for having such great attention from him with watching and stays and the like. 

Now we've made some progress I've started training him in the local dog walking areas as I know I can keep his attention for long enough for dogs to pass! Still going to training, but with the progress we've made over just two months, I'm pretty sure by Christmas we've got a great chance of actually getting him back into full training classes with other dogs, and I'll be able to focus his attention back on 'proper' training to enhance his comfort around other dogs. Means back to agility with him, can't wait because he loved it! 

Amber has been to her second competition obedience class, and we've managed to shape a proper retrieve over the past two weeks on our own! She's fantastic, picks things up really quick. Working on our proper form, particularly walking close to heel and finishes. But gone from her not walking to heel at all to her doing a 'watch me' command while walking next to me, without running off. That's some impressive progress I think for a couple of weeks work!

I've got to get back to basics with Ambers waits and stays. She doesn't do it for long enough (need a minute minimum) so that's my focus for this month on the run up to the KC good citizen bronze and silver we're doing at the end of the month. 

Absolutely knackered with all the training - probably exhausted me mentally and physically more than the dogs!


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## Beth17

Zoojie sounds like you're doing really well!

Dogless Shame about the cows, why do dogs decide to sniff at inappropriate times? With my two it's usually the middle of the road 

Had a good class last night and Sam did really well with recall and walking nicely on lead, the only blip was at the end when he couldn't be bothered to do a sit, down stand; can't say I blame him really we do practice it a lot at home


----------



## Twiggy

Zoojie said:


> Just quickly popping my head into the thread to say that I'm still alive, still working hard, and just doing too much to keep concentration!
> 
> Loki has made fantastic progress, barely recognise him now down the park. Still a lot of work to be done, but it's gone from losing his mind barking to just a woof and then looking to me. We've been praised by the 1-1 trainer for having such great attention from him with watching and stays and the like.
> 
> Now we've made some progress I've started training him in the local dog walking areas as I know I can keep his attention for long enough for dogs to pass! Still going to training, but with the progress we've made over just two months, I'm pretty sure by Christmas we've got a great chance of actually getting him back into full training classes with other dogs, and I'll be able to focus his attention back on 'proper' training to enhance his comfort around other dogs. Means back to agility with him, can't wait because he loved it!
> 
> Amber has been to her second competition obedience class, and we've managed to shape a proper retrieve over the past two weeks on our own! She's fantastic, picks things up really quick. Working on our proper form, particularly walking close to heel and finishes. But gone from her not walking to heel at all to her doing a 'watch me' command while walking next to me, without running off. That's some impressive progress I think for a couple of weeks work!
> 
> I've got to get back to basics with Ambers waits and stays. She doesn't do it for long enough (need a minute minimum) so that's my focus for this month on the run up to the KC good citizen bronze and silver we're doing at the end of the month.
> 
> Absolutely knackered with all the training - probably exhausted me mentally and physically more than the dogs!


Don't know if this will help but I'll tell you how we teach stays:

Have your dog sitting besides you in the heel position on the lead. Say "sit" and move about 6" to the right away from your dog, keeping the lead in the left hand above the dog's head for support. Count to 3, return to the heel position and praise like mad. Repeat several times until you can count to 10. If the dog moves, pop him back into the sit on the spot where he was originally and start again. Don't rebuke the dog in any way, not even a mild "ah ah". Once the dog begins to understand this very basic move repeat as before but then move about 6" to the side and take a step forward, count to ten, return to the dog and again praise and play with the dog. Once the dog is performing this exercise well start to put in variations ie 6" to the side and a step backwards - 6" to the side and lightly clap your hands - 6" to the side and wave your outside leg - 6" to the side and two paces forward, increasing the time, etc. etc.
This all usually goes very well until you try and walk right round your dog and when you get about two thirds of the way round he will move to try and watch you, which is why I keep the dog on the lead and also employ the 'lullaby voice' soothingly saying something like "oh that's a good sit".
Once the basics are established I then 'up the anti' running around the dog, then running around clapping my hands or singing or throwing toys over his head. Until all of this is very firmly established I don't take the lead off. I never tell the dog off for moving as it means I haven't taught the basics sufficiently well therefore it's my fault, not the dogs. I never say "wait" or "stay" or use a hand signal either because to me sit is sit until told to do something different.

I teach the sit very thoroughly before doing the same on the down.

HTH


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I never say "wait" or "stay" or use a hand signal either because to me sit is sit until told to do something different.


My hubby ruined Ruperts stay by telling him to sit before he went out the door to work :mad2: I started using a stay command coz he seems incapable of remembering that sit/down means sit/down until you're released.

I start off simply building up the time the dog is in position by witholding the click for a second, then 2 seconds etc. I figure there's no point even trying to move away until the dog can stay for a short time while I'm right by his side. When I start increasing distance I do it one step at a time and return immediately. Once he's reliably staying with me moving away I start asking for duration as well. When I start adding distraction I drop both distance and duration to the minimum and gradually build them back up.


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## Twiggy

After all these years my hubby still hasn't mastered that "sit down" are two separate commands but it doesn't seem to affect my dogs training wise, which says it all really....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> After all these years my hubby still hasn't mastered that "sit down" are two separate commands but it doesn't seem to affect my dogs training wise, which says it all really....LOL


Hubby is mystified that Kilo doesn't understand commands such as "KILOGETDOWNFROMTHERENOWIMEANIT" and "THATISENOUGHWEARENOTHAVINGYOUBARKINGEVERYTIMESOMEONEWALKSPASTTHEHOUSEYOUKNOWBETTER" :scared:.


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## kat&molly

Thats so true, my OH is just as bad. It drives me mad sometimes.
One of his best was once when Moll was looking for her ball and he told her 'Not there stupid[] its next to Scruffys foot.'


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## Beth17

You mean to tell me dogs aren't born with an inbuilt understanding of the human language? :001_huh:

Well I never :lol:


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## Dogless

Away from the subjects of cows and OHs :scared: we had a good walk this morning. Walked there nicely; didn't react to a dal who was eyeballing and then barking at him :thumbup:. Not totally relaxed, but no overexcitement either . Went to the fields and played with some recalls and impulse control stuff as ever. The BW must have been a little tired from yesterday as he came to me for his fusses of his own volition after 50 minutes of the walk or so - when he's been loonying about I recall him, do some T Touches either side of his ridge, then his ears and he usually melts into a puddle and lies down for his chest and tummy scratched....relaxes him and lets him know that play is over even if there are other things going on. Today he came and leant on me to start himself and has been glued to the sofa all day!!


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## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> You mean to tell me dogs aren't born with an inbuilt understanding of the human language? :001_huh:
> 
> Well I never :lol:


All you need to do to train Sam is hold up cue cards with what you want doing written on them. Didn't you know?  .


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> All you need to do to train Sam is hold up cue cards with what you want doing written on them. Didn't you know?  .


So that's where I've been going wrong 

I think we've stumbled onto the next new training craze :thumbup:


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## moonviolet

Sorry i've been a bit quiet. OH has had a few days off and I can't appear to be on here all day 

Lovely walks with some nice plays and the bogey areas seems to be less of an issue the last few days which is a big bonus. however as one thing improves....

We had a wonderful class last night, Tink did well with all the exercises until right near the end it had got dark outside, we've never been in the venue after dark before. Suddenly my quiet beagle is giving a big "Go away" bark it resonated around the hall. Even the highly motivated collies fell silent.... then i worked out what she was looking at .. " invading beagles from Mars" well more accurately her own reflection in a skylight :lol: :lol: :lol: She was soon distracted and forgot about the impending invasion. 

Poor lamb worked so hard her beagle brain must have been aching, when we got home she just flopped immediately.


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## Dogless

Bless Tink thinking that Alien Beagles were on the way :scared:.


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## Dogless

A mediocre afternoon. Bit of fun with the agility set and footy then to the park for an hour and a half or so. We met the in season bitch from the day before yesterday again and must have followed the route that they had taken for the first 50 minutes or so......so I may as well have had a pet rock on the lead as we just had air scenting or nose glued to the floor, drooling, teeth chattering and whining - anything could have happened and Kilo wouldn't have noticed. I just concentrated on not getting frustrated as it wasn't his fault - but not the nice close companionship we normally have!!

After that we lost the scent :thumbup: and my boy was back; he was really well behaved for me. What I have noticed is that he has started to lie down when any dog that he is anxious about approaches (I was getting him to do it for labs if you recall as he had started to react). I am allowing it as he's out of the way and visibly relaxes - not the tense crouch he'll do when stalking in play - his eyes are soft and he doesn't eyeball and will even go over onto one hip. It seems very much to be a 'don't mind me I'm not really here' position. The dilemma is other folk's reactions which are very mixed - lots of people comment on how well trained my dog is (he isn't - he does it himself ) and a fair few look very worried indeed that Kilo will do something to their dogs - I keep him well away and on a lead, so if he were to lunge he's out of range anyway (he doesn't - touch wood).

My thinking is that replacing the posturing and eyeballing and sometimes noisy reaction when he feels threatened with lying calmly can only be a good thing. A man with three small dogs who ran over barking today said that more owners of large dogs could do with teaching them to do that as he was large enough to eat his (that old chestnut ). I explained that he was doing it as he was anxious about three dogs running at him barking and he was really amused that a dog of his size was worried by it. It annoyed me, but was so much better than the possible barking in return that might have occurred before. I don't think he's in any way 'shut down' as he's very responsive when lying down, will take treats no problem and doesn't lip lick or anything like that.

Thoughts?


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## Twiggy

I don't tend to walk my dogs away from home very much these days because of Quiver, who's hearing and eyesight isn't that good, but when I did I always put my lot into the down to let other dog walkers pass on a narrow track etc. Four dogs immediately hitting the deck and staying there usually resulted in the owners of ill-mannered or DA dogs hurriedly attaching the lead....LOL

It was training this afternoon so I took Holly out to join the class. Whilst I was instructing she managed to get into my training bag and had a lovely time. She trashed several retrieve articles, pulling the stuffing out of two soft toys and ripping a packet of tissues into hundreds of pieces, chewed one of Tremor's tuggies in half and pretty much had the whole contents spread all over the place - bless!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I don't tend to walk my dogs away from home very much these days because of Quiver, who's hearing and eyesight isn't that good, but when I did I always put my lot into the down to let other dog walkers pass on a narrow track etc. Four dogs immediately hitting the deck and staying there usually resulted in the owners of ill-mannered or DA dogs hurriedly attaching the lead....LOL
> 
> It was training this afternoon so I took Holly out to join the class. Whilst I was instructing she managed to get into my training bag and had a lovely time. She trashed several retrieve articles, pulling the stuffing out of two soft toys and ripping a packet of tissues into hundreds of pieces, chewed one of Tremor's tuggies in half and pretty much had the whole contents spread all over the place - bless!!


OOps.....naughty Holly Bolly; I like her .

I think I'll continue just letting Kilo lie down - he'll walk past fine if confident, but if he is worried he now lies down. As it relaxes him and the other dog / dogs can then walk past it seems to be OK to me. There are still some people who think it's aggressively motivated (I recall a poster on here telling me it was a stance designed to be able to tear out another dog's throat :scared which is why they become uneasy - but he is relaxed, definitely.


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## moonviolet

Twiggy: Holly Bolly sounds a right little monkey. Getting quite fond of her 

Dogless: there's a huge difference between dogs lying down tense, in a stalking way and in a non threatening " nothing to see, here move along." way. It sounds like Kilo is fine, happy and relaxed. Those who would mistake the body language probably believe all wagging tails are good.

OH handled her ladyship in class tongiht she was a super star, even ignoring the food distractions on her key retrieves and hall length recall. Which was doubly surprising as on her leg stretch walk earlier in the evening she was flipping wild, like someone had slipped her some uppers. Normally she'll trot ahead then wait to see if she's recalled or told to go on. Today this was all done at full speed. Each dog we met , after polite greetings, she play bowed, It's like she's shaken off her fear and is trying to make up for lost time. So when i saw some mountain bikers , she went on lead not worth taking risks because she's on the jolly juice!

Heard a sad story this morning , there's a lady in her eighties who walks her small 16 year old dog, She got her last year from the cinnamon trust. A nervous little girl she is but she has been blossoming in her Time wih this Lady. On Saturday she was chased by a lab, it took 3 hours for her to be found. You can how distressing this was for her elderly owner. This morning the the same lab appears from nowhere , owners nowhere in sight but thankfully this lady was walking with others and they managed to intervene prevent a second occurence. Turns out this dog is a recent rehome :mad2:


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## Dogless

mv - must be nice to see Miss Tinks so carefree...even if she was a bit bonkers :scared:. At least she still behaved perfectly in class :aureola:.

You are right about the lying down; Kilo will lie in a stalking way in play or if a collie stalks towards him (I stop that, the intense eyeballing looks like it wouldn't end well!!) and this really is a 'don't mind me' signal that he's using when anxious. Works well apart from for the over enthusiastic labs here who jump on him anyway :scared:.


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## kat&molly

Twiggy- Holly sounds good fun, I do love the naughty ones.

Dogless- sounds like Kilo is coping very well with the lying down, think I'd be really pleased with that.

Moonviolet- woo woo , go Miss Tink.:thumbup:
And didn't she do well to ignore food distractions this week.

How sad and frightening for the the old lady and her little dog. Some people couldn't seem to give a toss what effect their actions have on others.

Off to Agility this morning, dont think I'll forget the phone today.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> OOps.....naughty Holly Bolly; I like her .
> 
> I think I'll continue just letting Kilo lie down - he'll walk past fine if confident, but if he is worried he now lies down. As it relaxes him and the other dog / dogs can then walk past it seems to be OK to me. There are still some people who think it's aggressively motivated (I recall a poster on here telling me it was a stance designed to be able to tear out another dog's throat :scared which is why they become uneasy - but he is relaxed, definitely.


I suppose it's how they are lying down. Interestingly it was the stand stay the KC Obedience Council removed several years ago as they deemed it could be perceived as an aggressive stance.

I think, in the main, the down position is non-threatening.


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## Twiggy

Oh good little Tink. I don't know whether it was because it was cooler yesterday but Holly had several mad five minutes yesterday morning and again last evening and, as you say, it's as if someone has slipped them some sort of 'upper'.


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## Sarah1983

Moonviolet, I am packing Spencer up and shipping him off to you! Sadly today appears to be a Kevin day and he's being bloody horrible  He's done nothing but steal things, even opening doors or climbing to get things, pester me, jump at me, steal more things, yank my arm out on our walk and completely ignore me! I guess I should have seen it coming, it's been a good couple of weeks since we last saw Kevin.


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## Dogless

Oh no Sarah; hope Kevin isn't with you for too long and Spen comes back :scared:.

Today we haven't worked on anything (school tonight though!) - but there are some scenic photos for you Twiggy! http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/258895-photos-longer-than-expected-walk.html


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## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Moonviolet, I am packing Spencer up and shipping him off to you! Sadly today appears to be a Kevin day and he's being bloody horrible  He's done nothing but steal things, even opening doors or climbing to get things, pester me, jump at me, steal more things, yank my arm out on our walk and completely ignore me! I guess I should have seen it coming, it's been a good couple of weeks since we last saw Kevin.


Think you could get him here by Saturday? I have the perfect day for a young active dog planned. A day at my parents place. free run of a livestock fenced field without livestock, 3 large ponds without fishermen and there's a 3 year old black labby girl, a bold 6 month-ish blue roan spanner, Tink of course and Great aunt Hollythe JRT to keep them all in order 

Tink Rolled over ! I never thought i'd see it. I praised her like she'd turned sand into gold. She looked slightly bewildered. I wonder if she'll do it again


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Think you could get him here by Saturday? I have the perfect day for a young active dog planned. A day at my parents place. free run of a livestock fenced field without livestock, 3 large ponds without fishermen and there's a 3 year old black labby girl, a bold 6 month-ish blue roan spanner, Tink of course and Great aunt Hollythe JRT to keep them all in order
> 
> Tink Rolled over ! I never thought i'd see it. I praised her like she'd turned sand into gold. She looked slightly bewildered. I wonder if she'll do it again


Now turning sand into gold would be useful . Not sure even you can teach the Amazing Tink (said in a circus voice ) that though!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Now turning sand into gold would be useful . Not sure even you can teach the Amazing Tink (said in a circus voice ) that though!


I'm going to be so much less impressed with this new behaviour the first time she rolls over in someting unsavoury :lol:


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm going to be so much less impressed with this new behaviour the first time she rolls over in someting unsavoury :lol:


Very true!!!


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## kat&molly

Well done Tink for rolling over and a gold star for the fact that it wasn't in poo, [yet]

Sarah- hope Spencers Kevin day was a one off- if you are sending him to Moonviolet, he could stop off here and take Evie on the way.

Another great session at Agility with Moll, she had a bit of a blip by trying to avoid the jumps and going to the Walk Way first  but we blocked it and used it as a reward, she soon got back on track.
Such a shock as she's sooo greedy for treats there- Big Evie said its a good job she has a lesson once a week as its obviously the only time the poor girl gets fed.
Tried her on the A Frame- straight up and over first time.:thumbup:

Have a good night at School Dogless.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Moll; she sounds like she's a real star at agility .

School was.....hard. There were a few new dogs tonight; one bitch whose scent Kilo was very interested in and more significantly a boisterous male black lab. I'm pleased that the lab has joined as it gives Kilo a chance to work around him; he was uncomfortable with him there tonight, but no silliness - just very, very alert to anything going on around him. He did everything that I asked of him...it was just hard to keep his focus. We are both exhausted!!

On the plus side one of the new ladies said how well behaved Kilo was and another asked how long we'd been coming as she liked to see what might be possible with her dog (never been on a lead or had any training before tonight)....very nice - but they'll be blown away when they see the demo dogs brought in sometimes if they think the BW's very, very basic manners are good :scared::scared:.

Oh, there is also an agility show on all weekend that the club are running that they have asked if we (club members) want to go and watch and help at; I may if hubby isn't home - he's off on a course soon but I haven't really seen him much for weeks.


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## moonviolet

Well done Molly. Sounds like she's in her element and huge well done on the A frame :thumbup: :thumbup:


Top Marks for Kilo and you. Well done for keeping his focus it will be wonderful for him to have a black lab there under control  sounds like you are doing a great job with Kilo, it's lovely when others comment 


Rolling over wasn't repeated on this evening's walk. Is my dog the only one that loves a sand/dust bath? she just can't walk past sand without having a bit of a shoulder smear at the very least.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- sounds like class was hard work- but its good for Kilo isn't it, and at least its controlled and he shouldn't get jumped on. Another compliment , thats lovely.

Moonviolet- Evie[who else] likes dust baths, a full on roll, then stands up and shakes, I'm left choking in a cloud of dust.

Moll is doing great at Agility, but then she gets all that time just for her, I doubt we'd have got this far in a class with other dogs learning as well.
I cant see us doing it for too much longer as I'm sure she'll have learnt the whole course soon.


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## Dogless

Very good morning - went to the park, didn't meet the in season bitch and it has just rained heavily, so I had my walking companion back instead of the pet rock . We did lots of random commands whilst walking around, went past plenty of dogs nicely with only one lie down for a small dog who was barking and running at him. The owner said 'Isn't he good; I just haven't the energy to run after this dog of mine' .


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## moonviolet

K&M. I should have guess it would be Little Evie   Tink rolled right over in the sand again today. I'm super pleased as this was less than a minute after she had greeted a couple of dogs that had made her a little unsure of theri swift approach and i've always suspected she was relutant to roll as she didn't like to reveal her belly or It could simply be she was too daft.

I did a little key retrieve with her ladyship ( increased distance, reducde difficulty) and made a little video i may bore you with it later :lol:



Dogless said:


> The owner said 'Isn't he good; I just haven't the energy to run after this dog of mine' .


 I guess Kilo was just born good  and you haven't worked incredibly hard


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> K&M. I should have guess it would be Little Evie   Tink rolled right over in the sand again today. I'm super pleased as this was less than a minute after she had greeted a couple of dogs that had made her a little unsure of theri swift approach and i've always suspected she was relutant to roll as she didn't like to reveal her belly or It could simply be she was too daft.
> 
> I did a little key retrieve with her ladyship ( increased distance, reducde difficulty) and made a little video i may bore you with it later :lol:
> 
> I guess Kilo was just born good  and you haven't worked incredibly hard


Well done AGAIN Miss Tink; rare anything else has to be said when you post - she's really a little superstar and has changed my opinion of Beagles as a breed massively . In a good way!!

I think the key is, that if your dog doesn't have a recall, runs at other dogs and you don't have the energy to run after it......keep it on the lead :thumbup:. Particularly in an area where dogs have to be onlead anyway.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Well done AGAIN Miss Tink; rare anything else has to be said when you post - she's really a little superstar and has changed my opinion of Beagles as a breed massively . In a good way!!.


Aww thats so nice. 



Dogless said:


> I think the key is, that if your dog doesn't have a recall, runs at other dogs and you don't have the energy to run after it......keep it on the lead :thumbup:. Particularly in an area where dogs have to be onlead anyway.


There you go with that rule abiding common sense again


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## Twiggy

Shall I tell you what I've been working on most of today - varnishing wretched doors...!!

My OH decided about two months ago that we needed new internal doors, mostly because he'd tried to repair the handles on two of them and made matters worse. Anyway he went on and on (as men do) so I got a quote from a friend's husband and we duly had twelve new doors fitted about six weeks ago. I paid the £2,000 for them and I knew damn well who would end up varnishing the flipping things. I've managed to do 3 sides today and as they will need two coats that's another 45 sides to go......


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## moonviolet

Oh Twiggy That sounds like the very definition of arduous task!  I'm sure they will look lovely when they are done and you'll be really pleased, Having something of a "project" house myself i really really do sympathise.


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## Beth17

Had a lovely walk with the boys today! Sun was shining and took them separately for one on one time. I'm working on getting Sam to ignore dogs that don't want to say hello. We were getting there in the end and getting him more focussed on his toy so that's a work in progress.

I bloody hate long lines though am I the only one? It's a necessary evil at the moment but they're a pain in the bum Sam decided to run and because the line is slippery it was harder to hold on and I slipped and ripped my jeans 

Luckily there was no one else about at that point 

Oscar was simply an angel :aureola:

Having Sam has now made me appreciate how good and easy I've had it with Oscar 

On another note just weighed Sam and he's now just under 23kg and not quite 6 months yet :scared: Oscar was only 27kg when I got him at a year.

Well done everyone else! Tink what a little star :thumbsup:

Dogless sounds like Kilo's doing you proud, watch out though everyone will be wanting one of those ready trained Ridgebacks at this rate :lol:


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## Dogless

Twiggy; don't envy you the varnishing :scared:.

Beth 17 - your two are being brilliant :thumbup:.

This afternoon I took Kilo to what was one of our favourite walks down by the river; I stopped doing it pretty much as this thread started when Kilo's general excitement about dogs and our lab issues began because the first mile and a half is a very, very narrow path with a fence one side and river the other where you have to pass everything in close proximity and I wanted to work on things rather than set him up to be stressed and / or fail.

Anyway; this afternoon I felt confident that we are at a stage where we can go back to that walk, so I armed myself with liver cake and we had a wonderful time . It was really busy with dogs, runners and cyclists and the BW did me proud...so pleased with his behaviour :thumbup::thumbup:. He was relaxed apart from about 5 minutes where dog after dog was coming past and he got a bit grabby for his treats which means he's getting stressed but he soon settled again :thumbup:.

My only gripe is out of all the dozens and dozens of cyclists and runners that I sat Kilo to the edge of the path for (and jumped into a hedge for once to avoid being hit :mad2 not one single person said thank you. I had to resist the urge to say "You're welcome" loudly and sarcastically every time .


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## Beth17

That sounds a lovely walk! Glad you had a good time, it must be really nice being able to go back 

Such a shame though that common courtesy seems to have disappeared though I'm sure they would have been the first to complain had you not moved


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## kat&molly

Sounds like everyone's doing really well. 
We aren't doing much training really, its really hot again today[either that or I'm having my own personal summer]

Twiggy- I dont envy you doing those doors- I hope you've got a mini roller and fast drying varnish- and not too many dog hairs stuck in your work.

Evie has just flopped and gone to sleep- it wont be long before she wakes up, beats Scruff up and starts dragging dog beds all over the house. I swear that girls got a secret drug supply.


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## Twiggy

What a good boy Kilo and well done you for having the confidence to go back to that walk.

That's very rude not to thank you when you let other dogs and owners by but, sadly, that's the way of the world now.

Two or three years ago my sister was staying with me and we walked the girls along a riverbank about 2 miles from here. We were chatting away and the 7 collies were running about when we suddenly heard hoofbeats. When we turned round there was a teenager on her pony cantering up behind us and about to mow us, or the dogs, down. My sister being the riding instructor that she is really read the riot act about manners and politeness....LOL


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Sounds like everyone's doing really well.
> We aren't doing much training really, its really hot again today[either that or I'm having my own personal summer]
> 
> Twiggy- I dont envy you doing those doors- I hope you've got a mini roller and fast drying varnish- and not too many dog hairs stuck in your work.
> 
> Evie has just flopped and gone to sleep- it wont be long before she wakes up, beats Scruff up and starts dragging dog beds all over the house. I swear that girls got a secret drug supply.


It's been hot here too and talks of being even hotter tomorrow and particularly Sunday. I should be going to a show near Windsor Castle on Sunday but if it really is going to be 26 - 28 degrees I shan't be going.

I fear the doors are going to take all winter to complete and the kitchen needs decorating as well. I can't use a mini roller as the wretched doors are panelled (seemed a good idea at the time)...LOL


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> What a good boy Kilo and well done you for having the confidence to go back to that walk.
> 
> That's very rude not to thank you when you let other dogs and owners by but, sadly, that's the way of the world now.
> 
> Two or three years ago my sister was staying with me and we walked the girls along a riverbank about 2 miles from here. We were chatting away and the 7 collies were running about when we suddenly heard hoofbeats. When we turned round there was a teenager on her pony cantering up behind us and about to mow us, or the dogs, down. My sister being the riding instructor that she is really read the riot act about manners and politeness....LOL


Thanks; I probably could have gone back a short while ago but just didn't want to undo everything we've achieved by going too early - would have been so angry with myself!

Your sister is fab!! The dogs and owners were fine and we all said hello to each other - it was the runners and cyclists who were participating in some sort of 'ignorance Friday' :scared:.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- thats brilliant to be able to go back on that walk with Kilo- it shows just how far you've come.:thumbup: Have you had much trouble with the kids lately?

Twiggy - I still use a mini roller with panelled doors. Then brush in the bits that need it.!!!
This is the 3rd house we've lived in over here, each one has been a wreck to start with, and thats why this house is really small. I'm not so enthusiastic about renovating as I once was, OH keeps making 'moving house' noises again-but I cant hear him.:arf:


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## Beth17

Morning!

We're off out at 10 to go to a village fete that the lady who fostered Sam has helped to organise. There is also a stall for the boxer rescue he came from so should hopefully be a good day and fingers crossed the boys aren't too naughty 

It will be lovely to go up as she and her friends haven't seen Sam since he came home at 8 weeks. I will try and get some pics of the day and hopefully the weather will brighten up!


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## moonviolet

Beth, I hope you aren't feeling sore after your slip yesterday, longlines are a bit of a necessary evil. I hope it's not long before Sam is ready to leave them behind  Oh i think Sam is going to be a big boy 

Well done Dogless on a sucessful return to the river walk , sounds like the BW did you proud in the face of high distraction and lack of consideration. Yesterday evening we met up with Monty and his mum, had a mountain bike ( neither of us heard coming ride full pelt past us. Thankfully neither Tink or Monty reacted. Would it really be too uncool to call out a greeting or use a damn bell 

As warned,a totally terrible poor quality vid of Tink retrieving my keys. Slightly ruined by her dropping them when i called her clever :lol:



Must get ready for a day at the mad house  have a great day everyone.


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## kat&molly

Aww, thats lovely, well done Tink.
I'll have to film Moll so you can see the 'wiggle'- its sooo dramatic.

Have a great day.

I'm off to our small town to do a bit of lurking with Evie-from a long distance.


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## Dogless

Have a great time Beth  and a good lurk :scared: kat&molly.

mv - Tink is just fab; she certainly looks very 'busy' and focussed for you :thumbup:.

Hectic morning this morning; my doorbell went at 0600 and my friend's husband (she went back to UK last week and he is following today) was stood there. Considering he should have left for the ferry there was obviously something wrong....one of their cats had done a runner when he was trying to get him in the cat carrier. Cue me chucking some clothes on, letting the BW out for a wee and feeding him quickly and then leaving him for 3 hours whilst the cat was captured :scared:. After that we went to the park and all I can say is that the BW gets a platinum star today, really, really happy with his behaviour :thumbup::thumbup:. My best boy.


----------



## Dogless

The BW is on a roll - another fab afternoon!

I was going to go to the offlead fields but it was a lovely sunny afternoon which meant that the fields that I 99% of the time have to myself would have been pretty busy and chaotic, so I decided to go to the park / castle grounds again. The place was busy as I knew it would be but there are lots of wide spaces to gain as much room as you need. Kilo was fab; ignored all distractions after a quick look.

Two small bad points - the first was as we'd found somewhere quiet in the corner of a big empty (because it's such a bog!!) field for Kilo to lie and chill and have some fusses he snapped at a wasp and got stung on the chop. He did his normal freak and whirl around in a panic. He did look like the elephant man as it swelled up and stuck out further than his top chop, but has gone down a lot now!! Won't help his fear of flies at all!!

The second was just after that I could see a man making a beeline for us...well being towed over by a very enthusiastic Bullmastiff. I have seen him before but always wave at a distance and avoid. As he got close enough to hear me I said "I'd rather the dogs didn't meet if you don't mind, I'm training mine" so he replied "Mine's really friendly, there's no need to worry". I said "He looks lovely, but I still don't want them to meet, sorry". The inevitable happened and he was dragged over going on about how it's good for dogs to socialise etc etc. He kept fussing Kilo all over his head despite me asking him not to as he didn't like it too :mad2:. The meet between the dogs was fine, both relaxed, but I let Kilo have a very brief sniff indeed before taking him away with the man chatting away and getting dragged over by his dog again as I made my exit. He said he liked to educate folk as they were scared of his dog but he liked to show that he was friendly - I had noticed him going over to every other person he spotted before; that's one reason that I had always avoided . 

No harm done at all but I have found Kilo so much more relaxed when all expectations / anticipation of onlead meets has been taken away. He is much better knowing that he has to walk past or stand / sit nicely whilst I talk to another owner. Seems to have reduced his anxiety / excitement significantly.


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## Beth17

What a good boy Kilo and well done for catching the cat, disaster averted :thumbup:

We have had a lovely day the sun was shining and there was a huge turnout. Both boys behaved well considering they couldn't go charging around and Oscar only had a couple of grumpy moments. 

Sam got 4th in waggy tail and joint second in best puppy, I don't think he did quite as well in his other classes as he kept trying to commando crawl out of the ring so although the judge loved him she couldn't really let him win 

Oscar on the other hand won 1st in his class which was Any Variety Open but lost out in best in show to a very worthy winner. :thumbup:

It was lovely for Sam to re-meet all of the people that helped to raise him and had followed his story 

Anyway didn't really get any pics as I was wrestling with the dogs all day but here are a couple taken of Sam relaxing in front of the stall and Oscar at home with his medal.

















Hope everyone else has had a good day!


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## Dogless

Beth; sounds like you had a superb day - and Oscar looks so proud of himself!! .


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## kat&molly

Well done Dogless for catching the cat.
Poor Kilo getting stung, ouch, Jay got stung once-in her mouth by a wasp but she's hated flies ever since. Hope his chops are ok.
What a silly man you met though.

Lovely photos Beth, the boys done well. Had to laugh a commando crawling out of the ring though.

We couldn't stay in town and lurk, there was something on and it was choc-a --block, poor Evie would have gone in to meltdown. We'll go Monday as its like a ghost town then.

I've just downloaded the BAT book.:thumbup:

Think we're off to find some lakes today, OH taking us as its so bloomin hot again.

Have a good day everyone.


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## moonviolet

Well done on the cat rescue, a dog would never have caused such a panic  :lol: :lol: who am i kidding? 

Poor Kilo I hope his lip is better today what a painful place to get stung. Sounds like he was a real star at the park. What a silly bullmastiff man I appreciate what he thinks he's doing, but it's a bit too much to force your dog upon everyone. Tink loathes strangers touching her head and tends to dodge them, it doesn't help being a bit of a shorty they also tend to bend and loom over her rather than crouch. 

Beth sounds like you had a great you must be proud of your boys. Sam looks posivitely angelic in that photo  Oscar looks very proud of his medal 

K&M have a lovely day cooling off. Shame your lurking plans had to be abandoned. 

We had a good day yesterday, Tink found Maisy the 6month old cocker a bit full on and had a bit of a drool, so i gave her some nice breaks quiet time alone and off in the fields for a training session. Over the course of the day she came round and even initiated a couple games of chase. I'll sort out the pics later. The dogs were well behaved other than the pup getting told off for jumping on Holly, not a cross moment between them. Sadly the same can't be said for all the humans present.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The BW is on a roll - another fab afternoon!
> 
> I was going to go to the offlead fields but it was a lovely sunny afternoon which meant that the fields that I 99% of the time have to myself would have been pretty busy and chaotic, so I decided to go to the park / castle grounds again. The place was busy as I knew it would be but there are lots of wide spaces to gain as much room as you need. Kilo was fab; ignored all distractions after a quick look.
> 
> Two small bad points - the first was as we'd found somewhere quiet in the corner of a big empty (because it's such a bog!!) field for Kilo to lie and chill and have some fusses he snapped at a wasp and got stung on the chop. He did his normal freak and whirl around in a panic. He did look like the elephant man as it swelled up and stuck out further than his top chop, but has gone down a lot now!! Won't help his fear of flies at all!!
> 
> *I have a collie that trains here who is terrified of wasps, bees and flies. He's been stung quite a number of times because he tries to get in first...!! We managed to get a pouch that fits on his collar and filled with citronella, which helps a bit to keep the wretched things away.*
> 
> The second was just after that I could see a man making a beeline for us...well being towed over by a very enthusiastic Bullmastiff. I have seen him before but always wave at a distance and avoid. As he got close enough to hear me I said "I'd rather the dogs didn't meet if you don't mind, I'm training mine" so he replied "Mine's really friendly, there's no need to worry". I said "He looks lovely, but I still don't want them to meet, sorry". The inevitable happened and he was dragged over going on about how it's good for dogs to socialise etc etc. He kept fussing Kilo all over his head despite me asking him not to as he didn't like it too :mad2:. The meet between the dogs was fine, both relaxed, but I let Kilo have a very brief sniff indeed before taking him away with the man chatting away and getting dragged over by his dog again as I made my exit. He said he liked to educate folk as they were scared of his dog but he liked to show that he was friendly - I had noticed him going over to every other person he spotted before; that's one reason that I had always avoided .
> 
> *That made me laugh as I can just picture the bloke being towed by his dog and proclaiming how friendly he is....LOL *
> 
> No harm done at all but I have found Kilo so much more relaxed when all expectations / anticipation of onlead meets has been taken away. He is much better knowing that he has to walk past or stand / sit nicely whilst I talk to another owner. Seems to have reduced his anxiety / excitement significantly.


*That's excellent.*


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## Twiggy

Decided not to go to the show, much too hot IMO. It's a 2 minute sit and a 10 minute down stay in C, so you're in the stay ring for at least 20 minutes by the time you've had your number taken etc. 

I expect I shall be varnishing yet more doors as it's going to be too warm to do anything outside.

Thank goodness it's going to be cooler tomorrow. I worry so about Quiver (who will be 14 yrs old at the end of the month). She hates the heat but insists on coming on every walk.


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## Dogless

k&m - enjoy the lakes....hope you have taken your camera!

mv - sounds as if Tink did very well again and I'll look forward to the photos; shame about the humans by the sounds of it!

Twiggy - ever since Kilo got stung by a swarm of wasps last summer he's been petrified of flies, wasps etc. I have to get them out of the house as he gets obsessed and utterly stressed. I have even had to abandon a walk because of it - there is a video here and as you can see it's a real problem http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/243808-disastrous-day-pictures.html. I'd be interested in knowing a bit more about the pouch you found if you can remember any details.

This morning we had a fab two hours' walk - up early, had the offlead fields to ourselves for an hour's play and running wild, then walked up to the sports pitches and did lots of heelwork and various bits and pieces - then walked home .


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> k&m - enjoy the lakes....hope you have taken your camera!
> 
> mv - sounds as if Tink did very well again and I'll look forward to the photos; shame about the humans by the sounds of it!
> 
> Twiggy - ever since Kilo got stung by a swarm of wasps last summer he's been petrified of flies, wasps etc. I have to get them out of the house as he gets obsessed and utterly stressed. I have even had to abandon a walk because of it - there is a video here and as you can see it's a real problem http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/243808-disastrous-day-pictures.html. I'd be interested in knowing a bit more about the pouch you found if you can remember any details.
> 
> This morning we had a fab two hours' walk - up early, had the offlead fields to ourselves for an hour's play and running wild, then walked up to the sports pitches and did lots of heelwork and various bits and pieces - then walked home .


I'll ask Nancy where she got the pouch from when I see her in the week. I have a feeling it was her local pet shop. Her dog has been slightly better this year but his reaction was much the same as Kilo. She more or less couldn't work him except in early spring and late autumn; he would stop dead on heelwork or move on stays if there was the slightest buzz.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'll ask Nancy where she got the pouch from when I see her in the week. I have a feeling it was her local pet shop. Her dog has been slightly better this year but his reaction was much the same as Kilo. She more or less couldn't work him except in early spring and late autumn; he would stop dead on heelwork or move on stays if there was the slightest buzz.


It is upsetting; sometimes I'm doing a really good training session with Kilo in the fields and have to abandon it because he just becomes consumed with anxiety as soon as a fly lands on him or he hears a buzz. I can tell he's really trying to stay (or whatever) but just can't. When the weather was nice (around the time of that video) I pretty much stuck to forests and went to the fields on days when flies were less likely (in the rain!!). In public like the park when we're walking and he'll suddenly start whirling and cowering, tail between legs it looks as if I've just kicked him or something like that :scared:.


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## kat&molly

We took the girls to a lake yesterday- when we pulled up there were loads of camper vans parked up so I thought it was going to be a bad idea- Evie had to walk past some people but she was ok with that because she knew there was exciting stuff to come!! The lake was quiet, no-one except for one fisherman so they all had a good time running and swimming.
Going back to the van was a bit different as she knew there were people about and for some reason felt safer with me rather than OH. She was fine until a dog barked at us- then got a bit panicky.

I'm going to walk them all then go in to town for a bit-I think 5 or 10 minutes will be enough for her today.

Dogless- just read your agility thread. Big Evie said most of the dogs she gets in haven't got any level of obedience!! and how nice it is to work with Moll. Good to know I got something right 
I'm going to join a couple of the classes soon, as Moll is quite aloof with other dogs- she's just not interested in them so I'd like to see how she copes with other dogs getting excited.
Have you decided to give it a go?

Looking forward to your pics MV.


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## Dogless

k&m - I'll talk to the trainer at classes; it may be that the agility there is exceptionally serious and not suitable for an idiot like me. I'll see what he says.

Sounds as if the lakes were fun in the main and Evie coped well considering all the people about.


----------



## Dogless




----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It is upsetting; sometimes I'm doing a really good training session with Kilo in the fields and have to abandon it because he just becomes consumed with anxiety as soon as a fly lands on him or he hears a buzz. I can tell he's really trying to stay (or whatever) but just can't. When the weather was nice (around the time of that video) I pretty much stuck to forests and went to the fields on days when flies were less likely (in the rain!!). In public like the park when we're walking and he'll suddenly start whirling and cowering, tail between legs it looks as if I've just kicked him or something like that :scared:.


I've just had an email from Nancy to say that Buzz (aptly named for a dog that frightened of flying insects) won his last Class B at Coventry Championship Show yesterday, making him C only. That means cake and wine on Wednesday...!!


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## moonviolet

Well the pics from the weekend were pretty terrible, lots of long grass and doggie bums :lol: here'e the best of a bad bunch.


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## Twiggy

Aww stunning pics, particularly the last one.


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## Sarah1983

Lovely pics Moonviolet, better than the ones I usually end up taking and I'm only trying to photograph one dog!

Found yet another dog trainer I will not be using. Apparently Golden Retrievers are just long haired yellow Labs and each different colour Labrador requires different training methods. Guess I must have just picked the right one by accident then. Seriously wondering whether I should bloody set myself up as a trainer since in the 7 months I've had Spencer I've only come across "trainers" who make me go :scared: or :mad2: or both.

Now working on collar grabs. It's extremely rare that I grab my dog by the collar but I did it for some reason the other day and Spen didn't half cower  He doesn't wear a collar in the house normally but I think he will be doing for a bit now and I'll be working on desensitizing him to having it grabbed, held and messed with.

Spen met the new dogs living above us yesterday. It wasn't planned and certainly wasn't the place or way I'd have chosen to have them meet but luckily it went okay. I was taking him out for a walk and just as I shut my front door the dogs came thundering down the stairs. No owner with them so if anything had kicked off I'd have been in trouble since separating 2 GSDs and a Lab on a staircase would NOT be easy. Thankfully though it was a quick sniff and they disappeared back upstairs.


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## kat&molly

Lovely pic of Kilo, we haven't heard from Coffee or Born to be Wild, I wonder how Cleo is?

Moonviolet- its not easy trying to get pics of 4 dogs on the go is it. I love the last one ,they all look very focused. and the Spangle looks gorgeous.

Our trip in to town didn't go well. I parked on a side street where you could see the shops, and I only moved 5 feet or so from the car. We didn't even see anyone, although there were a few shoppers around the corner.
Evie was panicky and tried to pull to the car, she turned round and came to me, she took a treat and I put her back in the car. Less than 2 minutes.
Its not a strange place because I park up and pop in a shop quite often, but she does take confidence from the other girls.
Its going to be a long job.


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## moonviolet

Well done Spen on a polite greeting on the stairs. Good Lad. Having the other dogs hurtle down from above could turned out so differently so gold star for Spen. Hope the collar grab desensitizing goes well. It's a good thing to have for an emergency siutation. 

K&M I don't if this is a useful suggestion but would it be possible to have sit/perch on the tailgate of the car, with Evie in the boot area, boot open. Just letting the world pass by, treating her when appropriate, but giving her the security of a familiar place. if that makes sense.  

Maisy the is a wonderful bundle of energy I would have happily brought her home with me, unlike her owner who I'd sell to the highest bidder at the moment, i do hate watching people being taken advantage of.


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## kat&molly

Thanks Moonviolet, I'll try that tomorrow. I've just walked them all seperate around the village, typically didn't see a soul
I had presumed Maisy was your parents dog.

Well done to Spencer- that could have ended sooo much worse.


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Lovely pics Moonviolet, better than the ones I usually end up taking and I'm only trying to photograph one dog!
> 
> Found yet another dog trainer I will not be using. Apparently Golden Retrievers are just long haired yellow Labs and each different colour Labrador requires different training methods. Guess I must have just picked the right one by accident then. Seriously wondering whether I should bloody set myself up as a trainer since in the 7 months I've had Spencer I've only come across "trainers" who make me go :scared: or :mad2: or both.
> 
> Now working on collar grabs. It's extremely rare that I grab my dog by the collar but I did it for some reason the other day and Spen didn't half cower  He doesn't wear a collar in the house normally but I think he will be doing for a bit now and I'll be working on desensitizing him to having it grabbed, held and messed with.
> 
> Spen met the new dogs living above us yesterday. It wasn't planned and certainly wasn't the place or way I'd have chosen to have them meet but luckily it went okay. I was taking him out for a walk and just as I shut my front door the dogs came thundering down the stairs. No owner with them so if anything had kicked off I'd have been in trouble since separating 2 GSDs and a Lab on a staircase would NOT be easy. Thankfully though it was a quick sniff and they disappeared back upstairs.


Sounds as if you've just been very unlucky with trainers. I adore GR and have trained many up to ticket standard.

A few years ago there was a GR dog trained by a chap down in Suffolk and I just couldn't take my eyes off them. He won three open Cs under me in one season. Sadly he lost him at 7.1/2 yrs old. He was so devastated he was going to give up competing and vowed he wouldn't have another dog. I wrote him a long letter and about 18 months later he got another Goldie pup. They won a Class B under me last year and I believe the dog is now C only. He's a really super dog.


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## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Sounds as if you've just been very unlucky with trainers. I adore GR and have trained many up to ticket standard.
> 
> A few years ago there was a GR dog trained by a chap down in Suffolk and I just couldn't take my eyes off them. He won three open Cs under me in one season. Sadly he lost him at 7.1/2 yrs old. He was so devastated he was going to give up competing and vowed he wouldn't have another dog. I wrote him a long letter and about 18 months later he got another Goldie pup. They won a Class B under me last year and I believe the dog is now C only. He's a really super dog.


All the trainers I've found out here are the punishment based, dominate your dog, show it who's boss type.

I think Goldens are lovely dogs but have been a bit baffled as to why people keep complimenting me on mine when he's actually a yellow Labrador. But if they're being told by supposed professionals that they're the same breed that would certainly explain why. Looks wise I prefer the Golden over the Lab but I dunno how the two compare in other ways as I never looked into owning either, I was planning on getting a GSD or BC but fate apparently had other ideas lol.


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> All the trainers I've found out here are the punishment based, dominate your dog, show it who's boss type.
> 
> I think Goldens are lovely dogs but have been a bit baffled as to why people keep complimenting me on mine when he's actually a yellow Labrador. But if they're being told by supposed professionals that they're the same breed that would certainly explain why. Looks wise I prefer the Golden over the Lab but I dunno how the two compare in other ways as I never looked into owning either, I was planning on getting a GSD or BC but fate apparently had other ideas lol.


Yes Spen is most definately a Labrador....

Are there not as many labs and goldies over in Germany?

It's a shame the training over there is so backward. I've judged in Belgium and Holland and they train using positive methods.


----------



## Sarah1983

I see quite a few Labs around here but they're almost all black with just the occasional yellow one. I don't think I've seen a chocolate one at all. Seen more Goldens out here than I saw in the UK but still don't see many of them. 

I'm sure there are positive trainers in Germany. There's got to be! Unfortunately I'm very limited to how far I can travel as I can't drive and am also limited to ones who speak good English coz my attempts to learn German aren't going too well  

Thankfully I don't actually need help as such, I've just always loved classes so it's a bit disappointing not to be able to find one I'm happy to go to. Would be nice to get Spen into an environment with other dogs where they're expected to work though.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah , I've had the same problem here. Even the British trainers are in to throwing bottles of pebbles at dogs or blowing down their noses.
I've been very lucky to find Big Evie- and she's Swiss.:aureola:


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm sure there are positive trainers in Germany. There's got to be! Unfortunately I'm very limited to how far I can travel as I can't drive and am also limited to ones who speak good English coz my attempts to learn German aren't going too well


Here's a slight irony for you, my trainer is german and is into force free positive training, her english is fantastic, so much so, it always surprises me when she counts things out she reverts to german. ( counting is about my limit in german.)


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Here's a slight irony for you, my trainer is german and is into force free positive training, her english is fantastic, so much so, it always surprises me when she counts things out she reverts to german. ( counting is about my limit in german.)


Dammit, tell her to get her backside to Fallingbostel


----------



## kat&molly

I've had an enlightening day today. Why does it take me ages to catch on.

With work and the heat I haven't walked the girls seperately for ages. They had the village walk at lunch time and tonight I took Moll first down the road in to some fields for some training, and she was lovely- but then she always is really.
The sun came back out, it was hot again so I took Scruff and Evie together, Jays been to work with OH. Scruff was a different dog, she was calm, less reactive and wanted to stay near to me instead of having to be in front- even off lead her recall is good but she has to be ahead and is the one I'm always calling back. A complete opposite to when Moll's there, which seems strange as apart from the competition on LLW , Moll doesn't interact with the others on walks, she only looks to me to see what we're doing next.
Other things are starting to add up now, and probably why Big Evie said Scruff thinks she's in charge. I took it all to mean insecurity because of her past.
I dont know what to do about it though.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Sarah , I've had the same problem here. Even the British trainers are in to throwing bottles of pebbles at dogs or blowing down their noses.
> I've been very lucky to find Big Evie- and she's Swiss.:aureola:


Oddly enough, I think the British trainers here are actually worse than the Germans for it.


----------



## Dogless

mv - love your photos; especially the last one!

Sarah - read your lab / GR thread, it's strange really. There is a lovely German lady here with a RC who I talk to...she believes in positive training methods too and seems very knowledgeable. Finding trainers in NI who believe in positive methods isn't that easy either - I've found a good one luckily and hope you do too!! 

Fab that Spen was well behaved with the new dogs upstairs even if that way of meeting was far from ideal. He's a good boy. 

k&m - no idea what to do about Scruff; way above my miniscule level of knowledge :scared:.

We have had two excellent walks today and worked hard on stuff for school...not a soul seen really as it's been raining non - stop .


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Dammit, tell her to get her backside to Fallingbostel


Nooooo, if she does i'm coming with her.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Nooooo, if she does i'm coming with her.


That's okay, you and Tink would be welcome too :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Little Holly Bolly was a good girl this afternoon. It's the first time I've trained them since last Thursday as it's been too hot. We're still only doing little bits of heelwork and she's not coming back fast enough on recall or retrieve, but the play is getting better.

About an hour ago she came and tapped me on the arm with her nose to say she needed to go outside. I commented to husband on what a good girl she is to tell me.
When I opened the kitchen door to let her back in from the conservatory, she was lying down chewing a great big lump of earth which she'd spread all over the carpet I'd hoovered this afternoon...LOL


----------



## Sarah1983

Well at least it was only earth and not something worse.

Spencer has spent the last half hour sucking the towel he's fed on. I'm guessing he REALLY likes raw salmon since he did the exact same thing last time he had it lol.

And yup, it was great that the meeting between him and the dogs upstairs went well. Wasn't worried about him reacting aggressively, more about them reacting aggressively since I have no idea what they're like with other dogs and Spen can be way OTT with excitement. I've met them a couple of times and she's said they're fine with other dogs but I've long since stopped just taking owners word for that.


----------



## moonviolet

What a clever girl Holly Bolly is, but I love the naughty streak  

We had a wonderful day, we had one of those lovely walks bumping into people and dogs we know and like. Tink had a few nice little games of chase but happily came away when called. Got caught in a shower so made the most of it being a bit cooler than it's been by having a bit of a run ( giddy canter) with some changes of direction and stops, i had Tinks total focus. Some days they just make your heart swell. To top it off there was no tension at all at the bogey barrier.

Just to remind me she's a naughty little opportunist she got on the table, stole some treats, chewed a pencil and knocked my knitting onto the floor all in the 5 mins it took me to get changed, but was in the chair looking angelic when I walked back into the room :lol: :lol: the dog has got style :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

I love Holly Bolly - she has spirit!! .

mv - sounds like Tink was perfect on your walk...and she really does have style not to be sat on the table surrounded by the evidence of her naughtiness when you appeared :aureola:.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - sounds like Tink was perfect on your walk...and she really does have style not to be sat on the table surrounded by the evidence of her naughtiness when you appeared :aureola:.


Well clearly it wasn't Tinker who had done these terrible things, either the invisible evil beagle, that arrived in the house the same time as Tinker, who was responsible or possibly the neighbours cat came in  :lol: :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> What a clever girl Holly Bolly is, but I love the naughty streak
> 
> Holly is lovely but she's much too well behaved generally and not nearly 'naughty' and fiesty enough for the type of training I do. To be honest you hardly know she's here most of the time and she has been by far the easiest collie pup I've had.
> 
> Most of mine have been little horrors as puppies, prone to terrible temper tantrums, ripping the contents of their crates up every night for months, shredding carpets and on the go 24 hours a day.
> 
> Tremor, at this age, was lethal. When I used to take her across to the barn to train her she would belt across the paddock, bash the door with excitement with teeth chattering, and I hardly dare put my hand out and say 'touch' because I knew she was going to bite me.
> 
> I know that sounds awful but that's the sort of behaviour you need from a dog that's going to compete and why Tremor won 4 novice classes at just over a year old. Basically you need them three parts round the bend and then you channel the excitement and enthusiasm into a committed working dog.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore Holly and I took her on as a companion for Tremor, as my other two bitches are much older. She has fulfilled that roll brilliantly and she may well become more animated with age.
> 
> Twiggy was also a working sheepdog and pretty pathetic as a puppy - she didn't like tit-bits or toys, although she did considerable amounts of damage to skirting boards and carpets, and was very nervous with people.
> She turned into the best working dog I'm ever likely to have and got livelier and livelier as she matured so there's hope for little Holly Bolly yet.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy thats a testament to your talent, that you have succeeded with dogs that are so different.

I have to admit i winced at being bittten for a touch, that said i did have to wear a glove when doing our first impulse control exercise, letting Tink work out she only got the treat in my hand if she stopped bothering for it. gnawing digging chewing were all approaches she tried first.

I know that i'm not handler enough to do well with a bright keen BC, i'd teach them so many unwanted things accidently.


----------



## Twiggy

I'm quite certain you would be very capable of training a collie and you're doing a fantastic job with Tinks - far better than I would.

Believe me, I've taught my dogs many, many undesirable traits over the years....LOL

We probably don't make the same mistakes twice, just lots of new ones.


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## Sarah1983

All too familiar with the dread of holding out a hand and saying touch  And the whole "on the go 24/7" thing too. Bit of a bloody shock to the system after a mature couch potato of a dog :scared: :lol: 

Moonviolet, I think you'd do fine with a collie or other bright, keen dog. I think we all accidentally teach our dogs things we don't want. I think Spencer would be much better than he is with a more experienced trainer, I find it a struggle to channel his excitement and enthusiasm into what I want at times, but he's stuck with me and we're both having fun 

Sounds like Tink had a wonderful day yesterday. And of course it wasn't her that did all those bad things, must have been Drop Dead Fred.


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## kat&molly

Thats a clever girl Tink. Why is it funny when they're naughty.

Took the girls out in the car this morning for a run- we had to change route 3 times for loose sheep.:mad2: Then we went in to town and parked up- I opened up the boot , just for a couple of minutes, its actually good training for them all, as they think they're always getting out. 
I took Moll on her own this afternoon for some training. I've had a break from asking her to hold the ball because of the problems we had and had just been getting her to drop it- I tried Hold today and it went really well.  Hope we can build on that.
Then took Scruff and Evie together-again Scruff was really calm- I'm not going to LLW the 3 of them together until I can suss out whats going on, and how to deal with it. We had to walk past 4 people quite closely, but Evie had treats all the time and although she was worried she coped quite well.
OH was here this afternoon and he said Evie goes ballistic when I leave with Molly, trying to break out the cat flap and throwing herself at the door :scared: she whinges for a couple of minutes if I leave on my own but not anything like that.


----------



## Dogless

Warning: epic and rambling post - skip unless you want boring to tears.

We had a good walk offlead in the fields this morning.

We have just got back from the park which was mixed. We were having a lovely time when we came up a path and around a corner and saw an offlead black lab - not too bad at this point although Kilo was pulling and dancing a bit, so I got him to sit, got him focussed on me and carried on giving the lab a wide arc.

Unfortunately the lab then saw us and walked up head high, tail high and wagging fast and direct stare. Kilo and I backed down the path a bit as I got between them and Kilo lay down - the lab dodged around and they had a brief sniff before I got between them again. The lab's owner was an oldish man sat on a bench halfway up the path. I asked if he minded calling his dog back just while we passed but he said he was doing no harm.

Long story short the lab didn't approach us again but followed us eyeballing hard so I essentially dragged Kilo off round the field as he wasn't happy with the lab behind him (which he was wherever we went) and I didn't want to let him lie down as we would have been approached again. So Kilo crabbed along beside me stressed and cowering with his tail tucked .

After we got away we met a lady with a black lab too - Kilo lay down and the woman remarked on how well behaved he was - she seemed nice so I decided to tell her why he was lying down and we walked a short way with her and her calm black lab without Kilo being stressed.

I cried when I got back to the car (one of those days anyway) . However, now I am back home and a little more rational I have realised that we have come a very, very long way really.

So, the positives that I can identify are:

- Kilo didn't react whereas previously he may have made a racket
- He lay down each time (even if I didn't let him with the offlead one after the first time)
- His stress level came back down pretty instantly after we were away from the offlead lab as two yorkies charged him barking and he wasn't bothered whereas before he may have reacted if he had just encountered the lab
- He walked nicely alongside the other black lab

One thing that I am thoroughly embarrassed about and really dislike myself for is that today I almost felt resentment and impatience at his fear reaction as it's so much effort to walk on 'normally'. I now feel guilty too .


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## Dogless

k&m - sounds as if Evie's doing really well with walking past people. I wonder why she reacts so differently to you leaving when your OH is there?


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## kat&molly

Oh Dogless- what is it with some of these Lab owners!!! Sorry Sarah- I dont mean you 
But as you say yourself, you have come a long way, its such a shame it upsets you both, you must dread seeing them.

As for Evie, I'm inclined to say she's a spoilt Bratt but it sounds like she got in to a state. I really want to continue a lot of the walks like this as well.
She did do a huge shake after we'd passed these people- I've never seen her do that before.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m - sounds as if Evie's doing really well with walking past people. I wonder why she reacts so differently to you leaving when your OH is there?


Sorry, I misunderstood this. OH is irrelevent[poor man] just that I'd never have known had he not been here.
He did say he couldn't calm her and she refused a biscuit.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless, I used to feel the same way with Rupert at times. It sometimes seemed that anything approaching a normal, stress free walk was impossible and was going to be impossible forever. And then later you feel bloody awful coz you know they can't help it and you can't do anything to explain to them that nothing is going to hurt them. To be honest though I think it's normal for us to get impatient and a bit resentful with it at times, it's how we deal with the impatience and resentment that matters imo. 

And as you say, you've come such a long way. It's just a shame that so many of the Lab owners you meet seem to be complete and utter morons.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Sorry, I misunderstood this. OH is irrelevent[poor man] just that I'd never have known had he not been here.
> He did say he couldn't calm her and she refused a biscuit.


I see . Think it was me misunderstanding in the first place!! I took it that Evie was OK being left when it was just you but got worse with OH there :scared:. Sorry .


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, I used to feel the same way with Rupert at times. It sometimes seemed that anything approaching a normal, stress free walk was impossible and was going to be impossible forever. And then later you feel bloody awful coz you know they can't help it and you can't do anything to explain to them that nothing is going to hurt them. To be honest though I think it's normal for us to get impatient and a bit resentful with it at times, it's how we deal with the impatience and resentment that matters imo.
> 
> And as you say, you've come such a long way. It's just a shame that so many of the Lab owners you meet seem to be complete and utter morons.


We do have plenty of normal stress - free walks so I can't really complain. I just hate seeing Kilo that worried and hate that it must have been bloody obvious to this man this afternoon too yet he didn't give a monkey's how his dog was affecting mine. Not sure how much you got out around this area, but dogs on leads or even under any control seems to be a novelty. Very dominance - based practises and 'let dogs sort it out themselves' attitude.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> We do have plenty of normal stress - free walks so I can't really complain. I just hate seeing Kilo that worried and hate that it must have been bloody obvious to this man this afternoon too yet he didn't give a monkey's how his dog was affecting mine. Not sure how much you got out around this area, but dogs on leads or even under any control seems to be a novelty. Very dominance - based practises and 'let dogs sort it out themselves' attitude.


We pretty much stayed home until after dark after the first few weeks when we encountered more bloody loose dogs than I thought possible. We stayed on camp with Rupert, hubby doesn't enjoy dog walks and obviously I couldn't go alone. Not that it would have been enjoyable anyway with all the loose dogs.

I don't mind dogs sorting some things out between themselves at times but it's not the right thing to do in all situations or with all dogs. People used to tell me to let the dogs sort it out themselves with Rupert, I don't think they realised that doing that would have resulted in a blood bath :nonod:

And I think very often people DON'T realise when a dog is stressed and unhappy. They can't see it in their own dog let alone in other peoples dogs. I've lost count of how many times people have said their dog is fine or loves X, Y or Z when the dog is screaming out that it's uncomfortable or downright frightened  Not saying that's any excuse for this bloke not getting control of his dog when you asked him to though.


----------



## Dogless

Thank you to everyone for listening to my pathetic ramblings earlier; I smashed myself on my 6 mile run this evening and now everything is back in perspective :thumbup:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Thank you to everyone for listening to my pathetic ramblings earlier; I smashed myself on my 6 mile run this evening and now everything is back in perspective :thumbup:.


They aren't pathetic ramblings. When our dogs get upset, we get upset with them.

But its great that we all have this thread to moan on sometimes.:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> They aren't pathetic ramblings. When our dogs get upset, we get upset with them.
> 
> But its great that we all have this thread to moan on sometimes.:thumbup:


I love this thread; feel like I am amongst friends .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I love this thread; feel like I am amongst friends .


It does feel exactly like that, and we all 'know' each others dogs now , all of us have improved since it started , its kept me going sometimes.:thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

*One thing that I am thoroughly embarrassed about and really dislike myself for is that today I almost felt resentment and impatience at his fear reaction as it's so much effort to walk on 'normally'. I now feel guilty too .*

It's because you're a human being and not St Francis...... Don't beat yourself up.


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## kat&molly

I was going to take the girls out to the lake today but I think I need to stay home and do lots of little seperate walks- and hope I can desensitize Evie to me leaving with one of the other dogs, I'll take them all for a good run in the car first and see if that helps. Dont know what else to do really.
I'm hoping Big Evie can give me some advice on how to tackle Scruffs behaviour. 

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I was going to take the girls out to the lake today but I think I need to stay home and do lots of little seperate walks- and hope I can desensitize Evie to me leaving with one of the other dogs, I'll take them all for a good run in the car first and see if that helps. Dont know what else to do really.
> I'm hoping Big Evie can give me some advice on how to tackle Scruffs behaviour.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


When I took Leafy over to the barn yesterday to hoover (Leafy's favourite attacking the hoover) I shut the paddock gate but left the other girls free to run in the garden and their exercise paddock. I turned round to see little Holly Bolly attempting to jump the fence in her efforts to join us. I had to shut her in the house but was delighted that she actually wanted to get into the barn for training.

It can certainly be problematic leaving one of them at home and the trouble is the more you interact with them, and they really start to enjoy training activities, the more they want to do it.

After Quiver won Crufts she developed a back/hip problem about three months later and I got a referral to an orthopedic consultant. He told me she would have to be retired - in actual fact he was wrong but that's another story. Anyway come the next show I left Quiver at home and went off with the caravan and Leafy. On arriving home on the Sunday evening husband informed me that Quiver had screamed the house down and was very upset all week-end so I took her with me to the next show.
She was a nightmare. As soon as she saw the rings she was shaking with excitement and jigging about in anticipation of having her go. I honestly didn't know what to do with her as nothing would appease her. In the end I took her to the training ring and did a tiny bit of heelwork and retrieve, but placing the article about a foot in front of her. She still wasn't happy and couldn't understand why she wasn't allowed to do a sendaway - her favourite exercise. I just couldn't let her do either a sendaway or a proper retrieve because she was so fast she would have hurt herself. It was a damn if you do and damn if you don't situation and therefore a big relief when she came sound and started to compete again the following year.


----------



## moonviolet

Yay i'm back blimmin' internet!

K&M Poor Evie she does sound quite stressed  Hope the desensitisng goes well, but didn't she do well with the people the "shake off" is brilliant, it's a relly phew got through that moment. Tink did a great one last night after some woman let her "he's friendly" white GSD trotted rather stiffly tail high, to an onlead Tink, gave her thorough sniff (around me) she at the time was walking toward me saying "but this one isn't" thankfully at the last moment she circled around and the white one decided to go on with them. Then, when they were gone big shake and it was like it hadn't happened  I feel sorry for anyone she bumped into further on, she chose the narrowest path in the whole area to head down!

What an arrogant ass that man with the lab was, poor kilo and poor you. I would have been tempted to say " what? won't he come if you called him!?" 
Don't feel bad there have been a few occasions when I have asked Tink why she can't be a " normal" dog. then felt awful and cried on her.  I'm glad your run heped you put it into perspective. You and Kilo are doing great 


Sarah1983 said:


> And I think very often people DON'T realise when a dog is stressed and unhappy. They can't see it in their own dog let alone in other peoples dogs. I've lost count of how many times people have said their dog is fine or loves X, Y or Z when the dog is screaming out that it's uncomfortable or downright frightened  Not saying that's any excuse for this bloke not getting control of his dog when you asked him to though.


I think you are so right, just watch shows like that "top dog model" one and count the calming signals.

Games class was great fun last night, a couple of new dogs. A 9month old scruffy JRT who has so much fizz and potential, and a lovely labby type who is a bit nervous of BC's following an incident. So they were at the far end from the BC's. Tink was a star, honestly, I couldn't have been more proud of my girl. she was completely engaged in the exercises, she was really keen to work. Didn't try to sneak off and say hi to the new dogs, just fab. I will confess I did give her a half dose of valerian, just because she was a bit reactive last week ( barking at the skylight and a slightly inebriated man.) and just wanted to help her approach the class positively as these things happened right at the end.

Have a good day everyone. I love this thread


----------



## Twiggy

*Games class was great fun last night, a couple of new dogs. A 9month old scruffy JRT who has so much fizz and potential, and a lovely labby type who is a bit nervous of BC's following an incident. So they were at the far end from the BC's. Tink was a star, honestly, I couldn't have been more proud of my girl. she was completely engaged in the exercises, she was really keen to work. Didn't try to sneak off and say hi to the new dogs, just fab. I will confess I did give her a half dose of valerian, just because she was a bit reactive last week ( barking at the skylight and a slightly inebriated man.) and just wanted to help her approach the class positively as these things happened right at the end.*

I think you should teach Tink some heelwork to music moves and then put a routine together. I'm pretty sure she'd be the only Beagle ever to compete so you'd be a trailblazer.....!!


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- It is a problem leaving some behind, its my fault for mostly taking them out together but at the moment I think it needs to be done. I'm prefering it as well- they all seem so much more responsive to me. I even got a bit of heelwork and sits out of Evie 
Lovely that Holly Bolly wanted to join you for some training. 


Moonviolet- that sounds like you had a brilliant time last night, what are we like, my agility is my 'social life' That Tink is a star :thumbup: and yes the 'shake' is great- I'm sure Evie's never done it before. I contemplated turning round to avoid walking past but she hadn't climbed my legs or tripped me up so I chanced it


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> *Games class was great fun last night, a couple of new dogs. A 9month old scruffy JRT who has so much fizz and potential, and a lovely labby type who is a bit nervous of BC's following an incident. So they were at the far end from the BC's. Tink was a star, honestly, I couldn't have been more proud of my girl. she was completely engaged in the exercises, she was really keen to work. Didn't try to sneak off and say hi to the new dogs, just fab. I will confess I did give her a half dose of valerian, just because she was a bit reactive last week ( barking at the skylight and a slightly inebriated man.) and just wanted to help her approach the class positively as these things happened right at the end.*
> 
> I think you should teach Tink some heelwork to music moves and then put a routine together. I'm pretty sure she'd be the only Beagle ever to compete so you'd be a trailblazer.....!!


She'd love it. I won't say never but I think I would be her biggest challenge i'm not god's most coordinated creature.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I think you should teach Tink some heelwork to music moves and then put a routine together. I'm pretty sure she'd be the only Beagle ever to compete so you'd be a trailblazer.....!!


There was a Beagle competed at Crufts. I remember being extremely impressed by her.

Teasel The Beagle (Dialynne Making Waves) and Lucy Creek Perform Freestyle HTM at Crufts 2009 - YouTube

ETA: can't find the vid of this years performance.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> There was a Beagle competed at Crufts. I remember being extremely impressed by her.
> 
> Teasel The Beagle (Dialynne Making Waves) and Lucy Creek Perform Freestyle HTM at Crufts 2009 - YouTube
> 
> ETA: can't find the vid of this years performance.


I have to laugh at the little pauses to sniff.... just has to be done.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I have to laugh at the little pauses to sniff.... just has to be done.


Of course :lol: The Crufts 2012 performance was better if I remember rightly. Doesn't have the flashiness and precision of the collies really but I think the fact she's a beagle makes it more impressive


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Of course :lol: The Crufts 2012 performance was better if I remember rightly. Doesn't have the flashiness and precision of the collies really but I think the fact she's a beagle makes it more impressive


I can only find a terrible video of the 2012 but it's basically the same routine polished with a few tweaks. The thing with beagles is they always look a bit like court jesters even when they are being serious. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Holly Bolly sounds as if she's gaining some of the spark you want Twiggy? I hope so!! I think she sounds adorable, but then I don't think I'd cope with a full - on BC; I'd probably make a real hash of them .

mv - do the dancing :thumbup::thumbup:. You'd be fab .

Good few hours out this morning; didn't really see anything as it's persisting down - hour or so on the fields offlead then up to the sports pitches for some offlead heelwork and focus stuff...then home. All good :thumbup:.


----------



## kat&molly

I agree with the others MV- you should have a go. Teasel was lovely and I love that name.


We've been for a run, couldn't go in to the town as the teeny tiny veg market is on Wednesdays.
I came back bought them indoors and walked straight back out with Moll, I waited around the corner but couldn't hear anything.
Am going back out again now, I really should be built like broom stick handle with all the walking I do.

Pleased you had a good morning Dogless.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> She'd love it. I won't say never but I think I would be her biggest challenge i'm not god's most coordinated creature.


When ITV came down to film Fidget before she performed at Crufts, the reporter asked who was the better dancer and my reply was "Oh definately Fidget, I've got two left feet".

Honestly you really don't need to be a dancer, the dogs do all the clever stuff..!!


----------



## moonviolet

I'm not going to commit to anything. I'll polish some of her relevant behaviours and see how we go.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Holly Bolly sounds as if she's gaining some of the spark you want Twiggy? I hope so!! I think she sounds adorable, but then I don't think I'd cope with a full - on BC; I'd probably make a real hash of them .
> 
> It's been hissing down here as well so we were in the barn training this afternoon and ...... and ..... and ....Holly Bolly was fantastic....:thumbup:
> 
> It's the best she's ever gone. I think we might just be starting to get there. She has left several bite marks in my left arm and she made my thumb bleed, oh and broke yet another watch strap, but I don't care.
> 
> We had a Musterlander join the class today; a really lovely boy who does field trials as well.


----------



## missnaomi

I've just read this thread...is it too late to join in?! We have loads to work on...
Naomi


----------



## Dogless

WELL DONE HOLLY BOLLY . I'm guessing you get through quite a few watch straps Twiggy? :scared:.



moonviolet said:


> I'm not going to commit to anything. I'll polish some of her relevant behaviours and see how we go.


Like her plies? .



missnaomi said:


> I've just read this thread...is it too late to join in?! We have loads to work on...
> Naomi


Yes. Absolutely. Sorry .

Don't be silly......the more mad dog ladies the merrier :thumbup: .

Sorry ^^^^^ I am in a stupid mood as we went back to the park this afternoon and Kilo was an absolute star . There were loads of dogs out as it was the only time it hasn't been peeing down all day and Kilo went past them all nicely including 5 or 6 police dog handlers with dogs....pleased he behaved in front of them!! Only one loose dog ran up to us, but it's a dog that does every time we see her and Kilo greets nice and relaxed and her owner isn't ever going to keep her away so I just accept that one!


----------



## Beth17

Not really been on properly for a couple of days as Sam bless him has been doing my head in. We've hit the teenage stage with a bang he really is the most stubborn, head strong and determined dog I've met in ages. :mad2:

If he's not jumping up continuously on the work surfaces trying to grab things then he's outside ripping up plants and bringing in drain covers or trying to get into the bin. It doesn't matter how times you tell him to get down or bring him in once he's set his mind to it that's it. I am exhausted.

When out on walks he can't calmly watch other dogs and people he has to be trying to get forward and if that doesn't work he'll try going to the side and he feels the need to try and look into everyone's garden. Poor Oscar has had him attempting to wrestle, hump and generally be a pain in the ass and to top it off today I left him for 10 minutes whilst out with Oscar and he decided to help himself to a whole pasty and some crumpets which I had thought were out of his way.

I have to admit I did then just give in and had a quick sob  as I was just so frustrated at myself more than him. I feel bad because I know he's just a puppy and he will grow out of it eventually, it just seems a long way off.

Anyway after that long ramble we've had a cuddle and he's now chewing a plastic bottle on my lap. He's not having any dinner though, and I'm not looking forward to picking up his poo for the next day :lol:

Everyone else sounds like they're doing really well so :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Sorry ^^^^^ I am in a stupid mood as we went back to the park this afternoon and Kilo was an absolute star . There were loads of dogs out as it was the only time it hasn't been peeing down all day and Kilo went past them all nicely including 5 or 6 police dog handlers with dogs....pleased he behaved in front of them!! Only one loose dog ran up to us, but it's a dog that does every time we see her and Kilo greets nice and relaxed and her owner isn't ever going to keep her away so I just accept that one![/QUOTE]

Brilliant - I think we must all be having a knock on affect on each other - positive vibes transcending between France, NI, Surrey and Lincolnshire...LOL


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I'm not going to commit to anything. I'll polish some of her relevant behaviours and see how we go.


Thats brilliant.

Twiggy- brilliant news about Holly Bolly.:thumbup: And I'm jealous about the Munsterlander- I met my first one a few weeks ago.

Dogless- you are wicked. Sounds like you've had a good day though.

Missnaomi- have you read all the thread. Its a bit long.:scared:

Beht- I'm sorry your young man is giving you a hard time at the moment- I hope it passes quickly.

I've done some seperate little walks and Evie has been horrendous when left-I kept hiding and could hear her, screaming and throwing herself at the door- but it does go quiet after a couple of minutes. I put her in a crate tonight with a kong , OH was here he said she was a bit better than yesterday. She's broken the cat flap- its been bodged for now but will need replacing.
Its lovely to take Moll out on her own we do lots of training and she's just so easy and uncomplicated. The others are doing better as well so its nearly all good really.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Brilliant - I think we must all be having a knock on affect on each other - positive vibes transcending between France, NI, Surrey and Lincolnshire...LOL


I'm wondering whether some of these positive vibes could make their way to Germany too, we could use them 

Glad Holly Bolly was so good (bad?) for you today.

Beth17, we're going through similar with Spencer at the moment. His seems to come in phases, we'll have a rough time then a good time, rough time, good time sort of thing. He's been driving me nuts today and yesterday, hoping tomorrow is better.

Missnaomi, feel free to join us, the more the merrier


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm wondering whether some of these positive vibes could make their way to Germany too, we could use them
> 
> Glad Holly Bolly was so good (bad?) for you today.
> 
> Beth17, we're going through similar with Spencer at the moment. His seems to come in phases, we'll have a rough time then a good time, rough time, good time sort of thing. He's been driving me nuts today and yesterday, hoping tomorrow is better.
> 
> Missnaomi, feel free to join us, the more the merrier


Waving my magic positive vibes wand over the channel to Germany....


----------



## moonviolet

Welcome to the thread Miss Naomi  can't wait to hear what you are workign on and how it's going. It's like a big support group just pull up a chair and share your stories 

Twiggy it sounds like HollyBolly is really getting keen now. have you ever considered a shark cage 

Well done Kilo i bet you were proud when you passed teh police handlers and their dogs 

Tink has been a nutjob this evening full of beans and a touch manic, interestingly we've had a small thunderstorm and she had a nutjob evening just before we have the last thunderstorm. Coincidence? I guess it's passed as she's on her back with her paws to the sky.

Beth do you have a shed? I found regularly taking myself off the the shed to scream until i was calm again helped on the worst of Tink's teenage days.

K&M I hope Evie gets used to the seperate walks before she does herself any damage as it sounds worth it for the positives


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- thunderstorms can have a strange effect cant they, doesn't sound like Tink is scared? though.

This is a bungalow what we live in and last night Evie dragged a huge cover off the bed in to the kitchen-its there to protect the duvet and its heavy , no idea how she managed it, but I was too late with the camera. 
She has a crazy habit of just dragging things around the house-usually my things.:laugh:
Hoping she gets better with being left though, I am worried about her hurting herself-she only cries for a couple of minutes if I leave on my own-but leaving with another dog seems to really upset her.
Sarah- hope Twiggys wand brings you a good day with Spencer.

We've had a bit of rain, the first for weeks and weeks and its looking dull here.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Beth17

We have had a much better day today so far. Took Sam on a walk we do quite often to keep excitement levels down and he was pretty focused kept looking at me and stayed by my side for most of the walk. Hopefully we can start building it back up again now :thumbsup:

In fact the only bad part of the walk was when he managed to find a discarded chicken bone  He was a good boy though and let me take it from his mouth 

Moonviolet: No shed but got a greenhouse that does the job well or I lock myself in the toilet for 5mins 

I've had the photos from the dog show emailed through so now my only dilemma is to try and decide which one I like most


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## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Moonviolet: No shed but got a greenhouse that does the job well or I lock myself in the toilet for 5mins


 You get to go to the toilet alone? Lucky you! On the rare occasion that I do manage to get in there without an audience all I hear is whines outside the door and thunks as he tries to shove the door open


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## kat&molly

Good you're having a better day Beth. I cant go to the bathroom alone either- thats 16 feet in there at the same time.

Had nearly a fantastic morning at Agilty, Moll was a star and got the see saw sussed proper today- she was running backwards and forwards between me and Big Evie just loving it. We've only got the weaves to learn and just as we were about to start Moll got stung by a wasp-either on her mouth or inside it  Luckily no swelling and she didn't seem to be in any pain but we left the weaves for today and had to get her on stuff she loves instead, hopefully she forgets by next week. Poor girl.

Whilst at training , I kept copping a whiff of something really awful, dont know what it was but I thought it must have been coming from Big Evie.
When I got home and emptied my coat pockets, which I haven't worn for about 4/5 months, there was a plastic treat bag in there with mushed up gunky looking stuff.:yikes:
OH said he could smell it as soon as I walkied in the door.
I'll have to email Big Evie as she probably thinks I'm a right stinker.:laugh:


----------



## moonviolet

I get to go to the bathoom alone   She knows there isn't any food in there 

Glad you are having a better day Beth.

Oh K&M the horror of finding that stinky treat bag :yikes::yikes::yikes::lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

k&m....don't be surprised if Big Evie is suddenly 'busy' on Thursdays after you turned up stinking :yikes:. Pleased Moll's doing so well though :thumbsup::thumbsup:.

Beth I'm glad that you are having a better day. Sam certainly has plenty of character . Hope you like the photos.

We went to 'our' forest today - not a soul seen this morning again . The conditions were definitely right for scent following as Kilo was in full hunting mode in and out of the trees and zooming about. In fact mid zoomies he ran towards a fire dam...leapt the high fence and landed in the cold, black sludgy water :eek6:. The look on his face was :yikes::yikes:. Thank goodness this dam had a ditch going into it (lots don't) so I could persuade him out that way as I have no idea how I would have got him up the sheer side of the dam and then over the high barbed wire topped fence .

Here is the BW after his dip:


----------



## Twiggy

Kilo is still a handsome chappie - even with a mucky bum....LOL


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Kilo :laugh: I'm sorry but I had to laugh. 

You now have a lovely shot for the dog bum thread :blushing::lol:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Kilo is still a handsome chappie - even with a mucky bum....LOL





Beth17 said:


> Oh dear Kilo :laugh: I'm sorry but I had to laugh.
> 
> You now have a lovely shot for the dog bum thread :blushing::lol:


It was funny; and he was clean and shiny again by the time we got home...no idea how he does it :thumbsup::thumbsup:. The mud does emphasise the 'eyes' on his bum though :eek6:.

Mind you, I'd probably still be there and in tears by now if there hadn't been a ditch .


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Kilo poor boy that must have been quite a shock to the system, thank goodness for the ditch. 

I've never thought of those bum whorls as eyes before.... i'm never going to look at Tink's rear in the same way again, it might be looking back at me :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh Kilo poor boy that must have been quite a shock to the system, thank goodness for the ditch.
> 
> I've never thought of those bum whorls as eyes before.... i'm never going to look at Tink's rear in the same way again, it might be looking back at me :lol: :lol:


They've always looked like eyes to me :eek6:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Fairly nice walk today. Spencer's getting brave off leash now and is sometimes a yellow speck quite a distance away. He makes sure to keep an eye on me though and panics if he loses me, then when he finds me again he comes racing back :laugh:

Does anyone have any tips on recall? He's pretty good but sometimes he'll be on his way back to me at a pretty good pace when some scent will yank him away and make him forget what he's doing. Not sure what I should do when that happens. 

Had a bit of a fright today when a deer startled up and legged it off just a couple of feet away from Spencer who was off leash and sniffing around. He just looked at it and went back to sniffing while I got all in a panic and had visions of me being on youtube chasing after a dog and a deer yelling "Speeeencer! Jesus Christ Spencer!" 

Dogless, I hope Sir Kilo is recovered from his shock of actually getting himself dirty! Spen doesn't have eyes on his bum, he has big fluffy knickers instead lol.

Kat&Molly, that's happened to me before and it's not pleasant is it?


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely pics of Kilo-its not really fair how the mud slides off him though.

Sarah- how fab was that, Spencer not reacting to the deer.:thumbsup: I'm not looking forward to the day we bump in to one.
The only thing I do re the recall is turn and run the other way and hide if I can- but you've probably tried that.


----------



## Sarah1983

Yeah, it's awesome him not reacting to the deer  We've startled them before but he's always been on a long line then. Rabbits are another matter entirely, he's already taken off after one of those and attempted to take off after another (was on leash) but he gives up pretty quickly even then.

Tried the running in the opposite direction but when he's sniffing he doesn't notice. Difficult to hide on a huge, open field though. Once he's finished sniffing he'll come to me (with a reminder) but I want recall to mean come to me without stopping to sniff if it takes your fancy.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Spen - I'd LOVE the BW to be calm if he saw a deer. Sadly it's :yikes::yikes:.

School tonight was really good - we got told that we are doing really well as we left; nice to have our work acknowledged :thumbsup:. The BW worked really hard for me and was very focussed. I love that boy :001_wub:.

It started badly as the entrance was blocked by a new owner with a large black lab straining towards us that he couldn't move - really not ideal but he said he just liked to meet everyone. Wrong. He lunged and bit Kilo who took exception to it so I moved him on through and up the hall quickly...as I reached the end of the hall and turned around (was doing a few exercises to get Kilo's focus on me) I saw a little dog who went to sniff - after the owner said his dog was fine - get launched at by the lab too  . He also tried to take a pop at a GSD during one of the exercises - I stayed well clear!! A word from the trainer was had, so hopefully next week won't be the same. We're always told not to wait / sit in the entrance but I'm guessing the new man didn't know / think.


----------



## missnaomi

moonviolet said:


> Oh Kilo poor boy that must have been quite a shock to the system, thank goodness for the ditch.
> 
> I've never thought of those bum whorls as eyes before.... i'm never going to look at Tink's rear in the same way again, it might be looking back at me :lol: :lol:


Was going to make a serious post in this thread...have been stalking you all long enough, but BUM WHORLS!! I can't ever look at Ringo from the back again!!! :eek6:


----------



## Dogless

missnaomi said:


> Was going to make a serious post in this thread...have been stalking you all long enough, but BUM WHORLS!! I can't ever look at Ringo from the back again!!! :eek6:


Glad you're here - thought my joke had offended .


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh no Dogless, really not what you need. I hope Kilo is okay! I don't bloody blame him for taking exception, I'd take exception to being bitten too!

I find so many people are in denial about their dogs behaviour that I no longer take anyones word for it. And of course it's a Lab so can't possibly be anything but friendly can it?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh no Dogless, really not what you need. I hope Kilo is okay! I don't bloody blame him for taking exception, I'd take exception to being bitten too!
> 
> I find so many people are in denial about their dogs behaviour that I no longer take anyones word for it. And of course it's a Lab so can't possibly be anything but friendly can it?


He's fine, it was a quick bite that left a few bumps but no skin broken - surprisingly fine considering how much anxiety he can display around black labs. The man didn't so much as bat an eyelid or apologise to the poor small dog's owner or me, just carried on smiling at everyone . TBH I was past as fast as I could be and he only growled in response but the little dog lay down and rolled over in fear.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Yeah, it's awesome him not reacting to the deer  We've startled them before but he's always been on a long line then. Rabbits are another matter entirely, he's already taken off after one of those and attempted to take off after another (was on leash) but he gives up pretty quickly even then.
> 
> Tried the running in the opposite direction but when he's sniffing he doesn't notice. Difficult to hide on a huge, open field though. Once he's finished sniffing he'll come to me (with a reminder) but I want recall to mean come to me without stopping to sniff if it takes your fancy.


Have you tried taking a Kong Airball (squeaky tennis ball) out with you?

Call him once and if he stops to sniff don't say anything but squeak the ball to get his attention and if he comes to you then throw it for him.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Have you tried taking a Kong Airball (squeaky tennis ball) out with you?
> 
> Call him once and if he stops to sniff don't say anything but squeak the ball to get his attention and if he comes to you then throw it for him.


That's one of my secret weapons - I love the one on a rope .


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah What a relief about the deer. Good boy Spen 

Tink's a monkey that can be distracted by her nose from time to time on recall, as you can imagine. I carry a kong squeaky ball, the noisy bit from a, long since extinct, duck toy and if i forget to take one or the other of them, I yodel and crouch. They seem to be a enough to break the focus.

Poor old Kilo first a dip in the dam and then being bitten, but it sounds like he shook it off well and excelled in class. well done both of you 

We saw a total of 4 GSD's on our evening walk and I slipped her on lead just to be on the safe side. we didn't interact with teh first 3 but the 4th one  was young around 9 months... and clearly it wasn't scary at all... as I explained she can be a little nervous she bounced around, delighted to say hello, I swear there was a glint of devilment in her eyes


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sarah What a relief about the deer. Good boy Spen
> 
> Tink's a monkey that can be distracted by her nose from time to time on recall, as you can imagine. I carry a kong squeaky ball, the noisy bit from a, long since extinct, duck toy and if i forget to take one or the other of them, I yodel and crouch. They seem to be a enough to break the focus.
> 
> Poor old Kilo first a dip in the dam and then being bitten, but it sounds like he shook it off well and excelled in class. well done both of you
> 
> We saw a total of 4 GSD's on our evening walk and I slipped her on lead just to be on the safe side. we didn't interact with teh first 3 but the 4th one  was young around 9 months... and clearly it wasn't scary at all... as I explained she can be a little nervous she bounced around, delighted to say hello, I swear there was a glint of devilment in her eyes


He is getting better at shaking things off, much better . He'd had his 'Stress Less' pre class too which I swear does make a difference.

Amazing that Tink is now displaying devilment around GSDs :eek6:. Really fantastic!! I use a squeaker from a murdered toy or Air Kong ball too when the BW's hound nose gets the better of him!


----------



## Sarah1983

I'll have to try taking his squeaky tennis ball out. Problem is, if I throw it for him out there he chases it but often doesn't pick it up so we end up losing it. Or he dunks it in the nearest puddle so it makes a wet hissing noise rather than a squeak. Might have to get a squeaky thing on a rope if I can find one. That way I can squeak it and play tug with him when he gets to me instead.

Glad Kilo shook off the encounter and isn't hurt. And it's great that Tink is being devilish around GSDs.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done Spen - I'd LOVE the BW to be calm if he saw a deer. Sadly it's :yikes::yikes:.
> 
> School tonight was really good - we got told that we are doing really well as we left; nice to have our work acknowledged :thumbsup:. The BW worked really hard for me and was very focussed. I love that boy :001_wub:.
> 
> It started badly as the entrance was blocked by a new owner with a large black lab straining towards us that he couldn't move - really not ideal but he said he just liked to meet everyone. Wrong. He lunged and bit Kilo who took exception to it so I moved him on through and up the hall quickly...as I reached the end of the hall and turned around (was doing a few exercises to get Kilo's focus on me) I saw a little dog who went to sniff - after the owner said his dog was fine - get launched at by the lab too  . He also tried to take a pop at a GSD during one of the exercises - I stayed well clear!! A word from the trainer was had, so hopefully next week won't be the same. We're always told not to wait / sit in the entrance but I'm guessing the new man didn't know / think.


I think that's very generous of you to say the new man didn't know/think because I'd have been fuming if his lab had bitten one of mine.

Years ago when I was chief instructor at a local club there was a lady with a big GSD dog who had been promoted into my class. She sat with him right on the end of the row so that every dog and handler had to come by to get on to the floor. The GSD had a lovely evening having a pop at everything until I went and politely asked her to move to a different seat, explaining very nicely that her dog was upsetting all the others. The next week I heard a kerfuffle, turned round to see what the fuss was about and lo and behold there she was again with the GSD sitting right on the end of the row!! I'm afraid I rather lost it; minced over, took the dog from her, told him to lie down and stay there and proceded to instruct from there. To the dog's credit he stayed down as good as gold whilst everyone came by him but I could have throttled his flipping handler. She seemed to derrive some sort of sadistic pleasure in allowing him to have a go at everything. Suffice it to say she never sat at the end of the row again.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I think that's very generous of you to say the new man didn't know/think because I'd have been fuming if his lab had bitten one of mine.
> 
> Years ago when I was chief instructor at a local club there was a lady with a big GSD dog who had been promoted into my class. She sat with him right on the end of the row so that every dog and handler had to come by to get on to the floor. The GSD had a lovely evening having a pop at everything until I went and politely asked her to move to a different seat, explaining very nicely that her dog was upsetting all the others. The next week I heard a kerfuffle, turned round to see what the fuss was about and lo and behold there she was again with the GSD sitting right on the end of the row!! I'm afraid I rather lost it; minced over, took the dog from her, told him to lie down and stay there and proceded to instruct from there. To the dog's credit he stayed down as good as gold whilst everyone came by him but I could have throttled his flipping handler. She seemed to derrive some sort of sadistic pleasure in allowing him to have a go at everything. Suffice it to say she never sat at the end of the row again.


That GSD woman sounds just like the man - positioned so no one could get through the doorway without passing him and his dog in close quarters; maybe he did derive some kind of strange pleasure from it as he was smiling away - I just thought it was a lack of understanding, but perhaps you are right and I was being a little generous. He didn't listen all class as well as letting his dog have a go at anything in close quarters so the trainer spent the whole class either handling his dog or with the man and another helper took over the class (she's good so was fine for the rest of us and I felt better having someone in control with the lab!).

We have a very reactive little dog in class who has been getting steadily better and better. He started barking like mad at having to pass the lab coming in (small enough to avoid him) as he was a large strange dog and pretty much barked all lesson as most of the dogs that the lab had a go at barked and set him off again. His handler was so upset, I really felt for her.

Hopefully next week the lessons will have been taken on board.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- I hope the chap sticks around for more lessons- it sounds like he needs to learn some common sense. Doesn't sound like the sort of person you want to bump in to down the park.

Sarah- I remembered something Big Evie told me because Scruff isn't interested in toys and occasionally gets distracted coming back to me. She said when Scruff did eventually come just give a little fuss no treat then let her go and do little recalls from only a few feet away - making a big fuss and giving treats. It helps to reinforce good things happen when they come straight away. It does work for me.

OH has gone out and taken Scruff with him- thats the second time in 2 days and Evie doesn't bat an eyelid- only seems to be when I leave with one of the others. It has gotten a tiny bit better by leaving her in a crate though.

Way to go Tink.:thumbsup:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I'll have to try taking his squeaky tennis ball out. Problem is, if I throw it for him out there he chases it but often doesn't pick it up so we end up losing it. Or he dunks it in the nearest puddle so it makes a wet hissing noise rather than a squeak. Might have to get a squeaky thing on a rope if I can find one. That way I can squeak it and play tug with him when he gets to me instead.
> 
> Well either take two balls and teach him swap or swap for a titbit. All interactions help with keeping them interested in you and therefore coming straight back when called.
> 
> Leafy's got it off to a fine art....LOL Quiver's very old now, gets a bit confused and frequently drops her toy when we're out for a walk, so Leafy helpfully finds it and brings it back to me for a tit-bit. It amuses me that Quiver actually expects Leafy to do it for her.


----------



## L/C

Well it turns out that Ely is also a livestock chaser.  We've been down in Devon for the past week staying with my family in a cottage complex (lots of cottages together with a swimming pool etc.) that had goats and chickens on site. They were separated from the rest of the complex by a river and double fencing but even when we walked past it neither of ours reacted or even paid any attention.

Until yesterday morning. We were walking past (both off lead) and the goats were in the river. With no warning Ely launched himself into the water, swam across and chased them out and round their paddock. Luckily we could cross easily and Luke went and got him while I stayed with gypsy (who was an angel and didn't even try to leave my side). He didn't hurt them or even try to do anything but chase but he obviously really scared them. The owner was very nice about it when I spike to him and said no harm done but it made me feel sick. I did have a little cry and a bit of an I can't do this anymore feeling (no wi fi there so no way to get on here) but then I got over it and moved on. Luckily livestock isn't too much of an issue in London but it really shook me up.

Please may I have a nice easy dog now?


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear L/C - at least as you say livestock isn't normally an issue for you. I hope you had a lovely break otherwise.


----------



## Dogless

The BW and I have had a great day; nice walk in the park this morning where we met all our little dog friends and pensioner owners .

This afternoon I went to the offlead fields where we met a dog that Kilo likes to play with - so they did which was lovely as he's not had a good offlead play with another dog for ages. Just as we were about to leave his most favourite dog in the whole world (vizsla) came along and he got an extra hour  out of me. The only 'bad' point if you like was our one neighbour who was on the other side of the field with their cocker spaniel pup - the vizsla went to see them which he was fine with. Kilo didn't go over but when he saw him he put the puppy on lead and stood stock still. The man with me said "Am I right in thinking he's not going to move until Kilo's on a lead?" so I said "Yes", put Kilo's lead on and the man then continued his walk and left the fields. It's a shame sometimes but no big deal - he's met the spaniel briefly on lead with the female owner and all was fine, but we're used to it!

Kilo LOVES the man that walks the vizsla too, unusually, and today bestowed his greatest honour upon him - pushing his whole body through his legs from the back and then standing at the right point to have his back scratched. Apart from hubby and I he's only ever done it to my best friend who he loves. The man was chuffed....cue 6'4" or so of man saying "It's cos I loves you the best don't I son?" and similar in a daft voice whilst Kilo had fusses for ages .


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Oh dear L/C - at least as you say livestock isn't normally an issue for you. I hope you had a lovely break otherwise.


It was lovely lots of walks and in beautiful countryside and a chance to spend some time with my nieces who I don't get to see too often. The eldest was a little wary of Ely and Gypsy at first as she was nipped by a collie in her school car park not long ago but they are both good with wary people and she warmed up quite quickly.

I should have anticipated the chasing but tbh I was more worried about gypsy then Ely as he's frightened of sheep and has a very low prey drive. I feel terribly guilty and a bit of a failure - it seems like he has all of these serious issues that I'm not coping with very well.

Dogless - why is the vizla OK but not kilo? That seems an odd distinction to make?


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> It was lovely lots of walks and in beautiful countryside and a chance to spend some time with my nieces who I don't get to see too often. The eldest was a little wary of Ely and Gypsy at first as she was nipped by a collie in her school car park not long ago but they are both good with wary people and she warmed up quite quickly.
> 
> I should have anticipated the chasing but tbh I was more worried about gypsy then Ely as he's frightened of sheep and has a very low prey drive. I feel terribly guilty and a bit of a failure - it seems like he has all of these serious issues that I'm not coping with very well.
> 
> Dogless - why is the vizla OK but not kilo? That seems an odd distinction to make?


L/C - at least you know now I guess for the future. They like to keep us guessing....

Kilo's size I think - the man has always seemed wary of big dogs and the vizsla is small. The only other thing that I can think is that the man's daughter came up to our back gate with the puppy whilst we were in the garden once - uninvited - and Kilo went batshit, frightening the girl, so they think he's aggressive. I did explain after that to her Mum that Kilo does bark at the gate and door but is fine outside the house - that was the occasion they met on lead. I had to stop her to explain as she saw us and said "Don't worry I'm taking him inside the house now if yours is out".


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> It was lovely lots of walks and in beautiful countryside and a chance to spend some time with my nieces who I don't get to see too often. The eldest was a little wary of Ely and Gypsy at first as she was nipped by a collie in her school car park not long ago but they are both good with wary people and she warmed up quite quickly.
> 
> I should have anticipated the chasing but tbh I was more worried about gypsy then Ely as he's frightened of sheep and has a very low prey drive. I feel terribly guilty and a bit of a failure - it seems like he has all of these serious issues that I'm not coping with very well.
> 
> Dogless - why is the vizla OK but not kilo? That seems an odd distinction to make?


 L/C - dont do yourself down, you've been doing a fantastic job with Ely and Gypsy. I know its scary , it happened to me with Evie and sheep. It's brilliant that Gypsy didn't try and join in,:yesnod: when it happened to me Moll and Scruff took chase as well- I did manage to recall them but still... 
I'm pleased you enjoyed the rest of the week though.

Dogless- Kilo's got himself a nice friend there.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> L/C - dont do yourself down, you've been doing a fantastic job with Ely and Gypsy. I know its scary , it happened to me with Evie and sheep. It's brilliant that Gypsy didn't try and join in,:yesnod: when it happened to me Moll and Scruff took chase as well- I did manage to recall them but still...
> I'm pleased you enjoyed the rest of the week though.
> 
> Dogless- Kilo's got himself a nice friend there.


When he takes to someone, he really takes to them :yesnod: - I've never known him bestow the 'legs' honour on anyone else though bar his 3 favourite people; he's seen this man regularly for about 9 months now so must have decided he's OK .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> When he takes to someone, he really takes to them :yesnod: - I've never known him bestow the 'legs' honour on anyone else though bar his 3 favourite people; he's seen this man regularly for about 9 months now so must have decided he's OK .


Bless him, Moll can be aloof- but she'd let the Devil himself throw a ball for her all day long


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## Twiggy

L/C said:


> It was lovely lots of walks and in beautiful countryside and a chance to spend some time with my nieces who I don't get to see too often. The eldest was a little wary of Ely and Gypsy at first as she was nipped by a collie in her school car park not long ago but they are both good with wary people and she warmed up quite quickly.
> 
> I should have anticipated the chasing but tbh I was more worried about gypsy then Ely as he's frightened of sheep and has a very low prey drive. I feel terribly guilty and a bit of a failure - it seems like he has all of these serious issues that I'm not coping with very well.
> QUOTE]
> 
> I'd just tick it off as a one off bad experience. Goats are not an animal you encounter very often and we can all be wise after the event.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - You are in close competition with mv for being the supreme voice of reason on this thread .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - You are in close competition with mv for being the supreme voice of reason on this thread .


Bless you. Probably in my case because I'm an old lady whose had horses and dogs most of her life.

I've had loads and loads of embarrassing moments with both...


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## moonviolet

L/C don't feel bad, even dogs that have been raised with livestock can forget themselves and chase. I have a pic somewhere of one of my parents cows stamping kicking up grass when one of their dogs decided they were going to show off and chase, They thought better of it quite quickly. Tink was on lead at teh time. bramble had walked past those cows 3 times a day since she was 8 weeks old. Found the pic. From everything you have told us I think you are going a grand job.










Sounds like Kilo has had a great day.

Tink had another good one today especially as i was under house arrest waiting for a delivery so we had an extended training session, before the delivery came and we were finally frrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.


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## Sarah1983

Not been a great day today. Hubby and I had a row which of course Spen picked up on so has been a bit off. Took him for his walk and all was going well until he decided he wanted to go in a different direction to the one I was taking. And went deaf. Took him about 10 minutes to decide he'd come my way after all  I could see him the whole time and it was perfectly safe, just more annoying than anything. Other than that though his recall was fine. He didn't actually come back to me when another dog appeared but he didn't run off to say hi either. And later on he met the GSD who basically beats him with her walking stick every time they say hello. He got to say hello to the beagle this time too. Think one of them must be funny with other bitches as the bloke walking them asked whether Spen was male before letting them approach, said as he was male they'd be fine.

And in honour of those of us with teenage dogs I have to post this. 
Kevin becomes a teenager - BBC comedy - YouTube

Dogless, Spen will shove through anyones legs, I have to warn everyone that meets him coz he's forceful enough to knock you over if you're not expecting it. I automatically stand like I've been on a horse too long now


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Not been a great day today. Hubby and I had a row which of course Spen picked up on so has been a bit off. Took him for his walk and all was going well until he decided he wanted to go in a different direction to the one I was taking. And went deaf. Took him about 10 minutes to decide he'd come my way after all  I could see him the whole time and it was perfectly safe, just more annoying than anything. Other than that though his recall was fine. He didn't actually come back to me when another dog appeared but he didn't run off to say hi either. And later on he met the GSD who basically beats him with her walking stick every time they say hello. He got to say hello to the beagle this time too. Think one of them must be funny with other bitches as the bloke walking them asked whether Spen was male before letting them approach, said as he was male they'd be fine.
> 
> And in honour of those of us with teenage dogs I have to post this.
> Kevin becomes a teenager - BBC comedy - YouTube
> 
> Dogless, Spen will shove through anyones legs, I have to warn everyone that meets him coz he's forceful enough to knock you over if you're not expecting it. I automatically stand like I've been on a horse too long now


Oh dear, hope Spen's back on form tomorrow; although not running over to the other dogs is still good .

Kilo only does it to a very select few. The first time he did it to my best friend I was making coffee and had told her to go through to the lounge and sit down...I heard a shriek and thought something bad had happened, he had snuck up behind her and nearly had her off her feet doing it  . Apart from that he reserves it for hubby and I - until today .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Oh dear, hope Spen's back on form tomorrow; although not running over to the other dogs is still good .
> 
> Kilo only does it to a very select few. The first time he did it to my best friend I was making coffee and had told her to go through to the lounge and sit down...I heard a shriek and thought something bad had happened, he had snuck up behind her and nearly had her off her feet doing it  . Apart from that he reserves it for hubby and I - until today .


Haha, Spen's a sod for it. He'll go through, round, through, back through, round, through again then sit while still between your legs. He's learned he can shove me backwards or forwards that way. Hubby just gets headbutted where it hurts :lol:

And yup, I was so pleased with him for not running up to the other dog, especially as it's owner hurriedly dragged it off into the cemetary shooting panicked looks over his shoulder at us.


----------



## SixStar

Long overdue, but thought I'd drop in with an update of Ozzy. Lots to tell, some good and some bad! 

After a rocky start where I really couldn't bond with him, the last couple of weeks I've really began to grow close to him, and finally see him as my dog, rather than just one I'm looking after. As much as I'm ashamed to admit it, I did feel some degree of resentment towards him after having to come off the waiting list for my bernese puppy, which of course was totally unfair on him as it wasn't his fault at all, but we're well over that now, and the bond is building, which obviously only helps our training.

Everyday remains to be an uphill struggle - he is hard work, no two ways about it!  And every time we seem to sort one issue, another one rears its ugly head, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

He has made HUGE progress with the grabbing for treats. Very occasionally he'll forget himself and try to snatch a high value treat but ''AH! _nicely_ Ozzy!'' jogs his memory and he tries to take it ridiculously gently, trying not to even touch my fingers with his mouth, bless him! Training the husband was a job even I wasn't up to, so he's just point blank banned from hand feeding Ozzy anything - if he wants to give him a treat, he can drop it on the floor - he was undoing everything I was trying to teach.

The cows have finally been moved from the field behind the garden, which, for now at least, takes a lot of stress and pressure away from us. He is a much easier dog to be around now he isn't in such a high state of anxiety (only released how bad he was since they've been gone) and he is much calmer and happier in himself, especially because now he can actually use the garden to have a good romp around and burn off all his energy between walks. Of course our problems aren't solved, as they'll be back next year, but it gives us more time to work on it, without having the cows living right on top of us!

His prey drive and chase instinct is improving - he is happy to walk past, but not through, fields of sheep and providing I spot bunnies and pheasant before him, then I use a ''wiggly giggly'' toy to distract him - it's a ball that makes the most bizarre noise, found completely by chance in Pets At Home, but he is memorised by it, and I can use that to get his attention - I throw it to him to catch, and then I'll ask him to drop it again for a treat, which just distracts him and by the time we've done that and carried on walking, the offending wildlife is gone! Not sure if it's the right way to be going about things, but it seems to be working. Whenever he hears the noise of the toy he looks straight to me, which is the desired affect, so I'm happy with it! Although if he does spot something before I do, then that's it! Nothing gets his attention back and I just have to ride it out and cling onto him until he's calmed down  Luckily though, that's only happened a handful of times.

I'm not having to drive him into the town for walks any more, now that he is better with wildlife, so that's much nicer for both of us. I did get a bit ahead of myself and tried him on a longline and harness, but we weren't ready for that yet - he went completely deaf and got far too excited, so that's something to revisit at a later date. It was expecting far too much far too soon! At least he can charge around in the garden now which again, is helping our training loads because he's so much calmer - there's only so much you can wear a dog out whilst they're on a short lead.

His latest little problem is that he is beginning to get a bit mouthy and grabby in play and when having fuss - he doesn't apply any pressure, but has taken to 'resting' his mouth around hands/arms, so that is something we're trying to nip in the bud!

I think that's all our news! He's a challenge alright, and has been threatened with Battersea on more than one occasion, but he's also one of the soppiest loveliest dogs I've ever have the pleasure of meeting, and when he comes to me of an evening, all sleepy and cuddly, and climbs up on the sofa and snuggles right into my side, all his faults are completely and utterly forgotten :001_wub:

I hope everyone else is doing well! Update me! There's about 100 pages of news since I last came in this thread!


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- those cows are gorgeous, but it would be a crazy dog to up set that girl in front, she no look happy.

Sarah-that clips funny, I remember seeing it on TV. Teenagers , who'd have em. Hope todays a good one.

Sixstar- nice to get an update, its good to hear Ozzy's doing better and you're getting a break from the livestock. I know how hard it is to build a bond when they're proving to be hard work, so its lovely that you're getting there.

OH has taken Scruff with him to look at some work, and she'll get a nice walk on the way back. She loves to be singled out for special attention. He walked her around a lake yesterday and said she was an angel, non reactive to any of the people or dogs she saw. 
Evie was fine left in her crate yesterday, no crying or thashing about at all, just an RSPCA face on.
I'm loving the seperate walks, and need to mix it up a bit, Scruff isn't the best dog to take Evie out with but its lovely doing extra stuff with Moll .
Took Moll in to a field yesterday that had been empty for weeks, after doing some work we walked around, there were the remains of 6 dead sheep ,she has recently discovered the joys of rolling and she spotted 2 of them before I did. Poor animals.


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## Beth17

Such a good morning! 

Took the boys up separately up to the field this morning and Sam was brilliant focused on me and his toy, not pulling too much and he got to meet around 20 dogs including a big group. He took it all in his stride and just wanted to play 

Oscar and I had a lovely stress free walk got home and Sam hadn't touched anything and had been asleep :thumbup:
They've both had a kong, some smelly tripe sticks and have now gone back to sleep in the sun. Today more than makes up for the other day!

Sarah-I hope Spen is being good today and watched the clip, I think if Sam could talk those exact words would come out 

Sixstar-Sounds like things are coming along nicely with Ozzy 

K&M- Dead sheep  So glad my two don't roll in things :yesnod:


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## Twiggy

Just got back from a show near Norwich.

Tremor was drawn 3rd in C, which is the class I'm working, so I trained as it takes her at least an hour to get over the journey. I don't think I'll ever completely crack her fear of travelling.

Holly Bolly had a lovely time towing me around the showground and saying hello to all and sundry. She's such a good pup; you can let her off the lead even with loads of dogs about and she always comes straight back when called.

She wasn't too keen on being left in the car the second time I worked Tremor. I came back to find the water bowl upside down and the vet bed re-arranged...!!

I do think the pup is having some effect on Tremor in the car though as she was reasonably settled on the almost 2 hour journey home.


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## Dogless

It's really good to hear from you Sixstar - Ozzy is very lucky to have found his way to you....shame that your hubby is untrainable though - perhaps try a citronella collar? .

Beth 17 - your boys seem to have been positively angelic today...wonder what they are planning for tomorrow :sosp:.

k&m - dead sheep? Nice :incazzato:

Twiggy - really good to hear that Holly Bolly is having a positive influence on Tremor and how good she is offlead in a crowded place. If I let Kilo off at a show he'd make a beeline for anyone with their pack up out I think .

We have had another great day - park this morning, very sociable, lovely behaviour from the BW .

This afternoon I went to the offlead fields, met the man who had avoided us yesterday on the road outside - his pup pulled him to meet. The meeting went very well which was good. I broached the subject of yesterday by saying "I am sorry if my dog being offlead worried you yesterday" and he told me it was OK but he didn't like the fact that there were two of them. After that we had 45 minutes of the fields to ourselves; we were just leaving when Kilo's second most favourite dog appeared and his owner asked if I could spare 5 minutes to let his dog have a play with another dog - I ended up sparing an hour. Again. Lucky Kilo two days in a row . Dogs to play with are like busses.... none for ages and then we see them a few days in a row .


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## kat&molly

We haven't had a seperate walk today as OH came so we all went together. Scruff kept going way off in front though and I had to keep calling her back-strange as she's been happy all week to plod along at the side of me or do a bit of training, when its just been me, her and Evie.


I've been trying to order the Pet Gundog- and somebodies pinched the last one.:incazzato: No date for the new ones coming yet.

Twiggy- sounds like young Holly Bolly's had a good day. Has she done any classes at the shows yet?


----------



## missnaomi

Thought I'd better let you know what we're working on...seen as I've been reading this for ages...

Rosie has passed her KC Gold Award and we're going to keep going to learn some new stuff....but what I want to work on with her is developing enthusiasm - I know it sounds weird, but she is totally unenthusiastic about anything except annoying Ringo and playing fetch - if you are throwing things for her or look like you might be she's lively, excited and attentive. On a normal walk, or when doing commands she just cant be bothered. Recall is great in terms of she always comes when called...but there's no urgency. I think we need to develop our bond so she is more excited about working for me. I'm going to try and teach her some simple tricks with a clicker too and play some games to build more of a a bond...

Ringo is a terrorist. He's fab - and fine offlead on walks etc. I'm going to work on recall from distractions some more, but he's fairly good. I'm working on loose lead walking, because I think I accidentally trained him to pull then come back for a treat and walk nicely...then pull again - like a yoyo. 

I am also going to work on keeping his focus. I want to do the KC Awards with him but he's become hopeless in class. We've been going since he was a puppy - and he was great for a whole, but all of a sudden got a bee in his bonnet about dogs being too close to him in the hall and became a bit reactive on lead, loads of barking during class when other dogs were doing stuff and hard to focus so he had to have lots of time outs. He didn't seem to be able to cope with loads of dogs moving around. We never got past this problem. We've had time away from class over the summer, and we're going back to a meet and greet class soon. The thing which I don't understand is that he isn't reactive on lead in the street, when we go to cafes etc - just at class in the hall, and he's fine with other dogs in his house/garden so I don't know if it's because we're inside, or because it's the same place he goes for daycare, and he goes quite often so he's really familiar with it...or what. I'm reading click to calm in the hope that will help. We do agility too, and he's fine with that, being close to dogs etc, it just seems to be indoors in the hall, so I want to start to build a rock solid focus so I can keep him interested as we work towards going back to class.

Think that's all...long post, sorry, but that's where we're up to.
Naomi x


----------



## Dogless

missnaomi said:


> Thought I'd better let you know what we're working on...seen as I've been reading this for ages...
> 
> Rosie has passed her KC Gold Award and we're going to keep going to learn some new stuff....but what I want to work on with her is developing enthusiasm - I know it sounds weird, but she is totally unenthusiastic about anything except annoying Ringo and playing fetch - if you are throwing things for her or look like you might be she's lively, excited and attentive. On a normal walk, or when doing commands she just cant be bothered. Recall is great in terms of she always comes when called...but there's no urgency. I think we need to develop our bond so she is more excited about working for me. I'm going to try and teach her some simple tricks with a clicker too and play some games to build more of a a bond...
> 
> Ringo is a terrorist. He's fab - and fine offlead on walks etc. I'm going to work on recall from distractions some more, but he's fairly good. I'm working on loose lead walking, because I think I accidentally trained him to pull then come back for a treat and walk nicely...then pull again - like a yoyo.
> 
> I am also going to work on keeping his focus. I want to do the KC Awards with him but he's become hopeless in class. We've been going since he was a puppy - and he was great for a whole, but all of a sudden got a bee in his bonnet about dogs being too close to him in the hall and became a bit reactive on lead, loads of barking during class when other dogs were doing stuff and hard to focus so he had to have lots of time outs. He didn't seem to be able to cope with loads of dogs moving around. We never got past this problem. We've had time away from class over the summer, and we're going back to a meet and greet class soon. The thing which I don't understand is that he isn't reactive on lead in the street, when we go to cafes etc - just at class in the hall, and he's fine with other dogs in his house/garden so I don't know if it's because we're inside, or because it's the same place he goes for daycare, and he goes quite often so he's really familiar with it...or what. I'm reading click to calm in the hope that will help. We do agility too, and he's fine with that, being close to dogs etc, it just seems to be indoors in the hall, so I want to start to build a rock solid focus so I can keep him interested as we work towards going back to class.
> 
> Think that's all...long post, sorry, but that's where we're up to.
> Naomi x


Maybe with Ringo it is the hall as you say? Kilo goes batshit (getting steadily very much better) when dogs and owners run in the hall doing recall and can react if a person runs in there even without a dog. I think it's the echoes and noise of the hall (acoustics perhaps?) and sounds on the wooden floor as outside we can watch agility, dogs and people running etc no problem.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> We haven't had a seperate walk today as OH came so we all went together. Scruff kept going way off in front though and I had to keep calling her back-strange as she's been happy all week to plod along at the side of me or do a bit of training, when its just been me, her and Evie.
> 
> I've been trying to order the Pet Gundog- and somebodies pinched the last one.:incazzato: No date for the new ones coming yet.
> 
> *Twiggy- sounds like young Holly Bolly's had a good day. Has she done any classes at the shows yet?*




Hmmm Holly Bolly might be ready to compete in about 5 years time......!!


----------



## Twiggy

missnaomi said:


> Thought I'd better let you know what we're working on...seen as I've been reading this for ages...
> 
> *Rosie has passed her KC Gold Award and we're going to keep going to learn some new stuff....but what I want to work on with her is developing enthusiasm - I know it sounds weird, but she is totally unenthusiastic about anything except annoying Ringo and playing fetch - if you are throwing things for her or look like you might be she's lively, excited and attentive. On a normal walk, or when doing commands she just cant be bothered. Recall is great in terms of she always comes when called...but there's no urgency. I think we need to develop our bond so she is more excited about working for me. I'm going to try and teach her some simple tricks with a clicker too and play some games to build more of a a bond...*
> 
> *Naomi x*


You've got it in one and especially if you're thinking of having a go at Pre-Beginners at open shows.

It is all about enthusiasm and commitment - without that you've got nothing.

Which is why my arm is black and blue with bruises and my hand is usually bleeding when I'm training the pup - because I'm trying to emulate the same excitement as when the pup is playing with Tremor or Leafy and it sure ain't easy...!!


----------



## Twiggy

For Moonviolet:

I had a long chat and a cup of tea with one of my ex-pupils at the show today. She was telling me that she got a heelwork to music routine going about 18 months ago with one of her dogs. From what she said it sounded a super routine so I put my headmistress hat on and told her when the obedience shows have finished she's got to resurrect it. I shall find a HTM show for her to enter and go with her to hold her hand....!!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> For Moonviolet:
> 
> I had a long chat and a cup of tea with one of my ex-pupils at the show today. She was telling me that she got a heelwork to music routine going about 18 months ago with one of her dogs. From what she said it sounded a super routine so I put my headmistress hat on and told her when the obedience shows have finished she's got to resurrect it. I shall find a HTM show for her to enter and go with her to hold her hand....!!


That sounds wonderful  How lucky she is to have you hold her hand  All being well i'm going to pop along to a class tomorrow, It's just been taken over by my favourite trainer If i tell her i'm thinking of putting a little routine together I'm sure she'll be happy to advise/support and as she's the one that agreed to a display with no rehearsal and only 3 days notice, I think she owes us one 

Her ladyship had another extended training session this morning not only are they great fun, they seem to give her an extra confidence boost when they preceed a walk. We received a lovely complement about the " obedient" dog from a couple of mountain bikers, So that was lovely.

To finish off a great day at the end of our evening walk we bumped into a doggie friend how had been very unwell a while back and is now out and about, recovering from a pretty huge surgery. I kept Tink on lead and well back as she would have play bowed and the poor boy still has a few stitches in. Made my day to see him


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> That sounds wonderful  How lucky she is to have you hold her hand  All being well i'm going to pop along to a class tomorrow, It's just been taken over by my favourite trainer If i tell her i'm thinking of putting a little routine together I'm sure she'll be happy to advise/support and as she's the one that agreed to a display with no rehearsal and only 3 days notice, I think she owes us one
> 
> Her ladyship had another extended training session this morning not only are they great fun, they seem to give her an extra confidence boost when they preceed a walk. We received a lovely complement about the " obedient" dog from a couple of mountain bikers, So that was lovely.
> 
> To finish off a great day at the end of our evening walk we bumped into a doggie friend how had been very unwell a while back and is now out and about, recovering from a pretty huge surgery. I kept Tink on lead and well back as she would have play bowed and the poor boy still has a few stitches in. Made my day to see him


Moonviolet- this is all very exciting.:thumbup1:
And I'm thinking we could be your groupies- but I'm struggling for a slogan to have on our T-shirts.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- this is all very exciting.:thumbup1:
> And I'm thinking we could be your groupies- but I'm struggling for a slogan to have on our T-shirts.


Team Tink .


----------



## moonviolet

:lol::lol::lol: Stop it mad dog ladies you are getting ahead of yourselves


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :lol::lol::lol: Stop it mad dog ladies you are getting ahead of yourselves


No....you are just swimming in the longest river in Egypt .


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> You've got it in one and especially if you're thinking of having a go at Pre-Beginners at open shows.
> 
> It is all about enthusiasm and commitment - without that you've got nothing.
> 
> Which is why my arm is black and blue with bruises and my hand is usually bleeding when I'm training the pup - because I'm trying to emulate the same excitement as when the pup is playing with Tremor or Leafy and it sure ain't easy...!!


Twiggy- I'm just wondering... further back in this epic thread, Moll and I had a few Gundog lessons, we had 2 problems so I stopped and changed to Agility. Firstly Moll would not release the dummy, and she kept jumping up to grab it and catching my hands which bloody hurt. I stopped the lessons because I thought she was too overwhelmed with them , I dont think my trainer saw it as a problem either, but I did?


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Team Tink .


Now thats fab- why couldn't I think of that.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- this is all very exciting.:thumbup1:
> And I'm thinking we could be your groupies- but I'm struggling for a slogan to have on our T-shirts.


Err yes. The last routine I did was with Quiver way back in about 2002.
My granddaughter sat in the audience holding up a big poster which said "Go Nana go" - made me feel about 90....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> That sounds wonderful  How lucky she is to have you hold her hand  All being well i'm going to pop along to a class tomorrow, It's just been taken over by my favourite trainer If i tell her i'm thinking of putting a little routine together I'm sure she'll be happy to advise/support and as she's the one that agreed to a display with no rehearsal and only 3 days notice, I think she owes us one
> 
> Her ladyship had another extended training session this morning not only are they great fun, they seem to give her an extra confidence boost when they preceed a walk. We received a lovely complement about the " obedient" dog from a couple of mountain bikers, So that was lovely.
> 
> To finish off a great day at the end of our evening walk we bumped into a doggie friend how had been very unwell a while back and is now out and about, recovering from a pretty huge surgery. I kept Tink on lead and well back as she would have play bowed and the poor boy still has a few stitches in. Made my day to see him


That's all excellent news - good for you!! I'll come and hold your hand as well - who knows the show may be in the south of England anyway.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Twiggy- I'm just wondering... further back in this epic thread, Moll and I had a few Gundog lessons, we had 2 problems so I stopped and changed to Agility. Firstly Moll would not release the dummy, and she kept jumping up to grab it and catching my hands which bloody hurt. I stopped the lessons because I thought she was too overwhelmed with them , I dont think my trainer saw it as a problem either, but I did?


Holding onto the retrieve article is a very common problem, be it obedience, gun dogs, schutzhund dogs, etc.

I see loads of dogs with the same problem. I usually teach them to swap for either a ball or tit-bit (whichever the dog prefers). The immediate answer from most handlers is that their dog will drop the retrieve article if they have a tit-bit in their hand, to which my reply is "well you teach them not to".

Have you seen this Susan Garrett video which is on the same tack - it's about controlling a highly motivated and excited dog:

Building Drive by &#39;being&#39; a Bad Dog Trainer sdga - YouTube


----------



## L/C

I'm looking forward to being on Team Tink! 

Thank you for all the kind words to get me over my wobble. 

Just to prove me wrong Ely has been a little star this morning. Still in Devon, we went to the local park/nature reserve for a walk. Lots of dogs so he was mostly on the lead but we let him off for a bit to play fetch with his ball and do some finding games. It was an area where we could see all entrances and exits and could get him back easily if it looked like there might be trouble. Everything was going fine until a bloke came in with a young black lab. Now black labs are Ely's nemesis as we've met so many rude and pushy ones so I called him back and clipped his lead on.

Bloke plonked himself down on a bench and proceeded to let his dog run wild. He ran over to us, mugged OH to try and steal the ball and knocked Gypsy over by sniffing her and lifting up her back end.  She chased it off with a flea in it's ear but Ely kept his focus on me the whole time and didn't react. Of course it came back later and this time I left Ely off the lead - he greeted it nicely and when it got too pushy and rude (gluing it's nose to his bum) he ran over and stood behind me rather then snapping. So proud that he made the right decision by himself.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - Ely sounds like he has excelled himself this morning in the face of something that would have made him react not too long ago. No wonder you are proud - you really deserve to be. Hope Gypsy is OK post - tip . I hate it when owners watch their dogs mug you too and just think it's endearing. Kilo did mug the vizsla owner the other day though when he got over excited as the man had hold of both dogs' toys and he went to grab his squeaky Kong ball on rope . Touch wood he hasn't mugged a stranger.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Ely sounds like he has more than made up for the other day. There does seem to be an abundance of intrusive labs. Hopefully this one will be a little more respectful of a ladies personal areas after Gypsy's guidance! Well done Ely for focussing on you that took some serious self control. Then coming to you when it was his turn for the over eager sniffing top marks Ely 

Well, we went to class today and were spoiled rotten as noone else turned up! We had a wonderful session, so nice to progress at our own pace. We began a short string with moves Tink already knows spins/twists circles weaves, Then did the seeds of training some new moves, that can be included later when they are solid. Working toward the "cloth eared" one to reliably performing things on vocal cues only is going to be one of our big challenges as she has always worked better on body language. I had my usual stop bending lecture too I did suggest the music from the hunchback of notre dame, but was told no :lol:

Plenty to work on and plenty of time, as that class only runs once a month.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer would love to be one of those intrusive Labs but his horribly mean owner refuses to let him and insists on some manners. Is it just something in the Labrador nature to be intrusive and rude and in your face? I know training must play some part in it as Spen is learning (slowly  ) to calm it down but it almost always seems to be Labs who are the culprit when people talk about rude dogs


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## Dogless

Well mv....do I sense the 'maybe' of dancing shifting to keen? :devil:. You will be superb!!

Sarah - I think it's often labs due to their sheer numbers and also, here especially, folk don't train them as they are known to be such a friendly breed (won't get into that ) that they assume people and dogs alike will welcome their enthusiastic greetings. They run loose around the streets. The looks and mutterings that are dished out sometimes because it's your / your dog's problem if you don't welcome them can be unreal!!

We have had a great day - few hours of training and play on the fields this morning, park this afternoon; good behaviour all round .


----------



## missnaomi

Sarah1983 said:


> Spencer would love to be one of those intrusive Labs but his horribly mean owner refuses to let him and insists on some manners. Is it just something in the Labrador nature to be intrusive and rude and in your face? I know training must play some part in it as Spen is learning (slowly  ) to calm it down but it almost always seems to be Labs who are the culprit when people talk about rude dogs


...it must be because they're naturally friendly and exuberant...but you never see someone's guide dog zooming across the road to jump all over you...so clearly they can be trained to an extremely high level!


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Holding onto the retrieve article is a very common problem, be it obedience, gun dogs, schutzhund dogs, etc.
> 
> I see loads of dogs with the same problem. I usually teach them to swap for either a ball or tit-bit (whichever the dog prefers). The immediate answer from most handlers is that their dog will drop the retrieve article if they have a tit-bit in their hand, to which my reply is "well you teach them not to".
> 
> Have you seen this Susan Garrett video which is on the same tack - it's about controlling a highly motivated and excited dog:
> 
> Building Drive by 'being' a Bad Dog Trainer sdga - YouTube


 I'd love Moll to be that good at releasing articles. We had to take a break from any formal retreive training- I went back to letting her just drop the ball,but this week we've started using 2 and slowly we're getting there.


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## kat&molly

L/C- thats brilliant, just goes to show how far you have come.:yesnod:

Moonviolet- you had a training class today. How lucky are you, France is closed on Sundays, and Mondays and actually half of the normal working day too. It sounds a great start though :thumbup:- I always got told off for looming.

We took the girls to another lake today, it was a bit too busy and got to be a pain having to keep calling Scruff and Evie back to put them on leads- so we went and found another one that was deserted. 

I've cancelled the Gundog book as Amazon France had it in stock- should be here in a couple of days. I'm very excited.:yesnod:


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## Guest

Been gazing at this thread for a good long while, thought I'd chip in...

Zander, has this THING of bouncing and ALWAYS wanting to play with other dogs, but today, I MANAGED TO WALK HIM PAST 6 DOGS ALL FOUR PAWS ON THE GROUND. I am very chuffed with this, he watched me when I asked as well and has started to immediatley look to me when he see's another dog.... 7 bloody months I've been trying to get him to do watch. VERY CHUFFED....

Oh and quick question, do most dogs immediatley try to play with others once they've sniffed each other on lead or is it due to Zanders youngness and lack of manners....

OOH and we're gonna take him to a dog show. *RAMP UP THAT SOCIALISATION AND DESENSITISATION. * Or it could just end up with me having having very sore shoulders...


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## Dogless

Well done LurcherOwner; Kilo used to try and play with dogs after a first sniff but now doesn't - I used to not allow him to play onlead and he's now choosy about playmates anyway.

Be careful at the dog show that he's still comfortable and not overwhelmed - I'm sure you will be! Watch at a distance for a while if needs be.


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> Well done LurcherOwner; Kilo used to try and play with dogs after a first sniff but now doesn't - I used to not allow him to play onlead and he's now choosy about playmates anyway.
> 
> *Be careful at the dog show that he's still comfortable and not overwhelmed - I'm sure you will be! Watch at a distance for a while if needs be.*


See I'm worried about that a bit, see although he was AWESOME today, he did howl when he couldn't go offlead to play with this husky (I'd made him sit till the owner SLOWWLLLYYYYYY plodded through the field) and whinge and whine so.... IDK we shall see its not for a couple sundays anyway :001_wub:


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> See I'm worried about that a bit, see although he was AWESOME today, he did howl when he couldn't go offlead to play with this husky (I'd made him sit till the owner SLOWWLLLYYYYYY plodded through the field) and whinge and whine so.... IDK we shall see its not for a couple sundays anyway :001_wub:


I'd watch from a distance where he can be calm - as soon as he gets too excited or anxious I'd retreat to where he can be calm again, rinse and repeat.


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## LexiLou2

I'm rejoining.

Bosleys dog issue is getting better and better, he is still a work in prgress and some situations make him more stressed and prone to yipping sessions, so will keep plodding on withhim.

My new training focus is getting Nala to walk past people/dogs/cars/sheep statues etc without going all 'banana bum' on me wiggling and having to greet said person/dog/inanimate object. We went to a fun local dog show today and after the first 15 mins of having to say hello to everyone she did calm down but cries under her breath all the time. So operation calm Nala down commences.
To be fair if thsi is the worst my pup can throw at me I'm not doing too badly.
Going to start ring craft classes with her so hopefully that will help calm her.


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## L/C

Ely has just torn one of his nails out, the first one in six months. A bit galling cause I thought we had his slo under control. He's asleep with his his head on my lap at the moment and I'm trying to decide if the emergency vet is required or not.


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## Dogless

L/C said:


> Ely has just torn one of his nails out, the first one in six months. A bit galling cause I thought we had his slo under control. He's asleep with his his head on my lap at the moment and I'm trying to decide if the emergency vet is required or not.


Oh no . Does the vet normally cauterise? Remove the rest? Just ab cover? I know what SLO is, but am very ignorant as to the treatment .


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Ely has just torn one of his nails out, the first one in six months. A bit galling cause I thought we had his slo under control. He's asleep with his his head on my lap at the moment and I'm trying to decide if the emergency vet is required or not.


Oh dear. Excuse my ignorance but I've no idea what slo means?


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Oh no . Does the vet normally cauterise? Remove the rest? Just ab cover? I know what SLO is, but am very ignorant as to the treatment .


It depends how bad it is. He's had to have nails removed under sedation before when they've only come off partially. I usually refuse AB's unless it's really bad as at one point he would have been having them almost every month.

It's come off cleanly so no need to have it removed so it's just the bleeding to be concerned about atm. If it hasn't stopped in the next five minutes it'll be an attempt to find an e-vet in darkest Devon.


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## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. Excuse my ignorance but I've no idea what slo means?


SLO is symmetrical lupoid onychodystrophy. It's an auto immune disease that makes his body reject his toe nails so they fall out. It's controlled by fish oil supplements and vitamin e. He hasn't lost a nail for almost 6 months so it's under fairly successful control.


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## Dogless

L/C said:


> It depends how bad it is. He's had to have nails removed under sedation before when they've only come off partially. I usually refuse AB's unless it's really bad as at one point he would have been having them almost every month.
> 
> It's come off cleanly so no need to have it removed so it's just the bleeding to be concerned about atm. If it hasn't stopped in the next five minutes it'll be an attempt to find an e-vet in darkest Devon.


Oh no, hope it stops. Poor boy.


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## L/C

Bleeding has stopped. :thumbup1: No vet for us. Train is going to be fun tomorrow though.


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## Sarah1983

Oh no, hope Ely heals quickly and doesn't manage to pull any more out!

This was Spencer for several hours after we got home from the dog show. He's like a bloody toddler, fights and fights going to sleep then crashes.










Don't yell at me for the lack of bedding in his crate, I've tried every bed we have plus an old duvet and he simply refuses to accept anything more than that mat in there. He just drags it back out again. Shut him in there with bedding in and he piles it all up at one end and lies at the other end. Won't settle down until it's out of his way. He doesn't sleep on the bed or sofa either although he comes up on the bed at bed time for cuddles. First dog I've had who's not liked his home comforts


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## Werehorse

Hello. Can I join in with this thread? I have a lot to work on with both my boys and could do with somewhere to just chat about progress. I haven't actually looked in on this thread before though, so don't want to be rude and barge in...


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## L/C

The more the merrier!


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## moonviolet

Hi Werehorse, pull up a chair. everyone's welcome 

L/C I'm so glad you weren't seeking a vet in darkest Devon. Hope the train journey is ok today.

Sara,h look at Spen all wiped out :001_wub: My mum's old lab was the same. rarely ever lay on the soft stuff. prefered the cool floor of the utility room. Tink's the same about sleep and still fights it. 

Last night I showed OH the little string of moves and some of the other bits we did in class. He smiled that smile of the normal human being and said " well you both seem to be enjoying it " rrr::ciappa: I get the feeling he doesn't really get it :lol: :lol:


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## kat&molly

L/C- I hope Ely's better this morning and the train journey is okay.

Werehorse- look forward to hearing how the boys are doing.

Sarah- Spen looks like a crashed out toddler!! 

Moonviolet- if your OH is going to be like that , we might not let him be on Team Tink.:laugh:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Hi Werehorse, pull up a chair. everyone's welcome
> 
> L/C I'm so glad you weren't seeking a vet in darkest Devon. Hope the train journey is ok today.
> 
> Sara,h look at Spen all wiped out :001_wub: My mum's old lab was the same. rarely ever lay on the soft stuff. prefered the cool floor of the utility room. Tink's the same about sleep and still fights it.
> 
> Last night I showed OH the little string of moves and some of the other bits we did in class. He smiled that smile of the normal human being and said " well you both seem to be enjoying it " rrr::ciappa: I get the feeling he doesn't really get it :lol: :lol:


I sympathise as I know the feeling. Two days before I competed with Quiver a friend (who was also entered) and I had a dress rehearsal in the paddock, having marked out the size of the arena etc. I asked hubby to come and watch. His assessment was "Mmm well it's alright but of course Quiver isn't a patch on Fidget". What a great confidence boost just before the competition....!!


----------



## Werehorse

*pulls up chair*

So, what are we working on? Probably best to divide it up by dog...

Hugo first - 1.we are working towards Silver now which means loose lead walking outside needs to be polished up. He's good and does it when I ask but he can be a bit lungey about when excited and I want wallking nicely to just be second nature and not something I have to command particularly.
2. Controlled greeting. It is a bit of a lottery whether a person is ignored by Hugo, gets a nice sit waiting for attention or gets a flying face-level lick. Fortunately with strangers its usually ignored! But people he vaguely knows sometimes get assaulted which is not acceptable, clearly (fortunately everyone has found it funny, so far!  ) - working towards everyone getting a nice sitting sprollie would be good.
3. We'll have to focus on the Silver food manners in order to pass the test - in real life situations he's not a bother but if they do the food manners bit like they did in Oscar's silver test then we'll need to work on it as sprollie noses are longer than spanner noses and move much faster with less predicatibility and I need more control than Oscar displayed!
4. Retrieve - formal and play. He's a bit rubbish bless him but he'd enjoy it more if he learned to play properly and if we are going to do obedience at any point he at least needs to have a formal retrieve. Also polish up "tug" with a good drop and a polite retake so we can use that as our "play" part in silver.
5. Formal heel work. As in proper posh, staring up collie heelwork. :lol: Starting with work on a hand target and just positioning at a stand still.. we'll see how we go.
6. Being on his own. Totally didn't work on this enough as a pup because the crucial period coincided with me quitting work then being too stressed to go out the house, then only being able to persuade myself to go out by taking Hugo with me for "socialisation"... now he has a sore nose from doing something stupid in his crate while on his own and is so excited when we come back that he hyperventilates, leaps about like an I-don't-know-what and makes me think he's going to have a heart attack. So some work to do there!

Ok, that's probably enough for one small sprollie... now for the Oscar.

*sigh* I feel like there is so much to work on after his Silver test. It went so awfully desite us passing. I do think some of it was getting completely brain-melted by the smell of in-season bitch on the assessors' clothes but I still feel like we should work on the stuff we got wrong as well as working towards Gold.

1. Food manners. Again, he's ok in real life but I want more control/leaving it is second nature.
2. Controlled greeting. He's not bad at this - he doesn't do jumping up. He does however do forceful sidling up to people. It's cute but I'd rather he waited until he was invited to sidle!
3. The dreaded loose lead walking again - we have made a rediculous amount of progress on this but it needs to be more consistant and more confident... 
4. Speaking of which confidence is a big all-round issue which I think underlies a few problems. Including being easily distracted outside. I need to be more disciplined and make sure he is really being mentally stimulated everyday, do a bit of TTouch a couple of times a week, do some lead walking work on a balance harness (or similar if we can afford to buy one) and use a equafleece t-shirt as a body-wrap (again if we can afford it). In with this is some resource guarding he seems to have developed since Hugo came on board - which he has then transfered to us. More OH than me. It's not a major issue for us as it's just the odd tiny growl and we can avoid it happening my situation management, we don't have toddlers to worry about or anything, BUT I would like to work through it for the sake of Oscar's happiness - I don't want him feeling stressed about having to defend his dinner! 
5. As part of the mental stimulation I'd like to introduce some scent work and some gun-dog style retrieves... although I've no idea what I'm doing with either I'm just thinking "aloud" now 
6. Formal heelwork same as Hugo.
7. We'll have to work on sending to bed and settling for Gold and out of sight stays.

And both together...

1. Walking on a bliddy loose lead both at the same time!!  I have gone from being constantly pulled over by both of them when out together to usually one walking nicely at a time while the other one prats about and it's manageable but it's not pleasant. It'd be a lot better if it was pleasant.

Me...
1. Getting up earlier so I can fit all this in!!!

Phew. Sorry about the massive post - I'm sure there is more but there's also more than enough to be getting on with there. I feel like a complete incompatent looking at that list though!


----------



## moonviolet

Well Werehorse you have a few things to be getting on with there  I hope it feels better to get it all down in words, in a supportive environment 

I've found when i have a list longer than a few things i tend to do them all badly. So personally I'd prioritise a couple of things at a time. What works for me is combining one big hairy issue that needs lots of work with thing thats pretty good but needs a polish and focusing on them for a few days. 

The other thing, would a medium thundershirt fit Oscar? and would you like to try one? Tink's is collecting dust now. Just needs a rinse and i could post it to you.


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse- thats some list. But as you've already got Bronze with Hugo and Silver with Oscar, you're only building on it all really.

I am awaiting the Pet Gundog by Lez Graham- it has really good reviews, maybe that will give you some ideas for Oscar.


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Well Werehorse you have a few things to be getting on with there  I hope it feels better to get it all down in words, in a supportive environment
> 
> I've found when i have a list longer than a few things i tend to do them all badly. So personally I'd prioritise a couple of things at a time. What works for me is combining one big hairy issue that needs lots of work with thing thats pretty good but needs a polish and focusing on them for a few days.


:lol: :lol: Yes, the massive list is definitely just a reference starting point. I'll work on one thing at a time and feel less confused because I don't have to keep remembering all the other things I need to work on because I've written it all down! Plus I've "told" people so I can't conveniently skive off things that are difficult. 

Oscar's main issues lie in the anxiety so I really want to tackle that, but from several different angles. Hugo just eats up training so I can probably spend a week on each thing and he'll be sorted and looking for new tricks to learn.



moonviolet said:


> The other thing, would a medium thundershirt fit Oscar? and would you like to try one? Tink's is collecting dust now. Just needs a rinse and i could post it to you.


That is so lovely and generous of you and a medium would actually fit them both (Hugo has a Very Grown Up 22" chest these days  ), so if you are completely sure you can spare it we would really, truely appreciate it. I'll PM you.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> *pulls up chair*
> 
> So, what are we working on? Probably best to divide it up by dog...
> 
> Hugo first - 1.we are working towards Silver now which means loose lead walking outside needs to be polished up. He's good and does it when I ask but he can be a bit lungey about when excited and I want wallking nicely to just be second nature and not something I have to command particularly.
> 2. Controlled greeting. It is a bit of a lottery whether a person is ignored by Hugo, gets a nice sit waiting for attention or gets a flying face-level lick. Fortunately with strangers its usually ignored! But people he vaguely knows sometimes get assaulted which is not acceptable, clearly (fortunately everyone has found it funny, so far!  ) - working towards everyone getting a nice sitting sprollie would be good.
> 3. We'll have to focus on the Silver food manners in order to pass the test - in real life situations he's not a bother but if they do the food manners bit like they did in Oscar's silver test then we'll need to work on it as sprollie noses are longer than spanner noses and move much faster with less predicatibility and I need more control than Oscar displayed!
> 4. Retrieve - formal and play. He's a bit rubbish bless him but he'd enjoy it more if he learned to play properly and if we are going to do obedience at any point he at least needs to have a formal retrieve. Also polish up "tug" with a good drop and a polite retake so we can use that as our "play" part in silver.
> 5. Formal heel work. As in proper posh, staring up collie heelwork. :lol: Starting with work on a hand target and just positioning at a stand still.. we'll see how we go.
> 6. Being on his own. Totally didn't work on this enough as a pup because the crucial period coincided with me quitting work then being too stressed to go out the house, then only being able to persuade myself to go out by taking Hugo with me for "socialisation"... now he has a sore nose from doing something stupid in his crate while on his own and is so excited when we come back that he hyperventilates, leaps about like an I-don't-know-what and makes me think he's going to have a heart attack. So some work to do there!
> 
> Ok, that's probably enough for one small sprollie... now for the Oscar.
> 
> *sigh* I feel like there is so much to work on after his Silver test. It went so awfully desite us passing. I do think some of it was getting completely brain-melted by the smell of in-season bitch on the assessors' clothes but I still feel like we should work on the stuff we got wrong as well as working towards Gold.
> 
> 1. Food manners. Again, he's ok in real life but I want more control/leaving it is second nature.
> 2. Controlled greeting. He's not bad at this - he doesn't do jumping up. He does however do forceful sidling up to people. It's cute but I'd rather he waited until he was invited to sidle!
> 3. The dreaded loose lead walking again - we have made a rediculous amount of progress on this but it needs to be more consistant and more confident...
> 4. Speaking of which confidence is a big all-round issue which I think underlies a few problems. Including being easily distracted outside. I need to be more disciplined and make sure he is really being mentally stimulated everyday, do a bit of TTouch a couple of times a week, do some lead walking work on a balance harness (or similar if we can afford to buy one) and use a equafleece t-shirt as a body-wrap (again if we can afford it). In with this is some resource guarding he seems to have developed since Hugo came on board - which he has then transfered to us. More OH than me. It's not a major issue for us as it's just the odd tiny growl and we can avoid it happening my situation management, we don't have toddlers to worry about or anything, BUT I would like to work through it for the sake of Oscar's happiness - I don't want him feeling stressed about having to defend his dinner!
> 5. As part of the mental stimulation I'd like to introduce some scent work and some gun-dog style retrieves... although I've no idea what I'm doing with either I'm just thinking "aloud" now
> 6. Formal heelwork same as Hugo.
> 7. We'll have to work on sending to bed and settling for Gold and out of sight stays.
> 
> And both together...
> 
> 1. Walking on a bliddy loose lead both at the same time!!  I have gone from being constantly pulled over by both of them when out together to usually one walking nicely at a time while the other one prats about and it's manageable but it's not pleasant. It'd be a lot better if it was pleasant.
> 
> Me...
> 1. Getting up earlier so I can fit all this in!!!
> 
> Phew. Sorry about the massive post - I'm sure there is more but there's also more than enough to be getting on with there. I feel like a complete incompatent looking at that list though!


Wow that is quite a long list...!!

How old is Hugo now?


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> :lol: :lol: Yes, the massive list is definitely just a reference starting point. I'll work on one thing at a time and feel less confused because I don't have to keep remembering all the other things I need to work on because I've written it all down! Plus I've "told" people so I can't conveniently skive off things that are difficult.
> 
> Oscar's main issues lie in the anxiety so I really want to tackle that, but from several different angles. Hugo just eats up training so I can probably spend a week on each thing and he'll be sorted and looking for new tricks to learn.
> 
> That is so lovely and generous of you and a medium would actually fit them both (Hugo has a Very Grown Up 22" chest these days  ), so if you are completely sure you can spare it we would really, truely appreciate it. I'll PM you.


I am absolutely sure  it's not helping anyone in a drawer


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Wow that is quite a long list...!!
> 
> How old is Hugo now?


:lol: Being a perfectionist leads to long lists of "stuff to improve"! Being a lazy arse generally maintains the length of such lists. 

Hugo is 10 months 20 days old.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Being a perfectionist leads to long lists of "stuff to improve"! Being a lazy arse generally maintains the length of such lists.
> 
> Hugo is 10 months 20 days old.


So Hugo is more or less exactly the same age as my Holly. Oh good we can compare notes....LOL

To be honest, and especially if you're working towards any sort of test, there is always a long list of things that need improvement. Even with experienced dogs that knows their stuff you still need to dream up variations on a theme to keep their brains engaged.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse; you are brave sitting down and making your list...I don't dare . Your two would probably put the BW and I to shame anyway .

We had a good morning at the park - lovely behaviour from the BW. This afternoon we did our walk earlier than normal (trying to get a break in the weather so we only got a bit wet rather than sodden!!). Walked to the offlead fields nicely, play and training (impulse control stuff - as ever!!!) went well. A little blip on the way out though. We got to the gate and a yorkie appeared on the other side going nuts and barking like crazy with a woman and her little girl. I asked if she was coming in or going past as I was coming out. She said coming in and then asked if my dog was OK with others as hers just had 'small dog syndrome'. I said he was in the main, but likely to respond to the barking if we had to pass too closely. So the woman picked her dog up (still barking) which always piques the BW's interest , we left the field but as we passed the barking intensified and Kilo decided to react and barked himself. Scared the poor woman and her little girl so not good .


----------



## Sarah1983

We're back to working on recall. It seems to have suddenly fallen apart, possibly because he knows he has complete freedom as it's still great on the long line :incazzato: He doesn't run off but come to me? Nah, he'd rather carry on with what he's doing. He's also been less interested in treats lately, he'll eat them but he's not going nuts for them  So I've decided to use his meals as recall rewards as he still goes mental for those. No more free food in a bowl or Kong, he'll get it in small portions for coming when called. I'm sure anyone who sees me will think I'm nuts spoon feeding my dog raw mince or tripe out of a tub every time he comes to me but to hell with it lol. 

So far it's going well. Only problem is he seems to think he should get whatever's left when we come back in and goes on a crime spree when I put it away. So far he's stolen several poo bags, a dvd, my shoes and some tissues.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah- you're brave taking Raw food out- but if it works, it works, just watch you dont get everyone elses dog recalling to you though.:lol:

Not much to report for us, I'm doing a joint walk in the morning-but I use the car then afternoons I take Moll first then Scruff and Evie after. Its working really well.
Evie is fine now being left in the crate whilst I take Moll- she seemed to get over her dramas quick. 

I can even take Moll out on a slip lead now  and my book should come tomorrow, we really need some new stuff to work on.

Scruff is doing sooo much better not being walked with Moll.


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## missnaomi

I am using some Kikopup videos to try and teach Rosie some stuff for fun to develop more of a bond, we haven't really done much clicker before so I'm trying to do some now...

And Ringo starts meet and greet class on Thursday evening, so hopefully a chance to work on getting really good focus and attention around others who might (shock horror) be doing stuff that he's not joining in with. Indoors.  I'm pretty worried about it to be honest, our last experiences of class weren't very positive (me nearly ramming cheese in Ringo's nostrils whilst he went bonkers followed by some time outs which lasted FOREVER as he didn't stop the bonkers-ness).

On a positive note, sometimes Ringo is awesome... Flyball at Oakwood Canine Services - Ringo - YouTube


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> We're back to working on recall. It seems to have suddenly fallen apart, possibly because he knows he has complete freedom as it's still great on the long line :incazzato: He doesn't run off but come to me? Nah, he'd rather carry on with what he's doing. He's also been less interested in treats lately, he'll eat them but he's not going nuts for them  So I've decided to use his meals as recall rewards as he still goes mental for those. No more free food in a bowl or Kong, he'll get it in small portions for coming when called. I'm sure anyone who sees me will think I'm nuts spoon feeding my dog raw mince or tripe out of a tub every time he comes to me but to hell with it lol.
> 
> So far it's going well. Only problem is he seems to think he should get whatever's left when we come back in and goes on a crime spree when I put it away. So far he's stolen several poo bags, a dvd, my shoes and some tissues.


That made me laugh - there's always a down side isn't there?


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## Dogless

I'm imagining Spen dressed like the Hamburglar engaging in his one dog crime wave .

Not much to report today - all has gone well. We saw a large black lab this evening with owners who know what I'm up to when I see them and allow us to stalk them  and Kilo was much, much more easily diverted from fixating than usual - just a 'watch' and then some heelwork, sits, downs etc. We followed them for quite a while and then they passed us at a distance on the way back and Kilo was great. Cautiously optimistic but don't want to count my chickens .


----------



## Twiggy

I went for a blood test this morning and the nurse commented on all the scratches and bruises on my arm....!!

She looked bewildered when I said I'm training the puppy.


----------



## Werehorse

So I got busy on some small aspects of my massive list already.

I am going to focus on getting obediance heelwork from both of them as a concrete action to train for. I'm tackling Oscar's food guarding as a first step towards working on his anxiety-related problems and I have probably settled on controlled greeting for Hugo as that is probably the most urgent issue (really not a pup anymore and people will start to not find it so funny when he tries to lick them anymore)...

The resource guarding is simple really - he will be getting his kibble in instalments to start with, new kibble goes in his bowl when I approach and he looks at me instead of tensing and bolting his food (I am getting as close as I can without him tensing, waiting for him to finish and look up/back off then reaching in with the next handful of kibble). He's already marginally more relaxed after two meals like this and was finishing his kibble, wagging and backing off (the first time he does this BEFORE finishing the kibble in the bowl he's having everything I have left in the cup all in one go!). Another tack I may try to speed things along is, as I occasionally still give him raw minced stuff, give him kibble and while he is eating approach with small bits of raw a few times.

During the whole process Hugo eats his dinner in the crate. Hugo is a major aggrevating factor for this resource guarding (Oscar was a bit funny with chews before but only escalated to include his food bowl after Hugo arrived) so I'm keeping him out of the way.

I've started heelwork training with trying to get a sustained hand-target (i.e. touch nose/chin to back of hand and stay touching until I click). Hugo started extending the touch in one session. Oscar panicked and flapped about when I witheld the click to try and selectively reward longer holds but started to cotton on a little bit when I positioned him in heel position and put the target hand on my leg (i.e. the next stage but with less guesswork) Hugo loves to learn by guesswork and more true shaping, Oscar panics a bit without more guidance. I've just done the one session on that with each of them so it'll be interesting to see how it develops... with Oscar I'll probably have to take the heel work as I have it and refine it - whereas with Hugo I think I can probably build it from the ground up. I'm waffling! We'll see, Oscar may yet stop flapping and start to "get" the idea of holding the hand target.

I'm mulling over ways to tackle Hugo's polite greetings, especially as I need to make it a commandless default behaviour if I can so if he ever did get the urge to throw himself at a stranger when I wasn't close enough to command him (he hasn't yet) he might control himself rather than me having to control him. It's basically impulse control, which he regards to most other things in the world but licking faces that are offered to him (knowingly or unknowingly  ) is his achilles heel! Hopefully I won't have a dent put in any plans to take him places where there might be willing stooges aren't scuppered by a trying-to-break-down-AGAIN car.

*yawn* I'm boring myself now.


----------



## kat&molly

Yay, my book should come today, I've been like a kid at Christmas waiting for this, dont know why. 
I'll be holding the post woman to ransom if she doesn't have it.:w00t:


----------



## missnaomi

Any tips for effective loose lead walking for tiny dogs? I think one of the reasons that Ringo isn't good yet is because I haven't put in enough time because I have to walk leaning over with one arm dangling down like a wonky monkey...any tips for training this from an upright position. Tennis balls/Kong Air stuff are his most favourite things, cheese second... any way of using toys?

Loose lead walking is something I want to crack ASAP with Ringo - Rosie is already brilliant and it would be nice to have to calm dogs walking alongside...

Naomi


----------



## Beth17

I've been a bit quiet for a couple of days but I'm back and all is good 

The boys haven't been too bad at all, yesterday they both greeted a female lab whilst on lead and both just wanted to play and whilst up the field with we had too dogs come dashing over to us from quite a distance away and I put Oscar back on the lead and Sam was able to have a quick play as he's on his longline while Oscar looked interested but didn't get too hyped up or grumbly so very proud of him 

Last night was the last night of puppy classes  and Sam passed with the trainer mentioning how well we had done with him doing just as well as the hearing pups; Sam also got to show off his hi5's and be centre of attention which he loved :thumbup:

I have really enjoyed taking him to classes and he has enjoyed it as well, the only sad thing is that due to lack of space they don't offer the higher stages there :nonod: 
However the brilliant trainers have recommended another club fairly close by and so am going to give them a ring and hopefully get him in there so we can start the bronze :thumbup1:

The boys are still asleep now so a quiet day for us I think 

Werehorse that is a long list  Good luck!

K&M I hope your book arrives today I love it when I get finally get something I've been waiting ages for 

Well done Kilo :thumbup:

Sarah I hope Kevin disappears soon and you get Spencer back


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> So I got busy on some small aspects of my massive list already.
> 
> I am going to focus on getting obediance heelwork from both of them as a concrete action to train for. I'm tackling Oscar's food guarding as a first step towards working on his anxiety-related problems and I have probably settled on controlled greeting for Hugo as that is probably the most urgent issue (really not a pup anymore and people will start to not find it so funny when he tries to lick them anymore)...
> 
> The resource guarding is simple really - he will be getting his kibble in instalments to start with, new kibble goes in his bowl when I approach and he looks at me instead of tensing and bolting his food (I am getting as close as I can without him tensing, waiting for him to finish and look up/back off then reaching in with the next handful of kibble). He's already marginally more relaxed after two meals like this and was finishing his kibble, wagging and backing off (the first time he does this BEFORE finishing the kibble in the bowl he's having everything I have left in the cup all in one go!). Another tack I may try to speed things along is, as I occasionally still give him raw minced stuff, give him kibble and while he is eating approach with small bits of raw a few times.
> 
> During the whole process Hugo eats his dinner in the crate. Hugo is a major aggrevating factor for this resource guarding (Oscar was a bit funny with chews before but only escalated to include his food bowl after Hugo arrived) so I'm keeping him out of the way.
> 
> I've started heelwork training with trying to get a sustained hand-target (i.e. touch nose/chin to back of hand and stay touching until I click). Hugo started extending the touch in one session. Oscar panicked and flapped about when I witheld the click to try and selectively reward longer holds but started to cotton on a little bit when I positioned him in heel position and put the target hand on my leg (i.e. the next stage but with less guesswork) Hugo loves to learn by guesswork and more true shaping, Oscar panics a bit without more guidance. I've just done the one session on that with each of them so it'll be interesting to see how it develops... with Oscar I'll probably have to take the heel work as I have it and refine it - whereas with Hugo I think I can probably build it from the ground up. I'm waffling! We'll see, Oscar may yet stop flapping and start to "get" the idea of holding the hand target.
> 
> I'm mulling over ways to tackle Hugo's polite greetings, especially as I need to make it a commandless default behaviour if I can so if he ever did get the urge to throw himself at a stranger when I wasn't close enough to command him (he hasn't yet) he might control himself rather than me having to control him. It's basically impulse control, which he regards to most other things in the world but licking faces that are offered to him (knowingly or unknowingly  ) is his achilles heel! Hopefully I won't have a dent put in any plans to take him places where there might be willing stooges aren't scuppered by a trying-to-break-down-AGAIN car.
> 
> *yawn* I'm boring myself now.


Well you're not boring me. I find all aspects of dog training fascinating and particularly problem solving.

My pup is also still fed in her crate although I don't think she would be a problem as she's very polite. I always sit in the kitchen when my dogs are eating and they all know the rules ie not to approach another dog's bowl until they have finished (which is just as well as the two old girls are very slow these days).

You're taking the sensible apporach with Oscar and it will get better.

I always start of dogs off heelwork training with a finger target at arm's length, statically to begin with and then taking a few paces forward always releasing with a "up". The golden rule is that they must maintain the 'touch', they are in a straight line and their shoulder is level with my leg.

Once the basic steps are correct and then start them on left and right hand circles and from there start to change direction and then teach an about turn and left about turn (all at arm's length).

The tricky bit is when they are brought in onto the leg. Most handlers either slow down, move their hand in too quickly or into the wrong position, or bring the dog in from the side. The idea is that you maintain normal pace but make the left hand exciting and move it in slowly and from behind so that the dog keeps the 'touch' and joins the leg in a straight line instead of the bum sticking out to the left.

Many dogs can have a panic attack when asked to do something new. A case in point is a young GSD who will be competing in Schutzhund shortly. He came to me for help with the obedience part of his training. The heelwork position was all wrong so we basically had to start again from scratch. The dog may well do manwork but brother did he panic and try very hard to get on his handler's leg when we asked him to hand target at arm's length...!!

With regards to polite greetings a strong down will get you out of trouble in these circumstances.

Years ago when my little Meg was about 8 months old, I was walking the dogs in a local park when I spied a jogger in the distance (immaculate in a shiny new tracksuit). Meg also saw him and with puppy exhuberance set
off at a gallop to say hello. I shouted "Meg down" at the top of my voice and she virtually dropped like a stone at his feet. He acknowledged me with a little wave and continued on his merry way....LOL

HTH


----------



## Twiggy

Hi all and hope you've had a good day with your dogs.

Holly Bolly was a little ....!! this afternoon in class. Definately one of her "I'd rather sniff a bush and I'm not remotely interested in you" days - bless...LOL


----------



## Dogless

We had a good walk this evening onlead to do some training and I have noticed that Kilo is offering a heel with much more attention on me than usual as a behaviour over the last week or so without prompting - I'm strongly encouraging it!

This morning we went to 'our' forest and had a mainly lovely time with one blip. The blip was that Kilo was wading through a huge area of long grass / reeds etc and suddenly went into full 'hunt' mode - air scenting, standing on tree stumps to scan the area etc.....and then found what he was looking for....goats :blink::yikes:. He took off after them and ran them towards a corner where the stream was wide (bayed them I guess)  BUT RETURNED WHEN RECALLED  and didn't touch them- I'm not at all pleased that he had the chance to chase livestock, but very pleased that he returned when called. I couldn't believe my eyes and kept thinking that maybe they were a type of deer, but searched on the internet and found a few accounts of walkers coming across a herd of wild goats in the forest - from 2009 and 2010 admittedly; but we have been numerous times and never seen any sign of them.


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## Twiggy

What a star Kilo is. Maybe he should have a word in little Holly's ear.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> What a star Kilo is. Maybe he should have a word in little Holly's ear.


I was pleased with him - all I could see were these big horns and just kept thinking "Kilo please don't go any closer" :blink:. I suppose he had done his 'job' by baying them as it's what RRs were bred for so returned when told?


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## foxyrockmeister

Hi everyone,

I've not been in here for a while, mainly because we've not been doing very well at all and I've been feeling too disheartened to come on here and confess our failings to you. Today has been awful, I am normally a very laid back, easy going person but I will admit to you guys that they nearly broke me today, I am ashamed to say that they (Branston really) nearly had me in tears on our walk today. I am ashamed to say that I lost my temper with him (neither getting emotional or losing my temper are things are do lightly at all) and I feel really bad about it.

I am trying so hard to use only positive training methods but how can you reward the positives when there aren't any - just negatives? My instinct is telling me that I need to punish him to teach him that his behaviour is unacceptable but I know you're all going to tell me this is the wrong thing to do 

It really is as though a switch flicks in his head and I just can't get him to listen. 

I'm not really expecting any advice as such as I know what I should be doing and I am trying but it seems he's getting worse rather than better. I just wanted to get it all out really. Even my hubby could see how down I was when he got in from work but I don't think he really understands.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day


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## Dogless

FRM - sounds like a very tough day. When you feel a bit less upset maybe you could say what negatives you had today and mv and Twiggy probably have some sage pieces of advice or new ideas that you haven't thought of.

It is a new day tomorrow (that's what I always tell myself too ) and I do hope it's better than today was xxx.


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've not been in here for a while, mainly because we've not been doing very well at all and I've been feeling too disheartened to come on here and confess our failings to you. Today has been awful, I am normally a very laid back, easy going person but I will admit to you guys that they nearly broke me today, I am ashamed to say that they (Branston really) nearly had me in tears on our walk today. I am ashamed to say that I lost my temper with him (neither getting emotional or losing my temper are things are do lightly at all) and I feel really bad about it.
> 
> I am trying so hard to use only positive training methods but how can you reward the positives when there aren't any - just negatives? My instinct is telling me that I need to punish him to teach him that his behaviour is unacceptable but I know you're all going to tell me this is the wrong thing to do
> 
> It really is as though a switch flicks in his head and I just can't get him to listen.
> 
> I'm not really expecting any advice as such as I know what I should be doing and I am trying but it seems he's getting worse rather than better. I just wanted to get it all out really. Even my hubby could see how down I was when he got in from work but I don't think he really understands.
> 
> Anyway, tomorrow is a new day


Aww we all get days like that and go through periods with our dogs when we just don't seem to be making any headway. At least you are honest in admitting you lost your temper.

I could have cheerfully strangled Holly this afternoon and it was disappointing as her attitude has improved lately. I didn't tell her off (there was no point in doing so) but I did tie her back up on her stake and worked Tremor instead.

What exactly is Branston doing to wind you up so?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> FRM - sounds like a very tough day. When you feel a bit less upset maybe you could say what negatives you had today and mv and Twiggy probably have some sage pieces of advice or new ideas that you haven't thought of.
> 
> It is a new day tomorrow (that's what I always tell myself too ) and I do hope it's better than today was xxx.


Thanks Dogless  I was going to type out everything that happened in detail, but at the moment I just feel like polishing off this bottle of vino in front of me and looking at my two peaceful, sleeping, innocent pooches and reminding myself why I love them so much rather than going back over it. I will do though tomorrow because if anyone can help me with my Schizophrenic boy then I will be very grateful


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## moonviolet

I'm going to type this as fast adn hope, my internet has been pesky the last few days again , fixed, my eye!

Her ladyship has been a star in class both last night and tonight, I was particularly pleased as a little black pug has joined our class. Tink has never been quite sure of them so this will be an opportunity for her to have some positive experiences. 

She has, of course, created balance by chewing up a pencil and digging up my garlic chives so she could bury a beef gullet :lol: Gotta love 'em

Well done Kilo.

Hope Holly Bolly's interest returns

Well done Sam on passing your puppy class.

The only tip i have for shorty dogs Naomi, is a wooden spoon smeared with soft cheese/pate and lowered for a lick , saves your back 

FRM we have all had bad days, this is a supportive thread. Come here cry scream stamp and throw the dolly out the pram. then when thats all out your system see if anyone can help with something they've read or tried and tested.


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## Sarah1983

Well me taking out tubs of mince and tripe and other wonderful stuff seems to have had a stunning effect. Gone from bog off dog to a dog who I can't get to bog off far enough to practise recall  I've resorted to putting him in a down, asking him to wait and then calling him. Or dropping some on the ground and hurrying off then calling him just as he finishes eating it. He was even doing it with hubby out there with us which is absolutely unheard of. Whether it will last when the novelty wears off I don't know but it's the only way he's getting his meals at the moment. God, doesn't that sound harsh?

We've also been practising eye contact today. It's something I've never really taught before but that I think will be very useful. And I'm ill and don't really feel like doing any training and I can do eye contact while dying slowly in my seat. Plus he doesn't get stupidly excited and leap all over me.

Dogless, so glad Kilo came back when you called him. Who expects to encounter goats in a forest in Ireland???

FRM, I know that feeling only too well. It's so, so hard to stay positive sometimes. Hang in there, let us know what problems you had and I'm sure someone will be able to help you. And the rest of us will just offer support and all that


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well me taking out tubs of mince and tripe and other wonderful stuff seems to have had a stunning effect. Gone from bog off dog to a dog who I can't get to bog off far enough to practise recall  I've resorted to putting him in a down, asking him to wait and then calling him. Or dropping some on the ground and hurrying off then calling him just as he finishes eating it. He was even doing it with hubby out there with us which is absolutely unheard of. Whether it will last when the novelty wears off I don't know but it's the only way he's getting his meals at the moment. God, doesn't that sound harsh?
> 
> We've also been practising eye contact today. It's something I've never really taught before but that I think will be very useful. And I'm ill and don't really feel like doing any training and I can do eye contact while dying slowly in my seat. Plus he doesn't get stupidly excited and leap all over me.
> 
> Dogless, so glad Kilo came back when you called him. Who expects to encounter goats in a forest in Ireland???
> 
> FRM, I know that feeling only too well. It's so, so hard to stay positive sometimes. Hang in there, let us know what problems you had and I'm sure someone will be able to help you. And the rest of us will just offer support and all that


Sorry you're not feeling well but that's excellent news on Spen's recall (and it doesn't sound harsh at all). Hope you're feeling better tomorrow.


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## bullet

I will soon be training Bobbie how to walk down a catwalk without going on a bloody sightseeing tour of the studio :cryin:


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## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Sorry you're not feeling well but that's excellent news on Spen's recall (and it doesn't sound harsh at all). Hope you're feeling better tomorrow.


Thanks, it's just a cold but somehow I always feel worse with a common cold than I do with something more serious


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## Werehorse

Foxyrockmeister - I know that feeling so well... the amount of times I have had to stop, deep breaths and count to ten to prevent myself doing something in a strop with the dogs that I would later regret... Especially while I was still teaching and my self-control and patience were already stretched to the limit!  Positive training is the way to a happy dog-owner relationship, but that doesn't mean that it is easy to do and you are not alone in wondering whether something harsher every so often might be quicker and save a few tears - but I always conclude that it wouldn't actually be worth it in the long run and stick to puzzling out how to reward good behaviour when there isn't any at times.  Finding somewhere where the distraction is low enough for him to be able to do the thing you want/not do what you don't want could be a starting point? Depends on exactly how he's been driving you potty!!

Oh god I'm having flashbacks to standing in the middle of the pavement on the way back from the yard tied up with dogs, burning with embarassment and feeling utterly useless and just breaking down! 

Dogless - recalling from a chase. Impressive stuff!! 

We had training tonight. There was alot of information flying around but I don't seem to have taken any of it in! After the Silver debarkle Oscar was as good as he's ever been, heelwork on and off lead both better than usual. Sendaways - he loves them and does them nicely, only a brief detour into The Magic Room (the office where there are often tennis balls) and it was after he dropped on his mat. Tennis balls are his Best Thing Ever. We had a bit of a practice at relaxed isolation for Gold - he just sniffed around and don't think he realised I'd gone. Out of sight down stay - the cocker next to him broke the stay and he got worried and decided to come and find me but was fine on the next one. And then we did drop on recall which he did really well at - that one has really clicked in the last month or so, he's realising that "down" means "down NOW" - not "come to my feet and lie down". Happy, happy. 

Hugo was very good again -we did a lot of talking in his class, reviewing what we need to be doing at home with them and dicussing some theory. His down stay is solid as a rock at the moment. The other three were have a bit of an off night and while there was quite a bit of fussing around and setting the others up again and things Hugo was probably in a down stay for about 5 minutes with me at 5 paces while the other dogs and owners did quite a lot of moving around. We did recall away from distractions which was funny because he prooved basically impossible to distract - once he's in the Zone he's in the Zone. His controlled greeting when he's in the Zone isn't actually a problem at all, in fact he doesn;t even acknowledge the existance of the rest of the world at all.  So under test we'll be fine I think.

A final thought for today - Back to Oscar, he seemed quite relaxed (for him) in class today. Back in May when I did Bronze with Oscar he ended up getting bitten on the bum by another dog during the Bronze assessment.  I'll not go into details but it really upset Oscar (who was being good and watching me when the attack happened - although he wasn't a complete innocent as there had been some eye-balling over some treats half an hour before...) and although he hasn't had a class with the attacking dog since he has spent a good few months being very anxious at training class and very, very worried about the other male dog in the class - unable to relax at all if any of the other dogs were at all close behind him. But time seems to be healing those wounds and today he was really quite calm and not spooking when the other male was nearby. This is really good progress and hopefully it's another part of the general Oscar anxiety slowing dissolving. Poor lad - we always thought he was such a confident puppy but I think we were misinterpretting spaniel-ness as confidence and probably made him a bit worse than he would have been by moving his socialisation along a bit too quickly. You live and learn and deal with the consequences, eh?


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## kat&molly

Hi everyone.

FRM- It sounds like you had an awful day- I dont really have anything to offer except that you're in the right place for some foot stamping and crying in to a glass of wine. Hope today is better.

Dogless- well done to Kilo:thumbup: its such a relief when they do recall isn't it.

Sarah- that sound fab- I'm glad its working and it doesn't sound harsh at all, hope you're feeling better soon.
Moonviolet- your Garlic chives are obviously not as important as Miss Tink's Beef prize. Hope your internets sorted.

Beth- well done to Sam for passing puppy classes.:thumbup:
Twiggy-Holly Bolly certainly is a character.
Werehorse- the boys are doing well.

Well, I've read most of my book, it hasn't told me a great deal because it covers basic stuff like sits and downs- but there are things I can polish up on. Molly loves learning and we have a lovely time on our afternoon walks, most of its training but she doesn't see it like that.
Scruff and Evie are enjoying theirs as well- even Evie is quite attentive -sometimes.:blink:She's getting a bit braver walking through the village as well-and is even a bit curious when someones passed us, she keeps her distance but wants to sniff where they've walked. Dont know whether I should but I praise her for this.
I was talking to a lovely Dutch lady yesterday whilst grooming her dog- she was telling me about the Teckels she knows- apparantly they're all the same. Very, very independant minded and they get worse as they get older. Very reassuring.:w00t:

Have a good day everyone.


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## Beth17

FRM sounds like a horrid day and one to write off :thumbdown: I was feeling the same last week with the boys however after being so awful they then decided to behave so hopefully today is better for you. 

Dogless that's impressive from Kilo what a star! :thumbsup: I have trouble with Oscar recalling from a squirrel I'd have no chance with goats 

Sarah hope you feel better soon but well done to you and Spen! 
Moonviolet I do love Tink :001_wub:

K&M that's something to look forward to in the future :blink: but well done to you all!

Oscar has been sick a couple times through the night so no brekkie for him and a quiet walk later on if he wants to go. Going to take Sam out in a bit and work on recall, should be interesting


----------



## DogTrainer01

Request to join please  I love this thread, been lurking for awhile 

The biggest thing i'm working with Kobie (10 month old BC) is car chasing. On Tuesday night, we stood at the end of my road where there is a small junction so cars aren't too noisy or moving quickly. He didn't get high once and was just amazing with his focus and choices. 
And then yesterday it all went to pieces :001_tongue: we were trying to get to the local park and it was just far too much for him. The proximity of the cars combined with the noise and movement just sent him way over. I was feeling a bit 'bleurgh' anyway yesterday and that just finished me off so I just got the base of the lead near his gentle leader tab and marched into the park :blush: which I hated doing but it all got a bit much for both us. The walk after that was dreadful, we just weren't in tune at all (which upset me again, as I'm a little paranoid about my relationships with my dogs... I promise I'm not always so emotional lol). He is so sensitive to how I'm feeling, If i'm not mentally there with him then he's gone too.

Anyway, new day today! We got over it and he gave me his bottom to cuddle this morning so all is good in the world. I've decided that we're not going to walk on the road at all for now, the only place we'll be near traffic is at the junction at the top of the road.
We'll see how that goes and just take each step as they come with no pressure.

We're also doing various focus work and relationship building exercises. Last week he decided to look at me, rather than the bichon that he really wanted to flirt with (he did get to have a good old flirt as a reward, obviously nothing better!). We're gradually getting there with everything now, he is still only young but is growing out of the extreme puppy-ness stage.
I'm just really enjoying having him and training him, he's such a little star.

Onto the golden child that is Andy (nearly 8 year old rescue terrier - found as a stray. Started showing reactive behaviour towards bikes and people at age of 5 but can now walk past boths without any insecurities [on lead and off lead]. Still can be reactive towards other dogs on lead [mostly depending on the intensity of the other dog] but hasn't gone over threshold at all for around 2 years.)

We're just having fun, after having such a long time off basically doing nothing (nearly a year) we're just getting back walking again for an hour (including an whole 15-20 minutes semi-off lead!) and doing some training which he is just so happy about. I wondered if we were going to be 10 steps back with his reactivity after such a long time off but so far so good. We were playing LAT the other day, and he looked at the trigger once and then started offering every trick under the sun instead.
I'm hoping to get back to the agility class soon, so that will be good to have some concentrated training back. I am expecting to go back quite a few steps in that case but I will bore you all with that when the time comes :001_tongue:


----------



## Twiggy

DogTrainer01 said:


> Request to join please  I love this thread, been lurking for awhile
> 
> The biggest thing i'm working with Kobie (10 month old BC) is car chasing. On Tuesday night, we stood at the end of my road where there is a small junction so cars aren't too noisy or moving quickly. He didn't get high once and was just amazing with his focus and choices.
> And then yesterday it all went to pieces :001_tongue: we were trying to get to the local park and it was just far too much for him. The proximity of the cars combined with the noise and movement just sent him way over. I was feeling a bit 'bleurgh' anyway yesterday and that just finished me off so I just got the base of the lead near his gentle leader tab and marched into the park :blush: which I hated doing but it all got a bit much for both us. The walk after that was dreadful, we just weren't in tune at all (which upset me again, as I'm a little paranoid about my relationships with my dogs... I promise I'm not always so emotional lol). He is so sensitive to how I'm feeling, If i'm not mentally there with him then he's gone too.
> 
> Anyway, new day today! We got over it and he gave me his bottom to cuddle this morning so all is good in the world. I've decided that we're not going to walk on the road at all for now, the only place we'll be near traffic is at the junction at the top of the road.
> We'll see how that goes and just take each step as they come with no pressure.
> 
> We're also doing various focus work and relationship building exercises. Last week he decided to look at me, rather than the bichon that he really wanted to flirt with (he did get to have a good old flirt as a reward, obviously nothing better!). We're gradually getting there with everything now, he is still only young but is growing out of the extreme puppy-ness stage.
> I'm just really enjoying having him and training him, he's such a little star.
> 
> Onto the golden child that is Andy (nearly 8 year old rescue terrier - found as a stray. Started showing reactive behaviour towards bikes and people at age of 5 but can now walk past boths without any insecurities [on lead and off lead]. Still can be reactive towards other dogs on lead [mostly depending on the intensity of the other dog] but hasn't gone over threshold at all for around 2 years.)
> 
> We're just having fun, after having such a long time off basically doing nothing (nearly a year) we're just getting back walking again for an hour (including an whole 15-20 minutes semi-off lead!) and doing some training which he is just so happy about. I wondered if we were going to be 10 steps back with his reactivity after such a long time off but so far so good. We were playing LAT the other day, and he looked at the trigger once and then started offering every trick under the sun instead.
> I'm hoping to get back to the agility class soon, so that will be good to have some concentrated training back. I am expecting to go back quite a few steps in that case but I will bore you all with that when the time comes :001_tongue:


Welcome to the thread. Another 10 mth old BC....LOL

I've had one or two car chasers over the years (particularly Fidget) but because they go to so many shows, with cars coming in the out all the time, they've all got over it pretty quickly.

Is Kobi a farm bred working sheepdog or show/obedience/agility bred collie?


----------



## DogTrainer01

Twiggy said:


> Welcome to the thread. Another 10 mth old BC....LOL
> 
> I've had one or two car chasers over the years (particularly Fidget) but because they go to so many shows, with cars coming in the out all the time, they've all got over it pretty quickly.
> 
> Is Kobi a farm bred working sheepdog or show/obedience/agility bred collie?


Thank you. Oh aren't they just lovely...

He's from an agility line  He does looove his agility!


----------



## Dogless

Not much detail to type as I'm tired from school :w00t:.....but I award Kilo a gold star for today . Proud of my boy and, to a much lesser extent, myself .


----------



## Werehorse

Not too much to report today, just the awesomeness that was our nearly new Thundershirt arriving courtesy of the lovely Moonviolet. 

And a success at breakfast where, despite (or maybe because of actually thinking about it) being very hungry Oscar looked up as I approached him eating and stepped away from the bowl slighty - with some food left in there!  Yay! I gave him a massive load of the kibble I had left, then backed off and approached again and he did it again. So he got all the rest.


----------



## cinnamontoast

Don't shout at me, but the new trainer advocates the use of choke chains. Apparently both youngsters were walked on one today. No pulling. Heel walked to the park and back. That's a first ever. The trainer says we need to be more assertive (not rough, not yanking, virtually all verbal!) Considering slip leads have not helped, this astounds me. 

Zak was made to lie down and ignore the Rottweiler with whom he had a fight and was really good. Amazed does not cover it. OH left me an essay about it. Clearly he's a little excited!


----------



## Twiggy

I'm shattered tonight as I was instructing from about 1.45pm until almost 7.30pm.

Still all the dogs went pretty well. I didn't take Holly Bolly out with me today as I couldn't face another afternoon of everyone taking the mickey...!!


----------



## L/C

Tonight I am working on not strangling Gypsy. She's on restricted walks due to her clicky leg so has only been on a short lead walk tonight. Despite doing plenty of training to compensate, having her dinner delivered to her in a variety of taxing ways and having been given a stag bar smeared in peanut butter she's still being obnoxious.

Would anyone like a hyper, slightly wonky greyhound?


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Tonight I am working on not strangling Gypsy. She's on restricted walks due to her clicky leg so has only been on a short lead walk tonight. Despite doing plenty of training to compensate, having her dinner delivered to her in a variety of taxing ways and having been given a stag bar smeared in peanut butter she's still being obnoxious.
> 
> * Would anyone like a* hyper, *slightly wonky greyhound?*


I'll take the bolded parts......


----------



## Dogless

cinammontoast said:


> Don't shout at me, but the new trainer advocates the use of choke chains. Apparently both youngsters were walked on one today. No pulling. Heel walked to the park and back. That's a first ever. The trainer says we need to be more assertive (not rough, not yanking, virtually all verbal!) Considering slip leads have not helped, this astounds me.
> 
> Zak was made to lie down and ignore the Rottweiler with whom he had a fight and was really good. Amazed does not cover it. OH left me an essay about it. Clearly he's a little excited!


Pleased that you've seen progress which is why I 'liked' your post...hard to 'like' the choke chain aspect but without knowing how they were used I'll reserve any shouty judgement! .


----------



## Sarah1983

So far today recall has gone brilliantly. Tub of tripe and a spoon in the coat pocket works wonders apparently. You get some right funny looks spoon feeding your dog disgusting looking stuff from a tub though :lol:

He also did a down stay while a reactive dog passed about 10ft away. He had to be lured back into the down a couple of times but he did really well considering how excitable he is around other dogs. No yanking my arms out and the other dog also remained calmer so win win situation really.

And this evening we've worked on some more eye contact. This time with the distraction of a treat on the floor. He says that was hard work, he's flaked out with his head under my chair now.

Werehorse, sounds like a fantastic step in the right direction from Oscar  Just don't be too disappointed if he doesn't do the same thing tomorrow, I found it was sometimes two steps forward, one step back working on food issues with Shadow.


----------



## paddyjulie

I don't contribute much to this thread, just now and then but, thought I would let you know how chester is getting on..cause I so bloody chuffed :w00t:

For a start the thundershirt in training is no loger needed  we are also able to do off -lead recalls again, his is so less reactive in class its amazing I am so proud of him  I think its also a lot to do with the other people in the class who understand his issues and don't let their dogs into his face..the last 4 weeks i have come home on a high 
His send aways are getting better going into a down now 90% of the time and his formal retrieve is just awesome..its all coming together 

just need to stop him spitting the dumbell out at me now when he brings it back and giving me it instead :lol: :lol:

A good few month back I was ready to throw the towel in and stop going to traing as most times i came home so upset .............but now its
happy days


----------



## moonviolet

Congrats everyone on the progress today sounds like everyone is seeing results in one way or another, a very sparkly gold star day. Sarah you get a platinum one for going above and beyond.... tripe in a pot in yoru pocket....thats serious dedication!!

Tink cracks me up i swear she has a sense of humour. on our walk this morning I'd found a nice quiet spot and was run through a few bits and pieces some old some new. We've been working on her reversing through my legs and she had a bit of a breakthrough and began to do it confidently. Roll on twenty mins and I asked her to wait as I thought I spotted some millitary personnel around the path ahead, it takes me a moment to be sure that camouflage malarky is quiet effective. ( reminds me of the time i blundered in realising my error I apologised profusely said " i'm sorry I didn't see you." and received the reply " That was rather the point madam!") any way Tink stops directly in front of me she thinks she's guessed what i'm going to ask backs up with committment only to bump into my legs them keep on pushing :lol:

I have returned to doing a bit of bus stop lurking as I've been really lazy about pavement walking all summer. So we're popping out there and Tink's chillng on her mat watching the world go by for 15-20 mins a day. She's doing well but a little cautious of men and isn't keen on the sound skip lorries make.


----------



## sweetcharity

EVERYTHING!!!!!::w00t::blink:


----------



## Dogless

What a good day yesterday was . Well done to Chester....and Spen...and Tink even if she nearly pushed you over backwards mv ......and Oscar......and Sam. Last but not least Scruff and Evie!

Beth17 - hope your Oscar is on the mend.

Hope today brings more success or at least the hounds stay out of trouble :w00t:.


----------



## kat&molly

It seems everyones on a roll at the moment and doing really well- really hope we aren't all heading for a fall.:w00t:

Moll was a star again at agility yesterday, we done a bit on the weaves, had her running backwards and forwards through a channel and closing the gap. Didn't do too much as she didn't seem too enthralled with it.
Sadly, I had to tell Big Evie that next week will be our last lesson until probably spring- work is quiet for me over winter and it drops off considerably for OH too , so a private lesson is a bit of a 'luxery'[have I spelt that right?] every week. Bless her, she said she enjoys working with us so much that we should go every other week and we'll just train together- no charge. So kind, but I've refused as she has to earn a living as well so said we'll have a proper paying lesson once a month. I was really touched.
OH has said I can carry on going every week but if things get tight, he will give me earache, so its a compromise.

I've finished my Gun dog book and NEED the advanced one now- I've got a few different things to try with retreives so we should have some fun with that.
Poor Evie isn't getting any off lead at the moment because of sheep everywhere- mostly free ranging  so I'm going to try her Rabbit fur dummy again -if I can get Scruff interested in the 'competition' it might help.

Hope wonky Gypsy and Oscar are better today, hello to Dogtrainer.

This threads so popular we'll need a bigger office.:w00t:


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Molly sounds like she has really taken to agility. Shame you won't be able to keep up the weekly classes but How lovely of big Evie for the kind offer. 

Hope the new retrieve things with Moll goes well 

Hope the sheep are moved and contained so you can relax a bit and let little Evie have some offlead time.

Hope everyone is well today and dogs are on form. Mine is still sleeping, it's a hard life :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Well done Molly sounds like she has really taken to agility. Shame you won't be able to keep up the weekly classes but How lovely of big Evie for the kind offer.
> 
> Hope the new retrieve things with Moll goes well
> 
> Hope the sheep are moved and contained so you can relax a bit and let little Evie have some offlead time.
> 
> Hope everyone is well today and dogs are on form. Mine is still sleeping, it's a hard life :lol:


Thanks MV- and Tink needs her beauty sleep, sounds like the new stuff is going well for you both.

Moll has taken to agility, she enjoys it- she's not in her element like she is with Gundog stuff- but the more I can learn about that to do at home in a way I'm happy with will do for the moment. Her grabbing is still a problem and if I dont use a stern 'leave' she tries. The other day she head butted me in the shin , it really hurt.:blink:
As for Evie , shes causing so much chaos of an evening. Its good job she doesn't chew- we'd have no house left  dog beds are dragged around the house, my shoes, any item of my clothing and Scruff gets beat up[ but she loves it!!] We think its all hilarious, shes our entertainment but if her brain was willing to work a bit more I think she'd settle better. I would miss the fun though.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> It seems everyones on a roll at the moment and doing really well- really hope we aren't all heading for a fall.:w00t:
> 
> I'm flipping not... Well not with little Holly.
> 
> Hopefully my sister is coming to stay with me on Monday for a few days, (providing Eastbourne Hospital allow it) and bringing her fabulous youngster, who is about 2 months older than Holly. As I said on another forum, she's going to train Mini and I'm going to flog my guts out trying to get something from Holly....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> As for Evie , shes causing so much chaos of an evening. Its good job she doesn't chew- we'd have no house left  dog beds are dragged around the house, my shoes, any item of my clothing and Scruff gets beat up[ but she loves it!!] We think its all hilarious, shes our entertainment but if her brain was willing to work a bit more I think she'd settle better. I would miss the fun though.


 That is her job, creating chaos  Bizarre question does she play up to you laughing? I wondered if she enjoyed that sort of reward.

Twiggy, I hope your sister is able to come and stay. Maybe her youngster will be a good influence on Holly


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> kat&molly said:
> 
> 
> 
> It seems everyones on a roll at the moment and doing really well- really hope we aren't all heading for a fall.:w00t:
> 
> I'm flipping not... Well not with little Holly.
> 
> Hopefully my sister is coming to stay with me on Monday for a few days, (providing Eastbourne Hospital allow it) and bringing her fabulous youngster, who is about 2 months older than Holly. As I said on another forum, she's going to train Mini and I'm going to flog my guts out trying to get something from Holly....LOL
> 
> 
> 
> Well, that'll be nice if your sister gets to visit- and Holly Bolly will have another friend.
Click to expand...


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> That is her job, creating chaos  Bizarre question does she play up to you laughing? I wondered if she enjoyed that sort of reward.
> 
> Twiggy, I hope your sister is able to come and stay. Maybe her youngster will be a good influence on Holly


Yes , I'm sure she does-she has a thing where she will leave a chew on the rug in the other room, then comes and looks at us- we have to follow her and watch her little 'dance' . We laugh and clap and she dances more. Thats just one example.
I see what you're saying I think- I can try be even sillier on walks?:thumbsup: 
My French neighbours have already sent videos off of me to their version of Candid camera.:blink:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Yes , I'm sure she does-she has a thing where she will leave a chew on the rug in the other room, then comes and looks at us- we have to follow her and watch her little 'dance' . We laugh and clap and she dances more. Thats just one example.
> I see what you're saying I think- I can try be even sillier on walks?:thumbsup:
> My French neighbours have already sent videos off of me to their version of Candid camera.:blink:


The reason i thought she might was Tink would wait till every dog in class was in a down stay and then she would canter around the room visiting everyone's bags, everyone laughed and you could see her relishing the laughter. Some dogs do love to play to the audience, interestingly she prefers to do that than get up close and personal with most people.

:lol: :lol: really give them something to film


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> That is her job, creating chaos  Bizarre question does she play up to you laughing? I wondered if she enjoyed that sort of reward.
> 
> Twiggy, I hope your sister is able to come and stay. Maybe her youngster will be a good influence on Holly


Mmmm I expect Holly and Mini will spend hours playing and I shall be pushed even further down the list of playmates.... I expect Tremor will also get her nose pushed out of joint.

To be honest I couldn't give a monkeys as I'm so excited and thrilled that my sister is coming up.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> The reason i thought she might was Tink would wait till every dog in class was in a down stay and then she would canter around the room visiting everyone's bags, everyone laughed and you could see her relishing the laughter. Some dogs do love to play to the audience, interestingly she prefers to do that than get up close and personal with most people.
> 
> :lol: :lol: really give them something to film


Cheeky Tink.  Sounds like something Evie would do, if she knew the people well enough. What Divas we have eh!!
I could try taking my Bras on walks- she seems to like those.

Twiggy- fingers crossed you get your visit.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Cheeky Tink.  Sounds like something Evie would do, if she knew the people well enough. What Divas we have eh!!
> I could try taking my Bras on walks- she seems to like those.
> 
> Twiggy- fingers crossed you get your visit.


How bizarre, bras are Tinks favourite things to steal , even beats socks.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> How bizarre, bras are Tinks favourite things to steal , even beats socks.


It must be a 'nose on legs hound kinda thing'


----------



## L/C

Evie and Tink sound adorable. :001_wub:

Twiggy I hope your sister can come to visit and that the two baby collies don't drive you mad!

Welcome to all of the newcomers - I look forward to hearing either your tales of success or woe...:001_tongue:

Madam had calmed down a bit this morning but my lovely OH let me have a lie in and he took them for a walk for once.  I expect to hear stories of how he lost them in the bushes for a while this evening....

ETA: Forgot to say that we have our first 1-2-1 lesson for Gypsy with our trainer on Saturday. Very excited.


----------



## Dogless

What a shame you'll have to give up training with Big Evie k&m - what a lovely offer of free training, but I can see why you have declined. Is there anything you could do as an exchange for training perhaps?

Twiggy; I do hope that you get your visit.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> What a shame you'll have to give up training with Big Evie k&m - what a lovely offer of free training, but I can see why you have declined. Is there anything you could do as an exchange for training perhaps?
> 
> Twiggy; I do hope that you get your visit.


I know wasn't it a lovely offer- I got all choked. I dont think there is anything really to offer- she grooms her own dogs and I'm not volunteering for cleaning.:w00t: 
Who knows, Winter may not be too bad work wise, if so I can go more than once a month- at least its something.

Moonviolet- I forgot to say one of Evie's nicknames is 'Little Tinker'.


----------



## Twiggy

Hi all

What's the weather like where you all are? It's been pretty persistent rain since 10.00 this morning and it's still raining now.

I took Tremor and Holly Bolly over to the barn to do some training this afternoon because they were bored and Holly was very good. Of course there was only her, Tremor and me and no bushes to sniff....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hi all
> 
> What's the weather like where you all are? It's been pretty persistent rain since 10.00 this morning and it's still raining now.
> 
> I took Tremor and Holly Bolly over to the barn to do some training this afternoon because they were bored and Holly was very good. Of course there was only her, Tremor and me and no bushes to sniff....LOL


It's actually pretty nice today (not often I can say that here!!) - sunny but chilly and set for the weekend to be the same . Has been persisting down all week and due to do the same from Monday so a lovely break.

I'm pleased Holly Bolly was very good for you - she must have decided to give you a break!


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



It's actually pretty nice today (not often I can say that here!!) - sunny but chilly and set for the weekend to be the same . Has been persisting down all week and due to do the same from Monday so a lovely break.

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> Yes no wonder Ireland is so green....LOL
> 
> *I'm pleased Holly Bolly was very good for you - she must have decided to give you a break!*




Holly's probably saving it to show me up when my sister's here.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Holly's probably saving it to show me up when my sister's here.


Probably!!! That crossed my mind - and Mini will be on best behaviour .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Probably!!! That crossed my mind - and Mini will be on best behaviour .


This is my sister's Mini. She's absolutely tiny; not much more than JRT size but very fiesty and keen:


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> This is my sister's Mini. She's absolutely tiny; not much more than JRT size but very fiesty and keen:


Oh, I love her.:001_wub: she has a 'foxy' face.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> This is my sister's Mini. She's absolutely tiny; not much more than JRT size but very fiesty and keen:


She is beautiful - very alert looking and wonderful markings.

On a different note, offering to show your sister's 'mini' in this area would raise some eyebrows :w00t::w00t:.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> This is my sister's Mini. She's absolutely tiny; not much more than JRT size but very fiesty and keen:


What a pretty girl 

We had a lovely walk in the rain this evening with Monty and his mum. Busier than i thought for a wet friday evening. Her ladyship rolled over in the sand twice... she's getting into this rolling over thing now.

This mornings walk was good, more eventful but still good. Our path crossed 2 youngs lads with a couple of dogs one of which was a GSD. Tink came and sat by me and lifted one paw, I slipped her onlead and gave them enough space that we didn't interfere with the dog's rough play (thankfully super wide track) Tink was great not phased at all. then right at the end of our walk we ended up following them toward the car park at a fair distance only to witness the The GSD charge up to a couple of dogs that were just arriving and bark intensely in their faces, hackles raised, stiff stance. It's young owner ran over and retrieved them without incident. I'm so glad Tink wasn't on the receiving end of that. Tink trotted along focussed nicely on me as carried on ahead, Gold star for the floppy eared one.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Miss Tink - she is going from strength to strength .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Well done Miss Tink - she is going from strength to strength .


She's doing so well, historically just spotting a GSD would have her doing to do a U-turn. I'm so proud that she comes to me and "asks" to go on lead. I feel like i have gained her complete trust and I guess that helps me forgive myself, I know what happened wasn't my fault but there's still a part of you that can't help blaming yourself.

We met a puggle who charged at her when she was having an involved sniff. She didnt' even bother paying any heed when it's sniffing went beyond the general polite period for such things. I did notice he had quite an undershot jaw. I'm yet to see one with that didn't have dental issues.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> She's doing so well, historically just spotting a GSD would have her doing to do a U-turn. I'm so proud that she comes to me and "asks" to go on lead. I feel like i have gained her complete trust and I guess that helps me forgive myself, I know what happened wasn't my fault but there's still a part of you that can't help blaming yourself.
> 
> We met a puggle who charged at her when she was having an involved sniff. She didnt' even bother paying any heed when it's sniffing went beyond the general polite period for such things. I did notice he had quite an undershot jaw. I'm yet to see one with that didn't have dental issues.


I always read your posts and hope I can achieve such a good relationship with the BW .


----------



## Werehorse

Me, Oscar and Hugo have been really lazy today and done nothing.  Clearly I blame them for this. :hand:

More to report tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Me, Oscar and Hugo have been really lazy today and done nothing.  Clearly I blame them for this. :hand:
> 
> More to report tomorrow.


Bad Dogs :nono::nono:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I always read your posts and hope I can achieve such a good relationship with the BW .


What a lovely thing to say. 



Werehorse said:


> Me, Oscar and Hugo have been really lazy today and done nothing.  Clearly I blame them for this. :hand:
> 
> More to report tomorrow.


:lol: :lol: totally their fault


----------



## Werehorse

Honestly the way they can laze about most of the day quite content you really would not think they were Springer crosses... Certainly not working lines and definitely no Border Collie involved at all. They are definitely a good argument for nurture over nature these two!


----------



## Sarah1983

Feeling a bit guilty at the moment, Spen hasn't been for a proper walk the last few days  I've felt so rotten that I've not wanted to move. He's still been out for his walks around the block and we've done quite a bit of training but still feel terrible not walking him properly.

Gotta say though, it's good that he can go a few days without a good walk coz let's face it, if I have a seizure there's no way I'm going to be able to take him far for 3 or 4 days.

Recall has been fantastic again today. Had a bit of an issue last night when I went to bring him in for bed and he shot off in the opposite direction but it turned out he needed to poop and once he'd been he happily came to me. Think he'd realised we were heading in and figured he'd best go while he had the chance. He also left a corn on the cob when told to (although he did pee on it instead) and is offering sustained eye contact whenever he wants something. It's a bit freaky to just be sitting here and then suddenly you have a dog staring a hole in your head when you have no idea what he wants :blink: Tonight it turned out he wanted the part burger hubby had left on a plate on the sofa. And yes, he got it since he asked instead of attempting to steal it.

Moonviolet, it's great that Tink's doing so well and I think it shows what a great relationship you have with her.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Feeling a bit guilty at the moment, Spen hasn't been for a proper walk the last few days  I've felt so rotten that I've not wanted to move. He's still been out for his walks around the block and we've done quite a bit of training but still feel terrible not walking him properly.
> 
> Gotta say though, it's good that he can go a few days without a good walk coz let's face it, if I have a seizure there's no way I'm going to be able to take him far for 3 or 4 days.
> 
> Recall has been fantastic again today. Had a bit of an issue last night when I went to bring him in for bed and he shot off in the opposite direction but it turned out he needed to poop and once he'd been he happily came to me. Think he'd realised we were heading in and figured he'd best go while he had the chance. He also left a corn on the cob when told to (although he did pee on it instead) and is offering sustained eye contact whenever he wants something. It's a bit freaky to just be sitting here and then suddenly you *have a dog staring a hole in your head when you have no idea what he wants* :blink: Tonight it turned out he wanted the part burger hubby had left on a plate on the sofa. And yes, he got it since he asked instead of attempting to steal it.
> 
> Moonviolet, it's great that Tink's doing so well and I think it shows what a great relationship you have with her.


Kilo uses the 'sit directly in front and burn a hole in the head' technique. Freaky at times I agree!!

Spen sounds like he's doing fine on his shorter walks and I hope that you're feeling better soon.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Feeling a bit guilty at the moment, Spen hasn't been for a proper walk the last few days  I've felt so rotten that I've not wanted to move. He's still been out for his walks around the block and we've done quite a bit of training but still feel terrible not walking him properly.
> 
> Gotta say though, it's good that he can go a few days without a good walk coz let's face it, if I have a seizure there's no way I'm going to be able to take him far for 3 or 4 days.
> 
> Recall has been fantastic again today. Had a bit of an issue last night when I went to bring him in for bed and he shot off in the opposite direction but it turned out he needed to poop and once he'd been he happily came to me. Think he'd realised we were heading in and figured he'd best go while he had the chance. He also left a corn on the cob when told to (although he did pee on it instead) and is offering sustained eye contact whenever he wants something. It's a bit freaky to just be sitting here and then suddenly you have a dog staring a hole in your head when you have no idea what he wants :blink: Tonight it turned out he wanted the part burger hubby had left on a plate on the sofa. And yes, he got it since he asked instead of attempting to steal it.
> 
> Moonviolet, it's great that Tink's doing so well and I think it shows what a great relationship you have with her.


I hope you feel better soon Sarah, i don't think it hurts for them to have a few non walking days here and there, useful to have them able to adapt if either they or you can't go out for whatever reason.

Sounds like Spen has got the eye contact thing down to a fine art, next working on the telepathy.

Thanks for the compliment about my relationship with Tink, She's taught me an awful lot and brought out the best in me in many ways.


----------



## Sarah1983

Makes me feel even more guilty that he's being so well behaved when he's not been out properly for days. I shouldn't really coz he does still get multiple short walks and I make sure to do more with him on them and in the house but I feel dead mean. Ah well, feeling better today so hopefully by tomorrow I'll be up to taking him to the field at least. Not the most exciting of walks but better than round the block.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Makes me feel even more guilty that he's being so well behaved when he's not been out properly for days. I shouldn't really coz he does still get multiple short walks and I make sure to do more with him on them and in the house but I feel dead mean. Ah well, feeling better today so hopefully by tomorrow I'll be up to taking him to the field at least. Not the most exciting of walks but better than round the block.


Don't you dare feel guilty! I bet he's been enjoying the short walks and the increased training and interaction at home. From what you've said even on longer walks he's now seeking interaction from you. So you have nothing at all to feel bad about.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Don't you dare feel guilty! I bet he's been enjoying the short walks and the increased training and interaction at home. From what you've said even on longer walks he's now seeking interaction from you. So you have nothing at all to feel bad about.


Thanks, I keep telling myself he's far better off than many dogs even without his long walk. At least he usually gets a good amount of exercise and even while he's not getting it for now he's getting plenty of interaction and stuff to do. It's not the end of the world and now I know he'll cope if I absolutely can't walk him for a few days.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C-Your 1-2-1 is today? How exciting, make sure to let us nosey lot know how it went.

Sarah- hope you're feeling better today, sounds like Spencers done well with reduced exercise.
Moll does the 'hole in the head'- its always when she wants to do 'chuckywoos' When we put chucks in / out and I throw treats for her to find. She doesn't understand seasonal time changes though  The chickens do not want to go to bed at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

Moonviolet- how lovely is Tink.:001_wub: So good to let you know like that- and she trusts you to understand.

I tried a new retreive game with Moll yesterday- but I cocked up by not taking a 3rd ball as I needed 2 for the exercise. Stupidly I carried on and obviously she wouldn't hand over the ball. Really mad with myself after the work I've been putting in. Lesson learnt.
Took Evie and Scruff in to a field with the rabbit fur dummy, not the best thing for a dog like Evie but its the only thing she will chase, she showed quite bit of interest but got bored quite quick and wanted to sniff. Last night she rearranged a pair of my jeans , one of my shoes but didn't beat Scruff up.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## calol

working on my two also pulling arm sockets out. my husband and son take them out on double leads and let them pull. more difficult for me though i prefer seperate leads with more control. however not only do i have to check my two i wil have to check my partner and son are going to stick to the new regime. we all need to sing from the same hymn sheet if you get my drift, otherwise whats the point in trying to train them. will keep posting results. beautiful autumn morning here so off i go.


----------



## Twiggy

*Took Evie and Scruff in to a field with the rabbit fur dummy, not the best thing for a dog like Evie but its the only thing she will chase, she showed quite bit of interest but got bored quite quick and wanted to sniff. Last night she rearranged a pair of my jeans , one of my shoes but didn't beat Scruff up.*

Evie hasn't been reading the posts about Holly Bolly has she?...LOL

Perhaps we should start a new competition for the dog which gets bored and goes off sniffing the quickest.


----------



## Twiggy

calol said:


> working on my two also pulling arm sockets out. my husband and son take them out on double leads and let them pull. more difficult for me though i prefer seperate leads with more control. however not only do i have to check my two i wil have to check my partner and son are going to stick to the new regime. we all need to sing from the same hymn sheet if you get my drift, otherwise whats the point in trying to train them. will keep posting results. beautiful autumn morning here so off i go.


Well it would be good if your OH and son were sticking to the new regime but I've been training dogs for well over 35 years now and my husband still hasn't mastered that 'sit' and 'down' are two different commands.


----------



## Sarah1983

calol said:


> working on my two also pulling arm sockets out. my husband and son take them out on double leads and let them pull. more difficult for me though i prefer seperate leads with more control. however not only do i have to check my two i wil have to check my partner and son are going to stick to the new regime. we all need to sing from the same hymn sheet if you get my drift, otherwise whats the point in trying to train them. will keep posting results. beautiful autumn morning here so off i go.


I had this problem and a behaviourist suggested my dad and brother walked Rupert on a halti and I walked him on a regular collar for loose leash walking and used the halti when I had to walk him to the vets so didn't have time to insist on a loose leash. I do the same with Spencer now, collar when I expect him to walk with me on a loose leash, harness when he's welcome to go off and sniff around a bit. It's one of those times where them being so context specific can work to your advantage.


----------



## Dogless

We just had a lovely morning; went to the fields, played and pottered for a while, then a man with two dogs came in who we know - so recalled Kilo and practised approaching nicely and he was let off for a good play :thumbup:. Wish we could meet a pointy friend though as he always slows down his runs when chased to keep the other dog interested - I used to love watching him go full pelt with pointy friends!

L/C - hope today goes well.

k&m - I'm pleased that Scruff didn't get beaten up last night by your Terrible Teckel :aureola:.


----------



## Dogless

Went to the park this afternoon, lovely weather and...it was really packed!! There had been a 'Go Walkies!' event in aid of Guide Dogs For the Blind - had no idea it was on and I had been looking for dog stuff to do this weekend too .

Anyway, there were loads of kids, dogs, bikes etc and Kilo was fantastic and didn't show a hint of anxiety - can't believe how far he has come!! There were pony and trap rides which he was fine with...but he was a little transfixed by the llama :scared: they had there so didn't linger in the main area. Two guide dog puppy walkers were doing some training and stopped to ask about Kilo - I asked if I could follow them, then walk parallel because of the 'lab thing' and he did very well with that too :thumbup:.

We crossed the bridge for some quiet and there was....a wedding - so busy again. Kilo got fussed by a fair few folk and remained unphased by it (BIG improvement). He even got his tail pulled by a toddler who ran up behind us when we were talking which really worried me, but he just clamped his tail between his legs and turned away :thumbup:.

PLATINUM star for the BW today. My best boy :001_wub::001_wub:. He's snoring his head off now, utterly zonked!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Went to the park this afternoon, lovely weather and...it was really packed!! There had been a 'Go Walkies!' event in aid of Guide Dogs For the Blind - had no idea it was on and I had been looking for dog stuff to do this weekend too .
> 
> Anyway, there were loads of kids, dogs, bikes etc and Kilo was fantastic and didn't show a hint of anxiety - can't believe how far he has come!! There were pony and trap rides which he was fine with...but he was a little transfixed by the llama :scared: they had there so didn't linger in the main area. Two guide dog puppy walkers were doing some training and stopped to ask about Kilo - I asked if I could follow them, then walk parallel because of the 'lab thing' and he did very well with that too :thumbup:.
> 
> We crossed the bridge for some quiet and there was....a wedding - so busy again. Kilo got fussed by a fair few folk and remained unphased by it (BIG improvement). He even got his tail pulled by a toddler who ran up behind us when we were talking which really worried me, but he just clamped his tail between his legs and turned away :thumbup:.
> 
> PLATINUM star for the BW today. My best boy :001_wub::001_wub:. He's snoring his head off now, utterly zonked!


Wow- didn't the boy do well.:thumbup: He's certainly come a long way hasn't he, lovely that your hard work is paying off.

Extra treats I think for putting up with having his tail pulled- charming child.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> *Took Evie and Scruff in to a field with the rabbit fur dummy, not the best thing for a dog like Evie but its the only thing she will chase, she showed quite bit of interest but got bored quite quick and wanted to sniff. Last night she rearranged a pair of my jeans , one of my shoes but didn't beat Scruff up.*
> 
> Evie hasn't been reading the posts about Holly Bolly has she?...LOL
> 
> Perhaps we should start a new competition for the dog which gets bored and goes off sniffing the quickest.


Lets just say you wont be swapping Collies for Teckels any time soon.:laugh:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Wow- didn't the boy do well.:thumbup: He's certainly come a long way hasn't he, lovely that your hard work is paying off.
> 
> Extra treats I think for putting up with having his tail pulled- charming child.


I am over the moon with him; his confidence has really increased .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I am over the moon with him; his confidence has really increased .


It has- you've worked wonders with him.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> It has- you've worked wonders with him.


Think he's just matured a bit!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Think he's just matured a bit!


You can give yourself some credit. He has matured but I dont think he'd have settled down as well as he has without all the hard work.:thumbup:


----------



## L/C

What a good boy Kilo was! He's a real credit to you. 

Our session went really well today. Chirag was great and Gypsy was on her best behaviour.  We did some basic stuff at first so he could give me some tips on assigning a verbal command (we're still having trouble) and he explained that some time the visual cue becomes so strong that it blocks the association with the verbal cue. So we're going to go back to basics with down and see how it goes.

We then did some more complex stuff working in her chase recall and I've got a few strategies now to practice. The first is using a flirt pole beginning with just a normal toy on it and then working up to some rabbit fur. The next is reinforcing her stop command and the third is proofing her recall when she is distracted.

He then showed me how to lay a scent trail and we did some simple ones which she followed easily. He's going to give me the details of a small group that dies scent work locally and I think I might bully OH into coming so I can take Ely too.

Lastly we did some targeting work in preparation for working on send always next time I see him. He's teaching in the states for October so it won't be till November but we've got lots to be getting on with. He said that he didn't feel the need to see me in a week as I obviously had a lot of knowledge and was better off just practicing. He also said Gypsy had a very good bond with me and I should be proud of that.


----------



## Dogless

L/C it sounds as if your day went superbly and you gained a lot from it; must be such a boost to know that you are doing well already and to have a clear direction in which to head :thumbup:. I love the idea of scent work - hope you do manage to bully your OH so both pointies can go!

What a lovely compliment about your bond too; it is always so lovely to hear.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- that sounds like a really good trainer you've got there. A good bit to be working on and a lovely compliment as well.:thumbup:


----------



## Werehorse

Sounds like a good day all round today!

I have some Very Good Dogs to report as well. We went for a walk up Dodd and they were both just lovely. Recalling perfectly, sitting at the side of the path and waiting for big groups of people, and terriorists on leads to go past - without getting distracted halfway through and wandering off into the undergrowth (Oscar! ). We met a lovely little dog at the top of the hill and both boys were very polite with him and Hugo even had a play without being too bonkers. And there was a lady sat on the ground at the top as well and he completely ignored her until she invited him to come and say hello (he did lick her face at that point but she was a doggie person and I had warned her it might happen.  )

On the way down we rounded a corner into a small pack of 3 other dogs and, despite being surrounded, Oscar didn't look at all worried (I would have expected him to hit the deck and even flip over in a frenzy of appeasment so I was pleased that he seems unphased - they were very polite dogs though which helps)

We had coffee and cake afterwards (of course) and they both just chilled next to the table. Hugo finds this really difficult and for a while there I thought Oscar (who always just chilled perfectly Before Hugo) was never going to settle down again either with Hugo distracting him. But a combination of Hugo getting better at relaxing and Oscar getting more confident is really improving things. Then the people with the onlead terrier joined us on our table because there was no other space.  But both mine ignored the other dog, didn't even pull towards it and sat and waited with their attention on me while we finished our coffee. SUCH good boys. :thumbup:

If they carry on like this I'm going to have to think of a different collective name for them because the Monochrome Chaos Collective won't apply anymore! I think we're a while away from complete lack of Chaos though.


----------



## paddyjulie

Chester had an off-lead play with five dogs today .,, I am so flipping chuffed ..a few months ago he would have went in for the kill 

not that relevant to this thread., but you all know the issues he has , so you will understand why it's made my day x


----------



## Dogless

paddyjulie said:


> Chester had an off-lead play with five dogs today .,, I am so flipping chuffed ..a few months ago he would have went in for the kill
> 
> not that relevant to this thread., but you all know the issues he has , so you will understand why it's made my day x


WAY TO GO CHESTER :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:. Thank goodness he kept his plums after all!


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## paddyjulie

Dogless said:


> WAY TO GO CHESTER :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:. Thank goodness he kept his plums after all!


lol.. his plums are here to stay !!


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## moonviolet

Wow Looks like everyone has had a good day. Well done everyone.

Dogless please don't be modest, I don't think Kilo has grown out of his hiccups, I think you have guided him out of them and there is no shame in taking some credit when it's deserved.

L/C sounds like a great session , lovely that you bond with Gypsy was complemented 

Werehorse sounds like your boys did you proud 

Padiejulie wooohooo Chester and his Plums   so pleased for you must have been lovely seeing him play with the other dogs 

Sorry if i've forgotten anyone. :blush:

Madame impressed OH when we were out this morning and a GSD crossed the path ahead of us and she didn't so much as miss a stride. :thumbup: SO nice for him to see how she has improved.

Lovely walk this evening didn't see a soul, so got to be a total nutjob.


----------



## Twiggy

Sounds as if you've all had a brilliant day and what good dogs they've been.

I had another little hiccup with Holly today. My daughter and 16 yr old grand-daughter called just after lunch and Holly hid under the Futon bed in the kitchen and then removed herself into my bedroom and hid behind the bed. I persuaded her out after a while and she was then OKish. Strange, because she normally hurls herself at visitors but maybe she's entering the second fear stage.
I'm going to a show tomorrow so I'll see how she reacts then.


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## moonviolet

Aww poor Holly Bolly, hope she moves through this phase swiftly.


----------



## Werehorse

Poor Holly. Had they been somewhere beforehand that might have made them smell odd? Or similar thing?

Dinner report - Oscar backed away from food bowl as I approached with food still in.  I put loads more in and he ate again, then backed off again, with some still left. I put my hand on the bowl as I went to refill and he rushed back in and started eating without me putting more in so that was too far for him but he then backed off before finishing again and I gave him the rest of his dinner.  I can stroke his shoulder and back just above his shoulder while he is finishing off as well, without him tensing and trying to bolt his food, so he's much calmer about it.

Interestingly, for me anyway , his pre-dinner crazyness is also calming down. He had got into quite a frenzied excited ritual while I prepared dinner - lots of high-pitched whining and barks, circling and grumbling. But there is less of that. I wonder if it is an anticipation/build up of the stress as well as the general excitement about food. Especially as, thinking about it, that behaviour only started After Hugo as well.


----------



## kat&molly

Well done to Chester- that must have been lovely to see.

Twiggy- I hope Holly Bolly copes ok today.

A good day for Miss Tink, Oscar and Hugo.

Before I had a stream of foster dogs though here I had the girls trained to leave the cat food alone, since then its been kept on a window sill, which I hate and with winter coming I have extra dirty paw prints.
I'm not sure whether it'll be possible now we have you know who but its worth a try.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Before I had a stream of foster dogs though here I had the girls trained to leave the cat food alone, since then its been kept on a window sill, which I hate and with winter coming I have extra dirty paw prints.
> I'm not sure whether it'll be possible now we have you know who but its worth a try.


Ermmm, good luck  :lol: :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Ermmm, good luck  :lol: :lol:


You have as much confidence as me then.:laugh:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> You have as much confidence as me then.:laugh:


Me too :scared::thumbup:.

Had a lovely day today; went to a busy NT property and then Bangor Marina and I was extremely pleased with the BW's behaviour again - he was very chilled and nicely behaved. I put his headcollar on to go through the entrance and exits as they get crowded but left it off for the rest of the time and he didn't let me down despite running, squealing kids, people walking up to fuss him and other dogs. Very proud of my best boy indeed :001_wub::001_wub:.

Been a while since we met a weirdo but we did today. We were waiting to get out of the NT place (shop was chocka) and a woman was fussing Kilo and said "I have never seen one of these". Another woman standing nearby said loudly "That's because they should be roaming the plains not cooped up by some little girl from the city and brought out to show off when the weather's nice" . I didn't say a word - didn't want to ruin my mood!!


----------



## Twiggy

Just got back from the show. I did two good training rounds with Tremor, walked Holly around a lot, watched Tremor's mum in Ticket (she was in the lead when I left) and came home as it started to tip it down about 1.30pm.

Pleased to report Holly Bolly was absolutely fine and wanting to say "hello" to everyone. She also had about 25 minutes off lead playing with friends dogs. One or two of the obsessed obedience fraternity made derogatory comments about her with one hinting that I should find her a nice pet home, to which I replied that she already had a nice pet home - mine...!!

Can I say well done to Hugo, your very sensible approach is obviously working Werewolf and well done Dogless on ignoring that stupid woman's comments. Never a good idea to get into an argument with people like that; not worth the effort quite honestly.

I'm going to make a nice warming casserole for supper, followed by a very naughty chocolate pudding. It's so cold and miserable - well that's my excuse. Anyway big thick jumpers hide the extra pounds in the winter...LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Just got back from the show. I did two good training rounds with Tremor, walked Holly around a lot, watched Tremor's mum in Ticket (she was in the lead when I left) and came home as it started to tip it down about 1.30pm.
> 
> Pleased to report Holly Bolly was absolutely fine and wanting to say "hello" to everyone. She also had about 25 minutes off lead playing with friends dogs. One or two of the obsessed obedience fraternity made derogatory comments about her with one hinting that I should find her a nice pet home, to which I replied that she already had a nice pet home - mine...!!
> 
> Can I say well done to Hugo, your very sensible approach is obviously working Werewolf and well done Dogless on ignoring that stupid woman's comments. Never a good idea to get into an argument with people like that; not worth the effort quite honestly.
> 
> I'm going to make a nice warming casserole for supper, followed by a very naughty chocolate pudding. It's so cold and miserable - well that's my excuse. Anyway big thick jumpers hide the extra pounds in the winter...LOL


Can we come for dinner? .

Well done to Holly Bolly today - it's a shame when folk get so focussed on their activity that they forget that there are other reasons for having a dog than just competing.


----------



## L/C

Dogless - what a rude woman!

K&M - are you suggesting that Evie would be anything but angelic? I won't hear it!

Twiggy - Holly couldn't ask for a better pet home. How sad that the person who said that couldn't see her as anything but a tool. 

Not much chance to do much today as it has been raining here since 8am! Took the dogs out for a (drag ) walk but they were very miserable so we didn't stay out too long. Instead I decided that they needed a socialising trip to the pub where I am pleased to announce the roasts were tasty and the wine plentiful. Oh and the dogs behaved very well too. 

I'm about to rouse Ely from the sofa to play some scenting games. I tried earlier but he just looked at me in disgust.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well done to everyone, sounds like we're all on a roll at the moment!

Spencer has had his first long walk in days today. As I expected he was a bit of a nightmare for pulling when on the long line but I can't say I really blame him after not getting out properly. His recall was brilliant however, he turned and ran to me every single time I whistled. Didn't get chance to let him off as it seemed everyone was out jogging, cycling or with their dogs at the same time. He was offering me recalls and sits with eye contact though and had we had the area to ourselves I'd have given him a try off leash.

And...I seem to have found some people who aren't fanatical about dominance! They don't use completely positive methods but their first answer to any problem isn't "dog is dominant, assert yourself as leader"  One runs classes but is sadly several hours from here.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Can we come for dinner? .
> 
> Well done to Holly Bolly today - it's a shame when folk get so focussed on their activity that they forget that there are other reasons for having a dog than just competing.


It's a long way to come to dinner and I fear it might be cold by the time you get here...!!

Anyone who knows me well enough also knows that I have never rehomed a dog in my life. Once they cross the threshold, that's it.

If Holly doesn't make an obedience dog so be it. She's an absolutely joy in so many other ways and we all love her to bits.

Anyway I've by no means written her obedience career off yet. Those sort of comments just make me more determined to prove people wrong.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It's a long way to come to dinner and I fear it might be cold by the time you get here...!!
> 
> Anyone who knows me well enough also knows that I have never rehomed a dog in my life. Once they cross the threshold, that's it.
> 
> If Holly doesn't make an obedience dog so be it. She's an absolutely joy in so many other ways and we all love her to bits.
> 
> Anyway I've by no means written her obedience career off yet. *Those sort of comments just make me more determined to prove people wrong.*


I am like that too - as soon as someone says "You won't manage that" (within reason!) I set my mind to it. I am sure if anyone can get Holly Bolly on the path to success it's you .


----------



## missnaomi

Ringo and I went to Meet and Greet class this week, and he was a complete star. I managed to maintain his focus most of the time amongst the other dogs and the trainer pointed out that the only time he wasn't happy was when the two large dogs were reacting or bouncing about... I think he's a little afraid of being squashed hence his overreaction to some over zealous dogs coming close when he's in that hall on his lead and can't run away. I didn't really think that he was scared of the large enthusiastic dogs - but it's kind of obvious now, and makes sense that it's fine outdoors where there's plenty of space but inside with other dogs and backed into a corner it's much more scary to be little...

When he was little he was bowled over by two boxers and he wet himself as they squashed and sort of overpowered him so maybe it's stemmed from there... Think the class is really going to help us work our way back to our normal class though so I'm quite excited.

Everyone sounds like they've had an excellent weekend - we've been to the beach, moors and Dalby Forest so we've had fun too!

Lovely to read all the success stories!


----------



## kat&molly

Everyones doing well.
Dogless- how do you hold your tongue. You cant win really can you? Last week you exercise the poor boy too much and then today he only gets out for high days and holidays. Unbelievable.

And Twiggy- what a thing to say about Holly- I'm sure she'll come right for you soon, even if she didn't I cant see you stressing about it. Every home needs a clown, thats my excuse.

L/C- you have your priorities right, the Pointy Twins are well behaved in the pub  Glad you enjoyed your roast- always much better when cooked by someone else.
MN- hope you get what you want from the classes with Ringo.

Sarah- Glad your feeling better, and despite the lack of exercise you took Spencer out and not Kevin.

For our afternoon walk I took Moll out to the other end of the village, we done a bit of training and then I found a field for some offlead tearing about, just to be a Springer and no retreives.
I put Moll on lead as I spotted a strange dog-it turned out to be Scruff. She's really not an escape artist normally but she slipped past OH somehow. It just goes to show how they use their noses as I NEVER go that way- still she found me, good job the road through our village is quiet. I got home and had to search for OH who was out looking for her.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Everyones doing well.
> Dogless- how do you hold your tongue. You cant win really can you? Last week you exercise the poor boy too much and then today he only gets out for high days and holidays. Unbelievable.
> 
> And Twiggy- what a thing to say about Holly- I'm sure she'll come right for you soon, even if she didn't I cant see you stressing about it. Every home needs a clown, thats my excuse.
> 
> L/C- you have your priorities right, the Pointy Twins are well behaved in the pub  Glad you enjoyed your roast- always much better when cooked by someone else.
> MN- hope you get what you want from the classes with Ringo.
> 
> Sarah- Glad your feeling better, and despite the lack of exercise you took Spencer out and not Kevin.
> 
> For our afternoon walk I took Moll out to the other end of the village, we done a bit of training and then I found a field for some offlead tearing about, just to be a Springer and no retreives.
> *I put Moll on lead as I spotted a strange dog-it turned out to be Scruff*. She's really not an escape artist normally but she slipped past OH somehow. It just goes to show how they use their noses as I NEVER go that way- still she found me, good job the road through our village is quiet. I got home and had to search for OH who was out looking for her.


:lol::lol::lol:. Pleased that Scruff's OK but I can just picture you thinking "Bleddy owners letting their dog roam without any control" before realisation dawned .


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I put Moll on lead as I spotted a strange dog-it turned out to be Scruff. She's really not an escape artist normally but she slipped past OH somehow. It just goes to show how they use their noses as I NEVER go that way- still she found me, good job the road through our village is quiet. I got home and had to search for OH who was out looking for her.


Oh that made me laugh :thumbup: If you're anything like me you'll have been cursing the strange dogs owners and calling them every name under the sun.

Spencer had a Kevin moment right at the end of the walk. We were coming through the front door of the block when we come face to face with one of the GSDs who live above us. Cue "omg, omg, a dog, I've never seen one before! Must play!" Starting to get a bit peed off with them to be honest, they're not aggressive or anything but when they're just loose in the stairway it makes it hard getting in or out coz I'm worried about them getting out. Owner just stands there like a lemon too :mad2:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh that made me laugh :thumbup: If you're anything like me you'll have been cursing the strange dogs owners and calling them every name under the sun.
> 
> Spencer had a Kevin moment right at the end of the walk. We were coming through the front door of the block when we come face to face with one of the GSDs who live above us. Cue "omg, omg, a dog, I've never seen one before! Must play!" Starting to get a bit peed off with them to be honest, they're not aggressive or anything but when they're just loose in the stairway it makes it hard getting in or out coz I'm worried about them getting out. Owner just stands there like a lemon too :mad2:


We have just had a newsletter through our doors about loose, out of control dogs in the housing areas.....about time; really hope it makes a difference .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> We have just had a newsletter through our doors about loose, out of control dogs in the housing areas.....about time; really hope it makes a difference .


I hate to say it but I wouldn't hold your breath, we had a couple of those through our door when we were there and it didn't seem to make the blindest bit of difference  Just like we've been told that the grass around the flats here isn't to be used to exercise dogs or for toilet purposes, we're supposed to take them to the woods 5 minutes up the road. Can just see that happening at 3am when your dogs got a case of the screaming sh*ts


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I hate to say it but I wouldn't hold your breath, we had a couple of those through our door when we were there and it didn't seem to make the blindest bit of difference  Just like we've been told that the grass around the flats here isn't to be used to exercise dogs or for toilet purposes, we're supposed to take them to the woods 5 minutes up the road. Can just see that happening at 3am when your dogs got a case of the screaming sh*ts


No...it was a week ago and bugger all seems to have changed. Be just great when they start restricting dogs more (or b, crap!)...guess who will moan the loudest then? .


----------



## moonviolet

Well done everyone. 

Twiggy that sort of comment would make me really dig my heels in too 

I've just got in from our evening walk. Not a soul about hardly surprisiing it's been persisting down all afternoon, got a bit carried away(splashing in the puddles), and it was virtually dark before I got back to the car. I'm going to blame the weather and but sadly the evenings seem to be drawing in so fast. Recall from running rabbit :thumbup: and walking to heel after air scenting a deer 


OH came on this morning's walk (2 days in a row maybe he's sicking for something) we bumped into one of the trainers we knwo who had their 2 dogs with them and 2 dogs they were housesitting.... 2 gorgeous RR's one adult and one youngster who was recovering from an obstruction which had consisted of 2 socks,a pair of ladies underwear, a pair of mens underwear and the arm and leg of a teddy bear!!!!!:scared: With the assistance of a pretty agressive laxative he was able to pass the lot. 

OH has fallen in love with RR's now, who can blame him


----------



## DogTrainer01

Just a little update from us 

I took little puppy up the common yesterday and did some focus stuff before going in (I know, so cruel). He was amazing!

We started off with bed games. He loves his purple bed so thought that would be a good starter for a little training session.










We use bed games for agility as he lacks a certain amount (well, a lot) of impulse control when watching agility because he has such a strong eye. I want him excited for agility but not stupidly over threshold. 
The over all aim is for him to be able to come into the class for 10-15 minutes and watch on the bed, perhaps waiting for his turn or for me to walk a course. I'm then aiming for him to actually be able to think and work nicely throughout (don't want any half-hearted play and scanning and then self releasing and eyeballing.)

I'm never going to keep him in the class for the whole hour as I personally don't like it when the dog is that intense so he'll have plenty of breaks including crate games outside, focus games, having a sniff, sniffing out food, having a small chew in the crate.

That's the aim with the bed anyway . Anyway, thought I'd just proof it more in a different environment (there were also cows nearby, thankfully behind a fence as I'm so scared of them haha).

Continuing on from bed games, we did some focus games and choice games, both of which he was just a dream at. I need to remember to release to a break earlier than I currently do (I get too carried away in the moment!) as I sometimes can see him start to cloud over so I need to finish the game before that point.

We also did some basic focus LLW, which was just gorgeous. On this note, has anyone watched Silvia Trkmans 'Heeling is just another trick'? Really love her stuff, just wondered if anyone has seen it before & what they think.

Onto little man. I could honestly just eat him all up. 
I've decided to retrain his dog-walk final position for when we go back to agility. At the moment, its 2 on 2 off (so front feet off the yellow marker but back feet kept on the yellow marker).
Anyway, I've decided that we'll go to a down at the end instead as I think it'll be better with his leg. So we've gone back to the touch pad and had a couple of shaping sessions - he's now going to the touch and laying down :001_wub: we'll have a few more little sessions and then practice with an actual dog walk just doing final positions.

Sounds like everyone has been doing amazingly!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done everyone.
> 
> Twiggy that sort of comment would make me really dig my heels in too
> 
> I've just got in from our evening walk. Not a soul about hardly surprisiing it's been persisting down all afternoon, got a bit carried away(splashing in the puddles), and it was virtually dark before I got back to the car. I'm going to blame the weather and but sadly the evenings seem to be drawing in so fast. Recall from running rabbit :thumbup: and walking to heel after air scenting a deer
> 
> OH came on this morning's walk (2 days in a row maybe he's sicking for something) we bumped into one of the trainers we knwo who had their 2 dogs with them and 2 dogs they were housesitting.... 2 gorgeous RR's one adult and one youngster who was recovering from an obstruction which had consisted of 2 socks,a pair of ladies underwear, a pair of mens underwear and the arm and leg of a teddy bear!!!!!:scared: With the assistance of a pretty agressive laxative he was able to pass the lot.
> 
> OH has fallen in love with RR's now, who can blame him


One day I SWEAR I am going to lurk and spy on your walks , I do hope your hubby is OK, the keen attitude towards walks is slightly worrying....and of course he has fallen in love with RRs - who wouldn't :scared:.

They are notorious for swallowing stuff - one of the reasons Kilo was crate trained; he has never (touch wood) shown any interest in that type of activity ; hopefully because I never gave him the opportunity. That must have been some laxative :scared::scared:.


----------



## Dogless

DogTrainer01 said:


> Just a little update from us
> 
> I took little puppy up the common yesterday and did some focus stuff before going in (I know, so cruel). He was amazing!
> 
> We started off with bed games. He loves his purple bed so thought that would be a good starter for a little training session.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We use bed games for agility as he lacks a certain amount (well, a lot) of impulse control when watching agility because he has such a strong eye. I want him excited for agility but not stupidly over threshold.
> The over all aim is for him to be able to come into the class for 10-15 minutes and watch on the bed, perhaps waiting for his turn or for me to walk a course. I'm then aiming for him to actually be able to think and work nicely throughout (don't want any half-hearted play and scanning and then self releasing and eyeballing.)
> 
> I'm never going to keep him in the class for the whole hour as I personally don't like it when the dog is that intense so he'll have plenty of breaks including crate games outside, focus games, having a sniff, sniffing out food, having a small chew in the crate.
> 
> That's the aim with the bed anyway . Anyway, thought I'd just proof it more in a different environment (there were also cows nearby, thankfully behind a fence as I'm so scared of them haha).
> 
> Continuing on from bed games, we did some focus games and choice games, both of which he was just a dream at. I need to remember to release to a break earlier than I currently do (I get too carried away in the moment!) as I sometimes can see him start to cloud over so I need to finish the game before that point.
> 
> We also did some basic focus LLW, which was just gorgeous. On this note, has anyone watched Silvia Trkmans 'Heeling is just another trick'? Really love her stuff, just wondered if anyone has seen it before & what they think.
> 
> Onto little man. I could honestly just eat him all up.
> I've decided to retrain his dog-walk final position for when we go back to agility. At the moment, its 2 on 2 off (so front feet off the yellow marker but back feet kept on the yellow marker).
> Anyway, I've decided that we'll go to a down at the end instead as I think it'll be better with his leg. So we've gone back to the touch pad and had a couple of shaping sessions - he's now going to the touch and laying down :001_wub: we'll have a few more little sessions and then practice with an actual dog walk just doing final positions.
> 
> Sounds like everyone has been doing amazingly!


Nowhere near as amazingly as you - I feel ashamed of my efforts reading posts like this .


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> *One day I SWEAR I am going to lurk and spy on your walks *, I do hope your hubby is OK, the keen attitude towards walks is slightly worrying....and of course he has fallen in love with RRs - who wouldn't :scared:.
> 
> They are notorious for swallowing stuff - one of the reasons Kilo was crate trained; he has never (touch wood) shown any interest in that type of activity ; hopefully because I never gave him the opportunity. That must have been some laxative :scared::scared:.


Pssst...take your camera...

Dt01- wow, sounds like a great session!

Played some scent games in the kitchen with the pointy twins. Gypsy took to it quite quickly - I haven't done much with her as I've concentrated on Ely as a way to keep him stimulated and his adrenaline levels down. She seemed to really enjoy it so along with scent trails it's another thing I can do with her.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Nowhere near as amazingly as you - I feel ashamed of my efforts reading posts like this .


Thats how I always feel, especially where Molly's concerned, she's really bright but she'll never reach her full potential with me.

Dog trainer- your little pup is doing fab- I'm not jealous[much]

Moonviolet- 2 days in a row- be careful.


----------



## Werehorse

Blergh, nothing much to report today. We went orienteering this morning and I've managed to make myself ill pushing myself too hard for my current fitness level (and I clearly had some illness brewing). Trying to run through knew deep heather for over an hour is not to be recommended when you aren't quite 100% 

So I've spent the afternoon in bed feeling sorry for myself and OH has dealt with dogs and ponies who have all been very good apparently (even my horse didn't try and bite him at any point.  Which she usually does, but fairs fair his horse usually drags me up the road to the field while I just hang on and cry. ).

Oscar's breakfast was successful. I really do need to take it a little bit more slowly though as he stiffened up and gave me spaniel eyeballs once. I need to think about what I'm actually aiming for here, whether I just want him to tolerate me touching his food bowl or do I want him completely relaxed with me taking his bowl off him and not possesive at all? I would prefer the latter but I'm not sure how realistic it is given that Hugo will alway be there. However if I keep working on his overall confidence perhaps he will view Hugo as less of a threat and Hugo really is very good and doesn't go near Oscar when he's eating, he has been know to just lay down in his open doored crate and wait until Oscar has finished eating rather than walk past Oscar. I don't know how to demonstrate to Oscar that I won't let Hugo take his dinner and he doesn't have to be quite so worried. I don't know if you ever get that relaxation in a multi-dog household (never had more than one dog before!)

Someone from dog training has posted pictures on Facebook of her boyfriend's cocker spaniel bitches litter of teeny puppies... I am reminding myself that two is MORE than enough, especially when one of them is a Hugo.

Dogless - can't believe what that lady said about Kilo and roaming the plains! :lol: That made me chuckle. Silly woman. I think she's thinking of lions, is she from Essex?


----------



## kat&molly

I know it will come as a shock to everyone but I dont think the cat food thingy is going to work.
I've only put it down this morning with a wooden moveable trellis around - to act as a 'deterrent' for now. I've had to physically remove Evie from the bowls twice- even though I'm watching like a hawk. A 'Leave' has worked a couple of times if I've seen her in time.
But her little face, she seems genuinely upset that theres food there and she cant have it.

How does she manage to make ME feel guilty for not letting her steal.


Werehorse, hope you're feeling better today. I'm very lucky with my girls, they are all quite relaxed with their meals- I do have to watch though.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I know it will come as a shock to everyone but I dont think the cat food thingy is going to work.


No!!! I can't believe that for a minute  .

Werehorse, hope you are feeling better; have done similar myself - daft, but fun at the time :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Well today i'm workign not going to the Met Office and giving them a piece of my mind, I really can't spare it. In their educated wisdom they said rain this morning and rain with gale force gusts this afternoon so I togged up as the grimreaper and headed out for an hour and half in the lashing rain. we had fun and i do enjoy a rainy walk but this was torrential. This afternoon not only is there not gale force wind , there's no rain. In fact the sun is shining :lol: :lol: :lol:

If you had braved following us this morning you would have seen me splashing in the puddles and " rivers" while my poor dog looked at me like i had lost my marbles. She did occasionally indulge in some puddle circling zoomies.

Not soul around until we were about to leave when a lone car arrived, funnily enough it was a man dressed as the grim reaper seems we're on shifts on wet days


----------



## Twiggy

My sister arrived this afternoon along with Mini and Barley - Yippee!!


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> My sister arrived this afternoon along with Mini and Barley - Yippee!!


That's great - let the chaos begin.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - so pleased that your sister is able to visit; have a great time :thumbup:.

mv - the weather is awful here; you'd fit in as the Grim Reaper no worries!!

We have had two good walks today - walked to the fields this morning and spent an hour or so playing (too cold and wet to keep too still!!). Surprisingly no one else came along . We saw a young black lab bouncing about to meet Kilo on the way there but I stopped and waited for them to pass and he was very calm :thumbup:.

This afternoon the temperature has plummeted and it's still bucketing down so Kilo stood outside the door and shivered - one equafleece applied and he was happy to walk . Just went around the streets and through the fields again - empty of course . We saw 'the' lab and - he walked past nicely :thumbup::thumbup:.

Kilo's equafleece was too small as I thought it would be - all ridden up like when you try and convince yourself a small T shirt still fits  so I am going to order another. Problem is his measurements 'confuse' the calculator . so I've emailed them as advised . I may also have ordered one of these......Wax Cotton Coats - Forest Fleece Handmade Dog Fleece Jumpers & Coats


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- Have a lovely few day with your sister.

Moonviolet- sounds like you had good fun- I hope Tink enjoyed her walk as well.:laugh:

Well done to Kilo for walking past the Lab nicely.


Operation Cat Food is not for Dogs-Abandoned.:001_rolleyes:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Twiggy- Have a lovely few day with your sister.
> 
> Moonviolet- sounds like you had good fun- I hope Tink enjoyed her walk as well.:laugh:
> 
> Well done to Kilo for walking past the Lab nicely.
> 
> *Operation Cat Food is not for Dogs-Abandone**d*.:001_rolleyes:


Told you so rrr:rrr:rrr:.


----------



## missnaomi

Dogless said:


> Problem is his measurements 'confuse' the calculator . so I've emailed them as advised . I may also have ordered one of these......Wax Cotton Coats - Forest Fleece Handmade Dog Fleece Jumpers & Coats


Ringo had the same problem. So I measured Rosie, same problem and Layla foster dog...same problem...I hope the calculator has a problem or all the dogs here are deformed!!

Nothing to report with R & R but all were back at creche today (the doggy daycare is the same place as the rescue that I foster for) and one of the women there has been away for 10 days and commented on how last time she met Layla she was too shy to greet her and would run away and hide, and today she was all over her, demanding cuddles and happy to be caught/stroked/moved around etc...and said we were doing a great job with her and to keep doing it!! I was so happy :thumbup::aureola: I forgot to mention that this was something I was working on, but Layla is a lovely Romanian rescue who has been constantly overlooked cos she's really scared! We're working on making her more confident.

So if you know anyone who wants a lovely dog... recommend this one!




























And one with the gang...


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy so pleased your sister has come to visit 

Dogless, Well done Kilo. Looks like you'll have to wear the equafleece yourself  

K&M I think sometimes we have to admit we can't move this particular mountain 

I must learn to behave like an adult and not play hide and seek with Tink without checking *thoroughly* for camouflaged witnesses  Tinks doing well with her bits and pieces her leg weaves are almost smooth, her spinds and twists are almost reliably on verbal cue only.

MissN lovely pics. Layla looks a sweetie. So glad she's coming out of her shell


----------



## Werehorse

What a horrid day weather wise! And I've been feeling sick and/or asleep most of it as well. The boys just had on-lead walks in the peeing rain. I just put the lead on the harness, took them out individually so I didn't get pulled over and let them get on with it pretty much without trying to train for LLW. (If I want them to walk really properly I attach at least one end of the lead to the collar as a I mean business signal!). And their relaxed walking individually is much improved, particularly Oscar - he now backs off from pressure on the harness rather than throwing himself into it. So actually on-lead walks are getting to be almost pleasant. Would've been more pleasant had I not discovered my waterproof trousers need re-proofing.

Naturally due to lack of free-running the boys are driving me potty this evening.  Think I might deploy the puzzle toy for a bit.

Oscar's breakfast and dinner went well today. I can touch the bowl while he's eating and pick it up once he's emptied it to top up - I couldn't try and pick it up while it still has food in it yet though. He's still very stressed about it all, and does really quick jerky movements during the whole process of dinner prep and eating.  I hadn't realised it was so bad until I started trying to make it better. I am going to have to get some raw soon to persuade him that me picking up his bowl is really good. 

Apart from Oscar's food I'm not really making much progress or doing much work on the things I am supposed to be working on.


----------



## Twiggy

I wouldn't say Holly Bolly is being the hostess with the mostest...!!

She's taken a shine to my sister, or is slightly confused as we're so alike being twins.
That's fine except she was guarding her last evening and having a snap at my sister's two dogs if they came too close.

They'll all sort themselves out today, with a bit of assistance from us....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear. Holly and Mini are now belting round the house playing. I knew it wouldn't take long.

My sister has just asked if it's the end of Mini's obedience career....!!


----------



## moonviolet

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Mini has stepped over to the dark side


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. Holly and Mini are now belting round the house playing. I knew it wouldn't take long.
> 
> My sister has just asked if it's the end of Mini's obedience career....!!


You knew it would happen! 

I am so, so proud of Ely this morning. Out on our daily stroll and I spotted the dog group on the other side of the field - there were more dogs then usual (about 10) so I decided we should keep our distance. I skulked about using them for distraction training (sit and down stays and focus work).

Kumar (husky) then decided to run over to us to say hello and neither of mine broke their stays (feels smug). I let them up and they had a nice friendly greeting and then the rest of the group came pelting over (minus Max the lurcher and Bon the labx as their owners know us quite well and make sure to give Ely his space). Ely got a little stiff so I scattered some treats onto the floor to get him to sniff and relax his body language and sent Gypsy out to be a decoy.

I allowed him to greet the other dogs calmly one or two at a time and he did really well. We then walked with them staying on the edge of the group and he interacted calmly with all the other dogs and was very happy to walk and socialise with them. It's the biggest group of non-greyhounds that he's ever socialised with them.


----------



## DogTrainer01

Dogless said:


> Nowhere near as amazingly as you - I feel ashamed of my efforts reading posts like this .


Oh my - thank you! 

I must admit I feel exactly the same when I read all the other posts so we must all just be amazing 

We haven't been doing much the last couple of days. I have left all of Kobie's walking stuff in the car which my dad has taken to work (managed to do this two days in a row!) so puppy is going to have cope with just one walk up the common this evening. 
We've done some scent games and some training in the front garden though which has thoroughly tired him out - he's now panting and resisting the urge to sleep 

We are going through a little attention seeking phase at the moment, in fact he just tried to write a massive sentence to you all as he climbed onto my lap when I was typing. Other things include 'Oh, you're trying to watch the tv? I'll just place myself in the way and just stare at you and bark' and 'i'm just going to bark at you until you at least look at me and if you don't i'll dive bomb your head'. I don't know if anyone else experienced the same things when their dog was around 10-11 months? lol!

Its funny how other dog owners feel the need to comment on how much exercise your dog gets etc. I tend to be really anti-social so no-one really bothers to talk to me now haha

ETA - he's finally given in and is now fast asleep


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Told you so rrr:rrr:rrr:.


I know. I have given up quickly really but, the other girls just push their luck occasionally until it sinks in its not allowed. Evie cant understand at all thats it not for her.

Twiggy- Naughty Holly Bolly corrupting Little Mini.
Do you think she senses your sister has been poorly to act the way she is.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - hope you are starting to feel better; feeling sick is awful .

Twiggy - Holly Bolly has corrupted Mini :scared:.

mv - hope you've managed to play hide and seek without an audience today.

L/C - WOW!!! The pointy twins were really on form this morning weren't they? Ely really has come a very long way :thumbup:.

DogTrainer01 - sounds like Kobie's being a little devil!! . People always comment on exercise with Kilo; that and his weight .

We had a good morning. I have avoided the forest I used to go to about three times a week since those two incidents with the black lab and then the mal. It really affected Kilo (the lab thing!!) and dented my confidence hugely. Last night I reasoned with myself that I'd gone that often for about 9 or 10 months and I had never had trouble before - so we went back, saw no one but a walker in the distance and had a lovely time in the gales and lashing rain .


----------



## Beth17

Not been on much again for a few days as had a stonking headache for a couple of days but am back on form now so am going to have a cup of tea and read of what I have missed. 

The boys are fine lots of hormones raging around the house :scared: If Sam isn't trying to hump Oscar then Oscar is trying to hump Sam and then if that fails Sam launches himself at peoples legs and starts trying to hump them. 
He has even started nibbling people bums and teeth chattering when smelling Oscar  general obedience has also gone completely out of the window, lets hope the next year passes quickly 

Hope everyone else has a good day


----------



## Twiggy

Well we're about to take Holly Bolly, Tremor, Barley and Mini out to do some training.

Why do I get this feeling that Mini and Holly are not going to perform very well? They both looked shattered at lunchtime, having spent all morning going berserk.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse : slow steady progress in one area , particularly an instinctive behaviour related one is worth celebrating and is a huge thing to be working on  if anyone tried to steal my last chip ( pauper or queen) would be likely to get my fork in the back of their hand 

L/C sounds liek a double platinum day  so pleased your efforts and patience are being rewarded. It must be much nicer for Ely too 



DogTrainer01 said:


> We are going through a little attention seeking phase at the moment, in fact he just tried to write a massive sentence to you all as he climbed onto my lap when I was typing. Other things include 'Oh, you're trying to watch the tv? I'll just place myself in the way and just stare at you and bark' and 'i'm just going to bark at you until you at least look at me and if you don't i'll dive bomb your head'. I don't know if anyone else experienced the same things when their dog was around 10-11 months? lol!


Oh I remember this well and it does occasionally rear is barking head when Tink is over tired but is fighting winding down.

Beth good luck is sounds like cold showers are the order of the day at yours 

Twiggy good luck with the terrible twosome happy they can put their thinking heads on. 

Had a lovely walk this morning . I seem to be having more of those as I can relax more these days and not be on constant alert. Took Tinks blanket and practised her mat exercise in the middle of a island between junctions in the tracks. She was brilliant, sendaways to it, relaxing on it, as I went away out of sight. recall form it and return to it. She was excellent. Not only performance but in the fact she relaxed in what once would have been a spot that would have had her hyper vigilant.

I think i was accidently a bit rude later in the walk ... when a dog came charging up from behind, no owner in sight , givign Tink a very very in depth sniffing. TInk was a little uncomfortable so in a happy voice said " He's very thorough isn't he." With that his owner appeared. called him away and stomped on. Oops.


----------



## kat&molly

I'm playing catch up with everyones posts again.
I've been working this morning but my OH keeps moaning that I spend more time on here and never sit with him in the other room.



I shall have to get him a job working nights as well if he keeps moaning..


----------



## Twiggy

Well Tremor was her usual super self, Barley was also very good, Holly wasn't too bad (at least she didn't go off bush sniffing) and poor little Mini tried hard but you could see she was very tired.

I have to say Holly Bolly certainly doesn't lack stamina...!!

I'll take the camera out with me later in the week.


----------



## Werehorse

Feeling a bit better today - went for another run this morning taking the kill or cure route towards illness prevention and thankfully it seems to have been cure! 

I did a proper training session with the boys today. I usually do mostly "life" training out and about but since training class is on a break for two weeks I think little and often proper training over the two, well three, weeks is probably a good idea.

I did sendaways with both of them. Hugo's are awesome, he does collie lay downs and even gives a bit of The Eye back at you when he does it. Oscar's are good too and he looks so pleased when he gets it right, he really enjoys it. :thumbup: I made a boo-boo and practised some emergency stops while Oscar was on his way to the sendaway mat and then had to go back and really reinforce the sendaway again because he started anticipating the stop. :mad2: He is very good at emergency stops though, such as I have trained them at the moment - we havent' worked up to stopping during a chase yet.

I discovered that neither of my dogs can do "stand", at all really. My fault, sits and downs are infinitely more useful day to day and I never really taught them properly as pups. Something to add to my list. 

I also did a bit of work towards a good heel with Hugo, he will now follow my hand around with his nose stuck to it, not going to far or too fast but very much getting the idea. The main problem is that he gets SO very excited by the fact we are doing training that he starts mouthing my hand instead of just targetting. (He makes odd little hyperventilating, squeeky noises while we are training as well; just at home when there is nothing to distract him so he gets really, madly intense on what we are doing :scared: ) But the more I do a particular exercise the more boring it gets so he should calm down (learning new things winds him up much more than doing familiar things)...

Oscar had been really good doing other things so I didn't want to try the heelwork hand target and us get all frustrated with each other.

Dinner has remained the same today, we have plateaued. 

In other news, Hugo hasn't pooed all day  You wanted to know that didn't you?? If he doesn't perform for OH in the last walk before bed he will be relegated to the crate for the night (having graduated from the crate just in the last couple of weeks). But he did manage to stand in another dog's poo on our walk just now  Dirty scumbags leaving poo everywhere. I may have to start writing angry notes and putting them on lamposts for all the good it'd do.

Beth's post reminded me of an incident the other day...

Hugo has taken to humping a blanket lately, not dreadfully just the occasional post-dinner hump before napping. Except a few days ago he was feeling particularly frisky and had clearly been humping the blanket while we were out because I found it half way up the stairs on my return. Both dogs were stood at the top of the stairs wagging as I came up so I chucked the blanket over them both as you do.  I nipped into the backroom to get something and when I came out, horror of horrors! Hugo had escaped the blanket cage, Oscar however had not and was trapped beneath while Hugo merrily humped his head!!  Poor Oscar.  He seems to have got over it and I hid the blanket for a couple of days until we all got over the trauma.


----------



## Werehorse

Update - Hugo had a poo and has now gone bonkers.  :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Update - Hugo had a poo and has now gone bonkers.  :lol:


Hey wouldn't you be celebrating in his position


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Feeling a bit better today - went for another run this morning taking the kill or cure route towards illness prevention and thankfully it seems to have been cure!
> 
> I did a proper training session with the boys today. I usually do mostly "life" training out and about but since training class is on a break for two weeks I think little and often proper training over the two, well three, weeks is probably a good idea.
> 
> I did sendaways with both of them. Hugo's are awesome, he does collie lay downs and even gives a bit of The Eye back at you when he does it. Oscar's are good too and he looks so pleased when he gets it right, he really enjoys it. :thumbup: I made a boo-boo and practised some emergency stops while Oscar was on his way to the sendaway mat and then had to go back and really reinforce the sendaway again because he started anticipating the stop. :mad2: He is very good at emergency stops though, such as I have trained them at the moment - we havent' worked up to stopping during a chase yet.
> 
> I discovered that neither of my dogs can do "stand", at all really. My fault, sits and downs are infinitely more useful day to day and I never really taught them properly as pups. Something to add to my list.
> 
> I also did a bit of work towards a good heel with Hugo, he will now follow my hand around with his nose stuck to it, not going to far or too fast but very much getting the idea. The main problem is that he gets SO very excited by the fact we are doing training that he starts mouthing my hand instead of just targetting. (He makes odd little hyperventilating, squeeky noises while we are training as well; just at home when there is nothing to distract him so he gets really, madly intense on what we are doing :scared: ) But the more I do a particular exercise the more boring it gets so he should calm down (learning new things winds him up much more than doing familiar things)...
> 
> Oscar had been really good doing other things so I didn't want to try the heelwork hand target and us get all frustrated with each other.
> 
> Dinner has remained the same today, we have plateaued.
> 
> In other news, Hugo hasn't pooed all day  You wanted to know that didn't you?? If he doesn't perform for OH in the last walk before bed he will be relegated to the crate for the night (having graduated from the crate just in the last couple of weeks). But he did manage to stand in another dog's poo on our walk just now  Dirty scumbags leaving poo everywhere. I may have to start writing angry notes and putting them on lamposts for all the good it'd do.
> 
> Beth's post reminded me of an incident the other day...
> 
> Hugo has taken to humping a blanket lately, not dreadfully just the occasional post-dinner hump before napping. Except a few days ago he was feeling particularly frisky and had clearly been humping the blanket while we were out because I found it half way up the stairs on my return. Both dogs were stood at the top of the stairs wagging as I came up so I chucked the blanket over them both as you do.  I nipped into the backroom to get something and when I came out, horror of horrors! Hugo had escaped the blanket cage, Oscar however had not and was trapped beneath while Hugo merrily humped his head!!  Poor Oscar.  He seems to have got over it and I hid the blanket for a couple of days until we all got over the trauma.


Pleased you're feeling better.

I'm paranoid about my sister getting an infection before she's goes into Kings and doing my best to keep her away from crowded places which is not easy as she wants to go here, there and everywhere.

Oooh no don't do the emergency stop on sendaways but I think you've already discovered that...!!

I had the same trouble with Tremor as a youngster with the hand touch. In fact she was lethal with her teeth through sheer excitement. Every time she bit my hand or started leaping I never said a word but would stop and remove my arm up above my head until she had all four feet on the floor, then reposition my hand for the touch, click (or say yes) and release her with a toy or tit-bit. This could go on for quite some time before she calmed down and we could proceed on a right hand circle.

Pleased Hugo eventually decided to 'perform'....toilet that is not humping his blanket.....LOL


----------



## kat&molly

Everyone is doing so well.

We haven't had any rain really for months now- but since Sunday night its deciding to play catch up.T he river dried up weeks and weeks ago and everywhere's brown, so we really do need it. Just seems a bit of a shock to the system walking in it, Moll is loving it she hasn't had any puddles to lie down in for ages.

I've been reading back through some of this thread this morning- and feeling like I'm the only one who has actually failed in what I set out to achieve-LLW the 3 of them together. We go out in the car in the mornings for a run and seperate walks in the afternoons, I'm just avoiding the problem.
Yesterday afternoon we all went together for a really long walk but coming back through the village Moll and Scruff were terrible , as bad as when we first started. I'd like to be able to do a joint walk if the weathers really bad -I enjoy the seperate walks and extra attention I can give the girls but just sometimes....

Kilo and Miss Tink have really moved forward though.


----------



## Werehorse

kat&molly said:


> I've been reading back through some of this thread this morning- and feeling like I'm the only one who has actually failed in what I set out to achieve-LLW the 3 of them together. We go out in the car in the mornings for a run and seperate walks in the afternoons, I'm just avoiding the problem.
> Yesterday afternoon we all went together for a really long walk but coming back through the village Moll and Scruff were terrible , as bad as when we first started. I'd like to be able to do a joint walk if the weathers really bad -I enjoy the seperate walks and extra attention I can give the girls but just sometimes....


Don't beat yourself up - it's a really hard goal that one. It's kind of my long-term dream goal to be able to walk my TWO on-lead together without it being embarassingly incompetant looking! :lol: I braved taking them together this morning, just for wee-poos, and ended up in a tangle with the coal-man laughing at me from his truck.  Fabulous.

So any more than two walking nicely on a lead together.


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse said:


> Don't beat yourself up - it's a really hard goal that one. It's kind of my long-term dream goal to be able to walk my TWO on-lead together without it being embarassingly incompetant looking! :lol: I braved taking them together this morning, just for wee-poos, and ended up in a tangle with the coal-man laughing at me from his truck.  Fabulous.
> 
> So any more than two walking nicely on a lead together.


I know, just feeling a bit sorry for myself I think after working so hard on it for months, we have improved but not by a lot and it didn't look like it yesterday.
It is only 2 of them really, constant competition between Moll and Scruff but Evies fine at LLW as shes away with the fairies.
Just needing a break from the battle I suppose.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I know, just feeling a bit sorry for myself I think after working so hard on it for months, we have improved but not by a lot and it didn't look like it yesterday.
> It is only 2 of them really, constant competition between Moll and Scruff but Evies fine at LLW as shes away with the fairies.
> Just needing a break from the battle I suppose.


K&M why do you think I only have one dog ... thats what you call avoiding the problem  I knwo hand on heart Tink's LLW would go out the window if/when we add. The times i've had one of mum's dogs on lead with her she wants to be in front, On social walks She likes to take " recon" position reporting back at the first sign of trouble!

Class night has left me full of mixed feelings. It didn't start well when I discovered the road I needed to take was closed for some maintenance so I was freestyling a route and eating humble pie that maybe sat nav might be useful :lol: So i arrived a couple of minutes late. Tink settled well and was brilliant and focus during teh activities and lay on her mat (of gratuitous treats) happily between exercises this is where the mixed feelings stem from. DUring these times the young JRT each time without fail came over ( despite being on longline and having his crate. His owners seemed not to notice, when they did they thought it was cute. Well into the session it happened again this time he marched onto TInk's mat. She curled a lip at him, he took no notice and she snarked at him, he handbagged back before his owners pulled him away. Clearly he got the message because the following time he sat about a foot behind her watching when i dropped treats on her mat. These are my feelings.

A, Flippign heck Tink's confidence has improved to express her feelings to a dog ( albeit a teenager)

B, for goodness sake please keep control of you dog he's being rude. I dont' want her practising this behaviour and losing the feeling that her mat is a relaxing place

C, Do i say something to them next class ( if it starts happening again) or should I send a little email to my trainer voicing my concerns before the next class?

D Am i being an oversensitive bat?

Your honest thoughts would be much appreciated ladies


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> K&M why do you think I only have one dog ... thats what you call avoiding the problem  I knwo hand on heart Tink's LLW would go out the window if/when we add. The times i've had one of mum's dogs on lead with her she wants to be in front, On social walks She likes to take " recon" position reporting back at the first sign of trouble!
> 
> Class night has left me full of mixed feelings. It didn't start well when I discovered the road I needed to take was closed for some maintenance so I was freestyling a route and eating humble pie that maybe sat nav might be useful :lol: So i arrived a couple of minutes late. Tink settled well and was brilliant and focus during teh activities and lay on her mat (of gratuitous treats) happily between exercises this is where the mixed feelings stem from. DUring these times the young JRT each time without fail came over ( despite being on longline and having his crate. His owners seemed not to notice, when they did they thought it was cute. Well into the session it happened again this time he marched onto TInk's mat. She curled a lip at him, he took no notice and she snarked at him, he handbagged back before his owners pulled him away. Clearly he got the message because the following time he sat about a foot behind her watching when i dropped treats on her mat. These are my feelings.
> 
> A, Flippign heck Tink's confidence has improved to express her feelings to a dog ( albeit a teenager)
> 
> B, for goodness sake please keep control of you dog he's being rude. I dont' want her practising this behaviour and losing the feeling that her mat is a relaxing place
> 
> C, Do i say something to them next class ( if it starts happening again) or should I send a little email to my trainer voicing my concerns before the next class?
> 
> D Am i being an oversensitive bat?
> 
> Your honest thoughts would be much appreciated ladies


How annoying! I think I would email the trainer tbh. Realistically he/she should have picked up on it during the class so if they could have a quiet word before the next class it would probably be more helpful then if you do it (having the voice of authority as it were!).


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> K&M why do you think I only have one dog ... thats what you call avoiding the problem  I knwo hand on heart Tink's LLW would go out the window if/when we add. The times i've had one of mum's dogs on lead with her she wants to be in front, On social walks She likes to take " recon" position reporting back at the first sign of trouble!
> 
> Class night has left me full of mixed feelings. It didn't start well when I discovered the road I needed to take was closed for some maintenance so I was freestyling a route and eating humble pie that maybe sat nav might be useful :lol: So i arrived a couple of minutes late. Tink settled well and was brilliant and focus during teh activities and lay on her mat (of gratuitous treats) happily between exercises this is where the mixed feelings stem from. DUring these times the young JRT each time without fail came over ( despite being on longline and having his crate. His owners seemed not to notice, when they did they thought it was cute. Well into the session it happened again this time he marched onto TInk's mat. She curled a lip at him, he took no notice and she snarked at him, he handbagged back before his owners pulled him away. Clearly he got the message because the following time he sat about a foot behind her watching when i dropped treats on her mat. These are my feelings.
> 
> A, Flippign heck Tink's confidence has improved to express her feelings to a dog ( albeit a teenager)
> 
> B, for goodness sake please keep control of you dog he's being rude. I dont' want her practising this behaviour and losing the feeling that her mat is a relaxing place
> 
> C, Do i say something to them next class ( if it starts happening again) or should I send a little email to my trainer voicing my concerns before the next class?
> 
> D Am i being an oversensitive bat?
> 
> Your honest thoughts would be much appreciated ladies


I would say something, certainly to the trainer initially and no you're not being oversensitive.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Everyone is doing so well.
> 
> We haven't had any rain really for months now- but since Sunday night its deciding to play catch up.T he river dried up weeks and weeks ago and everywhere's brown, so we really do need it. Just seems a bit of a shock to the system walking in it, Moll is loving it she hasn't had any puddles to lie down in for ages.
> 
> I've been reading back through some of this thread this morning- and feeling like I'm the only one who has actually failed in what I set out to achieve-LLW the 3 of them together. We go out in the car in the mornings for a run and seperate walks in the afternoons, I'm just avoiding the problem.
> Yesterday afternoon we all went together for a really long walk but coming back through the village Moll and Scruff were terrible , as bad as when we first started. I'd like to be able to do a joint walk if the weathers really bad -I enjoy the seperate walks and extra attention I can give the girls but just sometimes....
> 
> Kilo and Miss Tink have really moved forward though.


Have you ever tried running the lead between their front legs when they pull? That's what my sister does and when they are walking nicely the lead goes back to normal. She deosn't tell them off or say anything but if they start pulling she just puts one of their front legs over the lead.


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet,I think you're justified in saying something, thats Tinks 'safe' place on the mat.

Twiggy- No I haven't tried that. I'd give it a go, if I thought it wouldn't hurt their legs?


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## Werehorse

Moonviolet - I'd definitely say something to the trainer and sit away from them if possible in future. That kind of behaviour is how Oscar ended up getting bitten in class. There was a nose in treats moment where Oscar defended his treats with a lip curl and was rewarded with a gobfull of abuse from the treat-sniffing dog. Then the dog became really focussed on Oscar for the rest of class and ended up biting him on the bum while Oscar was sat focussing on me. 

It was a similar thing also in that the owner was letting the dog lope round on a long loose lead.

So yes, I'd definitely say something.


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## Guest

Got my Zander past two dogs this morning (while feeding him) and he met a smaller dog head on on a very small path (I've never ever ever met another walker there) and while I got zander into a sit they greeted nicely, sniffed but then as I was about to treat the donkey boy a great big offlead retriever appeared next to me and sorta ruined it. The owner was on the phone and ignored me when I asked him to put it on a lead, as it began to follow us (Zander was now in full on squealy bouncy mode)... :mad2:

Bout to take him to the field now, we'll see how his recall is. 
I


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## Guest

He pulled me over and now my hand as swollen up. On top of that he aggravated some westies... May just about cry.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner - what a mixed day - brilliant behaviour and a bad second walk. I hope that your hand recovers soon.

k&m - don't beat yourself up as everyone has said; I have achieved what I have with ONE dog not three *and certainly not a Teckel :scared::scared:.*

mv - I don't think you're an over sensitive bat at all; I'd email the trainer too.

Twiggy - photos before you ask!! http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/264115-photos-day-mountains.html

We have had a whole day out walking so no work done! The first part of the walk was in a forest park, before we left it to go up the mountain and we saw a few walkers and dogs heading towards us on a narrow path, which can make Kilo really alert and pull towards the other dog. This morning approaching dogs were seen and then Kilo sat nicely to the side to let them past. Good boy; I am over the moon with him :thumbup::thumbup:.

We had a not too pleasant moment passing two farms when we were rushed by farm dogs coming out onto the road (4 altogether) all barking and growling - but I kept the BW moving and all was OK.


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## kat&molly

Lurcherowner-Ouch- hope your hands better tomorrow. And that Donkey Boy:laugh: is good for you.
Dogless- More Gold stars for the BW today.

I've been stressing about LLW all day today  I'm thinking of giving it up and conditioning them both to head collars, just for the times I want to walk them altogether. Moll can have a slip lead now when shes on her own so I've got that far and Scruff is fine without Moll there anyway.
Another epic fail from me, but I just dont think its worth the stress anymore.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Lurcherowner-Ouch- hope your hands better tomorrow. And that Donkey Boy:laugh: is good for you.
> Dogless- More Gold stars for the BW today.
> 
> I've been stressing about LLW all day today  I'm thinking of giving it up and conditioning them both to head collars, just for the times I want to walk them altogether. Moll can have a slip lead now when shes on her own so I've got that far and Scruff is fine without Moll there anyway.
> Another epic fail from me, but I just dont think its worth the stress anymore.


I don't think it's an epic fail at all, if they are easier to manage on headcollars and you all get less stressed when together why not? Kilo being on a headcollar round here because of all the cats could be considered an epic fail too, but the management solution doesn't cause problems so I am happy with that.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I don't think it's an epic fail at all, if they are easier to manage on headcollars and you all get less stressed when together why not? Kilo being on a headcollar round here because of all the cats could be considered an epic fail too, but the management solution doesn't cause problems so I am happy with that.


I mean I've failed because I dont feel like even training for it anymore.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I mean I've failed because I dont feel like even training for it anymore.


Maybe you will after a break? You have made fabulous progress in other areas - maybe you're just a bit stale and need a bit of regrouping time?


----------



## Beth17

LurcherOwner what a shame your day ended on a bad note. I hope tomorrow is a better one for you 

k&m I understand completely about the LLW. I don't see a head collar as a failure if it makes you less stressed and you all enjoy your walks more 

Moonviolet I too don't think you're overreacting and would have a word with your trainer. We had similar in Sam's puppy class with a yorkie being allowed to wander over to Sam all the time and distract him; it's bloody annoying 

Well done Kilo :thumbup: you put my terrible twosome to shame  :lol:

The boys have been lazy again today and didn't have breakfast until 10  Oscar has a shaving rash from having his bloods taken yesterday and Sam didn't seem quite right so we took it easy today. Also managed to get out before the rain came :thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Thanks for all the thoughts, it's wonderful to have you lovely MDLs ( mad dog ladies) to ask for a second opinion.

Lurcher owner I hope you are ok. Donkey boy sounds a bit of a lively lad, what a shame that dog came along when it did sounded like he was doing ok before that.

K&M not a failure, you just decided to use a tool to aid your LLW 
no shame in employing a tool, ( there's a joke wanting to come of that sentence.)

Dogless sounds like a wonderful day and that Kilo has really done you proud. 

Our evening walk was good, recalled nicely when a horse and rider came trotting from a side path another class tonight, OH handling this week


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Our evening walk was good, recalled nicely when a horse and rider came trotting from a side path another class tonight, OH handling this week


Several walks in a row this week and class??? I hope that your OH is OK .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Several walks in a row this week and class??? I hope that your OH is OK .


Hmm methinks he wants something :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks for listening to me being a whingebag.
I haven't got a problem employing a tool to help. I probably would have needed them long ago if I had cats and kids to contend with, just a bit mad with myself for giving in on the training. Think I'd just rather concentrate on other things.

Enjoy class MV, and hope Sams better tomorrow Beth.


----------



## Guest

KatMol headcollars are brilliant, I mean Zander is great at loose lead walking but holy banannas he has power in them thar legs when he bounces, so a headcollar is great at controlling that... I mean just try it temporarilily and see how you get on. My hand isn't broken like I first thought (it went almost blue and was puffy and there was something sticking out of my wrist, turned out that was just the tendon),but the reason I fell was due to a number of things. I didn't have time to put his headcollar on, it was raining and the grass was super slippy and the westies (who were offlead the whole time) were barking and growling at Zand, so I fell, let go of the lead Zander decided to try and get the westies to chase him (this involves prancing infront of them and doing jumpy playbows) and it was all rather stressfull haha. But moments like that where I could not get Zander to pay attention to me after he goes towards the westies/ pulling me over makes me have a little moment of "WAAHHHH I FAIL AT OWNING A DOG WAHHHH." :mad2: 
And yes he is a lively soul too, this being because he is 12months old so puppyish brain in a rather large bod, and because he supposedly has collie in him. Well no thats probably not the reasons but yeah he can go from calm to OHMAHGOOOOD in rwo seconds.
His recall was also non-existant.

BAH HUMBUG.

Mind you I have taught him to touch my hand with his nose just now, using the leftover crusts of my sandwich. 


As much as a pain in the derrière he can be (mostly due to me probs) I wouldn't change him.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Hmm methinks he wants something :lol: :lol: :lol:


What could that be? :ihih:

Lurcherowner - I've been there with the long line. I still have the scars from when Gypsy took off after a squirrel when she was on a longline. My strategy to deal with it was to invest in a horse lunge line (kinder on the hands) and operate the 4 stages of freedom with her (made up in my head so no official endorsement). Stage 1 is the longline at the length of a regular lead - I would practice on lead recalls with her and also reward her whenever she decided to check in with me of her own volition. Stage 2 was the longline at half length with more of the same plus some running away and chasing me games. Stage 3 was the longline at full length but holding onto the end with more of the same and stage 4 is the longline dragging.

She didn't get to progress to the next one until she was consistently reliable at the previous one. Plus I would start at stage 1 at the beginning of every walk so it was reinforced. She's now almost 100% reliable off lead when there aren't small furry things to chase and she has a 60% chase recall which we are constantly working on and reinforcing.

I don't know if any of that is useful or not.


----------



## Guest

L/C I was actually looking at horse lunge lines today!! Have a couple questions about using a lungline. Will he get tangled? ( he does have all the grace of a newborn giraffe at times?) Will I/other dogs get tangled? How easy is it to keep hold of and reel in? The training line I used was made out of nylon and lordy that really really stung. Thanks for all the advice. 

OOh and they have to attached to harnesses right? Just thinking about this as I walk zander on a headcollar, so what I might do is plonk him in his harness but use his headcollar for walking with nothing clipped to the harness....


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet,I think you're justified in saying something, thats Tinks 'safe' place on the mat.
> 
> Twiggy- No I haven't tried that. I'd give it a go, if I thought it wouldn't hurt their legs?


Credit your dogs with some sense; they're not going to hurt themselves.

When we have to put all our dogs on leads (and that can be up to five each) and a youngster is pulling, simply slipping the lead between their front legs is a quick fix and stops them instantly. They don't like it because it feels strange but it doesn't harm them and works on the same principle as many harnesses.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I mean I've failed because I dont feel like even training for it anymore.


Sometimes you just have to pick your battles. I gave up on getting Rupert comfortable with other dogs within 100 miles of him because I felt it just wasn't worth the stress. Not for me and not for him. I don't think it makes you a failure to decide something just isn't worth getting stressed out about.

Twiggy, how does the leash between the front legs stop them pulling? Spencer just puts it right himself. Or if he's really intent on getting to something hops along on 3 legs while waving a front leg in the air trying to get it back over the leash without having to stop pulling  I've never purposely tried it but it's happened accidentally many times.

Moonviolet, I don't think you're over reacting at all. I would be really unimpressed at that happening and would certainly be saying something.

Lurcher Owner, hope your hand is feeling better soon.


----------



## Guest

Gah, Zander pulled over my mother this morning in the garden (he has to be on a lead due to us not having big fencing yet). 
This isn't a good start and threats of rehoming have been uttered...

Mum wants to know that if i were to use a longline will I get pulled over??


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> L/C I was actually looking at horse lunge lines today!! Have a couple questions about using a lungline. Will he get tangled? ( he does have all the grace of a newborn giraffe at times?) Will I/other dogs get tangled? How easy is it to keep hold of and reel in? The training line I used was made out of nylon and lordy that really really stung. Thanks for all the advice.
> 
> OOh and they have to attached to harnesses right? Just thinking about this as I walk zander on a headcollar, so what I might do is plonk him in his harness but use his headcollar for walking with nothing clipped to the harness....


Always on a harness. Never, ever on a head collar or flat collar - the risk of the dog injuring themselves or (especially a sighthound) breaking their neck is just way, way too high.

I always recommend these harnesses as they are padded and good for thin coated, thin skinned lurchers and greyhounds. I use them on my two.

Fleece Lined Harness for dogs and cats

You'll also need a good pair of gloves to protect your hands!

I don't use a longline to let dogs play unless it is dragging and even then I'm wary. I use it to teach recall in a safe way and learn my dogs cues.

What part of his recall are you most worried about? Chase, other dogs, general obedience?



LurcherOwner said:


> Gah, Zander pulled over my mother this morning in the garden (he has to be on a lead due to us not having big fencing yet).
> This isn't a good start and threats of rehoming have been uttered...
> 
> Mum wants to know that if i were to use a longline will I get pulled over??


What did he see to set him off? Does he have a stop or wait cue? Can you distract him when he becomes fixated on something?

If he's that uncontrollable on a short lead then I would hold off on the longline until he's less excitable. Work on a stop cue so you can break his bad behaviour.

What treats do you use? Is he more interested in toys?


----------



## Guest

Well in the garden I'm not sure. But yesterday it was due to westies.
his recall is fine until theres other dogs. And then 'm invisible. He also jsut runs straight towards them.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks Twiggy- I'll try it next time I take them all together. I hadn't thought about it being similar to a harness.

Sarah, I know it is disappointing , I know we cant win em all but this was the one thing I really wanted. Reading through the beginning of this thread yesterday made me realise we haven't made enough progress since April.

Lurcher Owner- have you got any good training classes nearby to help -good advice from L/C.

Well Moll stuck her fingers up to me at Agility this morning. She just seemed 'bored'- unless we're doing the walk way or A Frame. She's never been 100% focused on it but has enjoyed it, today she just couldn't be bothered. We'll take a break from it and do some other stuff when we go instead. Not sure what yet though. Big Evie said some tracking for food.

It really hasn't been my finest week- first the cat food saga then LLW and today Agility.


----------



## Dogless

We went to the park this morning; not been since last weekend due to the pants weather - we were ages and it was very, very trying indeed :mad2:. Not the BW's fault but every squirrel in the universe appeared to be out :scared:. He actually did well at sitting as they ran from him even with the whining, whistling and other frustrated noises he made . He walked nicely past some dogs barking at him and there was a Variety Club trip there - one of the adults said to this huge group of kids "Oooh look everyone at the lovely big doggy!" and they started to advance upon us. I sat the BW and just said "He's a bit excitable and I'm training him, so please don't touch him if you don't mind" and he was fine, no anxiety at all :thumbup:.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Twiggy- I'll try it next time I take them all together. I hadn't thought about it being similar to a harness.
> 
> Sarah, I know it is disappointing , I know we cant win em all but this was the one thing I really wanted. Reading through the beginning of this thread yesterday made me realise we haven't made enough progress since April.
> 
> Lurcher Owner- have you got any good training classes nearby to help -good advice from L/C.
> 
> Well Moll stuck her fingers up to me at Agility this morning. She just seemed 'bored'- unless we're doing the walk way or A Frame. She's never been 100% focused on it but has enjoyed it, today she just couldn't be bothered. We'll take a break from it and do some other stuff when we go instead. Not sure what yet though. Big Evie said some tracking for food.
> 
> It really hasn't been my finest week- first the cat food saga then LLW and today Agility.


You need a 'be kind to yourself' day - fave food and a bottle of vino plus just fun with the dogs rather than training xx.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> We went to the park this morning; not been since last weekend due to the pants weather - we were ages and it was very, very trying indeed :mad2:. Not the BW's fault but every squirrel in the universe appeared to be out :scared:. He actually did well at sitting as they ran from him even with the whining, whistling and other frustrated noises he made . He walked nicely past some dogs barking at him and there was a Variety Club trip there - one of the adults said to this huge group of kids "Oooh look everyone at the lovely big doggy!" and they started to advance upon us. I sat the BW and just said "He's a bit excitable and I'm training him, so please don't touch him if you don't mind" and he was fine, no anxiety at all :thumbup:.


Sounds like he done well- and bless him , all the squirrels came to see him. I'm glad we only have the Red here and we rarely see them.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> You need a 'be kind to yourself' day - fave food and a bottle of vino plus just fun with the dogs rather than training xx.


Thanks- we're going off for a walk in a minute.


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## moonviolet

Well Tinker's halo well and truly slipped last night, but I'm blaming handler error, 'cause Oh was handling :lol: Her mind jsut wasn't on the job in hand and only wanted to do things she deemed fun . There was one of those classic moments when you can see what is going to happen.

I was sat next to the head trainer, talking about a couple of things, THe dogs were doing an sit wait with increasing distractions, Tink was doing great ignoring a toy. I saw a momentary head turn and commented that tink has clocked that the trainer had left a treat on teh floor from her demo... no sooner were the words out of my mouth that Tink trotted over and picked it up in her defence she did drop when asked. :lol:

Think she's a bit tired today ( she woke in the night ) and she was a bit more jumpy on our walk today nothing big jsut not as chilled as she has been of late. Not every day can be a great one I suppose. I did get a nice pic of her albeit with my phone so not the best quality.... as i type this i realise that when a year ago i never took pics when i was walking her alone as i had to be aware of every little thing every minute. ( sorry rambling)

Here's the pic










" Hmmm this is deeper than i thought."


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## Sarah1983

Lovely (if wet!) walk with Spencer today. Had him off leash on the fields and except for the first 5 minutes which he spent sprinting around me in big circles he was fantastic. Recalled every single time I whistled, checked in with me regularly and decided after a few minutes thought that he would come in my direction when the path forked instead of going in the direction he'd started in.

He's filthy, I'm filthy, we both stink and I have no clean clothes coz I washed them all last night and now it seems the dryer has packed in :cryin: So I suppose I do have clean clothes, they're just soaking wet. (Yes, I have a terrible shortage of clothes with only 4 tshirts, a pair of jeans and 2 pairs of jogging pants that fit.)


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## Guest

L/C he is alot more motivated with food than with toys. I can get him past other dogs walking IF I catch his attention first. It's very hard to get his attention otherwise. Mind you he is getting better and will look to me between gazes at the dogs so I've been praising that...
And about training classes there aren't really any nearby that aren't all packleadery types... 

But but but me and Zand are going to a dog show on sunday so hopefully there will be advertisments for trainers there, as well as lots of dogs (arming myself with cheese).


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## Beth17

Had one of those days where you just want to fast forward.

Back at uni today so mum walked Oscar and Sam was at my dad's so didn't need walking as he got to play with his dogs. He's now pooped 

Anywho got Oscar's results back and he has got hypothyroidism however the bloods threw up something else which I will write about in the health section; and then to top it off found out as well today that my dad's 7yr old boxer has cancer.

You all seem to have had a mixed bag as well so rrr: to all the bad bits and onwards and upwards :thumbup:


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## Dogless

Beth17 - I am sorry that you have had bad news today; I haven't read your other thread yet so won't comment further but I truly hope that you're OK xx.

mv - I LOVE hearing about Tink being a bit (only a bit compared to most dogs!!) naughty and she looks so proud in the first photo.

I didn't really enjoy class tonight as the head trainer was busy with someone and their dog and another trainer took it. It was very static and the BW's attention span and boredom threshold when static are low, so it was hard work and, I must admit, quite boring whereas normally we move about quite a lot and do various exercises - this was an awful lot of waiting for one person's turn at something which is OK as long as we move round a little in between BUT....the head trainer came up to us at the end and moved us up a class from next week :thumbup::thumbup:. I am really pleased .


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Beth17 - I am sorry that you have had bad news today; I haven't read your other thread yet so won't comment further but I truly hope that you're OK xx.
> 
> mv - I LOVE hearing about Tink being a bit (only a bit compared to most dogs!!) naughty and she looks so proud in the first photo.
> 
> I didn't really enjoy class tonight as the head trainer was busy with someone and their dog and another trainer took it. It was very static and the BW's attention span and boredom threshold when static are low, so it was hard work and, I must admit, quite boring whereas normally we move about quite a lot and do various exercises - this was an awful lot of waiting for one person's turn at something which is OK as long as we move round a little in between BUT....the head trainer came up to us at the end and moved us up a class from next week :thumbup::thumbup:. I am really pleased .


Thank you I'm ok just sometimes these things just come out of no-where and take you by surprise.

What a shame your class wasn't as good but well done to you and Kilo for moving up a class :thumbup:


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet- I do have a ickle laugh when someone else's dog has been a bit naughty- it so makes a change from mine. They're lovely photos of Tink - my girls are jealous we haven't found any puddles that deep yet.

Beth-you had a rotten day, sorry to hear about Oscar and your Dads Boxer.

Spencer's recall is going well. Itried the lead thing yesterday, it worked for Scruff-she doesn't like it but it was for less than a minute. Moll just steps back and out of it.

Dogless- that sounded a boring lesson- but fantastic that you're moving up.:thumbup:


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> L/C he is alot more motivated with food than with toys. I can get him past other dogs walking IF I catch his attention first. It's very hard to get his attention otherwise. Mind you he is getting better and will look to me between gazes at the dogs so I've been praising that...
> And about training classes there aren't really any nearby that aren't all packleadery types...
> 
> But but but me and Zand are going to a dog show on sunday so hopefully there will be advertisments for trainers there, as well as lots of dogs (arming myself with cheese).


Whereabouts in the UK are you? I pretty much know trainers all over the country and may be able to recommend someone.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- I do have a ickle laugh when someone else's dog has been a bit naughty- it so makes a change from mine. They're lovely photos of Tink - my girls are jealous we haven't found any puddles that deep yet.
> 
> Beth-you had a rotten day, sorry to hear about Oscar and your Dads Boxer.
> 
> *Spencer's recall is going well. Itried the lead thing yesterday, it worked for Scruff-she doesn't like it but it was for less than a minute. Moll just steps back and out of it.*
> 
> Dogless- that sounded a boring lesson- but fantastic that you're moving up.:thumbup:


Yes unfortunately some of the little devils are very clever and it sounds as if Molly is one of them (and Spen)....LOL

I'd still keep doing it though just to say "well that's what happens when you pull".

We've trained our girls every afternoon but the two puppies haven't exactly been wonderful. Not surprising as they are playing mad games from dawn to dusk. Holly is really going to miss her little friend when my sister goes home on Monday morning, although not as much as I shall miss my sister. Just wish we didn't live 150 miles apart.

We're going off to a local golf club after we've walked the dogs where she will thrash me on the 9 holes par 3 - I haven't played for years and was pretty hopeless anyway. I grit my teeth with determination, belt the ball with all my might and it goes forward about 3 inches.... Think it might be a case of giving it a kick when she isn't looking...!!


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## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Whereabouts in the UK are you? I pretty much know trainers all over the country and may be able to recommend someone.


I'm in north dorset 

Theres meant to be a good one in the town over from me, but she no longer runs classes..


----------



## GingerRogers

I am trying (amongst other things) to work on heeling, as taught in our training class this week, anyone have any tips for luring small dogs to treats.

Either she has to jump up or I have to bend over so far I risk tipping over  especially at the mo I have a cold and its making me dizzy.

I am thinking, kitchen tongs, carrot and stick, a piece of string ....nah they all sound a bit wrong....like fishing.


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> I am trying (amongst other things) to work on heeling, as taught in our training class this week, anyone have any tips for luring small dogs to treats.
> 
> Either she has to jump up or I have to bend over so far I risk tipping over  especially at the mo I have a cold and its making me dizzy.
> 
> I am thinking, kitchen tongs, carrot and stick, a piece of string ....nah they all sound a bit wrong....like fishing.


Peanut butter smeared on the end of a wooden spoon?


----------



## GingerRogers

Or the back of my trouser leg  I actually thought about this the other day , I came home and obviously had a strange scent on me, her nose was stuck to my ankle all the way to the back door, brilliant heel work, but yes wooden spoon sounds less messy, ta!


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## kat&molly

Thanks Twiggy- I tried it again this morning with Moll and accepted it whilst we crossed a road. Enjoy being thrashed at golf.


We had a lovely walk this morning, I'm trying to not do too much, think my brains a bit frazzled at the moment for some reason- so just the obligatory Recalls.
However nothing really passes us on the track except for the farmer and he's used to seeing us and slows down. A small van came today- so I stood in the middle rounded up the girls to let it pass. I turned to thank the driver for going slow and Moll stood up to sniff the van - a bit naughty.

If anyone knows how to teach Moll how to put all the toys away like in Golden Shadows clip, I'd love to know- especially without a clicker.


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## kat&molly

We made a start putting the toys away- she's getting the hang of it really quickly, but I need to put the other girls out the way somewhere-Evie keeps pinching everything out of Molls mouth.


----------



## moonviolet

Beth, sorry you had bad news yesterday. I hope it will soon be followed by some good news.

Dogless shame you had a blah class, But congratulations on Sir Kilo's promotion  I hope you are feeling justifiably proud :0

LO (Lurcher owner) Small world  My parents are in North Dorset I grew up around there, on the Somerset/Dorset/Wiltshire border 

Ginger I can second L/C's suggestion I used a wooden spoon for TInk's heelwork. Lowering it for a lick when she was in position 

Twiggy have a lovely time playing golf, I hope at least the weather is kind. At least you hit the ball 

K&M would it be worth training a "mat" command for the others, giving them treats for simply laying on the mat/bed while you work with Molls 

Tink does tidy her toys away, I always thought she was doing it randomly but I tried to do it by name today , she appears to have a set order she likes to do in. cake, bone, bunny, doughnut  :scared: I guess i should be relieved it wasn't H-are E-lephant L-amb P-arrot


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## Guest

Wow Small world indeed Moonviolet, I'm on the somerst/Dorset border...



I got Zander past another lurch today (whos not fond of him) and a really springy JRT... All while feeding of course.

Quick question how often to your dogs get offlead time? Cos with Zander it can vary, hes had two days lead only and he seems alright (got to sniff and chuff along in the woods though). Does lots of sniffing time mentally stimulate dogs? Hahah sorry if thats really rubbish question, just I thought that on the days where I can't/won't run Zander, whether walking in the woodsor somewhere else full of interesting smells would mentally tire him?? :001_cool:


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I am trying (amongst other things) to work on heeling, as taught in our training class this week, anyone have any tips for luring small dogs to treats.
> 
> Either she has to jump up or I have to bend over so far I risk tipping over  especially at the mo I have a cold and its making me dizzy.
> 
> I am thinking, kitchen tongs, carrot and stick, a piece of string ....nah they all sound a bit wrong....like fishing.


Hand follow most definately.

I've got a tall lady handler with a bad back and a small Sheltie and that's the method we've employed.

Have the dog sitting at heel and put a tit-bit on the palm of your hand and put your thumb over it to hold it. Place flat of hand (with thumb underneath) over dog's head and say "what's this?". When the dog looks up drop the tit-bit. Repeat and repeat but if the dog tries up jump up simply remove your hand above your head until the dog is sitting again looking up at your hand. Once you've mastered this with dog sitting in the heel position try moving a few paces forward doing the same and progress from there.


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## Dogless

Twiggy - hope you didn't get too thrashed at golf :scared:.

k&m - nice to hear that you are having a better day.

mv - how did I know that Tink would tidy away her toys? She's a good girl .

LurcherOwner - Kilo gets offlead most days BUT is usually more tired from onlead training walks where we work on lots of stuff or even different walks still onlead with plenty of new sights and sniffs. I think that mental stimulation on walks is really important - there are loads of ways to incorporate it from training, to games, to great sniffs.

Thanks to everyone for congratulating us on going up a class. I am very proud .

Good offlead walk this morning with lots of play and training. This afternoon appeared to be Black Lab Friday :scared:. We had a lead walk and Kilo did well going past or just seeing most as they were on leads, but one offlead ran over, Kilo lay down and the lab stood about 2 metres in front of him eyeballing and growling (this one always does). I tried to move Kilo on, as I know from experience that this lab progresses to standing over and growling and then Kilo reacts but it's almost impossible once he's lying down so I ended up pretty much dragging the poor boy away, tail so far in between his legs that the tip touched his belly . Must learn to handle things better, stupid woman that I am :mad2:.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I'm in north dorset
> 
> Theres meant to be a good one in the town over from me, but she no longer runs classes..


I'll have a look later this evening and try and find someone.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Twiggy- I tried it again this morning with Moll and accepted it whilst we crossed a road. Enjoy being thrashed at golf.
> 
> We had a lovely walk this morning, I'm trying to not do too much, think my brains a bit frazzled at the moment for some reason- so just the obligatory Recalls.
> However nothing really passes us on the track except for the farmer and he's used to seeing us and slows down. A small van came today- so I stood in the middle rounded up the girls to let it pass. I turned to thank the driver for going slow and Moll stood up to sniff the van - a bit naughty.
> 
> If anyone knows how to teach Moll how to put all the toys away like in Golden Shadows clip, I'd love to know- especially without a clicker.


My sister only beat me by 4 strokes so I was pretty pleased with myself, considering it's about 25 years since I've picked up a golf club.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Good offlead walk this morning with lots of play and training. This afternoon appeared to be Black Lab Friday :scared:. We had a lead walk and Kilo did well going past or just seeing most as they were on leads, but one offlead ran over, Kilo lay down and the lab stood about 2 metres in front of him eyeballing and growling (this one always does). I tried to move Kilo on, as I know from experience that this lab progresses to standing over and growling and then Kilo reacts but it's almost impossible once he's lying down so I ended up pretty much dragging the poor boy away, tail so far in between his legs that the tip touched his belly . Must learn to handle things better, stupid woman that I am :mad2:.


Have you tried the Voice of Doom in this situation? I find that generally works well with bullies like this. Poor Kilo, why the hell do this dogs owners not give a sh*t? I really don't understand how people can think this sort of behaviour is acceptable.


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet-Tink is such a good girl putting toys away- and in order.
and the girls know 'bed' but I'd have to staple Evie down to keep her there. I had to put them outside in the end.

Molls picking it up well, she's learnt to bring them to the 'box'- its just making sure the toy lands in it now. I showed OH, he was slightly impressed-which translates to normal folk as 'wow brilliant'.

Dogless-Poor Kilo. Only you could have a Black Lab Friday. Obviously the owner doesn't give a toss that your dogs upset?

Sounds a good game of Golf Twiggy-I hope you didn't cheat.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Have you tried the Voice of Doom in this situation? I find that generally works well with bullies like this. Poor Kilo, why the hell do this dogs owners not give a sh*t? I really don't understand how people can think this sort of behaviour is acceptable.


I agree with you , with repeat offenders i have been known to stand in front of Tink and Point at the dogs owner and say " GO" followed by "back to your owner and stop bothering us" :blush: I'm mortified when doing it but I figure that if it makes the people avoid us I'm kind of getting what i want.

Tink is having a little training session with OH now and I'm quite relieved she is bringing toys to the basket by name and not in set order she was earlier. Her key retrieves are reassuringly consistent. So hopefully i'll be ok if i drop them on a walk now :thumbup:

Had a lovely evening walk witn Monty (bc) and his human. well behaved dogs and lovely chat does it get any better . We bumped into the 2 RR's again, I think i showed amazing self control when after saying goodbye the young one stayed behind... it would have been so easy to slip a lead on him and RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I'm in north dorset
> 
> Theres meant to be a good one in the town over from me, but she no longer runs classes..


Well I've had a look and can't find anyone I know very well in your area.

There are a number of clubs on the Kennel Club website that run puppy foundation and Good Citizen up to gold standard though.


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## Rah

George and I are working on house training and recall at the moment.

We've gone three days without any accidents which is great!

Recall in the house is perfect, it's just I'm not as interesting when it comes to outside 

SJ x


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Well I've had a look and can't find anyone I know very well in your area.
> 
> There are a number of clubs on the Kennel Club website that run puppy foundation and Good Citizen up to gold standard though.


Thank you very much for trying. I shall gander at the KC website soon. 

On a different note I bought some green mesh to heighten our fences today so Zander can hoepfully run around his own garden without hightailing over the bl**dy fence. Luckily most people near us know him.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I agree with you , with repeat offenders i have been known to stand in front of Tink and Point at the dogs owner and say " GO" followed by "back to your owner and stop bothering us" :blush: I'm mortified when doing it but I figure that if it makes the people avoid us I'm kind of getting what i want.


I don't give a monkeys what the other owner thinks any more. Nor do I care if the offending dog has issues I might make worse by using the Voice of Doom, my priority is my dog and his well being.

Spencer showed that he's come quite a way with his issues with the Turks today. Took him out for a walk and encountered two of them shouting at/to each other. Now at one point that would have triggered Spen to launch an all out lunging, barking, snarling attack even though they weren't actually near us. Today his body language was aggressive, puckered mouth, up on toes, tail right up, very tense, but that's as far as it went. He came away when called with a cheery "let's go buddy" (he couldn't have reached them as he was on his long line but I didn't want to just drag him) and we passed at a distance with lots of rewards.

Recall is still going well. We've also done some work on walking with me and making eye contact at the same time today. He's able to walk with me and he's able to give eye contact for about 10 seconds but put them together and he falls apart lol. Also done more work on leave it but this time outdoors since he's pretty good indoors.

But there's a naughty bit too. Woke up in the middle of the night and guess where I found Spencer? Curled up at the bottom of the bed between me and hubby  I don't know whether he sneaks up there regularly when we're asleep but I suppose as long as he's not disturbing us it doesn't really matter.


----------



## Twiggy

Rah said:


> George and I are working on house training and recall at the moment.
> 
> We've gone three days without any accidents which is great!
> 
> Recall in the house is perfect, it's just I'm not as interesting when it comes to outside
> 
> SJ x


Yes I know the feeling...LOL

Whilst my sisters staying with her two younger dogs, I'm way down the list of interesting people as far as my puppy, Holly, is concerned.


----------



## Dogless

Hope everyone has had a good weekend. We have had lots of offlead play and training on the fields and some long ish periods on lead for training. We saw quite a few black labs yesterday too and Kilo was easily distracted by his toy.

This morning we saw his rescue dog friend who doesn't like many other dogs but they get on nicely :thumbup:.

Two blips; one was someone bringing their beagle over to sniff when Kilo lay down (on lead as the beagle was). Kilo barked at him - I think because he stood over him, but his hackles weren't raised and it was 'noise' rather than a threatening bark. I have explained that badly I know!

Second blip was today on the sports pitches - Kilo was offllead playing with me and his ball on rope; a man had been walking around the outside for ages that he'd disregarded. After about 20 minutes the man was on the same side as us for the first time and walking behind us and Kilo went very 'alert' and fixated and started one of his 'run ins' towards him. He came back when recalled (after an agonising pause) and only got to within about 50m of the man, but all the same it wasn't too good. The man was chatting on his mobile the whole time; not entirely sure he even noticed!


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## Werehorse

At the moment I'm working on not smashing my laptop and uncooperative netbook against walls and furniture. :mad2: Technology is great but when it fails it is very frustrating. I had to read a book this weekend - I mean what's THAT all about?  

Not done much training with the dogs just walks and a bit of LLW with distractions in the nearest town with Oscar after a paranoia based trip to the vets (brown smudge on eye - nothing to worry about, lump on pad - corn, nothing to worry about, scabby ears - harvest mites just need bathing in hibiscrub to combat very mild secondary infection.... as opposed to MY per-vet version which was, eye - going blind/will have to have eye removed; lump on pad - cancer, probably spread; scabby ears - weird circulatory disease of some sort requiring ear-tip amputation  My vets love and hate me in equal measure I'm sure!).

He was V.Good at vets and Mod.Good at LLW - so much better but still so much to do.

Also application forms for PAT dogness have arrived.  For Oscar - Hugo is too mad. Fingers crossed we can pass the assessment - it's something we've wanted to do with him since he was a tiny puppy and it was becoming clear how much he loves people and how much people respond to him, but we've had to wait until the mad pulling everywhere calmed down... I'm hoping it has calmed down enough but we may have to wait longer. And I certainly couldn't do it while I was teaching full time!

Dogless - at least he recalled and the chap didn't notice, no harm done I'd say.  Not what you want him to be doing but the successful recall will build another brick in the foundation of future successful recalls in similar situations.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> At the moment I'm working on not smashing my laptop and uncooperative netbook against walls and furniture. :mad2: Technology is great but when it fails it is very frustrating. I had to read a book this weekend - I mean what's THAT all about?
> 
> Not done much training with the dogs just walks and a bit of LLW with distractions in the nearest town with Oscar after a paranoia based trip to the vets (brown smudge on eye - nothing to worry about, lump on pad - corn, nothing to worry about, scabby ears - harvest mites just need bathing in hibiscrub to combat very mild secondary infection.... as opposed to MY per-vet version which was, eye - going blind/will have to have eye removed; lump on pad - cancer, probably spread; scabby ears - weird circulatory disease of some sort requiring ear-tip amputation  My vets love and hate me in equal measure I'm sure!).
> 
> He was V.Good at vets and Mod.Good at LLW - so much better but still so much to do.
> 
> Also application forms for PAT dogness have arrived.  For Oscar - Hugo is too mad. Fingers crossed we can pass the assessment - it's something we've wanted to do with him since he was a tiny puppy and it was becoming clear how much he loves people and how much people respond to him, but we've had to wait until the mad pulling everywhere calmed down... I'm hoping it has calmed down enough but we may have to wait longer. And I certainly couldn't do it while I was teaching full time!
> 
> Dogless - at least he recalled and the chap didn't notice, no harm done I'd say.  Not what you want him to be doing but the successful recall will build another brick in the foundation of future successful recalls in similar situations.


Pleased the paranoia was unfounded :thumbup: and hope the PAT dog route is successful, a really great thing to do!

He has always recalled in that situation (touch wood!) so I am pleased but he hasn't 'stalked' or displayed any predatory - type behaviour towards someone in a while, that's all. Hopefully it's a one - off as I'd possibly wet myself if a large, unknown offlead dog showed that degree of intensity towards me :scared:.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope everyones had a good weekend.

Werehorse- pleased Oscars ok-that sounds like me, I worry about every little thing. PAT work sounds promising.

Dogless- Kilo was good for recalling. That was Scruff's bad habit-but she managed to run right up to a couple of people and bark at them before I got a grip on it.She looked quite intimidating. 
Perhaps there was something about the chap he didn't like.

Not much for us, just nice walks still for the minute.
Molls doing really well at putting all the toys away. I send her to find a toy, and she'll bring it to the 'box'- but I have to guide her by the collar as she gets closer because otherwise theres every chance it lands just outside, I'm not sure if she'll get that just by repitition?
She also seems to have forgotten her Down at a distance  so I want to sort that out this week.
The advanced Pet gundog should arrive this week.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Hope everyones had a good weekend.
> 
> Werehorse- pleased Oscars ok-that sounds like me, I worry about every little thing. PAT work sounds promising.
> 
> Dogless- Kilo was good for recalling. That was Scruff's bad habit-but she managed to run right up to a couple of people and bark at them before I got a grip on it.She looked quite intimidating.
> * Perhaps there was something about the chap he didn't like*.
> 
> Not much for us, just nice walks still for the minute.
> Molls doing really well at putting all the toys away. I send her to find a toy, and she'll bring it to the 'box'- but I have to guide her by the collar as she gets closer because otherwise theres every chance it lands just outside, I'm not sure if she'll get that just by repitition?
> She also seems to have forgotten her Down at a distance  so I want to sort that out this week.
> The advanced Pet gundog should arrive this week.


This absolutely; there are a few folk that he just doesn't like even though he's never met them. One man he will fixate on and 'track' from a huge distance - this man has never even been in close enough proximity for us to even say "morning" but Kilo really doesn't like something about him. I have a feeling that perhaps this evening was the man coming round so that he was behind us and walking towards us - who knows, as he'd ignored his presence for 20 minutes!! And at least Scruff is small - not quite as worrying I wouldn't have thought!! Hopefully it's a one - off and I'm just over thinking :frown2:.

I'm pleased you're just having nice walks and your hair isn't on fire over your perceived failings any more :thumbup:. Bet you're excited about the book's arrival too .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> This absolutely; there are a few folk that he just doesn't like even though he's never met them. One man he will fixate on and 'track' from a huge distance - this man has never even been in close enough proximity for us to even say "morning" but Kilo really doesn't like something about him. I have a feeling that perhaps this evening was the man coming round so that he was behind us and walking towards us - who knows, as he'd ignored his presence for 20 minutes!! And at least Scruff is small - not quite as worrying I wouldn't have thought!! Hopefully it's a one - off and I'm just over thinking :frown2:.
> 
> I'm pleased you're just having nice walks and your hair isn't on fire over your perceived failings any more :thumbup:. Bet you're excited about the book's arrival too .


Hopefully it is a one off.

I do feel much better about things- but I'm not going to resume training the LLW with them altogether,I just feel its one I wont win and I dont want the stress of it spoiling walks , they are lovely on their own now so I just want a quick fix. Twiggys trick worked today coming through the village but if I need to use head collars I will.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Hopefully it is a one off.
> 
> I do feel much better about things- but I'm not going to resume training the LLW with them altogether,I just feel its one I wont win and I dont want the stress of it spoiling walks , they are lovely on their own now so I just want a quick fix. Twiggys trick worked today coming through the village but if I need to use head collars I will.


I'm sure it is - and do also need to remember that he did come back when asked!!

I don't blame you; when it starts to spoil your enjoyment of your dogs it is time to look at other solutions.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Hopefully it is a one off.
> 
> I do feel much better about things- but I'm not going to resume training the LLW with them altogether,I just feel its one I wont win and I dont want the stress of it spoiling walks , they are lovely on their own now so I just want a quick fix. Twiggys trick worked today coming through the village but if I need to use head collars I will.


Pleased to hear that....:thumbup:


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Pleased to hear that....:thumbup:


Thanks.
I give them the chance first to walk nicely- when they dont I put the lead through the legs. So far its only had to be for a minute or two at a time but I'm half hoping it sinks in.


----------



## moonviolet

Nothing much to report from the home of the surrey grothound.  No incidents, lovely walks that incorporated some training, reinforcing her "mat" out on the common , running through her "routine" snippet in the woods and generally hooning about like fools. A good weekend  I feel so blessed we had a second chance. I had intended to use the last of the daylight playing fetch with a ball in the garden pfft she'll humour me a couple of times then she loses interest. So i gave that in and did another mini training session which she loved. I thought I was going to be able to get away with sitting down, no such luck :lol: :lol:


Dogless, kilo did very well to recall and you should be pleased with him. If you think about it He may well have felt you were being hunted/stalked by the man, in the area for a while then begins to approach from the rear.

Werehorse I'm glad the vet's visit brought reassurance  good luck with the PAT dog assessment. it'll be a wonderful rewarding thing to do.

K&M so nice that you are sounding so much happier today. I'm glad you have found a workable balance.


----------



## Dogless

mv - Grothound :lol::lol::lol:.

Wise words as ever - the man had been directly opposite us for the whole time pretty much (minimum of a pitch width away) and although Kilo had shown no interest beyond a glance when we came in (I walked him around a little on lead first to ensure he had no real interest!) I suppose he was very aware of his position all the time. It does make sense that when he came much closer and in behind us that it was a sudden change in the environment which is what Kilo is very sensitive to. Don't think it's longline time again as he did do as I asked and once back on lead lost most of his interest - although he did have a few glances backwards.


----------



## Dogless

What a stupendous morning!!! Went to the park as it was the first good weather we've had for a while (raining now though ). Kilo was very good and actually walked past all dogs without feeling the need to lie down, everyone was out so we got to see all our 'friends' BUT best still we went past THE lab who has caused most of the problems we have without problems and I got to clear the air with the owner :thumbup:. The lab was with the woman which I usually hate as she lets him run over to attack but *today she put him on the lead .* Kilo saw him and rather than looking anxious, lying down, fixating or posturing he chose a very involved and prolonged sniffing of the ground off to the side as his tactic....and the lab went past with no problems . The owner said "Your dog really is beautiful" so I thanked her and just said "Yours is lovely too, it's just a shame they don't get on" - and we both smiled and walked on. So, hatchet buried I think .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> What a stupendous morning!!! Went to the park as it was the first good weather we've had for a while (raining now though ). Kilo was very good and actually walked past all dogs without feeling the need to lie down, everyone was out so we got to see all our 'friends' BUT best still we went past THE lab who has caused most of the problems we have without problems and I got to clear the air with the owner :thumbup:. The lab was with the woman which I usually hate as she lets him run over to attack but *today she put him on the lead .* Kilo saw him and rather than looking anxious, lying down, fixating or posturing he chose a very involved and prolonged sniffing of the ground off to the side as his tactic....and the lab went past with no problems . The owner said "Your dog really is beautiful" so I thanked her and just said "Yours is lovely too, it's just a shame they don't get on" - and we both smiled and walked on. So, hatchet buried I think .


A stupendous morning indeed madam.:thumbup: 
How simple was that- all she had to do was put a lead on her Lab.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> A stupendous morning indeed madam.:thumbup:
> How simple was that- all she had to do was put a lead on her Lab.


I was so pleased I could have cried . Kilo got lots of treats .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I was so pleased I could have cried . Kilo got lots of treats .


I'm not surprised, You and Kilo have had to put up with a lot.

Now someone stick a bomb up my backside, my poor girls haven't had a walk yet- I'm getting lots of Pfffts and Spaniel eyes.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I'm not surprised, You and Kilo have had to put up with a lot.
> 
> Now someone stick a bomb up my backside, my poor girls haven't had a walk yet- I'm getting lots of Pfffts and Spaniel eyes.


GO AND WALK THE GIRLS, YOU BAD OWNER!!!!! .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> What a stupendous morning!!! Went to the park as it was the first good weather we've had for a while (raining now though ). Kilo was very good and actually walked past all dogs without feeling the need to lie down, everyone was out so we got to see all our 'friends' BUT best still we went past THE lab who has caused most of the problems we have without problems and I got to clear the air with the owner :thumbup:. The lab was with the woman which I usually hate as she lets him run over to attack but *today she put him on the lead .* Kilo saw him and rather than looking anxious, lying down, fixating or posturing he chose a very involved and prolonged sniffing of the ground off to the side as his tactic....and the lab went past with no problems . The owner said "Your dog really is beautiful" so I thanked her and just said "Yours is lovely too, it's just a shame they don't get on" - and we both smiled and walked on. So, hatchet buried I think .


Oh that's brilliant...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh that's brilliant...!!


It felt like a real breakthrough. I have no problems with the lie down really and it's far better than a defensive bark but he was just so much more relaxed this morning . It probably sounds a bit daft getting so excited about it, but labs aren't exactly rare so to start relaxing around them is a very big deal to us!!


----------



## Werehorse

That's really good news Dogless.


----------



## Twiggy

My sister and I had a lovely day yesterday.

After we walked the dogs we went to the golf club again (she beat me again ) and then had lunch there.

Then we trained the dogs in the afternoon and Holly was a really good little girl:










So was Mini:










And Barley:










Tremor always tries very hard:










Sadly my sister went home this morning. The week flew by and Holly is missing her new best friend Mini.


----------



## kat&molly

Gorgeous photos Twiggy.
And just look at Holly Bolly being a good girl.


----------



## Dogless

Lovely photos Twiggy; bet the house is quiet after Mini and Holly running riot!!

I always love seeing the sort of intensity that the dogs are showing, particularly Tremor.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Lovely photos Twiggy; bet the house is quiet after Mini and Holly running riot!!
> 
> I always love seeing the sort of intensity that the dogs are showing, particularly Tremor.


Molly has that sort of intensity- just never at the right times.:laugh:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Molly has that sort of intensity- just never at the right times.:laugh:


Kilo does - for prey / chase type things . One of the most common things people say to me is "Isn't he intense?" - he is I agree, but never always at the right time either . I sort of mean in the "can't do enough to please you" way :aureola:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Kilo does - for prey / chase type things . One of the most common things people say to me is "Isn't he intense?" - he is I agree, but never always at the right time either . I sort of mean in the "can't do enough to please you" way :aureola:.


Mollys is the ruddy tennis ball-and she can go over the top.


----------



## L/C

Well done to Kilo, Holly and grotbag!

We had a very good and a very bad weekend.

First the good:

We were at Wansted park at the weekend having a mooch when we turned a corner and ran into a group of ten dogs! 2 tiny chis, a three legged Jack, 2 GSPs, 2 bichon x's, a GSD, an OES and a springer. Ely was fantastic with no stiff body language or worry at all - he had a quick greet and sniff and was quite happy to be around them all. They were all unknown and it was a completely surprise to meet them so he did extremely well. He was surrounded by them as well so we didn't even get to do staggered introductions!

Earlier in the walk I did some scent trails with Gypsy which she enjoyed and continued practising down stays with both of them. Again they held their down stays while being approached by other dogs and Ely only broke his when a Jack (different one) actually jumped on his back! Gypsy's focus on me is now really, really good when she's working.

I took Gypsy out on a training walk on Sunday (just me and her) and it was very good. Lots of training with distractions and I got my first comment about how I was being unfair and not just letting her be a dog! I was very proud. 

Now the bad - we had to take Ely to the emergency vet on Saturday night.  I'd settled the dogs in the garden with a bone each when we got back from our walk. After he finished he came back in and just couldn't get comfortable - he was pacing about and panting. His breathing got raspy and as we were desperately ringing around to find a taxi to take us to the vet he seemed to perk up and was perfectly normal. So we thought he'd got something stuck in his throat and now he was ok.

About half 8 he suddenly went down hill. He got up on the sofa and then fell off. We got him into the kitchen and he was very disorientated and didn't seem to know where he was and he was drooling. We took him to the closer emergency vet - once outside he perked up again and was happy to walk there. By this point I was panicking about bloat (despite not having fed him since the bone that morning) and obstructions. At the vet she checked him over - no tender spots on his belly, no pain anywhere and concluded he probably just felt a bit under the weather. She gave him a painkiller/sedative to help him relax and sent us back with instructions to bring him back if he got worse.

So he was very woozy for the rest of the evening and the next morning and seems back to normal now but we'll be keeping an eye on him. He has also now pooed (lots and lots as he hadn't since Sat morn), the level of praise I gave him for doing that earned me some strange looks on our walk this morning! And my bank balance is a little bit lighter.


----------



## Dogless

L/C I 'liked' the post for the good bits - who would have thought Ely would just be able to cope in a big group of dogs a while ago? He is doing superbly, as is Gypsy .

Saturday sounds really frightening though; I'm pleased Ely's back to normal, but what a scare!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Lovely photos Twiggy; bet the house is quiet after Mini and Holly running riot!!
> 
> I always love seeing the sort of intensity that the dogs are showing, particularly Tremor.


Yes Tremor is a very intense dog and so is Quiver (both from the same lines).

Yes the house does seem quiet; even my hubby commented on it and Holly doesn't understand why her friends have gone.

My sister got back down to Sussex safe and sound although she said it poured with rain most of the way.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes Tremor is a very intense dog and so is Quiver (both from the same lines).
> 
> Yes the house does seem quiet; even my hubby commented on it and Holly doesn't understand why her friends have gone.
> 
> My sister got back down to Sussex safe and sound although she said it poured with rain most of the way.


Even the names 'Tremor' and 'Quiver' suggest some sort of energy vibrating through them don't they?


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Well done to Kilo, Holly and grotbag!
> 
> We had a very good and a very bad weekend.
> 
> First the good:
> 
> We were at Wansted park at the weekend having a mooch when we turned a corner and ran into a group of ten dogs! 2 tiny chis, a three legged Jack, 2 GSPs, 2 bichon x's, a GSD, an OES and a springer. Ely was fantastic with no stiff body language or worry at all - he had a quick greet and sniff and was quite happy to be around them all. They were all unknown and it was a completely surprise to meet them so he did extremely well. He was surrounded by them as well so we didn't even get to do staggered introductions!
> 
> Earlier in the walk I did some scent trails with Gypsy which she enjoyed and continued practising down stays with both of them. Again they held their down stays while being approached by other dogs and Ely only broke his when a Jack (different one) actually jumped on his back! Gypsy's focus on me is now really, really good when she's working.
> 
> I took Gypsy out on a training walk on Sunday (just me and her) and it was very good. Lots of training with distractions and I got my first comment about how I was being unfair and not just letting her be a dog! I was very proud.
> 
> Now the bad - we had to take Ely to the emergency vet on Saturday night.  I'd settled the dogs in the garden with a bone each when we got back from our walk. After he finished he came back in and just couldn't get comfortable - he was pacing about and panting. His breathing got raspy and as we were desperately ringing around to find a taxi to take us to the vet he seemed to perk up and was perfectly normal. So we thought he'd got something stuck in his throat and now he was ok.
> 
> About half 8 he suddenly went down hill. He got up on the sofa and then fell off. We got him into the kitchen and he was very disorientated and didn't seem to know where he was and he was drooling. We took him to the closer emergency vet - once outside he perked up again and was happy to walk there. By this point I was panicking about bloat (despite not having fed him since the bone that morning) and obstructions. At the vet she checked him over - no tender spots on his belly, no pain anywhere and concluded he probably just felt a bit under the weather. She gave him a painkiller/sedative to help him relax and sent us back with instructions to bring him back if he got worse.
> 
> So he was very woozy for the rest of the evening and the next morning and seems back to normal now but we'll be keeping an eye on him. He has also now pooed (lots and lots as he hadn't since Sat morn), the level of praise I gave him for doing that earned me some strange looks on our walk this morning! And my bank balance is a little bit lighter.


How scary. I've have joined you in the panic mode. Hope he remains OK and he was just a bit under the weather.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Even the names 'Tremor' and 'Quiver' suggest some sort of energy vibrating through them don't they?


They do.
I wonder if we'd named Jay Roadrunner , she'd have learned to move a bit faster.

L/C - the Pointy Twins are doing really well.:thumbup: How scary with Ely though, I hope he stays ok now.


----------



## Twiggy

My sister's just sent some of the pics she took and I just had to share these two:


----------



## Dogless

Gorgeous photos Twiggy; bet Holly Bolly had a riot with Mini!


----------



## Dogless

Good walk again this afternoon - bit of offlead but mostly training and the BW was really good for me. Got home just as a massive thunderstorm started so only got a tiny bit wet instead of saturated for a change :thumbup:.

One sad part though; last Christmas a lady got a puppy and was telling me how this tiny pup didn't respect her even though she pinned her down every time she did anything wrong - we had a chat about positive methods etc and I thought she might stop the dominance stuff. Today I saw her round the side of a building (she didn't see us walk by) with the dog. The dog was being a bit boisterous and jumping up to try and get the ball from the ball launcher - so the woman started smacking the dog with the ball launcher...which got the dog more hyped up and jumpy, which was earning it a kicking . Unsure whether to say anything / mention classes if I see her without the dog, but I rarely see her - have only seen the dog walked 3 times when I have been out so it might be a while.


----------



## Guest

Dogless maybe you could find a leaflet for a local dog class and either keep it on you to show her next time you see her, or if you know where she lives pop it thru the letter box?? 

Today Zanders mac came. Its a couple inches short I think ( a couple inches above his tail gonna get wet), but I dunno has I haven't seen how they're meant to be. 

He was very good today. We got past a goldie, got past the JRT that bit him, he did get terribly overly boisterous with a little pup though while greeting so he got taken away. He also went lolloping towards this lab while in the field, who was also offlead. I apologized lots when I got towards them, but the woman said she didn't mind as if she thought that there was going to be a problem then they both would have been on leads by now. 
Turns out Zander DOES have recall from other dogs, but you have to be like 6ft away. Its not much but its a start...


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Still working on walking past other dogs nicely on lead without having to say hello (phase he has been going though recently!) and not pulling to get there when he is allowed to meet. I have been putting a huge amount of effort in for the past month or so and (touch wood!) we are there; had a lovely walk this morning and met quite a few dogs nicely. The good thing is, is that people do stop and chat when Kilo is walking nicely or sitting so he does get to greet dogs whereas they avoid us if he is being a bit excitable!


That's the problem I've had all along with Charlie- he jumps with all four paws off the ground like he's on a spring, then lunges towards them...I'm 5'2 and he's a big 40kg labrador lol so I've been pulled off my feet a few times! What have you been doing with your dog thats helped? Ive tried making Charlie sit but he wont listen :mad2:


----------



## Maggs

We are getting more into walking next to me and not pulling. She is doing so well when we are on our own, but as soon as we walk alongside other dogs (sometimes in front or behind), she just won't stop pooling to get in front or just keeps turning to see what's behind


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> That's the problem I've had all along with Charlie- he jumps with all four paws off the ground like he's on a spring, then lunges towards them...I'm 5'2 and he's a big 40kg labrador lol so I've been pulled off my feet a few times! What have you been doing with your dog thats helped? Ive tried making Charlie sit but he wont listen :mad2:


It's all in this massive thread if you're brave enough to read it :scared:.

If not..
- Training classes to work around other dogs.
- Working very hard on loose lead walking.
- Ensuring pulling is never successful.
- Distracting with treats / a toy if appropriate.
- Our sit was always OK, but you could try asking for one in lots and lots of environments - the trick is to get your dog's attention before he's really over threshold with excitement. I don't think of it that my dog won't listen, I think of it that he can't as he's fixated on something else.
- A headcollar and double ended training lead.


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> *That's the problem I've had all along with Charlie- he jumps with all four paws off the ground like he's on a spring, then lunges towards them...*I'm 5'2 and he's a big 40kg labrador lol so I've been pulled off my feet a few times! What have you been doing with your dog thats helped? Ive tried making Charlie sit but he wont listen :mad2:


THAT is Zander. You have described my dog in a single sentence. 
I used teeny bits of cheddar to start of with and fed him whenever he looked at me not the other dog or you can to start off with just KEEP feeding till hes past the other dog. Like, you see other dog and you FEED FEED FEED, cos of this Zander will look at me more now.

Have no idea if thats helpful.

I SECOND THE HEADCOLLAR. Immensley helpful. Doesn't stop them springing but your shoulder shouldnt pop out at much


----------



## Beth17

We have had a lovely few days here the boys have been really good and now Sam has his harness on for walks I think we have turned a bit of a corner  Oscar is loving having tablets every morning as it means he gets to have some cheese and yesterday a dog walked past us and instead of straining to follow he kept on sniffing the verge 
I doubt the tablets have actually kicked in yet but it will be interesting to see if he calms down a bit.
Went to the beach today with both of them and Sam absolutely loved it. :thumbup:

L/C all your hard work has really paid off well done :thumbup: Glad Ely is felling better 

Lovely pictures Twiggy!

LurcherOwner that sounds like positive progress 

Dogless glad you managed to stay fairly dry  such a shame about that poor dog though :frown: what a difficult situation.


----------



## moonviolet

Ever wished you'd just kept your mouth shut, not gone for the polite approach and simply dealt with something directly yourself?

Ignore me, i'll be rocking and mumbling in the corner for a bit until I've "proccessed" what has been discussed and come to some form of acceptance.


----------



## Dogless

Beth 17 - fantastic!!

mv - hope all OK xx.


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet-Hope everythings ok.

Beth- Sounds brilliant, its a great feeling when everything comes together.
And Donkeyboy is improving.


----------



## Werehorse

Hope you're ok, Moonviolet?


----------



## moonviolet

I'm fine ,thanks for the concern . I was allowing myself to get angry (with humans not dogs)and I just had to take myself off to the corner to cool off and remind myself getting cross doesn't acheive anything. Feeling better after a good night's sleep.

Hope everyone has a great day.


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- Pleased you're feeling better. Tell me to mind my own but I hope its nothing to do with the dog that upset Tink last week at training.

I've been having a few problems with Moll, guarding stuff and getting grumpy with the cats[Spaniels eh, Werehorse]. Its gotten a bit worse as my 'Ah ah leave the cats' isn't working. Normally it would.
If I'm preparing dog dinner and a cat comes for food , Moll has been trying to stop the cats getting anywhere near me.Including snapping at them-now I put Moll in a down stay -that works.

Moll is the only dog that sleeps on the bed, and sometimes so does Darcy , once the cats finished padding around and settled down Molls ok , but when she first jumps up she'll try and snap at the cat, I hold Molls head out the way until the cats settled. Last night I held her head again and gave her 'tickle on the tum'[she knows that] she still wanted to get to the cat but it was better and not one growl.
Dont want to use treats as I'll disturb the other girls - and food about may make it worse.
I dont want to stop Moll sleeping on the bed, but I wont put the cats at risk . Theres no problem any other time- just this bed thingy really. 
Really hope I can sort this and if anyone has any ideas I'd be glad to hear them.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- Pleased you're feeling better. Tell me to mind my own but I hope its nothing to do with the dog that upset Tink last week at training.
> 
> I've been having a few problems with Moll, guarding stuff and getting grumpy with the cats[Spaniels eh, Werehorse]. Its gotten a bit worse as my 'Ah ah leave the cats' isn't working. Normally it would.
> If I'm preparing dog dinner and a cat comes for food , Moll has been trying to stop the cats getting anywhere near me.Including snapping at them-now I put Moll in a down stay -that works.
> 
> Moll is the only dog that sleeps on the bed, and sometimes so does Darcy , once the cats finished padding around and settled down Molls ok , but when she first jumps up she'll try and snap at the cat, I hold Molls head out the way until the cats settled. Last night I held her head again and gave her 'tickle on the tum'[she knows that] she still wanted to get to the cat but it was better and not one growl.
> Dont want to use treats as I'll disturb the other girls - and food about may make it worse.
> I dont want to stop Moll sleeping on the bed, but I wont put the cats at risk . Theres no problem any other time- just this bed thingy really.
> Really hope I can sort this and if anyone has any ideas I'd be glad to hear them.


Sorry I don't have anything helpful to suggest.

Yes it is related to that and everything really, I'm feeling a bit deflated really, Sometimes it feels like i spend my whole doggie life walking on eggshells, risk assessing every minute every day, while everyone else blithely wanders through their dog lives with not a care in the world.

A bit exhausted, as for classes weighing up the positives gained against the amount of stress and finding the balance a little to evenly weighted to be enthusiastic right now.

ETA : feel free to give me kick up the rear, i'm clearly having a pity party


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Sorry I don't have anything helpful to suggest.
> 
> Yes it is related to that and everything really, I'm feeling a bit deflated really, Sometimes it feels like i spend my whole doggie life walking on eggshells, risk assessing every minute every day, while everyone else blithely wanders through their dog lives with not a care in the world.
> 
> A bit exhausted, as for classes weighing up the positives gained against the amount of stress and finding the balance a little to evenly weighted to be enthusiastic right now.


MV- this isn't like you, you're the bubbly one that always helps and comforts us.I wish I had something helpful to say- but we are all here for you.

Have a good moan to us-it would make a change wouldn't it.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> MV- this isn't like you, you're the bubbly one that always helps and comforts us.I wish I had something helpful to say- but we are all here for you.
> 
> Have a good moan to us-it would make a change wouldn't it.


I don't get like this all that often to be fair, I usually kind of process things, learn from them and let them go trying to see them as positive things I learned from, but there have been a few little incidents that i didn't really give much thought to at the time they happened but appear to have festered like splinters, maybe because there wasn't anything I could learn from them....nothing like a bit of pus :yikes:

one of which was a person I know and have respected, was dog sitting 2 dogs, I was walking back to the car along a track, TInk was on lead, as there are often a few vehicles about. This person was approaching from the front all 4 dogs offlead. Her 2 which Tink knows bounce over followed by one of the "dog sits" then as she's saying the other is a bit nervous he charges over growls snarls and barks in Tinks face. One of her own dogs steps in and deflects him. Tink quite literally shakes it off in minutes ( woohoo good girl) I had filed it , lesson learned :take a little more care, be on alert to block even with people you thought were dog savvy, dogs can surprise us. here comes the rub. A few days later bumped into them again with monty and his human , all dogs offlead greeted nicely .... but in the course of conversation thsi person describes what happened as her charge giving Tink a " low growl" erm no that isnt' what happened.... so now i've lost respect in your handling of dogs and your integrity in telling the flaming truth.

Our wednesday course has slightly limited parking close to the venue and the councilin their wisdom don't have the street lights lit, so when the class before kicks out late and there is another thing going on in the rooms upstairs it can be a pain to park and it becomes a dangerous chaos of pups leaving dogs arriving, cars coming and going no pavement and no light. So that's a great way to start a class

mumble grumble i'm going to take her ladyship out now, maybe some fresh air will cheer me up.


----------



## kat&molly

Oh dear. Tink shook it off really well, so thats good, but she sounds like she's a bit blinkered in her view of what really happened, though. Did she change her story perhaps because because Monty and his Mum were there.
Turning up for classes sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Hope you've had a lovely walk with Tink and feel better soon


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> It's all in this massive thread if you're brave enough to read it :scared:.
> 
> If not..
> - Training classes to work around other dogs.
> - Working very hard on loose lead walking.
> - Ensuring pulling is never successful.
> - Distracting with treats / a toy if appropriate.
> - Our sit was always OK, but you could try asking for one in lots and lots of environments - the trick is to get your dog's attention before he's really over threshold with excitement. I don't think of it that my dog won't listen, I think of it that he can't as he's fixated on something else.
> - A headcollar and double ended training lead.


Ive been working my way through this thread (slowly but surely and with a big mug of coffee  ) Yes he pulls on the lead for a few minutes when he's first out but every time he pulls I stop in my tracks until he backs up, then I say 'heel' but it's been going on so long I think the dog just thinks this is how you're meant to walk!! Stop go, stop go lol. 
I've tried distracting him but for a dog that's SO playful, he just gets so fixated on the oncoming dog that it's like he's frozen... food doesnt work either! But Ive gotta keep trying and making sure I confront the problem cos I dont want to spend the rest of his life crossing roads away from other dogs and walking him where there's no other dogs- at least he's not aggressive


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Oh dear. Tink shook it off really well, so thats good, but she sounds like she's a bit blinkered in her view of what really happened, though. Did she change her story perhaps because because Monty and his Mum were there.
> Turning up for classes sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
> 
> Hope you've had a lovely walk with Tink and feel better soon


I walk in late now after all the madness is over, despite turning up 10 mins before class. It's just not worth the hassle.

Well that could have gone better :lol: :lol:

Shirt and trousers in the wash thanks to the lab that jumped up my back and the collie that jumped up my front. 

Had a good moment too, paused for a moment to pass the time of day with a dog friend and their human who was heading in the opposite direction , she sustained an injury recently and this is this first i've seen her out and about since her stitches were removed. A GSD appeared, Tink and I spotted at the same time.... she tensed and ...... sat lifted her paw to have her lead on    Historically it would have been a fast collar grab to prevent her heading for the hills. So that was good.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> THAT is Zander. You have described my dog in a single sentence.
> I used teeny bits of cheddar to start of with and fed him whenever he looked at me not the other dog or you can to start off with just KEEP feeding till hes past the other dog. Like, you see other dog and you FEED FEED FEED, cos of this Zander will look at me more now.
> 
> Have no idea if thats helpful.
> 
> I SECOND THE HEADCOLLAR. Immensley helpful. Doesn't stop them springing but your shoulder shouldnt pop out at much


Hiya  yeah being a Labrador, the food trick should work cos he's an absolute bin! I had to laugh at your 'teeny bits of cheese' comment... Charlie would inhale those lol, he hoovers them up so fast he doesnt even chew (or taste them they're down so quick) but I have started to praise him every time he turns to look at me and he gets so pleased with himself and happy. I've also started loosening the pressure on the lead when he first spots another dog in the distance. It seems to confuse him a wee bit and make him a bit less cocky and sure of himself so he turns to look at me for reassurance?


----------



## Beth17

Blimey Moonviolet sounds like a crap few days for you. Big bar of chocolate time methinks. Tink sounds like she was a real star though 

It was our turn to get a soaking today  Luckily we were in the woods so found a tree to hide under. The boys were sat hunched over with ears and tails tucked right under trying to get as close to me as possible for shelter. So much for being tough boxers, what a pair of wusses :laugh:

In fact the only dodgy moment was when we were trying to find a tree and a what looked like a grey cat suddenly rustled under a bush. Luckily the boys were on lead and a then little grey terrier came out of the bush and had a grumble at them. I had just passed a couple of women and they hadn't mentioned they had a dog offlead a bit further away so that was a bit of a surprise; the boys backed off as soon as they saw it was a dog though.


----------



## Werehorse

Sorry you had to deal with People Being Rubbish, mv.  It happens but never fails to disappoint. 

K&M - You have my spaniel-owning empathy.  Oscar is a bit grumpy about being moved places when he's settled down somewhere, mostly just laying down more heavily and giving you ****-eye but has growled at OH once or twice (totally OH's fault because he used to just hoof him off when he'd 'set' so Oscar escalated, of course. I did tell him. ) I think it's part of the general spanner-anxiety thing.  He moves for me because he never knows if I have a biscuit secreted about my person or not. :lol:

The boys are currently having a bonkers play-fight. They haven't had one for ages, I thought they'd stopped. I'm glad they haven't they both seem to enjoy it (once Oscar has stopped looking at me as if I might tell him to stop it! - spanner anxiety again)


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse said:


> Sorry you had to deal with People Being Rubbish, mv.  It happens but never fails to disappoint.
> 
> K&M - You have my spaniel-owning empathy.  Oscar is a bit grumpy about being moved places when he's settled down somewhere, mostly just laying down more heavily and giving you ****-eye but has growled at OH once or twice (totally OH's fault because he used to just hoof him off when he'd 'set' so Oscar escalated, of course. I did tell him. ) I think it's part of the general spanner-anxiety thing.  He moves for me because he never knows if I have a biscuit secreted about my person or not. :lol:
> 
> The boys are currently having a bonkers play-fight. They haven't had one for ages, I thought they'd stopped. I'm glad they haven't they both seem to enjoy it (once Oscar has stopped looking at me as if I might tell him to stop it! - spanner anxiety again)


Moll has a bit of a grumble at OH if he pushes her further up the sofa- she's ok with me.
She's had a couple of coures of steroids this summer again for her skin- I think she thinks hungry all the time now-because the cat thing is only recent. Fine with me and stuff though- she got hold of a cooked chicken carcase the other day and handed over no problem and a dead mouse this morning.
Funny what you say about the play though, I dont know if its since Evie came and Molls been squeezed out, because Scruff and Evie have a very close bond or she chooses not to play. Its like she's sooo serious now.

MV- sounds a good walk apart from dirty clothes.

Hello Chazzie 10- look forward to hearing how Charlie does. You'll need more than 1 cup of coffee to get through this thread though.:yikes:


----------



## moonviolet

here we go .... here's the positive spin I have found for all this " horse pucky" 

I am a victim of my own success. No one really ever sees Tink's anxiety (OH excluded) I tiptoe around making her world comfortable. So it's quite possible people think i'm exagerating what a sensitve soul she is so do not realise what an exhausting time i have, not sitting near that dog, watching what this other dog is up to, making sure this one isn't too boisterous, walking into one class with my bag first to check that no one is behind the door in the lobby etc etc.... So no one sees generally sees Tink nervous or reacting.

I'll keep telling myself this :lol: :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> here we go .... here's the positive spin I have found for all this " horse pucky"
> 
> I am a victim of my own success. No one really ever sees Tink's anxiety (OH excluded) I tiptoe around making her world comfortable. So it's quite possible people think i'm exagerating what a sensitve soul she is so do not realise what an exhausting time i have, not sitting near that dog, watching what this other dog is up to, making sure this one isn't too boisterous, walking into one class with my bag first to check that no one is behind the door in the lobby etc etc.... So no one sees generally sees Tink nervous or reacting.
> 
> I'll keep telling myself this :lol: :lol:


Horse pucky.:laugh:
You could be right though-you read Tink so well and avoid the bad stuff so that others dont see it.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Horse pucky.:laugh:
> You could be right though-you read Tink so well and avoid the bad stuff so that others dont see it.


I can't take any credit for "horse pucky" It was Colonel Potter's favourite exclamation on M.A.S.H :blush:


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> here we go .... here's the positive spin I have found for all this " horse pucky"
> 
> I am a victim of my own success. No one really ever sees Tink's anxiety (OH excluded) I tiptoe around making her world comfortable. So it's quite possible people think i'm exagerating what a sensitve soul she is so do not realise what an exhausting time i have, not sitting near that dog, watching what this other dog is up to, making sure this one isn't too boisterous, walking into one class with my bag first to check that no one is behind the door in the lobby etc etc.... So no one sees generally sees Tink nervous or reacting.
> 
> I'll keep telling myself this :lol: :lol:


Great way to put a positive spin on it mv. Sorry that you've had such a rough time.

I sometimes feel like that with Ely (even with OH!). I put so much effort into managing so he doesn't react and I think that observers think that I'm paranoid and over cautious. It means that when OH does take them out on his own he occasionally comes back with stories about how Ely has chased another dog. 

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. Himself is fine now (of course ) and you wouldn't know that anything had been wrong with him at all. In a very sweet aside our regular vet (we see the same lady every time) saw that we had made an appointment with them on Saturday and then cancelled it and she called me to make sure he was ok! I think they are definitely a practice to stay with!


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Great way to put a positive spin on it mv. Sorry that you've had such a rough time.
> 
> I sometimes feel like that with Ely (even with OH!). I put so much effort into managing so he doesn't react and I think that observers think that I'm paranoid and over cautious. It means that when OH does take them out on his own he occasionally comes back with stories about how Ely has chased another dog.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. Himself is fine now (of course ) and you wouldn't know that anything had been wrong with him at all. In a very sweet aside our regular vet (we see the same lady every time) saw that we had made an appointment with them on Saturday and then cancelled it and she called me to make sure he was ok! I think they are definitely a practice to stay with!


That's lovely of your vet's  Definitely a caring practise  So glad Ely is all better.

I'm glad i'm not the only one who feels this way sometimes. OH says that If I can't bend the spoon i try bend the world around the spoon . I say he's watch the matrix too many times


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> I'm glad i'm not the only one who feels this way sometimes. OH says that If I can't bend the spoon i try bend the world around the spoon . I say he's watch the matrix too many times


:lol: :lol: *snort*

L/C - definitely a vet to stick with! Glad he's feeling all better, I hope it was just a one-off thing.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> here we go .... here's the positive spin I have found for all this " horse pucky"
> 
> I am a victim of my own success. No one really ever sees Tink's anxiety (OH excluded) I tiptoe around making her world comfortable. So it's quite possible people think i'm exagerating what a sensitve soul she is so do not realise what an exhausting time i have, not sitting near that dog, watching what this other dog is up to, making sure this one isn't too boisterous, walking into one class with my bag first to check that no one is behind the door in the lobby etc etc.... So no one sees generally sees Tink nervous or reacting.
> 
> I'll keep telling myself this :lol: :lol:


Aww bless you. Sending you and Tinks a big hug.


----------



## Guest

Hope all of you are all okay!!!

We had a plumber in today. Zander was very good and left him be, but any cuddles from him were still appreciated of course. :laugh:

And good lord it poured. 

So glad the coat arrived yesterday haha


----------



## Dogless

mv - I can't say anything that hasn't already been said but do hope that you are OK now; I really admire your spin on things and hate to see you having a down day. 

LurcherOwner - where are the photos of Donkey Boy in his new coat? :confused5:.


----------



## Guest

Dogless - these are the only ones I could get before he tried to eat the thing. (he walks in it lovely though)

Oh and the third pick, thats what he does in the car. Likes to gaze out the back window, he'll sleep like that too sometimes... Not sure why I included it really haha[/ATTACH]


----------



## Guest

Wooooooooooooooow I somehow mucked up the spacing and stuff in that one. :L


----------



## Dogless

I love Donkey Boy; is the coat the one from GRWE? It is very smart!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I love Donkey Boy; is the coat the one from GRWE? It is very smart!


It is. So i got a nice coat and I gave money to a charity. *Feels like I deserve the dairy milk in the fridge*


----------



## Guest

COMPLETELY undog related question but how do you lot do such lovely signatures?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> COMPLETELY undog related question but how do you lot do such lovely signatures?


I Googled 'forum signature' or something like that and found a random site to make them - had to then resize it using photobucket though as it was too big and I get annoyed by the enormous ones!


----------



## moonviolet

Today got better a quick chat before class sorted everything out 

Tink was a little darling, She cracked me up in one exercise.... she had to push a number of bottles over with her nose, we've been working on it for weeks , she enjoys it but for some reason known only to beagle brain she pushed all bar the last one over with great gusto.... then laid down like she was indicating that one.... if only i knew what criteria she was using :lol:


----------



## Dogless

mv - so pleased that things got better . If I knew what went on in Beagles' brains I reckon I could have made a fortune by now!! Maybe she knows the fun is over once the last one topples??? Who knows .


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: Beagle brain clearly just knows how to do Cute. I dread to think what Spaniel brain would make of that exercise!  :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Beagle brain clearly just knows how to do Cute. I dread to think what Spaniel brain would make of that exercise!  :lol:


Ridgeback brain would turn into Ridgeback brawn and they'd be paw smashed and go flying I suspect :yikes:.


----------



## Werehorse

Spaniel brain would try and get all the bottles into Spaniel mouth I suspect...


----------



## Beth17

Yep the boxers would just chew them up, they have no patience 

The boys decided to have a barny this evening over a strawberry which ended up with Sam refusing to look at the strawberry or Oscar. They appear to have made up now :rolleyes5:


----------



## moonviolet

It's been an interesting one, seeing how different dogs approach it paw smashes, running into then pouncing on it, picking it up it but as the goal was push with nose, for once the beagle's need to sniff was an advantage :lol:


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## Guest

I think mine would either pick up and carry, or do that pawing thing that cats do....


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet-so pleased class went well. I wonder what Tink was thinking, leaving the last one.
And my Spaniel brain here would have been wanting to just retreive all those bottles.:laugh:


Lurcher owner- there is a sticky in General chat from Smudgiesmummy. She very kindly done my signature for me, as I'm computer illiterate.

2 of my favourite dogs for grooming this morning, Estrelas. Portugese Mountain dogs.I love seeing them but my back certainly feels it when they've gone.


----------



## moonviolet

In my little pity party yesterday I forgot to say how lovely the photo's are Twiggy what beautiful attentive dogs. Between all the lovely collies on PF and the magnificent Monty i have a growing crush on them as a whole..... but I think it will remain admiration from afar. Unless I can sneak Monty into my car one evening   

Donkey boy is a bit of a stunner too 

Beth, what naughty boys bickering over a strawberry, glad they made up quickly

I do think i know why Beagle brain called union rules and went on a lay down strike.... she thought she deserved a treat and was holding the last bottle to ransom.... evil I tell you dont' be taken in by the cute.:lol:

Actually it really would be fun to introduce a prop for a shaping exercise and see how everyone's dogs react/interact with it 

ETA Forgot to say hav a lovely day everyone and K&M dont' forget to take regular breaks to stretch as gorgeous as those dogs are , thye look like a lot fo work for you


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> In my little pity party yesterday I forgot to say how lovely the photo's are Twiggy what beautiful attentive dogs. Between all the lovely collies on PF and the magnificent Monty i have a growing crush on them as a whole..... but I think it will remain admiration from afar. Unless I can sneak Monty into my car one evening
> 
> Donkey boy is a bit of a stunner too
> 
> Beth, what naughty boys bickering over a strawberry, glad they made up quickly
> 
> I do think i know why Beagle brain called union rules and went on a lay down strike.... she thought she deserved a treat and was holding the last bottle to ransom.... evil I tell you dont' be taken in by the cute.:lol:
> 
> *Actually it really would be fun to introduce a prop for a shaping exercise and see how everyone's dogs react/interact with it
> *
> ETA Forgot to say hav a lovely day everyone and K&M dont' forget to take regular breaks to stretch as gorgeous as those dogs are , thye look like a lot fo work for you


My Ribena (rock star, I know!!) is nearly finished - I was going to see what Kilo did with the bottle when presented calmly as something to investigate rather than a toy and see how I can get him to knock it over. His 'touch' is pretty good with his nose, so that may be a start......


----------



## Twiggy

Well I had to put walking 4 dogs on a lead to the test this morning as we are having a new conservatory fitted. The dogs had to come out of the front door and be walked down the drive, through two gates and into the paddock on the lead. They were very good considering there were two strange men banging and crashing at the back of the bungalow including little Holly, who I thought might have a hissy fit.

Leafy decided to have a bout of diarrheoa when we were out. Sod's law when it's really difficult to get her outside. Her wretched food intolerance is a nightmare.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Spaniel brain would try and get all the bottles into Spaniel mouth I suspect...


Labrador brain would be to retrieve bottles one by one. Then if that failed simply lie down and chew them.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks MV  and at least your pity party was over in a day-mine lasted a week.:laugh:
I could try the girls with a bottle to see what they'd do- I've never taught the Touch command though. Teckel brain will either look at me like I'm an eejit or run off down the garden with it.

My new Gundog book came today.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks MV  and at least your pity party was over in a day-mine lasted a week.:laugh:
> I could try the girls with a bottle to see what they'd do- I've never taught the Touch command though. Teckel brain will either look at me like I'm an eejit or run off down the garden with it.
> 
> * My new Gundog book came today*.


How exciting!! Reckon it will be great for you to mix up the training a bit and forget the LLW stuff that was getting you down!!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> How exciting!! Reckon it will be great for you to mix up the training a bit and forget the LLW stuff that was getting you down!!


Oh Yes:yesnod: I'm quite excited.
I was just reading the clicker thread, I have done a bit with the clicker but I never really got to grips with it. I've got a lesson with Big Evie tomorrow and was wondering whether to get her to give me some proper instruction on it- and see whether its something I want to get in to.Suppose 1 lesson cant hurt really.
I wonder if she'll find me harder work than chickens.:laugh:


----------



## Dogless

Two nice walks today; one in a forest and one in the park. The park one was a bit spoilt near the end when we were charged by a barking choc lab who just wouldn't go away - the owner just kept saying nonchalantly "He doesn't like males but won't bite". Eventually he went away to then repeat his charge two minutes later - the woman repeated that he wouldn't bite and just tried to start a normal conversation with me whilst her dog was carrying on. I was a bit rude and said "Can't you see my dog is afraid?" - she got the hump at that and walked away in a huff, but at least the choc menace went with her after a short pause. The plus side is that Kilo didn't react at all, he instead leant on my legs - but no hackles or growling and no tension on the lead. He also had a great big shake off each time and carried on as normal - big improvement.


----------



## moonviolet

K&M my pity party might have been only a day but my word I went for it and was a total drag to be around, I even got bored of myself :lol:

Glad the advanced book has arrived, hope you find it a bit more stretching than the first 

I do love a bit of clicker training and the knock on effect i found is it does make Tink a bit more confident in herself and seem a bit more buoyant, as she's being rewarded for her ideas/actions 

Dogless I don't think that was rude, I think it was a perfectly reasonable question, she only stalked off because she knew the answer and had been having a long swim in that famous North African river  so i'm going fo ra gold star for both of you Kilo for not reacting and you for asking a difficult question in defence of your dog  when everyone does this, the nile swimmers will have to face up to reality. Time for a revolution


----------



## Dogless

I am also working on...taking off the door to another downstairs cloakroom so the BW's crate will fit in there for his sidekick (has an opening both width and length ways) . 

Good job we have an abundance of storage cupboards .


----------



## chazzie10

Hello Chazzie 10- look forward to hearing how Charlie does. You'll need more than 1 cup of coffee to get through this thread though.:yikes:[/QUOTE said:


> Hiya and thanks. 2 days on and more cups of coffee than I should probably medically have, and yes I'm still reading the thread- feels a bit like eavesdropping  but everyone's so welcoming. Have 'upped' Charlie's training a bit more and after a disappointing pulling episode on the lead last night. (walking him was like flying a kite in a hurricane :rolleyes5, we had a fantastic time earlier. Ive been teaching him the 'leave it' command and he will obey with treats and food but not toys...today after just 5 mins he was walking, off lead, beside me and just staring longingly at his favourite, completely bitten to pieces tennis ball, on the way past! We practised it loads and only once he disobeyed and went over for a little lick at it dear luv him....so there's hope yet that I can use this command eventually when we approach other dogs!!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Hiya and thanks. 2 days on and more cups of coffee than I should probably medically have, and yes I'm still reading the thread- feels a bit like eavesdropping  but everyone's so welcoming. Have 'upped' Charlie's training a bit more and after a disappointing pulling episode on the lead last night. (walking him was like flying a kite in a hurricane :rolleyes5, we had a fantastic time earlier. Ive been teaching him the 'leave it' command and he will obey with treats and food but not toys...today after just 5 mins he was walking, off lead, beside me and just staring longingly at his favourite, completely bitten to pieces tennis ball, on the way past! We practised it loads and only once he disobeyed and went over for a little lick at it dear luv him....so there's hope yet that I can use this command eventually when we approach other dogs!!


That sounds like fab progress in just one day .


----------



## Werehorse

Can I have a pity party about how frigging useless I am with Important Bits of Paper please?

I am supposed to be going to register/interview for supply teaching tomorrow (for my sins- which mostly include not being imaginative enough to think of anything else to do  and not winning the lottery yet) and I can't find my PGCE or my passing your NQT certificates in the mountain of useless bits of paper that is my life! 

I think I'll be ok with what I have but blimey sifting through that lot was depressing. 

Plus the dogs have had nothing today because I've been stressing about paper. *guilt, masses of it*

Sorry totally off-topic but I needed to get that out somewhere! :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Labrador brain would be to retrieve bottles one by one. Then if that failed simply lie down and chew them.


my labrador would bark at bottle first to intimidate it and check it's dead :rolleyes5:


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless yeah i'm well pleased with him- everytime i feel a bit down about his behaviour he surprises me the next day by being an absolute star :001_wub:


----------



## kat&molly

Woo, woo, Gold stars and Tripe treats for Dogless.:thumbup1:
Well done for saying something.

Werehorse- welcome to the Pity Party Club and good luck for tomorrow.

Chazzie- That sounds really good progress.You do have to ignore the silly bits in this thread We've had exploding bottles of wine, men who bathe in wheelie bins, firemen:drool: all sorts of irrelevant stuff.

Moonviolet-It would be good if the clicker helped Evie outdoors- it could have been my fault before when I tried, I know my timing is out so if Big Evie can put me right it would be something.


----------



## Guest

First things first, DOGLESS YOU MUST BE SO EXCITED!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 


Today was a bit of a mixed bag.
Zand somehow got out of our superduper highfenced garden while I went out for TWO minutes and left him with Mum and the plumber.
Aparently the plumber was like "Just keep the dog where he is, while I bring this large piece in." Thats when it was realised the dog had gotten out!. O.0

He was found by the plumber down our road (Zande came straight to him) and was collar walked back to our house. Aparently he used to have a white boxer escapee extraordinare so he understands our Houdini hound. No idea how he got out. And he hasnt done it again,so I think the plumber may not have latched the gate properly but it doesn't matter now...

Zander also got to play with SEVEN different dogs today. I plonked him on lead when I saw them, and yelled if I could let them play and ALL the owners said yes. :thumbup: They included Goldies, Labs, Terrier mixes, two daschund/lurcher mixes (very squat and square lurchers O.O) and a 3 month old border terrier pup. And I must say I was very proud of Zand with the pup, he's never really played with a VERY young pup, or such a small one. He took it all in his stride the nippy squeaky terrier like play and just bounced out the way of any nips. And he just let me hold his collar while I scooped up the pup in my other arm (the owner is working on recall but the pup was too busy playing so I 'collected' him for him) I think the owner was tad worried the pup would get hurt being bowled over by a speedy lump, but being a terrier it bounced right back. 

The only thing he did bad today other than running off, was jumping up and growling at me while attempting to play tug with my arms. He has left a bruise. I do know it is only play cos he used to do it alot when he was very young, but now he's older it really hurts and HE HASNT DONE IT IN MONTHS and he did it THREE times today. Then he'll get tangled in the lead and get even more wound up. One time we were just walking along and he did it. So no idea what to do on that one. Folding my arms and ignoring doesn't seem to be doing much.... 

So yeah,uh, yeah, that was the days findings. 

On a side not he could be reacting to me being stressed cos I have my fifth driving test tommorow... :thumbdown:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner - Kilo used to jump and mouth when over excited - maybe so much play just got the adrenaline coursing a little too much today? He also used to do it when frustrated - normally because I hadn't made it clear enough what I wanted him to do.

Best of luck tomorrow....I won't say knock 'em dead :yikes:.


----------



## Guest

:yikes:

Haha thanks dogless, I do think it may be frustration sometimes. One of the times I made him sit to let a jogger pass, then he did it after they had gone so....


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> :yikes:
> 
> Haha thanks dogless, I do think it may be frustration sometimes. One of the times I made him sit to let a jogger pass, then he did it after they had gone so....


Sounds like Kilo - what is his impulse control like? Kilo's was awful and doing lots of work on it really helped (and we still have loads of work to do).


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Woo, woo, Gold stars and Tripe treats for Dogless.:thumbup1:
> Well done for saying something.
> 
> Werehorse- welcome to the Pity Party Club and good luck for tomorrow.
> 
> Chazzie- That sounds really good progress.You do have to ignore the silly bits in this thread We've had exploding bottles of wine, men who bathe in wheelie bins, firemen:drool: all sorts of irrelevant stuff.
> 
> Moonviolet-It would be good if the clicker helped Evie outdoors- it could have been my fault before when I tried, I know my timing is out so if Big Evie can put me right it would be something.


Kat&Molly ...wine, men, firemen :001_wub:and dogs? All in one day? that doesn't sound silly at all...all we need to mention is chocolate and it's absolutely perfect


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Sounds like Kilo - what is his impulse control like? Kilo's was awful and doing lots of work on it really helped (and we still have loads of work to do).


Well I can hold a treat in my hand and he wont touch it till I open my palm and give it him...

Wait, is that even impulse control!?

Er, you may have to elaborate further on what you mean...

Is it like if he wants something he goes for it? Cos he does that.

I feel a bit dumb now. :laugh:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Well I can hold a treat in my hand and he wont touch it till I open my palm and give it him...
> 
> Wait, is that even impulse control!?
> 
> Er, you may have to elaborate further on what you mean...
> 
> Is it like if he wants something he goes for it? Cos he does that.
> 
> I feel a bit dumb now. :laugh:


I do things like practise having him sit and wait whilst a toy is thrown until he's released to get it; wait whilst I roll a ball all around the floor until released; wait for his dinner, to go through the door into the garden etc etc.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I do things like practise having him sit and wait whilst a toy is thrown until he's released to get it; wait whilst I roll a ball all around the floor until released; wait for his dinner, to go through the door into the garden etc etc.


He'll wait for his dinner and will wait to be told to go to get his ball. So he sort of does. Doorways though. Its such a barge battle as he likes to glue his nose to door before you open it so he can go out first.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> He'll wait for his dinner and will wait to be told to go to get his ball. So he sort of does. Doorways though. Its such a barge battle as he likes to glue his nose to door before you open it so he can go out first.


I use it for anything that Kilo just likes to get so it's a real effort to hold back.


----------



## kat&molly

Lurcher owner- Good luck with your driving test today.

Dogless- thats a good one to roll the ball around the floor, never done that one. Another one was to throw the retreive , then go and pick it up yourself.

This second book is much tougher, we have a lot of work to do. The bit of direction work I had done in my own cack handed way is now where near good enough to put commands to really so I have to start again there.

I have definatly fallen in to the 'Good Dog Syndrome' trap- where the dog gets to a certain level that your happy with and you relax, then the dog starts taking advantage- I think Moll pushes it sometimes.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I use it for anything that Kilo just likes to get so it's a real effort to hold back.


Yup we use impulse control to reinforce exercises all the time when teaching our dogs. My dogs don't come off the lead when teaching a sit stay, for instance, until I can run round them like a loony clapping my hands, singing, bouncing a squeaky tennis ball, throwing a toy over their heads with vigour, etc. etc. I proof the heelwork position by waving a favourite toy about in my right hand which they have to ignore. I do a couple of mad retrieves by holding their collar and winding them up and then the next time asking them to sit whilst I do the mad running, etc.
Obviously they are never criticised if they fail, it just means I haven't taught the exercise well enough.

Holly will be doing all these things in about 5 years time....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Morning all 

Good luck LO hope it goes well today and you can throw the *L*'s

Glad houndini  was returned safe and sound.

I'm probably preaching to the choir when i say the next bit, if so , humour me please. When a group of dogs are playing watch the intensity of the play especially when there is a large difference in the sizes of the dogs playing, ideally call your dog away for a time out every now and then. Just a little cool down to stop the play tipping over into something less desirable. It's quite easy for dogs to become over stimulated and overstep what is play. A bit like young kids, can get as my mother always called it " wild and silly". 

Do dogs get the "gym buzz" from physical activity humans do? I've always kind of assumed they do.

K&M sounds like you are going to the challenge you wanted from the second book  Looking forward to hearing how you get on


----------



## Guest

Don't worry moonviolet, Zand was caught every now and then and I held onto his collar for a mo to give him a breather. He calmed right back down when the Terrier left and was left with the older calmer dogs. 
Now I don't know if this is true, but I find terriers play with alot more noise and they're a bit more toothy when they play. Zanders not particulary toothy, he just springs about and runs about.


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> Don't worry moonviolet, Zand was caught every now and then and I held onto his collar for a mo to give him a breather. He calmed right back down when the Terrier left and was left with the older calmer dogs.
> Now I don't know if this is true, but I find terriers play with alot more noise and they're a bit more toothy when they play. Zanders not particulary toothy, he just springs about and runs about.


Excellent see i was preaching to the choir 

I grew up with JRT's, among others and yep they are rather fond of noisy rough play.


----------



## Werehorse

So Supply Teaching sound a bit like being Batman. Or a Thundercat. I'm not sure actually saying that during the interview was a good idea though.  Still, I'm on the register now and will henceforth be checking the skies for the bat signal every morning. Could be a bit disruptive for the boys but I won't be doing any long term, full time placements and they both settle well in the house so I'm sure we'll all cope.

While I was in the Big Town I bought a book called Clever Dog by Sarah Whitehead, anyone read it? I'm really enjoying it so far (reading over a guilty pleasure Starbucks). Even though a lot is stuff I already know it is so clearly and entertainingly written it feels like it's settling fresh into my head and making the knowledge brighter and shinier in my mind.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> So Supply Teaching sound a bit like being Batman. Or a Thundercat. I'm not sure actually saying that during the interview was a good idea though.  Still, I'm on the register now and will henceforth be checking the skies for the bat signal every morning. Could be a bit disruptive for the boys but I won't be doing any long term, full time placements and they both settle well in the house so I'm sure we'll all cope.
> 
> While I was in the Big Town I bought a book called Clever Dog by Sarah Whitehead, anyone read it? I'm really enjoying it so far (reading over a guilty pleasure Starbucks). Even though a lot is stuff I already know it is so clearly and entertainingly written it feels like it's settling fresh into my head and making the knowledge brighter and shinier in my mind.


Which costume are you going for? batman or a thundercat. I was quite a fan of the thundercats as a kid 

I haven't read that book but have had a look at her website and considered soem of her courses. I think If i remember correctly Pupcakes was going on a workshop with her but dont' shot me if me if my brain filing has gone a little awry.


----------



## Werehorse

Well Cheetara would certainly be a glamorous twist on professional attire. I usually end up channelling a bit of SuperNanny into my superhero work though.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope you hear something soon Werehorse.

We enjoyed our clicker lesson- I dont think Big Evie had too much trouble with me. She had more trouble stopping herself clicking when it was meant to be me.:laugh:
Moll really enjoyed it and the concentration on her face was a picture- trying to work out what we wanted.
A chap came in at the end waiting for his lesson and he said' Thats what I want a bright, obedient dog and she's very pretty'. That was nice.

With Moll and the cat I'm just to continue giving her 'tickle on the tum' when the cat jumps up, and dont use food.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Well Cheetara would certainly be a glamorous twist on professional attire. I usually end up channelling a bit of SuperNanny into my superhero work though.


ermm maybe cheetara with glasses on the end of your nose and a bun

K&M glad you had a good clicker session with big Evie  I do love shaping it's such a fun way to train. What a lovely compliment 

I forgot to add my bit, last night had to handle in class as OH not available again. She was a little star and I'm th eone reassuring hte newer ones it will all come together. It's so strange handing over the naughtiest dog mantle. I did get teased by one of the other trainers for talking all the way through a segment of heelwork. I do it without thinking now :blush: does the job so i'm not going to change it  Lovely walk this morning was sat admiring the view with my lap warmer in place. when suddenly she started wagging. I looked behind to discover a group of soldiers approaching from the rear, so decided it was time to make an exit before we got in their way, But it was a very lovely view the burnished tones of autumn sweeping away the green of summer


----------



## Guest

That pic is gorgeous!!

Gah well it turns out dog can vault the gate now. He's move on from the fences now. *sigh* The poor old plumber found him again.

Oh and I failed my test again...


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> So Supply Teaching sound a bit like being Batman. Or a Thundercat. I'm not sure actually saying that during the interview was a good idea though.  Still, I'm on the register now and will henceforth be checking the skies for the bat signal every morning. Could be a bit disruptive for the boys but I won't be doing any long term, full time placements and they both settle well in the house so I'm sure we'll all cope.
> 
> *While I was in the Big Town I bought a book called Clever Dog by Sarah Whitehead, anyone read it? I'm really enjoying it so far (reading over a guilty pleasure Starbucks). Even though a lot is stuff I already know it is so clearly and entertainingly written it feels like it's settling fresh into my head and making the knowledge brighter and shinier in my mind. *


I'm currently reading it on my kindle app - it's very entertaining. I'm starting one of her courses at the start of November and I'm looking forward to it.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> That pic is gorgeous!!
> 
> Gah well it turns out dog can vault the gate now. He's move on from the fences now. *sigh* The poor old plumber found him again.
> 
> Oh and I failed my test again...


Sorry to hear that .


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> That pic is gorgeous!!
> 
> Gah well it turns out dog can vault the gate now. He's move on from the fences now. *sigh* The poor old plumber found him again.
> 
> Oh and I failed my test again...


Thanks it's a lovely spot to sit and contemplate ( when you aren't disrupting the training military personnel :blush I did get a nice wave from the gentlemen in charge 

Sorry you didn't pass. Is it one sticking point or just random things happening.


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Thanks it's a lovely spot to sit and contemplate ( when you aren't disrupting the training military personnel :blush I did get a nice wave from the gentlemen in charge
> 
> Sorry you didn't pass. Is it one sticking point or just random things happening.


Mainly random, twice cause of people cutting me off, but today was because I had a major freakout and stalled and rolled into a sign. 
I have terrible nerves, and i took kalms.

But thats not doggie related so to bring that back I shall say that Zander was pretty good in the field today


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Mainly random, twice cause of people cutting me off, but today was because I had a major freakout and stalled and rolled into a sign.
> I have terrible nerves, and i took kalms.
> 
> But thats not doggie related so to bring that back I shall say that Zander was pretty good in the field today


Well done Zander.

My cousin hit a pedestrian on a crossing on his test :yikes:. The man was fine, luckily. Is it just the tests that ruin your confidence or lessons too?


----------



## Guest

Oh, the tests definitely the tests. Lessons I'm okay.

I used to be like this at school too actually. You put me in an exam and my brain will turn into a nervy mess.

Haha


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh, the tests definitely the tests. Lessons I'm okay.
> 
> I used to be like this at school too actually. You put me in an exam and my brain will turn into a nervy mess.
> 
> Haha


What a mare. What if you did it in a different town so you don't anticipate 'bad' parts?


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> Mainly random, twice cause of people cutting me off, but today was because I had a major freakout and stalled and rolled into a sign.
> I have terrible nerves, and i took kalms.
> 
> But thats not doggie related so to bring that back I shall say that Zander was pretty good in the field today


I liked because Zander was good in the field  He's becoming a proper houndini... you are going to have to give your garden a Colditz makeover or maybe a zip line to keep the naughty monkey where he should be?

I think the driving test is horribly awkward , I mean i'd be tense in the car with a stranger even if i was a passenger. I wonder if Newfiesmum would have some tips.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I liked because Zander was good in the field  He's becoming a proper houndini... you are going to have to give your garden a Colditz makeover or maybe a zip line to keep the naughty monkey where he should be?
> 
> I think the driving test is horribly awkward , I mean i'd be tense in the car with a stranger even if i was a passenger. I wonder if Newfiesmum would have some tips.


Good thinking Batman :laugh:.


----------



## Werehorse

I failed my first driving test because I stalled it on a duel carriageway while travelling at about 40mph!! :yikes: Nerves can be a nightmare.  Keep trying Lurcher Owner - you'll get there eventually. Have they always been male examiners? If so, is it possible to request a female examiner - it could make a difference!

My boys are being nightmare dogs today.  They need a good blast on the fells, so my fault really.


----------



## Guest

Thank you all for the nice words. Gonna go out for a curry with dad now. 

Im sorry you're have a naff time with your dogs Were, maybe tommorow will be better?


----------



## Sarah1983

Well it's been a rotten day here today, don't think it's stopped raining all day. And on our walk the boots I've had for 5 years and have done countless 12 hour shifts in with about 10 hours of walking each time and which have never rubbed before decided 40 minutes away from home that they were going to rub. Spencer had to stay on his long line coz there was someone else there with a dog and they did an abrupt about turn and hurried off in a different direction when they saw us. Spen kept lunging in their direction and ended up getting a very sharp telling off which kinda made him go  and behave himself  It's not often I really raise my voice to him so it has quite an effect when I do. 

Spen has had his silly head on today. It seems to happen every time it rains for some reason. It's not Kevin behaviour, it's just silly things like grabbing a leaf and running laps around me, getting the zoomies coz he's found a piece of cardboard and stuff like that. 

Lurcher Owner, sorry to hear about your test and Zander being an escape artist but glad he behaved for you on the field.


----------



## chazzie10

Charlie was being a bit of a numpty today too... something in the air maybe??


----------



## moonviolet

Lovely twilight walk this evening Tink was an star we did stopped in a clearing and did a bit of practise on out little routine snippet. She reversed through my legs without bumping into either  . Other than the the lovely springer couple ( with their couple of springers)  I see most evenings leaving as i'm arriving didn't see a soul until I was approached by a very handsome young officer. Who warned me " Don't be scared if you see some personnel sleeping in random places." I thanked him for the warning and said I heading back up the hill to the car now anyway. Did he have eyes for me.... did he heck.... only had eyes for my "cute dog " :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh, the tests definitely the tests. Lessons I'm okay.
> 
> I used to be like this at school too actually. You put me in an exam and my brain will turn into a nervy mess.
> 
> Haha


Really sorry you failed.

I vividly remember my driving tests although it was 45 years ago. I passed second time but on both occasions all you could hear was my feet tapping on the pedals with nerves - really embarrassing.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Lovely twilight walk this evening Tink was an star we did stopped in a clearing and did a bit of practise on out little routine snippet. She reversed through my legs without bumping into either  . Other than the the lovely springer couple ( with their couple of springers)  I see most evenings leaving as i'm arriving didn't see a soul until I was approached by a very handsome young officer. Who warned me " Don't be scared if you see some personnel sleeping in random places." I thanked him for the warning and said I heading back up the hill to the car now anyway. Did he have eyes for me.... did he heck.... only had eyes for my "cute dog " :lol: :lol: :lol:


I've done courses in Hampshire in the past on a playing field adjacent to heathland used by the army. There was a house that they regularly 'blew up' and when walking my own dogs, before and after training, I found it quite disconcerting to find soldiers hiding in the bushes or on military exercises.


----------



## chazzie10

:drool: what's the address??? :001_wub: lol


----------



## Twiggy

I was instructing from 2.00 until 7.30pm this evening; my monthly Thursday group.

Several worked their young dogs/puppies and they were all absolutely super. There was a fabulous Sheltie bitch, about 7 months old plus four young collies, two of which are half sister and brother to my Tremor, and the other two 11/12 month olds who are going to be a fantastic competition dogs. They were all so quick, keen and willing.

I was green with envy. Holly's lying on my bed fast asleep without a care in the world....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I've done courses in Hampshire in the past on a playing field adjacent to heathland used by the army. There was a house that they regularly 'blew up' and when walking my own dogs, before and after training, I found it quite disconcerting to find soldiers hiding in the bushes or on military exercises.


I've been surprised on numerous occasions ( damn camouflage) sometimes i smell them before I see them. Tink's usually aware and knows she isn't allowed to interact that said I do remember once a soldier was asleep right next to one of the main tracks and she just had to go sniff his face :blush: thankfully he woke up and thought it was funny and just laughed as i apologised profusely.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I've been surprised on numerous occasions ( damn camouflage) sometimes i smell them before I see them. Tink's usually aware and knows she isn't allowed to interact that said I do remember once a soldier was asleep right next to one of the main tracks and she just had to go sniff his face :blush: thankfully he woke up and thought it was funny and just laughed as i apologised profusely.


I have been woken up by dogs on exercise before now :yikes:.

Well....our new class was..........

brilliant. I award the BW a Gold Star . He didn't let me down - or, turthfully, I didn't let him down .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I have been woken up by dogs on exercise before now :yikes:.
> 
> Well....our new class was..........
> 
> brilliant. I award the BW a Gold Star . He didn't let me down - or, turthfully, I didn't let him down .


Do you fall asleep in bushes and get woken up by dogs often then?? :laugh:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Do you fall asleep in bushes and get woken up by dogs often then?? :laugh:


Not any more; I'm fairly well acquainted with the area that mv walks in though .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I have been woken up by dogs on exercise before now :yikes:.
> 
> Well....our new class was..........
> 
> brilliant. I award the BW a Gold Star . He didn't let me down - or, turthfully, I didn't let him down .


I honestly could have disowned her i was totally mortified.

So glad you had a good time in your new class


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I honestly could have disowned her i was totally mortified.
> 
> So glad you had a good time in your new class


Could have been worse; they could have had their food on only to have Miss Tink roll in it :yikes:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Not any more; I'm fairly well acquainted with the area that mv walks in though .


best to stay wide awake then lol. There's a few places like that where I walk but have to say I hav'nt (unfortunately) stumbled over any sleepy soldiers. The only thing my dog finds to sniff in the bushes are old boots, forgotten sleeping bags and if he's very lucky, a half eaten sandwich  ... I'll never get a job with the Tourist Information Board for Northern Ireland now lol


----------



## Twiggy

I've been suprised on many occasions riding through heathland, woods and forests.

The things that go on deep in the woods - particularly courting couples....LOL


----------



## chazzie10

:angry: lol Im not bitter or jealous in the least :laugh:


----------



## Werehorse

Aaawww, who wouldn't want to be woken up by a polite sniff from a cute beagle face.  Better than full force sprollie-licks. Hugo has been know to apply full force sprollie licks to a courting couple on a river bank... they were hidden from sight in a dip in the bank and we didn't know they were there until we heard the scream... 

It was a long time ago and he would like you all to know he's moved on since then.  However the inside of my ear is sooper clean from when I was doing stretches at sprollie level earlier so he's not moved on that far. 

I have done bog all work on his polite greetings and paid for it at the yard today where, while I was in a frazzled state, he threw himself at anyone who came near (he was tied up - but I should have tied him more out of the way, frazzled see? Not thinking.  )


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- Poor poor you having to walk in areas full of men in uniform- it must be such hardship.

Lurcher owner- sorry about your test- stick at it, you'll get there.

Pleased you enjoyed your new class Dogless, do they have puppy classes for you?

Had another go with the clicker this morning. Again Moll worked out very quickly what I wanted Using a pack of A4 paper- she will place both front feet eventually on it. Probably a name for that.
I tried with Scruff- she gets worried and just sits there wagging her tail-gave Evie a go - she was interested but I couldn't get her to repeat what I'd clicked for so I need to do some real easy things for those 2 so I can reward them lots to start I think.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- Poor poor you having to walk in areas full of men in uniform- it must be such hardship..


I bear my burden well  Actually i confess on some of my more sensitive days i've watched them in the valley and I've found myself weeping, and hoping the politicians treat their lives and safety with all the respect they deserve when they make the decisions to send them to war.  Funny as i have and have had no particular millitary connection i've always lived near garrison towns and was brought up to respect those who chose to defend us. ( Sorry morning ramble)



kat&molly said:


> Had another go with the clicker this morning. Again Moll worked out very quickly what I wanted Using a pack of A4 paper- she will place both front feet eventually on it. Probably a name for that.
> I tried with Scruff- she gets worried and just sits there wagging her tail-gave Evie a go - she was interested but I couldn't get her to repeat what I'd clicked for so I need to do some real easy things for those 2 so I can reward them lots to start I think.


Glad Moll is responding well to the clicker. It's kind of up to you what you name things i call that on , but i know other's call it step, paws, up , whatever you'll remember 

With Scruff and Evie i'd be tempted to do a session to 2 where doing absolutely anything is right. If Scruff wags thats right, if she keeps on wagging thats right, if she sits and wags thats right. Hopefully a couple of wooohoo aren't you clever session will give her some confidence to explore, if If they don't show any behaviours to shape and some dogs aren't turned on by this type of training ( same way i find it harder to learn by listening, give me a handout or Write it on an OHP and i'm fine) So i'd go on to luring then clicking 

Have a lovely day all, almost the weekend


----------



## Sarah1983

Not come across any sleeping soldiers yet but we've moved out of the way for them to run past carrying tree trunks and stuff and often see them running through the woods in full uniform which looks most uncomfortable in summer. Something tells me I'm not going to be successful in teaching Spencer to ignore men in uniform though.

K&M, click anything. Whatever they do click it. That's how I started Rupert off. A head turn, a paw movement, an ear twitch, whatever he did got clicked and treated.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks Moonviolet.
Agree about the soldiers- seems to be just as bad for some of them when they come home as well. Broken marriages, turning to drink and drugs because they struggle to cope.

I think Scruff will enjoy it when she realises- but the luring and clicking might be the better way to go, she hates to think she's done something wrong.
Amazing to see the difference between them really, Moll , is much more confdent and offers different things until she gets it. Evie is quite confident with us now and she has this look that just says' come on- give me the sweets' 

Day 1 of not smoking.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Moonviolet.
> Agree about the soldiers- seems to be just as bad for some of them when they come home as well. Broken marriages, turning to drink and drugs because they struggle to cope.
> 
> I think Scruff will enjoy it when she realises- but the luring and clicking might be the better way to go, she hates to think she's done something wrong.
> Amazing to see the difference between them really, Moll , is much more confdent and offers different things until she gets it. Evie is quite confident with us now and she has this look that just says' come on- give me the sweets'
> 
> Day 1 of not smoking.


Some dogs love the sound of the clicker and some dogs hate it. Have you thought of using an excited 'yes' instead with Scruff to see if she responds better?

Day 1 of not smoking - wow!! Dare I ask how it's going? I've promised my GP I'll attempt to stop but not until my sister is hopefully given the 'all clear'.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- Poor poor you having to walk in areas full of men in uniform- it must be such hardship.
> 
> Lurcher owner- sorry about your test- stick at it, you'll get there.
> 
> Pleased you enjoyed your new class Dogless, do they have puppy classes for you?
> 
> Had another go with the clicker this morning. Again Moll worked out very quickly what I wanted Using a pack of A4 paper- she will place both front feet eventually on it. Probably a name for that.
> I tried with Scruff- she gets worried and just sits there wagging her tail-gave Evie a go - she was interested but I couldn't get her to repeat what I'd clicked for so I need to do some real easy things for those 2 so I can reward them lots to start I think.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


The trainer does puppy classes; I have seen one and certainly intend to go! Moll is a very bright dog, careful what you teach her :laugh:.



kat&molly said:


> Thanks Moonviolet.
> Agree about the soldiers- seems to be just as bad for some of them when they come home as well. Broken marriages, turning to drink and drugs because they struggle to cope.
> 
> I think Scruff will enjoy it when she realises- but the luring and clicking might be the better way to go, she hates to think she's done something wrong.
> Amazing to see the difference between them really, Moll , is much more confdent and offers different things until she gets it. Evie is quite confident with us now and she has this look that just says' come on- give me the sweets'
> 
> Day 1 of not smoking.


Being one of those that came home and married to one as well....things can be complex that is for sure!!

Good luck with the non-smoking and it is lovely to hear how Evie is blossoming - I'm sure Scruff will too when she 'gets' it.


----------



## Guest

He's been very clamp like on my arm today in his tantrums. And he's been chewing the lead. I think I know why he hasn't done it in months now. 
He might be teething again from the way he's chewing his bone now.


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> He's been very clamp like on my arm today in his tantrums. And he's been chewing the lead. I think I know why he hasn't done it in months now.
> He might be teething again from the way he's chewing his bone now.


Aww well done, Sherlock that sounds very likely


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry I forgot to wish you best of luck Kat  Im 2 weeks off 6 months now 

I have however had 2 bakery relapses


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> He's been very clamp like on my arm today in his tantrums. And he's been chewing the lead. I think I know why he hasn't done it in months now.
> He might be teething again from the way he's chewing his bone now.


Do you know what breeds are in him? Only I know someone with a lurcher on another forum having the exact same issues with tantrums. She's come a hell of a long way with him. He seems to have inherited the terrier attitude along with the deerhound slowness to mature though.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Sorry I forgot to wish you best of luck Kat  Im 2 weeks off 6 months now
> 
> I have however had 2 bakery relapses


6 months. Wow, thats brilliant, I didn't think it had been that long.
And bakery relapses are ok- its not fattening just licking the windows.


----------



## GingerRogers

I have decided to stop trying to stop Ginge from shouting at dogs (for now) its too tiring and stressful and doesn't leave much time or patience for basic training. We have conduced it is nerves and so just need to try and build her confidence in all other ways and perhaps it will come (or perhaps it wont in which case we will have to try again)

At training class this week, I again disgraced myself, she had been a nightmare all week, randomly getting worse, to the point that I felt I just knew what she was going to do and couldn't face it and burst into tears before the class even started, OH said did I want him to do it but I felt I had to carry on. The trainer ended up taking her for the first half of the lesson and using her as a guinea pig while I sniveled in the corner, she was, yet again, an angel, hence the decision to stop trying to stop it, I can't manage the stress and she is feeling it. 

She is so good in there they jokingly think I am lying until they see her outside. It is like Jekyll and Hyde.

Really not sure the head collar is helping, she gets very angry with it when she sees a dog, but not been using it a week yet so might try to persevere, plus she hasn't escaped it yet no matter how hard she tries!!

Dogless what was the stuff you suggested that has helped Kilo, magnesium stuff, cant for life of me find any reference to it or remember what thread it was in. One of the trainers said he had seen a dog with such extreme reactions once before and homeopathic remedies were the only thing that helped.

Soooo what made me post was that all this has been even more difficult to cope with as I gave up smoking on Monday too. What an idiot :mad2: last time I tried I was dieting this time I am trying to train my dog, glutton for it! 

So good luck Kat&molly and well done moonviolet.

Have good weekends everyone, I am going to snuggle up and learn all about clicker (and hubby) training with the help of don't shoot the dog and pigs fly :smilewinkgrin:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless what was the stuff you suggested that has helped Kilo, magnesium stuff, cant for life of me find any reference to it or remember what thread it was in. One of the trainers said he had seen a dog with such extreme reactions once before and homeopathic remedies were the only thing that helped.


This: Nupafeed Superior Supplements for Dogs

Just for your info I asked the company whether it was possible to overdose a dog or whether there was a limit on how long it could be given for. The answer was that you cannot overdose, any excess is excreted and there is no limit.

What I did was give a 'loading dose' if you like - twice a day for about a month, then just as is needed now (training class days or where we go somewhere that I think may cause stress). I have just given it before class for the last week or two and, now we have gone up a class and it is calmer, I will try without next week.


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## Werehorse

Magnesium based calmers are often used for horses to good effect, at least anecdotally. I was wondering if there were any for dogs (not wondering enough to google clearly ) and now I know.

My boys got a big walk today. They were embarassingly badly behaved in front of a very good-looking chap with a perfectly behaved border terrier (the man had perfect dog-walking manners as well and sat his dog at the side of the path - using treats not his foot  unusual round here - and let me and my mad, bouncing monochrome chaos onna string walk past him on the path). Oscar was strangling himself and Hugo was walking and bouncing on his back legs squeeling, not to get at the dog but at the woods behind the dog. I generally don't bother trying to calm them down when they go like that before a walk because I just get ignored and it devalues everything so I just hang on and hope they grow out of it!


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## Beth17

Good luck Ginger! I have both of those books and really enjoyed them I hope they help you 

Werehorse why is it if you see a well behaved dog you can almost guarantee your own will play up right on cue :thumbdown: :laugh:

The boys have only had a small walk this afternoon just to let them stretch their legs. They are their usual naughty selves though


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## chazzie10

Glad I'm not the only one having a very trying week! I have come to the conclusion, though, that the reason it's been the worst ever is because since joining this site 6 days ago, and getting some fantastic advice and ideas on training, I've been spending more time working with the dog so I guess there's been more bouts of frustration.
I tried a face halter on him yesterday and we had an awful walk. He spent the first 15mins rubbing his face on my leg to get the darn thing off, then the next 10mins miserable and leaping about :thumbdown: enough was enough so it came off- I was so frustrated and down in the dumps and hated seeing him distressed. The rest of the walk was much better 
On the plus side...I taught him that trick some of you talked about in another thread, stepping his front paws up onto a footstool...and it only took him 8 goes to learn it. Smart Cookie


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> 6 months. Wow, thats brilliant, I didn't think it had been that long.
> And bakery relapses are ok- its not fattening just licking the windows.


I have a confession to make..... it's only coming up 5 months not 6. it jsut feels like longer. :blush: :lol: The bakery have cancelled their window cleaner  only joking, the mad hunger has abated somewhat now 

Good luck Ginger, I found this book a great support for my nervous Nelly. " Help for your fearful dog : A step by step guide to helping your dog conquer his fears" by Nicole Wilde.


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## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Do you know what breeds are in him? Only I know someone with a lurcher on another forum having the exact same issues with tantrums. She's come a hell of a long way with him. He seems to have inherited the terrier attitude along with the deerhound slowness to mature though.


Mum's a beautiful brindle greyhound. She got pregnant is a pound and we were told the father was a collie. Not idea what sort of collie though.

What did this woman do, cos its starting to get frustrating as it can be random, oh and another thing, it only happens on walks.


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> He's been very clamp like on my arm today in his tantrums. And he's been chewing the lead. I think I know why he hasn't done it in months now.
> He might be teething again from the way he's chewing his bone now.


How old is he now? The adult teeth set into the jaw somewhere between 8 - 14 months so it's always the worse chewing stage.

I'm off to bed now as I've got to get up at 5.00am for a 2 hours journey and then judging all day. Judging starts at 8.30am - lovely!!

The chaps fitting the new conservatory didn't finish until after 8.30pm this evening and it's been a frustrating week. I shampooed the hall carpet on Monday, after my sister's visit, which was a total waste of time as the dogs have had to come in and out of the front door for the past three days; the house looks like a tip and I'm out all day tomorrow. Hey ho...LOL


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## Dogless

Sleep well Twiggy; hope tomorrow goes well - you can worry about the carpet on Sunday :yikes:.


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## Guest

Have a good kip, Twig. 

And he's 13 months and 2 days haha, so then it his aching jaw, along with the plumbers, being confined only to the living room and every living being in the house being stressy probably doesn't help matters.


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## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> Mum's a beautiful brindle greyhound. She got pregnant is a pound and we were told the father was a collie. Not idea what sort of collie though.
> 
> What did this woman do, cos its starting to get frustrating as it can be random, oh and another thing, it only happens on walks.


Trying to find posts where she's mentioned what she's done and/or been given advice. Will PM you a link to them when I find them (not sure whether it's okay to link to other forums on here).


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## kat&molly

Beth- I'm glad the boys are ok. You'll have to start nailing things to the ceiling with that young Sam about.:laugh:

Ginge-Could you ask your trainer to come out for maybe 1 or 2 visits and come on a walk with you. It could help to have a plan on how to tackle the problems.

Clicker training is going well. Scruff and Evie are enjoying getting treats for nearly nothing I am refusing to click though for Scruff jumping up me because she thinks I'm not fast enough. Cheeky madam. 

I had told Big Evie about teaching Moll to put her toys away but I still have to guide her by the collar as sometimes they fall just outside the box. She told me to try a tray used for paperwork as it was lower- Moll wouldn't have that at all- it wasn't the toy box , so I've tried pulling the box in to the middle of the room-it worked yesterday so we'll see what happens today.

Have a good weekend everyone.


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## Werehorse

I'm off to a "race" today. If your count waddling along at the back eating kendal mint cake as racing. :lol:

The boys always come with us, I run and OH looks after the collective and gets flustered and peed off.  It's called payback for the 10 in 10. The collective have a little fanclub of our friends who I'm sure are more excited to see the dogs than us. They have a fab time saying hellp to everyone. If possibly a little stressful, so I'm going to trial the Thundershirt on Hugo I think. Anything that might end up with OH less grumpy due to spaniel madness. 

Right, not sure I'm entirely ready for 9 miles of trail race but as I say, there's kendal mint cake 6 miles in so I really only have to get to there and then it's rocket fuel. :lol:
Have a good day with your doggies everyone.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> *I'm off to a "race" today. If your count waddling along at the back eating kendal mint cake as racing.* :lol:
> 
> The boys always come with us, I run and OH looks after the collective and gets flustered and peed off.  It's called payback for the 10 in 10. The collective have a little fanclub of our friends who I'm sure are more excited to see the dogs than us. They have a fab time saying hellp to everyone. If possibly a little stressful, so I'm going to trial the Thundershirt on Hugo I think. Anything that might end up with OH less grumpy due to spaniel madness.
> 
> Right, not sure I'm entirely ready for 9 miles of trail race but as I say, there's kendal mint cake 6 miles in so I really only have to get to there and then it's rocket fuel. :lol:
> Have a good day with your doggies everyone.


I do . Hope it's been a good one .


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## L/C

Dogless said:


> I do . Hope it's been a good one .


I agree.  Hope the mint cake was worth it. 

We've had a few very good days. Ely even had a run and play with Gypsy and another greyhound without any fireworks at all. It was so nice to see him being sociable that I over stayed and was very late to work that morning!  He also told off a very rude lurcher pup this morning and stayed within completely acceptable bounds. Lovely progress.

I've created a bit of a monster with Gypsy and training though. I always aim to do half an hour a day with her but sometimes don't if I'm tired or have been working late. Since seeing the trainer though I've been doing it religiously. Tried to skip it last night and she became a tantruming nightmare! Whinging, barking, stamping her foot - it was exactly like a toddler! Eventually she gave in and flopped on her bed and after she'd been quiet for a few minutes I relented and did a quick session with her.


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## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> I've created a bit of a monster with Gypsy and training though. I always aim to do half an hour a day with her but sometimes don't if I'm tired or have been working late. Since seeing the trainer though I've been doing it religiously. Tried to skip it last night and she became a tantruming nightmare! Whinging, barking, stamping her foot - it was exactly like a toddler! Eventually she gave in and flopped on her bed and after she'd been quiet for a few minutes I relented and did a quick session with her.


Spencer's like this. Problem is, the more training I do with him the more training he wants and I only have to move and he's sitting in front of me looking expectant. And he goes on a crime spree whenever I end a session. I dunno why, I've tried doing longer sessions, shorter sessions, sessions on calm behaviour, sessions with more movement. Whatever we do when the session ends he goes around stealing anything he can get his paws on  I've even tried having a game with him immediately after but he's not interested, he just wants to steal.


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## GingerRogers

Thanks Dogless have written that down now.

Werehorse sounds like ignoring the bad behavior works for you, and it certainly has been less stressful today. 

Chazzie I think you are right the more you try to train them the worse it appears because you are focusing too much.

Thanks moonviolet - I will look that one up as well

kat&molly - I would love for a trainer to come out and see her in a normal environment, I keep meaning to ask and that's exactly what we need perhaps with a safe dog to help establish the issues and work on overcoming them. Trouble is they are all volunteers, although any profits from the training club go to guide dogs etc so perhaps if I offered a donation to one of their favourite causes  

I realised last night that she may be very noisy but she is much better trained than most other dogs already. We met the local 'casear milan' last night, (god he loves the sound of his voice :rolleyes5. He wanted to give her a treat so made a big fuss of feeding the three other dogs with him first, he's a big chap, loomed over Ginge so she started prancing around on her backlegs. Oh is she a snapper he said, didn't wait for an answer and proceeded to tell us exactly how to get her to calm down and how we should hold the treat, I couldn't really be bothered to say, if you ask she will just sit :angry: Then said how he thought the head collar was useless, all his dog listened too was a good sharp snap on the lead! 

I made a big point to our friend last night about how we aren't bringing Ginge out if he has Rosie with him so hopefully he might get the hint that I would like him to control his dogs staring a bit more, that was also stressing me out.

On the plus side I met another friend out with her patterdalex, Rudi and the amazing Tamsin the wolfhound (she is awesome, its odd having a dog bigger than the furniture, I felt very humbled the other day when I was cleaning out the treat bag, Ginge and Rudi's little faces peering up at me and Tamsin calmly looking me straight in the eye)
Anyhoo Jo had similar troubles and stress with Rudi when she first got him so she knows what I am feeling, but he is one of the best dogs ever now. He has helped out lots of dogs in training, Ginge loves him, he will tell her off as well, so she is going to give me a bell one day next week and we can go out for a good long walk, we can natter and they can play, and Tamsin will just look over us all wisely 

Grr we were just off for a lovely walk but the in laws just called, they are in town


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## Guest

Well there hasn't been any tantrums today, but there is still the second walk to go through. I've also just found out by another thread that when Zander lies down when another dog gets close, it means he only want to play. He also does this when he shoots off to see another dog. 
No idea why it pleases me, but it does. 

He has also *for the first time in his life found a human being he doesn't like*, The electrician. The electrician crouched down offered a slow fist to sniff but zander was not having any of it. His ears flattened, tail between his legs and would only back away from him, or make a HUGE arc to get to me.

Thought it was strange, but apparently he'd been winding up a neighbors dog earlier through their fence:angry:


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Well there hasn't been any tantrums today, but there is still the second walk to go through. I've also just found out by another thread that when Zander lies down when another dog gets close, it means he only want to play. He also does this when he shoots off to see another dog.
> No idea why it pleases me, but it does.
> 
> He has also *for the first time in his life found a human being he doesn't like*, The electrician. The electrician crouched down offered a slow fist to sniff but zander was not having any of it. His ears flattened, tail between his legs and would only back away from him, or make a HUGE arc to get to me.
> 
> Thought it was strange, but apparently he'd been winding up a neighbors dog earlier through their fence:angry:


Kilo lies down too - he also used to tantrum like Zander!


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## Dogless

Well, we have had a good day.

Went to the park, very cold, very frosty but very sunny - a stunning autumn day. We saw lots of people and dogs that we knew and it was very social. I had a sudden 'We've come a long way' realisation as we walked towards dogs with a lovely loose lead, had a sniff and moved on - was talking about it to the owner of a mal who used to let us 'practise' with her dog .

Then - went to PAH to weigh the BW to see what his weight is doing as I've been feeding more now the weather is cooler and he's zooming even more. It was packed and he behaved very nicely indeed - sought out this one sales assistant that he adores to be belt - fed treats by her. Hmmm.....wonder why he adores her? :laugh:.

This afternoon we went to the offlead fields and the woman with the rescue dog was walking past - but came in so they could have a play which was nice and again, good behaviour .

I declare today a Gold Star day. My best boy :001_wub::001_wub:.



L/C - I continue to be massively impressed with the pointy twins, especially Ely; they are a real credit to you.


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## Twiggy

I survived the early start and got home about 5.45pm.

I had a very good class today and was really pleased with my line-up so an enjoyable days judging, plus the weather was lovely once the sun came out.

I took Tremor and Holly with me and as my sister turned up late morning, we walked them all in the afternoon after I'd finished judging.

Holly may not have the potential to be a top obedience dog but she is such a sweet and well-mannered little girl. She's never met my sister's two older bitches yet she politely greeted them, had a zoom about with her friend Mini, totally ignoring all the other dogs running about at the show, and came back straight away every time I called her. She really is a poppet.


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## Werehorse

LurcherOwner said:


> He has also *for the first time in his life found a human being he doesn't like*, The electrician. The electrician crouched down offered a slow fist to sniff but zander was not having any of it. His ears flattened, tail between his legs and would only back away from him, or make a HUGE arc to get to me.
> 
> Thought it was strange, but apparently he'd been winding up a neighbors dog earlier through their fence:angry:


Oscar once behaved like this towards a young fisherman who came into a pub we were in in Scotland. We thought about it afterwards and given the young man's sheepish expression decided that he has probably had some drugs on him! Oscar was really freaked and he has never reacted like that to anyone before or since.

Today has been a good day.  I ran ok and enjoyed a race properly for the first time in a long time. Still basically snail pace compared to where I used to be but getting better.

And the boys were stars. :001_wub: There was a fair amount of pulling and silly spannering BUT they were very polite towards all other dogs, and ignored plenty. And didn't assault anyone with licks who didn't ask for it (i.e. our friends who deliberately wind them up  ). They are always busy events these trail races with lots of dogs and people, music and food and lots going on. And they were good. Oscar kept settling down nicely whenever we stood still. And Hugo did a lot of very focussed sitting. Lots of people coe up and say hi to the dogs at these events and for the most part they were greated politely by the boys. Hugo did a couple of paws up jumping up (no aerial leaps, he saved those for me when I had a sweaty face) but responded very quickly to a firm "sit" from me despite his attention being on the person petting him.

The most impressive thing was when a couple of small girls came over and started petting them both (no parents in sight ). Oscar was his usual bombproof with kids self but actually got mostly ignored. Hugo got the brunt of the attention, which included pats on the head, ear stroking, nose stroking, feeling round his neck, holding his collar, stroking his hair on his back both the right and the wrong way, standing right behind him kind of straddling him. Now I should probably have not let all this go on BUT he was being completely perfect and not showing the slightest bit of upset by it so I used it as an opportunity to heavily reward the good behaviour - he sat and watched me the whole time with only occasional glances when the girl approached, he didn't flinch, duck his head, lick his lips, pant, nothing. Just sat and focussed. So I shovelled sausage down him and wrote it up as a good experience - hopefully a connection between children being rowdy and Good Things For Dogs.

The same children, again with no parental supervision, had been playing near the boys earlier. Throwing a teddy around between them and screaming and falling over (one of my friends who is a primary teacher had to mop on of them up with a wet wipe when she fell over and got mud and grit all over her hands - parenting anyone? Anyone?). The collective showed no interest at all. :yikes:

I am so pleased with them today. :001_wub: Myself and OH were saying that in a years time they might even be completely calm. 

All three of my boys are asleep on the sofa now. OH has only half eaten his pizza but the dogs aren't even looking like they might try and pinch it even though it is within reach. Wish I had a camera I could get without moving. :001_wub:

Fantastic day. So good to feel like hard work is paying off. Both with the running and the dogs!


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## Dogless

Werehorse; your post put a smile on my face for so many reasons; not all dog related. Well done .


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## Guest

Well done werehorse!!

Oh the tantrums. He kicked off LOADS. Mum took the lead from me, and he IMMEDIATLEY stopped. He's never kicked off with her and he never pulls with her either. Kinda annoys as I'm the one who trains him. 
But then mum can hold Zander when he's bouncing about without moving an inch.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Well done werehorse!!
> 
> Oh the tantrums. He kicked off LOADS. Mum took the lead from me, and he IMMEDIATLEY stopped. He's never kicked off with her and he never pulls with her either. Kinda annoys as I'm the one who trains him.
> But then mum can hold Zander when he's bouncing about without moving an inch.


Sounds daft; but how do you hold him? If I hold Kilo with my arms close into my body I can stand and not be budged - if they are not close it makes a huge difference!


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## Werehorse

Thanks peeps.  I'm sure they'll be naughty tomorrow to bring me back down to earth.

LurcherOwner - does your mum ignore him (because she can, because she can stand still!) more while you try to engage and train him out of it? Sometimes the best thing to do is ignore - MUCH easier said than done. Very much the reason Hugo is still so bad for jumping up at me is because I am so inconsistant in my reaction to it but mostly he gets attention for it, laughter, training and even cross-ness  have probably been rewarding him for doing it. OH just ignores him and he's much better at not leaping all over OH.


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## kat&molly

Well done Werehorse.

L/C- had a giggle at Gypsy- she never got the couch potato memo did she.:laugh: Its great that she wants to train though.

Had a seperate walk yesterday afternoon. Moll had a tough lesson on impulse control as it really isn't good enough when it comes to retreives. 

Then took Scruff and Evie out, done some heelwork with Scruff before letting her go.I was just letting short stuff have a run because she doesn't get a lot of off lead lately and I was sat on the grass just watching them. Evie came charging over jumping all over me and covering me in kisses . I didn't realise I'd sat next to a mouse hole but that was it then she starting digging and covered me in dirt.:laugh: It was nice to feel important for a few seconds though.

Have a good day everyone.


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## chazzie10

Wow, sounds like youz lot all had a brilliant day yesterday! Mine was tiring to say the least
Id only had 2hrs sleep then up at 4.30am, as usual, to get ready for work :thumbdown: then home to phone dog trainer to check there was a slot free for Charlie's 1st training class. There was (panic set in lol). 
Got to the place and Chaz just went a bit boogaloo, pulling, running sniffing the ground at 100mph (ive only got short legs and was running like Penelope Pitstop but about 6 stone heavier hehehe) whining, crying, eyes goggling (the dog was the same)...he'd just never been in a situation like this before with such a lot of dogs in one small place. 
The trainer told us all to go outside for 3 laps round the block to see how we all did at lead walking-my heart sank. Poor Chazzie didnt know which dog to pull to first! One dog, a jrt/ spaniel x had serious aggression issues and tried to eat any dog that came within 10 feet so every time it kicked off chazzie got excited on the lead and was, yet again, again like flying a kite on a hurricane :incazzato:
He came a long way with the sitting focusing for a treat- he has never done that in the presence of other dogs before and it took him a few minutes but he got it. Then we had to practise recall...panic...but he did it!! Didnt go near or even look at the others!! He was like a bull dozer hurtling down the hall straight to me woohoo :001_wub:
The only thing he did on 1st run was stop at a dogs water bowl for a crafty drink lol but I was so pleased and by the end of class he was walking through the others and not pulling as much-light at the end of the tunnel? Anyway, phew, that was our day...in a few words lmao :laugh:


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## Dogless

chazzie10 - actually sounds as if you and Chaz did well and he came a long way in his first lesson .


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## chazzie10

kat&molly you made me laugh there, the thoughts of all that mud getting kicked up right beside you- ive had a few 'sand kicked in the face' episodes :laugh: 
I find it funny :laugh: I never understand these people you see out walking their dogs and they are immaculately turned out- perfect white trainers on their feet and pale coloured clothes, not a pick of dirt........
Then there's me...the hiking boots and the bottom 6inches of my jeans covered in thick mud and the rest of me wet from dog shakes and slabbers (the dogs, honest :drool: lol). To me, MINE is the proper dog walk and my dogs had more fun than theirs hehehe


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## chazzie10

Morning Dogless  yeah do you know I'm was sitting here typing that last bit and the more I thought about it, the more I realised how far he had come... must have been so frustrating and stressful for him, poor pet. His wee brain musta been fried lol


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## kat&molly

chazzie10 said:


> kat&molly you made me laugh there, the thoughts of all that mud getting kicked up right beside you- ive had a few 'sand kicked in the face' episodes :laugh:
> I find it funny :laugh: I never understand these people you see out walking their dogs and they are immaculately turned out- perfect white trainers on their feet and pale coloured clothes, not a pick of dirt........
> Then there's me...the hiking boots and the bottom 6inches of my jeans covered in thick mud and the rest of me wet from dog shakes and slabbers (the dogs, honest :drool: lol). To me, MINE is the proper dog walk and my dogs had more fun than theirs hehehe


Me and the girls get filthy- my neighbours are horrified when they see us.:laugh:

It sounds like your first lesson went really well, it must have been quite challenging with all the other dogs there.:thumbup1:


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## chazzie10

the best walks are filthy (i'm not gonna mention the soldiers again lmao), and I never feel like we've achieved anything until we are completely messy. Never has a dog owner looked more than their dog than when they're both covered in clay and blanket weed :laugh:
Yes the class was hard work- and a bit of sweat going on, not sure if it was nervous or physical sweat though lol bit of both- geez my shoulders and arms ache today! Might be to do with the alcohol fuelled dancing at a charity 'do' last night though! When did dancing stop being fun and become a work out???


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> the best walks are filthy (i'm not gonna mention the soldiers again lmao), and I never feel like we've achieved anything until we are completely messy. Never has a dog owner looked more than their dog than when they're both covered in clay and blanket weed :laugh:


Or bog :yikes:.



















Had a lovely few hours out this morning - an hour or so's play on the fields and about the same again walking on lead around the pavements and sports pitches. Very peaceful .


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## chazzie10

nice pics Dogless  Hey! Your forest has trees! I'm jealous :angry:
Strange comment lol. Our foresty bit has had ALL the trees felled because of some disease and it looks so weird. I almost drove past my normal parking spot cos I didnt recognise it! Its quite eerie and a big bit sad walking there now. So quiet- I hadnt realised just how quietly noisy (?) the trees and birds were before


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> nice pics Dogless  Hey! Your forest has trees! I'm jealous :angry:
> Strange comment lol. Our foresty bit has had ALL the trees felled because of some disease and it looks so weird. I almost drove past my normal parking spot cos I didnt recognise it! Its quite eerie and a big bit sad walking there now. So quiet- I hadnt realised just how quietly noisy (?) the trees and birds were before


Larch Disease - all the forests round here have it and loads of felled areas bar 'our' forest where those photos were taken. The other forest that we visit that was clear had signs go up last week .


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## Dogless

Bet17 - just read your Star Letter in 'Your Dog'; well done - hope the boys appreciate the prize .


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Larch Disease - all the forests round here have it and loads of felled areas bar 'our' forest where those photos were taken. The other forest that we visit that was clear had signs go up last week .


Wonder what they are gonna do to stop it spreading- will felling the trees be enough? Its such a shame for the wildlife


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Wonder what they are gonna do to stop it spreading- will felling the trees be enough? Its such a shame for the wildlife


Most people just ignore all the signs around here so it will continue I guess . When I last went to Glenariff Forest Park some of the trails were cordoned off with bright tape and signs and I just watched people duck under the cordons and carry on!


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## chazzie10

BAT training day 4-Just took charlie a dander to the local shop for the 1st time. I usually leave him at home cos its easier than coping with other dogs, people, finding somewhere to tie him, wondering how he'll react to being left outside a shop.... lol. I cant believe how good he was! He pulled for no more than 10 seconds then when i walked backwards a few steps, treated him for looking at me a couple of times, he remembered and walked like a lamb 
I tied his lead to a lampost on a grassy area beside the shop and made him lie down...came out of shop and he was still lying down (with his tail going a dinger lol). The walk home was fantastic- the lead was so loose he kept tripping on it! AND he kept smiling up at me the whole way :001_wub: I swear BAT has transformed him


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> BAT training day 4-Just took charlie a dander to the local shop for the 1st time. I usually leave him at home cos its easier than coping with other dogs, people, finding somewhere to tie him, wondering how he'll react to being left outside a shop.... lol. I cant believe how good he was! He pulled for no more than 10 seconds then when i walked backwards a few steps, treated him for looking at me a couple of times, he remembered and walked like a lamb
> I tied his lead to a lampost on a grassy area beside the shop and made him lie down...came out of shop and he was still lying down (with his tail going a dinger lol). The walk home was fantastic- the lead was so loose he kept tripping on it! AND he kept smiling up at me the whole way :001_wub: I swear BAT has transformed him


That all sounds good really good  but (at the risk of being a spoilsport) I probably wouldn't leave him tied up outside a shop at such an early stage as you can't control his behaviour - so if he does get excited and react to a dog / person etc he then practises the behaviour that he finds rewarding that could undermine your training massively. Just my take on that part!


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Most people just ignore all the signs around here so it will continue I guess . When I last went to Glenariff Forest Park some of the trails were cordoned off with bright tape and signs and I just watched people duck under the cordons and carry on!


Glenariff? Are you from the same part of the world as me? N. Ireland?


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## Werehorse

:-( It's such a shame about the trees. Is that the disease I heard about on the news the other day I wonder? I wasn't listening properly - it might have been something to do with restricting imports of stuff (?) into mainland UK to prevent the spread... I really wasn't listening. 

This morning I decided to take the boys for wee-poos together (I was a bit late out of bed and it didn't seem fair to make Oscar wait while I took Hugo!). I put Hugo on a waist lead, Oscar on a normal lead and off we trotted. And it was remarkably stress free. Minimal pulling from both, even Hugo on the waist lead/ They were good. 

Hugo barked at a lady who was taking photos of a house across the road (he seems to have a very acute sense of when people are acting out of the ordinary) which isn't great.  But he was easily interrupted and didn't start barking again after I got him sitting. I really don't know what sets him off, he fixated on her as soon as she came round the corner thinking about it. I did a nose touch as we headed towards her and he did that fine but still fixated then barked. Really weird. It doesn't seem aggressive, it's more of a warning bark. I think I need to be more observant of him fixating and get him into heel for the duration.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Wow, sounds like youz lot all had a brilliant day yesterday! Mine was tiring to say the least
> Id only had 2hrs sleep then up at 4.30am, as usual, to get ready for work :thumbdown: then home to phone dog trainer to check there was a slot free for Charlie's 1st training class. There was (panic set in lol).
> Got to the place and Chaz just went a bit boogaloo, pulling, running sniffing the ground at 100mph (ive only got short legs and was running like Penelope Pitstop but about 6 stone heavier hehehe) whining, crying, eyes goggling (the dog was the same)...he'd just never been in a situation like this before with such a lot of dogs in one small place.
> The trainer told us all to go outside for 3 laps round the block to see how we all did at lead walking-my heart sank. Poor Chazzie didnt know which dog to pull to first! One dog, a jrt/ spaniel x had serious aggression issues and tried to eat any dog that came within 10 feet so every time it kicked off chazzie got excited on the lead and was, yet again, again like flying a kite on a hurricane :incazzato:
> He came a long way with the sitting focusing for a treat- he has never done that in the presence of other dogs before and it took him a few minutes but he got it. Then we had to practise recall...panic...but he did it!! Didnt go near or even look at the others!! He was like a bull dozer hurtling down the hall straight to me woohoo :001_wub:
> The only thing he did on 1st run was stop at a dogs water bowl for a crafty drink lol but I was so pleased and by the end of class he was walking through the others and not pulling as much-light at the end of the tunnel? Anyway, phew, that was our day...in a few words lmao :laugh:


That sounds brilliant for your first lesson - be proud..


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> kat&molly you made me laugh there, the thoughts of all that mud getting kicked up right beside you- ive had a few 'sand kicked in the face' episodes :laugh:
> I find it funny :laugh: I never understand these people you see out walking their dogs and they are immaculately turned out- perfect white trainers on their feet and pale coloured clothes, not a pick of dirt........
> Then there's me...the hiking boots and the bottom 6inches of my jeans covered in thick mud and the rest of me wet from dog shakes and slabbers (the dogs, honest :drool: lol). To me, MINE is the proper dog walk and my dogs had more fun than theirs hehehe


You get them at dog shows; absolutely immaculate even when it's tipping it down and blowing a gale. I've no idea how they manage it. Most of us look as if we've been dragged through a hedge backwards...LOL


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Glenariff? Are you from the same part of the world as me? N. Ireland?


I do live in NI, yes .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> That all sounds good really good  but (at the risk of being a spoilsport) I probably wouldn't leave him tied up outside a shop at such an early stage as you can't control his behaviour - so if he does get excited and react to a dog / person etc he then practises the behaviour that he finds rewarding that could undermine your training massively. Just my take on that part!


Thanks Dogless- I didnt think of that though where I tied him up is quite out of the way so he wouldnt have been able to get close enough to react- I think lol. They're like kids aren't they- you always have to be 2 steps ahead of them- well, mentally anyway :laugh:


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> That sounds brilliant for your first lesson - be proud..


Thanks Twiggy  i AM proud, especially after this morning- its nice to have a walk thats not a 'vicious cycle' of pull, tug, scold, frustration, stroppy dog, stroppy owner, back home, huffing dog, huffing owner hehehe- this is much nicer...Im gonna call it a 'soppy cycle' :laugh:


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> :-( It's such a shame about the trees. Is that the disease I heard about on the news the other day I wonder? I wasn't listening properly - it might have been something to do with restricting imports of stuff (?) into mainland UK to prevent the spread... I really wasn't listening.
> 
> This morning I decided to take the boys for wee-poos together (I was a bit late out of bed and it didn't seem fair to make Oscar wait while I took Hugo!). I put Hugo on a waist lead, Oscar on a normal lead and off we trotted. And it was remarkably stress free. Minimal pulling from both, even Hugo on the waist lead/ They were good.
> 
> Hugo barked at a lady who was taking photos of a house across the road (he seems to have a very acute sense of when people are acting out of the ordinary) which isn't great.  But he was easily interrupted and didn't start barking again after I got him sitting. I really don't know what sets him off, he fixated on her as soon as she came round the corner thinking about it. I did a nose touch as we headed towards her and he did that fine but still fixated then barked. Really weird. It doesn't seem aggressive, it's more of a warning bark. I think I need to be more observant of him fixating and get him into heel for the duration.


it probably is the same disease we're talking about- I think it's spread all over the British Isles etc. Shame.
As for you thinking that Hugo's acute sense 'not being great', I think that's brilliant and very observant of him- maybe he picked up on the womans feelings? She might have been nervous or self conscious taking photos of a house( especially if it maybe wasn't her house) and he's picked up the vibes-smart cookie


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> You get them at dog shows; absolutely immaculate even when it's tipping it down and blowing a gale. I've no idea how they manage it. Most of us look as if we've been dragged through a hedge backwards...LOL


I usually HAVE been dragged through the hedge backwards!! :laugh:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse; well done on not only surviving a joint 'toilet' walk but having a successful one .

Kilo has a massively acute sense of environmental change (RRs are known for it) - things / people suddenly appearing / acting unusually etc. Sometimes it's a trial (man coming round behind us on sports pitches the other day for instance); others it's very welcome like when I get followed or approached by weirdos and he fixes them with a hard stare that continues until they are a 'suitable' distance away!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I do live in NI, yes .


Small world eh? If your visiting Glenariff- then you're not too far away from me. Hav'nt been to Glenariff in years, had sort of forgotten about it! I'll have to take a trip down there when I tame this beast of mine- I dont wanna end up head first in the waterfall on the end of a 6 foot leash :incazzato: lol.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Small world eh? If your visiting Glenariff- then you're not too far away from me. Hav'nt been to Glenariff in years, had sort of forgotten about it! I'll have to take a trip down there when I tame this beast of mine- I dont wanna end up head first in the waterfall on the end of a 6 foot leash :incazzato: lol.


I would suggest meeting had you not got a very bouncy lab....would be a bit much for Kilo maybe at present although he's far less scaredy than he was!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I would suggest meeting had you not got a very bouncy lab....would be a bit much for Kilo maybe at present although he's far less scaredy than he was!


Yeah maybe when charlie has got the message that would be great and would be so funny to see him with a dog bigger than he is- he's only really met spaniels, collies, other labs and the miniature jrt's that he shared his puppyhood with (my ex's). 
I often wonder was it his relationship with the jrt's that caused this 'mad playing' behaviour. Because my ex's house was my second home, charlie was brought out of the car and sort of allowed to explode into the garden to greet the waiting jrt pups- they were all the same age 9wks on as we got the 3 of them a few days apart! - the play was quite boisterous. We allowed it because it wasnt 'strangers' dogs but in hindsight, we should have used it as opportunities to train and teach impulse control etc....i guess its my fault... (hangs head in shame)  lol


----------



## chazzie10

Hey Dogless I'm just thinking- who ran your dog classes? Was it Robin Bates at Mallusk?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Hey Dogless I'm just thinking- who ran your dog classes? Was it Robin Bates at Mallusk?


No; I go to Lisburn.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Yeah maybe when charlie has got the message that would be great and would be so funny to see him with a dog bigger than he is- he's only really met spaniels, collies, other labs and the miniature jrt's that he shared his puppyhood with (my ex's).
> I often wonder was it his relationship with the jrt's that caused this 'mad playing' behaviour. Because my ex's house was my second home, charlie was brought out of the car and sort of allowed to explode into the garden to greet the waiting jrt pups- they were all the same age 9wks on as we got the 3 of them a few days apart! - the play was quite boisterous. We allowed it because it wasnt 'strangers' dogs but in hindsight, we should have used it as opportunities to train and teach impulse control etc....i guess its my fault... (hangs head in shame)  lol


I_ think _now with some lead walking first that they would be fine but just don't want to risk it as we've come so far that I'd be really angry with myself if I messed up now. Kilo has played very well with a fair few labs when introduced calmly - but any frantic greeting behaviour makes him very anxious!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I_ think _now with some lead walking first that they would be fine but just don't want to risk it as we've come so far that I'd be really angry with myself if I messed up now. Kilo has played very well with a fair few labs when introduced calmly - but any frantic greeting behaviour makes him very anxious!


That's understandable- I walk Charlie with my sister and her black lab sometimes and after the initial greeting he calms down and they just fetch sticks and swim together. Her dog is older and has joint probs, just gives him a look that tells him he's not gonna put up with any immature nonsense :laugh:
I would want to wait until he's walking on lead a bit better-its hard to make conversation when you're out of breath from being dragged along the forest on your face lmao


----------



## Guest

Not much to say today, Zander has barely been out poor lad as I've been working horrible shifts today. He also threw up sort of yellowy/greeny liquid... Is that bile?

Had some random person lecture me about letting him off in the field as 'What if he caught rabbits? Thats illegal!" Had to explain that nope not illegal with landowners permission and that he's not a working dog. But I got the reply 'But he's a lurcher! Keeping him as a pet isn't fair on him'. She had a lab with her.

I do meet some strange ones. 
There was also a lone man walking in the field the other day at half six in the morn, not to sound superficial but he did make me feel uneasy. Zander just lay infront of me, and stared at him. 

Poor donkey, chewing on a bone right now, wondering why he's barely had any exercise today.


----------



## Werehorse

I thought if it was rabbits or rats and it was two dogs or less it wasn't illegal anyway.

She didn't leave with much option though did she - keeping as a pet is cruel but catching rabbits with him is illegal... what's he supposed to work as then? I'm sure he'd be good at accountancy... :lol:


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> I thought if it was rabbits or rats and it was two dogs or less it wasn't illegal anyway.
> 
> She didn't leave with much option though did she - keeping as a pet is cruel but catching rabbits with him is illegal... what's he supposed to work as then? I'm sure he'd be good at accountancy... :lol:


He's a champion Sofa warmer/tester, searcher of strangers pockets, seeing whether he can still sit on guests laps, tantrum throwing, bat eared, cat molesting, over exuberant bringer of dead creatures (he returned a dead toad to me he found the other day OH MUM LOOK AT IT ISN'T IS GREAT WHY AREN'T YOU AS ENTHUSED AS I AM IT'S AMAAZZIIIINNNNNG, OOOH I WONDER IF THIS PEKINGNESE WANTS TO SHARE TOOOOOOO!?!?)

The pekingnese didn't want to share and neither did her owner. :001_wub:

But yeah, strange lady, and slightly hypocritical if the lab was hers?


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C - I continue to be massively impressed with the pointy twins, especially Ely; they are a real credit to you.


Aw thank you.



kat&molly said:


> Well done Werehorse.
> 
> L/C- had a giggle at Gypsy- she never got the couch potato memo did she.:laugh: Its great that she wants to train though.


No, I think I was sold a dud model! We had a three hour walk this morning plus two hours in the pub so I've got some peace his evening...



LurcherOwner said:


> Not much to say today, Zander has barely been out poor lad as I've been working horrible shifts today. He also threw up sort of yellowy/greeny liquid... Is that bile?
> 
> Had some random person lecture me about letting him off in the field as 'What if he caught rabbits? Thats illegal!" Had to explain that nope not illegal with landowners permission and that he's not a working dog. But I got the reply 'But he's a lurcher! Keeping him as a pet isn't fair on him'. She had a lab with her.
> 
> I do meet some strange ones.
> There was also a lone man walking in the field the other day at half six in the morn, not to sound superficial but he did make me feel uneasy. Zander just lay infront of me, and stared at him.
> 
> Poor donkey, chewing on a bone right now, wondering why he's barely had any exercise today.


It does sound like bile - had it been a while since his last meal? Some large breeds can vomit because their stomachs are empty.

I know all about weird ones! I once met a man who insisted my dogs must be working lurchers as all pet ones were fat. He ignored all of my attempts to tell him they were pets and that they were also greyhounds!

I made a thread about it.

We met an absolute idiot on our walk today. OH was cycling ahead with Gypsy and Ely was mooching along behind with me. OH had stopped to wait for us when a woman walking 3 small dogs walked up. One of the yorkies immediately launched itself at Gypsy and tried to bite her. She just jumped away looking bemused while the woman laughed about it. OH told her to get her dog and she said ''He's only little!" 

I took Ely off the path and had him sit and watch me and distracted him but the bloody woman still didn't put her dog on a lead. I asked her to as it was barking and growling at Ely and he wasn't comfortable. Again I got the usual nonsense until I saw Ely stiffen as it got very close and told her to do it or I wouldn't be responsible for what happened as my dog was very upset at being threatened. So no doubt she will ave been telling everybody about he vicious greyhound. :incazzato:

We had some nice meetings with other dogs after that but Ely didn't really relax properly for the rest of the walk. I really hope this doesn't set him back.


----------



## Werehorse

I decided to try a free-shaping session with my two... one at a time mind... this evening. I don't really do free-shaping as I'm too impatient, although we got a wave out of Hugo by being in the right place at the right time with a clicker and treats handy! But I thought it would be good for them and me to give it a go.

I decided to aim for "paws up" on a box. And did Oscar first.

There was a reasonable amount of trying what he knows works, sitting, downing mostly, next to the box. He pawed the box a lot which I ignored. Then on foot went flat on the box, click. The same foot pawed and didn't get a click which resulted in more faffing. Then we had another flat foot, click. Then after a tiny bit more faffing, both feet, hurrah! Click, jackpot. He did it a couple more times then the box wobbled and it put him off for a bit but it didn't take him long to come round and by the end he was doing it reliably and dribbling for treats. :lol:

Hugo's turn. I half expected him to do it straight away as he had been watching Oscar! But no. He did a lot of sitting and trying to give eye contact. He's very, very patient and has a strong belief that sitting and eye contact will eventually bring a treat. Great for day to day stuff and dealing with mad kiddies! But not so good when what you want is as much behaviour as possible in order to pick what you like out of it. Eventually we got a paw on the box (it seemed like forever coming, and a forever of stillness! At least Oscar kept my hopes up with his messing around!). I clicked it but it was slightly wrong because in the split second before I clicked it turned into a pawing paw rather than a flat paw and that was it then... mad scrabbling/digging at the box! He got completely stuck on "dig". I think digging at stuff must be self-rewarding, especially if you are a bit frustrated by your normally bossy mum suddenly not giving you any clues! I tried just ignoring and waiting but eventually I feared for the health of the box so I interupted him. He went back to digging again. After a couple of unsuccessful interuptions I decided to help him out and put my hand out as if to hand target but so he'd have to get his front feet on the box to reach. After a bit of leaping round and over the box FINALLY both front paws hit it together, bingo, click, jackpot. A couple more guided paws up and he starts offering it himself. I had to stop after a couple because my tea was ready.

I was really surprised that Hugo struggled more than Oscar! But then maybe collie-brain likes clear instructions and spanner-brain likes to think for itself more? I'll have to do some more free-shaping with Hugo because I do think he'll benefit, it's just a shame the digging the box was so addictive for him today!


----------



## Werehorse

L/C said:


> We met an absolute idiot on our walk today. OH was cycling ahead with Gypsy and Ely was mooching along behind with me. OH had stopped to wait for us when a woman walking 3 small dogs walked up. One of the yorkies immediately launched itself at Gypsy and tried to bite her. She just jumped away looking bemused while the woman laughed about it. OH told her to get her dog and she said ''He's only little!"
> 
> I took Ely off the path and had him sit and watch me and distracted him but the bloody woman still didn't put her dog on a lead. I asked her to as it was barking and growling at Ely and he wasn't comfortable. Again I got the usual nonsense until I saw Ely stiffen as it got very close and told her to do it or I wouldn't be responsible for what happened as my dog was very upset at being threatened. So no doubt she will ave been telling everybody about he vicious greyhound. :incazzato:


How utterly maddening.  Why are people so rude and ignorant sometimes? If someone asked me to keep my dog away from their I would be instantly embarassed, apologetic and rounding up my dog - even if I didn't think it was doing anything wrong, never mind if it was barking and swearing! Stupid woman. :thumbdown:


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> How utterly maddening.  Why are people so rude and ignorant sometimes? If someone asked me to keep my dog away from their I would be instantly embarassed, apologetic and rounding up my dog - even if I didn't think it was doing anything wrong, never mind if it was barking and swearing! Stupid woman. :thumbdown:


^^ *I Agree with all of this. *


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> How utterly maddening.  Why are people so rude and ignorant sometimes? If someone asked me to keep my dog away from their I would be instantly embarassed, apologetic and rounding up my dog - even if I didn't think it was doing anything wrong, never mind if it was barking and swearing! Stupid woman. :thumbdown:


It was such a tiny thing - I dread to think what will happen if it actually connects with a much bigger dog.

It sounds like the shaping session went really well though! Poor old Hugo got there in the end!


----------



## Guest

L/C I've had the fat comment before on my one!! Not all lurchers and greyhounds are patriculary ribby (Ya can't seen em on mine at all!) 

Oh and yep he hadn't eaten since 5pm previous evening. Annoyingly it has left a horrid yellowly stain on the carpet any advice on this guys!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> L/C I've had the fat comment before on my one!! Not all lurchers and greyhounds are patriculary ribby (Ya can't seen em on mine at all!)
> 
> Oh and yep he hadn't eaten since 5pm previous evening. Annoyingly it has left a horrid yellowly stain on the carpet any advice on this guys!!


Kilo sometimes vomits bile if his stomach gets too empty. I feed him twice per day, plus he has a 'snack' (ostrich tendon or something) around lunchtime and a couple of charcoal biscuits at bedtime to prevent this. As for the carpet....a Bissell is your best friend .


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> It was such a tiny thing - I dread to think what will happen if it actually connects with a much bigger dog.
> 
> It sounds like the shaping session went really well though! Poor old Hugo got there in the end!


L/C - folk never fail to amaze me. We have had similar experiences .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Kilo sometimes vomits bile if his stomach gets too empty. I feed him twice per day, plus he has a 'snack' (ostrich tendon or something) around lunchtime and a couple of charcoal biscuits at bedtime to prevent this. As for the carpet....a Bissell is your best friend .


I better start saving haha  
Ooh and another question, how do you guys upload vids on here? Its on windows media player right now...


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I better start saving haha
> Ooh and another question, how do you guys upload vids on here? Its on windows media player right now...


I put them on Photobucket then copy and paste the IMG code thingummy.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> L/C I've had the fat comment before on my one!! Not all lurchers and greyhounds are patriculary ribby (Ya can't seen em on mine at all!)
> 
> Oh and yep he hadn't eaten since 5pm previous evening. Annoyingly it has left a horrid yellowly stain on the carpet any advice on this guys!!


Have you tried wine? It wont get the stain out but it'll make you care less about it


----------



## Twiggy

Well Holly Bolly brought me right down to earth with a bump yesterday afternoon. Right back to her 'not today thanks all the same' mode. Maybe it's because I haven't had time to train them since last Tuesday. I'll have another go this afternoon and see if I get a better response.


----------



## chazzie10

Morning all  
Today we're working on being able to let visitors into the house without becoming human bouncy castles. So far it's going really, really well. The carpet cleaning man has been here since 9am and Charlie stayed in his bed while I let him in, stayed there when told to and focused on me and stayed as the man went up and down the hall with buckets of water. 
Only once did he tiptoe out past me lol but that was my fault for turning my back and not watching what sneaky boy was up to- I swear that dog actually tiptoes up on his nails like something out of a cartoon :laugh:
Hope the guy finishes soon- we're nearly at the end of the treat bag


----------



## moonviolet

I all hope you are well. Tink had a lovely weekend as Granny and Gramps gravybones visited on Saturday which was so so so exciting we turned into a squeaking wiggling thing even managed an excited howl or two in honour of their arrival. Went for a lovely walk with Mum and Tink while OH and Dad did a bit of floor laying prep and some serious sofa napping :lol: There was some other napping too when mum took Tink's lead and was reluctant to give it back, ( what a Kiddie) So i was telling her cues for Tink and Tink was happy to impress her gran :lol: :lol:

Yesterday floor laying began in earnest so i was charged with keeping out of the way... a very imporant job and one I display for which i show some skill ( maybe an undiscovered vocation ) So a long morning walk and couple of hours nap for Tink while i made lunch, then back out on a group walk in the aftenoon had a lovely chat with The owner of a Lab who had been attacked by a Collie and was very nervy around new dogs we exchanged lots of notes and stories. With a suitable tired beagle i helped out with the floor laying in the evening. She happily slept through lots of furniture moving , nailing and random clattering.


L/C : Some people do inspire the phrase " are you going to fetch your dog or should i flick them back to you with my foot?"

Werehorse: Digging is definitely a pleasurable experience. It used to be Tink's go to activity when over stimulated , I confess I prefered it to her brief humpy phase. So unladylike :lol: Those free shaping sessions are definitely for patient days 

Nearly got washed away this morning... showers, yes it was a shower of deluge proportions. Hope eveeryone is having a good one.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Charlie .

Well done too mv; I also have a talent for keeping out of the way....

Today we have worked on....nothing; just went to the beach. Hubby back at work tonight on nights so just the BW and I for the next few weeks again.


----------



## chazzie10

Moonviolet it sounds like you had a lovely, if busy, weekend! Walking a dog is definately preferable to laying a floor.

Dogless your pics of the beach are lovely- we went for a street walk to practice this BAT training but I think I just ended up with me looking batty 
I used to worry what people would think if they saw me suddenly turning and walking back the way I came, then turning again... they must think I've escaped from somewhere lmao. Today I didnt care. The sun was shining, the air was fresh and Charlie, eventually....(drum roll please) ...walked on a loose lead WOOHOO  yes Mr Bubblebum is todays star pupil! 
To finish his walk I took him onto the beach. He'd a boisterous play with a giant jrt that tried to put him in his place but every time it growled he sniffed its teeth! - Talk about putting your head in the lions mouth :yikes: He really is the daftest clampit Ive ever met :001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

Pleased to report Holly was in a much better frame of mind this afternoon. I paid for it though because she certainly enjoys biting....LOL


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- what a lucky Tink, having a Granny and Gramps Gravybones.:laugh: 

Well done Charlie.

Not much for us today, I had to go to the big vets to get Jays meds and of course had the entourage with me. I planned to stop at a lovely lake on the way back so bought a cheap ball on a rope for Moll.
The lake was deserted and Evie had a lovely run around off lead and lots of swimming. Poor Moll  her ball fell apart on the 3rd throw and sunk:thumbdown: she was gutted and I'm sure she expected me to go in the lake and get it back out.:laugh:


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- what a lucky Tink, having a Granny and Gramps Gravybones.:laugh:
> 
> Well done Charlie.
> 
> Not much for us today, I had to go to the big vets to get Jays meds and of course had the entourage with me. I planned to stop at a lovely lake on the way back so bought a cheap ball on a rope for Moll.
> The lake was deserted and Evie had a lovely run around off lead and lots of swimming. Poor Moll  her ball fell apart on the 3rd throw and sunk:thumbdown: she was gutted and I'm sure she expected me to go in the lake and get it back out.:laugh:


That made me laugh and you're quite right. When we go to the beach, mine expect me to swim out and retrieve bottles and toys that are floating away....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That made me laugh and you're quite right. When we go to the beach, mine expect me to swim out and retrieve bottles and toys that are floating away....


Same here too......

chazzie10 - Charlie is doing brilliantly; there is a pup here who Kilo plays with sometimes who does put his whole head inside Kilo's mouth when he is stopped and panting :yikes:.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - pics for you . http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/266393-beautiful-day-beach-photos.html


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Same here too......
> 
> chazzie10 - Charlie is doing brilliantly; there is a pup here who Kilo plays with sometimes who does put his whole head inside Kilo's mouth when he is stopped and panting :yikes:.


i think he was checking for food in the other dogs mouth :laugh:


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Holly.

K&M had to laugh about Moll's ball that's pretty much the look i get anytime i throw anything and i don't have a treat bag :lol:
Tink is lucky to have a granny and gramps gravybones, but i've been a whole lot more lucky having them as parents 

Twiggy, Glad Holly is more motivated today. Have you considered one of those chain mail gloves they use for shucking oysters? 

Chazzie. sounds like you and Charlie are doing great. Clearly he has an ambition of becoming a dental hygenist


----------



## L/C

K&M - poor Moll, how dare you not go and retrieve her ball?! 

Chazzie - that made me giggle imagining Charlie sniffing an angry jr's teeth!

Just done my first real shaping session with Gypsy (inspired by Werehorse!). She didn't take to it at first but once she understood that she got clicked for offering any behaviour she relaxed and we had some fun. By the end of it we'd captured paws on the box, one paw on the box, scratching the top of the box, paws in the box and tipping the box over. We'll see how many she remembers the next time we do it.

Her verbal commands are still a bit iffy and I'm not sure if that's my timing or just that she's a visually oriented breed so hand signals are easier. Our trainer thinks the hand signals are blocking the verbal commands because they are easier to understand. What does everyone think?


----------



## Dogless

L/C - sounds as if Gypsy's enjoying the shaping. I don't know enough to comment on the hand signals / voice thing so won't even try and come up with a theory .


----------



## Werehorse

I was reading in that book I mentioned the other day a suggestion that dogs have different favoured learning styles, akin to the learning styles that people supposedly have (visual, auditory, kinesthetic). Which I thought was interesting. I.e. one dog might respond better to visuall cues, another verbal etc etc. Or be rewarded more my praise, petting/play or treats or being allowed to sniff. (learning styles for dogs included foody and sniffy, posh words escape me).

But since I'm pretty skeptical about the whole VAK thing in humans I took it with a pince of salt. (I'm skeptical mainly because I hate the idea of a child sitting in class thinking or saying - which some little darlings do - I can't learn this ike this because this is V learning and I'm a K learner!). I think most of us are strongly K anyway and have a V or A leaning attached. Since most mammals will learn through play which is K, I think our evolutionary basis for learning is rooted in K.

I also think the use of the term "learning style" was a little out of place as all dogs learn through doing ultimately which makes them K learners. BUT they may be more _responsive_ to one of the others so perhaps "response style" might have been a better choice.

Hmm. I think I has waffled and made no sense.


----------



## moonviolet

Sounds like Gypsy is warming to shaping. I do love a free shaping session, I don't know is quite independant, actually I don't think thats quite right more of a control freak, that she enjoys learning this way or it could be that i find it a style that sits nicely with me.

Tink definitely gets hand signals more easily than verbals. I've tried to fade all the hand signals to get all her verbals strong, they are all pretty reliable except stand thta seems to be the weakest of her basics. I guess it's clearer than foreign species language.


----------



## L/C

Makes perfect sense. I just finished clever dog too. It's not that she can't learn verbal cues - she recalls, knows this way, off, up, touch and leave - but she definitely will learn hand signals quicker and respond more consistently while learning. So response style is a perfect choice. 

I think now she knows she's rewarded for the behaviours I'll concentrate on capturing them and reinforcing the verbal cue without hand signals.


----------



## Werehorse

My two can't get their heads round "stand" at all. It's clearly me. I wonder if it's easier to give unconsciouse visual cues for sit and down (like an eye movement) and somehow stand doesn't work on that level. I seem incapable of teaching stand with any consistancy. I need to add that to my massive list! :lol: I should free-shape it and see if I get anywhere...


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> I was reading in that book I mentioned the other day a suggestion that dogs have different favoured learning styles, akin to the learning styles that people supposedly have (visual, auditory, kinesthetic). Which I thought was interesting. I.e. one dog might respond better to visuall cues, another verbal etc etc. Or be rewarded more my praise, petting/play or treats or being allowed to sniff. (learning styles for dogs included foody and sniffy, posh words escape me).
> 
> But since I'm pretty skeptical about the whole VAK thing in humans I took it with a pince of salt. (I'm skeptical mainly because I hate the idea of a child sitting in class thinking or saying - which some little darlings do - I can't learn this ike this because this is V learning and I'm a K learner!). I think most of us are strongly K anyway and have a V or A leaning attached. Since most mammals will learn through play which is K, I think our evolutionary basis for learning is rooted in K.
> 
> I also think the use of the term "learning style" was a little out of place as all dogs learn through doing ultimately which makes them K learners. BUT they may be more _responsive_ to one of the others so perhaps "response style" might have been a better choice.
> 
> Hmm. I think I has waffled and made no sense.


I for one found it interesting waffle. I know this is drifting off dogs, possibly because my wiring is a bit screwed (dispraxic) I do not function well in a lecture/note taking situation ( possibly because it takes me alot more o my mental capacity to write. Give me a handout that i can read on the way home and i'm laughing :blush: Are there dispraxic dogs ? :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> I for one found it interesting waffle. I know this is drifting off dogs, possibly because my wiring is a bit screwed (dispraxic) I do not function well in a lecture/note taking situation ( possibly because it takes me alot more o my mental capacity to write. Give me a handout that i can read on the way home and i'm laughing :blush: Are there dispraxic dogs ? :lol:


I'm sure there must be variance in the way (not just in how well!) they process information to the point where some of them could be described as being on some sort of spectrum if one was inclined to label them. 

They couldn't be dyslexic (spelling? :lol: seriously!) though because they don't do written language. But dispraxia is not just words is it? It's co-ordination as well (?), which is why my first driving instructor insisted I was dispraxic even though I said I wasn't. :lol: Funnily enough I learned much better when I switched instructors and found one that instead of telling me about things like revs and engines, encouraged me to feel and listen to what the engine was doing and not worry about numbers... So maybe dogs can be dispraxic.

I'm pretty sure Hugo is Aspergers.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> I'm sure there must be variance in the way (not just in how well!) they process information to the point where some of them could be described as being on some sort of spectrum if one was inclined to label them.
> 
> They couldn't be dyslexic (spelling? :lol: seriously!) though because they don't do written language. But dispraxia is not just words is it? It's co-ordination as well (?), which is why my first driving instructor insisted I was dispraxic even though I said I wasn't. :lol: Funnily enough I learned much better when I switched instructors and found one that instead of telling me about things like revs and engines, encouraged me to feel and listen to what the engine was doing and not worry about numbers... So maybe dogs can be dispraxic.
> 
> I'm pretty sure Hugo is Aspergers.


yeahm dispraxia is a bit random, mins is only moderate. I'm sure you've noticed i miss out words or sometimes replace words that in my weird head are similar. It's always worse when i'm tired or hormonal and yes its co-ordination too. Learning to ride a bike was worse than a mensa test. my limbs sometimes have a mind of their own and i have a slighty odd combination of being clumsy but have quick reactions... I'll knock the glass off the table but i'll catch it before it hits the floor. never a dull moment


----------



## Sarah1983

I think most dogs find it easier to learn hand signals/body language cues than verbals. Is it any wonder though given that most of their communication is via body language? I suppose they're just more tuned in to it. 

I don't take things in well through listening, I just don't seem to process what's been said. I have the same problem in conversation at times though, especially if we're in a noisy place with lots going on. Give me something to read though and I'm laughing no matter what's going on around me. Learning by watching is so-so. I'm better if I've read it before seeing it done if you know what I mean.


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> I'll knock the glass off the table but i'll catch it before it hits the floor. never a dull moment


:lol: That is so familiar, I do it all the time!
Brains! Make no sense!


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> yeahm dispraxia is a bit random, mins is only moderate. I'm sure you've noticed i miss out words or sometimes replace words that in my weird head are similar. It's always worse when i'm tired or hormonal and yes its co-ordination too. Learning to ride a bike was worse than a mensa test. my limbs sometimes have a mind of their own and i have a slighty odd combination of being clumsy but have quick reactions... I'll knock the glass off the table but i'll catch it before it hits the floor. never a dull moment


I'm the opposite, always dropping cups and glasses- but I freeze and watch in horrified slow motion as it falls and smashes.


----------



## kat&molly

Moll does really well with the free shaping. Really all we've done is putting her 2 front paws up on the block, but I put the laundry basket down and straight away she put 2 feet inside and worked out really quickly to climb inside it.
With Scruff and Evie I put a treat on the block then when I dont they still dont touch it- just look at me instead not understanding why.

Its probably me used to the way Moll works but I just stick to clicking for sits and waggy tails- they get excited if they hear the clicker so I suppose thats good enough.:blushing:

Gypsy took to it well.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Well done Holly.
> 
> *Twiggy, Glad Holly is more motivated today. Have you considered one of those chain mail gloves they use for shucking oysters?*
> 
> It would need to be a chain mail suit as it's not just my hand she attacks....LOL


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> moonviolet said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well done Holly.
> 
> *Twiggy, Glad Holly is more motivated today. Have you considered one of those chain mail gloves they use for shucking oysters?*
> 
> It would need to be a chain mail suit as it's not just my hand she attacks....LOL
> 
> 
> 
> It sounds painful.
Click to expand...


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> moonviolet said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well done Holly.
> 
> *Twiggy, Glad Holly is more motivated today. Have you considered one of those chain mail gloves they use for shucking oysters?*
> 
> It would need to be a chain mail suit as it's not just my hand she attacks....LOL
> 
> 
> 
> You're a braver woman than I.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> You're a braver woman than I.
> 
> 
> 
> My sister videod us working the dogs whilst she was here and has sent me a VCD. Sadly I'm so hopeless and computer illiterate I haven't got the foggiest how to save it on my hard drive. Pity as there is quite a good clip of Holly having a 'little' nip.
Click to expand...


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> moonviolet said:
> 
> 
> 
> My sister videod us working the dogs whilst she was here and has sent me a VCD. Sadly I'm so hopeless and computer illiterate I haven't got the foggiest how to save it on my hard drive. Pity as there is quite a good clip of Holly having a 'little' nip.
> 
> 
> 
> I'd love to see you in action
Click to expand...


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## DogTrainer01

I've missed quite a few days! Sorry guys! Sounds like all doggies are doing well though (wouldn't expect anything less ) and all owners are in a good head space which is fab! 

Little puppy has been quite amazing. I took him to a pet club on the weekend which was perfect as I was left to do my own thing with him and we were in an environment which he finds quite distracting which is just what we need.

He was fab & really focused. I took both his bed and crate so we did a mixture of bed & crate games which he thought was massive fun. Also did some trick training and some foundation agility with the toy. Asked him to retrieve the toy as well for a game of tug, which I was a little apprehensive about as the environment was possibly the most challenging that he's had to work through yet and we've only been retrieving the toy for around 3 weeks now. I broke him off a number of times to sniff/find treats in the grass/have a pee.

We then took part in some simple exercises with the other dogs. Again, he worked really well. He was more distracted than earlier however we were standing right next to the other dogs so I was pretty impressed with the focus I did get. He managed to do 4 choice food games and gave me focus through out the exercise which I was thrilled about as that is the biggest thing he struggles with - working 100% around other dogs and taking my reward confidently and with intent (because he has such a strong eye, he will sometimes take the reward but still eye stalk to see if there is anything exciting to chase!). I did lose him during the end as he and one of his best friends spotted each other and then all he wanted to do was flirt so we just walked away and did some LLW.

Whilst the other dogs were out and doing activities we also did some wing wraps. Again, its great for him to start working when there are other dogs around. I was very pleased because he completely kept his behaviour criteria! He was completely raring to go - gave me his collar and then was up on his back legs, was tight and focused around the wing and came back with intensity onto the tuggy.

We also had a great walk yesterday but I'm going out in a bit and need to go wash my hair so I'll post about that later  Hope everyone and everydog has a lovely day 










Please excuse how rough I look lol!


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## Sarah1983

We're having a Kevin day today  It's not even midday yet and I've lost count of the number of things Spencer has stolen. He pushed me over while I was getting dressed which of course he found hilarious and trampled me in his excitement. He got the zoomies after having a poo and as he zoomed past me grabbed the used poo bag I was carrying. He's raided the bathroom bin and has also presented me with an almost full toilet roll. And he's shouted at the reactive little dog that lives a couple of blocks down when it walked past and he was out on the balcony.

Hubby and I were just saying a couple of days ago how nicely Spens settling down and how chilled out he's been in the house and how he's coming along so well outside with his recall and checking in with us.


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> We're having a Kevin day today  It's not even midday yet and I've lost count of the number of things Spencer has stolen. He pushed me over while I was getting dressed which of course he found hilarious and trampled me in his excitement. He got the zoomies after having a poo and as he zoomed past me grabbed the used poo bag I was carrying. He's raided the bathroom bin and has also presented me with an almost full toilet roll. And he's shouted at the reactive little dog that lives a couple of blocks down when it walked past and he was out on the balcony.
> 
> Hubby and I were just saying a couple of days ago how nicely Spens settling down and how chilled out he's been in the house and how he's coming along so well outside with his recall and checking in with us.


Sounds like you've got a nutcase dog with huge sense of humour like my Charlie... he's almost human :001_tt2:


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## Werehorse

It'll just be a bad day Sarah. If his general trend is "getting better" just try to ignore today. Annoying though it is. Have a hot chocolate and chill, he'll be better tomorrow.


----------



## Twiggy

DogTrainer01 said:


> I've missed quite a few days! Sorry guys! Sounds like all doggies are doing well though (wouldn't expect anything less ) and all owners are in a good head space which is fab!
> 
> Little puppy has been quite amazing. I took him to a pet club on the weekend which was perfect as I was left to do my own thing with him and we were in an environment which he finds quite distracting which is just what we need.
> 
> He was fab & really focused. I took both his bed and crate so we did a mixture of bed & crate games which he thought was massive fun. Also did some trick training and some foundation agility with the toy. Asked him to retrieve the toy as well for a game of tug, which I was a little apprehensive about as the environment was possibly the most challenging that he's had to work through yet and we've only been retrieving the toy for around 3 weeks now. I broke him off a number of times to sniff/find treats in the grass/have a pee.
> 
> We then took part in some simple exercises with the other dogs. Again, he worked really well. He was more distracted than earlier however we were standing right next to the other dogs so I was pretty impressed with the focus I did get. He managed to do 4 choice food games and gave me focus through out the exercise which I was thrilled about as that is the biggest thing he struggles with - working 100% around other dogs and taking my reward confidently and with intent (because he has such a strong eye, he will sometimes take the reward but still eye stalk to see if there is anything exciting to chase!). I did lose him during the end as he and one of his best friends spotted each other and then all he wanted to do was flirt so we just walked away and did some LLW.
> 
> Whilst the other dogs were out and doing activities we also did some wing wraps. Again, its great for him to start working when there are other dogs around. I was very pleased because he completely kept his behaviour criteria! He was completely raring to go - gave me his collar and then was up on his back legs, was tight and focused around the wing and came back with intensity onto the tuggy.
> 
> We also had a great walk yesterday but I'm going out in a bit and need to go wash my hair so I'll post about that later  Hope everyone and everydog has a lovely day
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Please excuse how rough I look lol!


Rough...!! You look very smart and tidy.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> We're having a Kevin day today  It's not even midday yet and I've lost count of the number of things Spencer has stolen. He pushed me over while I was getting dressed which of course he found hilarious and trampled me in his excitement. He got the zoomies after having a poo and as he zoomed past me grabbed the used poo bag I was carrying. He's raided the bathroom bin and has also presented me with an almost full toilet roll. And he's shouted at the reactive little dog that lives a couple of blocks down when it walked past and he was out on the balcony.
> 
> Hubby and I were just saying a couple of days ago how nicely Spens settling down and how chilled out he's been in the house and how he's coming along so well outside with his recall and checking in with us.


It does sound as if Spen has a huge sense of humour.

There's an Aussie that trains here who is much the same, particularly if his handler has been at work and he's simply full of it. He's an expert on spotting open training bags, pots of tit-bits etc and on one occasion snatched a sandwich out of somebody's hand. He's extremely smart and almost cases the joint then waits for the opportune moment.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done dogtrainer01 sounds like things are going exceptionally well. :0



Sarah1983 said:


> We're having a Kevin day today  It's not even midday yet and I've lost count of the number of things Spencer has stolen. He pushed me over while I was getting dressed which of course he found hilarious and trampled me in his excitement. He got the zoomies after having a poo and as he zoomed past me grabbed the used poo bag I was carrying. He's raided the bathroom bin and has also presented me with an almost full toilet roll. And he's shouted at the reactive little dog that lives a couple of blocks down when it walked past and he was out on the balcony.
> 
> Hubby and I were just saying a couple of days ago how nicely Spens settling down and how chilled out he's been in the house and how he's coming along so well outside with his recall and checking in with us.


Oops sounds like you have a mischievous spirit there, are you sure there's no beagle in Spen :lol: it sounds like one of Tink's days...ones where you have to keep her busy or she will keep you busy. I find the mat exercise particularly useful on these days.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> It does sound as if Spen has a huge sense of humour.
> 
> There's an Aussie that trains here who is much the same, particularly if his handler has been at work and he's simply full of it. He's an expert on spotting open training bags, pots of tit-bits etc and on one occasion snatched a sandwich out of somebody's hand. He's extremely smart and almost cases the joint then waits for the opportune moment.


Sometimes intelligence certainly has its downfalls lol. Spen seems to note where things he'd like to steal are and he too just waits for the right moment to grab it and run. And sometimes we'll both spot something he'd like to steal at the same time, look at each other for a minute and then both lunge for it :lol: Sense of humour also has its downfalls coz so often what he finds funny isn't something I find funny :devil:

Werehorse, general trend does seem to be towards getting better so fingers crossed this is just an off day.

Chazzie, it's a bit of a standing joke with my family that I never get a "normal" dog. I'm not sure what normal is but I like quirky lol.


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 I agree completely- I wouldnt want a dog with NO personality. All my dogs over the years have been characters. Charlie's just an entertainer, always looking to make us laugh. In fact my best friend commented last year that Chazzie and I are like 2 peas in a pod-always joking, playing tricks on each other and just a little bit loopy lmao. Sure it keeps ya young


----------



## Beth17

DogTrainer01 if that's you looking rough then I've got no chance. I usually look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards when out with my 2 :lol: 

Everyone has had a really good few days by the sounds of it, well done! I've not been on as much as the internet is being a pain.

Sarah I really feel for you we've been having a Kevin week 

I have completely given up training Sam this week as I do not have the energy or drive to even try. Outside on walks he pretty good but inside the house at the moment he is driving me nuts. The worst of it is him jumping up on the sides and stealing anything he can get hold of. No amount of removing him from the room, pushing him down, treating whilst on the floor seem to be getting through. 

I was mulling it over last night though and I think I'm getting frustrated with him because it's easy to forget he's still very much a pup even though he's the same size as Oscar now. And then I get frustrated at myself for forgetting that and not being able to get through to him as I do not like to fail at anything and I don't want to fail him.

So I did a bit of basics with him last night for a couple of minutes and I could see he was really enjoying it. So the plan of action is to forget about any serious training for a couple of days and I'm going to teach him something completely useless but fun to get us both back into the swing of it and then hopefully we'll be back on track. 

Sorry for the long post just needed to vent for a minute :blushing:


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth, we also have a thieving issue going on. 8 months in and we've still not broken it completely, I'm not sure we ever will. We've locked everything dangerous or important away so that we can ignore Spencer when he does steal something. His is attention seeking behaviour so this has really had an effect. He still tries it, especially with certain items and a training session is guaranteed to trigger a crime spree, but he's better than he was.

The colder weather has hit us lately and I've decided I really MUST get Spencers loose leash walking sorted before the snow and ice come. I really don't fancy walking 30kg of lunging Lab when it's slippery underfoot. I've nobody but myself to blame if I have to because I've really been slacking with it, simply putting him on his harness and not bothering most of the time. So I've just taken him out on his collar for a walk around the block. He was actually really good. We won't be winning Crufts with our heelwork any time soon but he's come a long way from the madly lunging nightmare he was 8 months ago. Still needs frequent reminders and needs to learn that stopping to mark and darting in front of me to sniff are not acceptable behaviours but I can see real progress now. On a collar anyway, on his harness he pulls terribly but I can live with that.


----------



## DogTrainer01

Sarah1983 said:


> Sometimes intelligence certainly has its downfalls lol. Spen seems to note where things he'd like to steal are and he too just waits for the right moment to grab it and run. And sometimes we'll both spot something he'd like to steal at the same time, look at each other for a minute and then both lunge for it :lol: Sense of humour also has its downfalls coz so often what he finds funny isn't something I find funny :devil:
> 
> Werehorse, general trend does seem to be towards getting better so fingers crossed this is just an off day.
> 
> Chazzie, it's a bit of a standing joke with my family that I never get a *"normal" dog*. I'm not sure what normal is but I like quirky lol.


Whats one of those?  Spencer does sound like such a character!

I find off days are a good excuse to eat lots of chocolate and not feel remotely guilty :thumbup:


----------



## DogTrainer01

Twiggy said:


> Rough...!! You look very smart and tidy.


Thanks Twiggy!

Do you recommend any obedience sites, books, DVD's? Would really like to look into doing some with Kob but would like to know more ideally.


----------



## Twiggy

DogTrainer01 said:


> Thanks Twiggy!
> 
> Do you recommend any obedience sites, books, DVD's? Would really like to look into doing some with Kob but would like to know more ideally.


Do you mean competition obedience?

There are lots of videos on You Tube. Enter something like Crufts Obedience Championships.

The website we all use is Obedience UK and they also have a Facebook page.


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Sam and Spen...dog house for you two :devil: . Hope tomorrow brings better behaviour - always makes me love them more though when I hear tales of naughtiness .

DogTrainer01 - not only are you clean and tidy, but you are doing fabulously too .

Twiggy - I'd love to see you in action to as mv said; when our trainer brings his own dog into class for 5 minutes at the end sometimes and works him it's amazing!!

Today I worked on not falling off mountains whilst Kilo skipped up and down like a mountain goat . Twiggy; before you ask!!!! http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/266625-kilos-birthday-walk-pics.html


----------



## kat&molly

I'll join the dog house club today - Moll has been 'a bit of an arse' on our training walk this afternoon. I bought 2[one extra for swapies] lightweight dummys yesterday- I was really chuffed as its not easy to get decent dog stuff here in the shops. It must have been exciting have new things as she wouldn't even swap- she keeps moving the goal posts and I cant keep up.
A couple of pics,
Torture for a retreive mad Spaniel- tie her up whilst you play with her toys.:001_tt2:



























Dogtrainer thats fantastic progress  and Twiggy I'd love to see your clip as well.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - lovely photos; that face looks far too sweet for bad behaviour .


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> k&m - lovely photos; that face looks far too sweet for bad behaviour .


Stroo. Spanners never misbehave, they just express their personalities


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Stroo. Spanners never misbehave, they just express their personalities


What about Teckels? :yikes:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> What about Teckels? :yikes:.


Dont go there.


----------



## chazzie10

k&m what a cute, mischievous face Molly has. Absolutely adorable


----------



## kat&molly

chazzie10 said:


> k&m what a cute, mischievous face Molly has. Absolutely adorable


Shes not meant to have a mischievious face. She's a Spaniel and is meant to be biddable.:001_tt2:


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Shes not meant to have a mischievious face. She's a Spaniel and is meant to be biddable.:001_tt2:


sure where's the fun in that


----------



## kat&molly

I have all the 'fun' this little devil throws at me- it was nice to have one dog that was well behaved.


----------



## chazzie10

awww gorgeous wee dog- I take it that's Evie?


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Stroo. Spanners never misbehave, they just express their personalities


Gypsy isn't a spanner but she has been expressing her personality all over the shop tonight.

And I don't believe for a second that Moll would misbehave anyway. :001_tt2:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I have all the 'fun' this little devil throws at me- it was nice to have one dog that was well behaved.


You don't deserve dogs :incazzato:. Making up outlandish stories for attention when your photos clearly show how angelic your girls are . That sweet little Teckel hasn't got an ounce of misbehaviour in her :lol::lol::lol:.


----------



## kat&molly

Chazzie- oh yes thats Evie.:devil:

Dogless- 'sweet' and 'Teckel' are 2 words that shouldn't ever be in the same sentence.

L/C- I think its judgement on me for always saying what an angel Molly is. That'll teach me.


----------



## chazzie10

Ok- update on Charlie's training...my sons 2 friends have called, both dog owners who, being big blokes, like to play rough and tumble with him...Charlie stayed lying down when they rang doorbell and didnt budge while I let them in .
After a few minutes I went out and explained that I needed their help to train chaz and needed them to ignore any bad behaviour. I neednt have worried! Charlie was told to say hello, sauntered (!!) out to kitchen cool as cucumber and kept all four paws on the ground! He politely sniffed legs and came to me instantly everytime when called then lay down and just watched calmly!
Who are you and what have you done to MY dog  
Well pleased


----------



## Beth17

Well done Charlie! :thumbup1:


----------



## Werehorse

After leaving him to eat in peace for a few days I went back to giving Oscar dinner in stages today. He was good and will back aways from him empty bowl, look at me and wag while I pick it up, put more food in and put it down. I was able to put my hand on his bowl while he was still eating without him doing eyes, growling or snapping (he has only ever got as far as a very small growl anyway to be fair to him - I have always backed off at the doing eyes stage if he's being possesive about something). He did tense a little and ate faster so he's not comfortable with that but it is progress. He has gone thin again and I wonder if part of it is just not giving enough food.  But I seem to be at the limit of what I can give without really sloppy poos :001_unsure: The vet insists he's a normal weight for a young spanner. I'm going to see if his system will handle a tripe lunch without getting over-loaded.

We had a longer walk today, up and right around Dodd. It was really very jolly and without incident, lovely weather. 99% good behaviour, all people and the one dog we saw completely ignored by both boys. Lovely recalls and LLW style "heel-work" off lead (shame about the bit where they actually were on-lead!! But I wasn't asking for it because it was sure bet it wasn't going to happen on the short section of path at the start of the walk where it's too near the road to let them off). I did some emergency stops with Oscar. Spot on, he drops straight away 90% now and only takes a few steps on the other 10%, given the medium-high distraction of the woods and the fact he's moving at top spanner speed all the time I'm pleased with that.

Just as we were approaching the tea room for a hot chocolate and caramel shortbread stop (weeelll it was a long walk - ish) I saw a couple heading towards us. The woman looked a bit flustered and it took me ages to realise it was because of the dogs!!  Ooops. They hadn't approached them though, perhaps got within 10ft before looping back to me. I could see the woman telling the man where he should stand as we went past and she looked very concerned. I called and asked if she would like me to sit them to one side while they walked past, she looked ever so grateful! Fortunately, even though it was a prime opportunity to let me down, both boys did as asked perfectly. Phew!

We did have a naughty moment, sorry an expression of personality, right at the end of the walk. Oscar basically made as if to do a bunk, one of his usual back and forth runnings about gradually turned into setting off with some purpose up the hill, getting increasingly purposeful. It took a little while to be obvious that he was off if you see what I mean, fortunately this was AWAY from the road!! I called his name once and got nothing, twice and he slowed and started quartering the ground but with nose in air, as if he had lost sight of what he'd seen but wasn;t quite ready to give up yet. I called again (just his name, I didn't want to use my recall cue and have it fail and I wasn;t quite desperate enough to try it anyway yet!) and he turned and came back, reluctantly, but he came back and although he was distracted he didn't bunk off up the hill again. This is very odd behaviour for Oscar who usually is attached by invisible elastic. I can't think what he'd seen, especially since the direction he headed was back onto a path which we'd just come down (it zig-zags down the hill and he cut up between the lower and the upper zig-zags) so I would have thought any wildlife would have scarpered as we went past the first time. Perhaps he caught a scent of something but again that's quite unusual for him. He has acted a bit odd in that spot before, but even we could smell something had died on the hillside taht time! I think maybe scents funnel down the hill at that point or something... Dunno, hopefully it's a one off.

Hugo had his moment when tied to the picnic table outside the cafe. I came back out from dropping my tray back inside and he leapt up with the intention of meeting my face with his tongue, as he tends to , but got twanged on the lead and fired backwards onto his back. He might even have hit his head on the table.  I'm not even sure how this dog is still alive sometimes! It goes to show that punishment doesn't work in training because despite the perfect timing of the self-induced punishment he still jumped up to lick my face at the yard later.  Either that or Hugo is a bit more speshul than your average bear. Poor lad.

But on the whole, good.

Phew, epic post!


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## chazzie10

wow that sounds like an eventful walk- Dear knows what he thought he saw or smelled up the hill  but more importantly did you get to finish your coffee and traybake lol


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## chazzie10

hot chocolate i mean!


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## Werehorse

Oh yes, hot choc and traybake were consumed in perfect happiness while little old ladies wandered out of the cafe and fussed Oscar (I kept Hugo at bay - Oscar is v polite with old people, Hugo would just see them as different textured faces to lick  ). The mad leaping up was after I'd done and was going to untie them to get going again.


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## chazzie10

haha werehorse- you're like me, you've got your priorities sorted... caramel shortbread and chocolate anything are always top of my list :001_tt2:


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## Ploppy

Things I'm working on right now:

Leaving her on her own.
Letting me know when she wants out. (Sitting at the door quietly isn't really helpful if I'm preoccupied.)
No biting anything that moves.

And we've progressed in tricks to the point where we're now working on high five and spin.
She's good at "leave it", but only if my hand's close enough to get the treat before she reaches it.
She's also still very good at the first half of fetch, but hasn't worked out the returning it part yet


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## Dogless

Werehorse; Oscar always looks like a nice weight to me on photos. If his tum will cope with heart, I've not found anything like it for getting weight on when I've wanted to get a bit on Kilo. He has had it for brek this morning after yesterday's day in the mountains or he'll be all ribs!

Sounds like the boys are doing well.

How did you teach your emergency stop? I have messed ours up...I can stop Kilo as he runs towards me, but not away and am awfully confused  . It's something I'd really like to have. He will 'wait' when moving away until I release him or catch up and put his lead on, but I'd like a good stop.


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## kat&molly

Chazzie- that sounds brilliant from Charlie.

Werehorse- that sounds good from the boys. I have the same problem with Molls weight, I know it doesn't look like it, she even looks 'wide' in some pics but it really is only fur. I'd love a bit more on her and always have to up her food a bit when winter hits.
I use a Coat King to get the dead fur out and have to be really gentle as all I can feel is spine and ribs.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Chazzie- that sounds brilliant from Charlie.
> 
> Werehorse- that sounds good from the boys. I have the same problem with Molls weight, I know it doesn't look like it, she even looks 'wide' in some pics but it really is only fur. I'd love a bit more on her and always have to up her food a bit when winter hits.
> I use a Coat King to get the dead fur out and have to be really gentle as all I can feel is spine and ribs.


You need a visit from my sister - she'd only been here about an hour when she told me all of mine were too fat....LOL


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## Twiggy

Waiting for the chiropractor to arrive - that puts Tremor and Leafy out of action for two days. It's going to be difficult trying to stop Holly playing with them and Tremor, particularly, resents having to stay on the lead. She's not going to be a happy bunny when she can't join the class this afternoon either.


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## moonviolet

Sounds like everyone is doing well. We've had a bit of a lazy week so far training wise, at least. Nice long walks with little bits of training but not all that much at home as after 6 years in this house we finally agreed on a kitchen and can lay the poor tired one, we recycled from my parents, out to pasture. At the best part of 30 years old i think it's about time. 
As a result at the moment we have kitchen appliances in huge boxes sprinkled around the house in various locations awaiting the arrival of the cupboards and worktops :lol: 

So the little training there has been in a limited space. No class last night as our trainer is in Germany visiting family. Have class tonight so hopefully beagle brain will be on form. 

Must mention we had a lovely lovely walk yesterday morning with a working cocker we used to see regularly and it was lovely watching Tink running along with him, until he began quartering and she looked at me as if to say why is he running around in circles?


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## Werehorse

Poor Tink, second in line to Important Spaniel Business. 

Dogless - I'm not sure we've got a solid heading away from me emergency stop either! I've done it in the house and he's spot on, I use his name then a strong "down" and HEAVILY rewarded when he gets it right. I wonder if you could start by sitting him, walking behind him (if he will wait and not turn then), then asking for the down and rewarding that (it doesn't matter if they turn towards you when they actually down as long as they don't step towards you). Start close, build up distance... Then catch him when he's walking away with no purpose in low distraction areas, then when he's just pootling in front of you on a walk, maybe on the lead if he goes in front on a lead walk at all... and just gradually build up.

I'm gradually building it up from being pretty spot of while running towards me to getting him while he's running across in front of me (which he does a lot! :lol and while he's walking away slightly distracted by a sniff. I cheat a little at the moment outside (like I did when I was getting the recall cue solid) because I say his name first to gauge his response, if he turns his head and looks I ask for it. If I got a blank on the name (doesn't happen often) I wouldn't ask. I don't feel it's something I could use reliably in an emergency though I'm sure if it came to it I would try it! Very much still In Training, hence only asking when I'm 99% sure I'm going to get!

As I'm typing I'm remembering stuff. We have done a lot of work of it in class, starting using mats and gradually fading the mats. We do sendaway to mats, which gets them in tune to running away and then laying down I suppose. We do stop on the mat coming towards us as well as walking over the mat and downing them so there is a strong link between the mat and down. We did some work with the toys. Wait in sit at heel , throw toy, down, reward. Wait in heel, throw toy, gently gesture to release to fetch them _immediately_ ask for the down as soon as their bum lifts to move. This was on the mat at first to benefit from the mat/down connection. Gradually we moved the mat from right next to our feet forward towards where the toy would land, setting up for success all the time until you had a down on the mat close to the toy and then starting from having them down right next to us again WITHOUT the mat, increasing the distance we allowed them to run before downing. I haven't fully worked through this process with Oscar but that's where it's going. I suppose the stage after that would be to throw toy and not have them in wait so the chase is more exciting...

I hope some of that might be useful! We're far from solid yet but he is good and for some reason he LOVES it. I think it's a bit of a spanner thing because one of the things they have to do on a shoot is stop as soon as they have flushed something, usually in a sit though from what I gather but same principle so I think there's a nugget of This is What I DO that fires in spanner-brain when we play around with this! He always looks jolly pleased with himself anyway.


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## Beth17

We have had a lovely walk today it's really made up for the last week of naughtiness 

As it was raining I was brave and took both the boys up the field as they have been having separate walks when up there due to the amount of dogs and Oscar being a grumpy bum. However as I knew there would be very few dogs up there I thought I'd risk it; and the risk paid off 

We hardly saw anyone and I was even able to take Sam's longline off every now and then so he could have a proper run with Oscar. We then saw a springer who is a lovely little girl if a bit timid who Oscar loves to run around with. He went and greeted her first and then Sam greeted her and no grumbles at all from Oscar he was really good. I had already mentioned it to the owner who I see often so he could go around us if he had wanted.

In fact the only 'issues' were when Sam forgot he was attached to me and nearly pulled my shoulder out a few times 

They have not moved since we got back in. Finally success! :thumbup:


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## Dogless

Well done to the boxer collective .

Good day today - fields this morning and park this afternoon; nothing to report...in a good way .

A man stopped me in the park as we walked past him to talk about how much he missed his dogs; his Dobermann had recently died and he told me about how he'd always had the breed and how sad he was without a dog . He can't get a pup as his wife has had a minor stroke that leaves her unbalanced and he's worried about her tripping.....but the conversation concluded with him considering an oldie from rescue - something he hadn't thought about and he went from tearful to smiling. I do hope the right dog finds him, I nearly cried .


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## kat&molly

Awww Dogless, that poor man, I hope he can get an older dog to put a smile on his face again.

Beth, glad you had a better day with the boys- hope Sarah has too.

Moonviolet- a new kitchen, how exciting- except they start nice and clean then you have to cook then you have to clean them again only to cook again.Bleughh

I didn't do a seperate afternoon walk as I've been quite busy so just 2 stress free walks.


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## Guest

Me being in an awful mood the past couple days has meant that when Zand has had tantrums I've been pretty much like "Ah f*** it, whatever" about it and just stood there, turning every now and then so he doesn't tangle himself in the lead. No idea if it's working but it's making me less bothered I suppose.

Booked into some really nice kennels yesterday, they were so clean and the dogs looked so happy and Zander didn't jump at the lady either. 

Then I got home and turned the house upside down to find his Vac card. COULD NOT FIND IT AT ALL. Then I phoned the vet and asked them if they could print out a copy for me only to be told that they have no records of his vacs!!! 

So after alot of huffing at them, I finally found his vac card only to find he hasn't had Kennel Cough vac, so thats being dealt with tommorow.

He did get to play with an exceptionally cute terrier poodley thing today though. He did try to launch over the fence today but was halted by an almighty ROAR of NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO by my mother, from the kitchen window. Not sure who jumped out of fright higher then, me or him. :001_tt2:


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## moonviolet

Glad you had a good day Beth and Dogless

Kat we're all allowed a bit of stress free

Werehorse Tink's favourites all seem to be boys that pay her little heed, If she was a human i'd have to give her a chat about self respect :lol: :lol:

Lovely walks today with only 2 minor blips an encounter with Max the humping spaniel , Tink turned to a statue and didn't want to walk off, tell off or do anythign that diminished her statue composure Sadly max's owner didn't want to take any control of her over excited darling. In the end I guided him away and marched him toward his owner... did she clip his lead on did she heck did the wee blighter follow and try again but of course  Once he turned back to his owner huge shake and it was as if nothing happened.

The other was on our evening walk. this is going to sound terrible but 2 woman and their dogs were heading toward us they were talking dogs offlead Tink stopped for her lead to go on, not because of the dogs but because of the awful over excited screeching voice one of the women had. the other womana called her dog to heel but the other dog dog pranced over body tense tail high, I body blocked and the woman first screeched louder at her dog, then when that did nothing she bellowed at it. We didn't stop just kept walking didn't make eye contact, just didn't feel any urge to interact.:blushing: Tink was fine  then we turned a corner and there were 3 horses and riders and Tink sat for her lead and walked past beautifully. Gold star moment. Now she's having a little pre -class nap 



kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- a new kitchen, how exciting- except they start nice and clean then you have to cook then you have to clean them again only to cook again.Bleughh


Well i'm not sure how well used it will be as ... we can't decide on handles :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Dogless

mv; Kilo gets awfully alarmed at screeching females too . That or over excited like the woman who was in our training class who used to praise very loudly and squeakily....he used to get nutty with excitement if we were anywhere near her when she praised her dog . 

Well done to Miss Tink - a very definite Gold Star day.

Takeaway for dinner tonight by any chance? .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv; Kilo gets awfully alarmed at screeching females too . That or over excited like the woman who was in our training class who used to praise very loudly and squeakily....he used to get nutty with excitement if we were anywhere near her when she praised her dog .
> 
> Well done to Miss Tink - a very definite Gold Star day.
> 
> Takeaway for dinner tonight by any chance? .


Well i think the slow cooker and the george foreman are going to seeing some action for a while :lol:


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## Twiggy

Holly was pretty good in class this afternoon. I did comment to the rest of the class that they might see Holly move the fastest she's ever gone on sendaway when my hubby walked the other 3 down the paddock but she duly picked up the tennis ball and returned to me - bless...!!

Tremor and Leafy looked the picture of abject misery on the lead as they came up the paddock from the back field. I wish you could explain to them that it's for their own good.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Holly was pretty good in class this afternoon. I did comment to the rest of the class that they might see Holly move the fastest she's ever gone on sendaway when my hubby walked the other 3 down the paddock but she duly picked up the tennis ball and returned to me - bless...!!
> 
> Tremor and Leafy looked the picture of abject misery on the lead as they came up the paddock from the back field. * I wish you could explain to them that it's for their own good.*


I think that about so many things to do with dogs. Mind you, I'm pleased they can't tell us what they think sometimes .

Well done Holly Bolly - again :aureola::aureola:.


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## Thorne

Never posted in this thread before but here goes! 

Over the last few weeks I've been introducing Scooter and Breeze to a clicker and incorporating it into our training and walks. So far so good! Been reading around it for a while and wish I'd taken the plunge sooner.
Have also mentioned that I'm doing a work placement at a Blue Cross adoption centre, so I'm walking, playing with and helping to train the dogs there (as well as cuddling kittens and of course, lots of cleaning). Seeing clickers put to great effect there has been really inspiring and there's a couple of dogs in particular that I've been learning the ropes with 

But regarding my two...

After learning that Scooter really likes the clicker I've gone back to working on his recall with it. On the last few walks I've been letting him offlead and calling him back every so often for a treat and a fuss (he couldn't care less about play) - I call him and click as soon as he starts to come back and treat when he's directly in front of me. So far so good! Will be heading out with him on the longline while we work on this as I still can't trust him in novel areas.
Today he recalled away from a RABBIT  He's been known to chase these across huge fields so I was amazed and very proud of him!

I'm trying to counter-condition Breeze to her car phobia with the clicker (click + "car" then treat just as it passes). Today she started to look to me for a treat when a car passed us so I think we're heading in the right direction.
Thinking about putting her on Zylkene or similar this winter as we're hearing gunshots and birdscarers wherever we go all of a sudden  There's only so much I can do with distraction and even her Thundershirt and Adaptil only take the edge off it. Lots of research to do methinks.


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## chazzie10

I've been thinking about trying a clicker with Charlie. I used one when he was a pup but cant really remember why I stopped using it :001_unsure: I think it was because I had so much to take out on walks, my pockets were bulging.. bunch of keys, mobile phone, poo bags, treats etc. Also because he was such a handful on the lead, I didnt have enough hands to operate clickers and treats at same time or be calm enough to co-ordinate using them lol. 
I was watching a dog thing on tv earlier and they 'clicked' their dog and he instantly whirled round and stared so maybe time to give it a go again!


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## chazzie10

Thorne- you're lucky working with the other dogs and helping to train them- do you get to take your dogs with you? 
Ive just missed a job vacancy at a rescue centre over here that I got one of my labradors from years ago- a lovely friendly place. Im looking to change jobs and it would have been perfect, except it was quite far away and paid less than my current job so would have actually cost me money to work there 
It probably still would have been worth it for the advice and experience with dog training and working alongside their animal behaviourist though. I'm maybe gonna see if I can volunteer somewhere closer


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## Thorne

chazzie10 said:


> Thorne- you're lucky working with the other dogs and helping to train them- do you get to take your dogs with you?
> Ive just missed a job vacancy at a rescue centre over here that I got one of my labradors from years ago- a lovely friendly place. Im looking to change jobs and it would have been perfect, except it was quite far away and paid less than my current job so would have actually cost me money to work there
> It probably still would have been worth it for the advice and experience with dog training and working alongside their animal behaviourist though. I'm maybe gonna see if I can volunteer somewhere closer


I'm loving it, feel so pleased that I was given the chance to work here!
At the moment Scooter and Breeze stay at home and someone pops in to see them at lunchtime but sometimes the staff bring their dogs in for dog-to-dog socialisation. There was a window of about a week last month when most of the resident dogs were reactive to some degree so some calm ones had to be drafted in to help socialise them! I might ask to bring Breeze in if we have a similar situation as she's fairly unthreatening and communicates very well.
Scooter not so much 

Hope you can find a vacancy or a volunteering spot at a rescue near you - what I'm learning there is benefitting my dogs as well as the ones in kennels and it's true that every little helps - the more exercise the dogs can get from volunteers, the calmer they are in kennels and it means the staff are freed up to work with the more difficult dogs.


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## Beth17

Well done Tink a star as usual 

Dogless hopefully there'll be a happy ending for that man.

Well done Holly :thumbup1:

Good luck with the clicker training Thorne.

Just a nice quiet walk round the block for us this evening and then after dinner some wrestling in the house


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## chazzie10

Thorne said:


> I'm loving it, feel so pleased that I was given the chance to work here!
> At the moment Scooter and Breeze stay at home and someone pops in to see them at lunchtime but sometimes the staff bring their dogs in for dog-to-dog socialisation. There was a window of about a week last month when most of the resident dogs were reactive to some degree so some calm ones had to be drafted in to help socialise them! I might ask to bring Breeze in if we have a similar situation as she's fairly unthreatening and communicates very well.
> Scooter not so much
> 
> Hope you can find a vacancy or a volunteering spot at a rescue near you - what I'm learning there is benefitting my dogs as well as the ones in kennels and it's true that every little helps - the more exercise the dogs can get from volunteers, the calmer they are in kennels and it means the staff are freed up to work with the more difficult dogs.


Hmmm You've inspired me, I think I'll email a few rescue centres right now


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## chazzie10

No walk today cos Chazzie seems to have a sore paw and is limping a bit. Just playtime in the garden with his favourite chewed to bits, now hollow football 
His giant Kong for "extreme chewers" arrived in the post this afternoon so thats kept him amused rolling it around and putting it on my feet to hold for him while he gets the dairylea out


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## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> I've been thinking about trying a clicker with Charlie. I used one when he was a pup but cant really remember why I stopped using it :001_unsure: I think it was because I had so much to take out on walks, my pockets were bulging.. bunch of keys, mobile phone, poo bags, treats etc. Also because he was such a handful on the lead, I didnt have enough hands to operate clickers and treats at same time or be calm enough to co-ordinate using them lol.
> I was watching a dog thing on tv earlier and they 'clicked' their dog and he instantly whirled round and stared so maybe time to give it a go again!


You don't have to use a clicker to clicker train Charlie. You can use a sharp and excited "yes" instead to mark any given response.

That's what I do because, as you quite rightly say, you need more than two handsmost of the time...LOL

It's true that some dogs really get turned on by the sound of a clicker but providing you get the tone of voice correct and consistent "yes" works just as well.

Clickers are banned anywhere near the rings at obedience shows, which is another reason I prefer to use my voice.


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## Guest

Ooooh clickers!! I like clickers, Its the only way I taught Zander 'Out' to get out of the kitchen before we had a door on it!! 

Have to admit I do love it when he shows off behaviours in an attempt to get clicked, even if he only knows about three 

I am officially taking a Catherine Tate-esque attitude to his tantrums now as he just had one, barking at me when I wouldn't let him out to terrorise the cats, and now he has gone HURUMPH and curled up on the sofa, giving me eye.


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## Sarah1983

Another Kevin day today. Pretty much the same as yesterday only today he's also been poking my belly with his nose, presumably to see whether I'll squeak like his toys do when he does it to them :001_unsure: I don't. 

He had a Kevin moment with hubby earlier too. He took him out for a pee and let him off leash. Spen got the zoomies and wouldn't recall or let himself be caught. So ranting and raving and face like thunder ensued. Spen's done it to me before and found himself locked outside the flat on his own which he really didn't like (it was about 2am and the doors are glass so I could see him) so now I just walk to the flat and he soon decides coming to me might be a good idea.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Another Kevin day today. Pretty much the same as yesterday only today he's also been poking my belly with his nose, presumably to see whether I'll squeak like his toys do when he does it to them :001_unsure: I don't.
> 
> He had a Kevin moment with hubby earlier too. He took him out for a pee and let him off leash. Spen got the zoomies and wouldn't recall or let himself be caught. So ranting and raving and face like thunder ensued. Spen's done it to me before and found himself locked outside the flat on his own which he really didn't like (it was about 2am and the doors are glass so I could see him) so now I just walk to the flat and he soon decides coming to me might be a good idea.


Oh dear . Tomorrow is another day...hopefully Kevin will morph into Spen overnight :idea:.


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## moonviolet

Sorry you've had another Kevin day with spen, Sarah. It's always darkest before the dawn and all that . I'm really ashamed to admit i giggled at how you described Spen checking to see if you had a squeaker, Sorry :blushing:

Dogs are interesting creatures. They were in " supply teacher" mode tonight. All of them were a little silly. OH was handling and Tink was a little giddy, There was nothing hugely taxing and there were a few exercises then some games Including noughts and crosses played with 2 teams of dogs first in sits and downs then stands and sits. 

I'm also a fan of "clicker" training, but use a mixture of clicker and marker word. I love how brave and creative Tink is offering everything her little beagle brain can imagine


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## Werehorse

We've been to training class tonight too. I had to drive there and back because OH has been working really hard and needed a quiet evening (he usually comes with but doesn't handle because I'm too much of a control freak and try to offer advice which just pees him off.  ). It's quite a long drive and it's dark now and I haven't driven in the dark since last winter really and with that and the training class after a two week break my brain is completely fried! I can't even remember what we did - it's just a blur of black and white dogs!

Both boys were very good though. 

Moonviolet - Tink would probably love Oscar then, he would mostly ignore her with perhaps the occasional bum-sniff if he could drag himself away from Important Spaniel Business for long enough. :lol:


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## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> You don't have to use a clicker to clicker train Charlie. You can use a sharp and excited "yes" instead to mark any given response.
> 
> That's what I do because, as you quite rightly say, you need more than two handsmost of the time...LOL
> 
> It's true that some dogs really get turned on by the sound of a clicker but providing you get the tone of voice correct and consistent "yes" works just as well.
> 
> Clickers are banned anywhere near the rings at obedience shows, which is another reason I prefer to use my voice.


Yep that's what Ive been doing in his training this last week- Ive had some strange looks walking along smiling saying yes, yes, YES! lol. I think chaz is actually behaving more often just so I have to say it more and embarrass myself :blushing: hehehe


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## chazzie10

Have to admit I do love it when he shows off behaviours in an attempt to get clicked said:


> yip, this is why I was thinking about introducing a clicker!


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## ballybee

Just a quick update, both boys are doing well

Tummel : isn't doing the whole protective thing anywhere near as much, he's still lunging and pulling to meet other dogs but now it's down to curiosity instead of aggression. Will be using the dogmatic to try and combat this(again). He's much better with Dan now and they get on very very well now(have caught them lying together before Tummel throws a disgusted look Dans way and walks off lol).

Tummels issues are now, lunging/pulling, not listening and being an overall whingy git  i think he's taken all of Dans teenage hormones and is back to being teenage Tummel  so lots of hard work, thankfully he's not lost his reall this time round.

Dan : Is doing really well, he's now 6.5 months old and although has definately hit the teenage stage he doesn't show any troubling signs, he occaisionally doesn't listen but thats about all. His gundog work is brilliant, he's been doing some retrieving on shoots and was scent tracking the other day(found 3 deer so was successful). We've decided not to show for now as our finances aren't great ATm but he's not really missing anything. He's very cuddly and smart but really stinks :blushing: thanks to a grooming routine we've reduced the smell(thank god).

Overall both boys are doing well, Tummel is still a total sod but ach well


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## Sarah1983

Don't worry Moonviolet, I giggled too when I realised what he seemed to be doing. Silly dog. I'm just grateful he didn't decide to try the rear up and slam down with both front paws as well  I'm sincerely hoping Kevin will morph back into Spencer very quickly. 

We had a nice game of push each other over and pin last night just before bed though. If I sit on the floor he pushes against me with his shoulder until I lie down then he lies on top of me. Then I get up, push him, he "falls" over onto his back and I pin him. Then we push and shove at each other for a bit before one of us "falls" again.

I love clicker training. I have a marker word too coz you can guarantee I won't have a clicker in my hand just when I need it. I use "yay!" since it's not something I generally use at other times and even if I'm in a bad mood it comes out upbeat.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I think that about so many things to do with dogs. Mind you, I'm pleased they can't tell us what they think sometimes .
> 
> Well done Holly Bolly - again :aureola::aureola:.


I'm sure if Moll could tell me what she thought it would always be 'get a move on woman- I need my walk NOW'. I've never known a dog to sigh so much.

Twiggy- Its horrible when they have to stay on lead. Holly's doing well though- do you think she's finally settling down a bit?

Ballybee- I noticed you mention Dan smelling before-is it a breed thing?

Moonviolet- I love the slow cooker especially in winter, hope you can make that big decision on handles today.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry you are having problems with Spen, Sarah. Perhaps if you had a squeaker inserted he might pay more attention  I love the image too I am afraid especially when you go on to describe your push me pin me games!

Everyone else seems to be having some successes but at least keeping upbeat about the bad.

We had training last night too. Nearly late, OH took her walk as I had to get some work done. Phoned about 10 mins before we have to leave asking me to run the bath. He had taken her up the estuary and let her paddle in the mud! So she was a bit hyped up through the class, I put down to the bath. Wasn't settling, kept pawing at my knees and being demanding, squeaking and shaking.
We only had 3 dogs this week which meant we were really able to work on loose lead walking. 'We' haven't quite got the process co-ordinated yet, but the look on the spaniel owners face was a classic  when he realised his batty dog was gazing at him adoringly and walking to heel.

We had already arranged with the trainer to do some street work with Ginge after the class so they could get a handle on her reactions outside but after our abysmal performance in class we worked on the lead work some more in the car park, there were lots of dogs coming and going so we had a good chance to see her behavior and learn how to handle it. It was very helpful, I had sort of been doing all the right things but wasn't sure if I was doing them right or in the right order. Sort of muddling up the good girls and rewards with times when she hadn't done anything or trying to pre-empt it. She taught us 'leave it' works for dogs as well as lumps of cheese on the floor, and amazingly it did, to a point, hopefully it works for cars too. I now have to put it into practice in the real world, I can feel my hand tightening on the lead just thinking about it though


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers - it's always a boost to know that you're on the right lines isn't it? Hopefully that will stop you getting as anxious (easier said than done, I know ) and that, coupled with 'leave it' will begin to work and you'll progress.


----------



## kat&molly

I agree, that sounds positive Ginge, you just need to relax a bit.

Hope you have a better day Sarah.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I'm sure if Moll could tell me what she thought it would always be 'get a move on woman- I need my walk NOW'. I've never known a dog to sigh so much.
> 
> *Twiggy- Its horrible when they have to stay on lead. Holly's doing well though- do you think she's finally settling down a bit?*
> 
> Ballybee- I noticed you mention Dan smelling before-is it a breed thing?
> 
> Moonviolet- I love the slow cooker especially in winter, hope you can make that big decision on handles today.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Holly settled down months ago and is a very happy and contented little girl. Domestically she is pretty much perfect but for the type of training I do, I need her hyped up, keen, committed and the playing with me very, very strong.

I wish I wasn't such a dumbo and could put a video clip on here so that you could see what I mean. I did manage to save my sister's video onto my hard drive but I can only play it and not transfer it to Photobucket. Apparently you have to change the format to MPEG and need a movie maker programme installed on your computer, according to my sister (who is a whizz on these sort of things).


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GingerRogers - it's always a boost to know that you're on the right lines isn't it? Hopefully that will stop you getting as anxious (easier said than done, I know ) and that, coupled with 'leave it' will begin to work and you'll progress.


Thanks Dogless & Kat&molly.

It was good to hear, you can read stuff in books and learn from peoples experiences here but putting it all together in a way that doesn't confuse further an already confused dog is hard (especially for an uncoordinated lump like me ).

I managed to get her to 'leave' the next doors yappy sheltie, unfortunately next door but ones, poor old grumpy collie was on the other side of the road so the joy didn't last long, but I tried to be positive and managed to get down the road without too much shouting, crossing the road was a nightmare it was very busy with lots of lorries so she reacted badly there - its hard getting the balance right between firm 'leave its' and then bouncy 'good girls'. I end up with chirpy 'leave its' which get ignored then firm 'good girls' which get me freaked out 'whats up mum' looks .


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Thanks Dogless & Kat&molly.
> 
> It was good to hear, you can read stuff in books and learn from peoples experiences here but putting it all together in a way that doesn't confuse further an already confused dog is hard (especially for an uncoordinated lump like me ).
> 
> I managed to get her to 'leave' the next doors yappy sheltie, unfortunately next door but ones, poor old grumpy collie was on the other side of the road so the joy didn't last long, but I tried to be positive and managed to get down the road without too much shouting, crossing the road was a nightmare it was very busy with lots of lorries so she reacted badly there - its hard getting the balance right between firm 'leave its' and then bouncy 'good girls'. I end up with chirpy 'leave its' which get ignored then firm 'good girls' which get me freaked out 'whats up mum' looks .


Ginge it sounds like you are doing a good job and are really committed to your lovely, but challenging dog. The one piece fo advice i'd love to share with everyone that is feeling the pressure to have the perfect dog is jsut relax and take your time, pause to celebrate every single success, bathe and luxuriate in it. If there is a bench that is set back off the road or a shop doorway from an empty shop I'd be tempted to go and sit/crouch there with a big bag of treats and let the world pass by, you could even take a small fleece blanket and ask her to lay on it as you lavish her with treats for laying calmly. She'll be out of the way, an observer of everything rather than a participant. It's also easier for you to see everything thats going on and easier to relax.

Nothing to report here fab walk got soaked splashed in puddles and did a training session in the rain    I love rainy days


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Nothing to report here fab walk got soaked splashed in puddles and did a training session in the rain    I love rainy days


Same here . Then made my chrimbo cake .


----------



## Werehorse

Hugo had an accident this morning.  He drank loads of water after all the treats at training last night and then when OH got up this morning he must have been totally desperate for a wee and got "key in the lock syndrome" and did a MASSIVE wee on the landing.  I interrupted him (not until he'd done a fair bit though!) and had to take him out into the communal garden in my PJs with no shoes on to finish off. Just as the man next door came out his back door as well. 

Good job it was cold so I wore PJs last night!! 

I know I'm anthropomorphising but Hugo looks so sad and worried while he was peeing like "I'm sorry mummy, it's just happening, I can't stop" He definitely needs to work on his pelvic floor exercises. 

A one off I'm sure - they usually wait quite a while for me to drag myself up before they go out.

Neither have moved since second breakfast this morning which was a frozen chicken wing each. They haven't really had raw meat that isn't mince much before and figuring out how to eat it has worn them both out! Hugo is sleeping! He'd usually just laying down with his eyes open waiting for something to happen. :lol:

I wish I felt more positive about the weather! I don't mind the rain usually but this summer has ground me down. I'm really hoping for a cold clear winter. Won't happen but I'm hoping.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Same here . Then made my chrimbo cake .


 chrimbo cake?


----------



## chazzie10

Moonviolet what a lovely post  sometimes walks are so stressful that I guess we focus on them just being over and making it back to the car... how nice to actually stop, take it all in and breathe 
Thanks for that!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> chrimbo cake?


Yep - lots of time to feed it before the day now .


----------



## moonviolet

I got ready for our evening walk, Tinker rolled her eyes and snuggled back down. I guess thats a thanks but no thanks. I take it she doesn't fancy gettign wet again. No doubt i'd better clear a space for a training session later or she'll be making her own amusement


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I got ready for our evening walk, Tinker rolled her eyes and snuggled back down. I guess thats a thanks but no thanks. I take it she doesn't fancy gettign wet again. No doubt i'd better clear a space for a training session later or she'll be making her own amusement


I'm afraid I gave in on our late afternoon walk by letting Tremor and Leafy off the lead. I wouldn't throw toys or let them play with Holly but they looked so, so miserable.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I got ready for our evening walk, Tinker rolled her eyes and snuggled back down. I guess thats a thanks but no thanks. I take it she doesn't fancy gettign wet again. No doubt i'd better clear a space for a training session later or she'll be making her own amusement


We have been for ours; soaked again . School later though .


----------



## L/C

Not looking forward to taking Gypsy out for a drag later. But she needs the stimulation - even with a training session she needs at least a short trip out. It is pouring here!


----------



## GingerRogers

I'm still working so OH took her out, the heavens opened as soon as the front door shut, they have just got back,  sometimes work is good


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Yep - lots of time to feed it before the day now .


lots of brandy in it im guessing? I used to make my own chrimbo cake and pudding. Any recipes for dog cake?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> lots of brandy in it im guessing? I used to make my own chrimbo cake and pudding. Any recipes for dog cake?


Morgan's Spiced Rum actually.....tried it in there one year and it tastes lovely .

You could make a liver cake if Chaz is getting one! Or tuna or sardine - anything really!

If you want to make a liver cake chop up however much liver you want (about 300g for a loaf tin / small cake) - *chop it fine or the motor on your blender will burn out!*.
Put in about 50g SR flour per 100g liver.
Add as much milk as there is height - wise from the liver and flour (or water if you want)
Add a chopped clove of garlic (optional).

Blitz it all up until it's a cake consistency....pop in oven at around 160c for about 30-40 minutes. Open all windows wide once cooked .

Add an egg for every 200g liver or so (so 2 in this case).


----------



## kat&molly

OH walked with us this afternoon- we all got drenched and every bloomin one of them lay down in a puddle as well.

We dont like Chrimbo cake[yuk].:001_tt2:

Have a good class Dogless.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Morgan's Spiced Rum actually.....tried it in there one year and it tastes lovely .
> 
> You could make a liver cake if Chaz is getting one! Or tuna or sardine - anything really!
> 
> If you want to make a liver cake chop up however much liver you want (about 300g for a loaf tin / small cake) - *chop it fine or the motor on your blender will burn out!*.
> Put in about 50g SR flour per 100g liver.
> Add as much milk as there is height - wise from the liver and flour (or water if you want)
> Add a chopped clove of garlic (optional).
> 
> Blitz it all up until it's a cake consistency....pop in oven at around 160c for about 30-40 minutes. Open all windows wide once cooked .
> 
> Add an egg for every 200g liver or so (so 2 in this case).


Why does the blender burn out, you blend the liver raw right?
As far as us Suffolks are concerned (as this is the recipe from the training class which everyone seems to know) the more garlic the better (it actually said a whole bulb) they do go mental for it well every dog other than Ginge does, she only likes it a lot if there is no other dogs or cars about 

Never mind just realised you do it different, we liquidize the raw liver (1lb) and then hand mix the flour (1lb) garlic egg and water to consistency of a cake, then bake it, need to make some more soon, I think the amount of garlic helps it smell good while its cooking, everyone seems to think it smells rank on here. But don't smell the raw liquidised liver :nonod: like I did.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Why does the blender burn out, you blend the liver raw right?
> As far as us Suffolks are concerned (as this is the recipe from the training class which everyone seems to know) the more garlic the better (it actually said a whole bulb) they do go mental for it well every dog other than Ginge does, she only likes it a lot if there is no other dogs or cars about
> 
> Never mind just realised you do it different, we liquidize the raw liver (1lb) and then hand mix the flour (1lb) garlic egg and water to consistency of a cake, then bake it, need to make some more soon, I think the amount of garlic helps it smell good while its cooking, everyone seems to think it smells rank on here. But don't smell the raw liquidised liver :nonod: like I did.


Because of the membrane on the liver - it wraps around the blades and the motor suffers.

Kilo loves garlic in it - but I know some people don't feed their dog garlic at all. I have made it both ways - doesn't seem to matter how you do it TBH as long as it's all mixed up!! Not sure you can get it wrong.....


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> OH walked with us this afternoon- we all got drenched and every bloomin one of them lay down in a puddle as well.
> 
> We dont like Chrimbo cake[yuk].:001_tt2:
> 
> Have a good class Dogless.


I LOVE chrimbo cake .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Morgan's Spiced Rum actually.....tried it in there one year and it tastes lovely .
> 
> You could make a liver cake if Chaz is getting one! Or tuna or sardine - anything really!
> 
> If you want to make a liver cake chop up however much liver you want (about 300g for a loaf tin / small cake) - *chop it fine or the motor on your blender will burn out!*.
> Put in about 50g SR flour per 100g liver.
> Add as much milk as there is height - wise from the liver and flour (or water if you want)
> Add a chopped clove of garlic (optional).
> 
> Blitz it all up until it's a cake consistency....pop in oven at around 160c for about 30-40 minutes. Open all windows wide once cooked .
> 
> Add an egg for every 200g liver or so (so 2 in this case).


hmmmm lovely.....NOT  lol, I bet he'd love it though ( hacking, barfing noises in background hehehe)


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I LOVE chrimbo cake .


I think everyone does its just us - we're strange.:w00t:

OH really misses his Mr Kipling cakes from the UK- and last year we ordered some things to be delivered as a treat at Christmas- Paxo stuffing, Teabags etc. I left him to do the ordering and when it came there were 16 boxes of cakes.:w00t:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I think everyone does its just us - we're strange.:w00t:
> 
> OH really misses his Mr Kipling cakes from the UK- and last year we ordered some things to be delivered as a treat at Christmas- Paxo stuffing, Teabags etc. I left him to do the ordering and when it came there were 16 boxes of cakes.:w00t:


16  . Flamin' hell.......


----------



## chazzie10

Ive only got a hand blender-not a closed in one with a lid-I'll have to get one or my kitchen would resemble a scene from chainsaw masacre


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> We dont like Chrimbo cake[yuk].:001_tt2:


I don't like it either :blushing: or christmas pud or mince pies :blushing:

My mum makes OH a christmas cake :lol: ( suspect it's cos she loves it and gets to eat some when they visit !)

Have a good class Dogless

I'm mildly relieved that mackerel/sardine cake trumps livercake for Tink  A little fenugreek dulls the fishy-ness down and is good for them too


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I don't like it either :blushing: or christmas pud or mince pies :blushing:
> 
> My mum makes OH a christmas cake :lol: ( suspect it's cos she loves it and gets to eat some when they visit !)
> 
> Have a good class Dogless
> 
> I'm mildly relieved that mackerel/sardine cake trumps livercake for Tink  A little fenugreek dulls the fishy-ness down and is good for them too


Ha I hate all of those too! My family tries to make out I'm weird but clearly I'm in good company. 

My two love liver cake but the last time I made it, it knackered my blender which I haven't got round to replacing so they've had to make do with sardine cake, dried liver, hotdog, liver paste and primula. I think they're surviving. 

Just tried to take Gypsy out, got her raincoat on and all togged up and then had a statue refusal at the front door. All 4 legs were immovable! We'll try again later.


----------



## chazzie10

L/C said:


> all these ingredients in one cake? Interesting lol. Where do you get dried liver from? Im gonna have a look in the freezer in PAH cos I know ive seen different types of chopped/ minced raw meat in there that would maybe make a cake!
> PS you dont know what you're missing....xmas cake with thick butter on it yum!


----------



## L/C

chazzie10 said:


> all these ingredients in one cake? Interesting lol. Where do you get dried liver from? Im gonna have a look in the freezer in PAH cos I know ive seen different types of chopped/ minced raw meat in there that would maybe make a cake!


Ha that would be an interesting cake! Nope I use all of those things in rotation as if you use one reward too much then it will become less effective and lose it's value.

I buy liver from the supermarket, usually when it's reduced, then I boil it for about 5/10 minutes. After that I cut it into small pieces and bake it in the oven on a low temp for 2hours or so.

I find the dried liver you get from pet shops to be really over priced.


----------



## chazzie10

primula one might be nice....i bet it smells a whole lot better than liver!!

Well my boots and coat are on...time to leash the beastie ut:


----------



## L/C

chazzie10 said:


> primula one might be nice....i bet it smells a whole lot better than liver!!
> 
> Well my boots and coat are on...time to leash the beastie ut:


I do make cheesy cakes too but I tend to use primula straight from the tube and that works well.


----------



## moonviolet

Seeing as it stopped raining and space is still a bit limited, went for a pavement walk. it was all a little exciting at first ( wet tyres make interesting noises) so i took her over to the junk shop which has a huge wide pavement and walked a few circuits until it was all getting a little boring. Then off we went, only for it to start tipping it down at the furthest point of our route. In for a penny in for a pound we practised road crossings every few yards. She did very well considering I don't regularly pavement walk after dark. Then of course the obligatory towel drying , game of towel matador, warm up zoomies and tug pirates :lol: :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

towel matador lol. Mine loves getting his big bath sheet put over him like a medieval charger-all the better if its right over his head....its funny to watch him thrashing around with only the tail visible, wagging at 100mph


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Sam has been a naughty boy again :devil:

Our walk this morning was fine if a bit wet and as I had uni he went up to my dads for the day. Dad went out of the room for 2 minutes to make some lunch and in that time he managed to scout out his £100 pair of glasses ont he window sill and chew them and break the lens into 5 pieces 

It's a good job dad is used to naughty boxers and their destructive ways and it's a good job Sam is cute   

Xmas cake and mince pies are a no no here as well ut:

Hope everyone elses day was ok


----------



## Dogless

Sam :yikes::yikes: ut:.

School was good; we got a "Well done, very good" at the end which was nice - we have been working hard....and now Kilo is crashed out snoring on the sofa. He did take a dislike to the trainer's BC - fear dislike with his tail tucked and ears back and avoiding all eye contact; I couldn't walk past initially without him backing off whilst barking but we were going past in a relaxed fashion after a while. The BC wasn't eyeballing or anything like that and didn't react at all - odd .

As for all you lot who don't like chrimbo cake, mince pies etc; you are all weird :ihih::ihih:.


----------



## SophieCyde

Haven't been on here in a while , been really busy with college. We recently started going to dog training classes and today we did some off lead recall in the hall  he was fab , ignored all the other dogs and worked really well  I'm really proud of him , all the other dogs were great too and there were no runawways


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Sam :yikes::yikes: ut:.
> 
> School was good; we got a "Well done, very good" at the end which was nice - we have been working hard....and now Kilo is crashed out snoring on the sofa. He did take a dislike to the trainer's BC - fear dislike with his tail tucked and ears back and avoiding all eye contact; I couldn't walk past initially without him backing off whilst barking but we were going past in a relaxed fashion after a while. The BC wasn't eyeballing or anything like that and didn't react at all - odd .
> 
> As for all you lot who don't like chrimbo cake, mince pies etc; you are all weird :ihih::ihih:.


freaks the lot of them


----------



## chazzie10

Well today we worked on charlies homework from school- ' look at me' command, basic sit, down, stand refresher etc. Taught him to high 5 today too though with his bad elbows he cant really reach high (prefers to do it lying on his back acting the eejit waving legs around ). Our walk tonight was uneventful.....for the first time ever, from start to finish! he sat patiently while i got my boots and coat on. Ive changed my tactics too- i used to say 'come for walkies' which prompted dog bed flying across floor, mat flying in other direction, dog doing wheelies around door into hall then standing sides heaving at front door  Tonight i walked right up to him and gave him the 'stand' command with a treat and he just quietly followed me to door! Is that it? Is that all it took? lol. Clipped lead on and he stood nicely waiting for me to lock up. Didnt pull once on lead at all. Cant believe it. My son has commented that the dog is completely different around house now, calm, respectful, not as needy and a complete dote! Sorry i know ive probably bored you all with these updates every couple of days but i just cant believe the change in him so quickly. Feel guilty for not trying harder sooner :blushing:


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless - poor Kilo. The BC was clearly doing crazy BC mind-waves at him. They do that. Hugo tries to do it to Oscar but his waves are only half strength and Oscar's skull is too thick. 

In all seriousness, the BC probably looked all innocent but who knows what subtle signals he was giving out. Oscar is intermittently freaked out by the boy Toller in his class, if you look really closely and have observed them both for week after week after week since they were both pups you can see when the Toller is giving Oscar evils and when he's not bothered. But if it was the first time they had met you wouldn't see it, you'd just wonder why Oscar was so worried about him.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh dear Sam, you have expensive taste lad. I did forget to mention that this morning while i was on the phone her ladyship stole my knitting, broke my needles in half and pulled the wool so badly i had to unravel everything I managed to do yesterday. Just as well we love them :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well done Dogless it sounds like you are doing very well, Shame about the trainers BC, clearly Kilo wasn't enjoying his vibes. I agree with werehorse sometimes the messages can be brief or very subtle.

Welcome back Sophie well done on a fab recall in class

Chazzie I love hearing about your progress so glad you are seeing such improvement


----------



## Sarah1983

3rd Kevin day in a row for us today  He's not been bad while out but in the house he's an absolute horror! His bed has been destuffed multiple times, his thieving ways have gotten about ten billion times worse, his boundary pushing is horrendous and he's just generally being a royal pain in the backside. It's no wonder so many adolescent dogs end up in rescue really. I keep threatening Spen with it but I don't think he believes me somehow :lol:

It's 2am and I've just been brought a tin of boot polish. God only knows where he got that from. I think it's time for his last walk and bed before I throttle him.


----------



## kat&molly

A few pooches showing some 'character' yesterday.:ihih:

Got a call from one of my clients last night and could I look after her 2 old timid Poodles for the weekend, one of them is incontinent - not sure this is the best place for 'delicate' little dogs but I think its some sort of emergency and my neighbour wants me to have her Staffy next month for a few days.
Obviously only having 4 I must need something to do with my time. 
Still, nice to be trusted I suppose.:001_unsure:


Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Dogless - poor Kilo. The BC was clearly doing crazy BC mind-waves at him. They do that. Hugo tries to do it to Oscar but his waves are only half strength and Oscar's skull is too thick.
> 
> In all seriousness, the BC probably looked all innocent but who knows what subtle signals he was giving out. Oscar is intermittently freaked out by the boy Toller in his class, if you look really closely and have observed them both for week after week after week since they were both pups you can see when the Toller is giving Oscar evils and when he's not bothered. But if it was the first time they had met you wouldn't see it, you'd just wonder why Oscar was so worried about him.


Interesting; Kilo was really not happy at all. He's not good when they eyeball him as that is when the mindwaves are strongest....



moonviolet said:


> Oh dear Sam, you have expensive taste lad. I did forget to mention that this morning while i was on the phone her ladyship stole my knitting, broke my needles in half and pulled the wool so badly i had to unravel everything I managed to do yesterday. Just as well we love them :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> Well done Dogless it sounds like you are doing very well, Shame about the trainers BC, clearly Kilo wasn't enjoying his vibes. I agree with werehorse sometimes the messages can be brief or very subtle.
> 
> Welcome back Sophie well done on a fab recall in class
> 
> Chazzie I love hearing about your progress so glad you are seeing such improvement


Tink . Maybe she didn't like the colours you were using? :idea:.

We are progressing nicely (I think :001_unsure and enjoying it. The trainer took Kilo from me after we had tried (and failed) to get past the BC to do an exercise at the end of the hall several times. He acted the same with the trainer too - good and not good as at least I know it wasn't me that caused it. I didn't see anything that the BC was doing, but was naturally watching Kilo's body language much more - he was intensely anxious . After that we were able to go past the BC without even a glance apart from one 'gruff' . Who knows?



Sarah1983 said:


> 3rd Kevin day in a row for us today  He's not been bad while out but in the house he's an absolute horror! His bed has been destuffed multiple times, his thieving ways have gotten about ten billion times worse, his boundary pushing is horrendous and he's just generally being a royal pain in the backside. It's no wonder so many adolescent dogs end up in rescue really. I keep threatening Spen with it but I don't think he believes me somehow :lol:
> 
> It's 2am and I've just been brought a tin of boot polish. God only knows where he got that from. I think it's time for his last walk and bed before I throttle him.


Oh Spen......



kat&molly said:


> A few pooches showing some 'character' yesterday.:ihih:
> 
> Got a call from one of my clients last night and could I look after her 2 old timid Poodles for the weekend, one of them is incontinent - not sure this is the best place for 'delicate' little dogs but I think its some sort of emergency and my neighbour wants me to have her Staffy next month for a few days.
> Obviously only having 4 I must need something to do with my time.
> Still, nice to be trusted I suppose.:001_unsure:
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Hope you still have all your fingers .

I hope the old, timid poodles have a lovely, restful time in your peaceful household  .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Sam :yikes::yikes: ut:.
> 
> School was good; we got a "Well done, very good" at the end which was nice - we have been working hard....and now Kilo is crashed out snoring on the sofa. He did take a dislike to the trainer's BC - fear dislike with his tail tucked and ears back and avoiding all eye contact; I couldn't walk past initially without him backing off whilst barking but we were going past in a relaxed fashion after a while. The BC wasn't eyeballing or anything like that and didn't react at all - odd .
> 
> As for all you lot who don't like chrimbo cake, mince pies etc; you are all weird :ihih::ihih:.


I did a training course in Kent when Leafy was about 3 yrs old and I took her with me for company and to use as a demo dog, if needed.

When we got to retrieve I couldn't understand why so many dogs seemed anxious about picking up their dumbbells until I turned round and looked at Leafy. Although she is the friendliest little soul, who wouldn't harm a fly, her strong eye was putting all the dogs off.

My husband falls into the weird category then; for 64 years he has maintained that he hates mince pies until last Christmas at the Wednesday afternoon party. A friend made a huge batch and he ate most of them....!!


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Well today we worked on charlies homework from school- ' look at me' command, basic sit, down, stand refresher etc. Taught him to high 5 today too though with his bad elbows he cant really reach high (prefers to do it lying on his back acting the eejit waving legs around ). Our walk tonight was uneventful.....for the first time ever, from start to finish! he sat patiently while i got my boots and coat on. Ive changed my tactics too- i used to say 'come for walkies' which prompted dog bed flying across floor, mat flying in other direction, dog doing wheelies around door into hall then standing sides heaving at front door  Tonight i walked right up to him and gave him the 'stand' command with a treat and he just quietly followed me to door! Is that it? Is that all it took? lol. Clipped lead on and he stood nicely waiting for me to lock up. Didnt pull once on lead at all. Cant believe it. My son has commented that the dog is completely different around house now, calm, respectful, not as needy and a complete dote! Sorry i know ive probably bored you all with these updates every couple of days but i just cant believe the change in him so quickly. Feel guilty for not trying harder sooner :blushing:


You'll never bore me. I love hearing every aspect of training dogs.

Sometimes something very simple works like a miracle and that is all it takes.

I had a very experienced handler here last Thursday working two of her collies. She is starting to teach the older dog positions on the move for class C and said she couldn't get him to stand in the heel position because he is so manic and high drive that he doesn't want to stop. She reckoned she'd tried every which way possible. It took me all of 30 seconds by taking him out on my hand - her face was a picture....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

I did threaten to knit her a jumper so i guess that might have something to do with it :lol: :lol: :lol:

Glad Kilo was able to go past the trainers BC in the end. It would be so much easier if we could read our dogs minds sometimes. Who knows he might even have smelt like a dog Kilo has had a bad experience with.
It's great that you are enjoying your classes it makes such a difference when they are fun. 

K&M Lovely to be asked, but I can understand some trepidation about the delicate poodles. 

Sarah, naughty Spen he needs a new hobby or maybe a part time job milkman? paperboy?


----------



## GingerRogers

He He  towel matadors, I like that, glad its normal, it seems funny but I wasn't sure if she was scared or not.

I don't do christmas pud either, revolting, Dad always tries to blackmail me saying we cant light it if I don't have some, , can manage a bit of cake if forced to (mums quite forceful, think shes a feeder), no marzipan though. I never ate mince pies either till I tried a friends homemade ones, yummy fresh from the oven.

Naughty Sam - if Ginge ate OH's new glasses I would cry, it took long enough to get him back to the opticians!
Hello Sophieclyde.
Chazzie your boy is obviously all good he is picking up so much so quick. How do you teach high fives and paws and things, Ginge just gives us the 'look'.
Sarah, today will be better I can feel it in my bones.
Dogless, them BC's, the bane of our life, not least cos that's what she was brought up with so they set her off, but our best mate has a very 'rude' one. Drills holes in Ginge till she can't take it any more, but its his baby, we can't say anything,  he just says its a collie thing, I know but its not nice  especially when he knows how hard we are trying with her.

Once the OH had dried off he said Ginge was very well behaved last night (well there wasn't anyone else mad enough to be out was there ) and walked very nicely on and off lead, so perhaps somethings sinking in. TBH she was quite good this morning too apart from a 5 min ignoring session. Feels like so long, but once you've started you cant back down, good job we are both as stubborn as each other  
We have also stopped using the head collar, well stopped attaching the lead to it, she's fine just wearing it until she sees a dog, she was getting madder with the head collar than the dog, she had worked out how to grab the dangling trigger catch below her chin and 'kill' the lead so it gave us absolutely no extra control whatsoever and made her look like a complete monster. We still put it on as it did seem to calm her the first time and its there if I feel the need for the back up if she turns houdini again, but we may phase it out and see what happens.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless, them BC's, the bane of our life, not least cos that's what she was brought up with so they set her off, but our best mate has a very 'rude' one. Drills holes in Ginge till she can't take it any more, but its his baby, we can't say anything,  he just says its a collie thing, I know but its not nice  especially when he knows how hard we are trying with her.

That's awful and it's not a collie thing. There were at least 500 collies at the show last week-end and they certainly weren't taking lumps out of each other.

You get up to 60 in the stay ring at any given time, handlers go out of sight and the dogs are left with about 9/10 stay stewards. That wouldn't be possible if they all behaved like your friend's collie.


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## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> When we got to retrieve I couldn't understand why so many dogs seemed anxious about picking up their dumbbells until I turned round and looked at Leafy. Although she is the friendliest little soul, who wouldn't harm a fly, her strong eye was putting all the dogs off.


Ha! That's reminded me of an incident. It was one of the days when the Toller was obviously in a bit of a grump cos Oscar was being very respectful of his space. We did retrievies and I accidentally threw Oscar's dumbbell a bit close to the Toller, Oscar stopped about 5 yards from the dumbbell, got practically on his belly and squirmed up to the dumbbell and very, VERY, carefully picked it up then silly spanner skitted back to me at top speed. Poor lad was terrified and all the Toller was doing was sitting and looking at him. :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> 3rd Kevin day in a row for us today  He's not been bad while out but in the house he's an absolute horror! His bed has been destuffed multiple times, his thieving ways have gotten about ten billion times worse, his boundary pushing is horrendous and he's just generally being a royal pain in the backside. It's no wonder so many adolescent dogs end up in rescue really. I keep threatening Spen with it but I don't think he believes me somehow :lol:
> 
> It's 2am and I've just been brought a tin of boot polish. God only knows where he got that from. I think it's time for his last walk and bed before I throttle him.


What sort of bedding do you use? Charlie used to pull stuffing out of those pillow/ cushion thingys and it took a lifetime clearing it up. Ive found a bed that he doesnt destroy- and it was a bargain. It can be bought online or in PAH where I got it (was on promotion for £27 for labrador size!)-its made by '3 peaks' and is waterproof (amazing), completely washable and has a seperate popper on thin fleece top layer which washes and dries very quickly. The pillow base is zipped inside the waterproof cover so charlie cant get at it! No more dog shaped snow angels in my living room!
Have you tried a stuffed Kong to keep Spen amused? You could hide it for him to find so, technically speaking, he's not stealing


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## kat&molly

Dogless- Poor Kilo, but its good you were able to get past eventually, and you're doing well in the higher class.

Moonviolet-Doesn't sound like Tink wants a jumper.

Chazzie- Charlie is doing really well.


Had 2 men here this morning- come to check insulation and heating. I wasn't looking forward to it,normally I would put Scruff in a different room as she will bite if she feels threatened.Couldn't do that today with them checking all the rooms. Had to just let Evie take flight out in to the garden - as I thought that was better than shut in her crate, trembling.
I put Moll and Scruff on their beds , but Moll got frit as they were banging and tapping walls and hid under our bed. Got the clicker out and done lots of sits and downs with Scruff and then gave her a good brush- eventually she really relaxed and we were playing with one of her toys.
It was a long half hour but I'm really pleased with how Scruff coped with that.


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> I did threaten to knit her a jumper so i guess that might have something to do with it :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> Glad Kilo was able to go past the trainers BC in the end. It would be so much easier if we could read our dogs minds sometimes. Who knows he might even have smelt like a dog Kilo has had a bad experience with.
> It's great that you are enjoying your classes it makes such a difference when they are fun.
> 
> K&M Lovely to be asked, but I can understand some trepidation about the delicate poodles.
> 
> Sarah, naughty Spen he needs a new hobby or maybe a part time job milkman? paperboy?


So glad I joined this forum- it always gives me a laugh 
Moonviolet ive a skull and crossbones jumper knitting pattern for dogs, you could knit it in a nice girly pink 

Dogless i hope i get to the stage where i 'enjoy' dog classes- sort of dreading and looking forward to tomorrows class!

Twiggy thanks for the kind words


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Once the OH had dried off he said Ginge was very well behaved last night (well there wasn't anyone else mad enough to be out was there ) and walked very nicely on and off lead, so perhaps somethings sinking in. TBH she was quite good this morning too apart from a 5 min ignoring session. Feels like so long, but once you've started you cant back down, good job we are both as stubborn as each other
> We have also stopped using the head collar, well stopped attaching the lead to it, she's fine just wearing it until she sees a dog, she was getting madder with the head collar than the dog, she had worked out how to grab the dangling trigger catch below her chin and 'kill' the lead so it gave us absolutely no extra control whatsoever and made her look like a complete monster. We still put it on as it did seem to calm her the first time and its there if I feel the need for the back up if she turns houdini again, but we may phase it out and see what happens.


That sounds really encouraging. Have you heard of these TTouch calming bands http://www.tilleyfarmshop.com/acatalog/Calming_Bands.html if you think the action of something on the muzzle keeps Ginge calm?



chazzie10 said:


> What sort of bedding do you use? Charlie used to pull stuffing out of those pillow/ cushion thingys and it took a lifetime clearing it up. Ive found a bed that he doesnt destroy- and it was a bargain. It can be bought online or in PAH where I got it (was on promotion for £27 for labrador size!)-its made by '3 peaks' and is waterproof (amazing), completely washable and has a seperate popper on thin fleece top layer which washes and dries very quickly. The pillow base is zipped inside the waterproof cover so charlie cant get at it! No more dog shaped snow angels in my living room!
> Have you tried a stuffed Kong to keep Spen amused? You could hide it for him to find so, technically speaking, he's not stealing


We had one of those beds until the BW outgrew it - can recommend it though!



chazzie10 said:


> So glad I joined this forum- it always gives me a laugh
> Moonviolet ive a skull and crossbones jumper knitting pattern for dogs, you could knit it in a nice girly pink
> 
> Dogless i hope i get to the stage where i 'enjoy' dog classes- sort of dreading and looking forward to tomorrows class!
> 
> Twiggy thanks for the kind words


I think it's down to finding the right class; I hated one set I went to so did really badly. I actually look forward to these .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I did a training course in Kent when Leafy was about 3 yrs old and I took her with me for company and to use as a demo dog, if needed.
> 
> When we got to retrieve I couldn't understand why so many dogs seemed anxious about picking up their dumbbells until I turned round and looked at Leafy. Although she is the friendliest little soul, who wouldn't harm a fly, her strong eye was putting all the dogs off.
> 
> My husband falls into the weird category then; for 64 years he has maintained that he hates mince pies until last Christmas at the Wednesday afternoon party. A friend made a huge batch and he ate most of them....!!


The trainer's BC is a friendly dog too; but does have a very strong eye indeed (if my limited understanding of what that means is correct) and perhaps was looking out of the corner of his eye or something like that as we approached? I'm not sure - whatever it was Kilo was not happy at all. At least we were going past nicely by the end without any reaction or anxiety.

I wonder what made your hubby have such a sudden change of heart after 64 years? . Your friend's pastry must be superb!!


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## Dogless

We had an OK walk this morning; drove to the river walk - Kilo did everything that he was asked to and behaved nicely but was a little anxious all the way around - just the set of his ears and tail that gave it away. Possibly he's still a bit 'off' from last night.


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## chazzie10

[QUOTE=
Chazzie your boy is obviously all good he is picking up so much so quick. How do you teach high fives and paws and things, Ginge just gives us the 'look'.
[/QUOTE

When Im lying on the settee Chaz comes and lies on the floor beside me and rolls onto his back for a tummy tickle- he has a wild habit of giving his paw until I hold it, like holding hands :blushing: lol. I just held my hand higher up to make him reach further and as soon as he realised it made me laugh and squeak YES, he got it


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> That sounds really encouraging. Have you heard of these TTouch calming bands Tilley Farm Calming Bands if you think the action of something on the muzzle keeps Ginge calm?
> 
> We had one of those beds until the BW outgrew it - can recommend it though!
> 
> I think it's down to finding the right class; I hated one set I went to so did really badly. I actually look forward to these .


I'd a feeling you'd have tried those dog beds lol. 
When I said labrador sized, its JUST big enough and no more- he tends to lie with his head on the wooden floor anyway  I wish they'd make a big, big size!
I'll keep going to this class for a while and see how it goes though he isnt really telling me anything I dont already know (I know what I'm meant to be doing- ive read the books, watched the programmes lmao)- its more for the socialisation and for all the price he charges, its not a bad hour out!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> I'd a feeling you'd have tried those dog beds lol.
> When I said labrador sized, its JUST big enough and no more- he tends to lie with his head on the wooden floor anyway  I wish they'd make a big, big size!
> I'll keep going to this class for a while and see how it goes though he isnt really telling me anything I dont already know (I know what I'm meant to be doing- ive read the books, watched the programmes lmao)- its more for the socialisation and for all the price he charges, its not a bad hour out!


Kilo is a tall, long dog! He has an XL Tuffie now - best bed I've ever bought, it's fantastic as it doesn't go out of shape under his big old weight either .

Rudi will have Kilo's old stuff in his crate as (touch wood) Kilo isn't a chewer of things he shouldn't so everything survived .


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## chazzie10

Dogless-I havnt heard of a 'tuffie' bed- I'll have to google them. I realised eventually that buying Mr Bubblebum a cheap dog cushion was false economy. Even if he didnt chew it, it would get smelly quickly, which he would probably love but I wouldnt appreciate just as much  

Its good you have Kilo's things to pass down to Rudi... any more pics of the pups or do they only send you new pics weekly?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Dogless-I havnt heard of a 'tuffie' bed- I'll have to google them. I realised eventually that buying Mr Bubblebum a cheap dog cushion was false economy. Even if he didnt chew it, it would get smelly quickly, which he would probably love but I wouldnt appreciate just as much
> 
> Its good you have Kilo's things to pass down to Rudi... any more pics of the pups or do they only send you new pics weekly?


None yet.....hopefully soon!!


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## Sarah1983

Well wish us luck. We've already had an attack of the Kevins and are now about to go for a walk in the pouring rain. Rain has a tendency to send Spen loopy so god knows what I'm letting myself in for  I'm seriously hoping this is the darkest before the dawn thing and that the last few months of Kevin moments haven't just been leading up to a nightmare of a teenage stage. Although at 17 months I'd have thought he'd be heading towards the end of it not just starting it so there's hope!


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Well wish us luck. We've already had an attack of the Kevins and are now about to go for a walk in the pouring rain. Rain has a tendency to send Spen loopy so god knows what I'm letting myself in for  I'm seriously hoping this is the darkest before the dawn thing and that the last few months of Kevin moments haven't just been leading up to a nightmare of a teenage stage. Although at 17 months I'd have thought he'd be heading towards the end of it not just starting it so there's hope!


On the flip side maybe it's a last ditch teenage "It's not ffaaaiiiirrrrrr" thing and he's about to emerge from it . Good Luck .


----------



## Twiggy

I'm quite certain dogs have a sixth sense. Since my little chat with my new vet about 3 weeks ago on their PTS policy (which needed to be discussed) Quiver has been behaving like a two years old....LOL This morning she belted down the paddock and when Tremor picked up a toy that she wanted, she charged after her. She certainly didn't look anything like a 14 yr old.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm quite certain dogs have a sixth sense. Since my little chat with my new vet about 3 weeks ago on their PTS policy (which needed to be discussed) Quiver has been behaving like a two years old....LOL This morning she belted down the paddock and when Tremor picked up a toy that she wanted, she charged after her. She certainly didn't look anything like a 14 yr old.


Bless her; dogs do certainly pick up on things that is for sure.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> I'm quite certain dogs have a sixth sense. Since my little chat with my new vet about 3 weeks ago on their PTS policy (which needed to be discussed) Quiver has been behaving like a two years old....LOL This morning she belted down the paddock and when Tremor picked up a toy that she wanted, she charged after her. She certainly didn't look anything like a 14 yr old.


I definately believe they do. They seem to have an uncanny knack of picking up on feelings and emotions around them. Shame more humans didnt show the same intelligence, understanding and empathy!


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## moonviolet

Sarah I hope it's just his last teenage hoo-rah  good luck in the rain , it always sends Tink a bit doo-lally and even worse when she's drying off and warming up at home. I'm so glad we've never been filmed 

Dogless, shame Kilo was a bit tense this morning. hope he shakes it off.

Chazzie, Hehe i can't see Tink in a pink jumper, a pink anythng really. As for beds, I could get Tink a bed the size of a brazil and her head would still hang off 

Lovely walk this morning, the sun was shining a bit breezy but lovely after a Noah day yesterday. Just a nice chilled out walk. a minor blip when I was mugged by a bouncy 10month lab , she wasn't too bad but she had rolled in something stinky and i came home smelling of fox poo :lol: :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

Interesting free-shaping session with the boys last night. Working on Paws Up on he box again, but I decided to click other cute things as well, just to encourage them a bit more.

Although in their first sessions Oscar got the putting paws up action MUCH quicker than Hugo, seemingly more willing to try stuff rather than wait for instruction, Hugo once he got it at the end of the first session had got it. Oscar had to figure out what I wanted a bit again, although he was quicker. Hugo just walked up to the box, remembered what we'd done last time, put his paws up and looked round for a click and treat! And after about 5 trails where I said the cue as he did it he would then do it on cue. I worked Oscar for perhaps 20-30 trials of paws up and he was _just_ starting to tune into the cue!

But again there was a difference in what other behaviours they offered around the box. Hugo continued to do a lot of sitting and staring - in a way that is great, he knows it works and it's a perfect coping with life behaviour so it's good that it is strong. And he gets stuck in patterns. He did paws up, got a click and reward then he did a hop over the box and I rewarded that. then he repeated the whole sequence several times without ever going for the hop independent of the paws up. He did a really sweet kind of play bow much with his front legs up on the box, I clicked and gave him a few treats but he didn't repeat it. 

Oscar was doing bunny hops over the box (so cute with his little bum bobbling over it ) and doing what I'm going to call "elephant" where all four paws were on the box. I'm wondering if I could get him to manage that on a ball!! :lol: Because that would be truly awesome. Probably not though.

They both enjoy it and it tires them out very much. Having a prop really works for me because I'm not worried so much about what to click - I have a controlled groups of things to click i.e. "is it cute and using the prop?". I still need to broaden what I click I think and not be such a perfectionist and be able to see and click smaller movements that have potential to be shaped into something. :lol: And it gives us a nice break - we do a hell of a lot of "life" training and it's nice to just try and train some random cute tricks.

I've also been doing a good bit of LLW training. Trying to get it more spontaneous from them, rather than me asking, asking, asking all the time. It's coming. I had a look at Kikopup and informed my training with the "stop yo-yoing video". Hugo responded REALLY well immediately and has started to spontaneously keep a close eye on me for if I might stop. Oscar has also responded, not quite so dramatically but I'm getting much more glances back and when I do stop because he's got ahead I'm getting a quicker re-position without me needing to ask for it. This is all in a familiar, quiet area so I need to extend it into busier places but I definitely feel like we've strengthened up the foundations of our LLW.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well what can I say? Absolutely fantastic walk. Except for the weather of course. Loopy didn't even begin to describe him but for all that he behaved exactly how I want him behaving. He wasn't glued to me but checked in regularly, waited if he realised he was too far ahead and recalled when asked to. Had one hairy moment where he shot off across a field at top speed and I thought he was chasing something but it turned out he was just doing epic zoomies around the whole field. Had to call him back and leash him 7 or 8 times due to groups of people out running and he was perfect each time. Hubby drove past us just as we were coming out of the woods on the way home but he didn't see us. Probably a good job as he'd have stopped to give us a lift home and I was soaked to the skin and muddy and Spen looked like he'd just crawled out of a bog :lol:

Unfortunately Spen seems to have put 2 and 2 together with the car and realised if it's there hubby's home, if it's not there hubby's not home. Seeing it parked in its usual spot when we got home got him all excited and he practically dragged me from the car to our front door  Once inside Kevin well and truly returned but in all honesty I'd rather have Kevin at home and a well behaved dog while out than the other way round.


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## chazzie10

Well done Spencer! Sounds like he's a bit more settled today and you had a good walk 

I just took Charlie round to the waste ground for a well deserved off lead romp. Ive been doing so much training that I thought he should get to blow off some steam. Our field surprisingly had become a lake after all that rain and Boy Wonder was in his element  
He stayed pretty much close by, even off lead which surprised me and did everything I wanted him to. Ive noticed he's trying to second guess me now- doing things he thinks I'm gonna ask him to do next. The best one was when id put his lead on cos another dog had appeared a bit further away. After a few minutes I made him sit to get his lead off again and I started walking along the path, talking away to him.....noticed it was quiet... turned round and the numpty was still sitting about 40 feet away where Id unclipped him hehehe.

Maybe he was practising his self control lmao


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## kat&molly

Pleased you and Spencer had a good walk Sarah, at least as you say he's being good outside, better than the other way round.

I done a seperate afternoon walk today, first one for a couple of days. Took Moll to the fields with the 2 dummys. Done some heelwork, recalls and downs, then moved on to retreives. I did have her lying down untied whilst I threw and kicked the dummies about and she never moved a muscle.
On to the retreives though and it was the same as the other day, she will not swap, I turned my back on her and she just lies there wagging her tail.
Think I have to drop 'Formal' retreives with her , for some reason they just send her over threshold. If I do manage to get it off her the tip of her tongue looks like this:001_tt2: only much faster- it looks funny but you can tell its not a voluntary movement.
Took Evie and Scruff together, shouldn't really take these 2 together if shortstuff is getting off lead time- no problem with recalls but they are like partners in crime and didn't want to do any work for me at all. Boogers they are.


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## Beth17

Sarah glad Spen seems to be more behaved today, lets hope he's just as good tomorrow :aureola:
Well done Chazzie the training is really paying off :thumbup1:
Dogless I hope Kilo is back to his normal self quickly 

Glad the free-shaping is going well Werehorse! I'm a tad jealous as I think if I try and use a prop with my 2 it'll just get chewed or used in game of tug 

Well I'm afraid no naughty hi-jinks to report today, probably just as well. They both went to the vets Oscar for his bloods to check his thyroid again and Sam for a referral to get his hearing tested. All went smoothly although it was a tad embarrassing when they kept being referred to as the chocolate dogs :blushing:
I think last fridays morning dash to the vets must have been the hot topic of the day :001_tt2:

Lets hope tomorrow is just as uneventful


----------



## Dogless

Most. Horrendous. Walk. Ever.

Kilo got attacked by a rottie . 

I was just walking onto the fields as it was getting dark (Kilo onlead on the path) when I heard a woman frantically shouting for her dog. Then a rottie appeared followed by two more (that Kilo knows and plays with) - the woman had said she was taking on a third from a friend so I guessed that this one was it . The rottie in front was snarling and made straight for Kilo; the voice of doom did nothing. He grabbed him by the neck and shook whilst Kilo was screaming the place down; I kicked him really hard and shouted and he let go, then reattached himself to Kilo's shoulder. I kicked him again and got bitten for my troubles on the leg, but he let go, just as his owner appeared with a man I also know and his dog - the man grabbed the rottie and put a lead on him.

She started telling me how he was unsocialised and didn't know how to say hello properly, how her husband is away and she's at the end of her tether with him etc etc. I had to spell out that he had run up and had grabbed and shaken without a pause, he wasn't trying to say hello. To give the woman her due she told me her address and said if Kilo was hurt at all to let her know.

Kilo was still curled up in a ball at this point at my feet, but as he stood up so I could take him away and check him, the woman came over to stroke him. I said "Just leave him alone" really snappily and left. Then burst into tears  once I was on my own .

I have checked Kilo over and he doesn't have any puncture wounds, just lots of slobber and swollen bumps where teeth have been. He is also limping a bit and flinches when I touch his shoulder, but walked home OK (with me being all bright and jolly when we passed another dog) and is now asleep. 

I just have a bite that will bruise on my leg, no skin broken so at least the rottie has good bite inhibition. Only just stopped shaking though, I was terrified .

Mostly though I am beyond gutted. So, so upset and frustrated and really, really hoping beyond hope that it doesn't affect Kilo .


----------



## kat&molly

Oh Dogless, I'm really sorry thats happened , poor Kilo and you for having to see it. I hope you're both ok.
But what a stupid stupid cow for letting him off his lead.


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## chazzie10

WHAT?? Omg Poor you and Kilo!! Hope you will both be ok!! It must have been terrifying... It cant have been the first time its done that- she should have had it on a lead! Sending you both hugs!!


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## Beth17

So sorry Dogless that is the last thing you need 
Why can't people put unsociable dogs on a lead  are you going to report it?

Poor Kilo I really hope no lasting damage has been done. Please give him a big hug and slobbery kisses from us. And look after yourself as well


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Oh Dogless, I'm really sorry thats happened , poor Kilo and you for having to see it. I hope you're both ok.
> But what a stupid stupid cow for letting him off his lead.


I am so upset, really upset. I don't know what do to for the best - avoid dogs for a day or two until the stress levels come down which I would normally do when he's been stressed? Straight back in there with normal walks? (if he is no longer limping). I rang hubby as he's away as usual and he was furious - wants me to write a strongly worded letter to put through the door about muzzling the dog and having it on lead.

We had met Kilo's little friend on the way and they had nearly decided to come with us. I am pleased they didn't in a way as he is a small dog and could have come off far worse.


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> WHAT?? Omg Poor you and Kilo!! Hope you will both be ok!! It must have been terrifying... It cant have been the first time its done that- she should have had it on a lead! Sending you both hugs!!


I get the feeling it had happened before as I could just hear lots of "sorry loves" as it was running from the fields...until they heard my voice of doom and Kilo screaming and came a bit quicker!



Beth17 said:


> So sorry Dogless that is the last thing you need
> Why can't people put unsociable dogs on a lead  are you going to report it?
> 
> Poor Kilo I really hope no lasting damage has been done. Please give him a big hug and slobbery kisses from us. And look after yourself as well


I don't know; it is a very small community - everyone lives / works together. I will try and talk to her about muzzling the dog or at least having him on a lead I think. Dog wardens don't have jurisdiction here I don't think.


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## L/C

Dog less - oh no! That's horrendous - poor you and poor Kilo. I hope he's OK and it doesn't make him worried and afraid. 

Please keep us updated and let us know when he feels better. I hope you feel OK too and have a big glass of wine/shot of whiskey to steady your nerves. Is your OH at home with you?


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> I am so upset, really upset. I don't know what do to for the best - avoid dogs for a day or two until the stress levels come down which I would normally do when he's been stressed? Straight back in there with normal walks? (if he is no longer limping). I rang hubby as he's away as usual and he was furious - wants me to write a strongly worded letter to put through the door about muzzling the dog and having it on lead.
> 
> We had met Kilo's little friend on the way and they had nearly decided to come with us. I am pleased they didn't in a way as he is a small dog and could have come off far worse.


I think if it were me I'd probably walk somewhere quiet with a few dogs and then build up from there. But trust your gut instinct you know Kilo the best and what he can cope with


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I am so upset, really upset. I don't know what do to for the best - avoid dogs for a day or two until the stress levels come down which I would normally do when he's been stressed? Straight back in there with normal walks? (if he is no longer limping). I rang hubby as he's away as usual and he was furious - wants me to write a strongly worded letter to put through the door about muzzling the dog and having it on lead.
> 
> We had met Kilo's little friend on the way and they had nearly decided to come with us. I am pleased they didn't in a way as he is a small dog and could have come off far worse.


I dont know what to suggest, I do agree with your OH though- she needs to keep that dog under control at all times.
I'm upset for you both.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Dog less - oh no! That's horrendous - poor you and poor Kilo. I hope he's OK and it doesn't make him worried and afraid.
> 
> Please keep us updated and let us know when he feels better. I hope you feel OK too and have a big glass of wine/shot of whiskey to steady your nerves. Is your OH at home with you?


I am so worried about how it will affect him after all the work we've done . Physically I think he'll be stiff, sore and bruised, but mentally I am pretty worried; I really hope by some miracle that he's not too worried. Hubby is away, but I'm used to it - still a bit tearful though, pathetic creature that I am!!


----------



## L/C

Can you arrange to meet up with friendly dogs you know and see how he reacts as you approach? I do think positive encounters soon are important.

ETA you aren't pathetic at all!


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I am so worried about how it will affect him after all the work we've done . Physically I think he'll be stiff, sore and bruised, but mentally I am pretty worried; I really hope by some miracle that he's not too worried. Hubby is away, but I'm used to it - still a bit tearful though, pathetic creature that I am!!


You aren't pathetic- I'd be feeling murderous in your position.
At least you have his Nupa Feed stuff to help him.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I get the feeling it had happened before as I could just hear lots of "sorry loves" as it was running from the fields...until they heard my voice of doom and Kilo screaming and came a bit quicker!


So irresponsible and the outcome could have been so much worse. Thank God poor Kilo's skin wasnt broken...or yours! Like you say, its a good job the other wee tiny dog wasnt walking with you at the time. Im angry for you  Definately go get yourself a stiff drink- any Cap'n Morgan left?


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh Dogless I'm so sorry  Hope both you and Kilo are okay and I would certainly be reporting this attack. I don't know whether the dog warden has jurisdiction there but it needs reporting to someone. Just charging up and going straight in for the attack like that isn't what I'd consider a handbags thing and if Kilo had been a small dog I imagine he'd have come off far worse physically. 

Personally I'd give him a couple of days to recover if he's likely to be stiff and sore, it'll also allow his stress levels to come down. I've found if something awful happens they can be much more reactive to other things for a few days after it and if he is sore he may also get defensive. Can you arrange to meet up with anyone with a nice, calm dog for a gentle walk? Really hope it doesn't set him back. Or set you back. I find it soooo hard to stay calm myself after an attack and that alone can trigger a reaction.

Why the hell do people not keep their aggressive dogs on a bloody leash?? It makes me so angry to hear of things like this happening when it can be so easily avoided most of the time  And they never seem to f*cking learn! No matter how many dogs their dog attacks they refuse to accept that it needs to be kept on a leash so it can't bloody do it.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh Dogless I'm so sorry  Hope both you and Kilo are okay and I would certainly be reporting this attack. I don't know whether the dog warden has jurisdiction there but it needs reporting to someone. Just charging up and going straight in for the attack like that isn't what I'd consider a handbags thing and if Kilo had been a small dog I imagine he'd have come off far worse physically.
> 
> Personally I'd give him a couple of days to recover if he's likely to be stiff and sore, it'll also allow his stress levels to come down. I've found if something awful happens they can be much more reactive to other things for a few days after it and if he is sore he may also get defensive. Can you arrange to meet up with anyone with a nice, calm dog for a gentle walk? Really hope it doesn't set him back. Or set you back. I find it soooo hard to stay calm myself after an attack and that alone can trigger a reaction.
> 
> Why the hell do people not keep their aggressive dogs on a bloody leash?? It makes me so angry to hear of things like this happening when it can be so easily avoided most of the time  And they never seem to f*cking learn! No matter how many dogs their dog attacks they refuse to accept that it needs to be kept on a leash so it can't bloody do it.


Thats a good point, Dogless, you said Kilo had his ears back and tail tucked today- probably from last night. I think I'd take it quietly for a couple of days if it were me.


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## moonviolet

Oh Dogless, what a bloody awful experience for both of you and so flipping preventable.

I'd second what Sarah says a few days on the nupafeed and for the bruises to become less sore. For you both to regroup, if you can arrange a walk with a friendly dog, I definitiely would. 

I'm so sorry this has happened. You are not pathetic at all. It's horrible seeing your loved one, your companion attacked and completely normal to be upset.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Can you arrange to meet up with friendly dogs you know and see how he reacts as you approach? I do think positive encounters soon are important.


That is what I am hoping to do.



kat&molly said:


> You aren't pathetic- I'd be feeling murderous in your position.
> At least you have his Nupa Feed stuff to help him.


I don't feel murderous so much as massively upset and a bit disbelieving TBH.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh Dogless I'm so sorry  Hope both you and Kilo are okay and I would certainly be reporting this attack. I don't know whether the dog warden has jurisdiction there but it needs reporting to someone. Just charging up and going straight in for the attack like that isn't what I'd consider a handbags thing and if Kilo had been a small dog I imagine he'd have come off far worse physically.
> 
> Personally I'd give him a couple of days to recover if he's likely to be stiff and sore, it'll also allow his stress levels to come down. I've found if something awful happens they can be much more reactive to other things for a few days after it and if he is sore he may also get defensive. Can you arrange to meet up with anyone with a nice, calm dog for a gentle walk? Really hope it doesn't set him back. Or set you back. I find it soooo hard to stay calm myself after an attack and that alone can trigger a reaction.
> 
> Why the hell do people not keep their aggressive dogs on a bloody leash?? It makes me so angry to hear of things like this happening when it can be so easily avoided most of the time  And they never seem to f*cking learn! No matter how many dogs their dog attacks they refuse to accept that it needs to be kept on a leash so it can't bloody do it.


Thank you; very good advice indeed. It most definitely wasn't handbags - I'm not one to panic at handbags but was terrified this time.



moonviolet said:


> Oh Dogless, what a bloody awful experience for both of you and so flipping preventable.
> 
> I'd second what Sarah says a few days on the nupafeed and for the bruises to become less sore. For you both to regroup, if you can arrange a walk with a friendly dog, I definitiely would.
> 
> I'm so sorry this has happened. You are not pathetic at all. It's horrible seeing your loved one, your companion attacked and completely normal to be upset.


The reason I didn't try and pull the rottie off was your photos of poor Miss Tink after her attacker was pulled off - they came into my head as Kilo was getting shaken by the neck. That's why I kicked and shouted.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> The reason I didn't try and pull the rottie off was your photos of poor Miss Tink after her attacker was pulled off - they came into my head as Kilo was getting shaken by the neck. That's why I kicked and shouted.


I'm glad if sharing my photos prevented Kilo having similar injuries, I'm just sad you ever had to be in that position.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm glad if sharing my photos prevented Kilo having similar injuries, I'm just sad you ever had to be in that position.


It really did; the image came into my head so clearly. Hearing him screaming like that and curled up on the floor whimpering was awful too; I can only imagine how much worse it was for you with Miss Tink being so badly injured too.

As the dogs can only have heard, but not seen, us coming onto the fields (they were around a corner and down a small hill) I can only think that any dog coming onto the fields would have been the victim.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> It really did; the image came into my head so clearly. Hearing him screaming like that and curled up on the floor whimpering was awful too; I can only imagine how much worse it was for you with Miss Tink being so badly injured too.
> 
> As the dogs can only have heard, but not seen, us coming onto the fields (they were around a corner and down a small hill) I can only think that any dog coming onto the fields would have been the victim.


It was the sound of screaming and then the smell ( blood and anal glands) that stayed with me. A lot of good came out of it in the long run sort of, I dont' think we would have been as close and have so much trust in each other and i would never have gone to so many varied classes and found out how much she enjoys being a daft beggar and playing to an audience.

I really hope that you and Kilo shake it off well.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> It was the sound of screaming and then the smell ( blood and anal glands) that stayed with me. A lot of good came out of it in the long run sort of, I dont' think we would have been as close and have so much trust in each other and i would never have gone to so many varied classes and found out how much she enjoys being a daft beggar and playing to an audience.
> 
> I really hope that you and Kilo shake it off well.


The screaming the BW did convinced me he was being badly injured; I couldn't quite believe it when I checked him over and he wasn't bleeding - very, very pleased obviously.

We have just, just about got over the black lab thing as you know (and still not a fan of offlead ones running up) and that stemmed from two attacks that were mainly handbags that left a few scratches. This one had real intent and I am hoping more than anything that lasting harm won't have been done - that's all that's in my mind at present. He was onlead, minding his own business and a dog tore up and attacked out of the blue. Not good at all. Probably why I keep banging on about it so much too :Yawn::Yawn:.


----------



## moonviolet

You aren't banging on about it you are just talking about it completely understandable after something so upsetting. Me still talkign about it 2 years on.... now thats banging on 

Talk about it here as much as you want, need feel, but as hard as it is try not to take it out with you on walks.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> You aren't banging on about it you are just talking about it completely understandable after something so upsetting. Me still talkign about it 2 years on.... now thats banging on
> 
> Talk about it here as much as you want, need feel, but as hard as it is try not to take it out with you on walks.


If I have learnt anything about the BW's sensitivity it is that he senses my mood in an instant - that is why I was all jolly and happy like we were having the best walk ever when we passed a dog on the way home. I just checked him over thoroughly but matter - of - factly too and haven't done anything different once home.

I am going to try and make walks just another day. I'll be avoiding the fields as it's getting dark for a while though I think .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> If I have learnt anything about the BW's sensitivity it is that he senses my mood in an instant - that is why I was all jolly and happy like we were having the best walk ever when we passed a dog on the way home. I just checked him over thoroughly but matter - of - factly too and haven't done anything different once home.
> 
> I am going to try and make walks just another day. I'll be avoiding the fields as it's getting dark for a while though I think .


Thats a good point , not just as clearly they walk then, but lots of dogs are more reactive as it hits dusk/dark. Well done keeping it together, I just about managed it until Tink was admitted at the vets... whereupon I became very lightheaded and the vet nurse insisted i sit before i fainted. :blushing:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Thats a good point , not just as clearly they walk then, but lots of dogs are more reactive as it hits dusk/dark. Well done keeping it together, I just about managed it until Tink was admitted at the vets... whereupon I became very lightheaded and the vet nurse insisted i sit before i fainted. :blushing:


From knowing them from Kilo playing before with the two rotts (before they took on this third one) they do one walk a day which can be at any time.

Kilo is very much more reactive to movement at dawn and dusk - becomes a true hunter and I am very careful as to where I let him off so I am very conscious of that.

A big snarling dog flying out of the gloom won't leave me for a while . I suppose I can be thankful that we weren't further down the path away from the light - at least I could see what was happening. If we'd been on the field where it was getting truly dark and they'd come flying over it would have been even more terrifying!

I kept it together until I dissolved into tears .


----------



## moonviolet

I think you are being incredibly brave it's an intimidating sight alone without what followed, I was a bit of a nutjob while Tink was at the vet's I cried on the phone to both the dog warden for where it happened and my own. I was emailing and making posters and generally a bit manic keeping myself busy.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I think you are being incredibly brave it's an intimidating sight alone without what followed, I was a bit of a nutjob while Tink was at the vet's I cried on the phone to both the dog warden for where it happened and my own. I was emailing and making posters and generally a bit manic keeping myself busy.


I won't forgive myself if next time it is a small dog who is badly hurt or an owner who pulls the dog off theirs and they are hurt as badly as Miss Tink was but not sure what to do. The dog warden won't have jurisdiction here and as I said we all live and work together; think hubby's idea of a letter through the door so all is written down is possibly the best one. I did tell them that the dog ran up and bit and shook; that it was much more than an under socialised dog who doesn't know how to say hello, but I was probably just jabbering at the time .

I am hoping that the awful screaming, my yelling and Kilo's obvious distress when they caught up with the dogs will encourage a lead; if not a muzzle and lead.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I won't forgive myself if next time it is a small dog who is badly hurt or an owner who pulls the dog off theirs and they are hurt as badly as Miss Tink was but not sure what to do. The dog warden won't have jurisdiction here and as I said we all live and work together; think hubby's idea of a letter through the door so all is written down is possibly the best one. I did tell them that the dog ran up and bit and shook; that it was much more than an under socialised dog who doesn't know how to say hello, but I was probably just jabbering at the time .
> 
> I am hoping that the awful screaming, my yelling and Kilo's obvious distress when they caught up with the dogs will encourage a lead; if not a muzzle and lead.


I understand ( sort of) what you mean about living and working together, i''m guessing it's sort of like village life when i was growing up. I do think a letter through the door sounds like a good course of action. Then i think you will have done as much as you can to prevent it happening to another dog.


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## Sarah1983

I can still see Rupert and the staffie that was hell bent on killing him tearing into each other and it's been about 8 years since it happened and there was no major damage done to Rupert. I went home and cried and cried after it. Was absolutely terrified to take him out for weeks. In fact I don't think I've ever fully gotten over it to be honest, I think it's partly why I still have that "ohmygod!" moment when a strange dog approaches Spen 

It's horrible to witness a true attack and it really does go to show the difference between a dog intent on harm and a dog who's just throwing its weight around.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I understand ( sort of) what you mean about living and working together, i''m guessing it's sort of like village life when i was growing up. I do think a letter through the door sounds like a good course of action. Then i think you will have done as much as you can to prevent it happening to another dog.


It is complicated!! The woman is nice; she has always really liked Kilo and we've walked together whilst he's played with her two dogs before she got the third quite a few times, so I am hoping that the fact that it is a dog that she knows and is fond of, together with a person that she knows, may have more influence than if I had been a faceless stranger.

I was annoyed that she launched into how hard she was finding it straight away when it wasn't her and her dog that had been attacked, but do understand that she was probably feeling bad at the time. She also apologised and made sure that I knew her address, so her intentions are good.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I can still see Rupert and the staffie that was hell bent on killing him tearing into each other and it's been about 8 years since it happened and there was no major damage done to Rupert. I went home and cried and cried after it. Was absolutely terrified to take him out for weeks. In fact I don't think I've ever fully gotten over it to be honest, I think it's partly why I still have that "ohmygod!" moment when a strange dog approaches Spen
> 
> It's horrible to witness a true attack and it really does go to show the difference between a dog intent on harm and a dog who's just throwing its weight around.


Absolutely - when I have seen handbags it's easily forgotten but this was real intent; not seen intent like it TBH. Just the sound of the growling as the dog ran up was enough to signal that this was not going to be handbags. Kilo will also occasionally participate in handbags and act the 'big dog' back with some posturing and barking. This time he just screamed and cowered.

I am dreading tomorrow morning's walk BUT know that if I meet anyone here on a Saturday morning it is likely to be one of Kilo's friends but most likely we won't see a soul - which is what I am hoping for. I don't want to go to the forest as he'll be sore or the busier forests or parks as, again, he'll be sore and loose dogs always run up.


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## Sarah1983

If you know her and she's always seemed decent then maybe just having a word with her and telling her the dog needs to stay on a leash or a long line will do the trick. Maybe direct her towards some of the helpful books about dealing with dogs with problems too.

I think sometimes you can launch into waffle out of embarrassment when your dog has done something awful. I've been guilty of it before and then felt terrible after


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## cravensmum

Just spotted this Dogless.:blushing:

So sorry to hear about Kilo,I don't know what to suggest about walking him,you know him better than anyone.

Craven is not sensitive at all and after he was bitten 2 months ago I knew he would be fine with other dogs straight away.Although he is still a bit iffy with onlead Collies,but he was before the bite anyway.

I hope all your hard work with Kilo has not been ruined.


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## Dogless

cravensmum said:


> Just spotted this Dogless.:blushing:
> 
> So sorry to hear about Kilo,I don't know what to suggest about walking him,you know him better than anyone.
> 
> Craven is not sensitive at all and after he was bitten 2 months ago I knew he would be fine with other dogs straight away.Although he is still a bit iffy with onlead Collies,but he was before the bite anyway.
> 
> I hope all your hard work with Kilo has not been ruined.


Thank you .

Kilo is enormously sensitive; everyone told me that ridgies were....and they weren't wrong!


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> If you know her and she's always seemed decent then maybe just having a word with her and telling her the dog needs to stay on a leash or a long line will do the trick. Maybe direct her towards some of the helpful books about dealing with dogs with problems too.
> 
> *I think sometimes you can launch into waffle out of embarrassment when your dog has done something awful. I've been guilty of it before and then felt terrible after*


That is what I am inclined to think; her two dogs that Kilo plays with are fairly well trained too. They took this other dog on from someone who 'hadn't got time for it' - same old story here as you know - and I think he is a little more than she bargained for. I do feel for her too.


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## Dogless

A big thank you to everyone for your support; I apologise for having taken over the thread temporarily - I wanted to talk to people who understood but didn't want to do a whole new thread . Sorry k&m :blushing::blushing:.

I am off to bed to see if my mind will stop whirring .


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## moonviolet

Hope you can get a good night's sleep. I'm sure you are playing it over and over in your mind try not to there is nothign we can do to change the past. 

Hope you have a good walk in the morning. I'll be sending lots of positive vibes to you both


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## Werehorse

Oh my word! I'm so sorry Dogless, that's just awful. Poor Kilo.  I sincerely hope that he isn't too affected by it but its sounds utterly terrifying for both of you and I imagine you'll both take a while to get over it. Gently does it for a few days to recover.

And you aren't pathetic or anything - that is a MASSIVELY upsetting experience you are well within your rights to have a cry (or many) about it. Keep talking/writing about it for a bit - try not to internalise it too much. Is there no higher authority to appeal to for something like this? A big dog like a rottie attacking with intent is a scary prospect. Hopefully you aren't the only one scared by the incident and the rottie will be on lead from now on.

How awful. (((hugs))) for you and ///gentle pats for Mr Kilo.


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## GingerRogers

Oh my goodness that sounds terrifying. You certainly are not being pathetic. Poor kilo. The idea of such a majestic dog screaming is awful. Take care tomorrow.A Walk with a calm dog or even a playful dog he knows sounds a good idea if you can manage it too. Dont rush things for either of you


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> A big thank you to everyone for your support; I apologise for having taken over the thread temporarily - I wanted to talk to people who understood but didn't want to do a whole new thread . Sorry k&m :blushing::blushing:.
> 
> I am off to bed to see if my mind will stop whirring .


Dont be daft, this thread is for everyone.
I hope you got some sleep, and that Kilo isn't too sore this morning. Is your leg ok?


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## Sarah1983

How are you both this morning Dogless? Hope neither of you are too stiff and sore and that you're feeling a bit better. Don't worry about taking over the thread, we'll forgive you  And it's certainly not pathetic to cry over what happened.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh my goodness that sounds terrifying. You certainly are not being pathetic. Poor kilo. The idea of such a majestic dog screaming is awful. Take care tomorrow.A Walk with a calm dog or even a playful dog he knows sounds a good idea if you can manage it too. Dont rush things for either of you


I'm hoping we see his little friend who almost came with us last night - going to walk later this morning as that's when they do on a Saturday. If they're not out this morning we see them nearly every Saturday afternoon. He's very calm. His other friends are quite bonkers which is great when he needs a good tear about .



kat&molly said:


> Dont be daft, this thread is for everyone.
> I hope you got some sleep, and that Kilo isn't too sore this morning. Is your leg ok?


Kilo seems fine, bit sure if you touch his shoulder with any pressure, but not limping like last might. Very slightly but nothing like he was. My leg is fine, a good bruise but no real harm done.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> How are you both this morning Dogless? Hope neither of you are too stiff and sore and that you're feeling a bit better. Don't worry about taking over the thread, we'll forgive you  And it's certainly not pathetic to cry over what happened.


We are OK thank you .


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## moonviolet

Hope everyone has a great day, in particular Dogless and Sir Kilo. Hope you manage to meet up with Kilo's calm smaller friend and you are both able to relax.

We are having a bit of an adventure today


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Hope everyone has a great day, in particular Dogless and Sir Kilo. Hope you manage to meet up with Kilo's calm smaller friend and you are both able to relax.
> 
> We are having a bit of an adventure today


Are you taking your camera? . Is it a secret? .

ETA: I know where you're going .


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## kat&molly

Glad you're feeling a bit better this morning Dogless. Hope you and Kilo have a nice walk with his little friend later.

Moonviolet- Have a great day all of you.


The poodles are here. One isn't old- she's 7, but she's the most timid out of the 2, even a bit worried about me and I've met and groomed her a couple of times.
The old one is a little scrap of a thing, a bit braver. She has a dicky heart and has meds but I'm not to worry if she drops down on me.

My girls did greet them lovely though, really proud of them-even Jay. Its going to be a long couple of days.

Have a good day everyone.


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## Dogless

Well done to your girls k&m....make sure there are no sudden surprises around your one visitor  .

We had an OK walk this morning; Kilo was tripping down the road like a circus pony all tail out like a rod and massively vigilant  and he was shaking off every 30 seconds or so, but we got to the fields and I let him off just to potter and sniff and we did some training and games and he relaxed. On the way back he was better; the only dog we came across was the DA pug unfortunately who launched into his snarling, choking routine - Kilo started to dance about but a "leave it!" and his squeaky Kong ball on a rope got us away with no problems .

The curtains at the house where his little friend lives are still drawn so I'll pop a note through before I go to the butcher's shortly. We see each other nearly every Saturday anyway so I'm sure the woman won't mind arranging a time - and if she does, she just has to ignore the note!

I have found two very minor cuts that I missed last night (not sure how!!) one on his neck and one just above his elbow, so I'll just keep them as clean as I can and watch.


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## GingerRogers

Glad Kilo doesn't seem to upset by the ordeal.
K&M - good grief, the owner saying that would make me even more panicked, I find it really hard looking after other peoples dogs, a constant worry, think that's partly why I'm finding it hard with Ginge, it still feels a bit like shes someone elses.

We had a good walk yesterday until a man and his off lead spaniel crept up on us (the field has noisy gates either end so how he got in with out me hearing I don't know) before I had a chance to put the ninja back on she was off playing, his spaniel was enjoying it, but he clearly was not impressed, put me in a bad mood, he was just ignorant, didn't say a word apart from to get his dog to sit so I could catch hold of Ginge (she jumped on its head as soon as it was still which didn't help I suppose ) I was going to go back his way but felt I couldn't so ended up going a lot further, there was another spaniel in the next field and irrationally I felt I had to avoid that as well because of the first mans rudeness (I can't really explain why he upset me so much, but he had seen us, he had been in the parallel field, if he didn't want his dog being played with then he could have avoided us, or not crept through the gate, felt sorry for the dog), it was now getting dark and we were due at a surprise birthday party, didn't feel like letting Ginge off lead in case she disappeared into the gorse again, and didn't fancy waiting around in the dark, as I was now late I had to take the quickest route which was down the narrow alley, spooky in the dark,  all because of a grumpy man.

This morning she was very reactive to cars and jumped into the road again, when she took me by surprise! She buggered off into the reeds and brambles and came back with muddy stockings again. We did lots of heel work and I am really pleased that she actually does it at all outside of the house or training. Then when she was barking at someones dog on the prom, a couple walked past going 'Oh dear, Oh, Oh, Oh dear' I snapped and snarled at them, 'its OK its what dogs do!' which isn't strictly true as she had latched on to my jeans by then (she catches bits of your person in her frenzies, its not intentional but it can hurt) so I guess it looked a bit off! I just sometimes feel like we should only walk in places where no other people go in case we offend them!

Sorry rant over, can't moan to Hubby as we had a row and he is refusing to talk to me, he does that, very stubborn :mad2:


----------



## Dogless

GR - sounds like two really frustrating walks - hope all goes better again on your next one. 

We have just got back from a nice walk with our friends and Kilo was OK - ish. Hackled up and tried to lunge at a weimeraner that he usually plays fine with as they ran past us which wasn't good, but hopefully things will improve as his stress levels go down again.


----------



## kat&molly

Sounds like Kilo got a bit worried about the Weim running past, but didn't do too bad.I'm sure he'll soon calm back down with some time. I bet you felt a bit tense - I know I would have done.

Ginge- dont worry about what other people think, I know its hard but it wont help you-and I should practice what I preach.

The little Poodles are fine, not a bit of trouble. Both curled up on OH's lap.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Sounds like Kilo got a bit worried about the Weim running past, but didn't do too bad.I'm sure he'll soon calm back down with some time. I bet you felt a bit tense - I know I would have done.
> 
> Ginge- dont worry about what other people think, I know its hard but it wont help you-and I should practice what I preach.
> 
> The little Poodles are fine, not a bit of trouble. Both curled up on OH's lap.


I felt slightly less tense this afternoon than this morning even though no one was really out this morning and a fair few were this afternoon. It did help walking with another dog and owner as it relaxed me a little. The weim was my fault I think; Kilo started prancing when he saw it and I thought 'Oh no, he's going to have problems with big dogs' .


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## GingerRogers

Does it take a few days for his stress to drop then, would you say that is common to most dogs or just his breed, only ask as its not something I really ever thought about before. When we first got our old dog he was so stressy we stopped bring him out as we lived on a farm we didn't need to, by the time we moved he had got much older and chilled out.

We did have abetter walk, sort of - after I put her back on her lead, I think I need to take smokeybear and sled dogs advice and start recall training from scratch 

Bleeding monkey, lost her in the undergrowth this morning and again this afternoon, she finds patch of brambles I never knew were there!!! I thought we were safe on this bit of the marsh, oh no, she never goes far, but can I catch her when she re-appears, not a hope, had to make a flying leap tonight. :sneaky2:
Apart from that and finding that the farmer has put electric fence round the silo bales which probably means the cows are coming into our favourite safe offlead spot, she was ok. Heeling averagely even in the field with the exciting brambles and rabbitty smells, I think I might have the hang of the car thing if I just stand well back and let her watch them she stresses less than trying to keep her going or distract her. Only works on wide pavements though.

Have started with the clicker and it seems to be working the way I had hoped, she has got what the sound means, sometimes of course she doesn't care anyway, but that doesn't surprise me, as long as she recognises the meaning. For the reactive issues and the lead work it seems to work well as they are the instances where you have to be so quick to mark the correct behaviour, try thinking about saying good girl nice quiet and getting the words out in the 3-4 seconds she shuts up for, clicking is much better (but I have clicked accidentally FOR barking, rabbit jumping across the road, and pulling off after rabbits )

I have also found a behaviourist who lives near Mum & Dad, I followed links from some TTouch stuff after dogless suggested the calming band and came across them, not sure why but they appealed to me more than any other local ones have. (Oh yeah it might have been the Ginge looking dog on their contact us page, in the reply she said that was a dog she took in for training before re-homing but she ended up keeping him  )

This is them Home

What does anyone else think, I emailed them this afternoon with a potted history of the Ninja and got a very nice response back. To start with its £40 for an assessment which might give us some pointers. I ask Mum to see if any of her friends have used them first.


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Does it take a few days for his stress to drop then, would you say that is common to most dogs or just his breed, only ask as its not something I really ever thought about before. When we first got our old dog he was so stressy we stopped bring him out as we lived on a farm we didn't need to, by the time we moved he had got much older and chilled out.
> 
> We did have abetter walk, sort of - after I put her back on her lead, I think I need to take smokeybear and sled dogs advice and start recall training from scratch
> 
> Bleeding monkey, lost her in the undergrowth this morning and again this afternoon, she finds patch of brambles I never knew were there!!! I thought we were safe on this bit of the marsh, oh no, she never goes far, but can I catch her when she re-appears, not a hope, had to make a flying leap tonight. :sneaky2:
> Apart from that and finding that the farmer has put electric fence round the silo bales which probably means the cows are coming into our favourite safe offlead spot, she was ok. Heeling averagely even in the field with the exciting brambles and rabbitty smells, I think I might have the hang of the car thing if I just stand well back and let her watch them she stresses less than trying to keep her going or distract her. Only works on wide pavements though.
> 
> Have started with the clicker and it seems to be working the way I had hoped, she has got what the sound means, sometimes of course she doesn't care anyway, but that doesn't surprise me, as long as she recognises the meaning. For the reactive issues and the lead work it seems to work well as they are the instances where you have to be so quick to mark the correct behaviour, try thinking about saying good girl nice quiet and getting the words out in the 3-4 seconds she shuts up for, clicking is much better (but I have clicked accidentally FOR barking, rabbit jumping across the road, and pulling off after rabbits )
> 
> I have also found a behaviourist who lives near Mum & Dad, I followed links from some TTouch stuff after dogless suggested the calming band and came across them, not sure why but they appealed to me more than any other local ones have. (Oh yeah it might have been the Ginge looking dog on their contact us page, in the reply she said that was a dog she took in for training before re-homing but she ended up keeping him  )
> 
> This is them Home
> 
> What does anyone else think, I emailed them this afternoon with a potted history of the Ninja and got a very nice response back. To start with its £40 for an assessment which might give us some pointers. I ask Mum to see if any of her friends have used them first.


It does take a few days in all dogs I believe; the book I am reading at present advocates a whole week of quiet for dogs that have been under more chronic stress. Kilo remains obviously stressed for about two or three days after an event and I need to really try and prevent any other negatives or it all piles up until he's pretty tense. He is also very, very handler - sensitive so any stress I feel seems to travel straight to him.

The link that you have posted looks good at first quick read - I hope they are of a great help to you if you decide to use them.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> It does take a few days in all dogs I believe; the book I am reading at present advocates a whole week of quiet for dogs that have been under more chronic stress. Kilo remains obviously stressed for about two or three days after an event and I need to really try and prevent any other negatives or it all piles up until he's pretty tense. He is also very, very handler - sensitive so any stress I feel seems to travel straight to him.
> 
> The link that you have posted looks good at first quick read - I hope they are of a great help to you if you decide to use them.


The other thing I have started is attaching the training lead to my belt I figure there might be less chance of my stress passing down?? Or is that daft, you use a walking belt don't you, is there a difference?


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> The other thing I have started is attaching the training lead to my belt I figure there might be less chance of my stress passing down?? Or is that daft, you use a walking belt don't you, is there a difference?


I only use a belt for long country walks or running where it's quiet but he can't go offlead. I use a half check and lead for normal walks or headcollar, half check and lead where busy or I need extra control. I know my tension passes to Kilo - when I am happy and relaxed things are fab; when I am on edge like today they are worse. Mind you, all he did was a small lunge and hackles up and was perfect for the rest of the hour and a half we were out (on and offlead) so I can't really complain.

The belt may work well for you a Ginge is small. Kilo is awfully powerful to have attached to me.


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## Werehorse

Have you ever done any TTouch with Kilo, Dogless? I hate it because it's mumbo jumbo that seems to work! :lol: But I love it because it seems to work, and you can see it working as you do it. A lot of Oscar's all round improvement has come since I started doing the odd bit of TTouch with him. Could be a "growing up" co-incidence but I can also see the calming effect of it in the immediate time while I'm doing it. AND I have done a controlled experiment where I have compared TTouch movements against just a normal stroke... and TTouch had a greater effect, in fact normal strokes made him more excited if anything.

:lol: Not a valid result, not enough repeats etc etc but still... I still don't believe the explanation for WHY it works that I find in the book I have - the "science" is very dodgy - but that doesn't matter when empirically it seems to work for Oscar.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Have you ever done any TTouch with Kilo, Dogless? I hate it because it's mumbo jumbo that seems to work! :lol: But I love it because it seems to work, and you can see it working as you do it. A lot of Oscar's all round improvement has come since I started doing the odd bit of TTouch with him. Could be a "growing up" co-incidence but I can also see the calming effect of it in the immediate time while I'm doing it. AND I have done a controlled experiment where I have compared TTouch movements against just a normal stroke... and TTouch had a greater effect, in fact normal strokes made him more excited if anything.
> 
> :lol: Not a valid result, not enough repeats etc etc but still... I still don't believe the explanation for WHY it works that I find in the book I have - the "science" is very dodgy - but that doesn't matter when empirically it seems to work for Oscar.


Yes; we attended a workshop and I do use it - I feel the same as you in that I like FACT...and TTouch can't provide me with absolutes...but works .


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## Werehorse

Oh and more mumbo jumbo that works for me (and annoys me because it does :lol) - yoga for you? I have got through some very head-****ed times in my life by doing a bit of yoga everyday along side my usual endorphin-fixes.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I only use a belt for long country walks or running where it's quiet but he can't go offlead. I use a half check and lead for normal walks or headcollar, half check and lead where busy or I need extra control. I know my tension passes to Kilo - when I am happy and relaxed things are fab; when I am on edge like today they are worse. Mind you, all he did was a small lunge and hackles up and was perfect for the rest of the hour and a half we were out (on and offlead) so I can't really complain.
> 
> The belt may work well for you a Ginge is small. Kilo is awfully powerful to have attached to me.


Fair play  I can imagine, she puts me a bit off balance if she lunges suddenly I can imagine what Kilo would do.

Werehorse - that was a bit what I thought today when I was looking through different TTouch links, 'why does that work' 'what is different', 'do I really need to be trained to stroke my dog'

I really like to understand stuff, I can't understand it when people just 'believe' or 'do' without asking questions. OH is a great one, he will come home from work and tell me of something new he did with the cows or sheep and I ask why and get a blank look!!


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## Werehorse

I also like to understand how stuff works but in some ways it also doesn't matter. It is more important (and I'm sure this is what you mean but understanding stuff and not just believing stuff anyway) to be able to analyse the evidence on which the statement of "this works" is based. What annoys me is people mis-representing Science with utterly incorrect explainations just so they can pretend they know how their thing works (or more often so they can convince people it does work by sounding sciencey when in fact it doesn't work). Just say "we don't actually know how this works but we have seen enough evidence to be convinced - here is the evidence and here is how it was collected, you can make up your own mind based on this".

Soooooo many things were invented and used successfully long before it was properly figured out why it works... transistors and vaccines immediately spring to mind. We STILL don't quite understand how aneasthesia (sp?) works! Yet "we" use it all the time! Scary stuff, especially when you consider what can happen if you get it wrong!

I don't understand how my computer works, I certainly don't fully understand how me pressing these bits of plastic means that you, in a completely different place get to read the words I'm writing! And what's funny is that if you dig deep enough, past the zeros and ones, it ends up being about quantum tunnelling which NOONE understands - even physicist with MASSIVE brains! :lol: But it still works. 

There is nothing wrong at all with wanting to understand how stuff works but some stuff, noone understands. What the average person needs to understand is HOW to weigh up evidence and criticise studies and how research actually works.

So there is no need for the pseudo-scientific nonsense if it works, it works, show the proof - sorted. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work don't try and fool people with something theoretical that you think sound impressive but actually doesn't even follow basic principles... not necessarily talking about TTouch there gone on a tad of a tangent... :lol:

Sorry. Rant over.


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## L/C

Dogless - sounds like you and Kilo did well. I wouldn't read too much into the weimy incident, if it was me I would have been more concerned if he didn't react as I would be worried that he had shut down.

Werehorse - I'm the same with T touch. It works so well for Ely - it really winds me up! :lol:

Pointy twins were on top form today. Ely had a meet and greet with some rather boisterous dogs and copied very well with it. He didn't even react when 2 of them kicked off near us. He just sat down and looked at me for his ear rubs and his treat!

Gypsy was a bit distracted on our morning walk so I didn't do too much with her. I decided to be a bit lazy and just enjoy the walk rather then training. But we went out this afternoon just the 2 of us and had a fabulous session. We practiced chase recall, send aways , down stays and off lead heeling and madam was perfect. . I interspersed it with games of chase and running so she stayed relaxed and she also had a lovely game with a terrier and then with Sasha the ridgie.

She is now crashed out on the sofa as they also had pigs heads for dinner so it's been a very busy day!


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## Dogless

L/C said:


> Dogless - sounds like you and Kilo did well. I wouldn't read too much into the weimy incident, if it was me I would have been more concerned if he didn't react as I would be worried that he had shut down.
> 
> Werehorse - I'm the same with T touch. It works so well for Ely - it really winds me up! :lol:
> 
> Pointy twins were on top form today. Ely had a meet and greet with some rather boisterous dogs and copied very well with it. He didn't even react when 2 of them kicked off near us. He just sat down and looked at me for his ear rubs and his treat!
> 
> Gypsy was a bit distracted on our morning walk so I didn't do too much with her. I decided to be a bit lazy and just enjoy the walk rather then training. But we went out this afternoon just the 2 of us and had a fabulous session. We practiced chase recall, send aways , down stays and off lead heeling and madam was perfect. . I interspersed it with games of chase and running so she stayed relaxed and she also had a lovely game with a terrier and then with Sasha the ridgie.
> 
> She is now crashed out on the sofa as they also had pigs heads for dinner so it's been a very busy day!


L/C - you make a good point, as always.

The pointies really are doing as well as ever - seem to be going from strength to strength. I spotted an offlead greyhound this afternoon (on the grass alongside a road, worryingly) and was thinking that when Kilo is back to himself again that I might see if he wants a chases playmate. NOT by the road though .


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## Twiggy

Hi girls

I've got horrendous computer problems with Internet Explorer if you're wondering where I've been.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hi girls
> 
> I've got horrendous computer problems with Internet Explorer if you're wondering where I've been.


Oh dear . I had assumed you were stood in the rain judging somewhere whilst Holly Bolly made new friends .


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## Guest

Sorry, I haven't read through what I've missed, but the internet got cut off for the past couple days.

We've had tantrums and tears.

Oh and Zander has his kennel cough vac, its intra-nasal!! Poor lad had to be held by the male vet and mum, and he would not except any food from the vet after.  The vet was good though and tried to keep Zand as calm as possible considering you can't really aclimatise them to drops up the nose unless they're needed. 


Hope you are all okay!


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## Beth17

So glad you have had a better day Dogless and Kilo sounds like he did remarkably well considering what happened. Just goes to show all the effort you have put into him is paying off. 

I hope tomorrow is even better for you both :thumbsup:

L/C sounds like a great day for the pointies. We have also had a lazy training day as I have had a few things to do. However the boys didn't have anything quite as exciting as a pigs head for their tea; much to their disgust I'm sure 

LurcherOwner poor Zander  I imagine Oscar would throw a right old hissy fit if I made him have that


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## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> So glad you have had a better day Dogless and Kilo sounds like he did remarkably well considering what happened. Just goes to show all the effort you have put into him is paying off.
> 
> I hope tomorrow is even better for you both :thumbsup:
> 
> L/C sounds like a great day for the pointies. We have also had a lazy training day as I have had a few things to do. However the boys didn't have anything quite as exciting as a pigs head for their tea; much to their disgust I'm sure
> 
> LurcherOwner poor Zander  I imagine Oscar would throw a right old hissy fit if I made him have that


He did. Interestingly my friend knew instantly which dog it was without me saying a word as she had a bit of a run in with the dog onlead luckily the other day; said it had frightened her. Her husband who has never met Kilo came to the door to see if he and I were OK which was really sweet of him.


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> He did. Interestingly my friend knew instantly which dog it was without me saying a word as she had a bit of a run in with the dog onlead luckily the other day; said it had frightened her. Her husband who has never met Kilo came to the door to see if he and I were OK which was really sweet of him.


I'm glad your friend only met that dog whilst he was onlead. How lovely of him it's always nice to know you have a bit of back-up if it's ever needed.


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## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> I'm glad your friend only met that dog whilst he was onlead. How lovely of him it's always nice to know you have a bit of back-up if it's ever needed.


Me too - her dog is small. I nearly cried again  and felt very shaky going onto the fields this morning. Pathetic but nice to know with hubby rarely here that I have two people who care.


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## Dogless

A good walk this morning; spent an hour on the fields and was about to leave when Kilo's friend he plays with came along - and he had another hour chasing around like mad; very happy and relaxed. A few more dogs walked through the fields, but I recalled him and put him on lead and he just walked on with me or sat watching but relaxed and no fixation. I am really pleased. 

Just need to meet some big dogs. 

I told the man walking his dog today about Friday's incident and he immediately knew which dog it was too. Said he'd run over and pinned his dog and growled and barked at him but backed off when his dog didn't respond.


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## moonviolet

So glad you've been ble to get out with Kilo and have some great doggie experiences. I always believed it was the fact that Tink couldn't back out in the world, risk of infection because of the drain, that made it worse for her. 
It's lovely to know you have some support at hand  what is more worrying is how many incidents this dog has been involved in 

Well you all know we had a fantastic doggie day yesterday. Tink and OH's best behaviour lectures seemed to do the trick :lol: :lol:

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/267387-missy-lily-zipper-tinks-alfie-muddy.html


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> So glad you've been ble to get out with Kilo and have some great doggie experiences. I always believed it was the fact that Tink couldn't back out in the world, risk of infection because of the drain, that made it worse for her.
> It's lovely to know you have some support at hand  what is more worrying is how many incidents this dog has been involved in
> 
> Well you all know we had a fantastic doggie day yesterday. Tink and OH's best behaviour lectures seemed to do the trick :lol: :lol:
> 
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/267387-missy-lily-zipper-tinks-alfie-muddy.html


I really enjoyed looking at the walk thread; Miss Tink did you proud yet again; she's a good girl .

I have had to get out, for Kilo's sake and mine. I gave my number to the woman that I was debating popping a note through her door, but it was her husband I walked with today. He said she struggles to cope with the dog when he's at work and would like a bit of company - it was good for Kilo today to play with an established 'safe' dog. I'll see how he goes and if I'm worried I'll talk to the trainer on Thursday - I am very impressed with how he has sussed how Kilo ticks so quickly, he really seems to understand him.

I am worried about how both people I've walked with since immediately asked if it was that particular dog without me giving any clues. Avoidance is going to be key for me.


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## Sarah1983

Have any of you reported this dog to anyone Dogless? The fact that Kilo wasn't the first but was the worst is pretty damn worrying as it seems the behaviour is escalating and the owner has paid no attention to the warning signs. If you do want to report it but don't know who to report it to try the Hive, they should know or be able to find out. 

Glad Kilo is still able to happily interact with other dogs


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## chazzie10

I cant believe it but Charlies just been attacked too. We are just back in and got him settled. It looked like a big Alsation/ Husky cross or something and big male Rottie. The cross went for him and chased him towards the rottie and then they were on him and god he was squealing. They werent even for letting go of him until the guy kicked the rottie. Charlie got away and ran to me and curled down at my feet but the crossbreed still kept 'going' for charlie even though I was holding him! I'd to use my long leather lead to whip out at the dog and kept shouting 'NO' at least 6 or 7 times before the dog backed off :frown2: Poor Charlie's got a bite above his tail but dont think it needs stitched and its stopped bleeding. Ive put a load of antiseptic powder on it. I think there's another bite on his back cos he flinches when i stroke him but no blood there. the man was a complete arrogant yob and very blase about the whole thing. I told him his dogs shouldve been muzzled cos that wasnt just ordinary ' teaching manners warning growls' they got stuck in as a pack even though charlie was instantly submissive! He didnt even put them on leads after it- Id to take charlie, shaking like a leaf, through a flooded lane until he got them past a bit, then he let go of their collars  He said that " your problem is I come here everyday with them love" My answer was "and what? That doesnt mean you own the forest- its a free country!" he answered with a few choice swear words. 
Poor Dogless NOW i know exactly what you went through a couple of days ago :frown2:


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Have any of you reported this dog to anyone Dogless? The fact that Kilo wasn't the first but was the worst is pretty damn worrying as it seems the behaviour is escalating and the owner has paid no attention to the warning signs. If you do want to report it but don't know who to report it to try the Hive, they should know or be able to find out.
> 
> Glad Kilo is still able to happily interact with other dogs


He doesn't seem sure about large or strange dogs at present, so I've put him on lead and walked as near to them as he is comfortable - sure it will come.

No; I haven't reported them yet but am going to talk to the woman tomorrow. Seems wrong to report her without having a chat - it may have more of an effect as she does really like Kilo and we've walked together before she got that dog. Even walking them separately might be an idea - her two friendly rotts always drag her over the road to see us, so I would imagine a third (absolutely huge!) dog added to them would give her no chance of stopping.

If she doesn't listen I will call into the community police office for advice.


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> I cant believe it but Charlies just been attacked too. We are just back in and got him settled. It looked like a big Alsation/ Husky cross or something and big male Rottie. The cross went for him and chased him towards the rottie and then they were on him and god he was squealing. They werent even for letting go of him until the guy kicked the rottie. Charlie got away and ran to me and curled down at my feet but the crossbreed still kept 'going' for charlie even though I was holding him! I'd to use my long leather lead to whip out at the dog and kept shouting 'NO' at least 6 or 7 times before the dog backed off :frown2: Poor Charlie's got a bite above his tail but dont think it needs stitched and its stopped bleeding. Ive put a load of antiseptic powder on it. I think there's another bite on his back cos he flinches when i stroke him but no blood there. the man was a complete arrogant yob and very blase about the whole thing. I told him his dogs shouldve been muzzled cos that wasnt just ordinary ' teaching manners warning growls' they got stuck in as a pack even though charlie was instantly submissive! He didnt even put them on leads after it- Id to take charlie, shaking like a leaf, through a flooded lane until he got them past a bit, then he let go of their collars  He said that " your problem is I come here everyday with them love" My answer was "and what? That doesnt mean you own the forest- its a free country!" he answered with a few choice swear words.
> Poor Dogless NOW i know exactly what you went through a couple of days ago :frown2:


Oh no  poor Chaz and you . Chaz doesn't sound as if he's quite such a sensitive soul as Kilo so hopefully he'll bounce back well. Kilo was already very cautious, lying down when any dog approached whereas at least it sounds as if Chaz was very enthusiastic about dogs. My plan of walking with known friendly dogs does seem to be a good one - we have had two good days since and avoided all unknown dogs in terms of meets; just gone as near to them as he has been comfortable with.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Oh no  poor Chaz and you . Chaz doesn't sound as if he's quite such a sensitive soul as Kilo so hopefully he'll bounce back well. Kilo was already very cautious, lying down when any dog approached whereas at least it sounds as if Chaz was very enthusiastic about dogs. My plan of walking with known friendly dogs does seem to be a good one - we have had two good days since and avoided all unknown dogs in terms of meets; just gone as near to them as he has been comfortable with.


Thing was we had a brilliant training class yesterday- he was even off lead doing a stay for ages with me walking away from him- he didnt even bother looking at the dogs all round him. He'd met a springer in the forest this morning, just before the attack and had greeted him well, not bouncing or pulling much til he was off lead-and even then his recall was amazing. i really thought it was a break through then this happened 10 mins later


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## moonviolet

Dogless I think that is very civil of you, but I do think there should be a record of it. If any of us owned 3 dogs and one had issues we would have already been walking this one seperately and taking all reasonable precautions muzzle longline etc. I know that the dog that attacked Tink had done similar previously, but the dog warden hadn't been informed so was a bit " meeh" about the whole thing. 

Oh Chazzie Poor you and poor boy. Hopefully he'll shake it off with some positive walks. Do contact your dog warden/ designated EHO about the incident, it certainly doesn't sound like it would be a one off incident. The owner sounds like quite an intimidating character


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Thing was we had a brilliant training class yesterday- he was even off lead doing a stay for ages with me walking away from him- he didnt even bother looking at the dogs all round him. He'd met a springer in the forest this morning, just before the attack and had greeted him well, not bouncing or pulling much til he was off lead-and even then his recall was amazing. i really thought it was a break through then this happened 10 mins later


It may well have still been a breakthrough - hopefully Chaz is more robust than the BW; it's taken ages to get him to behave acceptably around black labs although he is still afraid - but he has always been a very cautious greeter whereas dogs like Cravensmum says Craven is (and hopefully Chaz is) seem to bounce back.

A dog here has had loads of run ins with other dogs when he's run up to them according to the owner, yet he still runs up as happily as ever. Totally oblivious to any 'go away' signals from other dogs unfortunately.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless I think that is very civil of you, but I do think there should be a record of it. If any of us owned 3 dogs and one had issues we would have already been walking this one seperately and taking all reasonable precautions muzzle longline etc. I know that the dog that attacked Tink had done similar previously, but the dog warden hadn't been informed so was a bit " meeh" about the whole thing.
> 
> Oh Chazzie Poor you and poor boy. Hopefully he'll shake it off with some positive walks. Do contact your dog warden/ designated EHO about the incident, it certainly doesn't sound like it would be a one off incident. The owner sounds like quite an intimidating character


This being MOD property I think that the community police would be the ones to hold a record. I will talk to them tomorrow. The other owners have been more on the "I hope that woman isn't sat at home worrying perhaps you should go and comfort her" side - but if she was that worried I am sure she would have called round to check that Kilo's OK. I do know after it happened they went back onto the fields.


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Dogless I think that is very civil of you, but I do think there should be a record of it. If any of us owned 3 dogs and one had issues we would have already been walking this one seperately and taking all reasonable precautions muzzle longline etc. I know that the dog that attacked Tink had done similar previously, but the dog warden hadn't been informed so was a bit " meeh" about the whole thing.
> 
> Oh Chazzie Poor you and poor boy. Hopefully he'll shake it off with some positive walks. Do contact your dog warden/ designated EHO about the incident, it certainly doesn't sound like it would be a one off incident. The owner sounds like quite an intimidating character


yeah moonviolet, it was his attitude- butch guy with 2 butch dogs and to cap it all when i got down to the bottom of the lane, he'd parked his Jag and dog trailer right up against the gate so we practically had to climb over it to get out! Shows his lack of consideration for others. 
I know people will maybe think charlie sort of deserved it because he runs to other dogs if i dont get him leaded in time-but the dog just appeared at the bend in the lane before chaz even had time to react. i called him to put his lead on and instead of instantly racing towards the dogs, he just stood there....maybe they picked up on his excitement or whatever he was giving off. Either way the guy shouldve certainly put his dogs on their lead after it happened when he'd to pass us. 
Well charlies finally sleeping....maybe this will make him more cautious in future poor sore chap


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> This being MOD property I think that the community police would be the ones to hold a record. I will talk to them tomorrow. The other owners have been more on the "I hope that woman isn't sat at home worrying perhaps you should go and comfort her" side - but if she was that worried I am sure she would have called round to check that Kilo's OK. I do know after it happened they went back onto the fields.


I dont' get the impression she would be at home worrying. I appreciate she has recently added this dog to her home etc. but surely that would be all the more reason to be exercise some caution. I Get the feeling she won't be worried until a dog is sporting injuries like Tink or worse and the owner doesn't let her walk away without consequences.

Can you believe the male owner of the dog that attacked Tink actually went off at OH saying his wife was too scared to walk their GSD anymore.... Oh thankfully replied with and how the heck do you think my wife's feeling after witnessing our dog almost killed before her eyes. SOme people will alwyas view things as " happening to them" when in truth if they had rubbed theri braincells together for a couple of moments they could have prevented them.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I dont' get the impression she would be at home worrying. I appreciate she has recently added this dog to her home etc. but surely that would be all the more reason to be exercise some caution. I Get the feeling she won't be worried until a dog is sporting injuries like Tink or worse and the owner doesn't let her walk away without consequences.
> 
> Can you believe the male owner of the dog that attacked Tink actually went off at OH saying his wife was too scared to walk their GSD anymore.... Oh thankfully replied with and how the heck do you think my wife's feeling after witnessing our dog almost killed before her eyes. SOme people will alwyas view things as " happening to them" when in truth if they had rubbed theri braincells together for a couple of moments they could have prevented them.


True; she did apologise but in quite a practised way as it's obviously been happening a fair bit which I hadn't appreciated before. I took her points that her hubby's away (mine too!), the dog hasn't been socialised and she's struggling with all the dogs and I do feel a degree of sympathy (she is a nice woman) BUT to have 3 rotts charge you in the darkness with one attaching itself to your dog's neck obviously scares the pants off you  .

When it happened I did say I'll go off the path so you can get past (thought they were leaving the fields and I wanted to take Kilo on for a few minutes' destressing) and they said "Oh no, we're just starting our walk, we've only just got here" and went on.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> yeah moonviolet, it was his attitude- butch guy with 2 butch dogs and to cap it all when i got down to the bottom of the lane, he'd parked his Jag and dog trailer right up against the gate so we practically had to climb over it to get out! Shows his lack of consideration for others.
> I know people will maybe think charlie sort of deserved it because he runs to other dogs if i dont get him leaded in time-but the dog just appeared at the bend in the lane before chaz even had time to react. i called him to put his lead on and instead of instantly racing towards the dogs, he just stood there....maybe they picked up on his excitement or whatever he was giving off. Either way the guy shouldve certainly put his dogs on their lead after it happened when he'd to pass us.
> Well charlies finally sleeping....maybe this will make him more cautious in future poor sore chap


That isn't near Altnahinch is it? I met a guy with a rottie and another dog and a jag with dog trailer in the forest near the reservoir.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> That isn't near Altnahinch is it? I met a guy with a rottie and another dog and a jag with dog trailer in the forest near the reservoir.


Nope it was a tiny wee forest bit beside one of the Woodburn dams in Carrickfergus. Sounds a bit of a coincidence doesnt it though? Same car , trailer and dog types! How did they behave when u saw them?). I havnt been to the wee forest in over a year cos i usually 'do' the dams so he can swim. I was just feeling so like everything was going right this morning and fancied the solitude of there- less dogs so chaz could practice his new skills  He's letting me check him over now and his tail and thigh also have bite marks though no bleeding. His back has a swelling too :cryin: Think its a trip to the vets tomorrow just to be sure


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Nope it was a tiny wee forest bit beside one of the Woodburn dams in Carrickfergus. Sounds a bit of a coincidence doesnt it though? Same car , trailer and dog types! How did they behave when u saw them?). I havnt been to the wee forest in over a year cos i usually 'do' the dams so he can swim. I was just feeling so like everything was going right this morning and fancied the solitude of there- less dogs so chaz could practice his new skills  He's letting me check him over now and his tail and thigh also have bite marks though no bleeding. His back has a swelling too :cryin: Think its a trip to the vets tomorrow just to be sure


Don't know - I put Kilo onlead and went into the forest as they looked way too interested in him and he was starting to posture in return so I vamoosed . Can't be many owners with that setup though can there? :blink:.

Kilo had a limp, lots of swellings and two minor cuts (found the next day ) but was significantly better the next morning. I can still feel bruising on his shoulder and leg but it did improve pretty fast swelling - wise. Luckily where the rott grabbed his neck was where he has rolls of 'spare skin'. Hope Chaz recovers soon too.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Don't know - I put Kilo onlead and went into the forest as they looked way too interested in him and he was starting to posture in return so I vamoosed . Can't be many owners with that setup though can there? :blink:.
> 
> Kilo had a limp, lots of swellings and two minor cuts (found the next day ) but was significantly better the next morning. I can still feel bruising on his shoulder and leg but it did improve pretty fast swelling - wise. Luckily where the rott grabbed his neck was where he has rolls of 'spare skin'. Hope Chaz recovers soon too.


We had nowhere to go to get away from them, its just one l shaped track thats only about mile and half long lol told you it was a tiny forest ! Plus the 1st dog just appeared- it had obviously heard me talking to chaz cos it was standing frozen with its ears up.
Ive flushed the bigger open bite out with diluted dettol cos it was lookin a bit icky and once its dry i'll put more anti b powder on it again. Think i'll have to watch it closely


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> We had nowhere to go to get away from them, its just one l shaped track thats only about mile and half long lol told you it was a tiny forest ! Plus the 1st dog just appeared- it had obviously heard me talking to chaz cos it was standing frozen with its ears up.
> Ive flushed the bigger open bite out with diluted dettol cos it was lookin a bit icky and once its dry i'll put more anti b powder on it again. Think i'll have to watch it closely


Dettol isn't good for tissue repair; if you don't have something like Betadine, flushing with saline or just running water would be best - but not under too much pressure; a steady trickle will do.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Dettol isn't good for tissue repair; if you don't have something like Betadine, flushing with saline or just running water would be best - but not under too much pressure; a steady trickle will do.


i'll see if he'll tolerate a bit of running water on it- cant get the heiffer into the bath so it'll have to be outside


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> i'll see if he'll tolerate a bit of running water on it- cant get the heiffer into the bath so it'll have to be outside


You can even soak a towel or cloth and squeeze it over it, pour from a jug gently or use a syringe gently - something like that.

Well, my back has gone in a big way as it is prone to :mad2: so I just limped and cringed my way around a slow, onlead walk (after taking 10 minutes to get my boots on ). The BW didn't have much fun BUT did get more heelwork training that ever...and did very well; even when I released him to sniff he just kept offering me his attention and staying to heel, bless him. He even let me lean on his back to steady myself when things got a bit 'sharp' now and again :blink:. Thank goodness he had over two hours' offlead this morning and thank goodness even more that he didn't have a poo as bending to pick it up and get up again would have been :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless and Chazzie 10: Just to say so sorry you've both had bad experiences with your dogs and hope they mend physcially and mentally very quickly.

What with my computer playing up all day yesterday (still don't think it's working properly and may have to get my 'man' out tomorrow) and I've been at a show today, so I've missed all the threads.

I'm very lucky that my dogs are walked on private land most of the time and like today, for instance, Holly had two good walks meeting lots of different breeds, all of which were absolutely fine *because they are trained.*

On a lighter note dear little Holly wasn't so good left in the car when I worked Tremor - she got over on the front seats, ripping the cover on the driver's seat and barked her head off in protest....LOL They'll be a few lessons on both counts next season.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless and Chazzie 10: Just to say so sorry you've both had bad experiences with your dogs and hope they mend physcially and mentally very quickly.
> 
> What with my computer playing up all day yesterday (still don't think it's working properly and may have to get my 'man' out tomorrow) and I've been at a show today, so I've missed all the threads.
> 
> I'm very lucky that my dogs are walked on private land most of the time and like today, for instance, Holly had two good walks meeting lots of different breeds, all of which were absolutely fine *because they are trained.*
> 
> On a lighter note dear little Holly wasn't so good left in the car when I worked Tremor - she got over on the front seats, ripping the cover on the driver's seat and barked her head off in protest....LOL They'll be a few lessons on both counts next season.


Uh oh Holly Bolly....always a bit of mischief after the good behaviour .

Thanks Twiggy; it is so, so frustrating that every time so much work goes in something seems to happen . The plus point is that I've learnt what works from dealing with the lab anxieties and am hoping that this won't cause any permanent problems. Dreading running into those dogs again though!


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Dogless and Chazzie 10: Just to say so sorry you've both had bad experiences with your dogs and hope they mend physcially and mentally very quickly.
> 
> What with my computer playing up all day yesterday (still don't think it's working properly and may have to get my 'man' out tomorrow) and I've been at a show today, so I've missed all the threads.
> 
> I'm very lucky that my dogs are walked on private land most of the time and like today, for instance, Holly had two good walks meeting lots of different breeds, all of which were absolutely fine *because they are trained.*
> 
> On a lighter note dear little Holly wasn't so good left in the car when I worked Tremor - she got over on the front seats, ripping the cover on the driver's seat and barked her head off in protest....LOL They'll be a few lessons on both counts next season.


Thanks twiggy 
Poor wee Holly- she must have been scared she was missing something sitting in the car barking " yoohoo- you forgot me- im in here" lol


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless- thanks for the advice about the salt water- id some cooled boiled salty water set aside and soaked kitchen roll pieces in it to squeeze over the bite. Seems to be a lot cleaner now and not bleeding anymore :smile:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Dogless- thanks for the advice about the salt water- id some cooled boiled salty water set aside and soaked kitchen roll pieces in it to squeeze over the bite. Seems to be a lot cleaner now and not bleeding anymore :smile:


Good to hear; things like Dettol do inhibit healing and so does flushing water through too forcefully - as well as dislodging any delicate clots that may be forming.


----------



## Sarah1983

Chazzie, I'm so sorry your dog was also attacked  And the owners attitude STINKS to be honest. 


moonviolet said:


> I dont' get the impression she would be at home worrying. I appreciate she has recently added this dog to her home etc. but surely that would be all the more reason to be exercise some caution. I Get the feeling she won't be worried until a dog is sporting injuries like Tink or worse and the owner doesn't let her walk away without consequences.
> 
> Can you believe the male owner of the dog that attacked Tink actually went off at OH saying his wife was too scared to walk their GSD anymore.... Oh thankfully replied with and how the heck do you think my wife's feeling after witnessing our dog almost killed before her eyes. SOme people will alwyas view things as " happening to them" when in truth if they had rubbed theri braincells together for a couple of moments they could have prevented them.


I have to say I agree. People hadn't bothered reporting the dog that attacked theirs causing minor injuries because the owner made promises to keep it leashed and "seemed such a nice girl" and it ended up killing another dog. Even that didn't make her keep it leashed and it went on to attack Rupert several times. It was this dog that triggered his aggression towards other dogs and to this day I can't help but think things might have turned out so very differently if only the other owners whose dogs it had attacked had reported it. Not just for me and Rupert but for the owners of the dog who was killed by it.

Moonviolet, I've encountered that attitude a lot. The mind boggles at how some people think. Or don't think as the case may be.

Spencer seems to be over his attack of the Kevins for now. He's been pretty good today. Hubby took him out to toilet twice yesterday (unheard of!) and he behaved perfectly for him (also unheard of!) and he's been great for me too. I didn't really appreciate him dropping my bra in my bath last night but I'll pass that off as a minor blip


----------



## Werehorse

Sorry to here Chaz has been attacked as well.  That chap sounds like one to avoid for sure. I hope he gets better soon. Since the skin is broken personally I'd go for a vet checkover - but I AM a bit paranoid so take that with a pinch of salt.

Myself and the boys have not been covering ourselves in glory today.  LLW out of the window - far too exciting area on the way to somewhere where Oscar has been off-lead before. The woods were FULL of pheasants, I mean full! We crossed an open field in the middle and it was crawling with them, it looked like a free range chicken farm but it was pheasants. They were on-lead at this point because there was also sheep in the field and they both pulled like mad, of course. They were quite distracted in the woods as well, not checking in as much, ranging further. But we managed not to cause any actual trouble.

I haven't behaved myself either though. We went for something to eat in Keswick and the first p[lace we went in there wasn't any seats in the bit where dogs are allowed. We were just stood in the entrance area between the dogs allowed/not allowed seating areas trying to decide what to do next when some people wanted to come out past us so I moved with Hugo _just_ across the threshold of the no dogs bit to let them through. There was noone in there eating who might have been offended or anything. A member of staff was also walking past and said "no dog on that side" in a very arsey manner. My emotional chimp responded rather than my rational human :yikes: I snapped "I'm actually just letting these people past" in a VERY snappy tone  I could feel myself about to launch into attack mode on how to treat potential customers but fortunately OH and my friends got me out of the door as I hesitated.  I really don't know what is wrong with me sometimes!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Sorry to here Chaz has been attacked as well.  That chap sounds like one to avoid for sure. I hope he gets better soon. Since the skin is broken personally I'd go for a vet checkover - but I AM a bit paranoid so take that with a pinch of salt.
> 
> Myself and the boys have not been covering ourselves in glory today.  LLW out of the window - far too exciting area on the way to somewhere where Oscar has been off-lead before. The woods were FULL of pheasants, I mean full! We crossed an open field in the middle and it was crawling with them, it looked like a free range chicken farm but it was pheasants. They were on-lead at this point because there was also sheep in the field and they both pulled like mad, of course. They were quite distracted in the woods as well, not checking in as much, ranging further. But we managed not to cause any actual trouble.
> 
> I haven't behaved myself either though. We went for something to eat in Keswick and the first p[lace we went in there wasn't any seats in the bit where dogs are allowed. We were just stood in the entrance area between the dogs allowed/not allowed seating areas trying to decide what to do next when some people wanted to come out past us so I moved with Hugo _just_ across the threshold of the no dogs bit to let them through. There was noone in there eating who might have been offended or anything. A member of staff was also walking past and said "no dog on that side" in a very arsey manner. My emotional chimp responded rather than my rational human :yikes: I snapped "I'm actually just letting these people past" in a VERY snappy tone  I could feel myself about to launch into attack mode on how to treat potential customers but fortunately OH and my friends got me out of the door as I hesitated.  I really don't know what is wrong with me sometimes!


Sounds like quite a day .


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Sounds like quite a day .


:lol: Only if you can make a drama out of anything like I seem to be able to.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Only if you can make a drama out of anything like I seem to be able to.


Maybe your OH should longline and muzzle you in public until your impulse control has improved :w00t::w00t:.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Maybe your OH should longline and muzzle you in public until your impulse control has improved :w00t::w00t:.


As long as there is a clicker and squares of dairy milk involved as well I'd be perfectly happy with that. And to be fair my impulse control IS dreadful.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> As long as there is a clicker and squares of dairy mile involved as well I'd be perfectly happy with that. And to be fair my impulse control IS dreadful.


A dairy mile? Is that like dairy milk but really, really long? Sounds delicious . My impulse control can be unbelievably poor at times too...and at others, unbelievably good. I'd settle for middle ground....


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> A dairy mile? Is that like dairy milk but really, really long? Sounds delicious .


 :lol: I corrected it! Thought I'd got away with it as well. But no, too late!


----------



## Guest

I;ve only JUST read through the past couple pages, but holy hecka re Chaz and Kilo okay? What did the vet say!? 

Hope everyones okay! 


Today = Zander + 5ft 11 fence = BOING. ZOOMIES!!! KEEP AWAY GAME!!!




Met dogs nicely though.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> My emotional chimp responded rather than my rational human :yikes:


I'm not letting OH read this phrase.... I can see a new nickname being born if he does :lol: :lol:

I have to admit my emotional chimp seems to have faster reactions than my rational human at times. :blush:

Twiggy, No one leaves baby in the corner or Holly Bolly in the car 

Sarah, glad Spen seems to have got over the kevins, shame about the bra drowning, maybe he could be trained to do laundry


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> A dairy mile? Is that like dairy milk but really, really long? Sounds delicious . My impulse control can be unbelievably poor at times too...and at others, unbelievably good. I'd settle for middle ground....


Dairy Milk and impulse control should never be in the same conversation, never mind the same sentence hehehe  Ive an 'emergency bar' of Galaxy chocolate hidden in a kitchen cupboard ( sorry Slimming World ) ... I reckon tonight's the night for comfort eating :blush:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I;ve only JUST read through the past couple pages, but holy hecka re Chaz and Kilo okay? What did the vet say!?
> 
> Hope everyones okay!
> 
> Today = Zander + 5ft 11 fence = BOING. ZOOMIES!!! KEEP AWAY GAME!!!
> 
> Met dogs nicely though.


I didn't take him to the vet - makes me sound awful, I know . I have kept his minor cuts clean and observed and have a lot of experience in dealing with (human) trauma so understand injury processes. I would have taken him if worried but he was right as rain the day afterwards and I thought the added stress of the vet wouldn't help. It's the mental aspect that worries me.

Oh dear Zander....or Houdini .


----------



## moonviolet

Cripes lurcherOwner is he part flea?


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I didn't take him to the vet - makes me sound awful, I know . I have kept his minor cuts clean and observed and have a lot of experience in dealing with (human) trauma so understand injury processes. I would have taken him if worried but he was right as rain the day afterwards and I thought the added stress of the vet wouldn't help. It's the mental aspect that worries me.
> 
> Oh dear Zander....or Houdini .


You're not terrible for not taking him, you knoe your own dog and whether he needs vet treatment.

Do you have any friends nearby that has dogs kilo gets on with? Could they help?

And yes he is a houdini. He could win awards for it. :blush:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> You're not terrible for not taking him, you knoe your own dog and whether he needs vet treatment.
> 
> Do you have any friends nearby that has dogs kilo gets on with? Could they help?
> 
> And yes he is a houdini. He could win awards for it. :blush:


Yes; we walked with one yesterday and one this morning .


----------



## chazzie10

chaz 2 mins before attack








one of chazzie's bites


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Cripes lurcherOwner is he part flea?


I think I have adopted a pogo-stick with fur.

Back on-lead in the garden again haha, I shall buy more fencing tommorow.

I mean he hasn't done it for a week, which is a record I must admit (and makes me seem a bit of a rubbish owner) .


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Cripes lurcherOwner is he part flea?


lol that made me laugh


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> chaz 2 mins before attack
> View attachment 98714
> 
> 
> one of chazzie's bites
> View attachment 98715


Bless him .

At least you had the sense to use your lead rather than kick the offending dogs like me! Mind you, Kilo was on the lead so that wouldn't have worked....


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> chaz 2 mins before attack
> View attachment 98714
> 
> 
> one of chazzie's bites
> View attachment 98715


Oh my god, is he alright? Is it healing okay? Is he still his usual enthused labby self???? :blink:


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> I think I have adopted a pogo-stick with fur.
> 
> Back on-lead in the garden again haha, I shall buy more fencing tommorow.
> 
> I mean he hasn't done it for a week, which is a record I must admit (and makes me seem a bit of a rubbish owner) .


he's lulling you into a false sence of security. Bet he's spent the last week tee-heeing wondering when to do it again :hand: 
Should change his name to Zebedee


----------



## Guest

Chazzie I think I'll name my next one that. (Yes, I know a SECOND houdini!!) I have been told by a head of the charity that lurchers are amazing jumpers and escapers so PHEW on that, I thought I was doing something wrong (not enough exercise is what my helpful neighbour says everytime, from his back window)

I did think of naming one Rumplestiltskin!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Bless him .
> 
> At least you had the sense to use your lead rather than kick the offending dogs like me! Mind you, Kilo was on the lead so that wouldn't have worked....


well you've probably got longer legs and bigger boots than me- if id been able to kick the dog it woulda only been about 2 foot away lmao
Thank God I didnt clip Charlies lead on immediately (I just held his collar- he was on the ground and too terrified to go anywhere), it meant it was free to do my Bronco Bill impression YEE-HAAAWW


----------



## kat&molly

Chazzie - I'm really sorry Charlie's been attacked too. What is wrong with these people- he sounds a nasty piece of work as well. I hope the poor chap's cuts heal ok .

Dogless- how upsetting that the woman hasn't even been to check that you and Kilo are ok.
Sounds like he's coping pretty well.

Pleased to hear Spen's behaving better and as for Holly Bolly, I think she just wanted to get in the ring and show everyone her stuff.

Busy day.Was doing some housework early  before walking the girls and collecting an old ladies dog for grooming. Without asking my OH took my girls out for their walk  a good long walk as well  can you tell I'm in shock  They must have been shocked , because when they came back they thought I was taking them out as well.
I've groomed Evie[why is my own dog my worst customer, she doesn't even pay, it costs a fortune in treats ] and bathed the younger Poodle Rosie
ready to clip tomorrow.
These little girls are adorable- OH is threatening to kidnap them- as if we haven't got enough.:w00t:
Moonviolet- the photos from yesterday were brilliant- it looked a great day for everyone, I loved the one of Miss Tink drying herself


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Chazzie - I'm really sorry Charlie's been attacked too. What is wrong with these people- he sounds a nasty piece of work as well. I hope the poor chap's cuts heal ok .
> 
> Dogless- how upsetting that the woman hasn't even been to check that you and Kilo are ok.
> Sounds like he's coping pretty well.
> 
> Pleased to hear Spen's behaving better and as for Holly Bolly, I think she just wanted to get in the ring and show everyone her stuff.
> 
> Busy day.Was doing some housework early  before walking the girls and collecting an old ladies dog for grooming. Without asking my OH took my girls out for their walk  a good long walk as well  can you tell I'm in shock  They must have been shocked , because when they came back they thought I was taking them out as well.
> I've groomed Evie[why is my own dog my worst customer, she doesn't even pay, it costs a fortune in treats ] and bathed the younger Poodle Rosie
> ready to clip tomorrow.
> These little girls are adorable- OH is threatening to kidnap them- as if we haven't got enough.:w00t:
> Moonviolet- the photos from yesterday were brilliant- it looked a great day for everyone, I loved the one of Miss Tink drying herself


Is your OH OK? Any other symptoms of illness? :w00t::w00t:.

I don't want her to come and check TBH. Just control her dog.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh my god, is he alright? Is it healing okay? Is he still his usual enthused labby self???? :blink:


Thanks LurcherOwner- No he's really quiet and clingy- He isnt allowed upstairs and doesnt usually even try but I when I was up earlier he flew up after me! Every wee noise and he's jumping out of his skin. Ive never seen him like this before. Thank goodness tomorrows my day off work.
He'll be right as rain soon Im sure


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Thanks LurcherOwner- No he's really quiet and clingy- He isnt allowed upstairs and doesnt usually even try but I when I was up earlier he flew up after me! Every wee noise and he's jumping out of his skin. Ive never seen him like this before. Thank goodness tomorrows my day off work.
> He'll be right as rain soon Im sure


Kilo was attached to me on Friday night after it happened but was OK yesterday morning....hopefully Chaz will be too.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Chazzie I think I'll name my next one that. (Yes, I know a SECOND houdini!!) I have been told by a head of the charity that lurchers are amazing jumpers and escapers so PHEW on that, I thought I was doing something wrong (not enough exercise is what my helpful neighbour says everytime, from his back window)
> 
> I did think of naming one Rumplestiltskin!


Amazing jumpers? You should call the next one 'Aran' :w00t:


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Kilo was attached to me on Friday night after it happened but was OK yesterday morning....hopefully Chaz will be too.


Geez I hope so, he's like a limpit.....instead of just the usual clampit


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Is your OH OK? Any other symptoms of illness? :w00t::w00t:.
> 
> I don't want her to come and check TBH. Just control her dog.


I dont think he's ever been ok since he met me.Poor man.

Lurcher owner- I cant believe Donkey boy scaled that. Chazzie's right though Aran's a good name for the next one.


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## chazzie10

just on the topic of clever pet names- and slightly off thread buuuut my friends just taken on a cat that has 3 legs and belonged to her church minister...... he is called Trinity   hows that for an apt name- strange thing was it was named while it still had 4 legs 

I got Charlie from my son's friend- they'd had him 1 day and their landlord found out and said no way, not even one more night so they came to me as they knew I was missing my golden lab ( and that i was a soft touch lol)- They'd named him and they were so devastated giving him up that I didnt have the heart to rename him though i was gonna call him Harley but hey, he is a bit of a charlie so it suits him :001_tongue:


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- the photos from yesterday were brilliant- it looked a great day for everyone, I loved the one of Miss Tink drying herself


Not really the action of hte sharpest pencil. rolling in wet leaves to get dry when it's still raining  She did attempt to roll in some fox poo, but missed :lol: :lol: I love her terrible aim  Was a great day.


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## DogTrainer01

Omg Dogless! How upsetting and frightening for both of you  Gosh I would have been an emotional wreck after that and over analysing everything. Glad he is managing to semi-bounce back, that's great! Hope it continues!

Unfortunately I'm hearing some really horrible stories recently about DA dogs out of control - very scary.

GingerRogers - Not nice when other people create a negative walk. With Andy, I learnt to become completely anti-social which seems to have continued on with little collie to an extent. Can sympathies with the car reactivity, seems to be a never ending battle.

L/C - well done Ely, that's amazing! What a cool dude to not react but just look up expecting a reward 

Chazzie - how awful!  and after such a great day. Hopefully he too will bounce back after some time. Poor laddie.

Took puppy to the pet training class again today. He was lovely. Asked a bit more of him today and had him on his bed near-ish to some doggies doing some basic agility. He went over once but that was my fault; I didn't catch him in time and I'm thinking he would have bought him self back around if I'd given him the choice and not paniced.

I was really impressed with how he coped though and his general focus. 
What was interesting was whilst on the bed, he watched for a couple of seconds but then made the decision to make eye contact again and then offer a behaviour. I think I have to get out of the mind frame that whenever he watches he's going to go over threshold and so let him make more choices for himself.

I was really pleased with the general session, his did some lovely focus bits which is a massive ask around other dogs in a training environment. Just a little disappointed with myself more than anything, we didn't do any of the focus structure games which he loves and would have helped him plus I didn't break him off enough when doing the impulse bed games either. Learnt for next week though I suppose .

On walks I'm now starting to really trust him to carry on walking with me or respond to my 'this way' cue rather than see another dog. I've never let him (bar a couple of times when I forgot the long line) bog off to another dog so he's never really rehearsed that behaviour but I'm really pleased that he makes the decision to follow me. I'm going to keep him on the long line for a few months yet but happy with that.

Onto little man. I've put him back on rest for a couple of days. His left rear leg looks a little tight so I'm not sure if he pulled a muscle when I let him off the other day (first time he's been off lead for months due to other leg!). Just want him back now (proper training and proper walks), feeling a bit rubbish about it all. When we start walking again, I'll take it even more slowly. I keep reminding myself the physio said there is no reason he can't do back to what he was doing and the level of fitness that he was at (baring in mind he will be 8 this year) but on days like today can't help blaming myself which I know is silly.

Anyway, here are a couple of photos of the gorgeous duo









A little focus work at training - lovely lovely boy. Excuse my trousers, I am getting a belt for them!!









The most gorgeous boy, down by my feet (where he believes he belongs..) fast asleep.









On our morning walk - happy puppy


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> I'm not letting OH read this phrase.... I can see a new nickname being born if he does :lol: :lol:
> 
> I have to admit my emotional chimp seems to have faster reactions than my rational human at times. :blush:


According to the book I lifted the phrase from _everyone's_ chimp reacts first and with greater magnitude than their humans. Not read enough yet but apparently it is important to learn to manage one's chimp. :lol:


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## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> According to the book I lifted the phrase from _everyone's_ chimp reacts first and with greater magnitude than their humans. Not read enough yet but apparently it is important to learn to manage one's chimp. :lol:


I think i spent too many years keeping mine on a short leash, it's now broken the leash and is rebelling a little, but not dangerously so.


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## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> According to the book I lifted the phrase from _everyone's_ chimp reacts first and with greater magnitude than their humans. Not read enough yet but apparently it is important to learn to manage one's chimp. :lol:


 lmao


----------



## Thorne

So sorry to read about Kilo and Chaz getting attacked! How awful for you all, hoping that both heal quickly and that Chaz is back to his normal self soon, mine have been clingy after being attacked in the past too.

I've not walked the monsters today as I've had horrendous cramp in my hips so they went out with mum - the reviews were wholly positive! Have introduced her to the clicker and she's as amazed as I am about how responsive they both are to it. Breeze is enjoying being able to chase Scooter now he's going offlead more and he's loving the freedom.
He's stopping to look over his shoulder to check I'm still there so we practiced "wait" yesterday with great success. Breeze spent her saturday morning and afternoon haring around my nan's allotment with her Cocker and couldn't be lured on a walk for all the tea in China, lazy dog slept the rest of the day 

Still can't bring myself to trust Scooter. This is the best his recall's ever been but he's been known to have good phases then suddenly relapse into a bog-off dog. We'll see.


----------



## Dogless

My back is still shot so I certainly can't drive and can't do much in the way of games with the poor BW. Another slow walk for him this morning poor boy; maybe some offlead if we have the fields to ourselves - probably not as I couldn't take his collar etc if needed. Sure he'll be fine but dreading bending to pick up the poo :w00t:.


----------



## chazzie10

Thorne said:


> So sorry to read about Kilo and Chaz getting attacked! How awful for you all, hoping that both heal quickly and that Chaz is back to his normal self soon, mine have been clingy after being attacked in the past too.
> 
> I've not walked the monsters today as I've had horrendous cramp in my hips so they went out with mum - the reviews were wholly positive! Have introduced her to the clicker and she's as amazed as I am about how responsive they both are to it. Breeze is enjoying being able to chase Scooter now he's going offlead more and he's loving the freedom.
> He's stopping to look over his shoulder to check I'm still there so we practiced "wait" yesterday with great success. Breeze spent her saturday morning and afternoon haring around my nan's allotment with her Cocker and couldn't be lured on a walk for all the tea in China, lazy dog slept the rest of the day.
> Still can't bring myself to trust Scooter. This is the best his recall's ever been but he's been known to have good phases then suddenly relapse into a bog-off dog. We'll see.


Thanks Thorne- Im not sure how Chaz will react around other dogs now. Hopefully with a bit more caution but Ive been reading stuff online about how dogs can become aggressive through fear after being attacked- Im 90% sure he'll be ok though because he's super-friendly usually 
What a lovely way for Breeze to spend a saturday she must have been exhausted when she got home, no wonder she slept!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> My back is still shot so I certainly can't drive and can't do much in the way of games with the poor BW. Another slow walk for him this morning poor boy; maybe some offlead if we have the fields to ourselves - probably not as I couldn't take his collar etc if needed. Sure he'll be fine but dreading bending to pick up the poo :w00t:.


Morning Dogless  ' slow walk' I wonder what that's like lol we havnt really had that experience yet but we're getting there 
What's up with you're back? Did you hurt it during the attack on Kilo the other day? You should get one of those nappies for bitches and put it on the big man for his No2's hehehe can you imagine


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Morning Dogless  ' slow walk' I wonder what that's like lol we havnt really had that experience yet but we're getting there
> What's up with you're back? Did you hurt it during the attack on Kilo the other day? You should get one of those nappies for bitches and put it on the big man for his No2's hehehe can you imagine


No; I broke it a few years ago in a big accident and was left with a few prolapsed discs. It always hurts but occasionally just goes as one of the prolapsed discs moves - kicking the rott probably started it off but who knows? Flaming agony...I have been making a lot of nneeeaagggh noises; at least I'm on my own .

I also have a parcel a the delivery office I want to collect but can't get it - think it' the BW's new coat :nonod:.

One of these might work: http://www.neatorama.com/2009/08/25/the-poo-trap-an-alternative-to-scooping-up-after-your-dog/


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> No; I broke it a few years ago in a big accident and was left with a few prolapsed discs. It always hurts but occasionally just goes as one of the prolapsed discs moves - kicking the rott probably started it off but who knows? Flaming agony...I have been making a lot of nneeeaagggh noises; at least I'm on my own .
> 
> I also have a parcel a the delivery office I want to collect but can't get it - think it' the BW's new coat :nonod:.
> 
> One of these might work: The Poo Trap: An Alternative to Scooping Up After Your Dog - Neatorama


Oh poor you. There's nothing worse than back problems. Try and take it steady and hope it eases soon.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh poor you. There's nothing worse than back problems. Try and take it steady and hope it eases soon.


Should have seen our slow, cringing walk last night - poor BW just got loads of slloooowww heelwork practise and had his headcollar on just in case :w00t:.


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> No; I broke it a few years ago in a big accident and was left with a few prolapsed discs. It always hurts but occasionally just goes as one of the prolapsed discs moves - kicking the rott probably started it off but who knows? Flaming agony...I have been making a lot of nneeeaagggh noises; at least I'm on my own .
> 
> I also have a parcel a the delivery office I want to collect but can't get it - think it' the BW's new coat :nonod:.
> 
> One of these might work: The Poo Trap: An Alternative to Scooping Up After Your Dog - Neatorama


It did cross my mind about you kicking the rott- its not a usual movement and you would have been tense so yeah Im sure it didnt help. I know the noise you mean- Id gallstones for the 1st time 5wks ago and I was pretty much making that noise constantly for 5 days :cryin:
Id thought of getting chaz a coat but there's not really as much choice for bigger dogs. He's on a diet too cos he's put a bit of beef on recently with not being well and his food change- I was feeding him the recommended amount for the weight he is rather than the weight he's meant to be ( the bag was a bit confusing). Think he wants to drop a dress size by xmas before he gets a coat 
What type did you get Kilo? Im sure he'd look smart in anything he wore


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## moonviolet

Dogless  hope the pain subsides soon. 

Hmmm not sure the BW would be impressed with a poo trap.

Thorne, sounds like they have taken to the clicker  I love the thought of Breeze going " nah you go on I'm fine here, some one has to supervise."


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## L/C

Bloody hell - I don't check the thread for a day and see what happens! I hope Chaz is ok now and that he bounces back with other dogs. 

Dogless - I hope your back feels better soon!


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> No; I broke it a few years ago in a big accident and was left with a few prolapsed discs. It always hurts but occasionally just goes as one of the prolapsed discs moves - kicking the rott probably started it off but who knows? Flaming agony...I have been making a lot of nneeeaagggh noises; at least I'm on my own .
> 
> I also have a parcel a the delivery office I want to collect but can't get it - think it' the BW's new coat :nonod:.
> 
> One of these might work: The Poo Trap: An Alternative to Scooping Up After Your Dog - Neatorama


Ive just realised there was a link on your post! Hahaha thats very funny and a lil bit weird lol


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## Dogless

We had a good walk - went to the closest field (after it took half an hour to get my socks and boots on with Kilo looking bemused :cryin as I can't get far and spent an hour and a half practising things for 'school' and throwing Kilo's ball on a rope for him to chase - so he got lots of mental and physical exercise. He worked very hard and I was really pleased with him .

We saw two dogs; first was a beagle - the woman walking it came into the field; I put Kilo on lead but he stood very alert so she left immediately BUT his tail was relaxed, no hackles, mouth open and relaxed even though his stance and the set of his ears was alert. I am confident that he wanted to meet and would have laid down until the dog came over and then stood and play bowed.

The second dog we saw was the weimeraner he knows but tried to lunge at the other day. Today he kept a nice relaxed lead but went in behind my left leg and nudged at me for reassurance - so I'm happy with that for now.



chazzie10 said:


> It did cross my mind about you kicking the rott- its not a usual movement and you would have been tense so yeah Im sure it didnt help. I know the noise you mean- Id gallstones for the 1st time 5wks ago and I was pretty much making that noise constantly for 5 days :cryin:
> Id thought of getting chaz a coat but there's not really as much choice for bigger dogs. He's on a diet too cos he's put a bit of beef on recently with not being well and his food change- I was feeding him the recommended amount for the weight he is rather than the weight he's meant to be ( the bag was a bit confusing). Think he wants to drop a dress size by xmas before he gets a coat
> What type did you get Kilo? Im sure he'd look smart in anything he wore


There's plenty of choice if you want 'sensible' ones . This time I have ordered a wax coat lined with fleece as Kilo's hopefully done his growing and it should last for years. He has a coat from Ann Rees (the hound - shaped one as he's very broad at the front, but very lean and narrow at the rear) which is really fantastic; he has outgrown it so it will be Rudi's next year .

This is the Ann Rees one: annrees: handmade dog coats, waterproof dog coats, towelling dog coats, dog pannier coats, hi-viz dog coats and reflective dog coats

The wax one is ordered from here: Wax Cotton Coats - Forest Fleece Handmade Dog Fleece Jumpers & Coats

Would Chaz really need one being a lab?



moonviolet said:


> Dogless  hope the pain subsides soon.
> 
> *Hmmm not sure the BW would be impressed with a poo trap.*
> 
> Thorne, sounds like they have taken to the clicker  I love the thought of Breeze going " nah you go on I'm fine here, some one has to supervise."


Especially if I asked him to sit :w00t::nonod:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> We had a good walk - went to the closest field (after it took half an hour to get my socks and boots on with Kilo looking bemused :cryin as I can't get far and spent an hour and a half practising things for 'school' and throwing Kilo's ball on a rope for him to chase - so he got lots of mental and physical exercise. He worked very hard and I was really pleased with him .
> 
> We saw two dogs; first was a beagle - the woman walking it came into the field; I put Kilo on lead but he stood very alert so she left immediately BUT his tail was relaxed, no hackles, mouth open and relaxed even though his stance and the set of his ears was alert. I am confident that he wanted to meet and would have laid down until the dog came over and then stood and play bowed.
> 
> The second dog we saw was the weimeraner he knows but tried to lunge at the other day. Today he kept a nice relaxed lead but went in behind my left leg and nudged at me for reassurance - so I'm happy with that for now.
> 
> There's plenty of choice if you want 'sensible' ones . This time I have ordered a wax coat lined with fleece as Kilo's hopefully done his growing and it should last for years. He has a coat from Ann Rees (the hound - shaped one as he's very broad at the front, but very lean and narrow at the rear) which is really fantastic; he has outgrown it so it will be Rudi's next year .
> 
> This is the Ann Rees one: annrees: handmade dog coats, waterproof dog coats, towelling dog coats, dog pannier coats, hi-viz dog coats and reflective dog coats
> 
> The wax one is ordered from here: Wax Cotton Coats - Forest Fleece Handmade Dog Fleece Jumpers & Coats
> 
> Would Chaz really need one being a lab?
> 
> Especially if I asked him to sit :w00t::nonod:.


Well done Kilo- sounds like he's not too traumatised by his bad experience and he'll get his confidence back soon ( fingers crossed for him) 
Thanks for the dog coat links- not sure if he needs one or not?? Was thinking more a waterproof one for street walks in the rain just- would save the hot doggy steam rising off him when he gets home but in reality I dont mind too much  I'll have a nosey at the links anyway


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Well done Kilo- sounds like he's not too traumatised by his bad experience and he'll get his confidence back soon ( fingers crossed for him)
> Thanks for the dog coat links- not sure if he needs one or not?? Was thinking more a waterproof one for street walks in the rain just- would save the hot doggy steam rising off him when he gets home but in reality I dont mind too much  I'll have a nosey at the links anyway


Hopefully he'll get the little confidence we had just regained back, yes!

A cheaper option is the PAH 3 Peaks one, a few people on here have them and rate them: 3 Peaks Grey Rambler Dog Coat | Pets at Home


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Hopefully he'll get the little confidence we had just regained back, yes!
> 
> A cheaper option is the PAH 3 Peaks one, a few people on here have them and rate them: 3 Peaks Grey Rambler Dog Coat | Pets at Home


did you see the 4-legged fleece pj's on the forest fleece site? Hilarious but completely daft lmao


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> did you see the 4-legged fleece pj's on the forest fleece site? Hilarious but completely daft lmao


Yes; a few people with hairless CCs on here use them as they get cold; I could imagine some pointies getting cold too - Kilo does as he only has a single coat and no hair on some of his belly / inner back legs, plus he is very lean. He doesn't have PJs but will very occasionally shiver and whine at night if the temperature drops too much so I'll stick the heating on for a bit.

He has an Equafleece tankie for very cold onlead walks otherwise he just shivers like mad.


----------



## moonviolet

Had a really lovely walk this morning. Arrived and immediately bumped into Steve and his owner, Tink and Steve were delighted to see each other. So we walked together no sooner had we made it to the top of the first hill when we bumped into wheeliebin man with his 2 dogs so we walked on together. So we had a lovely walk around a route used for a mountain bike event over the weekend. Many lovely sniffs some games of chase and altogether a lovely walk. Walks like this and the lovely one on Saturday make every hair ripping one worth it. 

ps. Tink gets cold after wet walks and has a fleece on after being towel dried and i would consider PJ's if she couldn't sleep because she was cold.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Had a really lovely walk this morning. Arrived and immediately bumped into Steve and his owner, Tink and Steve were delighted to see each other. So we walked together no sooner had we made it to the top of the first hill when we bumped into wheeliebin man with his 2 dogs so we walked on together. So we had a lovely walk around a route used for a mountain bike event over the weekend. Many lovely sniffs some games of chase and altogether a lovely walk. Walks like this and the lovely one on Saturday make every hair ripping one worth it.
> 
> ps. Tink gets cold after wet walks and has a fleece on after being towel dried and i would consider PJ's if she couldn't sleep because she was cold.


That sounds perfect MV, really lovely. We are walking with our new friend and her dog this evening; looking forward to it - it's funny as we used to meet now and again by chance but when I popped the note through her door on Saturday she said she was really chuffed that someone wanted to walk with her .


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet that sounds so lovely 
You are all so lucky to have people you can walk with!
Dont know what it is but we hardly ever see the same dog walkers here its always different people every day so I cant strike up 'dog walking friendships' where I could meet up with them regularly. It would be so beneficial with the training etc. My sister works different hours from me now so we havnt been able to walk the two labs together in months 

Not gonna walk today. His bite is still open though seems to be quite clean and the redness has gone down a good bit. Will get back to it tomorrow maybe


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## chazzie10

BTW i didnt mean the pj's were daft, as in stupid lol, I meant funny daft :001_tongue: its the wee expressions on the dogs faces that are modelling them


----------



## Beth17

Sounds like a really nice walk MV 
Hope you enjoy your walk tonight Dogless and hopefully your back will be feeling better soon and really glad to hear Kilo is doing so well :thumbup1:

I have heard from the vet this morning and Sam has got his referral to have his hearing tested so I can ring them whenever and get an appointment set-up. The only downside is it's 130 miles away but I want to get it done so I know once and for all. If there is any hearing (which I doubt) hopefully I can then find something at the right pitch to teach him a better recall.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> moonviolet that sounds so lovely
> You are all so lucky to have people you can walk with!
> Dont know what it is but we hardly ever see the same dog walkers here its always different people every day so I cant strike up 'dog walking friendships' where I could meet up with them regularly. It would be so beneficial with the training etc. My sister works different hours from me now so we havnt been able to walk the two labs together in months
> 
> Not gonna walk today. His bite is still open though seems to be quite clean and the redness has gone down a good bit. Will get back to it tomorrow maybe


I used to just see folk randomly; but got brave and have given my number to three people I used to see a lot and like and the dogs get on well; and now I have a few friends for local walks .



Beth17 said:


> Sounds like a really nice walk MV
> Hope you enjoy your walk tonight Dogless and hopefully your back will be feeling better soon and really glad to hear Kilo is doing so well :thumbup1:
> 
> I have heard from the vet this morning and Sam has got his referral to have his hearing tested so I can ring them whenever and get an appointment set-up. The only downside is it's 130 miles away but I want to get it done so I know once and for all. If there is any hearing (which I doubt) hopefully I can then find something at the right pitch to teach him a better recall.


Sam is lucky to have you as an owner Beth; it would be nice if he had enough hearing to recall to a whistle wouldn't it? Fingers crossed he has a little.


----------



## moonviolet

I hope you meet some dog walking friends Chazzie, it took a while for us and a few " Mind if I tag along for a bit?" brave moments. By saying for a bit it makes it easier, if it's not going well, to say your goodbyes.



Have a nice evening walk Dogless  hope you back is less painful 

Beth you must let us know when Sam's appointment is so we can all wish very very hard he has some hearing, to be able to get his attention when he is facing away from you would be such a blessing.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I hope you meet some dog walking friends Chazzie, it took a while for us and a few " Mind if I tag along for a bit?" brave moments. By saying for a bit it makes it easier, if it's not going well, to say your goodbyes.
> 
> Have a nice evening walk Dogless  hope you back is less painful
> 
> Beth you must let us know when Sam's appointment is so we can all wish very very hard he has some hearing, to be able to get his attention when he is facing away from you would be such a blessing.


The back is buggered :cryin:.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> The back is buggered :cryin:.


 i think this is beyond the power of a cabbage leaf poultice  Sending lots of analgesic vibes.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> i think this is beyond the power of a cabbage leaf poultice  Sending lots of analgesic vibes.


It is indeed; even beyond the power of my TENS machine at present :blink:.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> It is indeed; even beyond the power of my TENS machine at present :blink:.


 thats bad  wish i could do more than wish it better.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> thats bad  wish i could do more than wish it better.


Could be worse . I have constant pain which is fine as it's stable....but when the discs play up it's vile, vile sharp pains. Had it before and will no doubt have it again. Not the end of the world .


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## Guest

I do not say this lightly, but, we had the tantrums of ALL tantrums just now. I went down the shop to get some electric and tied zander outside (they have HUGE glass windows so you can see him all the time and the cashier will keep an eye out for you) all good. Came out untied him, all good.

The he wanted to go down the hill, as I don't live down the hill I led him away from it.

And he kicked off. Clamping my arms, the lead, legs, my hands, growling.

I just kept walking until he climbed my legs, clamped onto my hand, his teeth right on the bones in the back of the hand. I just ignored him (internally swearing because pop-tarts it really hurt), then got him to do 'watch me' along the street. Got to the end of the street praised and treated then he kicked off again with the same antics as before. All in all it was ten minutes. Although no skin has been broken, my hands, arms and legs are very sore right now. 

Oh and he escaped again this morning after I re-fort knoxxed the garden. We now have chicken wire on the bottom of our fences. 

I mean I do love my dog to pieces but these tantrums are getting me down. 

Still trying to find a good dog trainer near me, as I'm sure training classes will help. 

ooh but when he got out I found him playing with this HUGE staffie. Must have been a staffie cross as it was like the width of my shoulders!! Either way, grabbed mine, leaded him, tried to catch staffie but failed. The owner soon appeared though and took it home.

And I hope your back isn't causing you TOO much trouble dogless.


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## Dogless

Oh dear Zander...whereabouts are you? Perhaps knowledgeable folk like Twiggy will know a trainer that can help?


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## Dogless

We have had a mixture of good and bad tonight; mostly good and I'm grinning my head off. The bad happened on the way to the fields - walking with my friend and her dog, a dog that Kilo knows and likes and has walked with a few times walking towards us on the other side of the road...and Kilo lunged and barked. The lady said "That's a new behaviour isn't it he's never lunged before?" so I explained. Kilo was fine once we stood and chatted but I was still upset.

The very, very good....we were playing on the fields when a couple appeared with a spaniel and teeny, tiny cute staffy pup. I put Kilo onlead which alarmed them as the spaniel was running up. Kilo did his normal greeting of lying down until the dog reached him, then stood up and greeted calmly. I explained why I was being very cautious and that we hadn't encountered any unknown dogs since Friday so I was playing very safe...._and the man said "It wasn't a rottie was it? One bit him (his spaniel) and cut his nose the other day". So that's another one _. I let him off the lead and all the dogs played really well for an hour . The staffie pup stayed with us people climbing legs for fusses and everyone said "Aw, look how gentle Kilo is with the puppy" which made me proud :001_wub::001_wub:.

I went to the house where the rotties live earlier but no one was home. Just as we were walking back the man was walking them onto the fields - I didn't want to stop though as Kilo put his ears right back and scuttled along worried and they were at quite a distance; didn't want to get closer.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Chazzie sorry you 2 have been the victims of vile dogs/owners too. It just reinforces to me why I have to get Ginge's reactivity under control. If she met either of these dogs I hate to think what would happen but who could say whose fault it was with a tiny barking thing involved. I know neither Charlie or Kilo provoked the situation but Ginge could 

Dogless (why are you called dogless you nearly have 2 ) hope the back better soon, sounds horrendous, I have suffered in the past but not from an injury like that.

Good luck beth & sam - a friend of ours has a little deaf staffie, it really changes the way you can interact doesn't it. Although they have no problems in the bedroom  he just sleeps right through 

LurcherOwner - we have had a pretty obnoxious walk too! I put it down to rain, it got dark really early, and she was already a bit bonkers before I took her out. I have been in and out all day and OH has been in with a migraine so a bit of a role reversal day. Which might account for it or she may be coming into season as we met a friends young lab this morning who was showing a lot of interest and she was not happy (which is unlike her  little tart that she is).

We had a lovely long walk yesterday with my good friend and her two, I think this is right - dad was a papilionxlhasa, owned by their son, mum was a bichonxJRT, dad had a heart problem but was a naughty boy and exerted himself  sadly they had to have him PTS at just 3 years. 5 days later Buffer and Elsie were born so naturally they took them on, buffer is a fluffy buffy who is quite frankly a bit dippy and always cheers you up, Elsie is like a little fox, so pretty and smooth but with an underbite which is very comical, when the three of them are together they look like a proper little pack as Ginge is a mix of the twos colouring. I tried to get a photo but they don't stop still in one place for long . So we had a lovely walk, a good old rant and gossip, I didn't bother trying to do any training as there was little point with the other two about and I wanted a rest let alone the ninja, I didn't let her off but her two did a bunk which made me feel better  then she convinced me to go for a pint with her and the family (we have given up on pubs for now as Ginge sets up an unholy yappy squeal on occasion) The whole lot of them are used to buff & elsies bad behaviour, it was so nice to not feel like I should curl up and die. They had some good insight to Ginge, and handled her if she kicked off (she did even though there were no other dogs about - ghosts??), then one gave the dog her boyfriends coat to curl up on and she just settled. So simple!! The pint turned into 3, then the landlord arrived and plonked bottles of wine on the table, then Ginge settled down on his lap  and it all got a bit messy, but so nice to relax for a few hours.

Bearing the overindulgence in mind today has been a proper 'I hate Mondays' Monday everything has conspired against me but I have laughed through it (until she leapt at me when I was trying to stop her launching herself into the path of an oncoming car )

And the final straw was the cows have arrived in our off lead training field, not sure there is another safe place?


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless - really sounds like something needs to be done about that dog, even if she just muzzled it!

Thats at least three that you have found out about in only a couple of days isn't it?


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## moonviolet

Dogless, you are an incredibly brave lady.
Kilo is goign to eb a great big bro  
Not another victim of that Rottie  I think she's been given the benefit of the doubt too many times.

Lurcher Owner. I don't know if you have looked or are aware of the Association of Pet Dog trainers.Welcome to APDT - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK

They have a directory of members Local Dog Trainers - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK

Ginge sounds like you had fun with your friend and at the pub 

Lovely evening walk, Did some training bits, drop off and collections, our little routine snippet and some waits and recalls. then some find-it games. She was a star. I loves my dog  She's getting so good even when she hears distant handbags now she glances at me for reassurance. Then just carries on  I forgot to say she met 2 lovely young belgian malinois yesterday evening and their very understanding owner, who slipped her some garlic sausage while she was watching them play   what a star


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - really sounds like something needs to be done about that dog, even if she just muzzled it!
> 
> Thats at least three that you have found out about in only a couple of days isn't it?


Every person I have talked to with a dog, yes. None of these are reactive, confrontational dogs either - I have been walking with them on purpose because of their friendly dispositions.



moonviolet said:


> Dogless, you are an incredibly brave lady.
> Kilo is goign to eb a great big bro
> Not another victim of that Rottie  I think she's been given the benefit of the doubt too many times.
> 
> Lurcher Owner. I don't know if you have looked or are aware of the Association of Pet Dog trainers.Welcome to APDT - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK
> 
> They have a directory of members Local Dog Trainers - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK
> 
> Ginge sounds like you had fun with your friend and at the pub
> 
> Lovely evening walk, Did some training bits, drop off and collections, our little routine snippet and some waits and recalls. then some find-it games. She was a star. I loves my dog  She's getting so good even when she hears distant handbags now she glances at me for reassurance. Then just carries on  I forgot to say she met 2 lovely young belgian malinois yesterday evening and their very understanding owner, who slipped her some garlic sausage while she was watching them play   what a star


mv - I loves your dog too . The beagle that changed my mind entirely about beagles . Garlic sausage? That would stick the BW to that owner like glue :w00t:. Tinks' confidence just gets better every day, it's brilliant .

Brave? . I did love seeing him being so gentle with the pup, really sweet :blush:. He likes pups until they are old enough to not take no for an answer, then he gets annoyed - tells them off in a controlled way though.

Ginge....what a way to spend a Monday; drink it away .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Brave? .


yes brave, many people would be taking things easy and not handling things with such grace and good humour.



Dogless said:


> I did love seeing him being so gentle with the pup, really sweet :blush:. He likes pups until they are old enough to not take no for an answer, then he gets annoyed - tells them off in a controlled way though.


He does sound liek the perfect big brother.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> yes brave, many people would be taking things easy and not handling things with such grace and good humour.
> 
> He does sound liek the perfect big brother.


Not much else to do really; won't help Kilo if I don't and he is what matters to me!


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Dogless, you are an incredibly brave lady.
> Kilo is goign to eb a great big bro
> Not another victim of that Rottie  I think she's been given the benefit of the doubt too many times.
> 
> Lurcher Owner. I don't know if you have looked or are aware of the Association of Pet Dog trainers.Welcome to APDT - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK
> 
> They have a directory of members Local Dog Trainers - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK
> 
> Alot of those are too far away sadly and the one that IS in the town across from me no longer runs classes.
> Maybe I'll think about a one-to-one though, but there is a chance he won't show a tantrum in the allocated time considering there wasn't one between yesterday morning and this evening...
> 
> But thanks for the link though.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Sam is lucky to have you as an owner Beth; it would be nice if he had enough hearing to recall to a whistle wouldn't it? Fingers crossed he has a little.


Aww I'm all embarrassed now :blush: Thank you although I'm sure most people on here would do it for him if they had him! 
That is what I'm hoping for to be able to do a whistle recall but there are so many sounds I'd be here forever trying to find the right one. 



moonviolet said:


> Beth you must let us know when Sam's appointment is so we can all wish very very hard he has some hearing, to be able to get his attention when he is facing away from you would be such a blessing.


I definitely will it's so lovely to know that you are all rooting for him 
I would love for him to have that bit more freedom as he gets older; even if it is just to save my poor arms :cryin:


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> moonviolet said:
> 
> 
> 
> Dogless, you are an incredibly brave lady.
> Kilo is goign to eb a great big bro
> Not another victim of that Rottie  I think she's been given the benefit of the doubt too many times.
> 
> Lurcher Owner. I don't know if you have looked or are aware of the Association of Pet Dog trainers.Welcome to APDT - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK
> 
> They have a directory of members Local Dog Trainers - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK
> 
> Alot of those are too far away sadly and the one that IS in the town across from me no longer runs classes.
> Maybe I'll think about a one-to-one though, but there is a chance he won't show a tantrum in the allocated time considering there wasn't one between yesterday morning and this evening...
> 
> But thanks for the link though.
> 
> 
> 
> Whereabouts are you - I know trainers in most areas of the UK and not all of them advertise?
Click to expand...


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## Guest

North dorset near Sherborne, Sturminster Newton and Wincanton if you know any of those area's! 

Tried a trainer in a town bout 20 mins away and she was all about dominance and pack leader and although very good with dogs, her manners with people not so much.


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> North dorset near Sherborne, Sturminster Newton and Wincanton if you know any of those area's!
> 
> Tried a trainer in a town bout 20 mins away and she was all about dominance and pack leader and although very good with dogs, her manners with people not so much.


I'll put my thinking cap on and let you know. I'm not familiar with your area but I do know some trainers in the West Country.


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## Guest

Twiggy said:


> I'll put my thinking cap on and let you know. I'm not familiar with your area but I do know some trainers in the West Country.


Thank you!! There is one in Stur but she no longer does the classes!! Shame that really. Asked a lady where she trained her spectacularly fluffy lurch and she said Poole! Thats at least an hour away! I don't drive so have to rely on mum.


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## kat&molly

Haven't really read through what I've missed, but Dogless I hope your backs a little better today.
Beth- good luck with the young mans tests. Dont know if I'm right bit I'm sure I remember reading, thats theres somewhere on the net that you can hear all the different whistle pitches.

Had bad news yesterday, my cousin has died , he was only 43. So apart from walking the girls there isn't much happening here.
The little Poodles went home yesterday, their owner was quite proud when I told her what delightful dogs they were- and she was lucky to get them back. I'm really pleased with my girls as well- not all dogs will accept others in their home.


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## Dogless

k&m - I do hope that you are as OK as you can be after your news; sending my condolences to you xx.

I'm pleased the poodles' visit went so well - you really are lovely to have had them.

Back still buggered - shouldn't be for too much longer; usually lasts a day or two when it gets like this then goes back to just the normal constant pain which is much better than this .


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## moonviolet

K&M so sorry for the loss of your cousin 

I bet the poodles' owner was pleased to see them and delighted that they were good. I'm so pleased your girls accepted having houseguests well.

Dogless maybe take the advice you would give others today


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## Beth17

K&M have liked for the whistle information, I will definitely have a look and see if I can find that later 
So sorry to hear about your cousin x

Dogless hope your back starts to feel back to normal soon


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## Twiggy

K&M Really sorry about your cousin and so young.

Dogless I hope your back improves very soon. It there nothing the doctors can do?


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> K&M so sorry for the loss of your cousin
> 
> I bet the poodles' owner was pleased to see them and delighted that they were good. I'm so pleased your girls accepted having houseguests well.
> 
> *Dogless maybe take the advice you would give others today*


Don't be daft  .



Twiggy said:


> K&M Really sorry about your cousin and so young.
> 
> Dogless I hope your back improves very soon. It there nothing the doctors can do?


I haven't gone to the doctor although it's much worse again this morning. I am on medication for the neurological effects of the fractures and loss of disc height but my option is surgical and I have been avoiding Mac the Knife since day one. When it is bad my TENS machine often helps but painkillers don't touch it and I don't like taking morphine which I am usually given - love the feeling it gives  but renders me pretty useless. It might help if I went swimming (gently, not my usual 5km effort!!) but it takes so long to get socks and trousers on and off and I'm not sure how I'd get in and out of the pool so I am giving it a miss until things have improved!! I am sure it will improve soon, fingers crossed .

Anyway...enough about me. We went to the closest field again today and did some training and Kilo had a run about. We met an old female staffy - Kilo greeted very nicely; lay down until she came over then stood up and greeted well BUT then glued his nose to her backside and went to hump her, so on the lead he went...it has been AGES since he's tried to hump a dog, but never mind. The owner was nice and said he was just being a boy .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Don't be daft  .
> 
> I haven't gone to the doctor although it's much worse again this morning. I am on medication for the neurological effects of the fractures and loss of disc height but my option is surgical and I have been avoiding Mac the Knife since day one. When it is bad my TENS machine often helps but painkillers don't touch it and I don't like taking morphine which I am usually given - love the feeling it gives  but renders me pretty useless. It might help if I went swimming (gently, not my usual 5km effort!!) but it takes so long to get socks and trousers on and off and I'm not sure how I'd get in and out of the pool so I am giving it a miss until things have improved!! I am sure it will improve soon, fingers crossed .
> 
> Are you sure it wouldn't be a good idea to at least discuss the options with a consultant? The reason I say this is that my sister has had back problems for years, due to a riding accident. Eventually she had surgery but it was only partially successful mainly because it was left so long and had caused nerve damage.
> 
> Anyway...enough about me. We went to the closest field again today and did some training and Kilo had a run about. We met an old female staffy - Kilo greeted very nicely; lay down until she came over then stood up and greeted well BUT then glued his nose to her backside and went to hump her, so on the lead he went...it has been AGES since he's tried to hump a dog, but never mind. The owner was nice and said he was just being a boy .


Well Kilo obviously fancied her....LOL

I know what I meant to say and forgot due to computer problems:
It wasn't little Holly Bolly that bit me at the show on Sunday, it was Tremor...!! We had to wait for two or three dogs to work before our turn and she was shaking with excitement. As I took her lead off she went to grab it and got the side of my hand instead so we did a training round with me pouring blood - little devil.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well Kilo obviously fancied her....LOL
> 
> I know what I meant to say and forgot due to computer problems:
> It wasn't little Holly Bolly that bit me at the show on Sunday, it was Tremor...!! We had to wait for two or three dogs to work before our turn and she was shaking with excitement. As I took her lead off she went to grab it and got the side of my hand instead so we did a training round with me pouring blood - little devil.


And there I was assuming it was your little terror, apologies to Holly Bolly . Hope your hand is OK now.


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## Werehorse

So sorry about your cousin Kat&Molly.  x


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## L/C

Oh K&M I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin - thinking of you and I hope you feel as well as you can in the situation.


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## kat&molly

Thank you everyone, feel a bit useless being so far away. Its my poor aunt I feel for , she's lost everyone close in recent years. You aren't supposed to bury your children- especially your only one. I really dont know what this will do to her.
Anyhoos sorry for being morbid and off topic.


I've just had to go and buy more wellies as we're in to our 2nd week of rain here, it sure plays catch up after the dry summers we have but everywheres looking so nice and green again.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thank you everyone, feel a bit useless being so far away. Its my poor aunt I feel for , she's lost everyone close in recent years. You aren't supposed to bury your children- especially your only one. I really dont know what this will do to her.
> Anyhoos sorry for being morbid and off topic.
> 
> I've just had to go and buy more wellies as we're in to our 2nd week of rain here, it sure plays catch up after the dry summers we have but everywheres looking so nice and green again.


It is so hard when you're in another country isn't it? I am sure your aunt still appreciates your support from afar. Really hope that she is coping as well as she can be expected to be.


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## Beth17

Kilo obviously just has thing for the more experienced ladies :biggrin5:

Had a really lovely walk with the boys today took them both up to the field as it's lovely and sunny and surprisingly we only saw one other person on the whole walk. It did mean however that Sam was able to go offlead for almost all of the walk which was lovely to watch and he was such a good boy and stuck close to Oscar and their frisbee all the time


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## Dogless

Had a good onlead pavement and round the sports pitches walk this afternoon; Kilo was very good as I was struggling along again :nonod:. We saw only one other dog - a staffie tied up outside the shop we pass on the way home; Kilo looked at the dog then looked up at me which was good as he stayed relaxed so I praised him and we walked on . Don't know about the BW but I could do with a walk away from here - can't wait until I can drive again . Kilo is probably enjoying staying round here as he gets to play and walk with more dogs....


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## pogo

I haven't posted on here before so going to ramble 

Have had a brilliant few days with the boys, especially Chance. Obviously we had Rads here for the weekend, so i had an extra dog to walk on my own. She was AWFUL to walk on lead and isn't allowed off as she literally runs away. I managed to walk the boys both to heel with one hand which we've never managed before, I could of cried i was so proud of them haha!

Chance seems to go round in circles with his aggression to people. He has to be supervised in the garden as we have a low gate and fence one side, which is where the shared jitty is. He will go for days ignoring the neighbours as they use the back door, and other times he will well go mental, barking, growling snapping at them from over the gate.

They are brilliant next door and we have spoke to them about ignoring him and not going near the gate/fence, as i do not want anyone getting bit. 

Today he sat at the gate on his own accord and watched them wander about doing what ever with out so much a murmur from him, so he got a big cuddle  

No doubt tomorrow he'll be back to psychotic Chance


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## Twiggy

I've had a couple of pretty good days training Holly. She got so animated this afternoon that she managed to pull the stake out of the ground and join me and Tremor on sendaways!!

I got almost 30 minutes of unwavering attention from her today and she was certainly up for it. The downside is that I now have two more rips in my coat sleeve - but that's a minor detail..


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## Sarah1983

So sorry about your cousin K&M 

Dogless, I hope your back heals quickly and looks like things are generally going well with Kilo and other dogs. I don't blame him for being worried about the Rotties when he saw them.

LurcherOwner, did you PM the lady I told you about? She had the same tantrum issues with her huge lurcher but I can't for the life of me find the advice she was given about them. Even if you just post on the forum there you'll get good advice, couple of very knowledgeable lurcher people on there.

I'm not sure what to work on after the last 24 hours. Spen has been an absolute dream. He's taken everything in his stride, from screaming kids to having to sleep on my coat in a strange room with only 3 sausages and some Pringles for his dinner. He's charmed people, entertained children with his simple tricks and his eagerness to be mauled by them and his behaviour the whole time we were there was about as close to perfect as I could ask for. He was even happy to share his 2 toys, bed and humans with next doors dog, Rupert, who we took with us as they didn't have anywhere they could go with him. He may not have a perfectly straight sit, he may be a shameless thief and his heelwork may leave a lot to be desired but in a real life, stressful situation the boy did good! 

I think sometimes I need to be forced to stop and look at just how good he really is instead of nitpicking about the things he's not good with. Coz somehow he seems to come through for me when it's really important.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I think sometimes I need to be forced to stop and look at just how good he really is instead of nitpicking about the things he's not good with. Coz somehow he seems to come through for me when it's really important.


I think the 'fault' with many of us on this thread is a constant desire to do better - it is certainly mine. I know I often portray Kilo as a handful, when in reality he's not (often!!). We could all do with taking heed of your sentence above from time to time. Well done lovely Spen :blush:.


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Haven't really read through what I've missed, but Dogless I hope your backs a little better today.
> Beth- good luck with the young mans tests. Dont know if I'm right bit I'm sure I remember reading, thats theres somewhere on the net that you can hear all the different whistle pitches.
> 
> Had bad news yesterday, my cousin has died , he was only 43. So apart from walking the girls there isn't much happening here.
> The little Poodles went home yesterday, their owner was quite proud when I told her what delightful dogs they were- and she was lucky to get them back. I'm really pleased with my girls as well- not all dogs will accept others in their home.


So sorry to hear about your cousin- 43 is so young isnt it 
Your house must seem quiet with less dogs about now the poodles have gone!


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> So sorry about your cousin K&M
> 
> Dogless, I hope your back heals quickly and looks like things are generally going well with Kilo and other dogs. I don't blame him for being worried about the Rotties when he saw them.
> 
> LurcherOwner, did you PM the lady I told you about? She had the same tantrum issues with her huge lurcher but I can't for the life of me find the advice she was given about them. Even if you just post on the forum there you'll get good advice, couple of very knowledgeable lurcher people on there.
> 
> I'm not sure what to work on after the last 24 hours. Spen has been an absolute dream. He's taken everything in his stride, from screaming kids to having to sleep on my coat in a strange room with only 3 sausages and some Pringles for his dinner. He's charmed people, entertained children with his simple tricks and his eagerness to be mauled by them and his behaviour the whole time we were there was about as close to perfect as I could ask for. He was even happy to share his 2 toys, bed and humans with next doors dog, Rupert, who we took with us as they didn't have anywhere they could go with him. He may not have a perfectly straight sit, he may be a shameless thief and his heelwork may leave a lot to be desired but in a real life, stressful situation the boy did good!
> 
> I think sometimes I need to be forced to stop and look at just how good he really is instead of nitpicking about the things he's not good with. Coz somehow he seems to come through for me when it's really important.


I haven't yet... Because I am an idiot and having spend a very long time looking on this forum for her, remembered she's on the other one!! I shall join and message asap!!!


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I think the 'fault' with many of us on this thread is a constant desire to do better - it is certainly mine. I know I often portray Kilo as a handful, when in reality he's not (often!!). We could all do with taking heed of your sentence above from time to time. Well done lovely Spen :blush:.


Yeah, I tend to focus on all the things Spencer isn't so good with and neglect to notice or mention the ways he's really great. I think both me and hubby realised today just how well behaved he actually is for all he can be a royal pain in the arse at times. That's not fair to Spencer really and from now on I'm going to make an effort to note his good points too instead of just focus on the bad.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I think the 'fault' with many of us on this thread is a constant desire to do better - it is certainly mine. I know I often portray Kilo as a handful, when in areality he's not (often!!). We could all do with taking heed of your sentence above from time to time. Well done lovely Spen :blush:.


That's very true. Its very easy to become a bit down about our dogs, especially when on a forum like this, where we are all discussing and advising on problem behaviour. Its great that we share the good days and uplifting stories too.... They're all wee stars....even when they're hallions lol  :blush:


----------



## Guest

Had a customer today who beamed at me and said "Your the one with the houdini hound!! I saw him bounding across the green the other day, he's like a torpedo!!" I kinda just made chit-chat and said that he's thirteen months and he's a bit of a horror at the moment. 
The man was just like "My newfie was evil till she was three, stealing, humping, growling, pulling like a train, but then she calmed down, so you'll be fine." 

I felt bolstered by this, until he asked was sort of lurcher he was and when I said Collie, he went. "Oh." :001_tongue:

Zand got to play with elderly retriever, the lady owner was lovely and when Zander lauched himself at her like a pogo-stick, she just patted him on the head told him to sit (he did it in record time) and then she gave him treats. (This of course makes you a friend for life in my dogs eyes so she was dutifully followed round the field ) Her husband was a bit grouchy and every time Zander bounced, the man would shove him with hand. The lady (isn't it odd how you never know their names, just as 'oh that lurchers owner or the cockapoo's owner'?) kept telling him 'You're making it into a game for him, dear' and she was just told "Well he should be on a effing lead!" This was after I had ASKED while at the gate whether they wanted me to put Zander on the lead. 

Zander also got to 'play' with this sprollie. This dog has not interest in Zander at all, and is 189% focused on the ball his owner throws for him and completley blanks Zander. Does Zander care? Nope? All Zander seems to think is YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY RUNNNING! And runs in pararrel lines with this dog! I did ask the owner whether he thought Zander was being a pain, he just replied that if he was his dog would have told him off by now.

Also I've seen some of Zanders siblings now, (there were 12 all together) and one's a Cani-X champ, another a rossette winner, another an obedience winner and I'm like "Mines a champion fence jumper?" :blush:


----------



## chazzie10

Well here's my up and down 2 days update....
'Down' bit first. Charlie continued to be sore, quiet and very jumpy yesterday. He picked up a bit when my son came in from work, taking his new toys over 1 by 1 and being quite happy...for about 10 minutes then suddenly took himself off into his bed. His bad bite is an inch above his tail and I think all the wagging must have hurt him :nonod: He seemed quite down and jumped out of his skin at the least wee noise or if I bent down to pat him. 
His bite seemed to be staying clean and Id hoped for the best but came in from work (only away 4 hours!) and it had become tiny bit red and icky- straight up to vet.
Now the 'up' bit.
He said I'd done well and we'd caught it very, very early stages of infection. Wound wash, 3 injections, antibiotics and Metacam and my big boy took it all like a trooper- not a whimper :blush:
He had behaved perfectly, even ignoring other cats and a cute 12wk lurcher pup in the waiting room! Kept a loose lead, focused on me ( he knew I had chicken Fridge Raiders in my pocket lol) and even lay down at one stage!
The vet called him a brilliant, very well behaved dog    no-one outside has ever said that to me! So proud of my chazzie boy :blush:


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Had a customer today who beamed at me and said "Your the one with the houdini hound!! I saw him bounding across the green the other day, he's like a torpedo!!" I kinda just made chit-chat and said that he's thirteen months and he's a bit of a horror at the moment.
> The man was just like "My newfie was evil till she was three, stealing, humping, growling, pulling like a train, but then she calmed down, so you'll be fine."
> 
> I felt bolstered by this, until he asked was sort of lurcher he was and when I said Collie, he went. "Oh." :001_tongue:
> 
> Zand got to play with elderly retriever, the lady owner was lovely and when Zander lauched himself at her like a pogo-stick, she just patted him on the head told him to sit (he did it in record time) and then she gave him treats. (This of course makes you a friend for life in my dogs eyes so she was dutifully followed round the field ) Her husband was a bit grouchy and every time Zander bounced, the man would shove him with hand. The lady (isn't it odd how you never know their names, just as 'oh that lurchers owner or the cockapoo's owner'?) kept telling him 'You're making it into a game for him, dear' and she was just told "Well he should be on a effing lead!" This was after I had ASKED while at the gate whether they wanted me to put Zander on the lead.
> 
> Zander also got to 'play' with this sprollie. This dog has not interest in Zander at all, and is 189% focused on the ball his owner throws for him and completley blanks Zander. Does Zander care? Nope? All Zander seems to think is YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY RUNNNING! And runs in pararrel lines with this dog! I did ask the owner whether he thought Zander was being a pain, he just replied that if he was his dog would have told him off by now.
> 
> Also I've seen some of Zanders siblings now, (there were 12 all together) and one's a Cani-X champ, another a rossette winner, another an obedience winner and I'm like "Mines a champion fence jumper?" :blush:


hmmm you can see how he could confuse a lurcher and a collie.... NOT!!!

As for the fences....an athlete in the making lol. Do you do agility with him? What about getting him some of those horse jumping fences for your garden... you know, the ones for wee Shetland ponies hehehe


----------



## Guest

Chazz I do intend to at some point, once we've been to a couple training classes because I know what would happen, Zander WILL spend his whole trying to get the other dogs to play, have a tantrum for not being allowed to play, or turn into a whingy puppy at the other dogs.... Or he will bounce everywhere and on everyone.

Oh my god I have *THAT *dog.

The dog that rushes up to other dogs all excited and pushy and OMGPLAYTIME regardless whether the other dog likes him or not.
:w00t::w00t::w00t::w00t:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> hmmm you can see how he could confuse a lurcher and a collie.... NOT!!!
> 
> As for the fences....an athlete in the making lol. Do you do agility with him? What about getting him some of those horse jumping fences for your garden... you know, the ones for wee Shetland ponies hehehe


Well done Chaz at the vets . Think LO meant Zander is a Collie lurcher .


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Chazz I do intend to at some point, once we've been to a couple training classes because I know what would happen, Zander WILL spend his whole trying to get the other dogs to play, have a tantrum for not being allowed to play, or turn into a whingy puppy at the other dogs.... Or he will bounce everywhere and on everyone.
> 
> Oh my god I have *THAT *dog.
> 
> The dog that rushes up to other dogs all excited and pushy and OMGPLAYTIME regardless whether the other dog likes him or not.
> :w00t::w00t::w00t::w00t:


 I'm so glad I'm not the only one with a complete nutter as a pet but like I keep saying, its better than them being aggressive though just as tiring!
I bet Zander would really excel at agility and it might cure his fetish for jumping GARDEN fences!


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Well done Chaz at the vets . Think LO meant Zander is a Collie lurcher .


Yep he was brilliant but maybe just cos he's sore. I'll reserve judgement til he's allowed out on walks again and meets other big dogs. One kicked off on tv last night ( did anyone watch the programme, Walking With Dogs, filmed on Hampstead Heath?), and he jumped and stared at the tv with wee frightened eyes :nonod: I had to stop myself from comforting him

Just talking about people confusing breeds and stuff... Charlies big and broad with long legs for a Lab I know but some man asked me on Sunday if he was a Newfie lmao.
My ex used to say he was a lab x......lab crossed with a donkey and that it wasnt poo bags I needed, it was black bin liners hehehe. Charlie does poos bigger than the ex's jack russell


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## Beth17

Well done Spen you are a star :thumbup:
And well done Charlie for being good at the vets.

Quiet evening here with just some practising of basic obedience. Sam has his appointment for a week on thursday so we will soon know one way or the other the extent of his hearing.


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> I'm so glad I'm not the only one with a complete nutter as a pet but like I keep saying, its better than them being aggressive though just as tiring!
> I bet Zander would really excel at agility and it might cure his fetish for jumping GARDEN fences!


Alas I don't think anything would cure that fetish haha.

But yeah being a completley over the top soppy pogo stick is better than aggression.


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## L/C

I'm not sure if anyone has any ideas but Gypsy has developed a very odd habit. In the evening when we get out of the front door she will lock her legs and refuse to move. She isn't obviously worried or anxious, she isn't air scenting and while she is alert it doesn't appear to be anymore then usual. After a couple of minutes a switch seems to flick in her head and off we go and everything is fine. This is every evening without fail. 

I have no idea why she's doing this and I can't find anything in any of my reading so far.


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## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Alas I don't think anything would cure that fetish haha.
> 
> But yeah being a completley over the top soppy pogo stick is better than aggression.


definately :blush:


----------



## chazzie10

L/C said:


> I'm not sure if anyone has any ideas but Gypsy has developed a very odd habit. In the evening when we get out of the front door she will lock her legs and refuse to move. She isn't obviously worried or anxious, she isn't air scenting and while she is alert it doesn't appear to be anymore then usual. After a couple of minutes a switch seems to flick in her head and off we go and everything is fine. This is every evening without fail.
> 
> I have no idea why she's doing this and I can't find anything in any of my reading so far.


strange- who knows what goes on in their wee heads!...sorry Ive absolutely no ideas on that one but I didnt wanna not answer


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## Dogless

L/C said:


> I'm not sure if anyone has any ideas but Gypsy has developed a very odd habit. In the evening when we get out of the front door she will lock her legs and refuse to move. She isn't obviously worried or anxious, she isn't air scenting and while she is alert it doesn't appear to be anymore then usual. After a couple of minutes a switch seems to flick in her head and off we go and everything is fine. This is every evening without fail.
> 
> I have no idea why she's doing this and I can't find anything in any of my reading so far.


Very odd; I'll get my thinking hat on.

Colder weather? Kilo does it when it gets to the kind of temps where he requires a coat - coat on and off he goes but won't move otherwise.


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## Twiggy

L/C said:


> I'm not sure if anyone has any ideas but Gypsy has developed a very odd habit. In the evening when we get out of the front door she will lock her legs and refuse to move. She isn't obviously worried or anxious, she isn't air scenting and while she is alert it doesn't appear to be anymore then usual. After a couple of minutes a switch seems to flick in her head and off we go and everything is fine. This is every evening without fail.
> 
> I have no idea why she's doing this and I can't find anything in any of my reading so far.


Has this behaviour started since it's got dark so early?


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Also I've seen some of Zanders siblings now, (there were 12 all together) and one's a Cani-X champ, another a rossette winner, another an obedience winner and I'm like "Mines a champion fence jumper?" :blush:


But they are all individuals, even from the same litter.


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## L/C

Dogless said:


> Very odd; I'll get my thinking hat on.
> 
> Colder weather? Kilo does it when it gets to the kind of temps where he requires a coat - coat on and off he goes but won't move otherwise.


I did think of that and I'll give it a try but it's not that cold here.


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## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Has this behaviour started since it's got dark so early?


No - it is only in the past week. She was happy to go out in the dark before.


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## Beth17

L/C said:


> I'm not sure if anyone has any ideas but Gypsy has developed a very odd habit. In the evening when we get out of the front door she will lock her legs and refuse to move. She isn't obviously worried or anxious, she isn't air scenting and while she is alert it doesn't appear to be anymore then usual. After a couple of minutes a switch seems to flick in her head and off we go and everything is fine. This is every evening without fail.
> 
> I have no idea why she's doing this and I can't find anything in any of my reading so far.


The only thing I can think of is maybe her eyes are adjusting to the different light? That theory is a bit of a longshot though.


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## Werehorse

L/C could it be because it's getting darker? And/or colder? Is she just a bit spooked by it? Very strange.

LurcherOwner - the pogo-ing must be a collie cross thing, Hugo pogos at people and it's so embarassing. The worst of it is that people basically encourage it and he earns himself LOADS of cuddles by being rediculously rude. Hugo has never demonstated the Zander's fence jumping abilities yet although he has got quite a spring on him.

Sarah - Spen sounds like he has been wonderful.  It's nice when you have days like that and you can appreciate how good they can be.

Chazzie - Glad you got him to the vets and he was a good lad. I hope he's healing up soon. 

Beth - Interesting stuff re. deafness. Hopefully he's got some hearing that you can use. My dog trainer has several deaf dogs and one blind and one deaf AND blind!! I'm not sure how she copes but she does. There was a deaf staffy in Hugo's class for a bit, worked really well with hand signal command and even a thumbs up substitute for a clicker! I remember my trainer talking about calling he deaf ones back by waving her arms around to spread her scent about more and they are trained to come back when her scent in the air increases or something like that, it might be just so they can keep track of her. I was wondering to myself whether you could train him to respond to a scent cue (like some essential oil) so when you open the bottle he comes back. :lol: Or even a vibrate setting on a evil collar of some kind (strictly the vibrate setting of course along with lots of training to habituate him to the sensation as well as train him that it means Come Back For Good Things). I think my trainer may even have trained a couple of her collies to go and fence the deaf and blind one back for her by the harness. :lol: Sorry, mad ramble!

Dogless - I hope your back feels better soon! I've only ever had my back go into spasms once (just after my final exams at uni - so stressed!) and that was dreadful - I couldn't move or breathe or laugh or cry or anything. I didn't cope very well.  You are doing much better than I would be after the attack and then your back going off on one.

Twiggy - glad Holly has been showing some enthusiasm, even if it has been with her teeth!  :lol:

I'm on a bit of a downer about my boys since Sunday. LLW is SO hard for us for some reason. Yet it seems to come easily to so many others, you see so many dogs toddling along quietly beside their owners but mine are just mental yet I work on it all the time and it still won't some right. I take some solace in the fact that spaniels that don't pull on the lead are as rare as hens teeth - but at the same time I don't care I still want one.  It has still really got me down - it depresses me that people out there will get LLW within a few yanks on a check chain whereas trying to get it in a kind way is taking me literally years. I fully believe that the check chain yankers have lost something along the way, that there is a right way and wrong way to do things and right and wrong is not determined by "works" and "doesn't work". But by gods it's hard when the right way is the long way. I just want to walk my dogs on their leads without people feeling the need to make sympathetic comments or a joke about who's taking who. 

I phoned the PAT assessor and she said she would call me back and she never has. But in a way I'm glad because Oscar would probably not be ready because he still pulls when he's excited and as loving and gentle as he is I'm not sure he's calm enough yet. I haven't decided whether to call her back again yet.

We just went to the local woods today so I didn't have to lead walk them even a short stretch they can get into the woods straight from the car. They were good. I have to appreciate that they are good. Oscar got pretty stuck of a sniff and headed off into the woods in a determined way but immediately came back when recalled. Hugo found something dead but left it when told. They both sat at the side of the path and waited off-lead for an on-lead trailhound to walk past (although Hugo stood up before I told him and sniffed the air where the dog had just walked - something to watch for to stop it happening again and becoming a habit or becoming standing up and going to sniff the actual dog). Afterwards they came to the yard with me and they wait very patiently while tied up while I do the horses. They don't cause any bother and know to move out of the way when people and horses walk past and things like that. They are very good.

Just the darn LLW that continues to evade us utterly. Poor Oscar it is so hard for him - when he's doing it right you can see in every muscle movement how much he's having to control his impulses, you can practically see his haunches bunching up ready to run forward but him managing to stop himself. With Hugo he is oddly all or nothing. So I've either got his full attention and he's being Mr Perfect Paws walking along as if he never does anything but gaze adoringly at me OR he's running full pelt into the end of the lead or diving across me to sniff something. And then together it just doesn't work at all, the distraction of Hugo means that Oscar can't concentrate on not running forward and the prescence of Oscar makes Hugo so competitive to get to smells first that he forgets what a straight line is completely.

Gah! Just need to keep plugging away I suppose. I need to get them to slightly more distracting areas and start training it there but without finding places that are so distracting that their minds are blown and we spend all our time practising how not to do it.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah- I saw your other thread - and wasn't Spencer brilliant. I bet he really enjoyed Pringles for his dinner as well.:lol:

And you are so right about concentrating on the negative stuff with them, I'm guilty of it especially having 4, but when I compare them to friends who have multiple dogs I do see how how well behaved mine are[mostly]. 3 of mine didn't come as pups so I dont think we do too bad really.

Dogless- hope your backs a bit better today.


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## Dogless

Werehorse do you think you perhaps need to take a training breather from LLW, walk the boys using other equipment and tackle it with renewed vigour when you feel ready?

I have found that the "Who takes who for a walk?" comments happen even with your dog walking beautifully on a loose lead  mostly whilst the wit who felt the need to say it's tiny dog strains and chokes along on their lead.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Sarah- I saw your other thread - and wasn't Spencer brilliant. I bet he really enjoyed Pringles for his dinner as well.:lol:
> 
> And you are so right about concentrating on the negative stuff with them, I'm guilty of it especially having 4, but when I compare them to friends who have multiple dogs I do see how how well behaved mine are[mostly]. 3 of mine didn't come as pups so I dont think we do too bad really.
> 
> Dogless- hope your backs a bit better today.


Training classes when we went back this year for me were a lightbulb moment; I hadn't realised how unruly some dogs were. I was worried about something minor one week and the trainer said "Listen, your dog is an angel compared to the rest in here" :scared::scared:. He still helped me though I hasten to add!!

My back is finally a bit better today. Won't drive still but as the rain is battering the windows here I doubt we'll see anyone out locally :scared::scared:. Fingers crossed.....


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## moonviolet

Chazzie, hope your lad is repsonding well to the treatment and is healing well now.

Sarah, So glad Spen showed you what a good boy he is went it really mattered.

LurcherOwner Growing up we had 2 litter sister JRTs, who incidentally got on beautifully, one was smooth coated hated water, the rain, could take or leave a tennis ball the other wire coated water obsessed refularly found swmming in the garden pond, once launched herself into the bath with me complete tennis ball obessession. No point comparing  Zander sounds like he got all the beans in his litter  

Beth glad you have your Sams appointment date it will good to know one way or another.

Werehorse I think you have much to be proud of with your boys . I agree with Dogless sometimes taking a break to gather impetus is a good approach. I also agree with you about the choke chain yankers losing something along the way. I'd rather Tink sometimes had a taut ( not choking lead) but retained her zest for walking and her trust in me.

Twiggy sounds like you've been having some great sessions with Holly Bolly 

Dogless so pleased to hear you back is a bit better. Hope it's well enough to drive soon.

K&M I agree we can be too hard on our dogs athough I admit I have let a few real world things slide a bit because my focus on ladyship's confidence. I'm gathering myself a little to work on these things now she is in a better place. Class last night waas good, Tink had me in hysteics. We were doing the shell game and she has learned to indicate with little bowl the treat in under by *placing* her paw on top in her enthusiasm it become smacking her paw down with great vigour as fast as possible and became known as "the paw of doom" :lol: :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Chazz I do intend to at some point, once we've been to a couple training classes because I know what would happen, Zander WILL spend his whole trying to get the other dogs to play, have a tantrum for not being allowed to play, or turn into a whingy puppy at the other dogs.... Or he will bounce everywhere and on everyone.
> 
> Oh my god I have *THAT *dog.
> 
> The dog that rushes up to other dogs all excited and pushy and OMGPLAYTIME regardless whether the other dog likes him or not.
> :w00t::w00t::w00t::w00t:


How old is Zander now?

What you describe is exactly what Holly Bolly does (and will probably do in class this afternoon), which is why she loves going to shows and training classes - not to work with me but to jump all over other dogs and handlers....LOL

It will get better honestly. The more training and interaction we do with them and the more they get into us, the less they will find other dogs and handlers exciting.

Initially Holly just wouldn't play with me at all; she was only interested in playing with my other dogs and it was hopeless trying to do anything with her in a class because basically I was boring compared to all the other dogs and handlers but little by little......

I even managed a tiny bit of training at the show on Sunday, albeit a good field away from most of the other dogs.

I'm extremely determined and have every intention of entering her in Novice next year.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Training classes when we went back this year for me were a lightbulb moment; I hadn't realised how unruly some dogs were. I was worried about something minor one week and the trainer said "Listen, your dog is an angel compared to the rest in here" :scared::scared:. He still helped me though I hasten to add!!
> 
> My back is finally a bit better today. Won't drive still but as the rain is battering the windows here I doubt we'll see anyone out locally :scared::scared:. Fingers crossed.....


Really pleased to hear your back has settled down a bit - don't go mad though will you?

I agree with you all. Compared to most our dogs are paragons of virtue.


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## Beth17

Hope you have a lovely, quiet walk today Dogless. I do love rainy walks when I want some peace and quiet 

Werehorse your trainer sounds fascinating and I may have to give the scent work a go. It might well be worth ignoring LLW for awhile and then going back to it. I sometimes find if I try too hard at something it doesn't work but if I give it a rest and come back with a fresh head it suddenly clicks. I'm sure you and the boys will get there eventually. 

Tink you really are showing up all the naughty doggies on this thread :aureola:

We'll be going out in a bit when Oscar decides to wake up again. He had his breakfast and then went back to sleep


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet- At least theres no douting whether Tink enjoys her training. :lol:

Twiggy- good to hear you're making some headway with Holly.

Werehorse- have to agree about taking a wee break from LLW- I got so frustrated that I've given up. I still dont let them away with it though, and yesterday they walked well through the village.


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## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Tink you really are showing up all the naughty doggies on this thread :aureola:


well you see this is what i mean. I do still put her in the car to go for walk that i enjoy rather than pavement walk to the park, canal or the ranges. So pavement walks can be a bit "woohoo this is so exciting " :blush: I know it's a proper thing for your dog to walk calmly along the pavement and much more " important" than pushing over bottles with her nose and i can make excuses about meeting dogs that scare her and being unable to put distance or the foxes that run up and down the roads and pavements at the front of our house etc etc But I know I really should bite the bullet and get it reliable. I've been really good and got her walking beautifully focussed on me, then i go back to the walks i enjoy and forget about it. So it's a sort of lazy owner cycle.


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## Werehorse

*Paw of Doom!* :lol: That's what OH used to call Oscar's paws when he slept on the bed. I'll leave you to figure out why. 

I think maybe I should give LLW a break but am quite concerned about them going totally backwards with it if I do. But things are a bit stressy this week so I'm probably not in the best frame of mind for it.

Beth it must be an Oscar thing - my Oscar has just been trying to fall back asleep on my knee (I'm sat at a computer desk so not an easy thing to try and do, he is pretty determined that it is still nighttime, he isn't a morning person!) :lol:


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## Guest

I think I'm going to have to muzzle him. Just got back from a walk chock FULL of tantrums and he has clamped so hard that there are bruises where his teeth had been. 

Have to admit, I had a few tears when I got back in. 

Have made a thread on the other place and the other lurcher owner with this experince will give advice soon.

*Deep breaths*


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## Beth17

LurcherOwner said:


> I think I'm going to have to muzzle him. Just got back from a walk chock FULL of tantrums and he has clamped so hard that there are bruises where his teeth had been.
> 
> Have to admit, I had a few tears when I got back in.
> 
> Have made a thread on the other place and the other lurcher owner with this experince will give advice soon.
> 
> *Deep breaths*


Sorry you had such a horrible walk. Hopefully the other owner will have some good advice for you


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I think I'm going to have to muzzle him. Just got back from a walk chock FULL of tantrums and he has clamped so hard that there are bruises where his teeth had been.
> 
> Have to admit, I had a few tears when I got back in.
> 
> Have made a thread on the other place and the other lurcher owner with this experince will give advice soon.
> 
> *Deep breaths*


Oh no - poor you.

Can you describe exactly what happens when he starts these tantrums?


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Oh no - poor you.
> 
> Can you describe exactly what happens when he starts these tantrums?


Well he'll give me a look sometimes before doing it and sometimes I can tell what's set him off (not letting him meet another dog etc) but he will jump up on me and clamp onto my arms, my clothing and growl, while tugging at them. The more I ignore him the harder he clamps and tugs on me with his teeth. 
I thought if I kept walking it would help but nope, he just got louder and louder with his growling. It's not the sort of DEEP growl though that he did when there was a stranger in the garden in the night.


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## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> Chazz I do intend to at some point, once we've been to a couple training classes because I know what would happen, Zander WILL spend his whole trying to get the other dogs to play, have a tantrum for not being allowed to play, or turn into a whingy puppy at the other dogs.... Or he will bounce everywhere and on everyone.
> 
> Oh my god I have *THAT *dog.
> 
> The dog that rushes up to other dogs all excited and pushy and OMGPLAYTIME regardless whether the other dog likes him or not.
> :w00t::w00t::w00t::w00t:


Don't worry, I have THAT dog too. I've found that Spencer does settle down and and can work with other dogs around though. Not immediately and not without a few lunges and even a few barks sometimes but the more I ask him to work with other dogs nearby the quicker he's able to do it. He was asking me to work the other night with a barking dog about 10ft away and kids running around screeching and doing kid things. Both of which would not so long ago have triggered a lunging, barking frenzy from him because he was frustrated he couldn't join in.


----------



## pogo

I've been thinking since writing on here what I'm working with Harv on, and I can't think of anything particually just routine things, like still walking nicely, making sure recall is good whatever.

I have realised he is such an easy, well behaved dog, bless him. 

I've just got my forms through and I am going to get Harvey assessed as a therapy dog (next year hopefully) I know he'd be brilliant at it and I'd just love for him too!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner Kilo went through an horrendous 'jump bite' phase as I called it where he did exactly the same - I had bruises, torn clothing etc too. I tried all sorts but what really worked for me was to walk over to a lamppost / tree etc (hard with that going on I know), attach the lead around it and step away out of reach. As soon as he was calm I'd go and get him - any repeat and I tethered him again. Within just a few episodes I just had to head over to the nearest tethering point and he would stop - and stopped altogether within a few days UNLESS something really, really overstimulating occurred. It did however totally stop within a week or two.

If I caught it at the point at which it was about to happen but hadn't yet I distracted (always had toys and treats stuffed in my pockets) and did some calm training or gave him a toy to shake his anxiety / excitement out on and then carry.



Twiggy said:


> I'm extremely determined and have every intention of entering her in Novice next year.


I can't wait to 'see' Holly's progress!



Twiggy said:


> Really pleased to hear your back has settled down a bit - don't go mad though will you?
> 
> I agree with you all. Compared to most our dogs are paragons of virtue.


Can't go mad yet - it just means that it only took 5 minutes to get trousers and socks on this morning instead of half an hour .

This morning's walk was extremely cold, extremely windy and extremely wet. We were only out for an hour - went to the fields and did fast paced fetch to keep Kilo warm...after 50 minutes or so of being outside he just sat, huddled and miserable looking as the rain got heavier so I called it a day and we walked home!


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## kat&molly

Ouch Lurcher Owner-that doesn't sound very nice. I hope you can get it under control soon, I like Dogless' idea.


Just had a call from a client whose Working Cocker I groomed a couple of months ago- they are 'getting rid' and as I really liked him , did I want him?:sad:
I really dont think I can take on any more but have agreed to ask my long suffering OH if I can foster him and I'll get some rescue back up for him.

Poor lad he's not yet 1 year old. Cant help thinking theres more to it.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Ouch Lurcher Owner-that doesn't sound very nice. I hope you can get it under control soon, I like Dogless' idea.
> 
> Just had a call from a client whose Working Cocker I groomed a couple of months ago- they are 'getting rid' and as I really liked him , did I want him?:sad:
> I really dont think I can take on any more but have agreed to ask my long suffering OH if I can foster him and I'll get some rescue back up for him.
> 
> *Poor lad he's not yet 1 year old.* Cant help thinking theres more to it.


Unfortunately that could be the more to it - a high energy dog going through adolescence. Did they strike you as people who were aware of what they had taken on with a working cocker?

Good on you for trying to foster him though.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Ouch Lurcher Owner-that doesn't sound very nice. I hope you can get it under control soon, I like Dogless' idea.
> 
> Just had a call from a client whose Working Cocker I groomed a couple of months ago- they are 'getting rid' and as I really liked him , did I want him?:sad:
> I really dont think I can take on any more but have agreed to ask my long suffering OH if I can foster him and I'll get some rescue back up for him.
> 
> *Poor lad he's not yet 1 year old. Cant help thinking theres more to it.*




Yes I'm afraid there usually is.

Some of the things we were told by rescue centre/private owners that wanted to rehome/get rid of dogs beggared belief, when my daughter was looking. The 18 mth old collie/retriever cross particularly springs to mind. The notice outside her kennel said something like 'good with children, dogs, cats blah de blah'. Almost immediately she had bitten several people and had a huge fight with another bitch.


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Well he'll give me a look sometimes before doing it and sometimes I can tell what's set him off (not letting him meet another dog etc) but he will jump up on me and clamp onto my arms, my clothing and growl, while tugging at them. The more I ignore him the harder he clamps and tugs on me with his teeth.
> I thought if I kept walking it would help but nope, he just got louder and louder with his growling. It's not the sort of DEEP growl though that he did when there was a stranger in the garden in the night.


It sounds like over excitement. How old is he and did you have him from a pup? How far have you got with his basic training?


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> Unfortunately that could be the more to it - a high energy dog going through adolescence. Did they strike you as people who were aware of what they had taken on with a working cocker?
> 
> Good on you for trying to foster him though.


I thought they seemed nice people- and adored the dog, but the first time they rang and asked me to groom him I was told he had to be muzzled , at 8 months old, because he would bite them.
I refused and just took it slowly using lots of treats, he done brilliantly and they were amazed. I wonder if they've seen any more aggression from him?
Today the chap made excuses about small garden, time etc and the wife has made her mind up, it wasn't worth me suggesting to get some help.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I thought they seemed nice people- and adored the dog, but the first time they rang and asked me to groom him I was told he had to be muzzled , at 8 months old, because he would bite them.
> I refused and just took it slowly using lots of treats, he done brilliantly and they were amazed. I wonder if they've seen any more aggression from him?
> Today the chap made excuses about small garden, time etc and the wife has made her mind up, it wasn't worth me suggesting to get some help.


What a shame  I hope the wee lamb ends up in a home that can commit to him and work though any issues he has. :sad: If i was close i would be sorely tempted to come visit.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> What a shame  I hope the wee lamb ends up in a home that can commit to him and work though any issues he has. :sad: If i was close i would be sorely tempted to come visit.


I'm not that far away.:lol:
I'll try and find out more later, if OH agrees.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I'm not that far away.:lol:
> I'll try and find out more later, if OH agrees.


I'm sure he will :scared: .

What's one more dog with 'character'? .


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I'm not that far away.:lol:
> I'll try and find out more later, if OH agrees.


Tinker does seem to have an affinity with spaniels.......


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I'm sure he will :scared: .
> 
> What's one more dog with 'character'? .


I have more than enough characters in this house.:lol:
Its sad though, Black Workers Cockers are one of my favourites. Feeding, walking and even vet bills aren't a problem but I always worry about something happening to me or OH.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Tinker does seem to have an affinity with spaniels.......


It's only a ferry/eurostar ride away...


----------



## Werehorse

Poor little working cocker. 

Be careful K&M, I think 2 or more spanners in one place can cause the wave function to collapse. 1 and a half is dangerous enough round here.  I think it's because they can suspend the laws of gravity when it suits them.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Tinker does seem to have an affinity with spaniels.......


and the boys.


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse said:


> Poor little working cocker.
> 
> Be careful K&M, I think 2 or more spanners in one place can cause the wave function to collapse. 1 and a half is dangerous enough round here.  I think it's because they can suspend the laws of gravity when it suits them.


Moll is pretty calm I think most of the time- her 'birth family' are a bit crazy though.:eek6:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> and the boys.


Lol yup she does love the boys.


----------



## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> It's only a ferry/eurostar ride away...


And Germany isn't that far from France either....


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Chazzie, hope your lad is repsonding well to the treatment and is healing well now.l:


Thanks for the concern Moonviolet :thumbsup: he seems to be a bit happier today and the wound is finally closing over


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> Chazzie - Glad you got him to the vets and he was a good lad. I hope he's healing up soon.
> 
> I'm on a bit of a downer about my boys since Sunday. LLW is SO hard for us for some reason.
> I just want to walk my dogs on their leads without people feeling the need to make sympathetic comments or a joke about who's taking who.


Thanks Werehorse yep he's on the mend 

Sorry you're feeling low about the LLW- it just seems to be never ending doesnt it? I cant understand how our four-legged chums can be so clever and quick to learn new tricks but take such a long time to do other things! I guess it comes down to controlling their impulses....I cant really criticise them for it as Ive absolutely no control over my own...the diet's out the window this week again (lots of chocolate flavoured comfort eating since the attack lmao) .
WHY do people feel the need to comment on who's taking who? If I'd a penny for every person thats's told me charlie's a big, BIG dog and too strong for me, Id be sitting somewhere hot with a cocktail in one hand right now. Each person must think they're the only one to ever say it, like it's some sort of revelation or something!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Thanks Werehorse yep he's on the mend
> 
> Sorry you're feeling low about the LLW- it just seems to be never ending doesnt it? I cant understand how our four-legged chums can be so clever and quick to learn new tricks but take such a long time to do other things! I guess it comes down to controlling their impulses....I cant really criticise them for it as Ive absolutely no control over my own...the diet's out the window this week again (lots of chocolate flavoured comfort eating since the attack lmao) .
> WHY do people feel the need to comment on who's taking who? If I'd a penny for every person thats's told me charlie's a big, BIG dog and too strong for me, Id be sitting somewhere hot with a cocktail in one hand right now. Each person must think they're the only one to ever say it, like it's some sort of revelation or something!


Or a penny for everyone that said "He's huge, is he strong? How much does he weigh?" .


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Thanks Werehorse yep he's on the mend
> 
> Sorry you're feeling low about the LLW- it just seems to be never ending doesnt it? I cant understand how our four-legged chums can be so clever and quick to learn new tricks but take such a long time to do other things! I guess it comes down to controlling their impulses.


It's either Jean Donaldson or Patricia McConnell who describes loose leash walking as a "walk slowly at the pace of death with my human" thing. I know I find it difficult to match my pace to my mums when I'm with her, her health problems mean that she could probably be outrun by a snail, so I imagine it's quite difficult for a dog to slow its pace to ours. I know all my dogs have moved much faster than I do when given the choice.

Werehorse, loose leash walking seems to be our nemesis too. It's the thing that falls apart whenever we go somewhere new or he gets excited. He can still sit, still lie down, still perform his silly tricks but can he keep that leash loose? Can he buggery.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Or a penny for everyone that said "He's huge, is he strong? How much does he weigh?" .


Exactly. That was another 'up' bit yesterday- I weighed him at the vets and he has a kg off in just over a week . He has another few to lose but he's a big dog even when his weight is spot on. Different vets keep telling me different target weights for him so Im just gonna go by the look and feel of him. 
Might stick him back onto the light version of his food cos his face is a picture when I set his dish down with less in it than he was expecting lmao


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> It's either Jean Donaldson or Patricia McConnell who describes loose leash walking as a "walk slowly at the pace of death with my human" thing. .


Hahaha very good description...especially if you've got short legs like me


----------



## Werehorse

LOLing massively at "walk at pace of death with human". Sooooooo true it is written in every line of Oscar's little body when he is doing it right. "Hurry the **** up MOTHER!  There's IMPORTANT SPANIEL BUSINESS to be done!!!!"


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> LOLing massively at "walk at pace of death with human". Sooooooo true it is written in every line of Oscar's little body when he is doing it right. "Hurry the **** up MOTHER! There's IMPORTANT SPANIEL BUSINESS to be done!!!!"


I think thats why charlie has started focusing on me now in walks.... he's checking i've got a pulse


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It's either Jean Donaldson or Patricia McConnell who describes loose leash walking as a *"walk slowly at the pace of death with my human" thing. * I know I find it difficult to match my pace to my mums when I'm with her, her health problems mean that she could probably be outrun by a snail, so I imagine it's quite difficult for a dog to slow its pace to ours. I know all my dogs have moved much faster than I do when given the choice.
> 
> Werehorse, loose leash walking seems to be our nemesis too. It's the thing that falls apart whenever we go somewhere new or he gets excited. He can still sit, still lie down, still perform his silly tricks but can he keep that leash loose? Can he buggery.


That is so true as when I run at a decent pace Kilo naturally just runs to heel. I have never trained him to do that but he just settles into what must be the pace he's most comfortable at - he certainly doesn't even pant, just trots along - and it's the same pace he chooses when offlead and pottering ahead.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh gosh, lots has happened over the last couple of days, I have skimmed through but can't remember who did what now, I'll try.

Glad Charlies on the mend chazzie, as is your back Dogless.

Spen did really well with your adventure Sarah.

Whoever it was, ah, yes , Sarah, who says to concentrate on the good things your dog does is so right. (When there are some )

Werehorse - LLW is my bug bear too, does it really matter I ask myself several times a day, I did forget all about at the weekend and just enjoyed walking with my friend. 

Lurcher Owner - hope you get that sorted sounds like its getting worse, perhaps its reaching a crescendo or perhaps he is objecting to the ever increasing fence! the lam post thing sounds like its worth a chance.

Kat & Molly sorry to hear about your cousin. I think you should occupy yourself by convincing moonviolet she needs a spaniel 

Loving the paw of doom and the walk of death - not specifically but those phrases remind me, has anyone read 'The last family in England' its really very sad but has some awfully funny bits, especially the insights into our dog breed characteristics- especially spaniels - its written from a lab called prince's point of view, labs are entrusted to protect and uphold family values to the death- but the bane of his life is a spaniel called mad wag who keeps trying to entice him with doggy things.

Any one else 'well done/sorry to hear that' - sorry if I have missed you out.

We had anightmare of a walk this morning, all my fault, I let it all get to me, because I forgot what sarah said about letting go of the bad things. It was blowing a gale, peeing on my head, Ginge was bouncing about at everything that moved, barking at all the cars (think they are more scarey in the wet)  and although we only passed one dog, as she kicked off and as I explained to the owner we were working on that I realised we actually aren't. I felt a right numpty as I walked away when all I had to offer was a 'leave it' and a 'quiet' and she takes no notice - how in hell am I supposed to get her to walk nicely on a lead when faced with all that, luckily my face was so rainy no one could see the solitary tear! 

Off to training class tonight, think this is the last of the intake lessons, so we may have to let the dogs off lead at this one. I foresee a very squashed chihuaha


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers - sorry you had a bit of a bad walk; Kilo is more crackers in the wind and rain - when he used to try and chase car tyres he was much worse in the wet. I spent ages in the rain by roads sorting the problem out :scared:.

We had a great walk this evening - on lead for some training; Kilo was so keen that he kept offering me heelwork even when I released him to sniff about - he was really keen tonight . We saw one dog - a mini schnauzer who always goes mental at him which occasionally prompts a bellowing reply from the BW if I don't 'catch' him in time....schnauzer went mental and Kilo looked at him, then me and we carried on calmly :thumbsup:. And then....two kids were skipping behind him, clapping hands etc. He did one worried glance behind him then looked at me and carried on nicely again. Today he has been my best boy .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> GingerRogers - sorry you had a bit of a bad walk; Kilo is more crackers in the wind and rain - when he used to try and chase car tyres he was much worse in the wet. I spent ages in the rain by roads sorting the problem out :scared:.
> 
> We had a great walk this evening - on lead for some training; Kilo was so keen that he kept offering me heelwork even when I released him to sniff about - he was really keen tonight . We saw one dog - a mini schnauzer who always goes mental at him which occasionally prompts a bellowing reply from the BW if I don't 'catch' him in time....schnauzer went mental and Kilo looked at him, then me and we carried on calmly :thumbsup:. And then....two kids were skipping behind him, clapping hands etc. He did one worried glance behind him then looked at me and carried on nicely again. Today he has been my best boy .


Awww good boy Kilo, that was so well behaved, especially considering the weather. It does seem to make them all go a bit daft


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers well done remembering everyone and all their conversations!! How do you all do it? Are you all taking notes on a page or something 
I've a head like a sieve and have to keep scrolling back so I dont mix up all your dogs and mentally rehome them with the wrong owners 
Maybe its because Ive only been on here 2 weeks....or the fact I cant remember my OWN name half the time :lol:


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> It sounds like over excitement. How old is he and did you have him from a pup? How far have you got with his basic training?


He is thirteen months old. we have had him form 11 weeks and he has always beem excitable/exuberant.

By basic do you mean sit etc? cos he can do all the sit, downs, leave and he has a reasonable 'close'/heel and he can do LLW. He has a reasonable impulse control. He sat while a westie wondered past today.

And I shall have to try leashing him to something Dogless.

I asked mum to take him out this evening as I was feeling frustrated/upset and I knew that wouldn't help.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> He is thirteen months old. we have had him form 11 weeks and he has always beem excitable/exuberant.
> 
> *By basic do you mean sit etc? cos he can do all the sit, downs, leave and he has a reasonable 'close'/heel and he can do LLW. He has a reasonable impulse control. He sat while a westie wondered past today. *
> 
> And I shall have to try leashing him to something Dogless.
> 
> I asked mum to take him out this evening as I was feeling frustrated/upset and I knew that wouldn't help.


So when he starts to have a tantrum and you said "down" and meant it would he obey?

When Tremor was a puppy almost four years ago now, I still had little Fidget who was almost blind and deaf, so Tremor had to stay on the lead until Fidget had done a circuit of the back field and was on her way home. At the time our neighbours had two spaniels, and the only excitement they got was charging down the fence barking their heads off at my dogs. Tremor was a very fiesty and very big bitch for a collie and she most certainly threw tantrums and would come back at me with her teeth. I hardly dare say anything to her because my other two bitches are sensitive souls and get upset very easily, so I would just stand there and hold her at arms length (usually up on her hind legs going mental). If I got the chance I would down her and put my foot on the lead near the collar end and holding on for grim death until she started to calm down. None of this was 'pretty' but she hurt my back and neck and I couldn't afford time off work.
With grim determination and teaching a very strong "you leave them" she gradually improved but at the time I was really worried and wondered if I'd taken on more than I could chew.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- Kilo is getting over his attack really well, :thumbsup: I groomed a dog today and thought of you- his name was Nou-Nou, I just wondered if you prefered it to Rudi.:lol:

Chazzie- Pleased Charlies getting better as well.

Ginge- Sorry you had a bad walk, I hope your training goes ok tonight.

The Pace of Death thing is true in this house. Jay and Evie walk lovely and they've never been trained. When I do training in fields with Moll I have to 'jog' and it always looks more natural to her and keeps her attention better.

OH was ok about the Cocker coming, I spoke to the wife tonight, she says he has a bad mouthing problem, he's understimulated , just bored.
He's coming tomorrow.No rush there then.:sad:
As long as he's ok with the girls and the cats[he's not tested] I think I'll cope.:scared:


----------



## Dogless

k&m - you are a lovely person; very best of luck for tomorrow xx.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> So when he starts to have a tantrum and you said "down" and meant it would he obey?


Not a down but I can break it with a 'watch me'.

But sometimes he seems completely oblivious to me when in a tantrum.


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- Kilo is getting over his attack really well, :thumbsup: I groomed a dog today and thought of you- his name was Nou-Nou, I just wondered if you prefered it to Rudi.:lol:
> 
> Chazzie- Pleased Charlies getting better as well.
> 
> Ginge- Sorry you had a bad walk, I hope your training goes ok tonight.
> 
> The Pace of Death thing is true in this house. Jay and Evie walk lovely and they've never been trained. When I do training in fields with Moll I have to 'jog' and it always looks more natural to her and keeps her attention better.
> 
> OH was ok about the Cocker coming, I spoke to the wife tonight, she says he has a bad mouthing problem, he's understimulated , just bored.
> He's coming tomorrow.No rush there then.:sad:
> As long as he's ok with the girls and the cats[he's not tested] I think I'll cope.:scared:


Thanks K&M 
Good luck with the wee cocker....Im sure you'll be giving us daily updates and I'm looking forward to hearing all about it


----------



## chazzie10

Well Im gonna take Mr Bitey Bottom out for his first walk since Sunday. Just along street then back cos I dont want to break the wound open again when its just beginning to heal.
He's starting to be more mobile again after 3 days of just wanting to lie down so I reckon a wee sniffing session will lift his mood 
Back in a bit


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Not a down but I can break it with a 'watch me'.
> 
> But sometimes he seems completely oblivious to me when in a tantrum.


Then you must do whatever is needed because you can't have him biting you. As Dogless has said wrap his lead round a post or tree or put your foot on his lead. Try very hard to keep calm but be determined.

It will get better (although I know it doesn't seem as if it will right now). Keep on with his training especial "watch me" - "leave it" - "down" - "sit" 
etc.

I had quite a number of issues with Tremor as a youngster. Snatching toys off the other dogs and growling at them was another one. She also growled and bit my husband when he brushed by her as she was eating.

I hasten to add she's a wonderful bitch now though.


----------



## chazzie10

Back home and Charlies happy and sleeping again! His wound popped open again dear love him but its given me the chance to give it a good clean again :closedeyes: Think the antibiotics and Metacam are knocking him out a bit- he's snoring already :lol:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Back home and Charlies happy and sleeping again! His wound popped open again dear love him but its given me the chance to give it a good clean again :closedeyes: Think the antibiotics and Metacam are knocking him out a bit- he's snoring already :lol:


Kilo had one on his foot that popped open all the time because of it's position. Do try and leave it alone unless frankly dirty; you can slow the healing process right down if you keep cleaning - the thin layer of cells forming on the wound surfaces are easily disrupted and / or wiped away.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Kilo had one on his foot that popped open all the time because of it's position. Do try and leave it alone unless frankly dirty; you can slow the healing process right down if you keep cleaning - the thin layer of cells forming on the wound surfaces are easily disrupted and / or wiped away.


It was really a bit yellowy/green so took the opportunity just 
The vet had said to carry on cleaning it but, same as you, I dont believe in poking around at it. Nature usually knows what she's doing and now he's on the anti-b's there should be a difference by tomorrow or so hopefully- it's definately a smaller hole now :thumbsup:


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Back home and Charlies happy and sleeping again! His wound popped open again dear love him but its given me the chance to give it a good clean again :closedeyes: Think the antibiotics and Metacam are knocking him out a bit- he's snoring already :lol:


Poor little lad - bless him.


----------



## Beth17

Glad Charlie is on the mend and hope he enjoyed his walk 

Ooh another visitor k&m, good luck!

We have had 2 lovely walks today. This morning finally got out at about 11 o'clock and had a sedate street walk which meant the boys had to meet and pass people. Oscar did well Sam still gets really excited as he thinks everyone wants to meet him  They also had to navigate roadworks and dogs which they did really well with. 
The only problem I have to watch is Sam keeps trying to chase the fallen leaves however this means he keeps trying to leap into the road  I think that boy has a death wish.
Went up to the fields this afternoon and Sam got some offlead time although not as much as yesterday as there were more people around. They both did well at focussing on their toy and not the other dogs around so pleased with them both today :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Glad Charlie is on the mend and hope he enjoyed his walk
> 
> Ooh another visitor k&m, good luck!
> 
> We have had 2 lovely walks today. This morning finally got out at about 11 o'clock and had a sedate street walk which meant the boys had to meet and pass people. Oscar did well Sam still gets really excited as he thinks everyone wants to meet him  They also had to navigate roadworks and dogs which they did really well with.
> *The only problem I have to watch is Sam keeps trying to chase the fallen leaves however this means he keeps trying to leap into the road  I think that boy has a death wish.*
> Went up to the fields this afternoon and Sam got some offlead time although not as much as yesterday as there were more people around. They both did well at focussing on their toy and not the other dogs around so pleased with them both today :thumbup:


Good boys :thumbsup:.

Kilo always did that - he is much better this year and only chases the odd leaf. I actually used to dislike walking him sometimes as a pup in the wind as he chased everything that moved and he bounced, pounced, twirled his way along and got over excited if I wasn't careful!!


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Poor little lad - bless him.


i know, poor pet he's been through it the last few days :sad:


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Good boys :thumbsup:.
> 
> Kilo always did that - he is much better this year and only chases the odd leaf. I actually used to dislike walking him sometimes as a pup in the wind as he chased everything that moved and he bounced, pounced, twirled his way along and got over excited if I wasn't careful!!


Good so he should grow out of it in a year or two


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Glad Charlie is on the mend and hope he enjoyed his walk
> 
> Ooh another visitor k&m, good luck!
> 
> We have had 2 lovely walks today. This morning finally got out at about 11 o'clock and had a sedate street walk which meant the boys had to meet and pass people. Oscar did well Sam still gets really excited as he thinks everyone wants to meet him  They also had to navigate roadworks and dogs which they did really well with.
> The only problem I have to watch is Sam keeps trying to chase the fallen leaves however this means he keeps trying to leap into the road  I think that boy has a death wish.
> Went up to the fields this afternoon and Sam got some offlead time although not as much as yesterday as there were more people around. They both did well at focussing on their toy and not the other dogs around so pleased with them both today :thumbup:


Thanks, yeh he looked so relieved to be out in the fresh air, even if it was for a short while 

Had to laugh at the thought of Sam chasing leaves  sounds like they did well offlead :thumbsup:


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Good so he should grow out of it in a year or two


Awk that's not long at all  lmao


----------



## Sarah1983

Not dog related but thought I'd share anyway as it's excellent news. June last year we got rushed back to the UK as my dad had had a burst aneurysm in his brain and had something like a 5% chance of survival. He had brain surgery, seizures, a shunt fitted and a long stay in hospital including physio to teach him to walk again. It was touch and go for a long time. The last year has been full of tests and hospital visits and unpleasantness for him. Then this June we found out he needed more surgery to stop another bleed so back I went in July. Today he went for his follow up appointment and has been given the all clear 

So, my dad who was not really expected to survive has not only survived but has come through the ordeal almost unscathed. He has the shunt in his brain and he has double vision (corrected with glasses) and some short term memory loss but that's it.

Me and my brothers have had the option to have scans done to check for aneurysms in our brains as apparently they can be hereditary and we have family history of them on both sides but in all honesty I'd rather not know. I don't want to have to choose between leaving a ticking time bomb in my head and having it fixed before it bursts and risk the surgery causing a stroke.

And just to make it dog related Spen and I ran into our neighbours earlier and he was put through all his commands by their 2 little girls lol. He's learning to keep his paws on the floor with them but it's soooo hard for him, he loves them soooo much. I'm sure he'd move in with them without a backward glance at me lol.


----------



## Beth17

Sarah1983 said:


> Not dog related but thought I'd share anyway as it's excellent news. June last year we got rushed back to the UK as my dad had had a burst aneurysm in his brain and had something like a 5% chance of survival. He had brain surgery, seizures, a shunt fitted and a long stay in hospital including physio to teach him to walk again. It was touch and go for a long time. The last year has been full of tests and hospital visits and unpleasantness for him. Then this June we found out he needed more surgery to stop another bleed so back I went in July. Today he went for his follow up appointment and has been given the all clear
> 
> So, my dad who was not really expected to survive has not only survived but has come through the ordeal almost unscathed. He has the shunt in his brain and he has double vision (corrected with glasses) and some short term memory loss but that's it.
> 
> Me and my brothers have had the option to have scans done to check for aneurysms in our brains as apparently they can be hereditary and we have family history of them on both sides but in all honesty I'd rather not know. I don't want to have to choose between leaving a ticking time bomb in my head and having it fixed before it bursts and risk the surgery causing a stroke.
> 
> And just to make it dog related Spen and I ran into our neighbours earlier and he was put through all his commands by their 2 little girls lol. He's learning to keep his paws on the floor with them but it's soooo hard for him, he loves them soooo much. I'm sure he'd move in with them without a backward glance at me lol.


What brilliant news Sarah, that must be a real weight off of your mind 
Well done Spen you really do seem to be turning into the model dog :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah; what great news about your Dad, wonderful. I absolutely understand why you don't want a scan too.


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> What brilliant news Sarah, that must be a real weight off of your mind
> Well done Spen you really do seem to be turning into the model dog :thumbup1:


Only in public, he's still a die hard thug at home lol.

Oh it is a weight off all our minds, we expected the all clear last year only to be told they hadn't managed to get all the bleeding stopped and needed to go back in. Poor dad's been worried sick that they were going to tell him he needed more surgery.

Dogless, both my brothers feel the same way. I was actually terrified that the MRI scan I had for my epilepsy was going to pick something up coz they were looking for abnormalities


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Not dog related but thought I'd share anyway as it's excellent news. June last year we got rushed back to the UK as my dad had had a burst aneurysm in his brain and had something like a 5% chance of survival. He had brain surgery, seizures, a shunt fitted and a long stay in hospital including physio to teach him to walk again. It was touch and go for a long time. The last year has been full of tests and hospital visits and unpleasantness for him. Then this June we found out he needed more surgery to stop another bleed so back I went in July. Today he went for his follow up appointment and has been given the all clear
> 
> So, my dad who was not really expected to survive has not only survived but has come through the ordeal almost unscathed. He has the shunt in his brain and he has double vision (corrected with glasses) and some short term memory loss but that's it.
> 
> Me and my brothers have had the option to have scans done to check for aneurysms in our brains as apparently they can be hereditary and we have family history of them on both sides but in all honesty I'd rather not know. I don't want to have to choose between leaving a ticking time bomb in my head and having it fixed before it bursts and risk the surgery causing a stroke.
> 
> And just to make it dog related Spen and I ran into our neighbours earlier and he was put through all his commands by their 2 little girls lol. He's learning to keep his paws on the floor with them but it's soooo hard for him, he loves them soooo much. I'm sure he'd move in with them without a backward glance at me lol.


Wow that's fantastic news! So pleased for you and your Dad- relief all round and just goes to show that you should never give up hope 

Well done Spen with his 2 tiny teachers :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

Very good news about your Dad, Sarah. 

Training classes for the boys tonight. Oscar's was really good. We had a bit of a break from the serious stuff and did some shaping with props. Running round a cone, standing inside a hula hoop on the ground and jumping through the hoop. I didn't get to generalise "paws up" onto a different box because the first thing he did was start to rip the box we had been given up! I thought it best to relinquish the box to Oscar's girlfriend to play with instead and concentrate on hoop jumping. He did really well. Standing inside the hoop we barely got because he wasn't for stopping still, especially not after getting clicks for running round the cone! But he was happy and being cute so it was fine. 

Hugo's class is a bit frustrating at the moment, I know it'll get better but today was a little bit Hugo being Mr Perfect Paws and us just waiting around a bit while everyone else mis-behaved.  And working on things that we can do already but the other dogs struggle with. I'm not sure what happened because we were all very much on a par not so very long ago. While we were waiting I taught Hugo to sit in front of me and stick his nose in my crotch like a prpr srs bsns obediance dog. :lol::lol: We did some really good recall from distraction work though. Hugo was spot on. He recalled away mid-chase with another dog several times. I really want to start pushing on a bit to different things with him... will have to see how things at class develop. I may see if we can slot into an agility class instead but then again it wouldn't be on the same night as Oscar and going out there twice in a week... not sure that is possible. 

They are both knackered now. All that thinking hurts spanner brains. :scared:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m - you are a lovely person; very best of luck for tomorrow xx.


I'm not a lovely person, just dont know how to say no.
Feeling quite apprehensive about him coming really, just my girls and the cats I'm worried about.

Sarah- thats fantastic news, you must all be so relieved and your Dad must be made of stern stuff.:thumbsup:

Werehorse- I had a class like that when Moll was younger , it was so boring and we left. I hope it improves for you though.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse, your spanners were on form . I hope Hugo's class improves again for you - but at least your problem is that you're doing too well rather than the opposite :scared:.

k&m - thinking of you today; hope all goes well.


----------



## moonviolet

Thats wonderful news Sarah, I completely understand about the scan and woudn't be going for one either. I'm eligible to go for one of those lifescan things now and my OH, who is a couple of months younger, than me saw the advert on tv the other night and ask if i was going for one, he got a "not blimmin likely" as a reply.

Chazzie glad you got your boy out for a sniff 

Warehorse, Oscars class sounds great fun shame about Hugo's, Clearly he's a doggie genius 

Kat I can understand your trepidation. I hope he adapts well to his new situation, poor boy, but i hope he's not to disruppting for your girls and the cats.

Healing thoughts to all those with bites scratches scrapes bruises and surgery avoiding backs 

We had a lovely walk with Monty as him mum who we hadn't seen for a couple of weeks Tink was delighted to see Monty he seemed pleased to see me :lol: Then class last night class itself was great but i'm going to share what happened after... as the last class we generally send our dogs to their mats while we pack up the chairs, it's not expected, but it's something of a custom. Anyway I called Tink off her mat just to give her break, as i did Daisy jumped on it, now Tink is not a resource guarder, but she loves her mat so how did she deal with this interloper? she play bowed at her as soon as Daisy began to run for a game of chase Tink chased for a few strides then turned and ran back to her mat and laid on it. :lol: :lol: Daisy got distracted and that was that.

I must mention her crowning moment during a stay our trainer sweetly was pulling a fluffy pencil case on a rope past the dogs and couldn't get Tink to even look at it despite me standing a good 5m away. so next pass she let it stop in front of her and waited until Tink looked at it then gave it an almighty tug and she still didn't move..... If it had been a sausage it would have been a different matter :lol: So no doubt next week it will be stuffed with smell treats ( me and my big mouth)

Have a great day all


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Not dog related but thought I'd share anyway as it's excellent news. June last year we got rushed back to the UK as my dad had had a burst aneurysm in his brain and had something like a 5% chance of survival. He had brain surgery, seizures, a shunt fitted and a long stay in hospital including physio to teach him to walk again. It was touch and go for a long time. The last year has been full of tests and hospital visits and unpleasantness for him. Then this June we found out he needed more surgery to stop another bleed so back I went in July. Today he went for his follow up appointment and has been given the all clear
> 
> So, my dad who was not really expected to survive has not only survived but has come through the ordeal almost unscathed. He has the shunt in his brain and he has double vision (corrected with glasses) and some short term memory loss but that's it.
> 
> Me and my brothers have had the option to have scans done to check for aneurysms in our brains as apparently they can be hereditary and we have family history of them on both sides but in all honesty I'd rather not know. I don't want to have to choose between leaving a ticking time bomb in my head and having it fixed before it bursts and risk the surgery causing a stroke.
> 
> And just to make it dog related Spen and I ran into our neighbours earlier and he was put through all his commands by their 2 little girls lol. He's learning to keep his paws on the floor with them but it's soooo hard for him, he loves them soooo much. I'm sure he'd move in with them without a backward glance at me lol.


That's brilliant news Sarah and must be a huge relief for all of you.

Sadly my sister starts 2 months of hell now. She had to go to Kings College Hospital in London last Friday for loads of tests and today she's at Eastbourne Hospital for an excruciatingly painful procedure where they take a piece of bone marrow. Tomorrow she's back there for intensive chemo and then on 29th she has to go back to Kings where they will 'harvest' the stem cells from her bone marrow. She will then be admitted to Kings on 14 November for 2/3 weeks and will virtually be liv9ing in a bubble. Please God all this works and the cancer will be killed off.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy, that is so hard for her and for you. Sending lots of good luck thoughts her way. x


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Twiggy sending healing thoughts and best wishes. I wish i could say soemthing helpful or uplifting but all i can say is your sister is in my thoughts.


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## kat&molly

Twiggy- that sounds really tough. I'll keep you and her in my thoughts.xx


----------



## GingerRogers

That is good news Sarah, it is such a strain when your loved ones are going through something like this, sometimes you don't even realise how much until its all over.

Hope your sisters treatment goes well Twiggy.

My Uncle (slightly different as he is in 70's) has just had a shock diagnosis of spinal and lung cancer, Mum hasn't said so but you can't help but think its pretty terminal. The vetebra in back are collapsing and he has just lost the use of his right arm. This all came on in the last week from simply thinking he had a bad back.

We had a mixed lesson last night, she wasn't quite as well behaved as she has been (thankfully it wasn't the off lead lesson) but then she was sick right at the start of the lesson  we started out with only us and the teeny chi, then the lovely trigger the dalmatian arrived a bit late so only the three of us.

We worked on the watch me command while walking past dogs. I was amazed when she allowed both the others to walk past her then at our turn she walked round and round with out a glance away from me - how the hell do I get that to relate to the real world?

As it was such as small class the trainer asked if we had any specific problems in the home - I was pleased to report that it was only outside that was a problem - spoke too soon .

We also worked on body examinations which again she is pretty good with although the standing up not rolling over is a problem.

Any how back to the sick - I noticed she was about to so I pulled her blanket underneath her, scooped it up and lobbed it at the OH to dispose of in the car. I took her out for a little walk about and she seemed fine so we went back in, the trainer put it down to a bit of food stuck in her through in the excitement, (I thought I saw a suspiciously large lump of cheese in the mess so I blamed it on the trainer ) but the OH had taken for a run on the beach so we wondered if he had picked something up, when we got home I had a good look at it and there was only cheese, liver cake and little tiny black holly leaves, or so it looked, actually they were chewed up bits of plastic.

We racked our brains to think what this could be, apart from an hour or so before he got home she had been upstairs in the office with me, then she was either with him or me for the rest of the afternoon, she normally only chews when she is really, really bored so we didn't think it was anything in the car on the trip to training and we should have noticed anyway.

This morning OH said she was a little sick again, just a few black bits and yellow bile so she hasn't blocked anything as her tea has obviously gone in and been digested. 

We finally figured out (we think) its the plastic tray from her crate, the tray has been cracked in the past and there is a long flappy bit with suspicious chew marks on the end - BUT she was not shut in it yesterday, unless she went for a destruction spree in the hour she was alone downstairs before lunch yesterday. The day before she had a couple of hours in it and then only at night. I always leave her something to play/chew

This morning before I took her put she was a bit subdued but not so much that she didn't find a wine cork to munch on as well. We got one of those filled boiled bones but she started making crunching noises with it I didn't think they were meant to gnaw them so i took it off her last week - have given it back to her as the pet shop said it was fine  and she obviously has a chewing fetish at the mo. She is now alternating between gnawing and lying flat on her side suckling it like a baby.

Our walk this morning was no better, lots of car barking (she is so intermittent with it one minute shes fine the next they are all evil) and the one dog we met whose owner said it was 'very friendly' so I let her meet and she pounced on it, then barked ferociously. Making me look like a liar, again !! To be fair they both looked pretty nervous and he pulled back when she pounced and hurried off so perhaps they gave off funny signals (and she was over the top, I should have been more alert to it, but she hasn't done that for so long) it makes you wonder if you can trust her at all.


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- I love the way Tink got her mat back- Jay does that to Moll and she falls for it every time.

Ginge- Hope Ginge is ok. 
I think if she were my dog I'd be inclined to put her on some calmatives and take her in the car for quieter walks- gradually increasing the distractions, you both sound very stressed. 
Sorry to hear about your uncle.x


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- I love the way Tink got her mat back- Jay does that to Moll and she falls for it every time.
> 
> Ginge- Hope Ginge is ok.
> *I think if she were my dog I'd be inclined to put her on some calmatives and take her in the car for quieter walks- gradually increasing the distractions, you both sound very stressed. *
> Sorry to hear about your uncle.x


Thank you kat&molly, I think Ginge will be fine, obviously keeping my eye on her, and just need to work out what to do with the crate tray and if she can even be left in it at night, cant really take it away as she could get tangled in the bars underneath it if she messes her bedding up.

I think you are right about our stress levels, (seen as just reading your post set me off ) driving to quieter walks isn't always possible but I should do it when I can. OH said he had a lovely time on the beach yesterday and has insisted we are both going there this evening.

I have just been hoping that given time and work she would calm down. 
I have been thinking about it for a while, the nupafeed stuff dogless uses appeals to me as it works to balance out the body rather than as an additive that sedates or whatever, but I know different things work for different dogs.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh forgot and the thought just cheered me up - Trigger the dalmatians owner when asked if there were any specific problems that needed attention that training hadn't yet helped with, said quite seriously 'well he is still very strong'


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh Twiggy, hope all goes well for your sister. And sorry to hear about your uncle Ginger.

Got hubby to drop me and Spen off on camp (coz I'm lazy) so I could go to the cash machine. Figured I'd take Spencer with me so we could practise loose leash walking on the way home. Spen waited nicely outside the bank, just sat there watching me, and then we had a reasonably pleasant walk home. Couple of about turns when he pulled but overall he did well. I can feel him on the leash but he's not pulling as such, there's just enough tension that you can feel it.

Come home, sit down at my computer to reply to this thread and I hear strange rustling noises. Get up to see what they are and what do I find? Kevin has only returned, taken over Spencers body, opened the kitchen door (which I am 110% positive was shut!) and helped himself to the bag of kibble that's on the floor in there  Wouldn't mind but it's not even our kibble, it's what someone very kindly gave us when we were evacuated and hubby's supposed to have taken it back to them.


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you kat&molly, I think Ginge will be fine, obviously keeping my eye on her, and just need to work out what to do with the crate tray and if she can even be left in it at night, cant really take it away as she could get tangled in the bars underneath it if she messes her bedding up.


I don't have a crate tray in mine. Neither Rupert or Spencer would set foot in the crate with it in there  If the crate's on the ground or other hard surface I don't think there's much chance of them getting caught in the bars. I suppose it could happen but it's not something I'm worried about. Spen doesn't even have bedding in his crate as he gets most upset if I put any in.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> I don't have a crate tray in mine. Neither Rupert or Spencer would set foot in the crate with it in there  If the crate's on the ground or other hard surface I don't think there's much chance of them getting caught in the bars. I suppose it could happen but it's not something I'm worried about. Spen doesn't even have bedding in his crate as he gets most upset if I put any in.


Oh ok thanks for that, solves one problem, lets just hope she doesn't develop the ability to chew the metal bars, judging by the way shes was going at the bone she might be able to.

Does spen get funny criss cross fur then if he doesn't like a bed.  They are strange creatures aren't they


----------



## Werehorse

Mulling over training classes... one solution would be to move Hugo into Oscar's class... but that would means handing over the handling of one of them to OH...  OH is actually really good and it would do him and them good for him to be more involved in training - but I'd control freak out a bit! Plus how would I choose, I love training them both for different reasons! Hugo is wonderfully responsive and precise and a child genius, but Oscar is just so much fun!

I wonder, if we did that, if they'd cope if we swapped who handled who every few weeks or whether Hugo would have a collie-brain melt down. I'm pretty sure Oscar doesn't care as long as *someone* is clicking and treating... Mind you Hugo responds quite well to OH out and about so it might be ok.

Hmmm, something to mull over. Am off for lunch date with OH now. :lol: (it's a good job it's a date with him because I'm not changing out of my waterproofs and the look I'm sporting really wouldn't impress anybody else). Will discuss whether he would like to do that because it might be better all around, even if my inner control freak has to take Valium.


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Oh ok thanks for that, solves one problem, lets just hope she doesn't develop the ability to chew the metal bars, judging by the way shes was going at the bone she might be able to.
> 
> Does spen get funny criss cross fur then if he doesn't like a bed.  They are strange creatures aren't they


They certainly are. He does have a mat in there that he tolerates but it doesn't cover the whole bottom of the crate. And he has a tendency to lie like this so yeah, criss crosses on his fur lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

Silly Spen does he not like soft things generally like sofas and beds?

Werehorse sounds like the training swap might be worth a try, you wont be able to be control freaky you will be too busy concentrating on whichever dog you have that week 

Is that a collie brain thing, only working for one person, I guess so, OH's boss always said the old sheep dog wouldn't work for anyone else but he ended up working better for OH, and even worked for me one time (that was a treat  wonderful feeling, although TBF he pretty much knew exactly what was expected of him )

OH took him down to a local 'dog' bloke once who had decided to take up breeding manx longton sheep (sp?) (I say dog bloke meaning he thought he knew everything there was to know) his field was right on the sea front road down to the harbour so there were a lot of people watching as Stan rounded the sheep up, then 'dog' bloke wanted a go - Stan just looked at him and sat down and we went home feeling smug


----------



## kat&molly

Milo is here, he's very timid.
I've put him in one of my large crates for the minute - he is crate trained and seemed happy enough to go in. Few things to do then I'll try and take them all for a good walk, if he'll come out of the crate.


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Silly Spen does he not like soft things generally like sofas and beds?


He doesn't seem to. I woke one night to find him curled up between hubby and me at the bottom of the bed and he'll get into bed with me for a short time after hubbys gone to work or if hubbys on overnight duty but he always goes back to the floor or his hard bed. I feel dead mean not giving him any bedding in his crate but he seems to get quite stressed about it if I do and absolutely won't settle until it's out of his way, either out of the crate entirely or up one end and him at the other.


----------



## kat&molly

Cant get near the crate without him growling and snapping. Think I've been lied to.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Cant get near the crate without him growling and snapping. Think I've been lied to.


Oh dear K&M  Do you think he's guarding the crate or do you think it's something else?


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh dear K&M  Do you think he's guarding the crate or do you think it's something else?


The crate I think.


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Cant get near the crate without him growling and snapping. Think I've been lied to.


Crikey, that doesn't sound good, I was just going to post to say how lovely he looks, I will keep that comment back for now. hope you can get somewhere with him.

I hope they haven't lied, that is such a low thing to do to someone who is kind enough to take him in, if you know all the facts you can be fully armed with solutions but not if you have been duped


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## moonviolet

Oh Kat, he's a beautiful boy. Poor thing is probably a bit bewildered by it all 

GR i'd be a bit gentle with how much you are exposing Ginge to at once and be careful not to overwhelm or flood her it really can do more harm than good. 

Werehorse :yesnod: i think i may be time to quieten your inner control freak, I do appreciate how hard it is, this way you won't be in a position to watch and nag  like this awful woman i know does :blush: 

Bit of a mixed walk this morning we had the high on not only a wonderful polite offlead greeting and brief play ( chase) with a golden. She was completely unphased by a lead straining staffie . He looked enthusiastic but friendly to me but his owner seemed very stressed so i gave them as much space as the path allowed ( if he need more space he could go fight with the brambles I've done my fair share :lol

Now for the downside 2 dogs come charging down the hill and turn the 90degree turn into the private land, the owner still at the top of the hill. I slipped Tink onlead as soon as i saw them as it was a young white GSD and an aussie shepherd. I tried body blocking but they were determined Tink's tail tucked the GSD giving her face a very thorough sniffing while the aussie was trying to force her tail up. by the time the owner arrives and can see im trying to block his dogs he manages to call the gsd back but the aussie is fixated on lifting tinks tail even tried nipping her back leg, as soon as the gsd went encourage Tink forward and managed to jump into between. At this point the owner actually managed gain control. I did manage to calmly but assertively blurt out something about intimidating behaviour and poor recall :blush: I should menetion it's not the first time these dogs have charged over and behaved this way.

Then marched off bigging up Tink tell her how brave she was which inspire a big shake and head to a lurking spot for a little Ttouch session. 5mins later we saw a lady we only see periodically when she's visiting her mum. we waved to each toher Tink's tail began a lovely happy wag and we finished the walk togehter like nothign bad had happened.


----------



## Twiggy

Thanks everyone. I've just had an email from my sister to say the procedure wasn't as painful this time and she's now off instructing at a local training club....!!


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh dear K&M  Do you think he's guarding the crate or do you think it's something else?


thats what i was thinking especially as you say he's quite timid. it might be the only familiar safe thing and he doens't want to lose it too 

If your girls are out the way, could you drop treats jsut outside his crate as you pass?


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh Kat, he's a beautiful boy. Poor thing is probably a bit bewildered by it all
> 
> GR i'd be a bit gentle with how much you are exposing Ginge to at once and be careful not to overwhelm or flood her it really can do more harm than good.
> 
> Werehorse :yesnod: i think i may be time to quieten your inner control freak, I do appreciate how hard it is, this way you won't be in a position to watch and nag  like this awful woman i know does :blush:
> 
> Bit of a mixed walk this morning we had the high on not only a wonderful polite offlead greeting and brief play ( chase) with a golden. She was completely unphased by a lead straining staffie . He looked enthusiastic but friendly to me but his owner seemed very stressed so i gave them as much space as the path allowed ( if he need more space he could go fight with the brambles I've done my fair share :lol
> 
> Now for the downside 2 dogs come charging down the hill and turn the 90degree turn into the private land, the owner still at the top of the hill. I slipped Tink onlead as soon as i saw them as it was a young white GSD and an aussie shepherd. I tried body blocking but they were determined Tink's tail tucked the GSD giving her face a very thorough sniffing while the aussie was trying to force her tail up. by the time the owner arrives and can see im trying to block his dogs he manages to call the gsd back but the aussie is fixated on lifting tinks tail even tried nipping her back leg, as soon as the gsd went encourage Tink forward and managed to jump into between. At this point the owner actually managed gain control. I did manage to calmly but assertively blurt out something about intimidating behaviour and poor recall :blush: I should menetion it's not the first time these dogs have charged over and behaved this way.
> 
> Then marched off bigging up Tink tell her how brave she was which inspire a big shake and head to a lurking spot for a little Ttouch session. 5mins later we saw a lady we only see periodically when she's visiting her mum. we waved to each toher Tink's tail began a lovely happy wag and we finished the walk togehter like nothign bad had happened.


If it ever happens again I'd point out to the irresponsible idiot that under the Dangerous Dogs Act that his dogs don't actually have to bite to be prosecuted.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> thats what i was thinking especially as you say he's quite timid. it might be the only familiar safe thing and he doens't want to lose it too
> 
> If your girls are out the way, could you drop treats jsut outside his crate as you pass?


No , I tried that.The door is shut!!


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GR i'd be a bit gentle with how much you are exposing Ginge to at once and be careful not to overwhelm or flood her it really can do more harm than good.


Oh, I think we have realised that , a bit too late unfortunately , thing is we took her on thinking she was well adjusted good with people, dogs, children etc and my OH knew her on a day to day basis, its only now we have people saying oh yeah shes always done this and that, if we had known these things before hand we would have handled the first couple of weeks vastly differently . Now we are having to try to find a solution to the issues we have no doubt partly created/enforced, and I end up feeling terrible. I do try and keep the exposure to a minimum but without a car every day some transit between quiet spots through stressful bits its unavoidable.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> No , I tried that.The door is shut!!


Can you toss treats in there from a distance? Thinking then you could gradually move closer and at least get the door open.

I'm so sorry you've found such a problem so early on  Hopefully it's just a bit of insecurity with him but even if it is that's not much use right now is it?


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Can you toss treats in there from a distance? Thinking then you could gradually move closer and at least get the door open.
> 
> I'm so sorry you've found such a problem so early on  Hopefully it's just a bit of insecurity with him but even if it is that's not much use right now is it?


Good idea, I'll try that thanks- Big Evie said to cover his crate but wont that make him guard more?


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Good idea, I'll try that thanks- Big Evie said to cover his crate but wont that make him guard more?


I suppose it depends whether he's actually guarding his crate or whether he just needs a bit of time to calm down and realise he's no reason to be afraid. I've never had a dog guard locations, just the usual food and high value possessions so not sure whether covering the crate would help if he's guarding the crate.


----------



## kat&molly

OK. Got close enough throwing treats and now I've managed to open the door,I've put some treats outside so hopefully he'll come get them.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> OK. Got close enough throwing treats and now I've managed to open the door,I've put some treats outside so hopefully he'll come get them.


That's a great start. I hope it's all just a panic reaction to being all at sea. I feel so sorry for both of you and him.


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> OK. Got close enough throwing treats and now I've managed to open the door,I've put some treats outside so hopefully he'll come get them.


Thats something, I had these visions of him being stuck in the crate all night cos he wouldn't let you near. At least he can decide for himself whats safe now. Hopefully he will come round and it is just a reaction to being in a different house, and with lots of other dogs as well, did he know you/them before hand, sorry if you have already said.

Daft question but does he speak english or french, I presume you speak both, only ask as OH best mate moved to Brittany and the got a pup, they didn't really speak much french to begin with and it was tricky to say the least but then Odie was a little on the dappy side anyway bless him.

Hope he settles soon.


----------



## Dogless

GR - sorry to hear about your Uncle and the stressful time you're having with Ginge. As everyone else says, I'd do quiet walks and expose Ginge to things slowly and calmly.



GingerRogers said:


> I think you are right about our stress levels, (seen as just reading your post set me off ) driving to quieter walks isn't always possible but I should do it when I can. OH said he had a lovely time on the beach yesterday and has insisted we are both going there this evening.
> 
> I have just been hoping that given time and work she would calm down.
> I have been thinking about it for a while, *the nupafeed stuff dogless uses appeals to me as it works to balance out the body rather than as an additive that sedates or whatever*, but I know different things work for different dogs.


That is while it appealed to me. It certainly doesn't sedate Kilo in any way but he is noticeably more able to focus in a busier or more stressful environment with it. I like science and fact and am still open to the possibility that it's actually a placebo effect on me, rubbish owner; but came to the conclusion that even if that is what it is...it is working for us!



Twiggy said:


> Thanks everyone. I've just had an email from my sister to say the procedure wasn't as painful this time and she's now off instructing at a local training club....!!


That is good news; sending good thoughts your sister's way for the coming weeks xx.


----------



## Dogless

We had a good walk this morning; had a walk refusal until the Equafleece came out though :lol:. Did lots of practise for school tonight (hubby will drive me, he has a few days off and will do some shopping whilst we are at school) with offlead on the sports pitches and fields - even when I stopped the 'work' and let him sniff and potter offlead he kept offering heelwork and stuck near to me. Very eager to work again...hope he is tonight too and we haven't used today's 'best boy' behaviour quota :scared:.


mv - sounds as if Tink did very well indeed this morning to shake off her experience with the two dogs . Rubbish to need to have to though.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> That's a great start. I hope it's all just a panic reaction to being all at sea. I feel so sorry for both of you and him.


If I took it too fast he flew at me. Now gone to the back of his crate- doesn't look like moving.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> If I took it too fast he flew at me. Now gone to the back of his crate- doesn't look like moving.


Oh k&m . So sorry that you're having such a hard time. No idea what to suggest bar phoning Big Evie .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Oh k&m . So sorry that you're having such a hard time. No idea what to suggest bar phoning Big Evie .


I rung her she's in a class but coming tomorrow hopefully.. If I could just get him out this crate.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I rung her she's in a class but coming tomorrow hopefully.. If I could just get him out this crate.


Now the doors open i'd be tempted to just leave him. Now this is going to sound odd but bare with me.... go about your day. Interact with your girls in a happy voice let him soak up the atmosphere of this being a safe positive place where dogs are treated nicely. Dont' look at him don't talk to him let him be a little shadow, taking it all in. He's likely scared and acting on instinct and right now thats telling him to be in a small safe place. ( ever hide under your bed, in the wardrobe or behind hte sofa as a kid?)

Its' hard we want to make it better, but right now better is jsut letting him come out in his own time.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Now the doors open i'd be tempted to just leave him. Now this is going to sound odd but bare with me.... go about your day. Interact with your girls in a happy voice let him soak up the atmosphere of this being a safe positive place where dogs are treated nicely. Dont' look at him don't talk to him let him be a little shadow, taking it all in. He's likely scared and acting on instinct and right nwo thats telling him to be in a small safe place.
> 
> Its' hard we want to make it better, but right now better is jsut letting him come out in his own time.


Was going to say the same thing. The crate door's open, he can come out if he wants, just leaving him to it as you go about your normal day is probably going to be your best bet.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks girls you're a great help, 
I went for a pee, mid pee I heard him drink water so came out and shut the crate door quickly.
He still wouldn't let me approach , he flew at me but seemed to stop short of biting me- but was right by my arm and face.
I've managed to get a slip lead on him and now I can touch him.
Think I'll take them all for a walk but I'm not really sure about after that.
Its not a good idea to let him have the crate at all now is it.


----------



## kat&molly

Can you tell I'm stressed- I dont think you all needed the mid pee information.:lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

I'm with moonviolet and sarah, carry on as normally as possible and let him come in and out as he feels best for now. Most dogs are nosy or greedy and something will happen that will make him overcome his nerves. There may come a time when you might have to take other steps if things don't change of course.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Thanks girls you're a great help,
> I went for a pee, mid pee I heard him drink water so came out and shut the crate door quickly.
> He still wouldn't let me approach , he flew at me but seemed to stop short of biting me- but was right by my arm and face.
> I've managed to get a slip lead on him and now I can touch him.
> Think I'll take them all for a walk but I'm not really sure about after that.
> Its not a good idea to let him have the crate at all now is it.


I'm not sure. I always allowed Rupert to go to his safe spot under the bed when he wanted. He was never aggressive towards us though, he just went into meltdown and simply became a quivering dog shaped heap on the floor. I found allowing him to go to his safe spot and simply leaving him alone helped him relax much more quickly than keeping him from it. It sounds to me like this little guy is pretty scared and confused to be honest 

I suppose looking on the bright side it's good that he stopped before biting you. Let's hope it stays that way. I don't suppose you know how his owners reacted to this behaviour do you? I wonder whether they'd be more truthful if you gave them a call now you actually have him.


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## moonviolet

My gut feeling is let him have the crate, but it is respected that when he is in there it's his safe space and he's left alone. I personally think that removing it is taking the only familiar safe thing he knows and will leave him even more unsure. Kind of like taking his security blanket. as he becomes comfortable in yoru home , with your girls his reliance on it will lessen... 

The nearest example i have is when i began taking TInk to my parents i would take her crate in particularly because their lab who was also young was a boisterous player and could be took much for her. It gave her a place to go when she had had enough and wanted to chill. After a while she stopped using it and now I dont bother taking it in with me. think of it as a sanctuary when he feels he can't handle things


----------



## Werehorse

K&M I would say the same an mv and Sarah as well. Leave him in there - happy times with other dogs- nothing too hyper just lots of quiet nice things for dogs happening, any time you walk past the crate throw a nice treat in. I would cover the crate as well if you can so he feels extra super safe and hopefully begins to calm down. I wouldn't try and force him out even to toilet, you might have to take the hit of an indoor toilet while you aren't there  if you can't leave a door open to a safe outdoor space?

I've heard of rescue dogs hiding under beds and sofas for a few days - the fact that he jumps straight to aggression in a new environment is worrying but slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.

Poor little lad - he's only young too isn't he? What the heck have they done to him?  You're a saint for taking him on - I really hope you can do something with him.

I spoke to OH and he is keen to join in the training and sees no reason why we can't swap dogs every few weeks to get them both responding to us both - Hugo will just have to engage his spaniel side and cope with it. :lol: Going to call trainer now before I change my mind!


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## kat&molly

Ok thanks both. He is scared I can see that- I dont mind letting him keep the crate but he hasn't met the cats yet and it would mean I've got to open and close the doors - making it worse.
Could try one room and keep the cats out.

I could call his owners later see what they say.

He's lay at my feet now and accepting fuss ok, with the slip lead on, maybe some sort of line would help for a few days.

Really grateful for the help- think I'll walk them all now.


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## kat&molly

Werehorse said:


> K&M I would say the same an mv and Sarah as well. Leave him in there - happy times with other dogs- nothing too hyper just lots of quiet nice things for dogs happening, any time you walk past the crate throw a nice treat in. I would cover the crate as well if you can so he feels extra super safe and hopefully begins to calm down. I wouldn't try and force him out even to toilet, you might have to take the hit of an indoor toilet while you aren't there  if you can't leave a door open to a safe outdoor space?
> 
> I've heard of rescue dogs hiding under beds and sofas for a few days - the fact that he jumps straight to aggression in a new environment is worrying but slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.
> 
> Poor little lad - he's only young too isn't he? What the heck have they done to him?  You're a saint for taking him on - I really hope you can do something with him.
> 
> I spoke to OH and he is keen to join in the training and sees no reason why we can't swap dogs every few weeks to get them both responding to us both - Hugo will just have to engage his spaniel side and cope with it. :lol: Going to call trainer now before I change my mind!


Thanks I am just worried about the cats- the buggers are no where to be seen to even gauge his reaction.

Hes 10 months old- poor lad. I know they bought him from 'dodgy' people- met them in a car park 
I can cope with all the growling and snarling he throws at me but OH isn't going to be happy when he gets home if he sees it. :lol: I'm sure it'll be fine.:eek6:


----------



## Werehorse

Sorry that was a bit of a cross post from me. But I still agree with mv and Sarah.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Thanks everyone. I've just had an email from my sister to say the procedure wasn't as painful this time and she's now off instructing at a local training club....!!


That's good news, good luck to her and here's hoping the treatment does the trick


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> If I took it too fast he flew at me. Now gone to the back of his crate- doesn't look like moving.


Poor wee pet, must be so scared, confused and miserable 
It's maybe gonna take him longer than expected to fit in.... fingers crossed he settles for you 
(btw he is gorgeous!)


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> We had a good walk this morning; had a walk refusal until the Equafleece came out though :lol:. Did lots of practise for school tonight (hubby will drive me, he has a few days off and will do some shopping whilst we are at school) with offlead on the sports pitches and fields - even when I stopped the 'work' and let him sniff and potter offlead he kept offering heelwork and stuck near to me. Very eager to work again...hope he is tonight too and we haven't used today's 'best boy' behaviour quota :scared:.
> 
> mv - sounds as if Tink did very well indeed this morning to shake off her experience with the two dogs . Rubbish to need to have to though.


Hubby is giving you a lift AND doing the shopping ... heck you're onto a winner there :lol:
Sounds like Kilo really enjoys his training sessions! Good lad


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Now the doors open i'd be tempted to just leave him. Now this is going to sound odd but bare with me.... go about your day. Interact with your girls in a happy voice let him soak up the atmosphere of this being a safe positive place where dogs are treated nicely. Dont' look at him don't talk to him let him be a little shadow, taking it all in. He's likely scared and acting on instinct and right now thats telling him to be in a small safe place. ( ever hide under your bed, in the wardrobe or behind hte sofa as a kid?)
> 
> Its' hard we want to make it better, but right now better is jsut letting him come out in his own time.


Yep that's probably what I would do.
I fostered a lurcher for a rescue centre for a few days, years ago, and he was extremely timid (though no aggression). I ignored him and by the next day, every now and again he would be behind me sneaking a crafty sniff just to check me out, poor fella


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Can you tell I'm stressed- I dont think you all needed the mid pee information.:lol:


lmao I woulnt worry...pee 'happens' to the best of us :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Thanks I am just worried about the cats- the buggers are no where to be seen to even gauge his reaction.
> 
> Hes 10 months old- poor lad. I know they bought him from 'dodgy' people- met them in a car park
> I can cope with all the growling and snarling he throws at me but OH isn't going to be happy when he gets home if he sees it. :lol: I'm sure it'll be fine.:eek6:


Nothing to add to what the others have said except you haven't got a pen handy have you? A pen around his crate would at least solve the cat problem.


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## kat&molly

The walk wasn't one of my best ideas- we weren't out long he was so anxious but he hasn't had a wee yet.

I've covered his crate and he doesn't want to go back in there  hes under the little gap here by the pooter table.

I've put a 5 metre long line on him, and I'll leave it on I think. Hope he doesn't strangle himself in the night.

Thanks for being there this afternoon- it helped knowing others were at the other end.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Nothing to add to what the others have said except you haven't got a pen handy have you? A pen around his crate would at least solve the cat problem.


No sadly I haven't- but I do feel better knowing he's got the line on.

Great news on your sister today- tough cookie.


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## Dogless

We had a good walk with a bit of bad thrown in this evening. Went to the offlead fields - came across a terrier with owners just as we left the house standing in our path and eyeballing hard whilst the owners chatted - so I took pup round over the grass the long way; they looked at me like I was bonkers so I just said "He doesn't do too well when he's stared at" in a friendly voice. Why I don't know . 

Sarah, knowing this place you can guess what comes next .

The couple with the terrier then followed us to the fields and came onto them behind us. I kept Kilo on the lead as he was pretty interested and played tug and kept him occupied - he has never gone looking for trouble but I didn't want to chance it letting him off. When we got into the top field they followed us in, but their dog was offlead and stood and stared across the field. So Kilo stood and stared back but then lay down (good boy). The terrier then ran up to us even though he was being called and ignoring his owners - he dodged round me but Kilo stood up and they greeted nicely. Then the terrier decided he didn't like Kilo and some handbags started; I was taking Kilo away but the terrier (being a terrier!) kept on and so did Kilo in reply until he was caught by his owner who decided that she would come and get him after all as it sounded as if he might be eaten :scared:. She said sorry but the man glared unfortunately and a man who had been walking his dog but stopped at the fence to watch as soon as he heard the couple calling their dog shook his head at me - whether in support or in disgust I don't know .

The good - passed a fair few dogs nicely on the way back; including the mini schnauzer that always goes mad :thumbsup:.


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## GingerRogers

Awe I sure hope the man was shaking his head at them not you .

As I read that I was almost there but as the other owner.

I had a lovely relaxed walk with the OH tonight. As I let him take the responsibility . We went down to the beach, he had suggested getting a tennis ball for her, she actually retrieved it a few times  then got bored  and found the cliffs much more interesting. There is a bit where the cliffs (they aren't very high anyway, they are more like eroded fields really) vanish so she legged over into the fields to chase the birds. OH started to look a bit frustrated, tee hee, sorry that's so mean when I get so stressed but it was just kind of good to see him suffer too, he makes out I am such a spoil sport and so hard on her, so obsessed etc etc. Anyway she came back, then there was a huuuge patch of seagulls ahead so he decided it was prudent to put her back on the lead, we turned back shortly after. Another couple with a dog had been following us up the beach, way back but had now turned round, OH wondered if she would go after them, they were miles away, I said I didn't know and it was his call and handed him the lead.

She went off like a bullet running along the base of the cliffs towards this couple  we called her but there was no way she was coming back even if she could hear us as the wind was in the wrong direction. She must have gone I don't know at least 500m if not more it was a long way almost couldn't spot her, when she turned back  she was nearly at them, she could have had them. OH apologised to me and I told him how much more relaxing it was walking with him as I could put all the responsibility on his shoulders 

Hope things are settling in the K&M household??


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Awe I sure hope the man was shaking his head at them not you .
> 
> As I read that I was almost there but as the other owner.
> 
> I had a lovely relaxed walk with the OH tonight. As I let him take the responsibility . We went down to the beach, he had suggested getting a tennis ball for her, she actually retrieved it a few times  then got bored  and found the cliffs much more interesting. There is a bit where the cliffs (they aren't very high anyway, they are more like eroded fields really) vanish so she legged over into the fields to chase the birds. OH started to look a bit frustrated, tee hee, sorry that's so mean when I get so stressed but it was just kind of good to see him suffer too, he makes out I am such a spoil sport and so hard on her, so obsessed etc etc. Anyway she came back, then there was a huuuge patch of seagulls ahead so he decided it was prudent to put her back on the lead, we turned back shortly after. Another couple with a dog had been following us up the beach, way back but had now turned round, OH wondered if she would go after them, they were miles away, I said I didn't know and it was his call and handed him the lead.
> 
> She went off like a bullet running along the base of the cliffs towards this couple  we called her but there was no way she was coming back even if she could hear us as the wind was in the wrong direction. She must have gone I don't know at least 500m if not more it was a long way almost couldn't spot her, when she turned back  she was nearly at them, she could have had them. OH apologised to me and I told him how much more relaxing it was walking with him as I could put all the responsibility on his shoulders
> 
> Hope things are settling in the K&M household??


The key difference being she didn't reach the other dog; decide she didn't like them and tell them to only have them reply in kind . She did well to turn and come back .


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> The key difference being she didn't reach the other dog; decide she didn't like them and tell them to only have them reply in kind . She did well to turn and come back .


Well yes, I don't think she ever would do that off lead, she isn't much good at knowing when dogs are too nervous to play rough but she seems to know when she needs to back down. I think growing up with the bigger dogs (she was playing with the collies, one of whom was only her age now, from 5 weeks ) she learnt to submit when needed. But I still feel thats exactly why we need to work on her recall. They did emphasise that in class yesterday, so I looked at HIM pointedly. I know its my responsibility too but I don't see how I can work on it if he lets her run about willy nilly.

TBH I think the turning back was a fluke I am pretty sure she couldn't hear us it was very windy, I could barely hear myself


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## kat&molly

Dogless- hope the man shook his head at the other owners- sounds like he did.

Ginge- pleased you had a better walk- at least you got your OH to listen.

Milo is calmer- still very on edge obviously. Had to tell OH about the crate incident because he needs to know to be careful, he was really understanding - which shocked me but then he wasn't here to see it.:lol:

He has seen one of the cats and behaved aggressively- it may have been fear but I'm not sure. He hasn't seen one before. Normally when foster dogs have been here I've been able to tell from the reaction straight away.

Thanks for all the help today.


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## CaliDog

I haven't really looked on this thread much don't really know why its a great thread!!!  ........... anywayssss............

I am trying to get Cali to walk alongside me on the lead she isn't doing to bad she does pull every now and again. 

We are also trying to build up i really strong "leave" she is getting better but when she has her frisbee and we tell her to leave, she leaves it and then picks it back up as i am and runs with it the tinker!

Last thing.... she plays with her doggy pal tax who is terrible for chasing cats and now Cali is starting to copy she eyes them up and goes to chase them how can i stop her.... i do want a cat in the future so this would be a nightmare....


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## L/C

Twiggy - I'm glad your sister came through it well.

K&M - sounds like,e the poor boy is very stressed and scared. I hope he settles down soon and well done you for taking him on.

Ginge - take you victories where you can, fluke or not!

Dogless - stupid people. I'm sure that man was being fully supportive.

Just found out my 14 month old niece has been admitted to hospital this afternoon. Waiting by the phone for news so not much going on at chez pointy.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- hope the man shook his head at the other owners- sounds like he did.
> 
> Ginge- pleased you had a better walk- at least you got your OH to listen.
> 
> Milo is calmer- still very on edge obviously. Had to tell OH about the crate incident because he needs to know to be careful, he was really understanding - which shocked me but then he wasn't here to see it.:lol:
> 
> He has seen one of the cats and behaved aggressively- it may have been fear but I'm not sure. He hasn't seen one before. Normally when foster dogs have been here I've been able to tell from the reaction straight away.
> 
> Thanks for all the help today.


I wish I could send my pen over to you tonight. I borrowed my sister's and then purchased a taller one when Tremor was a puppy as I just couldn't trust her unsupervised in case she knocked 15 yr old Fidget over.
They are very useful and really came in handy when we were varnishing all the doors recently to protect them from the dog's hairs.

I do hope you don't have issues with Milo and the cats and also that he settles down in a few days.


----------



## Twiggy

CaliDog said:


> I haven't really looked on this thread much don't really know why its a great thread!!!  ........... anywayssss............
> 
> I am trying to get Cali to walk alongside me on the lead she isn't doing to bad she does pull every now and again.
> 
> We are also trying to build up i really strong "leave" she is getting better but when she has her frisbee and we tell her to leave, she leaves it and then picks it back up as i am and runs with it the tinker!
> 
> Last thing.... she plays with her doggy pal tax who is terrible for chasing cats and now Cali is starting to copy she eyes them up and goes to chase them how can i stop her.... i do want a cat in the future so this would be a nightmare....


Try using two frisbees and when she leaves one throw the other.

Cali will copy her doggy pal so personally I wouldn't let her play with him if there are cats around.


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## moonviolet

L/C I do hope your niece is ok . 

K&M hope Milo settles tonight


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## chazzie10

L/C said:


> Twiggy - I'm glad your sister came through it well.
> 
> K&M - sounds like,e the poor boy is very stressed and scared. I hope he settles down soon and well done you for taking him on.
> 
> Ginge - take you victories where you can, fluke or not!
> 
> Dogless - stupid people. I'm sure that man was being fully supportive.
> 
> Just found out my 14 month old niece has been admitted to hospital this afternoon. Waiting by the phone for news so not much going on at chez pointy.


Hope your wee niece will be ok and feeling better soon


----------



## CaliDog

Twiggy said:


> Try using two frisbees and when she leaves one throw the other.
> 
> Cali will copy her doggy pal so personally I wouldn't let her play with him if there are cats around.


i will try that one she has two frisbees too!


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## diefenbaker

Impulse control. We have field number one and field number two. Field number two is further away. Working in field number two on kicking the football and telling him to "leave it". Then kicking again for him to chase. He's quite good at that now. Coming back through field number one there is a squirrel in the middle of the field. Quite what this pesky varmint is doing in the middle of the field when he should be up a tree is anyone's guess. I get in a "leave it" and he......... leaves it. He doesn't ignore it but he doesn't chase it either. It could be a one-off but he got a handful of treats anyway.


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## Sarah1983

Oooh, not good Dogless. There really are some stupid people around. I'm sure the bloke was shaking his head at the other owners stupidity. Bound to be your fault according to the other owners though, you've got the big dog 

Our nemesis over there was a beautiful Samoyed. Dog wasn't at all aggressive but whenever it saw us it would make a bee line for Rupert. And Rupert _hated_ it.


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## Guest

K & M Hopefully he will settle, when I used to work at kennels we has a mastiff type that seemed really aggressive whenever you went near her. She had never been in kennels before and was very stressed out. Over the next few visits however she started to accept bits of sausage from me and I could even go in and change her water without her grumbling in the end.

L/C Hope your niece is okay. x

I bought a leather lead today in the charity shop for two pounds, bit worn but it had a leather handle and about half a metre of leather lead, then a small bit of chain at the end where it connects to the hook/trigger. 
I took the tantrum teen on it today and although he kicked off, due to there being a honking car, some high pitched old woman holding a yippy daschund and a offlead staffie charging up ahead I kind off predicted it happening. Zand growled, jumped at me, then promptly sank his teeth onto the chain part. He was so shocked, and I just folded my arms/turned away, he just went on the rest of the walk fine! :thumbsup:

Also bought a basket muzzle, and have been smearing it with PntButter. He will pop his nose in for a second to lick it, then dive back out if you so much as move a finger, so it may be a very slow process. 
The muzzle will be good for my arms and nerves and if he wants to go no any lurcher/greyhound charity walks/funders he has to be muzzled, as a rule.


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> K & M Hopefully he will settle, when I used to work at kennels we has a mastiff type that seemed really aggressive whenever you went near her. She had never been in kennels before and was very stressed out. Over the next few visits however she started to accept bits of sausage from me and I could even go in and change her water without her grumbling in the end.
> 
> L/C Hope your niece is okay. x
> 
> I bought a leather lead today in the charity shop for two pounds, bit worn but it had a leather handle and about half a metre of leather lead, then a small bit of chain at the end where it connects to the hook/trigger.
> I took the tantrum teen on it today and although he kicked off, due to there being a honking car, some high pitched old woman holding a yippy daschund and a offlead staffie charging up ahead I kind off predicted it happening. Zand growled, jumped at me, then promptly sank his teeth onto the chain part. He was so shocked, and I just folded my arms/turned away, he just went on the rest of the walk fine! :thumbsup:
> 
> Also bought a basket muzzle, and have been smearing it with PntButter. He will pop his nose in for a second to lick it, then dive back out if you so much as move a finger, so it may be a very slow process.
> The muzzle will be good for my arms and nerves and if he wants to go no any lurcher/greyhound charity walks/funders he has to be muzzled, as a rule.


Well done you and that made me laugh. You see when you put your mind to it there is always a solution and it doesn't matter how bizarre.

Another thing you could try, if he always goes for approximately the same part of your arm when he has a tantrum, is to put a very, very old coat on and smear the sleeve (where he bites) with a thick layer of chilli powder made into a paste/or bitter apple spray. Action causes reaction and if he gets a mouthful he might think twice the next time. Again not a 'pretty' method but you simply can't have him biting you and reducing you to tears.


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## Twiggy

CaliDog said:


> i will try that one she has two frisbees too!


Work on the assumption that they always want the one you've got. When Cali gets the general giste, wait a few seconds before you throw the second one and start to introduce a command ie "leave" or "swap".


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## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> K & M Hopefully he will settle, when I used to work at kennels we has a mastiff type that seemed really aggressive whenever you went near her. She had never been in kennels before and was very stressed out. Over the next few visits however she started to accept bits of sausage from me and I could even go in and change her water without her grumbling in the end.
> 
> L/C Hope your niece is okay. x
> 
> I bought a leather lead today in the charity shop for two pounds, bit worn but it had a leather handle and about half a metre of leather lead, then a small bit of chain at the end where it connects to the hook/trigger.
> I took the tantrum teen on it today and although he kicked off, due to there being a honking car, some high pitched old woman holding a yippy daschund and a offlead staffie charging up ahead I kind off predicted it happening. Zand growled, jumped at me, then promptly sank his teeth onto the chain part. He was so shocked, and I just folded my arms/turned away, he just went on the rest of the walk fine! :thumbsup:
> 
> Also bought a basket muzzle, and have been smearing it with PntButter. He will pop his nose in for a second to lick it, then dive back out if you so much as move a finger, so it may be a very slow process.
> The muzzle will be good for my arms and nerves and if he wants to go no any lurcher/greyhound charity walks/funders he has to be muzzled, as a rule.


Zand must have been so surprised by the chain! It's good that it worked for you. I bet it stole his thunder


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Well done you and that made me laugh. You see when you put your mind to it there is always a solution and it doesn't matter how bizarre.
> 
> Another thing you could try, if he always goes for approximately the same part of your arm when he has a tantrum, is to put a very, very old coat on and smear the sleeve (where he bites) with a thick layer of chilli powder made into a paste/or bitter apple spray. Action causes reaction and if he gets a mouthful he might think twice the next time. Again not a 'pretty' method but you simply can't have him biting you and reducing you to tears.


I know people don't usually like using adversives but I think sometimes they are a good thing! Because he is 99% such a lovely dog it is awful to have him turn into a teenage tantrum monster! We have had these before, when he was six months, but of course him being littler then it didn't hurt as much and was so much easier to ignore!

Thanks to all you lot for being supportive, as you didn't immediatly jump on the 'WHAT DID YOU DO!?"" or "HE'S AGGRESSIVE" or "YOU HAVE TO BE DOMINANT" 
I mean its most likely not going to be fixed quick, but I have hope now.


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## Werehorse

Be warned regards chilli powder... when Oscar was a pup he took to chewing part if the kitchen. A friend advised chilli powder to deter him.... He licked it off and carried on chewing. :scared: He did the same with pepper and lemon. Eventually he just stopped trying to chew it but he looked so happy that we'd seasoned his "chewing shelf" for him.


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## Dogless

L/C - hope your niece is OK.

School was good tonight . Checked with the trainer that I was doing the right thing with Kilo following Friday and I am so that is good to know. He was uneasy around the bigger dogs to start with tonight - a few lunges with one bark each time or leaning on my legs when they ignored the lunge and passed close which isn't his normal behaviour but I am hoping we'll get there.

LO - pleased that your new lead worked.

k&m - keep on keeping on; wish there was something I could help with.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I know people don't usually like using adversives but I think sometimes they are a good thing! Because he is 99% such a lovely dog it is awful to have him turn into a teenage tantrum monster! We have had these before, when he was six months, but of course him being littler then it didn't hurt as much and was so much easier to ignore!
> 
> Thanks to all you lot for being supportive, as you didn't immediatly jump on the 'WHAT DID YOU DO!?"" or "HE'S AGGRESSIVE" or "YOU HAVE TO BE DOMINANT"
> I mean its most likely not going to be fixed quick, but I have hope now.


I'm quite sure he will turn into a lovely dog - they usually do....

The worse one we ever had for tantrums was my sister's working sheepdog Sammy.

She was half sister to my Twiggy and came from the same farm in Sussex.

I shall never forget spending a week with my sister when Sammy was about 5/6 months old and OMG were we in trouble.

On the first Sunday of my visit we were both entered at an agility show and I thought it was strange when my sister asked me to come with her to walk Sammy about. Brother did she flip her lid.....!!

On the Monday I sat on the patio wall holding Sammy whilst my sister worked one of the other dogs. Sammy absolutely went berserk, ripping my hand and arm to shreds.

As the week went on if anything Sammy got worse and by Friday morning I had a very serious conversation with my sister about addressing the issue, so we took her out onto the patio again. Sammy bit my sister on the face, and oh so nearly got her eye. My sister was in floods of tears and went in to ring the vet, intending to have her pts. We really were beginning to think she had a brain tumour or something equally nasty.

Luckily the vet wasn't there so we had a cup of tea and another deep conversation and then, armed with thick gardening gauntlets and a check chain, I persuaded my sister that it was do or die last chance, whilst I was still there to help her before returning home.

Sammy went on to compete very successfully in sheepdog trials, agility, Championship C obedience and heelwork to music....!!

She lived to 15 yrs old and absolutely adored my sister.

We did discover later that Sammy's sire was extremely aggressive and in fact the shepherd that owned him was terrified of him and he was eventually pts.


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> Be warned regards chilli powder... when Oscar was a pup he took to chewing part if the kitchen. A friend advised chilli powder to deter him.... He licked it off and carried on chewing. :scared: He did the same with pepper and lemon. Eventually he just stopped trying to chew it but he looked so happy that we'd seasoned his "chewing shelf" for him.


Ive tried them all to stop Charlie chewing his kennel- chilli powder, bitter apple, citrus sprays, different brands of chew deterrent...nothing worked. I often comment that I might as well salt and pepper it for him :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> L/C - hope your niece is OK.
> 
> School was good tonight . Checked with the trainer that I was doing the right thing with Kilo following Friday and I am so that is good to know. He was uneasy around the bigger dogs to start with tonight - a few lunges with one bark each time or leaning on my legs when they ignored the lunge and passed close which isn't his normal behaviour but I am hoping we'll get there.
> 
> LO - pleased that your new lead worked.
> 
> k&m - keep on keeping on; wish there was something I could help with.


Glad you enjoyed school tonight- did Kilo calm down with the bigger dogs by the end of the class?


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> We did discover later that Sammy's sire was extremely aggressive and in fact the shepherd that owned him was terrified of him and he was eventually pts.


WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BREED FROM THAT SIRE!??

What did you end up doing with Sammy in the end then? If you don't mind me asking?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Glad you enjoyed school tonight- did Kilo calm down with the bigger dogs by the end of the class?


Ish......still looking worried but not like at the start.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Ish......still looking worried but not like at the start.


Maybe it'll take him another week or so to realise that other dogs are not all out to get him  At least you know what you're doing and how to work with him to build his confidence back up.
He sounds like a sensitive big soul, big pet


----------



## Twiggy

*WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BREED FROM THAT SIRE!??

*Goodness knows - money I expect.

My sister also met one of Sammy's siblings who went into a pet home. She too was pts because she was aggressive.

*What did you end up doing with Sammy in the end then? If you don't mind me asking?*

I had a rather strong word in her ear... Sorry can't say more on a public forum and remember we are both dog trainers and have handled literally hundreds of dogs, plus our timing is pretty spot on.

I will say the whole thing was very upsetting (which is why I remember it so vividly and it was a long time ago) but it was a choice between either sorting Sammy out or having her pts. There is no way my sister would ever have dared take her to shows with the others because she would most certainly have bitten anyone in range when she was in a frenzy and other dogs doing agility, sendaways, retrieves, etc. would have blown her mind.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Maybe it'll take him another week or so to realise that other dogs are not all out to get him  At least you know what you're doing and how to work with him to build his confidence back up.
> He sounds like a sensitive big soul, big pet


He is massively, massively sensitive; that is why Friday upset me so much - he was cautious enough around large dogs following a lab attacking him and we had just got somewhere with his confidence.


----------



## chazzie10

Just back in from another wee street walk with Charlie- seems to benefit from shorter walks but more of them atm.
He walked on a loose lead no problem tonight except for one occasion which freaked us both out...
Walking past some big houses with long dark driveways when Chaz suddenly sped up. I didnt realise what was up so, thinking he was pulling, turned instantly on my heel to walk few steps opposite direction then turn again, to find that a man had stepped out of a gateway right behind us. As we had done such a quick turn we practically stepped right into the man! He must have stepped out of the shadows very quickly and as I turned he was looking very intently at us and seemed to be walking those few steps a bit to quick as if he'd 'sprung out' and was trying to catch up  Weird thing was when we turned, he instantly stopped, made a big show of scuffling and scraping his shoes on the ground as if he was perfectly innocent....(Im not so sure now)...and stepped back towards the gate as I turned on my heel again to continue the walk with the dog. Ive seen him sitting having a cigarette against the wall one night before but he just melted into the shadows that night too. Freak  Flippin 'eck Im getting worried now the more I remember it as Im typing! I might just call the police tomorrow and fill them in incase there has been other reports . No more night walking on my own.
On the plus: Charlie saw a lurcher being walked on the other side of the road and didnt try to pull me across 4 lanes of traffic- he looked over but looked up at me each time for reassurance.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> He is massively, massively sensitive; that is why Friday upset me so much - he was cautious enough around large dogs following a lab attacking him and we had just got somewhere with his confidence.


It'll come back- he's done it once and he'll do it again  
Let's hope it's the last he will be bothered by uncontrolled, psychotic dogs :scared:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> It'll come back- he's done it once and he'll do it again
> Let's hope it's the last he will be bothered by uncontrolled, psychotic dogs :scared:


I will work hard to ensure it does.

As for the last sentence - nice idea, but around here very unlikely .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I will work hard to ensure it does.
> 
> As for the last sentence - nice idea, but around here very unlikely .


Unfortunately the owners are just as psychotic here as you know- uve met them too :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

B*gger! Hugo just had a mini piddle on the dog beds while my back was turned.  He went out less than 2 hours ago so it's looking like a UTI.  I didn't see him do it but it was a wee trail like he was trying to stop and walk away but it kept coming - so very UTI-like...Darn it. It's so hard to tell with boy dogs until they pee in the house because if they do lots of little pees outside it's just like scent marking. Oscar had one at a similar age from humping his blankets. 

Vets tomorrow for us then.  And Hugo relegated to crate for the night.

More positive news - dog trainer has said Hugo can join Oscar's class :thumbup: At least I think she has, we did it via facebook message and her message was a bit ambiguous - I have asked for confirmation!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> B*gger! Hugo just had a mini piddle on the dog beds while my back was turned.  He went out less than 2 hours ago so it's looking like a UTI.  I didn't see him do it but it was a wee trail like he was trying to stop and walk away but it kept coming - so very UTI-like...Darn it. It's so hard to tell with boy dogs until they pee in the house because if they do lots of little pees outside it's just like scent marking. Oscar had one at a similar age from humping his blankets.
> 
> Vets tomorrow for us then.  And Hugo relegated to crate for the night.
> 
> More positive news - dog trainer has said Hugo can join Oscar's class :thumbup: At least I think she has, we did it via facebook message and her message was a bit ambiguous - I have asked for confirmation!


Like for the positive news .

Dislike poor Hugo probably having a UTI .


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear girls I feel so sorry for you both and for Kilo and Charlie.

Their confidence will return but unfortunately it will take as long as it takes, and that's providing you don't meet yet more dreadful owners with uncontrollable dogs.

It's just so unfair and why I went ballistic several weeks ago when that collie went for little Holly on a course here.

I think I've just about heard every excuse under the sun from handlers and joe public as to why their dogs do it and it makes me very angry and also sad for their dogs.


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry i'm a bit rubbish remembering everything at the moment. The house in is total chaos and as a result my head in is chaos too. 

Lets see what comes out from the weird place that is my head today.

Chazzie, please be careful. if you have put a bark on cue, when people step out of shadows it's a good time to use it! 

Dogless, it's a shame Kilo was unsure in class. but nothing bad happened so it's a positve experience on the good side of the seesaw, keep them coming and the balance will tip. SOme times it feels liek the bad ones are lumps of coal and the good ones are light like feathers, but hang in there I never thought Tink would iniate play with a goldie but clearly walking with Rona's lovely Alfie was the experience that tipped the balance for Tink 

Werehorse, poor Hugo hope he's better soon. Well done on contacting your trainer about hugo joining Oscar's class, how's the inner control freak feeling ? 

Walked with Monty and his mum again last night and we've been talking about when the clocks go back. We are going keep meeting at the same time and see how we go, i'm clumsy in the light it's going to be interesting int he dark :lol: :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

I haven't read everyone's posts yet my head is still spinning here.:crazy: 
Except LC- I hope there's good news about your young neice this morning.
Been a bad week for a few of us hasn't it.


Bizarre morning here-Had Milo's owner on the phone first thing saying he and his wife are devastated about the dog and he was coming to get him.
Anyway he's been , we've had a chat and he's taken Milo back. In my opinion, the dogs been badly bred and has some insecurities then his owners let him call all the shots and they just aren't consistent with him. The chap said he puts his head inside the crate every morning and has fusses with him, no problem.
He's got Big Evie's number and has said he will ring her. I hope he does, I've tried telling him the problems are potentially serious- he had another snarling, growling attack at me this morning for trying to put the long line on him.
I'm sure they haven't abused the dog- I wouldn't have let him take him back if I thought that, but my worry is that they dont get the help and then later on down the line they decide for serious to rehome him.

Off to walk my girls and fetch some shopping, I'll catch up later.
Have a good day all.


----------



## Halifu

chazzie10 said:


> It'll come back- he's done it once and he'll do it again
> "Let's hope it's the last he will be bothered by uncontrolled, psychotic dogs :scared":


In a perfect world.
Unfortunately there seems to be more irisponsable owners than ever before.


----------



## Werehorse

Vet trip for Hugo this morning. UTI confirmed after chasing round with a piddle collecting pot for about 20 minutes.  :lol: I don't think poor Hugo will pee in front of me ever again without looking over his shoulder in-case the yellow pee-pot monster comes after his willy again. :lol::lol: He weed loads but I only caught a few drops! It was enough though.

Nasty injection made him squeak (big wuss) but otherwise he enjoyed the vet experience again. Lots of biscuits and fuss. The vet nurse at reception said "is this the dog that ate the blanket string?" Yes, yes it is.  And he leapt up on the table in the consulting room without being asked. He knows the routine far too well. Let the vet poke him around and take his temperature without batting an eyelid, and even after the nasty pinchy injection still gave her a massive Hugo-hug as if he was the one that should be apologising. :lol:

He's bonkers though when he's slightly worried - serious spaniel mode interspersed with extra-mad collie moments. 

Poor boy though. Feeling a bit sorry for himself now he's home.


----------



## Dogless

Get better soon Hugo .

k&m - I very much hope that this has all been a wake up call for Milo's owners and they do seek help from Big Evie.


----------



## GingerRogers

Yellow pee pot monster lol  hope he is feeling better soon.

Ginge seems to have recovered from her plastic eating incident although she is very chewy, she keeps finding things, corks, better start drinking cheaper wine , poo bag middles, toliet roll inners, some of this was the result of OH taking the bins out badly. She has numerous bones, and plastic chewy things about, but stocked up on grotesque things like pig snouts and paddywhack at the pet shop yesterday (pig snouts don't last long do they ).

We had a reasonable walk this morning, I took the advice and instead of walking across the field and back round the the road, we went across the field and back again, cutting down the street walking. Also took some other advice and took a bag of bits of hot dog (best use for it, manky things, OH will be cross though ), let her shove her nose in so she knew I had lots and she pretty much came back when called. We did have a dog appear in front of us just before the end I was able to divert & avoid it but then the neighbour appeared the other way 

It has calmed down a bit, next door is an old couples holiday home, they have been here for 6 weeks, they have a very nervous sheltie, for some unknown reason (I know she gets annoyed with the dogs behaviour, they took her in as a favour, always had shelties but this one is unlike any others) the leave the outer porch door open so the dog can see everything through the glass inner door and barks constantly at any passing thing. Ginge, amazingly , had been ignoring it until a couple of weeks ago when they actually met, the sheltie crept out of their back garden gate and barked in Ginge's face, the sheltie suddenly realised there was no glass between and really she ought to RUN AWAY . But ever since Ginge cannot resist launching herself at their door across the path or the strip of garden between us. This has naturally started (and ended) walks badly and hyper, but they've gone home now  (sorry J and N, you are lovely but your dog irritates us), till march or April. 

Can we have our issues under control by then and parade past in perfection!!!???


----------



## Dogless

Well; we have some cautiously good news following the jobs board results....hopefully we will be moving (again!) to Hereford within the next year. The only thing I'll miss will be dog school - hopefully I can find another good one!

GR - I am sure you will be parading past the sheltie by next spring :thumbsup:.


----------



## GingerRogers

That sounds good, from your walk threads it looks as if you have some stunning scenery around you but I get the impression you aren't that happy there. My bro lives in Shropshire, that part of the world is lovely, still lots of good walking.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> That sounds good, from your walk threads it looks as if you have some stunning scenery around you but I get the impression you aren't that happy there. My bro lives in Shropshire, that part of the world is lovely, still lots of good walking.


Yes, I grew up in Shropshire so not too far from Herefordshire.


----------



## Werehorse

OOOoooo, Herefordshire is nice.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I haven't read everyone's posts yet my head is still spinning here.:crazy:
> Except LC- I hope there's good news about your young neice this morning.
> Been a bad week for a few of us hasn't it.
> 
> Bizarre morning here-Had Milo's owner on the phone first thing saying he and his wife are devastated about the dog and he was coming to get him.
> Anyway he's been , we've had a chat and he's taken Milo back. In my opinion, the dogs been badly bred and has some insecurities then his owners let him call all the shots and they just aren't consistent with him. The chap said he puts his head inside the crate every morning and has fusses with him, no problem.
> He's got Big Evie's number and has said he will ring her. I hope he does, I've tried telling him the problems are potentially serious- he had another snarling, growling attack at me this morning for trying to put the long line on him.
> I'm sure they haven't abused the dog- I wouldn't have let him take him back if I thought that, but my worry is that they dont get the help and then later on down the line they decide for serious to rehome him.
> 
> Off to walk my girls and fetch some shopping, I'll catch up later.
> Have a good day all.


Let's hope you're right and they seek help with Milo. He does sound seriously disturbed.

In a way I feel sorry for them. They obviously don't know how to handle him and need professional help urgently.

Even very experienced handlers, like my sister with Sammy, can have horrendous problems. In my sister's case I think she was partly in denial and terrified of tackling the aggression problems in case she made them worse, which is why she waited until I got down there for backup and a second opinion.


----------



## Twiggy

Poor Hugo - hope he's feeling better very soon.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well; we have some cautiously good news following the jobs board results....hopefully we will be moving (again!) to Hereford within the next year. The only thing I'll miss will be dog school - hopefully I can find another good one!
> 
> Well Hereford is a beautiful area but probably not the best for decent dog training classes.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Get better soon Hugo .
> 
> k&m - I very much hope that this has all been a wake up call for Milo's owners and they do seek help from Big Evie.


I hope they get help as well. Some might not agree with him going back but legally he isn't my dog to refuse, and I trust my judgement that no-ones abused him- he's spoilt and insecure.

Moving house eh-exciting. All those lovely dog walks.

Get well soon Hugo.


----------



## L/C

Baby niece still in hospital - on a drip and with IV antibiotics. Her temp has come down a bit but they don't know what is wrong yet.

Just waiting for my sister to call and see if she wants me to go down. My parents are on their way atm so I don't want to overwhelm her with visitors.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Let's hope you're right and they seek help with Milo. He does sound seriously disturbed.
> 
> In a way I feel sorry for them. They obviously don't know how to handle him and need professional help urgently.
> 
> Even very experienced handlers, like my sister with Sammy, can have horrendous problems. In my sister's case I think she was partly in denial and terrified of tackling the aggression problems in case she made them worse, which is why she waited until I got down there for backup and a second opinion.


Thanks Twiggy- it is a shame- he's a crazy mixed up dog- the chap said he realises they cause half of the problems by not sticking to their own rules. I shall keep in touch anyway- my worry is they do decide they cant handle him and what if I refuse to take him-its dangerous if he's passed on.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> Baby niece still in hospital - on a drip and with IV antibiotics. Her temp has come down a bit but they don't know what is wrong yet.
> 
> Just waiting for my sister to call and see if she wants me to go down. My parents are on their way atm so I don't want to overwhelm her with visitors.


Sending some healing thoughts from here.xx


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well; we have some cautiously good news following the jobs board results....hopefully we will be moving (again!) to Hereford within the next year. The only thing I'll miss will be dog school - hopefully I can find another good one!
> 
> Well Hereford is a beautiful area but probably not the best for decent dog training classes.
> 
> 
> 
> I suspected as much; I will travel - but there is a limit to how far!!
> 
> 
> 
> L/C said:
> 
> 
> 
> Baby niece still in hospital - on a drip and with IV antibiotics. Her temp has come down a bit but they don't know what is wrong yet.
> 
> Just waiting for my sister to call and see if she wants me to go down. My parents are on their way atm so I don't want to overwhelm her with visitors.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Hope they get to the bottom of it soon, fingers crossed xx.
Click to expand...


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C hope things improve further and they find out what the problem is soon, its so hard when they are so little.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Ginge sounds like avoiding the road walk will help for now 

K&M I hope Milo's owners get some help and show some consistency, so the wee lad feels secure. I don't think you could have done anything but return him given the circumstances. I think you have done all you could for Milo I just hope his owners step up to the plate.

L/C so glad there has been some improvement in your niece's temperature, I do hope they get to teh bottom of it soon and she's back to full health. I think it's very considerate of you not rushing down there. Sending healing wishes. 

Werehorse. Hope Hugo feels better soon , sounds like he was a star at the vets. 

Dogless Hope everything goes to plan with the move 

Nothing much to report here lovely wlak in the mizzle this morning and horrifcally huge frizzy hair now.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Ginge sounds like avoiding the road walk will help for now
> 
> K&M I hope Milo's owners get some help and show some consistency, so the wee lad feels secure. I don't think you could have done anything but return him given the circumstances. I think you have done all you could for Milo I just hope his owners step up to the plate.
> 
> L/C so glad there has been some improvement in your niece's temperature, I do hope they get to teh bottom of it soon and she's back to full health. I think it's very considerate of you not rushing down there. Sending healing wishes.
> 
> Werehorse. Hope Hugo feels better soon , sounds like he was a star at the vets.
> 
> Dogless Hope everything goes to plan with the move
> 
> Nothing much to report here lovely wlak in the mizzle this morning and horrifcally huge frizzy hair now.


Won't be moving any time soon; within the next year...probably more towards this time next year....


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Nothing much to report here lovely wlak in the mizzle this morning and horrifcally huge frizzy hair now.


Me too  meant to have a shower when I got back but forgot  (showers broke and only lukewarm so not very enticing now autumns here)


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Me too  meant to have a shower when I got back but forgot  (showers broke and only lukewarm so not very enticing now autumns here)


Although according to the latest l'oreal ads having dull messed up hair is in fashion  wonder how many animals suffered to come up with soemthign that You can achieve by not washing and not brushing your hair


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Well; we have some cautiously good news following the jobs board results....hopefully we will be moving (again!) to Hereford within the next year. The only thing I'll miss will be dog school - hopefully I can find another good one!


Are congratulations in order then? There's not exactly anything else to miss about that place is there? :lol: I keep hoping to hear we'll be moving but knowing my luck when it does come it'll be back to Northern Ireland in which case I'll be ranting and raving and playing on everything I possibly can to get it changed. I am NOT going back there. Ever.

We've been invaded by ladybirds. It's like a scene out of the Birds here at the moment only it's ladybirds instead. Quite freaky really. I don't normally mind ladybirds but they're crawling all over me, all over my flat and they're a bit of a pain!


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Are congratulations in order then? There's not exactly anything else to miss about that place is there? :lol: I keep hoping to hear we'll be moving but knowing my luck when it does come it'll be back to Northern Ireland in which case I'll be ranting and raving and playing on everything I possibly can to get it changed. I am NOT going back there. Ever.
> 
> We've been invaded by ladybirds. It's like a scene out of the Birds here at the moment only it's ladybirds instead. Quite freaky really. I don't normally mind ladybirds but they're crawling all over me, all over my flat and they're a bit of a pain!


Not those sort of congratulations, no . Waiting on a decision of a different kind...but the idea of being away within the year isn't a bad one!


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Baby niece still in hospital - on a drip and with IV antibiotics. Her temp has come down a bit but they don't know what is wrong yet.
> 
> Just waiting for my sister to call and see if she wants me to go down. My parents are on their way atm so I don't want to overwhelm her with visitors.


Poor little mite - such a worry for you all. Hoping for better news later.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> We've been invaded by ladybirds. It's like a scene out of the Birds here at the moment only it's ladybirds instead. Quite freaky really. I don't normally mind ladybirds but they're crawling all over me, all over my flat and they're a bit of a pain!


Cripes sounds like a cross between a hitchcock movie and soemthign from the disney channel i remember there being in a huge amount one summer when i was a kid (before your time ) i didn't know till then the blighters can bite.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Are congratulations in order then? There's not exactly anything else to miss about that place is there? :lol: I keep hoping to hear we'll be moving but knowing my luck when it does come it'll be back to Northern Ireland in which case I'll be ranting and raving and playing on everything I possibly can to get it changed. I am NOT going back there. Ever.
> 
> We've been invaded by ladybirds. It's like a scene out of the Birds here at the moment only it's ladybirds instead. Quite freaky really. I don't normally mind ladybirds but they're crawling all over me, all over my flat and they're a bit of a pain!


Oh no - I hate creepy crawlies. I remember staying in a holiday cottage on the east coast years ago and everywhere (inside and out) was covered in them.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Although according to the latest l'oreal ads having dull messed up hair is in fashion  wonder how many animals suffered to come up with soemthign that You can achieve by not washing and not brushing your hair


Lo, pretty sure it ain't, not when I look in the mirror :lol:. OH has just gone off to get a new shower,  we realised for the price of a replacement cartridge we could get a new shower which is probably easier to fit and has a guarantee that I would keep in a safe place so I may be able to rid myself of frizz!


----------



## Dogless

Mostly good walk this afternoon. Onlead round sports pitches; saw his friend the vizsla over the other side but heading for the exit so waved and carried on and Kilo kept a nice loose lead and concentration on me nothing to do with the dried chicken breast treats in my pocket I'm sure . Happy with that as he often whines and stares as he wants to be let off to play. Did lots of bits and pieces through the pitches and fields for an hour or so and than walked home. Started to skitter and dance and look worried when we saw a GSD bitch that he's seen plenty of times and even played with so I did a swift diversion down a different street - only to run into a DDB that isn't good with other dogs and have Kilo start to bark. I got him under control after two barks and the man just said 'Hi' to us so not too bad.


----------



## Sarah1983

Hmmm...I think we may need to work on Spencer being able to let me carry a bag. Took the cardboard out to the recycling bin earlier in a big shopping bag. Figured I'd take Spen out for a trip around the block at the same time. Spencer insisted on carrying this large bag full of cardboard all the way to the bin despite the fact he kept tripping over it. Then would he leave it by the door while we went for his walk? Nope, he had to carry it around with him, still tripping over it. I eventually insisted he leave it by the door and got him away from it only for him to have a quick pee and rush back to pick up his beloved bag again 

I can't even get out the door with the laundry without him. As soon as he sees me pick up the bag he's there waiting and god forbid I try to carry the bag myself, he practically leaps on top of it hanging on with his jaws and his paws until I let him have it


----------



## GingerRogers

Surely thats a good thing he's a gentleman through and through!

We had a decent walk tonight, think the hot dogs are doing the trick, back to the beach on our own and she didn't leg it this time  or it might have been the fact that I felt free to be an absolute plonker whenever she got too far which enticed her back -rain and empty beaches - lovely.

*AND *I just had a nice hot shower - the shower that has been lukewarm all summer (cos it didn't matter and was an ok temperature so we never fixed it) has been replaced - *WE *managed some DIY and we didn't even flood the place, it was a good joint effort, we can work as a team .


----------



## Guest

Hope you lot are all okay! 

Woke up this morning and mum was like "Go look in the living room, but don't get cross at him." 

Peered around the door and there was Zander sat amongst a mountain of cushion innards. He wouldn't let mum near him, (not growling, he just kept backing up) and looked like guilt reincarnate. 

We haven'y had any tantrums today and he goes to kennels when I'm at work tommorow. 

We had an hour and half walk today in the woods and not a single tantrum ( I however fell on my a*se about thirty times as it has rained and muddy etc) 
There was a slight moment where this spaniel was sat staring at us as we walked by its gate. Halfway through passing this dog EXPLODES into barking and Zander literally sprinted in circles on his lead. He very almost kicked off then but didn't.
I sprayed my coat ALL OVER with anti-chew stuff!


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Hope you lot are all okay!
> 
> Woke up this morning and mum was like "Go look in the living room, but don't get cross at him."
> 
> Peered around the door and there was Zander sat amongst a mountain of cushion innards. He wouldn't let mum near him, (not growling, he just kept backing up) and looked like guilt reincarnate.
> 
> We haven'y had any tantrums today and he goes to kennels when I'm at work tommorow.
> 
> We had an hour and half walk today in the woods and not a single tantrum ( I however fell on my a*se about thirty times as it has rained and muddy etc)
> There was a slight moment where this spaniel was sat staring at us as we walked by its gate. Halfway through passing this dog EXPLODES into barking and Zander literally sprinted in circles on his lead. He very almost kicked off then but didn't.
> I sprayed my coat ALL OVER with anti-chew stuff!


Excellent and you're a very good girl...LOL

Remember grim determination and keep calm - you can do it....!!


----------



## Werehorse

:lol::lol: Spencer the forceful gentleman... He's not just pulling on the lead either he's making sure he's ahead of you to help you over and through any hazards like puddles (he'll lay down his cloak so you can cross with dry feet) or doors (he'll insist on opening them and upset any passing feminists.) 

Hugo is feeling much better this morning although I suspect The Bounce is still on half power as he failed to reach full face height twice this morning. 

Individual Pace of Death walking around the village has recovered from the brief dip to Satisfactory Level again. Still not worrying about it too much, giving myself another week off.

Have had definite confirmation that Hugo can join Oscar's class. :thumbup: My control freak hasn't freaked yet - it will when we are in class but the plan is to concentrate completely on the dog I'm handling and just not watch OH with the other dog. :scared: :lol:

So this week I actually need to be working on Hugo's retrieve! Which is basically non-existant but Oscar's class do quite a bit of retrieve stuff and we are starting some scent stuff so I need to get Hugo up to speed. Oscar needs to work on retrieving a hankie so we can start some scent work. I'll not try that with Hugo just yet!! :lol:


----------



## Beth17

Blimey there's a lot to catch up on! I've had dodgy internet for the past couple of days 

The boys are fine both were good on their walk this morning, took them separately to the field for some one on one. Sam was quite calm when meeting dogs and was able to carry on playing around others without getting distracted 

It's just as well they're behaving as I have just calculated that the boys have cost me nearly £400 just in the past month at the vets  Thank god for insurance.

Hope everyone else's day is going well


----------



## Dogless

Two good walks today; a very well behaved best boy .

Off to see Michael Macintyre in a few minutes' time .


----------



## L/C

Baby niece is home and not quite well but getting there. :thumbup: It was a severe secondary infection and an allergic reaction to the illness. So very relieved here.

I've been at a seminar all day on temperament testing and assessment in dogs put on by the Dog Assessment Focus group. It was very, very interesting and I'm going to type up my notes so if anyone is interested pm me and I'll send them to you when I'm done.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Two good walks today; a very well behaved best boy .
> 
> Off to see Michael Macintyre in a few minutes' time .


Fantastic! I saw him at Edinburgh festival a few years ago, I was just stuck on continuous giggle by the end. :lol: Have fun.


----------



## Guest

Well first we are toilet training Buddy if that's what you mean.


----------



## Beth17

Hope you have a good night Dogless!

L/C glad your niece is on the mend  That seminar sounds really interesting.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Baby niece is home and not quite well but getting there. :thumbup: It was a severe secondary infection and an allergic reaction to the illness. So very relieved here.
> 
> I've been at a seminar all day on temperament testing and assessment in dogs put on by the Dog Assessment Focus group. It was very, very interesting and I'm going to type up my notes so if anyone is interested pm me and I'll send them to you when I'm done.


That's very good news about your little niece. I hope she continues to improve.

I've been instructing since 9.30 this morning and I'm now shattered and won't be long before I'm tucked up in bed. I've just spent about two hours throwing toys behind the sofa for my girls as they've had a boring day, although hubby has walked them twice.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C so very pleased your niece is home and getting better. What a relief. Sounds like a very fascinating seminar.

Hope you have/had a lovely time Dogless. don't do what a friend of mine did, give herself a hernia laughing so hard. 

Danielled good luck with the housetraining 

LO sounds like Zander did really well 

Werehorse sounds like your inner control freak is coming to terms with handing over some training responsibilty to your OH. I'm sure you'll get Hugo up to speed in no time.

Beth  Sam did very well this morning 

Sarah Spen does take his retrieve responsibilties very seriously. maybe give him something else to carry when you need to carry things yourself?

Nothing to report really, lovely walk this morning, lost of mountain bikes around and Tink resisted the temptation to track them :thumbup: Wonderful walk in the dark this evening with Monty and his mum. Not a soul around


----------



## Dogless

Michael McIntyre was very good last night; first time we have been out for a long time .

This morning's walk was also pretty good; saw no one for the first hour or so, so just played on the fields. Then, Kilo went up to the fence (about 10m away from us) which was odd - he never takes any notice of anything outside the fields . Then I saw why - a man with a big rottie. I apologised but he said it was OK his girl gave off some sort of 'vibe' . Anyhoo that apart, I watched Kilo. He hackled up and postured immediately - rottie gave off lots of calming signals and pointedly ignored him; hackles straight down and he relaxed and sniffed around himself. Had a quick chat with the man and he said it was him that has watched that 'handbags' with the terrier the other evening too .

We also saw his best vizsla friend who jumped all over (other side of the road) wanting to meet him but we managed to walk on by with a 'leave it' and no jumping with desperation to play from the BW. Saw another dog he normally plays with too when he was offlead in another field on the way home and he looked at them, but recalled to me to carry on playing . So, a good boy this morning :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Michael McIntyre was very good last night; first time we have been out for a long time .
> 
> This morning's walk was also pretty good; saw no one for the first hour or so, so just played on the fields. Then, Kilo went up to the fence (about 10m away from us) which was odd - he never takes any notice of anything outside the fields . Then I saw why - a man with a big rottie. I apologised but he said it was OK his girl gave off some sort of 'vibe' . Anyhoo that apart, I watched Kilo. He hackled up and postured immediately - rottie gave off lots of calming signals and pointedly ignored him; hackles straight down and he relaxed and sniffed around himself. Had a quick chat with the man and he said it was him that has watched that 'handbags' with the terrier the other evening too .
> 
> We also saw his best vizsla friend who jumped all over (other side of the road) wanting to meet him but we managed to walk on by with a 'leave it' and no jumping with desperation to play from the BW. Saw another dog he normally plays with too when he was offlead in another field on the way home and he looked at them, but recalled to me to carry on playing . So, a good boy this morning :thumbup:.


Lovely that Kilo had a positive experience with the Rottie  and what a good boy when he saw his various playmates.

We have the once a month class this morning and I'm feeling particularly uncoordinated today :lol: Should be a giggle. :blush: Oh slight revelation yesterday actually showed interest in a ball on a rope albeit in a cat like fashion.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Lovely that Kilo had a positive experience with the Rottie  and what a good boy when he saw his various playmates.
> 
> We have the once a month class this morning and I'm feeling particularly uncoordinated today :lol: Should be a giggle. :blush: Oh slight revelation yesterday actually showed interest in a ball on a rope all be in a cat like fashion.


Hmmm.....I'd say 'break a leg' BUT knowing you :frown2::frown2:. So I won't - but do enjoy it .

Must be hard trying to generate interest in a toy when Tink isn't naturally drawn to them.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Hmmm.....I'd say 'break a leg' BUT knowing you :frown2::frown2:. So I won't - but do enjoy it .
> 
> Must be hard trying to generate interest in a toy when Tink isn't naturally drawn to them.


She's more than happy to fetch in a formal way and receive a reward but in general they aren't a reward in themself. In some way this a good thing, she doens't want to run on a football pitch for the ball or steal another dogs ball etc. for a hunting dog she has a pretty poor chase drive, i swear if she was in pack life she'd go along for the run, the social side and the scenery :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Sounds like things are going smoothly in most camps. 

So glad your niece is home L/C and that she is fully recovered soon.

We have been staying relatively stress free thanks to the advice given. Although didn't avoid roads completely last night, considering it was starting to get dark she was very good with the cars. She was still nervous but as it was dry she controlled her urges to shout at them, it is obviously wet cars that are scariest which is not boding well for today , does not look like the rain is going to quit at all. I also ordered some Stressless so thanks dogless we will see if that helps take the edge off things.

Last nights walk, despite the good behavior with the cars was still a bit manic. She stayed on hyper alert the whole time which might have been my fault for letting her have too much fun in the turnip field - she disappears below the leaves then zebedee jumps up to see where she is going every couple of minutes, I should think I walked half way round before she reappeared at my side and its a bi g field. The next field had been ploughed up so I could keep an eye on her and she recalled very well there, I think out of sight out of mind applies well to her.

Then as I was such a good girl and stayed in fri night to cook more liver cake  I treated myself to a couple of pints, the pubs next but one to us, more of a hotel and restaurant but it has a little back bar where dogs are allowed, and not many people go in there so its quiet, and I can nip Ginge back home if she kicks off. Anyway Tamsin the wolfhound and Rudi patterdale turned up along with Mollie german short haired pointer and a Mia black lab which we hadn't met before . The GSP and lab are very beautiful, very expensive gundogs that Tamsins owner walks, their owner was away for the night so they stole them and took them to the pub :nono:.

Ginge got told off by Mollie who apparently only likes dogs she knows, but Ginge was determined to be friends , she had a good play with Rudi, (she sits on his head when he lies down for a rest ) bashed into Tamsin who is so gentle natured and didn't really bother with Mia but then Mia didn't seem bothered by much either.
I tried to get photos of them all but the light was not good for my phone, at one point I had them all lined up waiting for treats  and another Chris had Tamsin, Mia, Mollie and Ginge on the tiny sofa at one point but all the dogs heads are blurred in that pic .


----------



## Dogless

GR - actually sounds like a much calmer day altogether, turnip field aside . Hope the Stress - Less works for you.

We have had a text from our friend to see if we want to walk around 1pm.....I'll have to prise the BW from his snoring slumber but I'm sure he'll be chuffed once he realises he's getting a bonus walk with a friendly dog!


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh and we went to the pet shop to get more chewy things (it was OH excuse for a maccy D, yes, he had been thinking of a reason for a drive out all morning ) and OH let us buy a new toy  a skin fling, rabbit shaped, no stuffing, squeaky hard ball head and squeaky soft tail. I think she might be in love she keeps sitting near it and pacing a protective paw over it :001_wub:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - actually sounds like a much calmer day altogether, turnip field aside . Hope the Stress - Less works for you.
> 
> We have had a text from our friend to see if we want to walk around 1pm.....I'll have to prise the BW from his snoring slumber but I'm sure he'll be chuffed once he realises he's getting a bonus walk with a friendly dog!


Hope the weathers better than ours, snoring seems to be the best thing to do for the day here.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Hope the weathers better than ours, snoring seems to be the best thing to do for the day here.


We are having a beautifully cold, sunny autumn weekend here in NI after a wet, wet week.


----------



## Gemmaa

I'll be desperately looking for lots of dogs for Bradley to meet. 
He hasn't seen many dogs but he hasn't been very interested in the ones we have met, polite and friendly but could take them or leave them, which I was perfectly happy with.

I took him out yesterday and he was having a great time, met loads of people and he was incredible with everyone, even a little boy who poked his nose.
Then an old lady let her Bichon Frise go right up to him and it bit him on the face . 

He saw my boyfriends cat through the back door, and he didn't react to it, he actually backed away, so I felt hopeful that he wasn't going to develop issues with small furry things.
This morning he saw a Shih Tzu and he growled at it. I'm a little bit gutted, but also really angry that she knew the Bichon would do it and she still let it up to him.

Part of me wonders if it's even worth trying to get him and future dogs to mix with other dogs. Starting to think that as long as he's good with people and our dogs, then that's good enough for me. 
Socialising with other dogs just seems a guarantee to end up with a dog with issues. :frown2:


----------



## Born2BWild

Had a great BAT session with my dogs today  Molly was used a stooge dog and Cleo participated to help with her dog to dog aggression. She walked passed several dogs on loose lead without reacting and participated successfully in a group session. I have just ordered a better muzzle which will be more comfortable and she can eat treats through and have also ordered myself a bright pink hi viz vest saying "PLEASE GIVE MY DOG SPACE" inspired by the dog vests seen today except I'll be wearing it  Feeling very positive  x


----------



## Dogless

Born2BWild said:


> Had a great BAT session with my dogs today  Molly was used a stooge dog and Cleo participated to help with her dog to dog aggression. She walked passed several dogs on loose lead without reacting and participated successfully in a group session. I have just ordered a better muzzle which will be more comfortable and she can eat treats through and have also ordered myself a bright pink hi viz vest saying "PLEASE GIVE MY DOG SPACE" inspired by the dog vests seen today except I'll be wearing it  *Feeling very positive * x


Brilliant!! That's half the battle I'm sure :thumbup:.


----------



## Born2BWild

Dogless said:


> Brilliant!! That's half the battle I'm sure :thumbup:.


Hopefully this is the start of great success! Now I know she can choose the right behaviour we just have to practise it over and over until she prefers her new behaviour choice rather than her usual one! :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

We had a fab hour and a half walk / play with my friend and her dog this afternoon. As well as play I did some recalls from playing and some focus work on me with the other dog running round and the BW did well. My friend said "Isn't he good?" :aureola:.


----------



## Born2BWild

Dogless said:


> We had a fab hour and a half walk / play with my friend and her dog this afternoon. As well as play I did some recalls from playing and some focus work on me with the other dog running round and the BW did well. My friend said "Isn't he good?" :aureola:.


Aww that's great! You must be really proud hehe  x


----------



## Dogless

Born2BWild said:


> Aww that's great! You must be really proud hehe  x


Really proud....hope it doesn't come before a fall  :frown2:.


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## Guest

Hello! 

Zander is at the kennels. Bit wierd waking up and not having to feed him or walk him etc. Also means I don;t have to do the obligatory DASH to the front door when in my work clothes to avoid the hair/mud/slobber. 

I do kinda miss him actually. 

Mum today was like 'Well we should have really forseen him being a terror teenager, considering he was an amazingly easy pup when he was young."

I did put thought into this and agreed as I can count on one hand the amount of housetraining accidents we've had and less than three items destroyed in his whole stay with us. He was also never nippy (OH ISN'T HE MAKING UP FOR THAT NOW ), never nervous or aggressive with people or other dogs and was very eager to learn. 

In contrast our last lurcher pup was a complete horror from the get go till he was two, then he was brilliant. (He was rehomed with our fantastic neighbour when we were forced to move into accomadation which did not allow pets, I saw him the other day, he was a lab x Greyhound and he was and IS still beaut and was fantastic company for their elderly staffie in its twilight years)


Yeah, so, currently dogless right now.


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## Dogless

No...I'M DOGLESS   .

It's always odd when you are at home with dog in kennels isn't it? Really strange .


----------



## Guest

Hahaha alright alright I am currently lurcher-owner-without-a-lurcher!

It is very strange! Kinda nice, but yeah I do miss him, I feel that when we went in the woods the other day, then played fetch in the garden, we bonded alot more than we have had in the past month, because, as his tantrums became more frequent i began to feel less 'with' him and start to feel like he wasn't my dog. Does that make sense? 

ANYWAY I AM OFF TO BURNHAM ON SEA TOMMOROW! Bit excited!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Hahaha alright alright I am currently lurcher-owner-without-a-lurcher!
> 
> It is very strange! Kinda nice, but yeah I do miss him, I feel that when we went in the woods the other day, then played fetch in the garden, we bonded alot more than we have had in the past month, because, as his tantrums became more frequent i began to feel less 'with' him and start to feel like he wasn't my dog. Does that make sense?
> 
> ANYWAY I AM OFF TO BURNHAM ON SEA TOMMOROW! Bit excited!


It does make sense; have a lovely time and get those batteries recharged .


----------



## Guest

So far no accidents. We nearly had one but caught him in time. He's been to the toilet in the garden one last time tonight. I think we will have more of a challenge with obedience and his sits downs stays and everything else. I'll b glad when all his vaccines are done. Lan on getting him neutered too.


----------



## Dogless

danielled said:


> So far no accidents. We nearly had one but caught him in time. He's been to the toilet in the garden one last time tonight. I think we will have more of a challenge with obedience and his sits downs stays and everything else. I'll b glad when all his vaccines are done. Lan on getting him neutered too.


Have you got your alarm set for during the night?

Lots of socialisation going everywhere in your arms and plenty of short training sessions and you'll be on the right track :thumbup:.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Have you got your alarm set for during the night?
> 
> Lots of socialisation going everywhere in your arms and plenty of short training sessions and you'll be on the right track :thumbup:.


Yes I have. Yes I'll be taking him places in my arms. Also yes a lot of short training sessions is going to be happening too.


----------



## Dogless

danielled said:


> Yes I have. Yes I'll be taking him places in my arms. Also yes a lot of short training sessions is going to be happening too.


Looking forward to hearing how he does!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Looking forward to hearing how he does!


I'd like to take him to a few relatives houses carrying him if they are ok with it.


----------



## Dogless

danielled said:


> I'd like to take him to a few relatives houses carrying him if they are ok with it.


Outside supermarkets and inside non food shops are good places too.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Outside supermarkets and inside non food shops are good places too.


Thanks, he's been to pets at home but that was just for his bed lead and collar and a few other things. Didn't want to be ages in there so couldn't get his chew toys. I carried him round.


----------



## moonviolet

L-O have a lovely time in B-o-S, So nice you had a little breakthrough and a bit of a reconnect before he went into kennels 

Danielle sounds like you have a everything in hand. I dont know if you aware aware of either of these. they are both great resources for puppy owners.

Ch 2: Raising A Puppy | Dog Star Daily

The Puppy Plan 

We had a lovely class today, worked on accuracy and a new segment of our mini routine :lol: We didn't do too badly and even suggested a couple of bits that Tink knows and loves, just so there are some familiar bits in all the new stuff Tink loves this class and gives it her very best focus.

It was lovely to meet Lily the 2 year gordon setter who has found a place in the the heart of the lady who lost her Dobe earlier this year. It's clear she still misses Eriq terribly but Lily is carving her own special place in her heart and rightly, so she is gorgeous.

Another lovely wet, dark woodland walk with Monty and his owner. Get quite a taste for them the peace is lovely.


----------



## Beth17

Does anyone have any ideas how to stop the silly pup trying to pick up every item he finds in the street? Or will he eventually grow out of it?

I spent most of this mornings walk dragging him away from things and attempting to distract with treats.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> L-O have a lovely time in B-o-S, So nice you had a little breakthrough and a bit of a reconnect before he went into kennels
> 
> Danielle sounds like you have a everything in hand. I dont know if you aware aware of either of these. they are both great resources for puppy owners.
> 
> Ch 2: Raising A Puppy | Dog Star Daily
> 
> The Puppy Plan
> 
> We had a lovely class today, worked on accuracy and a new segment of our mini routine :lol: We didn't do too badly and even suggested a couple of bits that Tink knows and loves, just so there are some familiar bits in all the new stuff Tink loves this class and gives it her very best focus.
> 
> It was lovely to meet Lily the 2 year gordon setter who has found a place in the the heart of the lady who lost her Dobe earlier this year. It's clear she still misses Eriq terribly but Lily is carving her own special place in her heart and rightly, so she is gorgeous.
> 
> Another lovely wet, dark woodland walk with Monty and his owner. Get quite a taste for them the peace is lovely.


When do we get to see your routine? .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> When do we get to see your routine? .


When it's ready  :lol:

Beth, Tink used to be a walking dustbin truck she seems to have grown out of the obsessiveness or she's got bored of hearing " leave" "leave" "leave, yes that too!" :lol:


----------



## Guest

Beth, I honestly have no clue, as although Zander has a very strong leave with food and treats? Stuff on the street? Gone down the hatch before I can even start the word leave! 

You could try a muzzle temporarily? As if she can't get to it she might give up. 
Entirely up to you of course.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Does anyone have any ideas how to stop the silly pup trying to pick up every item he finds in the street? Or will he eventually grow out of it?
> 
> I spent most of this mornings walk dragging him away from things and attempting to distract with treats.


Kilo was horrendous; he mostly grew out of it or got tired of "Leave It!!!!" ringing in his ears :frown2:.


----------



## Werehorse

Beth17 said:


> Does anyone have any ideas how to stop the silly pup trying to pick up every item he finds in the street? Or will he eventually grow out of it?
> 
> I spent most of this mornings walk dragging him away from things and attempting to distract with treats.


Always have something awesome to exchange it for - favourite toy or super-tasty treat.

Work on "drop it"/"leave it" at home with really boring stuff being exchanged for really awesome stuff so that the message gets into his head that if you drop something when mum says AWESOME things happen.

Try to spot things that might be of interest and starting working with thing that might only be of mild sniffing interest use your leave it and give him something awesome when he looks at you (even if you aren't sure that he spotted the interesting thing).... work your way up to really interesting things trying not to use the command until you are sure of the swap/leave it at first. If he doesn't drop it and you have the other dog with you give the awesome thing to the other dog instead, this works with Hugo who is very jealous of everything Oscar gets but might not work with yours....

They do grow out of it - my Oscar used to manifest all kind of stuff in his gob while we were walking. Including a ladies thong once - not a clue where he got it from, one minute his mouth was empty, the next it had a thong in it. Fabulous. But he doesn't pick up anything unauthorised any more really. Well, mostly. But he is a spaniel.


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> L-O have a lovely time in B-o-S, So nice you had a little breakthrough and a bit of a reconnect before he went into kennels
> 
> Danielle sounds like you have a everything in hand. I dont know if you aware aware of either of these. they are both great resources for puppy owners.
> 
> Ch 2: Raising A Puppy | Dog Star Daily
> 
> The Puppy Plan
> 
> We had a lovely class today, worked on accuracy and a new segment of our mini routine :lol: We didn't do too badly and even suggested a couple of bits that Tink knows and loves, just so there are some familiar bits in all the new
> stuff Tink loves this class and gives it her very best focus.
> 
> It was lovely to meet Lily the 2 year gordon setter who has found a place in
> the the heart of the lady who lost her Dobe earlier this year. It's clear she still
> misses Eriq terribly but Lily is carving her own special place in her heart and
> rightly, so she is gorgeous.
> 
> Another lovely wet, dark woodland walk with Monty and his owner. Get quite a
> taste for them the peace is lovely.


I know about the puppy plan link and have read it many times but will have a look at the other link. The breeder gave me a book to help with Buddy too.


----------



## Beth17

Werehorse said:


> They do grow out of it - my Oscar used to manifest all kind of stuff in his gob while we were walking. Including a ladies thong once - not a clue where he got it from, one minute his mouth was empty, the next it had a thong in it. Fabulous. But he doesn't pick up anything unauthorised any more really. Well, mostly. But he is a spaniel.


Thank you for all the brill suggestions will start implementing them tomorrow.

See I think that's part of the problem; being raised with springers has confused the poor mite


----------



## Twiggy

You're braver than me Dogless - I didn't dare ask...LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You're braver than me Dogless - I didn't dare ask...LOL


In for a penny, in for a pound......


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> When it's ready  :lol:
> 
> Beth, Tink used to be a walking dustbin truck she seems to have grown out of the obsessiveness or she's got bored of hearing " leave" "leave" "leave, yes that too!" :lol:


Now that Dogless has raised the subject can we ask what music you've chosen or the merest hint of the theme?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Now that Dogless has raised the subject can we ask what music you've chosen or the merest hint of the theme?


And you said I'm brave :yikes::lol:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> And you said I'm brave :yikes::lol:.


I thought about teaching little Holly some moves but as she still hasn't got the concept of holding the dumbbell by the middle after several months, she'd be past her prime by the time we'd put a routine together....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

No big theme... and to be fair at the moment "to music " is something of a stretch of the imagination. It's more a bit of heelwork and simple tricks while Olly Murs' " Dance with me tonight" is simultaneously being played :lol: :lol: We'll probably never go further than a couple of local fetes and a local care home or 2, but most importantly we are having fun


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh gawd. We found rabbit holes tonight. We knew what they were but we have never been this naughty before. Mum is traumatised and will explain tomorrow Xx


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh gawd. We found rabbit holes tonight. We knew what they were but we have never been this naughty before. Mum is traumatised and will explain tomorrow Xx


Oh dear Ginge; hope you didn't disappear down one .


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## moonviolet

Cripes Ginge have you given your owner a few grey hairs and an attack of the vapours.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> No big theme... and to be fair at the moment "to music " is something of a stretch of the imagination. It's more a bit of heelwork and simple tricks while Olly Murs' " Dance with me tonight" is simultaneously being played :lol: :lol: We'll probably never go further than a couple of local fetes and a local care home or 2, but most importantly we are having fun


Nonsense my girl. You need to show Tinks off to a wider audience...!!

Excellent that you're both enjoying it though.


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## Guest

Buddy to the toilet outside again this morning, still no accidents. Got up in the night to take him out he looked at me then looked at his litter tray as if to say it's ok mummy, he had done it in his litter tray so sorted that out and he went straight back to sleep. He is such a good boy. He's following me everywhere today. I pointed at his bed after sorting him out and our play session and said in your bed and he went straight in his bed.


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## GingerRogers

Buddy sounds like a little star, hope the good behaviour continues, but you will be putting us all to shame - I thought this thread was for naughty dogs 

Yes Dogless & Moonviolet, Ginge did an Alice in Wonderland, little bugger hmy:.

Went out yesterday with my friend and her two which are also terrier types (lhasax papilionx jrtx bichon so not sure how much terrier, at least 1/2, I think lhasa are terriers aren't they, not sure about the others) & met up with her son, who has just bought a metal detector, in the 'crater' a favourite rabbit chasing spot for Buffer and Elsie, as we were going to be there a while I thought it would be fine to let Ginge off for a chase too!!!

She found a large (luckily) hole underneath a gorse bush (unluckily) and down she went. Buffer stood by looking very nervous - he knew it was naughty - Elsie had a good go of following her - she is not so sensitive as her bro. So they got put straight back on lead and now Mary isn't sure about letting them off there again , I had warned her Ginge might lead them astray (certainly Elsie whose very much terrier, Buffs is more clown), shes always questioning why I don't let her off with them 

We hung about for about 10mins but she was not showing any signs of coming out, you could see her bum intermittently and showers of sand coming out the hole, :cursing: but cos of the bush couldn't reach her. I tried tempting her out with hotdog, cheese, liver cake, we walked away and called her from a distance, tried the whistle, called up hubby thinking he might have a good idea, his only suggestion was to get a shovel and dig her out (not that he offered to bring one down though ) Eventually we had to rip the bush to pieces and Charlie shoved his arm down and grabbed a tail and a leg and tried to pull her out, she tried to bite him (understandably I suppose, but no broken skin thank goodness, I bought him a couple of pints in compensation) so I got down there, at least he had got her attention and she had turned round, her little brown nose was poking out like a little mouse, I got a big handful of cheese and she was fooled - naughty, naughty monkey :nonod:

Thing is we had been told she was prone to this (we were told that was the only problem with her though ) but she has never shown the inclination since we've had her, she has a sniff at holes, sometimes wees down them and carry's on, but she is remarkably calm today almost like she had to get it out her system and she feels better now. 

Oh what an adventure, poor Mary and Charlie, I think its them that got the grey hairs, they were horrified at the thought of their two following her, doing what terriers do!


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## Guest

There's still time for him to be naughty.


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## fortunesfool

We haven't worked on anything new or exciting in a while as we just focussing on getting through the day without any dramas. However we've found new purpose this week so have been working on gateways and the sock drawer.

Bodhi has got used to the same walks but we've always known he needs to experience more things so started taking different walking routes. The obvious downside is that his reactiveness instantly ramps up so that every pathway and driveway is lunged at in case some evil monster is lurking in it, he also struggles just to walk round a corner normally. 

We're trying to use functional rewards as apart from anything if we keep up on the cheese and hot dogs to get anywhere he will turn into as big a fat bob as his owner. So we wait until there is a level of calm and then walk him towards the offending path. Seems to be working so far as we've had a couple of days of this and we're managing to get calmer walks in new places. Actually look forward to our next walk to see if we are genuinely making progress.

The sock drawer relates to going for walks in that every time someone goes to the sock drawer(or even looks like putting a pair of shoes on) he goes nuts as he knows it's walk time, and this is proper barking, crazy nuts as opposed to just being excited. Not a good start for a reactive dog trying to be calm once he's out of the house. 

I shamefully admit this is a learnt behaviour so we're working our way out of it. It does involve randomly going to the sock drawer and then walking off again as well as waiting for absolute calm before the lead goes on. He seems to get that going to the drawer now means lie in the hallway patiently until everyone is ready to go out.


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## chazzie10

Naughty Ginge worrying your mummy like that 

Well it's been a couple of days since I've written on here...just been eary-wigging from the side lines 
Have had a few really down days so havn't felt able to join in the chat with my usual "lols" and smiley faces but Im so addicted to the forum that I couldnt stay away completely 
Charlie's feeling much better and back to his silly, tactless self. Check up at the vets on Friday and his bites have healed well. He behaved well in the waiting room and then at reception desk on way out, sitting and focusing on me intently.... until a big Boxer came in and Chaz decided he REALLY needed to say hello...immediately....and so it began again.
I have to admit I was partly to blame as I was distracted, talking to the nurse and didn't hear the door opening, infact he was being so good I almost forgot he was on the end of the lead! 
Yesterday was a beautiful autumn day and I finally got up the courage, and he was healed enough, to take Chaz to the forest ( a different one- we've 5 wee forests within 2 miles of my house).
We went not only to a different forest but also different time of day than last weeks attack. We got 2 or 3 minutes into the walk and a staffy came towards us on its lead. Numpty got excited but this time I remembered our class training and knew that he was capable of controlling himself- I actually managed to get him to sit! Then continue to sit and even focusing on me a few times for a treat. He did really well until the dog had just passed, then he stood up and pulled a wee bit but it definately wasnt a lunge! So pleased 
Then who stepped out of a side path from a different car park? Yep only the :cursing: man with the big rottie and alsation that attacked charlie last sunday! Both off lead again! They stopped ans stared at us 20 feet away and I thought I was gonna pass out  The man finally coaxed the two in through the trees.
Thank goodness I had kept mine on his lead! Id been about to let him off as there was nobody around- forgot about that path!
The dogs obviously recognised each other and chaz ducked his head, sniffing the ground and whined quietly....the first calming signals Ive ever seen him give. Have to say we headed home straight away- I couldnt face walking round a bend and meeting them :crying:
Sorry this is a long 'un... making up for lost time


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## GingerRogers

Crikey that must have been terrifying, my blood ran cold just reading it 

Glad he is healing up though and you probably did the right thing by going home, it doesn't sound like he would have relaxed either and with both of you tense you would probably done more harm.


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## Beth17

Crikey Ginge that's one way to drive your owners to despair 

Well done Charlie, such a shame your walk was cut short but sounds as if he is doing brilliantly otherwise 

Well we had to run the gauntlet today as it's bin day. Surprisingly Sam did very well but I did go out armed with pockets full of doggy chocolate drops


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## Dogless

danielled said:


> There's still time for him to be naughty.


Wait until he settles in .

Ginger Rogers - what an experience :yikes:. I hope you've recovered!

fortunesfool - sounds as if you're making good progress.

chazzie10 - so glad your boy is his normal self; I know how you feel seeing the dogs - I hate seeing the three rotties at present and feel on edge in the fields in case they come in offlead. Good job that Chaz was onlead - the man must be the same one I saw; not many people have a Jag with a dog trailer, a rottie and a GSD.

Beth - Kilo loves bin day too!!


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## Dogless

I declare this morning a platinum star morning .

In a nutshell:

We had people in to re - insulate the loft; Kilo barked twice then was quiet and just watched the men tramping in and out with rolls of insulation stuff from behind his pet gates.

We went to the vet for his KC vaccination. I said "Leave it" and he took his interest off a cat in there; then a Shih Tzu came in and went mad barking at him - he got as far as the huffing noise he makes before he barks....another "Leave it" and he ignored it  and I was able to just chat with people in the waiting room with him sat nicely .

Then we went into the vet's room and he was the best vet ever - let Kilo sniff him then completely ignored him as I asked . He said that he often had a bit of a fight with doing the KC vaccs - asked me if Kilo had ever bitten; I told him no but he was nervous in the vet's and I had a muzzle in my bag if he wanted it on. He said to leave him unmuzzled then did the strangest thing....I got Kilo to sit and the vet made a sort of clicking noise in his mouth which really transfixed him, then just gently took hold Kilo's muzzle with no objection at all from the BW and put the KC vacc up his nose with no reaction at all.....dog whispering is alive in County Antrim .

After that the nurse gave him some treats whilst he sat nicely as I paid and everyone in the waiting room asked questions about him and he behaved perfectly. I was so proud that I could have burst . After giving him treats the nurse said "After that rubbish I'll give you something good for your teeth" and gave him a Pedigree Dentastix . Awful things but Kilo was actually having a great time in the vet's when he's normally a bag of nerves - so he had it, lucky dog!! Then we left with me practically dancing out to the car .

After that...the park on a beautifully sunny autumnal day (cloudy and raining now though ). Saw lots of people, lots of dogs, most of whom we know. Chatted to a few folk, just passed others and the BW behaved perfectly again.....we just sailed through the park really happily and calmly.

If you have got this far, well done . I suspect this positive mood is because I finally told hubby that I am officially crackers.....


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## chazzie10

Thanks folks x 
Dogless- i got a better look at them this time- I'd a slightly clearer head lol.
The rottie has got a 'proper' undocked, long tail and the other dog, which I previously called a crossbreed, looks to be a full Alsation, just a big, skinny, pale coloured one with hardly any black patches at all- mostly just up round its jaw ( i think). 
Alsations look so different when they've got their ears up or down dont they? Explains why my memory was so confused between white alsation/ staffy/ husky....ears up/ down/ pointy face/ wide face/ pale coloured/ bit of black lmao... i feel justified in my confusion now and have to say the adrenaline and red mist didnt help with breed recognition at the time lmao.
Also drove into other car park to prove to self that I wasnt imagining everyone walking 2 dogs are our attackers and yep...there was the Jag and dog box
CRACKER clear photo of a lovely number plate...Thank you Mister Butch n Baldy hehehe


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I declare this morning a platinum star morning .
> 
> In a nutshell:
> 
> We had people in to re - insulate the loft; Kilo barked twice then was quiet and just watched the men tramping in and out with rolls of insulation stuff from behind his pet gates.
> 
> We went to the vet for his KC vaccination. I said "Leave it" and he took his interest off a cat in there; then a Shih Tzu came in and went mad barking at him - he got as far as the huffing noise he makes before he barks....another "Leave it" and he ignored it  and I was able to just chat with people in the waiting room with him sat nicely .
> 
> Then we went into the vet's room and he was the best vet ever - let Kilo sniff him then completely ignored him as I asked . He said that he often had a bit of a fight with doing the KC vaccs - asked me if Kilo had ever bitten; I told him no but he was nervous in the vet's and I had a muzzle in my bag if he wanted it on. He said to leave him unmuzzled then did the strangest thing....I got Kilo to sit and the vet made a sort of clicking noise in his mouth which really transfixed him, then just gently took hold Kilo's muzzle with no objection at all from the BW and put the KC vacc up his nose with no reaction at all.....dog whispering is alive in County Antrim .
> 
> After that the nurse gave him some treats whilst he sat nicely as I paid and everyone in the waiting room asked questions about him and he behaved perfectly. I was so proud that I could have burst . After giving him treats the nurse said "After that rubbish I'll give you something good for your teeth" and gave him a Pedigree Dentastix . Awful things but Kilo was actually having a great time in the vet's when he's normally a bag of nerves - so he had it, lucky dog!! Then we left with me practically dancing out to the car .
> 
> After that...the park on a beautifully sunny autumnal day (cloudy and raining now though ). Saw lots of people, lots of dogs, most of whom we know. Chatted to a few folk, just passed others and the BW behaved perfectly again.....we just sailed through the park really happily and calmly.
> 
> If you have got this far, well done . I suspect this positive mood is because I finally told hubby that I am officially crackers.....


lol this made me smile 

Pet gate? Kilo? DO THEY COME IN THAT SIZE? lol

Good boy in the vets! You were right to be so proud of him 
Do you think he picked up on your happy mood during the walk? Chaz is definately better behaved when I'm happy ( we are beggered at the minute then lmao)

Youve told your hubby that you are crackers? Did he not realise before now? :wink: hehehe


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> lol this made me smile
> 
> Pet gate? Kilo? DO THEY COME IN THAT SIZE? lol
> 
> Good boy in the vets! You were right to be so proud of him
> Do you think he picked up on your happy mood during the walk? Chaz is definately better behaved when I'm happy ( we are beggered at the minute then lmao)
> 
> Youve told your hubby that you are crackers? Did he not realise before now? :wink: hehehe


Yes; big tall gates .

Kilo absolutely picks up on my mood; if I am ever frustrated or not in the mood he plays up - whenever I am really happy and confident he's perfect! If I am down he is very clingy and a real Mummy's boy .

He knew I was crackers really; but I had to officially tell him.....


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Yes; big tall gates .
> 
> Kilo absolutely picks up on my mood; if I am ever frustrated or not in the mood he plays up - whenever I am really happy and confident he's perfect! If I am down he is very clingy and a real Mummy's boy .
> 
> He knew I was crackers really; but I had to officially tell him.....


Ahh it's good to be honest :wink:


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Ahh it's good to be honest :wink:


It is; kept it all to myself (apart from on here ) for years....now it's out...nothing has changed bar I am relieved and so is hubby .


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## chazzie10

I forgot to say about training class on Saturday.
Chaz was so worked up and wouldnt focus on me for the first half hour :cursing:
Id gone early and walked him around for 20 mins just to get him used to the idea of being there and the smell of other dogs as he hadnt met any close up since last week.
He pulled and pulled and got himself a bit frantic- I calmed him then went back into car park to wait for start of class and he just would not settle with others around him. 
Ive made a few friends already  and one lady ( the owner of the human/ dog aggressive jrt) left her dog in the car and came over to talk. I told her about the attack etc and to my horror, burst into tears.... totally disgraced myself lol. I knew I was feeling really down ( lots of crappy stuff happening atm...money worries, failing diet, maybe losing job but theyre making me wait 30 days to find out, blah, blah), so I knew I wasnt in the calmest frame of mind for the class but I really needed to get him back into socialisation. Anyway, after 3 more teary episodes ( I dont think anyone saw), He finally came through and was a star! He lay down and stayed while I walked to the far end of the hall and stood for 5 minutes and didnt move- except his eyes flicking to the guy with the ball swinging on a rope but a quick @[email protected] got his attention again. WOOO go Chazzie


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## Sarah1983

Oooh, naughty Ginge! Not only worrying your owners but leading other dogs astray too! Shame on you 

Chazzie, I'd have left too. I know exactly how it feels, we ran into the staffie that attacked Rupert a few weeks later and it was awful. It didn't help the bloody thing came over to have another shot at him! And again the owner was miles away.

Dogless, sounds like you're doing well with the Boy Wonder. And a brilliant time at the vets! Just look at the Dentastix as a rare junk food treat lol.

FortunesFool, Ruperts reactivity used to skyrocket in new places. He'd end up creeping along practically on his belly, jumping at this, cowering at that, lunging at shadows. Used to feel awful taking him on new walks but I knew once he'd done them a few times he'd relax (as much as Rupert ever relaxed) so we did the odd one or two now and then.

Having a really crappy day here today. I'm sick to the back teeth of the stealing. I've been ignoring it but then he drops whatever he's stolen to the floor right next to me, picks it up, drops it again, picks it up, drops it again all the time staring a hole in my head. He even goes as far as to nudge me before picking it back up as if to say "look what I've got". It's blatantly attention seeking behaviour but if he drops one more thing next to me I may strangle him with it  This is a new one so whether it's a sort of extinction burst I don't know, I guess just keep ignoring and see if it dies out.

Every time I open the balcony door he's out there whining loudly. I have no idea what he's whining at as there's nothing there! I don't know whether it's more attention seeking behaviour as usually I go out to see what he's whining at. For now I'm just bringing him in and shutting the door for a minute or two every time he does it.

Our walk was a nightmare. Pull, pull, lunge, pull, lunge, pull, pull, throw myself around because I can't play with that Beagle, pull, lunge, pull, huff and puff and bounce at the GSD that's barking at me, pull, pull, lunge, poo up a tree then refuse to stand still so Sarah can pick up, pull, pull, pull. Get back to the flats, let him off leash, perfect heelwork :mad2:

I think today is just one of those days. Let's hope for a better one tomorrow.


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> It is; kept it all to myself (apart from on here ) for years....now it's out...nothing has changed bar I am relieved and so is hubby .


I never keep it to myself- I usually tell people in the first few minutes of meeting that Im as mad as a box of frogs


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## Dogless

Chazzie10 and Sarah - I can't 'like' your last posts. I am so sorry that you're both having a hard time. Really hope that tomorrow brings better things for you both xx.



chazzie10 said:


> I never keep it to myself- I usually tell people in the first few minutes of meeting that Im as mad as a box of frogs


I always keep things to myself. I am utterly ashamed .


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## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Chazzie, I'd have left too. I know exactly how it feels, we ran into the staffie that attacked Rupert a few weeks later and it was awful. It didn't help the bloody thing came over to have another shot at him! And again the owner was miles away.
> 
> Our walk was a nightmare. Pull, pull, lunge, pull, lunge, pull, pull, throw myself around because I can't play with that Beagle, pull, lunge, pull, huff and puff and bounce at the GSD that's barking at me, pull, pull, lunge, poo up a tree then refuse to stand still so Sarah can pick up, pull, pull, pull. Get back to the flats, let him off leash, perfect heelwork :mad2:
> 
> I think today is just one of those days. Let's hope for a better one tomorrow.


This owner was right there with them and I was gonna shout at him that, actually, his dogs HAD injured mine and no, he WASNT ok and that he owed me a vet's bill ggrrr lol. Thing was I didnt want to shout and make him come near me with those dogs 

Your walk sounds familiar, made me laugh about pooing up the tree though


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Chazzie10 and Sarah - I can't 'like' your last posts. I am so sorry that you're both having a hard time. Really hope that tomorrow brings better things for you both xx.
> 
> I always keep things to myself. I am utterly ashamed .


See the thing is I'm beat before I start- it's not possible to hide it so I just tell all hehehe


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## chazzie10

Dogless I'm just wondering if Kilo's giant sized pet gates can be fitted with an electric opening device like you get for driveways lmao
You could just operate them by remote control from the settee


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## fortunesfool

Sarah1983 said:


> Having a really crappy day here today. I'm sick to the back teeth of the stealing. I've been ignoring it but then he drops whatever he's stolen to the floor right next to me, picks it up, drops it again, picks it up, drops it again all the time staring a hole in my head. He even goes as far as to nudge me before picking it back up as if to say "look what I've got". It's blatantly attention seeking behaviour but if he drops one more thing next to me I may strangle him with it  This is a new one so whether it's a sort of extinction burst I don't know, I guess just keep ignoring and see if it dies out.
> 
> Every time I open the balcony door he's out there whining loudly. I have no idea what he's whining at as there's nothing there! I don't know whether it's more attention seeking behaviour as usually I go out to see what he's whining at. For now I'm just bringing him in and shutting the door for a minute or two every time he does it.
> 
> Our walk was a nightmare. Pull, pull, lunge, pull, lunge, pull, pull, throw myself around because I can't play with that Beagle, pull, lunge, pull, huff and puff and bounce at the GSD that's barking at me, pull, pull, lunge, poo up a tree then refuse to stand still so Sarah can pick up, pull, pull, pull. Get back to the flats, let him off leash, perfect heelwork :mad2:
> 
> I think today is just one of those days. Let's hope for a better one tomorrow.


Sorry to hear it's one of those days - the walk sounds terribly familiar. Understand it's frustrating with the behaviour you need to ignore - I used to have to send the OH upstairs when Bodhi was going through his yelping phase as you could just see the tension coming off him in waves. Can you remove yourself completely when he is bringing you "gifts"? I've taken to pretending to pick my nails or stare at a spot on the ceiling while counting to ten for those moments.

Here's to a better one tomorrow


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## Sarah1983

fortunesfool said:


> Sorry to hear it's one of those days - the walk sounds terribly familiar. Understand it's frustrating with the behaviour you need to ignore - I used to have to send the OH upstairs when Bodhi was going through his yelping phase as you could just see the tension coming off him in waves. Can you remove yourself completely when he is bringing you "gifts"? I've taken to pretending to pick my nails or stare at a spot on the ceiling while counting to ten for those moments.
> 
> Here's to a better one tomorrow


I can't physically remove myself without him leaping up to do whatever it is I'm about to do but I tend to just carry on with what I'm doing (reading, forums, computer game) and blank him. It's been working well up till now which is why I wonder whether it's an extinction burst. Unfortunately it seems to be a behaviour that got him a lot of attention in his last home so it's pretty ingrained. At least now he brings it to me most of the time instead of racing off and parading it just out of reach lol.


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## Werehorse

Sounds very much like an extinction burst Sarah, increasing frequency and intensity - he's definitely kicking the vending machine  :lol: Hang in there and keep ignoring (be ready for him to try something new and more naughty as he esculates the behaviour as well and be ready to ignore!  )

Well done on admitting the crazy Dogless, must be a huge weight off your mind! And well done Sir Kilo - KC vaccine is usually a trauma so he did really well.

GingerRogers - that sounds like a complete nightmare. At least if it came down to it you can dig her out of a rabbit hole - if she ever gets stuck down a badger sett though you just have to wait it out else you can get done for badger baiting (even though you aren't!) just a note for future reference! 

Chazzie - it's one of those Sod's Law things that you'll keep bumping into that chap now.  I hope you manage to avoid him from now on though. At least he has a distinctive car so you can tell if he's in somewhere.


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## fortunesfool

Sarah1983 said:


> I can't physically remove myself without him leaping up to do whatever it is I'm about to do but I tend to just carry on with what I'm doing (reading, forums, computer game) and blank him. It's been working well up till now which is why I wonder whether it's an extinction burst. Unfortunately it seems to be a behaviour that got him a lot of attention in his last home so it's pretty ingrained. At least now he brings it to me most of the time instead of racing off and parading it just out of reach lol.


Maybe he's trying to show you how good he is at retrieving


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## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> Chazzie - it's one of those Sod's Law things that you'll keep bumping into that chap now.  I hope you manage to avoid him from now on though. At least he has a distinctive car so you can tell if he's in somewhere.


I know Werehorse, it'd would be typical of my luck 
Thing is, thats the second time Ive seen him and the second time he's come to the same place 2 or 3 minutes after me!! If I see his car anywhere first I'll definately go elsewhere hmy:


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## chazzie10

Ive just spent a happy half hour creating albums and uploading photos of numpty boy from when he was tiny until now.... aww Id forgotten his wee pink belly, blue puppy eyes and how small he was :001_tt1:
What the heck happened??? lmao
Oh aye...Ive managed to burn homemade soup as well....thats quite an achievement- didnt think it was possible but it seems it is


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Buddy sounds like a little star, hope the good behaviour continues, but you will be putting us all to shame - I thought this thread was for naughty dogs
> 
> Yes Dogless & Moonviolet, Ginge did an Alice in Wonderland, little bugger hmy:.
> 
> Went out yesterday with my friend and her two which are also terrier types (lhasax papilionx jrtx bichon so not sure how much terrier, at least 1/2, I think lhasa are terriers aren't they, not sure about the others) & met up with her son, who has just bought a metal detector, in the 'crater' a favourite rabbit chasing spot for Buffer and Elsie, as we were going to be there a while I thought it would be fine to let Ginge off for a chase too!!!
> 
> She found a large (luckily) hole underneath a gorse bush (unluckily) and down she went. Buffer stood by looking very nervous - he knew it was naughty - Elsie had a good go of following her - she is not so sensitive as her bro. So they got put straight back on lead and now Mary isn't sure about letting them off there again , I had warned her Ginge might lead them astray (certainly Elsie whose very much terrier, Buffs is more clown), shes always questioning why I don't let her off with them
> 
> We hung about for about 10mins but she was not showing any signs of coming out, you could see her bum intermittently and showers of sand coming out the hole, :cursing: but cos of the bush couldn't reach her. I tried tempting her out with hotdog, cheese, liver cake, we walked away and called her from a distance, tried the whistle, called up hubby thinking he might have a good idea, his only suggestion was to get a shovel and dig her out (not that he offered to bring one down though ) Eventually we had to rip the bush to pieces and Charlie shoved his arm down and grabbed a tail and a leg and tried to pull her out, she tried to bite him (understandably I suppose, but no broken skin thank goodness, I bought him a couple of pints in compensation) so I got down there, at least he had got her attention and she had turned round, her little brown nose was poking out like a little mouse, I got a big handful of cheese and she was fooled - naughty, naughty monkey :nonod:
> 
> Thing is we had been told she was prone to this (we were told that was the only problem with her though ) but she has never shown the inclination since we've had her, she has a sniff at holes, sometimes wees down them and carry's on, but she is remarkably calm today almost like she had to get it out her system and she feels better now.
> 
> Oh what an adventure, poor Mary and Charlie, I think its them that got the grey hairs, they were horrified at the thought of their two following her, doing what terriers do!


My sister's JRT disappeared down a hole under a building at South of England Showground about half an hour before she was stewarding the championship class. They had to get the groundsman to dig the little sod out and all the highly trained obedience dogs (which had come from all over the UK to compete) were kept waiting for nearly an hour by one naughtly little terrier....LOL Needless to say all the handlers took the p... out of my sister for most of the day....!!


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## Twiggy

Well Holly Bolly has a training date with three other youngsters about the same age tomorrow afternoon. Fingers crossed it isn't one of her 'No I'd rather sniff a bush' days....


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## GingerRogers

Well Done Kilo - superstar day  - and Well Done Dogless, crackers is good, crackers is so much better than normal, normal is boring, my OH knew I was crackers from the off which means he just ignores me if I go off one one 

Chazzie - you must know crying at training classes is my specialty, its very hard to get it right and catch all the attention, if no-one noticed you aren't doing it right  Sorry that things are getting on top of you though sometimes its good to break down and let it out even if you feel a plonker (and you aren't really living up to being honest if you are getting embarrassed by crying, setting dogless bad example to follow!! )

Sarah I hope it stops soon for you, you can tell through your posts it is sending you MENTAL :cursing: but remember all the good things he does, last week he was so well behaved, he carries your bags and he loves you so much that's why he brings things back to you! Actually thinking about it the bag carrying and the stealing and returning stuff, does sound like very like retrieving type behavior, does he have something he is allowed to carry?

Werehorse - I didn't know that about the badger thing (saw a badger the week before last , nearly ran it over on the way back from training class last week, first one ever seen )

Everyone else seems more worried than I was, even you lot of hardened dog owners - I just thought well that's what terriers do, I have heard terrible stories of trapped and dead dogs but I could still see her little fluffy bum most of the time , if she had gone much further in then yes I would have panicked (and it was starting to get dark) we knew she could do that but her previous owner said she always came out eventually. However that's not to say I planning on letting her get in that situation again anytime soon!!!

Twiggy - bet your sister was mortified, they are naughty little dogs though.

Thing is she has been really quite well behaved since, much calmer. OH's best mate popped over from France yesterday and stopped the night, he wanted to come for a walk with me before he set off, he only had one set of shoes so asked if we were going anywhere muddy  well yeah, we are trying to avoid the roads so yes everywhere is pretty much 6 inches deep at the moment . 

Anyway eventually decided that as she had taken to 'Uncle Chalky' so well she 'might' be perfectly behaved. Off we set on a road walk, I was pretty much engrossed in convo so didn't really take much notice of her , she barked at only one car when we stopped to chat with the neighbour. There were lots of big scary busses and lorries about and she was really great. I do wonder if she was just missing her normal behaviour patterns, whether the digging released some hormones or something. They reckon chewing does something relaxing.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I must have been really peed off at poor Spencer last night because even hubby noticed it and decided to take him out for a good game of fetch to get him out of my hair for a bit  I think it was just one of those days coz I don't normally get angry with him and by last night I really was getting there.

Ginge, he has tons of things he's allowed to carry around and is rarely seen without his giant tennis ball stuck in his gob but when he wants attention he goes without fail for something that isn't his. I think it was his way of getting attention in his previous home and now he's kicking the vending machine as Werehorse put it because it's not working for him. And anything will do! A dvd left in reach, a shoe, keys, an empty beer bottle, the crate of coke bottles, he even stole a kettle once!

He's a fantastic dog really, pretty much everything I wanted in a dog. I just hadn't banked on getting a career criminal to boot hmy: I should turn it to my advantage, teach him to steal things like ipads and wallets, could make a nice living that way :lol:


----------



## Dogless

We spent the morning in 'our' forest today - had given it a break after we'd come across the wild goats last time; Kilo still remembered today as he stalked and did 'run ins' towards where they had been! We had a lovely time; conditions were just right for scent to have remained strong on the ground so he spent the morning running about without pause pretty much with some zoomies sessions thrown in to boot - needless to say he's now snoring his head off . And...we saw...people . Right at the end some forestry workers were chainsawing fallen trees and chopping logs. The whole path was blocked and the logs being thrown into the trailer made a racket....wasn't sure how the BW would be, but I needn't have worried; I said 'morning' really cheerfully (stops him being all suspicious!!) and we just walked past with no problem - I thought the bangs might spook him but he just looked then carried on .

I took a few horrendously rubbish photos on my phone camera when he was still (for about 10 seconds on the whole walk!!).


----------



## moonviolet

This thread is like a memory test now and frankly mine is not up to the job. Sorry

Chazzie, one bright note that stuck with me from your post was that Charles displayed calming signals for the first time  that's a good thing  a dog displaying good clear ones can often diffuse trouble 


Sarah, how is Spen doing today ? 

Dogless , sounds like a lovely walk in your woods today and well done on the platinum star yesterday ( i think it was yesterday)

TInk has been a disgrace :lol: :lol: like a toddler refusing to sleep when she was clearly tired, shoes brought to me, nylabone, treat ball ( for a refill cheeky beggar)... although I guess it could be related to the incident in the woods today which involved finding a recently discarded beens and sausages ration pack... grabbing said article locating those who discarded and cantering around them showing them her prize.... oh the shame the shame the shame. She redeemed herself somewhat when back on lead giving me some beautiful heelwork with adoring eyes walking past a second group of soldiers. defintiely have to be on my toes more with this mizzly weather keep the smells low :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

I love hearing about naughty Tink :001_tt1::001_tt1:. I can imagine her antics!! Know what you mean about the mizzly weather; Kilo was in his element today following smell after smell!


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh dear, naughty Tink! It did make me giggle though.

Dogless sounds like you had a fab walk 

Spencer is still channelling Kevin today but not quite so much as yesterday. He's only stolen a paper bag and the cellophane off a dvd today and both very quickly lost their appeal although he did stand looking mournfully at me with the bag in his mouth. Honestly, he could have been a poster dog for an abuse campaign! When I clearly wasn't bothered by his "woe is me" look he heaved a big sigh and threw himself down on the floor next to my chair. He can be quite the drama queen when he wants to be.

Went out earlier and was a bit panicked to see two growling GSDs charging towards us! Turned out they were the dogs who live upstairs and Spen said hello quite nicely, he was clearly excited but he didn't get silly and bouncy and once they'd had a sniff of each other was happy enough to carry on walking with me even if he did have to pull and dart around for the next 5 minutes. 

We've been doing some rear end awareness work and while he's quite happy to move in an anti clockwise direction moving clockwise is apparently extremely difficult. So we've got a couple of steps in one direction and a bit of a shuffle of paws in the other lol.


----------



## L/C

Oh Sarah - sounds like Spen is a bit better today at least! Is it possible that the retrieving is self reinforcing and that's why it's so persistent? I know barking quite often doesn't respond to extinction behaviour (and certainly hasn't with Gypsy!) because it produces positive emotions. If the retrieving itself is the reinforcer then you might be better interrupting and re-directing rather then ignoring. Just thinking out loud though so ignore if it's not helpful!

Chazzie - glad your boy is healing but what a horrible coincidence to bump into that man again!

Dogless - looks like a nice walk - glad their weren't any goats. 

MV - naughty Tink. :001_wub:

Gypsy has become a real madam at the moment. She will not settle in the evenings - walks around whinging to herself and pestering me and begging for more food. Her reluctance to walk has spread to the morning as well - she'll go maybe ten foot then stop, be coaxed on and go another 10 foot and then stop again. It took us half an hour to do a 5 minute walk this morning. 

My feeling is that it's her leg that is hurting her. She's fine once she is offlead and can move at her own pace, similarly she is fine if we're in the bedroom where she can sit on the bed with me (it's a tatami so no climbing or jumping) but not in the living room where she has a duvet on the floor - no room on the sofa as we're a full house atm.

So I've been looking at management strategies and talking to the vet. Vet is in agreement with me that we want to hold off on the heavier duty painkillers for as long as possible - she's only just 5 so we could be looking at another 10 years of this. Healthwise I don't want long term painkillers for her and as horrible as it sounds I have to think of the cost as well;nothing to do with her leg is covered by insurance as it's an old racing injury.

So I finally got my act together and ordered a tuffie for the living room and the vet is re-examining her supplements for me to see if there is anything else that might help. I've also ordered a hock boot to provide some support when we are out and I'm looking for waterproof leg warmers as keeping the joint warm might help too. We have some fleecy ones but when it's wet they suck up all the moisture and negate the point of having them on! 

Vet also suggested some sort of heat pad for over night to keep her body temp up and the joints relaxed but all the ones I can see have wires and Gypsy's a wire chewer. The snugglesafe looks all right for a microwavable one but it's tiny. Any recommendations would be appreciated. 

Our vet also has a hydro pool so I'm looking into that as a way to improve muscle and range of movement.

Lastly we've been banned from any exercises that put too weight on her leg or any repetitive movement or lying on a hard surface - so down stays and box work is out. I've also been advised to rest her for a bit to give her leg a chance to stop hurting so our walks need to be shorter. That means I need some new training ideas to keep my duracell greyhound amused!


----------



## Dogless

L/C - it does sound like it's Gypsy's leg that is the problem; and your combination of solutions sounds like a good plan. I can't think of anything without wires apart from the snugglesafe - but will get thinking laterally to see if anything occurs to me .


----------



## Dogless

Something like this on top of the bed L/C? Ancol - Self Heating Pet Pad Cat/Dog Bed - Large: Amazon.co.uk: Pet Supplies


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Something like this on top of the bed L/C? Ancol - Self Heating Pet Pad Cat/Dog Bed - Large: Amazon.co.uk: Pet Supplies


Oooh that looks great - thanks!

I have spent about £200 on stuff for Gypsy in the last hour!


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## Dogless

L/C said:


> Oooh that looks great - thanks!
> 
> I have spent about £200 on stuff for Gypsy in the last hour!


Frighteningly easy to do .


----------



## moonviolet

L/C Sounds like you have good plan for gypsy's long term comfort Hope the vet can suggest something supplementary that can help.

The problem with Tink is laughing at her is almost as good as food rewards.. i think i'm going to have to be on super alert for a while :lol: I knwo this isn't anything i'm working on and barely warrants dog chat... but I found out my phone's camera had a macros setting today and took this pic .... feel free to send me to the impulse control corner now


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> L/C Sounds like you have good plan for gypsy's long term comfort Hope the vet can suggest something supplementary that can help.
> 
> The problem with Tink is laughing at her is almost as good as food rewards.. i think i'm going to have to be on super alert for a while :lol: I knwo this isn't anything i'm working on and barely warrants dog chat... but I found out my phone's camera had a macros setting today and took this pic .... feel free to send me to the impulse control corner now


What a lovely photo . My phone is brand new and I haven't really fathomed the camera out at all yet . Must have a proper look!


----------



## GingerRogers

That is beautiful, I have a slight obsession with taking macro shots.


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> That is beautiful, I have a slight obsession with taking macro shots.


Put some on here, sure we'd all like to see a few good 'uns .


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> L/C Sounds like you have good plan for gypsy's long term comfort Hope the vet can suggest something supplementary that can help.
> 
> The problem with Tink is laughing at her is almost as good as food rewards.. i think i'm going to have to be on super alert for a while :lol: I knwo this isn't anything i'm working on and barely warrants dog chat... but I found out my phone's camera had a macros setting today and took this pic .... feel free to send me to the impulse control corner now


That's a stunning pic - you clever thing. I wouldn't have a clue how to take a macro photo, but then I'm hopeless with phones, video camera, etc. etc.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Put some on here, sure we'd all like to see a few good 'uns .


But they aint of dogs - dogs look funny in macro!

View attachment thistle (Medium).bmp


Just one then, this is my favourite.

ETA it doesn't show up, you have to download it, its a bitmap file type for some reason, it has been moved about a bit, oh well.


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> But they aint of dogs - dogs look funny in macro!
> 
> View attachment 99365
> 
> 
> Just one then, this is my favourite.


That is a really fantastic photo - don't worry that they're not of dogs....this thread seems to meander all over the shop .


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## Twiggy

Well Holly was a good girl this afternoon and didn't let me down. She doesn't have the potential of the other three and isn't as advanced as two of them but she tried, which is all I can ask.

I took Tremor over to the barn with us, in case I needed to demonstrate any exercises, and she was totally bonkers. I've never seen a dog drool so much with sheer excitement and the ball she had in her mouth was sodden and revolting.
Strange creatures aren't they; you could put a piece of sirloin steak on her nose and she wouldn't be interested but mention retrieve, heelwork, etc. and she's a raving loony.


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## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> Oh Sarah - sounds like Spen is a bit better today at least! Is it possible that the retrieving is self reinforcing and that's why it's so persistent? I know barking quite often doesn't respond to extinction behaviour (and certainly hasn't with Gypsy!) because it produces positive emotions. If the retrieving itself is the reinforcer then you might be better interrupting and re-directing rather then ignoring. Just thinking out loud though so ignore if it's not helpful!


I don't know about actually retrieving being self reinforcing but carrying something in his mouth certainly is. I can sometimes interrupt him and redirect him to something appropriate to carry but other times he just makes a wild grab at whatever he was thinking about picking up. There are certain things that will trigger him to go on a crime spree. Ending a training session, coming in from a walk and stopping playing are 3 that spring to mind. At these times he will not redirect and will not settle until he's stolen something. I don't know whether it's a form of stress relief then or an attempt to get us to continue doing fun stuff or a bit of both.

Sorry to hear you think Gypsys leg is bothering her  Fingers crossed you can get something sorted for her.


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## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> There are certain things that will trigger him to go on a crime spree. Ending a training session, coming in from a walk and stopping playing are 3 that spring to mind. At these times he will not redirect and will not settle until he's stolen something. I don't know whether it's a form of stress relief then or an attempt to get us to continue doing fun stuff or a bit of both.


I have to say those 3 are triggers for beagle brain too.. although she would be a stare and barker ( sound like puveyors of fine soaps) i try to use the mat exercise or a random piece of dried animal or a baited stag bar to get her to lay down and chill out.

Twiggy i'd be more impressed if hadn't ended up on my bum on the wet grass to get that photo :lol: :lol:

ETA: lovely pic GR


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Chazzie, one bright note that stuck with me from your post was that Charles displayed calming signals for the first time  that's a good thing  a dog displaying good clear ones can often diffuse trouble
> l:


Yes I was very pleased to see him displaying calming signals- Its something I hadn't thought too much about, though I was aware that he was being impolite by meeting dogs head on and looking straight at them instead of curving round and turning his head away slightly. I didn't know that ducking the head down as if sniffing the ground was also a signal until I was given the lend of a book by my dog trainer on saturday. Its called 'On talking terms with dogs' and written by Turid Rugaas. It was an interesting read with lots of nice photos of cute dogs greeting each other 

Naughty Tink...she's such a mischief and I can picture her charging round all pleased with herself and her sausage and bean discovery


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Yes I was very pleased to see him displaying calming signals- Its something I hadn't thought too much about, though I was aware that he was being impolite by meeting dogs head on and looking straight at them instead of curving round and turning his head away slightly. I didn't know that ducking the head down as if sniffing the ground was also a signal until I was given the lend of a book by my dog trainer on saturday. Its called 'On talking terms with dogs' and written by Turid Rugaas. It was an interesting read with lots of nice photos of cute dogs greeting each other
> 
> Naughty Tink...she's such a mischief and I can picture her charging round all pleased with herself and her sausage and bean discovery


I love that booklet .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I love that booklet .


me too  and one day OH will look at it


----------



## chazzie10

I didnt realise everyone would have the same book 
Turid seems to have dedicated her life to observing and helping distressed dogs and i guess she has some inner peace and calmness that I definately dont have atm!
Another vet check today 
It would have been free of charge like the last one except Charlie has developed a problem with his paws  He started kicking his leg out behind him yesterday afternoon and I discovered in between his toes, on that paw, was green and icky. What next!?
He needed a cortisone injection and treatment for an allergic rash in August which the vet couldnt tell what had caused it...In the space of 6 weeks he'd been changed onto a cheaper food which was easier to get locally, we'd moved house to a place surrounded by trees, grass and flower pollen, he'd swam daily in a new river and Id used a different brand of flea drop on him! Hard to tell which had caused it.
Changed him back onto the previous food and the medication seemed to do it's thing but now the vets saying this is probably all part of the same thing. Soooo out we came with Piriton and a cortisone type spray for his tootsies... £44 thank you very much  (added to the other £127 in the last 4 weeks). 
On the plus side- he was bestest boy in the waiting room today! Didnt budge when a westie came flying in like a leaf blown in on the wind- he just lay down and jukied under the seats at it lmao. A mini schnauzer had a full hissy fit at him and he just looked at it like it had a screw loose. Well proud :001_tt1:

And breathe............


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## Dogless

Well done Chaz for behaving in the waiting room....and I hope you recover soon .


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> me too  and one day OH will look at it


One day mine will too.....when hell freezes over :frown2:.


----------



## Beth17

Feeling really fed up this evening.

I've been feeling a bit icky today and so that coupled with thick mist meant I street walked the boys this morning. They were really good so no complaints there.

I took them up to the field this afternoon as it is quieter and the mist had cleared so off we went avoided some retrievers and carried on with Sam getting some offlead time when we saw Ted the gsd. Oscar, Sam and Ted had a lovely time running around and then we moved on and bumped into another couple of retrievers we often see and both boys were good and mingling nicely and then we carried on and finished our walk.

This is where the day turned crap. In the field there is a path that comes off the side and goes behind the trees back up to the road its got stinging nettles along each side and is only wide enough for one person at a time. We were just about to go up this path when suddenly from the field we were just in came the 3 retrievers and they made a beeline for us and I couldn't see the owner.

Oscar wasn't onlead but Sam was and he started straining to greet them and all 3 came over right into our space trying to greet and sniff the boys and the boys and I were effectively pinned in a corner as I was trying to drag Sam away through the path and I could see Oscar getting tense which is exactly why I had avoided them in the first place.
Oscar of course then had enough and really let rip he sounded awful, but the retrievers were not moving away quickly enough 

I managed to grab hold of him and the owner then came around the corner. I apologised and explained he was overwhelmed all whilst trying to hold Oscar back, stop Sam going forward to play and stay upright in the mud. The owner didn't seem worried and carried on and the dogs finally went away. But I was so cross with myself for letting it happen and Oscar for reacting and I just wanted to get home and cry.

He's been a bit off all night now grumbling at the slightest thing and just being a grumpy old man. He didn't actually make contact it was just noise and right in the dogs face although I will of course double check when I next see them.

Sorry for the long post well done if you read it all.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17; that all sounds horrible - I felt awful when Kilo let rip at the terrier that came over and growled at him the other night too. Logically you know that you were in the right (as I was) but you still feel rubbish don't you? All I can say really is that I hope you feel better soon and that tomorrow's another day .


----------



## Zaros

_*Getting away from the 4R53 at the other end of this leash!*_


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## Beth17

L/C sorry to hear about Gypsy and her leg I hope you can get it sorted.

Well done Spen good to hear you're not being quite so naughty 

Sounds a brill walk Dogless!

Tink even when you're naughty it just comes across as cute 

Chazzie I don't have the book. I might just get it now though I feel I'm missing out  Hope Charlie and his feet are sorted soon. What a good boy in the waiting room though.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Beth17; that all sounds horrible - I felt awful when Kilo let rip at the terrier that came over and growled at him the other night too. Logically you know that you were in the right (as I was) but you still feel rubbish don't you? All I can say really is that I hope you feel better soon and that tomorrow's another day .


I know I just felt like I had such a horrible dog although he had shown today that he can be good as well. I felt worse because the retrievers had obviously just wanted to say hello but had they stayed away Oscar wouldn't have looked at them twice. But as you say tomorrow will be different.

This dog owning malarky is not as easy as it looks


----------



## Dogless

Had a good walk tonight; just a 45 minute potter - the BW had been comatose apart from a brief wake up for his dinner so didn't get a second walk at his usual time. He managed to walk past some obnoxious boys showing off to the girls with them yelling at us and pointing fake pistols at us  :cursing:. It was almost pitch dark on some parts of the sports pitches and we almost trod on a black cat which of course ran...and the BW nearly dislocated my shoulder . Apart from that....a good walk .


----------



## Beth17

Impressive stuff Kilo although tut tut trying to chase cats is that not beneath a dog such as yourself


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Impressive stuff Kilo although tut tut trying to chase cats is that not beneath a dog such as yourself


Dear Beth,

Cats were put on this planet purely as prey for RRs. My human begs to differ and won't allow such a thing - she even worked to stop me letting out a screech and desperately trying to get at any cat I saw. I have to walk nicely past them now....but if they run...game on :yikes::yikes:.

Regards,

Sir Kilo


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Well done Chaz for behaving in the waiting room....and I hope you recover soon .


Me? Or the dog? lmao


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Me? Or the dog? lmao


The boy himself...and you too if you normally have dramas behaving yourself in public .


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> L/C sorry to hear about Gypsy and her leg I hope you can get it sorted.
> 
> Well done Spen good to hear you're not being quite so naughty
> 
> Sounds a brill walk Dogless!
> 
> Tink even when you're naughty it just comes across as cute
> 
> Chazzie I don't have the book. I might just get it now though I feel I'm missing out  Hope Charlie and his feet are sorted soon. What a good boy in the waiting room though.


Thanks 
Sorry you had a horrible end to your walk- doesnt sound like you had anywhere to escape to. Isnt it weird how these things always seem to happen when you're trapped somewhere?
The books nice and small enough that it's pleasant reading over a cup of coffee


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> The boy himself...and you too if you normally have dramas behaving yourself in public .


 who have you been talking to? yes the rumours are all true


----------



## Werehorse

Clearly they aren't cats but Essex Lions and Kilo being a Lion-Hunting Labrador is duty-bound to chase them. 

Oscar chases cats given half a chance (I keep him on the lead at the yard now - the cat chasing, and sponge and carrot stealing all contributed! ) but if they stand up to him he pretty much wets himself with fear - we meta fearless 3-legged one in the village, it hissed at him and he backed up and pretty much screamed in fear! :lol: He'd still chase them if they ran though. Nuts.

Slight divergance.

L/C - Poor Gypsy and her leg.  I hope all the TLC sorts her out. I'm not sure how much effect supplements have, we've tried them all for our golden oldie horse and nothing has had any effect. We still have the option of heavy duty painkillers which isn't such a worry to take given that he's 22 now anyway! But try some and see if they work. Glucosamine and MSM are the biggies to try in horses, not sure about dogs.

Beth - I understand why you feel bad, but don't.  I've been in that position too with a previous dog and you just have to consider how to prevent it in future, if possible, and move forward. 

I think Tink quite likes flirting with soilders by the sounds of it.  Cuuuuute.

A brief training session this evening, on retrievies. Oscar's homework was to be able to retrieve a hankerchief... Check! No problem at all - although it's a good job I don't work him cos the pheasants would be in a right state by the time they got back to us! If Hugo is moving into Oscar's class he need to be able to retrieve. We did a bit of work on it and got to the stage of him picking it up (which isn't hard, he likes picking things up and we had got this far already) and taking one or two steps towards me. Then he got over-excited and really silly so I ended the session because he was just practicing throwing the toy around and chewing it instead of concentrating.

I do think I have been inadvertantly clicking him moving away from me when he picks up the toy because it just seems to be a natural motion for him to do an excited skip backwards as he picks something up and I think I've clicked that into his pick-up and turned it into two or three backwards steps - hopefully now I'm aware of that I can try and train it back out. I am struggling with retrieve because we haven't done much of it in Hugo's classes what with one thing and another and Oscar (and my childhood collie) just kind of did it straight away so it feels like the first time I've had to train it properly.


----------



## Werehorse

Oh and I forgot to add that I'm on Bat Alert for a day's work tomorrow.  I have briefed the boys that they might be minus Mum for the day. Hopefully it won't upset them too much but needs must! Especially as I think I'm going to have to take Oscar to the vet again.  Weird sore on his back that has kind of healed but kind of spread at the same time, just keeping an eye on it at the moment but it's concerning.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Oh and I forgot to add that I'm on Bat Alert for a day's work tomorrow.  I have briefed the boys that they might be minus Mum for the day. Hopefully it won't upset them too much but needs must! Especially as I think I'm going to have to take Oscar to the vet again.  Weird sore on his back that has kind of healed but kind of spread at the same time, just keeping an eye on it at the moment but it's concerning.


How odd. The dog we walk with fairly regularly has weird sores at present - got them when we went into a new field, they cleared up then when we went in again they reappeared. We have come to the conclusion that it must be some vegetation in there - have you been anywhere new perhaps?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I love that booklet .


Yes I've got it as well.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Feeling really fed up this evening.
> 
> I've been feeling a bit icky today and so that coupled with thick mist meant I street walked the boys this morning. They were really good so no complaints there.
> 
> I took them up to the field this afternoon as it is quieter and the mist had cleared so off we went avoided some retrievers and carried on with Sam getting some offlead time when we saw Ted the gsd. Oscar, Sam and Ted had a lovely time running around and then we moved on and bumped into another couple of retrievers we often see and both boys were good and mingling nicely and then we carried on and finished our walk.
> 
> This is where the day turned crap. In the field there is a path that comes off the side and goes behind the trees back up to the road its got stinging nettles along each side and is only wide enough for one person at a time. We were just about to go up this path when suddenly from the field we were just in came the 3 retrievers and they made a beeline for us and I couldn't see the owner.
> 
> Oscar wasn't onlead but Sam was and he started straining to greet them and all 3 came over right into our space trying to greet and sniff the boys and the boys and I were effectively pinned in a corner as I was trying to drag Sam away through the path and I could see Oscar getting tense which is exactly why I had avoided them in the first place.
> Oscar of course then had enough and really let rip he sounded awful, but the retrievers were not moving away quickly enough
> 
> I managed to grab hold of him and the owner then came around the corner. I apologised and explained he was overwhelmed all whilst trying to hold Oscar back, stop Sam going forward to play and stay upright in the mud. The owner didn't seem worried and carried on and the dogs finally went away. But I was so cross with myself for letting it happen and Oscar for reacting and I just wanted to get home and cry.
> 
> He's been a bit off all night now grumbling at the slightest thing and just being a grumpy old man. He didn't actually make contact it was just noise and right in the dogs face although I will of course double check when I next see them.
> 
> Sorry for the long post well done if you read it all.


Aww don't beat yourself up. There is no way you could have managed the situation with five dogs, three of which shouldn't have been crowding your space.


----------



## L/C

Oh Beth - don't worry too much. It's not nice at the time but he's definitely not a horrible dog.

Dogless - Gypsy would like to know what are cats for if not chasing? We've also worked hard on the walking nicely without a scream!

As for Gypsy - it's not nice to see her in pain but I knew it was coming when we took her on. She came to us on crate rest with a broken leg so it was always just a matter of time before she needed something more.

I'm naturally sceptical of supplements especially as there's no conclusive research even in humans but I'll give it a try. She's on the mobile bones from pooch and mutt atm which seems to have helped so I think I'll add some glucosamine to that. Tbh I think it's the more supportive bed and the hock boot that will make the most difference.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> How odd. The dog we walk with fairly regularly has weird sores at present - got them when we went into a new field, they cleared up then when we went in again they reappeared. We have come to the conclusion that it must be some vegetation in there - have you been anywhere new perhaps?


Hmmm, I *think* it appeared after we had our long walk up the back of Dodd, which was a new stretch of walk. But I can't be sure. It just looked like a vegetation cut - which isn't unusual but then it took ages to heal, went scabby, got licked by Hugo, healed in the centre but got scabby on the outside and now it's lumpy and other scabby bits have appeared around it. Bit worrying really.  I think it's just that Hugo has had a couple on sneaky licks and it's made it a bit manky. Probably vets on Thur/Fri. Thankfully it's payday for OH on Fri!!


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Oh Beth - don't worry too much. It's not nice at the time but he's definitely not a horrible dog.
> 
> Dogless - Gypsy would like to know what are cats for if not chasing? We've also worked hard on the walking nicely without a scream!
> 
> As for Gypsy - it's not nice to see her in pain but I knew it was coming when we took her on. She came to us on crate rest with a broken leg so it was always just a matter of time before she needed something more.
> 
> I'm naturally sceptical of supplements especially as there's no conclusive research even in humans but I'll give it a try. She's on the mobile bones from pooch and mutt atm which seems to have helped so I think I'll add some glucosamine to that. Tbh I think it's the more supportive bed and the hock boot that will make the most difference.


The bones that I have broken all ache more in colder, wetter weather - apparently something to do with lower barometric pressure. I would imagine that the hock boot will help Gypsy if it provides warmth and support.


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Hmmm, I *think* it appeared after we had our long walk up the back of Dodd, which was a new stretch of walk. But I can't be sure. It just looked like a vegetation cut - which isn't unusual but then it took ages to heal, went scabby, got licked by Hugo, healed in the centre but got scabby on the outside and now it's lumpy and other scabby bits have appeared around it. Bit worrying really.  I think it's just that Hugo has had a couple on sneaky licks and it's made it a bit manky. Probably vets on Thur/Fri. Thankfully it's payday for OH on Fri!!


I missed this - hope Oscar's back gets better! Ely sometimes gets weird lumps that seem be caused by irritation when he's running through long grass.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> I missed this - hope Oscar's back gets better! Ely sometimes gets weird lumps that seem be caused by irritation when he's running through long grass.


Kilo gets those from nettles and thistles - only has a single coat like pointies so not much protection!


----------



## Beth17

Thank you everyone for being such good listeners I feel a lot better now I have got that off my chest and am off for an early night


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth, I found myself in a similar situation with Rupert once. We were on the street though and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by 4 dogs, all circling us, all trying to sniff at Rupert while he just froze and I tried keeping them away. Then a 5th came charging up barking and growling, Rupe lunged and smashed it to the ground. Found out later he'd seriously injured it, broken its ribs. And no, I didn't offer to pay the vets bill, my dog was leashed and muzzled as per the law so I didn't see why I should.

IMO it's those with the out of control dogs that are the bad owners, not those of us who try our best to prevent our dogs being put in situations where they'll react badly and possibly hurt someone or something.


----------



## moonviolet

Beth don't you dare feel bad or feel that you have a horrible dog. He just communicated that their presence and attention in his space was not welcome. Monty did the same thing last night when the mad boisterous out of control leonberger made a dash for Tink last night. 

His owner didn't feel bad, when a clumsy adolescent 60kg wants to bounce on and play rough with a 15 kg dog it needs to be stopped. In fact she rather loudly said " I do wish she'd keep that dog under better control." I think my haggy-ness is rubbing off 

Fun class, nothing else to report here one minor bark at the invading beagle aliens more of a hello where are from type bark :lol: :lol: But it doesn't half reverberate in that hall 

Werehorse, Hope the lump and scabby bits are nothing serious.

GR loved the thistle pic


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse - hope Oscar gets better soon, I love hearing about accidental effects of clicker training, sort of, since trying it out I have accidentally clicked barking and running across roads etc so panic slightly.

Beth - dont feel bad at all like others say its the out of control dog owners at fault not yours, I have said it before but that's why I have been trying to drum it into OH's head that we need to work more on Ginge's recall, you can be as aware as you like but sometimes things come out the blue and I would hate her to run up to a dog and make its owner feel like you.

L/C - hope your purchases help Gypsy feel better, it is horrible when your dogs are in pain or uncomfortable, I am not really a believer in pain relief for dogs, especially not if its an injury, if they don't feel pain they carry on as normal and injure it some more, we didn't want to try pain relief for Rory either, when it got too bad it was time for him to go but he was 16 so a very different scenario, not sure how I would feel (despite what I have spouted about dogs being dogs and not people in the past ) if it was a younger dog. 

ETA thanks for your nice comment about my thistle plus just remembered it is definitely the off lead class tonight and its another trainer as ours has to be somewhere else

MV -Tink sounds such a lovely thing even the things you 'say' she has done wrong don't sound bad, you have obviously done a wonderful job as all the beagles I have ever met are little sods, we have been seriously tempted by them in the past though - its the look of independent indignance 

Mixed walk today, decided Ginge cannot go off the lead unless I am 100% happy with security and lack of troublesome hedgerows, ***** and rabbit holes. So took the long rope with me this morning to try and work on recall, thought one of the fields would be perfect but the maize stumps kept getting us stuck then Tamzin and Rudi turned up so we abandoned that and carried on with them and their owner. I was still reluctant to let her off even with Rudi to play with so struggled with the long lead and turnip tops tying me in knots as they bounced about having fun. Then we met a chap with an off lead friendly lab and a leaded muzzled border terrier, whether it was the tension from the BT, being with the other two dogs, being hyped up or the confined space in the alley, I don't know but she was not pleasant to the retriever, she was very OTT with her greeting and tried to hang off its ears, I am pretty sure it wasn't aggressive as they passed one another a couple more times with out any growls or other signs but god you just despair sometimes if I don't let her greet dogs she kicks off if you do she can be really unreliable in her response. He just laughed and said 'oh another unruly one then' 

ETA thanks for your nice comments about my thistle, it was complete fluke and more to do with the camera than skill PLUS just remembered its definitely off lead night in class tonight, and a different trainer as ours has to be somewhere else


----------



## Dogless

A mostly good walk this morning with one stupid mistake by me. We went to the park and met people and dogs we knew - lots out this morning and had lots of social chats. Kilo was calm and greeted nicely and was well behaved when we walked alongside a staffy that he didn't know as the owner and I chatted. The bad bit: I was chatting to a lady with a lab when a man with a rottie walked up - I was pleased as Kilo didn't react and we stood and talked. The man asked if we wanted to let them off to play - I said no but would like to watch the rottie and lab calmly so Kilo knew that rotties were a GOOD THING (cheese in my pocket at the ready!!). The man said they should meet and I said "No" but he pushed it saying how his dog didn't have an ounce of aggression etc etc and bought him over. The greeting was tense, Kilo threw out all sorts of nervous body language and calming signals and....the rottie went for him . Kilo reacted by barking and jumping backwards behind me.

The man laughed and said "That was a close encounter" which gave me the distinct feeling that it wasn't an unusual occurrence. I was so angry with myself . When we met our friends with the Kerry Blue they said "Was that you over the river a few minutes ago that that dog went for?". Funny how I see things as Kilo's barking always makes me think that people will see him as the aggressor, but they rarely do. 

Anyway; the walk ended on a positive note as we walked past the rottie on our way back to the car without a flicker from the BW - lots of cheese was given .

Phew that was long - have to unload here as hubby just says "You think too much about things and beat yourself up" .

We are meeting a lady I've met before with a Weimaraner for a walk as she wants to talk about raw feeding (briefly chatted about it when we met before as she asked what the BW was fed as she liked his condition) later today .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> A mostly good walk this morning with one stupid mistake by me. We went to the park and met people and dogs we knew - lots out this morning and had lots of social chats. Kilo was calm and greeted nicely and was well behaved when we walked alongside a staffy that he didn't know as the owner and I chatted. The bad bit: I was chatting to a lady with a lab when a man with a rottie walked up - I was pleased as Kilo didn't react and we stood and talked. The man asked if we wanted to let them off to play - I said no but would like to watch the rottie and lab calmly so Kilo knew that rotties were a GOOD THING (cheese in my pocket at the ready!!). The man said they should meet and I said "No" but he pushed it saying how his dog didn't have an ounce of aggression etc etc and bought him over. The greeting was tense, Kilo threw out all sorts of nervous body language and calming signals and....the rottie went for him . Kilo reacted by barking and jumping backwards behind me.
> 
> The man laughed and said "That was a close encounter" which gave me the distinct feeling that it wasn't an unusual occurrence. I was so angry with myself . When we met our friends with the Kerry Blue they said "Was that you over the river a few minutes ago that that dog went for?". Funny how I see things as Kilo's barking always makes me think that people will see him as the aggressor, but they rarely do.
> 
> Anyway; the walk ended on a positive note as we walked past the rottie on our way back to the car without a flicker from the BW - lots of cheese was given .
> 
> Phew that was long - have to unload here as hubby just says "You think too much about things and beat yourself up" .
> 
> We are meeting a lady I've met before with a Weimaraner for a walk as she wants to talk about raw feeding (briefly chatted about it when we met before as she asked what the BW was fed as she liked his condition) later today .


Ye Gods you do get em over in NI don't you? To say his Rottie hadn't got an ounce of aggression and then it immediately goes for Kilo......words fail me!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Ye Gods you do get em over in NI don't you? To say his Rottie hadn't got an ounce of aggression and then it immediately goes for Kilo......words fail me!!


I know - I even told him he was an entire male. It is honestly a whole different world over here . Some differences are very good, some bad.


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear poor Kilo and you that's the last thing you need, people just have to think they know better don't they? 

Hope you have a good walk later 

Good luck with the class tonight Ginger.

We completely avoided the field today and instead went downtown where there are a couple of big onlead grassy/woody areas for the boys to sniff around in and try to chase the poor little squirrels  Both were good as gold although a bit pully due to excitement.
Sam did seem a bit overwhelmed when walking along a busy road and so I'm going to take him down on his own and do some work on that during the next couple of weeks.


----------



## Dogless

Lovely walk with the weimaraner and owner - met them and walked calmly onlead to one of the fields. Last time they met offlead they ignored each other completely after Kilo's attempt to instigate play was ignored. This time, Kilo's attempt to instigate play was again rebuffed once they were let offlead so I just threw his toy for him as we chatted....then....the weim instigated play after about half an hour and they had some high speed chases . The only bad point was me losing Kilo's Aqua Kong  . He LOVES that toy so I'll order another tonight.


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Lovely walk with the weimaraner and owner - met them and walked calmly onlead to one of the fields. Last time they met offlead they ignored each other completely after Kilo's attempt to instigate play was ignored. This time, Kilo's attempt to instigate play was again rebuffed once they were let offlead so I just threw his toy for him as we chatted....then....the weim instigated play after about half an hour and they had some high speed chases . The only bad point was me losing Kilo's Aqua Kong . He LOVES that toy so I'll order another tonight.


Sounds like a nicer walk for you and Kilo than the last one.... What is it with us and Rotties??


----------



## chazzie10

We havnt done much today- I was at work til lunchtime and power washed the patio area all afternoon  - It took so long and got so boring that Im afraid I got a bit artistic with it ( yes 'nearly' 40 year old woman grafittis her flagstones lmao) My son came in from work and was so impressed/ bewildered that he took a photo- i'll have to upload it here just for comedy value 
Charlie's been lying up, resting his sore tootsies ( in a drug induced stupor lmao).
Gonna wake the beast now and drag his sorry ass out the door, though saying that, it'll probably be me getting dragged along.
Have to say the giant Kong that I bought him has been the best investment ever.... no chewed kennel or blankets and the kong is still intact with no lumps out of it yet! Goodness is it heavy and sore when it's dropped on your foot


----------



## kat&molly

Hello everyone, not been around as I've been busy painting indoors-yuk.
Bedrooms mostly finished now so we took today out to visit Moll's family.
The things I do for my girls- I always come away with headache/earache, a scratched car and filthy clothes. They've all enjoyed the day out so its [nearly] worth it. 
Moll spent the whole time with what I can only describe a 'cheesy grin' on her face , just really loving seeing the others- even playing a bit with her sister which was lovely as she never really plays anymore here with the others.
Evie is still a bit worried by the other dogs and comes to me a lot for reassurance but then runs on again- so I hope its doing her some good and really the others are too busy being Spaniels to hassle her.
Scruff always enjoys it there but for some reason does push her luck a bit on the walk and tries to go too far ahead 
Moll is a great advert for good diet, proper exercise and training, as much as I love her sister- she's 'wild'

Hope everyones ok and ,Moonviolet , is that kitchen finished yet.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> ,Moonviolet , is that kitchen finished yet.


:nonod: not yet but it's going to be lovely   .... or so i'm told :lol: :lol:

Just off to class again  progress assessment tonight


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :nonod: not yet but it's going to be lovely   .... or so i'm told :lol: :lol:
> 
> Just off to class again  progress assessment tonight


Good Luck to you and Tink (and OH if he's handling) .


----------



## kat&molly

Good luck MV and Tink.

Chazzie, my front path needs doing but I dont think I'll ask you to do it.:lol:


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## Twiggy

*


kat&molly said:



Hello everyone, not been around as I've been busy painting indoors-yuk.

Click to expand...

*


kat&molly said:


> Bedrooms mostly finished now so we took today out to visit Moll's family.
> The things I do for my girls- I always come away with headache/earache, a scratched car and filthy clothes. They've all enjoyed the day out so its [nearly] worth it.
> Moll spent the whole time with what I can only describe a 'cheesy grin' on her face , just really loving seeing the others- even playing a bit with her sister which was lovely as she never really plays anymore here with the others.
> Evie is still a bit worried by the other dogs and comes to me a lot for reassurance but then runs on again- so I hope its doing her some good and really the others are too busy being Spaniels to hassle her.
> Scruff always enjoys it there but for some reason does push her luck a bit on the walk and tries to go too far ahead
> Moll is a great advert for good diet, proper exercise and training, as much as I love her sister- she's 'wild'
> 
> Hope everyones ok and ,Moonviolet , is that kitchen finished yet.


Don't mention decorating...LOL We set off to Homebase on Monday afternoon, for paint to decorate our kitchen, and nipped into the local Fiat dealer on the way to see if they'd got a Fiat Qubo in stock. 90 minutes later I came out the proud owner of a new Fiat Doblo and a much lighter bank account. We never did get to Homebase as the dogs needed to go out.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Don't mention decorating...LOL We set off to Homebase on Monday afternoon, for paint to decorate our kitchen, and nipped into the local Fiat dealer on the way to see if they'd got a Fiat Qubo in stock. 90 minutes later I came out the proud owner of a new Fiat Doblo and a much lighter bank account. We never did get to Homebase as the dogs needed to go out.*


*

Brilliant .*


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Don't mention decorating...LOL We set off to Homebase on Monday afternoon, for paint to decorate our kitchen, and nipped into the local Fiat dealer on the way to see if they'd got a Fiat Qubo in stock. 90 minutes later I came out the proud owner of a new Fiat Doblo and a much lighter bank account. We never did get to Homebase as the dogs needed to go out.*


*

New cars are much more exciting than painting. My kitchens next.

My Mother went out once to fetch a British Griant rabbit- and came back with a very expensive caravan.*


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> New cars are much more exciting than painting. My kitchens next.
> 
> My Mother went out once to fetch a British Griant rabbit- and came back with a very expensive caravan.


Yes my sister has had many expensive caravans in her time. One of them only went to one dog show before she sold it...!! She's wasted thousands over the years.

Hope I've done the right thing car-wise. I've had three new Doblos but thought I would down-size this time for something more economical. He was a very persuasive salesman and they did have this lovely pre-reg Doblo sitting there....!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Just a quickie as I am supposed to be cooking tea  but couldn't help but boast. Was the end of our intro classes tonight and we got a basic obedience certificate - Ginge got a gold star on hers which I was told makes her the best in class :shocked: despite the fact that she ruined it all by being a complete gobshite tonight. We were doing some basic agility stuff and she was wet combined to make one hyper noisy dog.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Just a quickie as I am supposed to be cooking tea  but couldn't help but boast. Was the end of our intro classes tonight and we got a basic obedience certificate - Ginge got a gold star on hers which I was told makes her the best in class :shocked: despite the fact that she ruined it all by being a complete gobshite tonight. We were doing some basic agility stuff and she was wet combined to make one hyper noisy dog.


Way to go Ginge and you, that is fabulous!!!!! .


----------



## Beth17

Took the boys to [email protected] this afternoon to get a harness for Oscar to wear in the car tomorrow. Oscar did all right but there were some noisy kids near to him and he was getting a little uncomfortable so got my mum to take him out and wait by the car. As you can imagine Sam had a whale of a time in there 

Tomorrows the day of his hearing test at 12.30. I'm not getting my hopes up but I'm quite excited I'm going to get an answer one way or the other. It's going to be the longest car journey the boys have done so hopefully they'll be alright as we've factored in a stop halfway through. 
Also it's right near the New Forest so hopefully we'll get to have a walk in there as well which will be nice :thumbup: 
I'm not sure Sam is going to appreciate not having his breakfast though


----------



## Beth17

Yay Ginge! And well done to you :thumbup:


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I know - I even told him he was an entire male. It is honestly a whole different world over here . Some differences are very good, some bad.


The biggest difference over here is....it's difficult to find many 'entire males'  hehehe


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Took the boys to [email protected] this afternoon to get a harness for Oscar to wear in the car tomorrow. Oscar did all right but there were some noisy kids near to him and he was getting a little uncomfortable so got my mum to take him out and wait by the car. As you can imagine Sam had a whale of a time in there
> 
> Tomorrows the day of his hearing test at 12.30. I'm not getting my hopes up but I'm quite excited I'm going to get an answer one way or the other. It's going to be the longest car journey the boys have done so hopefully they'll be alright as we've factored in a stop halfway through.
> Also it's right near the New Forest so hopefully we'll get to have a walk in there as well which will be nice :thumbup:
> I'm not sure Sam is going to appreciate not having his breakfast though


Best of luck; I would want a definitive answer too if I were you . It's when it's revealed that Sam has simply been ignoring you that he'll have some explaining to do :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Good luck MV and Tink.
> 
> Chazzie, my front path needs doing but I dont think I'll ask you to do it.:lol:


awww shucks and I'm so artistic too ( hangs head in shame) :001_unsure:


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Best of luck; I would want a definitive answer too if I were you . It's when it's revealed that Sam has simply been ignoring you that he'll have some explaining to do :yikes::yikes:.


That thought has actually crossed my mind a few times 
I'm not sure how I'll explain that, I may just go into hiding :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> New cars are much more exciting than painting. My kitchens next.
> 
> My Mother went out once to fetch a British Griant rabbit- and came back with a very expensive caravan.


I can see where she got mixed up.... lol


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Just a quickie as I am supposed to be cooking tea  but couldn't help but boast. Was the end of our intro classes tonight and we got a basic obedience certificate - Ginge got a gold star on hers which I was told makes her the best in class :shocked: despite the fact that she ruined it all by being a complete gobshite tonight. We were doing some basic agility stuff and she was wet combined to make one hyper noisy dog.


Well done Ginge you clever wee thing


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Took the boys to [email protected] this afternoon to get a harness for Oscar to wear in the car tomorrow. Oscar did all right but there were some noisy kids near to him and he was getting a little uncomfortable so got my mum to take him out and wait by the car. As you can imagine Sam had a whale of a time in there
> 
> Tomorrows the day of his hearing test at 12.30. I'm not getting my hopes up but I'm quite excited I'm going to get an answer one way or the other. It's going to be the longest car journey the boys have done so hopefully they'll be alright as we've factored in a stop halfway through.
> Also it's right near the New Forest so hopefully we'll get to have a walk in there as well which will be nice :thumbup:
> I'm not sure Sam is going to appreciate not having his breakfast though


Good luck for tomorrow's test and fingers crossed for some good news- I'm sure we'll all be thinking about you


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Took the boys to [email protected] this afternoon to get a harness for Oscar to wear in the car tomorrow. Oscar did all right but there were some noisy kids near to him and he was getting a little uncomfortable so got my mum to take him out and wait by the car. As you can imagine Sam had a whale of a time in there
> 
> Tomorrows the day of his hearing test at 12.30. I'm not getting my hopes up but I'm quite excited I'm going to get an answer one way or the other. It's going to be the longest car journey the boys have done so hopefully they'll be alright as we've factored in a stop halfway through.
> Also it's right near the New Forest so hopefully we'll get to have a walk in there as well which will be nice :thumbup:
> I'm not sure Sam is going to appreciate not having his breakfast though


Hope all goes well tomorrow - fingers and toes crossed.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thanks everyone. Bit gobsmacked tbh. Especially as she was a right shooter tonight. Either that or she was frantically chewing the wooden puzzle toy the y gave her to keep her quiet, but thought that just reinforced it is nerves. Got the nupafeed today so will start on that tommorow. 
Always been so busy trying to stop her shouting her head off or crying in the corner to notice what others have been up to. But really impressed with their progress. The timid little chi was running about even while Ginge was kicking off (it is very small ) and went up to some spectators for fuss. Trigger the dalmatians owner can sit down and relax with him.
So had nice tea to celebrate. Cooked Chinese as can't have take away ones cos of oh's Migraines. Mmm. Ginge got prawns crackers and chicken.

Much good luck and positive vibes coming your way Beth. Could totally change the little chaps life. 

eta Ginge shouts she can't shoot!


----------



## chazzie10

Dont question it, just enjoy Ginges moment of glory  
I dont think Charlie will be getting a prize for anything just yet- but we are getting there.
He enjoyed his walk tonite. It started off being a street walk but I dont want his paws hurting any more than they have to so as he was being so good walking nicely beside me, I took him over to big green and gave him some time offlead....much zooming ensued and 20 minutes later we headed back home. One very tired, happy, snoring boy


----------



## moonviolet

I love the stories of going out for one thing and coming back with soemthing completely different  I went out to post letters and came back with a warm danish, feeble isn't it I must try harder 

Well done GR sounds liek you and Ginge are doing better than you think 

We passed our assessment tonight, no gold star for us though  I handled as OH stayed home and did a bit more to the kitchen. He got on quite nicely without distractions. Have a working washing machine now I was about to take the laundry down to the river to find a big rock  

Good luck for tomorrow Beth it'll be great to know one way or another


----------



## Werehorse

Got the bat call this morning!  Terrifying but it's a day's work and can't sniff at the money at the moment! 

The dogs coped but perhaps not well - Hugo was MENTAL when I got home, doing little hyper-ventilates and leaping about all over the place. I took him to the yard and he continued to be mental until he'd had a completely mad play with his yard girlfriend... she hadn't had a proper walk today either so they were really going for it.  

I did the horses and he settled down and behaved nicely and only did flying face licks at one person who genuinely doesn't mind it and generally following me around nicely and sitting and watching me work like a good stable dog.

Then it was off to training class (all go!) for Oscar. Hugo came in to just watch this week. Another really fun class with emergency stops, sendaways, retrievies, including find the hanky in the cupboard, playing with hoops and cones. As soon as the cones appeared Oscar did an un-prompted bouncey bumble-bum run around it with a massive grin on his face! He was soooooo excited and remembered what we had been doing with them from last week. By the end he was doing figure 8s round 2 hoops I was prompting him but I get the feeling that it'd only take a couple more sessions before he was running out to the cones and doing figure 8s all by himself! He was so happy! Spaniel brain loves running in mad loops. 

I've missed all kinds of things on here today and my brain has melted out of my ears from trying to dig up my rusty pedagogy!

WELL DONE GINGE! A gold star! I wish I'd had cause to hand a few of them out today, no such luck. :lol:

Good luck for the hearing test Beth.


----------



## kat&molly

Good luck today to young Sam, it'll be good to know one way or another.

Well done to Ginge, a Gold Star too- brilliant. And to Tink on passing her assessment.

Off to training with the Mollster this morning, not sure what to ask to do today though :001_unsure: some more clicker work, some obedience or tackle the retreive problem where she's too overwhelmed to even swap articles. Decisions, decisions.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Tarnus

Izzy earned herself a big gold star this morning! We were walking through the park at 7am, couldn't see much as it was so dark so Izzy had her light up collar on, walked past one of the park entrances with a big solid gate so never really pay much attention, only for Izzy to wander off for a sniff in the bushes and appear on the other side of the gate right next to the road!!  I called out to her and got her attention so she didn't just leg it down the road and could hear cars coming so gave her the firm "COME" in the tone that makes her go "oops, daddy really means it this time, better do as his says!" so she walked back towards the gate, but it's a kissing gate and she wasn't very keen on going in them last week on country walks so I thought she might see it and shy away but using the firmer tone of voice she did exactly what I said, walked into the gate and waited while I moved it to let her back into the park!   :thumbup1: :thumbup:

We'll gloss over the fact that the rest of the walk she definitely had her selective hearing on Singing: and remember the excellent recall away from the road!  We put it down to the fact that we got asked to stay on for an extra training class last night when Izzy clearly just wanted to go home to sleep so this was her way of sulking and rebelling


----------



## Dogless

Lovely walk in the park - later than usual as I went to the docs this morning. Kilo behaved very nicely - greeted dogs well or ignored them, coped with crowds of people doing a guided walk and a woman rushing at him arms outstretched making cooing type noises . The park is looking beauitful and very autumnal if you ignore the IRA graffiti that has been sprayed everywhere overnight two nights ago . Gold star morning .

I took some photos on my phone - I was on the edge of a pond and Kilo was doing massively well staying still as the ducks were being very noisy and enticing to him .


----------



## GingerRogers

Well done Kilo, Izzy and Tink

Gold Stars all round 



Although one particular gold star dog did me in again this morning, absolutely no focus on me at all, she may as well walk herself 

up -down - up -down


----------



## Tarnus

Well done Kilo, getting himself ready to be a good example to little Rudi!  I love his expression, looking longingly at the ducks as if to say "i want to be playing with them"

GR, maybe there's something in the air today as Izzy was pretty much in her "I really don't care that you're here dad" mood this morning! I'm sure she'll redeem herself soon enough


----------



## Twiggy

I know Kilo is stunning but he does seem to attract some very, very strange people - *"and a woman rushing at him arms outstretched making cooing type noises"*

Wonderful pic of him btw.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I know Kilo is stunning but he does seem to attract some very, very strange people - *"and a woman rushing at him arms outstretched making cooing type noises"*
> 
> Wonderful pic of him btw.


Probably my colourful descriptions .


----------



## moonviolet

Nice little training session this morning followed by a walk in the mizzle. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a connection between the weather and the fact the colour of my new kitchen is called mizzle... why didn't i choose sunshine yellow! 

Her ladyship seemed a little on edge today. So we played lots of easy peasy games just to distract her and get her having fun. Came home to find her new bergan harness had arrived , I guessed she was excited too, as when i put it on the floor for her to have a sniff , she grabbed it and charged around the room. She soon hurried back with it when i sat on the floor, with my back to her making yumyum noises :lol: after checking to make sure the velcro wasn't the scary sort we proeeded with the fitting. I think I've got it right, have to wait for OH to come back to try it out as it's for his hunchback  Clearly this was all most exhausting and she's flat out now.

Well done Izzy for recalling when it really matters

Well done Kilo looking most elegantly autumnal while resisiting the allure of the duckies 

Warehorse that sounds like a fun class. Hope your day as Batgirl went well 

K&M Hope you have a great time with Big Evie and Moll whatever you decide to do


----------



## kat&molly

Kilo, fits in very well with all the Autumn colours, and my Gawd Dogless you dont half meet some people.

Well done to Izzy- what a fab recall.

Bless Tink- she cant resist the lure of food.:drool:

Werehorse- your class went better than mine.

Really disappointed with our 1-2-1 today. We went for Clicker in the end and Moll was doing great to start, really trying hard but after a bit seemed to just get bored. The same thing happened with Agility really, she only was interested in certain things, and it seems a waste of 30 euros for Moll to not enjoy it. I dont know what to do now.
We stopped at the river for all the girls to have a walk and Moll certainly found enthusiasm for water retreives. 

Ignore me- just having a whinge.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Really disappointed with our 1-2-1 today. We went for Clicker in the end and Moll was doing great to start, really trying hard but after a bit seemed to just get bored. The same thing happened with Agility really, she only was interested in certain things, and it seems a waste of 30 euros for Moll to not enjoy it. I dont know what to do now.
> We stopped at the river for all the girls to have a walk and Moll certainly found enthusiasm for water retreives.
> 
> Ignore me- just having a whinge.


What does Big Evie think?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> What does Big Evie think?


She didn't say anything- she may have thought Moll got tired but I know Moll and if she's enjoying something she'll just keep going.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> She didn't say anything- she may have thought Moll got tired but I know Moll and if she's enjoying something she'll just keep going.


Perhaps have a good chat with her - no point as you say spending good money if Moll isn't getting anything from it.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Perhaps have a good chat with her - no point as you say spending good money if Moll isn't getting anything from it.


I think she isn't really happy unless she's retreiving. Big Evie has said Moll sees that as her job, just like a Collie herding sheep. 
She'd honestly be happy going to a field every day twice a day and having you chuck a ball for an hour at a time- I let her do that occasionally but I know shes got a lot more brain than that.
She does enjoy using her nose and I'd go back to the Gun dog lessons but thats where the retreive problems started.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I think she isn't really happy unless she's retreiving. Big Evie has said Moll sees that as her job, just like a Collie herding sheep.
> She'd honestly be happy going to a field every day twice a day and having you chuck a ball for an hour at a time- I let her do that occasionally but I know shes got a lot more brain than that.
> She does enjoy using her nose and I'd go back to the Gun dog lessons but thats where the retreive problems started.


Can you maybe split lessons half and half clicker and agility or something like that so she doesn't get time to get bored?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Can you maybe split lessons half and half clicker and agility or something like that so she doesn't get time to get bored?


Thats a good idea, I'm going to have a good think because I enjoy the time we get together and want to continue doing something- but we both have to enjoy it.


----------



## Beth17

We're back! 

The boys have been absolute stars today travelling really well both ways. All in all we were out for around 8hrs 

Well Sam is completely deaf  
But we suspected that anyway and any hearing would have been a bonus so we'll just carry on as normal. But I won't sit here wondering now and we can just focus on getting him through the teenage stage 

They're both crashed out now so I may just get a quiet evening


----------



## Dogless

Good walk this afternoon - some fast paced playing on the field as the BW was feeling rambunctious and a walk there and back. My back is recovered enough for one of Kilo's very favourite games.....he holds one end of the toy, me the other, and we run getting faster and faster until I'm sprinting flat out and can't go any faster, release the toy and the BW zooms off then comes round again nudging me to take the end and do it all again. Needless to say I'm cream crackered   .


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Kilo, fits in very well with all the Autumn colours, and my Gawd Dogless you dont half meet some people.
> 
> Well done to Izzy- what a fab recall.
> 
> Bless Tink- she cant resist the lure of food.:drool:
> 
> Werehorse- your class went better than mine.
> 
> *Really disappointed with our 1-2-1 today. We went for Clicker in the end and Moll was doing great to start, really trying hard but after a bit seemed to just get bored. The same thing happened with Agility really, she only was interested in certain things, and it seems a waste of 30 euros for Moll to not enjoy it. I dont know what to do now.*
> *We stopped at the river for all the girls to have a walk and Moll certainly found enthusiasm for water retreives. *
> 
> Ignore me- just having a whinge.


Can you expand on what you and Big Evie were working on when Moll got bored?


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> We're back!
> 
> The boys have been absolute stars today travelling really well both ways. All in all we were out for around 8hrs
> 
> Well Sam is completely deaf
> But we suspected that anyway and any hearing would have been a bonus so we'll just carry on as normal. But I won't sit here wondering now and we can just focus on getting him through the teenage stage
> 
> They're both crashed out now so I may just get a quiet evening


Well done the boxer collective .

I'm pleased that you now know for sure, as disappointing as the news is - at least you know what you are working with xxx.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> We're back!
> 
> The boys have been absolute stars today travelling really well both ways. All in all we were out for around 8hrs
> 
> Well Sam is completely deaf
> But we suspected that anyway and any hearing would have been a bonus so we'll just carry on as normal. But I won't sit here wondering now and we can just focus on getting him through the teenage stage
> 
> They're both crashed out now so I may just get a quiet evening


Pleased the boys were so good today but sorry it wasn't better news with Sam. I know it didn't come as any surprise to you really but still disappointing.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> I think she isn't really happy unless she's retreiving. Big Evie has said Moll sees that as her job, just like a Collie herding sheep.
> She'd honestly be happy going to a field every day twice a day and having you chuck a ball for an hour at a time- I let her do that occasionally but I know shes got a lot more brain than that.
> She does enjoy using her nose and I'd go back to the Gun dog lessons but thats where the retreive problems started.


Have you tried scent trails if she gets bored? I do them with Ely and Gypsy and they seem to keep them amused.



Beth17 said:


> We're back!
> 
> The boys have been absolute stars today travelling really well both ways. All in all we were out for around 8hrs
> 
> Well Sam is completely deaf
> But we suspected that anyway and any hearing would have been a bonus so we'll just carry on as normal. But I won't sit here wondering now and we can just focus on getting him through the teenage stage
> 
> They're both crashed out now so I may just get a quiet evening


Sorry to hear about Sam. I hope you can get him through the teenage stage without too much trouble!


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Can you expand on what you and Big Evie were working on when Moll got bored?


 We'd just done an exercise where she has to put all 4 feet in a box- done that ok then Big Evie got a pole and wanted her to walk around it but click for any interaction with it- she got it really quick and went around it a few times but then gave up. 

L/C- scent work would appeal to her I think, she does like to use her nose. Its finding something she really enjoys but keeps her under threshold- but that might work.

Beth-sorry its not good news. Sounds like the boys behaved brilliant though.

Dogless- Kilo's 'broke' you for a change. Have a good night at school.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> We'd just done an exercise where she has to put all 4 feet in a box- done that ok then Big Evie got a pole and wanted her to walk around it but click for any interaction with it- she got it really quick and went around it a few times but then gave up.
> 
> I still don't quite understand. If Moll got it really quick, why would she have to keep walking round it? Am I being thick.....? What's her reward when you click?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Good walk this afternoon - some fast paced playing on the field as the BW was feeling rambunctious and a walk there and back. My back is recovered enough for one of Kilo's very favourite games.....he holds one end of the toy, me the other, and we run getting faster and faster until I'm sprinting flat out and can't go any faster, release the toy and the BW zooms off then comes round again nudging me to take the end and do it all again. Needless to say I'm cream crackered   .


Ye Gods girl be careful with your back...!!


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> kat&molly said:
> 
> 
> 
> We'd just done an exercise where she has to put all 4 feet in a box- done that ok then Big Evie got a pole and wanted her to walk around it but click for any interaction with it- she got it really quick and went around it a few times but then gave up.
> 
> I still don't quite understand. If Moll got it really quick, why would she have to keep walking round it? Am I being thick.....? What's her reward when you click?
> 
> 
> 
> She walked around it about 4 times I think, then just lay down- and she has tiny pieces of cooked pork- which she loves.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> She walked around it about 4 times I think, then just lay down- and she has tiny pieces of cooked pork- which she loves.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm still being thick....LOL What was the point of Moll continuing walking round the pole after she had achieved it?
Click to expand...


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> kat&molly said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm still being thick....LOL What was the point of Moll continuing walking round the pole after she had achieved it?
> 
> 
> 
> I'm guessing to make sure she knew what was wanted. Why is that wrong then do you think? Big Evie did then try to get her to do something else with the pole but she wasn't interested.
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Good walk this afternoon - some fast paced playing on the field as the BW was feeling rambunctious and a walk there and back. My back is recovered enough for one of Kilo's very favourite games.....he holds one end of the toy, me the other, and we run getting faster and faster until I'm sprinting flat out and can't go any faster, release the toy and the BW zooms off then comes round again nudging me to take the end and do it all again. Needless to say I'm cream crackered   .


Sounds like hard work  but I can see how Kilo would love it.

Charlie can walk faster than I can run


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> We're back!
> 
> The boys have been absolute stars today travelling really well both ways. All in all we were out for around 8hrs
> 
> Well Sam is completely deaf
> But we suspected that anyway and any hearing would have been a bonus so we'll just carry on as normal. But I won't sit here wondering now and we can just focus on getting him through the teenage stage
> 
> They're both crashed out now so I may just get a quiet evening


Sorry you didnt get better news about Sam x
It proves how clever he is that he's been deaf all along but been able to follow hand signals and body language to such an extent that it's kept you guessing about his level of deafness until now! 
Give him a big hug for me


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm guessing to make sure she knew what was wanted. Why is that wrong then do you think? Big Evie did then try to get her to do something else with the pole but she wasn't interested.
> 
> 
> 
> Difficult to comment without actually being there but when I'm training if they achieve what I ask, I immediately reward and then play with them or do something else.
> 
> Case in point was Holly Bolly in class yesterday - she retrieved the dumbbell first time holding the middle (she still hasn't quite got the concept and very often picks it up by the end) so then I played with her and left it at that. If I'd asked her to do it again that would have been testing and not training IMO and she would have thrown in the towel a damn sight quicker than Moll did.
Click to expand...


----------



## Werehorse

Sorry it wasn't better news about Sam, Beth.  It would have been a bonus to have some hearing to work with. But as you say, not unexpected. I'm sure you'll be able to continue to work around it. My dog trainer is convinced that deaf dogs actually do better in some situations because they are less distracted!


----------



## Dogless

A real mixed bag at school tonight.

Firstly, before we went I realised for the first time that Kilo really enjoyed it - he was alert and hopeful from the minute I got my training bag out and came and lay at the bottom of the stairs when I went to get changed then pestered me until we went out to the car :thumbup:.

The majority of the night went OK apart from some whining and whinging when he had to spend a prolonged amount of time lying on the cold, hard floor - a real ridgie thing - along with a whippet for the same reason I would imagine!

The bad - and please be gentle with me - Kilo nipped the trainer . We were doing some grooming stuff at the end and had to have our dogs tethered to the seating around the sides of the hall. I was kneeling down grooming Kilo and he was relaxed and fine. The trainer came and stood round the front of him and Kilo was just having a little sniff round his pockets and stuff. His mobile then beeped loudly in the pocket Kilo was investigating as he got a text and Kilo looked unsure. Just at the moment when I saw him lift a paw and thought 'not happy' the trainer put his hand forward and Kilo nipped it . No mark was even left but still, not good. At. All. . I see why it happened as I was behind him, he was tethered and the trainer was stood in front of him so he had nowhere to go when he felt anxious but I am understandably upset. And massively over thinking the whole situation as I am prone to do.


----------



## Beth17

Werehorse said:


> Sorry it wasn't better news about Sam, Beth.  It would have been a bonus to have some hearing to work with. But as you say, not unexpected. I'm sure you'll be able to continue to work around it. My dog trainer is convinced that deaf dogs actually do better in some situations because they are less distracted!


Oh he's definitely more attentive when I have his attention. It's just getting it in the first place


----------



## chazzie10

Another lovely sunny autumn day so in from work at 11am, change of clothes then straight out to reservoir/ forest walk. Charlie was very excitable today with lots of pent up energy so he pulled a bit on the lead but it didnt take him too long to remember his new found manners 
We had the place to ourselves (you can see the whole way around as its all flat) so we had an hour of off-lead fun. Plenty of recall practice and retrieving with a few random episodes of zoomies stick 'intimidation', and some swimming thrown in 
All in all a very enjoyable walk- only down point was on returning to the carpark a very friendly, wiggly young jrt was running loose and Charlie strained on the lead to reach it but compared with the way he used to be popping and leaping on the spot, this was something I could cope with! Typical we had used up all the treats on the walk so Id nothing left to get him to focus on. Oh well, it was still very controlled for him 

Here's my boy today, back on his feet and happy....


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> A real mixed bag at school tonight.
> 
> Firstly, before we went I realised for the first time that Kilo really enjoyed it - he was alert and hopeful from the minute I got my training bag out and came and lay at the bottom of the stairs when I went to get changed then pestered me until we went out to the car :thumbup:.
> 
> The majority of the night went OK apart from some whining and whinging when he had to spend a prolonged amount of time lying on the cold, hard floor - a real ridgie thing - along with a whippet for the same reason I would imagine!
> 
> The bad - and please be gentle with me - Kilo nipped the trainer . We were doing some grooming stuff at the end and had to have our dogs tethered to the seating around the sides of the hall. I was kneeling down grooming Kilo and he was relaxed and fine. The trainer came and stood round the front of him and Kilo was just having a little sniff round his pockets and stuff. His mobile then beeped loudly in the pocket Kilo was investigating as he got a text and Kilo looked unsure. Just at the moment when I saw him lift a paw and thought 'not happy' the trainer put his hand forward and Kilo nipped it . No mark was even left but still, not good. At. All. . I see why it happened as I was behind him, he was tethered and the trainer was stood in front of him so he had nowhere to go when he felt anxious but I am understandably upset. And massively over thinking the whole situation as I am prone to do.


Im sure you didnt know what to say or how to react after it happened but on the other hand be glad it wasnt a bite, just a nip ( am I reassuring you at all?? lol) Anyway surely the trainer should have had more wit than to put Kilo in a situation like that! Dogs do like to keep us on our toes dont they


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> A real mixed bag at school tonight.
> 
> Firstly, before we went I realised for the first time that Kilo really enjoyed it - he was alert and hopeful from the minute I got my training bag out and came and lay at the bottom of the stairs when I went to get changed then pestered me until we went out to the car :thumbup:.
> 
> The majority of the night went OK apart from some whining and whinging when he had to spend a prolonged amount of time lying on the cold, hard floor - a real ridgie thing - along with a whippet for the same reason I would imagine!
> 
> The bad - and please be gentle with me - Kilo nipped the trainer . We were doing some grooming stuff at the end and had to have our dogs tethered to the seating around the sides of the hall. I was kneeling down grooming Kilo and he was relaxed and fine. The trainer came and stood round the front of him and Kilo was just having a little sniff round his pockets and stuff. His mobile then beeped loudly in the pocket Kilo was investigating as he got a text and Kilo looked unsure. Just at the moment when I saw him lift a paw and thought 'not happy' the trainer put his hand forward and Kilo nipped it . No mark was even left but still, not good. At. All. . I see why it happened as I was behind him, he was tethered and the trainer was stood in front of him so he had nowhere to go when he felt anxious but I am understandably upset. And massively over thinking the whole situation as I am prone to do.


Yes you're massively overthinking it. Kilo was tied up and stressed by the mobile and it was unfortunate timing on behalf of the trainer AND THAT'S ALL IT WAS.....!!


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> A real mixed bag at school tonight.
> 
> Firstly, before we went I realised for the first time that Kilo really enjoyed it - he was alert and hopeful from the minute I got my training bag out and came and lay at the bottom of the stairs when I went to get changed then pestered me until we went out to the car :thumbup:.
> 
> The majority of the night went OK apart from some whining and whinging when he had to spend a prolonged amount of time lying on the cold, hard floor - a real ridgie thing - along with a whippet for the same reason I would imagine!
> 
> The bad - and please be gentle with me - Kilo nipped the trainer . We were doing some grooming stuff at the end and had to have our dogs tethered to the seating around the sides of the hall. I was kneeling down grooming Kilo and he was relaxed and fine. The trainer came and stood round the front of him and Kilo was just having a little sniff round his pockets and stuff. His mobile then beeped loudly in the pocket Kilo was investigating as he got a text and Kilo looked unsure. Just at the moment when I saw him lift a paw and thought 'not happy' the trainer put his hand forward and Kilo nipped it . No mark was even left but still, not good. At. All. . I see why it happened as I was behind him, he was tethered and the trainer was stood in front of him so he had nowhere to go when he felt anxious but I am understandably upset. And massively over thinking the whole situation as I am prone to do.


Was it definitely a nip and not just mouthing? Ely was very hand shy when we first got him (I can imagine why  ) and he would grab your hand to stop I moving if he felt worried. It was just to stop it moving towards him and not anything more untoward (and was so gentle you could barely feel it). Is it possible Kilo was doing the same?

If it was definitely a nip was he giving appropriate signals before it happened? If so I wouldn't worry too much as tbh the trainer should have been paying attention and listened to him.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes you're massively overthinking it. Kilo was tied up and stressed by the mobile and it was unfortunate timing on behalf of the trainer AND THAT'S ALL IT WAS.....!!


I always do overthink things .



L/C said:


> Was it definitely a nip and not just mouthing? Ely was very hand shy when we first got him (I can imagine why  ) and he would grab your hand to stop I moving if he felt worried. It was just to stop it moving towards him and not anything more untoward (and was so gentle you could barely feel it). Is it possible Kilo was doing the same?
> 
> If it was definitely a nip was he giving appropriate signals before it happened? If so I wouldn't worry too much as tbh the trainer should have been paying attention and listened to him.


Pretty certain it was a nip - no mark was left though so at least it wasn't a hard one.

Kilo was sniffing cautiously beforehand, but then was a bit alarmed by the mobile as his ears went back, he started to lick his lips and lifted his paw which means he's anxious and would usually lead to me giving him space from whatever was worrying him (onlead) or him moving away (offlead). He nipped just a split second after I noticed. Obviously he had nowhere to go as he was tethered and I was behind him.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> The bad - and please be gentle with me - Kilo nipped the trainer . We were doing some grooming stuff at the end and had to have our dogs tethered to the seating around the sides of the hall. I was kneeling down grooming Kilo and he was relaxed and fine. The trainer came and stood round the front of him and Kilo was just having a little sniff round his pockets and stuff. His mobile then beeped loudly in the pocket Kilo was investigating as he got a text and Kilo looked unsure. Just at the moment when I saw him lift a paw and thought 'not happy' the trainer put his hand forward and Kilo nipped it . No mark was even left but still, not good. At. All. . I see why it happened as I was behind him, he was tethered and the trainer was stood in front of him so he had nowhere to go when he felt anxious but I am understandably upset. And massively over thinking the whole situation as I am prone to do.


What an unfortunate set of circumstances, please try not to overthink it. easier said than done I know, I've just decided not to return to wednesday classes, because i keep stressing about things beyond my control. You understand how the circumstances led to what happened and it sounds like an impressively inhibited nip.


----------



## Beth17

Glad he's looking forward to training. I think I'd whinge and whine on a cold floor 

Blimey that seems really out of character, I can understand why you're upset 
However I can also understand why he did it if he felt cornered as although definitely not the same it's like Oscar snapping at the dogs that cornered him the other day. You saw the warning and moment of stress the trainer unfortunately didn't.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Yes you're massively overthinking it. Kilo was tied up and stressed by the mobile and it was unfortunate timing on behalf of the trainer AND THAT'S ALL IT WAS.....!!





L/C said:


> Was it definitely a nip and not just mouthing? Ely was very hand shy when we first got him (I can imagine why  ) and he would grab your hand to stop I moving if he felt worried. It was just to stop it moving towards him and not anything more untoward (and was so gentle you could barely feel it). Is it possible Kilo was doing the same?
> 
> If it was definitely a nip was he giving appropriate signals before it happened? If so I wouldn't worry too much as tbh the trainer should have been paying attention and listened to him.


Agree very much.

If a bite doesn't break the skin then in my view it's just communication, from the dog's point of view. It is the human perspective that catastrophises it. 

I'd be worrying the same though but DON'T. 

Odd isn't it because my horse bit me REALLY HARD on the arse the other day and I swore at her but didn't even think about it again until I was wondering how I'd got the bruise! But it's the same thing just a different animal. She was communicating to me to piss off and stop messing with her rug because it makes her skin tickle. Poor thing I just swear at her and carry on annoying her.


----------



## Beth17

chazzie10 said:


> Another lovely sunny autumn day so in from work at 11am, change of clothes then straight out to reservoir/ forest walk. Charlie was very excitable today with lots of pent up energy so he pulled a bit on the lead but it didnt take him too long to remember his new found manners
> We had the place to ourselves (you can see the whole way around as its all flat) so we had an hour of off-lead fun. Plenty of recall practice and retrieving with a few random episodes of zoomies stick 'intimidation', and some swimming thrown in
> All in all a very enjoyable walk- only down point was on returning to the carpark a very friendly, wiggly young jrt was running loose and Charlie strained on the lead to reach it but compared with the way he used to be popping and leaping on the spot, this was something I could cope with! Typical we had used up all the treats on the walk so Id nothing left to get him to focus on. Oh well, it was still very controlled for him
> 
> Here's my boy today, back on his feet and happy....


What a lovely picture of your boy  So glad you were able to have a good walk with him!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> What an unfortunate set of circumstances, please try not to overthink it. easier said than done I know, I've just decided not to return to wednesday classes, because i keep stressing about things beyond my control. You understand how the circumstances led to what happened and it sounds like an impressively inhibited nip.


I am pleased that at least his bite inhibition seems good, you're right!



Beth17 said:


> Glad he's looking forward to training. I think I'd whinge and whine on a cold floor
> 
> Blimey that seems really out of character, I can understand why you're upset
> However I can also understand why he did it if he felt cornered as although definitely not the same it's like Oscar snapping at the dogs that cornered him the other day. You saw the warning and moment of stress the trainer unfortunately didn't.


The trainer was stood too close to see the stress I think; Kilo's head was against him (he was stood up) and we were on the floor. It is out of character but not entirely unexpected from a dog like Kilo. He is aloof with strangers (although we have been going to training for quite a while now, he doesn't have much contact with the trainer in terms of physical contact although has never had problems greeting him before) and really does like his space - the reason I always stop people (especially men) from getting into his space and letting Kilo call the shots in terms of how much contact he wants.

I have to clarify that although I say not entirely unexpected that he doesn't go round nipping folk on a daily basis!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless I get why it bothered you. You dont want kilo reacting like that but i agree with Twiggy &L/C. You probably are over thinking because it was an unusual scenario and the trainer should have known better. He is still a young boy and learning about new situations.
Listen to me. Practice & preach. ;-)

Sorry not better news Beth.
Glad chazzie got out otherwise you might have started graffiting the House!
Quiet walk tonight as still reluctant to let her off. She is getting better with cars and the duration of dog reaction is reducing so despite the fact that she still walks like a rabbit I think we might be getting somewhere.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Another lovely sunny autumn day so in from work at 11am, change of clothes then straight out to reservoir/ forest walk. Charlie was very excitable today with lots of pent up energy so he pulled a bit on the lead but it didnt take him too long to remember his new found manners
> We had the place to ourselves (you can see the whole way around as its all flat) so we had an hour of off-lead fun. Plenty of recall practice and retrieving with a few random episodes of zoomies stick 'intimidation', and some swimming thrown in
> All in all a very enjoyable walk- only down point was on returning to the carpark a very friendly, wiggly young jrt was running loose and Charlie strained on the lead to reach it but compared with the way he used to be popping and leaping on the spot, this was something I could cope with! Typical we had used up all the treats on the walk so Id nothing left to get him to focus on. Oh well, it was still very controlled for him
> 
> Here's my boy today, back on his feet and happy....


Is that Woodburn Chazzie? Looks familiar from that scrap I can see in the photo with your handsome boy!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Is that Woodburn Chazzie? Looks familiar from that scrap I can see in the photo with your handsome boy!


yep that's one of the woodburn ones- I like going there if I want peace and quiet with not too many people around...good for clearing the head ( and jumping around like an eejit hehehe)


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless I get why it bothered you. You dont want kilo reacting like that but i agree with Twiggy &L/C. You probably are over thinking because it was an unusual scenario and the trainer should have known better. He is still a young boy and learning about new situations.
> Listen to me. Practice & preach. ;-)
> 
> Sorry not better news Beth.
> Glad chazzie got out otherwise you might have started graffiting the House!
> Quiet walk tonight as still reluctant to let her off. She is getting better with cars and the duration of dog reaction is reducing so despite the fact that she still walks like a rabbit I think we might be getting somewhere.


Hah! Ive already decorated the house- though the style is a bit more tasteful (and subdued) than the outdoor artwork


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## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> What a lovely picture of your boy  So glad you were able to have a good walk with him!


thank you, that's his favourite pose, up on the wall looking longingly at the water  You can still see his tufty hair where two of the bites were...above his tail and shoulder but he's always scruffy looking when he's wet


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## Tarnus

Dogless said:


> The bad - and please be gentle with me - Kilo nipped the trainer . We were doing some grooming stuff at the end and had to have our dogs tethered to the seating around the sides of the hall. I was kneeling down grooming Kilo and he was relaxed and fine. The trainer came and stood round the front of him and Kilo was just having a little sniff round his pockets and stuff. His mobile then beeped loudly in the pocket Kilo was investigating as he got a text and Kilo looked unsure. Just at the moment when I saw him lift a paw and thought 'not happy' the trainer put his hand forward and Kilo nipped it . No mark was even left but still, not good. At. All. . I see why it happened as I was behind him, he was tethered and the trainer was stood in front of him so he had nowhere to go when he felt anxious but I am understandably upset. And massively over thinking the whole situation as I am prone to do.


I wouldn't worry too much, he was stressed and expressed it in a very controlled manner, and as MV said, it's a pretty impressive bite inhibition! If you'd seen Izzy on Sunday at agility you would've seen a dog communicate their stress in a much less calm and controlled manner when the trainer had Izzy and she was jumping up, spinning in the air and trying to grab his hand while crying her head off! Once she got into the tunnel she was fine though, drama queen


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> kat&molly said:
> 
> 
> 
> Difficult to comment without actually being there but when I'm training if they achieve what I ask, I immediately reward and then play with them or do something else.
> 
> Case in point was Holly Bolly in class yesterday - she retrieved the dumbbell first time holding the middle (she still hasn't quite got the concept and very often picks it up by the end) so then I played with her and left it at that. If I'd asked her to do it again that would have been testing and not training IMO and she would have thrown in the towel a damn sight quicker than Moll did.
> 
> 
> 
> thanks Twiggy and thats exactly it , I find myself struggling to concentrate at times and think things are too repetative- probably why she got bored of Agility as well. We had 3 'Gun dog' lessons but done blind retreives for all the lessons and nothing else, Moll loved this but was over the top and now I've got retreive problems that I never had before.
> 
> Dogless, really sorry to hear Kilo got upset, but he showed great restraint didn't he.
> Why do people need phones switched on all the time.
Click to expand...


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I think she isn't really happy unless she's retreiving. Big Evie has said Moll sees that as her job, just like a Collie herding sheep.
> She'd honestly be happy going to a field every day twice a day and having you chuck a ball for an hour at a time- I let her do that occasionally but I know shes got a lot more brain than that.
> She does enjoy using her nose and I'd go back to the Gun dog lessons but thats where the retreive problems started.


Have you thought about tracking if she enjoys using her nose? What about using retrieves as a reward for her if that's what makes her really happy? Not as convenient to do a retrieve instead of feed a treat but it might give her more enthusiasm for doing other things and in the end they could even become rewarding in their own right for her.


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## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Yes you're massively overthinking it. Kilo was tied up and stressed by the mobile and it was unfortunate timing on behalf of the trainer AND THAT'S ALL IT WAS.....!!


And to add to this, if he didn't even leave a mark then he has excellent bite inhibition. That's a good thing. Any dog can be pushed too far and react that way. It's just unfortunate that everything came together and Kilo felt worried enough to use his mouth. What did the trainer say about it?


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## Sarah1983

Beth, sorry it wasn't better news about Sam but at least now you know he's not just been ignoring you, I think it might have been worse to find out he could hear and just wasn't responding lol.

I've had my husband off sick with an abscess in his wisdom tooth this week so I've got bugger all done except run backwards and forwards to the Naafi for soups, painkillers and, believe it or not, chocolate  Spen's been pretty well behaved considering his exercise has consisted of walks to and from the Naafi. He's been very good about being tied up outside (don't shoot me) but his loose leash walking hasn't been so great. But then I've had him on the harness coz quite frankly I'm fed up of walking to the Naafi and just want to get it over with rather than farting around lol.

We had a training session on closing doors last night. Been having problems getting him to target the door so I went into the bedroom and pushed the door almost shut with him on the other side. Of course he couldn't stand that so shoved his way in, click and treat, put him back outside and repeat. Once he'd got that pushing the door was what I wanted we progressed very quickly and he actually shut the door properly (from an almost closed position but it's a start) before we ended the session


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> Have you thought about tracking if she enjoys using her nose? What about using retrieves as a reward for her if that's what makes her really happy? Not as convenient to do a retrieve instead of feed a treat but it might give her more enthusiasm for doing other things and in the end they could even become rewarding in their own right for her.


Yes, she would enjoy that and she will work for food if there aren't any retreives on offer. I tried a bit with my Evie a while ago but she didn't take to it- probably something I did or didn't do right.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I am pleased that at least his bite inhibition seems good, you're right!
> 
> The trainer was stood too close to see the stress I think; Kilo's head was against him (he was stood up) and we were on the floor. It is out of character but not entirely unexpected from a dog like Kilo. He is aloof with strangers (although we have been going to training for quite a while now, he doesn't have much contact with the trainer in terms of physical contact although has never had problems greeting him before) and really does like his space - the reason I always stop people (especially men) from getting into his space and letting Kilo call the shots in terms of how much contact he wants.
> 
> That's why I encourage handlers to bring their puppies training at 8 weeks old. They get passed around and cuddled, meet other dogs and importantly I introduce myself. We are talking very high drive and quick dogs here and by the time they reach adulthood I can control them, usually with just their name, even if their handlers can't....
> 
> I make a point of working every dog that comes here and getting to know them very, very well, including all their little foibles.
> 
> I don't offer to have dogs here anymore when their owners go on holiday, etc. because the dogs don't want to go home and it really upsets me.
> 
> I've been instructing for well over 30 years and I can count on one hand the amount of times I've been bitten and I've certainly handled some very disturbed dogs.
> 
> I hope this doesn't come across as arrogant but a decent instructor should be able to read the dogs they are dealing with.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> And to add to this, if he didn't even leave a mark then he has excellent bite inhibition. That's a good thing. Any dog can be pushed too far and react that way. It's just unfortunate that everything came together and Kilo felt worried enough to use his mouth. What did the trainer say about it?


Not a lot to be honest; showed me his hand (no mark, thank goodness) and took Kilo off me to do some sits, downs etc with him (he was htrowing out all sorts of calming signals, sitting down and pointedly looking away, that sort of stuff) then returned him to me.



Twiggy said:


> That's why I encourage handlers to bring their puppies training at 8 weeks old. They get passed around and cuddled, meet other dogs and importantly I introduce myself. We are talking very high drive and quick dogs here and by the time they reach adulthood I can control them, usually with just their name, even if their handlers can't....
> 
> I make a point of working every dog that comes here and getting to know them very, very well, including all their little foibles.
> 
> I don't offer to have dogs here anymore when their owners go on holiday, etc. because the dogs don't want to go home and it really upsets me.
> 
> I've been instructing for well over 30 years and I can count on one hand the amount of times I've been bitten and I've certainly handled some very disturbed dogs.
> 
> I hope this doesn't come across as arrogant but a decent instructor should be able to read the dogs they are dealing with.


It doesn't come across as arrogant at all. I think the issue was that he was too close to actually read Kilo if that makes sense. It looked as if he was just sniffing and then nipped him - but I saw the raised paw, ears back and lip licks; just too late . Things like this are upsetting as I couldn't have made any more effort in terms of socialisation etc. I'm trying to work out what it was because the vet on Monday was a similar situation - on a lead, man right in his space, taking his muzzle and squirting KC vacc up his nose but he was fine. I was standing and vet crouching, whereas I was crouching and trainer standing last night. At the vet he could see me whereas last night he couldn't; wonder if that had anything to do with it?


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## Dogless

A good walk this morning in 'our' forest - it was snowing lightly and so peaceful. Right at the end we saw a person again :yikes::yikes:. This time it was the very cheerful and friendly Game Manager who had seen my car parked, peered through the window and seen that a dog was carried in it and decided to try and find the owner as they are having an horrendous problem with poachers this year apparently. He was satisfied that I wasn't a poacher as soon as he saw us .


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> A good walk this morning in 'our' forest - it was snowing lightly and so peaceful. Right at the end we saw a person again :yikes::yikes:. This time it was the very cheerful and friendly Game Manager who had seen my car parked, peered through the window and seen that a dog was carried in it and decided to try and find the owner as they are having an horrendous problem with poachers this year apparently. He was satisfied that I wasn't a poacher as soon as he saw us .


Snow? 
Im about to head out for a walk now- I guess I'd better get the hat and gloves out!


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## Sarah1983

Glad you don't look like a poacher Dogless 

Spens flexi leash came today. We managed not to kill anyone, break anything or lose control of anything on our walk around the block. May or may not be doing a proper walk today, hubby's having the infected wisdom tooth out at hospital and god only knows what time he'll be back as he's on military transport which is absolutely dire. Took me 3 hours to get to the hospital a 40 minute drive away. Feel terrible that I can't go pick him up, especially as he may have to knocked out to have the tooth out  Don't want to go out till I know he's okay so Spen may have to just make do.


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Snow?
> Im about to head out for a walk now- I guess I'd better get the hat and gloves out!


It was Altnahinch so a bit higher up but only 1c and, yep, snowing a bit .


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Glad you don't look like a poacher Dogless
> 
> Spens flexi leash came today. We managed not to kill anyone, break anything or lose control of anything on our walk around the block. May or may not be doing a proper walk today, hubby's having the infected wisdom tooth out at hospital and god only knows what time he'll be back as he's on military transport which is absolutely dire. Took me 3 hours to get to the hospital a 40 minute drive away. Feel terrible that I can't go pick him up, especially as he may have to knocked out to have the tooth out  Don't want to go out till I know he's okay so Spen may have to just make do.


Hope all goes well for hubby Sarah.

Also pleased you didn't hurt anyone or yourselves with the flexi .


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## Werehorse

Glad you had a nice walk, Dogless, and aren't a poacher. Good news. 

Also - you have done stirling work socialising and training Kilo, he couldn't have had better. You have done everything nurture can do for him. The nature of the breed is aloofness, so you have always be up against it and the fact he CAN cope with so much is a credit to you. Remember that! You didn't choose an easy breed and you have more than lived up to the challenge as far as I can see!  He probably has very sensitive hearing and a phone beeping right next to his ear!  He would already be uncomfortable with the trainer standing so much in his personal space and being tied up, then the phone... It's an accumilation of factors that has pushed him up over nip threshold. I think the sudden high-pitched noise will have done it really.

My dog trainer always tells us about the few times she has been badly bitten have been when working with a dog that was slightly stressed and in "faff about" mode and someone nearby has laughed suddenly and loudly (high pitched!) - this has happened more than once...

Phones should be on silent in training class in my view. I wouldn't dream of having my phone on anything other than silent while teaching the classes I teach, slightly different but it isn't very professional.  I don't want to dis your trainer but I do feel this rather strongly. Benefit of the doubt, he left it on by mistake and it's just an unfortunate co-incidence. What I'm trying to say in a very clumsy was is that this incident doesn't detract from the fact Kilo is a well-adjusted young dog and you have done a fab-u-lous job of raising him. So don't start thinking of ways to blame yourself. :nono:


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## GingerRogers

I take it this is 'your' forest because there never anyone there? How lovely, there is a little wood down the road from here, I often stop there if I need the car (have to take hubby to work) it only takes about 30 mins to walk round but I think of it as 'a short but exciting walk' especially when I get lost (don't ask it has direction arrows and everything ) I have never seen anyone else there and get cobwebs across my face for my troubles, so know I am the first of the day.

I am glad he didn't think you were poaching!

We had a pretty good walk this morning, (still feel there's not much point of me being there ) was a road walk as we both needed some breakfast from the shop but she was pretty good with the cars and buses, again only reacting badly when we stopped to to talk to someone. At this point the reaction got worse with each passing car .

At one point an old lady came down towards us with a dog so I crossed over and ducked down a side street just to avoid the confrontation. Ginge spotted the dog but came quite happily which is a definite improvement. As soon as we changed direction to comeback out the side street and carry on she started to heel  bless her!! Just as I had decided I can't work on nice walking and stop her from barking at cars and dogs, she shows me shes got it after all. Thing is she will heel very well when ever I turn round, its walking in the right direction that doesn't work. So this was an improvement as we were actually going in the right direction for once, didn't last long though . 

Second day of the reduced dose of Nupafeed - its quite hard measuring out a 1/4 ml of liquid - haven't noticed any change yet, not that I expected to though.

Also having seen how excited she was in class on wed doing the agility stuff, I set up some makeshift stuff last night, ranging rods for jumps, dumb bells for weaving and a cardboard box for a tunnel - she likes it  - finally something she gets excited about indoors.

ETA ha ha we all post at once. Good luck with the flexi, they do take a bit of getting used to, our friends collie has one and I have been known to get in a bit of a muddle when walking her and Rory together especially. Hope your OH is OK, I had my wisdom teeth out under GA a few years ago, not nice but being knocked out was far better than having the dentist climb in my lap like she did the first one!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Glad you had a nice walk, Dogless, and aren't a poacher. Good news.
> 
> Also - you have done stirling work socialising and training Kilo, he couldn't have had better. You have done everything nurture can do for him. The nature of the breed is aloofness, so you have always be up against it and the fact he CAN cope with so much is a credit to you. Remember that! You didn't choose an easy breed and you have more than lived up to the challenge as far as I can see!  He probably has very sensitive hearing and a phone beeping right next to his ear!  He would already be uncomfortable with the trainer standing so much in his personal space and being tied up, then the phone... It's an accumilation of factors that has pushed him up over nip threshold. I think the sudden high-pitched noise will have done it really.
> 
> My dog trainer always tells us about the few times she has been badly bitten have been when working with a dog that was slightly stressed and in "faff about" mode and someone nearby has laughed suddenly and loudly (high pitched!) - this has happened more than once...
> 
> Phones should be on silent in training class in my view. I wouldn't dream of having my phone on anything other than silent while teaching the classes I teach, slightly different but it isn't very professional.  I don't want to dis your trainer but I do feel this rather strongly. Benefit of the doubt, he left it on by mistake and it's just an unfortunate co-incidence. What I'm trying to say in a very clumsy was is that this incident doesn't detract from the fact Kilo is a well-adjusted young dog and you have done a fab-u-lous job of raising him. So don't start thinking of ways to blame yourself. :nono:


Thank you . And I do think that you are right; I've not heard his phone go before so do think it was an oversight.



GingerRogers said:


> I take it this is 'your' forest because there never anyone there? How lovely, there is a little wood down the road from here, I often stop there if I need the car (have to take hubby to work) it only takes about 30 mins to walk round but I think of it as 'a short but exciting walk' especially when I get lost (don't ask it has direction arrows and everything ) I have never seen anyone else there and get cobwebs across my face for my troubles, so know I am the first of the day.
> 
> I am glad he didn't think you were poaching!
> 
> We had a pretty good walk this morning, (still feel there's not much point of me being there ) was a road walk as we both needed some breakfast from the shop but she was pretty good with the cars and buses, again only reacting badly when we stopped to to talk to someone. At this point the reaction got worse with each passing car .
> 
> At one point an old lady came down towards us with a dog so I crossed over and ducked down a side street just to avoid the confrontation. Ginge spotted the dog but came quite happily which is a definite improvement. As soon as we changed direction to comeback out the side street and carry on she started to heel  bless her!! Just as I had decided I can't work on nice walking and stop her from barking at cars and dogs, she shows me shes got it after all. Thing is she will heel very well when ever I turn round, its walking in the right direction that doesn't work. So this was an improvement as we were actually going in the right direction for once, didn't last long though .
> 
> Second day of the reduced dose of Nupafeed - its quite hard measuring out a 1/4 ml of liquid - haven't noticed any change yet, not that I expected to though.
> 
> Also having seen how excited she was in class on wed doing the agility stuff, I set up some makeshift stuff last night, ranging rods for jumps, dumb bells for weaving and a cardboard box for a tunnel - she likes it  - finally something she gets excited about indoors.


Yes; sadly I don't own it - just pretend I do when we are there .

I started to see a difference after perhaps a week of Nupafeed. Nothing that smacks you between the eyes but a gradual realisation that things that used to be a worry are no longer such an issue, focus is improved even in the face of the worrying situation and things are shaken off sooner. I do hope you see results too.


----------



## Halifu

I know its dificult but Wouldn't worry to much.
Sounds like You saw the signals,and read the situation,just didn't catch him in time.
Shame the"trainer" didn't spot them.
Zak has had a nip at a cpl of friends of mine that have tried to be to close to quick.
No skin breaks, tugs on the clothes just warnings and partly him challenging them .( or seeing how much he can get away with!)
I am always very mindfull of my dogs whenever their around people,( as im sure you are)as you never no what mite occur.
It reminds me when I was 1st introduced to the breed 20+'yrs ago.
Ended up Lodging (with a now very good friend)with this chap who had 3Rr's I gradually become acquainted & besotted with his dogs.
After a few weeks of being there went to pat the big boy on the head & as I pulled hand away without a thought he just had hold of my jumper and looked at me in that way they only can as if to say not so fast Mr.
Sorry for the story
I just think its something to be aware of and not let become a habit or go unnoticed.


----------



## Dogless

Halifu said:


> I know its dificult but Wouldn't worry to much.
> Sounds like You saw the signals,and read the situation,just didn't catch him in time.
> Shame the"trainer" didn't spot them.
> Zak has had a nip at a cpl of friends of mine that have tried to be to close to quick.
> No skin breaks, tugs on the clothes just warnings and partly him challenging them .( or seeing how much he can get away with!)
> I am always very mindfull of my dogs whenever their around people,( as im sure you are)as you never no what mite occur.
> It reminds me when I was 1st introduced to the breed 20+'yrs ago.
> Ended up Lodging (with a now very good friend)with this chap who had 3Rr's I gradually become acquainted & besotted with his dogs.
> After a few weeks of being there went to pat the big boy on the head & as I pulled hand away without a thought he just had hold of my jumper and *looked at me in that way they only can as if to say not so fast Mr.*
> Sorry for the story
> I just think its something to be aware of and not let become a habit or go unnoticed.


I am exceptionally mindful and careful - Kilo has tugged the fleece of someone who really forced interaction once too, no damage at all. I know that look too!!


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## Guest

GOOD LORD I go away for fives days and theres nearly twenty pages since i was last here! 

As I have yet to catch up all I can really say is that I hope you've all had not too stressfull days and that everyone and their dog is okay.

Zand shall not be back till tommorow morn and I am preparing myself for the lurchery tornardo. I have also made a vow of at least an hour and half of 'bonding' time with him, such as playing fetch in the garden (at least until he vaults this fence), and teaching him tricks. 

I know it sounds a bit of a weird vow, but as I have said with this lungey chomp on your arm behaviour its made me... not dislike him as such, but made me less willing to interact with him, which of course makes it worse because then the next time I DO he's an overexcited mess. 

I do feel sorry for the cats though, their reign over the sofa will be usurped once more.


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## GingerRogers

I understand what you mean I went through a stage a bit like that with Ginge and numerous times with Rory you do get over it and feel terrible you ever felt like it.

Hope you had a nice break, that might be all you needed, and he is well behaved when he returns.


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> It was Altnahinch so a bit higher up but only 1c and, yep, snowing a bit .


Well I wore the hat and gloves, a tshirt under my fleece, a coat, 2 pairs of socks AND tights under my jeans......might have been a bit extreme lmao. Was warm as toast though! No snow just a cold wind, beautiful sunshine through the trees and not a sinner about. Geez if only I could become a hermit and live halfway up a hill or hideout in a forest Id be happy.........as long as there was a chinese takeaway reasonably close.....and a woodburning stove in my cave and..................


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Well I wore the hat and gloves, a tshirt under my fleece, a coat, 2 pairs of socks AND tights under my jeans......might have been a bit extreme lmao. Was warm as toast though! No snow just a cold wind, beautiful sunshine through the trees and not a sinner about. Geez if only I could become a hermit and live halfway up a hill or hideout in a forest Id be happy.........as long as there was a chinese takeaway reasonably close.....and a woodburning stove in my cave and..................


You'll have nothing left for winter :w00t::w00t:.


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## Sarah1983

well I got a phone call from hubby saying he'd just missed the transport and the next one was at 6 so I took Spen for a walk. He didn't get to be off leash but he got the length of the flexi for about half of it. Horrible bloody thing. It was bliss not to have blue, frozen hands though so I think we'll keep using it in wet and cold weather. Maybe I just need to get used to it.

Anyway, we walked across a couple of fields and back home by the roads. I would say it was a nice walk but Spen was pulling so hard he could have won the Iditarod all by himself. So it took us about 10 times as long as it should to get home coz we worked on not pulling Sarahs arm out just because the leash is clipped to the harness. I could have put him on his collar and had him walk by me but I want to be able to give him some freedom to sniff when the road goes along the edge of fields. He's not bad on long line or flexi for it but on a regular leash he's hell.

LurcherOwner, I've been there with Rupert. It passed and I honestly wonder whether I'll ever have the same sort of bond with any other dog, if there's such a thing as a heart dog then he was it. I think it's only natural to not want to interact with someone or something that's hurting us.


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## Dogless

Oh dear Sarah - Spen is certainly trying your patience at present :w00t:.


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Glad you don't look like a poacher Dogless
> 
> Spens flexi leash came today. We managed not to kill anyone, break anything or lose control of anything on our walk around the block. May or may not be doing a proper walk today, hubby's having the infected wisdom tooth out at hospital and god only knows what time he'll be back as he's on military transport which is absolutely dire. Took me 3 hours to get to the hospital a 40 minute drive away. Feel terrible that I can't go pick him up, especially as he may have to knocked out to have the tooth out  Don't want to go out till I know he's okay so Spen may have to just make do.


Dear love him. Ive a broken crown- a big double one that Ive been putting off getting fixed cos I know she'll just want to pull the tooth 
Im such a chicken! Hope all goes well with him- no doubt he'll be looking for extra attention when he gets home. Poor dog will be lucky to get a look in


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## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> Glad you had a nice walk, Dogless, and aren't a poacher. Good news.
> 
> Also - you have done stirling work socialising and training Kilo, he couldn't have had better. He probably has very sensitive hearing and a phone beeping right next to his ear!


Maybe he didnt like the trainers choice of ringtone? Perhaps ' who let the dogs out' would have been preferable


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## Sarah1983

Dogless, I'm really hoping this is the darkest before dawn phase. I don't think lack of proper exercise has helped this week, this was the first proper walk he's been on since Monday _and_ we walked a route we'd never done before. Walking the streets doesn't really cut it with him, he needs more so it's my own fault really for not at least taking him to the field for half an hour as well as the walks to the shop.

Chazzie, if he insists on telling me about what he's had done I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears and go "lalalalalalala". I'm absolutely phobic of dentists, even talking about dental treatment makes me feel ill. And I've got loads of work needs doing to my own teeth, it's just a matter of time before I'll start with toothache but can I make myself go to the dentist? Nope, it's full on panic attack if I try.


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> You'll have nothing left for winter :w00t::w00t:.


I know. I need to get organised with a warmer, properly waterproof coat- maybe get another Barbour jacket like the brilliant one I had years ago- It smelt like whale blubber (im guessing) but boy did it keep me warm and dry. I need new hiking boots as these ones are about to give up the ghost. The sole is so thin it's like walking in the forest barefoot and I can feel every stone... the strong hints have been dropped in mums ear for a possible xmas pressie.... much more preferable than the anti wrinkle, anti ageing cream that she seems to have started buying me in the last year or two :nonod: and I thought I still looked young for 39


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## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, I'm really hoping this is the darkest before dawn phase. I don't think lack of proper exercise has helped this week, this was the first proper walk he's been on since Monday _and_ we walked a route we'd never done before. Walking the streets doesn't really cut it with him, he needs more so it's my own fault really for not at least taking him to the field for half an hour as well as the walks to the shop.
> 
> Chazzie, if he insists on telling me about what he's had done I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears and go "lalalalalalala". I'm absolutely phobic of dentists, even talking about dental treatment makes me feel ill. And I've got loads of work needs doing to my own teeth, it's just a matter of time before I'll start with toothache but can I make myself go to the dentist? Nope, it's full on panic attack if I try.


Im not QUITE that bad but I do always start any dental appointment Ive ever had with " Im sorry, it's nothing personal....I just dont like coming here" :nonod:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Not a lot to be honest; showed me his hand (no mark, thank goodness) and took Kilo off me to do some sits, downs etc with him (he was htrowing out all sorts of calming signals, sitting down and pointedly looking away, that sort of stuff) then returned him to me.
> 
> It doesn't come across as arrogant at all. I think the issue was that he was too close to actually read Kilo if that makes sense. It looked as if he was just sniffing and then nipped him - but I saw the raised paw, ears back and lip licks; just too late . Things like this are upsetting as I couldn't have made any more effort in terms of socialisation etc. I'm trying to work out what it was because the vet on Monday was a similar situation - on a lead, man right in his space, taking his muzzle and squirting KC vacc up his nose but he was fine. I was standing and vet crouching, whereas I was crouching and trainer standing last night. At the vet he could see me whereas last night he couldn't; wonder if that had anything to do with it?


Mmm from what you've said Kilo probably didn't like your trainer standing over him - many dogs don't. Whatever it certainly wasn't Kilo's fault, or your's.

One of the joys of judging is that in the novice class we have to give the dogs a temperament test. It used to be included in Test A as well except off the lead but the KC eventually took it out - thank the Lord...!!
When I judge novice I always ask the dog's name and approach from the front, swatting down slightly if they look iffy....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Mmm from what you've said Kilo probably didn't like your trainer standing over him - many dogs don't. Whatever it certainly wasn't Kilo's fault, or your's.
> 
> One of the joys of judging is that in the novice class we have to give the dogs a temperament test. It used to be included in Test A as well except off the lead but the KC eventually took it out - thank the Lord...!!
> When I judge novice I always ask the dog's name and approach from the front, swatting down slightly if they look iffy....


Who knows? He always used to be OK at ringcraft being handled, having teeth checked etc. Maybe I'll never quite know but just need to be extra vigilant in the event of the same set of circumstances occurring again.


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## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Im not QUITE that bad but I do always start any dental appointment Ive ever had with " Im sorry, it's nothing personal....I just dont like coming here" :nonod:


Oh that's better than mine, I start any dental appointment off with tears and hyperventilating. And one of the triggers for my seizures is stress. Visits to the dentist are a real barrel of laughs here lol. My neurologist has advised me to have dental work done under general anaesthetic but that's easier said than done when you have seizures, anaesthetists tend to panic about it.


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## chazzie10

Glad I went for the walk earlier, the sun's gone down, it's freezing and yep wee bit of hail and possibly a few flakes of snow??
It was so nice earlier too though wasnt exactly warm enough to find the nearest deep puddle and go stand in it for 5 minutes....or was it? Charlie seemed to think it was a good plan


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## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh that's better than mine, I start any dental appointment off with tears and hyperventilating. And one of the triggers for my seizures is stress. Visits to the dentist are a real barrel of laughs here lol. My neurologist has advised me to have dental work done under general anaesthetic but that's easier said than done when you have seizures, anaesthetists tend to panic about it.


Hmmm yeh if I was you I'd hold out until you've toothache too!! Makes me seem such a big baby now


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## kat&molly

Sarah- hope you've got your sympathetic head on. A wisdom tooth ouch. I hate dentists as well, my Mother had to sit on me once to keep me in the chair- I was in my twenties at the time.
As for the Flexi- I use one for Evie or a long line when she cant go offlead, prefer the Flexi out the 2 , your handle must be heavy though for a dog Spencers size.

Dogless- how dare there be someone in 'your' forest- I hope you had words.

Chazzie- that poor boy look like he's been forced in to that puddle.

I bathed Moll today in the special soap for her skin , towelled her off and we went for our walk. She's come back with all these tiny 'things' stuck in her fur, loads of them. Gawd knows what they are, not Teasels or Burrs.:crying:

Cant believe how the temperatures are dropping here from tomorrow- seems early.


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## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Chazzie- that poor boy look like he's been forced in to that puddle.
> .


Nope, believe me that boy can smell water from a mile away. He just goes straight to any source of it and climbs right in whether it be dam, river, puddle or ditch


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## kat&molly

chazzie10 said:


> Nope, believe me that boy can smell water from a mile away. He just goes straight to any source of it and climbs right in whether it be dam, river, puddle or ditch


Oh, I know, all 4 of mine lie down in puddles- I've been accused of training them to do that. :w00t: But... this time of year, that last pee at bed time , you'd think I was murdering them - as they dont want to get their feet wet. I'm having to take Moll out on lead.


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## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Sarah- hope you've got your sympathetic head on. A wisdom tooth ouch. I hate dentists as well, my Mother had to sit on me once to keep me in the chair- I was in my twenties at the time.
> As for the Flexi- I use one for Evie or a long line when she cant go offlead, prefer the Flexi out the 2 , your handle must be heavy though for a dog Spencers size.


I'm afraid I'm a bit lacking in the sympathy department. I blame my mother, no matter what's wrong with you it's "take 2 paracetamol and get on with it" and I'll admit to being very much the same  Plus I've had 3 wisdom teeth out (under a general) and found it to be completely painless afterwards lol.

The handle of the flexi is quite heavy. And I've discovered that even with it locked he can drag me along if he decides to. I can't seem to brace myself the way I can with a leash I can hold where I choose. Thankfully it was only Calvin he dragged me to but still not pleasant.


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## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> Nope, believe me that boy can smell water from a mile away. He just goes straight to any source of it and climbs right in whether it be dam, river, puddle or ditch


Not even sure my one can swim! He hates puddles and water, when we were tromping through the woods last week I was splashing through the puddles and he was jumping from each bit of grass like a Gazelle to the next one haha. 
I stood in a REALLY big puddle last week and was trying to entice him in, and he just put a paw in, then flinched, shook it off like a cat then just sat there looking sad eyed :L

He's a pain to get in the bath too  Once he's in there he does accept defeat however :L


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## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Not even sure my one can swim! He hates puddles and water, when we were tromping through the woods last week I was splashing through the puddles and he was jumping from each bit of grass like a Gazelle to the next one haha.
> I stood in a REALLY big puddle last week and was trying to entice him in, and he just put a paw in, then flinched, shook it off like a cat then just sat there looking sad eyed :L
> 
> He's a pain to get in the bath too  Once he's in there he does accept defeat however :L


I cant get charlie into the bath-he's too scared, but then he's not allowed upstairs so he knows if I take him up there then somethings up! I bathed him outside on tuesday with buckets of lukewarm water. He's very good and stands nicely while I tip the water over him


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## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Oh, I know, all 4 of mine lie down in puddles- I've been accused of training them to do that. :w00t: But... this time of year, that last pee at bed time , you'd think I was murdering them - as they dont want to get their feet wet. I'm having to take Moll out on lead.


K&M im not sure what its about- I guess its just an instinct to go into any sort of water they can find. Chazzie has started going into giant puddles to do a pee and he stares at me while he's doing it, with a look on his face as if he's saying ''Yay, I made this puddle all by myself" 
Arent you glad your dogs arent coming along getting into the puddle after charlie?


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> K&M im not sure what its about- I guess its just an instinct to go into any sort of water they can find. Chazzie has started going into giant puddles to do a pee and he stares at me while he's doing it, with a look on his face as if he's saying ''Yay, I made this puddle all by myself"
> Arent you glad your dogs arent coming along getting into the puddle after charlie?


Or getting in and drinking it like Kilo :w00t:.


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Or getting in and drinking it like Kilo :w00t:.


Eeeeeuuuwww :nonod:


----------



## kat&molly

Our dogs are quite disgusting sometimes aren't they :lol:
Years ago when we'd take bread to the lake for the ducks , our old dog used to go in the water bring the bread out and pee on it.:huh:


----------



## Guest

kat&molly said:


> Our dogs are quite disgusting sometimes aren't they :lol:
> Years ago when we'd take bread to the lake for the ducks , our old dog used to go in the water bring the bread out and pee on it.:huh:


you have no idea how much that made me laugh. :w00t:
But yep dogs are a bit disgusting haha. 
Mine found a dead toad a while back and presented it to this pekingnese owner by putting it on her foot. 
:blush:


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## Dogless

Right; if we are in confessional mood....yesterday when I went for a walk with the lady with the Weimaraner the lovely Weimaraner rolled in poo doing a great job of coating her neck....as she wiped the worst off with long grass saying how revolting her dog was we looked across to Kilo. I had dawning horror before she said "Oh, what's Kilo eating?" :w00t:  :nonod:.


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## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Our dogs are quite disgusting sometimes aren't they :lol:
> Years ago when we'd take bread to the lake for the ducks , our old dog used to go in the water bring the bread out and pee on it.:huh:


Hilarious- really made me laugh


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## Beth17

Nothing major to report today. The little white devil was at my dads for a few hours whilst I was at uni. I got out early though and so was able to take Oscar up through the woods, it was nice to have a bit of one on one time with him. Then unfortunately my dad returned the other one  
Actually Sam hasn't been bad today apart from pulling like mad on his walk and countersurfing continuously 

Chazzie Sounds like Charlie is doing the equivalent of weeing in the swimming pool  

Sarah you are brave I'm not sure I'd trust myself with Sam on a flexi the longline is bad enough! Hope your hubby is feeling better. 
My teeth always seem to hurt after going to the dentist I swear they do it on purpose.

Dogless glad you had a peaceful walk.

Welcome back LurcherOwner hope you and Zand have a good bonding session, they do say absence makes the heart grow fonder


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## chazzie10

well the rest of the story(that I was avoiding telling) is that if charlie is in a fast flowing river then thats were he chooses to do his poop....Ive tried explaining that thats not EXACTLY how the game 'Poo Stix' is played but he tells me his way is more fun


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## Beth17

My two just seem to go to the toilet on each other. Sam usually walks under Oscar as he's having a pee and Oscar the other day was sniffing along and hadn't seen that Sam had started to squat and poo and carried on straight into his bum :lol: 
He looked most surprised


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## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Chazzie Sounds like Charlie is doing the equivalent of weeing in the swimming pool


Is that wrong :blush: hehehe


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> well the rest of the story(that I was avoiding telling) is that if charlie is in a fast flowing river then thats were he chooses to do his poop....Ive tried explaining that thats not EXACTLY how the game 'Poo Stix' is played but he tells me his way is more fun


That is truly strange .


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Right; if we are in confessional mood....yesterday when I went for a walk with the lady with the Weimaraner the lovely Weimaraner rolled in poo doing a great job of coating her neck....as she wiped the worst off with long grass saying how revolting her dog was we looked across to Kilo. I had dawning horror before she said "Oh, what's Kilo eating?" :w00t:  :nonod:.


Oh Kilo 
Probably full of fibre and nutrients lmao


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> That is truly strange .


yep. He's a complete fruit loop.....just like me :w00t:


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## Sarah1983

I gave Spencer a lambs ear yesterday for breakfast. An hour later it reappeared practically whole. Then it got re-eaten :nonod: And why when they're licking their balls do they have to do it with such relish???


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## Beth17

Sarah1983 said:


> I gave Spencer a lambs ear yesterday for breakfast. An hour later it reappeared practically whole. Then it got re-eaten :nonod: And why when they're licking their balls do they have to do it with such relish???


I've liked this but I'm not really sure which bit I 'like' it's all pretty gross


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## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> I gave Spencer a lambs ear yesterday for breakfast. An hour later it reappeared practically whole. Then it got re-eaten :nonod: And why when they're licking their balls do they have to do it with such relish???


Spen must inhale his chews like charlie. I have to watch chaz with rawhide bones etc cos he chews a bit then tries to swallow them whole.


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## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> I gave Spencer a lambs ear yesterday for breakfast. An hour later it reappeared practically whole. Then it got re-eaten :nonod: And why when they're licking their balls do they have to do it with such relish???


I bet he was slurping :laugh:


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Spen must inhale his chews like charlie. I have to watch chaz with rawhide bones etc cos he chews a bit then tries to swallow them whole.


That is one of the reasons that rawhide is banned in this house!


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> That is one of the reasons that rawhide is banned in this house!


yeh its almost completely banned here. If he gets one, its a giant one from the pet shop and I watch him eat it til it gets smaller then I take it away. Its not worth the risk or cleaning up after he's sicked it up on my leather rag rug!!


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## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Spen must inhale his chews like charlie. I have to watch chaz with rawhide bones etc cos he chews a bit then tries to swallow them whole.


He's normally pretty good about chewing things but I stupidly gave it to him then went out leaving him with hubby. Of course he gulped it down then refused to move from the front door until I got home 

K&M, yes he slurps. And he goes at it with such bloody gusto!


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## Werehorse

Beth17 said:


> My two just seem to go to the toilet on each other. Sam usually walks under Oscar as he's having a pee and Oscar the other day was sniffing along and hadn't seen that Sam had started to squat and poo and carried on straight into his bum :lol:
> He looked most surprised


My Oscar is constanty getting peed on by Hugo.  Neither of them look where they are going (walking) or going (peeing). :nonod:



Sarah1983 said:


> And why when they're licking their balls do they have to do it with such relish???


I *hate* the ball-licking noise. For some reason it makes me want to break things. Honestly. :lol: The only reason I don't strangle them when they start getting their balls soooper clean is because I love them both so much.


----------



## Thorne

Breeze is another rawhide-inhaler and I've had to pull a whole, soggy rawhide shoe out of her throat before so it's definitely banned here! It doesn't agree with Scooter at all 

Bit of a slow day here, Breeze has had a fairly uneventful walk up until 2 gunshots went off in the next field and she tried making a run for it. Thankfully her recall is great! Her counter-conditioning to cars is going well though, and she's no longer licking her lips or cowering unless something very big goes past - she's looking to me for a treat instead.

Scooter hasn't been out today because he seems to have pulled a muscle on yesterday's walk! Took my eye off him for a moment when he was having a run and when I looked again he was limping  He didn't make a sound and wanted to keep running on it but phoned home for a lift back instead of finishing the walk. No heat or swelling anywhere and he's ok with me touching his so don't know what he's done. He's been pottering around the garden and has been looking less stiff so he'll get a short walk tomorrow.
What we did manage of the walk was very positive, he stuck quite close until we got to the meadow where they always have a gallop.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Right; if we are in confessional mood....yesterday when I went for a walk with the lady with the Weimaraner the lovely Weimaraner rolled in poo doing a great job of coating her neck....as she wiped the worst off with long grass saying how revolting her dog was we looked across to Kilo. I had dawning horror before she said "Oh, what's Kilo eating?" :w00t:  :nonod:.


Yes our dogs are revolting at times - well we think so but they don't...LOL

When Quiver was a puppy she always came in plastered with dog poo around her neck every time I let her out until she was about 18 months old. I used to stand in the conservatory, armed with washing up liquid and a towel expecting to take her to the outside tap. This was a particularly enjoyable operation in the middle of the winter, especially in my dressing gown and slippers.


----------



## Dogless

Well...today I came home plastered in poo :incazzato::incazzato:. Kilo must have run through some and then jumped up on my freshly washed and dried jeans :cryin::cryin:. Although horrible I comforted myself with the fact that I was unlikely to see anyone at early o'clock on a very icy morning....that was true until we were nearly home after an hour or so...and bumped into the Weimaraner and her owner - I turned around to walk back to the fields with them so the dogs could have a play. Lucky Kilo got some extra walk time and I got some extra time spent praying that she wouldn't look at my jeans and ask what was on them . She didn't .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Well...today I came home plastered in poo :incazzato::incazzato:. Kilo must have run through some and then jumped up on my freshly washed and dried jeans :cryin::cryin:. Although horrible I comforted myself with the fact that I was unlikely to see anyone at early o'clock on a very icy morning....that was true until we were nearly home after an hour or so...and bumped into the Weimaraner and her owner - I turned around to walk back to the fields with them so the dogs could have a play. Lucky Kilo got some extra walk time and I got some extra time spent praying that she wouldn't look at my jeans and ask what was on them . She didn't .


Maybe she could smell it and didnt need to ask??  hehehe


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## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Maybe she could smell it and didnt need to ask??  hehehe


Or maybe she just figured she was best off not knowing


----------



## Werehorse

Another vet trip for a member of the Monochrome Chaos Collective. Oscar now has a shaved patch on him back. The vet is quite sure it is dermatitus (sp??), as in the cut that it started out as has got a bit of infection in, and it has spread a bit. We have antibiotic cream which seemed a better option than tablets, we just have to make sure Hugo doesn't lick it. And it should clear up within the week, if not we go back and have another think. The vet was only slightly confused because it's an unusual place to get it but he hasn't seen how Oscar interacts with the undergrowth. I think the hair being clipped back will help too. 

I'm glad we took him. Hopefully it's a one off and not the start of "Issues"  I think it is though because it started with a cut rather than just springing up from no-where and Hugo got his dirty mouth on it before we spotted the cut. If it happens again I'll be considering clipping him out perminantly so I can spot cuts easier - which will make me sad but would be better for him. 

He was a very good boy, even when he was being clipped he just had a brief look round at the vet as if to say "what are you doing back there?" but he sat still and just wagged his tail the whole time. Any attention is good attention when you're an Oscar. :lol:

And he's put on weight! 1kg on.  Really pleased, back up to nearly 17kg. An egg on his breakfast everyday was the answer!

Oh and I've made a proper commitment to do something really, really stupid.... Alix Critchley is fundraising for Oxfam  So we'll be mostly working on Getting Fit for the next 8 months!!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Another vet trip for a member of the Monochrome Chaos Collective. Oscar now has a shaved patch on him back. The vet is quite sure it is dermatitus (sp??), as in the cut that it started out as has got a bit of infection in, and it has spread a bit. We have antibiotic cream which seemed a better option than tablets, we just have to make sure Hugo doesn't lick it. And it should clear up within the week, if not we go back and have another think. The vet was only slightly confused because it's an unusual place to get it but he hasn't seen how Oscar interacts with the undergrowth. I think the hair being clipped back will help too.
> 
> I'm glad we took him. Hopefully it's a one off and not the start of "Issues"  I think it is though because it started with a cut rather than just springing up from no-where and Hugo got his dirty mouth on it before we spotted the cut. If it happens again I'll be considering clipping him out perminantly so I can spot cuts easier - which will make me sad but would be better for him.
> 
> He was a very good boy, even when he was being clipped he just had a brief look round at the vet as if to say "what are you doing back there?" but he sat still and just wagged his tail the whole time. Any attention is good attention when you're an Oscar. :lol:
> 
> And he's put on weight! 1kg on.  Really pleased, back up to nearly 17kg. An egg on his breakfast everyday was the answer!
> 
> Oh and I've made a proper commitment to do something really, really stupid.... Alix Critchley is fundraising for Oxfam  So we'll be mostly working on Getting Fit for the next 8 months!!


That isn't really, really stupid it will be fun .

Hope Oscar's easily sorted too; and bless him for being so good .


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I'm no longer worried that I'm confusing Spencer (and Rupert who did the exact same thing) with his training  Whenever I teach him something new he'll seem to have got it then suddenly will stop offering it and go through all the other things he knows that have a history of being rewarded. When none of them work he goes back to what we were working on. Then he'll do it again, stop offering it and offer everything else. I've asked about it before and been told that he's confused, he's not sure what I want and things like that.

Well anyway, I bought The Clicked Retriever and she talks about the Training W where the dog stops offering the behaviour and either offers others or just stands there staring at the treat or wanders off to sniff and if you just wait it out will come back and start again with renewed enthusiasm. And apparently the 2nd dip comes very quickly after the first. And apparently it's fairly common too.

So, it looks like it's not a case of me messing up somehow. Big relief.

Other than that it's been a pretty dull day. Walked up to the med centre with Calvin to collect his car and took Spen with us. He pulled like a steam train no matter what I did, always does when hubby's with us. But on a good note we stopped at the Naafi for de-icer and there was a dog there barking its head off. Spen had a bit of a cry at first but after that ignored it and just sat waiting for Calvin to come back out.


----------



## GingerRogers

What fun discussions you have been having.

Puddles - 'Stinky' the gundog that Ginge used to live with lies in puddles to drink, I think it contributes to his stinkiness.

Peeing - my friends two are constantly peeing on each other, they both have to check out every smell so if Elsie squats Buffers is straight under her and vice versa. We used to have to keep a good eye out when walking Rory with our friends collie. Rosie would just trot along so focused on being in front, staring at the floor the number of time her head ended up Rorys bum and always as he cocked his leg 

Licking - argh that was why Rory was not allowed in the bedroom at night, it was like fingers on a black board to me. Drove me up the wall, slurp slurp, slurp  coupled with OH snorting :nono:

Poo - never got dog poo all over me, think the worst poo related event was when we went to the zoo a few years ago, it was a special open evening so quite busy for a change, I had some very pale blue jeans on, right early on we went to the sheepgoats where you can feed them I got charged and had sheepgoats jumping all over me. They had only just trampled in their own poo and transferred it all to my leg  Of course I tried to rub it off : I had to spend the rest of the evening with my jacket artfully draped over my thigh.

We had a nice walk this morning, had to go into town to pick the car up, she was really good with the traffic despite it being a scary wet day, even when we stopped to talk to a lady that adopted a 10 year old daschund around the same time we got Ginge (worryingly this poor dog has had 4 owners, all elderly, all died!!!!) she was good as gold no barking at all despite us being on the busy corner, their was a good verge though, mmm another distance thing clearly. She did try and jump up at a couple passing and ended up flat on her back bless her  felt very bad. We cut across the common and kept our distance from any dogs which again was all good, very interested but not shouty. She actually seemed to enjoy herself bouncing along rather than nutty 'gotta get to dingle' walking.

This arvo we both took her up to the river, I got called boring for not wanting to let her off, I had to say its not boring if the dog gets run over because you have taught her to ignore us . Anyway she was on a long line and was perfectly happy. Halfway back it went right black over wills mothers, there's an old workhouse being converted and it looked like a scene out of a horror film. You could see the rain sheets coming down with blue sky either side. Then two ends of a rainbow appeared, then a whole one, then two rainbows.

Then the rain caught up with us, it wasn't rain  it was hail, nasty hard stingy hail. Poor little Gingey didn't know what to do with herself. Run away, sit, hide behind us, lie down???? it was hard horrid stuff, bless her, eventually made it back to the car, think she was actually pleased to see it.

Wish I had got my camera that was some exciting storm with some awesome effects and Ginge running through the water logged fields with crystal clear water splashing off her legs was lovely.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - pleased that you know why Spen has been behaving as he has; what a relief .

GR - Ginge sounds like she was a little star today; especially on a scary wet day.

We had a great (poo - free!!!) walk this afternoon. The BW was in full rambunctious mode again this afternoon so he had lots of fast - paced offlead games and then some training around the sports pitches and back home. He walked very nicely and did everything he was told first time this afternoon, so gold star for him today .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- if that were me I think I'd have been owning up about the poo in case the other person thought it was coming off me personally.:blink:

Werehorse- hope Oscars back heals up ok, and that you dont need to clip him off.

Sarah- is that book good, have you got it on your kindle?

Ginge seems to be making good progress, and that weather sounds pretty spectacular.

Well, on our walk this morning around 'The Loop' , we're on the track, and I heard loud rustling in the field right next to us but lined with hedge. Evie on her Flexi , Moll and Scruff got excited and ran ahead - Evie pulled and her collar came undone  I saw a few sheep run through the field and thought thats it , I'm in trouble  so I called Moll and Scruff who came straight away but Short stuff stopped and thought about it and then came running back to me 
I was really chuffed with her she could have easily taken chase- and at one time would have done. The sheep shouldn't have been there, but that bloody collar- its new as well.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- *if that were me I think I'd have been owning up about the poo* in case the other person thought it was coming off me personally.:blink:
> 
> Werehorse- hope Oscars back heals up ok, and that you dont need to clip him off.
> 
> Sarah- is that book good, have you got it on your kindle?
> 
> Ginge seems to be making good progress, and that weather sounds pretty spectacular.
> 
> Well, on our walk this morning around 'The Loop' , we're on the track, and I heard loud rustling in the field right next to us but lined with hedge. Evie on her Flexi , Moll and Scruff got excited and ran ahead - Evie pulled and her collar came undone  I saw a few sheep run through the field and thought thats it , I'm in trouble  so I called Moll and Scruff who came straight away but Short stuff stopped and thought about it and then came running back to me
> I was really chuffed with her she could have easily taken chase- and at one time would have done. The sheep shouldn't have been there, but that bloody collar- its new as well.


I owned up when she contacted me this afternoon about possibly putting her dog on raw as that was my worry .

Wow!!! Close call BUT very, very well done to Troublesome Teckel and your other two .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I owned up when she contacted me this afternoon about possibly putting her dog on raw as that was my worry .
> 
> Wow!!! Close call BUT very, very well done to Troublesome Teckel and your other two .


That was like that time I took the stinky treats to training in my pockets. I had to email Big Evie and say 'you never guess what I found in my coat pockets...' I was worried she'd think it was 'me' 

Evie is being rather good lately - I'm worried.:blink:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> That was like that time I took the stinky treats to training in my pockets. I had to email Big Evie and say 'you never guess what I found in my coat pockets...' I was worried she'd think it was 'me'
> 
> Evie is being rather good lately - I'm worried.:blink:


Calm before the storm? :blink::crazy: OR......your patience is paying off .


----------



## Sarah1983

Wow, well done Evie! Couldn't tell you whether the book's any good yet I'm afraid, I've only just started it. Will let you know what I think though  And yeah, it's on Kindle.


----------



## kat&molly

I'll wait for your verdict then. I haven't finished the BAT book because I didn't think it suited being on a kindle.


----------



## Guest

Well done Ginge for braving the scary weather, and well done Kilo for yet another gold star and also well done to oscar being shaved!! 

The Lunatic Lurcher is now home, we have had several tiny tantrums (jumping up, very small nips no pressure) but I ignored them and Mum kept going "Deep breathing and CALLLLLM". 
Went to PAH to get a training long line (all they had was a naff thick OUCHIE nylon one that was nearly 16 quid) and failed so bought him a Stag bar, Not sure he knows its chew from the gusto he's throwing it around the living room.
OOH AND WHILE I WAS IN THERE I GOT TO CUDDLE THE FOLLOWING DOGGIES

A four month old Goldie
An english bull terrier
A exempler lurcher
A Cavishon. (Caviler cross Bishon)
A chihuahua
A welsh springer spaniel (good lord did it spring, nearly got headbutted hahah)
Another Spaniel (not sure what kind)
A Lab. 

Got him past a Goldie that was literally less than half a metre away because the woman had decided to stop and chat to this spaniel owner while I had stood to the side to let her pass. Thats when he had a small tantrum but that was to be expected (I WANT TO PLAY WITH THAT DOG NOOOOOOOW).

The Kennels said he was lovely, not sure they've been walking him on the headcollar though as good grief it took both me and mum ten minutes to get it on him!

Oh, and he's decided that the garden is now his favourite place and WILL NOT COME IN. If I go out with a lead, he plays keepaway.
Tried chicken, sausage, my special marmite cheddar as well as cat food.

So he got an extra 'feed'. I put a wee amount of kibble in his bowl and went through the "In yer box" routine. That got him in.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> What fun discussions you have been having.
> 
> Puddles - 'Stinky' the gundog that Ginge used to live with lies in puddles to drink, I think it contributes to his stinkiness.
> 
> Peeing - my friends two are constantly peeing on each other, they both have to check out every smell so if Elsie squats Buffers is straight under her and vice versa. We used to have to keep a good eye out when walking Rory with our friends collie. Rosie would just trot along so focused on being in front, staring at the floor the number of time her head ended up Rorys bum and always as he cocked his leg
> 
> Licking - argh that was why Rory was not allowed in the bedroom at night, it was like fingers on a black board to me. Drove me up the wall, slurp slurp, slurp  coupled with OH snorting :nono:
> 
> Poo - never got dog poo all over me, think the worst poo related event was when we went to the zoo a few years ago, it was a special open evening so quite busy for a change, I had some very pale blue jeans on, right early on we went to the sheepgoats where you can feed them I got charged and had sheepgoats jumping all over me. They had only just trampled in their own poo and transferred it all to my leg  Of course I tried to rub it off : I had to spend the rest of the evening with my jacket artfully draped over my thigh.
> 
> We had a nice walk this morning, had to go into town to pick the car up, she was really good with the traffic despite it being a scary wet day, even when we stopped to talk to a lady that adopted a 10 year old daschund around the same time we got Ginge (worryingly this poor dog has had 4 owners, all elderly, all died!!!!) she was good as gold no barking at all despite us being on the busy corner, their was a good verge though, mmm another distance thing clearly. She did try and jump up at a couple passing and ended up flat on her back bless her  felt very bad. We cut across the common and kept our distance from any dogs which again was all good, very interested but not shouty. She actually seemed to enjoy herself bouncing along rather than nutty 'gotta get to dingle' walking.
> 
> This arvo we both took her up to the river, I got called boring for not wanting to let her off, I had to say its not boring if the dog gets run over because you have taught her to ignore us . Anyway she was on a long line and was perfectly happy. Halfway back it went right black over wills mothers, there's an old workhouse being converted and it looked like a scene out of a horror film. You could see the rain sheets coming down with blue sky either side. Then two ends of a rainbow appeared, then a whole one, then two rainbows.
> 
> Then the rain caught up with us, it wasn't rain  it was hail, nasty hard stingy hail. Poor little Gingey didn't know what to do with herself. Run away, sit, hide behind us, lie down???? it was hard horrid stuff, bless her, eventually made it back to the car, think she was actually pleased to see it.
> 
> Wish I had got my camera that was some exciting storm with some awesome effects and Ginge running through the water logged fields with crystal clear water splashing off her legs was lovely.


I enjoyed reading that - it was almost poetic and I felt I was there with you...!!


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> I'll wait for your verdict then. I haven't finished the BAT book because I didn't think it suited being on a kindle.


Which BAT book is it? Id be interested in getting that :001_smile:


----------



## Guest

Whats a BAT?


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- if that were me I think I'd have been owning up about the poo in case the other person thought it was coming off me personally.:blink:
> 
> Werehorse- hope Oscars back heals up ok, and that you dont need to clip him off.
> 
> Sarah- is that book good, have you got it on your kindle?
> 
> Ginge seems to be making good progress, and that weather sounds pretty spectacular.
> 
> Well, on our walk this morning around 'The Loop' , we're on the track, and I heard loud rustling in the field right next to us but lined with hedge. Evie on her Flexi , Moll and Scruff got excited and ran ahead - Evie pulled and her collar came undone  I saw a few sheep run through the field and thought thats it , I'm in trouble  so I called Moll and Scruff who came straight away but Short stuff stopped and thought about it and then came running back to me
> I was really chuffed with her she could have easily taken chase- and at one time would have done. The sheep shouldn't have been there, but that bloody collar- its new as well.


Oh well done - that's excellent...:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Which BAT book is it? Id be interested in getting that :001_smile:





LurcherOwner said:


> Whats a BAT?


Some info Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) | Official site for BAT: dog-friendly training for reactivity (aggression, fear, frustration) by Grisha Stewart, MA. I have the BAT manual (paper copy) and can recommend it - makes perfect sense to me.


----------



## kat&molly

chazzie10 said:


> Which BAT book is it? Id be interested in getting that :001_smile:


Its by Grisha Stewart, Behaviour Adjustment Training. Everyone else enjoyed it .


----------



## chazzie10

Behaviour Adjustment Training and it works very quickly :smile:


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Its by Grisha Stewart, Behaviour Adjustment Training. Everyone else enjoyed it .


Thats ok- thats one of the ones I read online- brilliant stuff


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Whats a BAT?


Them black things that fly about. They'll be out in force tonight it's Halloween....


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Them black things that fly about. They'll be out in force tonight it's Halloween....


Getting caught in your hair... biting your dog  lmao


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Some info Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) | Official site for BAT: dog-friendly training for reactivity (aggression, fear, frustration) by Grisha Stewart, MA. I have the BAT manual (paper copy) and can recommend it - makes perfect sense to me.


New link in my favourites! I did the 'walk away thing' today when Zander was getting excited over the Cavs near us. Quick question, when Zand see's another dog he STARES at them and starts walking faster, should I turn away then or is that not being reactive yet? Sorry If its a daft question but I've only really noticed it today.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> New link in my favourites! I did the 'walk away thing' today when Zander was getting excited over the Cavs near us. Quick question, when Zand see's another dog he STARES at them and starts walking faster, should I turn away then or is that not being reactive yet? Sorry If its a daft question but I've only really noticed it today.


I turn Kilo away if he fixates on a dog and pulls towards them. I like watching for things like head turns and rewarding them. For instance today he was being fussed by someone he doesn't know well - I have encouraged turning his head and coming away from the person when he gets uncomfortable and he did it beautifully today. If he stares at a dog and looks away, sniffs the ground etc even for an instant I reward that.

That is my take on it; I'm sure Twiggy knows plenty!!


----------



## Guest

Ahh thanks for that dogless, I wasn't really sure. 

Do you click and treat? If so how do you hold everything in your hands?

Edit: Forgot to say I've also tried clicking Zander back indoors, I can get him RIGHT UP to the back door, then he immediatly runs off again. 
Also have any of you used Training lines? Could you reccomend any? (non expensive please, and apologies If I have asked this before I honestly have a really bad memory)


----------



## Twiggy

Well I got my new car yesterday but made hubby drive it home. It's higher, wider and longer than the last one; let's hope it's more economical. Having to bend one of the wing mirrors in to get it in the garage which is a bit of a pain. I can't make up my mind whether to just take the single back seat out and leave the double up or viz versa. Might try the single seat tomorrow and see if Tremor prefers being on the seat. She's absolutely horrendous travelling although I think she's been slightly better since Holly arrived as she loves the car.

I was really pleased with little Holly Bolly yesterday afternoon in the barn - she was almost fast and enthusiastic. Then today on a walk she wanted to do heelwork and play tugging the lead with me rather than play with Tremor. Tremor wasn't very pleased but I was delighted....:smile:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Ahh thanks for that dogless, I wasn't really sure.
> 
> Do you click and treat? If so how do you hold everything in your hands?


I have used a clicker, but tend to use "Yes!" said in an excited tone now because of the only having two hands thing (different to the everyday 'yes'). BAT is about functional rewards - so the moving away is the reward in the case of the person today although I do encourage the behaviour with a treat too (bonus reward) - when the movement away has occurred; the manual is quite specific about when to treat.

ETA: http://functionalrewards.com/BAT-basics.pdf

I have used a Clix training line.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Well I got my new car yesterday but made hubby drive it home. It's higher, wider and longer than the last one; let's hope it's more economical. Having to bend one of the wing mirrors in to get it in the garage which is a bit of a pain. I can't make up my mind whether to just take the single back seat out and leave the double up or viz versa. Might try the single seat tomorrow and see if Tremor prefers being on the seat. She's absolutely horrendous travelling although I think she's been slightly better since Holly arrived as she loves the car.
> 
> I was really pleased with little Holly Bolly yesterday afternoon in the barn - she was almost fast and enthusiastic. Then today on a walk she wanted to do heelwork and play tugging the lead with me rather than play with Tremor. Tremor wasn't very pleased but I was delighted....:smile:


Hope the new car makes a difference to Tremor, its awful when they're travel sick. I'm lucky, all mine are fine.
Dont leave young Holly Bolly alone in there at the next show.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I turn Kilo away if he fixates on a dog and pulls towards them. I like watching for things like head turns and rewarding them. For instance today he was being fussed by someone he doesn't know well - I have encouraged turning his head and coming away from the person when he gets uncomfortable and he did it beautifully today. If he stares at a dog and looks away, sniffs the ground etc even for an instant I reward that.
> 
> That is my take on it; I'm sure Twiggy knows plenty!!


I totally agree.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I'll wait for your verdict then. I haven't finished the BAT book because I didn't think it suited being on a kindle.


No, I've got that on Kindle and think it would have been much better as a proper book. All the pictures are way too small to see properly


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I got my new car yesterday but made hubby drive it home. It's higher, wider and longer than the last one; let's hope it's more economical. Having to bend one of the wing mirrors in to get it in the garage which is a bit of a pain. I can't make up my mind whether to just take the single back seat out and leave the double up or viz versa. Might try the single seat tomorrow and see if Tremor prefers being on the seat. She's absolutely horrendous travelling although I think she's been slightly better since *Holly arrived as she loves the car*.
> 
> I was really pleased with little Holly Bolly yesterday afternoon in the barn - she was almost fast and enthusiastic. Then today on a walk she wanted to do heelwork and play tugging the lead with me rather than play with Tremor. Tremor wasn't very pleased but I was delighted....:smile:


The taste especially :nono:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I have used a clicker, but tend to use "Yes!" said in an excited tone now because of the only having two hands thing (different to the everyday 'yes'). BAT is about functional rewards - so the moving away is the reward in the case of the person today although I do encourage the behaviour with a treat too (bonus reward) - when the movement away has occurred; the manual is quite specific about when to treat.
> 
> ETA: http://functionalrewards.com/BAT-basics.pdf
> 
> I have used a Clix training line.


I use the 'yes' command too and then treat when he's focused on me. Have to say Charlie thrives on the praise and gets so pleased with himself, full of confidence and really stepping out :001_smile:


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I have used a clicker, but tend to use "Yes!" said in an excited tone now because of the only having two hands thing (different to the everyday 'yes'). BAT is about functional rewards - so the moving away is the reward in the case of the person today although I do encourage the behaviour with a treat too (bonus reward) - when the movement away has occurred; the manual is quite specific about when to treat.
> 
> ETA: http://functionalrewards.com/BAT-basics.pdf
> 
> I have used a Clix training line.


TEN GOLD STARS FOR YOU!!! 
(I mean that as Thanks!!)

Just found a Clix training Line 10 metres long line for 8;18 on Amazon!


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> No, I've got that on Kindle and think it would have been much better as a proper book. All the pictures are way too small to see properly


Yep, thats what annoyed me too.


----------



## chazzie10

clix training line? I'll have to go check this out!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> clix training line? I'll have to go check this out!


I only used it briefly when Kilo started stalking behaviour towards people so not sure how long term use would go!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I only used it briefly when Kilo started stalking behaviour towards people so not sure how long term use would go!


Im thinking it might be good for the forest. Not sure it would take the weight of my boy when he's in full meet n greet mode! What do you think? Are they strong?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Im thinking it might be good for the forest. Not sure it would take the weight of my boy when he's in full meet n greet mode! What do you think? Are they strong?


Not sure if Chazzie is bigger than Kilo or not, but he's about 48kg and it held him fine. Needs to be used with a harness and preferably gloves. I put lots of knots along the length of it to help me.


----------



## Guest

Well I've just ordered mine at eight pound eighteen pence so if it does only work on a short term basis then it hasn't been a waste of alot of money.

Also thinking of using it in the woods as I KNOW Zander would love to be offlead there but because some cretin has broken the fences around it, it isnot an option]


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Not sure if Chazzie is bigger than Kilo or not, but he's about 48kg and it held him fine. Needs to be used with a harness and preferably gloves. I put lots of knots along the length of it to help me.


yep chazzies a whopping 45kg atm ( the vet told me on tuesday that Im having such a battle with his weight because of the steroid injection 2 months ago- glad she told me cos I couldnt understand why he was bulking out when his food changed to lite variety and only two thirds the amount!!)
Glad to know it holds that weight but OMG having to knot the length of it... yes you definately understand what Ive been through too


----------



## Beth17

Lots of positives today well done everyone :thumbup:

We have had a lovely day cold but really sunny so we went down to the beach. I got absolutely soaked as did the boys but we had fun; Sam loves the water and kept running with the frisbee and dropping it in the sea so Oscar couldn't get it 
Had a couple of dogs come charging over including two flatcoats that got me soaked and kept charging through the boys and trying to get their toy with the owners calling and being ignored and we also had a big hairy thing come over to us and then growl at Sam  but Oscar was good and didn't feel the need to beat anyone up, I was holding him and he tensed slightly but quickly turned his attention back to his toy 

Then had a lovely walk this evening where they managed to embarrass me. A lady appeared with her friendly lab but put him on lead and to the side when she saw the boys were onlead and to the side of me and then when they went past I was off guard and the two numpties lunged to say hello, I nearly went flying  She was fine with it as was her lovely lab thankfully but some more impulse training in order here!


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Well I've just ordered mine at eight pound eighteen pence so if it does only work on a short term basis then it hasn't been a waste of alot of money.
> 
> Also thinking of using it in the woods as I KNOW Zander would love to be offlead there but because some cretin has broken the fences around it, it isnot an option]


Hope you left one for me on Amazon lmao...yeh I checked out ebay too... same item, same length on ebay £15+ p&p. Amazon, as you said, is only £8.18 free p&p... I know where I'll get it from!


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> yep chazzies a whopping 45kg atm ( the vet told me on tuesday that Im having such a battle with his weight because of the steroid injection 2 months ago- glad she told me cos I couldnt understand why he was bulking out when his food changed to lite variety and only two thirds the amount!!)
> Glad to know it holds that weight but OMG having to knot the length of it... yes you definately understand what Ive been through too


Why do you have to knot it? Will it come flying out of my hands?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> yep chazzies a whopping 45kg atm ( the vet told me on tuesday that Im having such a battle with his weight because of the steroid injection 2 months ago- glad she told me cos I couldnt understand why he was bulking out when his food changed to lite variety and only two thirds the amount!!)
> Glad to know it holds that weight but OMG having to knot the length of it... yes you definately understand what Ive been through too


That is big for a lab - he looks big in build too from your pics though. I hope the effects of the steroid injection in terms of weight gain wear off soon - it must be disheartening working hard to reduce it without any effect . What are you aiming for with him?


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> Ahh thanks for that dogless, I wasn't really sure.
> 
> Do you click and treat? If so how do you hold everything in your hands?


Leash in one hand, clicker in other, treats in pocket or in treat bag attached to belt or jeans pocket. That's how I do it anyway. Have the clicker on a thing around my wrist so if I need both hands for the leash I just drop it.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Why do you have to knot it? Will it come flying out of my hands?


Helps you grip instead of slipping through your hands or when you put your foot on it.


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> Hope you left one for me on Amazon lmao...yeh I checked out ebay too... same item, same length on ebay £15+ p&p. Amazon, as you said, is only £8.18 free p&p... I know where I'll get it from!


Gotta love amazon sometimes. When I was in PAH today I realised they were right rip off merchants haha.

:w00t::w00t:


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Helps you grip instead of slipping through your hands or when you put your foot on it.


Oohhh sounds like good advice. Rope + Speeding torpedo of fur = ROPE BURN


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Oohhh sounds like good advice. Rope + Speeding torpedo of fur = ROPE BURN


Gloves too and a harness .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Gloves too and a harness .


I have a harness! And gloves too haha 

ACTUALLY that reminds me, Um how would I go about teaching Zander not to try and eat/chew my gloves while wearing them? He'll happilly except treats from them though? He's never shown the inclination to maul them before, but then again I haven't had to wear them since last year...

Grief I am full of questions today hahaha

OOh and sarah, Ill have to attach the clicker to a lanyard or something. Hadn't thought of attaching it before!


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Why do you have to knot it? Will it come flying out of my hands?


Well with chazzie if you didnt knot it, it would be like shinning a tree with no branches


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> Well with chazzie if you didnt knot it, it would be like shinning a tree with no branches


Doing what to a tree!? 

Shining it?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I have a harness! And gloves too haha
> 
> ACTUALLY that reminds me, Um how would I go about teaching Zander not to try and eat/chew my gloves while wearing them? He'll happilly except treats from them though? He's never shown the inclination to maul them before, but then again I haven't had to wear them since last year...
> 
> Grief I am full of questions today hahaha
> 
> OOh and sarah, Ill have to attach the clicker to a lanyard or something. Hadn't thought of attaching it before!


No idea!!! Kilo used to be so bad for it as a pup that I used to give up with them; then last winter he wasn't the tiniest bit interested - grew out of it!! How about wearing leather gloves if he likes woolly ones?


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> That is big for a lab - he looks big in build too from your pics though. I hope the effects of the steroid injection in terms of weight gain wear off soon - it must be disheartening working hard to reduce it without any effect . What are you aiming for with him?


Yep he IS big for a Lab anyway- always has been. Even when he's lean he's big long legs and a big deep chest (though skinny butt and hips) He's a bit hairier than a Lab should be and Ive been thinking for a while thats he's more like a flat coated retriever. He's got their lust for life and eternal puppyishness ( if thats a real word). Dear knows what the heck he really is. My ex used to say that he is a crossbreed- Lab crossed with a donkey lmao. 
Different vets in the same practice have told me different target weights for him. One said 32kg, then the next looked shocked when I told him that and said "If that dog was 32kg he'd be a skeleton and look sick, he's to big a dog to be that weight aim for 37-38kg" Heck of a difference!
The vet on tuesday just said " dont worry about numbers- go by the look and feel of him"
Wish they'd warned me about the weight gain cos Id have instantly cut down his food to avoid the weight going on in the first place. The vet also said on tuesday that it didnt matter that he was on a restricted diet that the weight would be a battle regardless- thats why she chose to give me a spray for his allergies rather than another injection thank goodness.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> No idea!!! Kilo used to be so bad for it as a pup that I used to give up with them; then last winter he wasn't the tiniest bit interested - grew out of it!! How about wearing leather gloves if he likes woolly ones?


I shall have to give that a try!

It's odd what they grow out of isn't it?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Yep he IS big for a Lab anyway- always has been. Even when he's lean he's big long legs and a big deep chest (though skinny butt and hips) He's a bit hairier than a Lab should be and Ive been thinking for a while thats he's more like a flat coated retriever. He's got their lust for life and eternal puppyishness ( if thats a real word). Dear knows what the heck he really is. My ex used to say that he is a crossbreed- Lab crossed with a donkey lmao.
> Different vets in the same practice have told me different target weights for him. One said 32kg, then the next looked shocked when I told him that and said "If that dog was 32kg he'd be a skeleton and look sick, he's to big a dog to be that weight aim for 37-38kg" Heck of a difference!
> The vet on tuesday just said " dont worry about numbers- go by the look and feel of him"
> Wish they'd warned me about the weight gain cos Id have instantly cut down his food to avoid the weight going on in the first place. The vet also said on tuesday that it didnt matter that he was on a restricted diet that the weight would be a battle regardless- thats why she chose to give me a spray for his allergies rather than another injection thank goodness.


It might come off better now the weather is cooler too and if he likes swimming some extra swims would probably help. I'm sure you'll get there. Have you seen body condition scoring charts? One might give you something to reference - or maybe taking a photo every week or so from the side and top; I often only notice changes in Kilo when I look at photos.

Google Image Result for http://www.villagevetpa.net/sites/site-4143/images/dog%2520BCS.jpg


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Leash in one hand, clicker in other, treats in pocket or in treat bag attached to belt or jeans pocket. That's how I do it anyway. Have the clicker on a thing around my wrist so if I need both hands for the leash I just drop it.


Yep, I keep a pocket full of his kibble (so im using his daily ration rather than extra treats as he's on his diet) though I throw a couple of tasty special high reward treats in there too for extra special behaviour 
As soon as I give one I take the next out of my pocket and hold it so the reward can be instant and he knows exactly what he's done right- I AM a human vending machine


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Oohhh sounds like good advice. Rope + Speeding torpedo of fur = ROPE BURN


Charlie was more some sort of land to air missile and yes, have had rope burn and circulation cut off by chain leads etc...not nice :cryin:


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> I have a harness! And gloves too haha
> 
> ACTUALLY that reminds me, Um how would I go about teaching Zander not to try and eat/chew my gloves while wearing them? He'll happilly except treats from them though? He's never shown the inclination to maul them before, but then again I haven't had to wear them since last year...
> 
> Grief I am full of questions today hahaha
> 
> OOh and sarah, Ill have to attach the clicker to a lanyard or something. Hadn't thought of attaching it before!


attach it to your treat bag or beside the pocket the treats are in- makes it quicker to click-treat


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Doing what to a tree!?
> 
> Shining it?


lmao...shinning not shining....climbing- no grip


----------



## Sarah1983

K&M, had a flick through The Clicked Retriever and the pictures aren't a problem for me. They're photo's of dogs demonstrating each step rather than drawings with writing on or drawings showing dogs body language etc. 

I dunno whether it will be a bit too basic for you though  Not sure what you're looking for but it's basically a step by step guide to teaching a retrieve. And there's stuff about how clicker training works thrown in but I've read so much about the method that it's nothing new to me. I've never taught a formal retrieve, just a play one so the step by step guide is ideal for me.


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> lmao...shinning not shining....climbing- no grip


I'm feeingl clever. 

Oh god circulation cut off by chain leads. Gah the only reason I have one is so Zand is reminded occasionally that lead chewing is BAD. 
They are so uncomfy to hold too, when you have to bunch it up in your hand for whatever reason haha. And they get cold, and slippy when wet.

Chazzie I do think our dogs are very similar mentally.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> It might come off better now the weather is cooler too and if he likes swimming some extra swims would probably help. I'm sure you'll get there. Have you seen body condition scoring charts? One might give you something to reference - or maybe taking a photo every week or so from the side and top; I often only notice changes in Kilo when I look at photos.
> 
> Google Image Result for http://www.villagevetpa.net/sites/site-4143/images/dog%2520BCS.jpg


Thanks I didnt know about that- the pics were useful and thank goodness charlie isnt too bad going by the pics- goodness number 9 looks like a wee piggy . I reckon he must be a number 7 though you can see his waist etc but he's definately getting more exercise but its hard with the dysplasia cos Id have him out a lot longer if he was able


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Thanks I didnt know about that- the pics were useful and thank goodness charlie isnt too bad going by the pics- goodness number 9 looks like a wee piggy . I reckon he must be a number 7 though you can see his waist etc but he's definately getting more exercise but its hard with the dysplasia cos Id have him out a lot longer if he was able


That's why I was thinking swimming - non weight bearing.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> I'm feeingl clever.
> 
> Oh god circulation cut off by chain leads. Gah the only reason I have one is so Zand is reminded occasionally that lead chewing is BAD.
> They are so uncomfy to hold too, when you have to bunch it up in your hand for whatever reason haha. And they get cold, and slippy when wet.
> 
> Chazzie I do think our dogs are very similar mentally.


I used chazzies short chain lead tonight and he walked brilliantly on it. Last time I used it was before the BAT training and it hurt my shoulder so much constantly getting pulled on that side...no probs tonight cos he knows if he pulls i'll turn and head towards home...party over but if he walks nice I'll treat...game on 

Yes I think youre right our dogs are well matched!!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> That's why I was thinking swimming - non weight bearing.


He tries to drown himself when he swims!
He cant just climb in and swim nicely, he leaps in like a super hero, up in the air and out about 5 feet then because of that he goes right under for a few seconds and comes up gasping and gagging, gets out and sicks up the water he last time he went in a guy with his gundog spaniel laughed over and shouted" Right under" I was too white and wanting to scream "oh god my babys drowning" to answer hehehe
He only does it the first few times when he's excited. Ive tried recently to NOT throw stuff for him and let him go into the water in his own time, CALMLY!!
Honestly the dog is a complete plonker with no sense of self preservation!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> He tries to drown himself when he swims!
> He cant just climb in and swim nicely, he leaps in like a super hero, up in the air and out about 5 feet then because of that he goes right under for a few seconds and comes up gasping and gagging, gets out and sicks up the water he last time he went in a guy with his gundog spaniel laughed over and shouted" Right under" I was too white and wanting to scream "oh god my babys drowning" to answer hehehe
> He only does it the first few times when he's excited. Ive tried recently to NOT throw stuff for him and let him go into the water in his own time, CALMLY!!
> Honestly the dog is a complete plonker with no sense of self preservation!


Maybe leave the longline on when he's in water so you can rescue him? .


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> He tries to drown himself when he swims!
> He cant just climb in and swim nicely, he leaps in like a super hero, up in the air and out about 5 feet then because of that he goes right under for a few seconds and comes up gasping and gagging, gets out and sicks up the water he last time he went in a guy with his gundog spaniel laughed over and shouted" Right under" I was too white and wanting to scream "oh god my babys drowning" to answer hehehe
> He only does it the first few times when he's excited. Ive tried recently to NOT throw stuff for him and let him go into the water in his own time, CALMLY!!
> Honestly the dog is a complete plonker with no sense of self preservation!


Lol, Spencer enters the pond on the field that way. He'll also happily dive under the water to pick things up off the bottom. We've had all sorts from manky looking sticks to toys other dogs have lost in the water.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Hope the new car makes a difference to Tremor, its awful when they're travel sick. I'm lucky, all mine are fine.
> Dont leave young Holly Bolly alone in there at the next show.


Sadly its not travel sickness with Tremor its fear.

She was fine for the first 20 odd months and one of the few collies I've had that wasn't initially car sick but then for some reason she started shaking, drooling and panting.

I've racked my brains but have no idea what started this irrational fear and have tried everything I can think of to help her.

She had every preparation known to man plus Thundershirt, covered crate, different vehicles, someone sitting with her, etc. etc. and I've spent hours and hours driving her round the paddock, etc. etc.

I've asked many 'experts' around the shows, some of which are qualified behavourists, vets and such like but nobody can suggest anything I haven't tried.

She is slightly better these days in that she lies quietly and only pants and Holly has also helped because she loves the car (as do my other two).

I even got hubby to make a trolley, which I also spent hours getting her on and off and pulling it around the paddock. All to no avail. The only thing that works is Valium and I can't give her that on the way to shows and then expect her to work.

Here's the trolley:










I personally think it's got something to do with her not being on terra firma because when she first went to the hydrotherapy pool she had a total hissy fit. She holds the record for having the float jacket on for the longest period and used to trash the water in panic.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Sadly its not travel sickness with Tremor its fear.
> 
> She was fine for the first 20 odd months and one of the few collies I've had that wasn't initially car sick but then for some reason she started shaking, drooling and panting.
> 
> I've racked my brains but have no idea what started this irrational fear and have tried everything I can think of to help her.
> 
> She had every preparation known to man plus Thundershirt, covered crate, different vehicles, someone sitting with her, etc. etc. and I've spent hours and hours driving her round the paddock, etc. etc.
> 
> I've asked many 'experts' around the shows, some of which are qualified behavourists, vets and such like but nobody can suggest anything I haven't tried.
> 
> She is slightly better these days in that she lies quietly and only pants and Holly has also helped because she loves the car (as do my other two).
> 
> I even got hubby to make a trolley, which I also spent hours getting her on and off and pulling it around the paddock. All to no avail. The only thing that works is Valium and I can't give her that on the way to shows and then expect her to work.
> 
> Here's the trolley:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I personally think it's got something to do with her not being on terra firma because when she first went to the hydrotherapy pool she had a total hissy fit. She holds the record for having the float jacket on for the longest period and used to trash the water in panic.


Awk wee pet. Its so hard to comfort them when they dont understand


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Oohhh sounds like good advice. Rope + Speeding torpedo of fur = ROPE BURN


Come on we're talking dog here...LOL If little 5 ft nothing me can hold half a ton of horseflesh on a headcollar hell bent on getting into the paddock, you can hold on to a little doggy....


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Come on we're talking dog here...LOL If little 5 ft nothing me can hold half a ton of horseflesh on a headcollar hell bent on getting into the paddock, you can hold on to a little doggy....


Alright Alright haha I'm over-cautious thats all 

But he's going to be in a harness on this longline. He's going to prance about because he's able to go ahead me without his head being slowly turned. Spent the whole walk today being like "WHY MUST YOU WALK THE PACE OF DEATH, I HAVE THINGS TO SNIFF", well thats what I took from his look anyway. :crazy::crazy:


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, Spencer enters the pond on the field that way. He'll also happily dive under the water to pick things up off the bottom. We've had all sorts from manky looking sticks to toys other dogs have lost in the water.


So I shouldnt worry he's gonna drown then hehehe.
He IS quite a good swimmer. Last year a kiddies ball went into the reservoir and Super Chaz leapt to the rescue. Problem was he kept pushing it further and further out. He kept getting out, then ignoring my calls (of course), getting back in for another go. By the 3rd attempt he was exhausted and whining and I was almost in tears. The family thought it was hilarious but I explained that he had bad hips and cold water for too long makes him cramp up. Thankfully he finally gave up and came up the bank whimpering :cryin: It took us half an hour to get back to the carpark which was usually only 15min walk. Its sort of scared me since, when thinking on it, I should be reassured that he can swim for that long..... 
Charlie to the rescue


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Alright Alright haha I'm over-cautious thats all
> 
> But he's going to be in a harness on this longline. He's going to prance about because he's able to go ahead me without his head being slowly turned. Spent the whole walk today being like "WHY MUST YOU WALK THE PACE OF DEATH, I HAVE THINGS TO SNIFF", well thats what I took from his look anyway. :crazy::crazy:


Have you tried different paces for variety / excitement - running between two points perhaps, then back to slow; mixing up the paces so he needs to pay attention as he doesn't know what's next?


----------



## Werehorse

Oscar does some seriously impressive flying leaps into water. He used to sink but then her learned skillz and he now lands swimming. 

OH says I'm not allowed to embarass Oscar by taking a picture of his scabby bald patch but it is looking much better already. 

I need to get back to working on stuff - I've been very lapse this week, all the Bat Calls and waiting for Bat Calls has confused the hell out of my tiny little mind. Hugo embarassed himself with some over-excited humping of his playmate down at the yard, I stopped play for a bit of a calm down. He was marginally less leaping at faces today though which is good, it's not getting massively better but it's not getting any worse and he has started to sit and look up at people to wait for attention and then leaps to lick the face when they give attention rather than just launching himself when he sees someone who has given him big fusses in the past!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Have you tried different paces for variety / excitement - running between two points perhaps, then back to slow; mixing up the paces so he needs to pay attention as he doesn't know what's next?


I have yep, running seems to get Zander overexcited a bit but he gets lots of different pacing anyway because on the afternoon/evening walk he's got both me and mum and I shall speed walk with him then slow down so mum can catch up and then she'll take him for a bit and he's very attentive and slow with her as she's athritic and walks with a stick.

With me he associates the normal pace/faster pace and with Mum the slower pace. I think today he was a bit pully because it was his first walk with us after being in kennels, not that I'm using that as an excuse. But we'll see how he is tommorow.


----------



## Sarah1983

Done some more work on door moving today. And coming in from his last toilet trip I unlocked the front door and he went up on his back legs and shoved it open then stood and grinned at me :blink: Not what I've been working on but I guess it got the door open lol.

And I've decided that I'm going to teach him to roll onto his back when I say the word boss. That way whenever someone says I need to show him who's boss I can say "Spen, who's the boss?" and he'll "submit" to me. Reckon it'll help shut these dominance fanatics up? :devil:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> And I've decided that I'm going to teach him to roll onto his back when I say the word boss. That way whenever someone says I need to show him who's boss I can say "Spen, who's the boss?" and he'll "submit" to me. Reckon it'll help shut these dominance fanatics up? :devil:


I like that idea .


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> K&M, had a flick through The Clicked Retriever and the pictures aren't a problem for me. They're photo's of dogs demonstrating each step rather than drawings with writing on or drawings showing dogs body language etc.
> 
> I dunno whether it will be a bit too basic for you though  Not sure what you're looking for but it's basically a step by step guide to teaching a retrieve. And there's stuff about how clicker training works thrown in but I've read so much about the method that it's nothing new to me. I've never taught a formal retrieve, just a play one so the step by step guide is ideal for me.


Thanks Sarah, I've just had a look and there is a section on problem solving as well-but it wouldn't let me look at the 'give' bit. Might have to buy it.

ETA- Sarah- I like your Boss idea as well.

On another note, I 'think' I've decided not to go back to training.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> And I've decided that I'm going to teach him to roll onto his back when I say the word boss. That way whenever someone says I need to show him who's boss I can say "Spen, who's the boss?" and he'll "submit" to me. Reckon it'll help shut these dominance fanatics up? :devil:


I absolutely love that idea, please, please, please may we have a video when Spen has got it 

Werehorse: be heartened that you haven't got the dog i know whose raison d'etre is to greet humans... In much the way they would use a flyball box!:blink:

K&M I can understand your decision , if you aren't getting anything out of going to training it's not worth it. We're going to stop going to our Wednesday class. While the class and our trainer are good the associated hassle isn't and with OH often unable to come it's a bit much for me 2 nights in a row, remember different things.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I absolutely love that idea, please, please, please may we have a video when Spen has got it
> 
> Werehorse: be heartened that you haven't got the dog i know whose raison d'etre is to greet humans... In much the way they would use a flyball box!:blink:
> 
> K&M I can understand your decision , if you aren't getting anything out of going to training it's not worth it. We're going to stop going to our Wednesday class. While the class and our trainer are good the associated hassle isn't and with OH often unable to come it's a bit much for me 2 nights in a row, remember different things.


I'm the opposite at the moment. I'd like to find a suitable once a month training course to socialise/work Holly away from home. Trouble is finding the right one and the trainer will need to have a sense of humour...

My sister suggested I find a local agility class but the thought of standing in a freezing indoor school in the middle of the winter doesn't really appeal.


----------



## Dogless

Good walk this morning; no one seen early on a Sunday morning, although I did see hubby - he flew over the top of the fields and gave me a wave .


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I absolutely love that idea, please, please, please may we have a video when Spen has got it


Of course  Can't guarantee I'll ever be able to get a video of me actually putting it into practice with a dominance fanatic though lol. I imagine their reaction would be well worth seeing though.


----------



## Werehorse

It's Hugo's 1st birthday today!!  Amazed he's made it to this age without breaking any limbs given his accident record. :lol:

He got to come in for cuddles on the bed this morning! He lay on his back between me and OH, head on the pillows, with his little paws folded up staring up at the ceiling looking utterly blissed out, bless him.  NOT going to be a regular thing quite yet - avoiding paws and licks when he has wiggley moments isn't very relaxing. He deliberately pokes his paws into our faces! 

Then we dragged them out for a birthday walk in the pissing rain! The both really enjoyed themselves but just on the last mile we had to stop to the side of the path to let mountain bikers past a couple of time and Hugo just got a bit cold then didn't run around so much and got colder and by the end he was clearly looking forward to getting back to the car!  He was trotting ahead with his head and ears down and kept stopping and looking ove rhis shoulder with a very clear "hurry up" look! But he did have a good time before that so I don't feel too bad! 

They were good, even walked moderately ok on the lead up to the startof the walk... well I stopped every few strides for them to re-position but it wasn't like they were completely in pull zone and not coming out of it at all.

They have both had a Hugo's birthday chew and Hugo has been happily disembowling a tyre onna rope toy for the past 30 minutes! :lol: He's taken all the rope off and is squeeking in happy frustration because he can't destroy the actual tyre, running up and down and shaking it. :lol: Happy birthday boy. And we have our first real fire of the year.  Shame I have to go back out in the cold and wet to do the horses now really!


----------



## Dogless

Happy Birthday to lovely Hugo - Kilo sends a shoulder barge .

Good afternoon here; just in from meeting my friend and her dog for a walk and the boys played for an hour and a half having a fab time - no one really seen as weather is still pants . One very snuggled on sofa dog doing all his contented noises .


----------



## kat&molly

Happy 1st Birthday to Hugo.

A good day today- but no training.
We had to take my clipper blades to a man on a market for sharpening and OH knew of a good place to walk the girls. It was a lovely spot with a lake and lots of different tracks and woods.We took one of the tracks but I had to keep telling Moll that No she couldn't go in the water  as it was really cold.
I love to watch the girls when they go somewhere new tearing around and taking in all the new scents- no live stock about so Evie got the whole time off lead, and she was so good. I'd like to take them back during the week but OH was a bit concerned about my lack of navigation skills.:blink:
After we dropped my blades at the market , I spotted a chap selling Antlers, for 40 euros a pair, but he had a pair from a younger animal so they were lighter in colour for 5 euros a pair  they were natural, nothing on them so bought them. I cant get them here and they definately were not being sold as dog treats, perhaps ornaments . I didn't tell him what I wanted them for as I didn't want him putting the price up.
This afternoons walk was meant for some training in the fields but the neighbour and her Staffy came in to join us so that was the end of that.

Hope everyones had a good day.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - love seeing Kilo in new places too; sheer joy!! Evie is really polishing that halo at present isn't she? .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m - love seeing Kilo in new places too; sheer joy!! Evie is really polishing that halo at present isn't she? .


It is sheer joy , for us as much as them just watching .
Evie is just being brilliant at the moment, I dont know whether it will last , her recall has been really good but part of me is missing the naughty girl.:crazy:


----------



## moonviolet

2nd attempt at this post thanks to printer doign an update and restarting on me  :lol:

Happy birthday Gorgeous Hugo   Tink sends wiggles and squeaks.

Dogless sounds like you and Kilo have had a good day 

K&M what a lovely place and well done Evie 
Maybe you could take a ball of string if you go back 

I had a lovely day morning walk in a busier area than i generally go at weekends. We met a lovely elderly lady with her old westiewho ent out a load fo calming signals as he approached Tink who rather respectfully turned her bum for him to sniff. they happily walked on together sharing sniffs like old friends. It was only then his owner said " he doesn't really like many other dogs" I'm guessing he doesn't like dogs that bounce on him  It was clear she wanted to chat and we walked together for about 20 mins before she needed to go home we covered everything about her life her dogs politics. She was terribly well to do I wonder what she made of me. :lol: I guess it can't have been too bad as she said she hopes she'll see us again 

Other highlights included walking on a parallel path offlead with barely a glance at dogs on the other path going in the opposite direction particularly impressive when one of the dogs was a GSD on a longline bouncing around I think he might have been trying to take off like a kite  A quick glance , happy to be distracted and continued on our way and the final hoghlight was when Tink moved immedialty off path and sat for a mountian bike to pass and he slowed said thanks and said he wished his dog was as good, I of course didn't say it's my fabulous training and said cheese in the pocket helps :lol:

Lovely walking from dusk into dark this evening OH came along, he's not overly keen on me out on the common on my own in the dark, I rather like it I can't see him coming every evening :lol: :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

MV, I laughed when I read that but a ball of string's a fab idea :lol: 

Sounds like you and Tink made that old ladies day.


----------



## Thorne

chazzie10 said:


> Honestly the dog is a complete plonker with no sense of self preservation!


Well, he is a Lab!

Muggins here nearly walked the dogs straight onto a shoot yesterday  Could see some people with a couple of Labs on the next field and had to turn tail when I saw their shotgun barrels glinting in the sun! Fortunately we got a fair distance away before they started shooting. Yesterday's walk was a bit pants as Scooter stayed onlead because of his leg and was a bit pully at the start. Breeze wasn't happy about the shoot but met her Bulldog friend (and got slobbered on) which took her mind off it.

Today was better, took Scooter out on his own and kept him onlead again. No pulling and we practiced heelwork, quite pleased! His leg is much better.
Took Breeze out just as it was getting dark and we didn't hear the shots I heard on Scooters walk. Went on her favourite route through the spinney and onto the galloping meadow. Bit unsettled by a distant birdscarer but played hide and seek, did waits, recalls and heel to distract her. One of our better recent walks!

And Breeze is learning to catch a tennis ball


----------



## Beth17

Happy birthday Hugo 

Evie a gold star for you today

Sounds like a lovely day Dogless

Tink well done! and mv that is all down to your fabulous training 

Good day here. The boys didn't get the memo about the extra hour in bed so we were up early took both boys out separately and did really well. Sam had a play with a 18month old gsd which then ignored his owner and went and visited every dog in the field with the owner not bothering to fetch him back  
Quick question with Sam at the moment although he is able to greet dogs and have a play with certain ones I am also getting him to ignore dogs and want to carry on playing with his toy. Is this right or should I let him play with whoever he wants within reason?

Saw a horrible thing when a large gundog wouldn't give back its toy and so was put on lead strangled and lifted off the floor and was essentially dangling from its owners back it still didn't give the toy up. Poor thing


----------



## Werehorse

Hugo says thanks for the birthday wishes, shoulder barges, wiggles and squeeks.  He's a happy boy, Oscar is letting him cuddle his bum in front of the fire. 



Beth17 said:


> Quick question with Sam at the moment although he is able to greet dogs and have a play with certain ones I am also getting him to ignore dogs and want to carry on playing with his toy. Is this right or should I let him play with whoever he wants within reason?


I would keep as you are doing and letting him play with some and getting him to ignore others, just so he is always reminded that you are in control of it. Mix it up so he doesn't anticipate and think any dog = go over for play. That way if there is a dog you want him to avoid you have a better chance of success. 



Beth17 said:


> Saw a horrible thing when a large gundog wouldn't give back its toy and so was put on lead strangled and lifted off the floor and was essentially dangling from its owners back it still didn't give the toy up. Poor thing


      Horrible.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Good walk this morning; no one seen early on a Sunday morning, although I did see hubby - he flew over the top of the fields and gave me a wave .


 Are you married to Superman???  lmao


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> It's Hugo's 1st birthday today!!  Amazed he's made it to this age without breaking any limbs given his accident record. :lol:
> 
> He got to come in for cuddles on the bed this morning! He lay on his back between me and OH, head on the pillows, with his little paws folded up staring up at the ceiling looking utterly blissed out, bless him.  NOT going to be a regular thing quite yet - avoiding paws and licks when he has wiggley moments isn't very relaxing. He deliberately pokes his paws into our faces!
> 
> Then we dragged them out for a birthday walk in the pissing rain! The both really enjoyed themselves but just on the last mile we had to stop to the side of the path to let mountain bikers past a couple of time and Hugo just got a bit cold then didn't run around so much and got colder and by the end he was clearly looking forward to getting back to the car!  He was trotting ahead with his head and ears down and kept stopping and looking ove rhis shoulder with a very clear "hurry up" look! But he did have a good time before that so I don't feel too bad!
> 
> They were good, even walked moderately ok on the lead up to the startof the walk... well I stopped every few strides for them to re-position but it wasn't like they were completely in pull zone and not coming out of it at all.
> 
> They have both had a Hugo's birthday chew and Hugo has been happily disembowling a tyre onna rope toy for the past 30 minutes! :lol: He's taken all the rope off and is squeeking in happy frustration because he can't destroy the actual tyre, running up and down and shaking it. :lol: Happy birthday boy. And we have our first real fire of the year.  Shame I have to go back out in the cold and wet to do the horses now really!


Happy Birthday to Hugo!! Sounds like he's had a fun day


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Are you married to Superman???  lmao


Something like that :crazy:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Something like that :crazy:.


Say no more (unless he has a superhero (unmarried) friend) hehehe


----------



## chazzie10

Im raging! Charlie is soooo fickle. My bro-in-law called in and chaz was excited cos he could smell his (self appointed) cousin, Kip (their black lab), off him. He jumped up twice and one word from my bro-in-law and chaz instantly sat really nice and focused intently on him....Dang!


----------



## Twiggy

Happy Birthday Hugo (although it's a bit late in the day now).

Managed to get the dogs out this morning before the rain started but not so lucky this afternoon. Soon be time to get the two old girl's coats out again.

Took Holly into the barn this afternoon for about half an hour's training. She does settle better in the evening then.

Think I might have to curb the biting a bit now Holly's getting more enthusiastic. I've got a huge bruise on the top of my arm.


----------



## Guest

Bit late but Happy first Hugo!

Zander has massive tantrums today, but they were all ignored. He met a beagle nicley-ish.

He clawed at me at 2am and was retching, with nothing coming up, sharp taps on the chest (in my daze I thought he could have been choking) brought up bile. Fed him a bread slice, went back to sleep on my bed. 

Sorry for this being short and sweet, hope you are all well!


----------



## kat&molly

Thorne- good news that Scooters leg is better. I have to avoid the Chasse as here they have an awful reputation for being 'accident prone' and seem to spend more time shooting each other.:blink: I cant find the figures for how many died last year.:blink:

Twiggy- the bruises are painful aren't they, Moll got silly last week and jumped up and nipped my tum. Straight away it went purple.

Guess who set her alarm wrong and got up at 5.30 instead of 6.30. No extra hour for me.

First thick frost of the year here, its freezing. Have a nice day everyone.


----------



## Dogless

Up early this morning (Kilo doesn't understand the clock change; despite my best attempts at explaining to him!) so early to the park. It was only 2c and really foggy so on went the flourescent yellow equafleece . The park was packed with people walking before work I guess and they nearly all seemed to have a lab! Kilo was brilliant today - sailed on past a dog that had a go at him, sailed on past dog after dog with just a look, sailed on past the lab that has attacked him as it was put on a lead again :thumbup:, sailed on past two dogs having handbags at each other with just a 'leave it' ...... so proud!!

Two blips: one was a lady who's lab started running towards us, so she threw his ball to distract him - unfortunately she threw it just past Kilo's nose and he lunged to chase ball and dog. Not his fault but I would have told him 'wait' if I'd known that was going to happen.

Second blip was a group of people walking 5 large dogs including 3 labs offlead. They all came running over so Kilo lay down in his best 'I'm not here, I'm no threat' position with me in front, but the dogs jumped all over him and he had dogs sniffing front and back so stood up and skittered about in a bit of a panic with his head down, tail tucked. One woman in the group said very loudly "Oh dear, someone's not very well socialised are they?". Rather than reply I decided to move away quickly with Kilo so I did and the dogs lost interest in him. Kilo did two big shake offs and returned to happy immediately which is very different to not so long ago when he would have remained anxious for the rest of the walk. As we disappeared the woman's parting shot was "My lad's happy to greet on or offlead"  . Straight after that a dog ran up to us but was polite in greeting so Kilo was relaxed and happy.

All in all a fantastic morning; I am really pleased with Kilo's behaviour.

The bright Equafleece sparked the Great Coat Debate with loads of people; a mal and sibe owner said that coats on dogs were ridiculous and cruel and dogs didn't get cold (I think the irony of _Siberian_ husky, _Alaskan_ Malamute and _Rhodesian_ Ridgeback was lost on him:blink. A small dog owner wearing a mac with hood concluded that big dogs didn't need coats but small dogs did whatever the weather - I didn't want to talk about body fat and surface area so just said that if he shivered, he was obviously cold. Some other owners concluded that short haired, single coated dogs did need coats so the end result was even stevens I think :crazy::crazy:.

What a ramble - my medication increase is making my head rrruuusshhhh....hope it makes me speedy in the pool later .


----------



## moonviolet

What a star!!! :thumbup1::thumbup1: all those labs, especially the one that attacked Kilo before flipping heck your boy is doing you proud, well done well done well done 
A big additional star for your personal impulse control, I don't see how people can't see how letting a group of dogs crowd onlead dog is not a polite way to behave... I wonder if they'd be chuffed to have a group of strangers crowd around them in the same way 

Lovely walk lots of people and kids about .. mayeb a teacher training day i don't know, but TInk was good  we found some logs on a lovely bed of pine needle mulch so we did some "natural" agility


----------



## Werehorse

Well done Kilo! Such a good boy.  What a rude lady - my word I'd have kicked off if someone said that about one of mine, I admire your self control Dogless. :lol:

Tink goes cross-country.  Could be half term Mv... it is up here.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Well done Kilo! Such a good boy.  What a rude lady - my word I'd have kicked off if someone said that about one of mine, I admire your self control Dogless. :lol:
> 
> Tink goes cross-country.  Could be half term Mv... it is up here.


Stupid me off course it is. One day my brain will stop humming tunes (today's selection is the theme tune from rainbow, help me!) and get with the program.

I two would have had some choice words for that lady, i always find the people with the rudest dogs throw the socialisation card in like a smoke grenade.

Wish me luck I'm hideously clumsy today and i have a pile of ironing to do :lol: :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Stupid me off course it is. One day my brain will stop humming tunes (today's selection is the theme tune from rainbow, help me!) and get with the program.
> 
> I two would have had some choice words for that lady, i always find the people with the rudest dogs throw the socialisation card in like a smoke grenade.
> 
> Wish me luck I'm hideously clumsy today and i have a pile of ironing to do :lol: :lol:


"up above the tree and houses Bungle's flying high..." actually I only know the rude version. 

Don't iron your hand like I did, twice, before I mostly gave up on the idea of ironing. That was a long time ago. I only iron when apsolutely necessary and these days OH mostly irons for me because he considers it safer all round. :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Ironing is definitely over rated, we do still have an iron but the board got thrown out years ago, I subconsciously buy things that don't need ironing. Think the OH's smart shirts are the only thing that need doing but quite often get put on unironed if we actually go anywhere that warrants smart shirts which is about once a year.

We have mostly been trying to work on recall when not fighting the barking fight. I am getting more used to the long line although I can see if it gets much colder the wet rope thing is not going to be fun, she seems quite happy on it though.

I am sporting a nice purple bite bruise above my left knee where the little bugger got over excited yesterday. All my fault, trying to sneak in a cosy afternoon pint again with my friend. Two retrievers came in (just after my pint was poured  and of course the ninja kicked off, I took her outside, and my friend came out to say that she had explained about the little ones 'issues' and the ladies were quite happy for her to meet their dogs. so back we go inside, she meets them they really were totally unphased by her over excitement, so unphased that she took offense to that!!! Hence why I got nipped in the ensuing frenzy, she does seems to bark a lot more loudly and higher pitched indoors, I do wonder whether she actually upsets herself. The ladies were very sympathetic and tried to find a space to sit in the other bar but there were children in there and there retrievers bark at kids 

So she was sent to the porch  while I finished my pint 

Don't worry, I joined her, although not sure why I bothered, when I went in to get my coat and say good bye the smokers said she was quite happily sitting there feet crossed like butter wouldn't melt  she really is an odd dog, I am sure I don't get her yet.

The three of them had fun for a while barking en-mass at passing dogs when we left them in the van for half an hour - my friend son lives on a boat and its easier not to take them on if we aren't going to be long, every time we heard this horrific row going on you could look out to see the offending passing dog and its owners staring in horror at the van. Not good practice I know  thing is none of the dogs would have done that if they were on their own.

This is nothing to do with what I am working on but my friends little boy legged it on sat evening, he is firework phobic and they heard some while she was walking home, they were off lead on the marsh, in the dark. He just ran off which is very unlike him, unlike his sister he has very good recall and is normally a limpet if scared of anything. She called her son who was still in the pub then carried on looking for him. A few minutes later son called back to say the little man was with them - clever little chap had found his way across the marshes back to the pub, found a way in and legged it up to the top bar to find them. I thought that was jolly sensible as if he had tried to go home he would have had to cross at least 3 roads - pub route was road free. She has now ordered a thundershirt to try, after me telling her how good the collie was in it, as our walk yesterday was also disrupted by him being freaked by some shooting. He was actually ill last year from the fear of birdscarers.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Stupid me off course it is. One day my brain will stop humming tunes (today's selection is the theme tune from rainbow, help me!) and get with the program.
> 
> *I two would have had some choice words for that lady, i always find the people with the rudest dogs throw the socialisation card in like a smoke grenade. *
> 
> Wish me luck I'm hideously clumsy today and i have a pile of ironing to do :lol: :lol:


I often prefer not to reply as the comment then just hangs in the air without being replied to and the person usually then looks like a real prat .



Werehorse said:


> "up above the tree and houses Bungle's flying high..." actually I only know the rude version.
> 
> Don't iron your hand like I did, twice, before I mostly gave up on the idea of ironing. That was a long time ago. I only iron when apsolutely necessary and these days OH mostly irons for me because he considers it safer all round. :lol:


I ironed my leg :blink:. Hope you manage to iron injury - free mv .

GR - do you think it may be best to stop taking Ginge to that pub for a while if she always kicks off when you go there? Maybe it's too much for her? I'm not sure.


----------



## Beth17

Interesting walk today with regards to Oscar and his behaviour. I was walking both boys along the pavement after being in the woods and three dogs came towards us on lead and so I moved off the pavement to walk past. The dogs were under control and seemed friendly but Oscar bless him went to lay down as he does if coming towards a dog but his tail was right under and he seemed as if he's lost his confidence. He didn't react just almost shut down and refused to move until they had gone past.

This got me thinking and the past couple of times when playing with a dog if another one comes over and tries to join in or there is a big group of dogs he does look very unsure and stops wanting to play, his whole demeanour changes and so I'm wondering now if instead of just being a grump his confidence has also taken a knock for some reason.

Sorry it helps to ramble and write it down


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I often prefer not to reply as the comment then just hangs in the air without being replied to and the person usually then looks like a real prat .
> 
> I ironed my leg :blink:. Hope you manage to iron injury - free mv .
> 
> GR - *do you think it may be best to stop taking Ginge to that pub* for a while if she always kicks off when you go there? Maybe it's too much for her? I'm not sure.


 you make it sound like I am a shameless alcoholic 

No, we have realised she is not the pub dog our old boy was and apart from the hotel round the corner from us (as we can always pop back if a dog appears, but tbh not many do as they are a bit snobby round here and don't like being relegated to the back bar) she doesn't go anywhere else.

Its just so tempting after a long cold afternoon walk, its cosy in there and they have a fire and everything  Its normally quiet on a Sunday pm at this time of year, we always check there are no dogs about before we go in and I hope I can get the drink down my neck and leave without incident. She is quite happy till another dog appears, even though we are sitting there with two others, shes quite happy when dogs appear as long as she can get to them and say hello and they pay her the requisite amount of attention , its just not appropriate when they dont.

I am a bad drunken dog mother I know, must resist temptation of snug bars on a Sunday afternoon :nono:

I ironed my leg once - took trousers off to iron them - ironed leg instead - had a little triangular scar there for years - that's why ironing is banned. Actually I manage to burn myself with all sorts of things. Wasn't allowed to take pizzas out the oven for years.

ETA I am just trying to justify my actions when there is no excuse


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Interesting walk today with regards to Oscar and his behaviour. I was walking both boys along the pavement after being in the woods and three dogs came towards us on lead and so I moved off the pavement to walk past. The dogs were under control and seemed friendly but Oscar bless him went to lay down as he does if coming towards a dog but his tail was right under and he seemed as if he's lost his confidence. He didn't react just almost shut down and refused to move until they had gone past.
> 
> This got me thinking and the past couple of times when playing with a dog if another one comes over and tries to join in or there is a big group of dogs he does look very unsure and stops wanting to play, his whole demeanour changes and so I'm wondering now if instead of just being a grump his confidence has also taken a knock for some reason.
> 
> Sorry it helps to ramble and write it down


Sounds like Kilo when he's unsure - he lies down usually but can freeze; I distract him and move him away, treating for moving away.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> *you make it sound like I am a shameless alcoholic*
> 
> No, we have realised she is not the pub dog our old boy was and apart from the hotel round the corner from us (as we can always pop back if a dog appears, but tbh not many do as they are a bit snobby round here and don't like being relegated to the back bar) she doesn't go anywhere else.
> 
> Its just so tempting after a long cold afternoon walk, its cosy in there and they have a fire and everything  Its normally quiet on a Sunday pm at this time of year, we always check there are no dogs about before we go in and I hope I can get the drink down my neck and leave without incident. She is quite happy till another dog appears, even though we are sitting there with two others, shes quite happy when dogs appear as long as she can get to them and say hello and they pay her the requisite amount of attention , its just not appropriate when they dont.
> 
> I am a bad drunken dog mother I know, must resist temptation of snug bars on a Sunday afternoon :nono:
> 
> I ironed my leg once - took trousers off to iron them - ironed leg instead - had a little triangular scar there for years - that's why ironing is banned. Actually I manage to burn myself with all sorts of things. Wasn't allowed to take pizzas out the oven for years.


Oh no - that wasn't what I was saying!!  . I love a pub with a fire on a Sunday afternoon .

I still have my ironing scar on my leg - happened in the same way as yours :crazy:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Oh no - that wasn't what I was saying!!  . I love a pub with a fire on a Sunday afternoon .
> 
> I still have my ironing scar on my leg - happened in the same way as yours :crazy:.


I know you weren't but I probably am  I blame the stress.

You lot seem so tuned into your dogs moods - I find it very hard to suss Ginge out, she's little for a start, so hard to see her front on, and furry so seeing her face and signals is quite tricky as she is always on hyper mode and unfocussed on me so its hard to focus on her and normal v abnormal signals except for her tail which I don't think I have ever seen down.

At the mo she is happy, I think, she has just worked out how to toss the kong about to get stuff out the bottom, no idea if there is anything in there or not though,  now trying to whine at me with her paws crossed in an attempt to look cute and pleased with herself


----------



## Werehorse

Ok ironing your leg because you are trying to iron your trousers which you are no longer wearing take the biscuit! :lol:

Beth, my Oscar went through a very unsure around other dogs phase when Hugo was about Sam's age, I did wonder if it was because Hugo was getting so boistrous it just kind of got him more worried generally. Or maybe Hugo's hormones changing was setting him on edge... He was, however, bitten by a dog around that time as well - but I *think* he had already started to be a little bit more concerned about other dogs before then.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Sounds like Kilo when he's unsure - he lies down usually but can freeze; I distract him and move him away, treating for moving away.


I usually use my body to break his eye contact and that can usually get him shifting but today he decided that he was not moving no matter what I did. 
Oh well something else to add to the list of things to work on


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I know you weren't but I probably am  I blame the stress.
> 
> You lot seem so tuned into your dogs moods - I find it very hard to suss Ginge out, she's little for a start, so hard to see her front on, and furry so seeing her face and signals is quite tricky as she is always on hyper mode and unfocussed on me so its hard to focus on her and normal v abnormal signals except for her tail which I don't think I have ever seen down.
> 
> At the mo she is happy, I think, she has just worked out how to toss the kong about to get stuff out the bottom, no idea if there is anything in there or not though,  now trying to whine at me with her paws crossed in an attempt to look cute and pleased with herself


Think it's easier with Kilo for a few reasons; had him from a puppy, he is big with floppy ears that send clear signals (useful when I can't see him front on, he has a very short coat so hackles are easily spotted, he has a very expressive tail which is always carried curved when relaxed, out stiff like a rod level with his back when unsure or about to make a noise, high and wagging when 'working' at finding things etc. Back legs 'disco' if nervous or excited e.g., cat spotted. From the front his face his massively expressive - forehead wrinkles and his long muzzle makes it easy to see tension around it, he lip licks rapidly when anxious. There are loads more....but in essence his short coat and physical characteristics do help hugely!!


----------



## Beth17

Werehorse said:


> Ok ironing your leg because you are trying to iron your trousers which you are no longer wearing take the biscuit! :lol:
> 
> Beth, my Oscar went through a very unsure around other dogs phase when Hugo was about Sam's age, I did wonder if it was because Hugo was getting so boistrous it just kind of got him more worried generally. Or maybe Hugo's hormones changing was setting him on edge... He was, however, bitten by a dog around that time as well - but I *think* he had already started to be a little bit more concerned about other dogs before then.


That's really interesting it could well be connected. Trouble is as his thyroid meds are still being sorted out it's hard to know if that is making a big impact as well. He's also being a bit more toy possessive at home which seems to have gotten worse since he had the run in last week with the retrievers.

On a lighter note Sam is starting to lift his leg now but at present only manages to fall over or straddle the plant. Oscar then comes along and does it properly as if to say I can do it better than you. Is it wrong to laugh at him


----------



## Guest

Never tried taking Zander to the pub, but knowing him he's spend the whole time trying to clamber on peoples laps 

WE HAVE HAD NOT A SINGLE TANTRUM TODAY. Not one. Got so fed up with attempting to put his headcollar on this morn, so I took him out on the slip lead. I was thinking while we were walking 'Why do we use a headcollar again? He doesn't pull that much...." Then we saw a cat. GUESS WHO FELL ON HER FACE?

And that dog of ours seems to have found his voice since being at kennels. All I can hear is barking, yodelling, woooooooiiing and grumbling now because mum is ignoring him. 

Oh and he rushed out into the garden at 11pm last night, snarling, hackles up and BOOMING woofs. I shined a torch but there was nothing there. 
I apologized to my elderly neighbours but they said they prefer him doing that as it makes them feel a bit safer. I have suprisingly tolerant neighbours. 

Oh and the socialisation comment seems to be very popular, Dogless as I had it when Zander went all BOUNCIES at a surprise retriever that appeared from around the corner.


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth, Spencer also went through a phase of being a bit worried by other dogs. It coincided with being rushed at and shoulder barged by 2 different barking and snarling black Labs (is there something about black labs? ) so I'm not sure whether it was because of that or a phase he'd have gone through anyway. He was about 12 months at the time. He wasn't overly fearful, just not 100% comfortable and it's passed now, he's back to launching himself towards them going "hi! I'm your new best buddy! I love you! Play with me!" 

Dogless, I used to get the socialisation thing all the time with Shadow when he was sick. Used to drive me mad because he was perfectly well behaved with strange dogs that didn't charge into him, knock him over and proceed to trample him and hurt him  

Spencer seems to be in a very good mood today :blink: He's insisted on playing fetch and tug, he's given me cuddles, been amazingly good while out and just generally a pleasure to be around. He greeted the bloke who came to change our light bulbs (don't ask, I feel a right muppet having to phone up to get someone to do it but we're not allowed to) nicely then went into his crate till he'd gone. He hasn't wanted to do any training though, would prefer to play apparently but we've done quite a bit the last few days. I have no idea what's brought this change on.


----------



## GingerRogers

Yay good day for Zander and you then. It is so good when you have a nice day. Despite the barking and falling over. I am still smarting from my knee bite but she made me feel better with a big happy snooze across me this morning so I know it wasn't personal,. 

ETA And good day for spen too !

Lap jumping is mostly what Ginge does if we go to the back bar round the corner if there is anybody else in there as they are normally people we know well who love dogs so its ok, well sort of, I try to get them to make her ask but they don't listen very often and she can launch herself with no warning from lap to lap hence the ninja nick name. Not sure I approve of the landlady letting her walk across the bar though  She's one of those people who have a 'voice'' dogs react to but gives people a head ache lol. Lots of high pitched oooohhs and aaaahs and bringing sausages out which over excites her. All the dogs love her and hence love the pub, but used to be quite embarrassing when you couldn't walk past without Rory straining to get in!


Just been out for our first proper dark time walk, wasn't too bad, cars are scarier though and it only took half an hour but lots of loose lead work up the track which she does get but I think she thinks its a trick and once she has done a few paces that's all I want. She had a good hours run on the long line this morning and as tea is already sorted am planning on a bit of playtime tonight with the makeshift agility equipment as well, so reckon she'll be ok


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Beth, Spencer also went through a phase of being a bit worried by other dogs. *It coincided with being rushed at and shoulder barged by 2 different barking and snarling black Labs (is there something about black labs? ) *so I'm not sure whether it was because of that or a phase he'd have gone through anyway. He was about 12 months at the time. He wasn't overly fearful, just not 100% comfortable and it's passed now, he's back to launching himself towards them going "hi! I'm your new best buddy! I love you! Play with me!"
> 
> Dogless, I used to get the socialisation thing all the time with Shadow when he was sick. Used to drive me mad because he was perfectly well behaved with strange dogs that didn't charge into him, knock him over and proceed to trample him and hurt him
> 
> Spencer seems to be in a very good mood today :blink: He's insisted on playing fetch and tug, he's given me cuddles, been amazingly good while out and just generally a pleasure to be around. He greeted the bloke who came to change our light bulbs (don't ask, I feel a right muppet having to phone up to get someone to do it but we're not allowed to) nicely then went into his crate till he'd gone. He hasn't wanted to do any training though, would prefer to play apparently but we've done quite a bit the last few days. I have no idea what's brought this change on.


Or is it that they are often owned by people with no clue as they are deemed the perfect family pet???


----------



## Dogless

Well done to Spen for renouncing Kevin today and well done to Zander for not having a tantrum . Not so well done for pulling your human flat on her face :nono: :crazy: :nono:.



LurcherOwner said:


> .
> 
> Oh and the socialisation comment seems to be very popular, Dogless as I had it when Zander went all BOUNCIES at a surprise retriever that appeared from around the corner.





Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, I used to get the socialisation thing all the time with Shadow when he was sick. Used to drive me mad because he was perfectly well behaved with strange dogs that didn't charge into him, knock him over and proceed to trample him and hurt him


I get it constantly here "It's good for dogs to socialise, they need to" is the most common .

Had a good walk this evening - Kilo was crackers for some reason; he had an hour offlead constantly zooming and a walk there and back; he wasn't too interested in folk in the dark which was good as he's often much more suspicious in the dark. We played his sprint game again and again until I was exhausted :crazy:.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Zander and Spen

I survived the ironing but got bored and went and did soemthing less boring instead.

This evenings walk was somewhat longer than intended when i realised i'd dropped the lead , unfortunately not until we were three quarters of the way around the circular route I'd planned:mad2::mad2: so we retraced our route in the gathering gloom and eventually found the lead by torch light  so thought the best way not to lose it again was to finish the walk onlead :lol: Discovering that LLW is nigh on perfect after an hour and a half offlead charging about :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Zander and Spen
> 
> I survived the ironing but got bored and *went and did soemthing less boring instead.
> *
> This evenings walk was somewhat longer than intended when i realised i'd dropped the lead , unfortunately not until we were three quarters of the way around the circular route I'd planned:mad2::mad2: so we retraced our route in the gathering gloom and eventually found the lead by torch light  so thought the best way not to lose it again was to finish the walk onlead :lol: Discovering that LLW is nigh on perfect after an hour and a half offlead charging about :lol: :lol:


The "Why Don't You?" theme tune is going round in my head now!!

Oh dear!! I have done that with the lead before too. Really infuriating!! At least ou found it .


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## kat&molly

Sounds like Spencers been a really good boy today, and Donkey boy for no tantrums.

Dogless- you have the patience of a saint-and so has Kilo, he's doing brilliant isn't he.

Moonviolet- Ironing Bleugh- hate it, just wish I didn't insist on ironing everything- except socks.
I'm always dropping leads and having to retrace steps.

Beth -Yay for Sam, cocking his leg.

I hired the cleaner today to clean my 2 large rugs and the carpet in the back of the car. I do them every 2/3 months and am always amazed at the muck that comes out. Coming back from this afternoons walk and Moll's lay down in a puddle, Evie rolled in something and Scruff had a mud covered head and paws- so the rugs getting dirty is hardly surprising is it.:crazy:

Done some training with Moll , but didn't give her the dummies or a ball to retrieve, used the clicker and the whistle. Much calmer, even sits and presents then gives-lovely. She's really good at letting me go out of sight to hide something. So thats it now, she gets no more formal retrieves with a ball or dummy but she can have them sometimes when she's on a walk and wants to carry something. I shall wait till she moves the goal posts again.


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## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Or is it that they are often owned by people with no clue as they are deemed the perfect family pet???


Personally Ive had 2 golden labs and now a black lab and the golden ones were no bother at all, gentle and very obedient. Charlie is a different kettle of fish completely and Ive struggled with him since I 'rescued' him from my sons friend when he was a tiny pup. He's very loving, and a big suck with absolutely no aggression in him at all but he is excitable, headstrong and has a short attention span  
I guess Im to blame a bit as last year I had to leave a relationship and found things a bit hard and was self absorbed for a while, so Im afraid the training went out the window. Black labs are well known to be more excitable and unpredictable than the golden labs and until I joined this site a month ago I was at my wits end thinking I couldnt cope with him anymore but with advice and suggestions he's coming good and I love him to bits 
I do agree that they ARE often owned by people who havnt a clue though


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## chazzie10

Today I used my new clicker! Woohoo I finally bought one! We had a good session on our waste ground/field and Charlie's recall was fantastic  I waited until he was in full gallop mode to call him and he circled straight back to me. Other times he left his very interesting sniffs to come back. The clicker doesnt work very well with gloves on- it sort of muffles the sound but I think he got the idea and we both finished the playtime smiling :001_smile:


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Personally Ive had 2 golden labs and now a black lab and the golden ones were no bother at all, gentle and very obedient. Charlie is a different kettle of fish completely and Ive struggled with him since I 'rescued' him from my sons friend when he was a tiny pup. He's very loving, and a big suck with absolutely no aggression in him at all but he is excitable, headstrong and has a short attention span
> I guess Im to blame a bit as last year I had to leave a relationship and found things a bit hard and was self absorbed for a while, so Im afraid the training went out the window. Black labs are well known to be more excitable and unpredictable than the golden labs and until I joined this site a month ago I was at my wits end thinking I couldnt cope with him anymore but with advice and suggestions he's coming good and I love him to bits
> I do agree that they ARE often owned by people who havnt a clue though


And the chocolate labs are seriously nuts...LOL


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## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> And the chocolate labs are seriously nuts...LOL


Yeah I have heard that! The one's that Ive seen when out walking all seem completely bonkers :crazy:
Strange how one breed can have differences like that...but then my ex had 3 jrts and they were all different natures. Bouncer was a rescue and aggressive to anyone and anything( he'd been used for badger baiting or something), Toby was as thick as two short planks and wee tiny miniature Honey was the best wee bitch ever- easy trained, willing and as her name suggests completely adorable  Dang I miss those dogs :cryin:


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> but then my ex had 3 jrts and they were all different natures. Bouncer was a rescue and aggressive to anyone and anything( he'd been used for badger baiting or something), Toby was as thick as two short planks and wee tiny miniature Honey was the best wee bitch ever- easy trained, willing and as her name suggests completely adorable  Dang I miss those dogs :cryin:


We had 2 jrts when i was growing up, litter sisters, one smooth coated elegant little lady always clean and dry avoided mud puddles and loved nothing more than to be indoors warm and dry her sister however, was scruffy rough and tumble into whatever was going on, rolled in every smelly thing you could imagine, swam in the fish pond daily, jumped into the bath with me on more than one occasion, almost drowned herself playing with the hosepipe. They were total polar opposites, possibly why they got along so nicely.

My parents had a choc lab she was the sweetest daftest bear of a dog, but her bark belonged to a mastiff!


----------



## JerniganComics

How my dog feels when I give her a bath...


----------



## Werehorse

One of my friends has just got a choc lab puppy. I'm going to watch it growing up from behind a cushion.  I'm sure it'll be fine, she's someone who will have done her research and she's very clever - just so quiet and unassuming, I think a boistrous lab will probably bring her out of herself a bit! :lol:

I don't think any dog is particularly easy to bring up properly and the problem with labs is that they are just like other dogs, plus very bouncy and boistrous, plus have a greater tendency to be destructive than some other dogs, AND there is a myth flying about that they are easy peasy to bring up and perfect family dogs without any effort. Labs are born half trained and all that (spaniels die half-trained apparently - I happen to agree with that half of the saying. :lol: Gives me an excuse!).

If everyone actually put some care, thought and foresight into getting a dog in the first place the rescue situation would be greatly reduced - no matter where anyone bought their pups from. 

Sorry, that was a side rant.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> I don't think any dog is particularly easy to bring up properly and the problem with labs is that they are just like other dogs, plus very bouncy and boistrous, plus have a greater tendency to be destructive than some other dogs, AND there is a myth flying about that they are easy peasy to bring up and perfect family dogs without any effort. Labs are born half trained and all that (spaniels die half-trained apparently - I happen to agree with that half of the saying. :lol: Gives me an excuse!).
> 
> If everyone actually put some care, thought and foresight into getting a dog in the first place the rescue situation would be greatly reduced - no matter where anyone bought their pups from.
> 
> Sorry, that was a side rant.


*watches Werehorse on her soap box and gives her rousing cheers and an enthusiastic round of applause* :yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod:


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I don't think any dog is particularly easy to bring up properly and the problem with labs is that they are just like other dogs, plus very bouncy and boistrous, plus have a greater tendency to be destructive than some other dogs, AND there is a myth flying about that they are easy peasy to bring up and perfect family dogs without any effort. Labs are born half trained and all that (spaniels die half-trained apparently - I happen to agree with that half of the saying. :lol: Gives me an excuse!).
> 
> If everyone actually put some care, thought and foresight into getting a dog in the first place the rescue situation would be greatly reduced - no matter where anyone bought their pups from.
> 
> Sorry, that was a side rant.


Gotta admit that Spencer was a bit of a shock to the system. I wanted a high energy, intelligent dog but I think I'd forgotten what it was actually like to live with one lol. The first few weeks I was constantly thinking "oh my god, what have I _done_?" I adjusted though and now I don't generally find him a difficult dog but I know plenty of people who would, hubby included. He's high energy, extremely intelligent and has a huge desire to be working at something. Reminds me a lot of my border collie to be honest, just far more exuberant and outgoing than Shadow was which of course brings its own problems.

As for the last part, I keep saying that whenever I see a "looking for puppy, any breed" post on facebook. Apparently I'm unhelpful and should keep my mouth shut  People don't want to think about the practical side of having a dog, they just want a cute puppy for their baby to grow up with or to keep them company while their partner is away etc etc. The community pages are always full of adolescent dogs up for rehoming, most of them huskies or malamutes or their mixes.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Yeah I have heard that! The one's that Ive seen when out walking all seem completely bonkers :crazy:
> Strange how one breed can have differences like that...but then my ex had 3 jrts and they were all different natures. Bouncer was a rescue and aggressive to anyone and anything( he'd been used for badger baiting or something), Toby was as thick as two short planks and wee tiny miniature Honey was the best wee bitch ever- easy trained, willing and as her name suggests completely adorable  Dang I miss those dogs :cryin:


I have a wonderful JRT bitch that trains with me. She is actually quite famous in the world of competitive obedience....LOL Her owner is about to have another JRT puppy.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> One of my friends has just got a choc lab puppy. I'm going to watch it growing up from behind a cushion.  I'm sure it'll be fine, she's someone who will have done her research and she's very clever - just so quiet and unassuming, I think a boistrous lab will probably bring her out of herself a bit! :lol:
> 
> I don't think any dog is particularly easy to bring up properly and the problem with labs is that they are just like other dogs, plus very bouncy and boistrous, plus have a greater tendency to be destructive than some other dogs, AND there is a myth flying about that they are easy peasy to bring up and perfect family dogs without any effort. Labs are born half trained and all that (spaniels die half-trained apparently - I happen to agree with that half of the saying. :lol: Gives me an excuse!).
> 
> *If everyone actually put some care, thought and foresight into getting a dog in the first place the rescue situation would be greatly reduced - no matter where anyone bought their pups from. *
> 
> Sorry, that was a side rant.


Might be a side rant but oh so very true.


----------



## GingerRogers

So Twiggy there is hope for terriers then. please tell me its true 

Werehorse - I have heard that line before, thing is I have met some labs that are perfectly behaved and spaniels that were bonkers (as in untrainable seemingly) I have also met a similar amount who were the polar opposite - perfectly trained spaniels and mental labs. Most of the well behaved ones I have to say have been working dogs rather than pets though or at least from working stock where the owners have some inkling of what a well behaved dog should be. 

But I have to say the perfectly behaved ones are a little dull, I like a dog to be a bit nutty, thats what I am sticking to anyway!

Had a good walk this morning in between trying to gather up a soggy long line and trying not to let her pull me down banks in the mud. It is starting to dry up a little as no rain yesterday, nearly lost my boots in the sucking mud in front of a gate though, but it was cold this morning . 

Mostly recalled when I asked but she knows she on the line so.........Oh well keep going and had some nice steady walking back through the estate even after a dog encounter. 

Today we are mostly going to be trying to stop her strangling herself on the keyboard cord under the desk  silly dog. Couldn't work out why she wouldn't come out from under there  she does manage to tangle herself in any dangly thing going which is why the long line is a bit of a mission


----------



## ballybee

Just a wee update 

Dan - has had his first hormone rush, his energy levels are through the roof and he is starting to ignore us(if you tell him a 2nd time he mostly listens though). Recall is still solid, he's great onlead, leaving dogs when told etc etc 

Tummel is just Tummel, he seems to have calmed down a fair bit and his recall is steady at the moment. 

Tummel has taken tom ramming Dan at full force when both offlead and in open spaces so when we're out i'm using my longline and letting one run offlead at a time. In smaller spaces they can both be offlead as they just tend to potter about and sniff. This morning they were both offlead in a field and Tummel didn't ram Dan once(i think Dan was too busy being a spinone and chasing scents to be of interest though).


----------



## Beth17

I give up I really do. Oscar was again put into the position where he felt like he had to react just because someone wouldn't move on. Took them both onlead for a short walk around the woods as I had to go out for a bit and they were doing well until we came to a single track and the lady with the 2 westies was coming up the other way. 

I stood to the side in the trees and mud and the boys sat down nicely on short leads and I know she saw me as she put her two back onlead. Said good morning and about Oscar but she decided it would be an excellent idea to stop right in front of me completely ignore what I was saying and leant over the boys to say hello  
Cue Oscar deciding he'd had enough and gobbed off at her dogs with me saying this is exactly why I'd had him pulled to the side. She did say sorry but I've told her this 4 or 5 times so I'm not impressed, she did finally take the hint though and moved out of my way.

It's annoying because if she'd kept going like I'd asked Oscar wouldn't have reacted.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sometimes I think this thread should be titled 'come and moan about all the other stupid owners near you' as it seems to be what so many have trouble with - you all manage your dogs very well its the other buggers .

I am just grateful that I don't have these issues at the moment, I love it if dogs come up to say hello to Ginge and they can be as boisterous as they want, might teach her a lesson, but I know what its like as we had those problems with Rory - I am more likely to be the one moaned about now 

Did just remember a funny incident from this morning - there was an off lead spaniel zooming about, sped past us so fast Ginge didn't have time to react. She spun round and watched but was stunned into silence  - I praised her lots even though it was fluke that she didn't make a sound.


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> I give up I really do. Oscar was again put into the position where he felt like he had to react just because someone wouldn't move on. Took them both onlead for a short walk around the woods as I had to go out for a bit and they were doing well until we came to a single track and the lady with the 2 westies was coming up the other way.
> 
> I stood to the side in the trees and mud and the boys sat down nicely on short leads and I know she saw me as she put her two back onlead. Said good morning and about Oscar but she decided it would be an excellent idea to stop right in front of me completely ignore what I was saying and leant over the boys to say hello
> Cue Oscar deciding he'd had enough and gobbed off at her dogs with me saying this is exactly why I'd had him pulled to the side. She did say sorry but I've told her this 4 or 5 times so I'm not impressed, she did finally take the hint though and moved out of my way.
> 
> It's annoying because if she'd kept going like I'd asked Oscar wouldn't have reacted.


It's time Beth you can only resist it for so long, it's now time to embrace your inner hag, no more politely bearing the chit chat as you see Oscar beginning to simmer..... next encounter employ hag level one :

" Sorry would you mind moving along we really can't hang around today, things to do and all that!"

Our walk this morning was great we bumped into a dog walker with 2 boxers and a collie. strangely for around here it was the boxer that employed a stalking stance fixed eye contact. I slipped Tink on lead and asked her to walk behind me, which she did. The dog walker saw what he was doing and took his collar and guided him passed as the other 2 tried to mug me for treats :lol: We exchanged a few pleasantries and i was warned about the heavy military presence on the common and my word she was right the busiest it's been for ages.

Went out onto the common and immediately bumped into 3 labs and their 2 owners who Tink knows and likes so she gave them a happy to see you zoomie one of them joined in , one came to mug me for fuss, and the other just carried on with a stick in her mouth. We walked on together when we bumped into the lady with the 8 dogs, now sadly 7  one of whom is the lovely Murphy GSD cross teddy bear at the best guess  with her lab escorts Tink was very brave greeting and being greeted nicely. no tension no need for a reset, Didn't evening seem stressed by a group of wild ranging high pitched screaming children, although we did take a diversion to avoid being mobbed at close quarters. 1 or 2 at a time are fine but a little tribe surrounding her is too much and you really dont' know how the adults are going to react when you ask the children to give your dog some space.

Her stress levels seem to beso much lower these days and it's an upward spiral ( do they? exist you don't hear about them very often) the less stresed she is the less things stress her.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> So Twiggy there is hope for terriers then. please tell me its true
> 
> Werehorse - I have heard that line before, thing is I have met some labs that are perfectly behaved and spaniels that were bonkers (as in untrainable seemingly) I have also met a similar amount who were the polar opposite - perfectly trained spaniels and mental labs. Most of the well behaved ones I have to say have been working dogs rather than pets though or at least from working stock where the owners have some inkling of what a well behaved dog should be.
> 
> But I have to say the perfectly behaved ones are a little dull, I like a dog to be a bit nutty, thats what I am sticking to anyway!
> 
> Had a good walk this morning in between trying to gather up a soggy long line and trying not to let her pull me down banks in the mud. It is starting to dry up a little as no rain yesterday, nearly lost my boots in the sucking mud in front of a gate though, but it was cold this morning .
> 
> Mostly recalled when I asked but she knows she on the line so.........Oh well keep going and had some nice steady walking back through the estate even after a dog encounter.
> 
> Today we are mostly going to be trying to stop her strangling herself on the keyboard cord under the desk  silly dog. Couldn't work out why she wouldn't come out from under there  she does manage to tangle herself in any dangly thing going which is why the long line is a bit of a mission


Yes there's certainly hope for terriers....

One of the best and fastest retrieve dogs I've trained was a Staffy bitch; she could knock spots off the collies.

The JRT I'm talking about is no angel. If a show venue is in an area where there is a big rabbit population she most certainly reverts to terrier....LOL

She's absolutely adorable though.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> I give up I really do. Oscar was again put into the position where he felt like he had to react just because someone wouldn't move on. Took them both onlead for a short walk around the woods as I had to go out for a bit and they were doing well until we came to a single track and the lady with the 2 westies was coming up the other way.
> 
> I stood to the side in the trees and mud and the boys sat down nicely on short leads and I know she saw me as she put her two back onlead. Said good morning and about Oscar but she decided it would be an excellent idea to stop right in front of me completely ignore what I was saying and leant over the boys to say hello
> Cue Oscar deciding he'd had enough and gobbed off at her dogs with me saying this is exactly why I'd had him pulled to the side. She did say sorry but I've told her this 4 or 5 times so I'm not impressed, she did finally take the hint though and moved out of my way.
> 
> It's annoying because if she'd kept going like I'd asked Oscar wouldn't have reacted.


The next 'plonker' you meet just say "I shouldn't come too close my dog has a contagious infection."


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## Sarah1983

We're pretty lucky here, most dog owners are pretty good about keeping control. No surprise that those who don't are the Brits though 

I'm one of those with a mental Lab. Won't say he's untrainable but he's definitely a work in progress, especially around other dogs and children. I've no doubt a better trainer would have ironed out his problems by now but we'll get there and in the meantime we employ management so he's not too much of a nuisance.


----------



## Beth17

moonviolet said:


> It's time Beth you can only resist it for so long, it's now time to embrace your inner hag, no more politely the chit chat as you see Oscar beginning to simmer..... next encounter employ hag level one :
> 
> " Sorry would you mind moving along we really can't hang around today, things to do and all that!"
> 
> Our walk this morning was great we bumped into a dog walker with 2 boxers and a collie. strangely for around here it was the boxer that employed a stalking stance fixed eye contact. I slipped Tink on lead and asked her to walk behind me, which she did. The dog walker saw what he was doing and took his collar and guided him passed as the other 2 tried to mug me for treats :lol: We exchanged a few pleasantries and i was warned about the heavy military presence on the common and my word she was right the busiest it's been for ages.
> 
> Went out onto the common and immediately bumped into 3 labs and their 2 owners who Tink knows and likes so she gave them a happy to see you zoomie one of them joined in , one came to mug me for fuss, and the other just carried on with a stick in her mouth. We walked on together when we bumped into the lady with the 8 dogs, now sadly 7  one of whom is the lovely Murphy GSD cross teddy bear at the best guess  with her lab escorts Tink was very brave greeting and being greeted nicely. no tension no need for a reset, Didn't evening seem stressed by a group of wild ranging high pitched screaming children, although we did take a diversion to avoid being mobbed at close quarters. 1 or 2 at a time are fine but a little tribe surrounding her is too much and you really dont' know how the adults are going to react when you ask the children to give your dog some space.
> 
> Her stress levels seem to beso much lower these days and it's an upward spiral ( do they? exist you don't here about them very often) the less stresed she is the less things stress her.


You're right I know, when I take them up to the field later I'll employ my best bugger off look :mad5:

So glad Tinks' stress levels are lower and you're right we don't have enough upward spirals we should acknowledge them more often 

Most of the boxers I know are an absolute pain for fixing eye contact and stalking; no idea why maybe they have an identity complex :blink:


----------



## L/C

Beth - how bloody annoying. I've learnt to be very rude to those type of people because really - what else can you do? They don't seem to understand polite or subtle interactions...

LO and Sarah - glad the terrible teenagers are both taking a day off and you've had a nice couple of days with them.

Ginge - Twiggy has raised the bar; we'll be expecting your terrible terrier to be competing in obedience now. 

MV - it's so lovely to hear about how well Tink is doing. I'm glad she's so much better.

Dogless - I've had the un-socialised comment before. Depending on the mood I'm in I ignore it or make a rude comment. My favourites "Yes he is, he spent 4 years in a kennel only coming out to race. He'd never met a dog before we adopted him. What's your dog's excuse?" or "Don't worry your boy/girl will learn some manners soon. Of course I imagine you're socialising him a lot now though."

Been busy in the real world - we've just moved offices at work, I'm curating an art show for the gallery I volunteer at, I've done 3 homechecks and 2 assessments in the past week and we've joined a new training class!

Plus there was a mix up with my wages so they were delayed by a week. it's been massively hectic. Feel like I haven't sat down for a month!

Tuffie has arrived for Gypsy and we're still waiting for the hock brace. Keeping her warmer with the leg warmer seems to be helping although she was quite stiff this morning. I'm considering instituting an off lead every other day policy for her but not sure her (or my!) sanity could cope. :lol:

I've upped the shaping sessions and we now have a spin on command (a slow one as Greyhound anatomy does not lend itself to rapid ones), left paw in, touch left or right hand on cue, bow and nod. All utterly useless but she loves learning them.

New training class is in Essex and was supposed to be a prelude to doing some working trials stuff with her (I'm mad I know). There are a couple of downsides - we have to start in the beginners and then move up the classes. So last week we did lots of heelwork and LLW for ages - both things she is already perfect at. The other is that it is a 50 minute train ride away - not so bad but Gypsy hates the train so I'm not sure it's fair to keep putting her through it for a class she doesn't find that stimulating atm.

BUT the guy who does the advanced classes and wt stuff is amazing. He's one of those people who is just brilliant with all dogs - even Gypsy let him pet her and she hates to be touched by strangers.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Ginge - Twiggy has raised the bar; we'll be expecting your terrible terrier to be competing in obedience now.


Gulp :blink:

She is a gold star winner actually 

When she is safely ensconced in a scout hall


----------



## Werehorse

Ensconced - good word. 

Two tired and happy doggies this morning. I turned up for my running group and as I pulled into the carpark I realised it was half-term and therefore it wasn't on this week. So I came home and took the boys out instead. One at a time!! :lol: Running both together would be, erm, interesting!

2.75 miles each. And now they are both properly knackered. :lol:

They were good. Hugo actually pulled more than Oscar!  Oscar was quite content to trot in-front with a slightly loose or a gently pulled tight lead. Hugo was trying to run. I think he was just excited that mum had learned to go faster than Pace of Death, although my running pace isn't exactly Pace of Life either! :lol: They were both good at trotting at heel when I asked them too (when cars were coming) apart from one scarey moment when Hugo objected to a puddle, jumped over it and across me and spun into the road. Fortunately the car was coming slowly and didn't have to brake and I scooched him out of the way very quickly. I forget that he doesn't trust puddles. 

And we got stalked by a farm collie, which was of course loose on the road. But I distracted Hugo with a biscuit and we walked past to avoid it going into chase mode. Hugo really wanted to say hello, probably because he was brought up with farm collies including his Dad, but he ignored it when I asked him too. I don't trust your average farm collie as far as I could throw an elephant- Hugo's Dad was an exception else we wouldn't have Hugo!

Oscar has come over all sensible. Not pulling much while running. Standing nicely to get hosed down and also standing nicely to get towelled down (which is incrediable given that usually a towel Must Be Destroyed and he basically gets kind of dry during a wrestling match!). Could the silly spanner boy be growing up a bit I wonder?


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Ensconced - good word.
> 
> Two tired and happy doggies this morning. I turned up for my running group and as I pulled into the carpark I realised it was half-term and therefore it wasn't on this week. So I came home and took the boys out instead. One at a time!! :lol: Running both together would be, erm, interesting!
> 
> 2.75 miles each. And now they are both properly knackered. :lol:
> 
> They were good. Hugo actually pulled more than Oscar!  Oscar was quite content to trot in-front with a slightly loose or a gently pulled tight lead. Hugo was trying to run. I think he was just excited that mum had learned to go faster than Pace of Death, although my running pace isn't exactly Pace of Life either! :lol:  They were both good at trotting at heel when I asked them too (when cars were coming) apart from one scarey moment when Hugo objected to a puddle, jumped over it and across me and spun into the road. Fortunately the car was coming slowly and didn't have to brake and I scooched him out of the way very quickly. I forget that he doesn't trust puddles.
> 
> And we got stalked by a farm collie, which was of course loose on the road. But I distracted Hugo with a biscuit and we walked past to avoid it going into chase mode. Hugo really wanted to say hello, probably because he was brought up with farm collies including his Dad, but he ignored it when I asked him too. I don't trust your average farm collie as far as I could throw an elephant- Hugo's Dad was an exception else we wouldn't have Hugo!
> 
> Oscar has come over all sensible. Not pulling much while running. Standing nicely to get hosed down and also standing nicely to get towelled down (which is incrediable given that usually a towel Must Be Destroyed and he basically gets kind of dry during a wrestling match!). Could the silly spanner boy be growing up a bit I wonder?


Good boys!

I forgot to say Happy Belated Birthday Hugo!

And I just booked my place on a David Ryan Predatory Chase course on 12th May and I'm considering this scent workshop Clever Dog Company - London Colney - Latest News - Scentwork One - Foundation: 29th*November on 29th November. I may have a slight training addiction.


----------



## Guest

The longline has ARRIVED!! 

Gonna use it in the field later, and we had no tantrums again yesterday nor one this mornings. Don't know if it's related but I've been walking him on the sliplead only... 
I don't normally like walking him on his sliplead (it's there for the OHMYGODHEHASESCAPEDTHEGARDEN moments) but he seems to be okay on it, and when I walk him on his harness he seems a bit more sprightly ears up and everything than on his headcollar... 

We had the bouncies severely this morning, so severe I clung to a gate to stop myself from being thrown side to side. He doesn't lung forward per se, its more UP and sideways and everywhich way.


----------



## Twiggy

*"Don't worry your boy/girl will learn some manners soon. Of course I imagine you're socialising him a lot now though."*

I love that L/C and have made a mental note to use it the next time I meet Mr Joe Public and his out of control dog....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

*I don't trust your average farm collie as far as I could throw an elephant-*

Much as I love collies I totally agree Werehorse.


----------



## Guest

We've just had the evening walk, couldn't let him off in the field as the lady with the husky was in there and she didn't come out till it was almost dark. 
Walked him on his harness and not a single tantrum and he walked perfectly to heel on the way home. Bounced at a JRT though. 

So tempted by a metuki/mekuti front clip harness but I'll see if there are cheaper options around as the council have raised my rent.


----------



## GingerRogers

Urgh can I retract what I said about not minding people anymore, I still have to put up with the snooty old cow with her off lead cavalier walking across the pier car park in half term, tutting disdainfully as my dog dares to have more personality in its little toe nail than her her bug eyed monstrosity, arghhhhhh, why do they always appear just as you have had a wonderful walk? 

And no I didn't have the guts to ask the miserable old mare why she felt the need to be so judgmental when she probably beat her dog into submission (she was just that tweed wearing type ) until she was a little too far away to not make it seem overly aggressive, she was old posh persona, I would have been strung up and tarred!

Sorry for any offense given, feel better now 

Had a lovely walk on the beach, was so tempted to drop the long line but she is being so good, don't want to ruin it by letting her fail. Maybe soon I can manage that, there was no-one about despite the fact that my heart sunk as I approached the car park, it was so busy  (forgot it was half term) but must have left it just late enough to miss the few hardy beach people as the sun set. I love seeing her run and have fun so I was even tempted to try a few steps myself  it wasn't as bad as I thought, manged more than 3 steps, maybe a whole minute  and wasn't out of breath - giving up smoking must be working 

ETA sounds like the break did you both good LO - absence really does make the heart grow fonder!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *"Don't worry your boy/girl will learn some manners soon. Of course I imagine you're socialising him a lot now though."*
> 
> I love that L/C and have made a mental note to use it the next time I meet Mr Joe Public and his out of control dog....LOL


I love it too - will store it away for future use if needed!


----------



## Beth17

Much better afternoon with the boys. Took them out separately and Oscar was good as gold with every dog he met although saw a couple of golden retrievers and he was a bit tense so moved him on swiftly after they had sniffed each other, I expect that's because of the other day. 
Sam wasn't able to come off his longline as there were too many people around but he still had a couple of plays and nearly gave me whiplash when he forgot he was attached to me :crying:

Well done Hugo and Oscar! 

LurcherOwner Shame you couldn't let him off but what a good boy for walking nicely, lets hope he's turned over a new leaf 

Ginger I've never been a smoker but I still doubt I could manage a minute :lol: Well done.


----------



## kat&molly

Nearly a good day for everyone, too many to comment on with my tired brain tonight.:crazy:

L/C- I'm very jealous of everyone being able to book courses :cryin: I would love to do both of those. I might get a book by Glen Johnson as recommended on another thread, for scentwork , its said to be very intense.:blink:

Ginge- I'll agree that Terriers can step up to the mark, much easier than what my Hound is anyway.

Done the same for Molls training this afternoon, hid the clicker and the whistle- except I hid them both at the same time, about 20 feet apart. She came back with the clicker first then I sent her again and she went straight out- trusting that something was there and came back with the whistle  I've never tried that before so I was really pleased with her. Hands things over no problem. Maybe she seperates things in to Hers and Mine :crazy: as she's much easier to control doing it this way.

Another success, *Touches wood* Moll seems to have forgotten she had a problem with Darcy cat getting on the bed, she hasn't reacted at all the past couple of nights.
Think I agree with Moll though- the cats a bloody pest, she lies on my legs and I cant move- and worst of all, when grooming herself she slurps.: :nono:


----------



## Twiggy

Hubby came out with a classic tonight: He informed me that I need to watch Holly Bolly when she gets excited as she bites.........!!

I just said "Oh right. Thanks for telling me" I didn't admit that I've taught her to do it.

Just proves that men never listen - I've shown him my bruised and bitten arms on more than one occasion.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hubby came out with a classic tonight: He informed me that I need to watch Holly Bolly when she gets excited as she bites.........!!
> 
> I just said "Oh right. Thanks for telling me" I didn't admit that I've taught her to do it.
> 
> Just proves that men never listen - I've shown him my bruised and bitten arms on more than one occasion.


That is brilliant : :blink: .


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Hubby came out with a classic tonight: He informed me that I need to watch Holly Bolly when she gets excited as she bites.........!!
> 
> I just said "Oh right. Thanks for telling me" I didn't admit that I've taught her to do it.
> 
> Just proves that men never listen - I've shown him my bruised and bitten arms on more than one occasion.


I had this with mum, when she witnessed a tantrum haha

She was like "Oh, well you tend to exaggerate."

:crazy:

ETA? OOh I forgot to say, I met a doberman x greyhound lurcher today, he was called *ALAN.* Beautiful.


----------



## kat&molly

Today is the day of my cousins funeral- 2 weeks and 2 days, it takes a long time doesn't it. Anyway, apart from going to church and lighting candles, which I've done, there isn't anything else I can do to make me feel better about not being able to go so I took the girls off to explore the walk we found on Sunday. 
A bit disappointing as there wasn't as much there as I thought, none of the tracks were really long, so we followed them all and it took about 2 and a half hours, the girls loved it- and I recalled Scruff from chasing a Deer  what a good girl, thankfully the others didn't see it , but I was really pleased as strangly its the first time we've ever come across one when out dog walking. 

Sadly , got up this morning to find something has gnawed through the concrete base in my Quail house and killed one of them. I've only had them a fortnight and was trying to get them used to me- the other 3 are traumatised now. 
I feel really bad as they're locked up to keep them safe at night- but what on earth chews through concrete.:blink:

Cheerful soul aren't I, really hope everyone else is having a good day.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh sorry kat&molly , a sad day, Don't know what to say really apart from I know funerals are meant to be good for our closure, but you have done what you feel best and marked the occasion in your own way. I am sure your cousin would not want you upset about not being there, this might sound harsh, but after all she isn't sadly, and to my mind she was probably closer to you out in the woods and open air than anywhere else, I hope your family understand why you can't be there as well, I know they can get a bit point scorey at times like this sadly.

No idea what gnaws through concrete  are you sure the concrete hasn't failed and crumbled. 

Never known anyone keep quails before! Hope you sort out the problem.

But well done Scruff, can you send Ginge some of those good behaviour vibes, I had hoped we were doing well with the recall training but she proved she is just as interested in hedgerows as ever this morning .
Now she has graduated from the basic class we are moving into the general class tonight , with different dogs to bark at and hubbies migraine means he wont be coming, I can feel the tension coming on already


----------



## kat&molly

My cousin was a He  but thanks, yes family understand- or those that matter do.
The concrete was in perfect condition- a bit strange really as you'd have thought the wood would have been chewed but no.

Really pleased with Scruff- not sure it would have been the same story if they all spotted it though.Scruff came back, the others realised they'd missed something so went to investigate and obviously picked up the scent - they both recalled - Evie took a little longer to come back but did within a minute.
Just keep plugging away with Ginge and you'll get there- have you got anything like Rescue Remedy for yourself? I found it helped me once when I needed it.Good luck for tonight- and stay calm.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Kat I'm so sorry you weren't able to go to your cousin's funeral, as upsetting as they are it's comforting to be with the people who knew them to share stories and tears. i think it was a lovely way to mark his passing to be outdoors on an adventure with your girls free to reflect ( well when not on deer alert  )

Cripes, concrete eating beasties, Are there any clear teeth marks to give an idea of size?

And only nutters are happy all the time 

GR have you considered using a calmative just to help ginge chill out in class? the problem with dogs getting stressed is it takes between 2 and 6 days for them to get rid of the stress hormones and the more they practise the stressed out behaviour the more likely she is going to have it as a go to response. I don't know if you would find this blog post interesting stress hormones « The Cognitive Canine
Hope this evening she exceeds your expectations.

We had a wet adn windy walk this morning lovely   I have my first Wednesday night free for 2 and a half years..... I have a lovely at home training session planned  I might start looking for a more dedicated HTM class after christmas maybe...


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh gosh sorry, confusion setting in with the tension, yes I willl go find the RR, my Mum swears by it not sure it works in any other way than a placebo effect but if it does help 

Was actually talking about RR and such things at the weekend my friends song gave her a bag of skittles when she was having problems at work and told her they were 'I don't' give a ****' tablets, it helped apparently.

ETA moonviolet we are trying the Nupafeed that dogless recommends at the moment, we are on the 6th day, she said she saw an effect in approx a week but not holding out much hope if yesterdays barking was anything to go by.

One instance yesterday I had to leave her in the car for 5 min, popped into the house we are working on, then heard an almighty racket, nipped back out to see two women walking past with a dog. Shouted out sorry to them, just as I overheard them saying 'oh cute, it keeps headbutting the window!' no wonder we have problems


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks MV. No idea about the teeth marks- OH has concreted the gap but put some wire in as well. I am going to house them all in the Parlour over night now for all of Winter in dog crates, and the chucks. I suspect a Rat or a Stone Marten but I'm not sure on the chewing capabilies of either really. Think the gap was about 40/50 cms long.
The other 3 were 'lucky' , 2 have a few feathers missing and 1 has a small wound on her back - I think its just a nick though.


Ginge- Scruff goes mad in the car- not when I'm there though, I dont mind too much because she's guarding 'her' car, she looks ferocious :blink: and I always try to park a bit away from other cars as I dont want her giving little old ladies a Heart attack.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thanks MV I looked at that blog you linked to, it made a lot of sense when you relate it to Ginge's behavior and why I am struggling to manage it with the tools already given, I just haven't got my head round BAT training yet  will try again, thank you.


----------



## L/C

K&M - sorry that you couldn't go to your cousin's funeral. I hope you are feeling ok. Well done to Scruff for recalling from the deer though. Not sure what could have gotten to your Quails though - poor little things.

Ginge - I'm a big fan of the DAP products (now called adaptil I think!). They are a tad on the pricey side but they worked very well for Ely and I always recommend them. It might be worth a try with the collar or the spray.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks L/C. I'm on a roll this past week, Evie the other day and Scruff today. I sort of expect good from Moll but when its the others its a huge bonus.

MV- are HWTM classes popular in the UK now then?
Could we be getting T-shirts done sooner rather than later.:laugh:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Thanks L/C. I'm on a roll this past week, Evie the other day and Scruff today. I sort of expect good from Moll but when its the others its a huge bonus.
> 
> MV- are HWTM classes popular in the UK now then?
> Could we be getting T-shirts done sooner rather than later.:laugh:


well i can see a few trainers offering them, though how no idea of the quality without a bit of further digging and of course i might have the problem i had finding a good obedience trainer when i said the word beagle.... there was much teeth sucking from some.


----------



## Sarah1983

K&M, sorry about your quails and that you couldn't go to your cousins funeral. Good thoughts to you and yours. I have no idea what could have chewed through concrete though!

We've had a lovely walk today. Lots of pulling on the way to the fields but couldn't really ask for better of him off leash. He had a good run around, we played some fetch with his squeaky dogs head and we practised some recall. He was also very brave and went right up to the fence separating the field from the autobahn where there were big lorries whizzing along. He's not too bad in normal traffic but we've had to gradually move closer to this busy road as he went a little pop eyed and barky at first.

And here's a video of his recall. Bearing in mind that this is the same dog who was completely blanking me just a few weeks ago


----------



## Dogless

k&m; I am sorry that you couldn't make the funeral xx.

Sarah - I am very impressed that Spen is behaving well after blanking you!!

Ginge - the trick I found with the Nupafeed was also going on lots of isolated walks for a week or so, being really carefully to avoid any situation at all that might provoke any kind of stress reaction. The book "Scaredy Dog" by Ali Brown suggests this. I think with the reaction in the pub and leaving Ginge in the car her stress hormones will still be at a fairly high level.

Two good walks today; walked nicely with the Sheltie we sometimes meet which was great as he barked and lunged at her the evening after the rottie attack. Went for an early walk this afternoon to try and beat the trick or treaters - Kilo pranced like a dressage pony for the first five minutes as the street behind us had gone crazy with decorating and hung 'ghosts' on all the trees and bushes, from the fronts of their houses, in their porches etc so Kilo didn't know what to make of it!! On the way back we met a few Mums with young trick or treaters, two of whom did their best ghost and vampire noises at us - Kilo pranced again but was OK, we just kept walking.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dogless am I that bad  ok yes I am.

I do try for stress free, but short of moving its pretty hard round here. If I take her out locally it doesn't matter what time there is normally someone about, unless its dark but she doesn't like that much either. If I go anywhere else it involves the car which means having to take her back to her old home (hubby works there) and I don't think thats good for her either yet so only take the car if absolutely necessary for work, and in any case anywhere new is still soooo exciting.

I don't think there is any place that is stress free today. I think the US storm has hit the east coast its mentally windy and that means mental doggy walk. And if we want stress free then the classes are probably a bad idea too 

Ok shuffles off to find out more about dogs stress levels, I honestly didn't know it was this complicated.

Oh well done spen.

What is the matter with kids wan ting to make silly noises at a dog like Kilo


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> well i can see a few trainers offering them, though how no idea of the quality without a bit of further digging and of course i might have the problem i had finding a good obedience trainer when i said the word beagle.... there was much teeth sucking from some.


You're in the best area of the country for HTM trainers....

Richard Curtis (probably the best) and Gina Pink to name just two.

Richard certainly wouldn't be phased because Tink's a beagle.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Today is the day of my cousins funeral- 2 weeks and 2 days, it takes a long time doesn't it. Anyway, apart from going to church and lighting candles, which I've done, there isn't anything else I can do to make me feel better about not being able to go so I took the girls off to explore the walk we found on Sunday.
> A bit disappointing as there wasn't as much there as I thought, none of the tracks were really long, so we followed them all and it took about 2 and a half hours, the girls loved it- and I recalled Scruff from chasing a Deer  what a good girl, thankfully the others didn't see it , but I was really pleased as strangly its the first time we've ever come across one when out dog walking.
> 
> Sadly , got up this morning to find something has gnawed through the concrete base in my Quail house and killed one of them. I've only had them a fortnight and was trying to get them used to me- the other 3 are traumatised now.
> I feel really bad as they're locked up to keep them safe at night- but what on earth chews through concrete.:blink:
> 
> Cheerful soul aren't I, really hope everyone else is having a good day.


Really sorry you couldn't be at your cousin's funeral. A very sad day for you and your family.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> You're in the best area of the country for HTM trainers....
> 
> Richard Curtis (probably the best) and Gina Pink to name just two.
> 
> Richard certainly wouldn't be phased because Tink's a beagle.


Richard actually came to the local RSPCA show a couple of years ago and I was completely blown away. I think maybe that's getting a little above our station :blush:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh dogless am I that bad  ok yes I am.
> 
> I do try for stress free, but short of moving its pretty hard round here. If I take her out locally it doesn't matter what time there is normally someone about, unless its dark but she doesn't like that much either. If I go anywhere else it involves the car which means having to take her back to her old home (hubby works there) and I don't think thats good for her either yet so only take the car if absolutely necessary for work, and in any case anywhere new is still soooo exciting.
> 
> I don't think there is any place that is stress free today. I think the US storm has hit the east coast its mentally windy and that means mental doggy walk. And if we want stress free then the classes are probably a bad idea too
> 
> Ok shuffles off to find out more about dogs stress levels, I honestly didn't know it was this complicated.
> 
> Oh well done spen.
> 
> What is the matter with kids wan ting to make silly noises at a dog like Kilo


I don't think that you are that bad at all (I can't judge; I know bugger all!!) - just think that you need to avoid having Ginge react if you possibly can just til things settle. It seems to work for us. The longer I can go without Kilo being afraid and feeling the need to react the less strong his reactions are if they do happen - and they do as the amount of offlead dogs here is huge so we inevitably get a few bouncing on Kilo's head . At the park the other day when he was afraid of the 5 large dogs offlead that mugged him he was unhappy but crucially didn't feel the need to put on a teeth and noise display!!


----------



## Guest

Sorry about you not being able to go to your cousins funeral kat, hope you are all well. 
I was going to say a rat about the concrete eater thing, it has been known to happen.

No tantrums today (well the one walk I took him on, mum took him for the second as I missed the bus home ) 

On the walk this morning a man ran past us, a ham sandwich fell out of his bag and my dear darling lunatic monster ate it before the 'L' of leave was uttered.
I was just stood there like "I am SO SO SO Sorry!". 
The man was just like, "Well at least I have an excuse to go to the chippy now"


Just had out first trick or treater, a neighbour who came inside to recieve his chocolate was very good with Zander (ignored him until Zander gave him a sniff then very lightly stroked his nose! And he's only 6! I was very impressed! This is the same little boy that my Child hating cat loves to pieces and will let him stroke her tummy!), until his costume light thingy hissed and howled. Zander freaked out and just hunched down on the sofa staring at him. 
Then his Nan made a comment about the Stag bar being posh. :tongue_smilie:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Sorry about you not being able to go to your cousins funeral kat, hope you are all well.
> I was going to say a rat about the concrete eater thing, it has been known to happen.
> 
> No tantrums today (well the one walk I took him on, mum took him for the second as I missed the bus home )
> 
> *On the walk this morning a man ran past us, a ham sandwich fell out of his bag and my dear darling lunatic monster ate it before the 'L' of leave was uttered.
> I was just stood there like "I am SO SO SO Sorry!".
> The man was just like, "Well at least I have an excuse to go to the chippy now"
> *
> 
> Just had out first trick or treater, a neighbour who came inside to recieve his chocolate was very good with Zander (ignored him until Zander gave him a sniff then very lightly stroked his nose! And he's only 6! I was very impressed! This is the same little boy that my Child hating cat loves to pieces and will let him stroke her tummy!), until his costume light thingy hissed and howled. Zander freaked out and just hunched down on the sofa staring at him.
> Then his Nan made a comment about the Stag bar being posh. :tongue_smilie:


:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

I haven't got much time to chat right now I am busy reading the Scaredy Dog I just downloaded for kindle  before training.

But just wanted to say I get what you are saying and your experiences with Kilo are really very useful in helping me 'get it' but the issue I have is that Ginge is on hyper constantly whenever she is out of the house, thats the trouble, it is impossible to have calm days no matter how hard I try. I am realising I don't help, some things just don't occur to me like, leaving her in the car for 5 mins might stress her to that degree. I am still learning all this stuff, (makes me realise that Rory was either a lot more balanced than we thought or we were ignoring all his stress signals). But even walking out the front door is super exciting, I don't mean that I let her get ramped up before we go out, I do my best to try and make sure she is calm, but that door opening.... She really does seem a Jekyll and Hyde. Thank you for all your observations and everyone else.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> well i can see a few trainers offering them, though how no idea of the quality without a bit of further digging and of course i might have the problem i had finding a good obedience trainer when i said the word beagle.... there was much teeth sucking from some.


Well its their loss- as you've proved them all wrong with Miss Tink.

LO- I think its a Rat, a humane trap has been set but we aren't far from a farm and I occasionally see one there.
Hope Zander enjoyed his sandwich.:laugh:

Sarah- thats a lovely recall- and at least you stayed standing.

Dogless-why is everyone suddenly mad on Halloween.

Ginge- good luck for class.

Thanks everyone, I'm fine.

Think I'll have to stop letting Evie off lead. This house is so quiet and boring of an evening


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well its their loss- as you've proved them all wrong with Miss Tink.
> 
> LO- I think its a Rat, a humane trap has been set but we aren't far from a farm and I occasionally see one there.
> Hope Zander enjoyed his sandwich.:laugh:
> 
> Sarah- thats a lovely recall- and at least you stayed standing.
> 
> Dogless-why is everyone suddenly mad on Halloween.
> 
> Ginge- good luck for class.
> 
> Thanks everyone, I'm fine.
> 
> Think I'll have to stop letting Evie off lead. This house is so quiet and boring of an evening


No idea - it's been like a whole season here; houses have been decorated for the past week or longer with lights, banners, things hanging off them etc etc! Our street hasn't (only one house) but most people on our street have young babies or no kids. The roads behind us and one whole estate have gone Halloween crazy - it seems infectious from house to house - if your neighbour does it you 'catch' it :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## Dogless

This constant doorbell ringing is actually an advantage in a way tonight; Kilo has gone from rushing at the baby gate barking madly, to standing in the dining room barking, to reclining on the sofa letting out a few half hearted barks then going back to sleep .


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Richard actually came to the local RSPCA show a couple of years ago and I was completely blown away. I think maybe that's getting a little above our station :blush:


Nonsense my girl....LOL

I remember Richard supporting one of his pupils when I was competing - it was a West Highland White terrier and the handler was very nervous.


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## Werehorse

Just had trick or treaters. Dogs went bonkers.  We really don't have people come to the door usually.

Hope you are feeling OK, K&M - it is quite a hard thing to not be able to make a funeral. 

Sarah - excellent work on the recall! 

Ginger - you're doing really well. It's a learning curve, and you are taking steps to get to know more which is better than 99% of people do so don't get down. 

LO - the ham sandwich story has made my day. :lol:

Today has been eventful and we haven't even got to training yet! Lovely walk in the complete heaving rain this morning. They enjoyed themselves. Hugo broke a wait as we waited for a dog on lead to go past  but I managed to direct him away from the dog and up the path. I think the dog was staring directly at him as it went by but still. :nono:

And then this evening... Oscar did his PAT assessment!!  Now I don't know whether he will have passed or not as they don't tell you there and then (it is decided at the office based on the paper work) but he was very good and the lady was very positive about him. :thumbup: So I have my fingers crossed for a positive outcome. The lady said he was clearly responsive and well-trained. He kept doing his "I'm really relaxed honest" chin on floor laying down which is a behaviour I've actually shaped and he's not that relaxed at all just working it for a treat. :lol: Gives a good impression though!  They do a noise test where basically someone makes a loud banging noise behind the dog to see how they react. He looked round but was completely unphased.  He was a bit pully and excited but contained it very well. So pleased with him even if we don't pass he did a good job and if it's a no I think it won't be all that long until we'll be more ready to try again.

Luvs my silly spanner. See if I'm still saying that in a couple of hours after training class! :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Fingers crossed for Oscar, Werehorse; very exciting .


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## kat&molly

Oscars done really well, fingers crossed.


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## moonviolet

How exciting Werehorse  Fingers crossed it sounds like oscar did very well


----------



## MissTwister

At the moment we are working on not "attacking" waves.  He thinks it's fun, but I'm trying to teach him that it's also ok to just watch them roll in.


----------



## Beth17

Well done to Kilo for not reacting too much to the silly people that surround you.

k&m sorry you weren't able to attend the funeral.

I think gold stars are in order for Spen :thumbup:

L/O what a great story :blink: 

Werehorse how brilliant everything crossed for Oscar!

Ginger have a good class.

Not much to report here as both boys have been renamed Kevin today :nono: 
Plus side is no doorbell ringing as the weather is shocking so lots of lovely treats for me to eat :thumbup:

ETA k&m that sounds like a really big scary rat!


----------



## Guest

Oh no not Kevin! :nono:

I haven't seen kevin the past few days which is nice cause I realised that tonight was the first time he cuddled up to me on the sofa for a LONG time.

When he's a kevin he seems to think "I AM TOO OLD FOR CUDDLES" and huffs and tries to shove you off the sofa!

OOH OOH and I've had some good news! 
Got a phone call from my local [email protected] to say I've won something in a raffle they held on sunday!!  Which is nice since the council have decided to jack up my weekly rent by nearly 30 quid. :glare:


----------



## GingerRogers

Can I just say phewumphurr.
I am glad that is over. Dogless - stress levels through the roof.
To be fair she did ok. The other dogs did much better ignoring her
I disgraced myself again and now need wine. 
Think i prefer this trainers approach. On phone so will ramble more tomorrow. 
L O how did i miss the sandwich story. Thanks for the laugh.
Fingers crossed werehorse.

Wine now.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Can I just say phewumphurr.
> I am glad that is over. Dogless - stress levels through the roof.
> To be fair she did ok. The other dogs did much better ignoring her
> I disgraced myself again and now need wine.
> Think i prefer this trainers approach. On phone so will ramble more tomorrow.
> L O how did i miss the sandwich story. Thanks for the laugh.
> Fingers crossed werehorse.
> 
> Wine now.


Sounds hectic; enjoy your wine .


----------



## L/C

Ginge - if she finds things so overwhelming can you cut down on her walks for a bit? I know it sounds mad and counter productive but you might find that as her adrenaline levels drop she becomes more manageable. For Ely I have a strict regime to manage him and make sure he stays below threshold. Ball playing one day and socialising the next.

We also do a lot of scentwork to keep him stimulated but his arousal levels low and when at home he has lots of stuff to chew and I make up little puzzles where he has to lick stuff out (both are calming activities). It's worth remembering that when something particularly exciting/ scary happens that it can take several days for adrenaline levels to return to base and if levels are kept high then that base will reset to a higher level. So you have a dog with a shorter fuse.

If she finds class particularly arousing then I would wind things down a bit tomorrow. So a calmer walk, maybe replace a walk with training or games in the garden. Give her, her breakfast in a treat ball and make sure she has plenty of access to chews. Give her a chance to relax after class before she's exposed to very exciting stimuli again.

Werehorse - well done you and Oscar. Fingers crossed.


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks everyone - fingers are tightly crossed. Just got a few other things to sort out... like finding 2 people who have known me more than 5 years but aren't family that I can actually get intouch with for a reference without it being really awkward! :lol: I'm a perfectly nice person, honest, but historically I have tended to up sticks and move on quite easily and not stay in touch with folk.  

Oscar was good at training class - not super dooper star but good. A bit too much wandering off (not much but too much!) so it'll be all on-lead for him next week to stop that becoming a habit. Hahahaha, next week OH will be working him anyway because Hugo is joining the class. And it was a bit sad because Oscar's little girlfriend who has been in training class with him since they were both tiny pups had her last class today.  We worked out that Oscar, his girlfriend and his nemisis (the Toller) have been in weekly classes together for over 2 years since they were all little fluff dots. End of an era! :crying:


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Ginge - if she finds things so overwhelming can you cut down on her walks for a bit? I know it sounds mad and counter productive but you might find that as her adrenaline levels drop she becomes more manageable. For Ely I have a strict regime to manage him and make sure he stays below threshold. Ball playing one day and socialising the next.
> 
> We also do a lot of scentwork to keep him stimulated but his arousal levels low and when at home he has lots of stuff to chew and I make up little puzzles where he has to lick stuff out (both are calming activities). It's worth remembering that when something particularly exciting/ scary happens that it can take several days for adrenaline levels to return to base and if levels are kept high then that base will reset to a higher level. So you have a dog with a shorter fuse.
> 
> If she finds class particularly arousing then I would wind things down a bit tomorrow. So a calmer walk, maybe replace a walk with training or games in the garden. Give her, her breakfast in a treat ball and make sure she has plenty of access to chews. Give her a chance to relax after class before she's exposed to very exciting stimuli again.
> 
> Werehorse - well done you and Oscar. Fingers crossed.


thanks L/C coupled with Dogless words I think that might be the best approach. She's shattered now been asleep since we got home.


----------



## Sarah1983

People over on Victoria Stilwells site recommend a week or two of deliberately avoiding as many triggers as possible with a reactive dog. Gives them time for the stress levels to come down and give you a clean slate to work with so to speak. I know it's easier said than done but when you're dealing with reactivity it's well worth trying to do. You can make up for physical exercise with training etc for a short time.


----------



## GingerRogers

Do you mean literally No walks at all. Sounds awful but willing to try if its really feasible. There's no training next week so that gives a good window.


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Do you mean literally No walks at all. Sounds awful but willing to try if its really feasible. There's no training next week so that gives a good window.


If that's what it takes, yeah. As they say, it's not forever. Some of us got around it by walking at ridiculous times but if Ginge is worse when it's dark that's probably not going to be an option for you. Any chance you can give a quick recap of what problems you're having with her? I know you've mentioned them but the thought of trawling through a 400+ page thread is a bit intimidating lol.

The thing with stress levels is you go out and say you meet something she reacts to, her stress levels go up to say 6. Then the next day they've dropped to say 4, you go out again and you meet something else she reacts to, they go up to 8. Next day they start out at say 6 because they've not had time to come right down, you meet something she reacts to, up they go again and they just keep on and on building like that and the dog becomes more and more reactive. What I tried to do with Rupert was if we had an incident another dog one day I'd try to completely avoid dogs for the next few days, whether by walking him at stupid times or not doing a walk at all and simply doing play and extra training. There are quite a few over at VS site that have really turned reactive dogs around starting with complete avoidance and then going on to work on desensitizing and counter conditioning.


----------



## kat&molly

I'm going to look up this VS site.

Ginge- I think you would benefit from going slower as well, your posts sound full of stress, it cant be doing either of you any good. Hope todays better.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I'm going to look up this VS site.
> 
> Ginge- I think you would benefit from going slower as well, your posts sound full of stress, it cant be doing either of you any good. Hope todays better.


It's called Positively  It's not a hugely active site but they do tend to give good advice. Been on there for years now. Just be prepared to go into a lot of detail if you want advice lol, the more the better as far as they're concerned.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I'm instructing from 10.00 until 4.00pm straight through without a break, so my stress levels will be sky high by the time I tackle Tescos, for the main weekly shop, at around 4.30....LOL

I'm taking either Leafy or Quiver on a canine massage course Saturday morning - I could do with somebody giving me one right now.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm instructing from 10.00 until 4.00pm straight through without a break, so my stress levels will be sky high by the time I tackle Tescos, for the main weekly shop, at around 4.30....LOL
> 
> I'm taking either Leafy or Quiver on a canine massage course Saturday morning - I could do with somebody giving me one right now.


Oh dear think we should organise a portaloo, tea trolley and a masseur on hand for you


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## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> If that's what it takes, yeah. As they say, it's not forever. Some of us got around it by walking at ridiculous times but if Ginge is worse when it's dark that's probably not going to be an option for you. Any chance you can give a quick recap of what problems you're having with her? I know you've mentioned them but *the thought of trawling through a 400+ page thread is a bit intimidating lol*.


I don't blame you, this thread grows at an alarming rate. I certainly can if no-one else minds or should I start a new thread (then I might get lots of other advice from people who might not be as supportive and helpful as you lot )

I will find the essay I wrote to the behaviorist later. Still not decided whether to go with her or not especially given the latest advice you have all given on here. Is excitement the same as stress?

As I have said, last night was a new class having finished the basic intake class, and a different trainer (this time the one we actually met a few weeks ago who prompted me to start classes). I got there late as there were roadwork diversions  but the first thing she said was did I use a clicker and that what she would like me to do was just take it easy, join in as I could (ie when she was quiet) and click click click for the quiet and completely ignore the noise, I felt very bad for the others, but had never been 100% happy with the method the previous trainer had given (went along with it as didn't know better) which was to distract with touch, turning, massage or lead control as somewhere in the back of my dim brain I felt this was re-inforcing the barking by the touch or punishing it by the lead control and re-inforcing that dogs = nasty stuff.

The click for quiet seems (in my tiny brain) to be 100% positive, apart from to everyone elses ears. A couple of the dogs were practicing for their bronze award next week so ran through a few of those exercises we did actually manage door control and a return to handler, left the lead on and trainer held her as I had absolutely no idea how she would react - come to me or run to the dogs, she came legging it towards me & filled my heart with joy bless her .

Apart from the barking we had a few issues in that the previous trainer interrupted the lesson at the beginning and end to try and 'help' which I thought was off, but current trainer who I felt thought they had been handling it wrong, was very good and saw her off, hope it doesn't cause ructions, but they have all got a soft spot for the little minx and they all really want to help me . After the class the previous trainers husband tried to grab her and do his touch thing, which has quietened her in the past, but she was too wound up this time, and he got a couple of nips for his trouble , I think he should have known better and certainly not gone back for a second go. She doesn't bite properly but does frustrated nipping, its normally at my boots or the lead but can be legs or fingers if they are nearest. Guess its a bit like LO problem but she can't reach arms.

In this class we had Princess the teeny chi, who was apparently so nervous, from the old class (she is doing brilliantly ) a rottie, two GSD, a retriever and a black lab. So a very different mix of dogs for her to get used to and most, all much bigger than her. The old trainer had said when I went in not to expect anything good this week and when I came out said she was actually better than she had thought she would be (they can hear the classes from outside) which I thought was good  but odd   considering I hadn't been employing any of her quieting techniques.

This morning I took her out for a very little walk for a pee and a poo, can't really get my head round not going out at all , but went early avoided two dogs completely. Then came in the back gate and let her have a dig in her favorite spot (think there's a mouse hole). Gave her some kibble in a plastic bottle as don't have a treat ball which she got the hang of and have a stuffed kong for when she wakes up.

Will post the 'other' essay  later. Thanks again everyone, your support does really help.

Oh and K&M I asked hubby if rats can chew through concrete he said yes and metal shipping containers 

Twiggy - you will be shattered I should think, can you not leave the shop till later - I try and avoid shopping at busy times, its all numpty trolley bumpers, last night I popped into Asda after training to pick up some 'easy' tea - blissfully quiet.


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## Guest

Well done Ginge  


Collectd my raffle prize today, it was Kitten food. I do not have Kittens. Ah well the older female cat needs fattening anyway.

No tantrums this morning even though it was literally a five minute walk because I had to loop back to my house quickly as their were two fast approaching known-aggressive terriers behind me and a woman with a westie talking to a lab owner who WOULD NOT MOVE.:nono: By this point Zander was a bouncing mess. But not tantrums though. Almost took my shoulder out to bounce at another terrier that appeared through the hedge. And he did tear a whole in my late grandads coat, but all in all I can put up with the shoulder wrenching bouncies (this is why I want a front ring harness to turn him back easier) alot better than I can with the arm clamping of doom. 

We have been bonding me and him, taught him to crawl through my legs today. He sorta gets it. AND he left the cat when I told him too (he still thinks that flattening them is a GREAT game)

He also slept on my bed the past couple nights.  Which is fine, except my rooms not big enough for a double bed, so its awkward leg positions all the way!!


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## GingerRogers

Boo to kitten food. 

See you have the idea already, no tantrums cos you avoid the triggers, doh I am so blonde sometimes. Its hard thinking dog!


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## GingerRogers

Ok Sarah you asked for it here it is.

*History*, as I think this is relevant. Bought at 5 wks old from travellers/gypsy's she lived with PO (previous owner) until we took her on at the end of August. PO was a single 21 year old male, he worked on farm with my OH, young lad but generally decent, involved in shooting world so more old fashioned and not as positive in dealing with her as is seen as decent nowadays (I know that sounds terrible, everyone can be good, but in reality not everyone realises there are different ways to treat living creatures especially not in the farming and shooting world)

AFAIK he didn't really do any training with her, her routine was to be let out in the morning, normally go for a run up the field with the two 'working' collies (they never got worked whole other story) and gundog that lived in his yard (PO lived on the farm), then they would get put back on chains/in kennel respectively and she would run around the yard until he went to work. Then she would get put into her crate often for the day until he came home, he was a tractor driver essentially so his hours could be long, on his return she would get let out again until dark or he went out or she wanted to come in. OH says that in this out time she basically ran around on her own (never went far or on the road), tormented the dogs and chased rabbits, he had bought her with a mind to work her but never really got round to that although she was encouraged to dig out rats and rabbits as soon as she showed signs of being interested.

He often had to travel for work. G would go to his brothers, for a day or a week, as long as it took, come back and sometimes go straight back. So she didn't really know whether she was coming or going. Finally he got offered a job in Aus for at least 3 months, he recognised she needed more than he was giving her, and a stable home, as we had lost our old boy in April, were thinking on getting another, and had always said in jest (she was such a cutie, still is) that we would have her, he asked if we would take her.

Believe me we thought long and hard, whether we should take her, and on whether we actually wanted another dog just yet. We knew she would need work an had never been on a lead for any length of time, but still, naively, thought we were getting a feisty dog that was good with other dogs and children. I have to confess that although we knew she would not have experienced anything outside the farm, we didn't really take on board the effect that could have on her, as she had always seemed so feisty ergo confident.

*What we actually have is jeckyll and hyde *- a dog that is super hyped every time she leaves the house. In the house she is extremely friendly but mostly sleeps or cuddles, (a throw back to being crated all day I presume) she ahs started to learn treats are good and engaging her in a game is getting easier but still takes an awful lot of energy and imagination. She likes to tug with me but gets very growly and possessive so I feel we have to stop. She will play ball with OH (not me) but eventually gets bored. I have discovered she quite likes a little agility. But mostly the only animation we get is outside - unfortunately that is all soo super exciting it's very hard to get a focus from her.

She mostly wants to play with dogs as that is what she has been used to, unstructured introduction and play. If she can't as she is always on lead or the other dog is not interested for whatever reason, she barks, and lunges, and squeals. It ramps up into a frenzy when she can nip onto near things, usually me, or she will bark at any other dog we might be with instead. Nothing will distract her at the time; although with simply practicing moving on the duration of her frenzy is reducing. Eg in the pub she seems perfectly calm (indoors see) until a dog comes in then she kicks off, even if you can introduce her she still wont calm down. At class she gradually stopped reacting to the other dogs all the time (still get the odd bark a lesson) until the last week when we were doing agility and play, she got over excited again and then this week it was all new dogs, same place though, both times absolute frenzy of frustration gnawing on things nearby even if its my foot.

The general consensus is she is friendly, looking at the books that have been recommended I am not sure she knows or maybe understands dog language (because she left her mother too young??), she wants to play but when she does it is very boisterous, (like she is 5 weeks old playing with a 14 month collie) she has no idea how to behave on lead or to watch other dogs behaviour, saying that sometimes she meets a calm dog and just sits quite happily, other times she jumps on their heads and gets in a scrap for it, sometimes she isn't so friendly and will snap at a dog.

My current conclusion is that she has no idea how to behave; dogs & humans have never taught her, & she has just been exposed to too much too soon (our fault but through ignorance) which has ramped up her stress level (thanks for the pointers). A perfect solution would be a nice calm dog like Turid Rugaas uses to teach her what to do (where do I find that) but it feels a bit of a cop out, I went some way to causing this, but can I fix it?

It may be just keeping her calm for a week might go a long way to reducing the stress enough to get that focus, and trust as she has always been pretty self reliant really.

Or should I just bite the bullet and see a behaviourist, thing is I don't want them just telling me things I already know, I have no idea if stress levels is the issue but it makes sense in which case do I really want to go down that route right now, too stressy???? And if I get the stress levels down I might (with my new found knowledge and understanding) be able to manage. The behaviourist does do 1 on 1 work on Wednesdays so if I could get her in next week then it might be time enough. Oh I don't know I am so scared of doing more harm

Thanks for reading any help gratefully taken on board.


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## Werehorse

Ginger - if I was you I would be seeking help from a behaviourist. I feel that you can aquire a lot of knowledge by reading and that's brilliant but the experience of a behaviourist will trump that "book knowledge" 95% of the time. As long as it's a proper behaviourist (association of pet behaviour councillers would be my first port of call) and not just someone calling themselves a behaviourist! Without actually seeing the dog it is really hard for someone on the internet to give accurate advice, and she is a more than usually difficult case going from her history.


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## Sarah1983

Remind me not to ask you for the long version of anything :lol:

In a way I can see similarities between her and Rupert although at the same time I think the reasons for the behaviour are very different. I had absolutely zero focus from Rupert while out of the house, he was far too busy either looking for prey or looking for Rupert Eating Monsters (which could be anything from a leaf blowing along the ground to a garden chair where there wasn't usually a garden chair). And he only had to see or hear another dog to be reactive towards it. I never really got anywhere with him and just managed his many issues but he really wasn't a stable dog. Apparently neither are the other dogs bred by the person I'm 99% sure bred him but that's a whole different story.

What did you do when you first got her? Did you attempt to get her used to her new environment gradually or did you just sort of throw her in at the deep end with walks, training classes and other situations she'd never been in before?

Has she been taught to focus on you indoors? There's no point trying to get her to do so outside if she can't do it inside. What is it exactly that you want from her in the situations you're struggling with? Be specific, not just "not to react to other dogs" or "not to bark"  Difficult I know but unless YOU know what you want how can you teach her what you want?

I personally think you need to slow right down with her. Pick the problem you're having that most affects you, the one you most want sorted and work on that. Manage the others for now where possible. Sort of pick your battles if you know what I mean, trying to work on too much at once is going to confuse and frustrate both of you imo. At the moment you're putting her into all sorts of situations where she's going over threshold and that's only going to make it even harder to work with her.

I would see the behaviourist if possible. It's all very well us giving you advice on here but we can't see any of you in real life and a good behaviourist is likely to pick up on things you don't even notice  Nor are most (any?) of us behaviourists.

The best bit of advice I was given with Rupert was to keep a journal of his behaviour. Didn't have to be long, wordy entries, just a couple of sentences describing roughly his behaviour each day. Or even each walk. It sounds a bit silly but sometimes you're too close to see the tiny changes that take place which lead to bigger changes and because you see the dog each day you just don't realise how far you've come unless you've got something to look back at.


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## moonviolet

GR i agree with Sarah and Werehorse. there are many strands to your girl, that a qualified behaviourist would be great to see her and the 2 of you together and would have the means to set up stooge scenarios.


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## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Remind me not to ask you for the long version of anything :lol:
> 
> In a way I can see similarities between her and Rupert although at the same time I think the reasons for the behaviour are very different. I had absolutely zero focus from Rupert while out of the house, he was far too busy either looking for prey or looking for Rupert Eating Monsters (which could be anything from a leaf blowing along the ground to a garden chair where there wasn't usually a garden chair). And he only had to see or hear another dog to be reactive towards it. I never really got anywhere with him and just managed his many issues but he really wasn't a stable dog. Apparently neither are the other dogs bred by the person I'm 99% sure bred him but that's a whole different story.
> 
> What did you do when you first got her? Did you attempt to get her used to her new environment gradually or did you just sort of throw her in at the deep end with walks, training classes and other situations she'd never been in before?
> 
> Has she been taught to focus on you indoors? There's no point trying to get her to do so outside if she can't do it inside. What is it exactly that you want from her in the situations you're struggling with? Be specific, not just "not to react to other dogs" or "not to bark"  Difficult I know but unless YOU know what you want how can you teach her what you want?
> 
> I personally think you need to slow right down with her. Pick the problem you're having that most affects you, the one you most want sorted and work on that. Manage the others for now where possible. Sort of pick your battles if you know what I mean, trying to work on too much at once is going to confuse and frustrate both of you imo. At the moment you're putting her into all sorts of situations where she's going over threshold and that's only going to make it even harder to work with her.
> 
> I would see the behaviourist if possible. It's all very well us giving you advice on here but we can't see any of you in real life and a good behaviourist is likely to pick up on things you don't even notice  Nor are most (any?) of us behaviourists.
> 
> The best bit of advice I was given with Rupert was to keep a journal of his behaviour. Didn't have to be long, wordy entries, just a couple of sentences describing roughly his behaviour each day. Or even each walk. It sounds a bit silly but sometimes you're too close to see the tiny changes that take place which lead to bigger changes and because you see the dog each day you just don't realise how far you've come unless you've got something to look back at.


Sorry I did try and keep it as brief as possible but its hard knowing whats relevant and hard being me . I will call the behaviorist I have picked out and had recommendations for this afternoon. Thanks both of you, I just wasn't sure.

I am sorry to say we threw her in at the deep end, I did question it but as usual let myself be convinced because it was the easy option . I have taught her to focus indoors but as I say indoors and outdoors are like two different dogs, again I don't know if that is nerves/stress or just that is what her life has been acclimatised to - super exciting playtime outside then indoors to the crate to sleep away the day - or a combination.

As for what I want - I want her greet dogs calmly, or at least enough so that we can meet dogs without them going  :cryin: I don't think so buddy. So no barking I think as it seems this is the behaviour which sends her right over the threshold.

I don't want her to not react to dogs full stop, but then some posts from smokeybear recently on other threads has got me thinking, they say they want their dogs dog neutral - sounds like a good scenario in theory but is it natural. I know a domesticated dog isn't really in a natural state anyway but I feel they need to be as natural as possible within the boundaries we set. Personally I like to see dogs play, those that can cope with her, mostly puppies lol who are just as mental as her  especially as that is something she is used to.

Do you know I am not aware of any behaviorists on here, trainers yes, but no-one who has stuck their head above the parapet and said more than that, guess they would be bombarded with questions they can't possibly answer over the internet, just like you lot.


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## Sarah1983

But what do you want her to do instead of bark? Just saying you don't want her to bark leaves her with a million and one things she could do instead and no clue what the right thing is 

As for the dog neutral thing, most dogs around here aren't that bothered about other dogs. They _might_ stop for a quick sniff if they're passing on a narrow path but that's as far as it goes. My collie was that way from being about 18 months old and I would kill for that attitude towards other dogs again. It was perfect. Meant we didn't have to worry about him running up to other dogs and making a nuisance of himself in any way.


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## GingerRogers

Ahhh! I see, well I don't know - handstands  umm! I really don't know beyond greeting politely, which to me means a polite sniff if welcomed, and move on unless play is acceptable, and if it is to play nicely, gosh I ask a lot don't I.

Ok so what I want, just polite sniffs and move on, & play with established friends only. 

You're right Rory was almost dog neutral, not quite, if certain dogs got too close , we always wanted him to play but I guess on reflection it was a lot easier for us having a dog that didn't.

I don't mind excitement about seeing dogs, the pulling is a pain but not a major issue, the barking normally starts when they pass or ignore her, or show no signs of coming to say hello. Those that do show signs of friendliness normally get to meet and off we go happy as Larry. TBH she is excited about seeing people, kids, bikes, especially teenage boys for some reason, pretty much anything, I can work on the lead pulling but only if I am not on alert high for dogs. The car thing is getting under control so it is only dogs that she gets excited about then reacts badly.


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## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm instructing from 10.00 until 4.00pm straight through without a break, so my stress levels will be sky high by the time I tackle Tescos, for the main weekly shop, at around 4.30....LOL
> 
> I'm taking either Leafy or Quiver on a canine massage course Saturday morning - I could do with somebody giving me one right now.


You should get your shopping delivered- its brilliant


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## Dogless

GingerRogers - I have read your posts and the excellent advice that you have received and have nothing of value to add (as per usual ) but hope that you come up with a masterplan and things improve!

Two good walks today; this morning we went to 'our' forest. Braved the part of it where we'd seen the sheep as we haven't been to that bit for about two months for that reason. Had a great time although Kilo did point and fixate then stalk and run-in to both areas where the sheep had been; almost giving me a heart attack each time even though I could see there weren't any sheep :crazy:. The boy has a memory like an elephant!! I had a few stresses where snow - covered hummocks looked like sheep too .

This afternoon we have just braved driving rain and a freezing cold howling wind - surprisingly we didn't see anyone else out on our route :blink:. Kilo was sporting his bright Equafleece .

And.....tomorrow at 0800 we are meeting the woman with the Weimaraner for a walk .

ETA: today I cleared out the cloakroom where Rudi will 'live' - it's next to Sir Kilo's house - the crate is in there now and his bed, toys etc . Hubby just needs to take the door off now!


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## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> You should get your shopping delivered- its brilliant


Until it gets there and they've substituted half of it. Or they've sent you bread or milk that goes out of date tomorrow or bruised or over ripe fruit or broken eggs. I used to just order things like tins and bottles of pop online, anything that spoils quickly or breaks I'd go for myself. Not to mention Tescos wouldn't carry my shopping up 3 flights of stairs nor would they let me take it up myself in the crates they brought it in


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## Twiggy

Twiggy - you will be shattered I should think, can you not leave the shop till later - I try and avoid shopping at busy times, its all numpty trolley bumpers, last night I popped into Asda after training to pick up some 'easy' tea - blissfully quiet.

You're right I'm shattered and didn't get in until after 4.30 so Tescos will have to wait until the morning.

How long have you had Ginge BTW?


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GingerRogers - I have read your posts and the excellent advice that you have received and have nothing of value to add (as per usual ) but hope that you come up with a masterplan and things improve!


Frankly I am glad can do without your 'cross thread' comments 

No really you have been very helpful (even if you have been pulling my socks up for me )

She has been a cheeky monkey when she hasn't been sleeping to day though, which is nice cos its unusual, perhaps she does need a bit of house bound time to realise there are fun things inside apart from slightly loopy humans. Am going out in a bit to try a short walk in the dark, its not the dark she doesn't like so much as dusk, but it was raining earlier and thats definitely the scariest time so just a quick wee break and thats all.

You seem to have been having lots of good walks recently, Dogless, actually since the dog attack, (hope I haven't spoke to soon) perhaps you are seeing the good, like whoever it was who posted that 6000 pages back, and he did bounce back pretty well.

Wrap up well in the morning and don't forget your padding, Kilo would like thermal pants too!


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Frankly I am glad can do without your 'cross thread' comments
> 
> No really you have been very helpful *(even if you have been pulling my socks up for me* )
> 
> She has been a cheeky monkey when she hasn't been sleeping to day though, which is nice cos its unusual, perhaps she does need a bit of house bound time to realise there are fun things inside apart from slightly loopy humans. Am going out in a bit to try a short walk in the dark, its not the dark she doesn't like so much as dusk, but it was raining earlier and thats definitely the scariest time so just a quick wee break and thats all.
> 
> You seem to have been having lots of good walks recently, Dogless, actually since the dog attack, (hope I haven't spoke to soon) perhaps you are seeing the good, like whoever it was who posted that 6000 pages back, and he did bounce back pretty well.
> 
> Wrap up well in the morning and don't forget your padding, Kilo would like thermal pants too!


Not sure what I have done - hope I didn't offend .


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy - only 2 months, sorry your shattered - easy tea for you I think.

Never had my shopping delivered, I like to pick stuff myself.

Exciting Dogless, when is he coming?


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Not sure what I have done - hope I didn't offend .


Just pointing out where I have been going wrong, you sensitive soul, like they said 'slosha' aside you rarely insult


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy - only 2 months, sorry your shattered - easy tea for you I think.
> 
> Never had my shopping delivered, I like to pick stuff myself.
> 
> Exciting Dogless, when is he coming?


Pick him up 20th November....just got some new pics so will update my thread too .


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## kat&molly

Blimey slow down I've been busy today.:crazy:

Ginge-great to hear you'll be getting some help. Fresh eyes are always useful.When I got Big Evie to come out to me she said my girls were pretty well behaved and the things I thought were problems many people wouldn't bat an eyelid at. I was really pleased and my head grew big until she said they were a 'bit' spoiled and Molly has me well trained.:w00t: 
And shipping containers.:blink: Nothing had touched the bait I'd left.

Dogless- have a good meeting with the Weim-watch where Kilo puts his paws.

Bit of a scare this morning, walking back up to the car, theres a bit of a wood to the left hand side and Scruff started barking like mad, then Moll and Evie started. One of the hunters was there standing behind a tree, shotgun in hand looking not very happy at being barked at. Must admit I panicked and shouted at the girls, they hadn't approached him at all but I got 
scared he'd shoot one of them.
I should think anything he had his eye on had long since disappeared at the sound of my lot.:tongue_smilie:

With Moll this after I had the whistle and clicker for retreive and I took a piece of cloth and Jays [empty] pill box. I dropped the box and cloth without her seeing and she collected both no problem. We didn't get get any further than that as the the neighbour came again with her Staff- who had another go at Moll  I'll be going somewhere else tomorrow.


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## Dogless

What a fright k&m ....I can imagine no hunter would have been impressed with the barking chorus :w00t:.

And how horrible about the neighbour's dog  but well done Moll up til then.


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## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Until it gets there and they've substituted half of it. Or they've sent you bread or milk that goes out of date tomorrow or bruised or over ripe fruit or broken eggs. I used to just order things like tins and bottles of pop online, anything that spoils quickly or breaks I'd go for myself. Not to mention Tescos wouldn't carry my shopping up 3 flights of stairs nor would they let me take it up myself in the crates they brought it in


hahaha yeah the substitutes can be quite random at times, oh well it was just a thought


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## chazzie10

Ive just been quietly reading through all the posts from the last couple of days and there's been some really good advice and ideas being given- some of which Im going to try too. 
Weve been having late afternoon forest walks to minimise the amount of dogs we meet. Im thinking that its best if there are only a few dogs pass during each walk as any more than that and Charlie gets too worked up to concentrate and then it feels like the training has taken a step backwards. Weve got to the stage now where I can get him to sit and focus on me (well, a piece of sausage lol) until a dog is almost past then he stands and stretches out to try and sniff. Still not ideal but compared to the lunging its getting better 
The only hiccup we had was 2 women with a young, highly strung, offlead collie came onto our track and it came leaping and bounding up to us. Charlie was onlead and nearly pulled me onto the ground :nono: The owner was laughing away and shouted its ok she's friendly but my arms were nearly out of their sockets! She didnt seem to think there was a problem. I thought she should have clipped her dogs lead on when she saw charlie was leashed- she didnt even make an attempt to call the dog away 
Was still a lovely walk with plenty of swim time for numpty boy


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy - only 2 months, sorry your shattered - easy tea for you I think.
> 
> Never had my shopping delivered, I like to pick stuff myself.
> 
> Exciting Dogless, when is he coming?


Two months - so it's very, very early days. You'll get there with Ginge. We had right fun and games with most of the rescues my daughter took on but they all ended up as wonderful family pets.


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## cinnamontoast

Working on focus, look at me commands:









Slow but we're making definite progress


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Pick him up 20th November....just got some new pics so will update my thread too .


How exciting....!!


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## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Ive just been quietly reading through all the posts from the last couple of days and there's been some really good advice and ideas being given- some of which Im going to try too.
> Weve been having late afternoon forest walks to minimise the amount of dogs we meet. Im thinking that its best if there are only a few dogs pass during each walk as any more than that and Charlie gets too worked up to concentrate and then it feels like the training has taken a step backwards. Weve got to the stage now where I can get him to sit and focus on me (well, a piece of sausage lol) until a dog is almost past then he stands and stretches out to try and sniff. Still not ideal but compared to the lunging its getting better
> The only hiccup we had was 2 women with a young, highly strung, offlead collie came onto our track and it came leaping and bounding up to us. Charlie was onlead and nearly pulled me onto the ground :nono: The owner was laughing away and shouted its ok she's friendly but my arms were nearly out of their sockets! She didnt seem to think there was a problem. I thought she should have clipped her dogs lead on when she saw charlie was leashed- she didnt even make an attempt to call the dog away
> Was still a lovely walk with plenty of swim time for numpty boy


I'll say again you and Dogless seem to have some absolute idiot dog walkers over there....

I obviously took my life in my hands handling loads of their dogs when I was over there instructing last year....


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## cinnamontoast

Twiggy said:


> I'll say again you and Dogless seem to have some absolute idiot dog walkers over there....
> 
> I obviously took my life in my hands handling loads of their dogs when I was over there instructing last year....


We have them here too, believe me! I took Bear and Brig out after Zak. There was a big GSD being playful, very in yer face with Bear who just wants his ball thrown. It came to blows because Bear didn't want this dog near him but the owner, despite seeing me holding onto Bear, just _strolled_ over until I tapped the dog with the ball launcher! It was attacking Bear and I let go so he could defend himself. Owner could not have cared less.  Poor Bear cub.


----------



## Moobli

I haven't long started working trials training with my youngest GSD. We are working on search squares, more focused general control (mainly heelwork) and also ...

tracking










and sendaways 










I am also training him some self control around sheep (I was hoping to teach him to herd but a combination of the wrong sheep and the wrong herding style means we have had to effectively abandon that idea).


----------



## kat&molly

cinammontoast said:


> Working on focus, look at me commands:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Slow but we're making definite progress


Gorgeous pic . How are things going with your trainer?


----------



## chazzie10

Moobli said:


> I haven't long started working trials training with my youngest GSD. We are working on search squares, more focused general control (mainly heelwork) and also ...
> 
> tracking
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and sendaways
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am also training him some self control around sheep (I was hoping to teach him to herd but a combination of the wrong sheep and the wrong herding style means we have had to effectively abandon that idea).


Im loving that pic with the sheep


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## kat&molly

Moobli- what lovely photos, that one looks like he and the sheep are deep in conversation.
We'd all love to hear more about the training.


----------



## Twiggy

cinammontoast said:


> We have them here too, believe me! I took Bear and Brig out after Zak. There was a big GSD being playful, very in yer face with Bear who just wants his ball thrown. It came to blows because Bear didn't want this dog near him but the owner, despite seeing me holding onto Bear, just _strolled_ over until I tapped the dog with the ball launcher! It was attacking Bear and I let go so he could defend himself. Owner could not have cared less.  Poor Bear cub.


You should have clouted the owner with the ball launcher as well...!!


----------



## Twiggy

Moobli said:


> I haven't long started working trials training with my youngest GSD. We are working on search squares, more focused general control (mainly heelwork) and also ...
> 
> tracking
> 
> and sendaways
> 
> I am also training him some self control around sheep (I was hoping to teach him to herd but a combination of the wrong sheep and the wrong herding style means we have had to effectively abandon that idea).


Super pics. I have a chap with a young GSD doing Schutzhund that trains with me (mainly to brush up the obedience aspect, particularly heelwork) but we do occasionally lay a track and do a WT type sendaway with him.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> I'll say again you and Dogless seem to have some absolute idiot dog walkers over there....
> 
> I obviously took my life in my hands handling loads of their dogs when I was over there instructing last year....


Yes Twiggy there are quite a few!
I have to say, embarassingly but not deliberatly, I have been one of them in the past...its sort of why Ive been quiet on here the last couple of days listening to everyone discussing out of control dogs and their owners- I didnt really feel it was right for me to put my 2p's worth in  lol.
I didnt really understand the impact of letting Charlie offlead on forest walks etc as I knew he had absolutely no aggressive tendancies and was just a big pup...I didnt think beyond myself and to how other dog owners might have reactive dogs that didnt like others coming up to them and the problems it would cause them. Walking with my sis and bro=in-law and their lab offlead it was just automatic to take charlie off too. I thought he would grow out of charging up to dogs and Im afraid by the time I realised he wouldnt, it had become a problem. I realise too that I (and my ex) are to blame for a lot of it.
In my defense, I am trying soooo hard to fix it- Im taking him to classes, walking him more AND he stays onlead unless im 100% sure the coast is clear and THEN its only for a few minutes at a time. 
We'll get there....eventually ( hangs head in shame )


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> Yes Twiggy there are quite a few!
> I have to say, embarassingly but not deliberatly, I have been one of them in the past...its sort of why Ive been quiet on here the last couple of days listening to everyone discussing out of control dogs and their owners- I didnt really feel it was right for me to put my 2p's worth in  lol.
> I didnt really understand the impact of letting Charlie offlead on forest walks etc as I knew he had absolutely no aggressive tendancies and was just a big pup...I didnt think beyond myself and to how other dog owners might have reactive dogs that didnt like others coming up to them and the problems it would cause them. Walking with my sis and bro=in-law and their lab offlead it was just automatic to take charlie off too. I thought he would grow out of charging up to dogs and Im afraid by the time I realised he wouldnt, it had become a problem. I realise too that I (and my ex) are to blame for a lot of it.
> In my defense, I am trying soooo hard to fix it- Im taking him to classes, walking him more AND he stays onlead unless im 100% sure the coast is clear and THEN its only for a few minutes at a time.
> We'll get there....eventually ( hangs head in shame )


I know exactly how you feel haha, when people on here complain about friendly (or not) dogs charging at theirs I'm here doing that innocent whistle because like you, I have a dog who's very very over-the-top friendly and rather, er, 'sprightly' but you are taking steps to manage it so unhang that head of shame! None of us are perfect and there are going to be moments when our dogs go charging off, because life happens sometimes and sometimes the training may not always kick in. 
But hey thats part of owning a dog. You got the good bits and the bad bits.

(And a really strong longline helps )

Zanders been very cuddly again (YAAAAAAYY!)

Also If I hear ONE MORE PERSON respond with "OOh a lurcher, they're lovely and calm aren't they" when I say I have one, I may just shove them in a room with my one. MWHAHAHAAH CALM YOU SAY? 

But then that could be because he still only young.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> I know exactly how you feel haha, when people on here complain about friendly (or not) dogs charging at theirs I'm here doing that innocent whistle because like you, I have a dog who's very very over-the-top friendly and rather, er, 'sprightly' but you are taking steps to manage it so unhang that head of shame! None of us are perfect and there are going to be moments when our dogs go charging off, because life happens sometimes and sometimes the training may not always kick in.
> But hey thats part of owning a dog. You got the good bits and the bad bits.
> 
> (And a really strong longline helps )


Thank you x The heads back up and the kettles on...strong cuppa in process 
I just feel embarassed sometimes and I feel bad for charlie too cos the poor pet just loves playing with others and he scares them off- if he would just greet them in a calmer manner he could have so much fun (and exercise). I love seeing him offlead and sniffing about and doing zoomies through the trees  and he has a great time with my sisters lab. 15 seconds or so after meeting another dog he calms right down-its just that initial greeting.... its more of a northern ireland " BOUT YE BIG LAD HOW THE HECK IS IT HANGIN" than a hello   such a plonker


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> Thank you x The heads back up and the kettles on...strong cuppa in process
> I just feel embarassed sometimes and I feel bad for charlie too cos the poor pet just loves playing with others and he scares them off- if he would just greet them in a calmer manner he could have so much fun (and exercise). I love seeing him offlead and sniffing about and doing zoomies through the trees  and he has a great time with my sisters lab. 15 seconds or so after meeting another dog he calms right down-its just that initial greeting.... *its more of a northern ireland " BOUT YE BIG LAD HOW THE HECK IS IT HANGIN" than a hello   such a plonker*


Thats hilarious! Mines like that, cept not the NrthIrishness. 
Mines more like he screaming *"FRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND"* as he zooms at them. Theres a pekingnese that won't take nothing from him, just saunters on past, little head in air. :001_tongue:
Most other dogs are like "uh, FINNNNE" like when a kid has been told my mum to play with a younger slobbery sibling.


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> Thank you x The heads back up and the kettles on...strong cuppa in process
> I just feel embarassed sometimes and I feel bad for charlie too cos the poor pet just loves playing with others and he scares them off- if he would just greet them in a calmer manner he could have so much fun (and exercise). I love seeing him offlead and sniffing about and doing zoomies through the trees  and he has a great time with my sisters lab. 15 seconds or so after meeting another dog he calms right down-its just that initial greeting.... its more of a northern ireland " BOUT YE BIG LAD HOW THE HECK IS IT HANGIN" than a hello   such a plonker


Chazzie I don't think it's your fault. I think there is a general lack of knowledge and information out there for dog walking etiquette. I'd love to see info on park notice boards, country parks, National trust sites etc I'd also love to know it was covered in puppy classes. So many incidents could be avoided is some basic " rules" were followed. For one TInk wouldn't have a huge L shaped scar on her neck. If a dog with poor recall/ high prey drive had been on a longline not offlead.

The one suggestion i have for the greeting is, if he can't do them nicely, pop him on lead ( or reel him in) then call out and ask if you can walk along with them for a few minutes.... it can help getting over the "woohoo hello" business. When he's calm and moving along nicely you should be able to let him off, the movement in the same direction often helps.


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## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Chazzie I don't think it's your fault. I think there is a general lack of knowledge and information out there for dog walking etiquette. I'd love to see info on park notice boards, country parks, National trust sites etc I'd also love to know it was covered in puppy classes. So many incidents could be avoided is some basic " rules" were followed. For one TInk wouldn't have a huge L shaped scar on her neck. If a dog with poor recall/ high prey drive had been on a longline not offlead.
> 
> The one suggestion i have for the greeting is, if he can't do them nicely, pop him on lead ( or reel him in) then call out and ask if you can walk along with them for a few minutes.... it can help getting over the "woohoo hello" business. When he's calm and moving along nicely you should be able to let him off, the movement in the same direction often helps.


I saw your pics of poor Tink after the attack- shocking :cryin:
It reminds me how lucky charlie was a couple of weeks ago to just get the few tooth holes and marks but no rips!!
For a long time now I have been popping him back onlead as soon as I see any walkers-with or without dogs- coming towards us. The only times I didnt was when the other dogs were offlead and their owners seemed relaxed about us but since our attack he's been leashed until I can ask if they mind if the dogs play (or wrestle!!)


----------



## Sarah1983

Moobli said:


>


I love this pic :001_tt1:


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Thats hilarious! Mines like that, cept not the NrthIrishness.
> Mines more like he screaming *"FRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND"* as he zooms at them. Theres a pekingnese that won't take nothing from him, just saunters on past, little head in air. :001_tongue:
> Most other dogs are like "uh, FINNNNE" like when a kid has been told my mum to play with a younger slobbery sibling.


lol @ the pekinese 
There's my new friend at training class with her wee dachshund....Charlies bowing down, bum in air, tail going a dinger and the wee thing just shows its teeth Wow what a set of nashers on such a tiny thing- it looks like a set of falsers that just appear from nowhere and I really DO think charlie thinks the dogs smiling at him and not actually wanting to rip his nose off


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Yes Twiggy there are quite a few!
> I have to say, embarassingly but not deliberatly, I have been one of them in the past...its sort of why Ive been quiet on here the last couple of days listening to everyone discussing out of control dogs and their owners- I didnt really feel it was right for me to put my 2p's worth in  lol.
> I didnt really understand the impact of letting Charlie offlead on forest walks etc as I knew he had absolutely no aggressive tendancies and was just a big pup...I didnt think beyond myself and to how other dog owners might have reactive dogs that didnt like others coming up to them and the problems it would cause them.


I think most, if not all, of us have been there at some point Chazzie. I know I never really bothered if Shadow ran up to other dogs as a puppy. It was only after he got bitten and a woman on the field explained to me why I shouldn't let him run up to other dogs without asking first that it even occurred to me that it might cause problems. I was only about 12 at the time though.

Even then though I don't think I _really_ understood just what a problem it was until I had Rupert. And now I've got a nice, sociable dog I'm not overly bothered again by other dogs running up as long as they're friendly and reasonably polite, it's just a minor irritation at most. Of course I do my best to make sure Spen doesn't run up to other dogs though.


----------



## Werehorse

I agree with mv there - face to face greetings are fraught and I think that's a very good plan for calming a dog that is an overexcited greeter. It seems obvious when it is suggested but I wouldn't have thought to do that!

I took Hugo to the yard this evening. He seemed tiny bit agitated generally but ok and very collie-esq every time I gave him any instruction, did a tiny bit of heelwork stuff and he got VERY focussed in. BUT he has a massive mad attack when we got home, carrying his bone, leaping around and doing really high-pitched howly growls, he kept throwing himself at me while I sat down on the sofa and hit me really hard on the back of the hand with his chew bone. :crazy::crazy: No idea what that was about. I asked him to get on his bed and he threw himself on it then snuck off when I wasn't looking and has been fine since. ut: Not really looking for answers just making a note so that if it happens again one of you might say- "didn't he do that before?" Just before OH had put his cold hands on my back and I screached!  :lol: I wonder if I freaked him out a bit...


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Yes Twiggy there are quite a few!
> I have to say, embarassingly but not deliberatly, I have been one of them in the past...its sort of why Ive been quiet on here the last couple of days listening to everyone discussing out of control dogs and their owners- I didnt really feel it was right for me to put my 2p's worth in  lol.
> I didnt really understand the impact of letting Charlie offlead on forest walks etc as I knew he had absolutely no aggressive tendancies and was just a big pup...I didnt think beyond myself and to how other dog owners might have reactive dogs that didnt like others coming up to them and the problems it would cause them. Walking with my sis and bro=in-law and their lab offlead it was just automatic to take charlie off too. I thought he would grow out of charging up to dogs and Im afraid by the time I realised he wouldnt, it had become a problem. I realise too that I (and my ex) are to blame for a lot of it.
> In my defense, I am trying soooo hard to fix it- Im taking him to classes, walking him more AND he stays onlead unless im 100% sure the coast is clear and THEN its only for a few minutes at a time.
> We'll get there....eventually ( hangs head in shame )


Oh we've all been there....

Years ago when I was instructing at a local dog training club, my daughter and I were out walking our dogs in a local country park. At the time I had a 'dear' little collie called Jessie, who had many endearing traits - not!!
As my daughter and I walked along chatting with our six dogs all running about I noticed in the distance a couple walking a GSD on the lead. At about the same time Jessie also noticed them and true to form legged it to say hello. I said to my daughter "quick let's go". As we hurried away my daughter asked what the hurry was and why I wasn't going after Jessie to which I replied " well there's no point in calling her as she has every intention of jumping all over those people, plus I don't want them to recognise me as they are in my training class".......:tongue_smilie:


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Oh we've all been there....
> 
> Years ago when I was instructing at a local dog training club, my daughter and I were out walking our dogs in a local country park. At the time I had a 'dear' little collie called Jessie, who had many endearing traits - not!!
> As my daughter and I walked along chatting with our six dogs all running about I noticed in the distance a couple walking a GSD on the lead. At about the same time Jessie also noticed them and true to form legged it to say hello. I said to my daughter "quick let's go". As we hurried away my daughter asked what the hurry was and why I wasn't going after Jessie to which I replied " well there's no point in calling her as she has every intention of jumping all over those people, plus I don't want them to recognise me as they are in my training class".......:tongue_smilie:


hahaha bad, bad, BAD


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> I agree with mv there - face to face greetings are fraught and I think that's a very good plan for calming a dog that is an overexcited greeter. It seems obvious when it is suggested but I wouldn't have thought to do that!


 Can you tell that i too once had an enthusiastic greeter 



Werehorse said:


> I took Hugo to the yard this evening. He seemed tiny bit agitated generally but ok and very collie-esq every time I gave him any instruction, did a tiny bit of heelwork stuff and he got VERY focussed in. BUT he has a massive mad attack when we got home, carrying his bone, leaping around and doing really high-pitched howly growls, he kept throwing himself at me while I sat down on the sofa and hit me really hard on the back of the hand with his chew bone. :crazy::crazy: No idea what that was about. I asked him to get on his bed and he threw himself on it then snuck off when I wasn't looking and has been fine since. ut: Not really looking for answers just making a note so that if it happens again one of you might say- "didn't he do that before?" Just before OH had put his cold hands on my back and I screached!  :lol: I wonder if I freaked him out a bit...


Hope Hugo's ok I think OH should pour you a glass of wine (or tipple of preference) and apologise to Hugo 

Moobli what gorgeous pics.


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> * ask if you can walk along with them for a few minutes.... it can help getting over the "woohoo hello" business. When he's calm and moving along nicely you should be able to let him off, the movement in the same direction often helps.*


*Unzips her inner Llama*

Oh goodness I've just a rather horrid realisation.
Zander has NEVER,and I mean it, never walked along side another dog. And it' my fault too now I think about it because when he was young he WAS (and still is as you know) over the top, so we used to lure him past other dogs and the like (Still have to do this now!) but he's never walked along side one because he gets all bouncy and annoys other dogs so I tend to keep interactions short. 
Gah. I shall have to reel in my neighbour with her Lanc who Zander loves. See if we can get them walking without Zander wanting to play every three seconds.

*Rezips her Llama*


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Can you tell that i too once had an enthusiastic greeter


I like the way you said that in past tense...."you once had" 
Light at the end of the tunnel for charlie


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## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> I like the way you said that in past tense...."you once had"
> Light at the end of the tunnel for charlie


I still have to watch her with spaniels because " i lovez dem spannerz", but she's generally good comes to heel when asked.


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## chazzie10

MV- Tink sounds like a brilliant wee dog. I so nearly had a beagle erm...must be 12 years ago now. My landlady at the time bred hounds for hunting. She said a lot of them were Lemon coloured, very pale patches and spots and very beautiful though they were trying to breed the pack back to the colours her ancestors had bred. Apparently when they get over a certain age they can no longer keep up with the pack and have to be left behind in the yard when the rest are hunting. They pine and get very depressed so occasionally they consider rehoming them. I was told by someone else though that they would be unlikely to make a good house pet with baying and howling, being unsocialised around children and "having a taste for blood"  that bit just scared me hehehe Have always loved them though


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## Beth17

Just a quick post as having a headache with uni work :cursing:

Boys have not been quite so bad today have stuck to street walks as Oscar has ripped the bottom of one of his nails so have to keep that clean for a couple of days. They both met a couple of collies quite happily today which was positive and Sam didn't attempt to jump into the road too much.

I too used to allow Oscar to be a bit of a pain in the backside and go up to other dogs when I got him  But hey we all have to begin somewhere


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Just a quick post as having a headache with uni work :cursing:
> 
> Boys have not been quite so bad today have stuck to street walks as Oscar has ripped the bottom of one of his nails so have to keep that clean for a couple of days. They both met a couple of collies quite happily today which was positive and Sam didn't attempt to jump into the road too much.
> 
> I too used to allow Oscar to be a bit of a pain in the backside and go up to other dogs when I got him  But hey we all have to begin somewhere


Poor Oscar oooouch that sounds sore :cryin:


----------



## Beth17

chazzie10 said:


> Poor Oscar oooouch that sounds sore :cryin:


He's being very brave  I actually think it has something to do with the little white devil as he is a pain for chewing his feet :nono:
Oscar also had to have his bloods taken again yesterday poor thing.


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> MV- Tink sounds like a brilliant wee dog. I so nearly had a beagle erm...must be 12 years ago now. My landlady at the time bred hounds for hunting. She said a lot of them were Lemon coloured, very pale patches and spots and very beautiful though they were trying to breed the pack back to the colours her ancestors had bred. Apparently when they get over a certain age they can no longer keep up with the pack and have to be left behind in the yard when the rest are hunting. They pine and get very depressed so occasionally they consider rehoming them. I was told by someone else though that they would be unlikely to make a good house pet with baying and howling, being unsocialised around children and "having a taste for blood"  that bit just scared me hehehe Have always loved them though


I regularly describe it as inviting an imp into your house. She is funny and charming but oh so very naughty. this evening she was " asleep" don't believe it the imp doesn't sleep, she has a hair trigger for mischief. I was knitting and my ball of wool fell to the floor, now most dogs would run grab it immediately.... but not the master criminal that is Tinker.... she waited maybe 10 mins then nonchalantly got up... to all intents and purposes too hot in front of the fire, walks past my legs not even the hint of a pause as she scoops the wool up in her mouth... no tension on it no tugging wool unwinds if i didn't know this is what she would do she could have easily have had a good chew behind the sofa :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> I regularly describe it as inviting an imp into your house. She is funny and charming but oh so very naughty. this evening she was " asleep" don't believe it the imp doesn't sleep, she has a hair trigger for mischief. I was knitting and my ball of wool fell to the floor, now most dogs would run grab it immediately.... but not the master criminal that is Tinker.... she waited maybe 10 mins then nonchalantly got up... to all intents and purposes too hot in front of the fire, walks past my legs not even the hint of a pause as she scoops the wool up in her mouth... no tension on it no tugging wool unwinds if i didn't know this is what she would do she could have easily have had a good chew behind the sofa :lol:


cheeky madam lol I can picture it 
Charlie lulls me into a false sense of security too sometimes- you gotta laugh at their sense of humour, its almost human at times


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'll say again you and Dogless seem to have some absolute idiot dog walkers over there....
> 
> I obviously took my life in my hands handling loads of their dogs when I was over there instructing last year....


Norn Iron (and please forgive me Chazzie) is a little behind the times in dog training - it's really hard to find a trainer that isn't all about choke chains and dominating the dog and about 99% of the folk I meet just go on about "letting dogs be dogs", "arguing it out amongst themselves" etc etc; there is a real difference from the mainland - massive.

Went to school tonight; there were lots of recall and fast movement type exercises worked on tonight for my benefit I think as that is our biggest problem. Kilo's recall is good but any one elses' recalls or even dogs getting excited in the hall did produce a massive eruption of barking, overexcitement and leaping all over me in Kilo when we first went. We haven't done any for weeks, but tonight I noticed we'd come a long way - two barks and a jump for the first dog that recalled, then just lots of Chewbacca noises for the rest . The leads were left on tonight as there were a few new dogs in the group - Kilo has never done it with the lead on and the noise of it on the floor freaked him out massively; he still recalled but in a panicked way. Two Shih Tzus ambled around sniffing so obviously the BW didn't get excited about that!!

And...I had put off telling the trainer I was getting a puppy as I had this unreasonable paranoia that he'd say Kilo wasn't 'good' enough for me to get one - don't know why, just my strange perfectionist anxieties I think . I broached the subject of puppy classes tonight and no such thing was said  .


----------



## chazzie10

Thought Id stick this wee pic on. I took it yesterday after the forest and Charlie's wrapped in his bath towel for a rub down....always a cue for zoomies and silly banter......here he is, head down, cheeky teasing eyes as if he's saying "come on and get the towel then if you think your fast enough.....just one...step...closer....." zoom he's away...smug wee s*** 
ps he's still got half the forest over his face


----------



## cinnamontoast

kat&molly said:


> Gorgeous pic . How are things going with your trainer?


Good and bad. Zak lacks focus so it's hard to train away from his sessions. The guy's really good, but I observed an hour session this week which had maybe 15 minutes of Zak being trained cos the guy tells stories and shows examples of why the check on the lead is good, massive OTT role play type scenarios, I nearly had a heart attack at one scenario he did of him pretending to be a dog being checked on the leash, nearly falling over, shouting and carrying on! If he'd just train, I reckon Zak would be perfect in a couple of weeks. It's frustrating and he cannot be directed.  He walked Zak round with his two very bouncy spinones, which made me very happy!



Twiggy said:


> You should have clouted the owner with the ball launcher as well...!!


Tempting, but he was only little!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I regularly describe it as inviting an imp into your house. She is funny and charming but oh so very naughty. this evening she was " asleep" don't believe it the imp doesn't sleep, she has a hair trigger for mischief. I was knitting and my ball of wool fell to the floor, now most dogs would run grab it immediately.... but not the master criminal that is Tinker.... she waited maybe 10 mins then nonchalantly got up... to all intents and purposes too hot in front of the fire, walks past my legs not even the hint of a pause as she scoops the wool up in her mouth... no tension on it no tugging wool unwinds if i didn't know this is what she would do she could have easily have had a good chew behind the sofa :lol:


She is so gentle and lovely even when being naughty. I love Miss Tink the Beagle That Changed My Mind .



chazzie10 said:


> Thought Id stick this wee pic on. I took it yesterday after the forest and Charlie's wrapped in his bath towel for a rub down....always a cue for zoomies and silly banter......here he is, head down, cheeky teasing eyes as if he's saying "come on and get the towel then if you think your fast enough.....just one...step...closer....." zoom he's away...smug wee s***
> ps he's still got half the forest over his face


Bless him .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Norn Iron (and please forgive me Chazzie) is a little behind the times in dog training - it's really hard to find a trainer that isn't all about choke chains and dominating the dog and about 99% of the folk I meet just go on about "letting dogs be dogs", "arguing it out amongst themselves" etc etc; there is a real difference from the mainland - massive.
> 
> And...I had put off telling the trainer I was getting a puppy as I had this unreasonable paranoia that he'd say Kilo wasn't 'good' enough for me to get one - don't know why, just my strange perfectionist anxieties I think . I broached the subject of puppy classes tonight and no such thing was said  .


Forgiven hehehe and what you say is totally true-but then N~I is all about agression of one sort or another 
I bet you're relieved finally telling the trainer....you sound as paranoid and sensitive as me about what people think and what they might say- I'm my own worst enemy


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Norn Iron (and please forgive me Chazzie) is a little behind the times in dog training - it's really hard to find a trainer that isn't all about choke chains and dominating the dog and about 99% of the folk I meet just go on about "letting dogs be dogs", "arguing it out amongst themselves" etc etc; there is a real difference from the mainland - massive.
> 
> Went to school tonight; there were lots of recall and fast movement type exercises worked on tonight for my benefit I think as that is our biggest problem. Kilo's recall is good but any one elses' recalls or even dogs getting excited in the hall did produce a massive eruption of barking, overexcitement and leaping all over me in Kilo when we first went. We haven't done any for weeks, but tonight I noticed we'd come a long way - two barks and a jump for the first dog that recalled, then just lots of ewok noises for the rest . The leads were left on tonight as there were a few new dogs in the group - Kilo has never done it with the lead on and the noise of it on the floor freaked him out massively; he still recalled but in a panicked way. Two Shih Tzus ambled around sniffing so obviously the BW didn't get excited about that!!
> 
> And...I had put off telling the trainer I was getting a puppy as I had this unreasonable paranoia that he'd say Kilo wasn't 'good' enough for me to get one - don't know why, just my strange perfectionist anxieties I think . I broached the subject of puppy classes tonight and no such thing was said  .


Sounds like Kilo did well tonight  nice when you can see improvement. Shame about the sound of the lead on the floor but good that he recalled 

I understand the second dog paranoia ... although i broached the subject with one of the trainers ( not my favourite one i hasten to add) and was told " 2 dogs are more diffcult than one." then she walked off..... no sh*t sherlock... cheers for the advice :lol: another of the resons i left teh wednesday class her endless helpfulness


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Forgiven hehehe and what you say is totally true-but then N~I is all about agression of one sort or another
> I bet you're relieved finally telling the trainer....you sound as paranoid and sensitive as me about what people think and what they might say- I'm my own worst enemy


Never a truer word spoken - just watching the UTV news now . I have the sort of nature that always finds something that needs working on. When I sit back and think about it I am proud of the BW and his behaviour for the majority of the time and things that I view as a problem don't even register with other folk . Logically I know that he is 'good' enough or I wouldn't be irresponsible enough to take on another pup. Paranoia - what a bugger!!


----------



## Beth17

Ahh paranoia that wonderful little voice in the back of your head that says 'what if...'

I know that feeling well


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Never a truer word spoken - just watching the UTV news now . I have the sort of nature that always finds something that needs working on. When I sit back and think about it I am proud of the BW and his behaviour for the majority of the time and things that I view as a problem don't even register with other folk . Logically I know that he is 'good' enough or I wouldn't be irresponsible enough to take on another pup. Paranoia - what a bugger!!


yeah that's what I'm watching too....and so N~I takes a step backwards again  so sad
Thats my nature too. Dont know if Ive said this on here before but yeah, I cant just have a dog, or a boyfriend, or a house or a car that's normal...theyve all got problems...my dad says I collect projects hehehe
My way round it is- I dumped the Fiance last year, I rent a house so i can move if there's a problem with it and the car is old but my dad and my son can both fix it if it breaks down....
that just leaves the dog....dang


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Ahh paranoia that wonderful little voice in the back of your head that says 'what if...'
> 
> I know that feeling well


Little voice? Mine shouts 
Id be better just getting a big stick and beating myself with it :


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like Kilo did well tonight  nice when you can see improvement. Shame about the sound of the lead on the floor but good that he recalled
> 
> I understand the second dog paranoia ... although i broached the subject with one of the trainers ( not my favourite one i hasten to add) and was told "* 2 dogs are more diffcult than one*." then she walked off..... no sh*t sherlock... cheers for the advice :lol: another of the resons i left teh wednesday class her endless helpfulness


That was it? What fantastic advice .

He always, always recalls in class (touch wood); doesn't like being held by the trainer whilst I walk away...he always acts like we've not seen each other for years and runs like a rocket :crazy:. It's trying to curb the enthusiastic greeting and just get him to sit that's the drama :crazy:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> That was it? What fantastic advice .
> 
> He always, always recalls in class (touch wood); doesn't like being held by the trainer whilst I walk away...he always acts like we've not seen each other for years and runs like a rocket :crazy:. It's trying to curb the enthusiastic greeting and just get him to sit that's the drama :crazy:.


I can picture Kilo thundering down the hall to you...all legs and ears 
If it's anything like my boy, it's getting stopped on the wooden floor when he reaches me that's the problem


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> That was it? What fantastic advice .
> 
> He always, always recalls in class (touch wood); doesn't like being held by the trainer whilst I walk away...he always acts like we've not seen each other for years and runs like a rocket :crazy:. It's trying to curb the enthusiastic greeting and just get him to sit that's the drama :crazy:.


I'd go for curbing the greeting over taking the chance to say hello to all the people there Tink did as a teenager :lol:

Yep that was it... never mind we won't be in the same room again if i get my way. I'll explain the full horrors sometime. Had something of an ethiical dilemma that in the end i couldn't ignore , even if the trainer of my class was excellent and great sometimes you can't ignore things on the periphery.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> I can picture Kilo thundering down the hall to you...all legs and ears
> If it's anything like my boy, it's getting stopped on the wooden floor when he reaches me that's the problem


It's getting started.....sprinting frantically and getting nowhere, then suddenly gaining purchase and thundering at top speed - and then.....going airborne in a magnificent head high leap to try and lick my face to death . At home, outside etc etc I can get a recall that ends in a sit; the whole recall thing is just too exciting at present at training as it builds up and up watching all the other dogs and handlers.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'd go for curbing the greeting over taking the chance to say hello to all the people there Tink did as a teenager :lol:
> 
> Yep that was it... never mind we won't be in the same room again if i get my way. I'll explain the full horrors sometime. Had something of an ethiical dilemma that in the end i couldn't ignore , even if the trainer of my class was excellent and great sometimes you can't ignore things on the periphery.


The full details have been intriguing me; thought you'd tell when ready .

I am lucky in that Kilo couldn't give a stuff about saying hello to folk he doesn't know very well (touch wood again)!!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> It's getting started.....sprinting frantically and getting nowhere, then suddenly gaining purchase and thundering at top speed - and then.....going airborne in a magnificent head high leap to try and lick my face to death . At home, outside etc etc I can get a recall that ends in a sit; the whole recall thing is just too exciting at present at training as it builds up and up watching all the other dogs and handlers.


Hehehe dear love him 
It;s like Goofy On Ice when they do that isnt it


----------



## Shrap

Dogless said:


> It's getting started.....sprinting frantically and getting nowhere, then suddenly gaining purchase and thundering at top speed - and then.....going airborne in a magnificent head high leap to try and lick my face to death . At home, outside etc etc I can get a recall that ends in a sit; the whole recall thing is just too exciting at present at training as it builds up and up watching all the other dogs and handlers.


:lol:

Luckily the indoor training class I sometimes go to has non slip flooring. But normally only do recalls on grass.

Did some obedience work today and I swear Dino looked like a pro 
He's SO enthusiastic about working  
Did down wait recalls from right across the field, a spur of the moment stop recall during a retrieve, perfect present after retrieve, and he's now swinging his bum into heel from front instead of walking and turning 
Moving in heel is still a work in progress, he still finds it difficult to do normal/slow pace but only because he won't prance lol! Working on the prance now 

I want to get some videos/pics tomorrow.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> It's getting started.....sprinting frantically and getting nowhere, then suddenly gaining purchase and thundering at top speed - and then.....going airborne in a magnificent head high leap to try and lick my face to death . At home, outside etc etc I can get a recall that ends in a sit; the whole recall thing is just too exciting at present at training as it builds up and up watching all the other dogs and handlers.


Other people at class used to find Ruperts recall hilarious. He'd do a lovely wait while I walked to the other end of the hall. Then I'd call him. He'd run on the spot for a few seconds, then gain purchase and hurtle towards me while I desperately yelled for him to sit. Half the time it ended with me on my back and him on top of me  The rest of the time he'd sit while still on the run and come skidding to a halt on my feet.

Think I've just got my own back on the people living upstairs. They bang around stupidly early every morning and wake me up. Well about 10 minutes ago I decided to have a training session with Spencer on shutting cupboard doors. It was erm...rather noisy. Spen is very enthusiastic once he understands what's being asked of him and cupboard doors bang very loudly


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Other people at class used to find Ruperts recall hilarious. He'd do a lovely wait while I walked to the other end of the hall. Then I'd call him. He'd run on the spot for a few seconds, then gain purchase and hurtle towards me while I desperately yelled for him to sit. Half the time it ended with me on my back and him on top of me  The rest of the time he'd sit while still on the run and come skidding to a halt on my feet.
> 
> Think I've just got my own back on the people living upstairs. They bang around stupidly early every morning and wake me up. Well about 10 minutes ago I decided to have a training session with Spencer on shutting cupboard doors. It was erm...rather noisy. Spen is very enthusiastic once he understands what's being asked of him and cupboard doors bang very loudly


Yep...they laugh at me too .

Well done on the revenge front :devil:. Naughty, but satisfying!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Yep...they laugh at me too .
> 
> Well done on the revenge front :devil:. Naughty, but satisfying!!


It wasn't intentional believe it or not lol. He's never been that noisy with it before but I think it's really clicked what he's supposed to do now so of course he got all enthusiastic and forceful about it lol.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I agree with mv there - face to face greetings are fraught and I think that's a very good plan for calming a dog that is an overexcited greeter. It seems obvious when it is suggested but I wouldn't have thought to do that!
> 
> I took Hugo to the yard this evening. He seemed tiny bit agitated generally but ok and very collie-esq every time I gave him any instruction, did a tiny bit of heelwork stuff and he got VERY focussed in. BUT he has a massive mad attack when we got home, carrying his bone, leaping around and doing really high-pitched howly growls, he kept throwing himself at me while I sat down on the sofa and hit me really hard on the back of the hand with his chew bone. :crazy::crazy: No idea what that was about. I asked him to get on his bed and he threw himself on it then snuck off when I wasn't looking and has been fine since. ut: Not really looking for answers just making a note so that if it happens again one of you might say- "didn't he do that before?" Just before OH had put his cold hands on my back and I screached!  :lol: I wonder if I freaked him out a bit...


I think it's a collie 'thing'. Some of mine (particularly Tremor) do the same when we get home from shows, etc.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Never a truer word spoken - just watching the UTV news now . I have the sort of nature that always finds something that needs working on. When I sit back and think about it I am proud of the BW and his behaviour for the majority of the time and things that I view as a problem don't even register with other folk . Logically I know that he is 'good' enough or I wouldn't be irresponsible enough to take on another pup. Paranoia - what a bugger!!


I have absolutely no doubt you (and Kilo) will be absolutely fine with the new addition....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I have absolutely no doubt you (and Kilo) will be absolutely fine with the new addition....


Thank you Twiggy; very nice to hear from someone like you . I don't really have doubts or wouldn't be getting Rudi and the breeder can't have doubts or they wouldn't allow me a pup....I am just the master of over thinking to the point of ridiculousness .


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> I think it's a collie 'thing'. Some of mine (particularly Tremor) do the same when we get home from shows, etc.


Thanks Twiggy - if it's normal for collies then I won't worry about it.  He was over-excited from the moment I put his coat on to go to the yard and then it all just spilled over when we got back! :lol: He's definitely his father's son - not much springer on show at all!

I think his exercise needs have just suddenly shot up as well to be honest which means I'm going to have to get my act together a bit more! #should'vegotadachshund


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## Guest

Werehorse said:


> Thanks Twiggy - if it's normal for collies then I won't worry about it.  He was over-excited from the moment I put his coat on to go to the yard and then it all just spilled over when we got back! :lol: He's definitely his father's son - not much springer on show at all!
> 
> *I think his exercise needs have just suddenly shot up as well to be honest which means I'm going to have to get my act together a bit more! #should'vegotadachshund *


Hahaah I think everyones had a thought like that! What with 'Kevin' staying for a couple months sometimes I'm like "Shoulda got something smaller".  
I met not one, not twp, but THREE aggressive whippets this morning. 
And of course Zander went into a bouncies to say hello. He does know dog body language honest! No Tantrums though. Starting to think it may be the gentle leader not causing but aggravating the tantrums as lunging upwards = face being twisted. But I don't want to go down the dogmatic route again because when I tried to return it they wouldn't let me cause the packaging was broken. Dang it. I mean he walks lovely on his harness/slip lead but I don't have as much control over him as the the headcollar. 
And he's having a whingy day today. :glare:


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## Zoojie

Hey everyone!

I've been lurking again, don't like typing on my iPhone but have been keeping up to date with you all 

An update from us:

Amber - has had a lot of compliments recently  She does a proper retrieve (as in, waits, goes around it, picks it up, comes back, sits, holds, gives on command, with a proper finish) which I've been told if I can teach a Beagle a retrieve, I can teach anything :blink: so I'm mega impressed with her! She's passed her Bronze good citizen and is doing so well at agility too, as well as doing the competition obedience class and managing to at least keep up with the rest, if not perfect - sit/down stays are a challenge for hypo Beagle!

Loki - Has made leaps and bounds improvement wise over the past month or two. The last two weeks for various reasons Amber hasn't been to obedience class, so took Loki into the competition class after we had our 1-1. The other dogs were calm, which helped loads, but I knew he was more than capable of doing everything that was asked of him, it was just his fear of dogs holding him back. Well he did me proud both weeks and we actually managed to be in the training class on Monday (1-1 trainer had to run it as another trainer was sick) though at a bit of distance. We're putting him on some calming stuff and really pushing him over the next month now his confidence is up, we need to get rid of the barking which has become 'habit' more than anything. Then we can work on him more back at home where he's far more defensive.

On the plus side at home, we've met a lovely lady with two older labs (11 and 12) who trundle about soft as butter. Me and Loki and Amber have been on walks with them and she's helping me with training Loki and just getting him used to other dogs closer to home as hers don't seem to threaten him at all - I have never seen him so comfortable with another dog (that isn't amber!)

So that's me for now  Hopefully next time I'll get round to updating rolleyes Loki will be on the stuff and we can make some large steps in getting him back into doggy society 

Obligatory photo of my dogs being knackered out because they do so much!


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## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Hahaah I think everyones had a thought like that! What with 'Kevin' staying for a couple months sometimes I'm like "Shoulda got something smaller".
> I met not one, not twp, but THREE aggressive whippets this morning.
> And of course Zander went into a bouncies to say hello. He does know dog body language honest! No Tantrums though. Starting to think it may be the gentle leader *not causing but aggravating the tantrums *as lunging upwards = face being twisted. But I don't want to go down the dogmatic route again because when I tried to return it they wouldn't let me cause the packaging was broken. Dang it. I mean he walks lovely on his harness/slip lead but I don't have as much control over him as the the headcollar.
> And he's having a whingy day today. :glare:


We gave up on it for the same reason, Ginge could grab the loop underneath/lead trigger in her teeth and would rag at it which meant she was shaking her own head :nono: (plus I lost all control it gave me) definitely was aggravating things! She walked much nicer on it but seriously at her size its not a big issue when she pulls (most of the time) once we had a collar we were happy she couldn't escape from we started not connecting the lead to the head collar then I just forgot it one day and there was no obvious difference, but we were using for the calming effect it appeared to have in the beginning, this was far outweighed by the aggravating effect of ragging her own head.

Zoojie thats a lovely picture, all snuggled together - don't know Loki's history but will be interested to know what you are trying and if it works.


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## GingerRogers

Just heard back from the behaviorist we are seeing her on Tues 13th November. Really pleased and looking forward to it, just hope they can help, but that seems ages away  I should have bitten the bullet earlier.

Pleased to say OH has actually listened to me explaining what you have all said about her stress levels and keeping her calm etc and has been helping out by playing little games with her at home to keep up the exercise (although he does keep filling up her kibble bottle as he finds it funny watching her work it out : so need to adjust other rations) he also suggested I go to work with him tomorrow, not where she used to live but the other farm, so I can give her a good walk in peace while they load up the lambs.


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## moonviolet

Zoojie Sounds liek both Amber and Loki are doing great   well done, but shhh  we must keep up the myth beagles are impossible to train :lol: :lol:
How cute is that pic 

GR glad you have a date through and i hope you will find it helpful. Sounds like OH is being helpful gold star 

LO how many tantrum free days now? feels like you are one a roll ( sorry if my pea sized brain is letting me down)

Not a huge amount to report here. I did a pavement walk in addition to an hour on the ranges this morning and her ladyship was exemplary, gave her brain a bit of a challenge by taking a route that meant she had to be on my close/right side rather than the default heel/left. 

This evening we had a very nice greeting with a GSD both exchanged a couple calming signals brief sniff then move on. So chuffed to see giving her tail a low slow swing I could have cried ( soft git) :lol: :lol:

Hope everyone's had a good one.


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## Dogless

mv - how lovely that Miss Tink's tail wagged at the GSD meet; don't blame you for wanting to cry - what a milestone .


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## Sarah1983

Hmmm...I think we need to work on Spencer letting go of the ball before taking off ready for the next throw. Hubby throws it so bloody far he needs a head start if he's ever to find it but now he's shoving the ball into my hand and forgetting he needs to actually let go so ends up racing off with the ball still in his mouth and having to return to try again :lol:

Other than that not much to report here. Having a bad day with my seizures so Spen hasn't had much of a walk. My last major seizure was 2 years ago on Halloween so I'm well overdue a big one as they usually come roughly every 18 months when I'm not on meds. I usually get like this not long before one so hopefully it'll happen soon and then it'll be over and done with. Might sound daft but I've smacked myself in the face, scratched all down my side, thrown food and drink all over several times and broken 3 cups and a plate already thanks to random arm jerks  

GR, good luck with the behaviourist. Not long to wait and hopefully they'll be able to help you out with Ginge 

MV, that's great about Tink and the GSD. She's come so far hasn't she?

LO, Spen goes into bouncy "oh hi, you're my new bestest friend!" mode even if another dog is making every attempt to bite him  He understands being told to knock it off by another dog and will back off then but a dog that's aggressive or reactive he's clueless about. I wonder whether it's just that he doesn't know how to react to them so goes OTT with his "I'm friendly" behaviour?


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## Dogless

Sarah; sorry to hear you have a seizure on the way . If it's going to happen then as you say hopefully it will be over and done with soon. I take it you're not going through the woods etc in case it happens there? Take as good care of yourself as you can xxx.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah it seems wrong wishing you have to have a seizure soon, but I do in the nicest possible way.

Sounds like Spen's ball skills need little work, Tink says it's not worth the bother :lol:


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah; sorry to hear you have a seizure on the way . If it's going to happen then as you say hopefully it will be over and done with soon. I take it you're not going through the woods etc in case it happens there? Take as good care of yourself as you can xxx.


Yeah, gonna have to stay pretty close to home and in populated areas either until I feel better or it happens. God knows what I'd do if I had one out on a proper walk. Not only would I struggle to get home but I have no idea how Spencer will react to me having one yet. He may attack me, he may run off, he may do what Rupert did and refuse to let anyone near me. It's a big worry at the moment  If he does attack we've got a real problem. But that's worst case scenario really.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Yeah, gonna have to stay pretty close to home and in populated areas either until I feel better or it happens. God knows what I'd do if I had one out on a proper walk. Not only would I struggle to get home but *I have no idea how Spencer will react to me having one yet*. He may attack me, he may run off, he may do what Rupert did and refuse to let anyone near me. It's a big worry at the moment  If he does attack we've got a real problem. But that's worst case scenario really.


That was one of the things I was wondering about. Such a worry xx.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> That was one of the things I was wondering about. Such a worry xx.


It is, it's not like I can even think of anything to do training wise that might help. I could teach him that me falling to the floor and making strange noises etc means he goes to his crate but I can't guarantee that will work. Or that it won't get him hurt if I'm between him and his crate when I have one. Or even that we'll be in the flat rather than out front or in the cellar!

Poor Rupert was terrified of my seizures but once one started he apparently came and lay with me and refused to move until I woke up. Shadow barked at me, probably telling me to stop being an idiot and get up lol.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It is, it's not like I can even think of anything to do training wise that might help. I could teach him that me falling to the floor and making strange noises etc means he goes to his crate but I can't guarantee that will work. Or that it won't get him hurt if I'm between him and his crate when I have one. Or even that we'll be in the flat rather than out front or in the cellar!
> 
> Poor Rupert was terrified of my seizures but once one started he apparently came and lay with me and refused to move until I woke up. Shadow barked at me, probably telling me to stop being an idiot and get up lol.


Spen will probably think it's a new game :crazy:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Spen will probably think it's a new game :crazy:.


Lol, that wouldn't be so bad I guess. At least I wouldn't notice him bouncing up and down on me. Well, not until later anyway :crazy:


----------



## Thorne

I love reading about what everyone's up to with their dogs! So nice to hear about the progress 

Sarah1983 - Sorry to hear you're expecting a seizure - hope it happens in a safe place and that both you and Spencer cope with it as best you can.

Dogless - I'm sure Kilo will be fine with little Rudi when he arrives! Two dogs are more difficult than one, but not by much going by S+B. With her I think she'd have been very difficult as an only dog but she and Scooter have given each other confidence in areas they were both lacking in before. The problem is when they learn each other's bad habits...

Not an awful lot to report here but *touch wood* Breeze seems to be reacting less to loud noises than she did. She'll still have a bit of a run when she hears a bang nearby but seems to calm down quicker instead of spending the rest of the walk panting and trying to scuttle home. Now that Scooter's going offlead she's distracted by chasing him and tires herself out quicker!
She had a paddle yesterday, a redirected ford near us had burst its banks onto a farm road we were on and flooded it. Didn't expect her to go in willingly but she did and had a splash about  Scooter was less impressed.

Scooter seems to have learnt a lesson from hurting himself while racing around last week - he's taking them a bit slower now he's offlead again. No apparent stiffness in that leg which I'm pleasantly surprised about, I'm sure he'll be running around like a nutter again soon. His recall and wait are still good so far!

Working at a boarding kennels makes me appreciate how good mine are onlead - walked some real pullers today and a Bull Lurcher who did a huge vertical leap when we got to the field! The range of characters and behaviours is extraordinary.


----------



## Guest

Thorne I understand that bit about the kennels, I used to feel the same when I worked at one! Makes you appreciate your own dogs. And the vertical leaping lurcher?  Great dogs! (Not that I at ALL biased ahah ) We used to have lurchers at my place of work that would try and sprint the VERY second you got out the gate, ouchies for your shoulders! 

Um to Werehorse/Moonviolet which one of you asked about tantrum free days? (See I have a naff memory too, I had to go into my local shop THREE times to go get milk and still didn't buy any!)

It has been FIVVVVVEEEE!! :thumbsup:

And I let Zander off in the field today (I've gone and put his longline in a safe place and now I can't find it :cryin and he ACTUALLY ran!
Sounds weird but if me AND mum take him, he runs. Me on my own, nope I'm just gonna stand here or walk to perfect off-lead heel which will never be seen again, mum. But he RAN today, proper zoomies while I stood and watched! Then a lady came in the other end of the field with offlead labs and Zande came back when I called, he looked at them halfway across and decided to come back! Then I put him on lead and made him do a down (he may have jsut done this as an appeasement I'm no threat gesture though) and Yelled at the woman if I could let him off, she gave me a thumbs up, I then unleashed the furry torpedo and he had lovely time running huge circles around the labs. 

Pretty chuffed with him today.

Except for the whinging.

And I hope you're alright Sarah!! Hope it comes and goes quickly so it's done and over with!


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## Dogless

Well done Donkey Boy!!! Massive thumbs up .


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## Dogless

Not much to report today - nice walk this morning, nice walk this afternoon . The weimie is funny...she'll chase Kilo but as soon as he puts on some speed and she can't keep up she gives up and goes back to her owner . Thing is, Kilo would slow down again if she persisted as he matches his speed to that of the dog chasing .

Coat not here yet though; hopefully tomorrow!


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> Thorne I understand that bit about the kennels, I used to feel the same when I worked at one! Makes you appreciate your own dogs. And the vertical leaping lurcher?  Great dogs! (Not that I at ALL biased ahah ) We used to have lurchers at my place of work that would try and sprint the VERY second you got out the gate, ouchies for your shoulders!


Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for us staff who've learnt his mental ways) he's been here for a while under the care of a rescue organisation. He's normally pretty good about not trying to bolt off in the hopes of finding a small furry to mangle but jumps and bucks like a naughty pony at the start of a walk! Sweet dog but needs a really Lurcher-friendly new home because he's a bit of a nutter

He's due to go to a foster home next week 

(Not mentioning names about this rescue but after seeing the folks at Blue Cross in action the phrase "could do better" springs to mind!).


----------



## Guest

I'VE GOT A LURCHER FRIENDLY HOME!!! 

Is he nutty cos he's in kennels? Or is it his age? 

Sadly I left my kennels due to looking at and doing work experince at others and finding them MUCH better. When trying to suggest things to my boss, all I'd get is "I'm not paying for it."


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> This evening we had a very nice greeting with a GSD both exchanged a couple calming signals brief sniff then move on. So chuffed to see giving her tail a low slow swing I could have cried ( soft git) :lol: :lol:
> 
> Hope everyone's had a good one.


How lovely! I cant wait for that to happen with Charlie and I can see how you would get emotional over it


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## GingerRogers

Gosh hope thing are ok Sarah and the seizure comes and goes quickly and Spen understands and protects you.
Well done breeze and zand


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## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Hmmm...I think we need to work on Spencer letting go of the ball before taking off ready for the next throw. Hubby throws it so bloody far he needs a head start if he's ever to find it but now he's shoving the ball into my hand and forgetting he needs to actually let go so ends up racing off with the ball still in his mouth and having to return to try again :lol:
> 
> Other than that not much to report here. Having a bad day with my seizures so Spen hasn't had much of a walk. My last major seizure was 2 years ago on Halloween so I'm well overdue a big one as they usually come roughly every 18 months when I'm not on meds. I usually get like this not long before one so hopefully it'll happen soon and then it'll be over and done with. Might sound daft but I've smacked myself in the face, scratched all down my side, thrown food and drink all over several times and broken 3 cups and a plate already thanks to random arm jerks
> 
> GR, good luck with the behaviourist. Not long to wait and hopefully they'll be able to help you out with Ginge
> 
> MV, that's great about Tink and the GSD. She's come so far hasn't she?
> 
> LO, Spen goes into bouncy "oh hi, you're my new bestest friend!" mode even if another dog is making every attempt to bite him  He understands being told to knock it off by another dog and will back off then but a dog that's aggressive or reactive he's clueless about. I wonder whether it's just that he doesn't know how to react to them so goes OTT with his "I'm friendly" behaviour?


Sarah it must be quite frightening for you- have you someone that can walk with you? I hope when it does happen that it passes quickly xx


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> It is, it's not like I can even think of anything to do training wise that might help. I could teach him that me falling to the floor and making strange noises etc means he goes to his crate but I can't guarantee that will work. Or that it won't get him hurt if I'm between him and his crate when I have one. Or even that we'll be in the flat rather than out front or in the cellar!
> 
> Poor Rupert was terrified of my seizures but once one started he apparently came and lay with me and refused to move until I woke up. Shadow barked at me, probably telling me to stop being an idiot and get up lol.


Oh Sarah that must be a horrible experience.


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> I'VE GOT A LURCHER FRIENDLY HOME!!!
> 
> Is he nutty cos he's in kennels? Or is it his age?
> 
> Sadly I left my kennels due to looking at and doing work experince at others and finding them MUCH better. When trying to suggest things to my boss, all I'd get is "I'm not paying for it."


It's a bit of both! He was in a foster home where he was calmer but still a mad 1yr old Bull Lurcher. The kennels is separate to the rescue and primarily boarding but also acts as a halfway home for dogs waiting for foster or forever homes - without wanting to sound biased it's one of the better kennels around but what this dog needs is 1 to 1 training instead of being exercised by several different people. He's pretty relaxed in his kennel but it's not ideal and the semi-feral cats on the surrounding land wind him up no end.

I've not seen any volunteers for the rescue come in to walk him or work with him, currently the only training he's getting is a bit of lead work from us - the rescue is very, very hands off from what I've seen


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done Donkey Boy!!! Massive thumbs up .


Yes and massive, massive thumbs up from me as well.:thumbup:


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> It is, it's not like I can even think of anything to do training wise that might help. I could teach him that me falling to the floor and making strange noises etc means he goes to his crate but I can't guarantee that will work. Or that it won't get him hurt if I'm between him and his crate when I have one. Or even that we'll be in the flat rather than out front or in the cellar!
> 
> Poor Rupert was terrified of my seizures but once one started he apparently came and lay with me and refused to move until I woke up. Shadow barked at me, probably telling me to stop being an idiot and get up lol.


I dont know anything about these things but what about training him to lie down close to you when you 'practise' dropping down onto the floor?
The other thing that would worry me would be if you let go of the lead during a seizure....have you considered clipping one of those...what are they called... carbiners (?) through the lead and onto a belt or your trouser belt loop? you would still be able to hold the lead further down while your ok but he wouldnt be able to run off if you became unwell near a road etc? Sorry, just an idea


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> How lovely! I cant wait for that to happen with Charlie and I can see how you would get emotional over it


This was particulatly emotional because Tink was lucky to survive an attack by a GSD in 2010. We have worked for over 2 years doe that tail wag  Sure beats her tucking her tail to her belly and peeing on it.


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> This was particulatly emotional because Tink was lucky to survive an attack by a GSD in 2010. We have worked for over 2 years doe that tail wag  Sure beats her tucking her tail to her belly and peeing on it.


awk the wee pet...the worlds just too scary sometimes when you're small isnt it ( I know these things, I'm 5'2 lol)...She's doing so well


----------



## chazzie10

Quiet day here today. I took some of the advice to others onboard and didnt walk Charlie yesterday to give him a day to calm down and had some lovely play sessions instead. Our walk tonight was fantastic and his lead was hanging so loose he tripped on it a couple of times! Lots of focusing on me too.
Took him across to a grassy bit beside the beach and no one around so let him off lead.... straight down to the waters edge and did 5 minutes of zoomies, in the dark, the only thing I could see was the occasional flash of whites of eyes and a big pink tongue. Mad as a hatter


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> I dont know anything about these things but what about training him to lie down close to you when you 'practise' dropping down onto the floor?
> The other thing that would worry me would be if you let go of the lead during a seizure....have you considered clipping one of those...what are they called... carbiners (?) through the lead and onto a belt or your trouser belt loop? you would still be able to hold the lead further down while your ok but he wouldnt be able to run off if you became unwell near a road etc? Sorry, just an idea


The problem with that is my seizures are violent and you come near me at your own risk  If I taught him to lie down during one I'd have to teach him to move away and lie down to avoid him being bitten, hit, kicked or otherwise hurt. That's if training would even hold up to the real thing, I have no idea what I do during one. Howl like a wolf and thrash around like a fish out of water is the best description I've had 

I have thought about attaching him in some way to me, just need to find a way that's not likely to endanger either of us. And of course then there's the risk that if he does try to run in fear and can't he'll turn to aggression to try to get away. Until I know how he's going to react I think I may be damned if I do and damned if I don't :nonod:

Thankfully right outside our flat it's reasonably safe to let him off so I can stick to playing fetch with him out there if need be. It's not the same as a walk but it'll do.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Sarah I hope Spen takes it in his stride and that you are with OH when it happens. Wish we were closer so we could come and annoy you


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah, sorry to hear a seizure is on the way, must be a worry, really hope it passes as smoothly as is possible. Take care.
Loved the bit about Spencer and his ball.

Moonviolet-What a brave girl Miss Tink is- she's certainly come a long way.

Ginge- great news on a behaviourist- we'll all be waiting to hear how it works out.

Dogless- you must be gettingexcited about Rudi now.

Not much from us, I'm busy buying pots of paint for the kitchen, doing test patches and not liking the colours, but think I've decided what I want now so going to get it this morning and hope its ok.
Even OH is moaning about Evie sleeping the evenings away- I wanted to poke her awake last night.:blink: Scruff has gone to work with him today, she loves going and being singled out for a special trip
As for Moll I swear that dog is Telepathic sometimes , she somehow always manages to be at the front door waiting to go to the washing machine before I've even picked up the wash basket.:crazy:

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - love the idea of Scruff being selected for a day at work; can picture the proud trot out of the door!

It's an absolutely beautiful morning here; freezing cold but really clear and sunny. Just been to the park and there were so many dogs out it was unreal and....Kilo behaved impeccably; so proud of him. He needed distracting past a few dogs, but still, I was really pleased with him .

The very best bit......we stood and watched two otters playing in the river for ages. Gorgeous. I have only ever seen one otter there.

The bad bit which was good in a way....a terrier was racing around the field playing (fine if you ignore the fact dogs are meant to be onlead) and then spotted Kilo and raced over barking, growling and snapping - total handbags. I did a blocking dance whilst Kilo crouched and skittered about looking scared with his tail tucked. I successfully blocked the little bugger and finally saw it off with my boot. His owners ambled along and I embraced my inner hag (mv you would have been proud) and said to the man "You should have it on a lead if it's going to race up to dogs and do that; it's not exactly friendly behaviour". The man just said "He doesn't normally do that" and walked off. From the whole family's total non-reaction to any of it I am guessing that he does normally do that . But - no reaction from the BW and I managed to block him successfully so all good . It put me in a bit of a bad mood but I came across the otters about 2 minutes later and my fab mood was restored .

I am really hoping Kilo's coat comes today - it was ordered in September and posted on Tuesday so......everything crossed!


----------



## GingerRogers

Ooh otters, lovely my favourites, only seen one in the wild before we were on the River Stour in our canoe early one morning and a big dog otter swam past us, OH nearly jumped out the canoe in excitement, how he kept quiet I don't know, the beast suddenly spotted us, think he thought he had the place to himself, and gave me a very grumpy stare  was one of the best things ever.

Well done Kilo and well done 'hagless'  Terriers pah they shouldn't be allowed 

Well after a couple of really quiet calming days we had a bad walk last night, the landlady of the hotel round the corner (her of the voice and the sausages that dogs love but humans......meh  was walking her GSD, I swear she was stalking me, I kept ducking down alleys and streets in the estate to avoid her, even calling out to her and explained so she didn't think I was being rude, but she was there at every corner (it would not surprise me if she thought it was funny she is that kind of person ) eventually got to a point where I couldn't avoid her as there was a black lab behind us.

So this morning I was going to work with hubby but plans changed and he couldn't take me, I had already set my heart on a good quiet walk, but couldn't drive anywhere as hubby had the car, so I got up early and set off across the fields, an hour and a half later we had seen one man on his bike who said thank you when I held Ginge in close, nice polite early people .

I obviously didn't set out early enough as the dog at the end of the lane was already up and in his garden on patrol duty  I tensed up, you can't avoid it on this route unfortunately, I did scan the neighbours back garden but decided it would be rude to take the shortcut, I don't thinks its aggressive, poor thing it just gets shoved out there with its wet teddies and left to its own devices, I should have avoided it but would probably met more scariness the other other way, anyhoo, the inevitable happened and the ninja kicked off I try and move her on and distract her with a handful of chicken, she dodges round me and my two feet end up in her side, I trip, drop the lead 

and she stops and looks at me as if to say 'what ya doin mummy' I pick up myself and the lead and carry on  the poor dogs still barking its head off in the garden, but Ginge is good as gold. So either the calming routine is working or a boot in the side actually helps  (disclaimer - I will not be trying that method again and no dogs were hurt in the making of that film).

So I am fuming now as it feels like all the work has been undone when literally just round the corner my heart sinks, there's Scottish Annie and her little foster boy (human not dog) with their spaniel, Millie.

Now Annie is lovely as is Millie but last time they met Ginge did have a bark, Annie was of the opinion that its because Millie's eyes are failing and she gives off nervous vibes as other dogs, who previously have got on with her (you couldn't not) have had similar reactions. However they met beautifully and some of my fears that perhaps Ginge's early removal from her mother had left her unable to do 'dog language', something I suspected but was also suggested in 'Scaredy Dog', were allayed (still think she has issues but Millie is so well behaved its easy to learn from her). Then Annie asked if little Ralphie would like to give Ginge and Millie a biscuit, she checked with me as well but then I thought Oh No what if she snaps it from him, snapping treats is one of the clear signals I have that she is stressed, but before I had formulated my thoughts (I was still reeling from the trip and the dog and the fume etc a minute before :crazy he had given it and she took it like an angel 

So what I am trying to say in my normal long winded and rambling fashion is :thumbup:*THANKS GUYS* :thumbup:, all your support and suggestions seem to be helping, we are getting her stress under more control and I am feeling more in control. Am now going to buy a small car crate, again, something I had thought of but was also suggested in the book, OH seems to accept these things if other people suggest them. Was looking at the canvasy tent type, if she likes it and doesn't try and eat her way out I will get one for home as they look so much nicer than the cages.


----------



## Dogless

GR - compared to the bad walks you were having when you first started posting on the thread, those walks were fantastic; it's really nice to see Ginge coming along .

I had a Croft fabric crate for Kilo when we went to stay at other peoples' houses when he was a pup; very good quality - although he wasn't a chewer so not sure how it would hold up to some determined jaws!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- well done on releasing your inner Hag.:thumbup1: Kilo is getting very good , not reacting to these naughty dogs.
Thats a long time to wait for a coat.
And Otters-lucky you.

Ginge- Good to hear you sound more positive. We have to walk past lots of barky dogs as well, as long as I've got my treats ready the girls are good.
I used a heavy plastic type of crate for Moll, I think they're airline sort, very sturdy. It was quite expensive and is now used for a chuck nesting box as its much easier to clean than wood


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- well done on releasing your inner Hag.:thumbup1: Kilo is getting very good , not reacting to these naughty dogs.
> Thats a long time to wait for a coat.
> And Otters-lucky you.
> 
> Ginge- Good to hear you sound more positive. We have to walk past lots of barky dogs as well, as long as I've got my treats ready the girls are good.
> I used a heavy plastic type of crate for Moll, I think they're airline sort, very sturdy. It was quite expensive and is now used for a chuck nesting box as its much easier to clean than wood


It is a long time and didn't come today . The coat website says that they are usually made and dispatched within 10 - 14 days but can be up to 3 weeks. So far it's been about 6 weeks - I have had an email of apology for the delays and I suppose you never know what might be happening in someone's personal life do you? We all have tough times. That said, we had another walk at 1c and Kilo shivered a bit until it warmed up - I hadn't taken his Equafleece as it's a bit dirty at present and needs a wash.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - compared to the bad walks you were having when you first started posting on the thread, those walks were fantastic; it's really nice to see Ginge coming along .
> 
> I had a Croft fabric crate for Kilo when we went to stay at other peoples' houses when he was a pup; very good quality - although he wasn't a chewer so not sure how it would hold up to some determined jaws!


That was was I was wondering, I have seen some for £20, not going to be the best quality I know but not really for long term use in the car we don't go far, or leave her for long, she really only chews when she is bored (naturally) and now I have that sussed I leave her with something if I am going to be long and I don't think she has done any damage since 

If she likes it then I would look at spending some more money on the home one (which would also be much more transportable as she came with a Kilo sized cage  and I am not carting that about)


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> It is a long time and didn't come today . The coat website says that they are usually made and dispatched within 10 - 14 days but can be up to 3 weeks. So far it's been about 6 weeks - I have had an email of apology for the delays and I suppose you never know what might be happening in someone's personal life do you? We all have tough times. That said, we had another walk at 1c and Kilo shivered a bit until it warmed up - I hadn't taken his Equafleece as it's a bit dirty at present and needs a wash.


That is a long time, I hope it comes soon. Whoever is making them could be having problems but 6 weeks...
I've really got to get something sorted for Evie. Big Evie had started doing them but we never got measured and now I'm not going training it wont happen. She copes with the cold[although does feel it] but its the rain , she constantly stops and keeps shaking her head.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Sarah, sorry to hear a seizure is on the
> Dogless- you must be gettingexcited about Rudi now.
> 
> Not much from us, I'm busy buying pots of paint for the kitchen, doing test patches and not liking the colours, but think I've decided what I want now so going to get it this morning and hope its ok.
> 
> Snap....!! I've bought the paint now me and hubby are trying to motivate ourselves to apply it to the walls.....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Just got back from the canine sports massage course which was very interesting but I'm very glad I didn't take Quiver, as we had to leave the dogs in the cars for a good 1.1/2 hours and she would have been cold.

The idea was for the dogs to be in a calm and restful state before you commenced massaging them....!! Leafy was shaking with excitement because she thought she was going to do things like retrieve and 3 other collies near me were looking for the first jump....LOL

I understand the concept but like most things it would take a lot of practice to be able to feel abnormalities in the muscles. I'm not sure either that I would have the confidence to work on areas where I know there is a problem.


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## moonviolet

Lovely walk this morning got a lift with OH to test out Tink on her car harness. She's always been in a crate and in my shed, sorry i mean car. So i was interrested at how she would react. Was delighted to find as soon as we were moving she led down. When we were a few miles away OH dumped us  but resourceful girls we are, we found our way home.  lots of zoomies to keep warm, I even managed a little giddy canter. 

Further on we bumped into and Tink with played a little chase with a terrier who walked along with us for a while, Tink wasn't freaked when he did some play growls  in the past this would have meant game over. but i didn't want it to overspill so made some pleasanties and took another route, only to bump into a friend and her collie cross so walked with them a while a few more zoomies then settled into walking together. The pavement walk was great again, although dull as dishwater for me and i become more aware of my scarecrow-ness. I think my inner hag is possibly coming out a little too comprehensively :lol

GR Glad you are seeing some improvement in ginge's stress levels and it sounds like you are beginning to feel more positive and in control. Lovely that she met Millie so nicely  shame about the poor barky dog down the road 
Hope you are ok after the trip, i think that might be a slightly extreme approach to distracting 
Tink had a fabric crate which she adored We took it everywhere with her as a pup/youngster really handy when visiting friends and family. 

Dogless woohooo good on you  let that inner hag see the light of day  Kilo sounds like he handled the busy park exceptionally well a credit to you how lovely to be rewarded with otters 
Hope the long awaited coat arrives soon.

K&M love the thought of Moll being telepathic.... i wonder what other thoughts she can read  
I dont' know why but i picture Evie in a wet suit and have been grinning ever since


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## Werehorse

Haha! We call our car The Shed too, moonviolet.

So jealous of the otters, Dogless! I've never seen one in the wild. However I did see TWO Ridgebacks today (another of those running events), one a 6 month old puppy. But you'll HAVE a 6 month old ridgeback pup soon enough 

We didn't take the boys today because they had to cancel the event car park due to waterlogging so we didn't know if we'd end up trying to walk along a narrow road with 1 and a half over-excited spaniels. :crazy: It was SO COLD though I was glad to have an excuse to head straight home after I'd finished "running". 9 miles and it was hard work - got a long way to go to get fit enough for 62 miles!!

Going to make it up to them with Big Walks tomorrow morning I think and we are having the Step-dogs for the afternoon to see how they all get on so they can come and stay with us for a few weekends over the next couple of months - we haven't had the Step-dogs to stay since we got Hugo so it should be interesting 

I should do some actual training with them this evening as well. I think I'll do some retrieve work with Hugo, not sure what to do with Oscar. Might try formal heelwork position work again - see if we manage to get somewhere with it this time!


----------



## Guest

Zand got into my neighbours garden earlier while I was at work and had MASSIVE zoomies, no evening walk needed haha. 

Luckily my neighbour really likes 'Towser' (His name for Zand, as he's always like why did you name HIM SANDRA? ) 
and didn't mind him having massive zoomies around him while he put the washing out (Zand was ignoring mums recall ), apparently when he had finished zoomies he just trotted back into the kitchen. 
So mums not all that pleased with him right now.


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## GingerRogers

Werehorse I think you might be mad - RUN!! 62 MILES!! not me

MV sounds like you and Tink had a lovely walk today.

LO - naughty 'Sandra' lol 

Twiggy - that sounds like it would take a lot of work, I am always amazed when I got to the osteopath how they can just look and see where the problem is, with your own dogs it might be different but you almost need a medical (veterinary??) degree to do that to others surely?

I drove into town today and discovered another very good reason for getting a car crate- I can't see out the windows when the sun shines for the mess of doggy snot :nono:

I saw the vet and her husband in town with there lovely rescue lurcher calmly trotting beside them, he asked where Ginge was and hadn't I brought her (then he laughed and said he had seen OH last night and knew she was seeing a 'whisperer' ) we parted company and I looked around (bear in mind we live in a seaside destination town and its half term) I actually felt my heart rate rise  when I saw how many dogs there were around me in the space of about 50m radius I recon Ginge would have had a heart attack, no wonder the poor wee thing is traumatised we subjected her to that for a little while


----------



## Werehorse

Hahahahahaha! Substitute "run" for "travel on feet" and it'll be a lot more accurate, Ginger.  I'm not one of life's whippets unfortunately.


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## kat&molly

Twiggy- you get help with the painting.

Moonviolet -good job my OH doesn't dump me a few miles from home- I'd be buggered.:lol:

Scruff enjoyed her trip out today and came home to a lovely greeting from Evie, they have such a lovely bond[ or partners in crime] considering they've only been together about 14 months and met as adults. OH stood there waiting for his fuss and was completely blanked.

Took the girls up the fields and gave Moll one of her chase the dummy sessions, really boring for me but she loves it. Bladdy neighbour and her dog found us again.

:laugh:at Sandra.


----------



## L/C

Lots going on!

Sarah I hope the seizure happens soon and that it isn't too horrible and for you and Spence come through it with no problems. I don't have any practical suggestions really - just lots of good thoughts.

Ginge - so glad that you and the ninja are having some progress. Let us know what the behaviourist says.

LO - 'Sandra' stories always make me smile!

Dogless - inner hag is a useful resource. 

MV - it's so lovely to hear of tink going from strength to strength. 

Werehorse - I am so impressed with all your exercise stories. I'm impressed with myself if I get out running once a week!

Twiggy - do you think you'll use he techniques you learned on the course? I've considered similar things to see if I could help with gypsy's leg.

K&M - you're going to have to start poking Evie? What will we do without naughty revue stories? 

We had another one to one session with the trainer today and I got to show off a bit.  H e was very impressed and said that Gypsy was a very bright dog so I needed to o be careful what I reinforce as she picks up things in a few clicks. We practiced send aways, toy play, settle and attempted a fun retrieve. However he was unable to get Gypsy to see the point of a retrieve so nice to know it's not just me!

He also filmed a lot of it so he can use it at a seminar he's giving in Germany next week. So we're going to be international film stars!

I'm very pleased with Ely as well as he hasn't reacted at all to the multitude of fireworks we've had over the last week. It's like he's left a lot if his baggage in Holloway. He's sleeping like a baby atm and here's loads of bangs. :001_wub:


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## Beth17

Well done Ely and L/C how exciting you're going to be famous :thumbup1:

Sarah I hope you're feeling back to normal soon 

Oh dear Zand 

k&m sounds like a good day for your lot 

Everyone else also sounds really positive!

Still having teenager issues here but had a good couple of walks today waited for it to drizzle and took the boys up to the field for a good run, and my plan worked only saw a couple of people so Sam had most of his run offlead. 
Really proud as well as I hadn't put his longline on and he'd run ahead with his frisbee when a retriever came through an opening, he saw it but instead of going up to greet he just sat down and watched and I then caught him up and put his lead on :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Lots going on!
> 
> *Twiggy - do you think you'll use he techniques you learned on the course? I've considered similar things to see if I could help with gypsy's leg.*
> 
> Yes most certainly but probably just a basic massage - level one if you like, which is more or less stroking them and some gentle stretching; neither of which can do any harm.
> 
> A friend of mine also attended and she's much more into it. She's going to lend me some books and she was trying to explain about closing my eyes and feeling with my fingertips through the fur, the skin and into the muscles.
> 
> Try as I might I really couldn't feel the scar tissue and thickening in Leafy's iffy shoulder.
> 
> I shan't be massaging any dogs tonight. Having sat on a cold hall floor for well over an hour attempting to massage Leafy, my back is as stiff as a board and I could do with a massage myself....LOL


----------



## Werehorse

Could you train the dogs to do paws up on your back and give it a good pummelling? Oscar does excited skipping from paw to paw with his front paws when I put his dinner down. I always thing if I could get him to do that on my lower back it'd be bliss. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Could you train the dogs to do paws up on your back and give it a good pummelling? Oscar does excited skipping from paw to paw with his front paws when I put his dinner down. I always thing if I could get him to do that on my lower back it'd be bliss. :lol:


Now there's a thought...LOL


----------



## Sarah1983

Well still no seizure. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe my brain's just being an ass and I'm not even going to have one. Either way I wish it'd sort itself out.

Spen made me smile this morning. We do our weekly shop on a Saturday and it seems Spen has learned our routine. Took him out for a pee as always before we go anywhere, came back in, started getting bags and crates of empty bottles together (get money back if we take them back) and once that was done I went to put Spen in his crate. He'd already put himself in there and was sitting quietly with his ball in his mouth just waiting for the door to be closed. He's also started putting himself in his crate whenever he sees me picking all his toys up, apparently I usually only do that when I'm going to hoover and I always crate him when I hoover.

He was naughty for hubby earlier, apparently wouldn't recall and just stood there staring at him. Chances are though that hubby just kept going "Spencer", "Spencer!", "SPENCER!" at him and never actually told him to do anything  But he never takes anything out to reward Spen with anyway so don't really blame him for not recalling when all it means is the end of all his fun. 

He's currently eating half a pigs head. Half way through him eating it hubby goes "it's got teeth in it!" Made me giggle.


----------



## Beth17

Spen you are a sweetheart


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## Werehorse

I really hope your impending seizure-ness sorts itself out one way or another soon, Sarah.  It must be so difficult waiting for it. I hope you and Spencer stay safe anyway.


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Spen you are a sweetheart


He is most of the time. Sh*t head is one of his nicknames for a reason though lol.

Thanks Werehorse, the waiting is the worst part to be honest.

Twiggy, hope you're feeling less stiff soon. I've not even managed to get the hang of T-Touch. Even Rupert walked away when I tried it on him


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## Guest

bah theres fireworks going off and with every damn one, Zander's hackles are up, he's growling and going and barking, hunched down stance infront of me. Warning off the scary things he is, in his mind.  
Trying to distract him with kongs and things, works for a bit but then stops, no idea how i'm gonna get him outside to pee without waking the neighbours! 

Sorry that your stilll feeling off Sarah, and I hope all of you are wekk.

I also don't know where my cats are. I've left the shed open for them and left them some food and a box with blankets in. I hope they're okay!


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## Werehorse

I know it's completely off-topic but this picture was taken out on the course today - I'm in it! 3rd away from the camera.  Love these races, just a shame you can't take dogs on the course with you (now this post is on topic  )


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## chazzie10

Werehorse- beautiful scenery! What a wonderful world and all that 
Wish I could get fit enough to do something like that...who knows maybe someday


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## Dogless

LO - hope your cats are safe; sounds like you had a rough night.

Werehorse - lovely photo; very much my kind of place.

Last night Kilo was staring into the garden when I let him out for his last pee with this huge rumbling growl which really freaked me out. Then he launched out into the dark and leapt at something growling so I got my torch and went out...turns out Mrs Tiggywinkle (a very big one) had come to visit!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I know it's completely off-topic but this picture was taken out on the course today - I'm in it! 3rd away from the camera.  Love these races, just a shame you can't take dogs on the course with you (now this post is on topic  )


Stunningly beautiful scenery but just the thought of running up them hills makes me tired....!!


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## Twiggy

Well I've just had a hideous and frustrating morning....

I mentioned to one of my friends/handlers that I need to get Holly off the premises and she invited me to join her, and the bloke she shares the hall with, this morning at a hall about an hour's drive away.

I duly set off in torrential rain with Holly and Tremor only to find the hall locked and no sign of either of them.

That was a round trip of 2.1/2 hours in awful conditions and just a waste of time.

I've just emailed the chap and he's not feeling very well with a stomach bug and he said my friend should have rung me yesterday to tell me....?? Great.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Well I've just had a hideous and frustrating morning....
> 
> I mentioned to one of my friends/handlers that I need to get Holly off the premises and she invited me to join her, and the bloke she shares the hall with, this morning at a hall about an hour's drive away.
> 
> I duly set off in torrential rain with Holly and Tremor only to find the hall locked and no sign of either of them.
> 
> That was a round trip of 2.1/2 hours in awful conditions and just a waste of time.
> 
> I've just emailed the chap and he's not feeling very well with a stomach bug and he said my friend should have rung me yesterday to tell me....?? Great.


 how inconsiderate!!! I would be furious! Poor you x


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Well I've just had a hideous and frustrating morning....
> 
> I mentioned to one of my friends/handlers that I need to get Holly off the premises and she invited me to join her, and the bloke she shares the hall with, this morning at a hall about an hour's drive away.
> 
> I duly set off in torrential rain with Holly and Tremor only to find the hall locked and no sign of either of them.
> 
> That was a round trip of 2.1/2 hours in awful conditions and just a waste of time.
> 
> I've just emailed the chap and he's not feeling very well with a stomach bug and he said my friend should have rung me yesterday to tell me....?? Great.


I'd be bloody fuming too! Hope your day gets better.

LO, hope your cats are okay! We could never get Shadow out for a pee when fireworks were going off. We used to take him out in the garden just as it was starting to get dark and then that would be him until the next morning.

Werehorse, that looks like a fantastic place for a dog walk. A runon the other hand...well rather you than me :yikes:


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Well I've just had a hideous and frustrating morning....
> 
> I mentioned to one of my friends/handlers that I need to get Holly off the premises and she invited me to join her, and the bloke she shares the hall with, this morning at a hall about an hour's drive away.
> 
> I duly set off in torrential rain with Holly and Tremor only to find the hall locked and no sign of either of them.
> 
> That was a round trip of 2.1/2 hours in awful conditions and just a waste of time.
> 
> I've just emailed the chap and he's not feeling very well with a stomach bug and he said my friend should have rung me yesterday to tell me....?? Great.


What a shame  I'd be most upset.

Werehorse that is so beautiful, it should be walked through slowly to appraciate it's full glory... my excuse and i'm sticking to it 

LO hope zan and your cats are ok.

Dogless lovely to see mrs Tiggywinkle 

Not a great walk this morning, we got charged by 3 lurchers I tried to body block but I might be a bit overweight but body blocking three is beyond me. Her tail tucked but she stood her ground, Which is great i hate to think of her being chased by 3 lurchers  grrrrrrrrr :cursing:why can't people have more control of their dogs. Then finally their owner appeared and gave me a dirty look  once they were behind us she had a big shake and her tail went back to normal but she was definitely more jumpy fo the rest of the walk and I was less than impressed when 2 tibetan terriers ambushed us as we got back to the car. :glare:


----------



## Beth17

Poor Tink  I hope she bounces back quickly.

Twiggy how frustrating for you!

Dogless I love hedgehogs not sure what the boys would make of them though 

Lovely walk this morning took them up to the field separately for some socialisation and one on one. It was quite quiet but we saw this gorgeous wolf type dog and Sam had a lovely time running around with it as well as a lab.
Then took Oscar and only met a couple of people as by that time it had started raining.
Funniest thing though was got home and mum said that Sam had been fast asleep but as soon as I pulled up he had woken and gone to wait by the door. 
I think he's psychic :crazy:


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh that sucks MV  But on the bright side, she didn't run and so didn't incite them to chase her, that's progress  But yeah, they should have been under control as should the terriers.

Forgot to mention, we seem to have made more progress with Spencers hatred of the Turks. Took him out at 6am (hubby kicked me and woke me up ) and there was a bloke rummaging through our bin. Now not too long ago this would have been cause for Spen to really kick off, lunging, barking, snarling and making every attempt to run the guy off. This morning he stiffened up but just watched the guy wander off to the next bin along. He kept an eye on him the whole time we were out but there was none of his previous aggression 

I dunno how he distinguishes the Turks from all other people but he's absolutely fantastic with everyone except for them


----------



## Guest

Well done spen! 
eurgh sorry you were accosted by lurchers MV, inconsiderate owners do annoy me, cos some of use put our dogs on lead and ASK before we let them play. 

It snowed/sleeted/hard cold rained on our morning walk, Zand was without his coat as was I, we were both grumpy by the time we got home.

Um, The longline is in early retirement, started off fine, he was trotting staying close, then a dog appeared in the field Zander did his 0 - 40mph in two seconds I was dragged along the field. 
I am bruised.
I am bleeding. (even though wearing gloves!) 
I am dirty (guess what I got dragged through?)

Mum then decided to kick off and be all like "I'm going home, I don't know why you waste your money on useless things." So left me in the field.

Then more dogs came in, so I put Zand on his normal lead (Longline left on the gate) waited till they got near and asked if I could let him off (it was a rotty cross who Zandloves) they said yep and it ended nicely. Until of course their six year old starts blumming squealing AND WAVING STICKS AROUND. 
Zand of course almost knocked him over after the sticks, I told the kid off in my grumpiness ("Don't squeal you'll make it worse and put your arms DOWN") luckily the parents were just in agreement with me.

The cats came in this morning, damp, but fine, turned out that their hideyhole in the shed got waterlogged last night. 

Oh and theres going to BE HUGE fireworks tommorow night. And I'm at work till eight. 

*Goes to find dairy milk* 

Apologies for this doomy post ahah, Zand himself hasn't been BAD per say, its just other things seem to be piling up too.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dief is very dog oriented. He just has to meet everyone. So I walk him on the long line. What I want is to be able to down him at a distance. We practice lots with "imaginary" dogs. Now this isn't quite like real dogs because when there's no dog he turns round to look at me. So I've been saying down and putting my arm straight up in the air. He's pretty good at it now. So today in the house I decide to try with just the arm up in the air. Admittedly I am holding a chicken leg left over from hooman dinner but he does it perfectly. Back of the net.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy and LO - what awful days; wine and chocolate prescribed. One dose stat and then as needed .

mv - not good  BUT also good in that Tink shook things off more easily than she would have done previously. Thank goodness she wasn't chased by the lurchers. Wine for you too.

Diefenbaker - awesome, well done and Spen too!!

Beth; dogs KNOW - we saw Kilo's head appear through the voiles as soon as we turned into the street. I love it :001_wub:. When the head disappears I know he's headed for the door!

Two good walks for us today; not much to report. Hope the coat comes tomorrow.


----------



## moonviolet

Well the challenges kept coming today :lol: But these were the sort of challenges you would organise if you could. On our evening walk we crossed paths with a group that consisted of ( dogwise at least) A black gsd, a gsd x rottie and 2 Huskies. Who were all put onlead/collars grabbed when they saw me put Tink on lead. All walked calmly past one another was very pleased with TInk as despite her being a little more tense than i would have liked she was sending out some nice calming signals and didn't shut down , went on a little further and we were joined from the side path by a very politely approaching GSD who actually turned for Tink to sniff first  Just as well he was so polite his owner was quite a way behind  Lots of cuddles for both of us tonight  Huge progress really.

Well done Dief 

LO Sorry to hear about your longline fiasco  I only ever used one trailing so i don't have any handy hints in case you do decide to brave it again. Hope the chocolate helps you feel a bit better.

Sarah glad you have had progress too.


----------



## chazzie10

Goodness its been a trying day for most on here it seems....Mine hasnt been too bad with our two walks being well behaved though we didnt encounter any other dogs so that would explain it 
I feel the need to indulge in some wine and chocolate too....just to show my support to my new found friends you understand  
Bottoms up


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## Twiggy

I've not exactly been in good humour since I got home and the filthy weather today hasn't helped, although I did manage to get the girls out for an hour late afternoon.

I cooked steak and chips for dinner followed by home made apple and blackberry pie. I now feel stuffed and in a better frame of mind....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've not exactly been in good humour since I got home and the filthy weather today hasn't helped, although I did manage to get the girls out for an hour late afternoon.
> 
> *I cooked steak and chips for dinner followed by home made apple and blackberry pie. I now feel stuffed and in a better frame of mind*....


Yum .


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> I've not exactly been in good humour since I got home and the filthy weather today hasn't helped, although I did manage to get the girls out for an hour late afternoon.
> 
> I cooked steak and chips for dinner followed by home made apple and blackberry pie. I now feel stuffed and in a better frame of mind....


Wow that sounds delicious and I reckon that home made pie would cure anyone's black moods


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## Werehorse

It's been a busy day today. First this....

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/271646-fabulous-walk-awful-moment-good-ending.html

So proud of my boys. 

And THEN we had the step-dogs over to introduce them all in advance of them staying for a few weekends soon (Oscar has met them a lot but not had them over since we got Hugo). We went for a little walk down the lane and they were fine. Then we brought them into the house and after some initial excitement (mainly from boy step-dog trying to hump my two!) they all settled down quite nicely. Girl step-dog who is was previously very grumpy with Oscar and gave him several tellings off has mellowed a lot and actually seemed to really like Hugo.  So that's good - it'll be hard work when they stay but managable.

So a good day all in all. Still in shock about the sheep mind!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> It's been a busy day today. First this....
> 
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/271646-fabulous-walk-awful-moment-good-ending.html
> 
> So proud of my boys.
> 
> And THEN we had the step-dogs over to introduce them all in advance of them staying for a few weekends soon (Oscar has met them a lot but not had them over since we got Hugo). We went for a little walk down the lane and they were fine. Then we brought them into the house and after some initial excitement (mainly from boy step-dog trying to hump my two!) they all settled down quite nicely. Girl step-dog who is was previously very grumpy with Oscar and gave him several tellings off has mellowed a lot and actually seemed to really like Hugo.  So that's good - it'll be hard work when they stay but managable.
> 
> So a good day all in all. Still in shock about the sheep mind!


Yes I'd still be in shock as well. I think it's absolutely brilliant - what good boys, especially Hugo being young and half BC.

My Fidget left the sheep and picked up a stick - sadly she was supposed to be rounding them up......


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Yes I'd still be in shock as well. I think it's absolutely brilliant - what good boys, especially Hugo being young and half BC.
> 
> *My Fidget left the sheep and picked up a stick - sadly she was supposed to be rounding them up......*


:lol: :lol: :lol: Sticks are IMPORTANT though. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol: :lol: :lol: Sticks are IMPORTANT though. :lol:


A friend of mine booked a weeks residential sheepdog trialling course with her competition obedience dogs a few years back. The photos and video were hilarious. All he wanted to do was heelwork and it looked ridiculous in the middle of the sheep. The Triallist instructing was getting very irate, which made it even funnier.


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## GingerRogers

LO eek long lines can be tricky. I find myself shouting at Ginge talking her its still attached you're at the end. Dont think she gets it though. 
Werehorse - well done boys sheep can be very tempting.
Twiggy - bad form on your friends. Hope you are feeling better after pie and wine.
Diefenbaker - dont get too good or you won't be welcome  stick to only obeying indoors.
Mv - sounds like tink did well today
Chazzie - quiet walks are good. Definitely good. 

We had a good day too. Drove out earlish to the river marshes, no one is ever there and it was peeing it. You know when you look at each other in the car and think should we go home. Hail, aquaplaning the lot. So thinking no other nutters will be about
were following a gsd from a distance then came across a yellow lab, big lad like spen or dexter. We had only one bark. So so chuffed  she was rabbit walking after the gsd and nearly pulled me over several times but we can't have everything. Very happy today.


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## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> LO eek long lines can be tricky. I find myself shouting at Ginge talking her its still attached you're at the end. Dont think she gets it though.
> Werehorse - well done boys sheep can be very tempting.
> Twiggy - bad form on your friends. Hope you are feeling better after pie and wine.
> Diefenbaker - dont get too good or you won't be welcome  stick to only obeying indoors.
> Mv - sounds like tink did well today
> Chazzie - quiet walks are good. Definitely good.
> 
> We had a good day too. Drove out earlish to the river marshes, no one is ever there and it was peeing it. You know when you look at each other in the car and think should we go home. Hail, aquaplaning the lot. So thinking no other nutters will be about
> were following a gsd from a distance then came across a yellow lab, big lad like spen or dexter. We had only one bark. So so chuffed  she was rabbit walking after the gsd and nearly pulled me over several times but we can't have everything. Very happy today.


Yes a quiet day here and there in the middle of chaos is always welcome! Isnt it amazing how many people DO go walking in the pouring rain? Maybe they are all trying to avoid others just like us sometimes 
We went out early this morning too- I actually had a day off work and, as my body clock still wakes me at 4.30am I was up and about with chores done and heading out the door at after 7am.
It's nice to be the only people...well, person and dog...about AND when we got to the beach the tide was actually out so Chaz got a good run. Well done wee Ginge only barking once at the Lab- that's good progress


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## Dogless

Good walk this morning although wellies were a daft choice of footwear as the pavement was like a skating rink :crazy::crazy:. It had been below freezing overnight then rained a bit just before we went out and frozen straight away...I hadn't realised .

Anyhoo ... I survived with lots of slipping and sliding and we had a nice time on the fields with them to ourselves. On the way back we went past a bus stop where all the little kids were waiting to go to school and a mum was waiting with a big black lab. The lab was up on it's back legs barking and growling at us (frustration at not getting to greet I think!) and.....Kilo and I just walked by, no reaction from the BW .


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## Beth17

Well done Kilo!!! :thumbup:


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## GingerRogers

Well done Kilo,bet you are relieved that he has found his confidence just as you get a new ball of mayhem hey Dogless 

We had to cut our walk short this morning after we came across a cat, a big fluffy grey cat, sitting on the grass verge in the little woody bit of the lane, we only realised it was there when we were there  I think the cat only realised we were there when we arrived too, but it did shock us all a little bit. Very good as no barking (shocked into silence I think ) but every single bird was fair game from then on and she kept diving into the hedge after them. Think someone was slightly wound up  so as the poor doggy with the soggy teddies was already out and protecting its patch we called it a morning came home after only 5 mins.

We bought Ginge a 'terribly bad for her I am sure' big rawhide bone thing yesterday, its like double layer of rawhide and chicken 'stuff', still trying to find things that keep her busy for more than 1/2 hr (bit wary of proper bones still, I know need to man up and try one out, Rory used to choke himself on them though). She likes 'big bone' a lot , she carries it around everywhere and she actually plays fetch with it, makes a hell of a racket when it hits the floor like a shelf falling off the wall, OH tried it out last night , she brings it to bed, the sofa, my office, but she hasn't attempted to chew it yet


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## moonviolet

Deflated demotivated and pretty fed up. Tink was as tense each time she spotted a dog as she was 6 months ago. here we go again  Off to have a weep in a corner until i can muster the energy and positivity to go through it all again.


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## Werehorse

Oh no, moonviolet!  What has brought that on? Just the past couple of days with dogs running up to her and that?

Don't panic, it could just be an off day...  You've put in so much ground work I'm sure she'll have a solid foundation of confidence to fall back on. I'll send you your thundershirt back too! We haven't used it much - they both seemed to have a sudden growth of confidence just as you so kindly sent it for us to use.  Typical MCC behaviour. I was going to leave it a couple more weeks to be sure and then send it you back anyway.


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## moonviolet

Definitely the lurchers yesterday. I'll get her back on the valerian for a couple of days and i'm sure she'll get back on track. I'm just a bit exhausted by it all, was so nice being able to enjoy walks for a while. 

I knew she was more stressed than she was letting on when she attacked and destuffed an old bed last night. 

Roll on a lottery win and I'm buying a private island :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Ohh Moonviolet, that's awful, poor you and poor Tink, I can imagine how it is, I dream of a time when we can relax on walks or at least not have to think about where and when I go, then I remember it may never happen and I get a bit  it is soooo tiring, big hugs and try and relax in whatever way helps you as that will help Tink. Sometimes I just have to let the OH take Ginge, I don't like to as I know he doesn't handle her the same way as I do, (who knows he's probably better ) and I don't trust him not to let her off but sometimes I just need a breather.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Definitely the lurchers yesterday. I'll get her back on the valerian for a couple of days and i'm sure she'll get back on track. I'm just a bit exhausted by it all, was so nice being able to enjoy walks for a while.
> 
> I knew she was more stressed than she was letting on when she attacked and destuffed an old bed last night.
> 
> Roll on a lottery win and I'm buying a private island :lol:


I'm really sorry - poor Tinks. I'd be depressed as well after all the good work you've put in.

One of the handlers that comes here training with her sensitive collie dog has spent the last two years trying to get over a stay ring problem, caused initially by her dog being pounced on. About a month ago he actually completed A stays (2 minutes sit in sight and 3 minutes down out of sight). She was absolutely thrilled until the very next show when once again another dog went for him. I saw her later and she was in tears. If only people realised the devastating impact their out of control dogs cause.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Deflated demotivated and pretty fed up. Tink was as tense each time she spotted a dog as she was 6 months ago. here we go again  Off to have a weep in a corner until i can muster the energy and positivity to go through it all again.


Oh no mv . You CAN do it...you know you can..but finding the will must be so hard xxx.


----------



## moonviolet

Thanks for the kind words of support, we'll get rhough it agian and as you say werehorse we both have plenty of experience of building confidence back up after a knock. I don't mind her being unsure of rude dogs, but at the moment it's all dogs again. I just hope we can manage a swift rebound.



Twiggy said:


> I'm really sorry - poor Tinks. I'd be depressed as well after all the good work you've put in.
> 
> One of the handlers that comes here training with her sensitive collie dog has spent the last two years trying to get over a stay ring problem, caused initially by her dog being pounced on. About a month ago he actually completed A stays (2 minutes sit in sight and 3 minutes down out of sight). She was absolutely thrilled until the very next show when once again another dog went for him. I saw her later and she was in tears. If only people realised the devastating impact their out of control dogs cause.


Poor thing 

To many people see it as the dog that's nervous as the only one that has a problem, theirs are just being dogs/friendly/a little boisterous/ wanting to play..... but never ever bullying rude out of control and certainly not something they should be addressing.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Deflated demotivated and pretty fed up. Tink was as tense each time she spotted a dog as she was 6 months ago. here we go again  Off to have a weep in a corner until i can muster the energy and positivity to go through it all again.


Oh no  I know exactly how you feel, I was there soooo many times with Rupert. Just as we'd start to make progress we'd run into yet another out of control dog and we'd go right back to square one. Fingers crossed both you and Tink feel better tomorrow.



> If only people realised the devastating impact their out of control dogs cause.


I really wish there was some way of making them realise. But they just see it as the dog that's frightened/aggressive/infirm as being the one to have the problem. Theirs is always just being friendly  Even when it's not being friendly.


----------



## LauraJane9

Currently working on Sully's recall (he's great except for when he sees another dog).
Also working on his separation anxiety and it's going well, he no longer follows me everywhere I go in the house.

But on a more fun side I'm teaching Sully to do that adorable head tilt that dogs do, he was watching me one day so I did a long low whistle and he tilted his head so I've taken that and run with it!


----------



## L/C

Oh MV - poor you and poor tink. It's so frustrating, we had this so many times with Ely. But both you and she will come out the other side again - even if you shouldn't have to.  It's so frustrating after she did so well with the GSD.


----------



## Beth17

Oh MV sorry you're feeling so rubbish 
I'm positive though that Tink will bounce back with you there to help her; just a shame you have to.


----------



## Dogless

Fabulous walk in the park this afternoon - hubby is on nights so I persuaded him to come  and....there were lots of dogs out and Kilo sailed past them all; even one that lunged and barked at him . Hubby said something that was like a lightbulb moment where I thought maybe he understands finally - the dog that had a pop was walked at the end of it's lead pulling to get to us even though the avenue was about 7m wide, then just as it passed it went mental - hubby said "Really, some owners don't have a clue do they? What was the point in that when you'd moved to the side for them and there was so much room? If Kilo had responded to their small dog they would have had a go" I swear a chorus was singing "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" :crazy::crazy:. I said "These are the things that I have been trying to tell you about" .

And....he noticed how nicely the BW was behaving these days (touch wood!!!) sailing through situations that used to stress him out .

So - a great walk even if we got soaked half way through :crazy:.


----------



## Werehorse

Kilo is doing so well, Dogless.  It's nice when OHs notice it too. I was really happy when my OH was really amazed at how well Oscar's LLW had come on. 

A word to the wise however, brace yourself for it going a bit backwards when the new bundle arrives! Oscar found it all quite stressful I think when Hugo arrived and he went backwards for a while. However I think we coincided with the teenage stage with Oscar as well! Long term though I think he's much more settled and better off for having a little brother.

After his amazing moment of glory yesterday Hugo has been difficult and crotchety today. Nothing major just all over the place and very distracted... I'm wondering if this is a teenage stage starting!  I thought we'd had a very brief teenage stage at about 6-8 months and got away lightly (trainer mentioned in passing one evening when Hugo seemed to have forgotten all his cues that collies have an early, relatively short teenage stage). I've got a sinking feeling that he may have had the collie part of his brain have a teenage stage then but we're about to hit the spaniel half's teens!!!  :crazy:

I also heard two strange FACTS rolleyes today...

FACT 1 - if your dog isn't trained by 18 months it is officially untrainable. 

FACT 2 - spaniels were bred as cattle herding dogs (originally in Spain).

I have no idea how true or not FACT 2 is but I hope to dog that FACT 1 is false! :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Kilo is doing so well, Dogless.  It's nice when OHs notice it too. I was really happy when my OH was really amazed at how well Oscar's LLW had come on.
> 
> A word to the wise however, brace yourself for it going a bit backwards when the new bundle arrives! Oscar found it all quite stressful I think when Hugo arrived and he went backwards for a while. However I think we coincided with the teenage stage with Oscar as well! Long term though I think he's much more settled and better off for having a little brother.
> 
> After his amazing moment of glory yesterday Hugo has been difficult and crotchety today. Nothing major just all over the place and very distracted... I'm wondering if this is a teenage stage starting!  I thought we'd had a very brief teenage stage at about 6-8 months and got away lightly (trainer mentioned in passing one evening when Hugo seemed to have forgotten all his cues that collies have an early, relatively short teenage stage). I've got a sinking feeling that he may have had the collie part of his brain have a teenage stage then but we're about to hit the spaniel half's teens!!!  :crazy:
> 
> I also heard two strange FACTS rolleyes today...
> 
> FACT 1 - if your dog isn't trained by 18 months it is officially untrainable.
> 
> FACT 2 - spaniels were bred as cattle herding dogs (originally in Spain).
> 
> I have no idea how true or not FACT 2 is but I hope to dog that FACT 1 is false! :lol:


I'm expecting things to slide....hope not too much  . I'll just have to get through it regardless so hoping my reserves of patience hold out :blink:.

Where did you hear those facts?

I also hope you don't officially have a Kevin on your hands :crazy::crazy:.

Hubby took the door off Rudi's cloakroom / house today as I won't see him most likely for a while...crate installed in there just waiting for an occupant .


----------



## Werehorse

How many sleeps is it now? 

FACT 1 was an older chap in the coffee shop who said he used to breed and take dogs to Crufts. He stopped and said hello to Hugo then started telling us FACTS and about how good he is with dogs or something.

FACT 2 was from a lady in the park who had a very cute spaniel puppy who had a good play with Hugo (although I think Hugo just thought it was stalking him while he was sniffing about :lol: he had a couple of runs around with it but I think was a bit confused by it). Off to google about FACT 2 I think!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> How many sleeps is it now?
> 
> FACT 1 was an older chap in the coffee shop who said he used to breed and take dogs to Crufts. He stopped and said hello to Hugo then started telling us FACTS and about how good he is with dogs or something.
> 
> FACT 2 was from a lady in the park who had a very cute spaniel puppy who had a good play with Hugo (although I think Hugo just thought it was stalking him while he was sniffing about :lol: he had a couple of runs around with it but I think was a bit confused by it). Off to google about FACT 2 I think!


15 sleeps .


----------



## Werehorse

FACT 2 is looking doubtful.  Spanish water dogs did some herding, seems like they were general farm dogs to start with- but it wasn't just cattle... But I think it sounds like bunkum to me!

ETA - spanish water dogs aren't even spaniels, they look like beardies!


----------



## moonviolet

Wooohoo only 15 sleeps we get to welcome little Rudi to our support group 

Sounds like a wonderful walk with OH and Kilo this afternoon. I love the hallelujah moment 

We have just got back from a walk, OH came along  only saw one other dog , at the start when Tink was onlead and it came over for a sniff, offlead of course, but the body language was ok and Tink seemed uninterested but not scared, when it started sniffing a bit too long it's owner finally called it back, Tink didn't seem particularly bothered. I had given her a dose of valerian before heading out so that definitely was huge difference to this morning. The rest of the walk was fresh but lovely so hopefully it'll go on the "good" side of the scales.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Wooohoo only 15 sleeps we get to welcome little Rudi to our support group
> 
> Sounds like a wonderful walk with OH and Kilo this afternoon. I love the hallelujah moment
> 
> We have just got back from a walk, OH came along  only saw one other dog , at the start when Tink was onlead and it came over for a sniff, offlead of course, but the body language was ok and Tink seemed uninterested but not scared, when it started sniffing a bit too long it's owner finally called it back, Tink didn't seem particularly bothered. I had given her a dose of valerian before heading out so that definitely was huge difference to this morning. The rest of the walk was fresh but lovely so hopefully it'll go on the "good" side of the scales.


Sounds like lovely Tink is doing a sloooow bounce back; but a bounce back nonetheless. Really, really hope that it continues.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Good walk this morning although wellies were a daft choice of footwear as the pavement was like a skating rink :crazy::crazy:. It had been below freezing overnight then rained a bit just before we went out and frozen straight away...I hadn't realised .
> 
> Anyhoo ... I survived with lots of slipping and sliding and we had a nice time on the fields with them to ourselves. On the way back we went past a bus stop where all the little kids were waiting to go to school and a mum was waiting with a big black lab. The lab was up on it's back legs barking and growling at us (frustration at not getting to greet I think!) and.....Kilo and I just walked by, no reaction from the BW .


I'm glad I'd another day off today and didnt have to go out in the ice- I hate it 
Well done Kilo! He's really getting good at this isnt he


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> I'm glad I'd another day off today and didnt have to go out in the ice- I hate it
> Well done Kilo! He's really getting good at this isnt he


Touch wood  .


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Deflated demotivated and pretty fed up. Tink was as tense each time she spotted a dog as she was 6 months ago. here we go again  Off to have a weep in a corner until i can muster the energy and positivity to go through it all again.


Sorry to hear you're feeling so low moonviolet. Maybe this is just a wee glitch and she'll bounce back better than ever in a day or two...sending hugs x


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> How many sleeps is it now?
> 
> FACT 1 was an older chap in the coffee shop who said he used to breed and take dogs to Crufts. He stopped and said hello to Hugo then started telling us FACTS and about how good he is with dogs or something.
> 
> FACT 2 was from a lady in the park who had a very cute spaniel puppy who had a good play with Hugo (although I think Hugo just thought it was stalking him while he was sniffing about :lol: he had a couple of runs around with it but I think was a bit confused by it). Off to google about FACT 2 I think!


Oh please dont let fact 1 be right.... :cryin:


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Wooohoo only 15 sleeps we get to welcome little Rudi to our support group
> 
> Sounds like a wonderful walk with OH and Kilo this afternoon. I love the hallelujah moment
> 
> We have just got back from a walk, OH came along  only saw one other dog , at the start when Tink was onlead and it came over for a sniff, offlead of course, but the body language was ok and Tink seemed uninterested but not scared, when it started sniffing a bit too long it's owner finally called it back, Tink didn't seem particularly bothered. I had given her a dose of valerian before heading out so that definitely was huge difference to this morning. The rest of the walk was fresh but lovely so hopefully it'll go on the "good" side of the scales.


Valerian? Does that calm dogs down? I wonder would it be useful before Charlie's training class?


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Touch wood  .


Nope, I think you've got a wee (well, big) star there  
I dont know the start of your story cos Ive only been on here 5wks but it sounds like you've put a lot of time and effort into Kilo's training and it obviously shows now. I wish I could be so dedicated


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I thought we'd had a very brief teenage stage at about 6-8 months and got away lightly (trainer mentioned in passing one evening when Hugo seemed to have forgotten all his cues that collies have an early, relatively short teenage stage).


I guess nobody ever told my collie that. He was a teenager from being 6 weeks old to about 2 years. And his proper adolescence was...intense...to put it mildly.

Don't worry folks, FACT 1 is complete rubbish. Plenty of dogs are trained after being 18 months old.

Had Spen out on the long line out front earlier (really not liking the Flexi) and apparently he wanted to practice recall. He'd sniff around a bit then go right to the end of the long line, stop and stare at me. I'd give him the recall cue and he'd grin and his little Labrador legs would become a blur as he raced towards me to skid to a halt right in front of me :lol: Then once he'd had his reward he'd go off and sniff his way to the end of the long line again, stop, wait for the cue and come haring back again. I'm not quite sure who's training who here lol.


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> I guess nobody ever told my collie that. He was a teenager from being 6 weeks old to about 2 years. And his proper adolescence was...intense...to put it mildly.
> 
> Don't worry folks, FACT 1 is complete rubbish. Plenty of dogs are trained after being 18 months old.
> 
> Had Spen out on the long line out front earlier (really not liking the Flexi) and apparently he wanted to practice recall. He'd sniff around a bit then go right to the end of the long line, stop and stare at me. I'd give him the recall cue and he'd grin and his little Labrador legs would become a blur as he raced towards me to skid to a halt right in front of me :lol: Then once he'd had his reward he'd go off and sniff his way to the end of the long line again, stop, wait for the cue and come haring back again. I'm not quite sure who's training who here lol.


Aww lol clever Spen  The lengths they'll go to to get a treat  Whatever reason though, it worked for both of you and got some training in!


----------



## Werehorse

chazzie10 said:


> Oh please dont let fact 1 be right.... :cryin:


:lol: Don't worry both FACTS are utter rubbish.  Sarcasm sometimes doesn't come across in text. 

Sarah - My trainers comment about collies will be based on some experience but I was/am a little doubtful that collies would be so different to other breeds - it could be a result of the way she has always brought up her collies I thought. I do think judging by today's behaviour that we haven't had the teenage stage with Hugo yet at all and are only just heading into it. 

Next door are letting off fireworks and haven't thought to mention it to us. It's lucky the MCC are spectacularly un-bothered by them really!


----------



## chazzie10

Decided to give Charlie some raw food today. Not sure how much raw equals a full dinner for a labrador (he gets 2 meals a day) but he got a 650g huge turkey drumstick and can give him a handful of his kibble if I need to....need to do some research on how to work it out. It was more of a treat today to see how he reacted. Here's some pics.....do you think he liked it? hehehe......


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet, what a shame the Lurchers have set Tink back, I hope it doesn't last long. You've come so far together.

Dogless-you must be really proud of much Kilo has come on lately.

Werehorse- fact 1 , definately false. Using just my Scruff as an example, and depending on what is classed as trained she was a chicken killer when she came here- just with treat training I managed to turn that around and she's brill with mine now. We've built up a really good recall- she proved that again today.
Disclaimer- I shant mention Evie.:

Really bad day today.
Turning around a bend in the track we came right upon a flock of 'free range' sheep- the 2nd new collar in 2 weeks came apart at the clasp and off went short stuff. Moll took a couple of steps to go but stayed with me and Scruff didn't move. Evie was running around the poor sheep in circles and barking at them- she isn't big or brave enough to do anything but thats not the point. As I run up she stopped and sat for me to grab her.
Clasp collars are now banned in this house- buckles from now on, the sheep were still on walk about this afternoon but I managed to turn off.
Really proud of Moll and Scruff again, they have proved a few times lately just how good a recall they have. Every time I say Evie's been good she hits me with a double whammy.

Then, I groomed an old Poodle, a regular boy for the past 12 months. His owner had to pick him up at 1.30 , this left me a couple of hours before I took the girls back out again. 3.45 he turned up, blind drunk no apology , nothing.

Theeeen, walking along the track this after, I could see a woman coming so starting on the treats for Scruff to keep her quiet and this helps Evie, sometimes she'll take treats as well. Scruff was fine, really relaxed but Evie completely freaked:blink:, maybe because the woman was walking with a long staff. Woman stopped and approached me and I'm trying to back off away for Evie and she says[in French] 'ooh she's really nervous' , I said yes she is, still trying to get away and then she said 'is it because you beat her'. 

Think I'll be glad to get in to bed tonight.:crazy:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Decided to give Charlie some raw food today. Not sure how much raw equals a full dinner for a labrador (he gets 2 meals a day) but he got a 650g huge turkey drumstick and can give him a handful of his kibble if I need to....need to do some research on how to work it out. It was more of a treat today to see how he reacted. Here's some pics.....do you think he liked it? hehehe......


Nice photos . I would research - a drumstick has a lot of bone so if he ate the lot and isn't used to raw you may find the bone reappears at about 4 in the morning tomorrow. Wouldn't feed kibble alongside either. The raw feeding stickies in Health and Nutrition take a while to get through but really do tell you everything .

ETA: put links in wrong post at first!!! http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/111437-raw-feeding-everything-you-need-know.html

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/154210-raw-feeding-diary.html


----------



## Dogless

Oh k&m - what a day; have you any wine in?? The sheep we have come across 'free range' have nearly sent me to an early grave . Hopefully the drunk customer was a one - off too. 

Thanks for your nice comment too; I am proud, but cautiously so, being me .


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Decided to give Charlie some raw food today. Not sure how much raw equals a full dinner for a labrador (he gets 2 meals a day) but he got a 650g huge turkey drumstick and can give him a handful of his kibble if I need to....need to do some research on how to work it out. It was more of a treat today to see how he reacted. Here's some pics.....do you think he liked it? hehehe......


That'd be Spens food for the day. He gets around 600g a day on raw. Some days he may get a bit more, some days a bit less. It's slightly less than the recommended amount but he maintains weight on it easily. Especially as he gets training treats and leftovers too.

Calculate is what I used to work it out.

K&M, sorry you've had one of those days. Fingers crossed for a better one tomorrow!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Nice photos . I would research - a drumstick has a lot of bone so if he ate the lot and isn't used to raw you may find the bone reappears at about 4 in the morning tomorrow. Wouldn't feed kibble alongside either. The raw feeding stickies in Health and Nutrition take a while to get through but really do tell you everything .


The pics were a bit blurred, just taken on my phone but I thought the one of him licking his nose was funny...not sure how wide he's got his front legs in that pic!!! He was scared to let it touch him at first, daft eejit
  good job I'm up for work about that time in the morning!! 
He's had a few fresh bones in his time but this was the first with full meat on it.
I'll go read the raw feeding thingy


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> That'd be Spens food for the day. He gets around 600g a day on raw. Some days he may get a bit more, some days a bit less. It's slightly less than the recommended amount but he maintains weight on it easily. Especially as he gets training treats and leftovers too.
> 
> Calculate is what I used to work it out.
> 
> K&M, sorry you've had one of those days. Fingers crossed for a better one tomorrow!


Goodness I thought it would be more-he didnt eat it all but Ive still overfed him at that rate.....guess who's not getting much breakfast tomorrow!!!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Goodness I thought it would be more-he didnt eat it all but Ive still overfed him at that rate.....guess who's not getting much breakfast tomorrow!!!


It varies massively between dogs - Pogo's Chance weighs around the same as Kilo, both dogs are lean yet Chance eats about 600g / day (from memory) yet Kilo eats anywhere between 1.2kg - 2kg per day with 1.4kg probably being the most 'typical' amount he gets..


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Goodness I thought it would be more-he didnt eat it all but Ive still overfed him at that rate.....guess who's not getting much breakfast tomorrow!!!


How much does he weigh? 650g isn't overfeeding if he's an average sized Lab  Spen should be getting around 750g a day apparently, he's 30kg. Although if he'd had breakfast already I guess it might be, I tend to just give a very small breakfast and then his main meal in the evening.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> It varies massively between dogs - Pogo's Chance weighs around the same as Kilo, both dogs are lean yet Chance eats about 600g / day (from memory) yet Kilo eats anywhere between 1.2kg - 2kg per day with 1.4kg probably being the most 'typical' amount he gets..


Yeah, this too. I just use the recommended amount as a starting off point. Spen started off on the 750g but once it became clear he didn't need that I dropped it.


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> Valerian? Does that calm dogs down? I wonder would it be useful before Charlie's training class?


Valerian Compound (Organic) for Dogs and Cats - Dorwest

Yes, it can help with over excitement or anxiety. I've found it just chills Tink without making her drowsy. I like the drops because they are fast acting

K&M want to join me in commiseration corner i have wine, chocolate and turkish delight?  Hope it's just a bad day and tomorrow will be better.

Werehorse Got to love thy neighbours :tongue_smilie: Mine had their bonfire and fireworks yesterday, like yours didn't bother to let us know and I came out to find my car covered in ash this morning 

Sarah, I love Spen he's a bright lad  and clearly loves interacting with you


----------



## chazzie10

Im working my way through those links on the raw diary etc.
According to the calculator when I put in Charlie's weight now 43kg (keep in mind he's overweight and vet says aim for 38kg), and click on the suggested 2% ( for fat dog/weight loss) it calculates 900g/day so thats 450g a meal. It means he was only a bit over at dinner time there probably 100-150g over. I'll give him a light brekkie. His face will be a picture when he sees all he's gonna get 
The raw diary is good though I've only reached page 6! I cant believe the prices that have been talked about on it...12weeks supply of raw for just over £50! Charlie's kibble costs more than that! 
I'm wondering if a raw diet would help him with his sensitive stomach and what now looks more and more like a food allergy rather than a seasonal/ pollen allergy. The vet tells me a blood test will be £300-£400 and then he would be on an exclusion diet and meds that will cost £7.50 a day! I just dont have it and my insurance is a yearly one- I dont think they will let me upgrade to a whole of life type policy now as this would be classed as an existing illness now...wouldnt it? Phew.....


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> How many sleeps is it now?
> 
> FACT 1 was an older chap in the coffee shop who said he used to breed and take dogs to Crufts. He stopped and said hello to Hugo then started telling us FACTS and about how good he is with dogs or something.
> 
> FACT 2 was from a lady in the park who had a very cute spaniel puppy who had a good play with Hugo (although I think Hugo just thought it was stalking him while he was sniffing about :lol: he had a couple of runs around with it but I think was a bit confused by it). Off to google about FACT 2 I think!


FACT 1 is absolute nonsense.

FACT 2 probably is as well.


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Valerian Compound (Organic) for Dogs and Cats - Dorwest
> 
> Yes, it can help with over excitement or anxiety. I've found it just chills Tink without making her drowsy. I like the drops because they are fast acting
> 
> K&M want to join me in commiseration corner i have wine, chocolate and turkish delight?  Hope it's just a bad day and tomorrow will be better.
> 
> Werehorse Got to love thy neighbours :tongue_smilie: Mine had their bonfire and fireworks yesterday, like yours didn't bother to let us know and I came out to find my car covered in ash this morning
> 
> Sarah, I love Spen he's a bright lad  and clearly loves interacting with you


Thanks MV I'll maybe try it, for his own sake. Though his behaviour at saturdays class was amazing (except for the 1st 10mins walking in convoy in circles around the nearby pensioner's bungalows where he pulled like a demon :glare: ) One of the trainers came over and commented that I must have been working really hard with him, that he had really progressed 
If the valerian would stop him being so frantic that he snaps the treats out of my hand I might actually come home with 8 fingers and 2 thumbs intact every saturday


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet, what a shame the Lurchers have set Tink back, I hope it doesn't last long. You've come so far together.
> 
> Dogless-you must be really proud of much Kilo has come on lately.
> 
> Werehorse- fact 1 , definately false. Using just my Scruff as an example, and depending on what is classed as trained she was a chicken killer when she came here- just with treat training I managed to turn that around and she's brill with mine now. We've built up a really good recall- she proved that again today.
> Disclaimer- I shant mention Evie.:
> 
> Really bad day today.
> Turning around a bend in the track we came right upon a flock of 'free range' sheep- the 2nd new collar in 2 weeks came apart at the clasp and off went short stuff. Moll took a couple of steps to go but stayed with me and Scruff didn't move. Evie was running around the poor sheep in circles and barking at them- she isn't big or brave enough to do anything but thats not the point. As I run up she stopped and sat for me to grab her.
> Clasp collars are now banned in this house- buckles from now on, the sheep were still on walk about this afternoon but I managed to turn off.
> Really proud of Moll and Scruff again, they have proved a few times lately just how good a recall they have. Every time I say Evie's been good she hits me with a double whammy.
> 
> Then, I groomed an old Poodle, a regular boy for the past 12 months. His owner had to pick him up at 1.30 , this left me a couple of hours before I took the girls back out again. 3.45 he turned up, blind drunk no apology , nothing.
> 
> Theeeen, walking along the track this after, I could see a woman coming so starting on the treats for Scruff to keep her quiet and this helps Evie, sometimes she'll take treats as well. Scruff was fine, really relaxed but Evie completely freaked:blink:, maybe because the woman was walking with a long staff. Woman stopped and approached me and I'm trying to back off away for Evie and she says[in French] 'ooh she's really nervous' , I said yes she is, still trying to get away and then she said 'is it because you beat her'.
> 
> Think I'll be glad to get in to bed tonight.:crazy:


Oh dear not a good day. Hopefully tomorrow will be much better.


----------



## Guest

Gah sorry to you who have had all naff days.  

Tried the longline again today, got dragged again, missing skin from hands and a blister. 

Being given to my friend with a rescue beaglecavilier cross (WHO IS SO CUTE AND ADORABLE AND I WANT ONE) 
in exchange for a fiver. 

I've only just got back from work but apparently Zand hasn't been too bad. Barked really loudly and hackled up to our 6yr old neighbour with a sparkler. :nono: 
When we went on our morning walk, all the binliners were out, with holes in. :crazy:

And all the primary schoolers wandering to school too. 
Lots of cries of "DOGGIE!" and Zander being all like OMGTEACUPPEOPLES and wanting to bounce or slobber on them. 

And I'm now looking at Julius K9 harness'. DO WANT.

Awww, six yr old neighbours mum apologized for scaring the dog. It wasn't intentional, and we didn;t think about sparklers. The six year old asked whether abit of his halloween cake will make him less scared. D'awww.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Tried the longline again today, got dragged again, missing skin from hands and a blister.
> 
> The six year old asked whether abit of his halloween cake will make him less scared. D'awww.


That's why I decided against buying a longline last week. I know it would let him dander about in the forest etc but as soon as we saw another dog it would be a nightmare. The longer Charlie's lead is, the more momentum he seems to have. When he lunges it pulls me off my feet where a shorter lead he cant.

That was so sweet of your neighbours wee son offering some cake


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Im working my way through those links on the raw diary etc.
> According to the calculator when I put in Charlie's weight now 43kg (keep in mind he's overweight and vet says aim for 38kg), and click on the suggested 2% ( for fat dog/weight loss) it calculates 900g/day so thats 450g a meal. It means he was only a bit over at dinner time there probably 100-150g over. I'll give him a light brekkie. His face will be a picture when he sees all he's gonna get
> The raw diary is good though I've only reached page 6! I cant believe the prices that have been talked about on it...12weeks supply of raw for just over £50! Charlie's kibble costs more than that!
> I'm wondering if a raw diet would help him with his sensitive stomach and what now looks more and more like a food allergy rather than a seasonal/ pollen allergy. The vet tells me a blood test will be £300-£400 and then he would be on an exclusion diet and meds that will cost £7.50 a day! I just dont have it and my insurance is a yearly one- I dont think they will let me upgrade to a whole of life type policy now as this would be classed as an existing illness now...wouldnt it? Phew.....


My little Leafy has a food intolerance/allergy which has cost me a small fortune over the years, including a trip to Cambridge Vet College which amounted to about £800.00 and was a waste of time.

The professor at Cambridge put Leafy on Royal Canin Exclusion Diet and said she would have to stay on it for life. It's an awful food and is horrendously expensive. Over the years she's been on various sensitive foods and at the moment is fed The Natural Dog Food Company Sensitive.
I had a very indepth conversation with the owner and he maintains its the additives/chemicals in most dog foods that cause an allergic reaction.

If you can stomach it, I would certainly try a raw diet. Sadly I really can't toss raw chicken wings to my dogs and as my husband has to be left copious notes about filling up water bowls when I'm away, he would never get his head round the various elements of feeding raw.


----------



## moonviolet

A better walk this morning, still a little more vigilant than she is when she's perfectly relaxed, but not in the hyper-vigilant range. Good greeting with an offlead JRT who was it was clear was going to say hello whether we tried to avoid it or not. Tink handled it well, in fact was the more relaxed of the 2. brief sniffs then I called her away she came and JRT took the hint  this seemed to break her tension a bit and she was happy to lower her nose to the ground  Lots of interaction pauses for little exercises etc. Then met a very busy spaniel nice brief ships that pass in the night greeting and on our repspective ways. THen i was mean, saw 2 of her friends in the distance and it was quite clear her ladyship wanted to go that way, I waved to their owner an carried on the way we were going, Tink paused then came along with me without being asked  I think it's good for her to not always say hello to her friends and also it means that not all dogs we avoid are scary. I don't knwo if that makes sense or not.

Think she's rebounding quite well  SO i shall send myself to the Llama paddock for my woe is me post the other day.:biggrin:


----------



## Sarah1983

Well still no seizure and still feeling very odd. I'm going to have to take Spencer out for a proper walk tomorrow though, I can't keep us both cooped up indefinitely. Been playing fetch with him and doing training but we both need to get out and about. Was going to take him today but hubby's out on the ranges and I can't contact him if anything happens so will wait till tomorrow. One more day won't kill us.

Chazzie, raw diet worked wonders with Rupert. He didn't really have a sensitive tummy but he suffered with skin and ear problems. A change to wheat and corn free mostly cleared them up but a change to raw seemed to get rid of the problems completely. And it had the added bonus that he actually started to enjoy his meals instead of reluctantly eating part of them.

LO, been dragged a couple of times on the long line myself but usually when I've been caught off guard. Like when Rupe saw a cat on the dog walking field and took off. And when my hubby stupidly threw the toy while I was busy putting Spens regular leash in my backpack. I actually turned a somersault that time  I have no idea how I do it but generally I can brace myself so that although I may move a couple of steps when the dog hits the end of the line I don't tend to go flying or get hurt. Hubby who doesn't move at all on the other hand ends up hurt 

I'm really not getting on with the Flexi. I feel unbalanced only being able to hold it with one hand and find Spen can easily drag me on it and I'm powerless to stop him. And it gets really, really uncomfortable to hold after a while, it's so bulky and heavy. I've started using it with the old bungee attachment that's lost all its elasticity just so I've got somewhere I can grab with my other hand when need be. I think for the most part I'll be sticking with the long line though and only using the Flexi when it's bitterly cold and wet.


----------



## GingerRogers

Llama , we all get overwrought and its completely understandable, I haven't trawled back to read any posts from 6 months ago but I get the gist, its no surprise that you were worried, but like everyone has said you have given her (and yourself) the tools to cope with these sort of events now.

Chazzie I keep thinking about raw feeding, not something I have ever considered till now, its just the thought of explaining it to the OH makes me sag, for now we will stick to fake food and perhaps introduce little bits here and there 

LO oh dear long lines are tricky. Bless the little boy and his apologetic Halloween cake 

Kat & Molly hope you are having a better day, its horrible when your equipment fails isn't it, even a new buckle collar didn't make me feel better, poor ninja wandered about looking like a bondage dog for a while with all the back up harnesses etc till I got more confident, realised one of the triggers on her training lead, which I really like using at the different lengths, has started to split the metal casing - its Halti as well, haven't had it that long 

As some of you have seen I had a lovely morning walk , she went a bit backwards yesterday which was disappointing, nothing major was just a bit too hypersensitive for my liking, putting it down to fireworks and lots of rain, don't think she likes it much when she can hear it drumming, similar sound to fizzing fireworks I guess. Hence why the extra effort for peace today and it means I am not fretting about what to do later for a walk, I have no guilt over a simple pavement jobby now.

The biggest news is her new car crate has arrived and she likes it already it seems, she went straight in and came out, back in and lay down. Hubby shouted up to say she looks like a little princess in there with her new squeaky chick egg thing (can't just get one thing can you ).


----------



## Dogless

mv - hope the llamas aren't spitting at you . It's good to hear that Tink is proving a resilient little beagle .

Sarah - how frustrating that you've had to put your life on hold waiting; it would drive me mad. So would a flexi by the sound of it!

We were up very early this morning so went out for the morning to Murlough. Kilo had a fab time zooming about. On the way to the path onto the beach we were surprised by a horse and rider on a single track road - I was a bit back footed and worried that Kilo would react after our last awful horse experiences....but he stood on a nice loose lead, had some treats and no stress at all . He also passed all dogs very nicely and didn't approach any that we saw offlead. So a gold star for the BW :thumbup1:. He did go onlead for a strange man who kept appearing, staring, disappearing then appearing again - Kilo got way too interested in him and started to posture and huff, but he went past nicely once onlead.

Still no coat .


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah, sorry you are still on edge, take care please.

I came across this the other day http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/271426-anyone-used-heim-biothane-long-lead.html

I contacted Wyrd who can also make them in the same and also a similar softer material, there is a photo on her facebook page under customer photos. I love the idea that they wont get sodden and they shouldn't get so tangled. Its the handle bit I dislike most about flexis they are so uncomfortable and I also grab at the line which can prove painful.


----------



## Sarah1983

It is bloody frustrating. It doesn't help that I lose the whole day before I have the seizure so I'm not sure exactly how I feel just before one. Apparently I've complained of feeling "not right" before them but that's not very helpful.

I think I may have to contact Wyrd about those leads. Been on their site a few times debating it but I hate having to email to order things. A long line that didn't get absolutely saturated with water would be nice. I know some people use those plastic coated washing lines but I find you can't get a grip on them and they're so thin they're painful to hold if your dog does take off.

Dogless, sounds like you had a good walk today  And you Moonviolet, guess you posted at the same time as me coz I didn't see your post. Fingers crossed Tink is back to her usual self quickly.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> mv - hope the llamas aren't spitting at you . It's good to hear that Tink is proving a resilient little beagle .
> 
> Sarah - how frustrating that you've had to put your life on hold waiting; it would drive me mad. So would a flexi by the sound of it!
> 
> We were up very early this morning so went out for the morning to Murlough. Kilo had a fab time zooming about. On the way to the path onto the beach we were surprised by a horse and rider on a single track road - I was a bit back footed and worried that Kilo would react after our last awful horse experiences....but he stood on a nice loose lead, had some treats and no stress at all . He also passed all dogs very nicely and didn't approach any that we saw offlead. So a gold star for the BW *:thumbup1:. He did go onlead for a strange man who kept appearing, staring, disappearing then appearing again - Kilo got way too interested in him and started to posture and huff, but he went past nicely once onlead.*
> 
> I'm with Kilo on this one, except I'd have probably run as fast as my little fat legs wuld go....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> mv - hope the llamas aren't spitting at you . It's good to hear that Tink is proving a resilient little beagle .
> 
> Sarah - how frustrating that you've had to put your life on hold waiting; it would drive me mad. So would a flexi by the sound of it!
> 
> We were up very early this morning so went out for the morning to Murlough. Kilo had a fab time zooming about. On the way to the path onto the beach we were surprised by a horse and rider on a single track road - I was a bit back footed and worried that Kilo would react after our last awful horse experiences....but he stood on a nice loose lead, had some treats and no stress at all . He also passed all dogs very nicely and didn't approach any that we saw offlead. So a gold star for the BW *:thumbup1:. He did go onlead for a strange man who kept appearing, staring, disappearing then appearing again - Kilo got way too interested in him and started to posture and huff, but he went past nicely once onlead.*
> 
> I'm with Kilo on this one, except I'd have probably run as fast as my little fat legs wuld go....LOL
> 
> 
> 
> I was with him too ....he ignores people minding their own but has a keen eye for anything unusual / out of place and gets a bit keen on doing something about it himself .
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> My little Leafy has a food intolerance/allergy which has cost me a small fortune over the years, including a trip to Cambridge Vet College which amounted to about £800.00 and was a waste of time.
> 
> The professor at Cambridge put Leafy on Royal Canin Exclusion Diet and said she would have to stay on it for life. It's an awful food and is horrendously expensive. Over the years she's been on various sensitive foods and at the moment is fed The Natural Dog Food Company Sensitive.
> I had a very indepth conversation with the owner and he maintains its the additives/chemicals in most dog foods that cause an allergic reaction.
> 
> If you can stomach it, I would certainly try a raw diet. Sadly I really can't toss raw chicken wings to my dogs and as my husband has to be left copious notes about filling up water bowls when I'm away, he would never get his head round the various elements of feeding raw.


Some of the food IS very expensive and I'm not entirely convinced that they are an awful lot better than the mid range ones. I have Charlie back on Autarky Mature Lite. It was recommended to me and I like the fact its a better quality meat content and lots of veg and herbs rather than all those animal and meal derivitives :frown2:
Im gonna speak to our local butcher-known him since I was a kid so hopefully he'll be helpful. Have to say I think it would be a bit confusing at first with weighing everything and getting the correct ratios of meat/bone/veg and introducing different meats gradually. Im sure I would get used to it soon enough though. Would be worth it though if it makes numpty boy healthier 
I know what you mean about your other half- they can be useless at times


----------



## Beth17

Glad Tink was feeling a bit braver today mv. We saw two lovely beagles when we went up to the park this afternoon. They spotted my two and started to bay and bark at them 

Dogless I would have legged it Sam would have tried to say hello 

LO longlines are a pain in the bum I've been pulled over numerous times 

Sarah sorry you're not feeling yourself still  I'm glad you've written about the flexi as was considering one for Sam; not sure I'll bother though now.

Well it was going so well for us we'd had a lovely walk this morning where Sam caught the eye of some workmen and so got lots of fuss. Decided to take them up to the field this afternoon as it was a lovely day and it would be quiet. Both were good as gold concentrating on their toy Sam was offlead and all was ok until I threw the frisbee Oscar took it a tiny bit further so I was walking to catch them up and who should pop out from behind some trees...

Yep the retrievers from last week. Admittedly the boys shouldn't have gone further then I wanted and I wish I'd thrown the toy the other direction but my two were good and didn't move and I could hear their owner calling his dogs but up one of them came to Oscar and started sniffing which he accepted but then the other two came over Sam went to ground and did his "don't eat me I'm only little pose" and so he started barking and chasing them off just as I got to him.
I caught hold of him and Sam came charging back once he'd had room to breathe but would they take the hint and leave. Once they'd moved off the boys just wanted to chase their toy again. So that put a bit of a downer on today.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Glad Tink was feeling a bit braver today mv. We saw two lovely beagles when we went up to the park this afternoon. They spotted my two and started to bay and bark at them
> 
> Dogless I would have legged it Sam would have tried to say hello
> 
> LO longlines are a pain in the bum I've been pulled over numerous times
> 
> Sarah sorry you're not feeling yourself still  I'm glad you've written about the flexi as was considering one for Sam; not sure I'll bother though now.
> 
> Well it was going so well for us we'd had a lovely walk this morning where Sam caught the eye of some workmen and so got lots of fuss. Decided to take them up to the field this afternoon as it was a lovely day and it would be quiet. Both were good as gold concentrating on their toy Sam was offlead and all was ok until I threw the frisbee Oscar took it a tiny bit further so I was walking to catch them up and who should pop out from behind some trees...
> 
> Yep the retrievers from last week. Admittedly the boys shouldn't have gone further then I wanted and I wish I'd thrown the toy the other direction but my two were good and didn't move and I could hear their owner calling his dogs but up one of them came to Oscar and started sniffing which he accepted but then the other two came over Sam went to ground and did his "don't eat me I'm only little pose" and so he started barking and chasing them off just as I got to him.
> I caught hold of him and Sam came charging back once he'd had room to breathe but would they take the hint and leave. Once they'd moved off the boys just wanted to chase their toy again. So that put a bit of a downer on today.


It actually sounds like your boys did well; although I understand your downer. I hate it when Kilo reacts even if it was quite justified.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Beth its always the days you have a really good day that some bugger just has to ruin it it seems. But I agree with Dogless sounds like the boys handled it as well as they could be expected, you can't start thinking you should have thrown the toy in the other direction and stuff like that, its the other owner who should be feeling bad, just because they aren't doesn't mean you have to make up for it.

OH snuck out with the dog while I was on the phone to a client even though I asked him to wait with a hand gesture . So at least my good walk this morning can't be ruined. He seems to have been bonding with her more which is good but then not so as he doesn't stick to any of the training and appears to think she is a baby  I mean she is my baby but not 'a baby'!


----------



## Beth17

I think I feel worse because the retrievers don't fight back and are quite obviously just trying to say hello and just keep coming back to say hello even when Oscar is being a grumpy sod


----------



## Guest

Took Zand in the field and he only did a minute of zoomies. Turned out my neighbour had let him have zoomies in his garden earlier in the day.

Zand then had a massive cuddling/rough and tumble session with the man who came to fix the door! And the man said that he had been trained really well considering that he's only 14months! 

*Puffs out chest* 




I spend an hour cuddling a beagle today. And a corgi.

Sorry your still feeling off sarah! 

And well done to both Kilo and Tinks! :thumbup1::thumbup1:

Literally the only downer today has been while by gate in the filed to go home, Zander onlead a JRT throws himself at the gate and starts snapping at him through it. :frown2: 
Although no contact was made, Zander kept throwing himself about and managed to BACK OUT OF HIS HARNESS. 

So yeah, I shall now stare at the Julius k9 harness (these anygood?) and Xtradog harnesses with a REASON.


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> I think I feel worse because the retrievers don't fight back and are quite obviously just trying to say hello and just keep coming back to say hello even when Oscar is being a grumpy sod


Thats exactly why the owners of friendly dogs still need to be aware of other dogs behaviour though isn't it. It affects both you and your dogs even if they are 'just being friendly' and it might end up making one of the friendly ones not so friendly if they come across many grumpy Oscars. It is sooo :mad2:


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Took Zand in the field and he only did a minute of zoomies. Turned out my neighbour had let him have zoomies in his garden earlier in the day.
> 
> Zand then had a massive cuddling/rough and tumble session with the man who came to fix the door! And the man said that he had been trained really well considering that he's only 14months!
> 
> *Puffs out chest*
> 
> I spend an hour cuddling a beagle today. And a corgi.
> 
> Sorry your still feeling off sarah!
> 
> And well done to both Kilo and Tinks! :thumbup1::thumbup1:
> 
> Literally the only downer today has been while by gate in the filed to go home, Zander onlead a JRT throws himself at the gate and starts snapping at him through it. :frown2:
> Although no contact was made, Zander kept throwing himself about and managed to BACK OUT OF HIS HARNESS.
> 
> So yeah, I shall now stare at the Julius k9 harness (these anygood?) and Xtradog harnesses with a REASON.


What sort of harness has he got at the moment I find the step in ones useless as any decent dog knows full well how to get out, now he knows he knows so be warned. We had what I think is referred to as an H shaped one, we had one shaped like this for Rory and I am pretty sure as long as they fit a dog cannot escape Rogz Dogz Scooter Harness 16mm - Pet Supplies & Pet Accessories | PET SUPERMARKET Online Pet Store

Just looked at the K9's though are you going to get one like the last hairy monster in the customer photos here Pet Supplies, Pet Food, Dog Food, Cat Food and Pet Accessories at Zooplus  sorry couldn't resist


----------



## Beth17

GingerRogers said:


> Thats exactly why the owners of friendly dogs still need to be aware of other dogs behaviour though isn't it. It affects both you and your dogs even if they are 'just being friendly' and it might end up making one of the friendly ones not so friendly if they come across many grumpy Oscars. It is sooo :mad2:


It is very anger inducing :mad2:
On a happier note I have been teaching Sam to bow completely pointless but rather entertaining. He also keeps eating churned up mud :skep:

LO what a brilliant day for you and Zand :thumbup1: Shame about the JRT we've got one of those around here as well that does that.

Ginger it must be lovely to see them bonding


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> What sort of harness has he got at the moment I find the step in ones useless as any decent dog knows full well how to get out, now he knows he knows so be warned. We had what I think is referred to as an H shaped one, we had one shaped like this for Rory and I am pretty sure as long as they fit a dog cannot escape Rogz Dogz Scooter Harness 16mm - Pet Supplies & Pet Accessories | PET SUPERMARKET Online Pet Store
> 
> Just looked at the K9's though are you going to get one like the last hairy monster in the customer photos here Pet Supplies, Pet Food, Dog Food, Cat Food and Pet Accessories at Zooplus  sorry couldn't resist


Oh that EBT!! Tis Gorgeous! WOUDN'T THAT HARNESS SUIT MY MONSTER!? But I would prefer a front clip one. His current harness is not a step in one, its one that we got from a local farm shop so it's not an online place. It has a chest plate though! 
Hmm I think the Xtradog is a step in one!

They're a pain with my gangly monster.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh that EBT!! Tis Gorgeous! WOUDN'T THAT HARNESS SUIT MY MONSTER!? But I would prefer a front clip one. His current harness is not a step in one, its one that we got from a local farm shop so it's not an online place. It has a chest plate though!
> Hmm I don't think the Xtradog one has clip now think about it


No not the EBT the hairy one at the end, He He He


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> So yeah, I shall now stare at the Julius k9 harness (these anygood?) and Xtradog harnesses with a REASON.


I like my Julius K9, seems to be very secure and sturdy enough that if I needed to haul Spen out of a river or over a stile or something I could. Some don't like it though because of where the front strap sits, say it restricts movement (not noticed this), and because it covers quite a big surface area on the back.

Beth, sounds like your two did fine. Shadow used to chase off any dogs that he felt were bullying Wolf. Not ideal but kinda understandable and it wasn't like your two went haring over to the other dogs.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> *Im gonna speak to our local butcher-known him since I was a kid so hopefully he'll be helpful. Have to say I think it would be a bit confusing at first with weighing everything and getting the correct ratios of meat/bone/veg and introducing different meats gradually. Im sure I would get used to it soon enough though. Would be worth it though if it makes numpty boy healthier *
> 
> I have two diet sheets from one of the real experts in raw feeding, who tried very hard to persuade me to change a couple of years ago.
> 
> If you would like them I'm happy to send them to you?


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> No not the EBT the hairy one at the end, He He He


YES!!!! :biggrin:

Might actually make people move when I say "Can you move back a bit he's a bit uh bouncy." Cause I'll usually get ignored :skep:

That dog was such a cutie too!


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> I like my Julius K9, seems to be very secure and sturdy enough that if I needed to haul Spen out of a river or over a stile or something I could. Some don't like it though because of where the front strap sits, say it restricts movement (not noticed this), and because it covers quite a big surface area on the back.
> 
> Beth, sounds like your two did fine. Shadow used to chase off any dogs that he felt were bullying Wolf. Not ideal but kinda understandable and it wasn't like your two went haring over to the other dogs.


Seems unlikely the loon will back out of it too. 
Also do you feel like you have more control of spen when its on?
OOh and people I found a local dog trainer leaflet! She says on it no choke chains or shouting in her classes. 
Shall phone tommorow with eyes hopeful! Haha.


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> I think I feel worse because the retrievers don't fight back and are quite obviously just trying to say hello and just keep coming back to say hello even when Oscar is being a grumpy sod


Wouldn't you get annoyed if someone rang your doorbell and you opened the door aand told them you weren't interested.... only for them to ring yoru doorbell again and again and again.... It's not really very friendly to not take no for an answer 

LO Sounds like a good day, feel sorry for the JRT it must be very stressful for it to behave that way and I'll take a guess it's owners weren't doing anything to help.

Lovely walk this evening ... drove tothe top of the hill ( lazy mare) on the way saw a lovely EBT havne't seen them before wanted to stop the car, thought it might be a bit creepy :lol: so resisted

Only saw 2 dogs on our walk, one's owner saw i'd put TInk onlead and called his to heel ( top marks) so i said good evening and thank you.

The other was a huge boxer cross I'd guess DDB but don't quote me. bounding around with half a tree which it dropped and calmly came over , lovely slow approach quick sniff than back to it's tree  Tink very pleased with herself had a right spring in her step as we headed back to the car.

No valerian today so she gets super star status. ( it works so fast I carried in in my pocket)


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> Seems unlikely the loon will back out of it too.
> Also do you feel like you have more control of spen when its on?
> OOh and people I found a local dog trainer leaflet! She says on it no choke chains or shouting in her classes.
> Shall phone tommorow with eyes hopeful! Haha.


I don't really know to be honest. I find him much easier to control on his collar but I dunno whether that's because of training or whether he is easier to handle on it. Harness is basically used with a long line for him to be off wandering around and doing his own thing so he's actually a bit of a pain on it.

Good luck with the class!


----------



## Dogless

Well done Miss Tinks  and Donkey Boy .

LO - Have you looked at this harness at all? I have one to take Kilo running where our Cani-x stuff isn't suitable https://mekuti.co.uk/harness_shop.htm

Not much to report from our dark walk just now; meeting our Weimie friend at 0800 tomorrow, so hopefully another nice time (fingers crossed!) .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Well done Miss Tinks  and Donkey Boy .
> 
> LO - Have you looked at this harness at all? I have one to take Kilo running where our Cani-x stuff isn't suitable https://mekuti.co.uk/harness_shop.htm
> 
> Not much to report from our dark walk just now; meeting our Weimie friend at 0800 tomorrow, so hopefully another nice time (fingers crossed!) .


I have looked at it! Looks good (Front ring! *Fanfare*) 
Wee bit expensive though.


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> I have looked at it! Looks good (Front ring! *Fanfare*)
> Wee bit expensive though.


You're going to be looking to pay around the same for a Julius K9 I think, 39 euros Spens cost me.


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> You're going to be looking to pay around the same for a Julius K9 I think, 39 euros Spens cost me.


I hadn't thought of that. 

A front ring harness might be better for control, but the K9 looks durable.

Decisions! Can't have this discussion with Mum cause all I got was "Stop buying the dog crap!" :biggrin:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I hadn't thought of that.
> 
> A front ring harness might be better for control, but the K9 looks durable.
> 
> Decisions! Can't have this discussion with Mum cause all I got was "Stop buying the dog crap!" :biggrin:


I have a K9 and obviously have the Mekuti - both are very high quality and durable.


----------



## GingerRogers

See OH's and mothers just don't understand these things are important. I haven't told HIM yet that I *need *two new leads, one of Wyrds long lines and a new training lead.


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> I hadn't thought of that.
> 
> A front ring harness might be better for control, but the K9 looks durable.
> 
> Decisions! Can't have this discussion with Mum cause all I got was "Stop buying the dog crap!" :biggrin:


If you want a front ring in it maybe someone who makes collars could add a front ring? I'm sure someone on here has done it with a Julius K9 one. I can't for the life of me remember who though


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I have a K9 and obviously have the Mekuti - both are very high quality and durable.





GingerRogers said:


> See OH's and mothers just don't understand these things are important. I haven't told HIM yet that I *need *two new leads, one of Wyrds long lines and a new training lead.





Sarah1983 said:


> If you want a front ring in it maybe someone who makes collars could add a front ring? I'm sure someone on here has done it with a Julius K9 one. I can't for the life of me remember who though


Do you prefer one over the other Dogless?

It is a NEED isn't it though, we aren't buying on a whimsy. We're buying because it's needed! (And cause he'd look epic in a K9)

Would it work in the same way you think? A front ring sowed onto a normal harness?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Do you prefer one over the other Dogless?
> 
> It is a NEED isn't it though, we aren't buying on a whimsy. We're buying because it's needed! (And cause he'd look epic in a K9)
> 
> Would it work in the same way you think? A front ring sowed onto a normal harness?


I actually prefer the Mekuti to the K9 - I wouldn't use the K9 for running but do like the handle on top. For control the Mekuti is best for us.


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> Would it work in the same way you think? A front ring sowed onto a normal harness?


I would have thought so. I know some of them have a sort of martingale bit that tightens if the dog pulls but I'm sure some just have a static ring. The thing with the leash attaching at the front of the dogs chest is that it shouldn't be able to get much force behind the pulling without turning itself around.


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Chazzie, raw diet worked wonders with Rupert. He didn't really have a sensitive tummy but he suffered with skin and ear problems. A change to wheat and corn free mostly cleared them up but a change to raw seemed to get rid of the problems completely. And it had the added bonus that he actually started to enjoy his meals instead of reluctantly eating part of them.
> /QUOTE]
> 
> Thanks Sarah, that's good to know and yeah Charlie really enjoyed his turkey drumstick yesterday. It took him half an hour to eat instead of the usual 30 seconds to hoover up his kibble
> 
> Hope you have a good walk and keep safe tomorrow if you're venturing further from home x


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I would have thought so. I know some of them have a sort of martingale bit that tightens if the dog pulls but I'm sure some just have a static ring. The thing with the leash attaching at the front of the dogs chest is that it shouldn't be able to get much force behind the pulling without turning itself around.


I'd worry about the velcro coming undone as the dog came around to one side on the K9 I think - not that the velcro ever came undone on ours but I wonder how it would fare with a sudden lunge with force pulling outwards at the front? If the ring attachment went through both pieces of velcro that would mean that it couldn't be adjusted.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I'd worry about the velcro coming undone as the dog came around to one side on the K9 I think - not that the velcro ever came undone on ours but I wonder how it would fare with a sudden lunge with force pulling outwards at the front? If the ring attachment went through both pieces of velcro that would mean that it couldn't be adjusted.


Hmm..true. I'd forgotten it was a velcro fastening at the front. I know someone on here has done it with a Julius K9 harness, I remember them posting about it a while ago. I'll make a post asking and see whether they've had any problems lol. I need to find out who it was or it's gonna bug me for ages


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> chazzie10 said:
> 
> 
> 
> *Im gonna speak to our local butcher-known him since I was a kid so hopefully he'll be helpful. Have to say I think it would be a bit confusing at first with weighing everything and getting the correct ratios of meat/bone/veg and introducing different meats gradually. Im sure I would get used to it soon enough though. Would be worth it though if it makes numpty boy healthier *
> 
> I have two diet sheets from one of the real experts in raw feeding, who tried very hard to persuade me to change a couple of years ago.
> 
> If you would like them I'm happy to send them to you?
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks very much, that's very kind of you
> A diet sheet would be a lot easier to follow maybe!! I class myself as reasonably intelligent but I think Ive got so confused about how best to go about it that my heads full of little whirling drumsticks and livers hehehe
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Well done Miss Tinks  and Donkey Boy .
> 
> LO - Have you looked at this harness at all? I have one to take Kilo running where our Cani-x stuff isn't suitable https://mekuti.co.uk/harness_shop.htm
> 
> Not much to report from our dark walk just now; meeting our Weimie friend at 0800 tomorrow, so hopefully another nice time (fingers crossed!) .


That harness looks really good! If it works half as well as it claims it does it would be worth considering


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> That harness looks really good! If it works half as well as it claims it does it would be worth considering


I've been considering it for the past 9 months. The thing that put me off was that I can't see it or feel it or try it on before I buy it.

Plus I'm not sure how advisable it is to use a front attachment with a long line and that's the only time I'm really having problems now.


----------



## chazzie10

Well our walk tonight was frustrating to say the least.
Charlie insisted on trying to walk ahead of me-not pulling as such cos I was using his long leather lead, just wanting to be boss. 
THEN
We were only out 5 minutes when a guy with a collie walked towards us. I moved to the outside of the footpath to give plenty of room and Charlie kicked off pulling and lunging for the first time in about a month. 
It would have been ok if the guy had walked on but no, he stopped right beside us and said "its ok your dog's just being friendly" (isnt that meant to be my line lol) and started bringing his dog over! I was by this stage holding Charlie's collar and his back as he was reversing backwards onto the busy dual carriageway 
Still the guy came forwards! I had to get the dog away from the road which meant letting the dogs meet for a second as the guy was right up against us! Talk about invading someones space!!!
I told the guy Charlie would get bitten cos he was very forward and his answer was "Nooo he wont"- i explained he'd had 10 bites 2 weeks ago and he said " nonsense he's only a pup" and pushed his dog into mine....snap...snap
Effing raging :mad5:
Im afraid I cant even remember what I said to him then dragged Chaz off. Got 20 feet away and heard steps- the guy had changed his mind and was coming along behind us trying to catch up. Have you ever just wanted to shout P**S OFF at a complete stranger before? Grrrr 
Sorry, long story but I needed to get it off my chest :frown2:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I've been considering it for the past 9 months. The thing that put me off was that I can't see it or feel it or try it on before I buy it.
> 
> Plus I'm not sure how advisable it is to use a front attachment with a long line and that's the only time I'm really having problems now.


It isn't a front attachment as such - it's a flat ring that the lead passes through to attach at the side level with the rear attachment. With a longline I'd just use the rear ring - which is what you do with your K9 anyway.


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> I've been considering it for the past 9 months. The thing that put me off was that I can't see it or feel it or try it on before I buy it.
> 
> Plus I'm not sure how advisable it is to use a front attachment with a long line and that's the only time I'm really having problems now.


Weeeeellll I'll just let you buy it first and then you can tell me if you think it's good too


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Chazzie - what a walk  :frown2:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Oh dear Chazzie - what a walk  :frown2:.


It was just snaps cos he was looking into her face and sniffed her mouth a bit too long to be polite- no actual bites. I'm just angry that the wee garden gnome bloke put me in that situation when Id made it clear we didnt want to be sociable and I was obviously finding it difficult to control the dog- he should've walked on...he was like a limpit :biggrin: Must be my outstanding personality and good looks  
On the plus side, 15mins later we past a westie disguised as a snowball ( I dont think charlie even knew what it was lol) and a jrt and although he showed interest, he didnt even pull!! There's no understanding the boy :frown2:


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks very much, that's very kind of you
> A diet sheet would be a lot easier to follow maybe!! I class myself as reasonably intelligent but I think Ive got so confused about how best to go about it that my heads full of little whirling drumsticks and livers hehehe
> 
> 
> 
> OK I'll send you a private message and attempt to send them.
> 
> Let me know if you don't get them - I'm not exactly computer literate....!!
Click to expand...


----------



## Sarah1983

Lol, sorry Chazzie but I doubt I'll be getting the harness coz chances are I'd only use the back ring.

Sounds like you ran into a right weirdo on your walk. I've had a few like that though, absolutely insistent on the dogs meeting and nothing seems to discourage them! Voice of Doom works great with dogs, doesn't seem to have the same effect on people though


----------



## Sarah1983

Any chance I can have a copy of the diet sheets too please Twiggy? More out of curiosity than anything so if it's a load of hassle don't worry about it


----------



## Beth17

Blimey Chazzie what a pleb that man sounds


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> chazzie10 said:
> 
> 
> 
> OK I'll send you a private message and attempt to send them.
> 
> Let me know if you don't get them - I'm not exactly computer literate....!!
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, I got it, eventually after unblocking my pop ups
> coconut porridge with green beans and liver mmmmm :frown2: yuck but Im sure Chaz would love it
> What weight of dog is that for?
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, sorry Chazzie but I doubt I'll be getting the harness coz chances are I'd only use the back ring.
> 
> Sounds like you ran into a right weirdo on your walk. I've had a few like that though, absolutely insistent on the dogs meeting and nothing seems to discourage them! Voice of Doom works great with dogs, doesn't seem to have the same effect on people though


Hummph Dang I'll have to buy one meself then :skep:


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Blimey Chazzie what a pleb that man sounds


I know but I'm sure he meant no harm really.... His dog told me it was ok his owner 'was just being friendly' hehehem


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, I got it, eventually after unblocking my pop ups
> coconut porridge with green beans and liver mmmmm :frown2: yuck but Im sure Chaz would love it
> What weight of dog is that for?
> 
> 
> 
> I've just sent you the second version which has dog's weight on.
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

Thanks Twiggy yep I got it....have to have a read at them tomorrow, then I'll go speak to the butcher nicely and then maybe make up the menu for his lordship


----------



## Werehorse

Have been a bit rubbish at "working on" anything with the boys for a couple of weeks.  That's what it feels like anyway. I don't do well when the daylight starts to go and have gone into survival mode.  Weekends are ok though cos OH chivvies me along!

Just did a little bit of Pace of Death training during last wees walks now though and it's coming together again. I think a key thing will be no lead walks together for, lets say, a month (as far as is humanly possible and except when OH can take one of them) so that they get to practice (ise?? never know despite being told many thousands of times) good LLW on their own. Then reintro together LLW VERY SLOOOOOOWLY!

I'm hoping actually training in the same training class will make a difference with this as well, they get to work on concentrating when they are around each other.

I'm dreading the class a bit tomorrow. Haven't done any work on Hugo's retrieve.  Just a bit though, in an impending mild embarassment kind of way rather than an I'm going to die kind of way!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Have been a bit rubbish at "working on" anything with the boys for a couple of weeks.  That's what it feels like anyway. I don't do well when the daylight starts to go and have gone into survival mode.  Weekends are ok though cos OH chivvies me along!
> 
> Just did a little bit of Pace of Death training during last wees walks now though and it's coming together again. I think a key thing will be no lead walks together for, lets say, a month (as far as is humanly possible and except when OH can take one of them) so that they get to practice (ise?? never know despite being told many thousands of times) good LLW on their own. Then reintro together LLW VERY SLOOOOOOWLY!
> 
> I'm hoping actually training in the same training class will make a difference with this as well, they get to work on concentrating when they are around each other.
> 
> I'm dreading the class a bit tomorrow. Haven't done any work on Hugo's retrieve.  Just a bit though, in an impending mild embarassment kind of way rather than an I'm going to die kind of way!


Yes I know exactly what you mean....LOL

Every winter for umpteen years I intend to work on various aspects of training, and I really have no excuse with indoor facilities here, but come the dark nights and wet, cold miserable days.......very naughty.


----------



## kat&molly

Same for me this past couple of weeks, its been nothing but torrential rain here and just put me off doing anything , so just walks for us at the minute.

I've been painting this kitchen since Sunday, never ending and not even half way through yet , full of the lurgy and the St. Bernard girl I groomed a couple of months ago is staying until tomorrow. She's lovely, really nice natured dog but I'm not used to slobber and drool :laugh: Yuk.

Hope everyones ok.


----------



## moonviolet

I'm the same Werehorse. Didn't really do any practise and boy did it show last night although in my defense I'm going to claim she was a little naughty and silly because her adrenaline level isn't back to baseline, her focus was much poorer than it generally is and she was quite interested in the chatty lab to the left and the squeaky toller to the right. She did make me laugh though when she decided that she wasn't goign to push the bottle of water over with her nose.. instead she thought she would lay down and indicate that she had found it...:ciappa: Still was a lovely positive experience around happy positive people and dogs


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Same for me this past couple of weeks, its been nothing but torrential rain here and just put me off doing anything , so just walks for us at the minute.
> 
> *I've been painting this kitchen since Sunday, never ending and not even half way through yet ,* full of the lurgy and the St. Bernard girl I groomed a couple of months ago is staying until tomorrow. She's lovely, really nice natured dog but I'm not used to slobber and drool :laugh: Yuk.
> 
> Snap...!! And when we've finished the kitchen the adjoining lobby and back cloakroom also need doing as they are the same colour scheme....


----------



## GingerRogers

Horrid walk this morning felt that Ginge wasn't listening to anything anyway and then a woman appeared on the marsh with 3 black labs, pretty sure I recognised the dogs as we met them before but hey were with the daughter I reckon today as it wasn't the same woman. These dogs are fine but I have been going out early to avoid them for now so I make a VERY obvious diversion across the marsh to the other side of the field, wading through ankle deep water to avoid them and what happens - I bet none of you can guess??

Of course one comes bounding over, no attempt by the woman to call it back at all. Even though it is quite clear I am trying to get away. I was too far away to give her a piece of my mind but I was furious as was Ginge  if she had kept those dogs with her I was far enough away that I think I could have controlled her or at least restricted her reaction but having one come up say hello and then run away back to two more was too much for her.

Ironically as I was muttering angrily to myself (or not I was quite loud) the little pup starts perfect LLW :001_wub: But I suspect that this was because she could sense anger not because she wanted to please a nice mummy.

Rant over!


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear GR; chalk that one up to 'events beyond your control' I guess - hope this afternoon's is better.

We didn't meet our friend; she texted to say that she had back problems so we went to the park instead and had a nice walk as the weather is good. 

On the way back I popped into Tesco and met the woman we were meant to walk with this morning - she is a dog boarder / walker and has two dogs with her at present as well as her own that she can't manage to walk today as they are pullers so I'm going to go after my swim and walk them with her in case she has problems. The two out of control bonkers labs that are Kilo and mine's nemesis are being dropped off this afternoon and she doesn't have a clue how she'll manage them if her back still hurts so I may help out tomorrow too / as needed.


----------



## Guest

Poor you GR. At least it sorta ended well at least.

I had a kinda good walk (NINE AND A HALF DAYS OF NO TANTRUMS!) there were TONS of dogs on our route and Zander was semi good at sitting then bouncing AFTER they had passed. 
Then there was a lady with a dog and Zander sat till the VERY LAST SECOND, then bounced then the dog snapped at him and then the lady got really really really angry at me. 
She said that "What if hers had been aggressive or scared?" I replied that I understood that Zander's behaviour isn't acceptable and that we are working on it, hence the sit. But then she went on about that it's people like me that make dog owners look bad and why was a child like me walking him I should be at least sixteen (I'm twenty soon!) and accompanied by an adult. I kept apologizing but she just walked off and turned back to say "Stop apologizing and kept better control of that thing." 

I don't know what to say now, really. It upset me a bit, but I did understand where she was coming from.


----------



## Werehorse

Well I think that was incrediably rude of her, LO. You are clearly working on it by having him in a sit so there's really no need - it's NOT you that is the problem dog walker, it is people who don't bother to even try!

I imagine she and her dogs are so perfect they have never made a slight error.


----------



## GingerRogers

Yes I know I shouldn't get so wound up about things I can't change, I was just so incredibly annoyed earlier, if we had been having a better walk already I wouldn't have cared quite so much, but OH voice was ringing in my ears telling me how good she is with him.

The other ironic thing is that only last week, I think, I wrote that I wished all dogs would come up and say hello then she wouldn't be so reactive, but that was before you kind people pointed out the effect our behaviour was having on her. Be careful what you wish for, I had a good moan at my clients about it who were wholly sympathetic despite being non dog owners.

Poor you Lurcher Owner, why are people so obnoxious sometimes, I suppose she didn't know you understood but once you had explained she should have had the grace to shut up and give you some credit especially as she presumably didn't have an aggressive or scared dog (but on the plus side you will be glad to be mistaken for 15 in a few years time )

A little off topic but then lots of stuff on here is , OH got back last night with his perfect dog  to say that he had met an old man with an offlead uncollared westie, he warned the man that Ginge might make some row, so the old boy apparently kicked the dog out the way , not like booted it into next week but not a gentle shuffle either, I was very surprised when I asked him if he said anything and he said did , he also picked Ginge up to take her away as quickly as possible to stop the poor thing being hurt further, if he had had a lead or collar on it he could have controlled it differently, it wasn't anyone he had seen before but we will be keeping an eye out .

Thats very decent of you Dogless to help out especially as you have your own back problems so just take care!


----------



## kat&molly

LO- thats really unfair of the woman- at least you were trying.

Dogless- you'll be really glad of all the work you put in to Kilo after those bouncy Labs.


----------



## Sarah1983

LO, **** happens. There was no need for her to be that rude to you but unfortunately some people seem to just look for a reason. I'd have told her where to go to be perfectly honest, really given her reason to complain about me making dog owners look bad. Probably not the best way to handle situations like that though  Just put it behind you and carry on as you are, you're not the problem, it's these people who don't give a monkeys who are. 

Just taken Spen up to the local field in the hopes I could let him off as it's a miserable, rainy day. There were no other dogs but there was a van parked up at the top by the pond. Dunno what they were doing but Spen was all for going finding out so he stayed on the long line. Was going to take him to the woods but we have no hot water today coz they're replacing the boiler and I didn't fancy going out bowling tonight smelling like something that crawled out of a bog.


----------



## moonviolet

LO I think that woman's inner hag has taken over! What she did was clearly unnecessary, It was perfectly clear you were working on it. In fact if i see someone put their dog in a sit and clearly working on their dog's focus i give them as much space as i possibly can because i want them to succeed. 

Well done on nine and a half days without tantrums  thats a wonderful achievement 

GR sorry you had a bad walk this morning Hope the next one is better 

Dogless please do be careful and mind your own back.

K&M hope you get through with the painting and the slobber soon :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh dear GR; chalk that one up to 'events beyond your control' I guess - hope this afternoon's is better.
> 
> We didn't meet our friend; she texted to say that she had back problems so we went to the park instead and had a nice walk as the weather is good.
> 
> On the way back I popped into Tesco and met the woman we were meant to walk with this morning - she is a dog boarder / walker and has two dogs with her at present as well as her own that she can't manage to walk today as they are pullers so I'm going to go after my swim and walk them with her in case she has problems. The two out of control bonkers labs that are Kilo and mine's nemesis are being dropped off this afternoon and she doesn't have a clue how she'll manage them if her back still hurts so I may help out tomorrow too / as needed.


And just remember that you also have a dodgy back and a puppy arriving shortly...... Just be careful.


----------



## Werehorse

Ok, not dog related but the livery yard where we keep the horse is driving me MAD!!! AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGH!!! 

They keep rewarding my horses' bad manners when I'm not there then asking me to do something about it when the problem behaviour esculates! At the moment I can't put them in the field when it rains (i.e. all the time) and now they have basically taught OH's horse to kick down stable walls to get hay and are blaming me for swapping them over in their stables - which I only did to help manage a friggin drainage issue (apparently urine from MY horses specifically was cause eutrophication in the beck, not the 100 odd head of cattle in a barn next door - oh no, two horses. ).

Seriously considering giving up altogether.  Keeping horses is hard enough sometimes without constant battles over things like this.

I can't be at the yard all day and whenever I turn my back something goes wrong with my horses. The bliddy things don't kick when I'm there because I wait until they are calm before they get hay and if they kick I ignore them and, OMG, they stop. doing. it. because. it. isn't. rewarding. 

 Sorry ranting, it just makes things so hard when whenever I'm at the yard I'm just waiting for the next thing.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> LO I think that woman's inner hag has taken over! What she did was clearly unnecessary, It was perfectly clear you were working on it. In fact if i see someone put their dog in a sit and clearly working on their dog's focus i give them as much space as i possibly can because i want them to succeed.


Absolutely this; I went to pass a dog the other afternoon in the park and the woman put it in a sit and covered it's eyes with her scarf (it had been staring and posturing before it was sat) so I went down the path opposite rather than pass. LO that woman was probably one of those unpleasant people who go out to deliberately cause a reaction so that they have something to be foul about. Utterly horrible :incazzato:.

Werehorse - what an unpleasant situation to be in; I don't know much about horses but livery yards seem to be places that are fraught with politics and drama .

Walking the dogs this afternoon was fine; they were only tiny dogs but it was chaos....as soon as the leads came out it was bonkers - scrabbling at the door to go, one biting the other's lead and once out it was just about pulling as hard as possible and choking...no waiting at the kerb, no listening at all...just insanity :yikes: :crazy:. My friend's back is better this afternoon so we're going to meet in the morning for the Weimie and Kilo to play; I obviously didn't take the BW earlier!!

Still no coat .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Walking the dogs this afternoon was fine; they were only tiny dogs but it was chaos....as soon as the leads came out it was bonkers - scrabbling at the door to go, one biting the other's lead and once out it was just about pulling as hard as possible and choking...no waiting at the kerb, no listening at all...just insanity :yikes: :crazy:. My friend's back is better this afternoon so we're going to meet in the morning for the Weimie and Kilo to play; I obviously didn't take the BW earlier!!
> 
> Still no coat .


Lol, looking after someone elses dog for a while can certainly open your eyes to just how well behaved your own is can't it? I hadn't realised just how much I'd taken Spens waiting to be given permission to go through a door and various other things for granted till I looked after next doors dog for a day.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, looking after someone elses dog for a while can certainly open your eyes to just how well behaved your own is can't it? I hadn't realised just how much I'd taken Spens waiting to be given permission to go through a door and various other things for granted till I looked after next doors dog for a day.


It was actually good; I kept thinking about how bad it would be if Kilo did all that stuff at his size :yikes:. I take things like sitting for a lead on and off, waiting for the door to be opened, waiting at the kerb, not pulling etc for granted. I should appreciate the BW more .


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Ok, not dog related but the livery yard where we keep the horse is driving me MAD!!! AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGH!!!
> 
> They keep rewarding my horses' bad manners when I'm not there then asking me to do something about it when the problem behaviour esculates! At the moment I can't put them in the field when it rains (i.e. all the time) and now they have basically taught OH's horse to kick down stable walls to get hay and are blaming me for swapping them over in their stables - which I only did to help manage a friggin drainage issue (apparently urine from MY horses specifically was cause eutrophication in the beck, not the 100 odd head of cattle in a barn next door - oh no, two horses. ).
> 
> Seriously considering giving up altogether.  Keeping horses is hard enough sometimes without constant battles over things like this.
> 
> I can't be at the yard all day and whenever I turn my back something goes wrong with my horses. The bliddy things don't kick when I'm there because I wait until they are calm before they get hay and if they kick I ignore them and, OMG, they stop. doing. it. because. it. isn't. rewarding.
> 
> Sorry ranting, it just makes things so hard when whenever I'm at the yard I'm just waiting for the next thing.


Oh dear and some of that sounds like petty nonsense. It doesn't help that they can't be turned out for a few hours each day. They would have hated my cob; he was a demanding old devil and often kicked his door to get my attention. My sister was always moaning about his manners when she visited.


----------



## Twiggy

*Walking the dogs this afternoon was fine; they were only tiny dogs but it was chaos....as soon as the leads came out it was bonkers - scrabbling at the door to go, one biting the other's lead and once out it was just about pulling as hard as possible and choking...no waiting at the kerb, no listening at all...just insanity* :yikes: :crazy:. My friend's back is better this afternoon so we're going to meet in the morning for the Weimie and Kilo to play; I obviously didn't take the BW earlier!!

Yes I know what you mean. I went to sort out four little Shelties last year and they were the same. It was total bedlam and they had no manners at all. I was horrified.


----------



## GingerRogers

Livery yards can be particularly fraught places IME, if people think there's too many know-it-alls on PF they ought to spend a day in a horse yard :thumbdown: don't know if its cos the animals are so much bigger that the egos have to be as well 

Dogless I think I need to find some really unruly dogs to walk, trouble is they are all 'perfect' :rolleyes5: round here


----------



## Guest

Oh my we had a tantrum. Not even sure it WAS a tantrum though. Not a proper one. He just grabbed the lead and played tug with it. No teeth on skin or anything. 
Just ignored him for ages till he stopped.

Sorry you're having a rough time werehorse!!

Showed my mother both the Mekuti harness and the K9 one.

She went 'OOOH' at the K9 one haha.

The handle will be helpful too.

Stiles! I have yet to actually get across one with Zand!

And the manners thing. He sits for his harness and lead... But, ah, doors, the skinny bugger can get through the weeniest of gaps, work in progress me thinks


----------



## Werehorse

Second hand information regarding a K9 harness and the handle, chap at the petshop when we were buying a harness for Oscar once mentioned that he had several people say that when they tried to lift the dog over styles/up steep rocky paths etc using the handle on the harness the dog had just come out of the back of it. 

Whether he was saying that to persuade me to buy a (more expensive) Ruffwear harness or not I don't know. 

I have calmed down a bit about the horses! A bit. We are going to be ringing other yards tomorrow though, OH has had enough too this time - it's a shame cos the current yard is so close and has good facillities but we've come round to thinking it isn't worth it. And because we rent we can always move closer to another yard at a later date! No point having good facilities if you don't use them because you can't go down the yard without feeling like your every move is being critiqued and commented on! Grrrr.

Anyway! Off to training, OH handling Oscar, me driving Hugo. Send my inner control freak sooooothing vibes. :lol:


----------



## Guest

Oh god now I don;t know what to buy!!!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh god now I don;t know what to buy!!!!


I used the handle to help Kilo over stiles / rough terrain etc BUT never tried to lift him in it at all due to where the straps sat - thought it would be painful and if I HAVE to lift the bugger I tend to do it from underneath :yikes:. I could see how a dog would come out of the back if you lifted up so that the dog was facing upwards with no support at all at the back.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I used the handle to help Kilo over stiles / rough terrain etc BUT never tried to lift him in it at all due to where the straps sat - thought it would be painful and if I HAVE to lift the bugger I tend to do it from underneath :yikes:. I could see how a dog would come out of the back if you lifted up so that the dog was facing upwards with no support at all at the back.


Yeah, I've never tried actually lifting Spen up completely off the ground with the handle, I don't think that would be very comfortable for him regardless of whether he'd fall out of the harness. I have lifted his front end with it with no problems but only for a very brief moment.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Poor you GR. At least it sorta ended well at least.
> 
> I had a kinda good walk (NINE AND A HALF DAYS OF NO TANTRUMS!) there were TONS of dogs on our route and Zander was semi good at sitting then bouncing AFTER they had passed.
> Then there was a lady with a dog and Zander sat till the VERY LAST SECOND, then bounced then the dog snapped at him and then the lady got really really really angry at me.
> She said that "What if hers had been aggressive or scared?" I replied that I understood that Zander's behaviour isn't acceptable and that we are working on it, hence the sit. But then she went on about that it's people like me that make dog owners look bad and why was a child like me walking him I should be at least sixteen (I'm twenty soon!) and accompanied by an adult. I kept apologizing but she just walked off and turned back to say "Stop apologizing and kept better control of that thing."
> 
> I don't know what to say now, really. It upset me a bit, but I did understand where she was coming from.


That's just horrible. Surely she could see that you were doing your best to control Zander especially as he did really well and sat til the last minute! Who knows, maybe she was having a really bad day or she was embarrassed that her dog had snapped....no call to do all that snapping herself though!! Just tell yourself that she's a freak and cheer yourself up with the fact you're still young enough looking to be mistaken for a child....hasnt happened to me for quite a few years


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> kat&molly said:
> 
> 
> 
> Same for me this past couple of weeks, its been nothing but torrential rain here and just put me off doing anything , so just walks for us at the minute.
> 
> *I've been painting this kitchen since Sunday, never ending and not even half way through yet ,* full of the lurgy and the St. Bernard girl I groomed a couple of months ago is staying until tomorrow. She's lovely, really nice natured dog but I'm not used to slobber and drool :laugh: Yuk.
> 
> Snap...!! And when we've finished the kitchen the adjoining lobby and back cloakroom also need doing as they are the same colour scheme....
> 
> 
> 
> ooohh decorating, I LOVE it  There's nothing like the buzz you get from totally transforming a room with a different colour. Im addicted to it...so much so that I think my rooms end up about 6 inches smaller all round cos they've so many layers of paint on the walls
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Oh dear GR; chalk that one up to 'events beyond your control' I guess - hope this afternoon's is better.
> 
> We didn't meet our friend; she texted to say that she had back problems so we went to the park instead and had a nice walk as the weather is good.
> 
> On the way back I popped into Tesco and met the woman we were meant to walk with this morning - she is a dog boarder / walker and has two dogs with her at present as well as her own that she can't manage to walk today as they are pullers so I'm going to go after my swim and walk them with her in case she has problems. The two out of control bonkers labs that are Kilo and mine's nemesis are being dropped off this afternoon and she doesn't have a clue how she'll manage them if her back still hurts so I may help out tomorrow too / as needed.


Glutton for punishment?? lol


----------



## Guest

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh guys, Indidog sells the xtradog harness with a front ring attachment for 18 pounds!!!! 

Hope it has a clip! 

Just thought that in the k9 harness Zander MAY be able to back out of it. 

And ta for the kind words Chazz, I think she may have been having a bad day...


----------



## chazzie10

Had our best street walk yet, tonight. He was very calm waiting for me to get coat, hat and gloves on, sat nicely to get his lead on and while door was being opened. Stood on a loose lead while I locked up and the lead stayed loose for the whole 40 minutes- not one pull! Didnt meet any dogs but Im still very very pleased with ma boy . it made such a difference and Im not sure how many times I said 'good boy' lol poor mutt must think its his name now :laugh:


----------



## GingerRogers

chazzie10 said:


> Had our best street walk yet, tonight. He was very calm waiting for me to get coat, hat and gloves on, sat nicely to get his lead on and while door was being opened. Stood on a loose lead while I locked up and the lead stayed loose for the whole 40 minutes- not one pull! Didnt meet any dogs but Im still very very pleased with ma boy . it made such a difference and Im not sure how many times I said 'good boy' lol poor mutt must think its his name now :laugh:


Wish I could like that twice!


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> ooohh decorating, I LOVE it  There's nothing like the buzz you get from totally transforming a room with a different colour. Im addicted to it...so much so that I think my rooms end up about 6 inches smaller all round cos they've so many layers of paint on the walls
> 
> 
> 
> You are joking....?!! If you're not, you're very welcome to come and stay anytime (what do you prefer a brush or roller)...
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Wish I could like that twice!


aww thanks hehehe. Yeah if he would behave like that two days in a row it would be brilliant!!!


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> chazzie10 said:
> 
> 
> 
> You are joking....?!! If you're not, you're very welcome to come and stay anytime (what do you prefer a brush or roller)...
> 
> 
> 
> Brush, every time. Cant be doing with paint speckles everywhere :incazzato:
> Hey I could paint and you could train Charlie  (I think you've got the short straw there )
Click to expand...


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse hope you find a friendlier yard and you had fun in class tonight.

Chazzie well done i bet you felt so proud 

Tink seemed totally back to herself this evening. Thankfully she didn't realise the vehicle in the car park was the one i believe to belongs to the owner of hte 3 lurchers from the other day. So when we headed out I picked up my walking umbrella just in case. I spotted them in the distance and adjusted my route to ensure we wouldn't encounter them close up and we had a lovely walk included some pretty impressive zoomies.


----------



## Werehorse

Well the boys did good (mostly) and my control freak was kept in check - I didn't nag! Hurrah! I gave a two important point de-brief afterwards but I'll just have to let him figure out the rest himself.  We're going to have some family training sessions during the week when I am allowed to "shape" the OH's training behaviour. :lol:

Both dogs did well training side by side, kept having a little look at what the other was up to but nothing dreadful. And Hugo coped with the class very well.

Apart from his retrieve which isn't even awful - it is non-existant. Much work needed. 

It was nice to watch Oscar work, he's so cute.  :001_wub:

OH had a lot of fun joining in rather than watching so it was definitely the right move.


----------



## kat&molly

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> ooohh decorating, I LOVE it  There's nothing like the buzz you get from totally transforming a room with a different colour. Im addicted to it...so much so that I think my rooms end up about 6 inches smaller all round cos they've so many layers of paint on the walls
> 
> 
> 
> I dont mind really, but I done this kitchen in February- the joy of wood burners. The colours aren't turning out how they're meant to so not feeling too happy about it- I could even end up redoing it all.:incazzato:
> 
> Well done to Miss Tink and Charlie. Werehorse, that sounds a good lesson.
> 
> OH took Scruff to work again yesterday, and now you'd think he was her new hero. Fickle madam seems to have forgotten who does everything for her all day every day.:laugh:
> 
> Charlotte, the St.B goes home today, drool and slobber might not be my thing but what a lovely dog she is, loves dogs, cats people.:001_wub:
> It wasn't one of her best ideas to try and make friends with Jay though, luckily she gave up in the end.
> 
> Back to the painting....
Click to expand...


----------



## Guest

Gah, the xtradog harnesses price goes up when I go to the bigger sizes.


----------



## Guest

THATS IT, I HAVE DECIDED, FINALLY. (till I change my mind again)

A mekuti, looks durable, is durable, the elusive front clip. 

(And if it can help control your Kilo, I'll be damned if won't help my lunatic) 




Also chosen because mum was like "FLEECE? With our dog who's just torn apart the sheepskin square from out neighbour? "


----------



## L/C

LO - glad you've decided on a harness! We'll need pics of Donkey Boy in it once it arrives. 

Werehorse - glad the class went well and you controlled your inner control freak. I'm desperately trying to teach Gypsy a retrieve (or any interest in toys at all!) but failing miserably - so you can't be doing any worse then I am. 

MV - so glad that Tink has bounced back. I knew all your hard work building her up would give her stores of confidence to fall back on.

Chazzie - go Charlie boy! You'll have to let us know if he manages it two days in a row.

K&M - I read this quickly:



> Charlotte, the St.B goes home today, drool and slobber might not be my thing but what a lovely dog she is, loves dogs, cats people.


and I thought you were talking directly to me (my name's Charlotte) and I did about 3 readings before I realised the St Bernard was called Charlotte!

We've had a mixed few days. All of the squirrels seem to have come out to play meaning that Gypsy is very, very distracted. Not only is she constantly on the lookout for things to hunt but because her arousal level is higher she's also much more playful and more eager to greet other dogs (usually not that interested at all). I've stayed on top of it with heelwork and touch games and so far no recall failures or dashing off. We've been doing lots of focus work but she's back on her lead a fair bit!

BUT this morning she was a little star. Her habit of stopping on walks appears to have become a habit rather then a reaction to pain anymore. Trainer showed me a few tricks to keep her moving (she's a stubborn madam and will stop and refuse to walk if she decides she wants to go another way) and she is much improved since the weekend. Today we had a walk without any of her shenanigans at all and it was much more pleasant.

We did some training on the field away from the squirrel paradise and she did very well. We're practising down stays at a distance currently (duration is good) and today she held her stay while Ely ran around in a circle squeaking his ball and one of Gypsy's favourite things to do is to chase him while he has his ball. Yesterday I also managed to get an emergency stop out of her just as she started to chase a squirrel. :thumbup:

Ely has been doing very well with his calm socialisation. It's been months and months since we had an incident with him, aside from the odd grumble. Yesterday we ran into the world's most irresponsible dog walker (professional). We found a lurcher and spent 20 minutes looking for his people before bumping into this guy who was walking him plus 6 other dogs! His response was that the lurcher always get lost at least once a walk! One of the other dogs was the friendliest staffy bitch but she had a cloth muzzle on as he didn't want her picking up sticks. The poor girl couldn't open her mouth at all and there was no way in hell she could pant.  I had to walk away before I said something rude.

But Ely coped very well with the 7 strange dogs including the three rudest little ones I have ever met (iggies) which were the dog walkers own pets.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> THATS IT, I HAVE DECIDED, FINALLY. (till I change my mind again)
> 
> A mekuti, looks durable, is durable, the elusive front clip.
> 
> *(And if it can help control your Kilo, I'll be damned if won't help my lunatic)
> *
> 
> 
> Also chosen because mum was like "FLEECE? With our dog who's just torn apart the sheepskin square from out neighbour? "


:yikes::yikes: How very dare you suggest the BW is a lunatic :incazzato::incazzato:.

L/C - the squirrels are out in force here too; I feel your pain :angry:. Your pointies are just going from strength to strength though, they really are - an emergency stop whilst chasing a squirrel would have me ecstatic with joy . Ely is turning into a very calm dog around others by the sound of it - and we have had some of our worst experiences with 'professional' dog walkers too.

We had a lovely walk this morning with my friend and her weimie  and.....THE LONG AWAITED COAT HAS ARRIVED . It is lovely - really good quality, well made and a great fit - greyhound shaped so just right for the BW.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> :yikes::yikes: How very dare you suggest the BW is a lunatic :incazzato::incazzato:.
> 
> We had a lovely walk this morning with my friend and her weimie  and.....THE LONG AWAITED COAT HAS ARRIVED . It is lovely - really good quality, well made and a great fit - greyhound shaped so just right for the BW.


NOPE NOPE NOPE! I didn't mean as him being a loony, I meant him being bigger than Zander!! 

Very glad the coat has arrived!! (PICS PLEASE!)

And L/C when my one spots a squirrel he will try to leap UP the tree!!

No tantrums today and he's just had an hour run with a sprollie and nearly knocked over the sprollie over three times!! Luckily the chap likes my dog!


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> :yikes::yikes: How very dare you suggest the BW is a lunatic :incazzato::incazzato:.
> 
> L/C - the squirrels are out in force here too; I feel your pain :angry:. Your pointies are just going from strength to strength though, they really are - an emergency stop whilst chasing a squirrel would have me ecstatic with joy . Ely is turning into a very calm dog around others by the sound of it - and we have had some of our worst experiences with 'professional' dog walkers too.
> 
> We had a lovely walk this morning with my friend and her weimie  and.....THE LONG AWAITED COAT HAS ARRIVED . It is lovely - really good quality, well made and a great fit - greyhound shaped so just right for the BW.


I'm under no illusions that it was anything but a fluke but it was nice all the same!



LurcherOwner said:


> NOPE NOPE NOPE! I didn't mean as him being a loony, I meant him being bigger than Zander!!
> 
> Very glad the coat has arrived!! (PICS PLEASE!)
> 
> And L/C when my one spots a squirrel he will try to leap UP the tree!!
> 
> No tantrums today and he's just had an hour run with a sprollie and nearly knocked over the sprollie over three times!! Luckily the chap likes my dog!


Don't worry when we first got Gypsy if she saw anything that she wanted to chase she would have one of two reactions - stand on her back legs and scream or refuse to move at all. I once stood on a corner watching where a cat had been for 15 minutes!  And as she came to us with a broken leg the standing and screaming wasn't any better!

Ely still redirects onto her when he's frustrated but thankfully he has good bite inhibition so it's nothing but an annoyance for her.

But it's the price you pay for having dogs that are not only bred but also trained to chase. It would be a bit unrealistic for me to expect them to be able just to switch that all off.


----------



## Werehorse

Good news about the coat, Dogless, I hope we get pictures!

I just watched Marley and Me - ooops, cried my eyes out.  Me and the boys have had a duvet day today  just one of those days for me, yesterday's long walk and then training must have really tired them out though because they've been flat out snoozing all day! They have both had an individual lead walk round the village as well, and I made them both work really hard and they did good pace of death walking. 

L/C - at least pointies aren't supposedly bred to retrieve; Gypsy has an excuse , Hugo is half a springer! :lol: But he just grabs the toy and settles down to destroy it and won't come anywhere near me with it in his mouth. Trainer has set me the task of de-valuing the toy...


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Good news about the coat, Dogless, I hope we get pictures!
> 
> I just watched Marley and Me - ooops, cried my eyes out.  Me and the boys have had a duvet day today  just one of those days for me, yesterday's long walk and then training must have really tired them out though because they've been flat out snoozing all day! They have both had an individual lead walk round the village as well, and I made them both work really hard and they did good pace of death walking.
> 
> L/C - at least pointies aren't supposedly bred to retrieve; Gypsy has an excuse , Hugo is half a springer! :lol: But he just grabs the toy and settles down to destroy it and won't come anywhere near me with it in his mouth. Trainer has set me the task of de-valuing the toy...


That was on E4 the other Friday and I watched it for the first time - big mistake. :crying:

Clearly Hugo is just showing you what an important toy you got him. He's just appreciating the gift. :lol:

I can't even get Gypsy to mouth the toy! Even the special rabbit skin ones that I spend so much money on. Unless they are tied to the lunge whip or I'm already playing tug with Ely they may as well not exist!


----------



## Guest

L/C said:


> That was on E4 the other Friday and I watched it for the first time - big mistake. :crying:
> 
> Clearly Hugo is just showing you what an important toy you got him. He's just appreciating the gift. :lol:
> 
> I can't even get Gypsy to mouth the toy! Even the special rabbit skin ones that I spend so much money on them. Unless they are tied to the lunge whip or I'm already playing tug with Ely they may as well not exist!


My pointie halfling LOVES MOUTHING things, and settling down to rip to pieces!

He will fetch a tennis ball though, which greatly impressed the sprollie owner haha

Oh grief Marley and Me, The book made be blub, no idea what the film will do to me!

Add on: Forgot to say he walked lovely this afternoon which was good since my knee's were playing up (weak muscles mean by kneecaps can slide), and I measured him he's only got a 25 inch ribcage!


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> THATS IT, I HAVE DECIDED, FINALLY. (till I change my mind again)
> 
> A mekuti, looks durable, is durable, the elusive front clip.
> 
> (And if it can help control your Kilo, I'll be damned if won't help my lunatic)
> 
> 
> 
> Also chosen because mum was like "FLEECE? With our dog who's just torn apart the sheepskin square from out neighbour? "


Yaaaay....make sure you tell me if its good lmao


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> Yaaaay....make sure you tell me if its good lmao


Of course! Does look good though, as you thread the lead through the front loop and connect to the side one I envisage this MAY be helpful with the "YAAAY ANOTHER DOG I MUST JUMP ON IT" thing.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> LO - glad you've decided on a harness! We'll need pics of Donkey Boy in it once it arrives.
> 
> Werehorse - glad the class went well and you controlled your inner control freak. I'm desperately trying to teach Gypsy a retrieve (or any interest in toys at all!) but failing miserably - so you can't be doing any worse then I am.
> 
> MV - so glad that Tink has bounced back. I knew all your hard work building her up would give her stores of confidence to fall back on.
> 
> Chazzie - go Charlie boy! You'll have to let us know if he manages it two days in a row.
> 
> K&M - I read this quickly:
> 
> *and I thought you were talking directly to me (my name's Charlotte) and I did about 3 readings before I realised the St Bernard was called Charlotte!*
> 
> We've had a mixed few days. All of the squirrels seem to have come out to play meaning that Gypsy is very, very distracted. Not only is she constantly on the lookout for things to hunt but because her arousal level is higher she's also much more playful and more eager to greet other dogs (usually not that interested at all). I've stayed on top of it with heelwork and touch games and so far no recall failures or dashing off. We've been doing lots of focus work but she's back on her lead a fair bit!
> 
> BUT this morning she was a little star. Her habit of stopping on walks appears to have become a habit rather then a reaction to pain anymore. Trainer showed me a few tricks to keep her moving (she's a stubborn madam and will stop and refuse to walk if she decides she wants to go another way) and she is much improved since the weekend. Today we had a walk without any of her shenanigans at all and it was much more pleasant.
> 
> We did some training on the field away from the squirrel paradise and she did very well. We're practising down stays at a distance currently (duration is good) and today she held her stay while Ely ran around in a circle squeaking his ball and one of Gypsy's favourite things to do is to chase him while he has his ball. Yesterday I also managed to get an emergency stop out of her just as she started to chase a squirrel. :thumbup:
> 
> Ely has been doing very well with his calm socialisation. It's been months and months since we had an incident with him, aside from the odd grumble. Yesterday we ran into the world's most irresponsible dog walker (professional). We found a lurcher and spent 20 minutes looking for his people before bumping into this guy who was walking him plus 6 other dogs! His response was that the lurcher always get lost at least once a walk! One of the other dogs was the friendliest staffy bitch but she had a cloth muzzle on as he didn't want her picking up sticks. The poor girl couldn't open her mouth at all and there was no way in hell she could pant.  I had to walk away before I said something rude.
> 
> But Ely coped very well with the 7 strange dogs including the three rudest little ones I have ever met (iggies) which were the dog walkers own pets.


Snap  and I have 'loose kneecaps' are you me in a parallel universe.

Think we might finally be getting the lil'un to calm down a bit. It is day 7 of quiet walk attempt and day 10 of the Nupafeed. I have taken to randomly trying to get her focus for click and treats, which is improving, and also at points where 'scary' things have happened, outside the poor soggy teddy dogs fence for instance (not while he is out there I might add ).

After this morning I have to add outside our front door as there was a terrifying beast out there (her reflection in the neighbors car, he had parked at a different angle ) she had to bark at it.

I got nervous about the bats on our walk tonight after one hit me in the chest yesterday :yesnod: so she kindly protected me from the rustling hedge row (escaped cows :yikes:_) will we ever get a quiet walk


----------



## Guest

Was the parallel thing aimed at moi?

SHHHH! NO-ONE MUST KNOW! AND ZANDER IS PARALLEL GINGE. MWHAHAHAHAHA 

And a quiet walk? Wear ear protectors maybe? Lmao


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Was the parallel thing aimed at moi?
> 
> SHHHH! NO-ONE MUST KNOW! AND ZANDER IS PARALLEL GINGE. MWHAHAHAHAHA
> 
> And a quiet walk? Wear ear protectors maybe? Lmao


Oh I got confused  L/C thought the St Bernard was her and So did I I thought L/C had loose kneecaps but it was you who we know as LO.    (its all K&Ms fault really, anyone else have initials for names)

The thought of either of your dogs being parallel Ginge is frankly ridiculous 

Will the ear protectors protect my ears from dappy bats and escaped cows?


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Oh I got confused  L/C thought the St Bernard was her and So did I I thought L/C had loose kneecaps but it was you who we know as LO.    (its all K&Ms fault really, anyone else have initials for names)
> 
> The thought of either of your dogs being parallel Ginge is frankly ridiculous
> 
> Will the ear protectors protect my ears from dappy bats and escaped cows?


Oh haha see I was confused too for a bit, thinking "L/C has loose kneecaps TOO! Thats THREE people now" haha

Of course they would, the bats would ping off off them.

The cows maybe not haha.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Good news about the coat, Dogless, I hope we get pictures!
> 
> I just watched Marley and Me - ooops, cried my eyes out.  Me and the boys have had a duvet day today  just one of those days for me, yesterday's long walk and then training must have really tired them out though because they've been flat out snoozing all day! They have both had an individual lead walk round the village as well, and I made them both work really hard and they did good pace of death walking.
> 
> L/C - at least pointies aren't supposedly bred to retrieve; Gypsy has an excuse , Hugo is half a springer! :lol: But he just grabs the toy and settles down to destroy it and won't come anywhere near me with it in his mouth. Trainer has set me the task of de-valuing the toy...


I'm with your trainer on retrieve....LOL

Because there are so many aspects to a good retrieve if the dog is going to compete, we train it very carefully and rule No. 1 is that the article/dumbbell is not a toy, merely a means to an end ie the dog gets his ball/tit-bit as a reward for presenting the article (which is of no value).


----------



## Werehorse

Yes I think that was the plan - devalue it to the point where he barely wants to touch it then build up the retrieve.

I can see it makes sense as well because Oscar will do a very good retrieve with anything EXCEPT tennis balls! Simply because tennis balls are far too valuable to him (they are spaniel heaven as far as he is concerned) - I can see that if I wanted him to fetch a tennis ball I would have to do a lot of work devaluing it first.


----------



## Guest

How would you go about de-valuing things? As Zand can pick things up and refuse to give them, even for cheese!


Also the poor bugger just had to have help to poop out a plastic bag! 
No clue when he ate that, but he hasn't been half as whingey as he has been the last few days!


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## Werehorse

Basically you start by having the item really small so you can cover it with your hand in a fist (so you might have to stick it up your sleeve). You cover it and hold it out and don't let them have it, they'll probably nose and lick/chew/paw your hand at first. You wait until they turn their nose away from it, click and throw a treat out to the side so they have to move away from you and the item to pick up the treat. Repeat, clicking for the head turning away from the object.

When they've got that you reveal a little bit more of the object and repeat the process, gradually getting them to the point where you can leave the object on the floor, move your hand away and they'll turn their nose away from it...

It's like teaching a "leave it" with a treat.

They get into their head that not touching the object is more rewarding than touching it - it has been de-valued.

That's how I've been taught to do it anyway.


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh haha see I was confused too for a bit, thinking "L/C has loose kneecaps TOO! Thats THREE people now" haha
> 
> Of course they would, the bats would ping off off them.
> 
> The cows maybe not haha.


My kneecaps are firmly attached as far as I'm aware. Unless you know something I don't?


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> Basically you start by having the item really small so you can cover it with your hand in a fist (so you might have to stick it up your sleeve). You cover it and hold it out and don't let them have it, they'll probably nose and lick/chew/paw your hand at first. You wait until they turn their nose away from it, click and throw a treat out to the side so they have to move away from you and the item to pick up the treat. Repeat, clicking for the head turning away from the object.
> 
> When they've got that you reveal a little bit more of the object and repeat the process, gradually getting them to the point where you can leave the object on the floor, move your hand away and they'll turn their nose away from it...
> 
> It's like teaching a "leave it" with a treat.
> 
> They get into their head that not touching the object is more rewarding than touching it - it has been de-valued.
> 
> That's how I've been taught to do it anyway.


OOOHH I've actually been doing this with his treats so I actually have fingers past the knuckle! What do you do if it's a fairly big thing?


----------



## Werehorse

LurcherOwner said:


> OOOHH I've actually been doing this with his treats so I actually have fingers past the knuckle! What do you do if it's a fairly big thing?


Either scrunch it up if it's scrunchable or hide most of it up your sleeve to start with!


----------



## Beth17

Blimey you've all been busy bunnies!

Yay for the coat finally arriving and LO for deciding on a harness 

I was at uni today so left Sam in the care of my dad which Sam loves as he gets to be a prat somewhere else and mum looked after Oscar for the day. 

Poor Oscar cannot get a break at the moment  mum was walking him and he had two separate incidents of a collie and another dog barking at him and getting in his face. Mum said he was good as gold though and didn't react but why oh why do people let their dogs do that; if I let Oscar run up and do that all hell would break loose :incazzato:

But we've had a good evening with a quiet walk around the block and played football with Oscar which he adores so not all bad!

I am definitely going to have to get Sam's LLW up to scratch for winter though as he's 30kg now  he's not even 8 months! I may just invest in a sled and let him pull me along :laugh:


----------



## Thorne

Werehorse - your post has inspired me to get Scooter on a refresher course with his "leave". Lately he's been getting so excited about click and treat that he either swallows half of my hand with it or nips me by mistake when I post treats through his muzzle 
Ridiculous really, I was working on a terrier's "leave" at BX on monday and didn't think to come home and do the same with my own!

Dogless, we're still waiting for coat pictures!

This week's walks have been fairly disappointing. By the time I get home from work there have already been fireworks going off so they've been going out from when mum gets home at 4 until it's dark.

Today was good though, they've had a good long gallop and met the local nervy BC. She's just turned 1 and according to the owner has "just found her voice" i.e. she barked at my two when she saw us approaching and tried to back out of her harness, poor thing. She's always been wary of Scooter but by the time I'd finished talking to the owner she'd been brave enough to sniff noses and did a lovely play bow at Breeze (who ignored her as she'd heard some shots in the distance).
Breeze wasn't fussed by any bangs when she was offlead but had a real shiver session while I was talking and didn't want to leave the house at all!  As soon as I unclip the lead she puts her biggest waggy tail on and relaxes. I need to desensitise her to being onlead but not sure of the best way to do it... any ideas?
Scooter's been a good boy, he's "checking in" with me more frequently while we're out and his "wait" and recall still seem strong!

Glad the worst of the month's festivities are over, Breeze keeps thinking that every loud thudding or banging noise is a firework and having to hide up and shiver for a bit


----------



## CaliDog

Tonight i have just started to teach Cali "Bang your dead" trick it is going to take a while but i think its a fab trick i know its pretty pointless trick but it keeps her little mind ticking if we do it in little bursts everyday here is the vid i am following skip to 7.00 to see the trick completed

Bang Trick - How to teach - YouTube


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Yes I think that was the plan - devalue it to the point where he barely wants to touch it then build up the retrieve.
> 
> I can see it makes sense as well because Oscar will do a very good retrieve with anything EXCEPT tennis balls! Simply because tennis balls are far too valuable to him (they are spaniel heaven as far as he is concerned) - I can see that if I wanted him to fetch a tennis ball I would have to do a lot of work devaluing it first.


This is basically how we do it (I sent this to someone on the forum whose dog was mouthing retrieve articles several days ago):

_If you're prepared to put the work in this is how we do it:

Sit on the edge of a wooden chair (dining/kitchen type) with your legs stretched out in front of you and feet straight and on the floor. Throw a titbit out for your dog straight in front of you and as he eats it say "look what's this?" and have another one in your hand. As he looks at you show him the titbit and guide him in between your legs so that he is sitting and you've got the titbit on his nose just above your knees. Repeat until he understands and then introduce the word "touch" so that as he sits he touches your hands for the titbit. You must keep both hands together, fingers pointing down, almost as if you were doing a 'beg'.

Once he's doing this nicely and definitely understands to touch your fingers introduce a retrieve article. We normally use a stiff cardboard tube with puppies and untrained dogs to start with - middle of a fax roll, middle of a roll of tinfoil, something like that is ideal, cut to about 7".

Have him sitting between your legs and again say something like "what's this?" and offer him the tube. Make encouraging comments like "I've got it" or "it's my tube" and wave it about to encourage your dog to take it from you. The minute he makes any effort to take it (or even sniff it to start with) give him the titbit but don't say anything - let the titbit do the work.

Once he starts to take the tube from you fairly reliably then re-introduce the word "touch" and as soon as he does give him the tit-bit.

I see literally hundreds of dogs that mouth retrieve articles and the minute I say use a toy or titbit the handlers response is that their dog will drop the article. Of course they bloody will until they understand the rules of the game.

My theory is that the retrieve article is not a toy and from the dog's point of view should be regarded as a means to an end. They will return quickly and without mouthing to get their toy or titbit because it's a better option.

Have a go but it does require time and patience._

Once the dogs understand the rules on retrieve they will pick up anything, including tennis balls, squeaky toys, etc. etc.

I can play with my dogs tugging a toy, throwing a tennis ball, etc. but if I then throw it and say "retrieve" they will pick up cleanly, return quickly with no mouthing and present to me simply because they are trained to do it.


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> I am definitely going to have to get Sam's LLW up to scratch for winter though as he's 30kg now  he's not even 8 months! I may just invest in a sled and let him pull me along :laugh:


When I was 8yrs old our golden lab used to pull me on my skates- I'd hold his collar and chuck a dog biscuit and boy we got up some speed :laugh: He loved pulling me round on a sled in the snow too- thing was he was tugging the rope with his teeth and going backwards. Made me giggle though. Happy memories :001_wub:


----------



## Beth17

chazzie10 said:


> When I was 8yrs old our golden lab used to pull me on my skates- I'd hold his collar and chuck a dog biscuit and boy we got up some speed :laugh: He loved pulling me round on a sled in the snow too- thing was he was tugging the rope with his teeth and going backwards. Made me giggle though. Happy memories :001_wub:


I think I'd end up in A&E, it's bad enough when he takes off on his longline


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> I think I'd end up in A&E, it's bad enough when he takes off on his longline


Me too now...Im not exactly built for speed anymore


----------



## Dogless

A good walk this afternoon and good night at school (cooked stinking Tuna and garlic cake today!!). Coat pics tomorrow .


----------



## chazzie10

Tuna and garlic cake niiiice :drool:


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks for that Twiggy, I'll give it a try!


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> A good walk this afternoon and good night at school (cooked stinking Tuna and garlic cake today!!). Coat pics tomorrow .


Cor, bet you've got a fragrant house this evening!


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> Cor, bet you've got a fragrant house this evening!


Hmmmm...made it this morning and the house still smelt when I came in just now - despite having cleaned for a good part of the day and polished and having lit candles .


----------



## Guest

Ooh Dogless, whats the recipe for that!?


----------



## Beth17

Tuna and garlic yuk :thumbdown: 
Glad you had a good day though Dogless can't wait for some lovely pics of Kilo in his new coat


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Me too now...Im not exactly built for speed anymore


Agreed... When my sister suggested the other night that I take little Holly to an agility class to socialise her, the thought of a freezing cold indoor school plus having to make an attempt at running didn't exactly inspire me.

I couldn't run 20 odd years ago when I used to do agility with Twiggy and I certainly can't now...!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Ooh Dogless, whats the recipe for that!?


I don't really measure so a bit ad hoc but roughly:

2 cans of tuna so 230g (that bit I do know!!)
S/R flour - a bit less than the tuna so around 180g I'd guess
2 eggs
Enough milk (or water) to make a cakey consistency
Chopped clove of garlic

All mixed thoroughly together and put in oven at 160c for about 40 - 45 mins.

Sorry...not very specific but I just make it up as I go along until a cakey type mixture is achieved!!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I don't really measure so a bit ad hoc but roughly:
> 
> 2 cans of tuna so 230g (that bit I do know!!)
> S/R flour - a bit less than the tuna so around 180g I'd guess
> 2 eggs
> Enough milk (or water) to make a cakey consistency
> Chopped clove of garlic
> 
> All mixed thoroughly together and put in oven at 160c for about 40 - 45 mins.
> 
> Sorry...not very specific but I just make it up as I go along until a cakey type mixture is achieved!!


Do you think I could keep blasting it with the microwave till cakey/rubberyness?
Our oven is, er , tempermental at best haha.

Suppose it would be suitable for the cats too


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Do you think I could keep blasting it with the microwave till cakey/rubberyness?
> Our oven is, er , tempermental at best haha.
> 
> Suppose it would be suitable for the cats too


I would think so to the micro thing . It's been ages since I had cats so don't know about garlic and claws...sure you do!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I would think so to the micro thing . It's been ages since I had cats so don't know about garlic and claws...sure you do!


well in big amounts, Garlic isn't good for them, contains the same stuff thats in onions. 
So maybe I'll just give them a tin of tuna! Much easier and they'll love me!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> well in big amounts, Garlic isn't good for them, contains the same stuff thats in onions.
> So maybe I'll just give them a tin of tuna! Much easier and they'll love me!


Indeed - same for dogs but Kilo is big and claws are small....you could make it without garlic.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Indeed - same for dogs but Kilo is big and claws are small....you could make it without garlic.


Yeah but I think the garlic will be useful for distracting the loony one.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Yeah but I think the garlic will be useful for distracting the loony one.


Or everyone else as they look for the source of the stench so that they don't notice the lunacy .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Or everyone else as they look for the source of the stench so that they don't notice the lunacy .


:yikes::yikes::yikes::yikes::yikes:

Is it really that bad?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> :yikes::yikes::yikes::yikes::yikes:
> 
> Is it really that bad?


Not really Singing:Singing:.


----------



## GingerRogers

I think its the garlic that's important as the initial stink bomb. Without it liver cake doesn't have the same effect but I believe.that the poisonous bit of onions is much pessimism in garlic and spread out over the whole cake has no effect. We put a whole bulb of garlic in once with a pound liver cake which lasted 6 weeks but who knows perhaps that's why she's mental.
Eta that's meant to say 'much less than in' not pessimism - phones!!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Not really Singing:Singing:.





GingerRogers said:


> I think its the garlic that's important as the initial stink bomb. Without it liver cake doesn't have the same effect but I believe.that the poisonous bit of onions is much pessimism in garlic and spread out over the whole cake has no effect. We put a whole bulb of garlic in once with a pound liver cake which lasted 6 weeks but who knows perhaps that's why she's mental.


Heres a better question.

WILL I HAVE TO SHOWER AFTER EVERY WALK!? :ciappa:


----------



## Sarah1983

We are going to work on not dropping raggedy, dirty, chewed up giant tennis balls in my bath :angry: Get into my bath at last and what does Spen do? Drops said raggedy, dirty, chewed up giant tennis ball right in there with me.

I started trying to work on the exercises in The Clicked Retriever. Apparently Spencer hasn't read it though and would like to leap ahead to the part where I throw the article and he goes and gets it  And he's getting rather frustrated and grabby with it. Twiggy, I'm going to give what you posted a try.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Heres a better question.
> 
> WILL I HAVE TO SHOWER AFTER EVERY WALK!? :ciappa:


Only if you rub the cake into yourself :yikes:.



Sarah1983 said:


> We are going to work on not dropping raggedy, dirty, chewed up giant tennis balls in my bath :angry: Get into my bath at last and what does Spen do? Drops said raggedy, dirty, chewed up giant tennis ball right in there with me.


:lol::lol::lol:.


----------



## GingerRogers

LO you dont NEED a shower but you will be very popular with the neighbour hood dogs. 

Oh Sarah! That's crap. Tell spen he is bad. Its his fault you smell like the bog of doom or whatever it was, so its very unfair of him to drop bombs in your bath. Or you could shut the door? ? As i was putting the? ???? I realised you can't that's the whole point of having to wait till oh home isn't it. Think i need sleep. Confused bunny today.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> LO you dont NEED a shower but you will be very popular with the neighbour hood dogs.
> 
> Oh Sarah! That's crap. Tell spen he is bad. Its his fault you smell like the bog of doom or whatever it was, so its very unfair of him t*o drop bombs in your bath*. Or you could shut the door? ? As i was putting the? ???? I realised you can't that's the whole point of having to wait till oh home isn't it. Think i need sleep. Confused bunny today.


:idea::idea::idea: Just wrap these to look like a tennis ball......https://www.lush.co.uk/category/252. Job done :laugh: :laugh:.


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Spen 

I think Sam and Spen would get on like a house on fire :scared: :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Yeah, we try to avoid shutting the door when I'm in the bath. When I lived with my parents door was closed but not locked and everyone in the house was made aware that I was in the bath. I know to some it probably sounds a bit paranoid but I get no warning that I'm going to have a seizure and having one in the bath could well be fatal.

Spencer would second the recommendation for tuna and garlic cake by the way. Pilchard in tomato sauce and garlic cake is another good one.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> :idea::idea::idea: Just wrap these to look like a tennis ball......https://www.lush.co.uk/category/252. Job done :laugh: :laugh:.


Damn you, why did you post a link to Lush??? You're as bad as Smokeybear and her bloody book recommendations :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Good day today. Lovely morning walk buped inot a couple of her ladyship's boyfriends, including the very lovely but abnormallly large ( not fat) working cocker very gorgeous boy that he is. Then I met up with a lady from the class we've dropped as she didn't want to lose touch ( and wanted to be filled in on the gossip :lol

Monty and his owner are back so we met up for a walk in the dark. Lovely walk only saw a couple of cyclists, one canoodling couple in the car park and half way through our walk a pickup ( what happened to army landrovers? (leased vehicles jsut doesn't seem right.) pulled up and asked if we were ok and told us not to be afraid...thanks we really weren't 

Sarah Spen doesn't like you to be too clean.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Good day today. Lovely morning walk buped inot a couple of her ladyship's boyfriends, including the very lovely but abnormallly large ( not fat) working cocker very gorgeous boy that he is. Then I met up with a lady from the class we've dropped as she didn't want to lose touch ( and wanted to be filled in on the gossip :lol
> 
> Monty and his owner are back so we met up for a walk in the dark. Lovely walk only saw a couple of cyclists, one canoodling couple in the car park and half way through our walk a pickup ( *what happened to army landrovers? (leased vehicles jsut doesn't seem right.*) pulled up and asked if we were ok and told us not to be afraid...thanks we really weren't
> 
> Sarah Spen doesn't like you to be too clean.


But the heaters are so much better and water doesn't come up through the holes in the floor :laugh:.

Glad you had such a good day after the few worrying ones you've had this week .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> But the heaters are so much better and water doesn't come up through the holes in the floor :laugh:.
> 
> Glad you had such a good day after the few worrying ones you've had this week .


I come from a family with a landrover fetish.... i think between us we have owned them all from high capacity, army lightweight, series 1,2,3, defender freelander discovery.

I can understand the comfort and dry thing... after being knee deep in mud inside a defender once..... but have to say shiny red, blue silver vehicles are less than stealthy :lol: Then there was the hertz vans the other day, most odd :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I think its the garlic that's important as the initial stink bomb. Without it liver cake doesn't have the same effect but I believe.that the poisonous bit of onions is much pessimism in garlic and spread out over the whole cake has no effect. We put a whole bulb of garlic in once with a pound liver cake which lasted 6 weeks but who knows perhaps that's why she's mental.
> Eta that's meant to say 'much less than in' not pessimism - phones!!


A friend of mine makes tuna cake instead of liver. All the dogs seem to love it.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Sarah1983 said:



We are going to work on not dropping raggedy, dirty, chewed up giant tennis balls in my bath :angry: Get into my bath at last and what does Spen do? Drops said raggedy, dirty, chewed up giant tennis ball right in there with me.

Click to expand...

*


Sarah1983 said:


> Spen is not as bad as Leafy was as a young dog then...LOL She got in the bath/shower with me on more than one occasion, complete with squeaky toy. She was, and still is, obsessed with the bathroom.
> 
> *I started trying to work on the exercises in The Clicked Retriever. Apparently Spencer hasn't read it though and would like to leap ahead to the part where I throw the article and he goes and gets it  And he's getting rather frustrated and grabby with it. Twiggy, I'm going to give what you posted a try.*




Good for you - it needs time and patience though and also that is just Stage 1.....


----------



## GingerRogers

Yes I have thought of trying that just for variety but I must be the only person on the planet who doesn't mind the smell of liver cake raw, cooking or cooked, perhaps thats because I put so much garlic in it  I just worry that the miracle cake might not be as effective with tuna instead .

Does anyone have any ideas for what I can do with some left over pastry, made a pie and have almost as much pastry left over as I used, for dogs as its been in the fridge a couple of days.


----------



## L/C

I don't know what the star above platinum is but Gypsy deserves one for today's walk. 

She took off after a squirrel in a direction that would eventually lead to a road and I had a bit of a panic so I shouted to her to stop and down and she did it! I've never trained down at a distance so that was a massive fluke and as soon as I called her after that she came straight back. I'm so proud of her.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> I don't know what the star above platinum is but Gypsy deserves one for today's walk.
> 
> She took off after a squirrel in a direction that would eventually lead to a road and I had a bit of a panic so I shouted to her to stop and down and she did it! I've never trained down at a distance so that was a massive fluke and as soon as I called her after that she came straight back. I'm so proud of her.


A stellar day indeed - wow!! . Double platinum? Inter galactic?  .


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Good for you - it needs time and patience though and also that is just Stage 1.....


I think Spen would like to get in the bath with me but he tried getting in once and got stuck with his front paws in the bath and his back ones still on the ground. He couldn't get any grip with his front paws to either get in or out and I think it put him off.

I have time and patience and if at the end of the day we never get a formal retrieve I'm not really bothered. I have no plans to compete with him after all. Whether he has the patience to work through it might be another matter though!


----------



## Dogless

A very cold, wet walk in the park this morning; nice behavior from the BW and his new coat is great. Photos here http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/272598-kilos-new-coat-pics.html#post1062417321


----------



## Guest

Oh he looks lovely in it!!! 

And a big well done to Gypsy too! 

We had a good walk, no tantrums, bounced around alot. 
Let him off in the field expecting zoomies. 

Nope. Not a single run occured so I just threw some treats in the long grass for him to find haha. 

Met another dog owner who decided to comment on my dog. :incazzato:
"Someone hasn't been socialised have they?" 

Yes he has, we have been to socialise classes but they were horrible free-for-alls and probably contributes to Zanders OTT-ness.

Of course me saying that he had didn't make her much of a believer 


Trying to persuade mum to let me use to kitchen for tuna/liver/pilchard cake.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> I don't know what the star above platinum is but Gypsy deserves one for today's walk.
> 
> She took off after a squirrel in a direction that would eventually lead to a road and I had a bit of a panic so I shouted to her to stop and down and she did it! I've never trained down at a distance so that was a massive fluke and as soon as I called her after that she came straight back. I'm so proud of her.


Excellent Gypsy 

According to the British geological survey the next highest up the risk list for rare metals is Niobium so Gypsy have a Niobium star :lol:


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Excellent Gypsy
> 
> According to the British geological survey the next highest up the risk list for rare metals is Niobium so Gypsy have a Niobium star :lol:


I am now going to make you my go to person for geological questions. :lol:


----------



## Beth17

Well done Gypsy what a star 

mv you learn something new everday.

Dogless just off to look at the coat pics!

Ginger I don't mind the smell of livercake either and I don't put garlic in it; maybe my nose has broken 

Oh dear LO there's always someone to put a downer on the day :thumbdown:

We had a lovely quiet walk this morning no dramas. We did meet a lovely old man who I don't think quite believed me when I said how old Sam was


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> Met another dog owner who decided to comment on my dog. :incazzato:
> "Someone hasn't been socialised have they?"
> 
> Yes he has, we have been to socialise classes but they were horrible free-for-alls and probably contributes to Zanders OTT-ness.
> 
> Of course me saying that he had didn't make her much of a believer


OH dog save us from unsolicitied opinions... here's the one I got this morning...

Let me set the scene..... I was saying goodbye to the sweet little old lady ( swears like a trooper) with the very old JRT at the gate in the fence to the car park. When the local GSD walking group appeared returning fom their walk all onlead , I moved along beyond the gateway and then crouched down and played "look at that" at a distance Tink was comfortable with ( around 10 yards and perpendicular to their route so no head on eye contact.) and was not interfering with the GSD's at all....All they needed to do was pass through Tinker field of vision she wasn't fixated was relaxed glancing at them then glancing back.

Woman of free opinions (WoFO) : " are they scared?"

I was focussed on Tink didn't really want to engage. I didn't respond.

WoFO : " I SAID, ARE THEY SCARED?!"

Tink w as doing great and i thought I'd better reply while my eardrums were intact.

Me : Yes sadly she was attacked by a GSD.

WoFO: WELL IT WASN'T ONE OF THESE, WAS IT?!

Me: Sadly it wasn't a one off and she is nervous of every member of the breed.

WoFO: Well you need to desensitise her, don't you?

Me: Thats exactly what I'm doing from a distance ,she is comfortable with and doesn't interfere with you.

WoFO: Oh?

By this time her dogs were getting whingy, so I said thank you and went on my way.

Never mind i got what i wanted :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Was she wearing tweed and a twinset for some reason that image came to mind


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Was she wearing tweed and a twinset for some reason that image came to mind


No that's what i was wearing 

only joking :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Thorne

I think someone's doing a bit of building around here to day as there's constant thudding and banging going on! Breeze looks a bit concerned so she's coming on a mini road trip with me to Blue Cross to drop off some cakes. Depending on what else is going on there she might get roped in for a dog-to-dog session with one of the residents, otherwise we'll just go for a walk then come home to take Scooter out.

Bit of a grim day here so after a few laps of the garden they've decided to stay in bed!

Well done LC and Gypsy!


----------



## Sarah1983

Lol MV, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't sometimes aren't you? What did she think you were doing? I'm sure some people think desensitizing means just throwing the dog in with whatever it's worried about and practising tough love.

LC, well done to you and Gypsy 

LO, I used to get that a fair bit with Rupert. They'd often go on to tell me about how I should have done this, that or the other when he was a puppy. I didn't even have him as a puppy but apparently that didn't matter, I should still have done it when he was a puppy 

Spencer took off after a bird this morning. First time in months he's done it. I think it was a few factors combining though. He was watching the bird (a huge black one) but recalling away from it when asked. Then he heard a dog bark, turned to look and spotted 2 people standing on their balcony. Which apparently upset him because he instantly gained a mohican and started bouncing backwards and forwards making huffing noises (better than the full on barking fit he used to go into when startled). Then while bouncing he apparently remembered the bird and took off at speed towards it. Thankfully he was on the long line not the Flexi but it still wasn't very pleasant for me. I then morphed into a fishwife again  

But he settled down after it and we worked on more impulse control and obedience around the birds. I've noticed that although he can seem quite intent on them he's always got one ear cocked back towards me. And he responds pretty quickly now when I call him away. He gets a treat, sometimes gets asked to do something else too and then gets sent back to watch the birds again.


----------



## Werehorse

Ooooo! Well done Gypsy! Impressive stuff. 

Had a bat call this afternoon but I knew about it from yesterday so the boys got a nice early walk this morning for once! And I only had to do one lesson so it was the easiest bat call ever. Happy dayz.

Off to look at the long-awaited coat!


----------



## ballybee

Well not such a great day here i'm afraid.

I'm going to have to start taking the boys out seperately again, when we do our morning walk their mostly fine but in the afternoon any training just goes out the window!!!

If i try to recall Tummel Dan won't let him return and starts chasing him.

If Dan gets too hyper Tummel jumps him and pins him to the ground

Both dogs pull me

Both dogs get far too excited when people say hello(Dan gets Tummel hyped up as usually Tummel doesn't show much interest in meeting people).

Dans really quite rude to people and dogs(will jump constantly at people and dogs)

Tummel is starting to show signs of proper onlead aggression, most likely due to Dans overexcitement.


So my plan is

7.00am - walk both boys(taking turns being onlead and doing plenty of training)

8.30-9.00am - breakfast

do some training/play with toys during the day

4.30pm - take Tummel out for offlead walk in more popular walking areas(i usually go to very quiet places with Tummel) and do loads of training and play with him...maybe buy a muzzle in case

6pm - Take Dan out, again offlead and doing training/play in busier areas. Start desensitising him to dogmatic.

7.30pm - tea

More play/training individually around 9pm

10pm - both boys out for bedtime walk.

I'm going to use the next few days to observe Tummel as he's very confusing when it comes to other dogs, last night he(rightly so) told off a very bouncy and boisterous BC who came running over, then today he almost had a fight with a springer(not sure who started it but again the spaniel was the one who came over quite energetically) but he was more than happy to meet an extremely bouncy, very happy 11 week old GSP puppy....i don't know what he'd be like offlead as he's not often offlead when another dog comes over.


----------



## L/C

MV - while trawling through courses and seminars I came across this and I thought you might be interested:

Richard Curtis


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> I don't know what the star above platinum is but Gypsy deserves one for today's walk.
> 
> She took off after a squirrel in a direction that would eventually lead to a road and I had a bit of a panic so I shouted to her to stop and down and she did it! I've never trained down at a distance so that was a massive fluke and as soon as I called her after that she came straight back. I'm so proud of her.


That's fantastic - well done Gypsy....:thumbup1:

Teaching a drop at a distance really can be a lifesaver.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I have time and patience and if at the end of the day we never get a formal retrieve I'm not really bothered. I have no plans to compete with him after all. Whether he has the patience to work through it might be another matter though!


Yes he will providing you're consistent. Remember I'm teaching some absolute loony high drive dogs that easily get frustrated.


----------



## Thorne

I think Breeze like her outing, she met a Beagle cross and a young mongrel with big waggy tails all round. The staff all came and cooed over her in reception which she quietly enjoyed. She did pee on their doormat though 
Had a walk with her near the centre then headed home to walk Scooter.

He wasn't brilliant today, went on a route we haven't taken for a while so there was lots to sniff that was far more exciting than I was! He did come back when called but had to stop a few times en route 
Will put the longline back on the next time we got that way I think!


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Yes he will providing you're consistent. Remember I'm teaching some absolute loony high drive dogs that easily get frustrated.


Ah but you're a better trainer than I am  I'll persevere with him and see what I can get. We have no problems with the whole run out, pick up, bring back thing, it's the pick it up without pouncing on it, bring it back without mouthing it and sit in front rather than shove it into my hand and then take off again :lol: I dunno whether it would actually be easier to do with a dog who wasn't so obsessed with fetch.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Sit on the edge of a wooden chair (dining/kitchen type) with your legs stretched out in front of you and feet straight and on the floor. Throw a titbit out for your dog straight in front of you and as he eats it say "look what's this?" and have another one in your hand. As he looks at you show him the titbit and guide him in between your legs so that he is sitting and you've got the titbit on his nose just above your knees. Repeat until he understands and then introduce the word "touch" so that as he sits he touches your hands for the titbit. You must keep both hands together, fingers pointing down, almost as if you were doing a 'beg'.
> 
> Once he's doing this nicely and definitely understands to touch your fingers introduce a retrieve article. We normally use a stiff cardboard tube with puppies and untrained dogs to start with - middle of a fax roll, middle of a roll of tinfoil, something like that is ideal, cut to about 7".
> 
> Have him sitting between your legs and again say something like "what's this?" and offer him the tube. Make encouraging comments like "I've got it" or "it's my tube" and wave it about to encourage your dog to take it from you. The minute he makes any effort to take it (or even sniff it to start with) give him the titbit but don't say anything - let the titbit do the work.
> 
> Once he starts to take the tube from you fairly reliably then re-introduce the word "touch" and as soon as he does give him the tit-bit.


I worked through this with Hugo just now. He does "touch" very well anyway so I did that a number of times with him sat between my legs as you describe - easy peasey.

I introduced the toy and he kept dropping it before touching my hand which I'm not sure is what you describe - is he supposed to be touching my hand with the toy in his mouth (because that wasn't happening, he was droping then touching). However I inadvertantly ended up with a some good "hold"s where he wasn't mouthing it or running away it but sitting in front of me holding it nicely, so I was clicking that and he dropped it to get his treat. He was even holding it steady while I reached towards the toy which is a new (good) thing.  I rolled it down my legs towards him just to see what he'd do and he picked it up and held it which I rewarded as well.

Should I be trying to get a "touch" with the toy in the mouth for your method, Twiggy? Should I be rewarding the touch even if the toy is dropped?

Where do I go with it next? I guess I need to get him coming towards me with it?? Which is where the touch comes in... it's all very stationary at the moment and the general feeling I'm getting off him is that of backwards movement (even though he isn't moving :lol: that probably makes no sense!)... I'm not getting a feeling of him wanting to move towards me once the toy is in the picture...

I would really appreciate some more advice but let me know if I'm being a pest.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> MV - while trawling through courses and seminars I came across this and I thought you might be interested:
> 
> Richard Curtis


That does look very interesting ... think I'd prefer to go as a spectator. Can't imagine me being at my most co-ordinated when i'm star struck. :blush:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> *I worked through this with Hugo just* *now. He does "touch" very well anyway so I did that a number of times with him sat between my legs as you describe - easy peasey.*
> 
> That's good...
> 
> *I introduced the toy and he kept dropping it before touching my hand which I'm not sure is what you describe - is he supposed to be touching my hand with the toy in his mouth (because that wasn't happening, he was droping then touching). *You shouldn't be using a toy, you should be using a cardboard tube to start with and also you tit-bit for holding initially before you introduce the word "touch".Hugo won't yet understand the word "touch" with an article in his mouth - you are trying to run before you can walk.
> *However I inadvertantly ended up with a some good "hold"s where he wasn't mouthing it or running away it but sitting in front of me holding it nicely, so I was clicking that and he dropped it to get his treat.* Don't use a clicker on this and you take the article before he drops it and give him a treat, otherwise you are clicking Hugo for dropping the article.
> *He was even holding it steady while I reached towards the toy which is a new (good) thing.  I rolled it down my legs towards him just to see what he'd do and he picked it up and held it which I rewarded as well.* That's good, he's a clever boy
> 
> *Should I be trying to get a "touch" with the toy in the mouth for your method, Twiggy? Should I be rewarding the touch even if the toy is dropped? *Yes but take it slowly and it may take several sessions before he understands the rules. Never reward if he drops it.
> 
> *Where do I go with it next? I guess I need to get him coming towards me with it?? Which is where the touch comes in... it's all very stationary at the moment and the general feeling I'm getting off him is that of backwards movement (even though he isn't moving :lol: that probably makes no sense!)... I'm not getting a feeling of him wanting to move towards me once the toy is in the picture...* That's stage 2 - get Stage 1 up to scratch first.
> 
> *I would really appreciate some more advice but let me know if I'm being a pest. *


You're not being a pest.

The hardest part for any dog to understand initially is that they have to hold the tube to get the tit-bit, which is why you need to wave it about and the minute they actually take it from you _*you keep quiet, take it from them and give a tit-bit.*_

If only I could use the video camera (or the video function on my camera) it would be so much easier to explain.


----------



## blossom21

Clicker training- I bought one when Bramble first came to us but didnt really apply it. I started being more determined with it about 4 days ago and it seems to be helping quite a bit. He can be a little pickle for stealing stuff to get attention, but chasing him I discovered just leads him to think Im up for playtime. No I take that back not a little pickle a little b****r :laugh:


----------



## Sarah1983

Er...what if your dog has an obsession with shredding cardboard tubes?


----------



## blossom21

Cardboard tubes I could cope with, spectacle cases, letters, book marks, camera cases etc I cant.:laugh:


----------



## Werehorse

I was a bit concerned about using a carboard tube due to his enjoyment of shredding things... if he did bomb off with it he would be highly rewarded by the shredding. The "toy" I'm using is a green plastic tube made to look like a stick, and I've never _played_ fetch (or attempted to play fetch) with it. We'd have no chance if I was trying this with anything more toy like! But, yes, less toy-like might be better, as I say though cardboard (even strong stuff) concerns me due to the shreddability of it!

His retrievey stick looks like this;









So first step is to get him consistantly holding it (producing treat while he's holding), and consistantly touching my hand without it?

Is it ok if he drops the toy when my hand reaches to get the treat (he will do this)... that's why I was using the clicker, because I could time the click while he had it in his gob? This seemed to work, I with-held the click to extend the hold...

I'll do some more sessions over the weekend and see how we get on (I'm so impatient  I want him to get it right away, and he does most things :lol: just not retrieves!).

I might get some video of the sessions as well!


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I was a bit concerned about using a carboard tube due to his enjoyment of shredding things... if he did bomb off with it he would be highly rewarded by the shredding.


Yeah, this is my concern with Spencer. And I know if I offer him a cardboard tube that is exactly what he'll at least attempt to do.

Blossom, I'm seriously considering renaming Spencer Artful Dodger coz if it isn't nailed down he will take it. If he were human he'd have spent most of his life in juvenile detention and the rest in prison for petty theft.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Yeah, this is my concern with Spencer. And I know if I offer him a cardboard tube that is exactly what he'll at least attempt to do.
> 
> Blossom, I'm seriously considering renaming Spencer Artful Dodger coz if it isn't nailed down he will take it. If he were human he'd have spent most of his life in juvenile detention and the rest in prison for petty theft.


I can fully sympathise, i have quite the accomplished thief, she specialises in the overlooked easily available items but if there is nothing presenting itsef will turn her snout to picking pockets and handbags.. I should have realised what i was in for her Dad's called Fagin :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I can fully sympathise, i have quite the accomplished thief, she specialises in the overlooked easily available items but if there is nothing presenting itsef will turn her snout to picking pockets and handbags.. I should have realised what i was in for her Dad's called Fagin :lol:


Lol! How appropriate is that? :laugh: Spencer's the same. No matter how much I try to put everything away and leave him nothing to steal he always manages to find something. And he's so bloody sneaky about it too! He'll come up to you all loving and affectionate and then before you know it he's swiped a poo bag out of your pocket or a chocolate bar wrapper off your desk or something.

The little git actually had the nerve to deposit a piece of pig jawbone complete with teeth in my lap and take a tissue out of my hand in return for it last weekend!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I was a bit concerned about using a carboard tube due to his enjoyment of shredding things... if he did bomb off with it he would be highly rewarded by the shredding. The "toy" I'm using is a green plastic tube made to look like a stick, and I've never _played_ fetch (or attempted to play fetch) with it. We'd have no chance if I was trying this with anything more toy like! But, yes, less toy-like might be better, as I say though cardboard (even strong stuff) concerns me due to the shreddability of it!
> 
> His retrievey stick looks like this;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So first step is to get him consistantly holding it (producing treat while he's holding), and consistantly touching my hand without it?
> 
> Is it ok if he drops the toy when my hand reaches to get the treat (he will do this)... that's why I was using the clicker, because I could time the click while he had it in his gob? This seemed to work, I with-held the click to extend the hold...
> 
> I'll do some more sessions over the weekend and see how we get on (I'm so impatient  I want him to get it right away, and he does most things :lol: just not retrieves!).
> 
> I might get some video of the sessions as well!


Patience is the key. Your green stick looks OK to use. Put Hugo on the lead (but don't use it) if you think he will bomb off with the tube.

Both you and Sarah have got the wrong end of the stick....LOL

You are sitting on a chair with the dog between your outstretched legs with your hands together and in one hand is a tit-bit and the tube is in the other (which is why it would be impossible to use a clicker, unless you have an extra hand).

To keep the dog interested do a couple of throws with a tit-bit out in front of you and as the dog returns between your legs, show him the tit-bit in your fingers, keeping both hands together and say "touch". Then whilst he is still sitting between your legs say "touch" again and then tit-bit. Then produce the tube/stick in one one and tit-bit in the other and offer the tube/stick to him sayinfg something like "what's this" in an excited voice. Your other hand should be directly behind the tube with a tit-bit in it. If he takes the tube, immediately take it from him and give him the tit-bit. Don't ask for a touch initially and don't say anything. A lot of dogs will say "No I don't want the tube, I just want the tit-bit" which is where great patience is required. Most dogs would rather have the tit-bit than the tube obviously which is why they are unlikely to shred it. They only find the tube more exciting if there is nothing else available ie tit-bit is in your pocket. Timing is critical - the dog takes the tube and is immediately rewarded in a nano-second and if they are clever (like Hugo and Spen) they soon begin to understand.

Many pretty experience handlers that come to me with retrieve problems (particularly mouthing or slow returns) are horrified when I say have a ball or tit-bit in your hands and make sure the dogs see it. The immediate response is "well my dog won't do it then, if he sees the tit-bit he will drop the article". Yes of course he will until he understands.

Hope that makes it clearer.


----------



## Twiggy

I meant to add that I'm sorry I didn't post last night but I was waiting for a call from my sister, as she was at Kings Hospital in London for her pre-admission assessment, and I just couldn't concentrate on anything else. She's going through sheer hell at the moment.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I meant to add that I'm sorry I didn't post last night but I was waiting for a call from my sister, as she was at Kings Hospital in London for her pre-admission assessment, and I just couldn't concentrate on anything else. She's going through sheer hell at the moment.


I really wish that I could do more than just say I'm thinking of you both - but I am and wish you as much courage and positivity as you can muster xx.


----------



## Dogless

I am warming up, eating porridge and drying out after a very cold, wet walk this morning and then I am working on cleaning all the carpets :thumbdown:. They need doing but I thought I'd wait until close to Rudi coming home so that there are no tempting smells to encourage either digging the carpet up or weeing :rolleyes5:. We leave very early on Wednesday morning so I reckon it's time!

We went to the fields this morning; no one else out early on a Saturday morning in the lashing rain funnily enough!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I meant to add that I'm sorry I didn't post last night but I was waiting for a call from my sister, as she was at Kings Hospital in London for her pre-admission assessment, and I just couldn't concentrate on anything else. She's going through sheer hell at the moment.


Oh Twiggy wish your sister all the strength and stamina she nees to fight this and you the same to support her in her battle and many many of very very best wishes.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy, wishing you and your sister the best. xxx

Mekuti has arrived, adjusted it so I can snugly fit two fingers underneath the strap on his back, but it makes him have a great LUMP of skin/fat behind where the harness fits!


----------



## Sarah1983

Wishing your sister all the best Twiggy.


----------



## Beth17

ballybee I sympathise you have just described my two perfectly, it's so frustrating isn't it.

Had a lovely walk with Sam this morning he met quite a few different dogs and had a good play. I did decide to walk him down a slippery path in the woods on his longline; not one of my brighter ideas 

I was having a good walk with Oscar and we had stopped to chat to someone with a couple of springers that we haven't seen for a while. he wasn't really interacting with them but was calm around them and just sniffing when a pointer/collie type dog came over. Nice and calm and they greeted Oscar had a sniff and then the other dog moved off he then followed it and barked in its face  I was not impressed with him :thumbdown:

Twiggy thinking of you and your sister.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy I hope your sister keeps ok...sending best wishes ( and hugs to you both) 

Well I'm a bit annoyed with myself.
Came home from work at 10am and pottered around cleaning, then something to eat, nice hot cup of ( well earned) coffee....and fell asleep on the settee and now Ive missed Charlie's training class :incazzato:
Im so stressed out not knowing what's happening to my job in work that Ive only been getting 2 or 3 hours of sleep every night and it's just caught up with me I guess. Raging though because Im not sure If I can go next week either as my car is booked in to get work done and the class is a bit far and out of the way. Oh well, I'll have to 'up' the training here at home.

Just to prove how strong and naughty Charlie is meeting other dogs, Yesterday I had a look at his collar as the D-ring seemed to have started twisting round.
He has managed to rip the 100% leather strong stitched collar!!! The D-ring housing has almost completely sliced open! One more mad greeting/ lunging session and it would have broken off. Thank goodness it didnt happen at the last meeting with the garden gnome guy and his collie when Charlie was reversing his butt onto the dual carriageway :yikes: :yikes:
New leather collar ordered and been dispatched already  Bad boy! :incazzato:


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear such a shame about the training class but at least he'll have a nice new collar


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Oh dear such a shame about the training class but at least he'll have a nice new collar


Yep, a nice blue leather one this time.....to match my blue lips and skin on our cold winter walks


----------



## Guest

Chazzie Zander broke his first greyhound collar with the boucning ahaha. 

I put the lead though both the side and front ring then clip to the other ring, stop Zander attempting to eat the lead and I can pull him back when he bounces!! (We met a terrierist when we got out the door!) 
Got him past a cat too! I can't do the alternating "touches" or whatever they're called very well haha


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> I meant to add that I'm sorry I didn't post last night but I was waiting for a call from my sister, as she was at Kings Hospital in London for her pre-admission assessment, and I just couldn't concentrate on anything else. She's going through sheer hell at the moment.


Oh Gordon Bennett! Don't appologise! I really appreciate the advice whenever it arrives, I should be appologising for being a bit thick and not reading it properly so you have to repeat yourself.  (I think I get what you mean now will give it a try)

Thinking of your sister and you and wishing you both all the strength in the world through these tough times. xxx


----------



## Dogless

The rain cleared up and sun came out this afternoon so we went to the park as I thought it would be busy...and it was for our little park! We had a fabulous walk - no anxiety or 'bad' moments at all despite a wedding, loads of kids with various contraptions and lots of dogs. I was thinking about all the 'etiquette' threads about at present and did a little survey -read no further if you are feeling tired already, have to drive or operate heavy machinery :yikes:.

We passed 29 dogs.
Of those, 19 were onlead, 10 off.
Of the 19 onlead, 2 approached as their owners didn't have the strength to stop them.
Of the 10 offlead, 8 approached.
Of those who approached onlead I told both owners that I didn't wish my dog to meet theirs and had it acknowledged with a laugh both times.
Of those who approached offlead I told the 5 owners within reasonable earshot that I didn't want my dog approached; 3 acted as if I was invisible; 2 chose to be rude.
Both those who approached onlead greeted rudely.
All of those who approached offlead greeted politely.

OK, that bit's over!!. ETA: I felt very sorry for a woman with a greyhound behind us - I'd seen her stop when we did to maintain distance and go onto the fields beside us (they caught us up but at a big distance as Sir Kilo was having a good time sniffing) when dogs came in her direction. The one man that was rude when I said that I didn't want our dogs to meet "Don't be stupid" (to me) followed by "Awwwwww, don't go biting that poor ickle wickle doggy now will you" (to his dog) let his dog then approach the greyhound who reacted - and the man gave the woman a real mouthful. I wanted to talk to her but didn't want to take Kilo close and stress her out more - so I hope she saw the smile I directed her way as all around us tutted about the 'bad' dog.

Maybe the carpet cleaning's addled my brain?!! Just the lounge and dining room to go tomorrow and that's the whole house done .


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Oh Gordon Bennett! Don't appologise! I really appreciate the advice whenever it arrives, I should be appologising for being a bit thick and not reading it properly so you have to repeat yourself.  (I think I get what you mean now will give it a try)
> 
> Thinking of your sister and you and wishing you both all the strength in the world through these tough times. xxx


I'm really happy to help and it takes my mind off other things most of the time. If you don't understand the method, please ask.

I normally ring my sister every night at about 8.30pm but she was meant to ring me last night, as she didn't know what time they'd get home. I was beginning to panic a bit when I eventually rang her and there was no reply. Thankfully she was home and had fallen asleep.


----------



## L/C

Twiggy -wishing you and your sister all the best.

Just got back from Discover Dogs where I spent far too much money' I dare not add it all up in my head!  I got a fun agility set, stocked up on mobile bones, bought another bed, lots of treats and finally got a new collar for Gypsy. I met loads of lovely dogs, attended an interesting seminar, saw some agility and generally had a great time.  I also got to meet some 6 month old puppies of the breed I would like to have in a couple of years time and caught up with some old friends and their new dog on the Akita breed stand.

A lovely day!


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Twiggy -wishing you and your sister all the best.
> 
> Just got back from Discover Dogs where I spent far too much money' I dare not add it all up in my head!  I got a fun agility set, stocked up on mobile bones, bought another bed, lots of treats and finally got a new collar for Gypsy. I met loads of lovely dogs, attended an interesting seminar, saw some agility and generally had a great time.  I also got to meet some 6 month old puppies of the breed I would like to have in a couple of years time and caught up with some old friends and their new dog on the Akita breed stand.
> 
> A lovely day!


Glad you enjoyed it.

That brings back memories of when I took little Fidget (the dancing queen) up there to do her heelwork to music routine. Dickie Davies, the sports commenter, introduced us and he fell in love with her as did every child spectating. When we left her on the bench to get a cup of tea, we turned round to see at least 40 of them clambering all over her. She loved children and also all the attention, bless her.


----------



## fortunesfool

Have to say ridiculously pleased with myself and Bodhi today. We spent weeks when we first got him trying to teach lie down - he never ever got it, the blankest of blank looks, he wouldn't even try to reach the treat on the floor or move any further than his neck would stretch. And like weak minded fools we gave up. 

Until yesterday - it's not dignified, and it's not on command (yet) but he seems to now get that to get to the treat he will have to place his whole body on the floor. He kind of scuffles with himself to get there but he is actually lying down for a treat. Usually he only does it to sprawl on the sofa and never on request.

Yes, this is the smallest of things and a given for a lot of dog owners but for us it feels like an achievement.


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## Beth17

Sam has after 6 months of living with us spotted the light fixtures and has spent the afternoon staring at the ceiling and then legging it out of the room 

Strange boy.


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## blossom21

Today and for the foreseeable future Im working on not becoming a jibbering wreck because of Bramble :laugh::laugh:


----------



## Guest

Poor Sam, is it scaring him you think? 

Dogless I HAVE QUESTIONS FOR YOU! 

1) With the Mekuti would I be able to attach a clip to the chest ring and use it like a traditional front clip harness? Only because I'm worried that in the long term, with the lead threaded through it, fur will be rubbed off. (This caused the current tantrums and he has wee bald patches where his headcollar was!)

2) Making TUNAHCAKE tommorow, erm stupid question (I'm full of 'em), Do I need to drain the tuna?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Poor Sam, is it scaring him you think?
> 
> Dogless I HAVE QUESTIONS FOR YOU!
> 
> 1) With the Mekuti would I be able to attach a clip to the chest ring and use it like a traditional front clip harness? Only because I'm worried that in the long term, with the lead threaded through it, fur will be rubbed off. (This caused the current tantrums and he has wee bald patches where his headcollar was!)
> 
> 2) Making TUNAHCAKE tommorow, erm stupid question (I'm full of 'em), Do I need to drain the tuna?


I would think probably not as the ring is flush to the chest rather than stitched with one side proud so a clip would dig in. You could just bring the lead around the front of his chest and attach to the side ring I would have thought? On our T Touch workshop we were shown how to use a normal training lead as an emergency 'harness' by passing the lead across the front of the chest and holding both ends - it works as I've tried it.

No need to drain the tuna if you don't want, no assuming it's in oil or springwater - not brine.


----------



## Beth17

LurcherOwner said:


> Poor Sam, is it scaring him you think?


Yes he does seem worried but I'm just carrying on as normal because there's not a lot I can do about the light fittings. I expect its just his age and he'll be alright tomorrow.

Isn't funny how they just suddenly notice certain things


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## blossom21

Just look,butter wouldn't melt :angry:


----------



## missnaomi

Dogless said:


> I would think probably not as the ring is flush to the chest rather than stitched with one side proud so a clip would dig in. You could just bring the lead around the front of his chest and attach to the side ring I would have thought? On our T Touch workshop we were shown how to use a normal training lead as an emergency 'harness' by passing the lead across the front of the chest and holding both ends - it works as I've tried it.
> 
> No need to drain the tuna if you don't want, no assuming it's in oil or springwater - not brine.


I'm not Dogless, but I've tried that with the harness and it just makes it twist round and go all wonky... So I wouldn't recommend doing it. Great harness though  would recommend it!


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Sam has after 6 months of living with us spotted the light fixtures and has spent the afternoon staring at the ceiling and then legging it out of the room
> 
> Strange boy.


Oh dear, this is the sort of thing Rupert used to do :laugh: I just ignored him and carried on as normal coz as you say, there's nothing you can do about things like light fittings.

Blossom, will this make you feel any better about Brambles stealing?









HE STOLE MY FREAKING KETTLE! :lol:


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## Guest

SPEN! Donkey boy SALUTES you!!


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> SPEN! Donkey boy SALUTES you!!


If you can train him to salute then the world's your oyster :laugh:.


----------



## blossom21

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh dear, this is the sort of thing Rupert used to do :laugh: I just ignored him and carried on as normal coz as you say, there's nothing you can do about things like light fittings.
> 
> Blossom, will this make you feel any better about Brambles stealing?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> HE STOLE MY FREAKING KETTLE! :lol:


OMG mine cant reach that high thank god, my place is now practically fort knox.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> If you can train him to salute then the world's your oyster :laugh:.


PFFFT, I've been attempting to teach him beg for about two weeks. :laugh::laugh:


----------



## Dogless

My perfect boy would never dream of stealing a thing; even as a puppy Singing:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer is banned from the kitchen for a reason. Typical stomach on legs Labrador that he is. Doesn't have to be edible for him to eat it either.


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## Werehorse

I swear Oscar can materialise socks, pants and tea towels from thin air... He once stuck his head down an alleyway as we were walking along and when we looked down at him he was happily trotting along with a random ladies thong in his mouth! :yikes: Another time it was a teddy bear! Which was altogether nicer. We kept the bear!

I am hopping mad today - got to the yard this evening (having been there during the day) and found my (clipped Anglo-arab) horse standing in her stable with no rug on. She had had a rug when I left her.   There had obviously been some kerfuffle because they have put extra boards up in OH's horse's stable.  A note would have been nice and whatever the heck the reason was the rug was taken off it should jolly well have been put back on! 

Even more annoying was that we had just this morning been to look at another yard and decided that we would be better off sticking than twisting!

Even if they did have a gorgeous choccie lab puppy!

Oooo, Dogless, I met a VERY lovely 10 week old Ridgie puppy today too. She was with a obviously completely in love with his puppy young lad and his dad.


----------



## Beth17

I happen to have one of those thieving doggies as well. He not adverse to scaling great heights to get what he wants :hand:


















And this is the view when he gets what he wants.


----------



## Thorne

Oh my gosh, Scooter would get on well with the rest of the thieving scoundrels on here! He can reach into the kitchen recycling bin and anything that hasn't been washed up properly is fair game. 
Yesterday he stalked out of there with some cardboard from a pack of crumpets, looked me dead in the face and walked off to shred it. Have also found him carrying ice cream tubs around 

Absolutely no progress has been made here today! I've been out most of the day at Discover Dogs leaving Dad and sister with the dogs - he spoke to a neighbour who said lots of dogs locally have been coming down with sickness and diarrhoea - Scooter experienced both last weekend and Breeze was sick twice last night  So they've not been out today! 
Not sure what to make of it without knowing which dogs have been unwell, it's tempting not to take them out tomorrow but house arrest seems extreme.

Bought an Equafleece for Breeze today, pics tomorrow!


----------



## chazzie10

Just looking through recent posts as I wasnt online much yesterday. Everyone's pics really made me laugh 
My sisters 5yr old lab has just started stealing things after years of being so well behaved ( laughs at her behind her back a little  )
At her house on friday for her birthday and he kept disappearing quietly and reappearing with random things...the best one was his 'daddy's' prize giant Shaun The Sheep toy ( I know, the man is 47 :sosp. Was sooo funny the way he came in all sheepish (sorry), tail wagging, head down as if he was saying " I know, I'm sorry....I need therapy"


----------



## Guest

I may have just released my inner hag on my walk today

A lady kept getting closer and closer with her terrier behind us, I stopped and put my one in a sit. 
She then asked, "Well why are you stopping, doesn't he like others?" 
I asked her to go around us by stepping off the pavement cos mines bouncy. 
She said she had every right to be on the pavement as I did, and I should have better control. By now one terrier was growling. 
*Inner hag released* 
I kinda went off on one saying "That if you don't go around, and mine bounces or whatever and yours bites him, you'll be paying the damn vets bill!"

She went around.

A man with a spaniel cheered at me, saying he'd had problems with her terriers before!

OOh and he walked nicely the whole walk!


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> I may have just released my inner hag on my walk today
> 
> A lady kept getting closer and closer with her terrier behind us, I stopped and put my one in a sit.
> She then asked, "Well why are you stopping, doesn't he like others?"
> I asked her to go around us by stepping off the pavement cos mines bouncy.
> She said she had every right to be on the pavement as I did, and I should have better control. By now one terrier was growling.
> *Inner hag released*
> I kinda went off on one saying "That if you don't go around, and mine bounces or whatever and yours bites him, you'll be paying the damn vets bill!"
> 
> She went around.
> 
> A man with a spaniel cheered at me, saying he'd had problems with her terriers before!
> 
> OOh and he walked nicely the whole walk!


What an unpleasant woman...

Sometiems you just have to embrace the inner hag 

I wonder if Donkey boy behaved because he's seen your inner hag :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Well done Donkey Boy and hag .

We had a great walk this morning. A black lab ran up when Kilo was onlead BUT approached nicely and greeted well. Kilo's tail clamped to his belly but I could tell they'd be OK together so I asked the lab's owner if he minded if I let him off (not sure why I always ask when theirs has run up!) and they had a nice play. Kilo broke it off after a few minutes to go and sniff which I'm sure is a self - calming thing. The lab unfortunately wouldn't leave him to it and pestered him to play, which he did again but I could tell he was about to hump so got him back and went on our way, thanking the man. Having avoided labs for a while until Kilo was calmer at the sight of them it was lovely that his first meet was positive . Other than that we walked and played together.

I missed the first remembrance service I can ever recall missing today . Had to take hubby to the airport. I did feel overwhelmingly bad, and sad, but then realised that I think of absent friends, the fallen and injured every single day and did set aside a few minutes to contemplate this morning.


----------



## moonviolet

How wondeful for KIlo to have a positive lab play ( shame the lab wanted to push for more but nm)

Don't feel bad, you set some time aside to remember, I think where you are when you show that respect is less relevant. I stopped a training session and sat quietly with Tink to observe the 2 mins silence.

We had a lovely walk bumped into a lovely GSD and his owner we've met a couple of times before Tink was unsure but her tail drooped rather than tucked quick sniff and on we went... she was certainly no more uneasy that she was with the stiff lab yesterday. ( just realised i posted about that on another thread but anyway)

I did have a corker of an embarassing moment.... I'd put Tink onlead as we'd come across a couple of mountain bikers, sitting down having a snack, I thought the combination of bare legs, food and people at her height might prove too tempting. I tend to chat away to her to help distract in the situations.... so my mouth is on autopilot saying all sorts of nonsense, I said soemthing along the lines of...... " if i dont' get to sniff strange mens legs nor do you." clearly louder than i thought i had..... as one of the mountain bikers replied " sniff away " :lol: :lol: :lol: I declined his kind offer


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> How wondeful for KIlo to have a positive lab play ( shame the lab wanted to push for more but nm)
> 
> Don't feel bad, you set some time aside to remember, I think where you are when you show that respect is less relevant. I stopped a training session and sat quietly with Tink to observe the 2 mins silence.
> 
> We had a lovely walk bumped into a lovely GSD and his owner we've met a couple of times before Tink was unsure but her tail drooped rather than tucked quick sniff and on we went... she was certainly no more uneasy that she was with the stiff lab yesterday. ( just realised i posted about that on another thread but anyway)
> 
> I did have a corker of an embarassing moment.... I'd put Tink onlead as we'd come across a couple of mountain bikers, sitting down having a snack, I thought the combination of bare legs, food and people at her height might prove too tempting. I tend to chat away to her to help distract in the situations.... so my mouth is on autopilot saying all sorts of nonsense, I said soemthing along the lines of...... " if i dont' get to sniff strange mens legs nor do you." clearly louder than i thought i had..... as one of the mountain bikers replied " sniff away " :lol: :lol: :lol: I declined his kind offer


I really wish I was close enough to walk with you, never a dull moment :laugh:Singing:Singing:.

I read the 'stiff lab' post and am pleased that Tink was no more worried with the GSD. Also pleased with Kilo's meet - as you say the lab pushing for more wasn't great but wasn't awful either as I just took Kilo away before he got anxious enough to hump!!


----------



## ballybee

Well yesterday was a total disaster, today was good though.

We took the boys to Dundee to visit Tummels oldest doggy chum and head to a very busy park(theory being Tummel would be calmer with his pal around and interact with other dogs). Tummel was on his longline and the first few dogs he met he was great. We carried on our walk and stopped at a quiet field to let the boys all charge around(Tummel got offlead as it was secure and there were no other dogs as it's not a well known walking spot) and the boiys had fun, until the dog we were walking with grabbed Tummel by the ear and atrted raggin him around!!! Tummel never retaliated at all and to our knowledge hadn't done anything but run past the lab(he had been trying to get the lab to play but after being told off was just running). Tummel came running back and he has a few cuts on his ear but nothing major.

After the fight we carried on(Tummel and Dan onlead) and after that Tummel was just not ok with having any dogs near him, at the end of the walk he allowed a very polite dally and an elderly cocker to be near him but not too close.

Today though he's been great, i took him out on the dogmatic for a wee outdoor training session and noticed 2 labs who i know quite well(not very friendly but they don't do anything to aggrevate the situation) and was able to use them to see how Tummel would react walking or sitting close to them, Tummel was great and we were able to have Tummel sitting calmly less than 2m from them. He also walked past 3 other dogs, one of which was very interested in saying hello and we had lots of positive body language from Tummel 

So there's definately hope for Tummel, I had Dan out before him and we met a bichon, a samoyed, a lab and 2 lurchers and Dan was great with all of them


----------



## Dogless

There are a lot of positives in there Ballybee - doesn't sound as if Tum instigated any trouble and you handled it sensibly.

Had a text from my friend just now; walking together this afternoon which will be nice .


----------



## Guest

Just made some TUNAHCAKE! Guess who forgot the garlic? And has now been BANNED indefinitly from making a mess from the kitchen? 

ME!? Damn. 

Smells quite nice though haha.


----------



## laurahair

hi all, new here 

my lovely Tess has been with us for nearly 2 weeks now and as I think I have cracked the nighttime anxiety (she has been silent and non-destructive for 5 nights now) I am now planning on working on her obedience.
When I go upstairs for a while I often come down to a dog curled up on the sofa, she will get off when i tell her but often slinks off to the corner of the living room and lies down with her head under the chair-to make it harder for me to move her it seems! she will go to her bed eventually, with a little coaxing (or bribery ), but I would like her to consistently go to her bed when I tell her to, without resorting to a carrot on a stick (well, it's a dog treat not a carrot but you know what i mean).
Wish me luck!


----------



## Dogless

laurahair said:


> hi all, new here
> 
> my lovely Tess has been with us for nearly 2 weeks now and as I think I have cracked the nighttime anxiety (she has been silent and non-destructive for 5 nights now) I am now planning on working on her obedience.
> When I go upstairs for a while I often come down to a dog curled up on the sofa, she will get off when i tell her but often slinks off to the corner of the living room and lies down with her head under the chair-to make it harder for me to move her it seems! she will go to her bed eventually, with a little coaxing (or bribery ), but I would like her to consistently go to her bed when I tell her to, without resorting to a carrot on a stick (well, it's a dog treat not a carrot but you know what i mean).
> Wish me luck!


Welcome - maybe you could turn going to her bed into a fun game? Get her to go to her bed randomly and give her massive fuss, praise and treats when she does it? I can't quite recall how I got Kilo to do it .


----------



## Twiggy

laurahair said:


> hi all, new here
> 
> my lovely Tess has been with us for nearly 2 weeks now and as I think I have cracked the nighttime anxiety (she has been silent and non-destructive for 5 nights now) I am now planning on working on her obedience.
> When I go upstairs for a while I often come down to a dog curled up on the sofa, she will get off when i tell her but often slinks off to the corner of the living room and lies down with her head under the chair-to make it harder for me to move her it seems! she will go to her bed eventually, with a little coaxing (or bribery ), but I would like her to consistently go to her bed when I tell her to, without resorting to a carrot on a stick (well, it's a dog treat not a carrot but you know what i mean).
> Wish me luck!


Good luck...!!

I've never had to teach my lot 'bed' they all seem to do it naturally - only trouble is it's my bed, my sofa, my chairs....


----------



## chazzie10

Glad everyone's day is going well for them 

I'm sitting here trying to get up the courage and motivation to take Charlie out. 
The Valerian arrived on Friday and I'd given him the lower dose then yesterday a full dose as soon as I got in from work at 10am ( to give it time to work before training class-which we missed). Took Chazzie to our forest late afternoon so less encounters and I was expecting miracles I guess. No difference in his behaviour. He was hyper and panting from the second I got him out of the car. He had a good run offlead on a side path, recalling instantly  . I was constantly watching for walkers and as soon as I heard voices he went straight onlead. I wasnt expecting what came round the corner though...2 walkers leading a teenager on a big pony and an offlead, old, calm very beautiful lemon beagle.
Charlie was onlead but just would not be distracted, wouldnt even sit and as the beagle approached nice and politely he went back to his old ways rearing up on his back legs and pulling so he scared the poor thing off. He lunged to follow and I couldnt hold him back at first and ended up running behind him for 10 feet holding on for grim death before I could get him stopped  
My back and shoulders are aching today and Im back on prescription painkillers with bouts of self indulgent weeping in corners. I just dont know how I'm gonna cope with this or stop it happening. I wish I had someone stronger to help me but my sons never here and isnt particularly interested in the crappy stuff like training/ walking, he just likes patting his head occasionally and taking photos of his tricks. Sorry to put a downer on everyone's good day :001_unsure:
Come on someone kick my butt and get me back on track (gently though or I might cry....again...)


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> How wondeful for KIlo to have a positive lab play ( shame the lab wanted to push for more but nm)
> 
> Don't feel bad, you set some time aside to remember, I think where you are when you show that respect is less relevant. I stopped a training session and sat quietly with Tink to observe the 2 mins silence.
> 
> We had a lovely walk bumped into a lovely GSD and his owner we've met a couple of times before Tink was unsure but her tail drooped rather than tucked quick sniff and on we went... she was certainly no more uneasy that she was with the stiff lab yesterday. ( just realised i posted about that on another thread but anyway)
> 
> I did have a corker of an embarassing moment.... I'd put Tink onlead as we'd come across a couple of mountain bikers, sitting down having a snack, I thought the combination of bare legs, food and people at her height might prove too tempting. I tend to chat away to her to help distract in the situations.... so my mouth is on autopilot saying all sorts of nonsense, I said soemthing along the lines of...... " if i dont' get to sniff strange mens legs nor do you." clearly louder than i thought i had..... as one of the mountain bikers replied " sniff away " :lol: :lol: :lol: I declined his kind offer


I had a bit of an embarassing moment last night as well (although not as bad as yours). We went out to dinner with friends and I was wearing a short sleeved top. I didn't notice when I got changed but when I took my coat off in the restaurant guess what - my arm was covered in bite marks, scratches and bruises....!! Yes I did train little Holly yesterday afternoon; I thought it would tire her a bit before we went out.


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> I did have a corker of an embarassing moment.... I'd put Tink onlead as we'd come across a couple of mountain bikers, sitting down having a snack, I thought the combination of bare legs, food and people at her height might prove too tempting. I tend to chat away to her to help distract in the situations.... so my mouth is on autopilot saying all sorts of nonsense, I said soemthing along the lines of...... " if i dont' get to sniff strange mens legs nor do you." clearly louder than i thought i had..... as one of the mountain bikers replied " sniff away " :lol: :lol: :lol: I declined his kind offer


Lol that's very funny and just like the things I come off with like 2 or 3 weeks ago when a man told charlie he wasnt being very polite sniffing his ankles and knees and I told the dog, "no thats rude, I wouldnt get away with doing something like that"...just as the dog stuck his nose right into his crotch and gave an extra loud sniff !! rrr:


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Well done Donkey Boy and hag .
> 
> We had a great walk this morning. A black lab ran up when Kilo was onlead BUT approached nicely and greeted well. Kilo's tail clamped to his belly but I could tell they'd be OK together so I asked the lab's owner if he minded if I let him off (not sure why I always ask when theirs has run up!) and they had a nice play. Kilo broke it off after a few minutes to go and sniff which I'm sure is a self - calming thing. The lab unfortunately wouldn't leave him to it and pestered him to play, which he did again but I could tell he was about to hump so got him back and went on our way, thanking the man. Having avoided labs for a while until Kilo was calmer at the sight of them it was lovely that his first meet was positive . Other than that we walked and played together.
> 
> I missed the first remembrance service I can ever recall missing today . Had to take hubby to the airport. I did feel overwhelmingly bad, and sad, but then realised that I think of absent friends, the fallen and injured every single day and did set aside a few minutes to contemplate this morning.


Dogless I'm sure you're glad it wasnt MY black lab lmao...I think inner hags would definately be beating each other with handbags never mind the dogs hehehe   
Well done, again, Kilo


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Glad everyone's day is going well for them
> 
> I'm sitting here trying to get up the courage and motivation to take Charlie out.
> The Valerian arrived on Friday and I'd given him the lower dose then yesterday a full dose as soon as I got in from work at 10am ( to give it time to work before training class-which we missed). Took Chazzie to our forest late afternoon so less encounters and I was expecting miracles I guess. No difference in his behaviour. He was hyper and panting from the second I got him out of the car. He had a good run offlead on a side path, recalling instantly  . I was constantly watching for walkers and as soon as I heard voices he went straight onlead. I wasnt expecting what came round the corner though...2 walkers leading a teenager on a big pony and an offlead, old, calm very beautiful lemon beagle.
> Charlie was onlead but just would not be distracted, wouldnt even sit and as the beagle approached nice and politely he went back to his old ways rearing up on his back legs and pulling so he scared the poor thing off. He lunged to follow and I couldnt hold him back at first and ended up running behind him for 10 feet holding on for grim death before I could get him stopped
> My back and shoulders are aching today and Im back on prescription painkillers with bouts of self indulgent weeping in corners. I just dont know how I'm gonna cope with this or stop it happening. I wish I had someone stronger to help me but my sons never here and isnt particularly interested in the crappy stuff like training/ walking, he just likes patting his head occasionally and taking photos of his tricks. Sorry to put a downer on everyone's good day :001_unsure:
> Come on someone kick my butt and get me back on track (gently though or I might cry....again...)


If you are stuck like that again you can use your lead as a makeshift harness job. If you use a training lead you can have one end clipped to the collar as normal. Put your hand 50cm or so along the lead and hold it there. Pass the remaining length of the lead across the chest and hold the end with your other hand. Does that make any sense? It does work.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Dogless I'm sure you're glad it wasnt MY black lab lmao...I think inner hags would definately be beating each other with handbags never mind the dogs hehehe
> Well done, again, Kilo


He'd be way too much for the BW at present I think!


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Just made some TUNAHCAKE! Guess who forgot the garlic? And has now been BANNED indefinitly from making a mess from the kitchen?
> 
> ME!? Damn.
> 
> Smells quite nice though haha.


I still havnt made it yet though was looking at the recipe earlier. 
What I dont get though, is it meant as part of the meal allowance or is it used for treats just?


----------



## dobermummy

Dogless said:


> If you are stuck like that again you can use your lead as a makeshift harness job. If you use a training lead you can have one end clipped to the collar as normal. Put your hand 50cm or so along the lead and hold it there. Pass the remaining length of the lead across the chest and hold the end with your other hand. Does that make any sense? It does work.


Thats really useful to know, thank you. Going to try it later with Mouse


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> If you are stuck like that again you can use your lead as a makeshift harness job. If you use a training lead you can have one end clipped to the collar as normal. Put your hand 50cm or so along the lead and hold it there. Pass the remaining length of the lead across the chest and hold the end with your other hand. Does that make any sense? It does work.


Yeah I'll try that 'next time (oh dear dog please dont let there BE a next time!)
Thing was I was to busy trying to hold him back with BOTH hands to be able to let go with 1 hand to wrap the lead around...if you know what I mean? Worst of it was I'd shouted to the people that he wasnt aggressive just bad mannered and we'd had a conversation from afar about his training classes...as they reached us the woman said very loudly " and you said he IS going to training classes? Hows that going for you?" B**ch rrr: lol


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Yeah I'll try that 'next time (oh dear dog please dont let there BE a next time!)
> Thing was I was to busy trying to hold him back with BOTH hands to be able to let go with 1 hand to wrap the lead around...if you know what I mean? Worst of it was I'd shouted to the people that he wasnt aggressive just bad mannered and we'd had a conversation from afar about his training classes...as they reached us the woman said very loudly " and you said he IS going to training classes? Hows that going for you?" B**ch rrr: lol


I was sort of thinking as you heard voices rather than when he got to the over excited stage - if you think he might then it's a precaution; if he doesn't it's a bonus!!

I love NI but swear it's full of the rudest people ever when it comes to walking dogs!!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I was sort of thinking as you heard voices rather than when he got to the over excited stage - if you think he might then it's a precaution; if he doesn't it's a bonus!!
> 
> I love NI but swear it's full of the rudest people ever when it comes to walking dogs!!


Yes I get you now  and I'll definately try it next time.
I should have tried to have a clear enough head to remember that he's never had the chance to meet a horse up close or in the flesh before and that probably made his reaction a lot more exaggerated and yes I would have liked their dog to have been put on its lead as they made no attempt to call it back from approaching even when they saw the battle I was having. 
Why do people think it's alright to be rude and smug when they can see someone infront of them that loves their dog but is obviously about to go to bits because they feel they cant handle him? What ever happened to empathy and understanding or even just the manners to keep it zipped? It seems to be in short supply in N.I that's for sure 
Thanks for the advice x


----------



## chazzie10

Aaaargh here goes....away for a walk with him ( with lead wrapped around his chest....and legs...and NECK if necessary hehehe)


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Yes I get you now  and I'll definately try it next time.
> I should have tried to have a clear enough head to remember that he's never had the chance to meet a horse up close or in the flesh before and that probably made his reaction a lot more exaggerated and yes I would have liked their dog to have been put on its lead as they made no attempt to call it back from approaching even when they saw the battle I was having.
> *Why do people think it's alright to be rude and smug when they can see someone infront of them that loves their dog but is obviously about to go to bits because they feel they cant handle him?* What every happened to empathy and understanding or even just the manners to keep it zipped? It seems to be in short supply in N.I that's for sure
> Thanks for the advice x


It makes them feel superior to you and gives them a lovely feeling of smug self - satisfaction I think . If I see someone struggling I do whatever I think will help - creating distance usually or stopping - gives me a nice feeling to help in some small way too! Honestly until I moved here I had never met so many people who just have to give you their opinion even if it clearly isn't wanted or needed.....


----------



## Guest

Poor you Chazz!  I gonna use teh cake as treats I think. 

Had a rather stressful walk! 

He played lovely in the field then as I was looping the lead through various lopps a man talks to us with a terrier, Zander goes nuts gets tangled in the lead which then whips up and hits me in the face! At least I know that harness is durable cos of the way it got twisted araound him! 
Then on the way home there was akid waving a stick around and his mum told me off when I asked him to keep it still then screamed at me when Zander jumped up at him, saying she was going to report me! 
Then he had THREE tantrums after all that palava. It was only lead chewing though, which I can deal with. I think he went off on them because I was getting really stressed out! He did meet a Lab that charged up to us nicely though!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> It makes them feel superior to you and gives them a lovely feeling of smug self - satisfaction I think . If I see someone struggling I do whatever I think will help - creating distance usually or stopping - gives me a nice feeling to help in some small way too! Honestly until I moved here I had never met so many people who just have to give you their opinion even if it clearly isn't wanted or needed.....


People like that drive me mad. Superior, smug barstewards. We can't all be born perfect and have perfectly trained animals can we?

Not done a lot today, Sundays are generally pretty lazy. My plan to teach Spencer to go belly up to the cue "who's the boss?" is going well though. He's gone from having to be lured onto his back to offering me a very tentative roll onto his side with front and rear leg raised slightly. I can build on that  And now he's got the general idea it should go much faster than it has done so far.


----------



## Dogless

We have just had a lovely walk with my friend and her dog - her dog and Kilo are just good together. Turns out we are both still here at Christmas so she has asked if we wanted a Christmas walk . I am really hoping her dog copes with Rudi - he may not; he's very selective about which dogs he tolerates - he's great with Kilo as there's no physical wrestling type play which suits Kilo too; they just chase toys and sniff about. Doesn't like dogs around his back end or in his face. He was fine with the little puppy we met not long ago though, so things may be good. 

If he doesn't tolerate Rudi I'll take Kilo separately for a play at Christmas as Rudi will only just be going out by then anyway.

My friend's husband said he saw us together and couldn't believe their dog was walking nicely alongside another dog totally relaxed .


----------



## Guest

dogless said:


> if he doesn't tolerate rudi i'll take kilo separately for a play at christmas as rudi will only just be going out by then anyway.
> 
> My friend's husband said he saw us together and couldn't believe their dog was walking nicely alongside another dog totally relaxed :d:d.


how long till he arrives!?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> how long till he arrives!?


9 sleeps . The BW and I leave early Wednesday morning.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> 9 sleeps . The BW and I leave early Wednesday morning.


NINE!? Omg very exciting! 

Cannot wait when we get to see the pics of him and the BW!


----------



## fortunesfool

So lying down continues to go well, he can do it on a hand gesture but bless the little bugger he's now lying down at the slightest thing! Can't give him a treat all the time or he will turn an even bigger fat bob than he is now so having to content him with "good boy'.

Also got him to do a series of down/sit/stay but I got too excited about it so he had a nutty at the end. He's also now having a humpty that training has stopped and there is no more liver cake coming.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> NINE!? Omg very exciting!
> 
> Cannot wait when we get to see the pics of him and the BW!


I'm having last minute "Am I doing the right thing?", "Will Kilo think I don't love him as much anymore?" (I know, he isn't human - I had had a glass of wine ), "Will he hate him?" "Can I cope with two?" etc etc worries. All stuff that I have thought of well in advance and discounted but which comes rushing back when the time is near . Unless that's just me .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I'm having last minute "Am I doing the right thing?", "Will Kilo think I don't love him as much anymore?" (I know, he isn't human - I had had a glass of wine ), "Will he hate him?" "Can I cope with two?" etc etc worries. All stuff that I have thought of well in advance and discounted but which comes rushing back when the time is near . Unless that's just me .


No it's not just you - been there, done that many times....

It will all work out fine, although there may well be days when you think OMG what have I let myself in for.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I'm having last minute "Am I doing the right thing?", "Will Kilo think I don't love him as much anymore?" (I know, he isn't human - I had had a glass of wine ), "Will he hate him?" "Can I cope with two?" etc etc worries. All stuff that I have thought of well in advance and discounted but which comes rushing back when the time is near . Unless that's just me .


I kinda had that when I was about to adopt the donkey. I kept thinking "What if I F*ck him up!?" and things like that.

YOU WILL BE FINE!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> No it's not just you - been there, done that many times....
> 
> It will all work out fine, *although there may well be days when you think OMG what have I let myself in for.*


I was talking about that with my friend this evening - said I disliked some of the early puppy stages although cute and would probably moan to her .


----------



## Werehorse

It'll be fine, Dogless, hard bliddy work but fine and good in the end.  I mean Oscar really didn't like Hugo at first and kept hiding upstairs and lost confidence generally but now they get on really well and I think Oscar is happier for it overall (he still loves it when he gets Oscar only time though!).

I'm definitely not tempted by a third yet though - I'd forgotten how hard Oscar was as a puppy by the time we got Hugo but I don't think I'll forget how hard having Hugo as a pup and Oscar as an adolescent and being in the final throws of trying to cope with my full time job was in a hurry! :lol:

We had a lovely walk today, we even met a couple of dogs - a young lab and a big collie - and the boys were perfect about greeting them, all very relaxed, Ocsar really is much more confident. Pleased. Hugo did go snoofling off quite a long way off and I think started eating something unpleasant but he responded to a leave it - which was pretty good considering he was as far away as he was... then he came belting back at top speed when we shouted "this way" and started walking quickly away. 

Twiggy I have videos for you to critique... just uploading...


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> It makes them feel superior to you and gives them a lovely feeling of smug self - satisfaction I think . If I see someone struggling I do whatever I think will help - creating distance usually or stopping - gives me a nice feeling to help in some small way too! Honestly until I moved here I had never met so many people who just have to give you their opinion even if it clearly isn't wanted or needed.....


I believe you're right- it makes them feel bigger and better 
I am like you- if I saw someone struggling I'm more likely to shout across "is there something I can do" or " do you want me to wait back here til you've passed" etc. If I've nothing nice to say, I dont say anything.....usually :ihih:


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Poor you Chazz!  I gonna use teh cake as treats I think.
> 
> Had a rather stressful walk!
> 
> He played lovely in the field then as I was looping the lead through various lopps a man talks to us with a terrier, Zander goes nuts gets tangled in the lead which then whips up and hits me in the face! At least I know that harness is durable cos of the way it got twisted araound him!
> Then on the way home there was akid waving a stick around and his mum told me off when I asked him to keep it still then screamed at me when Zander jumped up at him, saying she was going to report me!
> Then he had THREE tantrums after all that palava. It was only lead chewing though, which I can deal with. I think he went off on them because I was getting really stressed out! He did meet a Lab that charged up to us nicely though!


Sounds like you got tied in knots 
Charlie would be like that if someone has a stick or a ball. He charged a fisherman on the edge of the water cos he was fly fishing....you know, doing that...erm...wafting the rod backwards and forwards...silly man fishing type thing hehehe I think Chazzie thought he was throwing something out into the water for him to fetch :001_unsure:


----------



## Werehorse

Videos for Twiggy (and anyone else who wants to look )

First video has a couple of "touch" followed by a bit with the retrieve stick.

Second video was after the first but he did the task worse, I think I was holding the treat closer to the toy though... Then a couple of rolls down my legs just to show what he's doing with that.

Click on the stills to go to the video (I think).


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> We have just had a lovely walk with my friend and her dog - her dog and Kilo are just good together. Turns out we are both still here at Christmas so she has asked if we wanted a Christmas walk . I am really hoping her dog copes with Rudi - he may not; he's very selective about which dogs he tolerates - he's great with Kilo as there's no physical wrestling type play which suits Kilo too; they just chase toys and sniff about. Doesn't like dogs around his back end or in his face. He was fine with the little puppy we met not long ago though, so things may be good.
> 
> If he doesn't tolerate Rudi I'll take Kilo separately for a play at Christmas as Rudi will only just be going out by then anyway.
> 
> My friend's husband said he saw us together and couldn't believe their dog was walking nicely alongside another dog totally relaxed .


A Christmas dog walk, how lovely for you!! They are quite special arent they, with all the feelings of good cheer and friendliness 
I had my first experience of it last year as I went out to the forest with my Sister, Bro-in-law, Niece, Nephew, Mum and Dad, my son and his girlfriend!! A full convoy of us 
It was made more special by the fact that it was my Mum's 70th birthday last Christmas Day and that she was able to go at all- she's been agoraphobic for over 20 years and this was her first forest walk in 30 years and she was able to do it. Very happy walk


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> A Christmas dog walk, how lovely for you!! They are quite special arent they, with all the feelings of good cheer and friendliness
> I had my first experience of it last year as I went out to the forest with my Sister, Bro-in-law, Niece, Nephew, Mum and Dad, my son and his girlfriend!! A full convoy of us
> It was made more special by the fact that it was my Mum's 70th birthday last Christmas Day and that she was able to go at all- she's been agoraphobic for over 20 years and this was her first forest walk in 30 years and she was able to do it. Very happy walk


How lovely that your Mum managed it . I was on my own last Christmas and will be this one in all probability, so to see someone will be nice .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> How lovely that your Mum managed it . I was on my own last Christmas and will be this one in all probability, so to see someone will be nice .


Its lonely on your own at Christmas isnt it? I spent years being a single mum and that's when I felt the loneliest. Last year was probably the worst cos I'd left my fiance and was still sort going through the 'aftercrap' lol so I really appreciated the walk. So much so that we are doing it all over again this Christmas. Here's hoping the weather is as nice as last year 

Are your family all over the water Dogless? Have you no-one else here that you're close to that you could spend christmas with or a sister you could ship across to stay ( make her do the dishes hehehe)? x


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Its lonely on your own at Christmas isnt it? I spent years being a single mum and that's when I felt the loneliest. Last year was probably the worst cos I'd left my fiance and was still sort going through the 'aftercrap' lol so I really appreciated the walk. So much so that we are doing it all over again this Christmas. Here's hoping the weather is as nice as last year
> 
> Are your family all over the water Dogless? Have you no-one else here that you're close to that you could spend christmas with or a sister you could ship across to stay ( make her do the dishes hehehe)? x


Yes, they are over the water. I'm seeing them in a few days' time. Last year hubby managed to nip home for chrimbo dinner but other than that I was on my own for ten days or so - TBH I was ill so pleased it was quiet!! I'm used to being on my own so all will be fine - plus I will have a crazy pup running about .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> How lovely that your Mum managed it . I was on my own last Christmas and will be this one in all probability, so to see someone will be nice .


Won't be completely alone here. Would have liked to go home for it but once again hubby has Christmas duties so once again it'll be just the two of us. And he'll be in work at least part of the day. Ah well, it'll be just like any other day lol.


----------



## chazzie10

Well I guess there will always be some of us nutters and not-so-nutters online over christmas wanting a chinwag and good b**ching session about other dog walkers and telling if santa has visited our dogs, so we'll never be lonely


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Well I guess there will always be some of us nutters and not-so-nutters online over christmas wanting a chinwag and good b**ching session about other dog walkers and telling if santa has visited our dogs, so we'll never be lonely


There were last year . The secret santa threads were brill, very cheerful.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Yes, they are over the water. I'm seeing them in a few days' time. Last year hubby managed to nip home for chrimbo dinner but other than that I was on my own for ten days or so - TBH I was ill so pleased it was quiet!! I'm used to being on my own so all will be fine - plus I will have a crazy pup running about .


That's the difference between being 'alone' and being 'lonely' I guess. When you're sick it's good to get peace and quiet. 
You'll not have time to be lonely this year, Rudi and Kilo will have you in stitches with their antics for most of it


----------



## chazzie10

secret santa? on here?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> That's the difference between being 'alone' and being 'lonely' I guess. When you're sick it's good to get peace and quiet.
> You'll not have time to be lonely this year, Rudi and Kilo will have you in stitches with their antics for most of it


I'm used to being lonely - that is something you don't need to be alone for . I reckon I'll be busy this year as you say .


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> secret santa? on here?


Yup indeed....how have you missed the threads this year? :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I'm used to being lonely - that is something you don't need to be alone for . I reckon I'll be busy this year as you say .


That's a statement I made once, that my dad understood but my mum just didnt get at all.. I was upset one xmas eve and said I was lonely and my mum answered "but sure we're all here"...it's definately possible to be lonely in a crowd....Unless you're in the middle of a litter of very cute RR puppies  (just to mention dogs on it somewhere hehehe)


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> That's a statement I made once, that my dad understood but my mum just didnt get at all.. I was upset one xmas eve and said I was lonely and my mum answered "but sure we're all here"...it's definately possible to be lonely in a crowd....Unless you're in the middle of a litter of very cute RR puppies  (just to mention dogs on it somewhere hehehe)


I'd be in an asylum if I brought the whole lot home - one pup at a time will do  .


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> I'm having last minute "Am I doing the right thing?", "Will Kilo think I don't love him as much anymore?" (I know, he isn't human - I had had a glass of wine ), "Will he hate him?" "Can I cope with two?" etc etc worries. All stuff that I have thought of well in advance and discounted but which comes rushing back when the time is near . Unless that's just me .


I know the feeling! Hate to say it but prepare for a wobble on the first night home, as soon as Breeze was in the garden having her first sniff around I had an "Oh my god, what have I done?" moment, soon wore off and I'm sure you'll be just fine. Did the same on my canary's first day here, I'm hopeless 

Another slow day here. Breeze doesn't go out until it's dark on sundays because we always have a shoot on locally and we've ended up near it many times. She looked at me like I was crazy when I got the leads tonight then hid up! I'm a bit concerned by the canine D+V rumours so given her recent sickness episode I thought I'd let her off tonight and gave her a kong to play with.
She gets so worried from hearing the shots throughout the day that I'm considering making shooting season sundays a walk-free day for her, I have to practically drag her out if it's been very noisy.

Took Scooter out as his stomach seems ok now (touch wood) and he was really begging. He started tracking something as soon as we crossed onto the pavement, think there's a bitch in season somewhere! Didn't let him offlead because I was as good as invisible for at least half of the walk while he snuffled and licked and frothed at the mouth - grim. He did start listening so we did some lead-length waits, sits, downs and recalls. Got some nice focus and a loose lead on the way back so wasn't all doom and gloom!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Yup indeed....how have you missed the threads this year? :yikes::yikes:.


I havnt really looked at many other threads recently-i'll have to check that one out though!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> It'll be fine, Dogless, hard bliddy work
> 
> *Twiggy I have videos for you to critique... just uploading...*




I hate to tell you but the videos wouldn't work on my pc. All I got was a small piece of filmstrip with a tear through it, in the middle of my screen.

Any idea what that means?


----------



## GingerRogers

Horrid horrid day. Sorry thought we were getting through the crisisis (Sp?) had lovely walk this morning. Then about 5 doors from home met a lovely old lady and her gorgeous friendly jrt. Ginge has never met the dog but knowing the lady and the young dog i judged it would be fine for them to meet especially as we seem to have been making progress and she is definitely calmer. They did scamper up to each other terrier style which is the only thing i can put it down to. The next thing i know Ginge has grabbed the other dogs nose in her jaw and won't let go. I was so scared and horrified. The poor old lady was so shaken but still lovely. I apologised profusely, burst into tears and have barely been able to stop since. I put a note through her door 20 mins after but feel awful. And all awkward with Ginge. Never owned a dog who has done anything like that and dont know how to proceed. She has snapped few times but under completely different circumstances, never done anything like that. Feel so shitty to have so badly misjudged things, yet again. :-( :-(

eta it seemed as though the other dog was miraculously unhurt but made sure she knew where i lived in case.:-(


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> It'll be fine, Dogless, hard bliddy work but
> 
> *Twiggy I have videos for you to critique... just uploading...*




I hate to tell you but the videos wouldn't work on my pc. All I got was a filmstrip with a tear through it. Any idea what that means?


----------



## missnaomi

GingerRogers said:


> Horrid horrid day. Sorry thought we were getting through the crisisis (Sp?) had lovely walk this morning. Then about 5 doors from home met a lovely old lady and her gorgeous friendly jrt. Ginge has never met the dog but knowing the lady and the young dog i judged it would be fine for them to meet especially as we seem to have been making progress and she is definitely calmer. They did scamper up to each other terrier style which is the only thing i can put it down to. The next thing i know Ginge has grabbed the other dogs nose in her jaw and won't let go. I was so scared and horrified. The poor old lady was so shaken but still lovely. I apologised profusely, burst into tears and have barely been able to stop since. I put a note through her door 20 mins after but feel awful. And all awkward with Ginge. Never owned a dog who has done anything like that and dont know how to proceed. She has snapped few times but under completely different circumstances, never done anything like that. Feel so shitty to have so badly misjudged things, yet again. :-( :-(
> 
> eta it seemed as though the other dog was miraculously unhurt but made sure she knew where i lived in case.:-(


Hugs! I have nothing else I can really say, other than that one of my dogs, Ringo, has tried me like nothing else. He has tested my patience, my resilience, my determination and made me cry more than anything else ever...and really, in the grand scheme of things he's not that bad - it's just that he has a talent for making me feel incompetent and useless every step of the way. So I know how you feel!
Naomi xx


----------



## GingerRogers

Thank you. I so want things to get a bit easier but it seems they just get worse. Yet again though on the plus side she walks beautifully to heel when i am upset.


----------



## missnaomi

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you. I so want things to get a bit easier but it seems they just get worse. Yet again though on the plus side she walks beautifully to heel when i am upset.


One day, it'll come good. Ringo is great now, we do agility, I can take him everywhere, and we're going to class to work on the rest.

I think personally, I was a bit dopey and I believed that if you do all the things that you're supposed to do TA-DA you will have a great dog who is super well behaved, I underestimated the hours of work required and the sheer amount of time and effort that you have to put in month after month, and the fact that sometimes things get worse - and sometimes unexpected problems crop up too...and that no all dogs are like the ones in the training book where it sounds like "if you do this - your dog will be like this", rather than, in reality, "if you do this for ages and ages your dog may eventually be like this but you might have to do other stuff too depending on the personality and experiences of your dog...and then it still might not be like the one in the book."


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> I hate to tell you but the videos wouldn't work on my pc. All I got was a filmstrip with a tear through it. Any idea what that means?


Oh poop.  Have you got the latest flash doo dah downloaded? I'll see if OH will upload to yoootooobe, photobucket has had an upgrade and probably made itself more complicated.

Can other people see them?


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Horrid horrid day. Sorry thought we were getting through the crisisis (Sp?) had lovely walk this morning. Then about 5 doors from home met a lovely old lady and her gorgeous friendly jrt. Ginge has never met the dog but knowing the lady and the young dog i judged it would be fine for them to meet especially as we seem to have been making progress and she is definitely calmer. They did scamper up to each other terrier style which is the only thing i can put it down to. The next thing i know Ginge has grabbed the other dogs nose in her jaw and won't let go. I was so scared and horrified. The poor old lady was so shaken but still lovely. I apologised profusely, burst into tears and have barely been able to stop since. I put a note through her door 20 mins after but feel awful. And all awkward with Ginge. Never owned a dog who has done anything like that and dont know how to proceed. She has snapped few times but under completely different circumstances, never done anything like that. Feel so shitty to have so badly misjudged things, yet again. :-( :-(
> 
> eta it seemed as though the other dog was miraculously unhurt but made sure she knew where i lived in case.:-(


Oh no how upsetting for you but you didnt do it deliberately. Maybe it was just too soon for her. At least you did everything you could afterwards by leaving a note etc. Sending you hugs xx


----------



## chazzie10

missnaomi said:


> One day, it'll come good. Ringo is great now, we do agility, I can take him everywhere, and we're going to class to work on the rest.
> 
> I think personally, I was a bit dopey and I believed that if you do all the things that you're supposed to do TA-DA you will have a great dog who is super well behaved, I underestimated the hours of work required and the sheer amount of time and effort that you have to put in month after month, and the fact that sometimes things get worse - and sometimes unexpected problems crop up too...and that no all dogs are like the ones in the training book where it sounds like "if you do this - your dog will be like this", rather than, in reality, "if you do this for ages and ages your dog may eventually be like this but you might have to do other stuff too depending on the personality and experiences of your dog...and then it still might not be like the one in the book."


Yep thats true. I've read all the books, watched dvds and tv trainers but unfortunately Charlie must be reading from another book


----------



## missnaomi

chazzie10 said:


> Yep thats true. I've read all the books, watched dvds and tv trainers but unfortunately Charlie must be reading from another book


The thing which made me feel a bit better (not sure if that's the right way to describe it) is that, we have two dogs, both raised the same way, both go to the same classes - and Rosie is so much easier and just did everything by the book so to speak. It made me see how all dogs, like owners, are individuals, and when I remember this, it makes me feel better about stuff... x


----------



## Werehorse

Oh no GingerR  What a nightmare, I wonder what caused that.  She's a tough nut to crack your little ninja isn't she? 

I'm sorry I forgot - have you seen a behaviourist yet?

We all make mistakes and no physical harm done to the other dog and the other owner was understanding so that's good.

I would avoid any face to face meetings at all for now, but I have no idea if that is the right thing to do or what to do instead.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy - try these;

Video 1
Hugo Retrieve 1 - YouTube

Video 2
Hugo Retrieve 2 - YouTube


----------



## L/C

Ginge - sorry to hear what happened. I've been through something very similar with Ely and wrote about it on this very thread when he attacked an old lady's dog (who was 14 himself!) and I know how awful it makes you feel. I took their phone number and must have checked about 4 times that he was ok.

The key is to learn from it and take what you can so you can stop it happening again and help Ginge cope with everything that the world has to throw at her.

All the talk of bolshy dogs and kicking them over the past couple of days and I met one today that I could have happily booted. I was doing some impulse control work with the pointy athletes when I spotted this dog out of the corner of my eye (looked like a shar pei mix) but as we were off the path, Ely was on the lead in a sit stay and Gypsy was in a down stay I rather foolishly thought we were ok.

Of course I was wrong. The dog came over and introduced itself with a growl  so not off to the best start. I released my two to greet as it was clear that it wasn't going away and they were getting agitated. It began bothering Ely so I walked him away and it followed us. I body blocked the dog and it then growled at me and kept coming at us. Now this is perfect Ely over reacting and kicking off territory and I was desperate for that not to happen because it was clear that if it did it would escalate into a fight. At this point rude dog dodged round me to stick it's nose up Ely's bum again at which point he'd had enough and told it off. It snarled back and only then did the guy come and get it as I had put myself between them and if it did kick off I was clearly going to get bitten.

He collected his dog saying "Sorry, he normally comes back everytime." But no explanation as to why he had just stood and watched the situation escalate for a good few minutes. 

Ely was very agitated afterwards and I did some T-Touch with him but we still had to cut the walk short as he couldn't relax. I'm very happy that he reacted in an appropriate manner though and didn't attempt to make contact with the other dog. He just air snapped and was noisy. I am also pleased to report that we went to the pub afterwards and he spent a happy couple of hours alternating napping, being fussed and being fed sneaky bits of roast by the barmaids.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - it sounds as if you handled that situation beautifully and so did Ely, considering how he might have reacted in the past. Horrible though and so frustrating. Hope Ely is relaxed again today and doesn't remain stressed.

GR - what a horrible situation. Nothing to add to everyones' advice really about avoiding head to head meetings. Would it make you feel more relaxed muzzling Ginge so you know no harm can be done?


----------



## moonviolet

Well done L/C and Ely I'm glad he got to relax in the pub as a treat sounds like you all deserved it. 

Werehorse..... how cute is Hugo :001_wub: He's a very precise young man 

GR what an upsetting experience. As others have said i'd avoid face to face greetings they are much more intense, and don't allow dogs to express their natural approach and communication. I find it easier avoiding greetings with onlead dogs. I cross the road when we see others on the pavement and give space when out on bridleways and tracks. You are still learning with Ginge and what a thorough teacher she is.  It's not the easy ones that make us better, more knowledgeable dogs owners


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - try these;
> 
> Video 1
> Hugo Retrieve 1 - YouTube
> 
> Video 2
> Hugo Retrieve 2 - YouTube


OMG you're brilliant and so is Hugo.....:thumbup: I wish you lived near me - you'd be in the ring competing with him next year....LOL

As you can see the dog is so focussed on the tit-bit that he is not going to mess about and mouth the article.....

Right then Stage 2:

Now try throwing the tit-bit out and asking him to recall onto your hand (as before) saying touch. Have the tit-bit in your fingers rather than getting it from your pocket. Do this two or three times in very quick succession and encourage him with your voice "ready, steady, go" or "get it". Then on the fourth go as he runs out to eat the tit-bit which has been thrown, bang the stick on the floor between your outstretched feet, saying "what's this" in an excited voice and either put in on the floor between your feet or hold it low to the floor between your feet and see if he will pick it up/take it from you and come into the sit.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Horrid horrid day. Sorry thought we were getting through the crisisis (Sp?) had lovely walk this morning. Then about 5 doors from home met a lovely old lady and her gorgeous friendly jrt. Ginge has never met the dog but knowing the lady and the young dog i judged it would be fine for them to meet especially as we seem to have been making progress and she is definitely calmer. They did scamper up to each other terrier style which is the only thing i can put it down to. The next thing i know Ginge has grabbed the other dogs nose in her jaw and won't let go. I was so scared and horrified. The poor old lady was so shaken but still lovely. I apologised profusely, burst into tears and have barely been able to stop since. I put a note through her door 20 mins after but feel awful. And all awkward with Ginge. Never owned a dog who has done anything like that and dont know how to proceed. She has snapped few times but under completely different circumstances, never done anything like that. Feel so shitty to have so badly misjudged things, yet again. :-( :-(
> 
> eta it seemed as though the other dog was miraculously unhurt but made sure she knew where i lived in case.:-(


Hugs from me too. Try not to beat yourself up though. These things happen.


----------



## Twiggy

missnaomi said:


> The thing which made me feel a bit better (not sure if that's the right way to describe it) is that, we have two dogs, both raised the same way, both go to the same classes - and Rosie is so much easier and just did everything by the book so to speak. It made me see how all dogs, like owners, are individuals, and when I remember this, it makes me feel better about stuff... x


Bless you my child - that is so very true. There is never a one fix suits all.


----------



## GingerRogers

Well not feeling much better this morning, had a good chat with my friend about her two and how Buffer has gone for dogs before - I guess it put in a bit of perspective but didn't really help, neither does the fact that we have to walk past this lady's house to get anywhere. Had to avoid a friend and her spaniel this morning, she hurried to catchup so I had to shout out what the problem was and hurry on which didn't make me feel great and just had to get straight home 

Thank you all for your supportive words as always and the hugs 

missnaomi - Ringo looks like a real star, saw the pics of him in the terrier thread  I want one like him, now!

Yes chazzie too soon most likely, we just came round the corner, this is one spot where I could have crossed over (a lot of the roads around us only have pavements on one side which makes things particularly tricky to avoid head ons) but I made the (wrong) decision, having met the owner and dog that she would be less stressed meeting than avoiding :001_unsure: 

We are going to the behaviorist tomorrow - something I was looking forward to now I am not so sure although it is a relief to have the appointment so soon after an incident like that. Mum is going to come with me as OH will be working, she hasn't really met Ginge properly for any length of time so will be interesting to get her take on her as well.

Werehorse - tough little nut she is I just hope I am up to the task, I really doubt myself at times.
Perhaps I should look on it as moonviolet says and accept that she is just a very good teacher .

I have thought about a muzzle but as I am fairly sure her behavior stems from nerves and uncertainty I am not sure if she will feel even more vulnerable and with the anger she presented while wearing the head collar I just don't know. Obviously if we have to use a muzzle I will for other dogs sakes but for now avoidance is the only thing I can do. We await and see what tomorrow brings.......


----------



## Dogless

We had a mostly nice walk this morning just to the fields, pottered around and back again as both of Kilo's walks yesterday were quite long and involved high intensity running and playing. He was very obedient this morning so all was good .

Now the disgusting bit....it has been a long time since Kilo ate poo, so I have relaxed my vigilance. Anyhow, this morning he gulped an enormous pile of horrid orange Baker's poo :incazzato::incazzato:. That in itself was disgusting. 5 minutes later he threw it back up :frown2::frown2:. Good in a way as at least it was on the field....I spent hours cleaning the lounge and dining room carpets last night so they'd dry overnight and moved eveything back very early this morning, so if he'd thrown up on those he'd be toast :mad5::mad5:. Not really...but you know what I mean. When he was a puppy he gorged on poo one day and threw it up in the house; I have never cleared up anything so disgusting in my life I don't think and I have seen some sights in my time :sosp::sosp:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Obviously I don't *really *like this but... what a good job it came back before you got home.

So its bakers thats responsible for the giant orange poos that get deposited on the verges round here. They are the ones my other half wants to make flags for with little message for the owners, I have had the pleasure NOT  of nearly slipping over in them twice!!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Obviously I don't *really *like this but... what a good job it came back before you got home.
> 
> So its bakers thats responsible for the giant orange poos that get deposited on the verges round here. They are the ones my other half wants to make flags for with little message for the owners, I have had the pleasure NOT  of nearly slipping over in them twice!!


I have never been anywhere with as many poo bins as here - there are bins at all entrances to the fields and all around camp; you have to carry a bag for about minute before you find a bin BUT I have rarely seen as much poo around either  . Especially now when there are leaves to kick over it . The fields and pavements are covered in poo - it's hard to go anywhere without nearly treading in some. Two days ago I was following a man at a distance - I saw his dog poo in the middle of the pavement; he looked to see if anyone was watching, didn't see me as I was too far away and left it. I followed him onto the sports pitches where his dog did another poo - he looked around, saw me and bent to do what I thought was pick it up - when I passed the spot a few minutes' later he had just pretended to do it :mad5::mad5:.

Someone here uses bright green poo bags and actually picks up the poo but then just leaves the bags by the gates - less than 10m from a bin :cursing:.

Can you tell it's one of my pet hates? And people wonder why some folk hate dogs .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Someone here uses bright green poo bags and actually picks up the poo but then just leaves the bags by the gates - less than 10m from a bin :cursing:.


What is that about, you have done the icky bit already?? yep pet hate in our house as well, hence the flag idea. I would like to say its the tourists but sadly its just as bad all year round and worst in the paths only locals are likely to use, we also have free poo bag distribution as well!!!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> What is that about, you have done the icky bit already?? yep pet hate in our house as well, hence the flag idea. I would like to say its the tourists but sadly its just as bad all year round and worst in the paths only locals are likely to use, we also have free poo bag distribution as well!!!


I often think about going around with a can of bright orange spray paint and marking it all :devil:.


----------



## Werehorse

GingerRogers said:


> So its bakers thats responsible for the giant orange poos that get deposited on the verges round here. They are the ones my other half wants to make flags for with little message for the owners, I have had the pleasure NOT  of nearly slipping over in them twice!!


^^^ This is exactly what I was thinking when I read Dogless's post! :lol: I want to make some "THIS IS EFFING DISGUSTING. PICK YOUR EFFING DOG S**T UP YOU MANKY BARSTEWARD.... PS STOP FEEDING IT UTTER CARP" flags. :lol: There's too many children in the village for this to go down well though... and most of the worst poos are on the path to the school.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> ^^^ This is exactly what I was thinking when I read Dogless's post! :lol: I want to make some "THIS IS EFFING DISGUSTING. PICK YOUR EFFING DOG S**T UP YOU MANKY BARSTEWARD.... PS STOP FEEDING IT UTTER CARP" flags. :lol: There's too many children in the village for this to go down well though... and most of the worst poos are on the path to the school.


I think its the level of bad language we really want to use that has stopped us doing it so far.

Here the local council in their wisdom removed the poo bin from the road that leads up to the junior school  the amount of families with dogs that use the school run as the morning walk, crazy!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I think its the level of bad language we really want to use that has stopped us doing it so far.
> 
> Here the local council in their wisdom removed the poo bin from the road that leads up to the junior school  the amount of families with dogs that use the school run as the morning walk, crazy!


I slipped on the pavement outside the nursery the other day as I walked past on dog poo . The lady I walked with last night works in there and got poo all over her shoes the other day as she went into work. She didn't want to track it into a nursery so spent the morning at work in her socks!!


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Werehorse..... how cute is Hugo :001_wub: He's a very precise young man


:lol: He is very precise isn't he? It's because he can move faster than the speed of light, you don't see him move. :lol: He's very precise when he jumps to face level and licks inside your mouth too! 



moonviolet said:


> You are still learning with Ginge and what a thorough teacher she is.  It's not the easy ones that make us better, more knowledgeable dogs owners


This is so true. I do think, even though it is utterly sentimental and not my usual take on life, that dogs come into our lives to teach us things - whether it is about being a better dog owner and trainer or being a better person... if only we listen to them. 



Twiggy said:


> OMG you're brilliant and so is Hugo.....:thumbup: I wish you lived near me - you'd be in the ring competing with him next year....LOL


   Thank you - that has made my day!  I'd actually love to compete with him... I know my trainer will help me but we're a bit out of the way out here and the push will have to come from me...



Twiggy said:


> As you can see the dog is so focussed on the tit-bit that he is not going to mess about and mouth the article.....


YES! I was surprised but yes. It worked really well at devaluing the article too - he was much less excited, previously if you hold the toy in front of him at all there was bouncing and trying to snatch it. OH didn't really understand what I was doing but when I said "it's to get the toy to be a means to the end rather than an exciting thing" he was really impressed! 



Twiggy said:


> Right then Stage 2:
> 
> Now try throwing the tit-bit out and asking him to recall onto your hand (as before) saying touch. Have the tit-bit in your fingers rather than getting it from your pocket. Do this two or three times in very quick succession and encourage him with your voice "ready, steady, go" or "get it". Then on the fourth go as he runs out to eat the tit-bit which has been thrown, bang the stick on the floor between your outstretched feet, saying "what's this" in an excited voice and either put in on the floor between your feet or hold it low to the floor between your feet and see if he will pick it up/take it from you and come into the sit.


So 1 treat out to make him run out then recall back to touch (with a treat already in my hands). Repeat. Then whip out the toy as he's running out and place it at my feet making sure he notices and see if he'll pick it up and sit between my knees as before... I'm going to have to be quick! :lol: I predict much fumbling. Will give it a go later.


----------



## L/C

Ginge - unless you think it's absolutely necessary I'm not a big fan of muzzling as it cuts down on the strategies that you can use for distraction and desensitisation. I muzzled Ely while he was at his most unpredictable but I phased it out as soon as I was confident he was ok without it. One of my favourite techniques to use with him is to scatter small treats on the floor that he has to sniff out and eat. This has the result of stopping him from fixating on the other dog and also means that he presents much more relaxed body language to the oncoming dog.

Well another great walk today. Not quite Niobium star but definitely platinum. After yesterday's spat I wanted to keep Ely calm today so I didn't meet up with the walking group but we played lots of look at that games with them in the distance and looks of clicking for calm behaviour. He did very well and we didn't have any anxious or stiff body language. He then greeted a westie very nicely and came away as soon as I asked him to - I was worried about him after yesterday but he seems to have shaken it off quite nicely.

I spent some time doing some tracking with Gypsy and for the first time she followed the scent rather then just tracking the food. :thumbup: I was very proud of her and it's going to make tracking a lot more fun. I also got some very good focus work out of her while the squirrels had some fun.


----------



## GingerRogers

I forgot to say how good Hugo is in those, very focused, but also how good is Oscar calmly watching, Ginge would be going mental wanting to join in.

And also L/C your situation sounds awful, even less your fault though, thank god that dog was also OK. However you did send me almost back to the beginning of the thread and I had to keep reading to see what happened which was quite dangerous and engrossing 

Just had email from the lady I am going to see tomorrow, I wanted to update her on the latest. she said - _'Shame about the bite but not surprised - it is fairly typical behaviour. We will talk about it some more tomorrow'_ so feel a bit better that she doesn't think it was as out of character as I did and she hasn't even met her yet!

ETA some more! just seen L/C post, I hope you are right and I do get to a stage where I feel I can trust her again.


----------



## BessieDog

First time I've joined in this thread!

I've been working on Bess's recall to a whistle. Got it working perfectly in the house, and then in the garden. She comes in like a shot out of a gun even when she's in the middle of destroying the trellis (current favourite game), so yesterday I decided to give it a try on the sea wall.

That's the only walk where I can let her off, so she's pretty excited, and whether she came back when I called was a bit hit and miss, as she didn't think a treat was worth giving up her run for. However, I used the whistle to call her back a few times, and three times out of four it worked brilliantly. The fourth time she was a bit far away and determined to chase all the birds off the emerging bit of beach before she returned, but I count it overall as a success. Much more work needed at home before I can rely on it, and I didn't try calling her back once she'd seen a distraction (other dogs/people) as I wouldn't trust her that far yet. (Sorry, that reads as if I let her bound up to people, what I mean is I put the lead on before she noticed them). 

I also tried to get her to sit and focus on me as walkers passed - she loves everyone and thinks they all want stinky muddy footprints over their clothes, so I'm trying to get her to ignore them which will be a VERY long job. I was amused when a couple passed and I was trying to get her attention onto a treat to hear them say 'it's being trained'! At least I look like I'm doing something even if it's not working!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol: He is very precise isn't he? It's because he can move faster than the speed of light, you don't see him move. :lol: He's very precise when he jumps to face level and licks inside your mouth too!
> 
> This is so true. I do think, even though it is utterly sentimental and not my usual take on life, that dogs come into our lives to teach us things - whether it is about being a better dog owner and trainer or being a better person... if only we listen to them.
> 
> Thank you - that has made my day!  I'd actually love to compete with him... I know my trainer will help me but we're a bit out of the way out here and the push will have to come from me...
> 
> YES! I was surprised but yes. It worked really well at devaluing the article too - he was much less excited, previously if you hold the toy in front of him at all there was bouncing and trying to snatch it. OH didn't really understand what I was doing but when I said "it's to get the toy to be a means to the end rather than an exciting thing" he was really impressed!
> 
> So 1 treat out to make him run out then recall back to touch (with a treat already in my hands). Repeat. Then whip out the toy as he's running out and place it at my feet making sure he notices and see if he'll pick it up and sit between my knees as before... I'm going to have to be quick! :lol: I predict much fumbling. Will give it a go later.


That's it....


----------



## Werehorse

Bessie - it sounds like you are doing all the right things re. recall to whistle. The only thing I would say is that while training it that recall whistle is beyond sacred! Only use it when you know it'll work! Sooo counter-intuitive but it'll sure up the recall for when you really need it.


----------



## BessieDog

Werehorse said:


> Bessie - it sounds like you are doing all the right things re. recall to whistle. The only thing I would say is that while training it that recall whistle is beyond sacred! Only use it when you know it'll work! Sooo counter-intuitive but it'll sure up the recall for when you really need it.


Great advice! I sort of followed that by not trying it again after it hadn't worked, but will concentrate more on that now. So I'll continue to do it only when there are no distractions - and no birds in sight! Cheers!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Someone here uses bright green poo bags and actually picks up the poo but then just leaves the bags by the gates - less than 10m from a bin :cursing:.


I need to hang my head in shame here. I accidentally left a bright red bag full of poo somewhere on the fields the other day. I don't know how and I don't know where I lost it but I'd picked up after Spen at some point yet when I came to a bin I had no bag of poo anywhere on me 

I don't make a habit of it though. In fact I carry an old ice cream tub in my backpack to put full bags in until we come to a bin since they're so few and far between here. I don't understand why people go to the trouble of bagging it and then just leave it, at least if it's not bagged it will degrade faster. Or be used by the beetles faster.

On a side note, I wonder whether crappy foods like Bakers have an effect on the dung beetles that eat it. Might make a good plot for a horror movie that :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

I thought we had had a :idea: moment regarding normal fetch behaviour and interest in tennis balls... when her ladyship brought one to me a moment ago but nope nope nope she's trying to get my interest in it so i will chase her :mad2::mad2: :lol: :lol:



Sarah1983 said:


> On a side note, I wonder whether crappy foods like Bakers have an effect on the dung beetles that eat it. Might make a good plot for a horror movie that :lol:


Thats sounds a great movie plot.... i love a horror film


----------



## Sarah1983

Okay Twiggy, my turn to ask a question now. What do you do if once the dog takes the item he loses all interest in the treats and simply wants to run off with said item? Obviously it's easy enough to keep him leashed while training it but he still takes evasive action in an attempt to keep his prize.


----------



## moonviolet

The little Tinker has now run upstairs with said squeaky tennis ball and is squeaking it in the hopes i will " recall" there is something very amiss here :lol: :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> The little Tinker has now run upstairs with said squeaky tennis ball and is squeaking it in the hopes i will " recall" there is something very amiss here :lol: :lol:


What was that you said about teachers !


----------



## Guest

Sorry you had a rubbish and worrying time yesterday ginge.
Hope you are feeling better today! 

Well the tuna cake has stuck to the bottom of the tub, so I keep hacking off funny size lumps for clicker training haha. Trying to teach him "Stick em up" or beg or something but I have been waiting and waiting for the front feet to lift off the ground! 

We had a wee lead biting tantrum this morning but I kinda saw it coming as a offlead lab charged at us my brain went into "ADFAHDGKADGKHAFUWEIF WHAT! ARGHGHGHG" mode. The lab was friendly though, had a polite sniff (gave no time for Zander to bounce) then went off. Then Zand had the tantrum. I felt panicked all the way home. Woops. 

Oh and mum tried to train him to go into the kitchen by dragging him in there 
You can guess how that went. 
Now whenever you say "kitchen" he hops up onto the sofa and curls up. 
:sosp:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Okay Twiggy, my turn to ask a question now. What do you do if once the dog takes the item he loses all interest in the treats and simply wants to run off with said item? Obviously it's easy enough to keep him leashed while training it but he still takes evasive action in an attempt to keep his prize.


Have you got the treat virtually on his nose and using something smelly like liver or strong cheese?

Yes obviously he can't run off it you have him on the lead and you would keep him on the lead until he makes no attempt to run off.

I use the lead quite a lot, both with my own dogs and other people's, on various exercises. Not to yank them, just to keep them with you and focussed on what their doing.

I have a very easy method of teaching scent on clothes for the competition ring but all the dogs stay on the lead until they sniff each cloth nicely, with no grabbing, pick the correct cloth up and present to the handler, and all without the handler opening their mouth. The handlers complain a lot and I would be very rich if I was given a £1 for every time I hear "can I take the lead off now to see what my dog does".
As with so much that would be testing, not training.

Some dogs don't like tit-bits very much, and Spen may well be one of them, in which case you would use a higher value prize ie a favourite toy or ball but it would be easier in the early stages to use food.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> We had a mostly nice walk this morning just to the fields, pottered around and back again as both of Kilo's walks yesterday were quite long and involved high intensity running and playing. He was very obedient this morning so all was good .
> 
> Now the disgusting bit....it has been a long time since Kilo ate poo, so I have relaxed my vigilance. Anyhow, this morning he gulped an enormous pile of horrid orange Baker's poo :incazzato::incazzato:. That in itself was disgusting. 5 minutes later he threw it back up :frown2::frown2:. Good in a way as at least it was on the field....I spent hours cleaning the lounge and dining room carpets last night so they'd dry overnight and moved eveything back very early this morning, so if he'd thrown up on those he'd be toast :mad5::mad5:. Not really...but you know what I mean. When he was a puppy he gorged on poo one day and threw it up in the house; I have never cleared up anything so disgusting in my life I don't think and I have seen some sights in my time :sosp::sosp:.


Eeeewww yuck the giant, orange, glow in the dark, possibly radioactive poo? rrr:


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Obviously I don't *really *like this but... what a good job it came back before you got home.
> 
> So its bakers thats responsible for the giant orange poos that get deposited on the verges round here. They are the ones my other half wants to make flags for with little message for the owners, I have had the pleasure NOT  of nearly slipping over in them twice!!


lol this made me laugh....what would your other half write on the flags I wonder...could have a lot of fun with that


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Have you got the treat virtually on his nose and using something smelly like liver or strong cheese?
> 
> Yes obviously he can't run off it you have him on the lead and you would keep him on the lead until he makes no attempt to run off.
> 
> I use the lead quite a lot, both with my own dogs and other people's, on various exercises. Not to yank them, just to keep them with you and focussed on what their doing.
> 
> I have a very easy method of teaching scent on clothes for the competition ring but all the dogs stay on the lead until they sniff each cloth nicely, with no grabbing, pick the correct cloth up and present to the handler, and all without the handler opening their mouth. The handlers complain a lot and I would be very rich if I was given a £1 for every time I hear "can I take the lead off now to see what my dog does".
> As with so much that would be testing, not training.
> 
> Some dogs don't like tit-bits very much, and Spen may well be one of them, in which case you would use a higher value prize ie a favourite toy or ball but it would be easier in the early stages to use food.


Spen is a stomach on legs usually. I'm using a mixture of treats at the moment, leftovers that need using up of garlic sausage, cheese, roast beef and ham, all of which are usually high value to him. I've no objection to keeping him on leash, it just doesn't stop him twisting and turning his head to try to keep the item. Nor does a treat waved right in front of his nose hold any interest once he's got the item although before he actually takes the item he clearly really wants the treat 

We have had problems getting him to give up items in the past but they've been items he's stolen. He never gets aggressive, just evasive and will try to initiate a game of chase with it. He wouldn't willingly give them up for treats or in return for another toy at first either. I did think we'd solved that problem but now it seems to be rearing its head here and I'm not quite sure how to deal with it in this situation


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I often think about going around with a can of bright orange spray paint and marking it all :devil:.


Yeah, you could follow people, like that man that pretended to pick it up and spray paint something like " man with the sharpei" or "woman with the black cocker spaniel" hehe


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> The little Tinker has now run upstairs with said squeaky tennis ball and is squeaking it in the hopes i will " recall" there is something very amiss here :lol: :lol:


Err yes little Holly Bolly is really getting into squeaky tennis balls now, which is why my arms have even more scratch and bite marks - far more dangerous than the lead or tuggy rope....LOL

Tremor was obsessed with them as a puppy. One day in the middle to winter I was sitting on a chair, doing pretty much the recall as described on here and getting her to touch, and decided in my wisdom to use the tennis balls instead of tit-bits. Two hours later, when my bum was welded with ice onto said chair and I was shivering uncontrollably, she was still lying out of reach and guarding two of the wretched things....!!
I stuck to my guns though and said and did nothing until she came into the present. There's dedication for you. I have to say I was calling her names, not repeatable on here, under my breath.


----------



## chazzie10

We are feeling slightly more optimistic in the Chazzie household today!
Yesterdays walk, that Id been putting off went very, very well.
I couldn't face meeting a lot of dogs and repeating the day before so went to the waste ground- only to find it had been invaded by 2 diggers and a dump truck and totally flattened! They must be building another pre-fab factory unit on our beloved zooming patch. So, after Charlie did 2 intimidating laps around the metal invaders( peeing on each one 'just to teach them'), we spent almost an hour walking around the factory complex. It was teeming with onlead dogs . I'm not sure if Charlie realised he'd pushed me too far or maybe that I was still in pain from Saturday but he was a star. 
We met a Westie on opposite footpath. Charlie sat and seemed eager for his treats, only peering round me a few times but focusing again quickly and bum stayed on footpath! A young golden retriever was bobbing along nicely behind us and a boxer coming towards us...numpty decides to do a poo in the middle of it all meaning Im trying to pick up said steaming mass rrr: and get his attention at same time so we can avoid oncomers. Again he sat nicely. Dog bless cheap, crappy, sainsbury cheesey muffin dog treats  
Oh yes and he has been getting raw food for a day and a half now AND I was able to get him some chicken mince from the pet shop until I sort the butcher-so to speak.
AND i had my liver and gall bladder scan today and all has shown up clear( I'd been so worried about it) 
So all is good today


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh glad your scan was clear, that must be a relief. 
Sorry I missed your nightmare walk with being all self pitying 
I am sure they can sometimes tell when its absolutely imperative they behave. That poo pick up thing, I swear they save it for the most awkward time, i often find myself standing there head swiveling madly as I try to gauge distance and speed and whether to wait till someone passes to pick and by then its all to late.


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Oh glad your scan was clear, that must be a relief.
> Sorry I missed your nightmare walk with being all self pitying
> I am sure they can sometimes tell when its absolutely imperative they behave. That poo pick up thing, I swear they save it for the most awkward time, i often find myself standing there head swiveling madly as I try to gauge distance and speed and whether to wait till someone passes to pick and by then its all to late.


That's exactly what happened!! The retriever was behind so he nicely crossed to other footpath...boxer infront but that meant I couldnt go forwards, backwards, stay or cross to other side...and I didnt want to leave the poo to cross sooner or they might think I was leaving it!! Luckily the boxer man slowed too....nice people , there ARE some out there it seems (he was quite fit as well )


----------



## Phoolf

Aside from going over all the basics now she's a stubborn teenager (everything but recall seems to be quite good to be fair) I'm in a training mood so today I've been working on 'sit pretty', 'back up' (walking backwards) and also training Kes to put toys in a box. Shaping her to put toys away is quite slow going (for me anyway, she usually picks things up very quickly but this is taking longer than normal). After 2 sessions she will now put one of her toys away in the box with a bit of direction from me, I need to do another session where she starts doing it perfectly every time then I can bring in a second toy etc. Hopefully by the time she's got one down it won't be too much of a leap to bring in her other toys.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Spen is a stomach on legs usually. I'm using a mixture of treats at the moment, leftovers that need using up of garlic sausage, cheese, roast beef and ham, all of which are usually high value to him. I've no objection to keeping him on leash, it just doesn't stop him twisting and turning his head to try to keep the item. Nor does a treat waved right in front of his nose hold any interest once he's got the item although before he actually takes the item he clearly really wants the treat
> 
> We have had problems getting him to give up items in the past but they've been items he's stolen. He never gets aggressive, just evasive and will try to initiate a game of chase with it. He wouldn't willingly give them up for treats or in return for another toy at first either. I did think we'd solved that problem but now it seems to be rearing its head here and I'm not quite sure how to deal with it in this situation


Have your taught him to touch your fingers because if so he shouldn't be moving his head away? Do it on the recall first until he understands to touch your fingers with his nose and then try in on retrieve.


----------



## chazzie10

Nice wee street walk there. Charlie kept a loose lead infact was dead slow and stop on the way back with lots of nosing around in the grass for relaxed sniffies 
A dog running loose in one of the side streets was spooked by us and stood staring, Charlie for the first time ever looked away from it and up at me without being asked to 'look at me' or calling him, was rewarded and we moved on nicely. He sat nicely on the opposite side of the road to two lurchers being walked by teenagers, watched them with interested ears but again looked to me for reward...didnt even look back at other dogs  The lead stayed loose!
I just dont get him. I guess on street walks I'm just able to catch him before he reacts (shrugs). Whatever the reason, it's brilliant when he does it


----------



## Dogless

Well done today Charlie and glad your scan was clear chazzie10 .


----------



## Beth17

So much to get through again  I seem positively lazy in comparison to you lot 

We have finally had a really good day! We had a lovely street walk this morning with the only mishap being the boys deciding to wrestle on lead on a really slippery, muddy lane but put them on short leads so they couldn't reach each other and that sorted that.

This afternoon went up to the field and didn't have any bad encounters the boys just played tug with their frisbee and when a couple of collies came in Oscar recalled after watching them for a minute and they stayed out of the way :thumbup1:
Then came home to find an email from Oscars insurance company stating they'd paid out for his thyroid treatment; I only put the claim in last week so not bad at all.

I wonder what's in store for tomorrow? :devil:


----------



## Dogless

Good walk this afternoon - some onlead, some offlead, some training and some play , Not much to report (and I like it that way!!).

I am working on getting everything ready for the looonnng trip home via kennels in Yorkshire - near to breeder and I used to use them, they are fab; wrapping chrimbo presents to take (I know - horribly early, and I usually only shop at the last minute ); having stuff ready for Rudi and Kilo on our return and making sure I have stuff organised for the trip back with Rudi. Oh, and remembering to pick up hubby on the way at some point :sosp:.

I wanted to do a last mountain walk before Kilo's life changes forever next Tuesday or something like that tomorrow but the weather forecast is bad. May go to 'our' forest or just stick round here. Loads to do......


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> I'm having last minute "Am I doing the right thing?", "Will Kilo think I don't love him as much anymore?" (I know, he isn't human - I had had a glass of wine ), "Will he hate him?" "Can I cope with two?" etc etc worries. All stuff that I have thought of well in advance and discounted but which comes rushing back when the time is near . Unless that's just me .


Just seen this. Yes it's perfectly normal and it will be fine look how well you have done with Kilo and how well you have obviously planned for the new pup 

I spent the first month going are you sure I've done the right thing but Oscar seems fed up and hates Sam; I sure my family got slightly cheesed off with me 
I still have these thoughts I think they're good it keeps me in check or else I'd end up with a house full of dogs


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Good walk this afternoon - some onlead, some offlead, some training and some play , Not much to report (and I like it that way!!).
> 
> I am working on getting everything ready for the looonnng trip home via kennels in Yorkshire - near to breeder and I used to use them, they are fab; wrapping chrimbo presents to take (I know - horribly early, and I usually only shop at the last minute ); having stuff ready for Rudi and Kilo on our return and making sure I have stuff organised for the trip back with Rudi. Oh, and remembering to pick up hubby on the way at some point :sosp:.
> 
> I wanted to do a last mountain walk before Kilo's life changes forever next Tuesday or something like that tomorrow but the weather forecast is bad. May go to 'our' forest or just stick round here. Loads to do......


Sounds hectic but it will all slot into place I find it always does in the end. Fingers crossed for some good weather for you so you can have your mountain walk


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Sounds hectic but it will all slot into place I find it always does in the end. Fingers crossed for some good weather for you so you can have your mountain walk


No time realistically - lots of time in the future (fingers crossed!).


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Well done today Charlie and glad your scan was clear chazzie10 .


Thank you Dogless  and thank you from Charlie (Hi 5's you from his bed )


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless- sounds like you are super organised! I suppose getting your xmas pressies now and taking them with you makes sense. The rest of your christmas shopping might be a bit more rushed this year if you will have wee pupsie waiting at home chewing random things that he shouldnt 
I cant believe its nearly time for you to pick him up- seems like ages we've all been looking at your pics and talking about him ( have they finally picked a pup for you yet? ( stamps foot impatiently lol))


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Dogless- sounds like you are super organised! I suppose getting your xmas pressies now and taking them with you makes sense. The rest of your christmas shopping might be a bit more rushed this year if you will have wee pupsie waiting at home chewing random things that he shouldnt
> I cant believe its nearly time for you to pick him up- seems like ages we've all been looking at your pics and talking about him ( have they finally picked a pup for you yet? ( stamps foot impatiently lol))


No; they haven't decided finally yet - I could burst!! All I know is that he is correctly marked and that they are all stunning; apparently a very nice litter!!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> No; they haven't decided finally yet - I could burst!! All I know is that he is correctly marked and that they are all stunning; apparently a very nice litter!!


Well that IS one good thing about it....they are ALL absolutely beautiful and I know I'd be happy with any (or all) of them 
I bet they are even bigger again since your last pics. Will you get to call and see them before next Tuesday...like randomly call to the door and say you were 'just passing' :ihih:

PS IM BURSTING ON YOUR BEHALF...neeeeed puppy....must see puppy.....foams at mouth


----------



## chazzie10

Ive found a new hobby...jigsaw world on Faceb**k...I'm systematically working my way through my fave pics of Charlie and turning them into jigsaws hehehe I NEED to get out more


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> We are feeling slightly more optimistic in the Chazzie household today!
> Yesterdays walk, that Id been putting off went very, very well.
> I couldn't face meeting a lot of dogs and repeating the day before so went to the waste ground- only to find it had been invaded by 2 diggers and a dump truck and totally flattened! They must be building another pre-fab factory unit on our beloved zooming patch. So, after Charlie did 2 intimidating laps around the metal invaders( peeing on each one 'just to teach them'), we spent almost an hour walking around the factory complex. It was teeming with onlead dogs . I'm not sure if Charlie realised he'd pushed me too far or maybe that I was still in pain from Saturday but he was a star.
> We met a Westie on opposite footpath. Charlie sat and seemed eager for his treats, only peering round me a few times but focusing again quickly and bum stayed on footpath! A young golden retriever was bobbing along nicely behind us and a boxer coming towards us...numpty decides to do a poo in the middle of it all meaning Im trying to pick up said steaming mass rrr: and get his attention at same time so we can avoid oncomers. Again he sat nicely. Dog bless cheap, crappy, sainsbury cheesey muffin dog treats
> Oh yes and he has been getting raw food for a day and a half now AND I was able to get him some chicken mince from the pet shop until I sort the butcher-so to speak.
> AND i had my liver and gall bladder scan today and all has shown up clear( I'd been so worried about it)
> So all is good today


That's brilliant news about your scan and well done Charlie for being a good boy.


----------



## chazzie10

Thanks Twiggy, yep he's being brilliant...at the minute


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Have your taught him to touch your fingers because if so he shouldn't be moving his head away? Do it on the recall first until he understands to touch your fingers with his nose and then try in on retrieve.


Kind of. I've not managed to teach him to hold it steady though, he'll bump my hand with his nose multiple times in a row but not just hold his nose against it. I've tried holding out for a split second but can't seem to get it. He either moves straight after touching my hand or he starts licking or he shoves at my hand hard with his head. Tried getting a chin target but no joy there. He has a lovely shoulder target though which is absolutely no help here lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

I can't believe you dont yet know which is yours Dogless. Good grief i would be dying from inquisitiveness by now. Good luck. Dont know if you will be on between now and then. Personally i cannot.wait.to see the little man.
Now off to try and get some sleep. Feeling much better about the ninja but still apprehensive about tomorrow. Decided to take the whole day off so nice walk in morning. Lunch with mum. Should be relaxed


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I can't believe you dont yet know which is yours Dogless. Good grief i would be dying from inquisitiveness by now. Good luck. Dont know if you will be on between now and then. Personally i cannot.wait.to see the little man.
> Now off to try and get some sleep. Feeling much better about the ninja but still apprehensive about tomorrow. Decided to take the whole day off so nice walk in morning. Lunch with mum. Should be relaxed


I am!! But if they haven't yet made a final decision there isn't much I can do . Enjoy yourself today - I'm not off until very early tomorrow either!!


----------



## kat&molly

Hope everyones ok.
I still haven't finished this kitchen yet and the shop has run out of the one paint I need until next week.
Ginge- I hope everything goes well with the behaviourist today and the little Ninja.

Dogless- I cant believe its time for you to go and bring the Little Man home. Hope you have a stress free trip.


----------



## kat&molly

Just time to add , Evie's 'privilege' of being allowed to come out to the washing machine ended[again] yesterday as she done her usual and ran off to the neighbours garden.

Honestly, the next time I'm asked to foster a Teckel I shall refuse unless its 16 years old and only has 2 legs.rrr:

Am grooming a Breton this morning named Tarzan.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> What was that you said about teachers !


I know GR, Tink has taught me so very much and encouraged me to research and learn , Yoda in a beagle body


----------



## Beth17

Good luck today Ginge!

k&m you don't mean that really 

Well today has started off well Sam has lifted his leg on Oscar when he was going for a wee and is now chucking his toy around and has just smacked me in the head with it :crying: I knew yesterday was too good to be true.


----------



## Phoolf

Beth17 said:


> Good luck today Ginge!
> 
> k&m you don't mean that really
> 
> Well today has started off well Sam has lifted his leg on Oscar when he was going for a wee and is now chucking his toy around and has just smacked me in the head with it :crying: I knew yesterday was too good to be true.


Fear of being hit in the face with flying objects was what lead me to get lots of cuddly toys for Kes to throw around, teddy to the face seemed a much better option than thick rope toy.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Hope everyones ok.
> I still haven't finished this kitchen yet and the shop has run out of the one paint I need until next week.
> 
> Snap again...!! Our kitchen would have been finished on Saturday but my dearly beloved decided he didn't like the colour of the woodwork. It's been like it for years and doesn't show marks from the dogs or handlers using the cloakroom. He wanted beige so we are now on the third coat and counting. I'm absolutely cheesed off with it and have told him that he's responsible for constantly having to wipe the door frames, skirting board etc.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Kind of. I've not managed to teach him to hold it steady though, he'll bump my hand with his nose multiple times in a row but not just hold his nose against it. I've tried holding out for a split second but can't seem to get it. He either moves straight after touching my hand or he starts licking or he shoves at my hand hard with his head. Tried getting a chin target but no joy there. He has a lovely shoulder target though which is absolutely no help here lol.


It's a common problem. Do a mixture of the second he touches your hand say "yes" and titbit or if you try and get him to hold position and he starts mugging you, lift your hands up high out of the way, saying "wrong" and then put them back in position. I must emphasise that you say "wrong" in a very light voice as it is simply to convey to your dog that it's not what you want and he is not being told off.


----------



## Guest

Phoolf said:


> Fear of being hit in the face with flying objects was what lead me to get lots of cuddly toys for Kes to throw around, teddy to the face seemed a much better option than thick rope toy.


I feel your pain!! Keep being hit in the chin with a Stagbar haha

He walked beautifully to heel today, had a mini freak out when a MAHOOSIVE lorry went past and he hunkered down and wouldn't move. So I just sat next to him on the (damp) pavement till he calmed down. Being in muddy clothes I was of course channeling the tramp look. 

There was a Shi-zhu tied up outside the shop and it went bersek, snarling etc and as it was RIGHT by the traffic lights I couldn't really step into the road much. TUNACAKE to the RESCUUUUUUUUUUEEEEE! (And I threw a wee bit to the little dog to distract enough for me to get past)


----------



## Twiggy

Phoolf said:


> Fear of being hit in the face with flying objects was what lead me to get lots of cuddly toys for Kes to throw around, teddy to the face seemed a much better option than thick rope toy.


Those latex animal face balls with tails attached are lethal and my dogs love them. Brother do they hurt when one smacks you on the head. I'm always pleased when they've chewed the tail off.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> It's a common problem. Do a mixture of the second he touches your hand say "yes" and titbit or if you try and get him to hold position and he starts mugging you, lift your hands up high out of the way, saying "wrong" and then put them back in position. I must emphasise that you say "wrong" in a very light voice as it is simply to convey to your dog that it's not what you want and he is not being told off.


Will keep trying with it  I can get him to nose target the door for several seconds, just not my hand! lol.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Will keep trying with it  I can get him to nose target the door for several seconds, just not my hand! lol.


Well clearly you need to carry a door in front of you... 

I've been trying to get Tink to target post-it's on various things she's fine when there's no distance involved but more than a step away and i get the post-it retrieved.... must slow down :blush:


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Well clearly you need to carry a door in front of you...
> 
> I've been trying to get Tink to target post-it's on various things she's fine when there's no distance involved *but more than a step away and i get the post-it retrieved....* must slow down :blush:


CUTE!!  :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I feel your pain!! Keep being hit in the chin with a Stagbar haha
> 
> He walked beautifully to heel today, had a mini freak out when a MAHOOSIVE lorry went past and he hunkered down and wouldn't move. So I just sat next to him on the (damp) pavement till he calmed down. Being in muddy clothes I was of course channeling the tramp look.
> 
> There was a Shi-zhu tied up outside the shop and it went bersek, snarling etc and as it was RIGHT by the traffic lights I couldn't really step into the road much. TUNACAKE to the RESCUUUUUUUUUUEEEEE! (And I threw a wee bit to the little dog to distract enough for me to get past)


My dog walking coat is absolutely disgusting; I don't think even a tramp would wear it. Not helped by Holly attacking my arm and ripping the sleeve in several places. I think she's trying to pull the padding out as she does with all the soft toys...LOL


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> kat&molly said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hope everyones ok.
> I still haven't finished this kitchen yet and the shop has run out of the one paint I need until next week.
> 
> Snap again...!! Our kitchen would have been finished on Saturday but my dearly beloved decided he didn't like the colour of the woodwork. It's been like it for years and doesn't show marks from the dogs or handlers using the cloakroom. He wanted beige so we are now on the third coat and counting. I'm absolutely cheesed off with it and have told him that he's responsible for constantly having to wipe the door frames, skirting board etc.
> 
> 
> 
> My woodwork is meant to be beige, but its turned out a mushroom colour, OH said its like the inside of a public toilet now.
Click to expand...


----------



## L/C

LO - well done to you and Donkey Boy with the mad shih zhu!

Dogless - so exciting little Rudi is also home. EEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!! 

K&M - hope the kitchen gets finished soon. Evie is adorable - if you don't want her anymore you can send her my way. :001_wub:

Illness has struck the pointy house. All. Over. The. House. So that was my morning (the smell was extra special), I left 2 greyhounds looking very sorry for themselves on the sofa when I left for work.


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Now off to try and get some sleep. Feeling much better about the ninja but still apprehensive about tomorrow. Decided to take the whole day off so nice walk in morning. Lunch with mum. Should be relaxed


Good luck with the behaviourist- hope it's a productive meeting


----------



## Werehorse

Oh no, L/C  I hope they are feeling better soonest.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> kat&molly said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hope everyones ok.
> I still haven't finished this kitchen yet and the shop has run out of the one paint I need until next week.
> 
> Snap again...!! Our kitchen would have been finished on Saturday but my dearly beloved decided he didn't like the colour of the woodwork. It's been like it for years and doesn't show marks from the dogs or handlers using the cloakroom. He wanted beige so we are now on the third coat and counting. I'm absolutely cheesed off with it and have told him that he's responsible for constantly having to wipe the door frames, skirting board etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Chocolate brown then?
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Will keep trying with it  I can get him to nose target the door for several seconds, just not my hand! lol.


Yes you could wear one of those sandwich boards ( you know- The End Of The World Is Nigh things) and just screw a doorknob to it


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> My dog walking coat is absolutely disgusting; I don't think even a tramp would wear it. Not helped by Holly attacking my arm and ripping the sleeve in several places. I think she's trying to pull the padding out as she does with all the soft toys...LOL


You should squeak like a toy next time she bites your sleeve hehehe


----------



## chazzie10

L/C said:


> LO - well done to you and Donkey Boy with the mad shih zhu!
> 
> Dogless - so exciting little Rudi is also home. EEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!
> 
> K&M - hope the kitchen gets finished soon. Evie is adorable - if you don't want her anymore you can send her my way. :001_wub:
> 
> Illness has struck the pointy house. All. Over. The. House. So that was my morning (the smell was extra special), I left 2 greyhounds looking very sorry for themselves on the sofa when I left for work.


Hope they're better when you get home....There's just that sinking feeling when you open your eyes in the morning, go out into the landing..... and the warm smell hits you....eewww rrr:


----------



## chazzie10

That's me in from work with bags full of veg to blend for numpty boy to add into his meat. I have to say he SEEMS to be doing well on the raw diet so far. He has definately been more satisfied, calmer and a lot better behaved and he gets all waggy and wiggly at meal times now. It's funny to see him going to his mat, sitting nicely, then stretching his nose as far as he can to get a whiff of what meat his dinners gonna be  So I'm away to chop and blend with my new gadget...an old food processor mum gave me....hand blenders really dont work well with raw carrot- I'm still finding bits stuck to cupboard doors


----------



## Sarah1983

Lol, have visions of me walking around with doors and all sorts of things attached to me now just to get my dog to do a formal retrieve :lol:

We may have a guest this weekend. Someone my hubby works with is going back to the UK and has been let down by the person who was looking after her dog (genuine reason they can't do it). So I think we're going to meet up tomorrow and if Spen and her dog get on he'll be coming to stay with us for a few days. Don't know much about him yet, just that he's a Rottie, loves other dogs but can be a bit much for some of them (sound familiar? lol) and his back end is knackered.

Chazzie, the change in Spens behaviour when we switched to raw was huge. He'd been sooooo hyper and so unable to focus. He still has his moments but he's a thousand times better now.

MV, I tried using a post it to teach both Rupert and Spen to target things. Both simply removed the post it and ate it :sneaky2:

Dogless, can't wait to hear about Rudi and see pics of him. I'm sure you'll do just fine with 2 dogs.

LC, hope your two are feeling better soon!


----------



## Beth17

Just got back from our walk and had to laugh.

Both boys were good and took them to a wooded area by us. As we were walking down there was an old man stood on the corner of a road with a jack russell on a flexi wandering around by the pavement so I crossed over and carried on. Then the boys were having a sniff and I turned around and this man and dog were just a few feet behind us with the dog on a loose flexi  my two hadn't noticed and didn't want them to be startled so pulled them in close and recrossed the road saying as I did that Oscar didn't like other dogs.

This man just "sorry he was pulling me over to you"  he then followed us down into the woods taking a slightly different route and ended up in front and on a path above us walking quite slowly when the two boys decided to make a hell of a racket by wrestling on their leads, which to anyone else looks like a fight. I looked up and he had miraculously vanished and I didn't see him again so obviously thought I had a pair of evil dogs :devil: :lol:


----------



## Sezzastar

Beth17 said:


> Just got back from our walk and had to laugh.
> 
> Both boys were good and took them to a wooded area by us. As we were walking down there was an old man stood on the corner of a road with a jack russell on a flexi wandering around by the pavement so I crossed over and carried on. Then the boys were having a sniff and I turned around and this man and dog were just a few feet behind us with the dog on a loose flexi  my two hadn't noticed and didn't want them to be startled so pulled them in close and recrossed the road saying as I did that Oscar didn't like other dogs.
> 
> This man just "sorry he was pulling me over to you"  he then followed us down into the woods taking a slightly different route and ended up in front and on a path above us walking quite slowly when the two boys decided to make a hell of a racket by wrestling on their leads, which to anyone else looks like a fight. I looked up and he had miraculously vanished and I didn't see him again so obviously thought I had a pair of evil dogs :devil: :lol:


People always cross the road when they see our leonberger with us. If we are in a field or on a country walk he is usually off lead and he gallops straight over to any dogs/people/horse/anything with a pulse. The look of terror on some peoples faces as he charges over.. they must think he is going to maul their dog :lol: Now we do try to hold him back but this just makes him look like an aggressive dog to other people, can't win!


----------



## moonviolet

L/C Hope the pointy twins are better soon, poor things and poor you cleaning up 

Dogless can you even sleep? the excitement would be killing me (and the moments oh heck i hope i'm doing the right thing, too)

GR Hope you have a lovely lunch and a really positive time with the behaviourist.

CHazzie glad charlie is respondiing well to raw. Hope you locate the rest of the carrot soon.

Sarah wearing a sandwich board it a small price to pay for a formal retrieve :lol: I guess i should count myself lucky i get the damp post-it deliered :lol:

K&M may i join the un finished kitchen club... but now i've got a working hob oven and sink. i'll ignore the unifnised bits for a while :lol: :001_wub: Evie :001_wub

Beth well that was a very effective way to get rid of him and " his little dog too" :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Beth17

Sezzastar said:


> People always cross the road when they see our leonberger with us. If we are in a field or on a country walk he is usually off lead and he gallops straight over to any dogs/people/horse/anything with a pulse. The look of terror on some peoples faces as he charges over.. they must think he is going to maul their dog :lol: Now we do try to hold him back but this just makes him look like an aggressive dog to other people, can't win!


It does feel that way sometimes although to be fair I think I'd be a bit nervous if I had a leonberger charging over to me when I had both my boys as Oscar can get a bit shirty with certain dogs


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> It does feel that way sometimes although to be fair I think I'd be a bit nervous if I had a leonberger charging over to me when I had both my boys as Oscar can get a bit shirty with certain dogs


I have to agree I woudn't welcome it. There's a young leonberger around here the owner has zero control. He's offlead and muzzled and charges full pelt at any dogs onlead or off. He's young and clumsy the problem is a 60+kg dog can do a hell of a lot of damaged to a small dog without any malicious intent.


----------



## Sezzastar

Beth17 said:


> It does feel that way sometimes although to be fair I think I'd be a bit nervous if I had a leonberger charging over to me when I had both my boys as Oscar can get a bit shirty with certain dogs


We do hold him back most of the time now. Hes not too bad though, when we first rescued him I don't think he had been socialised properly as he used to charge all the way over a field just to say hello and would completely ignore us. desperate to say hello! And even if the dog got shirty he wouldn't give up, now he does feign defeat and slump off to find the next spot to mark! 

Same can't be said about my collie Harley who always wants to go home with other people. He actually walks off in the opposite direction with them, as though he is theirs! Luckily most of them find it amusing  Need to work on that recall with him, he used to be really well behaved until we got our new dog Charlie, now he suddenly has trouble with his hearing :incazzato:


----------



## Sezzastar

moonviolet said:


> I have to agree I woudn't welcome it. There's a young leonberger around here the owner has zero control. He's offlead and muzzled and charges full pelt at any dogs onlead or off. He's young and clumsy the problem is a 60+kg dog can do a hell of a lot of damaged to a small dog without any malicious intent.


If we are on country walks and we see people coming up we do usually put him on lead, he isn't muzzled as he has shown no aggression towards other dogs, he is a big wimp actually. He just likes to say hello then carry on with his walk!


----------



## moonviolet

Sezzastar said:


> If we are on country walks and we see people coming up we do usually put him on lead, he isn't muzzled as he has shown no aggression towards other dogs, he is a big wimp actually. He just likes to say hello then carry on with his walk!


This isn't personal and I appreciate he just wants to say hello. I just don't appreciate any strange dog charging at mine... nor does she following being attacked and lucky to be alive now. Polite canine approaches are slow arcing and communication is shared long before the first sniff. Unfortunately direct fast approaches do not allow this communication to happen and can lead to the approaching dog receiving a less than warm welcome.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> That's me in from work with bags full of veg to blend for numpty boy to add into his meat. I have to say he SEEMS to be doing well on the raw diet so far. He has definately been more satisfied, calmer and a lot better behaved and he gets all waggy and wiggly at meal times now. It's funny to see him going to his mat, sitting nicely, then stretching his nose as far as he can to get a whiff of what meat his dinners gonna be  So I'm away to chop and blend with my new gadget...an old food processor mum gave me....hand blenders really dont work well with raw carrot- I'm still finding bits stuck to cupboard doors


I just love your sense of humour. Most of your posts make me giggle.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - hope the pointies get well soon.

I took Kilo to 'our' forest for the morning for his last walk in it before the BW becomes the Dynamic Duo. It was very, very windy and quite wet but Kilo loved it - I just spent the walk thinking about Sailor (dog and human) and will talk to her again later; we were on the phone for ages this morning and it's times like that when I wish I still lived closer. We met the Game Warden again and were asked to report to him red squirrel sightings (none today) and approximate goat location .

Also bought a larger pet carrier than the one I'd been lent for the ferry trip.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> L/C - hope the pointies get well soon.
> 
> I took Kilo to 'our' forest for the morning for his last walk in it before the BW becomes the Dynamic Duo. It was very, very windy and quite wet but Kilo loved it - I just spent the walk thinking about Sailor (dog and human) and will talk to her again later; we were on the phone for ages this morning and it's times like that when I wish I still lived closer. We met the Game Warden again and were asked to report to him red squirrel sightings (none today) and *approximate goat location* .
> 
> Also bought a larger pet carrier than the one I'd been lent for the ferry trip.


That (bolded) made me giggle. 

I feel so bad for Sailor (human) - she must be utterly crushed.  It's hard when you are a long way off and can't do anything other than talk on the phone. But you can still be there, even if you are a phonecall away.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sezzastar said:


> If we are on country walks and we see people coming up we do usually put him on lead, he isn't muzzled as he has shown no aggression towards other dogs, he is a big wimp actually. He just likes to say hello then carry on with his walk!


That's all very well but had he come to say hello to my previous dog it would have caused me and Rupert _huge_ problems. And likely got your boy hurt and/or frightened into the bargain.

Just heaved my guts up making liver cake. The smell has never really bothered me before but today it's been all I can do not to throw up. I added some left over peas to the mix but I can't see them accounting for the smell :001_unsure:

Spen's had a bit of a play with his little friend that lives around the back. Would have appreciated a bit of warning before the bloke let her off leash to come bombing over since I had Spen on the long line. I got yanked around a bit, I refuse to even try to just stand my ground in that situation, seen my hubby get hurt too often doing that. She makes me laugh, she comes tearing over to Spen then yelps whenever he moves, runs off, races back, yelps, runs again. Even when he's just standing there she'll run up to him, yelp and run off. She doesn't seem at all frightened of him and he's definitely not hurting her so not sure what it's all about


----------



## Sezzastar

moonviolet said:


> This isn't personal and I appreciate he just wants to say hello. I just don't appreciate any strange dog charging at mine... nor does she following being attacked and lucky to be alive now. Polite canine approaches are slow arcing and communication is shared long before the first sniff. Unfortunately direct fast approaches do not allow this communication to happen and can lead to the approaching dog receiving a less than warm welcome.


I don't think I explained it very well, my writing skills aren't too great! I suppose down here where we walk it is quite different. As we go on the country trails and also the beaches to walk ours and there is an unwritten rule that if your dog is off lead then it is fine with most other dogs. Very rarely someone who has a dog with triggers will walk that dog across the beach or fields when there are so many dogs off leads.:001_unsure: Your dog would never get a good run around if it had to be on a lead all the time!

I don't feel that all dog owners 'communicate' before their dogs say hello, not down here anyway, it must be very different where you walk your dog/s? 

Also what kind of communication would you have with the owner? I have asked "is your dog ok with other dogs?" to which the reply of yes led to a sniffing between Ozzy and their dog, which turned out their dog was friendly to every other dog but not Ozzy! I have shouted out "it is ok, he is friendly" a few times to other dog owners who look concerned when we suddenly shout Ozzy and hitch the lead on to his head collar (which i think a lot of people think is a muzzle on him and therefore see him as aggressive!) Any tips or advice would be welcomed as I do see myself as a responsible dog owner.. I always have my focus on my dogs and who is around and try my best to make everyone elses and mines walking experiences happy!!!

I hope I explained that ok!


----------



## Sezzastar

Sarah1983 said:


> That's all very well but had he come to say hello to my previous dog it would have caused me and Rupert _huge_ problems. And likely got your boy hurt and/or frightened into the bargain.


If i seen you approaching and your dog was on lead i would put mine on lead.
Theres a staffy down the road exactly the same, see her most days we take the dogs out, as soon as I see her i recall Ozzy and put him on lead!


----------



## Sarah1983

Sezzastar said:


> I don't feel that all dog owners 'communicate' before their dogs say hello, not down here anyway, it must be very different where you walk your dog/s?


She was talking about communication between the dogs, not between the owners  It is extremely impolite and quite threatening for one dog to just rush up to another, dogs with good social skills arc around each other and approach far more slowly.

My own dog is much the same as yours and I know what you're saying about people thinking they're aggressive when you call them and leash them. I tend to just call over that he is friendly but doesn't always come back. If we're somewhere with lots of other dogs he's on a long line because I don't want him practising the behaviour of running over to other dogs, the more he practises the behaviour the more ingrained it will become.


----------



## Sezzastar

Sarah1983 said:


> She was talking about communication between the dogs, not between the owners  It is extremely impolite and quite threatening for one dog to just rush up to another, dogs with good social skills arc around each other and approach far more slowly.
> 
> My own dog is much the same as yours and I know what you're saying about people thinking they're aggressive when you call them and leash them. I tend to just call over that he is friendly but doesn't always come back. If we're somewhere with lots of other dogs he's on a long line because I don't want him practising the behaviour of running over to other dogs, the more he practises the behaviour the more ingrained it will become.


Ahhh :blush: Of course.. I didn't read it right, yes Ozzy had poor social skills. We rescued him and found that he had been left outside for over a year (His fur was that matted we had to cut a lot of it off.) His owner apparently had a heart attack and couldn't cope, it was pretty obvious from the state of him and from the state of the rescue he 'gave' him to. Things were hard then as we didn't really know what we were letting ourselves in for!

He used to bound over to say hello but does not get the chance now as we do hitch his lead on before he gets too excited. Good idea about the longlines.. may have to invest in 3. We usually call out to owners that assume he is aggressive when he is made to sit and leashed and distracted with treats that he is friendly but too friendly sometimes!


----------



## Werehorse

I attempted stage two of the retrieve training with Hugo today - I don't think Twiggy will be repeating her praise of us both. :lol:

Go out, come back and touch - he can do fine. I put the stick down and the first few times he just carried on running under my legs with it lol: at least he was heading TOWARDS me though!) then dropped it and came in to "touch" again.

Perservered for a while and eventually got a pick up and step in with stick in mouth and he has started to move his nose towards me slightly with it in his mouth. I'm trying to think if we got a sit with stick in gob and I can't remember! :sosp: I'll get some video again when OH is home from work.

He did it better when I mixed it up, sometimes placing the stick and saying "get it then" as he ran back in and sometimes leaving the stick behind my back and just asking for a hand touch - if I did too many sticks in a row the enthusiasm and forward motion in towards me dropped off.

The penny has not dropped yet for this stage but it is teetering! :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Thanks Sarah for clarifying  yep thats exactly what i meant 
Sounds like some mighty potent livercake:001_unsure:

Sezzastar, I hope i didn't offend. It's my pet peeve, dogs running up and their owners blissfully unaware of their dogs poor social skills and the problems they create. 


Werehorse.... I hope the penny drops soon  sounds like you are coming on a treat  Looking forward to videos.

Lovely walks the last couple of days bumping into and walking with doggy friends... only one worry when we met a playful pug who wanted to play chase...one small circuit and the poor mite was struggling to breathe, Just as i was about to step in Tink stopped to let it catch its breath.  Such a sweetie but so sad to see her struggle like that.

Class tonight


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I attempted stage two of the retrieve training with Hugo today - I don't think Twiggy will be repeating her praise of us both. :lol:
> 
> Go out, come back and touch - he can do fine. I put the stick down and the first few times he just carried on running under my legs with it lol: at least he was heading TOWARDS me though!) then dropped it and came in to "touch" again.
> 
> Perservered for a while and eventually got a pick up and step in with stick in mouth and he has started to move his nose towards me slightly with it in his mouth. I'm trying to think if we got a sit with stick in gob and I can't remember! :sosp: I'll get some video again when OH is home from work.
> 
> He did it better when I mixed it up, sometimes placing the stick and saying "get it then" as he ran back in and sometimes leaving the stick behind my back and just asking for a hand touch - if I did too many sticks in a row the enthusiasm and forward motion in towards me dropped off.
> 
> The penny has not dropped yet for this stage but it is teetering! :lol:


Believe me you are both doing brilliantly and I can't wait to see the videos.
It takes most dogs and handlers far longer to get up to where you and Hugo are.:dita:


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> L/C Hope the pointy twins are better soon, poor things and poor you cleaning up
> 
> Dogless can you even sleep? the excitement would be killing me (and the moments oh heck i hope i'm doing the right thing, too)
> 
> GR Hope you have a lovely lunch and a really positive time with the behaviourist.
> 
> *CHazzie glad charlie is respondiing well to raw. Hope you locate the rest of the carrot soon.*
> 
> Sarah wearing a sandwich board it a small price to pay for a formal retrieve :lol: I guess i should count myself lucky i get the damp post-it deliered :lol:
> 
> K&M may i join the un finished kitchen club... but now i've got a working hob oven and sink. i'll ignore the unifnised bits for a while :lol: :001_wub: Evie :001_wub
> 
> Beth well that was a very effective way to get rid of him and " his little dog too" :lol: :lol: :lol:


its ok i have a four-legged, wet-nosed carrot detector here


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> This isn't personal and I appreciate he just wants to say hello. I just don't appreciate any strange dog charging at mine... nor does she following being attacked and lucky to be alive now. Polite canine approaches are slow arcing and communication is shared long before the first sniff. Unfortunately direct fast approaches do not allow this communication to happen and can lead to the approaching dog receiving a less than warm welcome.


Yes as you know thats exactly what happened to Chazzie a few weeks ago when he raced over to greet and was held down and attacked by those two dogs... and he was 'just being friendly' unfortunately the rottie and gsd didnt give him a chance! Charlie might not completely have learnt his lesson but I have... he stays onlead until we are definately alone or he calms down enough to be let off to play , Id hate to see it happen to other dogs :001_unsure:


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> I just love your sense of humour. Most of your posts make me giggle.


Thank you  
i DID warn you all at the start that i was mad as a hatter ( and addicted to adding brackets, .....'s and smiley wee faces to all my posts )....lol


----------



## Sarah1983

Well we're meeting up with the Rottie, Khan, tomorrow afternoon and if all goes well we'll be looking after him for a bit. Beginning to think "omg, what have I done?!" already, I have a feeling that if they do get on it may be a bit of a mad house here. Wish us luck! If they don't get on he'll have to go in kennels which won't be particularly good for him.

And if anyone has any advice or tips feel free to share! It's been a long time since I've had more than one dog in the house.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> L/C - hope the pointies get well soon.
> 
> I took Kilo to 'our' forest for the morning for his last walk in it before the BW becomes the Dynamic Duo. It was very, very windy and quite wet but Kilo loved it - I just spent the walk thinking about Sailor (dog and human) and will talk to her again later; we were on the phone for ages this morning and it's times like that when I wish I still lived closer. We met the Game Warden again and were asked to report to him red squirrel sightings (none today) and approximate goat location .
> 
> Also bought a larger pet carrier than the one I'd been lent for the ferry trip.


Will you need a forklift to get the pet carrier onto the ferry?  lol. Well I hope you have a safe, calm crossing and a nice time with your family. Cant wait to see the pics of wee Rudi- maybe you'll be able to get online during the next week to give us all an update! Good luck


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> Well we're meeting up with the Rottie, Khan, tomorrow afternoon and if all goes well we'll be looking after him for a bit. Beginning to think "omg, what have I done?!" already, I have a feeling that if they do get on it may be a bit of a mad house here. Wish us luck! If they don't get on he'll have to go in kennels which won't be particularly good for him.
> 
> And if anyone has any advice or tips feel free to share! It's been a long time since I've had more than one dog in the house.


It'll be fiiiine. 

Hide anything breakable and learn how to lock yourself in the under-stairs cupboard.


----------



## Beth17

Right I'm off now so Dogless I hope everything goes smoothly for you tomorrow and am counting down the days until we see Rudi and Kilo pics


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> It'll be fiiiine.
> 
> Hide anything breakable and learn how to lock yourself in the under-stairs cupboard.


I live in a flat :scared:

Dogless, hope your trip goes well and look forward to seeing and hearing all about Rudi and Kilo when you get back


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: Then there is nothing you can do...

Joking aside, assuming they get on just keep an eye on them and use your common sense.  Be careful with toys and around meal-times and avoid rough play in confined spaces. Ensure they get a bit of down-time away from each other if it gets a bit exciting.

You'll be fine.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Then there is nothing you can do...
> 
> Joking aside, assuming they get on just keep an eye on them and use your common sense.  Be careful with toys and around meal-times and avoid rough play in confined spaces. Ensure they get a bit of down-time away from each other if it gets a bit exciting.
> 
> You'll be fine.


Yeah, toys are going to be put away at least at first. Meal times they'll be separated, I can easily feed Spen in his crate to make sure there are no accidents. Walks will have to be done separately for the most part, no way I'll manage Spen and another dog.


----------



## Werehorse

Right I have videos.

First one is a fun one of Oscar doing his retrieve and being a bit naughty! :hand:

Oscar&#39;s retrieve - YouTube

Second one is of Hugo - OH recorded it blinking portrait  and I have no idea how to turn it on the computer. A bit annoying but hopefully still watchable. I'll get another one tomorrow or Thursday as I'm probably stuck on this stage for a while anyway...

Hugo Retrieve Stage 2 - YouTube

There's quite a bit of waiting around while he finds his treats that I throw out, one of them goes in his water bowl!


----------



## Dogless

Thanks all - we're off in minutes few .


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Right I have videos.
> 
> First one is a fun one of Oscar doing his retrieve and being a bit naughty! :hand:
> 
> Oscar's retrieve - YouTube
> 
> Second one is of Hugo - OH recorded it blinking portrait  and I have no idea how to turn it on the computer. A bit annoying but hopefully still watchable. I'll get another one tomorrow or Thursday as I'm probably stuck on this stage for a while anyway...
> 
> Hugo Retrieve Stage 2 - YouTube
> 
> There's quite a bit of waiting around while he finds his treats that I throw out, one of them goes in his water bowl!


Loved them.....

Do you see in the video of Oscar how nicely he holds his dumbbell when you have the tit-bit close to his nose? With him you could now try doing a couple of retrieves sitting on the chair and the third time stand up and see what you get. Don't make him wait though (hold his collar) and wind him up with your voice to keep the momentum going.

I've got a stiff neck watching Hugo...!!

As you say the penny hasn't quite dropped yet but he's doing very well.
Do a mixture of having him sit between your legs with his stick touching your fingers and also instead of putting the stick on the floor, tap it on the floor with lots of encouragement with your voice "what's this" etc. and hold it fairly low to the floor by the end and see if he will take it from you. If he does quickly put your hands together and say "touch" to try and engineer the sit.

You really are doing extremely well. Most handlers struggle with the initial stages and that's with me standing next to them....LOL


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> Yes he does seem worried but I'm just carrying on as normal because there's not a lot I can do about the light fittings. I expect its just his age and he'll be alright tomorrow.
> 
> Isn't funny how they just suddenly notice certain things


We used to know a little black and tan JRT who was a very 'fiesty' character I loved hearing stories of Wilson as they were often funny or gobsmacking unfortunately not everyone who interacted with him came off uninjured  (infact very rarely) I think my favourite story is when his owner fell asleep on the train and woke up to find Wilson had eaten all the buttons off a fellow sleeping travellers coat 

Point being light fittings were seemingly the only thing he was truly scared of he would bark and bark and bark if he happened to look up, and you really didn't want to lift him up so he was nearer them :yikes:

I hope Sam comes to realise they wont fall out of the sky and get him


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> PFFFT, I've been attempting to teach him beg for about two weeks. :laugh::laugh:


OH has been trying to teach paw for please for ages, she just looks at him blankly. yesterday when I fixing the harness to her with the trainer feeding her treats (to combat her fear of the clasp clicking ) she gave paw 

How I laughed :lol:


----------



## ballybee

A bit of a confusing post coming up, Tummel has shown lots of positive interest in dogs over the last couple of days, yesterday he was desperate to meet and play with a labX when we were out(he was on the longline and the other dog was too occupied playing fetch) and today he showed a very positive interest in a springer on the beach, he didn't try to go over though which i am chuffed at.

His recall has also improved dramatically, i've been quite strict on not letting the boys on the living room furniture and not constantly lavishing attention on them, i've been doing individual walks with Tummel and Dan and this morning i got up a bit late so took them out together, both boys were excellent, we found a ball on the beach and for the first time EVER Tummel played fetch properly, even though Dan was chasing him he managed to come tyo me every time and drop the ball at my feet :biggrin: so we had him recalling even though he could have played chase with Dan for ages....then whenw e finished the game he and Dan had a blast chasing the gulls on the beach, no wrestling or anything 

So i'm hoping Tummel was just having a bad phase, i'm going upto Dundee tomorrow to do more work with him in a very popular dogwalking park


----------



## Phoolf

Regarding Kes being a domestic goddess she can now put one toy away reliably every time, I introduced a second toy yesterday and she did fairly well although confused at times and wanting to take the toy out again but that was my fault really. Will do more this evening and will rewatch the video on youtube first so I stop confusing her with my methods/where I place the treat etc.


----------



## GingerRogers

chazzie10 said:


> Thank you
> i DID warn you all at the start that i was mad as a hatter ( and addicted to adding brackets, .....'s and smiley wee faces to all my posts )....lol


I love your posts too they often make me laugh, you have humour even when reporting on bad stuff (but I feel bad now as I forgot to warn people about the long posts, smilies, brackets and ..........)


----------



## GingerRogers

Phoolf said:


> Regarding Kes being a domestic goddess she can now put one toy away reliably every time, I introduced a second toy yesterday and she did fairly well although confused at times and wanting to take the toy out again but that was my fault really. Will do more this evening and will rewatch the video on youtube first so I stop *confusing *her with my methods/where I place the treat etc.


I think thats my main problem, I am so uncoordinated I think I confuse the Ninja


----------



## GingerRogers

Well yesterday was good with the behaviourist, I thought the whole hour would be an assessment and then she would present us with a critique of the dog (shoot the dog, shes a lost cause and then turn into a hermit yourself, you are not fit as a human ) and suggest some methods to manage things and we would need to go back to learn some more but we actually worked on techniques then and there.

We got their very early  so had to watch the previous persons session for half and hour all the while my heat rate is rising . Eventually it was our turn and we went in she watched Ginge for 5 mins or so while we chatted and she recapped on the issues I had highlighted to her (I had been quite thorough, can you believe that!!).

Then she said right first off  equipment  I always prefer to work dogs in a harness  here we go  I thought she wants to sell me something, but no, she recommended a Mekuti and went to disrobe her dog so we could borrow that for the session. I was quite surprised as lots of stuff I have read/heard says you cant train dogs in harnesses. She said for the particular issue of dogs who are reactive on lead especially the collar just sends too many negative signals (perfectly sensible). We practiced walking with the double ended lead was similar to using the head collar and collar so picked it up quickly. The ninja did seem to be much more balanced (although she didnt explain that benefit of the harness I found that out later when I went online). She also said to always turn in front of your dog. So if its on the left you turn left and go round in a circle if you need to go right.

Then she discussed - food  I give Arden Grange as I thought it was a reasonable food with Nature diet as I cant bear to give just biscuits. She said she prefers to feed only wet, either nature diet or similar or raw as it is more natural for the dog to digest moist food rather than biscuits. Makes sense but I forgot to ask if that affects behaviour???

We discussed threshold distances, she then got Trevor out the car, a very realistic stuffed dog , and showed me how to distract, treat away from the trigger (on the ground to replicate sniffing to re-assure the other dog  didnt know that one, will save my back) and watch for signs of reaction (and calming) then move away, to pass to the side in a curve  all the things I am sure you all know about and I had read and heard etc etc but being the un-coordinated and sceptical sod that I am hadnt quite managed to put into place properly. 

I came away feeling that I hadnt learnt much new but with more confidence in my ability to put it all together and make an actual difference and to tell the OH to sod off with his disparaging remarks and leave me to it . Why does he only ever listen when other people say it, TBF he was remarkably supportive last night and recognised how shattered I have been.

The ninja was exhausted and slept the evening away just like the lady said she would (so was I). 

Went out this morning and got completely surprised by two little dogs who came out of a house I didnt even know dogs lived in and she went right over her threshold and barked and barked before I manage to practice anything . 

We need to think about places we can go to work on the threshold distances, we have the beach and the marshes but too many people use them as areas to just let their dogs run riot. There is the common which isnt as unruly because the golf course meanders through it and its surrounded by roads, then hubby suggested the harbour car park as lots of people drive down there to start walks but dogs are kept on lead till they get to the beach or dunes.

Two good things, one little, Dad was back when I got back to drop Mum off and we discussed what we had learnt, Mum said how differently she walked in the harness and so he offered to buy one as a present so I dont have to convince OH .

One big good thing was I had a message from the lady with the poor dog saying that he was absolutely fine , he may be a bit more wary (but from what I learnt yesterday that might be a good thing if he learns to approach more politely like the ninja), she was more shaken but I saw them through the window this morning, no doubt looking out for me, and we waved and smiled .


----------



## Phoolf

GingerRogers said:


> I think thats my main problem, I am so uncoordinated I think I confuse the Ninja


I always try and skip a step instead of being patient and working up _very_ slowly because I over-estimate how much Kes understand what we're doing. Plus she gets it right like 3 times in a row then it all seems to disappear again and I get a bit frustrated with her instead of ending the session on a really good note. I need to train myself a lot more,nevermind her.


----------



## L/C

Dogless - so exciting! Looking forward to meeting little Rudi. 

Sarah1983 - I'm sure you'll be fine with Khan, just make sure you have somewhere that you can hide for a cry. :lol:

Phoolf - you'll have her loading the washing machine in no time.

Another very good walk today and the plague seems to have left the pointy household. I have decided that it is time to work on lead manners with my two, I've been used up to now just allow the dogs to stop and sniff whenever they want. It's from when Ely used to only have short walks so I wanted him to get as much stimulation as possible but since moving he's better out and about so he doesn't need that anymore. But I've been a bit lazy and haven't bothered to address it until now. I will still allow a fair amount of sniffing and marking in appropriate places as it is a calming behaviour and he uses it as a distraction technique when he is worried, but I'm going to be stricter with it.

This has had the added bonus of nixing Gypsy's annoying habit of stopping when she's decided she wants to go another way and her heelwork has improved as well.

Worked on Gypsy's down stay with distractions some more and it is now rock solid around other dogs - even ones she knows. I even tested her today by not only walking off but bringing Ely with me - not a flicker.  Ely's sit stay is damn near perfect too and he is now offering it everytime a dog he doesn't know approaches us.


----------



## L/C

Ginge - that sounds like a really positive meeting. I found that when I saw the behaviourist for Ely's anxiety she didn't really tell me anything that I didn't know but it was the reassurance that I was doing things that were right that gave me the confidence I needed to keep working on it.

Hopefully it means that you can carry on with a renewed motivation and feel a bit more positive.


----------



## Twiggy

Phoolf said:


> I always try and skip a step instead of being patient and working up _very_ slowly because I over-estimate how much Kes understand what we're doing. Plus she gets it right like 3 times in a row then it all seems to disappear again and I get a bit frustrated with her instead of ending the session on a really good note. I need to train myself a lot more,nevermind her.


Good girl....LOL That the right idea. I find it's never the dogs that need training but always the handlers....!!


----------



## Phoolf

Twiggy said:


> Good girl....LOL That the right idea. I find it's never the dogs that need training but always the handlers....!!


Where's my treaty!!!?!??! 

I find once I get one step right I've kind of forgotten what to do exactly for the next step in a sequence so I try and bumble through from vague memory. Perhaps I should write bullet points and tape them somewhere so I don't have to interrupt the training or end up doing it wrong.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Well yesterday was good with the behaviourist, I thought the whole hour would be an assessment and then she would present us with a critique of the dog (shoot the dog, shes a lost cause and then turn into a hermit yourself, you are not fit as a human ) and suggest some methods to manage things and we would need to go back to learn some more but we actually worked on techniques then and there.
> 
> We got their very early  so had to watch the previous persons session for half and hour all the while my heat rate is rising . Eventually it was our turn and we went in she watched Ginge for 5 mins or so while we chatted and she recapped on the issues I had highlighted to her (I had been quite thorough, can you believe that!!).
> 
> Then she said right first off  equipment  I always prefer to work dogs in a harness  here we go  I thought she wants to sell me something, but no, she recommended a Mekuti and went to disrobe her dog so we could borrow that for the session. I was quite surprised as lots of stuff I have read/heard says you cant train dogs in harnesses. She said for the particular issue of dogs who are reactive on lead especially the collar just sends too many negative signals (perfectly sensible). We practiced walking with the double ended lead was similar to using the head collar and collar so picked it up quickly. The ninja did seem to be much more balanced (although she didnt explain that benefit of the harness I found that out later when I went online). She also said to always turn in front of your dog. So if its on the left you turn left and go round in a circle if you need to go right.
> 
> Then she discussed - food  I give Arden Grange as I thought it was a reasonable food with Nature diet as I cant bear to give just biscuits. She said she prefers to feed only wet, either nature diet or similar or raw as it is more natural for the dog to digest moist food rather than biscuits. Makes sense but I forgot to ask if that affects behaviour???
> 
> We discussed threshold distances, she then got Trevor out the car, a very realistic stuffed dog , and showed me how to distract, treat away from the trigger (on the ground to replicate sniffing to re-assure the other dog  didnt know that one, will save my back) and watch for signs of reaction (and calming) then move away, to pass to the side in a curve  all the things I am sure you all know about and I had read and heard etc etc but being the un-coordinated and sceptical sod that I am hadnt quite managed to put into place properly.
> 
> I came away feeling that I hadnt learnt much new but with more confidence in my ability to put it all together and make an actual difference and to tell the OH to sod off with his disparaging remarks and leave me to it . Why does he only ever listen when other people say it, TBF he was remarkably supportive last night and recognised how shattered I have been.
> 
> The ninja was exhausted and slept the evening away just like the lady said she would (so was I).
> 
> Went out this morning and got completely surprised by two little dogs who came out of a house I didnt even know dogs lived in and she went right over her threshold and barked and barked before I manage to practice anything .
> 
> We need to think about places we can go to work on the threshold distances, we have the beach and the marshes but too many people use them as areas to just let their dogs run riot. There is the common which isnt as unruly because the golf course meanders through it and its surrounded by roads, then hubby suggested the harbour car park as lots of people drive down there to start walks but dogs are kept on lead till they get to the beach or dunes.
> 
> Two good things, one little, Dad was back when I got back to drop Mum off and we discussed what we had learnt, Mum said how differently she walked in the harness and so he offered to buy one as a present so I dont have to convince OH .
> 
> One big good thing was I had a message from the lady with the poor dog saying that he was absolutely fine , he may be a bit more wary (but from what I learnt yesterday that might be a good thing if he learns to approach more politely like the ninja), she was more shaken but I saw them through the window this morning, no doubt looking out for me, and we waved and smiled .


So pleased it went well and has hopefully given you confidence.

BTW Arden Grange doesn't affect behaviour IMO. Mine are on AG and have been for several years.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Loved them.....
> 
> Do you see in the video of Oscar how nicely he holds his dumbbell when you have the tit-bit close to his nose? With him you could now try doing a couple of retrieves sitting on the chair and the third time stand up and see what you get. Don't make him wait though (hold his collar) and wind him up with your voice to keep the momentum going.
> 
> I've got a stiff neck watching Hugo...!!
> 
> As you say the penny hasn't quite dropped yet but he's doing very well.
> Do a mixture of having him sit between your legs with his stick touching your fingers and also instead of putting the stick on the floor, tap it on the floor with lots of encouragement with your voice "what's this" etc. and hold it fairly low to the floor by the end and see if he will take it from you. If he does quickly put your hands together and say "touch" to try and engineer the sit.
> 
> You really are doing extremely well. Most handlers struggle with the initial stages and that's with me standing next to them....LOL


Thank you! Will keep working at that stage with Hugo... I could see it starting to click so it might not be long. And the next video will be the right way up..  poor OH had had a really tough day at work and came home to me going "can you video us doing this please"  :lol: Poor man.

Yes, with Oscar I could really see how offering the treat at the same time as the dumbell reduced his chomping on the dumbell and then it carried through into the retrieve straight after. He loves retrievies, bless him, just needs to polish them up a bit. I can't for the life of me get him hand targetting for more than a brief nose-bump so I'm not looking for a formal "present" from him just a steady hold at close quarters, maybe with an upwards tilted nose for the look of the thing!


----------



## Beth17

Ginger that sounds like it was really worth going, so glad you feel more positive; And how nice of your dad to buy the harness for you.

L/C well done to you and the pointy twins :thumbup:

Pretty quite here this morning got ambushed by a lab and Oscar just tensed up slightly but no real reaction. Sam decided to try and run the whole way around 

Going to take them for a run up the field in a bit so we'll see how that goes.


----------



## Werehorse

I'm so glad you had a positive meeting with the behaviourist, GingerR, hopefully it'll all start to smooth out for you soon.  I think the whole "you can't train on a harness" thing must arise from people using training methods involving lead corrections. My two wear harnesses for training all the time and it's fine. 

Also I fed Arden Grange to mine as puppies - I like it, and may move back onto it now I have discovered the secret of keeping weight on Oscar isn't necessarily brand of food but popping an egg on his breakfast every few days! 

L/C - the pointy twins really impress me  They must find impulse control around small furry running things so hard but they do it! So good. 

Phloof - I expect too much from my boys sometimes too and miss stages. It's hard not to, but just catch yourself go back and build up again and it'll be fine.  The bullet point idea is good, it's easy to forget a sequence. I used to have a bullet pointed list of simple stuff when I first started teacher training (I mean like "tell them to sit down, hand their books out" "take a register" "tell them the objectives" etc etc) because I was so keen to get to (and worried about) the main part of the lesson all my brain was saying was "move on, move on, move on" but having to check back against a list really helped and I stopped getting told off for not taking a register or for asking them to start a task while their books were still on my desk. :lol:

I had a nasty moment on out walk this morning. A forestry pickup came round a corner far too fast and didn't give me enough time (I mean it was about 3 seconds) to get the boys in and safely out of his way which meant Hugo hopped onto the track in front of him while he was still moving, he didn't hit him but I was livid!  It's not like I was stood their looking gormless and letting the dogs run riot in front of him - I was clearly calling dogs in and waving at him to slow down but he just kept coming. :thumbdown: Not happy but we're all unscathed which is the main thing. I'm not sure the forestry worker would have been unscathed if he'd had his window wound down, he was getting quite a tongue lashing but I don't think he even realised cos he gave me a thumbs up as if to say thank you for getting the dogs out the way!  He got my angry face back.

I was also out a bit earlier than usual and I think I hit reactive dog with responsible owners time of day as people kept legging it away from me with their on-lead dogs.  Obviously I kept the boys under control but I did begin to wonder if we all look terrifying! :lol:

They were good though and twice did brilliant sitting by the side of the path while dog on lead goes past.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well Khan will be joining us early tomorrow morning. He and Spen got on great, had a good play off leash and then we went into Khans house for a bit. He's very noisy in his play but I expected that to be honest. There was a bit of head humping on both sides that neither dog objected to but that we put a stop to anyway. 

Khan's 7 years old, has a back leg that gives him problems if he's over exercised, on a diet and very sweet. So I may be a gibbering wreck for the next few days with the pair of them.

And Spencer actually checked in with me several times while playing :thumbup: They were only very brief ones and he didn't really want the treats I offered but it's progress!


----------



## Phoolf

Here's a quick vid of our toybox training this evening

Kes toybox - YouTube

It's coming on well, my clicks are a little bit out but it doesn't seem to matter too much for now. The hard part is getting her focused instead of wanting to sniff around for whatever food there may or may not be on the floor.


----------



## Werehorse

Glad Khan and Spen got on, Sarah!  Looking forward to hearing all about their antics.

OMG, how clever is Kes!  Good Big Dog.


----------



## Phoolf

More clever than me, I can't keep up with her when I train. :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> I love your posts too they often make me laugh, you have humour even when reporting on bad stuff (but I feel bad now as I forgot to warn people about the long posts, smilies, brackets and ..........)


Aww shucks  thank you lol. Yeah I do tend to joke about everything and try to see the funny side of things...when I'm not a blubbering wreck in the corner, crying about Charlie's behaviour  
No happy medium with me, all black and white (maybe I was a collie or jrt in a past life )


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Well yesterday was good with the behaviourist, I thought the whole hour would be an assessment and then she would present us with a critique of the dog (shoot the dog, shes a lost cause and then turn into a hermit yourself, you are not fit as a human ) and suggest some methods to manage things and we would need to go back to learn some more but we actually worked on techniques then and there.
> 
> We got their very early  so had to watch the previous persons session for half and hour all the while my heat rate is rising . Eventually it was our turn and we went in she watched Ginge for 5 mins or so while we chatted and she recapped on the issues I had highlighted to her (I had been quite thorough, can you believe that!!).
> 
> Then she said right first off  equipment  I always prefer to work dogs in a harness  here we go  I thought she wants to sell me something, but no, she recommended a Mekuti and went to disrobe her dog so we could borrow that for the session. I was quite surprised as lots of stuff I have read/heard says you cant train dogs in harnesses. She said for the particular issue of dogs who are reactive on lead especially the collar just sends too many negative signals (perfectly sensible). We practiced walking with the double ended lead was similar to using the head collar and collar so picked it up quickly. The ninja did seem to be much more balanced (although she didnt explain that benefit of the harness I found that out later when I went online). She also said to always turn in front of your dog. So if its on the left you turn left and go round in a circle if you need to go right.
> 
> Then she discussed - food  I give Arden Grange as I thought it was a reasonable food with Nature diet as I cant bear to give just biscuits. She said she prefers to feed only wet, either nature diet or similar or raw as it is more natural for the dog to digest moist food rather than biscuits. Makes sense but I forgot to ask if that affects behaviour???
> 
> We discussed threshold distances, she then got Trevor out the car, a very realistic stuffed dog , and showed me how to distract, treat away from the trigger (on the ground to replicate sniffing to re-assure the other dog  didnt know that one, will save my back) and watch for signs of reaction (and calming) then move away, to pass to the side in a curve  all the things I am sure you all know about and I had read and heard etc etc but being the un-coordinated and sceptical sod that I am hadnt quite managed to put into place properly.
> 
> I came away feeling that I hadnt learnt much new but with more confidence in my ability to put it all together and make an actual difference and to tell the OH to sod off with his disparaging remarks and leave me to it . Why does he only ever listen when other people say it, TBF he was remarkably supportive last night and recognised how shattered I have been.
> 
> The ninja was exhausted and slept the evening away just like the lady said she would (so was I).
> 
> Went out this morning and got completely surprised by two little dogs who came out of a house I didnt even know dogs lived in and she went right over her threshold and barked and barked before I manage to practice anything .
> 
> We need to think about places we can go to work on the threshold distances, we have the beach and the marshes but too many people use them as areas to just let their dogs run riot. There is the common which isnt as unruly because the golf course meanders through it and its surrounded by roads, then hubby suggested the harbour car park as lots of people drive down there to start walks but dogs are kept on lead till they get to the beach or dunes.
> 
> Two good things, one little, Dad was back when I got back to drop Mum off and we discussed what we had learnt, Mum said how differently she walked in the harness and so he offered to buy one as a present so I dont have to convince OH .
> 
> One big good thing was I had a message from the lady with the poor dog saying that he was absolutely fine , he may be a bit more wary (but from what I learnt yesterday that might be a good thing if he learns to approach more politely like the ninja), she was more shaken but I saw them through the window this morning, no doubt looking out for me, and we waved and smiled .


Sounds like the session was useful if it taught you some strategies and let you try out the harness. 
I have considered being a hermit myself but as yet have resisted 
That's lovely that the dog owner has been so understanding and friendly... especially as you have to walk past her house every day!


----------



## Twiggy

Phoolf said:


> Here's a quick vid of our toybox training this evening
> 
> Kes toybox - YouTube
> 
> It's coming on well, my clicks are a little bit out but it doesn't seem to matter too much for now. The hard part is getting her focused instead of wanting to sniff around for whatever food there may or may not be on the floor.


That's great....:thumbup:


----------



## Phoolf

Twiggy said:


> That's great....:thumbup:


Thank you  I'm hoping by this weekend I can progress to using a cue.

That was take 4 on the film :lol:

She's so food centred it's hard to keep her focused, she wants to sniff around for food she thinks I dropped so I have to keep very patient and try to keep very concentrated myself.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I excelled myself today in a professional capacity - and a big "thank you" to dear little Holly Bolly.......

I took both Holly and Tremor over to the barn this afternoon for training class as several handlers couldn't make it. In my defence I had both dogs on lead plus training bag, bag of scent cloths and another bag containing I know not, to pass on to one of the handlers. Anyway I'd got both dogs in one hand and opened the door with the other (complete with all the bags) and Holly's boyfriend was just inside the door. She took an almighty lurch at him and I went sprawling. What a dignified entrance from the instructor....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Phoolf said:


> Thank you  I'm hoping by this weekend I can progress to using a cue.
> 
> That was take 4 on the film :lol:
> 
> She's so food centred it's hard to keep her focused, she wants to sniff around for food she thinks I dropped so I have to keep very patient and try to keep very concentrated myself.


I use Tesco's cocktail sausages. A packet of 40 cost very little. I like using them because they can be sliced fairly thinly and they don't crumble. Could you not try tossing a slice at her mouth for her to catch so she knows there's nothing on the floor?


----------



## Phoolf

Twiggy said:


> I use Tesco's cocktail sausages. A packet of 40 cost very little. I like using them because they can be sliced fairly thinly and they don't crumble. Could you not try tossing a slice at her mouth for her to catch so she knows there's nothing on the floor?


I think the problem is I've been putting treats on the floor next to the toys to get her attention back on them so maybe the carpet smells like hotdogs a bit.  In general she's overly food motivated though, she acts like a starved animal half the time.


----------



## Beth17

Very impressive Phoolf 

Had to laugh Twiggy if that happened to you what chance do the rest of us have :lol:

Good luck Sarah!

We had a good walk this afternoon at the field didn't really see anyone apart from when we were leaving and the boys were playing tug with the toy whilst I'm failing at trying to keep them still and put leads on; I must have looked a right nutter 

Sam attempted to break my ribs by getting overexcited and running full pelt at me for his toy and planting his front feet on my chest  it hurt quite a bit :thumbdown:


----------



## kat&molly

Not much from us at the moment, I'm busy and dont seem to have much enthusiasm for training - probably just need a break.

Phloof- how good and calm is Kes  Moll's like a whirlwind when we do the Toybox. She got confused yesterday and put all 4 feet in the box.:laugh:


More bad news here.
Big Evie got taken to hospital and had to have a blood transfusion, she has been diagnosed with Leukemia and starts Chemo today. Hoping to speak to her and go and see her as soon as possible. She's a single woman with a lot of animals so I'm trying to find out if any help is needed there.
It probably explains the 'apathy' from her and why I felt we weren't doing much at training, feel guilty now.


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## moonviolet

K&M THats terrible news about big Evie wishing her a full recovery. Don't feel guilty how could you know. 

Twiggy I'm sorry i didn't mean to laugh but dogs do have a great way of keeping us grounded.
Sarah hope things are going well with Khan and Spen
Phloof and Werehorse love the videos 
GR glad the behavourist was helpful.
Chazzie hope Charlie is keeping you laughing not crying today.
Beth maybe you should borrow Sarah's sandwich board. 

Nothign much to report here, Lovely walks wit friends and alone. Fun "Games" class on Tuesday. Her ladyship was on good form and didn't even notice the "invading space beagles" .


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Not much from us at the moment, I'm busy and dont seem to have much enthusiasm for training - probably just need a break.
> 
> Phloof- how good and calm is Kes  Moll's like a whirlwind when we do the Toybox. She got confused yesterday and put all 4 feet in the box.:laugh:
> 
> More bad news here.
> Big Evie got taken to hospital and had to have a blood transfusion, she has been diagnosed with Leukemia and starts Chemo today. Hoping to speak to her and go and see her as soon as possible. She's a single woman with a lot of animals so I'm trying to find out if any help is needed there.
> It probably explains the 'apathy' from her and why I felt we weren't doing much at training, feel guilty now.


That's terrible poor woman. My sister should have gone into Kings Hospital yesterday. She had worked herself up into a terrible state, then when she rang the hospital (they were supposed to ring her at 2.00pm) there wasn't a bed available and it will now probably be next week. She had a Hickman line fitted at Eastbourne Hospital on Monday which will take the chemo, and that in itself isn't a nice procedure. So she's now got a tube with attachments on the end inserted into her side and obviously is having to be very careful. Great..!!


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## ballybee

Well today i've decided i'm going to train Tummel to close doors using free shaping, i've never tried ths before(that i know of anyway) so to start with i'm just showing him how to free shape by clicking and treating everything he noses or puts his paw on a cereal box, then we'll move onto nosing a piece of paper gradually stuck to the door and so on so forth. Tummel has a very sharp mind and has already understood what i want him to do with the cereal box.

Dan on the other hand is proving to be a challenge....when it comes to gundog stuff he's brilliant(knows what to do naturally, just a few things to shape) but his general obediance is really hard, he knows sit/down/paw and other paw and that it, even then he'll not always do them...i was trying to get him to follow points as he doesn't really do it and he just wasn't getting it at all, even when the food was right in front of him he just doesn't follow my fingers  it's very frustrating so we just went over the stuff he already knows and i did some reinforcement on sitting(90%of the time he'll sit then go straight into a down) and staying upright.

Blooming dogs :incazzato:


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## moonviolet

Aww Twiggy my thoughts are with your sister and I send her positive wishes each day. It's one of the things i do when I walk in quiet places, send wishes and positive thoughts. 

Ballybee sounds like Tummel loves the shaping. Dan still a youngster. Tink's sit meant bum on the ground for a micro second for sooooo long then eventually she got it 

Had a lovely walk this morning only met 2 new dogs, the first a terribly polite lab. brief sniffs between Tink and the Lab, and polite chit chat for me then on our way. Then at the end of our walk a lovely GSD, Tink spotted him and sat for her lead. Nice calming signals as we passed a couple of metres a part. Tink Relaxed and happy, Friendly hello shared between owners and on we went.


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## ballybee

moonviolet said:


> Ballybee sounds like Tummel loves the shaping. Dan still a youngster. Tink's sit meant bum on the ground for a micro second for sooooo long then eventually she got it


To be honest i've been making Tummel offer behaviours for a while now but never thought about using free shaping to train him, he's pretty good at it as his touch and paw(either one) is very strong so we should progress quickly.

I know Dans a youngster but he's so slow mentally compared to Tummel, it's very frustrating at times, especially when i'm training him to do things Tummel knows...Tummel pick everything up quickly and Dan just doesn't click, i know i shouldn't compare them but it's very hard not to


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## moonviolet

ballybee said:


> To be honest i've been making Tummel offer behaviours for a while now but never thought about using free shaping to train him, he's pretty good at it as his touch and paw(either one) is very strong so we should progress quickly.
> 
> I know Dans a youngster but he's so slow mentally compared to Tummel, it's very frustrating at times, especially when i'm training him to do things Tummel knows...Tummel pick everything up quickly and Dan just doesn't click, i know i shouldn't compare them but it's very hard not to


You may find Dan improves over time, I suppose when you think about it they have to learn how to learn, Tink is no border collie but the more with her the braver she gets at offering things, and the quicker she gets things. Don't give Dan a dunce's hat


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## Thorne

K&M - so sorry to hear about Evie, sending healing thoughts 

Bit of a mixed walk really, Breeze had a few wobbles because some a***hole is out shooting today. I stupidly didn't put her thundershirt on but I don't understand the need for CONSTANT shooting! So she hasn't had the best time but still enjoyed a few gallops - she gets LOADS of exercise from running between me and S!
Scooter was quite sniffy and his recalls weren't rapid but he did come back every time and kept checking in. Played hide and seek with him in some long grass which got his focus back on me. We met a few people when he was onlead and he stayed pretty relaxed.
Lovely offlead heelwork from both dogs, perfect recalls from Breeze, just a shame about the gunshots.

We managed to get out before the fog completely covered us - still "lost" Scooter among the dark undergrowth a couple of times! Breeze was impossible to lose in her highlighter-pink tankie. It's looking pretty grubby already and has survived being dragged under a barbed wire fence  Very pleased with it though, less shivering than usual.

Taught them "touch" last night so will be getting the clicker out again in a bit to polish that. Had great success with "speak" and "be quiet" with a BX dog on monday so think that's Scooter's next task!


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## Werehorse

It is natural to compare when you have two dogs to train.  I sometimes find Oscar a little frustrating as he picks things up slower than Hugo but I find Hugo frustrating in free-shaping because he isn't as willing to try new stuff and is much more patient at waiting out to see if old stuff is going to work. Different dogs, different styles.  And when Oscar is being a spaniel and Hugo is being Mr Perfect Paws I remind myself that Oscar has other amazing qualities that Hugo doesn't have (and probably never will), like being calm enough in certain situations to be being considered as a PAT dog and his proper take anywhere quality. 

I still get frustrated when his nose is stuck to the floor and he's not listening or he just won't for love nor money do a hand target that doesn't involve trying to lick my arm off. :lol:

Tough day in the MCC house today, changes are afoot regarding OH's work, could be good for general mental health but bad in terms of financial health...  We'll see. In the mean time I potentially have 3 days of Bat Work so that'll be good even if I have to just do crowd control and think of the money!

We've had a hermit day in the house anyway. Hugo has a bit of a poorly tum I think and is a little subdued anyway so he's just having a sleepy day, Oscar came to the yard with me this lunchtime and walked back with some very nice LLW until we hit a very interesting smell in the village (I suspect bitch on heat type smell, he was very intense) and it took a bit of effort to get decent walking back but he responded well.

Training class last night was quite hard, OH was very stressed and struggled with Oscar and I had to just try not to look! :lol: They did well though - we did some sendaways with just our two where they had to cross past each other in the middle and after a bit of persuation they did it and it was very impressive.  Hugo did his stage 1 retrievies and was reaching his nose forward and bumping my hand with his toy in his mouth. I didn't do stage 2 because it was a new environment and he hasn't got it yet. In general they were good boys, Oscar seemed more concerned about me not training him this week but I think it was cos OH was a bit not really present so he was looking for reassurance from me.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Aww Twiggy my thoughts are with your sister and I send her positive wishes each day. It's one of the things i do when I walk in quiet places, send wishes and positive thoughts.
> 
> Thank you. If anyone is going to get through this treatment it will be my sister; she's a very tough cookie.


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## Thorne

Werehorse said:


> It is natural to compare when you have two dogs to train.  I sometimes find Oscar a little frustrating as he picks things up slower than Hugo but I find Hugo frustrating in free-shaping because he isn't as willing to try new stuff and is much more patient at waiting out to see if old stuff is going to work. Different dogs, different styles.  And when Oscar is being a spaniel and Hugo is being Mr Perfect Paws I remind myself that Oscar has other amazing qualities that Hugo doesn't have (and probably never will), like being calm enough in certain situations to be being considered as a PAT dog and his proper take anywhere quality.


I find myself doing this all the time. I used to get frustrated when something worked brilliantly for one dog but not at all for the other, it's interesting to see how differently their minds work.

Scooter is slower to learn than Breeze but can hold his focus on something for a long time while we works it out. Like the touch training last night - took him a lot longer than Breeze but his attention didn't waver at all.
Breeze is a fast learner but gets frustrated quickly so her sessions have to be very very short. High-value treats completely deplete her attention so have to be saved until last


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## Beth17

k&m sorry too hear about Big Evie and Twiggy what a shame your sister has been messed around. Best wishes to both of them.

Werehorse I hope Hugo is feeling better

Moonviolet lovely to hear you and Tink had a good walk 

ballybee I have the opposite Sam loves to learn is really enthusiastic and gets things fairly quickly. Oscar on the other hand is clever but just looks at me as if to say "why should I" 

Nothing too exciting to report today Sam was at my dads and has come home knackered and Oscar had a couple of lovely, calm walks so all in all not too bad


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## moonviolet

Thought this might make you smile.... a friend sent this to me with the message " I saw this and thought of you " :lol: :lol:


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## Guest

Hope everything goes well for your sister twiggy.


Zander has walked well today, mum had to take over at one point as I suddenly got tense and my chest got a bit tight for no apparent reason.
We took him into a couple charity shops. Kept pulling to say hello to everyone and jumped up and almost knocked over a polishman. Luckily he wasn't all that bothered by it. 

Went to go down the shop a few mins ago and got down the street and a man asked "Was that your dog that just ran past?" 
I replied "Nope, but what did it look like?" He said he wasn't sure due to the bad lighting but it looked labby. 
Sure enough got a to patch of grass and there was this lab-like dog on its own. It saw me and rushed at me barking and growling at me, but kept hunching and backing off so I think it was more fear than anything. 
Another man saw this and the lab went running towards him and the man took him by the collar and said that he'd try and find the owner. 
Don;t know whether it was scared of women or just me appearing but the man managed to gently coax it to follow him with a few grumbles. So hopefully there will be a happy ending. 
Gave me a bit of fright as every step I tried to take made it growl and bark more... 
Did some clicker training today for a hand touch with his nose. And now Zand is KNACKERED. :laugh:


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## Sarah1983

Good thoughts for Big Evie and Sister of Twiggy.

Ballybee, I think it's natural to compare dogs. I compare Spencer to Rupert and I compared Rupert to Shadow. They all seem to have certain things they learn quickly and easily and things they struggle with.

*whispers* we have peace here at the moment. A Rottie crashed out in the dining room and a Labrador crashed out in his open crate in the living room. Having a few issues with Khan being obsessed with Spencers male bits. He's constantly trying to lick them and Spen is getting a bit irritated by it. We're stepping in and stopping him but as quickly as we remove him he's back. Other than that they're doing fine. They play well together and are pretty evenly matched, can chill out if we insist on them actually lying down. 

Tell you something though, Spen's looking better and better trained by the minute! Khan knows the basics but it's things I take for granted like waiting at doors, not dragging me up and down the stairs, staying out of the kitchen etc.


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Good thoughts for Big Evie and Sister of Twiggy.
> 
> Tell you something though, Spen's looking better and better trained by the minute! Khan knows the basics but it's things I take for granted like waiting at doors, not dragging me up and down the stairs, staying out of the kitchen etc.


A good friend of mine has three collies and her daughter's relationship broke up last Christmas so she came home to mum and dad, along with three Beardies. They have been there ever since and although her daughter has now bought a house, she and the Beardies won't be moving out until the end of January. I think they've almost made my friend ill and she has said many times over the past year that she's quite happy to have her daughter but the dogs...... Apparently they have had no training whatsoever and are very ill-mannered.

It certainly makes you appreciate your own dogs, even with their little foibles....


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## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> A good friend of mine has three collies and her daughter's relationship broke up last Christmas so she came home to mum and dad, along with three Beardies. They have been there ever since and although her daughter has now bought a house, she and the Beardies won't be moving out until the end of January. I think they've almost made my friend ill and she has said many times over the past year that she's quite happy to have her daughter but the dogs...... Apparently they have had no training whatsoever and are very ill-mannered.
> 
> It certainly makes you appreciate your own dogs, even with their little foibles....


It does doesn't it? I really can't fault Khan, he's not badly behaved as such,he just doesn't behave the way I want my dog to in certain situations. He's much nicer to walk on leash than Spen though lol and he really is a sweetheart.


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## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Zander has walked well today, mum had to take over at one point as I suddenly got tense and my chest got a bit tight for no apparent reason.


I have been getting like that for a few days now, main reason why I haven't posted on this thread for a while, just thinking about it makes me all 

Was feeling really positive after the behaviorist but then found myself feeling worse as I have been given the means to manage things and now worry that I won't be able to see it through . Decided I am more like my Mum than I thought, she always has something to stress about, even if it is whether we have done the hoovering this week :rolleyes5:

Had a terrible walk last night, went down to the pier beach and panicked at the dogs that were about, one of my neighbours had just arrived with her labs, no leads, mp3 player in hand. Went to the harbour end and felt better, there were a few dogs in the distance so we practiced the methods taught us, and then mostly tried avoidance  she turned into a complete sod on the lead as avoidance meant going into the dunes (rabbits) and I just had a melt down . It was OK as it was getting dark by then so I howled my way back up the beach in the dusk and actually felt better, I had forgotten how good the sea was for that, it was a lovely evening the tide was way out and formed a beach and shoreline most unlike our normal effort, all sand and shallow sea with little lapping waves and we were able to walk further east than Ginge has ever been before, not sure she appreciated that though.

Anyway realised I am being completely neurotic. Since the biting incident I freak at the sight of a dog and am making things so much worse, I have to remember she is attached to me and *I* get to control what she does, if we are no where near the dogs she can bark all she likes but she can't hurt them, not that I really believe that she wants to anyway.

So more positive today and really hope her new harness arrives as her trigger distance is much longer on the collar, and think we will both relax more, she actually did that shakedown thing you all talk about when she as wearing it in the training session 

All in all I hope to be more positive form now on +++++ 

Sending healing thoughts to Big evie and Twiggys sister (just puts things into perspective really, pull yourself together woman :rolleyes5


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## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> I have been getting like that for a few days now, main reason why I haven't posted on this thread for a while, just thinking about it makes me all
> 
> Was feeling really positive after the behaviorist but then found myself feeling worse as I have been given the means to manage things and now worry that I won't be able to see it through . Decided I am more like my Mum than I thought, she always has something to stress about, even if it is whether we have done the hoovering this week :rolleyes5:
> 
> Had a terrible walk last night, went down to the pier beach and panicked at the dogs that were about, one of my neighbours had just arrived with her labs, no leads, mp3 player in hand. Went to the harbour end and felt better, there were a few dogs in the distance so we practiced the methods taught us, and then mostly tried avoidance  she turned into a complete sod on the lead as avoidance meant going into the dunes (rabbits) and I just had a melt down . It was OK as it was getting dark by then so I howled my way back up the beach in the dusk and actually felt better, I had forgotten how good the sea was for that, it was a lovely evening the tide was way out and formed a beach and shoreline most unlike our normal effort, all sand and shallow sea with little lapping waves and we were able to walk further east than Ginge has ever been before, not sure she appreciated that though.
> 
> Anyway realised I am being completely neurotic. Since the biting incident I freak at the sight of a dog and am making things so much worse, I have to remember she is attached to me and *I* get to control what she does, if we are no where near the dogs she can bark all she likes but she can't hurt them, not that I really believe that she wants to anyway.
> 
> So more positive today and really hope her new harness arrives as her trigger distance is much longer on the collar, and think we will both relax more, she actually did that shakedown thing you all talk about when she as wearing it in the training session
> 
> *All in all I hope to be more positive form now on +++++
> *
> Sending healing thoughts to Big evie and Twiggys sister (just puts things into perspective really, pull yourself together woman :rolleyes5


THIS!

Also I think the harness will help (If only to stop ginge making strangulation noises like my one does) as I feel a bit less stressy with it.

But I realised the other day that watching mum walked Zander ON THE SLIP LEAD I must add, he didn't pull, sniffed and greeted nicely, no bouncing lunging or whatever at other dogs, no lauching himself off the pavement when crossing the road AND NO TANTRUMS. 
I was just following along thinking "Bugger me, IT'S ME!!! I'm the problem".

So yes, POSITIVENESS! And Kalms.

Met a different lab today while out without the dog and it went BESERK at me. The owner said he didn't like young men. :thumbdown:


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## Twiggy

Just had my sister on the phone and she will be admitted to Kings Hospital tonight. I'm really pleased as she now has no time to get too worked up and the sooner it's over the better.

*Lurcherowner and GingerRogers - *I don't know if this will help but I tell my beginner handlers, plus those who have doubts or are of a nervous disposition, that as they enter the ring to compete and the judge and steward are watching them, to stand up very straight, shove their shoulders back and say to themselves "we're going to win this class". Try it. As you put your dog's leads on say to yourself "this is going to be a good walk because I'm in charge". It's the power of positive thinking....LOL


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## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> THIS!
> 
> Also I think the harness will help (If only to stop ginge making strangulation noises like my one does) as I feel a bit less stressy with it.
> 
> But I realised the other day that watching mum walked Zander ON THE SLIP LEAD I must add, he didn't pull, sniffed and greeted nicely, no bouncing lunging or whatever at other dogs, no lauching himself off the pavement when crossing the road AND NO TANTRUMS.
> I was just following along thinking "Bugger me, IT'S ME!!! I'm the problem".
> 
> So yes, POSITIVENESS! And Kalms.
> 
> *Met a different lab today while out without the dog and it went BESERK at me. The owner said he didn't like young men. :thumbdown:*


Well some don't like women, some don't like men, sounds like YOU just can't win, lol. Oh dear Sorry!

I think I might have to get some Kalms or something, I can't walk around with a bottle in a brown bag can I 

I have to say Ginge has not quite always, but often, been better with a slip lead, that was all I had to start with as she had never been on a collar or lead and sometimes just slip it on if we are only going to the car or for bedtime walks. Just don't feel I should use it all the time (and when she does pull on that then yes the goose noises are loud ) Yes I hope it comes to day (please)


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## Sarah1983

Lol, I'm not quite sure whether it's easier or worse to know the problem is you rather than your dog. People online used to say it was probably me causing Ruperts problems but he behaved the same way towards other dogs no matter who had him AND with anyone except me he reverted to being extremely fearful of things he didn't bother about when I had him. In a way it made me feel better to know I wasn't causing his problems but in another way it made me feel worse because there was nothing that I was doing that I could change to help the problems.

Ginge, I've been there with a dog who's reactive to other dogs and ridiculously prey driven. It was an uphill struggle all the bloody time since if he wasn't reacting to another dog he was looking for things to kill and if he wasn't looking for things to kill he was reacting to another dog  If you haven't already then I really would look into the Premack principle, I found that extremely helpful with Rupert and we made huge leaps in his obedience when out once I stopped fighting the environment. He was never what you'd call a well trained dog but he had so many other issues going on that I don't think it was realistic to expect him to be.


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Just had my sister on the phone and she will be admitted to Kings Hospital tonight. I'm really pleased as she now has no time to get too worked up and the sooner it's over the better.
> 
> *Lurcherowner and GingerRogers - *I don't know if this will help but I tell my beginner handlers, plus those who have doubts or are of a nervous disposition, that as they enter the ring to compete and the judge and steward are watching them, to stand up very straight, shove their shoulders back and say to themselves "we're going to win this class". Try it. As you put your dog's leads on say to yourself "this is going to be a good walk because I'm in charge". It's the power of positive thinking....LOL


Glad to hear about your Sister, hope it all goes well.

I do try the positive thing (and in ever other area of my life it works ) but then something happens and I collapse in a puddle.


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## moonviolet

I'm going to Quote a lovely blog post I read last spring it made me feel an awful lot better when i'd had one of those judgemental types make me feel an inch tall. Just bad owners…?

I know it must be my fault. Joans voice wavers as she struggles to keep control.

The anguish in her voice is evident as she waits for the censure she is certain will come. I wonder at how an obviously caring owner, who is doing the best she knows how, should feel so wretched and responsible for what was going on with her dog.

Yet it is a response I see every day as I work with people and their challenging dogs. So is there truth in what she says? Is it her fault? How much is our dogs behaviour a reflection on us?

There is a saying that is often repeated in dog training circles  There are no bad dogs only bad owners  and it makes me cringe every time I hear it, as I see the guilt it heaps on people like Joan. Sometimes it is thrown as a barb by those out on walks who have never had the experience of walking a challenging dog. But often it is used by trainers and dog professionals. I know in those cases it is well meant  intended to protect threatened dogs from blame and judgement. And I recognize that there are out there many bad owners  those who dont care, who are cruel, who abuse or neglect and think nothing of the suffering or consequences.

But sadly they are not the ones who hear this message  or if they hear it they dont care that much. The ones who hear it, and take it to heart, and are tortured by it are the ones like Joan. The ones who are living with canine behaviours that make each day a struggle. The ones who cant understand why their dog is not normal. The ones who are trying  however stumblingly  to help their dog. Of course they may be making mistakes  they may be listening to bad advice  and those mistakes may inadvertently be making the problem worse. But does that make them bad owners? I think not.

Dog behaviour is not as simple as good and bad. What leads a dog to feel the need to rage at the end of its lead when it sees another dog  or to use its teeth to ward off a perceived threat is a complex mix of prior experience, learned response, physical, emotional and hormonal state, environment and genetics. And these are the result of interactions with and interventions by many people, from the breeder, to (possibly) several owners, to vets, trainers, visitors and strangers in the park.

For me, the act of picking up the phone and asking for help is enough to demonstrate this is not a bad owner, no matter how misguided previous attempts to resolve the problem may be. My role is not to judge but to coach and to guide, to offer ways of changing how the dog feels about those challenging situations, but just as much to change how the owner feels about them.

Because, if there is one sense in which Joan is right, it is that her feelings of guilt and fear and hopelessness, playing out as they do in tension and frustration in those challenging moments, are blocks to the change she wants to see in her dogs behaviour. Removing those blocks in her is the most effective starting point for helping her dog.

Its noones fault. Its just behaviour that works for him right now  lets help him find a better way. I reply.


Had a nice walk this morning, Then her ladyhip had to visit to to the vets for a check up and booster. Met a new friend in the waiting room a lovely staffie called Bella a real sweetie. Tink did well and for the first times since her emergency visit she lifted her tail and gave a wag while on the table  We finished off with a nice sniff around the village and the green so hopefully it'll be remembered as a positive thing.


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> *Well some don't like women, some don't like men, sounds like YOU just can't win, lol. Oh dear Sorry!
> *
> I think I might have to get some Kalms or something, I can't walk around with a bottle in a brown bag can I
> 
> I have to say Ginge has not quite always, but often, been better with a slip lead, that was all I had to start with as she had never been on a collar or lead and sometimes just slip it on if we are only going to the car or for bedtime walks. Just don't feel I should use it all the time (and when she does pull on that then yes the goose noises are loud ) Yes I hope it comes to day (please)


Thanks for the advice Twiggy!! I think posture has something to do with it to(I am quite hunchd)

Mum found that young men thing absolutley hilarious, she was all like "But Boobs though?" 
Can't believe I managed to meet TWO different people reactive Labs in the space of twenty hours though! Hoepfully they aren't owned by the same person!
Zand didn't actually bounce at a spaniel this morning, I parked him on my neighbours step and fed him half a big bonio. Far to busy chewing to bounce. Mwhahaah. I shall have to restrict his dinner later he's already had FAR too many treats already. (I saw a FAT greyhound the other day, he's lovely a recent rescue, but has a pinhead and can;t run that far cause it'll hurt his joints!)


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## Sarah1983

MV, I have that blog post saved to my favourites and trot it out whenever someone says that all dogs problems are because of bad owners  I think the whole attitude of it always being the owners fault is extremely hurtful and does absolutely nothing to help those who are struggling with a dog with behavioural problems.

And well done Tink! She's doing so well isn't she?


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## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> MV, I have that blog post saved to my favourites and trot it out whenever someone says that all dogs problems are because of bad owners  I think the whole attitude of it always being the owners fault is extremely hurtful and does absolutely nothing to help those who are struggling with a dog with behavioural problems.
> 
> And well done Tink! She's doing so well isn't she?


She really is. she's a hardy little soul, it's been a good while since i sat on a fallen tree having a good weep as she trembled on my lap. Now i sit on them from time to time because i want a cuddle  I'd still not send her out for a walk with anyone else... and certainly not without a list of instructions so long they'd change their mind :lol:


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## kat&molly

Twiggy- great news that your sister's being admitted. I hope things go well.

I've not heard anything from Big Evie apart from that one message Wed evening to tell me she was starting chemo. OH will take me to find her house at the weekend if I haven't heard anything, just to check someones seeing to the animals.

Moonviolet- Tinks a brave girl.:001_wub:

I've just groomed 2 Maltese for a Belgian woman and let the girls out to say hello. The woman really liked Scruff, which is unusual as people always prefer Moll or Evie. I have to be careful normally with Scruff but she really took to this woman and even Evie came over for a sniff.
As she was leaving she opened the van for her dogs to get in and Scruff jumped in and lay down in their beds.:laugh:


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## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Just had my sister on the phone and she will be admitted to Kings Hospital tonight. I'm really pleased as she now has no time to get too worked up and the sooner it's over the better.
> 
> *Lurcherowner and GingerRogers - *I don't know if this will help but I tell my beginner handlers, plus those who have doubts or are of a nervous disposition, that as they enter the ring to compete and the judge and steward are watching them, to stand up very straight, shove their shoulders back and say to themselves "we're going to win this class". Try it. As you put your dog's leads on say to yourself "this is going to be a good walk because I'm in charge". It's the power of positive thinking....LOL


All the best to your sister Twiggy x

I do that 'shoulders back' thing sometimes when Ive been stressing on a bad walk and give myself a mental shake, stare straight ahead and walk like 'IM the boss, THIS is where we're going DOG' and ignore him and stride on... usually works a bit


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah - I have read a bit about the Premack principle I'm just sure how to implement it, obviously need to do some more reading  - like how do I get her to figure out if she does something for me I will let her run about like a loon after rabbits or fulfill some other such urge and how do i stop her trying to do it at other times 9Apart from the obvious very short lead)

Moonviolet- thanks for that blog post I have been reaching back to it in my brain throughout the day and it might be getting through. I love the idea of you being able to sit down on a log for a cuddle instead of a cry now 

LO - I don't think i have ever seen a truly fat greyhound before, not even sure I have ever seen a chubby one, can't really picture what they might look like 

K&M - think you might have lost Scruff there (I think scruff would be my favourite too surprisingly) I have just remembered to look up teckel as I didn't know what one was before - never heard that name for them before, theres my learning for the day .

Chazzie - I tried it out sort of, went back to the harbour end of the beach as there is more hiding places and the people are more likely to avoid you as their dogs have issues or they are there to avoid people then I realised the treat bag wasn't in my pocket :yikes: (it had fell out in the car) it actually liberated me  I no longer had to think about what to do if we saw another dog, I just turned tail and ran instead  we got back from the beach feeling refreshed and exhilarated instead of tearful and pathetic.

 no harness though and they haven't got back to me either


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Sarah - I have read a bit about the Premack principle I'm just sure how to implement it, obviously need to do some more reading  - like how do I get her to figure out if she does something for me I will let her run about like a loon after rabbits or fulfill some other such urge and how do i stop her trying to do it at other times 9Apart from the obvious very short lead)
> 
> Moonviolet- thanks for that blog post I have been reaching back to it in my brain throughout the day and it might be getting through. I love the idea of you being able to sit down on a log for a cuddle instead of a cry now
> 
> LO - I don't think i have ever seen a truly fat greyhound before, not even sure I have ever seen a chubby one, can't really picture what they might look like
> 
> K&M - think you might have lost Scruff there (I think scruff would be my favourite too surprisingly) I have just remembered to look up teckel as I didn't know what one was before - never heard that name for them before, theres my learning for the day .
> 
> Chazzie - I tried it out sort of, went back to the harbour end of the beach as there is more hiding places and the people are more likely to avoid you as their dogs have issues or they are there to avoid people then I realised the treat bag wasn't in my pocket :yikes: (it had fell out in the car) it actually *liberated me  I no longer had to think about what to do if we saw another dog, I just turned tail and ran instead  we got back from the beach feeling refreshed and exhilarated instead of tearful and pathetic.*
> 
> Love it - I now have this vision of you both scampering away from a little old lady with a toothless 15 yr old poodle...LOL


----------



## Guest

Well.

We have acquired another cat. A dog walker we know's daughter went to this house and this cat wasn't being fed and the owner kept threatening to "get rid of it". The daughter of our friend has tried taking it various rescues, all of them including the vets and cats protection near us are completley full. 
So we have taken on this unspayed one year old female black and white called Sox. Taken her to the vet for a check over, wee bit underweight, and he has suspicions she may be pregnant. We have to take her back within a couple weeks to be sure. We have been told that she's already had a litter this year. 

She hisses at Zander who just lies down and whinges at her. 

So.

Yeah.


----------



## GingerRogers

Not far off Twiggy, there was one person who I thought didn't have a dog to start with (it was getting dark and dusky) then I saw some little things scampering around her feet. She had either taken her kittens out for a walk or they were the teeniest little chihuahuas I had ever seen, they were barely visible in the dunes grass


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy - all the best to your sister, I hope her treatment goes well. x

K&M - I hope Big Evie is alright too and her animals are being looked after by someone.  Worrying times.

I did LOL at Scruff making her escape with the Belgian lady. :lol: Bless.

GingerR and Lurcher Owner - you're both doing great, you're working on it and you'll get there.  You don't need to beat yourselves up at all. Easier said than done though...

Moonviolet - that blog post was a good read. And HURRAH for a tail wag at the vets. 

Retrievie training may be on hold this weekend - got a Bat Call today and am knackered, even though it was just an afternoon in the end. And we have the step-dogs here for the weekend!  Managing 4 dogs in a small house will be fun - The MCC will probably be joining us on our bed for the weekend! :lol: could be entertaining!


----------



## Werehorse

Step dogs are here. Not sure I can cope with this. Hugo and Oscar currently in the crate, OH gone to find the baby gate - which Oscar and Hugo will both be able to jump so not sure how much use it'll be.  They all got on ok the other day but Hugo is soooo stressed out/over-excited.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Step dogs are here. Not sure I can cope with this. Hugo and Oscar currently in the crate, OH gone to find the baby gate - which Oscar and Hugo will both be able to jump so not sure how much use it'll be.  They all got on ok the other day but Hugo is soooo stressed out/over-excited.


 hope they find an equilibrium with a little time to settle fingers very crossed for you.


----------



## Thorne

Moonviolet - thankyou for that blog post! I will try to keep it in mind when I have a bad day with the dogs. Could have done with it on monday after a frustrating day at the kennels.

Twiggy - all the best to your sister!

K&M - hope Big Evie is doing ok too.

Currently fuming as _*my Dad has just hit Scooter in the face*_  He's been handshy since a stay in some really sh*tty kennels where I'm confident they were very rough with him so this has really made me angry, especially after him going so long without cowering away from a quick hand movement. Apparently Scooter was going to knock over my sister's drink so Dad yelled at Scooter to come away (which he did), then hit him. It wasn't a massive smack but he cowered and skulked off with his tail between his legs 
Stupid man can't understand why I was so cross and he stormed off swearing and slamming doors, mumbling about how there must be something wrong with me to be so obsessed with those dogs. Apparently I should be more worried about the carpet! 

Scooter went out with mum this morning, Breeze and I had an uneventful walk in the dark tonight. I like going out at dusk but night-time in the muddy countryside is much harder to navigate! Met a couple walking a big Rottie, they had a quick onlead sniff then moved on (but Breeze wanted to stick with them!).

Breeze has thoroughly got the hang of nose-touch now and is learning speak, Scooter's being a bit slow as usual but has got the basics down. Not too bad for two 5 minute sessions I think.


----------



## Werehorse

Baby gate has installed some peace, I don't think anyone is very happy though. Balls.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Step dogs are here. Not sure I can cope with this. Hugo and Oscar currently in the crate, OH gone to find the baby gate - which Oscar and Hugo will both be able to jump so not sure how much use it'll be.  They all got on ok the other day but Hugo is soooo stressed out/over-excited.


I was feeling much the same way yesterday but today is a whole new ball game. The hyper excitement has more or less worn off with both dogs. They have their mad play time but they've spent a lot more time chilling out and we've only had one humping incident. Hope the 4 you have settle down quickly.

Most training is pretty much on hold at the moment coz I've no way to separate the dogs in the house unless I crate Spencer. Khan just opens the door to whatever room I shut him in and joins us  Spen's getting lots of practice at listening to me when there's another dog around though if that counts.

Had a right laugh earlier. Spen was parading around with his giant tennis ball trying to get Khan to chase him. Khan grabbed it and Spen obviously wasn't expecting that and lost his prize. As Khan was showing signs of trying to destroy it I swapped it for the Kong Wubba which Spen doesn't really play with. I think Khan liked it. He kept mooing at it :huh: and spent the next half hour throwing it around, chasing it, squeaking it, jumping at it and doing zoomies with it. Spen didn't know what to make of it :laugh:

I was told that Khan is really quiet in the house, just lies around and doesn't do much. He's certainly doing a lot here though. He's not badly behaved though and he really is a sweetheart. Keep telling him he'll give Rotties a bad name if people find out he just wants belly rubs


----------



## chazzie10

Not much to report here- Chazzie is walking very well on a loose lead now, so much so that I'm able to put his lead up my wrist a bit and stick my cold hands in my pockets!!
He has had his 7th day on raw feed and is loving it. We visited my mum and dad today and dad asked had Chaz been bathed cos he was so soft so I know I'm not imagining the changes!
A big break through with meeting other dogs last night. A wee black hairy slow moving something on four legs came up to greet him and he stretched out lead but didnt lunge then he turned, sat, focused and waited to be treated!!! :001_wub: I was sooo pleased. Moved off nicely without even a glance at other dog ( I nearly felt it's embarassment and hurt hehehe)


----------



## GingerRogers

Went out for our walk this morning and saw the postie up the road so had to run back and see if they had a parcel. Met the postie who was very surprised we had a dog as she had never heard her and and proceeded to pull a magic biscuit out her pocket (clever postie 

And the mekuti harness had arrived, yippee, not that it seems to be making much difference apart from we are no longer pulling on madams neck, oh well we will have to give it some time I guess. I do wonder if it fits properly as it twists round (not sure how it wouldn't really when you are attached to the side opposite but just can't imagine that is the intention),

But we put it on and continued on the walk which was a mistake, I thought everyone would be indoors as it was right miserly outside but NO they all wanted to walk *their *dogs at the same time as *me *and all their friends who they just had to STOP and chat to  lost count of the number of diversions I made lol!

W passed a group of people on the common who did the 'ahh, bless' whisper whisper, 'Oh I think its because its learning, its only a youngster'


----------



## Werehorse

Things have settled down a little here. *phew* All the dogs apart from the big Lab x step-dog have demonstrated they can jump the baby gate.  The saluki-lurcher step-dog had to wind her knackered legs up to it but can hop it remarkably easily for an old bird. However the big dogs are on dog beds in the kitchen and the little dogs are on the sofa with me after a good long walk today has tired them out. Hugo is much less wound up.

I have to say Oscar has been apsolutely fine and if Hugo is in his crate (where he settles really well) we can have the others mooching together and they just settle. Hugo is just too excitable (but he is anyway and he's never met the big dogs before a couple of weeks ago and he's not had any dog in his house before then either, whereas Oscar had the big dogs in his house from when he was very small, and another dog stay before even them).

Having Hugo on the bed is not condusive to a good night's sleep.  He seems to think that sleeping on his back between me and OH with his head on the pillows throwing random face licks about is the way to go. Oscar just grumped at the bottom of the bed obviously disgusted at having to share bed privaledges with Hugo. :lol:


----------



## Thorne

Another mixed-reviews walk today! Breeze was not impressed because as soon as we got out of the house a JRT across the road started dancing and barking at us, then someone started hammering something. So we shivered and panted our way down to the footpath where she could go offlead - she hates being onlead regardless of noise. 
Let Scooter off on the fields and they had a good run as usual, with lots of blind recalls. Breeze was a good girl as usual, Scooter was a bit stubborn at first but did a lovely recall away from an offlead GSD! I normally spot other dogs long before he does but he saw this dog approaching and came away quickly  The GSD can be a bit grumbly with male dogs so put S back onlead so we could move on easily.

Was thinking while they were doing massive greyhound-style gallops that this is the fittest Scooter's been in years, and probably the fittest Breeze has ever been. They're nice and lean and have great muscle tone for dogs their age, wonderful to watch them. Even Scooter is mostly offlead now so is making the most of it!
As usual Breeze ended up being frightened by a nearby gunshot which spoiled the walk a bit. It's hard not to get frustrated because walking should be a pleasure, not a stressful experience!

Had a slip lead on her today but she pulled hard into it after being spooked so switched leads with Scooter. It's been demoted to being a spare car lead. I'm thinking about updating her tired-looking harness as she's pulling more on her collar these days, maybe she's not happy on it.

And now there's fireworks outside! Brilliant!


----------



## Guest

Cat still hissing at Zand but will let him get about a metre close. Zand backs off when needed. He has had major cuddles today from my friend who's over. He's a tart.


----------



## Werehorse

Oh no, both my boys appear to not be very well. Hugo is worst as he's off his food - wasn't keen on breakfast but ate half and I thought it might just be over-excitement but he hasn't touched his tea at all - VERY unlike him so quite worried. Also very sloppy poops on walk and this evening, normal this morning though. Oscar has just had a normal then an awfully sloppy poo now but still very much has an appetite  had to restrain him from nicking Hugo's tea!

They do like to make trips to the vets on Sundays the pair of them.  If Hugo doesn't eat his breakfast we'll be straight there.

Worried.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Werehorse  I hope your boys are feeling a bit better this morning and it's nothing more serious than the upheaval of having houseguests.

Get well soon boys


----------



## kat&molly

Hope the boys are ok this morning Werehorse? 


I didn't get to Big Evies yesterday. I was hoping to get directions from one of my clients but he cant remember the way theres as its quite remote. I have no other way of finding out- no reply to any messages I've sent.
Hope I'm worrying for nothing.



Off out for a really long walk with the Girls. Have a good Sunday everyone.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Oh no, both my boys appear to not be very well. Hugo is worst as he's off his food - wasn't keen on breakfast but ate half and I thought it might just be over-excitement but he hasn't touched his tea at all - VERY unlike him so quite worried. Also very sloppy poops on walk and this evening, normal this morning though. Oscar has just had a normal then an awfully sloppy poo now but still very much has an appetite  had to restrain him from nicking Hugo's tea!
> 
> They do like to make trips to the vets on Sundays the pair of them.  If Hugo doesn't eat his breakfast we'll be straight there.
> 
> Worried.


Are you quite sure you boys haven't been eating something they shouldn't?

Not a nice subject but they haven't been eating the house guests poo have they?

We have to watch our lot when my sister's here as one of her bitches is on Epiphen and pills for her heart. When dear little Mini was here several weeks ago she definately taught Holly the art of copraphobia.


----------



## GingerRogers

Hope things are looking up in the Werehorse house.


----------



## Werehorse

Still not best - in fact worse. Hugo hasn't eaten and Oscar has only eaten half a bowl.  Vets open at 10, both going in. Weird that there's no other symptoms apart from a sporadic sloppy poos and possibly a bit less energetic than usual (telling the vet that the Hugo we present him with is less energetic than usual will be a laugh mind!).

Worried.

Twiggy - they do sometimes have a cat poo snack but never dog poo unless they are doing it when I've not seen, offlead in the woods or something, we don't have an enclosed garden so all toilets are on lead on village walks and picked up immediately and they don't eat the poo that the dirty people don't pick up cos I'm so paranoid about them treading in it I'm on constant look out and they don't get anywhere near it! 

It is quite possible they have ate something they shouldn't i.e. something dead or some poo while off-lead but I can't think of anything they were both snacking on recently and I keep an eye on them. 

It is SO totally out of character for them not to eat.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Still not best - in fact worse. Hugo hasn't eaten and Oscar has only eaten half a bowl.  Vets open at 10, both going in. Weird that there's no other symptoms apart from a sporadic sloppy poos and possibly a bit less energetic than usual (telling the vet that the Hugo we present him with is less energetic than usual will be a laugh mind!).
> 
> Worried.
> 
> Twiggy - they do sometimes have a cat poo snack but never dog poo unless they are doing it when I've not seen, offlead in the woods or something, we don't have an enclosed garden so all toilets are on lead on village walks and picked up immediately and they don't eat the poo that the dirty people don't pick up cos I'm so paranoid about them treading in it I'm on constant look out and they don't get anywhere near it!
> 
> It is quite possible they have ate something they shouldn't i.e. something dead or some poo while off-lead but I can't think of anything they were both snacking on recently and I keep an eye on them.
> 
> It is SO totally out of character for them not to eat.


There is a diarrheoa and sickness (winter vomitting bug) doing the rounds down here. I hope it's not that.


----------



## Werehorse

They haven't vomitted yet which is reassuring. We've got a vet appointment at 11, the vet nurse/receptionist didn't seem too worried and suggested bringing them in tomorrow instead (as it'll be about £50 extra to take them in today.) To be honest we can't truely afford it but we've decided to take the hit because they just aren't right. Oscar is asleep on the stairs and Hugo is flat out in his crate - this is not normal behaviour given that the big dogs are here.

We'll go and it'll just be "wait and see" or something but I'll not be relaxed about it until they've seen a vet.


----------



## kat&molly

Oh no, hope it goes ok at the vets. Our dogs do like to put us through it sometimes.:crying:


----------



## Werehorse

Just after I'd posted that Oscar decided to vomit up what he'd managed to eat this morning! Darn it.

Anyway, been to the vets and she's not too worried about them, no high temperature or anything, heart and lungs fine etc. She says they are young, fit and will fight it off. Starve for 24 hours then tiny bits of food and see how they go. If we still have sloppy poos (can't spell the D-word) after 48 hours they'll need to go back. Could be something they ate, could be a virus/bug they've picked up. All pretty vague and nothing that common sense couldn't have delt with but to be honest I'd rather be trigger-happy with vet trips and it not be serious then leave it too late! 

I just hope the Big Dogs haven't caught it too if it is a virus of some kind because they are quite old and not so robust.

Oscar is now 17.75kg!! Fat lad. Needs a day's starvation anyway. :lol: Eggs though! Blimey, considering I was struggling to get him above 16kg and he dropped off to somewhere nearer 15kg before I started giving him eggs!

Going to be a couple of quiet days for us then.


----------



## kat&molly

At least the vets not concerned- hope they perk up soon and the older dogs dont get it.
Sometimes it pays to be cautious though, Evie only missed one meal once and it was Piroplasmosis.


D word for me = Dire rear.:laugh:


----------



## moonviolet

I'm so glad the vet wasn't overly concerned and i hope the boys are back on form soonest and the big dogs don't get it too.



kat&molly said:


> D word for me = Dire rear.:laugh:


Kat please may we adopt this as the thread's official spelling of the D word.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I'm so glad the vet wasn't overly concerned and i hope the boys are back on form soonest and the big dogs don't get it too.
> 
> Kat please may we adopt this as the thread's official spelling of the D word.


Course we can, its not my word. I just hope we dont need to use it very often.


----------



## Thorne

Hope your boys mend quickly werehorse, I've not long had both of mine come through a nasty upset each so can whole-heartedly sympathise! 

Scooter's looking a bit ribby at the moment so think I'm going to follow in your footsteps and up his egg intake, that's a big gain for such a small addition.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Course we can, its not my word. I just hope we dont need to use it very often.


It might not be your word but you are the " mother" of a 480 page thread


----------



## GingerRogers

Glad the vet didn't think it was anything serious, lets hope they were right and the boys pick up soon.

Tis a beautiful day here. We went back on the walk that ended so horribly last week as it was so lovely, I wanted to remember it nicely (positiveness and all that) and it was glorious. 

As I was walking I was pondering what my dog is, she looks like a terrier and digs holes like a terrier, she definitely barks like a terrier  but she also stalks like a collie  and springs like a spaniel  so I started to wonder if she was a sprollie in disguise - then I remembered what she grew up with - 2 working collies and a splab (spaniel/lab) no wonder we are having problems  I have a sprollier 

I think I have said it already but I am saying it again to remind myself - it really doesn't matter if she isn't perfectly obedient as long as she is happy, if she never walks to heel it will be a pain but it really doesn't matter, its not like we can take her places it would be useful anyway. All I need to worry about at the moment is keeping calm - her and me. 

I was looking up the website of a colleague of the trainer I went to last week and she lists the problem behaviours some dogs have, one of them was digging up the garden, if only that was our issue, lol , we don't even consider it a problem, she enjoys it.


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- its been surprisingly popular and given us all a place to vent at times.

Wise words Ginge, have you seen Miss Tinks very own place to dig? I think we've all got things that we dont see as a problem- but someone else might.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- its been surprisingly popular and given us all a place to vent at times.
> 
> Wise words Ginge, have you seen Miss Tinks very own place to dig? I think we've all got things that we dont see as a problem- but someone else might.


It this was one of my raised beds until last summer when she no longer showed any interest in digging. As you can see she was quite proficient and occasionally sent soil flying over the fence.:blush: thankfully we get on well with our neighbours and we laguhed it off when their grandson was playign with their hose pipe and " watered" my washing :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- its been surprisingly popular and given us all a place to vent at times.
> 
> Wise words Ginge, have you seen Miss Tinks very own place to dig? I think we've all got things that we dont see as a problem- but someone else might.


Her very own digging place  Ginge has several, actually I do keep thinking we need to get on top of it as I daren't let her into my mums garden the other day 

Actually we don't have enough photos on here - This was last night when she came in from bedtime wees 

You would think butter wouldn't melt wouldn't you???









Then you see the naughty eyes 









Then you look a bit closer at the feet 









Weird thing is the OH actually let her sleep in bed with us for some bizarre reason, he seriously babies her more than me!


----------



## L/C

Werehorse - hope the boys are better soon and glad the vet isn't worried.

Ginge - that's a good attitude. I felt a lot happier once I accepted Ely's limitations as it put less pressure on both him and me.

I am furious with myself. Gypsy caught a squirrel this morning and would not listen to me at all (not that that is surprising). It was sitting in long grass in the middle of the field, miles from any trees and we pretty much trod on it. It ran the wrong way into the grass more, away from the trees and she took off after it and caught it. She was shaking it to break it's neck when another dog ran up and grabbed it's tail. They tugged it for a bit then dropped it and the poor thing wasn't dead so I had to wring it's neck. The other dog's owner was hysterical and no use at all.

So we're back to square one on her chase recall and she was incredibly reactive to small furries on the rest of the walk (unsurprisingly).


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear L/C thats not good 

Although I am afraid the thought of two dogs playing tug with a squirrel does make me laugh a little


----------



## moonviolet

GR the more i see of Ginge the more I :001_tt1::001_tt1::001_tt1: she is gorgeous and is naturally doing something i've taken half a dozen sessions to get tink to do ( cross paws) I love her naughty eyes 


L/C oh poo all that hard work setback by a mentally deficient squirrel


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer is most unimpressed that I've not been doing much training with him. So today I've had to shut me and him in the bedroom and Khan in the dining room/living room and do something with him. It's actually quite nice that Spen really wants to work with me despite there being another dog here  It's just a bit of a problem keeping Khan away as he just opens the door. Have managed to get a couple of nice pics of the pair of them though.

L/C, I had that happen a few times with Rupert. Although at least he killed them so I never had to do it. I had to kill a bird a friends cat had mauled once though and it's not nice


----------



## L/C

She's caught a squirrel and a couple of rats before (the squirrel jumped in front of us when she was on the lead ) but I've been really careful since we started working on her chase recall about where she was allowed off the lead. I didn't expect to encounter one a good 100m away from any trees! She's always killed cleanly before and I think it must have been the other dog that threw her off a bit. Oh well back to the beginning again.

Sarah - it's nice that he's so keen to work. Lots of good focus!


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GR the more i see of Ginge the more I :001_tt1::001_tt1::001_tt1: she is gorgeous and is naturally doing something i've taken half a dozen sessions to get tink to do ( cross paws) I love her naughty eyes
> 
> L/C oh poo all that hard work setback by a mentally deficient squirrel


Awe thank you (it just makes her 'issues' all the more frustrating though to be honest) the cross paw thing is too cute, she does it all the time quite naturally although I have been trying to get it on cue - but cue does not seems to be something she cares about  as we have discovered with the lift paw thing, although she does seem to do it more when she wants something  so she gets the point I suppose


----------



## Werehorse

Oh poops L/C - it couldn't be helped though, what a silly squirrel.  Definitely a Darwin Award winner.

I'm affraid I would have been the hysterical other owner in that situation - I would really struggle to wring a critter's neck and probably wouldn't be able to do it and then feel sick with guilt for ages and ages afterwards. Fortunately I've not been in that position yet.

Frustrating and un-deserved set-back for you though. 

In poop news, Oscar has the dire rear, Hugo much less so now. Oscar doesn't pull on the lead when he is poorly.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Just after I'd posted that Oscar decided to vomit up what he'd managed to eat this morning! Darn it.
> 
> Anyway, been to the vets and she's not too worried about them, no high temperature or anything, heart and lungs fine etc. She says they are young, fit and will fight it off. Starve for 24 hours then tiny bits of food and see how they go. If we still have sloppy poos (can't spell the D-word) after 48 hours they'll need to go back. Could be something they ate, could be a virus/bug they've picked up. All pretty vague and nothing that common sense couldn't have delt with but to be honest I'd rather be trigger-happy with vet trips and it not be serious then leave it too late!
> 
> I just hope the Big Dogs haven't caught it too if it is a virus of some kind because they are quite old and not so robust.
> 
> Oscar is now 17.75kg!! Fat lad. Needs a day's starvation anyway. :lol: Eggs though! Blimey, considering I was struggling to get him above 16kg and he dropped off to somewhere nearer 15kg before I started giving him eggs!
> 
> Going to be a couple of quiet days for us then.


Pleased to here your vet wasn't overly concerned and hope your boys recover quickly.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Spencer is most unimpressed that I've not been doing much training with him. So today I've had to shut me and him in the bedroom and Khan in the dining room/living room and do something with him. It's actually quite nice that Spen really wants to work with me despite there being another dog here  It's just a bit of a problem keeping Khan away as he just opens the door. Have managed to get a couple of nice pics of the pair of them though.
> 
> L/C, I had that happen a few times with Rupert. Although at least he killed them so I never had to do it. I had to kill a bird a friends cat had mauled once though and it's not nice


Lucky you that Spen wanted to train when he has a visitor. Perhaps he'd like to have a word in little Holly's ear....LOL


----------



## Werehorse

Well Hugo seems a bit better and is crying and mithering because he's hungry now! No food until tomorrow mid-morning though. Poor boy. Oscar is not much better yet.  Lethargic and not very happy. But I think he's about 12 hours behind Hugo with it anyway so hopefully he'll start to perk up soon too.

 Nothing sadder than a sad spaniel.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Well Hugo seems a bit better and is crying and mithering because he's hungry now! No food until tomorrow mid-morning though. Poor boy. Oscar is not much better yet.  Lethargic and not very happy. But I think he's about 12 hours behind Hugo with it anyway so hopefully he'll start to perk up soon too.
> 
> Nothing sadder than a sad spaniel.


Hopefully it's just a 24 hour 'thing'. Hope your boys are feeling better tomorrow.


----------



## GingerRogers

Please feel better tommorrow boys not sure the world is right without hearing about your antics. Left the ninja with oh tonight and went out with friends. The pub was definitely dog friendly today  and met a stunning staff lab cross. She was awesomely handsome. Came home and settled down after tea just in time for the ninja to completely flip at dog on telly. Bbc ghost thing she ran round the back of the telly dunce now th neighbours are rowing again.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Well Hugo seems a bit better and is crying and mithering because he's hungry now! No food until tomorrow mid-morning though. Poor boy. Oscar is not much better yet.  Lethargic and not very happy. But I think he's about 12 hours behind Hugo with it anyway so hopefully he'll start to perk up soon too.
> 
> Nothing sadder than a sad spaniel.


Glad to hear Hugo is perking up, not so much that he is mithering for food he can't have yet poor empty tummy-ed boy. Hope Oscar is much improved in the morning i can only imagine how heart rending those sad spaniel eyes are.

Nothing much to report here, lovely weekend walks some lovely pics which i'll share if me and photobucket get over the "tiff" we are currently having. Tink has been getting much more playful lately having discovered that while a tennis ball is barely interesting, a tennis ball in a sock is a whole different matter


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Nothing much to report here, lovely weekend walks some lovely pics which i'll share if me and photobucket get over the "tiff" we are currently having. Tink has been getting much more playful lately having discovered that while a tennis ball is barely interesting, a tennis ball in a sock is a whole different matter


Isn't it funny how their minds work?

I'm not impressed with the changes to photobucket, really don't like it


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Isn't it funny how their minds work?
> 
> I'm not impressed with the changes to photobucket, really don't like it


Odd because it actually worked for me today! Normally I struggle.


----------



## Thorne

Werehorse said:


> Nothing sadder than a sad spaniel.


Oh dear, I'm just imagining big sad puppy dog eyes! Not sure even a sad Lab could rival that!  (although Scooter tries his hardest).

Had a lovely walk this afternoon, set off just as it was getting dusky so we missed most of the scary noises. Breeze much braver than yesterday and was positively hyperactive once I let her offlead, was making big happy grumbles at me and getting underfoot until I let Scooter off! He doesn't go offlead at the start of walks, need to check the little sod is actually listening instead of tracking.
Went our favourite way, through the spinney and to "our" meadow. Lots of energy burnt off, didn't see a soul until we were back on the road.

Only problem we had is when we were walking along the road. I'm trying to put myself between Breeze and the cars because she *has* to spin round and look at them and I'm worried she might get her chin clipped by someone passing close.
No matter what side of the road we're on, she tries to pull into it unless she's on the traffic side  So it's either her sticking her head in front of oncoming cars or trying to resume that position by pulling in front of me. Does anyone else have a special dog who does this? It's not an attempt at chasing, she just feels the need to watch the scary cars.
I've been lapse on counter-conditioning her with cars, will try to do some work on that ASAP.


----------



## Beth17

Hope the boys are feeling better soon Werehorse

L/C what a pain for you though not a lot you could do by the sounds of it; the squirrel just sounds a bit daft  

Good couple of days here the boys have had separate walks and some one on one time. Sam is being very good when out although he did pull like a train today as we went around the woods and he can't be trusted off lead there. I have managed to get him suitably excited about his toy; trouble is I now have to work on his impulse control as he keeps jumping and nipping for it  It's never simple is it 

Oscar has been really good had a couple of greyhounds charge up to him yesterday which I could see unnerved him a bit but we carried on and saw them again later and he seemed much happier and interested which was lovely. Hopefully going to speak to the vet tomorrow when she rings up with his blood test results as he has really cold feet and legs all the time so wondering if his circulation is a bit rubbish. Trouble is that it is a symptom of heart issues along with the raised red blood cells so I think it's best to mention especially as his stamina is still pretty naff.


----------



## Beth17

Thorne said:


> Only problem we had is when we were walking along the road. I'm trying to put myself between Breeze and the cars because she *has* to spin round and look at them and I'm worried she might get her chin clipped by someone passing close.
> No matter what side of the road we're on, she tries to pull into it unless she's on the traffic side  So it's either her sticking her head in front of oncoming cars or trying to resume that position by pulling in front of me. Does anyone else have a special dog who does this? It's not an attempt at chasing, she just feels the need to watch the scary cars.
> I've been lapse on counter-conditioning her with cars, will try to do some work on that ASAP.


Yeah Sam does this and also tries to jump in front of cars so he has to always walk with me in the middle, although he then starts to go diagonally and trips me up.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Isn't it funny how their minds work?
> 
> *I'm not impressed with the changes to photobucket, really don't like it*


CAn't stand it and today it's really in a huff with me. I can sign in and that's it, can't see the pics i already have there, can't upload by dragging and dropping or by browsing, can't go back to the old version of photobucket and can't get any help :lol: we are not getting along nicely at all :lol: :lol:

Thorne TInk likes to watch cars passing when I'm gardening in the front garden but not quite as up close and personal with the metal beasts as Breeze.

Beth ounds like you had a lvoely weekend with yoru boys  I hope the blood test results bring a positive outcome.


----------



## Thorne

Beth17 said:


> Yeah Sam does this and also tries to jump in front of cars so he has to always walk with me in the middle, although he then starts to go diagonally and trips me up.





moonviolet said:


> Thorne TInk likes to watch cars passing when I'm gardening in the front garden but not quite as up close and personal with the metal beasts as Breeze.


It just seems bizarre because she really, really does not like traffic and walks sullenly along roads with her tail down. I imagine there's some sort of odd logic in her little head but I can't see why she'd want to get close to something she's scared of.
I have to be careful with her when we're close to home as she'll sometimes try crossing the road prematurely, she doesn't look both ways first!


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- I love that pic of Tink, she looks so serious . Scruff and Evie love to dig, but they dont bother in the garden. I dont get away with it though the chucks have dug craters where they want to do their dust baths 

And the little Ninja is lovely, a different nose and eyes to Scruff but quite similar otherwise.
I've got loads of pics of her like this :huh:









Werehorse how are the boys this morning?


----------



## moonviolet

Wooohooo got PB to work so I can bore you with a pic I took on Saturday


----------



## kat&molly

Wow, MV, I've never seen anything like that- its fab. Its even colour co-ordinated with Miss Tinks' collar.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Wooohooo got PB to work so I can bore you with a pic I took on Saturday


That's a very clever pic. 10 out of 10 for artistry and comedy....


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Isn't it funny how their minds work?
> 
> I'm not impressed with the changes to photobucket, really don't like it


No neither do I. It's takes me ages to get my head round computer type stuff anyway.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Hope the boys are feeling better soon Werehorse
> 
> L/C what a pain for you though not a lot you could do by the sounds of it; the squirrel just sounds a bit daft
> 
> Good couple of days here the boys have had separate walks and some one on one time. Sam is being very good when out although he did pull like a train today as we went around the woods and he can't be trusted off lead there. I have managed to get him suitably excited about his toy; trouble is I now have to work on his impulse control as he keeps jumping and nipping for it  It's never simple is it
> 
> No it isn't....LOL
> 
> I used little Holly to demonstrate on a course here on Saturday because some of the handlers with puppies and young dogs were putting too much emphasis on 'work' and not enough on 'play'.
> 
> You could have heard a pin drop so I'm not sure whether they were impressed or appalled when she was nipping my arm and shoulder trying to get the lead and her squeaky tennis balls....!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Beth17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hope the boys are feeling better soon Werehorse
> 
> L/C what a pain for you though not a lot you could do by the sounds of it; the squirrel just sounds a bit daft
> 
> Good couple of days here the boys have had separate walks and some one on one time. Sam is being very good when out although he did pull like a train today as we went around the woods and he can't be trusted off lead there. I have managed to get him suitably excited about his toy; trouble is I now have to work on his impulse control as he keeps jumping and nipping for it  It's never simple is it
> 
> No it isn't....LOL
> 
> I used little Holly to demonstrate on a course here on Saturday because some of the handlers with puppies and young dogs were putting too much emphasis on 'work' and not enough on 'play'.
> 
> You could have heard a pin drop so I'm not sure whether they were impressed or appalled when she was nipping my arm and shoulder trying to get the lead and her squeaky tennis balls....!!
> 
> 
> 
> I can imagine! Can you explain please, I have been wondering why you have trained holly to nip you?
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> I can imagine! Can you explain please, I have been wondering why you have trained holly to nip you?
> 
> 
> 
> Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?
> 
> Whereas most owners on here want calm, placid dogs, I want the opposite.
> 
> To be any good at competitive obedience the dogs need to be very, very highly motivated and Holly isn't. As a pet she is extremely well behaved but the 'want' for obedience exercises just isn't strong enough, which is why I have spent the last 9 months using every toy and tit-bit known to man (plus my body) to try and get some speed and reaction from her. I don't care how much she bites me and how many coats and jackets she rips as long as I get a reaction from her.
> 
> IMO competitive obedience is all about controlled enthusiasm and should be a sport that both the handler and dog enjoy.
> 
> We've still got a long way to go but she is improving and at least she now gets pretty animated when I pick up the training bag and is really beginning to enjoy being trained.
> 
> I never force my dogs to do anything and I put a huge amount of effort into their training but at the end of the day if they tell me they don't enjoy it, then they don't do it.
> 
> Time will tell with Holly.
> 
> Hope that sort of explains it.
Click to expand...


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?
> 
> Whereas most owners on here want calm, placid dogs, I want the opposite.
> 
> To be any good at competitive obedience the dogs need to be very, very highly motivated and Holly isn't. As a pet she is extremely well behaved but the 'want' for obedience exercises just isn't strong enough, which is why I have spent the last 9 months using every toy and tit-bit known to man (plus my body) to try and get some speed and reaction from her. I don't care how much she bites me and how many coats and jackets she rips as long as I get a reaction from her.
> 
> IMO competitive obedience is all about controlled enthusiasm and should be a sport that both the handler and dog enjoy.
> 
> We've still got a long way to go but she is improving and at least she now gets pretty animated when I pick up the training bag and is really beginning to enjoy being trained.
> 
> I never force my dogs to do anything and I put a huge amount of effort into their training but at the end of the day if they tell me they don't enjoy it, then they don't do it.
> 
> Time will tell with Holly.
> 
> Hope that sort of explains it.
> 
> 
> 
> I think you're really brave Twiggy, when Moll went through her 'silly' stage of jumping up and grabbing I used to flinch because I knew what was coming. It would always end in a bruise and it bloody hurt. I'm not tough enough to actually encourage it.:laugh:
Click to expand...


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: Tink has been photobombed by a 'shroomie. :lol:

The boys appear much better this morning - appetites are back with a vengeance anyway! Oscar was sprinting around the house after me and doing very precise sits in front of me whenever I stopped still all morning. :lol:

No Dire Rears this morning either, tiny poos or none at all.

I've given them both a handful of their kibble (the vet said their kibble would be fine rather than rice and chicken or anything because the brand is allergen-free anyway) and will be giving them a handful every couple of hours for the rest of the day and see if they keep it down and keep their poos sensible. No silly poos boys. :lol:

Feel quite relieved at how perky they both are this morning - they are always so blinkin bonkers its awful when they are subdued! No matter how much I complain about their antics I prefer that to quiet and sad.

There's nothing sadder than a sad spaniel but there's not much happier than a happy spaniel either.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Tink has been photobombed by a 'shroomie. :lol:
> 
> The boys appear much better this morning - appetites are back with a vengeance anyway! Oscar was sprinting around the house after me and doing very precise sits in front of me whenever I stopped still all morning. :lol:
> 
> No Dire Rears this morning either, tiny poos or none at all.
> 
> I've given them both a handful of their kibble (the vet said their kibble would be fine rather than rice and chicken or anything because the brand is allergen-free anyway) and will be giving them a handful every couple of hours for the rest of the day and see if they keep it down and keep their poos sensible. No silly poos boys. :lol:
> 
> Feel quite relieved at how perky they both are this morning - they are always so blinkin bonkers its awful when they are subdued! No matter how much I complain about their antics I prefer that to quiet and sad.
> 
> There's nothing sadder than a sad spaniel but there's not much happier than a happy spaniel either.


That's very good news.

I always keep at least one tube of Protexin Prokolin or Canikur in the dog's medic cupboard, which is what most vets give you in any case.

I suppose with Leafy's food intolerance, for which the vets won't prescribe antibiotics, it's made me a bit savvy as both are much cheaper online.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?
> 
> Whereas most owners on here want calm, placid dogs, I want the opposite.
> 
> To be any good at competitive obedience the dogs need to be very, very highly motivated and Holly isn't. As a pet she is extremely well behaved but the 'want' for obedience exercises just isn't strong enough, which is why I have spent the last 9 months using every toy and tit-bit known to man (plus my body) to try and get some speed and reaction from her. I don't care how much she bites me and how many coats and jackets she rips as long as I get a reaction from her.
> 
> IMO competitive obedience is all about controlled enthusiasm and should be a sport that both the handler and dog enjoy.
> 
> We've still got a long way to go but she is improving and at least she now gets pretty animated when I pick up the training bag and is really beginning to enjoy being trained.
> 
> I never force my dogs to do anything and I put a huge amount of effort into their training but at the end of the day if they tell me they don't enjoy it, then they don't do it.
> 
> Time will tell with Holly.
> 
> Hope that sort of explains it.
> 
> 
> 
> I see, I had been wondering but felt silly to ask  curiosity got the better of me.
> 
> Glad the boys are back on form, you'll be groaning about them again soon
Click to expand...


----------



## Beth17

Sams turn for a funny tummy today  Think it's a touch of colitis so not going to give him much today. 
He's his usual naughty self though this morning he managed to give us a shock; one minute he was running around the lounge with Oscar the next minute he had sprung up onto the side through this gap and was cleaning the surface 









Yet another thing he has to be watched for


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: Naughty Sam! 

I hope his tummy feels better soon.


----------



## moonviolet

HOpe Sam is back on form soon. 

Naughty clown


----------



## thronesfan

Cookie hates having her claws clipped, apparently it's some kind of canine torture. Anyway, we've started clipping one claw a day before her evening meal and tonight she didn't run away, wriggle, squirm, whine or howl the house down - progress indeed!


----------



## Twiggy

thronesfan said:


> Cookie hates having her claws clipped, apparently it's some kind of canine torture. Anyway, we've started clipping one claw a day before her evening meal and tonight she didn't run away, wriggle, squirm, whine or howl the house down - progress indeed!


I'm with Cookie on this one....LOL

I have to do my lot at least every two weeks because they don't normally do any roadwalking and I absolutely hate it. I could easily join Cookie on the squirming, whining and howling front at the very thought of it.

It doesn't help that I'm getting so ancient I have to do them in front of the patio doors when the sun is shining and with a strong pair of glasses on....!!

The old girl's nail are nearly all black and thickened with age (like mine) so I've just purchased a new pair of clippers.


----------



## Guest

Hope Hugo, Oscar and Sam are all okay! 

And that Squirrel must have been ill to just stand there when you and Gypsy approached L/C! 

Well, the cat (now named Clemence) still saunters around like she owns the place, Zander tries to sneakily sniff her when she walks away, she'll then hiss at him and he'll back off. She jumped up on my lap when I was cuddling Zand on the sofa yesterday, and he sat back in the corner. He also didn't try the whole bodyslammin OOOH PLAYMATES thing he does with our other cats either. 

I think he's actually learning to respect this cat. Who is a proper cat. My other ones are pretty much purring sofa cushions what with there "meh" reactions when the dogs squashes them. 

You are extremely brave Twiggy teaching Holly to nip you!! 

We had two mini tantrums, (one lead biting, the other attempting at my arm, then coat, then just lead chewing.), but nothing HUGE. 
He went in the field and completly ignored the blackbirds around him. 
This is the same dog who killed my friends chicken when it flew out of its coop.

Met a 7 month old Border terrier pup in the shop today, so laid back, doesn't grab at things or bark or demand attention. Did have a moment of "Can we swap?"  :wink:

Oh and Ginge is Gorgeous, I made grabby hands at my screen.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think you're really brave Twiggy, when Moll went through her 'silly' stage of jumping up and grabbing I used to flinch because I knew what was coming. It would always end in a bruise and it bloody hurt. I'm not tough enough to actually encourage it.:laugh:
> 
> 
> 
> Holly is only a little sheepdog. Having watched the videos of the Schutzhund GSD that trains with me doing manwork, I may well not be winding him up quite so much....
Click to expand...


----------



## ballybee

Well this weekend i took Tummel over to Paisley to stay with Shrap and Dino for the weekend....we had our first train ride(s) together and Tummel was fantastic, very relaxed and chilled on the train, even though he's not known for being the most patient dog in the world and he was chuffed to bits to see Shrap and Dino(and her foster Roxy).

On our first night we went for a walk in shraps local park and we met a man with 5 dogs...all very polite and friendly, Tummel was actually very good and wasn't overly interested in saying hello but he said a lot of very friendly hello's onlead(it was dark and i wasn't ok with letting Tum off in a park we don't know) and even had a wee play with the guy's young basset hound 

Then on the Saturday we went back to the park in the morning, Tummel saw a few dogs but did incredibly well at sitting and leaving dogs who were walking past. In the afternoon we went to a different park with a special offlead dog park, Tummel was extremely excited but i kept him onlead until he was calmer, he had a brilliant run with several dogs, from springers to a lovely dobe  we then spent a few hours walking around the park and met plenty of other dogs, my favourite was a 3 month old toy terrier :001_tt1:

On the Sunday we spent 2 hours in the local park again and spent tons of time walking round....Tummel was excellent at his sit/stays and any dogs he met were all met peacefully(the exception being a newfie who was showing some confusing body language) and we had lots of training and exercise.

Today Tummels being mostly sleeping but on our walk he was able to be offlead and was great, stayed close and listened very well :001_tongue:


----------



## GingerRogers

Hope everyone is better soon. 

Naughty Sam  always keeping us on our toes hey.

Thronesfan - I am not looking forward to a time when we might have to cut Ginges, she already looks at the human nail clippers in horror  when they make that nasty clip clip sound just have to try lots of road walking.

LO - love that image, grabby hands  she can be a cutie tis true.

Tonight I can confirm that it is very windy on the east coast :yikes:. I wondered why we were running along the dunes at full pelt and assumed it was after the two spaniels in front, till we turned back and I realised she can barely walk against the wind  (all flat fur bless her) and it had been blowing us along, lol. How can a dog that can't walk into a moderately blustery breeze pull me over in a muddy field. Have to also say that the two guys out wind and kite surfing are absolutely MENTAL!!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Been doing a little work with Khan on a few things. Firstly waiting for him to stop spinning and bouncing before I'll put his leash on, secondly teaching him to wait once he's gone through the front door instead of bombing down the stairs dragging me behind him. I know it's not really my place to train him and it's a bit pointless as he goes home soon but the stairs is a safety issue and trying to get his leash on is a bit of a nightmare, especially as during his spinning and bouncing he's barging into Spen who's sitting nicely and I don't want Spen retaliating and it escalating into something.

He's pretty damn quick to pick things up! He's already waiting once through the door. Well, for me anyway, doesn't for hubby. Calm for the leash to be put on is harder but we're getting there. And he's caught on that when we come in I call him to me to take his leash off so now we come in and he automatically turns back to me. 

I'm gonna miss him when he goes home either tomorrow or Wednesday  I imagine Spen will too. He makes me want a Rottie all over again.


----------



## thronesfan

ballybee said:


> In the afternoon we went to a different park with a special offlead dog park


Ooh, what park was that? My parents live near Paisley and that sounds like a good place to take Cookie when we visit.


----------



## GingerRogers

So glad its gone well Sarah, could well have been a nightmare and who knows his owners might appreciate the work you have done and follow it up 

Little question peeps. I read the 'what do you do if your dog is attacked' with a slight sense of doom  its funny (peculiar not ha ha) how things can be perceived.* "I got a horrible shock while walking my dog this morning, a small barking lump of anger launched itself at her snarling and snapping away." says a lady with a greyhound *

This morning I went through the estate and turned up into the lane/footpath thing, I always check both directions at the head of the path for other dogs and turn back if there are any. There was a lady to my right but no dog in sight so I turned left, then the ninja kicks off,  I thought shes got a thing about people now, but no, there really was a big grey greyhound behind us, must have been hiding in the bushes, (lesson learnt check more carefully in future) anyway I already knew she was going to have a poo anytime soon, sure enough she did, so I turned back and shouted out 'excuse me would you mind waiting while I pick this up, as you can see shes a bit ' this woman kind of went 'huh, why me' face but she did call her dog back. I quickly picked up and turned to say thank you and she had buggered off seemingly in disgust at having been asked, this particular path has several cut throughs into the estate but she certainly hadn't been planning on going up the nearest before I asked. ( I may be oversensitive and be imagining it of course) but was I in the wrong? I couldn't see how I could win, this is a very narrow path, I either walk on leaving the poo (I would have come back but would be unlikely to have found it in the leaves) or I let her approach further and who knows?? best case is she gets barked at again worst case, while I am bending down to get poo ..................I thought I was being considerate but perhaps as has been suggested in recent threads (not todays) those of us with reactive dogs should avoid all other potential encounters (I do try but can't win them all)


----------



## Guest

I understand how you feel Ginge as sometimes you just can't seem to win. 

I mean I class Zander has reactive in my head, because although he doesn't bark or whatever, he'll lunge to get to them to greet, he'll bounce and squeal etc etc. 

If I put Zand on lead when another dog comes in I am asked "ooh is he unfriendly". I asked a GSD owner today infact that could she wait there as mine is really bouncy, I was ignored. Guess what? He bounced, her GSD kicked off and I got sworn at. 

Actually I have a question, when you guys walk in the dark do you meet less dogs? (I am a wee bit nervous of walking mine in the dark, street lamps are CRAP)


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah sounds like you are going to be locking the door and pretending you are out when they come to collect Khan 

GR I think you were perfectly justified, polite and considerate. If they couldn't wait the moment it takes to pick up a poo then that is their choice. on the bright side they gave you space  so many idiots would barge on through saying " It's ok he's friendly." :wink:

it does sounds liek the incident described in that thread was jsut a scared dog trying to warn their dog off. I'm sitting on my hands I got involved in the last thread like that exaclated into people saying they'd carry knives etc etc.


----------



## Sarah1983

You get used to it Ginge, no matter what option you choose you'll be in the wrong  It's not fair but it seems it's the way it is. I keep sharing that yellow ribbon thing and the dinos stuff in the hopes maybe people will realise that reactive dogs aren't evil creatures.

And yeah, really pleased having Khan here went so well. They've got on brilliantly although both seem to have permanently soggy neck and ears.


----------



## Werehorse

Sounds like you behaved perfectly reasonably to me GingerR. A decent person would respond with "no problem, we'll wait" or "it's ok, I can just cut up this way". But at least she did give you space and didn't just barge through anyway.

Sarah - again I think it's perfectly reasonable to train someone elses dog to the degree you are in order to make it safer and easier for you to look after them.  If mine were staying with someone I would expect them to get a bit of "this is how we go about life in this house" type training. I'd be peed off if they used punitive methods obviously (they'd never stay with someone who would!) or if they did any training training with them (that's my job!) but I would fully expect them to be prevented from causing any accidents/difficutly.

In fact can I send Oscar to stay with you for a week so that he comes and gets his harness and lead on willingly and learns some door manners?


----------



## GingerRogers

. on the bright side they gave you space  so many idiots would barge on through saying " It's ok he's friendly." :wink:

it does sounds liek the incident described in that thread was jsut a scared dog trying to warn their dog off. I'm sitting on my hands I got involved in the last thread like that exaclated into people saying they'd carry knives etc etc.[/QUOTE]

Very true Mv. And Sarah that reminds me I heard a horrific story (sad it made me giggle out of relief) but one of our local councillors had a VERY da terrier after another attacked it. May share the story one day but it made me think she may be willing to root for putting up dinos posters around town.


----------



## ballybee

It was Bellahouston park, it's great most of the dogs are very polite and sociable


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Sarah - again I think it's perfectly reasonable to train someone elses dog to the degree you are in order to make it safer and easier for you to look after them.  If mine were staying with someone I would expect them to get a bit of "this is how we go about life in this house" type training. I'd be peed off if they used punitive methods obviously (they'd never stay with someone who would!) or if they did any training training with them (that's my job!) but I would fully expect them to be prevented from causing any accidents/difficutly.
> 
> In fact can I send Oscar to stay with you for a week so that he comes and gets his harness and lead on willingly and learns some door manners?


I'll do you a deal, you send me Oscar and I'll send you Spen for retrieve training 

I'd expect the same if Spen went to stay with someone to be honest. I doubt I've taught Khan anything he didn't already know when it comes to general obedience (if I have it's been unintentional) but he's had to learn how things work here and that means not galumphing down the stairs the moment the front door is opened lol.


----------



## Twiggy

Had a really enjoyable training session with three friends and their young collies this afternoon. Very relaxed, had a good laugh, all the dogs went well and had fun including Holly.

My poor sister has been stuck in Kings Hospital since Friday evening and they are not starting treatment now until tomorrow. It's all to do with the six days of chemo, the last dose of which is critical and can't fall on a Saturday or Sunday due to a skeleton staff over the week-ends. Basically she needn't have gone in until today - what a mess.

I'm going to visit her on Thursday hopefully.


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## Werehorse

That is a bit of a mess Twiggy. On the whole I think the NHS do stirling work in difficult circumstances but it is really difficult to be on the receiving end of a mess up. 

Glad you had a good training session.

Today I have been working on my troll-baiting skillz. The boys have had a quiet day with lots of small meals and sleepies in between. They're completely fine now I think, just being cautious and making sure they recover fully and have enough time and food to get their strength up before I take them our for a decent walk again. Can't believe they both decided to be ill on a Sunday and then are just completely fine! I get so worried about them as well.


----------



## moonviolet

Sounds like a lovely training session Twiggy i'd love to see you and Holly in action 

I was wondering how you sister was doing sounds liek she is being put through a bit of unnecessary guff, I hope it's plain sailing from here. thinking of you both and wishing your sister well.


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## GingerRogers

I noticed your troll baiting werehorse  - what a pillock!! Glad the boys are feeling better, have the guests gone?

Sorry your sisters stuck in that situation Twiggy, hope its no reflection on the actual care she will receive though. NHS is odd, our local hospital has a pretty shoddy reputation but anyone I know who has had to go in for any critical care for tumours, emergency bowel removal, leukemia (among a few ) have said what a brilliant care they have had both in terms of the treatment/surgery and nursing care. Go in for a routine tooth extraction or something and you come out with a very different impression 

I had a lightbulb moment today. I realised I am getting much more focus from the ninja. It used to be if you asked for a sit or whatever when out on a walk eg before letting her off lead, you could be standing there for 5 mins or more almost in tears from frustration (yes it seems pointless now, but they told us to always follow through and not back down with a command ) now I can ask for a random bit of attention and I get a beautiful sit in seconds, even with mild distractions like windy leafy woods and people on the beach. I know I said I wasn't going to work on anything else but the DR/DA but I can't help it and I know it will help in the long run. Even hubby agreed as he actually came with us this afternoon.

I can also confirm it is still very windy on the east coast  beaches are fun when they are like that.


----------



## Guest

it's a shame that your sisters having probs with the NHS Twig, but hopefully all will be sorted. 

Donkey boy has been wonderful today. Took him out in the wind rain and sleet with his coat on (He's grown, theres now a HAND length cap between coat and his tail, Tough, he'll just have to get a damp bum) and his harness, just clipped onto the back. And he walked to heel all the way. I was so relaxed and I kept thinking 'THIS is why I like walking with you'. 

Didn't meet any other dogs either. Is it bad that I was glad for that?

He's been asleep all day on my bed today. HAve been trying to tempt him with his lead for a walk but he seems to be having a duvet day. (His first one ever!) 

So now we're just on my bed, me playing xbox and him dozing/occasionally whinging cos mums shut him out of the living room. 

BLISS. :001_tt1:

Oh and HAS SHE GOT RUDI YET!?!?!?


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## Twiggy

Thanks all. My sister wants them to just get on with it now, however awful it is and how ill she may feel. Because of the delay she may be in Kings over Christmas now.

I bought her two novels today (one of which is 'Fifty Shades of Grey')...!! They are in the bottom drawer of the freezer where I keep my scent cloths to hopefully kill any bacteria....LOL


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## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I bought her two novels today (one of which is 'Fifty Shades of Grey')...!!


Oh I say, that'll take her mind off things.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh I say, that'll take her mind off things.


Yes that's what I thought....LOL


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## Dogless

Well; we got back late last night after a massive journey! Turns out that Rudi is a confident, sunny, playful little thing - settled and slept for the whole journey with no fuss whatsoever . The ferry crossing was horrendously rough and I spent the whole time worrying about the dogs - turns out that they both slept the whole way by the looks of it.

Rudi settled and slept fine in his crate and Kilo slept outside it (his choice); we have just been up now for Rudi to go for a giant wee and I'm giving Kilo some sofa time with me whilst Rudi is asleep again in his crate as he's pretty confused and a little upset...went into kennels, came out and there's a little interloper arrived . So far OK - Kilo is pretty much ignoring Rudi despite loads of attempts at play last night and just now from Rudi. He is being a bit rude and jealous driving him off when he climbs all over me but nothing serious (touch wood) and I'm making Rudi A Good Thing so hopefully we'll get there fairly soon.

Need to catch up on as much of this giant thread as I can now .


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## Beth17

You've missed so much Dogless good luck reading everything 

Lovely to hear Rudi is slotting in so well sounds like he has a beautiful temperament. Poor Kilo I imagine it was a bit of a shock for him but I'm sure once his routine gets back to normal he'll be ok


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## kat&molly

Welcome back Dogless, look forward to hearing all about Rudi.

Twiggy, hope you get to see your sister tomorrow.


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## moonviolet

Dogless, I'm glad Rudi is such a happy go lucky little chap. I'm sure Kilo will come round when he realises this " thing" is staying.

Twiggy, Hope everything goes well today and you are able to visit your sister tomorrow.

LO Hope you have another relaxing day with donkey boy

GR how lovely to have a lightbulb day. CLing on to it remember etch it in your mind so you can remember how it feels, when a setback comes. Well done 

Werehorse glad the boys are better 

Beth how are your boys?

L/C hope things are ok with you and the pointies.

We're doing very Tink seems to becoming more enthusiastic and more playful I dont' know if it's to keep warm :lol:


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## ballybee

I wouldn't worry too much dogless, Tummel was very jealous of Dan when he first came on the scene...he didn't want Dan anywhere near himself or me and would lunge if we were outside and people stopped us to see Dan(understandable really lol).

He did get over it quite quickly, ok even now 6 months on he won't tolerate Dan lying next to him but everything else is fine.

Can't wait to see your new baby....i've come to the decision that Tummel needs a wrestling buddy so am trying to convince OH we need a ridgie ASAP :blush: Dan will wrestle but he doesn't have anywhere near the same style or strength that Tummel does!!! Tummel can take down a 40+kg GSD in 1 shoulder barge


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## Beth17

The boys are doing good mv thank you. Sam still has a little bit of a funny tummy but is bright and happy and drinking well so not too worried and only had to get up with him once in the night; they've only just woken up.

Looked like a mad woman yesterday as had taken Sam just for a short stretch of his legs but he was pulling like a train and then stuck his head in a bush and pulled put a crisp packet  I started having a whinge at him and telling him its his own fault he had a dodgy stomach. I turned round and there was a man riding past on his bike he gave me quite a funny look 

Oscar has been good as gold although they're not impressed as I've banned them from charging around the garden as it's like a swamp at the moment. 

Lovely to hear that Tink is becoming more playful


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well; we got back late last night after a massive journey! Turns out that Rudi is a confident, sunny, playful little thing - settled and slept for the whole journey with no fuss whatsoever . The ferry crossing was horrendously rough and I spent the whole time worrying about the dogs - turns out that they both slept the whole way by the looks of it.
> 
> Rudi settled and slept fine in his crate and Kilo slept outside it (his choice); we have just been up now for Rudi to go for a giant wee and I'm giving Kilo some sofa time with me whilst Rudi is asleep again in his crate as he's pretty confused and a little upset...went into kennels, came out and there's a little interloper arrived . So far OK - Kilo is pretty much ignoring Rudi despite loads of attempts at play last night and just now from Rudi. He is being a bit rude and jealous driving him off when he climbs all over me but nothing serious (touch wood) and I'm making Rudi A Good Thing so hopefully we'll get there fairly soon.
> 
> Need to catch up on as much of this giant thread as I can now .


Welcome back...!! I was thinking of your ferry crossing yesterday in the high winds and very pleased to hear both Kilo and Rudi were OK.

When you start tearing your hair out remember they are not puppies for long....


----------



## Werehorse

Oscar is definitely 100% better this morning. It was like walking an over-excited helium balloon on acid. 

Going to take them for a proper walk this afternoon. Someone asked if the visitors had gone - yes, they went on Sunday. We have them again soon though... it was all much calmer and happier once the baby gate went up though so should be better next time.

Looking forward to reading about Rudi's progress, Dogless. I think Kilo ignoring him and being a bit put out by him is a good sign in the long run. Oscar was far too playful with Hugo to start with and didn't set any boundaries and then got ear biting torture for a long time and used to jump the babygates and hide upstairs.  We didn't step in sooner because we'd been told to let them sort themselves out. :nonod:  Not good for poor Oscar, but it got better much quicker when we started stepping in.

Since the boys have been out of action I have a horse thing to report. Well two things. One is that things at the yard seem to have settled for the time being - shame that it took re-arranging things so that OH comes with me now apart from me popping over at lunchtime to fetch them in. Getting up early is officially killing me. 

Two is that I have been trying some counter-conditioning using carrots with my horse who HATES having her rugs changed. I got a bit fed up of getting bitten on the arm and the bum and I was getting fed up of getting cross with her and her getting crosser and crosser about having her rugs changed because she knew I would get cross with her etc etc. I thought "I do things kindly with the dogs why am I so prepared to jump into shouty slappyness with the horse??"   So I've started stuffing her full of carrots while doing rugs and low and behold it has actually made a significant difference in a very short period of time. This morning I took her stable rug off without giving her any carrots and all she did was have a brief nibble of her lead rope when I was doing the bit she hates most (the chest buckles) and then snoofled me for carrots. Before there woud have been cross faces, head tossing, possibly stamping hooves and air snaps and very hard biting of the lead rope (or me if she was really touchy). So happy with that. 

We also seem to be making progress on the kicking and ground-pawing behaviour by just walking out of the barn when she starts! :lol:

You can clicker train horses but I attempted to "load" the clicker with Poppy and she ran away from the noise of it.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse i'm so glad the boys are better, trying to picture him as a helium balloon on acid, Went to google for assistance... it wasn't much help but i did find this 









So glad the counter conditioning is going well with Poppy I bet your poor bruised bum is grateful too.

I dont' know if it would be any use but a friend uses the "pop" in the middle of a jam jar lid as a clicker with her dog, as it's a much softer sound.


----------



## Guest

OMGOMGOMG RUDI'S HERE!!  :001_tt1::001_tt1:

Glad its going well, and i'm sure Kilo will come round.

Zander sends Kilo him a lick of understanding. :blush:
He too is putting up with an interloper. 
A pregnant stray cat. 
He still doesn't understand why this cat doesn't love him. 

He was beautiful again on this walk. No idea if its the rain. The fact he's wearing his coat? Or is he growing up? (HurHurHur) 

And we got past a westie, although it was six feet away a well timed bonio shape and Zand was too busy munching to lunge. 

He is pacing though. Mainly cos Clemence (The new cat) is sat on the sofa.

Hope all of you are well, I haven't read all your posts yet. xxx


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## tanglewood3

At dog training class, i've been trying to encourage handlers to teach their dog something new, so I thought i'd better have a go as well. I taught Peggy to put her toys in a box. She always runs to her brush when I say time for a brush and will bring it to me if I ask, so I'm next going to teach her to bring different brushes: toothbrush, nail brush, baby brush etc


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## Beth17

Lovely walk this morning as the sun has come out. Got caught up talking to the workmen relaying gas pipes so Sam and Oscar got a lot of fuss and were trying to play in the stone they were digging up. Feel a bit mean as not going to be able to take them out for a run as apparently they might need access to our garden this afternoon so can't go out just in case. 

If I can I'll squeeze in another street walk later on,not quite the same but what can you do.

Well done Zander keep up the good behaviour 

Glad your boys are better Werehorse and good job on the horse counter-conditioning.


----------



## L/C

Dogless - welcome back. Little Rudi is adorable and Kilo will come around - it took Ely months to accept that Gypsy was staying and even now he will try to barge her out of the way if she's getting a fuss! 

Beth & Werehorse - glad the boys are all feeling better. Werehorse - Ely was afraid of the clicker at first, and the whistle, so I muffled them in a towel until he was comfortable with it.

MV - playful Tink sounds adorable. Pics please. 

The pointies are good. Gypsy hasn't been as reactive as I thought she would be since her murderous rampage which is good. Been having a few down days (too much work and too little sleep) plus the inlaws were up over the weekend so I haven't done a huge amount of training (and I'm payng for it with madam and her tantrums!). Been going back to basics with Gypsy and her focus plus reinforcing the emergency stop and that seems to be going well so I think that's what I'm going to focus on when out on walks and put the send aways and more complicated stuff on hold till I've built that up again.


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## moonviolet

L/C said:


> MV - playful Tink sounds adorable. Pics please.
> 
> Gypsy hasn't been as reactive as I thought she would be since her *murderous rampage *which is good.


I'll endeavour to get pics tonght of her ladyship playing 

have you been exposed to the daily mail? i feel the bolded phrase is a gross exageration... it was GBH on a challenged squirrel and certainly not a spree.


----------



## Pudding

we are working on the stand..... but as of yet he is not doing very well
if anyone has any tips this would be fab


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## Dogless

L/C said:


> Dogless - welcome back. Little Rudi is adorable and Kilo will come around - it took Ely months to accept that Gypsy was staying and even now he will try to barge her out of the way if she's getting a fuss!
> 
> Beth & Werehorse - glad the boys are all feeling better. Werehorse - Ely was afraid of the clicker at first, and the whistle, so I muffled them in a towel until he was comfortable with it.
> 
> MV - playful Tink sounds adorable. Pics please.
> 
> The pointies are good. Gypsy hasn't been as reactive as I thought she would be since her murderous rampage which is good. Been having a few down days (too much work and too little sleep) plus the inlaws were up over the weekend so I haven't done a huge amount of training (and I'm payng for it with madam and her tantrums!). Been going back to basics with Gypsy and her focus plus reinforcing the emergency stop and that seems to be going well so I think that's what I'm going to focus on when out on walks and put the send aways and more complicated stuff on hold till I've built that up again.


Hope that things look up for you L/C.....watch yourself with a pointy that has a thirst for blood about; once they have tasted blood they turn on their owners. Allegedly .

Kilo is already coming around to the idea that Rudi is here I think; can fuss them both together and Rudi is getting the hang of his "I'm just a little puppy, please be kind" stance as opposed to his "Boing, boing PLAY WITH MMMEEEEE!!" stance .



Pudding said:


> we are working on the stand..... but as of yet he is not doing very well
> if anyone has any tips this would be fab


I just taught it by holding a treat and gradually drawing the hand away from the dog and up if that makes any sense. Once standing I used to hold the treat in my mouth or sort of 'waggle' it to keep the dog's attention. I then faded the treat and kept the raised hand as the hand signal. I hope that makes sense; probably not . Hope someone gives you better advice.

It goes without saying that I am now working on EVERYTHING with Rudi  and the same stuff with Kilo really. Just went for a walk with the BW, saw the rottie that attacked him - rottie had a bit of a growl and lunge (behind us) and Kilo skittered but no big deal. With Rudi we have been to the vet's today, got him wearing a collar and making sure he waits until given permission to approach his bowl and eat, so that's enough for today.


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## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I'll endeavour to get pics tonght of her ladyship playing
> 
> have you been exposed to the daily mail? i feel the bolded phrase is a gross exageration... *it was GBH on a challenged squirrel and certainly not a spree*.


:lol:

That made me laugh at my desk. Now everyone is looking at me.


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## Sarah1983

Bloody loose leash walking again! I dunno what to do about it now. I want to give up because I'm getting so frustrated with it but then I know if I just let him pull I'll end up losing my temper because of how much his pulling hurts. I could manage it with a harness with front attachment or head collar on a regular leash but then there's the problem of the long line. I can't use either of those with a long line so I'm a bit reluctant to go down that route. 

I don't think it helps that I know I could teach him not to pull very quickly using a choke chain whereas I've been trying for nearly 10 months with positive reinforcement and am still having real problems with it. I don't want to go down that route though, I don't want to hurt him to train him. 

I've had the most success with the Choose to Heel method but then there's the problem of him NOT choosing to heel. And I don't really want to make him walk to heel the whole time on walks. Stopping doesn't have any effect, just results in him looking at me, taking a step to loosen the leash and then as soon as we set off again he's back at it. Turning and walking in the opposite direction...well he's equally happy to pull in ANY direction, he doesn't seem to be pulling to actually get to any particular place. 

On a good note he did some fantastic recalls on the fields today. On and off leash. And we played some fetch with a squeaky toy. Unfortunately the cold weather seems to have brought all the dog walkers out though instead of keeping them shivering indoors


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody loose leash walking again! I dunno what to do about it now. I want to give up because I'm getting so frustrated with it but then I know if I just let him pull I'll end up losing my temper because of how much his pulling hurts. I could manage it with a harness with front attachment or head collar on a regular leash but then there's the problem of the long line. I can't use either of those with a long line so I'm a bit reluctant to go down that route.
> 
> I don't think it helps that I know I could teach him not to pull very quickly using a choke chain whereas I've been trying for nearly 10 months with positive reinforcement and am still having real problems with it. I don't want to go down that route though, I don't want to hurt him to train him.
> 
> I've had the most success with the Choose to Heel method but then there's the problem of him NOT choosing to heel. And I don't really want to make him walk to heel the whole time on walks. Stopping doesn't have any effect, just results in him looking at me, taking a step to loosen the leash and then as soon as we set off again he's back at it. Turning and walking in the opposite direction...well he's equally happy to pull in ANY direction, he doesn't seem to be pulling to actually get to any particular place.


This exactly. I'm feeling immensly frustrated with it too. I'm not 100% convinced a check chain would work on Oscar - he is just so determined to keep pulling, I think I would just end up with a dog trying to kill itself in a chain noose - and I just couldn't do it knowing it would hurt him and thinking what damage it could do to how much he trusts me. But blinking heck I wish there was some kind of quick fix for the pulling because I've really been doing my best and although there's been masses of improvement we just seem to go backwards again just as easily.

Hugo repositions himself without asking when I stop, but we get stop, reposition set off, end of lead, stop, reposition, set off, end of lead.... ad nauseum. Oscar just stares into space when I stop most of the time and if I walk another way that's just as exciting that way. His drive to be running and trying to flush stuff is just so strong.

I do wonder if I did some focussed work with that drive whether it would lesson when it is inappropriate but I don't know how to do that either.

Lordy I've gone into a funk now. Just had a nice walk with them but had to pop Oscar on lead for a tiny bit so he didn't hurl himself through some undergrowth and down a concealed escarpment and he just pulled something chronic and it's just so, so frustrating. Especially when you then read threads where people are saying that a few jerks on a chain is kinder than nagging them for months and months. I don't buy it but it does make me feel like shite.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> This exactly. I'm feeling immensly frustrated with it too. I'm not 100% convinced a check chain would work on Oscar - he is just so determined to keep pulling, I think I would just end up with a dog trying to kill itself in a chain noose - and I just couldn't do it knowing it would hurt him and thinking what damage it could do to how much he trusts me. But blinking heck I wish there was some kind of quick fix for the pulling because I've really been doing my best and although there's been masses of improvement we just seem to go backwards again just as easily.
> 
> Hugo repositions himself without asking when I stop, but we get stop, reposition set off, end of lead, stop, reposition, set off, end of lead.... ad nauseum. Oscar just stares into space when I stop most of the time and if I walk another way that's just as exciting that way. His drive to be running and trying to flush stuff is just so strong.
> 
> *Werehorse and Sarah*
> 
> I wonder whether you are setting the goalposts too high?
> 
> When I walk any of mine on the lead I just use the word 'steady' which means they can walk in front of me or to the side or behind including having a quick sniff, as long as they don't pull. Obviously it's usually out in front, which is fine as I don't want them in the heel position, but I also don't want my already dodgy back and neck strained.
> 
> When I had Tremor I had no choice but to walk her on the lead because I also had 15 yr old Fidget, who was very frail and almost totally deaf with poor vision, and I couldn't take the risk of Tremor knocking her over. Tremor was, and is, a very big and fiesty collie bitch and it wasn't easy but I stuck to my guns and it didn't take too long. She had a number of temper tantrums, leaping in the air etc. etc. because she wanted to run about with the other three and she hurt my back a few times but with grim determination on my part we got there.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah and Werehorse I feel for you, I have only been trying it for a couple of months and already I am fed up and I only have 7kg of dog . Oddly Ginge will walk very well for a while if I turn round, but its not always appropriate to keep going in that direction as soon as you turn back she is off again. She also does it very well for bedtime walks . But give her any teeny form of excitement and thats it.

I thought back to Rory and realised we just let him pull, he was too strong for me sometimes so we got a harness which meant I could hold him but didn't stop him pulling. Not sure how we coped except we rarely took him to town the first few years as we lived in the middle of nowhere he was often off lead in the fields.

We encountered some dogs today, rather than avoid them completely like I have been doing I figured I need to start practicing what I learnt last week . Didn't go very well, her trigger distance seems to be stretching, whether this is because we have been avoiding dogs completely or because I was watching for a reaction and when I noticed it (which I hadn't necessarily been doing before ) I tensed up, I don't know. 

Once she starts to bark and lunge I try to move (drag ) her further off rather than carry on trying to treat her there as she wont take it, it doesn't take many steps though for her to actually decide coming with me might be more fun, SO do I carry on dragging her away or should I stand my ground (we are talking a very long trigger distance here). I feel the 'oh alright I will come with you' is a good thing but then I worry that the trigger distance will just stretch further. The other thing is she stops as soon as the dog is out of sight, literally as soon as, even if she can still hear it barking at her 

Pudding I have no tips :nonod: sorry I can't get my dog to just stand up on cue and I guess you mean a show stand :blush:

Tanglewood - I need a tidying dog but why not train Peggy to tidy up after everyone else as well 

Oooh lots of Rudi work, ha ha  good luck Dogless


----------



## Sarah1983

It's bloody frustrating isn't it Werehorse? I'm 99% sure I could get Spen walking nicely within a few days with a choke chain, I just don't want to go down that route. The thought of hurting him to get him to behave how I want just doesn't sit right with me these days. And I doubt it would solve the issue with the long line anyway, there's no way on earth I'd even consider using a choke chain with a long line.

Doesn't help that everyone else round here seems to have dogs who walk nicely on leash whereas mine is a bloody nightmare! 

Spen does a mixture of your two, sometimes he'll just stare into space when I stop, other times he'll reposition and then as soon as we set off he bombs back to the end of the leash again. And yeah, every direction is just as exciting as all the others so turning and walking in a different direction doesn't have much effect.

I do sometimes wonder whether it would be kinder to use a choke chain, give him a few corrections and have him walking nicely than spend another 10 months getting frustrated and annoyed with the whole thing. But then as I say the thought of hurting him just doesn't sit right with me.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> "Boing, boing PLAY WITH MMMEEEEE!!" stance .


Zand still does that at nearing 15months to dogs on out walk!

Not to say Rudi will, of course haha

He's gonna be wonderful!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> *Werehorse and Sarah*
> 
> I wonder whether you are setting the goalposts too high?
> 
> When I walk any of mine on the lead I just use the word 'steady' which means they can walk in front of me or to the side or behind including having a quick sniff, as long as they don't pull. Obviously it's usually out in front, which is fine as I don't want them in the heel position, but I also don't want my already dodgy back and neck strained.


See that's _exactly_ what I want. And it's exactly what I've had with Shadow, Wolf and Rupert. I just can't seem to get it with Spencer. I think that's adding to the frustration too, my last 3 got it so easily and he just isn't getting it at all.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy - if I had anything close to that I'd be happy. I've kind of got it in the village but anywhere else it's flat pulling. Hugo used to be better and still doesn't flat pull the way Oscar does but since he got interested in sniffs he dives about and lunges from place to place or worst case stands on his back legs going forward in kangeroo jumps and basically squeels like a pig in frustration.  That's at the start of walks where he knows he goes off-lead and it's the excitement but still, it's highly embarassing.

God I feel rubbish sometimes.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - if I had anything close to that I'd be happy. I've kind of got it in the village but anywhere else it's flat pulling. Hugo used to be better and still doesn't flat pull the way Oscar does but since he got interested in sniffs he dives about and lunges from place to place or worst case stands on his back legs going forward in *kangeroo jumps *and basically squeels like a pig in frustration.  That's at the start of walks where he knows he goes off-lead and it's the excitement but still, it's highly embarassing.
> 
> God I feel rubbish sometimes.


We have a little ginger rabbit at the beginning of walks


----------



## Gemmaa

I'm having a big crackdown with the boys. 

Bradley has mastered sit/stay . I'm very impressed with him, was expecting more resistance but it only took one session. He's also pretty nifty with their puzzle board.
I won't be asking for much with him, just basic obedience and a little more refinement in how he prances around the house, not fun when he lands on your foot .

Danny knows perfectly well how to walk to heel, but he chooses not to.
This is stopping.
I've bought a new 30ft lead, and his walks will be less fun and more work . His recall is perfect, but I want him to listen to me more.
He also needs to drop about 2-3kg, he ballooned after being neutered and I don't want another lecture from the vet. So he's on tiny portions, which he's not impressed with - just one sprat for dinner , and in between walks he's going on the treadmill.

Freddie just needs mentally and physically draining. So hopefully at the weekend I'll be taking him to my boyfriends and we're going to take him out to do some tracking, games, an epic walk and possibly a christmas light turning on thing. 
Think some one on one time and space from the other dogs will really do him the world of good.
When I take the other dogs out through the week I'm going to plant a tennis ball or something, and he can look for it on his walk.

So I think with their new action plans, they'll go from being good-ish, to fabulous!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> When I walk any of mine on the lead I just use the word 'steady' which means they can walk in front of me or to the side or behind including having a quick sniff, as long as they don't pull. Obviously it's usually out in front, which is fine as I don't want them in the heel position, but I also don't want my already dodgy back and neck strained.


That is exactly what I do; because again I have a dodgy back :nonod:. Werehorse and Sarah have you used the Turid Rugaas method at all? I'm suure you probably have but I like it!

Ginger Rogers I'm sorry that things didn't go too well; not sure how to advise you though so I'll let those that actually know what to do handle it .

Rudi went to the back door after dinner to go out for the toilet which I was absolutely chuffed with! Just one day has also made a massive difference, Kilo has relaxed hugely with Rudi here - the BW is asleep by my side on the sofa and Rudi on my feet; Rudi wouldn't have been tolerated there this morning .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> That is exactly what I do; because again I have a dodgy back :nonod:. Werehorse and Sarah have you used the Turid Rugaas method at all? I'm suure you probably have but I like it!
> 
> Ginger Rogers I'm sorry that things didn't go too well; not sure how to advise you though so I'll let those that actually know what to do handle it .
> 
> Rudi went to the back door after dinner to go out for the toilet which I was absolutely chuffed with! Just one day has also made a massive difference, Kilo has relaxed hugely with Rudi here - the BW is asleep by my side on the sofa and Rudi on my feet; Rudi wouldn't have been tolerated there this morning .


Well, when I said it didn't go too well, it didn't go any worse than expected really although I am concerned at the stretching distance I am not really surprised  but it didn't get me down so I am making progress 

So glad Kilo is settling down and accepting Rudi  and you sound nice and positive about having the two of them (I would probably be curled up in Kilo or Rudi's house crying 'what have I done' by now).


----------



## Guest

What's the Turif Rugaas method?


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Well, when I said it didn't go too well, it didn't go any worse than expected really although I am concerned at the stretching distance I am not really surprised  but it didn't get me down so I am making progress
> 
> So glad Kilo is settling down and accepting Rudi  and you sound nice and positive about having the two of them (I would probably be curled up in Kilo or Rudi's house crying 'what have I done' by now).


When I was up at 0430 knackered and with Kilo chasing Rudi away from me I did have a fleeting regret .


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> What's the Turif Rugaas method?


This probably explains better than I can http://www.dogwise.com/authpub/pulling_ex.pdf


----------



## Sarah1983

I've tried something similar but didn't have any success with it. Might have to try it again now that Spen's a bit less manic.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> This probably explains better than I can http://www.dogwise.com/authpub/pulling_ex.pdf


Confused.com.  :lol:

What kind of sound? A cue? Or a silly noise? Not a click? Cos that would be using a click as a cue and that's not right...

I've not done that exact thing but have attempted to train it in a similar way.

My starting point was lure to heel, click+treat. Followed by lure to heel, click, several steps +treat, building up number of steps before and after the click etc etc. The distraction level at which they can do this with me asking and treats in hand is reasonable. With no interaction from me though I get very little except in low distraction areas and it's not too awful in the village.

It's so difficult because you cannot avoid areas with distractions while trying to train this but still give the dog a decent walk.  Especially as pups where I utterly prioritised socialisation.


----------



## blossom21

Same old same old here,but little by little the drip feeding is getting into Brambles brain, all walks are on a long 30 foot lead. He is staying nearer to me 50% of the time, waiting when I ask 50% of the time. The stealing at home is improving s-l-o-w-l-y, and Ive proved its attention seeking from me as when I get up in the morning or dont give him attention when he demands thats when the bad behaviour starts. Cant always ignore as it can be something he steals that I dont want destroyed. Re call with his name and two whistles from me 50% of the time. Finding me when I hide in the park nearly all the time. So when I sit and reflect we are going to get there,and Id like to think by next summer he will be off lead-but wont hold my breath.:wink:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Confused.com.  :lol:
> 
> What kind of sound? A cue? Or a silly noise? Not a click? Cos that would be using a click as a cue and that's not right...
> 
> I've not done that exact thing but have attempted to train it in a similar way.
> 
> My starting point was lure to heel, click+treat. Followed by lure to heel, click, several steps +treat, building up number of steps before and after the click etc etc. The distraction level at which they can do this with me asking and treats in hand is reasonable. With no interaction from me though I get very little except in low distraction areas and it's not too awful in the village.
> 
> It's so difficult because you cannot avoid areas with distractions while trying to train this but still give the dog a decent walk.  Especially as pups where I utterly prioritised socialisation.


I use a high pitched "Come come" said really quickly - the point is the dog isn't to heel; it can be anywhere as long as the lead is loose.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> We encountered some dogs today, rather than avoid them completely like I have been doing I figured I need to start practicing what I learnt last week . Didn't go very well, her trigger distance seems to be stretching, whether this is because we have been avoiding dogs completely or because I was watching for a reaction and when I noticed it (which I hadn't necessarily been doing before ) I tensed up, I don't know.
> 
> Once she starts to bark and lunge I try to move (drag ) her further off rather than carry on trying to treat her there as she wont take it, it doesn't take many steps though for her to actually decide coming with me might be more fun, SO do I carry on dragging her away or should I stand my ground (we are talking a very long trigger distance here). I feel the 'oh alright I will come with you' is a good thing but then I worry that the trigger distance will just stretch further. The other thing is she stops as soon as the dog is out of sight, literally as soon as, even if she can still hear it barking at her


I don't know if you are doing it already but it's really worth keeping a diary of your experiences how far away the dog was, a description of the dog, what they were doing, what you did and give Ginge's reaction a score out of 5 , 5 being batsh1t crazy, 0 being "what dog?"

I know it sounds a lot of hardwork but it may help you notice patterns and helps track progress and willl give your behaviourist a lot of info.

When you move further away do you keep going or stop ? I found with Tink stopping as soon as she began to calm I could interact with her get her to take treats play "look at that" if that was going well, then creep forward a few steps as i'd successful shrunk the distance i'd turn and leave it on a positive note.


----------



## kat&molly

I think everyone knows the LLW problems I've had. I've given up with the 3 of them together- too frustrating and spoiling my mood on walks but on their own they're ok. Moll used to be the worst, sounded a lot like Hugo in that she always jumped right back in to position only to lunge off again.
I honestly think age and perseverence got us there in the end, she's 3 next month, and I can even use a slip lead with her now.

Dogless- it sounds like Rudi is doing well, I bet there are things you will do different this time? I know I would if I had another pup.


After days of not knowing whats going on, Big Evie messaged me today. I'll be visiting her tomorrow.


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## Beth17

Dogless Sam would like to come to your house and learn from Rudi how to go to the toilet outside :glare: Naughty puppy decided this evening that he would come out to the kitchen look at me and then go back into the lounge and wee and when I went in to stop him he just stared at me. :nono:

I have tried the Turid Rugaas method with Sam but trying to get a cue when he can't hear it is slightly more difficult  Sam and his LLW has gone the drain lately he just attempts to run everywhere.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Werehorse said:



Twiggy - if I had anything close to that I'd be happy. I've kind of got it in the village but anywhere else it's flat pulling. Hugo used to be better and still doesn't flat pull the way Oscar does but since he got interested in sniffs he dives about and lunges from place to place or worst case stands on his back legs going forward in kangeroo jumps and basically squeels like a pig in frustration.  That's at the start of walks where he knows he goes off-lead and it's the excitement but still, it's highly embarassing.

Click to expand...

*


Werehorse said:


> That's exactly what Tremor used to do, especially if the two spaniels that lived next door at the time came belting down the other side of the hedge.
> 
> When she did that I would just stand still - I didn't attempt to grab her collar, tighten the lead or say anything. I'd just wait until all four feet were on the ground and then say "that's good steady" - admittedly through gritted teeth because sometimes I'd liked to have clonked her.
> I hardly dare open my mouth in any case because Quiver and Leafy are so very sensitive and easily upset.
> 
> *God I feel rubbish sometimes*.


You are most certainly not rubbish - I've seen the videos....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

We've been working on seeing a ball in a sock as a toy a fun thing to play with, not training not rewards other than the interact itself.

Now she still doesn't full get the idea of tug. It's more "i'll stand here with it till you get bored of holding the other end" , but it's a start. If you do let go she just stands there till you take hold again :lol:

Here's a few terrible pics









Well throw it already


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## Guest

This is currently what the donkey boy is doing next to me.

__
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content








Oh and I found a Pic of Zand when he was a couple weeks or so old alright with you lot if I share?


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## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> This is currently what the donkey boy is doing next to me.
> View attachment 101814
> 
> Oh and I found a Pic of Zand when he was a couple weeks or so old alright with you lot if I share?


Share share please   someone round here has got me puppy broody


----------



## blossom21

moonviolet your dog is gorgeous :001_tt1:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I think everyone knows the LLW problems I've had. I've given up with the 3 of them together- too frustrating and spoiling my mood on walks but on their own they're ok. Moll used to be the worst, sounded a lot like Hugo in that she always jumped right back in to position only to lunge off again.
> I honestly think age and perseverence got us there in the end, she's 3 next month, and I can even use a slip lead with her now.
> 
> Dogless- it sounds like Rudi is doing well, *I bet there are things you will do different this time? I know I would if I had another pup*.
> 
> After days of not knowing whats going on, Big Evie messaged me today. I'll be visiting her tomorrow.


Absolutely - although I'm much more relaxed in some respect too. Kilo had a few bad socialisation experiences like our first set of puppy classes that in hindsight I just would have walked out of and never gone back; the offlead dogs terrifying him on a few walks etc etc. My regrets are all to do with me not acting swiftly enough to protect Kilo. The little beggar is doing well - just been chasing leaves and grass in the garden as the wind's strong!


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## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Share share please   someone round here has got me puppy broody


PUPPEH PHOTO!!!


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## blossom21

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH gorgeous puppy :thumbsup:


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## moonviolet

blossom21 said:


> moonviolet your dog is gorgeous :001_tt1:


Thank you I'm slightly biased but i agree she really is 



LurcherOwner said:


> PUPPEH PHOTO!!!


awwww baby donkey  what a cutie he was


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## Guest

blossom21 said:


> OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH gorgeous puppy :thumbsup:


He had such a flat face and WEENY ears then. Now look at him.  
Kangaroo-bat ears he is!


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## Beth17

Oh he is scrumptious. 

As we're sharing here is one of Sam when the little thing was handreared.

Anyway I shall now get back on topic


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## Dogless

Gorgeous photos of Donkey Boy and Sam. Rudi has just drawn his first blood on my hand and then went over the top with a tired Kilo so received a good telling off :nonod:. He's like Kilo in that when he gets over tired he goes a bit mad.


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I've tried something similar but didn't have any success with it. Might have to try it again now that Spen's a bit less manic.


I don't know how big your kitchen is but you could try putting his bowl down and then attaching his lead the other side of the kitchen. Take one step forward towards his bowl and if the lead goes tight say "steady" and stand still. Repeat until he walks on a nice loose lead to his dinner bowl, by which time he'll have learnt the meaning of "steady"...


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## Guest

Beth17 said:


> Oh he is scrumptious.
> 
> As we're sharing here is one of Sam when the little thing was handreared.
> 
> Anyway I shall now get back on topic


*Grabby hands*

:001_tt1::001_tt1::001_tt1:

Puppies are a bit like toddlers sometimes, if they get over-tired they turn into whiney grumbly I DONT WANNA things.


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## Beth17

Oh dear Rudi naughty corner. What is it about pups and being naughty at night :hand:


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## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> This exactly. I'm feeling immensly frustrated with it too. I'm not 100% convinced a check chain would work on Oscar - he is just so determined to keep pulling, I think I would just end up with a dog trying to kill itself in a chain noose - and I just couldn't do it knowing it would hurt him and thinking what damage it could do to how much he trusts me. But blinking heck I wish there was some kind of quick fix for the pulling because I've really been doing my best and although there's been masses of improvement we just seem to go backwards again just as easily.
> 
> Hugo repositions himself without asking when I stop, but we get stop, reposition set off, end of lead, stop, reposition, set off, end of lead.... ad nauseum. Oscar just stares into space when I stop most of the time and if I walk another way that's just as exciting that way. His drive to be running and trying to flush stuff is just so strong.
> 
> I do wonder if I did some focussed work with that drive whether it would lesson when it is inappropriate but I don't know how to do that either.
> 
> Lordy I've gone into a funk now. Just had a nice walk with them but had to pop Oscar on lead for a tiny bit so he didn't hurl himself through some undergrowth and down a concealed escarpment and he just pulled something chronic and it's just so, so frustrating. Especially when you then read threads where people are saying that a few jerks on a chain is kinder than nagging them for months and months. I don't buy it but it does make me feel like shite.


That's exactly the way Charlie was until I started the BAT training with him( have you tried it?)... from that minute he has hardly pulled again!! He likes to stay head and shoulders in front of me which I can cope with if it means he doesn't strain on the lead. I cant believe it, after 2 and a half years of stress and frustrating walks. Still working on passing other dogs nicely but at least the rest of the walk is ok 
Dont know how many times Ive cried over it and scolded and fussed so I know exactly what it's like :nonod:


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> It's bloody frustrating isn't it Werehorse? I'm 99% sure I could get Spen walking nicely within a few days with a choke chain, I just don't want to go down that route. The thought of hurting him to get him to behave how I want just doesn't sit right with me these days. And I doubt it would solve the issue with the long line anyway, there's no way on earth I'd even consider using a choke chain with a long line.
> 
> Doesn't help that everyone else round here seems to have dogs who walk nicely on leash whereas mine is a bloody nightmare!
> 
> Spen does a mixture of your two, sometimes he'll just stare into space when I stop, other times he'll reposition and then as soon as we set off he bombs back to the end of the leash again. And yeah, every direction is just as exciting as all the others so turning and walking in a different direction doesn't have much effect.
> 
> I do sometimes wonder whether it would be kinder to use a choke chain, give him a few corrections and have him walking nicely than spend another 10 months getting frustrated and annoyed with the whole thing. But then as I say the thought of hurting him just doesn't sit right with me.


Sarah, I was at my wits end last year and I tried a choke chain on Charlie and it made absolutely no difference at all, other than instead of just being sore, exhausted and frustrated at the end of a walk, I'd to add feeling guilty on to it too....and upset that ANOTHER method had failed. Charlie just kept pulling as usual only he was making a horrible rasping noise at the same time and people were looking at me like I'd horns :nonod:
Shame we dont have magic wands to wave over our dogs heads isnt it lol


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## chazzie10

All these gorgeous dog and puppy pics today :001_tt1:

Cant cope with the cuteness....I'm positively foaming at the mouth now


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Gorgeous photos of Donkey Boy and Sam. Rudi has just drawn his first blood on my hand and then went over the top with a tired Kilo so received a good telling off :nonod:. He's like Kilo in that when he gets over tired he goes a bit mad.


I like that cos its good for you all to be learning the limits. Not for you bleeding or for the telling off, hope it goes better from now on. And you get what I mean. Bin a bit of a slosha tonight. 
gonna try the ninja loose tonight so brought the hated crate in from the car to put on the landing. Got as far as dumping it on the floor by the front door and she's been in there since 

loving the donkey baby. More grown donkey pics please. And wee Sam, ooh bless him. How come you both have baby pics i got the impression you acquired the dogs later on. Stories please catch up thread.


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## Werehorse

Since we're sharing puppy pics and tiny puppy pics at that...

Hugo (on the right) and his brother The Other Hugo at 4 weeks old when we first met him...










Oscar at 6 weeks when he came home, just cos it's the cutest picture ever.










Has anyone got a link to read about BAT training?


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I don't know how big your kitchen is but you could try putting his bowl down and then attaching his lead the other side of the kitchen. Take one step forward towards his bowl and if the lead goes tight say "steady" and stand still. Repeat until he walks on a nice loose lead to his dinner bowl, by which time he'll have learnt the meaning of "steady"...


Can't do it in the kitchen as it's waaaaay small but can certainly give it a try in the living room/dining room. He's fed on a towel in the living room as he's banned from the kitchen 



> Sarah, I was at my wits end last year and I tried a choke chain on Charlie and it made absolutely no difference at all, other than instead of just being sore, exhausted and frustrated at the end of a walk, I'd to add feeling guilty on to it too....and upset that ANOTHER method had failed. Charlie just kept pulling as usual only he was making a horrible rasping noise at the same time and people were looking at me like I'd horns


Just sticking a choke chain on a dog won't stop it pulling, you have to actually use it to correct the dog. Short, sharp jerk and release was the way I was taught and it worked. Painful for the dog though judging by the number that yelped  Obviously it was before I knew there were better ways but I still feel bad about it and I don't want to do that to Spen or any other dog ever again.

A magic wand would be awesome, just wave it and have a dog with all the basic manners so you can just focus on the fun stuff


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Since we're sharing puppy pics and tiny puppy pics at that...
> 
> Hugo (on the right) and his brother The Other Hugo at 4 weeks old when we first met him...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oscar at 6 weeks when he came home, just cos it's the cutest picture ever.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Has anyone got a link to read about BAT training?


awwwwwwww damn you :lol: puppy broodiness is off the scale.

I found Grisha Stewart's Silky leash technique very useful i'm not sure if it's included on her BAT site but there are some youtube videos.

Here's the BAT official site Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) | Official site for BAT: dog-friendly training for reactivity (aggression, fear, frustration) by Grisha Stewart, MA


----------



## Werehorse

Ooooo, I like the look of silky leash. I shall be spending some time in the bathroom with the dogs tomorrow. :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Ooooo, I like the look of silky leash. I shall be spending some time in the bathroom with the dogs tomorrow. :lol:


It really helped with my nose on legs  Have fun... it's not an odd thing to do at all :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Well Kilo is nice and relaxed with Rudi this morning again - just won't have him trying to get to him on the sofa which is fair enough . Rudi whined in his crate to go out for the toilet a few minutes before my alarm was set to get up and take him out, so pleased with that too. Seems Rudi is allergic to rain....hammering down here and when I put him out the noises and attempts to get back inside were pitiful :nonod:. I was stood out there too so he could see that it didn't make you melt . Got a big umbrella out now for the next trip!

Loving tiny pups Werehorse!


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Sarah, I was at my wits end last year and *Shame we dont have magic wands to wave over our dogs heads isnt it lol *




Well I must see at least 30 handlers on a weekly/monthly basis who think I have said magic wand in my training bag....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Well I'm off to see my sister later this morning in Kings Hospital.

Wish me luck as I don't know or like London and the train journey is pretty complicated.


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## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm off to see my sister later this morning in Kings Hospital.
> 
> Wish me luck as I don't know or like London and the train journey is pretty complicated.


Good luck with the journey, Your sister will be so pleased to see you. Don't forget the reading material


----------



## GingerRogers

Good luck Twiggy, hope your sister can bear it out!

Had a little look through that link Moonviolet, lots of useful stuff there, (tells myself must not get bogged down in trying to train anything at the moment  just getting to a nice equilibrium ) have bookmarked for future reference.

Ooh more puppies - baby Hugo and Oscar :001_tt1: - I don't have any puppy pics of Ginge although I can remember the teeny one, she used to fit in the palm of your hand, and if she was on the ground she rolled over and wee'd  

Well despite my wine intake last night the fabric crate option worked well. We are going to have a good tidy/clean up so we can start to leave her out all the time, (apart from the odd poo bag roll inner tube, which seem to keep appearing , she doesn't seem to munch on stuff anymore as long as she has a chew and we have had no toilet incidents at all, that was obviously excitement/too long in the crate in her previous home) We have an open plan ground floor and stairs so although we can keep her out of the bathroom, bedroom and office the rest is fair game. Her wire crate is in the sitting room but we figured she would probably prefer to sleep on the landing (well she would prefer our bed no doubt :hand if she had the choice so hubby suggested bringing the fabric crate in from the car. 

Now when we first got it and it was in the house she liked it, in the car she is not so keen, she will go in but doesn't like being shut in. We have been working on this slowly, but I insisted on shutting her in yesterday on the way back from our afternoon walk as she was barking at every dog she saw  (one reason for getting it) well it was like a Tasmanian devil was in there, not a happy bunny. I stopped at the shop and when I got back in the car she was dead still, so still I thought she might have died to punish me . But she hadn't  so I wasn't sure bringing this in would work.

I literally just dumped it in the front door then served up tea, while we were eating in she went and curled up at the back  Bedtime I put it on the landing and she went straight in again and as far as we know she stayed there all night, hubby heard her having an exciting dream about 4.30am . He got up for a wee and hour or so later and she stayed put, even when he got up for work he had to call her out!!!!  

Funny funny bunny!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm off to see my sister later this morning in Kings Hospital.
> 
> Wish me luck as I don't know or like London and the train journey is pretty complicated.


I hope all goes well; your sister will be glad of the visit I'm sure xx.

Well Kilo woke up this morning with the attitude that the little fella isn't that bad after all - much more relaxed around each other and they even had a short play just now . Kilo also didn't bat an eyelid when I lifted Rudi onto my lap on the sofa but Rudi preferred the floor so is sleeping on my foot again!!

I did another tiny training session with Rudi this morning - just getting him to respond to his name and the sit. He's really bright like Kilo and easy to teach. It will be the urge to do things on his own terms like a true ridgie when he gets older that will be the drama . I included Kilo on the last one just for the last bit - got them both sat side by side for their treats. Can't get a photo as Rudi follows as soon as I move!! He is also getting the hang of waiting when his bowl's put down and telling me when he needs the toilet .

Kilo and I have had an equally splendid morning; went for a walk with the weimie and her human - they had a good play. Then our nemesis labs appeared so I recalled Kilo and put him on lead. The labs ran over as usual BUT Kilo play bowed   so I let him off and they played!! . I think it was because most of the play was directed at the weimie as when both approached him he shot between my knees briefly but came out of his own volition and played again. An absolute miracle .

Rudi and I are going to meet the weimie in her house this afternoon for a bit of socialisation as she's good with puppies . He's also going to meet the Cupboard Monster shortly :yikes::yikes:.


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## Werehorse

Oh that's so good about Kilo playing with the labs!   Well done Kilo, so brave. And a little play with Rudi too. :thumbup:

And Rudi sounds like a sooper-fast learner. I do think second ones are a bit easier anyway. I can count on one hand the number of accidents in the house Hugo had. Oscar on the other hand... definitely wouldn't fit on the other hand!! He was dreadful and we were a bit clueless. And just general training with Hugo has been easier because we had done it before. I think even though Hugo is very clever, and perhaps BECAUSE he is so clever, if we had got him first it'd have been a right mess! :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Oh that's so good about Kilo playing with the labs!   Well done Kilo, so brave. And a little play with Rudi too. :thumbup:
> 
> And Rudi sounds like a sooper-fast learner. I do think second ones are a bit easier anyway. I can count on one hand the number of accidents in the house Hugo had. Oscar on the other hand... definitely wouldn't fit on the other hand!! He was dreadful and we were a bit clueless. And just general training with Hugo has been easier because we had done it before. I think even though Hugo is very clever, and perhaps BECAUSE he is so clever, if we had got him first it'd have been a right mess! :lol:


Considering last time he cowered and wet himself it was a huge change .

Kilo is sooper fast and so is Rudi - just the ridgie independence to battle with age . I am hoping that things will be slightly easier with Rudi as I've learnt a lot. Fingers crossed!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Well we've just tried the silky leash thing this morning. Didn't get off to a great start as Spen thought we were playing 101 things to do with the bathroom. So I moved into the dining room, bigger space but nothing for him to stand on, prod, no door to shut, things to pick up etc. I'm not quite sure we're doing it right but Spen caught on extremely quickly and we actually progressed to outside the flat already :huh: He was a bit distracted and baffled at first but once he realised it was the same game we'd been playing in the house he knew exactly what to do. We practised for about 5 minutes out there and then I let him off leash and released him to go sniff and instead he offered to walk nicely by my side. Which of course I clicked and treated for.

I think maybe the work we've done on him offering to walk with me has meant we've progressed much faster with this. He's definitely responding to the slight pressure on the leash though and can be guided around me or in a circle with it. Will do more work on it outside the flat before even attempting to take it anywhere else though. 

Twiggy, good luck getting to see your sister. I detest London and always try to bypass it when I have to travel lol.

Dogless, sounds like things are going well with Rudi and Kilo


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## BessieDog

As some of you aware I'm trying a dogmatic on Bess - the plan is NOT to use it though.

The last walk I put the dogmatic on, but also a half check, and attached the lead to the collar, not the dogmatic. The result was that her road heel work was about as good as it's got so far, and in the fields she didn't pull so much either. 

I like the security of knowing the dogmatic is there in case I need to get more control (another dog coming for example) so will be leaving it on for a while before I take it off. Fumbling to put on a dogmatic when you need control in an emergency is NOT a one person job! 

I'll be going out again in a moment so will give it another try. It was possibly just fluke last time though. :crying:

DOGLESS - sounds like Rudi's a bright little fella. Glad he and Kilo are getting on.


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Can't do it in the kitchen as it's waaaaay small but can certainly give it a try in the living room/dining room. He's fed on a towel in the living room as he's banned from the kitchen
> 
> Just sticking a choke chain on a dog won't stop it pulling, you have to actually use it to correct the dog. Short, sharp jerk and release was the way I was taught and it worked. Painful for the dog though judging by the number that yelped  Obviously it was before I knew there were better ways but I still feel bad about it and I don't want to do that to Spen or any other dog ever again.
> 
> A magic wand would be awesome, just wave it and have a dog with all the basic manners so you can just focus on the fun stuff


Yep thats the way I used it with Charlie but he just stopped pulling for 2 seconds at the most then away he went again...he hates the noise of the chain rattling behind his ear and it was making him do some sort of 'One Dog Mobile Freak Show' walking on three legs at normal speed while trying to do a slow air scratch with his back leg at the same time  I swear this dog should have a tv programme all of his own


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Well I must see at least 30 handlers on a weekly/monthly basis who think I have said magic wand in my training bag....LOL


You NEED to come over here and train all the dogs in NI then....could be called the ' Cant Walk, Wont Walk Twiggy Tour' or 'Twiggy's Meet, Greet, Stay on your (own) Feet Tour' hehehe


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> You NEED to come over here and train all the dogs in NI then....could be called the ' Cant Walk, Wont Walk Twiggy Tour' or 'Twiggy's Meet, Greet, Stay on your (own) Feet Tour' hehehe


Sod off, she needs to come to Germany and help me battle the dominance fanatics first


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Sod off, she needs to come to Germany and help me battle the dominance fanatics first


Most here are too .


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Sod off, she needs to come to Germany and help me battle the dominance fanatics first


She can come to you first....I reckon NI might take a wee bit longer to sort out


----------



## Dogless

I had a nice socialisation walk with Rudi this afternoon. Carried him 15 minutes to my friend's house - the long way so we'd pass more traffic and people - had half an hour with her and her dog and walked home the same way. He's sparked out now but it was a good experience .


----------



## Guest

I have just looked on the BAT site. 

Silky leash technique?? What/Where/When/How?? 


I looked at a training website yesterday that was selling a "dominance" collar. 

Pretty much a leather choke chain.


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> I have just looked on the BAT site.
> 
> Silky leash technique?? What/Where/When/How??
> 
> I looked at a training website yesterday that was selling a "dominance" collar.
> 
> Pretty much a leather choke chain.


Ta-da! Leash Walking « Ahimsa Dog Blog


----------



## Werehorse

I did some silky leash training with both boys. Hugo nearly killed himself in the bathroom because of the slippy floor and the excited leaping about (treats and clicker = going mental for training Hugo  :lol but apart from that it went well. I'm going to do a few more sessions in the house where they are really responsive and will basically follow the hand with the lead in about without it ever going tight quite happily.

I struggled to engineer a tight lead but when it did happen they responded nicely to slight pressure. Oscar found it more difficult than Hugo. I don't think being bred to bash through undergrowth at top speed is conducive to a mind-set of moving away from pressure! When tangled in brambles Oscar just keeps running until he frees up, and doesn't seem to feel any pain while doing so! Hugo will back up from a bramble encounter so I hold out more hope for him responding well and quickly to this technique. Oscar... it might take a while!

Front room tomorrow I think.


----------



## BessieDog

Well, we did three quarters of the walk without the dogmatic on at all, but after I was pulled into a muddy puddle when a pheasant flew out it went on. Still, a good improvement though, especially with the road walking.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well so far so good with the loose leash walking. We seem to be using a combination of silky leash and choose to heel though. He does move to relieve the slight pressure but he's making a huge effort not to let there be any pressure in the first place and to stay by my side since that's what we've worked on previously. We've done several sessions of a few minutes at a time rather than any long ones and we've made progress each time. He can stay by my side at my normal pace, at a fast walk and at a sort of lurching run (I do not run well!). All this is only on the footpath outside the flat but it's a start. AND he seemed to be enjoying it when I started throwing in turns and changes of pace. I guess it wasn't just plod along at the pace of death at that point.

I worry about pushing too hard and asking too much but I think sometimes I actually go too slowly and ask too little for his liking. There's setting up for success but there's wrapping it up in cotton wool I guess  Rupert would have had a meltdown at progressing this quickly with something new, Spen seems to relish it.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Sarah1983

Leam1307 said:


> he also didnt growl or grumble this morning getting his breakfast although some people have told me i shouldnt even bother trying to touch him, put my hand in the bowl while hes eating while others have said i must work on this.. abit confusing.


I'd work on it but not in the way you are doing. At least not yet anyway. I'd start by staying at a distance he's comfortable with you being and toss extra yummy stuff into the area around his bowl. I'd do that for a few days then stand that tiny bit closer and repeat. Keep on until you can stand right beside him and drop the treats into his bowl.

Food guarding is fairly normal dog behaviour and it stems from fear of having their food taken away. By adding extras like this (without first taking it away or messing with it) they learn that humans around food is a good thing and they have no need to guard it. My collie was a horrendous food guarder and doing this worked absolute wonders with him.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Staffx

Thought I'd join in this thread, it only took me to page 495...

We actively trained Major when we first got him and continued for a while to do little bit here and there but as of recently we started letting things slip and his recall was getting worse and his LLW and any other commands were becoming a bit hit or miss. He wasn't enjoying things quite as much because I was venting my frustration at myself (for letting his training go) at him on walks and at home (nothing to serious I will add).

Anyway I decided enough was enough, I went to pets at home and got a new clicker (had lent my other one to a friend who never returned it), a whistle and a big bag of treats.

We started straight away, first his recall. I have decided I am going to train him to recall on whistle. So I started in the house, with two whistles = ball (He loves his ball more than life itself). Anyway he soon picked this up. We went for a walk and at short distances continued this. Anyway I'm glad to say he recalled every time, today was the third time I had taken him out with the whistle and I tried my luck while he was sniffing and he recalled straight away so it is going in the right direction. It has helped that because of a broken nail he isnt allowed to play ball at the moment so the only time he gets his ball is on the whistle.

Yesterday I took him out for an hour and a half practicing LLW. His LLW had slipped recently because there are a lot of walks round us where I can get away with only putting him on lead when other leaded dogs are near and I choose them walks more often. Yesterday we did lead only walk, I did a mixture of clicks and treats for walking beside me and not walking if he tried to pull. By the end of the walk I barely had to stop.

Other thing we are working on are drop, stay, and bed, just a few things that I let slip.

Sorry for the long post I think I have caught my word count up from the previous 495 pages I missed!


----------



## Werehorse

I would just leave him be while he eats for a while to be honest, Leam, just let him settle in and relax a bit first. Pushing it now will just make him worse I suspect.  Sarah's throw tastey treats from a distance he is comfortable with method is the perfect place to start but I would just wait, let him alone to eat, let him realise that he is going to get fed and you aren't going to approach him and take it off him. Try not to let the kitten approach him either.


----------



## Dogless

Nice walk with Kilo this afternoon spoiled a little by watching a lady I know boot her lab in the ribs and pin it . He walked very well and ignored a dog when asked so happy with that . School tonight!

Rudi went to the door and whined again for the toilet - really impressed with him on that front . He has, however, discovered whining and yelping when Kilo eats and he's waiting his turn and before his bowl is down so that's being nipped in the bud!!


----------



## chazzie10

Leam1307 said:


> well where to start, we seem to be working on everything.. walking on a lead, heal, sit, wait, leave, food aggression, housetraining, possible dog aggression (hard one that since he is in quarantine for a week or two with KC.)
> 
> he has got alot better in nearly every area but its still abit selective on his part. im trying not to do too much at once and dont try and repeat it too often one after the other.. but we will work on sit and wait (at the back door) while coming back from a walk, and while he gets his lead on etc. leave is for the cats food. he also didnt growl or grumble this morning getting his breakfast although some people have told me i shouldnt even bother trying to touch him, put my hand in the bowl while hes eating while others have said i must work on this.. abit confusing.
> 
> But we will keep at it all in small amounts


My last Lab was a rescue pup and was a serious food guarder already at 5 months poor fella. I did the same as Sarah and Werehorse suggests... tossing kibble from a distance then getting closer every day. It made him realise that me coming over to him while he was eating was a good thing because he got more kibble. Eventually (when it was safe!!) I kept my hand holding the kibble down in his bowl and let him eat it from my hand. I also bought an 'anti-gulp' bowl which was amazing at slowing him down and stopping him choking himself with food!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Nice walk with Kilo this afternoon spoiled a little by watching a lady I know boot her lab in the ribs and pin it . He walked very well and ignored a dog when asked so happy with that . School tonight!
> 
> Rudi went to the door and whined again for the toilet - really impressed with him on that front . He has, however, discovered whining and yelping when Kilo eats and he's waiting his turn and before his bowl is down so that's being nipped in the bud!!


I liked it because Kilo and Rudi both did well.

The lady with the lab :mad2:


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless Rudi sounds like a smart wee cookie....you're gonna be kept on your toes keeping two steps ahead of that one 

I'm thinking your house is gonna be noisy and full of excitement for a while


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> I did some silky leash training with both boys. Hugo nearly killed himself in the bathroom because of the slippy floor and the excited leaping about (treats and clicker = going mental for training Hugo  :lol but apart from that it went well. I'm going to do a few more sessions in the house where they are really responsive and will basically follow the hand with the lead in about without it ever going tight quite happily.
> 
> I struggled to engineer a tight lead but when it did happen they responded nicely to slight pressure. Oscar found it more difficult than Hugo. I don't think being bred to bash through undergrowth at top speed is conducive to a mind-set of moving away from pressure! When tangled in brambles Oscar just keeps running until he frees up, and doesn't seem to feel any pain while doing so! Hugo will back up from a bramble encounter so I hold out more hope for him responding well and quickly to this technique. Oscar... it might take a while!
> 
> Front room tomorrow I think.


I read about the bramble thing on the website but hadn't figured out what it meant. Thats why Ginge is hard to train LLW, shes like Oscar, excellent I have an excuse now!  Good luck with that Werehorse!

Still windy on the east coast, very, very windy. Had one dog encounter this arvo, she did take the treats on its approach and after we/it had passed but we had issues with the in between bit. I say approach and pass but it was up near the dunes we were by the shoreline so at least 20m apart at the nearest  probably better than yesterday though, IDK. Hubby had come with me so at least I was able to explain the technique to him though.

Glad Rudi's socialisation went well and Kilo is getting playful. 

Hopefully you might have got a solution to Spens LLW Sarah

Sorry about the pheasant Bessie, why are you not using the dogmatic all the time might I ask, it seems a bit horse has bolted???

Leam - Please do not overwhelm yourself like I did :crying: take it slowly, one thing at a time is fine. I persnally would leave the food and trying to get near him while he is eating till he has well and truly settled or you might end up making things worse, he is bound to have a few issues as you say, and letting him settle in is more important than how much control you have over him when he's eating IMHO Ginge wasn't a guarder but was nervous eating, she would pick the food out of the bowl and take it somewhere else to eat. We just gave her space and she gradually got closer and closer to her bowl, till there was no issue.
I also wish we had known about the anti- gulp bowls with Rory

Staffx - welcome it is easy to let things slip, I know we are not really trying to work on anything other than her reactivity at the moment outside but still find we need to keep up stuff indoors just to keep her on her toes. 'Stays' on the way to working on recall outdoors in a few weeks is our current favourite  She will stay in the dark kitchen for a minute now. That sounds mean doesn't it


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I liked it because Kilo and Rudi both did well.
> 
> The lady with the lab :mad2:


I've talked to her about training methods (she asked how I train Kilo) right when she first got her and she's 15 months now - she was pinning her then at 8 weeks old . Today I was going to walk past with Kilo and crossed the road as she jumps at him on lead, her lab lunged and pulled her shoulder. She said it hurt so I asked if she was OK and she asked to be excused for a minute and booted her in the ribs :huh:, I said I'd better be going and her dog lunged again so got scruffed and pinned - said "That'll fix it" so I replied that it'd serve me right if I lost my arm doing that to Kilo....she thought I meant the lunge as she just said I'd be in real trouble if he did that to me . Sod's Law dictates we met on the way back too - she came over to walk together (not much choice as her dog was pulling her our way!!) and I said I didn't want an onlead meet if possible - her dog jumped on Kilo (who was fine and didn't react) so was pinned again . She kept lunging at him the whole time we walked together and the woman told me how awful she was behaviour wise at present; blames the kennels she stayed at for a few days recently as she's started stealing food from plates etc, but I said I thought it might be adolescence as much as anything and I knew some good classes.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I've talked to her about training methods (she asked how I train Kilo) right when she first got her and she's 15 months now - she was pinning her then at 8 weeks old . Today I was going to walk past with Kilo and crossed the road as she jumps at him on lead, her lab lunged and pulled her shoulder. She said it hurt so I asked if she was OK and she asked to be excused for a minute and booted her in the ribs :huh:, I said I'd better be going and her dog lunged again so got scruffed and pinned - said "That'll fix it" so I replied that it'd serve me right if I lost my arm doing that to Kilo....she thought I meant the lunge as she just said I'd be in real trouble if he did that to me . Sod's Law dictates we met on the way back too - she came over to walk together (not much choice as her dog was pulling her our way!!) and I said I didn't want an onlead meet if possible - her dog jumped on Kilo (who was fine and didn't react) so was pinned again . She kept lunging at him the whole time we walked together and the woman told me how awful she was behaviour wise at present; blames the kennels she stayed at for a few days recently as she's started stealing food from plates etc, but I said I thought it might be adolescence as much as anything and I knew some good classes.


What an awful woman, how do you bite your tongue or perhaps you haven't but realise it doesn't help 

I forgot to say I was a total numpty dipstick this morning . I walked down the lane past a friends house and could see him though his window, so I tapped on it and he came out for a chat. As we are talking I look down and the ninja is doing angel impressions, sitting beautifully staring at me adoringly. I was so surprised, even though I did praise her, I completely didn't twig that that was exactly what I have been trying to get her to do every time I stop and forgot to reward her apart from praise ie no treat, 'face palm'!!! .

Also taking the advice, again, and started a journal, again. :001_tongue:


----------



## Guest

You know something? After seeing a vid fo that silky leash stuff I may take my clicker on walks with me. 

Dogless a woman I used to work for used to tell me that I needed to Pin zander down whenever he lunged.  

He walked loverly today again. Think I WILLHAVE to get a new coat, it was doing that thing where when he sniffed it would lift of his back!

Rudi sounds like a whizz-pup! 

And Gold stars for Spen and Hugo and Oscar!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> What an awful woman, how do you bite your tongue or perhaps you haven't but realise it doesn't help
> 
> I forgot to say I was a total numpty dipstick this morning . I walked down the lane past a friends house and could see him though his window, so I tapped on it and he came out for a chat. As we are talking I look down and the ninja is doing angel impressions, sitting beautifully staring at me adoringly. I was so surprised, even though I did praise her, I completely didn't twig that that was exactly what I have been trying to get her to do every time I stop and forgot to reward her apart from praise ie no treat, 'face palm'!!! .
> 
> Also taking the advice, again, and started a journal, again. :001_tongue:


A journal will be good I reckon . As I said, we've talked about it before and she even said she felt bad tonight but strokes her after .



LurcherOwner said:


> You know something? After seeing a vid fo that silky leash stuff I may take my clicker on walks with me.
> 
> Dogless a woman I used to work for used to tell me that I needed to Pin zander down whenever he lunged.
> 
> He walked loverly today again. Think I WILLHAVE to get a new coat, it was doing that thing where when he sniffed it would lift of his back!
> 
> Rudi sounds like a whizz-pup!
> 
> And Gold stars for Spen and Hugo and Oscar!


Oooh a nice new coat .

Don't think he's a whizz pup just a ridgie - Kilo's toilet training was the easiest part by far. Done in days few - the breed is notoriously 'clean' .


----------



## Sarah1983

Ugh, it's an awful situation to be put in isn't it Dogless? And what can you actually do? Having a go at them gets you no result, just makes them angry. Trying to tactfully point out other methods that might get the desired result usually either doesn't get noticed or results in the same as you having a go at them. But ignoring it feels like condoning it 

Ginge, that happens to me too lol. If my mind isn't on training I tend to miss the very behaviour I'm trying to get when I am training :mad2: At least you did notice and you praised her!

I'm hoping we do have a solution to Spens pulling. I still don't know what to do about the long line and harness though, I've had him out on the harness to toilet and he pulls just as hard as ever on it. I suppose if I can at least get from A to B with my arms still in their sockets it's a start though lol.


----------



## Beth17

Rudi what a little star and how brave of Kilo :thumbup:

Weather here is bloomin awful but got Oscar upt he field this morning on a break from uni and he was perfect. We even met a spaniel on a narrow path and after a bit of encouragement as neither would move Oscar went forward and arched around until the were side by side had a quick sniff of each other and off we went. 
Sam was at my dads and was good but keeps trying to hump their girl 

Ginger I have baby pics as my parents are heavily involved with the rescue that rescued Sam and so I was lucky and able to go see him at 2 weeks and then again at 6 weeks before getting him at 8 weeks.

Hope everyone else has had a good day I have read the posts but forgotten half of them  It's been a long day!


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Ugh, it's an awful situation to be put in isn't it Dogless? And what can you actually do? Having a go at them gets you no result, just makes them angry. Trying to tactfully point out other methods that might get the desired result usually either doesn't get noticed or results in the same as you having a go at them. But ignoring it feels like condoning it
> 
> Ginge, that happens to me too lol. If my mind isn't on training I tend to miss the very behaviour I'm trying to get when I am training :mad2: At least you did notice and you praised her!
> 
> I'm hoping we do have a solution to Spens pulling. I still don't know what to do about the long line and harness though, I've had him out on the harness to toilet and he pulls just as hard as ever on it. I suppose if I can at least get from A to B with my arms still in their sockets it's a start though lol.


Well I did but not really consciously and not for what she was actually doing which was what I had been asking. It was more of a subconscious aside 'oh good girl' cos she looked cute, so stupid 

Is the harness a problem cos he yanks you about on that but you have to use it with the long line, can you not use a similar 'silky leash' (sounds a bit porny :blush technique on the harness as well.

How can the woman carry on doing what she does if she feels bad


----------



## chazzie10

I know this is slightly(well completely lol) off our topic at the minute but it'll add a light hearted note....

It involves my new reindeer slippers (I know, im 39 but hey-ho ) which the dogs fascinated with, and Charlie's favourite reindeer toy (aka 'wee baby') and it made me smile.... hope it does the same to you all 

Has Charlie finally got the hang of greeting politely, enough to teach it to his 'baby'???


----------



## chazzie10

Nope....I guess he hasnt lmao


----------



## GingerRogers

chazzie10 said:


> Nope....I guess he hasnt lmao


 wee baby isn't humping Rudolf is he


----------



## Werehorse

People will kill other people with electric shocks if someone in a white coat tells them to, over 50% of people apparently - there was an experiment, noone actually died it was all fake but the people administering the electric shock thought it was real. It's an authority figure thing too I think when you get people hurting dogs in the name of training.  People can be remarkably easy to influence. Seemingly less easy to influence to do something positive though! 

Sarah - It could be a race between reliable enough recall to ditch the long line and reliable enough LLW to not get pulled about on the long line?

I just got distracted by a talking husky on youtube so this post will be out of date by now!


----------



## bordie

Rona:d......................................


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Is the harness a problem cos he yanks you about on that but you have to use it with the long line, can you not use a similar *'silky leash' (sounds a bit porny :blush technique *on the harness as well.


I'm so glad you said that it does sound like a specialist, japanese, gentleman's interest site


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> wee baby isn't humping Rudolf is he


I reckon he is....could be why Rudolph always has a red nose...............:nonod:


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> I'm so glad you said that it does sound like a specialist, japanese, gentleman's interest site


Oh lol, perhaps I could get hubby interested in training after all


----------



## Guest

I BE NEEDING SOME OF THEM THERE REINDEER SLIPPERS!!

I Neeeeedddddd them!! 

OOh I got into a conversation with a lady today who witnessed one of zanders lunges/leaps/bounces to say hello and it was quite nice. 

She said "Oh why don't you let him meet? Is he DA?" 
And I said that No he isn't DA or reactive but REALLYREALLY wants to say hi, but if I let him say hi like that then he'll piss off other dogs and there owners and it will reward him for the bouncy bouncy ness so he'll do it more! 

She then said "Yes but if you don;t let him say hello and constantly pull him back, he may see other dogs as something bad or negative or to be frightened of." 

Have to admit that stumped me. 
What do you guys think?


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> I BE NEEDING SOME OF THEM THERE REINDEER SLIPPERS!!
> 
> I Neeeeedddddd them!!
> :/QUOTE]
> 
> Hmmm Primark I think and they were a massive, MASSIVE £3 or £4  but I couldnt resist and I'm not known for my sense or maturity at times AND I really only got them to see what the dog would do hehehe


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> You NEED to come over here and train all the dogs in NI then....could be called the ' Cant Walk, Wont Walk Twiggy Tour' or 'Twiggy's Meet, Greet, Stay on your (own) Feet Tour' hehehe


I've already been...!! Mind you they did assure me I was teaching and judging the very best of the competition obedience dogs over there.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I survived London and didn't get lost or miss any trains. I left home at 10.15am and got back at 6.00pm and had just over two hours with my sister.

Kings Cross and St Pancras Int Stations were OK as there are obviously loads of people and security staff but I was a tad uneasy about the rest of the journey, but then I'm not the bravest.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Sarah - It could be a race between reliable enough recall to ditch the long line and reliable enough LLW to not get pulled about on the long line?


Unfortunately I could do with both. A reliable recall _and_ him not to yank me around on the long line. April to mid July all dogs have to be kept on leash so he's gong to be confined to a long line for nearly 4 months every year that we're here.

Ginge, I've thought about using the silky leash method with the harness but I need some way to walk him in the meantime and I can't use a long line with a head collar so I'm a bit stumped. I'm going to work on getting him reliable with a collar first and then see what I can do with it to at least lessen the pulling on the harness without making him think he has to walk by my side the whole time.


----------



## Werehorse

Well done Twiggy, London is so confusing.  I lived there for three weeks during my MSc - Never Again.

I hope your sister was as ok as could be expected? I bet she was glad of the visit.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Well I survived London and didn't get lost or miss any trains. I left home at 10.15am and got back at 6.00pm and had just over two hours with my sister.
> 
> Kings Cross and St Pancras Int Stations were OK as there are obviously loads of people and security staff but I was a tad uneasy about the rest of the journey, but then I'm not the bravest.


It's the businessmen on the Tube you wanna be worried about. Odious, stuck up little men who think nothing of shoving heavily pregnant women out of the way to get a seat.

Hope your sister was as okay as can be expected and hope she enjoys her reading materials.


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> Unfortunately I could do with both. A reliable recall _and_ him not to yank me around on the long line. April to mid July all dogs have to be kept on leash so he's gong to be confined to a long line for nearly 4 months every year that we're here.


 That's a bit of a bummer.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Unfortunately I could do with both. A reliable recall _and_ him not to yank me around on the long line. April to mid July all dogs have to be kept on leash so he's gong to be confined to a long line for nearly 4 months every year that we're here.
> 
> Ginge, I've thought about using the *silky leash method with the harness *but I need some way to walk him in the meantime and I can't use a long line with a head collar so I'm a bit stumped. I'm going to work on getting him reliable with a collar first and then see what I can do with it to at least lessen the pulling on the harness without making him think he has to walk by my side the whole time.


Tee hee 

Sorry  been a long day .

Well done Twiggy hope your sister was as well as can be expect any more news on her treatment length etc


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Well done Twiggy, London is so confusing.  I lived there for three weeks during my MSc - Never Again.
> 
> I hope your sister was as ok as could be expected? I bet she was glad of the visit.


Two consultants came to see her whilst I was there and said she's the healthiest patient in the section and they might set her on as a cleaner....LOL

I can see why she's going stir crazy though - they are all individual rooms and although there is a window it overlooks another section of the hospital so there is no view and nobody to talk to most of the time. She has got a TV and her IPod to keep in touch with the outside world. Fingers crossed it all goes well and she's home before Christmas.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy i'm glad you are home safe and sound I'm sure you visit brightened your sisters day 


London, been there (15 years) done that escaped to Surrey :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy i'm glad you are home safe and sound I'm sure you visit brightened your sisters day
> 
> London, been there (15 years) done that escaped to Surrey :lol:


I wouldn't survive living in London. Even on a day trip I'm longing to see a green field after about an hour.


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## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I wouldn't survive living in London. Even on a day trip I'm longing to see a green field after about an hour.


There are lots of surprisingly large green spaces if you know where to look, but i was lucky having my parents to bolt to when i just needed fresh air and peace.  Would I go back now.... not a chance, I like my simpler, slower scarecrow life


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## Dogless

School was good tonight; quite challenging but fun. Kilo and I worked really hard and he was a gold star boy :001_wub:. We are walking with the weimie in the morning; because we're not escaping to our usual places just yet I'm working hard to make our walks here varied and fun .


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## Dogless

Well last night Rudi decided he didn't like his crate - so today I'm working on that. Exhausted this morning and Kilo is wiped out as he usually sleeps longer after school but got woken up all night too. Never mind; shouldn't be too hard (famous last words!) as he was perfect in it before.

ETA: The good news is Kilo appears almost totally relaxed with Rudi now - the little pest is even allowed to sniff him when he's got his head and paws hanging over the edge of the sofa, but I divert him before he gets too annoying!! I have just sat in Rudi's crate and played gently with a Fab New Toy for half an hour with him after his breakfast which he was happy with. Seeing as he hasn't objected to it at all until last night (apart from a tantrum because he wanted to get to our dinner) my hopes are high! He was crate trained at the breeder's, didn't object to his travel crate in the car and hasn't objected to being in it in the day (when he can't be supervised when I have a shower etc) or at night until last night. He HAS to be OK - hubby's leave finishes and he flies to the mainland on Sunday!


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well last night Rudi decided he didn't like his crate - so today I'm working on that. Exhausted this morning and Kilo is wiped out as he usually sleeps longer after school but got woken up all night too. Never mind; shouldn't be too hard (famous last words!) as he was perfect in it before.
> 
> ETA: The good news is Kilo appears almost totally relaxed with Rudi now - the little pest is even allowed to sniff him when he's got his head and paws hanging over the edge of the sofa, but I divert him before he gets too annoying!! I have just sat in Rudi's crate and played gently with a Fab New Toy for half an hour with him after his breakfast which he was happy with. Seeing as he hasn't objected to it at all until last night (apart from a tantrum because he wanted to get to our dinner) my hopes are high! He was crate trained at the breeder's, didn't object to his travel crate in the car and hasn't objected to being in it in the day (when he can't be supervised when I have a shower etc) or at night until last night. He HAS to be OK - hubby's leave finishes and he flies to the mainland on Sunday!


Don't panic....!! Rudi will be fine in his crate. Clever little pup has already worked out that there are better options, like the sofa....LOL


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> Well improvement from Deeks in just one day. he now comes (90%) of the time when you call him and sits before i even ask him now. i always have a pocketfull of kibble so that when he does little things like this just as we are wandering round the house he can get a reward. Although he started picking up OH shoes last night and bringing them too me. lol will just have to train OH not to leave them out!
> 
> This morning at breakfast he was very good, alittle jumping about while pouring it but for the most part he either sat or lay down waiting. I started what you lovley ladies had said, staying a comfrotable distance away from him.. not too far, a 3-4 feet! the kitten is tricky though, i didnt realise he was hiding under the table and he jumped out and shoved his face right in the bowl. Deeks just lifted his head out, nudged Callen with his nose and started eating again. No Growls what so ever!!! and he was eating slower.
> 
> Although he then yelped, jumped back from the dish.. coughed and a puppy tooth came out!! could it be this was hurting him and was making him grumpy at food times? he then went back to his bowl and finished the rest off with no problems.
> 
> I think the next item i need to start is teaching OH how to work with Deeks, last night i went up stair on the phone and could hear OH telling Deeks to "Get Down and Off" , or just saying his name :wink: OH was still sat in the same place and complained that Deeks wouldnt get off the sofa.
> 
> hehe i explained that 1) we let him sleep on the sofa so it might be confusing if we then want him to get off espec if no one is on it. 2) calling his name without a command.. well you havent told him what you want, just calling his name could mean anything. 3) He doesnt know what Off or Get down mean yet, so he thinks your just talking a load of gibberish and lastly 4) im betting when he did eventually get off he never got any praise so wouldnt know that he had done what was asked.
> 
> lol this OH training might take some more time than all of Deeks training, after 6 years i still havent managed to train him to put his washing IN the basket and not NEXT to the basket. lol :hand:


Take it from me OH are totally untrainable....LOL

I've been married for 57 years and have had dogs most of my married life. My hubby still hasn't mastered that "sit" and "down" are two different commands and I gave up explaining years ago.


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## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Take it from me OH are totally untrainable....LOL
> 
> I've been married for* 57 years* and have had dogs most of my married life. My hubby still hasn't mastered that "sit" and "down" are two different commands and I gave up explaining years ago.


Blimey! Well done.  I love hearing about marriages that have lasted. It just makes me happy.


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## Staffx

Last nights walk was a good one, a bit of off lead a bit on. He really is getting there with heal off lead, not perfect as if I stop or slow down he walks on for a bit but then he realises and shuffles back. Lead walking is improving only needed a few reminders before he got the idea. We went through the shops and he needed a few more reminders to be close, when he did get ahead it also took him longer to shuffle his butt back as there was too much excitement but with a bit of patients we got there.

I know need to start putting a few more distraction in for the whistle as he is doing well with it. I am having a wee problem though as I only take one ball out with us and his drop isn't great when he gets the ball after recalling he tends not to want to give it back as he knows it is going back in my pocket, so I am planning on taking two balls now so when he recalls he can have a few throws. Hopefully this will give me an opportunity to work on his drop alongside recall.


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Sarah1983

Leam1307 said:


> calling his name without a command.. well you havent told him what you want, just calling his name could mean anything.


I'm forever telling my hubby "tell him what you want him to do then!" coz he'll go "Spen" "Spencer!" "SPENCER!" and just get progressively louder and angrier rather than actually give him a command  Spen does exactly what he's been taught to do when you call his name, looks at you. Hubby seems to think he should know that sometimes it means sit, sometimes come here, sometimes stop whatever it is you're doing etc.


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## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Blimey! Well done.  I love hearing about marriages that have lasted. It just makes me happy.


My mum and dad were married within 4 months of meeting each other. Got told by everyone that it wouldn't last. They've been together something like 35 years now and I bet if they were to split up now there'd still be someone saying "told you it wouldn't last" lol.

Twiggy...57 years is awesome. But you get less for murder :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Dogless - must be quite good to have the training class with Kilo now as good 1 2 1 time. I am sure Rudi is trying it on like Twiggy says  Must be nice having the hubby about as well. Is he sleeping in his 'house'? Can you not just put a gate up instead of his crate if you can't get him to settle again. ETA I meant is Rudi sleeping in his house not your hubby 

Leam -sound like things are going well, I should think his tooth could well have been what was bothering him, bless. Ah! Yes! The OH problem, quite a re-occurring one you will find  I actually wrote down all the commands in a notebook, not that he reads it but it gave him the idea that the difference is important, but I forget as well. If I don't crate Ginge in the car, she likes to jump on the parcel shelf, if I am driving it bothers me, not least the safety aspect if I had to break suddenly or something but the sight of her in the rear view mirror freaks me out a bit, I normally call out 'Get Down' so she lies down  thankfully 'Off' has the desired effect as thats what we use to get her off the sofa or bed etc.

There was much rejoicing in our house last night 

:thumbup:​WE HAVE PAWS :thumbup:

I think she was having trouble getting it as she is so good at being gentle and waiting for her food/treats, what we asking seemed rude, lol.

Now we have created a monster :lol: she is more like a cat pouncing, too cute again. :001_wub: She seems to love doing it which is good as we couldn't stop making her, was the first thing I thought of when I woke up 

We also left out of her crate for an hour last night when we went out. I set the camera up to video her just focused on the front door and the bottom of the stairs so we could see how she is when you leave. She did the wonky headed stare at the door crack for, what, 5 seconds then legged it upstairs, where her fabric crate is (bedroom door shut) 5 mins later she came back down and did what looked like heading for the sofa, got bored watching after 15mins so fast forwarded it, it had recorded about 45 mins of front door , have to try a different position next time


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Don't panic....!! Rudi will be fine in his crate. Clever little pup has already worked out that there are better options, like the sofa....LOL


I suspect so - not panicking yet but need to nip it in the bud. His 'house' in the hall is too isolating I think as he sleeps in the lounge on the floor at my feet during the day, so crate = isolation. Kilo's was in the lounge and he used it all day and slept in it voluntarily when tired as his bed was better than the floor so we are moving it into the lounge. Kilo also tried it on for a night or two so I know they do - but I also think there's something in the isolation theory. He was fine in his crate in the car as he was next to me I think and fine his first two nights here as he was exhausted I think. I'll see!!


----------



## Werehorse

I think you're right Dogless. We had both ours in a crate in the bedroom as pups to get them used to isolation gradually. (Oscar only stopped sleeping in the bedroom when Hugo was old enough to sleep out of the crate so now they sleep downstairs together and I sleep a lot better without a spaniel on my head :lol. I think your plan is good (I know you don't let them upstairs at all so in the bedroom is not an option  ).

He does sound like he might be being a bit of a cheeky monkey too.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I think you're right Dogless. We had both ours in a crate in the bedroom as pups to get them used to isolation gradually. (Oscar only stopped sleeping in the bedroom when Hugo was old enough to sleep out of the crate so now they sleep downstairs together and I sleep a lot better without a spaniel on my head :lol. I think your plan is good (I know you don't let them upstairs at all so in the bedroom is not an option  ).
> 
> He does sound like he might be being a bit of a cheeky monkey too.


I thought Kilo next door would help which is why it was put there but it hasn't. With Kilo the crate was in the lounge and I slept down there for a night - was prepared to do it for a while but it was apparent halfway through the second night that I didn't need to . The crate is being moved and I will sleep downstairs tonight with him.

He is turning out to be massively, massively cheeky .


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## L/C

We've had some troubling news about Ely. I posted about the funny turn that he had a couple of months ago and since then he's had 3 more. We've been to the vet and he's had some investigation done, culminating in an x-ray yesterday. Got a call from the vets this morning and she's looked at it and shown it to a couple of colleagues as well and it seems like he has some brain damage.  She's said the only thing that can have caused it is a strong blow to the head at some point and in her opinion he was probably kicked. 

I've spoken to the behaviourist (he's attached to the vet) and he thinks that Ely's aggression could be linked to it but as long as his behaviour remains consistent with obvious triggers then we don't have too much to worry about. If his aggression gets worse or more random then we will have a lot to think about as it is unlikely to respond to b-mod or training. He did kick off the other day but I was able to identify the trigger so it wasn't random (scent of an in season bitch and another dog chasing Gypsy in play) but it was disappointing as it was Ted the greyhound - he's never kicked off at another pointy before.

Not sure what I think at the moment - we'll just have to monitor him.


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## GingerRogers

Gosh, L/C that is worrying. I hope that you are able to keep it managed, but what a blow. All the work you have been doing and there may be no way of changing things , I guess its better to know though.

I take it he was a rescue, people .

{{hugs}}


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## Sarah1983

Oh poor Ely 

If you're able to identify triggers though at least that's something. And it does seem he's improved a hell of a lot from when you first started. So while the brain damage may well contribute to his problems and you may never fully overcome them it doesn't seem like there's much to be done but carry on as you are for the time being and keep an eye on him. I think you've done a great job with him so far.

Hugs to you.


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## Guest

I know its not much of a consolation, but at least going to the Vets you now know what may be causing it L/C. 




My one almost got run over today. Another dog offlead across the road and Zand LAUNCHED into the road.


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## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Gosh, L/C that is worrying. I hope that you are able to keep it managed, but what a blow. All the work you have been doing and there may be no way of changing things , I guess its better to know though.
> 
> I take it he was a rescue, people .
> 
> {{hugs}}


I never thought he'd be 'fixed' - I'm not expecting him to run and play with other dogs, it's just far too stimulating for him. But I've managed to de-escalate it to the point that he isn't fixated on groups of dogs that are far away. He can also now manage a rude dog approaching if I distract him and block the dog. Only this morning (when he was still feeling a bit woozy and grumpy), he didn't react when Kuma the husky (offlead ) charged up and again he was keyed up due to in-season bitch scent and was being pestered by a westie.

I don't think it's as bad as it seems in my head atm. He's perfectly happy pottering around on his own and chasing his toy when he can go off lead. He doesn't seem to care that much about socialising with strange dogs and he's perfectly happy to play chase with Gypsy. Just need to keep an eye on him and make sure it doesn't deteriorate.

ETA: Yes he's a rescue - ex-racer from the flapping tracks. He had a particularly nasty start and came into the rescue with 5 other dogs from the same 'trainer' who had called the rescue the day before with an ultimatum of pick them up straight away or I'll have them destroyed. He was very under-weight and is covered in scars, some of which seem to be healed burns and two nasty ones across his nose which were caused by a wire racing muzzle. That's why I try to limit the use of the muzzle when training (he has some very bad associations with it that I haven't managed to completely eradicate).


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Blimey! Well done.  I love hearing about marriages that have lasted. It just makes me happy.


That should have read *47 years *- I really don't need to add another ten years to my age...!!


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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> Your teaching your OH to "sit" and lay "down"?? love it! mine is a resource guarder but mainly with the remote control. lol
> 
> hehehe


No that would be much too hard, especially as he never listens to anything I say....


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## Werehorse

Oh poor Ely.  What kind of **** does that to their dogs?   I hope he's going to be stable long-term L/C. Really feel for you. (((Hugs and tea)))


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## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> That should have read *47 years *- I really don't need to add another ten years to my age...!!


:lol: I was thinking you must have married young. 

Still 47 years is just as awesome.


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol: I was thinking you must have married young.
> 
> Still 47 years is just as awesome.


Bless him; he insisted I had a lay in this morning. He got up and let the dogs out and brought me a cup of tea in bed.


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## Dogless

L/C I am genuinely sorry to hear about Ely; you have done a fabulous job with him and should be extremely proud. I hope that he remains stable and don't have the words to describe how I feel about kicking a dog in the head, never mind hard enough to do that sort of damage. Thank goodness he found you.


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## Dogless

Today has been a whirlwind so far, but in a good way. Rudi is finding his feet and then some - he appears to be afraid of nothing .

I walked Kilo with the weimie which was nice and then took Rudi to the local pet shop and outside Tesco for some socialisation. We have done a few short training sessions - responding to his name, recall and sit again. His sit is quite good and when I ask Kilo to sit he copies . He has mastered sitting pretty for his dinner (copied) and is getting a tiny bit better at waiting for his food. Finds keeping his front paws on the floor a job though!! Other than that he has had insane zoomies around and around the garden and played briefly in the house with Kilo. THEN I played footie in the garden with the BW so he had some separate time to play. Rudi has really discovered getting his teeth into things all of a sudden and I'm fairly punctured; he walked up behind Kilo and sunk his gnashers into his back leg - the ROAR was immense :yikes:.

The crate has been moved into the lounge after some furniture rearranging; seems like that's all it took so far (touch wood!). Please forgive our lovely issue carpets, doors etc .



















What he really thinks .


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## Sarah1983

Least your issue carpets aren't beige Dogless, ours were. The ones here are a fairly light green. You'd think they'd install dark coloured carpets as standard since there's a good chance there'll be kids living in the houses at some point 

Glad to hear he's doing well with his basic training and that he and Kilo are getting on okay. Sorry to hear he's discovered he's a land shark though.


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## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Today has been a whirlwind so far, but in a good way. Rudi is finding his feet and then some - he appears to be afraid of nothing .


Oh lord, he sounds like Hugo. :lol:


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## Dogless

Well there you go; Rudi has taken himself off to his crate a few times to sleep or chew a toy .


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## Sarah1983

Well it's been 2 days now of multiple short sessions of loose leash walking using the silky leash/choose to heel combo and so far so good. Still only outside the flat but we're able to move further along the path each time. And this last session was interrupted by the two dogs from upstairs coming back from their walk which of course meant Spen got all silly and lungey. I was able to get him to sit and stay sitting while they passed though  It took quite a firm sit command but he did it and I was able to keep clicking and treating him as he sat there. Then we carried on with our loose leash walking up and down.


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## Twiggy

Oh dear L/C that's not good news in fact very scary. Poor Ely. It sounds as if he was horribly abused.


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## L/C

Thanks everyone for your kind words. He's such a loving dog that it's heart breaking to think of someone treating him like that.

But bastards are bastards.


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## GingerRogers

Keeping to our beach walk as there is plenty of room for everyone adn for us to move away/closer as needed.

Well I forgot it was Friday. Friday=more people as all the holiday home owners arrive. More holiday home owners means more dogs 

However despite having a rather noisy walk some really positive stuff. She kicked off at every dog - a teckel (thanks K&M I now no what they are) (actually that wasn't too bad as she knows it and its owner), 3 cairns, a lab, JRT, 2 greys, a couple of UID, a westie and lovely but unusual brown westie (thats what he looked like, clearly a cross of some kind like a red & white collie coat on a westie ) so yeah busy - but anyway she actually sat and took treats in between barking/squealing, she is finally distractable 

Its very hard to know if stuff is improving as you can't replicate a day but I am certain that 3 weeks ago I could not have got any focus from her at all. She isn't reacting any less and in fact seems to be getting slightly more reactive but she also looks to me as well now instead of ignoring me. Definitely a  day.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Today has been a whirlwind so far, but in a good way. Rudi is finding his feet and then some - he appears to be afraid of nothing .
> 
> I walked Kilo with the weimie which was nice and then took Rudi to the local pet shop and outside Tesco for some socialisation. We have done a few short training sessions - responding to his name, recall and sit again. His sit is quite good and when I ask Kilo to sit he copies . He has mastered sitting pretty for his dinner (copied) and is getting a tiny bit better at waiting for his food. Finds keeping his front paws on the floor a job though!! Other than that he has had insane zoomies around and around the garden and played briefly in the house with Kilo. THEN I played footie in the garden with the BW so he had some separate time to play. *Rudi has really discovered getting his teeth into things all of a sudden and I'm fairly punctured;* he walked up behind Kilo and sunk his gnashers into his back leg - the ROAR was immense :yikes:.
> 
> The crate has been moved into the lounge after some furniture rearranging; seems like that's all it took so far (touch wood!). Please forgive our lovely issue carpets, doors etc .
> 
> What he really thinks .


*Punctured - surely not  *I'm not really laughing my head off honestly (well only a bit)..!!


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well it's been 2 days now of multiple short sessions of loose leash walking using the silky leash/choose to heel combo and so far so good. Still only outside the flat but we're able to move further along the path each time. And this last session was interrupted by the two dogs from upstairs coming back from their walk which of course meant Spen got all silly and lungey. I was able to get him to sit and stay sitting while they passed though  It took quite a firm sit command but he did it and I was able to keep clicking and treating him as he sat there. Then we carried on with our loose leash walking up and down.


That's excellent Sarah - well done you.


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Keeping to our beach walk as there is plenty of room for everyone adn for us to move away/closer as needed.
> 
> Well I forgot it was Friday. Friday=more people as all the holiday home owners arrive. More holiday home owners means more dogs
> 
> However despite having a rather noisy walk some really positive stuff. She kicked off at every dog - a teckel (thanks K&M I now no what they are) (actually that wasn't too bad as she knows it and its owner), 3 cairns, a lab, JRT, 2 greys, a couple of UID, a westie and lovely but unusual brown westie (thats what he looked like, clearly a cross of some kind like a red & white collie coat on a westie ) so yeah busy - but anyway she actually sat and took treats in between barking/squealing, she is finally distractable
> 
> Its very hard to know if stuff is improving as you can't replicate a day but I am certain that 3 weeks ago I could not have got any focus from her at all. She isn't reacting any less and in fact seems to be getting slightly more reactive but she also looks to me as well now instead of ignoring me. Definitely a  day.


Any improvement is still a step forward so well done.


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## Beth17

Kilo Oscar commiserates with you as he often had a puppy hanging off of his back legs. He still does occasionally 
Hope the crate plan works Dogless it sounds like it is and Rudi is such a character 

L/C sorry to hear about Ely how awful  but he's in the right place with you.

Twiggy that's an impressive number!

Well done Ginge!

Sarah I may just try that technique with the little one. Well done to you and Spen.

I am taking Sam back to the shop as I think he's broken  bloody thing is driving me bonkers at the moment. Today he has eaten cat poo on his walk, pulled like a train again. Started to play fight and launch himself at Oscar on the lead as I had to walk them together due to uni. He keeps chowing down on mud and also stole some bread and dismantled a bush. This was all by 11am.

But on the plus side we had a behaviourist in our lecture today who was brilliant and inspired me to go home and retry clicker training with Oscar as it had never, excuse the pun, clicked properly with us. Although I love the idea and am keen to use it it never seemed to work until tonight when he really got into it; I think I am going to find my little torch and attempt to clicker train Sam as well now. :thumbup:

Sam has been good so far this evening.


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## Werehorse

Just had a rather eventful run... nothing major just, erm, busy!... but I'm blogging it in a bit so saving it for that.

Silky leash training (stop sniggering Ginge) went well today. They were both spot on in the house so I moved into the patch of "garden" out the back door. Hugo was bob on moving away from lead pressure and basically just being like "oh I know walking to heel why didn't you say this is what you are after"  :lol: But when he did get distracted and sniffy he seems to get the idea that moving away from the pressure and the distraction is a good plan for dogs. I managed to have him walking up and down on the street out the front of the house and he was really focused and keen and was sticking to me like glue. With him it's just gradually upping the distraction level over time I think. I do feel like I'm being marked by a really good netball player :lol: I can't shake the bugger and get any pressure on the lead. Good thing but I did engineer a tight lead a couple of times to try and get the point across.

Oscar didn't get out of the back garden bit. I found getting a "silk" pressure on the lead difficult - he moves quicker than me and goes from full attention to end of lead in no time so there's too heavy a pressure on the lead for my liking when he gets distracted. BUT towards the end of the session he was slowing up and responding to less pressure as he had started to bounce back to me side before the lead went really tight. So an improvement. And he was much quicker to move into slight pressure when I engineered it. Progress.

Both of them spent most of the time following the lead hand about like they were playing a game of not letting the lead go tight. Which is basically a good thing and I was making sure to click and reward for doing that as well as bouncing off the pressure so they don't start going to the end of the lead to get a treat!

They were both KNACKERED afterwards and have slept all day so it must have been hard thunkings for them. :lol: And now they've had a run each they are flat out. Honestly, it's a good job neither of them are actual working dogs! :lol:

I need to pick up the retrieve training with Hugo again... we had to break it off because of them being ill but I'm going to try and do a bit later. After horses and blogging.


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## moonviolet

L/C so sorry about Ely. poor boy I will never get how anyone can lash out at an animal, so glad he found his way to you and found out humans are capable of love,, patience and compassion as well as the awful things he experienced previously.

Well done GR and Sarah long may the successes continue

How's it going Werehorse? (I almost tpye warehouse everytime, please forgive me if i ever do) Youe boys alwas looks so bright eyed keen and earnest I love the pic on the matching pairs thread. ( oops cross posted)

Oh my word Dogless kevlar puppy proof suit for you  love that pokey outty tongue pic :001_tt1:

Not much to report her, met someone new as we arrived for our evening walk who latched on like a barnacle. She had 2 lovely springers, didn't really get a word in edgewise and when i did they were thing contrary to her world view

All dog issues cannot be solved with a spray collar.... erm look your dog is displaying the behaviour you say his collar fixed 

No the man who told you and your family off for cycling on a foot path was NOT out of order ... you aren't allowed to cycle on footpaths, bridle paths however you can.

I know it wasn't nice but I was in the mood for a walk with the very best companion in the world and not super chatty barnacle woman :blush:

Tink was feeling a little ignored and was attention seeking by jumping onto tree stumps and when, by the end of the walk, about 500 yards to the car park, the tree stump approach hadn't worked she decided to sit until and wait for her lead to be put on and gave me some rather pretty heelwork, bless her :lol: I honestly could have kissed her for her wonderful timing.

ETA: Beth sorry sam is broken :lol: glad the clicker training is helping


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## Dogless

Oh no mv - barnacle women are the worst when you want a peaceful walk :nonod:.

Beth17 I'm reading your posts with fear in my heart as that's all yet to come .

Well done Sarah and Werehorse on the silky leash stuff - even if it still sounds wrong .

GR - well done too; baby steps and all that jazz .

Rudi has been full on this afternoon but now the crate is in here he can go in when he's being obnoxious due to over tiredness (like just now!) and he was asleep in less that two minutes without complaint. He's also taken himself in and out a bit this afternoon and slept in there . Poor little bugger must have been right lonesome before .

mv - Kevlar suit may well be needed; shoes on in the house at present just like with Kilo and hands and arms like a colander - the bad thing is that he can get his jaws around my forearm, hold and shake :huh:. Loads of toys dotted about now on shelves etc to grab and distract. I warned everyone who touched him today that he was like a snapping turtle and he was an angel  . This boy really has character!


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## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I do feel like I'm being marked by a really good netball player :lol: I can't shake the bugger and get any pressure on the lead. Good thing but I did engineer a tight lead a couple of times to try and get the point across.
> 
> Oscar didn't get out of the back garden bit. I found getting a "silk" pressure on the lead difficult - he moves quicker than me and goes from full attention to end of lead in no time so there's too heavy a pressure on the lead for my liking when he gets distracted.


I have both these problems in one dog lol. When Spen's focused getting any sort of pressure is next to impossible but when he does get distracted it's definitely not a "silk" pressure on the leash. I'm just doing the best I can with it both ways.



> Both of them spent most of the time following the lead hand about like they were playing a game of not letting the lead go tight. Which is basically a good thing and I was making sure to click and reward for doing that as well as bouncing off the pressure so they don't start going to the end of the lead to get a treat!


Yeah, Spen plays that game and like you I click and treat for it coz I really don't want a boomerang dog which is what the "be a tree" method got me.

Moonviolet, sorry to hear about your klingon encounter. Always seems to happen when you're least in the mood for it too.

Beth, good luck with the clicker training. I love it and when that lightbulb goes on and they really do understand it it's fantastic 

I dunno about an adrenaline junkie, I seem to have created a training junkie. Every time I move Spens there going "What are we doing? What do you want from me now?" And the more training I do with him the more intense he is with it. In a way it's nice to know he's so eager but when you can't even shift position without your dog leaping up practically quivering with eagerness it's a bit much  I think maybe some work on chilling out while I move around may be necessary. He generally chills out when I'm just sat around so that's one thing.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Beth17 I'm reading your posts with fear in my heart as that's all yet to come .


Yes but you were mad enough to do it twice at least I didn't have to worry about it with Oscar


----------



## Werehorse

Glad you're having a similar experience with it, Sarah - I was worrying that I was doing something wrong. But I think it is probably because we have both used numerous different techniques before and having training junkie dogs so they kind of know where it's going.... I used to hate it when classes got too clever and knew where you were going with something - whole darn lesson plan up in smoke and, erm, "lets do a quiz?" :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

*mv - Kevlar suit may well be needed; shoes on in the house at present just like with Kilo and hands and arms like a colander - the bad thing is that he can get his jaws around my forearm, hold and shake :huh:. Loads of toys dotted about now on shelves etc to grab and distract. I warned everyone who touched him today that he was like a snapping turtle and he was an angel  . This boy really has character!*

Well I hope you tell little Rudi what a clever boy he is and give him a tit-bit when he's got his jaw around your forearm - like wot I do with Holly Bolly....:devil:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *mv - Kevlar suit may well be needed; shoes on in the house at present just like with Kilo and hands and arms like a colander - the bad thing is that he can get his jaws around my forearm, hold and shake :huh:. Loads of toys dotted about now on shelves etc to grab and distract. I warned everyone who touched him today that he was like a snapping turtle and he was an angel  . This boy really has character!*
> 
> Well I hope you tell little Rudi what a clever boy he is and give him a tit-bit when he's got his jaw around your forearm - like wot I do with Holly Bolly....:devil:


But I like my watch strap - not like you who goes through zillions :nonod: :hand:. He is a bright, bright little confident character, offers eye contact and watches every move myself or Kilo makes....


----------



## Beth17

This is probably going to sound daft but I'm having a blank moment. if I'm luring Sam to say turn in a circle with a bit of food when do I add in the hand signal as obviously can't use a voice cue like I would with Oscar.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Glad you're having a similar experience with it, Sarah - I was worrying that I was doing something wrong. But I think it is probably because we have both used numerous different techniques before and having training junkie dogs so they kind of know where it's going.... I used to hate it when classes got too clever and knew where you were going with something - whole darn lesson plan up in smoke and, erm, "lets do a quiz?" :lol:


Lol, I was worrying that I was doing something wrong too. We seemed to be progressing too fast if you know what I mean. The videos were like "day 7 we moved into the garden" and I'm like "session 2 we moved to outside the flat" :lol: In a way it feels like I'm rushing it but I think if I went any slower Spen would have just lost interest since he'd already figured out exactly what I was wanting in that first session and was doing it quickly and eagerly.


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> This is probably going to sound daft but I'm having a blank moment. if I'm luring Sam to say turn in a circle with a bit of food when do I add in the hand signal as obviously can't use a voice cue like I would with Oscar.


I'd just turn the luring motion into the hand signal personally. Fade it down a little gradually so the motion becomes smaller and leave it at that. If he's busy following your hand then I don't think he's going to see any other hand signal is he? (have never trained a deaf dog but most of my hand signals are smaller, less obvious versions of how I lured something)


----------



## chazzie10

L/C said:


> We've had some troubling news about Ely. I posted about the funny turn that he had a couple of months ago and since then he's had 3 more. We've been to the vet and he's had some investigation done, culminating in an x-ray yesterday. Got a call from the vets this morning and she's looked at it and shown it to a couple of colleagues as well and it seems like he has some brain damage.  She's said the only thing that can have caused it is a strong blow to the head at some point and in her opinion he was probably kicked.
> 
> I've spoken to the behaviourist (he's attached to the vet) and he thinks that Ely's aggression could be linked to it but as long as his behaviour remains consistent with obvious triggers then we don't have too much to worry about. If his aggression gets worse or more random then we will have a lot to think about as it is unlikely to respond to b-mod or training. He did kick off the other day but I was able to identify the trigger so it wasn't random (scent of an in season bitch and another dog chasing Gypsy in play) but it was disappointing as it was Ted the greyhound - he's never kicked off at another pointy before.
> 
> Not sure what I think at the moment - we'll just have to monitor him.


Poor Ely...how upsetting for you. What that poor pet must have suffered before he came to you :nonod:
Hope he remains stable- sending hugs to you and Ely x


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Well it's been 2 days now of multiple short sessions of loose leash walking using the silky leash/choose to heel combo and so far so good. Still only outside the flat but we're able to move further along the path each time. And this last session was interrupted by the two dogs from upstairs coming back from their walk which of course meant Spen got all silly and lungey. I was able to get him to sit and stay sitting while they passed though  It took quite a firm sit command but he did it and I was able to keep clicking and treating him as he sat there. Then we carried on with our loose leash walking up and down.


Yay...breakthrough  !!


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Keeping to our beach walk as there is plenty of room for everyone adn for us to move away/closer as needed.
> 
> Well I forgot it was Friday. Friday=more people as all the holiday home owners arrive. More holiday home owners means more dogs
> 
> However despite having a rather noisy walk some really positive stuff. She kicked off at every dog - a teckel (thanks K&M I now no what they are) (actually that wasn't too bad as she knows it and its owner), 3 cairns, a lab, JRT, 2 greys, a couple of UID, a westie and lovely but unusual brown westie (thats what he looked like, clearly a cross of some kind like a red & white collie coat on a westie ) so yeah busy - but anyway she actually sat and took treats in between barking/squealing, she is finally distractable
> 
> Its very hard to know if stuff is improving as you can't replicate a day but I am certain that 3 weeks ago I could not have got any focus from her at all. She isn't reacting any less and in fact seems to be getting slightly more reactive but she also looks to me as well now instead of ignoring me. Definitely a  day.


That sounds like an improvement to me 
The fact that she is sitting, looking at you and listening now means she is getting calmer so she might start thinking clearer when faced with other dogs


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Rudi has been full on this afternoon but now the crate is in here he can go in when he's being obnoxious due to over tiredness (like just now!) and he was asleep in less that two minutes without complaint. He's also taken himself in and out a bit this afternoon and slept in there . Poor little bugger must have been right lonesome before .
> 
> mv - Kevlar suit may well be needed; shoes on in the house at present just like with Kilo and hands and arms like a colander - the bad thing is that he can get his jaws around my forearm, hold and shake :huh:. Loads of toys dotted about now on shelves etc to grab and distract. I warned everyone who touched him today that he was like a snapping turtle and he was an angel  . This boy really has character!


I suppose dogs are the same as kids- they say you never get two the same (that's why I stopped after the one good child hehehe)

The Rudi pics are very cute btw....especially the 'sticking his tongue out' pic. It sounds like that sums up his attitude lmao. You should frame that pic and hang it above his 'house'


----------



## Werehorse

Beth17 said:


> This is probably going to sound daft but I'm having a blank moment. if I'm luring Sam to say turn in a circle with a bit of food when do I add in the hand signal as obviously can't use a voice cue like I would with Oscar.





Sarah1983 said:


> *I'd just turn the luring motion into the hand signal personally. Fade it down a little gradually so the motion becomes smaller and leave it at that. If he's busy following your hand then I don't think he's going to see any other hand signal is he? (have never trained a deaf dog but most of my hand signals are smaller, less obvious versions of how I lured something)*


This ^^^

Or if it is something where the lure doesn't become a handsignal easily (can't think of an example) try a clear handsignal after lure before the (click+) treat progressing to before the lure....

Oh and I meant to say before I've seen a "thumbs up" used as a click for a deaf dog - seemed to work well and bonus is your won't forget to take it anywhere!


----------



## Beth17

Thanks guys makes perfect sense but for some reason not being able to use my voice made my brain go :confused1: because as you say Sarah whilst he's following my hand he's not looking at anything else which is fine for certain signals but not others.

Righto will give that a try tomorrow


----------



## Werehorse

Oscar seems poorly again. I thought he was tired from our run but he was less than 100% enthused about his tea as well (and hasn't had the firmest poops yesterday and today either).

Worried.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Oscar seems poorly again. I thought he was tired from our run but he was less than 100% enthused about his tea as well (and hasn't had the firmest poops yesterday and today either).
> 
> Worried.


Oh no  .


----------



## moonviolet

Poor Oscar


----------



## Beth17

Oh poor boy. Hope he's feeling better tomorrow.


----------



## L/C

Poor Oscar. Hope he perks up soon.


----------



## Werehorse

Not sure what to do other than wait and see though. The way he was eating I thought he might end up throwing up his dinner again but he hasn't so that's good.

I think I'm being a bit over-sensitive but he didn't get off the sofa when I picked up the food bowls and didn't make his mental singing noises while I put kibble in them. And then he ate slowly with lots of looking round.

Maybe he just hasn't quite shaken off the bug and the run has jiggled his guts around or something.  Not sure whether to try starving him tomorrow again and I'm not sure if the training treats I've been using have caused him a problem. Should have stuck to just his kibble this week perhaps.  Damn.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Oscar seems poorly again. I thought he was tired from our run but he was less than 100% enthused about his tea as well (and hasn't had the firmest poops yesterday and today either).
> 
> Worried.


Oh dear. Hope Oscar is feeling better tomorrow.


----------



## Thorne

Been a bit lapse in my posting here, lots to catch up on! Hope Oscar feels better soon.

Had a lovely walk with Scooter this afternoon, kept him onlead a bit longer today and amazingly there was no "I'm so excited unclip me!" pulling  His pulling has been minimum in the last couple of years but I've never had a loose lead from the start before! Never in 10 years! He was brilliant when I let him off too, amazed at how often he voluntarily checks in on me these days so he got lots clicks and treats. Very misty on lower ground, looked like the Hound of the Baskervilles emerging from it. More loose lead walking on the way home, couldn't stop telling him how good he was!

Breeze and I went out when it was nearly dark as it's been non-stop shooting again; nothing much to report but am now convinced she's favoring her harness lately as she's tending to pull into her collar then hold her tail down if there's any pressure there. If she's on her harness she'll release the pressure herself and doesn't look concerned about it. She was her usual lovely, responsive self but stubbornly refused to avoid a massive patch of swampy land that I skirted around and squished right through it 

Very pleased today because one of my favourite Blue Cross dogs has gone to her new home!


----------



## Dogless

Hope Oscar is feeling brighter today Werehorse.

Not a peep out of the Snapping Turtle since moving the crate - fab .


----------



## Dogless

We had a lovely time this morning - I roped hubby into coming to the park with us so that Rudi could have some socialisation and Kilo a socialisation walk of his own without me having to do two journeys. It's a lovely morning this morning and the weather forecast is vile for next few days plus hubby back to work tomorrow so reckoned it was a good day for it!

Kilo and I walked on our own (-3 so too cold for Rudi even in the sling) and he behaved impeccably . Someone had thoughtfully left both wholemeal and white bread amongst the autumn leaves for the birds too .

Hubby took Rudi to see the ducks, saw a coachload of tourists, chatted to a man with a spaniel puppy and then sat in the cafe drinking coffee, keeping warm and watching the world go by .

The BW and Rudi have been interacting really nicely - more and more play type behaviours which are so sweet to see, but don't last long at all yet as Rudi sinks his fangs into Kilo so often!

ETA: ps no accidents since first day here when we had two quick pees....Rudi wakes up and goes straight to the back door, same as when he eats and after he's played. He whined last night just before my alarm was set to go off for the toilet too . Got to love ridgies for that!!


----------



## Werehorse

It's so good that Kilo is not putting up with the fangs! Oscar just took it which didn't help anybody.

Speaking of whom, he's still in bed. Curled up on OH's pillow and being very un-convinced about moving. This is pretty normal for my high-energy working spanner though.  :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

OMG, how many numpties can you meet in a mile??

Oscar got up on the 5th time of asking (I open the bedroom door and go "getting up yet?" and he either stays on the bed and gives me a filthy look or leaps off and runs out the door, yes we let him and Hugo sleep on the bed last night it was awful and nice in equal measure). He seems fine this morning. No Dire Rear but I'm putting him on half rations and avoiding training him today, might go and buy some chicken for treats for him for the next week. And he ate his half ration of breakfast with some enthusiasm so I think yesterday evening was just a blip.  Sorry to have been melodramatic, I'm just such a worrier. 

Anyway. The numpties. Out with Hugo, walk out the gate and the lab from across the road is just coming back from her walk. She's always off lead and has zero recall. She darts across the road, just plain lucky that theres no traffic, says hello to Hugo, runs riot including up to a genteel couple who were worried about her putting muddy paws on them (I heard the woman say) runs riot some more. Well to do couple actually said to the chap with lab "she's out of control, so-and-so" They clearly know him. I wish he'd just stick a lead on her.

OuT with Oscar - running feet behind, smallish child with puppy terrier running up behind us! Rest of family some distance behind.  Oscar clearly worried about being approached at speed by terrier so I take him off to one side, get him in a sit and watching me for biscuits. Small child allowed terrier to leap in Oscar's face and nip at him. I just calmly moved Oscar further away and resisited the temptation to go into Teacher Mode (I really didn't want a confrontation with the incoming family for upsetting their kid and any kind of tension would have just stressed Oscar more). I just pointedly kept Oscar sat to one side, didn't reward the kid with any interaction (he clearly wanted a conversation so I just ignored him) and gave the family a bit of a Look as they went past.

And then on top of that every single dog with barrier frustration in the village seemed to have been allowed out into the gardens to bark and growl at us from behind gates.  Which does really worry the boys, particularly Oscar. I just try and stay cheerful and move on calmly and give them a biscuit for not reacting. I actually rewarded a stressy shake off from Oscar... did I read that on here (moonviolet?) or somewhere else?

It must just be the times I've been out yesterday and today! Usually I see nice people on my walks, if I see anyone at all.


----------



## moonviolet

We bit the bullet and went to a busier place but took the quiter paths. With the miserable weather only the hardiest dog walkers were out. So we only passed the a few hellos then had fun on our own  going over our natural agility course a couple of times. Then a little distance control on big tree stump  

Glad Oscar was enthused by food after his lie-in.

Yes ,i always reward the "shake it off" I've noted that it really does mark a release of tension in Tink 

So pleased you and the little snapping turtle land shark crocopup slept well and had a lovely socialistion session and that Kilo is getting happier having him around


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> We bit the bullet and went to a busier place but took the quiter paths. With the miserable weather only the hardiest dog walkers were out. So we only passed the a few hellos then had fun on our own  going over our natural agility course a couple of times. Then a little distance control on big tree stump
> 
> Glad Oscar was enthused by food after his lie-in.
> 
> Yes ,i always reward the "shake it off" * I've noted that it really does mark a release of tension in Tink *
> 
> So pleased you and the little snapping turtle land shark crocopup slept well and had a lovely socialistion session and that Kilo is getting happier having him around


This x100 in Kilo .

Rudi has started following Kilo about with a look of adoration wherever he goes which is so, so cute - huge paws thundering along after him, ears flapping and little tail wagging. Again until he bites too hard, Kilo yelps and terminates any interaction for a bit .

Your natural agility course always sounds like fun .


----------



## Beth17

So nice to hear your boys are getting on so well Dogless. I can remember when Oscar started to indulge Sam in a bit of play so sweet to watch. I think Kilo is going to be the perfect teacher 

Glad to hear Oscar is feeling better Werehorse shame about the numpties though.

Sounds like a lovely morning mv 

Well it's bloomin horrible down here which is perfect for a nice quiet dogwalk.
Took the boys out separately with Sam going first, didn't think we were going to meet anyone but then we saw someone who I've not seen for a while and her Weimeraner and so Sam could come off lead and had a lovely time chasing around and wrestling. He was literally covered head to toe in mud.
She also mentioned that at home she has a 14week Ridgie so I'm going to be keeping my eyes peeled for him 

Took Oscar up after and he saw his gsd friend so had a run about and then they went so we carried on and had a lovely quiet walk.


----------



## Guest

Saw three dogs on our walk, well timed bonios got him past but then there was the sitting and looking forlornly back at them 

ITS RAINNIIIIING ITS POURRRIIINNGG ALL THE CATS IN MY HOUSE ARE SNORRRINNNGGGG!! 

I love this weather I barely meet any other dogs! 

I said good morning to all three dog walkers while luring with the bonio and I didn't get a single reply! One actually glared. The weather makes people here grumpy I think. I love it.:tongue:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Saw three dogs on our walk, well timed bonios got him past but then there was the sitting and looking forlornly back at them
> 
> ITS RAINNIIIIING ITS POURRRIIINNGG ALL THE CATS IN MY HOUSE ARE SNORRRINNNGGGG!!
> 
> I love this weather I barely meet any other dogs!
> 
> I said good morning to all three dog walkers while luring with the bonio and I didn't get a single reply! One actually glared. The weather makes people here grumpy I think. I love it.:tongue:


Sounds like a fab walk . I have noticed how few people return a greeting - miserable beggars!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> This x100 in Kilo .
> 
> Rudi has started following Kilo about with a look of adoration wherever he goes which is so, so cute - huge paws thundering along after him, ears flapping and little tail wagging. Again until he bites too hard, Kilo yelps and terminates any interaction for a bit .
> 
> Try and get some pics - that sounds really sweet.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> This x100 in Kilo .
> 
> Rudi has started following Kilo about with a look of adoration wherever he goes which is so, so cute - huge paws thundering along after him, ears flapping and little tail wagging. Again until he bites too hard, Kilo yelps and terminates any interaction for a bit .
> 
> Try and get some pics - that sounds really sweet.
> 
> 
> 
> I will; in the garden is best! I'll have to remember carry my camera as I won't leave them unattended to go and get it. The little snapper is very bold - not even wary of the vacuum cleaner!
Click to expand...


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Sounds like a fab walk . I have noticed how few people return a greeting - miserable beggars!


Most of the time they actually look alarmed that you have spoken to them. Hubby has silly days where he goes round tipping his cap to people or some other equally unusual greeting. I find its bird watcher who are the worst I think they think speaking will disturb something, but I wasn't aware smiles were noisy, lol.

Hubby actually came out with me this morning, we went for a new walk around a local country estate, mostly road walking but all lovely quiet lanes. She was very good with the cars, only one van was too much for her. Then we saw a horse heading our way so I dived into the field and hid behind the hedge hoping she wouldn't bark if she couldn't see it (works with dogs ) but no such luck, unfortunately they told hubby it was a very nervous horse and they didn't even know if it would walk past him (should it have been on the roads if it was that bad ?? ), however it coped with the mysterious barking hedge very well. Then final hurdle was a house with two terriers in the garden, for an awful moment I couldn't see a fence but it was ok they were contained .

Oh, why did the chicken cross the road?

To say hello to a terrier!!!!!! Yes bl00dy stupid suicidal thing :001_rolleyes:

So fairly uneventful, the horse was a bit of an annoyance and it worries me as she could really spook them but we don't see them that often and they should be fairly steady to be out on hacks generally, I hope anyway. The dogs, well I have trouble seeing as a really bad event if they are barking at her, be nice if she ignored them but thats asking far too much at the mo, and we had a 'shakedown' after too 

We got back to the car just as the rain came, so well timed.


----------



## Werehorse

GingerRogers said:


> Most of the time they actually look alarmed that you have spoken to them. Hubby has silly days where he goes round tipping his cap to people or some other equally unusual greeting. I find its bird watcher who are the worst I think they think speaking will disturb something, but I wasn't aware smiles were noisy, lol.
> 
> Hubby actually came out with me this morning, we went for a new walk around a local country estate, mostly road walking but all lovely quiet lanes. She was very good with the cars, only one van was too much for her. Then we saw a horse heading our way so I dived into the field and hid behind the hedge hoping she wouldn't bark if she couldn't see it (works with dogs ) but no such luck, unfortunately they told hubby it was a very nervous horse and they didn't even know if it would walk past him* (should it have been on the roads if it was that bad ?? *), however it coped with the mysterious barking hedge very well. Then final hurdle was a house with two terriers in the garden, for an awful moment I couldn't see a fence but it was ok they were contained .
> 
> Oh, why did the chicken cross the road?
> 
> To say hello to a terrier!!!!!! Yes bl00dy stupid suicidal thing :001_rolleyes:
> 
> So fairly uneventful, the horse was a bit of an annoyance and it worries me as she could really spook them but we don't see them that often and *they should be fairly steady to be out on hacks generally, I hope anyway.* The dogs, well I have trouble seeing as a really bad event if they are barking at her, be nice if she ignored them but thats asking far too much at the mo, and we had a 'shakedown' after too
> 
> We got back to the car just as the rain came, so well timed.


I think if all the horse does when it's nervous is stop and refuse to walk past things then there's not an issue with it being out for a hack. Some horses go insane when spooked though and personally I wouldn't want to hack out a horse that I thought might be excessively dangerous, but some people do. I used to hack out a driving pony who was oh so scared of cows but she didn't actually do anything just refused point blank to walk past them - stood still, no faffing about just like "nope - not happening". So although she was nervous she wasn't dangerous. Eventually she would move but I think I was waiting half an hour once. 

A barking dog is a pretty spooky thing for a horse to cope with so even though it might have been worried about passing you it doesn't mean it was over-all nervous to the point of being dangerous. And some people just head out anyway because they haven't got anywhere else to ride. Not me though I'm too easily spooked myself! :lol:

Most horses that hack out are fairly steady because they do hack out and get used to stuff if that makes sense. My mare is always a little bonkers on the first hack out in a while but settles down the more she goes out. She's pretty bombproof although she does attempt to walk on the other side of the road if there is a crisp packet in a hedge.  But when the terrier and the boxers in the village launch themselves at them fench growling and barking she doesn't even flinch. Strange horse.

Speaking of which it must be numpty Saturday because I went for a hack today and had a car driver driving towards us, clearly I had seen him and he had seen me and the road was wide and I wasn't in his way but he decided to bloody beep his horn at us! FFS! What's that all about? I was a bit cross. Poppy pony only jumped a little bit and had a tiny skitter of feet, a less steady horse may have been more upset.

And then she bliddy stood really hard on my foot when I was un-tacking her. She was in a right mood today! 

This message probably makes no sense and if it sounds at all critical it isn't meant to - I've drunk too much coffee and feel really weird.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Speaking of which it must be numpty Saturday because I went for a hack today and had a car driver driving towards us, clearly I had seen him and he had seen me and the road was wide and I wasn't in his way but he decided to bloody beep his horn at us! FFS!
> 
> This message probably makes no sense and if it sounds at all critical it isn't meant to - I've drunk too much coffee and feel really weird.


No not critical at all , it was the girl on the bike with the horse that said it might be a problem, the horse was nervy. I used to ride myself and was always a bit nervous on hacks, as you say who knows what might be scary today . My favourite horse at the last school I went to, funnily enough called Oscar , was a very nervy big lad, we only ever went in the school, even the outdoor ring was too much for him, hacks were unheard of. He was scared of his own pee  but when you got him working he was lovely, I miss him .

When I picked hubby up from work yesterday, he was waiting at the bottom of the farm drive, as he put his stuff in the boot, all his sick lambs in the field opposite spooked and ran right across the field, when I asked him what that was all about he said the lorry that had gone past had blasted his horn. Seriously  Why!!!!!!!


----------



## Guest

just seen a spaniel offlead out on the green. Thought Hmm thats a pretty dog, then there seemed to be no owner. Went out with treats, slip lead and in my slippers and whistled for it. It shot of down the road, went down there as quick as I could in slippers and can't see it anywhere.

Hope its alright I didn't see anyone else about 

But then most people in this townlet will try and catch and return lost dogs so there SHOULD be a happy ending I hope


----------



## Werehorse

ARGH! Numpty Saturday continued as soon as I posted my last post. Got Hugo ready to take for a longer loop round the village prior to going to meet my visiting parents for a pub meal.

Out the door and hadn't even got out of my driveway when I saw the woman with all the dogs walking her three dogs (one of whom had slipped its lead and run up to Hugo yesterday while I was out running) and low and behold the other dog, the one she was telling me yesterday is wearing an electric shock collar on walks - this is as an attempt to stop him being so excited to see other dogs *sigh* - I've lost my train of speak... so the dog with the shock collar pulled the lead out of her hand and bombed over to me and Hugo. Great. I picked up the trailing lead and tried to steer him away from Hugo who wasn't as happy with this one as he had been with the other one yesterday and then there was some handbags, I think from her dog, not Hugo, but I wouldn't put it past Hugo to have briefly told it off for being rude then Hugo tried to hide behind my legs/jump up at me (can we go now please mummy? I'm not comfortable.) So I turned tail and walked back into the house. I assume the lady, who was just stood in the middle of the road holding onto the other two so she couldn't do anything about the dog that had come to me , got her dog back.

The whole time I was just thinking "please don't shock it, please don't shock it" and getting more and more worried that she would and that it would attack Hugo or me because of the shock.  So when I came back inside I promptly sat on the kitchem floor and had a panick attack.

Lovely.

Then had to pull myself together to go for dinner with my parents. Which was fine but after al the numpties today I wasn't really in the best of form.

The boys came with us to the pub and enjoyed themselves, they weren't as quiet and chilled as I would have liked and Hugo ate a whole beer mat which I'm sure will do him the world of good.  But they were good on the whole and got lots and lots of attention and cuddles of strangers and a noisy duck toy from their Granny. :lol: And they met a gorgeous whippet called Jasper who Oscar had a bit of a boy-crush on. :lol:

Argh! What a day!


----------



## Dogless

I can't 'like' your post Werehorse; sounds awful. Hope you are OK now (and Hugo after eating the beer mat ) xx.


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks, I am ok now I think - stress levels coming down slowly. Hugo'll be fine with the beer mat I think. It'll just be paper mache at the other end.  If sticks can pass through (and they can! And string from tug toys. ) a bit of cardboard will be fine.


----------



## Twiggy

Hope everyone's OK tonight? Werehorse - how is Oscar now?

It's been absolutely foul here today, I even had to put the old girl's coats on to let them out to toilet. I dread to think what the state of the paddocks will be in the morning. We don't usually do mud here.

I took Holly and Tremor over to the barn and did some training this afternoon, more to give them a bit of extra exercise as they all got a shorter walk late afternoon in the pouring rain.

It's difficult with the two old bitches as they are determined to come but I worry about them getting too cold and wet, although they have their coats on.

I was really pleased with Holly. She's getting much more animated now and really loves the squeaky tennis balls and she didn't really have a go at my arms much. She is returning at speed now on both recall and retrieve.

Tremor was totally off her trolley, but then she usually is. I've never seen a dog foam at the mouth quite so much as her with pure excitement. She dances on the spot when I'm working Holly.

My sister had a bit of a blip last night, feeling horribly sick and poorly. Fortunately the nurse gave her an anti-sickness injection and she slept for hours and is feeling much better today. The chemo is very strong and intensive and she's having three doses per day. I didn't get much sleep at all last night worrying so I feel pretty shattered now. She has three more doses of chemo tomorrow and then the final (critical) dose on Monday. On Tuesday they will start replacing her stem cells and they've told her she will feel very rough for several days but at least the end is in sight, fingers crossed.


----------



## moonviolet

I liked your post werehorse because it ended in a pub with food and a squeaky duck toy 

If you want someone to come up and get the e collar off the dog and slap it on the woman i'm your girl 

Sorry you had such a rough day  its' nearly over and you are home safe and sound. ((((Hugs))))


----------



## Dogless

Must be lovely for your sister and you to have an end in sight now Twiggy; something to think about through the next rough week. Really wishing you both my very, very best xx.


----------



## Werehorse

Oscar seems to be picking up again now.  He's knackered now but after the busy-ness of the pub I'm not suprised. I think his lie-in this morning helped and he has been quite chipper all day and has been eating fine. Just going to keep him on kibble and smaller amounts for a few more days - I think he has a more sensitive gut than Hugo and he didn't come back onto normal rations (including training treats) as happily as Hugo did after being poorly.

Good news that Holly is getting more enthusiastic! 

I hope your sister continues to cope and that it works for her. However sick she feels those cancer cells will be feeling sicker hopefully!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> ARGH! Numpty Saturday continued as soon as I posted my last post. Got Hugo ready to take for a longer loop round the village prior to going to meet my visiting parents for a pub meal.
> 
> Out the door and hadn't even got out of my driveway when I saw the woman with all the dogs walking her three dogs (one of whom had slipped its lead and run up to Hugo yesterday while I was out running) and low and behold the other dog, the one she was telling me yesterday is wearing an electric shock collar on walks - this is as an attempt to stop him being so excited to see other dogs *sigh* - I've lost my train of speak... so the dog with the shock collar pulled the lead out of her hand and bombed over to me and Hugo. Great. I picked up the trailing lead and tried to steer him away from Hugo who wasn't as happy with this one as he had been with the other one yesterday and then there was some handbags, I think from her dog, not Hugo, but I wouldn't put it past Hugo to have briefly told it off for being rude then Hugo tried to hide behind my legs/jump up at me (can we go now please mummy? I'm not comfortable.) So I turned tail and walked back into the house. I assume the lady, who was just stood in the middle of the road holding onto the other two so she couldn't do anything about the dog that had come to me , got her dog back.
> 
> The whole time I was just thinking "please don't shock it, please don't shock it" and getting more and more worried that she would and that it would attack Hugo or me because of the shock.  So when I came back inside I promptly sat on the kitchem floor and had a panick attack.
> 
> Lovely.
> 
> Then had to pull myself together to go for dinner with my parents. Which was fine but after al the numpties today I wasn't really in the best of form.
> 
> The boys came with us to the pub and enjoyed themselves, they weren't as quiet and chilled as I would have liked and Hugo ate a whole beer mat which I'm sure will do him the world of good.  But they were good on the whole and got lots and lots of attention and cuddles of strangers and a noisy duck toy from their Granny. :lol: And they met a gorgeous whippet called Jasper who Oscar had a bit of a boy-crush on. :lol:
> 
> Argh! What a day!


Ye Gods, you're having a few days of it aren't you?


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> I liked your post werehorse because it ended in a pub with food and a squeaky duck toy
> 
> *If you want someone to come up and get the e collar off the dog and slap it on the woman i'm your girl *
> 
> Sorry you had such a rough day  its' nearly over and you are home safe and sound. ((((Hugs))))


Oh could you? She was telling me it was on him yesterday and I was just screaming inside. I gently suggested using treats instead but it's like banging your head on a wall.



Twiggy said:


> Ye Gods, you're having a few days of it aren't you?


It has been a bit manic!  I do hope things settle down a bit from now!


----------



## Dogless

The boys have been fab for me today. I was worried about Rudi coping with a few things explained here http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...ning-smug-thread-but-pics.html#post1062468059 but needn't have been .

Kilo had an offlead potter with some gentle training for an hour this morning as the last few days have been so full - on and did well; nice and obedient. This afternoon he played with one of his favourite dogs and listened well to me again. He's doing really well with Rudi, I'm very proud of him indeed. I'm making sure they both have enough separate time with me for play and training and some together and, fingers crossed, it is working. The only thing I need to ensure is that Rudi has a little more enforced rest as he gets so hyped like an over tired toddler just as Kilo did. Kilo is learning to cope with a less restful day .

I am really, really enjoying having two dogs (so far ) and am so pleased that we took the plunge. They are both snoring their heads off with Rudi lying against Kilo's belly :001_wub:. I don't want to move to take a photo as they will wake up and move too .

Hope everyone else has had a good day - especially you and your sister Twiggy (as good as can be expected).


----------



## Beth17

It's so lovely that your boys get on especially after the stress and worry of adding a puppy 

We have had a good if wet day here. Sam and I went up to the field and he was able to have a run with a greyhound although he just looked on in awe as it sprinted round for most of it. We practised his recall when no one was around and it was starting to sink in. He also met and played with a bulmastiff type dog that was being walked with a 9 month old Ridgeback :001_wub:
Only trouble was he got a little overwhelmed as they were both bigger than him and the Ridgie shoulder barged him a couple of times, but he soon got his confidence 

Oscars walk was a mixed bag he was doing really well and was running nicely with a female lab and then we carried on up into the woods as she went and met a man we often see with a terrier who is normally on lead but wasn't today. We stood to the side and the terrier came up to Oscar sniffed and then had a go so I think Oscar has had enough of being bullied and so had a growl and barked back and then stood over this terrier growling. I tried to move him along but the terrier was just stood there so the owner had to move him so I could move Oscar


----------



## L/C

Well after all my worrying Ely has been an absolute star over the past couple of days. He was jumped on by Kuma the rude husky (again! Honestly the guy knows Ely's issues and poor Kuma has even been scruffed by him but neither of them seem to learn and he will pelt at full speed at us from the other side of the field!) but Ely told him off with restraint, he had a bit of a run and a bark at another dog today but recalled fabulously and straight away and he met a very nervous little cocker girl and was very gentle with her. They had a potter about sniffing together and he was quite taken with her. :001_wub:

Gypsy on the other hand has been a right little madam. Very reactive to all movement and in addition to the squirrels something (I think lots of mice of some description) is living in the long grass so she is on lots of hunting missions. Her focus is shot.  So I think we need to find somewhere quieter to train.

But we had a lovely walk with a friend with another greyhound today and I was giving her some training tips. All 3 of them had a blast even if Roma and Ely were both on the lead.


----------



## Twiggy

When I took the girls for their walk this morning a lake had appeared on the middle track after yesterday's heavy rain and Holly had a wonderful time splashing through it from every direction and then belting flat out right round the field. Wish I could use the video camera as it was very comical.

I did some cooking this afternoon; sausage rolls for the dog club party, cheese straws (cos hubby loves them) and an apple tarte tatin for pudding tonight. My sister said I was cruel for telling her but nonetheless insisted I photograph the tarte tatin and send it to her via email for inspection. I did say it wasn't remotely up to her standard....LOL

She hasn't lost her sense of humour, in spite of everything. She had to fill in a questionnaire about the meals provided this afternoon. She said she couldn't bring herself to even say it was adequate and in the section where it asked for suggestions on improving the quality she wrote "ask Jamie Oliver"...


----------



## L/C

Twiggy glad to hear your sister is keeping her spirits up. Hospital food is a special kind of torture...


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Twiggy glad to hear your sister is keeping her spirits up. Hospital food is a special kind of torture...


And yet when my sister was in Guys Hospital for a month, requiring major surgery on her horrendously infected and deflated lung, three years ago the food was very good.

I said on the phone tonight that she should have written ask Guys instead of Jamie Oliver.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> When I took the girls for their walk this morning a lake had appeared on the middle track after yesterday's heavy rain and Holly had a wonderful time splashing through it from every direction and then belting flat out right round the field. Wish I could use the video camera as it was very comical.


Spencer wants to know whether Holly has a boyfriend as she sounds like a girl after his own heart 

Glad your sister still has her sense of humour. I'd prefer Gordon Ramsey to Jamie Oliver though, I dunno why but I find him unbearably annoying.

Not done much with Spencer today training wise. Had the department Christmas dinner this afternoon. I detest these bloody social events. I hate getting dressed up, I hate eating with strangers and I can't freaking stand most of the women the blokes my hubby works with have married. I don't fit in at all so spend most of my time just sitting alone which is a lot of fun. I actually considered taking my Kindle but hubby said no. Todays wasn't too bad though. So yeah, yesterday and most of today I've just been working on my impulse control, wouldn't want my Christmas dinner "accidentally" ending up down someones dress would we? :ciappa:


----------



## Werehorse

This is my picture of the day, possibly the month! :lol:

Look at that lead!










I'm not even sure how that happened. It wasn't just a snapshot though, he was walking like that for over half a mile. It just took a be a trees and wham he was doing it!


----------



## Sarah1983

That's awesome Werehorse! Well done! 

So, when I send Spen to you you're going to teach him to retrieve, poop rainbows and walk nicely on leash right?


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> That's awesome Werehorse! Well done!
> 
> So, when I send Spen to you you're going to teach him to retrieve, poop rainbows and walk nicely on leash right?


:lol: I have no idea if he'll ever do it again at this point!

Pooping rainbows though, I can guarentee success.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy, i'm glad your Sis is still able to laugh She sounds like a pretty special person 

Werehorse, thats a very very precious pic   I too would like a rainbow pooping dog but will wait until you bring out your training manual  

Sarah, well done on your impulse control 

L/C and Beth sounds a bit of a mixed bag, hope it's all good tomorrow 

Nothing much to report here. Haven't seen "barnacle Betty" again  Saw a GSD from a comfortable distance this morning, big chane was that TInk actually wasn't interested and wanted to go sniff some peemail on a tree instead :lol::biggrin:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> This is my picture of the day, possibly the month! :lol:
> 
> Look at that lead!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not even sure how that happened. It wasn't just a snapshot though, he was walking like that for over half a mile. It just took a be a trees and wham he was doing it!


BRILLIANT....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

*


Sarah1983 said:



Spencer wants to know whether Holly has a boyfriend as she sounds like a girl after his own heart

Click to expand...

*


Sarah1983 said:


> Yes Holly has lots of boyfriends, a young collie and a Munsterlander being two of her favourites, but I'm quite sure Spen would be added to the list. She's a terrible flirt.


----------



## Dogless

I love that photo Werehorse and love Miss Tinks' relaxed attitude when the GSD was spotted.

Busy morning here already; did some work with both dogs on 'turns' which went well, then walked Kilo and did some impulse control play and went past all the school kids at the bus stops on the way home as we hadn't done that for a while. After that I walked to the post office with Rudi in his sling to post a letter and then a bit of training with him; his sit is going really well. I'm going to walk him to a gift shop my friend works in when it opens later and perhaps the swimming pool this afternoon as I'm going for a swim and I'm sure they'll probably ask for me to bring him in for them to see later :crazy:.


----------



## Werehorse

How are you feeling Dogless? Any puppy-blues yet? You don't seem it, you seem well happy! :lol:

My two both knocked me flat for a few weeks but I think it was a the sleep deprevation combined with the constant vigilance required during the day and the being bitten. Neither of mine slept through for what seemed like ages. Little puppies = little bladders though!

I'd do it all again in a second though, even with the feeling tired and miserable bit.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> How are you feeling Dogless? Any puppy-blues yet? You don't seem it, you seem well happy! :lol:
> 
> My two both knocked me flat for a few weeks but I think it was a the sleep deprevation combined with the constant vigilance required during the day and the being bitten. Neither of mine slept through for what seemed like ages. Little puppies = little bladders though!
> 
> I'd do it all again in a second though, even with the feeling tired and miserable bit.


I'm utterly knackered and can't say that being bitten is the best; I'll need a blood transfusion if it carries on much longer :skep:. That said I'm loving it so far, Kilo is being brilliant and I do think that they'll be friends - if Rudi would stop biting Kilo's chops, ears, tail and back legs it would help his quest to befriend the big fella . I have to make sure I take Kilo's collar off as soon as he's in the door as Rudi likes the noise of the chain and tags and gets in under Kilo to try and play with them :001_rolleyes:. They are both asleep on the sofa together now though .


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> How are you feeling Dogless? Any puppy-blues yet? You don't seem it, you seem well happy! :lol:
> 
> My two both knocked me flat for a few weeks but I think it was a the sleep deprevation combined with the constant vigilance required during the day and the being bitten. Neither of mine slept through for what seemed like ages. Little puppies = little bladders though!
> 
> I'd do it all again in a second though, even with the feeling tired and miserable bit.


Yes I think you forget just how much work puppies are.

I've had some right terrors that just didn't seem to ever sleep, chewed everything and took ages to house train. Still that's what you get with hyper collies.

I have to say that Holly, in comparison to most, was really easy.


----------



## GingerRogers

Loving the Rudi updates  still don't think I would ever want a puppy though (not that grown dogs aren't as much trouble)

Awesome pic werehorse - is he showing any continuation of the nice walking and will he teach his brother?

Well done Tink 

Mixed report here had to finish some work off yesterday morning so, much to someones disgust, we didn't brave the gales till lunchtime - what a great time to walk on a Sunday  we saw no dogs at all. We had some time on the long line and she recalled every time  needless to say she was a bit nutty as the weather was blowing seagulls about. Went out again later on just round the housing estate in the dark and she/I seemed to be getting the hang of the walking on harness technique.

Peeing down this morning so we togged up for a bumble round the turnip field thinking no other buggers would be about. No such luck as a black lab approached we about turned and stomped off, rain had stopped so soggy teddy dog was out by now. So we had a bark off there but by the time I had past their garden she was calm enough to rewards for quiet  then I turn round and the ruddy lab is there right behind us and followed us round the corner  I know its owner was way back, Grrr. We decided to duck though the estate rather than carry on down the footpath as I figured it was less likely to follow through there. The little ninja walked like an angel even though there were scary wet tired cars 

Going back for another session with the behaviorist tomorrow, for my sake really, I had a bit of a meltdown a couple of days after we saw her the first time, I would have left it a few more weeks but she told me she wasn't going to be working over December. So I felt I would rather have another session now. On that front I have to say she seems to be becoming a bit more reactive (unless its just that a) I am more aware b) I may be tensing up sooner because of that, feel much more relaxed though to be honest) and at longer distances BUT she is definitely calming down quicker and showing more focus on me even without asking. We will see what tomorrow brings, she might even use a real dog this time


----------



## Dogless

Hope it all goes well with the behaviourist GR; it does still sound as if you're progressing in terms of focus.


----------



## Guest

I am covered in mud (guess who fell over in the field?) Zand is covered in mud, (Guess who else slid over in the field?). 

A lady came in with a lab who seemed very game to play with Zander and I asked if I could let mine off for a play, she nodded and went back to her phone  and I let Zand off. 

They had massive zoomies (with this ever so slightly thick built lab trying OH SO HARD to keep up with mine) when the lady had walked over to the other gate, zander came back to me, WHEN THERE WAS ANOTHER DOG. 

We did however get followed home by this little old man and his terrier who when I was behind was walking realllllllly slowly, hence why I passed, yet when I was ahead he was ZOOMING up behind me all the way back.  That went down well with the donkey eared one. 

Oh and some old lady gave him a pink treat on the walk, she did ask of course and she acoording to my dog is now a friend for life!!

Hope you are all well, haven't had time to read through yet and I have to go to work in about an hour annd shan't be back till 8.


----------



## L/C

Ginge - hope the behaviourist visit goes well.

Werehorse - great photo, how is the other member of the MCC doing with LLW? Pointless aside whenever I read MCC I think of Sons of Anarchy and imagine the as tiny bikers! 

MV - glad to hear of Tink and the GSD.

Dogless - Rudi seems like a little star apart from the croco puppy act!

LO - sounds like a good walk (except for the mud) so well done to you and Donkey Boy!

I think that's everyone!

It is official - Gypsy has completely lost all of her focus. I spent ten minutes today with her on lead just trying to get her to look at me when I said her name.  Her whole performance on the walk was like I'd never bothered training her at all. So we are going back to basics completely and I have dug the long line out of the cupboard. We're seeing our trainer on sat so hopefully he has some tips for me.

Ely continues to be a star and was not phased at all today by Bruno the westie's flying leap at his head!


----------



## Dogless

Well done Zander .

L/C - hope that Gypsy regains her focus again soon.

I took Rudi to see my friend in the gift shop, then went swimming and the Dynamic Duo have been playing ever since - on enforced rest now as Rudi was getting over the top and earned a big telling off .


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Beth17

Sounds like everyone is having a really good day I think we'll join you 

Took the boys up again separately it takes a huge chunk out of the day but I enjoy it and it's less stressful. Sam was able to go off lead and we worked on his recall which was pretty fab; granted there were no distractions but he was a good boy even if he hasn't gained control of his legs whilst running yet  

We then bumped into a dog walker/behaviorist we know and so he was off lead having a mooch about and occasional play with about 7 dogs, he was shattered when he got in.

Only saw one person when out with Oscar and he really had a spring in his step today and so we went down through the woods and around the field. The cheeky boy didn't want to go home and so was waiting for me to go near and then dancing out of reach  He's usually good about going on the lead so let him do it this time as it's lovely to see him so bouncy again. I think the tablets are finally kicking in :thumbup:

The only downside today was that Sam left a thorny twig lying around and I stood on it  I now have a hole in my foot :001_rolleyes:

ETA: sounds like Gypsy is taking some tips off of the naughty teenagers on here!


----------



## Werehorse

L/C said:


> Werehorse - great photo, how is the other member of the MCC doing with LLW? Pointless aside whenever I read MCC I think of Sons of Anarchy and imagine the as tiny bikers!


I had to Google - but :lol:. 

Hugo was basically a boomerang dog using the be a tree tactic.  He seems to enjoy the action of bouncing himself back into heel so it's like hitting the end of the lead is rewarded even if I don't use food. He can and does walk nicely if I ask for heel and have food in higher distraction areas but after a bit he gets bored of it and starts bouncing off again and I don't want to nag and de-value commands by setting him up to fail if that makes sense. I just want him to relax and poddle and sniff without LAUNCHING himself at the next thing that he finds exciting!

So how does one go about teaching impulse control? :lol:


----------



## Beth17

I have just found the perfect book for all the naughty teenage doggies out there :lol:

Adolescent Dog Survival Guide - Dogwise Solutions eBook: Sarah Whitehead: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store


----------



## Werehorse

Beth - ouch for thorny twig in foot.  But glad your boys have been good. 

Hugo has redeemed himself for walking like a lunatic by being awesome at retrievies despite over a week's (?) break since the last time.

Video incoming. Right way up this time.


----------



## Werehorse

Starting to look like a proper dog doing proper stuff...

Hugo Retrieve step 3 - YouTube


----------



## GingerRogers

Wow Hugo such gusto and determination even those bent back ears will not distract him 

Beth sounds like your two are giving you a break sam from the naughties and oscar from the fretting, must be nice to see him having fun. may it long continue.

leam seems Deeks is settling in nicely.

LO - I have a wicked cartoon image of you two skidding about in the mud 

Sorry Gypsy has lost her focus L/C  hopefully it wont take long for her to remember whos boss.

I am rather pleased with this afternoon, back to our spacious beach, first encounter was with an off lead JRT but they ducked behind the beach houses, then you heard them shouting their dog, I am pretty sure his name was Damien  and they clearly didn't have control of him next to the road in a rabbit warren :nonod: the ninja kicked off a bit but nothing mental and if they hadn't been shouting him I think she would have been less bothered.

Then there was a spaniel walking away from us ahead, she was interested but no squealing 

But best of all when we turned to go back along the beach we actually stood at the top of the dunes and watched a hairy lurchery thing for a while without any noise. Then it moved very quickly and all control went out the window  but I didn't really mind I was so impressed with her  its amazing how quickly changes can come (not that I am getting complacent) I reckon it has a lot to do with my confidence and being more relaxed as well as the little one being a superstar in disguise :001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Starting to look like a proper dog doing proper stuff...
> 
> Hugo Retrieve step 3 - YouTube


Right that's it don't ever ask me for any more tips. Hugo's now doing retrieve much better than Holly....


----------



## Dogless

GR - what a good day .

Werehorse - fancy coming to train a pup? :skep:.

We have just got back from Kilo's second walk; ended up doing it late as he was so tired from The Rudi Experience that I let him sleep! We just did a lead walk on the streets and round the sports pitch but it was still pleasant and the BW behaved nicely for me .


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Right that's it don't ever ask me for any more tips. Hugo's now doing retrieve much better than Holly....


  Sorry! You've created a monster!  It's not me though, it's Hugo - he cottons on so quickly!

I don't know what the next step is though....


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Starting to look like a proper dog doing proper stuff...
> 
> Hugo Retrieve step 3 - YouTube


That is b....dy impressive and exactly what I mean about quick and clever dogs, which Holly will never be (we're still leaning against a wall!!)....LOL

I'm spectating on a course tomorrow and taking Holly for socialisation. The handlers are all very, very experienced and there will be some highly trained dogs attending. If they ask me to do anything with Holly Bolly, I shall flatly refuse, well unless they all want a laugh.

Mind you I've got to find the venue first - it's certainly stuck out in the wilds somewhere.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That is b....dy impressive and exactly what I mean about quick and clever dogs, which Holly will never be (we're still leaning against a wall!!)....LOL
> 
> I'm spectating on a course tomorrow and taking Holly for socialisation. The handlers are all very, very experienced and there will be some highly trained dogs attending. If they ask me to do anything with Holly Bolly, I shall flatly refuse, well unless they all want a laugh.
> 
> *Mind you I've got to find the venue first - it's certainly stuck out in the wilds somewhere.*


Maybe map reading's Holly's hidden talent? .


----------



## chazzie10

Sounds like everyone's having good progress! 
Too many people, dogs and things happening for me to remember, to try and comment on them all 
Not much to report here, which is a good thing in Charlie Land! He is being really well behaved in the house and out which is a blessing as somehow I've managed to trap a nerve in my back! 
He's still walking like a lamb on a nice loose lead, enjoying his 3rd week of raw food, not needing his anti allergy meds anymore (touch wood) and he's lost a good amount of weight by the looks of things.
I found a local butcher today that can provide me with some meaty bones/ pet mince so I'm very pleased about that 
I was at [email protected] today and picked up 3 Peaks harness that was on sale and tried it on him there for his walk. He was a bit confused for a minute or two but behaved very well and was relaxed and happy. Thought it would be good for forest walks to give me a bit more confidence controlling him.
Have to say, he's a lovely boy in his matching red collar and harness :001_rolleyes: 
See, told you, not much


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Sounds like everyone's having good progress!
> Too many people, dogs and things happening for me to remember, to try and comment on them all
> Not much to report here, which is a good thing in Charlie Land! He is being really well behaved in the house and out which is a blessing as somehow I've managed to trap a nerve in my back!
> He's still walking like a lamb on a nice loose lead, enjoying his 3rd week of raw food, not needing his anti allergy meds anymore (touch wood) and he's lost a good amount of weight by the looks of things.
> I found a local butcher today that can provide me with some meaty bones/ pet mince so I'm very pleased about that
> I was at [email protected] today and picked up 3 Peaks harness that was on sale and tried it on him there for his walk. He was a bit confused for a minute or two but behaved very well and was relaxed and happy. Thought it would be good for forest walks to give me a bit more confidence controlling him.
> *Have to say, he's a lovely boy in his matching red collar and harness *:001_rolleyes:
> See, told you, not much


And the photos?????? .


----------



## Beth17

Well done Ginger sounds like really positive steps 

Werehorse that's really impressive my boys are being posted to you first thing :biggrin:

Dogless love the new signature. Oscar was shattered as well the first few days, It's not easy babysitting puppies 

Chazzie nice to hear things are calm and normal.


----------



## GingerRogers

My friend has a lovely big chunky black lab boy with a red collar and harness it does look smart deffo need pics to say whether Charliie looks as good 

Thanks guys, I am really chuffed just seeing some improvement/change is great (but trying not to get carried away), trouble is I am now all emotional cos she's doing so WELL


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> And the photos?????? .


Erm....he's a black Lab....on a dark night....you would only see eyes, tongue and teeth lmao 
He's sound asleep or Id put his harness back on and take a pic in the house!
Let sleeping dogs lie and all that


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> My friend has a lovely big chunky black lab boy with a red collar and harness it does look smart deffo need pics to say whether Charliie looks as good


Yeah he looks good in red........and it matches my eyes :001_rolleyes:


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Well done Ginger sounds like really positive steps
> 
> *Werehorse that's really impressive my boys are being posted to you first thing :biggrin:*
> 
> Dogless love the new signature. Oscar was shattered as well the first few days, It's not easy babysitting puppies
> 
> Chazzie nice to hear things are calm and normal.


Yes I've already packed Holly's bag and bought her train ticket..!!


----------



## Twiggy

I thought some of you might like to see this email from my sister today:

*Well that's it, hopefully forever, just had my final chemo. Still waiting to feel very ill, but not getting too cocky yet. My stem cells go back tomorrow afternoon. Yippee.*

She had two consultants to see her later and the French one said he didn't know what to say except that it's all going extremely well. Providing there are no setbacks, and infection is now a huge concern, she can go home in two weeks time hopefully.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I thought some of you might like to see this email from my sister today:
> 
> *Well that's it, hopefully forever, just had my final chemo. Still waiting to feel very ill, but not getting too cocky yet. My stem cells go back tomorrow afternoon. Yippee.*
> 
> She had two consultants to see her later and the French one said he didn't know what to say except that it's all going extremely well. Providing there are no setbacks, and infection is now a huge concern, she can go home in two weeks time hopefully.


Brilliant .


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> I thought some of you might like to see this email from my sister today:
> 
> *Well that's it, hopefully forever, just had my final chemo. Still waiting to feel very ill, but not getting too cocky yet. My stem cells go back tomorrow afternoon. Yippee.*
> 
> She had two consultants to see her later and the French one said he didn't know what to say except that it's all going extremely well. Providing there are no setbacks, and infection is now a huge concern, she can go home in two weeks time hopefully.


Thats awesome news, what a relief. She must be very careful of infection, a friend of mine was recovering after a successful treatment course and ended up back in hospital after getting a splinter, she was mortified, she went through all the chemo really healthy only to be thwarted by her own front door  she recovered just fine though


----------



## Beth17

Great news Twiggy hears hoping the next two weeks go quickly and smoothly


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Thats awesome news, what a relief. She must be very careful of infection, a friend of mine was recovering after a successful treatment course and ended up back in hospital after getting a splinter, she was mortified, she went through all the chemo really healthy *only to be thwarted by her own front door*  she recovered just fine though


:lol::lol::lol:.

I don't think all that she went through is funny but the part in bold did make me laugh!!


----------



## Guest

Great news Twiggy!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> :lol::lol::lol:.
> 
> I don't think all that she went through is funny but the part in bold did make me laugh!!


Its ok it made her laugh too :biggrin:


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> I thought some of you might like to see this email from my sister today:
> 
> *Well that's it, hopefully forever, just had my final chemo. Still waiting to feel very ill, but not getting too cocky yet. My stem cells go back tomorrow afternoon. Yippee.*
> 
> She had two consultants to see her later and the French one said he didn't know what to say except that it's all going extremely well. Providing there are no setbacks, and infection is now a huge concern, she can go home in two weeks time hopefully.


That's great Twiggy. She must be so relieved to have Chemo over and done with. I believe it's very harsh and my elderly aunt has decided that she cant tolerate it at all and is now refusing treatment, saying she feels worse getting it than she felt before :frown5: Hope the stem cell procedure goes well tomorrow xx


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Thats awesome news, what a relief. She must be very careful of infection, a friend of mine was recovering after a successful treatment course and ended up back in hospital after getting a splinter, she was mortified, she went through all the chemo really healthy only to be thwarted by her own front door  she recovered just fine though


Now that the chemo has totally killed off her bone marrow my sister has no immunity to any type of infection whatsoever, which is why Kings Hospital do their very best to keep that particular ward as sterile as possible.

When I visited last Thursday, you have to remove your coat, scrub your hands and then put on a plastic pinafore and gloves.

Kings won't let her out until her white blood cell count has come back up to a certain level.


----------



## chazzie10

Okay, I woke him up just for a pic but he wasn't particularly happy and took a lot of coaxing to get him to even lift his head off the floor poor, tired boy 

See, even in the house it's hard to make out the features of The Hairy One cos he's so dark....not a great pic ( nice focus though  ) but he's back sleeping again...more tomorrow!!


----------



## GingerRogers

chazzie10 said:


> Okay, I woke him up just for a pic but he wasn't particularly happy and took a lot of coaxing to get him to even lift his head off the floor poor, tired boy
> 
> See, even in the house it's hard to make out the features of The Hairy One cos he's so dark....not a great pic ( nice focus though  ) but he's back sleeping again...more tomorrow!!


He's just shiny eyes and a bit of nostril, .

Nice red harness though, floozy!!


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> okay, i woke him up just for a pic but he wasn't particularly happy and took a lot of coaxing to get him to even lift his head off the floor poor, tired boy :d
> 
> see, even in the house it's hard to make out the features of the hairy one cos he's so dark....not a great pic ( nice focus though  ) but he's back sleeping again...more tomorrow!!


I WANT YOUR DOG!

He's so floofy looking.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Okay, I woke him up just for a pic but he wasn't particularly happy and took a lot of coaxing to get him to even lift his head off the floor poor, tired boy
> 
> See, even in the house it's hard to make out the features of The Hairy One cos he's so dark....not a great pic ( nice focus though  ) but he's back sleeping again...more tomorrow!!


That a super photo - those eyes are to die for....!!


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> He's just shiny eyes and a bit of nostril, .
> 
> Nice red harness though, floozy!!


Floozy? Me or the dog? lol ( I wish my life was that much fun!!!)


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> That a super photo - those eyes are to die for....!!


Everyone comments on his eyes- they ARE the most beautiful shade of brown and there's an intelligence in them...but then I'm biased lol


----------



## Werehorse

And where am I supposed to put all these dogs that I'm being sent? My house is pretty much what you see in the video. :lol: There's no room!!

Glad your sister is doing ok Twiggy.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> I WANT YOUR DOG!
> 
> He's so floofy looking.


He's a hairy beast aint he? Votes on him being a flat coated retriever more than a Lab??? Or a bit of something else in him- like donkey?


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> He's a hairy beast aint he? Votes on him being a flat coated retriever more than a Lab??? Or a bit of something else in him- like donkey?


Maybe he's a flat coated labrador?? 

When people ask what mines crossed with I automatically go "COLLIE".

It's like a reflex


----------



## chazzie10

LO- arent labs ALL meant to be flat coated though? He's just a bit rough round the edges


----------



## Dogless

What a lovely soft expression Chaz has. Gorgeous!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> What a lovely soft expression Chaz has. Gorgeous!


Hasnt he  See that's the Chaz that I know and love....he's such a big, soft dote, he just cant control himself and all the love he has to give to doggie friends :001_rolleyes:


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> LO- arent labs ALL meant to be flat coated though? He's just a bit rough round the edges


Oh.

WELL YOU SEE.

THE ANSWER IS....

Pfft I have no clue, All I know is your dog is a complete cutie!!


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear - Kings Hospital WiFi have just blocked my sister's link to Obedience UK on Facebook as being pornographic....!!

Perhaps they've seen 'Fifty Shades of Grey' in her room....LOL


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh.
> 
> WELL YOU SEE.
> 
> THE ANSWER IS....
> 
> Pfft I have no clue, All I know is your dog is a complete cutie!!


:001_rolleyes: :001_rolleyes: :biggrin:


----------



## Dogless

Today we are working on....settling. I am pleased to see the boys playing but they want to do this:









non stop!! I have to stop them and bring them in as both are exhausted and crate Rudi as he's so hyped.

Kilo was trying to pull this morning on our walk to the fields so we went the long way and worked on walking nicely, lots of sits, downs etc until he was calm and listening properly. I then gave him a few minutes on the fields to potter, zoom etc then we did some play but with loads of 'work' thrown in to earn the toy. He walked back nicely. I know it's because he was so hyped from all the play.

I took Rudi out for a few hours after Kilo's walk round a retail park thing, into shops, along the road, through some car parks etc and he was a little star. I got loads of unwanted advice as you do, especially regarding the cruelty of crates .

Apart from all the play I have done a few short training sessions alone with Rudi and one with them together. They have also both had separate plays with me.

I am exhausted :Yawn::Yawn:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Aww, sounds like they're doing great Dogless! I can sympathise with the enforced rest though, Spen and Khan had to be made to lie down and just chill out. Ours was only for a week though lol.

Twiggy, glad your sister is doing well. Fingers crossed she's out very soon!

Werehorse, you were sending one of yours to me in exchange for Spencer so that's one less dog to worry about 

Still working on loose leash walking outside the flat. I think we're ready to move on a bit now though as he's offering it regularly. He's even started offering it on the harness and long line from time to time. Not looking forward to actually moving onto the street and training, I have a feeling he's going to find it very difficult. I really should do more training on the streets.


----------



## Beth17

Oh well done to your boys Dogless. I'm sure they'll learn to chill out when the novelty wears off 
Gotta love advice from the 'experts' 

Well done Sarah and Spen sounds like the lead work is going great. I have to admit I've been slacking on this with Sam a bit 

I have had another two lovely walks with the boys today. Didn't meet many people whilst out with Sam although bumped into one lady one a wooded path with two older labs so we moved into the side and told her he was fine but bouncy. She said hello to Sam and he tried to jump up but failed as he was on lead though so was swiftly pulled back and I apologised saying he's only 8 months and still learning his manners. She then said 'at least he didn't try to bite me'  and carried on asking if he was a bulldog I said no he's pure boxer. I think his colour confuses people.

It's funny how that was said about him but I have never had anything said about Oscar. My poor little wriggly pupster.

Oscars walk was great and he even tried to initiate play with a couple of dogs but then wasn't sure whether to play with them or his toy


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Oh well done to your boys Dogless. I'm sure they'll learn to chill out when the novelty wears off
> Gotta love advice from the 'experts'
> 
> Well down Sarah and Spen sounds like the lead work is going great. I have to admit I've been slacking on this with Sam a bit
> 
> I have had another two lovely walks with the boys today. Didn't meet many people whilst out with Sam although bumped into one lady one a wooded path with two older labs so we moved into the side and told her he was fine but bouncy. She said hello to Sam and he tried to jump up but failed as he was on lead though so was swiftly pulled back and I apologised saying he's only 8 months and still learning his manners. She then said 'at least he didn't try to bite me'  and carried on asking if he was a bulldog I said no he's pure boxer. I think his colour confuses people.
> 
> It's funny how that was said about him but I have never had anything said about Oscar. My poor little wriggly pupster.
> 
> Oscars walk was great and he *even tried to initiate play with a couple of dogs but then wasn't sure whether to play with them or his toy*


I'm pleased your walks have been on the up - Kilo does the part in bold . Asks dogs to play then ignores them and wants his toy!

There were loads of experts out today!! The staff at the new PAH near us a few days ago were horrendous (one in particular) too - still wondering whether or not to write a letter to PAH.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> I'm pleased your walks have been on the up - Kilo does the part in bold . Asks dogs to play then ignores them and wants his toy!
> 
> There were loads of experts out today!! The staff at the new PAH near us a few days ago were horrendous (one in particular) too - still wondering whether or not to write a letter to PAH.


He does love that toy as he only gets it on walks and I think he's worried about it being nicked 

If the advice was that bad then it might well be worth writing a letter, even just to stop it playing on your mind; you never know they may listen and even if they don't at least you know you've done your best. 
Some advice they give to people that go there in good faith thinking they are the expects is shocking.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> He does love that toy as he only gets it on walks and I think he's worried about it being nicked
> 
> If the advice was that bad then it might well be worth writing a letter, even just to stop it playing on your mind; you never know they may listen and even if they don't at least you know you've done your best.
> Some advice they give to people that go there in good faith thinking they are the expects is shocking.


The main issue was a young member of staff coming to stroke Rudi - fine, obviously, we were there for socialisation. He started to waggle his fingers so I told him to just be careful of his cuffs as Rudi's still nipping (to put it mildly ). We spoke for a while but essentially he told me to be very careful and told me that he'd grow up to be aggressive if he bit as a puppy. I said I wasn't worried as my older dog of the same breed was exactly the same. He asked how he was now and whether I took him out muzzled - said, no, he was fine and he just told me I needed to be really careful. I haven't conveyed it well here but he was basically saying that Rudi would grow up to be dangerous and talking muzzles etc - I'd hate him to say it to the wrong person who may know no better!


----------



## Beth17

Yes that certainly isn't good advice just a very misguided opinion. As you say if the wrong person is told similar (and lets face it most pups bite to some extent) it could lead to some bad consequences for a poor pup.

Maybe if you feel it doesn't quite warrant a letter especially as it was a younger member of staff maybe pop into store and have a quiet word with the manager explaining your concerns.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> The main issue was a young member of staff coming to stroke Rudi - fine, obviously, we were there for socialisation. He started to waggle his fingers so I told him to just be careful of his cuffs as Rudi's still nipping (to put it mildly ). We spoke for a while but essentially he told me to be very careful and told me that he'd grow up to be aggressive if he bit as a puppy. I said I wasn't worried as my older dog of the same breed was exactly the same. He asked how he was now and whether I took him out muzzled - said, no, he was fine and he just told me I needed to be really careful. I haven't conveyed it well here but he was basically saying that Rudi would grow up to be dangerous and talking muzzles etc - I'd hate him to say it to the wrong person who may know no better!


I remember my cousin being seriously worried after being told the same thing about her 8 week old puppy. Only it was a vet told her  Where do people get this sh*t from anyway?


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Yes that certainly isn't good advice just a very misguided opinion. As you say if the wrong person is told similar (and lets face it most pups bite to some extent) it could lead to some bad consequences for a poor pup.
> 
> Maybe if you feel it doesn't quite warrant a letter especially as it was a younger member of staff maybe pop into store and have a quiet word with the manager explaining your concerns.


Maybe; it was said in a very over the top serious tone and OMG!!!! YOU HAVE A PROBLEM type way. Doesn't help that I have two cuts on my face from where I bent down and he jumped up and bit it . Kilo would say that's mild compared to where Rudi attached himself to today - let's just say he's lucky he's peeing fine :sosp:.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I remember my cousin being seriously worried after being told the same thing about her 8 week old puppy. Only it was a vet told her  Where do people get this sh*t from anyway?


Worries me that someone may give up a perfectly normal pup because they then worry that it won't be safe around their kids etc. At least it's winter; my forearms look like I'm a dedicated self - harmer! Kilo was the same, ridgies are tenacious little critters :devil:.


----------



## Beth17

Ouch Kilo :crying:

Sarah slightly off topic but I seem to remember you saying a while back on another thread that you do tapestry/cross stitch and you posted a website. Do you know which one it was? as i'm looking at pressies for my mum  Apologies if it wasn't you 

ETA: just realised I said slightly off topic who am I kidding it's completely off topic!


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Worries me that someone may give up a perfectly normal pup because they then worry that it won't be safe around their kids etc. At least it's winter; my forearms look like I'm a dedicated self - harmer! Kilo was the same, ridgies are tenacious little critters :devil:.


The more I hear about ridgies the more I love them :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> The more I hear about ridgies the more I love them :001_wub:


Does this help.....


----------



## Beth17

Oh he is just lovely. Definitely cuter than Sam was. Just


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Does this help.....


Omg where's the insulin. thats just too sweet.

Been in therapy corner for a day or so. Had a bit of " he's a rescue" setback and i'm getting tired of ranting, but if i may.... i know it's wonderful to get dogs out of kennels but are they really rescued if they are given to people who are unable to handle their issues and go on to inflict those issues on everyone around them. I'm done now.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Omg where's the insulin. thats just too sweet.
> 
> Been in therapy corner for a day or so. Had a bit of " he's a rescue" setback and i'm getting tired of ranting, but if i may.... i know it's wonderful to get dogs out of kennels but are they really rescued if they are given to people who are unable to handle their issues and go on to inflict those issues on everyone around them. I'm done now.


Oh MV - are you and Miss Tink ok?


----------



## Beth17

I hope you and Tink are ok mv?


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Ouch Kilo :crying:
> 
> Sarah slightly off topic but I seem to remember you saying a while back on another thread that you do tapestry/cross stitch and you posted a website. Do you know which one it was? as i'm looking at pressies for my mum  Apologies if it wasn't you
> 
> ETA: just realised I said slightly off topic who am I kidding it's completely off topic!


It was probably Heaven And Earth Designs, cross stitch, cross stitch patterns, counted cross stitch, christmas stockings, counted cross stitch chart, counted cross stitch designs, cross stitching, patterns, cross stitch art, cross stitch books, how to cross stitch,  I love their patterns, the detail in them is fantastic.

Mystic Stitch Inc, The fine art of counted cross stitch patterns are another good one. Both only do the patterns though, you have to buy the fabric and thread yourself.

My HAED so far









MV, hope you and Tink are both okay!


----------



## Dogless

Hoping you and my fave beagle are OK too mv .


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry we are fine, yesterday was a bit fraught her adrenaline level was sky high so she was spooking and over-reacting at everything. A visit to the hall of gratuitous praise (tons of easy, "aren't you a genius" shaping, lots of T-Touch and She's doing well again, 

I understand dogs have problems, needs patience and understanding, believe me i know it. For the want of putting their dog on a long line until they knew all his behaviours and triggers. My dog's progress goes out the window. I wonder how many times before she decides it's time to get in first


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Today we are working on....settling. I am pleased to see the boys playing but they want to do this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> non stop!! I have to stop them and bring them in as both are exhausted and crate Rudi as he's so hyped.
> 
> Kilo was trying to pull this morning on our walk to the fields so we went the long way and worked on walking nicely, lots of sits, downs etc until he was calm and listening properly. I then gave him a few minutes on the fields to potter, zoom etc then we did some play but with loads of 'work' thrown in to earn the toy. He walked back nicely. I know it's because he was so hyped from all the play.
> 
> I took Rudi out for a few hours after Kilo's walk round a retail park thing, into shops, along the road, through some car parks etc and he was a little star. I got loads of unwanted advice as you do, especially regarding the cruelty of crates .
> 
> Apart from all the play I have done a few short training sessions alone with Rudi and one with them together. They have also both had separate plays with me.
> 
> I am exhausted :Yawn::Yawn:.


That is the most wonderful photo - I'd have it blown up, framed and on the wall, it's so good.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Sorry we are fine, yesterday was a bit fraught her adrenaline level was sky high so she was spooking and over-reacting at everything. A visit to the hall of gratuitous praise (tons of easy, "aren't you a genius" shaping, lots of T-Touch and She's doing well again,
> 
> I understand dogs have problems, needs patience and understanding, believe me i know it. For the want of putting their dog on a long line until they knew all his behaviours and triggers. My dog's progress goes out the window. I wonder how many times before she decides it's time to get in first


Well it's the excuse and the prop isn't it - he/she's a rescue, so whatever they do is OK then.


----------



## Twiggy

Haven't been in long from my 'away day'.

It was certainly away - about 90 miles in filthy weather which took about 2 hours to get there.

Holly wasn't the slightest bit fazed by different dogs and handlers although she didn't like the wooden (slightly slippery) floor.

BTW *Dogless* Holly's useless at map reading, we got lost on the way home!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Haven't been in long from my 'away day'.
> 
> It was certainly away - about 90 miles in filthy weather which took about 2 hours to get there.
> 
> Holly wasn't the slightest bit fazed by different dogs and handlers although she didn't like the wooden (slightly slippery) floor.
> 
> BTW *Dogless* Holly's useless at map reading, we got lost on the way home!!


Oh dear; no dinner for Holly Bolly .


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Haven't been in long from my 'away day'.
> 
> It was certainly away - about 90 miles in filthy weather which took about 2 hours to get there.
> 
> *Holly wasn't the slightest bit fazed by different dogs and handlers* although she didn't like the wooden (slightly slippery) floor.
> 
> BTW Dogless Holly's useless at map reading, we got lost on the way home!!


Excellent! Shame about the map reading though.

Dogless - I am aghast at that rubbish "advice"... a strongly worded letter to several higher ups at PAH needed I think. I thought knowledge that puppies just bite is fairly basic. But then I think that about a lot of things and am constantly suprised by the ignorance of folk. And Rudi is so, so, so cute and that picture of him and Kilo playing is priceless.... wait til they start this;








:lol:

Moonviolet - I'm so sorry you had another idiot cause you a setback. I completely agree that being a rescue dog does not give a free licence to go round upsetting other dogs.  Taking on a rescue is a BIG responsibility, and it should be taken as such. Grrrr. Oscar sends spaniel hugs for his favourite girlie cos he knows she likes a bit of spanieling. 

Beth - sounds like you are having some great walks. I might take a leaf out of your book and try and walk the boys seperately for a bit/more often...


----------



## Guest

Hope you are all okay. 

Do you ever just have days where you are JUST SO GRUMPY? 

No? 

I do and I'm having a day like it today. 

Zander has been okay today.


----------



## Werehorse

LurcherOwner said:


> Hope you are all okay.
> 
> *Do you ever just have days where you are JUST SO GRUMPY? *
> 
> No?
> 
> I do and I'm having a day like it today.
> 
> Zander has been okay today.


Yes absolutely. I had one today too. More depressed than grumpy but it tends to come out in burst of angryness throughout the day.  I've been sat a few inches from a daylight lamp for most of the day to try and combat the complete lack of sunlight which contributes. I'm not sure it has helped!


----------



## moonviolet

Feel better now i've got that of my chest, thank you for the support all. Tink says thankfully muchly for Oscars lovely spaniel hugs. Lovely pic.



We have class later and it's all dogs Tink knows with good handlers so We should have a fun time.

Sorry you are having a grumpy few days LO I've moved out of therapy corner, so if you fancy going in the there for a good grumble be my guest 

Twiggy sounds like a good day and Holly didn't get you lost she just chose a more scenic route :lol: Hope you sister has had a positive day too.

Beth we never ever go off topic on this thread  :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sarah it's looking very good


----------



## Werehorse

I have a gripe today too, if we're having gripes.

I decided to check out a new walk. It started on what looked like a bridleway with fences/walls either side on the map, just for a bit before opening out into so woodland.

However the fence/wall on one side of the bridleway was in such dis-repair that what I thought was a golden retriever at first (must wear contact lenses for walk, specs just don't cut it! :lol turned out to be a sheep.  And then a whole frigging flock just the other side of the rubbish wall and fence. So the boys had to go on lead for a stretch and were dreadful and bridleway was so muddy I could hardly stand up with them pratting about. I was not happy.

I just think that I go to such lengths to ensure my dogs don't bother livestock, I pick my walks carefully, I use a lead when necessary even though it is a nightmare to do so with two and I train and train and train to make as sure as possible that I have a solid recall if unexpected sheep happen.... Why can't farmers go to similar lengths to protect their livestock? It only needed about 100-200m of decent fencing and the bridlepath (which the farm park place where I parked has designated specifically as a "dog walk" with a little sign and everything) would be completely sheep free!

All you hear is about how farmers *have* to shoot dogs if they so much as look at a sheep the wrong way because the sheep are oh so valuable to them but if they are so blimming valuable why do you get them wandering on main roads and trotting around on public rights way, designated dog walks no less.

On the way back, I wasn't out long completely mis-timed it with the sun setting... just that kind of day  ...., two sheep had worked their way up away from the field and were hanging around by the gate at the end of the path. Meaning we had to pass within feet of them (and I barely saw them in the fading light anyway!) which really didn't help with me training the dogs not to find sheep interesting.  

Le sigh.

Sorry about that but I do feel a bit better now I've let that one out.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse, Fancy labelling that as the dog walk. I'm the first to stand up for farmers and point out their horrifying low income, But where there are rights of way, they really have to prioritise. 

I'll post you my parents evil sheep if you like. Grand old ladies who stamp and do not run!

You get credit for funniest phrase of the day " unexpected sheep"


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Hope you are all okay.
> 
> Do you ever just have days where you are JUST SO GRUMPY?
> 
> No?
> 
> I do and I'm having a day like it today.
> 
> Zander has been okay today.


Yep :sosp:. Hope things are better tomorrow.

Werehorse - unexpected sheep always put a dampener on walk .

I walked Kilo with our friend and their bonkers Vizsla who Kilo loves just now; I'm going to take Rudi round within the next few days for a bit of socialisation which will be good. Kilo walked nicely tonight too which was good. Rudi is so, so fine about being left it's brilliant - doesn't even get up until you open the crate door . Kilo has always been the same too.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dogless they are so  together but I can see why its tiring. Poor Kilo's undercarriage though  Rudi looks a little teary in the photo of him sitting in the door way, I don't think he is happy, perhaps you should send him here 

MV sorry to hear you have had a bad time, it is no excuse and your right what sort of rescue, I know they are stretched but a compulsory reading program with a test might help .

I have to hold my hand up and say I use the 'we haven't had her long' card is that as bad 


Werehorse that took a while to work out that play picture but I have to say 'spanieling' needs to be sent to the tower with silky leash  perhaps you need try try more stuff from the tower  to combat your SAD

There is a bloke who keeps manx longthorns (sp) (funny looking brown ones) down near the beach, he has put signs up say please keep your dog on a lead as they are killing my sheep - that is because they are never behind your heath robinson fences!!

LO sorry you are feeling grumpy too, you too can visit the tower but not with werehorse that would be even naughtier , at least Zander was good 

We had a wet tire walk this morning but I think the glimpse of the oh so well behaved rottie in front of us wasn't helping, swear that woman gives me smug grins (can't blame her).

A disgusting walk at lunch time, I went to Wortham Ling, where we used to walk all the time when we were little. Apart from the peeing rain, nearly every footstep had to dodge giant sludgy grey poos, there were some orange ones as well which I presume were Bakers, but what the hell produced the bright purple one . I picked up after Ginge and carried it back to the car thinking I would have to take it home, there clearly weren't any bins about, only to find a great wheelie bin tethered in the carpark   

Then we had the behaviorist, still peeing down, she got a real dog out today, no stuffed Trevor. We had to walk around about gradually getting closer and closer to the tethered dog (felt sooo bad for the poor thing) rewarding for no reaction and she coped really well no barking, mostly ignoring it with a few stares, I had to break them before they got too intense. Then the lady started walking the dog, moving dogs not so good, we did not get any closer than the other side of the paddock, she reacted a bit, barked a bit, but still gave me some focus and ignored more than reacted. The lady was pleased and thought we had made some progress (its really only been a week since I got over my meltdown so...... pleased). The woman in the session before me actually comes from my village (odd as its a good hour away) and she offered to work on some parallel walking together if I get to that stage (she has a big bouncy choccy lab who she's learning to control) which I thought was really nice (hubby thinks its pointless working with only one dog ???)

She said to keep working on it over Dec and go back to see her in Jan if I feel the need, but she is running a reactive dog course in Feb (sat mornings) which involves B mod and TTouch just small groups which sounds very promising as well. Unless the little star has 'got it' by then . Mum thinks she will just go 'oh I see, you don't want me to chase the dogs off' one day but I think my Mum might be a bit besotted


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Yep :sosp:. Hope things are better tomorrow.
> 
> Werehorse - unexpected sheep always put a dampener on walk .
> 
> I walked Kilo with our friend and their bonkers Vizsla who Kilo loves just now; I'm going to take Rudi round within the next few days for a bit of socialisation which will be good. Kilo walked nicely tonight too which was good. Rudi is so, so fine about being left it's brilliant - doesn't even get up until you open the crate door . Kilo has always been the same too.


My bro has just got himself a vizsla pup, I mentioned this, (amongst other things like raw feeding :devil in the earshot of our vet at the weekend (shes a friend of a friend) someone wanted to know what they looked like and she said ridgebacks ??? true or not ?


----------



## Dogless

GR; what a good behaviourist session and the reactive dog course sounds great! I don't mind when people haven't had a rescue long and tell you so (as long as it hasn't caused us any major dramas!) but it's when people like a woman I met in the forest once explained their dog was a rescue - turned out after talking that she'd got it as a nine week old puppy and it was now six .


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> My bro has just got himself a vizsla pup, I mentioned this, (amongst other things like raw feeding :devil in the earshot of our vet at the weekend (shes a friend of a friend) someone wanted to know what they looked like and she said ridgebacks ??? true or not ?


Same sort of colouring but very much different size, build, facially and behaviour - wise. They come in smooth (like RR), wire and (I think ) long coated versions.

Vizsla (smooth haired).


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Same sort of colouring but very much different size, build, facially and behaviour - wise. They come in smooth (like RR), wire and (I think ) long coated versions.
> 
> Vizsla (smooth haired).


Sorry *I* knew what they looked like (they look lovely fell in love with one several years ago) but apart from similar colouring I didn't think they were anything the same (but think my judgement is still coloured by the fat odd looking ridgebacks we get round here), so wondered about the vets judgement  I just thought perhaps side by side they did. I only just found about about the longhair ones the other day from a post on here, they are rather nice


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> GR; what a good behaviourist session and the reactive dog course sounds great! I don't mind when people haven't had a rescue long and tell you so (as long as it hasn't caused us any major dramas!) but it's when people like a woman I met in the forest once explained their dog was a rescue - turned out after talking that she'd got it as a nine week old puppy and it was now six .


That made me laugh. It's still a rescue though! 

I admit I did use the "he's a rescue" card with Rupert :blushing: It was more to try and get people understanding that he wasn't an evil dog, just terribly frightened due to a crappy start in life. He was never allowed to make a nuisance of himself and I always said we were working on his issues. I suppose it doesn't make rescue dogs look very good though.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry *I* knew what they looked like (they look lovely fell in love with one several years ago) but apart from similar colouring I didn't think they were anything the same (but think my judgement is still coloured by the fat odd looking ridgebacks we get round here), so wondered about the vets judgement  I just thought perhaps side by side they did. I only just found about about the longhair ones the other day from a post on here, they are rather nice


Oops, sorry I misunderstood!! I don't think they look massively alike side by side although my friend and I are sometimes asked if Kilo and his dog are the same breed . I think a lean RR looks more similar than an overweight one.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Oops, sorry I misunderstood!! I don't think they look massively alike side by side although my friend and I are sometimes asked if Kilo and his dog are the same breed . I* think a lean RR looks more similar than an overweight one.*




That is very true, but the ones round here are all pale as well as fat . Actually I can see the vizsla in the pic you put up being the female version of Kilo .


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> [/B]
> 
> That is very true, but the ones round here are all pale as well as fat . Actually I can see the vizsla in the pic you put up being the female version of Kilo .


The one here looks exactly like that pic and they look so different in real life; the size difference is huge and mannerisms, even way of walking, are so different. Gorgeous, gorgeous dogs though - on my ' maybe one day' list but totally insane!! RRs come in various shades of wheaten from pale to red - Kilo and Rudi are Red Wheaten.


----------



## Guest

I SHALL GO TO THE TOWER OF THERAPY GRIPEY-NESS.

I mean although Zander jumped up at a work colleague TWICE. (Luckily she has dogs so was completley nonchalant about it)

He did play with two offlead spaniels (who were let off without asking me who had an onlead zander, so I made a point of going "ILL LET HIM OFF THEN SO THEY CAN PLAY :sosp: ") very nicely and when they got to the other end of the field ( I fell over a quarter a way across ) I recalled him AND HE CAME BACK!! He got lots of treats and his lead put back on. I've noticed he'll come back to me only with other dogs IF HE IS LOOKING AT ME. So. Yeah. 

Dunno just kinda been feeling like AM I AN UNSUITABLE OWNER? CAN I NOT CATER TO HIS NEEDS? WHY DO I FIND IT SO HARD TO TRAIN HIM SOMETIMES? WHY OH WHY IS HE SO OBESSESSED WITH OTHER DOGS? DID I NOT SOCIALISE HIM ENOUGH? WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

rrr:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I SHALL GO TO THE TOWER OF THERAPY GRIPEY-NESS.
> 
> I mean although Zander jumped up at a work colleague TWICE. (Luckily she has dogs so was completley nonchalant about it)
> 
> He did play with two offlead spaniels (who were let off without asking me who had an onlead zander, so I made a point of going "ILL LET HIM OFF THEN SO THEY CAN PLAY :sosp: ") very nicely and when they got to the other end of the field ( I fell over a quarter a way across ) I recalled him AND HE CAME BACK!! He got lots of treats and his lead put back on. I've noticed he'll come back to me only with other dogs IF HE IS LOOKING AT ME. So. Yeah.
> 
> Dunno just kinda been feeling like *AM I AN UNSUITABLE OWNER? CAN I NOT CATER TO HIS NEEDS? WHY DO I FIND IT SO HARD TO TRAIN HIM SOMETIMES?* WHY OH WHY IS HE SO OBESSESSED WITH OTHER DOGS? DID I NOT SOCIALISE HIM ENOUGH? WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
> 
> rrr:


I think we all feel like that at times; it means we have a conscience and want to do the best that we can by our dogs xx.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> The one here looks exactly like that pic and they look so different in real life; *the size difference is huge *and mannerisms, even way of walking, are so different. Gorgeous, gorgeous dogs though - on my ' maybe one day' list but totally insane!! RRs come in various shades of wheaten from pale to red - Kilo and Rudi are Red Wheaten.


You say that but some friends of ours got two boy pups on a whim - they grew from squidgy Rudi like things into giant Kilo sized maniacs, not helped by the fact that she 'accidently' had a kid when they were around a year.  the sight of her trying to walk them and the pushchair down the road was pitiful ,
Size wise their heads were way over the push chair, biggest vizslas I have ever seen.

Actually this is a bit off topic but funny, another friend has a little female vizsla, she got stolen down the beach about a year ago 

By some ones staffie cross boy, Logan nicked the lead out his hand and legged it down the beach with her, the two owners laughed so much it took ages to get them back, I wish I was there 

Awe sorry LO, you will get there, you love your donkey boy thats all that matters.


----------



## Beth17

Thanks Sarah I'll have a nosey in abit :thumbup1:

MV I hope you and Tink have a good class tonight 

Ginger sounds like a really positive session with the behaviourist today.

Werehorse I'm so glad I don't usually walk where there is sheep what a nightmare  It's definitely more relaxing walking them individually and nice to have the one on one time; far too much exercise for my liking though  

LO you're definitely not a bad owner quite the opposite. I often have days like that but just think of all you do for him 

I have one of those naughty rescues I also have the added bonus excuse that he can't hear me! just think of all the people I can annoy :ihih:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> I have one of those naughty rescues I also have the added bonus excuse that he can't hear me! just think of all the people I can annoy :ihih:


A spaniel ran up to Kilo once (onlead park but spaniel offlead) with the owner calling and calling him. When she caught up she said "Sorry, he's deaf". I thought she was saying that he wasn't listening so I said something about it happens to them all and she said that, no, he really was deaf. It shouldn't have done but the situation made me laugh - if your dog is deaf and loves to run up to other dogs the two things you'd probably not do is leave it offlead and call it back when it's not even looking at you .


----------



## Beth17

Daft thing is I do talk to him all the time when I'm out and call him back to me. I must look very strange when I explain about him :blushing:

But you're right which is why I always have his longline and he only goes off if no one is about or he's focussed on playing with a dog


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I have a gripe today too, if we're having gripes.
> 
> I decided to check out a new walk. It started on what looked like a bridleway with fences/walls either side on the map, just for a bit before opening out into so woodland.
> 
> However the fence/wall on one side of the bridleway was in such dis-repair that what I thought was a golden retriever at first (must wear contact lenses for walk, specs just don't cut it! :lol turned out to be a sheep.  And then a whole frigging flock just the other side of the rubbish wall and fence. So the boys had to go on lead for a stretch and were dreadful and bridleway was so muddy I could hardly stand up with them pratting about. I was not happy.
> 
> I just think that I go to such lengths to ensure my dogs don't bother livestock, I pick my walks carefully, I use a lead when necessary even though it is a nightmare to do so with two and I train and train and train to make as sure as possible that I have a solid recall if unexpected sheep happen.... Why can't farmers go to similar lengths to protect their livestock? It only needed about 100-200m of decent fencing and the bridlepath (which the farm park place where I parked has designated specifically as a "dog walk" with a little sign and everything) would be completely sheep free!
> 
> All you hear is about how farmers *have* to shoot dogs if they so much as look at a sheep the wrong way because the sheep are oh so valuable to them but if they are so blimming valuable why do you get them wandering on main roads and trotting around on public rights way, designated dog walks no less.
> 
> On the way back, I wasn't out long completely mis-timed it with the sun setting... just that kind of day  ...., two sheep had worked their way up away from the field and were hanging around by the gate at the end of the path. Meaning we had to pass within feet of them (and I barely saw them in the fading light anyway!) which really didn't help with me training the dogs not to find sheep interesting.
> 
> Le sigh.
> 
> Sorry about that but I do feel a bit better now I've let that one out.


Don't get me started on bridleways....!!

I was secretary of the local riding club and also a member of the local bridleways committee for quite a number of years.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Don't get me started on bridleways....!!
> 
> I was secretary of the local riding club and also a member of the local bridleways committee for quite a number of years.


:lol:

This one would have actually been ridable - just. More so in drier weather, it was very muddy. There's so many round here that aren't ridable though.  As well as footpaths that aren't walkable.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> GR; what a good behaviourist session and the reactive dog course sounds great! I don't mind when people haven't had a rescue long and tell you so (as long as it hasn't caused us any major dramas!) but it's when people like a woman I met in the forest once explained their dog was a rescue - turned out after talking that she'd got it as a nine week old puppy and it was now six .


That's exactly what Moonviolet and I mean - they play the rescue card for years and years.

I had a guest instructor here for a week-end course several years ago now and one of the handlers had a couple of rescue dogs. If she told the instructor once her dogs were rescues, she told her 50 times plus until the instructor eventually told her to shut up making excuses.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I SHALL GO TO THE TOWER OF THERAPY GRIPEY-NESS.
> 
> I mean although Zander jumped up at a work colleague TWICE. (Luckily she has dogs so was completley nonchalant about it)
> 
> He did play with two offlead spaniels (who were let off without asking me who had an onlead zander, so I made a point of going "ILL LET HIM OFF THEN SO THEY CAN PLAY :sosp: ") very nicely and when they got to the other end of the field ( I fell over a quarter a way across ) I recalled him AND HE CAME BACK!! He got lots of treats and his lead put back on. I've noticed he'll come back to me only with other dogs IF HE IS LOOKING AT ME. So. Yeah.
> 
> Dunno just kinda been feeling like AM I AN UNSUITABLE OWNER? CAN I NOT CATER TO HIS NEEDS? WHY DO I FIND IT SO HARD TO TRAIN HIM SOMETIMES? WHY OH WHY IS HE SO OBESSESSED WITH OTHER DOGS? DID I NOT SOCIALISE HIM ENOUGH? WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
> 
> rrr:


Of course you're not an unsuitable owner. Give yourself a smack my girl...LOL

*You care about your dog *and you are doing your best.

He will improve honestly.


----------



## Guest

Thank you for the kind words guys.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Thank you for the kind words guys.


This is to cheer you up - Holly being a pain in the backside today, jumping up everybody (and she had dirty feet):


----------



## moonviolet

Wooohooo fab fab fab fab fab class. Tink was totally brillaint, in the zone and just a total joy to handle I woulld kiss her if she didn't find public displays of affection distasteful :lol: 

It will come together LO hang in there.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Wooohooo fab fab fab fab fab class. Tink was totally brillaint, in the zone and just a total joy to handle I woulld kiss her if she didn't find public displays of affection distasteful :lol:
> 
> It will come together LO hang in there.


Brilliant!!! Just what you and Miss Tinks needed today .


----------



## Sarah1983

Well we've moved loose leash walking onto the actual street now and as expected it all went to pot. He seems really stressed about it but I'm not sure whether that's just because I'm asking him to do something rather than simply taking him to the woods. I'll keep it up for a bit and see, he's not so stressed he can't work and he's as eager to take treats as ever so maybe he'll settle down.


----------



## L/C

Glad to hear Miss Tink did well. 

Walk this morning was a bit better - as long as we avoid squirrel alley and the field of tiny mice there is less searching behaviour. A bit cold and wet to do much training though - greyhounds in a down position on wet grass just doesn't bear thinking about!


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah would it help trying the loose leash on the street on the way back form a walk, or after he's burned off a bit of fizz.



L/C said:


> Glad to hear Miss Tink did well.
> 
> Walk this morning was a bit better - as long as we avoid squirrel alley and the field of tiny mice there is less searching behaviour. A bit cold and wet to do much training though - greyhounds in a down position on wet grass just doesn't bear thinking about!


Thank you. 

Glad things were better this morning. 

i understand completely about the down position on cold wet grass. I've realised what a " thoroughly unreasonable request" it is for her ladyship and adapted her " stop and drop" to a stop and sit (on hocks with tail floating) It's the emergency stopping part that is important after all


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Sarah would it help trying the loose leash on the street on the way back form a walk, or after he's burned off a bit of fizz.


I have to say I always get better responses on the way home than on the way there - how the hell a dog knows which way you are going I don't know but even if you go different routes she does!!


----------



## moonviolet

I forgot to mention i walked 2 dogs this morning, The one whose owner slammed the door in my face when I returned them after they kept trying to get in my car and had yet again tagged along for a whole walk. " some people like walking her" ... hmm like i'm the bad guy here :sosp:

She's a lovely dog a bit nervous and barky in some situations hardly surprsing she craves attention but gets shooed away regularly by people who don't want her tagging along. I usually avoid parking where she hangs out but today i did and there she was waiting for someone to turn up and tag along with. She was out for over an hour with us and I delivered her to her garden I dont' knwo what more i could do, her owners clearly dont' care about her straying and the dog warden " having a chat" hasn't worked. On a bright side She had a lovely game of chase. respected that Tink didn't want to play biteyface or wrestle. I did have to smile when she had a nice roll in some fox poo


----------



## GingerRogers

I wish there was a mean angry face for posts sometimes, not for you moonviolet but for the poor dog. Very glad she respected Tinks space and found something stinky to roll in. Could you not arrange for that to happen very regularly they might get the message :devil:

We didn't work on anything yet today, got out the wrong side of bed when I was made to leave the house without a coffee at 7am so I could have the car, (hubby got out in another county miserable bugger ) so we just had funny puddle jumping in our little woods instead. Now about to go see what monsters lurk at the beach today


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> I wish there was a mean angry face for posts sometimes, not for you moonviolet but for the poor dog. Very glad she respected Tinks space and found something stinky to roll in. Could you not arrange for that to happen very regularly they might get the message :devil:
> 
> We didn't work on anything yet today, got out the wrong side of bed when I was made to leave the house without a coffee at 7am so I could have the car, (hubby got out in another county miserable bugger ) so we just had funny puddle jumping in our little woods instead. Now about to go see what monsters lurk at the beach today


SOmetimes puddle jumping is exactly what you need  hoope you dont' find any monsters lutking at the beach and if you do in your best happy voice say " well look who it is." or something similar. they never seem so scary then


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah would it help trying the loose leash on the street on the way back form a walk, or after he's burned off a bit of fizz.


It does and I've been rewarding him walking nicely on the way home for months. He walks lovely on the way home most of the time now but that's the only time he does. Or it was until I started this silky leash thing. He's now offering it 99% of the time on the footpath in front of the flats and up to the corner we turn to get onto the road. Obviously the next step would be to turn that corner and get the behaviour there. But that's where it went to pot. I fully expected it to to be honest, I just didn't expect it to get him so worked up.

Maybe I should leave the loose leash walking for now and focus on having him work on easier things on the outward leg of our walks, get him used to doing stuff instead of just getting from A to B which is pretty much all I've done  Might have to invest in that harness Dogless and LO have though if so, we're expecting snow on Friday and he absolutely will not accept the Halti


----------



## Dogless

mv - rolled in fox poo....or was encouraged to roll in fox poo? :devil::devil:. That poor dog's owners sound like the lady in the one park I walk in who has the terrier that tags along for your whole walk / play session!

We have had a great day so far. Managed to keep the play down this morning before Kilo's walk and it did the trick; he walked nicely - we met our friend with the weime. Today we passed no fewer than 5 black labs; all nicely, no nonsense which is fabulous. I don't even dare to voice what I am thinking / hoping . After that was some play in the garden and some of this in the house:




























Later hubby came home as he's on nights tonight and I roped him into coming to the big Tesco so that one of us could hold Rudi in the entrance...he opted to shop . Of course, because he doesn't normally shop the few items took 50 minutes to gather (which was good for us actually!)... apparently things are being moved around and hidden . There was a queue to see Rudi most of the time and it was time that junior school came out so he met loads of children. I thought it might all be a bit much as we were quite crowded but he was perfectly happy . I got a marvelous piece of advice from a man "He won't be used to people at 8 weeks old you know, you need to get him out and meeting people" :sosp:.

We have just got home not long ago and the boys are settled but due to be fed so it will all start again soon!

Rudi's training is coming along nicely too - we just do tiny short sessions as his attention span is that of a gnat right now!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - rolled in fox poo....or was encouraged to roll in fox poo? :devil::devil:.
> 
> I got a marvelous piece of advice from a man "He won't be used to people at 8 weeks old you know, you need to get him out and meeting people" :sosp:.


Lets jsut say I did nothing to discourage her. Not my place without owners permission 

how on earth to do you keep a straight face when people say things like that...I never can 

Gorgeous pics  thank you for sharing your pupster with us


----------



## Sarah1983

Love the pics Dogless. And the advice, what did he think you were doing? :lol: But on the plus side at least he was aware of the need to get them out and about socialising.

I think I'll just go sit in the corner and rock for now. My ******* of a dog has just practically yanked both arms out, tripped me up and trampled me. Why? Because he wanted to freaking sniff a lamp post on the opposite side of me to the one he was walking on. Honest to god it's times like this when I can see why people go on about their dogs not respecting them and walking all over them. It's what it bloody feels like at times! I just hope whatever the smell was it was worth the kick to the face he got and then my not insignificant weight landing on him. In fact no, I hope it wasn't worth it coz if it wasn't it might stop him doing it again!


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Love the pics Dogless. And the advice, what did he think you were doing? :lol: But on the plus side at least he was aware of the need to get them out and about socialising.
> 
> I think I'll just go sit in the corner and rock for now. My ******* of a dog has just practically yanked both arms out, tripped me up and trampled me. Why? Because he wanted to freaking sniff a lamp post on the opposite side of me to the one he was walking on. Honest to god it's times like this when I can see why people go on about their dogs not respecting them and walking all over them. It's what it bloody feels like at times! I just hope whatever the smell was it was worth the kick to the face he got and then my not insignificant weight landing on him. In fact no, I hope it wasn't worth it coz if it wasn't it might stop him doing it again!


Oh no Spen  . Are you hurt? Or just angry?


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Oh no Spen  . Are you hurt? Or just angry?


More angry than hurt. He yelped when I landed on him but doesn't seem to be hurt thankfully.


----------



## MollySmith

I hope it's okay to join the thread?

I signed up to a training challenge on Facebook where you have to teach your dog something new each day. To be honest I think it's a bit much to expect a new skill daily when I'm working all the time and we only get a few hours before tea but Molly has suprised me. I've been reading Jane Killion's Pig Dog Fly and decided to refresh Molly's target training in the hope that by Christmas I can get her to go to her bed when we're eating Christmas dinner... I remain hopeful as Miss Nosey just has to be everywhere. 

I broke it down into bits. She likes to nibble clothes when she gets excited - sleeves, hems, anything so I got her to touch my hand instead with her nose. We only did a little bit on Monday and I had planned to repeat it again last night. I walked in the door and said touch and she got it! Not bad given I'm only really doing a few minutes whilst the rice or pasta boils!

I just wish the training with the lead was as easy. She doesn't pull as much as I'm happy for her to have the odd sniff but this dog passing business is so unpredictable and tiresome. I've ordered a few books from the resources list from Pig Dogs Fly.


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> More angry than hurt. He yelped when I landed on him but doesn't seem to be hurt thankfully.


Oh dear 

Glad you're both okay.


----------



## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> I hope it's okay to join the thread?
> 
> I signed up to a training challenge on Facebook where you have to teach your dog something new each day. To be honest I think it's a bit much to expect a new skill daily when I'm working all the time and we only get a few hours before tea but Molly has suprised me. I've been reading Jane Killion's Pig Dog Fly and decided to refresh Molly's target training in the hope that by Christmas I can get her to go to her bed when we're eating Christmas dinner... I remain hopeful as Miss Nosey just has to be everywhere.
> 
> I broke it down into bits. She likes to nibble clothes when she gets excited - sleeves, hems, anything so I got her to touch my hand instead with her nose. We only did a little bit on Monday and I had planned to repeat it again last night. I walked in the door and said touch and she got it! Not bad given I'm only really doing a few minutes whilst the rice or pasta boils!
> 
> I just wish the training with the lead was as easy. She doesn't pull as much as I'm happy for her to have the odd sniff but this dog passing business is so unpredictable and tiresome. I've ordered a few books from the resources list from Pig Dogs Fly.


It's only okay if you tell us what the facebook challenge is called or give us a link to it 

Sound's like Molly's picking up on touch quickly. It's a handy trick to have imo as it means you can easily move them to where you want them without any sort of force.


----------



## ballybee

Well we have had a rather nice day today, started this morning by taking Dan out for his long walk, we met a cocker and 2 springer spaniels and were joined on our walk by a lady with her springerXcollie Oscar, we had a very plesant walk, Dan was very polite and chilled(after he and Oscar had a manic 20 minute play) and we had a generally good time. Took Tummel for his short walk when i got in, very uneventful, we managed to pass a springer twice with minimal pulling(didn't greet).

Then this afternoon i took Tummel for his long walk, he met a JRT onlead(massive for him) and we had a few play bows and happy noises. Very uneventful walk, didn't pass any other dogs until our way home, Tummel had a lovely sit/stay going while a man with 2 border terriers passed(one of them is very aggressive) and Tummel was very good until we were almost home, a JRT tried to go for him and of course he kicked off.

Bloomin JRT's making Tummel go backwards!!! lol


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> It's only okay if you tell us what the facebook challenge is called or give us a link to it
> 
> Sound's like Molly's picking up on touch quickly. It's a handy trick to have imo as it means you can easily move them to where you want them without any sort of force.


 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dogtrainingchallenge/

There you are! If you find me, (Berenice) you can befriend and see more endless photos of me and my dog!


----------



## Twiggy

Oh that's sad Moonviolet - poor dog.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> mv - rolled in fox poo....or was encouraged to roll in fox poo? :devil::devil:. That poor dog's owners sound like the lady in the one park I walk in who has the terrier that tags along for your whole walk / play session!
> 
> We have had a great day so far. Managed to keep the play down this morning before Kilo's walk and it did the trick; he walked nicely - we met our friend with the weime. Today we passed no fewer than 5 black labs; all nicely, no nonsense which is fabulous. I don't even dare to voice what I am thinking / hoping . After that was some play in the garden and some of this in the house:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Later hubby came home as he's on nights tonight and I roped him into coming to the big Tesco so that one of us could hold Rudi in the entrance...he opted to shop . Of course, because he doesn't normally shop the few items took 50 minutes to gather (which was good for us actually!)... apparently things are being moved around and hidden . There was a queue to see Rudi most of the time and it was time that junior school came out so he met loads of children. I thought it might all be a bit much as we were quite crowded but he was perfectly happy . I got a marvelous piece of advice from a man "He won't be used to people at 8 weeks old you know, you need to get him out and meeting people" :sosp:.
> 
> We have just got home not long ago and the boys are settled but due to be fed so it will all start again soon!
> 
> Rudi's training is coming along nicely too - we just do tiny short sessions as his attention span is that of a gnat right now!


Fabulous pics again....!!


----------



## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> https://www.facebook.com/groups/dogtrainingchallenge/
> 
> There you are! If you find me, (Berenice) you can befriend and see more endless photos of me and my dog!


Lol, my facebook is usually pics of Spen.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Love the pics Dogless. And the advice, what did he think you were doing? :lol: But on the plus side at least he was aware of the need to get them out and about socialising.
> 
> I think I'll just go sit in the corner and rock for now. My ******* of a dog has just practically yanked both arms out, tripped me up and trampled me. Why? Because he wanted to freaking sniff a lamp post on the opposite side of me to the one he was walking on. Honest to god it's times like this when I can see why people go on about their dogs not respecting them and walking all over them. It's what it bloody feels like at times! I just hope whatever the smell was it was worth the kick to the face he got and then my not insignificant weight landing on him. In fact no, I hope it wasn't worth it coz if it wasn't it might stop him doing it again!


Oh no......


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Fabulous pics again....!!


Think they show what a character Rudi is....pushes his luck just so far then backs off!!

I'm finding watching them fascinating, never having had two dogs together.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless - too cute yet again, but for a moment I thought you were letting your children play with plastic bags 

 Sorry Sarah hope you are both ok (did anyone see you )

Welcome MollySmith - Of course its ok but beware thing can get a bit kinky 
I really liked Pigs Fly, what are Mollys issues with passing dogs, lunging or ......It is tiresome I agree.

What is this target training you all go on about, I get teaching your dog to target you hand but how does it move on from there?

We only met one really scary black whippet shaped monster at the beach and a mildly unusual beach fisherman (think all the gear and poles etc freak her out a bit, she keeps a definite eye on them just in case they turn out to be more than inanimate lumps) The dog was annoying as I had decided that actually after yesterdays session it might be best to keep things simple but it magically appeared .

I had an email about the reactive dog course - what do you lot think - its basically 9 hours in total for £225 so £25/hr essentially (that makes it sound better in my head, not sure hubby will agree). Only 4 dogs in the group with two practitioners. It starts with a 3 hour workshop for humans only where we learn _foundations of the programme, some Tellington Touch techniques, canine body language observations (we will use our own dogs for this), the science of clicker training and teach you a number of foundation behaviour techniques that you will use once we introduce your own dogs into the group work over the subsequent three workshops_

Then 3 fortnightly 2 hr sessions with the dogs which includes _learn about Tellington Touch and how to use this with your dog to reduce stress and promote relaxation. In addition you will be practicing the basic foundation techniques learned during the first workshop in a controlled environment with other dogs_

It seems like a lot of money but only £25 deposit then you can spread the payments at £50 per session. They seem aware that it seems a lot of money and go to lengths to explain why - 2 people, £25/hr, spread the payments etc. In actual fact it isn't that bad. The 45-60min sessions she does 1-1 are £30 I am trying to convince myself  there fore the hubby . It seems a lot but its worth it if it helps I say but will he.??????????????

Oh god, why do people think I am mad for trying to do the best for my dog 'Its just a dog' 'You didn't do all this for Rory' etc etc


----------



## Dogless

GR - I like the sound of the course. The money isn't a huge amount compared to the benefits you and the ginger one will reap...tell hubby to put that into his pipe and smoke it rrr:rrr:.


----------



## moonviolet

Hope you are both ok Sarah

Welcome to the thread Mollysmith 

GR it sounds liek a great course and it's not just for Ginge it's for you and your OH and any future dogs too 



Twiggy said:


> Oh that's sad Moonviolet - poor dog.


It's heart breaking, she has such a lot of potential. I called Tink in to heel when we neared an area where i've seen deer and watched the praise TInk was getting and came to my right side and copied Tink and visibly bounced when she got some praise.

But i can see her one day being a problem dog She sees people as friend or foe will chase and bark at strangers. SHe is young and playful and i've seen someone with an elderly onlead dog chase her off. It's very very sad.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - I like the sound of the course. The money isn't a huge amount compared to the benefits you and the ginger one will reap...tell hubby to put that into his pipe and smoke it rrr:rrr:.





moonviolet said:


> Hope you are both ok Sarah
> GR it sounds liek a great course and it's not just for Ginge it's for you and your OH and any future dogs too


I like both your takes on this, Dogless, I do earn the money after all  but its true MV its an investment for all the future doggies 

So neither of you would balk at the price?

On a side note, from what I have seen of it, my Mum seems to be able to do TTouch naturally, she did used to be a masseuse (not the kinky go to the tower type ) she just makes Ginge melt, used to do it to Rory too.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> I like both your takes on this, Dogless, I do earn the money after all  but its true MV its an investment for all the future doggies
> 
> So neither of you would balk at the price?
> 
> On a side note, from what I have seen of it, my Mum seems to be able to do TTouch naturally, she did used to be a masseuse (not the kinky go to the tower type ) she just makes Ginge melt, used to do it to Rory too.


It's a lot of money i would dither as you are but i genuinely think it would be well worth it.

Interesting you say that Ginge in "Help for Your Fearful Dog: A Step-by-Step Guide to Helping Your Dog Conquer His Fears by Nicole Wilde " massage in particular effleurage is recommended.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> It's a lot of money i would dither as you are but i genuinely think it would be well worth it.
> 
> Interesting you say that Ginge in "Help for Your Fearful Dog: A Step-by-Step Guide to Helping Your Dog Conquer His Fears by Nicole Wilde " massage in particular *effleurage *is recommended.


 do I want to know, it is my Mum after all.

Gingerly (lol get it ) goes to google,  Swedish massage, skim lightly, sounds like silky leashes all over again


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> do I want to know, it is my Mum after all.
> 
> Gingerly (lol get it ) goes to google,  Swedish massage, skim lightly, sounds like silky leashes all over again


:lol: you are going to get me a reputation on this thread:lol:


----------



## Werehorse

I charge £25 an hour for science tutoring (when I can get any) and I don't have to pay overheads on a venue or have insurance so I think it is a fair price to pay for someone's expertise.

I had a Bat Call today.  Knackered and have a sore voice and am off to training in a bit!

Currently wondering if buying a bag of starburst and clicking and treating would work with children as they aren't scared of you and they aren't interested in reason.  I hate being looked at like something that crawled out from under a stone because I deign to interrupt their texting to suggest we do some work, since we're in class after all. Honestly they aren't all bad and many schools are much better but at some schools the kids are just in charge!


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> I charge £25 an hour for science tutoring (when I can get any) and I don't have to pay overheads on a venue or have insurance so I think it is a fair price to pay for someone's expertise.
> 
> I had a Bat Call today.  Knackered and have a sore voice and am off to training in a bit!
> 
> Currently wondering if buying a bag of starburst and clicking and treating would work with children as they aren't scared of you and they aren't interested in reason.  I hate being looked at like something that crawled out from under a stone because I deign to interrupt their texting to suggest we do some work, since we're in class after all. Honestly they aren't all bad and many schools are much better but at some schools the kids are just in charge!


I agree with you on the per hour thing, I charge £40/hr, there's 2 of them and overheads like you say. But its the total ( I have the same trouble charging clients if a bill goes over £1k I try to find ways I can reduce it )

Re the starburst, worth a try, co-op have big bags on offer at the mo


----------



## Dogless

They're all out today....must be the full moon :crazy:.

Just got back from a walk where I was stood waiting for Kilo to have a poo. We were near a streetlamp, with Kilo wearing his flourescent yellow equafleece and bright LED collar.

There's a DA DDB near us and I looked up to see him ambling towards us offlead with a child of about 13 or 14 running after him. Child catches him and puts lead on and then proceeds to say:

"You should watch out, I'd only just let him off the lead and didn't see your dog, could have been nasty" . 

I replied "Well, it's not as if he's lit up like Blackpool Illuminations or anything is it?"

"What?"

"The dog" 

"Oh" :sosp:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> They're all out today....must be the full moon :crazy:.
> 
> Just got back from a walk where I was stood waiting for Kilo to have a poo. We were near a streetlamp, with Kilo wearing his flourescent yellow equafleece and bright LED collar.
> 
> There's a DA DDB near us and I looked up to see him ambling towards us offlead with a child of about 13 or 14 running after him. Child catches him and puts lead on and then proceeds to say:
> 
> "You should watch out, I'd only just let him off the lead and didn't see your dog, could have been nasty" .
> 
> I replied "Well, it's not as if he's lit up like Blackpool Illuminations or anything is it?"
> 
> "What?"
> 
> "The dog"
> 
> "Oh" :sosp:.


See now I wish there was a :yikes: button to save me having to reply.


----------



## L/C

GR - I'll put in perspective for your OH. Ely has seen 2 behaviourists, one cost £75 for an hour and a half one off with no back up, the other cost £240 for a two hour session worth a full written report and telephone/email back up. I also see a trainer (same person as second behaviourist) for Gypsy once a month for a one to one session at a cost of £50 a session. 

I've been on a BAT seminar that cost £45, an assessment and temperment session at a cost of £45, I'm going on a scent training workshop in Feb at a cost of £80 for dog and handler and a predatory recall seminar in May at a cost of £35. I'm also doing the think! Dog foundation course at a cost of £420!

So it seems perfectly reasonable to me! 

DISCLAIMER: I may not be the most impartial person to ask...


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Dogless there really is no hope for some people :nonod:.
Look at Rudi and his little kangaroo legs :001_wub: and Kilo is as handsome as ever!

Such a shame about that poor little dog 

Werehorse starburst would certainly work with me :crazy:

Ginge it is a lot of money but if you think it would help you then I would definitely go for it.

Hope you're ok Sarah.

Hi Mollysmith good luck with the target training 

Not a bad day here decided to have a couple of street walks today as they've not had any for a few days. Didn't go too badly both behaved and passed a couple of dogs that stood to the side nicely. I just wish Sam would stop trying to trip me up and jump into the road or go behind me, he has no road sense whatsoever.


----------



## Beth17

L/C said:


> GR - I'll put in perspective for your OH. Ely has seen 2 behaviourists, one cost £75 for an hour and a half one off with no back up, the other cost £240 for a two hour session worth a full written report and telephone/email back up. I also see a trainer (same person as second behaviourist) for Gypsy once a month for a one to one session at a cost of £50 a session.
> 
> I've been on a BAT seminar that cost £45, an assessment and temperment session at a cost of £45, I'm going on a scent training workshop in Feb at a cost of £80 for dog and handler and a predatory recall seminar in May at a cost of £35. I'm also doing the think! Dog foundation course at a cost of £420!
> 
> So it seems perfectly reasonable to me!
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I may not be the most impartial person to ask...


Impressive list L/C. What is the think! dog course like? as I would love to do something like that when I've done my degree.


----------



## L/C

Beth17 said:


> Impressive list L/C. What is the think! dog course like? as I would love to do something like that when I've done my degree.


I'm what you might charitably call an animal behaviour nerd. I read journal articles on apes for fun. 

Think! Dog is good but quite basic but it's nice to get feed back on what I'm writing.


----------



## Beth17

L/C said:


> I'm what you might charitably call an animal behaviour nerd. I read journal articles on apes for fun.
> 
> Think! Dog is good but quite basic but it's nice to get feed back on what I'm writing.


That's alright my degree is animal science so lots of lovely nerdy journal articles to read up on. I was reading about pigs recognising themselves in mirrors earlier 

Brill I might have a look at it when I have some money.


----------



## L/C

Beth17 said:


> That's alright my degree is animal science so lots of lovely nerdy journal articles to read up on. I was reading about pigs recognising themselves in mirrors earlier
> 
> Brill I might have a look at it when I have some money.


You can pay it in instalments which is nice so it's not just one lump sum.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> I'm what you might charitably call an animal behaviour nerd. I read journal articles on apes for fun.
> 
> Think! Dog is good but quite basic but it's nice to get feed back on what I'm writing.


Is the Think Dog Course based on the book of the same name by the late John Fisher, who was one of the founder members of the APDT?


----------



## L/C

That would be the one. It's been updated by Sarah Whitehead.


----------



## Guest

He lunged at every damn dog today. I did ask people if he could meet their dogs but alot said no. People see him lunging/bouncing and they think he's going to try and eat their dogs. 
He did meet some offlead labs that SPRINTED up to us from behind nicely though. The owner followed later and completely ignored me. rrr:
Oh and there was a lady who had an offlead JRT with a muzzle on. Now I know you shouldn't jump to conclusions but the fact it gave a good old growl at us was not a good sign. I waited on the top of the hill. The owner goes
"Oh, doesn't he like walking?" (motioning on mine who had already started to bounce at the presence of the JRT) and I said "He's bouncy so could you put your littlin on a lead till we pass?" 
I got huffed at for my trouble, she did it, and gave some very helpful advice
(not). "Maybe you ought to try training classes." :sosp:
And Ginge, you are the one who (I assume) works with ginge and has to put up with her barkybarkyreactiveness and if you think the course is worth it, then you damn well do it. 

Heck, I'm still a wee bit grumpeh. 

Ordered him a new red coat. I measured his back at 26 inches but i got him a 28 inch one JUST IN CASE HE GROWS AGAIN. And he doesn't really poop on walks so he shouldn't poop on it. In theory anyway. 

I might get him a nice collar.


----------



## GingerRogers

time to tell. zander (my phone just spelt wallander! !) to get.it together. Does he not realise where his bread is buttered. No new coat till he appreciates you


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> That would be the one. It's been updated by Sarah Whitehead.


Well of course she was another founder member of the APDT.

I knew John Fisher reasonably well.


----------



## Werehorse

I hope Zander has a better behaved day today, LO. Bad Lad.

No bat call today - relief! I need a day to recover from yesterday - it was quite grueling.  I honestly have no idea how I did this full time for as long as I did even though that wasn't all that long!

Training class last night was really good. I need to work on Hugo's sendaway - there's a certain distance away from the mat he can go from and if you try and send him from further away he just runs in little circles in front of you looking confused. I did manage to get him go from all the way across the hall eventually. Oscar did it perfectly for OH so he was really pleased.

We did a recall relay, which involved them sitting and waiting while you get across the hall as fast as possible before recalling. I was really pleased because there was people and dogs running about but both Hugo and Oscar were very steady in their waits until they were called. Good boys.

Hugo's retrievies were really good. I'm sure he sits around thinking about training on his down time because he seems to get better between sessions!

And we did some drop on recall which they were fine with. I need to retune Oscar though, he's gone a bit backwards with it and Hugo's needs a bit more work.

We must have done other stuff, although there was a chunk of time watching the youngest Toller doing mad laps of the hall. Awesome "don't chase" training for ours though as mad ginger thing runs past play bowing at top speed. :lol: Hugo showed a bit of interest, Oscar just focussed on us, the other dog in the class (gorgeous, gorgeous ginger labby girl - so calm and lovely and not much older than Hugo) just lay at her owners feet and did even look at the flying Toller who was practically jumping over her. :lol:

That has been the biggest benefit of the training classes for me, whether it is us and our dogs or whether it is the way the classes are run - calmness in the face of big distractions has been well-developed over the time we've been going. 3 young, lively dogs sitting quietly while another one runs round and round and round at top speed is quite impressive really.


----------



## Dogless

I failed miserably at keeping the DD calm this morning; added to that Rudi had crept up behind me whilst I made my porridge and I stepped back and clipped his toe (he is unhurt). He yelled and I over balanced trying not to tread on him again, twisting my ankle :mad2:. Suffice to say that by the time I took Kilo for a walk I had murder in mind :sosp:. He must have known as he didn't put a paw wrong, walked nicely and did exactly as I asked - we did some practice stuff for school and had a play. I was dreading it all starting up again when we got home BUT Kilo is asleep and Rudi is chewing stuff calmly so they'll live to see another day . And I get to have more coffee in peace .


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I hope Zander has a better behaved day today, LO. Bad Lad.
> 
> No bat call today - relief! I need a day to recover from yesterday - it was quite grueling.  I honestly have no idea how I did this full time for as long as I did even though that wasn't all that long!
> 
> Training class last night was really good. I need to work on Hugo's sendaway - there's a certain distance away from the mat he can go from and if you try and send him from further away he just runs in little circles in front of you looking confused. I did manage to get him go from all the way across the hall eventually. Oscar did it perfectly for OH so he was really pleased.
> 
> We did a recall relay, which involved them sitting and waiting while you get across the hall as fast as possible before recalling. I was really pleased because there was people and dogs running about but both Hugo and Oscar were very steady in their waits until they were called. Good boys.
> 
> Hugo's retrievies were really good. I'm sure he sits around thinking about training on his down time because he seems to get better between sessions!
> 
> And we did some drop on recall which they were fine with. I need to retune Oscar though, he's gone a bit backwards with it and Hugo's needs a bit more work.
> 
> We must have done other stuff, although there was a chunk of time watching the youngest Toller doing mad laps of the hall. Awesome "don't chase" training for ours though as mad ginger thing runs past play bowing at top speed. :lol: Hugo showed a bit of interest, Oscar just focussed on us, the other dog in the class (gorgeous, gorgeous ginger labby girl - so calm and lovely and not much older than Hugo) just lay at her owners feet and did even look at the flying Toller who was practically jumping over her. :lol:
> 
> That has been the biggest benefit of the training classes for me, whether it is us and our dogs or whether it is the way the classes are run - calmness in the face of big distractions has been well-developed over the time we've been going. * 3 young, lively dogs sitting quietly while another one runs round and round and round at top speed is quite impressive really*.


That is amazing!! The recall relay is my worst nightmare - Kilo'd be going insane as the others ran .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless, Glad all murderous thoughts have been set aside in favour of coffee 

Werehorse, there's a young Toller in our class bright lively young thing that makes the most amazing high pitched squeaks each time he does, Tink's ears flap :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> That is amazing!! The recall relay is my worst nightmare - Kilo'd be going insane as the others ran .


It was quite high energy! It helps that the dogs have all been together since pups as well. Hugo, Toller and Labby girl were all in the same puppy class so they are all used to each other. The oldest Toller who wasn't there last night and Oscar were in puppy class together so have been going to weekly classes together for over 2 years. - But the big Toller still wants to have a pop at Oscar sometimes, he's never tried to bit him or anything, he just likes to posture and grumble at him, usually while Oscar rolls on his back or does his best pathetic ears/waggy bum thing.  I'm not sure things would have been quite so calm if big Toller had been there last night - he has a very strong chase instinct, a bit like it sounds Kilo has.


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Dogless, Glad all murderous thoughts have been set aside in favour of coffee
> 
> Werehorse, there's a young Toller in our class bright lively young thing that makes the most amazing high pitched squeaks each time he does, Tink's ears flap :lol:


Oh they are fantastic - the family that train with us have three! The oldest is Oscar's age, the middle girl is a few months younger and joined Oscars class as soon as she had done her puppy course (she's VERY bright) and the youngest and maddest is Hugo's age.

They are all mad as a box of frogs though, in very individual ways. There is a suspicion that the youngest is actually a spaniel cross (even though they are registered - I wouldn't be at suprised if a spaniel had got to the mum as well!) :sosp: He is very spanielly in the maddest possible way as well - drives his mum mad!

Lovely dogs but not for me - far too bonkers. And look at my two - :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> It was quite high energy! It helps that the dogs have all been together since pups as well. Hugo, Toller and Labby girl were all in the same puppy class so they are all used to each other. The oldest Toller who wasn't there last night and Oscar were in puppy class together so have been going to weekly classes together for over 2 years. - But the big Toller still wants to have a pop at Oscar sometimes, he's never tried to bit him or anything, he just likes to posture and grumble at him, usually while Oscar rolls on his back or does his best pathetic ears/waggy bum thing.  I'm not sure things would have been quite so calm if big Toller had been there last night - he has a very strong chase instinct, a bit like it sounds Kilo has.


Kilo's chase instinct is immense; outside is OK in the main (we can watch agility / flyball etc with him lying down and relaxed) but indoors the amplified sound, noise of claws on the floor etc send him insane. If a person runs past indoors in the training hall I have to work really hard to keep his focus.


----------



## GingerRogers

Arrgh what did my phone do to my post last night why all the random fullstops 

Werehorse - class sounds great, lots of positivity plus some fun watching zoomies and I love the idea of Hugo sitting around thinking about his training 

Dogless - glad peace has resumed, hope your ankle is ok.

Where have these tollers sprung from, never heard of them till recently, our behaviourist and her colleagues all have them as well 

We had a rubbish walk this morning although I now know who the stupid person was who let their lab run up behind us the other day. A woman known as 'Mad ***' 'oh shes mental she is, so funny' the mad is meant as in what a good laugh . Well actually she has always seemed like one of the most obnoxiously miserable buggers I have ever met, slouches around like she owns the place so naturally her dog doesn't need to be under control  This is the same person who laughed when he stuck his nose up Ginge's bum and refused to leave her alone even though she was turning and snapping at him, I am meanwhile trying to walk on, straddling her dog between my legs, she laughs and says 'Oh Charlotte you can't walk like that' No, sh!t sherlock, why don't you do something about it then!!!!!!!

Anyway she crept up on us again this morning, so I ducked back into the estate and slowly walked up to the next cut through forgetting how slouchy and slow she is, I stood there for a while wondering where to go for our walk now as she was clearly going the way I had intended, when she only turns round and comes back, barky bark bark again, now thinking oh well maybe I can go that way now, when the dog comes back and jumps into flower bed of the garden I am standing next to . Barky bark bark, then something interesting happened. The reason he had come back was that Ginges mate Rudi, the lovely wolfhound Tamzin and her side kick chi  were coming. We haven't seen them for a while, not since the day after she bit the terrier when she barked at the Chi, as we have been avoiding dogs where possible. I was wondering what her reaction would be to dogs she knew and she shut up!!! I pondered asking if I could accompany them but by now I was verging on tears again so I turned round and went home before anything else could get to me  and tried to make a new coat


----------



## Dogless

GR; that sounds awful - amazing how peoples' selfishness can impact upon others isn't it? . Bet lab woman goes home thinking that they had a pleasant walk :sosp:. I think you did the right thing calling it a day as you and Ginge were both stressed. Hope the coat making goes better than the walk.

My ankle is fine - a bit sore but nothing I've not had before .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR; that sounds awful - amazing how peoples' selfishness can impact upon others isn't it? . Bet lab woman goes home thinking that they had a pleasant walk :sosp:. I think you did the right thing calling it a day as you and Ginge were both stressed. Hope the coat making goes better than the walk.
> 
> My ankle is fine - a bit sore but nothing I've not had before .


I'm not sure 'mad lab' ever has pleasant thoughts TBH 

Think the coat needs a bit of work and really not sure what the ninja thinks of it http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/277593-home-made-dog-coat-no-pictures-yet.html :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

Argh, annoying for you Ginge. Silly woman.


----------



## GingerRogers

Hubby just came home and when I told him who it was, he did :rolleyes5: say no more!


----------



## Guest

Went up the field lost a tennis ball. (A lab somewhere will be so happy) 


Every dog walker we saw crossed over to avoid us. 

*Sigh* 


We are having uncle/aunty visiting later and I know Zand will get shouted out or I will because "its your bloody dog". 

On the plus side though Zander did come back when I called him in the field and is still being very good with the pregnant cat. (Still bellyflops on the other ones though.) 

*positive thoughts and chocolate.* 

And hope your afternoon/next walk is better Ginge.


----------



## L/C

Aww Ginge and LO - sounds like you both need a big glass of wine.

Positive thoughts for the rest of the day.


----------



## GingerRogers

uncle/aunty - are you not quite sure


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Aww Ginge and LO - sounds like you both need *a big glass of wine.*
> 
> Positive thoughts for the rest of the day.


What now? Can I?


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> What now? Can I?


Surprised you're not in that pub again anyway you old slosha .


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> What now? Can I?


It's 12:25 that's perfectly acceptable. 

(See earlier in the thread for when I was drinking in the day. And when I was hungover. And when I was posting drunk. What? No I don't have a problem!)


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Dogless, Glad all murderous thoughts have been set aside in favour of coffee
> 
> Werehorse, there's a young Toller in our class bright lively young thing that makes the most amazing high pitched squeaks each time he does, Tink's ears flap :lol:


My first encounter with a Toller was years ago on a training day down South.

We were doing scent on cloths (as per the test) and I stood there with my mouth open, sadly too late to intervene, whilst said Toller devoured the scent cloth complete with metal weight in the corner. The owner was far too slow to stop her and then remarked that the dog had had to have her stomach pumped the previous week for eating something she shouldn't....!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I failed miserably at keeping the DD calm this morning; added to that Rudi had crept up behind me whilst I made my porridge and I stepped back and clipped his toe (he is unhurt). He yelled and I over balanced trying not to tread on him again, twisting my ankle :mad2:. Suffice to say that by the time I took Kilo for a walk I had murder in mind :sosp:. He must have known as he didn't put a paw wrong, walked nicely and did exactly as I asked - we did some practice stuff for school and had a play. I was dreading it all starting up again when we got home BUT Kilo is asleep and Rudi is chewing stuff calmly so they'll live to see another day . And I get to have more coffee in peace .


Oh the joys of new puppies....LOL Absolutely shattering isn't it and you need eyes in the back of your head.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I hope Zander has a better behaved day today, LO. Bad Lad.
> 
> No bat call today - relief! I need a day to recover from yesterday - it was quite grueling.  I honestly have no idea how I did this full time for as long as I did even though that wasn't all that long!
> 
> *Training class last night was really good. I need to work on Hugo's sendaway - there's a certain distance away from the mat he can go from and if you try and send him from further away he just runs in little circles in front of you looking confused. I did manage to get him go from all the way across the hall eventually. Oscar did it perfectly for OH so he was really pleased.*
> 
> Running in circles because they are confused is a common problem. How are you teaching the sendaway?


----------



## moonviolet

Had a bit of good bad and ugly walk today.

good was Tinks focus doing some offlead heel and just to make it more interesting threw in a few tricks walking past a group of soldiers ( hope they had their thermals on it was a cold one last night.) Also good was bumping into "mad lucy" one of Tink's friends and finishign the walk with them.

Bad us being charged at and bothered by the dobe and lurcher. ( the lurcher was the one that chased and pinned Tink a while back and incurred the skunk response. )The dobe is lead reactive, but today did the same in a lunge and snarl offlead which Lucy took exception to and tried to chase them off. Tink sat and look at me as I moved around her blocking them.

Ugly was the look I gave the owner as he gave a half arsed apology. it would mean more if this sort of crap wasn't a regular occurence that is not being addressed.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Had a bit of good bad and ugly walk today.
> 
> good was Tinks focus doing some offlead heel and just to make it more interesting threw in a few tricks walking past a group of soldiers ( hope they had their thermals on it was a cold one last night.) Also good was bumping into "mad lucy" one of Tink's friends and finishign the walk with them.
> 
> Bad us being charged at and bothered by the dobe and lurcher. ( the lurcher was the one that chased and pinned Tink a while back and incurred the skunk response. )The dobe is lead reactive, but today did the same in a lunge and snarl offlead which Lucy took exception to and tried to chase them off. Tink sat and look at me as I moved around her blocking them.
> 
> Ugly was the look I gave the owner as he gave a half arsed apology. it would mean more if this sort of crap wasn't a regular occurence that is not being addressed.


Mmm I think I'd be having a little word if it happens again.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh the joys of new puppies....LOL Absolutely shattering isn't it and you need eyes in the back of your head.


We've just had wacky races around the garden and dining room table; Rudi has discovered he can crawl under all the chairs and Kilo can't so he launches attacks and then retreats...he reminds me of a moray eel when you see them pop out of their hidey holes when diving . The new game is also climbing on Kilo's head....but Kilo initiates it by lowering his head so he must be enjoying it :crazy::crazy:.

On a calmer note Kilo slept after his walk until lunchtime which is back to some semblance of normality whilst I took Rudi into the garden for some play and training because it was bin day and the ranges are really busy today and I want him to disregard gunfire and general din outside. He's a bright little spark.



moonviolet said:


> Ugly was the look I gave the owner as he gave a half arsed apology. *it would mean more if this sort of crap wasn't a regular occurence that is not being addressed.*


That's always the crux of it to me - owners who let their dogs ruin your walk time and again yet do nothing to change things . One incident and an apology is fair enough if it was genuinely the first time the dog or dogs have done that, even two incidents and an apology. Any more and you know that they think just saying sorry is a good enough substitute for actually acting .


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Ugly was the look I gave the owner as he gave a half arsed apology. it would mean more if this sort of crap wasn't a regular occurence that is not being addressed.


But sorry makes it all better don't you know! I can understand that accidents happen, that sometimes you spot another dog too late and your dog goes haring over to introduce itself etc but when it's the same dog time and time again it's not really an accident is it? Hope you and Tink are both okay.

LO, people avoid me and Spencer too and I can't even speak the language to explain that he's friendly but a bit lacking in recall. I tend to cross over to avoid passing a dog on the same side of the street though, it just makes it a hell of a lot easier if there's that distance. If someone asked whether their dog could meet him though I'd have no issue with it. Sounds like you and Zander are having a rough time of it at the moment.

Ginge, I've had so, so many of those walks where I've just come home, thrown myself on my bed and cried  Yesterday came very close to being one of them although for different reasons. People with their "friendly" dogs can be so freaking selfish! And since even people who come to forums like this can't see why a friendly dog is such an issue I don't think there's much hope for the average owner  I hope your next walk is better.

Yesterday was a complete and utter disaster in so many ways. But it's all over and done with now and today is a new day. Well, not so new now since it's 3pm but you know what I mean. This morning we did some work on sits, downs, targeting, staying and recalling up on the road (on leash obviously!) and he was antsy about that too so I think it's the fact he's not used to working there that's the problem. I think a few days of doing some training sessions there will settle him down.

Anyway, this afternoon we managed a very nice walk around the block on a loose leash. The road was still a problem but once we'd turned the next corner he trotted along nicely. Did attempt to cut in front of me to sniff a few times but an "ah" stopped that. Once we got back in front of the flats I let him off leash so he could have a sniff around but he just walked next to me. So we had a bit of fun with it, running around with him at heel, tossing treats and then running away so he'd have to find heel again, a bit of tug as a reward instead of food and stuff like that. Then we came in and had a nice game of keep away with a squeaky toy.

So so far today has been a much better day. Well, except for the moment of panic just after i got up when I went to the loo, came out and Spen went belly up and looked all guilty. Now I could see that hubby had left his takeaway container from last night on the couch. And I also knew that he'd left part of a kebab wrapped in tin foil. No kebab and no tin foil plus a very guilty looking Spencer...well you can probably guess what I thought. Panicky phone call to hubby revealed he'd actually thrown the kebab away on his way to work this morning (but left everything else! :incazzato so I have no idea what Spen was looking guilty about.


----------



## MollySmith

Gosh this thread moves fast! I was only out one night! Mind you the way Molly greeted me it was as if I'd be missing a year - what do we do to deserve such affection? She slept in the spare bed with me all night eventually climbing under the duvet, wee daffy dog! I should add that we're not banned from the bedroom by the OH but I am waiting for a op to my back and shoulder next month and the spare bed is more comfy. 

I was catching up briefly but got sidetracked by Spencer pics on Facebook  so I'll try again later as work is too busy.


----------



## Dogless

Pleased to hear you're having a better day Sarah; why OHs feel the need to just leave their stuff wherever it was put when they came in is beyond me :sosp:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Hope you don't find out what he was looking guilty about later Sarah, sometimes I think they look guilty for even thinking naughty things, he probably thought it would be good to raid the container just as you appeared.

Some years ago we had a chinese, including spare ribs, when we went to bed we decided to put the empty containers right at the back of the counter as we thought the bin was a bit too accessible and tempting for Rory. We came down the next morning to find all these tin foil containers on the floor. Not a mark on them and spotlessly clean. Still have no idea how he managed to; not only get them down, he was only small collie height but also do it with out getting any teeth marks or dents in them. Thankfully the pork ribs didn't do him any harm either


----------



## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> I was catching up briefly but got sidetracked by Spencer pics on Facebook  so I'll try again later as work is too busy.


Haha, there are many of them!

Dogless, it's the fact he threw out the kebab but left several empty chocolate bar wrappers, 2 empty cans of Relentless, an empty cigarette packet, the cellophane off another cigarette packet and the tray his chips came in on the sofa that bugs me. He made the effort to throw one thing out, why not throw the rest??? Men!


----------



## MollySmith

Molly doesn't bother with the countertop that much but will take all the plastics wrappers from the recycling bag. I must order some sort of proper bin for them!


----------



## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> Molly doesn't bother with the countertop that much but will take all the plastics wrappers from the recycling bag. I must order some sort of proper bin for them!


As far as we were aware neither did Rory , leave something in easy reach he would have it whatever it was, that was the last thing you did before bed, scan for choccy biscuits to put out of reach, but we *never *saw him near the worktops.


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry i forgot to add that bit Tink just sat through the whole debacle. once they had gone. She gave a nonchalant shake and was completely relaxed. I think she has finally learned that sitting is better than running   Even Lucy's owner commented on how well Tink did  

I can't criticise OH atm he's not finished the final fiddly bits of the ktichen yet :lol: 

Not that Tink is a counter surfer ( well has amazing leaping and dragging capabilities) this kitchen is a little taller than the old one


----------



## L/C

Well done Tink. 

Ah counter surfing. Gypsy is a ninja at this - I've lost count of the amount of food she's had, you've only got to turn your back for a minute and it's gone. She tried to take something off the side while I was stood next to it and watching her this morning! 

Her most impressive achievement though was when she took an entire box of 6 eggs - ate all the eggs (shells and all) without leaving any mark or spilled yolk and then closed the box and left it sitting looking pristine on the sofa.  When I found it I thought she'd just found an empty egg box.


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> Sorry i forgot to add that bit Tink just sat through the whole debacle. once they had gone. She gave a nonchalant shake and was completely relaxed. I think she has finally learned that sitting is better than running   Even Lucy's owner commented on how well Tink did
> 
> I can't criticise OH atm he's not finished the final fiddly bits of the ktichen yet :lol:
> 
> Not that Tink is a counter surfer ( well has amazing leaping and dragging capabilities) this kitchen is a little taller than the old one


Apologies, if I've missed this, are you having a new kitchen? We're planning to knock down a wall to make our apologetic cupboard of a kitchen into something like a proper room. I'm seriously wondering how we'll cope with dog and builders.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Well done Tink.
> 
> Ah counter surfing. Gypsy is a ninja at this - I've lost count of the amount of food she's had, you've only got to turn your back for a minute and it's gone. She tried to take something off the side while I was stood next to it and watching her this morning!
> 
> Her most impressive achievement though was when she took an entire box of 6 eggs - ate all the eggs (shells and all) without leaving any mark or spilled yolk and then closed the box and left it sitting looking pristine on the sofa.  When I found it I thought she'd just found an empty egg box.


Thats reminds me of Tink's most impressive act of thievery, visiting my parents she jumped onto their chest freezer in their utility stole a single egg jumped off the freezer i called her as soon as she landed and she swapped the intact unharmed egg for a treat :lol:

I know i shoudln't watch but sometimes her tenacity is impressive. The other day OH had manflu and had left a pocket pack of tissues on the kitchen table. In his defence it appeared to be out of reach of a little 15inch tall beagle, but she meerkatted up at the table, turn her head on it's side and flicked the tissue pack with her tongue until it was in reach :lol: She then brought it to me with some measure of pride. I'm beginning to wonder if she is seeing everything as challenges she must solve for a treat :lol:


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Thats reminds me of Tink's most impressive act of thievery, visiting my parents she jumped onto their chest freezer in their utility stole a single egg jumped off the freezer i called her as soon as she landed and she swapped the intact unharmed egg for a treat :lol:
> 
> I know i shoudln't watch but sometimes her tenacity is impressive. The other day OH had manflu and had left a pocket pack of tissues on the kitchen table. In his defence it appeared to be out of reach of a little 15inch tall beagle, but she meerkatted up at the table, turn her head on it's side and flicked the tissue pack with her tongue until it was in reach :lol: She then brought it to me with some measure of pride. I'm beginning to wonder if she is seeing everything as challenges she must solve for a treat :lol:


You've created a monster! 

The first weekend we had Gypsy we left them alone to go to the pub for dinner and a drink. We were gone about an hour and came back to a scene of devastation.

She'd opened the kitchen door and helped herself to:

4 pain au chocolat
8 crumpets
3 packs of naturediet 
7kg of Barking Heads (bag was unopened)

That was when we changed the door handles to round knobs instead of levers. :lol:


----------



## MollySmith

We had two dogs who were diabetic and all the bins and kitchen where locked down with bungee cords and padlocks. A nightmare when you have someone to stay.

My husband does this when I'm on a diet...


----------



## Werehorse

L/C said:


> Well done Tink.
> 
> Ah counter surfing. Gypsy is a ninja at this - I've lost count of the amount of food she's had, you've only got to turn your back for a minute and it's gone. She tried to take something off the side while I was stood next to it and watching her this morning!
> 
> Her most impressive achievement though was when she took an entire box of 6 eggs - ate all the eggs (shells and all) without leaving any mark or spilled yolk and then closed the box and left it sitting looking pristine on the sofa.  When I found it I thought she'd just found an empty egg box.


That is some serious skillz.

I'll waffle about sendaway later, Twiggy. Currently just wasting time and need to get back out and walk Oscar - have walked Hugo already. Trying seperate walks, enjoyed the walk with Hugo on his own this morning/lunchtime now have to get back out with poor old Oscar. Have been informed that I'm working again tomorrow so he needs a good walk. Off to race the sunset round the woods!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Ruperts most impressive act of thievery was stealing the ham off a ham sandwich without disturbing the rest of the sandwich at all  The salad was still there between the two slices of bread and there wasn't so much as a tooth mark in the bread but the ham was gone. I know damn well I put the ham on it coz it was the last slice.


----------



## moonviolet

MollySmith said:


> Apologies, if I've missed this, are you having a new kitchen? We're planning to knock down a wall to make our apologetic cupboard of a kitchen into something like a proper room. I'm seriously wondering how we'll cope with dog and builders.


The kitchen is almost finished now it's in working order just missing some upstands and bits and pieces.

we had the wall between the kitchen and dining room knocked down, but we were living with my BIL at the time, as this place had been converted into flats so we basically gutted it all teh plaster wiring plumbing floors ceilings you name it we replaced it. It's still an ongoing project... we'll finish it one day. The last place took 11 years in total


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> The kitchen is almost finished now it's in working order just missing some upstands and bits and pieces.
> 
> we had the wall between the kitchen and dining room knocked down, but we were living with my BIL at the time, as this place had been converted into flats so we basically gutted it all teh plaster wiring plumbing floors ceilings you name it we replaced it. It's still an ongoing project... we'll finish it one day. The last place took 11 years in total


Sounds like us! We've been here for some 16 years and it was rented since 1974. It was unhabitable when we bought it and an awful lot was spent on things we didn't see like damp proofing and getting rid of beetles, lice and woodworm. We've finished now and want to sell to move out of Cambridge city into a village. I think five years ago I would have cared less but now that it's done I'm reluctant! It does need to be done as I know the kitchen is too tiny for a three bed house.

You will finish, some days it feels neverending


----------



## Beth17

Now now Dogless no murderous thoughts about the DD-if you want I will take them off of your hands 

Does the chair game game look a bit like this? But sam used the tables.


L/C that is an impressive list of thievery and I thought Sam was good 

Glad you didn't have too bad a walk MV shame about the awful dogs.

Sorry you had a naff walk LO and Ginge 

Well done Spen for behaving better today 

Had a good walk this morning with Oscar only one slight warning grumble when he was surrounded by a group of dogs and they moved and he was happy again. He did decide to be naughty and run off into the next field at the end of our walk as there was a commotion with another group of dogs we know and had met so had to go and retrieve him  I definitely think his tablets are kicking in.

Sam had a lovely day up at my dads with his 4 boxers and is now fast asleep.


----------



## Guest

Sadly the cat is no longer pregnant. 
The vet reckons she may have reabsorbed.
Kinda relieved I supposed (KITTENS!?!?!) but still a wee bit dissapointed.

Got to take the Donkey eared one for his boosters tommorow morning. :sosp:
He Lurves the waiting room, (OMGPEOPLEANDDOGSANDCATS!!!) actual vet room not so much.


----------



## Beth17

That's a shame LO but I expect for the best 

Have fun taking donkey to the vets. I see it as perfect socialisation


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry to here about the loss of the kittens LO but prob a blessing .

L/C gypsy sounds a very accomplished thief. The eggs are impressive but how sick did she feel after the pub outing 

MV sorry about the nasty dogs but well done Tink!

I have been stewing most of the day, I know I shouldn't but it just bugs me, the thing is 'mad lab's' lab is not badly behaved in any way he is just a young overexcited boy, its not that she has no control, that I can sympathise with , its that she chooses not to have control.

I suppose we had a better afternoon walk as we didn't see any people or dogs - it was cars and cats (see I told you it was blessing LO) that were our nemesis this afternoon. Silly ginger bunny rabbit impressions most of the time accompanied by car barking 'big sigh'. I was just on edgethe whole way round incase something appeared. Think it might take a couple of days for *my *stress levels to subside again.

On a more positive note. 'Paw' is looking less like a demented kitten smash and it has moved on to learning a proper sit up beg as well  begging is very cute!


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> L/C gypsy sounds a very accomplished thief. *The eggs are impressive but how sick did she feel after the pub outing *


There were no ill effects! 

LO - sorry to hear about the kittens but probably a blessing for both you and potential mum to be.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 - love the video....it's a similar game but he can wriggle anywhere he wants under the whole dining table and chairs and uses it to his advantage .

I just took looking like a mad dog lady to another level this afternoon. Took Rudi out for an hour with Kilo and I - I wanted to know if the park would be feasible together really...and it is . Take one baby sling, put in massively heavy wriggly puppy, put on large fleece over the top and do up zip so two front paws and a head stick out, put on large coat over the top. Take one BW in his flourescent yellow equafleece and head out for a walk. I got a few looks but it was good as it was busy out and about so lots for Rudi to see and hear. The BW luckily walked like a dream .

My lecture today was from a lady who's pefect puppy had never, ever even nipped her so she said. Not once. Because she loved her straight away . Well...good for you perfect lady with your perfect dog rrr:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> My lecture today was from a lady who's pefect puppy had never, ever even nipped her so she said. Not once. Because she loved her straight away . Well...good for you perfect lady with your perfect dog rrr:.


Oh how nice for her :laugh:, I would love to know where people get these perfect little dogs from.

However I think we really should have had pics of your get up from today .


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh how nice for her :laugh:, I would love to know where people get these perfect little dogs from.
> 
> However I think we really should have had pics of your get up from today .


I looked in the mirror .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> My lecture today was from a lady who's pefect puppy had never, ever even nipped her so she said. Not once. Because she loved her straight away . Well...good for you perfect lady with your perfect dog rrr:.


Well there's one dog who won't learn bite inhibition then. Oddly enough, Wolf NEVER nipped or mouthed. So these puppies do exist but I think they're bloody rare!


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Well there's one dog who won't learn bite inhibition then. Oddly enough, Wolf NEVER nipped or mouthed. So these puppies do exist but I think they're bloody rare!


That's what I thought in my 'sod you' sort of way whilst she was boasting . Rudi is gradually getting better but is as bad as the BW was!


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: :lol: So puppies nip because they don't love their owners yet? Where do these people come from with their MAD ideas? :crazy:


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Well there's one dog who won't learn bite inhibition then. Oddly enough, Wolf NEVER nipped or mouthed. So these puppies do exist but I think they're bloody rare!


Zander barely ever nipped etc when young meaning when he finally had those tantrums it reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly hurt...

Nippy pup = GOOD


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Zander barely ever nipped etc when young meaning when he finally had those tantrums it reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly hurt...
> 
> *Nippy pup = GOOD*


That's what I keep telling my poor, ripped flesh :sosp:.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Haha, there are many of them!
> 
> Dogless, it's the fact he threw out the kebab but left several empty chocolate bar wrappers, 2 empty cans of Relentless, an empty cigarette packet, the cellophane off another cigarette packet and the tray his chips came in on the sofa that bugs me. He made the effort to throw one thing out, why not throw the rest??? Men!


You surely don't expect them to multi-task? You are lucky he threw one thing out....LOL


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> Zander barely ever nipped etc when young meaning when he finally had those tantrums it reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly hurt...
> 
> Nippy pup = GOOD


Yeah, we always said if Wolf ever bit someone it would be far worse than if Shadow did because he'd never learned to control how hard he bit whereas Shadow, who was always extremely quick to use his teeth, could "bite" you without leaving a mark.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Sorry i forgot to add that bit Tink just sat through the whole debacle. once they had gone. She gave a nonchalant shake and was completely relaxed. I think she has finally learned that sitting is better than running   Even Lucy's owner commented on how well Tink did
> 
> *I can't criticise OH atm he's not finished the final fiddly bits of the ktichen yet :lol: *
> 
> You're brave!! I usually get a little man in to do any fiddly bits in this house. I dread to think if I entrusted hubby to those sort of tasks.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> moonviolet said:
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry i forgot to add that bit Tink just sat through the whole debacle. once they had gone. She gave a nonchalant shake and was completely relaxed. I think she has finally learned that sitting is better than running   Even Lucy's owner commented on how well Tink did
> 
> *I can't criticise OH atm he's not finished the final fiddly bits of the ktichen yet :lol: *
> 
> You're brave!! I usually get a little man in to do any fiddly bits in this house. I dread to think if I entrusted hubby to those sort of tasks.
> 
> 
> 
> Mine is quite "handy" it's just getting the man the tools and the will to work in the the same place at the same time is hte greatest challenge and then once he's started it's getting the work finished that is the real key. I'm banned from using his power tools :lol: with my clumsiness this isn't a bad thing
Click to expand...


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Yeah, we always said if Wolf ever bit someone it would be far worse than if Shadow did because he'd never learned to control how hard he bit whereas Shadow, who was always extremely quick to use his teeth, could "bite" you without leaving a mark.


I have only just figured this out from a post in another thread. Presumably why the ninja managed to grab that dogs snout the other day without doing any damage. She is very mouthy still when she plays, I kind of thought we ought to try and stop it and it was just a puppy left over that her PO never trained her out of, now I am quite glad of it. As long as it not my toes poking out the duvet


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol: :lol: So puppies nip because they don't love their owners yet? Where do these people come from with their MAD ideas? :crazy:


Well I don't know whether Holly Bolly loves me but by gum she certainly loves the taste of me - especially blood.....


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> I have only just figured this out from a post in another thread. Presumably why the ninja managed to grab that dogs snout the other day without doing any damage. She is very mouthy still when she plays, I kind of thought we ought to try and stop it and it was just a puppy left over that her PO never trained her out of, now I am quite glad of it. As long as it not my toes poking out the duvet


It's what worried me most with Rupert, he'd never learned bite inhibition and my attempts at teaching it him as an adult were so so at best. On Ian Dunbars bite scale Rupert was a level 5 biter, he went in hard and didn't stop at one bite. Thankfully it was never directed at people, I'd have had little choice but to put him to sleep if it had been. His play bites were bad enough!

Shadow on the other hand was iffy with people but he was only a level 2 at most and that was only under provocation, most of the time he was all noise and air snaps.

Here's the bite scale if you're interested 
http://www.apdt.com/veterinary/assets/pdf/Ian Dunbar Dog Bite Scale.pdf


----------



## Beth17

Now if only these perfect owners would breed their perfect pups and we'd never need to have problem dogs again


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Now if only these perfect owners would breed their perfect pups and we'd never need to have problem dogs again


Dunno about those other perfect dogs but Wolf didn't have a clue what to do with it  He could have sired about 20 litters given the number of idiots who'd send their kids out to the field with a bitch in season on a Saturday afternoon. But no, Wolf just wanted to play and it was Shadow who wanted to get it on. And the thought of little Shadows running around...:yikes:


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy - sendaways.

We use a mat. Treat on mat at first, click for feet on mat, dog picks up treat. Pretend to put treat down, click for feet on mat, go out and deliver treat. Stop pretended and just click and treat for run to mat. Once reliable start to increase distance. Add a down following out at first then cueing from a distance.

It seems to have worked well although I don't know how it would translate to a competition sendaway as it is really a send to mat (we make the mat smaller after a bit - Oscar will do a sendaway to a small piece of vetbed now.

If you can suggest anything else I'm happy to listen?


----------



## Dogless

Fabulous night at school; wasn't sure how it would go as I'm frazzled and Kilo is too - but we both found our enthusiasm and Kilo was my best boy :001_wub::001_wub:. He's so tired that he got in through the front door and turned right into his bed.

I then got the little snapper out of his crate for a loo break who has promptly fallen back to sleep too!!



Twiggy said:


> Well I don't know whether Holly Bolly loves me but by gum she certainly loves the taste of me - especially blood.....


Blood is Rudi's favourite flavour too!!


----------



## Beth17

Time to put your feet up for a well earned rest


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Time to put your feet up for a well earned rest


The little snapper is giving me cuddles and Kilo has come in here too. Bliss :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> The little snapper is giving me cuddles and Kilo has come in here too. Bliss :001_wub::001_wub:.


Makes all the hard work worth it.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Makes all the hard work worth it.


Til 5 or so in the morning when it all starts again :crazy::crazy:. I'm loving it really - keep looking at them both and can't believe they are my boys .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Til 5 or so in the morning when it all starts again :crazy::crazy:. I'm loving it really - keep looking at them both and can't believe they are my boys .


Awww how lovely is that.

I'll think of you if we're up again howling at the foxes howling at the moon just before 5. I forgot to share that gem with you all.


----------



## Beth17

moonviolet said:


> Awww how lovely is that.
> 
> I'll think of you if we're up again howling at the foxes howling at the moon just before 5. I forgot to share that gem with you all.


Oh my goodness rather you than me


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Oh my goodness rather you than me


 if you can't beat 'em join 'em


----------



## Werehorse

Tink is SO cute. :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Tink is SO cute. :lol:


I love it, she gives me an excuse to do mad things.


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Awww how lovely is that.
> 
> I'll think of you if we're up again howling at the foxes howling at the moon just before 5. I forgot to share that gem with you all.


Im up at 4.30am 6 mornings a week for work and the foxes can be quite noisy......scares the daylights out of me if they do it just as I'm coming out of the house- it's very eerie


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> Im up at 4.30am 6 mornings a week for work and the foxes can be quite noisy......scares the daylights out of me if they do it just as I'm coming out of the house- it's very eerie


Yes it is quite haunting, howl back at them...


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> Zander barely ever nipped etc when young meaning when he finally had those tantrums it reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly hurt...
> 
> Nippy pup = GOOD


I wonder if that's a Lurcher thing? I don't know many ut the two "problem" Lurchers I know are very prone to let a nip or a mouth turn into a bite. 
Have started working with the difficult BX Lurcher again, he had a month of being a staff-only dog for hardcore observation and retraining and a couple of volunteers are now being reintroduced to him. Never have I known such a high drive dog before, he's incredibly intelligent so while he's very trainable you have to be many steps ahead! Hopefully he'll be up for homing soon.

Werehorse, I like the sound of teaching a sendaway, I'm always looking for different things to try with Breeze that don't directly involve her feet!

Had another nice walk today with the monsters, a few wobbles from Breeze RE hammering, a noisy trailer and a birdscarer but nothing drastic. Her car counter-conditioning is paying off as it's only the big things that upset her now  Scooter was excellent as well, I keep finding myself grinning when he checks in on me and recalls beautifully! Met the local nervy BC and her mad owner who shouts at it when it fear barks at other dogs and people. Poor thing is _never_ allowed off its 4' lead 

Going to stay with OH and Major tomorrow until wednesday, hopefully I might be able to teach him something other than his name, recall (reliable but slow), "sit", "pub" and "car". He's pretty clever but is a big lazy thug who either can't be bothered to try or will mug you for high-value treats. "Down" and "touch" might well be on the cards!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - sendaways.
> 
> We use a mat. Treat on mat at first, click for feet on mat, dog picks up treat. Pretend to put treat down, click for feet on mat, go out and deliver treat. Stop pretended and just click and treat for run to mat. Once reliable start to increase distance. Add a down following out at first then cueing from a distance.
> 
> It seems to have worked well although I don't know how it would translate to a competition sendaway as it is really a send to mat (we make the mat smaller after a bit - Oscar will do a sendaway to a small piece of vetbed now.
> 
> If you can suggest anything else I'm happy to listen?


*Training class last night was really good. I need to work on Hugo's sendaway - there's a certain distance away from the mat he can go from and if you try and send him from further away he just runs in little circles in front of you looking confused. I did manage to get him go from all the way across the hall eventually. Oscar did it perfectly for OH so he was really pleased.*

The mat method of teaching sendaways is still used by some handlers.

What you are teaching wouldn't translate to a competition sendaway at the moment but that doesn't matter.

Do think think you could video Hugo doing sendaway as it would be easier to diagnose problems?

Without seeing him in action I would hazard a guess that he doesn't understand fully what you are asking him to do and/or the incentive isn't great enough.


----------



## Sarah1983

I've created a monster  6:30 this morning I dragged myself out of bed to take Spen for a pee and he's offering me eye contact and walking next to me the whole time. Luckily I had treats on me. Coming back in he goes through the main door, turns and waits for me to close the door. Another treat worthy behaviour since it means he's not flying up the stairs nearly ripping my arm off while I try to quietly close the door. Then back in the flat he starts offering me all sorts of things. It's 6:30, I am NOT a morning person and crawling back to bed is about all I'm capable of.


----------



## Dogless

This morning has been great again; the boys slept until 0620 which is around the time that I always get up . I set my alarm to take Rudi out for the toilet at 0230 - he was asleep when I went down so I woke him and took him out but can push the time back now I think. Kilo was sleeping through by about 9 1/2 - 10 weeks I think so not long now .

After some



















and some food there was calm .

Then I took Kilo out with the weimie and they had huge leg strateching zoomies which was lovely to see and he behaved like a dream again. It's actually doing him some good now that our isolated walks are on hold as we're meeting loads more dogs and people on a regular basis which is why I'd been going to the park so often .

Now I have a little snapper and the big fella cuddling up to me; I'll leave them in peace shortly and go for a swim then take Rudi to the opening day of a new PAH as the assistant Kilo LOVES from the Belfast store has been moved there and I promised her I'd go and see her with Rudi. It's the same travelling distance so I might start going there anyway.

Hope everyone else is having a good day .


----------



## Dogless

Crikey :yikes::yikes:. Just seen the rottie that attacked Kilo free to a good home on our 'buy and sell' group on nosy book. Advertised as great with dogs  and kids but not getting on with the owner's current two dogs. All sorts of people have said they'd have him but luckily THANK GOODNESS someone sensible has gone on there who knows a specialist rescue who has passed details on and they'll take him. I would have had to say something but seems like he's going the best place now.


----------



## Beth17

Blimey thank goodness someone has shown some sense. Hopefully he can go somewhere appropriate now.

It was all going so well I knew something would happen. Took both boys down on lead to the small wooded area as have uni so we went in and then up ahead saw a man with a little boy toddling along and so pulled the boys into the side and they sat waiting. They were behaving beautifully and the man and little boy were just going past when a woman I often see and always tell about Oscar appeared. She could easily see us waiting but carried on walking anyway with one of her terriers offlead. 

It came straight over to Oscar and started sniffing his backend whilst he was on a tight lead in a sit. Of course he kicked off but then managed to slip his collar  and chased the dog off. I scruffed him and that stopped him and she said we'll go on. Don't worry the man and little boy were out of the way at this point and I saw them again and had a quick chat to him.

I then saw her again on the other side of the road and she said "that must have been a shock for you unfortunately we were all walking through at the same time". I was fuming as had she stayed back just for two minutes nothing would have happened rrr: Oscar then played up for the rest of the walk. 

Anyway I'm off to calm down at uni


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh Christ Dogless! Can you imagine him going to someone clueless?? Let's hope he does go to rescue, at least there they'll be able to assess him properly and let the new owners know what he's really like. Why the hell do people lie about stuff like this?

I'm so glad Kilo and Rudi are getting on so well so quickly. They look like they're having a blast together 

I'm going to nominate Spencer for a gold star today. I needed to get a top up for my phone and since there's a convenient place to tie Spen up where I can see him the whole time I decided to take him with me. What a pleasure he was to walk! I had him on the harness most of the way there so he could have a good sniff along the edge of the field but he wasn't too pully. On the way home I switched to his collar. He walked beautifully. He spent most of the walk home right by my side glancing up at me. Someone even commented on how well behaved he was :thumbup: And best of all he looked happy doing it! Wagging tail, bright eyes, grin on his face. I am so, so pleased with him.


----------



## GingerRogers

Well Sarah sounds like calm might have hit, what a good boy he is being 

Dogless - thank goodness some one who knows what they are doing will hopefully get the dog and thank goodness that you should hopefully not have to worry about bumping into it anymore.

Beth - I so know how you are feeling, its so horrible when pig ignorant people ruin your day.

Thorne - What have you been doing with Breeze to counter condition against cars, we had been doing well and it was just larger or very rattly vehicles that were a problem, even got past the bin lorries last week but yesterday was a disaster even the smallest car was an issue. This morning not so bad which was good as I would have hated to end our lovely walk on a slightly sour note.

We had a lovely time all on our own there was no way mad lab would have been out before sunrise. http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/277899-same-walk-different-photos.html


----------



## Dogless

Off to swim and think; someone I know has got me involved in the rottie thing - sent the lady concerned a message saying I might be able to help??? I know a rescue with behaviourist support that I've sent her a link to. No idea what else to do .


----------



## catz4m8z

I had a good walk with my lot this morning too, Heidi deserves a little pat on the head! Ok, so she is still barking at other dogs and didnt want to be distracted with treats today but she would come when I called her and follow me in a curve around them. So she will happily avoid them, I just have to get her to do it quietly!
Adam was a little star today, meeting all other dogs with a big happy grin! Inc 2 mongrels, 3 Lab type and a Staffie (who he shamelessly fawned over thanks to his Staff obssession!). He was so good with one of the mongrels who was on lead and totally manic, jumping up and down like a lunatic.....he just stood in front of her gently wagging his tail until she settled enough to sniff noses.
Im thinking that when I bring Alfie home I will probably take quite a few walks with just him and Adam as he is such a good example at how to be a confident social doggy whilst weighing the same as a rabbit!!LOL


----------



## GingerRogers

catz4m8z said:


> I had a good walk with my lot this morning too, Heidi deserves a little pat on the head! Ok, so she is still barking at other dogs and didnt want to be distracted with treats today but she would come when I called her and follow me in a curve around them. So she will happily avoid them, I just have to get her to do it quietly!
> Adam was a little star today, meeting all other dogs with a big happy grin! Inc 2 mongrels, 3 Lab type and a Staffie (who he shamelessly fawned over thanks to his Staff obssession!). He was so good with one of the mongrels who was on lead and totally manic, jumping up and down like a lunatic.....he just stood in front of her gently wagging his tail until she settled enough to sniff noses.
> Im thinking that when I bring Alfie home I will probably take quite a few walks with just him and Adam as he is such a good example at how to be a confident social doggy whilst weighing the same as a rabbit!!LOL


Sounds like a plan Adam sounds like a superstar, must be hard managing the different needs of Heidi and the other two/soon to be 3 (you must be nuts) it can't be long now???


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Off to swim and think; someone I know has got me involved in the rottie thing - sent the lady concerned a message saying I might be able to help??? I know a rescue with behaviourist support that I've sent her a link to. No idea what else to do .


What to do?? Not too much! I know you care but it isn't your problem, you have enough on your plate


----------



## Guest

We went to the vet, made friends with a whippet (IT WAS A MINI ZANDER!!) and a really old dog. 

Actually took him into the vet room and he started shaking and whining and howling. 

Bought him a kong squeaky tennis ball. Which has been taken into custody as of now and he's started to rip holes in it. 

So he has not been too bad yet.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Off to swim and think; someone I know has got me involved in the rottie thing - sent the lady concerned a message saying I might be able to help??? I know a rescue with behaviourist support that I've sent her a link to. No idea what else to do .


What else _can_ you do? You've got your own two dogs to focus on, you can't take on trying to help out this dog too. Why did they say might be able to help anyway?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


>


.....Ears like a spitfire and face like an Austrian blind, that one


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> .....Ears like a spitfire and face like an Austrian blind, that one


Oh Lol Lol:lol::lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Fun frosty walk if you ignore the sounds of war going on around you. Run into the dobe and hte lurcher today this time they were onlead after just coming through the barrier. I went up the bank to give them plenty of space to which they did without incident  I got a nice thank from their owner and he commented on how well behaved Tink is and i replied with " patience adn lots of cheese." what sort of answer is that. what is wrong with me.???!

Well done Sarah , how wonderful that Spen not only walked nicely but enjoyed doing so have a box of gold stars... make the place festive :lol:

GR I loved your pics and Ginge looked like she was having a great time 

catz4m8z What a star Adam is  Hannah did well circling around them. We need you pic trained before pup arrives!


----------



## L/C

Oh dear Dogless - it's such a pain when people do that. I had someone contact me before as someone had given them my name for greyhound rescue and I had to find spaces for 5 dogs! And then there was the time that someone gave me a lurcher in the park because I was the greyhound lady and I could find her a home.  I hope you can help because the last thing anyone needs is that dog going to a home that isn't suitable.

Beth - sorry some idiot ruined your walk. 

Sarah - what a little star Spen is being! Can you hope that Kevin has finally left the building for good? Your 6.30am story made me laugh.

Ginge - that looks like a really lovely walk.

I have had an absolutely lovely morning and both dogs are little superstars in their own way. We had a work night out last night so there's a bit more flexibility with the time you start the day after o) but since I was sensible last night and wasn't hungover for once (yes really!) I used the time to give the dogs an extra long walk before work.

It was lovely frosty morning and as we were walking to the park a man started scrapping the ice off his windscreen and Ely didn't flinch at all. It sounds silly and really trivial but it was something that he'd never encountered before and was a sharp, loud sound but he didn't even flick an ear at it. Before he would have frozen and refused to walk past it or tried to run home. 

Then when we were by the field of tiny mice a goldie ran up to us and stood about 2 foot away barking. Ely ignored when I asked him and walked on while the dog followed us - he was scenting and focused on me and what I was asking him to do. 

Gypsy - recalled from chasing a squirrel, recalled from the field of tiny mice, heeled perfectly off lead and did an emergency stop when she'd headed off to see another dog. What was the difference? I've lost my voice and I was using the whistle and hand signals - I think I need to stop worrying about assigning voice-commands so much and communicate with her the way she finds easiest.

Some photos from my frosty walk in an attempt to show how pretty it is - used my crappy phone though so not very clear:


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> " patience and lots of cheese." what sort of answer is that. what is wrong with me.???!


You are making me laugh today moonviolet 

Sounds like a good day L/C and Gypsys set backs were just that, Well done Ely as well.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well Spen's really on a roll today! Just been out for a wander round the block for more loose leash walking practice and we encountered another dog across the road. He had a bit of a prance and a whine but there was very little pressure on the leash and I was able to click and treat him when he looked away from it. We then carried on our walk with a nice, loose leash. He doesn't generally lunge at dogs across the road but usually he gets pully for about 5 minutes after seeing one.

MV, if he carries on like this that whole box of gold stars will be deserved 

L/C, glad to hear your two are doing well again. I seem to find we'll have a big set back or really awful day and then go on to have a fantastic one.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> What else _can_ you do? You've got your own two dogs to focus on, you can't take on trying to help out this dog too. Why did they say might be able to help anyway?


I have no idea at all . I have had no more messages so am leaving well alone. My heart sinks at all the "Aw, hun, he's gorgeous I've always wanted a dog of my own so will work on hubby" type answers - I hope the dpg does go to a small, experienced rescue.

L/C - what a fab walk and photos; well done Team Pointy .

Sarah - Spen is being superb isn't he?


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I have no idea at all . I have had no more messages so am leaving well alone. My heart sinks at all the "Aw, hun, he's gorgeous I've always wanted a dog of my own so will work on hubby" type answers - I hope the dpg does go to a small, experienced rescue.
> 
> L/C - what a fab walk and photos; well done Team Pointy .
> 
> Sarah - Spen is being superb isn't he?


He really is. I'm just hoping it lasts and we don't go back to the Kevins.

I seriously hope this dog goes to a rescue and not to some clueless bint who likes the idea of having a dog but doesn't want the work that goes with it. At least then it's less likely to be passed from pillar to post as the new owners find out about the issues. I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from saying something about all the attacks on other dogs though. Not when they're advertising it as good with other dogs  But then I think maybe I need to work on my impulse control.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> He really is. I'm just hoping it lasts and we don't go back to the Kevins.
> 
> I seriously hope this dog goes to a rescue and not to some clueless bint who likes the idea of having a dog but doesn't want the work that goes with it. At least then it's less likely to be passed from pillar to post as the new owners find out about the issues. I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from saying something about all the attacks on other dogs though. Not when they're advertising it as good with other dogs  But then I think maybe I need to work on my impulse control.


I am holding my tongue as someone very sensible is liaising between them and a rescue at present; whilst they are accepting advice it seems wise to keep things pleasant and helpful. Should the rescue route be rejected and he be given to someone here I will say my piece.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I am holding my tongue as someone very sensible is liaising between them and a rescue at present; whilst they are accepting advice it seems wise to keep things pleasant and helpful. Should the rescue route be rejected and he be given to someone here I will say my piece.


Oh, glad to hear they seem to be accepting the advice and talking to rescue. Will keep my fingers crossed they do go down that route instead of just giving him to someone who asks for him and that you don't have to get involved in any way.


----------



## L/C

Here's hoping that they go the sensible rescue route. Fingers crossed.


----------



## Beth17

I think you're doing the exactly the right thing Dogless.

Well done Spen there is light at the end of the tunnel :thumbup1:

And of course big :thumbup: to Gypsy and Ely, sounds like you had a lovely walk.

Glad the naughty dogs stayed away from Tink MV who knows maybe he'll take the hint and start using cheese to train his 

Back from uni and sufficiently chilled out thanks to the 3 canine partners labs that came in and showed off their stuff. Given me some ideas to try with the gruesome twosome  Sam is knackered again as he has been up my dads and not going to walk Oscar tonight but instead going to do some clicker training with him and lots of fun games inside so that he chills out and hopefully tomorrows walk will be better :yesnod:


----------



## Werehorse

I have had a horrible day and my poor dogs have had another duvet day.  I really don't deserve them.

I don't think the Bat Call work is going to work out. Apparently my brain doesn't cope very well with being laughed at by 20 kids when I lose my temper after an hour of trying to cajole and getting nowhere. I managed to leave the next class with someone else and hide before the full on panic attack ensued.  I got sent home. 

Oh ********. 


Twiggy - I'll try and get a video of Hugo's sendaway but he's fine in the house (so small, we don't go past his critical distance!). I could take him down the yard and try it there.


----------



## Sarah1983

*wonders whether now is the time to admit she initially thought Werehorse was working for some sort of bat rescue* 

So sorry you've had a crappy day Werehorse. I hope tomorrow is a better one for you.


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> *wonders whether now is the time to admit she initially thought Werehorse was working for some sort of bat rescue*


Now THAT would be awesome.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Werehorse, maybe the work of the Dynamic Duo isn't for you after all? I'm sorry you had such a crappy day.

I am knackered - got back from swimming, let the dogs play for a while, took Rudi out to the PAH opening; dropped Rudi back; took Kilo out for a walk in the fog; let them out in the garden and had a woman walk past with her little girl encouraging her to make barking noises and when Kilo barked saying "Oh he doesn't sound like a nice doggy does he" - I said "He isn't a bad doggy " so have probably upset someone (I really wanted to say "Oh dear doggies, that doesn't sound like a nice lady" but held my tongue ); fed Kilo who is still eating his bone; fed Rudi and played but he's gone crackers so is just having two minutes in his crate whilst I still have some flesh on my bones :sosp:.

The last post on the dog advert is still the lady saying she'd PM'ed the dog's owner with the rescue number and had talked to them so hopefully all good there.


----------



## GingerRogers

:mad2: :mad2:

God you lot must be fed up of my doom!

Had a nice toddle along the beach this afternoon, at the beginning there was a bloke with a couple of collie type dogs lobbing a ball for them, so zooming dogs = barking but it was much less ferocious sounding than normal and completely expected  

Didn't see any other monsters, oh apart from the rowing couple, all I could here was 'I CAN'T STAY WITH GEORGE, YOU CAN'T LEAVE A 15 YEAR OLD BOY' or something, yelled by man (almost crouching in anger lol ) to woman who was all of 5 paces from him, seemingly not that bothered by the hot air being blown at her. Been in the pub all afternoon me thinks, happens a lot round here . 

Almost back at the car, and a shape comes hurtling across the car park out of the dark. It was one of those moments where we both figured out what it was just as it reached us, a bleeding night coloured spaniel . Well it wasn't bleeding, yet  My heart was in my mouth as the only thing I could think of was what if she bites it, what will I do on my own. Couldn't see any owner anywhere (but it was dark) she did launch at it but I don't think it was any more than the normal 'I am gonna jump on your head before you jump on mine' overenthusiastic play greeting she has always done but as I said it was dark so I don't really know, the dog ran off then ran back again so I guess he wasn't worried. By this time a bloke had loped out of the shadows, seemingly unconcerned that his dog is trying to wind up a wildly barking terrier. Sigh , my legs were actually shaking at the time more from the shock I think, but although I feel the bloke was an idiot it didn't knock me as much as I would have thought. It could be a good thing as I have been keeping her so far away from dogs I had forgotten she does actually like most of them, and she didn't bite, its just trusting her again. I do wonder whether a muzzle might be good peace of mind then I can let her mix, part of me feels this avoidance and keeping our distance can't possibly help her socialise better but then another part of me thinks she ain't gonna like a muzzle and that'll just wind her up more. Grrr People

On the plus side I defrosted one of the random bags of meat in the fridge that the OH boss gave him labelled simply 'stew' thinking it was lamb and probably all the tough fattiest bits he didn't want to eat and therefore we probably wouldn't (we get these food parcels which is very nice but TBH you never know how long they have been in the freezer or how long the animal was, literally, hanging around before he butchered it) but it would be perfect for Ginge, she has been on chicken for a fortnight now so lamb would be lovely. But then I thought it looked like beef and smelt like beef so I fried a bit and it was yummy  and actually quite tender, not stew stuff at all. However I now have about 2 kilos defrosted, big curry pileup tomorrow I think :yesnod: Sorry Ginge, the people tell me you can't have beef yet  its chicken again for you tonight :devil:


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh no werehorse  that doesn't sound good. I don't know how people do it frankly I couldn't, kids en-mass terrify me . I think you should take Sarahs cue and retrain, bats are much calmer. Apart from the one that hit me in the chest the other week of course


----------



## Dogless

Out and zooming and zooming; we're playing to distract him from Kilo still eating so he can learn to deal with his frustration....I'm sure he'll get back to me after a few more circuits .


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I have had a horrible day and my poor dogs have had another duvet day.  I really don't deserve them.
> 
> I don't think the Bat Call work is going to work out. Apparently my brain doesn't cope very well with being laughed at by 20 kids when I lose my temper after an hour of trying to cajole and getting nowhere. I managed to leave the next class with someone else and hide before the full on panic attack ensued.  I got sent home.
> 
> Oh ********.
> 
> Twiggy - I'll try and get a video of Hugo's sendaway but he's fine in the house (so small, we don't go past his critical distance!). I could take him down the yard and try it there.


I do sympathise. My younger sister was a teacher in a very large comprehensive school. Some of the tales she told were horrendous.

I also used to run the print room in a local large comprehensive. It was a semi-commercial venture. I used to get most of the disruptive little (and not so little) dears sent down to assist me with the finishing work when they were causing trouble in class.


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry you had an awful day Werehorse. When i think of the way we behaved for supply teachers and we could be sent for the cane, i dread to think how kids behave now.

Dogless glad it sounds like the Rottie will be goign to rescue rather than who knows where. Have you considered a pair of these?









GR, time for wine  
We too were approached fromt he shadows turned out to be Bella, who tagged along for part of our walk and I had to take a totally different route to drop her back home.... where upon she charged adn barked at a guy on a bike and I ened up aplogising and trying to explain, not before I got some colourful expletives launched in my direction. I think when, Bella did finally go back into her garden and, I walked off with Tink ( who was onlead for the whole of the exchange) Did he finally believe me. * le sigh*


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Sorry you had an awful day Werehorse. When i think of the way we behaved for supply teachers and we could be sent for the cane, i dread to think how kids behave now.
> 
> Dogless glad it sounds like the Rottie will be goign to rescue rather than who knows where. Have you considered a pair of these?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *GR, time for wine  *
> We too were approached fromt he shadows turned out to be Bella, who tagged along for part of our walk and I had to take a totally different route to drop her back home.... where upon she charged adn barked at a guy on a bike and I ened up aplogising and trying to explain, not before I got some colourful expletives launched in my direction. I think when, Bella did finally go back into her garden and, I walked off with Tink ( who was onlead for the whole of the exchange) Did he finally believe me. * le sigh*


Poor Bella and poor you having to explain .

I used to work in a chicken factory and we had to wear one of those when we were assigned to feet lopping. The whole chickens sometimes came out with a foot or even feet on still, feet not being deemed palatable had to be removed. They actually feel quite good 

Halfway down the first glass already , told OH I am not picking him up from town he can make his own way back in the cold - teach him for moaning at me about spending money on the dog rrr: - this was just on a second fabric crate for the car on offer at zooplus today, fed up with carting the other one in and out as Ginge has decided, although she only used her wire crate when we told her to, that she likes to retreat to the fabric one and slept in it all night last night. Its not him that has to do it twice a day FGS so haven't dared breach the subject of the DR course yet, might pay the £25 deposit to secure a place and then just work on it.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless glad it sounds like the Rottie will be goign to rescue rather than who knows where. Have you considered a pair of these?


They look good; I got yet another training gem from the Lifeguard at the pool today - he had labs and springers and bred them for 25 years, thinks health tests are rubbish, says keeping dogs are what yards are for and they shouldn't set foot in the house etc etc. Soooooo...today he asked what had happened to my hands - I attempted to explain the idea of getting good bite inhibition but was shot down with "dogs shouldn't bite AT ALL. FULL STOP". His training tip? Keep a metal spoon with me at all times and crack pup over the nose with it every time teeth touch me. Also cover any toys in something prickly and uncomfortable and if they want the toy they have to pick it up gently (have heard of gundog trainers doing that with dummies so guess it's from that idea).

So; from tonight that is my approach :thumbup:.

Only joking .


----------



## Sarah1983

Blimey Dogless, where do you find these people? And where do they get such odd ideas?

MV, I've been in that situation before. Used to be a lovely GSD mix allowed to roam around by my parents and for a couple of years he and my dog got on (they later became sworn enemies for reasons known only to themselves) and Rocky used to follow us around. Shadow would be on leash, Rocky obviously not and he'd leave us to go and pester other dogs. Course because they saw him with me and because he always came back to me people assumed he was mine. Thankfully a lot of people knew him and knew he wasn't mine so there was usually someone around to back me up.

Our latest attempt at loose leash walking was partially foiled by the black Lab in the next block. He came over so of course I had absolutely no chance. No real issue with it, it's not like he attacked Spen or anything, they just had a sniff of each other while his owner came and got him. Spencer came away willingly enough then and was more interested in getting his next treat (left over donner meat and chips cut into little pieces tonight ) than in continuing to socialise. I've no doubt he'd still go rushing over to introduce himself to other dogs given the chance but I think now I at least stand a chance of getting him back. So that's progress I guess.


----------



## Beth17

You seem to have some bonkers people over the water Dogless :crazy:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> You seem to have some bonkers people over the water Dogless :crazy:


You just have to read Chazzie's posts . No, seriously, many ideas are fairly behind those of the mainland for some reason - hard to find a rewards based trainer for instance.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> They look good; I got yet another training gem from the Lifeguard at the pool today - he had labs and springers and bred them for 25 years, thinks health tests are rubbish, says keeping dogs are what yards are for and they shouldn't set foot in the house etc etc. Soooooo...today he asked what had happened to my hands - I attempted to explain the idea of getting good bite inhibition but was shot down with "dogs shouldn't bite AT ALL. FULL STOP". His training tip? Keep a metal spoon with me at all times and crack pup over the nose with it every time teeth touch me. Also cover any toys in something prickly and uncomfortable and if they want the toy they have to pick it up gently (have heard of gundog trainers doing that with dummies so guess it's from that idea).
> 
> So; from tonight that is my approach :thumbup:.
> 
> If I tapped Holly on the nose with a metal spoon for biting, I doubt she would come near me for several years....!!
> 
> Ye Gods you do get em over there......LOL


----------



## Werehorse

Have just applied for a really mad job. Feeling much better already! :lol: It isn't bat rescue though, sadly. I looked at my local bat rescue and they are all volunteers, no jobs! I'd actually love to look after poorly bats but I'm not sure how compatible it would be with two dogs and a small house!


----------



## Werehorse

And Ginge get thee to the tower with your kinky chain mail chicken gloves!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> And Ginge get thee to the tower with your kinky chain mail chicken gloves!


'Twas mv  .


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> 'Twas mv  .


----------



## MollySmith

A bloke from the pub gave me a lesson on how to walk Molly on a lead a few weeks ago. He was actually right but Molly was more interested in his bag of crisps and he was more interested in asking me out. 

It was so surreal. He was rather good looking and at my age I think I'm past all that but he was probably very drunk. Or stupid.

Anyway I declined his offer to walk us home on account of my husband waiting at the other end.


----------



## moonviolet

But i have never been paid to wear one


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Have just applied for a really mad job. Feeling much better already! :lol: It isn't bat rescue though, sadly. I looked at my local bat rescue and they are all volunteers, no jobs! I'd actually love to look after poorly bats but I'm not sure how compatible it would be with two dogs and a small house!


Lol, I was dead jealous of you doing bat rescue until I realised that wasn't actually what you were doing. I'm not even sure how I came to that conclusion in the first place! 

If you thought the chain mail glove was bad enough a shop I used to go to had chain mail and plate metal bras and knickers for sale. I imagine they would have gotten a bit chilly in this sort of weather though


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, I was dead jealous of you doing bat rescue until I realised that wasn't actually what you were doing. I'm not even sure how I came to that conclusion in the first place!
> 
> If you thought the chain mail glove was bad enough a shop I used to go to had chain mail and plate metal bras and knickers for sale. I imagine they would have gotten a bit chilly in this sort of weather though


Wasn't in Affleck's Palace was it?? .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Wasn't in Affleck's Palace was it?? .


It certainly was  I used to love that place before it got all commercialised. Bats (lol, I have a thing about bats it seems)was the only place worth visiting in there last time I was there though.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It certainly was  I used to love that place before it got all commercialised. Bats was the only place worth visiting in there last time I was there though.


Thought it must have been....I used to be found there all the time as a student!! There were some very bizarre things to be found in the chain mail shop . Not been since probably 2001 or so.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Thought it must have been....I used to be found there all the time as a student!! There were some very bizarre things to be found in the chain mail shop . Not been since probably 2001 or so.


You're not missing much now to be honest. Used to be great in there but last time I went most of the decent shops were gone. Bats was still there and the shop on the ground floor selling all the band tshirts and hoodies was there but that was about it. No chain mail underwear to be seen.

Friend of mine once stole a 5ft statue from Afflecks. Fell down 3 flights of stairs with it yet nobody questioned him. It then sat in another friends living room wearing a pair of cheap orange plastic kids sunglasses for years.


----------



## Beth17

Where on earth do you people live


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Where on earth do you people live


Affleck's Palace was the greatest emporium of the weird and wonderful in Manchester!


----------



## Werehorse

Ah, Manchester. That makes sense.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Ah, Manchester. That makes sense.


 What are you saying?

I miss the old Afflecks. Cobwebs in Stockport was another fantastic shop but that shut down years ago. Funky Forest was still there last time I went but that was a good few years ago now, wouldn't surprise me if that's gone too.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> And Ginge get thee to the tower with your kinky chain mail chicken gloves!


It was moonviolet brought them up.  yet again


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, I was dead jealous of you doing bat rescue until I realised that wasn't actually what you were doing. I'm not even sure how I came to that conclusion in the first place!
> 
> If you thought the chain mail glove was bad enough a shop I used to go to had chain mail and plate metal bras and knickers for sale. I imagine they would have gotten a bit chilly in this sort of weather though


Buy anything??


----------



## Werehorse

I'm from Sheffield. I was brought up being taught that they're bit odd them West of the Penines types.  :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I'm from Sheffield. I was brought up being taught that they're bit odd them West of the Penines types.  :lol:


I'll have you know that I'm perfectly normal, it's the rest of the world that's a bit odd rrr:


----------



## Dogless

A good day so far today - Kilo behaved beautifully on his walk . We went to the fields; on the way back we met a really cute 15 week old sibe. She kept jumping all over Kilo (I'd told the owner he'd more than likely tell her off if she carried on) so he growled and the sibe got hoisted into the air but then dangled into Kilo's face to 'meet' in safety. I suggested to the nice young 'un walking her that hoisting her would more than likely do more harm than good and if she was out on the ground she'd be less interesting to other dogs. So she was, and I suggested that we walked along a bit (we were still chatting) - so we did, and all was good .

Other than that we have had some individual and joint training sessions and some wrestlemania. The DD are asleep now gathering energy for the next round!! 

The 'turns' training is going very nicely - it's already understood at mealtimes but am working on it for lots of situations such as fuss. It's sinking in . Rudi's sit and recall is going nicely and he's getting much better at waiting for his meals. Dare I say the biting's getting more bearable too? :ihih:.


----------



## Werehorse

You're doing so well with them Dogless. 

A random recall tip that has popped into my head - I hope you don't mind me sharing, I think it really build a good foundation for Hugo's recall - Divide his dinner into 4 portions. Put a portion at a time down for him, at your feet and use your recall cue as he runs over. Ta DA! 4 successful and highly rewarding recall reps every meal time.


----------



## Beth17

That's a really good tip Werehorse simple and effective!

Dogless your boys are excellent I hope the nipping continues to decrease 

I ma awarding both boys gold stars today. Had lovely separate walks at the field, Sam went first. We bumped into a lady with a couple of labs one who is around a year old and he was off lead having a lovely play with them and so we walked with them. Lots of dogs around for him to greet and have a quick play with but he was good and stayed mostly with the two lab girls. 
He also met 2 irish wolfhounds and wasn't phased at all 

Oscar went up and we bumped into another little lab girl and he had a great time chasing around with her and then some airdales. He then greeted another couple of dogs nicely and then we quickly moved on with no drama :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> That's a really good tip Werehorse simple and effective!
> 
> Dogless your boys are excellent I hope the nipping continues to decrease
> 
> I ma awarding both boys gold stars today. Had lovely separate walks at the field, Sam went first. We bumped into a lady with a couple of labs one who is around a year old and he was off lead having a lovely play with them and so we walked with them. Lots of dogs around for him to greet and have a quick play with but he was good and stayed mostly with the two lab girls.
> He also met 2 irish wolfhounds and wasn't phased at all
> 
> Oscar went up and we bumped into another little lab girl and he had a great time chasing around with her and then some airdales. He then greeted another couple of dogs nicely and then we quickly moved on with no drama :thumbup:


Yours have been excellent too today .


----------



## Sarah1983

Stupid too intelligent for his own good dog! Bought him one of those brain game things, one where you put the treat under a removable piece shaped a bit like a Kong and then the dog has to lift them to get at the treats. Well smart arse here only figured out that by lifting the entire bloody game up from the base he could tip all the pieces out and just hoover up the treats :incazzato: 

The Frisbee we bought him was probably better value though. I suck at throwing it but he seems to love chasing it anyway. Maybe I should try to teach him to catch it. His little friend who lives somewhere behind us sat watching him play but surprisingly didn't come running over like she usually does when she sees him. Nor did he show any interest in her. Very strange. 

Beth...2 Irish Wolfhounds? :001_tt1: Sounds like you had great walks with your boys.

Werehorse, I went through a phase of putting all Spens dinner in a tub and taking it out with us. Literally the only time he ate for a while was on recall or while working with me in some way. His recall improved dramatically.

Oh, oh, oh, had some excellent news! Someone's looking to start up training classes in Hohne and while I don't know exactly what methods they use they've said they don't believe in all the dominance/pack leader stuff and don't use force to train. So keep your fingers crossed they actually get these classes going and they're at a time when my hubby can take us please! It's the first potential class I've found that's even remotely suitable.


----------



## Dogless

Agh. The rottie is now on a local lost / found / needing homes page. A few people are interested in taking him as it keeps being emphasised what a lovely dog he is - well trained, always comes when calls etc etc. Others have made comments or asked questions about his behaviour, yet they are deleted and admin have just put that if anyone has questions or concerns about the dog's behaviour to direct them to the owner as they know the dog best. I may PM admin. I really, really, really do not want to get involved in the politics of this place though .

Sarah - good news about the classes!!


----------



## Beth17

Spen you make me laugh you clever sod 

The wolfhounds were lovely I've seen them a couple of times with Oscar but he's always a bit scared to go near them 

Fingers crossed you get a decent training class I bet Spen will love it.

What a shame about the rottie what a difficult situation you are in


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Agh. The rottie is now on a local lost / found / needing homes page. A few people are interested in taking him as it keeps being emphasised what a lovely dog he is - well trained, always comes when calls etc etc. Others have made comments or asked questions about his behaviour, yet they are deleted and admin have just put that if anyone has questions or concerns about the dog's behaviour to direct them to the owner as they know the dog best. I may PM admin. I really, really, really do not want to get involved in the politics of this place though .
> 
> Sarah - good news about the classes!!


Oh god that sucks  I'd have to say something though, even if it were only to tell admin of my concerns or contacting the people interested and letting them know about the incidents. I'd be too worried about it attacking my dog again to be able to sit back and not say anything. I know what you mean about the politics of that place though. It's a really sh*tty situation to be in to be honest.

I'm really hoping these classes do happen and we can get to them. I've been looking for a class since I got Spen but all the English speaking ones seem to be CM wannabes.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Spen you make me laugh you clever sod
> 
> The wolfhounds were lovely I've seen them a couple of times with Oscar but he's always a bit scared to go near them
> 
> Fingers crossed you get a decent training class I bet Spen will love it.
> 
> What a shame about the rottie what a difficult situation you are in


I have PMd the page's admin with my concerns and asked that they not divulge the information that I have given in the public domain but to please consider it when vetting potential new owners. I feel a bit nervous having done it - but it's done now.


----------



## Twiggy

The 'turns' training is going very nicely - it's already understood at mealtimes but am working on it for lots of situations such as fuss. It's sinking in . Rudi's sit and recall is going nicely and he's getting much better at waiting for his meals. *Dare I say the biting's getting more bearable too? :ihih:.[/QUOTE]*

Is it - oh good....!!

I'm about to take Tremor and Holly Bolly over to the barn for half an hour - I've left the Germolene handy for when I come back in....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> The 'turns' training is going very nicely - it's already understood at mealtimes but am working on it for lots of situations such as fuss. It's sinking in . Rudi's sit and recall is going nicely and he's getting much better at waiting for his meals. *Dare I say the biting's getting more bearable too? :ihih:.*




Is it - oh good....!!

I'm about to take Tremor and Holly Bolly over to the barn for half an hour - I've left the Germolene handy for when I come back in....LOL[/QUOTE]

I'm still getting savaged and theres's plenty of blood, don't worry :ihih:.


----------



## Guest

NEW COAT HAS ARRIVED! 

It is MAHOOSIVE. 

As in the velcro strap does up where his "thingy" is. 

BUT it does give a good cover of his legs and his bum and stuff so although far too big it will keep the rain etc off!


----------



## Sarah1983

Well buggerlugs seems to have really gotten to grips with this walking next to me business. Took him up to the Christmas market on camp tonight since we rarely walk at night and rarely go anywhere with crowds. The market was crap, several food stalls, a shooting game and a craft stall. 

Spen on the other hand was great. Took him up on his harness just intending to do some basic fun stuff around what was going on. But he kept offering to walk by my side on the way there. And he spent almost the whole walk back by my side. I hadn't actually intended to do any loose leash stuff with him but obviously he had other ideas so we actually did a lot of it lol.

He did well at the market too, bit of a blip when he saw a Boxer he wanted to play with but other than that he was able to work and not at all bothered by what was going on.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Spen; Rudi is coming to our chrimbo fair tomorrow .

Kilo walked like a dream again this evening - maybe he's so relieved to escape the little snapper's biting that he thinks he'd best behave perfectly .

I introduced the lead to Rudi this afternoon - he did quite well, didn't freeze like Kilo but was a trifle bonkers!! He is like Kilo in that praise needs to be quite calm or he loses it :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## Dogless

Knew this wouldn't be easy; the rottie's owner has said she's never known her dog hurt another. Kilo wasn't badly injured and nor were the others I agree but surely the behaviour needs to be taken into account? I feel really nervy and awful about this now.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Knew this wouldn't be easy; the rottie's owner has said she's never known her dog hurt another. Kilo wasn't badly injured and nor were the others I agree but surely the behaviour needs to be taken into account? I feel really nervy and awful about this now.


It bloody does need to be taken into account! He's gone after several dogs and it's escalated each time judging by what you've been told and what you've experienced. I do think it's only a matter of time until he does seriously injure another dog unless he gets the rehab/training/whatever you want to call it to prevent it. This is why so many bloody attacks happen, people refuse to see a problem until serious injury occurs. And then of course the dog had "never done anything like that before" when in reality all the signs have been there that it was going to happen.

I'm really sorry, I don't know what to advise. I'm guessing it's basically your word against hers? I just really, really hope that this dog gets a home with someone who has a clue or is at least prepared to get help and take advice and if necessary manage the dog for the rest of his life.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Knew this wouldn't be easy; the rottie's owner has said she's never known her dog hurt another. Kilo wasn't badly injured and nor were the others I agree but surely the behaviour needs to be taken into account? I feel really nervy and awful about this now.


Kilo didn't bear serious wounds but he was injured and from what i remember he was not the only one.
Whilst your words may not have any effect you can sleep with a clear conscience, how would you feel if you had said nothing and something does happen in the future?

A horrible situation to be in, but the one person you can never avoid spending time with is yourself.
Glad the DD are doing well.

What a star Spen is becoing with yoru guidance. I loved his drool on the leave it challaenge thread 

LO don't think Zan is going to love having his boy bits velcroed.

lovely walk this morning bright and crisp, lovely one moonlit one this evening with OH.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It bloody does need to be taken into account! He's gone after several dogs and it's escalated each time judging by what you've been told and what you've experienced. I do think it's only a matter of time until he does seriously injure another dog unless he gets the rehab/training/whatever you want to call it to prevent it. This is why so many bloody attacks happen, people refuse to see a problem until serious injury occurs. And then of course the dog had "never done anything like that before" when in reality all the signs have been there that it was going to happen.
> 
> I'm really sorry, I don't know what to advise. *I'm guessing it's basically your word against hers? *I just really, really hope that this dog gets a home with someone who has a clue or is at least prepared to get help and take advice and if necessary manage the dog for the rest of his life.


Yes; I have been asked if I've got the right dog and have been able to provide the names of her other dogs etc so they know I have. She says that she has never known him to hurt another dog whilst out walking in her care and stands by that.

The person who was considering homing the dog has decided against it now. I truly hope the owner doesn't realise who contacted the page admin as I have all sorts of irrational thoughts running through my head like what if an allegation is made against Kilo or something like that as some kind of tit-for-tat  . She has always seemed a really nice woman, I just feel awful now.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well buggerlugs seems to have really gotten to grips with this walking next to me business. Took him up to the Christmas market on camp tonight since we rarely walk at night and rarely go anywhere with crowds. The market was crap, several food stalls, a shooting game and a craft stall.
> 
> Spen on the other hand was great. Took him up on his harness just intending to do some basic fun stuff around what was going on. But he kept offering to walk by my side on the way there. And he spent almost the whole walk back by my side. I hadn't actually intended to do any loose leash stuff with him but obviously he had other ideas so we actually did a lot of it lol.
> 
> He did well at the market too, bit of a blip when he saw a Boxer he wanted to play with but other than that he was able to work and not at all bothered by what was going on.


Well done to you both that's a pretty awesome achievement in a relatively short space of time.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> NEW COAT HAS ARRIVED!
> 
> It is MAHOOSIVE.
> 
> As in the velcro strap does up where his "thingy" is.
> 
> BUT it does give a good cover of his legs and his bum and stuff so although far too big it will keep the rain etc off!


I don't think I've ever bought a dog coat that I haven't had to adapt, especially the strap around the middle.

I suppose the only way you'd get a perfect fit would be a bespoke made to measure, which would probably cost a fortune.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I don't think I've ever bought a dog coat that I haven't had to adapt, especially the strap around the middle.
> 
> I suppose the only way you'd get a perfect fit would be a bespoke made to measure, which would probably cost a fortune.


Kilo's is bespoke; didn't cost a huge fortune but more than most off the shelf ones and is intended to be a 'forever' coat!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Well done to you both that's a pretty awesome achievement in a relatively short space of time.


Thank you  I think I was just failing to communicate exactly what it was I wanted from him before. And of course now that he knows what it is I want he's more than happy to oblige. Most of the time anyway, he still has his moments but it's only been about a week since we started working on it again.

Dogless, it's a really crappy situation to be in  Have any of the owners whose dogs have been hurt by this one actually gone to her and told her about the injury before now? If not then maybe she genuinely doesn't know that the dog has hurt others. I honestly can't remember whether you said you told her or whether you left it.

Not that the behaviour it's displayed would be okay if it didn't cause injury of course and I'm not trying to place the blame on you, just saying that if nobody has shown her proof that their dog was injured then she really may not think it has hurt any of them.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Thank you  I think I was just failing to communicate exactly what it was I wanted from him before. And of course now that he knows what it is I want he's more than happy to oblige. Most of the time anyway, he still has his moments but it's only been about a week since we started working on it again.
> 
> Dogless, it's a really crappy situation to be in  *Have any of the owners whose dogs have been hurt by this one actually gone to her and told her about the injury before now? If not then maybe she genuinely doesn't know that the dog has hurt others. I honestly can't remember whether you said you told her or whether you left it.
> 
> Not that the behaviour it's displayed would be okay if it didn't cause injury of course and I'm not trying to place the blame on you, just saying that if nobody has shown her proof that their dog was injured then she really may not think it has hurt any of them.*


Absolutely this - that is what I told the admin too. Explained that as I didn't have a vet bill I never went back. Went round a few times to see her but she was always out. It is absolutely my fault.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Kilo's is bespoke; didn't cost a huge fortune but more than most off the shelf ones and is intended to be a 'forever' coat!!


Yes might be worth it if it lasts a lifetime but I don't usually put coats on my girls until they get to 11-12 yrs old and being a big softy I throw their coats out when I lose them. I couldn't face using them for another dog.
Silly I know, but then I am silly and sentimental as far as the dogs are concerned.

I still have a little green latex ladybird, which was the only toy Twiggy liked, stashed away in a drawer for the past 11 years. After I lost her I just couldn't let the others play with it.

BTW On a jollier note, Holly didn't bite me at all this afternoon. Mainly because I only used the squeaky tennis balls to encourage a fast return on retrieve. I played with her lead on the other exercises - far less dangerous!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Absolutely this - that is what I told the admin too. Explained that as I didn't have a vet bill I never went back. Went round a few times to see her but she was always out. It is absolutely my fault.


It is not your fault at all! And I certainly didn't intend to make you feel that way  She knows damn well the dog has attacked others even if she isn't aware that they've actually been injured and that behaviour certainly doesn't imply he's "great with other dogs" does it? So she's in denial about some of his behaviour at least.

Even if you had a vet bill and photographs of the injury how would you prove it was her dog that did it? She could easily say it must have been another dog and you're just saying it was hers. So get it out of your head that you're to blame okay


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It is not your fault at all! And I certainly didn't intend to make you feel that way  She knows damn well the dog has attacked others even if she isn't aware that they've actually been injured and that behaviour certainly doesn't imply he's "great with other dogs" does it? So she's in denial about some of his behaviour at least.
> 
> Even if you had a vet bill and photographs of the injury how would you prove it was her dog that did it? She could easily say it must have been another dog and you're just saying it was hers. So get it out of your head that you're to blame okay


Thing is, she is genuinely a nice lady having a crappy time and now I've made that crappy time worse BUT I had to say something. I think I'll dodge the chrimbo fair and any other event just in case .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Thing is, she is genuinely a nice lady having a crappy time and now I've made that crappy time worse BUT I had to say something. I think I'll dodge the chrimbo fair and any other event just in case .


You have done no such thing, your actions may have prevented a future backlash upon her which could be seriously unpleasant. You did nothing but express the truth. Hold your head up high, no one who tells the truth should ever hide in shame.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> You have done no such thing, your actions may have prevented a future backlash upon her which could be seriously unpleasant. You did nothing but express the truth. Hold your head up high, no one who tells the truth should ever hide in shame.


This! You've done nothing wrong and you saying something could well prevent someone getting a nasty surprise or someones dog being seriously injured.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> You have done no such thing, your actions may have prevented a future backlash upon her which could be seriously unpleasant. You did nothing but express the truth. Hold your head up high, no one who tells the truth should ever hide in shame.


I'm getting very paranoid about it impacting upon Kilo in some way which is pretty irrational as the woman is very nice (or has always seemed to be). This place can be a viper's nest at times.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> This! You've done nothing wrong and you saying something could well prevent someone getting a nasty surprise or someones dog being seriously injured.


Maybe...or he will be hard to home via that page and go back to finding a home via the first one....


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Maybe...or he will be hard to home via that page and go back to finding a home via the first one....


True but at least you know you've done what you can. Don't suppose its been said why the dog isn't going to rescue?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> True but at least you know you've done what you can. Don't suppose its been said why the dog isn't going to rescue?


No; another friend has just messaged me (the one who blummin involved me!!) to say she might keep the dog if she can find a good trainer and if she can get him to get along with her male. I have given the details of where I go and said she can PM if she likes.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Maybe...or he will be hard to home via that page and go back to finding a home via the first one....


Sorry if i got it wrong but weren't others openly questioning the dogs temperament/behaviour. YOu were not malicious, you haven't made anything up you were guided by your moral map and you spoke out. Chin up, if you can look yourself in the eye ( with use of a mirror ofc) there is no reason to avoid eye contact with anyone in the world.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sorry if i got it wrong but weren't others openly questioning the dogs temperament/behaviour. YOu were not malicious, you haven't made anything up you were guided by your moral map and you spoke out. Chin up, if you can look yourself in the eye ( with use of a mirror ofc) there is no reason to avoid eye contact with anyone in the world.


No, you're not wrong. I'm going to try and forget it now unless the lady wants to know about where I go for training. Walking with the weimie in the morning and have two dogs cuddled up now so on balance things are good .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> No, you're not wrong. I'm going to try and forget it now unless the lady wants to know about where I go for training. Walking with the weimie in the morning and have two dogs cuddled up now so on balance things are good .


Good!
By the way, these things have been said to me, when i've been in one of these horrible situations. Recycled but still true


----------



## Werehorse

Sorry you're having to deal with that rubbish, Dogless.  You are very much in the right for saying something though. I really hope the rottie finds a good home and/or gets some proper help.

I fell over on the ice today and Hugo barked at me, then licked me to death.  And my gloves only got a *tiny* bit of poo on them from the poo bag I was carrying in my hand when I fell...  I can't remember landing and am not injured so I'm assuming I landed on my ample arse. Hurrah for biscuits and amble arses! \O/

Me and Oscar went geocaching! :lol: I had heard of it before but ony really investigated earlier today and of course there was one close enough to be unable to resist getting started straight away! I sense a new obsession brewing...


----------



## Guest

Dogless keep your head up high!!!! 

In the end the decision is not yours. You can worry about it all you like but in the end its the rottie owners decision. 

Zands coat cost 18 pound and something including p&p and VAT. (I'm pooooooooooooooor!! And its coming up to crimble!) 

I just have to fold it slightly so I don't catch his dingledangle.

AND GEOCACHING? Did it hurt? Did you find aliens?


----------



## Werehorse

It didn't hurt but I did feel awfully adventurous and spy-like rummaging around behind a gatepost looking for hidden treasure! Then a car came past and I hid what I was doing by pretending to pick up poop.... super stealthy.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh sounds like fun Werehorse  I could be tempted to have a go


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Oh sounds like fun Werehorse  I could be tempted to have a go


I don't know why I think this but it does seem like something you might like, Mv! I've just scrolled the map and there's lots in Surrey - Google it. I'm hoping that new ones crop up near me fairly regularly because I can see myself going on an obessive collection spree and then there not being any more to go find! Although I guess then I start putting out chaches of my own! I'm also hoping I might discover some nice new walking spots.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> I don't know why I think this but it does seem like something you might like, Mv! I've just scrolled the map and there's lots in Surrey - Google it. I'm hoping that new ones crop up near me fairly regularly because I can see myself going on an obessive collection spree and then there not being any more to go find! Although I guess then I start putting out chaches of my own! I'm also hoping I might discover some nice new walking spots.


I've actually come across a couple on my wanderings. It's the inner child going on a treasure hunt that really appeals. we all need to embrace our inner child from time to time. We spend an awful lot of time having to be serious adults.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Sorry if i got it wrong but weren't others openly questioning the dogs temperament/behaviour. YOu were not malicious, you haven't made anything up you were guided by your moral map and you spoke out. Chin up, if you can look yourself in the eye ( with use of a mirror ofc) there is no reason to avoid eye contact with anyone in the world.


Totally agree and you have the dog's best interests at heart.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Sorry you're having to deal with that rubbish, Dogless.  You are very much in the right for saying something though. I really hope the rottie finds a good home and/or gets some proper help.
> 
> I fell over on the ice today and Hugo barked at me, then licked me to death.  And my gloves only got a *tiny* bit of poo on them from the poo bag I was carrying in my hand when I fell...  I can't remember landing and am not injured so I'm assuming I landed on my ample arse. Hurrah for biscuits and amble arses! \O/
> 
> Me and Oscar went geocaching! :lol: I had heard of it before but ony really investigated earlier today and of course there was one close enough to be unable to resist getting started straight away! I sense a new obsession brewing...


Are you saying you have a horse rider's bum....LOL

What's geocaching?


----------



## Dogless

A great morning....nice walk with the weimie, some training with Rudi in the garden getting him used to the lead again and some play. Then some training with them both. Kilo went for his snooze and Rudi 'helped' me with the polishing and cleaning the kitchen.

I may or may not go to the chrimbo fayre; the woman who spoke to the rottie owner said that she didn't tell her who had said her dog had been attacked, just that it was a ridgeback. So that's not obvious as there are two here; one of which is always walked by a man and one by a woman :sosp:.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Are you saying you have a horse rider's bum....LOL
> 
> What's geocaching?


:lol: Definitely a horse rider's bum and thighs! Especially at the moment.  Too many biscuits.

Geocaching is using GPS co-ordinates to find little boxes of "treasure" that other people have left and logged and publish co-ordinates for online. Some of the boxes just have a log book in and you leave a note others have bits of stuff which you swap for something of equal or higher value (great for kiddies that bit). Their are loads of "caches" all over the country and I've been walking past several on my normal walks and not seen them - you have to hide the caches and try not to let other people see you finding them. 

I was looking for something to motivate me getting out and about for my training for this mad walk/run event I'm doing (the fear of the event itself is actually motivation enough but I thought it would be nice to make it a bit more interesting and positive too.  )


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> I don't know why I think this but it does seem like something you might like, Mv! I've just scrolled the map and there's lots in Surrey - Google it. I'm hoping that new ones crop up near me fairly regularly because I can see myself going on an obessive collection spree and then there not being any more to go find! Although I guess then I start putting out chaches of my own! I'm also hoping I might discover some nice new walking spots.


Oh I do this, its very geeky  and can get obsessive , be careful. You will discover some great walking spots, I have and it is great motivation, especially if you can find some nice little series, they just get you to walk that little bit further. Not that I have been doing much recently, for some unknown reason its quite hard concentrating on the gps and the dog  Although hubby did make us go out last weekend hence why we got the attention of the suicidal chicken.

I went out yesterday morning and decided to try and do some work on the car barking as it was getting worse. We stood in the church car park for 20 mins as its by the road but with plenty of space. At a certain distance she was fine, one step closer she was off again, it was raining so I gave up thinking it was going to be a problematic walk home and she was really good even on the really narrow pavements - go figure!
In the afternoon the OH came with me to another beach, it should have been really quiet, but it wasn't, OH was horrified at her reactivity and really upset me. I forget though that if he has been out with us recently she has either been pretty good or we have seen no dogs so .......but it was my fault, I saw the people ahead and should have said no we are going this way, it didn't help that I had no treats on me as we were actually only going shopping, but I let him persuade me again . It did bring it home just how much worse she has got from when we first had her, so am I doing something wrong, I don't know. He said, I was talking to someone the other day they got their dog to stop barking by shaking a bottle of stones at it, I sighed and said yeah we've been there, done that, with the water spray and pet correcter stuff, look where that got us, it probably helped create the monster . Have you not listened to anything I have been trying to explain to you:mad2:. So we have had to have words again, I hope it is getting through to him.


----------



## Werehorse

Must be quite frustrating for you Ginge.  My OH was slightly CM minded when we got Oscar but he was very open to hearing that actually that was rubbish - it worked a bit coming from me after reading stuff and quoting scientific sources at him. Us going to the training classes we go to with Oscar was the final nail in the coffin for any dominance/force training ideas though. Thankfully. Just keep plugging away and try and get him along to a behaviourist/training session at some point so he can hear it from someone else too.

I'm not sure why it would be getting worse though. Could your behaviourist take a phone call just for some reassurance?


----------



## Sarah1983

Ginge I've started making a point of always having treats with me when I go out with Spen, even if it's only to the nearest bush for a pee. That way if anything does occur that I need to distract him from or reward him for I've got something to do it with. You can guarantee that if I don't have treats I'll need them 

What exactly are you doing with her? I found with Rupert that standing around and trying to reward him when he could see other dogs but not react (the usual way you're recommended to desensitize) actually made him worse. It made them more of a big deal than they already were whereas if I simply practised avoidance where possible then the distance he reacted at would shrink. Until the next time another loose dog ran up anyway.

There are quite a few different ways of working on reactivity so if one way isn't working you can always try something else.


----------



## Dogless

GR; hope that you and your OH come to some agreement over the best management, how stressful.

We went to the Christmas Fayre; it was fairly rubbish but Rudi met loads of people, especially kids and there was all sorts going on. He was utterly unfazed again, so different to the BW as a pup. I was talking to someone when a lady I don't really know from two houses down came over and we were all chatting. The lady from down the street said that you wouldn't actually know I'd got a big dog as she never hears him unlike some others in the street. I was chuffed to bits .

When we got back we did some training then a bout of wrestlemania and the dogs are sparked out .


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Must be quite frustrating for you Ginge.  My OH was slightly CM minded when we got Oscar but he was very open to hearing that actually that was rubbish - it worked a bit coming from me after reading stuff and quoting scientific sources at him. Us going to the training classes we go to with Oscar was the final nail in the coffin for any dominance/force training ideas though. Thankfully. Just keep plugging away and try and get him along to a behaviourist/training session at some point so he can hear it from someone else too.
> 
> I'm not sure why it would be getting worse though. Could your behaviourist take a phone call just for some reassurance?


I meant its getting worse as the weeks go by really not since the behaviorist gave me some way of trying to deal with it but yes that would be a good idea. OH did start to get it when he came to the training classes, unfortunately the behaviorist sessions are during the weekday so he can't come, but it was obviously only in a very surface way not really understanding the principle behind the thinking. TBF he only gets mad cos he doesn't like seeing me upset but can't seem to grasp that makes it even worse and that suggesting thing like that are not helping .



Sarah1983 said:


> Ginge I've started making a point of always having treats with me when I go out with Spen, even if it's only to the nearest bush for a pee. That way if anything does occur that I need to distract him from or reward him for I've got something to do it with. You can guarantee that if I don't have treats I'll need them
> 
> What exactly are you doing with her? *I found with Rupert that standing around and trying to reward him when he could see other dogs but not react *(the usual way you're recommended to desensitize) actually made him worse. It made them more of a big deal than they already were whereas if I simply practised avoidance where possible then the distance he reacted at would shrink. Until the next time another loose dog ran up anyway.
> 
> There are quite a few different ways of working on reactivity so if one way isn't working you can always try something else.


I know Sarah I should always have liver cake  and any other time I would get random dogs come up to me wherever I am 

That is exactly what we are doing unless we can't control the distances then we avoid like crazy, which was the problem yesterday. Our normal beach has sand and dunes so you can avoid if needs be this one has cliff so we were stuck really and although everyone did put their dogs on leads they insisted on walking in the middle of the beach so there was not much room to distance our selves without swimming, lol. Its interesting that you say avoidance helped though. I am just not sure with Ginge as I feel a lot of it is over excitement and she does like most dogs and seems to kick off worse if we have been avoiding for a few days.

We just got back from an arm strainer of a walk, unbeknown to me we were actually following the same route as the lady and her dog who go to the same behaviorist for a 5 mile circular route and by the time I had spotted them in the distance and figured out why I had a steam train attached to a lead we were over half way round . Eventually we caught up, physics really, labs without terriers in front of them walk slower than terriers with labs in front of them. I was just coming out the churchyard to cross into the field when a bloke with 3 dogs came out the field so I moved back and when I tried again she had appeared, she must have been hiding from him as well. I chucked the ginger one behind the wall so she couldn't see her boy (in theory she is quiet if she can't see them) and had a chat with her about doing some work together all the time dropping treats on her head when all of sudden the little flea appeared on top of the wall  I don't know how she managed it a)so quickly b)without falling off cos she is a clumsy oaf at the best of times.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR; hope that you and your OH come to some agreement over the best management, how stressful.
> 
> We went to the Christmas Fayre; it was fairly rubbish but Rudi met loads of people, especially kids and there was all sorts going on. He was utterly unfazed again, so different to the BW as a pup. I was talking to someone when a lady I don't really know from two houses down came over and we were all chatting. The lady from down the street said that you wouldn't actually know I'd got a big dog as she never hears him unlike some others in the street. I was chuffed to bits .
> 
> When we got back we did some training then a bout of wrestlemania and the dogs are sparked out .


Take it there wasn't any fallout from 'rottiegate' at the fayre then, glad it went well even if it was rubbish (these things often are all crochet toilet roll holders and vile colored knitted hats) you sound a bit perkier


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Take it there wasn't any fallout from 'rottiegate' at the fayre then, glad it went well even if it was rubbish (these things often are all crochet toilet roll holders and vile colored knitted hats) you sound a bit perkier


No; no one was there that knows about it apart from one person who believes that I did the right thing as they were going to say something if I didn't apparently - it has at least been conducted in private and I hope that it remains that way.

I knew it would be rubbish for me, but good for Rudi so I gritted my teeth and went . I wish people would get the concept of taking turns stroking though; four people at once is just too much and they all seemed so surprised when I said so :sosp:.


----------



## Werehorse

Went geocaching (well normal dog walk with extra loop :lol... found a dog! Very pretty spaniel bitch asleep in a crate in our front room!  Oscar thinks its Christmas, we've told him shes not for keeping I think he was drooling too much to listen!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Went geocaching (well normal dog walk with extra loop :lol... found a dog! Very pretty spaniel bitch asleep in a crate in our front room!  Oscar thinks its Christmas, we've told him shes not for keeping I think he was drooling too much to listen!


What ???????? Whole story please .


----------



## Werehorse

Well we were walking back to the car after a successful nerdy treasure hunt and just at an open bit of the woods we saw a dog stood by the fence looking very intently at us and the boys. Called the boys in expecting the owner to appear but they didn't and as we got closer saw that it was a spaniel and she looked very scared and was shivering. 

But she was clearly interested in us and came slinking up ever so carefully. No owner in site or appearing so we got the boys on leads and OH took some treats and went to have a look at her. No collar, very short dock - could be a pet but most likely a working dog. We decided that we'd take her and get her back to the car at least so she was safe, she was obviously cold and hungry enough to take treats off us even though she was very nervous.

We took off Oscar's collar and put that on her with one of the leads. Let Oscar off lead but kept him away. I was worried that we were then going to lose Oscar while he had no blimmin tag on.  But no he behaved as usual - it would be extremely out of character for him to go out of sight at all so it was silly to worry really!

OH walked about 200m behind us with spaniel girlie on lead walking perfectly by the way :lol: Got her into the crate in the back of the car, the boys on the back seat. She's got a small cut on her front leg but it's stopped bleeding and she has slightlu swollen nipples like she's not long had a litter, but she's definitely not actually suckling anymore. Soooo lovely and friendly with us, knows "sit" but don't think she's used to getting treats for complying! 

Asked at the local farm in case she'd run off from there - nope and not locally known, got a rather grumpy response that she's probably a poachers dog! Have brought her home and put her in the crate which she seems really comfortable with - she's knackered. She's had a handful of kibble which she troughed down. So she's hungry but she's fatter than Oscar so she's not starving or been stray for too long. Have phone the police and the dog warden and have logged that we've found her but said we can look after her overnight at least. Going to take her to our vets in the morning - they may well know her anyway.

She SHOULD have a microchip because she has been docked. But it is such a short dock I'm not sure if she will! She doesn't look old enough to have been born before 2007, I'd guess she's Oscar's age or less.

She has growled at Oscar when he has approached her crate but other wise is lovely and very friendly. She's gorgeous and her coat is clean with just a couple of matts behind the ears, in general well cared for. She smells a bit like she lives in a kennel rather than in the house, so again, working dog.

IF she hasn't got a microchip and we can't find her owner we'll find her a place in a rescue.

She's looking at OH like he's her hero. :lol: :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse she's lovely, well done for helping her; I have always meant to give Geocaching a whirl but two dogs are enough for me at present .


----------



## Guest

She's so PRETTY!! 

*makes grabby hands!* 

I'm sure she's crazy lurcher compatible.

We had a mini tantrum today with lead biting but hey no biggie.


----------



## Werehorse

We've now managed to convince ourselves that she's Oscar's sister! 

Look...



















No wonder she's growling at him, he was so fat when we got him she probably remembers him pinching all the food. 

:lol: I'm joking. Of course she could be! But it is so unlikely and her dock is so short. Oscar's is rather shorter than ideal but hers is teeny.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Werehorse, what a lovely thing you are doing, She is such a beauty can someone really not be beside themself looking for her.


----------



## Werehorse

We've found her boss! They've phoned. *phew* Coming to get her now! I knew someone must love her.


----------



## moonviolet

Aww I'm so pleased  she'll be going home tonight


----------



## Werehorse

She's gone home! Did a massive excited wee on the carpet when she saw her mum! Not Oscar's sister. :lol: 2 years old and called Echo. Gorgeous girlie happy and safe now.

We'd actually seen her with her boss's son earlier in the walk - he had 4 spaniels, 2 terriers, a lab and 2 bull lurchers with him. I could see how you might lose count of the spaniels long enough for one to go missing! He'd been going frantic looking for her and rang the polic just a few minutes after we'd called... but OH had his phone on silent  so we didn't get their call straight away. All sorted now though!


----------



## moonviolet

I'm working on sitting on my fingers for a little while. some people just have to have the last word.


----------



## Dogless

I'm so pleased that Geocache dog has been reunited with her owners .

Not much to report tonight; just had a walk in the pouring, freezing rain, the DD had a bout of wrestlemania and now Kilo's asleep on the couch and Rudi's chewing his toys .


----------



## moonviolet

We had another walk in the woods in the dark OH came along I'm becomign quite addiced to them. Her ladyship is now in prime position in front of the fire. I have to check periodically that she isn't in fact becoming sunday roast.

And i'm making a vistaprint photo calendar

Oh and I'm knitting ugly things for the local xmas fayre ..... Only joking  I only torture family members


----------



## Howl

:O Bad point of today, E pooed in my SIL house  but then.....she has just asked to go out to Poo  She has never done this before. We have just gone out as habit after meals or as a walk so she went out frequently to avoid poos inside. She never wees inside but came to us with the habit of pooing in the house and trying to eat it to clean up. Everytime she did it she looked scared tail between her legs. 
This is such a big step forward


----------



## Sarah1983

Finding a dog while geocaching...I think I'll avoid taking up that hobby then  Glad she's been happily reunited with her owners.

MV, Wolf used to lie so close to the fire he would actually singe his fur. I think singed dog hair actually smells worse than liver cake :001_unsure:

Nothing really to report here except that my super intelligent dog either couldn't tell the difference between his glow in the dark ball and a rock or simply couldn't decide which one he actually wanted. I'm not sure how long he'd have spent dithering and mouthing each in turn if I hadn't made the decision for him by throwing his ball 

Oh, and he's just hidden his stag bar behind the floor length curtain covering the balcony door. I once found a week old carrot hidden behind it which was...unpleasant. He hides it right where you don't see it even when you open the curtains.


----------



## ballybee

We had lots of perfect behaviour from Tummel at the spinone christmas party today, he met the dogs nicely, he wasn't too interested in pulling me about(after the initial 5 minutes anyway) and even got a wee play with one...i didn't let him offlead as we were inside and i didn't want him peeing inside(the place was stinking of spinone lol) or worse, ramming the other spinones for play  If the next meet is outside i'll probably let him off though 

Dan was excellent, he was very friendly, very polite, had a great time playing and interacting with his mum, brother and other spinones.

Both boys are flat out now


----------



## catz4m8z

Sounds like some good walks are being had!!
Im still trying to get Adam to walk properly on the lead! He is good on a loose lead and always walks either next to or slightly ahead of my right foot....the problem is he will slowly start to pull forward and needs constant reminders to walk next to me! Honestly how do people get their dogs to walk to heel with just one command? I end up saying 'Adam'. 'nicely', 'ah!', 'shh!' and allsorts just to remind him and end up sounding like I have Tourettes!!:lol:
He can do it beautifully though coz I tested him and the girls yesterday by slowing right down then speeding up several times and they kept pace the whole time.
Blinkin' dog has the attention span of a gnat!!LOL


----------



## Sarah1983

Well this walking right by my side business is really sinking in with Spen. He was offering it on the field while off leash today. Only a couple of steps now and then but I think that's fantastic considering how little time we've been working on it. And considering we rarely go to this field and when we do he's normally on a long line while today he was off leash. He also did some lovely recalls and played some fetch as well as doing plenty of sniffing and marking. Trying to find that balance between interacting with him and letting him just be a dog.

He walked reasonably nicely on the way there, out in front but not pulling either. Somebody stopped to make a fuss of him and attempted to have a good old root through their shopping bags  but other than that was well behaved and didn't cover them in muddy paw prints.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Well this walking right by my side business is really sinking in with Spen. He was offering it on the field while off leash today. Only a couple of steps now and then but I think that's fantastic considering how little time we've been working on it. And considering we rarely go to this field and when we do he's normally on a long line while today he was off leash. He also did some lovely recalls and played some fetch as well as doing plenty of sniffing and marking. Trying to find that balance between interacting with him and letting him just be a dog.
> 
> He walked reasonably nicely on the way there, out in front but not pulling either. Somebody stopped to make a fuss of him and attempted to have a good old root through their shopping bags  but other than that was well behaved and didn't cover them in muddy paw prints.


Sarah, that boy is turning into a total credit to you. YOu've come so far with him


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah, that boy is turning into a total credit to you. YOu've come so far with him


Thanks  He still has his moments pretty regularly but it really does feel like all my hard work is starting to pay off with him now. He's beginning to walk nicely, his recall is usually excellent when I whistle him and he tries so, so hard to do what it is I want of him. He's definitely not the hyperactive, unfocused thug he was 10 months ago that's for sure!

Or should I just say lots of patience and garlic sausage?


----------



## Dogless

Wow Sarah, Spen has turned into a Wonderdog overnight; well done to you and a little tiny bit of credit to the garlic sausage .

Good walk this morning, nothing really to report. Lead training, basic manners etc with Rudi - he's doing well .


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Or should I just say lots of patience and garlic sausage?


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Wow Sarah, Spen has turned into a Wonderdog overnight; well done to you and a little tiny bit of credit to the garlic sausage .
> 
> Good walk this morning, nothing really to report. Lead training, basic manners etc with Rudi - he's doing well .


Thanks  I wouldn't be too quick to call him a Wonderdog though. So far today he's emptied the bathroom bin, shredded a tissue he stole out of my pocket and legged it off with yet more rubbish the hubby had left on the couch. And he'd have helped himself to something out of the ladies shopping bags today if I hadn't stopped him. Something tells me I am never going to break him of his criminal tendencies :nonod: But he'd be boring if he were perfect.

Sounds like training with Rudi is coming along nicely. Are you finding him easier than Kilo was at that age or about the same?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks  I wouldn't be too quick to call him a Wonderdog though. So far today he's emptied the bathroom bin, shredded a tissue he stole out of my pocket and legged it off with yet more rubbish the hubby had left on the couch. And he'd have helped himself to something out of the ladies shopping bags today if I hadn't stopped him. Something tells me I am never going to break him of his criminal tendencies :nonod: But he'd be boring if he were perfect.
> 
> Sounds like training with Rudi is coming along nicely. Are you finding him easier than Kilo was at that age or about the same?


He's about the same as Kilo - bright and really easy to teach something to, hates more than a few repetitions and easily bored!! Kilo is still really easy to teach something to - it's getting him to do it at times on my terms, not his that is the drama (and what ridgies are notorious for!!!!).

The handy thing is that he's copying Kilo in terms of things like sitting nicely if he wants something.....that is great. Kilo's bad habits will be not so great!!


----------



## L/C

Werehorse - you found a dog?! Glad she's been reunited with her owner.

Sarah - sounds like Spen is really a credit to you and the garlic sausage.

Nothing much to report here, been redoing the basics with gypsy and she seems to be moving on from the squirrel incident. 

I hadn't realised how much Ely's confidence had improved - not only the ice scraper incident from last week but this evening we had to walk past some road works where they are digging up the road and while he was a bit concerned there was no pulling, no flinching away and no panicking.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> I hadn't realised how much Ely's confidence had improved - not only the ice scraper incident from last week but this evening we had to walk past some road works where they are digging up the road and while he was a bit concerned there was no pulling, no flinching away and no panicking.


That is brilliant - I love those moments where you suddenly realise that something great has happened!!


----------



## Born2BWild

Hii all, sorry I haven't posted in a while.....

Cleo is doing great  All the hard work is paying off and I have had her loose lead walking past other dogs (in a controlled environment). Her meet and greets out on walks are getting there - I am making them short but sweet at the moment to avoid setbacks but so far so good!

Hope you are all well xxx


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks  He still has his moments pretty regularly but it really does feel like all my hard work is starting to pay off with him now. He's beginning to walk nicely, his recall is usually excellent when I whistle him and he tries so, so hard to do what it is I want of him. He's definitely not the hyperactive, unfocused thug he was 10 months ago that's for sure!
> 
> Or should I just say *lots of patience* and garlic sausage?


Oh how right you are, lots and lots of patience which most people haven't got and want an instant fix.


----------



## GingerRogers

Glad everyone is having good times, 

Sarah - Spen seems to have changed so much just since I joined in the forums, its great.

L/C - I don't know Ely's history but its clear you have done a great job with him, well done. 

Werehorse - geocache dog is so pretty, glad you found her owner, sort of .

We are having so so times. She has been a bit nutty all day , got up late so had to avoid the school runners and have been pondering the use of a muzzle


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Oh how right you are, lots and lots of patience which most people haven't got and want an instant fix.


Well I must admit I wanted one of those too :lol: However I was unable to find a magic wand.


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Glad everyone is having good times,
> 
> Sarah - Spen seems to have changed so much just since I joined in the forums, its great.
> 
> L/C* - I don't know Ely's history but its clear you have done a great job with him, well done.
> *
> Werehorse - geocache dog is so pretty, glad you found her owner, sort of .
> 
> We are having so so times. She has been a bit nutty all day , got up late so had to avoid the school runners and have been pondering the use of a muzzle


In a nutshell he is an abuse case from the flapping tracks. Under socialised (never been out of a kennel except to race until he was 4) and very nervous. Used to be afraid to go outside, afraid of other dogs and noise phobic, when we adopted him we lived in central London in a first floor flat with no garden. It was a fun time. Spent 6 months walking at midnight and 6am as it was the only time he was brave enough to leave the flat.

He was my very first dog.


----------



## GingerRogers

Wow, that was a jump right into the fire of dog ownership then. Poor boy, don't think people realise how terribly some of them are treated, not all by any means but.......


----------



## Izzysmummy

Hi all, not posted on this thread for a while so thought I'd give a quick update from us.

Sounds like everyone is making good progress. GingerRogers, stick with it, when we first started working on Izzy's reactivity (nervous of people, especially kids) it seemed like things were never going to get better but now a year down the line she is so much better we started off on the other side of the road and now can pass nearly everything! One trick I found really helped was following people, it gave her the chance to watch the kids and get used to seeing them and their movements without a direct approach and any eye contact that she found intimidating!

With the dark nights now upon us we're stuck with on-lead street walking every evening, but tbh it's come at a good time as we'd got a bit lazy with the street walking training and she had gone backwards a little bit in terms of confidence . So we took a step back and have been working to build it up again. She's back on track and on this evenings walk we passed lots of people with umbrellas, a lady pushing a pushchair with a little kid walking alongside, she had a little gruff at a man who ran across the road towards us waving his brolly around but he realised he'd surprised us both and apologised  we also came across a cat and she did a great "leave it"!

She's also doing great at our weekly obedience training and now has a very waggy tail the whole time, very rarely barks at anything going on and has even gone up to people and the trainers for fusses!


----------



## Werehorse

OMG L/C! That's quite a story! He's come a long way then! 

Spen is awesome Sarah. 

Glad it's going well with Rudi, Dogless. Little ridgie starpup.

A muzzle might make you feel more confident, Ginge, and get people keeping their distance which might help...

Lots of people have posted and I can't remember anything. Sounds ike everything is going well though. :thumbup:

We did another geocache today and no lost dogs appeared afterwards.  We did get chased away from the second one we attempted today by fairies though.  Srsly!

Hugo was Mr Perfect Paws on lead today! Very pleased with him. Oscar was ok, good but slightly more unsettled than he was at Buttermere - I think there were just better smells and more inviting undergrowth today so he did well cos he was very distracted! They both went MENTAL in the Fairy woods though


----------



## Dogless

Just back from a very dark, very cold walk with Kilo's friend - just running about offlead...nothing to report apart from I saw a white cat before Kilo did . Quick play with Rudi and he's now happily chewing a toy on the floor whilst the BW sleeps; bliss .


----------



## Sarah1983

I think I may have spoken too soon about having no snow here, just taken Spen for a pee and the grass is white and there's cold wet white stuff falling from the sky 

And I thought I'd share a couple of pictures my brother sent me. This one made me giggle









And this one...:001_wub:


----------



## Beth17

Not much to report both boys had lovely separate walks yesterday and got to meet and play with quite a few different dogs. Street walked them both together this morning and had a wonderful walk except at the end.

Walking up a fairly steep alleyway and got to the top which is right where I used to live. A beagle lives in the house right next to the lane and if he is out he will jump at the wall and bark. Today the drive gates were open so was't expecting him about how wrong I was. He came running out from the garage with his owner calling him and following I just stood still with the boys pulled in tight he came up sniffed Sam Oscar was behaving at this point and then the beagle started to have a grumble at Sam and so Oscar pulled towards him and the dog ran off down the lane.

I rather embarrassingly let out a little scream as I was about to be pulled down the hill by my two onto my face  and so I had to let go of Oscar who started to run after the beagle. He got all of 10ft until I bellowed wait and by god he stopped dead and came straight back. The man apologised and grabbed his which had stopped at the corner and was slinking back up the alley. We then carried on. I was very proud of Oscar stopping when told though


----------



## Dogless

Well done Oscar .


----------



## Werehorse

Good stopping Oscar! 

I need to work on my impulse control on threads today. :lol: I just don't like it being implied that my dog would be better off in another home, one that probably doesn't involve sofas.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Good stopping Oscar!
> 
> I need to work on my impulse control on threads today. :lol: *I just don't like it being implied that my dog would be better off in another home, one that probably doesn't involve sofas.*


What????????? .


----------



## Werehorse

It's just me being over-sensitive I think Dogless. People don't think before they generalise as per.


----------



## Twiggy

Very, very well done Oscar.....:thumbup1:

Werehorse - I don't understand....what do you mean a house without sofas?


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Good stopping Oscar!
> 
> I need to work on my impulse control on threads today. :lol: I just don't like it being implied that my dog would be better off in another home, one that probably doesn't involve sofas.


Double what?????

I hand to sit on my hands last night and not be goaded into pointing out someones hypocrisy as it would never have ended.

Did you see fairies in the wood or did imagine that?

Beth, Well done Oscar 
Sarah great pics I love the elephant 

TInk made a total prat of me tonight and I couldn't be happier.

Walking in "heavy dusk" in the woods, I only ever usually see Alan and his 2 springers or Mitch the wheaten terrier and his owner. So when I saw someone coming I didn't recognise and I thought, at first, they were on their phone I popped Tink on lead. as the path between us straightened i saw there were 2 people and a large black GSD cross, who spots Tink then comes charging over, owners calling him back, I say she can be "a bit shy" ... I look at Tink preparing to step in front and deflect whats Tink doing.... a playbow :lol: The dogs owners apologise for him charging over, I let Tink offlead. they have a brief charge around before we continue on our way. I guess she's not so shy anymore


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Very, very well done Oscar.....:thumbup1:
> 
> Werehorse - I don't understand....what do you mean a house without sofas?


Just someone insisting that all working bred dogs should go to working homes. Most of the working homes I know of round here _don't_ involve the dog laying under your elbow on a sofa. And it just makes me narky when people generalise to suggesting that my working bred dog would be better off with that kind of life.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Double what?????
> 
> *I hand to sit on my hands last night and not be goaded into pointing out someones hypocrisy as it would never have ended.*
> 
> Did you see fairies in the wood or did imagine that?
> 
> Beth, Well done Oscar
> Sarah great pics I love the elephant
> 
> TInk made a total prat of me tonight and I couldn't be happier.
> 
> Walking in "heavy dusk" in the woods, I only ever usually see Alan and his 2 springers or Mitch the wheaten terrier and his owner. So when I saw someone coming I didn't recognise and I thought, at first, they were on their phone I popped Tink on lead. as the path between us straightened i saw there were 2 people and a large black GSD cross, who spots Tink then comes charging over, owners calling him back, I say she can be "a bit shy" ... I look at Tink preparing to step in front and deflect whats Tink doing.... a playbow :lol: The dogs owners apologise for him charging over, I let Tink offlead. they have a brief charge around before we continue on our way. I guess she's not so shy anymore


mv your post has just given me a huuuge smile .

The bit in bold obviously escaped my notice too. Unless it was me...... .


----------



## Beth17

That's lovely to hear mv, what great progress


----------



## Werehorse

Well done Tink! That's fantastic.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I've taken the plunge tonight.....

I've removed Holly's crate and replaced it with a doughnut type bed.

I should have done it several weeks ago but I'm a little concerned that Holly might take over Quiver's bed, which has been adapted for ease of access due to her age.

We'll see how it goes but if I find Holly in the wrong bed in the morning I'll have a rethink.


----------



## Dogless

Go on Holly Bolly, prove you're a good girl .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv your post has just given me a huuuge smile .
> 
> The bit in bold obviously escaped my notice too. Unless it was me...... .


Definitely not you... Just one of those threads where all the fish are swimming with the tide and your opinion turns you into a bit of a salmon and some people don't like salmon  and have to always have the last word.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Definitely not you... Just one of those threads where all the fish are swimming with the tide and your opinion turns you into a bit of a salmon and some people don't like salmon  and have to always have the last word.


Ah....I know the thread now, gave you some 'likes' but didn't have the strength to join in as it was never going to end .


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Just someone insisting that all working bred dogs should go to working homes. Most of the working homes I know of round here _don't_ involve the dog laying under your elbow on a sofa. And it just makes me narky when people generalise to suggesting that my working bred dog would be better off with that kind of life.


And what about the working bred dogs who aren't suitable to do the job they were bred for? Should they all be put to sleep?

MV were you sitting on your hands on the thread you were accused of keep bringing up past threads by any chance? And what an awesome reaction from Tink! I love it when they make liars out of you like that.

Twiggy, hope Holly stays in her own bed tonight and doesn't take over Quivers.


----------



## Beth17

I am just a tad


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Just someone insisting that all working bred dogs should go to working homes. Most of the working homes I know of round here _don't_ involve the dog laying under your elbow on a sofa. And it just makes me narky when people generalise to suggesting that my working bred dog would be better off with that kind of life.


That is absolute nonsense.

Leafy is totally working stock and dual registered ISDS/KC. Had she stayed with her 'delightful breeder - NOT' who was in two minds whether to keep her or a dog pup, Leafy would be dead. There is no way that they would have gone to the expense of £1,500 surgery for OCD when she was less than 8 months old.

Oddly it's the working sheepdogs, as opposed to the obedience bred Border Collies, that really like sprawling all over my bed and sofas.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> MV were you sitting on your hands on the thread you were accused of keep bringing up past threads by any chance?


 :yesnod: :yesnod:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Ah....I know the thread now, gave you some 'likes' but didn't have the strength to join in as it was never going to end .


The likes were much appreciated, I didn't really want to pick up the baton but sometimes the salmon jsut has to leap.

I discovered one of my ancestors was accused of "Feloniously destroying a threshing machine" as part of the swing riots a period when the farm labourers were observed to be less well fed than the landowners dogs. I think there's a little of that blood in my veins


----------



## GingerRogers

Is it daft that my heart swelled hearing how Miss Tink behaved. Play bows. Takes after her mum I reckon.


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> The likes were much appreciated, I didn't really want to pick up the baton but sometimes the salmon jsut has to leap.
> 
> I discovered one of my ancestors was accused of "Feloniously destroying a threshing machine" as part of the swing riots a period when the farm labourers were observed to be less well fed than the landowners dogs. I think there's a little of that blood in my veins


:lol: Love it. Can I blame my dad for my short fuse? :lol: He quit working for a well known counselling service because someone distributed a sexist (against men) joke in the newsletter and it really got his back up. Just one example of many examples of similar rashness. :lol:

Reactivity you see?


----------



## Beth17

All is now crystal clear


----------



## L/C

Ah mv I was tempted by that thread but in the end there's only so many hours in the day. Good on you.

Go miss tink for playbows 

ETA: Just to say about Ely that we weren't told about his background and didn't know about any of his issues when we adopted him. I'm not some crazy masochist!


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Twiggy

Well all was peaceful last night and the girls were in their correct beds this morning - jolly good....


----------



## Guest

Met a complete blummin eejiitt this morning. 

Was going down this muddy path and at the other end a lab comes around offlead with a muzzle on. Nobody appears until the dog is halfway across towards us. The owner is elderly. "She's only wearing the muzzle cos she scavenges." 
It's still coming towards us. I have nowhere to go at the bit I just crossed to get here was very muddy and slippery. 

The woman just stood there. I got Zander into a down the lab came over and although zand lept all over it and greeted while on lead, (I wouldn't expect anything else) she still didn't come over. So I thought "Eff it then" and just walked towards her with Zand + Lab (My shoulders were very very sore after this, as Zand was doing the YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY PLAAAAAAY leaping dance) and then of course Zand being already very excited tried to leap/pull at the owner. She shreiked at me "DON'T LET HIM NEAR I HAVE BAD KNEE'S" but made no effort to move. So I had to get Zand round her with a lab running around her. I asked if she wanted my spare lead. I just got laughed at. 

Although he was a leapy mess, Zander handled it with enthuiasm. 

More than me anyway.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense, bit tired. 

Hope you're all well. I'll go on a likign spree later


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Met a complete blummin eejiitt this morning.
> 
> Was going down this muddy path and at the other end a lab comes around offlead with a muzzle on. Nobody appears until the dog is halfway across towards us. The owner is elderly. "She's only wearing the muzzle cos she scavenges."
> It's still coming towards us. I have nowhere to go at the bit I just crossed to get here was very muddy and slippery.
> 
> The woman just stood there. I got Zander into a down the lab came over and although zand lept all over it and greeted while on lead, (I wouldn't expect anything else) she still didn't come over. So I thought "Eff it then" and just walked towards her with Zand + Lab (My shoulders were very very sore after this, as Zand was doing the YAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY PLAAAAAAY leaping dance) and then of course Zand being already very excited tried to leap/pull at the owner. She shreiked at me "DON'T LET HIM NEAR I HAVE BAD KNEE'S" but made no effort to move. So I had to get Zand round her with a lab running around her. I asked if she wanted my spare lead. I just got laughed at.
> 
> Although he was a leapy mess, Zander handled it with enthuiasm.
> 
> More than me anyway.
> 
> Sorry if that doesn't make sense, bit tired.
> 
> Hope you're all well. I'll go on a likign spree later


Oh dear...!! Yes it makes perfect sense and sorry for laughing but your description is very vivid.


----------



## GingerRogers

What a muppet, what if you or Zander had bad knees, one rule for one and all that  ETA I love the phrase ' Zander handled it with enthusiasm' lol.

Leam - sounds like Deeks is settling in, the behavior you describe is similar to Ginge's - she was previously left to run riot with the farm collies and gundogs and never been on a lead, Deeks is a stray isn't he so it may be a similar thing. 

L/C - I didn't think that, lol, I thought what a nice person to take him on - now you might be not so nice with that clarification


----------



## catz4m8z

Some people are just plain ol' morons! She probably has bad knees from similar encounters with dogs less well behaved then Zander!!
Im doing pretty well after the first night with new boy Alfie. He didnt appreciate being left alone in his crate last night and trashed it...also spent half the night crying. But my theory on picking him up directly after my nightshifts worked like a charm coz I was so tired that I fell asleep midwhinge!!Bwaa ha ha!!
Id forgotten the trials and tribulations of toy breed puppies....spending the first few months like a mummy marsupial with a 'baby' tucked into your jumper pouch!!, always watching where you put your feet and being unable to pick him up without getting a handful of wet winkie! But on the plus side you really dont have to worry about them bonding too much with your other dogs, all of mine have been way more interested in people then dogs.
Turns out he doesnt like the training treats Ive bought so Ive had to think of something else teeny to use. Ive ended up using grated cheese coz one 'grate' is just the right size!
Oh, and the meeting with the downstairs cats went so well that I didnt even notice until I realiesed everyone was milling round me at tea time.:thumbup:


----------



## GingerRogers

catz4m8z said:


> Some people are just plain ol' morons! She probably has bad knees from similar encounters with dogs less well behaved then Zander!!
> Im doing pretty well after the first night with new boy Alfie. He didnt appreciate being left alone in his crate last night and trashed it...also spent half the night crying. But my theory on picking him up directly after my nightshifts worked like a charm coz I was so tired that I fell asleep midwhinge!!Bwaa ha ha!!
> Id forgotten the trials and tribulations of toy breed puppies....spending the first few months like a mummy marsupial with a 'baby' tucked into your jumper pouch!!, always watching where you put your feet and being unable to pick him up without getting a handful of wet winkie! But on the plus side you really dont have to worry about them bonding too much with your other dogs, all of mine have been way more interested in people then dogs.
> Turns out he doesnt like the training treats Ive bought so Ive had to think of something else teeny to use. *Ive ended up using grated cheese coz one 'grate' is just the right size!*
> Oh, and the meeting with the downstairs cats went so well that I didnt even notice until I realiesed everyone was milling round me at tea time.:thumbup:




We had an odd good thing today. Had our morning walk, met the greyhound and the rottie whose owner are pretty stroppy with me for having a dog who barks, sigh , got back home and decided to do some training in the garden, as advised in another thread, more 'watch me' work, she was very focused even though we were stood right next to one of her holes, then I heard the neighbours back gate go and saw him walk past with his collie, she glanced across, she can't actually 'see' it herself as the fence is baffled but she must have known it was there, surely, then she looked back at me and we carried on


----------



## moonviolet

LO *sighs* some people don't make life easy for everyone around them do they.

Werehorse.... it's not so much a biological reason more of a excuse/motivator.

Twiggy well done Holly Bolly

Catz it's killing me not seeing your weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee marsupial.  I love hte idea of single cheese grating treats  Wonderful that intro's went well 

GR well flipping done thats excellent excellent excellent and a little glimmer of light on the possibility of future focus in the big wide world.  :thumbsup:

Nowt to report here really, it's sleeping looking angelic, but I'm not taken in She had a criminal spree this morning when i thought she was sleeping so spent a bit longer in the shower :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Werehorse.... it's not so much a biological reason more of a excuse/motivator.


Ooops, sorry to misinterpret.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Ooops, sorry to misinterpret.


No no no dont' be sorry. It's a stupid game we have here... as OH and I have both looked into our geneaology so from time to time when one of us does something notable it's blamed on great great uncle Wiliam etc. when a decision has to be made what would so and so do, It just slightly geeky silliness.


----------



## Werehorse

Ok we should both stop being  now. :lol:

My dogs are such lazy pieces of work! Honestly. After yesterday and the day before with reasonable walks neither of them are showing the slightest inclination that they want a walk today at all. They are flat out and aren't even following me around the house today.  Just giving me ****eye for disturbing them when I get up. :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Ok we should both stop being  now. :lol:
> 
> My dogs are such lazy pieces of work! Honestly. After yesterday and the day before with reasonable walks neither of them are showing the slightest inclination that they want a walk today at all. They are flat out and aren't even following me around the house today.  Just giving me ****eye for disturbing them when I get up. :lol:


I swear mines solar powered, sun was out so she was up and at 'em causing mischief and ready to go this morning. Yet on a grey day she'd happily lay-in till 11.


----------



## Werehorse

If I got Oscar out in the woods for a walk at this point he'd be buzzing and ready to go. But as long as he's got a bed underneath him he's very content just to use the bed for the purpose it is intended for. When I took him out in the garden he was quite bouncey and decided to jump the wall into next door's garden.  He came straight back though - I think he jumped it by mistake even though it is 4ft high. :lol:

Hugo however I practically had to push him up the bum to get him out the door and he pottled around with his head down (it is raining which does make him grumpy anyway), did his stuff and was more than happy to come back inside. If I took him to the woods he's just have a trot along the path day.

I think they have both been incorrectly programmed.


----------



## Guest

Quick question to any of you who let your doglets sleep on your bed? Do any of them try to dig you up in the morning/evening? Like literally try to dig you out of the duvet? Mine does. He got evicted from my room last night for doing so. I got up today and he was on mumsbed. Apparently she'd gotten up and he'd been tiredly sat up leaning on my door. 

When I tried to get him off the bed by his collar today he started to shake. 

Now I think about it he can be quite nervy. (He wouldn't walk past the butchers bike the other day, even though we go by it virtually all the time.) 

I wonder if his enthusiasm is him being unsure and being overly I'M NIICCCCCE at other dogs. 

Must be nice to have knackered doglets Werehorse!!


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## Werehorse

LurcherOwner said:


> Quick question to any of you who let your doglets sleep on your bed? Do any of them try to dig you up in the morning/evening? Like literally try to dig you out of the duvet? Mine does. He got evicted from my room last night for doing so. I got up today and he was on mumsbed. Apparently she'd gotten up and *he'd been tiredly sat up leaning on my door. *
> 
> When I tried to get him off the bed by his collar today he started to shake.
> 
> Now I think about it he can be quite nervy. (He wouldn't walk past the butchers bike the other day, even though we go by it virtually all the time.)
> 
> I wonder if his enthusiasm is him being unsure and being overly I'M NIICCCCCE at other dogs.
> 
> Must be nice to have knackered doglets Werehorse!!


Bless his heart! I don't blame you for evicting him though if he's trying to dig you.

I avoid moving Oscar around by his collar, he really doesn't like it. I either get him to hand target or give him a great big soppy cuddle which he loves then pick him up like a baby dog and have a bit of a dance round with him before putting him down where I want him (i.e. not on my seat on the sofa :lol His little face does go a bit "dang, fooled again!" when I do that one though. 

I think over enthusiasm often results from a bit of nervousness.

It is nice to have knackered dogs, a bit odd considering what they should be like. They confuse me with their lack of bouncing off the walls. :lol: But they're happy.  I do hope they aren't just bored senseless and switched off though!


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## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> Quick question to any of you who let your doglets sleep on your bed? Do any of them try to dig you up in the morning/evening? Like literally try to dig you out of the duvet? Mine does. He got evicted from my room last night for doing so. I got up today and he was on mumsbed. Apparently she'd gotten up and he'd been tiredly sat up leaning on my door.
> 
> When I tried to get him off the bed by his collar today he started to shake.
> 
> Now I think about it he can be quite nervy. (He wouldn't walk past the butchers bike the other day, even though we go by it virtually all the time.)
> 
> I wonder if his enthusiasm is him being unsure and being overly I'M NIICCCCCE at other dogs.
> 
> Must be nice to have knackered doglets Werehorse!!


awww poor boy leaning on the door.

I've never had a dog dig me out of bed . Had a cat that would slide his paws under the duvet and sink his claws in yoru feet , if that didn't get you up he'd curled up on your face until you began to suffocate... I wonder if thats why i prefer dogs :lol:

What I will say is Tink definitely dug as a stress reliever and it could be a similar thing for Zander.

Have you looked at things like TTouch or an adaptil collar to help him chill.

good point about the collar grab W/H


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## Werehorse

Today I am mostly wondering if I could manage to train the dogs to sniff our difficult Geocaches...

Is that really, really sad?


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## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Bless his heart! I don't blame you for evicting him though if he's trying to dig you.
> 
> I avoid moving Oscar around by his collar, he really doesn't like it. I either get him to hand target or give him a great big soppy cuddle which he loves then pick him up like a baby dog and have a bit of a dance round with him before putting him down where I want him (i.e. not on my seat on the sofa :lol *His little face does go a bit "dang, fooled again!" when I do that one though. *
> 
> I think over enthusiasm often results from a bit of nervousness.
> 
> It is nice to have knackered dogs, a bit odd considering what they should be like. They confuse me with their lack of bouncing off the walls. :lol: But they're happy.  I do hope they aren't just bored senseless and switched off though!


Oh bless Oscars dang it face 

And Zanders sleepy leaning 

We don't have digging, we do have creeping, she is actually very still and good when shes allowed to sleep with us but somehow manages to be much further up the bed by the morning than when she started and its always my side as the hubby has HUUUGE feet and I think she is rightly scared they might squash her!

I contacted the lady from the behavior centre who runs the reactive dog course, (the lady I see is having some time off) she was very sympathetic about my skinflint husband (haven't even breached the subject yet ) and admitted she may have employed subterfuge with her OH where her own reactive dog was concerned 

She also said that a well introduced muzzle is in her opinion an essential tool for all dogs but especially reactive ones.

And she sympathised about what she called 'ghost like' owners saying she feels much more confident telling them where to go when her own dog is muzzled so I have ordered one and we will see how the introduction goes. Phew!


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## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Today I am mostly wondering if I could manage to train the dogs to sniff our difficult Geocaches...
> 
> Is that really, really sad?


It is sad, yes . Some do!! My friends collie found one for me once, Rory was rubbish at it, he did not see the point of stopping and rummaging and mostly chose that time to find the speed in his poor old mans legs and run away my friends two who come on most of our hunts with us have no idea and are no help at all, Ginge has only been a couple of times and she was very interested in the holes left behind when I removed the caches but no she didn't actually help find them :001_unsure:.


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## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Today I am mostly wondering if I could manage to train the dogs to sniff our difficult Geocaches...
> 
> Is that really, really sad?


Interesting idea, the other day her ladyship found a pair of spectacles in the bracken. I hung them over a sign in the car park area and a couple of days later they were gone


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## Werehorse

I wonder *how*... I suppose they'd be able to smell the "human" scent on it, especially if it's out in the woods somewhere... hmmm off for some googling...

I can see myself playing "find it" with tupperware very soon. :lol:


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I wonder *how*... I suppose they'd be able to smell the "human" scent on it, especially if it's out in the woods somewhere... hmmm off for some googling...
> 
> I can see myself playing "find it" with tupperware very soon. :lol:


I wouldn't have thought tupperware would be very good at that game; poor scenting ability .


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## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> I wouldn't have thought tupperware would be very good at that game; poor scenting ability .


I only mentioned tupperware because 2 caches I have found so far have been tupperware lunch boxes, the other was an ammo box but I haven't got one of them! They might smell of oil and explosives a bit still though so might be easier to sniff out. I just got a tupperware box out of the cupboard and Hugo took it off me and ran off! :lol:

Just googling and many people are commenting that because all caches are so different it's probably not a possible task.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I only mentioned tupperware because 2 caches I have found so far have been tupperware lunch boxes, the other was an ammo box but I haven't got one of them! They might smell of oil and explosives a bit still though so might be easier to sniff out. I just got a tupperware box out of the cupboard and Hugo took it off me and ran off! :lol:
> 
> Just googling and many people are commenting that because all caches are so different it's probably not a possible task.


Erm, it was a very, very poor joke .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I wouldn't have thought tupperware would be very good at that game; poor scenting ability .


The ones we have found have been all Tinks work as they have been off the main paths not far, but not in general human footfall. Both were tupperware lunch boxes and i couldn't say whether they had been used for food prior to being " treasure chests" but Tink definitely loves human scent trails. Loves sites where soldiers have camped and I have previously mentioned that tracking ( not chasing) mountain bikers was a behaviour we had to find a substitute for.


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## L/C

It would be nice to have knackered dogs...

Would anyone like to swap for one mental, stroppy greyhound? She has had a 2 and a half hour walk today, 3 hours yesterday and is still watching my every move to make sure I'm not going to take her into the kitchen for a training session. I'm at home with the lurgy and no voice and have still taken them out for long walks as I'm not at work. Is the baggage grateful? Is she hell.  :lol: She's a monster! 

Had a very frustrating encounter on our walk today. It started out lovely, we met an old man with a young lab and walked with him. Gypsy, the lab and a beagle had a play and madam recalled perfectly when it looked like it was getting a bit over the top.

Parted ways with the old man and met a couple with a border terrier pup who they most considerately put on a lead when they saw Ely was on one. Stopped and introduced the dogs and Ely was very good with the pup as he was more interested in fusses from the lady.  Had a brief chat and walked on again. 

Got to a point where two paths joined and a couple with three labs were ahead of us on the other path. Ely was a bit reluctant to walk near them so we hung back until he was comfortable and then walked on again. So far lovely walk.

Got back to the field and we were pottering along through the long grass when I spotted two women with a buggy and a couple of small dogs. Popped Ely back on the lead and carried on. Then I noticed more dogs with the women - in total they had about 8 between them. Then they spotted us (we were about 30m away) and four of them ran full pelt at us barking. It wasn't a greeting bark or a playful bark - it was proper guarding and warning off.  

Ely was terrified and hid behind me so I called to the women to get their dogs. They laughed and did the whole "They think they're big dogs" ******** but failed to get the dogs to come back. I asked again pointing out that Ely was frightened and they started to get stroppy saying that they had the buggy so couldn't come into the grass. I pointed out there were 2 of them and if they didn't come and get their dogs then one or all of them was going to get a kick. 

That seemed to motivate them and I got shouted at. To which I pointed out that their dogs were running riot and causing an issue - not mine and if they couldn't stop them threatening other people and their dogs then they needed to keep them on a lead. They responded with whinging about how they were only small and not dangerous and that it was too hard to walk them on the lead with the buggy. I was childish and said that it wasn't my problem but if their dogs ever did it to me again then I would be reporting them to the dog warden.

I stomped off and spent some time calming Ely down and doing some simple training to refocus him so he didn't have a bad end to the walk.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> The ones we have found have been all Tinks work as they have been off the main paths not far, but not in general human footfall. Both were tupperware lunch boxes and i couldn't say whether they had been used for food prior to being " treasure chests" but Tink definitely loves human scent trails. Loves sites where soldiers have camped and I have previously mentioned that tracking ( not chasing) mountain bikers was a behaviour we had to find a substitute for.


Wish I'd not made the joke now - I could delete the post but I'll leave my shame for all to see .


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## Dogless

Well done L/C - hopefully the women will think twice now . Sounds as if Ely coped admirably. 

ps hope you feel better soon.


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## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Erm, it was a very, very poor joke .


OOOPS! I got it now! Soooooorry! I'm far too literal sometimes.


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## moonviolet

Sorry Dogless i'm so slow sometimes :blushing:

L/C well done Ely. I know you don't feel great about having a fish wife moment but some people don't respond to will you get your dogs please and it is simply unavoidable. Hope you are feeling better soon.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Wish I'd not made the joke now - I could delete the post but I'll leave my shame for all to see .


Its alright Dogless I got it!! 

ETA well done L/C its what the others call the inner hag isn't it, i wish mine could be stronger but you do actually feel that you are the crappy one at the time


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## catz4m8z

Sorry Ely had such a rotten walk, coz of the small dogs. I will admit that it does sound abit like my lot TBH!!
Although they would never do that to a scared dog only overly bouncy or aggressive ones....and I would be mortified if my lot made another dog terrified and def apologise!


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## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Sorry Dogless i'm so slow sometimes :blushing:
> 
> L/C well done Ely. I know you don't feel great about having a fish wife moment but some people don't respond to will you get your dogs please and it is simply unavoidable. Hope you are feeling better soon.


Oh I know. I was so angry at them - they just didn't have a clue at the problems they were causing. I felt like shouting at them to try and make them understand just how stressful and isolating it can be having a dog that is frightened all the time. I wanted to ask them if they understood that I was so happy the other day when my dog managed to walk past a man scraping the ice off his windscreen when before it would have reduced him to a quivering wreck that I went home and had a little cry. That he used to be so scared of dogs that he once slipped his collar and ran into a road to get away, that he was so scared of going outside that he would shake and wet himself and that he was so bad once that we had to carry him outside to quieter road with a tree so that he could have a wee as he hadn't been outside in almost 24 hours.

And that their dogs "thinking they were big dogs" could set him back - not to as bad as he was but still backwards. And do they still think their dogs aren't doing any harm?

Bah.

(And Dogless I got the joke )


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## L/C

catz4m8z said:


> Sorry Ely had such a rotten walk, coz of the small dogs. I will admit that it does sound abit like my lot TBH!!
> Although they would never do that to a scared dog only overly bouncy or aggressive ones....and I would be mortified if my lot made another dog terrified and def apologise!


If we were near them or Gypsy had gone racing up then I would have understood but we were actively trying to avoid them! It was more the insistence that nothing was wrong that annoyed me. We've all had a dog get away from us.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Wish I'd not made the joke now - I could delete the post but I'll leave my shame for all to see .


Lol, I got the joke Dogless, gave me a chuckle.

L/C sorry you had such a crappy encounter. WTF does the dogs being small have to do with anything?? Sometimes being rude is the only way to get your point across. And I quite agree with you, it's NOT your problem that it's difficult to walk all those dogs with a buggy. If they can't manage it then they shouldn't bloody walk them all together.


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## Werehorse

The thinking they are big dogs "excuse" is quite pervasive I think. I mentioned a little terrier pup pulling a young kid along on a lead running up behind me and Oscar and getting in Oscar's face the other week? Well this kid said, all proud - clearly been fed the line - "My dog thinks he's a big dog".  I felt like saying, "yeah and my dog is pretty convinced your dog is big too so can you get him away from him cos he's scaring him!"

You did and said the right things L/C. I would have added "if you can't manage dogs and pushchair together then you shouldn't be out with them together - you have a legal responsibility to be in control of your dog. End of." Or similar.

I think it one thing for the dogs to come up and bark, they might not have spotted you early enough or something, but to continually argue against taking any action when requested is just ignorance.


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## Werehorse

And Dogless - the joke was fine. :lol: I think my humour detecting software has malfunctioned. Clearly mv's has too.


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## Sarah1983

Hmm...maybe if Spen ever does get away from me and run up to another dog I'll try "I'm sorry, he thinks he's a little dog" and see what reaction I get 

In reality though I'd probably be far too busy apologising and getting my dog back under control.


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## Guest

Apadtill plug-ins here are 46 pounds. 

Do you have any T-touch exercise ideas? (massage points or something) 

I do massage Zander sometimes but he can get hyped by it. 

GAH L/C!! PEOPLE!! Don't you just wanna throw poop bags at them?


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## L/C

LO - Vet UK do the adaptil stuff a lot cheaper then you can get at [email protected] or vets.

Adaptil | Adaptil for Dogs from £15.36

I used to buy it in bulk for Ely.


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## Guest

L/C said:


> LO - Vet UK do the adaptil stuff a lot cheaper then you can get at [email protected] or vets.
> 
> Adaptil | Adaptil for Dogs from £15.36
> 
> I used to buy it in bulk for Ely.


OMG LOOK AT THEM PRICES!! 

What kind did you use? The plug thing? A collar??? The spray (Do you spray in on the dog?)

He's currently chilling with a rawhide ring.


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## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> OMG LOOK AT THEM PRICES!!
> 
> What kind did you use? The plug thing? A collar??? The spray (Do you spray in on the dog?)
> 
> He's currently chilling with a rawhide ring.


We used the plug in and the collar. I've known people use the spray on a bandanna around the dog's neck or on a blanket for travelling (not on the dog ).


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## purpleskyes

We have everything to work on and puppy is not interested in training at all. 

House training is driving me mad, he has just wee'd 3 times indoors within 10mins having been outside twice during those 10 mins! He is lucky he is so cute!


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## catz4m8z

LurcherOwner said:


> GAH L/C!! PEOPLE!! Don't you just wanna throw poop bags at them?


I def could have just now!!Was walking my lot on their last road walk (with ratpuppy in a carry bag!) when we came upon a lurcher type outside the newsagent. Poor thing was tied to a lamp-post with about 6ins of lead and was clearly really nervous coz when it saw us it freaked out and backed as far into the lamp-post as it could. Thankfully my lot are very calm around nervous dogs and well behaved ones so after the girls stood some distance back and wagged their tails showing they werent a threat she did relax and give a tentative tail wag. I made sure we kept our distance though as we went around.
Its bad enough leaving any dog tied outside a shop but a scared one like that??:mad2:

(on an unrelated note Adam just chased Eric out of the room and startled Alfie....ratpuppy has found his bark!!!)


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## GingerRogers

Lurcher Owner its not surprising Zanders excitable *SO ARE YOU LOL * and I thought you said do you spray in the dog

And then Catz, I thought you said you had the pup in a carrier bag 

Can I have you lovely folks permission to throw poo bags at irresponsible people, please   (have to put Ginge back on some crappy dog food that creates large orange or grey or even purple poos though to make it worthwhile I guess, still dont know where the purple one came from)

We had a good walk - 3 lots of dog/s and we managed to keep at a quiet distance   tried a bit of watch me in the dunes, which worked eventually, but now I smell of hotdog!

I got a new crate for the car so she can have the bigger one indoors and she popped straight in it and has now settled in her little fabric one on the landing, hooray we can now take the wire 'supershed' down. She is a bit naughty about chewing things she shouldnt when we are here but touch wood not when we are out. Hubby phoned me up yesterday when I got back, he had to go out and I was at a meeting, to ask if she had been good, I think he was convinced that as she was having a nutty day that she was going to trash the place, but she was curled up in a little nest on the sofa - I spied through the window on her (OH is a grumpy boy today he got hit in the face and the ankle by gates and fell in knee deep mud/poo while they were moving some cows, feeling sorry for himself  ahhhh  now he knows how I feel :devil


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## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Lurcher Owner its not surprising Zanders excitable *SO ARE YOU LOL * and I thought you said do you spray in the dog
> 
> And then Catz, I thought you said you had the pup in a carrier bag
> 
> Can I have you lovely folks permission to throw poo bags at irresponsible people, please   (have to put Ginge back on some crappy dog food that creates large orange or grey or even purple poos though to make it worthwhile I guess, still dont know where the purple one came from)
> 
> We had a good walk - 3 lots of dog/s and we managed to keep at a quiet distance   tried a bit of watch me in the dunes, which worked eventually, but now I smell of hotdog!
> 
> I got a new crate for the car so she can have the bigger one indoors and she popped straight in it and has now settled in her little fabric one on the landing, hooray we can now take the wire 'supershed' down. She is a bit naughty about chewing things she shouldnt when we are here but touch wood not when we are out. Hubby phoned me up yesterday when I got back, he had to go out and I was at a meeting, to ask if she had been good, I think he was convinced that as she was having a nutty day that she was going to trash the place, but she was curled up in a little nest on the sofa - I spied through the window on her (OH is a grumpy boy today he got hit in the face and the ankle by gates and fell in knee deep mud/poo while they were moving some cows, feeling sorry for himself  ahhhh  now he knows how I feel :devil


Permission granted!!!!!!!

ME? EXCITABLE!?!?! 

And well done ginge for the quiet and non-trashing-of-things.


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## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> And Dogless - the joke was fine. :lol: I think my humour detecting software has malfunctioned. Clearly mv's has too.


:yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod:


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## Dogless

*WARNING: THIS POST DOES NOT CONTAIN A JOKE.*



Sarah1983 said:


> Hmm...maybe if Spen ever does get away from me and run up to another dog I'll try "I'm sorry, he thinks he's a little dog" and see what reaction I get
> 
> In reality though I'd probably be far too busy apologising and getting my dog back under control.


I often want to say that . I've never understood the saying TBH as if your big dog does bark, lunge, threaten other dogs they are labelled aggressive and vicious not 'brave' :sosp:.



purpleskyes said:


> We have everything to work on and puppy is not interested in training at all.
> 
> House training is driving me mad, he has just wee'd 3 times indoors within 10mins having been outside twice during those 10 mins! He is lucky he is so cute!


We are working on everything with Rudi too...sessions of seconds few are best at first I think and often done as part of everyday life - sitting then waiting for food etc. Rudi will do about 3 minutes now before he goes bonkers again .

Good day today, walked with the weimie this morning with Kilo, walked him on my own this afternoon as it's nice walking with people but I still want 'our' walks which I can keep calm and do some training and general 'bonding' type stuff. He walked and behaved like a dream both times - gold star day .

I took Rudi out to some shops but he's getting very, very heavy and very eager to be on the ground so it was a trauma for my back and shoulders. Lots of stuff seen and various people met though, so a success. Other than that, some lead training and sits, waiting for dinner etc - used Kilo to get Rudi to do a 'down' and he did which I was chuffed with as it took me a while with the BW...RRs are notorious for not liking it, especially on a hard surface . So...gold star for Rudi too.

That said; he is currently throwing a tantrum in his crate as play with Kilo got over the top - both boys have heard 'enough' a few times said loudly today :sosp:.


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> If I got Oscar out in the woods for a walk at this point he'd be buzzing and ready to go. But as long as he's got a bed underneath him he's very content just to use the bed for the purpose it is intended for. When I took him out in the garden he was quite bouncey and decided to jump the wall into next door's garden.  He came straight back though - I think he jumped it by mistake even though it is 4ft high. :lol:
> 
> Hugo however I practically had to push him up the bum to get him out the door and he pottled around with his head down (it is raining which does make him grumpy anyway), did his stuff and was more than happy to come back inside. If I took him to the woods he's just have a trot along the path day.
> 
> I think they have both been incorrectly programmed.


What your working bred boys.....LOL

Leafy's terrible at this time of year, especially late at night when she's curled up on my bed and really doesn't want to go out for a wee.

I keep telling her that by rights she should be lying on a piece of old sacking in a draughty barn.....


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Quick question to any of you who let your doglets sleep on your bed? Do any of them try to dig you up in the morning/evening? Like literally try to dig you out of the duvet? Mine does. He got evicted from my room last night for doing so. I got up today and he was on mumsbed. Apparently she'd gotten up and he'd been tiredly sat up leaning on my door.
> 
> When I tried to get him off the bed by his collar today he started to shake.
> 
> Now I think about it he can be quite nervy. (He wouldn't walk past the butchers bike the other day, even though we go by it virtually all the time.)
> 
> I wonder if his enthusiasm is him being unsure and being overly I'M NIICCCCCE at other dogs.
> 
> Must be nice to have knackered doglets Werehorse!!


I occasionally allow Leafy to stay on the bed overnight when I haven't the heart to turf her out but as she can't believe her luck, she stays perfectly still and you really don't know she's there.

A lot of dogs don't like being held by their collars, so be very careful and gentle.


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Today I am mostly wondering if I could manage to train the dogs to sniff our difficult Geocaches...
> 
> Is that really, really sad?


Yes can be done - think working trials and Schutzhund.


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I only mentioned tupperware because 2 caches I have found so far have been tupperware lunch boxes, the other was an ammo box but I haven't got one of them! They might smell of oil and explosives a bit still though so might be easier to sniff out. I just got a tupperware box out of the cupboard and Hugo took it off me and ran off! :lol:
> 
> Just googling and many people are commenting that because all caches are so different it's probably not a possible task.


Oh but it is. The one thing that really masks human scent is rubber, so if the 'treasure' is wrapped in anything kinky you've got no chance...!!


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## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Oh but it is. The one thing that really masks human scent is rubber, so if the 'treasure' is wrapped in anything kinky you've got no chance...!!


:lol: Here we go, where's Ginge?

Oh, good - so it is possible. The question remains can me and the boys do it? :lol: Oscar does a very good find and retrieve with a toy in the living room but I wouldn't want him actually bringing me any caches just pointing them out so I'm going to have to have a think about this one.


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## ballybee

Ok maybe not of any importanct to anyone but me but today Tummel greeted a greyhound, onlead, with Dan beside me!!!

It was a very quick greeting, just a swift face sniff and then Tummel decided he wanted to pee on a bin so off we went, Dan didn't even see the dog 

Very chuffed, Tummel hasn't met a dog with anything other than defensiveness since about June now!!!


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## Dogless

Well done Tum .


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Here we go, where's Ginge?
> 
> Oh, good - so it is possible. The question remains can me and the boys do it? :lol: Oscar does a very good find and retrieve with a toy in the living room but I wouldn't want him actually bringing me any caches just pointing them out so I'm going to have to have a think about this one.


Yes that's also possible - think search and rescue dogs and/or sniffer dogs.....


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## Moobli

Werehorse said:


> I wonder *how*... I suppose they'd be able to smell the "human" scent on it, especially if it's out in the woods somewhere... hmmm off for some googling...
> 
> I can see myself playing "find it" with tupperware very soon. :lol:


Definitely an interesting idea. I think if it were a well used cache, ie people handling the box on a very regular basis then it would be possible to train your dogs to sniff out the human scent, but if it is a cache that has been hidden and then not touched for days/weeks/months it is unlikely as any human scent will have long since left the object/box etc.

You could try teaching the dogs to indicate on anything unusual in a natural enviroment (ie man made articles, such as the tupperware that was mentioned) and then, as in a search square in WT, send them out within a certain area (if you can get yourselves to within a certain distance of a cache?) and ask them to search. It might be quite tricky though.


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## Moobli

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Here we go, where's Ginge?
> 
> Oh, good - so it is possible. The question remains can me and the boys do it? :lol: Oscar does a very good find and retrieve with a toy in the living room but I wouldn't want him actually bringing me any caches just pointing them out so I'm going to have to have a think about this one.


Instead of the retrieve, re-train him to search for the toy and then to indicate on it rather than bringing it back - ie when he finds his toy teach him to lie down by it, or to bark - or whatever type of indication you want.


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## Moobli

Just a quick update on our training. We are now doing sendaways over longer distances, but have cut down on the amount we train for this, as Zak tends to run out the first time no problem, but the second or third time he starts to anticipate the stop command and to slow down and look back.

We are also doing longer tracks, which incorporate articles (which he must indicate on) and corners. Tracking seems to come quite naturally to Zak and he (and I) both enjoy it. It is quite difficult in the wet weather, but we have done some really good snow tracks recently (with the added plus that I don't have to worry about where I have walked, as I can see the track I laid earlier ). I need to start leaving the tracks to age for a little while now, as well as building up the length of the track.

Really pleased with how the training is going, but just wish there were more hours in the day/week in order to be able to do more (so hard with the dark nights!).

The one thing I haven't had a chance to do yet - but must get on with, is teaching Zak about back-end awareness. At the last working trials training session we started on the clear and long jumps and the scale, and the trainers were concerned that he didn't seem to realise he had a bum and two back legs   LOL. I must get him walking over poles, as well as having his front feet on one box and his back feet on another ... a job for tomorrow I think.

I am also clicker training the hold with him, in order to help when it comes to the search square.


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## Twiggy

Moobli said:


> Just a quick update on our training. We are now doing sendaways over longer distances, but have cut down on the amount we train for this, as Zak tends to run out the first time no problem, but the second or third time he starts to anticipate the stop command and to slow down and look back.
> 
> We are also doing longer tracks, which incorporate articles (which he must indicate on) and corners. Tracking seems to come quite naturally to Zak and he (and I) both enjoy it. It is quite difficult in the wet weather, but we have done some really good snow tracks recently (with the added plus that I don't have to worry about where I have walked, as I can see the track I laid earlier ). I need to start leaving the tracks to age for a little while now, as well as building up the length of the track.
> 
> Really pleased with how the training is going, but just wish there were more hours in the day/week in order to be able to do more (so hard with the dark nights!).
> 
> The one thing I haven't had a chance to do yet - but must get on with, is teaching Zak about back-end awareness. At the last working trials training session we started on the clear and long jumps and the scale, and the trainers were concerned that he didn't seem to realise he had a bum and two back legs   LOL. I must get him walking over poles, as well as having his front feet on one box and his back feet on another ... a job for tomorrow I think.
> 
> I am also clicker training the hold with him, in order to help when it comes to the search square.


I think anticipating the stop/drop command is a common problem with obedience, WT and Schutzhund dogs to be honest.

I have a young Schutzhund GSD that trains with me, mostly to improve the obedience aspect. I know very little about tracking but I have to say this dog gets very, very animated when the tracking line appears....LOL


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## Moobli

Werehorse said:


> Just someone insisting that all working bred dogs should go to working homes. Most of the working homes I know of round here _don't_ involve the dog laying under your elbow on a sofa. And it just makes me narky when people generalise to suggesting that my working bred dog would be better off with that kind of life.


Which thread was that?! (still trying to find my way around on here )


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## cinnamontoast

Sorry to shout, but GUNDOG TRAINING!!!!!! Am so excited! We've gone far enough with the firm old fashioned trainer, now he needs socialisation and further training. I cannot wait!! :w00t:


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## Dogless

cinammontoast said:


> Sorry to shout, but GUNDOG TRAINING!!!!!! Am so excited! We've gone far enough with the firm old fashioned trainer, now he needs socialisation and further training. I cannot wait!! :w00t:


Very exciting.....updates essential once you start going .


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## Werehorse

Yes we must have updates on gundog training. 

Moobli - I was just in a huff, sent you a visitor message. 

Just taken the boys out on leads TOGETHER and I'm NOT DEAD even though the road was getting very icey.

It got a little bit worrying when they saw their elderly terrier girlfriend and the pair of them started to pull properly (they just can't get enough of her and her owner says she really perks up when she meets them - she can't see much and is basically deaf, very old, but she's more than capable of wacking the pair of them round the head with her paws  which the boys love it coming from her!). But apart from that they were spot on. They even pooed in sinc and did a sit stay together while I cleared it up. 

Not something I'm going to attempt every evening but it rounded off my lazy duvet day nicely to only go out once with them both.


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## moonviolet

End of term at games class tonight so fun competition night. Tink showed her creative side :lol: but we won Best Twists/spins and podium orientation to handler. 

The creativity came in the form of a "send to marker."... she indeed did go to the marker....decide it was too far away... pick it up bring it halfway back before laying on it. I know i shouldn't laugh, but she's a comical beastie


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> End of term at games class tonight so fun competition night. Tink showed her creative side :lol: but we won Best Twists/spins and podium orientation to handler.
> 
> The creativity came in the form of a "send to marker."... she indeed did go to the marker....decide it was too far away... pick it up bring it halfway back before laying on it. I know i shouldn't laugh, *but she's a comical beastie*


You're not wrong there! You know what they say about dogs and owners being alike.....:sosp: :devil:.


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## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Here we go, where's Ginge?
> 
> Oh, good - so it is possible. The question remains can me and the boys do it? :lol: Oscar does a very good find and retrieve with a toy in the living room but I wouldn't want him actually bringing me any caches just pointing them out so I'm going to have to have a think about this one.


Oh i was going to answer earlier in fact i thought Mv might step in. As i gather some geodogs (you have to understand that these people call everything geo something) actually scent the human trail not the rubber. How you train that skill is down to you. :ihih:


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You're not wrong there! You know what they say about dogs and owners being alike.....:sosp: :devil:.


Hmmm you are making a very valid point.


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## Rah

A little update on George's 'gentleman etiquette' (as I like to call it!) training

Sits and downs: Fantastic so far, We couldn't do the down in the kitchen (least cluttered and quietest room) for ages but since putting a blanket down during training it's been much better  Silent command for sit is perfect, need more work on the down, though.

Working on recalls, he's understanding heel work and will even do so off lead in the kitchen, although his sit isn't very close to my side, so we'll work on that. Ordered a long-line to improve recall training outside. 
Along side this, I'm trying to improve playtime, fetch mostly. George has a habit of picking up a toy, letting you throw it once and then running around the table numerous times as he likes you to chase him. Well tonight I've decided to sit on the floor and completely ignore him, eventually he stopped the round of the table and came to show me his toy and leaving it in my lap. With lots of praise from my part, he soon got the jist and on the last go only circled the table once before coming to me. A vast improvement 

Gentleman George has been obsessing with my carpet corners and the corner of my office chair arm, taking a cheeky nibble. God bless bitter cherry! :ihih:
It has worked a treat and I can't help but giggle when he attempts to chew the carpet - he curls up a little and kicks out his back leg as if to say "That is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted!" followed by a few gulps of water.

Tonight will be night two in the kitchen without crate. Hasn't gone to look for the crate today and have even gone in the kitchen to find him on his bed reflecting on his day in the privacy of his room!

Jumping: Needing major improvement to be honest. Finding it difficult with people who 'don't mind' him jumping up on them when I do as I don't want him to do it when I visit relatives, residents at work or families and friends with young children. We went to my Sister's today who had her friends over, along with their two daughters. Not realising she had company I was a little weary he would be jumping up at the little girl (3 in april) but to my pleasant surprise, was very calm, following his new friend around with great interest (which she loved!)

That is about it on George's front for now 

Great progress on the whole, I think 

SJ


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## Werehorse

I've found jumping up with Hugo really difficult. He meets so many people who don't mind!

He has a special skill of being able to lick your face while you are standing up by just bouncing, and does kangeroo leaps in front on you. After some failed attempts to train him to sit instead I have put the jumps on command and he gets the command IF he is good and does sits and downs first! Only really started work on that today proper and don't want to speak too soon but it is going well.

His jump up command is "There's a MOUSE!!" and I've been catching him when he leaps up so he's now leaping into my arms if I say "there's a mouse!". :lol: After a handful of reps my biceps were shaking! We'll see if it helps the unsolicited leaping...

Sorry off on a tangent from your post, Rah (keep up the good work!), but you just reminded me with the jumping up issue. I've just taken to warning people that if they coo at him he's likely to leap at them - and getting him not to great at all unless the person looks able to take a Hugo-ing.


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## Rah

George does the kangaroo jump too! I wouldn't mind him jumping up as part of a command so much. 
Unfortunately I come across many a person who likes to use babylike-very excited voices. That in essence is what makes him giddy and jump up. 

One lady did it - baring in mind I had put George to my left as she passed on my right, then warned her that he does jump up, who then proceeded to get upset because George had got mud on her fleece.

Bah humbug.

SJ


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## Leam1307

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## GingerRogers

You let him get dressed on his own. No wonder he barks


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## Beth17

I think Sam has been eating blue smarties in the night I have a very hyper pup this morning  Wish me luck...


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> End of term at games class tonight so fun competition night. Tink showed her creative side :lol: but we won Best Twists/spins and podium orientation to handler.
> 
> The creativity came in the form of a "send to marker."... she indeed did go to the marker....decide it was too far away... pick it up bring it halfway back before laying on it. I know i shouldn't laugh, but she's a comical beastie


Good girl Tink. She was obviously stamping her own interpretation on the exercise....LOL


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## Twiggy

Rah said:


> George does the kangaroo jump too! I wouldn't mind him jumping up as part of a command so much.
> Unfortunately I come across many a person who likes to use babylike-very excited voices. That in essence is what makes him giddy and jump up.
> 
> One lady did it - baring in mind I had put George to my left as she passed on my right, then warned her that he does jump up, who then proceeded to get upset because George had got mud on her fleece.
> 
> Bah humbug.
> 
> SJ


Yes I know the feeling well....LOL

When I'm judging I do make an effort to look reasonably clean and smart but 9 times out of 10 as I walk to the ring, armed with my judging case in one hand and probably retrieve articles/sendaway markers in the other, some dear little doggie will take a flying leap at me to say hello and as it's first thing in the morning they are normally wet/muddy.


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## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> I think Sam has been eating blue smarties in the night I have a very hyper pup this morning  Wish me luck...


Good luck and let us know what he gets up to.


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## Werehorse

Rah said:


> George does the kangaroo jump too! I wouldn't mind him jumping up as part of a command so much.
> Unfortunately I come across many a person who likes to use babylike-very excited voices. That in essence is what makes him giddy and jump up.
> 
> One lady did it - baring in mind I had put George to my left as she passed on my right, then warned her that he does jump up, who then proceeded to get upset because George had got mud on her fleece.
> 
> Bah humbug.
> 
> SJ


Yes, the excited voice then being miserable about being jumped on brigade get on my wick. With Oscar it used to be warning people that he'd probably wee on their feet. Don't know which is more embarassing. Fortunately both of them ignore people who ignore them 99% of the time and if people want to greet them and they are fully warned about potential face level Hugo then I don't feel to bad.

It's mostly me that gets the brunt of the face-level stuff anyway.


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## purpleskyes

Managed to get Hudson to sit for his toy, throw it and then bring it back and drop it for about 3mins. This pleased me greatly, its true what they say about akitas being like cats in their nature, he proper stalked his toy and bounced on it at the last minute.


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## Sarah1983

I'm working on my frisbee throwing skills. Hubby bought Spen a Kong frisbee at weekend which is all well and good on the uber rare occasion he takes him out and plays with him but I suck at throwing a frisbee even worse than I suck at throwing a ball! So much laughter this morning as I'd throw the damn thing, Spen would go haring it off only for it to land about 2ft away from me


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## Dogless

This morning has been :crazy::crazy:. Rudi slept through until 0630 without me getting up so he gets a gold star; still no accidents in the house since the first day so .

Anyhow we had lots of this:


















And this:


















Then I took Kilo for a walk on our own; we did some play and some training for school and he walked like a dream; gold star day for the BW. My best boy :001_wub:.

After that, I took Rudi to the vet to weigh him; 12.6kg at 9.5 weeks, he was held and fussed by all the nurses and met the practice cat Frank. Then we did some lead training and I _tried_ to get a christmas pic in front of our little tree (because of Rudi!) but it didn't go too well so I'll try again later .

The DD are now asleep with Kilo having a noisy dream and I am exhausted so off for a swim shortly to recover .


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Leam1307

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## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Well a not so good evening, got home to 4 little pees on the bath towel, doesnt bother me too much as this is the only place he goes (unless hes in another room, then its the shoes, cats bed etc but anyway, took him out for his walk all good. Hes been out a few times since and i had just sat down to my dinner, he was very good while i was making it, just sat behind me and watched.
> 
> He still sits very close when you are eating but normally does lie down eventually, well tonight he tried to lick the plate so i put my hand out to push him back while saying No. he just growled bared his teeth and lunged at me  to say i got abit of a fright is an understatement!
> 
> he knew he had done wrong as he instantly went and lay down at the other side of the room. i didnt do anything just started eating again. i mentioned it to my OH and he said that he had done the same thing to him last night too.
> 
> Any ideas how to nip this in the bud??


How about teaching him that he goes to his bed or into another room whilst you eat to avoid any conflict?


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## ballybee

Had an excellent day today, we were in Dundee so took the boys to our favourite park  Both were mostly onlead(Tummel because he's a sod and Dan because it was very slippy and he's very clumsy) but had some offlead sniffing time. We met quite a few dogs of various sizes(from weimy to yorkies), Tummel was able to greet 5 dogs onlead and was great, he was quite bouncy and excited but zero aggression at all!!! He was encouragin play between himself and other dogs and was very interested in all the dogs we didn't greet too 

Dan was obviously fine


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## Leam1307

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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> Well a not so good evening, got home to 4 little pees on the bath towel, doesnt bother me too much as this is the only place he goes (unless hes in another room, then its the shoes, cats bed etc but anyway, took him out for his walk all good. Hes been out a few times since and i had just sat down to my dinner, he was very good while i was making it, just sat behind me and watched.
> 
> He still sits very close when you are eating but normally does lie down eventually, well tonight he tried to lick the plate so i put my hand out to push him back while saying No. he just growled bared his teeth and lunged at me  to say i got abit of a fright is an understatement!
> 
> he knew he had done wrong as he instantly went and lay down at the other side of the room. i didnt do anything just started eating again. i mentioned it to my OH and he said that he had done the same thing to him last night too.
> 
> Any ideas how to nip this in the bud??


How old is he, what breed and how long have you had him?


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## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Yes we need to sort the stair gate at the weekend as he just runs upstairs and terrorises the cats or eats their food if there is any. its one of these ones that needs bolted and hammered into place so makes to much noise to do it midweek. we eat our dinner in the livingroom usually which is being used as "his" room so will have to leave him in the hall/kitchen. but surely this just avoids the issue not deals with it?


To my mind there is no issue as the conflict doesn't occur. I'm probably totally wrong but I taught 'away' and 'settle' for things like approaching us whilst eating. That means that I don't have to physically push a dog away or get into a conflict as the dog has been taught not to approach whilst a person is eating in the first place so neither party becomes frustrated.


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## moonviolet

Leam1307 said:


> Yes we need to sort the stair gate at the weekend as he just runs upstairs and terrorises the cats or eats their food if there is any. its one of these ones that needs bolted and hammered into place so makes to much noise to do it midweek. we eat our dinner in the livingroom usually which is being used as "his" room so will have to leave him in the hall/kitchen. but surely this just avoids the issue not deals with it?


He growled when you pushed him. He was saying he doesn't like this ( he may not appreciate being pushed in other situations too so bear it in mind), the simplest way of managing the situation and preventing escalation is to not put him in a position where you need to push him, plus lets be honest it's not nice having a dog drooling onto your plate


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> He is 4-5 months old and a gsd x anyones guess, we've had him just over 2weeks he was a rescue from Romania, a street dog who is used to having to fight/scavange for his food. im not sure why he has suddenly started doing this. we usually eat in the livingroom and there hasnt been a problem before.
> 
> How do i train an "away" or settle"?


OK. It usually takes rescue dogs 2-3 weeks to suss out their new home and they then test the boundaries, which is what your puppy is doing now.

Have you crate trained him? If the answer is no then I would purchase a crate and train him to go in it.

Until then do not allow him in the same room whilst you are eating because this behaviour will escalate and you could get bitten.


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## Werehorse

Leam, it is imperitive that you manage the problem in the first instance by keeping distance between you eating and the dog (sorry I've forgotten his name). As Twiggy says the behaviour will esculate and he will start to learn that aggression can work - think of agression as being really addictive, the more they do it the more they turn to it so you need to manage to avoid him feeling he has to go there.

The reason he feels he has to go there is because he has spent most of his life starving and he values food very, very, very, very highly and he will resort to anything to not be pushed away from the food.

It's going to be a long road to fix the problem, there is not one simple answer. It will probably take some years before he starts to realise that he gets fed regularly and he doesn't actually need to try and scavenge your food from your plate.

The only reason he is still alive is because he has learned to be bold as brass about scavenging food - it is his survival tactic and it is deeply embedded. He is not going to stop trying to get food out of any notion of "respect" for you... he can beat you on agression so don't meet him with physical conflict.

Eventually you can make an alternative behaviour more rewarding than the food on your plate. I think currently, while you get used to each other and until he starts to accept that regular food is coming you are going to have to manage it and avoid the conflict.

There is no problem if you manage it correctly.

If he was mine I would crate him while I eat and leave it at least 6 months (possibly a year if I'm honest) before trying to train anything. Food is just too valuable right now.

And just cos it niggles me, he doesn't ever "know he's done wrong" he doesn't have a sense of right and wrong, he is not a moral being. He simply realised you were not happy and started throwing out appeasment signals to avoid being hurt (he has probably had bad experiences with angry humans as well).


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## GingerRogers

I am sure you know this but. ..I reckon he might test you quite a bit. So far he has been unsure about you and where he is. The more he settles the more he will exhibit behaviors you havent yet seen. It might take months he has been through some traumatic times in his short life. He isn't going to be the perfect dog right now.
Sorry'Patience and cheese' are the order i reckon. 
See I have been learning from all these good people but especially moonviolet  who also reckons the difficult ones teach us the most.


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## missnaomi

Leam:

I have a Romanian foster dog. He came to us at 6ish months totally unsocialised etc. He had been crated after capture and before coming to the UK and obviously for the long journey. We tried a crate - our dogs are crate trained, but he was so distressed, we didn't use it at first - although are still getting him used to it by feeding him inside it.

He was a total food maniac. He sought out any food and defended it - but was lovely other than that. We have managed this by feeding him regularly, leaving him alone to eat, and putting him behind a baby gate, whilst we eat. Now, after being with us for nearly 3 months, food no longer is such a big deal to him - I still feed him separately from the other dogs, but can now eat in his presence without fear of a mugging.

All this said - he was very quiet to begin with but then began to show his true colours and as he gets better with some things, his new found bravery makes him worse at other things and harder to manage.

I think you have to remember that his life experiences are massively different from even rescue dogs here - in some good ways, and some not so good ways - but he will challenge you and you'll have to get stuck into training and wait to come out the other side of the difficult phase. You are also like me in that you have got the dog as he is due to enter his teenage phase, but his basic training is not in place either - a double challenge!

The rewards will be worth it though, every time you think of the little dog in the rubbish tip from the pictures!
Naomi x


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## Werehorse

School for us tonight.

The MCC were good boys again.  Although I'm going to go back to very basics with Hugo's sendaway, same problem as last week. Which is hardly supprising as I have done no work to fix it this week! At one point he ran out, in circles and then picked up a tiny twig that had fallen out of a Toller's bumcurtain! Very confused.

At one point we were practicing getting them in a sit and wait, walking or running away from them then going back to reward the sit. Me and OH were working them near each other, and we ended up running away, running back, running away and running round the back of the poor boys with them holding the sit and looking ever so slightly bemused... "what ARE the hoomans up to Oscar?" "I'm not sure Hugo-chap, hold yer ground there's bound to be treats in it somewhere..."

Emergency stops need work as well, polishing really. Although I did stop them when they anticipated running to their food bowls this evening! Oscar always barked when he sets off for his tea, just one bark and then face in bowl. Sometimes he barks before I give the cue to get it. Hugo takes Oscar's bark as a cue.  :lol: and then they both set off - but they stop when I say too so it's just funny.

Shame Oscar has no self control playing fetch with a toy outside this afternoon - no wait, or at least kept trying to break the wait but I had his harness so he couldn't. At least he's enthused about the pick up but some steadiness would be nice. And he lost it for ages and seemed to forget what he was looking for for a bit.

I'm slightly concerned about how excited Hugo gets about training - I think it is good for him to be enthusiastic and he does well because of it but I'm worried that he's stressed with the excitement? Or is that Normal For Collies? It is about a 40 minute drive to school, he spent the last 20 minutes whining with excitement!  Sometimes he struggles to concentrate because he is so excited as well - if he doesn't quite understand what I want he gets frantic trying to work it out, with frantic noises included. And it has taken him an hour or so to calm down after getting home from training. He's now completely passed out though!

I'm not sure if I need to do anything about it - his antics don't bother me and I really like that he clearly enjoys training so much, I only worry that it isn't good for him in some way to be that hyped.


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> Thanks for this i will try it and see how it goes, i agree that he seems to be settling in and testing boundaries im just not sure how to deal with it, all my other dogs i have had since pups so this was all trained when they were still little. now he has got his adult teeth in it bl**dy hurts when he nips.
> 
> yes i know he doesnt actually know hes done wrong, just makes me feel better thinking that lol
> 
> we had started crate training him and it went ok for a week then he just totally freaked out about being in it even with the door open, we would put a treat in it and he would attack the crate, we tried putting his food bowl in it and he would snarl at us if we walked past and then once he was finished he would attack the crate again. He also kept trying to corner the kitten in it. We felt it wasnt doing him any good and he might injure himself or the kitten so took it away. Being a stray he only has bad memories of crates and after travelling in one for 36 hrs without being allowed out to even to toilet im not suprised he didnt like it much tbh. he has since stopped gulping his food down and doesnt growl if you go near him when hes eating. It just seems to be when we are eating.


I would persist with the crate training.

Try not to over focus on his past history, which is a very easy mistake to make with rescues.

With puppies or older rescue dogs a routine and the house rules need to be established as quickly as possible and strictly adhered to.

My daughter has had many rescues over the years, ranging from about 4 mth old puppies to 5 yr olds, some of which have had serious issues. I'm happy to say they all came good eventually and lived happy and fulfilled lives.


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I am sure you know this but. ..I reckon he might test you quite a bit. So far he has been unsure about you and where he is. The more he settles the more he will exhibit behaviors you havent yet seen. It might take months he has been through some traumatic times in his short life. He isn't going to be the perfect dog right now.
> Sorry'Patience and cheese' are the order i reckon.
> *See I have been learning from all these good people but especially moonviolet  who also reckons the difficult ones teach us the most.*




Yes that is so true. I know it's a slightly different thing but years ago I had a little bitch called Jessie. She taught me more about training dogs and thinking 'out of the box' than all the dogs I've trained before or since put together. I shall always be very grateful to her.


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## Dogless

Leam, just a thought - if he hates a crate so much have you got a spare cupboard or small room that you can make 'his', but take the door off and put a baby gate across so that it does the same job?

Like this:


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> School for us tonight.
> 
> *The MCC were good boys again.  Although I'm going to go back to very basics with Hugo's sendaway, same problem as last week. Which is hardly supprising as I have done no work to fix it this week! At one point he ran out, in circles and then picked up a tiny twig that had fallen out of a Toller's bumcurtain! Very confused.*
> 
> _Don't let him struggle or practice running in confused circles. The minute he starts to do that run to the mat yourself and call him to you, tapping the mat at the same time, saying "sendaways (or whatever your command is) in an excited voice._
> 
> At one point we were practicing getting them in a sit and wait, walking or running away from them then going back to reward the sit. Me and OH were working them near each other, and we ended up running away, running back, running away and running round the back of the poor boys with them holding the sit and looking ever so slightly bemused... "what ARE the hoomans up to Oscar?" "I'm not sure Hugo-chap, hold yer ground there's bound to be treats in it somewhere..."
> 
> Emergency stops need work as well, polishing really. Although I did stop them when they anticipated running to their food bowls this evening! Oscar always barked when he sets off for his tea, just one bark and then face in bowl. Sometimes he barks before I give the cue to get it. Hugo takes Oscar's bark as a cue.  :lol: and then they both set off - but they stop when I say too so it's just funny.
> 
> Shame Oscar has no self control playing fetch with a toy outside this afternoon - no wait, or at least kept trying to break the wait but I had his harness so he couldn't. At least he's enthused about the pick up but some steadiness would be nice. And he lost it for ages and seemed to forget what he was looking for for a bit.
> 
> *I'm slightly concerned about how excited Hugo gets about training - I think it is good for him to be enthusiastic and he does well because of it but I'm worried that he's stressed with the excitement? Or is that Normal For Collies? It is about a 40 minute drive to school, he spent the last 20 minutes whining with excitement!  Sometimes he struggles to concentrate because he is so excited as well - if he doesn't quite understand what I want he gets frantic trying to work it out, with frantic noises included. And it has taken him an hour or so to calm down after getting home from training. He's now completely passed out though!*
> 
> *I'm not sure if I need to do anything about it - his antics don't bother me and I really like that he clearly enjoys training so much, I only worry that it isn't good for him in some way to be that hyped.*




Yes very normal for some collies. Tremor is exactly the same and Twiggy was even worse.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## GingerRogers

We have had 4 walks in a row which have been quite good (to be fair last nights was unlikely to be bad as we happened to go out just as the driving sleet storm arrived over the sand dunes  not particularly pleasant)

We have been working on watch me outdoors more, done garden, then drive, then moved around our front car park thingy near the road, also when out on walks. Got her to do it as a distraction against barking at/turning to stare down the beach fishermen last night (yes I think they were mental - see first point about sleet).

Think I might finally be getting the functional reward bit about avoidance. We had three incidences this morning where I had to about turn or where dogs were following us and we had no lunging, lurching or grumbles. She *must *have known they were there according to the behaviourist lady  either way I am taking them as small successes.

Feeling better so fingers crossed no pillock jumps out and ruins it this arvo


----------



## catz4m8z

God, I hate training.... Im just not very good at it!
Been trying to get Alfie to know his name, 'watch me' and also recall at the mo but I never get the timings right. I dont think Im clear enough for anything to sink in, esp as he is a laid back little doofus so not particularly disposed to want to learn stuff!!LOL
Thank goodness he came puppy pad trained already!


----------



## Twiggy

catz4m8z said:


> God, I hate training.... Im just not very good at it!
> Been trying to get Alfie to know his name, 'watch me' and also recall at the mo but I never get the timings right. I dont think Im clear enough for anything to sink in, esp as he is a laid back little doofus so not particularly disposed to want to learn stuff!!LOL
> Thank goodness he came puppy pad trained already!


Yes I hate training right now; well the thought of it....LOL

I must get off my bum in the lovely warm house and take Tremor and Holly over to the freezing cold barn for half an hours training. Chances are that Holly will take a lump out of my freezing fingers as well.

It's a far, far greater thing than I have ever done, etc. etc. moan and groan.....


----------



## Zoojie

Guys, I need help!

My house flooded last month, then pipes burst, then under floor heating died, so I'm constantly freezing and don't want to get out of my pile of blankets to do any walking - let alone training! I'm also sick with a cold, and a lot of other personal disasters going on that have left me really demotivated.

Managed to drag myself to training classes, and it's Agility tonight for Amber, but I am just struggling to get out and about with them in the dark. It's so hard with Loki, as if I miss something in the dark, it could set us back a lot, so I get nervous. I'm scared of the dark as is anyway, and there are NO street lights or pavements down my lane and it's a good 15 minute walk to the nearest lit/pavemented road.

I am trying to motivate myself and have been doing training for their dinner/breakfast when I can this week. They get long walks on weekends over the park for some training too, in the light! Usually a couple of hours each, but I'm feeling guilty because they really aren't even getting the minimum during the week this past month or so, and it's not fair on them. 

Only a couple of weeks till I go back to visit my family and hopefully that'll give me some time to get back in the saddle so to speak. I've even checked when it's light enough for me to walk (20th Feb) in the mornings/evenings without being nervous, but it's too far away as yet, and I need to get going in the meantime.

I'm thinking some walking in town (which I'd have to drive to) would be better than nothing, it's just such a nightmare time-wise and people make Loki stressed. 

I just need someone to give me a kick up the bum and tell me I'm just making excuses and to get out and go! Blek, hate the winter.

Sorry for the whinge


----------



## Dogless

Zoojie, sounds mad but is there an industrial estate or something like that within a reasonably short drive? The big ones, like one here, is really well lit at night and has people on shifts so it's not all abandoned and spooky.

Sounds as if you've had a nightmare but if you do force yourself up and out with the dogs it might kick start your motivation too.


----------



## Twiggy

Zoojie - it sounds as if you have every right to whinge.

Don't beat yourself up as you are obviously doing your best in difficult circumstances.


----------



## Dogless

Not much to report today - cold, wet, windy walks for Kilo and I both morning and afternoon. This afternoon was so unpleasant that we just sort of power marched around it in record time :sosp:.

Done a few little training sessions with the little snapper too and he's coming on nicely .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Not much to report today - cold, wet, windy walks for Kilo and I both morning and afternoon. This afternoon was so unpleasant that we just sort of power marched around it in record time :sosp:.
> 
> Done a few little training sessions with the little snapper too and he's coming on nicely .


Rudi seems an adorable and biddable little chap..

It's not really got above freezing here all day and quite windy with it.

I put the old girl's coat on before we went out for the late afternoon walk.

I'm taking Tremor and Leafy to the vets in the morning for Lepto vacs and another laser treatment on Leafy's shoulder.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Rudi seems an adorable and biddable little chap..
> 
> It's not really got above freezing here all day and quite windy with it.
> 
> I put the old girl's coat on before we went out for the late afternoon walk.
> 
> I'm taking Tremor and Leafy to the vets in the morning for Lepto vacs and another laser treatment on Leafy's shoulder.


Kilo was biddable until he realised he was a hound . Not really; Rudi does seem more biddable than Kilo perhaps was - it's hard to remember. It's also hard to know whether he truly is or whether I understand more about training and more about RRs and how they tick. Or both .

Hope all goes well at the vet.

Hubby is on nights so in theory can come home tomorrow. I'd like to take Kilo to 'our' forest as the forecast is better if he can Rudi - sit. We'll see, I doubt he'll be keen!


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



Kilo was biddable until he realised he was a hound . Not really; Rudi does seem more biddable than Kilo perhaps was - it's hard to remember. It's also hard to know whether he truly is or whether I understand more about training and more about RRs and how they tick. Or both

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> .
> 
> Yes possibly a combination of things
> 
> *Hope all goes well at the vet.*
> 
> I'm sure it will, apart from waving bye-bye to yet more money.
> 
> *Hubby is on nights so in theory can come home tomorrow. I'd like to take Kilo to 'our' forest as the forecast is better if he can Rudi - sit. We'll see, I doubt he'll be keen!*




No comment....LOL

BTW What's happened to Kate and Molly. It seems ages since she posted. I hope everyting's OK over in France.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> BTW What's happened to Kate and Molly. It seems ages since she posted. I hope everyting's OK over in France.


It has been a long time .


----------



## GingerRogers

I am sure your experience (and Kilos good example of course ) is helping, you have clearly absorbed as much info as you can to help Kilo on the way.

We have had 5 good walks now, I am saying it quietly just in case

I think its after the weekend I finally realised I need to take *absolute *control and stop thinking we should be able to manage things 'normally'.

It matters not a jot if I look mental doing sharp about turns and avoiding dogs wherever possible, and standing around on street corners practicing watch me's etc if it keeps me sane and the ninja calm, well not exactly calm  I don't think she does calm as she is slightly mental but ........

We only saw one dog tonight but again she looked and looked away :thumbup:

Tomorrow the muzzle or 'party hat'  as it will be known (found that phrase on someones blog ) should arrive and we can start working on acclimatising that.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> No comment....LOL
> 
> BTW What's happened to Kate and Molly. It seems ages since she posted. I hope everyting's OK over in France.


Mmm it has hasn't it, hopefully its just a seasonal bug and not something more serious


----------



## Werehorse

Yes where is K&M?  Hope she's ok!

Did I mention that Hugo met a sheep very close and personal yesterday?  We had narrowly (ish) escaped a field of cows and because I am terrified of cows I was just pulling myself back together when a group of very bolshy sheep appeared in the gateway next to us (on the other side of the gate and there was no way Hugo could get through it) - they were obviously hand reared or similar as they were really bold and clearly thought I might feed them.

Because they were so bold I didn't worry when Hugo took a step up to sniff them. One of them stamped its foot and the one he sniffed gave him a very firm nose nudge (eff off you imposter you ain't a proper collie!) and he ran back and hid behind me. :lol: And then just stood behind me accepting treats while they trotted off again.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Because they were so bold I didn't worry when Hugo took a step up to sniff them. One of them stamped its foot and the one he sniffed gave him a very firm nose nudge (eff off you imposter you ain't a proper collie!) and he ran back and hid behind me. :lol: And then just stood behind me accepting treats while they trotted off again.


We were actually allowed to let Rory into a field of old and bolshy sheep to try and prevent him chasing, farmers suggestion, when we first got him. It worked he never paid them any attention ever, ever again


----------



## Guest

Himself has been playing a squeaky ball. 

Just found him with a hollowed out ball and no squeaker to be seen. 

I'm hoping he hasn't swallowed it.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Himself has been playing a squeaky ball.
> 
> Just found him with a hollowed out ball and no squeaker to be seen.
> 
> I'm hoping he hasn't swallowed it.


gosh so do I


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> gosh so do I


Are there any signs I should look out for? :001_unsure:


----------



## moonviolet

Eeek i hope Zan hasn't eaten the squeaker, have you tried squeezing his tummy and seen if he squeaks ( sorry i couldn't resist)

I had a little message from K&M last week, She was ok, just some stuff going on over there.

Nothing much to report from here, except I'm being invited to do a training session by Tink sitting staring at me with her best neglected puppy face. Who could resist?


----------



## Beth17

All is fairly normal and boring I'm pleased to say. The boys are behaving well apart from Sam who keeps trying to walk into traffic  Oscar had a lovely time playing with a couple of dogs yesterday and was even comfortable when a group of dogs came along 

Sounds like everyone else is doing well :thumbup1:


----------



## Sarah1983

I swear it's my day for inconsiderate people today! First the a**holes following me around the fields, now someone coming downstairs with a dog as I'm trying to unlock my door and get Spencer inside. Tiny little space on the stairs, big bouncy Labrador, even bigger Ridgeback. Not a good f*cking combination d*ckhead. Had they simply waited on the next landing up for 10 seconds Spen and I would have been out of their way and nobody would have needed to struggle. And stuff like this is nowhere near as stressful with Spencer as it was with Rupert, how the hell did I survive???

Okay, I'll go read back what I've missed now and hope you lot have had a better day than I have. Spen's actually behaved pretty well, it's the humans who've wound me up!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Eeek i hope Zan hasn't eaten the squeaker, *have you tried squeezing his tummy and seen if he squeaks* ( sorry i couldn't resist)
> 
> I had a little message from K&M last week, She was ok, just some stuff going on over there.
> 
> Nothing much to report from here, except I'm being invited to do a training session by Tink sitting staring at me with her best neglected puppy face. Who could resist?


Beat me to it . Or see if he does a squeaky poo.....Kilo swallowed some sponge once...he did an expanding poo .

We had a great night at school. Only two of us turned up as the hall is unheated and it is freezing cold - me and an experienced handler. It meant that we could do a lot of stuff offlead that we normally do onlead and try some things I hadn't tried before and (this is going to sound big headed even though it isn't meant to) I got to show what the BW was capable of and gained confidence in him as he held his waits and stays even with people walking about with brooms etc to do some cleaning . The trainer watched and one of the assistants took it - she does things pretty formally but I did enjoy it.

As for Rudi; the poor bugger's chewing at his joints a bit so must have growing pains I think - Kilo did the same.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Beat me to it . Or see if he does a squeaky poo.....Kilo swallowed some sponge once...he did an expanding poo .
> 
> We had a great night at school. Only two of us turned up as the hall is unheated and it is freezing cold - me and an experienced handler. It meant that we could do a lot of stuff offlead that we normally do onlead and try some things I hadn't tried before and (this is going to sound big headed even though it isn't meant to) I got to show what the BW was capable of and gained confidence in him as he held his waits and stays even with people walking about with brooms etc to do some cleaning . The trainer watched and one of the assistants took it - she does things pretty formally but I did enjoy it.
> 
> As for Rudi; the poor bugger's chewing at his joints a bit so must have growing pains I think - Kilo did the same.


Awe that doesn't sound nice. Not surprising as he seems to be growing very big very quick so bound to be painful. Glad you had fun with kilo at training.

Hope zanders not squeaking yet. 
Glad you are having some down time Beth.


----------



## Werehorse

LurcherOwner said:


> Himself has been playing a squeaky ball.
> 
> Just found him with a hollowed out ball and no squeaker to be seen.
> 
> I'm hoping he hasn't swallowed it.


Oh no!  I hope he hasn't swallowed it too!  If he has hopefully he'll just have an uncomfortable poo! Look out for any sickness or lethargy and make sure he keeps pooing as normal.


----------



## Thorne

Got back from my week in Devon with the OH this evening, Scooter and Breeze were very pleased to see me and intrigued by the smell of Bulldog on my jeans!

Major is looking very well, his hips aren't great for a middle-aged dog but he's moving much better than when I last saw him which is encouraging. His muscle tone must have doubled in the 6 months OH has had him and his joint supplement seems to be doing him good, he's trotting everywhere instead of alternating between waddling and mad gallops and seems to get up and down quicker. Hates cold weather walks though, and can't be convinced to wear a coat!

Didn't end up teaching him anything, he's not interested in learning so I spent most of my time with him just observing him and fussing him - he isn't keen on older people and has some tendency to resource guard but generally he's a good boy. Was _very_ well-mannered with me but he and OH play fight quite a bit and as a non-Bulldog person I find it hard to tell a snort from a growl! Major can get carried away with play fighting and end up nipping hard so I wish OH wouldn't do it but there'll be no persuading him otherwise. Bloody men 

Have enjoyed my casual Bulldog-length walks but am keen to get my numpties out tomorrow for a run, Mum has assured me Scooter is still being a good boy offlead but Breeze is not liking the cold or the shooting!

Lots to read on this thread, off to have a catch-up


----------



## Dogless

Well; no forest for us today - the weather is rubbish and it's always magnified hugely up there .

Hubby is on a night Monday, Thursday and then on leave from Saturday so hopefully I'll be able to treat the BW (and I!!!) to a half day in the forest soon.

Rudi's kibble will run out today too and he's definitely settled so he'll go onto raw tomorrow.


----------



## Werehorse

Holy Carp, what a morning! OH was driving me into Keswick to get a hair cut before taking the car for its MOT when we hit black ice on a corner at the top of a dip (only going 30 mph at most). We spun down the hill and finally hit a small tree.

WE'RE BOTH OK!

Shaken up and it certainly won't help the agoraphobia/weird anxiety thing I seem to have developed without really noticing. 

The car looks worse than it actually is too - massive panics about how on earth we afford a new car put to rest by our awesome garage. Massive panics about how we cope without a car (we live about 5 miles from even a small shop) gone due to him giving us a free courtesy car until he has sorted ours.

And the hotel we crashed near gave us free coffee and a cookie too. 

People are nice generally.

The AA man I spoke to wasn't nice - we just phoned a local recovery in the end. Check your AA policies people, I was convinced it covered me for any car I travelled in in breakdowns AND accidents... apparently not! And he couldn't have been ruder about it given that I had had to stop half way through reading out my membership number to break down and cry for a minute. 

The boys weren;t in the car at the time - I'm so glad I'd have freaked as we were spinning if they had been. As it was I was just kind of trying to work out where we were going to end up in a very detached kind of way.

As much as I dislike the car I'm glad we were in a Landy.


----------



## Dogless

Flamin' Nora Werehorse; I am so, so pleased that you are OK and that everyone (bar the AA man) rallied round for you xx.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well; no forest for us today - the weather is rubbish and it's always magnified hugely up there .
> 
> Hubby is on a night Monday, Thursday and then on leave from Saturday so hopefully I'll be able to treat the BW (and I!!!) to a half day in the forest soon.
> 
> Rudi's kibble will run out today too and he's definitely settled so he'll go onto raw tomorrow.


Yes the weather is pretty grim here as well with a biting wind.

I've just got back from the vets. They were trying hard to persuade me to go to their open day on Sunday as they haven't seen little Holly for ages. I suppose it would be good to socialise her, except most of the 'clients' there seem to be out of control and I don't want her bitten.

I love the way the owner/senior vet shuts the door and starts the third degree. This morning it was what I know about titre testing....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Holy Carp, what a morning! OH was driving me into Keswick to get a hair cut before taking the car for its MOT when we hit black ice on a corner at the top of a dip (only going 30 mph at most). We spun down the hill and finally hit a small tree.
> 
> WE'RE BOTH OK!
> 
> Shaken up and it certainly won't help the agoraphobia/weird anxiety thing I seem to have developed without really noticing.
> 
> The car looks worse than it actually is too - massive panics about how on earth we afford a new car put to rest by our awesome garage. Massive panics about how we cope without a car (we live about 5 miles from even a small shop) gone due to him giving us a free courtesy car until he has sorted ours.
> 
> And the hotel we crashed near gave us free coffee and a cookie too.
> 
> People are nice generally.
> 
> The AA man I spoke to wasn't nice - we just phoned a local recovery in the end. Check your AA policies people, I was convinced it covered me for any car I travelled in in breakdowns AND accidents... apparently not! And he couldn't have been ruder about it given that I had had to stop half way through reading out my membership number to break down and cry for a minute.
> 
> The boys weren;t in the car at the time - I'm so glad I'd have freaked as we were spinning if they had been. As it was I was just kind of trying to work out where we were going to end up in a very detached kind of way.
> 
> As much as I dislike the car I'm glad we were in a Landy.


OMG Thank goodness you are all OK. Pour yourself a stiff drink.


----------



## L/C

Bloody hell Werehouse - I'm glad you're ok!

Have a stiff drink and calm yourself down.


----------



## GingerRogers

Crikey Werehorse that is scary. I did the same when I had first learnt to drive, it was a dodgy corner so I was going almost so slow I wasn't moving and I still spun out and stopped when I hit the side of a van. My legs shook so much I couldn't move the car off the road.

rrr: to the rude AA man, so much for the fourth emergency service - isn't accidents what emergency services are for - still didn't have to be rude about it though did he. I 'suppose' he might have been having an equally bad day and all that carp or he might just have been an awful man rrr: 

Glad everybody else was nice and helpful and hope you feel ok later!


----------



## Sarah1983

Wow, glad you're all okay Werehorse!


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks people. I'm still shaking and it was about 4 hours ago now. 

I'm affraid me and OH were both actually very rude back to the AA man so he did get sufficient payback for being a bit of a jobsworth.   Do they not give them any training on how to deal with The Hysterical?   I handed phone to OH cos I was freaking out when he started being rude to me because I wasn't driving the car that was on his screen...and OH listened for about 10 seconds and then was just like "I'm going to stop you right there... ****. Right. Off" And hung up, so he wasn't impressed with his attitude either. But perhaps it is us that aren't the nice people really! 

I just can't keep on top of stuff like "I have to phone the AA and check my membership because my KA has had to be scrapped" I just thought I was a member and that was that.

It's all part of the "Disorganisation/Mental Health Tax"


----------



## Moobli

Blimey Werehorse - what a fright  Glad you are both ok though, and that the boys were safe at home. Take care.


----------



## catz4m8z

Thank goodness it was only a small tree!, Glad you are ok Werehorse.
Ive just got in from town with the ratpuppy...he was pretty good coz I waited til he had had a play and a wee before taking him to the pet shop so he slept some of the walk back. Only problem was that only one lot of people even noticed I had him in the bag so he didnt get much socialisation!
NM, he can come to Argos with me tomorrow to buy a camera!
Ive decided not to worry about teaching him tricks (like sit, paw, etc) at the moment and just concentrate on his life skills. I know some breeds just suck up training and really thrive on it but Chiweenies do things at a much slower speed!LOL 
...and he finally played with Heidi this morning which we are both thrilled about. As a DINOS she was the one I was most worried about but she has turned out to be a little superstar! She never seems to be cross with him and always wants to play or cuddle up when they sleep. Im hoping it will help her confidence too..


----------



## Guest

Oh god Werehorse! I'm glad you're both okay! 

rrr:rrr:rrr::sosp: How dare the AA man be rude!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Glad you and Stu are OK Werehorse. Hope the adrenalin comes down soon , liek you needed to deal with Mr Jobsworth when you were in that state. o'm sure he helped matters no end.

Stiff Drinks and long soaks hot baths all around. 

YOu may not have had the cover you thought but htere is no need to be rude. I hope the lovely hotel staff and lovely garage make up for it. The bigger the organization the more likely both the customers and staff are treated in a dehumanised manner.

Catz thats so lovely that Heidi and ratpuppy are getting along so nicely


----------



## Twiggy

catz4m8z said:


> Thank goodness it was only a small tree!, Glad you are ok Werehorse.
> Ive just got in from town with the ratpuppy...he was pretty good coz I waited til he had had a play and a wee before taking him to the pet shop so he slept some of the walk back. Only problem was that only one lot of people even noticed I had him in the bag so he didnt get much socialisation!
> NM, he can come to Argos with me tomorrow to buy a camera!
> Ive decided not to worry about teaching him tricks (like sit, paw, etc) at the moment and just concentrate on his life skills. I know some breeds just suck up training and really thrive on it but Chiweenies do things at a much slower speed!LOL
> ...and he finally played with Heidi this morning which we are both thrilled about. As a DINOS she was the one I was most worried about but she has turned out to be a little superstar! She never seems to be cross with him and always wants to play or cuddle up when they sleep. Im hoping it will help her confidence too..


Well blow me...!! My daughter had a rescue retriever/collie bitch called Heidi who had quite severe aggression problems, both with people and other dogs initially. When my daughter took on a rescue puppy we were all a bit concerned as to how Heidi would react. Our worries were totally unfounded as she turned out to be the best nanny, protector and playmate any puppy could wish for. When the grandchildren arrived, we were even more concerned, but she was exactly the same with them and they both learnt to walk hauling themselves up on her back.

I used to keep my pups away from her until I had some sort of bond with them as Heidi would totally take over and you couldn't get a look in. Her eyes would shine at the sight of young pups or children and they could take terrible liberties with her.

Very odd for such a strong bitch who got into several fights and bit quite a number of people in the first year - 18 months my daughter had her.


----------



## catz4m8z

Spooky!:sosp: I think alot of aggression problems are down to fear though....and nothing is less threatening then a tiny defenceless baby!!


----------



## Dogless

Today has been good so far - a walk in the foul weather with Kilo so alternated practising what we did last night with his favourite sprinting game to keep warm and motivated.We sprinted until I could sprint no more . He walked like a dream yet again. Best boy and gold star again :001_wub::001_wub:.

Had three short training sessions with Rudi - he offers eye contact really readily and is really focussed so far, I am chuffed. I'm trying to get as good a foundation as possible before he can walk in the big wide world and go to puppy class where I'm sure it will all go to pot with all the distractions :sosp::sosp:.


----------



## Beth17

Werehorse glad you are ok. I'd be ringing the AA when you feel up to it and demanding an apology and threatening to take my business elsewhere.

Nice day with the boys today. Did separate street walks this morning and Sam managed to stay on the pavement  

Catz lovely to hear yours are getting on well.

Well done Kilo and Rudi is such a clever little cookie :thumbup1:


----------



## Werehorse

Tried to teach Oscar to "find the cache" this afternoon. Mixed results, did a lot of bashing it with his paws before sitting next to it, but he ony tried to retrieve it once. He started to get confused once I had put it in a lot of places around the room so the whole room smelt of it! He started to run around being a silly spaniel and just sniffing madly everywhere. So I put it away.

Picture of The Shed.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> .
> 
> Picture of The Shed.


Awwwww cruelty to poor shed


----------



## Twiggy

Well I've got my last training day for this year today and then, apart from having friends here training next Tuesday afternoon with their youngsters, I'm finished until 24 January.....

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I've got my last training day for this year today and then, apart from having friends here training next Tuesday afternoon with their youngsters, I'm finished until 24 January.....
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Enjoy your break Twiggy; sure you deserve it .

We were up at 0530, Kilo was walked really early but we met our friends who were also up really early, and her dog had to carry Kilo's toy as always . Then did some play and training with Rudi THEN have cleaned the house top to bottom. Finally dogs asleep on sofa and me chilling out .

Rudi was switched onto raw today...two meals eaten and, so far, so good (touch wood!!).


----------



## Rah

Dogless said:


> Enjoy your break Twiggy; sure you deserve it .
> 
> We were up at 0530, Kilo was walked really early but we met our friends who were also up really early, and her dog had to carry Kilo's toy as always . Then did some play and training with Rudi THEN have cleaned the house top to bottom. Finally dogs asleep on sofa and me chilling out .
> 
> Rudi was switched onto raw today...two meals eaten and, so far, so good (touch wood!!).


Don't forget our weekend fill of photos


----------



## catz4m8z

awww, Rudi sounds like he is coming along really well, Dogless!
Had a mixed result walk today. My friend was available so it gave me the chance to leave Alfie with her and take the rest of the midget army for a nice long walk. 
All 3 barked like maniacs at a bully type but I fairly sure I know why. It was on a lead so I called my lot back to walk in a semi circle around it, unfortunately it got more and more excited until it was lunging and rearing on the lead....at which point mine saw it as a threat (didnt want to be squashed by several stone of muscley dog!LOL).
Heidi had a bad walk after being surprised by a fox terrier and 2 poodley things, and 2 GSDs. Not great for a DINOS... I did manage to distract her with treats for two of the dogs but the other 3 appeared from nowhere right in the middle of my lot and she was too hyper to listen to me. I suppose though I should be grateful that she will always listen to me enough to follow me and not run away even if I cant always calm her.

At least Alfie had some nice fuss and attention from his 'auntie' (and future dog sitter!)....and made me very proud coz when I put him on his puppy pad before we left he did the biggest wee!LOL
Hoping that she will have him a few days next week too so I can spend quality time with the big dogs and he can bond with her. Its more difficult then I remember doing the puppy thing alone, I pretty much have to take him everywhere or leave him all alone.


----------



## Beth17

Had a really lovely morning with the boys. Took Oscar up the field and he was like the old Oscar played with a few dogs, listened to me met the terrier he had a run in the other day and let it and the weim pup that was with it sniff his bits  We also met the lady with the two small terriers and Oscar played with her pup and she said it's like a different dog and how nice to see him like this 
It's lovely to have them see that he isn't just a grumpy aggressive dog.

Sam had most of his walk offlead and played with a beagle and then walked along with a small group including 2 english bull terriers one of which was only 22 weeks old :001_wub:

Now I just have to work out how to walk them together without oscar kicking off :sneaky2:

Well done Rudi, Alfie and Twiggy have a lovely few weeks off


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## Thorne

Werehorse, so glad you're ok! Probably one of the better vehicles to be in I reckon, mine wouldn't stand a chance against a tree.

Enjoy your break Twiggy!

Hope Rudi gets on well with his new diet, Dogless.

Both of my embarrassing "Labradors" refused to go out for a walk yesterday! Very cold, wet and windy, if they were youngsters I'd have dragged them out but they're both starting to dislike very rainy days so I occasionally let them skip a walk 

Mum and I took them out at dusk for a very squelchy walk. If it was just me I wouldn't have let Scooter off as he wasn't very focused on us at all to start and did some really lazy recalls. He did improve and recalled every time but not the tight, quick recall I've been seeing from him lately. Glad she did let him off though, he's lazy at home so needs a good run! I'll take him out on his longline tomorrow for some more practice.
Breeze was not keen to leave the warm house but seemed overjoyed once we were out! Had a lovely, noise-free time. Great progress on her car counter-conditioning, got a big wagging tail from her towards the end of road time, huge improvement on having it clamped down against her backside!

Mum was a bit miffed because the dogs were more interested in the schmackos and liver treats I had on me than the handful of kibble in her pocket


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## Zoojie

I have to say, though it's exhausting walking the two of them separately, my word is it worth it. Not only did Loki do really well and not react too badly to being charged at by a springer, he ignored most other dogs and concentrated on my and our training. We did a 1minute30second sit-stay and down-stay with other people and dogs walking around, some amazing recalls (on the long line!) and practiced 'stand' without charging at me full pelt lol!

Amber had great playtime with a huge 35kg big scraggly dog lol! Was only one, so a big puppy really, she had loads of fun being chased around. Met a 14 week old Beagle pup too so I got to see how little she would have been as a proper puppy! :001_wub:

Dogless, you need to stop posting pics of Rudi as I'm incredibly puppy broody as with both of mine I missed that stage and now I'm feeling left out!!


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## Guest

Le Donkey eared one has barely had any walks the past couple days yet he seems completly content to just have half and hour and then snooze on my bed. He doesn't like this cold at all. 

He has not one BUT two girlfriends now as the neighbour with a lanc heeler has just taken on a dog from an owner who no longer wanted it. It's a yorkie cross and my dog of course adores it.

Nattered to a lady today who owns a dog we sometimes see on walks and I apologized for the numerous times my dogs attempted to flatten hers in greeting.

She said he was lovely!!  I think I get so hung up on his OTTness sometimes! 

Hope you are all okay! (Speshly you werehorse!)


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Le Donkey eared one has barely had any walks the past couple days yet he seems completly content to just have half and hour and then snooze on my bed. He doesn't like this cold at all.
> 
> He has not one BUT two girlfriends now as the neighbour with a lanc heeler has just taken on a dog from an owner who no longer wanted it. It's a yorkie cross and my dog of course adores it.
> 
> Nattered to a lady today who owns a dog we sometimes see on walks and I apologized for the numerous times my dogs attempted to flatten hers in greeting.
> 
> *She said he was lovely!!  I think I get so hung up on his OTTness sometimes!
> *
> Hope you are all okay! (Speshly you werehorse!)


I think sometimes it's a perspective thing; 'faults' that I find are often not even noticed by other owners / thought of as normal too .


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## Thorne

On the subject of OTT Lurchers, anyone want this one, or know anyone who might? Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre

Paddy is the lovely but mad Lurcher I've mentioned on here a few times, he can be a handful but is a sweetie at heart and really wants to work for his handler - very clever boy. Will make a lovely companion and training partner for someone who likes a more boisterous sort of dog!


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## Dogless

Thorne said:


> On the subject of OTT Lurchers, anyone want this one, or know anyone who might? Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre
> 
> Paddy is the lovely but mad Lurcher I've mentioned on here a few times, he can be a handful but is a sweetie at heart and really wants to work for his handler - very clever boy. Will make a lovely companion and training partner for someone who likes a more boisterous sort of dog!


He's lovely!!


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## Thorne

Dogless said:


> He's lovely!!


Certainly a handsome chap, great fun too!


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## Guest

Thorne said:


> On the subject of OTT Lurchers, anyone want this one, or know anyone who might? Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre
> 
> Paddy is the lovely but mad Lurcher I've mentioned on here a few times, he can be a handful but is a sweetie at heart and really wants to work for his handler - very clever boy. Will make a lovely companion and training partner for someone who likes a more boisterous sort of dog!


GODDAMN WHY DID I HAVE TO CLICK THE LINK!?!

I mean whats TWO mad lurchers eh????? 

He is lovely!!!!


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## Sarah1983

Well after my complaints about stupid owners and their dogs the other day what does my horrible hound do? He mugs the bloody neighbours as they're coming through the front door to the block :mad2: It was unfortunate timing, I'd decided to grab the laundry on the way in from a walk with him and just as we were coming out of the cellar they came in through the front door. Spen ignored me telling him to sit, dropped the laundry bag and went to say hello.

Now to be fair they do usually say hello to him when they see him and he is absolutely mad about their kids who were with them and who get as excited to see him as he does them but considering me and their mum had been complaining about the dogs upstairs just running around and making life difficult I felt a right bloody hypocrite! I did of course grab him ASAP, apologise and make him sit so they could get in but that's not really the point.


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## catz4m8z

oh dear, NM Sarah1983 these things do happen. esp when you live in a built up area or have to take close neighbours into account. I think that the majority of people are understanding though if they can see that you are working on any problems.

I took the ratpuppy out to Argos with me to help choose a new camera! (he wanted red but they only had purple.rrr. Also managed to accost a few people to say hello to him but I really hate talking to other people! (not to mention the fact that "would you like to stroke my puppy?" has started to sound like a euphemism in my head!!. Im worried I will get the giggles! :lol.
Also scouting out places I will be able to find people if the weather turns bad and it looks like we might be loitering outside the entrance to Tesco....asking people to 'stroke my puppy':ihih:.
Alfie's opinion of this morning is that the icy wind is horrible but pigeons are pretty great!


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## moonviolet

Sarah i'm glad im tnot hte only one having an embarassing blip today. A certain beagle we know took a shine to a young bulldog and howled at him then playbowed and generally behaved like she had never seen another dog. As we walked past them. Cue tonnes of apologies from me as their owner laughed their head off.



catz4m8z said:


> oh dear, NM Sarah1983 these things do happen. esp when you live in a built up area or have to take close neighbours into account. I think that the majority of people are understanding though if they can see that you are working on any problems.
> 
> I took the ratpuppy out to Argos with me to help choose a new camera! (he wanted red but they only had purple.rrr. Also managed to accost a few people to say hello to him but I really hate talking to other people! (not to mention the fact that "would you like to stroke my puppy?" has started to sound like a euphemism in my head!!. Im worried I will get the giggles! :lol.
> Also scouting out places I will be able to find people if the weather turns bad and it looks like we might be loitering outside the entrance to Tesco....asking people to 'stroke my puppy':ihih:.
> Alfie's opinion of this morning is that the icy wind is horrible but pigeons are pretty great!


CAtz ... :lol: :lol: :lol: all i'm going to say is .. be thankful you dont' have to socialise cats outside tesco :lol: :lol:


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## Guest

Walked well today, came back in the field after playing with a rottie. 

Then my mum left the front door open, Zander got out and played the longest keep-away game ever, including vaulting into other peoples gardens, annoying a woman with a goldie and just zooming around like a moron. 

After FINALLY catching him (took bout half and hour, he DOES NOT NEED A WALK LATER!) got back to mum (who hadn't moved from the front door) and was told "It's not MY fault for leaving the door open, its your fault, you're the one who's apparently trained him."

rrr:

Have to say Zand is being VERY cuddly now haha.


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## Twiggy

Well taking Holly to the open day at the vets was a waste of time as it was packed so I didn't get her out of the car. We came home and did some training instead.

Some good news on my sister though. She's been to hell and back for the last 12 days and the treatment has been horrendous. She's had a tube up her nose, a drip down her throat, a catheter attached pumping her with anti-sickness fluid, Hickman line attached, etc. etc. and she hasn't eaten in all that time...!! But..... her stem cells are now regenerating and her blood count is rapidly improving....

Providing there are no setbacks she may be allowed to go home next week-end.


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## moonviolet

Oh Twiggy that is wonderful news. Keeping my fingers crossed that the next week goes smoothly and your sister is allowed home. No better xmas gift  Lots of healing thoughts and cheerleadng for incredible those stem cells and your brave sister


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## Thorne

At least Tink's misbehaviour was happy misbehaviour!  Your post gave me a giggle catz4m8z, I'm sure I'll think of you asking people to stroke your puppy the next time I meet one! Glad to hear your sister is improving, Twiggy, great news.

Shooting season sundays are Breeze's no-walk day now, even if we go out in the dark she'll have heard gunshots all day and gets worked up to the point of hiding when the leads come out. We've had lots of fetch and play and find it sessions to occupy her, and she spends most of her sundays trotting after dad in the garden and workshop so "lazy sunday" isn't in her vocabulary anyway!

Scooter and I had a nice time on our own, his focus was much better than yesterday so scrapped the longline recall and let him off. Had a couple of "sod off" looks from him but a definite improvement, he's usually better on his own anyway. It still amuses me to hide up and wait for the inevitable "omg! she's gone!" look and hurried retracing of steps in my direction 
Sneaked onto the rec to use their mini assault course for some fun jumping and weaving, there's definitely life in the old dog yet.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh Twiggy that is wonderful news. Keeping my fingers crossed that the next week goes smoothly and your sister is allowed home. No better xmas gift  Lots of healing thoughts and cheerleadng for incredible those stem cells and your brave sister


Thank you. It's been an extremely worrying 12 days.

I was going to Kings this week to visit but instead will hopefully be going down to Sussex next week-end and will be spending most of the coming week cooking tasty food for her.....


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## Dogless

Fabulous news about your sister Twiggy xx.


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## Sarah1983

Great news Twiggy! Fingers crossed for your sister.

MV, at least she was happy to see the dog lol.

Catz, that gave me a giggle. 

We had snow last night. Woke up to about a foot of the stuff. And of course we have to clear paths out here. Soooo...hubby and I cleared the snow from the path. As we loosened it Spen grabbed chunks of it and ran off. He had the zoomies all around the grass in front of the flat. He chased after snowballs we threw for him (bit cruel coz they splatted and disappeared when they landed lol) and he had a blast. Took us about 10 times as long as it should have to clear the path but it was fun lol.

And it poured with rain this afternoon so now we have a greyish slush and it's like a skating rink outside


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## Beth17

Lovely day with the boys again much the same as yesterday which is fine by me.

What brilliant news Twiggy fingers crossed for next weekend  

What a nightmare LO, parents 

Puppy stroking outside of tesco honestly get your minds out of the gutter :nono::lol:


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## chazzie10

Well it's been 10 days since Ive been online and it's taken me a couple of hours to read up on all the posts just on THIS thread 

Glad everyone's doing well or at least bouncing back from bad/ trying happenings 

Everything's going well in the Chazzie madhouse. Charlie's walks are continuing to be loose and his poo's firm so what more can a person ask for ( apart from beer and chocolate lol)?
He's definately a lot better at holding a sit while other onlead dogs pass by, hurray for the Chazmeister :dita:


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## Guest

HURRAY FOR THE CHAZ!!! 

On a different note this what happens when I vacate my bed at 2am to use the facilities...










OHH and I had someone say he looked like a smooth collie today, what do you think?


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## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> . Charlie's walks are continuing to be loose and his poo's firm so what more can a person ask for


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Chazzie you are back. 10 days!! I knew you had been quiet but not for that long. 
Couple of laughs there catz and moonviolet and so glad your sister is doing well Twiggy.
We have been continuing the quietness thankfully. Practising with the 'party hat' is going well. Generally quite tired i think.


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## moonviolet

LO he's just keeping it warm for you. 

GR Ginge might be tired because her adrenalin levels are lowering because she's not getting the stress surges and is catching up on the rest they prevented.


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## chazzie10

Yep you'll maybe find that Ginge could be getting calmer all round now. I found that with Charlie.
The from the first BAT session when he walked on that loose lead the first time, he was less stressed, less adrenaline and so listened better. It continued in the house, calmer and better behaved...along with focusing on me and not always on constant 'alert'. AND, I guess as he got calmer, so did I, and that means I behaved more like top dog? If that makes any sense?? I'm certain he must have thought 'OMG she's actually a really lovely mummy when she doesnt nag' lmao.

Geez that's a lot of calmness in one post hehehe


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## chazzie10

I spent 2 hours out cutting a path through bramble behind my house to the river bank beside us...Charlie behind me the whole time 'helping' to dig things that didnt need dug, chasing off any scary monsters that might be hiding in the undergrowth and pulling my hat off when i bent down then licking my head... all useful stuff to a young labrador I guess 
Just thought I'd share this pic of him looking gorgeous and huggable 

ps. look at the weight he has lost in the 5 weeks of raw feeding!!


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## Dogless

Wow!!! Chaz looks completely different.....new look for his new angelic ways .


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Wow!!! Chaz looks completely different.....new look for his new angelic ways .


You're the second person today to say he looks like a different dog- my friend hasnt seen him in a couple of months and I posted that photo on FaceAche (lol) and she couldnt believe it was him


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## Dogless

Good day today . We were up at 0500; which was OK as Rudi needed the toilet - he sleeps through now but had a big drink before bed so I thought it would be an early one. I don't mind - at least he makes it known!!

Walked Kilo on the fields in the dark this morning; no one about surprisingly enough on a Sunday morning, especially after the big Christmas do!! We didn't do much as I didn't want to wake folk up so Kilo zoomied, sniffed and we played some tug. This afternoon we did an onlead training walk and he was fab .

Rudi has been a little star with his training but is reaching the 'needs to go out and about' stage so he's been on the go an awful lot of today and looking for mischief!! He's taken to raw fine; learnt very fast that if you don't chew a chicken wing properly it reappears again very shortly afterwards :sosp:. Only to be eaten again of course, but chewed second time around :sosp:.


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## chazzie10

Rudi's getting very big now! Looks like he's standing up for himself with Kilo


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## Leam1307

deleted .....


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## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> OHH and I had someone say he looked like a smooth collie today, what do you think?
> 
> Hmmm he's making me think of Lassie the way he's standing there...especially the colouring, maybe it's just a Lassie type pose


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## moonviolet

Leam1307 said:


> Im not sure though if i should be telling the rescue that he is doing this? .


I'd definitely be talking to the rescue, they may have a behaviourist back up who is able to help. It would be worth keeping a diary, of what happens when it happens what you are doing, what he is doing, are there any things around not just say food toys etc but shoes remote control anything at all. It does sound liek you need some qualified experienced help and support.


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Werehorse

I'm supprised anyone knew what a smooth collie is well enough to say that zander looks like one! :lol: Which he does, specially them ears (unless you put the effort in smooth collie ears stick up, well my smooth collie's did! ) I'll get some photos of when she was a young dog scanned and online. Noone ever knew what she was! People were always asking us what she was crossed with and then were very appologetic when we said that "actually she's a pedigree smooth collie!" :lol:

Back from managing to drive down to Sheffield to go to my nephew's christening - oh the joy of an early start on the indoctrination. We took the MCC and stayed overnight at my parents'. And the boys both have VERY SHINY halos right now. They were SOOOOOOO good for the whole trip. They stayed with my parents on Sat eve while we went to catch up with my cousin and they just settled and slept apparently, and amazingly kept off the sofas (although Oscar kept forgetting and bouncing up, he bounced back off again when he was asked.)

This morning my brother came over with the 18 month old nephew who was running around, "patting" the dogs on the nose and throwing a football around - that sounds mad but I promise you I was super careful and would have got my brother to make him stop if the dogs had been at all bothered but they just completely ignored him, weren't upset by the pats on the nose and didn't even look at the football. Little nephew even waddled past Oscar waving a bit of bacon sandwich at one point and Oscar just blanked him! Oscar was totally solid as a rock, Hugo was slightly more unsure but took his lead from Oscar and when the football bounced a bit near to him he just walked away.

And we walked them round the busiest woods ever and they were spot on, mostly ignoring the thousands of other dogs or greating politely but waiting for permission first, they sat at the side of the path while runners or any dogs on leads (including a muzzled, reactive terrier who could have been a cream GingerNinja!) came past and generally completely behaved themselves in a strange woods that must be FULL of doggie smells.

Me and OH had to give ourselves a reality check when we realised we were getting disappointed that they were being a bit pully on the lead!  :lol:

This is me:    

Right bed! I haven't read the thread - up early tomorrow!


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## Sarah1983

At half past one this morning Spencer probably endeared us to all the neighbours by having a hissy fit about the 3 snowmen someone built outside. They built them there yesterday morning and he walked past them about 5 times before deciding they were a threat that needed to be warned off with hysterical barking  It seems Silent Bob has a very loud, ear splitting bark when he does decide to use it too :mad2:

It did end on a good note for him though, he stole the smallest snowmans carrot nose and ate it :yikes:

We are NOT going for a proper walk today. It rained yesterday afternoon and it's like an ice rink out there at the moment! It's about all I can do to stay on my feet without Spencer pulling me so I've got stuffed Kongs in the freezer and we'll be doing lots of mental stuff. We'll do some street walking since they've cleared the paths and he'll go out with his ball or frisbee later but he'll have to make do for a day or two. Hubby's in hospital until at least tomorrow evening so if I did fall and hurt myself I'd be really stuck.


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## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> LO he's just keeping it warm for you.
> 
> GR Ginge might be tired because her adrenalin levels are lowering because she's not getting the stress surges and is catching up on the rest they prevented.


Mmm It would be nice but she has always been fairly snorey indoors, its outdoors thats EXCITING!!!

I have always thought its because she wasn't used to doing anything during the day, the times she was let out her crate and into the yard were the only exciting times.

Having said that we have had a mostly excellently managed week (pat on my back ) and this weekend it has definitely been more of the 'I actually can't be bothered' kind of lazy than the 'I don't think anythings going to happen anyway so I might as well just sleep, but keep one eye open just in case'.

I popped out on Saturday evening and she didn't even stir from 'my' armchair while I put my coat on, either I tired her out (unlikely ) or there is some truth in what you say.

Hope you get something sorted leam 

Good on the boys werehorse 

Charlie looks amazing. 

That made me chuckle spen eating the snowmans nose, take care out there, hope hubby is ok, think I might have missed something .


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## moonviolet

Leam1307 said:


> Well i spoke to the rescue who have put me in contact with their behaviourist so waiting to hear back from her, in the meantime the rescue have given me some advice... i have to dominate him and show him who is boss  i dont like this thought at all and even telling him off by just saying no in a stern voice seems to make him worse!!! OMG i would lose a hand never mind what it would mentally do to him.
> 
> She also said i shouldnt shut him out of the room as this will not help and he will just think he is "alpha" and i have not to feed him before we eat. (that ones abit hard as we normally dont eat our dinner until after 9pm. He seems to be listening to OH and my mum more but then they do tell him off by either shouting at him or giving him a smack on the nose. not what i like but then so far he hasnt bitten them only me, and im the one being nice to him.
> 
> Need to sort something out drastically though as this morning while putting his lead on (i have been sitting down to do this so im not leaning over him) he lunged and grabbed my scarf and when i asked him to leave it he did but then crouched and snarled at me. got a sore throat now from the scarf being pulled tight.


Oh leam i don't know what to say, i'd say i was shocked and horrified by the adivce you have received but sadly i'm not. I will however agree with and say it's dangerous advice that could easily get you bitten, I would definitely not be taking it.

I dont' feel anyone can advise over the internet with the potential seriousness of this and i do hope the behaviourist linked to the rescue has a more progressive approach


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## GingerRogers

Oh dear. I don't like the idea of their methods either, you need to wait to see how their behaviorist suggests things but if he is along the same lines then it doesn't sound good.

The trouble with 'positive' methods and getting people to accept them is that their less pleasant means do seem to get more instant results as you have seen from you Mum and OH, but it appears that you are getting the backlash as the one who spends the most time with him, could be he is reacting to you like this because of the way they treat him.


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> I had thought of that yes, im not sure if its a fear thing although i cant figure out over what but that he wont bite them because he knows he will be reprimanded (that sounds much nicer way of saying it) but then becasue i dont then im an easy target to take it out on, im not sure if dogs think like that? At the same time when i say to my mum about him biting me apparently he is only "playing" when he growls and hangs off my arm (im thinking thats abit contradictory in that if he is just playing why is she having to smack him on the nose??)
> 
> Hopefully the behaviourst is abit more positive with their methods.


I was going to say are you quite sure he's not attempting to get you to play? Puppies play very rough games which involve biting and snarling.

The behavourist should know the difference between puppy play, puppy temper tantrum, etc. etc. and will be able to advise you.


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> So this is the reply from the Behavourist, sounds a much more positive approach and has given me some things to work on (most of which we have already started but its good to know i was on the right track)
> 
> Hi Leanne
> 
> I'm really sorry to hear that Deeks is showing aggression towards you and other people.
> 
> It's difficult to say without actually seeing it in person so the best thing I can do is give you tips on how to prevent it happening and how to diffuse it when it is happening.
> 
> It's hard to know whether something is triggering him off or whether he is simply testing you and trying to control the home situation.
> 
> Many trainers would recommend 'dominating him' as some would suggest that this is a dominance thing.
> Rather than put it down to dominance, I prefer to suggest that owners need to show that there is simply no need for this behavior. You are a giver, a lover and a provider for him and he must respect that.
> 
> So I would suggest that he has to start working a little harder for the priviledges in his life. These are affection, food and freedom. Start to withdraw a little affection from him and be more aloof when walking around the house. Talk to him a little less than you do and only give him love on your terms when he is calm and relaxed.
> When you do talk to him, talk to him in a normal voice. No baby voices.
> When you feed him ensure he sits calmly for it before the bowl is placed down. Try and get him to wait for a few seconds before saying 'okay take it' and gesturing for him to eat. (If he doesn't know this yet then start teaching him how to wait for food and treats in training. Dogs respond much better when a wait/stay/leave it command is drawn out..... eg 'waaaaaaait' repeated once or twice to reinforce the command)
> As you go to leave the house for a walk ensure he sits for the front door.
> Whilst giving commands be calm and speak in a slow monotone voice. Don't bark orders at him, but do engage him in an assertive and calm way.
> 
> All members of the house must take part in feeding him and walking him so the priviledges come from everyone.
> 
> Absolutely embark on more training around the home and all house members must participate. Make training fun, keep the commands neutral and calm and give lots of positive praise and yummy treats once he completes each task.
> This will help him learn to listen to you and that when he is does as he is asked- good things happen.
> It's really important that you train him to move from A to B by gesturing with your hand. Dogs respond so well to pointing. So, for example: My dog is sat to my left hand side, but I want him on the right. So I say 'Denzel, here' whilst clicking and then moving my hand to a point to where I want him to be.
> Also teach him 'look at me'. Do this with a treat in between your forefinger and thumb so it forms an 'ok' shape. Say 'look at me' in a nice semi-high pitched tone and hold it at eye level a foot infront of your face- but so he can see your eyes. Make your eyes and face excited as if you're thinking 'oh my goodness, what is this amazing thing'. Wait until he looks at you with intrigue and enthusiasm and holds your gaze for a few seconds, and then reward him with the treat and a calm 'good boy'.
> This teaches him that when you say 'look at me' he needs to look to you for something good to happen.
> 
> You will need to ensure that both you and your husband ALWAYS have a bag of treats to hand around the house for the next few weeks. The treats need to be good, chicken, liver, cheese etc. No kibble.
> 
> The key is to try and look for signs in his body language to when he's about to do it. Dogs usually tense and freeze when things turn negative. The moment you see this happen (don't wait for it to get worse, even if you're not sure) say 'look at me' and do the hand signal. He should vaguely snap out of it and look at you. If you're worried about getting bitten then toss him the treat so he catches it.
> Then use your movement gesture and get him to move to a different spot- not to far- literally two feet in a different direction and reward again.
> Then say look at me again and reward if he enthusiastically looks at you.
> Then get a treat out and hold it up and say 'follow me' and walk in the direction you originally wanted to go and let him walk by your side in a vague heel position. After a few steps reward, say good boy and just leave it at that. He should have fotgotten his intentions by then.
> 
> If at any point during this process he is growling- absolutely DO NOT reward.
> If he growls, bares his teeth, lunges etc then you need to stand still, turn your body a fraction to the side and not look at him. Don't say a word and just do a very dramatic fake yawn. This is a peace signal, you're not submitting but you're basically saying 'i'm not prepared to fight over this'. If he stops growling then get your treat bag out and give him a reward. If you sense he is calming get him to do a sit for the next treat - this is you calmly taking control of the situation. Providing he does not growl or teeth bare give a series of easy commands (sit, move, look at me) and reward accordingly. Then when you sensed that he has calmed you can do the heeling 'let's go then'/'come with me' escape route.
> 
> If he continues to growl, teeth bare and lunge despite the above then take one step to the side away from him (all the while NOT looking or talking at him at all). Then get your treat bag out, open it up and sniff it. Play with the treats so the bag rustles....as if you're looking for a specific sweet in a picknmix!
> Dogs by nature are jealous and inquisitive- providing you are not talking to him, not facing or looking at him curiosity should take over. If he comes over to you ask him to sit in a calm and in control way and reward when he does. Do a series of commands to help him focus and calm down.
> 
> The most important thing with aggression is that you do not provoke it further. Talking, looking and movement towards the dog are all provokations.
> Some trainers would have you scruff the dog or wrestle him to the ground- but you may jeopardise your relationship with him and also seriously risk getting bitten.
> 
> This menthod helps you subtley gain control over him- turning it into a positive encounter for both you and him.
> 
> It's horrid when a dog growls at you- especially when it's your own. It's hard to not be scared- and that's why cases like this spiral out of control. The dog realises what they're doing is effective and so continue but also push their limits. All members of the household must follow the above method and things should settle down. The key is to ensure you are all prepared and always have treats in a pocket.
> If you have guests coming over then do not let him get the door with you. He must wait until their are fully in the house (out of the hallway). If the need to use the bathroom or go through the hall then distract him with a command and treat before and during their movements.
> 
> Let me know how you get on!
> Good luck


Yes a very positive approach although I was hoping she would visit you.


----------



## moonviolet

First off I dont' really drink but sweer bejeebers I think i might have one tonight.


THsi mornings main walk was fine saw a coupleof GSD's Tink expressed she'd prefer not to interact so we went a different way and their owner prevented them coming over :thumbsup:

Shame the flat coat cocker owners at the end weren't as considerate the dogs were playing on a vehicle sized track as the4 people with them took up the whole track, Tink was on lead as we were approaching the " bogey barrier" she got charged at nyumerlous times , the cocker coudlnt' stopped and ran over one of the times..... but why would i expect the dog's to have manners the owners took up a 3 metre wide track and I have to climb the blessed bank to pass them. I bit my tongue as we passed and encouraged TInk to walk in front of me so I could block the repeated cannonball runs. She was unsure but ok and a silly few games when we'd crossed the barrier soon prompted a good shake it off.

lets get to the reason I quite fancy a medicinal tot.

Lovely dusk walk, as usual no one around. Until 2 dogs jumped out of the bracken beside the path jsut in front of us. Deja vu moment. I am just so relieved Tink was on lead as it was the GSD that chased and pinned Tink in the spring. It had a very thorough sniff. Tink understandably was tense. then the owner in the distance starts tooting on his fecking whistle a few moments later We end up on parallel paths and he's put the GSD on lead. and is calling his other dogs away from us.... I have to admit I did shout " bit late to put that one on lead we've already met." 

He could hardly say he didn't expect to see anyone....he'd parked right next to me! unlike the barren parking area I parked then as Tink was getting into the car his JRT has a snark at her.

On the bright side Tink seems pretty unaffected  so so so glad I put her onlead as soon as it gets darker.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## GingerRogers

Crikey MV make sure its a stiff one, so pleased that Tink is Ok though I was reading that with mounting apprehension!! 

Leam that sounds like a very sensible approach and thank goodness its more positive than the rescue suggested. Why can't the behaviorist advise them I wonder.
Don't be scared to go back if you don't feel you are getting on top of it though it might need a visit before you get to the bottom of it.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Miss Tink; and cheers MV...you deserve it .


----------



## Dogless

A great day today - lovely behaviour from Kilo despite the approach of our 'favourite'  offlead choc lab whilst he was onlead (didn't manage to get all the way to us as I went behind a gate), the DA pug having a bark and snarl at him and passing a staffie head on who was making all sorts of awful choking, coughing noises and was absolutely focussed on getting to us (in a friendly way). We sailed on by all this and played games on the fields . This evening we had a very, very cold and icy, slippery walk and again impeccable behaviour .

Rudi did some lead training with me, I lugged him around PAH and then we spent a few minutes on our front lawn at the time kids often come past. My friend walked past with her toddler who came to see Rudi and he pulled her mitten off, quick as a flash  . Gave it straight back unharmed for a treat though luckily!! He loves seeing people at present, really waggy and enthusiastic.

Both dogs now snoring .


----------



## Sarah1983

Was that the dog that caused all your problems MV? So glad everything worked out okay today either way. Shows how far Tink has come doesn't it?

Sounds like Kilo is doing extremely well at the moment too!

Leam, thank god the behaviourist has advised against the whole dominance rubbish.

Today we've done some work on getting look left on command. Not done anything with that for a while but he's getting it. Tried it outside of an obvious training session and he was able to do it but was a bit hesitant at first. We're getting there with it


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Was that the dog that caused all your problems MV? So glad everything worked out okay today either way. Shows how far Tink has come doesn't it?
> 
> Sounds like Kilo is doing extremely well at the moment too!
> 
> Leam, thank god the behaviourist has advised against the whole dominance rubbish.
> 
> Today we've done some work on getting look left on command. Not done anything with that for a while but he's getting it. Tried it outside of an obvious training session and he was able to do it but was a bit hesitant at first. We're getting there with it


Kilo is being a total star at present. so pleased with him :yesnod: :001_wub:.

Why look left? Just because you can and you enjoy training or for a purpose? I know, very nosy!!!


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## Werehorse

I am SO tired, boys have just had quiet walks today - no training, just chilling after the rather full on weekend. They are having an after dinner game of Bulls and Matadors now (which is like a game of tug with a towel except Oscar doesn't get to hold the towel and just gets to run into it while Hugo does cat pouncing at him while holding the towel - it's a good game.  ).

They were so well behaved for their Granny that she has said she'll buy them Nina Ottosan pyramid food dispenser toys for Christmas, so I have some money to go and get those soon. 

And I had an interview for the mad job I applied for today! It seemed to go ok - I find out tomorrow! 

I've started reading "In Defence of Dogs", so far I'm loving it.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Kilo is being a total star at present. so pleased with him :yesnod: :001_wub:.
> 
> Why look left? Just because you can and you enjoy training or for a purpose? I know, very nosy!!!


Just because I can and we both enjoy training really  I got a video of it too.


Lol, and how eager he looks in the starting picture.


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## Dogless

I love that vid Sarah; he's just so eager and full of beans!!


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## moonviolet

Sarah oh my gosh his face

" can we doos the trainings now pleaz? "
I love Spen clever boy 

It wasn't the GSD that attacked her but it's one we have had a number of incidents with... abd ut;s generally walked with 2 collies and a JRT and Tink is put on lead as soon as we see them and all 4 charge over like they've been fired from a cannon. even me walking through a huge gorse pathc wasn't hint enough that maybe we didn't want to interact. One day in teh spring i just didn't see them join the path behind us and all four chased an lead Tink ( who circled around tryign to get back to me, until the GSD pinned her down she screamed like she was dying and released her anal glands.  this was the last big incident we've had.

The deja vu was because 2 dogs, one of whom was a GSD jumped out of a bracken covered path to our left right at the end of our walk, while their owner tried to ineffectively recall. Was a pretty fair description of the original attack. Again they were clearly in chase mode. I'm trying not to go there with the "what if's" but s certain dog is getting extra cuddles tonight.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sarah oh my gosh his face
> 
> " can we doos the trainings now pleaz? "
> I love Spen clever boy
> 
> It wasn't the GSD that attacked her but it's one we have had a number of incidents with... abd ut;s generally walked with 2 collies and a JRT and Tink is put on lead as soon as we see them and all 4 charge over like they've been fired from a cannon. even me walking through a huge gorse pathc wasn't hint enough that maybe we didn't want to interact. One day in teh spring i just didn't see them join the path behind us and all four chased an lead Tink ( who circled around tryign to get back to me, until the GSD pinned her down she screamed like she was dying and released her anal glands.  this was the last big incident we've had.
> 
> The deja vu was because 2 dogs, one of whom was a GSD jumped out of a bracken covered path to our left right at the end of our walk, while their owner tried to ineffectively recall. Was a pretty fair description of the original attack. Again they were clearly in chase mode. I'm trying not to go there with the "what if's" *but s certain dog is getting extra cuddles tonight*.


I'm sure that will do you both good, she's a lucky dog indeed to have you.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I love that vid Sarah; he's just so eager and full of beans!!


Lol, he's actually pretty calm there, I'll have to film some of his 101 things to do with a box sessions. They can be a bit crazy.

He really does seem to enjoy training sessions and he comes to them so willingly and eagerly and throws himself into whatever he thinks I'm asking with so much enthusiasm. I really do enjoy working with him even if a lot of it is pointless tricks.


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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> She is based in London, im in Scotland so not ideal. I will try what she has suggested and if need be ask her to recommend someone up this area.
> 
> I tried getting him to sit, put a treat on the table and ask him to wait and look at me. if he went for the treat i put my hand back over it and said ah ah, at which point he jumped back to where he had been, sat down and looked at me! Was actually abit funny. I just need to take deep breaths, i figured on the way home that if i can deal with a half tonne of horse trying to jump on me and take chunks out of me i can damn well deal with a 9kg dog. I think it is more unnerving the fact that i have not been in this situation before and i dont want to make things worse for him by doing something wrong.


I had to smile at that comparison as that's what I always use to say when handlers complained about their dogs pulling ie "if little 5 ft me can hold half a tonne of horsemeat on a bit of rope"....


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## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah oh my gosh his face
> 
> " can we doos the trainings now pleaz? "
> I love Spen clever boy


Yeah, I get that face whenever he's bored and wants to do something. If the face fails he generally brings me a shoe or a poo bag or something hubby has left on the sofa 



> It wasn't the GSD that attacked her but it's one we have had a number of incidents with... abd ut;s generally walked with 2 collies and a JRT and Tink is put on lead as soon as we see them and all 4 charge over like they've been fired from a cannon. even me walking through a huge gorse pathc wasn't hint enough that maybe we didn't want to interact. One day in teh spring i just didn't see them join the path behind us and all four chased an lead Tink ( who circled around tryign to get back to me, until the GSD pinned her down she screamed like she was dying and released her anal glands.  this was the last big incident we've had.
> 
> The deja vu was because 2 dogs, one of whom was a GSD jumped out of a bracken covered path to our left right at the end of our walk, while their owner tried to ineffectively recall. Was a pretty fair description of the original attack. Again they were clearly in chase mode. I'm trying not to go there with the "what if's" but s certain dog is getting extra cuddles tonight.


Ah I see. Pretty sh*te that the owner just lets them behave that way  Poor Tink. Glad things weren't any worse today and that she made a nice recovery.

It really seems when you have a dog with issues that you run into all the numpty owners while when your dog is fine you don't run into any. I dunno whether you just notice it more with a frightened/aggressive dog but I honestly rarely went more than a few days without an incident with Rupert while I can count on one hand the number of incidents I've had with Spen. Same with Shadow and Wolf, it just rarely happened.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, he's actually pretty calm there, I'll have to film some of his 101 things to do with a box sessions. They can be a bit crazy.
> 
> He really does seem to enjoy training sessions and he comes to them so willingly and eagerly and throws himself into whatever he thinks I'm asking with so much enthusiasm. * I really do enjoy working with him even if a lot of it is pointless tricks.*


I don't think they are pointless at all - you both enjoy learning them and it improves your bond. How is the 'dominance' belly up trick going?


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I don't think they are pointless at all - you both enjoy learning them and it improves your bond. How is the 'dominance' belly up trick going?


Oh they're not pointless in that respect, I just know a lot of people disapprove of dogs doing tricks, apparently it's humiliating and demeaning. But here's what i think to that rrr:

Belly up is going pretty well. He's gone from lying on his side and tentatively lifting front and back leg to rolling partly onto his back now so we're well on our way. Had to lure him in the beginning but once he started offering to go onto his side I stopped the lure and am shaping it. Will have to wait for warmer weather to work on it outside, Spen's happy enough to offer a down in the snow but I don't feel right asking him to lie down let alone roll over in it.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh they're not pointless in that respect, I just know a lot of people disapprove of dogs doing tricks, apparently it's humiliating and demeaning. But here's what i think to that rrr:
> 
> Belly up is going pretty well. He's gone from lying on his side and tentatively lifting front and back leg to rolling partly onto his back now so we're well on our way. Had to lure him in the beginning but once he started offering to go onto his side I stopped the lure and am shaping it. Will have to wait for warmer weather to work on it outside, Spen's happy enough to offer a down in the snow but I don't feel right asking him to lie down let alone roll over in it.


I've taught Holly quite a few 'tricks' as a way of interacting with her and she enjoys it. Leafy's taught her how to scrounge tit-bits out on a walk so both of them have to do 'paw' - 'twist' - 'big up' - etc. etc. to get the treats. They will both go through their repertoire if the treats don't appear quickly enough....


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## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I've taught Holly quite a few 'tricks' as a way of interacting with her and she enjoys it. Leafy's taught her how to scrounge tit-bits out on a walk so both of them have to do 'paw' - 'twist' - 'big up' - etc. etc. to get the treats. They will both go through their repertoire if the treats don't appear quickly enough....


At the end of the day I figure recall is as much of a trick to the dog as play dead is and my dog doesn't seem at all humiliated when next doors kids ask him to do silly tricks lol.

And yup, Spen goes through his repertoire for treats too. His most recent favourite is a half spin to the left to bump his right hip against me while staring up at me over his left shoulder  I have no idea what I initially clicked to get that lol.


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## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> First off I dont' really drink but sweer bejeebers I think i might have one tonight.


Geez MV I might just have a drink for you too....just out of sympathy of course 
Glad no harm done


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## GingerRogers

Wierd I just thought about posting a reply and my phone magically brought up the reply box it is smart after all.

Anyway I was going to say.....when we finally taught Ginge paw, several people were quite scathing, I guess bearing in mind her reactivity we should only concentrate on that , saying oh dont teach her anything useful then! 
I thought about it and she is so keen to offer it and its no different than asking for a sit before giving something. All those tricks build on a bond and give you ways of managing things potentially. If for instance you know the small boy who, on being taught to squeeze a nose and say honk promptly waddled up to rory and honked his nose
rather than watch from across the room in horror and then relief. You could command a head turn to avoid honking.
eta i think rory was so shocked he couldn't react


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## chazzie10

lol GR that honking nose comment really made me laugh


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## Guest

I HAVE A FOUND A FLEEEEEEEEEEEEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ON THE CARPET!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

* I HAVE INDOREXED THE WHOLE DAMN HOUSE* (all animals were adovcated last week) 

LETS SEE IF THE F*CKERS SURVIVE THAT!!!!!!!!!!!

*Ahem* 

Enjoy your drink MV!! 

Also on the trick side of things Sarah, Zande actually does tricks better than he does the usual normal stuff!! 
He lay down while an collie walked past today usually a sign that he's gonna bounce but today HE STOOD UP AND SNIFFED, no aching shoulders but I HAD NO TREATS!! NONE. So I cheered and the collie owner though I was nuts.


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## chazzie10

Had a fantastic walk with Charlie today.
Was feeling a bit fed up and looked as bad as I felt, so decided to just go to the waste ground to let Chaz have a blast. 
The old man (who had his walking stick knocked out of his hand by numpty boy, a few months ago!) was there with his wee collieX. 
Normally I would wait until they were safely in the car but today I gave myself a shake and realised that I cant avoid things all the time. So
I got Charlie on his lead. Armed myself a tennis ball and launcher and walked towards the man and dog...holds breath....and my boy was more interested in the ball  
The wee collie bombed over, play bowing nicely and they sniffed so happily and calmly that I was able to let Chaz off the lead 
He came away everytime when called and retrieved the ball nicely.
Then another man with an on-lead cocker saw us and decided to walk our way. I called Charlie to me and put his lead on. He sat and focused, ignoring both men and both dogs so well that I took his lead off (the man was ok about it) and the three dogs said a brief hello then he came straight back to me when called! They played for a good half hour without one growl.
I thanked the man for taking the time to stop for so long in the cold to let the dogs play and he seemed pleased and said he'd see us tomorrow again 

Sorry, long story, I'm just so pleased ( and making up for 10 days of silence hehehe) Well done if you read it all


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## hawksport

Here's a couple I'm working on

Mia GSD puppy. Very quick to learn and eager to please but could of easily been in trouble with the wrong owner. She will be passing her gold KCGC in the new year and hopefully going on to do Rally










Buddy the Dachshund. Buddy came from Canada and had been attacked by a coyotee in the yard. When he first came to me he would snap at anyone who tried to touch him apart from his owner. He will now wander over to people for a fuss. His original owner came over from Canada a couple of weeks ago and couldn't believe the progress he has made. He will be taking his gold in the new year and I'm fairly confident he will pass. My goal is to be able to pick him up









.


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## GingerRogers

Mia is very, very pretty Hawksport she will just woo the judge person I reckon.

And very, very well done Chazzie.dog and owner. You work is paying off.

Lurcher owner. KILL AWL DA FWEAS 

We have had quiet day again. One dog was about on the afternoon beach walk. I managed things rather well. Def getting the hang of this protection racket. Still trying to get used to the muzzle. She will take treats from it quite happily but there's no way I am getting that strap on yet. Its actually the worst bit of design, fiddling with the buckle will be rather tricky. Needs a bit more thought i think. Night everyone.


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## moonviolet

Mia is gorgeous so glad she's with the right owner and doing well.
Buddy reminds me of the daxxies that were in the shoe shop my mum took me too as a kid to get my start rite shoes  I'm so glad he's making uch lovely improvements 



GingerRogers said:


> Mia is very, very pretty Hawksport she will just woo the judge person I reckon.
> 
> And very, very well done Chazzie.dog and owner. You work is paying off.
> 
> Lurcher owner. KILL AWL DA FWEAS
> 
> We have had quiet day again. One dog was about on the afternoon beach walk. I managed things rather well. Def getting the hang of this *protection racket*. Still trying to get used to the muzzle. She will take treats from it quite happily but there's no way I am getting that strap on yet. Its actually the worst bit of design, fiddling with the buckle will be rather tricky. Needs a bit more thought i think. Night everyone.


 What is with with this thread? silky leashes, chain mail gloves, street walking and now a protection racket.... den of inequity, i tell you ! :lol:


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## catz4m8z

moonviolet said:


> What is with with this thread? silky leashes, chain mail gloves, street walking and now a protection racket.... den of inequity, i tell you ! :lol:


what on earth has been going on in here??

Well, Ive had Alfie a full week now and he such a good boy! Today he has used his puppy pads all day (only had 3 accidents all week), come out with me for 2 walks, been happy to play in the other room queitly with a chew stick and is currently playing chase with Heidi and Adam. ok, so he also has tiny needle teeth, cant stop humping my slippers(whilst Im wearing them) and wants to play, play, play allllll the time....
but I think he is just a proper boy, you know all slugs and snails and Alfie tails!!


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Had a fantastic walk with Charlie today.
> Was feeling a bit fed up and looked as bad as I felt, so decided to just go to the waste ground to let Chaz have a blast.
> The old man (who had his walking stick knocked out of his hand by numpty boy, a few months ago!) was there with his wee collieX.
> Normally I would wait until they were safely in the car but today I gave myself a shake and realised that I cant avoid things all the time. So
> I got Charlie on his lead. Armed myself a tennis ball and launcher and walked towards the man and dog...holds breath....and my boy was more interested in the ball
> The wee collie bombed over, play bowing nicely and they sniffed so happily and calmly that I was able to let Chaz off the lead
> He came away everytime when called and retrieved the ball nicely.
> Then another man with an on-lead cocker saw us and decided to walk our way. I called Charlie to me and put his lead on. He sat and focused, ignoring both men and both dogs so well that I took his lead off (the man was ok about it) and the three dogs said a brief hello then he came straight back to me when called! They played for a good half hour without one growl.
> I thanked the man for taking the time to stop for so long in the cold to let the dogs play and he seemed pleased and said he'd see us tomorrow again
> 
> Sorry, long story, I'm just so pleased ( and making up for 10 days of silence hehehe) Well done if you read it all


Oh well done you and Charlie. At the end of the day that's what it's all about isn't it; enjoying a walk with your dog who engages nicely with others but happily returns to his owner when asked.


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## Twiggy

Holly Bolly has three little collie friends coming training with her this afternoon.

They are all younger than her and their training is more advanced but we don't care.

Technically there is still loads of issues to be addressed but at least she actually enjoys training now and although yesterday I didn't really have the time, she insisted that we went over to the barn for 20 minutes....Tremor was furious.

Tremor can come this afternoon though as I use her to demonstrate, particularly impulse control....


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> What is it with stupid people teaching their dogs things that could be construed as aggresive?
> 
> I have just spoke to the lady who took Deeks in when it was cold and fed him when he was in Romania. I never mentioned any of the problems i have been having as tbh sometimes she is hard to talk to as her english isnt the best.
> 
> She had posted a video on fb of him in the shelter, both her and her OH were taking in very high pitched baby voices and seemed to be praising him when he was growling or barking and jumping up. I said the video was good and he seemed very happy to see them. She then asked if he had smiled or spoke to me yet? When i queried what she meant, apparently they taught him (she seemed very proud of this) to curl his lip and show his teeth in a "cheesy smile" and speaking is apparently either barking or growling while crouched. (this took lots of training to get him to crouch while doing it and this is his "scary face"!!!)
> 
> When i mentioned that this behaviour and body language could be seen as aggresive she said "thats why we only taught him to do this in the home and not outside" ARRRGHHHHHHHH and to make it worse... if you ignore him then he is to think you are in the huff with him and to jump up for "kisses"
> 
> Im seriously going to bang my head against a wall.. or actually i would like to bang her head against a wall!
> 
> Now i know WHY he is doing this i just need to try and train some different cues for him. Poor boy he is bound to be so muddle up.
> 
> On a good note, we tried some more of the "look at me" excersises yesterday and he would sit and wait while i took 3 steps back, put a treat on the floor, and asked him to look at me before he could take it. I was alternating the length between look at me and take it as i dont want him to anticipate when im going to say it. he did it BRILLIANTLY and seemed so much happier at having something productive to do!!!!!


Oh for goodness sake the mind boggles....!! Well at least he's young and I have full confidence that you will be able to train better options pretty quickly.


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## moonviolet

Twiggy, I laughed at Tremor being furious, it's just such a human phrase :lol:

LO hope you are successful in flea irradication.

Catz sounds like you and little Alfie are bounding well, well he's bounding with your slippers :lol:

Leam you sound so much more positive today  I'm glad things are going well. what odd things to train a dog that was going to be rehomed.

Sarah, i think you are right as Tink was brushing things off better then were having less setbacks as she wasn't reacting badly to things and they didn't become noteworthy, just another clueless owner who has no idea what impact their dogs could have etc. Had it not been an almost carbon copy of the attack it would have been just dogs off chasing wildlife on their own knowing what can happen when something scuttles out of their way when they are in this mindset definitely made it more challenging. I brushed it off as well as i could at the time.

Just before bed last night Tink had a " screaming dream" she's not had one for ages  But hopefully that was jsut a bit of "filing" and won't transfer into her waking life.


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## Werehorse

Mv - I'm always so impressed at how in tune with Tink you are... have you learned it just from working with her after her attack or have you supplemented it with reading?

Leam - that's just so unbelievably stupid, hopefully you can un-do the behaviour.

Good news from me - I have got the mad job I applied for, starts in Feb.  Really excited... I do actually, in real life, get to get dressed up for this one too! :lol:


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Dogless

Well done Werehorse . Cakes and coffee on you .

Leam.....unbelievable!!! At least you can sort it now, that's the main thing.

Great walk with Kilo again this morning; he was my best boy AGAIN - did some very careful lead walking as it's treacherous today, went to one offlead area and did some play with lots of impulse control work thrown in - working for each throw of the toy etc. Then went round the sports pitches and let Kilo just mooch. 

Then we came home and the DD have wrestled and played for the best part of an hour. I stopped them as they were both getting silly and Rudi way too overtired and bitey....so I finally have a coffee and the DD are asleep. When Rudi wakes I'll do some training with him.


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## GingerRogers

Hope Tink is really ok, & like you say it was just filing.

Glad you have got Holly motivated Twiggy does that mean you can move on from biting! 

Leam - just   :nonod: I despair sometimes, but as you say at least you know what might be behind his behaviour if it is the playing like they have taught him.

Catz - one word - PHOTOS otherwise I will declare you a big fat liar :001_tongue:

Well do the frosty mornings effect everyone elses dogs like it appears to round here?

I had a little hyper, skipping, ninja, every single neighbourhood dog was either out for its walk or barking it head off from in the houses or yards, we spent 20 min walking up and down and around the estate trying to escape them and barking and lunging and gave up, I stopped for a chat with an neighbour then came home with what I thought was a super ramped up dog having spent most of the walk reacting at stuff.

Was about to just walk in the front door calling it a day when I thought 'No!' we will do a bit of watch me. She watched me every time a car went past, although they are whisper quiet today not going very fast on the iced up roads, but there were a lot of them, making me think there might have been an accident  as our estate is only used as a cut through at those sort of times.

She lost concentration when yet another dog started off in the background but only for seconds, however, I thought with my super cool woolly detective hat on if the dog is barking whats it barking at, another dog perhaps?!?!

Sure enough round the corner comes a lady with two black labs, the littl'un clocked them but I moved her back behind the car and clicked and treated and moved again behind the neighbours van and clicked and treated, moved back etc etc until they were out of sight round the hedge, she knew they were there and I am pretty sure she clocked them briefly between vehicles but .......................................no barking :w00t:

After such an action packed if short walk I was very impressed with that, I thought she would be all 'let me at them' and nothing I did would work.


----------



## Werehorse

Progress Ginge! It's good. 

Oscar is super hyper when the grass is frosty - he does little bumble-bum runs round in scitty little circles. And he does shakes where his whole back end lifts off the floor. :lol:

Hugo is really bouncey this morning too.

Need to get them out for a good run today...


----------



## The AA

Werehorse said:


> Holy Carp, what a morning! OH was driving me into Keswick to get a hair cut before taking the car for its MOT when we hit black ice on a corner at the top of a dip (only going 30 mph at most). We spun down the hill and finally hit a small tree.
> 
> WE'RE BOTH OK!
> 
> Shaken up and it certainly won't help the agoraphobia/weird anxiety thing I seem to have developed without really noticing.
> 
> The car looks worse than it actually is too - massive panics about how on earth we afford a new car put to rest by our awesome garage. Massive panics about how we cope without a car (we live about 5 miles from even a small shop) gone due to him giving us a free courtesy car until he has sorted ours.
> 
> And the hotel we crashed near gave us free coffee and a cookie too.
> 
> People are nice generally.
> 
> The AA man I spoke to wasn't nice - we just phoned a local recovery in the end. Check your AA policies people, I was convinced it covered me for any car I travelled in in breakdowns AND accidents... apparently not! And he couldn't have been ruder about it given that I had had to stop half way through reading out my membership number to break down and cry for a minute.
> 
> The boys weren;t in the car at the time - I'm so glad I'd have freaked as we were spinning if they had been. As it was I was just kind of trying to work out where we were going to end up in a very detached kind of way.
> 
> As much as I dislike the car I'm glad we were in a Landy.


Hello Werehorse, we're glad to hear you are both ok. After reading your review, the scene you describe certainly doesnt sound typical of our usual high standards. We would very much like to discuss this with you. Please email your details to [email protected] with reference FOR27805. Regards The AA


----------



## GingerRogers

The AA said:


> Hello Werehorse, we're glad to hear you are both ok. After reading your review, the scene you describe certainly doesnt sound typical of our usual high standards. We would very much like to discuss this with you. Please email your details to [email protected] with reference FOR27805. Regards The AA


 werehorse  they will find you everywhere, :ihih: although thats slightly strange way to be tracked down, good on the AA


----------



## Werehorse

The AA said:


> Hello Werehorse, we're glad to hear you are both ok. After reading your review, the scene you describe certainly doesnt sound typical of our usual high standards. We would very much like to discuss this with you. Please email your details to [email protected] with reference FOR27805. Regards The AA


OMG! I'm terrified!


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> OMG! I'm terrified!


They obviously didn't read 'Shaken up and it certainly won't help the agoraphobia/*weird anxiety *thing I seem to have developed without really noticing'


----------



## Werehorse

GingerRogers said:


> They obviously didn't read 'Shaken up and it certainly won't help the agoraphobia/*weird anxiety *thing I seem to have developed without really noticing'


I know!! I'm paranoid about being watched enough as it is! 

I'll be hiding from AA vans now!  :lol:

:lol: OMG


----------



## Dogless

Well done Ginge .

Werehorse....:w00t::w00t::w00t:.


----------



## chazzie10

Leam1307 said:


> What is it with stupid people teaching their dogs things that could be construed as aggresive?
> 
> I have just spoke to the lady who took Deeks in when it was cold and fed him when he was in Romania. I never mentioned any of the problems i have been having as tbh sometimes she is hard to talk to as her english isnt the best.
> 
> She had posted a video on fb of him in the shelter, both her and her OH were taking in very high pitched baby voices and seemed to be praising him when he was growling or barking and jumping up. I said the video was good and he seemed very happy to see them. She then asked if he had smiled or spoke to me yet? When i queried what she meant, apparently they taught him (she seemed very proud of this) to curl his lip and show his teeth in a "cheesy smile" and speaking is apparently either barking or growling while crouched. (this took lots of training to get him to crouch while doing it and this is his "scary face"!!!)
> 
> When i mentioned that this behaviour and body language could be seen as aggresive she said "thats why we only taught him to do this in the home and not outside" ARRRGHHHHHHHH and to make it worse... if you ignore him then he is to think you are in the huff with him and to jump up for "kisses"
> 
> Im seriously going to bang my head against a wall.. or actually i would like to bang her head against a wall!
> 
> Now i know WHY he is doing this i just need to try and train some different cues for him. Poor boy he is bound to be so muddle up.
> 
> On a good note, we tried some more of the "look at me" excersises yesterday and he would sit and wait while i took 3 steps back, put a treat on the floor, and asked him to look at me before he could take it. I was alternating the length between look at me and take it as i dont want him to anticipate when im going to say it. he did it BRILLIANTLY and seemed so much happier at having something productive to do!!!!!


What a strange set of tricks to teach...out of ALL the tricks she COULD have trained that would have been nicer/ cuter/ more useful !!
On the plus side, if he can learn those I'm sure he will easily learn new better ones


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Oh well done you and Charlie. At the end of the day that's what it's all about isn't it; enjoying a walk with your dog who engages nicely with others but happily returns to his owner when asked.


Yep it is 
I hope no-one thought I was over reacting....it's just the 1st time he's EVER greeted like that. Something that would seem so normal to a lot of others but such a break through for us. I think everyone probably remembers the state I was in a couple of months ago when I joined this forum. Have to say I almost cried yesterday...for GOOD reasons


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse- 3 things...
1) Congratulations and good luck for your new job 
2) Oscar sounds hilarious and I can picture him doing what you described  and
3)  big brother is watching you  hehehe

Ginge- sounds like fantastic progress with The Ginger One. Today could be used to your advantage if there is extra traffic that's slow moving/ quieter... good chance for an extra training session?? 

Dogless- I dont know about you but it's darn slippy down this way- nearly went on me hoop going out to the car at 5.45 this morning and it hasnt thawed at all yet. Is Kilo not exhausted with Godzuki wrestling him  

Twiggy- I just LUUUVVV that name 'Tremor' for a dog! It's so unusual and it makes me want another dog RIGHT NOW just so I can call it that  

Moonviolet- Perhaps Tink has been watching too much xfactor and is singing in her sleep? Next contender for Britains got talent? Seriously though I hope she's fine today and no enjoys her walks 

Woooo my memory is getting better...I think...did I get correct dogs with owners lol


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Werehorse- 3 things...
> 1) Congratulations and good luck for your new job
> 2) Oscar sounds hilarious and I can picture him doing what you described  and
> 3)  big brother is watching you  hehehe
> 
> Ginge- sounds like fantastic progress with The Ginger One. Today could be used to your advantage if there is extra traffic that's slow moving/ quieter... good chance for an extra training session??
> 
> *Dogless- I dont know about you but it's darn slippy down this way- nearly went on me hoop going out to the car at 5.45 this morning and it hasnt thawed at all yet. Is Kilo not exhausted with Godzuki wrestling him
> *
> Twiggy- I just LUUUVVV that name 'Tremor' for a dog! It's so unusual and it makes me want another dog RIGHT NOW just so I can call it that
> 
> Moonviolet- Perhaps Tink has been watching too much xfactor and is singing in her sleep? Next contender for Britains got talent? Seriously though I hope she's fine today and no enjoys her walks
> 
> Woooo my memory is getting better...I think...did I get correct dogs with owners lol


Yup; it's like a skating rink  .Kilo has been exhausted since Rudi got here pretty much - I enforce rest so that they both get enough sleep as Kilo was going from sleeping for the whole day to playing all day and Rudi needs plenty too. He's slept since about 10.30 now and will sleep until 2 when I give Rudi a meal and him a snack .


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> Yep it is
> I hope no-one thought I was over reacting....it's just the 1st time he's EVER greeted like that. Something that would seem so normal to a lot of others but such a break through for us. I think everyone probably remembers the state I was in a couple of months ago when I joined this forum. Have to say I almost cried yesterday...for GOOD reasons


I dont' think you over reacted at all  it's so special when you have those breakthrough moments  hang on tight to how it felt when there are setbacks and knwo that you will feel it again if you hang in there 

Dogless, Glad things are going well in the house of the DD 

Werehorse. I'm now picturing you being stalked by an AA van, it's going to be a challenge for them they aren't naturally well camouflaged. Hope they redeem themselves when you contact them.

Tink is a really easy to read dog, she could only be clearer if she had subtitles, I did read things and kept on reading until I found things that sat well with me and seemed to fit in with what i was observing and we could try safe in the knowledge if it didn't work it wouldn't harm either.

As for the screaming dream.... you'd know one if you heard one

This mornings walk was fab. I have to say fab dogs and great owners around today, a minor spook at the sound of ice stressing before breaking as a lab charged across it. So we went to invesitgate and had polite greetings with a fox red and a black lab.  and then realised the icy breaking noise wasn't a big deal, Have to see the irony in that this was to a background noise of an intense skirmish with some serious quanitites of brass being ejected, which of course was no issue at all. In fact it sounded at this distance more like an intense bubblewrap popping session.

Then we saw 3 very mucky GRs, only greeted 2 beautifully and without intensity. we were now heading into a busy area i thought she coudl handle it as she was doing so well and we came across 6 dogs she knows, there was a moments hesistation, so i pointed out that mad Lucy was in the group and that was it, onward politely and integrated into the group, even having a little game of chase, only stayed a few minutes then went on our way.

At the end a couple of show type springers scurried over in turn gave her a bit of a wham bam thank ma'am of a sniff and charged off again, Tink found this a little unsettling but i think thats understandable given there was no opportunity for reciprocal sniffing, when we saw them in teh carpark onlead we gave them a nice wide arc and wasn't wrong when they showed a bit of posturing and hard staring. Still go back to the car with no harm done.

So screamy dreaming was just a bit of filing 

ETA : GR it sounds liek you and Ginge are really making progress, blooming slow at times but when you see it working it feels so good


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Yup; it's like a skating rink  .Kilo has been exhausted since Rudi got here pretty much - I enforce rest so that they both get enough sleep as Kilo was going from sleeping for the whole day to playing all day and Rudi needs plenty too. He's slept since about 10.30 now and will sleep until 2 when I give Rudi a meal and him a snack .


Awww bless, like two wee sleepy kiddies :001_tongue:


----------



## Dogless

I'm chuffed that Tink's back on form mv and she was just filing. I have an ears flying, clumsily running image of a dog called 'Mad Lucy' in my head now though!


----------



## Werehorse

I have a hunch that Mad Lucy is a spangle. Any dog with the prefix "mad" has a high likelyhood of spanielness. :lol:

Going to take Mad Oscar and Mad Hugo for their walkies now.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I'm chuffed that Tink's back on form mv and she was just filing. I have an ears flying, clumsily running image of a dog called 'Mad Lucy' in my head now though!





Werehorse said:


> I have a hunch that Mad Lucy is a spangle. Any dog with the prefix "mad" has a high likelyhood of spanielness. :lol:
> 
> Going to take Mad Oscar and Mad Hugo for their walkies now.


Lol mad lucy....she is a collie terrier cross, not for the faint hearted, she possesses the intensity of both!! Her owner has worked hard to stop her particular favourite activity.... running up to people and using them as a flyball box, other dogs are largely invisible to her. SHe used to play with chase Tink when she was a pup and Tink loves her but i'm not Lucy can even see her now :lol:


----------



## Beth17

Well done everyone sounds like a fantastic day so far for you all :thumbup:

Don't worry Werehorse I have the perfect solution to big brother 
The camouflage fabric 'that can make soldiers INVISIBLE': Company claims it has Pentagon backing for miracle material | Mail Online

Pretty good morning here had the first really heavy frost but Sam kept warm by charging around like a loony for an hour. Oscar and I then went up and had a lovely stroll through the woods and a play with his toy. I then came home to a bomb site as the little one had decided to rip up a few cardboard boxes and a loo roll which he hasn't done for weeks :nono:

He makes me laugh though as he is so obviously still a pup mentally as even though he is bigger than Oscar now he'll be playing and then I look at him and he's suddenly fast asleep


----------



## Sarah1983

It's horrendously slippy here, rain, then snow, then rain, then snow :nonod: Hubby's in hospital for at least one more night (he's having tests done to try to get to the bottom of his sleeping problems) so Spen is going to have to make do with mental stuff and a run around out front. He came out with me to clear the path this morning. Dunno why I bothered since none of the other blocks have but hey, least I can't be sued if someone slips and injures themselves coz mine's done!

Done some more work on shut the door and got it on video (can be found here http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/280041-shut-door-spen.html) and some more work on rear end awareness. Which was interrupted by the dogs upstairs hurtling down the stairs and crashing into our front door! But Spen soon got back to his pedestal (an upside down washing up bowl lol) and we carried on.

Werehorse...why are the AA contacting you on here? That's really weird! Maybe it's a scam though.

Ginge, sounds like you guys are doing well :thumbup1:

MV, glad Tink isn't any the worse for yesterdays encounter. Most of our walks are done to the same sound as yours was but Spen still picks up on any strange noises. A truck blaring it's horn, an ambulance or police car with sirens going etc. I guess it does just become background noise after a while. He does occasionally react to the tanks firing but given that they make the whole house shake I don't blame him!


----------



## catz4m8z

Beth17 said:


> He makes me laugh though as he is so obviously still a pup mentally as even though he is bigger than Oscar now he'll be playing and then I look at him and he's suddenly fast asleep


awwww, he sounds really sweet (and probably really bouncy!!LOL).
Alfie went for his first vaccination today. He was easily distracted with a bit of kibble and I dont think he even noticed! The vet said he might be sleepy for a couple of days afterwards.......yeah, right!
I think I might have converted the vet nurse to Chiweenies too. She thought he looked very much like a little Dachshund and agreed that it would be better for his spine to be crossed to a shorter dog. (Im still waiting for someone to breed Dachshunds in better proportions!!).
We started working on sit today. And I cant believe how great his house training is! He knew straight away what puppy pads are for (even in a friends house) but he will also go for a wee in the garden quite happily. I havent even had to come up with a toilet command coz he just does it automatically!


----------



## Twiggy

*chazzie10*

*Twiggy- I just LUUUVVV that name 'Tremor' for a dog! It's so unusual and it makes me want another dog RIGHT NOW just so I can call it that  *

Yes except in hindsight she should have been called Earthquake....LOL

She is closely related to my Quiver and I was expecting a bitch who would be of a similar temperament hence Tremor.

Her registered name is Fenellark Field of Dreams.


----------



## Twiggy

Sadly Holly only had one little friend this afternoon. The other two couldn't make it through the dense freezing fog.

Still Holly, Jovi and Tremor had a great afternoon's training - I've got several new wounds on my hand and arm to prove it....!!


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> *chazzie10*
> 
> *Twiggy- I just LUUUVVV that name 'Tremor' for a dog! It's so unusual and it makes me want another dog RIGHT NOW just so I can call it that  *
> 
> Yes except in hindsight she should have been called Earthquake....LOL
> 
> She is closely related to my Quiver and I was expecting a bitch who would be of a similar temperament hence Tremor.
> 
> *Her registered name is Fenellark Field of Dreams*.


Tremor is a tad easier to call on a walk i'd guess


----------



## chazzie10

Back to the waste ground today but poor Charlie, his wee friend wasnt there awww :cryin:

He had a good plunder in the bushes and a hilarious chase around after his new, solid ball which bounces unpredictably and flies like a demon out of a ball launcher....
1 tired, happy dog snoring in the corner :001_tongue:


----------



## Twiggy

I've been meaning to post this pic of the interior of the barn for ages to show it isn't quite as awful as it sounds (the 2" thick rubber floor cost a small fortune but it does mean that if I trip over in my old age it's a reasonably soft landing) and we do have electricity and heating. Wish I'd gone for green and brown instead of blue and black, but hindsights a wonderful thing:


----------



## moonviolet

Incident free evening walk 

Other than barely being able to see TInk at the end of the lead :lol: 









Twiggy glad you had a fun afternoon, one advantage of havng a pretty nonchalant dog, no enthusiasm related injuries 

Chazzie Awww shame his firend wasn't there but it sounds like he had a fun time anyway.

Catz. well done wee-chiweenie for being brave

Beth if they start training in that stuff i'll be walking on them :blush: i've already almost ended up with them in a newly dug foxhole on more than one occasion :lol: :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

That looks very smart Twiggy and a lot nicer than the old freezing church hall that my nearest class is held in- the rubber flooring must be warmer and softer underfoot too


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy that looks like the poshest barn i ever did see


----------



## Sarah1983

Damn, and here was me picturing Twiggy training in a drafty old wooden barn with a dirt floor! And possibly some straw blowing around.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy; what a lovely barn .

Kilo and I have just had a stupendous walk / slide on the ice . Sounds like nothing, but we were following a couple with two spaniels down a road (fine) when in the opposite direction came a BC that has a drama with Kilo and often barks at him - and Kilo doesn't do well with the stare if he makes eye contact. There was a side road option before we'd have to pass if Kilo started to prance about but he was relaxed so I decided to pass them. And...not a flicker of tension from Kilo even when the BC had a grumble . 

Hot on their heels came a couple with a small dog I'd never seen who started to bark away; Kilo became interested so I said "Leave" and on by we trotted. The only bad thing about that was the man bursting out laughing and giving the whole "Ooooh Leave! Leave! Look at the big hard dog" etc etc. I am assuming that he was just embarrassed; it's a common reaction from men with small dogs who bark at us .

THEN....we had to pass THE choc lab and...not a flicker....AGAIN.

I love my best boy so much that I could burst :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Damn, and here was me picturing Twiggy training in a drafty old wooden barn with a dirt floor! And possibly some straw blowing around.


Yes that's what I assumed you all thought....LOL

I'm afraid it doesn't look quite so pristine as in the pic as there are lots of ball marks up the walls and the floor needs steam cleaning. It's not the easiest surface to keep clean; tit-bits and mud tend to stick to it.


----------



## chazzie10

Well done Kilo!! That was amazing Dogless, he's doing so well! No wonder you're so proud


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy I reckon we ALL should pile over and surprise you in your lovely barn for a mad training session ..... I get the feeling it would only all end in tears and gnashing of teeth though


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy - the barn looks awesome. I was picturing an indoor school type place whenever you said "barn" - not a conference centre with a bouncy floor! 



Dogless said:


> Twiggy; what a lovely barn .
> 
> Kilo and I have just had a stupendous walk / slide on the ice . Sounds like nothing, but we were following a couple with two spaniels down a road (fine) when in the opposite direction came a BC that has a drama with Kilo and often barks at him - and Kilo doesn't do well with the stare if he makes eye contact. There was a side road option before we'd have to pass if Kilo started to prance about but he was relaxed so I decided to pass them. And...not a flicker of tension from Kilo even when the BC had a grumble .
> 
> Hot on their heels came a couple with a small dog I'd never seen who started to bark away; Kilo became interested so I said "Leave" and on by we trotted. The only bad thing about that was t*he man bursting out laughing and giving the whole "Ooooh Leave! Leave! Look at the big hard dog" etc etc.* I am assuming that he was just embarrassed; it's a common reaction from men with small dogs who bark at us .
> 
> THEN....we had to pass THE choc lab and...not a flicker....AGAIN.
> 
> I love my best boy so much that I could burst :001_wub::001_wub:.


What a ****!  Very odd reaction to my mind but obviously something in some men's brains just can't cope with a woman having a large dog that is well-behaved and listening to her.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - the barn looks awesome. I was picturing an indoor school type place whenever you said "barn" - not a conference centre with a bouncy floor!
> 
> What a ****!  Very odd reaction to my mind but obviously something in some men's brains just can't cope with a woman having a large dog that is well-behaved and listening to her.


It happens a lot  from both men and women; mostly men though. I always just put it down to feeling embarrassed that their dog is barking as it can feel pretty crappy and taking the mick out of someone makes them feel much better rather than addressing the reason for the reaction. Same as the cyclist that had a go at us yesterday when he came round a corner and nearly hit us on the pavement. Definitely not worth dignifying with any form of response :nonod:.


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy I reckon we ALL should pile over and surprise you in your lovely barn for a mad training session ..... I get the feeling it would only all end in tears and gnashing of teeth though


*All of us!?!* 

More than (who i have insured zand with) send me a blinking led light that attaches to the collar. Which is nice.

Would it be safe to let him off in the dark do you reckon?

Do you?

Oh and rudi's a complete cutie!

And lots of treaties for Chazzie!


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> *All of us!?!*
> 
> More than (who i have insured zand with) send me a blinking led light that attaches to the collar. Which is nice.
> 
> Would it be safe to let him off in the dark do you reckon?
> 
> Do you?
> 
> Oh and rudi's a complete cutie!
> 
> And lots of treaties for Chazzie!


Oh Yes! All of us! Would be like feeding time in the zoo/ chimps tea party/ happy hour-all at the same time. Think of the bouncing, lunging and hopping that would go on. Nah I was actually only joking hehehe

I'm not convinced by tiny blinking lights on collars being any use( they wouldnt make a dog come back if it didnt want to...unless its on the top of a magic wand lol).... i'll be interested to read other peoples opinions on your question

Tooooooo many treats for Chazzie yesterday and today already :hand:


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> Oh Yes! All of us! Would be like feeding time in the zoo/ chimps tea party/ happy hour-all at the same time. Think of the bouncing, lunging and hopping that would go on. Nah I was actually only joking hehehe
> 
> I'm not convinced by tiny blinking lights on collars being any use( they wouldnt make a dog come back if it didnt want to...unless its on the top of a magic wand lol).... i'll be interested to read other peoples opinions on your question
> 
> Tooooooo many treats for Chazzie yesterday and today already :hand:


Hahah I've just imagined a meeting between Zander and Chazzie. :w00t:

I didn't mean the lights to be used so make him come back, I meant would they make him visible to me, to be let off in the field??

I mean do you let chazzie off in the dark?? Do you meet other people!?!?


----------



## L/C

So much to catch up on!

LO - what is his prey drive like? I can't let Gypsy off around here after dark because of the foxes. Foxes are more exciting then cats, squirrels and the field of tiny mice combined. But in Holloway there was somewhere safe so I did let her off.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - the barn looks awesome. I was picturing an indoor school type place whenever you said "barn" - not a conference centre with a bouncy floor!
> 
> What a ****!  Very odd reaction to my mind but obviously something in some men's brains just can't cope with a woman having a large dog that is well-behaved and listening to her.


Men's brains just can't cope full stop.

Said to hubby this morning just before he went out to get a newspaper "here's £10.00 can you get me 20 more second class stamps please"?

Now girls just how difficult a question is that?

When I came back from walking the dogs, there were *10 *second class stamps sitting on the kitchen table..... Errrrr - give me strength.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - the barn looks awesome. I was picturing an indoor school type place whenever you said "barn" - not a conference centre with a bouncy floor!
> 
> What a ****!  Very odd reaction to my mind but obviously something in some men's brains just can't cope with a woman having a large dog that is well-behaved and listening to her.


Just that^^^ What an absolute tit. Embarrassment definitely I get embarrassed when Ginge barks at the oh so well behaved rottie


----------



## Guest

L/C said:


> So much to catch up on!
> 
> LO - what is his prey drive like? I can't let Gypsy off around here after dark because of the foxes. Foxes are more exciting then cats, squirrels and the field of tiny mice combined. But in Holloway there was somewhere safe so I did let her off.


Well he doesn't chase the blackbirds in the field? So um.. I dunno...

Foxes!? I hadn't thought of them!? What if he gets into a fight with it? Or god forbid kills it!!

OOH and I had a natter today with someone who owns a labrador. When I mentioned I had a lurcher he said his friend has one and it CHASES STUFF.

I replied "Well they have sighthound in them. They're bred for chasing. (Not all but you know what I mean)"

I got a blank look and a "Well thats all good and whatever but he's caught deer!"

O______O

I suggest either not letting him off near the deer or using and enclosed space for running like a big garden or something.

:nonod:


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> So much to catch up on!
> 
> LO - what is his prey drive like? I can't let Gypsy off around here after dark because of the foxes. Foxes are more exciting then cats, squirrels and the field of tiny mice combined. But in Holloway there was somewhere safe so I did let her off.


This ^^^^^. Kilo turns into Super Hunter as soon as dusk gathers and until dawn breaks. I let Kilo off at night in a secure area where there is no wildlife and his light up collar is very effective LO for keeping track of him.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> This ^^^^^. Kilo turns into Super Hunter as soon as dusk gathers and until dawn breaks. I let Kilo off at night in a secure area where there is no wildlife and his light up collar is very effective LO for keeping track of him.


I'm guessing a field isn't secure?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I'm guessing a field isn't secure?


We use a small fenced field (no rabbit holes etc) with a gate or a fenced, gated out of use massive grass kids' play area. Even taking as many precautions as possible I (luckily) spotted the white cat that was sauntering across the play area one the other night just before Kilo .


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Hahah I've just imagined a meeting between Zander and Chazzie. :w00t:
> 
> I didn't mean the lights to be used so make him come back, I meant would they make him visible to me, to be let off in the field??
> 
> I mean do you let chazzie off in the dark?? Do you meet other people!?!?


lol lol lol Zander and Chazzie....bouncefest 

I knew what you meant about the light, I was just taking the p1ss lol. 
Of course it would make him visible to you......as he zebedeed away into the darkness blowing raspberries at you as he goes  

Ive only let Charlie off in the dark a few times across the road at the beach when Ive checked there's no one about and he cant get up to mischief. I do it purely for novelty value to get a laugh at him doing zoomies on a dark beach with no lights and ( i think i posted this before) all you can see are the whites of eyes and pink tongue and I know where he is cos I can here the water splashing/ shells crunching/ mad panting. I swear it's so funny the tears trip me sometimes  
Wouldnt do it if anyone was around!


----------



## Dogless

It has turned into a great morning this morning...started not so great.

Up early at 0445 and the DD were rampaging around....not the best before my first coffee :incazzato:. Coffee made, some sort of order restored so monsters fed . More rampaging started by Rudi so crate as I won't have them going bonkers straight after food.....

...got myself showered and dressed and another coffee. Opened crate...and...wrestlemania hmy:. Dogs put into garden as it's now a reasonable time in case they make a noise...to find 'THE' choc lab running up to the gate as happens at that time in the morning....all I ever hear when they are walking is the man's constant bluudy whistling and "******* come on" as he walks away. Kilo goes mental :sosp: and I resist the urge to shout something about keeping a dog on a lead if it doesn't listen to you offlead :devil:.

So...mayhem continues until I could just about bang their concrete heads together. It is a well known fact that ridgies have concrete heads . To top it off Rudi does a flying grab at my little finger, piercing the pad with an evil little fang and hanging on so it split very nicely all the way to the tip Singing:Singing:. Much blood and well resisted urge to swear at the little bugger :sosp:.

So...Rudi in crate and I decided to go to the park as I'm going a bit stir crazy. And...here the day turned for the better . Kilo was totally relaxed, never seen him so good, and he is hereby awarded a platinum star :aureola::aureola:. We saw lots of our friends, met some new dogs / people including toddlers who were all over him, so I gave them treats to give him for something to do and he was perfect - he even ignored a sibe who was pawing at him and jumping to try to get him to play. Anyhow...definitely my best boy :001_wub::001_wub:. 

As much as I have been missing our long, isolated walks I have to admit that walking here for the past few weeks where we see lots of dogs and walk with some most days seems to have done Kilo the absolute world of good .

I called in at the butcher's on the way back to order some bits and was given a big box of lamb bones, chicken carcasses and some unidentifiable frozen stuff  all for the token sum of a pound .

Got back - did some training with Rudi, some training with both dogs and then they played in the garden.

Both finally flat out...although I need to feed Rudi shortly but am putting it off in case the madness resumes :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## Dogless

Oh. Kilo also managed to pee all over his Equafleece :mad2:
too this morning...something that's not occurred before so that's now washed and drying :Yawn:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Do you reckon having the Rud-star about all the time might be making Kilo less 'Oh oh theres a dog over there Mum, what do I do?' spooky as well, dogless.

We had a quiet morning, got up and out in my pj top , much easier to drag myself out of bed earlier that way in our cold, cold house, especially this morning as it was beautiful, proper frosty but not icy roads and pavement, all christmassy . Didn't see anyone, yeah. Bit of car barking but other than all good in the Gingerbread house!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Do you reckon having the Rud-star about all the time might be making Kilo less 'Oh oh theres a dog over there Mum, what do I do?' spooky as well, dogless.
> 
> We had a quiet morning, got up and out in my pj top , much easier to drag myself out of bed earlier that way in our cold, cold house, especially this morning as it was beautiful, proper frosty but not icy roads and pavement, all christmassy . Didn't see anyone, yeah. Bit of car barking but other than all good in the Gingerbread house!


Perhaps; whatever it is Kilo has relaxed a huge amount. Bet you enjoyed a calm walk - time to relax too!


----------



## moonviolet

Fab fab morning here absolutely stunning frost so so s beautiful and i forgot not only my camera but also my phone so you'll just have to believe me.

Right at the start of our walk we bumped into the 3 labs and their 2 owners we often see and walked with them for a while then parted ways and bumped into a 6 month old beagle and the greeting was hysterical, it's so funny when dogs see dogs of their own breed a lovely game of chase ensued until some good sniffs were to be had. His owner commented how large he is and he really is huge for a beagle already 18 inches at the withers and lots of growing to go 

Then a nail biting moment when Larry the lurcher came charging over I managed to block and distract, Tink stood her ground with her tail pointing down but not actually tucked and they sniffed before his owner realised we were there and She called him back and and she also kept her dobe close. So that was good ( definitely better than chasing and pinning and a bramble torn ear we once had), we waved from a distance and carried on our seperate ways. 

I took her to a nice open space for some frosty grass bouncing then to the balance and control section of our natural agility course.... to most people it looks like a lot of fallen spindly pine trees in some unmanaged woodland but we know better 

then we bumped into the beagle again another quick game then both called away nicely  All in all a pretty great walk


----------



## Beth17

We have also had a good walk this morning. Took both boys out for an onlead walk for an hour as haven't practised together much lately, they behaved really well and passed a couple of dogs without any trouble other than Sam being a nosey so and so  I do wish he'd learn to walk in a straight line though.

They are now flat out next to a nice warm radiator.

That walk sounds fab mv!

Glad you had a good walk Ginge 

Oh dear Rudi :nono: Hope the finger isn't too sore Dogless.


----------



## Dogless

Sounds like a perfect walk mv .

I thought of you and Tink today - the butcher was saying that a GSD had attacked his beagle. Left quite badly hurt and bleeding, yet GSD owner said his dog didn't bite others when he went over to tell him that his dog had just attacked theirs... so denied it :mad5::mad5:.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh dear poor butchers beagle  

Hope your finger isn't too bad Dogless and the concrete heads are behaving themselves. SOunds liek a loely walk with kilo 


Beth how lovely to have a great walk with the boys together


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh dear poor butchers beagle
> 
> Hope your finger isn't too bad Dogless and the concrete heads are behaving themselves. SOunds liek a loely walk with kilo
> 
> Beth how lovely to have a great walk with the boys together


The concrete heads are being :aureola::aureola: even after I woke them up just now. Making up for this morning's mayhem maybe?...or storing up trouble? :devil::devil::devil:. The finger is really sore; but never mind...it just matches the general patchwork of cuts covering my hands .


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> *All of us!?!*
> 
> More than (who i have insured zand with) send me a blinking led light that attaches to the collar. Which is nice.
> 
> Would it be safe to let him off in the dark do you reckon?
> 
> Do you?


I let Spencer off in the dark. I go with one of the light up collars though, I find those flashing tags have a bad effect on me. At least with the collar I can set it a constant light. I do wonder whether the constant flashing right under their chin affects the dog to be honest. I dunno if I'm just more sensitive to it because of my epilepsy but it would bug the hell out of me.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I let Spencer off in the dark. I go with one of the light up collars though, I find those flashing tags have a bad effect on me. At least with the collar I can set it a constant light. I do wonder whether the constant flashing right under their chin affects the dog to be honest. I dunno if I'm just more sensitive to it because of my epilepsy but it would bug the hell out of me.


I can't have Kilo's on flashing; really drives me nuts so would think it would drive Kilo nuts too - never mind any dog he's walking with!


----------



## catz4m8z

Much braver then me....even going out in the dark!!
I had to leave Alfie on his own today coz the big dogs (LOL) were getting abit irritating with the lack of exercise. Thankfully though Heidi seems fine and hates icy weahter so I left her with Alf and took Adam and Hannah for a decent run in the park. Adam was a good boy and recalled from squirrels and had a play with a JRT, 2 poodley things in very fetching equafleece jumpers and a Staffie! Hannah also saw the squirrels so had little interest afterwards in other dogs or obeying commands! (needless to say she stayed on her long line!).
Still working on Alfies 'sit'. He's abit confused at the moment and hasnt worked out if 'sit' means sit down or stand still!! Im sure we will get there eventually though.


----------



## DogTrainer01

Hey guys, I hope you're all well  I've been lurking on here more than posting recently but on rest after a couple of days in hospital so thought what better time to properly catch up. 

I looove love love Spens 'look left' and how readily he offers it!  His little face is just gorgeous and seems to have a constant look of 'come on then, where's the food?'. 

MV - Everyone on this thread has such a great relationship with their dogs but you and Tinks seems to have just such a lovely relationship - you really know her inside out. Really inspirational. 

Onto my little terrors. They are both really good. They've both had their birthdays since I last posted - Andy is now 8 (!) and Kob now 1 (!). 

Kob had his first proper 'male' moment around 3 weeks ago. It was a 17 month old, entire male GSD who was bred from last month. They both just took an instant dislike to each other and both had a couple of lip curling moments. He seemed to recover really well and had a polite sniff with a male boxer a little while later on the walk.

He had a proper flirt with a beautiful GSD girly a few days ago (I literally think he could have bought her home, he was completely smitten). They were playing lovely however I noticed that he was actually checking in with me through out playing!  First time he's ever done that! He actually gave me direct eye contact a couple of times. 

Training is going quite well. We had a lovely foundation training session with my friends dog a couple of weeks ago. We were actually doing circle work and anti blind cross drill work at the same time and he was just lovely - really focused and played beautifully (which as you know is a massive thing for him, I couldn't believe it!)

He did some tiny bits in an agility class the other week too. We started off by just doing some tricks and reward whilst on lead. Then did an extended grid (which bless him was beautiful - he must have been a little high and yet he read the distance from each jump really well). He came onto the toy for his reward and then let go and went off... but actually came back after a second and went back onto the toy with proper 'argdshkjhsjkh give me that toy'.
He doesn't normally train around that many dogs and one was barking a lot (which he finds really quite distracting) so couldn't have been happier. Him letting go of the toy and then running off has been one of the hardest things to conquer. In normal training we've managed to nip it in the bud so I was actually really pleased that he came back with such spirit in that environment. 
We then finished with doing some circle work with a dropped lead and bless him, he was nice and intense. 

I was really nervous and wasn't 100% of the plan of action and its when I'm like that I tend to start faffing.. which is when he goes into eye stalk. So a couple of things I need to remember for next time 
- Get a plan of action beforehand: make sure everyone knows said plan of action. For some reason, I was good at that with little Andy but with the Kobman I need to make the effort to remember and make it clear
- Finish the game before leaving the barn
- Breathe 

Andyman isn't doing an awful lot but he's just such a dude. I've been smuggling him upstairs which he loves and starts snorting to show just how much he approves.

If you've read all that, thank you! If you didn't - I don't blame you haha. I always seem to just go on and on and on when I write on this thread lol!


----------



## Guest

We met the aggressive labradoodle in the filed today so I put Zand on lead and walked away from it. Even half a field away Zand still gets antsy. 


we waved. 


Then she let it offlead. It started charging around and then Zand got really frustrated and had a huge tantrum cos I wouldn't let him run. 
BUT before all that he did act pretty well with it being onlead and half a field away. He did do sit and down when I told him. 



Bah. And I accidentally shut his foot in the door.


----------



## L/C

AGHHHHH!!!!

I have decided I am going to cancel Xmas as it is too stressful and people are too bloody unreliable.

Have been trying since SEPTEMBER to find a place for the pointy twins over xmas as my mother is not particularly pro dog and our regular boarder isn't taking dogs this year.

Had a house sitter booked - they cancelled on us at the start of December. Had another one lined up to meet but he cancelled on us as someone wanted him for longer. Had another lined up to speak to tonight but the agency has just contacted me to say something has come up they've had to place him somewhere else. So now back to square one two weeks before xmas.

Can't use kennels as Ely can't have vaccines because of his SLO (vet advised) and none that I have spoken to will make any exceptions.

FFS!


----------



## Dogless

catz4m8z said:


> Adam was a good boy and recalled from squirrels


Hugely, hugely impressive .

L/C - how awful...I wonder whether a kennels might let them stay in the isolation block? I'm sure you've tried everything - even offering to sign a waiver of some sort? I'll wrack my tiny brains, just in case a bright idea appears.

DogTrainer01 - hope you're OK after hospital. Everything you do seems to make my efforts look rubbish .

L/O - Donkey Boy did well by all accounts .

This afternoon has been fine. Walked Big Concrete Head (BCH) and he behaved very well then did some lead training with Little Concrete Head (LCH). They are now alternating between chasing each other round the dining room table and lounge - good job they have got concrete heads  - and playing tug with various toys. They are playing nicely though; not complete mayhem like this morning, touch wood!!


----------



## catz4m8z

awww, nice to hear that the 2 CHs are getting on so well still!
Sorry your xmas is not going according to plan L/C... But I will see your AARRRGHHH and raise you a GGGRRRRRR!!rrr:
Heidi almost bit someone on our afternoon walk. Some dip**** ran past us so close I wasnt sure if he was going to bang into me!! He just appeared and gave me heart failure, made the dogs jump and Heidi growled and lashed out at him.I totally dont blame her coz TBH I didnt know if I was about to be attacked either he ran so close!! (what a ***!!!). Doubt it will help her nerves though.
Still, at least she can come home and beat Alfie up!! Thats got to be satisfying!!LOL:ihih:


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Catz, not good; at least no contact was made.

I've just done more training with LCH, he eats it up. Also tried our Nina Ottoson brick game - took him all of a minute or two, same as Kilo. No control or finesse yet obviously; just smash things with paws and shove with nose....but done all the same. He's in his crate calming down for a minute or two as his excitement has gone through the roof again .


----------



## chazzie10

Sounds like nearly everyone's walks were lovely today 
I had the best, most relaxing one yet.....my son actually OFFERED to walk Charlie  
As I've mentioned before, my son just didnt have the interest/ patience for walking him with his bad behaviour before but he has come out with me for a few quick danders recently and cant believe the difference!
So, they came back half an hour ago and apparently he was brilliant. They encountered 4 dogs being walked ( separately) and each time Charlie sat when told and just jukied around my son's legs. He even managed to control himself when an over-excited 8mnth staffie pup( they havnt even attempted to train) from our street, bounced past him on it's back legs a few feet away :dita:

My son is amazed and it was so nice to see them coming back up the street smiling at each other and Charlie being all waggy and getting pats


----------



## Beth17

L/C what a bloomin pain. I hope you can get something sorted.

Catz how daft to run that close to you at least no real contact was made.

Glad the CH's are behaving 

Chazzie how lovely that your son can enjoy walking Charlie 

Really pleased with Oscar tonight he actually played tug with Sam and really enjoyed it without turning into a possessive grump. It's only taken 7 months


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> L/C what a bloomin pain. I hope you can get something sorted.
> 
> Catz how daft to run that close to you at least no real contact was made.
> 
> Glad the CH's are behaving
> 
> Chazzie how lovely that your son can enjoy walking Charlie
> 
> *Really pleased with Oscar tonight he actually played tug with Sam and really enjoyed it without turning into a possessive grump. It's only taken 7 months *


Well done Oscar .


----------



## Sarah1983

Well we're back to basics on recall. Again. Apparently it is optional when there's snow to play in. So back to the long line and back to big rewards of raw tripe  He'll check in with me every so often but come back when called? Nope.

Spencer made a new friend tonight. Was out front with him when the lady upstairs came out with one of hers and they had a good play together. And he remembered that I existed and checked in with me several times. And he was polite and there was no humping, just lots of play bowing and zoomies. She had good recall so easy enough to get him back lol.

LC, sorry you've been let down so much  Sucks that kennels refuse to make an exception for medical reasons. 

Dogless, hope your finger heals quickly.

Dogtrainer, I'm clueless. I have absolutely no idea what you were working on lol. Circle work and anti blind cross drill work?? Sounds...complicated  And Spencer always has a "well where's the food?" look on his face. He's a walking stomach lol.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> lol lol lol Zander and Chazzie....bouncefest
> 
> I knew what you meant about the light, I was just taking the p1ss lol.
> Of course it would make him visible to you......as he zebedeed away into the darkness blowing raspberries at you as he goes
> 
> Ive only let Charlie off in the dark a few times across the road at the beach when Ive checked there's no one about and he cant get up to mischief. I do it purely for novelty value to get a laugh at him doing zoomies on a dark beach with no lights and ( i think i posted this before) all you can see are the whites of eyes and pink tongue and I know where he is cos I can here the water splashing/ shells crunching/ mad panting. I swear it's so funny the tears trip me sometimes
> Wouldnt do it if anyone was around!


We all let our dogs off the lead in the dark at week-end dog shows. It's really strange as the venues are usually deep in the countryside, so it's very black, and then there are all these powerful torches trying to spot several dogs at once doing a poo. Finding said poo can be very difficult and by then the dogs have disappeared into the darkness. Then when you've managed to round them all up and open the caravan door they jump straight onto your pillow and sleeping bag with wet feet....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The concrete heads are being :aureola::aureola: even after I woke them up just now. Making up for this morning's mayhem maybe?...or storing up trouble? :devil::devil::devil:. The finger is really sore; but never mind...it just matches the general patchwork of cuts covering my hands .


Oh dear.......

Holly hasn't bitten me today but then I haven't trained her but just to even things up dear old Quiver missed grabbing her toy this morning and got my leg instead. It's quite a big bruise, sort of mauve in colour.....


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> AGHHHHH!!!!
> 
> I have decided I am going to cancel Xmas as it is too stressful and people are too bloody unreliable.
> 
> Have been trying since SEPTEMBER to find a place for the pointy twins over xmas as my mother is not particularly pro dog and our regular boarder isn't taking dogs this year.
> 
> Had a house sitter booked - they cancelled on us at the start of December. Had another one lined up to meet but he cancelled on us as someone wanted him for longer. Had another lined up to speak to tonight but the agency has just contacted me to say something has come up they've had to place him somewhere else. So now back to square one two weeks before xmas.
> 
> Can't use kennels as Ely can't have vaccines because of his SLO (vet advised) and none that I have spoken to will make any exceptions.
> 
> FFS!


You haven't got a local friendly greyhound trainer anywhere near that would board them have you? Or don't you approve?

The reason I suggested it is because I used to take my dogs to a hydrotherapy pool near here that was a racing greyhound establishment and the pool was primarily for them. The trainer was as soft as grease with his dogs, wouldn't run them if the ground was too hard, wouldn't run them on tracks with sharp bends, etc. etc. He had so many dogs there because half of them were retired. Consequently he'd never got any money which is why they started swimming other dogs and he also boarded a lot of greyhounds for various reasons.

Just a thought.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> We all let our dogs off the lead in the dark at week-end dog shows. It's really strange as the venues are usually deep in the countryside, so it's very black, and then there are all these powerful torches trying to spot several dogs at once doing a poo. Finding said poo can be very difficult and by then the dogs have disappeared into the darkness. Then when you've managed to round them all up and open the caravan door they jump straight onto your pillow and sleeping bag with wet feet....LOL


Sounds like organised chaos Twiggy  but I bet the dogs all love it. I can cope with most things but a wet pillow?? rrr:


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Sounds like organised chaos Twiggy  but I bet the dogs all love it. I can cope with most things but a wet pillow?? rrr:


Ah but you see a wet pillow pales into insignificance compared with my raging sister if you dare let a moth in her caravan, and it's quite difficult watching the dogs and looking out for moths.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Ah but you see a wet pillow pales into insignificance compared with my raging sister if you dare let a moth in her caravan, and it's quite difficult watching the dogs and looking out for moths.....


Especially with all those torches on and lights in the caravan :skep: .


----------



## Dogless

I'd like to report it's been an awfully long haul today...LCH is finally asleep. That is all :Yawn::Yawn:.


----------



## Thorne

Too sleepy to write a decent "report" tonight!  Sounds like good progress overall on the thread, keep up the good work guys.

In short, S+B are fine and dandy, enjoyed their dusky walk and have both been full of beans with play tonight.

My friend Paddy the Blue Cross Lurcher is being a good boy too, took him on a pavement walk yesterday and he was fab, no hint of "mad Lurcher" at all. His profile has been updated with a video of him being clever, hopefully someone somewhere will watch it and fall in love with him.
Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre

Cheeky mention for lovely Poppy too! She and Paddy are the current long stay dogs so I'm nearly as desperate as they are to see them find their forever homes.
Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre


----------



## DogTrainer01

Sarah1983 said:


> Well we're back to basics on recall. Again. Apparently it is optional when there's snow to play in. So back to the long line and back to big rewards of raw tripe  He'll check in with me every so often but come back when called? Nope.
> 
> Spencer made a new friend tonight. Was out front with him when the lady upstairs came out with one of hers and they had a good play together. And he remembered that I existed and checked in with me several times. And he was polite and there was no humping, just lots of play bowing and zoomies. She had good recall so easy enough to get him back lol.
> 
> LC, sorry you've been let down so much  Sucks that kennels refuse to make an exception for medical reasons.
> 
> Dogless, hope your finger heals quickly.
> 
> Dogtrainer, I'm clueless. I have absolutely no idea what you were working on lol. Circle work and anti blind cross drill work?? Sounds...complicated  And Spencer always has a "well where's the food?" look on his face. He's a walking stomach lol.


Sorry 

This video shows circle work and anti blind cross excercise at the beginning.

Agility foundation training - YouTube


----------



## Dogless

DogTrainer01 said:


> Sorry
> 
> This video shows circle work and anti blind cross excercise at the beginning.
> 
> Agility foundation training - YouTube


I can't see the video - it's just blank...but to think I'm actually proud of progress like Kilo being able to walk past a cat quietly or Rudi doing, sits, downs etc .


----------



## Beth17

I can see the video doubt my two twerps would manage that 

Well this morning has already been long and they've only been up for 45 mins. Oscar has a dodgy gurgling stomach so has been up and down all night eating grass. Sam has this morning just been a class A pain in the bum and keeps attempting to pounce and chase Oscar. He has stood in mess 3 times already this morning and then thrown a hissy fit when I cleaned his feet and to top it off he kept getting in the way when I was trying to clean the floor  
Good job he's off up to my dads at 10.30 and Oscar can have a quiet day with my brother.

ETA: he has now decided to start eating toilet rolls again.


----------



## Twiggy

DogTrainer01 said:


> Sorry
> 
> This video shows circle work and anti blind cross excercise at the beginning.
> 
> Agility foundation training - YouTube


That made me smile and took me back 20 years.

Twiggy could do all that with her eyes shut, she was after all a championship C obedience dog, but the first sign of a jump or tunnel....


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> I can see the video doubt my two twerps would manage that
> 
> Well this morning has already been long and they've only been up for 45 mins. Oscar has a dodgy gurgling stomach so has been up and down all night eating grass. Sam has this morning just been a class A pain in the bum and keeps attempting to pounce and chase Oscar. He has stood in mess 3 times already this morning and then thrown a hissy fit when I cleaned his feet and to top it off he kept getting in the way when I was trying to clean the floor
> Good job he's off up to my dads at 10.30 and Oscar can have a quiet day with my brother.
> 
> ETA: he has now decided to start eating toilet rolls again.


Oh dear. I hope Oscar's stomach settles and the day generally improves.


----------



## Dogless

Hope Oscar's stomach settles down .. and Sam too .

The Concrete Heads have been very good this morning; I think they're tired from yesterday's goings on . Walked Kilo and was going to do some play and training on the fields but he was just interested in drifting about, sniffing and just wandering; he did engage with me but wasn't full of enthusiasm like normal so I left it and let him just 'be'. He had a brief episode of deciding that listening to your human was something that only applied to other dogs :ihih: so he had a few minutes on the lead doing simple stuff until his ears appeared to be working again. The poor boy is just :Yawn::Yawn::Yawn:. He's sparked out on the sofa now.

After walking Kilo I did some training with LCH, went out to the front garden on the lead to watch the wheelie bin alien craft docking with the mothership and then just practised a few lead on and off, handling and door manners things. He's currently standing on my shoulder trying to chew the hood on my top on and off and snuggling on my lap fighting sleep :sosp:.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C - sorry to here about Christmas plans going awry  would your Mum not manage to make an exception, it is Christmas and if you can't take the dogs it looks like you can't go, thats not very Christmassy for anyone.

Chazzie - well done you, it must have been so nice seeing your loed ones interacting so nicely and son enjoying it, it will hopefully take some pressure off you as well. What a turnaround, he's a star, you're a star 

Beth - well done Oscar for last nights playing  and hope you feel betters for todays grumbly tum  nothing for Sam, you are a very naughty boy!! 

Sarah - that must be frustrating, it seems the snow and frost does strange things to dog brains, hopefully Spen will get his back in gear soon.

Dog trainer - I am sorry I too have no idea  Circle work and anti blind cross drill = clueless - so I googled it - several you tube vids later, still no idea, finally found out that circle work is working on the ground with no obstacles as its often the bits between the apparatus which make a good or bad run rather than the clearing the obstacles themselves, circle work helps you dog concentrate on you not the jumps etc??? right or wrong? oh and it involves circles  Blind cross has something to do with your placement as you lead the dog around the course but I didn't get much further than that.

Then I actually watched your video, doh, I get the circles but still not sure on blind cross'ness. Although it looks like something unco-ordinated me would completely **** up, lol. I can't even manage click, reward, praise int he right order! That Kuling is one clever 8 mth pup. 

Twiggy -hope the legs ok today.

We used to let Rory off in the dark on the fields where we lived it was hilarious it sent him extra loopy but you never knew what direction he would come bashing into your legs from till it was too late, we got a flashing collar 

Thorne - both Paddy and Poppy look adorable, heres hoping for nice homes for them for Christmas, must be so hard working with rescues especially at this time of year. Hats off to ya!

Well done LO - you are getting there! Keep it up!

Catz - echo what everyone else says daft to run that close, most people would have the sense to move away especially given the snappy yappy rep of small dogs 

Dogless - sounds like the CH's are doing well, if tiring  we used to call Rory concrete head. It must have been filled with the stuff the way he used to smack into things, it was his staffiness I think, tread on a teeny bit of toe though 

Well to me and the Ninja - we actually got some praise last night, from Hubby  He said he was really proud of the way I working with her and we were doing really well!!! I was doing some work with the 'party hat', we alternate between treats in it and chasing them across the floor, but every single time she targets the muzzle beautifully  He had already been impressed with her impulse control earlier. He had lobbed a pringle at her and it bounced off her nose and landed to one side, she looked at it then back at him waiting for the ok! I was like yeah, she's good at that, he was like WOW! Her focus is really improving, such a little bit of extra effort, I was all oh its not working so no point trying. 

But I would like to know who has replaced my husband , he also attempted some DIY, unfortunately got a basin waste not a sink waste so we are on 'don't put anything in the sink mode' and I nearly turned the washing machine on this morning  

Have a great day everyone!!!


----------



## Dogless

GR - your new, improved husband sounds fantastic...let's hope he keeps it up apart from the DIY disasters . Ginge seems to have turned a corner thans to your hard work .


----------



## Werehorse

Well after all the excitement of the last week or so I'm poorly sick today.  Just mildly but it's one of those grumbling sore throat/emerging headache things that could either be gone or have me in bed by lunchtime. Hopefully it'll pass and I'm just being a hyperchondriac (most likely scenario  )

School for doggies last night! They were really good again, Hugo seemed to click with a sendaway into a hula-hoop and his emergency stops started to get better as well.

We attempted a fun scent game using ball pool balls in a plastic dog bed if you can imagine that. Trainer held the dog while handler put their scent on one colour of ball (blue ones for our two) then we took the dogs to the balls and asked them to fetch, you got them to fetch 5 balls and got a point for each one that was the right colour.

The labby girl and the youngest Toller got 1 point, the oldest Toller had a good sniff around and got 3 points. Oscar was AMAZING and got 4 out of 5 the right colour.  And he didn't even seem to sniff just pulled out the blue balls with virtually no hesitation.

Hugo on the other hand got a bit confused and pounced at the plastic bed managing to tip it up and sending ALL the balls flying all over the hall!  :lol:

Oscar is in the devil dog books today though because he just peed on next door's recycling bin and wouldn't stop for food.  He wasn't on-lead so I couldn't stop him as he doesn't like having his collar grabbed. Ooops. No more garden toiletting - it always ends in disaster and I shouldn't do it anyway because it's not a secure garden and they could easily leg it if they got it in their heads to. Slapped wrists for me, it just gets a bit tedious sometimes having to put harness and leads and acceptable clothing on just to pop them out for a wee.


----------



## Dogless

Ugh Werehorse, I hate it when something's brewing and you don't know how much worse it will get . Hope it turns out to be mild.

Hugo and Oscar seem to be coming on in leaps and bounds...and Hugo tipping all the balls out made me laugh . Fancy two hound - types to train then send back across the water? .


----------



## GingerRogers

Hope you feel better Werehorse, I missed you in my epic list of comments  but if it is something at least its coming before Christmas, I am always on tenterhooks at this time of year as I nearly always have a cold for Christmas day .

I agree with Dogless, your two are doing really well and I love the image of Hugo sending the balls flying as well as Oscar being such a top class star.

I did have (calm) words with hubby at the weekend, I just told him in passing that I expected a bit more and went out the door, he seems to have been mulling it over during his migraine induced bed rest and its sunk in, for a bit anyway . He also didn't kick up when I told him we are going to a friends for a drink tonight. Its our best mates (with 'the' collie) birthday today and he shares it with his nephew who is 18!!! so his sister has invited us all round for celebrations. He normally pleads illness or something to get out of those things


----------



## Sarah1983

DogTrainer01 said:


> Sorry
> 
> This video shows circle work and anti blind cross excercise at the beginning.
> 
> Agility foundation training - YouTube


Haha, well that's given me some ideas of stuff to work on with Spen. No plans to do agility, I honestly don't think he'd enjoy it, but no reason he can't learn better self control.


----------



## catz4m8z

werehorse- hope you feel better soon and that training class sounds ace!
Dogless- nice to hear that the CHs are keeping you on your toes (and your post about not chasing cats and learning to sit sounds like what I would consider a good day too!).
GingerRogers- lots of self control from the ninja there!!(much better then me around Pringles!!LOL:lol.

I had a nice walk this morning. Took the midget army and ratpuppy for a nice off lead walk (my friend offered to take Alfie but she gets up too late and I wanted a frosty walk so he came too!). I think he is going to be more of a handful then the others as he kept trying to escape from his puppy bag and join the others....none of the other 3 thought to try that until after they had experienced life on the ground!
Heidi had a good walk. She managed to walk past 2 westies with only a few whimpers, although she did bark at them later because they appeared around a corner and surprised her. Then we met a friendly (but slightly rude) Staffie which I saw coming so had time to engage Heidi with a treat and lead her round without any upset! (Adam said a friendly hello and Hannah said hello then told it off for its earlier rudeness!!LOL).
TBH though I think I need to get quicker at whipping a treat out my pocket and getting Heidi's attention. She is easily distracted if I just get to her in time.....so thats something I need to work on myself!!


----------



## Dogless

catz4m8z said:


> Dogless- nice to hear that the CHs are keeping you on your toes (and your post about not chasing cats and learning to sit sounds like what I would consider a good day too!).


You are too modest; you have achieved a recall from a squirrel chase, that is impressive .

Rudi just had his first chicken back for his lunch, there were lots of good meaty ones in my box of freebies that the butcher gave me yesterday. Much better than chicken wings for a puppy his size as he HAS to chew it all up .


----------



## DogTrainer01

> I can't see the video - it's just blank...but to think I'm actually proud of progress like Kilo being able to walk past a cat quietly or Rudi doing, sits, downs etc  .


You should be proud! You and your two boys are amazing.. I love reading your training updates.



> Dog trainer - I am sorry I too have no idea  Circle work and anti blind cross drill = clueless - so I googled it - several you tube vids later, still no idea, finally found out that circle work is working on the ground with no obstacles as its often the bits between the apparatus which make a good or bad run rather than the clearing the obstacles themselves, circle work helps you dog concentrate on you not the jumps etc??? right or wrong? oh and it involves circles Blind cross has something to do with your placement as you lead the dog around the course but I didn't get much further than that.
> 
> Then I actually watched your video, doh, I get the circles but still not sure on blind cross'ness. Although it looks like something unco-ordinated me would completely **** up, lol. I can't even manage click, reward, praise int he right order! That Kuling is one clever 8 mth pup.


Oh, sorry I confused everyone. I tend to use this as a diary and all thoughts just spill out without thinking.

Reread my posts and I don't want to sound like i'm bragging at all.. i'm sorry if anyone has got that idea as that is most definitely not what I was trying to do/say at all. I'll try and not get so carried away if I post again .



> DogTrainer01 - hope you're OK after hospital. Everything you do seems to make my efforts look rubbish


Thank you Dogless, feeling much better now and not so spaced out lol!

Would you like to come and spend a day with us so you can see all the adventures we actually get up too ? They include car chasing, stalking my mum obsessively and not being able to shut off outside of a crate on little collies part 

Beth17 - I hope Oscar is feeling better soon x


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Hope you feel better Werehorse, I missed you in my epic list of comments  but if it is something at least its coming before Christmas, I am always on tenterhooks at this time of year as I nearly always have a cold for Christmas day .
> 
> I agree with Dogless, your two are doing really well and I love the image of Hugo sending the balls flying as well as Oscar being such a top class star.
> 
> I did have (calm) words with hubby at the weekend, I just told him in passing that I expected a bit more and went out the door, he seems to have been mulling it over during his migraine induced bed rest and its sunk in, for a bit anyway . He also didn't kick up when I told him we are going to a friends for a drink tonight. Its our best mates (with 'the' collie) birthday today and he shares it with his nephew who is 18!!! so his sister has invited us all round for celebrations. He normally pleads illness or something to get out of those things


I shouldn't laugh at your last paragraph but I so know where you're coming from.

The bulb went in my bedside lamp a couple of days ago so I shouted to hubby to come and replace it. He was watching a film on TV and the fuss and performance he made was ridiculous, including saying that he has to do everything. I did enquire if the fairies arrive over night to do the hoovering, washing, cleaning, ironing, cooking etc.etc....!! He did apologise the next morning when he'd got over his strop...LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Oh heck i'm never going to remember everything Forgive me i'm goign to have to start making notes :lol:

W/H i hope your immune system gets in there and zaps whatever lurgy it is before it gets a grip. Sounds like the boys had a great class Oscar clever in a constructive way and hugo a little more creative shame that wasn't casught on video  :lol: 

Beth i hope Oscar's tum is better soon.

Catz sounds like Alfie is goign to be a character 

GR sounds liek you and GInge are making progres and now it sounds liek you have made progress with OH too :lol:

Dog trainer Sounds like you are doing fantasticly well. What a lovely thing to say Tink is a pretty special dog and just makes me smile everyday.

L/C I hope you get something sorted for Christmas.

LO sounds like things are coming together.

Dogless sounds like you are having a well desreved calmer day.

Sarah whatever you do with Spen i will be looking forward to videos, I love seeing your boy.

We had a lovely training session at home before heading out this morning, http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/280421-little-fresh-out-there-d.html

What i neglected to mention was that i did a little Tush-bogganing when i slipped onto my rump and slid down a slope :lol: :lol:


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> You haven't got a local friendly greyhound trainer anywhere near that would board them have you? Or don't you approve?
> 
> The reason I suggested it is because I used to take my dogs to a hydrotherapy pool near here that was a racing greyhound establishment and the pool was primarily for them. The trainer was as soft as grease with his dogs, wouldn't run them if the ground was too hard, wouldn't run them on tracks with sharp bends, etc. etc. He had so many dogs there because half of them were retired. Consequently he'd never got any money which is why they started swimming other dogs and he also boarded a lot of greyhounds for various reasons.
> 
> Just a thought.


It's not that I don't approve (but I'm not keen) but there aren't any around here. There's an RGT place not too far away but everyone I've spoken to has said that they wouldn't send their dogs there in the winter as the kennels can be damp and cold. So that's not really an option (and I spent a weekend ferrying old duvets and blankets to the kennel hounds because I felt bad for them ).

But I have a friend who has said she might be able to help out but she will have to bring her dog. So it will hinge on how happy my two are with him - they are usually ok with new dogs in the house and they know (and love!) Max as we walk with him often so fingers crossed.

The other alternative is a house sitter that can do until boxing day evening (but not overnight) and either see if our room-mate will be back or I'll come home on Boxing day eve rather then the next morning (my folks only live an hour away on the train).

As for my mother...well I love her and normally we get on very well but a lot of our family dynamic is set up around not upsetting her. Small example I was ill at the weekend so I didn't go to a gig (Saw Doctors) with them that I was supposed to but still met them for dinner beforehand so I could see them. As soon as I told her I wasn't going she stopped talking to me! Not a word for the whole dinner, my poor dad was very embarrassed.


----------



## Werehorse

L/C said:


> As for my mother...well I love her and normally we get on very well but a lot of our family dynamic is set up around not upsetting her. Small example I was ill at the weekend so I didn't go to a gig (Saw Doctors) with them that I was supposed to but still met them for dinner beforehand so I could see them. * As soon as I told her I wasn't going she stopped talking to me! Not a word for the whole dinner,* my poor dad was very embarrassed.


   

Oh my goodness - you're more patient than I am!


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Oh my goodness - you're more patient than I am!


I think the word you were looking for is mug! I even went down to Kent the next day because she likes me to help her put up the xmas decorations in their house every year. She did apologise when I got there but still!


----------



## Shrap

Just thought I'd let you all know that I do read your posts and you're all doing so well. It's fab how dedicated you all are 

Might be interesting to go back and read the first post you ever made on this thread, and see the difference?


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh I wouldn't worry about confusing us Dogtrainer, we might just ask for explanations and as I say that video gave me a few ideas for stuff to do with Spen  

LC, you have a hell of a lot more patience than I do. "Well f*ck you" is usually my reaction to that sort of behaviour from people  Might be why I don't get on with most of the other wives here lol.

MV...tushbogganing sounds like the sort of sport I tend to participate in against my will during winter. Hope you're okay! Will make sure to get videos of Spen performing whatever silly tricks I teach next for you 

Hope Oscar is feeling better soon Beth. Annoying little brothers aren't fun when you're feeling a bit off.

C4M, getting that distraction in before they see the trigger is sometimes harder than it sounds. 

Werehorse, hope you feel better soon! My hubby has the sniffles but according to him it's a case of full blown flu 

Still working on recall with Spendog. Apparently cut up lambs ears aren't high enough value so will have to break out the icky stuff. Wonder whether raw liver will do it, he's got that as part of his dinner tonight along with a turkey drumstick.

We've also done some work with the washing machine. Silly bugger seemed to think I wanted him to get in it :yikes: but we seem to have resolved that misunderstanding today. He was happily sticking his head in there and we also did a bit of work on him pulling clothes out although only if they're already hanging out. As he gets the idea we'll move on to him actually taking them out of the machine fully. IF (and it's a big if) he can stop himself from running off with the plastic thing the washing liquid goes in I might actually manage to teach him to unload the washing machine for me. Oh I'll be able to turn into a right lazy cow one day :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Shrap said:


> Might be interesting to go back and read the first post you ever made on this thread, and see the difference?


Lol, in my first post we were working on loose leash walking. We're still working on loose leash walking 9 months later! Although to be fair he's not dislocated any shoulders, broken any fingers or anything like that for months so I guess that's an improvement lol


----------



## Beth17

Spen getting in the washing machine  Now that is a trick I'd love to see


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Spen getting in the washing machine  Now that is a trick I'd love to see


Well if you're prepared to buy us a new washing machine....:lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Ah but you see a wet pillow pales into insignificance compared with my raging sister if you dare let a moth in her caravan, and it's quite difficult watching the dogs and looking out for moths.....


I can understand that completely. I know it's irrational but horses, cows, sheep, dogs, cats even hamsters and mice, all with the risk of bites and risky behaviour I can cope with...........but things that can do no harm like moths, spiders or DADDY-LONG-LEGS    sneaky, evil beggars creeping up on a girl when she aint expecting it rrr:


----------



## Thorne

L/C, your mother sounds a lot like my father, although he won't apologise for anything because he's never wrong  Hope you sort out your hound accommodation!

Moonviolet, love the photos, shame there isn't one of your involuntary tobogganing though.

Sarah, I can't quite imagine feeding chopped lambs ears on a walk! Are they raw or cooked? Sound a bit chewy to me...

Just got back from our walk, we "lost" Scooter! His flashing tag has died so just used his hi-vis collar and jacket - the latter ended up getting caught in brambles and ripped off. Mum and I didn't realise immediately and had a bit of a panic because he'd vanished into the trees. Fortunately he recalled, the already tatty jacket didn't look likely to stay on so we stuck to open fields where we could see him against the frost.

Breeze is actively enjoying pavement walking now her counter-conditioning is sinking in! Not quite there with anything bigger than a van though. Getting her ready to go out is still stressful for her too but she soon relaxes once we've left the house.
She had a scare today, mum was moving some files around and the shelf collapsed  so Breeze had to hide in the kitchen until I gave her a dentastix, on which she forgot about the incident altogether. Labs...


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> L/C - sorry to here about Christmas plans going awry  would your Mum not manage to make an exception, it is Christmas and if you can't take the dogs it looks like you can't go, thats not very Christmassy for anyone.
> 
> *Chazzie - well done you, it must have been so nice seeing your loed ones interacting so nicely and son enjoying it, it will hopefully take some pressure off you as well. What a turnaround, he's a star, you're a star *
> 
> Beth - well done Oscar for last nights playing  and hope you feel betters for todays grumbly tum  nothing for Sam, you are a very naughty boy!!
> 
> Sarah - that must be frustrating, it seems the snow and frost does strange things to dog brains, hopefully Spen will get his back in gear soon.
> 
> Dog trainer - I am sorry I too have no idea  Circle work and anti blind cross drill = clueless - so I googled it - several you tube vids later, still no idea, finally found out that circle work is working on the ground with no obstacles as its often the bits between the apparatus which make a good or bad run rather than the clearing the obstacles themselves, circle work helps you dog concentrate on you not the jumps etc??? right or wrong? oh and it involves circles  Blind cross has something to do with your placement as you lead the dog around the course but I didn't get much further than that.
> 
> Then I actually watched your video, doh, I get the circles but still not sure on blind cross'ness. Although it looks like something unco-ordinated me would completely **** up, lol. I can't even manage click, reward, praise int he right order! That Kuling is one clever 8 mth pup.
> 
> Twiggy -hope the legs ok today.
> 
> We used to let Rory off in the dark on the fields where we lived it was hilarious it sent him extra loopy but you never knew what direction he would come bashing into your legs from till it was too late, we got a flashing collar
> 
> Thorne - both Paddy and Poppy look adorable, heres hoping for nice homes for them for Christmas, must be so hard working with rescues especially at this time of year. Hats off to ya!
> 
> Well done LO - you are getting there! Keep it up!
> 
> Catz - echo what everyone else says daft to run that close, most people would have the sense to move away especially given the snappy yappy rep of small dogs
> 
> Dogless - sounds like the CH's are doing well, if tiring  we used to call Rory concrete head. It must have been filled with the stuff the way he used to smack into things, it was his staffiness I think, tread on a teeny bit of toe though
> 
> Well to me and the Ninja - we actually got some praise last night, from Hubby  He said he was really proud of the way I working with her and we were doing really well!!! I was doing some work with the 'party hat', we alternate between treats in it and chasing them across the floor, but every single time she targets the muzzle beautifully  He had already been impressed with her impulse control earlier. He had lobbed a pringle at her and it bounced off her nose and landed to one side, she looked at it then back at him waiting for the ok! I was like yeah, she's good at that, he was like WOW! Her focus is really improving, such a little bit of extra effort, I was all oh its not working so no point trying.
> 
> *But I would like to know who has replaced my husband :*p, he also attempted some DIY, unfortunately got a basin waste not a sink waste so we are on 'don't put anything in the sink mode' and I nearly turned the washing machine on this morning
> 
> Have a great day everyone!!!


Definately eases the pressure-I sat with a quiet cup of coffee while they were out in the cold . 
And what a lovely comment about being a star GR....thank you very much xx 
As for your husband....perhaps he's been beamed up by Dogless's mothership??? ( Check behind his ear- I believe thats where the aliens put their probes!!) hehehe


----------



## Sarah1983

Thorne said:


> Sarah, I can't quite imagine feeding chopped lambs ears on a walk! Are they raw or cooked? Sound a bit chewy to me...


They were raw. Cut them into bite size pieces with a pair of scissors lol. If I feed them him whole he just swallows them and then throws them back up later so I've been trying to find a use for them. They don't make great treats in his opinion. Think I'll just throw the rest in the bin and stick with cows ears, they're too big to swallow whole.



> Just got back from our walk, we "lost" Scooter! His flashing tag has died so just used his hi-vis collar and jacket - the latter ended up getting caught in brambles and ripped off. Mum and I didn't realise immediately and had a bit of a panic because he'd vanished into the trees. Fortunately he recalled, the already tatty jacket didn't look likely to stay on so we stuck to open fields where we could see him against the frost.
> 
> Breeze is actively enjoying pavement walking now her counter-conditioning is sinking in! Not quite there with anything bigger than a van though. Getting her ready to go out is still stressful for her too but she soon relaxes once we've left the house.
> She had a scare today, mum was moving some files around and the shelf collapsed  so Breeze had to hide in the kitchen until I gave her a dentastix, on which she forgot about the incident altogether. Labs...


Glad Breeze is doing so well, it's not nice to see them frightened of things you can do nothing about.


----------



## GingerRogers

chazzie10 said:


> Definately eases the pressure-I sat with a quiet cup of coffee while they were out in the cold .
> And what a lovely comment about being a star GR....thank you very much xx
> As for your husband....perhaps he's been beamed up by Dogless's mothership??? ( Check behind his ear- I believe thats where the aliens put their probes!!) hehehe


 I'm not going anywhere near his ears, he's a farmer  who knows what I might find growing there. Definitely something going on he actually got the right sized waste and fixed it as soon as he got home. Didn't clear the blocked drain though so he went out and got one of those snake things, I have yet to hear the result...........


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> *I'm not going anywhere near his ears, he's a farmer  who knows what I might find growing there.* Definitely something going on he actually got the right sized waste and fixed it as soon as he got home. Didn't clear the blocked drain though so he went out and got one of those snake things, I have yet to hear the result...........


spuds? turnips?


----------



## kat&molly

Hello everyone. I hope you are all ok, I'm still here , not had a very good few weeks , but I'm feeling better now. 

Theres far too much for me to catch up on- you lot talk too much  So I hope its going well for everyone.

Moll and I started a new training class today, its the same trainer we had for puppy classes but a different venue, and I only found it by default . Who in their right mind starts classes, outside, in the middle of December -in the pouring rain.
We are doing obedience, a bit late but working towards the Bronze for the GCDS,there were only 3 of us , should have been 4 and it was nice easy stuff to do but I was really pleased with Moll- other dogs there was a big difference for her but she stayed really focused on me. A couple of little things I wasn't happy with but we'll see how it goes....

Its nice to be back and a big Thank You to Moonviolet.


----------



## chazzie10

Nice to see you back on K&M (hope you're ok)....you've a lot of reading up to do and it might take quite a few cups of coffee to get through it


----------



## Dogless

k&m - thank goodness you are back, I am sorry that things haven't been good but hope that whatever has occurred has been resolved / is improving.



DogTrainer01 said:


> You should be proud! You and your two boys are amazing.. I love reading your training updates.
> 
> *They are amazing in their own ridgie way...I love them anyway!*
> 
> Oh, sorry I confused everyone. I tend to use this as a diary and all thoughts just spill out without thinking.
> 
> Reread my posts and I don't want to sound like i'm bragging at all.. i'm sorry if anyone has got that idea as that is most definitely not what I was trying to do/say at all. I'll try and not get so carried away if I post again .
> 
> *Nooooo....I don't think you're bragging, I like to read what folk are up to!!*
> 
> Thank you Dogless, feeling much better now and not so spaced out lol!
> 
> Would you like to come and spend a day with us so you can see all the adventures we actually get up too ? They include car chasing, stalking my mum obsessively and not being able to shut off outside of a crate on little collies part
> 
> *That makes me feel marginally better.....at least you have a few every day problems too :devil::devil:.*
> 
> Beth17 - I hope Oscar is feeling better soon x





Beth17 said:


> Spen getting in the washing machine  Now that is a trick I'd love to see


*Me too and so handy after a poo roll or mud wrestle. *



chazzie10 said:


> Definately eases the pressure-I sat with a quiet cup of coffee while they were out in the cold .
> And what a lovely comment about being a star GR....thank you very much xx
> As for your husband....perhaps he's been beamed up by Dogless's mothership??? ( Check behind his ear- I believe thats where the aliens put their probes!!) hehehe


*T'is not my mothership, belongs to Antrim BC .*

A good afternoon, although life got in the way of going to the party tonight, plus the hall is unheated and it's 1c with heavy rain and hill snow forecast for any time now...and I have to drive up over some very high ground to get there. No big deal I guess.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Hello everyone. I hope you are all ok, I'm still here , not had a very good few weeks , but I'm feeling better now.
> 
> Theres far too much for me to catch up on- you lot talk too much  So I hope its going well for everyone.
> 
> Moll and I started a new training class today, its the same trainer we had for puppy classes but a different venue, and I only found it by default . Who in their right mind starts classes, outside, in the middle of December -in the pouring rain.
> We are doing obedience, a bit late but working towards the Bronze for the GCDS,there were only 3 of us , should have been 4 and it was nice easy stuff to do but I was really pleased with Moll- other dogs there was a big difference for her but she stayed really focused on me. A couple of little things I wasn't happy with but we'll see how it goes....
> 
> Its nice to be back and a big Thank You to Moonviolet.


Welcome back - we've all been a bit concerned.


----------



## Sarah1983

Welcome back Kat&Molly, I hope whatever's been going on is resolved now.


----------



## kat&molly

Thank you everyone I'm fine  Have PM'd some of you.


----------



## Werehorse

Hello K&M, nice to see you back... (((hugs))) and *tea&biscuits* for whatever has ailed you. 

Turns out OH is ill too, though he has full on Man-flu and I only have pain every time I breathe in - seemingly the pesky virus has decided to by-pass a head cold for me and head straight for the chest. Lovely. I know you all want to know how this develops so I'll keep you fully informed.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Hello K&M, nice to see you back... (((hugs))) and *tea&biscuits* for whatever has ailed you.
> 
> Turns out OH is ill too, though he has full on Man-flu and I only have pain every time I breathe in - seemingly the pesky virus has decided to by-pass a head cold for me and head straight for the chest. Lovely. I know you all want to know how this develops so I'll keep you fully informed.


Hubby has just recovered from man flu...it was touch and go for a while  . Hope you don't get too poorly Werehorse.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless- my bro-in-law works for Antrim BC so I'll have to have a word with him about their alien abduction selection criteria etc 

Werehorse- a damn good excuse for a hot whiskey( or any other alcoholic substance), if an excuse IS actually needed  Hope you feel better soon 

Lol at all the man-flu comments


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Dogless- my bro-in-law works for Antrim BC so I'll have to have a word with him about their alien abduction selection criteria etc
> 
> Werehorse- a damn good excuse for a hot whiskey( or any other alcoholic substance), if an excuse IS actually needed  Hope you feel better soon


Indeed you will, so far the mothership is only interested in the bins, luckily...and only certain colour bins depending upon the mothership :sosp:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Indeed you will, so far the mothership is only interested in the bins, luckily...and only certain colour bins depending upon the mothership :sosp:.


Could be classed as discrimination really couldnt it lol.
Wonder if the mothership could beam a man back out of it for me hehehe

Ps...no, I havnt been on the sherry trifle lmao


----------



## kat&molly

:lol: at Chazzie's editing, I have missed that humour.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Could be classed as discrimination really couldnt it lol.
> Wonder if the mothership could beam a man back out of it for me hehehe
> 
> Ps...no, I havnt been on the sherry trifle lmao


If you like Stig Of The Dump maybe.......


----------



## chazzie10

what my dry/ slightly insane humour........why thank you :ihih: hehehe


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> If you like Stig Of The Dump maybe.......


Maaaayyyybe....... nothing wrong with a bitta ruff- apparently though that's maybe a bit too rough lmao

(Now, let's see how long it takes one of our friends to mention the silky leash and chain mail again hehehe)


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Maaaayyyybe....... nothing wrong with a bitta ruff- apparently though that's maybe a bit too rough lmao
> 
> (Now, let's see how long it takes one of our friends to mention the silky leash and chain mail again hehehe)


Stop it! I now have visions of Stig of the Dump wearing chain mail underwear being led around by a pink silk leash. It is not a pretty sight!


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Stop it! I now have visions of Stig of the Dump wearing chain mail underwear being led around by a pink silk leash. It is not a pretty sight!


I dont know, dont knock it til ya try it


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Stop it! I now have visions of Stig of the Dump wearing chain mail underwear being led around by a pink silk leash. It is not a pretty sight!


Good Lord......inside your head is a scary place to be  .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless i was thinking the same thing- quite concerned about my own state of mind too so cant comment lol


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Dogless i was thinking the same thing- quite concerned about my own state of mind too so cant comment lol


Think you're beyond hope and help Chazzie :devil::devil:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Think you're beyond hope and help Chazzie :devil::devil:.


You've just confirmed what I've known for quite a while lol 

Well I feel the need for some fresh, cool air so I guess I'll drag chaz out for 10 mins- hopefully he might wake up before we reach the end of the street!

No doubt there'll be 10 pages to catch up on by the time I come back


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Good Lord......inside your head is a scary place to be  .


It is, apparently I'm far too susceptible to images being planted in my head. I used to work with a morbidly obese bloke (genuine medical issue not just greed) and one of our work colleagues used to tell me to imagine him skateboarding down a cobbled street wearing nothing but a red glittery thong. And it would be all I could bloody see for the rest of the day!


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It is, apparently I'm far too susceptible to images being planted in my head. I used to work with a morbidly obese bloke (genuine medical issue not just greed) and one of our work colleagues used to tell me to imagine him skateboarding down a cobbled street wearing nothing but a red glittery thong. And it would be all I could bloody see for the rest of the day!


Now it's all I can see :scared::scared:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Now it's all I can see :scared::scared:.


Well I like to share these things so I don't suffer alone


----------



## moonviolet

tiptoes out..... sorry i didn't mean to disturb anything ... i think i'm in the wrong place :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

I have to get him more focused on me and less focused on other dogs on walks. This means like acting like more of a nutbar than usual. If anyone has some old Benny Hill tapes and a BoomBox it would be appreciated.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I have to get him more focused on me and less focused on other dogs on walks. This means like acting like more of a nutbar than usual. If anyone has some old Benny Hill tapes and a BoomBox it would be appreciated.


Anyone would think this thread was about training .


----------



## chazzie10

not sure what type of training! Mental Agility lol

Well to get us slightly back on track (much as I liked laughing at the last few pages-especially my own jokes lol), Charlie's walk was unexceptional, which is good.
20 minute sedate dander across to beach and back and 2 pees that would do a horse proud 

Geez that wind is bitter tonight :001_unsure:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> not sure what type of training! Mental Agility lol
> 
> Well to get us slightly back on track (much as I liked laughing at the last few pages-especially my own jokes lol), Charlie's walk was unexceptional, which is good.
> 20 minute sedate dander across to beach and back and 2 pees that would do a horse proud
> 
> *Geez that wind is bitter tonight* :001_unsure:


I was just thinking that it had really got up....we'll need armbands tomorrow looking at the forecast .


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Anyone would think this thread was about training .


Didn't it start out that way ? I can't read the whole thing from the beginning every time. It takes 27 hours, 32 minutes and 43 seconds now.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Didn't it start out that way ? I can't read the whole thing from the beginning every time. It takes 27 hours, 32 minutes and 43 seconds now.


It is really - I wasn't being rude....my sense of humour has failed me yet again . A thousand apologies .


----------



## Beth17

Glad to see you back K&M hope you're ok 

Well Sam behaved like an angel at my dads and then he came home :devil:

No I'm being slightly unfair he hasn't been as bad as he could be and luckily Oscar is feeling much better so able to take the pestering. He did manage to jump on me when I was sat on the floor so I banged my head on the radiator so I am now slightly tender :crying:

We have also taken the plunge and put the tree up with only minimal help from him, It has no decorations yet as feel it's slightly safer him getting used to it for a day without lots of lovely tinsel to chew. Decorations will be going on tomorrow whether they stay there is another matter.


----------



## chazzie10

Yep there's a weather warning for NI tomorrow but not sure if it's for the wind or the rain or just being crappy in general! Glad I finally unearthed my welly boots! 

Charlie gets so huffy walking in the rain and yet he loves all other sources of water


----------



## chazzie10

diefenbaker said:


> I have to get him more focused on me and less focused on other dogs on walks. This means like acting like more of a nutbar than usual. If anyone has some old Benny Hill tapes and a BoomBox it would be appreciated.


Sorry no Benny Hill but yeah, I decided weeks ago that it doesnt really matter if I'm acting the fool for the dogs benefit and people see me. They look, then they drive on and forget they've seen us


----------



## Guest

Glad everyones okay. Very tired here. Just put some sheep yoghurt into a kong to freeze for himself.

He bounced on and up and everyone today. Almost knocked over a jogger who threatened to report me. Saw my Uncle who kept on saying "MY FRIEND HAS AN UNRULY DOG AND HE TAKES IT TRAINING CLASSES." 

Do you think he was hinting at something??


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Glad everyones okay. Very tired here. Just put some sheep yoghurt into a kong to freeze for himself.
> 
> He bounced on and up and everyone today. Almost knocked over a jogger who threatened to report me. Saw my Uncle who kept on saying "MY FRIEND HAS AN UNRULY DOG AND HE TAKES IT TRAINING CLASSES."
> 
> Do you think he was hinting at something??


Oh dear Zand.....:devil: :crazy:.


----------



## kat&molly

As most of you have had a 'sick note' explaining my absence from here . I think you should all give me a little progress report on how you're doing-its far too much to catch up with.

I've got the 2 naughty Teckel sisters for grooming today-Lord help me, I must have been evil in a past life.:devil:


Have a good day everyone


----------



## Beth17

Here you go k&m but you'll probably regret asking 

Oscar has now been on his thyroid meds for a couple of months now and I think there is finally a difference in his temperament. He's much more playful on his walks and is instigating play with others as well as having much better stamina. He's cheekier and more like the old Oscar; he has even played tug with Sam the past couple of nights and enjoyed it without getting possessive over his toy.
I'm still trying to work out how to start walking them together without him kicking off at others dogs but it's going in the right direction.

Sam is still Sam  A naughty pain in the ass teenager. His general commands are still good although he does sit for a minute and decide if its worth the effort. He still loves everybody out and about and his LLW is getting there slowly. When up the field he is allowed a lot of freedom and off lead time if there is enough room and his recall is getting pretty good. When playing with his friends he just sticks with them which makes life easier.
I'm still working on getting him to greet more calmly but generally he's a good puppy/teenager.

We put the christmas tree up last night and so far only a few chews of the branches so fingers crossed it survives.

Enjoy the Teckles :ihih:


----------



## kat&molly

Good to hear Oscar's doing well on his Thyroid meds, so many dogs with this problem nowadays.
Sams doing good- at least his teenage problems are just a phase they go through and you get a lovely adult well behaved boy at the end of it, poor ole me is stuck with Little Evie who just gets worse....


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> , poor ole me is stuck with Little Evie who just gets worse....


You could always post her here  

Had a lovely walk in the rain, we saw a fox trotting along a mountain bike track  Tink gave a little buff then sat happily watching as I attempted to get a pic on my phone, i managed to get a couple before they calmly trotted off on their way.Tink was more interested in following their scent back the way they came than chasing them.... she's a special girl :lol: SHe was easily distracted by some games and some giddy cantering.

Terrible phone pics but it was lashing with rain.


----------



## GingerRogers

I love seeing foxes. Never forget one time I was walking Rory round our fields, it was a late summer evening with lovely lazy light, we came to a dip and there were three of the most gorgeous deep russet cubs rolling and playing in the last of the days warmth. Luckily Rory startled, so I was able to grab his collar and just watch them for a few minutes then we turned and left them to it. A few weeks later I was walking in the same field and saw the three again, much bigger and learning how to catch rabbits, one had one in its mouth. Felt very special 

But, is Tink a broken beagle, isn't she meant to follow them??

Kat & Molly - as Beth said, you asked, we have been to the behaviorist a couple of times, I am finally gaining the confidence to deal properly with the ninja and it seems to be paying off. We have had some small but significant results in the last couple of weeks  with avoidance management and rewarding for quiet. Currently working more on her 'watch me' or 'Wass isss' which works better as well as acclimatising her to a muzzle also known as 'Wheres the party hat!!!!!!!!!' after she latched on to another terrier, more for my peace of mind than because I think she is genuinely aggressive.

Hubby seems to have reverted to type again today, panic over, I actually asked him what would you do with her if I wasn't so ready to work through things? He picked her up and cradled her like a baby, and said I would stay indoors and cuddle her


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Hubby seems to have reverted to type again today, panic over, I actually asked him what would you do with her if I wasn't so ready to work through things? He picked her up and cradled her like a baby, and said I would stay indoors and cuddle her


:lol::lol::lol:. Very practical :sosp:.


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- I am going to call your bluff one of these days and send the little bugger over rrr:
Lucky you seeing the foxes, I rarely see them, think I've probably seen 2 in the years we've been here, I suppose because we're rural and they're more wary. And Tink not wanting to chase them.

And Ginge - get you who's sounding much more positive about things.:thumbup: Great news.
My OH would be the same about Evie-I'm sure he thinks she's a doll- I think theres 2 different Evies in this house, the one he 'sees' and the real one :laugh:


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> But, is Tink a broken beagle, isn't she meant to follow them??


follow scents in the direction the animal is going ..... not the way it came from :lol: :lol:


----------



## Guest

Attempted some "standing-while-theres-another-dog-in-the-distance-and-see-how-long-it-takes-for-Zand-to-do-something-other-than-focus-on-it" training today. 

There was a lab at the end of the road (a long road) and it's owner was nattering to someone so we just stood. Zander's ears did not go down nor did he break staring at it. This went on for twenty minutes so I just walked a different way to the field. (He kept turning around and STARING before lying down and staring and I had to drag him.) 

Had lovely time in the wet rainy muddy field. 

Met a lurcher that looks like a longhaired Zander (HE'S GAWJUS and called Spud I think) and I braced myself for a bouncing fit, this other dog gave Zander ONE growl and Zand shot backwards. When I got in at home I was all "MUM ZANDER KNOWS WHAT I GROWL MEANS!!!" 

He proceeded to stare at it as it went down the road though.


----------



## GingerRogers

LO you know that short coated collie comment the other day - collie stare - are you sure you have a lurcher


----------



## Dogless

Good day so far; met our friend as we were walking to one of the fields early this morning, so Kilo and Dizzy had a nice walk together. We'll do a training walk in the dark and pouring rain this afternoon / evening .

The little snapper's training is coming on well and he's learning to settle on his own more (currently lying on the floor chewing a Wubba ) too which is nice. Contemplating a Christmas Fair tomorrow but he's huge and carrying him will be hard work - only 10 miles from me though so no big trip to get there!!

L/O - spud sounds adorable!

mv - I love seeing foxes but have never managed to snap one, well done!! Tink is an odd one; I wish Kilo would run in the opposite direction to wildlife rather than chase .


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> LO you know that short coated collie comment the other day - collie stare - are you sure you have a lurcher


I'VE GOT A PICTURE OF HIS MUM SOMEWHERE!! 

He does stare though. Alot.


----------



## Guest

Zander's mother!!


----------



## Werehorse

I don't think I've seen a fox since I moved out into the middle of nowhere. :lol: I saw more in the city!

Illness has set in - breathing is traumatic and head is swimming. No snot yet though for which I remain grateful. Hugo decided today would be a good day for a traumatic poo experience followed by throwing up of breakfast on the hearth.  I think he's ok - I added half a naturediet tray to their brekky this morning and I just don't think it agreed with him, or the traumatic poo experience just turned his stomach.

So we're all feeling a bit sorry for ourselves today - apart from Oscar who has expressed his displeasure at not getting enough attention by stealing my hat and running round with it wagging like mad. 

I'm having a slight upset because I think we're going to have to get Hugo a "powerful chewers" Kong, and they look even more like sex toys than normal Kongs and this is distressing!

Ginge - what your hubby said made me laugh so much!  At least he luffs her.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> I don't think I've seen a fox since I moved out into the middle of nowhere. :lol: I saw more in the city!
> 
> Illness has set in - breathing is traumatic and head is swimming. No snot yet though for which I remain grateful. Hugo decided today would be a good day for a traumatic poo experience followed by throwing up of breakfast on the hearth.  I think he's ok - I added half a naturediet tray to their brekky this morning and I just don't think it agreed with him, or the traumatic poo experience just turned his stomach.
> 
> So we're all feeling a bit sorry for ourselves today - apart from Oscar who has expressed his displeasure at not getting enough attention by stealing my hat and running round with it wagging like mad.
> 
> *I'm having a slight upset because I think we're going to have to get Hugo a "powerful chewers" Kong, and they look even more like sex toys than normal Kongs and this is distressing!
> 
> Ginge - what your hubby said made me laugh so much!  At least he luffs her. *


You think kongs look like sex toys 

Yes he does luff her, I suspect I am going to turn into 'nasty mummy who tells me what to do' while he is 'nice daddy who plays with me', yet again


----------



## Twiggy

This is a collie stare - I had got her toy in my hand though....LOL


----------



## Beth17

Zand's mum is very pretty :001_tt1:

Werehorse hope you feel better soon it's not nice being ill and having doggies to look after 
I will not look at their kongs the same way again.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> This is a collie stare - I had got her toy in my hand though....LOL


Okay, I've decided Spencer is a collie in a labrador suit. That is exactly how he looks when I have a toy.

Werehorse...Kongs look like sex toys?  I'm not sure I'll ever be able to talk about stuffed Kongs in polite company again!


----------



## GingerRogers

Well we just had an exciting walk in a moonviolet kind of way and discovered that my dogs nose does work 

It is safe to say that is its very wet and very windy on the east coast tonight :yesnod:

We parked at the harbour and saw lots of people with big torches and fluorescent jackets, I managed to open the car door agaisnt the gale that was blowing and we set off practically at a run up the dunes  with the very strong wind behind us pondering what was going on. I decided it must be something to do with a lifeboat shout, not sure what, then realised there must be a missing person, either an old sick person with a broken leg or an escaped murderer 

We got to the point we normally turn back, usually we come back along the beach but a quick peek over the dune grass showed a scene out of some kind of wet desert storm so we ducked back into the dunes, the wind has picked up and the rain is even heavier, now we are facing it there is no respite. The ninja keeps pulling me into a particular patch of grass, I am muttering to myself at this point, this like '**** this for a game of soldiers' 'bugger, whose bright idea was this' etc 'come on ningey' this way when I see *the body* :yikes: and :yikes: I am not sure what to do so I stand there for a few seconds going :001_unsure: eventually the body speaks, its says they are doing search and rescue exercise, (TONIGHT!!!!) I walk off saying 'I won't tell then', all uncertain and heart pounding then I realise I recognised the voice and that perhaps she might prefer me to tell. We stumble on back to the car, the ninja has her tail down and her ears back, the rain drops are striking my face like needles, to find the searchers are only a few yards on from where they started its going to take them at least an hour at that rate to get to the poor lady 

ETA on the plus side Ginge didn't bite or bark at 'the body' and we didn't see anyone else out tonight


----------



## moonviolet

W/H I dont' knwo what you mean is only one of these is a Kong? :lol: :lol:

maybe the other is for ermmmm drying rubber gloves :sneaky2: :lol:


----------



## catz4m8z

Well done ninja, for finding the lady!! (you should of told her to count to a hundred and then you'd go and hide!!LOL:lol.
I cant believe people dont see more foxes in the countryside. We have lots here, sometimes they just wander around by the houses and sometimes they run like crazy coz the midget army is in hot pursuit!

We've had a duvet day today. Adam and Hannah were both sick in the night (thanks for throwing up on me Hannah!:sosp and seeing as how its been raining and windy I let them just snooze. 
Alfie has done some sits for me and chased me round the garden a few times though!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Well we just had an exciting walk in a moonviolet kind of way and discovered that my dogs nose does work
> 
> It is safe to say that is its very wet and very windy on the east coast tonight :yesnod:
> 
> We parked at the harbour and saw lots of people with big torches and fluorescent jackets, I managed to open the car door agaisnt the gale that was blowing and we set off practically at a run up the dunes  with the very strong wind behind us pondering what was going on. I decided it must be something to do with a lifeboat shout, not sure what, then realised there must be a missing person, either an old sick person with a broken leg or an escaped murderer
> 
> We got to the point we normally turn back, usually we come back along the beach but a quick peek over the dune grass showed a scene out of some kind of wet desert storm so we ducked back into the dunes, the wind has picked up and the rain is even heavier, now we are facing it there is no respite. The ninja keeps pulling me into a particular patch of grass, I am muttering to myself at this point, this like '**** this for a game of soldiers' 'bugger, whose bright idea was this' etc 'come on ningey' this way when I see *the body* :yikes: and :yikes: I am not sure what to do so I stand there for a few seconds going :001_unsure: eventually the body speaks, its says they are doing search and rescue exercise, (TONIGHT!!!!) I walk off saying 'I won't tell then', all uncertain and heart pounding then I realise I recognised the voice and that perhaps she might prefer me to tell. We stumble on back to the car, the ninja has her tail down and her ears back, the rain drops are striking my face like needles, to find the searchers are only a few yards on from where they started its going to take them at least an hour at that rate to get to the poor lady
> 
> ETA on the plus side Ginge didn't bite or bark at 'the body' and we didn't see anyone else out tonight


Wow that was an exciting walk. I'd have wet myself if I'd found a body and if the body spoke I'd have probably fainted with fright.

I have a friend whose collies are trained lowland search and rescue dogs.
She's only a slip of a thing and very often gets calls in the middle of the night to go off on her own looking for missing people/suicide victims.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Wow that was an exciting walk. *I'd have wet myself if I'd found a body *and if the body spoke I'd have probably fainted with fright.
> 
> I have a friend whose collies are trained lowland search and rescue dogs.
> She's only a slip of a thing and very often gets calls in the middle of the night to go off on her own looking for missing people/suicide victims.


I think I nearly did , only cos my imagination had been running as wild as the weather , I was actually relieved when it spoke and realised I didn't have to DO anything.

It's a traumatic thing to do, I know a young lad who was really good on the lifeboat till a boy went missing a few years ago, he found him and had to fish his body out two weeks later, he couldn't face it again .


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: I have now corrupted your minds re. Kongs. That does make me laugh. Am I the only one who feels slightly uncomfortable in the chew toy section of the pet shop then? Must be the catholic upbringing doing funny things to my mind. 

Ginge -  How scary! But perhaps little Ginge has missed her calling as a SAR dog! 

Mv - I actually don't know what the Not-A-Kong item is and am not sure I want to. :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Oh GR that was a bit scary but well done little ginge . At least my "bodies" were dummies. Defintiely an excuse for a good friday night medicinal tipple or two.

Twiggy what a brave lady your friend is.

Catz I used to see foxes in London all the time, country ones are much more wary of humans.

DOgless I actually caught Tink lip licking at a squirrel the other day. 



Werehorse said:


> Mv - I actually don't know what the Not-A-Kong item is and am not sure I want to. :lol:


I'm very sure you don't want to know :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Well done Ninja on your detection skills .



moonviolet said:


> DOgless I actually caught Tink lip licking at a squirrel the other day.


Does she want to come and help the BCH with his prey drive? .

I am currently working on trying to hang on to the last shreds of my sanity until Rudi can be walked :crazy::crazy:.

Kilo and I didn't really have a training walk this evening; we just walked as it was absolutely throwing it down - not the weather for hanging about onlead. He was very, very good for me though .


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> I don't think I've seen a fox since I moved out into the middle of nowhere. :lol: I saw more in the city!
> 
> Illness has set in - breathing is traumatic and head is swimming. No snot yet though for which I remain grateful. Hugo decided today would be a good day for a traumatic poo experience followed by throwing up of breakfast on the hearth.  I think he's ok - I added half a naturediet tray to their brekky this morning and I just don't think it agreed with him, or the traumatic poo experience just turned his stomach.
> 
> So we're all feeling a bit sorry for ourselves today - apart from Oscar who has expressed his displeasure at not getting enough attention by stealing my hat and running round with it wagging like mad.
> 
> *I'm having a slight upset because I think we're going to have to get Hugo a "powerful chewers" Kong, and they look even more like sex toys than normal Kongs and this is distressing!*
> 
> Ginge - what your hubby said made me laugh so much!  At least he luffs her.


I had to get the biggest, blackest Kong for Charlie...the 'virtually indestructible for extreme chewers' one which said dog has managed to nibble and grate bits off top and bottom! Top hole now resembles a bum and is quite disturbing 
As you say, it does look like something kinky and I do admit to feeling slightly guilty/ embarassed looking at them in the pet shop lol...ended up ordering it online cos waaaay cheaper anyway


----------



## Werehorse

chazzie10 said:


> I had to get the biggest, blackest Kong for Charlie...the 'virtually indestructible for extreme chewers' one which said dog has managed to nibble and grate bits off top and bottom! Top hole now resembles a bum and is quite disturbing
> As you say, it does look like something kinky and I do admit to feeling slightly guilty/ embarassed looking at them in the pet shop lol...ended up ordering it online cos waaaay cheaper anyway


Thank goodness it isn't just me!


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Attempted some "standing-while-theres-another-dog-in-the-distance-and-see-how-long-it-takes-for-Zand-to-do-something-other-than-focus-on-it" training today.
> 
> There was a lab at the end of the road (a long road) and it's owner was nattering to someone so we just stood. Zander's ears did not go down nor did he break staring at it. This went on for twenty minutes so I just walked a different way to the field. (He kept turning around and STARING before lying down and staring and I had to drag him.)
> :


That's when I wave the bits of sausage under Charlie's nose and he soon turns round-he IS a bin on legs


----------



## GingerRogers

chazzie10 said:


> I had to get the biggest, blackest Kong for Charlie...the 'virtually indestructible for extreme chewers' one which said dog has managed to nibble and grate bits off top and bottom! Top hole now resembles a bum and is quite disturbing
> As you say, it does look like something kinky and I do admit to feeling slightly guilty/ embarassed looking at them in the pet shop lol...ended up ordering it online cos waaaay cheaper anyway


Now I am going to have to ask hubby (he has a far better knowledge of sex toys than me :aureola what on earth you two think they look like especially if WH doesn't know what MV's picture is


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Now I am going to have to ask hubby (he has a far better knowledge of sex toys than me :aureola what on earth you two think they look like especially if WH doesn't know what MV's picture is


I dont know, they just look.....wrong 
Have to admit I'm not entirely sure what the other thing in the pic was either (or why it was compared to a beer bottle lol)
I'm very good at making bottles of beer disappear on a Saturday night but I'm quite certain I'm reading from a different page than MV on THAT one   hehehe here we go, conversations in the gutter tonight again lmao


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: I don't know if they look like a _specific variety_ of sex toy!  Just the shiney rubber and the lumpy shape is enough to get my poor innocent mind whirrrrrring.


----------



## moonviolet

Singing:Singing:Singing: :lol: :blush:


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Singing:Singing:Singing: :lol: :blush:


your innocent whistling doesnt fool us for a minute hehehe

I didnt realise when I joined this forum to learn about dog training that I would be learning much, much more


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> :lol: I don't know if they look like a _specific variety_ of sex toy!  Just the shiney rubber and the lumpy shape is enough to get my poor innocent mind whirrrrrring.


I dont know....I have been heard calling charlie's Kong 'Linford Christy' lmao


----------



## catz4m8z

chazzie10 said:


> Have to admit I'm not entirely sure what the other thing in the pic was either


My first thought was a giant's diaphragm!



Dogless said:


> I am currently working on trying to hang on to the last shreds of my sanity until Rudi can be walked :crazy::crazy:.


I get that!! Ratpuppy is driving me abit nuts and he wont be able to go for a walk this year! All my others were sweet, cuddly little things and Alf is just a bundle of bouncy, fighty, jumpy, madness! Im more used to getting licked to death by little puppy tongues....not having my nose, ears and ankles bitten by teeny puppy teeth!!LOL


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I think I nearly did , only cos my imagination had been running as wild as the weather , I was actually relieved when it spoke and realised I didn't have to DO anything.
> 
> It's a traumatic thing to do, I know a young lad who was really good on the lifeboat till a boy went missing a few years ago, he found him and had to fish his body out two weeks later, he couldn't face it again .


My friend was the one who actually found Dr Kelly's body.

She regularly finds missing people floating in the Thames.


----------



## Dogless

catz4m8z said:


> I get that!! Ratpuppy is driving me abit nuts and he wont be able to go for a walk this year! All my others were sweet, cuddly little things and Alf is just a bundle of bouncy, fighty, jumpy, madness! Im more used to getting licked to death by little puppy tongues....not having my nose, ears and ankles bitten by teeny puppy teeth!!LOL


Kilo was the same...be grateful that Ratpuppy can't get his jaws around your whole ankle or forearm. It hurts :sosp:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done Ninja on your detection skills .
> 
> Does she want to come and help the BCH with his prey drive? .
> 
> I am currently working on trying to hang on to the last shreds of my sanity until Rudi can be walked :crazy::crazy:.
> 
> Kilo and I didn't really have a training walk this evening; we just walked as it was absolutely throwing it down - not the weather for hanging about onlead. He was very, very good for me though .


Hubby took mine for their late afternoon walk but I wouldn't let Quiver go, as it was throwing it down here and very windy and cold.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol: I don't know if they look like a _specific variety_ of sex toy!  Just the shiney rubber and the lumpy shape is enough to get my poor innocent mind whirrrrrring.


Innocent mind - I'd say you have a very vivid imagination....!!


----------



## Beth17

We are going to end up with all sorts of unsavoury characters joining the thread at this rate. Kong sex toys, silky leashes whatever next :ihih:

Well done to the ninja you have found your calling  I definitely couldn't do that though I'm such a wuss.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> I dont know....I have been heard calling charlie's Kong 'Linford Christy' lmao


Oh don't - I'm doubled up laughing now....:devil:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Kilo was the same...be grateful that Ratpuppy can't get his jaws around your whole ankle or forearm. It hurts :sosp:.


We know these things - don't we?...


----------



## chazzie10

oh this is cheering me up and making me feel so much better- been feeling so sick with a bug or something and lying on the settee since I got home from work so it's nice to have a good belly laugh 
Needless to say I havnt been 'working on' anything much today except the 'open the door charlie' command when im carrying my coffee into the living room.
See, now THAT is a useful trick


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> We are going to end up with all sorts of unsavoury characters joining the thread at this rate. Kong sex toys, silky leashes whatever next :ihih:
> 
> Well done to the ninja you have found your calling  I definitely couldn't do that though I'm such a wuss.


How about this (the sort of thing we get up to at week-end dog shows):










And yes both me and my sister were in the backing group....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> How about this (the sort of thing we get up to at week-end dog shows):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And yes both me and my sister were in the backing group....LOL


Phew ... thanks for taking the focus... I was almost feeling like i should try to explain my awareness of all things black and rubbery :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Phew ... thanks for taking the focus... I was almost feeling like i should try to explain my awareness of all things black and rubbery :lol:


Best not......least said, soonest mended n all that


----------



## Werehorse

chazzie10 said:


> Best not......least said, soonest mended n all that


Shhhh, I'm actually quite curious. :lol: It might explain the chain mail gloves as well...


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Shhhh, I'm actually quite curious. :lol: It might explain the chain mail gloves as well...


I could say I run surrey's leading " discpilinary establishment" :lol: :lol: :lol: The truth is rather more mundane, when i was a student I had a friend who worked in a sex shop, used to meet them from work sometimes and would look around while waiting for them.


----------



## Guest

What HAVE I returned to!?!??!  

Apparently the donkey has been moping since I went to work, bless him.


----------



## moonviolet

Back on topic.

Fab walk in the dark this evening, Met up with Monty and his owner lovely walk great chat then we bumped into a couple we know with their 2 springers and finished the walk altogether and some how ended up discussing they things that are in our lofts. Tink had a lovely time pretending to be a spaniel.


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: yes, back on topic.

I forgot to say that the step-dogs are here for the evening. They've all been amazingly well-behaved this time!  Hugo has been an angel - he even got the lurcher girl (grumpy Aunty M) play bowing at him.  She likes him because he's a bit pointy-ish. I was amused to note that Oscar can walk straight underneath Aunty M without ducking. :lol: But generally it has all been very calm and I took both boys out for last wees together and they hardly pulled at all!


----------



## Werehorse

Argh! Had to witness the lab across the road run across the road in front of a car (which had to emergency stop) to come bouncing up to me and Hugo this morning.  I was so close to giving the chap a right mouthful but I was actually too shocked and just stood there swearing gently and not looking at him as he collected his dog. Him and his wife exchanged "what was all that about" looks!  Me and the lady in the car exchanged horrified looks!

This was all in front of their kids, who I am pretty certain will one day have to witness their beloved pet being mangled under the wheels of a tractor.  Which will be much worse than hearing a few swearies from me.

How thick can people be? How hard is it to put a lead on?


----------



## Dogless

I witness similar here all too often. I have no idea what goes on with some people .


----------



## catz4m8z

Dogless said:


> Kilo was the same...be grateful that Ratpuppy can't get his jaws around your whole ankle or forearm. It hurts :sosp:.


true.....Im not getting many bruises but he is very good at graabing a tiny amount of skin and bting down hard.....its like being attacked by a furry stapler!!



chazzie10 said:


> oh this is cheering me up and making me feel so much better- been feeling so sick with a bug or something and lying on the settee


hope you feel better soon. I can totally sympathise. Spent most of the night in the loo and the rest being kept awake by foxes (which made the dogs bark).



Werehorse said:


> Argh! Had to witness the lab across the road run across the road in front of a car (which had to emergency stop) to come bouncing up to me and Hugo this morning.


God, I think I would have had heart failure too!

I think we might be having another duvet day today! Yesterday the dogs had a gippy tum and today I do!! Just going to be taking Alfie out to the garden a few times to practice his sits and recalls. oh, but he did poop in the garden for the first time!! Ive not been making him, just praising if he goes outside but I think he is learning from the other 3 (pads are ok to use in bad weather but they all prefer to go outside or on walks).


----------



## Dogless

All I can say is thank goodness Rudi has finally fallen asleep...I now possess stylishly ventilated jeans on the legs and an on trend ripped back pocket :crazy::crazy:.

In all fairness we have had a fabulous day; both of Kilo's walks went well, he focussed really well, worked hard for me, walked nicely and played nicely too. My best boy .

Rudi did very well with his training sessions *and hubby said how much he'd come on and that I was doing a great job  *. Mind you, he has gone on a do that I really, really wanted to go to with him but obviously didn't want to leave Rudi that long. I understand why he's gone but it's the first day of his leave today and I won't see him until tomorrow afternoon as he's sleeping at work and will be baggage tomorrow - penance for going out :ihih::ihih:.

Put them together and.....concrete head mayhem ensued :yikes::yikes:. I have been doing lots of :nono::nono::nono: and joint training sessions to bring about calm. Easy with Kilo; not so much with LCH...I am bloodied and battered and can't wait until we can do our little walks - Kilo was exactly the same at this stage.



catz4m8z said:


> true.....Im not getting many bruises but he is very good at graabing a tiny amount of skin and bting down hard.....its like being attacked by a furry stapler!!


I know the feeling - had to wash blood out of my socks and jeans, cut legs, cut arms, cut hands, even a cut ear and face the first week :w00t::w00t:. Thank goodness he's getting better...unless all over tired and hyped up and he's just a whirling dervish with snapping jaws and gnashing teeth. Hence the restyled jeans this evening :incazzato::incazzato:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless- OMG  thank goodness Charlie wasnt very bitey!! Dont think I would have coped well (or had a big enough stash of clothes to get through it lol)
He IS very cute with it though


----------



## Guest

Good grief you must have the patience and pain tolerance of a saint!

Overstimulated Hyper Dog

^ Been looking at this for idea's on the OOOOOOH DOGS thing. Actually gives me advice on what to do physically rather than just "distract him from stimulant".

Was given a number for a local trainer, phoned up and she was immediatley "Now when it comes to owning a young dog you need to be leader of the pack". 
The conversation did not last long!

Oh and the Donkey's two girlfirends (i.e the only two dogs that owners aren't bothered about me using them as stooges) are MOVING. :cryin:

Tried the mekuti as it SHOULD be used, I have one question for dogless, because Zander swaps sides alot (this is due to me liking to have him on the inside of me on the pavement ) how would I go about clipping the lead?

And Werehorse I would have had a bloomin heart attack too!!

Catz, we have had SEVERAL duvet days recently.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Dogless- OMG  thank goodness Charlie wasnt very bitey!! Dont think I would have coped well (or had a big enough stash of clothes to get through it lol)
> He IS very cute with it though


Kilo was the same; horrendously bitey!! I am sticking with some of the same clothes that Kilo put holes in for Rudi and not wearing anything that I really like or cost a lot!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Good grief you must have the patience and pain tolerance of a saint!
> 
> Overstimulated Hyper Dog
> 
> ^ Been looking at this for idea's on the OOOOOOH DOGS thing. Actually gives me advice on what to do physically rather than just "distract him from stimulant".
> 
> Was given a number for a local trainer, phoned up and she was immediatley "Now when it comes to owning a young dog you need to be leader of the pack".
> The conversation did not last long!
> 
> Oh and the Donkey's two girlfirends (i.e the only two dogs that owners aren't bothered about me using them as stooges) are MOVING. :cryin:
> 
> Tried the mekuti as it SHOULD be used, I have one question for dogless, because Zander swaps sides alot (this is due to me liking to have him on the inside of me on the pavement ) how would I go about clipping the lead?
> 
> And Werehorse I would have had a bloomin heart attack too!!
> 
> Catz, we have had SEVERAL duvet days recently.


You'd have to move the lead across to the relevant side ring each time he swapped. I only run with Kilo on one side of me and don't use the harness for anything else so haven't done it myself - just what I assume you'd need to do.

Off to read that link.

Hubby says I have a lot of patience...and I know that I have good pain tolerance; amongst many stupid things I've done is walk around with a broken foot for a while (forced it into a boot with tears streaming every morning but once in and laced tight it was OK ish ). Paying for stunts like that now I'm getting older though .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> *You'd have to move the lead across to the relevant side ring each time he swapped. I only run with Kilo on one side of me and don't use the harness for anything else so haven't done it myself - just what I assume you'd need to do.*
> 
> Off to read that link.
> 
> Hubby says I have a lot of patience...and I know that I have good pain tolerance; amongst many stupid things I've done is walk around with a broken foot for a while (forced it into a boot with tears streaming every morning but once in and laced tight it was OK ish ). Paying for stunts like that now I'm getting older though .


Hmmm, do you walk with Kilo only on one side of you? I know most owners have them on their left all the time! 
(Otheriwse swapping the lead all the time could be time consuming!)


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Kilo was the same; horrendously bitey!! I am sticking with some of the same clothes that Kilo put holes in for Rudi and not wearing anything that I really like or cost a lot!!


I could do that if I stayed the same weight for any length of time but in the last couple of years I've lost a couple of stone then put it all back on again!
Oh well, it's nearly a new year and time to try again 

A BROKEN FOOT IN A BOOT WITHOUT GETTING IT TREATED!!
Oooooouuuch!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Hmmm, do you walk with Kilo only on one side of you? I know most owners have them on their left all the time!
> (Otheriwse swapping the lead all the time could be time consuming!)


No, I swap sides according to traffic when we are walking but I just run with him on one side of me - all my routes when pavements are involved are out and back or circular, so I always cross the road on the way back . I don't walk him in the harness - just run. I don't use it 'properly', I chose it for the ability to get a good fit, the fact it doesn't cover much body surface area, it allows full movement and is soft. I usually just have him on the rear ring when running but do have the lead through the chest ring and onto a side ring when we are on a busier road for better control should he lunge at a cat or something. He naturally runs to heel so don't use it for pulling...if I ran everywhere he'd be perfectly at heel all the time .


----------



## Sarah1983

Unfortunately Kevin seems to have moved back in here  All the same issues I was having a few months ago have returned and I'm back to carrying raw tripe around and freezing my fingers off with a snow coated long line. And making use of the crate at meal times as apparently the rule about not sticking your nose in my food has been forgotten. Door manners have also disappeared and I'm back to opening the door very slowly and closing it at the first sign he's thinking of charging through it. Kevin arrived with the snow, I'm hoping he's not gonna stay the whole winter :001_unsure:


----------



## Thorne

Catz, can't say I envy your stapler-puppy! 

Thanks for the interesting link L/O, Scooter still has his moments so could be useful reading.


Sarah1983 said:


> Unfortunately Kevin seems to have moved back in here  All the same issues I was having a few months ago have returned and I'm back to carrying raw tripe around and freezing my fingers off with a snow coated long line. And making use of the crate at meal times as *apparently the rule about not sticking your nose in my food has been forgotten*. Door manners have also disappeared and I'm back to opening the door very slowly and closing it at the first sign he's thinking of charging through it. Kevin arrived with the snow, I'm hoping he's not gonna stay the whole winter :001_unsure:


Scooter has started doing this again lately! No-one else seems to notice the giant Labrador head sneaking towards their dinner or reaching up to see whats being prepared in the kitchen so it feels like I have to be in charge of stopping him. Oh well, at least he's not snatching food at the moment/yet.

Had a good evening here, a total of 12 people and 2 bemused Labs in our smallish house but the dogs behaved admirably! Put them outside until everyone arrived and they stayed in their beds until after dinner. No worried looks, grumbles or escaping like we might've seen a couple of years ago, Scooter made a new (human) friend and Breeze settled for a snooze in the middle of it all! They had the option to sneak off to bed but seemed to enjoy the company.
They even tolerated tinsel around their collars  Good dogs!

Average dusky walk with Breeze (never see anyone around that time and she's normally good), had a lovely long walk with Scooter and took photos that I'll try to upload tomorrow. We don't often take that route so had a couple of "stop calling me I have to sniff this" moments - remedied by walking away from him, cue thundering paws to catch up! Was hoping we'd meet a dog or two but only saw a horse and a handful of people, which he was interested in but left alone.

Little sister has a friend sleeping over which has completely flummoxed Breeze, she thought everyone had gone home!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Unfortunately Kevin seems to have moved back in here  All the same issues I was having a few months ago have returned and I'm back to carrying raw tripe around and freezing my fingers off with a snow coated long line. And making use of the crate at meal times as apparently the rule about not sticking your nose in my food has been forgotten. Door manners have also disappeared and I'm back to opening the door very slowly and closing it at the first sign he's thinking of charging through it. Kevin arrived with the snow, I'm hoping he's not gonna stay the whole winter :001_unsure:


Yes there's certainly something about snow that sends them into hypher mode...!!


----------



## Beth17

Sarah sorry to hear Kevin is back 

Thorne sounds like your two did very well.

Oh dear Rudi not long until you can have lots of lovely walk to tire you out.  Sam still does the bitey thing when he gets tired or hyper. Trouble is he seems to like to bite delicate parts :blink:

Lovely walks with the boys yesterday although didn't really see anyone. Going to have a boring street walk this morning and practice walking nicely but as it's a nice day this afternoon I am going to take them to the beach as we've not been for ages.
I may even remember to take my camera


----------



## Twiggy

I trained Holly yesterday afternoon and she didn't bite me once, even using the squeaky tennis balls.

Now I'm depressed as she obviously wasn't animated enough (or I wasn't sufficiently exciting)....


----------



## Dogless

So far the CH's have been great today. Outweighing everything else is something that the BCH has just done (or not), bearing in mind how totally food obsessed he is.

I gave them a frozen Kong each a while ago in a quest for some less mental activities and when Kilo had finished his he went over to investigate Rudi's (half finished). I told him to leave it and.....he took himself off to lie down and sleep :w00t::w00t:. Definitely my best boy; thought it would be a bit of a trial if I'm honest!!


----------



## Werehorse

Well done Kilo! 

This bliddy cold is sitting on my chest like an angry green hippo.  Really bored of it now. Managed a loop of the woods with all the boys but am knackered now. Doggies very good, sitting at side of the path for bikes, runners etc. Oscar has cottoned on that we sit and wait until the whatever has gone past and doesn't always wait for his release cue.  Need to sure that up, Hugo is a collie-bot and waits for cues, Oscar thinks for himself too much. :lol:

Hugo propelled himself into the bad books with the OH though - with a flying leap and a unfortunately placed pointy paw just below waist height.  Quite unprecidented for a flying leap to actually make contact other than tongue on face so I think it was an unfortunate one-off.

:lol: They were good though, honest!


----------



## Beth17

Well done Kilo I don't think you could do any better 

Werehorse nothing worse than a cold that sits on the chest  
Your poor OH :crying:

Had a lovely street walk with the boys earlier they both behaved really well and then took them to the beach with my mum although no photos cause it kept peeing it down.
It was pretty good other than poor Oscar getting stressed by a couple of other dogs. They were both playing good as gold with the frisbee and although a couple of dogs came charging over he was more interested in chasing his toy :thumbup1:
The only real bad bit was near the end we were away from everyone the boys were playing when an american bulldog came straight over from miles away with the owner strolling along behind. Sam said hello to it and was trying to play as was it and mum kept Oscar out the way whilst the owner was walking over but then it went over to Oscar and got in his face although Oscar was doing well and tolerating it but then it went too far and tried to push between him and my mum and sniff his bum and go near his toy so Oscar did kick off.

Luckily the other owner at this point grabbed his dog and pulled him away and I said 'sorry but he can be a bit iffy which is why we were all the way over here'. He wasn't bothered that Oscar had kicked off and just said that once his sees a dog he's off to say hello and doesn't come back when called.  I had to bite my tongue and swallow a retort about using a lead.

We then went home as Oscar was wound up and started getting annoyed with Sam trying to play. I'm not too upset with Oscar though as I think he did really well considering.

Sorry for the long post


----------



## Thorne

-Good boy Kilo!

-Werehorse sounds like you had a successful walk but I'm sure your OH wouldn't necessarily agree and can't say I blame him 

-Well done to Oscar for restraining himself given the circumstances.

I feel like a prize muppet today, just got back from a walk with Breeze despite deciding that winter sundays are walk free for her. She'd been so lazy the rest of the day I thought she could do with it! Took her to her favourite field for a run but had lots of shivers and pants on the way  was happy when she got there but the rest of the walk was too noisy for comfort and we ran the length of a field when I spotted a very close birdscarer! Think she quite liked that, ran to heel bless her and we got another field ahead before it went off. 
She was relaxed along the road home and looking to me for clicks but otherwise it felt like a bit of a wasted trip.

Mum walked Scooter on her own, apparently he was well-behaved and did a lovely quick recall from another dog in the distance 

The Christmas tree finally went up yesterday so I ought to get a photo of them with it!


----------



## Guest

Well done Kilo and Oscar and Breeze/Scooter! 


Went down the field this morning and met a retriever and its owner. Asked the owner if our dogs could play together (his goldie was offlead) he said no 
because

"I don't want her to get dirty." While stood in a muddy field. 

Tried the sitting thing but all our "triggers" kept fast pacing towards us. Ah well.


----------



## Beth17

L/O we have a lady like that where we walk who shows her goldies and hates them getting muddy. Fair enough but one of hers always comes charging over to play even if you're miles away 

Thorne sounds like Breeze coped fairly well which is good


----------



## Thorne

Beth17 said:


> Thorne sounds like Breeze coped fairly well which is good


We had some "hedge hugging" which she does when she's worried and lots of lip-licking but previously she'd have bolted on hearing the bird scarer, so she's a little better than she used to be! Have to do everything in baby steps with her 

Why oh why would someone go to a muddy field then worry about mud? Daft!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> So far the CH's have been great today. Outweighing everything else is something that the BCH has just done (or not), bearing in mind how totally food obsessed he is.
> 
> I gave them a frozen Kong each a while ago in a quest for some less mental activities and when Kilo had finished his he went over to investigate Rudi's (half finished). I told him to leave it and.....he took himself off to lie down and sleep :w00t::w00t:. Definitely my best boy; thought it would be a bit of a trial if I'm honest!!


A big well done Kilo.

You may have been surprised but I'm not. You've put a lot of hard work into Kilo and today was just one example of how it's paying off.

On the same tack, when I dismantled Holly's cage a couple of weeks ago I also started feeding her with the others in the kitchen. They were all absolutely fine and remained at their own bowls until Quiver (who's always the last) had finished hers.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Well done Kilo!
> 
> This bliddy cold is sitting on my chest like an angry green hippo.  Really bored of it now. Managed a loop of the woods with all the boys but am knackered now. Doggies very good, sitting at side of the path for bikes, runners etc. Oscar has cottoned on that we sit and wait until the whatever has gone past and doesn't always wait for his release cue.  Need to sure that up, Hugo is a collie-bot and waits for cues, Oscar thinks for himself too much. :lol:
> 
> Sorry you're still feeling rough. I always get a bronchial cough following a cold so I sympathise.
> 
> Mmm don't know so much about Hugo being a collie-bot and waiting for cues. I've always put mine in the down on relatively narrow tracks, etc. to let walkers/dog walkers pass and have had quite a few embarrassing moments. Very often people would stop to chat and comment on how well behaved they were, only for one of them (particularly the brown bombshell Fidget), to take the attitude "well they've gone by now so I'm off".


----------



## chazzie10

I've been training Charlie to sit to let joggers/ cyclists or walkers pass- seems to work with other dogs so thought using it on other occassions would reinforce it and seems to be working....mostly 
Today we were working on teaching 'turn around' but he just cant get it. I use a treat in my hand and try to get him to follow it round in a circle but so far he just reverses or snatches and snaps for the treat...ouch :nonod:
He just gets so over excited and focused on the treat and frustrated that he cant work out how to get it.
Any ideas people?


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> I've been training Charlie to sit to let joggers/ cyclists or walkers pass- seems to work with other dogs so thought using it on other occassions would reinforce it and seems to be working....mostly
> Today we were working on teaching 'turn around' but he just cant get it. I use a treat in my hand and try to get him to follow it round in a circle but so far he just reverses or snatches and snaps for the treat...ouch :nonod:
> He just gets so over excited and focused on the treat and frustrated that he cant work out how to get it.
> Any ideas people?


Have you trained " touch" nose to your hand? so you can guide with an empty hand rather than lure with a treat?


----------



## moonviolet

We have had a fab weekend, first on saturday, a walk in a local country park on a sunny day, something w'ed avoided historically as being a bit busy for Tink. She had a fab time, greeting lots of new of all sizes dogs never more than a little unsure for a moment  we climbed rather small hill to the highest point in the park, apparently Tink liked the idea of of being the highest and jumped up so i never did manage to read the information and dedication on this :lol:









Not as impressive as W/H pics :lol:
This was without encouragement and please dont' tell her, but our worktop is about the same height!

THis mornings walk we parked near a popular area but headed off for an antisocial walk up and down the near vertical slopes. We had a lovely time running about, stopping to do some training exercises and did soem giddy cantering and log leaping etc etc then sat in the sun for a few minutes to consider the big questions of the universe :001_tongue:

As we returned to the car on the grasy area there was a woman and a preteen girl doing some training with their 2 dogs, a yellow lab and a GSD, TInk tensed a little, we could have scuttled to the car, but it would have been a missed opportunity. I called over to them and asked if they minded us watching for a few mins.
I sat with TInk and we watched as they went through their basics, and the lady explained they were proofing their cues in new locations and I explained Tink being nervous blah blah. I was delighted when we had a live chat about keeping her under threshold, LAT, BAT, clicker training, competitive obedience etc albeit a bit of a happy shouty convo over a distance. It was so refreshing and really uplifting especially when Tink managed to focus to do a few basics ( sits stands downs etc) a few metres from the GSD  this would be no biggie in a class situation, but in real world walk situation a big leap for beagle kind, wanting to stop on a high, I thanked them and left and of course am now kicking myeslf for not asking if they would be willing to meet up etc.


----------



## Beth17

Sounds like an absolutely fabulous weekend mv brilliant to hear Tink doing so well. Hopefully you'll bump into the woman again


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


>


I know where that is too I think....I am your remote walk stalker :nonod::nonod:.


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Have you trained " touch" nose to your hand? so you can guide with an empty hand rather than lure with a treat?


Yeah Ive recently trained the touch command though it's not 100% but he's getting there lol. 
Not sure the greedy mutt would perform without a treat at first  but I'll give it a try.
Your pics lovely....Tink's putting herself on a pedestal...and rightly so, clever girl


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I know where that is too I think....I am your remote walk stalker :nonod::nonod:.


It's High Curley in Lightwater Country park. Shame you are a remote stalker. I'd love to walk with you.


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> Yeah Ive recently trained the touch command though it's not 100% but he's getting there lol.
> Not sure the greedy mutt would perform without a treat at first  but I'll give it a try.
> Your pics lovely....Tink's putting herself on a pedestal...and rightly so, clever girl


I thought she looked a right little pudding, her tufty belly hair doesn't help :lol:

Here's one from today to show she hasn't been entering pie eating contests on the sly









I dont' know why her bum looks square though :yikes:


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> I thought she looked a right little pudding, her tufty belly hair doesn't help :lol:
> 
> Here's one from today to show she hasn't been entering pie eating contests on the sly
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I dont' knwo why her bum looks square though :yikes:


phew....for a minute there I thought you were talking about me  :cryin:


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> phew....for a minute there I thought you were talking about me  :cryin:


You have a tufty belly too? :lol: :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

I try not to


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> A big well done Kilo.
> 
> You may have been surprised but I'm not. You've put a lot of hard work into Kilo and today was just one example of how it's paying off.
> 
> On the same tack, when I dismantled Holly's cage a couple of weeks ago I also started feeding her with the others in the kitchen. They were all absolutely fine and remained at their own bowls until Quiver (who's always the last) had finished hers.


Thanks; I feel mean for underestimating the big fella now :w00t:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Thanks; I feel mean for underestimating the big fella now :w00t:.


Shame on ya Dogless doubting the big man! Slap your own hand hehehe


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> It's High Curley in Lightwater Country park. Shame you are a remote stalker. I'd love to walk with you.


We would be honoured to walk with the likes of you and Miss Tink .


----------



## Sarah1983

MV, sounds like you've had a fantastic weekend and love the pic of Tink on her pedestal.

Chazzie, the turn in a circle is something I figure Spens look left may come in handy for since if I don't click a slight head turn he offers a bigger one and if I don't click that he offers a huge head turn so technically I should be able to just shape more and more of a turn until I get a full circle. Spen doesn't do well with a food lure, he's too fixated on the food to think about what he's actually doing. Hand lure is slightly better but he's still pretty slow to get what I want using one.

Recall is still abysmal here. Although we did have a good moment earlier while playing frisbee. He was running back with the frisbee when I clocked that he'd seen something of interest and as he stopped in front of me I got hold of him, turned and saw another dog about 10 metres behind me. Big rewards and carried on the game when the other dog had gone.

And we've made pretty big progress on unloading the washing machine. He's now pulling clothes right out of it instead of just mouthing them once I've pulled them so that they're hanging out :thumbup:

We've also encountered some scary, Spencer eating balloons! A bunch of them have appeared on the grass outside and frightened him when he first saw them. Thankfully I'd seen them first and managed to click as soon as he spotted them so instead of a mad barking frenzy he just jumped about 6ft up and 10ft backwards and had a bit of a growl before playing 101 things to do with a bunch of balloons. He was very wary of them at first but quickly relaxed and started offering me sits, downs and look lefts.


----------



## chazzie10

Thanks Sarah- maybe I should try and teach the look left command first?
I got him to do a couple of turns but not enough to catch on to. I stopped there because I was starting to get as frustrated as he was lol.

Damn those dog eating balloons!! We have dog eating blow bubbles at our house


----------



## Beth17

Oscar hates the big scary inflatable snowmen and Santas that pop up in peoples gardens at this time of year; Sam just blunders through without noticing


----------



## chazzie10

Dogs are such daft creatures at times arent they? You gotta love them for it though :blush: lol


----------



## ballybee

Well Tummel has got Separation anxiety yet again  We went out for 3 hours to go have dinner at my parents, the boys had been walked and watered, Dan was crated as he was really wet and dirty so wasn't getting near my bed but Tummel had 3 toys to play with...we come home and he's ripped up the carpet, scratched the door and pulled apart a packet of cotton buds 

So from now on the boys will be put away for a period of time each day, i think i'll start wth just 15 minutes and build it up until Tummel stops being such a sod.


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear ballybee that's not good. Is it because Dan was crated do you think?

Your plan sounds like a good one.


----------



## chazzie10

Poor Ballybee, I know exactly what it's like! My last golden lab had separation anxiety and I came home one day ( to my bungalow) to find everything piled in my living room...4 pillows, duvet, cushions, settee cushions, stuffed toys, boots, bleach ( ), toilet brush, towels blah, blah, EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE!! The pile was about 4 feet high and the whole living room floor! AND he'd chewed my good suede boots grrrr :nonod:
Hope you can get it sorted


----------



## chazzie10

Well one beer and one glass of wine later and decided to take the bull by the horns and teach the beast once and for all to turn in a circle and By Jove he's got it!!! No treat at first just a clicker then treats to up the anti a bit... video tomorrow maybe woohoo lol


----------



## Werehorse

Incoming video of Hugo retrieving a thrown article.  Thanks so much to Twiggy whose method worked so amazingly well!!


----------



## Werehorse

Here we go. Please excuse the flash of lower back at the beginning!  I iz a slob. At least it wasn't a proper builders bum! 

Hugo Retrieve thrown article - YouTube


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Yeah Ive recently trained the touch command though it's not 100% but he's getting there lol.
> Not sure the greedy mutt would perform without a treat at first  but I'll give it a try.
> Your pics lovely....Tink's putting herself on a pedestal...and rightly so, clever girl


You could try halfway house ie put the tit-bit on the palm of your hand covering with your thumb, point your fingers down and get Charlie to touch your fingers. When he does release the tit-bit.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Dogs are such daft creatures at times arent they? You gotta love them for it though :blush: lol


Not as bad as horses though (as I'm sure Werehorse will verify). They can have an absolute freaky at a leaf rustling in a hedge...!!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Here we go. Please excuse the flash of lower back at the beginning!  I iz a slob. At least it wasn't a proper builders bum!
> 
> Hugo Retrieve thrown article - YouTube


Excellent....:thumbup:

And really nice to see Hugo so enthusiastic too.

Now you can see why I mark so hard when dogs return to the handler on retrieve slowly. If it's taught correctly they return just as fast as they run out.

I love Hugo's Zebedee impersonation btw....LOL


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Not as bad as horses though (as I'm sure Werehorse will verify). They can have an absolute freaky at a leaf rustling in a hedge...!!


:lol: So true. My mare is a complete paradox - massive farm machinery and lorries going past inches away = no problem. Low flying aircraft = no problem. Cyclist going past fast changing gears while inches from her backside making ME jump because he came out of nowhere = no problem.... A piece of jaycloth in the hedgerow = OHMYGODMUMIT'SGOINGTOEATMEWE'REALLGOINGTODIE _ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!! Snort snort, prance prance, skitter past at top speed head in the air eyes on stalks.  :nonod:

 Love my pony. :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Not as bad as horses though (as I'm sure Werehorse will verify). They can have an absolute freaky at a leaf rustling in a hedge...!!


Did some more work on 'touch' and 'turn around' and he's doing both reasonably reliably now. He just likes to make a song and dance about things sometimes (quite literally ) Thanks for the advice 

I've wanted a horse since I was about 3yrs old but unfortunately year after year santa never brought me one :nonod: but I did go to local stables to ride and I remember well the horses getting spooked by the silliest things. One friend got thrown over the hedge into an adjoining field because of a noise in the driveway lol


----------



## moonviolet

That video is cracking W/H what a little keenie Hugo is.



Twiggy said:


> Not as bad as horses though (as I'm sure Werehorse will verify). They can have an absolute freaky at a leaf rustling in a hedge...!!


I was one of those lucky kids that grew up with donkeys, ponies and horses. I do remember our shetland pony refusing to go within 20 yards of a yellow bucket and new forest pony who would neatly sidestep up the bank to allow lorries to pass.

A family friend used to have mounted police horses to stay periodically and the poor things would have scars from cigarettes being subbed out of them and reputedly didn't so much as flinch, but dog help you if you were on board and a bird sang in the hedgerow.


----------



## chazzie10

You're so lucky growing up with horses! I spent my waking hours as a child and teenager dreaming of nothing else. I even gave Dad valid solutions to keeping one...like their double garages could have the doors sawn in half so they were stable doors and that they'd never need to get the lawnmower out again hehehe.
Oh well at least they got a dog, a golden Lab and my best mate from age 7-16 and I've never met another dog like him........until this eejit :blush:
Who is ACTUALLY keeping me (almost) sane right at this minute lol


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> You're so lucky growing up with horses! I spent my waking hours as a child and teenager dreaming of nothing else. I even gave Dad valid solutions to keeping one...like their double garages could have the doors sawn in half so they were stable doors and that they'd never need to get the lawnmower out again hehehe.
> Oh well at least they got a dog, a golden Lab and my best mate from age 7-16 and I've never met another dog like him........until this eejit :blush:
> Who is ACTUALLY keeping me (almost) sane right at this minute lol


It was pretty fantastic, I coudl make out there was hardship, sh1T shovelling and it was only possible because we lived miles from any of my friends so i never saw them out of school, but in truth I wouldn't have changed a thing :blush:

I was woken this morning be the sound of a certain bealge playing with a table surfed pack of tissues  much throwing and pouncing. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

I meant to say I trained Holly Bolly again yesterday and still didn't get bitten - well only a small puncture mark on my thumb...!!

She was actually very good and pretty animated so maybe I'm getting more adept at managing her and two squeaky tennis balls all flying round the barn.....


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh gosh busy weekends all round, will try and catch up.

Well done Kilo, big self control.

Ouch to Werehorses other half, Rory was very, very, good at that trick  I think the worst time was when he caught the loop of an elasticated waistband thing (sounds sexy doesn't it) he pulled it down to the ground and then let go  very sore man bits for a few days. Hope you feel better soon and the angry green hippo buggers off before Christmas. I have got to the stage where I wake up every morning and check for cold symptoms, its my time of the year 
Hugo doing so well on the retrieve (and bouncing, thats a good trick ) Well done Twiggy for the remote training!

Beth sounds like Oscar is doing really well, there's no reason why he should start to tolerate rude dogs even if he is feeling better with his meds. I know ideally we would all have dogs that just ignore stuff but I have a hard time marking Ginge down if she reacts to something thats irritating like a barking dog at a garden gate.

Thorne - sounds like breeze is doing well as well, those bird scarers are a pain, they seem to be using them more and more round here. My friends little one is doing really well with gunshots, they got him a thundershirt for fireworks which seems to have helped him all round dealing with loud noises, he still notices shots but his tail mostly stays up, he has a bichon and lhasa in him so has a big upstanding fluffy tail with a curl and its so obvious when he isn't happy, (when he is happy he looks like a push me pull you with two heads ) but the birdscarers are so random and out of the blue, they terrify him, its not so bad at the moment as you can see them in the new crops and avoid but as soon as there's some growth you don't know where they are till they go off.

LO - silly people what do they have dogs for - (looks down at little dog with dirty paws 

Moonviolet - sounds like a lovely weekend and Tink seems to be really relaxed at the moment

Sarah I am sure you will get the recall back again, I have decided I have been much harder on Ginge than anyone else would be, I don't think anybody else I know considers it an issue that their dogs don't come back every time they call as long as they come eventually, it seems thats acceptable around here  but she is quite happy on the giant orange long line and I can pull her out of rabbit holes 

Ballybee, sorry Tummel is having problems, could something have kicked off this incident like a visitor or something else. Rory got much worse after he managed to turn on my hairdryer (think he must have sat on it or something) he nearly tore the door off its hinges trying to get out the house at that one, we still haven't painted the back of the door its like a sort of reminder not to be bad doggy parents and leave things like hairdryers plugged in on the floor .

Twiggy I am sure it would be nice to be able to work Holly without being punctured 

We have had an interesting weekend. Had an experiment yesterday and went out with my friend and her two dogs who we have walked with before. We have steered clear of all dogs since the biting thing, as I haven't had the confidence that she wont bite, but I have been observing her when we have unavoidably encountered dogs she knows, still keeping at a distance, but I was pretty sure she would be fine. 

Previuosly, she has managed to stay in the van with the pair of them on their own, has been growled at and snapped at by the pair of them for being too 'in ya face' on walks and had plenty of opportunity to eat them if that was her intention, that I figured she would have done so by now. Mary is well used to problem dogs as hers are bit 'iffy' at times and definitely don't really care for strange dogs, ones they know are fine as long as they keep a reasonable distance when asked. 

We were obviously careful to begin with but Ginge blatantly blanked Buffer and Elsie, felt no need to do hello sniffs or try play with them  they all walked for an hour and a half bumping and running into each other no issues at all.  it was a very useful exercise as I think it will help me understand what she wants from dogs. I've not quite figured it yet but its one to mull over.........

I had thought she was barking in part from nerves and in part from indignance that they weren't saying hello, as thats how it seemed to start, now not so sure as she made no attempt to interact at all........ mmm puzzled face...............


----------



## Sarah1983

Ginge, people say I'm too hard on Spen too, as long as he comes back eventually apparently that's fine. I disagree, if I call him back it's because I want him back right that minute, not in 10 minutes time :nonod:

Can't help with what Ginge wants, maybe she doesn't quite know herself what it is she wants from strange dogs.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Ginge, people say I'm too hard on Spen too, as long as he comes back eventually apparently that's fine. I disagree, if I call him back it's because *I want him back right that minute*, not in 10 minutes time :nonod:
> 
> Can't help with what Ginge wants, maybe she doesn't quite know herself what it is she wants from strange dogs.


Quite, thats my opinion which is why in a recent poll thread I put forward the notion that there are no degrees of recall, its either good or not. The point is to make sure your dog comes back from any hazard, be that a man with a large stick who might beat them or a road they are in danger of running on to if they continue to chase that deer or the risk of suffocation from ensconcing themselves in nice cosy rabbit holes.

& no I don't think the little one does know what she wants, its very tricky trying to get to the bottom of her tiny mind


----------



## Dogless

Ouch Werehorses' OH...the BCH can sort of sympathise as the LCH was actually hanging off his plums at one point :w00t: :blink:. He has worked out that he can sit on Rudi if Rudi's gnashers are snapping at his back end....Rudi hasn't yet worked out that he will be sat on if he persists  .

Today we were up really early so I fed and entertained the CHs as usual, then told OH Rudi was crated so to please get up in an hour or so for him and I took Kilo to 'our' forest for the morning. We arrived just as it was getting light and had a wonderful morning; just what we both needed. He is loving his walks here I think, but there's just nothing like relaxing in a forest with not a soul about. Well; I relax and Kilo runs about a zillion miles of zoomies and scent following .

Back where he belongs:









Hopefully I'll take them both later this week .


----------



## Beth17

Ginge sounds great progress although slightly confusing like you say 

It must be lovely to get back to normality and peace and quiet for a while Dogless.

Lovely walk with the boys this morning took them to the grounds of a public mansion that is onlead and didn't really see a soul. LLW was going well until we got there and then the smells were a bit too enticing to walk quite as calmly but no matter. Did see one dog in the distance that started barking and almost screaming at my two but Oscar had a look and then carried on sniffing 
Then wandered back home and went through a small alleyway and suddenly a lab is pulling its owner along it but she pulled hers in tight and I said that I'd walk straight past because of Oscar and he didn't bat an eyelid :thumbup:

Have been cleaning mud from various places in the kitchen this morning and took it upon myself to throw away Sams pillows which he has had since bringing him home. They were disgusting and he doesn't really sleep on them for long and so I replaced them with a piece of vet bed.
He's not very happy with me and is trying to rip said vet bed up as well as stealing a toilet roll and taking the backdoor mat outside which I have to retrieve in a bit.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oooh bet that were lovely Dogless 

Someone else has been having zoomies just now  http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/281042-hobbling-ninjas.html#post1062533427


----------



## L/C

I have been lurking for a while but not had much time to post - am a bit confused and scared as to why mv is posting pictures of butt plugs though. 

Way, way too much to comment on but Ginge sounds a bit like Ely. When he sees a dog he will sometimes whine and get excited but when we greet them he isn't bothered about them after a quick greeting. It's almost like the anxiety about them triggers the vocalisation and body language and why he's desperate to see them and once he's greeted and realised they aren't a threat (which diffuses the tension) he isn't actually that interested in them.

Pointy twins are sorted for xmas! My lovely friend is going to come to stay (with her daughter, friend and GSD Max) to look after them. She knows both of them well and has seen Ely when he's triggered so knows what to expect and how to manage him. Plus he'll be muzzled and I've said not to walk him if he's stressed so all should be well for just 2 days.

In terms of training (is that what this thread is about? :001_tongue I have my eager to work, attentive girl back.  Three weeks of focus work seems to have broken through her need to hunt mentality and I've been letting her have frequent breaks to go and dig through the grass in the field of tiny mice - she never finds anything in there.

I've been proofing down stays around more distractions and working on scent tracking. I've completely eliminated the food trail with the track now and there is just food at the start and end - so she is actually following the track scent rather then the food scent. Which is real progress as for quite a while she was only following the food. Next step is to lengthen the track and then it will be to add more turns and finally to lay the track out of sight.

For down stays I now have both of the pointies able to hold them reliably when strange dogs come running up and they even managed it this weekend when a 16 week old pup jumped on them. Ely was very gentle with the pup - he let her climb on him and was very tolerant. 

When dogs they know approach it's still a bit hit and miss. I release them before they break but the distance is getting smaller and focus better so that's good. But Gypsy now has a five minute down stay when she can see me and a two minute out of sight one. Her heeling is also very good and we are working on swopping sides on command.


----------



## catz4m8z

wow, some of you have really gorgeous walks nearby! Im well jel!!LOL
I hope the Ginger Ninja is feeling better after her adventures.(does she have any Bedlington in her?).

I realiesed last night that we have finally got everyone intergrated!:w00t: The others only growl at Alfie if he bugs them (just like they do each other). Now tea time has become Doggy Fight Club!! Usually its Adam and Heidi rolling around the floor with ratpuppy and even Hannah will play chase too.
Although there is now so many toys, chews, blankets and play tunnels around my house it looks like a pet shop exploded in there!!


----------



## Dogless

L/C - I am so pleased that you have Christmas sorted; what a weight off your mind.

Kilo also really wants to greet some dogs but completely ignores them once they have met - it's eagerness to see whether they pose some kind of problem or are harmless I think as you said.

Welcome back Gypsy  and Ely tolerating the pup jumping on him was fabulous. Rudi is going to be one of those pups I suspect; I really hope not as Kilo was always a cautious, slow approacher as a puppy but Rudi is.....brave and crackers!! We will see and I shall do my best with him .


----------



## Dogless

catz4m8z said:


> wow, some of you have really gorgeous walks nearby! Im well jel!!LOL
> I hope the Ginger Ninja is feeling better after her adventures.(does she have any Bedlington in her?).
> 
> I realiesed last night that we have finally got everyone intergrated!:w00t: The others only growl at Alfie if he bugs them (just like they do each other). Now tea time has become Doggy Fight Club!! Usually its Adam and Heidi rolling around the floor with ratpuppy and even Hannah will play chase too.
> *Although there is now so many toys, chews, blankets and play tunnels around my house it looks like a pet shop exploded in there!!*


This is my house too...apart from play tunnels; I can only imagine how big they'd need to be :w00t::w00t:. I'm so glad they're all integrated - didn't take long!


----------



## GingerRogers

Ha ha love the idea of your house full of Kilo sized play tunnels Dogless  you and hubby having to dive through them to get to the other side of the room

Catz I have no idea what she is, we had sort of decided Yorkie (because of the saddle and silvering in her coat) cross JRT (just because we imagine its possible as the most common terrier and she came from gypsies) but have no idea really She could just as easily have fox terrier in her her, she looks quite fell or lakeland type as well 
Her head fur does sometimes look a bit bedlington though (all foofy and round) why? Are they known for running round vicarages?

Good to hear from you L/C and glad chrissy is sorted  I think thats probably what Ginge is up to, super excitedness verging on violence  then not bothered, which is probably a good thing if I can work on the not bothered bit


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Ha ha love the idea of your house full of Kilo sized play tunnels Dogless  you and hubby having to dive through them to get to the other side of the room
> 
> Catz I have no idea what she is, we had sort of decided Yorkie (because of the saddle and silvering in her coat) cross JRT (just because we imagine its possible as the most common terrier and she came from gypsies) but have no idea really She could just as easily have fox terrier in her her, she looks quite fell or lakeland type as well
> Her head fur does sometimes look a bit bedlington though (all foofy and round) why? *Are they known for running round vicarages?*
> 
> Good to hear from you L/C and glad chrissy is sorted  I think thats probably what Ginge is up to, super excitedness verging on violence  then not bothered, which is probably a good thing if I can work on the not bothered bit


Didn't you know? Well known atheists bedlingtons - no respect for the clergy.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Didn't you know? Well known atheists bedlingtons - no respect for the clergy.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

L/C said:


> I have been lurking for a while but not had much time to post - am a bit confused and scared as to why *mv is posting pictures of butt plugs though. *


Aaahhhh so THAT'S what it was :blush:  
hehehe


----------



## Sarah1983

Could Ginge be a Lakeland Terrier or mix?

L/C I think I might be more scared that you actually know what that thing in the picture was  :hand:


----------



## catz4m8z

Dogless said:


> . I'm so glad they're all integrated - didn't take long!


I am chuffed I have to say! Young Alf is learning the routine too...today I asked him to wee on his pad (which he did) then when I was getting everyones harnesses on for their walk he came running up and stood on my foot all ready to be harnessed and bagged for the trip!!LOL



GingerRogers said:


> Her head fur does sometimes look a bit bedlington though (all foofy and round) why? Are they known for running round vicarages?


My friend has a whiplington and a Beddy and they are both mad as a box of frogs!! Your description in the other thread just reminded me of her adventures!!:w00t:


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> *Could Ginge be a Lakeland Terrier or mix?*
> 
> L/C I think I might be more scared that you actually know what that thing in the picture was :hand:


She could be, are they atheists as well?


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> I have been lurking for a while but not had much time to post - am a bit confused and scared as to why *mv is posting pictures of butt plugs though.*


Werehorse made me :001_tongue: :lol: :lol:


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Could Ginge be a Lakeland Terrier or mix?
> 
> L/C I think I might be more scared that you actually know what that thing in the picture was :hand:


Miss-spent youth.  Far, far too much time spent in Camden Town when it was an actual alternative cess-pool as opposed to a theme park.



GingerRogers said:


> She could be, are they atheists as well?


Most terriers are - nihilists too. Very pragmatic outlook on life.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Miss-spent youth.  Far, far too much time spent in Camden Town when it was an actual alternative cess-pool as opposed to a theme park.
> 
> Most terriers are - *nihilists *too. Very pragmatic outlook on life.


I had heard of this before but had to go look it up to clarify. WikiP says

Nihilism of an epistemological form can be seen as an *extreme form of skepticism in which all knowledge is denied*

And

existential nihilism posits that a* single human or even the entire human species is insignificant*

:yesnod: sounds familiar


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Didn't you know? Well known atheists bedlingtons - no respect for the clergy.


Neither have collies....!! I know these things as I have a mad vicar friend with at least 10 collies that all take the proverbial Michael.....


----------



## Twiggy

*I've been proofing down stays around more distractions and working on scent tracking. I've completely eliminated the food trail with the track now and there is just food at the start and end - so she is actually following the track scent rather then the food scent. Which is real progress as for quite a while she was only following the food. Next step is to lengthen the track and then it will be to add more turns and finally to lay the track out of sight.*

I'm laying a track tomorrow before my Schutzhund GSD gets here. My instructions are put a tit-bit about every 5-6 strides, include one turn and two scent articles.

For down stays I now have both of the pointies able to hold them reliably when strange dogs come running up and they even managed it this weekend when a 16 week old pup jumped on them. Ely was very gentle with the pup - he let her climb on him and was very tolerant.

*When dogs they know approach it's still a bit hit and miss. I release them before they break but the distance is getting smaller and focus better so that's good. But Gypsy now has a five minute down stay when she can see me and a two minute out of sight one. Her heeling is also very good and we are working on swopping sides on command.[/QUOTE]*

That's very good. Even the top dogs only have to do 10 minutes down out of sight at obedience shows in the UK.

Just being nosy - why are you teaching Gypsy to swap sides in heelwork?
Are you going to join Tink at a heelwork to music show....?


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> *I've been proofing down stays around more distractions and working on scent tracking. I've completely eliminated the food trail with the track now and there is just food at the start and end - so she is actually following the track scent rather then the food scent. Which is real progress as for quite a while she was only following the food. Next step is to lengthen the track and then it will be to add more turns and finally to lay the track out of sight.*
> 
> I'm laying a track tomorrow before my Schutzhund GSD gets here. My instructions are put a tit-bit about every 5-6 strides, include one turn and two scent articles.
> 
> For down stays I now have both of the pointies able to hold them reliably when strange dogs come running up and they even managed it this weekend when a 16 week old pup jumped on them. Ely was very gentle with the pup - he let her climb on him and was very tolerant.
> 
> *When dogs they know approach it's still a bit hit and miss. I release them before they break but the distance is getting smaller and focus better so that's good. But Gypsy now has a five minute down stay when she can see me and a two minute out of sight one. Her heeling is also very good and we are working on swopping sides on command.*
> 
> That's very good. Even the top dogs only have to do 10 minutes down out of sight at obedience shows in the UK.
> 
> *Just being nosy - why are you teaching Gypsy to swap sides in heelwork?
> Are you going to join Tink at a heelwork to music show....?*


Ha ha no - I do not have the coordination for that! :lol: Partly for pavement walking (she can still have a tendency to lunge when she spots something small and furry) to keep her on my inside away from the road and partly just for something to teach that requires her to focus on what I'm doing as well as what I'm asking her to do.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Ha ha no - I do not have the coordination for that! :lol: Partly for pavement walking (she can still have a tendency to lunge when she spots something small and furry) to keep her on my inside away from the road and partly just for something to teach that requires her to focus on what I'm doing as well as what I'm asking her to do.


I'm being nosy again - what commands are you using for heelwork on the left and heelwork on the right?


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> I'm being nosy again - what commands are you using for heelwork on the left and heelwork on the right?


At the moment I'm using a hand target for heeling on the right (she heels on the left as default) and I use 'close' for heeling on the left. She knows 'touch left' and 'touch right' so I'm using close to get her into the heel position on the left then asking her to touch right to swap sides.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> At the moment I'm using a hand target for heeling on the right (she heels on the left as default) and I use 'close' for heeling on the left. She knows 'touch left' and 'touch right' so I'm using close to get her into the heel position on the left then asking her to touch right to swap sides.


OK thanks - that's logical.

Are you quite sure you're not joining Moonviolet and Tink for secret HTM training, because that's four moves you've taught already?.....:devil:


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> OK thanks - that's logical.
> 
> Are you quite sure you're not joining Moonviolet and Tink for secret HTM training, because that's four moves you've taught already?.....:devil:


NOOOO!! :lol:

Just trying to keep devil dog busy.


----------



## Guest

Have a couple questions guys. 

what's a protection racket? 


And I shall phone up the APDT trainer I have found near me (YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!) in the new year, so:

Would it be better for me to have a one-to-one with his dog problem or not?

Took him out at six this morning, saw a spaniel, Zand bounced at it (didn't get near it though, span kicked off and the owner SWORE at me.


----------



## Werehorse

Today has been a Good Day with the doggies and just generally. Although my cough is still here and seems to have turned into quite interesting back ache around the kidney area.  OH says he has this too. Have we got a kidney attacking virus? Hopefully it'll just go away, really unpleasant this morning but has eased off over the course of the day.

Told you I'd keep you informed as to the progress of the cold. 

Today I divided the day into 3 and Hugo got the morning slot, ponies got the lunch slot and Oscar got the afternoon slot.

Hugo came to Keswick with me to pick up my contact lenses. He walked quite nicely round town, getting much better once he had settled down. I was working on being very strict with him regarding things like not lunging for sniffs and being polite through doorways and walking to heel across roads after sitting and waiting on the curb and he was very, very good. I bought him a chew from the petshop (and one to share with Oscar when we got home too) and went and had a coffee. He needs some work on settling while we do coffee or a pub tea so I gave him the chew and read my book and ignored him while I drank my coffee. He's very difficult to ignore, he burns holes in my head with his mind-waves and does standing up, sitting, laying down and flipping from hip to hip - and his new trick which is putting his chin on the floor and doing spaniel eyes.  I engaged with him as little as possible but made sure I gave him a few treats when he was being quiet and laying down (after he'd finished his chew). He was ok, still needs some work - part of it is that he really wants to be trained and struggles to just settle, and if I ignore and don't train he starts trying to make his own entertainment. I think I found a good balance today, just need to slowly wean him off the training while keeping him settled.

We had a walk round the park and he was very good even though someone had clearly been through with a bitch in season (foam beard and very sniffy ) and he interacted really nicely with a couple of dogs.  He's such a polite boy.

Oscar's afternoon was fetch in the park until it got to dark to see - I'm going to have to experiment one day to see if there is ever an end point to fetch with Oscar, we played for about 30 minutes or so and he didn't even slow down on the returns. He did some good waits, he always breaks as I breathe in to say "go fetch it" though - definitely a work in progress! But today I could let go of his harness and he didn't go immediately so that is a start.

We then did some street walking and he was ever so good, still needs a lot of input but he's definitely getting there! And we spotted a new shop that appears to mostly sell made to measure fleece harnesses with a front ring in lots of lovely colors including hi-viz with reflective bits.... SANTA!? Are you listening?

I had a look at dog beds on my travels because Hugo digs at the fluff on the ones we have and then eats it which causes some interesting problems! But blimey they are all so expensive.  Especially when I think about the potential distruction by Hugo.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Have a couple questions guys.
> 
> what's a protection racket?
> 
> And I shall phone up the APDT trainer I have found near me (YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!) in the new year, so:
> 
> Would it be better for me to have a one-to-one with his dog problem or not?
> 
> Took him out at six this morning, saw a spaniel, Zand bounced at it (didn't get near it though, span kicked off and the owner SWORE at me.


The first is where dodgy blokes (normally, can be beefy women ) come round your house or business and offer to keep you safe for a fee, normally accompanied with menaces which prove that you really are in danger of personal harm or property damage even if only from the people offering to 'protect' you.

I would like to point out that I do not damage Ginge in return for protecting her  and how come its that what you don't know but you aren't asking about the dodgy sex toys hmmmm 

As to your second question I would have thought that the trainer will want to have a one to one to enable them to assess Zander, but in any case if you can afford I say yes, much better to have their total attention.


----------



## Thorne

Oh dear L/O, sounds like that person got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning! Glad no harm was done though.

Walked Paddy-Lurcher this afternoon, rewarding him for passing people nicely without bouncing. Was going well until some old chap coming out of the Co-op decided he HAD to fuss Pads. I asked him not to touch because he was very boisterous but he just kept coming regardless! Paddy was overjoyed and did a very dramatic play bow and bounce so grabbed his harness before he made contact, got his eyes back on me and kept going. A woman muttered "horrible girl" because I didn't let him say hello 
His calm greetings are very sweet indeed, but he took a particular shine to this man and probably would've knocked him off his feet, not something he needs to learn!
Everyone oohs and ahhs over him when he's on walks, too handsome for his own good.

Mum walked S&B today so no commentary on them tonight, other than Breeze (we assume) has peed in the hallway for the second time this week  My sister puts them out before she leaves for work but doesn't watch them so they will just stand at the back door instead of peeing.
Not really wanting to blame the dog as on both occasions my sister's been the last one out - knowing her she probably didn't put them out at all.


----------



## catz4m8z

Had my parents round today and was really curious to see how Alfie would be (he isnt going to get much socialising in the house coz Im a hermit!!). He was all over my parents and a happy, bouncy boy!! They thought he was gorgeous, had awesome ears and was the smallest dog they had ever seen (they say that about all of them!). Really glad he is such an outgoing little lad though.
On the downside Ive discovered that Heidi is afraid of having her photo taken. I dont take many pictures and thought she was a bit weird the other day about it but when my parents came they took some pics of Alfie and also tried to get Heidi....well, she was terrified! Kept running away from the camera and shaking with her tail between her legs....and its not like my parents were chasing her, they stayed sitting down but Heidi was trying to avoid the camera being pointed at her until she finally crawled onto my lap to hide. 
*sigh* just when I think I know how screwed up Heidi is I find something new that turns her into a nervous wreck!


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear poor Heidi. Well done Alfie sounds like he'll be a doddle to socialise 

The boys have been really good today Sam spent nearly an hour playing with a huge Dobermann we know and is now a lovely shade of red where the mud has stained.
Oscar was also perfect and tolerated the terriers he had issues with the other day including the young one jumping all over him, getting in his face and chasing after him. Their pup spots dogs from miles away and makes a beeline and has no recall. I'm afraid he's going to go up to the wrong dog one day 

Oscar did have one incident going through the wood where he saw his friends in the distance and started going over to them. I was going the other way as had to get home and he kept ignoring me so I waited him out and he finally decided to follow me without saying hello so I was pleased with that


----------



## Twiggy

catz4m8z said:


> Had my parents round today and was really curious to see how Alfie would be (he isnt going to get much socialising in the house coz Im a hermit!!). He was all over my parents and a happy, bouncy boy!! They thought he was gorgeous, had awesome ears and was the smallest dog they had ever seen (they say that about all of them!). Really glad he is such an outgoing little lad though.
> On the downside Ive discovered that Heidi is afraid of having her photo taken. I dont take many pictures and thought she was a bit weird the other day about it but when my parents came they took some pics of Alfie and also tried to get Heidi....well, she was terrified! Kept running away from the camera and shaking with her tail between her legs....and its not like my parents were chasing her, they stayed sitting down but Heidi was trying to avoid the camera being pointed at her until she finally crawled onto my lap to hide.
> *sigh* just when I think I know how screwed up Heidi is I find something new that turns her into a nervous wreck!


Holly is frightened of my camera as well. It's my fault. She looked so sweet lying on our bed a while back with Leafy, both fast asleep, so I grabbed the camera and the flash startled her. She'll get over it - I hope.


----------



## Dogless

Well done to everyone - it's good that Oscar tolerated the terriers this time Beth!

We have had a quite busy day. Walked Kilo in the pea souper early this morning - we just played all the time so he was close to me. Then he went to the vet for his vaccs and health check....he was really good  but the vet we saw today takes temperature as a matter of course before vaccinating. Kilo hadn't had it done before and his face was :yikes::yikes: but he kept still so that was OK.

This afternoon I took Rudi for his vaccs and microchip and he was all waggy about meeting eveyone; very different dog to Kilo. He weighs 15.8kg at 11.5 weeks :yikes: so overtaking the BW so far and I thought he was big :blink::blink:. He can go straight out as it a strange 4 week gap vacc programme here, whereas Kilo was 1st vacc, 2 week wait then a further week's wait.

Then I came back and walked Kilo - did lots of heelwork, sits etc and he was great. Came round a corner and met a beagle who hates him who started to bark and growl and Kilo returned the favour . That wasn't great but not awful either.

The vet told me this morning that Kilo was in absolutely superb condition, the best he'd seen in a very long time . Then...asked what he was fed. I said raw. Pause and intake of breath :w00t:. I said that I knew it wasn't too popular with vets so we had a chat about what I fed and why and he accepted that. Said he still wasn't sure it was the best idea as he worried about the transmission of infection to people but he had to admit that Kilo was looking great on it . When I took Rudi he just said "I assume he's on raw too" and was very pleasant about it. So a big thumbs up for not jumping on the hysterical 'you'll kill your dog' bandwagon and for not pushing Hills like one there does :thumbup:.

The vet also ignored Kilo totally as I said he was more comfortable that way *and he listened * and he was. When I took Rudi in he took the trouble to ask whether he was the same as Kilo or if he could fuss him - I said he was the total opposite so he was talked to and got fusses .

I am very impressed indeed with that vet .


----------



## Guest

Himself got to play with two spanners this morn. And everytime he looks at me he gets treats shoved down his gob. This is to help with ignoring other dogs.
Not much else to report and Glad everyone and their doglets are doing well!!


----------



## catz4m8z

Sounds like you've found a good vet there, Dogless! Nice to hear that Rudi is such a happy go lucky chap, esp as it sounds like he will be Dogzilla when he finishes growing up!!LOL
(having the oppisite problem with Alfie...he has managed to lose quarter of a Ib since getting here. Now weighs 2Ibs!).


----------



## Dogless

catz4m8z said:


> Sounds like you've found a good vet there, Dogless! Nice to hear that Rudi is such a happy go lucky chap, esp as it sounds like he will be Dogzilla when he finishes growing up!!LOL
> (having the oppisite problem with Alfie...he has managed to lose quarter of a Ib since getting here. Now weighs 2Ibs!).


In the 4 weeks I have had him, he's almost doubled in weight . 8.7kg to 15.8kg :w00t::w00t:. Kilo was about 13 - 14kg at this age I think and around 48kg now so....:crazy::crazy:.


----------



## Werehorse

Well Rudi has caught up with Hugo and Oscar!  An Oscar-sized puppy! 

He could just be a fast grower though - we thought Oscar was going to be enormous but he's tiny now.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Well Rudi has caught up with Hugo and Oscar!  An Oscar-sized puppy!
> 
> He could just be a fast grower though - we thought Oscar was going to be enormous but he's tiny now.


True; although the BW was fast too....Rudi has huge legs, really thick bone. His sire and grandsire are about Kilo's size and Dam not overly large so he may end up the same as the BW - I think he will actually, just amazed at his size right now .

There is torrential rain forecast now with no let up until Fri, then back on Saturday - so I may make his first 'walk' to PAH and briefly around the parking areas. I don't want his first experience to be soaking wet, freezing cold and gale force winds!


----------



## catz4m8z

awww, hope he enjoys his first walk!
Im just sitting here listening to blood curdling growls as Heidi and Alfie play tug with a poor defenceless fluffy koala!! Im soooo happy about that. Neither of the other 2 enjoy tug so Im the only one that plays with Heidi, now she has another dog to play with!
I couldnt be more thrilled that her and Alfie have bonded the most. Poor girl has so many issues when outside its wonderful for her to have a new 'bestie' to do proper dog things with!!LOL:blush:


----------



## Dogless

catz4m8z said:


> awww, hope he enjoys his first walk!
> Im just sitting here listening to blood curdling growls as Heidi and Alfie play tug with a poor defenceless fluffy koala!! Im soooo happy about that. Neither of the other 2 enjoy tug so Im the only one that plays with Heidi, now she has another dog to play with!
> I couldnt be more thrilled that her and Alfie have bonded the most. Poor girl has so many issues when outside its wonderful for her to have a new 'bestie' to do proper dog things with!!LOL:blush:


I'm with you on the blood curdling growls.....these two make a real racket when they get going . Nice that Heidi now has a playmate though, really nice!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done to everyone - it's good that Oscar tolerated the terriers this time Beth!
> 
> We have had a quite busy day. Walked Kilo in the pea souper early this morning - we just played all the time so he was close to me. Then he went to the vet for his vaccs and health check....he was really good  but the vet we saw today takes temperature as a matter of course before vaccinating. Kilo hadn't had it done before and his face was :yikes::yikes: but he kept still so that was OK.
> 
> This afternoon I took Rudi for his vaccs and microchip and he was all waggy about meeting eveyone; very different dog to Kilo. He weighs 15.8kg at 11.5 weeks :yikes: so overtaking the BW so far and I thought he was big :blink::blink:. He can go straight out as it a strange 4 week gap vacc programme here, whereas Kilo was 1st vacc, 2 week wait then a further week's wait.
> 
> Then I came back and walked Kilo - did lots of heelwork, sits etc and he was great. Came round a corner and met a beagle who hates him who started to bark and growl and Kilo returned the favour . That wasn't great but not awful either.
> 
> The vet told me this morning that Kilo was in absolutely superb condition, the best he'd seen in a very long time . Then...asked what he was fed. I said raw. Pause and intake of breath :w00t:. I said that I knew it wasn't too popular with vets so we had a chat about what I fed and why and he accepted that. Said he still wasn't sure it was the best idea as he worried about the transmission of infection to people but he had to admit that Kilo was looking great on it . When I took Rudi he just said "I assume he's on raw too" and was very pleasant about it. So a big thumbs up for not jumping on the hysterical 'you'll kill your dog' bandwagon and for not pushing Hills like one there does :thumbup:.
> 
> The vet also ignored Kilo totally as I said he was more comfortable that way *and he listened * and he was. When I took Rudi in he took the trouble to ask whether he was the same as Kilo or if he could fuss him - I said he was the total opposite so he was talked to and got fusses .
> 
> I am very impressed indeed with that vet .


It's such a relief when you find a good vet.

I was with the same vet for nearly 40 years, both horses and dogs, and we knew each other very, very well. He was probably the most genuine and moral person I've ever met as well as being a fantastic surgeon. I miss him dreadfully.

When he retired through ill health (he was nearly 80 yrs old) three and a half years ago I tried about six different practices before opting for the one I'm with now.

It was OK for the first 9 months and I got on pretty well with the young female vet I always saw but then she left. After that I always seemed to get the owner/senior vet and it was mutual dislike. He's an arrogant ........ and he probably feels the same about me...LOL

We've had some awful rows, particularly about spaying Holly, when he wanted to perform keyhole procedure and I didn't agree. I had him on the phone one evening ranting for about an hour, explaining both procedures in vivid detail and culminating in him asking if I didn't trust him with my dogs and then telling me that I could go into theatre and actually watch him perform the op...!!

In fairness we get on much better now. He understands that I won't hand my dogs over to nurses, will be there until they are out stone cold and before they wake up - non-negotiable. There is never a nurse in attendance when I enter the surgery these days.

I took Leafy and Tremor in for Lepto vacs last week and he actually said I'm his only client that appreciates advances in veterinary medicine, nobody else is remotely interested....


----------



## Sarah1983

Well today hasn't been the best. Found Ruperts collar earlier and sat here bawling my eyes out. Then spent the rest of the day waiting in for the engineer to come tell us there was nothing wrong with our internet/phone line.

But we've just had a great moment outside. We were playing fetch with Spen and as he was on his way back to us from miles away someone from the next block came out with their dog. No big panic, they've met before and although a bit of your typical teenage male bolshy behaviour at first there's no real problems. Anyway, Spen saw him, paused a moment then came to us to have his ball thrown again. He also ignored next doors children in favour of his frisbee yesterday when usually everything else ceases to exist when he sees them.

He did however react to a barking dog we couldn't even see. I know exactly which dog it was, it's the reactive one that lives a couple of blocks down and it lunges and snarls and barks whenever it sees another dog. I think Spens just reached that stage where he's going to respond to aggressive dogs in kind rather than go belly up and appease them. We're working on ignoring it and thankfully he's able to respond to me and take treats even if he does get huffy, hackle up and does his stampy paws thing.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Spen - really good .

I didn't 'like' that the rest of your day has been rubbish Sarah, I hope that tomorrow is better x.


----------



## Werehorse

Argh! Hugo is ill again. 

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/281351-vomitting.html#post1062538087

I feel like I must be doing something wrong.


----------



## Beth17

Poor Hugo there seems to be a lot of it going around 

That is one big puppy Dogless  The vet sounds great though.

Well done to Spen and I hope you have a good day today.

It's rather wet here today I wonder if the boys would walk themselves?


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse I hope Hugo is better today, I dont' for one moment think you are doing anything wrong, There are loads of bugs about and i do think it's quite likely young dogs will suffer with them until they have built immunity. ( i'm happy to be corrected by those with greater knowledge.)

Dogless, "little" Rudi has overtaken Miss Tink now. I hope he isn't as wriggly as she was as pup, was like carrying an eel. 

Sarah I hope you have a happy day with Spen

C4M it really sounds like little Alfie has slotted right in, I hope having a Bestie helps Heidi's confidence 

LO hope the focus work is progressing well

GR no more escapes i hope.

Beth sounds like it was a good day

Sorry to anyone i forgot, brain is functioning on too little caffeine.

We are working on some silly stuff, getting leg weaves on verbal only. Looking left and right while standing between my legs. Adding distance to some of our other things, she seems to have an 7m cut off anything beyond that is too far.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Werehorse I hope Hugo is better today, I dont' for one moment think you are doing anything wrong, There are loads of bugs about and i do think it's quite likely young dogs will suffer with them until they have built immunity. ( i'm happy to be corrected by those with greater knowledge.)
> 
> Dogless, "little" Rudi has overtaken Miss Tink now. I hope he isn't as wriggly as she was as pup, was like carrying an eel.
> 
> Sarah I hope you have a happy day with Spen
> 
> C4M it really sounds like little Alfie has slotted right in, I hope having a Bestie helps Heidi's confidence
> 
> LO hope the focus work is progressing well
> 
> GR no more escapes i hope.
> 
> Beth sounds like it was a good day
> 
> Sorry to anyone i forgot, brain is functioning on too little caffeine.
> 
> *We are working on some silly stuff, getting leg weaves on verbal only. Looking left and right while standing between my legs. Adding distance to some of our other things, she seems to have an 7m cut off anything beyond that is too far.*




Oh good I'm pleased to hear you are progressing on the HTM front...

What are you trying to achieve 7m away - that's a hell of a distance?


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> What are you trying to achieve 7m away - that's a hell of a distance?


I didn't really mean that as part of the silly stuff. the 7m this is really more to do with her confidence, i just want her to stretch her elastic a little. She really never ever goes more than a few metres from me and is twitchy more than say 3 metres from me anywhere other than our garden.

Just got back from a fab walk, if you ignore the rain starting when we were the furthest point form the car. Tink was on good bouncy form, her nimbleness never fails to astound me.

p.s. i'm a bit rubbish at distances


----------



## Dogless

Get better soon Hugo.

Very frustrating walk with Kilo this morning - went to the big dog walking fields but it was so windy that Kilo was off on scents this morning and didn't want to play even....not so bad you say...the scent was of bright orange dog poo :blink::blink:. Not his fault that people are too vile to clean up and the reason I use those fields less and less as well as dogs causing havoc, so I abandoned it after a while (4 piles eaten :nonod and walked the couple of miles all the way to the other end of camp where he could also go off (perfectly, he knows he has to toe the line onlead). Let him off as there is rarely any poo up there and.....he ran out of the field onto the patch of grass outside for the first time EVER (don't worry, no traffic - abandoned estate) and found some . We'd been an hour and twenty minutes by then so I popped his lead on and we headed back home. 

I also managed to offend a woman on the way to the fields - she has a huge black lab that she waits at a school bus stop with that always snarls and barks at Kilo. No big deal as I cross the road before we even get there and keep Kilo focussed. It does worry him as he skitters and his tail goes down and he spends the next 15m or so anxiously checking behind him. All fine, one of those things, but the woman and her friends always laugh. This morning she said "That breed's meant to be brave!" at me as a joke, but I wasn't in the best of moods and said "That breed's meant to be friendly!" . Really vile of me, no need at all for that :nono:.

Anyhoo....got back, dried my soaking wet hair, warned hubby not to let Kilo lick his face...took Rudi to PAH for his first time on the ground - he was a little star . His little tail wagged and wagged when someone came to fuss him and he was just happily trotting around the store. There was one other dog in there - a yorkie - but it really didn't seem to like other dogs at all from the racket made when Rudi was spotted, so we stayed well away. The yorkie did 7 :blink::blink: wees and 2 poos :blink::blink: that we saw as we went up and down the aisles; I let the sales assistant that we know well know and she said that he always does, yet the owner never mentions a word. That would royally wind me up .

And now...rest :w00t:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> 1. (4 piles eaten :nonod
> 
> 2. "That breed's meant to be brave!" at me as a joke, but I wasn't in the best of moods and said "That breed's meant to be friendly!" .
> 
> 3. warned hubby not to let Kilo lick his face...
> 
> 4. took Rudi to PAH for his first time on the ground
> 
> 5. The yorkie did 7 :blink::blink: wees and 2 poos :blink::blink:


1. 
2.    
3. 
4. :001_tongue:
5. :nono::nonod:

Glad Rudi is on the ground and running  but what revolting people you live near!


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Little Rudi must have been lovely to have him out and about on the ground 



Dogless said:


> I also managed to offend a woman on the way to the fields - she has a huge black lab that she waits at a school bus stop with that always snarls and barks at Kilo. No big deal as I cross the road before we even get there and keep Kilo focussed. It does worry him as he skitters and his tail goes down and he spends the next 15m or so anxiously checking behind him. All fine, one of those things, but the woman and her friends always laugh. This morning she said "That breed's meant to be brave!" at me as a joke, but I wasn't in the best of moods and said "That breed's meant to be friendly!" . Really vile of me, no need at all for that :nono:.


I've repped you for this a) because it made me laugh.
b) because you just continued the conversation in the manner she has initiated it, surely that is the correct and polite way to behave 
c) because maybe she will pause before she makes her clever little comments in future


----------



## Beth17

Oh Kilo :nono: If you're not careful the little bro will soon be outshining you.
Had to laugh at the friendly lab comment :lol: but yuk at that yorkies owners rrr:

Yay for the fab walk mv :thumbup1:

My boys have been brilliant this morning on their walk. I was a bit naughty and took them both together for a street walk/mooch around a few onlead grassy areas because of the horrible weather. Took a completely different route to normal and we had very little pulling apart from when Sam caught the scent of something. We were walking down a narrow lane and they had a little scottie kicking off at them, they just looked and walked calmly past 

We then went through a little cut through with a stream they paddle in but had to pull in tight to the side as a car was coming and a jack russell was giving what for behind a gate we were stood next to but a sharp leave it as he was starting to get a bit hyper and Oscar ignored it refocused and we carried on.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Little Rudi must have been lovely to have him out and about on the ground
> 
> I've repped you for this a) because it made me laugh.
> b) because you just continued the conversation in the manner she has initiated it, surely that is the correct and polite way to behave
> c) because maybe she will pause before she makes her clever little comments in future


Hubby laughed his head off. It's not like me to ever manage a quick retort .

I felt bad as I think she was making light of it and joking - I don't mind that the dog reacts as that's life but why, oh why, you take a dog that is stressed out with other dogs passing to the bus stop at that time when so many other parents take their dogs I have no idea :nonod:. Probably involves not wanting to walk the dog separately as that would be more effort :hand:.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Oh Kilo :nono: If you're not careful the little bro will soon be outshining you.
> Had to laugh at the friendly lab comment :lol: but yuk at that yorkies owners rrr:
> 
> Yay for the fab walk mv :thumbup1:
> 
> My boys have been brilliant this morning on their walk. I was a bit naughty and took them both together for a street walk/mooch around a few onlead grassy areas because of the horrible weather. Took a completely different route to normal and we had very little pulling apart from when Sam caught the scent of something. We were walking down a narrow lane and they had a little scottie kicking off at them, they just looked and walked calmly past
> 
> We then went through a little cut through with a stream they paddle in but had to pull in tight to the side as a car was coming and a jack russell was giving what for behind a gate we were stood next to but a sharp leave it as he was starting to get a bit hyper and Oscar ignored it refocused and we carried on.


Good boys .

To be fair it's the first 'bad' walk we've had in a long, long time....and as far as 'bad' goes it was just frustrating....more frustration with filthy humans leaving crap about. I LOVE letting Kilo sniff about but can't when the Baker's poo has been left :cryin::cryin:.

Not sure what to do about walks for Rudi tomorrow if the weather is like this as I'm still waiting for a coat for him and he froze walking to the car and to PAH. I'll see what I see!!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I didn't really mean that as part of the silly stuff. the 7m this is really more to do with her confidence, i just want her to stretch her elastic a little. She really never ever goes more than a few metres from me and is twitchy more than say 3 metres from me anywhere other than our garden.
> 
> Just got back from a fab walk, if you ignore the rain starting when we were the furthest point form the car. Tink was on good bouncy form, her nimbleness never fails to astound me.
> 
> p.s. i'm a bit rubbish at distances


OK I understand.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Get better soon Hugo.
> 
> Very frustrating walk with Kilo this morning - went to the big dog walking fields but it was so windy that Kilo was off on scents this morning and didn't want to play even....not so bad you say...the scent was of bright orange dog poo :blink::blink:. Not his fault that people are too vile to clean up and the reason I use those fields less and less as well as dogs causing havoc, so I abandoned it after a while (4 piles eaten :nonod and walked the couple of miles all the way to the other end of camp where he could also go off (perfectly, he knows he has to toe the line onlead). Let him off as there is rarely any poo up there and.....he ran out of the field onto the patch of grass outside for the first time EVER (don't worry, no traffic - abandoned estate) and found some . We'd been an hour and twenty minutes by then so I popped his lead on and we headed back home.
> 
> I also managed to offend a woman on the way to the fields - she has a huge black lab that she waits at a school bus stop with that always snarls and barks at Kilo. No big deal as I cross the road before we even get there and keep Kilo focussed. It does worry him as he skitters and his tail goes down and he spends the next 15m or so anxiously checking behind him. All fine, one of those things, but the woman and her friends always laugh. This morning she said "That breed's meant to be brave!" at me as a joke, but I wasn't in the best of moods and said "That breed's meant to be friendly!" . Really vile of me, no need at all for that :nono:.
> 
> Anyhoo....got back, dried my soaking wet hair, warned hubby not to let Kilo lick his face...took Rudi to PAH for his first time on the ground - he was a little star . His little tail wagged and wagged when someone came to fuss him and he was just happily trotting around the store. There was one other dog in there - a yorkie - but it really didn't seem to like other dogs at all from the racket made when Rudi was spotted, so we stayed well away. The yorkie did 7 :blink::blink: wees and 2 poos :blink::blink: that we saw as we went up and down the aisles; I let the sales assistant that we know well know and she said that he always does, yet the owner never mentions a word. That would royally wind me up .
> 
> And now...rest :w00t:.


OMG I'll say again - you've certainly 'got em' over there haven't you?
Unbelievable.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



Hubby laughed his head off. It's not like me to ever manage a quick retort .

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> I felt bad as I think she was making light of it and joking - I don't mind that the dog reacts as that's life but why, oh why, you take a dog that is stressed out with other dogs passing to the bus stop at that time when so many other parents take their dogs I have no idea :nonod:. Probably involves not wanting to walk the dog separately as that would be more effort :hand:.


No I'm pretty hopeless at quick retorts and usually just smile and say "yes I'm sure you're right" which, if repeated often enough, usually gets through.

One of the few occasions I managed it was actually to someone I like (although he did ask for it): We were huddled in a group doing a 10 minutes out of sight down stay and I was leading the class with Fidget. Right in front of everyone this chap asks me to lift up both my feet to inspect the soles of my shoes and then said "the way you went round the ring I was looking for the springs" to which I replied "and you would walk the same if you had a bitch of Fidget's calibre". Nasty but serves him right...


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## Werehorse

Dogless - I think it's fair enough to come back with a retort if someone is rude in the first place. 

And what is it with people not picking up poo! It is so rank! I've ranted about this before though... the verges in the village are so bad at the moment and I wouldn't be supprised if it is helping Hugo pick up tummy bugs. And even my own bliddy back garden isn't clear because the farm dog from across the road wanders in and sh*ts everywhere.  We end up picking it up because although the neighbours (we share the garden) know it isn't our dogs and know we pick up we still feel kind of responsible for dog poo in the garden.

We have thus far refrained from bagging it up and depositting it on the farmer's wall... we need to be on good terms with him really taking the long view.

Hugo is feeling sorry for himself but hasn't been sick since this morning. He's having the evening off school though.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> One of the few occasions I managed it was actually to someone I like (although he did ask for it): We were huddled in a group doing a 10 minutes out of sight down stay and I was leading the class with Fidget. Right in front of everyone this chap asks me to lift up both my feet to inspect the soles of my shoes and then said "the way you went round the ring I was looking for the springs" to which I replied "and you would walk the same if you had a bitch of Fidget's calibre". Nasty but serves him right...*


*

Disclaimer: I typed and thought I'd posted this reply already, so if two appear I'm sorry :w00t::w00t:.

Very nice Twiggy!! .

Well I've just had the carpet cleaner out after a huge lake of orange poo was regurgitated all over the carpet :cryin::cryin:. Kilo is rarely sick; the last time was on the field after eating the same type of orange poo...I wish his body would make the connection between that poo and vomiting :nonod::nonod:. I think he'll stay on lead for his walk this evening - don't want him to find any more :blink:.

On a much brighter note, I took advantage of the rain letting up to 'light' and took Rudi on his first outside walk - just round the block (4 houses long!) which took 5 minutes. He was fine  if a bit :crazy::crazy: as leaves are blowing everywhere.*


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Dogless - I think it's fair enough to come back with a retort if someone is rude in the first place.


I don't think she was being rude; think she was having a joke....just caught me in a less than fabulous mood .

Glad Hugo hasn't been sick again, poor little soul.


----------



## catz4m8z

Dogless said:


> Well I've just had the carpet cleaner out after a huge lake of orange poo was regurgitated all over the carpet :cryin::cryin:..


OMG! that is rank! My lot can never resist orange poo, but thankfully they dont spew when they get in. At least Rudi got a 'proper' walk.
Ive just started 'leave it' training with Alfie but not sure Im doing it right TBH. I did try 'lie down' but had the same problem I always have (very short dogs who are impossible to lure into a down coz they are already at ground level!!). 
I cant wait to go for our first walk.


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## moonviolet

Twiggy love that retort. 
W/H Hope Hugo perks up.
C4M i can see them going . nah we're already down here :lol:


Dogless said:


> I don't think she was being rude; think she was having a joke....just caught me in a less than fabulous mood .


See I don't see it as funny... again i see it as putting you/your dog down to deflect from her dogs behaviour maybe if she spent more time distracting hers and not making cracks etc etc ranting by proxy :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy love that retort.
> W/H Hope Hugo perks up.
> C4M i can see them going . nah we're already down here :lol:
> 
> See I don't see it as funny... again i see it as putting you/your dog down to deflect from her dogs behaviour maybe if she spent more time distracting hers and not making cracks etc etc ranting by proxy :lol:


I'm with Moonviolet on this one....!!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy love that retort.
> W/H Hope Hugo perks up.
> C4M i can see them going . nah we're already down here :lol:
> 
> See I don't see it as funny... again i see it as putting you/your dog down to deflect from her dogs behaviour maybe if she spent more time distracting hers and not making cracks etc etc ranting by proxy :lol:





Twiggy said:


> I'm with Moonviolet on this one....!!


I am with you both in that I don't find it funny - but I do think that she meant it to be, maybe to deflect embarrassment. Or maybe because she thinks it is funny...who knows . It is irritating that she never attempts to distract the dog at all. I absolutely understand the reactivity and would sympathise IF she seemed to care and be doing something. As it happens it's not too bad a training situation for us .

Anyway...

STOP PRESS!!!!! HOLD THE HEADLINES!!!!!!! We got a 'leave it' from a running cat on our walk this evening :w00t: :yikes: :yesnod:.

That was fab...what wasn't was that I was so busy strutting along after it that I failed to see the other cat on a high wall that Kilo lunged at, getting his front paws up on top of it, tail wagging madly :blink:. BUT no screaming, barking or growling .

This place has a massive stray cat population as people move away back to the mainland or posted abroad and just leave their cats  .


----------



## Beth17

Well done Kilo cats are not easy to ignore 

Werehorse glad Hugo hasn't been sick again.

Took the boys up to the field together this afternoon as the rain had eased but was still misty. There was no one up there and so they could just run about and be goons


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## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> 1.
> 2.
> 3.
> 4. :001_tongue:
> 5. :nono::nonod:
> 
> Glad Rudi is on the ground and running  but* what revolting people you live near*!


You're not including me in that comment of course


----------



## Thorne

Once again, very little to report here! 

Scooter has grown tired of his Antler chew and keeps eyeing up Breeze's Kong, glad I got him one for Christmas and if I wasn't so bloody-minded I'd be tempted to give it to him early! Originally only bought one because I thought one dog was bound to be perplexed by it (silly me, they're eating machines).
Walks going well, lots of slipping and sliding though.

Saw a sad sight today at the vets; an elderly black Lab who'd completely "gone off his legs" was brought in by his tearful owner to be PTS. It will take a long time to forget the look in that dog's eyes, I think it was his time :crying:

Poor Paddy is still looking for a home and I think he will be for a while  Walked him yesterday, he's an absolute joy, until he decides he wants to do a mad Lurcher run across a field...while he's on lead. It's all play and no pull, and he'll stop quickly if I ignore him so I take it as one of his amusing quirks. He gets several free running, play and training sessions per day but will take as much as he's given!
If I had my own place and a dog-free life I'd have him in a heartbeat.


----------



## Werehorse

Oscar went to school tonight. Poor Hugo stayed at home to carry on sleeping off the sick. He hasn't thrown up again and seems a bit more lively this evening so fingers crossed he's on the mend. His vetbed for his crate was in the wash so I put a towel in his crate for him while we went out (usually he'd have the run of the house but I didn't want to find hidden sick in 2 days time or similar ) and for extra warmth I put Oscar's equafleece jumper on him. :lol: Even though they have approximately the same back measurement the jumper completely swamps teeny Hugo.  So cute. If I get Hugo an Equafleece I must remember to get a "slim fit"!

Anyway, he was fine while we were out... except for stuffing the whole towel into his spaniel-shape water bowl. It was entirely stuffed in and the rest piled on top, not just accidently thrown in.  Strange dog.

Oscar was good at school. I had fun training him but he was a bit confused and kept doing spaniel walkabouts and checking in with OH in case he had treats for him too.  OMG he LOVES sendaway to a hoop and started tucking his front paws under the rim of the hoop and resting his chin on the bit of hoop that was on his paws. If you can imagine that, sooooper cute.

We did lots of things and he was good, drop on recall jsut needs a bit of work but it is mostly enthusiasm in the recall so the stop takes a couple of steps, so I'm not too worried because I like the recall enthusiasm! :lol:

We had a fast sit competition with a twist because we swapped dogs.  Oscar was really, really good for the Tollers' mum, super waggy and he kept doing his "be a bear" trick to try and get treats for being cute. I had the smallest Toller to play with and he was sooooo good. There is a question mark as to whether he's actually half a spaniel despite being a KC registered Toller, :lol: and he's bonkers but having worked him for a bit I just think he has quite a lot of drive. More Hugo-ish than Hugo!  I'd actually like to play with him again. I think he's quite nervous in real life though and doesn't cope well with out and about type situations. But he was doing some super heel work and sits for me in the training room, while Oscar behaved himself for a different handler which made me happy. 

And we finished off with a retrieve over a hurdle which Oscar really enjoyed. I'm considering asking my parents if they would buy me some flyball/basic agility equipment for my 30th next month ( how did *that* happen by the way??  ) but I'm not sure where I would store it and/or use it! The shed is full of bicycles and tools (man "shoes" apparently - until I pointed out that he probably has more shoes than me as well) Perhaps at the yard if I ask nicely, but then if we ever move the horses off the yard then that would be difficult.

I'm rambling, sorry!


----------



## catz4m8z

wow, sounds like you are really into this whole doggy training thing, Werehorse!! Do you do competitions with them??

Ive just been rummaging around the upstairs cupboard coz ratpuppy has decided to investigate behind my computer (the only place in the house with lots of wires he can get to!). Mind you as he is puppy no4 I now have a selection of crates and pens so was able to dig out one that has seperate sections and just block off that corner.
I had to leave the gate section in front though coz it blocks off the bureau too and thats where Adam takes his raw to eat!!:w00t:


----------



## Werehorse

catz4m8z said:


> wow, sounds like you are really into this whole doggy training thing, Werehorse!! Do you do competitions with them??


:lol: I guess I am in so far as I enjoy it and the dogs enjoy it. We don't compete although I'd quite like the opportunity but at the moment we can't afford to travel around a lot and there's not a lot locally that I can see. We just go to classes and have done some Kennel Club good citizens stuff.


----------



## Dogless

I'm glad Hugo is on the mend; even if he feels the need to stuff things in his water bowl :w00t:.

Oscar sounds as if he was superb and pulled out some really cute tricks; I'd love to see his 'be a bear' .


----------



## kat&molly

Hello everyone. I've been really busy here and not been able to post- but I have just one dog left to groom tomorrow and then thats me done I think.

Our training has been cancelled for this morning due to horrendous weather  really fed up of all this rain now- Moll is enjoying it though, she seems to set herself a challenge to find the biggest muddiest puddle possible :blink:

I hope everyones ok and I'll try to catch up a bit today :blink:.

Werehorse- your training class sounds good fun.


----------



## Dogless

k&m I was thinking about you this morning and hoping you were OK - so pleased to 'see' you .

Walked Kilo this morning in the pouring rain - he was very good; no horrible habits and nice and obedient. We just played and he zoomed and zoomed at top speed .

Then I got home and walked Rudi as the rain was lighter again. Went down the street to a patch of grass, let him have a little potter offlead then up a busier road and past a car park then home (only 10 minutes on the lead!). He was cold and shaking love him after a minute or two so we kept moving. My Zooplus order arrived today too, so he now has a coat . Shame about the weather as not many people about. Rudi was confident for the whole walk though - he seems bold as brass!

Something I learnt from our walk was that he will fixate on joggers or vehicles (diesel engines especially, just like Kilo) and attempt to chase as they pass us. I was hoping to have a dog with slightly less prey drive / urge to chase but not sure that will be the case :blink:. At least I recognise what it is now and what to do about it - lots and lots of impulse control and distraction work . Kilo had a very brief but extremely frightening (for me!!) traffic lunging career when he was 5 or 6 months old and I am determined that Rudi won't get to that stage :nono:.

Rudi also offers me a lot of attention whilst walking at present and seems to enjoy praise and physical touch too, hoping I can nurture that.

Then....cleaned the house, rearranged the kitchen and have just sat down - coffee time :w00t::w00t:.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks Dogless, we're all fine but I've missed so much lately.:nonod:
I bet you're so relieved to get the 'little':blink: man out and about now-he must have been a lump and a half to carry around.:w00t:


----------



## GingerRogers

chazzie10 said:


> You're not including me in that comment of course


Of course not Chazzie I know you would *never *poop in [email protected] 

Glad Hugo's getting better, might be worth trying some 'robotic' stuff (whatever its sposed to be) to try and balance his belly do you think? Especially with Christmas titbits coming up  Whats 'be a bear' pics please 

We haven't had much to report recently partly because my management technique has been avoidance  I know I am a chicken, partly because I have been busy so not very exciting walks.

However I was very brave this morning  I had a few bits, invoices and stuff, to drop off round the village so decided to use this as our morning walk .

It was rather wet, so as expected we had some car barking to start with, I had to be quite firm with her as otherwise she ramps up and up and you never get that good reaction to praise, but we soon had that under control and she spent the rest of the walk doing a good impression of a well behaved dog  (we wont mention that it was actually peeing it down so no other nutter was stupid enough to be out in it) we had one quick bark at a bus just as we approached home but I forgave her that as buses are quite scary I imagine.

We live in a housing estate in a large village sort of a suburb of a town but are lucky enough to have lovely fields, marshes and beach paths within 5 mins walk, I mostly avoid walking round the village so as to avoid dogs and cars and I always hated road walking with Rory as it was sooooo boring (unless it led to the pub ) but actually with Ginge road walks become challenging so give you a sense of achievement sometimes rather than just relief that oh well thats the dog walked then. I might do it again although I am dreading Christmas as it gets so busy round here with tourists and their dogs.

And I discovered that my pockets aren't that waterproof so all my deliveries were damp


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Kilo had a very brief but extremely frightening (for me!!) traffic lunging career when he was 5 or 6 months old


It can be terrifying can't it and I feel bad as I am sure the drivers find it quite scary as well. Ginge has nearly ended up under the wheels a few times well she hasn't cos I always have good hold of her but it must look like shes about to, constant vigilance


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> It can be terrifying can't it and I feel bad as I am sure the drivers find it quite scary as well. Ginge has nearly ended up under the wheels a few times well she hasn't cos I always have good hold of her but it must look like shes about to, constant vigilance


The first time he did it he almost made contact with a lorry; I was shaking for so long afterwards :nonod:. He also weighed around 30kg by then I would have thought and was bluddy strong. I bought a front clip harness to manage him better until the behaviour had been sorted.


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> Something I learnt from our walk was that he will fixate on joggers or vehicles (diesel engines especially, just like Kilo) and attempt to chase as they pass us. I was hoping to have a dog with slightly less prey drive / urge to chase but not sure that will be the case :blink:. At least I recognise what it is now and what to do about it - lots and lots of impulse control and distraction work . Kilo had a very brief but extremely frightening (for me!!) traffic lunging career when he was 5 or 6 months old and I am determined that Rudi won't get to that stage :nono:.


Paddy does this too, diesels are most exciting to him but he's quite partial to the odd motorbike or Subaru 
I think he's partly grown out of it but when he had a very tetchy phase the staff and I started taking him out at quiet times and rewarding him for being calm when passed by vehicles. Diesel/motorbike/something big = jackpot for calm! Haven't seen a lunge towards traffic from him for weeks and weeks, but he still does the odd "skip" when passed by particularly noisy things. Hope Rudi's fascination doesn't last long!

Having some blood tests done today so think I'll do a shortish walk before then and another shortish one after instead of our normal long thursday walk. The Labbies are currently napping and showing no inclination to go out but they'll have to like it or lump it, they're lazy enough as it is


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> The first time he did it he almost made contact with a lorry; I was shaking for so long afterwards :nonod:. He also weighed around 30kg by then I would have thought and was bluddy strong. I bought a front clip harness to manage him better until the behaviour had been sorted.


Shudder, yes at least Ginge is only 7 kg but she's ruddy fast at it  quite often flies through the air can't imagine what its like trying to hold 30kg.

I had never thought about it being a part of prey drive always thought pure nerves as they must be very scary but she does react differently to some vehicles like cheap noisy motorbikes nyrrrrrrr and the buses.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thorne said:


> Paddy does this too, diesels are most exciting to him but he's quite partial to the odd motorbike or Subaru
> I think he's partly grown out of it but when he had a very tetchy phase the staff and I started *taking him out at quiet times and rewarding him for being calm when passed by vehicles*. Diesel/motorbike/something big = jackpot for calm! Haven't seen a lunge towards traffic from him for weeks and weeks, but he still does the odd "skip" when passed by particularly noisy things. Hope Rudi's fascination doesn't last long!
> 
> Having some blood tests done today so think I'll do a shortish walk before then and another shortish one after instead of our normal long thursday walk. The Labbies are currently napping and showing no inclination to go out but they'll have to like it or lump it, they're lazy enough as it is


Thats how I have been handling it and we can go for several days with good behaviour then like today it rains or something zooms too fast or a big rattly van or........


----------



## GingerRogers

Leam1307 said:


> Hmm where to start, the good bits i think, Deeks is walking well on the lead, managed to pass a few dogs with only a "look" from him, he managed to get the lead out of my hand the other day and would not respond to "come" what so ever... as soon as i said "look at me" he came flying over sat and my feet and didnt move. might have got those commands muddled up but as long as i remember that i can work with that. Never been so relieved when he came back, was only about 5 seconds and was never more than 4 foot from me but OMG!! the amount of what if's that went through my head in those seconds.
> 
> He is starting to learn "down" and settle and we have had a few enjoyable cuddles on the sofa without me getting jumped all over and only a few incidents of reverting back to the snarling pup.* i have to say though the distraction techniques just do not work for me, *my brain completely freezes when he growls and i cant do anything. so the helpful response my brain offered up... growl back. nothing sinister just a quick grrrr back, well he sat down, cocked his head to the side looking at me like i was mad, and then lay down at my feet. lol Maybe not the best way to deal with it but it seems to work for now, i guess it is a distraction in a way that he has no idea what im doing. :blush:
> 
> Had a few housetraining incidents this week, hes been clean and mostly dry since the first week we got him, now in the past 3 days we have had 2 wees and 5 poops (one on the sofa!) even though he had just been out 5mins before. grrrrrr. Also the barking at 2am in the morning we really need to work on, not sure how to go about that one though. I need some sleep!


You will get there I thought the same, uncoordinated clutz that I am, I end up praising in stern voice and correcting in happy voice, clicking the bad stuff and missing the good, I am getting better though, slowly .


----------



## Thorne

GingerRogers said:


> Thats how I have been handling it and we can go for several days with good behaviour then like today it rains or something zooms too fast or a big rattly van or........


I know the feeling! Thankfully the roads I walk Pads along have cycle paths between the pavement and cars so he's not been able to get frighteningly close. He's ~26kg and very quick but it was a little terrier that scared me to death by lunging almost into the path of a car, only did it once so completely surprised me! She moved SO fast 
Does Ginger run around in the garden? Paddy is always calmer if he has a good blast and some tug games before a walk, he can still be a little "wired" if he doesn't get that although he generally channels it into prancing and a few big bounces rather than cars now.


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> You will get there I thought the same, uncoordinated clutz that I am, I end up praising in stern voice and correcting in happy voice, clicking the bad stuff and missing the good, I am getting better though, slowly .


Have you not tried feeding the clicker to the dog yet?  I've been clicker training for about 10 years now and still balls it up at times. Yesterday I clicked for something Spen did and then instead of giving him a treat I clicked again 

Werehorse, glad Hugo is feeling better. I doubt it's you doing anything wrong, sometimes they just seem prone to upset tummies. Rupert was the first couple of years I had him but as he got older he seemed to grow out of it.

Dogless...the orange poops. Thankfully Rupert seemed horrified by them and would leap away with a snort whenever he encountered them. I really don't envy you a dog who eats them and then throws them back up. The off leash field was disgusting when we walked there and there's no excuse as there's a bin each end :nonod:

Just got back from a mostly wonderful walk with Spen. Hubby came along for the first time in months and we stood on top of a small hill for about 15 minutes with him throwing the frisbee for Spen. Spen was good for the most part, checked in regularly, offered some walking next to us, kept an eye on where we were etc. Had a bit of a blip near the end of the walk where he decided he was going where he wanted to go and to hell with us. He did eventually change his mind and come back to us but it took him a good few minutes. Never quite sure what to do when this happens though. Obviously I can't tell him off coz he's come back but at the same time I don't want to reward such a crap response. It's not often he does it and most of the time his recall is great (now that the snow has gone lol) so I'm not sure a long line is the way to go. Anyone have any ideas?

We drove up to the fields today as I've been saying for ages that the only time we take Spen anywhere in the car is when he goes to the vets. Which isn't too bad as he likes going to the vets but after the problem we had last year with him associating the car with being left in kennels I want to make it as good a thing as possible. Especially as he'll probably be being left in kennels again in a few months. I'll say one thing though, if I'm ever in a crowded car park and can't remember where the car is I want Spen with me! Straight to it and sit at the back ready for me to open the boot for him to jump in. He also notices it on the street if hubbys come home while we're out and does the same then lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thorne said:


> I know the feeling! Thankfully the roads I walk Pads along have cycle paths between the pavement and cars so he's not been able to get frighteningly close. He's ~26kg and very quick but it was a little terrier that scared me to death by lunging almost into the path of a car, only did it once so completely surprised me! She moved SO fast
> *Does Ginger run around in the garden? *Paddy is always calmer if he has a good blast and some tug games before a walk, he can still be a little "wired" if he doesn't get that although he generally channels it into prancing and a few big bounces rather than cars now.


Well yes  till she escapes it 

I did start doing that actually not sure why I stopped might be a good idea especially on days like today. Luckily most of our paths are similar in that there are good grass verges between us and the traffic.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> *Have you not tried feeding the clicker to the dog yet? * I've been clicker training for about 10 years now and still balls it up at times. Yesterday I clicked for something Spen did and then instead of giving him a treat I clicked again
> 
> Werehorse, glad Hugo is feeling better. I doubt it's you doing anything wrong, sometimes they just seem prone to upset tummies. Rupert was the first couple of years I had him but as he got older he seemed to grow out of it.
> 
> Dogless...the orange poops. Thankfully Rupert seemed horrified by them and would leap away with a snort whenever he encountered them. I really don't envy you a dog who eats them and then throws them back up. The off leash field was disgusting when we walked there and there's no excuse as there's a bin each end :nonod:
> 
> Just got back from a mostly wonderful walk with Spen. Hubby came along for the first time in months and we stood on top of a small hill for about 15 minutes with him throwing the frisbee for Spen. Spen was good for the most part, checked in regularly, offered some walking next to us, kept an eye on where we were etc. Had a bit of a blip near the end of the walk where he decided he was going where he wanted to go and to hell with us. He did eventually change his mind and come back to us but it took him a good few minutes. Never quite sure what to do when this happens though. Obviously I can't tell him off coz he's come back but at the same time I don't want to reward such a crap response. It's not often he does it and most of the time his recall is great (now that the snow has gone lol) so I'm not sure a long line is the way to go. Anyone have any ideas?
> 
> We drove up to the fields today as I've been saying for ages that the only time we take Spen anywhere in the car is when he goes to the vets. Which isn't too bad as he likes going to the vets but after the problem we had last year with him associating the car with being left in kennels I want to make it as good a thing as possible. Especially as he'll probably be being left in kennels again in a few months. I'll say one thing though, if I'm ever in a crowded car park and can't remember where the car is I want Spen with me! Straight to it and sit at the back ready for me to open the boot for him to jump in. He also notices it on the street if hubbys come home while we're out and does the same then lol.


Oh, no, not yet Sarah , guess whats coming up though now the thought is there :nonod:

Must admit the orange poop story made feel rather sick too 

Glad you had a nice walk with hubby , we need one of those, the last time he came with us it was a disaster. No ideas for recall here I am afraid, although a kong stuffed with pate or dairylee has been working to get her in from the garden  since the houdini impression earlier in the week, today she actually came looking for me herself.

I know what you mean, the teeth gritted, oh well done spen!, when they were actually very naughty but I suppose, even though they 'know' they are meant to come when called, they don't really understand how 'bad' it is not to???  do they. This is based on the theory that they don't quite compute things the way we do otherwise shouting at them when they finally come back would work, they would ' go oh whoops mummy is mad if I don't come straight away, better make sure I am quicker next time' but it doesn't work that way.


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## Werehorse

Hugo has had a small breakfast and not been sick. :thumbup: He was bouncy this morning but is quite quiet and clingy now so I don't know if he's feeling a bit yuck again or whether he's just decided it's a duvet day (it's become a bit of a habit after me being ill as well!  We'll all need a boot camp once we're all better... on that note I went to the opticians this morning and was late so I ran for a bit... blimey did my lungs hurt! Lots of work to do.  )

Building up to ordering robotic stuff off the internets but considering seeing what the vet would charge as then I'd get it quicker.

I'm now going to go give the horses lunch and then I am going to tidy the house. No, I am, I'm going to vaccuum and everything. :lol: My OH will die of shock if I actually manage it. But I want to get some christmass-ness into the house and it needs to be clean and tidy first.

Oh yes, and Oscar being a bear... cheeky sod has started to do this to strangers to get their attention/food :lol: He has worked out it gets a good for dogs reaction.


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## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Hugo has had a small breakfast and not been sick. :thumbup: He was bouncy this morning but is quite quiet and clingy now so I don't know if he's feeling a bit yuck again or whether he's just decided it's a duvet day (it's become a bit of a habit after me being ill as well!  We'll all need a boot camp once we're all better... on that note I went to the opticians this morning and was late so I ran for a bit... blimey did my lungs hurt! Lots of work to do.  )
> 
> Building up to ordering robotic stuff off the internets but considering seeing what the vet would charge as then I'd get it quicker.
> 
> I'm now going to go give the horses lunch and then I am going to tidy the house. No, I am, I'm going to vaccuum and everything. :lol: My OH will die of shock if I actually manage it. *But I want to get some christmass-ness into the house and it needs to be clean and tidy first.*
> 
> Oh yes, and Oscar being a bear... cheeky sod has started to do this to strangers to get their attention/food :lol: He has worked out it gets a good for dogs reaction.


We are having that problem I am determined Christmas will not go up over dirt this year  trouble is I am waiting for hubby to hoover, just because I asked him too a few days ago and he hasn't, I think I am going to have to cave otherwise Christmas wont come or it will come over dusty, again 

Hope Hugo is on the mend. I think you can use human robotic yoghurt as well.

Love Oscar being a bear, Ninji has started to do that ever since she got 'paws' and that turned into 'kill the kitten' which turns into full on 'please I am really cute'


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## Werehorse

Sarah - when he recall fails would he let you walk up to him or would he run away? If he'll let you walk up you could try just approaching and putting him on lead for a short time, do a couple of training recalls on lead, then letting him off again and do a heavily rewarded successful recall while you still have his attention.

If it's at the end of the walk is he anticipating going home? I never do a recall at the end of the walk, I get a few treats out (which usually brings them close anyway ) then approach and feed as I clip the lead on.

If approaching him when he's blanking you would make him run off and turn it into a dodging game I would try legging it away from him, hopefully bringing him running after you, then when he is close praise (no treat), clip the lead on and make him do some sits, downs etc before being released again.

I have no idea if any of this is sound advice! But it is what I would try. If you can anticipate when he's got his "sod you" hat on I would just not use the recall cue (keep it sacred!) and just wait it out if you can. I generally use their name before calling and judge their response to their name first - if I get blanked I don't use the recall cue. This is all asuming it isn't an emergency, if it is I end up screaming "LEAVE IT!!!" and calling like a woman possessed which hasn't failed so far. :lol:

Also I usually reward a recall out on a walk even if it is shite, just a smaller reward or just praise if it is really slow. Indoors in a training setting I would be selective but not when there are better things on offer and they have chosen to come away even if it is "eventually"!


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## cinnamontoast

The gun dog trainer walked her dog past Zak who was retrieving yesterday and he ignored it!!! I am ecstatic!!


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## Sarah1983

Oh he'd let me walk up and grab him without it turning into a game. Problem is catching up to him to get hold of him. It's not that he's just standing there sniffing, he's usually just trotting along at a fair old clip and I'm...well not very fast  Usually when I whistle he turns and comes back but every now and then he'll just carry on like he hasn't even heard me. I haven't spotted any difference between the times he comes back and the times he doesn't otherwise I wouldn't call him. As I say, it's not often he does it though and it can happen at any point in a walk, it just happened to be that we'd decided to head home just before he did it today. I don't think he'd notice me legging it in another direction, he's too focused on going wherever it is he's going. I've tried figuring out what it is that triggers it but can't find anything. Could be a scent but I don't know what of. He doesn't stop to sniff, just trots along. Then eventually he'll stop, look around and come back to me 

He's also used to being called back, leashed, rewarded, let off again a few minutes later (joggers, other dogs etc) and called back, rewarded and sent to do his own thing so recall doesn't mean fun's over. 

He got praised when he did finally come back and then offered a bit of walking by us so he got a treat for that and was sent off again.


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## Dogless

Well done cinnamontoast - that's brilliant .

Werehorse - 'being a bear' is gorgeous :001_wub::001_wub:.


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## Werehorse

Hmmmm, that is odd - it is possible he genuinely doesn't hear it because his head is full of scent! I wonder if you hiding when he's completely lost in a sniff so that you aren't in view when he turns round would panic him at all? If it did it might make him think before becoming really involved in a sniff? I find it really hard to hide though because it means I can't see them either and it probably freaks me out more than it does them. :lol: Also not sure if it is effective on grown up dogs.

I think just keep heavily rewarding the fast responses and slightly rewarding the slower ones will gradually increase the frequency of the fast ones...

As long as he's not high-tailing for the hills and you just use the cue once and wait it out rather than whistling and whistling while he's not responsive...


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## cinnamontoast

cinammontoast said:


> The gun dog trainer walked her dog past Zak who was retrieving yesterday and he ignored it!!! I am ecstatic!!


And then she stood right in his path back to the OH and he just swerved round to get to Daddy!! :001_wub:


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## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Hmmmm, that is odd - it is possible he genuinely doesn't hear it because his head is full of scent! I wonder if you hiding when he's completely lost in a sniff so that you aren't in view when he turns round would panic him at all? If it did it might make him think before becoming really involved in a sniff? I find it really hard to hide though because it means I can't see them either and it probably freaks me out more than it does them. :lol: Also not sure if it is effective on grown up dogs.
> 
> I think just keep heavily rewarding the fast responses and slightly rewarding the slower ones will gradually increase the frequency of the fast ones...
> 
> As long as he's not high-tailing for the hills and you just use the cue once and wait it out rather than whistling and whistling while he's not responsive...


It does seem like he really doesn't hear. Even the whistle doesn't get any sort of response and usually he turns into a greyhound when I whistle coz it means he gets food  He does panic if he realises he can't see me but it doesn't stop it happening again.

He's not sprinting for the horizon or anything like that, it's just got me baffled coz I can't figure out what's causing it or how to stop it. He just trots off like he's intent on getting to a certain place, doesn't stop to sniff or mark or anything  Very different to him blanking me because he's sniffing or focused on the birds or anything like that, then I at least get an ear flick in my direction but when he's like this...nothing.


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## Sarah1983

Not a great picture as he was so far away but this is how he is when he's doing it whereas any other time he's trotting along with his nose to the ground and stops to sniff and mark.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Not a great picture as he was so far away but this is how he is when he's doing it whereas any other time he's trotting along with his nose to the ground and stops to sniff and mark.


That is Kilo's "I smell an orange poo" trot. Only time I just get zilch from him and have to go and get him.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> That is Kilo's "I smell an orange poo" trot. Only time I just get zilch from him and have to go and get him.


Oh dear, I don't envy you that one. I know there must be something triggering it in Spen, just can't figure out what. It's not orange poo though thankfully!


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## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Not a great picture as he was so far away but this is how he is when he's doing it whereas any other time he's trotting along with his nose to the ground and stops to sniff and mark.


Hmm - it doesn't look like he's hunting or has seen something. I'd expect him to be more focused and his body lower to the ground if he was.

Is he air scenting at all?


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## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> Hmm - it doesn't look like he's hunting or has seen something. I'd expect him to be more focused and his body lower to the ground if he was.
> 
> Is he air scenting at all?


Not that I can tell. I just put it down to scent because I've never been able to find anything to explain it and of course we can't smell as well as a dog so he might be smelling something I can't.


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## moonviolet

Sarah for Tink that would be a ration pack trot. Nose up for her is for soemthing that didn't leave a track.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Not that I can tell. I just put it down to scent because I've never been able to find anything to explain it and of course we can't smell as well as a dog so he might be smelling something I can't.


His head and tail positions do remind me of Kilo's when air scenting. Does look like it to me, but then you obviously know Spen and I don't - just an idea though .


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## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Not that I can tell. I just put it down to scent because I've never been able to find anything to explain it and of course we can't smell as well as a dog so he might be smelling something I can't.


Weird.

The only other thing I can think of is if he's heard something. Doesn't really explain it though.


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## Sarah1983

He could be air scenting and I'm just not seeing it because of how far from me he is. My others have all stood there with head in the air obviously scenting something which is something I don't think I've ever seen him do unless there's food involved. He's definitely focused on something but he's never seemed to find whatever it is. 

Tink and her ration packs :001_wub: Hubby reckons she must be the only creature ever to actually like them lol.


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## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> He could be air scenting and I'm just not seeing it because of how far from me he is. My others have all stood there with head in the air obviously scenting something which is something I don't think I've ever seen him do unless there's food involved. He's definitely focused on something but he's never seemed to find whatever it is.
> 
> Tink and her ration packs :001_wub: Hubby reckons she must be the only creature ever to actually like them lol.


:lol well some she likes, the more worrying ones are the ones she rolls in  notably vegetable korma and beef goulash


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## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> :lol well some she likes, the more worrying ones are the ones she rolls in  notably vegetable korma and beef goulash


I'm sure to Tink it's the equivalent of expensive perfume


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## Werehorse

It does look like air scenting... Looks like the Bisto kid. :lol: If he snaps out of it everytime and does come back eventually then it could just be something to be aware of (near roads etc) but not worry about too much? The more reward history he associates with the whistle the more likely it is to cut into his dilly daydream I would imagine.

I'M VACUUMING!!!


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## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> It does look like air scenting... Looks like the Bisto kid. :lol: If he snaps out of it everytime and does come back eventually then it could just be something to be aware of (near roads etc) but not worry about too much? The more reward history he associates with the whistle the more likely it is to cut into his dilly daydream I would imagine.


Aye, hopefully that'll happen. He's not off leash too close to roads so it shouldn't be a big issue, it's just frustrating more than anything not knowing what triggers it.



> I'M VACUUMING!!!


Nice to know you'll have a clean and tidy house ready for the world ending tomorrow


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## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Nice to know you'll have a clean and tidy house ready for the world ending tomorrow


Ah ha, I had forgotten that, does that mean I can put it off for another day


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## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Ah ha, I had forgotten that, does that mean I can put it off for another day


You can if I can... not only is it the end of the world tomorrow it's also my M-i-L's birthday... coincidence .. I think not :lol: :lol: :lol:

I don't mean it, she's a lovely woman 

Sat here debating on an offlead walk soonish or a pavemenat walk later. Tink is sound asleep.


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## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> Nice to know you'll have a clean and tidy house ready for the world ending tomorrow


Darn it! However if God happens to be real maybe a tidy house will make up for being an ex-Catholic atheist?? Cleanliness is next to Godlyness and all that...

I'll think of it as vacuuming my way out of hell.


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## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Darn it! However if God happens to be real maybe a tidy house will make up for being an ex-Catholic atheist?? Cleanliness is next to Godlyness and all that...
> 
> I'll think of it as vacuuming my way out of hell.


Ah but if it does ends that means the Mayans were right so you might be better trying to appease Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau.

Disclaimer: It is in fact complete bullshit and the Mayans never prophesied the end of the world - it is a change of calender not a catastrophic collapse. People calling it the end of the world are fundamentally misunderstanding a very complex culture and belief system.


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## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Of course not Chazzie I know you would *never *poop in [email protected]


I try not to.......


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> Hmmmm, that is odd - it is possible he genuinely doesn't hear it because his head is full of scent! * I wonder if you hiding when he's completely lost in a sniff so that you aren't in view when he turns round would panic him at all? If it did it might make him think before becoming really involved in a sniff? I find it really hard to hide though because it means I can't see them either and it probably freaks me out more than it does them. :lol: Also not sure if it is effective on grown up dogs.*
> 
> I think just keep heavily rewarding the fast responses and slightly rewarding the slower ones will gradually increase the frequency of the fast ones...
> 
> As long as he's not high-tailing for the hills and you just use the cue once and wait it out rather than whistling and whistling while he's not responsive...


I've done that in the forest with Charlie when he'd 'gone off on a mission' but I kept peeping round the tree watching him. It scared the daylights out of him and his face was a picture....the only reason he found me so quick was that I was doubled over with laughter and the tears were tripping me......bad mommy


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## Werehorse

Oh balls. I think I've broken the vacuum cleaner. That'll teach me.


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## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Oh balls. I think I've broken the vacuum cleaner. That'll teach me.


Now that's God definitely telling you not to vacuum. :lol:


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## Dogless

Mixed walk with Kilo this evening; saw 'the' rottie and the two others playing in a field so went on past quickly - they didn't see us . Kilo saw them, a little skip and carried on.

A little while later someone had a very noisy (illegal I suspect) quad bike that they were gunning up and down the road. First pass - not too much reaction. Second pass - some skipping. Third pass - me hanging onto Kilo's collar and headcollar as he tried desperately to back out of them.

Those two ^^^^ sound negative BUT Kilo shook them off and recovered straight away which never would have happened not too long ago.

THEN we passed a big transporter by a building site that they were unloading some diggers from....men in high vis, loads of shouting, chains being thrown about.....not a flicker .

We also saw some dogs - fine .

So...on balance it falls on the side of a fab walk with the BW .

Then....5 minutes round the block with little Rudi; he didn't much like the huge inflatable Santa on someone's garden; sort of did a double take and carried on past but was fine with people walking by (apart from wanting to say hello - very unlike his big brother!).


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## Werehorse

OH came home and fixed the vac. Clearly I just need to be properly supervised.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> OH came home and fixed the vac. Clearly I just need to be properly supervised.


Boo....no excuse now :w00t: :hand:.


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## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Boo....no excuse now :w00t: :hand:.


S'alright I had already taken it upon myself to wash the filter so I have to wait for that to dry before vacuuming again. :thumbup: I didn't even know it was possible/necessary to wash the filter... but it has a tap symbol on it and it says "3 months" nest to the tap. Ooops, 3 years is almost 3 months isn't it?


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## Guest

HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Brought a ball on a rope. Promptly flung into the hedge never to be seen again.

Le stray kitty has been spayed and is in Zanders old crate for some peace.

And I plan to get himself a new flat collar for his tags. (I tried walking him on his collar yesterday MY GOD he sounded like someone who smokes 100 a day)

See I like some of indi-dogs ones but I also like these ones:

Jacquard Collars

What do you guys think?

And well done Kilo and Rudi for being brave! (And werehorse for doing the hoovering.)


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Brought a ball on a rope. Promptly flung into the hedge never to be seen again.
> 
> Le stray kitty has been spayed and is in Zanders old crate for some peace.
> 
> And I plan to get himself a new flat collar for his tags. (I tried walking him on his collar yesterday MY GOD he sounded like someone who smokes 100 a day)
> 
> See I like some of indi-dogs ones but I also like these ones:
> 
> Jacquard Collars
> 
> What do you guys think?
> 
> And well done Kilo and Rudi for being brave! (And werehorse for doing the hoovering.)


They are nice; have you looked at Silver Peacock too? They have some lovely, lovely collars - can't link as website won't work tonight for some reason .

Werehorse hasn't hoovered yet :nonod::nonod:.


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> They are nice; have you looked at Silver Peacock too? They have some lovely, lovely collars - can't link as website won't work tonight for some reason .
> 
> Werehorse hasn't hoovered yet :nonod::nonod:.


I'm pretty sure their shut for the festive season, no idea if thats why the website's down though. I don't really want to get him a martingale because we don't very often walk him on his collar. But a flat collar with a large D ring would be perfect in that "just in case" scenario.

Also do you know what a side release collar is? whats the difference between that and a normal flattie?

Do you keep kilo's half check on all the time? (Isn't that dangerous? Cause it could get caught? I dunno I'm just rambling.)


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I'm pretty sure their shut for the festive season, no idea if thats why the website's down though. I don't really want to get him a martingale because we don't very often walk him on his collar. But a flat collar with a large D ring would be perfect in that "just in case" scenario.
> 
> Also do you know what a side release collar is? whats the difference between that and a normal flattie?
> 
> Do you keep kilo's half check on all the time? (Isn't that dangerous? Cause it could get caught? I dunno I'm just rambling.)


I did leave it on all the time when I was home, but took it off if I left him. It is currently off all the time in the house for two reasons; Rudi loves the jangling and tries to paly with it and I don't want Rudi getting caught up in it playing. When we start walking them together offlead I'll put a flat one on him I think until Rudi becomes less interested.

Outside I do leave it on offlead (I know a lot say not to) BUT it is adjusted so that it cannot choke. I often put a flat collar on if I am going to woodland etc but forget an awful lot of the time .

I think that side release just refers to the type of buckle (the plastic ones where you squeeze the sides to...erm...release :w00t: the buckle) rather than a traditional buckle.

ETA: I have a beautiful one from here....no buckle at all, not martingale either. http://www.bonniedogs.co.uk/dog-col...s-s41?osCsid=8afb2fe8072851adffcb755f18dcd778


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> I did leave it on all the time when I was home, but took it off if I left him. It is currently off all the time in the house for two reasons; Rudi loves the jangling and tries to paly with it and I don't want Rudi getting caught up in it playing. When we start walking them together offlead I'll put a flat one on him I think until Rudi becomes less interested.
> 
> Outside I do leave it on offlead (I know a lot say not to) BUT it is adjusted so that it cannot choke. I often put a flat collar on if I am going to woodland etc but forget an awful lot of the time .
> 
> I think that side release just refers to the type of buckle (the plastic ones where you squeeze the sides to...erm...release :w00t: the buckle) rather than a traditional buckle.
> 
> ETA: I have a beautiful one from here....no buckle at all, not martingale either. Bonnie Dogs  Log In


Its saying I need to log in? Do I need too?

lurchercollar designs page.htm

*Scroll down a bit to see them*

SO PRETTY.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Its saying I need to log in? Do I need too?
> 
> lurchercollar designs page.htm
> 
> *Scroll down a bit to see them*
> 
> SO PRETTY.


Bugger, don't know - I just see the beautiful collars on the link I posted so must be logged in. Perhaps Google Bonnie Dogs instead and see if you can just look - you must be able to or you wouldn't bother creating an account for a site without visible goods .

Love those Kitschcollars.


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> Bugger, don't know - I just see the beautiful collars on the link I posted so must be logged in. Perhaps Google Bonnie Dogs instead and see if you can just look - you must be able to or you wouldn't bother creating an account for a site without visible goods .
> 
> Love those Kitschcollars.


Some of the bonnie fabric ones are the same as the kitsch ones haha!

He did have a leather greyhound collar but it was really inflexible then got all horrid after several months of rain and stuff.


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## Dogless

These can be pricey; but Kilo's Ann Rees collar has stayed soft and supple and it's been through all sorts of weather and traumas!! I think they are fabulous collars and should last for many years. http://www.annrees.co.uk/dogs/collars/dog_collars_hound.htm


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> These can be pricey; but Kilo's Ann Rees collar has stayed soft and supple and it's been through all sorts of weather and traumas!! I think they are fabulous collars and should last for many years. annrees: handmade leather hound collars


Love the zebra and tiger collars


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## L/C

Dogless said:


> These can be pricey; but Kilo's Ann Rees collar has stayed soft and supple and it's been through all sorts of weather and traumas!! I think they are fabulous collars and should last for many years. annrees: handmade leather hound collars


Another commission cheque coming your way? :lol:

Gypsy has an Ann Rees one in calf skin that I go it from discover dogs and it's well worth the money.

Silver peacock also do nice collars, as do Celtic collars and cas collars.

(Sorry no links as on tablet and it's a bugger)


----------



## moonviolet

As to my dithering eariler I headed out to the woods in the " heavy dusk" no husband type creature i didn't not go there on my own after dark, Tink was with me :lol:

I introduced a proper target stick the other day ( after progressing from a wooden spoon handle and an old aerial with some tape on the end :lol Thought it might help with my posture but I have a confession to make.... it feels like a magic wand and I have the urge attempt to cast a spell :lol: :001_tongue: Anyways she seems to be getting the hang of it nicely and hopefully I'll stop doing hunchback impressions


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> As to my dithering eariler I headed out to the woods in the " heavy dusk" no husband type creature i didn't not go there on my own after dark, Tink was with me :lol:
> 
> I introduced a proper target stick the other day ( after progressing from a wooden spoon handle and an old aerial with some tape on the end :lol *Thought it might help with my posture but I have a confession to make.... it feels like a magic wand and I have the urge attempt to cast a spell* :lol: :001_tongue: Anyways she seems to be getting the hang of it nicely and hopefully I'll stop doing hunchback impressions


I can just imagine running into you in the woods casting spells, running past barriers, dancing.....:w00t::w00t:.

The good thing about tall dogs is you don't need to be a hunchback. The bad thing is their nose is handily pocket or treat bag height so you need to be careful .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I can just imagine running into you in the woods casting spells, running past barriers, dancing.....:w00t::w00t:.


Have you been sending out your spies :lol: :lol: :lol:

I haven't taken my wand into the wide world yet.... but I can't say it won't happen.


----------



## Werehorse

Something is wrong with me. I tidied the dog cupboard.  I hope I'm not pregnant and nesting!  :lol: Weird cleaning urges! Disturbing. 

Hugo is feeling a lot better and is back to mental Sprollie mode.  He's had half rations for tea and is now doing his "you haven't give me tea yet" dance. 

Mv - :lol: Magical Tinker controlling wand.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Something is wrong with me. I tidied the dog cupboard.  I hope I'm not pregnant and nesting!  :lol: Weird cleaning urges! Disturbing.


I've just had a mad cleaning urge so cleaned my kitchen and am now craving cauliflower. Again. I freaking hate cauliflower but ate 3/4 of one all by myself at weekend :nonod: And I've had heartburn every day for the last couple of weeks. If it keeps up it's going to be a trip to the doctors!

If the world does end tomorrow then I've spent my last evening of life washing up, scrubbing the cooker and trying not to think about the cauliflower I don't have. What an exciting life I lead!

Oh, and it's a good job we're invited out for Christmas dinner, the cookers only gone and packed in. Which was my main reason for scrubbing it, can't let the electrician see it in the state it was in!


----------



## Werehorse

Fortunately not got any cravings here! Although I am eating Renee like sweets today but that's cos I'm eating biscuits like biscuits and had Coke as well. Regards the cleaning I think I've just had a burst of mental energy from somewhere, it would be nice if it lasted for a bit.

Just got some toys out and played with the boys for a bit - we don't usually do this because Hugo is destructive and takes toys off Oscar but we actually managed to have a nice play, at one point Hugo was playing tug with my left hand and my right hand was playing fetch with Oscar.  More toy time needed I think.


----------



## Beth17

Nothing to report yesterday as Sam was at my dads and Oscar spent the day chilling out with my brother.

It's a lovely morning today so going to take them for a run separately up the field before the world blows up 

By the way am I the only one who gets filthy whilst walking the dogs? I don't know how I do it but I always come back covered in mud and yet everyone else seems pristine


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## catz4m8z

Beth17 said:


> By the way am I the only one who gets filthy whilst walking the dogs? I don't know how I do it but I always come back covered in mud and yet everyone else seems pristine


I dont get filthy! but I am the only one who seems to come home with half the landscape attached to their dogs tails!! (this is why you dont see more tiny dogs on country walks....they try to bring it all home with them!!).

Adam lunged at another dog on our walk this morning, so not good. They are always a little defensive when on the lead but he just lunged and barked like a maniac out of the blue. I dont think he meant to do more then scare the other dog away though coz he never connected with it and his leash stayed loose (he was in biting distance of it). Im thinking it might have been coz Alfie was in his bag...and being especially whingey!). 
On the plus side I took Alfie for his first lead walk.....around the garden!LOL He was really good and followed me with treats and verbal encouragement. I think thats the one advantage of being alone and having to take him with me on all our walks, he is already totally used to a harness and our routes!


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## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> By the way am I the only one who gets filthy whilst walking the dogs? I don't know how I do it but I always come back covered in mud and yet everyone else seems pristine


Oh I'm so glad it's not just me! Every other dog walker I meet is pristine yet I look like some sort of mud monster. And I have no idea how it happens!


----------



## kat&molly

I've just groomed the most beautiful Setter bitch, the couple have only just taken her on from the pound and she's 12 years old. They've kept her original name because of her age, but she's called.....Rasta :w00t:. They've concluded she was named that as its an anagram of 'A Star'- I thought that was a lovely way of looking at it.:001_wub:

Beth- I usually come home filthy but half the time its from slipping over in mud.

Catz- I dont suppose I've missed any pics of Alfie have I?


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I can just imagine running into you in the woods casting spells, running past barriers, dancing.....:w00t::w00t:.
> 
> The good thing about tall dogs is you don't need to be a hunchback. The bad thing is their nose is handily pocket or treat bag height so you need to be careful .


It's not just tall dogs....the same applies when you're a short owner (my pocket is nose height lmao)


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Nothing to report yesterday as Sam was at my dads and Oscar spent the day chilling out with my brother.
> 
> It's a lovely morning today so going to take them for a run separately up the field before the world blows up
> 
> *By the way am I the only one who gets filthy whilst walking the dogs?* I don't know how I do it but I always come back covered in mud and yet everyone else seems pristine


Oooh I love getting filthy...gives me a great sense of satisfaction at the end of a walk


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## GingerRogers

*I wanted to come on and say how very much I have appreciated everyone's advice and support on this thread, it has really been very helpful to have that as well as somewhere to vent.

The Ginger one and I hope that you all have a very wonderful Christmas ​*
We had an odd one this morning, first decent walk for a couple of days as I have been cramming to get work done. She spotted Monty a border terrier we know, she doesn't, from a mile off, then seemed to forget about him , I thought the owner had gone into their house so walked past on the opposite side, he waved but I daren't move or speak so as to alert the little un to their continued presence, I hope he could see my big smile greeting  then we had to cross to get to the post box, luckily a lady with a shopping trolley at the bus stop caught her attention so she still didn't spot him, or so I thought! We passed the bus stop and she turned round to watch Monty and his owner walking off in the opposite direction. Did we have a miracle or did she recognise a fellow oddity .

Monty is lovely, very friendly, over friendly, he very much likes to cuddle legs  and rear up on his hind legs to wave at you. His owners are also lovely but equally as odd  I think Ginge would like to play with Monty 

ETA I do seem to get quite filthy, but then I don't really care, I try to wear 'dirty' clothes for walks and change when I get back but I work from home and sometimes I stay in the muddy clothes and before I know it its time to go out again. I sometimes have a meeting and forget and put my only clean jeans on then walk the dog then get puzzled as to what to do, inevitably I just apologise tot he clients. The long line is always a disaster swamp zone.


----------



## moonviolet

Still here... guess i'll have to do the vacuuming 

Lovely sunny walk today.... parked in the same place as I did in the rain yesterday.... wasn't the only car today :lol: Took the butt firming steep paths, and the disused mountain bike trails. Didn't see a soul until almost back at the car when we bumped into a group of Tink's Friends  walked to the car Tink recalled nicely from her friends who were parked elsewhere


----------



## kat&molly

Butt firming steep paths :lol: got a few of them here- I should use them more.


----------



## kat&molly

Forgot to say we are currently working on door manners as its something I've let slip- but a bit harder now as I'm doing it by name, and letting them through one at a time, not easy with 4.
I have recently started to ask for a wait before they have breakfast, I used to do it with Moll as a pup but I dont suppose its ever been done with the others at all. They caught on really quick, Evie finds it hard but does it, and Jay has to growl when I say OK- but thats Jay. It works better like this as they all finish at more or less the same time.

Evie's recall has gone completely to pot - I call her and she'll actually stop , look at me and contemplate coming back, then thinks 'bugger it' and runs off:lol: She comes back after a few minutes but its not on.
I shouldn't laugh because its not funny and we're back at square one again.:nonod:


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> *I wanted to come on and say how very much I have appreciated everyone's advice and support on this thread, it has really been very helpful to have that as well as somewhere to vent.
> 
> The Ginger one and I hope that you all have a very wonderful Christmas ​*


Awww Merry Christmas GR I love this thread and the people who make it what it is, part group therapy, part coffee morning and part Ann Summers party.  Lots of wonderful suggestions and support 

Ohhh Clever little Ginge


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Awww Merry Christmas GR I love this thread and the people who make it what it is, part group therapy, part coffee morning and *part Ann Summers party*.  Lots of wonderful suggestions and support
> 
> Ohhh Clever little Ginge


 moonviolet


----------



## Guest

Well I also met a dog called Monty today, he was a 14 month old Goldie. We met in the field and Zander played with him for forty minutes hahah. His owner was really chuffed I asked before giving Monty a treat and waited till they were nearer before letting mine off (who stayed in a down until monty play bowed GOLD STAR). Zand also recalled to me after their loooooooooooong play session. (Monty also recalled to me and completely ignored his owner in favour of my food) 

Had to shower off zander when we got home, literally head to foot in mud. (As did I) 

Realised that zander actually LOVES being chased alot more than doing the chasing. Bit more of a challenge I guess?


Me thinks he has earned his new collar today. 

(oh god door manners!?!? I STILL have to put Zand on-lead when we have visitors )


----------



## Sarah1983

I have toothache. Really badly. And the dentist is shut until 7th Jan. So here's hoping the garlic and the vitamin C tablets work as well as they did last time. Chances are it's an abscess, it's come on suddenly, is excruciating and I've had enough of the damn things to know what they feel like  Dunno why they can't just take my teeth out and be done with it. Would be less of a disaster than the constant problems I have. So if I'm not around much that's why.

Hope you all have a great Christmas and long may this thread continue :thumbup:


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> I have toothache. Really badly. And the dentist is shut until 7th Jan. So here's hoping the garlic and the vitamin C tablets work as well as they did last time. Chances are it's an abscess, it's come on suddenly, is excruciating and I've had enough of the damn things to know what they feel like  Dunno why they can't just take my teeth out and be done with it. Would be less of a disaster than the constant problems I have. So if I'm not around much that's why.
> 
> Hope you all have a great Christmas and long may this thread continue :thumbup:


Ooh rough, are there no other emergency dentists? What is it oil of cloves I think I have heard work too. Hope it goes away as quickly until the dentist opens again


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Ooh rough, are there no other emergency dentists? What is it oil of cloves I think I have heard work too. Hope it goes away as quickly until the dentist opens again


I don't know how to go about finding an emergency dentist out here  And I have a major phobia of the dentist, I've already had a panic attack just at the thought of having to go.

Never had any joy with oil of cloves, just end up with a godawful taste in my mouth as well as the toothache.


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## moonviolet

Ouch Sarah, dental pain is horrible. I hope it's short lived.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> I don't know how to go about finding an emergency dentist out here  And I have a major phobia of the dentist, I've already had a panic attack just at the thought of having to go.
> 
> Never had any joy with oil of cloves, just end up with a godawful taste in my mouth as well as the toothache.


 Thats the stuff yuck.

Be careful though, not wanting to scare you but hubby has a dentist phobia too, hadn't been for over 20 years, till last year he got an abscess which grew and grew and swelled till it was actually pushing his nose to the side  he caved and had to go. It was scary :nonod:

ETA sorry that probably is scaring you but point is you don't want to leave it that long, sorry.


----------



## chazzie10

Seems to be lots of mucky people on here today though a different filth from the stuff of the last weeks conversations hehehe 
We havnt made it out over the door yet as I had another 4am start for work this morning so up at 2.45...yawn then home, cupasoup and fell asleep on the settee.
Guess I slept through the world ending then?? Glad I didnt max out my credit cards/ eat ALL the selection boxes wrapped upstairs 

Well yesterday I had the best compliment about the change in Charlie's behaviour/ manners. My bro-in-law( their black lab is the most well mannered, calm dog i have EVER met. Booooooo lol. And B-I-L is quite openly critical of others) called for 10 mins. 
Chaz stayed in his bed until I released him, he greeted nicely, showing off his stuffed pheasant toy and kept all 4 paws on the ground. He showed interest but wasnt being a pest.
Bro-in-law commented on Charlie having "calmed right down", "losing a bit of weight" and "Behaving really well now" :001_tongue:
I opened the front door to let B_I_L out and Chaz came up the hall, B-I-L quickly shut the door over to stop him escaping......I took great pleasure in calmly (smugly actually ) opening the door wide and watching his face as Charlie stayed exactly where he was, tail swinging slowly in a 'sorry-to-see-you-go-we-coulda-played-tug' wag......ooooh my bestest boy. Go Charlie :blush: 
Isnt it great when they behave infront of someone that you know is dying to criticise? 
Better go walk him i guess ( sigh, drags sorry ass off the chair........)


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> I have toothache. Really badly. And the dentist is shut until 7th Jan. So here's hoping the garlic and the vitamin C tablets work as well as they did last time. Chances are it's an abscess, it's come on suddenly, is excruciating and I've had enough of the damn things to know what they feel like  Dunno why they can't just take my teeth out and be done with it. Would be less of a disaster than the constant problems I have. So if I'm not around much that's why.
> 
> Hope you all have a great Christmas and long may this thread continue :thumbup:


Thats horrible-why do these things always happen at weekends or holidays?
Get yourself a bottle of mouthwash called 'Peroxyl' (its about £4 i think) from the chemist, it is the only one that foams up inside abscesses/cavities and flushes them out. Tastes like battery acid but if it helped a tiny bit even...oh and a tiny bottle of clove oil from same place and dab on. It'll sting but hey, you'll smell like Christmas 

ok just read your comment about clove oil.....oh well was worth a try lol


----------



## moonviolet

Well done you and well done your Bestest boy Chazzie 



chazzie10 said:


> Better go walk him i guess ( sigh, drags sorry ass off the chair........)


I'd offer to take him, but by the time i get there and all


----------



## GingerRogers

What am I working on????????? well as of one minute ago, nothing, just finished my last proper job I had to get done before Christmas. :w00t: Am now taking the pooch out and then just have to write a few quotes out and send then thats me done unless I feel holy, I have work I can do just nothing I have to do.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh I'm so glad it's not just me! Every other dog walker I meet is pristine yet I look like some sort of mud monster. And I have no idea how it happens!


Me too .



GingerRogers said:


> *I wanted to come on and say how very much I have appreciated everyone's advice and support on this thread, it has really been very helpful to have that as well as somewhere to vent.
> 
> The Ginger one and I hope that you all have a very wonderful Christmas ​*
> A Very Merry Chrimbo to you and the Ginger One too .





Sarah1983 said:


> I don't know how to go about finding an emergency dentist out here  And I have a major phobia of the dentist, I've already had a panic attack just at the thought of having to go.
> 
> Never had any joy with oil of cloves, just end up with a godawful taste in my mouth as well as the toothache.


You need to tell the medical centre that you have a dental emergency; there is always a dentist on call, even if it means going to Hohne. (Unless things have changed since I worked there).

Well done Charlie!!!!

Had a great walk with the BW today; saw a DA yellow lab on the way back who went bonkers at us that Kilo used to reply to and was able to go past with no fuss and say "morning" to the lady. She said she had started to use a spray collar that wasn't helping yet. TBH his reaction seemed worse now he knows dog=citronella up hooter .

Rudi's walk made me realise that I know very, very few calm dogs around here . We walked for a few minutes to a field and I let him off and just did lots of recall stuff, let him sniff about and threw his toy (don't worry, only about 2m!!) for him which he brings back and drops like we have practised in the house . Anyway...on the way there he got barked at by a DA JRT. Then we met the lady with the choc labs that Kilo has dramas with being too bouncy - they were sat really nicely but as we came near they both lunged to get to him (in a friendly way) and he screamed and shot backwards . I stood talking to the lady at a distance and he recovered very quickly and got curious, but I didn't go any closer and explained why to the lady! Then we met someone we know with two spaniels but Rudi didn't want to go anywhere near them - he sat by my leg looking up at me, which I did praise as he didn't look scared, still quite confident and curious but didn't want to walk towards them (they are bouncy too) so we didn't.

Then we saw the lady with the labs again on her way back and followed her for a short while which was fine, Rudi was happy and confident. Then another DA JRT came rushing out of his house barking as we went past .

On a positive note we stood to the side and Rudi sat nicely to let runners past and he offers a lot of eye contact and awareness of where I am all the time on and offlead. He is nowhere near the scavenger that Kilo was so isn't nose to the ground picking up junk thank goodness!

The people with calm dogs are mostly back on the mainland for Christmas. I did see the very, very bombproof and calm sheltie this morning with Kilo so if I see her with Rudi I'll go over and 'use' her dog!


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> What am I working on????????? well as of one minute ago, nothing, just finished my last proper job I had to get done before Christmas. :w00t: Am now taking the pooch out and then just have to write a few quotes out and send then thats me done unless I feel holy, I have work I can do just nothing I have to do.


Wooohooo Party @ GR's


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah, sorry to hear you've got tooth trouble, hope it goes away soon. I swear by neat Brandy  it wont cure the abcess but you may forget you've got one.

Well done to Charlie boy- you must have felt really proud.


----------



## Guest

Ooh poor rudi!! I always get a tad alarmed when people with pups want to meet Zander. I always worry he's going to squash them or something. Offlead he's fine, Onlead I always say "sorry but's he too bouncy." 

Anyone else here working till christmas eve? And goes back the day after boxing day? It's gonna be soooooo busy at the shop I know it haha. I am armed with a christmas hat and jingly bell earrings  

CHRIIIIIISTMASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! 


I am such a child haha.


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> Ooh poor rudi!! I always get a tad alarmed when people with pups want to meet Zander. I always worry he's going to squash them or something. Offlead he's fine, Onlead I always say "sorry but's he too bouncy."
> 
> Anyone else here working till christmas eve? And goes back the day after boxing day? It's gonna be soooooo busy at the shop I know it haha. I am armed with a christmas hat and jingly bell earrings
> 
> CHRIIIIIISTMASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!
> 
> I am such a child haha.


Not this year but Not only did I used to work christmas eve and boxing day i'd be on call for alarm activations on christmas day..... turned me into a complete bah humbug :lol:

We need pics of you in said hat and jungly earrings or ai simply I won't believe you  :lol:

P.S. Woohoo winter solstice.... evenings will start getting lighter


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Not this year but Not only did I used to work christmas eve and boxing day i'd be on call for alarm activations on christmas day..... turned me into a complete bah humbug :lol:
> 
> We need pics of you in said hat and* jungly earrings *or ai simply I won't believe you  :lol:
> 
> P.S. Woohoo winter solstice.... evenings will start getting lighter


Like snakes and monkey's in santa hats???? .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Like snakes and monkey's in santa hats???? .


That sounds cool i'll have some of that. :lol: :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Thats the stuff yuck.
> 
> Be careful though, not wanting to scare you but hubby has a dentist phobia too, hadn't been for over 20 years, till last year he got an abscess which grew and grew and swelled till it was actually pushing his nose to the side  he caved and had to go. It was scary :nonod:
> 
> ETA sorry that probably is scaring you but point is you don't want to leave it that long, sorry.


Don't worry, had plenty of abscesses over the years. Doesn't matter how carefully I look after my teeth they just seem to fall apart :nonod: If it doesn't ease up my hubby will drag me to the dentist, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Thanks Dogless, have just found the out of hours number on BFGnet. If need be I'll give them a call. But first I'm gonna try my garlic since that doesn't scare me stupid. Think it will be Hohne though, we have to go there for emergency doctors appointments out of hours anyway. Sorry you've encountered so many bouncy dogs with Rudi. Gotta admit Spen's like that at first  but once allowed to greet doesn't try to dance on their heads these days. Well, not unless they're equally nutty anyway. But at least Rudi didn't seem too worried and recovered well from his fright.

Chazzie, that's great about Charlie. I love it when they behave so well in front of someone who's just waiting for them to put a paw wrong so they can jump all over it.

Toothache is easing up now thankfully. Same thing happened last time I took garlic tablets for an abscess, within a few hours it became bearable and after a couple of days the pain was gone completely. Apparently fresh garlic is better but hubby has such a severe allergy to it that me eating it and him giving me a kiss could land him in hospital. Bit late for us to go to the Christmas market we were going to though 

LO, I worked Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 6 years in a row, 4 of those years I worked Boxing Day and New Year too. Money was great lol. Here's me at work one Christmas Day








The hat says 100% Christmas Grump if it's too small to read :lol:


----------



## Beth17

Well done Charlie and Chazzie, proof that hard work pays off 

I hope all the calm dogs come back soon Dogless so Rudi gets to have some decent greetings. Well done to the BW!

Oww Sarah I hope you can get your tooth sorted 

Lovely walk with both boys this morning Sam was good as gold and played with his dobermann friend again although nearly pulled my arm out with his longline trying to chase after him when he went.

Oscar was also pretty much perfect and only had one slip up when he tried to go over and see a female when I was calling him away. He listened in the end and did stop a few feet away. Apparently she's not long had pups and is a bit grumpy with males at the moment so I don't know whether that had anything to do with him not listening.

I was pondering on our walk today and thinking about how this time last year I had no plans to get a puppy and yet here we are at the end of this year with one and really the only thing I can complain about is his counter surfing, stealing things and being too excitable and friendly. So really I don't think we're doing too bad at all 
Isn't it funny how things work out.

Yay for Christmas holidays


----------



## Twiggy

Ye Gods ladies I've only been off this site for less than 48 hours and there are 10 more pages...!!

We went out with friends for a festive meal Wednesday evening and I went to London yesterday to see my sister in Kings College Hospital, which took most of the day, and I was shattered last night.

This morning I took Holly and Tremor to join other handlers in a hall about 20 miles away to socialise Holly.

There was a lady there with a 2 yr old GSD bitch who was attacked about a year ago by two collies and normally all the other dogs are put in their vehicles when she brings this bitch into the hall (especially the collies). Guess which little collie was 'kissing' her and giving her a huge confidence boost?....LOL

I haven't mentioned my sister as there have been complications and she has had to remain in hospital (5 weeks today). Fingers crossed but the doctors think they have the fungal infection under control now and her blood count and neutrophil (white blood cells) levels are rapidly rising.

I have to say I was dismayed when I saw her yesterday and she certainly looked very poorly but hopefully now she's turned the corner and won't be in there for much longer.

I'll read the last 10 pages when I get a minute to find out what you've all been up to...


----------



## Beth17

I have liked the first half of your post Twiggy.

So sorry to hear your sister had a setback but I really hope she is starting to feel better and can come back home in the new year. I will be keeping everything crossed for her.


----------



## ballybee

Had a lovely walk with the boys on the golf course this morning, kept them fairly close as the greenkeepers were out working but we didn't meet any other dogs(we saw a lady with 2 terriers coming but she turned and headed back before they got close, both the boys were lying down offlead).

then we've just gotten in from a great onlead training walk, just wanted to do a LLW round the streets, we had a couple of sit/stays to allow dogs and owners past which went very nicely, we had someone following us with their 2 dogs(i know the owner and dogs but the weather wasn't particularly good for having a chat) for a short while and the boys were brilliant, overall possibly the best onlead walk we've had for a good while.


----------



## Dogless

Fingers crossed for your sister Twiggy; I 'liked' the fact that Holly Bolly gave the GSD some confidence .

Just took Rudi up the street, very quiet in this foggy yuck weather so saw nothing bar a cat until home. Then saw our neighbours over the road and their very wobbly toddler and Rudi's tail went *mad* wagging when the lady came to fuss him; he is the total opposite to the BW in that respect (in many, in fact!). I was worried that he'd pinch their toddler's mitten so I held his hand flat and put a treat on it for Rudi and he was chuffed that he'd fed the doggie...and so was I .

Kilo and I are off to walk with Dizzy at 1830 .


----------



## Dogless

Well done to Tum and Dan; sounds as if they were fab .


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Not this year but Not only did I used to work christmas eve and boxing day i'd be on call for alarm activations on christmas day..... turned me into a complete bah humbug :lol:
> 
> We need pics of you in said hat and jungly earrings or ai simply I won't believe you  :lol:
> 
> *P.S. Woohoo winter solstice.... evenings will start getting lighter *


I remembered that last weekend me and my friend I walk with had celebration dances :w00t:

Working for myself I don't really get much proper time off, the pc and emails are always there  so I try to have the Christmas week off and my birthday if nothing else.

Glad the tooth is getting better Sarah, never known anyone allergic to garlic before but I have a friend who can't eat raw carrots but cooked ones are ok 

Sorry your sister (ETA Twiggy that is ) had a setback but hope she is on the right road now, fingers crossed.

Well done Charlie, superb :thumbup1:


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy-Yes we do all like to talk on here dont we-it takes ages to read all the missed pages and catch up.
Here's hoping your sister is on the mend now and 2013 will be a better year for her xx
Hope you had a nice meal. I thought at first you were gonna say you went for a festive meal on Wednesday and were only getting back now lol wow that would be the sort of meal I would like to go to 
We are having our works 'do' on Sunday- after working a 4-11am shift. Nice meal at 3pm then dwinkies after....the son will be walking the dog on Sunday...and maybe Monday if I havnt recovered lmao


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- so sorry to hear of your sisters setback- but good news that she's turned a corner now. 

Dogless- what a shame about all the other dogs, its not easy trying to ensure all their experiences are good is it, but didn't the Little Man do well with the toddler.

Chazzie- can I come on your works do please?:w00t:


----------



## chazzie10

K&M of course you can but you may need councelling after it


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy - sorry to hear your sister had a set back.  Hopefully she continues on the upwards curve now.

Bless little Holly taming the scared GSD. 

Sarah - OUCH you poor thing. I hope it gets better and/or you can cope with the dentist fear.

Everyone's dogs are doing so well. :thumbup: I agree with The Ginger One - this thread is awesome, innit.

Well done Rudi on the toddler meeting - hopefully it'll be good for Kilo if his little bro is a bit more confident with/interested in people, it could deflect the attention from Kilo a bit so he can take a back seat while his bro absorbs the fuss.

Chazzie - so glad Charlie behaved himself for you in front of the BIL. It's nice when you can be a bit smug.

I did more cleaning today!  (how do you get mud splashes off paintwork - wiping with a damp cloth half worked... but there's still some on. Might just paint the walls muddy beige instead.)

OH has finished work for the hols so we are having a mini celebration with crackers, cheese and pate and beer. Happy days. We bought a tree! It is 2ft high and still growing in the pot. I want to attempt to get two christmasses out of it!

The official list of games for the doggie training christmas party is;

Send away _(not sure if this is a "novelty" sendaway or a distance competition)_
Retrieve over hurdles _Oscar fine, Hugo will need to practice, I'll have to put a horse jump up at the yard!_
Drop on recall _Hmmmm_
Ball Bingo _Oscar will be good, hopefully Hugo won't spill them all over the floor again_
Recall Relays _They are both good at this_
Best trick _Needs some thought_
Quickest sit _They are both ok, not sure how to improve_
Toy Box challenge (how many toys can your dog put back in the box in one minute) _HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA! - I'll have to do a bit of work!!_

There's also a harness decoration competition but I don't think I'm going to have much luck with that - any ideas?

Not that I'm competitive or anything but it'd be nice to win something.  We won't though cos I'll get all flummoxed.


----------



## Thorne

Sounds like good walks overall, great to hear! Shame about the JRT and the yellow Lab though Dogless, there's a lady here with a nervous BC who barks at other dogs, she's getting worse now her owner's started shouting at her for doing so (fortunately she's not scared of Breeze, no dog is!).

Beth17 - Scooter first met Breeze a day or two after her pups were weaned and was more interested in her than he normally is with dogs; no humping etc but he was _very_ intrigued so the hormones might've got Oscar curious too?

Twiggy - glad your sister is back on the mend now, hope things continue to improve for her.

Sarah1983 - good luck with the dentist!

Werehorse - loving the sound of the Christmas party!

Never managed to get my blood tests done yesterday, had a bad day so only left the house for a shortish dog walk. Better today so gave the muppets a longer walk (and went and got my tests done!).

Scooter was _excellent_, had one not so good recall away from a scent so had to walk away from him but otherwise fab. He wasn't just checking in on me and recalling on cue but wandered back a few times of his own accord with a big waggy tail bless him! Gave him lots of praise and treats for that 
Breeze was a bit wired today and did lots of Whippet running but got fed up and sulky about shots towards the end of the walk so tried her "going to ground" trick - had to pull her away from a 5' deep and 7' wide water-filled ditch which obviously looked like a good place to hide up. So she was distracted but kept track of me, was good with the cars again.

Did some lovely offlead heelwork on the fields with one dog either side and each dog individually, they'll work hard for cheese!
Have wrapped up their Christmas presents this evening, Scooter in particular is very excited about what's under the tree this year so have had to hide them up


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - sorry to hear your sister had a set back.  Hopefully she continues on the upwards curve now.
> 
> Bless little Holly taming the scared GSD.
> 
> Sarah - OUCH you poor thing. I hope it gets better and/or you can cope with the dentist fear.
> 
> Everyone's dogs are doing so well. :thumbup: I agree with The Ginger One - this thread is awesome, innit.
> 
> *Well done Rudi on the toddler meeting - hopefully it'll be good for Kilo if his little bro is a bit more confident with/interested in people, it could deflect the attention from Kilo a bit so he can take a back seat while his bro absorbs the fuss.*
> 
> Chazzie - so glad Charlie behaved himself for you in front of the BIL. It's nice when you can be a bit smug.
> 
> I did more cleaning today!  (how do you get mud splashes off paintwork - wiping with a damp cloth half worked... but there's still some on. Might just paint the walls muddy beige instead.)
> 
> OH has finished work for the hols so we are having a mini celebration with crackers, cheese and pate and beer. Happy days. We bought a tree! It is 2ft high and still growing in the pot. I want to attempt to get two christmasses out of it!
> 
> The official list of games for the doggie training christmas party is;
> 
> Send away _(not sure if this is a "novelty" sendaway or a distance competition)_
> Retrieve over hurdles _Oscar fine, Hugo will need to practice, I'll have to put a horse jump up at the yard!_
> Drop on recall _Hmmmm_
> Ball Bingo _Oscar will be good, hopefully Hugo won't spill them all over the floor again_
> Recall Relays _They are both good at this_
> Best trick _Needs some thought_
> Quickest sit _They are both ok, not sure how to improve_
> Toy Box challenge (how many toys can your dog put back in the box in one minute) _HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA! - I'll have to do a bit of work!!_
> 
> There's also a harness decoration competition but I don't think I'm going to have much luck with that - any ideas?
> 
> Not that I'm competitive or anything but it'd be nice to win something.  We won't though cos I'll get all flummoxed.


Wow those games have 'winner' for your two on a fair few . I'll think harness decoration - how OK with 'stuff' on them are they? Two pairs of angels' wings (wire coat hangers bent, tights or bought material over them) and halos on their heads maybe?.

The bit in bold is what I am hoping. The few walks that I managed carrying Rudi with Kilo on lead were positive; people stopped to fuss Rudi and Kilo sat nicely by my side, looking relaxed and relieved that he wasn't being fussed (if dogs can even look relieved :w00t.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy i'm sorry you Sister had a setback hope she's on a smooth path to recovery now. Well done Holly Bolly, special dogs really can make sure a positive difference to ones who have had a bad experience.

Dogless It really does seem like Rudi and Kilo are really complimentary characters  shame there aren't more calm dogs around to introduce Rudi to.

Thorne well done Scooter  Sorry to hear poor Breeze got scared again 



Werehorse said:


> The official list of games for the doggie training christmas party is;
> 
> Send away _(not sure if this is a "novelty" sendaway or a distance competition)_
> Retrieve over hurdles _Oscar fine, Hugo will need to practice, I'll have to put a horse jump up at the yard!_
> Drop on recall _Hmmmm_
> Ball Bingo _Oscar will be good, hopefully Hugo won't spill them all over the floor again_
> Recall Relays _They are both good at this_
> Best trick _Needs some thought_
> Quickest sit _They are both ok, not sure how to improve_
> Toy Box challenge (how many toys can your dog put back in the box in one minute) _HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA! - I'll have to do a bit of work!!_
> 
> There's also a harness decoration competition but I don't think I'm going to have much luck with that - any ideas?
> 
> Not that I'm competitive or anything but it'd be nice to win something.  We won't though cos I'll get all flummoxed.


Tink would love to be invited to this party :lol: she wouldn't win anything but she'd have a lot of fun


----------



## Dogless

Good walks this morning; torrential rain and gales so not a soul about, funnily enough :blink:. Kilo and I went round the sports pitches and then up to the top field and I just kept him occupied at all times to prevent any air scenting out of orange poo :blink: or other nasties :nonod:. Pretty tiring but good fun .

I then took Rudi to the local village to collect a parcel from the sorting office, the local pet shop and round a few other shops. He *hated* the weather (I hadn't put his coat on as we'd be mostly inside) so I only walked down the high street a short way as he was getting cold and just trying to pull back to the car. He met a few people and was very, very waggy when they approached and fussed him which is brilliant .

Kongs are currently freezing for this afternoon as there's no way they'll play in the garden .


----------



## Werehorse

Took the boys for toilet walks together this morning - no way was I going out more than necessary in that weather, not after I've just got out of a cosy bed anyway! :lol: They behaved very well.  Oscar likes to walk in front but he's maintaining a loose lead and responds to pressure by slowing down. Hugo is still a bit either perfect paws or pulling and not in between but he's better. And they do very cute sitting and waiting while I pick up poos. 

I like the angel wings idea Dogless... don't think I could manage halos but a bit of silver and gold tinsel on their collars would look quite angelic.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Took the boys for toilet walks together this morning - no way was I going out more than necessary in that weather, not after I've just got out of a cosy bed anyway! :lol: They behaved very well.  Oscar likes to walk in front but he's maintaining a loose lead and responds to pressure by slowing down. Hugo is still a bit either perfect paws or pulling and not in between but he's better. And they do very cute sitting and waiting while I pick up poos.
> 
> I like the angel wings idea Dogless... don't think I could manage halos but a bit of silver and gold tinsel on their collars would look quite angelic.


Yes I'm waiting for the rain to ease a little bit before taking mine out and think it might be one longer walk today instead of two. Trouble is the old girls want to come and I don't like them getting too wet, although they both have jackets.

Have you got any small Union Jack flags? You could do an Olympic theme.


----------



## Werehorse

I wonder if I can persuade OH that we _need_ some glitter gel for Oscar's ears... :w00t: Added bonus I could use it to make the horse's mane and tail glittery, for no reason just cos then she'd be even more awesome. :lol:

At the moment I'm thinking black and gold angel wings for Hugo and white and silver angel wings for Oscar... if I can get white tights...


----------



## Beth17

We had a rather wet walk as well today. Oscar was really good whereas Sam decided today was a good day to pull like a train, weave all over the place and follow his nose blindly which included trying to scramble under cars with me having to yank him out so he didn't get stuck  

I then got home with them and nipped over to the shop for 5 minutes and came home to find that he grabbed some cheesy rolls off the side and was chowing down. Oscar was sat nicely in the hall waiting so he obviously didn't want to be implicated :hand:

Glittery dogs and horses sound amazing Werehorse! Very Christmassy.


----------



## moonviolet

Fab walk in the rain, bumped into a vizzie and choc lab we haven't seen for age that TInk adores, Kai is even allowed to growl at her during play without it being game over  Was great to watch them play, Tink even did some chasing while squeaking like a rusty bed spring :lol: They took little breaks for sniffs as we continued to walk. It more than made up for the 'orrible weather.



Werehorse i love the sound of glittery dogs and horse. 

I was thinking about how I'd add speed to a sit and I did try this as a warm up for her ladyship this morning. Ask for a sit then throw the treat (give a release command if they seem reluctant to go get it) repeated a few times the predicting of the sit made it super fast. I dont' know if this will help 

Beth so you have one for Santa's naughty list and one for his nice list today :lol:

Twiggy, hope the weather clears for you to have a nice walk.

Dogless i bet little Rudi turns some heads gorgeous wee chap. Glad he's lapping up the attention.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy, sorry to hear your sister had a setback, fingers crossed she'll be out and about soon.

Toothache is much better today. Still niggly but nothing like it was yesterday. So I may have averted a visit to the torture chamber after all. Will see how it goes.

Poor Spen simply could not understand why I did absolutely nothing with him yesterday. He kept coming staring at me, bringing me random gifts of whatever he could find and offering me behaviours. Will do some stuff with him today since I'm feeling better though.


----------



## Sarah1983

Okay, we've just managed to recall Spen away from another dog he was playing with :thumbup: And he didn't go running up as soon as he saw her. We were out playing frisbee when we saw the dog and we were about to leash him when she started heading over. Recognised her as one of the dogs from upstairs and since she was coming over to Spen I figured we'd just leave him off leash. They had a bit of a play and Spen recalled to us when they were going inside. He got a jackpot of treats and we carried on playing frisbee.

Isn't it lovely when all your training starts to pay off? 6 months ago I didn't even exist when there was another dog to play with and while his recall today wasn't super speedy he did at least respond. Happy days


----------



## Dogless

Oh Crikey :scared::scared:. For the first time since we have had our dogs hubby has taken one of them somewhere by himself ... he has taken Rudi into work for half an hour or so. By himself as I can't go :blink::blink:. I am a little scared in a way but thought it would be good for Rudi's socialisation . He has nothing to do with the dogs' training so never uses words that they understand. That worries me in case it ruins anything I've done .

As they were heading out Rudi was trying to pull back to Kilo and I and hubby was saying "Rudi here. Rudi here. Rudi here. Rudi here......" :cryin::cryin: whilst Rudi ignored him. I tried asking really nicely whether he could only use "Here" when he was sure Rudi was listening and would come as I've been working so hard on laying the foundations of a good recall.....I was just told that I worry too much  :nonod:.

I'm sure the hoovering and mopping will occupy me until they're back....


----------



## Dogless

Well done spen!!!!!!! .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh Crikey :scared::scared:. For the first time since we have had our dogs hubby has taken one of them somewhere by himself ... he has taken Rudi into work for half an hour or so. By himself as I can't go :blink::blink:. I am a little scared in a way but thought it would be good for Rudi's socialisation . He has nothing to do with the dogs' training so never uses words that they understand. That worries me in case it ruins anything I've done .
> 
> As they were heading out Rudi was trying to pull back to Kilo and I and hubby was saying "Rudi here. Rudi here. Rudi here. Rudi here......" :cryin::cryin: *whilst Rudi ignored him.* I tried asking really nicely whether he could only use "Here" when he was sure Rudi was listening and would come as I've been working so hard on laying the foundations of a good recall.....I was just told that I worry too much  :nonod:.
> 
> I'm sure the hoovering and mopping will occupy me until they're back....


I promise you it won't ruin anything you've done. The reason being the bit I've highlighted.......


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Okay, we've just managed to recall Spen away from another dog he was playing with :thumbup: And he didn't go running up as soon as he saw her. We were out playing frisbee when we saw the dog and we were about to leash him when she started heading over. Recognised her as one of the dogs from upstairs and since she was coming over to Spen I figured we'd just leave him off leash. They had a bit of a play and Spen recalled to us when they were going inside. He got a jackpot of treats and we carried on playing frisbee.
> 
> *Isn't it lovely when all your training starts to pay off? 6 months ago I didn't even exist when there was another dog to play with and while his recall today wasn't super speedy he did at least respond. Happy days *




Yes it certainly is..

Athough Holly is still a long way from competition level I was only thinking yesterday in that hall, with a fairly slippery floor and dogs she didn't know, what a long way she's come. I didn't train her as such but I did throw her tennis balls and did a few strides of heelwork and a bit of distance control and she was very into me. Also on walks now she would rather play ball or tug the lead with me than play with Leafy or Tremor, so we're getting there.....

I don't now what it is about Holly, apart from the fact that she's helped me through a very difficult year, but I'm obsessed with her and find training her fascinating. She's certainly not the prettiest, most intelligent or even the one with the most character I've ever owned but there's just something.....

I see the rescue centre she came from has another litter of collie pups just come in and they also have been given seasonal names. There is actually a very pretty little pup they've called Holly...!! And no I'm not thinking about it, it wouldn't be fair on Quiver at her age - I've sent a donation instead.


----------



## Dogless

They are back; Rudi was apparently a little nervy at the new environment but still took food and was waggy and happy with being fussed.


----------



## moonviolet

Right lets see if i can remember 

Sarah glad the toothache is better today, Woohooo congratulations on Spen recalling away what a wonderful christmas present from the lovely Spen 

Dogless bet you are relieved that Rudi and OH are home safe and sound the once OH walked Tonk without me I phoned after an hour to check they were ok :blush:

Twiggy some dogs jsut have the thing no description for it but they just burrow in your heart just that little bit deeper.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Right lets see if i can remember
> 
> Sarah glad the toothache is better today, Woohooo congratulations on Spen recalling away what a wonderful christmas present from the lovely Spen
> 
> Dogless bet you are relieved that Rudi and OH are home safe and sound the once OH walked Tonk without me a phone after an hour to check they were ok :blush:
> 
> Twiggy some dogs jsut have the thing no description for it but they just burrow in your heart just that little bit deeper.


I am; he has never gone anywhere himself with Kilo or Rudi so I was quite surprised when he suggested it today :w00t:.


----------



## Werehorse

Hugo was sick again just before we were going to go out for a bit of a christmas shop, and to get glittery stuff to make wings.  All that went out of the window and we took Hugo to the vets again (about an hour after closing time so emergency cost again.)  Again, no temperature and she had a really, really good feel of his gut - could hear it all sloshing around in there! - and she is 99.9% certain there isn't a blockage. She thinks he is just having a reaction to his food - I gave him a teeny bit of a naturediet tray last night, about an 8th of it, Oscar had the rest. And I think the other vomits have been after giving him that too over the last week. The original sickness when there were both ill wasn't linked to it though - I wonder if his gut hasn't recovered fully from that and the naturediet is too rich.

No tea for Hugo again.  And easily digested prescription diet tins for two days.

Trust Hugo to be difficult. :nonod:


----------



## moonviolet

Oh poor little Hugo, can't be much fun throwing up 

They are such a worry, but at least you have recognised a pattern. 

Very gentle healing hugs.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Hugo was sick again just before we were going to go out for a bit of a christmas shop, and to get glittery stuff to make wings.  All that went out of the window and we took Hugo to the vets again (about an hour after closing time so emergency cost again.)  Again, no temperature and she had a really, really good feel of his gut - could hear it all sloshing around in there! - and she is 99.9% certain there isn't a blockage. She thinks he is just having a reaction to his food - I gave him a teeny bit of a naturediet tray last night, about an 8th of it, Oscar had the rest. And I think the other vomits have been after giving him that too over the last week. The original sickness when there were both ill wasn't linked to it though - I wonder if his gut hasn't recovered fully from that and the naturediet is too rich.
> 
> No tea for Hugo again.  And easily digested prescription diet tins for two days.
> 
> Trust Hugo to be difficult. :nonod:


Oh no not again!! Poor Hugo.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I am; he has never gone anywhere himself with Kilo or Rudi so I was quite surprised when he suggested it today :w00t:.


Ah bless - he wanted to show Rudi off and how well he's trained him....:devil:

My hubby does that occasionally. The fact that he hasn't got a clue and my girls don't take much notice in any case, is by the by.

That why you needn't worry. When you think of the level my girls compete at and hubby still hasn't mastered that 'sit' and 'down' are two different commands.....


----------



## catz4m8z

Get well soon, Hugo!
All we've been working on today is our bum imprints on the sofa!!LOL Far too miserable outside to do more then a mega quick toilet walk.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Hugo; hope it's sorted soon .

Well, I had a walk that has left me feeling sh!tty although it shouldn't have done . It started off really fabulously when we just drifted past the lab and collie that Kilo used to react to and the owners and I just said "Evening" and on we went . The next 20 minutes or so were lovely, Kilo was walking beautifully and I was feeling on top of the world. Then we rounded the corner of a road and ran into an offlead bulldog that we see now and again (always offlead, always comes over). No great dramas, let Kilo and him sniff for two seconds or so as the owners started calling him then moved back the way I'd come with Kilo whilst he was still happy and relaxed. Only we have the bulldog in tow, being really persistent round Kilo's back end. The owners are calling and calling but not coming very fast so I stopped to give them the chance to get their dog. Kilo by this point was getting fed up, so he sat down to stop the 'bum bothering', but the bulldog was trying to lift his coat up and being really, really bothersome, so Kilo aimed a quick airsnap over his shoulder. At which point the man said he'd come and grab his dog - unfortunately Kilo launched into a noise and slobber display before the man reached his dog; completely ignored by the other dog .

Anyway, man gets dog and I apologise to the owners (why I have no idea, apart from because they were looking so horrified and pissed off I think!!!) and just explain politely that Kilo doesn't like offlead dogs approaching him onlead as many dogs don't as he was attacked like that and is now very wary. The woman just said "He's only 10 months old and wants to be everyones' friend". They walked on and I was left with a shaking Kilo refusing to move in the road and was the recipient of some choice looks, coupled with I am sure the owners discussing my horrid dog .

Funny thing is that when he ran up at 7 months old he was "only 7 months old and wants to be everyones' friend", same at 8 and 9 months of age too....:w00t:.

And breathe. I am so, so frustrated with living here at times .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Ah bless - he wanted to show Rudi off and how well he's trained him....:devil:
> 
> My hubby does that occasionally. The fact that he hasn't got a clue and my girls don't take much notice in any case, is by the by.
> 
> That why you needn't worry. When you think of the level my girls compete at and hubby still hasn't mastered that 'sit' and 'down' are two different commands.....


Ain't that the truth :w00t:.

When we are out together with Kilo (rare!!), if we get complimented hubby always talks as if he's his dog and has done all the training....if he isn't behaving as well as he could do he is 'my' dog :hand::hand:.

I was chuffed in the pet shop today when a lady asked Rudi to sit for a treat and he did, and took the food gently - hubby was straight in with how good he was .


----------



## GingerRogers

Just a quickie tonight, I can hear you all sigh with relief, off on my burlesque  class Christmas meal.

Thank goodness the tooth is getting better Sarah and well done Spen.

Poor Hugo  have you managed to try any robotics yet, it does sound as though he has an imbalance somewhere, although we could never feed only ND to our old dustbin was far too rich for him .

Dogless, I so know the feeling, I actually said no I will take her the other night even though I really could have done with the help. If he came with us more often I would feel more comfortable with it. Your OH is obviously more comfortable with the cute puppy second time around 

Well done/ sorry to everyone else, sorry lazy bugger tonight.

I actually think things really are sinking in with madam, we are a long way off but she is really coming on, nothing that I think any observer would notice she still yells like a fishwife but her reactions are much shorter *and *she looks to me more *and *sometimes she isn't bothered at all. We also 'met' properly Rudi and Tamzin last night which was great as I had been worried about that and had a bit of a play with the rudestar and was able to be called off, which just adds to the bank of interesting things, leading to my thinking she just feels the need to 'get in first'.

And then this afternoon I told my hubby that our friend who was had a weimy needing re-homing (well not her but.) last week now knows of a 10 year old wire JRT called Toddy whose owner has to go into residential care, he said we'll have him, might be just what she needs  :w00t::w00t: I said know not right now thanks. Right 10 mins to get me glad rags on ..........................


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Just a quickie tonight, I can hear you all sigh with relief, off on my burlesque  class Christmas meal.
> 
> Thank goodness the tooth is getting better Sarah and well done Spen.
> 
> Poor Hugo  have you managed to try any robotics yet, it does sound as though he has an imbalance somewhere, although we could never feed only ND to our old dustbin was far too rich for him .
> 
> Dogless, I so know the feeling, I actually said no I will take her the other night even though I really could have done with the help. If he came with us more often I would feel more comfortable with it. Your OH is obviously more comfortable with the cute puppy second time around
> 
> Well done/ sorry to everyone else, sorry lazy bugger tonight.
> 
> I actually think things really are sinking in with madam, we are a long way off but she is really coming on, nothing that I think any observer would notice she still yells like a fishwife but her reactions are much shorter *and *she looks to me more *and *sometimes she isn't bothered at all. We also 'met' properly Rudi and Tamzin last night which was great as I had been worried about that and had a bit of a play with the rudestar and was able to be called off, which just adds to the bank of interesting things, leading to my thinking she just feels the need to 'get in first'.
> 
> And then this afternoon I told my hubby that our friend who was had a weimy needing re-homing (well not her but.) last week now knows of a 10 year old wire JRT called Toddy whose owner has to go into residential care, he said we'll have him, might be just what she needs  :w00t::w00t: I said know not right now thanks. Right 10 mins to get me glad rags on ..........................


Sounds like Ginge is making good progress.....and enjoy the party :w00t:  .

Hubby keeps telling me how much he doesn't like puppies all the time actually!


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy, some dogs just have that special something. Rupert was pretty much everything I don't want in a dog and yet there was something there that I just couldn't explain.

Dogless, sorry you had a crappy encounter. I'm sure people think that running up to other dogs and making a nuisance of themselves is something dogs just grow out of. It makes me wonder why I bother trying to prevent Spencer doing it when nobody else seems to care. Maybe I should just go around saying "oh, he's only 18 months, just wants to be friends!" instead, seems a much easier life doesn't it?

Know what you mean about the hubby though. I get all anxious when mine takes Spen out without me. But I wouldn't worry too much, Spen ignores hubby whistling and calling him and 99% of the time comes running as fast as he can when I whistle. They do learn who they can ignore and who they should pay attention to thankfully.

And I'm glad it's not just my hubby who gets all proud and gives himself big pats on the back when the dog behaves well despite doing barely anything to teach him how to behave 

Werehorse, hope Hugo is feeling better soon. Poor guy seems to be having a really bad run at the moment.


----------



## missnaomi

Dogless said:


> Oh Crikey :scared::scared:. For the first time since we have had our dogs hubby has taken one of them somewhere by himself ... he has taken Rudi into work for half an hour or so. By himself as I can't go :blink::blink:. I am a little scared in a way but thought it would be good for Rudi's socialisation . He has nothing to do with the dogs' training so never uses words that they understand. That worries me in case it ruins anything I've done .
> 
> As they were heading out Rudi was trying to pull back to Kilo and I and hubby was saying "Rudi here. Rudi here. Rudi here. Rudi here......" :cryin::cryin: whilst Rudi ignored him. I tried asking really nicely whether he could only use "Here" when he was sure Rudi was listening and would come as I've been working so hard on laying the foundations of a good recall.....I was just told that I worry too much  :nonod:.
> 
> I'm sure the hoovering and mopping will occupy me until they're back....


Tell me about it - it often feels like my OH was put on the planet to undo everything I do. With the dogs he uses the wrong words, fails to accurately read body language and does an assortment of annoying things. If I make any suggestions or try and make him do the same thing as me he says taht I am too fussy/what I think is opinion not fact/to stop telling him off/that I'm wrong etc etc... He is also messy and untidies everything I spend ages tidying. Good job I love him I guess....


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Twiggy, some dogs just have that special something. Rupert was pretty much everything I don't want in a dog and yet there was something there that I just couldn't explain.
> 
> *Dogless, sorry you had a crappy encounter. I'm sure people think that running up to other dogs and making a nuisance of themselves is something dogs just grow out of. It makes me wonder why I bother trying to prevent Spencer doing it when nobody else seems to care. Maybe I should just go around saying "oh, he's only 18 months, just wants to be friends!" instead, seems a much easier life doesn't it?*
> 
> Know what you mean about the hubby though. I get all anxious when mine takes Spen out without me. But I wouldn't worry too much, Spen ignores hubby whistling and calling him and 99% of the time comes running as fast as he can when I whistle. They do learn who they can ignore and who they should pay attention to thankfully.
> 
> And I'm glad it's not just my hubby who gets all proud and gives himself big pats on the back when the dog behaves well despite doing barely anything to teach him how to behave
> 
> Werehorse, hope Hugo is feeling better soon. Poor guy seems to be having a really bad run at the moment.


It is easier . Thing is, Kilo handled it well - he would have been stressed and at noise and slobber whilst onlead sooner than that not long ago - and bulldogs' breathing tends to freak him out anyway. So, I am proud of him really but don't know why it makes me feel so very, very crappy. Because of the gossip round here I think as the owners clearly thought that Kilo and I were absolutely in the wrong .


----------



## Werehorse

Honestly I think the naturediet is just too rich! Just had a massive poo-drama with Oscar now! I was training him to put stuff in a box (disaster - he doesn't seem to have generalised retrieve at all from a few specific articles! Ooops) and he was quite excited running around for a bit. Then I finished up with him and sat down to drink my tea and the next thing I look up and Oscar is half-squatted in the middle of the living room looking panicked!  I squeaked "Oh NO!" and leaped up and he stood straight without pooing thank god and I hussled us both outside amid lots of flapping about shoes, headtorches and poobags (oh to have an enclosed, not-shared garden!).

So yes. I think my little collection of naturediet trays might not be going into my dogs now - I've not got that many fortunately. Oscar always used to seem fine on them but I wouldn't necessarily have noticed a pattern because a bit of a sloppy poo when he's excited isn't as worrying and full on throwing up and he never had it often enough.

Burger.

Vet advised against robotic yergert, Ginge, because of the cows milk in it, innit. Going to get some of that paste stuff.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Dogless what a crock of carp.

If you encounter them again i'd nbe tempted to assertively but not rudey ask them to collect their dog after polite sniffs, " to help it learn some manners!" 

GR..... burlesque class imdeed . good on you  SOunds like GInge is making progress, keep watching that grass grow 


:lol: Naomi i could have said the same things about mine


----------



## kat&molly

Hope Hugo is feeling better soon.Poor man.

Dogless-Shame Kilo got upset, these people dont ever seem to learn do they.
I can imagine your worry at OH taking Rudi out  I always worry when mine does, except if its Jay because he's always done it with her and she isn't 'adventerous' like the others. I give him a list of instructions-which I'm sure he ignores.

Sarah- well done on Spen's recall

Ginge- have a good night, great to hear Ninja is making progress.

Twiggy- sitdown is a classic in this house as well- I've given up explaining that one now.

Moonviolet- you must be really pleased with Tinks progress- theres a big difference in her confidence , its noticeable from the beginning of this thread.

Hope I haven't forgotten anyone.

Nice walks today[in more rain]- no off lead for short stuff though. I actually copped Moll today checking depths of puddles until she found one deep enough to lie in :blink: how on earth do their minds work.:w00t:
Door manners training by name is going so so, not sure why I bother really as its still chaotic once they're all at the other side. Suppose it stops me being crushed in the stampede though


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh Dogless what a crock of carp.
> 
> *If you encounter them again i'd nbe tempted to assertively but not rudey ask them to collect their dog after polite sniffs, " to help it learn some manners!"
> *
> GR..... burlesque class imdeed . good on you  SOunds like GInge is making progress, keep watching that grass grow
> 
> :lol: Naomi i could have said the same things about mine


I might just do that.....sure they think Kilo is a devil dog owned by an idiot woman now anyway . Mind you, they were drinking bottles of beer, so maybe they'll have enough to forget! :w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

missnaomi said:


> Tell me about it - it often feels like my OH was put on the planet to undo everything I do. With the dogs he uses the wrong words, fails to accurately read body language and does an assortment of annoying things. If I make any suggestions or try and make him do the same thing as me he says taht I am too fussy/what I think is opinion not fact/to stop telling him off/that I'm wrong etc etc... He is also messy and untidies everything I spend ages tidying. Good job I love him I guess....


I should give up trying now - I did years and years ago.....LOL

As regards messy and untidy - just don't get me started. I hate to tell you but they don't improve however much training and hard work you do; nagging, pleading, being nice - none of it works. Well it hasn't in this house and I'm not that far off celebrating 50 years of marriage...:w00t:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I might just do that.....sure they think Kilo is a devil dog owned by an idiot woman now anyway . Mind you, they were drinking bottles of beer, so maybe they'll have enough to forget! :w00t:.


:lol: I had to grow a hard shell to no one makes much effort to get their " friendly" dog back from one who's too busy peeing on their tucked tail to tell 'em to sling their hook. way i see it if i'm polite and they take offence it's their issue not mine, if they avoid me in future... result :lol:

Thanks K&M i can really see a difference in Tink she is such a great dog, i'm better at reading her and following her lead after all the walks are for her as well as me so if she sees a group of strange dogs and would prefer to go another way ( or find a non invasive lurking spot) it really is no skin of my nose . If they are known dogs ( and we liek them) I'll wave and say hello to teh people and encourage interaction seems to be working


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :lol: I had to grow a hard shell to no one makes much effort to get their " friendly" dog back from one who's too busy peeing on their tucked tail to tell 'em to sling their hook. way i see it if i'm polite and they take offence it's their issue not mine, if they avoid me in future... result :lol:
> 
> Thanks K&M i can really see a difference in Tink she is such a great dog, i'm better at reading her and following her lead after all the walks are for her as well as me so if she sees a group of strange dogs and would prefer to go another way ( or find a non invasive lurking spot) it really is no skin of my nose . If they are known dogs ( and we liek them) I'll wave and say hello to teh people and encourage interaction seems to be working


It is strange as I feel oddly ashamed as if I have a 'problem dog' as I always, always do when in fact Kilo was very polite initially and then gave some very, very clear signals before being noisy. Textbook really. Oh well, yet more totally unfounded paranoia to be getting on with when they will, as hubby points out, have forgotten about it by now in all probability .


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Thanks K&M i can really see a difference in Tink she is such a great dog, i'm better at reading her and following her lead after all the walks are for her as well as me so if she sees a group of strange dogs and would prefer to go another way ( or find a non invasive lurking spot) it really is no skin of my nose . If they are known dogs ( and we liek them) I'll wave and say hello to teh people and encourage interaction seems to be working


I can't like this paragraph enough!! Lovely .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh no Hugo; hope it's sorted soon .
> 
> Well, I had a walk that has left me feeling sh!tty although it shouldn't have done . It started off really fabulously when we just drifted past the lab and collie that Kilo used to react to and the owners and I just said "Evening" and on we went . The next 20 minutes or so were lovely, Kilo was walking beautifully and I was feeling on top of the world. Then we rounded the corner of a road and ran into an offlead bulldog that we see now and again (always offlead, always comes over). No great dramas, let Kilo and him sniff for two seconds or so as the owners started calling him then moved back the way I'd come with Kilo whilst he was still happy and relaxed. Only we have the bulldog in tow, being really persistent round Kilo's back end. The owners are calling and calling but not coming very fast so I stopped to give them the chance to get their dog. Kilo by this point was getting fed up, so he sat down to stop the 'bum bothering', but the bulldog was trying to lift his coat up and being really, really bothersome, so Kilo aimed a quick airsnap over his shoulder. At which point the man said he'd come and grab his dog - unfortunately Kilo launched into a noise and slobber display before the man reached his dog; completely ignored by the other dog .
> 
> Anyway, man gets dog and I apologise to the owners (why I have no idea, apart from because they were looking so horrified and pissed off I think!!!) and just explain politely that Kilo doesn't like offlead dogs approaching him onlead as many dogs don't as he was attacked like that and is now very wary. The woman just said "He's only 10 months old and wants to be everyones' friend". They walked on and I was left with a shaking Kilo refusing to move in the road and was the recipient of some choice looks, coupled with I am sure the owners discussing my horrid dog .
> 
> Funny thing is that when he ran up at 7 months old he was "only 7 months old and wants to be everyones' friend", same at 8 and 9 months of age too....:w00t:.
> 
> And breathe. I am so, so frustrated with living here at times .


Dogless you are much to nice a person. I'm afraid I'd be bl..dy rude.

I really don't see why you should have Kilo upset by pig ignorant owners.

Take a spare lead and clip it on to these untrained dogs and then turn round and say to the owners "I've caught your dog for you..!!"

I told you what I did when those two terriers (that had already attacked one dog) who were making a beeline for mine on the beach. I was expecting a huge row when their owners eventually sauntered by but instead the chap held his hand up and said "thanks".....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless you are much to nice a person. I'm afraid I'd be bl..dy rude.
> 
> I really don't see why you should have Kilo upset by pig ignorant owners.
> 
> Take a spare lead and clip it on to these untrained dogs and then turn round and say to the owners "I've caught your dog for you..!!"
> 
> I told you what I did when those two terriers (that had already attacked one dog) who were making a beeline for mine on the beach. I was expecting a huge row when their owners eventually sauntered by but instead the chap held his hand up and said "thanks".....


I would be outside camp; problem is here is a little goldfish bowl full of gossip and drama and I just want a quiet life! May stick a slip lead in my pocket though; good idea.

I hate him upset as we have worked so, so hard and he is really doing well with these rude approaches compared to how he was - in an ideal world it shouldn't even be such a problem...but here it is!!


----------



## Guest

Um right lets see If I get this all right (Sorry if I don't!)

*takes a deep breath*

WELL DONE SPEN!!

WELL DONE RUDI!!

POOR KILO!!! But well done for passing the Collie Nicely!

POOR HUGO/OSCAR!!!!

AND WELL DONE GINGE!!

*exhales*

Was that everyone??? 

I LOVE walking in the pouring rain at half six in the morn, no other dog owners, so I am completley relaxed and Zander walked to perfect heel. (Is it to with wearing a coat? The weather? Me being calm?)

Had a couple moments where he wobbled though. Someone had lent a car wheel hub metal thing up against the wall and Zander saw it, hunched down, and sort of scuttled around it in an arc. Then we saw a newspaper deliverier in high reflective gear and a trolley, same reaction. 
Then we saw a man we know who has whippets, but he said that one recently passed away suddenly and he held out a fist and crouched down to Zanders height to stroke him (Doggy people are good.) and Zander usually loves him but same reaction as the hub and newspaper person.



So that was a bit odd, but on a plus side we met nooooo doggies.

OOOH and I've finally narrowed down my collar search (the person who makes them actually lives in my county SUPPORTING LOCAL BUSINESS, :w00t:, thats my good deed for the day) to two.

So what do you guys think would suit my tan and white, black sideburned lurch?


----------



## Dogless

The lab was the bogie for us actually .

Those collars are both really gorgeous.....can't decide. I think you'll have to post a recent photo of Donkey Boy to help me.......:w00t:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Dogless you are much to nice a person. I'm afraid I'd be bl..dy rude.
> 
> I really don't see why you should have Kilo upset by pig ignorant owners.
> 
> Take a spare lead and clip it on to these untrained dogs and then turn round and say to the owners "I've caught your dog for you..!!"
> 
> I told you what I did when those two terriers (that had already attacked one dog) who were making a beeline for mine on the beach. I was expecting a huge row when their owners eventually sauntered by but instead the chap held his hand up and said "thanks".....


She'll need a lot of spare leads to do that, don't think any of the other owners we encountered out there even owned a lead :nonod:

Please don't feel like you have a problem dog Dogless, Kilo sounds like a lovely, well mannered dog and you've done a fantastic job with him. Him telling the Bulldog to sod off is no more a problem than you telling some over enthusiastic bloke to sod off. And if that's the way the Bulldog behaves on a regular basis then his owners better get used to him being snapped at because most dogs won't put up with it.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> She'll need a lot of spare leads to do that, don't think any of the other owners we encountered out there even owned a lead :nonod:
> 
> Please don't feel like you have a problem dog Dogless, Kilo sounds like a lovely, well mannered dog and you've done a fantastic job with him. Him telling the Bulldog to sod off is no more a problem than you telling some over enthusiastic bloke to sod off. And if that's the way the Bulldog behaves on a regular basis then his owners better get used to him being snapped at because most dogs won't put up with it.


That's very true about the leads Sarah!!

I know I don't have a problem dog really, other owners just make you feel that way at times with their reactions don't they? Kilo is just intolerant of behaviours that people think are normal and acceptable in their own dogs at times here  .


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## moonviolet

LO I dont' knwo if this will help understand what happened with donkey boy. 

the other evening i was walking alone in the woods as dusk fell into dark, I had to divert and cut through the trees where it was pitch dark, I heard something that sounded something between a fox and a man having someone stand on his gonads. I was startled and I felt a huge rush of adrenalin, for the rest of the walk, i was on high alert every leaf rustle, every twig i snapped had me checking for ghosts in the shadows. I think it was the canine equivalent with zander today... just a bit of a guess but seems likely to me 

Gorgeous collars My gut feeling is the second one for Zander but like Dogless i need to see a recent pic to be sure 

Dogless you dont' have a problem dog at all. Unfortunately so many people have a dodg and understand little to nothing about them.


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## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> Please don't feel like you have a problem dog Dogless, Kilo sounds like a lovely, well mannered dog and you've done a fantastic job with him. Him telling the Bulldog to sod off is no more a problem than you telling some over enthusiastic bloke to sod off. And if that's the way the Bulldog behaves on a regular basis then his owners better get used to him being snapped at because most dogs won't put up with it.


Very much agree with this ^^^

LO - the top one. It's a close call but I think the orange flowers will pop out really nicely when framed by his tanness and the black base of the collar will highlight his black side-burns. However if he has a white neck the bottom one might be better. Need pictures of him to be sure.


----------



## Guest

I've just taken 20 blummin photo's and these are the only non-blurries. Still rubbish though.


----------



## Beth17

What a shame you met some idiots Dogless I think Kilo was perfectly justified in his reaction. It's a shame the other owners let it get that far.

Poor Hugo and Oscar hopefully now you've found the possible culprit they'll start feeling better.

L/O I like the second collar best.

Tink is doing brilliantly mv 

Have a good night Ginge!

I am glad the day is over and they are asleep as Sam has definitely being having one of those days; although I did leave him for an hour and nothing was wrecked which is a bonus I suppose.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I've just taken 20 blummin photo's and these are the only non-blurries. Still rubbish though.
> 
> View attachment 103933
> 
> 
> View attachment 103934


Both would look fabulous....but the top collar is my winner based on those pics .


----------



## Werehorse

LurcherOwner said:


> I've just taken 20 blummin photo's and these are the only non-blurries. Still rubbish though.


Changed my mind to collar 2. The brown in collar 2 is a better match to his coat than the orange flowers in collar 1, the white will be drawn out in the collar by the white background of his neck and the green suits him.  Plus his black sideburns stand out enough on their own they don't need help from a collar.

He's gorgeous.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> That's very true about the leads Sarah!!
> 
> I know I don't have a problem dog really, other owners just make you feel that way at times with their reactions don't they? Kilo is just intolerant of behaviours that people think are normal and acceptable in their own dogs at times here  .


I think it happens everywhere unfortunately. People have looked at me as though I'm daft when I stop Spen doing something obnoxious or say he doesn't always come back when called.

I think it's probably easy for me to say don't worry about it. Shadow was extremely intolerant of rude behaviour (from humans as well as dogs!) so I had a baptism by fire really since I was only a teenager at the time. Then of course I had Rupert who was intolerant of the mere existence of other dogs and who taught me that rudeness is sometimes the best option. But yeah, I know what you mean. The look of horror and anger and then sometimes the pity because you have a "vicious" dog who tried to maul the dog who was "just being friendly". And the comments I used to get!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Both would look fabulous....but the top collar is my winner based on those pics .





Werehorse said:


> Changed my mind to collar 2. The brown in collar 2 is a better match to his coat than the orange flowers in collar 1, the white will be drawn out in the collar by the white background of his neck and the green suits him.  Plus his black sideburns stand out enough on their own they don't need help from a collar.
> 
> He's gorgeous.


I'm just gonna have to play eeny meeny miny mo arent I?

And thank you werehorse. 

When people says he's handsome on a walk I always want to retaliate like "But he's a git at times, honest" :w00t:


----------



## moonviolet

LO i have to say we really do not see enough pics of your gorgeous boy.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I think it happens everywhere unfortunately. People have looked at me as though I'm daft when I stop Spen doing something obnoxious or say he doesn't always come back when called.
> 
> I think it's probably easy for me to say don't worry about it. Shadow was extremely intolerant of rude behaviour (from humans as well as dogs!) so I had a baptism by fire really since I was only a teenager at the time. Then of course I had Rupert who was intolerant of the mere existence of other dogs and who taught me that rudeness is sometimes the best option. But yeah, I know what you mean. The look of horror and anger and then sometimes the pity because you have a "vicious" dog who tried to maul the dog who was "just being friendly". And the comments I used to get!


It was the sheer indignation when the woman said "He's only 10 months old" that made me feel crap. Not logical AT ALL :blink:.



LurcherOwner said:


> I'm just gonna have to play eeny meeny miny mo arent I?
> 
> And thank you werehorse.
> 
> When people says he's handsome on a walk I always want to retaliate like "But he's a git at times, honest" :w00t:


Or get both :devil:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> It was the sheer indignation when the woman said "He's only 10 months old" that made me feel crap. Not logical AT ALL :blink:.


Maybe you should point out that at 10 months old he's basically the equivalent of a 14 year old boy  Some people seem to think of them as though they're like a human of the same age. I saw someone on a facebook group saying "but he's only 3 years old, surely that's too young to learn anything!"


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Or get both :devil:.


NOPE, NO. NOPE. ONE IS ALL HE'S GETTING. HE's SPOILT.

Oooh how old would Zander be in human years at 15 months? Just so I can cringe at his behaviour a little more.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Maybe you should point out that at 10 months old he's basically the equivalent of a 14 year old boy  Some people seem to think of them as though they're like a human of the same age. I saw someone on a facebook group saying "but he's only 3 years old, surely that's too young to learn anything!"


I think to be fair I need to stop over analysing every little thing that happens and beating myself up; just as hubby always says....maybe I'll allow him to be right about just this one thing . The couple tonight have either forgotten about it or decided that we are best avoided and then worst case scenario told everyone about the devil dog and stupid owner, none of which can be changed. I'm too self critical and analytical for my own good at times I think.


----------



## Beth17

Just think Dogless if word gets around about your devil dog you actually might get the idiots avoiding you :001_tongue:


----------



## Guest

Sorry for posting more photo's. (Well you did SAY I needed to post more) 
But these show his tan colouring a bit better and he's STILL!! (thats an achievement of its own to be fair)


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## Twiggy

I prefer collar 2 as well.


----------



## moonviolet

LO, he is such a cheeky boy love him !!

going to have to watch out when i visit my folks i don't come a dog napping


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> LO, he is such a cheeky boy love him !!
> 
> going to have to watch out when i visit my folks i don't come a dog napping


Aww he is cheeky, he'll charge into my room hop on the bed and just lie there like "I'M BEING GOOD HONEST."

gah we may be taking on yet ANOTHER stray cat. A young male ginger.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Maybe you should point out that at 10 months old he's basically the equivalent of a 14 year old boy  Some people seem to think of them as though they're like a human of the same age. I saw someone on a facebook group saying "but he's only 3 years old, surely that's too young to learn anything!"


I have to agree. Some of the posts on the training and behaviour page stun me at times. If only owners would spend a bit of time on basic training and good manners, and if they don't know how to do it then attend a training class to be shown how. I'm not having a go at you Lurcherowner because you are doing your best and lurchers are not the easiest, but some of them make every excuse under the sun for their dogs bad behaviour.

I know I have age and experience on my side but all of my dogs, regardless of temperament and including the first one (collie/corgi cross),
are sitting/downing in a stay ring, off the lead, along with up to 60 other dogs by the time they reach about 12 months old.

When you go to a show there is sometimes well in excess of 1,000 dogs, all highly charged working breeds - dobes, rotties, retrievers, collies, GSDs, etc. etc. and there is very, very rarely any trouble or fights. The simple reason being they are all well socialised and trained.


----------



## L/C

Sarah - glad the tooth is better.

Dogless - let your inner hag run free! 

Twiggy - hope you have good news about your sister soon.

LO - I like the 1st collar and another cat?!

Werehorse - hope the boys are better soon and you can post that naturediet to me if you want. :001_tongue:

Beth - I hope you aren't flooded out. Stay safe and dry with the boys.

Not much to report here. Had a late walk yesterday as the pointy twins were not venturing outside in torrential rain! Both were very good although Ely did have a growl and a snap at a rude gsd.

We had our Christmas last night as we are at our respective parents for the actual day and OH is heading to Devon today (if the trains can get through). So I got pheasant for all 4 of us - cooked the human's ones with cider and apple and the dogs were given their's raw. Ely loved it but miss Gypsy turned her nose up! So without asking OH fed her a whole chicken (because it's Christmas.  Of course) and she turned into a big grey slug for the rest of the evening. And remains one this morning.

I feel our walk maybe delayed again. :lol:


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

> What are you working on???


I'm currently working on getting a Westie to retrieve. It's slow progress.

Also been working on "touch targeting" which has gone much better


----------



## Dogless

Welcome to the thread WhatWouldSidDo .

L/C - hope you had a lovely early Christmas, your dinner certainly sounds yum . I hope the big, grey slug recovers sufficiently to walk today :blink:.

We had a good morning. But first...I am rather worried about hubby :nonod:. I went into the bedroom and snuck my clothes out in the dark to go and walk Kilo this morning so as not to wake him; but he was awake _and said he'd come with me because I do everything which makes him feel bad and he needs to be more involved :yikes::yikes:_. So, we took Kilo to the top field in the gales and rain and played for ages, did a recall game and then at the end I wanted to calm him down a bit so did a few bits of training. I put him in a sit / stay and started to walk away and I heard hubby saying "Ah, Ah, stay" to Kilo - he does this thing where he puts his head forward as if he wants to move, but doesn't which hubby doesn't know....I know he was trying to help but I felt   and had to bite my tongue :nonod::nonod:. Kilo behaved very well and walked nicely too though so he is my best boy :001_wub:.

Then, we drove to the park and bundled Rudi up in his coat for a bit of socialisation. He met lots of friendly dogs (large and small) and people that I know from walking Kilo and a few that I don't - he was fine with the dogs and his tail wags like crazy when people pay him attention, even when they loom over him and fuss him like that he loves it . He was really happy the whole time which is great.

Hubby is on the phone now telling his Mum all about when 'we' take out Kilo and when 'we' take out Rudi and what 'we' do with the dogs, bless him  .


----------



## moonviolet

L/C sounds like a really special christmas dinner 

Hello and welcome WhatWouldSidDo we love pics and videos 



Dogless said:


> I put him in a sit / stay and started to walk away and I heard hubby saying "Ah, Ah, stay" to Kilo - *he does this thing where he puts his head forward as if he wants to move, but doesn't *which hubby doesn't know....I know he was trying to help but I felt   and had to bite my tongue :nonod::nonod:. Kilo behaved very well and walked nicely too though so he is my best boy :001_wub:..


Tink does a similar thin*g* kind of shoving her head forward and giving it a little flick upward simultaneously, I always get the impression there's a little bit of a " get on with it" attitude behind it :lol:



Dogless said:


> Hubby is on the phone now telling his Mum all about when 'we' take out Kilo and when 'we' take out Rudi and what 'we' do with the dogs, bless him  .


This made me laugh, they all do it. At my childhood home my mother had created a wonderful garden from scratch, and i mean scratch, flame throwing (nad i wonder where i get my tank girl streak) shoulder high weeds, removing 3 agricultural trailers of junk, She dug weeded sowed planted pruned mowed strimmed etc my Dad occasionally emptied her wheelbarrow, When comments were made my Dad lapped up the praise everytime :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Just had my sister on the phone - Kings Hospital are allowing her home sometime this afternoon....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Just had my sister on the phone - Kings Hospital are allowing her home sometime this afternoon....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


Oh Twiggy thats fantastic, what a christmas present


----------



## Beth17

Fantastic news Twiggy :thumbup: What a wonderful Christmas present!

L/C sounds like you had a lovely night and as for Gypsy if Christmas isn't for pigging out then what is it for  I hope your OH gets down here safely and without too much trouble.

Bless your hubby Dogless it's quite sweet really 
Well done to Kilo and Rudi really is fantastic. Do you think he'll always be so friendly or will he become more aloof as he gets older?

mv your mum sounds brilliant :001_tongue:

Had a lovely if squelchy walk today did a bit of recall training with Sam but there were too many nice smells around and then lots of dogs turned up so I just let him run around like a lunatic.
Oscar was in a cheeky mood today and kept dropping his toy so I had to pick it up and kept running on ahead but not too bad really.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Just had my sister on the phone - Kings Hospital are allowing her home sometime this afternoon....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


YIPEEEEE - very pleased for you both .



Beth17 said:


> Bless your hubby Dogless it's quite sweet really
> Well done to Kilo and Rudi really is fantastic. Do you think he'll always be so friendly or will he become more aloof as he gets older?


I really hope he'll remain as friendly or at least less aloof than Kilo, so he can be the focus of any attention...I think. I don't want a 'running up to people' drama either .


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Tink does a similar think kind of shoving her head forward and giving it a little flickupward simultaneously, I always get the impression there's a little bit of* a " get on with it" attitude behind it *:lol:


Nail on head - even down to the flick upward. Also a big sigh on a down / stay if it's on a hard surface .


----------



## catz4m8z

Its my first time leaving Alfie for work tonight! I'll be gone 13 hours!!:cryin:
I really hope he will be ok.... Our usual routine is that he has a last meal and goes to bed in his crate alone at about 12-1am and I wake up and get him at about 8.30am.
For work he will go to my friends at 7pm and be taken home between 12-2am (I'll leave some kibble for him in his crate) then I get in around 8.30am. Im hoping that once he is home he wont realiese that Im not upstairs!

(then my only problem will be how to sleep during the day with a playful puppy around!):w00t:
:blink:


----------



## GingerRogers

Awesome news Twiggy, Happy Christmas!!!

Hope Alfie copes with put you Catz

Welcome Sid (sorry for the abbreviation while you are so new on the thread but tried typing that several times and it didn't work right) not heard Westies being great gundogs.

L/C Hope the slug has recovered by now.

LO both the collars are stunning, have you made a choice yet.

Dogless sounds like you might have a mutiny on your hands if he doesn't start doing things your way  wonder why he has suddenly started to take an interest, must have been nice having the company though.

I had a nice meal, burst out my posh frock so had to change into jeans and boots, felt much better but came home a little early as the DJ was truly awful :nonod: I couldn't bear to wait another hour for the taxi.

Finny day today, started off walking in to pick the car up, the devil dog up the road was barking the neighbourhood up so it started badly and Ginge got rather stressed, then we had a lovely 45mins round the estate while hubby put some hay out for the cows. Think over Christmas I am going to do some short sessions on proper roads as she really didn't like the noise etc. and was walking like a loon which got to me.

Just about to take her on a card drop then hopefully some Sunday cheer in my favourite winter bar with friends.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I guess after todays little stunt we need to do yet more work on recall :nonod: Does it ever end??

Up until the point he disappeared he'd actually done really well though. We'd played frisbee and then we'd seen hubbys boss and his Dane and Spen was really good about coming to me and walking with me. Until he recognised Achilles anyway, then he ran up, stopped a few metres away and waited. They had a play together and Spen looked so small next to Achilles :lol: He'd also been offering walking with us, checking in with us and recalling when asked up until the point he legged it. 

Last night I did some work on eye contact in various positions. Including me lying on my back on the bed and sitting on the bed with Spen next to me. That one ended up nearly breaking my nose as Spen apparently thought I wanted him to jab me in the face with his nose  Then when I went for a bath he brought me a book, a tissue and a sock. And then proceeded to steal my towel to make a bed out of.

Twiggy, fantastic news about your sister :thumbup:


----------



## Guest

Thats great news about your sister twiggy!! 

And I didn't take offence or anything as I know that the majority of donkeyboys problems are because of me. Bouncing at other dogs? Well of course him being my first dog and me being all like SOCIALISATION at him, I thought his enthusiam was good. Of course it has now turned into a problem.
I had one muppet the other day say "That If that were me, I wouldn't have kept him as long as you have." I was horrified by this. 
Yet when recalling this to my friend and her mum today, her mum had the same attitude saying that "he was a rod for my own back." 
Of course my friend was horrified too and went on to list all the tricks my dog can do and stuff. 

Still made me feel a bit crappy though, as I am trying my hardest with him. 

He was good today though, waited in an offlead down position till I told him to go say hello to two offlead collies and came back when I called him. 

Sadly when another lurcher came into the mix, waiting did not happen. 

I have decided on Collar 2 ginge.

It's good that your hubby is taking interest in the doggies, dogless.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Welcome to the thread WhatWouldSidDo .
> 
> L/C - hope you had a lovely early Christmas, your dinner certainly sounds yum . I hope the big, grey slug recovers sufficiently to walk today :blink:.
> 
> We had a good morning. But first...I am rather worried about hubby :nonod:. I went into the bedroom and snuck my clothes out in the dark to go and walk Kilo this morning so as not to wake him; but he was awake _and said he'd come with me because I do everything which makes him feel bad and he needs to be more involved :yikes::yikes:_. So, we took Kilo to the top field in the gales and rain and played for ages, did a recall game and then at the end I wanted to calm him down a bit so did a few bits of training. I put him in a sit / stay and started to walk away and I heard hubby saying "Ah, Ah, stay" to Kilo - he does this thing where he puts his head forward as if he wants to move, but doesn't which hubby doesn't know....I know he was trying to help but I felt   and had to bite my tongue :nonod::nonod:. Kilo behaved very well and walked nicely too though so he is my best boy :001_wub:.
> 
> Then, we drove to the park and bundled Rudi up in his coat for a bit of socialisation. He met lots of friendly dogs (large and small) and people that I know from walking Kilo and a few that I don't - he was fine with the dogs and his tail wags like crazy when people pay him attention, even when they loom over him and fuss him like that he loves it . He was really happy the whole time which is great.
> 
> *Hubby is on the phone now telling his Mum all about when 'we' take out Kilo and when 'we' take out Rudi and what 'we' do with the dogs, bless him  .*




Yes bless him indeed.....


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well I guess after todays little stunt we need to do yet more work on recall :nonod: Does it ever end??
> 
> Up until the point he disappeared he'd actually done really well though. We'd played frisbee and then we'd seen hubbys boss and his Dane and Spen was really good about coming to me and walking with me. Until he recognised Achilles anyway, then he ran up, stopped a few metres away and waited. They had a play together and Spen looked so small next to Achilles :lol: He'd also been offering walking with us, checking in with us and recalling when asked up until the point he legged it.
> 
> Last night I did some work on eye contact in various positions. Including me lying on my back on the bed and sitting on the bed with Spen next to me. That one ended up nearly breaking my nose as Spen apparently thought I wanted him to jab me in the face with his nose  Then when I went for a bath he brought me a book, a tissue and a sock. And then proceeded to steal my towel to make a bed out of.
> 
> Twiggy, fantastic news about your sister :thumbup:


Thank you I'm delighted for her. She's been chomping on the bit to go home for the last two days. I just hope the journey went smoothly and she negotiated the stairs OK when she got home. No doubt I'll hear from her later.

What was Spen like when he eventually returned to you?

Maybe, just maybe after he ran off he got disorientated and lost and it could have possibly taught him a lesson.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless sounds like you might have a mutiny on your hands if he doesn't start doing things your way  wonder why he has suddenly started to take an interest, must have been nice having the company though.


No idea why the interest - he comes for a walk now and again when he feels guilty I think .



LurcherOwner said:


> Thats great news about your sister twiggy!!
> 
> And I didn't take offence or anything as I know that the majority of donkeyboys problems are because of me. Bouncing at other dogs? Well of course him being my first dog and me being all like SOCIALISATION at him, I thought his enthusiam was good. Of course it has now turned into a problem.
> I had one muppet the other day say *"That If that were me, I wouldn't have kept him as long as you have." I was horrified by this. *
> Yet when recalling this to my friend and her mum today, her mum had the same attitude saying that "he was a rod for my own back."
> Of course my friend was horrified too and went on to list all the tricks my dog can do and stuff.
> 
> Still made me feel a bit crappy though, as I am trying my hardest with him.
> 
> He was good today though, waited in an offlead down position till I told him to go say hello to two offlead collies and came back when I called him.
> 
> Sadly when another lurcher came into the mix, waiting did not happen.
> 
> I have decided on Collar 2 ginge.
> 
> *It's good that your hubby is taking interest in the doggies, dogless.*


1. People are odd. I have had a few admire Rudi and assume that I must have got rid of Kilo :nonod:.

2. It didn't last until this afternoon's 6 whole minutes round the block with Rudi (that was with sniff time!!) and until just over an hour's training walk in the freezing cold with Kilo .


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Thank you I'm delighted for her. She's been chomping on the bit to go home for the last two days. I just hope the journey went smoothly and she negotiated the stairs OK when she got home. No doubt I'll hear from her later.
> 
> What was Spen like when he eventually returned to you?
> 
> Maybe, just maybe after he ran off he got disorientated and lost and it could have possibly taught him a lesson.


I'd be chomping at the bit to go home too, I hate being in hospital. Hope all goes well for her.

Spen was just his usual self when he got back to us. He gave me a grin and nudged my hand which he often does when checking in. Wasn't panting heavily and didn't seem the slightest bit bothered that he'd gotten separated from us.

Hubbys boss said his dane took off after something today too and that was in the direction Spen took. Very out of character for him too so there must have been something really interesting. Wondered about a bitch in season to be honest but Achilles was neutered really early so not sure he'd take off like that for one.


----------



## kat&molly

Yay, Great news Twiggy, bet your sister is thrilled to be coming home.

Dogless- that is my OH down to a Tee. He means well but sometimes.....

Will go and see what Spens done in a minute.

LO- I like those collars, Donkey boy is lovely.


Molls sister is being rehomed at the beginning of Jan  for fighting with the Dam, TBH in surprised the fights haven't happened sooner, Lucy is 'wild', she pesters the other dogs constantly to play and is very in your face. I wish I could have her but 4 really is my limit and Scruff doesn't stand for her either.
I'm more upset because they always say what a good girl Moll is and how different the 2 are, yet they know I've put a lot of work in and she's fed a decent food-it doesn't have to be Raw but anythings got to better than the Lidl's shite.
The chap who's having her has never had a dog before- I know everyone is a first time dog owner at some point but a Hyper Springer and a Baby feels like recipe for disaster to me. We've declined a walk before she goes.

I haven't finished yet.
Neighbour came across today, she comes in with her dog and asks me to bath her tomorrow because she's got fleas again. She said they're going to friends for Christmas dinner and dont want the dog leaving any behind- I did say 'I hope she's not leaving any here' but she laughed - thats the 2nd time she's done that to me this year, and now I'm having to work Christmas Eve.
Phew- thats better!!

My Moll was 3 today- we couldn't do special walks because the chasse were out again. She had a new frisbee and this afternoon OH came- she showed off by letting him see how many puddles she can lie down in. :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

k&m - your neighbour can't possibly think that fleas make a suitable Christmas present? And making your work chrimbo Eve?  :cryin:.

Poor Lucy too - it is so hard to observe a situation and not be able to help; but putting your four first is the right thing to do, definitely.

And....Happy Birthday Lovely Moll .


----------



## Sarah1983

Happy Birthday Molly!

Sorry to hear about Lucy and about the neighbour bringing their flea ridden dog to you yet again. Have they not bloody heard about flea prevention? I'm not a big fan of using chemicals unless it's necessary but the number of times your neighbours dog has had fleas it seems it may well be!


----------



## kat&molly

Moll said Fanks.
I am wondering whether they're blaming my girls for the fleas? But honestly it isn't them- when we've had a problem I've bathed the girls and blitzed the house. I wont have fleas in here- you'd be amazed at how many of my clients aren't bothered though- and I think this is whats going on with the neighbours, they aren't doing the house:nonod:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well today, me, husband, son and nephew took all three dogs out cause I'm still supposed to be resting  
On the way back I was naughty and had frank, who was on his dogmatic so it was easy to control him without pulling. We walked across a park and just about to go down a gully to the path when two off lead dogs came running up towards us. I turned around, took frank away from the dogs and he sat and we did some 'watch me'. 
He was so good and didn't react to the other dogs at all, even when they came and sniffed his bum. 
Gave my husband a quick thumbs up to say ok then carried on home without any trouble  phew. Was so pleased with him.

Will have a sit down tonight and read through the last few pages to see what everyone else is working on.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Frank, gold star .


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Frank

*Happy Birthday Lovely Moll! *

I find your neighbour a little shocking i wouldn't dream of sharing fleas, Shame about Lucy I hope her new owner steps up to the plate.

Oh Sarah he could have at least looked relieved to see you.

just some silly pics and a little video from today.... How i wish i was half as nimble and moved as effortlessly.


























and this is how she got on her balance beam.( video)


----------



## Dogless

What lovely photos of Tink mv - on a tree for a change . She's very nimble indeed....does she teach Stile Negotiation For Concrete Heads? I won't need diploma - level stuff, just the basics!


----------



## kat&molly

Bless Miss Tink - she done that with such ease . Moll would just jump over it and the others would go under.


Our door manners are going good, I'm pleased and I dont say the names in order each time either. I'm not sure we'll ever get to them offering it though, prefering the Bull and China shop method.


----------



## Beth17

Happy birthday Moll! 

Well done Frank 

Lovely pictures of Tink. I love how she can balance so well, my two have never tried; I think they know that they'd fall off :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

She is so very cat like in some ways. She love the height and taking a moment to scout whats going on around.

I'll ask her about running a stile course, that said i'm not sure she's ever had to go over one  :lol:

just for variety on a rock :001_tongue:


----------



## Werehorse

Happy birthday Moll. 

Oscar will do a getting over style course! We'll have to used slow motion video technology though because I actually haven't a clue how he does it! He just seems to launch himself, put a few feet down somewhere and end up on the other side.

Hugo hasn't been sick today.  AND I managed to go and buy stuff to make angel wings. AND my living room now looks like an exposion in a tinsel factory which makes me happy. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Happy birthday Moll.
> 
> Oscar will do a getting over style course! We'll have to used slow motion video technology though because I actually haven't a clue how he does it! He just seems to launch himself, put a few feet down somewhere and end up on the other side.
> 
> Hugo hasn't been sick today.  AND I managed to go and buy stuff to make angel wings. AND my living room now looks like an exposion in a tinsel factory which makes me happy. :lol:


Photos please of the angel wings.....:w00t::w00t:.

Well done Hugo; no more worrying folk please .


----------



## Werehorse

Hahaha, not made the wings yet - the tinsel factory explosion is my _tasteful_ christmas decorations.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Hahaha, not made the wings yet - the tinsel factory explosion is my _tasteful_ christmas decorations.


:w00t::w00t: :w00t::w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

Those photos of Tink are fabulous. She is such a sweetie and makes jumping on the tree branch look effortless.


----------



## Thorne

Hope I haven't missed anyone out! 

-L/C, I like the sound of the pheasant dinner, shame Gypsy didn't! Saw 2 cock pheasants in the garden earlier, Scooter was very interested!
-WhatWouldSidDo, Welcome to the thread, good luck with the retrieving & touch!
-Twiggy, fabulous news about your sister, so pleased for you and your family.
-Beth 17 - Oscar and Scooter were on the same wavelength today I think, boys eh! 
-Catz, hope the little one coped with being left!
-Ginger, sorry about the hellhound, hope you've had a good evening!
-Sarah, good luck with recall, interesting work with eye contact!
-L/O, don't let them get you down, you're doing a cracking job with the donkey boy.
-K&M, Happy birthday to Molly!
-F&F, great to hear that Frank behaved himself for you, dogs always seem to know when we need extra help don't they?
-MV, I think Tink was a cat in a past life  great photos as usual.
-Werehorse, fingers crossed for Hugo



Dogless said:


> So, we took Kilo to the top field in the gales and rain and played for ages, did a recall game and then at the end I wanted to calm him down a bit so did a few bits of training. I put him in a sit / stay and started to walk away and I heard hubby saying "Ah, Ah, stay" to Kilo - he does this thing where he puts his head forward as if he wants to move, but doesn't which hubby doesn't know....I know he was trying to help but I felt   and had to bite my tongue :nonod::nonod:. Kilo behaved very well and walked nicely too though so he is my best boy :001_wub:.


This sounds familiar, OH and I do have grumbles at each other about the dogs! He gets grouchy because I don't agree with how he handles Major (he's quick to reprimand and slow to reward, just expects the dog to behave) and I get annoyed if he lets Scooter pull, or gets OTT with skittish Breeze. Apparently I'm not allowed to tell him what to do because I "don't know anything about Bulldogs"  but it's hard not to get involved when this incredibly headstrong dog is pushing what little boundaries it has... love them both to bits but sometimes I'm glad I don't live with them!
Glad Kilo was a good boy today though


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Hahaha, not made the wings yet - the tinsel factory explosion is my _tasteful_ christmas decorations.


So my 2 bauble garlands would be a little too low key :lol:

I can't wait to see the the wings and haloes.

Thanks Twiggy , she's a proper little poser.


----------



## Thorne

Forgot to mention my two! 

Didn't make the same mistake as last sunday, Breeze stayed at home and amused herself by galloping around the swampy garden, playing fetch and "helping" dad with Land Rover repairs. I do feel bad for not walking her on sundays like this but it'll only set her back, she's happiest at home anyway.

Took Scooter towards the smarter end of the village, half expecting it to be less boggy - how wrong I was! Did more pavement walking than normal then went out onto some hideously slippery fields with lots of dogs around; saw 7 or 8 groups out walking including Scooter's "girlfriend" Maddie the mutt. We normally see maximum 2 other dog walkers so this was novel!
He wasn't great but today wasn't a good day to expect total obedience. Let him off thinking I had his attention but he got a scent and kept going... he did grind to a halt on the horizon then recall when asked but was generally a bit deaf so had to stay one step ahead of him. Changing routes with a "this way" worked better than a straight recall today so managed to keep focus, albeit from a distance! On the plus side he passed the other dogs nicely without pulling to say hello 

Seeing Paddy and co. tomorrow, hopefully a dog or 2 will have been reserved since last week!


----------



## chazzie10

Yay it's Christmas Eve......and I'm not finished my shopping! Or my cake decorating. I just bought a cake this year, ready iced but Im gonna make two sugarpaste black labradors playing with snow ( to look like Charlie and my sister's dog Kip...what else would a self respecting christmas cake have on it?) for the top...well thats the plan! Havnt done anything like that in a few years so lets hope they end up looking like dogs and not cows or something lol.

Have a good day everyone 

I'd better get started, wish me luck


----------



## Dogless

I would first like to announce that the panic is over!!! Hubby is OK!!!!. He stayed in bed this morning when I had my shower and got changed to take the Concrete Heads out.

I tried the first walk ever with them together this morning:w00t:. Kilo walked really nicely and ignored the LCH's attempts to interact - Rudi was all over the place as you'd expect, so the 5 minute walk to the small field took 15 minutes - bit of whining from the BW as we neared the field but I don't blame him :w00t:. Then I let them play and just potter for 15 minutes with the odd recall thrown in and we went back home - 15 minutes to cover the 5 minute trip again as I want to sort this right from the start :blink:. Kilo dug his heels in initially as we go to that field as the start of a long walk from field to field all around camp sometimes and he wanted to go that way . All in all though...not bad at all .

Then.....I settled Rudi at home and took Kilo to the park (trying to take it in turns with them to go!). It was really quiet but he sailed past the dogs we didn't know and we got to say "Merry Christmas" to a few of our friends which was nice.

So.....a good day so far; two best boys :001_wub:.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Yay it's Christmas Eve......and I'm not finished my shopping! Or my cake decorating. I just bought a cake this year, ready iced but Im gonna make two sugarpaste black labradors playing with snow ( to look like Charlie and my sister's dog Kip...what else would a self respecting christmas cake have on it?) for the top...well thats the plan! Havnt done anything like that in a few years so lets hope they end up looking like dogs and not cows or something lol.
> 
> Have a good day everyone
> 
> I'd better get started, wish me luck


You have to post a photo of that cake; wish I was artistic enough to make sugarpaste dogs . I have just decorated mine very traditionally and simply....I know my limits!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Phew!!!!! OH's are a worry sometimes, you will remember my own little panic not so long ago regarding DIY 

Actually we had another odd one on Saturday when he sat down with me and helped paint the salt dough decorations I had made - was like Blue Peter in our house 

We have had a few days off the Nupafeed Stressless as the bottle is getting low, I never really pinpointed an improvement so I wanted to see if it was actually making a difference before ordering some more, its not cheap but I suspect cheaper than you found it Dogless  we only need 1ml a day!! 

However judging by her stressy behaviour the last couple of days it had been having an effect. This morning and yesterday evening she was very difficult to get to calm down after an episode, right back to her frantic behaviour of before with lead munching and boot snaps (bit disheartening as it seems all the improvements may not have been down to my work) it might just be circumstance but as it is going to be dog central here for the next week or so I think we might need to leave the experiment for another time. Boingo Spaniel is back for the hols, soggy teddy dog will be out more as the owners will be home , and numpties galore out walking :nonod:.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Phew!!!!! OH's are a worry sometimes, you will remember my own little panic not so long ago regarding DIY
> 
> Actually we had another odd one on Saturday when he sat down with me and helped paint the salt dough decorations I had made - was like Blue Peter in our house
> 
> We have had a few days off the Nupafeed Stressless as the bottle is getting low, I never really pinpointed an improvement so I wanted to see if it was actually making a difference before ordering some more, its not cheap but I suspect cheaper than you found it Dogless  we only need 1ml a day!!
> 
> However judging by her stressy behaviour the last couple of days it had been having an effect. This morning and yesterday evening she was very difficult to get to calm down after an episode, right back to her frantic behaviour of before with lead munching and boot snaps (bit disheartening as it seems all the improvements may not have been down to my work) it might just be circumstance but as it is going to be dog central here for the next week or so I think we might need to leave the experiment for another time. Boingo Spaniel is back for the hols, soggy teddy dog will be out more as the owners will be home , and numpties galore out walking :nonod:.


That is exactly what I was trying to explain with the Stressless; no miracles for us but lots of subtle changes which allow a little more focus for training / being able to pay attention under normally 'over threshold' circumstances and much faster recovery after something stressful has been encountered. I don't use it now apart from before something I think will be stressful but the calmer behaviour has persisted as it allowed the chain of 'stress' to be broken. If that makes any sense....probably not :nonod:.

It was expensive for us when he had it at maximum dosage every day for a month . Worth it though and I hope it helps you through the holiday 'dog central' period.


----------



## GingerRogers

Yeah, it was difficult to spot as I started it at the same time as I started trying to manage the stress some more. TBF there have been a couple of walks over the last few days that have had stressful things happen but I was quite appalled at her behaviour again last night and this morning. Despite having had calm walks in between. Certainly seems as though it was helping in the way you say.

On a more upbeat note I lost her again this morning 
















Not really  she was just hiding behind the front door curtain, she has taken to pretending to be a draught excluder when we eat sometimes  She knows not to hover and plead  and will usually take herself off with out being asked. Often means waiting round near the kitchen, so I had my brekky and carried the bowl through expecting to see her wiggly bum but she wasn't there, she wasn't under the dining table either (this has been a favoured place since we have used it a couple of times over the weekend) back to the sitting room, even moved the throws and pillows in case she had sunk underneath then I saw her little face peeking out :001_wub:


----------



## Werehorse

Christmas cake decoration is a step in domestication too far for me this year! Vacuuming the house was traumatic enough - I finished off by the way, did I say? I did end up vacuuming up a pen though. 

Well done on taking them out together and being patient enough to get Rudi to walk nicely from the start. I suppose if he is 15kg you don't have much choice though :lol: I was much more flippant when I first started walking mine together and not nearly careful enough - building rods for my own back is a speciality.

Having said that I took them out together on lead this morning and they were good. Met a neighbour and he commented how calm they are.  After initially greating him enthusiastically Oscar sat and looked at me and Hugo stood next to me and watching the neighbour talking as if he was listening carefully. :lol:

Proper walks now, been avoiding it because Hugo was ill and hadn't eaten much - so they should enjoy this.


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- soory the Ninja's had a couple of stressy days- that Nupafeed must be good stuff though.

Dogless-Good to hear your OH is back to 'normal'- these things never last for long do they.
Having said that, mine took my girls out this morning whilst I went shopping  and I let him . He let Evie off lead  and he said she was brilliant  

I've done the neighbours dog- I found 3 fleas on her, if ever she's left any behind here I shall be spending the Festive period sobbing and rocking in the corner :cryin:
The girls have all got a new squeaky toy for Christmas- I'm sure that wasn't one of my better ideas and I'll have headache tomorrow for an hour until Jay de squeaks the lot 

Chazzie pics of your cake please- sounds fab. If I attempted anything like that , it would end up as cake without an 'e' on the end.:w00t:

Werehorse- I hope Hugo enjoys his walk.

Off to do more housework now.:nonod:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Christmas cake decoration is a step in domestication too far for me this year! Vacuuming the house was traumatic enough - I finished off by the way, did I say? I did end up vacuuming up a pen though.
> 
> Well done on taking them out together and being patient enough to get Rudi to walk nicely from the start. I suppose if he is 15kg you don't have much choice though :lol: I was much more flippant when I first started walking mine together and not nearly careful enough - building rods for my own back is a speciality.
> 
> Having said that I took them out together on lead this morning and they were good. Met a neighbour and he commented how calm they are.  After initially greating him enthusiastically Oscar sat and looked at me and Hugo stood next to me and watching the neighbour talking as if he was listening carefully. :lol:
> 
> Proper walks now, been avoiding it because Hugo was ill and hadn't eaten much - so they should enjoy this.


It's good you're on proper walks now .

He probably weighs about 17 - 18kg by now as 15.8kg was last Tuesday . Need to weigh him this week to adjust his raw again although I'm feeding mainly by eye but want to make sure he is getting enough.

Anyhoo.... it's not just his weight now (although they collectively outweigh me now I am guessing - not braved the scales in a while ) but in the future that I'm concerned about . I also want as little excitement as possible as Kilo can go from zilch to totally excited so fast it's unreal (just with cats now!!) which I never captured straight from puppyhood and has meant so much work a little later on. I am seeing the same in Rudi in terms of joggers, vehicles, cats so trying to establish nice behaviour as early as possible as both of them excited would be awful - worry that if Rudi gets too excited, Kilo's calm behaviour might go out of the window. I am of course hoping Kilo's calm behaviour might influence Rudi.....but am planning for the worst case scenario :blink: .

I WILL NOT be one of those people pulled all over the place by two massive out of control dogs. WILL NOT. Please don't beat me about the head with that proclamation too much when I posting about some horrendous walk where they where total nightmares as I am bound to .


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Ginge- soory the Ninja's had a couple of stressy days- that Nupafeed must be good stuff though.
> 
> Dogless-Good to hear your OH is back to 'normal'- these things never last for long do they.
> Having said that, mine took my girls out this morning whilst I went shopping  and I let him . He let Evie off lead  and he said she was brilliant
> 
> I've done the neighbours dog- I found 3 fleas on her, if ever she's left any behind here I shall be spending the Festive period sobbing and rocking in the corner :cryin:
> The girls have all got a new squeaky toy for Christmas- I'm sure that wasn't one of my better ideas and I'll have headache tomorrow for an hour until Jay de squeaks the lot
> 
> Chazzie pics of your cake please- sounds fab. If I attempted anything like that , it would end up as cake without an 'e' on the end.:w00t:
> 
> Werehorse- I hope Hugo enjoys his walk.
> 
> Off to do more housework now.:nonod:


You bought them all a squeaky toy :w00t::w00t::nonod::nonod:. Are you insane? :w00t:.

Your OH has obviously caught whatever mine had; don't worry it's a 24 hour thing .

Hope you don't have fleas for Christmas....if you do be sure to save some to return to your neighbour :scared:.

And....well done Evie :aureola::aureola:.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Yay it's Christmas Eve......and I'm not finished my shopping! Or my cake decorating. I just bought a cake this year, ready iced but Im gonna make two sugarpaste black labradors playing with snow ( to look like Charlie and my sister's dog Kip...what else would a self respecting christmas cake have on it?) for the top...well thats the plan! Havnt done anything like that in a few years so lets hope they end up looking like dogs and not cows or something lol.
> 
> Have a good day everyone
> 
> I'd better get started, wish me luck


Can you get black food colouring now?

I've done black and white collies in the past and remember having to mix all sorts of colours to get black.

Good luck and I'm sure it will be amazing.

You will post a photo won't you?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Can you get black food colouring now?
> 
> I've done black and white collies in the past and remember having to mix all sorts of colours to get black.
> 
> Good luck and I'm sure it will be amazing.
> 
> You will post a photo won't you?


You get black sugarpaste icing....it turns your hands and work surfaces black. I made this erm...bright :w00t: cake with lots of it on and my kitchen took a while to recover :blink:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I would first like to announce that the panic is over!!! Hubby is OK!!!!. He stayed in bed this morning when I had my shower and got changed to take the Concrete Heads out.
> 
> I tried the first walk ever with them together this morning:w00t:. Kilo walked really nicely and ignored the LCH's attempts to interact - Rudi was all over the place as you'd expect, so the 5 minute walk to the small field took 15 minutes - bit of whining from the BW as we neared the field but I don't blame him :w00t:. Then I let them play and just potter for 15 minutes with the odd recall thrown in and we went back home - 15 minutes to cover the 5 minute trip again as I want to sort this right from the start :blink:. Kilo dug his heels in initially as we go to that field as the start of a long walk from field to field all around camp sometimes and he wanted to go that way . All in all though...not bad at all .
> 
> Then.....I settled Rudi at home and took Kilo to the park (trying to take it in turns with them to go!). It was really quiet but he sailed past the dogs we didn't know and we got to say "Merry Christmas" to a few of our friends which was nice.
> 
> So.....a good day so far; two best boys :001_wub:.


Err I don't want to be the prophet of doom, especially at Christmas, but give it a few more weeks until Rudi really understands about walks and he may not be *quite *so tolerant when you take Kilo out....!!

Holly was excellent to start with.......I'll say no more...LOL


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Phew!!!!! OH's are a worry sometimes, you will remember my own *little panic* not so long ago regarding DIY
> 
> Little panic...!! I have a major freaky every time my hubby picks up dog leads, paintbrushes, screwdrivers, chainsaws, etc. etc. etc.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Err I don't want to be the prophet of doom, especially at Christmas, but give it a few more weeks until Rudi really understands about walks and he may not be *quite *so tolerant when you take Kilo out....!!
> 
> Holly was excellent to start with.......I'll say no more...LOL


No; I understand what you are saying :cryin::cryin:. Just making the best of it whilst I can .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You get black sugarpaste icing....it turns your hands and work surfaces black. I made this erm...bright :w00t: cake with lots of it on and my kitchen took a while to recover :blink:.


That is one very, very impressive cake....:thumbup::thumbup:

A mental note to myself to never ever post pictures of my efforts...!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You get black sugarpaste icing....it turns your hands and work surfaces black. I made this erm...bright :w00t: cake with lots of it on and my kitchen took a while to recover :blink:.


Just a little soemthing you rustled up with no artistic talent? :lol: :lol: :lol:

it's fabulous 

K&M Good luck with the Squeaky toy mayhem. Evie clearly wanted make sure she is on Santa's nice list!

Werehorse glad Hugo is well enough to be back on long walks.

GR sorry Ginge has been stressed at lest you have identified that the Nupafeed has been helping and I agree with What dogless said if it can help you keep her in a calmer place so she is able to learna dn set up new habits it's worth it 

Nothing much to report here, Tink has been great, I've been a bit mad, did a bit of green laning to get to our walk today been ages since i've done any offroad driving I'd forgotten how much fun it is


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Just a little soemthing you rustled up with no artistic talent? :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> it's fabulous


Well said. :lol:

The boys enjoyed their walk, Hugo was less active than usual and he has got very thin over the last week.  Oscar was a bonkers sprocker and got happily muddy.  Nice hassle free walk though.


----------



## Beth17

Fairly normal walk this morning not much to report. I have just given them a new toy early to keep them quiet; so far they are sharing quite nicely.

Sounds like a good walk this morning Dogless your boys did well. 
What a fantastic cake :w00t:

Werehorse it must be nice to get back to normal walks with your .

Chazzie definitely pictures of your cake needed.

Sorry Ginge has been a bit out of sorts but at least she should get back to normal once your get some more nupafeed. I may look into that for Oscar in the new year.


----------



## Guest

WE HAD ANOTHER DOG IN THE HOUSE AND IT DIDN'T GET SQUASHED BY MY DOG.
Apparently he was good as gold!


----------



## Dogless

Lovely long walk with my friend and her dog with Kilo this evening; I bought her dog a Kong Squeeze ball and wrapped it - thank goodness I did as she said she was getting her daughter to drop Kilo's round later . She said she'd seen Kong Squeeze balls in PAH and was saying how good they looked so at least she'll be pleased....wondering if it might be what the BW has too :w00t: . That would be funny .

House smells of gluhwein right now and we are even having a takeout which hubby has gone for .


----------



## Guest

Currently housebreaking Bailey, he`s doing really well had 2 mistakes but all his other toilets he has gone on his newspaper


----------



## Megan345

Well, this is an awesome thread, I don't know how I didn't find it sooner!

I hope no one minds me chipping in from time to time


----------



## Sarah1983

Megan345 said:


> Well, this is an awesome thread, I don't know how I didn't find it sooner!
> 
> I hope no one minds me chipping in from time to time


Course not. But be warned, it sometimes gets a little scary in here :lol:

Spencer has just eaten reindeer food. I'm just hoping he doesn't suddenly develop an ability to fly. Next doors little girl was scattering it for the reindeer so they know where to go to get to her house and Spen decided he'd sample it as we were coming in  Something tells me his last toilet trip of the day will have to be done on leash otherwise he'll simply stand there and scoff the lot.

I hope everybody here has a fantastic Christmas with no nasty, upsetting or annoying incidents. We're out tomorrow, Spen will stay here with a stuffed Kong and we're close enough to pop back and let him out for a pee if we're going to be gone longer than usual.


----------



## Werehorse

Be warned, Megan, this thread is more addictive than all of the rest of PF put together. And moonviolet sometimes gets her chain mail gloves out. 

Dasher and Prancer and Donner and... Spencer?? :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Welcome Megan  pull up a seat .



Werehorse said:


> Be warned, Megan, this thread is more addictive than all of the rest of PF put together. *And moonviolet sometimes gets her chain mail gloves out. *
> Dasher and Prancer and Donner and... Spencer?? :lol:


Shhh don't be *s*caring them away :lol:

Awww Spencer wants to be Santa's lil helper too


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Shhh don't be caring them away :lol:


No, mustn't be too kind......more stick than carrot required here :w00t:.

Sorry mv....gluhwein, normal wine and a childish mood .


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Dasher and Prancer and Donner and... Spencer?? :lol:


Well at least it sorta fits :lol: I'll worry if any part of him starts glowing though!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> No, mustn't be too kind......more stick than carrot required here :w00t:.
> 
> Sorry mv....gluhwein, normal wine and a childish mood .


:lol: me and my wonderful typos :001_tongue: I once sent an infernal memo... i think that one may have been freudian.:lol:


----------



## Dogless

Well...Kilo's gift appeared in our porch and feels very much like the same ball that I bought for Dizzy .


----------



## chazzie10

Well everyone seems to be in good form today....an abundance of Christmas spirit ( of one sort or another lol)

Im finally finished shopping, delivering presents, walking dog, hoovering and yes, cake decorating 

Have taken pics but I have to say after seeing your cake Dogless, I'm a bit embarassed to show mine :blush:

I only did one dog in the end as it's a small cake and it would have looked swamped. And yes I bought ready made black fondant but made my own white and pink for eyes and tongue 

For what it's worth...............


----------



## chazzie10

oh aye, and the realistic one........dog staring into camera hehehe


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Well everyone seems to be in good form today....an abundance of Christmas spirit ( of one sort or another lol)
> 
> Im finally finished shopping, delivering presents, walking dog, hoovering and yes, cake decorating
> 
> Have taken pics but I have to say after seeing your cake Dogless, I'm a bit embarassed to show mine :blush:
> 
> I only did one dog in the end as it's a small cake and it would have looked swamped. And yes I bought ready made black fondant but made my own white and pink for eyes and tongue
> 
> For what it's worth...............


Wow Chazzie - brilliant .

I didn't make the animals on mine  they were bought - I only made and decorated the cakes  . I told you I was talentless :w00t:.


----------



## moonviolet

Chazzie I love your fondant doggie


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Wow Chazzie - brilliant .
> 
> I didn't make the animals on mine  they were bought - I only made and decorated the cakes . I told you I was talentless :w00t:.


Yeah I recognised the animals-Ive seen them online but I wasnt gonna tell  lmao
You have plenty of talent, the cakes are beautifully decorated...dont put yourself down!!! They're brilliant


----------



## chazzie10

Thank you MV 

There was much laughter in my kitchen when I was making the ears stick up and eyes goggle lol. It started off as a Labrador but it's sorta slouching now and resembles a short fat black westie now


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Yeah I recognised the animals-Ive seen them online but I wasnt gonna tell  lmao
> You have plenty of talent, the cakes are beautifully decorated...dont put yourself down!!! They're brilliant


You could have told - I'm certainly not going to claim work that is not my own  :w00t:.


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Thank you MV
> 
> There was much laughter in my kitchen when I was making the ears stick up and eyes goggle lol. It started off as a Labrador but it's sorta slouching now and resembles a short fat black westie now


No one can eat him.....you've got to save him .


----------



## chazzie10

Oh no one is gonna eat him!!! 

I left it too late to order the gum tragacanth to glue him together so .....erm.... cough...Singing: i used UHU ( other glues are available lmao)


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> oh aye, and the realistic one........dog staring into camera hehehe


Err yes - make yet another mental note to never in a million years post any pictures of my home baking....LOL

You're brilliant...he's super. What have you called him?


----------



## Dogless

Forgot to say what Rudi has learnt today.....

His stay is coming on nicely as are his other basic commands and recall .

He has also learnt that his ears are long enough to put in his mouth :w00t: and has started to lower his head to watch himself wee....only sometimes looks so far under himself that he wees on his own head :nonod: :blink: :yikes:. Mind you, if he wees on a front leg he prances about, doesn't like it at all!!!

Kilo used to happily wee on his own front legs....lovely boy puppies :w00t: :blink:.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> oh aye, and the realistic one........dog staring into camera hehehe


Where do you get black fondant icing from? Do Tescos do it?

I've just remembered I bought a Border Collie biscuit cutter last year so I could 'knock up' something really fancy - NOT..!!


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Err yes - make yet another mental note to never in a million years post any pictures of my home baking....LOL
> 
> You're brilliant...he's super. What have you called him?


Thank you :blush: lol.
I havnt given him a name....and in theory 'he' should be a 'she' because I only had pink gel colour and hadnt remembered about the collar needing dyed!
Oh well Im sure 'he' doesnt mind as his brain is even more dense than Charlie's lol.
Maybe call him Stumpy....or Dumpy lol
Why did I not think to put a small pile of brown chocolate strands behind him :lol: :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Where do you get black fondant icing from? Do Tescos do it?
> 
> I've just remembered I bought a Border Collie biscuit cutter last year so I could 'knock up' something really fancy - NOT..!!


Ordered the black icing from ebay- you can get any colour imaginable and was only about £2 though it was only a small block-but I've half left! Nope Tesco dont do it.


----------



## moonviolet

I'm going to Skate over Rudi being a literal p1sshead he' to cute for em to even contemplate that being true.



Dogless said:


> He has also learnt that his ears are long enough to put in his mouth :w00t:


 I actually think Tink's ears are the reason for her incredible bite inhibition :lol:

Is this thread turning into the WI  if so I'll admit to making a mean chutney


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Dogless that's so funny I do the same if I have to pee outside.

once made a bride and groom out of sugarpaste. They had very much slumped by the time it came to cut the cake. 
That looks awesome Dogless. 
Ninge has just decided the stag bar is good to Munch just as we decided its time for bed.
Merry Christmas everyone.


----------



## L/C

Merry Christmas everyone!

Chazzie and Dogless those cakes are amazing! Do you take requests? 

K&M - squeaky toys are banned in our house but OH's mum bought therm an eco toy which is a furry cover round an empty plastic bottle. The noise from that is fun.

I finally roused the fat grey slug at 1pm yesterday and we had a four hour trek around the flats and the park. Had a run in with a very ignorant owner but in the spirit of Christmas I am not going to mention it. 

I'm in Kent now and left the pointy twins at 1pm. They know when the big silver suitcase comes out that I'm leaving so they were a bit upset but we had another lovely walk this morning. They are starting to play together properly now, rather then Gypsy chasing Ely while he runs around with his toy. Now they're taking it in turns to chase and breaking off to calm down. It's proper doggy behaviour from Ely.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless that is soooo typical of the male of the species....infact any male of any species isnt it? lol
Chaz pees on his feet all the time- he only cocks his leg once in a blue moon and the times he does he's not even up against anything, he's on flat grass!! What's that about!!??
Rudi sounds so cute....biting his own ears aawww wee pet :001_tongue:


----------



## chazzie10

L/C said:


> Merry Christmas everyone!
> 
> *Chazzie and Dogless those cakes are amazing! Do you take requests? *
> 
> K&M - squeaky toys are banned in our house but OH's mum bought therm an eco toy which is a furry cover round an empty plastic bottle. The noise from that is fun.
> 
> I finally roused the fat grey slug at 1pm yesterday and we had a four hour trek around the flats and the park. Had a run in with a very ignorant owner but in the spirit of Christmas I am not going to mention it.
> 
> I'm in Kent now and left the pointy twins at 1pm. They know when the big silver suitcase comes out that I'm leaving so they were a bit upset but we had another lovely walk this morning. They are starting to play together properly now, rather then Gypsy chasing Ely while he runs around with his toy. Now they're taking it in turns to chase and breaking off to calm down. It's proper doggy behaviour from Ely.


I'm sure if we were offered enough money


----------



## Guest

Oh god Zander still pee on his front leg sometimes, then licks it off to clean himself. Gotta love messy boys.
The dog that came to our house is a beagle who was going to be shot before our friend rescued her. Never been on a carpet, ate out of a food bowl or anything. This was several years ago now, but she is still incredibly nervous.
Anyway she and her owner came to our house (I was at work so this is what I have been told) and Zander of course sniffed her and sniffed her, then promptly lay down next to her. Then he kept sniffing and the beagle grumped at him to go away, and apparently Zander just hopped up on the sofa!! 
Apart from occasionally leaaaaaaaaaaaning on the beagles owner for lurve and attention he was apparently good as gold. 

And our friend said that he's "really calmed down, he's lovely" 

I took him to the field tis morning. It rained. He had no coat. He wouldn't run. Just moped along side me and kept huffing. 

Work was really boring too today! 

I think you ought to name it Winifred, Chazzie.

MERRY CHRISTMAS GUYS


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> Oh Dogless that's so funny I do the same if I have to pee outside.
> 
> once made a bride and groom out of sugarpaste. They had very much slumped by the time it came to cut the cake.
> That looks awesome Dogless.
> Ninge has just decided the stag bar is good to Munch just as we decided its time for bed.
> Merry Christmas everyone.


Im sure the real bride and groom had slumped just as much by cake cutting time 
Merry Christmas right back atcha


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> I'm going to Skate over Rudi being a literal p1sshead he' to cute for em to even contemplate that being true.
> 
> I actually think Tink's ears are the reason for her incredible bite inhibition :lol:
> 
> Is this thread turning into the WI  if so I'll admit to making a mean chutney


Don't start going all Calander Girls on us now, mv! 



GingerRogers said:


> *Oh Dogless that's so funny I do the same if I have to pee outside.*
> 
> Merry Christmas everyone.


Actually. Dieing. Laughing. :lol: :lol: :lol: Unfortunately I can't tell my best peeing outside story online because it requires some acting. 

Hugo is more likely to pee on his own foot than he is to actually hit whatever he is trying to wee against.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Well...Kilo's gift appeared in our porch and feels very much like the same ball that I bought for Dizzy .


Lol, hubby and I once bought each other the exact same dvd for Christmas 

Rupert never grew out of peeing on his front legs. He'd even pee all over his own chest at times :nonod: Thankfully Spencer doesn't have that delightful problem.

Chazzie, that dog is awesome. I definitely won't be posting any pictures of my home baking on here, you all put me to shame! Anything I make looks like crap but it tastes good so I can live with it not looking great. And yet my liver cakes and tuna cakes always come out looking perfect


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Don't start going all Calander Girls on us now, mv!
> 
> Actually. Dieing. Laughing. :lol: :lol: :lol: Unfortunately I can't tell my best peeing outside story online because it requires some acting.
> 
> Hugo is more likely to pee on his own foot than he is to actually hit whatever he is trying to wee against.


 I don't think I've ever peed outside. 

Are we going to have to bake if we want to carry on contributing to this thread? :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah- How the HECK did Rupert manage to pee on his CHEST  ??

L/C.....you havnt lived hehehe


----------



## Werehorse

L/C said:


> I don't think I've ever peed outside.
> 
> *Are we going to have to bake if we want to carry on contributing to this thread?* :lol:


I hope not... although I shouldn't say that as part of my new job involves a bit of cooking/baking. :lol: Should be entertaining... how hard can it be?  Fortunately it won't be for people to sit down and eat properly as in "I've paid for this, why is it a pile of poop?"

I am very impressed by the christmas labbydor though, Chazzie! 

Never peed outside? Goodness! It is quite an experience, I have to say I avoid it as far as possible.


----------



## chazzie10

Yeah I try to avoid it to....not a good look on a windy day 

I reckon as it's Christmas my doggie should be called Noel??


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Sarah- How the HECK did Rupert manage to pee on his CHEST  ??


I really have no idea but he managed it regularly :nonod:

Peeing outside is something I avoid where possible but I seem to have a bladder the size of a pea (haha) and the cold seems to make it become even smaller  I think peeing outside is preferable to some of he public toilets I've come across though.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> I don't think I've ever peed outside.


Singing: nor have I and Tink isn't trained to keep watch Singing:


----------



## Thorne

Wow, it really has gone a bit WI on here! Domestic godesses all round! Love the wee Lab, chazzie, and Dogless that cake looks fantastic. I've made two batches of mince pies in 24hrs (one for Blue Cross, one for the family) so apparently it's catching 

Scooter is very excited about tomorrow, he's like an impatient toddler tonight because _he's found the dog presents_. He's been checking under the tree for ages! Thought that putting them on a cupboard behind the tree was out of reach but he's just jumped on the sofa to try and reach them, naughty boy. Breeze very playful tonight, she's been all silly and puppy-like and is now lying on her toys from earlier.
Mum walked them today so new walking report!

Walked lovely Paddy who was pleased to see everyone and did a cheeky play bow behind someone's back before prancing back to heel  very good boy apart from a half-hearted pounce at a dustcart. 
Have also fallen in love with a Staffy called Chip! Poor little Poppy is still looking for a home, can't believe she's not found a forever home yet  Played fetch with her today and worked on her "leave it" then taught her the basics of "paw". Bright little dog. http://www.bluecross.org.uk/2566-109842/1/poppy.html?uf_Location=Felixstowe&


----------



## moonviolet

OH Thorne little Poppy looks like a dog that could totally burrow deep in someones heart. I hope her hooman(s) find her soon.


----------



## chazzie10

I'd better not mention the cream cake, shortbread and scones that I've made in the last week then?


----------



## Thorne

chazzie10 said:


> I'd better not mention the cream cake, shortbread and scones that I've made in the last week then?


Not unless you're sharing 

And MV, so do I! She's so shy when first meeting people that people must assume she'll always be like it - doesn't take long for her to become your best friend bless her.


----------



## chazzie10

Thorne- sorry, too late all eaten( mostly by my son and his mates!)

Poppy is very cute- JRT's are so full of character and I miss my ex's 2 wee jrt's like mad :nonod: They are so funny with those wee legs


----------



## L/C

chazzie10 said:


> I'd better not mention the cream cake, shortbread and scones that I've made in the last week then?


Show off! 

I made star shaped dog biscuits - does that count?

And all you ladies and all your al fresco peeing.


----------



## chazzie10

of course your dog biscuits count- that's something ive never made before actually, I'll have to give it a go 

Well I think I will head to my bed...santa's coming n all that


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> I'd better not mention the cream cake, shortbread and scones that I've made in the last week then?


Do you want a lodger by any chance? I come with a yellow Lab who would complement your black one perfectly


----------



## Freddie and frank

I'm loving this thread, seriously. :lol:

Love all the cakes .....I've made  a biscuity, chocolatey, creamy, brandy, thing today, that's all. 

I will pee outside  when needed. 

Sarah....I first read that as he'd actually eaten reindeer, not reindeer food. 

Trying to follow everything but still got wrapping to do.

So far I've read fleas, oh's 'helping' with dogs, squeaky toys 

Definately going to catch up on things here if I'm allowed in 

Merry Christmas to all of you. Will pop in tomorrow sometime.


----------



## moonviolet

Freddie and frank said:


> I'm loving this thread, seriously. :lol:
> 
> Love all the cakes .....I've made  a biscuity, chocolatey, creamy, brandy, thing today, that's all.
> 
> I will pee outside  when needed.
> 
> Sarah....I first read that as he'd actually eaten reindeer, not reindeer food.
> 
> Trying to follow everything but still got wrapping to do.
> 
> So far I've read fleas, oh's 'helping' with dogs, squeaky toys
> 
> Definately going to catch up on things here if I'm allowed in
> 
> Merry Christmas to all of you. Will pop in tomorrow sometime.


There's only one rule.... don't mention kong extreme.... just don't do it :lol: :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

I hope all you fantabulous people and doggies have a lovely day. 

Just finishing off my tipple then off to bed so santa has chance to pop in. Christmas treat for doggies - I've had enough tipple to let them on the bed cos I've half a chance of sleeping with a dog on my head. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my 'thread friends' .



L/C said:


> I don't think I've ever peed outside.


What????? :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## Beth17

Merry Christmas everyone! 

I hope you all have a wonderful day with your families and doggies 

Mine are still asleep


----------



## Freddie and frank

Merry Christmas everyone 

Beth....still asleep  go and give em a nudge. 

Mv.....I never do what I'm told...KONG EXTREME... what's the story?


----------



## chazzie10

*MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE*

Sarah- you're welcome anytime and yes the Labs WOULD look gorgeous together ( Charlie would be your bestest friend forever lol) 

MV-only one thing to say...put a plug in it    hehehe

Werehorse- Sleeping with a dog on your head? Like a black and white Santa hat? Scratchy 

Dogless- ( whispers) I dont believe her either Singing:

Beth17- Still asleep  Go poke em with a long stick 

F+F- biscuity, chocolatey, creamy, brandy thing....sounds like my kinda heaven :001_tongue:

Is that everyone? I admit I've started to keep a notebook beside me lol.
Hope everyone has a happy and peaceful Christmas....xmas hugs to all my online chums xx Let the chocolates begin.............


----------



## Freddie and frank

chazzie10 said:


> *MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE*
> 
> Sarah- you're welcome anytime and yes the Labs WOULD look gorgeous together ( Charlie would be your bestest friend forever lol)
> 
> MV-only one thing to say...put a plug i it    hehehe
> 
> Werehorse- Sleeping with a dog on your head? Like a black and white Santa hat? Scratchy
> 
> Dogless- ( whispers) I dont believe her either Singing:
> 
> Beth17- Still asleep  Go poke em with a long stick
> 
> F+F- biscuity, chocolatey, creamy, brandy thing....sounds like my kinda heaven :001_tongue:
> 
> Is that everyone? I admit I've started to keep a notebook beside me lol.
> Hope everyone has a happy and peaceful Christmas....xmas hugs to all my online chums xx Let the chocolates begin.............


Good idea about the notebook. 

Kong extreme??????????


----------



## Twiggy

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.

Hope you're not back at the shops returning presents that don't fit in a few days time and that your turkey (or whatever) is done to a 'T'....!!

Leafy's opened all the presents and has been in a frenzy for about an hour - Holly didn't know what to make of it....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Merry christmas everyone 

Have a wonderful one.

F&F chainmail gloves p535
the black kongs p587 if you are feeling brave


----------



## chazzie10

F+F* DONT GO THERE*   

.....unless you have gloves on!! hehehe


----------



## kat&molly

Merry Christmas to all of you.

It wasn't too noisy here- knew I could rely on Jay to de- sqeak everything Shame though Evie was quite taken with the large pink pig.

The good bits;
OH has baked the girls some biscuits, and he is cooking Christmas dinner :blink:

The bad bits;
Apparently he didn't want a Kindle Fire rrr: and after a couple of walks with us he's an expert on Evies recall- and is now telling me whats what.rrr: 

 

Have a great day everyone.


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Merry Christmas to all of you.
> 
> It wasn't too noisy here- knew I could rely on Jay to de- sqeak everything Shame though Evie was quite taken with the large pink pig.
> 
> The good bits;
> OH has baked the girls some biscuits, and he is cooking Christmas dinner :blink:
> 
> The bad bits;
> *Apparently he didn't want a Kindle Fire rrr:* and after a couple of walks with us he's an expert on Evies recall- and is now telling me whats what.rrr:
> 
> 
> 
> Have a great day everyone.


And he *TOLD you*!!? Break his fingers so he cant use it anyway hehehe ( only joking Im not suggesting violence at all Singing: )


----------



## kat&molly

chazzie10 said:


> And he *TOLD you*!!? Break his fingers so he cant use it anyway hehehe ( only joking Im not suggesting violence at all Singing: )


He was quite happy with his other one - I might bluudy sell it[I cant break his fingers-he's cooking]


----------



## chazzie10

Charlie was very pleased with Santa's pressies and the first thing he picked up was a rawhide bone ( which he hasnt been allowed for a while) cunningly disguised (?) in wrapping paper......he then did about 20 very wiggly, waggy victory laps of the living room before ripping the paper off 

Then his stuffed Xmas Robin toy with rope legs was next......why did I buy him a squeaky toy. But, on the bright side, he's got it's hat ripped off already so the squeaker will be next


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> He was quite happy with his other one - I might bluudy sell it[I cant break his fingers-he's cooking]


Oh dont then!! Wait til you've eaten and enjoyed ( then tell him you didnt want turkey anyway sniff )


----------



## Megan345

Merry Christmas to everyone and their dogs!

I stupidly bought Halo 4 for OH, so I'm in need of some company...










Buck's Fizz, anyone? 

kat&molly - tell him to send it over here if he doesn't want it! I'll swap it for my bog standard Kindle


----------



## L/C

Merry Christmas to everyone and their dogs. 

Fingers crossed the pointy twins are behaving for my friend!


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Merry Christmas to all of you.
> 
> It wasn't too noisy here- knew I could rely on Jay to de- sqeak everything Shame though Evie was quite taken with the large pink pig.
> 
> The good bits;
> OH has baked the girls some biscuits, and he is cooking Christmas dinner :blink:
> 
> The bad bits;
> Apparently he didn't want a Kindle Fire rrr: and after a couple of walks with us he's an expert on Evies recall- and is now telling me whats what.rrr:
> 
> 
> 
> Have a great day everyone.


Ungrateful sod. Sell it and buy yourself something nice.


----------



## Werehorse

L/C said:


> Ungrateful sod. Sell it and buy yourself something nice.


I concur! 

Hugo had the best morning ever ripping up tissue paper. :lol: He says this Christmas malarky is awesome and we should do it more often.

L/C I'm sure the pointy twins are behaving themselves and probably being spoiled rotton. 

Right, off to get dressed and get my mutts out for christmas walkies - tinsel on collars I think...


----------



## L/C

Megan345 said:


> Merry Christmas to everyone and their dogs!
> 
> I stupidly bought Halo 4 for OH, so I'm in need of some company...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Buck's Fizz, anyone?
> 
> kat&molly - tell him to send it over here if he doesn't want it! I'll swap it for my bog standard Kindle


Already on my third glass. 

I'm sure Gypsy is being a delightful angel for someone else - it's me she saves all the bad behaviour for! 

Everyone enjoy your xmas walks.


----------



## Megan345

L/C said:


> Already on my third glass.


Well, we managed to nab the last bottle in the shop yesterday - but since OH is distracted, I may get most of it


----------



## L/C

Megan345 said:


> Well, we managed to nab the last bottle in the shop yesterday - but since OH is distracted, I may get most of it


Just ask him if it's OK if you drink the rest of the bottle - he'll be on auto pilot and just answer "Yes dear" and then you're in the clear.


----------



## Megan345

L/C said:


> Just ask him if it's OK if you drink the rest of the bottle - he'll be on auto pilot and just answer "Yes dear" and then you're in the clear.


It's like you know him! I'll pick a time when he's busy shooting stuff


----------



## L/C

Megan345 said:


> It's like you know him! I'll pick a time when he's busy shooting stuff


Ha I do it to my OH when he's playing battlefield and he does to me when I'm on hitman - although he's mostly banned from the room when I'm gaming as he talkjs during cut scenes.


----------



## Werehorse

Christmas photo before they ruin the collars on the walk!


----------



## GingerRogers

Merry Christmas everyone. 

Can't possibly do a catch up thread on my phone. Love the doggy present scenes. And Oscar and Hugo look smashing.
We have all been to work for hubby. Ginge sat in the tractor. Sang mooey Christmas to the cows and baaey Christmas to the sheep. All fed and even had to stand in a field 10m from a bull i was very brave for the sake of the animals. We had a very wet long line run round the fields. Back home posh coffees and bacon sarnies. Pressies. Hubby had a Christmas hair cut AND shower and we are now off t pub for a catch up. Then home for steak and tartiflette and claret.


----------



## Dogless

I am stuffed full of turkey and trimmings, Queen's speech watched, dogs sleeping; just Christmas pud to go :w00t:.

Nice walks this morning; very quiet. Saw one person out when I took Kilo, they went right past us so I said "Morning" all cheerfully and was totally ignored, the woman just told her dog "Stay By" and went on her way without even a glance at me - with me wishing I hadn't spoken .

Took Rudi out, met our walking friend and her dog which was nice as she hadn't met Rudi before - her dog was carrying the ball we bought him . She bought Kilo a ball on rope - so not the same one as I suspected  .


----------



## chazzie10

Wouldnt you think other dog walkers would be full of Christmas Cheer and be friendly to each other at least on Christmas day if no other! Wouldnt have taken much effort to say hello back to you Dogless! Oh well you know what they're like!

Well we are all stuffed. My sister, as usual, put on a brilliant meal, the full works...even a choice of two different desserts....so I ate one and brought other home for later lol scared of missing something.
Stove lit, glass of wine(another 1) and tv on....snooze time


----------



## Thorne

Happy Christmas all! Hope everyone has been having a lovely day! 

Scooter has had a wonderful day; unwrapping presents, rolling in the paper, playing with his new toys and getting overexcited about the champagne being uncorked! Breeze less enthusiastic but loves her presents.

My nan's Cocker has visited and behaved impeccably today, she's had cuddles from everyone and was pleased to see Breeze as usual! Scooter a bit too interested at first but his new kong was a good distraction (they had turkey ND kongs for Christmas dinner ).

Very unfestive weather here this morning, horrendous torrential downpour so postponed the walk until this afternoon. Think my sister's caught the same bug a couple of OHs on here have had, she ventured out with us!  Had a near miss with the very DA terrier that's attacked Scooter twice, the owner was bringing it out of the driveway without a lead on so he had to run into the road after it  No harm done and the dogs were on best behaviour in all the mud and filth.
Amazed that more people weren't out, it wasn't too squishy.... too full of turkey perhaps!


----------



## Werehorse

Nearly time for our christmas dinner.  OH is talking to the food ("you need to be chopped... you need to be trimmed..." etc) - I'm staying well out of it, apart from helping to drink the mulled wine.

Oscar keeps hopping over the baby gate to make eyes at the roast lamb. :lol:

Had a lovely walk with the boys. Had a funny moment when we were concentrating on a couple of sheep about 100m away and keeping the boys close and concentrating on us etc and then we both looked up at the same time and saw about 15 sheep less than 25m away!  :lol: LEADS ON!! the LLW walking wasn't great and we had to keep going for quite a while as more and more sheep appeared out of the mist. But it was ok, better than it has been in similar situations before.

The tinsel on the christmas collars survived but the baubles fell off - I'd only tied them on with string though - I'll thread them through the loops for their tags tomorrow.

I've had such a happy day.


----------



## Guest

HAPPEH CHRISTMAS!!!! 

Well er you know Zander has been fabby-dabby-doscious this past couple weeks!? 

He full on sprinted up behind a woman in the field toward and knocked her flat on her back. Then promptly went to aggravate a muzzled on-lead staffie. 
So cue lots of
"SORRRY! IM SO SORRY. MERRY CHrISTMAS?!?!? I THINK WE'LL JUST GO HOME."

Other than that though he has been good and I have been stuffed full, FULL of food. 

I''m sat here with a Caitlin Moran book going "I SHAN'T EAT FOR A WEEK" *promptly shovels in a dairy milk*

:w00t::w00t::w00t::w00t::w00t:


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I've had a fantastic Christmas Day. We were invited out for dinner (good thing too since our oven has died!) and have spent about 8 hours out. We were only across the road so I came home half way through and took Spen out for 15 minutes so he could stretch his legs and have a pee, then left him with his 2nd stuffed Kong. I did feel a bit mean leaving him that length of time but he was fine and it's not like we're constantly going out leaving him all day so I refuse to feel too guilty about it 

Ate far too much at dinner but thoroughly enjoyed it. Boiled egg with marie rose sauce to start with, full turkey dinner and then trifle to follow. And coffee and a cheese board later. It's all I can do to get up off the sofa now  So glad we went out and picked up something for their 2 little girls on Saturday since they had little gifts for us. And Spencer got a pink oinky pig (which he really likes!) and some rawhide bones from Khan  Wouldn't have felt right going round and not taking the girls anything even if they hadn't bought us stuff though.

Been invited round for New Years Eve and will be going but will be leaving well before midnight as I don't want to leave Spen home alone with tons of fireworks going off right behind our flat.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Mv and chazzie, I'm off to p535 and p587.  . I may be a while.

K&M I have a oh like that. Bless. He's been a god send this last week though bless him. 

Megan hope you enjoyed all your bucks fizz. 

Werehorse great photos, and glad you've had a happy day. 

GR. sounds a perfect day. 

Dogless. I wonder why people are so miserable sometimes least you were full of Christmas cheer. 

Thorne. Oh god, I read as your nans cooker came to visit :w00t: well done to dogs for good behaviour. 

L/O. Oops  but chocolate always makes it better. 

Phew.....hope I've got everything in, and yes, I wrote it all down. 
We've had a lovely day here. Quiet but nice.  
Just sitting with a baileys, son in bed after getting me up at 6am , dogs fast asleep, watching the royal family. 

Happy Christmas guys.


----------



## Freddie and frank

:lol::lol::lol::yikes:

Just been to p535, p587 and beyond.
Well, I used to have one of those gloves............I used to cut fabric

And I'll admit, I have always thought the kong extremes look a bit erm, dodgy.  but now will never be able to look at them in the same way again.:w00t:


----------



## Werehorse

Another one corrupted.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Another one corrupted.


And i didn't even have to break out the silky leash


----------



## Twiggy

Well that's Holly first Christmas day with us over and done. She was quite bemused but thought the turkey was nice. She had her first dog chew yesterday and thought it was a toy, a boring one at that...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well that's Holly first Christmas day with us over and done. She was quite bemused but thought the turkey was nice. She had her first dog chew yesterday and thought it was a toy, a boring one at that...!!


What??!!!! Kilo and Rudi say that she must be a broken dog :nonod:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> What??!!!! Kilo and Rudi say that she must be a broken dog :nonod:.


Err yes and somebody has had a little accident on the lounge carpet this morning....

Too much Christmas and she's now on the Prokolin...!! To be fair Holly is a very clean little girl but she's obviously got an upset stomach.

I daren't give my girls dog chews because of Leafy's food intolerance but somebody bought them as a present and in a weak moment.....


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Err yes and somebody has had a little accident on the lounge carpet this morning....
> 
> Too much Christmas and she's now on the Prokolin...!! To be fair Holly is a very clean little girl but she's obviously got an upset stomach.
> 
> I daren't give my girls dog chews because of Leafy's food intolerance but somebody bought them as a present and in a weak moment.....


Oh dear 
We all have weak moments. I had one two months ago and she's called bella.


----------



## Werehorse

Oh no! Poor Holly - Hugo sends his sympathies... I've decided that the only chew Hugo is getting from now on are the plasticy tasty bone ones - fortunately he loves them and they last for months - and possibly the veggie toothbrush/hedgehog/crocodile ones you can get and maybe a raw bone if I'm feeling brave. It is so easy to cave though - nearly gave him some sausage yesterday despite the fact he's still on the special food the vet gave us.  Honestly I never could understand how mothers could feed their children to the point of obesity but I think I can see a little germ of the thinking, well feeling really, now. I just want him to have nice things. 

Both my working dogs are still in bed, upstairs on our bed, looking less than enthusiastic about getting up. :lol: Hugo came downstairs to see if it was breakfast time yet but he's gone back upstairs now. :lol:

And in the interests of gender equality they are both sporting pink fur on their necks from their tinsel collars yesterday.  Ooops. I took them off overnight fortunately so it isn't as bad as it could have been!


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> And i didn't even have to break out the silky leash


Didnt realise you'd put it away...........


----------



## chazzie10

Freddie and frank said:


> :lol::lol::lol::yikes:
> 
> Just been to p535, p587 and beyond.
> Well, I used to have one of those gloves............I used to cut fabric
> 
> And I'll admit, I have always thought the kong extremes look a bit erm, dodgy.  but now will never be able to look at them in the same way again.:w00t:


When I said you'd need gloves, I think I actually should have said rubber gloves


----------



## Dogless

Lovely morning this morning; walked Kilo - not a soul about and he had mad zoomies with the toy that Dizzy bought him. He behaved well so a gold star .

Took Rudi to the park (his turn!) which was busy with lots of people having a Boxing Day stroll; met a few friendly dogs and people and practised walking past lots of others without making any contact!. Saw our friends with their three CKCS who are as calm and friendly as anything so we stood and talked to them for quite a while which was nice - Rudi loved his fusses and when we bumped into them on their way back round (we were moving very slowly!!) he tail went mad wagging when he realised who they were . Loads of bikes, scooters and kids too; so a very productive morning really in terms of socialisation.

They are both snoring their heads off now on the sofa .


----------



## catz4m8z

Glad to hear that the concrete heads had a good xmas!!
Ive worked on nothing in the last few days but am very proud of Alfie anyways! Have just finished 3 13hour nightshifts so the poor dogs have had no exercise except playing in the garden and as I was trying to sleep during the day on the sofa I was having to leave Alfie to it and hope for the best!!
He has been a little angel!! Happy to curl up on the sofa with me and the other dogs and sleep. No bother for my friend who has dog sat. Weeing and pooping in the garden when I take him out and toddling off to his puppy pads when I dont.

He's such a sweet little guy. Thats what I love about my teeny dogs.Sometimes Im on my feet for 12 hours during a nightshift and can barely get up the steps to my front door when I get home so need dogs that are happy to do nothing all day.....but who are equally happy to walk miles with me on my days off!:w00t:

Hope everyone had a fab xmas!!! we are having ours tomorrow.


----------



## Twiggy

Well we had a lovely walk this morning in the sunshine and the fields had dried out a tad but we all came in like drowned rats half an hour ago - nice.

We had a reasonably quiet day today and I spent an hour sewing up new and old soft toys that Holly had pulled ears and tails off.

I think I might go and look at dog beds tomorrow as some of them are beginning to look a bit shabby. I quite like the look of the Scruffs Ranger or Roseland 40 Winks ranges. I need to see them before ordering online though. I looked at the Orvis range - very nice, especially the sofa type but flipping expensive for Holly to chew a hole in.....LOL


----------



## Sarah1983

Today I realised that it's extremely rare I road walk Spencer and even more rare that I take him anywhere remotely busy so have decided to rectify that. Today we took a walk up to the park about 20 minutes away. Means walking through town so he gets to encounter traffic, bicycles, people, other dogs and anything else going on. Took him at around 4pm since I figured it'd be fairly quiet being Boxing Day, everything's shut lol. He didn't seem at all frightened but was sort of up on his toes and way too distracted to pay attention to me.

Once we got to the park we sat on a bench and watched the world go by. Several people passed and said good evening, he didn't try to dance on their heads. He watched the ducks for a bit but wasn't obsessive about it. He whined at another dog but didn't lunge or bark. He wasn't great on leash but I've come home with my hands neither bruised nor red raw so massive improvement. On the way home he was able to offer me a few steps of loose leash walking now and then in between his "oooh, what's that?" moments. And we hit the crossing just as the train was about to go through. Stood back a little way as I dunno how many trains he's seen and he kinda goggled at it a bit but was happy to take treats and then carry on with the walk when it had passed.

Think we might do the same again tomorrow. Want to get him used to walking in town and not empty parks in case our next place doesn't have big open spaces 2 minutes down the road. Think one of the downsides to having them so close is that it's too easy to just go there and neglect road work. Especially after years of doing almost nothing but road walks.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> Well we had a lovely walk this morning in the sunshine and the fields had dried out a tad but we all came in like drowned rats half an hour ago - nice.
> 
> We had a reasonably quiet day today and I spent an hour sewing up new and old soft toys that Holly had pulled ears and tails off.
> 
> I think I might go and look at dog beds tomorrow as some of them are beginning to look a bit shabby. I quite like the look of the Scruffs Ranger or Roseland 40 Winks ranges. I need to see them before ordering online though. I looked at the Orvis range - very nice, especially the sofa type but flipping expensive for Holly to chew a hole in.....LOL


I know it's not the brands you're talking about but I got an email from Amazon yesterday telling me they have a big sale on in the pet section- quite a good bit of money off dog beds, waterproof coats and harnesses etc. Might be worth a look?


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> I know it's not the brands you're talking about but I got an email from Amazon yesterday telling me they have a big sale on in the pet section- quite a good bit of money off dog beds, waterproof coats and harnesses etc. Might be worth a look?


I think Amazon do both brands but I need to actually see the beds first. I can find a local stockist of Scruffs but not Rosewood sadly. All the beds they've got at the moment are Kumfipet (off Ebay) but they've changed the designs and I'm not keen on the new ones.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> I think Amazon do both brands but I need to actually see the beds first. I can find a local stockist of Scruffs but not Rosewood sadly. All the beds they've got at the moment are Kumfipet (off Ebay) but they've changed the designs and I'm not keen on the new ones.


I STILL cant fault Charlie's 3peaks bed with the popper on fleece top blanket.
I threw it in the washing machine then tumble dried it late on Christmas Eve night- it only took an hour in total, and that was it sorted for another while. So quick and easy. His old padded ones just went lumpy when washed and took ages to dry. Saying that, I would LUUUUURRVE one of those fancy dog sized, wrought iron day beds for him, theyre so cute  but not such a cute price!!


----------



## moonviolet

Thanks to the owner of a windy Lurcher that came charging out of the dark at us tonight my inner hag has found herself a new catchphrase.

I always have Tink onlead the moment i see another torch jsut to be on the safe side. Shame this lurcher's owner didn't extend the shame courtesy. as it charged through the wooded area that seperates the paths we were on, rounded us growling and barking. I projected a simple request " CONTROL YOUR DOG!" not a peep in the way of recall or apology from it's owner but at least the voice of doom sent the dog packing and her ladyship shook almost immediately  and was fine for the rest of the walk.

Hasn't done anything for OH's confidence in other owners. I've noticed he never really wants to walk where we might encounter (m)any other dogs. Maybe it's him who needs the most work now


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> I STILL cant fault Charlie's 3peaks bed with the popper on fleece top blanket.
> I threw it in the washing machine then tumble dried it late on Christmas Eve night- it only took an hour in total, and that was it sorted for another while. So quick and easy. His old padded ones just went lumpy when washed and took ages to dry. Saying that, I would LUUUUURRVE one of those fancy dog sized, wrought iron day beds for him, theyre so cute  but not such a cute price!!


I'll have a look at the 3 Peaks ones.

I need oval donut type beds for them to snuggle into when it's cold. They've got the Futon double bed size settee in the kitchen as well but they like to curl up in the winter.

I fancied the tweed Orvis beds - I think they were £194 each...!!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Thanks to the owner of a windy Lurcher that came charging out of the dark at us tonight my inner hag has found herself a new catchphrase.
> 
> I always have Tink onlead the moment i see another torch jsut to be on the safe side. Shame this lurcher's owner didn't extend the shame courtesy. as it charged through the wooded area that seperates the paths we were on, rounded us growling and barking. I projected a simple request " CONTROL YOUR DOG!" not a peep in the way or recall or apology from it's owner but at least the voice of doom sent the dog packing and her ladyship shook almost immediately  and was fine for the est of the walk.
> 
> Hasn't done anything for OH's confidence in other owners. I've noticed her never really wants to walk where we might encounter (m)any other dogs. Maybe it's him who needs the most work now


You're a good girl and I'm pleased you asserted yourself. Now we need to persuade Dogless to do the same...

I hope I'm not going to find my inner hag at 8.00pm for the doggy dancing programme. The piece I read in the paper has already put my back up. Something about Pudsey will show them how it's done....err I think Attila, Mary and Richard could probably show Pudsey and her handler a thing or two about HTM. I'm not attacking the handler, as I understand she's a lovely girl, just the media hype. It annoys me especially as HTM has been going in the UK from 1996 and there have been some brilliant routines performed over the years.


----------



## Dogless

I waited for the rain to slow from torrential to pouring and took Rudi on a brief 5 minute leg stretch really for a change of scene for him this afternoon - nothing seen, funnily enough :blink:.

Then, it changed from pouring back to torrential and a bitter wind whipped up too just for added comfort just as I headed out for an hour with Kilo. He was snug and warm in his wax jacket and behaved very well. Again, no one out....wonder why? :blink:.

I had been going to take the BW on a 30 minute run instead but OH reckoned he looked tired...he wasn't the one about to go out in that :nonod::nonod:.



Twiggy said:


> Well we had a lovely walk this morning in the sunshine and the fields had dried out a tad but we all came in like drowned rats half an hour ago - nice.
> 
> We had a reasonably quiet day today and I spent an hour sewing up new and old soft toys that Holly had pulled ears and tails off.
> 
> I think I might go and look at dog beds tomorrow as some of them are beginning to look a bit shabby. I quite like the look of the Scruffs Ranger or Roseland 40 Winks ranges. I need to see them before ordering online though. I looked at the Orvis range - very nice, especially the sofa type but flipping expensive for Holly to chew a hole in.....LOL


I do like Tuffies .



chazzie10 said:


> I STILL cant fault Charlie's 3peaks bed with the popper on fleece top blanket.
> I threw it in the washing machine then tumble dried it late on Christmas Eve night- it only took an hour in total, and that was it sorted for another while. So quick and easy. His old padded ones just went lumpy when washed and took ages to dry. Saying that, I would LUUUUURRVE one of those fancy dog sized, wrought iron day beds for him, theyre so cute  but not such a cute price!!


Agree - Kilo's was great; only replaced it as he grew far too long for it .



moonviolet said:


> Thanks to the owner of a windy Lurcher that came charging out of the dark at us tonight my inner hag has found herself a new catchphrase.
> 
> I always have Tink onlead the moment i see another torch jsut to be on the safe side. Shame this lurcher's owner didn't extend the shame courtesy. as it charged through the wooded area that seperates the paths we were on, rounded us growling and barking. I projected a simple request " CONTROL YOUR DOG!" not a peep in the way or recall or apology from it's owner but at least the voice of doom sent the dog packing and her ladyship shook almost immediately  and was fine for the est of the walk.
> 
> Hasn't done anything for OH's confidence in other owners. I've noticed her never really wants to walk where we might encounter (m)any other dogs. Maybe it's him who needs the most work now


Well done hag and Miss Tinks; to me it's common sense to put dog on lead when torchlight spied....you don't know what is accompanying the torch...oh well .

Good luck training your OH .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You're a good girl and I'm pleased you asserted yourself. Now we need to persuade Dogless to do the same...


I do much more when I'm not on 'home ground'....so just that to crack now .


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> I'll have a look at the 3 Peaks ones.
> 
> I need oval donut type beds for them to snuggle into when it's cold. They've got the Futon double bed size settee in the kitchen as well but they like to curl up in the winter.
> 
> I fancied the tweed Orvis beds - I think *they were £194 each...!!*


£194!!! Were they gold plated or something!!? Lol. Dang I'm in the wrong business-I need to start making dog beds


----------



## Thorne

Sounds like progress and good walks then! Well done everyone, especially little Rudi and Alfie for being good pups.

I've had a lovely day today with the folks and dogs at Blue Cross; cleaned, then walked two dogs in the morning, then went out on a group walk to Rendlesham forest. Walked my friend Poppy JRT  she was a good girl apart from a bit of pulling and a grumble at an unfamiliar dog. Paddy Lurcher came along too, and Ollie Mutt, Orson JRT and Poppy BC. All overjoyed about the change of scenery and apart from some excited screaming from Ollie, very well behaved! 

My morning walk with Chip the Staffie was tainted a little when an offlead Dalmatian and Whippet x chased him  He can be reactive so half expected him to kick off when the Dal growled and lunged at him but he just puffed himself up and they were no real trouble, just annoying. MV I should've taken a leaf out of your book and told the distant owners to control their dogs!

Scooter had a walk with mum, the nervy village BC and her owner earlier, Breeze has been avoiding the shoots  Got a long walk planned for them tomorrow!


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless- yeah I cant understand why they dont make a bigger size, infact most companies seem to stop at the 100cm size. Do they not realise that a good percentage of dogs are bigger than that and most dogs like to stretch out.... they're missing a trick there!

Speaking of tricks, Im away to watch dancing doggies 

OMG the dog slipping its collar, pinching the treat off the plate and then running back into its collar again hehehe


----------



## GingerRogers

Need to catch up properly on the pc but seems everyone had suitably relaxing Christmas and boxing days and nice walks.
Poor ninja has suffered today. We ran out of time for decent walks. Were supposed to leave her with mum and dad today while we went to nieces 5th birthday but poor mum has norovirus :-( so the ginger one had to come. She was very good. Very excitable but very good. Lay nicely in her travel crate while we ate as donna didn't want her distracting the kids (fussy eaters any excuse) so even though she hasnt had much exercise she is fast asleep. Was really chuffed with her, knew she was good with kids but thought she might get a bit too hyper. Chilled day tomorrow for her I think.

But the bad news is I have succumbed to festive cold Grrr.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Need to catch up properly on the pc but seems everyone had suitably relaxing Christmas and boxing days and nice walks.
> Poor ninja has suffered today. We ran out of time for decent walks. Were supposed to leave her with mum and dad today while we went to nieces 5th birthday but poor mum has norovirus :-( so the ginger one had to come. She was very good. Very excitable but very good. Lay nicely in her travel crate while we ate as donna didn't want her distracting the kids (fussy eaters any excuse) so even though she hasnt had much exercise she is fast asleep. Was really chuffed with her, knew she was good with kids but thought she might get a bit too hyper. Chilled day tomorrow for her I think.
> 
> But the bad news is I have succumbed to festive cold Grrr.


Ugh. Hope your Mum gets better soon and you do too.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thank you. Poor mum has had an absolutely terrible year health wise and apart from the obvious it has flared up all her aches and pains she was just about getting on top of. She suffers from insomnia too but darent take her sleeping pills
she can only think she picked it up from the hospital when she went to visit her brother 
we have agreed to delay Christmas for her till next week.

I will be fine just grumpy. I HATE colds


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you. Poor mum has had an absolutely terrible year health wise and apart from the obvious it has flared up all her aches and pains she was just about getting on top of. She suffers from insomnia too but darent take her sleeping pills
> she can only think she picked it up from the hospital when she went to visit her brother
> we have agreed to delay Christmas for her till next week.
> 
> I will be fine just grumpy. I will HATE colds


Here's hoping 2013 is your Mum's year.


----------



## sailor

Have not read through all the hundreds of pages, but I get the jist of the thread, so decided to join in as I think Toppa is going to be hard work!
Shall try to keep up with everyone elses training after my intial post here 

Working on toilet training :blink: also people socialising, nipping, humping, barking for attention and........ eating from bowl, not bin bags 

Thats about it for now 

Todays toilet training was going amazing, mainly because I take Toppa out every hour regardless and also watch out for all the 'signs' and again after sleepies and play. Abit over kill, but that just ensures less accidents!
Only had on average 2 accidents per day... most was 3 on Christmas eve I think? and the least was just 1 (so far) today. And all accidents could have been avoided. A few were just from me not realising the time, or not picking up on the signs quick enough. But I am a quick learner :w00t: and today we had NO accidents  .... intil I asked my Son to take Toppa out for one of his loo breaks, I thought it would make good bonding for him and Toppa, however, while my Son was looking for his shoes Toppa pee'd on the floor  what was that saying again... if you want it doing properly, do it yourself!

Socialising, today we had a little girl (daughters friend) come in and Toppa humped and nipped her, but after I told him no and clapped my hands a few times, he soon settled and was happy to get fussed, then just sit back and relax as the girls played.

Nipping is getting better, he just mouths gently when being fussed, but still it is a no no and so far soo good, a simple OW! and moving away does the trick.... 

Humping, well, he is no where near as bad as he was on the first day. The way he was carrying on you could have been forgiven to mistake him for a very enthusiastic stud dog  anything was fair game as far as he was concerned! But each day that has passed, he has humped less and again , like nipping, a short sharp noise and ignoring him does the trick.
At the moment he seems to want to hump my son the most, but this is because my Son finds it hilarious that a tiny dog is humping his ankle ... teenage boys for you! More work needs to be done on my Son on how to deal with Toppas behaviour more effectively!

Barking for attention!  it is sooooooo difficult to resisit his cute wee ruff ruff. I will be doing something non important and I will hear a wee ruff ruff behind me, turn around and sure enough Toppa is stood there with his ears pricked and head tilted :001_wub: I naturally turn to mush and fuss him  I know I know I know  but omg it is cuteness on a whole new level! Even the strictest of you would find it almost impossible to resist I think. So I need to work on ignoring him... or I think the better option, might be to remove him from the room. I am also making sure I ALWAYS fuss him when ever I see him sitting calmly waiting for me, so the correct behaviour is getting praised!

Eating from a bowl... simples so far.... put raw bacon in it NOM NOM NOM !!!
Bin bags, well ALL bags/bins have to be kept out of his sight/reach to stop the behaviour. I think it will get better with time, but most dogs find it hard to resist a tasty smelling bin!!! :w00t: 
So again, this one is more of a bin management on my part, intil he realises bowls contain far better goodies than the bin :w00t:

Will throw in some basic training soon as he has finally settled into routines I think, and he is acting less mental :w00t: altho he still gets abit too hyper to concentrate on me :001_tongue: I did however get a cauple of sits today, but I think they were flukes, as they were not consistant ones, just random ones... so probarly just got a tired bum from all that but wagging, and was giving it a rest 

That is it for now.... roll on Jan when he gets his jabs and the real fun can start with all the training that comes with outside walking!


----------



## Dogless

Sailor, I am afraid that buried deep within this thread is a rule that you may not join it until Every. Single. Post has been read  :cryin:.






As if . Welcome, welcome to you and Toppa how lovely to have you here.......:w00t::w00t:.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Ok, here goes again 

Dogless....fab, gold star to both boys. Well done. 

C4M....enjoy your Xmas tomorrow, sounds like you need it. . Well done to Alfie and the others for behaving. 

Twiggy.....please send some sunshine to us here . I love the tuffies bed, but unfortunately bella decided to take a chunk out of the cover and inner the other day.  payback for us going out for a Chinese...how dare we. :nono:

Sarah....gold star to spencer. . I love just sitting and watching the world go by, people watching. 

Mv.....nice catchphrase. Seemed appropriately used. 

Thorne.....what a nice day. Sorry to be naive but do you work at a rescue? 

GR.......oh dear, hope you and your mom feel better soon. 

Had a chilled day really. Took dogs out just once today. All three were well behaved. I had bella and oh had boys. 
Had to keep frank on long lead part way but all three off lead eventually. 
We met our friendly pointer 'patch' , who won't leave Freddie alone. All had a run around with him and a beagle  All three came back and went our separate ways, no problems.
Met the same dog off lead again going down the same gully but thankfully frank was ok again. Owner just trotted round the corner long after the dog.  

Freddie just pulled my blanket off me to make room for himself on the sofa. . Bless him.


----------



## sailor

Dogless said:


> *Sailor, I am afraid that buried deep within this thread is a rule that you may not join it until Every. Single. Post has been read*  :cryin:.
> 
> As if . Welcome, welcome to you and Toppa how lovely to have you here.......:w00t::w00t:.


 almost fell out my chair   til I got to the every single post has been read bit  thought you was going to say it was for challenging adult dogs only or something :lol: and not normal puppy behaviour :w00t:


----------



## Dogless

sailor said:


> almost fell out my chair   til I got to the every single post has been read bit  thought you was going to say it was for challenging adult dogs only or something :lol: and not normal puppy behaviour :w00t:


You have a normal puppy? :w00t::w00t:.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Sailor....toppa sounds like a bundle of mischief.  how fantastic. 

Teenage boys I can relate to, I asked mine to watch the dogs once and I came back to a shredded mess of books and photos.


----------



## GingerRogers

sailor said:


> almost fell out my chair   til I got to the every single post has been read bit  thought you was going to say it was for challenging adult dogs only or something :lol: and not normal puppy behaviour :w00t:


You probably will fall out your chair if you read every post


----------



## sailor

Dogless said:


> You have a normal puppy? :w00t::w00t:.


Probably not, but I like to tell myself that to keep sane :w00t:


----------



## Freddie and frank

P535 and P587

That's all I have to say. :w00t: they made me read it. :lol::lol::lol:


----------



## moonviolet

GR hope you and your Mum are better soon, Soudns liek hte yellow eyed godess did really well 

Sailor, so nice to see you here, I'm looking forward to hearing, how the wee chap progresses. I have a real soft spot for JRT's cheeky lil beggars  

F&F(+B) sounds like a good day, Love Freddie's cheek  Tink brought me her fleece earlier... I just supposed she wanted it on, so I obliged and she then took herself off to her bed :lol:


----------



## Thorne

F&F - I'm working at my local Blue Cross centre for my uni placement year, studying animal behaviour and welfare so ties in nicely! Don't know if I could work in rescue full time, it would break my heart I'm sure 

Sailor - Nice to see you on the thread! Toppa sounds like a handful- glad you're seeing some improvements already, best of luck with him.


----------



## moonviolet

Freddie and frank said:


> P535 and P587
> 
> That's all I have to say. :w00t: they made me read it. :lol::lol::lol:


Singing: Singing: twasn't me Singing: Singing:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Thorne said:


> F&F - I'm working at my local Blue Cross centre for my uni placement year, studying animal behaviour and welfare so ties in nicely! Don't know if I could work in rescue full time, it would break my heart I'm sure
> 
> Sailor - Nice to see you on the thread! Toppa sounds like a handful- glad you're seeing some improvements already, best of luck with him.


How interesting.
Think it would break my heart too.


----------



## Werehorse

Hello, hope everyone has had good days - sounds like it. My memory is just plain awful.  Need to start with a notebook too in order to name check people!

Mv- nice work from the inner hag.  I remembered that one.

Took the boys to Keswick today to meet my former colleague who has managed to reach escape velocity with the teaching as well - difference being she waited until she had a new job lined up before quitting unlike tempestuous old me. :lol: Sensible girl that she is. Oscar and Hugo luuuuurve their Auntie A but managed not to jump up her or lick her face off too much, not until she was deliberately getting Hugo to lick her nose. :lol:

They pulled like dogs possessed in Keswick though.  Hey-ho, keep working on it (hard to do when you are walking with someone else though). They were good boys in the coffee shop and Oscar managed to get loads of cuddles from strangers. And they were very good off-lead in the park before and after the coffee, Hugo recalled from halfway towards some boys playing football who had taken his fancy and then proceeded to ignore them. Oscar had also started to make a bee-line for a tiny tot and her mum at one point (mum was pointing and obviously saying "look at the nice doggy" or similar to the tot which is, as far as Oscar is concerned, his cue to approach and mug for cuddles - but tot was so tiny and a little distance from her mum so indanger of a knocking over so we recalled and he did  ) Overall I'm pleased with them. Just need to keep at the LLW. :cryin:

Just did some training in case the "sendaway" at the party tomorrow is a novelty sendaway rather than a distance competition. :lol: I have done no other training for the party cos of Hugo being sick so it is going to be...erm... interesting. We did get them doing a kind of cross-over sendaway in our teeny living room and they only ran into each other once. :lol:

Last minute muppet here has yet to make the angel wings.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Hello, hope everyone has had good days - sounds like it. My memory is just plain awful.  Need to start with a notebook too in order to name check people!
> 
> Mv- nice work from the inner hag.  I remembered that one.
> 
> Took the boys to Keswick today to meet my former colleague who has managed to reach escape velocity with the teaching as well - difference being she waited until she had a new job lined up before quitting unlike tempestuous old me. :lol: Sensible girl that she is. Oscar and Hugo luuuuurve their Auntie A but managed not to jump up her or lick her face off too much, not until she was deliberately getting Hugo to lick her nose. :lol:
> 
> They pulled like dogs possessed in Keswick though.  *Hey-ho, keep working on it (hard to do when you are walking with someone else though).* They were good boys in the coffee shop and Oscar managed to get loads of cuddles from strangers. And they were very good off-lead in the park before and after the coffee, Hugo recalled from halfway towards some boys playing football who had taken his fancy and then proceeded to ignore them. Oscar had also started to make a bee-line for a tiny tot and her mum at one point (mum was pointing and obviously saying "look at the nice doggy" or similar to the tot which is, as far as Oscar is concerned, his cue to approach and mug for cuddles - but tot was so tiny and a little distance from her mum so indanger of a knocking over so we recalled and he did  ) Overall I'm pleased with them. Just need to keep at the LLW. :cryin:
> 
> Just did some training in case the "sendaway" at the party tomorrow is a novelty sendaway rather than a distance competition. :lol: I have done no other training for the party cos of Hugo being sick so it is going to be...erm... interesting. We did get them doing a kind of cross-over sendaway in our teeny living room and they only ran into each other once. :lol:
> 
> Last minute muppet here has yet to make the angel wings.


Kilo used to royally take the pee when I was wallking with someone else; occasionally still tries to lunge at hedges, lamposts etc on the rare occasion hubby comes somewhere with us...they're not daft!!

Get those wings made and photos taken NOW .


----------



## Guest

bonjour people!! 

Well this little wee update isn't really about zander, more about me. (Even though he was a "lovely dog" according to my gran yesterday)
Yesterday, I fainted and fell over a wall, have smashed off bits of my teeth, have a very very bruised and bleeeding knneecap anf a swollen wrist. 

Typical haha


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> bonjour people!!
> 
> Well this little wee update isn't really about zander, more about me. (Even though he was a "lovely dog" according to my gran yesterday)
> Yesterday, I fainted and fell over a wall, have smashed off bits of my teeth, have a very very bruised and bleeeding knneecap anf a swollen wrist.
> 
> Typical haha


Crikey  . Sounds really sore...hope that you recover swiftly and the dentist can repair your teeth. Not sure why you fainted but hope you're not poorly to boot.

It wasn't because your gran said that Zander was a "lovely dog" was it   .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Crikey  . Sounds really sore...hope that you recover swiftly and the dentist can repair your teeth. Not sure why you fainted but hope you're not poorly to boot.
> 
> It wasn't because your gran said that Zander was a "lovely dog" was it   .


Haha thanks, saldy I damaged myself before grandma arrived. 
I am rather sore yes, moving around hurts a fair bit. 
Back to the-dog-who=disgraced-himself on christmas day, he was fab yesterday with my gran, didn't jump all over her or anything.

He's earned his collar again.

But I have realised I shall need to do more lead walks rather than just a small one than unleashe=ing him in the field. He pulled like a loorry yesterday. 
Got him past about 6 spaniels though. :thumbup:
He's not gonna be able to be walked more than two minutes today (I can't, and mum gets tired super quick) so I may teach some door manners.

Any advice on teaching door manners??


----------



## moonviolet

LO sounds very sore, hope you can get patched up and you aren't pooorly 

sounds liek ZAnder was a gentleman with your Gran. :thumbup:

I don't know if this link would be any use ? https://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/tag/door-manners-for-dogs


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> I STILL cant fault Charlie's 3peaks bed with the popper on fleece top blanket.
> I threw it in the washing machine then tumble dried it late on Christmas Eve night- it only took an hour in total, and that was it sorted for another while. So quick and easy. His old padded ones just went lumpy when washed and took ages to dry. Saying that, I would LUUUUURRVE one of those fancy dog sized, wrought iron day beds for him, theyre so cute  but not such a cute price!!


3 Peaks do an oval waterproof bed called Wayfarer. They sell them at PAH.

My question is if the beds are waterproof won't the dogs take ages to dry and be uncomfortable if they are wet, which at the moment they are almost permanently..?!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> 3 Peaks do an oval waterproof bed called Wayfarer. They sell them at PAH.
> 
> My question is if the beds are waterproof won't the dogs take ages to dry and be uncomfortable if they are wet, which at the moment they are almost permanently..?!!


We had the Wayfarer mattress which was water resistant - but the fleece top seemed to mean that Kilo didn't stay wet. Perhaps with the oval one you could cut some vet bed to fit in the base?


----------



## Dogless

We just had a fabulous walk; second time I've taken the Concrete Heads out together. Very brief onlead walk to the fields and then offlead. Kilo had zoomies, chased his toy and didn't eat any of the huge piles of orange poo lying around; Rudi had mini zoomies, pottered, carried bits of grass round etc. We only walked once round the fields but took our time as I did some recalls with them and sits. 

Halfway round my friend came in with Dizzy - I kept Rudi onlead initially as Dizzy is nervous of new dogs . Once Dizzy was running round Rudi and I in circles with his toy to try and play I let Rudi off and all dogs were fine together; Kilo got some time playing with his friend and zooming again and Rudi stuck with my friend and I for fusses and I practised some sits etc.

A gold star morning .


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy-Yep the fleece top sheet seems to dry them off. Also, a spare fleece topper can be bought, £9.99 for the big size and put on while other being washed but tbh I havnt needed to as he still lies on the base quite comfortably for an hour until fleece is washed and dried. (Have I praised it enough yet? lol)

Dogless- that sounds like a brilliant walk. In a way it's good that Rudi prefers to stay with you for cuddles rather than belting off after the other dogs....long may it continue


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy-Yep the fleece top sheet seems to dry them off. Also, a spare fleece topper can be bought, £9.99 for the big size and put on while other being washed but tbh I havnt needed to as he still lies on the base quite comfortably for an hour until fleece is washed and dried. (Have I praised it enough yet? lol)
> 
> Dogless- that sounds like a brilliant walk. In a way it's good that Rudi prefers to stay with you for cuddles rather than belting off after the other dogs....long may it continue


He can't belt anywhere at present, love him; especially in that uneven field. Kilo kept coming and teasing him with his toy then pelting off in full zoom mode to be chased .


----------



## Thorne

Lurcher Owner - Ouch! Sounds like more than your fair share of injuries thanks to that wall, hope you heal and get patched up swiftly.

Dogless - What a lovely walk, glad they aren't using their shared walk to cause havoc, long may it stay that way.

Waiting for it to get a little duskier before we head out, our extra long walk has been cancelled as the river at the start of the track has burst with all the rain and blocked it  Todays alternative is still a good long one that Breeze hasn't been on for a while so hopefully they'll enjoy themselves.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy-Yep the fleece top sheet seems to dry them off. Also, a spare fleece topper can be bought, £9.99 for the big size and put on while other being washed but tbh I havnt needed to as he still lies on the base quite comfortably for an hour until fleece is washed and dried. (Have I praised it enough yet? lol)
> 
> Thanks for that. I managed to see the some of the Scruffs and 40 Winks ranges this morning but didn't manage to get to P&H because the queues going into town were ridiculous.
> 
> Still there's no hurry but I quite like the look of the 3 Peaks Wayfarer bed.


----------



## chazzie10

Aawww cheeky Kilo, baaad big cousin lol  I can picture it... maybe need some pics though  (If you have any hands free to hold a camera)!


----------



## GingerRogers

Can't possibly catch up with everyone so well done to all the good boys and girls, Santa will come again next year. Try harder any of you who have been a little naughty . Now I am starting again from here.

Have been trying to teach a behind me command today (I keep wanting to say back but back is move backwards) shes so bloody good with some things, she wont be lured as she thinks its a trick 'leave it' and sits beautifully waiting for the treat to re-appear. I have been throwing it behind me and saying 'hide' but just as I think she has it she sits in front again. Any ideas.

Now off for 'another' wet wet walk, will it ever stop!!


----------



## moonviolet

GR. smokeyBear suggested on another thread, having your treat bag behind your back. Having an ultra sexy bumbag is handy because you can swivel it as required.


----------



## Sarah1983

Today isn't a good day here. It's the first anniversary of Ruperts death, I feel like death warmed up, didn't drag myself out of bed till around 1pm and now there's a pregnancy test sitting in the bathroom ready for morning. For the past few weeks I've had almost constant heartburn, nausea, craving cauliflower which I usually can't stand and just generally feeling off so hubby has insisted I do a test. I actually turned down cheesecake in favour of cauliflower today :blink:

LO, the chipped teeth sound like my worst nightmare. I think I'd be in constant panic attack if it happened to me. I hope you heal quickly.

Ginge, does she know a hand target? Or how to target a target stick? I tend not to lure with food but use a hand target instead. With Ginge being small though you might want a target stick instead. 

Dogless sounds like you had a lovely walk with both the concrete heads.

Can't help with the bed issue I'm afraid Twiggy, Spencer prefers my coat to any dog bed. We have a Scruffs bed here that's about 5 years old now. Rupert pulled some of the stuffing out of it but it's still going strong and is Spens favourite proper dog bed.


----------



## Guest

Hey guys! Thanks for the link MV! 

Well NO dentists are open today (woo.) and its turned out I have soft tissue/ligament damage to my wrist. 
The knee has had stitches. 
Himself has been very good.

Got a bit cross with the nurse as she asked me 7 times if I was drunk! 
Then she still didn't believe me and got my mum in from the waiting room! 

Have to admit Zand does not sleep on anydog bed. Its either the sofa my floor or my bed.


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah - what a tough day.  ((((hugs)))) for you. 

LO - blimey! Any idea why you fainted? Hope you're ok.

Twiggy - I'm having a bed dilema myself, would love some quality beds but Hugo destroys stuff and they mostly sleep on the sofa anyway! Hope you can get something good for them... the ones Chazzie is talking about seem to have really good reviews.

I bought the boys Nina Ottoson pyramids today, they are christmas presents from my mum. We've just had 20 very noisy but very happy minutes in Chaos Collective world. :lol: Also bought Hugo an extreme Kong! 

The angel wings are taking shape... they are in the airing cupboard and *should* be dry and ready to attach to harnesses (which have been washed ) soon. Pictures soon!


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GR. smokeyBear suggested on another thread, having your treat bag behind your back. Having *an ultra sexy bumbag *is handy because you can swivel it as required.


Is that possible  I think we are building a very bad image of sexiness here with the rubber toys, chain mail and swivelling sexy bum bags, can you knit some awful jumpers to finish the look off 

Actually I had seen that and tried attaching the treat bag to my bum (minus the bum bag) but she really is too polite for her own good .



Sarah1983 said:


> Ginge, does she know a hand target? Or how to target a target stick? I tend not to lure with food but use a hand target instead. With Ginge being small though you might want a target stick instead.


Well not really but she has learnt to target the muzzle very well so I guess thats possible. Stick definitely, cold and head hanging upside down is not good :nonod:
Sorry to hear you are feeling miserable, what a combination. More hugs and Ginger cuddles coming your way. Hope the test turns out whichever way you wish for!

LO - you have been in the wars, hope you can get sorted tomorrow, and find out why you fainted. I had to chuckle at the nurse though. I have a friend, who is South African (not sure that has anything to do with anything but) and a bit of a traditionalist in an odd sort of way, she was out on a *Polish *friends birthday night, half an hour in to the evening she slips carrying a tray of drinks across the *dance *floor. Several half hours later, A&E discover she has broken her collarbone, she has other medical issues not least early onset rheumatoid arthritis (yes she shouldn't be drinking anyway ) so she has to get straight to the docs next morning to discuss her condition/meds/repercussions/healing etc, I pick her up from the surgery and she is fuming 

The nurse from the hospital has only written down that she broke her collarbone *pole dancing *, its in her medical notes and the doctors didn't think they could get it revised  talk about lost in translation!

It actually stopped raining for our walk, we got a good one in, bit stressy about cars but we got almost home, till we came to boingo spaniels house and they had just pulled up, out jumps the dog  luckily it hasn't seen us and legs it straight into the garden, but she has spotted it and whirls round, I just carried on past and apart from a grruph from her, we had no more fuss  Had to take it out on the next cat she saw though


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless my dear, you've got an awful lot to answer for...


----------



## Guest

They're so cuuuuuuuuuuuteeeeeeeeeeeee!


----------



## GingerRogers

Wow!!!!!!!! They really do look quite stunning werehorse  I expect them to take off and save the world.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Hey guys! Thanks for the link MV!
> 
> Well NO dentists are open today (woo.) and its turned out I have soft tissue/ligament damage to my wrist.
> The knee has had stitches.
> Himself has been very good.
> 
> Got a bit cross with the nurse as she asked me 7 times if I was drunk!
> Then she still didn't believe me and got my mum in from the waiting room!
> 
> Have to admit Zand does not sleep on anydog bed. Its either the sofa my floor or my bed.


Ye Gods girl - that was one bad fall....


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Sarah - what a tough day.  ((((hugs)))) for you.
> 
> LO - blimey! Any idea why you fainted? Hope you're ok.
> 
> *Twiggy - I'm having a bed dilema myself, would love some quality beds but Hugo destroys stuff and they mostly sleep on the sofa anyway! Hope you can get something good for them... the ones Chazzie is talking about seem to have really good reviews.*
> 
> I bought the boys Nina Ottoson pyramids today, they are christmas presents from my mum. We've just had 20 very noisy but very happy minutes in Chaos Collective world. :lol: Also bought Hugo an extreme Kong!
> 
> The angel wings are taking shape... they are in the airing cupboard and *should* be dry and ready to attach to harnesses (which have been washed ) soon. Pictures soon!


Holly and Leafy like anything they can pull stuffing from which is why I don't want to spend a fortune on beds. Been there done that in the past.

Hope your boys don't have a freaky when they realise they've sprouted wings....


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Today isn't a good day here. It's the first anniversary of Ruperts death, I feel like death warmed up, didn't drag myself out of bed till around 1pm and now there's a pregnancy test sitting in the bathroom ready for morning. For the past few weeks I've had almost constant heartburn, nausea, craving cauliflower which I usually can't stand and just generally feeling off so hubby has insisted I do a test. I actually turned down cheesecake in favour of cauliflower today :blink:
> 
> LO, the chipped teeth sound like my worst nightmare. I think I'd be in constant panic attack if it happened to me. I hope you heal quickly.
> 
> Ginge, does she know a hand target? Or how to target a target stick? I tend not to lure with food but use a hand target instead. With Ginge being small though you might want a target stick instead.
> 
> Dogless sounds like you had a lovely walk with both the concrete heads.
> 
> Can't help with the bed issue I'm afraid Twiggy, Spencer prefers my coat to any dog bed. We have a Scruffs bed here that's about 5 years old now. Rupert pulled some of the stuffing out of it but it's still going strong and is Spens favourite proper dog bed.


Goodness Sarah, cauliflower instead of cheesecake.....:scared:


----------



## Twiggy

Oh well done Oscar and Hugo - a lot of dogs would have gone right into one....

They look very professional.


----------



## Thorne

Sarah, hope you start feeling better soon.


GingerRogers said:


> Is that possible  I think we are building a very bad image of sexiness here with the rubber toys, chain mail and swivelling sexy bum bags, can you knit some awful jumpers to finish the look off


No wonder this thread isn't used by everyone, they've been scared off! 

Have to say Scooter let me down today, he started to speed up in the same place as he did a few days ago, stopped when I whistled him for the second time, then spotted some people with a female black Lab coming along an adjoining footpath. To give him _some_ credit he did consider coming back but it transpired she was in season (!) so too good to ignore! Cue an embarrassing chase-me-charlie in a very muddy field. Grabbed him, apologised more times than necessary and skulked off 
Think I'll do the same walk with him tomorrow but keep him onlead and do lots of work while we're out.

As usual Breeze was a good girl and said polite hellos to a Spanner and to the Lab bitch, no major frights but did have a skitter away from a bus!

Went out with a black lab and a yellow lab, came back with 2 mucky grey ones! Breeze found smelly mud and ran through it so has been bathed, not going to be popular with her this evening...


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Goodness Sarah, cauliflower instead of cheesecake.....:scared:


^^^^^^ Very scary indeed .

Sarah - sorry you've had such a tough day; hope tomorrow dawns a little brighter for you.

Leam - Well done Deeks!!

Werehorse - * WOW!!!!!!* They are amazing :thumbup:.

Thorne - You can't really blame Scooter if the bitch was in season - one of my pet hates :mad2:.

I took LCH to Pets At Home this afternoon to weigh him, get some tripe and meet folk. Loads of people met including one of the most overbearing women I've ever encountered  and lots of kids - waggy tail I'm pleased to report! Small puppy waggy and curious hoisted skywards due to Rudi's size or breed . The boy is a *monster - 18.9kg :scared::scared:*. He will be 13 weeks old tomorrow. Anyhoo - behaved well, so gold star :aureola:.

Took Kilo out for an hour when we got back onlead and did lots of random bits and pieces as we walked along. He walked very well and did everything quick as a flash for me, so another gold star here too :aureola:.

I wanted to take him to the park tomorrow but the rain has set in again and tomorrow is a hideous forecast meaning no one will be there. Not to worry.


----------



## sailor

Werehorse, loving the wings  How did the competition go ?

Dogless, I feel soo bad for Rudi not being able to keep up with his big brothers zoomies  bless him.

GingerRogers, how is the 'behind' coming along? 
( poor cat too  )

Sarah1983 ... not sure if I should be keeping my fingers crossed for you or not.... 9 months of cauliflower cravings :scared: mmmm yum! When I was prenant I had a milk craving with the first and started to seriously consider robbing the milkman at one point, but luckily for him I was always far too tired to stay up to 4am and set up an ambush 
Second time round, it was cravings for parsnips and other veg, I almost went vegan :arf:

lurcherowner.... omg ouch! hope you are healing nicely now.



Well, Toppa has been a wee trooper today 
He has only had one accident today and this one was again my time keeping... where does time go  honestly, I swear it had only been an hour since I last took him out for a loo break, but as he started to squat and I bit my tongue and clutched at my hair, trying to act casual so he didn't pick up on me going mental in the background... I glanced at the time to see it had actually been just shy of 2 hours :mad2: ( I had been cooking bacon and dunking fruit shortcake biccies in my tea :w00t: distractions were HIGH! )

Socialising went well, we went to pets at home again, where else can you get decent socialising with both people and dogs.... and pick up a few bargains too  he greeted lots of people, met an elderly greedy dog who blanked him and a young terrier with sore paws who yapped at him.
I also took him to briefly meet lots of peeps at work, where I volunteer, he loved everyone and humped many many legs :w00t:
My friend who made me aware of Toppa also works there and got to meet him again, she told me Toppa was originally owned by gypsies! So learnt abit more about him today.

Barking... he hasn't barked much for attention today, but he did bark at some scary looking strangers whilst going to pets at home and work. I have read that this is a typical jack russell trait, soooo will be working on that alot!
He also seems abit aloof of people that I do not greet, and doesn't initially care for the fusses they offer. He almosts acts as if they are a burden on his very busy day 

Nipping.... ahhhh work in progress.....

Bins  yea, so I have bins as high as I can get them and Toppa only took a nibble from a piece of dog food out of his brand new Toppa size bowl  maybe I should just feed him his food from carrier bags ? I bet he would wolf it down then :arf:

HE KNOWS SIT :w00t: go Toppa go 
I have to TELL him to sit as if I am telling him off to get him to do it tho. I imagine he is used to being told in a loud voice. 
He knows sit and stay it would seem, but nothing else ..... yet


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Goodness Sarah, cauliflower instead of cheesecake.....:scared:


I know :nonod: I've never even liked cauliflower! Any veg will do at a push but cauliflower is the best :scared:

I'm not quite sure what I want the test to say to be honest. We do plan on having kids so it's not going to be an issue if I am. Just means I need to get to the doctors ASAP, get referred back to my neurologist etc. All things I'm supposed to do before getting pregnant lol.

Werehorse, they look awesome :thumbup:

Thorne, I doubt most dogs would recall from a bitch in season to be honest. My collie had to be fetched and he was neutered!

Sailor, sounds like you're having fun


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> *Holly and Leafy like anything they can pull stuffing from which is why I don't want to spend a fortune on beds. Been there done that in the past.*
> 
> Hope your boys don't have a freaky when they realise they've sprouted wings....


Aye so does Charlie, or if it was soft and fleecey he would rip it sometimes if left alone. 
Again the Wayfarer is good for this as the pillow is zipped inside a waterproof fabric that doesnt really attract chewing-not sure if it WOULD rip and I dont think Charlie has even realised there is stuffing in there!! Maybe he cant smell it or something  Either way, it remains unchewed/ mauled/ air conditioned


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah- CAULIFLOWER!!!?? Yuck, cheesecake every time  Good luck tomorrow with the test and I hope you get the result that you're hoping for x

L/O- ouch!

Ginge- get that bumbag a-shakin...maybe wee bells on it ( good storage for the gloves n leash when not in use  

Werehorse- the dogs look so sweet and angelic with wings.....thing you can train them to fly on a loose lead??


----------



## Thorne

Don't worry I've decided to forgive Scooter for his misdeeds  His recall was ok for the rest of the walk - not perfect but I imagine he was following scents from all the boxing day walks - and he ignored the Spaniel completely so I guessed the Lab was in season when he put his super-happy tail on (then shoved his nose between her legs).
Wish they at least had her on a lead, fortunately she didn't run off with him in pursuit!


Dogless said:


> Small puppy waggy and curious hoisted skywards due to Rudi's size or breed . The boy is a *monster - 18.9kg :scared::scared:*. He will be 13 weeks old tomorrow. Anyhoo - behaved well, so gold star :aureola:.


Blimey! He weighs as much as Breeze!


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> Don't worry I've decided to forgive Scooter for his misdeeds  His recall was ok for the rest of the walk - not perfect but I imagine he was following scents from all the boxing day walks - and he ignored the Spaniel completely so I guessed the Lab was in season when he put his super-happy tail on (then shoved his nose between her legs).
> Wish they at least had her on a lead, fortunately she didn't run off with him in pursuit!
> 
> Blimey! He weighs as much as Breeze!


He's a monster  Kilo grew upwards much more rapidly and was skinny and gangly whereas Rudi is a very 'solid' puppy - still hard to hold weight on him like Kilo and I wouldn't have him leaner though.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## moonviolet

Leam yes photobucket or youtube for videos. SOunds like he did really well 



GingerRogers said:


> Is that possible  I think we are building a very bad image of sexiness here with the rubber toys, chain mail and swivelling sexy bum bags, can you knit some awful jumpers to finish the look off


HOw about this ?
knitty.com
Sarah, fingers crossed for the result you want.

Dogless, Rudi sound liek he's doing great, shame about sky hooked puppy 

Thorne, Poor Scooter, that was a test beyond male restraint.

Werehorse, those wings are magnificent!

Twiggy, Tinks favourite bed has been restuffed with a couple of machine washable pillows and a fleece blanket wrapped over it to cover it's holey appearance. She does love to destuff things maybe one day she can have something nice :lol:

Sailor Sounds like you and wee Toppa are bonding rather nicely 

Not much to report here, we've been polishing her toy tidying and adding the finishing touch of bringing the peg basket of toys to me. She's doing great on this one.

Looking left and right is still done with a hand touch for now.

crossing paws is now cued by me crossing my feet 

Leg weaves getting smooth. I'd love to say on verbal but i think my leg position is a whopper of a hint.

If you had asked me 3 years ago if i'd be doing this malarky I'd say over my dead body... but this is what she loves so who am i to deny her.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> If you had asked me 3 years ago if i'd be doing this malarky I'd say over my dead body... but this is what she loves so who am i to deny her.


I'm sure you secretly love it too ....but when do we get to see you in action??? .


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Leam yes photobucket or youtube for videos. SOunds like he did really well
> 
> *HOw about this ?
> knitty.com*
> Sarah, fingers crossed for the result you want.
> 
> Dogless, Rudi sound liek he's doing great, shame about sky hooked puppy
> 
> Thorne, Poor Scooter, that was a test beyond male restraint.
> 
> Werehorse, those wings are magnificent!
> 
> Twiggy, Tinks favourite bed has been restuffed with a couple of machine washable pillows and a fleece blanket wrapped over it to cover it's holey appearance. She does love to destuff things maybe one day she can have something nice :lol:
> 
> Sailor Sounds like you and wee Toppa are bonding rather nicely
> 
> Not much to report here, we've been polishing her toy tidying and adding the finishing touch of bringing the peg basket of toys to me. She's doing great on this one.
> 
> Looking left and right is still done with a hand touch for now.
> 
> crossing paws is now cued by me crossing my feet
> 
> Leg weaves getting smooth. I'd love to say on verbal but i think my leg position is a whopper of a hint.
> 
> If you had asked me 3 years ago if i'd be doing this malarky I'd say over my dead body... but this is what she loves so who am i to deny her.


Oh dear God, knitted bra and knickers? .........


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I'm sure you secretly love it too ....but when do we get to see you in action??? .


It's grown on me seeing the joy it brings Tink and seeing her thinking and trying things out, offering all sorts of things. See us? Lets say when the weather improves  :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> It's grown on me seeing the joy it brings Tink and seeing her thinking and trying things out, offering all sorts of things. See us? Lets say when the weather improves  :lol:


You could do something to "I'm Singing In The Rain....." .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You could do something to "I'm Singing In The Rain....." .


At the moment it's all kind of puzzle pieces...I haven't seen the picture, found the edges or even the corners. I need to sit down and give it all some thought.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## moonviolet

Leam1307 said:


> Ok heres hoping this works!
> 
> Deeks 1 - YouTube
> 
> Deeks on his first off-lead run and first attempt at recall!


:thumbup::thumbup:Go Deeks :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

That's brilliant.


----------



## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Ok heres hoping this works!
> 
> Deeks 1 - YouTube
> 
> Deeks on his first off-lead run and first attempt at recall!


Very good :thumbup::thumbup:.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Guest

Hes so lovely!! And I love the name! 

My lovely neighbour has offered to look after Zander tommorow at his house and walk him, while I attempt to find a dentist somewhere. 
I can't even use a stick to lean on as I have damaged opposite legs/arms, so everytime Zander leans on me, I lose balance! The wrist may take up to 6 weeks to heal. BUT hopefully I shall be back at work next week.


----------



## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Hehehe so chuffed with him, have to smile everytime i see the video..which is about 20x now lol.
> 
> He slept for about 4hrs when we got home!


He was so well controlled. Kilo tends to get hugely enthusiastic and launch himself at me with delight when recalled . In class I get laughed at but am currently throwing a treat on the floor before I get poleaxed .

This is what I mean - and is a pretty tame one by Kilo's standards:


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Lol yes i did get a few of those too! i had to put my hand out and say "stop" a few times as i was getting run into for cuddles. He loves his treats but a cuddle from his mum seems to be the best reward according to him.
> 
> I kept sending him away and recalling randomly and then we put him on the lead for a couple of mins, walked about and then set him loose again. Is this right? i read (on here im sure) to do this so he doesnt associate "come" with going on lead and play ending.
> 
> haha i think i would have ran away with Kilo coming at me like that. lol well done for not falling on your butt


I am used to being knocked about by the big lump!

I do random recalls, collar touches then release, lead on then off, a little walk around etc etc. Touch wood I've never had a drama with him playing "Keep away" at the end of a walk.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Werehorse....a notebook is the way forward.  and those angel wings are fab.  
Just one question, what was going through your mind when you bought the kong extreme. 

LO...ouch, hope you're feeling ok. I did have too much to drink a couple of years ago, new years eve, fell over and thought I'd broken my wrist. Stupid I know. lots of stitches everywhere, scars, time off work etc and I'd only done soft tissue damage. Doctor actually said it was worse than a break cause I had to go through months of physio. Scared me off drinking too much though. Thank god. 

Dogless....what's orange poo  and lots of well deserved gold stars to both boys. How enjoyable and hope it continues. 

Thorne.....we've had to divert walks here too due to floods.  

GR.....get those hips a movin' with that sexy bum bag. Lol. 

Sarah....thinking of you on a difficult day. 
As for your test, I wish you luck whatever the outcome. And cauliflower?????. Yuk. 

Leam....gold star for Deeks recall. Great video. 

Sailor.....Crikey, toppas keeping you busy. Little darling.  gold star for his sit..

Twiggy.....sorry, can't help with the beds, the boys destroyed almost everything they had. They just grew out of it. 

MV....very impressed with everything. :thumbup: another gold star. 

I'm knackered now. :scared:
Nothing to report here really. All three were ok and behaved really good again.
May venture out further tomorrow cause I've done what I've been told to do and rested for a week, well sort of. 

Bella is now on raw mince every meal.:thumbup: 
Freddie is off to vets tomorrow to get his small lump just checked over.
Frank was excellent with his recall today :thumbup:

So alls good.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Leam yes photobucket or youtube for videos. SOunds like he did really well
> 
> HOw about this ?
> knitty.com
> Sarah, fingers crossed for the result you want.
> 
> Dogless, Rudi sound liek he's doing great, shame about sky hooked puppy
> 
> Thorne, Poor Scooter, that was a test beyond male restraint.
> 
> Werehorse, those wings are magnificent!
> 
> Twiggy, Tinks favourite bed has been restuffed with a couple of machine washable pillows and a fleece blanket wrapped over it to cover it's holey appearance. She does love to destuff things maybe one day she can have something nice :lol:
> 
> Sailor Sounds like you and wee Toppa are bonding rather nicely
> 
> Not much to report here, we've been polishing her toy tidying and adding the finishing touch of bringing the peg basket of toys to me. She's doing great on this one.
> 
> Looking left and right is still done with a hand touch for now.
> 
> *crossing paws is now cued by me crossing my feet *
> 
> *Leg weaves getting smooth. I'd love to say on verbal but i think my leg position is a whopper of a hint.*
> 
> If you had asked me 3 years ago if i'd be doing this malarky I'd say over my dead body... but this is what she loves so who am i to deny her.


Did you watch the Doggy Dancing programme last night?

I loved the winner with the merle collie. Apparently now an advanced HTM dog.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> I am used to being knocked about by the big lump!
> 
> I do random recalls, collar touches then release, lead on then off, a little walk around etc etc. Touch wood I've never had a drama with him playing "Keep away" at the end of a walk.


This it what ive always done with the boys. 
Frank has only recently learnt how to use his brakes when running back to me.  scary at times.

Bella I'm sure doesn't have any brakes.


----------



## Freddie and frank

HOw about this ?
knitty.com

Dear god  
That'll keep you warm in the cold winter nights.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Dogless....what's orange poo  and lots of well deserved gold stars to both boys. How enjoyable and hope it continues.


It's exactly as it says on the tin. I am guessing you missed my nauseating tale of woe? http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-602.html#post1062539276

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-603.html#post1062539624


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Did you watch the Doggy Dancing programme last night?
> 
> I loved the winner with the merle collie. Apparently now an advanced HTM dog.


I have it recorded for watching when OH isn't here to offer helpful commentary and advice  :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I have it recorded for watching when OH isn't here to offer helpful commentary and advice  :lol:


Yes mine was horrendous last night. He said "well of course they're not up to Fidget's standard" about every 3 minutes. It was 15 years ago when we were competing for goodness sake.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> It's exactly as it says on the tin. I am guessing you missed my nauseating tale of woe? http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-602.html#post1062539276
> 
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-603.html#post1062539624


Eeuuwwww. :scared:


----------



## Twiggy

Twiggy said:


> Yes mine was horrendous last night. He said "well of course they're not up to Fidget's standard" about every 3 minutes. It was 15 years ago when we were competing for goodness sake.


My hubby was never allowed to come and watch. If the judges had dared to criticise his darling Fidget I didn't want to be responsible for the consequences....LOL

He was bad enough watching the videos afterwards and such an opinionated expert.

As I discovered last night he still is....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> My hubby was never allowed to come and watch. If the judges had dared to criticise his darling Fidget I didn't want to be responsible for the consequences....LOL
> 
> He was bad enough watching the videos afterwards and such an opinionated expert.
> 
> *As I discovered last night he still is....*


They all are...:aureola:.


----------



## Werehorse

Oscar and Hugo lived up to their costumes and were little angels at the party.  We had loads of fun and our team won overall. Both boys kept their costumes on and seemed to completely forget about them. :lol: They looked so funny doing all their training things with massive wings on. 

We didn't win the best costume though - the Tollers had fairy lights! 

We did come first and second in best trick - Oscar won with his "be a bear *cough* angel" and Hugo did leaping into my arms on the cue "there's a mouse" and came in second.

Most of the games we had to nominate one or two dogs from each team to do the game. Oscar did the drop on recall game and managed 6 downs on his way across the room. He also did the ball pool bingo - some balls had numbers on, some were blank and basically the dog had to pull out as many balls as possible, and hand them to the handler and the numbers on the balls were added up to give a score. No rules about not putting your hands in the ball pool but obviously you couldn't pick up the balls yourself. Oscar got a massive score because he was picking up the exact ball that OH was pointing to and as soon as OH realised this he started pointing at the balls with big numbers. :lol: Good dog, good OH. :thumbup:

Hugo did the tidy toys away for our team and he was soooooooooo good!! I had only done one training session on it at home and then he was ill so I couldn't use treats to train so I hadn't done anything else. Once he had picked up one toy and dropped it in the box and got a treat he just seemed to cotton on and did the rest of the balls on ropes like a pro... he didn't get time to try the tuggy ropes. We didn't win because the dog on the other team knew what it was doing and got stuck in straight away, Hugo lost some time figuring it out. He's a very clever boy though!

We didn't have time for sendaways or retrieve over a hurdle which is a shame!

We did the recall relay and as a team we won that - it was quite close but a gorgeous little cockerpoo on the other team anticipated the recall and lost time setting up again. Oscar also did the fast sit and came 3rd out of 4, but that was the first game and he was still a bit distracted by his wings, the 7 other dogs in costumes (4 of which he's never seen before) and ALL THE PEOPLE! :lol: Other handlers weren't allowed to say "sit"! So I'll let him (and OH  ) off with that one.

They were so good considering the many, many people and the strange dogs in the room. The spaniel on the other team seemed to have brought his entire extended family with him. :lol: And it wasn't exactly quiet - lots of cheering and clapping and laughing. And neither of them seemed phased really, Oscar was just a little silly spaniel at the start and that was all. By the end the were totally relaxed.  Brilliant, I'm so proud of them.

Me and OH are now celebrating our victory with beeeeer. And the boys have had their kibble dinners in their pyramids which they have really got the hang of now, and they both stick with their own pyramids with a bit of supervision. 

Tired happy doggies.


----------



## GingerRogers

My friend who made me aware of Toppa also works there and got to meet him again, she told me Toppa was originally owned by gypsies! So learnt abit more about him today. *snap gypsy bred snapper *

Barking... he hasn't barked much for attention today, but he did bark at some scary looking strangers whilst going to pets at home and work. I have read that this is a typical jack russell trait, soooo will be working on that alot!
He also seems abit aloof of people that I do not greet, and doesn't initially care for the fusses they offer. He almosts acts as if they are a burden on his very busy day 

Nipping.... ahhhh work in progress.....

Bins  yea, so I have bins as high as I can get them and Toppa only took a nibble from a piece of dog food out of his brand new Toppa size bowl  maybe I should just feed him his food from carrier bags ? I bet he would wolf it down then :arf:

HE KNOWS SIT :w00t: go Toppa go 
I have to TELL him to sit as if I* am telling him off to get him to do it tho. I imagine he is used to being told in a loud voice. 
He knows sit and stay it would seem, but nothing else ..... yet [/QUOTE]

* ditto I try to be nice and she just looks at me like whatever, lol. That's why panic voice works I think.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Oscar and Hugo lived up to their costumes and were little angels at the party.  We had loads of fun and our team won overall. Both boys kept their costumes on and seemed to completely forget about them. :lol: They looked so funny doing all their training things with massive wings on.
> 
> We didn't win the best costume though - the Tollers had fairy lights!
> 
> We did come first and second in best trick - Oscar won with his "be a bear *cough* angel" and Hugo did leaping into my arms on the cue "there's a mouse" and came in second.
> 
> Most of the games we had to nominate one or two dogs from each team to do the game. Oscar did the drop on recall game and managed 6 downs on his way across the room. He also did the ball pool bingo - some balls had numbers on, some were blank and basically the dog had to pull out as many balls as possible, and hand them to the handler and the numbers on the balls were added up to give a score. No rules about not putting your hands in the ball pool but obviously you couldn't pick up the balls yourself. Oscar got a massive score because he was picking up the exact ball that OH was pointing to and as soon as OH realised this he started pointing at the balls with big numbers. :lol: Good dog, good OH. :thumbup:
> 
> Hugo did the tidy toys away for our team and he was soooooooooo good!! I had only done one training session on it at home and then he was ill so I couldn't use treats to train so I hadn't done anything else. Once he had picked up one toy and dropped it in the box and got a treat he just seemed to cotton on and did the rest of the balls on ropes like a pro... he didn't get time to try the tuggy ropes. We didn't win because the dog on the other team knew what it was doing and got stuck in straight away, Hugo lost some time figuring it out. He's a very clever boy though!
> 
> We didn't have time for sendaways or retrieve over a hurdle which is a shame!
> 
> We did the recall relay and as a team we won that - it was quite close but a gorgeous little cockerpoo on the other team anticipated the recall and lost time setting up again. Oscar also did the fast sit and came 3rd out of 4, but that was the first game and he was still a bit distracted by his wings, the 7 other dogs in costumes (4 of which he's never seen before) and ALL THE PEOPLE! :lol: Other handlers weren't allowed to say "sit"! So I'll let him (and OH  ) off with that one.
> 
> They were so good considering the many, many people and the strange dogs in the room. The spaniel on the other team seemed to have brought his entire extended family with him. :lol: And it wasn't exactly quiet - lots of cheering and clapping and laughing. And neither of them seemed phased really, Oscar was just a little silly spaniel at the start and that was all. By the end the were totally relaxed.  Brilliant, I'm so proud of them.
> 
> Me and OH are now celebrating our victory with beeeeer. And the boys have had their kibble dinners in their pyramids which they have really got the hang of now, and they both stick with their own pyramids with a bit of supervision.
> 
> Tired happy doggies.


sounds great


----------



## Freddie and frank

Werehorse......wow, that sounds fab. 
Well done to Oscar and Hugo. And of cause you and oh..

Gold stars all round. :thumbup:


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Werehorse

Leam1307 said:


> That sounds like a brilliant day out Werehorse! And some great ideas on things to train, just for fun. will have to get a paddling pool now for summer to practice retrieving of balls! More pics of the doggies in their wings though are required im thinking!!


A couple of people were taking pictures at the party so I'm hoping they will crop up somewhere soon.


----------



## Werehorse

:lol:

Do you think Oscar might be a bit tired after his party?

Oscar is tired after christmas party! - YouTube


----------



## Leam1307

Oh thats two dogs you have there! i had to watch it a few times i thought Oscar had 4 back legs there as the head looked too far away. just realised its Hugos head in the background i spot. lol


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse poor Oscar must have been exhausted and very happy with all his fun. Wish I'd been a fly on the wall to have seen them doing their tricks with their wings on. Soooo adorable :aureola:


----------



## moonviolet

Oh poor Oscar, you broke him. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Oscar and Hugo lived up to their costumes and were little angels at the party.  We had loads of fun and our team won overall. Both boys kept their costumes on and seemed to completely forget about them. :lol: They looked so funny doing all their training things with massive wings on.
> 
> We didn't win the best costume though - the Tollers had fairy lights!
> 
> We did come first and second in best trick - Oscar won with his "be a bear *cough* angel" and Hugo did leaping into my arms on the cue "there's a mouse" and came in second.
> 
> Most of the games we had to nominate one or two dogs from each team to do the game. Oscar did the drop on recall game and managed 6 downs on his way across the room. He also did the ball pool bingo - some balls had numbers on, some were blank and basically the dog had to pull out as many balls as possible, and hand them to the handler and the numbers on the balls were added up to give a score. No rules about not putting your hands in the ball pool but obviously you couldn't pick up the balls yourself. Oscar got a massive score because he was picking up the exact ball that OH was pointing to and as soon as OH realised this he started pointing at the balls with big numbers. :lol: Good dog, good OH. :thumbup:
> 
> Hugo did the tidy toys away for our team and he was soooooooooo good!! I had only done one training session on it at home and then he was ill so I couldn't use treats to train so I hadn't done anything else. Once he had picked up one toy and dropped it in the box and got a treat he just seemed to cotton on and did the rest of the balls on ropes like a pro... he didn't get time to try the tuggy ropes. We didn't win because the dog on the other team knew what it was doing and got stuck in straight away, Hugo lost some time figuring it out. He's a very clever boy though!
> 
> We didn't have time for sendaways or retrieve over a hurdle which is a shame!
> 
> We did the recall relay and as a team we won that - it was quite close but a gorgeous little cockerpoo on the other team anticipated the recall and lost time setting up again. Oscar also did the fast sit and came 3rd out of 4, but that was the first game and he was still a bit distracted by his wings, the 7 other dogs in costumes (4 of which he's never seen before) and ALL THE PEOPLE! :lol: Other handlers weren't allowed to say "sit"! So I'll let him (and OH  ) off with that one.
> 
> They were so good considering the many, many people and the strange dogs in the room. The spaniel on the other team seemed to have brought his entire extended family with him. :lol: And it wasn't exactly quiet - lots of cheering and clapping and laughing. And neither of them seemed phased really, Oscar was just a little silly spaniel at the start and that was all. By the end the were totally relaxed.  Brilliant, I'm so proud of them.
> 
> Me and OH are now celebrating our victory with beeeeer. And the boys have had their kibble dinners in their pyramids which they have really got the hang of now, and they both stick with their own pyramids with a bit of supervision.
> 
> Tired happy doggies.


Wow that's sounds like a great party with well thought out games.

Also proves the point, yet again, that basic training and socialisation makes all the difference to so many dogs quality of life....


----------



## Freddie and frank

Werehorse said:


> :lol:
> 
> Do you think Oscar might be a bit tired after his party?
> 
> Oscar is tired after christmas party! - YouTube



Oh bless him. 
With all that performing, I'm not surprised.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Wow that's sounds like a great party with well thought out games.
> 
> Also proves the point, yet again, that basic training and socialisation makes all the difference to so many dogs quality of life....


Me and OH were saying afterwards that it is a testement to the training methods, the trainer and the work put in by the owners that something like that can go without a hitch and all the dogs were happy throughout.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse well done!!! What a fabulous party even if it has broken Oscar; hope he recovers soon .

Had a mostly good morning totally ruined at the end, by me .

Walked Rudi first - a challenge given how windy it is  then took Kilo for his turn to the park. He did really well, I was very proud of him; he put up with being jumped all over by an offlead dog, just sat down until their owner got to us and removed them and sailed past everything else. Until the end. 

We were walking up a road in the park with walls both sides, but plenty of room to pass people (room for vehicles). There was a lady in front of us who was clearly afraid of Kilo, so I hung back. Problem is, she kept stopping for her dog to sniff every little thing and we were at the end of our walk and I wanted to get back for Rudi. After a while of this I decided I'd have to pass her. Just as we were going past she stopped and suddenly went "Oh no Oh no Oh no" in a total panic - Kilo did a startled bark and a small lunge unfortuantely at this, but was on a headcollar so went nowhere BUT this prompted the "Oh nos" to get louder and she was saying "I'm sorry, I can't, I can't" so I stupidly stopped (didn't move closer) to apologise and see if she was OK :mad2:.

She said "I'm just so afraid of it" so I said "He's OK and he's on a lead and I'm on my way". But she then said "But what happens if it gets away from you?". So I said "Nothing" and the lady said "Nothing? It's not friendly". She asked again what if it got away, so I told her again nothing (starting to get irritated), he wasn't muzzled, he was wearing a headcollar for extra control. I started on my way again and she said "He's scaring him" (her dog - who looked unfazed by all this) so I said "I'm sorry" and she said "That bark wasn't friendly" so I said no, it was startled. She repeated it wasn't friendly so I said "If you say so" (very mature of me ). Then she said not to bring it anywhere near her again so I said "Don't worry, I wasn't bringing HIM anywhere near you anyway" but not in a nice way at all. So I am totally pissed off with myself for being thoroughly unpleasant to a frightened woman  .

I saw her once Kilo was in the car and was going to walk over and apologise, but thought I'd just make things worse, so didn't. So that was my morning, good until I was a complete bitch.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Werehorse said:


> Me and OH were saying afterwards that it is a testement to the training methods, the trainer and the work put in by the owners that something like that can go without a hitch and all the dogs were happy throughout.


It certainly is. :thumbup:
I'm thinking one of my new years dog resolutions is to organise myself better and find the time to take each one to training classes again.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless, what an awful encounter for you and kilo. 

Don't beat yourself up about it, this said from a woman who would have reacted in exactly the same way. 

It's not surprising kilo barked at her, he was probably scared for his own safety  and as for her calling him IT......does she not know its SIR. 

Ok, she may have been a bit nervous, but really there was no need for her to carry on in that manner. If anything, she should have got a spurt on. 
I don't think you we're a bitch, you were being a protective mom and sticking up for your boy.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Dogless, what an awful encounter for you and kilo.
> 
> Don't beat yourself up about it, this said from a woman who would have reacted in exactly the same way.
> 
> It's not surprising kilo barked at her, he was probably scared for his own safety  and as for her calling him IT......does she not know its SIR.
> 
> Ok, she may have been a bit nervous, but really there was no need for her to carry on in that manner. If anything, she should have got a spurt on.
> I don't think you we're a bitch, *you were being a protective mom and sticking up for your boy.*


That's why I feel so bad; Kilo wouldn't know what was being said - I felt really bad for the lady at first but then got more and more irritated the more she said. Poor woman was panicking I and just got fed up and short with her. Bet that will do loads of good for her fear. The real cow in me almost wanted to say "This!" and reach for his headcollar as if I was going to unclip it the second time she asked what would happen if he were to get away from me . I never, ever would but to even think that whilst someone is having a bad time isn't good :scared::scared:.


----------



## Beth17

I am still lurking but have had a rotten cold and haven't really been bothered to post or read much. Feeling better now and so am going to go and have a nosey at what you've all been up to


----------



## Freddie and frank

It's not your fault she has a fear of big scary man eating dogs. 
No, seriously, I would hate to come face to face with my fears....big spiders...but you tried to reassure her and that's all you could have done. 
I'm very pleasant most of the time and will be the first one to apologise to other dog owners if there's a bark or growl but once in a while someone does rub me up the wrong way and I retaliate, feel guilty afterwards and spend the rest of the day worrying about it but we're only human.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> It's not your fault she has a fear of big scary man eating dogs.
> No, seriously, I would hate to come face to face with my fears....big spiders...but you tried to reassure her and that's all you could have done.
> I'm very pleasant most of the time and will be the first one to apologise to other dog owners if there's a bark or growl but once in a while someone does rub me up the wrong way and I retaliate, feel guilty afterwards and spend the rest of the day worrying about it but we're only human.


Yup...I burst into frustrated tears once safely in my car which isn't like me and now I have been worrying ever since thinking stupid stuff like "What if she reports me?". Fo what I have no idea but that's my strange brain for you  .


----------



## moonviolet

DOgless i'm sorry she was scared, but she had the issue Kilo was under control albeit distressed by this woman. Why didn't she turn back and put herself at a distance she was comfortable with. Does she expect the universe to revolve around her? 

I don't think you were a bitch at all you were put in a position of managing your distressed dog and trying to appease the cause of his distress all because she couldn't take responsibility for/of herself.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> DOgless i'm sorry she was scared, but she had the issue Kilo was under control albeit distressed by this woman. Why didn't she turn back and put herself at a distance she was comfortable with. Does she expect the universe to revolve around her?
> 
> I don't think you were a bitch at all you were put in a position of managing your distressed dog and trying to appease the cause of his distress all because she couldn't take responsibility for/of herself.


To be honest he was fine after the initial bark just stood there with me quite relaxed, if a little intrigued - if he had been stressed I would have just walked straight off rather than put him through anything he was uncomfortable with. I felt like saying "If you thought THAT bark wasn't friendly you want to try getting into my house" :scared: :devil:. It was only a startled 'woof' really - I call them 'empty' barks as there is no real intent behind them if that makes any sense?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> To be honest he was fine after the initial bark just stood there with me quite relaxed, if a little intrigued - if he had been stressed I would have just walked straight off rather than put him through anything he was uncomfortable with. I felt like saying "If you thought THAT bark wasn't friendly you want to try getting into my house" :scared: :devil:. It was only a startled 'woof' really - I call them 'empty' barks as there is no real intent behind them if that makes any sense?


I just don't get why she didn't make an effort to either move past fast or turn back.

But I guess I'm not an arms in the air, panic sort of person. I'm terribly british about my terror stiff upper lip and all that.


----------



## Werehorse

Don't worry too much Dogless, it was just your chimp having an emotional response and shouting at her chimp which was also having an emotional response... not ideal but it happens.

As mv says she could have done a lot more to take responsibility for herself, whereas instead she essentially set up a conflict - probably not even on purpose, people often set themselves up to fail without even realising!

As hard as we try it is not possible to respond as a rational adult to every situation, especially ones where someone is behaving as a child - it draws you into telling them off! You can look back with a bit of hindsight, do a bit of self-analysis and probably be better able to control your chimp/stay in adult next time...

I hope that lovely mish-mash of pop psych is a little comforting.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I just don't get why she didn't make an effort to either move past fast or turn back.
> 
> But I guess I'm not an arms in the air, panic sort of person. I'm terribly british about my terror stiff upper lip and all that.


I am very stiff upper lip too (at least in public ). All she needed to do was stop her dog sniffing everything and crossing the road multiple times following him and get a wriggle on so we'd remain behind her rather than catching up and passing her - there was an open area just 10m further on where I could have gone in a nice wide arc around her as I could tell she was petrified. Oh well.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Don't worry too much Dogless, it was just your chimp having an emotional response and shouting at her chimp which was also having an emotional response... not ideal but it happens.
> 
> As mv says she could have done a lot more to take responsibility for herself, whereas instead she essentially set up a conflict - probably not even on purpose, people often set themselves up to fail without even realising!
> 
> As hard as we try it is not possible to respond as a rational adult to every situation, especially ones where someone is behaving as a child - it draws you into telling them off! You can look back with a bit of hindsight, do a bit of self-analysis and probably be better able to control your chimp/stay in adult next time...
> 
> I hope that lovely mish-mash of pop psych is a little comforting.


It is exactly my take on it too....I just get annoyed when my chimp escapes; he's normally held very securely in the high security psychiatric institution that is my head :yikes:. I will conduct a review of security procedures following this incident .

Maybe I need some angel wings for Kilo? :idea:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I am very stiff upper lip too (at least in public ). All she needed to do was stop her dog sniffing everything and crossing the road multiple times following him and get a wriggle on so we'd remain behind her rather than catching up and passing her - there was an open area just 10m further on where I could have gone in a nice wide arc around her as I could tell she was petrified. Oh well.


Then my very naughty chimp probably would have asked her to move her blooming arse or tremble *quietly* over there while I walk passed probably just as well I wasn't there.


----------



## chazzie10

I'm guessing she just "froze" with fear- I tend to do that- you wouldnt get me up the stairs for love nor money (or Robbie Williams waiting on the landing.......weeell maybe ) if there was a big spider on the wall. I was a couple of minutes late for work a few months ago cos there was a daddy-long-legs going up and down the outside of the front door. I swear the bugger was blowing raspberries at me through the glass :ciappa:

There Dogless, has that cheered you up


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Then my very naughty chimp probably would have asked her to move her blooming arse or trembling *quietly* over there while I walk passed probably just as well I wasn't there.


I didn't want to get close enough to ask if she'd hurry as she kept looking behind her and panicking a little more the closer we got, so I'd been backing off, hanging back, swapping sides of the road as she did.....:crazy::crazy:.

The one other lady who used to be petrified of Kilo actually spoke to me, then we walked with a low fence between us and then just a good distance apart on the grass and she told me that she is still a little scared but that he is really beautiful and well behaved :thumbup: :aureola:. Helps that he didn't bark at her and her dog of course .


----------



## Werehorse

How could anyone be scared of his crinkly little concrete head anyway.  

I think some orange angel wings are the way forward, and a little halo. :aureola:


----------



## Beth17

Everyone sounds like they have had a good few days. Dogless I wouldn't stress too much she could have quite easily moved to the side or walked a bit faster and then there wouldn't have been an issue.

Walks for my two haven't been quite as exciting due to the rubbish weather and my cold. I am so sick of mud though. I did take them to the beach on boxing day separately which was good. Oscar was a star and I met a 7 month boxer pup when I went down with Sam; I'm sure you can all imagine the carnage that ensued


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> How could anyone be scared of his crinkly little concrete head anyway.
> 
> I think some orange angel wings are the way forward, and a little halo. :aureola:


Once your nose has been in contact with a concrete head you'll have some respect for their sheer solidity - not fear, but a healthy respect .

The BW would go *batshit* if I attached wings I think!!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> I'm guessing she just "froze" with fear- I tend to do that- you wouldnt get me up the stairs for love nor money (or Robbie Williams waiting on the landing.......weeell maybe ) if there was a big spider on the wall. I was a couple of minutes late for work a few months ago cos there was a daddy-long-legs going up and down the outside of the front door. I swear the bugger was blowing raspberries at me through the glass :ciappa:
> 
> There Dogless, has that cheered you up


Flamin heck!! Hope you have a sympathetic boss when you explained why . As much as it's a funny tale it isn't really is it as fears just aren't rational, just as this poor woman's wasn't - bet she's feeling rubbish too.


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> I'm guessing she just "froze" with fear- I tend to do that- you wouldnt get me up the stairs for love nor money (or Robbie Williams waiting on the landing.......weeell maybe ) if there was a big spider on the wall. I was a couple of minutes late for work a few months ago cos there was a daddy-long-legs going up and down the outside of the front door. I swear the bugger was blowing raspberries at me through the glass :ciappa:
> 
> There Dogless, has that cheered you up


Oh Chazzie 

I think if the woman had frozen, not zig zagged in front of Dogless it would have been over in no time and it would have been easier all round.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry Dogless but you don't sound like a complete bitch to me. People like that drive me nuts and I don't react well to them at all. I can understand people being frightened of dogs but there's no need for the absolutely ridiculous behaviour some of them show when confronted by an on leash, under control dog they could easily avoid coming close to. I've told a few people to get a grip when they've gone into hysterics about my dog being nowhere near them. And yeah, I'm always tempted to just unclip the leash so I guess I must be an awful person 

Werehorse, sounds like your doggy christmas party was a lot of fun!

Bloody husbands! Spencer ran up to the people living in the flat above us while we were out with him and his frisbee today. I was apologising and saying he usually doesn't run up to people only to be told that when playing frisbee with hubby he does. And has been rewarded for it by them throwing his frisbee for him! So yeah, I'm not best impressed by that at all, especially not after all the work I've put in to teaching him not to run up to people. It does only seem to be people he knows that he runs up to but I don't want him running up to anyone without permission. He's also been allowed to chase the birds, another behaviour I've been working on stopping :mad2:


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh, and according to the test I did, I'm not pregnant. So _WTF_ is with this cauliflower craving :blink: And the heartburn. I think a doctors appointment is in order about the heartburn.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody husbands! Spencer ran up to the people living in the flat above us while we were out with him and his frisbee today. I was apologising and saying he usually doesn't run up to people only to be told that when playing frisbee with hubby he does. And has been rewarded for it by them throwing his frisbee for him! So yeah, I'm not best impressed by that at all, especially not after all the work I've put in to teaching him not to run up to people. It does only seem to be people he knows that he runs up to but I don't want him running up to anyone without permission. He's also been allowed to chase the birds, another behaviour I've been working on stopping :mad2:


Oh no :mad2::mad2:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh, and according to the test I did, I'm not pregnant. So _WTF_ is with this cauliflower craving :blink: And the heartburn. I think a doctors appointment is in order about the heartburn.


Not a Catch-22 where the excess of cauliflower is causing the heartburn is it? .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Not a Catch-22 where the excess of cauliflower is causing the heartburn is it? .


No, I've been getting the heartburn since before the cauliflower craving started. I'm trying not to eat it in excess, just with meals I usually have veg with instead of just eating plates of cauliflower.

I suppose it could be worse, at least I'm not craving something hugely fattening lol.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> No, I've been getting the heartburn since before the cauliflower craving started. I'm trying not to eat it in excess, just with meals I usually have veg with instead of just eating plates of cauliflower.
> 
> I suppose it could be worse, at least I'm not craving something hugely fattening lol.


No....and you can always blame Spen for the, erm, after effects :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> That's why I feel so bad; Kilo wouldn't know what was being said - I felt really bad for the lady at first but then got more and more irritated the more she said. Poor woman was panicking I and just got fed up and short with her. Bet that will do loads of good for her fear. The real cow in me almost wanted to say "This!" and reach for his headcollar as if I was going to unclip it the second time she asked what would happen if he were to get away from me . I never, ever would but to even think that whilst someone is having a bad time isn't good :scared::scared:.


Dogless you are hopeless and need a good shake....LOL

Let's be logical about this incident:

1. If this lady was so frigthened of Kilo why was she letting her dog stop and sniff instead of hurrying away?

2. Why didn't you say "my dog is perfectly under control and well socialised so you have nothing to worry about. Now pleased excuse me as I'm in a hurry".

3. From what you've said most dogs are off the lead and out of control over there so why pick on Kilo?

4. There is no way you were being 'a complete bitch' - you simply haven't got it in you to be so.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless you are hopeless and need a good shake....LOL
> 
> Let's be logical about this incident:
> 
> 1. If this lady was so frigthened of Kilo why was she letting her dog stop and sniff instead of hurrying away?
> 
> 2. Why didn't you say "my dog is perfectly under control and well socialised so you have nothing to worry about. Now pleased excuse me as I'm in a hurry".
> 
> 3. From what you've said most dogs are off the lead and out of control over there so why pick on Kilo?
> 
> 4. There is no way you were being 'a complete bitch' - *you simply haven't got it in you to be so.*


1. No idea :scared:.

2. Because I got sucked in with her asking questions as I am indeed hopeless :mad2:.

3. Because he is big and that park is full of small dog owners in the main? Because he was following her? Because it's Friday? Because he was onlead which = unfriendly?? Because she thought the headcollar was a muzzle??  .

4. I have; it just takes a lot these days. I used to be too hasty to be a cow, now I'm so diplomatic and bloody people - pleasing that I even annoy myself :scared: :scared:.

Good shake taken in the spirit with which it was given :thumbup:.


----------



## Werehorse

Oh Sarah, that is so frustrating about the hubby and the training glitches. :mad2: Hopefully you can convince him to change his ways... how about giving Spen a release command which means he can go up to someone he knows without it meaning he is being disabediant (so hubby can indulge his wanting Spen to be gregarious thing?). I don't know.

And the cauliflower thing?  Have you got a weird mineral deficiency going on? I think I'd go to the doctors about the heartburn at this point too.


----------



## Werehorse

Videos of the boys and their Nina Ottoson Pyramids!

Oscar and his pyramid 1 - YouTube
Hugo and his Pyramid 1 - YouTube
Oscar and his pyramid 2 - YouTube
Hugo and his pyramid 2 - YouTube

Christmas present from my mum for her "grand-dogs" :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless - do not beat yourself up over the ridiculously  over reactive woman, I am with Sarah on this one, I am not very keen on several things but sometimes you just have to man up and get on with stuff if you are scared of dogs don't have one and don't walk where you are likely to see them or turn and walk away when you see them - don't inflict your fear on other people by quivering in public or squealing loudly - did you all see me on Christmas morning in a field with not just cows but a lone bull and he had no lady cows to occupy him - now thats a real fear with real consequences - admittedly it is one that impacts on people when I make them walk the long way round if I am not working - for some reason I can 'manage' the fear when I am feeding the animals 

I feel for the woman but it is *her *issue not yours to feel bad about all day.

Sarah - I also feel for you - hubby offered to take the ninja out today as I had my hair done and its raining still but I had to say no as I don't think he gets our management techniques (actually I know he doesn't which is fair enough it took me a while but if he came out more often he could see it in action), as I am finally getting somewhere I can't risk him ballsing it all up!


----------



## Thorne

Oh dear, what a shame about your experience today Dogless. I can understand she was scared and panicking but she still shouldn't have been rude to you. 
I'm sure I'd have been irritated if I was in your shoes; I remember my little sister having a dog-phobic friend to stay who was so adamant that the dogs had to be out of the way that my inner chimp was tempted to let them into the bedroom with the girls! It was the fact that she thought my child-proof dogs would maul her that offended me, but fear isn't rational is it.


Beth17 said:


> Walks for my two haven't been quite as exciting due to the rubbish weather and my cold. *I am so sick of mud though*. I did take them to the beach on boxing day separately which was good. Oscar was a star and I met a 7 month boxer pup when I went down with Sam; I'm sure you can all imagine the carnage that ensued


Goodness, me too! It's getting to the point where I only want to do pavement walks at the moment even though they're dull, never seen the fields and footpaths around here so waterlogged.

Couldn't face yesterday's wet route so Scooter and I had a half pavement, half field walk this afternoon. There's a footpath that leads to a riding school (which has been useful for brainwashing the dogs into behaving well around horses) that no-one seems to use much so took that and didn't end up too filthy. He tracked a scent on the pavements but was good as gold on the fields, his first recall was a bit lazy but when he realised I had cheese that soon changed! He was a real joy, couldn't fault him.
Dad had a friend over who Scooter initially wasn't happy about and grumbled a bit, but quickly settled down and ignored him.

Breeze had a pavement-only walk so we could do more work on car-proofing her. Had a bit of a wobbly at the start and dug her heels in, not sure why, but soon settled. Loose lead walking all the way from that point! Her heelwork on either side was lovely, got her sitting while a stream of cars passed without so much as a fidget and she even sat while a noisy lorry passed  She also walked nicely past a man with a closed umbrella - one of her scary things :thumbup: so pleased with her tonight!


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## Dogless

Well done Breeze :thumbup::thumbup:.


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## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Flamin heck!! *Hope you have a sympathetic boss when you explained why .* As much as it's a funny tale it isn't really is it as fears just aren't rational, just as this poor woman's wasn't - bet she's feeling rubbish too.


I didnt explain....just mumbled "sorry I'm late".......:blushing:


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## catz4m8z

Sorry Dogless but you thinking you are a b**ch for what you said really tickles me!! You sound like a proper fluffy bunny IMO!
I would of gotten incredibly irritated and verbally b***chslapped her up and down the path!!!
But then again I dont have a 'big, scary doggy' like Kilo to protect me!!LOL

Im still working on nothing at all! Its boxing day in my house so we are still in holiday mode! I was talking to a couple of dog owning friends at work though and they were telling me how their dogs will snap or 'go for them' if they dont like something (like being told to get off the sofa, being around their kids, etc). Frankly as long as Alfie grows up to be polite and well mannered then I dont care if he never learns how to sit!!


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## Dogless

catz4m8z said:


> Sorry Dogless but you thinking you are a b**ch for what you said really tickles me!! *You sound like a proper fluffy bunny IMO!*
> I would of gotten incredibly irritated and verbally b***chslapped her up and down the path!!!
> But then again I dont have a 'big, scary doggy' like Kilo to protect me!!LOL
> 
> Im still working on nothing at all! Its boxing day in my house so we are still in holiday mode! I was talking to a couple of dog owning friends at work though and they were telling me how their dogs will snap or 'go for them' if they dont like something (like being told to get off the sofa, being around their kids, etc). Frankly as long as Alfie grows up to be polite and well mannered then I dont care if he never learns how to sit!!


Bloody hell, insulted doesn't even cover it . I just try to be calm and rational . If I'm not calm nor is Kilo unfortunately.

Hope you're having a nice Boxing Day - I think that good manners like not biting your owner are something to aim for  .


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## kaz25

I've just looked at this thread and there is no way I'm looking through all these pages :lol: so...

Dogless - how did you get Kilo to greet other dogs nicely? Benny is a nightmare, he has to speak to every dog he sees and almost pulls me over to get to them. Bindi was starting to copy him until a dog snapped at Benny the other day and now she cowers every time she meets another dog. It's unreal, I'd just like him to walk past dogs and not bother about them.


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## Dogless

kaz25 said:


> I've just looked at this thread and there is no way I'm looking through all these pages :lol: so...
> 
> Dogless - how did you get Kilo to greet other dogs nicely? Benny is a nightmare, he has to speak to every dog he sees and almost pulls me over to get to them. Bindi was starting to copy him until a dog snapped at Benny the other day and now she cowers every time she meets another dog. It's unreal, I'd just like him to walk past dogs and not bother about them.


We don't greet dogs onlead at all any more if I can help it; after Kilo's couple of attacks he was anxious about some dogs, desperate to see others, a mixture with yet more etc etc. Now we just walk past nicely or get a sit / down whilst they pass or whilst I'm talking to the owners if they want to chat. I am aiming for the same with Rudi. Taking away the expectation of a greeting has been the single most useful thing that I have done.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> We don't greet dogs onlead at all any more if I can help it; after Kilo's couple of attacks he was anxious about some dogs, desperate to see others, a mixture with yet more etc etc. Now we just walk past nicely or get a sit / down whilst they pass or whilst I'm talking to the owners if they want to chat. I am aiming for the same with Rudi. Taking away the expectation of a greeting has been the single most useful thing that I have done.


This is pretty much what was suggested on another thread here
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/282528-how-train-dog-greet-nicely-onlead.html


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## kaz25

Dogless said:


> We don't greet dogs onlead at all any more if I can help it; after Kilo's couple of attacks he was anxious about some dogs, desperate to see others, a mixture with yet more etc etc. Now we just walk past nicely or get a sit / down whilst they pass or whilst I'm talking to the owners if they want to chat. I am aiming for the same with Rudi. Taking away the expectation of a greeting has been the single most useful thing that I have done.


So really I should be getting him to sit until they are passed? Hopefully reducing his expectations of needing to greet them?

He's just so excited and thinks every dog should want to speak to him and play with him. I don't enjoy walks as much as I should as I dread meeting another dog. I'd love him to be able to walk past dogs and not even bat an eyelid but that's unlikely 

Bindi tends to avoid oncoming dogs then tries to approach them from behind!


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## Dogless

kaz25 said:


> So really I should be getting him to sit until they are passed? Hopefully reducing his expectations of needing to greet them?
> 
> He's just so excited and thinks every dog should want to speak to him and play with him. I don't enjoy walks as much as I should as I dread meeting another dog. I'd love him to be able to walk past dogs and not even bat an eyelid but that's unlikely
> 
> Bindi tends to avoid oncoming dogs then tries to approach them from behind!


I started off sitting for all of them. Some he lies down as they approach if he's anxious and I let him (as long as we're not in the way!!). Now I can judge whether we will be able to walk past calmly or one of us needs to stop moving - when we see another owner with either an enthusiastic or aggressive dog - direct stares are something Kilo doesn't deal with well, nor is another dog choking itself to get at him.


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## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Oh Sarah, that is so frustrating about the hubby and the training glitches. :mad2: Hopefully you can convince him to change his ways... how about giving Spen a release command which means he can go up to someone he knows without it meaning he is being disabediant (so hubby can indulge his wanting Spen to be gregarious thing?). I don't know.
> 
> And the cauliflower thing?  Have you got a weird mineral deficiency going on? I think I'd go to the doctors about the heartburn at this point too.


He already has a release command but hubby's just been letting him go pester people to throw his frisbee for him :mad2:

I wondered the same about some sort of deficiency but google doesn't turn up much. Good source of vitamin b, vitamin c and folic acid is about all I've found out lol.


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## Freddie and frank

Sarah....my god, I bet your farts stink. ::: sorry. 
Hope you get the heartburn sorted though. 

Well for the first time in 10 days, I have been out with bella and frank on my own. Only gentle half hour walks each, separately but it was heaven. 
Bella was off lead for 15 mins and did a few recalls. She was great. We saw two on lead dogs coming towards us so I turned round, called her and she came back. . The bloke thanked us when we passed which was nice. 

Frank was very good too. I saw a dog coming towards us and tried to cross the road. We didn't manage it so I got him to sit and we did 'watch me' until the dog had passed. No problems so touch wood this'll work again. Just one thing with frank and not sure what to do. I click, then treat him, but he snaps the treat off me. He knows gentle but it seems to go out the window as soon as we get outside. I want to treat him after clicking but then im delaying it because I'm trying to get him to take it gently. Is this confusing him as I'm asking him to do two things? Does anyone get what I'm going on about? 


Took Freddie to vets and he has a lipoma lump under his armpit. Only small so not a problem unless it grows.vet said he was in good shape. 
Weighed bella whilst we were there and she's 24kg, which means shes lost just over 3kg with us. He was also pleased with her size. 
As I was being dragged through the door of the vets, I saw a girl I used to work with ages ago. She always looks perfectly dressed and made up. There I was in muddy Wellies, hair scraped back, dried dog slobber on my coat. Typical. :scared:


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## Freddie and frank

kaz25 said:


> So really I should be getting him to sit until they are passed? Hopefully reducing his expectations of needing to greet them?
> 
> He's just so excited and thinks every dog should want to speak to him and play with him. I don't enjoy walks as much as I should as I dread meeting another dog. I'd love him to be able to walk past dogs and not even bat an eyelid but that's unlikely
> 
> Bindi tends to avoid oncoming dogs then tries to approach them from behind!


I used to dread walks with frank for the same reason but I've realised that it doesn't matter if I need to cross the road to make it easier for the both of us. If its not always possible then we're working on a 'sit' and 'watch me' until the other dog passes. Much better than frank going mental and me cutting the walk short because of it.


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## Guest

"He's very timid and shy isn't he?" says my neighbour, as I go round to pick up Zander after having a temporary tooth made out of filling done. 

I don't think he's ever been described as that before. 

He was taken out for an hour by my neighbour, they went through fields and through the woods and along the muddy lanes. 

Apparently all Zander did was curl up and just give big old sad eyes at my neighbour. 
My neighbour responded by letting him have the innard of his sausage roll. 

Hope you are all well, and welcome kaz25. I suggest using very smelly treats.


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## Thorne

Freddie and frank said:


> Frank was very good too. I saw a dog coming towards us and tried to cross the road. We didn't manage it so I got him to sit and we did 'watch me' until the dog had passed. No problems so touch wood this'll work again. Just one thing with frank and not sure what to do. I click, then treat him, but he snaps the treat off me. He knows gentle but it seems to go out the window as soon as we get outside. I want to treat him after clicking but then im delaying it because I'm trying to get him to take it gently. Is this confusing him as I'm asking him to do two things? Does anyone get what I'm going on about?


Maybe drop (or place) them on the floor? Throwing them if he's a good catch and not by a road? Might break his pattern of always expecting treats from nip-able fingers.
With snatchy dogs I either drop the treat or hold it in a fist, then flatten my hand for them to take it. Used to walk a Staffie who grabbed HARD so involving fingers was a no-no!

If he's responding well with the delayed delivery he probably isn't confused but no harm in aiming for more accuracy


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## Freddie and frank

Thorne said:


> Maybe drop (or place) them on the floor? Throwing them if he's a good catch and not by a road? Might break his pattern of always expecting treats from nip-able fingers.
> With snatchy dogs I either drop the treat or hold it in a fist, then flatten my hand for them to take it. Used to walk a Staffie who grabbed HARD so involving fingers was a no-no!
> 
> If he's responding well with the delayed delivery he probably isn't confused but no harm in aiming for more accuracy


Perhaps chain mail gloves would be an answer.  
I'll try dropping them as he's not a brilliant catch, bless him.


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## sailor

Moonviolet - just realised you are doing doggy dancing  how fab and groovey! When can we expect to see you on 'britains got talent'?  

Lurcherowner - great that your neighbour has offered to help out with Zander, always good to have such helpfulneighbours 

Freddie&Frank - well done you for being good and reting for a week 
Good luck for Freddies trip to vets tomorrow! Congrats to Bella & Frank for eating the mince and recalling 

Werehorse - what a great sounding party/competion! No wonder Oscar was soo flat out with floppy legs  bless him!

Dogless - Sorry to hear you had such and eventful walk that left you feeling soo bad  Personally I would have just carried on walking regardless of the terrified reactions I was getting ... they soon jump out your way when they realise your not stopping :arf:
Her reaction was OTT and you have the patience of a saint, it is difficult not to get irritated/frustrated by irrational people and if you pander to them too much all you do is reinforce their irrational behaviour  or is that just me being mean :aureola:

Beth17 - hope your feeling loads better now 
Sounds like you had a good day down the beach 


Sarah - D'oh! Hubbies eh  sometimes it seems peeps have to train both dogs and OH have the same time 
Also, be glad your not craving a diet of cabbage and beans :arf: There can be all sorts of reasons behind cravings, hopefully it either passes or you can get to the bottom of it ..... did I juast make a few puns in that :lol:

Thorne - sounds like Scooter and Breeze are doing well 
Fingers crossed you can get back to drier walks soon and off the dull pavements! 

Catz4m8z - like you, when I hear about others dogs, that do things like snap for crazy thinks such as being told to get off the sofa etc... makes me realise I am lucky to have had atleast polite and well mannered dogs, even if they are terrible with the obedience side of training!
And just when do your holidays end 



Well... now onto Toppa :w00t:

Toilet training :thumbsup:
Socialising :thumbsup:
Nipping  two steps back
Barking :mad2: it extends to joggers and other yappy dogs and dark clothed people with brollies and well, lets just say the list of what doesn't get barked at is smaller than what he does bark at.
Bins :thumbsup:

As Toppa wasn't eating the Wagg that was sent with him (it was actually my friends dog food and not from previous owner) I decided to get him some new food and for no real reason, decided to go with arden grange for puppies as it was in pets at home and I almost recalled it being known as a half decent food from here. It is in much smaller bite size pieces, so should be more managable for Toppa. He has hardly touched it, just taking one or two pieces to nibble at. I think he will be better suited to raw food as when I offer him bits of raw when I am preparing my tea, he can't eat it quick enough, but can not give him raw til I get a new fridgefreezer and have the space to store it. 

(leaving it there as Toppa just walked over my keyboard and now my window is showing as on its side on my screen, so this is getting difficult to type with my head tilted and using the mouse is just impossible!)


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## moonviolet

Freddie and frank said:


> Perhaps chain mail gloves would be an answer.
> I'll try dropping them as he's not a brilliant catch, bless him.


I find Tink can be a bit of a finger scraper when she's a bit stressed so at those times I give her treats in a flat hand like a horse.

Dropping on a pavement would worry me unless the pavement is clear of other munchables and your treats aren't prone to bouncing.


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## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I find Tink can be a bit of a finger scraper when she's a bit stressed so at those times I give her treats in a flat hand like a horse.
> 
> Dropping on a pavement would worry me unless the pavement is clear of other munchables and your treats aren't prone to bouncing.


Flat hand doesn't work with Spencer, just means he gets all my fingers and the palm of my hand  Honest to god it's like feeding a crocodile! What I've been doing is having the treat in my palm but under my thumb and only releasing it when he's gentle about trying to get it.

F&F, I'll have you know that I am a lady and do not fart 

Sailor, I hope the craving passes too! And isn't replaced with something worse. And yes, lots of puns in that little comment of yours lol.


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## kaz25

I'm going to try the sit and watch me. They both know sit, no problem! I think bindi will pick up watch me quicker than Benny but then she isn't as bothered about other dogs as Benny is. Will start in the house then slowly increase distractions etc.

How long do you spend on each thing when training? Don't want to spend too long doing the same thing. Also, which treats do you use?


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## catz4m8z

Sarah1983 said:


> Flat hand doesn't work with Spencer, just means he gets all my fingers and the palm of my hand  Honest to god it's like feeding a crocodile! What I've been doing is having the treat in my palm but under my thumb and only releasing it when he's gentle about trying to get it.


I have a finger snatcher too!! Heidi (of course it would be my problem child!!LOL). I hold treats in a closed fist then push them out between my fingers so she has to nibble for it, avoiding the awkward moment when she realieses that my fingers arent detachable no matter how hard she bites!


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I find Tink can be a bit of a finger scraper when she's a bit stressed so at those times I give her treats in a flat hand like a horse.


I like that or holding the treat between my index and middle fingers on the palm side of my hand if that makes sense - palm facing dog, hand straight and fingers pointing down - they can't grab fingers that way and you can keep moving.

Sailor - Toppa sounds like a little star on balance if a bit noisy, even for a terrier :scared:. Have you tried soaking his food in some boiling water to soften it a little? Maybe it's his teefs?

I just took Rudi for a very short walk round the block - it's so windy that it was a real challenge...so many moving things to chase hmy:. Chase = excitement = launch shark attacks on human's trousers :w00t:. Saviour = he is a fab little fella at giving you his attention when asked . We got a 'sit' at every kerb too :thumbup:.

Then took poor Kilo for only a 40 minute walk as the wind has reached 'can't stand upright on the sports pitches' velocity and the rain is coming in with a vengeance. Just spoke to hubby (back at work now ) and he's off to tie the aircraft down so t'is pretty windy!! I wasn't letting the BW off either as wind = very, very chasey mode and dark = way more sensitive to movement and sound, full on hunt mode. He walked like I didn't have a dog on the lead :thumbup::thumbup:. Mind you, nothing seen in that weather.


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## Werehorse

Some more pictures from the party on this thread... http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/282722-every-time-bell-rings.html


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Some more pictures from the party on this thread... http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/282722-every-time-bell-rings.html


Hugo looks as if he is actually going to fly on the first one .


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## moonviolet

The pics are great W/H you must be so proud of your boys, on the fancy dress prize... you was robbed!

C4M my first dog was called Heidi she was the scruffiest broken coated jrt. She once almost drowned herself playing with the garden hose in the time it took for my mum to turn it on and walk back to the end to pick it up. She rode in the basket on the front of my bike  SHe could destroy a tennis ball in under 10 seconds by first dehairing then breaking into tiny pieces, He water obsession was legendary and on more than one occasion swam in my bath. Maybe there's something about the name :lol:

Today has been a bit too social for personal preference, but when I bumped into a guy who was very hepful with his collies when Tink was very nervous and whose wife drowned around christmas time a couple of years back and he clearly wanted the company, my preferences got put aside. I'd already organised to walk with Monty and his mum tonight so no solo time with my girl today although i have to say both walks were nice the second was getting a bit blowly and even the malfunctioning hunting dog was a bit more up on her toes. 

Rather relieved when OH asked if it was ok if he didn't come out tomorrow :thumbup: Think i hid my smile sufficiently.:


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Oh my, just getting ready for a walk up the woods with a lovely PF member and her doggie.. and it just got dark again and is CHUCKING it down!! eeeek heres hoping its just a quick one. really dont fancy going out in it. Lots of towels now added to the list to take with us.


Hope it goes well - we just got in; soaking .

Took both CHs out early this morning - all good. Just went to the field 5 minutes' walk away and did plenty of playing and recalls and sits. If dogs can show off Kilo did - he has always loved being faster than most other dogs I'm sure and puts a turn of speed on just as they catch him but today was maximum speed laps of the field :scared:. Beautiful to watch but little Rudi was puppy running about in bemusement without a hope of getting near him, love him :001_wub:.

Once Kilo had finished showboating he played some tug with his toy with Rudi and they did a bit of wrestling and keep away too .


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Dogless

Leam; your walk sounds superb :thumbup::thumbup:.

I hope that your cat and horse are OK - never rains but it pours 'eh? :scared:.

With a sensible head on I'd probably say to get Deeks really settled and his behaviour about where you want it before getting another dog. I am sure you know all that anyway and I wish you luck whatever you decide!


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## Dogless

This evening's walks went well. Took LCH just round the block again doing LLW stuff - he offers so much eye contact and attention. I can't recall Kilo doing the same; he was a real scavenger and constantly scanning the pavement for anything he could pick up and swallow, even used to scrape up chewing gum. The guilty part of me wonders if he did and I missed it as I've learnt so much more since he was a pup .

Did 40 minutes' of lead walking with Kilo, he walked like a dream :thumbup: followed by half an hour's play offlead and then home. Saw the huge entire male black lab who doesn't much like Kilo and pulls to get to other dogs but who has oblivious owners being walked by their very small 11 year old so went the long way home so our walk remained relaxed .


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## chazzie10

Some of the best walks seem to be in the rain dont they?
We had our 'big' walk this morning- just a street walk as Charlie seems to have forgotten how to walk to heel in the last week 
He wasnt pulling like a train but WAS insisting on keeping just a wee bit further ahead than I would like. Its my fault really as Id got a bit complacent recently with him being so good- that, bad weather, and Christmas happening we were just doing shorter walks+ play sessions in the garden and my son walked him a few times so no wonder he's slipped back 
To cap it all torrential rain came on as we turned for home (25mins away), it only rained for about 4 minutes but we were drenched....it wasnt raining before and it hasnt rained since  typical 
Oh well, it all ended good as the rain must have shocked Charlie into slowing down


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## speug

I thought Deeks did really well today - within minutes he was quite happy being round Angus and trying to persuade him to play. It's a shame Angus wasn't in a more playful mood and was too busy following scents to play chase properly, but Deeks seemed to be happy enough playing "catch the collie" as Gus hunted. And it's nice to see he has more sense than to deliberately go for a swim in weather like today!

He wasn't too happy when we met the other dogs but to be fair they had just been having a go at the GSDs we didn't meet so they were't the calmest either and when he saw that Angus just lay down and watched them he subsided fairly quickly.

From what I saw of him and his behaviour today I'd say he's just a young lad who has been through a lot of change in his life and is still trying to make sense of things and get his head round the way dogs act round here as it's totally different to living in a pack like he did when he was younger. But he's got a lovely temperment and when he's more used to things he seems perfectly happy and calm about things so it's just a case of finding more chances for him to meet up with other dogs. (Angus will happily volunteer for another walk)

Don't know about Deeks but apart from a fairly short walk about 4 Angus has been upside down on the settee, sound asleep with all his feet in the air ever since we got home - always the sign of a good walk.


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## GingerRogers

F & F - Glad you are a bit more mobile now and well done with Bella's weight loss. As far as Frank is concerned I am no expert as we all know  but I think the point of the click is the mark and as long as its not ages he will still get it. I do however chuck treats on the ground, sometimes they roll away and sometimes I think Ginge probably ingests a lot of sand when we are on the beach but rather that than my fingers. She only snaps when her threshold is reached, actually I have a certain pair of fingerless gloves that seem to have helped as the slip over my fingers and she has got mouthfuls of wool a few times, makes her more careful what she chomps on! Another trick I read about was to feed the treat right under their chin so they have to tuck their head back to take it and this apparently makes it harder to snatch.

LO - hope you are feeling better and what a lovely neighbour you have!

Sailor - sounds like you have a bone fide terrier there  good luck with the barking, we barked at a mans shoes the other night, they were very white and shining in the dark, luckily we know him. Ginge was very reluctant to eat when we first got her, every bit had to be removed from the bowl and carefully taken somewhere else to be ingested. She is still a bit timid even on raw, not so good when she can't keep the food on the towel we have down for her, as if we pick it up and put it back where we want she is reluctant to eat 
ps. we also have a keyboard walker!

Werehorse - just checked out the party pics, Oscar is so attentive and cute when he is being 'awesome' well the pair of them are

Leam - sounds like a lovely day, how good of speug, it is nice to have someone who is happy to be that experiment when you aren't quite sure of your dogs intentions.

Dogless - for dogs sake will you stop with the guilt  unless you are a big fat liar, you are doing and have done brilliantly with your two, there is bound to be differences even if they are the same breed.


Despite being full of cold (and OH has it too, not happy as he has only just got over one ) I managed a good hour at lunchtime the little one was very patient but the jumping on the bed and nipping of hands gradually got more insistent  and then another 30 mins in the dark. On the lunchtime walk we saw barely a soul which surprised me as it actually wasn't raining  apart from one dog walker, I had turned to go back but then brain kicked in and I recognised the dog as Caesar Milans gordon setter, being walked by Mrs Milan who isn't quite so bad, so I thought stuff it lets use them as practice with all their oh just trust your dog and let them get on with it stuff. Sure enough Ginge started scrabbing towards them and then barking while Sasha almost leapt on her, she does that, a very over eager dog totally out of control (smug grin), so actually quite suited to the ginger one. I reined Ginge in and Mrs M said 'oh just let them greet', I said 'well I don't want her to take take a chunk out of your dog really', she said, 'she wont' I gave her a 'really!' look and told her about the terrier incident with which she declared that was ok then if it was a terrier (er take a look at my dog numpty ) I do wonder how she knows my dog better than me .

As it happens, she didn't and play bowed and then play barked, she kind of snaps her head to the side, does it to us so I know what she meant, and Mrs M looked alarmed, I was confidently able to say she is only playing! And we went on our way.

Thanks Sarah the stick targeting stuff is going well, even hubby commented on how clever she is (her not me ). Can anyone point me in the direction of how to turn stick targeting into something else, when do I give a different command etc


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## Dogless

Like the idea of you and Ginge discombobulating Mrs Milan GR :thumbup::thumbup:.


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## Werehorse

We had a lovely walk today - another Wainwright for the boys, Rannerdale Knots. Just a little one as I didn't fancy higher ground today. I do worry about cliffs and things but the boys seem to be quite sensible on rough ground so they stayed offlead and there wasn't even a dicey moment, they are very good at staying in sight and being re-directed as well.

Oscar has gradually developed an annoying habit of barking every time we stand still for a moment. I blame OH for throwing things for him, which he has now stopped doing but Oscar still expects it and barks :mad2:. It does keep us moving up the damn hills though because being out of breath is better than his squeeky bark. :lol: I think this might have to be the next thing to work on but not sure how to start... if I have a treat and ask for attention I get a short amount of time before he gets fidgetty and barks (although he will sit nicely at the side of the path if something is coming  and when he's on-lead he's completely fine). Hmmm. Will have to have a think. It does mean I get lots of pictures of him barking when I'm trying to get him to pose, which is reasonably amusing, but he is a spaniel, he's supposed to be quiet! BUt mostly when we stop he doesn't actually need to stop too he could keep mooching but he doesn't! He comes and shouts at us until we get going again! 

I also need to work on his drop it....

Ideally when he's running around on the fellside with a flesh-free but still articulated sheep's leg swinging from his gob I want "drop it" to work.  Fortunately Hugo can be told to "go get it off him" which he does (Oscar gives up pretty much anything to Hugo, bless him) and then HUGO can can relied upon to "drop it" on command and they both leave it then.  There was also a diving in and grabbing a bit of not quite so long dead sheep's fleece and giving it a good shake but fortunately "leave it" and "this way" and pegging it off down the hill worked with that one. Grim, really grim.

They were perfect with some alive sheep though, walked nicely to heel (pretty much) past them and didn't even seem to notice. So that was good.


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## Beth17

Ginge hope you're feeling better soon and sounds like a really good walk.

Werehorse the dead sheep sound lovely :scared: Well done to the boys for ignoring the live sheep though.

Dogless stop worrying your boys are doing great and we all have to start somewhere 

Leam it's lovely when they behave and you can have a good walk isn't it 

Chazzie hope the LLW comes back soon I find the rain makes my two more daft 

Had good walks today with my two as went to the field and didn't see a soul either time due tot he rain. It meant Sam could go offlead the whole time which is much easier with all the mud. We just practised some recall and trying to leave his toy whilst I pick it up.
Oscar has started to be a bit naughty and near the end of our walks and he keeps going ahead so he doesn't have to go home  So have to work on that but shouldn't take long to get it back.


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## catz4m8z

\Seems like everyone has had some lovely (waterlogged) walks lately!
I really need to up my walking, Im such a lazy bint!! I figure that even if the dogs hate the rain I can always just drag one out and give the other 3 a repreive so I get more exercise!!LOL
Big day Monday, as Alfie is having his second vaccs so in another week or so we will be walking!:thumbup: (only on the flexi at first coz the vets wont microchip until he is abit bigger and Im not letting him off until he has been.)


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## Thorne

-Dogless, glad Rudi's focus is good despite the gales and that him and Kilo didn't decide to hunt the leaves! Would love to watch the BW in show-off mode.
-MV, I know how you feel about alone time, not had any with mine today so looking forward to tomorrow's walk/s.
-Leam, hope your critters are on the mend soon, glad Deeks and Angus got on well.
-GR, Breeze does the same sideways bark and snap! Has spooked a couple of dogs including Scooter! Hope your cold hurries away soon.
-Werehorse, lovely pics on both threads, so pleased they're being sensible up on the crags.
-Beth, another good walk in the rain! Wish mine were more tolerant of precipitation because I cherish solo walks!


kaz25 said:


> I'm going to try the sit and watch me. They both know sit, no problem! I think bindi will pick up watch me quicker than Benny but then she isn't as bothered about other dogs as Benny is. Will start in the house then slowly increase distractions etc.
> 
> How long do you spend on each thing when training? Don't want to spend too long doing the same thing. Also, which treats do you use?


I don't have a set rule for how long I spend training each thing, so long as we end on a good note where something has been achieved!
Short but sweet  Cheese is my guys' favourite but I use any meat we've got available, kibble and hot dog sausages. Schmackos and Harringtons Training Treats go down well too. Breeze loses concentration with really exciting treats so we have to save them for really good work!

My aunt and uncle visited today with Milo Goldie and Maisie Sprocker so we took all 4 dogs on a long one. Gave them all a good offlead blast then put Scooter back onlead as he tends to harass little Maisie (he's infatuated with her for some reason) and we took the route he keeps trying to disappear on. Breeze has run miles and miles after Maisie today! Milo tends to be a trotter but the Spanner is a sprinter, gave Breeze a run for her money :thumbup:
My horrid yellow dog normally goes offlead down the (very very quiet) lane we followed but has started trying to duck into people's gardens so that's going to have to stop  She used to try it when she was very traffic-phobic but think she's now doing it for fun because she's a nosey sort, the big wag is a giveaway! 
She also tried to go home with a man and his lovely big black Lab who we ended up walking with for a while, worryingly I think she'd go with anyone so long as they had a dog... a few wobbles but generally a good walk all round!


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## Freddie and frank

just a quicky....i've just made some liver treats....think i cooked them for too long....   :lol::lol::lol:
just wanted to share.


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## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> just a quicky....i've just made some liver treats....think i cooked them for too long....   :lol::lol::lol:
> just wanted to share.


If that's just liver they always go black so they look burnt.....but shiny black if you do them on a low temp for ages.....yours just look burnt :scared::scared: or like black pudding :scared:. MMmmmmmm...black pudding .


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## Dogless

Thorne said:


> -Dogless, glad Rudi's focus is good despite the gales and that him and Kilo didn't decide to hunt the leaves! Would love to watch the BW in show-off mode.
> -MV, I know how you feel about alone time, not had any with mine today so looking forward to tomorrow's walk/s.
> -Leam, hope your critters are on the mend soon, glad Deeks and Angus got on well.
> -GR, Breeze does the same sideways bark and snap! Has spooked a couple of dogs including Scooter! Hope your cold hurries away soon.
> -Werehorse, lovely pics on both threads, so pleased they're being sensible up on the crags.
> -Beth, another good walk in the rain! Wish mine were more tolerant of precipitation because I cherish solo walks!
> 
> I don't have a set rule for how long I spend training each thing, so long as we end on a good note where something has been achieved!
> Short but sweet  Cheese is my guys' favourite but I use any meat we've got available, kibble and hot dog sausages. Schmackos and Harringtons Training Treats go down well too. Breeze loses concentration with really exciting treats so we have to save them for really good work!
> 
> My aunt and uncle visited today with Milo Goldie and Maisie Sprocker so we took all 4 dogs on a long one. Gave them all a good offlead blast then put Scooter back onlead as he tends to harass little Maisie (he's infatuated with her for some reason) and we took the route he keeps trying to disappear on. Breeze has run miles and miles after Maisie today! Milo tends to be a trotter but the Spanner is a sprinter, gave Breeze a run for her money :thumbup:
> My horrid yellow dog normally goes offlead down the (very very quiet) lane we followed but has started trying to duck into people's gardens so that's going to have to stop  She used to try it when she was very traffic-phobic but think she's now doing it for fun because she's a nosey sort, the big wag is a giveaway!
> She also tried to go home with a man and his lovely big black Lab who we ended up walking with for a while, worryingly I think she'd go with anyone so long as they had a dog... a few wobbles but generally a good walk all round!


I'll get a video one day - too dark this morning; it was just getting light and was raining!! They do hunt the leaves but it wasn't as bad today by any means as yesterday :scared:.

The idea of Breeze just being nosy tickles me, don't know why!!


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## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> If that's just liver they always go black so they look burnt.....but shiny black if you do them on a low temp for ages.....yours just look burnt :scared::scared: or like black pudding :scared:. MMmmmmmm...black pudding .


Yes, completely cremated. I did a high temperature for ages. :scared:

Now for a catch up.


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## ballybee

not much to reprt here, Tummels having good days and bad days regarding other dogs, today he was able to say a quick hello and play bow with a wee collie but then tensed up when he saw a lab. We took them to a beach on boxing day and Tummel was a nightmare, there was lots of people, dogs and bired(all on the beach) and he just got so overexcited he had no hope of getting offlead, Dan was offlead and was amazing, really did us proud but we had to cut up back onto the grassy area as Tummel got pretty frantic, he was lunging, yelping etc etc and calmed down pretty quickly after we got off the beach.

His recall did start to get worse but really picked up today, we played on his favourite climbing frame and i got my new book today(just a beginners book to brain games, he can do a lot of them already but it's a good start) and a tennis ball on a rope which i am using for my target, Tummel has clicked already and loves touching the ball, i hope to progress to being able to do this outside to distract him.

Dan is good as always, nothing to report other than he was able to do a it/stay while the collie ran upto him and greeted it when i told him he could


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## Thorne

Dogless said:


> I'll get a video one day - too dark this morning; it was just getting light and was raining!! They do hunt the leaves but it wasn't as bad today by any means as yesterday :scared:.
> 
> The idea of Breeze just being nosy tickles me, don't know why!!


She's terrible! Today she ducked under the Old Rectory's hedge (which isn't much of a hedge at all) and tried to get into their barn  Wholly enthusiastic demeanor unlike her usual hiding attempts when she gets spooked. She's the same when we visit friends, especially a farming family; has to look at everything and go everywhere!


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## Freddie and frank

Sounds like everyone has had good days, despite loads of rain. 

Dogless, I can't believe an 11yr old is walking a huge lab, I won't let my 14yr old walk any of ours on his own and he's taller than me. 

GR, it's great being more mobile but probably done more than I should. I'm not one to do what I'm told. :scared: not tried the under the chin treat, thanks.


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## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Sounds like everyone has had good days, despite loads of rain.
> 
> Dogless, I can't believe an 11yr old is walking a huge lab, I won't let my 14yr old walk any of ours on his own and he's taller than me.
> 
> GR, it's great being more mobile but probably done more than I should. I'm not one to do what I'm told. :scared: not tried the under the chin treat, thanks.


I know her Mum well and had words; she said the child only walked him now and again - but she seems to do most of the walks, I see her a lot. People also walk in season bitches here a lot too which concerns me with him being entire - I know Kilo is very hard to handle when we meet or follow one. The dog has snapped 5 haltis with his pulling according to Mum and pulls her over regularly :scared:.

It's just a recipe for disaster - he is friendly and comes back when he's finished playing apparently ...but his body language certainly isn't totally friendly and when he had a good old growl at Kilo (who was lying down onlead) an adult walking their dog had to come and grab the dog and put him onlead for the child. Just makes me worry for the girl more than anything that she'll get into something she can't handle .


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Like the idea of you and Ginge discombobulating Mrs Milan GR :thumbup::thumbup:.


Ooh that's one of my favourite words. It was amusing.


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Ooh that's one of my favourite words. It was amusing.


Mine too - so descriptive . I'm being an old slosha tonight so my good words are emerging .


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## GingerRogers

Most of my others are French. Champignon even though i hate them (dirty snail like things) bringing me to escargot and pamplemousse. Then Rubel and ola, ola is so much more cheerful than hello for some reason. Then there's the polish swear words but i can't write them


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Most of my others are French. Champignon even though i hate them (dirty snail like things) bringing me to escargot and pamplemousse. Then Rubel and ola, ola is so much more cheerful than hello for some reason. Then there's the polish swear words but i can't write them


Hmmm.... off the top of my head.....

I like alles uber ze platz....describes so many things, a very 'army' thing to say .


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## Freddie and frank

GingerRogers said:


> Most of my others are French. Champignon even though i hate them (dirty snail like things) bringing me to escargot and pamplemousse. Then Rubel and ola, ola is so much more cheerful than hello for some reason. Then there's the polish swear words but i can't write them


Lol, I know a polish girl who swears in English. It's so funny to hear her but I can't write those either. :scared:


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Hmmm.... off the top of my head.....
> 
> I like alles uber ze platz....describes so many things, a very 'army' thing to say .


Awe didn't do German. Trying to work it out.


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Awe didn't do German. Trying to work it out.


Pretty much 'all over the place' (everything about ze place really - bastardised for squaddie use!). As in "there are dogs alles uber ze platz today" .


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## GingerRogers

I actually Googled it and it came up a lot. On squaddie forums 
makes sense when you say it phonetically.


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Dogless

WOW!!!! Well done Deeks!!!!!!!

Just got in from a very wet, cold and windy walk - took both CHs again to the closest fields and played and did some recalls and sits again. Rudi wasn't keen on going when he realised what the weather was doing but soon forgot about it....he was wearing his navy fleece with red stars on that's waaaaay too big for him; looked really cute . They both behaved very well for me - nothing seen at all as it was early and horrible out!!


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> I notice that sometimes its best to go out when its horrible, you get peace and quiet with no distractions (other than leaves blowing about) to do some training outside the house and garden.
> 
> How come no pics of Rudi in his fleece? Hes such a cute wee monster, love seeing picks of him and Kilo together x


I like it when summer is over and all the "whhheeeeee I only get out of my garden for two days a year and it is GRRREEEEAAAAAT" dogs are gone for another year. Bad weather can be fabulous .

I'll get some....he looks like a poor wee soul in it as it's so big - it was already made up and a real bargain so I ordered it; it just about lets him wee without weeing on it :scared:.

Here they are a few minutes ago.....just for you .














































You can see that I *might* have bought Rudi a coordinating collar to match Kilo's......


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## Guest

WOAH WELL DONE DEEKS!!! AND well done rudi and kilo too. 

My mum took himself for an hour yesterday I started to panic as usually she only takes him out for tne minutes lol. 

HIS NEW COLLAR ARRIVED. He looks fabulous in it. 

Had a friend round and Zander spent all his time being as physically close to her as possible. He's never had a cuddle obviously haha.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> WOAH WELL DONE DEEKS!!! AND well done rudi and kilo too.
> 
> My mum took himself for an hour yesterday I started to panic as usually she only takes him out for tne minutes lol.
> 
> HIS NEW COLLAR ARRIVED. He looks fabulous in it.
> 
> Had a friend round and Zander spent all his time being as physically close to her as possible. He's never had a cuddle obviously haha.


All well and good; but where are the photos? .


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Now see if i had a bigger house and didnt know my limitations i would deffinately be stealing them both! Love the coordinating collars! Also think i'll steal your sofas, do you not find it hard with muddy paws and fabric sofas? im desperate for one but like the easy wipe clean leather too.


No; they are treated with 'stain guard' stuff and any marks come out easily - and only a small house is required! Most of the mud is captured by me with a towel and the excess absorbed by the carpet :scared: before the sofa is reached! Luckily I have a fabulous carpet cleaner . We had a leather sofa that we were going to replace anyway when we moved....good job as it got all scratched up.


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## sailor

Kaz25 - how is the sit and watch me going? Hopefully Bindi will be a good role model for Benny.
I can only get Toppa to do this when my backs turned to him whilst I cook my bacon!

Dogless - everytime you mention windy walks I keep thinking the problem is that it is soo strong 
Rudi and Kilo resemble kites... then I realised the problem was Rudi & Kilo chasing things being blown
by the wind..... I am sooo dumb and slow :lol:
Sounds like Kilo is enjoying being the big brother! Bet Rudi is picking up plenty of tips tho and imagine 
it wont be long before Kilo is finding it hard to keep up with his little brother 
I wouldn't worry about things you might have missed when Kilo was a pup, like eye contact etc, as Kilo seems 
to have grown up into a lovely boy 
HAd to cringe about the 11 year old and big black lab... but only because when I was 12 I had a big black entire lab that 
I used to walk EVERYWHERE with me for years, from country to town centres and he wasn't the easiest of dogs either  

Werehorse - loving the pics, I have a soft spot for Spaniels as it is, but with added wings @w00t: 
When you figure out how to stop Oscar barking, tell me your secrets so I can try them on Toppa :W00t:
(really thankful I never come across dead sheep)

Moonviolet - sounds like you are becoming quite the social butterfly! 

Leam1307 - Sounds like you had a good walk with Speug and the doggies...you can always tell when a dogs had a really 
really good walk, by how much they sleep afterwards lol it is amazing how much clamer dogs are after a decent walk!
Sorry to hear about the kitty and Horse tho 
I found a puncture wound on my friends dog last night, she was mortified that she hadn't seen it before (her sibe 
attacked by a neighbours dog on Thursday), so his at the vets today to see if it needs stitches! 
Oh, WELL DONE DEEKS!!! *just seen your latest post, how brilliant has he been 

Chazzie10 - You seem to have a persnal rain cloud there! Mine always comes out when I have to walk kiddies to school 
or I plan a nice long coast/country walk, le sigh!
Glad to hear the rain slowed Charlie down tho!

GingerRogers - Sounds like Ginge is a right clown, bless. Got abit confused with the whole Mrs Milan and Sasha thing. But glad 
Ginge got some good practice out of them 

Beth17 - sounds like a nive lonely wet walk! No idea how you can get Oscar to look more enthusiastic about heading home tho!

Catz4m8z - here is your chance to make Alfie the rain loving one! Always take him out in the rain and maybe he will become accustomed to it!?

Thorne - I can sympathise with the garden divers! Sailor used to be a bugger for it...every garden would be inspected given the chance, but he was
onlead and would drag me along with him 

BallyBee - lovely to hear how well Dan is doing, shame about Tummel, but I am sure he will come right in the end, you sound like a persistant and 
determined owner 


Aaaaaaaand now Toppa!

Toilet training is going brilliantly, no accidents at all yesterday and he even barked at me on Friday evening to be let out for a pee  

Socialising, again, pets at home is proving to be very useful and on the way there and back Toppa enjoys barking at everyone and everything 
The barking only stops when the thing being barked at comes over to say hello  luckily tho, if I say LEAVE IT he does give me a quick glance and will quieten down, so there is hope atleast!

Nipping, the only saving grace is that he nips gently  giving him toys and chews does help, but still, hands near him at any time make great nibbling items.

Barking, he doesn't bark soo much for attention now, but I think that is simply because there are people always around him and when one isn't giving him attention, another is! The real test will be nex - next week when Kids go back to school and I am sat at desk working ... got ear plugs at he ready!

feeding - bins, Dogless was spot on, I boiled up some water and soaked his kibble ... he wolfed it down and is now happily eating eating 3 meals a day. He also gets chopped raw bacon in a kong in the morning when he is at his most hyperist (is that even a word?) and tis is a great disraction. 
No bins in sight, so he hasn't had the temptation, but I am hoping now he is in a decent feeding routine and eating well, that I will beable to put the bins back down soon. (right now they are ontop of a big box that he can not reach).

Have to share abit of cuteness 
Now, Toppa has won me and my family over hook line and sinker. I do let the little guy sleep in my bed (unheard of peviously, dogs in bed was a rare luxury!), he knows the drill and looks forward to bed time. As soon as I am in bed, he will curl up alongside me and fall asleep, not waking til next morning.
But last night I was pratting about and obviously Toppa was tired. So I put him on my bed while I dried my hair (he doesn't bat an eyelid at the hair dryer! very brave) and instead of waiting for me to get settled, Toppa made a bee line for my pillows and started to burrow under the duvet.. did a u turn, so his but was under the duvet and head on pillow, then he lay down with a sigh and closed his eyes. ( i never let him under te duvet, his always ontop the duvet )
He is such a character and clearly knows what he wants and gets it himself :lol:


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## Dogless

Sailor, I'm so pleased that Toppa is eating; before you know it you'll hear the sweet, sweet sound of nasty puppy teeth pinging up the vacuum cleaner .

He seems to be doing brilliantly and training his humans very efficiently, bless him . 

At least there's hope with the barking if 'leave it' has some effect. Coupled with a 'watch me' when that's sorted you should be under control in no time at all :thumbup::thumbup:.


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## ballybee

lol what an awful day here!!! Took the boys to the golf course(there's an open park type area for them to run) and it was so windy we were being blown everywhere!!! Both boys were really good, i thought we'd only been there 20 minutes but the rain started lashing us so i leashed up(there were idiots trying to play golf here!!) and headed for shelter, we sat in a wee benched area and watched as a GSD, JRT and collie all went past( very tricky for Tummel as he thinks every GSD is Dino and doesn't like collies or JRT's) with no reaction from Tummel, he was curious but didn't lunge/growl at all, we did pass a spaniel while out and Tummel did get tense but when i told him to come with me he turned and i didn't have to drag him away 

This new routine i have is hopefully having an effect, i'm making them work a lot more for food now(they still get s portion twice a day but i keep roughly 100g back for each boy to use inside for training) so i hope Tummels focused a lot more on me


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## speug

ballybee said:


> lol what an awful day here!!! Took the boys to the golf course(there's an open park type area for them to run) and it was so windy we were being blown everywhere!!! Both boys were really good, i thought we'd only been there 20 minutes but the rain started lashing us so i leashed up(there were idiots trying to play golf here!!) and headed for shelter, we sat in a wee benched area and watched as a GSD, JRT and collie all went past( very tricky for Tummel as he thinks every GSD is Dino and doesn't like collies or JRT's) with no reaction from Tummel, he was curious but didn't lunge/growl at all, we did pass a spaniel while out and Tummel did get tense but when i told him to come with me he turned and i didn't have to drag him away
> 
> This new routine i have is hopefully having an effect, i'm making them work a lot more for food now(they still get s portion twice a day but i keep roughly 100g back for each boy to use inside for training) so i hope Tummels focused a lot more on me


Give me a shout if you want Angus to come and practise being a nice and non-reactive collie for Tummel - they've got on fine on PF walks in the past (mainly ignoring each other as Tummel's too busy playing with Dino and Angus is too busy lusting after Dexter) so should hopefully be ok and if he does kick off - Angus won't be worried by it and won't react back


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## Dogless

speug said:


> Give me a shout if you want Angus to come and practise being a nice and non-reactive collie for Tummel - they've got on fine on PF walks in the past (mainly ignoring each other as Tummel's too busy playing with Dino and Angus is too busy lusting after Dexter) so should hopefully be ok and if he does kick off - Angus won't be worried by it and won't react back


You'll have to start charging an hourly rate :scared: .


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## ballybee

speug said:


> Give me a shout if you want Angus to come and practise being a nice and non-reactive collie for Tummel - they've got on fine on PF walks in the past (mainly ignoring each other as Tummel's too busy playing with Dino and Angus is too busy lusting after Dexter) so should hopefully be ok and if he does kick off - Angus won't be worried by it and won't react back


lol thats true, i'm thinking of arranging a meet prety soon, probably just in Fife, i would love it if you and Angus came over, i honestly have no idea where this dislike of collies has come from so Angus would be mighty helpful


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## Twiggy

Just got back from visiting my sister in Sussex for the week-end.

I'm pleased to say she looks much better than she did when I saw her in hospital just over two weeks ago. Eastbourne Hospital weren't very happy with her blood counts last Thursday but hopefully they will have improved when she has them taken again tomorrow.

Had a pretty good journey there and back (310 mile round trip) and after close inspection all my dogs are still breathing and all their legs are still intact.....


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## chazzie10

That's good about your sis Twiggy. I'm sure she was glad of your company and chat. Let's hope she continues to improve


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## Dogless

Pleased that your sister's bearing up Twiggy and the dogs are still in one piece...but have they left the OH intact too? .


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## Beth17

Sailor Toppa sounds an absolute character and doing really well. Good luck getting the barking under control I think they just like the sound of their own voice sometimes 

Dogless the CH did well and coordinating collars is a must 

Twiggy how lovely to spend time with your sister and come home to find the dogs in one piece  I hope her blood count is a bit better at her next check.

Ballybee well done to Tummel for behaving sounds as if the food plan is working for you. I may start trying that with my two.

THE SUN IS OUT!!!!!! :

Finally we have had a lovely, warm and sunny walk. Sam went first today and managed to have most of his walk offlead. I did some running about like a loon with him which he loved as trying to keep myself as interesting as possible. I looked around and a man was walking through with his dog  
It was alright though as his dog, which was a whippet x springer, and Sam had a lovely run around together.

When they had moved on we worked a bit more on impulse control with his toy, he was getting very silly and jumping up trying to get it and nipping my hands but I persisted and it started to sink in again at the end.

Oscar was on his best behaviour today and was quite the social butterfly. Didn't have to worry about him running off at the end as we were walking behind a group of dogs and people and couldn't get past and so put him onlead as he wanted to go and investigate and just practised walking nicely and avoiding temptation which did him good :thumbup:

I did get home to find Sam had eaten half a pot of bbq pringles


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## ballybee

Well we've just had a quite honestly excellent walk 

Decided to take the boys upto the high school with my new ball launcher(present from OH's mum) and some treats to do some training with Tummel while occupying Dan by chucking a ball around....ended up doing individual fetches with them as for the first time in his 2.5 years of life Tummel played fetch properly!!! He was so happy that i had treats and his recall was brilliant, i would say on this walk he recalled 90% of the time :thumbup:

I let the boys have a good old wrestle to burn off some energy(i didn't let them before as Tummel was able to take Dan down very quickly and hurt him while doing so) and they were great, not too rough(not rough enough for Tummel but pretty rough by normal standards) and Dan managed to tell Tummel to stop all by himself  Even when i released them to go sniff they were both very focused on me and even Tummel was checking in 

Dans now chewing on an old filled bone and Tummels dozing at my feet, really wish i'd brought my camera but i thought i'd have too much to cope with already so didn't bother!!!


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## GingerRogers

Sailor - sounds like Toppa has well and truly wheedled his way in to your family and that he wont take long to settle down, great that he listens to leave it, we have had 4 months of trying and still getting not very far 

Leam - wow!! thats an improvement and a half, Angus obviously showed him a good example 

Ballybee - well one bad walk followed by an excellent one, well done Tummel

Twiggy - so glad your sister is looking up, being back at home must be helping some.

Beth - we had SUNSHINE as well   Sounds like your boys are behaving themselves and I am sure Sam just wanted to help you out, the BBQ ones are the worst.

We have had an excellent walk on the lovely quiet estate. Sheep are apparently not interesting in the slightest. Lots of good recalls as well.


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## Sarah1983

We've had another quite nice walk to the park today. I'm trying to go at times when it won't be really busy at the moment since Spen is way distracted by even just a few people being around. Loose leash walking wasn't great on the way there but I've been slacking. Again. But then again he wasn't pulling hard, just tension on the leash really. And on the way home he kept offering to walk next to me.

The ducks weren't as cooperative today, they kept flapping and making lots of noise and splashing in the water so of course he had a whine at them. He seems to think they'll be friends with him too. He also wasn't impressed at a bloke fishing, his hackles were up, he did a lot of huffing and growling at first but he soon settled down and ignored him.

We spent some time sitting on a bench and practising sits, downs and some eye contact. He can't hold eye contact for long in such a distracting place so I just clicked for a split second of it but hopefully we'll be able to build it up. He managed to stay sitting while some kids ran past him, passed a wheelchair with no fuss and didn't lunge at any on leash dogs, just whined at them. We had one dog come up to him and say hello and he got stupidly excited about that but was able to have a polite sniff before inviting her to play with a bow and the zoomies. On leash. That was fun.

Okay will go catch up with what others have been doing now.


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

I've suddenly made big progress with teaching the retrieve to my Westie, who isn't a natural retriever. She's now placing a ball in my hand and I just need to start building up the distance.


----------



## Dogless

WELL DONE to Tum and good progress Spen .

Sam I hope that you enjoyed the Pringles :scared: .

Took the little snapper for his evening brief trip round the block; he's doing well .

Then, the wind picked up and along came the rain...again..... The BW and I did 30 minutes' work on the roads and round the sports pitches followed by half an hour or so offlead so he could let off steam and we played. He was impeccably behaved tonight BUT even better a black lab came onto the pitches before it's owners and ran up to us in the gloom - tail up and staring (think I know which one it was, hard to tell in the dark). I just said "Come on then!!" (my 'nothing to see here folks, let's go!!' phrase) in my cheeriest voice to Kilo and turned and walked away and....he came, relaxed and happy and the lab buggered off. I was so chuffed with him that he got the whole piece of dried chicken breast that I had with me :thumbup::thumbup: and praised like mad. To do that in the dark when he's more likely to react was brilliant - he was relaxed for the whole walk after that too .


----------



## chazzie10

Well done Kilo...in such horrible weather too! ( I think I've shared that 'personal rain cloud' with everyone in NI it would seem. It's chucking it down here and wind getting up again 
Well Ive spent the last hour trying to help find the owners of a wee dog that has been found not so far away. A friend, of a friend, ooooff a frieeennnd  posted on 'Faceache' (other social /networking/stalking sites are available lol) that she'd found a wee jrt so I thought I'd share it with a local lost and found pet page and now IM being asked details!! I DONT KNOW/ WHY DID I GET INVOLVED?? lol awwk its a wee cutie and its being taken care of- I'm just not really a confident person when it comes to getting involved in things where I'm asked questions


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Well done Kilo...in such horrible weather too! ( I think I've shared that 'personal rain cloud' with everyone in NI it would seem. It's chucking it down here and wind getting up again
> Well Ive spent the last hour trying to help find the owners of a wee dog that has been found not so far away. A friend, of a friend, ooooff a frieeennnd  posted on 'Faceache' (other social /networking/stalking sites are available lol) that she'd found a wee jrt so I thought I'd share it with a local lost and found pet page and now IM being asked details!! I DONT KNOW/ WHY DID I GET INVOLVED?? lol awwk its a wee cutie and its being taken care of- I'm just not really a confident person when it comes to getting involved in things where I'm asked questions


Ugh. Like me getting all involved in that rottie malarkey......hope all works out for the JRT! Where was it found 'just in case' someone says they've lost one at the beach or something!


----------



## Thorne

Had a quick skim through but am having some dizzy side effects from my new medication which seems to be exacerbated by scrolling  What I've read seems positive though! 
LurcherOwner, we need new collar photos!
And Twiggy, glad to hear your sister is looking better, hope 2013 is a better year for her and the family.

Mum walked Scooter this morning and apparently he was good until he spotted a Springer; she recalled him, he turned to look at her then strutted off towards the other dog. More work needed with him then. I think the in-season Lab and our group walk yesterday have reminded him that dogs are more fun than we are 

Pounded the pavements this evening with Breeze for half an hour or so, better than no walk at all and think she's starting to like our quiet street strolls. Gave her a bit of offlead time near the school then practiced heelwork in the deserted carpark. Don't worry, we're not fence jumpers! It's part of the rec; the main grassy area is sadly a no-dogs zone but the car park and surrounding grass is fair game. A few lip-licks, but lots of big wags and some lovely focus. Breeze was nice and relaxed on the way home and went to sleep as soon as we were back in!


----------



## Freddie and frank

I'm working on getting through a bottle of prosecco then I'll be on to get updated on everything. 
It's needed tonight. 
Can I join the sloshas club please.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Ugh. Like me getting all involved in that rottie malarkey......hope all works out for the JRT! Where was it found 'just in case' someone says they've lost one at the beach or something!


Moyra Rd near Kilbride Primary School...Ballyclare/ Doagh apparently. It's not THAT close to me but close enough that I have friends from there, so thought if I re-shared the post, someone might know who owned her 

I'd forgotten about your Rottie episode


----------



## chazzie10

I have just seen the most gorgeous coat for Charlie- I KNOW he doesnt NEED one but he might LIKE one for rainy days 
Brown faux leather Bomber Jacket with all the stitching etc of a real one :
£23 for an XL size in the sale wooo..........maaaaybe  

Ps. would soooo match his eyes


----------



## ballybee

Well just lost god knows how much progress in under 2 minutes!!!

We walked the boys upto our local shop, OH wen in and I stood outside with the mutts, along comes this guy with his massive, muzzled dog and asks if mine are bitches. I reply no both dogs and this one(insert point at Tummel) isn't very good around other dogs...bloomin idiot just stood and looked at them(both boys I might add were performing a grand sit/stay at this time) while his dog gives us some very aggressive body language and growls at Tum...

Now, one of Tummels biggest issues as a youngster was men in hats, this guy was pretty big, in a dark street, wearing a hat...add this to an obviously aggressive large dog and what happened??

Tumm flipped...I've never seen him act like that, he was full on snarling, lunging, barig his teeth the lot, thankfully he wasn't properly lunging so I was able to keep hold of him and settle him(the guy about crapped himself and moved on quickly with not another word dragging his dog).

So I funk we're both pretty shaken, Tummels being extra clingy and I'm having some chocolate(don't drink)....really hope this doesn't affect him too much  I thought we were far enough away and if I could have moved away I would have but we were standing in effectively a corner.


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Ballybee; some folk just don't listen at all do they?  Hope you and Tum recover swiftly.


----------



## Beth17

Oh ballybee what a shame I hope Tummel isn't too set back but doesn't sound like there was a lot you could do 

Chazzie if it's in a sale then I don't see how you couldn't not buy it  

Kilo what a fabulous reaction chicken breast well deserved :thumbup:

Thorne lovely to hear Breeze was so relaxed sounds like these walks are doing her the world of good. Naughty Scooter :hand:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Notebook at the ready.....
Well done Deeks. Leam, I agree, I love bad weather walks. . And I have fabrics sofas. All three have to walk over mats and towels befor even setting foot on them. I use 1001 carpet fresh and febreeze on it. :thumbup:

Dogless, I love your chair, looks so comfy. 
Boys collars are fab, of course everything has to be matching. :thumbup: and big gold star to kilo V's lab. 

Sailor....excellent. What a fabulous job you're doing.
Perhaps it was meant to be? 

Ballybee.... Sounds good. I too always keep an allowance of food back so they have to work for it. They get the gist of it after a while. Upwards and onwards. 

Twiggy...I apologise, don't know the whole story, but Sending well wishes to your sister. 

Beth....sun???? What's that. 

Gr. I agree, BBQ Pringles hmy:

Sarah...sorry if I offended you the other day, the farting word. 
Spen sounds like my frank. :001_wub:

Wwsd. ...fab

Chazzie....hope the dog is reunited soon with its owners. Well done for helping. 
GET THE COAT...YOU KNOW YOU WANT TOO... :sneaky2::devil:

Now on to my three. 

Me and husband took F&F out today over Cannock chase. Was ok. 
Had to have frank on long lead and Freddie was his normal golden self. Why did we meet the only people who weren't very dog friendly :mad2:
Both dogs were well behaved but some lady shooed Freddie away from her over friendly dog.oh well, no harm done. 

Had lots of play time with bella in garden....she's in season, just incase nobody knows. . 
Looking at having her spayed in three months. Even though the boys are neutered, it's not fair on any of them living in the same house if she's entire.


----------



## Dogless

F&F - bet you and the boys are finding it tough with Bella. Are the boys coping OK?

Sorry to hear you met a less than friendly lady - I often wonder why it's those with over friendly dogs who come over to others who shoo the other dog from theirs when they catch them up .


----------



## Beth17

F&F I think the season part definitely puts me off girls at the moment. I hope things aren't too stressful and tomorrow is a better day.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless and Beth.....they're ok. They seem to be getting a bit fruity in stages???.
Nothing I can't handle really. Can't wait for it to be over though if I'm honest. 
So glad I'm fortunate enough to work at home.


----------



## chazzie10

Ballybee- I hate being cornered by inconsiderate( over-friendly) owners and their dogs 

Beth17- yes would be VERY rude not to buy it :smilewinkgrin:

F&F- you've got the notebook out again havnt you 
Why is it when I shorten your name to F&F, I start thinking of you as Florence and Fred ( the Tesco clothing label)


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Ballybee- I hate being cornered by inconsiderate( over-friendly) owners and their dogs
> 
> Beth17- yes would be VERY rude not to buy it :smilewinkgrin:
> 
> F&F- you've got the notebook out again havnt you
> Why is it when I shorten your name to F&F, *I start thinking of you as Florence and Fred ( the Tesco clothing label)*


Not just you .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Not just you .


PHEEWWW......Im not mad, Im not mad, Im not mad  :mad2: :confused1:


----------



## Freddie and frank

chazzie10 said:


> PHEEWWW......Im not mad, Im not mad, Im not mad  :mad2: :confused1:


Ha ha ha, meeee tooooo. 
My nan was called Florence. And I was always going to call a dog flo if I had the chance. :thumbup:


----------



## chazzie10

That just would have been too much of a coincidence* F&F*


----------



## Beth17

chazzie10 said:


> F&F- you've got the notebook out again havnt you
> Why is it when I shorten your name to F&F, I start thinking of you as Florence and Fred ( the Tesco clothing label)


Ditto 

Oh I forgot to say I also have to get Sam a new harness as he managed to pull and break it. It still works so will do temporarily but isn't as strong now. 
I was looking at getting him a new one anyway as it's Oscars old one and looking a bit worse for wear. I may get Oscar one as well.


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17- let me guess.....matching ones?? Or at least complimentary ones? :


----------



## Beth17

chazzie10 said:


> Beth17- let me guess.....matching ones?? Or at least complimentary ones? :


Now that's an idea...


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry i just can't keep up with everyone, note pad? i need a blooming secretary.

Twiggy i'm glad your sister is picking up and your dogs survived your absence.
Ballybee I hope the chocolate and cuddles are helping.
Beth woohoo shopping.


Miracle of blooming miracles

You remember my inner hag found herself a new catchphrase " CONTROL YOUR DOG" well blow me down and tickle me pink we encountered the same dog this evening and their owner duly recalled htem and put them on lead.

Feck me I have the powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Sorry i just can't keep up with everyone, note pad? i need a blooming secretary.
> 
> Twiggy i'm glad your sister is picking up and your dogs survived your absence.
> Ballybee I hope the chocolate and cuddles are helping.
> Beth woohoo shopping.
> 
> Miracle of blooming miracles
> 
> You remember my inner hag found herself a new catchphrase " CONTROL YOUR DOG" well blow me down and tickle me pink we encountered the same dog this evening and their owner duly recalled htem and put them on lead.
> 
> Feck me I have the powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


OMG go you, Thundercat


----------



## ballybee

Thanks everyone, I keep going over it but I can't see what else I could have done, I'm so angry at that man and no chocs and cuddles aren't working much, Tummels curled up beside me but he's still not happy, I'm still pretty shaken too 

Guess I'll have to work harder with Tummel ignoring bad things, he did really well and stayed pretty calm and quiet until that guy stopped talking and was just staring at us


----------



## Beth17

Brilliant mv I shall expect you down my way to control all of the unruly dogs we have


----------



## GingerRogers

We used to have a shop called fanny & frank. That's what f&f makes me think of. Before that though it was called Fanny Hyde


----------



## Dogless

mv - you are my hag heroine . I nearly wrote heroine hag.....but for the letter 'e' that would have made you go from hero to zero in one al*fell*betical swoop :scared:.



ballybee said:


> Thanks everyone, I keep going over it but I can't see what else I could have done, I'm so angry at that man and no chocs and cuddles aren't working much, Tummels curled up beside me but he's still not happy, I'm still pretty shaken too
> 
> Guess I'll have to work harder with Tummel ignoring bad things, he did really well and stayed pretty calm and quiet until that guy stopped talking and was just staring at us


Kilo does not do well with direct eye contact when it's done in a threatening manner, he will react unless I get in there when I see him tense pronto. If I'm in a situation like that I tend to turn him side on to me or facing me so that he cannot 'lock' stares with the person or dog. That might help?


----------



## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> We used to have a shop called *fanny & frank*. That's what f&f makes me think of. Before that though it was called Fanny Hyde


That could have been so, so much worse


----------



## ballybee

Dogless said:


> mv - you are my hag heroine . I nearly wrote heroine hag.....but for the letter 'e' that would have made you go from hero to zero in one al*fell*betical swoop :scared:.
> 
> Kilo does not do well with direct eye contact when it's done in a threatening manner, he will react unless I get in there when I see him tense pronto. If I'm in a situation like that I tend to turn him side on to me or facing me so that he cannot 'lock' stares with the person or dog. That might help?


I've tried, i've tried using treats, i've tried doing inside training which he then doesn't do outside, i've tried physically moving him but he's impossible, even with the dogmatic(which in some situations makes him worse) he can manouvre to be able to see


----------



## Werehorse

We have the step dogs here again - everything is nice and calm except labbydor boy step-dog has just completely freaked and refused to leave the house for last wees!  No idea why. 

Giving him half an hour to calm down then we'll try and get him out the front door! It is quite windy and he doesn't like fireworks so I wonder if there was a bang or something...


----------



## Dogless

ballybee said:


> I've tried, i've tried using treats, i've tried doing inside training which he then doesn't do outside, i've tried physically moving him but he's impossible, even with the dogmatic(which in some situations makes him worse) he can manouvre to be able to see


I know how hard it is - peering round my legs was what stopped me putting Kilo behind me. I practise where I want Kilo to be on every single walk pretty much day after day so that it becomes an automatic place to stop and sit. Doesn't always work and we've had our fair share of wrestles (still do, at times!) - I often end up being rude and turning my back on the person or just walking off.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Ballybee, ....I can sympathise. . Frank seems to lock himself onto a dog visually and no matter what I do I can't get him out of it. We're working on a sit and watch me which is ok sometimes but I just have to grin and drag him on past it half the time. 
Tummel is such a handsome fella. Hope things work out.


----------



## Sarah1983

Nothing really worked with Rupert either Ballybee. He freaked out ten times worse if I tried to block his view. Have you tried the Look at That game? I couldn't use it with Rupert and other dogs as he fixated as soon as he saw them and couldn't look away but I know a lot of people have had success with it. I just practised avoidance with Rupe in the end, it was too stressful for both me and him to keep working at it. 

F&F, you didn't offend me at all 

Dogless, well done to you and Kilo with the lab encounter! It's so nice when your hard work pays off like that.

Twiggy, glad your sister was looking better when you saw her.

And I think I need a secretary too coz I can't remember who else has done what


----------



## chazzie10

Feeling a wee bit sad now...just looking at all my doggy pics and came across the only 4 pics I have of my wee jrt babies...well my ex's jrt's, that I had to leave behind when I left my ex last year. 
He bought them so technically they were his. Id bought Charlie, so he was mine. Thing is the ex sold the two wee dogs on gumtree a few months ago, without even letting me know- I just came across the ad by accident, complete fluke, but was too late, a man in Antrim had bought them for £100 
A week later, again, a fluke, I needed to look up gumtree for something for a friend, and there were my babies being rehomed again, by the new guy!! Toby was already gone, then wee Honey went while I was trying to work out was it a good idea to buy her when Charlie was being such a numpty. And she was gone to someone else. The tiniest, cuddliest, lickiest, good wee girl ever. I dont know why the guy only had them a week, if the ex had broken their spirit or something had happened to their wee personalities cos they were good wee dogs. They were got 2 days apart, from different litters and were always together so Im sure they miss each other. I hope they're being taken care of and loved wherever they are now :cryin: :mad5: MEN! Humfh lol
I made a wee album for them on my profile with the four pics...just so I can look at them


----------



## GingerRogers

I dont really 'like'but had a look at the little blighters. Such cuties you can virtually borrow Ginge if it helps with the terrier need. How heartbreaking though seriously. Sounds like you are better off though he might have put you on gumtree


----------



## Freddie and frank

Oh chazzie, sorry to hear that. Poor babies, but in time I'm sure they'll be ok.


----------



## Dogless

Oh Chazzie, how sad .


----------



## moonviolet

Awww Chazzie hope they've found special homes now.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Sorry i just can't keep up with everyone, note pad? i need a blooming secretary.
> 
> Twiggy i'm glad your sister is picking up and your dogs survived your absence.
> Ballybee I hope the chocolate and cuddles are helping.
> Beth woohoo shopping.
> 
> Miracle of blooming miracles
> 
> You remember my inner hag found herself a new catchphrase " CONTROL YOUR DOG" well blow me down and tickle me pink we encountered the same dog this evening and their owner duly recalled htem and put them on lead.
> 
> Feck me I have the powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


Well done you....


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

Daisy (my Werstie) is at the vets today for neutering. hoping all ges well, but can't help worrying a little.


----------



## Twiggy

Oh Chazzie that's so sad. I hope they've both found good homes now.


----------



## moonviolet

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> Daisy (my Werstie) is at the vets today for neutering. hoping all ges well, but can't help worrying a little.


It's horrible waiting. soon she'll be home all drowsy and bleary eyed, then in the next couple of days you'll be doing all you can to keep her quiet as she feels fine and you worry aboout her stitches.


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> Daisy (my Werstie) is at the vets today for neutering. hoping all ges well, but can't help worrying a little.


I'm sure she'll be fine but it's only natural to worry.

I had Holly spayed in March keyhole procedure. All my other bitches were spayed by the same vet over a 35 yr period but he sadly retired 3.1/2 yrs ago. I have to say I got a bit worked up about Holly, as my new vet and I had already had a huge row about traditional/keyhole procedures.

In fairness I was allowed to stay with her virtually up to the point he operated and he did give me the option of going into theatre and watching. She was also returned to me immediately afterwards and I sat with her for about an hour and a half whilst she came round and then took her home.


----------



## ballybee

Well we had a good walk this morning, Tummel is definately frightened of men in hats again though as he was extremely reluctant to pass one on our way out(he didn't growl though so hoping we can work with this). We got to the park and there was a woman playing with a young collie, i waited for her to move further into the park(there are 2 paths that go round the borders and she was right at the start of them) and bumped into a lady and her nernie that we know, Tummel was pretty upset about this big dog being near us soi explained what happened last ngiht and she was happy to move on, so off we went around the path to the other side of the park, was able to let both boys off(it's not a huge park but i decided to trust Tummel) and they didn't go and bother the other dog, Tummel had a great play on his climbing frame and a wee wrestle with Dan and i was able to get him to do an offlead sit/stay while another dog went past us(Dan's pretty good at this too).

then on the way home we did a sit/stay as the lady with the collie came past again, both boys were curious but when i moved them on came willingly(the collie had only just gone past as well so pretty chuffed with that). and now they're both snoozing away


----------



## Dogless

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> Daisy (my Werstie) is at the vets today for neutering. hoping all ges well, but can't help worrying a little.


Hope all goes well.

Ballybee - pleased you had a good walk this morning.

We had two good walks this morning; it is very, very windy so I took them out separately - I have to be on my toes enough in this weather with Kilo never mind with Rudi trying to chase leaves on the lead too :crazy:.

Took Rudi to the fields - he walked pretty well there, then pottered and sniffed about and we did some recalls. Didn't see anyone there but bumped into a friend's hubby on the way back and Rudi did his wiggly 'person' dance. He defaults to sitting then greeting and then coming back to my leg and sitting again which is good so he gets food each time he chooses to do that. I know once he gains confidence it's unlikely to happen on it's own so I'm trying to get the idea that it's a smart move into his skull as soon as I can .

Good walk with Kilo too; was going to be onlead only as the fields are carpeted in orange poo  and he'd be hunting and away in this wind, but as we went past them on the road we saw Dizzy and my friend in there so went in as he doesn't stop to airscent or put his big hooter on the floor for long when he's playing with Dizzy and squeaky toys so his luck was in :thumbup:. We did a bit more road walking after that which was fine too .


----------



## chazzie10

Thanks for the kind words about my jrt babies people xx I was just having ( a sober) little blip  Maybe being sober was were I went wrong 

Dogless- lol @ Kilo's big hooter comment  and what size is the wiggly Rudi now? Labrador sized? Smaller/ Bigger than that? Hard to judge with your last photos as it took me to look twice at the first two, to see which dog was which lol it was all red bodies and legs 

Ballybee- have you got a hat that you could put on and off yourself? Just to take SOME of the fear out of it? Or would that not work?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Thanks for the kind words about my jrt babies people xx I was just having ( a sober) little blip  Maybe being sober was were I went wrong
> 
> Dogless- lol @ Kilo's big hooter comment  and what size is the wiggly Rudi now? Labrador sized? Smaller/ Bigger than that? Hard to judge with your last photos as it took me to look twice at the first two, to see which dog was which lol it was all red bodies and legs
> 
> Ballybee- have you got a hat that you could put on and off yourself? Just to take SOME of the fear out of it? Or would that not work?


Not lab sized :scared:. Not a big one anyway . He's still a little pup, love him!


----------



## chazzie10

aye but a large breed sized little pup hehehe :001_wub: i still want one lol


----------



## L/C

Too much to comment on but Chazzie I'm sorry to hear about your poor little jacks. I hope they've found nice homes.

Since I got back from Xmas my two have been little stars. They were very good for my friend as well but Gypsy pined a bit and went off her food so I'm feeding her up at the moment (she loses weight really quickly and doesn't have much to lose!). Ely on the other hand took full advantage of all the people and is currently a bit barrel shaped.  So he's on reduced rations.

OH was in Devon until Saturday night and despite having to go to work on Thurs and Fri (and today boo!), I've taken full advantage of all the free time to do some extra training walks with Gypsy. Her tracking is very good now and she gets excited when she realises we're going to do some nosework. Her heeling is coming on very well and she's starting to get the idea of swapping sides.

Yesterday we went for a walk to Epping Forest extension and it was the first time we've been back since the squirrel incident. I was anticipating no focus and lots of frustration but she was as good as gold. Better really. We were doing some matt work when a dobe and a staffy came up wanting to play - she was brilliant and didn't get up until I released her but after a greeting sniff she went into a down on her matt again (without me asking) and was more interested in working with me. :thumbup:

We then bumped into someone I know who has 3 greyhounds and a whippet and she was also out with her daughter who's a dog walker so we walked with them for a bit. We were in a massive group of 4 greyhounds, a whippet, a lab, an am-bull and a goldie and nary a cross word was heard. Gypsy had a lovely time running, pottering about and generally socialising in a way that we can't do when we have Ely out with us and it was lovely to see her enjoying herself so much. It made me very happy.

Ely has been brilliant too - he was very welcoming of Max (friend's GSD) over Xmas, seems to be learning about playing with Gypsy more so I'm less needed as an intermediary to get things started and he was very tolerant of his nemesis this morning (bouncy, un-neutered boy lurcher who even though Ely has put a hole in him before continues to run at us full pelt!).


----------



## ballybee

chazzie10 said:


> Thanks for the kind words about my jrt babies people xx I was just having ( a sober) little blip  Maybe being sober was were I went wrong
> 
> Dogless- lol @ Kilo's big hooter comment  and what size is the wiggly Rudi now? Labrador sized? Smaller/ Bigger than that? Hard to judge with your last photos as it took me to look twice at the first two, to see which dog was which lol it was all red bodies and legs
> 
> Ballybee- have you got a hat that you could put on and off yourself? Just to take SOME of the fear out of it? Or would that not work?


It's men in hats he doesn't like, i wear hats a lot and he's never bothered, men he knows he's generally fine with but strange men wearing hates freak him out, must have had something happen before we got him as he's always been fine with us wearing hats. women in hats seems to be absolutely fine so goodness knows how his logic is working!!!


----------



## Dogless

ballybee said:


> It's men in hats he doesn't like, i wear hats a lot and he's never bothered, men he knows he's generally fine with but strange men wearing hates freak him out, must have had something happen before we got him as he's always been fine with us wearing hats. women in hats seems to be absolutely fine so goodness knows how his logic is working!!!


Might just be a combination of things. Perhaps he doesn't like hats much or strange men much but tolerates them pretty well but the combination of the two is a push too far rather than having had something bad happen as a puppy?


----------



## Dogless

L/C - welcome back and an immense "like" for your post :thumbup::thumbup:. Talk about a positive way to see out the old year and bring in the new .


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## ballybee

Dogless said:


> Might just be a combination of things. Perhaps he doesn't like hats much or strange men much but tolerates them pretty well but the combination of the two is a push too far rather than having had something bad happen as a puppy?


it could be, i think his first owner might have been a hat wearing man and his idea of training was to spray Tummel in the face with water, thus creating his fear of water and a fear of men in hats?? We never met his male owner as he was away working on the rigs when Tummel was put up for sale but they'd had him since he was 6 weeks old


----------



## Dogless

ballybee said:


> it could be, i think his first owner might have been a hat wearing man and his idea of training was to spray Tummel in the face with water, thus creating his fear of water and a fear of men in hats?? We never met his male owner as he was away working on the rigs when Tummel was put up for sale but they'd had him since he was 6 weeks old


Maybe . Just reminds me of a few things that make Kilo suspicious. He is fine with me carrying big things like boxes, fine with hubby doing so. Fine with women he doesn't know carrying large boxes, but if it's men he doesn't know carrying large items coming towards him he is all up on his toes and needs to be told 'Leave'. Same pattern with a few things, that's what made me make that post.


----------



## Guest

Welcome back L/C and a huge well done to your doggies. (Especially Ely and his arch-enemy.) 

Zander has been good and not battering into me too much. It can't always be helped.
Apparently he sat down near two cavs today, and although whined and yapped as pathetically as ever, he didn't bounce at them. 

Still a bit sore, and bandages/supports are driving me insane!! Haha. 

Hope you are all well.xxxx


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## Beth17

L/C how fantastic I really hope everything continues to go well for you 

Well done to Zand for being less bouncy and letting you recover LO hipe you're back to normal soon.

Dogless Rudi is doing really well and how lucky for Kilo that you saw his friend.

Chazzie how sad. Hopefully they have gone to loving homes now.

You'll be pleased to know that everything is back to normal and raining again  
Took them out together this morning and they behaved well although didn't see anyone else. They did keep trying to pull and Sam keeps eating the churned up mud but they weren't too bad at all.


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## Dogless

Two good walks again this evening; even if I timed them perfectly for the rain . Nothing remarkable but Rudi met two of my friends' kids who asked to stroke him and he did whole body wags of delight . It is amazing to have a dog who enjoys attention - I am sure he will grow more aloof, but Kilo started and became aloof-er-er (a wine induced new word ).

Hope you all have a Happy New Year and long may our friendly bare your soul thread continue .


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## L/C

Happy New Year all! 

May it be a night filled with the poison of your choice.


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## moonviolet

Happy new Year everyone.

I'll try not to bare too much of my dark depraved soul next year :lol:


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## chazzie10

Dogless- It's nice to create your own words after a glass or three of the good stuff. Ive reached the bottom of my first bottle of Newky Brown Ale and already can feel new words forming...another couple of bottles and I'll have created my own private language 

L/C- My poison of choice...see above 

Moonviolet- But you have to continue! Don't stop now, it's how we all keep each other entertained


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## chazzie10

Leam1307 said:


> Welcome back L/C!!
> 
> Ballybee, could you not recruit a male member of the family that Tummel hasnt met or a friend from work etc that you could use as a training device?
> 
> Well Deeks is getting relegated to the kitchen tonight, will have to move all his things through and hope he doesnt freak out too much. Was hoping to do it slowly over the hols but today he has eaten the speakers for the dvd player and i just caught him starting on the extension leads for the TV!! Now for his own safety and my sanity he will be moved to the kitchen where he cant get near any plugs. He has also been go go go all today today as we never managed to get up to the field because of the rain and has pooped and peed in the livingroom about 8 times today! even when he has just been out! grrr
> 
> Losing my sanity today i think. *Thank god its the last day of the year*.


Yep tomorrow is a new year....lets hope it's a good one ( I wonder if the dogs will know the difference tomorrow and suddenly behave?-if only )


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## moonviolet

Oh cripes Deeks is in the doghouse


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Werehorse

Happy New Year you old sloshas!

There may have been beeer.

Chazzie - I'm so sorry about your little jrt babies.  So sad. I do hope they have forever homes now!

Twiggy - continued healing thoughts to your sister - I bet she was glad of your visit (glad your doggies are all in one piece still too!)

Ballybee - sounds like the boys are being good on the whole. I definitely think it is worth setting up a couple of stooge men in hats. Dogless is right, hats in themselves coud be a problem and men in themselves could be a problem... and the two combined pushes him over threshold - it might actually not be a bad idea to wear a hat every time you give him his dinner or something!

Dogless - Hugo has only just stopped chasing leaves! :lol: and he still looks when they go past. Rudi is such a confident little sausage isn't he?  Kilo is being such a good big brother too.

L/C - Glad the pointy twins are being stars.

LO - Hope you heal up quickly, glad Zander is trying to look after you and be good.

Beth - "not too bad at all" is good.  I'd take that most day with my two.

Leam - Sanity is over-rated. And definitely think prevention when it comes to chewing wires :-O He's been lulling you into a false sense of security with all his good behaviour over the past few days! 

We went to keswick today with the boys. Had nachos and crumble (not together) in a cafe. The boys were pretty much angelic in the cafe - and we met another sprollie! She was GORGEOUS and her owner was just totally in love with her - and loved Hugo too.  The only moment on non-angelic behaviour was when some rediculous parents/grandparent started making a realy loud stupid noise at their child, a noise that sounded remarkably like a dog barking... over and over and over. OMG. Hugo had a bit of a bark back  With a lot of "watch me" and a bit of reassurance I managed to get him quiet after only a few barks but had to keep working on it for quite a while because the person just kept making this rediculous noise, completely oblivious to the fact the whole cafe was now practically silent and giving them filthy looks (and sending me sympathetic ones!). Apart from that though it was the most settled Hugo has ever been in a cafe or pub so I was pleased. The LLW in Keswick afterwards left a touch to be desired but generally it is slowly getting better. And they were good in the shops we went in.

I've started teaching them both a new trick this evening. Trying to teach Oscar to run round in a little figure of 8 to the cue "silly spaniel" and trying to teach Hugo to leg weave. Very good first sessions from them both and they are now sleeping it off. :lol:


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## Dogless

I am drinking champagne ..... love it.... my New Year's treat  .

Werehorse; yes, Rudi is confident - most definitely, it's lovely but I can see that it brings it's own challenges too .

I love the idea of the 'silly spaniel' run :001_wub: and think Hugo did very well in the cafe; it's funny how some people can be utterly oblivious to what is happening around them .

Is the leg weave going to morph into a little HWTM???? .


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## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> I am drinking champagne ..... love it.... my New Year's treat  .
> 
> Werehorse; yes, Rudi is confident - most definitely, it's lovely but I can see that it brings it's own challenges too .
> 
> *I love the idea of the 'silly spaniel' run* :001_wub: and think Hugo did very well in the cafe; it's funny how some people can be utterly oblivious at what is happening around them .


So does Oscar! :lol: He was doing little excited whines and yips as I was teaching him.  I though gundogs were supposed to be quiet. 



Dogless said:


> Is the leg weave going to morph into a little HWTM???? .


:lol: Nooooooooo! :lol: Just something to teach him. When "just something to teach him" has evolved into a whole routine you can say "I told you so" but until then...  I want to teach him to jump over an outstretched leg next though. 

Oooo, I should also do a health update - both boys seem entirely better, have put the bit of weight they lost back on and are noticably glossier as well. Got the robotic paste a couple of days ago and it seems to have worked wonders. Hopefully they are back up and running now.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Oooo, I should also do a health update - both boys seem entirely better, have put the bit of weight they lost back on and are noticably glossier as well. Got the robotic paste a couple of days ago and it seems to have worked wonders. Hopefully they are back up and running now.


Fabulous; that robotic paste sounds good :thumbup:.


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## chazzie10

What the HECK is robotic paste?? Is it probiotic? lol.

Dogless- Champagne?? wooo how the other half live...(yuck I hate the stuff) 

Werehorse- aawww wee excited whines sounds so cute- i can only get charlie to do noughts, not even gonna try figure of eights lol....

at the minute I doubt I could do a straight line myself :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Well Happy New Year to all my PF buddies x hope 2013 is a good year for you all and treats you well 

Cheers people :thumbup: xx


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## moonviolet

Cheers Chazzie 

Happy new year all.


----------



## Werehorse

Happy New Year! 

Chazzie - yes it is probiotic :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse said:


> Happy New Year!
> 
> Chazzie - yes it is probiotic :lol:


Thank goodness for that, strange(drunken) images of dogs on their back legs bustin some ( vaguely 80's/90's) moves hehehe


----------



## ballybee

Very annoyed right now, my parents were having a wee party and asked us not to take the dogs due to allergic guests, we left them at 10pm after a 20 minute walk(as well as the 2 hours we were out already and loads of play/training) with stuffed kongs and 2 chews each, come home and Tummels ripped up the carpet around our bedroom door and has obviously been barking his head off 

I'm just so angry with him, we were out 2.5 hours which he was perfectly capable of coping with, from about 10:30pm every night he's wanting to go to bed and will happily curl up and sleep of his own accord without us there but if we try and put him in it's not the same 

So from now on we will be doing forced daily solitary time, no if's of buts, they will be left for minimum 15 minutes per day, more if they can cope and i will be building it upto an hour, Dan is happy to be left, he was snoring away in his bed when OH went in.

I guess i'm just feeling like a big failure, he was easily able to go 4-6 hours without us and now can't cope at all :frown5:


----------



## L/C

Well just got home and put room mate to bed - she just vommed in the bar, on the tube and on my legs on the way home - I keep forgetting she's only 20. 

Doggies are fine and very happy to see us. All asleep on sofa/dog beds while I piss about.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Well just got home and put room mate to bed - she just vommed in the bar, on the tube and on my legs on the way home - I keep forgetting she's only 20.
> 
> Doggies are fine and very happy to see us. All asleep on sofa/dog beds while I piss about.


Nice.........


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Twiggy

ballybee said:


> Very annoyed right now, my parents were having a wee party and asked us not to take the dogs due to allergic guests, we left them at 10pm after a 20 minute walk(as well as the 2 hours we were out already and loads of play/training) with stuffed kongs and 2 chews each, come home and Tummels ripped up the carpet around our bedroom door and has obviously been barking his head off
> 
> I'm just so angry with him, we were out 2.5 hours which he was perfectly capable of coping with, from about 10:30pm every night he's wanting to go to bed and will happily curl up and sleep of his own accord without us there but if we try and put him in it's not the same
> 
> So from now on we will be doing forced daily solitary time, no if's of buts, they will be left for minimum 15 minutes per day, more if they can cope and i will be building it upto an hour, Dan is happy to be left, he was snoring away in his bed when OH went in.
> 
> I guess i'm just feeling like a big failure, he was easily able to go 4-6 hours without us and now can't cope at all :frown5:


Oh dear. Are you sure there wasn't fireworks going off and he got stressed?


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Happy New Year you old sloshas!
> 
> I've started teaching them both a new trick this evening. Trying to teach Oscar to run round in a little figure of 8 to the cue "silly spaniel" and trying to teach Hugo to leg weave. Very good first sessions from them both and they are now sleeping it off. :lol:


Teaching a leg weave going forward is relatively easy. Teaching a leg weave walking backwards and the dog weaving backwards is a tad more difficult, especially playing a 'pretend' pan pipe at the same time....!!


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Teaching a leg weave going forward is relatively easy. *Teaching a leg weave walking backwards and the dog weaving backwards is a tad more difficult, especially playing a 'pretend' pan pipe at the same time....!!*


:crazy::crazy: Now THAT sounds complicated!

Took the CHs out together to the fields; sheet ice on the pavements and roads this morning but luckily Kilo walked beautifully leaving me to sort Rudi . We saw one person over the other side of the road with a rottie; Kilo looked and then looked away again and carrried on :thumbup: and Rudi was just Rudi so that was good. I hadn't seen another dog whilst they have both been on the lead yet so wasn't sure what they'd do. At the fields we just played about, the dogs pottered and played and I practised lots of recalls and some collar touches with Rudi. _And it wasn't raining hmy:_. A perfect start to 2013 .


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## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Teaching a leg weave going forward is relatively easy. Teaching a leg weave walking backwards and the dog weaving backwards is a tad more difficult, especially playing a 'pretend' pan pipe at the same time....!!


:lol: we have attempted the backwards leg weave and let jsut say my coordination needs work and there will never be panpipes :lol:


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## chazzie10

Sheet ice Dogless? Brrr. I havnt made it out over the door yet. Just up half an hour ago and waiting for the hangover to kick in 
Maybe try his lordship in the forest today. Ive only been back there once since Charlies attack but gotta get the nerve back up AND up his training ignoring other dogs


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> :lol: we have attempted the backwards leg weave and let jsut say my coordination needs work and there will never be panpipes :lol:


A good friend of mine won the intermediate class a few years ago to "Lord of the Dance". She 'played' the pan pipe throughout the routine. It was fabulous...


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## Dogless

Yikes, page 666 :scared::scared:.

Twiggy trying the backwards leg weave would be dancing my way straight into A&E I'm sure .


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Sheet ice Dogless? Brrr. I havnt made it out over the door yet. Just up half an hour ago and waiting for the hangover to kick in
> Maybe try his lordship in the forest today. Ive only been back there once since Charlies attack but gotta get the nerve back up AND up his training ignoring other dogs


Yup...it's cold here, not a white frost - one of those 'just about' ones!!- so wasn't expecting it, but it's there alright :scared:. I thought about driving somewhere busier today like the beach as the weather's actually OK, but thought it would be busy - ish with folk out for a New Year's Day walk by the time I got there and I'm starting off as quiet as possible whilst I'm getting used to two dogs....:scared:.

If you go to the forest I hope it goes well for you both xx.


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Well its Sunny here and quite warm... bet it snows by nighttime!
> 
> Deeks is well and truely in the doghouse. Was making a cuppa this morning so let him run about downstairs, in the space of 5mins he has chewed through my riding boots and the Sky tv lead. Luckily for him it was the signal lead and not the power lead! He has also had a go at the kitten again today who luckily only has minor scratches to his chest and a few tufts of fur missing :frown:
> 
> Going to cry shortly if this is how the day continues.


Flamin' heck Deeks!!! That's a lot of damage in the space of two days. Is he extra stressed about something?


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## L/C

Morning all - apologies for my tmi post last night! Hope everyone had a good one.

Dogs and I had an uneventful walk this morning but a short one as Gypsy isn't very well. OH left an entire tube of Pringles in dog reach while we went out and unsurprisingly they weren't there when we got back. Madam is now feeling sorry for herself and only wants to alternate between the garden to eat grass and the sofa to sleep.

Leam - sorry Deeks is being a pain and I hope your day gets better.

Dogless - well done Kilo and Rudi. :thumbup: But it sounds cold where you are. :scared:

Twiggy - I want to see some video of your doggy dancing!


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Morning all - apologies for my tmi post last night! Hope everyone had a good one.
> 
> Dogs and I had an uneventful walk this morning but a short one as Gypsy isn't very well. OH left an entire tube of Pringles in dog reach while we went out and unsurprisingly they weren't there when we got back. Madam is now feeling sorry for herself and only wants to alternate between the garden to eat grass and the sofa to sleep.
> 
> Leam - sorry Deeks is being a pain and I hope your day gets better.
> 
> Dogless - well done Kilo and Rudi. :thumbup: But it sounds cold where you are. :scared:
> 
> Twiggy - I want to see some video of your doggy dancing!


Oh no, poor Gypsy...hope she's better soon.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Teaching a leg weave going forward is relatively easy. Teaching a leg weave walking backwards and the dog weaving backwards is a tad more difficult, especially playing a 'pretend' pan pipe at the same time....!!


Oh lordy! Don't say things like that - I'll end up trying it and there'll be a terrible accident.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yikes, page 666 :scared::scared:.
> 
> Twiggy trying the backwards leg weave would be dancing my way straight into A&E I'm sure .


Yes Fidget and I did get in a few tangles from time to time....LOL

Attempting *any *heelwork to music these days would quickly necessitate a visit to A&E for me sadly....


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Morning all - apologies for my tmi post last night! Hope everyone had a good one.
> 
> Dogs and I had an uneventful walk this morning but a short one as Gypsy isn't very well. OH left an entire tube of Pringles in dog reach while we went out and unsurprisingly they weren't there when we got back. Madam is now feeling sorry for herself and only wants to alternate between the garden to eat grass and the sofa to sleep.
> 
> Leam - sorry Deeks is being a pain and I hope your day gets better.
> 
> Dogless - well done Kilo and Rudi. :thumbup: But it sounds cold where you are. :scared:
> 
> Twiggy - I want to see some video of your doggy dancing!


Poor Gypsy - hope she's feeling better quickly.

I've got all the tapes of Fidget competing but sadly wouldn't begin to know how to put them on the computer. Maybe when my sister is better. She's a whizz kid with all things electrical.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes Fidget and I did get in a few tangles from time to time....LOL
> 
> Attempting *any *heelwork to music these days would quickly necessitate a visit to A&E for me sadly....


I'd need longer legs for Kilo to weave...Rudi would just grab and tug my trouser legs .


----------



## ballybee

Leam1307 said:


> Happy New Yeat everyone! I hope you all had a good night!
> 
> Ballybee, could Tummel have heard fireworks and that upset him since he is used to spending time on his own?
> 
> We still leave Deeks on his own in the afternoon for a few hours so its not too much disruption when we go back to work. Have found we need to leave the TV on though for him.





Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. Are you sure there wasn't fireworks going off and he got stressed?


I have no idea, it wouldn't surprise me if someone was letting off fireworks but this is usually a quiet village, he used to rip the carpet up when he was really bad with his SA but he'd stopped.

Just to add...i'm trying to teach the boys to weave through my legs...Tummel just lies down between them and Dan can only go one way 

Anyway, our first walk of 2012 was amazing(pic thread will be up shortly), we were out for 1.5 hours and hardly saw anyone, the boys did offlead sit/stays while an elderly chap with 2 whippets went past and Tummel was able to continue our training/playing even though they were still pretty close, he was interested but didn't go after them(most likely due to our yummy treats lol). He didn't really go far at all the whole time we were out and his recall was a solid 85% success i'd say


----------



## Dogless

ballybee said:


> I have no idea, it wouldn't surprise me if someone was letting off fireworks but this is usually a quiet village, he used to rip the carpet up when he was really bad with his SA but he'd stopped.
> 
> Just to add...i'm trying to teach the boys to weave through my legs...Tummel just lies down between them and Dan can only go one way
> 
> Anyway, our first walk of 2012 was amazing(pic thread will be up shortly), we were out for 1.5 hours and hardly saw anyone, the boys did offlead sit/stays while an elderly chap with 2 whippets went past and Tummel was able to continue our training/playing even though they were still pretty close, he was interested but didn't go after them(most likely due to our yummy treats lol). He didn't really go far at all the whole time we were out and his recall was a solid 85% success i'd say


You're a year behind . Well done Mr Tum :thumbup:.


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## ballybee

Dogless said:


> You're a year behind . Well done Mr Tum :thumbup:.


i won't know what year it is until about June anyway  2013 then


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## Dogless

ballybee said:


> i won't know what year it is until about June anyway  2013 then


I'm the same .


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## Twiggy

ballybee said:


> I have no idea, it wouldn't surprise me if someone was letting off fireworks but this is usually a quiet village, he used to rip the carpet up when he was really bad with his SA but he'd stopped.
> 
> *Just to add...i'm trying to teach the boys to weave through my legs...Tummel just lies down between them and Dan can only go one way*
> 
> Have them roughly on your left hand side, stick a tit-bit on their nose and throw it between your legs saying "weave" in an excited voice. Then when you've got back on your feet because they've sent you flying, repeat again. Perhaps not today, most doctors surgeries are shut...LOL


----------



## Twiggy

I've just remembered that little Holly Bolly took up residence here 12 months ago yesterday....

She travelled the 130 miles on a friend's lap and wasn't sick until we were nearly home. She was a poor little thing - backbone sticking up and horrible staring coat.

I'm just about to take her and Tremor over to the barn and train them. It's my New Year's resolution to try and do a bit with them every day and they haven't been trained for the last two weeks.

Grit and determination - well at least until it's hissing it down or freezing cold.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well it looks like it'll be madness and mayhem here from Friday, we've just been asked to look after next doors dog for a week. Rupert's as big a thief as Spencer so I may be tearing my hair out :lol: 

Happy Gotcha Day Holly Bolly! 

Spen can weave through legs and loves to do so, so much so that I have to warn anyone making a fuss of him to watch out for it coz he'll just shove his way through not caring whether you fall over


----------



## kaz25

Well we had the dogs out today, were walking through town and saw a dog coming along the pavement off lead. I got Benny to sit and showed him I had a treat - the dog came right up to him on the way past and he didn't even notice it was there as he was too focused on me (well, the treat) :thumbup: Good start I think


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Well it looks like it'll be madness and mayhem here from Friday, we've just been asked to look after next doors dog for a week. Rupert's as big a thief as Spencer so I may be tearing my hair out :lol:
> 
> Happy Gotcha Day Holly Bolly!
> 
> Spen can weave through legs and loves to do so, so much so that I have to warn anyone making a fuss of him to watch out for it coz he'll just shove his way through not caring whether you fall over


Kilo barges through. I taught him 'through' as part of a game but now he does it all the time. Trouble is, he's much taller than when I taught him :scared:. He doesn't weave in and out though!


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## moonviolet

Never used a pet corrector spray but guessing by Tink's reaction when she walked into OH's workshop (large shed but he insist's it's his workshop ) and he was "dusting" using his compressor. I'm guessing it would have no effect... She wandered past and just sat looking up at the container i keep the really stinky treats in :lol: :lol: :lol:

Lovely walk this morning ignored cantering ponies:thumbup:, dogs charging around offlead while their cyclists owners went on ahead and climbed her first tree of the new year.










This was all her own work and I was a bit concerned as it was pretty slippery so after a quick pic she was lifted down much to her disgust. :lol:

Think Tink's little mate is popping over to say hi later


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Never used a pet corrector spray but guessing by Tink's reaction when she walked into OH's workshop (large shed but he insist's it's his workshop ) and he was "dusting" using his compressor. I'm guessing it would have no effect... She wandered past and just sat looking up at the container i keep the really stinky treats in :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> Lovely walk this morning ignored cantering ponies:thumbup:, dogs charging around offlead while their cyclists owners went on ahead and climbed her first tree of the new year.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This was all her own work and I was a bit concerned as it was pretty slippery so after a quick pic she was lifted down much to her disgust. :lol:
> 
> Think Tink's little mate is popping over to say hi later


Tree climbing followed by Beagle Smackdown....what a fabulous start to 2013 :thumbup:.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well it looks like it'll be madness and mayhem here from Friday, we've just been asked to look after next doors dog for a week. Rupert's as big a thief as Spencer so I may be tearing my hair out :lol:
> 
> Happy Gotcha Day Holly Bolly!
> 
> Spen can weave through legs and loves to do so, so much so that I have to warn anyone making a fuss of him to watch out for it coz he'll just shove his way through not caring whether you fall over


That's my boy....!!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Never used a pet corrector spray but guessing by Tink's reaction when she walked into OH's workshop (large shed but he insist's it's his workshop ) and he was "dusting" using his compressor. I'm guessing it would have no effect... She wandered past and just sat looking up at the container i keep the really stinky treats in :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> Lovely walk this morning ignored cantering ponies:thumbup:, dogs charging around offlead while their cyclists owners went on ahead and climbed her first tree of the new year.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This was all her own work and I was a bit concerned as it was pretty slippery so after a quick pic she was lifted down much to her disgust. :lol:
> 
> Think Tink's little mate is popping over to say hi later


Wow that's a breathtakingly beautiful photo. It looks like fairyland and Tinks looks like chief elf surveying her kingdom...!!


----------



## Beth17

Gorgeous picture moonviolet, really pretty.

Good luck Sarah 

Happy gotcha day Holly Bolly

Sounds like a fabulous first walk of the year ballybee.

Poor Gypsy hope she's feeling better soon.

I am shattered Sam would not settle last night and he has a bit of a dicky tummy again probably the pringles he keeps stealing. He had to get up 3 times in the night and refused to go back to bed each time for a while. Woke up this morning and spent most of it whinging for no obvious reason and then took him out for a walk. 
We worked on his LLW which was actually very good and he behaved well until the end when he caught he scent of something which meant he morphed into a steam train with me holding on.

I left him at home with my mum and took Oscar up the fields and into the woods for a good hour and he was pretty much perfect; I just had to put his lead on a couple of times when he wouldn't follow as the temptation to try and wander over and say hello to a couple of groups of dogs was just too much. 

Got home and Sam still wasn't asleep and didn't settle down until 3.00pm and he woke up half an hour ago and has just dragged a rather big branch into the house  He also will not stop jumping up on the sides and grabbing hold of whatever he can, he will not take the hint that work surfaces are not for feet.

On the bright side the weather was gorgeous today and long may it last.


----------



## GingerRogers

Happy new year everybody. Here's to the day all our doggy dreams come true and the training pays off and no one needs to use this thread for bad reports. Good news only.

In our house the year started badly with hangover and cold heads not mixing well. The little one was very patient with me till lunch time. Had no petrol so couldn't drive somewhere quieter and it is always mentally busy on new years day. Everyone thinks a walk on the coast is good idea let alone a day as stunning as this. So with cold fuzzy head, annoyance at missing most of the sunshine and expectations of lots of 'encounters' I wasn't really looking forward to it. However I ended up sneaking into the cross country course at the local boarding school. Its stunning, only used 3-4 times a year, lots of little paths cut through the gorse with little jumps set up. Its right between two busy paths so we could hear all the people but they couldn't see us :thumbup: and naturally its bunny heaven so the ninja enjoyed it too. Have a thought we might be trespassing more often  Feeling better now after an afternoon of junk food.

Eta on the training front some little one gets very excited when she sees the target stick appear :-D


----------



## Dogless

Oh crikey :scared::scared:. What a time I'm having :scared::scared:. I am wondering whether there is a bitch in season nearby.....for the past hour or so since Kilo went into the garden he's been clingy and won't stop staring intensely and pawing at me. When I stand up he's up on his back legs attempting to hump me...sat on the sofa he's getting behind me to try and hump me or hump my arm....:mad2:. I'm currently sat at the dining room table and he's stood by me. Staring. Again :scared:.

I'll take him for a walk soon but :yikes::yikes:. He's never tried humping me past the normal very small puppy stuff - hope it passes soon t'is no joke with a dog as powerful as the BW :scared: and it's driving me mad :frown:.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless I sympathise it's bad enough when Sam does it. I hope he settles down soon.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Dogless I sympathise it's bad enough when Sam does it. I hope he settles down soon.


No idea what's up with him...:scared:.

ETA: HHmmmmm sounds bonkers but I am wondering if he needs a poo; he won't go in the garden any more and didn't have much of one this morning. He always behaves very excitably and 'naughtily' when he is desperate for one. I think I'll walk him now. In his headcollar!!


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Gorgeous picture moonviolet, really pretty.
> 
> Good luck Sarah
> 
> Happy gotcha day Holly Bolly
> 
> Sounds like a fabulous first walk of the year ballybee.
> 
> Poor Gypsy hope she's feeling better soon.
> 
> I am shattered Sam would not settle last night and he has a bit of a dicky tummy again probably the pringles he keeps stealing. He had to get up 3 times in the night and refused to go back to bed each time for a while. Woke up this morning and spent most of it whinging for no obvious reason and then took him out for a walk.
> We worked on his LLW which was actually very good and he behaved well until the end when he caught he scent of something which meant he morphed into a steam train with me holding on.
> 
> I left him at home with my mum and took Oscar up the fields and into the woods for a good hour and he was pretty much perfect; I just had to put his lead on a couple of times when he wouldn't follow as the temptation to try and wander over and say hello to a couple of groups of dogs was just too much.
> 
> *Got home and Sam still wasn't asleep and didn't settle down until 3.00pm and he woke up half an hour ago and has just dragged a rather big branch into the house  He also will not stop jumping up on the sides and grabbing hold of whatever he can, he will not take the hint that work surfaces are not for feet.*
> 
> On the bright side the weather was gorgeous today and long may it last.


Well at least it sounds as if he's feeling better.


----------



## Werehorse

A boarding school with a cross country course.  Do you think I could persuade my OH to send me? :lol: I never managed to persuade my parents to send me to Queen Ethelburga's 

Nice trespassing, just watch out for the Famous Five solving the mystery of the strange woman and the ginger terrierist haunting the cross country course!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Oh crikey :scared::scared:. What a time I'm having :scared::scared:. I am wondering whether there is a bitch in season nearby.....for the past hour or so since Kilo went into the garden he's been clingy and won't stop staring intensely and pawing at me. When I stand up he's up on his back legs attempting to hump me...sat on the sofa he's getting behind me to try and hump me or hump my arm....:mad2:. I'm currently sat at the dining room table and he's stood by me. Staring. Again :scared:.
> 
> I'll take him for a walk soon but :yikes::yikes:. He's never tried humping me past the normal very small puppy stuff - hope it passes soon t'is no joke with a dog as powerful as the BW :scared: and it's driving me mad :frown:.


Cripes that doesn't sound fun :scared: Dogless.
Just the staring is unnerving let alone the 'action'


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh crikey :scared::scared:. What a time I'm having :scared::scared:. I am wondering whether there is a bitch in season nearby.....for the past hour or so since Kilo went into the garden he's been clingy and won't stop staring intensely and pawing at me. When I stand up he's up on his back legs attempting to hump me...sat on the sofa he's getting behind me to try and hump me or hump my arm....:mad2:. I'm currently sat at the dining room table and he's stood by me. Staring. Again :scared:.
> 
> I'll take him for a walk soon but :yikes::yikes:. He's never tried humping me past the normal very small puppy stuff - hope it passes soon t'is no joke with a dog as powerful as the BW :scared: and it's driving me mad :frown:.


OMG - Poor you. He's a big boy to fend off.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> A boarding school with a cross country course.  Do you think I could persuade my OH to send me? :lol: I never managed to persuade my parents to send me to Queen Ethelburga's
> 
> Nice trespassing, just watch out for the Famous Five solving the mystery of the strange woman and the ginger terrierist haunting the cross country course!


It was a bit like that. I felt a bit Alice in wonderlandy for some reason very good fun and very naughty feeling. If caught I will just plead ignorance, there no fences to climb through so it s easily accessed. I have seen a few of the bits but never walked round the whole thing a Hell of a job to set up up. If only i had a pony................:001_cool:


----------



## Werehorse

Oh no, Dogless!  Hope he settles soon.


----------



## kat&molly

I'm late, but Happy New Year to all of you  

OH and I have been catching up on jobs outside- inbetween heavy showers.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> OMG - Poor you. He's a big boy to fend off.





Werehorse said:


> Oh no, Dogless!  Hope he settles soon.


Took Kilo for a walk - he behaved perfectly, not a paw wrong and gave none of his usual signs whatsoever of there being a bitch in season about. Got home, Rudi was barking in his crate which he never does (heard him as I came up to the house) but there were some smashed folk messing about so maybe that was it .

Anyhoo, dropped the BW off, took Rudi for a little training walk around the block - he was fabulous.

The BW was lying just inside the front door when we got back which he *never* does - he is always on the sofa.

The second I stepped back in the drooling, nose prodding and attempts at humping started again. Rudi grabbed my hand and Kilo had knocked me to the floor to try and hump me...so I now have a big gash in my hand and a whining, staring, Kilo whilst I'm sat at the dining table :mad2::mad2:. Rudi is asleep under the table like a good boy.

Takes a lot for me to reach the end of my tether but......nearly there :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Took Kilo for a walk - he behaved perfectly, not a paw wrong and gave none of his usual signs whatsoever of there being a bitch in season about. Got home, Rudi was barking in his crate which he never does (heard him as I came up to the house) but there were some smashed folk messing about so maybe that was it .
> 
> Anyhoo, dropped the BW off, took Rudi for a little training walk around the block - he was fabulous.
> 
> The BW was lying just inside the front door when we got back which he *never* does - he is always on the sofa.
> 
> The second I stepped back in the drooling, nose prodding and attempts at humping started again. Rudi grabbed my hand and Kilo had knocked me to the floor to try and hump me...so I now have a big gash in my hand and a whining, staring, Kilo whilst I'm sat at the dining table :mad2::mad2:. Rudi is asleep under the table like a good boy.
> 
> Takes a lot for me to reach the end of my tether but......nearly there :scared:.


There's got to be a bitch in season somewhere close by surely..?

Will Kilo lie down and stay if you tell him to? Rescue remedy (for Kilo) and brandy for you?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> There's got to be a bitch in season somewhere close by surely..?
> 
> Will Kilo lie down and stay if you tell him to? Rescue remedy (for Kilo) and brandy for you?


There must be Twiggy, but when there have been before he's never tried to hump me. He's lying at my feet now calmly (finally!!) but every single time I move he's after me :scared:. He will lie down but won't stay for long (not like him either) - I'll give him some StressLess and see how we go. I showered and washed my hair this morning and changed my clothes as always, but changed them again when this started just in case as he's massively interested in my one wrist and arm . His nose is glued to my wrist when I stand up / sit on the sofa...I've washed it again but maybe my hormones are potty today or something!!


----------



## chazzie10

Geez do you think it's doggy silly season? Seems to be a few of our dogs acting out of character today. Charlie wouldnt settle all morning. Every time I moved or even coughed, he was jumping off his bed and coming over, smiling into my face! He was being really comical at my mum and dads too. Such a show off 
Dogless I dont envy you that at all 
Ive heard dogs can pick up on hormones and stuff as well as moods and feelings. When my friend was pregnant her bitch started acting all strange, clingy and jealous. Has anyone any experience of that? Would love to know if it's true 

Well I'm definately not! So I guess Chaz was just being daft...phew lol


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Geez do you think it's doggy silly season? Seems to be a few of our dogs acting out of character today. Charlie wouldnt settle all morning. Every time I moved or even coughed, he was jumping off his bed and coming over, smiling into my face! He was being really comical at my mum and dads too. Such a show off
> Dogless I dont envy you that at all
> Ive heard dogs can pick up on hormones and stuff as well as moods and feelings. When my friend was pregnant her bitch started acting all strange, clingy and jealous. Has anyone any experience of that? Would love to know if it's true
> 
> Well I'm definately not! So I guess Chaz was just being daft...phew lol


I'm definitely not pregnant nor am I unwell that I know of.....been wracking my brains :scared:. Kilo has suddenly stopped stalking me, chilled out and gone to sleep on the sofa. Phew. I'm staying here for a few minutes more!!


----------



## chazzie10

Strange I was writing about the hormones at the same time as you... great minds n all that 

Maybe Rudi's been pulling Kilo's xmas baubles too much 
Ooooor could it be something to do with Rudi's wee hormones? I really am guessing, Ive not a clue. Either way, if he's being quiet....just....dont....move


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Strange I was writing about the hormones at the same time as you... great minds n all that
> 
> Maybe Rudi's been pulling Kilo's xmas baubles too much
> Ooooor could it be something to do with Rudi's wee hormones? I really am guessing, Ive not a clue. Either way, if he's being quiet....just....dont....move


Didn't last long; he's off the sofa slobbering all over me - I dared to stand up which started it all off again. If it's a bitch in season I have no idea what to do....go away for a bit with them because I can't have weeks of this??? :scared:.


----------



## Ruffers

Dogless said:


> Oh crikey :scared::scared:. What a time I'm having :scared::scared:. I am wondering whether there is a bitch in season nearby.....for the past hour or so since Kilo went into the garden he's been clingy and won't stop staring intensely and pawing at me. When I stand up he's up on his back legs attempting to hump me...sat on the sofa he's getting behind me to try and hump me or hump my arm....:mad2:. I'm currently sat at the dining room table and he's stood by me. Staring. Again :scared:.
> 
> I'll take him for a walk soon but :yikes::yikes:. He's never tried humping me past the normal very small puppy stuff - hope it passes soon t'is no joke with a dog as powerful as the BW :scared: and it's driving me mad :frown:.


Not to get too personal  but could it be you?

Rufflea gets like this with me for a few days each month (if you get my drift!).

Rufflea may only have short legs but he's a big dog and when he's set on humping its hard to stop him - I feel your pain!


----------



## Dogless

Ruffers said:


> Not to get too personal  but could it be you?
> 
> Rufflea gets like this with me for a few days each month (if you get my drift!).
> 
> Rufflea may only have short legs but he's a big dog and when he's set on humping its hard to stop him - I feel your pain!


No; not me as far as I am aware. I'm trying to think of everything. He's currently separated in the kitchen and hall by a babygate as I can't even move which is making Rudi go bonkers with frustration that he can't get to him...what a day .


----------



## Werehorse

That is so confusing and frustrating Dogless!  Have you changed anything at all, like washing power or your soap/shampoo etc? Have you eaten anything you don't usually?

I wonder if a change in Rudi's hormones could have set him off?

If it is a bitch in season it seems odd that he was fine out on the walk but he's so unsettled in the house.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> That is so confusing and frustrating Dogless!  Have you changed anything at all, like washing power or your soap/shampoo etc? Have you eaten anything you don't usually?
> 
> I wonder if a change in Rudi's hormones could have set him off?
> 
> If it is a bitch in season it seems odd that he was fine out on the walk but he's so unsettled in the house.


No....same washing powder, shower gel, medication etc etc etc.

Doesn't seem like it was a bitch in season as he was really good outside whereas he's normally really distracted - very obviously so when there is one close by. Even then he has never tried to hump me.

I feel sorry for him as he's clearly so stressed, but I'm stressed too not to mention covered in scratches and bruises. Poor little bugger has gone to lie on his bed and Rudi has chilled out too.


----------



## Sarah1983

I have no idea what to suggest Dogless. Maybe try starting a separate thread about the issue and see whether anyone can come up with anything? If it were a bitch in season then I expect he'd be the same or worse outside.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Poor Kilo and poor you 

I hope he either calms or you identify the trigger.



Much beagle smackdown fun was had here this afternoon, then we went out for an hour with the lovely monty and have very sleepy beagle , goign to be some noisy dreams this evening.

GR sound like Ninja tactic suit you and ginge 

Happy Gotcha day Hollybolly.


----------



## Dogless

I have let him back in and he has suddenly lost interest and gone to sleep beside me; would be great to know what caused it to avoid a repeat though!! Horrendous!

Sorry everyone - I'll stop being selfish and go and reread everyone's posts; I read them all but haven't retained anything .


----------



## Werehorse

I've just thought of a fantastic fundraising idea for my trailtrekker thing... Dogless has to give me £1 every time she feels guilty/apologises for being a normal human being.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I've just thought of a fantastic fundraising idea for my trailtrekker thing... Dogless has to give me £1 every time she feels guilty/apologises for being a normal human being.


Ah there is a flaw in your plan....if I was normal I wouldn't do that .


----------



## chazzie10

Glad he's settled Dogless- I tried googling it for ideas for you but it was silly people asking if their dog was gay etc  and nothing of use other than saying it can be attention seeking behaviour when another dog joins the household but Kilo gets plenty of attention and walks so that idea's out the window!! Oh well, I tried


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Glad he's settled Dogless- I tried googling it for ideas for you but it was silly people asking if their dog was gay etc  and nothing of use other than saying it can be attention seeking behaviour when another dog joins the household but Kilo gets plenty of attention and walks so that idea's out the window!! Oh well, I tried


I Googled it too...some interesting stuff out in interweb world .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I have let him back in and he has suddenly lost interest and gone to sleep beside me; would be great to know what caused it to avoid a repeat though!! Horrendous!
> 
> Sorry everyone - I'll stop being selfish and go and reread everyone's posts; I read them all but haven't retained anything .


Thank goodness for that. I honestly don't know what to suggest if he starts again other than removing him to another room or insisting he lies down.

And will you please stop apologising. You are not being at all selfish and isn't that what this forum is for - seeking advice.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I've just thought of a fantastic fundraising idea for my trailtrekker thing... Dogless has to give me £1 every time she feels guilty/apologises for being a normal human being.


What an excellent idea....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Thank goodness for that. I honestly don't know what to suggest if he starts again other than removing him to another room or insisting he lies down.
> 
> And will you please stop apologising. You are not being at all selfish and isn't that what this forum is for - seeking advice.


Removing I think, he just lost the plot !!! He's asleep with his head on me now like usual....very bizarre indeed. I hope it never happens again - Im battered, bruised and bewildered :crazy:. I'd understand if he'd always been a bit humpy and I'd let it escalate but he has never tried - hopefully it was a one-off :scared:.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> I've just thought of a fantastic fundraising idea for my trailtrekker thing... Dogless has to give me £1 every time she feels guilty/apologises for being a normal human being.


I fear Dogless would have to change her name to Penniless :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Glad he's settled Dogless- I tried googling it for ideas for you but it was silly people asking if their dog was gay etc  and nothing of use other than saying it can be attention seeking behaviour when another dog joins the household but Kilo gets plenty of attention and walks so that idea's out the window!! Oh well, I tried


Yes so did I but, as you say, nothing that we didn't already know.

Washing soda or biological washing powder is supposed to kill all scent of urine, etc. As a long shot it might be worth washing your wrist/arm that Kilo was particularly interested in with that, should he decide to start again....?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes so did I but, as you say, nothing that we didn't already know.
> 
> Washing soda or biological washing powder is supposed to kill all scent of urine, etc. As a long shot it might be worth washing your wrist/arm that Kilo was particularly interested in with that, should he decide to start again....?


I think so; I scrubbed it with antibacterial handwash...that didn't hurt much where Rudi had decided to take a chunk out when it all got too exciting . Good job I love them both .

For anyone wondering I don't wee on my arm :scared:.


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> I think so; I scrubbed it with antibacterial handwash...that didn't hurt much where Rudi had decided to take a chunk out when it all got too exciting . Good job I love them both .
> 
> For anyone wondering *I don't wee on my arm *:scared:.


I WAS about to ask how much champagne you drank last night


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I think so; I scrubbed it with antibacterial handwash...that didn't hurt much where Rudi had decided to take a chunk out when it all got too exciting . Good job I love them both .
> 
> For anyone wondering I don't wee on my arm :scared:.


Don't you?....LOL

Trouble is their sense of smell is so acute you would have only needed to brush against a gate post etc where a bitch had been.......

If it's any consolation my wrist/arm is covered in scratches and red welt marks after training Holly this afternoon....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Don't you?....LOL
> 
> Trouble is their sense of smell is so acute you would have only needed to brush against a gate post etc where a bitch had been.......
> 
> If it's any consolation my wrist/arm is covered in scratches and red welt marks after training Holly this afternoon....


It is a little . Rudi only bites now when very tired or over excited, thank goodness. He's a little gem though really - offers me so much attention when we are out walking - he's always looking up at me and offering eye contact and is really keen to do some training. Drama is he is so enthusiastic that he gets snatchy and over excited but I don't want to spoil how keen he is. Puppy classes with Michael from Thursday so I'll see what he thinks.


----------



## chazzie10

Sorry Im gonna shove this in, in the middle of it all 
If, I put two pics on here, (1 pic is mine, the other I have just discovered on a local rescue centre's cover photo), what would you say about the two?


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Sorry Im gonna shove this in, in the middle of it all
> If, I put two pics on here, (1 pic is mine, the other I have just discovered on a local rescue centre's cover photo), what would you say about the two?


They look very similar...same dog presuming puppy photo is yours?


----------



## Werehorse

Very similar, Chazzie... would need a photo of the markings on the puppy's back to be sure though... The puppy's head marking is quite wide compared to the adult dog but they do tend to narrow with age, Oscar's whole top of head was white as a pup, now he just has a splodgey blaze.


----------



## chazzie10

My pic is the left hand one, the older pic but boy that pup is almost identical to wee Honey, turns out the pup was born in the rescue after the mother was brought in, heavily pregnant, the week before their birth! Last June, when Honey was being rehomed! Remember the guy had her a week then was looking rid of her? Maybe realised she was pregnant, though i wouldve thought it would be obvious...She was the right age and apparently her 4th litter! The story just fits! I sent a wee message to the rescue place to ask what they knew about her and they've asked for a pic 
I felt sick when I saw the pic, I really thought it was her! Weird after talking about her on here 2 nights ago!!


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> My pic is the left hand one, the older pic but boy that pup is almost identical to wee Honey, turns out the pup was born in the rescue after the mother was brought in, heavily pregnant, the week before their birth! Last June, when Honey was being rehomed! Remember the guy had her a week then was looking rid of her? Maybe realised she was pregnant, though i wouldve thought it would be obvious...She was the right age and apparently her 4th litter! The story just fits! I sent a wee message to the rescue place to ask what they knew about her and they've asked for a pic


It does seem to fit Chazzie; poor Honey.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Chazzie. Whether Honey or not poor girl being handed in so close to birth.


----------



## chazzie10

I know Dogless, he let her have her first pups at a year old, I'd just left so I'd no say in it. I'd never have allowed it. Then another litter immediately after and I dont know after that. He apparently spent all his time in the pub after I went so I'm sure he wasnt bothering to watch for her coming into heat! He was just a money grabber wanting £100 a pup judging by the ads. Frustrating lol. Oh well, good thing is Ive had a message from the rescue and Ive volunteered to help if they need me anytime....you never know they might take me up on it


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> Oh Chazzie. Whether Honey or not poor girl being handed in so close to birth.


I know it's sad but on the other hand this rescue place is so good, it was maybe far better for her being there and better conditions


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> I know Dogless, he let her have her first pups at a year old, I'd just left so I'd no say in it. I'd never have allowed it. Then another litter immediately after and I dont know after that. He apparently spent all his time in the pub after I went so I'm sure he wasnt bothering to watch for her coming into heat! He was just a money grabber wanting £100 a pup judging by the ads. Frustrating lol. Oh well, good thing is Ive had a message from the rescue and Ive volunteered to help if they need me anytime....you never know they might take me up on it


Is it 7th Heaven Chazzie? They only use foster homes don't they I think? They do have a very good reputation...I enquired about Zeus a dal x pointer that was on there for ages. I was totally besotted but an adolescent with not much training and loads of energy combined with an entire male adolescent of the same age would have just been bad news.


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> Oh well, good thing is Ive had a message from the rescue and Ive volunteered to help if they need me anytime....you never know they might take me up on it


YOu know I've just done the same thing, I wasn't going to say anything until there was something to actually share.

You're right and hopefully she's been rehomed somewhere loving and caring.


----------



## chazzie10

Yep Dogless 7th Heaven...are they just foster homes? Awk dang  I'd only looked on their site quickly as I was scrolling through looking for more info on Honey buns lol. They seemed really caring so I just thought id offer myself eek. Ive been wanting to volunteer for a while but MAAS have a waiting list and the other, I think, is more horses and just a few dogs...and they say you have to be fit...hmmm thats me out lol


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Yep Dogless 7th Heaven...are they just foster homes? Awk dang  I'd only looked on their site quickly as I was scrolling through looking for more info on Honey buns lol. They seemed really caring so I just thought id offer myself eek. Ive been wanting to volunteer for a while but MAAS have a waiting list and the other, I think, is more horses and just a few dogs...and they say you have to be fit...hmmm thats me out lol


I asked MAAS as they are so close too. Just looked at 7th Heaven again - they do just use homes; it's under "What Makes Us Unique" About Us - 7th Heaven Animal Rescue Trust You could maybe help with transport?


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless- Ive 'liked' your last post but I dont really lol you know how to burst a girls bubble dontcha   

BTW a dal/ pointer cross wow sounds lovely but yeah, a handful. Pointers are soooo beautiful :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Dogless- Ive 'liked' your last post but I dont really lol you know how to burst a girls bubble dontcha
> 
> BTW a dal/ pointer cross wow sounds lovely but yeah, a handful. Pointers are soooo beautiful :001_wub:


Oh no Chazzie  I didn't want to burst it on purpose, I just recall looking when I enquired about Zeus .


----------



## chazzie10

Dogless said:


> Oh no Chazzie  I didn't want to burst it on purpose, I just recall looking when I enquired about Zeus .


Im winding you up  
Thanks for the link- i had a wee read there


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Im winding you up
> Thanks for the link- i had a wee read there


Think my sense of humour got lost somewhere with my patience today....


----------



## Dogless

Right folks; I'm off to bed - I'll sleep with one eye open tonight  even though the BW has never attempted to come upstairs as he's not allowed :scared:.


----------



## moonviolet

Sleep well Dogless lets hope todays amorousness was just a little blip.


----------



## chazzie10

awww poor you...maybe a good nights sleep will help and hopefully Kilo will 'keep it in his trousers' tomorrow 
Spray yourself with dog and cat 'Keep Off' tomorrow that'll make him think twice but you might stink for a while...and yes I'm joking about this too


----------



## chazzie10

Heading to bed myself....back to work and the 4.30am alarm calls tomorrow yuck....night all zzzzzzzzz


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## catz4m8z

Glad to hear that Deeks had a good night (except for all the barking!).
Lets hope that Dogless survived the night too!:scared:

Took my lot to the squirrel park today (so long line for Hannah) which was semi successful. Im finding it really difficult ot juggle everything at times though!
Heidi was barking at other dogs but my treat bag got stuck under Alfies travel bag so I couldnt distract her in time....then when I was trying to put their leads on I got all tangled! Usually they sit and have a treat after their lead goes on but today I was all confuddled trying to get the treat bag out from under Alfie (who smelt treats and leant so far out he was hanging outside his bag by his harness!!LOL), meanwhile Hannah was still trying to obsess over squirrels as I was trying to corral her and swap her long line to her coupler and Heidi was barking up a storm at a black Lab that had heard the word 'treats' and come over to investigate!!:lol:
I left the park rather frazzled!!
On the plus side we did some heel(ish) work on the way home as Adam kept sneaking forwards. But we cured that with some stops, slows and speeding up sessions as we walked and all 3 payed attention and stayed with me.
Oh, and Alfie has pooped in the garden twice this morning rather then on the pads!!:thumbup:


----------



## Werehorse

Leam - At least he didn't chew and was clean! Don't know what to suggest about the barking - it's hard if him and another dog are setting each other off. Dafty dogs. 

catz4m8z - OMG I just SO know that tangled up feeling! :lol: And I only have two but we can get into some impressive messes. 

I am hoping Dogless has survived the night - not seen any posts yet today!

My OH has gone back to work today after the holidays and, I know it's a bit sad but, I'm feeling all lonesome (I know, rubbish! :lol. It was such a lovely hollibobs though.  Walked a pair of very well-behaved dogs round the woods this morning in the p*ssing rain. Hugo gets really grumpy when it rains and by the end of the walk look all hunched and shivvery - Oscar doesn't get cold until after the walk because he runs around like a mad thing while he's actually off-lead. I'm considering putting a coat on Hugo when it's bad but I'd be concerned about him over-heating then... I do wonder if he'd enjoy wet walks more with a coat on though. 

Oscar's barking when stopped got a bit better after I just turned my back on him and waited until he was quiet before starting walking again a couple of times and Hugo is getting sightly better at not picking up sticks. I've reduced rewards when he picks up then drops and increased rewards when he sniffs but doesn't pick up. 

Right - OH has left me a list of tasks to do today!  I asked him too to try and stop me sitting on my bum worrying about leaving the house all day.  I'm autistic enough not to be able to ignore a task list. :lol: So I need to get on. Hopefully Dogless will appear, unhumped, soon.


----------



## purpleskyes

Little Hudson is being very naughty this week, totally ignores any commands when outside, wants to jump up on everyone that stops to see him.

He is being booked in for 6 week training course for the 16th January hopefully that will get his manners in check.


----------



## blossom21

A good day here, went to the park as usual Bramble on his long line. But I got the courage to let it drop and him walk along with it dragging along the ground, I thought he did well I only had to step on it twice but feel its me lacking confidence in him and not so much him if that makes sense. Good recalls but then the treats ran out  But all in all a good walk,although muddy ground is an understatement.


----------



## GingerRogers

Blurgh, back to normal trying to work 
Woke up this morning thinking I had broken the cold but its still lurking 
As per normal for the new year my back is threatening to 'go' 
As per normal for high days and holidays the pavements and footpaths are strewn with sh!t 
As its paths off the beaten track I don't think its the grockles so must be local owners who only walk their dogs on special occasions 

Is that enough grumpiness for now .

On a positive note I think the ginger one might have actually worked out what quiet means. I have only used it as a praise word, as in 'well done good quiet' for ages and not as a command as she didn't get it. It now appears to be working for gruffling at random stuff, people, cars, dogs she can't see etc but not for full on frenzies  yet 

Purpleskyes - hope you get 'little' Hudsons manners back as he ain't gonna be little for long 

Werehorse - I hate the post Christmas blues, hubby has to work still but not as much although all my good intentions of lots of lovely walks together so he could get to grips with our training and avoidance tactics went out the window with the lurgies.

Catz - sounds complicated, I know how bad it is with two of them deciding to to do different things at the same time let alone 3 & 1/2

Hope things are cool today dogless wherever you are


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## kaz25

Proud mummy again today. We decided to take the dogs to a nearby field this morning to work on some recall with them as they haven't had many off lead walks since we moved into town. They did awesome, there was only one time Benny found something a bit too interesting to sniff.

When we got further along the field two dogs came in from the other side. Benny went to take off to say hello so I shouted on him and he came straight back :thumbup: there were a few other times they tried to go and say hello but as soon as we shouted on them they came straight back.

So, I'm very proud again today


----------



## Dogless

It's OK...I'm alive  :thumbup:. Not a hint of interest, thank goodness!

catz - no idea how you manage to cope with all your lot at once :scared:.

Leam - pleased that your kitchen stayed all in one piece!

Werehorse - hope you've completed all your tasks :aureola:

blossom - well done to you and Bramble, must have taken a lot to let the line trail :thumbup:

kaz 25 - well done to you and your two .

GR - what can I say ... Christmas spirit well and truly gone :scared:.

So....the reason why I have been missing.....

I took both boys to our forest for Rudi's first ever visit and...they were superb :thumbup:. They had never travelled both together in the boot before and there were no problems with that at all . The weather was so gloomy that I couldn't get many nice photos and we got soaked a few times, but it's mild today .

Rudi kept very close to me when Kilo was zooming about and running through the trees as he was too slow to follow him despite his best efforts :001_wub:. One effort lead to him falling into a ditch and getting submerged which brought Kilo running back all worried but he got himself out and carried on pottering about :thumbup:.

We obviously didn't do much distance or spend nearly as much time out as usual but Rudi got to potter and Kilo did a zillion times our distance zooming about so both dogs are shattered and sleeping contentedly . When Kilo realised we were heading back to the car he did stand and refuse to move in disbelief for a while...but he coped .


----------



## Twiggy

Very pleased that Kilo appeared back to normal this morning - phew!!

Loved the pic.....

I took Holly with me to P & H this morning and bought £30 worth of new outdoor toys as the current ones have about had it. Holly wasn't terribly interested in helping me choose but she thought the bunnies running about in their pens were quite good.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Very pleased that Kilo appeared back to normal this morning - phew!!
> 
> Loved the pic.....
> 
> I took Holly with me to P & H this morning and bought £30 worth of new outdoor toys as the current ones have about had it. Holly wasn't terribly interested in helping me choose but she thought the bunnies running about in their pens were quite good.


Not as pleased as me ...it was awful :scared::scared:.

Did you get anything good? I was thinking of getting some more but not sure what to get really. Kilo won't go on the grass when it's too wet  but Rudi's happy to!

Bet HB loved the rabbits...I walk past as fast as possible; Kilo would really want to get them :scared:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> *GR - what can I say ... Christmas spirit well and truly gone :scared:.*


Sorry,  had a bit of a cry :frown: then realised that creates more cold slime, so had some lunch and a ginger cuddle and the back is easing slightly, bad mood not helped by the fact that OH has a cold 10x worse than anything I might suffer from so feels its perfectly acceptable to lie in bed. He did go in and do the bare minimum at work but still  how would they cope with out us 

Your morning sounds lovely, hope Kilo didn't mind sharing the forest, poor Rudi, I take it the picture was post dunking, he looks a little bedraggled, and have his ears had a growth spurt  and how sweet of Kilo to be worried :001_wub:

 We have mastered the point of the target stick  but I am not sure where to take it from here , she did some wonderfully cute walking backwards on her hind legs just now, but I haven't a clue how to capture these things let alone use it to create movements I actually want  can anyone point me to some interweb instructions please I have tried to google it but not sure I am using the right phrases


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry,  had a bit of a cry :frown: then realised that creates more cold slime, so had some lunch and a ginger cuddle and the back is easing slightly, bad mood not helped by the fact that OH has a cold 10x worse than anything I might suffer from so feels its perfectly acceptable to lie in bed. He did go in and do the bare minimum at work but still  how would they cope with out us
> 
> Your morning sounds lovely, hope Kilo didn't mind sharing the forest, poor Rudi, I take it the picture was post dunking, he looks a little bedraggled, and have his ears had a growth spurt  and how sweet of Kilo to be worried :001_wub:
> 
> We have mastered the point of the target stick  but I am not sure where to take it from here , she did some wonderfully cute walking backwards on her hind legs just now, but I haven't a clue how to capture these things let alone use it to create movements I actually want  can anyone point me to some interweb instructions please I have tried to google it but not sure I am using the right phrases


My hubby was touch and go with a cold not long ago...he just about pulled through . If it's any consolation my back is shocking today - caused mainly by the BW attempting to have his wicked way yesterday :scared::scared:.

Yes; the photo was post - dunk and his ears are alles uber ze platz  at present, love him .

Can't help you with the target sticm I'm afraid...reckon mv and Twiggy will be able to .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Not as pleased as me ...it was awful :scared::scared:.
> 
> Did you get anything good? I was thinking of getting some more but not sure what to get really. Kilo won't go on the grass when it's too wet  but Rudi's happy to!
> 
> Bet HB loved the rabbits...I walk past as fast as possible; Kilo would really want to get them :scared:.


Yes I think Holly had the same idea and would have preferred several rabbits to chase around the fields rather than toys...!!

I got a smallish space hopper, two soft vinyl baseballs, a tough but soft squeaky bone, a yellow stick thing and two rubber balls. That should keep them going for a bit hopefully.

Leafy went bananas when I came in with the bag, as she always does if it's new toys, so they've been playing with the baseballs in the house.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes I think Holly had the same idea and would have preferred several rabbits to chase around the fields rather than toys...!!
> 
> I got a smallish space hopper, two soft vinyl baseballs, a tough but soft squeaky bone, a yellow stick thing and two rubber balls. That should keep them going for a bit hopefully.
> 
> Leafy went bananas when I came in with the bag, as she always does if it's new toys, *so they've been playing with the baseballs in the house.*


Kilo always goes bananas when he knows I've got new toys too....hope your house is so far unscathed :scared:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Yes I think Holly had the same idea and would have preferred several rabbits to chase around the fields rather than toys...!!
> 
> I got a smallish space hopper, two soft vinyl baseballs, a tough but soft squeaky bone, a yellow stick thing and two rubber balls. That should keep them going for a bit hopefully.
> 
> Leafy went bananas when I came in with the bag, as she always does if it's new toys, so they've been playing with the baseballs in the house.


Last year my friend kept threatening to get me a guinea pig for Christmas  no idea why, so I kept threatening to give it to Rory, I reckon he would have liked it - although this year I was hoping she actually would, Ginge would love one :scared:


----------



## L/C

Dogless - glad to hear you passed the night unmolested! That pic is lovely :001_wub:

Ginge - my target stick has a clicker built in and I use that to capture behaviours. Can you add a clicker in and try that? Hope you feel better soon and big hug from me and the pointies.

Werehorse - you can get lightweight waterproof coats if you think that would help. I also take a bag with me so I can take them off if I'm worried about the dogs getting too hot.

Extra double platinum star for Gypsy today. She discovered a lump of bread in the middle of a bush and not only dropped it when told but walked away and left it! This is the first time she has ever left food she's found without me having to physically take it away from her (she's a terrible scavenger). We walked off a little way and she turned around to go back and get it but then recalled to me before she did. I am dead chuffed with her.

I know it sounds basic but she's always been really obsessed with food so it was lovely for her to make the choice to come back to me, rather then me having to put the lead on and drag her away.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - that is very impressive of Gypsy!! I have to take things away from Kilo or him away from the item if I don't see it first - he is a terrible scavenger too.


----------



## moonviolet

GR if your target stick hasn't got a clicker onboard you can train a marker word. Without boring you with the details of my dodgy thumb, I've found it useful to have Tink conditioned for both a clicker and a markerword.

Choose your word it can be anything Yay, yes! check, bingo whatever you like and in the same way you introduced the clicker introduce this word first for doing nothing so the word is a great thing, then by capturing any behaviour she offers, then you can go on and use it with your target stick ( best not to do it all at once to start) Use it to capture the behaviour you want like pressing the shutter to take a photo of the desired behaviour.

Here's a nice step by step for teaching "spin" with a target stick.

Spin Dog Trick | Build Spin Trick Step By Step With Target Stick and Clicker

And take a bow.

Take A Bow Dog Training Trick | Teach Take A Bow Using A Target Stick & Clicker

Lovely pic Dogless must hae been lovely to get back to your forest after yesterday's lovefest 

Well done Gypsy 

C4M I'm beginning to picture you standing with y oru midget army maypole dancing around you.

Well done to all the good doggies and hang in there everyone else. ( sorry no notebook :lol


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GR if your target stick hasn't got a clicker onboard you can train a marker word. Without boring you with the details of my dodgy thumb, I've found it useful to have Tink conditioned for both a clicker and a markerword.
> 
> Choose your word it can be anything Yay, yes! check, bingo whatever you like and in the same way you introduced the clicker introduce this word first for doing nothing so the word is a great thing, then by capturing any behaviour she offers, then you can go on and use it with your target stick ( best not to do it all at once to start) Use it to capture the behaviour you want like pressing the shutter to take a photo of the desired behaviour.
> 
> Here's a nice step by step for teaching "spin" with a target stick.
> 
> Spin Dog Trick | Build Spin Trick Step By Step With Target Stick and Clicker
> 
> And take a bow.
> 
> Take A Bow Dog Training Trick | Teach Take A Bow Using A Target Stick & Clicker
> 
> Lovely pic Dogless must hae been lovely to get back to your forest after yesterday's lovefest
> 
> Well done Gypsy
> 
> C4M I'm beginning to picture you standing with y oru midget army maypole dancing around you.
> 
> Well done to all the good doggies and hang in there everyone else. ( sorry no notebook :lol


Thank you MV & L/C - my target stick is just a wooden dowel that was a very, very over sized lolly stick hubby bought earlier in the year, there's a shop in town that sells those multicoloured rock type ones, he snuck off from a day out with the kids and came back with medium sized ones for each of them, I pulled a strop cos I have always hankered after them and he proceeded to produce one the size of a side plate for me  was rather nice even if I am rather too old to be enjoying things like that, and I got a massive sugar rush from my first attempt at eating it  for some reason I kept it in case it ever came in handy 

Thanks for those links they look fun to try, I am using a clicker, I am sometimes a bit of a numpty and click at the wrong time but even worse with a marker word, I am supposed to be practicing that but I get so excited I say the wrong thing or again say it at the wrong time.

I guess what I wasn't sure was when to start adding the cues in and when to expect that the target isn't needed but those clips will help me get started.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Last year my friend kept threatening to get me a guinea pig for Christmas  no idea why, so I kept threatening to give it to Rory, I reckon he would have liked it - although this year I was hoping she actually would, Ginge would love one :scared:


I'm afraid my sister had to replace several guinea pigs whilst her children were at nursery school. Her old collie cross Susie sadly got at several.


----------



## blossom21

Dogless said:


> It's OK...I'm alive  :thumbup:. Not a hint of interest, thank goodness!
> 
> catz - no idea how you manage to cope with all your lot at once :scared:.
> 
> Leam - pleased that your kitchen stayed all in one piece!
> 
> Werehorse - hope you've completed all your tasks :aureola:
> 
> blossom - well done to you and Bramble, must have taken a lot to let the line trail :thumbup:
> 
> kaz 25 - well done to you and your two .
> 
> GR - what can I say ... Christmas spirit well and truly gone :scared:.
> 
> So....the reason why I have been missing.....
> 
> I took both boys to our forest for Rudi's first ever visit and...they were superb :thumbup:. They had never travelled both together in the boot before and there were no problems with that at all . The weather was so gloomy that I couldn't get many nice photos and we got soaked a few times, but it's mild today .
> 
> Rudi kept very close to me when Kilo was zooming about and running through the trees as he was too slow to follow him despite his best efforts :001_wub:. One effort lead to him falling into a ditch and getting submerged which brought Kilo running back all worried but he got himself out and carried on pottering about :thumbup:.
> 
> We obviously didn't do much distance or spend nearly as much time out as usual but Rudi got to potter and Kilo did a zillion times our distance zooming about so both dogs are shattered and sleeping contentedly . When Kilo realised we were heading back to the car he did stand and refuse to move in disbelief for a while...but he coped .


Lovely picture of lovely dogs,glad your hump free today


----------



## Twiggy

I like the one of Kilo with his regal nose in the air - "me humping, certainly not. I'm much too dignified"....:devil:


----------



## catz4m8z

Dogless said:


> L/C - that is very impressive of Gypsy!! I have to take things away from Kilo or him away from the item if I don't see it first - he is a terrible scavenger too.


Mine have a very reliable 'leave'....if they are on lead and the item in question cant be swallowed whole!

Just watched the ratpuppy attempt to drag his 4ft x 1ft play tunnel into his crate!:w00t: (I laughed so hard Im lucky I didnt wet myself!!:lol.
Puppies...better then telly!!:thumbup:


----------



## ballybee

well we had a good day today, the Oh came out to amuse the boys with his terrible ball throwing skills(got a ball launcher for christmas and he's still trying to figure out how to throw with it), Tummel was very good, he'd play fetch for a while, then go a potter about and next thing you know...he's sped off to get the ball again 

His recall was good again, we even managed to have him offlead and pottering while people were going past and even had him offlead and playing with me while a dog went past  so we had a mighty good day with him.

Tummel is such a bum...he takes on issues and then with a few days of working he suddenly decides he's fine again!!! He's an idiot


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## Guest

Aawwww at that photo, dogless, how big is the 'little' pup.
And Well done Gypsy!! (we're still working on leaving 'stuff' foundon walks)

Sorry If I've missed anyone out. 

Mum's getting fed up with having to walk donkey boy now, but I can't walk him, not yet.


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## simonehadland2009

i am currently still working on getting housetraining 100% he is great when i am in on my own, but as soon as my mum comes round he seems to forget everything and loves to annoy my mum


----------



## Twiggy

Mmm think I might have to go back to Pets at Home at the week-end, the baseball toys are proving TOO popular....LOL

Quiver's lying at my feet under the computer giving the one I left in the house hell, Leafy is lying to the side looking longingly and Holly keeps nudging me with her nose asking if she can have it....flipping dogs. There's at least another 50 toys they can play with.


----------



## diefenbaker

I don't know what I'm working on.. I suppose it's heeling... but we don't call it that. It's not for obedience either.. more for my ( his ? ) fun. Dief's always been pretty good at palm targetting when I'm static... but to get him to follow.. he'd keep on tapping my palm.. and get frustrated when it didn't end the exercise. So when I want him to follow I keep my palm closed in a fist and open the palm to get him to touch and finish the exercise. Just tried a couple of "inside" turns today... didn't go too badly. This was all inspired by a youtube video called "Heeling Party!".. if only.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I don't know what I'm working on.. I suppose it's heeling... but we don't call it that. It's not for obedience either.. more for my ( his ? ) fun. Dief's always been pretty good at palm targetting when I'm static... but to get him to follow.. he'd keep on tapping my palm.. and get frustrated when it didn't end the exercise. So when I want him to follow I keep my palm closed in a fist and open the palm to get him to touch and finish the exercise. Just tried a couple of "inside" turns today... didn't go too badly. This was all inspired by a youtube video called "Heeling Party!".. if only.


What are you trying to achieve?

We always start the puppies off with a tit-bit on their noses out on the hand (tit-bit between thumb and index finger pointing down) at arms length.


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> What are you trying to achieve?
> 
> We always start the puppies off with a tit-bit on their noses out on the hand (tit-bit between thumb and index finger pointing down) at arms length.


He's a bit bigger than that. To get him to look up at me I have to go up a stepladder  Long term what I'm trying to achieve is to get him to follow me closely offlead if/when necessary... but... if you've seen my other posts.. he's very easily dog distracted. So at the moment we're only working in a zero distraction environment ( the conservatory ).


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> He's a bit bigger than that. To get him to look up at me I have to go up a stepladder  Long term what I'm trying to achieve is to get him to follow me closely offlead if/when necessary... but... if you've seen my other posts.. he's very easily dog distracted. So at the moment we're only working in a zero distraction environment ( the conservatory ).


How tall are you and what is your dog GSD? It's normally easier if they're big.


----------



## Guest

Gotta agree with Twigg about bigger being better when it comes to giving them treats while heeling haha, I looked after a rebellious daschund and I had to keep pinging food downwards at it. 

Do you guys think Zand would get too hyped up by a flirt pole?


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## cinnamontoast

I taught Zak to go into cover today. Sounds like an instinctive spaniel thing but not for Mr Scared of things that Move, it's not! I sent him into some woody stems. He was very reluctant at first but within 20 minutes, he was searching properly, bounding on it to flatten, weaving in and out. I'm so chuffed!


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## cinnamontoast

Why is this thread not yet a sticky?


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> How tall are you and what is your dog GSD? It's normally easier if they're big.


I'm a 6ft 4 bronzed adonis. Dief is a 2 year old GSD x Mal. One of those facts is incorrect. He's 2 1/4. Alright.. alright.. I'm a 5ft 8 bronzed adonis.. who's let himself go a bit. With Dief I think it's focus. We do lots of focus exercises.. gazing longingly into each others eyes ( initially I'd inadvertently taught him to stare into space because if I moved he didn't follow ).. and it's getting better.. possibly with practice and maturity.. but he is still easily distracted.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I'm a 6ft 4 bronzed adonis. Dief is a 2 year old GSD x Mal. One of those facts is incorrect. He's 2 1/4. Alright.. alright.. I'm a 5ft 8 bronzed adonis.. who's let himself go a bit. With Dief I think it's focus. We do lots of focus exercises.. gazing longingly into each others eyes ( initially I'd inadvertently taught him to stare into space because if I moved he didn't follow ).. and it's getting better.. possibly with practice and maturity.. but he is still easily distracted.




Well I'm a 5 ft nothing little old lady who frequently handles GSDs, Malinois, etc. etc.

Is this about the right size (not me BTW):


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm a 5 ft nothing little old lady who frequently handles GSDs, Malinois, etc. etc.
> 
> Is this about the right size (not me BTW):


Yes.. that's about it. But he's short-haired.. and so am I.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Yes.. that's about it. But he's short-haired.. and so am I.


Try arming yourself with some tasty tit-bits - chuck one behind you in your conservatory and whilst your dog is eating it say something like "what's this?" and stick your arm out, hand pointing down with a tit-bit between your thumb and index finger and as your dog's nose touches your fingers proceed forward for a few paces:


----------



## Thorne

Goodness, I have a lot to catch up on!

Just done my 3 Blue Cross days for this week, my friend Chip the Staffy is reserved and hopefully going home on saturday  Paddy and Poppy still waiting though, and there's plenty more dogs and cats besides them that are overdue finding their forever homes. Some bright spark has cut up and plaited a couple of raggy towels into XXL tug toys, going down very well with the terriers!

Looking forward to a daylight walk with my 2 tomorrow, I don't trust the muddy fields in darkness even with a torch and strong boots at the moment! Both dogs still being very good on our pavement pounding, done another trip to the carpark for heelwork practice, love my new training lead and wish I'd got one sooner :001_wub:
Bit annoyed tonight as my sisters have been home all day and couldn't be bothered to walk the dogs, I do love walking them but the girls are more than capable of taking them out once in a while... grr.
Breeze a bit unsettled tonight, think she's expecting more fireworks but is now on the bed with Scooter and looking more chilled than earlier, bless.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Goodness, I have a lot to catch up on!
> 
> *Just done my 3 Blue Cross days for this week, my friend Chip the Staffy is reserved and hopefully going home on saturday  Paddy and Poppy still waiting though, and there's plenty more dogs and cats besides them that are overdue finding their forever homes. Some bright spark has cut up and plaited a couple of raggy towels into XXL tug toys, going down very well with the terriers!*
> 
> Looking forward to a daylight walk with my 2 tomorrow, I don't trust the muddy fields in darkness even with a torch and strong boots at the moment! Both dogs still being very good on our pavement pounding, done another trip to the carpark for heelwork practice, love my new training lead and wish I'd got one sooner :001_wub:
> Bit annoyed tonight as my sisters have been home all day and couldn't be bothered to walk the dogs, I do love walking them but the girls are more than capable of taking them out once in a while... grr.
> Breeze a bit unsettled tonight, think she's expecting more fireworks but is now on the bed with Scooter and looking more chilled than earlier, bless.


I really shouldn't keep looking on the collie rescue sites but at least pleased to see that this year's little Holly and her sister Ivy have both found homes.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless what a lovely morning with your boys 

L/C well done to Gypsy very impressive.

LO I hope you're able to walk Zand again soon.

Thorne I know how you feel I have to bribe my brother to take Oscar on a half hour street walk if for some reason I can't get back from uni 

Everyone else well done :thumbup:

Good day for us as Sam has behaved himself for most of the day. We went to the field and he was much better at not snatching his toy and we did some recall. We gave up after a while though as he kept laying down and started to get a bit silly which was him telling me he'd had enough.

Oscar was also really good although he is becoming far too social for my liking so still reminding him how to recall. I had to use my fishwife voice today  as he was having a quick play which was fine but he then wouldn't take the hint and leave. I may have to stop his tablets if this carries on so he becomes grumpy again


----------



## Werehorse

Glad Oscar is noticeably less grumpy! Even if it turns you into a fishwife. :lol:


----------



## Beth17

We have had the best morning today and I am so pleased with Oscar. Went with my dad and step mum and their 4 boxers to a horse sanctuary that hires out their arenas and my parents are hiring for an hour a week for the rescue so that the dogs can have a run around in safety.

It went fantastically as I was expecting Oscar to kick off at the others due to them playing with Sam but he didn't bat an eyelid they just all ran around happily together and chased their toys. Now Oscar doesn't really mix with their 4 that often and so I don't think he was behaving just because he knows them but it has given me real hope that I can sort his issues out and be able to walk my two together without worrying all the time :thumbup:

And here are a couple of photos to bore you as I'm so pleased. They are a bit dark unfortunately.

























I've finished gloating now


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## Dogless

Beth; I am so pleased for you - how lovely. Oscar's becoming quite the social butterfly .


----------



## Dogless

We have had a busy day..up early to walk Rudi, then Kilo - both walks went well; nothing seen with Rudi really and Kilo had a training walk on the lead as I meant to do one last night but we met my friend and Dizzy and ended up taking them to play on the field . I met her again this morning on the way back so we walked the last five minutes together. Kilo was great :thumbup:.

Then, dropped Kilo at home and took Rudi for his first day at school, then PAH to weigh him and for him to wag furiously at people until they fussed and played with him - he weighed 20.6kg, little chunk! Finally back home about an hour ago.

So....class this morning. There were three new pups in the class (eight dogs) of which Rudi was the youngest. The rest of the dogs ranged from 8 months upwards to an 18 month old. Three of them are going into the class after ours from next week and two new puppies will be joining. 

The good bits:
Rudi LOVED the people - the trainer commented on how very different to Kilo he was in that respect.
He wasn't too interested in the dogs, even though most of them were all over the shop trying to greet each other - he focused on me really easily - but if he did greet a dog he did it relaxed and waggily*.
When we were sat listening to the trainer or watching other people have their turn at something he just sat nicely and calmly*. 

The bad bit:
We sat near to a choc lab who suddenly lunged and bit Rudi who screamed and shot under the bench  so I moved away. I wondered if Rudi smelt like Kilo so that triggered it, but he then did the same to a collie bitch (who wasn't having any of it!)
We did recalls today and the lab shot straight over to Rudi rather than recalling to his owner, but I caught him by the collar and propelled him in his owner's direction.

Not sure why it's always labs with us; Kilo's puppy class had a 7 month old black lab that used to chase him and lunge at him aggressively which I think was the start of his iffy relationship with the breed - I should have walked out of that class in hindsight :mad2:.

So far Rudi has met the two choc labs here that lunged at him in a friendly way and scared him to death, the choc lab that lunged at him today and a friendly black lab also in the class today. Hope we meet some calm ones soon.


* I'm not expecting the angelic behaviour to last...but am encouraging it as best as I can!!


----------



## moonviolet

Forgot my bit

i'll start with a pic.... look where the tail is! not tucked, no sign of trembling, not heading for the hills. Yet she is watching a couple of gsd's playing :thumbup:










That was this morning's walk, this evening had tag along dog join us again, I'd never take it out on her, but I'm going to give her owners a virtual growl _*Grrrrrrrrrr*_r her owners


----------



## purpleskyes

Not losing my patience with the pup, he has been fishing in the bin eating stuff, solved this by actually buying a plastic bin to put the bag in. We recently moved and hadn't got round to that yet.

He is still biting, he actually left a mark on my arm today, not a happy lady!


----------



## Dogless

Wow Miss Tinks :thumbup::thumbup:. Platinum star day .

As for TAD....they really are such a pain through no fault of their own :mad2:.


----------



## Guest

I forgot to say about an incident today!! 

me and mum were down the street, and there was a woman we know with a staffie cross. Now I have heard from several people that it's a bit 'iffy'.
Mum asked the owner if she could stroke it, the owner said yes, but then the staffie like immediatly froze up and just staaarrreddd at my mum. 
So I was quickly grabbed mums arm and pretended to see something nice in the window. 
A bit further down the road we heard a horrendous noise as the staffie went into a full-on barking/snarling/snappy moment at another person. 
The owner then screeched and smacked the staff, saying "He's never done that before!" 
Sadly though, I think he has. This being a smallish town, several people were quick to say that he'd reacted to someone they know or their dogs. 



ETA: I have nothing against staffies, Zander's bestest buddy in the whole wide world (Well my workplace) was a staffie. 
I'm just against owners who know theres a problem byt ignore/deny it.

OOh and well done tink. 
I CUDDLED A BABY BEAGLE YESTERDAY ACTUALLY. Only 10 weeks old. I hope it wasn't a christmas present, but it was the little things first outing ever and all it wanted to do was SNIIIIIIIIFFFF every thing.


----------



## GingerRogers

Nasty lab  how very dare he! Don't worry Rudi I am willing to back up MV if needed, but doubt it is, not if she lets her hag out 

Glad you are mending LO, and that Zander is being nice to you, for now !

Thorne, poor Breeze  it really is a struggle with noise phobic dogs isn't it, you just never can tell when you are safe. I hardly get to walk with my friend and her two at the moment as she can't go anywhere near shoots and bird scarers which pretty much means beach round here and I can't really do beach not during the day anyway, waaaay too busy........


..........as we just discovered. Forgot its still holiday time for lots of people and timed our visit a little early (gosh the nights are drawing out quick its lovely) we had some initial gruffing at a dog so diverted only to be faced with a black lab, couldn't really avoid a full on frenzy as I tried to cross the road  however despite that and the fact that she was very bouncy and hyped up after that she was pretty good, I cant be certain but I am pretty sure she was aware of/could see two OES, three Chi's (I can only just spot them in the dunes ), a black thing and a vizsla type thing in the distance, she was relatively quiet. My new fingerless gloves are not so good as the treats keep getting stuck to them :frown:

Obviously all the local builders are still off work as the beach was also full of fishermen which she has barked at in the past but not today which was very good considering her recent random dislike of people and things.

And thanks moonviolet we have a 'bow wow' almost perfectly in just two days!  

Spin isn't going quite as well, little bit too keen and tends to walk back instead of turning, had that problem in classes as well though I remember, but got a quarter turn at lunchtime.

Why can't she pick up the behaviour stuff as quick :mad2:


----------



## Dogless

purpleskyes said:


> Not losing my patience with the pup, he has been fishing in the bin eating stuff, solved this by actually buying a plastic bin to put the bag in. We recently moved and hadn't got round to that yet.
> 
> He is still biting, he actually left a mark on my arm today, not a happy lady!


If it makes you feel any better, Rudi had destroyed numerous cuffs and drawn so much blood I was close to needing a transfusion until a few days ago; I looked like a dedicated self harmer  Unless you count when he's really overtired or excited when he turns into crocopuppy again :scared:.


----------



## purpleskyes

Dogless said:


> If it makes you feel any better, Rudi had destroyed numerous cuffs and drawn so much blood I was close to needing a transfusion until a few days ago; I looked like a dedicated self harmer  Unless you count when he's really overtired or excited when he turns into crocopuppy again :scared:.


Rudi has drawn blood more than once?! Oh no Hudson hasn't been that bad thankfully! How have you been dealing with it?

I have just been telling him a firm no or giving him a toy to chew on instead. Although sometimes when he gets a firm no he will snap even more.


----------



## Dogless

purpleskyes said:


> Rudi has drawn blood more than once?! Oh no Hudson hasn't been that bad thankfully! How have you been dealing with it?
> 
> I have just been telling him a firm no or giving him a toy to chew on instead. Although sometimes when he gets a firm no he will snap even more.


Both Kilo and Rudi have been huge biters from day one; they would draw blood almost every time they bit as they held and shook too. My hands looked like I'd stuck them in a shredder :scared:.

I use distraction (training, something to gnaw rather than me or calm play ) and time outs; yelping makes Rudi mentally excited as it did Kilo but he thrives on attention so taking that away is effective. Huge praise when a bite becomes softer, coupled with teaching a good 'leave'. The other day Rudi was having zoomies, got too worked up and did a 'fly by' on my jeans ripping them and tearing a nice hole in my leg in the process . So far one pair of jeans, a pair of trackie bottoms, pair of jammie bottoms and several tops have become casualties - some of the tops I'd saved from having Kilo just for the worst of the biting!

It's just all finding a method that works, patience and consistency, most of it has stopped now with Rudi (Kilo stopped at around this age too) unless he gets excited or very tired - then it's crate time to simmer down.

There's a sticky in the Training bit of the the forum or Google "Ian Dunbar, The Bite Stops Here".


----------



## Twiggy

purpleskyes said:


> Rudi has drawn blood more than once?! Oh no Hudson hasn't been that bad thankfully! How have you been dealing with it?
> 
> I have just been telling him a firm no or giving him a toy to chew on instead. Although sometimes when he gets a firm no he will snap even more.


When you think about it from your pup's point of view, he's after attention so a firm NO will make him snap even more.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Nasty lab  how very dare he! Don't worry Rudi I am willing to back up MV if needed, but doubt it is, not if she lets her hag out
> 
> Glad you are mending LO, and that Zander is being nice to you, for now !
> 
> Thorne, poor Breeze  it really is a struggle with noise phobic dogs isn't it, you just never can tell when you are safe. I hardly get to walk with my friend and her two at the moment as she can't go anywhere near shoots and bird scarers which pretty much means beach round here and I can't really do beach not during the day anyway, waaaay too busy........
> 
> ..........as we just discovered. Forgot its still holiday time for lots of people and timed our visit a little early (gosh the nights are drawing out quick its lovely) we had some initial gruffing at a dog so diverted only to be faced with a black lab, couldn't really avoid a full on frenzy as I tried to cross the road  however despite that and the fact that she was very bouncy and hyped up after that she was pretty good, I cant be certain but I am pretty sure she was aware of/could see two OES, three Chi's (I can only just spot them in the dunes ), a black thing and a vizsla type thing in the distance, she was relatively quiet. My new fingerless gloves are not so good as the treats keep getting stuck to them :frown:
> 
> Obviously all the local builders are still off work as the beach was also full of fishermen which she has barked at in the past but not today which was very good considering her recent random dislike of people and things.
> 
> And thanks moonviolet we have a 'bow wow' almost perfectly in just two days!
> 
> *Spin isn't going quite as well, little bit too keen and tends to walk back instead of turning, had that problem in classes as well though I remember, but got a quarter turn at lunchtime.*
> 
> Why can't she pick up the behaviour stuff as quick :mad2:


Have you tried asking her to sit then putting a tit-bit on her nose saying something like "what's this?" then moving your hand slowly to the left or right and as she follows it say "spin".

Holly has mastered twist to the left and twirl to the right just on voice command now - pity about the heelwork....!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Have you tried asking her to sit then putting a tit-bit on her nose saying something like "what's this?" then moving your hand slowly to the left or right and as she follows it say "spin".
> 
> Holly has mastered twist to the left and twirl to the right just on voice command now - pity about the heelwork....!!


We had to learn 'twist' (to the left) or 'round' (to the right) for class - I found that doing it on the move luring with food like that worked and Kilo got it first time. Doing it static didn't work at all for us which I'm certain is down to my crap skills - but maybe on the move might work? Kilo will now do it static as he understands what I'm after.


----------



## purpleskyes

Twiggy said:


> When you think about it from your pup's point of view, he's after attention so a firm NO will make him snap even more.


Hmm what would you suggest?


----------



## GingerRogers

I haven't I will try that later but I started the target training as she is too polite to lure with food, bl00dy dog, she is soooo good at some stuff and just a stubborn old mule at others, 'leave it' with food is one of the things she is brilliant at so much so that she doesn't actually go for food until told, I have to remember to tell her her tea is hers , even able to let her go up to a dead dogfish on the beach and have a sniff this afternoon, a simple leave it and we are off again, doesn't work with dogs and cats though does it . 

Well done on the photo comp by the way Twiggy I thought the photo was sooo funny with the caption.


----------



## Dogless

purpleskyes said:


> Hmm what would you suggest?


I just withdraw all attention; stand up, cross my arms, stare at the floor...even if it hurts like a bugger because teeth are buried in your arm. I begin play again as soon as teeth are removed. Time outs if he persists. Crate to sleep if he's overstimulated / overtired and bonkers!!


----------



## Dogless

Right; off to get stuff ready, walk Rudi and then drive all the way back to the hall for the second school session of the day.....


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> We had to learn 'twist' (to the left) or 'round' (to the right) for class - I found that doing it on the move luring with food like that worked and Kilo got it first time. Doing it static didn't work at all for us which I'm certain is down to my crap skills - but maybe on the move might work? Kilo will now do it static as he understands what I'm after.


Thats the thing though, try to lure with food and she just looks at you and sits down or something, but maybe if I use the stick but start off with bigger circles then as you say once she has the idea i can make it smaller, it might work.........................

Hubby said why are you turning her into a clown 

I said she likes it  up yours


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I just withdraw all attention; stand up, cross my arms, stare at the floor...even if it hurts like a bugger because teeth are buried in your arm. I begin play again as soon as teeth are removed. Time outs if he persists. Crate to sleep if he's overstimulated / overtired and bonkers!!


I agree. That's what I would do.


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## Guest

Just spent the last few minutes attempting to acclimatize Zand to his basket muzzle. (There hasn't been an incident or anything, just it might be useful.) 

There is lovely lovely peanut butter smeared all in the bottom.

This dog of mine is giving me such a look right now and is not even going near the peanut butter. 


Tried freeshaping him to pick up his rubber ring today too, no dice, I just got alot of 'twists', sits and downs before being ROOOARRRGHHHed at. 
(I've been on a lurcher forum today, turns out he's not the only talkative batty one, YAAAY.) 

I did however manage to get him to throw himself on the sofa enthuiastically when I said "Kitchen." 
Yet when mum came home from her interview I was all like. 
"LOOK what we can do!" 

To then giving the word and being given a very blank look.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I haven't I will try that later but I started the target training as she is too polite to lure with food, bl00dy dog, she is soooo good at some stuff and just a stubborn old mule at others, 'leave it' with food is one of the things she is brilliant at so much so that she doesn't actually go for food until told, I have to remember to tell her her tea is hers , even able to let her go up to a dead dogfish on the beach and have a sniff this afternoon, a simple leave it and we are off again, doesn't work with dogs and cats though does it .
> 
> Well done on the photo comp by the way Twiggy I thought the photo was sooo funny with the caption.


Thank you. That's probably the only thing Holly will win this year....

What would happen with Ginge if you put a tit-bit on her nose and then threw it sidewards saying "get it"? Would probably ruin all your hard work on the "leave it" with food though.


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## Guest

Sod, I forgot to say PurpleSkyes, I agree with the others lots of folding arms etc, my lurcher went through a awful tantrum/biting stage at 12-13months but sheer perserverence with ignoring him put a stop to it.


----------



## Thorne

Something I've noticed with Breeze since having her is how little her brain seems to connect with her feet - Scooter is very "handy" and uses his feet quite well as tools but Breeze prefers her nose instead. The only thing she uses her feet for is holding her Kong still.
My sister challenged me to teach Breeze "shake" tonight which resulted in a very confused dog. Used the same method I've taught other dogs to shake with - treat in hand, click and reward for touching my hand with foot - but not once did she touch my hand, not even by mistake! So didn't reach the click and treat step!

She's not keen on having her feet touched so I was skeptical about her learning shake (probably didn't help!). Does anyone have any ideas for giving her a bit more awareness of where her feet actually are? Sometimes she seems to forget where her feet are mid-run unless she's focused on a particular task i.e. recall or retrieve.
Wondered about trying some of these: https://mekuti.co.uk/legwraps.htm


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## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Something I've noticed with Breeze since having her is how little her brain seems to connect with her feet - Scooter is very "handy" and uses his feet quite well as tools but Breeze prefers her nose instead. The only thing she uses her feet for is holding her Kong still.
> My sister challenged me to teach Breeze "shake" tonight which resulted in a very confused dog. Used the same method I've taught other dogs to shake with - treat in hand, click and reward for touching my hand with foot - but not once did she touch my hand, not even by mistake! So didn't reach the click and treat step!
> 
> She's not keen on having her feet touched so I was skeptical about her learning shake (probably didn't help!). Does anyone have any ideas for giving her a bit more awareness of where her feet actually are? Sometimes she seems to forget where her feet are mid-run unless she's focused on a particular task i.e. recall or retrieve.
> Wondered about trying some of these: https://mekuti.co.uk/legwraps.htm


Something on the lines of the flatwork they do with agility dogs these days?

Teaching her to walk on a plank raised a couple of inches off the floor; that type of thing.

Even four of five poles spaced out (a bit like the cavaletti work we used to do with horses).


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## kaz25

Passed another two dogs tonight, unable to cross the road so we did 'sit' again. They both realised there was a dog there but were too interested in their treats :thumbup: Hopefully it will continue


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## Twiggy

kaz25 said:


> Passed another two dogs tonight, unable to cross the road so we did 'sit' again. They both realised there was a dog there but were too interested in their treats :thumbup: Hopefully it will continue


Well done....!!


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne you could try having her onlead have her walk over things like a walking stick/broom/mop handle upturned guttering. Progressing to things like a weighted celebrations tub or even in or out of empty low cardboxes etc.


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> Something on the lines of the flatwork they do with agility dogs these days?
> 
> Teaching her to walk on a plank raised a couple of inches off the floor; that type of thing.
> 
> Even four of five poles spaced out (a bit like the cavaletti work we used to do with horses).





moonviolet said:


> Thorne you could try having her onlead have her walk over things like a walking stick/broom/mop handle upturned guttering. Progressing to things like a weighted celebrations tub or even in or out of empty low cardboxes etc.


Thanks for the suggestions! How daft, I've ridden horses over poles, cavaletti and jumping grids in the past to improve their coordination but never made the connection to Breeze!
She can still be a little worried about pole-shaped objects but is much more confident than she used to be, think there's a few bamboo poles going spare in the garden shed. That's tomorrow's project sorted 

RE the cardboard boxes, I've been meaning to try 101 things to do with a box with her, I imagine this would be along the right lines?


----------



## Twiggy

Well so much for New Years resolutions I didn't train the dogs yesterday.

I did get off my bum and train today however.

Holly was very good on sit stay, considering I've left it for so long and have only attempted it 2/3 times. I've still got her on the lead but can now run round her clapping my hands and today I bounced one of the squeaky tennis balls several times as well. How did I know that sit and down stays were going to be her best exercises?......:mad2:

I'm handling on a flipping week-end course down in Sussex at the end of February (providing my sister is up to it). The instructor is now one of the leading lights in obedience but fortunately I've known him since he was a mere lad and he has got a sense of humour. He might need it.


----------



## kaz25

Twiggy said:


> Well done....!!


It makes a huge difference from Benny trying to lunge at every dog we pass to say hello! At one point he was desperate to look and see if there was a dog there but didn't want to take his eyes off his treat - was funny watching him trying to see out the corner of his eye! He still never lost focus or tried to speak to the dog though 

Our next task, is trying to teach them to come when their names are called. They sit and stay perfectly but as soon as you tell one to come, they both come! We're going to head up the field at the weekend to try it 

Really enjoying walks now that Benny is focused on us and not other dogs


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## L/C

I had this thread open on page 679 to reply and then had to go out before I could and I come back and it's moved on 4 pages. :lol:

If I try to answer everyone I'll be here all night and the thread will have moved on another 10 pages before I do - so I'll be lazy and say it sounds like everyone is doing well. Yay!

I don't have anything too interesting to add - I'm working on Gypsy finding and indicating a toy (by sitting) but I am hampered by her complete lack of interest in toys. I have tried everything I can think of but she thinks they are pointless (even the ones made out of real rabbit skin). So for now I'm clicking and treating for any interest in it at all. Never Say Never greyhounds has some interesting stuff I'm going to try with her too.


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## Guest

Not relevant I know but according to PF, imma senior member now. 
I've been promoted on the internet! Haha.

On a doggie note, he is still not going near the peanut butter, I'mstill being given the "I DON'T LIKE IT" immense sad face right now.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Kaz!

GR - you can be a clown with Miss Tinks; if it's good enough for her, it's good enough for any dog :thumbup:.

Twiggy - sounds as if little HB's doing well at those exercises.

LO - I have accustomed Kilo to a muzzle and do carry it in the car or take it to the vet. Never needed it (touch wood!) but I feel better that if it is I can put it on without adding to what would already be a stressful situation.

School tonight was fabulous!! Bad recall at the end which was ironic as it's always a guaranteed good exercise, but the BW was pooped...

We were told our heelwork was good :thumbup:. He was really focussed and up on his toes tripping along.

*He didn't bark when the other dogs did their recalls or ran during another exercise and didn't tense and want to either - bloody amazing!!!!! * He did make his full range of Chewbacca noises - almost a symphony by the time all the running about had finished but no lunging, barking etc....even if everyone was making X-Factor jokes about his singing :thumbup:.

The fun bit - not sure what you call it but we did lots of working for our toys which I like and took it in turns waiting with our dogs, throwing our toy down to the other end of the hall then running with them to get it and running back up tugging (in our case)...then doing the same but stopping halfway to the toy to do a 'down' then running to get it as a reward. Kilo was really, really into it (loads of growling and singing) and it was brilliant fun. *See above for the no barking at the other dogs - even when some did*.

So...they both get the title of my best boys today :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Not relevant I know but according to PF, imma senior member now.
> I've been promoted on the internet! Haha.
> 
> On a doggie note, he is still not going near the peanut butter, I'mstill being given the "I DON'T LIKE IT" immense sad face right now.


Squeezy cheese?


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Holly Bolly was desperate to greet all dogs at that age but she didn't bl..dy bite them....!!
> 
> You're being too nice again....Smack - smack....LOL


Spen's also desperate to greet but doesn't bite. He might flatten them in his enthusiasm though 

We've done lots of recall practice today, mostly in the house and I used leftovers from dinner, his own dinner and the bowl I'd mixed liver cake up in as rewards. Easier to let him lick the bowl than try to wash it clean, shame I can't let him clean the blender too lol. Recall in the house is excellent but I think going right back to basics and building up again will be helpful since he's getting really bad outside.

What do people do if their dog blatantly ignores a recall while out? I either walk off and leave him which usually gets him moving towards me or go and get him. Just feels like he's taking the pee with it now as he'll look at me then go back to sniffing. He's going back on the long line unless we're playing fetch.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Spen's also desperate to greet but doesn't bite. He might flatten them in his enthusiasm though
> 
> We've done lots of recall practice today, mostly in the house and I used leftovers from dinner, his own dinner and the bowl I'd mixed liver cake up in as rewards. Easier to let him lick the bowl than try to wash it clean, shame I can't let him clean the blender too lol. Recall in the house is excellent but I think going right back to basics and building up again will be helpful since he's getting really bad outside.
> 
> What do people do if their dog blatantly ignores a recall while out? I either walk off and leave him which usually gets him moving towards me or go and get him. Just feels like he's taking the pee with it now as he'll look at me then go back to sniffing. He's going back on the long line unless we're playing fetch.


I go and get Kilo and put his lead on, do some exercises and get him listening and then let him off again and do a few practice ones.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Not relevant I know but according to PF, imma senior member now.
> I've been promoted on the internet! Haha.
> 
> On a doggie note, he is still not going near the peanut butter, I'mstill being given the "I DON'T LIKE IT" immense sad face right now.


Dont blame him. I DONT LIKE IT EITHER. try marmite 
or cheese spread or honey.


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Spen's also desperate to greet but doesn't bite. He might flatten them in his enthusiasm though
> 
> We've done lots of recall practice today, mostly in the house and I used leftovers from dinner, his own dinner and the bowl I'd mixed liver cake up in as rewards. Easier to let him lick the bowl than try to wash it clean, shame I can't let him clean the blender too lol. Recall in the house is excellent but I think going right back to basics and building up again will be helpful since he's getting really bad outside.
> 
> What do people do if their dog blatantly ignores a recall while out? I either walk off and leave him which usually gets him moving towards me or go and get him. Just feels like he's taking the pee with it now as he'll look at me then go back to sniffing. He's going back on the long line unless we're playing fetch.


I literally go through the kissing gate and hide around the hedge. 
In about ten seconds all you can hear is whinging. 
But then I'm worried about letting him off now as he hasn't had any offlead runs for a week. (seems to be fine) and I won't be able to take him out again for at least another week. 
His recall may have nosedived in those two weeks, I cannot put him on a longline due to being dragged along when he sprints.  
AND AND on chrsitmas day he RAN full on SPRINTED into the back of someone as knocked their feet out from them? 
Should I keep him onlead until other people go through the field (theres lots not they've banned offlead dogs in the other one.) ??
Or would throwing a tennis around our teeny lumpy garden be alright?

*huff* Sorry haha.


----------



## moonviolet

Go put the lead on while she licks the discarded ration pack* and get her attention back on me, doing some silly easy things to earn some treats and remind her what a fun wonderful homan she has :lol: then offlead with some recall game before being released.


*next one she falls in love with is going to be a training aid i have a ziplock bag in my pocket at the ready I'm not going to be defeated by the damn things!


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Dont blame him. I DONT LIKE IT EITHER. try marmite
> or cheese spread or honey.


But he LURVES it. And I tried primula too. Mum admitted to just shoving it on him the other day. This may be why he's thinking I'm trying to trick him. (Which I am but ya knooooow...)


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I go and get Kilo and put his lead on, do some exercises and get him listening and then let him off again and do a few practice ones.


Thanks, will give that a try. I know dogs probably don't really think "screw you" but sometimes that's what it feels like lol.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Go put the lead on while she licks the discarded ration pack* and get her attention back on me, doing some silly easy things to earn some treats and remind her what a fun wonderful homan she has :lol: then offlead with some recall game before being released.
> 
> *next one she falls in love with is going to be a training aid i have a ziplock bag in my pocket at the ready I'm not going to be defeated by the damn things!


At least it's not orange poo :mad2:.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks, will give that a try. I know dogs probably don't really think "screw you" but sometimes that's what it feels like lol.


It does. Especially when he's halfway back and suddenly diverts off on a sniff - windy days + orange poo .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> AT least it's not orange poo :mad2:.


You aren't going to bring some home to use as a training aid? :lol: :lol:


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> It does. Especially when he's halfway back and suddenly diverts off on a sniff - windy days + orange poo .


Or looks at you, comes half way back, then U-turns when a far away spaniel appears. :mad2:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> You aren't going to bring some home to use as a training aid? :lol: :lol:


It still looks the same when it appears again so I could just wait and Kilo will produce the goods....:scared: :arf:.


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## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> Or looks at you, comes half way back, then U-turns when a far away spaniel appears. :mad2:


Or catches a whiff of a patch of urine that needs to be licked and does a sliding stop to track it down...

ETA:


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## Sarah1983

Spen doesn't even get half way back, just looks at me and carries on with whatever he was doing  This is just in the last couple of weeks, before that his recall was pretty damn good if no other dogs were around.

And I've just remembered we've got Rupert coming to stay with us for a week this weekend so god knows how much training I'm going to get done. I hope you're all aware that I'm likely to be a gibbering wreck with two thief dogs in the house. And Rupert is worse than Spencer for it :scared: 

But we'll get to play guess the breed which is always fun.


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## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks, will give that a try. I know dogs probably don't really think "screw you" but sometimes that's what it feels like lol.


Oh they so do. That's the polite version of what Ginge said when she escaped the garden the other day. I saw in the next door garden and called her she looked at me and said f*** you, I see freedom through that hedge, lol. And she took it but surprisingly hasn't tried again in fact garden recall is almost perfick


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## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Oh they so do. That's the polite version of what Ginge said when she escaped the garden the other day. I saw in the next door garden and called her she looked at me and said f*** you, I see freedom through that hedge, lol. And she took it but surprisingly hasn't tried again in fact garden recall is almost perfick


Like when Zander used to have his little high jump jaunts. He would LOOK at you then go ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. 
I remember offending a poor little old lady because I was all like

"YOU F**KER." 

Embaressing now, but at the time appropriate.


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## GingerRogers

Totally like that. Little old ladies beware. Tisnt us tis our dogs


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## L/C

When Gypsy is feeling particularly free spirited it depends on why she's being a bugger to what I do. If she's having a sniff/greet then I turn on my heel and walk away. If she's hunting/playing chase then I have to go and get as she's so zoned out that she can't hear me.

On another note she has apparently learned how to summon me. She goes to the bottom of the stairs and gives one bark and then I come down to investigate. OH says she's doing it quite deliberately. :lol:


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## Werehorse

L/C said:


> When Gypsy is feeling particularly free spirited it depends on why she's being a bugger to what I do. If she's having a sniff/greet then I turn on my heel and walk away. If she's hunting/playing chase then I have to go and get as she's so zoned out that she can't hear me.
> 
> On another note she has apparently learned how to summon me. She goes to the bottom of the stairs and gives one bark and then I come down to investigate. OH says she's doing it quite deliberately. :lol:


:lol: She'll be tapping away on Pointy Chat Forum telling the other pointies about what good recall her hoomin has.


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## L/C

Werehorse said:


> :lol: She'll be tapping away on Pointy Chat Forum telling the other pointies about what good recall her hoomin has.


I'm even good around distractions - I was watching SOA on Netflix and I paused it to come down and see! :lol:


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## Beth17

You know it's funny the way I cracked Oscars recall isn't necessarily the most conventional way and was purely accidental but it worked for us. He was awful when he first came to me and other dogs were much more exciting. After 6 months of having him I went through a tough time and didn't have the confidence to let him off or drive to somewhere safe to let him off and so for nearly 6 months he had onlead walks. 

When I finally got the courage and confidence back up to take him to some fields and let him off he stayed close by the whole time. I think this was because we had built up the bond between us and he realised that it was quite fun to be around me. The other thing that worked was getting him hooked on his frisbee; although I am having to do a slight refresher course at the moment 

I'm not sure what to suggest for you and Spen though Sarah as it's obvious you're great fun to be around and you have a great bond with him. I think one day the lightbulb will come on and it will just sink in for him.


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## Dogless

Great walk this morning; took the CHs out together - short lead walk to the top field and then play with some recalls, sits, waits and short walk back; Kilo walked perfectly for me and Rudi's improving, not so many stops today and he's getting the hang of not crossing over for something interesting.

Saw a black dog (collie x?) who was very interested in us; I hung back and waited for them to pass before I crossed into our road as Kilo will sometimes react to a dog bouncing at him...he was far less interested than usual, I think because rather than me thinking 'oh crap' I was also concentrating on getting Rudi sitting rather than trying to pull and greet . The lady walking him and I just said 'morning' to each other and all was calm; think they have just moved in as I've seen them a few times over the past few days and I've never seen them before.

I had put clean jeans on...I know   which are now covered in blood :incazzato::incazzato:. Rudi discovered the joys of jumping and tugging at the lead just as we got to the field and jumped and caught my hand. It didn't hurt so I didn't look at it....I was concentrating on getting them both sitting calmly for their leads to be taken off and kept wiping it on my trousers without thinking...then when I looked down there was blood everywhere :incazzato::incazzato::incazzato:. I do bleed a lot as now I'm home and the cut is washed it's a tiny scratch  .


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## Guest

Come one, Come all and see RUDI the CROCPUP!!! *The crowd roars* 
:laugh: 

Poor you, dogless, you must be getting through clothes like hot dinners.

I put his donkeyness on a headcollar this morning, and he was good, kept to my pace, and kept looking at me. He DIDN'T go say hello to any of the people who asked "Why are you limping?" (there were a few), he either sat there, or tried to avoid them.
But but but but, we did almost have tantrums, very nearly, he went into that weird stare and started to furiously chomp the lead. So my theory of the headcollar aggravating may have some truth. Took it off when we got home and lo and behold, lots of hair on the headcollar. It rubbed him nearly bald last time.:thumbdown: This is with the gentle leader and the [email protected] headcollar. 

A walk that normals takes 15mins max, took me: 

FORTY FIVE MINUTES! My poor dog!


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## Dogless

No holes in them this time though . I make Rudi sound terrible I know but he's just a crocopuppy when very tired or excited now rather than constantly so I am pleased with him really .

L/O what an ordeal - when my back is really awful like not too long ago walks take me f o r e v e r :thumbdown::thumbdown:. Hope you're not limping for too long. BUT Zand didn't bounce on folk or have a full blown tantrum...so not all bad .


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## Megan345

Wow this thread moves quickly :yikes: It sounds like you're all doing well 

Rocky's developed a habit now of just lying down when he sees a dog he wants to greet, as he knows I'll just walk on  Not quite sure what to do about it - he's quite a big dog, and if he decides he's not moving, that's about it! 

He did it on the beach the other day with a little lab puppy. Owners chatting and paying no attention as their dog belted over - it did pause and squirm from excitement for a bit just out of Rocky's reach. He had his intense starey look on, and I thought it was all going to kick off  but the pup came and sniffed Rock, then tried to burrow under his belly while he was lying down, Rocky just looked a bit bemused! He was perfectly friendly until he got up and I tried walking away, and then he just barked a couple of times. So, touch wood, he does just seem to be a friendly dog who gets frustrated when I don't let him greet and play as he'd like to - could be worse! He did the same with a little Bichon Frise, too.

So - to allow him to greet and play as he wishes, try to avoid all other dogs for now, or greet and walk on?  It's the other owners who get me though! Rocky on lead, me with planted feet to prevent him bounding off, they let their (usually little) dog approach, then get annoyed when he tries to play!  I've had more dirty looks in the last month than in my whole life!


----------



## Dogless

Megan345 said:


> Wow this thread moves quickly :yikes: It sounds like you're all doing well
> 
> Rocky's developed a habit now of just lying down when he sees a dog he wants to greet, as he knows I'll just walk on  Not quite sure what to do about it - he's quite a big dog, and if he decides he's not moving, that's about it!
> 
> He did it on the beach the other day with a little lab puppy. Owners chatting and paying no attention as their dog belted over - it did pause and squirm from excitement for a bit just out of Rocky's reach. He had his intense starey look on, and I thought it was all going to kick off  but the pup came and sniffed Rock, then tried to burrow under his belly while he was lying down, Rocky just looked a bit bemused! He was perfectly friendly until he got up and I tried walking away, and then he just barked a couple of times. So, touch wood, he does just seem to be a friendly dog who gets frustrated when I don't let him greet and play as he'd like to - could be worse! He did the same with a little Bichon Frise, too.
> 
> So - to allow him to greet and play as he wishes, try to avoid all other dogs for now, or greet and walk on?  It's the other owners who get me though! Rocky on lead, me with planted feet to prevent him bounding off, they let their (usually little) dog approach, then get annoyed when he tries to play!  I've had more dirty looks in the last month than in my whole life!


Is he lying down through anxiety maybe as he barks when stood up? Kilo will lie down if an offlead dog is coming over fast or even sometimes when both dogs are onlead but the approaching dog is staring, exhibiting iffy body language / is a lab - he used to react to labs but now lies down and I tend to then try and prevent a meet.

He also lies down and stalks in play but in a much more relaxed fashion. When it's anxiety he will stare and lie down slloooowwwlllly. When he lies down like this I tend to drop treats between his paws to break the stare. If the offlead dog makes it over he is quite relaxed about them sniffing him, but once he has stood he tends to stand very stiffly and then either relaxes and plays or ignores the dog OR he can react if the dog is the 'both paws around your neck and wrestle' or 'jump on your head' type or growls / barks at him.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Firstly......happy new year to all. 

There's been lots of goings on hasn't there  some lovely photos too.
Hope everyone is ok.
Can I add my husband onto the training list please . Although he has been good at walking the dogs while I couldn't.

Anyway, I'm up to walking the boys separately ATM. Shorter than normal but only couple more weeks to go and we can get back to it. :thumbup:

Walking the boys separately is great. They are so well behaved, even frank.
I've cooked more liver treats and they love them. 
I'm getting frank to sit and watch me whenever a dog passes us and he's getting better. We passed quite a few yesterday and he was great, even when an off lead one on the main road came up and started sniffing him :incazzato: the dogs owner had another dog on a flexi and allowed him to come up to frank and take a sniff. :incazzato: I just kept my focus on frank and bless him, he did well. No reaction. :001_wub:
The only time we had handbags was when a jrt came trotting around the corner, yards infront of its owner on a fully extended flexi. For once it wasn't me apologising 

Done some sit stays and recalls with bella in the garden and she's doing good, and lots of playing. She's loving her new raw food too. 

Now, im not sure which way to go with this one  I took the boys to training when they were younger and Freddie was working towards his gold GCDS and frank towards his silver.
In the garden with Freddie I do the one where he has to sit and wait, I walk away, turn around and call him steady then I raise my hand and he stops and lies down. I then return to him. He can do it well at home. 
So not sure whether to take Freddie back, frank to try for his silver or take bella to a beginners class. Think I'm possibly swaying towards taking bella.


----------



## Megan345

Dogless said:


> Is he lying down through anxiety maybe as he barks when stood up? Kilo will lie down if an offlead dog is coming over fast or even sometimes when both dogs are onlead but the approaching dog is staring, exhibiting iffy body language / is a lab - he used to react to labs but now lies down and I tend to then try and prevent a meet.
> 
> He also lies down and stalks in play but in a much more relaxed fashion. When it's anxiety he will stare and lie down slloooowwwlllly. When he lies down like this I tend to drop treats between his paws to break the stare. If the offlead dog makes it over he is quite relaxed about them sniffing him, but once he has stood he tends to stand very stiffly and then either relaxes and plays or ignores the dog OR he can react if the dog is the 'both paws around your neck and wrestle' or 'jump on your head' type or growls / barks at him.


It does sound very similar to what Kilo does. I'm not sure if it's anxiety (scared, I mean) as such, it seems like it's the position he takes until he finds out their intentions - he usually looks like he's stalking for a couple of steps until he lies down, then he's fairly tense and ready to leap if he needs to while they approach. When they're close, he'll either stand up before they reach him, still alert, or will stay lying down if he's decided they're no threat. I'll try dropping treats to break the stare, but we still haven't found anything that'll break his focus, or even stop him going into it.

ETA: He only barks when I'm trying to move him away or restraining him on a tight lead. Every other time, he's fine.


----------



## Dogless

Megan345 said:


> It does sound very similar to what Kilo does. I'm not sure if it's anxiety (scared, I mean) as such, it seems like it's the position he takes until he finds out their intentions - he usually looks like he's stalking for a couple of steps until he lies down, then he's fairly tense and ready to leap if he needs to while they approach. When they're close, he'll either stand up before they reach him, still alert, or will stay lying down if he's decided they're no threat. I'll try dropping treats to break the stare, but we still haven't found anything that'll break his focus, or even stop him going into it.
> 
> ETA: *He only barks when I'm trying to move him away or restraining him on a tight lead. Every other time, he's fine.*


Same as Kilo - that is one reason that I now don't 'do' onlead meets at all even though the majority were fine. He used to be excited to meet dogs, but after being attacked a few times he was excited and anxious - just generally aroused and up on his toes. If the greeting was too stiff and I went to take him away he'd react. He's way more relaxed now the expectation of a greeting has gone.

I let Kilo go into the 'down'. When it's dogs that seem friendly but are coming over fast he lies down and looks to one side or sniffs "I'm no threat, please slow down" type thing. Onlead he'll sniff the floor "I'm no threat" but if they keep coming or are fixated on him he'll lie down in a fairly relaxed fashion but watch "I'm no threat to you but am worried". If I leave him lying down and prevent the greeting or the dog just walks past onlead he relaxes. If the dog is really worrying him he'll do the sllloooww lying down and staring like I described in my last post.

If offlead and a dog is approaching stiffly and staring / posturing he will start to stalk very, very intensely and freeze in a point. I break this by using a squeaky toy / making a prat of myself running about / throwing a toy past his nose etc. Once that tension is broken he'll chase his toy or recall to me fine.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Great walk this morning; took the CHs out together - short lead walk to the top field and then play with some recalls, sits, waits and short walk back; Kilo walked perfectly for me and Rudi's improving, not so many stops today and he's getting the hang of not crossing over for something interesting.
> 
> Saw a black dog (collie x?) who was very interested in us; I hung back and waited for them to pass before I crossed into our road as Kilo will sometimes react to a dog bouncing at him...he was far less interested than usual, I think because rather than me thinking 'oh crap' I was also concentrating on getting Rudi sitting rather than trying to pull and greet . The lady walking him and I just said 'morning' to each other and all was calm; think they have just moved in as I've seen them a few times over the past few days and I've never seen them before.
> 
> I had put clean jeans on...I know   which are now covered in blood :incazzato::incazzato:. Rudi discovered the joys of jumping and tugging at the lead just as we got to the field and jumped and caught my hand. It didn't hurt so I didn't look at it....I was concentrating on getting them both sitting calmly for their leads to be taken off and kept wiping it on my trousers without thinking...then when I looked down there was blood everywhere :incazzato::incazzato::incazzato:. I do bleed a lot as now I'm home and the cut is washed it's a tiny scratch  .


Blood - that's my boy Rudi.....


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Blood - that's my boy Rudi.....


He LOVES blood, we didn't have a day without it (or an hour!!) when he first came home :yikes:.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Firstly......happy new year to all.
> 
> There's been lots of goings on hasn't there  some lovely photos too.
> Hope everyone is ok.
> Can I add my husband onto the training list please . Although he has been good at walking the dogs while I couldn't.
> 
> Anyway, I'm up to walking the boys separately ATM. Shorter than normal but only couple more weeks to go and we can get back to it. :thumbup:
> 
> Walking the boys separately is great. They are so well behaved, even frank.
> I've cooked more liver treats and they love them.
> I'm getting frank to sit and watch me whenever a dog passes us and he's getting better. We passed quite a few yesterday and he was great, even when an off lead one on the main road came up and started sniffing him :incazzato: the dogs owner had another dog on a flexi and allowed him to come up to frank and take a sniff. :incazzato: I just kept my focus on frank and bless him, he did well. No reaction. :001_wub:
> The only time we had handbags was when a jrt came trotting around the corner, yards infront of its owner on a fully extended flexi. For once it wasn't me apologising
> 
> Done some sit stays and recalls with bella in the garden and she's doing good, and lots of playing. She's loving her new raw food too.
> 
> Now, im not sure which way to go with this one  I took the boys to training when they were younger and Freddie was working towards his gold GCDS and frank towards his silver.
> In the garden with Freddie I do the one where he has to sit and wait, I walk away, turn around and call him steady then I raise my hand and he stops and lies down. I then return to him. He can do it well at home.
> So not sure whether to take Freddie back, frank to try for his silver or take bella to a beginners class. Think I'm possibly swaying towards taking bella.


I'd take Bella unless you particularly want to get either gold or silver awards with the others.


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## Megan345

Thanks Dogless - I'll just keep at it then


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> He LOVES blood, we didn't have a day without it (or an hour!!) when he first came home :yikes:.


Years ago with my little Meg I always had blood on my hand when I competed with her. She was taught to tug my jumper sleeve...!!
Oh the pain I've suffered for my art..


----------



## Holtie

Dogless said:


> Great walk this morning; took the CHs out together - short lead walk to the top field and then play with some recalls, sits, waits and short walk back; Kilo walked perfectly for me and Rudi's improving, not so many stops today and he's getting the hang of not crossing over for something interesting.
> 
> Saw a black dog (collie x?) who was very interested in us; I hung back and waited for them to pass before I crossed into our road as Kilo will sometimes react to a dog bouncing at him...he was far less interested than usual, I think because rather than me thinking 'oh crap' I was also concentrating on getting Rudi sitting rather than trying to pull and greet . The lady walking him and I just said 'morning' to each other and all was calm; think they have just moved in as I've seen them a few times over the past few days and I've never seen them before.
> 
> *I had put clean jeans on...I know*   which are now covered in blood :incazzato::incazzato:. Rudi discovered the joys of jumping and tugging at the lead just as we got to the field and jumped and caught my hand. It didn't hurt so I didn't look at it....I was concentrating on getting them both sitting calmly for their leads to be taken off and kept wiping it on my trousers without thinking...then when I looked down there was blood everywhere :incazzato::incazzato::incazzato:. I do bleed a lot as now I'm home and the cut is washed it's a tiny scratch  .


Don't know which is worse - mud or blood!


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## Dogless

Megan345 said:


> Thanks Dogless - I'll just keep at it then


To me, any time Kilo slows down and sits or lies down (apart from his play stalking, but that's brief lies down and he's happy and relaxed) he wants some space from a dog or a slower approach - the bulldog the other night was a classic example, hassling him constantly until he sat down to prevent it sniffing any more. Bulldog lifting his coat to still try and sniff, ignoring all Kilo's warnings until he used noise and slobber.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Years ago with my little Meg I always had blood on my hand when I competed with her. She was taught to tug my jumper sleeve...!!
> Oh the pain I've suffered for my art..


See Twiggy I don't even have an art!! I saw a different Kilo at training last night though (and a different me!) when he got so excited and revved up with that toy and he switched up another gear in terms of responsiveness too - everything got so much sharper. I use toys as a training reward for all sorts every day, but have never used one in terms of running with him for it and hyping him that much. I am going to build on what we did last night.



JTHolt said:


> Don't know which is worse - mud or blood!


It's OK - Kilo sorted the mud part .


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## Megan345

Dogless said:


> To me, any time Kilo slows down and sits or lies down (apart from his play stalking, but that's brief lies down and he's happy and relaxed) he wants some space from a dog - the bulldog the other night was a classic example, hassling him constantly until he sat down to prevent it sniffing any more. Bulldog lifting his coat to still try and sniff, ignoring all Kilo's warnings until he used noise and slobber.


I think it's the opposite case with Rocky - when he's offlead, he'll hare off towards any dog on the horizon until he's recalled. He's not aggressive or reactive or upset if he gets there, he slows down and tries to persuade them to play.  Hence mostly on lead for now! He only lies down on lead, when he knows he can't belt off towards them.


----------



## GingerRogers

Megan345 said:


> So - to allow him to greet and play as he wishes, try to avoid all other dogs for now, or greet and walk on?  It's the other owners who get me though! Rocky on lead, me with planted feet to prevent him bounding off, they let their (usually little) dog approach, then get annoyed when he tries to play!  I've had more dirty looks in the last month than in my whole life!


Wish I knew the answer to that I think I totally mismanaged this, I tried to have as many greetings as possible as that seemed to stop her barking but then its not always possible and she freaked out some dogs with her over the top friendliness, and expected it every time.

Now I try to avoid any confrontation at all to the point where I think I might have taken it too far, dogs bark don't they  its normal, but I am quite obsessive about not allowing the opportunity to speak  but I think on balance I would prefer her not to expect to greet dogs then as long as she can prove she can be polite she can say hello to dogs in time.

Who knows 



Beth17 said:


> When I finally got the courage and confidence back up to take him to some fields and let him off he stayed close by the whole time. I think this was because we had built up the bond between us and he realised that it was quite fun to be around me.


I am hoping this will work with the Ginger one, she certainly is keener to move on with me on walks rather than stop and sniff and will return on the long line and from the garden more often/quicker as time goes by, she sticks to me like glue in the house.

Dogless - No offence but I really hope we never bump into you if Kilo doesn't like 'both paws around your neck and wrestle' or 'jump on your head' type or growls / barks at him as thats exactly what Ginges go to behaviours are, hence the avoidance of all dogs.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - No offence but I really hope we never bump into you if Kilo doesn't like 'both paws around your neck and wrestle' or 'jump on your head' type or growls / barks at him as thats exactly what Ginges go to behaviours are, hence the avoidance of all dogs.


He LOVES that kind of play with ridgies only  and Rudi and he do it all the time. He will also either tolerate it or walk off if he's met the dog beforehand, but hates it as a greeting. For example if we saw you and walked together onlead for a few minutes then let the dogs off he'd most likely bugger off and do his own thing if Ginge did that. He's mostly only into chasing or tug games with other dogs.


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## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - No offence but I really hope we never bump into you if Kilo doesn't like 'both paws around your neck and wrestle' or 'jump on your head' type or growls / barks at him as thats exactly what Ginges go to behaviours are, hence the avoidance of all dogs.


Oh it sounds like Ginge and Spen would get on brilliantly :lol: He loves to wrestle. His way of initiating play though is usually to greet, play bow and then dart from side to side. It's the greeting part he has problems with, he often tries to dance on their heads before sniffing :thumbdown:


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> He LOVES that kind of play with ridgies only  and Rudi and he do it all the time. He will also either tolerate it or walk off if he's met the dog beforehand, but hates it as a greeting. For example if we saw you and walked together onlead for a few minutes then let the dogs off he'd most likely bugger off and do his own thing if Ginge did that. He's mostly only into chasing or tug games with other dogs.


She does chase as well  but no tuggy not with dogs, tuggy is hers or ours not doggies  poor old Rosie the collie came round when we first got her, we had been out for a lovely long walk together to try and get them to be friends, and tried to play tuggy, Ginge was a stinge and stole the tuggy and ran away 



Sarah1983 said:


> Oh it sounds like Ginge and Spen would get on brilliantly :lol: He loves to wrestle. His way of initiating play though is usually to greet, play bow and then dart from side to side. It's the greeting part he has problems with, *he often tries to dance on their heads before sniffing *:thumbdown:


Yep thats what she does  some dogs don't mind  some go :yikes: again thats why we stay away from dogs generally. There were a few were we explained what she does and the owners said fine, and it wasn't :rolleyes5:

If they rush up to her she will bark, it hasn't happened since I realised what her play bark is, so I have no way of knowing if thats what she is doing but I suspect 'not' play from memory.

A few weeks back a young yellow lab came hurtling round the corner rushing up to her and promptly ran away in the opposite direction when she barked at it, I thought we had caused it to run away never to be seen again, for a moment  but it was ok and it came back giving her wide berth, it does often seem to be the less confident ones that do the charging up, I have never had a dog charge us and go, what ya barking at? I guess thankfully, they always run away and I am not sure if thats her intention or not.

She does love a wrestle and if the other dog won't like with Rudi patterdalex she sits on their face!

Just been showing the 'clown'  moves off to OH as he has dragged himself out of bed, he now thinks she is a clever thing , and he is coming for a little stroll later, fresh air and all that!


----------



## Sarah1983

Just had an impromptu "see, I'm really fun to hang around!" session with Spencer. I had some rubbish to take out so figured I'd take him out for a pee at the same time. Lovely sit stay as I opened the door and checked the coast was clear and he only exited when given the cue to do so. He had a pee and then we played a game of chase. Unfortunately I didn't have a toy or anything on me so he had to make do with a mouthful of mud grabbed from one of the molehills :lol: He did zoomies, he leaped up at me, I shoved him, he zoomied some more, I lurched along after him slapping him whenever his zoomies brought him close enough. We did this for a good 10 minutes. And his recall was perfect each and every time I called him. He was so happy and responsive.

I think I've fallen back into the trap of being so focused on training that I forget to just go out and have fun with him with no real expectations. It's something I've noticed myself doing before  I use play as a reward at times but I suppose it's not the same as just having fun because we feel like it. So more effort just to have fun and enjoy spending time with him I think.


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## Guest

On the occasions Zand has charged up to other dogs and they have barked, he kinda runs of them comes back sorta like "Can we play now!? How about now!? IS now good!?" 

But yes flattening them, or being chased by another dog is THE greatest thing in my dogs book. I think its cos nothing so far has caught him.


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## Megan345

Now, I shall mainly be working on not being pulled over flat on my backside in front of a cafe full of people because Rocky wants to get to Maisy 

I think I've stupidly taught him to pull by jogging with his harness on, too, it was a nightmare today. I think I'll leave the harness for running and get a Gencon or a Gentle Leader or something for walking, it's not fair to expect him to know the difference - I'm quite happy for him to pull when I'm running.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



See Twiggy I don't even have an art!! I saw a different Kilo at training last night though (and a different me!) when he got so excited and revved up with that toy and he switched up another gear in terms of responsiveness too - everything got so much sharper. I use toys as a training reward for all sorts every day, but have never used one in terms of running with him for it and hyping him that much. I am going to build on what we did last night.

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> And that is eactly what I mean about keen, sharp dogs enjoying what they're doing and what I have been trying to explain about Holly. However exciting I am, whatever tit-bits I use and tuggy toys, squeaky balls, etc. etc., including letting her nip my hand and arm, I never get the level of sharpness or keeness you got with Kilo last night, that Werehorse gets with Hugo, or that I get with my other dogs (particularly Tremor). I'm a highly motivational trainer and it's extremely frustrating. Holly isn't being naughty and she sort of does it to the best of her ability ie with no commitment or speed. Never mind I adore her for what she is.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Just had an impromptu "see, I'm really fun to hang around!" session with Spencer. I had some rubbish to take out so figured I'd take him out for a pee at the same time. Lovely sit stay as I opened the door and checked the coast was clear and he only exited when given the cue to do so. He had a pee and then we played a game of chase. Unfortunately I didn't have a toy or anything on me so he had to make do with a mouthful of mud grabbed from one of the molehills :lol: He did zoomies, he leaped up at me, I shoved him, he zoomied some more, I lurched along after him slapping him whenever his zoomies brought him close enough. We did this for a good 10 minutes. And his recall was perfect each and every time I called him. He was so happy and responsive.
> 
> *I think I've fallen back into the trap of being so focused on training that I forget to just go out and have fun with him with no real expectations. It's something I've noticed myself doing before  I use play as a reward at times but I suppose it's not the same as just having fun because we feel like it. So more effort just to have fun and enjoy spending time with him I think.*




Oh Sarah thanks for that. Believe me you are not alone and if I had a £1.00 for everytime I've repeated that mantra to handlers over the years, I'd be a rich woman...!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Megan345 said:


> Now, I shall mainly be working on not being pulled over flat on my backside in front of a cafe full of people because Rocky wants to get to Maisy
> 
> I think I've stupidly taught him to pull by jogging with his harness on, too, it was a nightmare today. I think I'll leave the harness for running and get a Gencon or a Gentle Leader or something for walking, it's not fair to expect him to know the difference - I'm quite happy for him to pull when I'm running.


oops,  hope the backside is ok!


----------



## blossom21

Megan345 said:


> Now, I shall mainly be working on not being pulled over flat on my backside in front of a cafe full of people because Rocky wants to get to Maisy
> 
> I think I've stupidly taught him to pull by jogging with his harness on, too, it was a nightmare today. I think I'll leave the harness for running and get a Gencon or a Gentle Leader or something for walking, it's not fair to expect him to know the difference - I'm quite happy for him to pull when I'm running.


LOL I was pulled flat on my face in mud by Bramble today, my fault entirely. Threw his ball just a tad too far and the whirlwind took off on his 50 foot line, over goes Mum.


----------



## Megan345

GingerRogers said:


> oops,  hope the backside is ok!


That's what I get for walking over wet grass with trainers on while holding a 33kg dog just out of the car and excited  Fine though, I was more worried about dropping the lead - turns out it's a bit like falling over while holding your pint, it's all good


----------



## Megan345

blossom21 said:


> LOL I was pulled flat on my face in mud by Bramble today, my fault entirely. Threw his ball just a tad too far and the whirlwind took off on his 50 foot line, over goes Mum.


Oh no! Were you ok? (People falling over shouldn't be funny, but the mental image always is - sorry  )


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Oh Sarah thanks for that. Believe me you are not alone and if I had a £1.00 for everytime I've repeated that mantra to handlers over the years, I'd be a rich woman...!!


Kinda glad I'm not the only one, it seems a really bizarre thing to happen but I can slip into it so easily! We both enjoy training but there needs to be that element of just go out and have fun for the hell of it as well.

I've been pulled over on a long line before too Blossom. Wasn't a ball mine went after though, it was a cat. And one thing Rupert taught me was to keep hold of the leash no matter what lol.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> 
> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> See Twiggy I don't even have an art!! I saw a different Kilo at training last night though (and a different me!) when he got so excited and revved up with that toy and he switched up another gear in terms of responsiveness too - everything got so much sharper. I use toys as a training reward for all sorts every day, but have never used one in terms of running with him for it and hyping him that much. I am going to build on what we did last night.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> *
> 
> 
> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> And that is eactly what I mean about keen, sharp dogs enjoying what they're doing and what I have been trying to explain about Holly. However exciting I am, whatever tit-bits I use and tuggy toys, squeaky balls, etc. etc., including letting her nip my hand and arm, I never get the level of sharpness or keeness you got with Kilo last night, that Werehorse gets with Hugo, or that I get with my other dogs (particularly Tremor). I'm a highly motivational trainer and it's extremely frustrating. Holly isn't being naughty and she sort of does it to the best of her ability ie with no commitment or speed. Never mind I adore her for what she is.
> 
> 
> 
> I've seen it with the trainer's BCs when he brings one or two in for a demo and when I watch agility. I LOVED it - I was thinking about it on our walk this evening and it was a real 'lightbulb' moment I think. I have always been pretty pleased with Kilo as he does work well for treats and he has always worked well for me for a throw of his toy / a game of tug too but this was completely another level. I have always been told he's 'high drive' but I think that harnessing that drive just for that brief time yesterday is what stopped him barking at the other dogs running - he was just totally absorbed in when his toy would be thrown again and he'd get to run again.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> *
> 
> I've seen it with the trainer's BCs when he brings one or two in for a demo and when I watch agility. I LOVED it - I was thinking about it on our walk this evening and it was a real 'lightbulb' moment I think. I have always been pretty pleased with Kilo as he does work well for treats and he has always worked well for me for a throw of his toy / a game of tug too but this was completely another level. I have always been told he's 'high drive' but I think that harnessing that drive just for that brief time yesterday is what stopped him barking at the other dogs running - he was just totally absorbed in when his toy would be thrown again and he'd get to run again.*
> 
> 
> 
> *
> 
> Lucky you...!!
> 
> Honestly Dogless there is nothing like the buzz you get with a really keen and motivated dog beside you performing Championship C heelwork. Some handlers say it's better than sex....LOL (Hope Moonviolet doesn't read this...!!)*
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lucky you...!!
> 
> Honestly Dogless there is nothing like the buzz you get with a really keen and motivated dog beside you performing Championship C heelwork. Some handlers say it's better than sex....LOL (Hope Moonviolet doesn't read this...!!)
> 
> 
> 
> Don't think we'll ever be good and he does very much have his typical RR independent streak :yikes:.
Click to expand...


----------



## blossom21

Megan345 said:


> Oh no! Were you ok? (People falling over shouldn't be funny, but the mental image always is - sorry  )


Thanks Im fine,probably tomorrow I'll hurt somewhere lol


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lucky you...!!
> 
> Honestly Dogless there is nothing like the buzz you get with a really keen and motivated dog beside you performing Championship C heelwork. Some handlers say it's better than sex....LOL (*Hope Moonviolet doesn't read this...!!)*
> 
> 
> 
> Too late i've read it now :lol: :lol:
> 
> I don't know how i've got such a shocking reputation around here :lol: :lol:
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lucky you...!!
> 
> Honestly Dogless there is nothing like the buzz you get with a really keen and motivated dog beside you performing Championship C heelwork. Some handlers say it's better than sex....LOL (*Hope Moonviolet doesn't read this...!!)[/*QUOTE]
> 
> Too late i've read it now :lol: :lol:
> 
> I don't know how i've got such a shocking reputation around here :lol: :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> Poor Miss Tinks; I bet she's soooooo embarrassed .
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> moonviolet said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Poor Miss Tinks; I bet she's soooooo embarrassed .
> 
> 
> 
> It's not her desire to sniff that keeps her head hanging near the ground, it's the horrfying shame :lol: :lol:
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## Thorne

Well I'm afraid I've had a really sh** day today, have had a row with the OH who now wants to have a "break", and aside from him I've felt particularly unwell in body and mind since yesterday (sorry, always easier to admit that to people who don't know me than people who do ). Ventured briefly into town then went back to bed so poor old mum took the dogs out.

They had an interesting walk at best; Scooter stood in Breeze's poo, Breeze tried her "I've toileted so I'm going home" routine, Mum stopped to catch and return a loose JRT dragging his flexi lead, and Scooter got growled at and jumped on by another Lab.
Breeze had another fright  Mum wasn't to know but I've recently started avoiding a certain walk because of a very active birdscarer, which naturally went off when they were nearby. She bolted while onlead under a barbed wire fence and sat down, refused to move. A bloke we see quite often with a GSD offered to hold Scooter while mum coaxed out and untangled silly Breeze and fortunately he is one man that S doesn't seem concerned by!

Also had the window cleaner come round today, which sends Scooter into a pacing, shouting, snarling frenzy. 
However, Breeze's sparkly new collar arrived today and the sight of her looking like a proper princess in it has made me smile 

Sorry to be a misery but hopefully tomorrow will be better for all concerned, hope everyone has made good progress today, will try and have a read through later.


----------



## Dogless

Oh Thorne, what a day . Wish I could do something to help .


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry you've had such a crappy day Thorne. Hope tomorrow works out far better for you.


----------



## Guest

Sorry you've had a horrid day thorne, hopefully things will be better tommorow. 

Stay positive!


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear. What a horrible day you've had. Hope things get better tomorrow.


----------



## moonviolet

SOrry you've had a rotten day Thorne hope you have a better one tomorrow,


----------



## Thorne

Thank you guys, your words really do mean a lot 

Already decided it will be another night walk for Breeze tomorrow and seeing as the scarers only go off in daylight that should be one less thing for the pair of us to worry about. Sad thing is that the weather has held the sowing back so they'll be around even longer than normal this year...


----------



## chazzie10

What a rotten day for you Thorne. These things are sent to try us. 
Hope you and your OH can work things through and it'll be ok x
Breeze's collar sounds gorgeous, maybe when you're feeling a bit better you could post some sparkly pics?


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## Dogless

Two good walks this evening - well, up and down the street with Rudi...he was doing fabulously until I just tried a few seconds too long and got a frenzied biting attack launched at my legs .

Kilo's was good too; he saw three cats in quick succession though so was up on his toes like a skittery horse for the first half an hour scanning for anything, anything at all that moved .


----------



## chazzie10

Hah those two are keeping you on your toes Dogless 

We've been mostly just doing offlead zoomies at the waste ground the last few days as Ive been really busy so only seems fair to let Charlie stretch his legs and let off steam.
Wednesday we had only been there a few minutes when our wee Collie/ JRT X friend (Jack) appeared in the distance. I recalled Charlie and leashed him. Jack came trotting very purposely the whole way up to us. Charlie remained in a sit and focused on me so I thought I'd try something new. When Jack was about 15 feet away I gave Charlie the 'Leave it' and 'Wait' commands and quietly unclipped his lead but kept my hand there. He stayed sitting! And kept looking from Jack to me  When Jack was only 3 feet away I released Numpty Boy and there was much doggy kissing and gadding about the field, skipping merrily like two lambs in spring 
Much, MUCH nicer controlled greeting, probably the best one yet as I actually felt in control!! Wooo it felt good


----------



## Guest

Thumbs up for Chazzie!!! 

Me and mum are going to a barn sale thing at our local rescue, and some people I work with help out their occasionally, and they keep going
"ooh there was a wonderful lurcher there, maybe a calmer older dog will help calm yours." :yikes: 

And I have been told to expect a phone call regarding the 6 month old homeless ginger cat. As long as it has a wee bit of oomph, it should be fine.


----------



## chazzie10

I went to our local rescue centre's christmas fair a couple of weeks ago and got quite upset at one or two( well 4 lol) of the dogs. Tess the collie had been rescued just the night before and was sitting right at the front of her cage, trying so hard to be friendly but she was falling asleep as she sat there. Poor wee love was swaying and the wee eyes were closing. Such a calm wee thing too :001_wub: There was a young black lab that was sooo desperate to come over but too scared to. He sat at the back with the tip of his tail going a dinger but shaking all over. I crouched down, talked quietly and eventually he came over and sat pressing his side up against the mesh so he could get contact without scary eye contact bless him.
The other two I loved were liver and white springers with the tiniest most dainty wee faces. Poor loves white fur was pure yellow/ mustard coloured as if they'd been kept in their own filth or something. Terrible :incazzato:
On a happy note...the rescue org that I was in touch with have told me they'd be glad of me helping with the dogs and gave me their mobile number :laugh:


----------



## Beth17

Oh Thorne how rubbish for you. Hopefully things will seem brighter in the morning.

Well done to Charlie sounds like a great greeting 

Dogless class last night sounds like fantastic fun.

LO I'm sure Zand would love a playmate 

We had a lovely long street walk this morning through the edge of town and around some grassy areas to work their brains a bit around lots of different sights and sounds. They behaved really well and were shattered for most of the day and tonight we have just had some play and fun


----------



## moonviolet

Nothing much to report from today, other than the arrogant arse doing some gundog training on the MOD land, no problem with that but he was right next to one of the main paths, so I popped Tink on lead when we were passing so jsut so she wasn't tempted to interact as they were heading toward us but clearly not meant to interact. I said morning as we passed the men, we'd only gone half a dozen paces before he let off his banger. Tink was fine i almost jumped up the nearest tree. I have words but i shan't use them ... suffice to say I do not feel this was gentlemanly conduct. At the weekend he threw his dummy between me and OH when we were playing playing TInker Tennis.... next time he gets the hag unleashed, i've been keeping her leashed so long in regard to him as i've seen him rough handling his dogs adn don't want him to take his temper out on them if say anything. The man is quite clearly an "I'm entitled bully". :thumbdown:

Next on my list of gripes is the bruise on my thigh... do not put the idea into a clumsy woman's head of running around indoors with a toy. Following your success in class Dogless i couldn't resist having a go, in itself a successful exercise shame i bumped into the kitchen table with some vigour :lol:

On the bright side Tink learned "Toots" tonight putting her feet on mine facing me.... ( can you tell i'm running out of cue words)

and we are marching on the spot facing each other.

Oh and i received an email from the rescue and i'll be getting a call in the next few days


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## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Oh and i received an email from the rescue and i'll be getting a call in the next few days


Er...what did I miss? What rescue and why? Curious minds need to know!


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Er...what did I miss? What rescue and why? Curious minds need to know!


I've offered to volunteer for beagle welfare.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I've offered to volunteer for beagle welfare.


I got excited them and thought Tink was getting a friend!

Also when do we get to see video of your first hwtm routine?


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I've offered to volunteer for beagle welfare.


Ah and here was me thinking Miss Tink might be getting a friend :laugh: Good luck with your volunteering. I really enjoyed volunteering at the shelter when I did it and wouldn't hesitate to volunteer again if I could get to one.


----------



## cinnamontoast

I've been working on wearing out our werewolf!









His brother came training today and is equally shattered, but he was very scared of the sheet over the sand pit (long jump) and is now also full length flat out!









Two hours of retrieval, heeling, searching and the pair of them are exhausted!


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> I got excited them and thought Tink was getting a friend!
> 
> Also when do we get to see video of your first hwtm routine?





Sarah1983 said:


> Ah and here was me thinking Miss Tink might be getting a friend :laugh: Good luck with your volunteering. I really enjoyed volunteering at the shelter when I did it and wouldn't hesitate to volunteer again if I could get to one.


Well she might be from time to time, assuming we pass all vetting, i've offered to foster.

Oh my word CT you broke their springs!


----------



## cinnamontoast

Ha, I reckon there'll be some spring tomorrow!


----------



## L/C

Oooh CT sounds like you're doing working trials. Who are you training with?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Next on my list of gripes is the bruise on my thigh... do not put the idea into a clumsy woman's head of running around indoors with a toy. Following your success in class Dogless i couldn't resist having a go, in itself a successful exercise shame i bumped into the kitchen table with some vigour :lol:
> 
> On the bright side Tink learned "Toots" tonight putting her feet on mine facing me.... ( can you tell i'm running out of cue words)
> 
> and we are marching on the spot facing each other.
> 
> Oh and i received an email from the rescue and i'll be getting a call in the next few days


You must have a bloomin' long kitchen to contemplate that indoors :yikes:. Or you're mad....a combination of the two I suspect :laugh::laugh:.

HWTM video please......

Looking forward to you becoming a failed fosterer .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You must have a bloomin' long kitchen to contemplate that indoors :yikes:. Or you're mad....a combination of the two I suspect :laugh::laugh:.
> 
> HWTM video please......
> 
> Looking forward to you becoming a failed fosterer .


Hmmm probably the just madness:crazy:

I still don't have a routine.... still just components, when the weather is better i shall be out in the garden and with music in my ears trying to string something together for fun.

failed fosterer..... this is not going to be me.










I'm not good on a bike :lol:


----------



## cinnamontoast

L/C said:


> Oooh CT sounds like you're doing working trials. Who are you training with?


A trainer from Radlett. I'm hoping to work with Riverlily dogs eventually.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Oh Thorne how rubbish for you. Hopefully things will seem brighter in the morning.
> 
> Well done to Charlie sounds like a great greeting
> 
> Dogless class last night sounds like fantastic fun.
> 
> LO I'm sure Zand would love a playmate
> 
> We had a lovely long street walk this morning through the edge of town and around some grassy areas to work their brains a bit around lots of different sights and sounds. They behaved really well and were shattered for most of the day and tonight we have just had some play and fun


Btw interesting post regarding Oscar resource guarding Sam.

I had a couple of very embarrassing incidents with Quiver when Leafy was about 18 months old.

Quiver was awful when Leafy was a pup. She was basically frightened of her and it took over a year before Quiver would accept her.

We were on holiday in Norfolk and were taking the dogs out for a late walk on the beach at dusk. We opened the gate which led directly onto the beach and Quiver flew straight up to a woman walking two spaniels and sat frozen in front of her daring her to move. I was horrified as it was completely out of character and my dogs are pretty much 100% with other dogs and people. I chalked it up as a one off and the fact is was getting dark but then Quiver did more or less the same thing about six weeks later at a nature reserve.

I was very careful with Quiver for some time after that and I'm pretty sure that on both occasions she was (in her mind) protecting Leafy.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Hmmm probably the just madness:crazy:
> 
> *I still don't have a routine.... still just components, when the weather is better i shall be out in the garden and with music in my ears trying to string something together for fun.*
> 
> failed fosterer..... this is not going to be me.
> 
> I'm not good on a bike :lol:


Actually putting a routine together is by far the most difficult aspect and the point when a lot of people give up. They teach the moves, choose the music but then it gets difficult.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Actually putting a routine together is by far the most difficult aspect and the point when a lot of people give up. They teach the moves, choose the music but then it gets difficult.


mv won't give up....she already has costumes :laugh: and is a tenacious so - and - so by all accounts PLUS we need videos and the chance to see her performing at Crufts one day .

We had a great walk this morning - took the CHs out together, up to the top field; let them play, let Kilo have top speed zoomies for ages and did some recalls, sits, leaves. They did well - Kilo walked perfectly for me and Rudi is continuing to get the hang of it. Dogs in gardens barking as we pass is a drama - Kilo is steady and takes no notice but Rudi tries to pull like mad to get away. I can distract him with treats on our own and get him walking nicely and ignoring the dogs but it's harder with two...we'll get there!

This afternoon if it's still nice weather I'm planning on taking Rudi to the park and not really walking anywhere - just going to the busiest part with the cafe, getting a coffee and hanging about watching life go past.

Kilo will get an onlead training walk; I'll do some of the running stuff we did in class if I have the energy!! :yikes:.


----------



## moonviolet

Sounds like a great walk this morning, HOpe the weather is kind for the park visit later and you have enough energy for some running fun later, one of the times having a dog with shorter legs is an advantage :lol:



Dogless said:


> mv won't give up....she already has costumes :laugh: and is a tenacious so - and - so by all accounts PLUS we need videos and the chance to see her performing at Crufts one day .


This i am most definitely, well the so and so part at least 

This most likely never:tongue_smilie:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sounds like a great walk this morning, HOpe the weather is kind for the park visit later and you have enough energy for some running fun later, one of the times having a dog with shorter legs is an advantage :lol:
> 
> This i am most definitely, well the so and so part at least
> 
> This most likely never:tongue_smilie:


The red will happen because of the blue  .

The hall floor is an advantage because I get a good head start over Kilo as he tries to get traction cartoon - style :laugh:. The grass may mean that the BW has the last laugh :yikes:. He is used to running with me with sprints mixed in so is generally good at staying by my side.....


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> The red will happen because of the blue  .


In all honesty I think it could be too much for her ladyship. a few local events and care homes will be quite ambitious enough. To be honest as long as we have fun it really is all that matters i don't care if we get beyond the garden gate.



Dogless said:


> The hall floor is an advantage because I get a good head start over Kilo as he tries to get traction cartoon - style :laugh:. .


I'm picturing this with scooby doo style sounds effects :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> In all honesty I think it could be too much for her ladyship. a few local events and care homes will be quite ambitious enough. To be honest as long as we have fun it really is all that matters i don't care if we get beyond the garden gate.
> 
> I'm picturing this with scooby doo style sounds effects :lol:


That's what it's like - but when he does move it's like he's been fired from a catapult as he's built up so much momentum :yikes::yikes:. Everyone always laughs at him .


----------



## GingerRogers

Ooh well done Chazzie - I can but dream!

So sorry you had such a sh1tty day Thorne, heres hoping today brings some sunshine into your life (though looking out my window Suffolk looks particularly grey) def need pics of Breezes new collar.

MV release the hag, you know you need to!

CT - they look shattered, good day had by all!

Dogless - sounds like you have found Kilos 'button' enjoy your coffee with Rudi later - one of my dreams to be able to do that with the wee one or a pint  just a little sip.

We are off to Sudbourne marshes which we hope will be dog free to go geocaching OH idea :yikes:


----------



## Dogless

GR - enjoy; hope it's free of dogs for you .


----------



## kat&molly

Hello everyone, I've only read the last couple of pages but Moonviolet I think the fostering sounds a great idea and Team Tink will look fab with 2 Beagles 

Dogless-the Boys are doing well, you must be so pleased, and GR enjoy your day with the Ninja.

Not much to report as I've been really busy  but we went for out 2nd training lesson on Thursday , I dont think we're going to enjoy it- it isn't 100 positive like it claims to be.
Moll was really strange though- for a start, some of BE's agilty equiptment was there. I dont know if Moll 'recognised' it or what but she gave it all a good sniff as was as though she was confused by it. She seemed quite flat for some of the lesson- I even thought she was ill at one stage but she wasn't.
Oh the joy to find a decent trainer- wonder if Twiggy fancies a holiday.

Hope you are all ok.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Hello everyone, I've only read the last couple of pages but Moonviolet I think the fostering sounds a great idea and Team Tink will look fab with 2 Beagles
> 
> Dogless-the Boys are doing well, you must be so pleased, and GR enjoy your day with the Ninja.
> 
> Not much to report as I've been really busy  but we went for out 2nd training lesson on Thursday , I dont think we're going to enjoy it- it isn't 100 positive like it claims to be.
> Moll was really strange though- for a start, some of BE's agilty equiptment was there. I dont know if Moll 'recognised' it or what but she gave it all a good sniff as was as though she was confused by it. She seemed quite flat for some of the lesson- I even thought she was ill at one stage but she wasn't.
> Oh the joy to find a decent trainer- wonder if Twiggy fancies a holiday.
> 
> Hope you are all ok.


You always appear just as I'm starting to worry a bit  .

Maybe Moll was confused by the familiar kit out of context? Who knows...certainly not me!! It would be brilliant to go training in Twiggy's barn  even if she wants blood drawn :yikes:.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> You always appear just as I'm starting to worry a bit  .
> 
> Maybe Moll was confused by the familiar kit out of context? Who knows...certainly not me!! It would be brilliant to go training in Twiggy's barn  even if she wants blood drawn :yikes:.


We should all descend on mass. :devil:


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> We should all descend on mass. :devil:


It would be the challenge of Twiggy's life trying to sort out us lot I think :yikes:....and then there's the dogs .


----------



## Guest

l/c said:


> we should all descend on mass. :devil:


i like this idea alot! :d


----------



## Sarah1983

Well Rupert has arrived and so has madness and mayhem. He's not too bad, Spencer on the other hand is being a bit of a nightmare. Rupert would be quite happy just chilling out but every time he moves Spens up and trying to get him to play. I'm sure things will settle down given time, they did when Khan was here. 

Remind me never to ask hubby for help again. Asked him to help me take the dogs out for a pee, poor Spen got yanked and yelled at. And even worse he called him to him then yelled at him when he got there :mad5: Fuming isn't the word. From now on I'll take both dogs out separately on my own.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Well Rupert has arrived and so has madness and mayhem. He's not too bad, Spencer on the other hand is being a bit of a nightmare. Rupert would be quite happy just chilling out but every time he moves Spens up and trying to get him to play. I'm sure things will settle down given time, they did when Khan was here.
> 
> Remind me never to ask hubby for help again. Asked him to help me take the dogs out for a pee, poor Spen got yanked and yelled at. And even worse he called him to him then yelled at him when he got there :mad5: Fuming isn't the word. From now on I'll take both dogs out separately on my own.


Ugh. My hubby doesn't have any patience either. If Kilo doesn't go to him when he recalls him he just sulks and says something like "There's no point doing this if he's not even going to listen" and just leaves it :incazzato:.

Hope the madness calms; it was insane here initially when Rudi arrived as when one was lying down quietly the other was pestering .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It would be the challenge of Twiggy's life trying to sort out us lot I think :yikes:....and then there's the dogs .


Surely not?....


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Ugh. My hubby doesn't have any patience either. If Kilo doesn't go to him when he recalls him he just sulks and says something like "There's no point doing this if he's not even going to listen" and just leaves it :incazzato:.
> 
> Hope the madness calms; it was insane here initially when Rudi arrived as when one was lying down quietly the other was pestering .


Do you reckon it's acceptable to use ecollars on husbands?

It was the same when Khan first got here, the first day was a nightmare but after that things got better. Ruperts not as playful as Khan so I'm hoping things calm down this time too. He's currently lay on the sofa with Spen lay on the floor just waiting for him to move so he can start to play again.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well Rupert has arrived and so has madness and mayhem. He's not too bad, Spencer on the other hand is being a bit of a nightmare. Rupert would be quite happy just chilling out but every time he moves Spens up and trying to get him to play. I'm sure things will settle down given time, they did when Khan was here.
> 
> *Remind me never to ask hubby for help again. Asked him to help me take the dogs out for a pee, poor Spen got yanked and yelled at. And even worse he called him to him then yelled at him when he got there :mad5: Fuming isn't the word. From now on I'll take both dogs out separately on my own.*




Sadly there's no answer to that except you have my sympathy.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Wyrd

Only just found this thread, can't beleive how many pages it is! :yikes:


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Do you reckon it's acceptable to use ecollars on husbands?


I will not lower the tone 
I will not lower the tone
I will not lower the tone 
I will not lower the tone 
I will not lower the tone
I will not lower the tone

:laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> 
> :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol:


Go on, drag it to the gutter again

:lol:


----------



## Dogless

Sounds as if Deeks is doing brilliantly!!

E collars on husbands....hmmmm....so many uses .

Just got back from the park with LCH. We hung around the cafe / lough shore bit. It was packed :yikes:. Rudi met loads of people; at one point there was a semicircle of kids all holding their hands out flat with treats on for Rudi - Kilo's idea of hell; Rudi's idea of heaven it seems, he was so wiggly and play bow - y :laugh:. We saw our friends with their pushchair which was good to walk alongside for a bit as Rudi was a bit freaked by them all. We saw lots of dogs but went past them with treat to bribe - I knew the majority (including the offlead little yorkie who runs up nipping big dogs so we dodged him pronto!!) and they all tend to bark their heads off at Kilo. He did have brief meets with two friendly dogs though - I'm being much more choosy this time around than with Kilo. Hindsight is wonderful . Lots of ducks / swans / geese seen and lough paddled in and tasted briefly.

All in all a success and we got back just in time as it's now pouring with rain. For a change :laugh:.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> 
> :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol:


Don't - you'll scare off Wyrd! And she'll tell the rest of pf how depraved we are. :lol:

Sarah - hope they calm down soon. My OH is the same with Gypsy when she's a pain but he's been better since the time I kicked him out of the house when he very roughly pushed her away from the bin. :mad5:

Dogless - sounds like Rudi is a bit of a social butterfly and it seems he is going to be very different to Sir Kilo. Glad you had a nice time.

OH actually came out on a walk with us this morning! It was nice to have company but it did restrict where we could go as he refuses to buy a pair of wellies and then whinges when he gets wet/muddy. 

As we couldn't go very far and I had a helper to hold/occupy Ely it meant I could do some proper scent work with Gypsy. She was very good as I added in some sharp turns and side paths and when she lost the scent she cast around for it rather giving up or doubling back on herself. 

He does think I'm a bit mad now as I did a load of stuff I don't normally do on a walk when I have an audience including some building drive work - which involves running about like a loon waving a rabbit skin toy and allowing Ely to jump at me and han off my arms. :yikes:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless well done on dodgy the rain with LCH sounds like a great socialisation session, you have the advantage of already having met many of these dogs with Kilo. 



Sarah1983 said:


> Go on, drag it to the gutter again
> 
> :lol:


No my darkened soul is locked away... for now.


----------



## GingerRogers

Welcome Wyrd to the weird world of 'what are you working on', sometimes its nothing we just like to hang out and learn about stuff you never knew you needed to know. Kat&Molly has created a monster and its name is Moonviolet  

We also agree that most of the time OH's are useless at dog training stuff. Psst, you knew this already Sarah 

Glad your outing with Rudi went well Dogless, will it work having 2 totally different personalities? I suppose Rudi can take the fuss for Kilo, but I bet everyone will want to fuss him still instead, everyone seems to love a challenge 

Also glad Deeks is settling in the kitchen.

We had a lovely afternoon thanks peeps . Was a bit gloomy and misty which is a shame as there would have been some amazing views up the coast, we could have seen Southwold (where we live, sort of, we actually live in the cheap seats next door) and the old telegraph station where they used to broadcast the world service from until recently (much to OH disgust as he likes that sort of thing, sometimes catch him watching France 24 ) and along Orford Ness *but *we didn't see a soul , it was very nice and quite good walking, its incredibly sandy so not much mud, and we found 9 pots of treasure  on the way back we stopped for a browse in the posh kitchen shop at Snape Maltings :drool: who knew you could get a silicone garlic peeler or that I needed a three way vegetable peeler (I don't know what the three different ways of peeling veg are) they had pots of hot chocolate for £12.50  and fancy sweets like chocolate and lavender, I was convinced into buying a ceramic dish with about 3 bits of turkish delight for £15 for my Mums birthday  but I resisted OH pleas for the multi-coloured plastic kitchen utensils on a twirly thing for a very reasonable £25 as he doesn't cook.

And so I am a bit of a fraud because actually I have worked on nothing today   but Ginge has been practicing being quiet. She only gruffed at the horses (about 40 of them, all amazing looking beasts in a right pikey looking yard ) then we stopped in Tesco Express and saw a friends little dog and its doggy pal waiting outside, Ginge was in the car next to them, in her travel cave admittedly, but they started barking their heads off at another dog and Jeanie, the owner, said she hadn't heard a peep from the ninja (practicing her silent attack probably ) so only just got back and its time to take her out again. Road walking this time as I have a letter to drop off, wish me luck 

ETA Gosh thats a lot of smilie use


----------



## moonviolet

L/C: I think my impulse control is improving 

Welcome Wyrd 

I love how surprised our OH's are when they see the weird stuff (in their opinion) we do with our dogs. SOunds like things are going well 

GR how very dare you, monster indeed I'm an innocent little flower I'll have you know :laugh:










Sounds like the ninja had a great day. Shame about the misty gloomy weather messing up the views.

I love the thought of your OH being taken with the multi coloured kitchen utensils did he want to look at them or play with the twirly thing.


----------



## GingerRogers

They were kind of rubbery he liked to fondle them
Look see your influence flows through the ether to our loved ones. Flower indeedy 
methinks we will go back to enjoy the views another day. Ninja is hiding under the spare duvet sleeping. She didn't mind when i put my coat on and joined the oh at the bar round the corner. Troubles is they are watching football so i am here.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> They were kind of rubbery he liked to fondle them


And this *was* the " utensils" in the "cook" shop  :lol:

Aww bless little ginge you plum tuckered her out.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> And this *was* the " utensils" in the "cook" shop  :lol:
> 
> Aww bless little ginge you plum tuckered her out.


Well I think it was the cook shop.


----------



## Dogless

GR - glad you had a good afternoon...that's a lot of horses in one go!!



L/C said:


> OH actually came out on a walk with us this morning! It was nice to have company but it did restrict where we could go as he refuses to buy a pair of wellies and then whinges when he gets wet/muddy.


Santa in the form of my Mum bought hubby some this year .



GingerRogers said:


> Glad your outing with Rudi went well Dogless, will it work having 2 totally different personalities? I suppose Rudi can take the fuss for Kilo, but I bet everyone will want to fuss him still instead, everyone seems to love a challenge


The idea was to get a character that complimented Kilo's. So far on the odd occasion they've been out together and people have stopped they have fussed Rudi and Kilo has sat looking relieved (if dogs can be relieved ).

Well, I should hang my head in shame . I fell asleep at about 1530 and woke up about 1615 as I was up at 0430. It was dark and drizzly and the field that I was going to use for Kilo's training is unlit. I also couldn't summon the energy for a walk, so I took the easy option and took him for a run with me for about an hour instead . He loves running with me, but I am annoyed with myself :thumbdown:.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Well I think it was the cook shop.


Is that a euphemism or was it really? :ihih:.


----------



## kaz25

I'm now working on leaving Bindi out the crate, since I'm an awful mummy


----------



## Dogless

kaz25 said:


> I'm now working on leaving Bindi out the crate, since I'm an awful mummy


Eh .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> so I took the easy option and took him for a run with me for about an hour instead . He loves running with me, but I am annoyed with myself :thumbdown:.


Are you self flagellating again?

Kilo had a great time with you and you had a nap clearly your body needed. Nothing to be annoyed with yourself about.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Are you self flagellating again?
> 
> Kilo had a great time with you and you had a nap clearly your body needed. Nothing to be annoyed with yourself about.


He does love it - it's easy for me as he just runs to heel, no direction bar 'left', 'right' or 'wait' needed. Oh, there was a suicidal white cat that jumped out of the hedge at us on the sports pitches :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## kaz25

Dogless said:


> Eh .


I've been judged, quite a bit, for leaving Bindi crated during the day when I'm at work and then at night time too. I admit it's not the best situation but she's a 20 month old Labrador and chews. Admittedly, she only chews her toys now but I thought I was doing what was best to keep her safe and let Benny have a peaceful sleep (she tends to pester him when left alone together) but it would seem not  she has only been crated at night since we moved here as they no longer sleep in the bedroom.

So now I'm working on leaving her out, starting tonight with leaving the crate open. I know she has settled down a hell of a lot since I got her, more so since we moved here so hopefully she'll be good as gold


----------



## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> 
> :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol:


I will. Could an ecollar be used to achieve a heightened orgasm much in the same way as asphyxiation ? Because this might mean that MPs having run out of plastic bags could remove the ban.


----------



## diefenbaker

kaz25 said:


> I've been judged, quite a bit, for leaving Bindi crated during the day when I'm at work and then at night time too. I admit it's not the best situation but she's a 20 month old Labrador and chews. Admittedly, she only chews her toys now but I thought I was doing what was best to keep her safe and let Benny have a peaceful sleep (she tends to pester him when left alone together) but it would seem not  she has only been crated at night since we moved here as they no longer sleep in the bedroom.
> 
> So now I'm working on leaving her out, starting tonight with leaving the crate open. I know she has settled down a hell of a lot since I got her, more so since we moved here so hopefully she'll be good as gold


I've seen the other threads. Good luck.


----------



## Guest

diefenbaker said:


> i will. Could an ecollar be used to achieve a heightened orgasm much in the same way as asphyxiation ? Because this might mean that mps having run out of plastic bags could remove the ban.


How Could YOU!!!?!??! MY EYES!!


----------



## kaz25

diefenbaker said:


> I've seen the other threads. Good luck.


Thank you  I'm sure we've left it open before since we moved and she did nothing but annoy Benny at 5am - not quite sure how to overcome that one if she is still insisting on doing it.

I'm quite upset that I seem to have been jumped on and judged when I thought I was doing what was best to keep them safe  would it not have been a bit nicer for people to suggest solutions instead of accusing me of using the crate as a punishment for her being destructive.


----------



## Sarah1983

Gotta admit, I'm one who finds crating a dog all day then overnight excessive. I dunno what the solution is for you but personally I'd crate while at work and then have them loose at night. Just really don't like the thought of a dog being stuck in a crate around 16 hours a day personally. Some say it makes no difference since they just sleep but I know how much mine have all moved around during the night and the crate really does restrict that.

Diefenbaker, you had to go there didn't you? We're just getting Moonviolet through rehab and now you take up where she left off! :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

kaz25 said:


> Thank you  I'm sure we've left it open before since we moved and she did nothing but annoy Benny at 5am - not quite sure how to overcome that one if she is still insisting on doing it.
> 
> I'm quite upset that I seem to have been jumped on and judged when I thought I was doing what was best to keep them safe  would it not have been a bit nicer for people to suggest solutions instead of accusing me of using the crate as a punishment for her being destructive.


Well.. I'm in a fortunate position. The OH no longer works ( yes I know housewife is a job ) but I understand that some people are in a position where both ( or all ) people in the household have to go out to work. We used to be in that position before dogs and then it was the kids that were farmed out to the nursery between 9 & 5 so I'd have got it in the neck on a child forum. I'm also lucky that Dief isn't destructive anyway.


----------



## kaz25

Sarah1983 said:


> Gotta admit, I'm one who finds crating a dog all day then overnight excessive. I dunno what the solution is for you but personally I'd crate while at work and then have them loose at night. Just really don't like the thought of a dog being stuck in a crate around 16 hours a day personally. Some say it makes no difference since they just sleep but I know how much mine have all moved around during the night and the crate really does restrict that.


I'm not saying I agree, I don't know what the solution is either and thought it was the best thing to do. I'd have her out of it all day but I'm not sure I can trust her to leave Benny alone.


----------



## kaz25

diefenbaker said:


> Well.. I'm in a fortunate position. The OH no longer works ( yes I know housewife is a job ) but I understand that some people are in a position where both ( or all ) people in the household have to go out to work. We used to be in that position before dogs and then it was the kids that were farmed out to the nursery between 9 & 5 so I'd have got it in the neck on a child forum. I'm also lucky that Dief isn't destructive anyway.


I think I just need to give her the chance to prove herself to us. As I've said she doesn't chew anything that isn't hers now, it doesn't mean I trust her 100% not to when she's left alone though


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> I will not lower the tone
> 
> :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol:


Aww please....... (I'll back you).


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Don't - you'll scare off Wyrd! And she'll tell the rest of pf how depraved we are. :lol:
> 
> Sarah - hope they calm down soon. My OH is the same with Gypsy when she's a pain but he's been better since the time I kicked him out of the house when he very roughly pushed her away from the bin. :mad5:
> 
> Dogless - sounds like Rudi is a bit of a social butterfly and it seems he is going to be very different to Sir Kilo. Glad you had a nice time.
> 
> *OH actually came out on a walk with us this morning! It was nice to have company but it did restrict where we could go as he refuses to buy a pair of wellies and then whinges when he gets wet/muddy. *
> 
> That's the logic of men isn't it?....
> 
> He does think I'm a bit mad now as I did a load of stuff I don't normally do on a walk when I have an audience including some building drive work - *which involves running about like a loon waving a rabbit skin toy and allowing Ely to jump at me and han off my arms*. :yikes:


Brill - another one biting the arm....:thumbup:


----------



## Sarah1983

Well we have peace at last here. Rupert is curled up at the other end of the sofa, exactly where my Rupert used to spend most of his time, and Spen is sprawled out by the front door sulking because I've picked my coat up off the floor to stop Rupert humping it (Spen likes to sleep on my coat). I'm dying for a pee but I know if I move Wrestlemania will start all over again.

We've had one accident from Rupert. He went out on our balcony this afternoon for a pee but since it's got dark he refuses to go out there. I dunno whether it's the dark bothering him or the mosquito net we have over the door. Either way he peed literally all over my flat. Started in the dining room, panicked and ran all through the living room to hide behind Spencers crate. Peeing the whole time.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Welcome Wyrd to the weird world of 'what are you working on', sometimes its nothing we just like to hang out and learn about stuff you never knew you needed to know. Kat&Molly has created a monster and its name is Moonviolet
> 
> We also agree that most of the time OH's are useless at dog training stuff. Psst, you knew this already Sarah
> 
> Glad your outing with Rudi went well Dogless, will it work having 2 totally different personalities? I suppose Rudi can take the fuss for Kilo, but I bet everyone will want to fuss him still instead, everyone seems to love a challenge
> 
> Also glad Deeks is settling in the kitchen.
> 
> We had a lovely afternoon thanks peeps . Was a bit gloomy and misty which is a shame as there would have been some amazing views up the coast, we could have seen Southwold (where we live, sort of, we actually live in the cheap seats next door) and the old telegraph station where they used to broadcast the world service from until recently (much to OH disgust as he likes that sort of thing, sometimes catch him watching France 24 ) and along Orford Ness *but *we didn't see a soul , it was very nice and quite good walking, its incredibly sandy so not much mud, and we found 9 pots of treasure  on the way back we stopped for a browse in the posh kitchen shop at *Snape Maltings* :drool: who knew you
> 
> Snape Maltings is on my list of things to do before I die. I would love to attend a concert at Aldeburgh. I nearly made it about 4 years ago when we were doing a week's training course near Woodbridge.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> GR - glad you had a good afternoon...that's a lot of horses in one go!!
> 
> . He loves running with me, *but I am annoyed with myself* :thumbdown:.


Yes pity you don't get annoyed with some of those awful owners over there...!!


----------



## Thorne

GingerRogers said:


> We had a lovely afternoon thanks peeps . Was a bit gloomy and misty which is a shame as there would have been some amazing views up the coast, we could have seen Southwold (where we live, sort of, we actually live in the cheap seats next door) and the old telegraph station where they used to broadcast the world service from until recently (much to OH disgust as he likes that sort of thing, sometimes catch him watching France 24 ) and along Orford Ness *but *we didn't see a soul , it was very nice and quite good walking, its incredibly sandy so not much mud, and we found 9 pots of treasure  on the way back we stopped for a browse in the posh kitchen shop at Snape Maltings :drool: who knew you could get a silicone garlic peeler or that I needed a three way vegetable peeler (I don't know what the three different ways of peeling veg are) they had pots of hot chocolate for £12.50  and fancy sweets like chocolate and lavender, I was convinced into buying a ceramic dish with about 3 bits of turkish delight for £15 for my Mums birthday  but I resisted OH pleas for the multi-coloured plastic kitchen utensils on a twirly thing for a very reasonable £25 as he doesn't cook.


Lovely area! Have been out on the Ness in boats and being dragged behind them but never dog-walked as it's a bit out of the way. Will have to bear it in mind seeing as you say it wasn't too muddy. Rubbish weather here too, grey and foggy.

Today's not been much better than yesterday to be honest, as much as I'd like to try and work things out I don't think my relationship can be saved. Lots of misunderstandings have suddenly piled up and me having a go at him for wanting to get rid of his bloody dog was the last straw. Gutted to say the least. 
Have de-Christmas-ed the house and helped prepare for the new sofas arriving on monday, Breeze is very upset that the shampooed sitting room is out of bounds so she's been wandering about watching the carpet cleaner in action. Must remember to photograph that collar.

Had an onlead walk with Scooter which was disappointing, he didn't remove his nose from the floor the whole time and ignored the 2 other (mannerless) dogs we met and me for most of the walk. Was grateful for the gloom and fog, had a good cry while being towed slightly towards whatever Scooter was so interested in  Think it could be foxes, it stunk of them today.
Breeze naturally reluctant to be walked after her recent scares and hung back at first, but cheered up after a scamper around near the school. My mind was elsewhere when we were passed by a Land Rover so she reminded me that car=treat with some unprompted eye contact and a glance at my treat bag  She's a funny little dog. She can be difficult but there's no denying that she's clever!


----------



## Twiggy

kaz25 said:


> Thank you  I'm sure we've left it open before since we moved and she did nothing but annoy Benny at 5am - not quite sure how to overcome that one if she is still insisting on doing it.
> 
> I'm quite upset that I seem to have been jumped on and judged when I thought I was doing what was best to keep them safe  would it not have been a bit nicer for people to suggest solutions instead of accusing me of using the crate as a punishment for her being destructive.


I didn't see your previous post.

I'm retired now but when I was working (admittedly only part-time) my youngsters were left in their crate and also crated at night. Not only to prevent damage (possibly hundreds of pounds worth) but also for their own safety until such time I could more or less trust them 100%.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Lovely area! Have been out on the Ness in boats and being dragged behind them but never dog-walked as it's a bit out of the way. Will have to bear it in mind seeing as you say it wasn't too muddy. Rubbish weather here too, grey and foggy.
> 
> Today's not been much better than yesterday to be honest, as much as I'd like to try and work things out I don't think my relationship can be saved. Lots of misunderstandings have suddenly piled up and me having a go at him for wanting to get rid of his bloody dog was the last straw. Gutted to say the least.
> Have de-Christmas-ed the house and helped prepare for the new sofas arriving on monday, Breeze is very upset that the shampooed sitting room is out of bounds so she's been wandering about watching the carpet cleaner in action. Must remember to photograph that collar.
> 
> Had an onlead walk with Scooter which was disappointing, he didn't remove his nose from the floor the whole time and ignored the 2 other (mannerless) dogs we met and me for most of the walk. Was grateful for the gloom and fog, had a good cry while being towed slightly towards whatever Scooter was so interested in  Think it could be foxes, it stunk of them today.
> Breeze naturally reluctant to be walked after her recent scares and hung back at first, but cheered up after a scamper around near the school. My mind was elsewhere when we were passed by a Land Rover so she reminded me that car=treat with some unprompted eye contact and a glance at my treat bag  She's a funny little dog. She can be difficult but there's no denying that she's clever!


I'm really sorry you are going through such a bad patch at the moment.

The trouble is when you are down every little thing gets magnified.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes pity you don't get annoyed with some of those awful owners over there...!!


I do get annoyed....just need to be haggier . You don't half nag - but you are always right, so I'll let you off :laugh:.

I used to be so assertive at work and quite happily managed all sorts of people in all sorts of stressful circumstances. I seem to have deflated . I have always been self critical though; think it helps .


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Dogless

Thorne; I'm sorry you've had another rubbish day. At least you have got out there and carried on walking the dogs - your mind is bound to be elsewhere whilst walking rather than on training.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thorne said:


> Lovely area! Have been out on the Ness in boats and being dragged behind them but never dog-walked as it's a bit out of the way. Will have to bear it in mind seeing as you say it wasn't too muddy. Rubbish weather here too, grey and foggy.
> 
> Today's not been much better than yesterday to be honest, as much as I'd like to try and work things out I don't think my relationship can be saved. Lots of misunderstandings have suddenly piled up and me having a go at him for wanting to get rid of his bloody dog was the last straw. Gutted to say the least.
> Have de-Christmas-ed the house and helped prepare for the new sofas arriving on monday, Breeze is very upset that the shampooed sitting room is out of bounds so she's been wandering about watching the carpet cleaner in action. Must remember to photograph that collar.
> 
> Had an onlead walk with Scooter which was disappointing, he didn't remove his nose from the floor the whole time and ignored the 2 other (mannerless) dogs we met and me for most of the walk. Was grateful for the gloom and fog, had a good cry while being towed slightly towards whatever Scooter was so interested in  Think it could be foxes, it stunk of them today.
> Breeze naturally reluctant to be walked after her recent scares and hung back at first, but cheered up after a scamper around near the school. My mind was elsewhere when we were passed by a Land Rover so she reminded me that car=treat with some unprompted eye contact and a glance at my treat bag  She's a funny little dog. She can be difficult but there's no denying that she's clever!


It was great and very out the way BUT there were some bird scarers and a shoot today. I would have loved to take.my friend back there but buffer would hate it if they went off


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Hey everyone, the pickles are in the house!!!

Sorry, I'd love to comment on all of your current situations but it would require me reading about 500 pages to catch up from when I was last in here, which let's face it... ain't gonna happen!
But I hope you are all doing well and that your dogs are behaving impeccably as always!

So, now.... it's all about me!! DO you remember aaaaaaaaaaaaages ago I had the hideous hideous time with Branston.....in actual fact I don't think I ever got round to even telling you all about it as I was so desperately frustrated and upset I just wanted to wipe it from my memory banks but I do remember telling you that I'd had a horrible day...... well, long story short.... Pickles on lead as having to walk approx 50m down pavement between footpaths, pulling like a pair of demented trains as always, Branston all of a sudden goes totally batsh1t for no (apparent) reason, he attacks Lily, he attacks (extreme word, but jumps, nips, yelps at etc) me, he's wailing and leaping and biting like a rabid tazmanian devil, it takes all of my strength to hold him and try to keep him away from Lily at the same time, eventually I battle my way to the footpath entrance, try to calm him down and then collapse into a blithering wreck!!! Fun huh?!

So, being weak minded instead of thinking "I'm going to tackle this and confront this problem until it's sorted" I thought "Well I'm not bl**dy well doing that walk again!" 


and I haven't.


Until today!!!


Hubby came with me, so I decided to show him this walk, which apart from the 50m stretch of pavement from hell, is a really nice walk. I figured having us both there would be an ideal time to tackle it as I wouldn't have to be struggling with both dogs on my own.

Sorry, trying to keep this short!
It was a million times better than the last time, Branston was walking 'reasonably' well with hubby while I followed behind with Lily, but at the EXACT same place on the pavement as before Branston suddenly jumped as though he'd had an electric shock and then turned into devil dog again, again no apparent reason for it 

Anyone offer an explanation?? Hubby suggested maybe one of the houses had one of those cat/dog deterrent things that gives off a high pitch noise that we can't hear... are they even allowed? and wouldn't it affect Lily and all other dogs in the area? 

Branston has always been a bit 'special' and reacts very strangely to random things (he's terrified of raw lamb for goodness sake!!) but I'm at a bit of a loss of how to tackle it when I don't know what's causing it.

Well done if you managed to get to the end of that epic post and I promise to pop in more often if you'll have me!!


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Hey everyone, the pickles are in the house!!!
> 
> Sorry, I'd love to comment on all of your current situations but it would require me reading about 500 pages to catch up from when I was last in here, which let's face it... ain't gonna happen!
> But I hope you are all doing well and that your dogs are behaving impeccably as always!
> 
> So, now.... it's all about me!! DO you remember aaaaaaaaaaaaages ago I had the hideous hideous time with Branston.....in actual fact I don't think I ever got round to even telling you all about it as I was so desperately frustrated and upset I just wanted to wipe it from my memory banks but I do remember telling you that I'd had a horrible day...... well, long story short.... Pickles on lead as having to walk approx 50m down pavement between footpaths, pulling like a pair of demented trains as always, Branston all of a sudden goes totally batsh1t for no (apparent) reason, he attacks Lily, he attacks (extreme word, but jumps, nips, yelps at etc) me, he's wailing and leaping and biting like a rabid tazmanian devil, it takes all of my strength to hold him and try to keep him away from Lily at the same time, eventually I battle my way to the footpath entrance, try to calm him down and then collapse into a blithering wreck!!! Fun huh?!
> 
> So, being weak minded instead of thinking "I'm going to tackle this and confront this problem until it's sorted" I thought "Well I'm not bl**dy well doing that walk again!"
> 
> and I haven't.
> 
> Until today!!!
> 
> Hubby came with me, so I decided to show him this walk, which apart from the 50m stretch of pavement from hell, is a really nice walk. I figured having us both there would be an ideal time to tackle it as I wouldn't have to be struggling with both dogs on my own.
> 
> Sorry, trying to keep this short!
> It was a million times better than the last time, Branston was walking 'reasonably' well with hubby while I followed behind with Lily, but at the EXACT same place on the pavement as before Branston suddenly jumped as though he'd had an electric shock and then turned into devil dog again, again no apparent reason for it
> 
> Anyone offer an explanation?? Hubby suggested maybe one of the houses had one of those cat/dog deterrent things that gives off a high pitch noise that we can't hear... are they even allowed? and wouldn't it affect Lily and all other dogs in the area?
> 
> Branston has always been a bit 'special' and reacts very strangely to random things (he's terrified of raw lamb for goodness sake!!) but I'm at a bit of a loss of how to tackle it when I don't know what's causing it.
> 
> Well done if you managed to get to the end of that epic post and I promise to pop in more often if you'll have me!!


There may be something in the electrical / sound theory. Kilo freezes and refuses to walk when he gets level with some sort of electrical junction box at the park . He'll do a wide arc around it, but within a certain distance of it he will plant his feet.

Or perhaps Branston remembers what scared him last time even if it's no longer there? In the same way that Kilo is super, super alert at places where he has seen cats / deer etc in the past?


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Hey everyone, the pickles are in the house!!!
> 
> Sorry, I'd love to comment on all of your current situations but it would require me reading about 500 pages to catch up from when I was last in here, which let's face it... ain't gonna happen!
> But I hope you are all doing well and that your dogs are behaving impeccably as always!
> 
> So, now.... it's all about me!! DO you remember aaaaaaaaaaaaages ago I had the hideous hideous time with Branston.....in actual fact I don't think I ever got round to even telling you all about it as I was so desperately frustrated and upset I just wanted to wipe it from my memory banks but I do remember telling you that I'd had a horrible day...... well, long story short.... Pickles on lead as having to walk approx 50m down pavement between footpaths, pulling like a pair of demented trains as always, Branston all of a sudden goes totally batsh1t for no (apparent) reason, he attacks Lily, he attacks (extreme word, but jumps, nips, yelps at etc) me, he's wailing and leaping and biting like a rabid tazmanian devil, it takes all of my strength to hold him and try to keep him away from Lily at the same time, eventually I battle my way to the footpath entrance, try to calm him down and then collapse into a blithering wreck!!! Fun huh?!
> 
> So, being weak minded instead of thinking "I'm going to tackle this and confront this problem until it's sorted" I thought "Well I'm not bl**dy well doing that walk again!"
> 
> and I haven't.
> 
> Until today!!!
> 
> Hubby came with me, so I decided to show him this walk, which apart from the 50m stretch of pavement from hell, is a really nice walk. I figured having us both there would be an ideal time to tackle it as I wouldn't have to be struggling with both dogs on my own.
> 
> Sorry, trying to keep this short!
> It was a million times better than the last time, Branston was walking 'reasonably' well with hubby while I followed behind with Lily, but at the EXACT same place on the pavement as before Branston suddenly jumped as though he'd had an electric shock and then turned into devil dog again, again no apparent reason for it
> 
> Anyone offer an explanation?? Hubby suggested maybe one of the houses had one of those cat/dog deterrent things that gives off a high pitch noise that we can't hear... are they even allowed? and wouldn't it affect Lily and all other dogs in the area?
> 
> Branston has always been a bit 'special' and reacts very strangely to random things (he's terrified of raw lamb for goodness sake!!) but I'm at a bit of a loss of how to tackle it when I don't know what's causing it.
> 
> Well done if you managed to get to the end of that epic post and I promise to pop in more often if you'll have me!!


OMG that is very odd.....

Have you actually stood on that spot of pavement without the dogs just to see if it is some sort of current - or strange vibration - sharp piece of concrete ???????


----------



## L/C

Oh Thorne, I'm so sorry you're having such a rubbish time. Why has all this surfaced now - because he wants to get rid of Major? Ignore me if you don't want to talk.

Feel better soon.


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> I'm really sorry you are going through such a bad patch at the moment.
> 
> The trouble is when you are down every little thing gets magnified.





Dogless said:


> Thorne; I'm sorry you've had another rubbish day. At least you have got out there and carried on walking the dogs - your mind is bound to be elsewhere whilst walking rather than on training.





L/C said:


> Oh Thorne, I'm so sorry you're having such a rubbish time. Why has all this surfaced now - because he wants to get rid of Major? Ignore me if you don't want to talk.
> 
> Feel better soon.


Thanks again guys,

L/C he's had a really bad run of financial luck this last year and is understandably stressed about it. He's considering moving somewhere rented - anywhere with more jobs than his area - and doesn't know if he'll be able to find somewhere dog-friendly so with that uncertainty it may be best for Major to be rehomed. What made me cross was stumbling upon a _Preloved_ advert for this dog  If he can't keep him then he can't keep him but he refused to take my advice about rescues to contact, snapped at me, so I snapped back. I want to try and work things out because I can't help but love him, but the damn dog was the straw that broke the camel's back. Wish he'd never taken Major on in the first place because he's been a consistent cause for disagreement between us ever since.
The fact that we're long distance and only see each other monthly has just made everything a bit harder than it should be.

And with that horrendous rant over, back to the dogs, anyone?  Sorry


----------



## Sarah1983

foxyrockmeister said:


> Hey everyone, the pickles are in the house!!!
> 
> Sorry, I'd love to comment on all of your current situations but it would require me reading about 500 pages to catch up from when I was last in here, which let's face it... ain't gonna happen!
> But I hope you are all doing well and that your dogs are behaving impeccably as always!
> 
> So, now.... it's all about me!! DO you remember aaaaaaaaaaaaages ago I had the hideous hideous time with Branston.....in actual fact I don't think I ever got round to even telling you all about it as I was so desperately frustrated and upset I just wanted to wipe it from my memory banks but I do remember telling you that I'd had a horrible day...... well, long story short.... Pickles on lead as having to walk approx 50m down pavement between footpaths, pulling like a pair of demented trains as always, Branston all of a sudden goes totally batsh1t for no (apparent) reason, he attacks Lily, he attacks (extreme word, but jumps, nips, yelps at etc) me, he's wailing and leaping and biting like a rabid tazmanian devil, it takes all of my strength to hold him and try to keep him away from Lily at the same time, eventually I battle my way to the footpath entrance, try to calm him down and then collapse into a blithering wreck!!! Fun huh?!
> 
> So, being weak minded instead of thinking "I'm going to tackle this and confront this problem until it's sorted" I thought "Well I'm not bl**dy well doing that walk again!"
> 
> and I haven't.
> 
> Until today!!!
> 
> Hubby came with me, so I decided to show him this walk, which apart from the 50m stretch of pavement from hell, is a really nice walk. I figured having us both there would be an ideal time to tackle it as I wouldn't have to be struggling with both dogs on my own.
> 
> Sorry, trying to keep this short!
> It was a million times better than the last time, Branston was walking 'reasonably' well with hubby while I followed behind with Lily, but at the EXACT same place on the pavement as before Branston suddenly jumped as though he'd had an electric shock and then turned into devil dog again, again no apparent reason for it
> 
> Anyone offer an explanation?? Hubby suggested maybe one of the houses had one of those cat/dog deterrent things that gives off a high pitch noise that we can't hear... are they even allowed? and wouldn't it affect Lily and all other dogs in the area?
> 
> Branston has always been a bit 'special' and reacts very strangely to random things (he's terrified of raw lamb for goodness sake!!) but I'm at a bit of a loss of how to tackle it when I don't know what's causing it.
> 
> Well done if you managed to get to the end of that epic post and I promise to pop in more often if you'll have me!!


I've had something similar happen with Spencer. We were just walking along the street when completely out of the blue he wet himself, pooped and shot off like a bat out of hell with his tail practically glued to his belly. Twice this has happened in the same place now. There's absolutely nothing that I can see, feel or hear but something is obviously triggering his extreme reaction. I avoid that walk now, like you I don't see how I can even begin to tackle it when I have no idea what he's reacting to.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> There may be something in the electrical / sound theory. Kilo freezes and refuses to walk when he gets level with some sort of electrical junction box at the park . He'll do a wide arc around it, but within a certain distance of it he will plant his feet.
> 
> Or perhaps Branston remembers what scared him last time even if it's no longer there? In the same way that Kilo is super, super alert at places where he has seen cats / deer etc in the past?


I thought it was most likely that he just associated being in the same place with the reaction he had the first time. But I don't know what triggered it initially. Like Kilo he is super alert (actually he's a total @rse!) when we go back to somewhere he's seen cats and squirrels etc, but this was a different and much more horrible reaction.... although not dissimilar to the whole 'walking from home' issue.... I dunno, I give up 



Twiggy said:


> OMG that is very odd.....
> 
> Have you actually stood on that spot of pavement without the dogs just to see if it is some sort of current - or strange vibration - sharp piece of concrete ???????


I haven't done no, I'm not even sure how to get to it other than via 2 hour circular walk from somewhere else! I'll have to have a look on the map and go and investigate it without dog. There certainly wasn't anything immediately obvious to me, hubby or Lily at the time though.

I've just had a look back through the recent pages and am really sorry to hear that you're having such a tough time Thorne, I feel like a bit of an @rse now wittering on about Branston when you're feeling so down. I really hope things get better for you soon, one way or another


----------



## Thorne

foxyrockmeister said:


> I've just had a look back through the recent pages and am really sorry to hear that you're having such a tough time Thorne, I feel like a bit of an @rse now wittering on about Branston when you're feeling so down. I really hope things get better for you soon, one way or another


Not as much as an @rse as I feel for turning a dog training thread into the Jeremy Kyle Show 

Hope you get to the bottom of things with Branston, very mystifying behaviour indeed. Can't say it's something I've experienced but the electricity/repellents could be plausible. Those mosquito repellents they use to keep teenagers out of certain areas used to really hurt my ears (have suddenly stopped hearing them so must be getting old!) whereas my sisters could hear them but not be troubled by them at all.


----------



## Guest

Sorry things have been crappy again thorne. 

Well, I had TWO shifts today. (yay?) Managed to take Zander for a walk down the road and back this morning, and pinged a tennis ball round the garden for him. (He does that thing cats do with his paws haha.) He has also spent his day playbow stomping (You know where they sorta SLAM themselves into a playbow?) at Clemence the Now-not-a-stray Cat.

Currently he is looking at PF. (Excuse the green dressing gown, comfort not class!)


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry things are still a bit carp Thorne, I can't say when or how it'll get better but i can say you are surrounded by friends here who all wish the very best for you, whatever that best might be. 

Welcome back FRM  
I don't think I can think of anything that hasn't been said with their hearing and sense of smell so much more acute than ours it could be impossible for us inferior humans to experience what triggered it and as Dogless says it may even not be there now. 

LO awwwwwwwwwwwww look at angelic Zander


----------



## Thorne

Well, I've not yet ventured out with the dogs (especially Breeze) but had to laugh last night because I found a strategically placed article from the local paper about Cesar Millan's show that's coming to our town.

Bless my mum, she'd seen the article which said very little but had a heartwarming photograph of him and his "pack" and thought we could go and see him together. Showed her a few videos of him in action and suffice to say she no longer wants to go! 
It's the thought that counts!


----------



## Dogless

A good morning this morning .

Took Rudi out first - lead walk to the fields and then some play and recalls / collar touches / lead on and off stuff and lead walk back. He is coming on nicely I think. Didn't see anyone or any dogs at all as it was early, grey and drizzly.

Then took out the BW - nice lead walking to a big area of grass, saw a few dogs which was fine and then did the exercises we did in class the other night. I am *chuffed* - the driven Kilo came back out with a vengeance . I have never seen him so excited and whining to be allowed to go and get his tuggy and then so into tugging with me. I will however hire him out as a chiropractor I think as he has completely realigned my spine and ribs . I hope no one saw us as I must have looked and sounded like a loon with my hugely enthusiastic "Ready Steady.....Get it!!!!....Yes!!!!" and all that jazz  :laugh:. I am exhausted!

After all that excitement we went into the top field so Kilo could zoom about and sniff and generally wind down..then he walked home beautifully. We saw a cat, which trotted away from us and he just looked and went up on his toes .

I hereby award both Concrete Heads a gold star .

ETA: Sorry to disappoint you Twiggy, but I only suffered a small scratch so not much blood spilt!


----------



## Sarah1983

My silly Spendog isn't well  I dunno what's wrong but he's at his back end a hell of a lot and he's holding his tail out from it as though it's sore. He's just lying on my coat not really wanting to do much. He doesn't even want to play with Rupert really and keeps trying to get on my knee when Rupe tries to get him to play. We'll be off to the vets tomorrow. He's eating, drinking and toileting normally so will just keep an eye on him and if he gets worse we'll get him to a vet today.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> My silly Spendog isn't well  I dunno what's wrong but he's at his back end a hell of a lot and he's holding his tail out from it as though it's sore. He's just lying on my coat not really wanting to do much. He doesn't even want to play with Rupert really and keeps trying to get on my knee when Rupe tries to get him to play. We'll be off to the vets tomorrow. He's eating, drinking and toileting normally so will just keep an eye on him and if he gets worse we'll get him to a vet today.


Oh no . Hope it turns out to be something like a sprain or bruise from rough play. Poor Spendog.


----------



## GingerRogers

Mmm we have a slightly off colour doggie. She's been playing but also ate some grass and slept since. Normally do a monster walk Sunday but think might take it easy. Will see when she wakes up 
ETA I see spen is poorly too hope he feels better soon.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Mmm we have a slightly off colour doggie. She's been playing but also ate some grass and slept since. Normally do a monster walk Sunday but think might take it easy. Will see when she wakes up
> ETA I see spen is poorly too hope he feels better soon.


Not Ginge too . Hope she is feeling better soon.


----------



## Thorne

Get well soon Spencer and Ginge. 
Could Spen's problem possibly be his anal glands? Scooter used to have a few issues with his and would show much the same signs then be better for having them emptied, either by the vet or by lots of horrible licking  So pleased he's not done that for a while!


----------



## moonviolet

Oh dear Hope Spen and Ginge are both better soon
My 2 thoughts for Spen were anal glands or limber tail. Tink has had limber tail a couple times first was after her thundershirt made her a bit giddy (trust her) the other was after an exciting day with my parents dogs.

Sounds like a great morning Dogless little (?) correction young Rudi sounds to be coming along a treat and the focus your getting from Kilo sounds brilliant.

I bit the bullet and went to one of the busier areas today and i'm really glad we had lots of lovely offlead greetings ( although I will confess not one of these was a random stranger, all that lurking pays off  ) and TInk made a new buddy a young bulldog called Bentley a rather sweet game of bow and chase, fancy turns and spins on the spot to encourage him when he couldn't keep up, only 2 or 3 runs short and incredibly sweet. i have to say his breathing was really good, certainly in comparison to the pug who wants to play chase with Tink but is almost keeling over after one run.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh dear Hope Spen and Ginge are both better soon
> My 2 thoughts for Spen were anal glands or limber tail. Tink has had limber tail a couple times first was after her thundershirt made her a bit giddy (trust her) the other was after an exciting day with my parents dogs.
> 
> Sounds like a great morning Dogless little (?) correction young Rudi sounds to be coming along a treat and the focus your getting from Kilo sounds brilliant.
> 
> I bit the bullet and went to one of the busier areas today and i'm really glad we had lots of lovely offlead greetings ( although I will confess not one of these was a random stranger, all that lurking pays off  ) and TInk made a new buddy a young bulldog called Bentley a rather sweet game of bow and chase, *fancy turns and spins on the spot to encourage him when he couldn't keep up*, only 2 or 3 runs short and incredibly sweet. i have to say his breathing was really good, certainly in comparison to the pug who wants to play chase with Tink but is almost keeling over after one run.


I LOVE it when Kilo does that with other dogs - sheer enthusiasm at it's best . Well done mv - you seem to be doing so much less lurking these days :thumbup:.

As for focus....he nearly ripped my arm off several times he was so into it :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I LOVE it when Kilo does that with other dogs - sheer enthusiasm at it's best . Well done mv - you seem to be doing so much less lurking these days :thumbup:.
> 
> As for focus....he nearly ripped my arm off several times he was so into it :yikes::yikes:.


An awful less lurking, i'm in danger of becoming " normal" :yikes: Although heading off to a quieter areas ther may have been some running jumping skipping hiding behind trees and general silliness so maybe no need to worry yet


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> An awful less lurking, *i'm in danger of becoming " normal"* :yikes: Although heading off to a quieter areas ther may have been some running jumping skipping hiding behind trees and general silliness so maybe no need to worry yet


As if :laugh::laugh::laugh:.


----------



## Born2BWild

Today I did some very successful BAT work with Cleo - she still gets frustrated when seeing another dog but calms down much quicker and after
2 strong signals of turning her head away from the dog to look at me she didn't take her eyes off me ))

We also practised some basic obedience exercises which included "leave" ...


----------



## Dogless

B2BWild - that photo is definitely one for a frame - love it!! .


----------



## moonviolet

:001_wub:Cleo:001_wub:

well done. that is such a wonderful photo.

I'm glad to hear you are having success with BAT


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Well, I've not yet ventured out with the dogs (especially Breeze) but had to laugh last night because I found a strategically placed article from the local paper about Cesar Millan's show that's coming to our town.
> 
> Bless my mum, she'd seen the article which said very little but had a heartwarming photograph of him and his "pack" and thought we could go and see him together. Showed her a few videos of him in action and suffice to say she no longer wants to go!
> It's the thought that counts!


It would be a waste of money with regards to training dogs even if you were a big fan. He was quite an amusing little guy in a showbiz sort of way....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> A good morning this morning .
> 
> Took Rudi out first - lead walk to the fields and then some play and recalls / collar touches / lead on and off stuff and lead walk back. He is coming on nicely I think. Didn't see anyone or any dogs at all as it was early, grey and drizzly.
> 
> Then took out the BW - nice lead walking to a big area of grass, saw a few dogs which was fine and then did the exercises we did in class the other night. I am *chuffed* - the driven Kilo came back out with a vengeance . I have never seen him so excited and whining to be allowed to go and get his tuggy and then so into tugging with me. I will however hire him out as a chiropractor I think as he has completely realigned my spine and ribs . I hope no one saw us as I must have looked and sounded like a loon with my hugely enthusiastic "Ready Steady.....Get it!!!!....Yes!!!!" and all that jazz  :laugh:. I am exhausted!
> 
> After all that excitement we went into the top field so Kilo could zoom about and sniff and generally wind down..then he walked home beautifully. We saw a cat, which trotted away from us and he just looked and went up on his toes .
> 
> I hereby award both Concrete Heads a gold star .
> 
> ETA: Sorry to disappoint you Twiggy, but I only suffered a small scratch so not much blood spilt!


You can go off people you know....LOL

I'm about to take Holly and Trem over to the barn and all the "Ready, steady, get it, bite my arm" etc. etc. won't make a scrape of difference..

When I'm attempting to 'work' (loosely speaking) Holly, Tremor is doing the light fantastic - drooling, dancing, shaking hell out of her ball but when I'm working Tremor Holly just lies there looking blank.....


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> My silly Spendog isn't well  I dunno what's wrong but he's at his back end a hell of a lot and he's holding his tail out from it as though it's sore. He's just lying on my coat not really wanting to do much. He doesn't even want to play with Rupert really and keeps trying to get on my knee when Rupe tries to get him to play. We'll be off to the vets tomorrow. He's eating, drinking and toileting normally so will just keep an eye on him and if he gets worse we'll get him to a vet today.


Oh dear Sarah. I hope Spen hasn't hurt his back.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Mmm we have a slightly off colour doggie. She's been playing but also ate some grass and slept since. Normally do a monster walk Sunday but think might take it easy. Will see when she wakes up
> ETA I see spen is poorly too hope he feels better soon.


Oh no - not Ginge as well. Hope she picks up later today.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh dear Hope Spen and Ginge are both better soon
> My 2 thoughts for Spen were anal glands or limber tail. Tink has had limber tail a couple times first was after her thundershirt made her a bit giddy (trust her) the other was after an exciting day with my parents dogs.
> 
> Sounds like a great morning Dogless little (?) correction young Rudi sounds to be coming along a treat and the focus your getting from Kilo sounds brilliant.
> 
> I bit the bullet and went to one of the busier areas today and i'm really glad we had lots of lovely offlead greetings ( although I will confess not one of these was a random stranger, all that lurking pays off  ) and TInk made a new buddy a young bulldog called Bentley a rather sweet game of bow and chase, *fancy turns and spins on the spot to encourage* him when he couldn't keep up, only 2 or 3 runs short and incredibly sweet. i have to say his breathing was really good, certainly in comparison to the pug who wants to play chase with Tink but is almost keeling over after one run.


Was Tink practicing her HTM moves on her own?....


----------



## Twiggy

Born2BWild said:


> Today I did some very successful BAT work with Cleo - she still gets frustrated when seeing another dog but calms down much quicker and after
> 2 strong signals of turning her head away from the dog to look at me she didn't take her eyes off me ))
> 
> We also practised some basic obedience exercises which included "leave" ...


That is just so cute....:thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Was Tink practicing her HTM moves on her own?....


 damn it i should have made a video ... might have helped me put something together :lol: and anyone would be hard pressed to say it was unnatural or contrived if she was exhibiting the behaviours in play ..

..hmmmm maybe she wants to choreograph her own routine


----------



## Born2BWild

Thank you  Although she has been alot of worth she is so worth it. She is eager to learn and always trying her best. I have leart so much with Cleo and cannot thank her enough. I love her so much :-D xx


----------



## GingerRogers

Well she woke up after an exciting dream Wolfed her breakfast down second time round and headed out for a walk complete with barking at random people  so think she's feeling better managed to do some digging when my back was turned to close a gate as well. Got some lovely moonviolet esque pics climbing on trees. She was still a bit 'soft' and has been for a couple of days but we think it might be sprats, they never quite sit right with her, not raw so I cooked them but perhaps they just dont agree with her.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Well she woke up after an exciting dream Wolfed her breakfast down second time round and headed out for a walk complete with barking at random people  so think she's feeling better managed to do some digging when my back was turned to close a gate as well. Got some lovely moonviolet esque pics climbing on trees. She was still a bit 'soft' and has been for a couple of days but we think it might be sprats, they never quite sit right with her, not raw so I cooked them but perhaps they just dont agree with her.


They might be a little too oily for her maybe reduce the amount and mix with something
Looking forward to seeing the ninja tree climbing


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You can go off people you know....LOL
> 
> I'm about to take Holly and Trem over to the barn and all the "Ready, steady, get it, bite my arm" etc. etc. won't make a scrape of difference..
> 
> When I'm attempting to 'work' (loosely speaking) Holly, Tremor is doing the light fantastic - drooling, dancing, shaking hell out of her ball but when I'm working Tremor Holly just lies there looking blank.....


Oh no; don't say that :hand:. I have discovered something that you have known for many, many years....:w00t:.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> They might be a little too oily for her maybe reduce the amount and mix with something
> Looking forward to seeing the ninja tree climbing


I think you must be right. She only gets 1 or 2 but obviously is too much for her might have to try another fish. Shame as she loves them cooked and mashed up. Actually the only time they 'worked' was when I mixed an egg in. Mmm Hubby says no more though. Prob as he wants them.


----------



## Freddie and frank

This is going to be a long one....I've had my notebook out again. :laugh:

Thorne, sorry to hear about your crappy days and hoping things work out for you. 

Chazzie, well done Charlie. 

Mv, always impressed with miss tink and good luck fostering. 

Dogless, sounds like some good walks and rudi seems to be loving the attention. F&F are always good when I'm running and can't wait to get back to it but I'm only a gentle jogger. 

Sarah, glad things calmed down. 

Frm, how strange, will be interesting to find out what it is.  I thought perhaps one of those high pitched deterrent things???

Gr, your day sounds fab. Think I need one of those silicone garlic peelers  I'm a bit sad like that. 

Leam, well done Deeks 

B2B, fab picture. 

Get well soon spencer and ginge. 

Hope I've not forgotten anything.
We've had some well behaved walks separately so that's good. 

I had a bit of a situation yesterday which was my fault. 
With bella in season I've been separating her at night and when we go out. The boys are neutered. 
Yesterday morning I was in the kitchen, took a cuppa up to OH and when I came down, franks willy was ermmmm, ready for action.  
I had my sister and oh here and he'd been watching from upstairs and said frank hadn't done the deed but was just sniffing. 
Anyway, I immediately separated them but frank was distressed and wouldn't stop licking. A quick google later and frank was being gently hosed down in the area whilst being distracted with a gravy bone. Vaseline and gloves helped things get back to normal and he soon recovered. 
All seems to be ok today and no sign of discomfort. Will be keeping a close eye on him though. She is in the most fertile stage I think, looking at her actions, so I'm keeping a very close eye on all of them and keeping them apart when needed.

Sorry for long post. Hope everyone is ok and will pop back later. I'm supposed to be cleaning. :laugh:

How about sending all our OH's away to be trained:laugh:
I want to click 'like' on all posts too but will start from now.


----------



## Dogless

Oh Good Lord, poor Frank :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> Oh Good Lord, poor Frank :yikes::yikes:.


I know, not something I really want to see again either.


----------



## moonviolet

OH poor poor Frank,

I know you are cleaning so while you are at it you might want to wash your eyes:lol: :lol:


----------



## Freddie and frank

moonviolet said:


> OH poor poor Frank,
> 
> I know you are cleaning so while you are at it you might want to wash your eyes:lol: :lol:


:laugh:
There are some things a mommy does not need to see. Hopefully the image has been wiped from my mind. :yikes:

Back to the cleaning.


----------



## purpleskyes

Little Hudson learnt give paw today and when he attempts to go upstairs which has been several times today, I think he thinks the OH is up there, as soon as I say no he comes down.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Arrghh, this is the problem with this thread, I just can't keep up! Every time I come back on there are loads more pages and I can't remember who everyone is and what they've done and how to answer, oh no it's turning my brain to mush :crazy: I can't cope 

Sorry, pull yourself together woman, and breathe!!

Sorry to hear Spen's not feeling too hot, I hope it's nothing serious and glad to hear that Ginge seems to be fine again now.

F&F, Branston had that erm todger problem a while back, we had to squirt him with cold water too to cool him down a bit :lol: poor boy was very distressed about it though, apparently it can be quite serious ifnot dealt with straight away. I've told him not to get it out ever again!!

Dogless sounds like the concrete heads are doing fantastic and sounds like a great day was had, I can always give Kilo a job at my clinic if he fancies it!! 

MV glad to hear you're becoming less of a lurking stalkerish sort and have started to socialise in the 'normal' world!! Not sure I'll ever be one for doing much of that.... more for the sake of others than for the sake of myself though 

Thorne I hope you've had a better day today and bless your mum for thinking of you, even if it wasn't with the best idea 

Purpleskyes I think we need to see a picture of Hudson doing 'paw' in fact I just need Hudson pictures in my life.... he is sooooo scrummy!

Sorry if I've missed anyone I'm going by memory alone, which is never a good thing with me!

We've had a good day - I started my new years resolution today (gonna start a whole new thread about it so you'll have to wait and see what it is  )
Had a good muddy foggy walk somewhere we've not been before. All was well apart from Branston slicing his pad open  Might do a separate thread for that too in health to get some advice although I'm not overly worried as it has now stopped bleeding 

Right, must get back to the roast dinner now, catch ya's later


----------



## kat&molly

Blimey you lot.:laugh:

Hope Spencer and the Ninja are feeling better soon.

F+F- Poor Frank  fingers crossed Bella's season passes soon. Seasons are a pain I think :thumbdown:

Thorne- Really hope things improve for you soon.

Moonviolet- The Bulldog sounds lovely and I love the idea of Miss Tink doing her own routine.

Dogless-'Little' Rudi is doing so well  and Moll loves playing games like that- I dont play for too long though the bruises are too painful  Sadly Scruff and Evie aren't confident enough.

We literally bumped in an old chap and his nasty little dog today-its happened about 4 times now. He's out hunting- with his gun and he's erm getting on in years- I always pray his eyesights good.:yikes:

Love the pic of Cleo.:001_wub:


----------



## Thorne

Good progress as a whole it sounds!

-MV, you're starting to become a bit too normal for this thread! Glad Tink had a good play
-Dogless, good boy Kilo, I love a dog with drive, wish mine were a bit more toy-driven as opposed to food or sniffing... Well done Rudi too.
-GR, glad Ginge has perked up
-FRM, poor Branston! At least it's stopped bleeding, hope it heals quickly.
-F&F, ouch, hope you don't have to deal with that again! Poor Frank.

Had 2 relatively stress-free walks in the fog, think we were the only ones out in it but it was so thick I'd have struggled to see anyone more than a few metres away. Did have to go and get Scooter once as he'd found a sniff that he was NOT going to budge from but otherwise very positive. I'm still shamelessly chuffed by how fit and lean he is for his age, he's certainly fitter than I am! Am definitely starting to prefer walking both dogs on their harnesses and Scooter walks particularly nicely on his and the new training lead. No pulls at all, _almost_ a LLW all the way tonight.

More reluctance from Breeze at first but she seemed actively pleased to be passed by cars; definitely associating them with being treated, and she stood quietly while a noisy van passed. A few weeks ago she'd have hit the end of the lead or tried to back out of her harness so I'm very pleased about that :thumbup: Had a good offlead romp on the least squishy field I could find then home along the pavements.

Felt a bit more positive today, still hurt and annoyed but not nearly as miserable, I think the lovely support and positive energy from this thread has reached me


----------



## Dogless

Thorne - I am genuinely pleased to hear that you are feeling a little better.

FRM - what a mystery post....like a treasure hunt to find all your threads . I don't know about Kilo having a job but I'll have one and move over .

k&m - a hunter with bad eyesight :yikes:.

Hudson sounds like he's doing well .

Took Rudi just on a very short walk this evening down the road to work on walking nicely - still doing well, he's a good little bugger.

Kilo came running with me this evening for an hour or so again. I don't normally post about our runs as they (touch wood!) tend to be uneventful, but they are usually an added extra; I go and sometimes he comes. With 4 walks per day to do in total one is going to have be replaced with a run for Kilo a few times per week for now. I'm sure he won't lose out as he will still get training and play.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well done Hudson. . Def some pictures needed 

Frm, hope branstons pad is ok. And well done to you...all of that from memory, I have to use a notepad.:laugh:

K&M, send him to specsavers.  and, yes, seasons are a complete pain. Couldn't imagine what it would be like if the boys were entire. 

Thorne,Really glad you feel bit better today. Sounds like some good walks or was it the romp in the field :ciappa:


Eta....Dogless, rudi is a good boy isn't he, bless him. Send him to the top of the class. Another run, I'm jealous.


----------



## chazzie10

Well ive been lurking in the background the last couple of days ( like I do sometimes when Im feeling bit down but scared of missing something lol), just 'reading' and 'liking'  Havn't had much to report recently as not really been working on anything much though tried to teach 'weave' today and he caught on instantly but I'm waaaay too short and he's waaay to big and I was having to hold onto the kitchen worktop and lift one leg right up so he could go under  stopped quite quickly :laugh:
Sitting watching Countryfile and all the cute doggies and horsies :drool:
It's taking my mind off the thoughts of poor Frank with his lipstick out :yikes:
hehehe 
Hope everyones had a good day :001_tt2:


----------



## kat&molly

Chazzie I dont think weave with a big dog was one of your better ideas.:laugh:

And blimey- over 700 pages :yikes: :yikes:
Whos responsible for all that yakking.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> damn it i should have made a video ... might have helped me put something together :lol: and anyone would be hard pressed to say it was unnatural or contrived if she was exhibiting the behaviours in play ..
> 
> ..hmmmm maybe she wants to choreograph her own routine


Right I've found you a HTM competition 30 March - 1 April at Forest Oak Farm (Forest of Dean area)......


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Right I've found you a HTM competition 30 March - 1 April at Forest Oak Farm (Forest of Dean area)......


:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Right I've found you a HTM competition 30 March - 1 April at Forest Oak Farm (Forest of Dean area)......


Ooh, Ooh, who's gonna print our T-shirts.


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> Chazzie I dont think weave with a big dog was one of your better ideas.:laugh:
> 
> And blimey- over 700 pages :yikes: :yikes:
> *Whos responsible for all that yakking*.


Well, you started it :lol: :lol:

And no, weave with a mini JRT was much easier :laugh:


----------



## Thorne

As promised, Breeze modelling her new "princess" collar! I started buying a few pink things here and there for her after she got mistaken for a boy and I think I'm in danger of going OTT 

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...ome-overdue-festive-snaps.html#post1062589162


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear Sarah. I hope Spen hasn't hurt his back.


It seems to be his bum he's having problems with as he's constsantly licking it, thinking anal glands may be the issue. We're off to the vets tomorrow though so we'll see.

MV, it doesn't seem like limber tail, he's holding it weirdly but it seems more of an effort to keep it away from his bottom than anything.

Hope Ginge is feeling better soon too!


----------



## Guest

Knee is extremely sore today. Mum has had to take the loony out.
Managed to get a lurcher sized crate for seven quid at a local barn sale. Has no tray, but cushions have been put in it. 
Zand hasn't been in a crate for about a year, so i've just being going "Welll Doooonne" everytime he even sniffs it or pokes his head in. 

Poor frank! And I hope spen and ginge recover!! 
Chazzie, Zand knows THROUGH with means go through my legs, which I taught when he was a didder, and now I'll sometimes just be standing and he'll shove his head and shoulders through, looking like some sorta pony!


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Well done Hudson. . Def some pictures needed
> 
> Frm, hope branstons pad is ok. And well done to you...all of that from memory, I have to use a notepad.:laugh:
> 
> K&M, send him to specsavers.  and, yes, seasons are a complete pain. Couldn't imagine what it would be like if the boys were entire.
> 
> Thorne,Really glad you feel bit better today. Sounds like some good walks or was it the romp in the field :ciappa:
> 
> Eta....Dogless, rudi is a good boy isn't he, bless him. Send him to the top of the class. Another run, I'm jealous.


You should be glad that I don't generally post about them then...I'm only mentioning these ones as I feel guilty - ish :yikes: :laugh:. And yes, Rudi is a good little fella, so far :001_wub:.


----------



## moonviolet

*hides under a blanket*


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> *hides under a blanket*


OOOoohhhhh....is that part of your routine? .

Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on......

GO ON!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> OOOoohhhhh....is that part of your routine? .
> 
> Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on......
> 
> GO ON!!!!!!!!!


This.....:laugh:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> OOOoohhhhh....is that part of your routine? .
> 
> Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on......
> 
> GO ON!!!!!!!!!


Well Mrs Doyle no it's not  actually i can't say that for sure.... there is no routine 

I promise i will put try to put something together and I will post videos of our progress.

but i'm really not thinking of competing until we're at least vaguely competent :lol: be fun to go and watch though.


----------



## moonviolet

Hope Spen gets on ok at the Vet and he's all better soonest, poor boy.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry every one just need to express my shame and I can't think of anywhere better. I feel really shitty as I just got angry with Ginge. Bedtime walks and she barked at a none existent cat (neighbours house) 10.30pm fgs I lost my rag and dragged her across the road and really yanked her on her harness. Now I feel shitty, like a right monster  
I just try so hard and wish she would cut me some slack sometimes  I know that's unreasonable she's a dog. She doesn't understand why doing dog things is wrong. But I just feel rotten now


----------



## sailor

gingerrogers - ill doggie, glad to read ginge is feeling well enough to bark at people  

born2bewild - cute pic!

moonviolet - sounds like you have taught Tinks well at dancing.. now she is showing off her new found skills to all the neighbourhood pups!

F&F - poor frank  hope Bellas season passes quickly for everyones sake! - also, there are some things you can just never unsee :lol: the image will haunt you!

purpleskyes - well done Hudson on learning 'paw' 

roxyfoxmeister or foxyrockmeister  - I can not keep up either, you are not alone! - Good luck on your new years resolution  it sounds like great fun and I hope Branstons paw is healing nicely. Oh and do you do delivery with the roast mmmmmmm

kat&molly - I also hope the old chaps eye sight is still as sharp as ever!

thorne - sounds like a fantastic walk! Glad to read how the support from people on here are clearly having a positive effect on you.

Dogless - impecable behaviour from your two ... but I would expect any less. Sounds like Rudi is doing very well, buthe has a great role model to learn from 

chazzie10 - sorry, but I might have laughed slightly at your weave technique  sounds like you two are having fun and doing great :thumbsup:

Thank goodness for notepad! 
I am sorry if I have missed anyone, but I have been awol and the increase in pages since I have been gone is amazing :yikes: so I just read the last page, to get a rough idea of where most of you are at 

Toppa has been here.... 2 weeks now? And he has had to get used to living indoors, deal with the festive season and also put up with the hallway being upside down as I am redecorating! Yet he seems to be taking it all in his stride 

He no longer humps me, he occasionally tries it on my Son, but thats because my Son is not correcting him. 
Nipping is still an issue, but Toppa is teething so I am giving him the benefit of doubt. He only gets 'told off/ignored' if he bites too hard. I tried to tell him off for every nip, but they are soo persistant, I was getting fed up of hearing my own voice and being in a constant state of having to ignore him.
On a positive note, he does actually nip alot less!
Toilet training was going really well, but for some reason th eother night, Toppa was literally needing a pee every 10 minutes  then I realised my Son had poured tea into Toppas water bowl which was lapped up with alot of enthusiasm  and do you think my Son stayed up all night for puppy loo breaks :thumbdown: over all tho toileting is going well, especially over night! He goes to bed 11pm and wake 8am.
Bins are still very very fun, but he has got used to his bowls, kibble and the joys of kongs, so atleast I know it is no longer his grumbly belly leading him astray :drool: more of just habit I think!
Barking  yes, well his a terrier! I had a friend round the other evening and Toppa did not like my friend at all :thumbdown: he was growling and woofing, his heckles were all raised and he kept his distance! I gave my friend a bag of treats to give to Toppa and Toppa was taking them with a waggy tail, and settled slightly, but the moment the treats were gone, the growling started again. My friend finally managed to get a fuss, but it was under protest. So we left him be in the kitchen,where he settled intil he heard my friend leaving, then we heard some grumbly growling from the kitchen door. 
Another friend called round the next day with her two little Children, and Toppa seemed more relaxed in their company, not a growl to be heard, and he was happily licking everyones hands and getting a fuss!
Then a tird friend came round and again and altho we had an intial growl and woof, that subsided, and he happily got a fuss and licked my friends hand!
On walks, everyone and thing gets growled and barked at on the approach... but once face to face, he quietens and has a sniff.
Rather than say LEAVE IT as this only seems to work while I say leave it... I am now starting to use the distract technique and simply change diraction or say whats this and use a treat etc which on the whole seems to have a better result. But Toppa is more focused on his surroundings than me. He seems to be very on edge for a young puppy!
Children are back to school this week, so I can walk him on my own into various busy and quiet areas, concentrating and working more on him. So fingers crossed, with it being one to one with no Children to have to watch too, I think we will get some better results 

Roll on puppy classes, will have vax all sorted soon and I just hope he adapts well to classes, as from what I have seen he is wary of strange dogs and people... which is what he will be faced with at class, not sure how well he will react to that, but I hope he doesn't bark the place down


----------



## Freddie and frank

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry every one just need to express my shame and I can't think of anywhere better. I feel really shitty as I just got angry with Ginge. Bedtime walks and she barked at a none existent cat (neighbours house) 10.30pm fgs I lost my rag and dragged her across the road and really yanked her on her harness. Now I feel shitty, like a right monster
> I just try so hard and wish she would cut me some slack sometimes  I know that's unreasonable she's a dog. She doesn't understand why doing dog things is wrong. But I just feel rotten now


Oh dear, what a shitty thing, 
We're all human and tomorrow is another day. Go give her a huge fuss and try not to be hard on yourself. 

Eta....I'm so sorry if my reply doesn't sound right cause I mean it in the nicest way possible. Just re read it and not sure if it sounds a bit hard? 
What I should have put is, don't worry, sending you a hug, Shall I shut up now.


----------



## Sarah1983

Been there, done that, bought the tshirt GR. It's called being human. I lashed out at Spen the other night when he grabbed a treat hard enough to draw blood. Didn't actually make contact with him, realised what I was doing and managed to stop short, but I still felt really sh*tty about it. I never hit out like that so god knows why I did that night. I've also lost my rag, turned into a fishwife and yanked on the harness too. Spen looks at me and goes right back to pulling my arm out of its socket :nonod:

F&F, just read about poor Frank and his predicament and told Spencer that I don't want anything like that from him at any point!


----------



## GingerRogers

I was wondering how you and toppa were getting on. Glad he's settling in. The barking and growling at everything sounds very familiar  we still have a complete lack of focus as everything else just needs to be kept an.eye on.


----------



## sailor

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry every one just need to express my shame and I can't think of anywhere better. I feel really shitty as I just got angry with Ginge. Bedtime walks and she barked at a none existent cat (neighbours house) 10.30pm fgs I lost my rag and dragged her across the road and really yanked her on her harness. Now I feel shitty, like a right monster
> I just try so hard and wish she would cut me some slack sometimes  I know that's unreasonable she's a dog. She doesn't understand why doing dog things is wrong. But I just feel rotten now


I can sympathise!
I decided to take Toppa out on his flexi when I put the bins out at 7am and no sooner had I crossed the road to put bins down a neighbour came out with her bins and Toppa, being Toppa, started to bark at her relentlessly :w00t:
I had to chuck the bins and reel him in while apologising to my neighbour... hoping Toppa hadn't woken any other neighbours up.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Been there, done that, bought the tshirt GR. It's called being human. I lashed out at Spen the other night when he grabbed a treat hard enough to draw blood. Didn't actually make contact with him, realised what I was doing and managed to stop short, but I still felt really sh*tty about it. I never hit out like that so god knows why I did that night. I've also lost my rag, turned into a fishwife and yanked on the harness too. Spen looks at me and goes right back to pulling my arm out of its socket :nonod:
> 
> F&F, just read about poor Frank and his predicament and told Spencer that I don't want anything like that from him at any point!


I would feel.better if she took.no notice but being a cow always makes her behave perfectly (not that I make a habit.of it with her but i might occasionally get annoyed with people)


----------



## Freddie and frank

Sailor, toppa is doing great isn't he.  
Hope puppy classes go ok.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Sarah1983 said:


> Been there, done that, bought the tshirt GR. It's called being human. I lashed out at Spen the other night when he grabbed a treat hard enough to draw blood. Didn't actually make contact with him, realised what I was doing and managed to stop short, but I still felt really sh*tty about it. I never hit out like that so god knows why I did that night. I've also lost my rag, turned into a fishwife and yanked on the harness too. Spen looks at me and goes right back to pulling my arm out of its socket :nonod:
> 
> F&F, just read about poor Frank and his predicament and told Spencer that I don't want anything like that from him at any point!


Hope he listens. I never want to see it again. 
I was shocked at first then I went into mom mode and just had to help him.
He seemed quite relieved with the cold water on him, poor baby.


----------



## moonviolet

GR (((hugs)))

Every one of us has lost our tempers at some point really does go with being human.


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> Chazzie, Zand knows THROUGH with means go through my legs, which I taught when he was a didder, and now I'll sometimes just be standing and he'll shove his head and shoulders through, looking like some sorta pony!


Yep Charlie does that too! He's done it to my dad and took him ( and me!) completely by surprise. He did it to my son when he came home tonight too, ran and found his tennis ball then squeezed right in there and stayed halfway through for a few minutes while we talked, just wagging his tail....freak :laugh:


----------



## Freddie and frank

chazzie10 said:


> Yep Charlie does that too! He's done it to my dad and took him ( and me!) completely by surprise. He did it to my son when he came home tonight too, ran and found his tennis ball then squeezed right in there and stayed halfway through for a few minutes while we talked, just wagging his tail....freak :laugh:


Freddie does this, always has. It's his 'thing' 
He comes through my legs so I have to scratch his bum, turns around then come through from behind me so I can scratch his neck. 
Takes me by surprise sometimes when I'm not expecting it. :yikes:
Thing is, he does it to everyone who comes to our house,so I end up explaining it just as he's shoved his nose into someone's crotch


----------



## chazzie10

F+F yeah its very comical, not sure why they do it. Maybe it's to get maximum contact or something. Whatever the reason, I'm just too short to appreciate it


----------



## Sarah1983

Spen's another bugger for going through legs. Have to watch him when people make a fuss of him coz he'll do it to them and if they're not expecting it he can really knock them right off balance. 

He likes to push me around with it though. He's discovered that if he gets between my legs and sits he can shove me backwards or forwards which is apparently a great game


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Spen's another bugger for going through legs. Have to watch him when people make a fuss of him coz he'll do it to them and if they're not expecting it he can really knock them right off balance.
> 
> He likes to push me around with it though. He's discovered that if he gets between my legs and sits he can shove me backwards or forwards which is apparently a great game


Yup...Kilo too.

GR - don't be too hard on yourself, we have all done similar. I used to find it hard to control my temper with the poo eating thing. Really hard :incazzato::incazzato:.

Wooo Hoooo noisy Toppa - you're getting there bit by bit . Perhaps pop a duiretic into your son's bedtime drink so he's up all night 'from' Toppa :laugh:. Only joking...please don't :yikes:.

Good Luck with the vet today for Spendog.


----------



## kat&molly

GR- I understand the frustration, sometimes its so hard. Scruff's barking has really improved-but- its when its people she knows, it annoys me the most .

I have started to work on her barking in the car, I've never done anything about it because I prefered it was protected when I wasn't around but noticed it scared Evie and annoyed Moll.
Not easy to deal with when I'm not there so I've done a bit of hiding and stalking in supermarket car parks.
I have to park miles away from other cars as it is but hopefully I can get closer and closer to other cars over time.


Fun and games here this morning. One of the cats, Tache I presume brought a mouse in and let it go. Then got bored. Luckily Scruff and Evie didn't see it but Moll did and she was frantic. I managed to catch it eventually and let it go but it took ages to convince her it was gone.
Jay saw it but never bothers- she'd have had the sack within half an hour if ever she'd have been a working dog.:laugh:

Hope Spencer goes ok at the vets.

Have a good day everyone.


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## chazzie10

Good morning all 
Woohoo a day off work.........and yucky, rainy weather :thumbdown:

I've been up from the early hours and had a few cups of coffee waiting for the rain to ease but according to the forecast, this is it for 24hrs so on with the wellies. Guess it'll be the waterproof coat today( if it fits at all after putting on a few pounds over xmas). 
Just given Charlie his new kong type toy. A different brand, smaller and bright yellow (not JUST as disturbing looking lol) PAH had them half price on Saturday so for £4 it seemed like a bargain extra boredom buster! He's currently chasing it round the living room trying to get the hidden biccie out .......maybe just one more cuppa then a walk.......


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> It seems to be his bum he's having problems with as he's constsantly licking it, thinking anal glands may be the issue. We're off to the vets tomorrow though so we'll see.
> 
> MV, it doesn't seem like limber tail, he's holding it weirdly but it seems more of an effort to keep it away from his bottom than anything.
> 
> Hope Ginge is feeling better soon too!


Well let's hope it's just anal glands that need expressing.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Well Mrs Doyle no it's not  actually i can't say that for sure.... there is no routine
> 
> I promise i will put try to put something together and I will post videos of our progress.
> 
> but i'm really not thinking of competing until we're at least vaguely competent :lol: be fun to go and watch though.


But it's good you're at least vaguely thinking about it.....!!

It's the big Crufts qualifier competition at the KC Building, Stonleigh on 26 January. I did think about going to spectate.


----------



## Twiggy

Aww don't beat yourself up. We all lose it on occasions.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> GR- I understand the frustration, sometimes its so hard. Scruff's barking has really improved-but- its when its people she knows, it annoys me the most .
> 
> I have started to work on her barking in the car, I've never done anything about it because I prefered it was protected when I wasn't around but noticed it scared Evie and annoyed Moll.
> Not easy to deal with when I'm not there so I've done a bit of hiding and stalking in supermarket car parks.
> I have to park miles away from other cars as it is but hopefully I can get closer and closer to other cars over time.
> 
> Fun and games here this morning. One of the cats, Tache I presume brought a mouse in and let it go. Then got bored. Luckily Scruff and Evie didn't see it but Moll did and she was frantic. I managed to catch it eventually and let it go *but it took ages to convince her it was gone.*
> Jay saw it but never bothers- she'd have had the sack within half an hour if ever she'd have been a working dog.:laugh:
> 
> Hope Spencer goes ok at the vets.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


It would have taken me far longer to be convinced it (or any of it's little chums) had gone....Eek!!


----------



## Guest

Hope everything goes okay for Spen! 

Took himself out only on his collar, he did pretty well, freaked out at a bin bag though and ran into my knee.
I managed to quickly shove him around a corner, and feed him his breakfast from my pocket when two spaniels, a retriever and lots of terriers went by one after the other! He didn't even look at them! (YAAAAAAAYYYYY!)

And Ginge its very easy sometimes to lose your rag, I swore at Zander today as he kept prancing into the road!


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## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Good morning all
> Woohoo a day off work.........and yucky, rainy weather :thumbdown:


You're not wrong there Chazzie; I have two very damp dogs :thumbdown:.

Took both CHs out together this morning in the pouring rain. The first 5 minutes was trying because of Kilo, not Rudi. There must have been a very interesting smell as he kept trying to lunge at every lamppost, tree etc. After that was finished with he walked perfectly and Rudi is still getting there - lots of stops still but he's beginning to click very well about where he should be; no crossing over in front or behind me at all today .

I forgot it was back to school for everyone and timed it so the bus stop and surrounding area was absolutely packed :thumbdown:. Usually I just go through the crowds of kids as fast and business - like as possible to prevent any coming to mob Kilo. Today we went through at a much slower pace (Rudi trying to see all the kids!) and Kilo was totally, totally relaxed, even though one annoying child was 'barking' at them constantly. He was also totally relaxed when a man that does the bins etc approached us to chat, waving his stick in the air as he gestured when normally he'd be tense at that. I have come to the conclusion that, because I now cannot focus entirely on Kilo and his body language etc he is far better as I'm not tensing or preempting him .

Anyhoo - went to the top field, let them play, did some recalls, leads on and off etc. Walked back and Kilo walked perfectly for me whilst Rudi was being Rudi!


----------



## kat&molly

I've got annoyed here this morning- but I'm not sure if its me.

My neighbour[yes, that one] has a cat , Milly, in the final stages of Renal failure. She's been under the same vet I use but its nearly anhour away. I've made all the appoinments for her because her French isn't the best on the phone. 
Anyway, over the weekend, Milly has gone downhill and needed PTS this morning. She asked me to ring the vets that are 10 mins away and ask for a home visit to save any more stress- they refused to come at all, I explained the cats in a bad way and needs seeing ASAP. She wouldn't give me an appt until 3.45 this afternoon, I rung just after 9.30.
The neighbour didn't want to leave it that long so we rung the original vets- who agreed to see her as soon as they could get there.
I've rung the other vets to cancel this afternoons appt, and told when an animal is in pain and distress I expect them to be more helpful- and that I'll never use them again.She couldn't have cared less.

Sorry, I've turned it in to cat chat this morning.


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> It would have taken me far longer to be convinced it (or any of it's little chums) had gone....Eek!!


They dont bother me- OH wont touch them though, he always leaves it to me.:laugh:
I'm not sure what Moll would have done if she'd caught it, she came across one in a field last week and started dancing and play bowing around it 
Just as I went to get her away, Scruff swooped in from nowhere and swallowed it.:yikes:

The boys are doing well Dogless, and Donkey boy. Enjoy your wet day off Chazzie.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

See, I leave for 45 minutes and there's another 5 pages to get through 

Sailor - lovely to get an update on Toppa, he sounds like he's coming along really well and generally being a baby terrier! Not sure about your tird friend, what's one of those? 

GR - don't worry about losing your rag with Ginge, we've all done it, I always feel horribly guilty afterwards but the truth is the dogs have forgotten all about it within seconds 

Sarah - I hope Spen gets on ok today and that it's just his anal glands need sorting out, never had that problem with my two - they seem to have the ability to evacuate themselves with a good enthusastic bark, usually all over my carpet.... hmm lovely!!

Dogless-I'd forgotten about the schools going back today too, my walk to work was a constant battle through waves an waves of kids walking 5 a breast along the pavement! Still at least I didn't have the pickles to contend with too, sounds like the CH's were very good.

Jealous of you who aren't working today, I'm sat at my desk currently on a break between patients but have a really busy day so hubby is on pickle duty today  I won't get a walk with them at all today so nothing to report, oh apart from the fact that Branston's pad looks much better this morning so will hopefully heal up on it's own ok.

ETA K&M just seen your post, that's awful of hte vets to just leave an animal suffering like that, sounds like they've got a really bad attitude about it too  RIP Millie


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## purpleskyes

Hudson is having a time out in the garden after snapping at me several times and scratching me down the face. *deep breaths*


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## GingerRogers

FRM - hope Branstons paw is ok today and heals up well.
F&F - poor Frank, glad nothing like that ever happened with Rory, his lipstick was always very active  and don't worry I 'got' your answer to my post
Chazzie, Sarah and Lurcher Owner - you need to learn to plan ahead with the tricks you teach your young dogs  lol, love the idea of Zander doing pony impressions.
How is Spen doing today???

Dogless - your two sound like absolute stars, I love the way Kilo/you are relaxing having the little big guy around  there is so much in what you say, we cause most of the problems out dogs have I think.

Thanks for the reassurances guys, I think it was an accumulation of the ridiculous random barking at people earlier on that had ruined an otherwise lovely walk, then the barking at the cat that wasn't actually there just tipped me over 
I don't like the barking at dogs but if she never stops doing it I guess its what dogs do and I can put up with it but I don't like people barking. Sometimes it seems as though if she hasn't had the opportunity to bark at a a dog she just has to find something else to vent on 

Still feeling pretty carp with myself but had a much better walk this morning. We have an issue in that the neighbour has sold his car so the van is back parked outside our house, we can't see anything past it so don't know what might be lurking outside, yesterday there were two border terriers that took us by surprise (are these becoming really common they seem to be every where or is it just because I now have a small wiry terrier that I notice them) so today we exited a bit 'gingerly' lol. There was a man ahead in the lane with his lab and, yup, border terrier, so we ducked back out of sight to wait on them getting ahead, with only one bark and a good bit of focus whilst waiting  then soggy teddy dog barked at us all the way down that bit of the lane, lots of turning to look but not a peep , past the ladys house with the 'unusual' little dogs, think they might be lundehunds (they bark a lot as my mate lives next door) a little look but no noise . However she was really on uppity on edge so we set off to the XC for some peace and quiet, a dog went past ont he path which she seemed aware of :yesnod: you guessed it, silence! Then the lady with the three labs, :yesnod: silence, then we came out the end of the alley known by a rude name as it is used by dirty dog owners  and their was a cairn terrier more silence, has someone swapped my dog. I was really cautious the rest of the way home because of the transference of barking thing that she was going to set off on something else and she was still very jumpy but nothing. :thumbsup:

And her 'products' where nice and firm

And I might have worked out why she has been reluctant to eat, I accidentally tasted some of her stressless today, :thumbdown: yuck. I had sniffed it before and it has no smell, but taste my god . I need to get some more, so *Dogless *do you use the tablets, what mg are they, think they might be preferable as long as they aren't too big as she only needs 1mg a day.

And (*last one I promise*) could her random behavior be related to coming into season, she is overdue one and has been licking down below a lot but not consistently, but that could be anal glands linked to soft poo, I keep thinking she is then dismissing it, I have no idea what to look for despite reading up on it, I keep thinking well shes only little we might not notice any bleeding if shes clean.

Yay back on form with the lengthy posts, thanks again guys 

ETA sorry I lied in bold, K&M, I love the idea of you lurking in supermarkets, we have solved the barking in car by getting a soft travel crate, if its just me in the car, she goes in it, if we are parked up anywhere she goes in it, if the two of us are in the car she is allowed out until she misbehaves although I try to shove her in the foot well if I see any triggers coming, Lol. Sorry about the neighbours cat and no its not you its horrific to let the poor thing suffer.


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## kat&molly

Thanks, Millyhas now gone to the big Rainbow Bridge in the sky. Poor cat.
Poxy vets though down the road, I try not to use them and after my outburst this morning hope I never really need them.

FRM- good to hear Branstons paw is looking better this morning. Sliced pads are horrid.

Ginge- a padded crate sounds a great idea but I'm sure I couldn't get one to fit in the back of my car- theres a good bit of room but its an awkward shape-might check them out though, you never know.
I could really kick myself for letting it get to this and not think it was a problem.


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## Sarah1983

Wow K&M, that really sucks about the vets! Run free Milly.

We won't be at the vets till this evening. I can't get Spen there by myself and it's not urgent enough for hubby to take time off work. Usually use the mobile vet but need to get Spen weighed for worming purposes so will need to go up to the other vets anyway so might as well get it all done in one go. He's still holding his tail funny and still licking at his bum but he's been charging around with Rupert so he can't be feeling too bad.

I hate going to the vets, I know they're going to bang on about neutering again. Be interesting to see what their reason is this time since before it's always been that he'll turn into a raging sex pest, become aggressive and be uncontrollable if not neutered before 18 months old. He's now 20 months old and it's not happened yet.


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## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Thanks, Millyhas now gone to the big Rainbow Bridge in the sky. Poor cat.
> Poxy vets though down the road, I try not to use them and after my outburst this morning hope I never really need them.
> 
> FRM- good to hear Branstons paw is looking better this morning. Sliced pads are horrid.
> 
> Ginge- a padded crate sounds a great idea but I'm sure I couldn't get one to fit in the back of my car- theres a good bit of room but its an awkward shape-might check them out though, you never know.
> I could really kick myself for letting it get to this and not think it was a problem.


No idea how big Scruff is she looks quite small but, the ninja is a small jack russel size. Initially I got one like this Happy Journey Soft Pet Crate: Free P&P on orders £19+ at zooplus! in medium, but as we decided to abandon the wire crate indoors and she seemed to prefer the fabric as a den, never went in her wire crate voluntarily but likes the fabric one , I got fed up with carting it in and out of the car (hubby didn't see the issue unsurprisingly ) I then got this one Easy Go Folding Transport Box: Free P&P on orders £19+ at zooplus! in small, its a little on the tiny side for longer periods like a house crate might be used but for short period in the car its fine she can stand up and turn round and stretch out and the rounded top saves on bulk. And much more portable if your OH wanted to use it as I think you say she goes with him a lot.

Don't kick yourself, apart from it hurts unnecessarily , its very easy to lets things slide we all do it with all sorts of things, you get used to stuff and then it escalates and with 4 dogs it can't be easy to keep on top of everything.


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## kat&molly

Thanks Ginge- they look quite good- and a decent price, Scruff is around 15kg so quite a bit bigger, but I'll get OH to measure up for me. He'll be 'delighted' another dog thing I 'need'.

Sarah, hope the vets dont nag you.


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## Guest

K&M, Those vets sounds awful! IS there anywhere you can report them too? 

Been to [email protected] got some of the Burgess Lurcher food, I know its not AMAZING, but it doesn't seem too bad and at 17.99 for 12.5kg, shan't complain.

We had some Jameswellbeloved dry food sample thing (I forgot to get dog food yesterday), from a show I went to a while back and although the proteins only 26% Zander is rushing round and is being really really annoying.  He's acting like I've just fed him bakers, (only ever did it once, NEVER AGAIN.)

I've been offering him his chews, and he's literally just flinging around the room. :thumbdown:


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## kat&molly

LO- I dont know if there is anyone to report the vets to, it seems to be the way with some vets here .

Ginge- I missed a bit of that post. OH says Scruff is a different dog out with him on her own and someone even tapped his window- she never batted an eyelid.
Its like she has to be 'on guard' all the time. Big Evie always said 'in charge' but I 'm never sure which.


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## Guest

Hmmm. Zand can't actually lift his head up fully in the crate. 
Ah well, it can be just used as a bed and for very short periods. 

I do find the crate thread interesting :L


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## Werehorse

Phew! That took some reading. "Notepad" is my friend. Time for a ctrlC&V of my random thoughts as I was reading through...

mv -page 695 there is NOTHING innocent about flowers!

Kaz25 - at some point you just have to take the plunge - she'll probably be fine. Could you seperate the dogs with a babygate arrangement and "puppy-proof" the room a bit to give some peace of mind?

Dogless - your self-critiquing is so familiar to me, cos I do it ALL the time too. I'm getting better slowly though. Also the leaving work and deflating thing... Sometimes I can't believe I ever had the confidence to teach full time for over a year - when I remember it, it seems like it must have been a different person. I think being self-aware is a great attribute, but it does tend to come hand in hadn with self-criticism which isn't always constructive so you just have to be a bit careful! Oh and Kilo and Rudi get more than enough exercise and training, really they do  They get plenty so you shouldn't feel guilty if you miss one or replace one type with another!

Thorne - sorry you're having a rough time. :-( Sometimes these things work out for the best though... even if it doesn't feel like it at the time.

Foxy - That is really weird... It is possibly a high-pitched thingy and it's just that Lily isn't bothered by it but Branston is... I hope his pad gets better soon. I've covered Hugo's eyes so he doesn't get any ideas from his Pickle Idol.

OH no! Poorly Spendog and little Ginge. :-(

Oh good! Glad Ginge is feeling better.

Frank! :-O Put it away lad! My friend's JRT once had to go to the vets to have his "put away" for him... sooooo glad it hasn't happened to either of The MCC's yet. Freaky. :lol:

Sailor - I once gave Oscar a cup of tea to try and warm him up after a wet walk... :lol: ERROR - he had me up three times in the night.  Glad Toppa is settling in. :-D

Ginge - we're only human, Ginge will already have forgiven and probably forgotten. And seasons can make them a bit random I think - the gorgeous lab girl in Hugo's puppy class went sooooo distracted and naughty leading up to her season... she's come back after and is angelic again - so it does have an effect!

K&M - What uncaring vets. :-( At least you know never to use them!

LO - JWB sent Oscar completely mental, he was in running around mode all the time for the whole time I fed it him!

Such fun!

We've been away for the weekend to my Parents'... it was very nice apart from being about half a day too long. We went for a run on Saturday morning just me OH and the boys, then on Sat afternoon mum had organised a small family party for my birthday (lots of adults and 2 babies in the house, lots of food at dog nose level  ) and on Sunday I met some friends for a walk and a pub lunch, we ended up round at my friends' house before going back to my parents' for tea.

I am absolutely and utterly astounded and proud and could cry with it about how well the boys behaved through all this. They weren't perfect but they were so good. We needed to keep an eye on them but basically they caused no problems. One of my nephew's is 18 months old and very mobile and likes dogs.  But they were brilliant with him. He even fell over Oscar when Oscar had decided to try and fall asleep in the middle of the floor and Oscar just looks at bit confused that it had started raining babies and moved to lie down somewhere else. Nephew also held out a bread stick to both dogs at different times and both of them responded to a "leave it" (even though Oscar had actually opened his mouth to take it ).

Considering that they just aren't used to lots of people around (we very rarely have people to our house anyway) and certainly aren't regularly in contact with very young children I just couldn't believe how well they did.

And the walks we went on were infinitely busier with dogs and people and traffic than anything we do at home and they just didn't have any issues at all.

I think they were both a bit frazzled and responding to cues went a bit doo-lally at times (I actually re-trained "down" for Hugo in a quiet moment because was just looking so blank when I said it and I was getting a bit concerned) and they are both apsolutely exhausted now - I have never seen Hugo so tired - and we're all glad to be home I think.

Only thing bugging me right now is that OH left the windows locked on the night latch while we were away and he's gone to work this afternoon and I can't find the key and am ******* freezing!


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## Guest

Good grief I think your two are deffo deserving their dinner later!! 

The fat cat has just attempted to bring a dead rat through the cat flap, charming creature. 
I mean yes, I am pleased he is stopping the rats from getting in out shed, but does our kitchen floor need rodent guts on it? REALLY ABRAHAM!?

He looked so damn smug too.

Mum was attempting to discuss us "getting another dog" today. 

I don't know.


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## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Ginge- they look quite good- and a decent price, Scruff is around 15kg so quite a bit bigger, but I'll get OH to measure up for me. He'll be 'delighted' another dog thing I 'need'.
> 
> Sarah, hope the vets dont nag you.


Ah Scruff is twice the size (weight anyway) I don't reckon the small round topped one would be big enough but the small in the square blue one or the medium in the round one would be plenty big enough I should think as they are both similar sizes to our indoor one which has room for 2 Ginge's easily (oh god just gave myself the heebie jeebies at the thought of two of her ) Funny how she is ok with OH, she obviously does feel the need to guard you and yours for some reason, Rory was a bit that way with me even though he was far more OH's dog.

Update on Houdini - found the escape route and the reason she hasn't used it since her first attempt - our neighbours fence panel is loose, you have to push it otherwise it doesn't look like an issue - its that trellis stuff with tennis court stuff along the bottom as well, hence why we thought it was safe, but theres one spot where the tennis court stuff has pulled away, and initial thought was she had got through the holes, don't think she is quite that small however, but I had put a paving slab up at the gap in the wire fence anyway. Then at lunchtime I spotted the little monkey had seen something of interest across the fence and jumped up with her paws on top of the slab and pushed against the fence panel and all was revealed. I have now secured it with wire .

And for Moonviolet some ninjas in trees



















And for my own enjoyment, a little video  well you don't have to watch the full minute and a half, this is what happens when I take the time to close a gate, hubby thinks she may be a truffle dog. She dug a whole channel then set to concentrating on this bit 
[URL=http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd114/tulippy/old%20footpath/Trees/video-2013-01-06-13-22-58_zps9d6e93fa.mp4]


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## GingerRogers

Well done - to werehorse for that epic remembering and the running dialogue and to the boys, how good were they


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## Guest

I wish to steal the ginger ninja! She is a lovely dog!


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## Guest

MY DOG HAS JUST BEEN AWESOME! I asked him while I held a treat "Get in yer bed." and he WENT INTO THE SLIGHTLY TOO SMALL CRATE AND CURLED UP. I gave him a treat for that awesomeness, then I slowwlllllyyy shut the crate door and turned away from him. Not a peep! Didn't even budge!!! 

I know some people don't like crates but this means I have a way to stop him FLINGING himself out the door when anyone knocks!


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## chazzie10

GR- Ginge is doing really well ignoring all those dogs in your earlier post, and giving them the silent treatment ( just out of interest, do you think raw feeding has helped to make her calmer?). Our wee Honey became very....erratic for ages before she came into heat but when she did, there was no way we could miss it, even though she was tiny :001_unsure:
Aww loving your video, Ginge is sooo hairy and cute. That trench digging would be a handy talent if you were wanting to plant potatoes or bulbs 

Dogless- hope the CH's have dried off- I'm sure the smell of TWO wet dogs is wonderful, my ONE clay covered dog is bad enough 


K&M- Mice dont bother me either, we've one in the roof space evading capture or death by traps cunningly disguised as small Dairylea mountains. Dont know what my boy would do with a mouse( he was intimidating innocent worms on his walk this morning ut- act like a numpty probably :laugh: 
As for enjoying my wet day off work, it emptied out of the heavens halfway around the field thanks v much lol. I got SO wet I actually took a photo before I got into the car! The water was just streaming off my coat. And to cap it all Charlie lost a ball (his special unpredictable ball :laugh but found two nuts :yikes: :lol:
I guess we'll have to go back tomorrow when the floodings gone and find the ball


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## GingerRogers

chazzie10 said:


> That trench digging would be a handy talent if you were wanting to plant potatoes or bulbs


But she would prolly just dig them up again 

We have actually not got wet on a walk for a few days now  just to rub it in, but waiting to go out now, we are taking friends collie too as he has done his back in and wifey is working till 10pm, so need hubby to WAKE UP! can hear him snoring from here. I might chuck squeaky sheep down the stairs and let the ninja do the job as she is currently alternating between eating sheepies leg and her own as amusement .

Oh dear not got much work done today.


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## chazzie10

GingerRogers said:


> But she would prolly just dig them up again
> 
> We have actually not got wet on a walk for a few days now  just to rub it in, but waiting to go out now, we are taking friends collie too as he has done his back in and wifey is working till 10pm, so need hubby to WAKE UP! can hear him snoring from here. I might chuck squeaky sheep down the stairs and let the ninja do the job as she is currently alternating between eating sheepies leg and her own as amusement .
> 
> Oh dear not got much work done today.


Poke him with a long stick :laugh:


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## GingerRogers

He just snored him self awake and shouted up the stairs all innocent like, what d'ya want to do then, as though I couldn't hear his sleepiness :laugh:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - your two sound as if they have behaved superbly . You are right on the self critiquing thing - how did I command respect and manage to do so much for well over a decade's hard work eh? :yikes:

Took advantage of a break in the weather and went to the park with Rudi for a bit this afternoon - lots of people in hats and with umbrellas seen, lots of dogs passing by, quite a few barking at him which scares him and two meets with calm, friendly dogs - one I know and one I didn't. Productive little trip .

Just had a bad walk with the BW though, worthy of bursting into tears almost :thumbdown:. Did an onlead training walk but Kilo was up on his toes, really alert and posturing at nothing at all as soon as we were out of the door like he has done for the last few nights. He didn't really settle into it this time and was lunging for that scent that he was this morning - really hard to engage him tonight. Then I saw the bulldog that he had that problem with the other night so pulled him over into a little driveway and sat him calmly - but as they passed Kilo launched into a noise and slobber display (an 'empty' bark though). The man looked back at me and just raised his eyebrows and laughed and I apologised profusely. Again . Not had a reaction like that in ages - I think it would have been to any dog coming past tonight though for whatever reason . Oh well.


----------



## ballybee

Had a brilliant day today 

Wasn't feeling great today so Oh volunteered to take the boys out but it was peeing down and i love being out in the rain, so i took Tummel out 

What an amazing walk!!! I'd planned on walking to the next village along and back and having a play in the park(would have been about 45 minutes) but we ended up out for 1.5 hours 

We found a little woodland in the next village so went off to explore, it had gravel pths(handy given the horrendous weather) and was very secure(fenced in on one side and a wall on the other, 4 gates into the woods) so Tummel was able to roam freely.

We met 4 dogs on our walk, the first one was through a fence but Tummel was very cheery, then on our way home we met 3 more dogs(including 1 terrier) and Tummel was perfectly happy to greet them all(he was onlead), he was a bit boisterous and wanted to play but when i moved him on he was fine, didn't want to go back or anything....by this time he was pretty wet and tired but still very cheery.

So all in all a very good day, Tummel had a great walk and was very cheery and sociable throughout :laugh: Will probably take Dan there in a few days as he'll love it


----------



## GingerRogers

Sounds like a great day Ballybee, I love it when you aren't really up for a walk and it turns into a great one gives you twice the lift I think .

Sorry you had a bad one with Kilo though Dogless 

The ginger ones adventures went as expected but better than anticipated,  I waited outside for the OH to fetch Rosie dog, who barked as he went in the house, as she does, and the little one let out some really proper concerned barks not just gruffliness, quite sweet really. She sat on her toes till he came out and (this was the expected bit) gave a few (that was the better than bit only a few) barks at Rosie and we moved on and they walked brilliantly together. If it hadn't gone well I would have gone my own way, but it was really nice to have the company for a change. We went up on the green lanes behind the village in the dark, not something I would do normally on my own but the ninja enjoyed it a lot.

Then just as we got back into the village, a couple coming up the lane, we pulled to the side, so they decided to walk straight for us  OH makes me laugh he has picked up on my 'WTH do they think they are up to, how ignorant' mindset  That set Ginge's gander up so we proceeded to have some barking at an invisible cat ( I think this one existed I just couldn't see it) which made Rosie lunge at her. Rory used to go for Rosie every time she kicked off as if to tell her off, so I think Rosie is taking up his mantle, unfortunately I don't trust her 

Then there was lunging at imaginary cats in every garden  just after we dropped Rosie dog off a spaniel came out for its walk so off she flew again. 

Not actually a bad walk as she calmed down after every incident but I feel rubbish when I am with the OH, like I have let him down by letting her bark, I know its daft and he says he can see the improvement in her, its just that when she does kick off there is nothing you can do except move her along so it makes you feel a bit impotent .


----------



## kat&molly

Happy belated Birthday to Werehorse- that sounds a hectic weekend, and the boys were so good.One to be proud of.

Dogless- sorry you had a bad walk. He'll be back on top form tomorrow I dont doubt.

Chazzie- wheres the pic of you looking a 'drip' :laugh:

Ginge- that video is Scruff and Evie whenever they get a chance- Scruff is such an expert she can pull huge chunks of turf up- I'll try and catch it on video. All that to try and get a mouse.:yikes:

LO- shall we have a cat training thread to try and stop ours bringing things in- at least yours was already dead. Tache, I'm sure brings these things as presents for Evie.:thumbdown:

The cats have got a toy, just a stick with a fluffy mouse on the end-probably like a flirt pole others describe?? Anyway the girls, especially Evie, lurve this thing indoors so I thought I'd take it up the fields with me today. Moll had her frisbee so she wasn't bothered , Scruff went and had a sniff so I tried short stuff- I ran around squealing , flapping arms about and just looking an eejit. Evie looked at me -then ran to see what Scruff was doing. I tried with Scruff- no, not bothered, Moll, no she only had eyes for her frisbee.
 I think that told me.:ciappa:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> The cats have got a toy, just a stick with a fluffy mouse on the end-probably like a flirt pole others describe?? Anyway the girls, especially Evie, lurve this thing indoors so I thought I'd take it up the fields with me today. Moll had her frisbee so she wasn't bothered , Scruff went and had a sniff so I tried short stuff- I ran around squealing , flapping arms about and just looking an eejit. Evie looked at me -then ran to see what Scruff was doing. I tried with Scruff- no, not bothered, Moll, no she only had eyes for her frisbee.
> I think that told me.:ciappa:


Comes to something when even the dogs think you're acting like so much of an eejit that they ignore you :w00t::blink::lol:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Comes to something when even the dogs think you're acting like so much of an eejit that they ignore you :w00t::blink::lol:.


I know, I think they were ashamed of me. Oh well- now they know whats its like.:laugh:


----------



## Sarah1983

Still none the wiser as to what's up with Spen. Vet emptied his anal glands but said there wasn't much there and she wouldn't have thought that would be causing him problems. So she checked his prostate, apparently no problems there either. Also got some worming tablets for him since he hasn't been done for a while. So now we'll just see how he goes.

He's currently charging around playing chase and tug with Rupert so he clearly isn't feeling too sorry for himself. And he was perfectly happy to accept treats from the vet and the vet nurse and the receptionist. And to try to play with a dog on the other side of the waiting room.


----------



## kaz25

Dammit!! Bindi hasn't been in her crate with the door locked since Friday night. She's been fab but unfortunately this afternoon she not only chewed the biggest and hardest cat toy we have, she also dug all the litter out the litter trays! No idea how she managed it as the trays are hooded with flaps on them.

Has anyone got any tips on stopping them chewing when all they chew is toys? She was fine this morning, I think she woke up properly when we came home for lunch and has been bored this afternoon. We have kongs for them but they don't last all afternoon.


----------



## Dogless

No idea how to stop Bindi chewing toys .

Well Kilo is really stressed out  . No idea why - as I said he's been up on his toes for our past few walks in the evenings on our own. Tonight he's jumped a mile when Rudi walked past just brushing him when he normally clambers all over him without a drama, jumped a mile when Rudi knocked into an internal door playing, jumped a mile when I sat on the sofa - jumped a mile as in shot up with one startled bark and he wasn't asleep at the time. He's alert to any tiny sound and off to investigate . Part of our walk spooked him as well as he was ears back and looking wildly around him . I've given him some Stress-Less and need to order more pronto - only one dose left but it usually comes the next day.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Oh no, poor Kilo  I wonder what's got under his skin 

Branston gets like this too sometimes - well quite a lot really 

I hope the stress less works soon and he settles down


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> No idea how to stop Bindi chewing toys .
> 
> Well Kilo is really stressed out  . No idea why - as I said he's been up on his toes for our past few walks in the evenings on our own. Tonight he's jumped a mile when Rudi walked past just brushing him when he normally clambers all over him without a drama, jumped a mile when Rudi knocked into an internal door playing, jumped a mile when I sat on the sofa - jumped a mile as in shot up with one startled bark and he wasn't asleep at the time. He's alert to any tiny sound and off to investigate . Part of our walk spooked him as well as he was ears back and looking wildly around him . I've given him some Stress-Less and need to order more pronto - only one dose left but it usually comes the next day.


Poor Kilo. It's not really windy over there in NI is it?


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Still none the wiser as to what's up with Spen. Vet emptied his anal glands but said there wasn't much there and she wouldn't have thought that would be causing him problems. So she checked his prostate, apparently no problems there either. Also got some worming tablets for him since he hasn't been done for a while. So now we'll just see how he goes.
> 
> He's currently charging around playing chase and tug with Rupert so he clearly isn't feeling too sorry for himself. And he was perfectly happy to accept treats from the vet and the vet nurse and the receptionist. And to try to play with a dog on the other side of the waiting room.


Try running your thumb and first finger down either side of his spine fairly firmly and see if he flinches at any point. Sometimes holding their tails out can be a sign of back trouble, although if he's playing tug games with Rupert he's probably fine. Excitement of playing can of course over-ride pain especially in some dogs.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Poor Kilo. It's not really windy over there in NI is it?


Fairly - that does send him crackers, but in a playful way really. He's gone to sleep now after the Stress-Less. I'll see what he's like tomorrow. He may well just wake up back to himself after his sleep - hope so.


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry to hear Kilo i a bit strung out, wouldn't it be nice if we could get hold of some of those collars from the film " up" then they'd be able to tell us.

K&M the dogs might not have appreciated your flirt pole jig but i'm quite sad we dont' get to see it :lol:

Sarah glad Spen seems ok in himself.

Ginge sounds liek the ninja is doing well, I loved the pic and video we need to see more of your girl 

Happy birthday Werehorse sounds like oscar adn HUgo did themselves and you proud 

Ballybee sounds just liek my sort of walk i quite like the rain and Tummel deserves a gold star 


Nothing much to report from Tink Towers I've been working on her toy focus over the last few weeks and I got a proper "point to the sky" stimualted beagle tail this evening  Walks were lovely and nively uneventful the morning one was with 2 lovely collies ad the evening one alone so i got to be nice and goofy 

Still no notepad so random rememberings


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Fairly - that does send him crackers, but in a playful way really. He's gone to sleep now after the Stress-Less. I'll see what he's like tomorrow. He may well just wake up back to himself after his sleep - hope so.


Let's hope so. Somethings clearly troubling him.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Try running your thumb and first finger down either side of his spine fairly firmly and see if he flinches at any point. Sometimes holding their tails out can be a sign of back trouble, although if he's playing tug games with Rupert he's probably fine. Excitement of playing can of course over-ride pain especially in some dogs.


No, no flinching at all. He seems to have brightened up since the vet visit so maybe it was his anal glands after all.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Let's hope so. Somethings clearly troubling him.


It is, I've even checked his ears, eyes, mouth, legs etc just in case it's something physical. It's something to do with that particular scent I think, mad as that sounds. Sometimes he'll sniff at some wee out walking and jump back panicked looking everywhere and he did do that this evening. Doesn't explain why he was on his toes for the last few evenings though .


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> No, no flinching at all. He seems to have brightened up since the vet visit so maybe it was his anal glands after all.


Ah that's good but was worth checking.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It is, I've even checked his ears, eyes, mouth, legs etc just in case it's something physical. It's something to do with that particular scent I think, mad as that sounds. Sometimes he'll sniff at some wee out walking and jump back panicked looking everywhere and he did do that this evening. Doesn't explain why he was on his toes for the last few evenings though .


Mmmm I'm still not convinced there hasn't been a bitch in season in the vicinity.

It's at times like this you really wish they could talk.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Not posted in this thread in a while. So a little update from us, we went to the water park again yesterday. It was really busy again with families and dog walkers so Izzy stayed on her extender. She did really well, a family out with their black lab started talking to us and the man crouched down and let her have a sniff, she was pretty timid but said hello, their son also wanted to say hello so I warned that she was very nervous of kids but would he like to give her a treat? I told him she probably wouldn't let him stroke her so he gave the treats and she took them really nicely and let him give her a little stroke but her got a bit close and started crowding her so she had a little nervous gruff and he backed off a bit, said thank you and went back to playing with his dog. No perfect but a big improvement. The rest of the walk went really well, passed lots of people and families with no problems.

Unfortunately she was involved in a little scuffle this morning on her way back from her morning walk, someone had opened their front door and their dog was sniffing about further down the road on a bit of public land (I suspect they had let the dog out to foul on the public land rather than in their garden). This dog came over growling and went for Izzy, Tarnus had to give it a little kick to get it to back off, Izzy's cries had attracted the attention of the owner who poked their head out their front door and called the dog back, didn't bother to apologise or see if Izzy was ok ! So this evening walking past that point Izzy was a bit distracted and alert to every little noise so I did some training to try and regain her focus.

Dogless I hope Kilo calms down soon, Izzy sometimes has days like that where she's reacts to every little noise in the house! I have no idea what sets her off, it's a complete mystery, I'm starting to keep track of her behaviour throughout the lunar cycle to see if that's having an affect !


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> Not posted in this thread in a while. So a little update from us, we went to the water park again yesterday. It was really busy again with families and dog walkers so Izzy stayed on her extender. She did really well, a family out with their black lab started talking to us and the man crouched down and let her have a sniff, she was pretty timid but said hello, their son also wanted to say hello so I warned that she was very nervous of kids but would he like to give her a treat? I told him she probably wouldn't let him stroke her so he gave the treats and she took them really nicely and let him give her a little stroke but her got a bit close and started crowding her so she had a little nervous gruff and he backed off a bit, said thank you and went back to playing with his dog. No perfect but a big improvement. The rest of the walk went really well, passed lots of people and families with no problems.
> 
> Unfortunately she was involved in a little scuffle this morning on her way back from her morning walk, someone had opened their front door and their dog was sniffing about further down the road on a bit of public land (I suspect they had let the dog out to foul on the public land rather than in their garden). This dog came over growling and went for Izzy, Tarnus had to give it a little kick to get it to back off, Izzy's cries had attracted the attention of the owner who poked their head out their front door and called the dog back, didn't bother to apologise or see if Izzy was ok ! So this evening walking past that point Izzy was a bit distracted and alert to every little noise so I did some training to try and regain her focus.
> 
> Dogless I hope Kilo calms down soon, Izzy sometimes has days like that where she's reacts to every little noise in the house! I have no idea what sets her off, it's a complete mystery, I'm starting to keep track of her behaviour throughout the lunar cycle to see if that's having an affect !


Sounds as if Izzy's coming on nicely . This morning was unfortunate, but hopefully no harm done....as for the owner of that dog :incazzato:.

Are you telling me that Kilo is turning into a Werewolf? :yikes:. He is back to his calm, chilled self now...the boy is a mystery!


----------



## Werehorse

Poor Kilo, I wonder what's got into him.  It seems plausible that he could be very scared by a particular smell... I think it is easy to forget how important smellovision is to dogs... Since he is a bit nervy of other dogs perhaps a particular smell has stuck with him and reminds him strongly of one of his worst experiences? I don't know just thinking "aloud" really!

Thanks for the birthday wishes.  Actual birthday is tomorrow when I will be officially old.


----------



## Sarah1983

Hope you can figure out what's wrong Dogless.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Mmmm I'm still not convinced there hasn't been a bitch in season in the vicinity.
> 
> It's at times like this you really wish they could talk.


No, I'm not convinced either; he was doing a lot of drooling and teeth chattering this evening over a particular patch and then stuck his nose to the pavement to follow until I moved him away. All this and the humping, maybe the barking at the male bulldog this evening as it was on the pavement where the enticing smell was?.... I really wish he could talk in this instance; in others, not so much :laugh:.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Poor Kilo, I wonder what's got into him.  It seems plausible that he could be very scared by a particular smell... I think it is easy to forget how important smellovision is to dogs... Since he is a bit nervy of other dogs perhaps a particular smell has stuck with him and reminds him strongly of one of his worst experiences? I don't know just thinking "aloud" really!
> 
> Thanks for the birthday wishes.  Actual birthday is tomorrow when I will be officially old.


Yes, I did wonder; the rottie uses the offlead fields still - I mean, why not   and we walk past them so it could even be his pee? Yet some was teeth chatteringly fabulous too! Mystery dog...

Happy Birthday for tomorrow from us - I was going to wait; but thought I'd forget, so better get it in now  :laugh::laugh:. Hope you have a good day.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless said:


> Sounds as if Izzy's coming on nicely . This morning was unfortunate, but hopefully no harm done....as for the owner of that dog :incazzato:.
> 
> *Are you telling me that Kilo is turning into a Werewolf*? :yikes:. He is back to his calm, chilled self now...the boy is a mystery!


Didn't you know it's all the rage with the cool pups nowadays ! With Izzy she'll have 4/5 days out of the month where she's really bad for it then the rest of the time she's fine, just want to start tracking it and see if it matches up to a certain lunar phase, I think I'm a bit crazy....must be where Izzy gets it from!


----------



## Izzysmummy

Werehorse said:


> Poor Kilo, I wonder what's got into him.  It seems plausible that he could be very scared by a particular smell... I think it is easy to forget how important smellovision is to dogs... Since he is a bit nervy of other dogs perhaps a particular smell has stuck with him and reminds him strongly of one of his worst experiences? I don't know just thinking "aloud" really!
> 
> Thanks for the birthday wishes.  *Actual birthday is tomorrow when I will be officially old.*


Happy birthday for tomorrow!

What age is officially old?! I'm worried now that I'm officially old too but hadn't realised!

***got fingers tightly crossed I'm not there yet***


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Sounds as if Izzy's coming on nicely . This morning was unfortunate, but hopefully no harm done....as for the owner of that dog :incazzato:.
> 
> Are you telling me that Kilo is turning into a Werewolf? :yikes:. He is back to his calm, chilled self now...the boy is a mystery!


I've never seen a humping werewolf....:ciappa:


----------



## chazzie10

Werehorse Happy Birthday for tomorrow! Have a lovely day whatever you're getting up to 

Dogless I hope Kilo settles again soon. I had been about to ask could it be the scent of the dog that attacked him but if he's doing the whole teeth chattering, humpy thing it does sound hormonal bitch related doesnt it? Hmmm poor boy. 

Sarah I'm glad Spen is keeping ok and bouncing around 

K&M I'm not sure it's the most flattering pic, I DEFINATELY look like a drip in it


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Happy birthday for tomorrow!
> 
> What age is officially old?! I'm worried now that I'm officially old too but hadn't realised!
> 
> ***got fingers tightly crossed I'm not there yet***


I'm officially very old....!!


----------



## ballybee

Thanks guys, I was feeling so bleurgh when we went out and was so calm when we got home 

Werehorse - happy birthday for tomorrow 

Dogless - sorry to hear Kilo is being a numpty, hopefully he gets back to normal soon


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've never seen a humping werewolf....:ciappa:


Well, if you ever manage to get on a plane to come and judge over here again you might :yikes:.


----------



## Thorne

GR - Don't be too hard on yourself, everyone's temper has it's limits. Love the tree-ninja pics.
Sailor - Glad Toppa is doing well despite his anti-social morning behaviour!
Sarah1983 - Pleased that Spen has perked up, hope he stays that way.
K&M - Good luck with training out the barking, sorry to hear about Millie.
LO - Ouch! Not your bad knee I hope? Pleased he was a good boy for you today.
Dogless - Poor Kilo, hope he settles soon  Scooter gets jumpy when it's windy, but my money's on a new bitch in season. Can sympathise with the lunging too unfortunately! Bless Rudi, he sounds like a little star.
Werehorse - Pleased to hear the boys were on best behaviour for you this weekend, and remember that a tired dog is a happy dog!
chazzie10 - Hope you find the ball!
ballybee - Sounds like a fab walk, well done Tummel.
kaz25 - Well done Bindi, shame about today though. Apart from leaving toys and chews out for her I can't think of any chew preventations that wouldn't be offputting to the cats...
MV - LOVE happy Beagle tails!
Izzysmummy - Hope Izzy's not too shook up by her encounter.

We don't really have problems with dogs darting under our legs here, it's normally just Breeze darting under Scooter's belly! Did have a Saint Bernard wriggle through my legs once, had to dismount her like a small horse 

The dogs are pleased today, the new sofas have arrived (which they are NOT allowed on!) so lots of sniffing to do and Breeze sneakily got on the sofa bed when we left it unfolded  Mum walked them today while I was at Blue Cross, not too many bangs apparently so Breeze had a good one!

Walked Paddy who's also had a jumpy day; pranced and bunnyhopped when a lorry passed us, tail up one minute then down & looking worried the next. He's a funny boy, but his focus never wavers 

Playing with a lovely boy named Ollie made my day today, he came in on Christmas Eve and spent the next week spooking at everything and alarm barking at everyone, but he's really settled now and wanted to play with every toy I picked up. Big lad though, he didn't go easy on me with his tug toys! Really drivey dog but brilliant natural impulse control, worked on his "wait" and he was fab, am in danger of getting attached to this one...
Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre
Had a garden session with wee Poppy as well, badly want her to find her forever home. She's a cheeky girl but her focus keeps getting better and better.

Had the first Christmas puppy come in today  Completely high on Bakers Complete at the moment though, with flatulence to match!


----------



## Dogless

Thorne - I love Ollie's ears :001_wub:.

I hope that the Christmas Puppy's Bakers withdrawal goes smoothly....I had three separate people say to me in the park with Rudi today "Oh, is that what Santa brought you?".


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> Thorne - I love Ollie's ears :001_wub:.
> 
> I hope that the Christmas Puppy's Bakers withdrawal goes smoothly....I had three separate people say to me in the park with Rudi today "Oh, is that what Santa brought you?".


They're hilarious, they flop everywhere! So do Bakers puppy's ears now I think of it, they've got similar goofy mannerisms.
This is him in his last home that he was originally to be rehomed from, just to show how big he is as the photos are deceiving! I'm in love  Ollie a dog on the Home Direct scheme at Felixstowe Blue Cross - YouTube

You've not had any Rudi short for Rudolph comments have you?  I knew a pony named Rudolph who ended up Rudi.


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> They're hilarious, they flop everywhere! So do Bakers puppy's ears now I think of it, they've got similar goofy mannerisms.
> This is him in his last home that he was originally to be rehomed from, just to show how big he is as the photos are deceiving! I'm in love  Ollie a dog on the Home Direct scheme at Felixstowe Blue Cross - YouTube
> 
> You've not had any Rudi short for Rudolph comments have you?  I knew a pony named Rudolph who ended up Rudi.


Yep; it's not helped the Christmas puppy lectures and comments .

I like Ollie even more now - he much less stocky and more athletic looking than he appears in his photo.


----------



## Werehorse

It's the big three-oh-mygodhowdidthathappen? :lol:

Actually quite looking forward to my 30s, it can only be uphill from my 20s really!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> It's the big three-oh-mygodhowdidthathappen? :lol:
> 
> Actually quite looking forward to my 30s, it can only be uphill from my 20s really!


I was officially old 5 and a half years ago then :laugh:.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Werehorse said:


> It's the big three-oh-mygodhowdidthathappen? :lol:
> 
> Actually quite looking forward to my 30s, it can only be uphill from my 20s really!





Dogless said:


> I was officially old 5 and a half years ago then :laugh:.


3 and a half for me  Oh no! I didn't realise I was officially old already 

Happy birthday for tomorrow Werehorse, I hope it's slightly less eventful than my 30th...... started well with a marriage proposal.....ended bad in A&E requiring surgery :lol:


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> 3 and a half for me  Oh no! I didn't realise I was officially old already
> 
> Happy birthday for tomorrow Werehorse, I hope it's slightly less eventful than my 30th...... started well with a marriage proposal.....ended bad in A&E requiring surgery :lol:


Oh no!! Werehorse, don't go out, or if you do, go out in bubblewrap . I spent my 30th in bed recovering from my broken back....although that had actually happened on April Fool's day two months earlier :laugh:.

Best of luck.....:yikes:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thorne said:


> They're hilarious, they flop everywhere! So do Bakers puppy's ears now I think of it, they've got similar goofy mannerisms.
> This is him in his last home that he was originally to be rehomed from, just to show how big he is as the photos are deceiving! I'm in love  Ollie a dog on the Home Direct scheme at Felixstowe Blue Cross - YouTube
> 
> You've not had any Rudi short for Rudolph comments have you?  I knew a pony named Rudolph who ended up Rudi.


Oh he is lovely. But much bigger than he looks.

Werehorse personally nearly 8 years into 30ness. I love it so much better than being 20something no one expects and you can feel as young as you like. So happy birthday welcome to the do what you want zone.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> Oh no!! Werehorse, don't go out, or if you do, go out in bubblewrap . I spent my 30th in bed recovering from my broken back....although that had actually happened on April Fool's day two months earlier :laugh:.
> 
> Best of luck.....:yikes:.


Sorry, 'liking' that seems a bit mean, obviously I don't like the fact that you broke your back


----------



## Werehorse

Oh lordy! I'll be careful. I think I'm safe on the marriage proposal front anyway.  I had an enormous rant about NEVER wanting to get married shortly after meeting OH, in his presence, but before we were going out... It was quite a big rant and I'm not sure he'll ever decide to see if I've changed my mind. :lol:

I was planning on starting an official Wainwright campaign with my (also recently left teaching after less than 3 years in it) friend... but perhaps I should stay in bed and hide instead!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Oh lordy! I'll be careful. I think I'm safe on the marriage proposal front anyway.  I had an enormous rant about NEVER wanting to get married shortly after meeting OH, in his presence, but before we were going out... It was quite a big rant and I'm not sure he'll ever decide to see if I've changed my mind. :lol:
> 
> I was planning on starting an official Wainwright campaign with my (also recently left teaching after less than 3 years in it) friend... but perhaps I should stay in bed and hide instead!


Start the campaign; but be bloody careful .


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Start the campaign; but be bloody careful .


Starting with Sale Fell, no cliffs, friendly paths and I know it... I might crawl up just to be sure.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Starting with Sale Fell, no cliffs, friendly paths and I know it... I might crawl up just to be sure.


Wear a helmet, padded clothing, extra knee and elbow pads, goggles, a gumshield........:laugh::laugh:.


----------



## Werehorse

And no doing anything silly like this then? 










I was seeing if my nearly 30 year old self could still do what my 16 year old self used to do alot... apparently so and better since it involves getting about 2.5 more stone of body mass up there as well.


----------



## Freddie and frank

:cursing::cursing::cursing::cursing::cursing:

Have just spent the last hour looking through and writing reply to everyone's posts just to have my iPads battery run out and lost it all.:mad2::mad2::mad2:

Well happy birthday Werehorse for tomorrow. Hope it's a safe one. 

I'm 11.5 years past being old, Jesus. No hope for me.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Starting with Sale Fell, no cliffs, friendly paths and I know it... I might crawl up just to be sure.


I always crawl up things like that pile, and higher . happy **th birthday


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well, I'm going to write it all out again.....notebook does come I handy for us old uns. :laugh:

L/O, dead rats 
K&M, sorry about neighbours cat. 
Frm, glad to hear branstons pad is healing. 
GR, good news about the silent behaviour, and love the pics and video of the cute ninja. 
Werehorse, outstanding behaviour from Hugo and Oscar. :thumbup:
Dogless, oh no, poor kilo. Wonder what's getting to him. Hope he's a bit more settled tomorrow. I first thought an ear problem or in season bitch.
Ballybee, well done tummell.
Sarah, glad spen has perked up. 
Mv.....Tinks terrific tail. :thumbup:
Izzysmummy, it's nice to hear about izzy and I'm old and sensible :laugh::laugh:
Twiggy, nor do I want to see a humping werewolf but I think frank could quite easily be turning into one. 
Thorne, ollie looks a sweetheart  and a Christmas puppy already. 

The boys have both been buggers today.  Freddie seems to think walks are just a big sniffathon and both of them have resulted back to ooh, let's see who can snap the hardest at moms hand and draw blood.:incazzato: frank had started to improve his snapping at treats too. On a good note, he's getting a lot better at focusing on me when we see other dogs. 
Three weeks and counting till i can increase walking, and I can't Flippin wait.:incazzato:
Going to sneak a longer walk in tomorrow over Cannock chase with the boys so they can have plenty of off lead zooming 

Bella is turning into the local hussey  which probably isn't helping, little madam.


----------



## GingerRogers

I wish we could do what then rather than just like.

ETA what is it with the extra what, stoopid phone, what kind of prediction is that!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Happy birthday Werehorse 

I loved my 30's. I am getting over my dad phoning on my 40th last october with the opening line " welcome to middle age" gee thanks Dad!!


----------



## catz4m8z

Hope everyones dogs are doing fine (I have to do a general comment coz Im not clever enough to go through pages and do individual replies!!LOL).
Im wondering how tomorrows walk is going to go with young Alfie. Not sure wether to take the midget army or not...I was worried they might bark and upset ratpuppy but something happened last night that made me rethink. Was dropping the dogs off at my friends after dark and there was alot of dodgy looking youths just hanging about which Alfie found abit scary. At least I think he was scared...he leant right out of his carrier and started barking and 'woo wooing' at them (in a silly high pitched helium voice) and giving it the big 'I am'!
Now Im worried that instead of being scared of strange dogs he might try and take them on as he is clearly a mouthy little gobshite!!!:lol:


----------



## Dogless

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WEREHORSE .Be safe out there  and have a good'un!

Catz, I'd take Alfie on his own for his first walk so that you can concentrate on him if I were you, but then you've done it all before or you wouldn't have an army so I'm sure you know what's best for midgets . Are you going to walk him separately for a while anyway for training?

F&F - really hope the run over Cannock Chase does the boys some good....can't be great for them living with a floozy right now either!


----------



## Izzysmummy

Werehorse said:


> It's the big three-oh-mygodhowdidthathappen? :lol:
> 
> Actually quite looking forward to my 30s, it can only be uphill from my 20s really!





Dogless said:


> I was officially old 5 and a half years ago then :laugh:.





foxyrockmeister said:


> 3 and a half for me  Oh no! I didn't realise I was officially old already
> 
> Happy birthday for tomorrow Werehorse, I hope it's slightly less eventful than my 30th...... started well with a marriage proposal.....ended bad in A&E requiring surgery :lol:


Ah phew! I've still got 2 and a bit years to go til then! 

Happy birthday werehorse!
Hope you have a great day!

F+F I hope the boys enjoy their walk today!
Catz Good luck with Alfie's first walk! Pics please!


----------



## kat&molly

Happy 30th Birthday Werehorse.
Mine was 11 years ago  and it couldn't have been very exciting as I cant even remember it.

Hope Kilo is ok this morning Dogless.

Drama here already this morning.:yikes:
The girls nearly always have poos on walks but Evie had one in the garden this morning- she is the only one who sometimes has a bit of trouble because of a piece of grass 
She came to me for some help  when I looked a small piece of poo had stuck solid covering her anus and she couldn't go at all :yikes: A quick emergency job with OH holding her whilst I cut it away-you can imagine what started to happen as I was cutting :laugh: :laugh:
I'm laughing now but that could have been dangerous. Dont know how I never noticed it.

I'd like to think my day's going to get better but I've decided to give the Grooming Parlour a fresh coat of paint, I'm not sure I like the colour I've picked now and I'm [silently] cursing OH for building something so big.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Happy birthday Werehorse.
Enjoy your day. 

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Freddie and frank

C4M, hope Alfie's first walk goes ok.

K&M,  oh no, the things we do for them. What a relief for Evie though 

Have good days everyone.


----------



## kat&molly

I know, think the 'fresh stuff' has to be the highlight.:laugh:
My poor ickle girl.

Enjoy your walk with the boys,


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> It's the big three-oh-mygodhowdidthathappen? :lol:
> 
> Actually quite looking forward to my 30s, it can only be uphill from my 20s really!


Happy Birthday. Hope you have a lovely day.


----------



## Guest

HAPPY BIRTHHDAYYYYYYYYYY Werehorse!!!!!! 


Hope you have a loverly day!!!!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Good grief thats quite a start to the day K&M. I hope you like the paint colour when it's done.

F+F hope the boys blow off some steam today can't be easy for them to keep their cool.

C4M think you might have a fiesty little recruit there I think i'd go for taking him out alone, he's more likely to be cocky with back up :lol:


----------



## Guest

I Took him to the field today!!! 

Let him off expecting two weeks worth of pent up zoomies. 
I got 6ft of zoomies, then a slow lollop around. 

Managed to get him to sit and look at me though when a terrier gobbed at us from ahead, the owner went through her garden gate and got it back indoors. 
Zander just sat there though good as gold and the lady asked if she could give him a treat. I said yeah but the treat she gave him was LUMINOUS pink. 

After yesterday I don't wanna repeat! :laugh:


----------



## Sarah1983

Happy Birthday Werehorse! It's my 30th next month :yikes:

Spencer seems pretty much back to his normal self now. Woke me with an elbow drop as usual and has spent most of the morning playing tug with Rupert. Have to make sure to remove Rupes collar as soon as he comes in now as Spen has discovered he can drag him around with it 

Rupert has had a splash around in the water bowl soaking himself and the living room. He also ate the cats food and was snacking out of the litter tray when I took him home to toilet (he won't go on our balcony and won't go out front). I only left him 5 minutes while I took Rupe out for a pee and grabbed stuff to clean up their balcony!


----------



## Zoojie

Happy Birthday Werehorse!!

Well, I'm excited and really nervous! Loki starts up agility again on Wednesday. We're starting with the beginners again, who should be around where we were when I stopped taking him. I've been practicing the skills (back end awareness and turns etc.) so I'm not worried that he doesn't know what to do - but this will be the first time we go back since we quit and got the 1-1 sessions to help his fear of dogs. 

I'm hoping it goes well and I can keep it up - they've said once we've been a few times and got the hang of it again with him and make sure he's comfortable, we can take him on a Thursday and do the class before Amber's so I'm not travelling there two days a week. 

He wont be going off-lead, so I'm going to have to get good with my long-line control for a while until both of us are comfortable there. I'm looking at it as something to keep him busy and fit, and a good chance to practice our ignoring other dogs thing too. 

He used to love it, so I'm hoping he'll get back into it


----------



## Twiggy

Zoojie said:


> Happy Birthday Werehorse!!
> 
> Well, I'm excited and really nervous! Loki starts up agility again on Wednesday. We're starting with the beginners again, who should be around where we were when I stopped taking him. I've been practicing the skills (back end awareness and turns etc.) so I'm not worried that he doesn't know what to do - but this will be the first time we go back since we quit and got the 1-1 sessions to help his fear of dogs.
> 
> I'm hoping it goes well and I can keep it up - they've said once we've been a few times and got the hang of it again with him and make sure he's comfortable, we can take him on a Thursday and do the class before Amber's so I'm not travelling there two days a week.
> 
> He wont be going off-lead, so I'm going to have to get good with my long-line control for a while until both of us are comfortable there. I'm looking at it as something to keep him busy and fit, and a good chance to practice our ignoring other dogs thing too.
> 
> He used to love it, so I'm hoping he'll get back into it


Hope you both enjoy it - I'm sure you will as it's such good fun.


----------



## Thorne

Happy birthday Werehorse 

Oh dear, poor Evie! I had to do the same for a Yorkie pup once, how he squirmed. Can't blame them really! Glad she's all sorted now.
LO, they are daft aren't they? I'm always taken by surprise when I don't have to leap out of mad Paddy's way during his garden sessions, sometimes he just jumps around a bit then stares at me until I get a tuggy for him!
Great to hear Spen is still feeling better, don't envy the mess they've made for you this morning though.
Good luck with Loki's agility tomorrow Zoojie.

Well I managed nearly 2.5hrs at Blue Cross today before getting a sudden wave of nausea and heartburn so thought I should leave in case I had to dash out of the cattery to be sick  Not sure my medication is agreeing with me at all so could be back to the Dr's soon! Still feel queasy and my stomach is really sore and tight so will take some determination to get out with the dogs today.
They're pleased I'm back, they'd have otherwise had their first home alone in the kennel day since before the Christmas hols but are now napping by the fire. Bless.

ETA one of them has just made a horrendous smell!  Maybe the eggs they had with dinner last night were a bit old!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Just come back after our walk. 
A fabulous 1hr 50mins on Cannock chase.:thumbup:
I am one happy bunny.

Frank was a bit of a pain for the first 40 mins, selective deafness :incazzato: so he was on and off the flexi. Had to put Freddie's harness on him as I'd forgotten his own. 

Freddie was no trouble, as ever. 

We met some lovely dogs and really nice owners too. 
Firstly, and older man with two black labs. All 4 had a good play.
Then we met another man with the most gorgeous dogs.... An 11 month German mastif, a 14 yr old RR, and a 15 yr old whippet cross I think. And they all had a good play again. Next up was another 11 month short haired visla. Nice play again. 
By this time frank had run off his pent up energy and both boys behaved brilliantly. 

Got some pics to put up later but need to do some work first so catch you later. 

Eta....I have a walking belt on order fron indi dog to use with frank when we're over the chase and there's deer about so would like any advice from those who use them and what sort of lead to use with it? Ta folks.


----------



## Dogless

Evie :yikes::yikes:. That takes dangleberries to a whole new level :laugh:.

Thorne - hope that you are feeling better soon, rubbish feeling like that isn't it? 

F&F - sounds like the boys needed a good run and it did them good. 14 is really old for a RR! I have a running belt which I use with an elasticated line for shock absorption and a "Ruffwear Roamer" which is also elasticated; I would go for something that will absorb shock for dog and person personally having been attached to Kilo when deer have appeared all of about 8m away :yikes:.

Took the CHs to the beach - will do a picture thread after this. They had a great time, but Kilo is a bit stressed again now we're home - less than yesterday though I think. At the beach we saw a few other dogs at a distance at the start, then had it all to ourselves and then some arrived as we were leaving so we timed it just right . On the way back up to the car we passed an elderly couple in very smart walking kit and the woman had very light coloured trousers on. I got the CHs over to the side (not a drama for the BW who would rather not interact!) but Rudi was trying to greet. The lady said "Oh, a puppy - are they RRs, how gorgeous!". I said that they were and just asked for a sec to get Rudi back into the side and she said "Oh my dear, we're coming to the beach we expect to get muddy trousers!" and laughed. I still got Rudi back under control though and didn't allow him to jump all over the lady, I really don't want him greeting badly :thumbdown:.


----------



## catz4m8z

OMG, poor Evie.you shouldnt laugh but....:lol:
and Happy Birthday to Werehorse!!
good luck with LCH, Dogless! I imagine it will be frustrating with a very friendly puppy trying to greet people (who think its cute) when you know he will floor them as an adult!!

We had a lovley walk (and I took the midget army with me!). Alfie was very brave greeting a much larger dog and even when he was scared he just ran back to me which is all very promising. He was a little superstar...unlike Heidi who barked at strange dogs and needed treats to distract, Adam who got covered in **** and Hannah who ignored me chasing squirrels and also got covered in ****!!:lol: I think most off lead walks we will go en masse but on lead Alfie will be solo for a while. We not only have to work on lead manners but also he has to learn the lesson every tiny dog learns (how to avoid your masters feet!!).


----------



## Freddie and frank

hope you feel better soon thorne. 
well done to alfie for his first walk.
dogless, i couldn't beleive it when he said her age. she was very grey around her face but gorgeous with it. loving the beach walk pics and off to look at some shock absorption leads.

well, i was supposed to be working


----------



## Thorne

Well, I'm fairly confident I've discovered the source of the bad smell! It's coming from stinky Breeze and I've just found a half-eaten poo that must've been missed on last night's poo check. She's horrid! At least she's not doing it as much as she used to.

Am feeling much better now thanks, still a bit queasy but have kept my sandwich down!
Just been in the garden with them and heard a massive BANG so walk was postponed from 3pm to 4pm. Breeze not too fussed by the scary noise but recently she's not been too keen on having her Thundershirt put on, think she associates it with scary things so even though it calms her down she still wilts when I go to put her in it  So have just coaxed her into wearing it and given her a Dentastix + peanut butter kong, happy now! Think Scooter's just finished licking the PB out of his, he's barking to tell me to let him in 

catz - Well done to Alfie! 
F&F, Dogless - Loved the photo threads, sounds like you had lovely walks.


----------



## Twiggy

I've just had a super 2 hr training session with Holly Bolly and her little chums.

The other handlers were saying that Holly is wagging her tail furiously when we're doing heelwork - YES - YES - YES!!


----------



## Thorne

What started out as a rubbish walk for Breeze turned out to not be to bad. Had the usual far-off bird scarer, shotgun and unusually an air rifle which sent her into an attack of the shivers and pants, but she relaxed when I let Scooter off. He apparently b*ggered off yesterday so waited until we were past his favourite place to vanish into, the spinney. 

Silly Breeze gets all worked up and pumped with adrenaline at the start of walks so needs to burn it off by chasing big brother  She was much better after a sprint-fest and stayed fairly relaxed for the rest of the walk. She did try to cut the corner of a ploughed field, realised it was a bad idea and came back with no harm done but some very muddy knees! I did panic for a moment, thinking she was going to sprain or break something, the worry she gives me!
Scooter trotted off round a corner and when Breeze and I reached it, he was a good 200m ahead and doing a nose-down-sniff-tracking gallop, so I called him and... he stopped, turned, and ran straight back :w00t: He was great today, didn't stay too close but recalled well and didn't object to collar touches and lead on/off practice.

Put them both on the same training lead on the way back purely for amusement/seeing whether it was possible. Wonder how many people walk 2 dogs on 1 lead everyday? Felt a bit bizarre! 
We were complimented on Breeze's "onesie" - too warm for the equafleece so dug out her t-shirt suit


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just had a super 2 hr training session with Holly Bolly and her little chums.
> 
> The other handlers were saying that Holly is wagging her tail furiously when we're doing heelwork - YES - YES - YES!!


See.....she's a good girl .


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> Put them both on the same training lead on the way back purely for amusement/seeing whether it was possible. Wonder how many people walk 2 dogs on 1 lead everyday? Felt a bit bizarre!
> We were complimented on Breeze's "onesie" - too warm for the equafleece so dug out her t-shirt suit


I had to do that to go back to the car from the forest the other day - I'd taken them out to the car one by one from home and used the same lead :incazzato::incazzato: despite having put two out. Luckily we haven't ever encountered anyone there, it was just for safety near the road!


----------



## catz4m8z

Sounds like Breeze had a good walk. 
Took Alfie for his first lead walk just now (about 5-10 mins to the park across the road!). Not too shabby!! I did have to pick him up twice (once when he stopped just outside the house and once when an 8yr old with a large dog came into the park) but other then that he walked really well, if slowly! I only had to tug him 4 times too (twice for eating rubbish and twice for trying to stop in the middle of the road!). Im sure I looked a right twit though what with all the baby talk, squeeling 'good boy!!' every 2 seconds and walking backwards with a treat in my hand!!LOL


----------



## kat&molly

Blimey, I've resorted to a notepad now. I always end up cross posting as well- missing someone out, it takes me so long.

LO- have you checked progress since you joined this thread, I think Donkey boy has improved quite a lot hasn't he?

Pleased Spen is feeling better, perhaps he has sensitive glands.

Twiggy- well done to young Holly Bolly.

F+F- glad the boys and you enjoyed your walk,I bet Bella's going stir crazy though.

Zoojie- hope the agility goes well with Loki, I dread to think what would happen if I tried with a long line.

Catz- that was an eventful walk with the Midget Army. 

Thorne- pleased to read you feel better now.

Dogless- Pleased the boys enjoyed the beach, will go and read your thread if I ever finish here.
I did think of you and the Dangleberries- but I think this was a Stickleberry. I've hovered between laughing , shock and horror all day.:laugh: Its a good job it happened here.

Hope Miss Tink and the Ninja and Werehorse have had a good day.

I got less than half the Parlour painted today.
This afternoon we went somewhere Evie has off lead ATM. Its a track with woods and some fields either side.
The girls stumbled on a Cock Pheasant, he flew off, Moll never bothered Scruff came when I called but guess who wouldn't let it go and ran in to a load of thicket to try and get it 40 foot up in the air.
It wasn't worth me calling her to be ignored, theres no roads and no livestock so I walked off and left the little sod. She came and found us within a few minutes panicking.:ciappa:
Is it nearly bed time I've had enough of her today:laugh:
She's sat on OH's lap having cuddles like butter wouldn't melt.
Phew.


----------



## Dogless

Oh naughty Evie :001_wub::001_wub:.

And Stickleberry :lol::lol:.


----------



## chazzie10

Too much already today to comment on individually so I'll just shorten it to....

 :yikes:

:laugh:



:001_wub:

:lol:

I think that covers it all


----------



## kat&molly

chazzie10 said:


> Too much already today to comment on individually so I'll just shorten it to....
> 
> :yikes:
> 
> :laugh:
> 
> 
> 
> :001_wub:
> 
> :lol:
> 
> I think that covers it all


That only covered Evie, what about the others.:laugh:


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Blimey, I've resorted to a notepad now. I always end up cross posting as well- missing someone out, it takes me so long.
> 
> LO- have you checked progress since you joined this thread, I think Donkey boy has improved quite a lot hasn't he?
> 
> Pleased Spen is feeling better, perhaps he has sensitive glands.
> 
> Twiggy- well done to young Holly Bolly.
> 
> F+F- glad the boys and you enjoyed your walk,I bet Bella's going stir crazy though.
> 
> Zoojie- hope the agility goes well with Loki, I dread to think what would happen if I tried with a long line.
> 
> Catz- that was an eventful walk with the Midget Army.
> 
> Thorne- pleased to read you feel better now.
> 
> Dogless- Pleased the boys enjoyed the beach, will go and read your thread if I ever finish here.
> I did think of you and the Dangleberries- but I think this was a Stickleberry. I've hovered between laughing , shock and horror all day.:laugh: Its a good job it happened here.
> 
> Hope Miss Tink and the Ninja and Werehorse have had a good day.
> 
> I got less than half the Parlour painted today.
> This afternoon we went somewhere Evie has off lead ATM. Its a track with woods and some fields either side.
> The girls stumbled on a Cock Pheasant, he flew off, Moll never bothered Scruff came when I called but guess who wouldn't let it go and ran in to a load of thicket to try and get it 40 foot up in the air.
> It wasn't worth me calling her to be ignored, theres no roads and no livestock so I walked off and left the little sod. She came and found us within a few minutes panicking.:ciappa:
> Is it nearly bed time I've had enough of her today:laugh:
> She's sat on OH's lap having cuddles like butter wouldn't melt.
> Phew.


Every thing K&M said -  I have resorted to using a kat&molly 

K&M it sounds like you have had a time of it with poor/bad Evie today.

We have had an uneventful day, Our woods this morning which are more like a swamp but peaceful as ever. Beach this arvo and she did actually stay silent when she spotted a spaniel in the dunes, the only thing we saw, I rushed off back to the beach and although she tugged me back she was quiet, I do believe the little one is is getting the hang of this.

However she has been a bit bored, I think maybe because OH is in bed with another migraine all day and I was out all morning, no he didn't let her in to keep her company  so this afternoon she has been lobbing her squeaky egg thing at me and barking if I don't respond, so I have been lobbing it back on to the landing and disturbing sleeping beauty  Naughty monkey  its lovely as she never used to do anything like that. I also saw the neighbour this morning, told him about her adventure in the 'outside garden world' and he shrugged and said 'don't matter' then said he couldn't see any other escape routes


----------



## chazzie10

kat&molly said:


> That only covered Evie, what about the others.:laugh:


  Thats true! but you will just all have to share the smilies on my post.... with me being almost 10 years older than old Im just too exhausted to type separate posts :lol: :lol:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

kat&molly said:


> That only covered Evie, what about the others.:laugh:


No, I think just these were for Evie  :yikes:

:lol:

Poor Evie, and poor you! I've had my fair share of poo today too after Lily excelled herself in a double layering of cowpat and fox poo this morning :nonod:

Thorne - I feel your pain with Breeze and all the loud noises, it's terrible at the moment with shooting and bird scarers round here too and Lily is petrified  She is getting better but she's really not happy about it.

Sounds like everyone else has had a pretty good day all round, just off to have a nosey at the photo threads now


----------



## Freddie and frank

My god, bella has just edged up to poor Freddie, who is lying on the kitchen floor quite peacefully, and sat on his face. Lay down and moved her tail to the side. :yikes:
This is two mins after trying to entice frank outside, pushing into him with said tail again to the side. :yikes:

We have a dirty *****bag living with us. :yikes:

This can't be the same sweet little girl who's been golden today doing stays, recalls, walking to heel, playing etc in the garden.....can it. :yikes:

It's all so new to me.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> What started out as a rubbish walk for *Breeze turned out to not be to bad. Had the usual far-off bird scarer, shotgun and unusually an air rifle which sent her into an attack of the shivers and pants, but she relaxed when I let Scooter off.* He apparently b*ggered off yesterday so waited until we were past his favourite place to vanish into, the spinney.
> 
> Silly Breeze gets all worked up and pumped with adrenaline at the start of walks so needs to burn it off by chasing big brother  She was much better after a sprint-fest and stayed fairly relaxed for the rest of the walk. She did try to cut the corner of a ploughed field, realised it was a bad idea and came back with no harm done but some very muddy knees! I did panic for a moment, thinking she was going to sprain or break something, the worry she gives me!
> Scooter trotted off round a corner and when Breeze and I reached it, he was a good 200m ahead and doing a nose-down-sniff-tracking gallop, so I called him and... he stopped, turned, and ran straight back :w00t: He was great today, didn't stay too close but recalled well and didn't object to collar touches and lead on/off practice.
> 
> Put them both on the same training lead on the way back purely for amusement/seeing whether it was possible. Wonder how many people walk 2 dogs on 1 lead everyday? Felt a bit bizarre!
> We were complimented on Breeze's "onesie" - too warm for the equafleece so dug out her t-shirt suit


What about trying Breeze on this Doreen Paige Remedy:

*Remedies ** | Apprehension of Known Things *

*£13.00 (30 ml)

A remedy designed to help alleviate apprehension of a specific circumstance or event that has previously caused an animal alarm *

We've used quite a few of the remedies with some excellent results.

I first saw them at Crufts about 10 years ago and purchased a bottle of 'Insecurity' for poor little Leafy but must admit I was extremely sceptical.

Leafy went lame at 4 mths old and was operated on at 8 mths old for OCD in her right shoulder and wasn't given the 'all clear' until she was about 1 yr old. She missed virtually all her puppyhood and had little or no socialisation, the consequence being that the first show I took her to she was absolutely terrified. I took her to two or three more shows, thinking she'd get over it, but she didn't. I was at the point of thinking it would be fairer to leave her at home with hubby when I tried the 'Insecurity'.
The result was pretty spectacular and I actually got her in a ring and did a training round with her at the next show.

We've also used several other of these remedies for nervous dogs, fear of travelling/travel sickness, severe noise sensitivity, etc.

I will be honest and say that even when they made up a special brew for Tremor for her fear of travelling it made no difference, but then neither did anything else (only Valium) sadly.

Might be worth a try. Have a look at their website.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dirty little hoarfrost her  Gosh bet you *are *glad the boys have been done aren't you, she wouldn't be difficult to miss. We are still waiting to go through it, like you I have no idea what coming but at least i don't have two other boys to think about, no wonder Frank had problems the other day. Give her a cold shower.

ETA that was aimed at F& F not Twiggy  or her what I am sure are perfectly well mannered girls .


----------



## Guest

I have realised its been two months since Zander had a biting frenzy/tantrum thingy whatsit.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well done holly bolly. 
Top marks for scooter. :thumbup:
Dangleberries and stickleberries ???????

GR, I'm amazed at how she's changed since we first realised that she was in season. I've read about this sort of behaviour but didn't expect it to be so :yikes: :blushing:


----------



## chazzie10

foxyrockmeister said:


> No, I think just these were for Evie  :yikes:


pretty much :laugh:


----------



## Beth17

Hello everyone been awol as life has been a bit hectic the past couple of days and internet is a bit rubbish but sounds like everyone is doing well.

Happy Birthday Werehorse hope you had a good day.

Dogless loved the pictures of the boys at the beach.

My two have been absolute stars the past couple of days and today Sam was up the field off lead when a dog appeared out of nowhere; he spotted it and simply lay down and watched it so I was able to go over to him and pop him back on lead. He then did this again a bit later with another dog and was really focused on me and his toy so really proud of him.

Going to trawl back through the millions of pages I've missed so I may be a while


----------



## Twiggy

I wonder if Werehorse is lying on the sofa with a nasty headache yet.....LOL

No doubt we shall hear tomorrow what she's been up to celebrating.


----------



## Dogless

Well, I've just taken the BW out for a walk. He is still stressed as he went out of the door up on his toes, ears back and looking for monsters round every corner, every doorway etc BUT settled into the walk after about 5 minutes and was capable of listening and doing some simple training for me - didn't want to do anything exciting in case it raised his stress levels. We normally don't see any dogs or just one or two but we saw 7 tonight and....a bit of up on toes action, but a 'leave' and he trotted on happily so less stressed than last night I think. The choc lab that's always offlead and always approaches us ran across the road to see a spaniel ahead of us, so I turned and walked in the opposite direction before we were spotted - didn't need that tonight; Kilo just hears the man's whistle or voice and is stressed out, it makes him bark in the garden even - I always know when he's being walked as the man whistles and says "****** come" on a loop. He's asleep now so I'd say much better .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Glad to hear kilo is more settled. It's all that beach action today.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Glad to hear kilo is more settled. It's all that beach action today.


That's why I took them - to try and let him relax .


----------



## GingerRogers

Freddie and frank said:


> Well done holly bolly.
> Top marks for scooter. :thumbup:
> Dangleberries and stickleberries ???????
> 
> GR, I'm amazed at how she's changed since we first realised that she was in season. I've read about this sort of behaviour but didn't expect it to be so :yikes: :blushing:


Argh. Ginge is a tart at the best of times we hadn't had her 24hrs and she let a friends dog try and hump her. She also likes to sit on rudis face  what do we have in store for us. Whatever I suspect it will alarm Hubby  she is fast turning into his little baby.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> That's why I took them - to try and let him relax .


Can't imagine what its like when he's like that.  Ginge is draining enough when she's on hyper alert.


----------



## Thorne

Freddie and frank said:


> My god, bella has just edged up to poor Freddie, who is lying on the kitchen floor quite peacefully, and sat on his face. Lay down and moved her tail to the side. :yikes:
> This is two mins after trying to entice frank outside, pushing into him with said tail again to the side. :yikes:
> 
> We have a dirty *****bag living with us. :yikes:
> 
> This can't be the same sweet little girl who's been golden today doing stays, recalls, walking to heel, playing etc in the garden.....can it. :yikes:
> 
> It's all so new to me.


Dirty so and so  After 7yrs of being used for breeding, Breeze has been known to get confused when she meets in-season bitches, thinks it's her and then tries to flirt with the nearest male dog - no wonder she gets humped by most of the boys she meets! Still lifts her leg up to let them have a sniff, her spay hasn't changed her mindset at all :laugh:



Twiggy said:


> What about trying Breeze on this Doreen Paige Remedy:
> 
> *Remedies ** | Apprehension of Known Things *
> 
> *£13.00 (30 ml)
> 
> A remedy designed to help alleviate apprehension of a specific circumstance or event that has previously caused an animal alarm *
> 
> We've used quite a few of the remedies with some excellent results.
> 
> I first saw them at Crufts about 10 years ago and purchased a bottle of 'Insecurity' for poor little Leafy but must admit I was extremely sceptical.
> 
> Leafy went lame at 4 mths old and was operated on at 8 mths old for OCD in her right shoulder and wasn't given the 'all clear' until she was about 1 yr old. She missed virtually all her puppyhood and had little or no socialisation, the consequence being that the first show I took her to she was absolutely terrified. I took her to two or three more shows, thinking she'd get over it, but she didn't. I was at the point of thinking it would be fairer to leave her at home with hubby when I tried the 'Insecurity'.
> The result was pretty spectacular and I actually got her in a ring and did a training round with her at the next show.
> 
> We've also used several other of these remedies for nervous dogs, fear of travelling/travel sickness, severe noise sensitivity, etc.
> 
> I will be honest and say that even when they made up a special brew for Tremor for her fear of travelling it made no difference, but then neither did anything else (only Valium) sadly.
> 
> Might be worth a try. Have a look at their website.


Thank you, about to have a read through but sounds promising. We've had fair results with Serene-UM tablets but they ran out at the weekend so that could be why she got so spooked today.
Thanks again 

And well done Kilo!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Can't imagine what its like when he's like that.  Ginge is draining enough when she's on hyper alert.


He just needs careful management - slow, sniffing about, mooching walks seem to help. It's been months since he's been freaked by something - perhaps there is a bitch in season...who knows. The important thing is he seems to be loads better.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> He just needs careful management - slow, sniffing about, mooching walks seem to help. It's been months since he's been freaked by something - perhaps there is a bitch in season...who knows. The important thing is he seems to be loads better.


Oh, I hope he continues to settle. It must be a worry for you. 
Blow him a kiss from us here.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Dirty so and so  After 7yrs of being used
> 
> Thank you, about to have a read through but sounds promising. We've had fair results with Serene-UM tablets but they ran out at the weekend so that could be why she got so spooked today.
> Thanks again
> 
> I'd have a look at the website and then ring and explain your problem. She is a lovely lady and does her damnest to help. Although they are based down in Devon (I think) her daughter is actually a vet in Stamford not far from me.
> 
> A friends young collie was extremely noise sensitive and she was tearing her hair out about three years ago. Her husband couldn't even watch some big football tournament on TV because it freaked the dog out. He also bolted on a walk and she despaired of ever competing with him. I made her ring the lady at Doreen Paige and he started a course of two different remedies (one was 'Insecurity' - can't remember the other) and I also lent her Tremor's Thundershirt. He won his first novice class six months later with a motorbike revving up whilst he was in the stay ring..!!


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone.  This thread is so much awesome. 



Twiggy said:


> I wonder if Werehorse is lying on the sofa with a nasty headache yet.....LOL
> 
> No doubt we shall hear tomorrow what she's been up to celebrating.


:lol: If I have a headache it is because of the copious amounts of sugar I have eaten today.

Chocolate, biscuits, jelly and icecream, cola... We postponed the walk until tomorrow cos the weather was dreadful but we are going to brave it no matter what tomorrow after eating all that c**p today! So I just spent the day at my friend's house (in between dragging her out on a short walk for the boys and to the stables to help me feed the horses) and we baked a cake, which we couldn't eat cos we'd filled up on other stuff. So I'm havign another birthday tomorrow with a walk and the cake. :lol:

Then I am seriously not eating any more rubbish until I have lost a stone.

We did talk about walking up hills! 

Managed to avoid all marriage proposals (got a new watch and Jess Ennis's autobiography from OH instead  ) and accidents (although there is still time).


----------



## Dogless

Sounds like a great day Werehorse, even if your teeth might be falling out :yikes:. Enjoy birthday number two tomorrow - reckon you qualify as an old slosha now too .


----------



## Twiggy

Glad to hear you've had a lovely day and are still sober, even if you've had a sugar overload instead.


----------



## Freddie and frank

F&F are knackered after today's walk. Poor Freddie has hardly moved 
I feel so guilty about not being able to walk them as much as normal so stuff it. Tomorrow, I'm upping their walks. I've coughed, laughed, sneezed, and I'm ok. Tena ladies have been chucked out so it's only running and trampolining I can't do for now. 
Need to get them into shape again.  feel a bit of a bad mommy. 

Nite all. Up at silly o'clock to get son off to school for early morning revision.


----------



## moonviolet

SOunds liek everyone is having a good day.

I'll be honest I had an interesting one.

It began at 4am with a plumbing lesson . woken but the sudden sound of intense running water, on investigation it became apparent the joint for the cold water bath tap had failed, cue OH dashing downstairs to the stopcock and out to get his wet and dry vac from the " workshop" duuno what took him so long miss power mopper had got most of it cleared up by thte time he returned.

To save you all from the ensuing discussion, rather than remove the bath it was agreed my smaller hands would make it possible to fix without doing so. 
By 5 it was all fixed.....and what happened to Tinker while this mayhem occured... she took the opportunity to sneak into our bed to " keep it warm" :lol: anyone who said it's a dog's life with a negative slant never spent a day as Tink.

Good walks. This morning the portaloos and soldiers were back in our fabvourite woods so i kept my lunacy down to " acceptable eccentricity" level.

THis evenings walk started with a walk an onlead walk by with a lovely lookign gsd on a parallel path and her ladyship would have liked to greet  so that was good.

Class this evening was brilliant such a keenie, really good attention and enthusiasm. I loves my girl


----------



## GingerRogers

Ooh take.care f&f i have seen what can happen if people.run before.they can walk. Its all too easy to believe you are fit through frustration.
oh boss had heart bypass and managed to bust his chest open again. I mean the sternum 
dread to think what his doing to himself since his hip replacement.

Happy birthday Werehorse so glad you have had a good day. Sugar rush:yikes: worse than drunkenness


----------



## chazzie10

moonviolet said:


> SOunds liek everyone is having a good day.
> 
> I'll be honest I had an interesting one.
> 
> It began at 4am with a plumbing lesson . woken but the sudden sound of intense running water, on investigation it became apparent the joint for the cold water bath tap had failed, cue OH dashing downstairs to the stopcock and out to get his wet and dry vac from the " workshop" *duuno what took him so long miss power mopper had got most of it cleared up by thte time he returned.
> *
> To save you all from the ensuing discussion, rather than remove the bath it was agreed my smaller hands would make it possible to fix without doing so.
> By 5 it was all fixed.....and what happened to Tinker while this mayhem occured... she took the opportunity to sneak into our bed to " keep it warm" :lol: anyone who said it's a dog's life with a negative slant never spent a day as Tink.
> 
> Good walks. This morning the portaloos and soldiers were back in our fabvourite woods so i kept my lunacy down to " acceptable eccentricity" level.
> 
> THis evenings walk started with a walk an onlead walk by with a lovely lookign gsd on a parallel path and her ladyship would have liked to greet  so that was good.
> 
> Class this evening was brilliant such a keenie, really good attention and enthusiasm. I loves my girl


Do you think maybe that was his plan??


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> Do you think maybe that was his plan??


it's not the first time i've been in a flood situation, when we lived in london we had a split level apartment, I came home one day to find my stairs were a hot waterfall and my downstairs was a paddling pool, thanks to our upstairs neighbours faulty heating header tank, spewing out boiling water for 8 hours so this was quite lightweight :lol: I haz skillz


----------



## ballybee

Well, Tummel and i had another amazing walk today, we walked past 4 dogs and he didn't care...at all 

first dog was a JRT(Tummels least favourite breed after a nasty attack from one) who walked past us, less than a foot from Tummel and Tummel did nothing, literally just stood and watched her go past and then carried on happily. Then we had a tricky one, walking past a pair of lovely old whippets closely followed by a bouncy visla...Tummel walked past all 3 with no reaction, he was looking at them as we passed but made no attempt to get close, i was even able to let him offlead a couple of metres past them and he stayed in nicely and just pottered about sniffing 

So chuffed, he's so much happier and calmer without Dan, obviously i want to be able to walk them together but right now i think Tummel really needs to be able to just be a dog, he is so protective of Dan and i think at times he forgets to have fun


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> SOunds liek everyone is having a good day.
> 
> I'll be honest I had an interesting one.
> 
> Good walks. This morning the portaloos and soldiers were back in our fabvourite woods so i kept my lunacy down to " acceptable eccentricity" level.
> 
> THis evenings walk started with a walk an onlead walk by with a lovely lookign gsd on a parallel path and her ladyship would have liked to greet  so that was good.
> 
> Class this evening was brilliant such a keenie, really good attention and enthusiasm. *I loves my girl*


We all loves your girl.......

Well done on becoming a master plumber.....LOL


----------



## Freddie and frank

good morning all.
we have a bit of sun here.

gr, i'll be careful. not taking boys out together on lead just incase they decide to lunge at something. 

bless lady tinks, keeping your bed warm. so thoughtful of her. such a good girl.

two early morning walks today for the boys reminded me of why i love early mornings.
frank was good on lead and off lead until he saw ducks before me  an early morning launch into the canal and over to the other side. he did come back though after a bit of sniffing. i had to wave my arms about like a loon and walk off up another path. 

freddie is just golden boy, especially when he's hungry and i have liver treats.

had to get the hose pipe on frank again, but it wasn't as troublesome as last time. think we're going to get bella spayed, not interested in breeding or showing, plus the distress it must be causing to them.also had a read on pyometra.


----------



## Dogless

Glad the boys behaved F&F apart from the canal launch .

mv - Twiggy is right...we all loves your girl and well done on the plumbing efforts .

Walked the boys separately this morning.

Rudi's was really good for socialisation - we walked past a busy school bus stop; the lady with the sheltie that I've lead walked Kilo with a bit was there so we went over - her dog doesn't like puppies in her face so they didn't greet which is fine by me. Rudi just sat calmly and wagged whenever any attention was payed. He wasn't worried by all the kids, babies, buggies, dogs...he's a little star!! Then we went and walked around the offlead fields and did lots of recalls, collar grabs and putting the lead on and off. As we left the fields we saw the lady with the sheltie again and she came in to chat - Rudi sat calmly again and she told me how well mannered he was :001_wub:. Then we walked back and saw lots of runners and cyclists.

Then I walked Kilo, he's much better today . We walked to the top fields and did the 'dislocate your human's shoulder' stuff from class, then had a play and walked back. Saw pretty much no one and nothing which was ideal - just what I wanted until he's chilled again. He is getting more and more into the toy exercise. It goes:

Me: Ready.......
Kilo: eeeeeeee

Me: Steady....
Kilo: *eeeeee*

Me: Get it!!!
Kilo: *EEK!!!!*


----------



## Twiggy

Me: Ready.......
Kilo: eeeeeeee

Me: Steady....
Kilo: *eeeeee*

Me: Get it!!!
Kilo: *EEK!!!!*

That's great....:thumbup1:

Holly's version is more like:

Me: Ready
Holly: blank stare

Me: Steady
Holly: I'm not really that interested

Me: Get it!!
Holly: Well if I must....:thumbdown:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Me: Ready.......
> Kilo: eeeeeeee
> 
> Me: Steady....
> Kilo: *eeeeee*
> 
> Me: Get it!!!
> Kilo: *EEK!!!!*
> 
> That's great....:thumbup1:
> 
> Holly's version is more like:
> 
> Me: Ready
> Holly: blank stare
> 
> Me: Steady
> Holly: I'm not really that interested
> 
> Me: Get it!!
> Holly: Well if I must....:thumbdown:


He is desperate to get it, it's brilliant. Exhausting, but fun! Before he would wait whilst I threw his toy until he was released to get it and I can have his tuggy and throw a ball for Dizzy and he will wait until I let him come and play tug and leave Dizzy's ball alone so I was really pleased, but this is so different.

Holly Bolly is adorable!


----------



## Lurcherlad

Dogless said:


> Still working on walking past other dogs nicely on lead without having to say hello (phase he has been going though recently!) and not pulling to get there when he is allowed to meet. I have been putting a huge amount of effort in for the past month or so and (touch wood!) we are there; had a lovely walk this morning and met quite a few dogs nicely. The good thing is, is that people do stop and chat when Kilo is walking nicely or sitting so he does get to greet dogs whereas they avoid us if he is being a bit excitable!


Wish people would avoid me when my very friendly dog is jumping around like a demented kangaroo with me hanging on for dear life and nearly ending up on my ar*e! Instead, this morning one chap let his dog charge around mine, running up and then running off then said "ha, ha, my dog has worked out that yours can't reach him and is having a right old game" :rolleyes5::angry: To which I replied "yes, but unfortunately, it's my dog that suffers, because he can't get away and just gets more wound up!". He gave an embarassed "sorry" then walked off THANK GOD! Moron!!!!!

So, to go back to your question ..... I am working on recall, so my lurcher can go off-lead more often, and calming him down when other dogs are charging about!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> He is desperate to get it, it's brilliant. Exhausting, but fun! Before he would wait whilst I threw his toy until he was released to get it and I can have his tuggy and throw a ball for Dizzy and he will wait until I let him come and play tug and leave Dizzy's ball alone so I was really pleased, but this is so different.
> 
> Holly Bolly is adorable!


I'm hugely exaggerating. Holly was really good yesterday and we're getting there. She's still not as animated as I would like, or as fast, but there has been a massive improvement and in her own little way she enjoys doing the exercises.

What you're getting with Kilo now is just what I aim for - controlled excitement that can then be shaped into anything you want to teach them....


----------



## Guest

Lurcherlad said:


> Wish people would avoid me when my very friendly dog is jumping around like a demented kangaroo with me hanging on for dear life and nearly ending up on my ar*e! Instead, this morning one chap let his dog charge around mine, running up and then running off then said "ha, ha, my dog has worked out that yours can't reach him and is having a right old game" :rolleyes5::angry: To which I replied "yes, but unfortunately, it's my dog that suffers, because he can't get away and just gets more wound up!". He gave an embarassed "sorry" then walked off THANK GOD! Moron!!!!!
> 
> So, to go back to your question ..... I am working on recall, so my lurcher can go off-lead more often, and calming him down when other dogs are charging about!


GOOD GOD ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T OWN MY LURCHER!?! 

Either way, donkey boy was kinda good this morning, walked 99% brilliantly (a couple tugs here and there) but then an offlead Jack russel came pelting towards us. It charged towards us, mine shot backwards and didn't know which way to go, (jumped around to avoid it or play I don't know) and the owner's son ran towards us, grabbed the JRT, asked if either of us were hurt. And he apologized and offered to pay vet bills if they're needed! (No damage had been done.) No-one's ever apologized before!! (The dog is his elderly mum's who lives near me.)

Sadly though I have damaged my bad knee again, as hobbling home took a very long time. I think the wound has opened again. :thumbdown: (Sorry TMI)

Hope you are all well!!!!!!! X
Well done Tummel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Guest

Baaaaaaaaaaah, there someone near me trying to sell their lurch due to 'ill health' I sent them a message about a local grey/lurch rescue and got told that "I won't make any money that way." BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!:incazzato:


----------



## Freddie and frank

LurcherOwner said:


> Baaaaaaaaaaah, there someone near me trying to sell their lurch due to 'ill health' I sent them a message about a local grey/lurch rescue and got told that "I won't make any money that way." BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!:incazzato:


oh my god. that's awfull.

i'm just waiting to hear back from a lady about clicker training classes with bella.
it'll be fab to go training again.


----------



## Sarah1983

Gotta ask Dogless (and Twiggy) what is it you do to make the toy stuff so exciting? If you can explain it that is. This is where I really regret not having any classes or even a one to one trainer I can ask for help. Spen really likes his toys but I don't get that crazy keenness from him and I think I could if I knew how. If you know what I mean


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Gotta ask Dogless (and Twiggy) what is it you do to make the toy stuff so exciting? If you can explain it that is. This is where I really regret not having any classes or even a one to one trainer I can ask for help. Spen really likes his toys but I don't get that crazy keenness from him and I think I could if I knew how. If you know what I mean


I was going to ask this too - although I'm hampered by the fact Gypsy has absolutely no interest in toys. I've tried everything I can think of (food in toys, whipping them around, following programs to make them more high value) but she only wants them if Ely has them (to make him chase her).

So any tips on building drive in a completely un-toy motivated dog would be great. It's easy with Ely.


----------



## ballybee

Dan loves toys, it's great as he'll do loads of work for a fetch 

Tummel, is Tummel really...some days he's very excited by the thought of fetching a ball(usually to tease Dan as he was too slow) but mostly he looks at me like i'm an idiot....goes a bit like

ME : Tummel ready??

Tummel : no

ME : Tummel, steady

Tummel : Noo

Me : go get the ball/toy/stick

Tummel : nah...going to invetigate this smell over here...then maybe have a run about...then hide in that bush for a poo...you go get it, you threw it 

He's impossible 

Anyway, today me and Oh took both dogs out together for a walk to these new woods, it's a lovely bright day here and i got some lovely pictures  We passed 6 dogs and Tummel wasn't even mildly interested until one was snarling and brking at the pigs we were saying hello to(his owner told us he doesn't like the pigs, Tummel was of course enchanted by this lovely big pig who ambled over for a scratch  ) and even then didn't react at all. We let them off together in the woods and Dan had some serious zoomies, he was loving it  Tummel was happy as larry just pottering about.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> GOOD GOD ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T OWN MY LURCHER!?!
> 
> Either way, donkey boy was kinda good this morning, walked 99% brilliantly (a couple tugs here and there) but then an offlead Jack russel came pelting towards us. It charged towards us, mine shot backwards and didn't know which way to go, (jumped around to avoid it or play I don't know) and the owner's son ran towards us, grabbed the JRT, asked if either of us were hurt. And he apologized and offered to pay vet bills if they're needed! (No damage had been done.) No-one's ever apologized before!! (The dog is his elderly mum's who lives near me.)
> 
> *Sadly though I have damaged my bad knee again, as hobbling home took a very long time. I think the wound has opened again.* :thumbdown: (Sorry TMI)
> 
> Hope you are all well!!!!!!! X
> Well done Tummel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Oh no - poor you.


----------



## Twiggy

ballybee said:


> Dan loves toys, it's great as he'll do loads of work for a fetch
> 
> *Tummel, is Tummel really...some days he's very excited by the thought of fetching a ball(usually to tease Dan as he was too slow) but mostly he looks at me like i'm an idiot....goes a bit like*
> 
> *ME : Tummel ready??*
> 
> *Tummel : no*
> 
> *ME : Tummel, steady*
> 
> *Tummel : Noo*
> 
> *Me : go get the ball/toy/stick*
> 
> *Tummel : nah...going to invetigate this smell over here...then maybe have a run about...then hide in that bush for a poo...you go get it, you threw it*
> 
> He's impossible
> 
> Anyway, today me and Oh took both dogs out together for a walk to these new woods, it's a lovely bright day here and i got some lovely pictures  We passed 6 dogs and Tummel wasn't even mildly interested until one was snarling and brking at the pigs we were saying hello to(his owner told us he doesn't like the pigs, Tummel was of course enchanted by this lovely big pig who ambled over for a scratch  ) and even then didn't react at all. We let them off together in the woods and Dan had some serious zoomies, he was loving it  Tummel was happy as larry just pottering about.


That's really made me chuckle....


----------



## Twiggy

That's a good question Sarah and L/C and if anyone comes up with an answer I'll apply the methods with Holly....!!

Basically it's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string.

It very much depends on the dog and trying to find what floats their boat.

Some really get turned on by a tuggy rope (not good for owners with back problems), some will sell their soul for a squeaky toy (especially Terriers), some love a tennis ball and some go crazy for a 'Chuckit'.

There are ways and means of making said toy higher value. For instance I can create a frenzy with most of mine by holding them away with their collars and bouncing a tennis ball and catching it and goading them with my voice - "no, it's mine - I've got it" that sort of thing.

You can actually teach them to play by using tit-bits/clicker type methods. Something like a tuggy rope and saying "what's this?" and if they touch it with their nose initially you tit-bit. It's a lot of work but you gradually build it up until the dog is grabbing the tuggy and ultimately having a tugging game with you.

Another tactic we use with dogs that only like food and won't play is to use an old tennis ball and make a slit in it and stuff a smelly, tasty treat inside. Have the dog sitting next to you and say "what's this?" and as they look up, squeeze the ball so that the tit-bit drops on their nose. With loads of repetition the dog eventually will chase after the ball and you start to fade the tit-bit.

Hope that explains it a bit.


----------



## ballybee

Twiggy said:


> That's really made me chuckle....


thanks, he's always done it, he won't even retrieve a toy for food...he is better at doing it now but i have to have another dog with me so he feels like it's a competition...otherwise he looks at me like i'm nuts and sods off to do his own thing : I wouldn't have him any other way though.


----------



## Twiggy

ballybee said:


> thanks, he's always done it, he won't even retrieve a toy for food...he is better at doing it now but i have to have another dog with me so he feels like it's a competition...otherwise he looks at me like i'm nuts and sods off to do his own thing : I wouldn't have him any other way though.


That's very similar to my little rescue collie pup Holly though. It's taken me about 9 months to get where we are now and a tremendous amount of hard work.

Initially when I took her into the paddock or the training barn, armed with every toy known to man plus cheese, liver cake, sausage, chicken, etc, her reaction on most occasions was "I'd rather sniff a bush, thanks all the same".....:biggrin5:

My Wednesday group all used to sit there sniggering every week most of last summer.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm hugely exaggerating. Holly was really good yesterday and we're getting there. She's still not as animated as I would like, or as fast, but there has been a massive improvement and in her own little way she enjoys doing the exercises.
> 
> What you're getting with Kilo now is just what I aim for - controlled excitement that can then be shaped into anything you want to teach them....


Where do I take it? Use it as a reward for anything I guess? I have started getting him all excited by showing it to him, having a quick tug until he's all growly and excited with it then asking him to do various things and rewarding with play. You are right that it's not good for owners with a bad back .



Sarah1983 said:


> Gotta ask Dogless (and Twiggy) what is it you do to make the toy stuff so exciting? If you can explain it that is. This is where I really regret not having any classes or even a one to one trainer I can ask for help. Spen really likes his toys but I don't get that crazy keenness from him and I think I could if I knew how. If you know what I mean


No idea; I'm an idiot . I take his tuggy to class quite a lot and he has always been excited and focussed on play with me with it but I had never got the intensity that I am starting to manage now. I actually think it was the other three dogs going before him when we tried it in class that built his excitement more (I know dogs / people running in the hall drives him batshit!). Twiggy always knows these things .



L/C said:


> I was going to ask this too - although I'm hampered by the fact Gypsy has absolutely no interest in toys. I've tried everything I can think of (food in toys, whipping them around, following programs to make them more high value) but she only wants them if Ely has them (to make him chase her).
> 
> So any tips on building drive in a completely un-toy motivated dog would be great. It's easy with Ely.


I've seen some tug toy things that you can put food in (can't remember what they are called right now ) - not sure if they might help? I am such a fool that I have no idea :crazy:.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I've seen some tug toy things that you can put food in (can't remember what they are called right now ) - not sure if they might help? I am such a fool that I have no idea :crazy:.


Tug-e-nuff, got one those. No interest. Got a retrieve dummy you can put food in. No interest. Tried the tennis ball with food in. No interest.

She likes to chase me so I'm trying to work that it but it's muddy and I'm wearing wellies most of the time so not the speediest!


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Tug-e-nuff, got one those. No interest. Got a retrieve dummy you can put food in. No interest. Tried the tennis ball with food in. No interest.
> 
> She likes to chase me so I'm trying to work that it but it's muddy and I'm wearing wellies most of the time so not the speediest!


They're the ones - shame that didn't work. Does she like squeaks? Squeaky ball on rope? You running with squeaky ball on rope? You running with a 'tag' like in tag football?


----------



## Nicki85

Just a quick comment on the toys... Rusty isn't really interested in toys but I use them a lot for agility. He absoloutly loves this- Agility Warehouse | Dog Agility Equipment and Supplies | Ram Tuff Woolly Tail Tug Toy as it is long and you can chase it around on the floor to build their interest up. The https://tug-e-nuff.co.uk/ toys are also fab. we have a variety as Rusty gets bored of one toy after 20mins or so so we switch inbetween through out class. They also do the treat ones Dogless mentions- I don't get on with these all that well but I know others do!

I've never managed to get the drive at agility on a walk but he will focus on me better now.

Oh, and he hates tennis balls or balls of any sort... it's taken ages to find a toy he likes. All his agility toys are only used for training as well. Sometimes I'll just get one out and throw it around but not let him have it .


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> They're the ones - shame that didn't work. Does she like squeaks? Squeaky ball on rope? You running with squeaky ball on rope? You running with a 'tag' like in tag football?


Not interested in squeakers. No interest in any sort of ball at all. Doesn't really like the rabbit skin tug toy that I have or the fluggie type thing. Will sustain interest in a toy tied to a lunge whip for a little while but gets bored quickly. :lol:

She's got one of these that she likes but she picks it up - throws it once and then has mad zoomies and forgets about it. :lol:



Nicki85 said:


> Just a quick comment on the toys... Rusty isn't really interested in toys but I use them a lot for agility. He absoloutly loves this- Agility Warehouse | Dog Agility Equipment and Supplies | Ram Tuff Woolly Tail Tug Toy as it is long and you can chase it around on the floor to build their interest up. The https://tug-e-nuff.co.uk/ toys are also fab. we have a variety as Rusty gets bored of one toy after 20mins or so so we switch inbetween through out class. They also do the treat ones Dogless mentions- I don't get on with these all that well but I know others do!
> 
> I've never managed to get the drive at agility on a walk but he will focus on me better now.
> 
> Oh, and he hates tennis balls or balls of any sort... it's taken ages to find a toy he likes. All his agility toys are only used for training as well. Sometimes I'll just get one out and throw it around but not let him have it .


I've got a couple of the tug-e-nuff rabbit skin tugs but no luck so far. I've tried the making it special routine (from this article) but she just thought I was a bit mad. I also tried the boiling in stock method but that didn't work either...

These things are sent to try us. :tongue_smilie:


----------



## Guest

See with Zand he is interested in toys if he can chase them.

Throw a tennis ball? 
Zand: OMGIT'SMOVINGIMUSTCATCH!!!!!
It stops moving. 
Zand: Oh. Well. It's boring now.\

He is starting to bring it back now though.

But toys aren't really high on his list. He'll occasionally push a slobbery toy into my side, usually a sigh that he want's to play tug. 

He does like his treat ball though!


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Tug-e-nuff, got one those. No interest. Got a retrieve dummy you can put food in. No interest. Tried the tennis ball with food in. No interest.
> 
> She likes to chase me so I'm trying to work that it but it's muddy and I'm wearing wellies most of the time so not the speediest!


Oh dear...LOL That's what I mean though, you've got the right idea and if she likes to chase you.... You'll only weigh about 5 stone by the Spring..


----------



## Twiggy

There's nothing foolish about you Dogless....


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## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear...LOL That's what I mean though, you've got the right idea and if she likes to chase you.... You'll only weigh about 5 stone by the Spring..


We can but dream....:lol:


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> See with Zand he is interested in toys if he can chase them.
> 
> *Throw a tennis ball? *
> *Zand: OMGIT'SMOVINGIMUSTCATCH!!!!!*
> *It stops moving. *
> *Zand: Oh. Well. It's boring now.\*
> 
> :biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5:
> 
> Love it - that's the Lurcher logic though.


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> See with Zand he is interested in toys if he can chase them.
> 
> Throw a tennis ball?
> Zand: OMGIT'SMOVINGIMUSTCATCH!!!!!
> It stops moving.
> Zand: Oh. Well. It's boring now.\


Gypsy doesn't even do that. She watches it, looks at me as if to say "I'm not an idiot - I know it's not alive and I can't kill it."

Cheeky mare.


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## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Gypsy doesn't even do that. She watches it, looks at me as if to say "I'm not an idiot - I know it's not alive and I can't kill it."
> 
> Cheeky mare.


Did I ever tell you about that absolutely loony greyhound at the hydrotherapy pool?

The owner had several dogs in training and used to bring them once a week all the way up to here for swimming every week.

This particular dog was a prolific winner and I don't think I've ever seen a dog more bonkers for a tennis ball in a swmming pool.


----------



## Nicki85

L/C said:


> Not interested in squeakers. No interest in any sort of ball at all. Doesn't really like the rabbit skin tug toy that I have or the fluggie type thing. Will sustain interest in a toy tied to a lunge whip for a little while but gets bored quickly. :lol:
> 
> She's got one of these that she likes but she picks it up - throws it once and then has mad zoomies and forgets about it. :lol:
> 
> I've got a couple of the tug-e-nuff rabbit skin tugs but no luck so far. I've tried the making it special routine (from this article) but she just thought I was a bit mad. I also tried the boiling in stock method but that didn't work either...
> 
> These things are sent to try us. :tongue_smilie:


Rusty doesn't like the rabbit skin ones either :001_rolleyes: the extra fluffy sheep and faux fur are a hit tho :biggrin5: What about the one on the long handle so you can run and let it follow behind you (or just tie it to your lead)?


----------



## GingerRogers

Lurcherlad said:


> Wish people would avoid me when my very friendly dog is jumping around like a demented kangaroo with me hanging on for dear life and nearly ending up on my ar*e! Instead, this morning one chap let his dog charge around mine, running up and then running off then said "ha, ha, my dog has worked out that yours can't reach him and is having a right old game" :rolleyes5::angry: To which I replied "yes, but unfortunately, it's my dog that suffers, because he can't get away and just gets more wound up!". He gave an embarassed "sorry" then walked off THANK GOD! Moron!!!!!
> 
> So, to go back to your question ..... I am working on recall, so my lurcher can go off-lead more often, and calming him down when other dogs are charging about!


Well done, thats what we call the inner hag-lad (but we might have to come up with another word for you )

We don't have much luck with toys here, when she feels like it she sits and gurgles at you till you play but she is quite possessive and it gets a bit tiring . Tug she gets too carried away with and the stop start gets boring for her if I try to calm her down. Throw only works if she is really up for it but she doesn't retrieve as such, she will run after it pick it up and run back to a completely different place. She does *really *like playing with OH's hands though  they had red welts all over them the other day, but none of these things work if she isn't up for it and so far none of them work outside and I can't take his hands with me. So I get worn out and look like a nut job and she does pretty much what some have you have said and gives me a 'Whatever! You loon' look


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Did I ever tell you about that absolutely loony greyhound at the hydrotherapy pool?
> 
> The owner had several dogs in training and used to bring them once a week all the way up to here for swimming every week.
> 
> This particular dog was a prolific winner and I don't think I've ever seen a dog more bonkers for a tennis ball in a swmming pool.


You're just teasing me now aren't you? :tongue_smilie:

Ely is easy - he loves his toys. He loves to play with me and he loves to hype himself up and hang off my arms. He's so much more responsive when we're interacting like that, it's lovely.

Madam loves to train and is very hyped up by free shaping sessions and the clicker. But I can't think of a way to incorporate that into training for things like emergency stop, chase recall and fun agility. Hmm...

Going to give some of the toys that Nicki recomended a go and use them in a game of chase with me. She likes the toy/lunge whip combo but when she engages with it she becomes so focused on it that she seems to forget that I'm on the other end so I really want something that involves me more. Chase with a long flapping toy might work.


----------



## Lurcherlad

LurcherOwner said:


> GOOD GOD ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T OWN MY LURCHER!?!
> 
> Either way, donkey boy was kinda good this morning, walked 99% brilliantly (a couple tugs here and there) but then an offlead Jack russel came pelting towards us. It charged towards us, mine shot backwards and didn't know which way to go, (jumped around to avoid it or play I don't know) and the owner's son ran towards us, grabbed the JRT, asked if either of us were hurt. And he apologized and offered to pay vet bills if they're needed! (No damage had been done.) No-one's ever apologized before!! (The dog is his elderly mum's who lives near me.)
> 
> Sadly though I have damaged my bad knee again, as hobbling home took a very long time. I think the wound has opened again. :thumbdown: (Sorry TMI)


They do sound very similar 

I'm sure it's very comical to others and funny to watch, but when you have bent down to pick up a poo and someone lets their dog come charging, then calls it back, my lurcher then takes off after it (all behind my back) spins me round, pulls me over and I end up on my ar*e in a dewy wet field, I fail to see the funny side :crazy:

Especially as, on this occasion, we were all packed and ready to go off on holiday and just popped into fields for dog to do his business before the journey AND IT HURT MY BUM !!!:biggrin5:


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Well done, thats what we call the inner hag-lad (but we might have to come up with another word for you )
> 
> We don't have much luck with toys here, when she feels like it she sits and gurgles at you till you play but she is quite possessive and it gets a bit tiring . Tug she gets too carried away with and the stop start gets boring for her if I try to calm her down. Throw only works if she is really up for it but she doesn't retrieve as such, she will run after it pick it up and run back to a completely different place. She does *really *like playing with OH's hands though  they had red welts all over them the other day, but none of these things work if she isn't up for it and so far none of them work outside and I can't take his hands with me. So I get worn out and look like a nut job and she does pretty much what some have you have said and gives me a 'Whatever! You loon' look


I think lurcherlad is in fact a lady. I think the lurcher itself is a lad.
DON'T HOLD ME TO IT THOUGH. (Apologies if I'm wrong)

Gonna be confusing though with both a LO and a LL on this thread haha!!

Given Zander his first bowl of the Supadog lurcher food. He has wolfed it down.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> I think lurcherlad is in fact a lady. I think the lurcher itself is a lad.
> DON'T HOLD ME TO IT THOUGH. (Apologies if I'm wrong)
> 
> Gonna be confusing though with both a LO and a LL on this thread haha!!
> 
> Given Zander his first bowl of the Supadog lurcher food. He has wolfed it down.


OOh well apologies if its so . By the way though its not just lurchers people do this to when you are bent over picking up poo. I have taken to making sure my bag is already billowing and ready to go before I leave the house and then have to do a quick 360 scan one way then the other, make sure bag is secure on hand scan again, quick bend and a walk off with offending article in outstretched hand till my heart rate drops and I can tie it up.

And she always tries to pick a time when there is a dog on the way.


----------



## Guest

Lurcherlad said:


> They do sound very similar
> 
> *I'm sure it's very comical to others and funny to watch, but when you have bent down to pick up a poo and someone lets their dog come charging, then calls it back, my lurcher then takes off after it (all behind my back) spins me round, pulls me over and I end up on my ar*e in a dewy wet field, I fail to see the funny side :crazy:
> *
> Especially as, on this occasion, we were all packed and ready to go off on holiday and just popped into fields for dog to do his business before the journey AND IT HURT MY BUM !!!:biggrin5:


I did this with mine about a month or so back, alas I did injure my wrist then!
It does annoy me when others are like "Ohhh he only wants to play!" I know that!!! But I'd rather mine didn't have to bounce about like a blinkin rabbit!!

He's currently barking at the cat. He's playbowing and she won't play. 
Bark + Puffing hissing cat = LOUDER BARK and MORE PUFFING HISSING CAT.

Playbowing does not translate to cat language well. The cat has now been placed into the bedroom for some peace.! :crazy:


----------



## GingerRogers

I forgot, this morning, we walked past the house with the non existent cat that the ninja barked at in the middle of the night and got me all het up and antsy. The cat was there sitting on its doorstep licking its bum as it does - barely a sound  not sure which was more annoying the barking the other night or the fact that when its there she doesn't react  Tonight we go past again, no cat, just a pile of stones grrrruff!


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> Gonna be confusing though with both a LO and a LL on this thread haha!!


You forgot LC too.

Think we'll just have to keep trying with Spen and toys. He does love to chase and be chased with a game of tug thrown in so maybe I should start using that. It's just so difficult to run when you're obese and it's muddy and slippery.

I too get fed up of people just letting their dogs come charging up and try to initiate play while mines on leash and then laughing about it. If I knew I could get him back I'd start taking a leaf out of Phoolfs book and just let him off when it happens but chances are he'd just bugger off for a walk with them completely ignoring me


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> *You forgot LC too.*
> 
> Think we'll just have to keep trying with Spen and toys. He does love to chase and be chased with a game of tug thrown in so maybe I should start using that. It's just so difficult to run when you're obese and it's muddy and slippery.
> 
> I too get fed up of people just letting their dogs come charging up and try to initiate play while mines on leash and then laughing about it. If I knew I could get him back I'd start taking a leaf out of Phoolfs book and just let him off when it happens but chances are he'd just bugger off for a walk with them completely ignoring me


I have a */ * I'm special.


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## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> You forgot LC too.
> 
> Think we'll just have to keep trying with Spen and toys. He does love to chase and be chased with a game of tug thrown in so maybe I should start using that. It's just so difficult to run when you're obese and it's muddy and slippery.
> 
> I too get fed up of people just letting their dogs come charging up and try to initiate play while mines on leash and then laughing about it. I*f I knew I could get him back I'd start taking a leaf out of Phoolfs book and just let him off when it happens but chances are he'd just bugger off for a walk with them completely ignoring me *


OOh and LC! And all three own pointies/ pointie halflings!!

I hate though when Zander has zoomed off to play with another dog and I'm a huffing and a puffing to catch up and the other owner just WALKS on, so their dog follows and so does mine!!! It's like their not bothered they have a tag along!!! Last time he buggered off into the woods for half and hour!! 
Maybe I oughta attach a bell to him.


----------



## Lurcherlad

Yes, Lurcherlad's author is a lady  The lurcher is a boy. Sorry to confuse you! Didn't think it through when I picked a login name 

You certainly can't switch off when you walk a lurcher (one separated shoulder in first month, with a visit to casualty and arm in a sling for a week) 

Keeps you on your toes 

My lurcher is NOT cat friendly ............ he is VERY reactive and I am always looking out for them when walking on pavements and the local moggies don't come in my garden anymore


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## Guest

L/C said:


> I have a */ * I'm special.


Well you have FULL PURE BLOODED pointies.

We only have halflings!! :lol::lol::lol:


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## L/C

Lurcherlad said:


> Yes, Lurcherlad's author is a lady  The lurcher is a boy. Sorry to confuse you! Didn't think it through when I picked a login name
> 
> You certainly can't switch off when you walk a lurcher (one separated shoulder in first month, with a visit to casualty and arm in a sling for a week)
> 
> Keeps you on your toes
> 
> *My lurcher is NOT cat friendly ............ he is VERY reactive and I am always looking out for them when walking on pavements and the local moggies don't come in my garden anymore *


I feel your pain. I have a confirmed killer (squirrels, rats, mice) and I've managed to keep her from the cats so far but next doors obese moggy still comes into our garden and on one memorable occasion, the house!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> There's nothing foolish about you Dogless....


:lol::lol::lol:. I may just get the courage to ask about agility yet. Maybe :crazy:. One of Kilo's relatives is the number one ranked US lure coursing RR, wish they did it for RRs here. I think...I'm not sure .

Just took Rudi out. Met someone I used to work with with their son - the little boy gave Rudi a treat and a stroke and then kept lurching forward, screaming in his face and leaping back. I had to tell him to stop, dad was oblivious. Rudi wasn't scared but was getting awfully excited . Would have been a nightmare for Kilo!

Then, the DA yellow lab ran across the field to come and have a go at him which is a shame  but he was unphased luckily THEN I saw two people I know with very friendly dogs and Rudi had his first proper offlead play with strange dogs...he was very happy and relaxed; if not a bit frustrated as he kept trying to chase them and of course couldn't keep up. He recalled away a few times :thumbup1: and then we walked the 5 minutes back with the lady I walk Kilo with with the weimie and Rudi walked nicely alongside :thumbup1:. The BW used to make mad leaps to try and play as a young puppy :crazy::crazy:. So, a very sociable day for Rudi .

Not walked the BW yet; we might be going out with Dizzy later so I'm waiting to see whether he's coming or whether we'll go on our own.


----------



## Guest

Lurcherlad said:


> Yes, Lurcherlad's author is a lady  The lurcher is a boy. Sorry to confuse you! Didn't think it through when I picked a login name
> 
> You certainly can't switch off when you walk a lurcher (one separated shoulder in first month, with a visit to casualty and arm in a sling for a week)
> 
> Keeps you on your toes
> 
> My lurcher is NOT cat friendly ............ he is VERY reactive and I am always looking out for them when walking on pavements and the local moggies don't come in my garden anymore


See mine is OVER friendly with my cats. I have three. One's a stray and has some OOMPH about her. The other two are pretty much sofa ornaments that purr. Either way he ROLLS all over the soft ones, and flops on them and everything! He just spends his whole time wanting them to play!

ETA Rudi sounds like a proper star!!


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## Dogless

Lurcherlad said:


> Yes, Lurcherlad's author is a lady  The lurcher is a boy. Sorry to confuse you! Didn't think it through when I picked a login name
> 
> You certainly can't switch off when you walk a lurcher (one separated shoulder in first month, with a visit to casualty and arm in a sling for a week)
> 
> Keeps you on your toes
> 
> My lurcher is NOT cat friendly ............ he is VERY reactive and I am always looking out for them when walking on pavements and the local moggies don't come in my garden anymore


Kilo can join the NOT cat friendly gang...in spades :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> *You're just teasing me now aren't you?* :tongue_smilie:
> 
> No he put all my collies to shame and there was a pretty big audience watching him....LOL
> 
> *Madam loves to train and is very hyped up by free shaping sessions and the clicker. But I can't think of a way to incorporate that into training for things like emergency stop, chase recall and fun agility. Hmm...*
> 
> We'll have to come up with a cunning plan..!!
> 
> *Going to give some of the toys that Nicki recomended a go and use them in a game of chase with me. She likes the toy/lunge whip combo but when she engages with it she becomes so focused on it that she seems to forget that I'm on the other end so I really want something that involves me more. Chase with a long flapping toy might work.*


Anything is worth a try. Go on you can do it....


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Well done, thats what we call the inner hag-lad (but we might have to come up with another word for you )
> 
> We don't have much luck with toys here, when she feels like it she sits and gurgles at you till you play but she is quite possessive and it gets a bit tiring . Tug she gets too carried away with and the stop start gets boring for her if I try to calm her down. Throw only works if she is really up for it but she doesn't retrieve as such, she will run after it pick it up and run back to a completely different place. *She does really like playing* *with OH's hands though  they had red welts all over them the other day, but none of these things work if she isn't up for it and so far none of them work outside and I can't take his hands with me.*


Why not, he's a man, he won't miss them....


----------



## Sarah1983

I dunno what Spen's like with cats. He's shown that he will chase them but I don't think there's any real malice in it and I think faced with one that didn't run he'd just want to play. Unlike Rupert who killed at least one cat and would have killed many more had he had his freedom.



> I hate though when Zander has zoomed off to play with another dog and I'm a huffing and a puffing to catch up and the other owner just WALKS on, so their dog follows and so does mine!!!


Yeah, that pisses me off too. I think some people just get so fed up of out of control dogs with no recall running up that they refuse to help even those clearly making an effort to get their dog back. In a way I can understand it but I've always tried to do what I can with people who are trying, even when I had Rupert who was anything but friendly. After all, you never know when you might need a little help catching a dog who's ignored a recall


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> I dunno what Spen's like with cats. He's shown that he will chase them but I don't think there's any real malice in it and I think faced with one that didn't run he'd just want to play. Unlike Rupert who killed at least one cat and would have killed many more had he had his freedom.
> 
> Yeah, that pisses me off too. I think some people just get so fed up of out of control dogs with no recall running up that they refuse to help even those clearly making an effort to get their dog back. In a way I can understand it but I've always tried to do what I can with people who are trying, even when I had Rupert who was anything but friendly. After all, you never know when you might need a little help catching a dog who's ignored a recall


I can understand it too, because when you do get an offlead dog who charges up to yours, it can be frustrating, but I would be MUCH happier to see the dog reunited with its owner then for me to wander off with it!!
It's like when Zander used to go off on his jaunts, absolutley NO-ONE would help me catch him. The common thinking seemed to be "He's your dog, he's your problem!!" 

His donkeyness has been biting his fur out again. 

He's also barking at EVERY. DAMN. THING.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I dunno what Spen's like with cats. He's shown that he will chase them but I don't think there's any real malice in it and I think faced with one that didn't run he'd just want to play. Unlike Rupert who killed at least one cat and would have killed many more had he had his freedom.
> 
> Yeah, that pisses me off too. I think some people just get so fed up of out of control dogs with no recall running up that they refuse to help even those clearly making an effort to get their dog back. In a way I can understand it but I've always tried to do what I can with people who are trying, even when I had Rupert who was anything but friendly. After all, you never know when you might need a little help catching a dog who's ignored a recall


I will try to help anyone but when the bulldog was hassling the other night Kilo was quite happy to be walking away. It was when I stopped to let the owners come and get him was when the drama occured; mind you - the owners didn't exactly hurry :crazy:. It's a hard one - I do always help as we've all had a dog do a runner  over to another and it's nice if the owner helps....apart from cases like the offlead lab that causes us dramas, as it happens repeatedly and I want to look after Kilo's best interests too.


----------



## Guest

Did I ever put pics up of Zand in his collar??

Well here's a couple of them. Not good ones though!!



















Here's his new fabbydabby crate!!










A cheeky cat who scared the HELL outta me when I went to drink my tea!










AND A PICTURE OF WHAT ITS NORMALLY LIKE WHEN TAKING PHOTO'S OF ZAND. :crazy:


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I will try to help anyone but when the bulldog was hassling the other night Kilo was quite happy to be walking away. It was when I stopped to let the owners come and get him was when the drama occured; mind you - the owners didn't exactly hurry :crazy:. It's a hard one - I do always help as we've all had a dog do a runner  over to another and it's nice if the owner helps....apart from cases like the offlead lab that causes us dramas, as it happens repeatedly and I want to look after Kilo's best interests too.


Oh I realise it's not always possible to help and I don't mean anyone should put their dog at risk to do so.


----------



## moonviolet

Not much to report from Tinker Towers today. Lovely walk this morning, as i need to work on *my* social skills:lol: I headed to one of the popular areas and was lucky to already know most of the people/dogs we bumped into. Tink had a lovely time in fact I had to temper her enthusiasm to ensure polite greetings  I think she interacted with 16 dogs today from a little pug to a beautiful boxer.

Quieter walk this evening so i did a bit of giddy cantering and some fun training bits. Still working on toy interest too, I got an almost convincing tug out of her earlier using a little pouch of treats velcroed around a rope of a ball on a rope toy.

She's flaked out in front of the fire now looking pretty content 

Zander's collar is lovely.


----------



## Thorne

Oh goodness, not sure I can keep up with everyone tonight! Looks like good progress as a whole, some interesting reads about toy motivation  
So many pointy dogs on here all of a sudden!

Alas, no more progress with Mr. S and Mrs. Beez today, another Blue Cross day (I love my time there but oh it's hard to get up while it's dark!). Was mostly in the cattery today but did take Paddy out for a walk and had garden time with him and Ollie. They've both decided that a giant tennis ball on a rope is the BEST TOY EVER so used that as my high-value toy of the day. Worked on wait, leave it, take it with both boys and let them have a general play and sprint around. 
I love these two! It's a good job I'm in no position to have another dog because I'd be sorely tempted to take one home with me  When I first met him I thought there was no danger of me falling for Paddy; too bouncy! Too mouthy! Too much energy! But he's brilliant 

Ollie has new, handsome photos  Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre
And Baker's puppy is up for homing: Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre

The dogs will have to have a couple of short walks tomorrow instead of my usual thursday long walk; I need to be home for most of tomorrow to look after mum as she's had a kidney stone removed today (after a long long wait!) so will be a bit delicate for a few days.
Scooter will be pleased, he loves it when someone's having a duvet day because he sits next to them being fussed all day


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh I realise it's not always possible to help and I don't mean anyone should put their dog at risk to do so.


I know you didn't; I was sort of thinking aloud really . Sometimes I'm torn between wanting to walk back to an owner so that they can get their dog back or stopping and watching Kilo get more and more stressed or walking away. Offlead not bad at all and generally Kilo's happy to play or just ignore, it's the offlead dogs approaching us onlead which gives me the dilemma!!


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## foxyrockmeister

Not much to report here today, had a lovely muddy walk in the forest - offlead zoomies the entire time, didn't see another soul, didn't do any form of training either 

Been trying out my new toy, who'd have thought dehydrating some liver, pigs skin and sprats would be so exciting!!

Oh and been looking at map to choose this weekends resolution walk..... spotted a place called "Tinkers hole" :lol: :lol: thought of you MV, we will definitely investigate it at some point if not this weekend and let you know what it's like


----------



## Guest

Thorne said:


> Oh goodness, not sure I can keep up with everyone tonight! Looks like good progress as a whole, some interesting reads about toy motivation
> So many pointy dogs on here all of a sudden!
> 
> Alas, no more progress with Mr. S and Mrs. Beez today, another Blue Cross day (I love my time there but oh it's hard to get up while it's dark!). Was mostly in the cattery today but did take Paddy out for a walk and had garden time with him and Ollie. They've both decided that a giant tennis ball on a rope is the BEST TOY EVER so used that as my high-value toy of the day. Worked on wait, leave it, take it with both boys and let them have a general play and sprint around.
> I love these two! It's a good job I'm in no position to have another dog because I'd be sorely tempted to take one home with me  When I first met him I thought there was no danger of me falling for Paddy; too bouncy! Too mouthy! Too much energy! But he's brilliant
> 
> Ollie has new, handsome photos  Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre
> And Baker's puppy is up for homing: Blue Cross dogs- Rehome a dog, puppies- Rescue centre
> 
> The dogs will have to have a couple of short walks tomorrow instead of my usual thursday long walk; I need to be home for most of tomorrow to look after mum as she's had a kidney stone removed today (after a long long wait!) so will be a bit delicate for a few days.
> Scooter will be pleased, he loves it when someone's having a duvet day because he sits next to them being fussed all day


Those two are absolutley GORGEOUS!!! Loverly!!

:wub:


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## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Oh and been looking at map to choose this weekends resolution walk..... spotted a place called "*Tinkers hole"* :lol: :lol: thought of you MV, we will definitely investigate it at some point if not this weekend and let you know what it's like


Do be careful there have been times it's been hazardous to health to be in the vicinity :lol:


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## sailor

Toppa is being very good here 

Toilet training is going from strength to strength, no accidents at all today!
Nipping is very easily managed and either he is doing it less, or I don't notice it as much as he is nipping soo very gently 
altho he did jump up at my hand, and bite my finger eariler today ... I was talking to my Daughter and Toppa really wanted my attention and that is how he decided it was best to get my attention :nono:
Humping, I have not been humped for mega ages, my daughter has not been humped for mega ages... my Son has been humped occasional and my Sons friend who calls round in the morning gets humped at the slightlest oppotunity.
Feeding, still love at first sight when he sees a bin  boiled up kibble is very boring for him and he is loving his bacon filled kong!
I think with him teething at the moment he is just abit sensitive over what he is putting in his mouth.

I think all the above are no longer 'puppy problems' so shall no longer mention these ... Toppa has LEVELED UP  

Socialising! Well since walking him on 2 school runs a day... this is about 2 hours worth of mingling along busy paths and through parks. He seems to be barking less at people and dogs. I no longer say leave it, but instead say THIS WAY... and keep walking at a faster pace. Some people he will ignore completely, others will get stared at and a few will get either a snort or a bark. There doesn't seem to be a certain type of person that he barks at, it is very random when he does it. 
He has met a few dogs and he seems steady, he will have a good sniff if they stand still and if they are charging about he wants to join in with them :w00t:

Home alone... might aswell add this now as I am having to leave Toppa home alone on a few occasions, this is routinely twice a week for my voluntary job and weekly shop. It is also weekdays of 1 hour while I walk my friends dog.
So far he seems to be taking it in his stride and I can not see any destruction, not been any puddles/poops etc. What I want to start doing is leaving Toppa to have free roam of the kitchen/hallway/my bedroom when I am out.
He is not crated at all and infact he doesn't have a bed, but uses my kitchen chairs!
He is either not being destructive because he has a sensitive mouth from teething, or is just geniunely not much of a chewer... either way, I want to take advantage of this and attempt to trust him with abit of free range.

Today he was left for an hour while I walked Ice and there was no problems!
Later in the day I went out for an hour again and decided to leave him free roam of three rooms and again, apart from chewing the corner of a letter... everything was fine!

( I shall now try to back track and catch up onm how everyone else is doing  )


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## Dogless

Toppa deserves a Platinum Star . What a good boy!


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## foxyrockmeister

Sailor - Every time I read one of your posts about Toppa I get all goofey and happy  What a little star! It's just so lovely to think how much better his life is now and he's obviously showing you his gratitude by being such a good little boy :thumbup:


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## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Sailor - Every time I read one of your posts about Toppa I get all goofey and happy  What a little star! It's just so lovely to think how much better his life is now and he's obviously showing you his gratitude by being such a good little boy :thumbup:


 either this ^ or he thinks he's still on probation 

He's doing great Sailor really landed on his paws with you.


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## GingerRogers

foxyrockmeister said:


> Sailor - Every time I read one of your posts about Toppa I get all goofey and happy  What a little star! It's just so lovely to think how much better his life is now and he's obviously showing you his gratitude by being such a good little boy :thumbup:


Me too. He is a super star.
Thorne look after your mum. With Scooters help 
Zanders collar is lovely
Mv love the giddy cantering you do. Funny mind images.

Had roast chicken for tea (humans ) how come she can manage greasy chicken skin. nom nom nom nom. but not sprats. First time roast for.her and she loved.the tit bits.


----------



## Sarah1983

I think we may have a little bit of jealousy going on here. Spencer never wants up on the sofa. He'll occasionally come up if invited but never asks and certainly never forces himself onto your lap. Yet tonight he managed to squeeze his way into a 2 inch gap and drape himself over me and the laptop. Hubby came to my rescue and removed the laptop then took photos. Excuse the fact the back of the sofa is a complete mess, it's basically the dumping ground for anything Rupert takes a fancy to, he's a bigger thief than the Spendog is!

Oh, and excuse my fat self in my pyjama bottoms 

First we had this









But it soon became this









And in other news Rupert has taken a real liking to the stag bar. He's spent a good hour or two each day chewing on it. Will have to suggest one to his owners as from what they've said they struggle to find treats he can have that don't upset his tummy.


----------



## Izzysmummy

F+F sounds like you had a nice morning walk except for the unplanned swim by Frank. Difficult decision on spaying Bella but it sounds like it'll be the best thing to keep the house nice and harmonious, fingers crossed her season finishes soon.

Dogless, sounds like a brilliant socialisation walk with Rudi this morning, what a confident little fella he is, shame about the yellow lab this afternoon but sounds as if it didnt bother him too much! Bless him! It'll not be long before he can easily keep up with them all! The game with Kilo sounds great! I'm trying to get Izzy more interested in playing tug as I think it would be useful for our agility training but shes just not interested if it's not a ball.

LO I hope your knee gets better soon!

Moonviolet sounds like a lovely sociable day for you and Miss Tink!

Thorne sounds like the rescue dogs are coming on well! I hope your Mums ok and back to normal soon!

FRM was there no poofume for Lily to sample today? Looking forward to more weekend walk pics!

Sailor, sounds like Toppa has done great with the toilet training and the humping! Seems he's making great progress with the socialisation, just out of interest why do you think he barks, is he nervous or is it more a reaction to the movement? Also sounds like he's doing well being left at home alone although coming home to him perched on top the the microwave! Eeek! 

We started back at training tonight, Izzy had a little bark as we were waiting to go in but did really well in class, she was a little distracted and her first recall was terrible, came to me but continued past to get to her Dad!  but I called her again and she came bounding over! We've been moved up to the next class too which will mean its not such a rush after work, the class after us only had one person in it so we were invited to stay for the next class and she seemed to focus a lot more, did good off-lead heel work, a brill recall, some recall to heels. Our only problem is her downs, she'll do it but doesn't like lying on the hard floor (my little princess prefers a cushion )!

Anyways it was nice to be back in the normal routine!

Night everyone!


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## moonviolet

Awww Spen wants to know he's still your favourite :001_wub::001_wub:


----------



## Werehorse

OMG, I'm sorry I can't keep up today. 

Had a fabulous walk today though. They boys were very good - quite pully on leads though which is really hard to manage as walking with a friend rather than OH  Think I'm just not going to worry about it on harnesses and sort myself out to give it a real go on the collars. (I just took Oscar out on just his collar and he was perfect and I barely asked him, he just did it. ) More silky leashes for us!

OH was stressed about the house being messy so decided not to come to training to night in favour of cleaning the house.  :lol: Not complaining! So Oscar stayed home to help clean the house and me and Hugo went training.

It was good, he was a little off the boil but as soon as we walked out after class he did a wee and a poo so he was probably a little distracted. It was a very talkie/theory class - I think trainer is going to start pushing us a bit... we were working on getting straight sits at heel and in front for example and trying to get faster run outs on sendaways... Sendaways are still bugging me a bit.

I have two very tired doggies this evening! And another fell walk planned for tomorrow!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> OMG, I'm sorry I can't keep up today.
> 
> Had a fabulous walk today though. They boys were very good - quite pully on leads though which is really hard to manage as walking with a friend rather than OH  Think I'm just not going to worry about it on harnesses and sort myself out to give it a real go on the collars. (I just took Oscar out on just his collar and he was perfect and I barely asked him, he just did it. ) More silky leashes for us!
> 
> OH was stressed about the house being messy so decided not to come to training to night in favour of cleaning the house.  :lol: Not complaining! So Oscar stayed home to help clean the house and me and Hugo went training.
> 
> It was good, he was a little off the boil but as soon as we walked out after class he did a wee and a poo so he was probably a little distracted. It was a very talkie/theory class - I think trainer is going to start pushing *us a bit... we were working on getting straight sits at heel and in front for example and trying to get faster run outs on sendaways... Sendaways are still bugging me a bit.*
> 
> I have two very tired doggies this evening! And another fell walk planned for tomorrow!


Achieving straight sits in the present in relatively easy. Go back to the chair (like you did for retrieve) and make a channel. Throw tit-bits in every direction until Hugo begins to understand about positioning his bum, and then gradually bring your outstretched legs closer to the chair. Once you've both got it, then do the same leaning against a wall. Remember to get the hand touch (both hands together).

I'll explain sits to heel later as I'm about to take Holly for her vaccs and I want my lovely vet (?!!) to listen to Quiver's heart again and have a look at the largish lump on her hind leg. Not that's there much he can do as she's too old for GA.


----------



## Dogless

Hope the vets goes well Twiggy and there isn't any bad news about Quiver.

Hectic morning this morning - up early, walked Rudi, then walked Kilo; both behaved very nicely for me. Kilo walked totally relaxed all the way through the crowd of kids at the bus stop (I go that way as there's a huge car park and big area of grass behind it, so loads of room if he looks anxious) the same as he did the other day with Rudi - the kids were saying "Look at the dog - it's so cold today even he's wearing a fleece!!" . So pleased.

Then...got home, scraped the ice off the car and took Rudi to school. He was a little star for me . Then, PAH as it's near school to weigh him and get some tripe. No tripe  but he weighed 22.5kg  :crazy:. And...a new coat :glare:. The one that I got from Zooplus that drowned him just a fortnight or so ago now doesn't fit :crazy:. He hasn't had it on for a fortnight-ish as it's been so mild - put it on today and I can get the waist and chest straps to _just_ about do up...but it looked like a turtle's shell or something, only covered halfway down his sides. So, need to sell that :crazy:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hope the vets goes well Twiggy and there isn't any bad news about Quiver.
> 
> Hectic morning this morning - up early, walked Rudi, then walked Kilo; both behaved very nicely for me. Kilo walked totally relaxed all the way through the crowd of kids at the bus stop (I go that way as there's a huge car park and big area of grass behind it, so loads of room if he looks anxious) the same as he did the other day with Rudi - the kids were saying "Look at the dog - it's so cold today even he's wearing a fleece!!" . So pleased.
> 
> Then...got home, scraped the ice off the car and took Rudi to school. He was a little star for me . Then, PAH as it's near school to weigh him and get some tripe. No tripe  but he weighed 22.5kg  :crazy:. And...a new coat :glare:. The one that I got from Zooplus that drowned him just a fortnight or so ago now doesn't fit :crazy:. He hasn't had it on for a fortnight-ish as it's been so mild - put it on today and I can get the waist and chest straps to _just_ about do up...but it looked like a turtle's shell or something, only covered halfway down his sides. So, need to sell that :crazy:.


Really pleased Kilo seems to be more relaxed again - I don't suppose we'll ever know what all that was about.

My vet, Marwen, commented on what wonderful condition Holly is in.

As regards Quiver - hmmmm. As he rightly said we have three option. 1. to just measure it from time to time and leave well alone 2. Fine needle aspertion (no way, I'm not doing that) 3. Operate and remove.
He said he can't do it with a local so it would mean a GA. He had another listen to her heart and said she is fit and well and in excellent condition for her age. I'm afraid he's putting the ball in my court although he did say it some respects he'd be inclined to leave it, but if it grows much more it may affect her joint....!! I don't know. I'll have to think about it especially as she's now 14.1/2 yrs old.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Really pleased Kilo seems to be more relaxed again - I don't suppose we'll ever know what all that was about.
> 
> My vet, Marwen, commented on what wonderful condition Holly is in.
> 
> As regards Quiver - hmmmm. As he rightly said we have three option. 1. to just measure it from time to time and leave well alone 2. Fine needle aspertion (no way, I'm not doing that) 3. Operate and remove.
> He said he can't do it with a local so it would mean a GA. He had another listen to her heart and said she is fit and well and in excellent condition for her age. I'm afraid he's putting the ball in my court although he did say it some respects he'd be inclined to leave it, but if it grows much more it may affect her joint....!! I don't know. I'll have to think about it especially as she's now 14.1/2 yrs old.


Definitely something to be slept on and mulled over isn't it; in some respects it's easier for the vet to make a decision for you in some situations.

No idea what was up with Kilo; he still leaves the house up on his toes and that carries on until the corner of the street where he starts dancing like a dressage pony again until he sees it's all clear and relaxes. The dog that always runs up to us lives on that street and we've seen (and evaded) it quite a lot over the last week or so, maybe that explains that part? I don't suppose I'll ever know what the matter was!


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## Sarah1983

I could bloody kill him! Today Spencer went haring up to a family with 2 children, one of which is frightened of dogs. They were just coming out of their block as I was picking up after Spen and he just legged it towards them. They got the little one who's frightened inside and the door shut before he reached them but he was obviously upset. I'm afraid poo and bag just got dropped as I went charging after Spen to grab him. He got leashed and put in a down stay while I apologised. Once I finally got hold of him anyway. We've seen them countless times while I've been out with Spen and he has never bothered with them before. I usually call him to me and put him in a stay until they've gone coz I know the kid is scared of dogs but today he just took off. He didn't actually go right up to the kid who was still outside, just stopped a few feet away, leaped into the air and then did zoomies with the poo bag I'd dropped. I feel terrible but all I can do now is make sure it doesn't happen again.

I'm afraid I was far from sweetness and light when I caught him. I didn't shout at him or punish him as such but it was clear he knew I was angry with him.


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## Dogless

Oh no Spendog :mad2::mad2:. Wonder what made them interesting this time and not all the others?


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Oh no Spendog :mad2::mad2:. Wonder what made them interesting this time and not all the others?


God knows. Maybe the fact he'd just had a poo, he does sometimes get silly after one and after charging up to them he got the zoomies.


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## catz4m8z

Oh dear, silly Spencer!! Probably just having a funny 5 minutes...
I hope Quiver is alright, the thought of surgery always scares me too.
and I was feeling so chuffed that Alfred Ratpuppy the 4th was 1.5kgs...til I saw how much Rudi weighed!!LOL:lol:
We had an ok walk this morning. Alfie was abit cold and wet so we didnt practise many recalls (he mooched along right under me feet most of the time!). Having trouble finding anybody out and about to socialise with though, I even went earlier today hoping to catch more people! We did meet an elderly terrier and Alf wasnt bothered about saying hello, but wasnt scared either and frankly Id rather he was polite but not over friendly given his size so Im ok with that.

The MA had a barkathon and showed me up on the way to the park though! Once they get going its hard to stop them and the annoying thing is they always have a reason for it (its just not always a logical one!). Like today they barked at a Boxer that was lunging and straining on the lead (MA thinks-dont trust owner to hold it and it looks like it might hurt us if it jumps on us BARK, BARK!!), the second one was 2 Rotties and typical MA reasoning (MA thinks- big dogs suddenly appear from behind wall! I dont know what they want but they were clearly hiding and up to no good!!BARK, BARK!!).:lol:
I would think they were incorrigable except we then passed a calm on lead collie and they walked past without a second glance!!


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## moonviolet

Twiggy I hope measuring shows no change, it's horrible having to decide these things.

15 Alfies to a Rudi!!!! :lol: Sounds like both are doing very well.

Glad Kilo is a bit better.


Oh Spen dog. you were doing so well and getting cuddles and everything. 

Was really quiet when we finished our morning walk today so i thought it was a good time to knuckle down and tackle the bogey barrier. So picture me running, stopping, walking, side skipping until I little miss hyper vigilance decided it was probably better to humour the mad woman if we were ever goign to go home for a lunchtime snack :lol: and wlak beautifully giving me full attention for those 50 yards.  I wonder how many repeats thats going to need.


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I could bloody kill him! Today Spencer went haring up to a family with 2 children, one of which is frightened of dogs. They were just coming out of their block as I was picking up after Spen and he just legged it towards them. They got the little one who's frightened inside and the door shut before he reached them but he was obviously upset. I'm afraid poo and bag just got dropped as I went charging after Spen to grab him. He got leashed and put in a down stay while I apologised. Once I finally got hold of him anyway. We've seen them countless times while I've been out with Spen and he has never bothered with them before. I usually call him to me and put him in a stay until they've gone coz I know the kid is scared of dogs but today he just took off. He didn't actually go right up to the kid who was still outside, just stopped a few feet away, leaped into the air and then did zoomies with the poo bag I'd dropped. I feel terrible but all I can do now is make sure it doesn't happen again.
> 
> I'm afraid I was far from sweetness and light when I caught him. I didn't shout at him or punish him as such but it was clear he knew I was angry with him.


Yes you could throttle them at times like that.....naughty Spen.


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## Dogless

mv - if Miss Tinks has the sense of humour I think she has she'll have you doing hundreds of repeats  :crazy:.

Not much to report this evening; an hour or so's run with Kilo and a quick potter walk with Rudi. School later for the BW .


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Really pleased Kilo seems to be more relaxed again - I don't suppose we'll ever know what all that was about.
> 
> My vet, Marwen, commented on what wonderful condition Holly is in.
> 
> As regards Quiver - hmmmm. As he rightly said we have three option. 1. to just measure it from time to time and leave well alone 2. Fine needle aspertion (no way, I'm not doing that) 3. Operate and remove.
> He said he can't do it with a local so it would mean a GA. He had another listen to her heart and said she is fit and well and in excellent condition for her age. I'm afraid he's putting the ball in my court although he did say it some respects he'd be inclined to leave it, but if it grows much more it may affect her joint....!! I don't know. I'll have to think about it especially as she's now 14.1/2 yrs old.


Twiggy, don't know if this will help or not but Rory had lumps and bumps, the first appeared on his side, just in front of his right hip, when he was around 8, the vet he saw about just happened to be an oncologist and he didn't think it was nasty, thought it was a fatty lump of the type labs are often prone to (he was a collie cross) Rory was a stressy dog and the vet didn't think he would cope very well with the GA needed for even a biopsy. We chose to leave it and see what happened with the proviso if it ever started to affect him then we would think again. That lump grew somewhat over the years and reduced and grew again, but never appeared to cause any problems and affectionately became known as his tennis ball. Towards the end of his life it was bigger sort of handball sized. He lived with it never ever causing a problem till he was 16.

Around 13 yrs he developed a lump on his rear left knee(?) by now we had given up on vets, (he was prone to trying to eat them  and they had refuse to treat him without tethers, sedation and muzzles and we felt that was a bit too much trauma for an old boy) so we again decided to leave it and see. He developed another on the same leg and one on the right. They grew quite alarmingly to start with then slowed down, speeding up again around autumn of 2011. You could see them wobbling when he walked (goose egg size) and they were definitely 'part' of the decision to have him PTS as they had got so big they were affecting the joint but this was 3 years on from when they first appeared. Of course who knows if Quivers are similar but just to let you know that leaving them and keeping a good eye on them could be a viable option for a a dog of that age and may not affect her at all for another couple of years, and not drastically even then.

BTW people  (OH included) kept suggesting sticking a pin in them and squeezing as they seemed fluid filled, my response was 'Go ahead if you know what you are doing but no way in the house' :glare:


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy, don't know if this will help or not but Rory had lumps and bumps, the first appeared on his side, just in front of his right hip, when he was around 8, the vet he saw about just happened to be an oncologist and he didn't think it was nasty, thought it was a fatty lump of the type labs are often prone to (he was a collie cross) Rory was a stressy dog and the vet didn't think he would cope very well with the GA needed for even a biopsy. We chose to leave it and see what happened with the proviso if it ever started to affect him then we would think again. That lump grew somewhat over the years and reduced and grew again, but never appeared to cause any problems and affectionately became known as his tennis ball. Towards the end of his life it was bigger sort of handball sized. He lived with it never ever causing a problem till he was 16.
> 
> Around 13 yrs he developed a lump on his rear left knee(?) by now we had given up on vets, (he was prone to trying to eat them  and they had refuse to treat him without tethers, sedation and muzzles and we felt that was a bit too much trauma for an old boy) so we again decided to leave it and see. He developed another on the same leg and one on the right. They grew quite alarmingly to start with then slowed down, speeding up again around autumn of 2011. You could see them wobbling when he walked (goose egg size) and they were definitely 'part' of the decision to have him PTS as they had got so big they were affecting the joint but this was 3 years on from when they first appeared. Of course who knows if Quivers are similar but just to let you know that leaving them and keeping a good eye on them could be a viable option for a a dog of that age and may not affect her at all for another couple of years, and not drastically even then.
> 
> BTW people  (OH included) kept suggesting sticking a pin in them and squeezing as they seemed fluid filled, my response was 'Go ahead if you know what you are doing but no way in the house' :glare:


Thanks for that...

Both the vet and I think it's probably a lipoma (fatty lump) and she does have others but it's where it's situated that could cause a problem with her knee joint.

My old vet was dead against fine needle aspersions and was very much for leaving well alone.

I'll just keep an eye on it for now and hope it doesn't get any bigger.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah loving jealous spen pictures  not loving naughty charging spen : Ginge has her charges before poos, I keep forgetting she does it and walk along going 'oh FGS whats got into you, oh! That!' 

Werehorse can your OH give mine some tips on house cleaning please  Glad you enjoyed your walk and loved the pictures, Oscar does charging at the camera very well, he looks a little bundle of muscles 

Dogless glad Kilo seems to have calmed down somewhat lets hope it continues 

MV I so wish to be a fly on the wall on your walks, I want to find some of that motivation, I need to to get any attention from the ginger one 

Had a rubbish walk this morning . Hating living here, I don't really I love the area, its just our estate has far too many dogs and it doesn't matter when you time it - very early/late then other unsociable ones come out to play, before 9am the workers, after 9 the ones avoiding the workers. Middle of the afternoon isn't too bad but disrupts the work.

This morning we came across 2 labs, then a BT, then another lab, then the minefield of soggy dog and the little yapsters, then a non existent GR  a choc lab, a hidden but very present GSD  All these = one stressed out little doggy by the time we get home only for a cat to jump out at us and then be confronted with our neighbours knackered collie just as we are trying to do some watch me outside the house - phew.

This afternoon was much better as it was cold and foggy so the beach was all ours  - was feeling so much more relaxed till I got back to the car. I park near the lifeboat station which was being manned, fair enough its a bad night and one of the lads was standing right next to the car park staring at his phone, mmm, why, scan for the dog, there it is over there, lets leg it we might make, nearly to safety and over it runs, barkity barkity, 'Ooh, theres a grumpy doggy, mines always grumpy on her lead!' 'Well keep it under control then' I didn't shout 

I know the bloke and hes ok just clearly clueless, BUT I also know his dog is a very nervous thing as well, thankfully I guess, as she's a lovely lickle JRT, Toppa lookalikey actually, and as we know Ginge doesn't do other terriers rushing up to her, so she hid behind his legs. Gah, I don't like today.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Thanks for that...
> 
> Both the vet and I think it's probably a *lipoma *(fatty lump) and she does have others but it's where it's situated that could cause a problem with her knee joint.
> 
> My old vet was dead against fine needle aspersions and was very much for leaving well alone.
> 
> I'll just keep an eye on it for now and hope it doesn't get any bigger.


Thats the word, couldn't think of it  Rozzas certainly did affect him but it was eventually, the biggest was literally hanging off the joint at the back and another to the side, tried to find some pics which show their position but couldn't.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> *mv - if Miss Tinks has the sense of humour I think she has she'll have you doing hundreds of repeats  :crazy:.*
> Not much to report this evening; an hour or so's run with Kilo and a quick potter walk with Rudi. School later for the BW .


I fear you may be correct.

THis evenings walk was great if you take into account that Tink jsut stood still and thought of england when we were charged down by a pair of GSP's in the half light. WHos' owners whistled , whistled whistled ad naseum until they had *walked* to where we were, by which time bored of statue Tink they were bouncing all over me. apparently "they are a bit hyped up this evening " I could hug my inner hag, this was her calm cutting reply..... " you don't say?" 
Had the word sorry been uttered i would have leashed the hag.

We carried on our way. within 30 seconds they were whistling again. I dont' know who their victim was this time , but not us. Once is a mistake, twice....

After a big shake and some ditch jumping ( by both of us :lol Tink was back on form 

Hope you have a good class 

GR when Tink was at her most reactive, I went down to one walk a day ( at the best time i could manage) and then did a training session and played games. I found it worked better for both of us, until we'd begun to get a handle on things.

Do you have anyone you can walk with, their dog doesn't need to be perfect , you'll often find walking together with other dogs they just chill out after a little initial fizz.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> I fear you may be correct.
> 
> GR when Tink was at her most reactive, I went down to one walk a day ( at the best time i could manage) and then did a training session and played games. I found it worked better for both of us, until we'd begun to get a handle on things.
> 
> Do you have anyone you can walk with, their dog doesn't need to be perfect , you'll often find walking together with other dogs they just chill out after a little initial fizz.


Well done Tink. Sorry you had to be a statue 

I have thought about one walk, I tried none at all for a while, but she really pesters (cute looks and gurgling get me every time ) and play and training doesn't seem to work, its odd, she loves to get outside but seems very nervous once she is there. As for friends not really they all work *for *people so don't have the freedom I have or they have reactive dogs too. The only one who is a possibility has a barker they have only just got on top of  so don't think they would be keen as they set each other off but I will have a good think. TBH though even with the OH I find I don't concentrate so much on scanning for 'threats' and if they appear I am not as comfortable doing what I know works, I ended up telling her to 'shuddup' the other day. I never do that and I know it doesn't work


----------



## moonviolet

I forgot to mention Bella ( tag along dog) and Rufus little terrier running out of their driveway crossing hte road aind giving us all hackels and noise until Bella realised it was us. So Tink statuted twice tonight.


Sorry i wasn't any Help GR. I feel yoru for you I really do. I wonder if there's anyone on the forum.


----------



## Dogless

GR - what a rubbish day . It helps Kilo walking with another dog or dogs massively, he relaxes - so I second mv's idea although realise that it's way easier said than done; I would LOVE more people to walk with.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy, I hope Quivers lump doesn't get any bigger.

Moonviolet- your morning walk sounded like fun, Miss Tink isn't daft is she.

Enjoy school Dogless.
Cant believe the weight differencr between Alfie and Rudi.

Naughty Spendog, they really like to show us up sometimes dont they.

Ginge- I feel your pain with the Ninja, Scruff is so much better now as long as I time treats right, which I dont always manage, but Evie is a nervous wreck. I haven't upped her socialisation because she can often go in to melt down at just passing one person. I'm lucky to have that choice though. I dont know what we'd do if we had to move somewhere busier.


----------



## kat&molly

We are also working on 'Scruff, wait please, its really not a good idea to try jumping into the car before I've even opened the door' :001_rolleyes:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- your morning walk sounded like fun, Miss Tink isn't daft is she.


I'm only glad the littler blighter can'r work a video camera :lol:

Just done a training session..... by royal command... she brought out her training mat laid on it and woo'd at me until I asked her if she'd like to do some training at which point she bounced, barked and wiggled.... I think this tranlates to " yes my good woman get the treats and get your rear in gear, chop chop! "


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I'm only glad the littler blighter can'r work a video camera :lol:
> 
> Just done a training session..... by royal command... she brought out her training mat laid on it and woo'd at me until I asked her if she'd like to do some training at which point she bounced, barked and wiggled.... I think this tranlates to " yes my good woman get the treats and get your rear in gear, chop chop! "


Bless her, she's polite  , I'm getting Moll's eyes in the back of my head, I better go and play hide and seek


----------



## Thorne

Have had another really tough day today, OH is still swinging between wanting to work things through and wanting to leave, I just want to see him again and talk to him properly. I love him so much but I'm mentally knackered.

Managed a little walk with the mutts, bit disappointed because Scooter barely lifted his nose off the ground while we were on the fields, didn't dare let him off in case he disappeared into the fog (had to drive my sister to Guides in it tonight, very very thick and I don't have front fog lights!).
Breeze got on the "dog-free" sofa to hide when I fetched the leads but enjoyed it when we were out. No shaking or worrying, not bothered about being passed by a double decker bus but did give a coach a wide berth because it made a swooshing sound  She put on her big wag on the fields and volunteered some lovely heelwork and eye contact.

Mum's doing really well, more active and with it than any of us expected - took her a long time to come round from the GA yesterday. Done a few little chores for her but she assures us the discomfort is relatively minor which is good.

Sorry to lower the mood again


----------



## Freddie and frank

I'm liking all posts. 

Gr, sorry to hear about your troubled walks. 

Well, I've spoken to the clicker trainer and all being well, we shall be starting classes in a couple of weeks. She only has up to 6 in a class so she's got to see who needs to move up to the next level and hopefully fit us in. 

One thing we'll be working on is pinching food. 
My sister was standing with a piece of toast in her hand and bella out of nowhere jumped up and pinched it.  I said NO in a loud voice but she's tried her luck a few times with our food. We are working on a 'leave it' which she can do with treats. 

Off to read through the last few days worth as I'm busy again with work and PF in the daytime just doesn't help.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy - poor Quiver, such a worry and a difficult decision. Give her a cuddle from us!

Dogless, well done with Rudi at school, hopefully Kilo does as well tonight! Can't believe Rudi's now bigger than Izzy!*

Sarah - naughty Spen, I wonder what got into him!*

Catz - well done Alfie, shame about the wet weather hampering socialisation though! Sure the MA put those big dogs in their place, :lol: that they shout at other dogs for doing things they deem unacceptable!

GR sorry that you have had a rubbish day. It's hard and we had a lot of them early last year but tomorrow is a new day, fingers crossed its more positive than today!

mv - I wish I'd been there to see miss Tink training you to behave like a loon for her! She's such a cutie bringing you her training mat!

Thorne - I hope your Ok, sounds like you have a lot on your plate today. Glad your Mum is doing well and recovering, fingers crossed you and OH can get things sorted!*

F+F - counter surfing must be a girly black lab thing. Izzy's nicked off with half my Dads sandwich before now and also helped herself to the meringue cream puddings on Christmas day!*

No news from us really, she had a nice game of fetch in the dark with Tarnus this morning then was good on her walk with me tonight! She's now just chilling in her bed! I gave her a nice massage earlier, I find if I give her a massage and get her all relaxed before she goes for a walk we both enjoy the walk more!


----------



## Werehorse

Sorry OH/ex-OH is being rubbish, Thorne. My advice, after dating a string of gits, is always to just walk away if they mess around. You're worth more than that and if he's all "I'm not sure blah blah blah" then he doesn't deserve you.  But I know it's hard.

Rudi is HUGE! OMG. :lol:

Naughty Spen-dog. 

Poor stressy Ginger - I still think she's getting better from what you write though GR.

Twiggy - I hope Quiver's lump isn't too serious. Personally at that age I err on the side of putting them through as little as possible, but it's tough. 

MV - I love the image of Tink getting you to train her. 

I think I've broken Oscar. We did 4 Wainwrights today (pictures appearing on the thread I made soon) and he just ran out of run and get really cold.  At one point towards the end when we were standing still he turned round and round and made himself a little nest in the bracken to lay in. I think I'm going to have to start carrying an extra layer for the dogs in my bag! Waterproof for Hugo for when it pees down so he doesn't get grumpy and a fleece for Oscar for when he's too tired to keep up the usual level of running. I kind of wanted to have some food to give him too but not sure what the doggie equivalent of Kendal Mint Cake is??  I don't think kibble would be a good idea while on the go.

He's alright really now - managed to get him warmed up by putting his equafleece jumper on, wrapping him in a blanket and sitting him on the front seat in the Landy with the heaters blowing on him. :lol:

They were both well behaved again though, apart from a bit of pulling (but less than yesterday because they were knackered!).


----------



## ballybee

Having a rant about Dan tonight 

Took the boys out for a toilet walk on the pier(had scouted it out and it looked empty), both were offlead. Suddenly a large, not so happy looking dog came charging over so i grabbed Tummel and called Dan in, Dan came but met the dog as well, all went fine...then the dog started having a go at Tummel(who bless him didn't even try to go for the dog, just stood behind me and took it).

Then a beagle puppy appeared, took one look at us and ran off yelping, and Dan followed it  I couldn't move as i was pinned into a corner by the angry dog and Dan completely ignored me, poor puppy ended up being practically lifted off it's feet by Dan while stuck in another corner.

Tummel has been almost perfect today, as many of you know we met up with Paula07 and Nicky and Tummel fell in love, he was amazing on the toilet walk, listening to me constantly...it was like he wasn't my dog!!!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - poor Oscar. I carry an extra layer for Kilo when we go up a mountain / hill as he gets extremely cold and miserable at times too and tries to curl up in heather / grass etc.

Thorne - tough times. Just blabber away on here, we're all listening.

All I'll say about school is that what Kilo did willingly he did really well :crazy:. Not the easiest night .

Had a bizarre conversation with a man at the start of class who asked if Kilo was a 'Razorback'. I said he was a Ridgeback but he said that they both looked practically identical and could I tell him the differences. I said that I was sorry but I'd never heard of a Razorback - he said they came from Africa and were used to hunt lions...so I said he was most likely thinking of a Ridgeback but he wasn't particularly convinced :crazy:. I have Googled and there is a Cambodian Razorback but I think the man calls Ridgebacks Razorbacks rather than being familiar with a rare Cambodian dog :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## Werehorse

At least Kilo has the excuse that his breed was developed in hotter climes! Oscar is supposed to be a bit more hardy. :lol:

I had to share this one with you all... You know when I talk about Hugo's "flying face licks"...










 I'm not kidding.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> At least Kilo has the excuse that his breed was developed in hotter climes! Oscar is supposed to be a bit more hardy. :lol:
> 
> I had to share this one with you all... You know when I talk about Hugo's "flying face licks"...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not kidding.


LOVE it!!! .


----------



## GingerRogers

I forgot i saw a dan the other day. Got quite excited as we nearly took on a spinone a few years ago and apart from.one we know.that lives here i have never seen another. He was lovely bit.older though but.not so big.
Thanks every one for your support. I am now being stared at  (now she gives me her focus) after rolling around on the floor for 20 mins after half a bottle of wine for relaxation purposes naturallyshe is being quite scary actually. The yellow eyes. ..........
Eta the rolling was for tug purposes just realised it sounded like the wine made me


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> At least Kilo has the excuse that his breed was developed in hotter climes! Oscar is supposed to be a bit more hardy. :lol:
> 
> I had to share this one with you all... You know when I talk about Hugo's "flying face licks"...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not kidding.


Argh I know Dogless just repeated that but it needs repeating often. I had wondered exactly what happened. Brilliant you can even see his tongue.:biggrin5:I might have to save that to make me laugh on those days :-D


----------



## Dogless

Oh  I forgot....*not one bark or single noise during the recalls* . How did I forget that? It's a breakthrough!!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> At least Kilo has the excuse that his breed was developed in hotter climes! Oscar is supposed to be a bit more hardy. :lol:
> 
> I had to share this one with you all... You know when I talk about Hugo's "flying face licks"...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not kidding.


Twiggy did that as a youngster and bit my nose a couple of times whilst we were in the ring supposedly doing heelwork....LOL It was the command 'left turn' that used to set her off....


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Have had another really tough day today, OH is still swinging between wanting to work things through and wanting to leave, I just want to see him again and talk to him properly. I love him so much but I'm mentally knackered.
> 
> Managed a little walk with the mutts, bit disappointed because Scooter barely lifted his nose off the ground while we were on the fields, didn't dare let him off in case he disappeared into the fog (had to drive my sister to Guides in it tonight, very very thick and I don't have front fog lights!).
> Breeze got on the "dog-free" sofa to hide when I fetched the leads but enjoyed it when we were out. No shaking or worrying, not bothered about being passed by a double decker bus but did give a coach a wide berth because it made a swooshing sound  She put on her big wag on the fields and volunteered some lovely heelwork and eye contact.
> 
> Mum's doing really well, more active and with it than any of us expected - took her a long time to come round from the GA yesterday. Done a few little chores for her but she assures us the discomfort is relatively minor which is good.
> 
> Sorry to lower the mood again


I'm so sorry you're having such a rotten time at the moment. Sending you a big, big hug.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I'm only glad the littler blighter can'r work a video camera :lol:
> 
> Just done a training session..... by royal command... she brought out her training mat laid on it and woo'd at me until I asked her if she'd like to do some training at which point she bounced, barked and wiggled.... I think this tranlates to " yes my good woman get the treats and get your rear in gear, chop chop! "


Holly's getting really good at reminding me every afternoon when it's time to go training. If I'm on the computer she comes and nudges me persistently. It's really sweet.

I had another very good session with her this afternoon albeit only for about 20 minutes.

BTW everyone. Did you see L/C comment on the Star gazing thread about Brian Cox? It really cracked me up and I was giggling away for ages.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I kind of wanted to have some food to give him too but not sure what the doggie equivalent of Kendal Mint Cake is??  I don't think kibble would be a good idea while on the go.


Would Nutri Cal be suitable do you think?


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> BTW everyone. Did you see L/C comment on the Star gazing thread about Brian Cox? It really cracked me up and I was giggling away for ages.


Mmmmmmm Brian cox :tongue_smilieh, we were supposed to be looking at the stars?


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> Would Nutri Cal be suitable do you think?


I don't know, I've never heard of it... off to Google...

Oh and mv - I quite agree re. Professor Cox, I have a massive geeky crush on him. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Well the CHs woke up massively playful this morning :crazy:...and we are due to meet our friend with the weimie in a little while; trying it together for the first time after Rudi was fine and confident around her the other day and she largely ignored him. Hopefully it won't be too bad as she lives up near the top field so if they start to try and muck about onlead we only have a few 100m to go . Mind you....I have known it take a loooooonnng time to cover even 50m with Kilo as a puppy .


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> I forgot i saw a dan the other day. Got quite excited as we nearly took on a spinone a few years ago and apart from.one we know.that lives here i have never seen another. He was lovely bit.older though but.not so big.
> Thanks every one for your support. I am now being stared at  (now she gives me her focus) after rolling around on the floor for 20 mins after half a bottle of wine for relaxation purposes naturallyshe is being quite scary actually. The yellow eyes. ..........
> Eta the rolling was for tug purposes just realised it sounded like the wine made me


That reads like the Ninja's had half a bottle of wine.
Oh, well if it stops her stressing...


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> That reads like the Ninja's had half a bottle of wine.
> Oh, well if it stops her stressing...


I wasn't sure who had the wine and who was rolling around on the floor either  :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I wasn't sure who had the wine and who was rolling around on the floor either  :lol:


Or who had yellow eyes .

We had a nice walk this morning with the lady and her weimie; Rudi behaved nicely on the lead when we met and walked alongside with minimum mucking about for a puppy. The weimie and him had a really brief play but she mostly ignored him which was fine and they all zoomed all over the place . It's -3 out there and sheet ice, thank goodness they behaved :crazy:.


----------



## ballybee

welll apart fro seeing some sod mating his rottys on the local beach right on the high street we had a nice morning. Took Dan out for a run on the beach with a toy for sometraining, he did well and is now flakers(yesterday must have been exhausting for him) and i took Tummel along the pier as the beach was quite busy with men(no dogs, a burst pipe so scottish water blokes). We met a westie who did tell Tummel off but he took it fine, then we met an elderly goldie who Tummel didn't like, he said a very brief hello(it ran over, Tummel had gone tense and started getting wound up so i was trying to move him away) then told it to get lost, but nicely, no lunging etc etc.

Tummel recalled every time i asked him to today  i don't expect his good behaviour to last but i'll enjoy it while i can


----------



## Werehorse

Well done CHs and Tummel. :thumbup:

The MCC got up, had toilet walks, ate breakfast, got on the sofa and haven't moved since. :lol:

My arms hurt today. Not from them pulling either as I attached them to my waist. I was clearly doing handstands on all the mountains and didn't notice!


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy, I hope your sister is ok.

Dogless, that sounds a lovely walk, Rudi's a proper little star.

A Good Boy for Tummel.

Thorne, sorry things still aren't going well for you- hope it improves soon.


I'm still trying to get the parlour finished, not made easy as every time I bend to paint lower bits Evie and Scruff think I need a wash, if its not that they start play fighting, I shall end up falling off my stool.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - you're brave having dogs and paint in the same room :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m - you're brave having dogs and paint in the same room :crazy::crazy:.


I know, Evie got some on her posh new coat yesterday.


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> That reads like the Ninja's had half a bottle of wine.
> Oh, well if it stops her stressing...





moonviolet said:


> I wasn't sure who had the wine and who was rolling around on the floor either  :lol:





Dogless said:


> Or who had yellow eyes .
> 
> We had a nice walk this morning with the lady and her weimie; Rudi behaved nicely on the lead when we met and walked alongside with minimum mucking about for a puppy. The weimie and him had a really brief play but she mostly ignored him which was fine and they all zoomed all over the place . *It's -3 *out there and sheet ice, thank goodness they behaved :crazy:.


Yes it was the dog that stole the wine and rolled around on the floor but it was me with the yellow eyes.

  

Must not post on phone after wine :, I try to conserve words on the phone and its tricky to go back and edit it, but thats really just an excuse .

BRr Dogless thats chilly, yesterday was pretty cold here, not that cold but we have snow coming tomorrow apparently . Anyway I put lots of clothes on for our walk this morning  and it wasn't cold :001_rolleyes: I think I overheated as I lost my rag at the dog again , TBF she completely lost it in a way she hasn't for ages. My neighbour stopped me to tell me why his wife hadn't been about, her father had died, and as we were chatting a lab came round the corner, I moved behind his car but it has a high wheel base so she could still see. I wish I had just been rude and said 'sorry got to go', cos I hadn't noticed she wasn't about and it sounds harsh, I feel for her but felt a bit 'well ok, sorry, send her our love, see ya!' I didn't need the ins and outs of how an 83 yr old died . What I should care about is my dog.

I think its my stress levels that are raised TBH I feel back to where I was a month ago and I know we aren't that bad still. Got a lot of work on (stop coming on here might help, I know!) and am quite worried about hubby as he had a bad migraine last week and another this, he has literally just got up after being in bed since Tuesday  they are getting worse even though he has been trying to keep on top of them and even giving up smoking was to try and help, the doctors are no good, all they say is give up smoking, done, cut down drinking, done (he has, not me ), & get more exercise and air, he's a farmer FGS , plus even though he doesn't do much round the house or with the ninja, it feels more like I have to cope on my own when he is in bed, AND, I have no-one to talk to  oh woe is me!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for that, got it off my chest now!


----------



## moonviolet

GR ((((huge hug))) I have sat in the middle of the woods blubbing your heart out and asking my dog if she'd be happier with someone else. COme on here and use it as a pressure valve let it all out, this may be dog chat but anything that affects our mood affects our dogs so its' all relevant 

Sorry i'm probably preeching to the choir but has hubby identified any triggers for his migraines? It varies so much from person to person my mums have always been triggered by high barometric pressure, my friend said a single sip of red wine would bring one one etc. even trying to identify a pattern might help him feel he's taking charge if that makes sense.

Good walk, sat on a log as the 2 dummies 
that gave me a " dog walker finds dead bodies" scare went charging past, while much vocal encouragement was given. Tink just sat and watched. Everytime I see those dummies i can't help smiling.


----------



## catz4m8z

oh dear GR...hope you feel less stressed soon. Have a nice long bubble bath (with a glass of wine!) and relax! Migraines are awfuls things so sympathy to hubby, my mums are caused by choccies and cheese and mine by being overly tired!
Glad everyone had nice walks...mine this morning was abit pants TBH.
We met quite a few dogs (all Staffies!) which was fine by Adam and Alfie who were happy to say hello but was too scary for Heidi as she wouldnt stop barking at them and I felt like a total failure. Alfie really didnt seem to enjoy his walk at all though...he stayed directly behind my heels all the time and even when I stopped he came and sat on my feet (and he wasnt cold so it wasnt that, maybe he just hates dank, muddy weather?). oh, and as he was practically velcroed to my shoes I managed to stand on his leg!
Finally as we were coming to the end the MA found a whole take away and ate almost the whole thing!! Someone had dumped it at the entrance to a fox run so everytime I tried to grab them they just ran into the run!! So thats another park that will be out of bounds thanks to morons leaving food everywhere!!:mad2:
(not a happy camper today!!)


----------



## L/C

Oh dear GR - don't worry about the feeling pants thing. I've thought many times that Ely would be better off somewhere else (in the country, bigger garden etc.) but he's here now and I can't imagine anyone else being desperate to take on a 6 year old greyhound, with fear issues and SLO!

I've lost count of the amount of times I've whinged on here (most recently after he ran down the goat!) that I shouldn't have him and have been pulled up and given a stern talking to about being silly! So you aren't alone. I feel like I have turned a corner with him in the last few months - partly that he's gotten better and partly that I seem to have had some sort of mental switch as well. BUT for the first 10 months to a year that we had him I would regularly cry and feel like I couldn't do it.

Your poor OH too.  I would urge him to keep on at the doctor though - a lot of GPs are absolutely useless and need real prodding to get stuff sorted. I'm still trying to get them to sort my hypothyroidism properly (2 years on!) and that involved me having to go private just to get the diagnosis. Migraine's can be serious symptoms esp. this severe so the doctor should be taking it more seriously. If all else fails try an optician as sometimes vision issues can contribute and they can help diagnose other stuff too. Not trying to worry you but I know I'm useless at going to battle with the GP if I'm not nagged.

C4M - sounds like a bit of a crap walk. Sorry. I can't stand people who just dump food on the floor. Loads of people round us seem to just leave entire loaves of bread out - what they think is eating it except for the rats I don't know.

I need a straw poll of something quickly. Yesterday morning Ely helped himself to a mouthful of poo - dog poo? No. Fox poo? No. Cat poo? No. Duck poo? No. Human poo. Yes, someone had shi*t on the field.  Last time he did this he then got a tapeworm which I had the delight of pulling from his backside. Amazingly this is not an experience I am in a hurry to repeat. Anyway - the actual question. I have literally just wormed them - he ate the poo on thursday and I wormed them the previous saturday. Is he covered? If not is it alright to worm him twice in as many weeks?


----------



## Sarah1983

Ginge, there's been many a time I've got home from a walk and just flung myself down on the bed and had a good cry. I always used to wonder whether Rupert would be better off with someone else, someone with more experience, someone with more time, someone with their own land so he didn't have to encounter strange dogs all the time etc. I think at some point we're all going to question our ability, suitability etc.

Spencer seems to be learning that play growling is acceptable. With other dogs at least. He and Rupert have been playing tug and Rupe is extremely vocal, lots of loud growling involved. And Spencer has started giving the odd growl too. Nothing like the growls coming from Rupert but still growls. Whether it'll carry over to humans I don't know, on the rare occasions he's forgotten himself and growled while playing tug with us he's immediately gone belly up and peed :nonod:

He redeemed himself a little last night. Out on his last pee walk at about 1:30am he spotted a man before we did and simply stopped and looked at him. Recalled him and he came back immediately. Big reward for that! Then we did a clicker session when we got in. I sat on the floor and he targeted random body parts. My feet, my knees, my hands, my boobs and even my nose. So not a bad ending to a crappy day really.


----------



## Freddie and frank

thorne, hope things sort themselves out. 
gr, hope your hubby feels better soon and we're all here to listen so carry on. 
c4m, left over food on the floor is a pet hate of mine too. especially when it's in the road and freddie decides to make a lunge for it. why do people do it!!

sounds like everyone else is behaving well.
i do feel responsible though when off lead labs cause problems, just because i own them, daft i know. 

all good here.i've had a zooplus order arrive full of natural treats.mmmmm
i think the floozy has left the building....well nearly. she doesn't seem so frisky today.
she's booked in for clicker training starting 24th january so that's just about the right time for her season to have ended.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thanks, AGAIN!! It overwhelms me how supportive you lot are sometimes.

CAtz sorry for the rubbish day you have had too. Poor little Alfie, you don't want to be standing on the midget midget army leg. You might have something with the tiredness thing there. Why are people feeding foxes takeaways 

Sorry L/C i can't help with the worms thing however I know that you have to re-worm a dog before it comes back into the country and never seen any mention of not if you have recently done it, and the Drontal website says:

Q: How often should I worm my cat/dog with Drontal?
It is advised that an adult dog or cat should be treated for worms four times a year. There may be specific instances however where more frequent worming treatment is desirable. These would include: worming of puppies and kittens; cats that hunt and eat mice; dogs and cats experiencing repeated flea problems.

Not specific I know but I would say if he doesn't suffer side affects from the tablets it should be ok. Disclaimer:If in doubt you should always check with you vet 

But HUMAN poo  and he has done this before 

With regard to the migraines, we can't find a specific food trigger we believe it is either/both dehydration or stress they are sort of linked. We have always liked going to the pub  when hes stressed he drinks more and sleeps less from the stress and the alcohol and being a diuretic he becomes dehydrated, it does seem to be able to be managed by making him drink more water but the less alcohol doesn't seem to make a difference. However he has had the cold so has not been out much, last weeks i put down to the cold as it was a very pressurised head cold, but this weeks  

Hence the giving up smoking as that apart from the obvious dangers, dehydrates your body too. They also seem to be triggered by eating certain meals such as Chinese takeaway with MSG/high salt (often ordered after the pub  well not any more I have to cook them myself  tis not the same) or stuff with high salt content, EG fajita kits, ready made seasonings, but not as the meal triggers it, it could be 2 days later, but all those sort of thing which have a high salt content. Plus he craves salt and vinegar when he has one -to replenish the lost salts???

However it could be stress/insomnia rather than the previous, he has been responsible for the animals as his boss has had his hip done (not good this week  who knows what happened, luckily his boss is VERY understanding about this) and that does worry him, he doesn't really do responsibility . 

We thought the eye thing might be the case, he hadn't had an eye test for ages and also had broken his glasses with reactor lenses. The optician thought this could well have contributed, but, no, £300 worth of new specs later, no change.

TBF he hasn't seen a useful doctor. The one appt he managed to get with the good doc, he was called away and he had to see the git that told me I was perfectly capable of going to the surgery when I had pleurisy  he had seen old ladies worse than me come into the surgery, apparently, it would have been fine for me to cough everywhere while I held my ribcage to prevent the bursting feeling every minute, then he prescribed antibiotics similar to the ones I am allergic to which also caused a severe reaction, Grrr we don't like that one here! I will push him to go again even if just to see if there are any better tablets yet, they don't really help, they get rid of the migraine but have awful side effects so he still has to stay in bed.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> My feet, my knees, my hands, *my boobs *and even my nose. So not a bad ending to a crappy day really.


That made me laugh, what an image, Spen headbutting boobs, is that a sensible trick to teach him , could be embarrassing   .


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## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> That made me laugh, what an image, Spen headbutting boobs, is that a sensible trick to teach him , could be embarrassing   .


Lol, he's always had a thing about jabbing my boobs with his nose. I'm sure he thinks they should squeak when he does it :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, he's always had a thing about jabbing my boobs with his nose. I'm sure he thinks they should squeak when he does it :lol:


But what about other peoples :biggrin5:


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> But what about other peoples :biggrin5:


Well I'm sure him prodding some random strangers boobs will result in a squeak of some sort


----------



## Dogless

L/C - the BW has sampled human poo a fair few times in the woods . I don't worm him again TBH but I don't believe that there is any harm in worming again with Milbemax (the wormer I use) having talked to the vet about it before. Best to check though.

GR - sorry you and OH are having crappy days. I've burst into tears before too over some crap walk / behaviour or another. Better to rant on here than leave it all festering away.

Sarah - don't your boobs squeak then? I thought that it was normal that they did :crazy:.

Not dog related at all, but having not swum for 3 or 4 weeks due to the pool being shut I have been this week on Monday, Wednesday and today and done the usual 4km, 3km, 5km that I do....and today I was back onto my 'good' pace after being way off for the last two sessions .


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## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Well I'm sure him prodding some random strangers boobs will result in a squeak of some sort


True, very true 

Dogless, you tire me out! I think a good long walk is energetic .


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Yes it was the dog that stole the wine and rolled around on the floor but it was me with the yellow eyes.
> 
> 
> 
> Must not post on phone after wine :, I try to conserve words on the phone and its tricky to go back and edit it, but thats really just an excuse .
> 
> BRr Dogless thats chilly, yesterday was pretty cold here, not that cold but we have snow coming tomorrow apparently . Anyway I put lots of clothes on for our walk this morning  and it wasn't cold :001_rolleyes: I think I overheated as I lost my rag at the dog again , TBF she completely lost it in a way she hasn't for ages. My neighbour stopped me to tell me why his wife hadn't been about, her father had died, and as we were chatting a lab came round the corner, I moved behind his car but it has a high wheel base so she could still see. I wish I had just been rude and said 'sorry got to go', cos I hadn't noticed she wasn't about and it sounds harsh, I feel for her but felt a bit 'well ok, sorry, send her our love, see ya!' I didn't need the ins and outs of how an 83 yr old died . What I should care about is my dog.
> 
> I think its my stress levels that are raised TBH I feel back to where I was a month ago and I know we aren't that bad still. Got a lot of work on (stop coming on here might help, I know!) and am quite worried about hubby as he had a bad migraine last week and another this, he has literally just got up after being in bed since Tuesday  they are getting worse even though he has been trying to keep on top of them and even giving up smoking was to try and help, the doctors are no good, all they say is give up smoking, done, cut down drinking, done (he has, not me ), & get more exercise and air, he's a farmer FGS , plus even though he doesn't do much round the house or with the ninja, it feels more like I have to cope on my own when he is in bed, AND, I have no-one to talk to  oh woe is me!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for that, got it off my chest now!


Oh dear sounds like you're having a really tough time. Can't offer any advice I'm afraid but lots of sympathy being sent your way.


----------



## Dogless

Well, two separate walks done this evening - very short lead training one for Rudi who was fabulous and then an hour or so onlead for Kilo...who was also fabulous . My best boys :001_wub:.

I was stroking Kilo earlier and felt a really hard little lump in his scruff. Further investigation revealed a puppy incisor - Rudi had obviously hung off his scruff and left without one of his teeth :crazy:. I then found one on the carpet. Opening LCH's mouth he did indeed have missing bottom teeth .


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## kat&molly

GR- Hope you're feeling a bit better tonight, same for your OH , those Migraines must be awful.

L/C- I hope Ely doesn't suffer any 'after effects'. :crying:

I walked the girls through the village this afternoon, I try not to think of it as training, I just want to get there as calmly as possible but I dont let them away with pulling. Moll was pretty good, Scruff was terrible, but Evie who never pulls got to the corner , stood up on her back legs and starts her 'Hunt Mode' scream :w00t:
She must have thought we were going on the same walk where she saw the Pheasant the other day  Its a good job I hadn't planned that or I might have had a problem:huh:
It was a little bit embarressing in the middle of the village.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Well, two separate walk done this evening - very short lead training one for Rudi who was fabulous and then an hour or so onlead for Kilo...who was also fabulous . My best boys :001_wub:.
> 
> I was stroking Kilo earlier and felt a really hard little lump in his scruff. Further investigation revealed a puppy incisor - Rudi had obviously hung off his scruff and left without one of his teeth :crazy:. I then found one on the carpet. Opening LCH's mouth he did indeed have missing bottom teeth .


Brilliant!!! So good of him to share with his big bro


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Brilliant!!! So good of him to share with his big bro


So good those puppy teeth are starting to fall out .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> So good those puppy teeth are starting to fall out .


Mmm, I still remember Moll's.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> So good those puppy teeth are starting to fall out .


Mmmm the big ones hurt more....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Mmmm the big ones hurt more....LOL


They don't slice through skin like butter though .

I have a question for you oh wise one. Kilo didn't make any noises at all during the recalls at class last night. He has gone from barking and leaping about like a lunatic when we first started to just his full singing repertoire last week and then nothing last night even though other dogs barked. He was still very alert, very interested and his back leg muscles were twitching - couldn't quite hold his focus after the first few .

If I used his tug toy would it be a bad idea - it would keep him busy, but would it amp him up to the point of lunacy do you think or because the game is controlled, help him to control his lunacy? I am seeing impulse control benefits and really increased drive to work already when I use it BUT is it suitable in that situation do you think?


----------



## Guest

GR = Sorry you're have horrid days, and I'm sure we ALL have burst into tears on walks before. I used to when Zander went through the shark stage!! 

Dogless = I can't remember anything about puppy teeth with Zander. 

LC = I found a people poop when I was in the woods with Zand once.

There are probably more but I can't think right now. 

I was away unexpectedly, yesterday and overnight, so don't really have anything to report about the donkey as I went straight from 'away' to a shift, am back home now and after excited greetings, (he jumped up, ONCE! he hasn't done that in a while), he's asleep leaning against my back. 
Mum said he moped the whole time. 

Twiggy and All: I have a question. 

Is it bad that when I see another dog coming, I cross over or retreat or something? Will Zander become afraid of dogs, if I keep doing this? (Arghhhhh sounds like SUCH a noob question)


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> GR = Sorry you're have horrid days, and I'm sure we ALL have burst into tears on walks before. I used to when Zander went through the shark stage!!
> 
> Dogless = *I can't remember anything about puppy teeth with Zander.*
> 
> LC = I found a people poop when I was in the woods with Zand once.
> 
> There are probably more but I can't think right now.
> 
> I was away unexpectedly, yesterday and overnight, so don't really have anything to report about the donkey as I went straight from 'away' to a shift, am back home now and after excited greetings, (he jumped up, ONCE! he hasn't done that in a while), he's asleep leaning against my back.
> Mum said he moped the whole time.
> 
> Twiggy and All: I have a question.
> 
> Is it bad that when I see another dog coming, I cross over or retreat or something? Will Zander become afraid of dogs, if I keep doing this? (Arghhhhh sounds like SUCH a noob question)


What????!!!!! I still had - and have!! - the scars (physical and mental) from Kilo when I got Rudi...I was dreading the puppy teeth and intense biting phase :crazy:.

Away - how mysterious! Good I hope - wanted to put a  but won't as I also hope that it wasn't bad and that you are OK .


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## Izzysmummy

K+M - I hope the painting has gone well today! Always worried I'll end up with a Dalmatian when we decorate if Izzy's around.

GR - we have had a fair few tears here too wondering if we were the best family to tackle Izzy's issues and a few more after bad walks, one day the OH got a tearful phonecall from the park when Izzy was in monster mode and I couldn't get her back. I really hope your hubby can get to the bottom of the problems, it's horrible when they're not well and men aren't the best communicators when they're well, let alone when they're sick, Tarnus usually reverts to grunting mode which can get a bit lonely.

Catz - sorry you didn't have a great walk. It's so frustrating when people dump rubbish, so inconsiderate. Izzy is an opportunist scavenger, if she happens upon something tasty she'll wolf it but usually she doesn't seek it out! A guy at training this week was saying his dog like to eat sick, just any old pile she comes across when she's out? Ew!!

L/C - yuck! Some people are disgusting. I would hope most people wouldn't have worms but maybe the type of person who would poo in a field is more likely to have worms? Don't know about the wormer, maybe give your vet a ring?*

F+F - glad to hear Bellas season is coming to the end! Fingers crossed the little floosie calms down soon!

Sarah - my boobs squeak but only when the bra underwires go a bit funny :lol:, love Spen typical man!

Dogless - you're a crazy woman, how many lengths of the pool would that be?! How do you even keep count?! Sounds like the boys have been on best behaviour today!  I'm sure Rudi was just giving Kilo a present, how generous to give Kilo a tooth so he can get some money from the tooth fairy too!

We had a relaxed walk this evening, just one of our usual street routes, it had been bin day today so there were a few people banging their bins about and Izzy just took it in her stride, we passed a mum and little girl with no problems but other than that just a nice quiet walk.*

My new steam mop (thanks for the recommendation Dogless!) arrived today so I was excited to try it out and little monkey dog decided to oblige and give me the opportunity to use my new toy by wolfing her dinner down and then throwing it up very quickly after!*

Just been on FaceTime to my family and Izzy went crazy bringing them toys and wiggling all over the place, she had some labra-scarf moments too :lol:!*


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



They don't slice through skin like butter though .

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> No they don't but they penetrate much deeper...**
> 
> I have a question for you oh wise one. Kilo didn't make any noises at all during the recalls at class last night. He has gone from barking and leaping about like a lunatic when we first started to just his full singing repertoire last week and then nothing last night even though other dogs barked. He was still very alert, very interested and his back leg muscles were twitching - couldn't quite hold his focus after the first few .
> 
> *If I used his tug toy would it be a bad idea - it would keep him busy, but would it amp him up to the point of lunacy do you think or because the game is controlled, help him to control his lunacy? I am seeing impulse control benefits and really increased drive to work already when I use it BUT is it suitable in that situation do you think?*




Using a tug toy would get him to focus and if he's concentrating on it he will probably not bark. The theory is that you should be able to control him with the toy but........
Try it and see.

My sister made me laugh tonight. She noticed a plaster on her hubby's finger and on enquiring he said sweet litte Penny got excited and bit him...!! She usually bites him on the bum whilst he's putting on his wellies so the finger makes a change. She said Mini won't be long before she starts taking lumps out of him. He really is hopeless and you can see why collies are not ideal for many pet owners....LOL No wonder she's itching to be well and to get them back under control out on walks.


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> K+M - I hope the painting has gone well today! Always worried I'll end up with a Dalmatian when we decorate if Izzy's around.
> 
> GR - we have had a fair few tears here too wondering if we were the best family to tackle Izzy's issues and a few more after bad walks, one day the OH got a tearful phonecall from the park when Izzy was in monster mode and I couldn't get her back. I really hope your hubby can get to the bottom of the problems, it's horrible when they're not well and men aren't the best communicators when they're well, let alone when they're sick, Tarnus usually reverts to grunting mode which can get a bit lonely.
> 
> Catz - sorry you didn't have a great walk. It's so frustrating when people dump rubbish, so inconsiderate. Izzy is an opportunist scavenger, if she happens upon something tasty she'll wolf it but usually she doesn't seek it out! A guy at training this week was saying his dog like to eat sick, just any old pile she comes across when she's out? Ew!!
> 
> L/C - yuck! Some people are disgusting. I would hope most people wouldn't have worms but maybe the type of person who would poo in a field is more likely to have worms? Don't know about the wormer, maybe give your vet a ring?*
> 
> F+F - glad to hear Bellas season is coming to the end! Fingers crossed the little floosie calms down soon!
> 
> Sarah - my boobs squeak but only when the bra underwires go a bit funny :lol:, love Spen typical man!
> 
> Dogless - you're a crazy woman, how many lengths of the pool would that be?! How do you even keep count?! Sounds like the boys have been on best behaviour today!  I'm sure Rudi was just giving Kilo a present, how generous to give Kilo a tooth so he can get some money from the tooth fairy too!
> 
> We had a relaxed walk this evening, just one of our usual street routes, it had been bin day today so there were a few people banging their bins about and Izzy just took it in her stride, we passed a mum and little girl with no problems but other than that just a nice quiet walk.*
> 
> My new steam mop (thanks for the recommendation Dogless!) arrived today so I was excited to try it out and little monkey dog decided to oblige and give me the opportunity to use my new toy by wolfing her dinner down and then throwing it up very quickly after!*
> 
> Just been on FaceTime to my family and Izzy went crazy bringing them toys and wiggling all over the place, she had some labra-scarf moments too :lol:!*


Hope you approve of the mop...you obviously have a rock star lifestyle like myself . That would be 200 lengths of the pool; I'm used to keeping count .


----------



## Thorne

Sorry, not sure I can keep up again!  Will have a read through and a "like" through in a minute.

It's Breeze's 3rd gotcha day today, the only one I've actually been home from uni for since we brought her home! Was a bit confused by the "gotcha day" concept when I first saw it mentioned on here, but thinking about the progress she's made since then has had me smiling all day.
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/285702-happy-3rd-gotcha-day-breeze.html
She didn't get a walk today, was just about to kit her out for one but was asked to take my sister to the Doctor's as dad was late home. Then had to rush to drop off a swab at the hospital so by the time we were home I'm afraid I couldn't bring myself to go out in the dark. At least she got a good few garden sessions and to be honest she'd rather not go out at all...

Scooter had a lovely long walk though, went to the meadow and did a lap of that and our friends' farm. Had the usual reluctant first recall but he was super after that, he was wanting to run off and sniff but his distance control was good  He got some jackpot rewards for coming back without being called, leftover chicken goujons are his new favourite!
He really loves this walk, we don't see flat-out zoomies from him these days but he always stretches out into a good strong gallop! Haven't seen his limp for a while, think offlead running must be doing him some good.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Using a tug toy would get him to focus and if he's concentrating on it he will probably not bark. The theory is that you should be able to control him with the toy but........
> Try it and see.
> 
> My sister made me laugh tonight. She noticed a plaster on her hubby's finger and on enquiring he said sweet litte Penny got excited and bit him...!! She usually bites him on the bum whilst he's putting on his wellies so the finger makes a change. She said Mini won't be long before she starts taking lumps out of him. He really is hopeless and you can see why collies are not ideal for many pet owners....LOL No wonder she's itching to be well and to get them back under control out on walks.


Rudi bites me on the bum.....but bit my friend with the weimie on the bum today when she started running round .

I'll try the tug toy; I know I could hold his attention with it - only one way of knowing if it creates a loon I suppose. I just don't fancy recalling a massively bonkers Kilo :crazy::crazy:. Arse, meet floor .


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## moonviolet

Finally got around to tacking soem of that rubbery rug slip stop stuff to the back of Tink's mat to stop her surfing into the wall when she flings herself onto it. Tested it earlier seems to be working nicely. So thats good although i will miss the sight :lol:

Fun training session this evening and my word she was focussed, whici was a bit of a shame because i was a bit carp :lol: i'm goignto have to start writing down everything she knows it's all getting a bit messy in my head now.

Was sorting out some photo's earlier and thought this one was quite nice. I realised i take loads of pics , this time last year I was too focussed on who was within half a mile to be able to.









P.S. TInk rolled in the human stuff once and I almost hurled on her


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Finally got around to tacking soem of that rubbery rug slip stop stuff to the back of Tink's mat to stop her surfing into the wall when she flings herself onto it. Tested it earlier seems to be working nicely. So thats good although i will miss the sight :lol:
> 
> Fun training session this evening and my word she was focussed, whici was a bit of a shame because i was a bit carp :lol: i'm goignto have to start writing down everything she knows it's all getting a bit messy in my head now.
> 
> Was sorting out some photo's earlier and thought this one was quite nice. I realised i take loads of pics , this time last year I was too focussed on who was within half a mile to be able to.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. TInk rolled in the human stuff once and I almost hurled on her


Lovely photo.....but rolling in the human stuff :arf::arf:.


----------



## moonviolet

LO i always cross the road if i see another dog coming the pavements here are pretty narrow and forcing dogs into one anothers faces is pretty unnatural. I don' think it will make Zander nervous of other dogs if you are making it a positive thing. if you are scuttling and stressed he will pick up on that but if you are come on lad we have more space for fun over here and treating him for attention on you it should be a good thing


----------



## Twiggy

Moonviolet you certainly do take some stunning pics. I love this one!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Rudi bites me on the bum.....but bit my friend with the weimie on the bum today when she started running round .
> 
> I'll try the tug toy; I know I could hold his attention with it - only one way of knowing if it creates a loon I suppose. I just don't fancy recalling a massively bonkers Kilo :crazy::crazy:. Arse, meet floor .


There is a way of controlling the speed on a recall to front which I used with Tremor. I know she's nothing like the size of Kilo but even so I'm not very big and I'm old!!

We use this method quite a bit with very fast and/or big dogs.

You actually teach them to touch your hands/fingers - arms outstretched in front of you and hands together with titbit/toy initially. Then, and maintaining the touch, you draw them into the sit in front of you. It does stop them crashing or knocking you over....


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

I've had my new Lab puppy for one week today. 
Things are going well after a sleepless first couple of nights and he seems quite calm in his crate.
The play fighting between him and my 4 year old Westie is quite "full on" though and they need separating after a little while. I'm hoping for them to learn to be calm together:crazy:


----------



## Sarah1983

MV, love that pic! I'm hoping I eventually get to the point where I'm not worrying about who's within a mile of us and can just relax and possibly get some nice photos too.

LO, I cross the road where possible if we need to pass another dog. It's a hell of a lot easier and less stressful than trying to pass at close range while he tries to jump on the dog. I think it's less likely to make him reactive than the frustration of being so close but unable to greet is to be honest.

Rupert should be going home at some point today. He's a real character and I'll miss him but he's been bloody hard work in some ways. Won't toilet anywhere but his own balcony (thankfully only next door!), is a bigger thief than Spencer and will destroy what he steals so ignoring isn't an option, barks at anything and everything, humps, steals food right off your plate and nips. All issues that would be worked on if he were mine but he's not lol. There's nothing nasty about him and he's really very sweet and, if you make it worth his while, quite willing to learn what you want.

And then things should get back to normal with Spencer and his training. Kept up the basic manners and basic obedience but not been doing anything new or done anything with the things he's in the process of learning. I left Rupert with hubby for 5 minutes last night while I took Spen out, came back and he's managed to get into my cross stitch stuff and scatter it all around the flat. Without hubby noticing  Thankfully my actual work hadn't been touched and I keep pins and needles in a case so I'm 100% sure he swallowed none.


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## moonviolet

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww Sid... what a cute cute puppy. I'm glad they've settled after the initial sleepless nights  

Thanks Dogless Twiggy and Sarah it's the thing i love about digital take enough pics and there's likely to be the odd good one :lol:

Sarah its' going to be really quiet when Rupert goes home, he sounds like quite a character  very houndy to be into everything. My knitting has to be well out of reach. no point asking OH to keep an eye on things too easily distracted by something shiny (I do hope he doens't read this over my shoulder :lol


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## Nicki85

I'm going to join this thread- keep reading it and running 
I haven't read it all BUT did catch Dogless's comment on getting attention.... I think tug toy may work but you may get all the other dogs riled up? Could you not take him out when he reaches his limit and then build that time up till he will sit happily for all the dogs recalling? 

We have had our morning walk so far and I was a bit worried cause we usually meet a Keshound(sp) (only on Saturday:crazythat will go for Rusty and the owner is usually miles away. I went armed with whistle and meatballs(!) so I had Rusty's attention. BUT we didn't meet him :001_rolleyes: We still practiced though- if a dog is approaching or near by Rusty will sometimes run up to it at top speed to see if it will play and I've been trying to stop this... So today when dog approached I whistled gave him treat and asked for a bit of attention and he did it every time :biggrin5: for one dog I put him back on the lead to walk past, another I allowed him to approach and have a short play session and another he ran up to and I recalled away. Clever lad.

We have agility in a bit- Rusty is always fab but I need to improve :tongue_smilie:


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## GingerRogers

Sid, your puppy is adorable, I don't think I ever want one of my own but I do love chunky puppy legs, hope the play calms soon but a client of mine has a 10 yr old westie who still plays like a pup so you might have to put up with it for a while 

Moonviolet that picture is lovely and i know what you mean about digital, even for work, I do architectural design so have to take photos of survey buildings with film you had to really think about what you were taking and inevitably missed an important feature but now I can snap all sorts of strange stuff I even have an album of interesting things I see at work, like donkeys! I will root that out later specially for you lovely people, it makes me smile.

Thanks for the messages of support and hugs they really do help. Quick walk round the block as I had work to do this morning and a survey to get done in town. She did very good beagle impressions after the beagle that was walking away from us - whooooo hoooo unfortunately that turned into whoooeeeeeee eeeek I never knew dogs could make such high pitched squeals 

Here's the conundrum for you all to ponder today.

It was a bit of a minefield as all our problem dogs were out in force and I had ended up going up so many different streets to avoid them and had just had drama over a ginger cat that had set all the neighbourhood dogs barking, when we came across a golden retriever lying in its driveway  but I just thought sod it I need to get home somehow and walked past it on the opposite side of the road. I will add I know this dog its always off lead but its a very gentle soul and would never have approached us as it won't walk past a dog to get out the pub. So there's a giant golden furball lying not 5m away with its squeaky duck toy. What do you think the ninja did.....

Guessed yet, I will tell you, *absolutely nothing *didn't even look at it!!!! WTH is that all about, surely she knew it was there or was she still all CAAAAT, she just charged past not even a look, not even when it raised its head to watch us zooming along. Even if she didn't see it which frankly was impossible, picture a normal housing estate, its lying next to the path in full view, surely she would have smelt it, bearing in mind she dragged me halfway across the beach yesterday to sniff a dead dog fish even though she cant find a treat under her nose!!

I have realised that dogs approaching are more of a threat than those going away from us, she still reacts but like with the beagle this morning its more excited squeals and anxious sit downs than barking to warn them off.

So did she by some miracle not know it was there or was it because it was lying down. *Or *is she truly twisted in the head  Have any of you had anything like that happen?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> There is a way of controlling the speed on a recall to front which I used with Tremor. I know she's nothing like the size of Kilo but even so I'm not very big and I'm old!!
> 
> We use this method quite a bit with very fast and/or big dogs.
> 
> You actually teach them to touch your hands/fingers - arms outstretched in front of you and hands together with titbit/toy initially. Then, and maintaining the touch, you draw them into the sit in front of you. It does stop them crashing or knocking you over....


I have started off with Rudi drawing him into a sit; unfortunately I didn't with Kilo - I just concentrated on him coming back - and he does tend to come back FAST . What I had started to do was toss treats out in front of me just as he reached me and then getting him to sit - I'll try your method, it sounds way better than my rubbish efforts!



WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I've had my new Lab puppy for one week today.
> Things are going well after a sleepless first couple of nights and he seems quite calm in his crate.
> The play fighting between him and my 4 year old Westie is quite "full on" though and they need separating after a little while. I'm hoping for them to learn to be calm together:crazy:


He's a cutie; I had to control the manic level of play between my two for the first few weeks, but they are learning to be calm together so hopefully yours will too.



Nicki85 said:


> I'm going to join this thread- keep reading it and running
> I haven't read it all BUT did catch Dogless's comment on getting attention.... I think tug toy may work but you may get all the other dogs riled up? Could you not take him out when he reaches his limit and then build that time up till he will sit happily for all the dogs recalling?
> 
> We have had our morning walk so far and I was a bit worried cause we usually meet a Keshound(sp) (only on Saturday:crazythat will go for Rusty and the owner is usually miles away. I went armed with whistle and meatballs(!) so I had Rusty's attention. BUT we didn't meet him :001_rolleyes: We still practiced though- if a dog is approaching or near by Rusty will sometimes run up to it at top speed to see if it will play and I've been trying to stop this... So today when dog approached I whistled gave him treat and asked for a bit of attention and he did it every time :biggrin5: for one dog I put him back on the lead to walk past, another I allowed him to approach and have a short play session and another he ran up to and I recalled away. Clever lad.
> 
> We have agility in a bit- Rusty is always fab but I need to improve :tongue_smilie:


I don't really want to start taking him out now as we are at the point of no barking which I am chuffed with; it's more distracting him now totally that I am after. He really wants to chase but is now able to control himself very well compared to the lunatic he was months ago (only inside - outside he's much calmer!). The trainer at present tells us to go first which does help. I'll talk to him - one of the other dogs tugs on their fleecy lead as a distraction for them which doesn't seem to bother the others but I'll have a think.

Great walks this morning - took Rudi to the offlead fields early; at the moment he's a real pleasure on a lead, listens well. We went round the field doing some playing, recalls, collar touches and lead on and off - we had fun .

Then I took Kilo to the park - it was bleak and cold but fairly busy. Saw a few friends which was nice, ignored everything else that he was asked to including dogs. Two bad moments which turned very good....

1. We were going up a narrow path from a duck pond when a dog ran over and stood barking in the middle of the path, blocking our way. Her owner was trying to recall her but she ignored it. Kilo didn't react at all . The woman said she was protecting her other dog who was on a lead and that if I just came past and my dog barked at her she'd back off. I didn't want to do that and the dog was edging closer so I told her it didn't matter I'd go the other way - it meant a longer walk but it was worth it to keep Kilo relaxed; really proud of him .

2. I fell over and embarrassed myself . A pom raced at Kilo barking and running in trying to make little nips - I have learnt that the best thing for him is to just keep moving on swiftly so I ignored the little git and just kept walking. That was fine until Kilo got nipped and jumped sideways...I fell over him :crazy:. The woman with the pom said sorry as she walked off. Don't think anyone else saw . BUT no reaction again from the BW .


----------



## Dogless

GR - brilliant!! .


----------



## Nicki85

Dogless said:


> I don't really want to start taking him out now as we are at the point of no barking which I am chuffed with; it's more distracting him now totally that I am after. He really wants to chase but is now able to control himself very well compared to the lunatic he was months ago (only inside - outside he's much calmer!). The trainer at present tells us to go first which does help. I'll talk to him - one of the other dogs tugs on their fleecy lead as a distraction for them which doesn't seem to bother the others but I'll have a think.


Ah makes sense- didn't realise you had got that far :tongue_smilie: toy distraction sounds like a plan then....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I have started off with Rudi drawing him into a sit; unfortunately I didn't with Kilo - I just concentrated on him coming back - and he does tend to come back FAST . What I had started to do was toss treats out in front of me just as he reached me and then getting him to sit - I'll try your method, it sounds way better than my rubbish efforts!
> 
> He's a cutie; I had to control the manic level of play between my two for the first few weeks, but they are learning to be calm together so hopefully yours will too.
> 
> I don't really want to start taking him out now as we are at the point of no barking which I am chuffed with; it's more distracting him now totally that I am after. He really wants to chase but is now able to control himself very well compared to the lunatic he was months ago (only inside *- outside he's much calmer!). The trainer at present tells us to go first which does help. I'll talk to him - one of the other dogs tugs on their fleecy lead as a distraction for them which doesn't seem to bother the others but I'll have a think.*
> 
> But it's called dog training girls!!
> 
> I have up to 15 competitive obedience dogs here on a Wednesday afternoon from raw beginners to championship level dogs.
> 
> It is all motivation training so handlers are running, waving tuggies, squeaking toys, etc. when they are on the floor with their dogs (and even then I usually tell them they are being boring). The other dogs don't react because they are trained not to.
> 
> We very often have sessions of distraction training because when you are in the ring competing there are no toys or tit-bits and from Class A upwards you are not allowed to talk or handle your dog. There may well be several handlers winding their dogs up outside the ring awaiting their turn but your dog must concentrate 100% on you.


----------



## moonviolet

GR wooohoooo !!!! hmmm creepy lurking stalker lady in me thinks you should stalk a follow a few dogs (at a distance that does not impact them or their enjoyment) and see if you can find the golden distance for the ninja to chill and be able to giv eyou attention . It's definitely the face to face greetings that are more challenging this would be a nice move in the right direction to being calmer

As for the goldie wouldn't it be wonderful fing a dog like that as a walking partner.

Dogless i'm afraid my inner hag is talking to you  repeat after me, loud and proud..... 
1, " Control your dog!" :tongue_smilie:
2, " Control your dog!" :tongue_smilie:
Hope you weren't hurt or mud covered 
Sounds like Kilo handled both situations with impressive calm.

Nicki sounds liek Rusty is excelling.

[RANT]Went out on a mission today, there are setting up for a mountain bike event being held tomorrow, today. They have rather upset the locals by stating on their poster that dogs must be on leads as per byelaws, in fact the byelaws don't mention dogs at all, and the countryside code applies, however they state that bicycles shoudl be on made up tracks suitable for general vehicular use. So battle lines have been drawn. The area is an SSSI and the damage these events cause is quite dramatic , so iwas out taking some "before" pics now the route is marked. Sorry thats the borring part of my post, but it does worry me how when one of the site using groups tries to cause trouble for another quoting fictitious rules, while themselves flouting byelaws issued by the secretary of state.[/RANT]

Now for the fab fab fab news.

TInk has a new friend, whom she chose to say hello to and had a short play with....

A young GSD called Ellie. :thumbup::thumbup:

Nice equal play, chasing and being chased, then a break for a puddle paddle and a sniff another chase before I said some emotional thanks (poor bloke thought I was a nutjob) and we went on our way. I'm still pinching myself here


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> GR wooohoooo !!!! hmmm creepy lurking stalker lady in me thinks you should stalk a follow a few dogs (at a distance that does not impact them or their enjoyment) and see if you can find the golden distance for the ninja to chill and be able to giv eyou attention . It's definitely the face to face greetings that are more challenging this would be a nice move in the right direction to being calmer
> 
> As for the goldie wouldn't it be wonderful fing a dog like that as a walking partner.
> 
> Dogless i'm afraid my inner hag is talking to you  repeat after me, loud and proud.....
> 1, " Control your dog!" :tongue_smilie:
> 2, " Control your dog!" :tongue_smilie:
> Hope you weren't hurt or mud covered
> Sounds like Kilo handled both situations with impressive calm.
> 
> Nicki sounds liek Rusty is excelling.
> 
> [RANT]Went out on a missiong today, there are setting up for a mountain bike event being held tomorrow, today. They have rather upset the locals by stating on their poster that dogs must be on leads as per byelaws, in fact the byelaws don't mention dogs at all, and the countryside code applies, however they state that bicycles shoudl be on made up tracks suitable for general vehicular use. So battle lines have been drawn. The area is an SSSI and the damage these events cause is quite dramatic , so iwas out taking some "before" pics now the route is marked. Sorry thats the borring part of my post, but it does worry me how when one of the site using groups tries to cause trouble for another quoting fictitious rules, while themselves flouting byelaws issued by the secretary of state.[/RANT]
> 
> Now for the fab fab fab news.
> 
> TInk has a new friend, whom she chose to say hello to and had a short play with....
> 
> A young GSD called Ellie. :thumbup::thumbup:
> 
> Nice equal play, chasing and being chased, then a break for a puddle paddle and a sniff another chase before I said some emotional thanks (poor bloke thought I was a nutjob) and we went on our way. I'm still pinching myself here


Wow!!!! A GSD friend...go Miss Tinks . What wonderful news!!

Well done on your mission planning too; I would object in your shoes as well!

I was mud covered and pulled a hamstring in a minor way....nothing unusual there though really .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> I have started off with Rudi drawing him into a sit; unfortunately I didn't with Kilo - I just concentrated on him coming back - and he does tend to come back FAST . What I had started to do was toss treats out in front of me just as he reached me and then getting him to sit - I'll try your method, it sounds way better than my rubbish efforts!
> 
> He's a cutie; I had to control the manic level of play between my two for the first few weeks, but they are learning to be calm together so hopefully yours will too.
> 
> I don't really want to start taking him out now as we are at the point of no barking which I am chuffed with; it's more distracting him now totally that I am after. He really wants to chase but is now able to control himself very well compared to the lunatic he was months ago (only inside *- outside he's much calmer!). The trainer at present tells us to go first which does help. I'll talk to him - one of the other dogs tugs on their fleecy lead as a distraction for them which doesn't seem to bother the others but I'll have a think.*
> 
> But it's called dog training girls!!
> 
> I have up to 15 competitive obedience dogs here on a Wednesday afternoon from raw beginners to championship level dogs.
> 
> It is all motivation training so handlers are running, waving tuggies, squeaking toys, etc. when they are on the floor with their dogs (and even then I usually tell them they are being boring). The other dogs don't react because they are trained not to.
> 
> We very often have sessions of distraction training because when you are in the ring competing there are no toys or tit-bits and from Class A upwards you are not allowed to talk or handle your dog. There may well be several handlers winding their dogs up outside the ring awaiting their turn but your dog must concentrate 100% on you.
> 
> 
> 
> I agree Twiggy; that's why I don't want to leave the hall when other dogs are running, we've managed to get so far already. Kilo will wait for his tuggy whilst I hold it as I said whilst I throw a ball for Dizzy and he chases it without moving so I do think that it probably is the answer.
Click to expand...


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> We use this method quite a bit with very fast and/or big dogs.
> 
> You actually teach them to touch your hands/fingers - arms outstretched in front of you and hands together with titbit/toy initially. Then, and maintaining the touch, you draw them into the sit in front of you. It does stop them crashing or knocking you over....


We do this with Paddy when he's recalling with a toy; if we don't "draw him in" to the side with a guiding hand he tends to use our legs as an emergency brake!

Whatwouldsiddo - Gorgeous pup! Glad he's settling, hope he calms down a bit with his play but knowing what Labs are like, it will probably be a while 

Sarah1983 - Goodbye Ruperts, pleased that you've enjoyed having him around but it's always nice to get back to "normal" isn't it?

Nicki85 - Have a good time at agility!

GR - WELL DONE GINGE! Hopefully she did see it and just didn't feel the need to react, I'm always thinking the same if Scooter walks past a cat without trying to bounce at it.

Dogless - Gold star for Rudi I think, and well done Kilo for staying relaxed. I fell over Scooter last week  skidded on some mud and toppled over the top of him. Poor boy!

MV - BRILLIANT! So pleased that Tink had a good play session!

We're going out at 4 to avoid as many bangs as possible. Both dogs this time, will be heading to the meadow again as it's a universal favourite! Hopefully Scooter will be as good as he was yesterday and Breeze won't get spooked, we'll see.
They thoroughly mugged me earlier on my way back in from buying more dog food. Horrid creatures these Labs, only care about their stomachs! Both seem very interested in the ND I bought, trying the Rabbit and Sensitive varieties as a bit of a treat 

Breeze is currently napping next to the closed kitchen door. She's had major zoomies in the garden and is now optimistic that the muffins my sister's baking are for her!


----------



## Twiggy

Here's the conundrum for you all to ponder today.

It was a bit of a minefield as all our problem dogs were out in force and I had ended up going up so many different streets to avoid them and had just had drama over a ginger cat that had set all the neighbourhood dogs barking, when we came across a golden retriever lying in its driveway  but I just thought sod it I need to get home somehow and walked past it on the opposite side of the road. I will add I know this dog its always off lead but its a very gentle soul and would never have approached us as it won't walk past a dog to get out the pub. So there's a giant golden furball lying not 5m away with its squeaky duck toy. What do you think the ninja did.....

Guessed yet, I will tell you, *absolutely nothing *didn't even look at it!!!! WTH is that all about, surely she knew it was there or was she still all CAAAAT, she just charged past not even a look, not even when it raised its head to watch us zooming along. Even if she didn't see it which frankly was impossible, picture a normal housing estate, its lying next to the path in full view, surely she would have smelt it, bearing in mind she dragged me halfway across the beach yesterday to sniff a dead dog fish even though she cant find a treat under her nose!!

I have realised that dogs approaching are more of a threat than those going away from us, she still reacts but like with the beagle this morning its more excited squeals and anxious sit downs than barking to warn them off.

So did she by some miracle not know it was there or was it because it was lying down. *Or *is she truly twisted in the head  Have any of you had anything like that happen?[/QUOTE]

Did she sense that the retriever was no threat or unexciting, etc.?

Or could be as you say, she was still absorbed in the cat.


----------



## Twiggy

Took Holly and Tremor over to the barn for half an hours training this afternoon and within minutes my hand was pouring blood. Not Holly's teeth today but I think it was her dew claw. She'd scraped a line between my thumb and forefinger. Made training slightly difficult as I had to keep mopping my hand about every minute....!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - brilliant!! .


Yeah, but was it?? I just don't think she saw it TBH, how I don't know, I think she is a nut job 



Thorne said:


> GR - WELL DONE GINGE! Hopefully she did see it and just didn't feel the need to react, I'm always thinking the same if Scooter walks past a cat without trying to bounce at it.


Mmmmm I am so not sure



Twiggy said:


> Did she sense that the retriever was no threat or unexciting, etc.?
> 
> Or could be as you say, she was still absorbed in the cat.


See she could have sensed something, I have since realised that there was a time on the beet field, the path goes round the edge, and I saw this same dog coming so stepped into the beet a little way and distracted her with treats, which was a miracle in itself at the time, and got no reaction from her at all. Even when the chap said hello and I returned the greeting, normally I am very rude and just grin silently as I don't want to alert her, :001_rolleyes: I just assumed that she couldn't see through the beet tops but still thought it odd as she can normally just 'sense' them.

Sadly I think the latter is more likely as she will react to dogs that show no signs of threatening her, that are miles away and haven't even seen her.

Any way we had a good walk this afternoon, in the middle of now where  I am going to study the OS map and find a place to go every Saturday, didn't used to like walking through farmland when we have marvelous heaths, woods and marshes to go to but peace is nice :001_smile:

Well done Tink, how lovely for your nut job owner , you brought a little welling to my eye  I hope the bikes don't cause too much damage, sounds very frustrating situation.

Thorne I hope your walk was scare free and Scooter paid you good attention. I am struggling to think of somewhere me and my friend can go tomorrow as they are shooting everywhere round here and Buffer can't handle it either but all the quieter places are busy with dogs 

Oh dear Dogless, but well done to Kilo for being good, Ginge didn't run away and stopped barking at the dog when I fell over her once and dropped the lead, she did give me a look though and my ankle isn't quite right since  Hope you aren't too sore.

Now here is a couple of pics to cheer people up, only fair as you let me rant and cry all over the keyboard.

The promised donkey, I lurve this photo, he was just hiding away in a range of barns I was measuring up one day, i think he looks like he should be in Shrek!


And while I was looking for that I found this one of Rory, I am so chuffed as I thought I had lost this with my old phone, so pleased. Mum had made him a new dog bed but I think he was demonstrating it was a bit girly for him by being camp, he didn't do this all the time like Ginge does. Its actually quite an old photo as his receding grey line isn't obvious, his face splodge is all there .


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Took Holly and Tremor over to the barn for half an hours training this afternoon and within minutes my hand was pouring blood. Not Holly's teeth today but I think it was her dew claw. She'd scraped a line between my thumb and forefinger. Made training slightly difficult as I had to keep mopping my hand about every minute....!!


How you suffer for your art.


----------



## Werehorse

There are two very spoiled dogs in this house today. OH decided (with a tiny bit of prodding - bit it was all his idea really, honest  ) that they should have a Stag Bar each. Given how expensive they are I was a bit amazed but didn't argue, even though we are still trying to reduce our spending  He also let me get a couple of doggie muesli bars for Oscar for my next couple of big walks. And we couldn't actually resist booking ticket for Les Miserables at the cinema tonight either. So a couple of spoiled hoomins in the house too! 

Oscar has been very good about not getting possessive of his Stag Bar. I did some exchanges for biscuits and he's now picking it up and handing it to me when I ask for it :lol: But Hugo managed to get himself growled at when he tried to take it out of Oscar's mouth (Hugo trying to collect both of them  ) quite right too though and I actually think it is a good thing for Oscar to stand up to Hugo a bit.

I'm not doing very well at keeping up with the thread and what people are up to.  I need to remember to open up Notepad and type stuff I think as I read through!


----------



## Thorne

Thumbs up here, had a good one! :thumbup: Despite a bad start that is. Set out with Scooter forging ahead and Breeze dragging behind, poked myself in the eye on a bit of hedge while untangling Scooter and nearly fell over in the mud.

Scooter was better than yesterday bless him, didn't let him charge off as usual and got him to wait and "watch me" before sending him off. All of his recalls were really really good, he checked in and waited for me if he got a long way ahead and I'm just generally chuffed! Did our usual lead on and off, and some collar/harness grabs. 
Breeze was only worried while she was onlead, had a lovely time when I let her off and didn't fret about noise in the distance. 

Saw no-one at all, my kind of walk


----------



## GingerRogers

Thorne said:


> Thumbs up here, had a good one! :thumbup: Despite a bad start that is. Set out with Scooter forging ahead and Breeze dragging behind, poked myself in the eye on a bit of hedge while untangling Scooter and nearly fell over in the mud.
> 
> Scooter was better than yesterday bless him, didn't let him charge off as usual and got him to wait and "watch me" before sending him off. All of his recalls were really really good, he checked in and waited for me if he got a long way ahead and I'm just generally chuffed! Did our usual lead on and off, and some collar/harness grabs.
> Breeze was only worried while she was onlead, had a lovely time when I let her off and didn't fret about noise in the distance.
> 
> Saw no-one at all, my kind of walk


Arhhhhh sounds lovely! Well done doggies .


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> How you suffer for your art.


Well it will give Dogless a laugh. I'm now sporting a plaster round my thumb.


----------



## Guest

Had a lovely walk at 6am in the rain this morn. Met no-one apart from the butcher and no doggies!! 
Zand was a bit whingey this morn after his walk, so I shut him in the living room so I could go about getting ready for work. 
Opened the door again and he was flat out asleep by the door haha. 

He doesn't sleep all that much my dog. 

Oh and oh my god for the first time EVER sinces we've had him, we had a firm solid poop!!! That lurcher food is doing him good it seems! 

Another OH MY GOD moment too. 

My dad doesn't like dogs, he's never harm them or anything but he just doesn't like them.
But he stroked Zander the other day! He STROKED him. He's never done that before. Then Zander licked him and dad was bit like "Um, yeah you can go away now." 
And he's been reading about what goes into dog foods and he was like "Maybe you should home cook his food or something!" 

Bless.

WELL DONE ALL BTW.

I do treat Zander when he cross over, (well shovel food into his mouth so i don't even get a HINT of a bounce, cause my knee can't take it!)) ..


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well it will give Dogless a laugh. I'm now sporting a plaster round my thumb.


It will . You will be pleased to know that blood was spilt here today - Rudi, I got him too excitable on our walk playing with him with his ball on a rope :crazy:. Nice crescent shaped long gash .

Thorne - so pleased you had a good one today, you deserved it .

GR - lovely photos, the donkey is fab and how nice to have found the photo of Rory.

Good afternoon this afternoon; met the woman with the weimie with Rudi (not planned) and I practised recalling him from her, putting his lead on, doing some LLW and sits and releasing to 'Go Play' - he was a star . Then the woman who batters her lab came along with said lab....who charged over, knocking Rudi flying so I put him on the lead for the rest of the time, practising focussing on me - he did well. The lab got smacked in the face with a pair of gloves . We walked back with the lab as they live very close to us and chatted about how she was impossible on the lead when mine walk nicely, chews the house etc...I told her about our training classes but the woman didn't seem very keen at all. Oh well, gold star for Rudi .

Took Kilo for a run; he was still up on his toes just as we rounded the corner to that one street and had a good shake off as we left it. Nothing to report; hour or so's run, not much seen .


----------



## Sarah1983

Well Rupert is still here  Not heard anything from his owners and they're definitely not home coz I've been in to let Rupert toilet and to feed the cat. Wondering whether they've had their flight changed to tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Well Rupert is still here  Not heard anything from his owners and they're definitely not home coz I've been in to let Rupert toilet and to feed the cat. Wondering whether they've had their flight changed to tomorrow.


Oh crikey; you'd have thought they'd let you know...hope they haven't done one and you haven't just gained a dog .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Oh crikey; you'd have thought they'd let you know...hope they haven't done one and you haven't just gained a dog .


Now don't go worrying her!! Probs just flight delays!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Right, glass of wine...check
Note pad....check
Trumping dog.....check


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Oh crikey; you'd have thought they'd let you know...hope they haven't done one and you haven't just gained a dog .


Oh I doubt that's the case, more likely the army have put them on tomorrows flight instead of todays or forgot to book them on it or something. I'll worry if they're not back by Monday and the removal men turn up :lol:

He did say when he dropped the keys off that he thought they'd be back today but wasn't 100% sure.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Sarah hope your hear something so you know whats going on. 

Twiggy , dogless.... you sure you don't want those chainmail gloves.

LO how lovely that donkey boy is growing on your Dad.

OH came out for walk this evening  only saw one dog. I'd seen a torch and put Tink onlead, the other person didn't ...so their dog trotted over and said hello nice calm body langauge from both, OH couldn't believe how relaxed Tink was when he realised ... you guessed it .... a GSD. While i'd prefer not be approached this way it couldn't have gone better.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh Sarah hope your hear something so you know whats going on.
> 
> Twiggy , dogless.... *you sure you don't want those chainmail gloves.*
> 
> LO how lovely that donkey boy is growing on your Dad.
> 
> OH came out for walk this evening  only saw one dog. I'd seen a torch and put Tink onlead, the other person didn't ...so their dog trotted over and said hello nice calm body langauge from both, OH couldn't believe how relaxed Tink was when he realised ... you guessed it .... a GSD. While i'd prefer not be approached this way it couldn't have gone better.


Well I don't know about chainmail but I'm seriously considering thin riding gloves. I've just counted 8 bites/scratch marks on the back of my left hand and wrist. Not hard to guess on which exercise I wind Holly up the most....


----------



## Thorne

After being poked by a hedge earlier, was wondering why my eye still hurt like heck and thinking I'd done some damage to it. Have just had another look and found a small piece of bark in the corner  
Thanks Scooter for hedge diving and getting stuck, if I didn't have to rescue the big lummox my eye would be bark-free!

Feels ok now, problem solved I think.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh Sarah hope your hear something so you know whats going on.
> 
> Twiggy , dogless.... you sure you don't want those chainmail gloves.
> 
> LO how lovely that donkey boy is growing on your Dad.
> 
> OH came out for walk this evening  only saw one dog. I'd seen a torch and put Tink onlead, the other person didn't ...so their dog trotted over and said hello nice calm body langauge from both, OH couldn't believe how relaxed Tink was when he realised ... you guessed it .... a GSD. While i'd prefer not be approached this way it couldn't have gone better.


An entire suit of armour might be more appropriate I think .

Another GSD? Miss Tinks has been a star and how nice that your OH saw .


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> After being poked by a hedge earlier, was wondering why my eye still hurt like heck and thinking I'd done some damage to it. Have just had another look and found a small piece of bark in the corner
> Thanks Scooter for hedge diving and getting stuck, if I didn't have to rescue the big lummox my eye would be bark-free!
> 
> Feels ok now, problem solved I think.


Ouch....!! Have you got any Optrex Eye Wash?


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> Ouch....!! Have you got any Optrex Eye Wash?


Yep, given it a couple of flushes but must've missed the foreign body first time, feels relatively normal now


----------



## Freddie and frank

I did start off liking everything but was taking ages. So like like like like to all again. 

Dogless  teeth
Sarah :biggrin5: squeaky boobs
LC  human poo
Mv  lovely pic
LO  I cross over too when I have both boys 
Wwsd :001_wub: gorgeous
Nicki :yesnod: notepad
Gr :thumbup: to the ninja and Rory pic
Twiggy  hand

Boys were good yesterday and I saw a shooting star on last nights walk 
Bella is STILL being a floozy. Thought it was ending, how wrong was I. : she makes up for it when we do some training in garden though. Bless her. She's getting very good at it. 

Me and husband took boys out today and after about one mile we come to a field at the back of some houses with a small section fenced off. I always loose the dogs off cause its secure and open, never had any probs there before. Well today, frank jumped over the fence, into the small enclosed area,and went out of sight. I called him but no sign of him so OH went looking. Two ticks later we see a stag running then after him came frank :yikes: I shouted my oh to move quick. Frank came back but this stag was nowhere to be seen and this field is about 1.5 miles away from where we normally see them. I've never seen them there before but now I know, it'll be another on lead area for frank now. 
Walk ended good and apart from that, the boys were well behaved. 

Lots of gold stars for you all I think 
And, Dogless, how do you manage to fit all you do into one day


----------



## Freddie and frank

Ooh, Thorne, hope your eye is ok.


----------



## kat&molly

Been busy today, so I have to be selfish and just post my own, sowwy, I have read through and everyones had a good day I think.

My dopey OH took my car to fill up today- he put petrol in instead of diesel :tongue_smilie: Sorted now.:001_rolleyes:

This afternoon OH had to go price up some work for a French Doctor, Scruff went with him. Good as gold as usual but she did fly today when the chap tapped the window.Ooops, but she let him get in so OH could take him home.
Since they've been back , he's the new hero again, she normally looks to me for everything but give her that tiny bit of individual attention and she revels in it. She's never naughty for me[not like Evie ] but I'd say she is highly strung and reactive sometimes.Poor girl, she's a bit of a crazy mixed up kid I think.

French doctor said to OH- 'what breed of dog is that'
OH said-'she's a mongrel'
Doctor-'we never had mongrels in France until you English came':lol:
OH said- she's a French dog.!!!


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> I did start off liking everything but was taking ages. So like like like like to all again.
> 
> Dogless  teeth
> Sarah :biggrin5: squeaky boobs
> LC  human poo
> Mv  lovely pic
> LO  I cross over too when I have both boys
> Wwsd :001_wub: gorgeous
> Nicki :yesnod: notepad
> Gr :thumbup: to the ninja and Rory pic
> Twiggy  hand
> 
> Boys were good yesterday and I saw a shooting star on last nights walk
> Bella is STILL being a floozy. Thought it was ending, how wrong was I. : she makes up for it when we do some training in garden though. Bless her. She's getting very good at it.
> 
> Me and husband took boys out today and after about one mile we come to a field at the back of some houses with a small section fenced off. I always loose the dogs off cause its secure and open, never had any probs there before. Well today, frank jumped over the fence, into the small enclosed area,and went out of sight. I called him but no sign of him so OH went looking. Two ticks later we see a stag running then after him came frank :yikes: I shouted my oh to move quick. Frank came back but this stag was nowhere to be seen and this field is about 1.5 miles away from where we normally see them. I've never seen them there before but now I know, it'll be another on lead area for frank now.
> Walk ended good and apart from that, the boys were well behaved.
> 
> Lots of gold stars for you all I think
> And, Dogless, how do you manage to fit all you do into one day


Don't know......today went:

0550 - Up, dogs toileted and fed
0750 - Rudi walked and some training*
0850 - 1130 - Kilo walked and bit of shopping done on way back!
1130 - tidy upstairs a bit, change towels and bedding
1200 - Rudi fed lunch, Kilo a snack
1230 - Made lunch for hubby and I
1300 - Dusting and polishing, hoovering, mopping
1500 - rest 
1615 - Rudi walked and some training*
1730 - Run with Kilo
1900 - Dogs fed
1930 - Dinner for hubby and I
2000 - rest 
2100 - quick batch of dog treats made and in oven now

*Rudi is not walking for all that time...includes training session, playing with other dogs, standing to watch things etc!!

Of course I come on PF every time I have a brew, lunch, little break etc .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Crikey......and relax. 

I have days when I'm super super organised and go a bit OCD with my cleaning but then it goes to the other end of the scale, like the last week, when I just can't motivate myself. 
One day I will be organised.....hopefully.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Guest

I have not just been staring at a whippet rescue kinda near me for the past hour who's good with dogs and cats!

WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF!?!?


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## diefenbaker

LurcherOwner said:


> I have not just been staring at a whippet rescue kinda near me for the past hour who's good with dogs and cats!
> 
> WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF!?!?


Because you're normal. I keep going to German Shepherd rescue... but it just wouldn't work at the moment. One day.


----------



## Dogless

Wow Leam I don't know what to say really TBH   it's all been said on your other thread anyway by various people! You certainly like hard work with Deeks and a five week old puppy though .


----------



## terencesmum

Dogless said:


> Don't know......today went:
> 
> 0550 - Up, dogs toileted and fed
> 0750 - Rudi walked and some training*
> 0850 - 1130 - Kilo walked and bit of shopping done on way back!
> 1130 - tidy upstairs a bit, change towels and bedding
> 1200 - Rudi fed lunch, Kilo a snack
> 1230 - Made lunch for hubby and I
> 1300 - Dusting and polishing, hoovering, mopping
> 1500 - rest
> 1615 - Rudi walked and some training*
> 1730 - Run with Kilo
> 1900 - Dogs fed
> 1930 - Dinner for hubby and I
> 2000 - rest
> 2100 - quick batch of dog treats made and in oven now
> 
> *Rudi is not walking for all that time...includes training session, playing with other dogs, standing to watch things etc!!
> 
> Of course I come on PF every time I have a brew, lunch, little break etc .


I normally don't post on here, just loiter and read, but I had to respond to this:

I need a lie-down just reading this. 
Hats off to a super-organised and efficient Dogless!!!!


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Because you're normal. I keep going to German Shepherd rescue... but it just wouldn't work at the moment. One day.


Yes it's an addiction. I know it wouldn't be fair on Quiver at her advanced age but I was so, so tempted by this years rescue pup 'Holly' at the Border Collie Spot rescue.


----------



## missRV

I'm working on getting Rosie to:

Walk nice on the lead, no pulling and to walk 'close' as the training school say. She's good in puppy school but when we're outside there's other smells about and she's not interested in watching me. 

not 'puppy nipping' people (especially children) as they stroke her... the other day a woman bent down to stroke her and she took her glove off her hand! (I did warn the woman that she's only a puppy and offered to hold her head while she stroked her but she insisted on stroking her head) luckily she saw the funny side. 

Blinking 'stay' command! Will she do it? Will she ever learn it? She's got sit, paw, down mastered to a fine art


----------



## moonviolet

missRV said:


> I'm working on getting Rosie to:
> 
> Walk nice on the lead, no pulling and to walk 'close' as the training school say. She's good in puppy school but when we're outside there's other smells about and she's not interested in watching me.
> 
> not 'puppy nipping' people (especially children) as they stroke her... the other day a woman bent down to stroke her and she took her glove off her hand! (I did warn the woman that she's only a puppy and offered to hold her head while she stroked her but she insisted on stroking her head) luckily she saw the funny side.
> 
> Blinking 'stay' command! Will she do it? Will she ever learn it? She's got sit, paw, down mastered to a fine art


Hi RV,

You could try practising your lead walking at home, in the house and garden, up and down a quiet street. where there are less distractions or in the case of the quiet street walk up it and let her have a sniff of all the lovely smells. ( you could even put sniffing on cue so you can use it as a reward.) before starting practising.

I'm not a great one for strangers petting my dog so don't relaly know what to say other than don't let them pet her 

Yes, stay will come. Set her up to succeed dont' expect it to be for too long or too far, She's young and the world is sooooo exciting staying still and not exploring is a reall challenge


----------



## Twiggy

missRV said:


> I'm working on getting Rosie to:
> 
> Walk nice on the lead, no pulling and to walk 'close' as the training school say. She's good in puppy school but when we're outside there's other smells about and she's not interested in watching me.
> 
> not 'puppy nipping' people (especially children) as they stroke her... the other day a woman bent down to stroke her and she took her glove off her hand! (I did warn the woman that she's only a puppy and offered to hold her head while she stroked her but she insisted on stroking her head) luckily she saw the funny side.
> 
> *Blinking 'stay' command! Will she do it? Will she ever learn it? She's got sit, paw, down mastered to a fine art*




Yes of course she will...LOL Are they insisting on stays at class as 4 months old is very young and I don't tend to teach mine until they are at least 6 months old.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Hi RV,
> 
> You could try practising your lead walking at home, in the house and garden, up and down a quiet street. where there are less distractions or in the case of the quiet street walk up it and let her have a sniff of all the lovely smells. ( you could even put sniffing on cue so you can use it as a reward.) before starting practising.
> 
> I'm not a great one for strangers petting my dog so don't relaly know what to say other than don't let them pet her
> 
> Yes, stay will come. Set her up to succeed dont' expect it to be for too long or too far, She's young and the world is sooooo exciting staying still and not exploring is a reall challenge


Just to add Miss RV, do you put Rosie's food down and make her 'wait' before releasing her to eat it? I find it a really good start to gaining some impulse control and it is a useful command for them to know. I find 'stay' much easier to get once they have a tiny bit of impulse control already.

Great walk with the CHs, took them out together to the top field - Rudi managed to walk nicely the whole way there and back :thumbup1: and Kilo did as always :001_wub: - good job as it had frozen overnight and was drizzling on top when we set out so the roads and pavements were lethally slippy . The CHs had a nice play and we practised some recalls and 'leaves' of the safestix so I could pick it up unmolested to throw again . Then...the temperature plummeted and a bitter wind appeared and it started snowing heavily - we were about to finish anyway but both dogs sat down in pure misery and stopped play....so we went home with me really wishing I'd put a hat on me and fleece on Kilo - lucky Rudi had his little coat on anyway! It was a real pleasure to take them out :yesnod: .

It's still snowing hard, but don't think it will settle as the ground's sodden .

ETA: It's starting to settle....me? childish? No......


----------



## missRV

hey  thank you im feeling loads better about her  will try walking her in the garden later


----------



## Freddie and frank

Had a lovely frosty walk this morning with my dad whilst mom did 7miles with running club. I'd normally be with my mom 
We walked with another lab, 12yrs old. Freddie was good as gold, must have been the sushi treats in my pocket met a whole mixture of dogs and he didn't lunge or barge any of them, that's not his style. :001_wub: such a good boy. 
Just going out with frank in a bit, will give him a rest from mrs floozy 2013 

Bella's barking is driving me round the bend.:incazzato: when I'm talking to someone, when I'm preparing their food,basically when she's not getting attention in the house. I'm ignoring it and giving her attention when she's stopped but :mad2::mad2:

What did rudi think of snow? Can't wait for us to have some although bella will probably just bark at it.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Had a lovely frosty walk this morning with my dad whilst mom did 7miles with running club. I'd normally be with my mom
> We walked with another lab, 12yrs old. Freddie was good as gold, must have been the sushi treats in my pocket met a whole mixture of dogs and he didn't lunge or barge any of them, that's not his style. :001_wub: such a good boy.
> Just going out with frank in a bit, will give him a rest from mrs floozy 2013
> 
> Bella's barking is driving me round the bend.:incazzato: when I'm talking to someone, when I'm preparing their food,basically when she's not getting attention in the house. I'm ignoring it and giving her attention when she's stopped but :mad2::mad2:
> 
> What did rudi think of snow? Can't wait for us to have some although bella will probably just bark at it.


Didn't settle at all whilst we were out unfortunately and has disappeared again now as it's raining again . They both just played and then walked home normally whilst it was falling - didn't really seem to notice!!

I would love, love to see them playing in thick snow. I got Kilo in 2010 when it was snowy in N Yorks where we lived for week upon week, but he was too young to really go out in it. We had none here last year so he has never seen it properly and Rudi obviously never has .


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## Freddie and frank

Praying for heaps of snow then so they can all enjoy it.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless, you can have our snow. We've not got much yet but apparently it's going to be snowing all week :crying: I don't mind the snow so much, it's when it goes all slushy and icy I hate it.

MissRV, I build stays up very slowly. I start with rewarding just for the sit (or down, whichever you're working on) and once that's reliable I with hold the click and treat for a second. Once that's reliable I wait 2 seconds and so on. All this is done with me right by my dog. Once I've built up a reasonable length there I take a small step to the side then instantly step back to them and reward. Once they can do that reliably I take a small step to the side, wait a second then back and reward. Same with adding distraction, go right back to expecting no distance from you and as short a duration as possible (so I'd say bounce the ball and immediately reward if that were the distraction I was using). Biggest mistake I used to see in class was people trying to go too fast and of course the dog would get up.

Still no word from Ruperts owners so brought him back in with us (he spends the night in his own flat where he just curls up on the sofa) and we'll wait and see what happens. He's not really any trouble so if something's come up I don't mind looking after him for a bit longer. 

Was so, so pleased with Spencer last night. Had him off leash outside the flat as usual and he's doing his usual sniffing around when suddenly he takes off after a black cat we hadn't seen. Called "Spen, this way bud" and after a few more strides he turned and came in our direction :thumbup: Big reward for him. He didn't come to us but "this way" just means head in our direction which he did so well happy with his response. Hell, I'd have been well happy if he'd just stopped and stood there to be honest lol.


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## Izzysmummy

It's sounds like everyone's had good weekends so far.

Thorne - I hope your eye is ok today!
Dogless - I think you could give the Duracell bunny a run for his money! 

So yesterday Izzy had a a nice run at the park with her ball in the morning, then she had another wander around the water park with a little swim but it was a bit cold so we didn't let her do too much. Again lots of families, cyclists, joggers etc and Izzy was a little star. Me and OH we're out for a friends birthday last night so she was nice and tired and had just chilled on the sofa all night judging by the cushions strewn over the floor when I got home!

This morning I took her for a little game of fetch to get her crazies out then we had our first agility lesson of the new year! She did really well, greats at the jumps and tunnels. Occasionally she gets a bit distracted and starts looking for Tarnus but is getting there especially now the speed is picking up, we had a little crash where I stood on her foot and she cried but she seems fine now. Did some work on the A frame and dog walk encorporating them into a course, need to work on her "steady" and "wait" on the dog walk so she can make her contacts, she's doing them fine at the moment but I'm concerned when the speed picks up she'll miss them. We also did a bit on the see-saw which she was a bit hesitant of at first but by the end she was doing Ok, her see saw confidence seems to have gone back a bit over christmas so fingers crossed it'll pick up again over the next few weeks! 

It was a lovely day to be out in the frosty sunshine overlooking the fells of the peak district and we both enjoyed ourselves !

Doesn't look like we'll get any snow here, just very cold but I'll keep my fingers crossed for the rest of you!


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## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> It's sounds like everyone's had good weekends so far.
> 
> Thorne - I hope your eye is ok today!
> Dogless - I think you could give the Duracell bunny a run for his money!
> 
> So yesterday Izzy had a a nice run at the park with her ball in the morning, then she had another wander around the water park with a little swim but it was a bit cold so we didn't let her do too much. Again lots of families, cyclists, joggers etc and Izzy was a little star. Me and OH we're out for a friends birthday last night so she was nice and tired and had just chilled on the sofa all night judging by the cushions strewn over the floor when I got home!
> 
> This morning I took her for a little game of fetch to get her crazies out then we had our first agility lesson of the new year! She did really well, greats at the jumps and tunnels. Occasionally she gets a bit distracted and starts looking for Tarnus but is getting there especially now the speed is picking up, we had a little crash where I stood on her foot and she cried but she seems fine now. Did some work on the A frame and dog walk encorporating them into a course, need to work on her "steady" and "wait" on the dog walk so she can make her contacts, she's doing them fine at the moment but I'm concerned when the speed picks up she'll miss them. *We also did a bit on the see-saw which she was a bit hesitant of at first* but by the end she was doing Ok, her see saw confidence seems to have gone back a bit over christmas so fingers crossed it'll pick up again over the next few weeks!
> 
> It was a lovely day to be out in the frosty sunshine overlooking the fells of the peak district and we both enjoyed ourselves !
> 
> Doesn't look like we'll get any snow here, just very cold but I'll keep my fingers crossed for the rest of you!


I won a class with Twiggy years ago courtesy of the see-saw, the gradient was about 1 in 5 and I think there were only about half a dozen dogs that actually went over it....LOL Wouldn't be allowed these days as the regulations are much tighter.


----------



## missRV

PS: Sorry dogless, I didn't see your post I replied from my phone. Yes we make her sit and wait when she gets fed


----------



## Beth17

Hope everyone is doing ok. Not had time to read much as have been absolutely swamped with uni work  The boys have been absolute stars this past week although had a slight scare this morning with Sam. I let him out for a wee at 4.30 this morning and he came back in and was fidgeting and would not settle down. Put the light on and he'd started coming out in hives all over his body and before long his face had started to swell slightly 

I was about 2 minutes from calling the emergency vet at 5 this morning luckily his face started to go down he was breathing fine and so I just kept an eye on him. He seems back to normal now although was still a bit lumpy when he woke up again. These things always happen on a weekend. No idea what caused it as can't see anything out in the garden


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well done to spence and izzy. Clever dogs. 

Beth, poor Sam, hope he's ok now. 

Just come back from walk with frank. Was still lovely and fresh and sunny. 
Frank was quite well behaved until he springboarded over a fence by the canal into an empty field. just as I think he's not going to do something, he proves me wrong. 
When I'm on my own with him, he's very good, and I'm singing his praises when I get home but seems every time my oh comes with us he plays up a little. Perhaps it's to put him off coming so he can have me all to himself. 
No full on launches into the canal today, just a quick in and out. Brrrr 

Off to cook a Lancashire hot pot and housework :Yawn:


----------



## Sarah1983

Poor Sam, hope he's okay now!

Rupert has gone home. Although half an hour later him and Spen had a joyful reunion when we were talking to his owner and someone opened their door, he came charging out and straight into our flat lol. Something tells me the two of them are going to miss each other. I'll miss him, for all he's been a pain in the ass at times he's a nice dog and quite the character. 

But it means I can get back to working with Spencer properly now and I'm sure we can always arrange a play date for the pair of them since they only live next door lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

Awe no poor Sam, hope he continues to be OK.

IzzysMummy watching our little charging round the garden this morning I would love to try agility, as soon as you let her out the back door she charges down to the bottom in case there are squirrels taking the most direct route which involves two flying leaps over stuff, can just see her charging round a course, must be lovely to see they enjoy it too. - one day!!

Well done Spen! ETA I had squeaky boobs this morning , well, I squeaked every time Ginge jumped on them  I seriously hope she is coming into season as she is being a little bit bonkers at the moment, it was the first thing my friend said so hoping she might be right 

Well Moonviolet would be pleased with me I let out my inner hag (but now I feel terrible ) Had a lovely walk with Ginge and my friend with her two, was lovely to see the ninja so calm around dogs, well full stop actually, her whole body language was relaxed with a nice loose tail instead of the super sharp curled up tail and antsy tense posture. We only met two other people out with their dogs. The first was a lab that my friend knows, the owner didn't leash him but kept him close until we had discussed how Ginge's barking seems like excitement, so she released him to come and see what she did, sadly *he *growled at her so that ended that experiment when she leapt at his neck, it could have still been play but with Buffer and Elsie around I wasn't going to risk it as they have 'issues' too and pick up habits very easily 

Any way we carried on and came across a couple with what looked like a patterdalexwhippet (lovely little thing which adds to my badness) we called B & E back and leashed them and my friend has them tight into her side and behind slightly, I am trying to do the same with an already lunging Ginge.

Personally I thought the implication was quite clear. But they let there little dog come charging up doing play leaps and bounds, then laughed saying 'be careful you will get told off'. 'Yes he will' I snapped, the man tutted at me, as we have passed them now and Ginge is still yapping off, I turn round and the little thing is still trying to play with her, bless it , the woman pulls a face and makes a noise of some kind at Ginge, so I kick off and shout at her that 'it might help if called your dog back' She looked all startled and the man made some comment about how they were only out for a walk. I just walked off, it was the flippant laugh and then the 'look' she gave Ginge that made me do it, honest. But seriously even if they know nothing about dog, the hooman body language was quite clear I would have thought. Bet someone is moaning about me.

Sorry old couple, hope it didn't ruin your day  .

Other than that we had a lovely walk, it was nice to get out together again, there were no scary bangs for Buffer, the only thing that alarmed him and the ginger one was a large drainage pipe stretching across the path from the marshes, it wasn't even pumping but they both had a bit of posturing and barking and would come near it till I had climbed over, daft buggers


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Praying for heaps of snow then so they can all enjoy it.


Have a heart. I don't mind the snow as such but when it gets trampled and freezes I get extremely worried that the old girls will slip and hurt themselves.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Hope everyone is doing ok. Not had time to read much as have been absolutely swamped with uni work  The boys have been absolute stars this past week although had a slight scare this morning with Sam. I let him out for a wee at 4.30 this morning and he came back in and was fidgeting and would not settle down. Put the light on and he'd started coming out in hives all over his body and before long his face had started to swell slightly
> 
> I was about 2 minutes from calling the emergency vet at 5 this morning luckily his face started to go down he was breathing fine and so I just kept an eye on him. He seems back to normal now although was still a bit lumpy when he woke up again. These things always happen on a weekend. No idea what caused it as can't see anything out in the garden


Phew - very glad that Sam's OK.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Well done to spence and izzy. Clever dogs.
> 
> Beth, poor Sam, hope he's ok now.
> 
> Just come back from walk with frank. Was still lovely and fresh and sunny.
> Frank was quite well behaved until he springboarded over a fence by the canal into an empty field. just as I think he's not going to do something, he proves me wrong.
> When I'm on my own with him, he's very good, and I'm singing his praises when I get home but seems every time my oh comes with us he plays up a little. Perhaps it's to put him off coming so he can have me all to himself.
> No full on launches into the canal today, just a quick in and out. Brrrr
> 
> *Off to cook a Lancashire hot pot and housework* :Yawn:


We're having roast chicken followed by plum tarte tatin (never made one with plums before - I'll cover it with custard if it looks a mess!).


----------



## Guest

Glad sam's alright now beth!! 


Took Zand out in the freezung weather sans coat, He hopped and shot about obviously cold. I am an idiot really for not putting him in his coat! 
Saw a jack russel, crossed over to avoid and it went ballistic! Zander was reasonable, didn't know whether to look at it, attempt to go play or what.

He's also got a bald patch on his head between his ears. Combed him and hair just came out. No scabbing, scaling or anything. Doesn't seem to bother him though...


----------



## Freddie and frank

:aureola:


Twiggy said:


> Have a heart. I don't mind the snow as such but when it gets trampled and freezes I get extremely worried that the old girls will slip and hurt themselves.


Oh, no. Don't like that bit of it. 


Twiggy said:


> We're having roast chicken followed by plum tarte tatin (never made one with plums before - I'll cover it with custard if it looks a mess!).


I love roast chicken but yet again, I'm the only one in the house that does so don't have it often.
Not sure what a plum tarte tatin is but it sounds nice. 
It's my moms birthday tomorrow so I'm cake making later too. 

GR, sometimes the inner hag needs to make an appearance. Fortunately mine hasn't surfaced for a couple of years.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless - I WISH I was that organised. If I try and have a day like you describe I end up in a panicky heap by lunchtime. :lol: Useless! I have to be softly, softly with myself all the time else I get in a mess. Very annoying when there is so much I *want* to do!
Rudi and Kilo are being proper little (big) stars at the moment! You've done amazing! So impressed. :-D

Twiggy and Dogless - I'm starting to wonder if I am doing something wrong with my obedience training because my hands aren't getting ripped to shreds everyday! 

Leam - Blimey! You'll have your hands full chuck! We got Oscar at 6 weeks and he was sooooo bitey it was hard to deal with. I don't regret getting him at that age given how he's turned out now but having got Hugo at 7 weeks I'd always have that extra week with mum and littermates in future pups... house training Oscar was something of a nightmare too but not sure if that was due to his age or just him! I hope taht despite some negative comments on your other thread you'll continue to update us on here and not be afraid to ask for advice etc if you need it. 

LO - I look at rescues all the time. I look at black and white springer crosses and full springers constantly... I keep seeing the next memeber of the Monochrome Chaos Collective! :lol: Dreadful, we simply have no more room and dealing with just these two is hard enough! I think it is ok to just look though. :-D I hope Zander's bald patch is nothing serious - bit odd though.  I'd measure it now and keep an eye on it see if it grows. But maybe that's just me!

missRV - Take your time with "stay". I did a lot of very, very short stays with Hugo to start with - he was so clingy as a pup it was aaaaages until I could even move more than a step from his side without him following. So I didn't push it, just worked VERY slowly on building up time. I think a stay is like recall - don't use the cue unless you know it is going to go right. She's still a baby, it'll come. And build up distraction gradually with LLW. But I'm not the best to advise on that as both mine are pretty dreadful still.

F&F - How come you aren't running? :-( I'm really grumpy with myself cos I was wanting to go out for a run this weekend but I've just done nothing. Grrrr. Can you leave the room when Bella barks to see if that gets the message across quicker than just ignoring. She's probably just all hyped from being in season still! It might get better with time anyway. And nice jumping from Frank ;-) Oscar and Hugo always seem naughtier when OH comes with us. No idea why!!

Oooo! Well done Spencer. I don't think Oscar would come away from a cat like that! That's very good. :-D Glad Rupert's owner made it back ok!

Izzysmummy - Agility sounds like so much fun! I want to do some with my two and their is a good agility club nearby - I just worry that it'll not be kind training methods. We could potentially join an agility class at our current training place but that would mean giving up the normal training as it is a long way for us to go twice a week. And well done Izzy for being a little star at the waterpark. 

Beth - I hope Sam is better now. Oscar had that once, we never found out what it was cos it never happened again. The vet said that most of the time it is a one off kind of thing so I wouldn't worry too much unless it happens again. Scary though! Oscar looked like and English Bull Terrier!

Ginge - Good hagging I'd say. And glad the rest of the walk was good. I'm convinced you'll get there with her and be doing agility one day. 


Nothing to report from us - we've been lazy and boring!


----------



## moonviolet

My hag came out today when right at the end of our walk a jrt eyeballed Tink from a path 50m that crossed the one we were on. then promptly charged barking snarling and giving it some, while it's owner strollled over and me and oh Tried to block the little blighter, when owner arrived told us her dog had a bad attitude, while swipe her arms at it. TInk did the beagle freeze, but ever time she tried to take a step forward the JRT up the intensity. in the end OH went on with tink while i blocked the JRT and told the owner her dog wasn't the only one with a bad attitude, and if she can't conrol it, it should be leashed. THis wasn't my usual out the the way places this was a country park on a busy weekend. I don't like being a cow but some people really don't help themselves.

Ended up taking anohter circuit as I didn't want to end the walk that way. TInk shook it off and was happy playing games within minutes.

When i got home the niggle i've had in my throat turned into a temp and cough and now i'm on pins as OH is walking Tink alone, only second time since she was attacked. feel rotten cald get warm yet my forehead is supernova :lol:


----------



## chazzie10

Phew Ive finally caught up after over an hour of reading the last two days posts 
I havn't been feeling too clever the last few days as I've started having heart palpitations again  I've been off the tablets for over a year but maybe gonna need to go back on them. My son talked me into joining the gym again and Ive been going every other day since the 2nd Jan- Ive lost 5lbs this week and expected to feel better but maybe Im pushing myself too hard. Honestly I felt better before I started diet/gym .
Anyway, Ive still been taking Charlie to the field for his exercise and apart from the other day when he ignored me, he's been great. Think I broke him today though cos he hasnt moved since we got back 3 hours ago


----------



## Werehorse

mv - hope you are feeling better soonest. OH will be fine out with Tink, I'm sure (says the woman who gets twitchy when OH takes the boys for toilet walks )

And well done Miss Tink for shaking off the gobby terrierist scare so easily.


----------



## Werehorse

Take it gently, Chazzie!  I think exercise is good for everyone except in the most extreme cases but slowly, slowly when the ticker isn't quite spot on! 5lb in a week is a lot so perhaps just rein it in a little bit.  Good on you for doing it though, but BE CAREFUL.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> mv - hope you are feeling better soonest. OH will be fine out with Tink, I'm sure (says the woman who gets twitchy when OH takes the boys for toilet walks )
> 
> And well done Miss Tink for shaking off the gobby terrierist scare so easily.


Little harlot didn;t even look back at me as she walked out the door :lol: SHe'll have a great time.

Chazzie hope you are feeling better soon maybe pop along to the docs and just have them check everything. ( says she who has never walked into the surgery she's registered at  ) OH gets ectopic beats if hes' pushing himself too hard.

Phone is on my lap and i'm periodically looking out the window. HOuse is so quite without her, should have mopped, but i jsut don't have the required ooomph.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Werehorse, I had little op on my bladder just before Xmas so can't run until end of feb. got to take it easy for the next couple weeks too. It's so frustrating but it'll be worth it......the tenna ladies have been chucked away. 

Mv, go girl, and hope you feel better soon. 

Chazzie, steady on. But good on you for the extra excersise at the gym. 

Right, my hot pot is ready. Catch you all later. 

Will try the walking out the room thing too. The boys grew out of the barking at me stage so hopefully she will too.


----------



## chazzie10

Thanks folks, I'm sure it's probably just the stress of christmas, too much choc and caffeine and the workouts too, I'll see a doc next week if I can get an appointment 

Werehorse- I absolutely LOVE your pic of Hugo's flying face licks with the wee tongue poking out :001_tt1: You should frame that one!

MV I'm sure Tink will be fine but it's hard not to fret isnt it? :rolleyes5:

F+F Hope you're enjoying that hotpot-Ive just had a gorgeous (healthy) pork roast dindins with lots of steamed veg- plenty left for Chazzie's brekkie too 

Im glad I walked the dog earlier cos I'm too stuffed to move and it's freezing outside though no snow yet bbrrr


----------



## Freddie and frank

Oh my god, I've just walked out of the living room to the kitchen and all three have followed me. I thought that's strange and frank was looking hopeful at me. 
Then I realised, they haven't had tea:yikes::yikes: what a bad mom.

Ooh, and it's snowing :thumbup: so a quick play on the garden is in order.


----------



## Beth17

Right well he came in again about an hour ago and his legs and ears had come up in hives again so he's doing something out there he shouldn't be. Luckily it went down within 20mins this time and wasn't as bad. 
May pop him down to the vets tomorrow for a quick check up anyway and will be going through the garden with a fine toothed comb. 

Chazzie hope it's nothing too major and you've just overdone it a bit.

F&F hotpot sounds yum 

MV feel better soon.

Blimey LO I do hope Zand isn't starting to go bald at his age


----------



## Dogless

Well done hags - GR and mv.

mv - hope you start to feel better soon.

Chazzie - easy, take it easy (from one who knows about overdoing phys!!!).

Beth - hope you find the cause of the hives, poor Sam.



Werehorse said:


> Dogless - I WISH I was that organised. If I try and have a day like you describe I end up in a panicky heap by lunchtime. :lol: Useless! I have to be softly, softly with myself all the time else I get in a mess. Very annoying when there is so much I *want* to do!
> Rudi and Kilo are being proper little (big) stars at the moment! You've done amazing! So impressed. :-D
> 
> Twiggy and Dogless - I'm starting to wonder if I am doing something wrong with my obedience training because my hands aren't getting ripped to shreds everyday!


If I don't have a busy day I end up thinking too much. Way too much - your heap is my salvation and vice versa it seems :crazy:.

Compared to me you are a training professional :yesnod:.

Walked the CHs separately this evening - Rudi was a star, we passed a very eager to greet springer in a narrow alley and he went past at heel (distracted with food) . The man said "Vicious already?" I replied "No, training" and he said "It's good to socialise" so I said "Thanks" as I kept on walking . Other than that not much seen and again he was a pleasure to walk.

I had arranged to meet my friend with Dizzy with Kilo this evening, so we had a lovely walk together and again he behaved very well. Nothing really seen as icy rain and fog were our companions .


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> Right well he came in again about an hour ago and his legs and ears had come up in hives again so *he's doing something out there he shouldn't be*. Luckily it went down within 20mins this time and wasn't as bad.
> May pop him down to the vets tomorrow for a quick check up anyway and will be going through the garden with a fine toothed comb.
> 
> Chazzie hope it's nothing too major and you've just overdone it a bit.
> 
> F&F hotpot sounds yum
> 
> MV feel better soon.
> 
> Blimey LO I do hope Zand isn't starting to go bald at his age


Maybe you could let him out again and quietly follow him to see where he goes and what he does? Hope it's something simple that's easily removed


----------



## Dogless

chazzie10 said:


> Maybe you could let him out again and quietly follow him to see where he goes and what he does? Hope it's something simple that's easily removed


Or have a collar - mounted Sam Cam :yesnod:.


----------



## Beth17

chazzie10 said:


> Maybe you could let him out again and quietly follow him to see where he goes and what he does? Hope it's something simple that's easily removed


I can just see myself crawling through the bushes at 5 in the morning trying to follow him


----------



## Thorne

Oh lord, here we go!

Leam - Good luck with new puppy, shame about the poor little mite's background but what's important is that she's in a loving home now.
Missrv - I don't think Breeze will ever learn to "stay" more than 6' away from me (too much of a velcro dog!) but there's still hope for Rosie, keep up the good work!
Dogless - Good boys! Shame about the cold, we've not seen the worst of it over here yet. "Vicious already?" - that's a good one!
F&F - You could try teaching Bella a "speak" command then when she's doing that on cue, teach a "be quiet" maybe? Worked with a really gobby SBT I worked with and is slowly working with Breeze, who shouts for her dinner! Glad you had good walks!
Sarah1983 - That's fab, well done to you and Spen! Cat recall is something special 
Izzysmummy - Sounds like a successful class, great stuff.
Beth17 - Best of luck with uni work, I'm not looking forward to having to start that again. Thank goodness Sam is ok, how scary for you.
GR - A justified hag moment I think! Good to hear the ninja was happy with your friend's dogs, shame about the little intruder.
LO - Glad that donkey boy wasn't bothered by the JRT, hope he had a run to warm up 
Werehorse - Lazy and boring is what sundays were made for after all.
MV - Another nutty terrier today! All come out at the weekends don't they? At least Tink shook it all off and had a good time regardless. Get well soon!
chazzie10 - Hope the palpitations subside soon, that sounds horrible  Sorry to hear that Charlie is broken!

My eye is much better thank you everyone! Had actually forgotten about it until I came on here and saw my post about it had been liked  Stayed well away from foliage today.

ANOTHER trip to the meadow today! I'm planning to do variations around it over the coming week or seeing as Scooter's being so fabulous offlead around there, fortunately there's several different routes I can take to and from it so we can branch off from a pretty solid foundation.
I am loving walks at the moment! Ironically Scooter's starting to misbehave onlead more than offlead so will need to work on that a bit, he was great with his recalls again, and really paying close attention to me. Was chuffed when he decided to walk beside me for a bit without bribery, he's a bog-off dog by nature so that was lovely 
Breeze the velcro dog hung around for a bit wanting to show off her heelwork for a treat but she's getting too good at begging so I ignored her. She got the message and charged off to chase Scooter. Can't believe how quick she is for a bandy-legged old girl, she goes from dumpling to Whippet in the blink of an eye!

The only drawback from today was Breeze's rather unpleasant ND poo - the "sensitive" salmon one didn't seem to agree with her at all


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> My hag came out today when right at the end of our walk a jrt eyeballed Tink from a path 50m that crossed the one we were on. then promptly charged barking snarling and giving it some, while it's owner strollled over and me and oh Tried to block the little blighter, when owner arrived told us her dog had a bad attitude, while swipe her arms at it. TInk did the beagle freeze, but ever time she tried to take a step forward the JRT up the intensity. in the end OH went on with tink while i blocked the JRT and told the owner her dog wasn't the only one with a bad attitude, and if she can't conrol it, it should be leashed. THis wasn't my usual out the the way places this was a country park on a busy weekend. I don't like being a cow but some people really don't help themselves.
> 
> Ended up taking anohter circuit as I didn't want to end the walk that way. TInk shook it off and was happy playing games within minutes.
> 
> When i got home the niggle i've had in my throat turned into a temp and cough and now i'm on pins as OH is walking Tink alone, only second time since she was attacked. feel rotten cald get warm yet my forehead is supernova :lol:


Oh dear. Time to get the 'Night Nurse' out. Hope you feel better in the morning.


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Thanks folks, I'm sure it's probably just the stress of christmas, too much choc and caffeine and the workouts too, *I'll see a doc next week if I can get an appointment*
> 
> Errr I think we'd all rather you made an appointment with your GP tomorrow - pretty please?


----------



## chazzie10

Beth17 said:


> I can just see myself crawling through the bushes at 5 in the morning trying to follow him


David Bellamy style (if you're old enough to know who he is )
Dogless's Sam cam idea sounds fun


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy- thanks x I'm gonna phone tomorrow and they'll maybe have a cancellation. I swing between worrying and not caring ( mostly because I'll have to strip off at the doctors and get sticky things stuck all over me).... thank goodness Spen wont be there to try and squeak my boobs while they're out for all to see :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy- thanks x I'm gonna phone tomorrow and they'll maybe have a cancellation. I swing between worrying and not caring ( mostly because I'll have to strip off at the doctors and get sticky things stuck all over me).... thank goodness Spen wont be there to try and squeak my boobs while they're out for all to see :lol:


Well you'll just have to grin and '*bare*' it....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well you'll just have to grin and '*bare*' it....


Good Lord......


----------



## Dogless

Leam, how is Molly doing?


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Chazzie the image is now in my head of Spen checking you out.

Tink and OH arrived home safely and i resisted calling before they got back:lol:

Funny when OH was unwell i fetched, carried and pampered. but Tink is curled up with him and he couldn't possibly move her.:lol:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Beth, hope you find out what's getting to Sam, whichever way you find out.

Thorne, how do I teach a speak command? It is like she's shouting for her dinner.
Or anyone who wants to tell me all help will be gratefully received. :yesnod:

My moms cake is in oven and I feel a tad sicky from 'testing' the mixture. :rolleyes5: hot pot was gorgeous. Will make again.


----------



## Thorne

Freddie and frank said:


> Beth, hope you find out what's getting to Sam, whichever way you find out.
> 
> *Thorne, how do I teach a speak command? It is like she's shouting for her dinner.
> Or anyone who wants to tell me all help will be gratefully received. :yesnod:*
> 
> My moms cake is in oven and I feel a tad sicky from 'testing' the mixture. :rolleyes5: hot pot was gorgeous. Will make again.


I used a method along these lines: Teach Dog to Stop Barking - Treatpouch.com - YouTube
The video explains it better than I can I'm afraid! I don't know if you use a clicker but I've found it makes it easier - Breeze has a reliable speak command and I'm just starting to introduce a "be quiet", she definitely picks things up quicker with a clicker but I know several people who've taught speak/quiet without one.

Hope this helps


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> thank goodness Spen wont be there to try and squeak my boobs while they're out for all to see :lol:


Oh I can point him in your direction if you want :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Beth, hope you find out what's getting to Sam, whichever way you find out.
> 
> Thorne, how do I teach a speak command? It is like she's shouting for her dinner.
> Or anyone who wants to tell me all help will be gratefully received. :yesnod:
> 
> My moms cake is in oven and I feel a tad sicky from 'testing' the mixture. :rolleyes5: hot pot was gorgeous. Will make again.


I've always taught mine to speak by sitting in front of them and making a whining noise. They usually cock their head on one side and whine/bark back. When they start doing it fairly reliably I then whine but add "speak".

Pleased dinner was nice. Hubby enjoyed the Tarte Tatin although I don't think I'll make it with plums again. It should be made with apples or apricots and looks much nicer. Tasted OK though.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Thorne said:


> I used a method along these lines: Teach Dog to Stop Barking - Treatpouch.com - YouTube
> The video explains it better than I can I'm afraid! I don't know if you use a clicker but I've found it makes it easier - Breeze has a reliable speak command and I'm just starting to introduce a "be quiet", she definitely picks things up quicker with a clicker but I know several people who've taught speak/quiet without one.
> 
> Hope this helps


Oh, thanks for that. Yes we use a clicker and she has responded really quickly to it. Will take a look at the link.


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> I've always taught mine to speak by sitting in front of them and making a whining noise. They usually cock their head on one side and whine/bark back. When they start doing it fairly reliably I then whine but add "speak".


I've heard this before and tried it with Breeze, being the daft dog she is she ran off to try and find the crying puppy  :rolleyes5:


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> I've heard this before and tried it with Breeze, being the daft dog she is she ran off to try and find the crying puppy  :rolleyes5:


Bless her.....


----------



## Sarah1983

MV, hope you're feeling better soon. Oddly enough, my OH never runs around after me when I'm ill. Yet if he's got a bit of a sniffle he's dying and can't possibly open his own bottle of coke 

Beth, hope you find out what's causing Sam to break out in hives and that it's easily gotten rid of.

Chazzie, hope you're feeling better soon too. And yeah, a doctors appointment tomorrow would be better than one in a weeks time. Although you don't always have a choice, I have to phone up a month in advance if I want to see a doctor coz they never have any appointments


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh I can point him in your direction if you want :lol:


Nah it's ok thanks- Charlie is forever prodding mine with his nose as if he's pressing buttons on some sort of treat dispensing vending machine  
And yeah with our doctor you can wait up to three weeks for an appointment!! I used to work in a local pharmacy and regularly chatted up the male receptionist  so I'll maybe sweet talk my way into an early appointment!


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet,I hope the Lurgy hurries up and goes away. We both had it here before Christmas , it went straight on to my chest and lingered for weeks.

Chazzie- hope you can get a doctors appt. quick. Well done on going to the Gym

We have a box in the pantry with OH's food goodies in  Nothing ever gets stolen , but this past few days guess which naughty dog keeps pinching stuff.
Last night it was 2 large biscuit things with marzipan on- they're quite sickly as well.Seemed to make her hyper and she pinched Jay's pink pig and started parading it under her nose, then beat Scruff up. Was funny.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet,I hope the Lurgy hurries up and goes away. We both had it here before Christmas , it went straight on to my chest and lingered for weeks.
> 
> Chazzie- hope you can get a doctors appt. quick. Well done on going to the Gym
> 
> We have a box in the pantry with OH's food goodies in  Nothing ever gets stolen , but this past few days *guess which naughty dog keeps pinching stuff*.
> Last night it was 2 large biscuit things with marzipan on- they're quite sickly as well.Seemed to make her hyper and she pinched Jay's pink pig and started parading it under her nose, then beat Scruff up. Was funny.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Oh let me think . I won't teckel day about it :lol:

Feeling much better today so far. Woke up to a light dusting of the white stuff. TInk was making it her mission to sniff every flake


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Oh let me think . I won't teckel day about it :lol:
> 
> Feeling much better today so far. Woke up to a light dusting of the white stuff. TInk was making it her mission to sniff every flake


Very clever.:laugh: I'm not sure how you guessed it was her though.
Lucky you and Tink having a bit of snow- I only want some for the girls.

Glad you're feeling better.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh let me think . I won't teckel day about it :lol:
> 
> Feeling much better today so far. Woke up to a light dusting of the white stuff. TInk was making it her mission to sniff every flake


Very pleased to hear you're feeling much better. Wrap up warm when you go out and try not to do too much. God I sound like your granny don't I?


----------



## Werehorse

Is it just me that freaks out slightly every time someone you kind of know gets a puppy? Not on here but in that real life/elsewhere on the internet kind of sphere.

I get this desperate urge to pour out everything I have learned and guide them in the direction of good books... but know I can't because it would be condescending and inpolite... and then end up kind of watching from behind my hands waiting for the first "he's being dominant" comment to appear.

Someone on Facebook made comment about their (young) pup starting humping with an implication that it was time for the snip and I was just like "NOOOOOOOOO! You don't have to! It'll pass." and I think it came across and really rude and weird. 

I think I'm a massive dog training bore.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Very pleased to hear you're feeling much better. Wrap up warm when you go out and try not to do too much. God I sound like your granny don't I?


Well i appreciate your concern and have no grannies to be coddling me anymore 

But i am sticking to the lemonbalm, ginger and honey tea one of my grannies swore by 

Werehorse i know what you mean, there are times my tongue has teeth marks on it!


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse- Yes,often.
A Beagle bitch has just come in to rescue here because.... she eats the cat poo out of the litter tray. I think thats one of the worst I've heard.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Is it just me that freaks out slightly every time someone you kind of know gets a puppy? Not on here but in that real life/elsewhere on the internet kind of sphere.
> 
> I get this desperate urge to pour out everything I have learned and guide them in the direction of good books... but know I can't because it would be condescending and inpolite... and then end up kind of watching from behind my hands waiting for the first "he's being dominant" comment to appear.
> 
> Someone on Facebook made comment about their (young) pup starting humping with an implication that it was time for the snip and I was just like "NOOOOOOOOO! You don't have to! It'll pass." and I think it came across and really rude and weird.
> 
> I think I'm a massive dog training bore.


Yup I know exactly what you mean. Trouble is in a lot of cases we're proved right and it's the poor dogs that suffer.

Someone that trains with me (a lady pushing 70) suddenly turns up with a 3 month old rescue collie pup. I took one look and thought this is going to end in tears. It was a very strong working sheepdog type with prick ears and manic eyes and sure enough it was far too much for her.

I had a colleague at work about four years ago ask about collie pups. His wife had never owned a dog and he had two daughters under 5 yrs old. He was adamant he was having one and wouldn't let me find a suitable pup for him, eventually purchasing one from a farm advertised on Preloved or Epupz. The poor pup went into rescue 9 months later.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with either pup and I handled and assessed both pups thoroughly. Sad isn't it?

btw How was Les Miserables? I'm thinking of going.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Mv. Glad you're feeling better.
Werehorse. I'm the same too but have to stop myself. someone I know wants a miniature schnauzer puppy in about 6-12 months so I gave this great speech about rescues and I'm currently on a mission to find them one from a rescue. 

Took frank out this morning, he was very good. We walked past this green in the middle of some houses and two off lead dogs were running about on it. The owner was going into one of the houses, saw that I was trying to get franks attention, called her dogs then went inside.:mad2: frank was very alert but didn't react badly or bite the lead or growl. We passed them but not without them running over and having a good sniff at frank. I got his attention and off we went. The dogs then ran across the road and into the house. No more to be said really. 

Freddie was on a marathon sniff again but well behaved. 

It's like I've still got two horny teenagers in my house with bella and frank. Can't turn my back for one second without her trying to get him outside. 

This morning she was walking towards me and her back end just flopped down all of a sudden. She sat for a few seconds then got up. This happened 4 times but she's ok now. It was if she wasn't controlling it. May just be paranoid but you know when something doesn't look right. Will keep an eye on her. 

Lots of work to do today so hope you all have good ones.


----------



## Dogless

Glad you're feeling a little better mv .

Werehorse - yes absolutely; mind you, people are probably thinking the same about me .

Lovely walk this morning; took both CHs to the top field with my friend with the weimie - both walked nicely, had lots of play and both recalled when asked to every time. My best boys :001_wub:. I think walking with Rudi is good for Kilo, he sails past things that might otherwise worry him a little.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Mv. Glad you're feeling better.
> Werehorse. I'm the same too but have to stop myself. someone I know wants a miniature schnauzer puppy in about 6-12 months so I gave this great speech about rescues and I'm currently on a mission to find them one from a rescue.
> 
> Took frank out this morning, he was very good. We walked past this green in the middle of some houses and two off lead dogs were running about on it. The owner was going into one of the houses, saw that I was trying to get franks attention, called her dogs then went inside.:mad2: frank was very alert but didn't react badly or bite the lead or growl. We passed them but not without them running over and having a good sniff at frank. I got his attention and off we went. The dogs then ran across the road and into the house. No more to be said really.
> 
> Freddie was on a marathon sniff again but well behaved.
> 
> It's like I've still got two horny teenagers in my house with bella and frank. Can't turn my back for one second without her trying to get him outside.
> 
> This morning she was walking towards me and her back end just flopped down all of a sudden. She sat for a few seconds then got up. This happened 4 times but she's ok now. It was if she wasn't controlling it. May just be paranoid but you know when something doesn't look right. Will keep an eye on her.
> 
> Lots of work to do today so hope you all have good ones.


What breed is Bella and has this happened four times today?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Werehorse- Yes,often.
> A Beagle bitch has just come in to rescue here because.... she eats the cat poo out of the litter tray. I think thats one of the worst I've heard.


:incazzato::incazzato::incazzato:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> What breed is Bella and has this happened four times today?


She's a lab and yes, it was four times. One after the other. She's been bouncing around since.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Werehorse - yes absolutely; mind you, people are probably thinking the same about me .
> 
> Lovely walk this morning; took both CHs to the top field with my friend with the weimie - both walked nicely, had lots of play and both recalled when asked to every time. My best boys :001_wub:. I think walking with Rudi is good for Kilo, he sails past things that might otherwise worry him a little.


I doubt this due to this. 

However I do wonder if it works the other way round too - do people who are all dominance and shizzle think "oh god, she's letting the dogs on the sofa it is all going to end in _tears_!!" when they see pictures of mine. Or roll their eyes and think "bribing them with treats isn't training" and despair. :lol:



Twiggy said:


> btw How was Les Miserables? I'm thinking of going.


Oh it was VERY good! The monologue type songs work very, very well on film and the acting and singing was superb - Russel Crow can sing, who knew? And Borat can sing too! It was so well cast and I didn't feel it was even slightly wrong in any way (like sometimes things you are familiar with and have expectations about can have little things that are slightly "wrong"). Ann Hatheway was brilliant as was Wolverine as Jean Valjean. The thing that was slightly lacking was the impact of the big choral pieces when you see it live, but it makes up for it in other ways. Well worth going to see! I think we'll be going again because I think it will be almost more enjoyable the second time due to knowing what to expect (I was slightly disappointed because they missed a couple of my favourite little bits from the stage show out but watching it knowing that in advance I wouldn't worry about it).

:lol: I do love Les Mis a bit too much I think - I think that is where the name Hugo popped into my head from actually.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I doubt this due to this.
> 
> However I do wonder if it works the other way round too - do people who are all dominance and shizzle think "oh god, she's letting the dogs on the sofa it is all going to end in _tears_!!" when they see pictures of mine. Or roll their eyes and think "bribing them with treats isn't training" and despair. :lol:
> 
> Oh it was VERY good! The monologue type songs work very, very well on film and the acting and singing was superb - Russel Crow can sing, who knew? And Borat can sing too! It was so well cast and I didn't feel it was even slightly wrong in any way (like sometimes things you are familiar with and have expectations about can have little things that are slightly "wrong"). Ann Hatheway was brilliant as was Wolverine as Jean Valjean. The thing that was slightly lacking was the impact of the big choral pieces when you see it live, but it makes up for it in other ways. Well worth going to see! I think we'll be going again because I think it will be almost more enjoyable the second time due to knowing what to expect (I was slightly disappointed because they missed a couple of my favourite little bits from the stage show out but watching it knowing that in advance I wouldn't worry about it).
> 
> :lol: I do love Les Mis a bit too much I think - I think that is where the name Hugo popped into my head from actually.


Thank for that. I'll drag a friend with me then...


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> She's a lab and yes, it was four times. One after the other. She's been bouncing around since.


Mmm just keep an eye as you say. Of course she's at the gangly stage now when they don't always control their legs.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> *However I do wonder if it works the other way round too* - do people who are all dominance and shizzle think "oh god, she's letting the dogs on the sofa it is all going to end in _tears_!!" when they see pictures of mine. Or roll their eyes and think "bribing them with treats isn't training" and despair. :lol:


It certainly does from all the comments I have....even walking with the woman and her lab the other day as she was being pulled all over the shop and Rudi was walking really nicely beside me and getting treated for it frequently she was saying how she didn't like to use treats, a dog should respect you etc....but then asked how I had got Kilo walking well at his size....Singing:Singing:. She does a lot of pinning, kicking, hitting - but still after a year of it not working persists....I gave her details of our training classes again; maybe one day....


----------



## Twiggy

You lot want snow - I don't and guess who's got it....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Mmm just keep an eye as you say. Of course she's at the gangly stage now when they don't always control their legs.


Kilo used to do it now and again at the 'legs have grown 4ft overnight' stage; it worried me and I kept an eye but since he's matured and is in proportion he hasn't done it (touch wood!).


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Mmm just keep an eye as you say. Of course she's at the gangly stage now when they don't always control their legs.


Yes, she is very clumsy. 
Will pop her to the vets if it happens again.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It certainly does from all the comments I have....even walking with the woman and her lab the other day as she was being pulled all over the shop and Rudi was walking really nicely beside me and getting treated for it frequently she was saying how she didn't like to use treats, a dog should respect you etc....but then asked how I had got Kilo walking well at his size....Singing:Singing:. She does a lot of pinning, kicking, hitting - but still after a year of it not working persists....I gave her details of our training classes again; maybe one day....


I know. You can imagine how many thousands of times I've felt like banging my head against the wall on training days, especially for other clubs. The chairman of one club down in Suffolk, when I'd been flogging my guts out all day trying to get some level of motivation from their dogs said - "oh but so many tit-bits".

Attitudes have greatly improved over the last few years - thank goodness!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I know. You can imagine how many thousands of times I've felt like banging my head against the wall on training days, especially for other clubs. The chairman of one club down in Suffolk, when I'd been flogging my guts out all day trying to get some level of motivation from their dogs said - "oh but so many tit-bits".
> 
> Attitudes have greatly improved over the last few years - thank goodness!!


You must have infinite patience Twiggy :yesnod:.

I even find it frustrating when other owners dismiss me as a 'soft touch' because I use treats and toys - but then feel so proud when I walk down the road with them both walking well beside me......I'll enjoy it with Rudi whilst it lasts, not expecting it to always be so nice  . I don't think they understand that the dog has to do something to get treats or a toy rather than just being stuffed full of food and that they are phased out - I can't treat when I am walking them both so rely on praise and smiles and get looked at like a looper for interacting with them. I was this morning by a woman jerking her dog back every few steps and snapping "heel" . There is someone here who really models himself on CM and lots of folk say "now he KNOWS about dogs" because he does all the psssssst etc.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy I love cooked plums, when we moved into M&D's old house there was 5 plum trees so i grew up with gluts of them every year, quite often making myself sick with eating them straight of the tree but stewed plum on our breakfast cereal, plum crumble, mmmmm plum tart tatin sounds yum, yum, with custard?? And I know what you mean about the old ones on the ice, they grit round here but not in the estate even though its a cut through (crazy considering how many old people live here let alone dogs  sure some of them must get stuck indoors for days) last year we had sheet ice outside for several days, taking Rory out was scary, his poor old legs slip sliding out from underneath him, a broken Rory leg was not what we wanted, even getting him to the car to take him elsewhere was a nightmare as the car park was like a skating rink.

It kept trying to snow here yesterday but never quite managed anything more than a few flakes, although we had a dusting of the tiny hailstone stuff last night so had dancing dog first thing . She has grazed the side of one of her pads somehow so need to keep an eye on it but I bet the cold wasn't nice on it bless her.

Moonviolet - keep yourself warm and rested, dose up on all the meds and eat comfort food, hope you feel like giddy cantering again soon!. Glad my hag wasn't the only one who made an appearance yesterday, at least your target sounds obnoxious mine were just a bit ignorant , still feel like cow, actually woke up in the middle of the night cringing as I remembered.

Chazzie - get on that phone and make an appointment NOW especially if it can take a while and might be a good idea to cut down on gym and stuff till you have been seen????? Hope Charlie has mended by now 

F&F - have you given breakfast yet, , bad mommy, I haven't done it with Ginge yet but were quite forgetful with Rozza, trouble was we both fed him so was easy to overlook it and think the other had done it, at least with her its only me, so only one brain to rifle through for the memory!! Good luck with the barking prevention!
Hope Bellas back end is ok 

Beth - hope you get to the bottom of Sams lumps 

I got a bit side tracked and jumped a page last night so suddenly read Dogless comment about getting a Sam Cam and wondered why the PM's wife was being mentioned 

Thorne - glad you had a good days walk and your eye is ok - Lol eye what eye  
At least you don't have to bear the stench of the fishy nature diet :arf: anymore if its too rich for Breeze. The pet shop we used to get it from reckon it sometimes exploded  trouble was it did wonders for the old boy, put a proper spring in his step. Love the idea of Breeze trying to find the puppy 

I think we all have the dying OH's but still manage to drag ourselves about and feed and water the animals :rolleyes5:

K&M - bad Evie  stealing and beating up Scruff  how could she!

Werehorse - you are not the only one and I haven't been at this very long, its funny though as the OH thinks I am a bit OTT but he keeps picking up on stuff and getting mad like me 

Dogless - I think walking with Rudi has made a world of difference to Kilo, it is clear from your posts that he is much less worried about stuff  can i ask you, with the stressless, she normally has it with brekky which is after our morning walk, does it work quickly or is it just a long acting background thing. I was thinking the latter but then was reading the blurb when ordering some more (got tablets this time not liquid even though she seems to like it and licks it off the food  so can give it anytime) and it says about loading a dose before a show etc which implies a good dose before a stressful event, like life  in our case, does have a quick acting effect, sorry, just wondered what your thoughts were?

Got myself out early today,  at about the same time everyone lets there dogs into their garden for a morning pee  I just can't get it right :nonod:, we set off a scale of dogs down the back fences but I did say hello to the beagle owner through her fence. Oh and last nights bedtime walk, going smoothly till we are nearly home, GSD comes towards us on the other side of the road, think its the new one that has appeared recently. My side doesn't have any driveways you can hide in but to my surprise the lady drags her dog up one on the other side, I take my chance and leg it past, didn't fool the little one  but minimised the disturbance for all and the lady shouted thank you after me, I shouted back thats OK I have a monster too!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - I think walking with Rudi has made a world of difference to Kilo, it is clear from your posts that he is much less worried about stuff  can i ask you, with the stressless, she normally has it with brekky which is after our morning walk, does it work quickly or is it just a long acting background thing. I was thinking the latter but then was reading the blurb when ordering some more (got tablets this time not liquid even though she seems to like it and licks it off the food  so can give it anytime) and it says about loading a dose before a show etc which implies a good dose before a stressful event, like life  in our case, does have a quick acting effect, sorry, just wondered what your thoughts were?
> 
> Got myself out early today,  at about the same time everyone lets there dogs into their garden for a morning pee  I just can't get it right :nonod:, we set off a scale of dogs down the back fences but I did say hello to the beagle owner through her fence. Oh and last nights bedtime walk, going smoothly till we are nearly home, GSD comes towards us on the other side of the road, think its the new one that has appeared recently. My side doesn't have any driveways you can hide in but to my surprise the lady drags her dog up one on the other side, I take my chance and leg it past, didn't fool the little one  but minimised the disturbance for all and the lady shouted thank you after me, I shouted back thats OK I have a monster too!


I see the effects of the stressless quite quickly - since Kilo has been a bit stressy over the last week or so he has been on the max dose split into two so he has it morning and evening and seems to have a more sustained effect given that way (makes sense). I haven't given him any today as we seem to be over that hump - fingers crossed! - but normally just give the max dose as a one off before something that he would find a little stressful or often before class as he has much more focus then. I really see the effects when he hasn't had any for a few weeks or a week and then give a dose, thinking about it logically it would work fairly fast.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I see the effects of the stressless quite quickly - since Kilo has been a bit stressy over the last week or so he has been on the max dose split into two so he has it morning and evening and seems to have a more sustained effect given that way (makes sense). I haven't given him any today as we seem to be over that hump - fingers crossed! - but normally just give the max dose as a one off before something that he would find a little stressful or often before class as he has much more focus then. I really see the effects when he hasn't had any for a few weeks or a week and then give a dose, thinking about it logically it would work fairly fast.


Thank You! I will change the proceedings here then I think, the tablets will be much easier to slip her before a walk with a treat of some kind than the liquid, she will have half before mornings and half before afternoons, evenings are normally quite quiet and we never go far so I think she can cope with them. See how that goes .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Just happened again.
Vets appt at 2.40 this afternoon. 
Will get an emergency appt if I feel she needs it sooner.

I'm so strong when my son has been poorly, have coped quite well in stressful situations but I'm in bits.


----------



## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Molly is doing great, was at the vets last night for a check up and all is good, hes happy that she is not too small and is a decent size for a 5wk pup, he thinks she will take more of the whippet side of the family.
> 
> She follows me about everywhere around the house and if she wanders into a room and you call her she comes running back out tail wagging like mad happy tha someone is talking to her. She was only eating a few wee mouthfuls yesterday but this morning ate a good amount, will have to start weighing it now that shes eating properly. Vet said to leave her on the food she is on just for the moment, main thing is to get her eating and drinking and then consider changing to something better. So shes to go back in on Sat and if shes a good weight they will give her her first vaccination, if not shes to wait another week.
> 
> Does anyone have a general rule of thumb for weights vs weeks? i know with kittens its approx 100g per wk + 100g but i cant find anything for dogs, im guessing because breed size plays so much into it (was thinking of using an ave between the whippet ideal weight and a labs)
> 
> Deeks has been good too, is very gentle with her although i keep a hold of him just incase and when he gets abit exicted he goes to his bed which he is getting much better at doing himself although he did chew through 2 dining room leather chairs yesterday!! (but then i dont like them anyway so not fussed lol)
> 
> Molly has Deeks old crate which is huge for her but since she is so small i dont want to take her outside to toilet so have sectioned off a "toilet" part of her crate with towels and then she has a bed and food area since shes likely to eat even less and more often. Shes very good at toiletting on a towel even if in another room she will run through to her "spot" so starting on saying a word and lots of praise.... can never start to early i think
> 
> Ooops sorry for the long post, will now catch up on everyone elses news.


I probably wouldn't worry about her weight for her age and take it as it comes as long as she is in good condition - she could end up lab, whippet or somewhere in between size so a big variation there. Kilo followed this http://www.petscorner.com.my/pdf/puppy-chart.pdf almost exactly but I'm fairly certain that Rudi won't as his adult weight would be 60kg + !!

I am pleased that she's settling in and healthy. I know that some vets won't vaccinate dogs until they are at least 8 weeks of age as I believe that puppies have the protection of their mothers' antibodies until then - it may be worth doing a little research perhaps and discussing it with you vet.

I am glad that Deeks is OK with her....but not good about the chairs at all . You are so chilled about destruction .


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Thank You! I will change the proceedings here then I think, the tablets will be much easier to slip her before a walk with a treat of some kind than the liquid, she will have half before mornings and half before afternoons, evenings are normally quite quiet and we never go far so I think she can cope with them. See how that goes .


I think it's a question of finding what works for you - I mucked about a bit!



Freddie and frank said:


> Just happened again.
> Vets appt at 2.40 this afternoon.
> Will get an emergency appt if I feel she needs it sooner.
> 
> I'm so strong when my son has been poorly, have coped quite well in stressful situations but I'm in bits.


Hopefully it's nothing serious xx.


----------



## Werehorse

Freddie and frank said:


> Just happened again.
> Vets appt at 2.40 this afternoon.
> Will get an emergency appt if I feel she needs it sooner.
> 
> I'm so strong when my son has been poorly, have coped quite well in stressful situations but I'm in bits.


Oh no!  I hope it is nothing serious.


----------



## Beth17

Oh my goodness Dogless a 60kg Rudi 

F&F I hope everything is alright and she's just pulled something.

Took Sam vets this morning as he decided to swell up again at 3 this morning, so am rather tired after staying up a couple of hours to keep an eye on him. He's got some steroids now so that will hopefully sort it out. Going to walk them in a bit in the rain.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Oh no!  I hope it is nothing serious.


And me too


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## Izzysmummy

Beth17  I hope Sam is OK now! Hope you find what was bothering him!
GR  Fingers crossed one day Ginge will be able to enjoy agility! I think it would be great for her training too as itll help her focus on you when around other dogs, perhaps you could speak to some training classes, they may let you go along with Ginge and watch from a distance where she feels comfortable then build it up slowly? Other than that some places offer 1-2-1 agility training which may be a good option for you?
Twiggy and F+F  please send any leftovers from last night to me! Sounds delicious!
Werehorse  I think your boys would love agility! The club I go to wouldnt let me join until Id been and watched them training to see if their methods fit with how I want to train Izzy, so maybe just contact the local club and see if you can go along to watch a session?! Also I cant wait to see Les Mis, the show was amazing and the film looks fab! Fingers crossed well get to go next weekend!
Mv - glad youre feeling a bit better
Chazzie  Well done on joining the gym but please take it easy until youve seen the doctor!! 
F+F  I hope Bellas OK. Hate it when they do strange things, Im so paranoid, Izzys still got a sore paw from where we crashed yesterday, think shes just trying to make me feel guilty though cos she walking on it fine and if her ball comes out its completely forgotten!
Twiggy  Im jealous of your snow!! Weve not had much snow since we got Izzy so Id love to see what she was like if we woke up with a foot of the white stuff!
Leam  Glad Molly is settling, I would have no idea how to deal with such a young puppy! Bless her! Glad Deeks is being nice and gentle! Good luck with the new addition!



Dogless said:


> Glad you're feeling a little better mv .
> 
> Werehorse - yes absolutely; mind you, people are probably thinking the same about me .
> 
> Lovely walk this morning; took both CHs to the top field with my friend with the weimie - both walked nicely, had lots of play and both recalled when asked to every time. My best boys :001_wub:.* I think walking with Rudi is good for Kilo, he sails past things that might otherwise worry him a little*.


I wonder if this is so he can look big and brave in front of his little brother??!!  Im so impressed with how Kilo's adapted to having a little brother, Im not sure Izzy would be so accepting of a puppy in her space!

Back to normal weekday routine! Tarnus took Izzy for her game of fetch in the dark, as they got back I asked him if she needed drying, he got as far as saying she was ok just a bit wet on her tummy when she galloped up the stairs and had zoomies all over the bed and the pile of clean washing ! lol! Now I really should try and get some work done!


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Oh my goodness Dogless a 60kg Rudi
> 
> F&F I hope everything is alright and she's just pulled something.
> 
> Took Sam vets this morning as he decided to swell up again at 3 this morning, so am rather tired after staying up a couple of hours to keep an eye on him. He's got some steroids now so that will hopefully sort it out. Going to walk them in a bit in the rain.


Hope the steroids sort poor bumpy Sam.

I think Rudi will end up around Kilo's weight - his sire and dam and certainly 'grandfather' are all around the same as Kilo....Kilo is slightly taller and slightly heavier than his sire which I think is muscle mass as he can be a skinny bugger but not far off, so hopefully Rudi will follow suit. Rudi is just so solid compared to Kilo, but not shooting upwards as fast thankfully - he's considerably heavier than Kilo was at the same age though.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Freddie and frank said:


> Just happened again.
> Vets appt at 2.40 this afternoon.
> Will get an emergency appt if I feel she needs it sooner.
> 
> I'm so strong when my son has been poorly, have coped quite well in stressful situations but I'm in bits.


Just seen this! I hope she's OK! Big hug!


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> I wonder if this is so he can look big and brave in front of his little brother??!!  Im so impressed with how Kilo's adapted to having a little brother, Im not sure Izzy would be so accepting of a puppy in her space!
> 
> *I'm impressed with Kilo's acceptance and in fact love of having Rudi around! I think part of the relaxation is me...I'm not 100% watching Kilo to look at his body language, reaction etc as I'm watching Rudi too so less anxiety / tension from me down the lead I think. I can also tend to look at something that might be a trigger which I know piques Kilo's interest and again I'm doing that less. Whenever we walked with other dogs (pre Rudi) Kilo would visibly relax and ignore all sorts of things that would have caused some kind of reaction on our own, he was always just happy to let the other dogs 'decision make' and follow them.*
> 
> Back to normal weekday routine! Tarnus took Izzy for her game of fetch in the dark, as they got back I asked him if she needed drying, he got as far as saying she was ok just a bit wet on her tummy when she galloped up the stairs and had zoomies all over the bed and the pile of clean washing ! lol! Now I really should try and get some work done!


:lol::lol::lol:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> You lot want snow - I don't and guess who's got it....LOL


You and me both :nonod:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Ive chilled a bit now, no work started yet though.
Thanks guys, will let you know how she gets on at the vets. She's sleeping now so I'm going to try and get to work. 

Dogless, it's great hearing how the boys are doing when they're together and I'm the same when I take my boys out together. It's a bit tricky getting treats out quickly so I'm normally blabbering on for a few yards until I'm done with juggling leads, gloves and treats. 

Hope the steroids sort Sam out.

Glad little Molly is settling in.


----------



## Sarah1983

F&F, hope it's nothing serious with Bella. If it had just been the one incident I'd have wondered whether she'd been lay funny and a leg had gone to sleep or something. 

Werehorse, I freak out whenever someone I know gets a dog. I just sit waiting for the problems to start, the whole "he's being dominant!", the "he's hyper!" and all the rest. And I'm usually right. Others have surprised me though. One of my friends got what looks to be a Lab mix puppy a few years ago and I would have put money on her rehoming him after a few months. He's still with them and very much loved. No idea on how they train him or what they do with him though.

Stuck in waiting for a delivery of brake discs and pads so won't be going anywhere nice with Spen today, it'll be the frisbee out front for his exercise I'm afraid. I hate being stuck in like this, really want to go for a walk but can guarantee if I do that they'll turn up. Waiting for my cross stitch stuff too but at least if that doesn't fit in the post box it's not too heavy for me to carry home from the post office. Worst of it is they could turn up today, tomorrow or Wednesday


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I see the effects of the stressless quite quickly - since Kilo has been a bit stressy over the last week or so he has been on the max dose split into two so he has it morning and evening and seems to have a more sustained effect given that way (makes sense). I haven't given him any today as we seem to be over that* hump* - fingers crossed! - but normally just give the max dose as a one off before something that he would find a little stressful or often before class as he has much more focus then. I really see the effects when he hasn't had any for a few weeks or a week and then give a dose, thinking about it logically it would work fairly fast.


Hump - don't mention hump in front of Kilo.....:devil:


----------



## Twiggy

Well do you all want to come and stay - it's snowing heavily now...LOL

Holly's bored although they had their normal walk this morning. She keeps coming and tapping my hand to ask if we're going training yet. I think I'll stuff some cheese in the middle of bones to amuse them.

I wish I could use the flipping video camera. The girls were really amusing this morning; the old two went flying off down the paddock bouncing about in the snow and then Holly did about three laps of the back field flat out, having a mad five minutes.


----------



## speug

Sarah1983 said:


> Stuck in waiting for a delivery of brake discs and pads so won't be going anywhere nice with Spen today, it'll be the frisbee out front for his exercise I'm afraid. I hate being stuck in like this, really want to go for a walk but can guarantee if I do that they'll turn up. Waiting for my cross stitch stuff too but at least if that doesn't fit in the post box it's not too heavy for me to carry home from the post office. Worst of it is they could turn up today, tomorrow or Wednesday


I feel your pain there - it's turned into quite a nice day here and I'm stuck at home waiting for a printer and lap top for work, which might come today, or tomorrow afternoon or Thursday morning but knowing my luck they'll try to deliver when I'm out on a job.

Angus is bored, he's played ball but there's not enough space for a decent game, he's played tuggy till he got fed up, he's chased the birds away from the feeder till they got wise to the fact he was inside and can't get to them. He's not in the mood for cuddles, doesn't want to sleep, is totally uninterested in doing tricks for treats - What he really wants to do is potter in and out of the garden but it's still freezing so I'm being really mean and won't let him have the door open and he's being all whiney.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Hump - don't mention hump in front of Kilo.....:devil:


Twiggy!!! you demon :lol:

Beth hope the steroids do the trick for Sam poor boy.

GR Regarding your inner hag, Don't feel bad.... I'm sure they were having a lovely walk that doesn't give them the right to ruin yours!!!

F+F fingers and paws crossed here.

Leam glad molly is doing well.

Izzysmum. Oooops ! I sent Tink up to get OH out of bed after she'd been playing in the snow :lol: I was going to change the sheets today anyway

Sarah i hate waiting for deliveries hope the brake bits come today so you aren't waiting around again tomorrow and wed.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Just happened again.
> Vets appt at 2.40 this afternoon.
> Will get an emergency appt if I feel she needs it sooner.
> 
> I'm so strong when my son has been poorly, have coped quite well in stressful situations but I'm in bits.


Oh no. Hope it isn't anything serious.


----------



## moonviolet

Just saw this on my trainers fb page and thought it was nice

_"Quite often I hear the comment from other dog owners "My dog knows what NO means", meaning to tell me how well behaved their dog is, especially when they discover I am a dog trainer. I usually just smile and think "And my dogs know what YES means" ;-)"_


----------



## Twiggy

Well my girls are all happily attacking cheesy bones at the moment. Just as well as there must be at least two inches of the white stuff now and counting..!!

The next dilemma will be 3.30ish. Do I take all of them for a walk, or do I leave Quiver (and possibly Leafy) in the house? They won't like it but even with their rain jackets on it's not nice out there. Hopefully it will ease off.


----------



## L/C

Busy weekend - so I haven't been able to catch up with everyone here. F&F I hope Bella is ok and I hope all of those who are tethered to the house awaiting deliveries get them soon! MV - that quote is lovely, the CM thread went poof quickly! :lol:

I have signed up to do this in September with OH and a group of mates down in Devon. Horrible video here. I think I have finally lost the plot. I went out for my first training run on Sunday in the mud and the wet - it was semi successful and Gypsy enjoyed it a lot. :lol:

Other then that though walks were not too good. Left OH snoring and took my two out for a couple of hours on Saturday morning. All was going well, had played some impulse control games, find it, treat tree, had major zoomies as no one was around and bumped into our greyhound friends and then I decided to go to Wansted Park. Last time we were there, there were lots of barky, unpleasant dogs so Ely was a bit tense as he realised where we were going.

Played a few games to relax him and let him greet some dogs I know are steady. Stayed off the main paths and everything seemed fine. Then we bumped into what I can only describe as a baby substitute not a dog. A little bichon/doodle thing all dressed up to match owner rolleyes and clearly under socialised and fearful. Off the lead while Ely was on his and Gypsy was walking to heel.

Little dog started barking and woman started cooing at her and saying the classic "She thinks she's a big dog." I turned to go up another path and the bloody thing flew at Ely and bit him. Luckily he had his coat on so it didn't break the skin but he was terrified and hid behind me. I told the woman to get her dog and then punted it away when it came back for another go. Woman shouted at me and I was not polite (growing up in Medway has it's advantages sometimes).

Walked off to a safe distance and checked him over. Had a bruise and a ripped coat and a dog who was terrified and going mad to get home. Home at this point was 40 minute walk away. 

Set off avoiding other dogs but still got mobbed by an over enthusiastic collie cross and lab who's owner had no control. He did his scared, sideways crab scuttle to get away that he hasn't done for months.  Called OH to meet us as the end of the walk so he could have a positive experience at the end and not just head down pulling all the way home.

The next day we all went out for about three hours. He was nervous and watchful in busier areas and very uncomfortable around other dogs. He spent a lot of the walk looking worried.

This morning he was very reactive to the group of dogs we sometimes walk with (exacerbated by Gypsy forgetting her manners and having an excitement barking fit at Bon) so we beat a hasty retreat. He did enjoy the snow though and had mad zoomies with Gypsy.

I think it's going to take a few more positive walks to undo the damage. His temperament and background means that he doesn't just bounce back from this sort of thing.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh L/C what an awful experience for poor Ely I hope you are able to have lots of positive experiences for him going forward. Makes me so angry that thses people neither address nor manage their dogs issues and go around creating problems for everyone else 

I'm going to like your post for the snow zoomies and your incredible madness that muddy business looks terrifying!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Hump - don't mention hump in front of Kilo.....:devil:


:lol: :lol: Lol, I had the same thought, be careful what you're saying around Kilo 

L/C so sorry for your horrible experience, hopefully Ely can through it off with a few days of positiveness  but glad gypsy is going to enjoy training for your MADNESS  looks good fun but maybe for a 1/2 mile 

Hope the deliveries arrive otherwise they will start blaming the weather for delays 

I love that quote MV


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Oh L/C what an awful experience for poor Ely I hope you are able to have lots of positive experiences for him going forward. Makes me so angry that thses people neither address nor manage their dogs issues and go around creating problems for everyone else
> 
> I'm going to like your post for the snow zoomies and your incredible madness that muddy business looks terrifying!





GingerRogers said:


> :lol: :lol: Lol, I had the same thought, be careful what you're saying around Kilo
> 
> L/C so sorry for your horrible experience, hopefully Ely can through it off with a few days of positiveness  but glad gypsy is going to enjoy training for your MADNESS  looks good fun but maybe for a 1/2 mile
> 
> Hope the deliveries arrive otherwise they will start blaming the weather for delays
> 
> I love that quote MV


He's much better then he was but I would imagine it will take about a week before he calms down again. I think the muzzle will have to go on until then as he was very lungy and stiff this morning. Sometimes I wonder why I bother - should just let him go off and run riot too. 

Yes - I think I might start regretting it. I run three times a week and weight train another three days but I'm not sure I'm up to this! OH cycles to work (6 miles each way) but doesn't exercise past that and one of his friends is 18st! I think I might do a bit better then them. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

L/C - that looks like FUN . I am so sorry about Ely's experiences with offlead dogs though, I hope it's not too long before he is happier again. These things make me so angry - I wonder whether these people have any concept of all the work that they unravel and all the harm that they can cause? If they do, I suppose it's even worse as it means they don't care .



Twiggy said:


> Hump - don't mention hump in front of Kilo.....:devil:





GingerRogers said:


> :lol: :lol: Lol, I had the same thought, be careful what you're saying around Kilo


rrr:rrr:rrr:.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C - that looks like FUN . I am so sorry about Ely's experiences with offlead dogs though, I hope it's not too long before he is happier again. These things make me so angry - I wonder whether these people have any concept of all the work that they unravel and all the harm that they can cause? If they do, I suppose it's even worse as it means they don't care .


Ha - when it was suggested I immediately thought of you! :lol: You'll have to find one near you.

One of my friends who declined to join us said it was like paying to join the army. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Ha - when it was suggested I immediately thought of you! :lol: You'll have to find one near you.
> 
> One of my friends who declined to join us said it was like paying to join the army. :lol:


I LOVE that stuff; will find one when I come back to the mainland maybe .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> L/C - that looks like FUN . I am so sorry about Ely's experiences with offlead dogs though, I hope it's not too long before he is happier again. These things make me so angry - I wonder whether these people have any concept of all the work that they unravel and all the harm that they can cause? If they do, I suppose it's even worse as it means they don't care .
> .


I don't think they do realise, although I would love to know where all these perfectly well behaved, fully trained, with no issues at all, dogs that they must own, come from, perhaps the BYB aren't so daft after all and are breeding the perfect pet xbreed


----------



## Guest

God I hope poor old Ely's alright now! Poor lamb! 

Went up field this morn, with mum, it poured down Zander ran like three feet then wanted to go home. 

Recall seems to have been forgotten. 


Showed mum the chinese crested fostered by someone on here and she now wants it.  She really wants a little dog haha.

Off to my shift in a bit have a nice evening!


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> I don't think they do realise, although I would love to know *where all these perfectly well behaved, fully trained, with no issues at all, dogs that they must own, *come from, perhaps the BYB aren't so daft after all and are breeding the perfect pet xbreed


They don't exist - their owners just don't see/don't care about the problems their own dogs are having as it doesn't effect them, just the people they come into contact with. 

I feel desperately sorry for the little dog that had a go at Ely - it must be awful to feel so scared all the time. The owner just didn't see it as an issue.


----------



## Beth17

L/C I think you're mad to be doing that :crazy:
Poor Ely though what a horrible experience for you both. I really hope he can get back to enjoying his walks soon.

A certain someone just helped himself to the last 5 slices of bread when I nipped over the shop  When will I learn not to trust him


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Busy weekend - so I haven't been able to catch up with everyone here. F&F I hope Bella is ok and I hope all of those who are tethered to the house awaiting deliveries get them soon! MV - that quote is lovely, the CM thread went poof quickly! :lol:
> 
> I have signed up to do this in September with OH and a group of mates down in Devon. Horrible video here. I think I have finally lost the plot. I went out for my first training run on Sunday in the mud and the wet - it was semi successful and Gypsy enjoyed it a lot. :lol:
> 
> Other then that though walks were not too good. Left OH snoring and took my two out for a couple of hours on Saturday morning. All was going well, had played some impulse control games, find it, treat tree, had major zoomies as no one was around and bumped into our greyhound friends and then I decided to go to Wansted Park. Last time we were there, there were lots of barky, unpleasant dogs so Ely was a bit tense as he realised where we were going.
> 
> Played a few games to relax him and let him greet some dogs I know are steady. Stayed off the main paths and everything seemed fine. Then we bumped into what I can only describe as a baby substitute not a dog. A little bichon/doodle thing all dressed up to match owner rolleyes and clearly under socialised and fearful. Off the lead while Ely was on his and Gypsy was walking to heel.
> 
> Little dog started barking and woman started cooing at her and saying the classic "She thinks she's a big dog." I turned to go up another path and the bloody thing flew at Ely and bit him. Luckily he had his coat on so it didn't break the skin but he was terrified and hid behind me. I told the woman to get her dog and then punted it away when it came back for another go. Woman shouted at me and I was not polite (growing up in Medway has it's advantages sometimes).
> 
> Walked off to a safe distance and checked him over. Had a bruise and a ripped coat and a dog who was terrified and going mad to get home. Home at this point was 40 minute walk away.
> 
> Set off avoiding other dogs but still got mobbed by an over enthusiastic collie cross and lab who's owner had no control. He did his scared, sideways crab scuttle to get away that he hasn't done for months.  Called OH to meet us as the end of the walk so he could have a positive experience at the end and not just head down pulling all the way home.
> 
> The next day we all went out for about three hours. He was nervous and watchful in busier areas and very uncomfortable around other dogs. He spent a lot of the walk looking worried.
> 
> This morning he was very reactive to the group of dogs we sometimes walk with (exacerbated by Gypsy forgetting her manners and having an excitement barking fit at Bon) so we beat a hasty retreat. He did enjoy the snow though and had mad zoomies with Gypsy.
> 
> I think it's going to take a few more positive walks to undo the damage. His temperament and background means that he doesn't just bounce back from this sort of thing.


Oh I'm so sorry L/C, poor Ely.

These wretched owners that are totally in denial of their dog's behaviour.

I don't know I really don't. There's so many colleges now churning out so called behaviourist and so much stuff in the media and yet there seems to be more and more out of control dogs.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> They don't exist - their owners just don't see/don't care about the problems their own dogs are having as it doesn't effect them, just the people they come into contact with.
> 
> I feel desperately sorry for the little dog that had a go at Ely - it must be awful to feel so scared all the time. The owner just didn't see it as an issue.


Oh I see!!!!!!!! And there was me thinking I was just a very terrible owner   .

I know what you mean about the other dog, the other day a little JRT I know is nervy, (and when discussing with my friend yesterday it turns out it has actually bitten several times ), ran up to us and then hid behind the owners legs when Ginge started barking, all he could say was 'oh dear someones grumpy' then went on to say his dog was the same on the lead. So if you know that happens why did you just let that occur and are now standing there to let your own dog be scared, it has presumably bitten out of fear. I felt a bit better about being mad at him as I had thought he was OK, just stupid, but she informed me of a few other unsavory facts as well


----------



## Twiggy

Right the snow has eased to just very fine stuff at the moment so I'll take all 4 dogs.

I hope Bella is OK after the visit to the vets.


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Oh I see!!!!!!!! And there was me thinking I was just a very terrible owner   .


 I missed the sarcasm in the previous post didn't I? 

Forgot to say that on Sunday we met the most beautiful and friendly Malinois bitch. I'm planning a pup potentially for 2014 (when the breeder I like is having a litter) and this dog was from a different kennel but another show breeder (not sure I'm up for a working line one yet!). OH was quite taken with her (he's been a bit on the fence about another dog) and Ely fell in love.

Obv. adding a pup depends on Ely - if the brain damage gets worse and we see a downward trend in behaviour then we won't add another dog until he is gone. We also had another vet appointment about him at the weekend (monitoring) and he's fine and stable. He hasn't had another funny turn for a while but the vet did mention that it may affect his life span. Tbh with the level of stress he lived with (and still does on bad days) I never expected him to make it to a grand old age but it was a bit of a shock to hear it spelled out.

Spoke to the insurance today and they won't cover him for anything as they class it as a pre-existing injury even though there was no evidence of it when we adopted him. Luckily we have a dog credit card and an understanding vet. It's been 3k already for all the tests (including MRI).


----------



## Freddie and frank

Back from vets.
Can't find anything wrong with her apart from her legs seemed a bit stiff.
So none the wiser really. Said it wasn't anything to worry about as she's healthy and young. Gave her some anti inflamatories and go back in one week if still happens.
Bit of a relief so will just keep an eye on her. And rest her.....
Thanks for all your well wishes.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> *I missed the sarcasm in the previous post didn't I?*
> 
> Forgot to say that on Sunday we met the most beautiful and friendly Malinois bitch. I'm planning a pup potentially for 2014 (when the breeder I like is having a litter) and this dog was from a different kennel but another show breeder (not sure I'm up for a working line one yet!). OH was quite taken with her (he's been a bit on the fence about another dog) and Ely fell in love.
> 
> Obv. adding a pup depends on Ely - if the brain damage gets worse and we see a downward trend in behaviour then we won't add another dog until he is gone. We also had another vet appointment about him at the weekend (monitoring) and he's fine and stable. He hasn't had another funny turn for a while but the vet did mention that it may affect his life span. Tbh with the level of stress he lived with (and still does on bad days) I never expected him to make it to a grand old age but it was a bit of a shock to hear it spelled out.
> 
> Spoke to the insurance today and they won't cover him for anything as they class it as a pre-existing injury even though there was no evidence of it when we adopted him. Luckily we have a dog credit card and an understanding vet. It's been 3k already for all the tests (including MRI).


You might of done 

BTW I liked that post for that ^^^^ I didn't like the amount of money the unscrupulous and downright awful breeder/trainer has cost you although I guess its peanuts compared to what its cost Ely, poor lad .

ETA glad they don't think its anything terrible with Bella F&F - Ginge flops when she has prickles in her feet or leaves attached to her legs although belly and face don't seem to be a problem (its very cute as she has such a helpless look on her face) but it does look accidental, worried me the first time, still does for a second. Could it be some kind of uncomfortableness linked to her season, like our period twinges ???


----------



## L/C

Freddie and frank said:


> Back from vets.
> Can't find anything wrong with her apart from her legs seemed a bit stiff.
> So none the wiser really. Said it wasn't anything to worry about as she's healthy and young. Gave her some anti inflamatories and go back in one week if still happens.
> Bit of a relief so will just keep an eye on her. And rest her.....
> Thanks for all your well wishes.


That's great. :thumbup1:

Hopefully it won't happen again.


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> You might of done
> 
> BTW I liked that post for that ^^^^ I didn't like the amount of money the unscrupulous and downright awful breeder/trainer has cost you although I guess its peanuts compared to what its cost Ely, poor lad .


It's not nice but thankfully it doesn't seem to bother him. He's never distressed after the funny turns and they don't seem to have any lingering effect on him. He loves going to the vet as well; he gets to go on a car ride, gets fussed by lots of people and is liberally stuffed with treats. It's a grand day out for him.

The money hurts but tbh we can afford it so I'm just trying not to think about it too much!


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Back from vets.
> Can't find anything wrong with her apart from her legs seemed a bit stiff.
> So none the wiser really. Said it wasn't anything to worry about as she's healthy and young. Gave her some anti inflamatories and go back in one week if still happens.
> Bit of a relief so will just keep an eye on her. And rest her.....
> Thanks for all your well wishes.


Phew that's a relief. Let's hope it doesn't happen again.

Young dogs do seem to do strange things sometimes; call it growing pains if you like. Back in the early 1980s I remember my Jessie kicking a hind leg out for quite a number of days at about the same age as Bella. It looked like 'stringhalt' in a horse.


----------



## Werehorse

L/C - mental! Looks good though. I keep thinking I'll do somethign like that but never quite pluck up the madness to get entered... I indulge a stupid distance madness instead it seems. :lol: And poor Ely  I hope he picks up again soon. Idiot owners. Grrrr. And glad Ely is stable for now. I reckon you should bill his previous owner for damages.

Twiggy - Hope you managed ok in the snow.

F&F - A bit puzzling but good that the vet isn't too worried... hopefully it is just a one off. It could be growing pains of some sort, linked to season or losing weight maybe. Dunno. 

Me and the boys and my friend did a fell walk today. It was good.  A relitively short one. There was snow - Hugo had mental zoomies.  My friend has broken her thumb playing hockey so couldn't help me with the dogs on the leads, however it didn't involve much lead walking today and they were...erm... ok. I didn't get pulled over put it that way.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Me and the boys and my friend did a *feel walk *today. It was good.  A relitively short one. There was snow - Hugo had mental zoomies.  My friend has broken her thumb playing hockey so couldn't help me with the dogs on the leads, however it didn't involve much lead walking today and they were...erm... ok. I didn't get pulled over put it that way.


Blindfolded? Feeling your way around?  . Glad it was a good one Werehorse.

OK second walks today; took Rudi round the block in the bitter wind, icy rain and sleet. It was so horrid that the cold cut through my gloves and silk inners . We didn't stay out long at all as the poor little beastie was chilly. Couldn't face a lead walk with Kilo so we went for a run for an hour or so so we would at least keep a tiny bit warm . I hadn't intended to run as I did my swim today at my 'good' pace and was shattered but.....that weather  .


----------



## Buzzard

Sarah1983 said:


> Lots of things! But mainly pulling on leash. Spencer is a nightmare and we've made little progress. My fault really as I've simply put him on his harness and taken him to the woods and fields where he can have some freedom instead of working on the problem. But it's getting ridiculous now, he dislocated my hubbys shoulder and put his back out last week. So we're going to give our nice walks a miss and work on walking nicely.


This sounds very familiar! I have decided to try and focus on leash walking, as have been opting for off lead runs in the fields at the back of the house because it is tbh very unpleasant taking Mac out on the lead!


----------



## Sarah1983

Think I'm going to have to get a front attachment harness. This whole head collar thing just isn't working out, Spencer HATES it. I've tried nicey nice for months and I've tried the whole tough love, deal with it sort of thing the last few days and neither seems to have any effect. Really didn't want to go for a harness as I really do like the Julius K9 one and because I'm worried about sending conflicting messages coz I use one with a long line but we're getting nowhere with the head collar issue except stressed out.

L/C so sorry about what happened with Ely. Same sort of thing used to happen with us so often with Rupert and he didn't bounce back either so it really did undo months of hard work every time. Hope Ely gets comfortable again soon. I really don't understand how people can't see the issues their out of control dogs cause :nonod:


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Blindfolded? Feeling your way around?  . Glad it was a good one Werehorse.


   I'll edit it now.


----------



## chazzie10

Sarah Charlie was the same when I tried a head collar on him. He was like a bucking bronco and wouldnt walk straight at all. He was terrified of it and had his tail tucked in and ears flat even though I had spent a while before hand getting him used to it in the house, using treats etc. We had such a bad walk that I ended up taking it off him on the way home and just clipping the lead onto his neck collar. It thought it just wasnt worth putting him through it. I suppose it works for some and not others


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Sarah Charlie was the same when I tried a head collar on him. He was like a bucking bronco and wouldnt walk straight at all. He was terrified of it and had his tail tucked in and ears flat even though I had spent a while before hand getting him used to it in the house, using treats etc. We had such a bad walk that I ended up taking it off him on the way home and just clipping the lead onto his neck collar. It thought it just wasnt worth putting him through it. I suppose it works for some and not others


No mention of your doctors appointment Chazzie. You have been a good girl and made one haven't you?


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Sarah Charlie was the same when I tried a head collar on him. He was like a bucking bronco and wouldnt walk straight at all. He was terrified of it and had his tail tucked in and ears flat even though I had spent a while before hand getting him used to it in the house, using treats etc. We had such a bad walk that I ended up taking it off him on the way home and just clipping the lead onto his neck collar. It thought it just wasnt worth putting him through it. I suppose it works for some and not others


Spens fine with it on while standing still, willingly puts his nose into it, can do tricks with it on, eat with it on and sleep with it on. Ask him to walk with it on though and he throws a hissy fit. I've been working on it for months with him but I honestly don't think we're going to get any further. It's not so bad with the muzzle coz he doesn't need one, I just feel it's a good thing to get them used to one so it's not added stress in an emergency situation.

I'm happy enough to keep working at loose leash walking and he's not doing too badly with it. The problem is when we have no choice but to pass another dog at close range, I find it really, really difficult to control him on a collar when he's lunging and spinning trying to get to the other dog. And now that it's so slippery underfoot I've got visions of him pulling me over. But no, I don't feel it's worth the stress so will have to look into a front attachment harness.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy- erm........nooooo......not yet Singing: Singing:
I havn't had any palpitations today and I was working all morning so didn't phone  Gave myself a day off the gym though (yay ) and I'll phone tomorrow 

Sarah- Ooooh yes I know exactly what that's like. To get to another dog Charlie pulled me across a country lane that was so icy I couldn't hold him back and that was two years ago when he was only about 9 months old!!


----------



## Twiggy

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy- erm........nooooo......not yet Singing: Singing:
> *I havn't had any palpitations today and I was working all morning so didn't phone  Gave myself a day off the gym though (yay ) and I'll phone tomorrow *
> 
> You're a naughty girl....


----------



## Sarah1983

chazzie10 said:


> Sarah- Ooooh yes I know exactly what that's like. To get to another dog Charlie pulled me across a country lane that was so icy I couldn't hold him back and that was two years ago when he was only about 9 months old!!


It's a nightmare isn't it? Spen isn't too bad if we have to pass on the other side of the street or something but if we've got to pass on the same side or on the path in the woods he's a bloody pain. He's 2 in May, beginning to despair of him ever getting over this obsession with other dogs.


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> It's a nightmare isn't it? Spen isn't too bad if we have to pass on the other side of the street or something but if we've got to pass on the same side or on the path in the woods he's a bloody pain. He's 2 in May, beginning to despair of him ever getting over this obsession with other dogs.


Even if we do cross over the other side, Zander will still bounce around if I don't keep shoving food in his gob!! 
I gave up on the headcollar because it was making him sore around the face and made him very despondent. Flattened ears, tail between legs etc. 
I almost broke my wrist once because Zander pulled me over to see these two offlead westies. 
I'd love to be able to have a dog that can walk with other dogs and one that I can just let off and he'll come back when theres other dogs about but I'm not when that would happen.

I don't care whether other people disagree, my dog is obsessed with other dogs and saying "You need to make yourself more interesting" doesn't help? What the heck to people think I've been doing that past 13 and half months!?!!?!?!?

*Reins in the grumpyness*

AND CHAZZIE GO. SEE. YOUR. DOCTOR.


----------



## chazzie10

Twiggy said:


> chazzie10 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Twiggy- erm........nooooo......not yet Singing: Singing:
> *I havn't had any palpitations today and I was working all morning so didn't phone  Gave myself a day off the gym though (yay ) and I'll phone tomorrow *
> 
> You're a naughty girl....
> 
> 
> 
> Sigh....not as naughty as I'd like to be hehehe  (oh no that's gonna set MV off again isnt it? :lol
Click to expand...


----------



## chazzie10

ok ok I'll go lol....See I'm as disobedient as my dog (well, used to be) Maybe I need someone to feed me treats to get me to go into the doctors 

Charlie is ok if the dogs on the other side of the road. We've even managed the same side now if Ive remembered to take good treats and the other dog isnt overexcited too!


----------



## Guest

chazzie10 said:


> ok ok I'll go lol....See I'm as disobedient as my dog (well, used to be) Maybe I need someone to feed me treats to get me to go into the doctors
> 
> Charlie is ok if the dogs on the other side of the road. We've even managed the same side now if Ive remembered to take good treats and the other dog isnt overexcited too!


IF YOU GO TO THE DOCTORS I'LL GIVE YOU SOME REP!!

Oh and I bought a labrador retriever book today, mum now wants one of those.


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> I don't care whether other people disagree, my dog is obsessed with other dogs and saying "You need to make yourself more interesting" doesn't help? What the heck to people think I've been doing that past 13 and half months!?!!?!?!?


Have you read Control Unleashed? I honestly think that's what sold me on that book over all the countless others I have, it doesn't rely on you being more interesting than everything else in the entire universe. Think I'll dig my copy out tomorrow and see what I can use with Spen.

But yeah, "be more interesting!" is about as much use as tits on a fish sometimes. And it's rather humbling to realise you are less interesting than half a rotting hedgehog crawling with maggots or a squished squirrel  I would challenge anyone to be more interesting to Rupert than either of those things. Or sheep. Or cats. Or pigeons. Or horses.


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Have you read Control Unleashed? I honestly think that's what sold me on that book over all the countless others I have, it doesn't rely on you being more interesting than everything else in the entire universe. Think I'll dig my copy out tomorrow and see what I can use with Spen.
> 
> But yeah, "be more interesting!" is about as much use as tits on a fish sometimes. And it's rather humbling to realise you are less interesting than half a rotting hedgehog crawling with maggots or a squished squirrel  I would challenge anyone to be more interesting to Rupert than either of those things. Or sheep. Or cats. Or pigeons. Or horses.


Who's it written by?? (ANOTHER BOOK FOR ME TO BUY!?!? )

And yes it is humbling to find your less interesting than a dead toad.

It just kinda annoys that theres people who don't give a flying rats arse about training their dog and yet they're dog can happily trot by at close range, ignoring my dog. rrr:


----------



## chazzie10

LurcherOwner said:


> *IF YOU GO TO THE DOCTORS I'LL GIVE YOU SOME REP!! *
> 
> Oh and I bought a labrador retriever book today, mum now wants one of those.


Bribery will get you everywhere


----------



## moonviolet

chazzie10 said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Sigh....not as naughty as I'd like to be hehehe  (oh no that's gonna set MV off again isnt it? :lol
> 
> 
> 
> nope MV is being very well behaved tonight, due to feeling a bit blurgh, Be careful normal service will be resumed shortly.
Click to expand...


----------



## Sarah1983

It's by Leslie McDevitt. It's the book that helped me the most with Rupert although a lot of it is difficult to do without stooge dogs and in an uncontrolled environment. But then you've got the same problem with BAT and everything else too. I think it was just the completely different attitude that did it for me, the whole not telling you just to work at being more exciting than that rotting hedgehog or dead toad. 

I actually went through a phase where I had to stop myself reaching through the computer screen to strangle the next person who uttered the phrase "you need to make yourself more interesting than anything else"  And if someone had said it to me in person I think I would have floored them.


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> It's by Leslie McDevitt. It's the book that helped me the most with Rupert although a lot of it is difficult to do without stooge dogs and in an uncontrolled environment. But then you've got the same problem with BAT and everything else too. I think it was just the completely different attitude that did it for me, the whole not telling you just to work at being more exciting than that rotting hedgehog or dead toad.
> 
> I actually went through a phase where I had to stop myself reaching through the computer screen to strangle the next person who uttered the phrase "you need to make yourself more interesting than anything else"  And if someone had said it to me in person I think I would have floored them.


Sadly I have no stooge dogs available. As the two girlfriends of Zander are moving away next week. 

Either way I'll have a nosy at it.


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## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> Sadly I have no stooge dogs available. As the two girlfriends of Zander are moving away next week.
> 
> Either way I'll have a nosy at it.


I didn't have stooge dogs available either. Or a controlled environment to work in and create the distance Rupert needed. But you can still work on the things at home and do what you can in the real world. It was somewhat effective with Rupert and I know plenty of people who've had a lot of success with things like the Look at That game. A lot of it works on the Premack principle too
Harper Collins - Inside Out & Back Again - FamilyEducation.com


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## chazzie10

The book sounds interesting! I looked it up on Amazon and it might be worth a try for my numpty too...I'll maybe see if the library has it though 

MV- Cant wait for the normal service to resume, It's the reason I come on here everyday to laugh at everyones wit and banter


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## Sarah1983

Just had a nice training session with Spencer on "watch me". We're up to about 6 seconds as long as I give the hand signal and there are no distractions. But he'll give it from a sit or a down or a stand, in front of me or at the side. So I guess we need to start working on distractions too.


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## kat&molly

Pleased to hear the vet thinks Bella's ok.

Chazzie-ring the docs today.rrr:

Dogless- I'm really impressed at the boys walking so well when they're together. My biggest fall down I think was not starting it straight away when Moll was a pup.:yesnod:

Really pleased with Scruff yesterday, on our walk a woman came out of nowhere and was only a few yards away from where Scruff was sniffing. I panicked and whistle recalled her, she came straight away and didn't approach the woman to bark- she didn't even seem to think about it.
She has gotten so much better anyway but the fact that she was close to the lady and I wasn't was a big test. Lots of praise and liver for Scruff.:yesnod: Shame she spoilt it by rolling in something stinky and needed a bath. Small price to pay I think.

Door manners were going well but now Evie has started to get in a big panic that she will get left behind and not wait at all.
I have to hold her lead and just get a second before she can go. I done it with treats on our walk yesterday, just making her wait whilst I threw them. 
She will wait before eating and before getting out the car so hopefully she'll get better- but its Evie and I shant hold my breath.

After the success of Evie learning Spin , I started her on Twist, she's getting it but it seems a bit daft when we still can't get 'Down'.

Have a good day everyone.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Pleased to hear the vet thinks Bella's ok.
> 
> Chazzie-ring the docs today.rrr:
> 
> Dogless- I'm really impressed at the boys walking so well when they're together. My biggest fall down I think was not starting it straight away when Moll was a pup.:yesnod:
> 
> Really pleased with Scruff yesterday, on our walk a woman came out of nowhere and was only a few yards away from where Scruff was sniffing. I panicked and whistle recalled her, she came straight away and didn't approach the woman to bark- she didn't even seem to think about it.
> She has gotten so much better anyway but the fact that she was close to the lady and I wasn't was a big test. Lots of praise and liver for Scruff.:yesnod: Shame she spoilt it by rolling in something stinky and needed a bath. Small price to pay I think.
> 
> Door manners were going well but now Evie has started to get in a big panic that she will get left behind and not wait at all.
> I have to hold her lead and just get a second before she can go. I done it with treats on our walk yesterday, just making her wait whilst I threw them.
> She will wait before eating and before getting out the car so hopefully she'll get better- but its Evie and I shant hold my breath.
> 
> After the success of Evie learning Spin , I started her on Twist, she's getting it but it seems a bit daft when we still can't get 'Down'.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Holly does twist one way and twirl the other....LOL

Explain to me how you've tried to teach Evie 'down'.


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Holly does twist one way and twirl the other....LOL
> 
> Explain to me how you've tried to teach Evie 'down'.


I've only really tried a lure from a sit, never tried just marking the behaviour.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I've only really tried a lure from a sit, never tried just marking the behaviour.


You can 'engineer' a down or simply say 'down' when she is (as you say marking the behaviour).


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## Sarah1983

Another good moment for Spencer last night. We were out playing frisbee just before bed and I thought I'd heard a noise behind me but when I looked there was nothing there. Anyway a few minutes later he stops chasing his frisbee and stands staring at the bushes with his hackles up and growling. Called him and he came to us, slowly and looking over his shoulder but he came. Still no idea what he was growling out, I went and got his frisbee and we came in. 

K&M, well done to you and Scruff :thumbup: It took me years to get Rupert to understand down. I dunno why because I taught him other things fairly easily but down was just so difficult for him to grasp. In the end I got it by just sitting reading a book and clicking when he lay down. I'd then toss the treat so that he had to get up to get it which set him up to have to lie down again.


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## Twiggy

Well it looks like Siberia outside with frozen and compacted snow.

I hate walking the girls when it's like this; terrified they will slip and injure themselves.


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## Nicki85

Well this morning we continued our weave training... we are doing 2 by 2s so set up two poles let him figure out what I am after (left shoulder to first pole...) reward with toy. He had figured that out so decided to put up another two poles so he has two sets to do. Well, lets just say it was a noisy experience!!! Rusty could not figure out the second set so just barked at me! He has never barked at me... I think he was just so frustrated that he couldn't figure out what to do. Anyhow, we went back to the first exercise of two poles and then the second set and then joined them up. He got it! I'll try him again later as well. Have to say if anyone is looking to teach their dog something new and fun I would really recommend the 2 by 2 weaving... Rusty has really had to think and we are both enjoying it!

Also had our morning walk- very excitable boy after putting a pheasant up but was recalling well so all good. Met one woman and dog on the path we were joining- Rusty did not run up to the other dog, just stopped and watched. Pleased with him! He now has a MVM venison neck... and will then hopefully be alseep till his afternoon walk.


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## Dogless

k&m - Well done to Scruff .

Twiggy - I hope that all goes OK on your walk; must be awful worrying that the girls will get hurt.

Sarah - well done to Spen.

Nicky - sounds as if Rusty has been a little star too!!

Interesting morning this morning; sheet ice, cars skidding all over the place and I decided to take out both CHs together . They actually walked well for me and we got to the bottom fields and back unscathed - even when a woman got out of her car to fuss them; she ended up just fussing Rudi after I had to tell her a milion times that Kilo wasn't keen on it (sitting nicely by my side!). We just played about and did lots of random recalls and they were my best boys :001_wub:. We also saw the DA pug who did his usual and Kilo just walked past with a high pitched whine - I really do think that walking with LCH is good for him .

But where is the interesting part I hear you all cry? .

A car stopped and the lady with the rottie that attacked Kilo got out and just said she hadn't seen me for ages. I explained why and all about the harm that the attack had caused depsite physical injuries being minor - she said that she had cried for most of the night, the person that she had been walking with had to come in and sit with her until she calmed down which surprised me, seeing as they just carried on with their walk at the time . Anyway - whatever happened or didn't happen she also said that when he'd been up for rehoming she'd had other messages from people saying that he had attacked their dog (who didn't know me, so she knew I hadn't been malicious, thank goodness!!) and her own other male has a very scarred face as he keeps attacking him too, plus she got bitten intervening once. She had a behaviourist out twice who has told her that he definitely isn't an aggressive dog, but can't have her own dog continually attacked and says she is upset when everyone avoids her, but knows why. 

So...the long and short of it is she has been talking to his previous owners who swear that he has never shown any aggressive behaviour (probably because they didn't walk him at all ) and he is going back to them on Wednesday. They are on the mainland but have agreed to take him back.

So....air cleared, rottie will no longer be here - but I can't help wondering what will happen to him long - term .


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## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Well it looks like Siberia outside with frozen and compacted snow.
> 
> I hate walking the girls when it's like this; terrified they will slip and injure themselves.


I love it when it's all fresh and new, for me we had perfect snow yesterday. here in the morning a dramatic big flake snow storm, out for a walk while it was fresh, all gone by tea time.

Hope you are all safe and sound.

Sarah, top marks to Spen he's a good boy 

Kat Great recall Scruff 
I loves Evie:001_wub: She has been sent to keep you on your toes 

Nicki sounds like you and Rusty had fun, well done for taking a step back when he got confused


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## Nicki85

Dogless said:


> So...the long and short of it is she has been talking to his previous owners who swear that he has never shown any aggressive behaviour (probably because they didn't walk him at all ) and he is going back to them on Wednesday. They are on the mainland but have agreed to take him back.
> 
> So....air cleared, rottie will no longer be here - but I can't help wondering what will happen to him long - term .


I wonder what will happen to him :-( Poor lad I don't know if his issues can be solved but with the right owner I bet he could be fine. But, at least your walks will be a bit more peaceful now.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> she said that she had cried for most of the night, the person that she had been walking with had to come in and sit with her until she calmed down which surprised me, seeing as they just carried on with their walk at the time .


That was always me with Rupert though, if something kicked off I'd just carry on with my walk and then break down when I got home.

At least you know you won't have to worry about Kilo or Rudi being attacked by this dog again though and at least the woman doesn't seem to have any ill will against you over the whole rehoming thing. I do wonder what will happen to the poor dog but at the end of the day it's not something any of us can do anything about it.

Spen's being fantastic at times and an ass at others. Not sure what to make of it really lol.


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## L/C

Dogless - I feel sorry for the poor boy too but at least you don't have to worry anymore. It sounds better for all concerned tbh as he clearly isn't happy in his current home.

K&M - Well done to Scruff! I luffs Evie too. Pics please? :001_wub:

Sarah - good boy Spen!

Nicki - Rusty sounds like a real character - seems you had a lovely fun walk.

Twiggy - hope you and the girls are ok in the snow.

AGGGHH!!!! I'm going to start taking a taser out on walks with me.  Doing a run this morning with dogs off lead running with me. Saw a man walking with a GSD so put Ely back on the lead and in a sit behind me and Gypsy in a down stay next to me. They were a bit hyped up so it seemed safest.

GSD starts to wander towards us so I ask the man to call him back, explaining that Ely was reactive and had a bad experience at the weekend so might kick off. He didn't saying that "He has to learn not to go over to them. I've told him they'll bite him." I'm backing away now but don't want to turn my back on the dog and I ask him again. "Don't worry he's a soppy GSD, he'll just run off if they have a go." There's no where that I can go at this point as I'm backed up against the bushes at the edge of the path.

GSD will not be scared off and will not leave and dodges round me. Predictably Ely kicks off and makes contact. At this point the dog runs off and the man laughs and says "That will teach him." I'm afraid again I wasn't very polite. Ely is so worked up at this point that he's shaking and drooling. 

What is wrong with people? 

The rest of the walk before that point was nice. He mixed nicely with the dogs he already knows, had a nice play session with Gypsy and they both broke off and recalled to me instantly when I asked. On the way back we saw a cat  which ran across the road in front of us, then sat on a fence hissing at us. They left it when asked and walked on with no re-directed aggression from Ely. They both also enjoyed the run. So swings and roundabouts.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> That was always me with Rupert though, if something kicked off I'd just carry on with my walk and then break down when I got home.
> 
> At least you know you won't have to worry about Kilo or Rudi being attacked by this dog again though and at least the woman doesn't seem to have any ill will against you over the whole rehoming thing. I do wonder what will happen to the poor dog but at the end of the day it's not something any of us can do anything about it.
> 
> Spen's being fantastic at times and an ass at others. Not sure what to make of it really lol.


No ill will from either side - think it just took a while for her to face things - but she has, which must have taken courage; I am pleased as she is a nice lady and Kilo has always got on well with her other two dogs.

She may well have broken down; I was just almost irked that she didn't seem to think that I'd have been shaken or ask if I was OK - I had to make the point that it hadn't been a good experience for me or for Kilo either which I'm sure she knew really as I was shaking and Kilo was lying on the ground whimpering.


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## Dogless

L/C - what an arse that man was . Same as the lady that wanted me to pass her barking dog blocking our path the other day so that Kilo would bark and her dog would back off - no consideration at all for the other owner :incazzato:. Kilo gets hyped running so I always stop with him too if I see a potential problem ahead as if we run at it his excitement builds!


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## L/C

I know. I'm furious as it's the first time in over 6 months that he has badly kicked off and made contact with another dog. I really don't want him practising that! Why can't people understand that strange dogs do not exist to teach yours manners and that even if that was a good plan my unstable dog is not a good candidate. FFS. 

Ah well - tis done now so time to breathe and move on.


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## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Have you read Control Unleashed? I honestly think that's what sold me on that book over all the countless others I have, it doesn't rely on you being more interesting than everything else in the entire universe. Think I'll dig my copy out tomorrow and see what I can use with Spen.
> 
> But yeah, "be more interesting!" is about as much use as tits on a fish sometimes. And it's rather humbling to realise you are less interesting than half a rotting hedgehog crawling with maggots or a squished squirrel  I would challenge anyone to be more interesting to Rupert than either of those things. Or sheep. Or cats. Or pigeons. Or horses.


Oh Sarah you pointed me in that direction ages ago and I didn't really take it much further, the Premack Principle, I think I googled it and got a convoluted studious article and confused my self, I will check that book out. Like you I wilt  when reading any training guide when it gets to the bit where you have to be more interesting than the squirrel. I honestly believe that it is impossible to be more interesting to Ginge than a field full of rabbit smells or other dogs etc we do have a bond now and i know she will stay pretty close but I can't stop her finding other stuff more interesting. Even if I was wearing lady gaga's steak dress and smeared in fox poo (well the fox poo might work but I am not going there) the other stuff would still be more interesting. I cry inside every time I am advised to try shoving a treat under her nose or using watch me to distract her from a trigger  it just isn't that simple.

Thats good on the watch me, I can get it from in front with no distractions for ages, its a bit like the game you play when the the first person to blink loses (she can stare for England when she wants) but not from the side which is far more useful when out I would imagine. Not that it matters as I can barely get a little glance when I am out, I have slacked off again though for reasons stated above. And well done on not chasing monsters int he bushes.

Chazzie - my husband has just called to tell me he has made an appointment (took lots of nagging and strop throwing) with the doctor about his migraines!!! So if a bloke can do it you really have no excuse. I expect to hear you have made an appointment by the end of the day  
There is no point ignoring things till they are out of hand. A friend of mine ignored the fact that she was stressed from her separation and looking after two kids under 5 and working and her blood pressure rose and rose and then exploded out her nose  seriously, the person who went round, after her 4 year old had to call for help, reckoned it looked like someone had been murdered in the kitchen (thankfully it happened in the kitchen, easy to clean up ) she then spent 3 weeks in hospital with plug up her nose adn numerous test/drugs just to find it really was a simple matter of high blood pressure and if she had got help earlier, well no murder scene!! We mean it we will keep on!

K&M - Well done Scruff  and bless little Evie, little steps (no pun intended ) a second is better than nothing, there's no point aiming too high.

Nikki - sounds like Rusty is really enjoying himself, I keep meaning to set some stuff up in the garden we have a wasteland at the end where we cleared the brambles etc from last year and we need to use it somehow to keep the vegetation down.

Dogless - interesting indeed!!! Like you I wonder what will happen to him. How did the behaviourist come to the conclusion that he isn't aggressive though  when he makes unprovoked attacks other dogs and her own, it might be fear or anxiety based but it still makes him pretty dangerous, no? I wouldn't say Ginge is a nasty intentional aggressor but she still will be aggressive given the right circumstance, I would never say she isn't ever. Sounds like the lady was shocked at the time of your attack, at least you know she wasn't oblivious to it all though and nice bit of air cleared .

MV - how are you feeling today??

L/C - Arrrgggghhhh!! I will scream for you! Poor Ely I suppose it hard for you to get away from them all where you live.

We had snow last night, I took ningey on the village green at bedtime for some running around in the snow  then spent most of the night trying to think where we could go for a run about this morning only to wake up and find it had all gone 

I did as I said and gave her dosage before the walk in a big lump of liver cake *, I think it may have made a difference. We saw an GR (different one) coming round the field so i ducked through into the other field, you aren't sposed to walk in that one but I figured it was a good cause and there's nothing planted only to have the GR bounding in after a ball , still some way off but the little one was great she just watched and took treats quite calmly, unfortunately I didn't notice our nemesis 'mad lab' coming along the hedgerow  only a little bark though so thats wasn't too bad. however it ramped her up for the next encounter with Rudi and Tamzin, fine, little Alfie, their owners sisters chi, not fine . Also spotted the two terriers walking with the beagle and again no reaction so ........ not quite a big grin but a little smile.

*new batch cooked last night think I might need the OH to cut it up for me  left it in a bit long  my hands don't quite have the strength in them to saw through it


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## Izzysmummy

F+F - so glad to hear the vet thinks its nothing serious with Bella, hopefully its juat a growth spurt or something and a one-off!

chazzie - have you made that appointment yet? :sosp:

mv - how are you today? Had the lurgy cleared up yet?

K+M - Evie sounds like such a character, and such a cutie! 

Sarah - well done Spen, wonder what he spotted?

Dogless - I think I must have missed what happened with the rottie but it doesnt sound good. sounds like he is not happy in his new home and that lady is in over her head. Its good for you, Kilo and Rudi that he wont be around anymore.

Twiggy - I hope your girls are OK in the snow, its very slippy out there.

Nicky - the weave training sounds like fun!

L/C - so sorry you've had another bad encounter, you dont seem to be having much luck on your walks the last few days. So inconsiderate and Im afraid I would have released my inner hag much sooner!! 

GR - well done! Sounds like a pretty good walk! Think of all the positive encounters you had rather than dwell on the one bad one! 

So Sunday evening I took Izzy for a wander to meet my friend on her way over to ours for dinner, she had 3/4 barks when we said hello then settled once we got walking, I then noticed Izzy had gotten all wiggly so I gave my friend a treat to give her and Izzy had a fuss and a sniff then we walked home together and as soon as we got in the door Izzy ran off to fetch her a toy!  Once in the house she was absolutely fine except for trying to climb up on my friends knee to have a cuddle! 

Last night on our walk we met a lady we sometimes see in the park but she didnt have her dog with her so I dont think Izzy realised who she was straight away so gave a couple of little gruffs but then had a little fuss. She was a bit anxious on our walk last night as we had to go past a house where the alarm was going off and she really wasnt keen but she did OK.

Today shes at creche so Im sure shes enjoying some fusses from everyone there! 

ETA; We've also got our tickets booked for gundog day at crufts and our hotel booked for the night before! Cant wait! And not to be left out the week after crufts we're taking Izzy away on another cottage holiday! Yey!


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## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Oh Sarah you pointed me in that direction ages ago and I didn't really take it much further, the Premack Principle, I think I googled it and got a convoluted studious article and confused my self, I will check that book out. Like you I wilt  when reading any training guide when it gets to the bit where you have to be more interesting than the squirrel. I honestly believe that it is impossible to be more interesting to Ginge than a field full of rabbit smells or other dogs etc we do have a bond now and i know she will stay pretty close but I can't stop her finding other stuff more interesting. Even if I was wearing lady gaga's steak dress and smeared in fox poo (well the fox poo might work but I am not going there) the other stuff would still be more interesting. I cry inside every time I am advised to try shoving a treat under her nose or using watch me to distract her from a trigger  it just isn't that simple.


Yup, that's exactly how I felt with Rupert. I used to say I could drape myself in steak and fish and do a rain dance and he wouldn't even glance at me and it's true, he wouldn't have. Yet on forums I was simply told I must be doing it wrong, that I needed to work harder at being more interesting and stuff like that. It's soul destroying and I try so hard not to just tell people to be more interesting now because I know how I felt. Leslie McDevitt acknowledges that sometimes it's simply not possible to simply "be more interesting" and that that's okay, it's not the end of the world and there are ways around it. Not everything in there has worked for me but just the fact it doesn't rely on you being the most exciting thing in the world makes me love it lol.

The link I posted last night about the Premack principle explains it fairly well without going into scientific detail.


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## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> Dogless - I think I must have missed what happened with the rottie but it doesnt sound good. sounds like he is not happy in his new home and that lady is in over her head. Its good for you, Kilo and Rudi that he wont be around anymore.
> 
> So Sunday evening I took Izzy for a wander to meet my friend on her way over to ours for dinner, she had 3/4 barks when we said hello then settled once we got walking, I then noticed Izzy had gotten all wiggly so I gave my friend a treat to give her and Izzy had a fuss and a sniff then we walked home together and as soon as we got in the door Izzy ran off to fetch her a toy!  Once in the house she was absolutely fine except for trying to climb up on my friends knee to have a cuddle!
> 
> Last night on our walk we met a lady we sometimes see in the park but she didnt have her dog with her so I dont think Izzy realised who she was straight away so gave a couple of little gruffs but then had a little fuss. She was a bit anxious on our walk last night as we had to go past a house where the alarm was going off and she really wasnt keen but she did OK.
> 
> Today shes at creche so Im sure shes enjoying some fusses from everyone there!


Sounds as if Izzy is doing well .

This is what happened; please ignore the hysterical tone of the post  http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-320.html#post1062344171


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> k&m - Well done to Scruff .
> 
> Twiggy - I hope that all goes OK on your walk; must be awful worrying that the girls will get hurt.
> 
> Sarah - well done to Spen.
> 
> Nicky - sounds as if Rusty has been a little star too!!
> 
> Interesting morning this morning; sheet ice, cars skidding all over the place and I decided to take out both CHs together . They actually walked well for me and we got to the bottom fields and back unscathed - even when a woman got out of her car to fuss them; she ended up just fussing Rudi after I had to tell her a milion times that Kilo wasn't keen on it (sitting nicely by my side!). We just played about and did lots of random recalls and they were my best boys :001_wub:. We also saw the DA pug who did his usual and Kilo just walked past with a high pitched whine - I really do think that walking with LCH is good for him .
> 
> But where is the interesting part I hear you all cry? .
> 
> A car stopped and the lady with the rottie that attacked Kilo got out and just said she hadn't seen me for ages. I explained why and all about the harm that the attack had caused depsite physical injuries being minor - she said that she had cried for most of the night, the person that she had been walking with had to come in and sit with her until she calmed down which surprised me, seeing as they just carried on with their walk at the time . Anyway - whatever happened or didn't happen she also said that when he'd been up for rehoming she'd had other messages from people saying that he had attacked their dog (who didn't know me, so she knew I hadn't been malicious, thank goodness!!) and her own other male has a very scarred face as he keeps attacking him too, plus she got bitten intervening once. She had a behaviourist out twice who has told her that he definitely isn't an aggressive dog, but can't have her own dog continually attacked and says she is upset when everyone avoids her, but knows why.
> 
> So...the long and short of it is she has been talking to his previous owners who swear that he has never shown any aggressive behaviour (probably because they didn't walk him at all ) and he is going back to them on Wednesday. They are on the mainland but have agreed to take him back.
> 
> *So....air cleared, rottie will no longer be here - but I can't help wondering what will happen to him long - term* .


Very sadly there are just far too many to wonder and worry about.

It's like that little collie pup Holly over Christmas; I wonder if she has a nice home but it would drive you round the bend if you dwell on these things for too long.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I love it when it's all fresh and new, for me we had perfect snow yesterday. here in the morning a dramatic big flake snow storm, out for a walk while it was fresh, all gone by tea time.
> 
> Hope you are all safe and sound.
> 
> Sarah, top marks to Spen he's a good boy
> 
> Kat Great recall Scruff
> I loves Evie:001_wub: She has been sent to keep you on your toes
> 
> Nicki sounds like you and Rusty had fun, well done for taking a step back when he got confused


It was actually OK out with the girls. A bit slippery in places but mainly alright. Thank goodness.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Very sadly there are just far too many to wonder and worry about.
> 
> It's like that little collie pup Holly over Christmas; I wonder if she has a nice home but it would drive you round the bend if you dwell on these things for too long.


It would; I'm not going to dwell on it. I am looking forward to being able to walk certain areas again in the evenings now .


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## Izzysmummy

Dogless said:


> Sounds as if Izzy is doing well .
> 
> This is what happened; please ignore the hysterical tone of the post  http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-320.html#post1062344171


Wow! Thats awful! Poor Kilo and poor you, what a horrible experience!


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## kat&molly

L/C- another bad day for you and Ely. So many muppets around.

Dogless- not sure what to say about the Rottie. I'm pleased you wont have to worry about him anymore though.

Twiggy- glad the girls were ok, I worry about Jay but luckily she wont go out in snow and ice.

Izzysmummy- Hope Izzy has a lovely day at creche. Lucky girl.

GR- you have described Evie, I'll be looking at Sarah's link [if I can find it again]

Nikki- sounds like Rusty's doing well- he's a Springer isn't he?

Tits on a fish:laugh:

Sarah- I will try that to get a down, I wonder how many years it will take.

I shall try filming Evie's spin and twist later.See what you all think?
This is where I can sometimes struggle with my Girls, with Moll I think it looks obvious she likes something and she'll offer a spin, but Evie never will and then I worry she's doing it under protest, but Evie being Evie wouldn't do something she didn't want to do would she?
I know its not big important things but her actually learning something is a big deal to me.
Moonviolet- hope you're feeling better.


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## Twiggy

L/C said:


> I know. I'm furious as it's the first time in over 6 months that he has badly kicked off and made contact with another dog. I really don't want him practising that! Why can't people understand that strange dogs do not exist to teach yours manners and that even if that was a good plan my unstable dog is not a good candidate. FFS.
> 
> Ah well - tis done now so time to breathe and move on.


Yes it's over and done as far as the pig ignorant owner is concerned but it certainly isn't over and done as far as Ely is concerned.

I just don't know what the answer is, I really don't.


----------



## moonviolet

Much better today thank you every one who asked, Although i think i'll saty home from class tonight as i'm getting tired quite fast.

Had a lovely walk this morning managed over an hour, just pottering bumped into a friend walking his and another friends labs, was quite glad as i took my mind off all the niggly pains, aches, throbs, but we both heard the growling of my tummy :blushing:

GR if you do try the steak dress, you will take pics won't you  Tink was the same when she was scare, instinctive and completely unreachable, I was lucky in that she had a safe distance and i have hilly landscape that supports lurking, with a view but without disturbing others. Sounds liek Ginge had a good walk with her morning dose. 

L/C grrrr on your behalf , this i what i was saying on another thread last night http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/286253-being-more-assertive.html . I have found asking people nicely to recall their dog invariably means a discussion and them doing anything but recalling their dog. So sorry poor Ely had go through this 

IM sounds liek Izzy is doing well and a lovely holiday booked ... that will mean lots of lovely photos, won't it?

Dogless well done on taking the CH's out togther on the ice with no incidents. I do hope the Rottie doens't end up being passed pillar to post but I'm glad you were able to clear the air. I do understand how you felt when she said about how upset she was. A bit liek the bloke who owned the dog that attacked TInk on the phone bleating on about how upset his wife was, she wasn't even there, without asking how me an Tink were.

Chazzie hope you've made that call 

Sorry if i miss you out, it's nothing personal i'm just a bit random.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Yes it's over and done as far as the pig ignorant owner is concerned but it certainly isn't over and done as far as Ely is concerned.
> 
> I just don't know what the answer is, I really don't.


There seem to be more and more ignorant owners around these days. Or maybe I just notice it more now because I've had a dog with serious issues? But when I had Shadow and Wolf most other dog owners were considerate and I was taught by the regulars (I was only a young teen) that you didn't just let your dog run over to strange dogs, that if your dog didn't like a certain other dog you leashed it and avoided that dog, that the odd scuffle was going to happen but to try to avoid known triggers (food, toys etc) and just to generally have some consideration for other owners and their dogs.

I sometimes feel like "well if you can't beat them join them" but I can't bring myself to actually do it. I just wonder why the hell I bother putting my dog on leash so he can't make a nuisance of himself when it seems like nobody else bothers.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> No ill will from either side - think it just took a while for her to face things - but she has, which must have taken courage; I am pleased as she is a nice lady and Kilo has always got on well with her other two dogs.
> 
> She may well have broken down; I was just almost irked that she didn't seem to think that I'd have been shaken or ask if I was OK - I had to make the point that it hadn't been a good experience for me or for Kilo either which I'm sure she knew really as I was shaking and Kilo was lying on the ground whimpering.


Ah, I get you now, I thought you meant you didn't believe she was upset about it coz she just carried on with her walk after it happened 

Yeah, I'd have been pretty peed off at her just going on about how awful it was for her and not bothering to ask whether you and Kilo were okay. More of the thoughtless attitude of a lot of owners I guess, all about them with no thought to anyone else who might have been affected.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> L/C- another bad day for you and Ely. So many muppets around.
> 
> Dogless- not sure what to say about the Rottie. I'm pleased you wont have to worry about him anymore though.
> 
> Twiggy- glad the girls were ok, I worry about Jay but luckily she wont go out in snow and ice.
> 
> Izzysmummy- Hope Izzy has a lovely day at creche. Lucky girl.
> 
> GR- you have described Evie, I'll be looking at Sarah's link [if I can find it again]
> 
> Nikki- sounds like Rusty's doing well- he's a Springer isn't he?
> 
> Tits on a fish:laugh:
> 
> Sarah- I will try that to get a down, I wonder how many years it will take.
> 
> *I shall try filming Evie's spin and twist later.See what you all think?*
> *This is where I can sometimes struggle with my Girls, with Moll I think it looks obvious she likes something and she'll offer a spin, but Evie never will and then I worry she's doing it under protest, but Evie being Evie wouldn't do something she didn't want to do would she?*
> *I know its not big important things but her actually learning something is a big deal to me.*
> Moonviolet- hope you're feeling better.


I know exactly what you mean. That's why a very knowlegeable handler, on seeing Holly do her little bits of tricks at a show last year, said quite rightly "yes but she's only doing them because you've asked her, not because she wants to".

With a lot of hard work and nurturing (from me not flipping Holly) she will occasionally offer me a trick now.....


----------



## L/C

It's not normally that bad around here - I'm not sure what's happened in the last month or so! The weekday morning walk is usually lovely as I either see the people I know who are great or no one at all.

The really annoying thing is that I've had this conversation with this man before and he obviously remembers hence the "They'll bite you comment." 

It's just making me feel like I need to muzzle Ely all the time but then that removes one of my main distraction techniques with him which is to scatter treats on the floor so he presents relaxed body language and isn't focused on the approaching dog. I usually have it with me at least but because I was going on a run I didn't bring my bag.


----------



## Nicki85

Yup Rusty is a Springer! Just about to go out for our second walk but first some more weave training... We are doing 5-10mins two-three times a day as we really need to crack it!

My day has taken a turn for the worse- one of the cats is poorly :-( think it is down to a change in food so no food for them apart from raw. It will be a vets visit if he hasn't picked up by this time tomorrow. Hopefully it's just the new food though.


----------



## Guest

We were out for literally ten minutes this morning. Zander was prancing around from the cold even with his mac on and shivering. So maybe I shall have to get him a proper winter coat! He is not enjoying this cold. Took me half and hour stood outside in the cold to get him to pee last night. He just lay by the backdoor on the porch looking mournful. 
He also freaked out at the recycling men flinging glass bottles into their lorry. 

And we met two offlead muzzled Staffies. One went straight back to its owner when it called. The other one was the one who had a go at that man a while back and it just stood there and stared hard at us. It did go back eventually though but those few moments were rather tense. I kept flinging treats in the grass for Zand, because I think Zand's bouncing coulda let to an incident. 

Again, poor ely, suffering because of some d!ckweed owner!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> We were out for literally ten minutes this morning. Zander was prancing around from the cold even with his mac on and shivering. So maybe I shall have to get him a proper winter coat! He is not enjoying this cold. Took me half and hour stood outside in the cold to get him to pee last night. He just lay by the backdoor on the porch looking mournful.
> He also freaked out at the recycling men flinging glass bottles into their lorry.
> 
> And we met two offlead muzzled Staffies. One went straight back to its owner when it called. The other one was the one who had a go at that man a while back and it just stood there and stared hard at us. It did go back eventually though but those few moments were rather tense. I kept flinging treats in the grass for Zand, because I think Zand's bouncing coulda let to an incident.
> 
> Again, poor ely, suffering because of some d!ckweed owner!!


If you want to invest in a very good coat, I can recommend Kilo's fleece - lined wax one; it's very warm and made to measure so you can get a really close fit. Doesn't flap up at the back either as it curves over the base of the tail.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> If you want to invest in a very good coat, I can recommend Kilo's fleece - lined wax one; it's very warm and made to measure so you can get a really close fit. Doesn't flap up at the back either as it curves over the base of the tail.


Ann rees?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Ann rees?


No...although he had one until he outgrew it :ciappa::ciappa:.

Products - Forest Fleece Handmade Dog Fleece Jumpers & Coats


----------



## catz4m8z

Im having real trouble finding anybody out with a dog for Alfie to meet at the moment! We saw one dog on our walk today and it was a whippet that ran at us from the other side of the park (I pulled Alfie close to me just in case), but all it wanted to do was run a big circle around us! The MA really objected to this breach in etiquette and stomped after it yapping furiously, causing everybody else around to wet theirselves laughing!!
I did have to call Alfie back though as it got him rattled and he started following after the wrong pair of feet, bless him! I dont think they are enjoying the cold weather TBH, Heidi was really shivering.....and Hannah was a total cowdog and rolled in a rotten rat carcass and got completely covered!
Cant we all just hibernate til spring??


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> No...although he had one until he outgrew it :ciappa::ciappa:.
> 
> Products - Forest Fleece Handmade Dog Fleece Jumpers & Coats


So many options and stuff!! *goes all shiny eyed*

Might not get him all in one jumper, bit hard to manouver his legs into things!

And Catz yes we may hibernate!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> So many options and stuff!! *goes all shiny eyed*
> 
> Might not get him all in one jumper, bit hard to manouver his legs into things!
> 
> And Catz yes we may hibernate!!












Doesn't usually look this creased...he wasn't cooperating and was standing in a slouchy banana shape  but it gives you an idea...


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Doesn't usually look this creased...he wasn't cooperating and was standing in a slouchy banana shape  but it gives you an idea...


I shall shop around I think but they do look nice!! 

Mums been like "Just stick a jumper on him" and I'm like
"Do you wanna try and get them legs into arm holes!? Do you!?" 
:ciappa:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I shall shop around I think but they do look nice!!
> 
> Mums been like "Just stick a jumper on him" and I'm like
> "Do you wanna try and get them legs into arm holes!? Do you!?"
> :ciappa:


Cut the arms off and sew around the edges .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Cut the arms off and sew around the edges .


A little homemade tankie!! D'awww. OOH AN EQUAFLEECE! I'll have a nosy at those too.

See last year he didn't seem to bothered. But then he would have under six months and still a pudge pudge pup!!

Do you think dogs legs get cold?? (WOO DUMB QUESTION TIMME! :crazy::laugh:


----------



## L/C

Ely and Gypsy in their Forest Fleece jumpers:


----------



## Twiggy

catz4m8z said:


> Im having real trouble finding anybody out with a dog for Alfie to meet at the moment! We saw one dog on our walk today and it was a whippet that ran at us from the other side of the park (I pulled Alfie close to me just in case), but all it wanted to do was run a big circle around us! The MA really objected to this breach in etiquette and stomped after it yapping furiously, causing everybody else around to wet theirselves laughing!!
> I did have to call Alfie back though as it got him rattled and he started *following after the wrong pair of feet, bless him! I dont think they are enjoying the cold weather TBH, Heidi was really shivering.....and Hannah was a total cowdog and rolled in a rotten rat carcass and got completely covered!*
> *Cant we all just hibernate til spring??*




My old girl was struggling a bit on the frozen snow when we walked at about 3.30pm and sadly Leafy is sightly lame on her gammy shoulder. I don't know whether it was the frozen ground this morning - probably.
Maybe I've been a bit too relaxed with her as she's been sound for almost a year.
Oh well lead walking only for a few days which she'll hate.


----------



## Werehorse

In future can everyone remind me that doing the odd batman day for money is really not a good idea?  Ok morning, AWFUL afternoon.  Gah! I was kind of hoping to supplement that mad job with a few days of batman but I just don't think I can stand the rising wave of panic that starts when I agree to take a placement and crescendos when kids start to take the mick.

On the plus side I got up at 6am, walked the dogs round the block (ish - changed my route because the Lady with All the Dogs was out and had had one get away from her again and it wasn't calling back to her so we just turned round and went another way ) AND got to the horses and turned them out and mucked out and got to work almost on time (if it hadn't been for having a contact lens pop out - not put in right due to panic - and having to put my tights on a couple of times as I kept somehow getting it wrong  -panic again - I'd have been actually on time). I even ate breakfast. :lol: Minor miracle all that lot. Will be aiming to do that when the mad job starts so it was good practice.

Blergh. Brain melting.  Application of tea required.


----------



## GingerRogers

I don't know if they get cold legs, I would imagine so, I think thats why I had a rabbit on the end of the lead, chilly feet!! Ginge in the snow in her 'au natural jumper' 



I never had a dog that had snow baubles before, she tried to eat them when she got home, I figured I better remove them in case they freezer-burn???????



We had this in about half an hour at lunch time, we never have snow like that!!!! So I had to go to the xc to mess up the pristine snow  ooh and we saw a foxy !!!


----------



## catz4m8z

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> My old girl was struggling a bit on the frozen snow when we walked at about 3.30pm and sadly Leafy is sightly lame on her gammy shoulder. I don't know whether it was the frozen ground this morning - probably.
> Maybe I've been a bit too relaxed with her as she's been sound for almost a year.
> Oh well lead walking only for a few days which she'll hate.


aww, bless. hope she feels better soon...
I think I might end up doing just one walk a day at the moment whilst the temperature is hovering around the 0 to minus mark. The MA really dont do well in the cold and if I have to bath anyone (coz they will roll in poop!) then they get so shivery and miserable afterwards. Alfie pup is also having difficulty coz he cant yet walk fast enough on lead to stay warm, even bndled up in a thick coat.
I dont agree that Chihuahuas are house dogs only like some people seem to believe but they def arent cold weather dogs, thats for sure!!


----------



## kat&molly

Nikki- hope your cat is ok.
Lovely pics of dogs today, we should all post more of our subjects on here I think. Ninja with her snow baubles.:001_wub:

Heres Short Stuff. This was her 3rd go as I cant find the mute and OH kept catching my voice. 
.

And Moll- she must be tired, its slow for her.


No laughing at slippers.rrr:


----------



## Dogless

Very good afternoon walks.

Rudi walked nicely; we went to the sports pitches and met someone that I knew well years ago and now bump into now and again with her lab - he's the large entire male that her little girl walks that doesn't like Kilo. He bowled up really fast to us when Rudi was onlead so I blocked him until he'd calmed a bit and got Rudi to sit and let him off as we weren't being left alone and he was OK. Rudi mostly did his own thing and the lab mainly chased his ball. Recalled Rudi plenty. Then on the way home we saw quite a few dogs and went past nicely. There were two women walking dogs dragging them over to greet. One said "They're going to meet whether you like it or not!" as a joke. I said "No they aren't" and legged it across the grass. I could hear them going "OOooh no they're not"  as I walked off.

Kilo walked brilliantly - past a collie who always eyeballs and growls at him which he's reacted to before, past a black lab desperately choking to greet, past two dogs we knew . We did a training walk just around and about. Blip on the way back as we passed a small field - 'the' rottie was in there with the owner's two others...I saw but Kilo didn't. He did however smell him and was ears back, looking around wildly and trying to pull to get home. After a bit of work he settled after 5 minutes; good job we didn't see anything for the last 5 minutes as I think he may have reacted regardless .

All in all, my best boys again :001_wub::001_wub:.

BUT....BUT....

When I walked with the lady with the lab she...
1. Let him chase two runners
2. Let him chase a runner with a dog who almost tripped over his lead.
3. Let him do a huge poo and left it - I offered a bag which was declined. Should have picked it up myself but didn't . Don't know why .
4. Let him run up to a man who put his dog on the lead as soon as he saw us and he had an awful time trying to drag his dog away as he was getting followed and harrassed by a not - very - friendly demeanoured lab.
5. Let him run around on a road so a car had to stop - apparently he has no road sense.
6. Let him then try and hump Rudi onlead.

We talked about it all.....the bottom line is that he is friendly....:incazzato:.

We have an early snow warning for Saturday . Not before 2c sleet all day tomorrow .


----------



## Thorne

Ooh, are we posting pics of dogs in coats?   Breeze and I love her Equafleece, if Scooter ever starts to feel the cold (unlikely) he'll be getting one too! Not in pink though, he'd disown me.










2 Blue Cross days so far this week, had a big, mouthy Staffie come in yesterday and a small, cute Staffy come in today. Been in the cattery most of today so not seen much of them but might do tomorrow - hope so, I need an SBT fix! My favourite cat has been reserved, really pleased.

Walked Paddy who doesn't like this cold weather business and was a bit concerned by screaming school kids but otherwise a good lad. On monday he lunged at a lorry but ignored them like a champ today!
Had my first walk with Ollie too (in the snow!), he's gorrrgeous :001_wub: was warned that he's quite strong but he walked on a lovely loose lead after nearly dragging me through the car park! He is strong but listens well, bless him.
Really hope the boys find a home soon, and wee Poppy! Still waiting! Bakers puppy that I mentioned last week is reserved and quite rightly so, he's a little star.

Off to have a read!


----------



## smudgebiscuit

kat&molly said:


> I have had enough of my girls pulling my arm sockets out
> On their own they aren't too bad but together walking they are a nightmare.
> Jay has always been good, Evie is ok but criss crosses me. Moll and Scruff think they're Sled dogs. So I have vowed to sort it once and for all, its all my fault for always loading them in the car because its easier, but my car is in for repair[thank you post lady] so its now or never. I've got my patient, determined head on and its off in to battle I go.:blink:
> 
> Well i decided to do the same with our Molly dog in November-we've been doing zero tolerance for pulling i.e. make like a tree everytime she is too far ahead of us and it is kind of working-taking a lot longer for the penny to drop than i thought seeing as we already nearly 3 months in
> 
> Let me know how you get on and what methods you are using


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Nikki- hope your cat is ok.
> Lovely pics of dogs today, we should all post more of our subjects on here I think. Ninja with her snow baubles.:001_wub:
> 
> Heres Short Stuff. This was her 3rd go as I cant find the mute and OH kept catching my voice.
> .
> 
> And Moll- she must be tired, its slow for her.
> 
> 
> No laughing at slippers.rrr:


Moll doesn't look slow to me....


----------



## Guest

CAN I TAKE MOLL HOME PLEASE? She's Lovvvvvvelllllly!!! 


Well I cut off the arms off an old jumper and plonked it on Zand. Massive freakout so equafleece and such are a nope. 

However the jumper has been made into a 2knotted ball and Zander lurrves it. 

The rescue I got him from have fleece coats and things.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> CAN I TAKE MOLL HOME PLEASE? She's Lovvvvvvelllllly!!!
> 
> Well I cut off the arms off an old jumper and plonked it on Zand. Massive freakout so equafleece and such are a nope.
> 
> However the jumper has been made into a 2knotted ball and Zander lurrves it.
> 
> The rescue I got him from have fleece coats and things.


Equafleece do a coat too....or I got a fleece from Bespoke Items For THe Discerning Dog | Ibisco Boutique. I contacted her on her FB page and she had a large one already made up that I had for Rudi - not expensive at all and it's good quality and well made. Still swamps him, bless him, he looks like a poor little urchin pup. Think she does coats too.


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> CAN I TAKE MOLL HOME PLEASE? She's Lovvvvvvelllllly!!!


Shall we plan a raid... you get Moll i'll grab Evie 

Kat I love the videos, Moll looks keen to me, Evie looks like she's enjoying the interaction 

TInk started of as a very " will work for food" dog, but this evening we were playing " where has the silly mare hidden her keys this time?" and she was far to be bothered whether i treated or not. (I still did randomly) I'm running out of challenges for things to hide them in. a handbag, a mini picnic basket, in a bowl under a football.

Dogless sounds liek the CH's did great unlike lab lady  and we're going to meet up peoples...some people need to go to their rooms and think about their behaviour rrr::lol:


----------



## Beth17

A good day for most of you by the sounds of it, far too many pages to do individual replies  sorry you met another idiot again though L/C 

Lovely walks with the boys today. Had separate ones up the field this morning and Sam got to play with this lovely young rescue who was really excited and barking as he hadn't ever been properly walked. He soon calmed and quietened down and had a lovely play with Sam so hopefully will see them again.

Had a street walk this evening and both walked nicely and passed a few dogs calmly which was good.

Sam is peeing like nobodies business on these steroids but we haven't had any more alarming swellings :thumbup:

Is now a bad time to mention that we've had a lovely sunny day and I was walking the dogs in just a jumper again? :ciappa:


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Is now a bad time to mention that we've had a lovely sunny day and I was walking the dogs in just a jumper again? :ciappa:


:yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod: a very bad time. I've not long got in from a pavement trot and i forgot to put a hat on and i think my ears may snap off.

Ps i think i'm back, I confessed to wearing a dog collar and being "checked" on another thread and also mentioned silky leash, but I GR hasn't seen it so i think i got away with it


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod: a very bad time. I've not long got in from a pavement trot and i forgot to put a hat on and i think my ears may snap off.
> 
> Ps i think i'm back, I confessed to wearing a dog collar and being "checked" on another thread and also mentioned silky leash, but I GR hasn't seen it so i think i got away with it


Pleased you're feeling better .


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Shall we plan a raid... you get Moll i'll grab Evie
> 
> Kat I love the videos, Moll looks keen to me, Evie looks like she's enjoying the interaction
> 
> TInk started of as a very " will work for food" dog, but this evening we were playing " where has the silly mare hidden her keys this time?" and she was far to be bothered whether i treated or not. (I still did randomly) I'm running out of challenges for things to hide them in. a handbag, a mini picnic basket, in a bowl under a football.
> 
> Dogless sounds liek the CH's did great unlike lab lady  and we're going to meet up peoples...some people need to go to their rooms and think about their behaviour rrr::lol:


I'm glad you're feeling better.
Just shows how different they are. Moll wouldn't touch food for that game you play with Tink- her reward is me hiding the keys/object again.
Evie would tell you to P*ss off and find your own keys.:laugh:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> :yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod: a very bad time. I've not long got in from a pavement trot and i forgot to put a hat on and i think my ears may snap off.
> 
> Ps i think i'm back, I confessed to wearing a dog collar and being "checked" on another thread and also mentioned silky leash, but I GR hasn't seen it so i think i got away with it


You're being a very naughty girl now. You're under the weather and then go out without a hat on. Luv Grannie.....


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> :yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod: a very bad time. I've not long got in from a pavement trot and i forgot to put a hat on and i think my ears may snap off.
> 
> Ps i think i'm back, I confessed to wearing a dog collar and being "checked" on another thread and also mentioned silky leash, but I GR hasn't seen it so i think i got away with it


I saw the silky leash (thought i would leave you to it  ) but missed the dog collar  really does your husband know does Tink know. Do any of us know :ciappa:


----------



## Dogless

Totally random but.....checked Rudi's mouth and his top incisors are now gone too .


----------



## GingerRogers

I take it that means less punctures.  more clothes to wear.


----------



## moonviolet

I promise I won't forget my hat next time Twiggy.  i wasn't out long.

GR it's quite possibly for the best if nobody knows :yikes: :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Morning all and it's a very cold one here!!

It was minus 7 last night and the best we can expect today is minus 2-3.

Walking the girls is going to be a flipping nightmare on rough, snow covered frozen ground, especially with Leafy on the lead.

I rarely separate them but I think it's going to be about 20 minutes to half an hour for the old two and then half an hour for the youngsters, also probably on the lead, as I don't want them belting about on frozen ground.

I'd better find some very thick socks and gloves me thinks.

At least I can take Tremor and Holly into the barn for an hour this afternoon to work off some energy.

I hope this awful weather isn't going to last too long as I don't want the old girls to seize up.


----------



## GingerRogers

Possibly the most manic walk ever  I have to laugh I can't cry  I have a meeting in an hour which I will have to leave for about now as the pavements are a nightmare. Frozen lumpy ground here too so decided to go down the mud lane as I thought being lumpy it would be less slippy, NOT!!

I forgot to check out the door before we left and there were two terriers out there which set the ginger one off on a squeaking lolloping rabbit jumping gruffalling fest of a walk :rolleyes5: she was reacting to each and everything even though there was actually no dogs about, sigh. I think she needs some slippers I don't think she likes having cold feet, she feels the need to run which isn't conducive to me staying upright but we just about managed it. 

You all take care especially those with the oldies or wobblies!!

ETA it was funny how many people walked their kids to school today, those I don't normally see must be lazy normally and drive them . Felt sorry for the little ones, the high school is closed but not the village junior, poor lambs watching their brothers and sister go off with sledges while they trudge to school.


----------



## kat&molly

Perhaps the Ginger one needs some boots.

Wrap up warm Twiggy,

Our weather people got it wrong again, we woke up to snow as well. Its rather slushy in places , I'm hopeful it wont freeze.
Couldn't wait to get Evie out in it though because she is hilarious in snow.
Sure Moll doesn't notice 'weather'.









Scruff had bigger fish to fry.









And the nutty one She was like a coiled spring and half dragged me up the road in excitement. Her coat came off  and she couldn't stay off lead for long as she was wild-wouldn't listen and I thought she might take off.









Looking for trouble.









I swear she's go







t a screw loose.:yesnod:


----------



## Twiggy

Super pics Kate&Molly.

There's no doubt about it most dogs just love soft snow. Yours look as if they're having a great time.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless have you double checked you and Kilos body to make sure Rudi's incisors aren't attached :lol:

Twiggy i hope your girls are ok it's horrible when rutted mud freezes. We've quite fortunate here as the ground is mainly sand and gravel. so we don't get that deep pitted mud.

GR sounds like a challenging walk, cold whether always makes Tink want to run to keep warm 
K&M Great pics. I might be figthing LO for MOll and grabbing scruff too waht beautiful pics but look at Evie that wonderful little nutter


----------



## Guest

Lovely pics of your dogs K and M, changed my mind though, i'll have both moll and evie! Moll for me and Evie for Mum!!  

I've felt a bit weird all morning and have had dizzy periods. Mum accompanied me on the walk this morn (it was only ten minutes cause Zand's ears were cold and he was shivery and I felt funnier and funnier).

Got to go and have a fake tooth put in my gob at the dentist in an hour. 

Might get to see Les Miserables though.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope you're feeling better LO, good luck at the dentist.

Pleased you all like the photos, I dont know what it is about Evie, we dont do well together when it comes to training, but I certainly love her character.:001_wub:
LO- your Mum will be joining the queue to pinch her.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Hope you're feeling better LO, good luck at the dentist.
> 
> Pleased you all like the photos, I dont know what it is about Evie, we dont do well together when it comes to training, but I certainly love her character.:001_wub:
> LO- your Mum will be joining the queue to pinch her.


Evie pics! :001_wub:

LO - hope the dentist goes ok. And that Les Mis is good!

Dogless - glad the croco-pup has been de-fanged!

Twiggy - hope the girls are ok in the cold.

Ginge - you'll have to get the ninja some boots - and maybe a scarf to wrap around her mouth. :lol: Seriously I think vaseline one her feet would stop snow balls on her paws and maybe make her a bit more comfortable.

Good walk this morning. Cutting back on the training except focus and heel work as I'm concentrating on socialising Ely and building his confidence back up. He was mixing with lots of dogs and was calm, focused on me well and was happy to walk off and do a bit of work when the other dogs were zooming around. No lunging and he offered lots of sits when he was a bit anxious about all the movement.

So brilliant walk from him. Gypsy gave me lots of lovely heelwork past distractions (all off lead so no need to jerk her about! ), recalled from chase games and did a down at a distance when I saw a squirrel. Platinum star for both of them.


----------



## kat&molly

I'm pleased you had a much better walk L/C.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - I am so pleased that you didn't have any unpleasant encounters today; the pointies and you deserve a break.

LO - Hope you're feeling a bit better and the dentist goes OK.

K&M - those pics :001_wub::001_wub:....and I just can't help loving the troublesome Teckel!

GR - :crazy::crazy:.



moonviolet said:


> Dogless have you double checked you and Kilos body to make sure Rudi's incisors aren't attached :lol:


I have actually .

Good morning this morning; walked the CHs together in the foul, freezing, sleeting weather....not much to report - good recalls, walked nicely, lots of play, thoroughly soaked . Had a 'moment' where a car stopped to let us cross a road and then a woman with an umbrella was approaching us....Rudi decided that she was scary and stopped (not sure why, one thing he definitely sees plenty of here is people with umbrellas!!) and I had to make myself all exciting and try and get him moving again with a laughing audience . But...my best boys again :001_wub::001_wub:.

Well....how stupid am I? I have been doing all this stuff with building Kilo's drive and all that jazz...and since he was a puppy I've been using it to redirect him from approaching / chasing things that he shouldn't but never put a cue to it or sharpened it up. How very, very thick I am sometimes :incazzato::incazzato:. Explained here...http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/286520-checking-jerking-do-you-would-you-28.html#post1062619301 Should be easy enough to associate the throw with a whistle I would have thought. She says .

Kilo's "Ready...Steady......" response is reaching fever pitch so I must actually be doing something right .


----------



## Sarah1983

Glad you had a better walk today L/C.

I want to steal Evie, she looks like she's having such fun in the snow.

Just taken Spen down to do the washing and since I had clicker and treats in my pocket thought I'd see whether he remembered the couple of sessions we'd done on taking stuff out of the washing machine. He did and is happy to do it with me a few feet away. Need to work on getting him to bring them to me rather than just drop them on the floor. Or I could put a basket next to the washing machine and teach him to drop it into that I guess. 

He wasn't too impressed at the session ending though and when we got back into the flat brought me a shoe, a tin of boot polish and the boot brush lol, think he's trying to tell me something?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Glad you had a better walk today L/C.
> 
> I want to steal Evie, she looks like she's having such fun in the snow.
> 
> Just taken Spen down to do the washing and since I had clicker and treats in my pocket thought I'd see whether he remembered the couple of sessions we'd done on taking stuff out of the washing machine. He did and is happy to do it with me a few feet away. Need to work on getting him to bring them to me rather than just drop them on the floor. Or I could put a basket next to the washing machine and teach him to drop it into that I guess.
> 
> He wasn't too impressed at the session ending though and when we got back into the flat brought me a shoe, a tin of boot polish and the boot brush lol, think he's trying to tell me something?


Well, you can't take him out without polishing your shoes can you? A dog has standards .

I'm so impressed with Spendog's helping abilities - you'll have to film it once he's getting the washing into a basket, I'd love to see him in action!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Well, you can't take him out without polishing your shoes can you? A dog has standards .
> 
> I'm so impressed with Spendog's helping abilities - you'll have to film it once he's getting the washing into a basket, I'd love to see him in action!


He loves to be doing stuff so might as well use it to my advantage. Although to be honest it'd be a hell of a lot quicker to empty the washing machine by myself lol. I'll get a video of it soon, not sure whether I'll get him putting it in the basket or carrying it to the dryer and putting it in there.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> L/C - I am so pleased that you didn't have any unpleasant encounters today; the pointies and you deserve a break.
> 
> Well....how stupid am I? I have been doing all this stuff with building Kilo's drive and all that jazz...and since he was a puppy I've been using it to redirect him from approaching / chasing things that he shouldn't but never put a cue to it or sharpened it up. How very, very thick I am sometimes :incazzato::incazzato:. Explained here...http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/286520-checking-jerking-do-you-would-you-28.html#post1062619301 Should be easy enough to associate the throw with a whistle I would have thought. She says .
> 
> Kilo's "Ready...Steady......" response is reaching fever pitch so I must actually be doing something right .


Explain what you mean and which comment. I'm afraid I lost interest in that thread when it became apparent (yet again) that it was going to get heated.

The morning walks seemed to take ages with separating them but at least Leafy wasn't too miffed about being on the lead with just Quiver.

When I took Holly and Tremor I kept swapping them; one on the lead and one off to keep them relatively steady. I haven't replied to the post but I see one member's red and white collie was injured this morning due to throwing balls on frozen ground...?!!

I'll take them over to the barn shortly where the floor is very safe.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Explain what you mean and which comment. I'm afraid I lost interest in that thread when it became apparent (yet again) that it was going to get heated.
> 
> The morning walks seemed to take ages with separating them but at least Leafy wasn't too miffed about being on the lead with just Quiver.
> 
> When I took Holly and Tremor I kept swapping them; one on the lead and one off to keep them relatively steady. I haven't replied to the post but I see one member's red and white collie was injured this morning due to throwing balls on frozen ground...?!!
> 
> I'll take them over to the barn shortly where the floor is very safe.


I just meant that since Kilo was a puppy I have been redirecting any desire to chase by gaining his attention and throwing a toy to chase instead. I had never thought of just pairing it with a whistle. Thick or what? The link just has the page with comment I mean (post 275) - not the whole thread; I haven't joined in with the main debate - it makes me feel tired .

I'm glad the girls are OK; the barn sounds like a good plan!


----------



## moonviolet

Wrapped up like the pilsbury dough boy this morning had a very sedate 45 min walk this morning more onlead that i had first intended but thats because there were dirt bikes on the common .... they are not allowed according to the byelaws but seeing as the mountain bikes get to flout them why shouldn't they  After the dog being killed last year locally by a dirt bike I wasn't taking any risks. Tink was good but on her toes keeping an eye on the bikes.



Twiggy said:


> Explain what you mean and which comment. I'm afraid I lost interest in that thread *when it became apparent (yet again) that it was going to get heated.*


Sorry I think i may have been part of that, clearly i'm lacking patience and tact at the moment... but not mucus i have that in huge abundance.

On the bright side i have resisted asking someone why watching 10 years worth of CM hasn't provided them with the answers they need for their problem, they seem to be quite the fan.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Wrapped up like the pilsbury dough boy this morning had a very sedate 45 min walk this morning more onlead that i had first intended but thats because there were dirt bikes on the common .... they are not allowed according to the byelaws but seeing as the mountain bikes get to flout them why shouldn't they  After the dog being killed last year locally by a dirt bike I wasn't taking any risks. Tink was good but on her toes keeping an eye on the bikes.
> 
> Sorry I think i may have been part of that, clearly i'm lacking patience and tact at the moment... but not mucus i have that in huge abundance.
> 
> On the bright side i have resisted asking someone why watching 10 years worth of CM hasn't provided them with the answers they need for their problem, they seem to be quite the fan.


Don't worry - I was just as bad as you.  And I can't possibly imagine who you mean....


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Wrapped up like the pilsbury dough boy this morning had a very sedate 45 min walk this morning more onlead that i had first intended but thats because there were dirt bikes on the common .... they are not allowed according to the byelaws but seeing as the mountain bikes get to flout them why shouldn't they  After the dog being killed last year locally by a dirt bike I wasn't taking any risks. Tink was good but on her toes keeping an eye on the bikes.
> 
> *Sorry I think i may have been part of that, clearly i'm lacking patience and tact at the moment... but not mucus i have that in huge abundance.*




I wasn't getting at you Moonviolet (you are one of the few that talks sense)....

I'm also lacking tact and patience as well which is why I haven't replied to several posts because I know I shall either be sarcastic or downright nasty.

Luv Grannie....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> I wasn't getting at you Moonviolet (you are one of the few that talks sense)....
> 
> I'm also lacking tact and patience as well which is why I haven't replied to several posts because I know I shall either be sarcastic or downright nasty.
> 
> Luv Grannie....


Bluddy Nora! Please go easy on me Grannie.....I've sewn myself into my vest and pants too what with the inclement weather and all....:yesnod:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Bluddy Nora! Please go easy on me Grannie.....I've sewn myself into my vest and pants too what with the inclement weather and all....:yesnod:.


Grannie is now going to take her creaking bones over to the barn and then start the dog walking again.

It's still minus 4 here - nice!!


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Ginge - you'll have to get the ninja some boots - and *maybe a scarf to wrap around her mouth*. :lol: Seriously I think vaseline one her feet would stop snow balls on her paws and maybe make her a bit more comfortable.


I wouldn't admit to trying that, lol, but I will try the vaseline later thanks L/C, its not that I don't trust you but I googled it to make sure it was ok and read an article on a website, it was only once I had finished I realised it was Caesar's Way 
Glad you had a better walk today.



Dogless said:


> GR - :crazy::crazy:.


Bout summed it up 

K&M I want Scruff, her and Ginge can be a matching pair of snufflers, what on earth had she been up to, the rest can fight it out over Evie and Moll 

LO - hope you are alright, feeling dizzy  wasn't it fainting that caused all this??? concerned smilie!

MV - sounds like the cold I had, free running , feel better soon! i took away a like from you I didn't think it fair to like the same post twice  (I always worry people get notified of likes and unliking )


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hello 
I'm going to drag myself away from my sewing machine tonight for a while and trawl through the last couple of days worth.

All ok here. Bella hasn't had anymore episodes of collapse, so hoping it was a one off.
I'm teaching frank a 'steady' command cause my walking belt arrived yesterday. He seems to be picking it up ok but god knows how he'll do when we're in the vicinity of deers or rabbits 
Freddie and a swan had a few words this morning. Think he went a bit too close to something the fishermen left on the canal side that the swan was enjoying. 

Back to heaps of work . See you all later. :thumbup1:


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Hello
> I'm going to drag myself away from my sewing machine tonight for a while and trawl through the last couple of days worth.
> 
> All ok here. Bella hasn't had anymore episodes of collapse, so hoping it was a one off.
> *I'm teaching frank a 'steady' command cause my walking belt arrived yesterday. He seems to be picking it up ok but god knows how he'll do when we're in the vicinity of deers or rabbits*
> Freddie and a swan had a few words this morning. Think he went a bit too close to something the fishermen left on the canal side that the swan was enjoying.
> 
> Back to heaps of work . See you all later. :thumbup1:


Yup that's the word I use for normal lead walking if they get a bit above themselves.....


----------



## Twiggy

Well the walking late afternoon wasn't very successful...

The younger two had about 40 minutes in the barn and then I took the old two out well wrapped up in their jackets. I only managed to get down the paddock, through the gate and into the bottom field and had to come back as Quiver was really struggling, in fact I thought she was going to collapse. I brought her back very slowly and then took Leafy with the other two on the lead. I wouldn't say Leafy enjoyed it either.

I suppose it must be like walking on a thin sheet of broken glass at the moment.

No more walks for Quiver until it thaws a bit or we get a fresh covering of soft snow.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Yup that's the word I use for normal lead walking if they get a bit above themselves.....


Twiggy, can you give me any tips on how you get them to understand its meaning?

I use 'steady' but pretty sure she doesn't get it, I find myself (especially today ) saying it almost constantly if I want any form of walking that doesn't involve my arms being pulled out of their sockets or using the harness in the way its meant to be used, (mekuti balance harness), apparently if you alternate the pressure between the front and rear attachments its supposed to be a miracle cure for pullers  not that that is why I got it, it works to a degree but makes her look anything but balanced, think banana 

Or does she just not care what it means and its just all part of her general ignorance of me  or  the other day OH said he kind of likes the fact that she has her own mind which I kind of agree with but..............its hard work 

Sorry you had a bad walk, I have said before how terrifying it was with the old boy last year , not nice at all :nono:.


----------



## Nicki85

Rusty has had a quiet day today as I've been in meetings. Got home in time to take him through the weaves a couple of times which he did so I think he has got the hang of the actual in and out bit. His entries are a bit mixed and isn't hitting it right each time so I need to go back to two poles and work on entries from every angle... but very pleased considering I only started last Sunday!

We have agility later tonight so that will be fun! Last week he was a bit distracted with the new dogs and stuff- he was fine just not giving me 100%!

And lastly i'm soooo hoping to get some good news at the end of the week... it involves puppies :yesnod: Don't want to jinx anything so will keep quiet till I hear more.

Twiggy- sorry to hear about your walk :-( I remember when my old girl was around she was so keen to get out but couldn't actually manage the walk 
GR- assume you have tried the stop method when they pull? Rusty got that pretty quick...
F&F- rusty likes to talk to swans too but thank fully gets worried when they are up to close. I've got a walking belt but haven't actually got round to trying it out yet. 

that's all the posts I can see lol.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy, can you give me any tips on how you get them to understand its meaning?
> 
> I use 'steady' but pretty sure she doesn't get it, I find myself (especially today ) saying it almost constantly if I want any form of walking that doesn't involve my arms being pulled out of their sockets or using the harness in the way its meant to be used, (mekuti balance harness), apparently if you alternate the pressure between the front and rear attachments its supposed to be a miracle cure for pullers  not that that is why I got it, it works to a degree but makes her look anything but balanced, think banana
> 
> Or does she just not care what it means and its just all part of her general ignorance of me  or  the other day OH said he kind of likes the fact that she has her own mind which I kind of agree with but..............its hard work
> 
> Sorry you had a bad walk, I have said before how terrifying it was with the old boy last year , not nice at all :nono:.


Well one of the easiest ways to get the meaning across is to put her dinner bowl down on the kitchen floor and put a lead on her. Walk her towards her dinner bowl and the slightest tension on the lead just stop and say "steady". Ginge sure ain't stupid and if she's hungry she'll soon get the message.....


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Well one of the easiest ways to get the meaning across is to put her dinner bowl down on the kitchen floor and put a lead on her. Walk her towards her dinner bowl and the slightest tension on the lead just stop and say "steady". Ginge sure ain't stupid and if she's hungry she'll soon get the message.....


Oh she definitely aint stupid  my job would be sooo much easier I think if she were, she is a bit funny around food, not sure why as she never had to compete for it as she always had a big bowl in her cage to browse on, she wolfs it down when she gets there, but she will hover about and hide under the table as though she isn't sure its hers and keeps glancing up to see if she is in trouble, so I am reluctant to use her actual meals in any training however she did pick up wait and leave it very easily using her tea so perhaps it focuses her brain in the anticipation, she does love liver and kidneys she cant resist them and all manners go out the window so perhaps I need to try with them, i will save up a couple of portions and try that, thank you 

Nikki yes I tried stopping and turning round and most of the other tricks in the book, I think she is just VVV excitable and nervous and running is her go to behaviour when stressed so we struggle to get any focus. I kind of gave up as I couldn't manage her reactivity, scan for dogs, & watch out for car lunges as well as working on loose lead walking, I don't want perfection, I would just like to get less tension up front when needed for days like to day and so that potentially my Mum could look after her one day if needed (also so people can stop giving me the 'whos taking who for a walk' look )


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Nikki yes I tried stopping and turning round and most of the other tricks in the book, I think she is just VVV excitable and nervous and *running is her go to behaviour when stressed so we struggle to get any focus*. I kind of gave up as I couldn't manage her reactivity, scan for dogs, & watch out for car lunges as well as working on loose lead walking, I don't want perfection, I would just like to get less tension up front when needed for days like to day and so that potentially my Mum could look after her one day if needed (also so people can stop giving me the 'whos taking who for a walk' look )


The word 'running' just caught my eye....have you tried running with her? Even just past or away from a trigger / distraction so that she doesn't have much time to think / react?


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> The word 'running' just caught my eye....have you tried running with her? Even just past or away from a trigger / distraction so that she doesn't have much time to think / react?


Lol, you're fitness obsessed, we, well, me, are definitely not up to your style 

I have tried it a couple of times in dire necessity to get past or away from triggers. I did worry though whether it would re-inforce her reasons for reacting, what ever they might be . Fear based = oh mums scared too, lets bark louder. Nerves/excitement - whoo hooo this is fun lets bark louder! I just don't know. it hasn't stopped the reaction BTW just shortened it as the trigger disappears quicker.

I do wish I could 'run' as I am sure it would get her focus and build an attention requirement, and she loves to run.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The word 'running' just caught my eye....have you tried running with her? Even just past or away from a trigger / distraction so that she doesn't have much time to think / react?


Good thinking Batman.....:yesnod:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, you're fitness obsessed, we, well, me, are definitely not up to your style
> 
> I have tried it a couple of times in dire necessity to get past or away from triggers. I did worry though whether it would re-inforce her reasons for reacting, what ever they might be . Fear based = oh mums scared too, lets bark louder. Nerves/excitement - whoo hooo this is fun lets bark louder! I just don't know. it hasn't stopped the reaction BTW just shortened it as the trigger disappears quicker.
> 
> I do wish I could 'run' as I am sure it would get her focus and build an attention requirement, and she loves to run.


I didn't necessarily mean going out for a run...but was sort of thinking that you could randomly run from lamp post to lamp post at first or just tiny distances without triggers present for fun....so that she grows to see it as a fun and games time with her human rather than running away.

That isn't explained well, but for example Kilo started to associate crossing the road at one point with something like a cat that I had seen before him and he used to become very alert and starting scanning for a cat. Once I started crossing randomly he learnt fairly quickly that sometimes we just suddenly crossed roads.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> The word 'running' just caught my eye....have you tried running with her? Even just past or away from a trigger / distraction so that she doesn't have much time to think / react?


I do this with my bogey barriers when i haven't time( or patience) to work properly, I try to instigate the run before she's reacting and i add in hand touches, minor direction deviations etc, So it's lets have a game rather than lets just get past this barrier. i hope this makes sense and doens't jsut give you more mental images of the crazy beagle lady


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I do this with my bogey barriers when i haven't time( or patience) to work properly, I try to instigate the run before she's reacting and i add in hand touches, minor direction deviations etc, So it's lets have a game rather than lets just get past this barrier. i hope this makes sense and doens't jsut give you more mental images of the crazy beagle lady


Yes, I use similar too at times...think we're all a bit :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, you're fitness obsessed, we, well, me, are definitely not up to your style
> 
> I have tried it a couple of times in dire necessity to get past or away from triggers. I did worry though whether it would re-inforce her reasons for reacting, what ever they might be . Fear based = oh mums scared too, lets bark louder. Nerves/excitement - whoo hooo this is fun lets bark louder! I just don't know. it hasn't stopped the reaction BTW just shortened it as the trigger disappears quicker.
> 
> I do wish I could 'run' as I am sure it would get her focus and build an attention requirement, and she loves to run.


I'm older than you and I can't run.....

I very fast and purposeful walk should have the same effect.

Dogless has a very good point. When I compete with a young dog the first few times in novice, I go like the clappers out of hell - a really fast walk. It has two advantages (a) it doesn't give the young dog times to worry or gawp about and (b) assuming the judge is even more decrepit
than me, they can't keep up so miss several of the turns....:devil:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm older than you and I can't run.....
> 
> I very fast and purposeful walk should have the same effect.
> 
> Dogless has a very good point. When I compete with a young dog the first few times in novice, I go like the clappers out of hell - a really fast walk. It has two advantages (a) it doesn't give the young dog times to worry or gawp about and (b) assuming the judge is even more decrepit
> than me, they can't keep up so miss several of the turns....:devil:


Yes, I really pick up my walking pace if I spot something that might worry Kilo - it makes him 'switch on' and concentrate on me rather than his surroundings if we're dawdling a bit, I also do random sits, turns etc.

LOVE the outpacing the judge theory .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I didn't necessarily mean going out for a run...but was sort of thinking that you could randomly run from lamp post to lamp post at first or just tiny distances without triggers present for fun....so that she grows to see it as a fun and games time with her human rather than running away.
> 
> That isn't explained well, but for example Kilo started to associate crossing the road at one point with something like a cat that I had seen before him and he used to become very alert and starting scanning for a cat. Once I started crossing randomly he learnt fairly quickly that sometimes we just suddenly crossed roads.


Thats why I love this forum, thats such a good idea, double whammy - fun time and stops me worrying about it being a re-inforcer 
We sort of do the same randomness (but at a walk ), mainly started it for the cat thats sometimes there sometimes isn't 



moonviolet said:


> I do this with my bogey barriers when i haven't time( or patience) to work properly, I try to instigate the run before she's reacting and i add in hand touches, minor direction deviations etc, So it's lets have a game rather than lets just get past this barrier. i hope this makes sense and doens't jsut give you more mental images of the crazy beagle lady


I like the crazy beagle lady image  but whats a bogey barrier 



Twiggy said:


> I'm older than you and I can't run.....
> 
> I very fast and purposeful walk should have the same effect.
> 
> Dogless has a very good point. When I compete with a young dog the first few times in novice, I go like the clappers out of hell - a really fast walk. It has two advantages (a) it doesn't give the young dog times to worry or gawp about and (b) assuming the judge is even more decrepit
> than me, they can't keep up so miss several of the turns....:devil:


Naughty you


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, I really pick up my walking pace if I spot something that might worry Kilo - it makes him 'switch on' and concentrate on me rather than his surroundings if we're dawdling a bit, I also do random sits, turns etc.
> 
> LOVE the outpacing the judge theory .


And it works...!! I won a Class A with Fidget at Rugby Championship Show years ago. When we'd finished the judge was bright red in the face and gasping for breathe.... She did say something like "my word you walk fast"...


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> I'm older than you and I can't run.....
> 
> I very fast and purposeful walk should have the same effect.
> 
> Dogless has a very good point. When I compete with a young dog the first few times in novice, I go like the clappers out of hell - a really fast walk. It has two advantages (a) it doesn't give the young dog times to worry or gawp about and *(b) assuming the judge is even more decrepit
> than me, they can't keep up so miss several of the turns...*.:devil:


:lol: Cheeky!

Another couple of Wainwrights for us today!  We're motoring through them, trying to get lots done before my friend starts her new job. We were planning a three tops walk for tomorrow but I think my friend has got cold feet about falling on ice - so it might be a smaller one tomorrow. To be fair there were a couple of patches today where I thought some Yaktrax or similar might be an idea but wasn't too worried about the hills we were planning on tomorrow as they have decent paths on them...

I think I'm making a bit of a rod for my own back regards the dogs fitness! :lol: Never mind it'll be good for me and them to be more active anyway, especially with my silly distance event to train for.

So I haven't read everything that's going on today... and it's dog school for us this evening too!  Hectic.


----------



## moonviolet

I love seeing your devilish side Twiggy 



GingerRogers said:


> I like the crazy beagle lady image  but *whats a bogey barrier *


Most of the areas i walk here are common land under MOD adminstration and there are a barriers to prevent people driving on the the sites, lots of people drive up the barriers and jsut open the doors and let their dogs out ( particularly in the summer) these dogs alight their crs like their tails are on fire, while their owners change their shoes . check their makeup, hair, while their dogs make a general nuisance of themselves.SO these barriers became a place where Tink just wanted to get her head down and get past them soon as.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, that running[walking fast] is a good idea-I'd try that myself , but with 3 or 4 dogs I'd probably break my neck.

Ginge-Scruff had been digging, did you see the mud in between her teeth-dirty girl, her and the Ninja together would be a barkathon.:yesnod: I did try to get you a couple of pics today but they didn't turn out.

Twiggy-sorry your walk wasn't good with the girls. Our snow has disappeared now- how lucky is that, we've had our fun and now its gone.

Some of the posts on the other thread were very good, think Ouesi's 'unique' one was the best, except the bit where she[?] said a prey driven dog is the best type to work with- Its not for me with Evie- I shrunk down in my chair at that.:lol:

F+F- good that Bella's ok, her season must be surely coming to an end now.

Nikki, I hope you aren't going to be making me jealous with Springer babies.

Nice walk with the girls this afternoon,Evie even managed a spin and twist today with just a bit of a hand signal. I think its great that she's learnt something but she is just going through the motions , not happy to be doing it exactly, so I'm going to put a post on our local forum and ask for some secure land locally to get her more off lead time- thats when she's happiest.


----------



## Werehorse

Have you had a bad day, Ginger?


----------



## Nicki85

Nope not a Spaniel baby this time! Springers are all i've ever had (apart from the families GR...) so i've decided to venture into the pastoral breeds. Not too sure which breed yet- should hopefully get confirmation soon though. I keep looking at cockers at the moment as well- they are sooo cute!

Sounds like everyone has had a good day from the posts I can see on this page!

Edited to say Werehorse- I am soooo jealous of all your Wainwright bagging! I have all the books but haven't made it up there yet :-(


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Have you had a bad day, Ginger?


 thank you werehorse. Not a really bad one just manic  But thank you that really makes me smile.
However I do not its not my poor handling she was bonkers tonight and oh had the lead:yesnod: yes we actually got him out with us.


----------



## Guest

Les Miserables was freaking AWESOME! I cried twice. 

Tried ordering himself a blizzard coat from his rescue they have none in stock. 
*makes a noise like a whale*

Also do you think attaching a bell to his collar would be of use in anyway!? 

(His rescue sells them and I was wondering about it...)

Alas nothing was done to my tooth, the temporary fix is fine apparently and they won't do any work they don't have too.... (meaning if I do need anymore work I shall have to pay out again) 

Been actually cooing at the forest fleece coats and the equafleeces but payday isn't till friday.

I plan to take him to the field tommorow. I'm just worried that if he does go off to another dog I shan't be able to hobble after him...
Also some people just stand at the edge of the woods and natter and just let their dogs wander through the gate/hole in the fence into the field so I don't know what to do in that situation either! 

Still feeling a bit odd but have been told in no uncertain terms that I am walking le hound tommorow.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Les Miserables was freaking AWESOME! I cried twice.
> 
> Tried ordering himself a blizzard coat from his rescue they have none in stock.
> *makes a noise like a whale*
> 
> Also do you think attaching a bell to his collar would be of use in anyway!?
> 
> (His rescue sells them and I was wondering about it...)
> 
> Alas nothing was done to my tooth, the temporary fix is fine apparently and they won't do any work they don't have too.... (meaning if I do need anymore work I shall have to pay out again)
> 
> Been actually cooing at the forest fleece coats and the equafleeces but payday isn't till friday.
> 
> I plan to take him to the field tommorow. I'm just worried that if he does go off to another dog I shan't be able to hobble after him...
> Also some people just stand at the edge of the woods and natter and just let their dogs wander through the gate/hole in the fence into the field so I don't know what to do in that situation either!
> 
> Still feeling a bit odd but have been told in no uncertain terms that I am walking le hound tommorow.


I really must go and see Les Miserables. It sounds brilliant.

Well if you attach a bell to his collar perhaps he could audition for Santa's sleigh...LOL

Sounds as if you're another one who needs to visit your GP and I notice there's been nothing from Chazzie.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> I really must go and see Les Miserables. It sounds brilliant.
> 
> Well if you attach a bell to his collar perhaps he could audition for Santa's sleigh...LOL
> 
> Sounds as if you're another one who needs to visit your GP and I notice there's been nothing from Chazzie.


I hope Chazzie is okay, then again she does have lurking days of no commenting 

Well, Zander would certainly get Santa to places a damn sight quicker than rudolph!!

Les Miserables was really good (GO SEE IT!!)
helped it had Hugh Jackman and Eddie Redmayne in it. :001_wub:


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## Dogless

Werehorse; most jealous on the Wainwrights front - I was bagging Slieves but that's halted at present for Rudi!

Good walks this afternoon / evening. Training walk for Rudi, he was a pleasure again - not much seen as it was foul weather. Saw some folk with brollies and no dramas like the one yesterday!

Walked Kilo with Dizzy; he behaved himself, they had a run about and we came home again . Nothing seen really - guess what? Foul weather .


----------



## Nicki85

Just got in from an "interesting" agility session. Thought Rusty would be more laid back than normal but I was wrong! I think it was my dog but a bit like someone had given him caffeine...

He did all the exercises spot on, listened really well. However, inbetween he was a nightmare! Think pulling to see other dogs, barking at me and sniffing like a sniff monster. Usually I have the dog that snoozes when every one else has their turn.... And at one point he tried to divert to go see another dog :-0 he has never done that or shown any thoughts too! Any how I did tell him off and it worked as he did not do it again. I rarely tell him off but this deserved it....

So, don't really know how to feel about the session... exercises good, behaviour interesting.... Might be down to the fact that he was hungry and I had very desirable treats on me. I guess the main thing was that he listened and did the runs really well.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Crikey o Riley, I've made it through all the posts. 

Lots been going on indeed.   :001_wub: 

The boys have been good on their evening walk. Oh came had Freddie whilst I had frank. No drama's. Practiced 'steady' again with frank, Freddie already knows it.  

I'm a bit unsure as to how and when is best to use my new walking belt. bought it on a bit of a whim but I'm sure when I pluck courage up to use it, I'll like it. 
I was planning on using it when we go somewhere that frank has to be kept on a long line, eg..when there is a chance of deer. I've been looking at shock absorbing leads but would they be long enough? Are long lines too long to be used with a walking belt? Frank has a harness so will use that with the belt.
He knows 'close'.......walking to heel. Teaching him 'steady'.......slowing right down. 
I'll take him out on his own first time I use it but at what stage should I start and use it? He's a different dog when we're out in the wilderness if you like.


----------



## Dogless

F&F - I have a canicross line for running and a Ruffwear Roamer lead; both provide some shock absorption which I think is essential - both also have a traffic handle which is very useful indeed.

I think Cravensmum uses longlines with a walking belt.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Crikey o Riley, I've made it through all the posts.
> 
> Lots been going on indeed.   :001_wub:
> 
> The boys have been good on their evening walk. Oh came had Freddie whilst I had frank. No drama's. Practiced 'steady' again with frank, Freddie already knows it.
> 
> I'm a bit unsure as to how and when is best to use my new walking belt. bought it on a bit of a whim but I'm sure when I pluck courage up to use it, I'll like it.
> I was planning on using it when we go somewhere that frank has to be kept on a long line, eg..when there is a chance of deer. I've been looking at shock absorbing leads but would they be long enough? Are long lines too long to be used with a walking belt? Frank has a harness so will use that with the belt.
> He knows 'close'.......walking to heel. Teaching him 'steady'.......slowing right down.
> I'll take him out on his own first time I use it but at what stage should I start and use it? He's a different dog when we're out in the wilderness if you like.


Sorry I can't help you on this one. I've never used a harness, line or walking belt. Maybe Sarah or Dogless will know?


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Just got in from an "interesting" agility session. Thought Rusty would be more laid back than normal but I was wrong! I think it was my dog but a bit like someone had given him caffeine...
> 
> He did all the exercises spot on, listened really well. However, inbetween he was a nightmare! Think pulling to see other dogs, barking at me and sniffing like a sniff monster. Usually I have the dog that snoozes when every one else has their turn.... And at one point he tried to divert to go see another dog :-0 he has never done that or shown any thoughts too! Any how I did tell him off and it worked as he did not do it again. I rarely tell him off but this deserved it....
> 
> So, don't really know how to feel about the session... exercises good, behaviour interesting.... Might be down to the fact that he was hungry and I had very desirable treats on me. I guess the main thing was that he listened and did the runs really well.


I'd treat it as a 'one off'. I'm sure this extremely cold weather does something to their brains.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> F&F - I have a canicross line for running and a Ruffwear Roamer lead; both provide some shock absorption which I think is essential - both also have a traffic handle which is very useful indeed.
> 
> I think Cravensmum uses longlines with a walking belt.


Been looking at the ruffwear ones, they're really nice. Need to sweeten up OH first though  
Think I may just have to take the plunge and go out and try it. I know I'd be safe with Freddie cause he just trots along nicely, but frank is in to everything and i'll probably end up flat on my face.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Been looking at the ruffwear ones, they're really nice. Need to sweeten up OH first though
> Think I may just have to take the plunge and go out and try it. I know I'd be safe with Freddie cause he just trots along nicely, but frank is in to everything and i'll probably end up flat on my face.


Obviously the canicross line I run with and want Kilo to pull. The beauty of the Roamer which I use for mountain walking mostly as there are sheep everywhere is that the elastic is strong and Kilo learnt very quickly from the way that it feels where the end will be and doesn't shoot to the end of it or pull. A good 'steady' is immensely useful too.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> F&F - I have a canicross line for running and a Ruffwear Roamer lead; both provide some shock absorption which I think is essential - both also have a traffic handle which is very useful indeed.
> 
> I think Cravensmum uses longlines with a walking belt.


Molly and I have used one but I think I need to get her better adjusted to the collar and lead as it wasn't a huge success. But she's a wandering hound and I'm challenged in the walking in a straight line skills so it was a bit like Laurel and Hardy. We shall practice and aim to be as choreographed as Torvill and Dean soon.

I am sorry I haven't been about much. I did contribute and wandered off. I've had a huge shock - I've been made redundant and on my 30 day notice. It means that I've had to cancel our last round of IVF treatment and at 43 I'm feeling that we're not going to be parents. It's hit me hard as I'd hoped that 2013 was the year that the crap stop being shovelled at us. Last year was my OH's neurology injury and my op and the year before that it was a miscarriage. It seems an awful start. But thank goodness for dogs! Molly has been wonderful, very cuddly and comforting. When I cry she's there immediately going through a list of tricks to make me laugh before she rests her head on my neck. I swear she's human!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> Obviously the canicross line I run with and want Kilo to pull. The beauty of the Roamer which I use for mountain walking mostly as there are sheep everywhere is that the elastic is strong and Kilo learnt very quickly from the way that it feels where the end will be and doesn't shoot to the end of it or pull. A good 'steady' is immensely useful too.


Do you still feel in control and safe? With the roamer.


----------



## DebsG

Amazingly with practice and the help of utube videos Harry can sit at just over 8 weeks, hilariously fast like someone has stapled him to the floor. 
Great progress at going outside for poo though would probably pee inside if not whisked at the key moment.

Introduced very light collar a few days ago for a few mins a day...pure hatred. He lies as if dead, or turns around and won't look at me crying, actually sobbing like someone is sticking pins in him.......with a face like this 

Walking with the thing on seems light years away!!


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith; I am so very sorry for your devastating news. It took me a while to accept that I'd never be a mum and it does still very much upset me now from time to time. As you say, thank goodness for dogs xx.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> MollySmith; I am so very sorry for your devastating news. It took me a while to accept that I'd never be a mum and it does still very much upset me now from time to time. As you say, thank goodness for dogs xx.


I am so sorry that you have to bear this sadness too.

Yes dogs  Mine is snoring so loudly it's window shattering!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Oh Molly, so sorry to hear that.
Life can be pretty cack can't it sometimes. But bless little Molly for being there for you.
Thinking of you. Xx


----------



## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> Molly and I have used one but I think I need to get her better adjusted to the collar and lead as it wasn't a huge success. But she's a wandering hound and I'm challenged in the walking in a straight line skills so it was a bit like Laurel and Hardy. We shall practice and aim to be as choreographed as Torvill and Dean soon.
> 
> I am sorry I haven't been about much. I did contribute and wandered off. I've had a huge shock - I've been made redundant and on my 30 day notice. It means that I've had to cancel our last round of IVF treatment and at 43 I'm feeling that we're not going to be parents. It's hit me hard as I'd hoped that 2013 was the year that the crap stop being shovelled at us. Last year was my OH's neurology injury and my op and the year before that it was a miscarriage. It seems an awful start. But thank goodness for dogs! Molly has been wonderful, very cuddly and comforting. When I cry she's there immediately going through a list of tricks to make me laugh before she rests her head on my neck. I swear she's human!


Thank goodness indeed for Molly. Hugs x


----------



## Guest

Mollysmith, I really hope your year gets better and that Molly gives you as many comforting cuddles as possible. Dogs just have a way of making you feel a bit better by just being there. There's no "I'm sorry"s from dogs, because they don't know how to respond, they just have to be there, leaning on you, or near you to give you comfort. x


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Do you still feel in control and safe? With the roamer.


Yes; the traffic lead is fabulous for close control. I do descents like these (you can see how it drops like a roller coaster by the way the wall disappears!!) with it on......so now you see why 'steady' is invaluable; sometimes we have to go boulder by boulder!!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Yes; the traffic lead is fabulous for close control. I do descents like these (you can see how it drops like a roller coaster by the way the wall disappears!!) with it on......so now you see why 'steady' is invaluable; sometimes we have to go boulder by boulder!!


I think you would have to give me a year's supply of Kalms in one go for me to take Zand on a walk like that! 
It seems if you fell off of that, you'd fall of the world and float to the moon!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless, sorry to hear that too.
Makes anything else pale into insignificance.
Xx


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I think you would have to give me a year's supply of Kalms in one go for me to take Zand on a walk like that!
> It seems if you fell off of that, you'd fall of the world and float to the moon!


It is just a boulder scramble pretty much vertically down....no pics of actual descent as wits about you needed!!!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> It is *just* a boulder scramble pretty much vertically down....no pics of actual descent as wits about you needed!!!


Actually I've just had an imagining of doing that walk with Zand and I actually got that weird feeling in my chest you get when your just about to sit a super important exam or something.

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft. Thats it. I'm renaming you SuperFitnessWoman.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> Yes; the traffic lead is fabulous for close control. I do descents like these (you can see how it drops like a roller coaster by the way the wall disappears!!) with it on......so now you see why 'steady' is invaluable; sometimes we have to go boulder by boulder!!


My god  and I'm worried about frank pulling me over on flat ground. 

Just had another look at the ruffwear roamer, they do look good quality. Will have to work my magic soon.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Actually I've just had an imagining of doing that walk with Zand and I actually got that weird feeling in my chest you get when your just about to sit a super important exam or something.
> 
> Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft. Thats it. I'm renaming you SuperFitnessWoman.





Freddie and frank said:


> My god  and I'm worried about frank pulling me over on flat ground.
> 
> Just had another look at the ruffwear roamer, they do look good quality. Will have to work my magic soon.


Tricky bits are actually good for the trust and bond between you both weirdly....although if anyone could hear me they'd think Kilo's name was "Steady....Wait!!!" - jumping onto boulder and stopping for me to jump down then "OK Kilo" - meaning he can go down onto the next one. I actually let him dictate the route when ascents and descents are scrambles as he chooses very good ones instinctively. Unless he can smell sheep when I very much choose the route .


----------



## cravensmum

Freddie and frank said:


> Crikey o Riley, I've made it through all the posts.
> 
> Lots been going on indeed.   :001_wub:
> 
> The boys have been good on their evening walk. Oh came had Freddie whilst I had frank. No drama's. Practiced 'steady' again with frank, Freddie already knows it.
> 
> I'm a bit unsure as to how and when is best to use my new walking belt. bought it on a bit of a whim but I'm sure when I pluck courage up to use it, I'll like it.
> I was planning on using it when we go somewhere that frank has to be kept on a long line, eg..when there is a chance of deer. I've been looking at shock absorbing leads but would they be long enough? Are long lines too long to be used with a walking belt? Frank has a harness so will use that with the belt.
> He knows 'close'.......walking to heel. Teaching him 'steady'.......slowing right down.
> I'll take him out on his own first time I use it but at what stage should I start and use it? He's a different dog when we're out in the wilderness if you like.


I use a walking belt and a longline,sometimes 2 longlines 

I also sometimes attach my roamer lead to it instead of a longline.

Basically I use it because I can walk them hands free,yes I still use my hands to control the longline a bit,usually to unhook it from something.

It just gives me confidence that the dogs are attached to me whatever they do.

I have only been pulled over once and that was because a very friendly Lab came bounding over and I wasn't prepared,and it started running round me and of course my dogs followed and the ground was rough and I tripped.


----------



## Guest

See part of me wants to brave the longline again with Zand. But then i remember my face meeting the floor after a 6ft flight.

Maybe one day I shan't be a great wuss!!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> Tricky bits are actually good for the trust and bond between you both weirdly....although if anyone could hear me they'd think Kilo's name was "Steady....Wait!!!" - jumping onto boulder and stopping for me to jump down then "OK Kilo" - meaning he can go down onto the next one. I actually let him dictate the route when ascents and descents are scrambles as he chooses very good ones instinctively. Unless he can smell sheep when I very much choose the route .


Oh bless him. You obviously have a great bond with him.

I know Freddie would be ideal cause it's like talking to a human with him. He seems to understand every word but with frank, he's not so predictable.we're working on his focus on me but it falls on deaf ears when there's other things like deer, grouse, pheasant, cows, ducks about. Hence the walking belt.


----------



## Freddie and frank

cravensmum said:


> I use a walking belt and a longline,sometimes 2 longlines
> 
> I also sometimes attach my roamer lead to it instead of a longline.
> 
> Basically I use it because I can walk them hands free,yes I still use my hands to control the longline a bit,usually to unhook it from something.
> 
> It just gives me confidence that the dogs are attached to me whatever they do.
> 
> I have only been pulled over once and that was because a very friendly Lab came bounding over and I wasn't prepared,and it started running round me and of course my dogs followed and the ground was rough and I tripped.


That's the same one I have. From indi dog ?
Think I need to just go and try it. Just me and frank. 
Ideally when I take the boys out, Freddie can go off lead as normal and frank won't have chance to take off cause he'll be attached to me, without pulling my arms out of their sockets. 
Will try it this weekend.

Thanks for all the advice guys.


----------



## Sarah1983

MollySmith, I'm so sorry you keep getting all this crap, I hope things improve for you very soon.

I've used a long line for years but never a walking belt. I wasn't confident I'd be able to stop Rupe pulling me over and then attempting to beat a dog to death with his muzzle if I had him attached to a belt rather than the line gripped firmly in my hands.

Well I've just been out brainwashing...er training...Spencer some more. It's horribly cold and snowy out so I've taken the opportunity to convince him that he absolutely CAN pay attention to me in those conditions. It wasn't a roaring success but I did manage to get some recalls and some very short moments of eye contact. Wonder if I can brainwash...er train...him to not lie on the wire for my mouse.

Anyway, came in from our little training session and he got his rope toy down off his crate and very politely invited me to play tug with him. So I've been dragged around the room and flung against the walls. He won the game several times but quit the instant I asked for the toy :thumbup:


----------



## cravensmum

Freddie and frank said:


> That's the same one I have. From indi dog ?
> Think I need to just go and try it. Just me and frank.
> Ideally when I take the boys out, Freddie can go off lead as normal and frank won't have chance to take off cause he'll be attached to me, without pulling my arms out of their sockets.
> Will try it this weekend.
> 
> Thanks for all the advice guys.


Yes it's an Indi-dog.

Just one thing to be wary of with a belt and longline is watching your feet.

Because the longline falls to the floor from the belt,just make sure you are not standing on it,or that's it's not got wrapped round your leg.Because then you will probably end up on your backside.


----------



## Dogless

Yiiippppeeeeeeeee!!!! Snow forecast for all day tomorrow .


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Molly and I have used one but I think I need to get her better adjusted to the collar and lead as it wasn't a huge success. But she's a wandering hound and I'm challenged in the walking in a straight line skills so it was a bit like Laurel and Hardy. We shall practice and aim to be as choreographed as Torvill and Dean soon.
> 
> I am sorry I haven't been about much. I did contribute and wandered off. I've had a huge shock - I've been made redundant and on my 30 day notice. It means that I've had to cancel our last round of IVF treatment and at 43 I'm feeling that we're not going to be parents. It's hit me hard as I'd hoped that 2013 was the year that the crap stop being shovelled at us. Last year was my OH's neurology injury and my op and the year before that it was a miscarriage. It seems an awful start. But thank goodness for dogs! Molly has been wonderful, very cuddly and comforting. When I cry she's there immediately going through a list of tricks to make me laugh before she rests her head on my neck. I swear she's human!


Oh that's awful and you must be devastated. I'm afraid both myself and husband have been there on the redundancy front and it's horrible.

I do hope you find alternative employment before too long and the outlook for you improves.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> See part of me wants to brave the longline again with Zand. But then i remember my face meeting the floor after a 6ft flight.
> 
> Maybe one day I shan't be a great wuss!!


No don't do it.... I have a mental picture of you being airborne.....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yiiippppeeeeeeeee!!!! Snow forecast for all day tomorrow .


Sorry I can't 'like' that because it's forecast to spread east and I just want it all gone. It was minus 9 here in the early hours.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Yiiippppeeeeeeeee!!!! Snow forecast for all day tomorrow .


I love the thought of it but ... too many nice slopes around here means everywhere will be heaving with people sledging turning them all into glass mountains... well might as well be :lol:

Mollysmith I'm sorry to hear of the troubling times you've been going through , hope things turn a corner soon. ( ps thank you for the knitting thread many moons ago, I credit you with bringing me a useful hobby and for keeping my hands busy and off the cigarettes )

Sarah :lol: the cold and snowy stuff does seem to make them a bit silly. 

Cravensmum lovely pics, single longline wrangling is a challenge double I thik is a feat beyond my reach.

F+F good luck with the walking belt.

Dogless i'm not sure i'd have the co-ordination for the boulder descent even without canine assistance


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I love the thought of it but ... too many nice slopes around here means everywhere will be heaving with people sledging turning them all into glass mountains... well might as well be :lol:
> 
> Mollysmith I'm sorry to hear of the troubling times you've been going through , hope things turn a corner soon. ( ps thank you for the knitting thread many moons ago, I credit you with bringing me a useful hobby and for keeping my hands busy and off the cigarettes )
> 
> Sarah :lol: the cold and snowy stuff does seem to make them a bit silly.
> 
> Cravensmum lovely pics, single longline wrangling is a challenge double I thik is a feat beyond my reach.
> 
> F+F good luck with the walking belt.
> 
> Dogless i'm not sure i'd have the co-ordination for the boulder descent even without canine assistance


Moonviolet.... I didn't know you were another one who succumbs to the filthy weed...!!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Moonviolet.... I didn't know you were another one who succumbs to the filthy weed...!!


I gave up on the 19th of may last year before that i was quite committed.


----------



## Guest

Well we had a kinda good walk. 
Went off up to field and on the way I genuinely thought I had a husky. Even when I stopped and turned the other way he hunched and drrrraaaaaaaaaaaaagggeeed his body forward. 
Once in the field he had a lovely small run about. Then a labrador headbutted by knees from behind me. But Zand recalled well and waited when I told him to.
The labrador was soon followed by an owner on her phone, who completely ignored my question of "Can they have a runabout together?". 
Then after the lovely to heel walk home, we went past our neighbours with Zands two girlfriends in. No Girlfriends in the garden, so i hurriedly hobble past. 
BAM. Two little girlfriend doggies come CHARGING out the catflap towards us. Zander has a bouncefest, my knee spasmed and I yelled at Zander and dragged him up our steps. Not the best reaction I have to admit in hindsight.

Oh and we had a man knock on our door saying his neighbour had taken in a cat that was hit by a car, and he thinks it might be ours. We go knock on neighbours doors, no answer so we'll try again later. 
We haven't seen Abraham for a couple days, but he does that sometimes and we'll find him being pampered by some other household. 
SO I'm hoping Abe's just buggered off for a bit.
And the man tried to stroke Zand, who went into a "oooh no, i'm not sure" hunched position beside me.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Tricky bits are actually good for the trust and bond between you both weirdly....although if anyone could hear me they'd think Kilo's name was "Steady....Wait!!!" - jumping onto boulder and stopping for me to jump down then "OK Kilo" - meaning he can go down onto the next one. I actually let him dictate the route when ascents and descents are scrambles as he chooses very good ones instinctively. Unless he can smell sheep when I very much choose the route .


Thank for the kind words everyone, it means a lot. Today is a new day (apparently meant to be working so that means I'll be on here chatting!)

I agree with what you mean about trust Dogless. I have a balance disorder thanks to a problem with in inner ear since birth so I get random dizzy moments and will freeze if I can't manage things. I always wanted to walk a section of the SW Coastal path near Pentire point in North Cornwall but there was a bit I was nervous about. It's very narrow and drops down and up steeply with no handrail so I can't keep my balance very well and have nobody to hand on to. Anyway I did it in June, with my dad in front, and husband behind and Molly beside me on her harness quietly licking my hand and being there. You are right, they know which bit is best.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Sorry I can't 'like' that because it's forecast to spread east and I just want it all gone. It was minus 9 here in the early hours.


 I did like because I love snow but I want it gone too just until I have control of my dog :cryin:



moonviolet said:


> Sarah :lol: the cold and snowy stuff does seem to make them a bit silly.


I have stopped calling it silly or finding it fun 



moonviolet said:


> I gave up on the 19th of may last year before that i was quite committed.


 Yay well done you! We are still going strong, 3 months now 



MollySmith said:


> apparently meant to be working so that means I'll be on here chatting!
> 
> Anyway I did it in June, with my dad in front, and husband behind and Molly beside me on her harness quietly licking my hand and being there. You are right, they know which bit is best.


Well they can't expect 100% now can they 
I love your story of your coastal walk, very heartwarming !

I have funny images in my head now, I wish I could draw cartoons, Roald Dahl style spiky sketches 

There's K&M trying to run with 4 dogs all trying to do their own thing, then there's speed walking Twiggy and judges having heart attacks in the corner, LurcherOwner flying vertically behind a large dog (Zander is huuuuge in my head for some reason, the size of a pony), and a not so funny Dogless dangling off the side of a mountain with Kilo and Rudi looking over the side with quizzical sideways heads going 'what ya doin Mum???'

ETA I forgot an animated version with the Scruffs and the ninja, one digging, one barking, then swapping roles,'S'ok we got the important stuff covered!'

Absolute mare of a morning walk but a woman who had seen the monster kick off overtook me and commented: 
Lady - looks interesting
Me - Mmmm 
Lady - I had a jack russell once, untrainable!
Me -  Oh shes getting there (then feeling really stupid cos if shes getting there whats bad)
Lady - not surprising when you think what they are bred for on the farm
Me - No its not and she was worked for the first few months of her life
Lady - Oh well she is doing well then isn't she
Me - 

She went onto tell me of someone she knows who had a fell terrier and they managed to breed out the rabbit chasing thing.

Me - more  

Tried the vaseline on her paws, was quite amusing as I only have one of those little pocket sized pots and I left it on the floor and she stuck her back foot in it and tried to run round the living room 
Don't think it worked much though, think we just need the cold stuff to go  but we are getting some more apparently.

Tried the running away, not such a good idea, think we will leave that one on hold till the slippery stuff goes as well .

We still haven't seen my Mum since Christmas so we are going tomorrow and staying over in case of snow. Its her 70th, she didn't want any fuss on the day, so we were due to go Sunday and have a 'family' meal out. I spoke to her last night though and she is very upset, my Uncle is failing fast and she has this horrible feeling that she shouldn't enjoy her day and he might go any time. So we are going to offer comfort tomorrow (and, sounds awful considering whats going on, but it gets us out of the family meal  my family are odd like everyone's I guess ) so Ginge's first holiday!


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## Izzysmummy

Twiggy  Poor Quiver! We still have no snow, just very cold here! Maybe Quiver can come and stay with us until the white stuff has gone!!

Nicky  Sounds like your agility was interesting, Izzy can sometimes be a bit impatient when the other dogs are taking a turn, she will tap our legs and bark to demand treats! Very excited at the mention of puppies! Roll on end of the week so you can share with us!

Werehorse  Sounds like your doing well with your Wainwrights challenge, Im sure the boys are loving being out and about all day! I hope school went well!

Mv - I was wondering what a bogey barrier was too, thought it might have something to do with your lurgy!! :lol:

GR  Sorry yesterday was a bit manic, maybe her and Izzy have been having words?? Monkey mode is back in full swing! Best check on what phase the moon is in and make a note!! (approaching the First Quarter for future reference)

LO  Im so jealous youve seen Les Mis. Fingers crossed well be going on Sunday, wish we could go Saturday but Tarnus is off to watch the football, boo hiss rrr:! Im hoping there might be an equafleece stand at crufts for me to raid! If its anything like a harness though, Izzy will go into statue mode when I put it on her! Hope youre feeling less odd today!

F+F - we also have a ruffwear roamer lead which we used loads when we were on holiday in North Yorkshire, you can attach it round your waist and its shock absorbant. Was great for wandering over the fells! Izzy wore her Julius k9 harness and we attached it to that. Think a shock absorber would be great for use with the walking belt, maybe not a really long long line though as he could probably build up a fair bit of speed and pull you off your feet by the time he reaches the end of it.

MollySmith  so sorry youre having a tough time! So glad Molly is taking good care of you!

Dogless  That picture of the descent is terrifying , Im very scared of heights. Im not sure if youve done roseberry topping while you lived in Yorkshire but my legs started to go near the top (and thats probably nothing compared to the ones you do), Tarnus had control of Izzy on the roamer lead thankfully, I was too busy clinging on for dear life !

Cravensmum  2 long lines look like theyd require a lot of co-ordination, just one gets me in knots!

So yesterday Izzy woke up very hyper! She was doing zoomies all over the house before her morning walk and game of fetch then more once she got back! I got downstairs and the rug had moved across the living room and started crumpling up the patio doors! She was pretty excitable at lunchtime, then in the evening we just did a short lead walk and she barked at a man, he stopped to let us past a narrow bit of pavement, he then woof, woofed back at her which definitely didnt help ! Idiot :incazzato:! At training last night she was very distractable, we have been moved up a class and were in with some different dogs including a very vocal jack russel, her heel work left a lot to be desired, our turns were pants cos she wasnt concentrating and her recall was terrible, very wonky and wouldnt listen. Only good thing was her down-stay! I have to say Tarnus was not helping by fussing the cocker spaniel puppy at the back of the class, little jealous Izzy could not take her eyes off what he was doing :sosp:! We also had a spook at something outside the front door! Then this morning she had barked at a man just standing in the pavement on her way to the park! Dont know whats got into her , but just going to step up the training and give her some distance until she seems to calm down again!


----------



## Guest

Ginge that lady sounds bizarre! 
I hope your mum has a nice birthday! 

And Zand is not that big. He's only 24 -26 inches at the shoulder! 
It just I am made of noodles and am a weakling!


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## kat&molly

Molly smith- I'm sorry to hear you're having a bad time- hope things pick up for you soon.

Ginge-Hope your Mum has a good birthday, and the Ninja enjoys her first holiday.

Dogless- scary pics.:yesnod:

Every time Moll has a wee out the back she has to take a toy with her, last night I sent her to fetch them all back in and we used the bedroom for a game of hide and seek. She wouldn't settle after and kept wanting to go out- she bashes the cat flap in the front door- its her cue to go out the back 
I finally worked it out, there was one toy out the front and she needed to bring that as well. She flopped down to sleep after.
This morning she learnt to bring me my slippers :001_wub: and then to put them away in the shoe box- except she wasn't happy to leave them there and kept bringing them to me.:lol:
Hope everyone's having a good day.


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## Guest

I am still on a search for a suitable winter coat. It will need to be waterproof won't it? Incase it snows? 
What the hell is a polyfill???? 
Sherpa Lining!?!!? 

£37 pounds!?!?! *huffs and puffs* 

The 24pound blizzard coats from GRWE are still outta stock....


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Thank for the kind words everyone, it means a lot. Today is a new day (apparently meant to be working so that means I'll be on here chatting!)
> 
> I agree with what you mean about trust Dogless. I have a balance disorder thanks to a problem with in inner ear since birth so I get random dizzy moments and will freeze if I can't manage things. I always wanted to walk a section of the SW Coastal path near Pentire point in North Cornwall but there was a bit I was nervous about. It's very narrow and drops down and up steeply with no handrail so I can't keep my balance very well and have nobody to hand on to.* Anyway I did it in June, with my dad in front, and husband behind and Molly beside me on her harness quietly licking my hand and being there. You are right, they know which bit is best.*


That is lovely; really nice that you accomplished something that you had always wanted to. They really do pick the best routes, the trick is trusting that they do I think. Sometimes I am huffing up one way and Kilo bounding up another...and his is always better!

LO - hope the injured kitty isn't Abe .

GR - hope your Mum has as good a birthday as she can with all the worry about your Uncle.

Walked the CHs separately early this morning; lead walk for Kilo - we passed a few dogs including a friendly but lunging lab without a drama; looked at him then me twice then just came along, no worrying .

Took Rudi to a little field and just let him off to potter really - we both stood in poo, it was carpeted in the stuff :incazzato::incazzato: - and then home. We were only out for twenty minutes or so as I didn't want him tired for school. Despite him seeing loads and loads of cats on our walks he saw one and growled and huffed at it today (first time he's reacted to anything negatively)....don't think he's going to be good with cats either :sosp:.

School was great; Rudi was a little star for me. Two owners took their dogs away from us at the beginning before the session started as they both tried to get Rudi to play, he play bowed back and did his "Grrrrr...huff huff" as he bounced and waggled his bum. One owner said "We best be moving on, he isn't friendly" and the other said "You didn't tell me he was aggressive" . Oh well :rolleyes5::rolleyes5:.

Then...PAH for tripe and weekly weight check. No tripe. Again :incazzato::incazzato:. Weight 24.2kg .


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Molly smith- I'm sorry to hear you're having a bad time- hope things pick up for you soon.
> 
> Ginge-Hope your Mum has a good birthday, and the Ninja enjoys her first holiday.
> 
> Dogless- scary pics.:yesnod:
> 
> Every time Moll has a wee out the back she has to take a toy with her, last night I sent her to fetch them all back in and we used the bedroom for a game of hide and seek. She wouldn't settle after and kept wanting to go out- she bashes the cat flap in the front door- its her cue to go out the back
> I finally worked it out, there was one toy out the front and she needed to bring that as well. She flopped down to sleep after.
> This morning she learnt to bring me my slippers :001_wub: and then to put them away in the shoe box- except she wasn't happy to leave them there and kept bringing them to me.:lol:
> Hope everyone's having a good day.


Aww Moll sounds a really clever little girl. that's very sweet telling you there was still a toy outside. I love them when they have character.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Ginge that lady sounds bizarre!
> I hope your mum has a nice birthday!
> 
> And Zand is not that big. He's only 24 -26 inches at the shoulder!
> It just I am made of noodles and am a weakling!


Have you had a look on Ebay?

Leafy's got a really nice waterproof and fleeced lined coat purchased off Ebay for about £12.00. It's a very good fit as well.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> That is lovely; really nice that you accomplished something that you had always wanted to. They really do pick the best routes, the trick is trusting that they do I think. Sometimes I am huffing up one way and Kilo bounding up another...and his is always better!
> 
> LO - hope the injured kitty isn't Abe .
> 
> GR - hope your Mum has as good a birthday as she can with all the worry about your Uncle.
> 
> Walked the CHs separately early this morning; lead walk for Kilo - we passed a few dogs including a friendly but lunging lab without a drama; looked at him then me twice then just came along, no worrying .
> 
> Took Rudi to a little field and just let him off to potter really - we both stood in poo, it was carpeted in the stuff :incazzato::incazzato: - and then home. We were only out for twenty minutes or so as I didn't want him tired for school. Despite him seeing loads and loads of cats on our walks he saw one and growled and huffed at it today (first time he's reacted to anything negatively)....don't think he's going to be good with cats either :sosp:.
> 
> School was great; Rudi was a little star for me. Two owners took their dogs away from us at the beginning before the session started as they both tried to get Rudi to play, he play bowed back and did his "Grrrrr...huff huff" as he bounced and waggled his bum. One owner said "We best be moving on, he isn't friendly" and the other said "You didn't tell me he was aggressive" . Oh well :rolleyes5::rolleyes5:.
> 
> Then...PAH for tripe and weekly weight check. No tripe. Again :incazzato::incazzato:. Weight 24.2kg .


Well I'll say yet again all the dog owners in NI appear to be raving loonies...!! Apart from you and Chazzie of course...


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I'll say yet again all the dog owners in NI appear to be raving loonies...!! Apart from you and Chazzie of course...


I know; he always does a growly kind of play invitation....so did Kilo at Rudi's age...but it's clearly a play invitation / reciprocation rather than an 'I want to eat you' . I think his size puts people off as he's bigger at almost 16 weeks than all the other dogs in the class, including the 6 month old labs and GR!


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I am still on a search for a suitable winter coat. It will need to be waterproof won't it? Incase it snows?
> What the hell is a polyfill????
> Sherpa Lining!?!!?
> 
> £37 pounds!?!?! *huffs and puffs*
> 
> The 24pound blizzard coats from GRWE are still outta stock....


What about these on Ebay - £15.99 and free P&P:


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## GingerRogers

I want to buy dog coats {insert whingey face} does anyone think that they would stop her from doing the dance of knives or is it only booties (don't want to buy booties ) that will do that.










I can't believe I actually said that, I used to be a strong believer in 'dogs have there own coats' gruff gruff. Ooh but actually she might need one as we start the reactive dog course next month, that might involve standing around and if she is like this in the cold , hubby doesn't have to walk her in it does he? Now I need to find something stylish but cheap that works with a harness? Any ideas twiggy 

ETA or something that I can cut a hole in and easily seal/stitch. Also front attaching harness, had a bit of a trawl looks impossible.


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> I want to buy dog coats {insert whingey face} does anyone think that they would stop her from doing the dance of knives or is it only booties (don't want to buy booties ) that will do that.
> 
> I can't believe I actually said that, I used to be a strong believer in 'dogs have there own coats' gruff gruff. Ooh but actually she might need one as we start the reactive dog course next month, that might involve standing around and if she is like this in the cold , hubby doesn't have to walk her in it does he? Now I need to find something stylish but cheap that works with a harness? Any ideas twiggy


I just stick the harness over the top of the coat but I know a few bespoke places will make you one with a collar/harness slit.

Unfortunately most of the places I know are for greyhounds/lurchers not tiny, scruffy terriers!


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## GingerRogers

Yeah I think thats going to have to be the plan, can't actually see how holes would work very well with the front fixing as well as it moves about and would twist the whole coat round. Most of them (nice ones) have big straps just here the harness needs to go though and not sure that would work either.


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## Guest

Sadly the cat was our abraham. Our neighbour wasn't sure who he belonged to, but put him in a bag and a box so he wasn't left at side of the road.
We took him to the vet to be cremated. I was fine until I had to hand him over to the vet nurse. Blubbed like a baby then.

I'll have a look at them coats in a while Twig, they look nice.

Managed to get 1 kg of lamb bones for 1.20 in morrisons, his lankyness is chomping on one quite happily.


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Yeah I think thats going to have to be the plan, can't actually see how holes would work very well with the front fixing as well as it moves about and would twist the whole coat round. Most of them (nice ones) have big straps just here the harness needs to go though and not sure that would work either.


The only sort I can think of on a small dog would be the jumper type that cover all of them and then just put the harness on top.


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## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Yeah I think thats going to have to be the plan, can't actually see how holes would work very well with the front fixing as well as it moves about and would twist the whole coat round. Most of them (nice ones) have big straps just here the harness needs to go though and not sure that would work either.


jansgifts is a website that although does grey/lurch coats there is a terrier one if you scroll down. May be out of stock though.

Might be better if you just get a cheapy one off of amazon, to see how she is in one. You don't wanna fork out if she doesn't need/like it.

You could try putting a pair of kiddie socks on her paws for one walk to see how it is.


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## Dogless

LO - I am so sorry that it was Abraham xx.


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## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Yeah I think thats going to have to be the plan, can't actually see how holes would work very well with the front fixing as well as it moves about and would twist the whole coat round. Most of them (nice ones) have big straps just here the harness needs to go though and not sure that would work either.


Molly has an easy walk front harness that fits over her equafleece jumper. The jumper stays in place as it has front leg holes.


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## MollySmith

Dog Coats, Dog Jumpers, Dog Suits, Dog Tankies, Dog Shorts, Dog T-shirts - Equafleece

It's the tankie that we have not the jumper!


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Dog Coats, Dog Jumpers, Dog Suits, Dog Tankies, Dog Shorts, Dog T-shirts - Equafleece
> 
> It's the tankie that we have not the jumper!


I have the tankie for Kilo - love it. If you're not sure GR you can get similar but much, much cheaper from Ibisco Canine Boutique; got one for Rudi that's too big but for him whilst he's growing. It's good quality and looks nice too, but not the same quality as an Equafleece - very pleased with it though.


----------



## Dogless

Is it wrong to not want to take Kilo to school tonight? . I am exhausted and just can't get in the mood....I've only missed one week in the 8 months we've been going which was when we went to fetch Rudi, but am always of the 'if you're going to do something you do it properly' mindset . I just want a glass of wine, some dinner with hubby who is home and to chill .

Good walk this afternoon. Ventured out into the teeth of the strong wind and icy rain with both CHs, went up to the top filed, mucked about and came home. Both walked nicely but no training done apart from a few recalls . Having a motivational failure today  .


----------



## Thorne

Getting very out of touch with this thread  Hope everyone's getting on well.

According to mum, Breeze has found her last 3 walks quite scary so we went out on the same route today to see how she was. Well, she loved it! Wrapped her up warm and braved the snow, no issues with Breeze at all.

They were both being good until we weren't far from home - turned back on ourselves to avoid an icy lane so did the same walk backwards - Scooter suddenly just put his head down and _ran_. Definitely following a scent, one he'd apparently missed earlier  Whistling didn't work, calling him didn't work, waiting for him to come back didn't work so Breeze and I had to go and find him. Was panicking because we weren't too far from the road 
Fortunately we did find him but when I called him I might as well have been talking to a brick wall - had to walk over to where he was drooling over something, put the lead on and _drag_ him away because he wouldn't come willingly.
Really cross with myself because I shouted and grumbled at him and we went straight home, not going to help improve his recall is it  Disappointed in him too, there was no-one else around or we'd have met them on the way back so why he decided to ignore the scent earlier then bolt off after it is a mystery. It's times like these when I'm tempted to buy a flexi lead for the little sod! He was being brilliant until then!


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## Guest

*TWIGGY WHATS THE LINK FOR THEM COATS!?!? I AM SEARCHING EBAY NOW BUT CAN'T SEE THEM!*

I'm glad scooters safe now, thorne. It's frightening when they suddenly shoot off!


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Is it wrong to not want to take Kilo to school tonight? . I am exhausted and just can't get in the mood....I've only missed one week in the 8 months we've been going which was when we went to fetch Rudi, but am always of the 'if you're going to do something you do it properly' mindset . I just want a glass of wine, some dinner with hubby who is home and to chill .
> 
> Good walk this afternoon. Ventured out into the teeth of the strong wind and icy rain with both CHs, went up to the top filed, mucked about and came home. Both walked nicely but no training done apart from a few recalls . Having a motivational failure today  .


No it is not, it is not, not doing it properly to want to take a night off, silly rrr:!!! In fact if I hear you have gone I will be disappointed, enjoy some time with you and hubby for once.

For all the coat things recommended thank you but I remembered I made a little fleece coat  for her so am going to try that before I order anything, if it makes a difference I may actually be able to make something myself having done a prototype.

I had also come to the conclusion that an equafleece type thing would be the answer as easy to put the harness over but I just wanted to be seduced by cool dog coats Buster Outdoor Wear Winter Jacket Navy/dusty Blue Extra Small - General - XS - £14.49 - dog coats & dog jackets - The Pet Express. Apparently it has a two way zip so you can attach the lead to the harness at whatever point needed .

ETA sorry about Abraham LO.

Eek just seen scooters been naughty too! It is hard to be all sweetness when they do these things isn't it.


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## Nicki85

It's so cold out there I don't think we feel like going out (even to the car!) for dog training and the like.

Thorne- It's so hard to be the "perfect" owner isn't it?! We know what we are supposed to do, how we are supposed to react but it all goes to pot because of our emotions! Just got to think that tomorrow is another day with lots of opportunities to practice  

LO- Sorry about Abraham :-( 

We have had an interesting day... went out this morning with the view of doing some socialisation so walked over to the next village where there are always lots of dogs and people. Well there was only one person and dog lol. So did some training near by and edged our way over, asked if Rusty could say hi, they said yes, gave Rusty the OK and he ran as fast as he could to go say hi. Unfortunately the other dog was not up for playing and told Rusty to p*ss off which he did and then recalled nicely. On the way back he got chased by a collie but came straight back when asked so I could wait for the owner to call (unsuccessfully) his dog away. So good boy really.

Did a bit more weave training which I think he is now getting. He struggles when I move the two sets of two close together- almost like he can't see the first pole... very odd! I've been trying to push him too much so slowing it all down a bit and proofing what he knows before I add in another set of poles. He is getting frustrated with the exercise as well so I need to keep it short and easy.

We went out in the car to the country park for our second walk and did not meet a soul! Rusty was INSANE and just ran and ran and ran...He kept disappearing (only up to 1min but always feels longer!) and then checking in, disappearing etc etc. He had his Retrieva tracking collar on so I was watching on my iphone what he was up too- very interesting! And then he wanted to go swimming in the (frozen) lake which I put a stop to much to his disappointment. 

So all in all a good day...


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## Izzysmummy

Dogless said:


> Is it wrong to not want to take Kilo to school tonight? . I am exhausted and just can't get in the mood....I've only missed one week in the 8 months we've been going which was when we went to fetch Rudi, but am always of the 'if you're going to do something you do it properly' mindset . I just want a glass of wine, some dinner with hubby who is home and to chill .


Have yourself a night off you crazy lady ! Enjoy an evening with hubby and make the most of him being home !

LO I'm so sorry about Abraham!

Thorne - naughty Scooter!

Just had our evening walk, it went well, passed loads of people and a couple of toddlers with no problem! She was still very distracted and I was finding it difficult to get her to focus on me and not on the snowflakes ! We're getting a few flakes here now but not much so far.

Getting our RAW delivery this evening so just waiting for that!


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## Werehorse

LO- So sorry about Abraham. 

Dogless - if you want to spend some quality time with hubby I think that is more than good enough as a reason to miss one dog class! Enjoy your wine. 

We've had another epic today! Dogs were good except for BANANA SKINS!!! OMFG! They must have had 3 each! And they would not blimmin leave them for biscuits. Oscar recalled from an interesting sheep for a biscuit, but a banana skin? NO chance. What happened to "take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints".    Yes banana skins might be biodegradable but they are now currently biodegrading inside my dogs and it is going to be friggin messy!!!  They take so, so long to decompose anyway and then add altitude and colder temps and they take even longer. I have no, no, no understanding of people NOT taking what is essentially litter off the hill. Oscar even dug one out of a friggin cairn! If you can be arsed to hide it in a cairn then just be arsed to put it in your bag and take it off the hill with you! GAAAARRRRRGGHHHHH!!!

[/rant]



I MUST do some work on LEAVE IT! AND I must so some work with leaving banana skins if it is going to be like that on every tourist-y big hill.


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## GingerRogers

Yay! You will all be pleased to know that we just had a zillion times better walk  you can all sleep well tonight I bet. 

TBF it isn't as icy cold as it has been but with her coat on she wasn't rabbit jumping all over the place or squealing for no reason. We didn't actually encounter any live things people or dogs and she did have a few barks at cars but ignored a noisy rattling Land Rover. I so hope thats all it was. Funny how I automatically thought it was her feet, we always think poor little doggies tootsies  but no she was just ruddy freezing. It was when LO mentioned coats that I thought how I was so cold I was almost hunched over last night and thats exactly what she looked like all hunch back. 

I will have to sort the coat situation out one way or another though as the fleece I used is brown and cream check, with the lead attached to the back of the harness, then she managed to get the front underneath her so the lead came out between her back legs, she looked like a Burberry handbag dog   even made OH smile briefly.

Nikki sounds like a lovely afternoon walk and Well done Izzy

Werehorse they were just picking up to make sure you didn't slip


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## Guest

*FOUND IT!!!!!!!*

It was under the search "Lurcher coat". Didn't think of that. 

Gonna get him a reflective one, just cause it will make him easier to spot in the distance!!!!!


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> LO- So sorry about Abraham.
> 
> Dogless - if you want to spend some quality time with hubby I think that is more than good enough as a reason to miss one dog class! Enjoy your wine.
> 
> We've had another epic today! Dogs were good except for BANANA SKINS!!! OMFG! They must have had 3 each! And they would not blimmin leave them for biscuits. Oscar recalled from an interesting sheep for a biscuit, but a banana skin? NO chance. What happened to "take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints".    Yes banana skins might be biodegradable but they are now currently biodegrading inside my dogs and it is going to be friggin messy!!!  They take so, so long to decompose anyway and then add altitude and colder temps and they take even longer. I have no, no, no understanding of people NOT taking what is essentially litter off the hill. Oscar even dug one out of a friggin cairn! If you can be arsed to hide it in a cairn then just be arsed to put it in your bag and take it off the hill with you! GAAAARRRRRGGHHHHH!!!
> 
> [/rant]
> 
> 
> 
> I MUST do some work on LEAVE IT! AND I must so some work with leaving banana skins if it is going to be like that on every tourist-y big hill.


I am missing school . Kilo is snoring away, blissfully ignorant .

I hope the boys are OK; Kilo swallowed a rotting banana skin and the poor boy was ill for a few days when he was a puppy . Think it was the advanced state of decay of it, but the poor tiny bugger had a horrible time .


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I will have to sort the coat situation out one way or another though as the fleece I used is brown and cream check, with the lead attached to the back of the harness, then she managed to get the front underneath her so the lead came out between her back legs, she looked like a Burberry handbag dog   even made OH smile briefly.


Where are the photos???? .


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> I am missing school . Kilo is snoring away, blissfully ignorant .
> 
> I hope the boys are OK; Kilo swallowed a rotting banana skin and the poor boy was ill for a few days when he was a puppy . Think it was the advanced state of decay of it, but the poor tiny bugger had a horrible time .


They've both eaten banana skins previously (just one though) and been ok, just an urgent messy poo at some point the next day. But I'm a bit concerned because it was numerous banana skins today... hopefully with it being so cold there won't have been much bacteria growing on them.

Hopefully they'll be ok.


----------



## Nicki85

Werehorse- hope your dogs are OK. I never knew banana skins were so desirable though!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Where are the photos???? .


I know sorry  I thought of that as I walked down the road will try to recreate tomorrow or at bedtime walkies if I remember. Twas funny


----------



## kat&molly

LO- so sorry about Abraham, its horrible losing a pet. xx

Ginge-The handbag dog sounds a big success. I wonder if it acted as a type of Thundershirt as well. 

Dogless-Enjoy a night off from training. Just look forward to all the snow you should get tomorrow.

Werehorse-hope the boys dont suffer.

Nikki- Sounds like Rusty had a good day. The collar sounds good.

Thorne- hope tomorrows better.

Evie thinks its great fun jumping on puddles and breaking all the ice. It's the simple pleasures....


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Sadly the cat was our abraham. Our neighbour wasn't sure who he belonged to, but put him in a bag and a box so he wasn't left at side of the road.
> We took him to the vet to be cremated. I was fine until I had to hand him over to the vet nurse. Blubbed like a baby then.
> 
> I'll have a look at them coats in a while Twig, they look nice.
> 
> Managed to get 1 kg of lamb bones for 1.20 in morrisons, his lankyness is chomping on one quite happily.


I'm really sorry about Abraham and not surprised you cried.


----------



## Guest

Thank you all for your nice words about Abe. He wasn't even 5 yet. 
We haven't had a good year regarding our felines, losing two due to being hit/clipped by cars and one by a seizure.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



Is it wrong to not want to take Kilo to school tonight? . I am exhausted and just can't get in the mood....I've only missed one week in the 8 months we've been going which was when we went to fetch Rudi, but am always of the 'if you're going to do something you do it properly' mindset . I just want a glass of wine, some dinner with hubby who is home and to chill .

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> Good walk this afternoon. Ventured out into the teeth of the strong wind and icy rain with both CHs, went up to the top filed, mucked about and came home. Both walked nicely but no training done apart from a few recalls . Having a motivational failure today  .


Of course it's not - I feel like that most Wednesday afternoons....


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> *TWIGGY WHATS THE LINK FOR THEM COATS!?!? I AM SEARCHING EBAY NOW BUT CAN'T SEE THEM!*
> 
> I'm glad scooters safe now, thorne. It's frightening when they suddenly shoot off!


Damn I should have saved it. I'll try and find it later for you.


----------



## Guest

I have ordered a BRIGHT LUMINOUS YELLOW COAT with a sheepskin lining (dun't care about the colour of that). 

Zander is gonna clash colour wise but at least he'll be visible. 


we're supposed to be getting snow down here in dorset tommorow. Got my comfy snow boots on already. (They're like clouds on my feet, all fuzzy.)


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Damn I should have saved it. I'll try and find it later for you.


Tis okay I found it and have ordered the above posts coat! 

Bargain coat for a lurcher!


----------



## Twiggy

lurcherowner said:


> *found it!!!!!!!*
> 
> it was under the search "lurcher coat". Didn't think of that.
> 
> *gonna get him a reflective one, just cause it will make him easier to spot in the distance*!!!!!


:d:d:d:d:d:d


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> LO- so sorry about Abraham, its horrible losing a pet. xx
> 
> Ginge-The handbag dog sounds a big success. *I wonder if it acted as a type of Thundershirt as well*.
> 
> Dogless-Enjoy a night off from training. Just look forward to all the snow you should get tomorrow.
> 
> Werehorse-hope the boys dont suffer.
> 
> Nikki- Sounds like Rusty had a good day. The collar sounds good.
> 
> Thorne- hope tomorrows better.
> 
> Evie thinks its great fun jumping on puddles and breaking all the ice. It's the simple pleasures....


Great minds and all that, I was wondering the same thing actually , it was nice and snug with the harness over it.


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Great minds and all that, I was wondering the same thing actually , it was nice and snug with the harness over it.


Bladdy hell, I'll be wanting to try a coat on Scruff now- I still haven't broached the soft crate idea yet after the petrol/diesel accident the other day.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Getting very out of touch with this thread  Hope everyone's getting on well.
> 
> According to mum, Breeze has found her last 3 walks quite scary so we went out on the same route today to see how she was. Well, she loved it! Wrapped her up warm and braved the snow, no issues with Breeze at all.
> 
> They were both being good until we weren't far from home - turned back on ourselves to avoid an icy lane so did the same walk backwards - Scooter suddenly just put his head down and _ran_. Definitely following a scent, one he'd apparently missed earlier  Whistling didn't work, calling him didn't work, waiting for him to come back didn't work so Breeze and I had to go and find him. Was panicking because we weren't too far from the road
> Fortunately we did find him but when I called him I might as well have been talking to a brick wall - had to walk over to where he was drooling over something, put the lead on and _drag_ him away because he wouldn't come willingly.
> Really cross with myself because I shouted and grumbled at him and we went straight home, not going to help improve his recall is it  Disappointed in him too, there was no-one else around or we'd have met them on the way back so why he decided to ignore the scent earlier then bolt off after it is a mystery. It's times like these when I'm tempted to buy a flexi lead for the little sod! He was being brilliant until then!


Was the scent there earlier though; I suppose a rabbit or fox could have just crossed in front of you?

Yes I can remember getting very cross with some of the rescues my daughter took on. One particularly, a Spaniel/Collie cross, was a little sod for legging it after scents and reducing my daughter to tears of panic and worry on more than one occasion.

I well remember her clearing off along a river bank and we stood there with about 5 or 6 other dogs for about 20 minutes whilst she deigned to return. I never said a word to her but I was fuming and gave her enough rope to hang herself and when she decided to stop and have a good sniff at something I said very nicely "Lady come". Of course she didn't so in true Barbara Woodhouse fashion I put my hand in her collar, held her off at arms length and repeated the command. A fight then ensued. It wasn't nice but I'd had enough of her for one afternoon.

On the plus side her manners did improve and my daughter actually competed with her. She lived to about 16.1/2 years old, bless her.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Was the scent there earlier though; I suppose a rabbit or fox could have just crossed in front of you?
> 
> Yes I can remember getting very cross with some of the rescues my daughter took on. One particularly, a Spaniel/Collie cross, was a little sod for legging it after scents and reducing my daughter to tears of panic and worry on more than one occasion.
> 
> I well remember her clearing off along a river bank and we stood there with about 5 or 6 other dogs for about 20 minutes whilst she deigned to return. I never said a word to her but I was fuming and gave her enough rope to hang herself and when she decided to stop and have a good sniff at something I said very nicely "Lady come". Of course she didn't so in true Barbara Woodhouse fashion I put my hand in her collar, held her off at arms length and repeated the command. A fight then ensued. It wasn't nice but I'd had enough of her for one afternoon.
> 
> On the plus side her manners did improve and my daughter actually competed with her. She lived to about 16.1/2 years old, bless her.


Now I can picture you saying "Lady, siiiit!!" whilst wearing some no nonsense tweed garb!

I have dramas understanding our trainer's accent sometimes when he gets excited....can be a bit embarrassing......


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> Was the scent there earlier though; I suppose a rabbit or fox could have just crossed in front of you?
> 
> Yes I can remember getting very cross with some of the rescues my daughter took on. One particularly, a Spaniel/Collie cross, was a little sod for legging it after scents and reducing my daughter to tears of panic and worry on more than one occasion.
> 
> I well remember her clearing off along a river bank and we stood there with about 5 or 6 other dogs for about 20 minutes whilst she deigned to return. I never said a word to her but I was fuming and gave her enough rope to hang herself and when she decided to stop and have a good sniff at something I said very nicely "Lady come". Of course she didn't so in true Barbara Woodhouse fashion I put my hand in her collar, held her off at arms length and repeated the command. A fight then ensued. It wasn't nice but I'd had enough of her for one afternoon.
> 
> On the plus side her manners did improve and my daughter actually competed with her. She lived to about 16.1/2 years old, bless her.


Never seen a fox around here and not seen a rabbit anywhere near the spinney he was so attracted to. Perfectly possible of course! 
Suppose it could've been a small furry but my money's on the gundog owner with 4 Lab bitches that Scooter's known to be quite keen on - they tend to go that way at a similar time so we could've just missed them. Definitely no-one around at that time though, or I'm sure I'd have found him still pestering them 

16.5! What a good age!


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Was the scent there earlier though; I suppose a rabbit or fox could have just crossed in front of you?
> 
> Yes I can remember getting very cross with some of the rescues my daughter took on. One particularly, *a Spaniel/Collie cross*, was a little sod for legging it after scents and reducing my daughter to tears of panic and worry on more than one occasion.
> 
> I well remember her clearing off along a river bank and we stood there with about 5 or 6 other dogs for about 20 minutes whilst she deigned to return. I never said a word to her but I was fuming and gave her enough rope to hang herself and when she decided to stop and have a good sniff at something I said very nicely "Lady come". Of course she didn't so in true Barbara Woodhouse fashion I put my hand in her collar, held her off at arms length and repeated the command. A fight then ensued. It wasn't nice but I'd had enough of her for one afternoon.
> 
> On the plus side her manners did improve and my daughter actually competed with her. She lived to about 16.1/2 years old, bless her.


*That* is where it all went wrong. :lol: (covering Hugo's ears!!)


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> *That* is where it all went wrong. :lol: (covering Hugo's ears!!)


I hasten to add it was at least 25 years ago and I would have, in all probability, handled it differently these days.

Dogless - I've never worn tweeds EVER....!!


----------



## Beth17

Hi everyone hope you're all enjoying the snow, we still don't have any rrr: although it is rather chilly. Boys have been good today and spent most of the evening sleeping. It's a hard life 

I have finally ordered Sam a new harness :yesnod:

Dogless enjoy your well earned break from doggy school 

LO so sorry to hear about Abraham  Can't wait to see Zand in his new coat.

Thorne sorry Scooter is being a pain in the bum.

Werehorse banana skins are a pain around here. I hope the boys don't have too many negative effects.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I hasten to add it was at least 25 years ago and I would have, in all probability, handled it differently these days.
> 
> Dogless - I've never worn tweeds EVER....!!


No - I have never pictured you as a tweed wearer, but trying to imagine you all Barbara Woodhouse requires some creative license to be exercised


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> No - I have never pictured you as a tweed wearer, but trying to imagine you all Barbara Woodhouse requires some creative license to be exercised


Yes very true.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes very true.....


I imagine you all full of energy and enthusiasm, sweatshirts, jeans, gilets saying "Yes!! Get it!!!! Take it!!!" etc etc all in a really animated fashion with dogs hanging on your every word...and off every limb too  ....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I imagine you all full of energy and enthusiasm, sweatshirts, jeans, gilets saying "Yes!! Get it!!!! Take it!!!" etc etc all in a really animated fashion with dogs hanging on your every word...and off every limb too  ....


Naughty, naughty but about spot on..LOL

BTW Have you got snow yet? I think it's about minus 1 here now which is the warmest it's been for about 3 days.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Naughty, naughty but about spot on..LOL
> 
> BTW Have you got snow yet? I think it's about minus 1 here now which is the warmest it's been for about 3 days.


It was all meant in a very complimentary fashion....would like to see you work!

Not yet; it's sleeting but meant to turn to snow at about 0500 and snow all day....plllleeeeeaaaassse . My only worry is that my stuff from the abattoir will come into the butcher's tomorrow and it is down a very minor road....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It was all meant in a very complimentary fashion....would like to see you work!
> 
> Not yet; it's sleeting but meant to turn to snow at about 0500 and snow all day....plllleeeeeaaaassse . My only worry is that my stuff from the abattoir will come into the butcher's tomorrow and it is down a very minor road....


Well you can keep the heavy snow but I wouldn't mind a bit here if it's going to soften the ground up and raise the temperature.


----------



## Dogless

No snow yet....but forecast is saying from 1200, all day and all night now....come on.....


----------



## GingerRogers

We had more overnight. Bout 5 " now that's a lot for the Suffolk coast. Currently handling water.bottles for Hubby to dearest the.car  supposed to get more later hope we can get to Mums


----------



## Beth17

We have a little bit but not enough to really bother about. I hope the snow comes for you today Dogless and Ginge that you can get to your mums ok.


----------



## kat&molly

Its snowing here again, I didn't want anymore.  Having to keep taking warm bottles of fresh water out for the chucks as theirs keeps freezing up and they dont like the freezing weather.

I'll get ready and head to our walk where Evie saw the Pheasant last week, maybe she will be ok to go off lead for a riot- I doubt it though.

Hope you can get away Ginge.

Dogless you sound like a big kid waiting for the snow- hope you get some.

Stay warm everyone.


----------



## moonviolet

Ginge please be careful, If it looks like it's going to be really bad don't go, it would be horrible for your mum to be worrying about you stuck in a snowdrift as well as her other worries. ( shovel, cat litter, thermos flask, blankets) We're supposed to be visiting my parents tomorrow, time will tell, they live down a one track road, part of it turns into a glacier the alternate route has been only accessible by tractor due to flooding recently.. anyone would think they don't want visitors :lol: Time will tell. It's snowing here already.

Tink is ready for it










It's too dangerous to walk the woods at night too much ice so we've been making do with pavement walks and the rare treat of a trip to the front garden, it is visited by lots of wild life so it is more exciting that it sounds :lol: much good sniffing to be enjoyed.

Then lots of fun and games including this and this ( Tink is not a zombie, the red eye reduction makes her close her eyes. honestly:lol: )


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> We had more overnight. Bout 5 " now that's a lot for the Suffolk coast. Currently handling water.bottles for Hubby to dearest the.car  supposed to get more later hope we can get to Mums


Oh dear 5" is a lot of snow. Hope you manage to get to your Mum.

According to the Met Office it will start here this afternoon. I hope we don't get too much more as poor old Quiver is struggling as it is but on the plus side is was only minus 2 last night.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless you sound like a big kid waiting for the snow- hope you get some.


I am . We have an Amber warning...loads due .

GR - please be careful!

mv - finally proof that Tink is a robot like so many folk accuse well trained dogs of being :yesnod:.

Shortish walk this morning; we met up with out friend with the weimie (both CHs) had an OK walk but the driving sleet and bitter wind meant that Rudi got cold fairly quickly (and I got soaking) despite fleece so cut it short PLUS I want to take them out again when it's a winter wonderland  and don't want to over walk Rudi. Both walked well - Kilo sailed past all the screaming kids at the bus stop, two dogs yapping at him at the bus stop and one desperate to greet them . Rudi really seems to help :001_wub:.


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely pics of Miss Tink, especially the one where she's in the woods with her snazzy coat on.
The pic with eyes closed and treats on her leg-it looks like she's thinking'Please Mum hurry up and say I can eat them':laugh:


----------



## Guest

It snowed. :bored:

Zander went frigging LOONY in it and I went bum over boob. So he's being confined to 5 minute sprints into the garden now. He's currently doing vigorous laps around our garden. The path into work is a bit Icy but I have metal thingies on the back of my snow boots so I should *touchs wood* be alright. 

Loving the pics and I hope you get to your mum okay ginge.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> It snowed. :bored:
> 
> Zander went frigging LOONY in it and I went bum over boob. So he's being confined to 5 minute sprints into the garden now. He's currently doing vigorous laps around our garden. The path into work is a bit Icy but I have metal thingies on the back of my snow boots so I should *touchs wood* be alright.
> 
> Loving the pics and I hope you get to your mum okay ginge.


You be careful. You certainly don't need any more injuries....luv Grannie..


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Lovely pics of Miss Tink, especially the one where she's in the woods with her snazzy coat on.
> The pic with eyes closed and treats on her leg-it looks like she's thinking'Please Mum hurry up and say I can eat them':laugh:


She actually started watching the telly while i was doing that :lol:

Robot my R's :lol:

Twiggy i hope the snow by passes you and the ground warms up.

Dogless it really does seem that Rudi and Kilo are the pefect match  So pleased for you 

A good half inch has settled in the last hour. the hound hasn't noticed yet much sleeping to be done.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> You be careful. You certainly don't need any more injuries....luv Grannie..


Don't worry Grannie, I shall take upmost care. Got my snow boots on and everything!! 
Hopefully Zand will be alright without walks for a few days, I was not expecting the mad sprinting that happened going down our steps.


----------



## Nicki85

Love the pics Tinks- so cute.

Hope every one stays safe (and upright) in the snow.

We went out for our morning walk after a disturbed sleep- Rusty was sick three times overnight which was lovely. No idea why he is rarely sick and seems absolutely fine this morning! He will get a chicken and duck only today just incase.
He was a loon in the snow and at one point charged at me, dropped into a play bow and then charged off! So I got the hint and played some games with him  It's like a blizzard out there at the moment and the chickens are really not amused! Infact two of them are refusing to come out of their coop!

So yes, quiet day today- will be out for another walk later but not much to report


----------



## kat&molly

LO- did you sleep in your snow boots- you said you were wearing them last night to be ready. Be careful.

Nikki- Hope Rusty isn't sick anymore. My chooks wont come out either- some warm cooked food for them as well today I think.

What a lovely effect Rudi has had on Kilo.

I think Moll must be a robot as well, she even has to fetch my slippers. If only I could get her a paper-round.


----------



## GingerRogers

We will be careful, trying to leave in day light, its only an hour drive, but it was taking people over 5 hrs to get back from Norwich the other day as they got it much worse, we will check in with mum before we leave. Desperate to be there for her though, they took my Aunty to the hospice yesterday and the doctors asked to speak to her, it seems it really is days now, Aunty seems to be putting on a very brave front but glad M&D were there with her. 

Our walk was great, so glad I have sorted out the loony dog thing. Was a bit tricky as I was the first person out this morning on a lot of the tracks and the snow was hiding potholes but I stayed upright, had a clash with the two cairns (seen them every day this week even though I keep changing times ) and two labs who live opposite, there owner normally takes them offlead running on the beach with her I pod in and she can't cope with them both on lead , not sure she appreciated the soundtrack today either, oh well.

As promised a Burberry handbag dog, no dogs were harmed in the formation of this advert  you cant really see the checks very well but you get the picture.


As you can see she really doesn't mind the snow baubles


----------



## moonviolet

Oh GR love burberry handbag dog. :001_wub::001_wub: 

LO wrap yourself in bubble wrap, will you? just to be sure 

K&M RObot slipper fetching dog... every home should have one of those esepciallt as sweet as Moll.


----------



## Dogless

Handbag Ginge :001_wub:.


----------



## Werehorse

The Ginger is just the cutest little thing, especially in her coat. 

No snow here. Blue skies above me, billowing snow-looking clouds over the fells though. 

My boys are knackered! And they have successfully excreted some banana skins.  :lol: With a little help from Mum.


----------



## Nicki85

GR- she is sooo cute!
Werehorse- I don't want to know....
Molly- yes, they had some warm mash this morning and i've just gone and got them out of their house- they were not impressed!

Rusty still fine- chicken has stayed down and he is doing some all important sleeping.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> The Ginger is just the cutest little thing, especially in her coat.
> 
> No snow here. Blue skies above me, billowing snow-looking clouds over the fells though.
> 
> My boys are knackered! And they have successfully excreted some banana skins.  :lol: *With a little help from Mum*.


I do, puzzled face, icky face, maybe I don't!

Thank you for all the love :001_wub: for the ninja, she is a little precious. We had said our next dog was going to be pig ugly so people didn't want to keep saying hello to it  but I have to say cute as she is the terrier glint seems to keep most people away, lol.


----------



## Guest

Mine is whining for a walk. Mum has just told him "Tough tits mate we are not damaging ourselves for you." :lol:

Work has warned me that they may phone me to come in early as others haven't turned up and only live a couple minutes walk away. 

And totally COULD have slept in my snow boots but I didn't.

Handbag ginge is adorable!!!!! Is the lead underneath her though????


----------



## GingerRogers

Yes the lead is under her, she did it by accident last night and it looked so funny, by popular demand I recreated it (well dogless demand ) (now must stop PF need to work now )


----------



## kat&molly

GR-Not a nice time for you or your family.
Loving handbag dog, she is a titchy version of Scruff-without the mud between her teefs.

There isn't any snow in the fields yet, Evie seemed quite calm so I let her off- she managed to find lots of scents but was only slighty ignorant.
Moll had to find the only unfrozen deep ditch to lie in, brrrr, sure she sees them as a chance for a water retrieve.

We couldn't stay out too long , my gloves were wet so I couldn't put them on.


----------



## Thorne

GingerRogers said:


> We had more overnight. Bout 5 " now that's a lot for the Suffolk coast. Currently handling water.bottles for Hubby to dearest the.car  supposed to get more later hope we can get to Mums


More?! I don't like the sound of that!  Similar amount in my neck of the woods, has put a spring in the dogs' step and they've had a good roar around in it but they're now napping by the wood burner. Creature comforts!

Hope you can get to your mum's ok, the roads are fine where I am because we've miraculously been gritted, hope yours are much the same.

Dogless, getting Breeze did for Scooter what you getting Rudi's done for Kilo! She's always been pleased to meet other dogs and people while Scooter would rather avoid (or react to some unfortunate people) after some less than pleasant experiences with both. He now stands calmly if I stop to speak to someone, will greet other dogs instead of blanking them and is generally more relaxed! I've done a bit of counter-conditioning with him but Breeze's presence seems to reassure him, very pleased 

Debating taking the dogs on a walk we seldom do near Breeze's old kennels. It's been ages since I was up there and am curious as to whether the new owner has pulled down the kennels or what they're doing with the place! It's a nice walk but depends on whether the steep slope leading up there is passable or whether it's too much of an ice rink.


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> More?! I don't like the sound of that!  Similar amount in my neck of the woods, has put a spring in the dogs' step and they've had a good roar around in it but they're now napping by the wood burner. Creature comforts!
> 
> Hope you can get to your mum's ok, the roads are fine where I am because we've miraculously been gritted, hope yours are much the same.
> 
> Dogless, getting Breeze did for Scooter what you getting Rudi's done for Kilo! She's always been pleased to meet other dogs and people while Scooter would rather avoid (or react to some unfortunate people) after some less than pleasant experiences with both. He now stands calmly if I stop to speak to someone, will greet other dogs instead of blanking them and is generally more relaxed! I've done a bit of counter-conditioning with him but Breeze's presence seems to reassure him, very pleased
> 
> Debating taking the dogs on a walk we seldom do near Breeze's old kennels. It's been ages since I was up there and am curious as to whether the new owner has pulled down the kennels or what they're doing with the place! It's a nice walk but depends on whether the steep slope leading up there is passable or whether it's too much of an ice rink.


That's nice to hear Thorne; I do train with Kilo but it's nice to see him more relaxed too because of Rudi.

We have a few small flakes starting now...it's my 5km swim day so maybe it will be snowing properly when I come out of the pool....


----------



## moonviolet

Just got in from the best walk of the week  not only am i feeling better than i have all week, only 2 brave( mad) souls were parked at the top of the hill and we know and like the people and dogs associated with both. Didn't see anyone other than some very rugged up soldiers and their big fire.

Tink had a fab time dashing around. I kept checking she wasn't overheating but her elephant ears stayed a comfortable warm so I left her coat on saved her getting wet as the snow has been constant since 8 am. Now about 3 inches deep. Driving down the hill was a little precarious so i think that'll be our last trip up there until the snow goes.


----------



## L/C

EIIIII!!!!!!!

We have snow! I'm at work atm (boo!) but we should have a great time tomorrow as it isn't supposed to stop unitl Monday morning! 

Ginge is so cute in her coat. :001_wub:

Werehorse - glad the banana skins have emerged. :lol:

LO - hope you remain injury free and manage to avoid work.

Dogless - Ely was much the same with Gypsy, it really seems to give them a boost of confidence. Hope you get your snow. OH refused to walk to the tube with me this morning as I kept giggling and squealing with delight at the snow. 

MV - glad you and Tink had a nice walk!

Quick question - has anyone used the Susan Garrett crate games DVD? I've been recommended it for impulse control work with Gypsy but we don't actually own a crate! Can you substitute something for it?


----------



## moonviolet

I went to a class where some of the exercises were based on crate games. we substituted a mat, seemed to work ok. possibly makes it a little harder as the dog doesn't have the physical barrier.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I went to a class where some of the exercises were based on crate games. we substituted a mat, seemed to work ok. possibly makes it a little harder as the dog doesn't have the physical barrier.


Cheers. I thought you'd probably be able to but just wanted to check that someone else had tried as it's not cheap!


----------



## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> Cheers. I thought you'd probably be able to but just wanted to check that someone else had tried as it's not cheap!


It's been on my wishlist for a while now. The price keeps putting me off


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> It's been on my wishlist for a while now. The price keeps putting me off


I know - I've been umming and ahhing about it for ages but I'm just doing an order of some toys from Tug-e-nuff and they have it for £25 so I thought it might be a worthwhile investment.


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> That's nice to hear Thorne; I do train with Kilo but it's nice to see him more relaxed too because of Rudi.
> 
> We have a few small flakes starting now...it's my 5km swim day so maybe it will be snowing properly when I come out of the pool....


Same here, we were working on Scooter's reactions to people before we even dreamt of taking Breeze on, we were seeing improvements but it was like she made it "click" for him. They've learnt a lot from each other, they're an odd couple but seem happy.

MV that sounds like a great walk! I like Tink's coat, very smart and visible.

Just heard the news that a friend of a friend has been missing for over 24hrs  If anyone just happens to be in the London area or knows people who do live there then please, please be on the look out for Lewis and spread the word:

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/292182752042831872http://www.facebook.com/lewis.newburn


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> We will be careful, trying to leave in http://[IMG]http://i224.photobucket...y/2013-01-18081942Small_zps2655c293.jpg[/IMG]
> 
> As you can see she really doesn't mind the snow baubles


Oh she's just such a pretty little cutie - butter wouldn't melt..


----------



## L/C

Thorne said:


> Same here, we were working on Scooter's reactions to people before we even dreamt of taking Breeze on, we were seeing improvements but it was like she made it "click" for him. They've learnt a lot from each other, they're an odd couple but seem happy.
> 
> MV that sounds like a great walk! I like Tink's coat, very smart and visible.
> 
> Just heard the news that a friend of a friend has been missing for over 24hrs  If anyone just happens to be in the London area or knows people who do live there then please, please be on the look out for Lewis and spread the word:
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/292182752042831872http://www.facebook.com/lewis.newburn


Do you have anything more specific about what part of London?


----------



## Twiggy

*Quick question - has anyone used the Susan Garrett crate games DVD? I've been recommended it for impulse control work with Gypsy but we don't actually own a crate! Can you substitute something for it?[/QUOTE]*

I'm a Susan Garrett fan but there was something about the crate games that I didn't like. I'm trying to remember what is was but I know I didn't approve and was quite surprised at what she was suggesting.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I'm a Susan Garrett fan but there was something about the crate games that I didn't like. I'm trying to remember what is was but I know I didn't approve and was quite surprised at what she was suggesting.


Was it the crate games or the ruff love thing? I know she got a hell of a lot of criticism for apparently seeming to be suggesting that a dog should be crated whenever it's not working with its owner. Knew a few people who actually followed that "rule" too :nonod:

I've not been able to find much info about what the whole crate games thing actually involves which is the main thing that's put me off ordering it at the price it is.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Was it the crate games or the ruff love thing? I know she got a hell of a lot of criticism for apparently seeming to be suggesting that a dog should be crated whenever it's not working with its owner. Knew a few people who actually followed that "rule" too :nonod:
> 
> I've not been able to find much info about what the whole crate games thing actually involves which is the main thing that's put me off ordering it at the price it is.


I honestly can't remember. A friend lent me the video but it was some time ago. I do remember discussing it with my sister and neither of us liked it.

It might come back to me (remember I'm old). I know dogs were being sent to their crates from some distance away on a training field.


----------



## Dogless

YYiiiiipppppeeeeee it's snowing properly and sticking...shame the wind's so freezing and strong . It's meant to snow until tomorrow morning and then on and off until Monday . I found my swim hard today (mentally) but it was worth it now .

L/C - funny how these odd pairs of dogs just work!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> YYiiiiipppppeeeeee it's snowing properly and sticking...shame the wind's so freezing and strong . It's meant to snow until tomorrow morning and then on and off until Monday . I found my swim hard today (mentally) but it was worth it now .
> 
> L/C - funny how these odd pairs of dogs just work!


Well enjoy....!!

Sadly it's also snowing here as well and settling on top of what we already have but the ground is still frozen solid.


----------



## Thorne

L/C said:


> Do you have anything more specific about what part of London?


He was last seen yesterday at around 8:30am in Acton. That's all the info I have I'm afraid


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well enjoy....!!
> 
> Sadly it's also snowing here as well and settling on top of what we already have but the ground is still frozen solid.


Not sure if my single coated pair of precious pups will even set foot in it of course......

I am sorry you have more; I know it's a bad thing for the girls.


----------



## Sarah1983

We've just been for a slide around the estate. Managed to time it with the school bus so saw several other dogs and lots of small children  He actually did very, very well. Only got a little pully over the kids and didn't do too badly passing the husky either.

Last night I was reading Control Unleashed and decided to give blinking a try. Not sure how successful it was coz it's bloody hard clicking at the exact moment a dog blinks lol. Will have another try at it later and will be trying the take a breath stuff at some point. Never got anywhere with it with Rupert but Spen seems more aware of the small things he does to earn a click than Rupe was.


----------



## Nicki85

Well we went out for our second walk and took the camera much to Rusty's annoyance! Camera= slow walk!! Here is my favourite shot so far- 









Very impressed with Mr Man on the walk- saw three deer on the water meadow I was planning on visiting run off and he saw them, went to chase, I told him to come anddddd.... he did!! Clever pup  Let them get a little way away and released him, he did rush off but came back again when asked. Clever pup!

Not sure if he is 100% though, he appears fine on walks but he did not want his lunch which is really unusual for him. He has eaten it now but carried it around for a bit, barked at it (?) before hand. He has also done more sleeping than usual but that might be down to him having a rough night last night. He seems relaxed enough and is in his usual on back legs in air pose on the sofa at the moment. If only they could talk!


----------



## Thorne

Thought I'd share these videos of Paddy and Ollie playing in the snow at Blue Cross - made me smile!

Paddy at Blue Cross in Felixstowe playing in the snow. - YouTube
Probably a familiar sight to pointy dog owners 

Ollie the dog at Blue Cross in Felixstowe playing in the snow. - YouTube


----------



## moonviolet

Aww Thorne. Ollie is such a keenie and Paddy looks liek such a delightful nutjob :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

They are both lovely Thorne.....but Paddy :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Thorne

moonviolet said:


> Aww Thorne. Ollie is such a keenie and Paddy looks liek such a delightful nutjob :001_wub:


That's about them in a nutshell! Am glad I've not had to venture out to the centre in the snow but would've loved to see the dogs playing in it. 


Dogless said:


> They are both lovely Thorne.....but Paddy :001_wub::001_wub:.


I know :001_wub:  Know anyone who wants a loopy Lurcher?


----------



## Thorne

Might as well jot down how our walk went. Decided against the kennel route as I'm convinced it would be fairly unsafe in this weather so went to the meadow with both dogs, mum and little sister. 

Both dogs like the snow so that was a good start! Bit slippy in places but so nice not having squelchy mud to contend with. I'm not much of a fan of snow but it does make everything look beautiful doesn't it? 

Mum couldn't believe how much more cheerful Breeze was than when she'd last taken her - think it's because mum's not been using the Thundershirt which I religiously put on. Breeze heard a few distant shots but listened calmly, no panic at all. Did have a fright when her least favourite school coach passed us and made a whoooosh but otherwise she was in good spirits!

Dared to let Scooter off when we were past the spinney that he so wants to run off to and he was very very good. Recalled every time and quickly, and was coming back to see what we were doing (my sister got fed up quickly and was lagging!). Lovely boy today.

Nicki85 - Gorgeous photo of Rusty!
Sarah1983 - Well done Spencer. I'm intrigued about this "blinking" thing, any more info?


----------



## Dogless

All the grass tops are covered now and it's still going strong.....didn't walk the boys earlier as the wind was very much horrendous so still have to take them out...top field I reckon in a bit .


----------



## L/C

Thorne said:


> He was last seen yesterday at around 8:30am in Acton. That's all the info I have I'm afraid


I've got some friends out that way so I'll pass it on to them.

I was naughty and left work early so pointies could have snow zoomies. I did absolutely no training but we ran about, wrestled and zoomed off and it was very fun. Didn't stay out too long as there wasn't much daylight left and I was worried about Gypsy's leg but we had a good hour. During which time they both managed to face plant with no I'll effects.  Hardly anyone around too so it was just lovely.


----------



## Sarah1983

Thorne said:


> M
> Sarah1983 - Well done Spencer. I'm intrigued about this "blinking" thing, any more info?


Not much to it really, you basically just click and treat the dog for blinking. Leslie McDevitt calls it "Sleepy Eyes" and its part of the biofeedback she uses. Basically blinking softens the eye which in turn softens the face and because soft eyes are linked with being in a calm state once the dog has learned to blink it can actually help the dog feel calm on cue. It sounds a bit bizarre but I know a few people who've done it and they say it works quite well so thought I'd give it a shot.

Sounds like you had a good walk today :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Might as well jot down how our walk went.
> Dared to let Scooter off when we were past the spinney that he so wants to run off to and he was very very good. Recalled every time and quickly, and was coming back to see what we were doing (my sister got fed up quickly and was lagging!). Lovely boy today.
> 
> any more info?


Perhaps he read my reply last night re: having a punch up with Lady....


----------



## Twiggy

Well I was so bored this afternoon, and it was too awful to trudge across to the barn, that I started cleaning out kitchen cupboards....!!

I paid quite a bit a while ago for a decent frying pan with a lid and lo and behold what did I find in one of the top cupboards.....

Hubby took the girls out late afternoon including Leafy and said the top layer of snow was soft, so hopefully Quiver might get a walk tomorrow. Well that's providing any of us can get out of the back door if this lot keeps on overnight....


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy you need to move to West Cumbria... still no snow here!

Another day, another Wainwright. I'm knackered! :lol: So are the dogs, they are super-glued to the sofa. It was only a small one today. Very well-behaved dogs again. Oscar is getting slightly quieter when we stop, not barking quite so much. And they both walked in LLW position (without leads) for a couple of minutes on the way down to avoid them eating a frozen dead shrew we had seen on the way up (they had missed it on the way up thankfully but we wanted to avoid them spotting it on the way down).

They met an 8 month old Tervueren Belgian Shepherd bitch. She was totally stunning! :001_wub: Her and Hugo had a really good play! Mine don't really play with other dogs often, Oscar never really does he's just not interested when there is Important Spaniel Business to be done and Hugo doesn't meet many dogs that like to play like he does. But this girlie joined him in nice face pats and skitters and fox-leaps without getting too wrestly or chasey which Hugo doesn't seem to like as much.  So cute.

And Oscar did some "leave it" when he picked up a few tissues!  I was really supprised and pleased and gave him loads of biscuits. :lol:


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> Perhaps he read my reply last night re: having a punch up with Lady....


Maybe he did! There's no telling what these dogs get up to when they "go to bed"  I did have a chat with him that evening about how he'd blotted his copybook and that I wasn't impressed but I think it's more likely that he wanted the cheese I put in my treat bag  Or dumb luck!

We did see the aforementioned chap with his gundogs but Scooter wasn't bothered about them so don't think they were the cause of yesterday's sniff. One of them kept trying to sneak over to say hello but was caught and put onlead, felt a bit sorry for it but was a little smug that Breeze recalled immediately and didn't try to go back over, good girl.

Werehorse - the "Important Spaniel Business" made me smile, these Spanners do have their own agenda don't they? Sounds like you had a successful hike!

Sarah1983 - that's certainly interesting! Breeze does slow blinks as a calming signal but had never thought that it could be put on cue, makes sense but you must need lightning reactions


----------



## Nicki85

Well Rusty is most definitely not right... Ate his dinner with less excitement than usual and didn't even lick the bowl clean :-( and all he wants to do is sleep :-( Granted he looks relaxed and not hunched or in pain but he usually he is a bit more lively than this! FIngers crossed it is only something minor- at least he is eating and he was fine on his walk. 

I panic like mad with him as he has permanently swollen lymph nodes (head and chest) that the vets are concerned with. He has had blood tests a few months back and they came back clear but the vets are still very concerned :-( Sounds strange but I honestly feel like this lad won't be with me as long as he should. Needless to say he will be back at the vets Monday unless he improves. If he gets worse then it will be the emergency vets!

Edited to add he has just brought up a lot of food.... 24hr starvation time!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Well Rusty is most definitely not right... Ate his dinner with less excitement than usual and didn't even lick the bowl clean :-( and all he wants to do is sleep :-( Granted he looks relaxed and not hunched or in pain but he usually he is a bit more lively than this! FIngers crossed it is only something minor- at least he is eating and he was fine on his walk.
> 
> I panic like mad with him as he has permanently swollen lymph nodes (head and chest) that the vets are concerned with. He has had blood tests a few months back and they came back clear but the vets are still very concerned :-( Sounds strange but I honestly feel like this lad won't be with me as long as he should. Needless to say he will be back at the vets Monday unless he improves. If he gets worse then it will be the emergency vets!
> 
> Edited to add he has just brought up a lot of food.... 24hr starvation time!


Oh dear I hope poor Rusty is feeling better in the morning and you're not rushing to the vets in the night.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Nicki; hope Rusty just has a bit of a bug and recovers soon xx.

Well....we ventured out into the teeth of a full - on storm, the snow was already really deep and we battled our way (well, I battled, the dogs skipped excitedly ) against the wind to the top fields....dogs went mad, had fabulous zoomies and played and then we battled our way back home. It was snowing so hard that our tracks were already covered by the time we went back....I LOVED it and the dogs LOVED it . Can't wait to take them out in the morning - still snowing and meant to do so all night . 

I know....how childish am I? .


----------



## Werehorse

Sounds awesome Dogless - I do like a bit of a fight with the elements... then a nice cup of tea. 

Nicki - hopefully it is just a bug! My two had a bug a short while ago. Similar thing, I think there's a few going round. 24 hr starvation pretty much solved it. Hopefully Rusty will be fuly recovered soonest.


----------



## Thorne

Further to my post earlier about Lewis, I'm delighted to be able to say that he has been found and is now safe and sound 

Thank you for reading my post and thank you to L/C for spreading the word in London!

Nicki85 I hope Rusty is back to normal soon, poor little chap.


----------



## kat&molly

Nikki- Hope its just a bug Rusty has and he's back on form tomorrow. That is a lovely pic of him.:001_wub:

Dogless- glad you and the boys enjoyed the snow. Ours has gone again:yesnod: and its even rained this evening , but I do love to see the girls enjoy it.

Thorne- the boys are lovely, fingers crossed they get a home soon. Also that your friend is found safe and well.

I was glad to get in from our afternoon walk it was bitter. Evie found some bits of snow to roll and gambol in, it was wet and she was drenched. Temperatures have risen tonight though, hope yours do Twiggy.


----------



## kat&molly

Thorne said:


> Further to my post earlier about Lewis, I'm delighted to be able to say that he has been found and is now safe and sound
> 
> Thank you for reading my post and thank you to L/C for spreading the word in London!
> 
> Nicki85 I hope Rusty is back to normal soon, poor little chap.


I'm always too slow, but thats great news.


----------



## Dogless

Thorne; great news .


----------



## Beth17

Thorne so glad your friend has been found safe and that you had a good walk with your two today. Paddy is lovely 

Dogless that sounds like such fun. I hope we'll have pictures at some point 

Well done Spen.

I hope the temperature rises for you Twiggy. 

Nicki85 hopefully it's just a tummy bug.

Werehorse I don't know how you manage walks like that, I'm so lazy 

We had a lovely slushy walk this morning, not too slippery and both boys walked well together. Sam got really frisky in the small bit of snow we had. It's now raining again


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Thorne so glad your friend has been found safe and that you had a good walk with your two today. Paddy is lovely
> 
> Dogless that sounds like such fun. I hope we'll have pictures at some point
> 
> Well done Spen.
> 
> I hope the temperature rises for you Twiggy.
> 
> Nicki85 hopefully it's just a tummy bug.
> 
> Werehorse I don't know how you manage walks like that, I'm so lazy
> 
> We had a lovely slushy walk this morning, not too slippery and both boys walked well together. Sam got really frisky in the small bit of snow we had. It's now raining again


It was dark tonight, obviously but will try tomorrow if we're not so early it's dark again .

Pleased your boys behaved in this slippy weather!


----------



## Guest

Thorne said:


> That's about them in a nutshell! Am glad I've not had to venture out to the centre in the snow but would've loved to see the dogs playing in it.
> 
> *I know :001_wub:  Know anyone who wants a loopy Lurcher?*


*cautiously raises hand*

Slippery on way home, have two shifts tommorow bit worried as apparently its gonna freeze over night.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> *cautiously raises hand*
> 
> Slippery on way home, have two shifts tommorow bit worried as apparently its gonna freeze over night.


Flamin' heck!! Can just imagine you having two mental lurchers.... .


----------



## Izzysmummy

Not had chance to read through all the posts but I hope you have all had better days than us!

WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTOS! Do not scroll down if you're eating or of a sensitive disposition!

I think Izzy's got a bug or has managed to eat something she shouldn't have! I came home today to this;

Why is the baby gate looking half fallen over I hear you ask?









A very hyper monkey dog coming down the stairs!









At this point I detected an awful smell! 
Ventured up the stairs to be greeted with this!










Yuck yuck yuck! I think she must have suddenly needed the loo and panicked when we weren't here and gone looking for us upstairs at which point it all just got a bit too much! Bless her!

She seems fine in herself and hasn't had another poop since we got home. It's gonna take some cleaning to get it out of the carpet! We don't have a carpet cleaner so we went to hire one from tescos but the blimmin thing doesn't work and the customer help centre is shut!


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Nikki- Hope its just a bug Rusty has and he's back on form tomorrow. That is a lovely pic of him.:001_wub:
> 
> Dogless- glad you and the boys enjoyed the snow. Ours has gone again:yesnod: and its even rained this evening , but I do love to see the girls enjoy it.
> 
> Thorne- the boys are lovely, fingers crossed they get a home soon. Also that your friend is found safe and well.
> 
> I was glad to get in from our afternoon walk it was bitter. Evie found some bits of snow to roll and gambol in, it was wet and she was drenched. *Temperatures have risen tonight though, hope yours do Twiggy.[/*QUOTE]
> 
> Well it felt quite balmy last night and today at only minus 2...!!
> 
> Dogless - Really pleased you've got lots of snow but can you keep it over there please....


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy...yuck . Hope your monkey is better soon x.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless - Really pleased you've got lots of snow but can you keep it over there please....


With pleasure - still snowing .


----------



## Rache

First time posting in this thread for me  

We are working on recall with daisy, she's walking lovely on the lead and we have practiced a bit of recall on a long line. We let her off for the first time tonight and she did brilliant bless her. She's very food motivated so we took plenty of treats and she hardly left our side. 

She's very interested in other dogs at the moment to, no lunging or barking though, just pricked up ears and she stands and watches if they are over the other side of the road. If they are friendly dogs we do let her meet them, and she's happy with a sniff and off we go again. 

Do we just carry on doing what we are doing, any help advice or suggestions much appreciated


----------



## Guest

Oh god poor Izzy!!


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Not had chance to read through all the posts but I hope you have all had better days than us!
> 
> WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTOS! Do not scroll down if you're eating or of a sensitive disposition!
> 
> I think Izzy's got a bug or has managed to eat something she shouldn't have! I came home today to this;
> 
> Why is the baby gate looking half fallen over I hear you ask?
> 
> A very hyper monkey dog coming down the stairs!
> 
> At this point I detected an awful smell!
> Ventured up the stairs to be greeted with this!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yuck yuck yuck! I think she must have suddenly needed the loo and panicked when we weren't here and gone looking for us upstairs at which point it all just got a bit too much! Bless her!
> 
> She seems fine in herself and hasn't had another poop since we got home. It's gonna take some cleaning to get it out of the carpet! We don't have a carpet cleaner so we went to hire one from tescos but the blimmin thing doesn't work and the customer help centre is shut!


Oh no....!! You could get a spray can of 1001 Mousse tomorrow. It's pretty good at removing stains.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Flamin' heck!! Can just imagine you having two mental lurchers.... .


But Zand is slooooowllllyyy calming down..... 

Besides Paddy's not good with cats. :001_wub:

IF and only IF we ever get another dog, it would have to be an older and calmer dog. To give Zander some calm vibes....

Or the calm one mental vibes!!


----------



## Thorne

Poor Izzy! Hope she's feeling better soon and that the carpet cleaning goes well!


----------



## Rache

Twiggy said:


> Oh no....!! You could get a spray can of 1001 Mousse tomorrow. It's pretty good at removing stains.


1001 is brilliant and also the vanish mouse, one of my chis had horrendous runny poo and they got the staining out


----------



## Twiggy

Rache said:


> First time posting in this thread for me
> 
> We are working on recall with daisy, she's walking lovely on the lead and we have practiced a bit of recall on a long line. We let her off for the first time tonight and she did brilliant bless her. She's very food motivated so we took plenty of treats and she hardly left our side.
> 
> She's very interested in other dogs at the moment to, no lunging or barking though, just pricked up ears and she stands and watches if they are over the other side of the road. If they are friendly dogs we do let her meet them, and she's happy with a sniff and off we go again.
> 
> Do we just carry on doing what we are doing, any help advice or suggestions much appreciated


Sounds as if you're doing a great job. How old is Daisy?


----------



## Nicki85

Seems like Rusty isn't the only poorly one!! Hope Izzy is better soon x

Rache- sounds like you are doing well  I would carry on as you are- you can also practice getting her to concentrate on you when a dog goes past to get some more attention from her. Maybe use the watch me technique? Especially if she is food oriented- should work well!


----------



## Rache

Twiggy said:


> Sounds as if you're doing a great job. How old is Daisy?


She's about 2 ish. She's an ex brood bitch from a kennel. She had no manners and had never been out on a lead.


----------



## Rache

Nicki85 said:


> Seems like Rusty isn't the only poorly one!! Hope Izzy is better soon x
> 
> Rache- sounds like you are doing well  I would carry on as you are- you can also practice getting her to concentrate on you when a dog goes past to get some more attention from her. Maybe use the watch me technique? Especially if she is food oriented- should work well!


Ahh didn't think of that! Thanks


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy said:


> Oh no....!! You could get a spray can of 1001 Mousse tomorrow. It's pretty good at removing stains.


Thanks Twiggy, will give that a go tomorrow! We've tried vanish and it's much better but still a bit stained! We've not bothered with a walk tonight, it's bitter cold and lethal on the pavements, poor Izzy's been skidding about just on the patio in the back garden (snowed, melted, frozen then snow on top) and we've been busy clearing up going to tescos etc.

Nicky I hope Rusty perks up soon!

Tarnus and I are just about to have a nice glass of wine, I think we've earned it!


----------



## kat&molly

Poor Izzy, hope whatever upset her has gone away.
Hope you get the stain removed. Its one of those things- even when its gone you're convinced you can still smell it.


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Thanks Twiggy, will give that a go tomorrow! We've tried vanish and it's much better but still a bit stained! We've not bothered with a walk tonight, it's bitter cold and lethal on the pavements, poor Izzy's been skidding about just on the patio in the back garden (snowed, melted, frozen then snow on top) and we've been busy clearing up going to tescos etc.
> 
> Nicky I hope Rusty perks up soon!
> 
> Tarnus and I are just about to have a nice glass of wine, I think we've earned it!


There used to be a brilliant powder that you sprinkled on the stain, left it overnight and then hoovered up. It was specifically for pets accidents but sadly they took if off the market several years ago.


----------



## Werehorse

Oh no poor Izzy.  Poos and panic-gate.

I hope she's feeling better soon and you get the carpet clean. 

Rache - it sounds like you are doing great. Just get as many successful reps of recall in as you can around the house and garden as well as out and about. Until you are confident it is 100% sound aim to never use the recall cue unless you are sure she's coming back already. Sounds odd but if you keep the cue sacred (i.e. _always_ sucessful and rewarding) then it is much more likely to work when you _really_ need it too. If I'm not sure mine are going to respond I tend to (still even though their recall is quite solid) just use their name and "this way" and generally being excited and then once they are on their way back to see what the fuss is about I pop the cue in and get a few treats out - one sucessful rep instead of one ignored cue because something more exciting was going on.

I've never had a rescue dog though and I imagine teaching recall is one of those things that is infinitely easier if you get them when they are pups.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Werehorse said:


> Oh no poor Izzy.  Poos and *panic*-gate.


This is the worst bit! I know she must have been panicking and feel so guilty I wasn't here! She's never poo'd in the house, not even when she's had dicky tummys, if it's in the night she will whine to wake us up and be let out and during the day she has always held it! My poor little monkey!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Oh no poor Izzy.  Poos and panic-gate.
> 
> I hope she's feeling better soon and you get the carpet clean.
> 
> *I've never had a rescue dog though and I imagine teaching recall is one of those things that is infinitely easier if you get them when they are pups.[/QUOTE*
> 
> Mmm I'll second that judging by most of the little darlings my daughter took on....


----------



## Rache

Werehorse said:


> Oh no poor Izzy.  Poos and panic-gate.
> 
> I hope she's feeling better soon and you get the carpet clean.
> 
> Rache - it sounds like you are doing great. Just get as many successful reps of recall in as you can around the house and garden as well as out and about. Until you are confident it is 100% sound aim to never use the recall cue unless you are sure she's coming back already. Sounds odd but if you keep the cue sacred (i.e. _always_ sucessful and rewarding) then it is much more likely to work when you _really_ need it too. If I'm not sure mine are going to respond I tend to (still even though their recall is quite solid) just use their name and "this way" and generally being excited and then once they are on their way back to see what the fuss is about I pop the cue in and get a few treats out - one sucessful rep instead of one ignored cue because something more exciting was going on.
> 
> I've never had a rescue dog though and I imagine teaching recall is one of those things that is infinitely easier if you get them when they are pups.


Thanks for that, makes total sense to me. I'm kind of hoping that cos she has no major bad habits as yet she's kind of a blank canvas


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Dogless

Hope that Izzy and Rusty are OK this morning.

Leam - sounds as if things are going fine for you, hope the vet's goes well.

Well, it obviously warmed up a little in the night and rained on my beautiful deep snow :cryin::cryin:. Plenty left but it's slushy now . Snowing again but won't be as perfect as last night; very pleased we went out now .


----------



## moonviolet

Hope Izzy and Rusty both had good nights and are better this morning.

Leam sounds like things are going well with Molly and Deeks i'm pleased for you

Rache poor little lamb glad she's safe and having time and love invested in her now


----------



## Werehorse

Still ner sner here. I quite fancied a bit of snow but I've managed to find plenty on top of the hills so I'm not too upset. :lol:

Leam - well done. You seem to be handling the young puppy/slightly difficult older dog situation very well.  Good for you. I like the sound of that little coat... do we get pictures?

I hope Izzy and Rusty dogs are feeling better.

I think Hugo has hurt his toe.  He's licking it and it looks sore around the base of the nail. Can't get a good look at it because he keeps throwing himself on the floor and rolling around.  Will have to wait for OH to get up so we can wrestle him. :lol: He needs the vets next week anyway for vaccinations so hopefully it'll either keep til then or just be sorted.

And some more give me a paw and keep still training is in order.


----------



## Rache

We have lovely thick snow here, waiting for hubby to get up so I can take the pooches out, they all love the snow, seems to bring out the puppy in them


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Still ner sner here. I quite fancied a bit of snow but I've managed to find plenty on top of the hills so I'm not too upset. :lol:
> 
> Leam - well done. You seem to be handling the young puppy/slightly difficult older dog situation very well.  Good for you. I like the sound of that little coat... do we get pictures?
> 
> I hope Izzy and Rusty dogs are feeling better.
> 
> I think Hugo has hurt his toe.  He's licking it and it looks sore around the base of the nail. Can't get a good look at it because he keeps throwing himself on the floor and rolling around.  Will have to wait for OH to get up so we can wrestle him. :lol: He needs the vets next week anyway for vaccinations so hopefully it'll either keep til then or just be sorted.
> 
> And some more give me a paw and keep still training is in order.


No snow - lucky you!! We've got plenty here and more forecast. It's not 'nice' snow though - frozen lumpy stuff that shows no sign of going.

Poor Hugo. Sounds as if he's twisted it. Tremor is terribly prone and has had to have various nails removed three times now. I try and keep her nails clipped as short as I dare.


----------



## Dogless

Very slushy walk this morning on the pavements but snow on fields and the temp has suddenly dropped again and sky is black so.....more snow I hope .

Took both out together...started badly when we saw the beagle that Kilo always reacts to at the end of a road. Beagle and owner stood still and stared as usual rather than moving on.....Kilo clocked the stare and started to bark before I managed to turn and go the other way. I am :incazzato::incazzato: at myself for not sorting it in time - I always seem to leave that split second to see whether or not they're going to carry on which is stupid . Our detour brought us out behind them and Kilo was fine as the beagle didn't know we were following, so no staring. First reaction we've had for ages. Anyhoo...then we had a nice walk on the bottom fields - lots of play and recalls and then met my friend with Dizzy so we stayed a few minutes longer. So, it started a bit badly, ended well and everything in between was good too .


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## catz4m8z

Glad the CHs had a nice walk in the end! ( I often miss the opportunity to divert attention as well.).
Whats with all the poorly dogs on the thread?? Alfie is joining the club as he fell yesterday and hurt his leg....poor boy is still limping and holding his leg up this morning so I think this weekend will be less about training and more about trying to keep him as calm as possible!
At least we have avoided the snow so far!


----------



## Nicki85

Well agility was cancelled due to the snow today which is fine as Rusty is being starved! He slept through the night but keeps getting hiccups?! Plan to feed him a chicken breast tonight- he hasn't been sick again since last night and was perky enough on his walk.

We have our first agility show next week- just fun not serious! Get to take a toy in so can hopefully make it a positive experience for both of us. Not expecting much as it is mine and his first show- just want to get round!!

Hope all the poorly dogs on the thread get better soon


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Alfie...at least he was seen by the vet yesterday. You could work on training a good 'settle' .


----------



## sailor

Oh poor Izzy  hope she is feeling much better now and the stain is fading 

I don't get much time to myself these days so missed soo much on this thread rrr:

But just wanted to share .... Toppa is finally not scared to recall when out walking  
I think because in his previous home he was always teathered to his kennel, he associated being called and having his collar touched meant being teathered to the kennel  but I have done lots of recalls in the home and garden offlead... then lots of recalls on walks on a flexi, which just involved, being fussed and treated, before being allowed to run about again..... literally every 5 steps! Now he will recall when off lead and allow me to touch him before running back off  So I am now trying to get him out on as many offlead walks as possible where we can do lots and lots of recalls where the lead isn't attatched. 
The odd thing is, when I don't recall him, he walks happily close to my side... the moment I stop to interact in anyway with him, he darts off :lol: daft pup!

As for his barking!
He now only seems to bark when he first sets off on a walk and he appears to be abit hyper and over alert. Mostly barking at people/dogs that are look like they are approaching us directly. Or other dogs that bark first. 
Sometimes instead of barking he does this daft nose snort thing instead, which makes me laugh.
Just taking him repeatedly to crowded areas, where there are just too many people/dogs to bark at. Over all I thnk he is getting better and isn't as reactive.
His previous owners did tell my friend he was an excellent guard dog... so I think for the short period they had him, they had been encouraging all barking, and ofcourse he rarely got out and about, so it is very much new to him. But I am trying to make it all very boring and mundane to see lots of people/dogs  He met a massive labradoodle and labrador, oh and a spaniel this. He had a brief sniff and then recalled straight away. No hackles, now ruffing and acting all macho.... he just stood for a sniff. Mind these dogs were all very big... had they been smaller I think he would been strutting his stuff


----------



## Dogless

Sounds as if you're working wonders with Toppa Sailor - how sad that at his young age he was already afraid to recall and used as a 'guard dog'. Not now though.....sleeping in beds, bacon for brek......lucky dog .


----------



## Izzysmummy

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone, Izzy is fine in herself but I'm pretty sure it's some sort of bug as she had been a bit sick in the night too. She was quite happy to go for a little game of fetch though and I managed to get a dog on a log pic for mv!










Got through to the customer care people this morning and finally got the carpet cleaner working and it's now loads better! 

I hope Rusty, Alfie and Hugo are all feeling a bit better soon!


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Thanks for all the well wishes everyone, Izzy is fine in herself but I'm pretty sure it's some sort of bug as she had been a bit sick in the night too. She was quite happy to go for a little game of fetch though and I managed to get a dog on a log pic for mv!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Got through to the customer care people this morning and finally got the carpet cleaner working and it's now loads better!
> 
> I hope Rusty, Alfie and Hugo are all feeling a bit better soon!


Aww that's a super pic.


----------



## Twiggy

Well the girls had about 45 minutes walk in the snow this morning, by which time my hands were frozen solid and the only toy they could play with was the space hopper. It was the only one remaining visible in the snow.

Sadly it's still not above freezing and the snow is too deep to take the old girl out for a toddle. I have to use a fair amount of subterfuge to sneak out with the others as she obviously wants to come.

I'm going to clean out yet another cupboard in a minute and see what treasure lurk within and then I think I'll venture over to the barn as Holly is bored.

I could cheerfully throttle my sister's Mini. She did a really good job teaching Holly about eating poo!! I've just tapped on the window but she doesn't understand and carried on eating it - lovely!! As soon as this snow eventually goes I think we'll have to have a few lessons.


----------



## Guest

Hope all the ill doggies are feeling better soon!! 

Haven't taken loony for a walk cause the snow has turned to Ice. :rolleyes5:

Managed to get too and from work alright, gotta another shift this evening.


----------



## moonviolet

:thumbsup: Izzy on a log she's such a pretty girl  Glad she's ok in herself.

Sailor sounds like little Toppa is coming along nicely hopefully he's come to you early enough that nothing is too ingrained.

Sorry your walk wasn't entirely smooth this morning Dogless.

Twiggy hope you find treasure  well one for stealthy getting the other girls out.

LO please be careful. That advice going to stunt midget Alfie too!

We had a lovely walk this morning bumped into 2 of TInk's favourite buddies, the elderley lurcher Jasper and Hetty the patterdale. So we walked for a while some zoomies were shared, even Jassy joined in for a little while which was lovely as he'd been suffering lately he's 15 and each time he's under the weather his owner thinks he's days are numbered only for him to rally again 

it was a lot warmer today without the blizzard so madam was disrobed for a good run around and of course some posing


----------



## Sarah1983

As promised, a video of Spencer unloading the washing machine.



Off to catch up on this thread now


----------



## Beth17

Hope all the poorly doggies are feeling better today.

Lovely picture of Izzy 

Werehorse poor Hugo hope it's not too bad. My two are currently both sporting split nails. 

Dogless sounds like a really good walk other than the slight hiccup at the beginning.

Spencer how brilliant 

Pretty Tink :001_wub:

Twiggy I hope the snow thaws for you soon.

LO be careful and hope the shift tonight goes quickly.

Sailor you are doing fabulous with Toppa.


I was all excited this morning as Sams new lead came through, I only ordered it Thursday night. It's a double ended halti one and really lovely and soft. It was only £3.24 as well for a large one in red with free postage so well chuffed.

Decided to be brave this morning and take both boys to the field as figured it would be quiet due to being cold. Thankfully I was right and they had a lovely hour up their running about. Really chuffed with Oscar as well as a lab we've met before came charging over and wouldn't leave. 
He's a lovely boy but very in-your-face and barks a lot but Oscar focused on his toy as did Sam; then this lab sat down next to Oscar focused on the toy as well and Oscar didn't bat an eyelid.

In fact he only got fed up with him after it charged after his toy and kept barking at him and then he only very mildly reacted and shook it off quickly. I had warned the lady but she kept saying she thought Oscar was only playing and it's fine if he tells her dog off.

I kept insisting it wasn't and then she moved off. Walked the boys back up a cul-de-sac off the field and then the lab appeared again and started following us  We stood still whilst he ignored his owner yelling and investigated a garden. My two were brill and just stood calmly watching :thumbup:

I have just made some brownies and am about to start on a presentation :glare:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> As promised, a video of Spencer unloading the washing machine.
> 
> http://s74.photobucket.com/albums/i269/sjlwilliamson/?action=view&current=MVI_1674.mp4
> 
> Off to catch up on this thread now


Oh good boy Spen....

When you've taught him how to iron can I borrow him, cos I hate it....


----------



## Twiggy

Yippee - I managed to get Quiver out for about 10 minutes!!

So much for the slow toddle; she took off down the paddock and into the back field and found a toy....

The ground must have softened up a bit today.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope all the dogs are feeling better today. Poor ickle Ratpuppy, hope his leg heals quickly.

Lovely pic of Izzy. Moonviolet, I think thats probably my favourite so far of Tink.

Everyones mostly had a good day then, Beth wasn't Oscar a good boy.
Twiggy, Quiver had her own ideas on 'gentle walk' then.

Normal service has resumed here today- its been persisting down all day. 2 very wet walks.
Evie's raiding my wet coat hanging on the back of the chair.


----------



## Werehorse

Izzy :001_wub: Tink :001_wub: Spen :001_wub:

Hugo's toe hasn't given him any bother today - I think he was just being meladramatic this morning with the licking. 

We've finished up our spate of bonkers walking with a toddle up Latrigg then a pub lunch.  Boys very good. Oscar even a super-star on lead. Hugo, hmmmm, I think he needs a couple of days off to chill out! He was quite stressy-pully walking in Keswick and Cockermouth this afternoon.

We had an awesome customer service experience at this place... Soft,Comfortable Fleece Dog Harnesses,Fleece Dog Collars For Every Dog which has just opened a real life shop in Cockermouth. Hugo needs a new harness (Oscar's old one is actually woefully too big for him  ) so we thought we'd call in. We've ordered a made to measure harness with a front ring. It was good to see someone in real life - they checked the fit of a harness with similar measurements and have worked out how to get it to fit Hugo better (the harness they would have normally made from just his measurements wouldn't have been quite right because of his shape). Reasonable price too. AND the front of the harness Hugo has been wearing was splitting open and the woman in the shop was so worried that he would come through it at some point before he got his new one they insisted on doing a quick repair job on it there and then. :lol: And she didn't charge us for it!

OH is dead keen on supporting local businesses, particularly local manufacturing, so I think I know where we'll be buying dog stuff from from now on. :lol:

I'm sad the Wainwright madness will be slowing down - I was really enjoying it! However I do need to do some other things for a bit now. Some dog training would be good. And some actual running for me. And some drawing! And riding of the horse. And getting my head around having a job again! And some housework.  The whole thing has been a bit of a kick up the bum though - I feel a lot happier and more motivated than I did 2 weeks ago.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Hope all the dogs are feeling better today. Poor ickle Ratpuppy, hope his leg heals quickly.
> 
> Lovely pic of Izzy. Moonviolet, I think thats probably my favourite so far of Tink.
> 
> Everyones mostly had a good day then, Beth wasn't Oscar a good boy.
> Twiggy, Quiver had her own ideas on 'gentle walk' then.
> 
> Normal service has resumed here today- its been persisting down all day. 2 very wet walks.
> Evie's raiding my wet coat hanging on the back of the chair.


I agree that is a stunning pic of Tink.

Well Quiver is a mad collie even though she's now very old....

Can you send the milder weather over here? I think I'd prefer a sea of mud to frozen snow.


----------



## Dogless

mv - lovely photo 

Twiggy - very pleased that Quiver was able to go out 'gently'

Beth - your boys were fab 

Izzysmummy - good 'dog on a log' snap 

Sarah - does Spen give lessons to husband's? I'd be interested in paying for a course .

k&m - pleased that normally rainy service has been resumed 

Good walks this afternoon; took Rudi out first, he walked very nicely, we met a dog we know and I let him off briefly to practice recalling from her - he was a little star...and home.

Then the BW - lead training walk as they've got away with just play really for a day or two . He walked very well, we saw the beagle that we saw this morning and he didn't react , saw lots of dogs on the other side of the road and he didn't react in any way....then home.

My two best boys :001_wub:.

Other than that I still feel totally exhausted for no reason  and then got a load of liver for free from someone so...stuffed the freezer to full capacity, packed my dehydrator to full capacity and made so much liver cake that we are sorted for months' worth of school .


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - I am glad that you're feeling refreshed; sometimes you need a complete change to 'normal' life for a bit don't you? The harness shop sound very helpful; very nice to support a local place.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> mv - lovely photo
> 
> .
> 
> *Other than that I still feel totally exhausted for no reason*  and then got a load of liver for free from someone so...stuffed the freezer to full capacity, packed my dehydrator to full capacity and made so much liver cake that we are sorted for months' worth of school .


You wait til you get to my advanced years....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You wait til you get to my advanced years....


So many jokes....but I don't want to push my luck seeing as I was cheeky the other day; don't want to upset Grannie .


----------



## Dogless

Another two teeth lost by Rudi . His poor gums are red and inflamed though, bless him and he is being horrendously bitey; I have had a full on ninja attack conducted on my legs :incazzato: and I am currently policing quite how vile he's being to Kilo .


----------



## Guest

Have just returned from my shift. Apparently Zand has been good as gold.
He doesn't seem remotely bothered by not having walks. 

I actually thought he'd be climbing the walls.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Have just returned from my shift. Apparently Zand has been good as gold.
> He doesn't seem remotely bothered by not having walks.
> 
> I actually thought he'd be climbing the walls.


Probably good letting his stress hormones settle down.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Probably good letting his stress hormones settle down.


And mine tbh. We're as bad as each other me and this dog. 

Met a plodding lurcher on the way to work. I kept thinking "I couldn't get mine to plod if I tried! :lol: "


----------



## moonviolet

Just got in from a little pavement walk. A few firsts, didn't need any treats as she's now got used to earning "good sniffs" as a reward. Also got to test out the ice trekkers i was given for xmas and can highly recommend them  

now roasting herself by the wood burner


----------



## Freddie and frank

Yeah, I've just got through the last 20 pages  

Lo, it's late but sorry to hear about Abraham 
Mv, tink pics :001_wub:
Nicki, rusty pic :001_wub:
Gr, ninja coat pic :001_wub:
Thorne, paddy and ollie :001_wub:
Dogless, I was about as excited as you were with the snow. 
Sarah, video of spencer :001_wub:
Izzysmummy,pic on log :001_wub: 
Leam,Molly sounds like a little darling and well done Deeks 
C4m, poor Alfie, hope his leg gets better soon 
Sailor, :thumbup: to toppa. Did think about him tonight as I was cooking bacon 
K&M, rain...oh no 
Twiggy, hope your snow clears for you soon 
Beth, well done to the boys
Werehorse, they look nice harnesses and great to support local businesses.  training, running, drawing, horse riding, housework, woah....slow down. 

Well I hope all the poorly dogs are soon to recover 
Sorry if I've missed anyone, I have tried hard. 
I've been catching up on heaps of work and am now up to date.

We had heaps of snow and all three dogs loved it. Freddie is least keen I think cause he sort of tip toes about for a while to get used to it. :sosp: 
I loved it even more:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Boys have been good 
Bella is doing well, still a bit frisky and swollen but it's been a little over three weeks now so will be taking her out again soon. Her training classes start Thursday and I'm very excited for that.
Will be taking her back to the vets next week cause she's gone down on her bum again a couple of times. Apart from that, she's doing well. Barking seems to be getting slightly less. I'm walking out the room.

Have ordered a ruffwear roamer lead too


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Leam1307

My favourite one first


----------



## Freddie and frank

Gorgeous photos of Molly. :001_wub:

Ahem, ahem, can we all look at the label on the 1st pic please.:thumbup:
Fame at last.


----------



## kat&molly

Woke up to tonnes of snow this morning-real shock, I want to know who to complain to.

Hope Rudi's mouth is less tender today, ouch.

Little Molly looks so sweet, she's got a good bit of growing room in that.

F+F-a bit worrying that Bella's gone down again.


----------



## Freddie and frank

K&m, I need more snow here so put in a complaint for me too please.


----------



## Nicki85

We have more snow to- coming down quite fast at the moment. Walking in the forest means you now have a layer of snow, layer of ice and then a layer of mud... it is lovely :-/

Rusty had his chicken breast fine last night, kept it down and has just had some minced turkey so fingers crossed whatever he had has now gone!

I keep explaining to him that he might be getting a baby sister in a couple of months time... don't think he understands!! I'm down on the list for an English Shepherd pup but as I do not want to breed and want to spay her I'm quite far down the list. So can every one cross their fingers for a litter with lots of little girls... please? Litter is due end of January. Only problem is that they are in GLasgow so will be a bit of a drive up but I am sure well worth it!!!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> We have more snow to- coming down quite fast at the moment. Walking in the forest means you now have a layer of snow, layer of ice and then a layer of mud... it is lovely :-/
> 
> Rusty had his chicken breast fine last night, kept it down and has just had some minced turkey so fingers crossed whatever he had has now gone!
> 
> I keep explaining to him that he might be getting a baby sister in a couple of months time... don't think he understands!! I'm down on the list for an English Shepherd pup but as I do not want to breed and want to spay her I'm quite far down the list. So can every one cross their fingers for a litter with lots of little girls... please? Litter is due end of January. Only problem is that they are in GLasgow so will be a bit of a drive up but I am sure well worth it!!!


How exciting....

A friend bred my two Fenellark bitches. With Quiver's litter there were only two bitches and her sister had first pick, but fortunately they always want merles. One was merle and the other black and white so it worked out well.

With Tremor's litter I had first pick (the litter was bred for me) again there was only one tri bitch, all the others were merle. I so nearly had a merle as Tremor was very mis-marked and by far the naughtiest and biggest pup in the litter, including the dogs....LOL

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that there are enough bitch puppies to go round.


----------



## sailor

Izzymum - Glad to read Izzy is doing better and what a lovely photo of her posing on a log  I tried to get Toppa posing on a log, but he hates posing at the best of times... best photo of the day was just a snippet of his tail as he was jumping off said log rrr:

Twiggy - Holly just put me off my breakfast, ewww. It is good to read that Quiver is still doing well in her senior years. 

LurcherOwner - Don't blame you for dodging the ice and missing walks. When I take Ice (friends husky) out and the ground is sheet ice, I walk as fast as I can with fingers crossed that I don't land on my rear 

MoonViolet - Lovely photo of Tinks  & well done to the lovely girl for earning her good sniffs 
Sounds like Jassy is doing well for his years and lets hope he lives to see many many more happy zoomie days!

Sarah - my washing machine needs unloading... it has done since 8am  any chance of sending round your little helper  

Beth17 - What a bargain :thumbsup: also... I like brownies mmmm any left?
Sounds like Oscar and Sam did really well considering how persistant the lab was 
Ps Good luck with the presentation!

kat&molly - Sounds like a lovely refreshing walk  Did Evie find anything nice in your coat 

Werehorse - Glad to read Hugos toe is OK :thumbsup:
That really is excellent customer service... how lovely of them to repair the harness there and then 
Sounds like you have plenty to get on with.... so get off PF for 5 seconds and get started :arf:

Dogless - Sounds like yesterdays walks went really well,your two best boys indeed  Can you ask Rudi to give Toppa some recalling tips please 
Hope your feeling more energetic today!
Does Rudi have any teeth left ?


Freddie and frank - How you managed to get through 20 pages I don't know! I have just about maanged 2 pages and already feel like I have ran a marathon :w00t:
Good to hear all is going well with your wee pack 

Leam1307 - Congrats to OH for walking Deeks :lol: Did you praise him accordingly? 
It sounds like the snow has gone to Deeks head 
Fingers crossed Mollys heart murmur isn't anything to worry about and she does 'grow out of it' and it never bothers her.
Lovely coat btw well done you :thumbsup: that should keep her lovely and toastie through winter.

Nicki85 - Good to read Rusty is keeping his food down 
Ohh you are waiting for an English Shepherd too, fingers crossed for lots of girlie pups  We are just planning for a girlie pup in the distant future from Jackie.

Nooooow, that was a mammouth task, and it was only 2 pages worth of catching up on ... I think my settings are different from others as I have about 100 posts per page :lol: (or so it feels!)

Anyhooooooo, Toppa WAS doing great with his recalling this morning 
He sniffed a lovely Xoodle type dog and recalled as I walked on... then he tried to approach a large Xbreed which was onlead/halti, but a quick AH-THIS WAY and he called away, he came right up to me, I fussed him and picked him up, messed with his collar etc before setting him back down to carry on running about. We did some stick throwing and chasing, he got the zoomies and then started to sniff around and went hyper, I think he could smell the foxes/rabbits??? as we was on the edge of a field where they are known to run about.
I knew I would be setting him up to fail if I tried to recall whilst he was hot on the heel of a nice smell, so I simply walked further down the path and waitied for him to stop sniffing about. 
Finally was able to try a recall and he did his usual recall, but just out of arms reach  and wouldn't come any closer. So I crouched down and tried to look more 'approachable' happy voice, arms open and I wasn't staring at him. But again, he recalled but just out of arms reach... I do not try to grab him, because the moment my arms move towards him, he runs off 
Not wanting to overdo the whole recall and become a bore, teaching him the best ways to avoid me.. I stood up and walked off back down the track saying this way and he happily followed.
Spent 5 minutes just pottering about then tried the recall again and again he came to me, but stayed out of arms reach rrr:
So I got back up and walked to the little stream where there was a narrowing, and as he squeezed down the path with me, I picked him up and put his lead on :yesnod:

Finally, with his flexi on, I started to play loads with him and tried to make the whole 'lead on' experience as fantastic as I could :w00t: before I finally set off home 

On a brighter note.... he only barked twice this morning... once at a little terrier walking up the road, and then again when he realised there was 2 dogs ahead of us (Xoodle and Xbreed) and he seemed to be warning them he was there and wasn't going to take any nonsense 
They were just small shorts barks and not loud enough to sound bad, so I am still counting it as progress 

Roll on this afternoons walk, fingers crossed Toppa doesn't outsmart me when its time to recall and get his lead on for home. I am running out of ways to catch him :lol:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Nicki, how exciting. Hoping there's a little girl for you.
I'm being sooooo lazy this morning  still in my dressing gown. 

Have had a play on back garden with babies though, in between poo duty, bet I looked a state in Wellies and fluffy dressing gown with hood. 

It's snowing again :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

So will take camera out later and hopefully get some half decent pics, but don't hold your breath. 

Bella keeps finding chunks of ice and bringing them in to munch on. :bored:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Woke up to tonnes of snow this morning-real shock, I want to know who to complain to.
> 
> Hope Rudi's mouth is less tender today, ouch.
> 
> Little Molly looks so sweet, she's got a good bit of growing room in that.
> 
> F+F-a bit worrying that Bella's gone down again.


Never mind his mouth....what about my limbs that get crocattacked? .

We have had a another nice covering of snow - I was watching the news about no more for NI today as it was coming down....have some forecast for tomorrow pm too .

We went walking with my friend with the weimie this morning - it was lovely seeing them all muck about in the snow. They leave on Tuesday morning which is a shame, but it's been nice sharing some good walks.

I have just put another load of liver in the dehydrator and still have loads of it...I am grateful but running out of liver ideas :sosp:.

Nicki...very exciting!!

Sailor....yep; loads of sharp little teeth left and two adult bottom teeth....no other front teeth though at present!


----------



## kat&molly

Sailor- I forgot you yesterday, I dont know how as I was really impressed with how the little man is doing. He really sounds a fab little character.Evie pinched the treats. And scoffed them.

Nikki-fingers crossed for a bitch. An English Shepard, how nice- I've never met one though.

F+F- enjoy the snow. I played in the garden in PJ's and slippers

Took the girls up to the fields so Evie could go off. OH came and so did Jay- she even had a couple of mini zoomies- she's not daft though she stays well away from the others, in case she gets knocked.
OH drove me mad, he panics about Evie but she wasn't so excited today. He nags her,'Evie, Evie, Evie, come here' - was all I could hear.:incazzato:
She wasn't doing anything wrong- and of course she ignored him.rrr: All it took was for me to say 'whats this' and she came.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- can you imagine how much worse it would have been without Kilo to cop most of it.:lol:

I love puppies- but only when they belong to someone else.


----------



## MollySmith

I have been trying to catch up! Sorry if I have forgotten anyone!

Izzymum - Love the pic of Izzy, bless her, she's beautiful

Twiggy - yup also off breakfast too, yuk!

LurcherOwner - have you tried Yaktrax ice grippers? I'm a wuss on ice but managed to walk all around the sort of hills (it is the flatlands here!) on our walk without falling over once.

MoonViolet - love the pic of Tink 

Sarah - I saw your video on Facebook, he is such a clever boy

Beth17 - well done Oscar and Sam 

kat&molly - what a nice walk, there are so many lovely pics on here of great walks this weekend.

Werehorse - so pleased Hugo is on the mend.

Dogless - Well done Rudi 

Freddie and frank - twenty pages! Tell me about it! I'm behind in five minutes.

Leam1307 - Nice to hear that OH walked Deeks (I met another Deeks yesterday on our walk, a gorgeous young Goldie) I hope your Molly is okay, this Molly sends best wishes. 

Nicki85 - I hope you get further up the list and Rusty contines to make progress. 

Sailor - you seem to be along the right lines, it takes time but you have made so much progress with him. We just kept jackpotting Molly with treats when she came back to us and have found that stashing a Kong tuggy toy works well - she prefers the interactive play rather than the treats sometimes. Like you, we mess around with her collar and then let her go again.

My Molly is poorly today. She had a lovely walk yesterday around the Gog Magogs in Cambridge, I posted pics somewhere in chat, and slept a lot yesterday afternoon. She was still bouncing around when she was awake but happy to find a spot and snooze for most of the day which isn't like her. This morning she's woken up with a lump under her chin, around her neck. It's squishy and not causing pain - she's happy for it to be touched. She's back from the vets with pills and a mystery injection (I don't know what as OH took her) we've to call at 3 to report if it's gone down or got bigger. They don't know what it is anyway. We are to do short walks as gravity might make it worse. Thankfully she's come back upstairs to bed with me where I've got my Open Uni course material out. It's also snowing a lot so I think play in the garden and a short walk down the street is all she'll get.


----------



## MollySmith

kat&molly said:


> OH drove me mad, he panics about Evie but she wasn't so excited today. He nags her,'Evie, Evie, Evie, come here' - was all I could hear.:incazzato:
> She wasn't doing anything wrong- and of course she ignored him.rrr: All it took was for me to say 'whats this' and she came.


Oh my OH does that sometimes, makes me barmy too!


----------



## Guest

Icy again today. Luckily no shifts. Tried to free shape the "box game", as in, plop a cardboard box on the floor and see if Zand does anything.
He goes through all his tricks, then proceeds to STARE and whine at me.

We've been doing this for nearly half an hour, so I just put the treats in his treat ball in the end.


----------



## koolchick

Working on recall out on walks and at home. He ignores you when he's on garden and you call him in but on extending lead on walks he's much better. Also hope to start agaility with him soon he's too young now but should be ok later this year.

Also sometime this year I'm hoping to get another car so will need to get used to him being in it. I lost my last dog in car accident so will be wary about having my dog in with me. I know its very unlikely to happen again but before I never thought anything would happen now I'll think if I will have regrets if anything did happen first. Like if he's in car to go a walk I'll not feel as guilty than if he was just in car for sake of it. Motorways are something I will avoid with my dog in car as that is where I had accident. I'm far more bothered over my dog being safe than myself as I survived it but my dog didn't sadly.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Sailor- I forgot you yesterday, I dont know how as I was really impressed with how the little man is doing. He really sounds a fab little character.Evie pinched the treats. And scoffed them.
> 
> Nikki-fingers crossed for a bitch. An English Shepard, how nice- I've never met one though.
> 
> F+F- enjoy the snow. I played in the garden in PJ's and slippers
> 
> Took the girls up to the fields so Evie could go off. OH came and so did Jay- she even had a couple of mini zoomies- she's not daft though she stays well away from the others, in case she gets knocked.
> OH drove me mad, he panics about Evie but she wasn't so excited today. He nags her,'Evie, Evie, Evie, come here' - was all I could hear.:incazzato:
> She wasn't doing anything wrong- and of course she ignored him.rrr: All it took was for me to say 'whats this' and she came.


Well at least OH cares and I can certainly relate to his concern...I'm like a mother hen, especially with the oldies... 

I took the girls out this morning without Quiver for about 45 minutes. A bitter easterly wind, very dark and grey and freezing cold; not that they seemed to mind.

I then put Quiver's Musto horse rug coat on and she certainly went down the paddock and round the back field a hell of a lot quicker than me...

It's snowing here again now it spite of my best efforts to blow it over to Northern Ireland....LOL


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## GingerRogers

you go away for 24 hrs and the thread explodes in length.

Cant possibly do an epic comment on everything so just to say:

hope all the poorly doggies get better  

well done all the good ones 

and 

thanks for all the laughs.

The ninja was very good on holiday after an iffy start, slept quietly in the hall in her travel crate (open) through the night and stayed off the furniture, mostly. We arrived OK (no more snow at all, don't know what the fuss was all about) and Mum says does she need to go in the garden? is it secure? yes, are you sure? yes (wall at the back, fence down the RH side and hedge & chainlink down eh LH side), off she goes having a right good run about as she has never been in there before, eventually we relax and stop watching her. 5 mins later, you guessed it shes gone, I suddenly spot these little legs racing past the the hedge stumps at the bottom so rush round to the neighbours calling her and the little star is waiting by the gate for me  we follow her snowy footprints and find the gap in the chainlink, which looks like an animal run so no wonder she got through, following scents no doubt. Took dad out with her for the first time Fri night, he got full Ginger Whinger treatment. Lunging, snapping at joggers and barking her head off at two labs, we got in and he said 'Mmmm, yes see what you mean' :rolleyes5: 'Oh so I havens been making it up then! Only to get up yesterday and find he has taken her out on his own  all was fine though and we had a lovely walk later me, dad and OH, went up to see the community woodland he has set up and found the geocache thats hidden there. Sad to say thats the first time in 3 years that I have ever visited the wood  its an amazing legacy to leave . Breached the subject of the reactive dog course with hubby on the pretext that Mum has offered to help pay  and after all that he just said 'fine, if its going to help you and Ginger' :rolleyes5:

Oh, Ginge's new bed arrived , (Thorne I succumbed to the Scruffs aviator in green, medium size £18 form Amazon, perfect fit, not sure what they think will fit in the small ones ). We now have to work on letting her know that this lovely comfy place is hers as she has never had a bed thats not a blanket in a crate.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well at least OH cares and I can certainly relate to his concern...I'm like a mother hen, especially with the oldies...
> 
> I took the girls out this morning without Quiver for about 45 minutes. A bitter easterly wind, very dark and grey and freezing cold; not that they seemed to mind.
> 
> I then put Quiver's Musto horse rug coat on and she certainly went down the paddock and round the back field a hell of a lot quicker than me...
> 
> It's snowing here again now it spite of my best efforts to blow it over to Northern Ireland....LOL


Blow harder :incazzato: .


----------



## Dogless

GR - breakthrough on the reactive dog course . The wood sounds a lovely, lovely thing to establish and I am so pleased that you got there OK. Pics of Ginge in new bed please .


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I have been trying to catch up! Sorry if I have forgotten anyone!
> 
> My Molly is poorly today. She had a lovely walk yesterday around the Gog Magogs in Cambridge, I posted pics somewhere in chat, and slept a lot yesterday afternoon. She was still bouncing around when she was awake but happy to find a spot and snooze for most of the day which isn't like her. This morning she's woken up with a lump under her chin, around her neck. It's squishy and not causing pain - she's happy for it to be touched. She's back from the vets with pills and a mystery injection (I don't know what as OH took her) we've to call at 3 to report if it's gone down or got bigger. They don't know what it is anyway. We are to do short walks as gravity might make it worse. Thankfully she's come back upstairs to bed with me where I've got my Open Uni course material out. It's also snowing a lot so I think play in the garden and a short walk down the street is all she'll get.


I saw your pics and realised where it was. I've walked there on occasions after Cambridge Championship Show or training days at Shelford Rugby Club.

I took my sister there years ago to see the grave of the Godolphin Arabian (one of the three founder sires of the thoroughbred racehorses in the UK).

Poor Molly. Hope the lump goes down quickly - very strange.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Blow harder :incazzato: .


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Thorne

-Nicki85: Hope Rusty keeps on improving  Fingers crossed for a girl ES!
-Sailor: Toppa sounds like a right little character, glad you caught the little pest and had some onlead fun with him. Sounds like he's doing well!
-Dogless: Sounds like a good fun walk, hope you and Rudi heal quickly.
-K&M: Oh I know what you mean! Mum does to Scooter what your OH does to Evie, she's prone to sounding like a broken record when he goes offlead and that's what makes him switch off  I can understand her worry though, his track record isn't the best.
-Mollysmith - Hope Molly's mystery lump goes down quickly, haven't seen your photos but will have a look!
-LO: That's exactly what I can imagine Scooter doing, am yet to try the box game with him but can envisage lots of fruitless shakes and waves and sits! Either that or he'd destroy the box...
-koolchick: Sorry to hear about your last dog  Hope the car introduction goes smoothly and good luck with recall practice.
-Twiggy: Sounds like Quiver appreciated her coat, bless her!
-GR: Ooh don't tempt me to buy _another_ bed, nice as it is! I've been shamefully eyeing up a Disney Princess one for Mrs B. Well done to Ginge for behaving herself at your mum's, glad you got there safely. Great news about the course too!

More snow here too, has been coming down for the past hour or so and while it's very fine it's quite steady. Could well be a Land Rover day tomorrow, depends what we wake up to!

I was very bad yesterday and didn't take the dogs out  Spent more time than planned shopping with my shopping-phobic mother and was frozen by the time we got home, genuinely couldn't bring myself to face the elements again! The dogs don't seem bothered and certainly aren't climbing the walls, they're fast asleep right now. 
About to have some lunch then take Scooter for a quick one, leaving Breeze home alone with a Kong. I've been really slack about practicing her "alone time" so might put the Thundershirt on for good measure. Got the usual shoots going on despite the snow so she'll go out later and Scooter will be graced with a 2-walk day, he'll be pleased!


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## moonviolet

OH was coming out today then at the eleventh hour ( ie, as we were parking hte car) decided he wasn't feeling well, so as it was only 3 or so miles from home said he could drop us off and drive home and thats what we did, had a lovely walk despite the horizontal snow at times.

Favourite pic from today.....


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## Freddie and frank

MollySmith said:


> Oh my OH does that sometimes, makes me barmy too!


Yep, same here. :incazzato:


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## Thorne

MV: Love that snowy nose 

The snow is horizontal here too. Still quite fine but enough to sting when walking into it!
Would love to say that Scooter was good again today but that would be a fib, he started out attentive and quickly descended into "Beagle mode", although that's probably offensive to most Beagles including Tink. He caught the scent of something and I had no recall at all. Don't think he was deliberately ignoring me, the nose was very much overriding brain though. 
Fortunately he didn't go out of sight and there was no-one around so I just waited! He did come back so got some chicken but went onlead until we were well away from whatever was interesting him. He was good until we had to double back to avoid an unsafe bridge - caught the same scent again before I thought to put the lead on. Walked over and caught him, spent the last 10mins onlead. At least his LLW was beautiful!

Maybe there's a bitch around, I've not seen him totally switch off for ages until this and thursday's walk. Will have to monitor him


----------



## sailor

MollySmith - I hope Mollys lump mysteriously goes down just as mysteriously as it came up! Glad to read it is not bothering her tho.


GingerRogers - sounds like you had a good wee holiday, and lovely to read your OH is supportive of the course for you and Ginge.
I am sure it wont take long for Ginge to realise how much she wants to sleep in her new bed 

Thorne - I am sure your dogs totally understand your need to disensitise your shopphobic mom and it has left you too drained for much dog walking :lol:

....

Toppa just came back from his afternoon walkies and I didn't bother letting him off lead as the field was full of people and sledges. So was most the walk... they were dotted everywhere! Toppa barked his way through the majority of the walk and refused to recall at all on the flexi, he just seemed too tensed about everything that was going on around him.
We walked around and then as we headed back across the field, I stopped and crouched down to call him for a fuss and he just pinned his ears back and refused to look at me... then he decided to charge at me and then the manic puppy zoomies started.

I just sat there and waited for them to ease off.... luckily they eased off before I got frost bite on my bum.

I then slowly reeled him in on the flexi, everytime he took a step closer to me, I praised him and held the brake on the flexi. Intil he was close enough for a fuss. Then I fussed him and pulled him closer to me and just sat there fussing him intil he looked relaxed and was no longer straining on the lead to get away. Then I rewarded him by saying lets go and running ahead with him.
We did this sort of recall all the way across the field... and by the time was was at the other side of the field, my bum was numb and Toppa was looking alot more at ease with recalling.

We got back to our street and had to run the gauntlet of kids and sledges.... they were all shouting Toppa and running towards him making a right racket :crazy:
Toppa was very unsure and I did say leave him alone, but I might aswell have said.. pester him as much as you can!
Finally got to the frontdoor still surrounded by kids and Toppa by this point had a mixture of squeaky kid and snow zoomies :w00t:

I took him into the kitchen and let his lead off, where he ran laps of the kitchen with his ears pinned back, his tail tucked away and that wild expression that only a hyper puppy knows how do achieve. He finally stopped and lay down to sleep.... and he hasn't waken since! So I think it is safe to say, his all burned out and content for the rest of the evening


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## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> I saw your pics and realised where it was. I've walked there on occasions after Cambridge Championship Show or training days at Shelford Rugby Club.
> 
> I took my sister there years ago to see the grave of the Godolphin Arabian (one of the three founder sires of the thoroughbred racehorses in the UK).
> 
> Poor Molly. Hope the lump goes down quickly - very strange.


If you are ever around this way again shout, we can go for walkies. We do love it there. Yes, I know the grave on Wandebury. I grew up in Shelford!


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> If you are ever around this way again shout, we can go for walkies. We do love it there. Yes, I know the grave on Wandebury. I grew up in Shelford!


I did come by there at the end of November. I'd been on a training day in the wilds of Essex and got lost on the way home.....


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## Sarah1983

We braved the field today. Only the one closest to us, really don't fancy navigating the path through the woods at the moment, but better than nothing. Let Spen off since he showed no signs of heading for the pond and he had a good run around. Recall was pretty damn good although a few times he did finish sniffing and have a pee before sprinting to me  We saw his little friend and I think her owner said she was in heat  Luckily I'd put Spen on leash as I hadn't recognised them at first. She kept shoving her back end in his face with her tail out to the side, very different from her normal behaviour. Spen was pretty oblivious though if she is in heat, just wanted to play as usual.










He's been in an odd mood the last few weeks. Very cuddly with me sometimes but then very playful at others. Brings me toys to try and get me to play. We've played a lot of tug and a lot of "push you over and pin you" lately though so maybe it's just the fact I'm having more relaxed fun with him instead of it all being about training. Need to keep that up.


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## MollySmith

Swollen neck - you can sort of see, it's like she's sagged overnight!










Normal neck


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- the community woodland sounds lovely. Have a safe trip back.

Lovely pics of all the dogs today. I got this of Moll in the garden this morning.









Quite pleased with that one for me.

M Smith, Mollys lovely. I cant work out where the lump is though. Hope it goes down.


----------



## Rache

I think we have a counter surfer on our hands..... Have caught daisy climbing onto the top of the crate that's next to my kitchen work top  she's done it twice so far, little madam

On a brighter note, recall training is long well, me and hubby can both call her straight back to us. Haven't tried with other dogs being around yet, I'm not going to though until her coming to us is perfect.

Have been working on some basic commands to, she's getting 'wait' and sit is coming to. The trouble is when she knows we have treats she gets so excited its hard to get her to focus, I'm hoping my other dogs will kind of help as they sit and wait so nicely may e she will cotton on haha wishful thinking!

Loving all the snow pics, must remember to take my camera out with me 

Butter wouldn't melt surely.....


----------



## Izzysmummy

Sarah - clever Spen! He's welcome to come and help out here anytime, he could maybe train Tarnus for me too! *And well done to him for ignoring the floozy shoving her bum under his nose!

Mv - lovely pictures of Tink! She's such a little star!

Beth17 - what good boys they are! Are there any brownies left for us? Yum!

Werehorse - those harnesses look fab, we'll maybe have to have a ride over there at some point when we're up visiting the parents!

Dogless - I hope crocopuppy is feeling OK with his sorely gums and you and Kilo are recovering from his attacks!

LO - hopefully the snow and ice will go soon so you can get out and about with Zander again soon.

F+F - I'm glad Bella's and the boys have been enjoying the snow! We've only had a scattering, wish we'd got a bit more, Izzy's never seen "proper" snow and I'd love to see her reaction! Really hope Bella's ok.

Leam - glad Deeks is being so good with Molly. It sounds like Molly is doing well, fingers crossed she grows out of the heart murmur, I love her little coat, she is gorgeous!

K+M - am very jealous of you snow, send some to us please!

Nicky - so glad Rusty is better! Got everything crossed for your ES girlie!*

Sailor - sounds like Toppa has been speaking to Izzy and learning some of her puppy tricks, the coming back to just out of reach was a favourite of hers! I found if I got down on my hands and knees and got all growly/playful with her she would come for a bit of a wrestle or stick her ball in my face like "look what I've got". But he may not be comfortable with that sort of play when out yet if he's a bit anxious and watchful of other things going on.*

MS - I hope Molly is better soon and the lump disappears! Very strange! Could it be an infection? Do dogs have lymph nodes there?

Koolchick - sounds like your making steady progress with recall, I'm sure he'll love agility when he's old enough! Sorry to hear about your car crash, I'm also very nervous when driving on motorways after my car was written off by a careless lorry driver, luckily I was in the car on my own (it was before we got Izzy)*and unhurt except for whiplash injuries but it does make me wonder now what I would do if it happened again with Izzy in the car.

GR - Im glad you had a nice trip! What an amazing contribution to the community your Dad has made, bet it was nice to see it! Well done Ginge being good for her Grandad! Izzy is better for my or OHs parents than she is for us sometimes, I think sometimes because we're prepared and tense up ready for a reaction whereas they aren't and the calm vibes go down the lead!

Thorne - oh dear naughty Scooter, wonder what's got into him!


So Izzy seems much better now, she had bland meals yesterday with pro-kaolin then back onto raw this morning and there's been no more bad poops or sickiness. Agility was cancelled due to the snow and the access road being too dangerous so it was kind of good as I was in two minds whether to take her, didn't want to pass this bug on to any other dogs but we both love our Sunday mornings at training !

She had a lovely run around at the park this morning then we took her for a wander by the river this afternoon, she was really good, on her extender at the river as there was lots of families out for walks but practised some recalls and then let her off at the end for a little game of fetch but it was interrupted by a little puppybutt who ran over for a game of chase! A very friendly little labradoodle called Lottie, her owner kept saying how lovely and fine built Izzy is and was amazed how fast she could run ! So shes now just curled up in her bed chilling out and keeps coming to check if we're showing any signs of giving her dinner soon !


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Swollen neck - you can sort of see, it's like she's sagged overnight!
> 
> Normal neck


Has it swollen any more or gone down a bit since this morning?


----------



## Werehorse

That's quite odd, Mollysmith... could it be an alergic reaction to something? Has anything changed in her diet or environment? She is a stunning dog! 

Thorne - don't feel guilty about one day off! They get plenty of walks most of the time, they won't suffer for a day off. I often give mine rest days...

Speaking of which, they've had one today! Two weeks of epic walks = very tired doggies. Me and OH went for a run/walk around some fells and I did feel quite guilty not taking the dogs with us! But actually I don't think they woud have appreciated it, they both seem tired and have dropped weight... and it was SO cold up there today. Usually my hat and gloves come off within a mile of running, even on the coldest days - not today! Since I felt cold and have a whole massive wobbley load of body fat  I imagine the boys could have ended up pretty miserable.

K&M - isn't Molly gorgeous? Oscar might have a new PF spangle crush. :lol:

Ginge - good progress on the OH persuasion. Glad you had a good little hollibobs.

Sailor -    I've been doing quite well at resisting my PF addiction over the last couple of weeks... got to take care not to let it creep back though so I can stay productive! And good job on the recall training! Lots of patience needed by the sounds of it, but I'm sure it'll pay off in the end. 

Sarah - bless Spen, he's too much of a gentleman to take advantage of a lady drunk on hormones clearly. :lol:

MV - Tink is just so darn scrummy!


----------



## Twiggy

So Izzy seems much better now, she had bland meals yesterday with pro-kaolin then back onto raw this morning and there's been no more bad poops or sickiness. Agility was cancelled due to the snow and the access road being too dangerous so it was kind of good as I was in two minds whether to take her, didn't want to pass this bug on to any other dogs but we both love our Sunday mornings at training !

She had a lovely run around at the park this morning then we took her for a wander by the river this afternoon, she was really good, on her extender at the river as there was lots of families out for walks but practised some recalls and then let her off at the end for a little game of fetch but it was interrupted by a little puppybutt who ran over for a game of chase! A very friendly little labradoodle called Lottie, her owner kept saying how lovely and fine built Izzy is and was amazed how fast she could run ! So shes now just curled up in her bed chilling out and keeps coming to check if we're showing any signs of giving her dinner soon ![/QUOTE]

Please to hear Izzy seems back to normal...


----------



## Werehorse

Izzy'smummy - Glad the lovely Izzy is feeling better.

Let me know when you are up here next - I'd love to meet you all. And Oscar wants to meet his biggest fan. :lol:


----------



## Thorne

-Sailor: Kids en masse are a pain aren't they? It sounds like you and Toppa made progress nonetheless so that's great to hear. Mum does get rather anxious when clothes shopping, was my mission to stop her leaving town without buying something 
-Sarah1983: Glad Spen's recall was good today, amazed at how oblivious he was to his in-season friend. 
-MS: Oh yes, I can see the swelling! Hope it goes down quickly! That full-body shot is gorgeous.
-K&M: Lovely shot of Molly 
-Rache: Daisy is _almost_ too cute to be guilty of counter-surfing! Great work with recall and her basic commands, well done you.
-Izzysmummy: So pleased that the monkey dog is back on the mend and enjoying the snow!
-Werehorse: I never feel too bad about giving Breeze a day off because she'd often rather stay at home and snooze, but Scooter is very good at guilt-inducing looks  manipulative dog! You lot definitely deserve a rest day, enjoy it.

Have just had a brilliant walk with Breeze! Best one we've had in ages, her tail was either wagging furiously or just relaxed and swinging, didn't see any lip-licks and no shivering at all! Too dark for shooting and bird scarers, and the cars we saw were crawling along so not scary for wimpy dogs.
She was in her element gamboling through the snow, had a good mix of casual walking and some training. Being completely silent out except for our footsteps made for great concentration 

More than made up for my lacklustre outing with Scooter, can't wait to take her out again tomorrow.


----------



## Guest

All the pics are lovely! (Apart from the apparent swelling, hope evrythings alright with that!) 
And well done spen for not buggering off and recalling properly!! 

I have decided, I SHALL walk Zand tommorow, only for ten minutes though.
And with his mekuti clipped to the front and back rings, (I know your not supposed to use the front ring like that but it should be fine for ten mins)
My boots have a fold out ice grip on the heel so in theory I should be alright!

Its really odd though, cold weather makes me knee's really hurt!! (I have buggered both of them before the age of twenty :crazy


----------



## Dogless

Stunning photos everyone; Molly is striking even with her neck swollen...reminds me of problems with lymphatic drainage that I have seen in humans....just a thought to throw into the pot!

Sarah - well done to Spen and it sounds as if just playing together has really helped; I thought that it was just here everyone walked in season bitches as per normal .

Sailor - Toppa is just a clown - I love him!!

Rache - my boys are way too perfect to counter surf  .....

....Rudi at 12 weeks old :blink:.












LurcherOwner said:


> Its really odd though, cold weather makes me knee's really hurt!! (I have buggered both of them before the age of twenty :crazy


Cold weather makes every single break I've had hurt I am sure and my shoulder that is full of metal (bionic woman!) especially aches; that deep, deep ache!! :crazy:.

Good walks this evening - walked Rudi first he was as fab as ever on the lead, bless him. Passed a few dogs and had a brief play offlead with a friendly choc lab, then home. Oh, *hubby came too - first time since Christmas Day :crazy:.*

Walked Kilo with Dizzy - nothing to report apart from he zzzzooooommmmeeed. Even my friend said "He's lively tonight isn't he?" :blink:.

The beagle that stands staring and growling that Kilo reacts to has been bitten by a GSD apparently. Luckily not hurt badly. Hope he'll be OK - the owner has asked me why Kilo has dramas with him before and I have said that the unbroken stare, posturing and growling probably set him off (not that Kilo should be reacting...not saying it is their fault at all; just guessed that is why when we talked). Thing is, the beagle stays put with this intense stare rather than being moved along. Sometimes if he is with the man he walks forward (he is on a flexi) and waves his hand up and down in front of his eyes, but it doesn't work.


----------



## Rache

They are monkeys in disguise of dogs I swear! Look at the size of rudis feet


----------



## Dogless

Rache said:


> They are monkeys in disguise of dogs I swear! Look at the size of rudis feet


Yep; they are huge....


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> Its really odd though, cold weather makes me knee's really hurt!! (I have buggered both of them before the age of twenty :crazy


Same here, I had a duff pair by the age of 19 and I get a bit creaky when it's cold. Always had one bad one then gave the other a nasty knock from a fall on the ice 2 winters ago. Hips are the same but no recollection of any hip injuries, just aging prematurely I think :

Dogless, bionic woman indeed! Enjoy your time with hubby


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> The beagle that stands staring and growling that Kilo reacts to has been bitten by a GSD apparently. Luckily not hurt badly. Hope he'll be OK - the owner has asked me why Kilo has dramas with him before and I have said that the unbroken stare, posturing and growling probably set him off (not that Kilo should be reacting...not saying it is their fault at all; just guessed that is why when we talked). Thing is, the beagle stays put with this intense stare rather than being moved along. Sometimes if he is with the man he walks forward (he is on a flexi) and waves his hand up and down in front of his eyes, but it doesn't work.


Poor Beagle being bitten, it's not going to help him any. I do understand about the stare, beagles often exercise a lesser known third alternative to the fight or flight equation. Freeze. there was a study about it in the '50's . On the occasions TInk freezes like that it's almost liek she is stuck. I have stepped in front of her to block her view/stare and that's been enough to unstick her and for us to be able to move away.

Lovely pics every one, we really do have some lovely dogs 
Sorry i'm not commenting on everyone it's jsut too hard for my wee brain :cryin:


----------



## Guest

Just had a bit of a chuckle. 
I am reading the Encyclopaedia of Dogs from 1976. (Two quid in the charity shop.) 

Apparently the "Smooth Collie" (Or shaved Lassies to mum) came about from crossing the 'old black and white longhaired collie (version of a border maybe?) with a Greyhound.' 

Told mum this and all I got was

"Good grief, imagine waiting for these pups you've bred to be this new exciting venture away from Lassie and one of them grows up into him!! :lol: " 

I pretended to be offended on Donkey boys behalf.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Poor Beagle being bitten,* it's not going to help him any.* I do understand about the stare, beagles often exercise a lesser known third alternative to the fight or flight equation. Freeze. there was a study about it in the '50's . On the occasions TInk freezes like that it's almost liek she is stuck. I have stepped in front of her to block her view/stare and that's been enough to unstick her and for us to be able to move away.
> 
> Lovely pics every one, we really do have some lovely dogs
> Sorry i'm not commenting on everyone it's jsut too hard for my wee brain :cryin:


No; I truly empathise with them. The beagle has a good growl and little bark at some dogs but certainly doesn't deserve to be bitten. I find it really hard to get past with Kilo so now don't even try! I thought that Fight, Flight, Freeze, Faff About applied to all dogs; Kilo will freeze and stare - I have to block the stare or turn him around and then back towards what he was staring at and it will stop it!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - well done to Spen and it sounds as if just playing together has really helped; I thought that it was just here everyone walked in season bitches as per normal .


Yeah, I just have to make that effort and just play around, have fun and chill out with him regularly. We both enjoy the training sessions but it's not the same sort of enjoyment.

And nope, I've run into bitches in season everywhere. All off leash or in well used off leash areas too. Or being walked by kids :nonod: I may have misunderstood the guy today, his English is about as good as my German but the rather crude gestures and his dogs behaviour makes me think she's in season.

Glad Izzy is feeling better and I hope Molly is better soon.

LO, I knackered my right ankle at 18 and my left knee has been buggered since I was about 15. Had scans and exploratory surgery on it and apparently there's nothing wrong yet it hurts like hell in the cold and will just buckle at times. Add in the epilepsy and if I were a horse I'd have been shot years ago :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Same here, I had a duff pair by the age of 19 and I get a bit creaky when it's cold. Always had one bad one then gave the other a nasty knock from a fall on the ice 2 winters ago. Hips are the same but no recollection of any hip injuries, just aging prematurely I think :
> 
> Dogless, bionic woman indeed! Enjoy your time with hubby


Come. come girls what's a few aches and pains...LOL

I've fractured my skull, broken my collarbone, split my shoulderblade, fractured my arm, etc. etc. All mostly horse related.

When you get to my age.........blah, blah

Luv Grannie


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Come. come girls what's a few aches and pains...LOL
> 
> I've fractured my skull, broken my collarbone, split my shoulderblade, fractured my arm, etc. etc. All mostly horse related.
> 
> When you get to my age.........blah, blah
> 
> Luv Grannie


And how is Grannie not held together by sticky tape??!? :blink:


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> No; I truly empathise with them. The beagle has a good growl and little bark at some dogs but certainly doesn't deserve to be bitten. I find it really hard to get past with Kilo so now don't even try! I thought that Fight, Flight, Freeze, Faff About applied to all dogs; Kilo will freeze and stare - I have to block the stare or turn him around and then back towards what he was staring at and it will stop it!


Freeze was Ruperts first response to scary things at a distance. He'd drop like a sack of spuds and just lie there staring. Made it extremely difficult to avoid other dogs we'd seen heading in our direction coz the only way to move him was to either pick him up and carry him or to drag him along on his stomach. Blocking the stare did no good either, he got all panicky if you did that.


----------



## Beth17

Oscar is an absolute bugger for staring at other dogs, I'm forever having to block his vision. Quite often he'll stare and walk and then end up walking into a wall or lamppost 

LO I am also falling apart and spend most days clicking and creaking 

Good to hear Izzy is better.

Had a brilliant walk this morning although was too shattered to drive so we had a long street walk. Both boys behaved perfectly and towards the end on a little cut through a lad came through with a mal or husky which dragged him over to us. Oscar was quite happy for it to say hello and then jumped up and tried to play even when it got a bit gobby with Sam. 

Hopefully I'm actually somewhere with him


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Come. come girls what's a few aches and pains...LOL
> 
> I've fractured my skull, broken my collarbone, split my shoulderblade, fractured my arm, etc. etc. All mostly horse related.
> 
> When you get to my age.........blah, blah
> 
> Luv Grannie


See I have a list to rival yours Grannie.....but I haven't ever had horses . Maybe a high pain threshold and little to no concept of self preservation is (was!) my problem.....


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> No; I truly empathise with them. The beagle has a good growl and little bark at some dogs but certainly doesn't deserve to be bitten. I find it really hard to get past with Kilo so now don't even try! I thought that* Fight, Flight, Freeze, Faff *About applied to all dogs; Kilo will freeze and stare - I have to block the stare or turn him around and then back towards what he was staring at and it will stop it!


Yes, i think the freeze was observed and first studied in beagles but is certainly not exclusive to them and i can see how it can be misinterpreted by other dogs as a threat. This is when i try to remove Tink to lurking distance.

Poor Rupert. 

So we have Bionic Woman and Supergran 
Ive got hypermobile joints so i'm more bendy than breaky, but i'm sure i'll pay for it one day, thnakfulyl that day hasn't come yet, I'm a real wimp


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Poor Beagle being bitten, it's not going to help him any. I do understand about the stare, beagles often exercise a lesser known third alternative to the fight or flight equation. Freeze. there was a study about it in the '50's . On the occasions TInk freezes like that it's almost liek she is stuck. I have stepped in front of her to block her view/stare and that's been enough to unstick her and for us to be able to move away.
> 
> :cryin:


That 30 odd pack of Beagles we met in the fog on top of the South Downs didn't stop and stare, they were all going bananas with my sister's Jack Russell trying to take them all on..... It was bedlam for several minutes trying to separate 6 collies and a fiesty Russell from the little dears.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Yes, i think the freeze was observed and first studied in beagles but is certainly not exclusive to them and i can see how it can be misinterpreted by other dogs as a threat. This is when i try to remove Tink to lurking distance.
> 
> Poor Rupert.
> 
> So we have Bionic Woman and Supergran
> Ive got hypermobile joints so i'm more bendy than breaky, but i'm sure i'll pay for it one day, thnakfulyl that day hasn't come yet, I'm a real wimp


It is very interesting; I have noticed beagles stare a lot, their eyes tend to be very noticeable as they are so large and dark and expressive I think. This beagle postures with the stare and does accompany it with a growl and the odd bark so I interpret it as threatening - most I have seen stare but with 'softer' features and not as much posturing. Wish I knew what they were thinking at times.....


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> It is very interesting; I have noticed beagles stare a lot, their eyes tend to be very noticeable as they are so large and dark and expressive I think. This beagle postures with the stare and does accompany it with a growl and the odd bark so I interpret it as threatening - most I have seen stare but with 'softer' features and not as much posturing. Wish I knew what they were thinking at times.....


Oh yes no growling with Tink usually tucked tail and sidewards body. I wonder if they are "starers" because they are independant workers, and in situations a one on one worker like a retriever or herder would look to their handler for guidance. Just rattling thoughts around my cranium might be talking garbage.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh yes no growling with Tink usually tucked tail and sidewards body. I wonder if they are "starers" because they are independant workers, and in situations a one on one worker like a retriever or herder would look to their handler for guidance. Just rattling thoughts around my cranium might be talking garbage.


I think it's all fascinating - genuinely. This one is body square on, head lifted high, chest puffed out and tail up vertically and stiff as a rod - he means "You shall not pass" I think....so I don't .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I think it's all fascinating - genuinely. This one is body square on, head lifted high, chest puffed out and tail up vertically and stiff as a rod - he means "You shall not pass" I think....so I don't .


Yeah that sounds very " ger off my land!"


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> And how is Grannie not held together by sticky tape??!? :blink:


Grannie is held together by good old grit and determination.

A very dear friend that trains her collies her with me is 86 yrs old. She's had both breasts removed, a hip replacement and a botched knee replacement. She still drives herself to shows and competes with her dogs including fast pace. Her only 'nod' to old age is using a walking stick in the ring these days.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Grannie is held together by good old grit and determination.
> 
> A very dear friend that trains her collies her with me is 86 yrs old. She's had both breasts removed, a hip replacement and a botched knee replacement. She still drives herself to shows and competes with her dogs including fast pace. Her only 'nod' to old age is using a walking stick in the ring these days.


She sounds fab


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> She sounds fab


Yes she is indeed fab.

She comes from the school of hard knocks and never ever complains.

She was divorced many years ago but saw both her daughters through university by working full time, plus an evening job and week-end work.

She is an amazing person in so many ways.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> See I have a list to rival yours Grannie.....but I haven't ever had horses . Maybe a high pain threshold and little to no concept of self preservation is (was!) my problem.....


I wouldn't mind so much if I was a brilliant horsewoman but sadly I wasn't...


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I think it's all fascinating - genuinely. This one is body square on, head lifted high, chest puffed out and tail up vertically and stiff as a rod - he means "You shall not pass" I think....so I don't .


So your as big a wimp as me? I wanted to leg it off the Downs and let the hunstmen sort them all out.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> So your as big a wimp as me? I wanted to leg it off the Downs and let the hunstmen sort them all out.....


Yup . If I go closer to try and pass the beagle gets upset, the owner says "Oh, don't be silly" and Kilo starts dancing and barking on a bad day and dancing whilst concentrating on me as best as he can on a good day :crazy:. The owner then says "The big dog doesn't like you" and I scuttle off, beastie in tow......


----------



## Thorne

Oh dear, I think there is a bitch in season somewhere around here, Scooter has been following Breeze around sniffing her ears. Caught him looking at her and humping the air a couple of times tonight hmy: Fortunately for Mrs B he's not actually humped her, think she'd be quick to tell him off though.

Highly doubt that spayed Breeze is the source of the problem, have seen this a couple of times with him and he did it a bit last wednesday after I'd been fussing over an in-heat SBT at Blue Cross.
It's poor Breeze that gets the longing looks and mid-air thrusts, I just got a bit drooled on! Hopefully he's not read about Kilo's humping session and got ideas... He's settled now but will keep an eye on the cheeky bugger, as a senior citizen he should know better 

Time for a few longline walks I think, don't like the idea of baby Scooters appearing.


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> Oh dear, I think there is a bitch in season somewhere around here, Scooter has been following Breeze around sniffing her ears. Caught him looking at her and humping the air a couple of times tonight hmy: Fortunately for Mrs B he's not actually humped her, think she'd be quick to tell him off though.
> 
> Highly doubt that spayed Breeze is the source of the problem, have seen this a couple of times with him and he did it a bit last wednesday after I'd been fussing over an in-heat SBT at Blue Cross.
> It's poor Breeze that gets the longing looks and mid-air thrusts, I just got a bit drooled on! *Hopefully he's not read about Kilo's humping session and got ideas*... He's settled now but will keep an eye on the cheeky bugger, as a senior citizen he should know better
> 
> Time for a few longline walks I think, don't like the idea of baby Scooters appearing.


Hopefully not; I wouldn't wish that on anyone :cryin::cryin:.


----------



## Dogless

YIPPEEEE!!!!! Amber snow warning!!! Snow from 0000 until 1500 .


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> YIPPEEEE!!!!! Amber snow warning!!! Snow from 0000 until 1500 .


So unfair rrr:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> So unfair rrr:


Grannie obviously has a pair of bellows for lungs .


----------



## purpleskyes

Hudson has now mastered sit, down, left paw and right paw as long as I have a frosted shreddie in my hand. I am quite pleased with this not sure what to move on to next? 

He is going to be attending his training class on 2nd February although I am sure he is going to be harassing the other dogs instead of learning stuff.


----------



## Dogless

purpleskyes said:


> Hudson has now mastered sit, down, left paw and right paw as long as I have a frosted shreddie in my hand. I am quote pleased with this not sure what to move on to next?
> 
> He is going to be attending his training class on 2nd February *although I am sure he is going to be harassing the other dogs instead of learning stuff.*


There's your answer....work on a good 'watch me' .

Recall, recall, recall around the house and garden, on every walk and work on your sit especially in every location you can think of and without Shreddie in hand.

The above is my amateur advice; Twiggy and mv will certainly have better advice than me .


----------



## Thorne

Beth17 said:


> So unfair rrr:


Come to Suffolk, we've got plenty going spare and I'm not too keen on the stuff! Pretty as it is I've spent far too much time stuck on trains and stranded in a manky old Fiesta in snow so it's not my favourite  
I'd better start blowing it away, super-Gran/Twiggy style.


----------



## purpleskyes

Dogless said:


> There's your answer....work on a good 'watch me' .
> 
> Recall, recall, recall around the house and garden, on every walk and work on your sit especially in every location you can think of and without Shreddie in hand.
> 
> The above is my amateur advice; Twiggy and mv will certainly have better advice than me .


Thank you for the advice, I will make watch me the next command on my to do list. I have read conflicting information on letting akita's off lead but we kinda thought why not try it while he is young and they want to be near you. So far he has been really good off lead, obviously if his personality changes and he becomes DA we won't allow him off lead.


----------



## Beth17

Thorne said:


> Come to Suffolk, we've got plenty going spare and I'm not too keen on the stuff! Pretty as it is I've spent far too much time stuck on trains and stranded in a manky old Fiesta in snow so it's not my favourite
> I'd better start blowing it away, super-Gran/Twiggy style.


Snow boots are being packed as we speak :yesnod:


----------



## Beth17

purpleskyes said:


> Thank you for the advice, I will make watch me tue next command on my to do list. I have read conflicting information on letting akita's off lead but we kinda thought why not try it while he is young and they want to be near you. So far he has been really good off lead, obviously if his personality changes and he becomes DA we won't allow him
> off lead.


Recall would still be good to work on even if you don't just in case he ever got free. Sounds like you're doing well with him


----------



## Dogless

purpleskyes said:


> Thank you for the advice, I will make watch me the next command on my to do list. I have read conflicting information on letting akita's off lead but we kinda thought why not try it while he is young and they want to be near you. So far he has been really good off lead, obviously if his personality changes and he becomes DA we won't allow him
> off lead.


Yes; I just thought that a recall even in a dog who never goes offlead would be good in case he ever escaped / equipment failed etc.

I'd probably ditch stuff like 'paw' (I don't do it anyway - but that's just personal preference) for now and get a few good basics going that you incorporate into every walk and activity you do.....for instance Rudi has to sit and wait to be released before meals, before going offlead, sit at kerbs, wait before stepping out of the door, 'watch' as we go past dogs or people, 'leave' all sorts....


----------



## purpleskyes

Any tips for training watch me and recall would be great ladies.


----------



## moonviolet

Smokeybear posted some kickbum links on Sailors thread earlier today regarding recall
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/287548-how-make-recalls-seem-like-amazing-fun.html


----------



## Dogless

purpleskyes said:


> Any tips for training watch me and recall would be great ladies.


I'll try...I am horrendous at explaining things...

For both I tend to start off by ensuring a dog knows it's name -as soon as I say 'Rudi' and he looks straight away he's treated or praised.

For recall I start by encouraging a pup towards me and when they are definitely coming I say "here" and reward. When I think that they pair running towards me with "here" I try calling them when they are looking at me and not doing anything interesting so will come, then build up to calling from the next room etc etc - all the time, loads of times in the house. Then I start in the garden and build up in a similar way and on walks - I drop the criteria back down in each new environment and slowly build back up again and try to never set them up to fail; for instance if I want Rudi back but think he might not come, I go and get him instead.

For watch I start sitting with the dog sat facing me and reward brief eye contact, once I get a little more eye contact I say "Watch". Once I can get eye contact when I say "Watch" I stand up and start again and build up slowly. If I can't get a "Watch" to go past something as I often don't think I can at present and also don't think "leave" will succeed I walk past with a treat or toy in my hand keeping Rudi close, rewarding once we have passed whatever it may be.

Clear as mud I'm sure :crazy:.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Grannie is held together by good old grit and determination.
> 
> A very dear friend that trains her collies her with me is 86 yrs old. She's had both breasts removed, a hip replacement and a botched knee replacement. She still drives herself to shows and competes with her dogs including fast pace. Her only 'nod' to old age is using a walking stick in the ring these days.


Sounds like my 90 year old gran who still drives a 4x4.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Has it swollen any more or gone down a bit since this morning?


It has gone down a little, I can see clearly which bit of her chin it is.

Werehorse, thank you, we think she's gorgeous.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I'll try...I am horrendous at explaining things...
> 
> For both I tend to start off by ensuring a dog knows it's name -as soon as I say 'Rudi' and he looks straight away he's treated or praised.
> 
> For recall I start by encouraging a pup towards me and when they are definitely coming I say "here" and reward. When I think that they pair running towards me with "here" I try calling them when they are looking at me and not doing anything interesting so will come, then build up to calling from the next room etc etc - all the time, loads of times in the house. Then I start in the garden and build up in a similar way and on walks - I drop the criteria back down in each new environment and slowly build back up again and try to never set them up to fail; for instance if I want Rudi back but think he might not come, I go and get him instead.
> 
> For watch I start sitting with the dog sat facing me and reward brief eye contact, once I get a little more eye contact I say "Watch". Once I can get eye contact when I say "Watch" I stand up and start again and build up slowly. If I can't get a "Watch" to go past something as I often don't think I can at present and also don't think "leave" will succeed I walk past with a treat or toy in my hand keeping Rudi close, rewarding once we have passed whatever it may be.
> 
> Clear as mud I'm sure :crazy:.


Sounds fine to me, exactly what we did with Molly for both except that I stopped any voice commands to train her to whistle. That was so she'd recall to my OH and me, she seems to prefer higher female voices. I also run away from her with the treats and she always comes back to me, as long as she can see us. And I take her to places she will succeed with. Woods are dreadful but beaches, fields are all good.

Watch me is great, I found that Molly just does it now for most things. It's so useful.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> YIPPEEEE!!!!! Amber snow warning!!! Snow from 0000 until 1500 .


These were taken at first light this morning out of the window. I obviously didn't blow hard enough:



















I'm currently shovelling it all into suitcases labelled Northern Ireland...!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Snowed again here last night. Not much, just enough that there's now a thin layer of soft snow on top of the ice the snow we got a couple of weeks ago has turned into. Fantastic


----------



## hollierosa

Currently Trying to stop my border collie puppy from attacking me, Hard work! Ive tried alsorts and nothing seems to be working! Hope She grows out of it! Ive also taught her to sit, and now im working on Down.


----------



## Twiggy

hollierosa said:


> Currently Trying to stop my border collie puppy from attacking me, Hard work! Ive tried alsorts and nothing seems to be working! Hope She grows out of it! Ive also taught her to sit, and now im working on Down.


How old is your collie pup? Try and remember that she has spent several weeks honing her skills playbiting her brothers and sisters and now you are her only substitute.

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about sit and down, not that I'm saying training isn't good, but teaching pup her name, to toilet outside, come when called and "leave it" are far more important in the early stages.....


----------



## Nicki85

Morning all 

Sounds like everyone has white stuff now???

Rusty has been a good boy. Yesterday we did the dragging sledge out with small child (not mine, nephew...) and Rusty came too. i reckon six months ago I wouldn't have seen him for dust- he would have been doing circuits of the forest with me moving so slowly! Now he checks in much more, runs a bit, checks in... 

Today we met a GS which looked like it might "start" on Rusty but luckily the owner was close by and in tune with his dog (for once!!) and called his dog and carried on walking. Rusty was very quick to respond to my command to keep moving as well. We then went into the garden to see what weave training Rusty remembered... first time went through the middle.... after that though perfect each time! And no luring, I just stand there and he weaves in and out of the four poles- well done Rusty!! Will get this 100% and then add two more poles.

I've bought a few books off amazon (naughty!)-
Turid Rugaas Calming signals book... see if I can figure out why most dogs hate Rusty so much!
The dog vinci code by John Robertson... just because i've been meaning to read it for ages!
Snooping around by Martina Nau cause I reckon if I can understand how to teach Rusty to track/ find objects I think it would be something he would enjoy  

Anyone got any of the above?


----------



## Werehorse

Even we've got snow here today!

Taking the boys out to play in it for a bit.


----------



## Guest

I walked the loony hound this morning!!! we only went down the grass green and back, so only a couple minutes. Promptly met a cat. 
Then met the lady down the road who has a westie, and she said hello to 'hatter' (that her name for my loon) and she advised that if he were her dog, she probably wouldn't take him far either. 
She told me that ALL the pavements are treacherous, so until it thaws its prob best to keep to the garden.

WHY WON'T IT THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!? :mad2:


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I walked the loony hound this morning!!! we only went down the grass green and back, so only a couple minutes. Promptly met a cat.
> Then met the lady down the road who has a westie, and she said hello to 'hatter' (that her name for my loon) and she advised that if he were her dog, she probably wouldn't take him far either.
> She told me that ALL the pavements are treacherous, so until it thaws its prob best to keep to the garden.
> 
> WHY WON'T IT THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!? :mad2:


I agree. We've had lying snow for over a week now and sub zero temperatures day and night.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Morning all
> 
> Sounds like everyone has white stuff now???
> 
> Rusty has been a good boy. Yesterday we did the dragging sledge out with small child (not mine, nephew...) and Rusty came too. i reckon six months ago I wouldn't have seen him for dust- he would have been doing circuits of the forest with me moving so slowly! Now he checks in much more, runs a bit, checks in...
> 
> Today we met a GS which looked like it might "start" on Rusty but luckily the owner was close by and in tune with his dog (for once!!) and called his dog and carried on walking. Rusty was very quick to respond to my command to keep moving as well. We then went into the garden to see what weave training Rusty remembered... first time went through the middle.... after that though perfect each time! And no luring, I just stand there and he weaves in and out of the four poles- well done Rusty!! Will get this 100% and then add two more poles.
> 
> I've bought a few books off amazon (naughty!)-
> Turid Rugaas Calming signals book... see if I can figure out why most dogs hate Rusty so much!
> The dog vinci code by John Robertson... just because i've been meaning to read it for ages!
> Snooping around by Martina Nau cause I reckon if I can understand how to teach Rusty to track/ find objects I think it would be something he would enjoy
> 
> Anyone got any of the above?


I've got one of Turid Rugaas books, can't remember which one though.

Have a look on either 'dog chat' or 'training and behaviour' Smokeybear listed loads of books on tracking for another member that wanted to teach her dog, yesterday I believe.

Actually it made me smile, and made me feel very old, as I knew Roy Hunter, John Cree etc years ago.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - I have the first two of those books; both very interesting - especially the calming signals one; I am fascinated by body language.

Snowing lightly here, not the Winter Wonderland I was expecting like Twiggy has. Apparently this afternoon it's going to dump some down :thumbup:.

I was brave this morning and thought I'd try the boys together at the park for the first time :scared: - there was sleet rather than snow there so it was a mudbath but both boys were brilliant for me :aureola::aureola:. They walked very nicely, just people we knew were out today. I didn't try and walk past dogs with them both for now; just took them off the side of the path and put them in a 'sit / watch' whilst dogs went by and they did me proud :thumbup::thumbup:. Another first - not one loose dog ran up to us as they were all at home in the warm .

Another first...they pooed together :thumbup::thumbup:. Usually one does it, I sort the leads, pick up the poo, resort the leads, set off and 100m later the other does...:lol::lol:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> There's your answer....work on a good 'watch me' .
> 
> Recall, recall, recall around the house and garden, on every walk and work on your sit especially in every location you can think of and without Shreddie in hand.
> 
> The above is my amateur advice; Twiggy and mv will certainly have better advice than me .


It makes me smile that the current trend is teaching 'watch me'.

Back in the dark ages (late 1970's and early 1980's) most competitive obedience dogs were yanked into position on a check chain. Then in the early 1980's they were taught 'watch me' and toys were introduced, followed in the 1990's by clicker type training with loads of motivation using toys and tit-bits.

It just shows how far behind general pet obedience is in comparison IMO.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It makes me smile that the current trend is teaching 'watch me'.
> 
> Back in the dark ages (late 1970's and early 1980's) most competitive obedience dogs were yanked into position on a check chain. Then in the early 1980's they were taught 'watch me' and toys were introduced, followed in the 1990's by clicker type training with loads of motivation using toys and tit-bits.
> 
> It just shows how far behind general pet obedience is in comparison IMO.


It does seem to be - hopefully with the widespread sharing of information on the internet and perhaps with those who do competitive obedience beginning to take pet classes too which does seem to be happening, pet obedience will 'catch up' somewhat in terms of training techniques.


----------



## Twiggy

Mmmm maybe but I find it sad that the vast majority have so much trauma with recall training, dog reactive issues, etc.

It seems to be getting worse instead of better.


----------



## Guest

Zand is on an enforced chill out right now. He shot out into the back garden, my neighbour had left a huge cooked bone on her path, all recall was ignored due to this bone being on the other side of the fence. 
THEN my OTHER neighbour came out and zander ignored me to be fussed by him. Finally got him back indoors, and put him in his crate with a chew. Was quite happy, (we did this yesterday when he wouldn't settle) but now I'm getting cross because ever single tiny little whine, my mum yells at him. 
I've just yelled at her to blummin ignore him. Cause yesterday he whined a bit, then went to sleep and was better for it. 

We sometimes have to do this enforced quiet time, because he seems to get over tired/ stimulated and won't settle at all.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Mmmm maybe but I find it sad that the vast majority have so much trauma with recall training, dog reactive issues, etc.
> 
> It seems to be getting worse instead of better.


It the age of choke chain training, how as recall trained then?? 
Just outta interest.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Mmmm maybe but I find it sad that the vast majority have so much trauma with recall training, dog reactive issues, etc.
> 
> It seems to be getting worse instead of better.


I think dog ownership has become just that in a lot of cases sadly - ownership of a possession, a right; yet a lot of owners don't actually seem to want a dog or want to put any time into a dog. Or that very much seems to be the case round here. The lab that regularly gets hit that I write about on here wasn't wanted by the lady who has to look after her for the vast majority of the time - she was wanted by the husband and daughter, and that remains the case. She is utterly uninterested in training anything at all as are loads of people that ask me what I'm up to when I'm training Kilo yet wants a dog that does as she is told.


----------



## hollierosa

shes 9 weeks old, Shes pretty much got toilet training which is great! And I know its normal puppy behaviour but it seems a little more, But thankyou for the advice


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Mmmm maybe but I find it sad that the vast majority have so much trauma with recall training, dog reactive issues, etc.
> 
> It seems to be getting worse instead of better.


I agree. The internet is great but it's also so open to abuse and trainers promising to help but then finding it's a prong collar person. We had this experience and I consider myself to be very sensible. It's a minefield and there are so idiots who believe in domination or reach breaking point and give in than spend time with a clicker believing it to be the long route round.


----------



## MollySmith

I have a doggy who looks like my dog again :thumbup: Well if I could find her from under her bed, she's so sleepy on the piriton. She did zoomies in the snowy garden and came back to bed after breakfast and it's been Zzzzzz since. 

At least I don't have to take her out far today. I've already fell over trying to get to the station to get to work and gave up, came home. I'm glad as whilst I don't mind making the effort I don't want to get to work and get stuck if the trains pack up. It's so irritating to get there from 40 miles away and find the place empty. Anyway I went on my left side so my left shoulder hurts as much as the right one which is still useless after the op.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I think dog ownership has become just that in a lot of cases sadly - ownership of a possession, a right; yet a lot of owners don't actually seem to want a dog or want to put any time into a dog.


I'm not sure it's just this to be honest. I think a lot of pet owners just don't have the skills to teach things that people like Twiggy, Smokeybear etc find easy. Then there's the fact socialisation is really, really pushed and yet while people are told it's important to socialise their puppies it's not really explained what they should be doing. To them their puppy is being socialised when it's running up to every dog or person it sees. I think it's often a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. Look at all the people who come here asking for advice thinking they've been doing the right thing by just letting their dog play willy nilly with others. They're just the taxi to Disneyland as someone else puts it, their dog has all its fun with other dogs and the environment, is it any wonder they have recall issues?

There are of course a hell of a lot of people who want a well behaved dog without having to put any work in though. I'm sure they view dogs like household appliances, no training necessary, just give the command and you'll get the desired result. And of course those of us who have put work in to having a well behaved dog are "lucky" coz it seems ours works the way it was intended to 

I don't think the fact dogs are so unwelcome in so many places helps either. Out here you see dogs pretty much everywhere and there seems to be a much more relaxed attitude towards them. 99% of dogs we meet are under control and non aggressive. They may come trotting over to say hello but if called away they respond. I've yet to see someone out here chasing their dog around trying to grab it like I've seen plenty of times in the UK lol. I guess maybe other dogs and people are just common place to them instead of a big deal and something to get excited over?

Sadly I'm absolutely paranoid about my dogs behaviour having had so many bad experiences with Rupert. I err on the side of caution possibly a bit too much now. And I don't think that's helping me with Spencer to be honest. I've been avoiding places with other dogs where possible and it's not exactly teaching him anything is it? How can he learn to be calm around other dogs if we only see other dogs once in a blue moon?

ETA: Okay, I kinda rambled a bit there lol, sorry.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Mmmm maybe but I find it sad that the vast majority have so much trauma with recall training, dog reactive issues, etc.
> 
> It seems to be getting worse instead of better.


Morning all.

I often think about this, dog ownership seems so different now to when we were growing up.

Your garden looks very pretty- but I'll just admire it from here thanks. We've got a major thaw going on already,I've been able to get to the shops :thumbup: been in such a panic as the wild birds were really low on sunflower seeds.:thumbup:

Nikki, I've read Turid Rugass. I mostly liked the advanced Pet Gundog as well by Lesley Graham.
Moll loves me to hide things for her to sniff out.

Talking of Moll, why is she such a stickler for routine 
Walking up the track this morning, the old boy[with shotgun and grumpy dog] comes up behind me in his car.
Moll was ahead , she knows to move to the verge and stay down until the car has passed, normally only the farmer passes and he knows to watch for the dogs. 
I felt a recall back to me would have been safer today- but she wouldn't come.:mad2: Her attitude is like-'I cant I have to do this and cant do something different'


----------



## Freddie and frank

i can't keep up with all this :scared::scared:

gr, glad you had a nice break and ginge was good.
sailor, all those kids  no wonder toppa had zoomies.
sarah, fab pic of spen :001_tt1: and that behaviour was exactly what bella did when she was being a floozy. i was amazed at how her tail could bend at a right angle.
k&m, lovely pic :001_tt1:
rache, welcome to the world of counter surfers. freddie jumps up sidewards, then uses his paws to scoot things from the back of the worktops. almost human like. we have to move everything.
IM, glad to hear izzy is better.
thorne, glad to hear your walk with breeze was good.
dogless, or should i say 'bionic woman', i'm so happy you met a friendly choc lab and your best boys are really doing you proud aren't they. :thumbup: two halo's on their way.
mv, hello to a fellow bendy person. my son too.
twiggy, your friend sounds an amazing lady. 
pupleskyes, good luck at training classes.

praying for a thaw to those who want it and have fun in the snow to those who love it.:thumbup:

what's with all these humping dogs???

well, i did get dressed yesterday and took boys out for a good long walk. some on and some off lead. they had a fab time zooming about in a huge field. we did avoid our usual walks due to lots of hills probably full up with sledges but they had a great time and were well behaved, even frank did well with his recalls 

all three have been out this morning, seperately.
bella first..she walks nicely, i click,treat, she then pulls until i say 'close'. she walks nicely,click,treat, pulls, like elastic. she doesn't do this all the time. when she pulls, i either have to say ah ah or i stop, say nothing then she comes to my side and we carry on. 
freddie and frank were so good too. i had franks lead loose all the way and he just tootled along side me. even with seeing dogs on the opposite side of the road. :thumbup:

pics from this morning.


----------



## Sarah1983

F&F, me and Spen would have been in that water if we'd tried to walk there! Apparently it's never too cold for a swim :nonod: Lovely pics though.


----------



## Freddie and frank

MollySmith said:


> I agree. The internet is great but it's also so open to abuse and trainers promising to help but then finding it's a prong collar person. We had this experience and I consider myself to be very sensible. It's a minefield and there are so idiots who believe in domination or reach breaking point and give in than spend time with a clicker believing it to be the long route round.


i too had a trainer advise me to use pinch collars on the boys. very very ashamed to say that i did use them a couple of times before getting rid of the awfull things. the last trainer i went to did introduce me to clicker training, which i wished i'd have done from day one, but he used a very tight slip lead too and liked the dominance thing which i wasn't very happy with.
feel a bit stupid really with the bad choice of 'trainers' i've had

all three have responded well to the clicker, since giving it a go, and i'm starting classes with bella on thursday.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Sarah1983 said:


> F&F, me and Spen would have been in that water if we'd tried to walk there! Apparently it's never too cold for a swim :nonod: Lovely pics though.


that's franks theory too. and why we did a road walk for him this morning else it would have resulted in a canal launch.


----------



## Freddie and frank

just another quick pic from friday in my garden.










think i need to work on my camera skills :scared:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I felt a recall back to me would have been safer today- but she wouldn't come.:mad2: Her attitude is like-'I cant I have to do this and cant do something different'


I'm guessing it's a situational learning thing, if you always give the same cue in this situation, Moll will know this is THE right answer. same way if you always ask for a sit before giving them their food, they will automatically sit without a cue and become a little confused if you ask for a down for instance.

Think you both have very valid points Sarah and Dogless.

:lol: @ never to cold to swim ... Tink subscribes to the opposing theory never warm enough to swim 

lovely pics F+F(+B)


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I'm guessing it's a situational learning thing, if you always give the same cue in this situation, Moll will know this is THE right answer. same way if you always ask for a sit before giving them their food, they will automatically sit without a cue and become a little confused if you ask for a down for instance.
> 
> Think you both have very valid points Sarah and Dogless.
> 
> :lol: @ never to cold to swim ... Tink subscribes to the opposing theory never warm enough to swim
> 
> lovely pics F+F(+B)


I wish sometimes she would be just a little bit more bendy :lol:

Lovely pics F+F- Moll would have been in that water as well.:scared:


----------



## GingerRogers

Is it the snow making the people have zoomies in text, never mind the dogs, this thread seems to have gone into overdrive .

I will pick a few people -

Molly - glad the neck is going down even if it means sleepies. Molly is stunning , I love dogs with that white blaze down their front, but it surprised me I didn't realise Molly had it she has looked all black in pictures I have seen of her before.

Sarah - I think you are right on the dog ownership thing a little knowledge being dangerous. I also think that I am a bit over paranoid about Ginges behaviour due to having had a dog who would have taken great offence to her, many people would and do just put it down to normal terrier behaviour and either let her get on with it or keep her at home but I don't feel it is appropriate behaviour in the slightest and I also want a dog that eventually can come out and about with us.

MV - love the snowy nose pic and F&F I love that last bonkers shot you posted in your garden.

LO - I like the westie ladies name for your boy  she sounds like a sensible lady though.

Dogless - glad the boys are mastering synchonrised pooing although I suspect it might be a one off, Buffs and Elsie always manage your normal scenario as well which may well be why their owner is a fan of stick and flick .

Toppa - are you doing anything to stop him barking or is it just experiences, and more experiences - please share your secret if you have one  oh and don't worry about Toppa looking yellow in the snow, I saw two swans today and they looked yellow too!

I went out yesterday afternoon with my friend and as per usual ended up snuggled in the pub (it was her birthday on Friday as well, we had a valid excuse this time ) and came out to find total wipe out . Got home and took the ginger one for a run round the estate and I swear no-one had stepped foot outside for at least 3 hrs, the roads and pavements had melded into one and there were no footprints or tyre marks anywhere so we ran round in circles making a mess of the pristineness. Then bumped into a couple I know who had just ventured out to go the bar, and I may have made a little bit of a fool of myself in a slightly tipsy being silly with my dog kind of way. I saw them again this morning as they came out to shovel snow and they laughed at me .

The roads were still snow chocked this morning and lots of cars still sitting in driveways covered in snow, working from home everyone , we chose to walk round the fishing lakes and were the first people on that path, just bunny footprints in the snow . Am going to put a thread up in a bit.

Buuuut to the 'working on' bit she is doing well I hope (fingers crossed and all that) Yesterday afternoon I took her up a very quiet lane on her long line, nice walk but a little treacherous as quiet = still icy. She came with me every time I called this way and recalled away from some loose sheep  She didn't bark at the strange bundled up people we saw yesterday evening (she has taken offence to the man before ) this morning just as she pooed, a couple of dogs appeared and crossed over away from us, so I risked it and left her to it while I cleared up. She just looked at them not even in a very frantic way  Then we had to divert away from another couple later on again just a look and happy to come with me. THEN we bumped into the lady and lab who goes to the same trainer with her friend and her lurcher, I couldn't turn again as the other dogs were behind us BUT we got quite close before she kicked off. Lab lady being understanding explained to her friend who put her dog on lead and lab lady backtracked so she could stand off the path apologising as she couldn't go anywhere else (he is lungey and big and strong!!) I made my way past the lurcher with drama but not too much, he is a barker as well sooo......and then I ran  past the lab lady and she shut up almost straight away. I am feeling very positive :thumbup: so no doubt she will ruin it all later and prove it was all a fluke .


----------



## Twiggy

*


LurcherOwner said:



It the age of choke chain training, how as recall trained then??

Click to expand...

*


LurcherOwner said:


> Just outta interest.


Forced into submission with dogs returning to their owner slowly and not looking very happy. Thank goodness those days have long gone.


----------



## Freddie and frank

gr, what a positive morning. fab.:thumbup:
how awfull ending up in a pub all snuggled, perish the thought Singing: and then having to fool around in the snow........ooh how fab. :thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

hollierosa said:


> shes 9 weeks old, Shes pretty much got toilet training which is great! And I know its normal puppy behaviour but it seems a little more, But thankyou for the advice


I would doubt it, having seen many, many litters of collie pups play biting at six/seven weeks old.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Forced into submission with dogs returning to their owner slowly and not looking very happy. Thank goodness those days have long gone.*


*

And if you had a smart dog who realised you couldn't enforce a recall while there was no leash attached and who knew roughly how far you could throw things...well let's just say recall wasn't one of my successes with the more traditional methods. Wolfs was excellent but he was one of those "your wish is my command" types, Shadow was more of a "f*ck you and the horse you rode in on" types.

Twiggy, unfortunately those days aren't long gone for everyone. I've been criticised for Spencer being too fast and too enthusiastic on recall. I should punish that and have him coming slowly and calmly apparently.*


----------



## Werehorse

Ooooo, having a big dump *snigger* of snow here this afternoon! 

Just had a lovely walk with the boys on quiet roads. We went down the lane where there is so little traffic it is safe to have them off lead (no tyre tracks on the way down, and still none at 1pm - it's not busy. :lol. Usually I avoid this walk in favour of lead walks round the village or driving somewhere - simply because the mud can be dreadful and I'm convinced it is full of agricultural run-off nasties too. But it was lovely all snowy and frozen.  And ours were the only footprints for most of the walk. Then I cut up through some fields I again normally avoid due to dreadful styles and ploughed footpaths (the farmer clearly isn't keen on foot-traffic ) and mud. But again, nice in the snow even if I had to pick up and throw the dogs over two styles. 

AND we did a slight detour to the yard to give the horses lunch and chance to play in the snow in the outdoor school.  My pretty white horse is depressingly grubby :lol: And then we had some very nice LLW on the way back. As long as I walk in the middle of the road they are spot on! Near vertical surfaces it is very hit and miss as they seem to compete for sniffs. 

I went a bit trigger happy with my camera but not sure if I have any decent ones... but I did get some pictures of the first lambs of the year in the snow. 

Dogless - mine seem very good at synchronised poos! I've got into the habit of getting them into a sit stay while I pick up too as it can be a nightmare if they both head in different directions while your messing with the poo. You probably already do that but I highly reccommend it. Oscar now does a poo on the grass then comes and sits on the pavement with very little prompting.


----------



## Beth17

F&F love the pictures.

K&M I find Oscar is getting more and more stuck in his ways as he gets older

I sometimes think common sense has gone out of dog training. There are so many different theories and ways to achieve something that I often think new owners get overwhelmed and then just give up.

Boys were fabulous today. Took them both out again to the field and it was a bit busier than usual but plenty of room to run around. Sam focussed On Oscar and the toy and only had to go on lead a couple of times. Sam even had a quick play with a collie and Oscar joined in  He then came back for his toy and so did Sam.

They did get a bit silly and hyper at the end when walking back to the car and managed to jump up and rip my coat 

I have dentist in an hour


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I think dog ownership has become just that in a lot of cases sadly - ownership of a possession, a right; yet a lot of owners don't actually seem to want a dog or want to put any time into a dog. Or that very much seems to be the case round here. The lab that regularly gets hit that I write about on here wasn't wanted by the lady who has to look after her for the vast majority of the time - she was wanted by the husband and daughter, and that remains the case. She is utterly uninterested in training anything at all as are loads of people that ask me what I'm up to when I'm training Kilo yet wants a dog that does as she is told.


I've got various theories as to why the situation seems worse now than say 30 years ago. One of which is that most people now have cars whereas years ago the family dog was walked to the shops, taking the kids to school, etc. and therefore much better socialised.


----------



## GingerRogers

Freddie and frank said:


> gr, what a positive morning. fab.:thumbup:
> how awfull ending up in a pub all snuggled, perish the thought Singing: and then having to fool around in the snow........ooh how fab. :thumbup::thumbup:


I know it was terrible, I feel very hard done by  it was one of those afternoons that could have been perfick if only the little one could of accompanied me  she doesn't know what she is missing out on she would get lots more walking time if she could come to the pub .


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I have a doggy who looks like my dog again :thumbup: Well if I could find her from under her bed, she's so sleepy on the piriton. She did zoomies in the snowy garden and came back to bed after breakfast and it's been Zzzzzz since.
> 
> At least I don't have to take her out far today. I've already fell over trying to get to the station to get to work and gave up, came home. I'm glad as whilst I don't mind making the effort I don't want to get to work and get stuck if the trains pack up. It's so irritating to get there from 40 miles away and find the place empty. Anyway I went on my left side so my left shoulder hurts as much as the right one which is still useless after the op.


Really pleased Molly is looking more like her old self. So was it an allergic reaction to something?

Sorry you've hurt your shoulder though.


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Is it the snow making the people have zoomies in text, never mind the dogs, this thread seems to have gone into overdrive .
> 
> I will pick a few people -
> 
> Molly - glad the neck is going down even if it means sleepies. Molly is stunning , I love dogs with that white blaze down their front, but it surprised me I didn't realise Molly had it she has looked all black in pictures I have seen of her before.
> 
> Sarah - I think you are right on the dog ownership thing a little knowledge being dangerous. I also think that I am a bit over paranoid about Ginges behaviour due to having had a dog who would have taken great offence to her, many people would and do just put it down to normal terrier behaviour and either let her get on with it or keep her at home but I don't feel it is appropriate behaviour in the slightest and I also want a dog that eventually can come out and about with us.
> 
> MV - love the snowy nose pic and F&F I love that last bonkers shot you posted in your garden.
> 
> LO - I like the westie ladies name for your boy  she sounds like a sensible lady though.
> 
> Dogless - glad the boys are mastering synchonrised pooing although I suspect it might be a one off, Buffs and Elsie always manage your normal scenario as well which may well be why their owner is a fan of stick and flick .
> 
> Toppa - are you doing anything to stop him barking or is it just experiences, and more experiences - please share your secret if you have one  oh and don't worry about Toppa looking yellow in the snow, I saw two swans today and they looked yellow too!
> 
> I went out yesterday afternoon with my friend and as per usual ended up snuggled in the pub (it was her birthday on Friday as well, we had a valid excuse this time ) and came out to find total wipe out . Got home and took the ginger one for a run round the estate and I swear no-one had stepped foot outside for at least 3 hrs, the roads and pavements had melded into one and there were no footprints or tyre marks anywhere so we ran round in circles making a mess of the pristineness. Then bumped into a couple I know who had just ventured out to go the bar, and I may have made a little bit of a fool of myself in a slightly tipsy being silly with my dog kind of way. I saw them again this morning as they came out to shovel snow and they laughed at me .
> 
> The roads were still snow chocked this morning and lots of cars still sitting in driveways covered in snow, working from home everyone , we chose to walk round the fishing lakes and were the first people on that path, just bunny footprints in the snow . Am going to put a thread up in a bit.
> 
> Buuuut to the 'working on' bit she is doing well I hope (fingers crossed and all that) Yesterday afternoon I took her up a very quiet lane on her long line, nice walk but a little treacherous as quiet = still icy. She came with me every time I called this way and recalled away from some loose sheep  She didn't bark at the strange bundled up people we saw yesterday evening (she has taken offence to the man before ) this morning just as she pooed, a couple of dogs appeared and crossed over away from us, so I risked it and left her to it while I cleared up. She just looked at them not even in a very frantic way  Then we had to divert away from another couple later on again just a look and happy to come with me. THEN we bumped into the lady and lab who goes to the same trainer with her friend and her lurcher, I couldn't turn again as the other dogs were behind us BUT we got quite close before she kicked off. Lab lady being understanding explained to her friend who put her dog on lead and lab lady backtracked so she could stand off the path apologising as she couldn't go anywhere else (he is lungey and big and strong!!) I made my way past the lurcher with drama but not too much, he is a barker as well sooo......and then I ran  past the lab lady and she shut up almost straight away. I am feeling very positive :thumbup: so no doubt she will ruin it all later and prove it was all a fluke .


Thank you so much for the comments about Molly, she is a very pretty lady when she wants to be and loves to show off her belly. At the moment she seems to like to roll over and wave her legs in the air to every passing person on our walk even in the snow!

Well done, that's positive progress. I hope it's not a fluke. We had two good on lead passes with Molly this weekend so I hope that the step up in our lessons is helping. We had her perfect in September with our trainer but she regressed as my husband started to walk her on the harness. The trainer had her on lead and collar. I am now sure it's either the harness means party time and get lungey or that we, as her humans, are daft pushovers.

I love the pub story - merry dog walking is the way to go!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm not sure it's just this to be honest. I think a lot of pet owners just don't have the skills to teach things that people like Twiggy, Smokeybear etc find easy. Then there's the fact socialisation is really, really pushed and yet while people are told it's important to socialise their puppies it's not really explained what they should be doing. To them their puppy is being socialised when it's running up to every dog or person it sees. I think it's often a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. Look at all the people who come here asking for advice thinking they've been doing the right thing by just letting their dog play willy nilly with others. They're just the taxi to Disneyland as someone else puts it, their dog has all its fun with other dogs and the environment, is it any wonder they have recall issues?
> 
> There are of course a hell of a lot of people who want a well behaved dog without having to put any work in though. I'm sure they view dogs like household appliances, no training necessary, just give the command and you'll get the desired result. And of course those of us who have put work in to having a well behaved dog are "lucky" coz it seems ours works the way it was intended to
> 
> I don't think the fact dogs are so unwelcome in so many places helps either. Out here you see dogs pretty much everywhere and there seems to be a much more relaxed attitude towards them. 99% of dogs we meet are under control and non aggressive. They may come trotting over to say hello but if called away they respond. I've yet to see someone out here chasing their dog around trying to grab it like I've seen plenty of times in the UK lol. I guess maybe other dogs and people are just common place to them instead of a big deal and something to get excited over?
> 
> Sadly I'm absolutely paranoid about my dogs behaviour having had so many bad experiences with Rupert. I err on the side of caution possibly a bit too much now. And I don't think that's helping me with Spencer to be honest. I've been avoiding places with other dogs where possible and it's not exactly teaching him anything is it? How can he learn to be calm around other dogs if we only see other dogs once in a blue moon?
> 
> ETA: Okay, I kinda rambled a bit there lol, sorry.


You haven't rambled at all and have made some very valid points.

I commented on a post a few days ago that when handlers bring a new pup here they are passed around from knee to knee for cuddles and meet the older dogs in a controlled environment. They then go out on the floor with their owners, with copious amounts of tit-bits and tuggy toys. The emphasis is strongly on them interacting with their handlers and ignoring all the other dogs. We might let the pups, if there are two or three of them, have a little play at the end of the session. I'm not a huge puppy lover and certainly don't coo over them (or babies for that matter) but they get to meet 'auntie' and do a bit with me because I may well need to handle/work them later on.

Totally agree with your second paragraph - I'm always having to polish the magic wand...LOL

Yes I also agree that dogs are banned from so many places these days that the problems in areas where they are allowed in compounded.

You are trying so hard with Spen and previous bad experiences are bound to make you cautious. It's such a pity there isn't a training club over there where they use modern methods.


----------



## Freddie and frank

well, while there seems to be a lot of poo posting today, yesterday, frank edged his rear up on to a wall and did a poo  said wall was only about a foot tall. 
i'm normally seen rooting through hedges and bushes trying to find his poos cause this is where he likes to do them.:yesnod:

now i must get some work done else i'll be catching up for the next few days and there'll be 10 million pages to catch up on again.


----------



## Twiggy

It's no good, although this is a very interesting debate, a certain little collie keeps tapping my leg because she wants to go training...!!

So trudging through 5 inches of snow off we'd better go...LOL


----------



## kat&molly

I think ownership has exploded as well. When I last lived in the UK, nearly 10 years ago, I never used to bump in to lots of people out walking dogs. I didn't live rurally either.


----------



## Nicki85

Last time at agility one chap asked me where I got RUsty from, I said the Springer Rescue. He joked saying did he come ready trained from the dog academy?! I didn't know how to take it... I have spent a long time getting Rusty to where he is now... granted he has never been a particularly difficult dog but still without the work I suspect he would be a bit of a g*t! So, I laughed him off and explained that we work every day, on our walks and any chance to make him more manageable- just through making things fun! I've always been a bit wary of this chap as he is very much shout at dog if it doesn't behave, no malice in it but I don't think he sees how his dogs react to him. 

When I first took Rusty to dog training classes I was bemused to see that things had not moved on. THe dogs looked bored out of their minds... I remember a staffy coming in for a private session with a young lad. The lad did not have a clue and the instructor had it on a check chain and whenever it pulled she would stop and yank it. It's experiences like this that mean that uneducated (about dog training(!)) people learn the wrong way to deal with these things. I never used any of their methods of training... just used it to run through socialisation and training. I have found it incredibly difficult to find a "positive reinforcement" only pet class in this area. Agility wise I am with two clubs, one where shouting or any sort of correction is considered not good... all about ignoring the wrong behaviour and rewarding the good. THe other class is similar. 

Rusty hates being shouted at in any way so I can only use positive reinforcement. He shuts down the minute anyone raises their voice (even if at another dog in class...)....


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> You haven't rambled at all and have made some very valid points.
> 
> I commented on a post a few days ago that when handlers bring a new pup here they are passed around from knee to knee for cuddles and meet the older dogs in a controlled environment. They then go out on the floor with their owners, with copious amounts of tit-bits and tuggy toys. The emphasis is strongly on them interacting with their handlers and ignoring all the other dogs. We might let the pups, if there are two or three of them, have a little play at the end of the session. I'm not a huge puppy lover and certainly don't coo over them (or babies for that matter) but they get to meet 'auntie' and do a bit with me because I may well need to handle/work them later on.
> 
> Totally agree with your second paragraph - I'm always having to polish the magic wand...LOL
> 
> Yes I also agree that dogs are banned from so many places these days that the problems in areas where they are allowed in compounded.
> 
> You are trying so hard with Spen and previous bad experiences are bound to make you cautious. It's such a pity there isn't a training club over there where they use modern methods.


Thanks, don't feel like I was just chatting bubbles now lol. Someone was talking about setting up a non dominance based training class about a half hour drive away but I've not heard anything more on it. Will have to ask and find out whether it's still going ahead and if so whether it will be at a time hubby can take me.

F&F, Spencer has a thing about pooing up tree trunks, on tree stumps and stuff like that. Rupert once pooped through a chain link fence onto a school playground. Shadow used to like nettles and tall prickly grass or bushes.

Snow's really coming down here at the moment. Spencer thinks it's wonderful, I strongly disagree with him. And my cross stitch threads came today so I'm going to be spending most of the evening winding about 120 skeins of thread onto bobbins and labelling them. Once that's done I can start my new project which is a bit daunting as it's absolutely huge :scared: The fabric for it came the other day and it's big enough to be used as a blanket!


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Really pleased Molly is looking more like her old self. So was it an allergic reaction to something?
> 
> Sorry you've hurt your shoulder though.


I honestly don't know. I looked again really close with a magnifying glass and cannot see a thing.

It's a pain about the shoulder, now they both hurt it feels like a matching pair!

Oh goodness my signature is HOOOGE I will edit, that's just greedy


----------



## Guest

MollySmith said:


> I honestly don't know. I looked again really close with a magnifying glass and cannot see a thing.
> 
> It's a pain about the shoulder, now they both hurt it feels like a matching pair!
> 
> Oh goodness my signature is HOOOGE I will edit, that's just greedy


OOh actually how do you DO signatures? Cos I would like one of Zand!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Ok quick poll which one and which colour leaning towards the soft shell in case she has a reaction to rustly waterproof stuff and our soft shell jackets are pretty shower proof 
Buster Softshell Outdoor Wear All Purpose Jackets for Dogs

Buster Outdoor Winter Wear Jackets for Dogs

I think I like the blue really but then she will look like a boy, but, I am not allowed anything remotely pink.

In the soft shell the red & blue will match the lead and harness (not that that will be seen) but will it set off her autumn tones ?? But then online ordering often comes up with odd colours so should i just stick with the black and white as I know what colours they are. Ohhhh decisions


----------



## MollySmith

I cannot believe OH has taken Molly out for a lead walk without her coat in this weather. :mad2: And he has left his phone here so I can't take it around to them :mad2: :mad2:


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> OOh actually how do you DO signatures? Cos I would like one of Zand!!


If you go to your profile and click about you, then cutomize (in the middle ish of your screen), then the left menu once you've click customise will have a bit that that says edit signature.

I just changed the pic but my old signature had a montage I did in Photoshop of Molly in the summer. Took me seconds to do the montage as Photoshop is my day job, days to work out how to load it on here!


----------



## Sarah1983

Photovisi - Photo Collage Maker is pretty good if you just want to do a collage of photos. I made this one on there. Err...obviously I'd need to resize it for a signature coz that's way too big but it looks nice as my desktop lol.









I love my photoshop but don't have it on this computer. Will have to install it at some point.


----------



## Dogless

GR - cheers ... hic :thumbup:. I like the first jacket in red . And...you ran :thumbup:.

Sarah - I am too cautious I think with the boys...it's hard to know what to do sometimes. The lady I walk with with her dog Dizzy and I were talking the other night - I always used to give her a wide berth as she used to put him on lead as soon as we were spotted and I did the same and we used to just wave and be on our way. You know what the fields here are like when busy - just a frenzy of uncontrolled dogs so Kilo used to just go on lead and we would watch or leave unless known 'friendlies' were in - which meant everyone avoided us too; yet had I let him run amok he would have been 'friendly' if that makes any sense?

Werehorse - hmmm. Snow jealousy. Ours has been going all day but is just sleet and rain now . Horrible weather . Kilo has to sit and wait when I poo pick and am working on same with Rudi too :thumbup:.

MollySmith - so pleased that Molly's on the mend.

STOP PRESS. No blood drawn for several days either accidentally or as the result of a crocattack AND I have started to leave shoes off in the house .


----------



## moonviolet

I went out wilth full intention of having a training walk this morning. We've been doing some some really nice tidy heelwork in the house, backgarden and even the super exciting front garden, next step up is on a quiet walk not the pavement we still find pavement walks super exciting. So with a bag of treats and good intentions we head out. Only to be a few minutes into our walk when tag along dog appears... so that was training walk out the window, then we bumped into Jassy and Hetty and we all walked together for the rest of our walk. Was a nice social walk. with some snowy playtime and the sun came out and it's beginning to melt. 

GR I too love the first coat in red, it looks very sporty.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> F&F love the pictures.
> 
> K&M I find Oscar is getting more and more stuck in his ways as he gets older
> 
> I sometimes think common sense has gone out of dog training. There are so many different theories and ways to achieve something that I often think new owners get overwhelmed and then just give up.
> 
> Boys were fabulous today. Took them both out again to the field and it was a bit busier than usual but plenty of room to run around. Sam focussed On Oscar and the toy and only had to go on lead a couple of times. Sam even had a quick play with a collie and Oscar joined in  He then came back for his toy and so did Sam.
> 
> *They did get a bit silly and hyper at the end when walking back to the car and managed to jump up and rip my coat*
> 
> I have dentist in an hour


Sam, Oscar and Holly must be telepathic as Holly also ripped mine in a couple of places going over to the barn. In fairness I was watching my feet rather than her as the snow was very deep in places.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Gr, the first coat looks more comfy, I like the red but also like the maroon coloured one,  sorry.


----------



## GingerRogers

Freddie and frank said:


> Gr, the first coat looks more comfy, I like the red but also like the *maroon coloured one*,  sorry.


Phew thats the one I ordered , I didn't like to admit it earlier and fly in the face of advice, sorry Dogless and MV but I was impatient and had already hit buy before I saw your replies .

I looked it up on another site than the one I linked and it looks nicer colours so fingers crossed. TBH I have been quite vocal about dogs in coats in the past and so I went chicken and got the least stand out one as well .


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I think ownership has exploded as well. When I last lived in the UK, nearly 10 years ago, I never used to bump in to lots of people out walking dogs. I didn't live rurally either.


Yes I think thats true and also most people now have pedigree dogs, or designer crossbreeds, whereas years ago most families seem to have mongrels.


----------



## Beth17

Twiggy said:


> Sam, Oscar and Holly must be telepathic as Holly also ripped mine in a couple of places going over to the barn. In fairness I was watching my feet rather than her as the snow was very deep in places.


Got to love them 

Well I didn't need anything doing at the dentist :thumbup:

Came back and found that someone had eaten a couple of pears, chewed up a torch and also a clay model thing my brother made years ago. I have no proof but I have a feeling I know who did it :nono:
There was also water all over the floor where a water bowl had been upturned. I do hope he grows out of this. Oscar has never done anything like this and he was only 2 months older than Sam is now when I got him.


----------



## L/C

Phew - just caught up with this!

GR - I like that soft shell coat it's very cute.

We were stranded in Kent overnight! Luckily had the pooches with us but we had to dig the car out this afternoon to get a lift to the station once the snow had finally stopped. It did mean though that I couldn't go to work today so the pointy twins have had lots of nice walks in the Kent countryside. I've got some pictures of the last few days but as OH hates the cold and won't let me take his fancy pants DSLR out without him they are all crappy camera phone pics.

Will put them up in a minute.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - I am too cautious I think with the boys...it's hard to know what to do sometimes. The lady I walk with with her dog Dizzy and I were talking the other night - I always used to give her a wide berth as she used to put him on lead as soon as we were spotted and I did the same and we used to just wave and be on our way. You know what the fields here are like when busy - just a frenzy of uncontrolled dogs so Kilo used to just go on lead and we would watch or leave unless known 'friendlies' were in - which meant everyone avoided us too; yet had I let him run amok he would have been 'friendly' if that makes any sense?


Yeah, this is exactly what I do. I leash Spencer as soon as I see another dog so that he can't go charging over, which is exactly what he would do, and then most people also leash theirs or go out of their way to avoid us so we very rarely actually get to meet other dogs and their owners. I sometimes wonder whether I should stop putting him on leash but then I don't want him running up to other dogs whenever he feels like it so it seems I can't win either way.

Then of course there's my evasion tactics that are pretty much ingrained now. Old habits certainly do die hard  I go out of my way to avoid and then afterwards think "why the hell did I do that?" but of course by then it's too late. I'm managing to catch myself more now but I have to literally force myself not to turn around or dive down a side street if I see another dog.

Congratulations on the lack of blood drawn! Not sure Twiggy will agree there though :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Yes I think thats true and also most people now have pedigree dogs, or designer crossbreeds, whereas years ago most families seem to have mongrels.


Do you reckon that makes a difference Twiggy? Most of the people I knew when I had Shadow and Wolf had pedigrees, I was quite the odd one out with one definite mutt and one who was possibly a full collie but possibly a collie mix. Maybe everyone near me was just posh :lol:


----------



## purpleskyes

Hudson is my first puppy so I just wanted to check this is normal puppy behaviour but he likes to I can only describe it as bop other dogs on the head with his paw?

OH said they met a manchester terrier when they were out walking earlier which snarled, growled at him and then tried to jump on him :/ think Hudson thought it was a game and did his usual I am going to bop you with my paw.

The owner quickly grabbed the terrier said it had never happened before and apologised.


----------



## GingerRogers

purpleskyes said:


> Hudson is my first puppy so I just wanted to check this is normal puppy behaviour but he likes to I can only describe it as bop other dogs on the head with his paw?
> 
> OH said they met a manchester terrier when they were out walking earlier which snarled, growled at him and then tried to jump on him :/ think Hudson thought it was a game and did his usual I am going to bop you with my paw.
> 
> The owner quickly grabbed the terrier said it had never happened before and apologised.


I don't know about pups, never had one but it was about the only form of interaction Rory ever had with a dog. It wasn't a playful thing with him though, it was always pups that had been hassling him to play, he didn't play 

It sounds like your big boy is just bemused with these little creatures and needs to check what they are made of .


----------



## Beth17

purpleskyes said:


> Hudson is my first puppy so I just wanted to check this is normal puppy behaviour but he likes to I can only describe it as bop other dogs on the head with his paw?
> 
> OH said they met a manchester terrier when they were out walking earlier which snarled, growled at him and then tried to jump on him :/ think Hudson thought it was a game and did his usual I am going to bop you with my paw.
> 
> The owner quickly grabbed the terrier said it had never happened before and apologised.


Yes completely normal, well for my pup at least  He still hasn't learnt his manners and it gets him into trouble. Some breeds are more prone to using paws than others. He's probably just trying to instigate play.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Congratulations on the lack of blood drawn! Not sure Twiggy will agree there though :lol:


I spoke too soon; lovely cut on my knuckle where LCH caught me trying to grab a toy :nonod::nono:.

You are so right about the lead thing; even if I say that either dog is OK once I meet someone they often say "Are you sure?" as they have massive suspicion because I use a lead .



purpleskyes said:


> Hudson is my first puppy so I just wanted to check this is normal puppy behaviour but he likes to I can only describe it as bop other dogs on the head with his paw?
> 
> OH said they met a manchester terrier when they were out walking earlier which snarled, growled at him and then tried to jump on him :/ think Hudson thought it was a game and did his usual I am going to bop you with my paw.
> 
> The owner quickly grabbed the terrier said it had never happened before and apologised.


Yep; sounds normal!

I was lazy this afternoon...the weather is horrendous and I just couldn't face separate walks . I knew that there wouldn't be any other dogs out for Rudi to practise ignoring and then perhaps playing with and knew there wouldn't be many people / bikes / kids about either PLUS my decent waterproof jacket was still very much drying from this morning and I just lost my will to remain freezing cold and wet for two walks . So - I took both boys out together up to the top fields where there is a decent amount of snow left to fool about in and let them play with each other and me . They walked really well there and back - we saw the packers moving my friend out and the man shouted to the others "There! That's them!!" . I stopped and he explained that he'd pointed two RRs walking together out to the other men a few days ago....phew, thought I was being framed in a whodunnit or something for a sec :scared: :lol:.


----------



## moonviolet

GR i think the maroon will look nice on Ginge too. I think iw as swayed by happy memories with the red on, it was the exact shades in my team racing swimsuit, back in the days i had a body that i didn't mind being seen in a swimsuit :lol:

I forgot to say i saw a little Ginge look like yesterday she was pulling like a train and yipping as we stood, Tink sat aside to let them pass.  Her owner smiled and said " she's very enthusiastic to get going today."


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GR i think the maroon will look nice on Ginge too. I think iw as swayed by happy memories with the red on, it was the exact shades in my team racing swimsuit, back in the days i had a body that i didn't mind being seen in a swimsuit :lol:
> 
> I forgot to say i saw a little Ginge look like yesterday she was pulling like a train and yipping as we stood, Tink sat aside to let them pass.  Her owner smiled and said " she's very enthusiastic to get going today."


Oh reminiscing MV , I was tempted as it does look very sporty and smart and it does match her harness, but that is more blue than red and I just have a bit of a block about red and ginger together 

The lookalikey sounds like a twin  although I have never tried to pass her 'enthusiasm' off as a one off lol.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Do you reckon that makes a difference Twiggy? Most of the people I knew when I had Shadow and Wolf had pedigrees, I was quite the odd one out with one definite mutt and one who was possibly a full collie but possibly a collie mix. Maybe everyone near me was just posh :lol:


Yes I think it does. I'm talking probably 40 years ago but in those days in was very rare to see such breeds as Malamutes, Belgian Shepherd Dogs, etc. etc.

Nowadays most people have pedigree dogs and I'm not convinced that some are suitable for your average Joe Bloggs.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Oh reminiscing MV , I was tempted as it does look very sporty and smart and it does match her harness, but that is more blue than red and I just have a bit of a block about red and ginger together
> 
> The lookalikey sounds like a twin  although I have never tried to pass her 'enthusiasm' off as a one off lol.


I'm sure it was a regular occurence with ginge-alike but in her defence she was pulling forward and not toward TInk who looked bewildered she doesn't ever really show _*that*_ much enthusiasm.


----------



## Werehorse

I've also seen a dog like Ginge pulling like a train and yipping madly! :lol: That one was in Sheffield - they're taking over the world!

I like the maroon coat, it'll suit her colouring. 

I'm tempted to get the boys a red and blue one each but OH would actually kill me at this point if I tried to persuade him the boys *needed* matching jackets. :lol: I'm quite looking forward to starting my new mad job as I'd quite like to be able to squirrel away some money for "silly" things for the dogs.


----------



## moonviolet

I definitely second dogs chosen on looks or by what they have seen them doing on TV. There was a total rash of out of control collies arround here the start of last summer goodness knows what happened to them all, they'd disappeared by autumn.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> I've also seen a dog like Ginge pulling like a train and yipping madly! :lol: That one was in Sheffield - they*'re taking over the world!*
> 
> I like the maroon coat, it'll suit her colouring.
> 
> I'm tempted to get the boys a red and blue one each but OH would actually kill me at this point if I tried to persuade him the boys *needed* matching jackets. :lol: I'm quite looking forward to starting my new mad job as I'd quite like to be able to squirrel away some money for "silly" things for the dogs.


Argh Nooooooooo!!!! We had a good laugh last night about making sure we get her spayed *if *she ever comes into season again. We deffo don't want little gingers :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Yes I think it does. I'm talking probably 40 years ago but in those days in was very rare to see such breeds as Malamutes, Belgian Shepherd Dogs, etc. etc.
> 
> Nowadays most people have pedigree dogs and I'm not convinced that some are suitable for your average Joe Bloggs.


Ah, I'm only going back about 15 years lol. I'd agree that there are breeds that don't seem suitable for your average do owner though. Most of the people I knew had labs, goldens, spaniels and other fairly...hmmm, not easy as such breeds but ones that aren't what I'd consider specialist if you know what I mean? Don't mean to offend anyone there but there's a hell of a difference between owning a labrador and owning a malinois for example!


----------



## Twiggy

I tried videoing the two old girls running down the paddock but sadly, due to my lack of skill with all things electrical, it didn't work.

Just want to see if this very old video which my sister took using my camera will:

HPIM0545.mp4 video by Wendystwinstwiggy | Photobucket


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Ah, I'm only going back about 15 years lol. I'd agree that there are breeds that don't seem suitable for your average do owner though. Most of the people I knew had labs, goldens, spaniels and other fairly...hmmm, not easy as such breeds but ones that aren't what I'd consider specialist if you know what I mean? Don't mean to offend anyone there but there's a hell of a difference between owning a labrador and owning a malinois for example!


Agreed...


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I definitely second dogs chosen on looks or by what they have seen them doing on TV. There was a total rash of out of control collies arround here the start of last summer goodness knows what happened to them all, they'd disappeared by autumn.


It's husky/malamute types (sorry I really can not tell the difference sometimes) and ridgebacks here. I think in the whole time I've been here I've seen ONE adult ridgeback yet I've seen about 10 puppies with different people :confused1:


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> I tried videoing the two old girls running down the paddock but sadly, due to my lack of skill with all things electrical, it didn't work.
> 
> Just want to see if this very old video which my sister took using my camera will:
> 
> HPIM0545.mp4 video by Wendystwinstwiggy | Photobucket


It does work, very impressive control, is that just to prove that you were using toy reinforcers in the good ole days, Grannie


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I tried videoing the two old girls running down the paddock but sadly, due to my lack of skill with all things electrical, it didn't work.
> 
> Just want to see if this very old video which my sister took using my camera will:
> 
> HPIM0545.mp4 video by Wendystwinstwiggy | Photobucket


Just beautiful :001_wub: love the happy stride and tail carriage.

I aim hopefully for similar, just a below the knee version :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> It does work, very impressive control, is that just to prove that you were using toy reinforcers in the good ole days, Grannie


Ha bludy ha....!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Ha bludy ha....!!


You did say it was a VERY old video


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I tried videoing the two old girls running down the paddock but sadly, due to my lack of skill with all things electrical, it didn't work.
> 
> Just want to see if this very old video which my sister took using my camera will:
> 
> HPIM0545.mp4 video by Wendystwinstwiggy | Photobucket


It does work, Grannie; your sister must have been turning the handle on the camera fast to get a good video  .



Sarah1983 said:


> It's husky/malamute types (sorry I really can not tell the difference sometimes) and ridgebacks here. I think in the whole time I've been here I've seen ONE adult ridgeback yet I've seen about 10 puppies with different people :confused1:


Ridgebacks are one of those breeds that 'army folk' seem to get more commonly that the general population (I know, stereotype fits here ) but, like you, people ask me about Kilo or see another and then I see pups....but never the adult dog..... I have been asked if I want one or two of them - along with all manner of other breeds, you know what it's like . I was offered a 2 year old male the other day at training class when someone saw I had a pup; I directed them towards breed rescue.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> You did say it was a VERY old video


Well it's Leafy so I suppose it's about 8-9 yrs old - I'm even fatter than that now.....


----------



## Izzysmummy

Nicky - sounds like Rusty's doing great with his weaves

Dogless - sounds like the boys have done great on their walks today! Love the synchronised pooping! Izzy and Millie do that sometimes (although not as much now Izzy's on raw) and synchronised wee wees. Sounds like crocopup is finally getting less teethy!

LO - sounds like Zanders full of beans today!

Twiggy - love your garden, I'll send Izzy round to do some zoomies in all that lovely snow! That video is very impressive, such control! I will aspire to be as good as you one day!

F+F - lovely pics of the boys and Bella!*

Werehorse - so jealous of your day, love your pics too!

MollySmith - glad Molly is a bit better, hope she didn't get too cold out with OH!

Mv - sounds like a lovely social walk for you and Miss Tink!

Beth - naughty Sam!

GR - I'm sure Ginge will look lovely in her new coat! We'll need photos once it arrives!

L/C - looking forward to Kent holiday photos, glad you got back safe!


Well this morning we woke up to about an inch of the white stuff and apparently Izzy had some major zoomies! She also bumped into her bestest friend in the world, Lenny! They had great fun running around and chasing each other until they went barreling into poor Lennys Mum, think Izzy got a bit squidged and let out a little yelp but then got a bit over the top playing with Lenny so Tarnus called her away and let her calm down.

Then this evening we had a nice walk, she can sometimes be a bit skittish if someone is walking behind us so I worked on letting people overtake us whilst maintaining focus. We also spotted a little fox! Well Izzy spotted him first, tensed up and focused on something then I spotted him too, but we had no lunging just an initial "what's that?" then looking to me for a treat. She was pretty sniffy after that so he must have smelled good! :lol:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy, that video is brilliant :thumbup:

LC, when oh isn't looking, quickly take some silly photos with his camera and don't tell him. Like nostrils, cleavage, where's wally type ones....Singing:Singing:

I managed to get a bit of work done  
Took bella out for a quick walk with nanny and grandad up to the bus stop (bless them, they live in a cul de sac and won't drive the car up it in this weather) and they were impressed at how nicely she walked. 

Taking boys out in a bit. I lost a stone just before Xmas and its coming back slowly so I need to walk my tea off. Quick. :scared:


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Twiggy, that video is brilliant :thumbup:
> 
> LC, when oh isn't looking, quickly take some silly photos with his camera and don't tell him. Like nostrils, cleavage, where's wally type ones....Singing:Singing:
> 
> I managed to get a bit of work done
> Took bella out for a quick walk with nanny and grandad up to the bus stop (bless them, they live in a cul de sac and won't drive the car up it in this weather) and they were impressed at how nicely she walked.
> 
> *Taking boys out in a bit. I lost a stone just before Xmas and its coming back slowly so I need to walk my tea off*. Quick. :scared:


How did you do that - a stone is very impressive!!


----------



## Twiggy

Right then girls you're all good with computers and cameras; do I take the lunge whip to my flipping camera or offer it a tit-bit?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Right then girls you're all good with computers and cameras; do I take the lunge whip to my flipping camera or offer it a tit-bit?


Just gentle praise and a little coaxing with a tit - bit. Cheese works best.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Right then girls you're all good with computers and cameras; do I take the lunge whip to my flipping camera or offer it a tit-bit?


Pfft give it the lunge whip missus, it will become a dominant little bradwurst otherwise. 

ETA: Bugger, I thought I'd got the hang of sigs.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> I've also seen a dog like Ginge pulling like a train and yipping madly! :lol: That one was in Sheffield - they're taking over the world!
> 
> I like the maroon coat, it'll suit her colouring.
> 
> I'm tempted to get the boys a red and blue one each but OH would actually kill me at this point if I tried to persuade him the boys *needed* matching jackets. :lol: I'm quite looking forward to starting my new mad job as I'd quite like to be able to squirrel away some money for "silly" things for the dogs.


Also forgot to say that the boys would.look great in 'silly' matching blue and red coats


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Also forgot to say that the boys would.look great in 'silly' matching blue and red coats


I will go back to the pages I've missed honest (just got back from a shift) 
but just so you know I have ordered zander a bright bright sunshine yellow coat.
Silly looking? Probs?


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Just gentle praise and a little coaxing with a tit - bit. Cheese works best.


And patience 

Lurcher owner Sig worked. I am sure zander will look great in his coat.


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> And patience
> 
> Lurcher owner Sig worked. I am sure zander will look great in his coat.


How the heck do I make it bigger!?!?


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## GingerRogers

No idea. Is it not ok on a pc. I am on phone you see.


----------



## Dogless

Well....I have good news...and bad news....

The good news is that I have just looked outside and we're getting a decent amount of snow  :thumbup:.

The bad news is what prompted me to get up and go near a window was to get something for Rudi to chew having just had a grab / shake stealth attack on my foot :scared: :crazy::crazy:.


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> No idea. Is it not ok on a pc. I am on phone you see.


Its properly diddy in the corner.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> How the heck do I make it bigger!?!?


Well it's no good asking me.....

I took your advice with my camera though and gave it a good thrashing and I think it's done the trick. I'll take it out with me in the morning.

Here a pic of the two old girls this afternoon (Leafy was knocking hell out of the space hopper):


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Well....I have good news...and bad news....
> 
> The good news is that I have just looked outside and we're getting a decent amount of snow  :thumbup:.
> 
> The bad news is what prompted me to get up and go near a window was to get something for Rudi to chew having just had a grab / shake stealth attack on my foot :scared: :crazy::crazy:.


Yikes. Crocopuppy Mark 2.


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy what a lovely video, great to see such happy heelwork.


Nicki85 said:


> I've bought a few books off amazon (naughty!)-
> *Turid Rugaas Calming signals book... see if I can figure out why most dogs hate Rusty so much!*
> The dog vinci code by John Robertson... just because i've been meaning to read it for ages!
> Snooping around by Martina Nau cause I reckon if I can understand how to teach Rusty to track/ find objects I think it would be something he would enjoy
> 
> Anyone got any of the above?


Have borrowed this from the uni library several times, really good read! Easy to understand and it made a lot of things "click" for me, a real eye-opener.



purpleskyes said:


> Hudson is my first puppy so I just wanted to check this is normal puppy behaviour but he likes to I can only describe it as bop other dogs on the head with his paw?
> 
> OH said they met a manchester terrier when they were out walking earlier which snarled, growled at him and then tried to jump on him :/ think Hudson thought it was a game and did his usual I am going to bop you with my paw.
> 
> The owner quickly grabbed the terrier said it had never happened before and apologised.


I'd say it's fairly normal! We know a lady with a Spanner x JRT who used to do this to Scooter, and Scooter himself did it when he was a pup (still attempts to do so when we meet the local Peke on walks, he's fascinated by it!). It's not "polite" but wouldn't say it's something to worry about 

Gosh, you lot have been chatty today! Hope everyone's had fun in the snow, certainly sounds like you have.

Saw some struggling cars on our walk last night so trekked over to Blue Cross in the Land Rover, glad I did because there were wheels spinning left right and centre, and some abandoned cars on either side of the hill out of the village - bit grim!
Walked little Poppy to the town centre and she was good as gold, avoided untrampled snow because she'd disappear! Lucky girl has spent most of the day in the staff room, had a nap on my lap at lunchtime :001_wub:
Also walked and played with Belle the SBT who I want to kidnap, and took some photos for her website profile. She'll be up for homing this week and can't imagine she'll be waiting long.
No-one has dared take Paddy or Ollie for a walk today, the pavements are rapidly turning into sheet ice and with the bouncy boys we wouldn't stand a chance of staying upright in this weather so they're having extra garden time for now. Didn't do much training with Paddy because zoomies were more important but practiced Ollie's "leave it" and "wait", he's a cracking dog and is more than ready for a new home! Granny will be pleased to hear that we're using toy reinforcers with great success 

Could natter about the rescue dogs all day, it's lovely to meet and work with such a varied bunch! My heart really does go out to Poppy, she was reserved last week then the people changed their mind so she's still looking. In an ideal world I'd be applying to take her on because I've got to know her funny ways and what makes her tick, but there's no way my dad would stand for 3 dogs in the house, especially another un-housetrained one!
Love the little girl to bits and fingers crossed the right home is just around the corner.


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> Its properly diddy in the corner.


Oh oops.  Err... I'll have a think. I'm on a Mac and I think I cheated and just made the size of the original sig bigger.

Edit - try this 
http://www.petforums.co.uk/forum-he...ow-do-i-make-my-signature-picture-larger.html


----------



## Thorne

This mention of the return of Crocopuppy has reminded me that Ollie must have been reading this thread earlier and noted a recent lack of biting - most of my hand disappeared into his mouth instead of the rope toy he was aiming for during this afternoon's playtime.
It's a good job he's getting good at "leave it", he's not done any damage but that's a definite bull breed grip he's got hmy: :lol: No blood drawn sadly but got a bit of a bruise and a couple of toothmarks!


----------



## Guest

Stop making me want to take paddy home, thorne!!! 

He pretty much sounds like Zander.


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> Stop making me want to take paddy home, thorne!!!
> 
> He pretty much sounds like Zander.


They do sound similar! As fun as he is I'm sure that 2 loonies would be more than enough to tip you over the edge into insanity, don't think they'd ever stop chasing or wrestling 
Imagine walking them both on icy pavements, eek!


----------



## zaza1213

Letting my mini poodle Phoebe grow out the last 3 months to do some creative grooming with her at an up coming seminar.. but the weather is making it a bit of hard work . she loves running and playing in the snow but the snow sticks to her wooly coat.. think I may have to trim it down till better weather


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> This mention of the return of Crocopuppy has reminded me that Ollie must have been reading this thread earlier and noted a recent lack of biting - most of my hand disappeared into his mouth instead of the rope toy he was aiming for during this afternoon's playtime.
> It's a good job he's getting good at "leave it", he's not done any damage but that's a definite bull breed grip he's got hmy: :lol: No blood drawn sadly but got a bit of a bruise and a couple of toothmarks!


That's my boy Ollie......:devil:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's my boy Ollie......:devil:


I would ask if you fancied my little crocopuppy for holidays until he stops biting....but you'd encourage him :scared:.


----------



## Guest

Thorne said:


> They do sound similar! As fun as he is I'm sure that 2 loonies would be more than enough to tip you over the edge into insanity, *don't think they'd ever stop chasing or wrestling *
> Imagine walking them both on icy pavements, eek!


SEE, I TELL MY MUM THIS EVERYTIME SHE GOES TO ZAND
"I'd Bet you'd LOVE a little friend!"

It would have to be THE most laid back dog ever.

EVER.

:lol:


----------



## Guest

OH OOOH DOGLESS DOGLESS!!!

I HAVE JUST SEEN THE NEWEST RUDI THREAD. 

BLOODY HELL, HE IS MAHOOSIVE. 

LIKE, JESUS H, HE'S A BIG LAD.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> OH OOOH DOGLESS DOGLESS!!!
> 
> I HAVE JUST SEEN THE NEWEST RUDI THREAD.
> 
> BLOODY HELL, HE IS MAHOOSIVE.
> 
> LIKE, JESUS H, HE'S A BIG LAD.


He is a big fella :scared:. That is why I am determined he's going to continue to walk as nicely as he does so far  :aureola:.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> How did you do that - a stone is very impressive!!


I was 9st 13 when I did the great north run last sept and the heaviest I'd ever been. Plus I looked at holiday photos and hated them so I got "my fitness pal"app for my phone. It basically counts calories for you. I upped my excersise and cut down on my calories and ate sensibly. 
I was surprised at how many calories I was having when I started counting them  it took me about two months but the weight came off nice and steady.



Dogless said:


> Well....I have good news...and bad news....
> 
> The good news is that I have just looked outside and we're getting a decent amount of snow  :thumbup:.
> 
> The bad news is what prompted me to get up and go near a window was to get something for Rudi to chew having just had a grab / shake stealth attack on my foot :scared: :crazy::crazy:.


You have more snow  ours is slowly going with no more forecast. Enjoy it though.  
Oh rudi, was it without shoes? :scared:

Took the boys out and I'm giving the dog of the day award to Frank. :001_wub:
He was no trouble what so ever. He walked by my side all the way, without pulling or reacting to other dogs. Top dog today. :thumbup:
Freddie was a nightmare, sniffing at EVERY SINGLE LAMPOST :mad2: perhaps he was being a pain cause frank was being so good 

Our 'steady' was put into practise when he pulled me down the path. Couldn't understand why Freddie would ignore it, he's excellent at it normally. Then we came across a load of chips that someone had dropped :mad2::mad2:

Thorne, you must have great restraint to work there and not have a house full of dogs. They all sound lovely.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> I was 9st 13 when I did the great north run last sept and the heaviest I'd ever been. Plus I looked at holiday photos and hated them so I got "my fitness pal"app for my phone. It basically counts calories for you. I upped my excersise and cut down on my calories and ate sensibly.
> I was surprised at how many calories I was having when I started counting them  it took me about two months but the weight came off nice and steady.
> 
> You have more snow  ours is slowly going with no more forecast. Enjoy it though.
> Oh rudi, was it without shoes? :scared:
> 
> Took the boys out and I'm giving the dog of the day award to Frank. :001_wub:
> He was no trouble what so ever. He walked by my side all the way, without pulling or reacting to other dogs. Top dog today. :thumbup:
> Freddie was a nightmare, sniffing at EVERY SINGLE LAMPOST :mad2: perhaps he was being a pain cause frank was being so good
> 
> Our 'steady' was put into practise when he pulled me down the path. Couldn't understand why Freddie would ignore it, he's excellent at it normally. Then we came across a load of chips that someone had dropped :mad2::mad2:
> 
> Thorne, you must have great restraint to work there and not have a house full of dogs. They all sound lovely.


Well done Frank :thumbup::thumbup: and the Dunce's cap for Freddie :lol::lol:.

Yes, the attack was without shoes :scared:.


----------



## Werehorse

F&F - nice weightloss. I might have to do the myfitnesspal thing. I just eat far, far too much.  I'm stil struggling to shift the weight that crept on during my PGCE and 2 years of teaching (staff room biscuits + stress = muchos weight gain). Given the amount of activity I do what with the dogs and horses, never mind anything else (not there has been enough of the anything else), you'd think it'd fall off pretty quickly - but no I stuff myself full of crap food most of the time. 

I'm going to implement a no more sweet treats/no more doritos policy for a month and see if I can shake some off.

And I want to start swimming again as that has always just made the weight fall off but I don't fit into my cossie anymore.  And I'm not sure I want to get my thighs out in front of people anyway - even if it is just the blue-rinse breaststroke brigade. 

Oh gods, a ramble -look at that.

My dogs are still knackered. They had the day off (just toilet walks) on Sunday and just 2.75 miles of walking yesterday, mix of on and off-lead, but they still seem v.tired. I suppose they have done a lot this month so far!

Took Hugo to the vets for vaccines yesterday and he was sooooo good. Said hello to lost of people very calmly - no jumping or face licking. He was very patient while I was chatting to the receptionist about livery yards after his appointment. He has started jumping on the examination table without being told as soon as you walk into the consulting room. So cute. And he got on the scales and sat so nicely everyone in the waiting room was aaawwwing at him. :lol: Funny boy.

The vet wasn't too concerned about his weight but she did comment that she wouldn't like to see him much thinner (approached it tactfully - "is his weight fairly stable?" :lol and for preference another kg on him would be good. But she did say not to worry too much and I think he'll start filling out soon anyway. 

Hmmm. I think it is going to be round the block lead walks for the boys today. The roads are quite icey and I don't want to do any unnecessary driving. I might run but I'm not going to be attached to a dog while doing so in these conditions. :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Thighs do not mention thighs. not only am i blessed with slightly dispropotionately short legs, all the hills around here mean that under the "insulation" i have soem pretty vast muscles. Why don't woman swim in big baggy shorts like the boys do. can we start a revolution :lol:

last night pavement walk took an expected direction, in that we ended up outside the junk shop across the road. where there is a parking area for the shops, doing a training session, it was a nice ice free area so i thought what the heck we can do a bit of training, we were out there for a good 20 mins, Tink's training lead fastened aroud my waist, doing all sorts. :thumbup1::thumbup1: Was good fun and great for her focus.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> Well done Frank :thumbup::thumbup: and the Dunce's cap for Freddie :lol::lol:.
> 
> Yes, the attack was without shoes :scared:.


Ouch 

Werehorse, I cut out most of the crap I was eating, like lots of biscuits, chocolate bars, crisps, bread but still had some dark chocolate squares for my fix. It shocked me to see how many calories are in stuff  the app is brilliant.

Good boy Hugo at the vets. :thumbup1:

I've got a liver cake in the oven ::: dear god it STINKS. I do like garlic but this is awful :frown2:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I would ask if you fancied my little crocopuppy for holidays until he stops biting....but you'd encourage him :scared:.


But could you cope with a high drive maniac that insists you train him for hours every day on his return.....


----------



## Twiggy

*


Freddie and frank said:



I was 9st 13 when I did the great north run last sept and the heaviest I'd ever been. Plus I looked at holiday photos and hated them so I got "my fitness pal"app for my phone. It basically counts calories for you. I upped my excersise and cut down on my calories and ate sensibly.

Click to expand...

*


Freddie and frank said:


> *I was surprised at how many calories I was having when I started counting them  it took me about two months but the weight came off* *nice and steady*.
> 
> Oh well done.
> 
> I'm over-eating, especially stodgy comfort food at the moment.
> 
> As soon as it warms up a bit I must make a big effort and go back on the Ryvitas for lunch - yuk!!


----------



## kat&molly

Blimey, I only went to watch Corrie and look what happens.:frown2:

Twiggy, I love that vid, and is that Quiver in the coat- she looks lovely and snug.

Well done to Hugo at the vets, how brill is he.

MV- I'll join your baggy shorts revolution- for my derriere.

Lovely walk here this morning, quite cold but sun is shining and not a scrap of snow to be seen. Sooo much mud though, Moll ran past me and splattered my clean jeans.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I shan't be taking my camera out this morning. It's thick freezing fog and was minus 12 during the night - lovely!!


----------



## Sarah1983

F&F, your heaviest weight is lighter than my goal weight! :lol: My goal weight is 10st, I currently weigh a little under 15st :frown2: and my heaviest was 16st. I'm only 5ft 2ish! I went from 10st to 16st in around 6 months when they changed my meds. Was gaining 4lbs a week following the Weight Watchers plan. Off the meds and back on WW now, lost just 2lbs since Christmas but I guess slow weight loss is better than no weight loss. I tried MFP but couldn't balance everything they track, if I ate enough calories I went over on one of the other things, if I stuck to the guidelines for other things I didn't eat enough calories 

MV, I swam in baggy shorts and a tshirt on my honeymoon. I'd already started the weight gain then and no way I was getting into a swimming costume let alone a bikini!

Werehorse, glad Hugo was good at the vets.

I'm ankle deep in snow here, I do not like it, I want it all to bugger off. But is it doing? Oh no, it's snowing again. I tried making a snowball to throw at Spencer but it's not even the sort of stuff you can make a decent snow ball from, it just disintegrates. Stupid snow.


----------



## Izzysmummy

kat&molly said:


> Blimey, I only went to watch Corrie and look what happens.:frown2:
> Lovely walk here this morning, quite cold but sun is shining and not a scrap of snow to be seen. Sooo much mud though, Moll ran past me and splattered my clean jeans.


Great episodes last night, missed them so caught up this morning before work....I wasnt late in the slightest honest! :aureola:

Surely you know by now that clean jeans are just an invitation for muddy dogs to come and dirty them up a bit  !


----------



## moonviolet

On the whole weight thing did anyone watch the horizon documentary I think it was called " Eat , Fast and live longer" very interesting, the health benefits seen from fasting were amazing. So when i've gathered my willpower i'm going to give fasting ( 400-500 cals a day) a couple of days a week a go.


The hound has jsut charged into the room and pounced on OH's slippers I guess she's awake and ready for a walk now


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> And I want to start swimming again as that has always just made the weight fall off but I don't fit into my cossie anymore.  And I'm not sure I want to get my thighs out in front of people anyway - even if it is just the blue-rinse breaststroke brigade.
> 
> The vet wasn't too concerned about his weight but she did comment that she wouldn't like to see him much thinner (approached it tactfully - "is his weight fairly stable?" :lol and for preference another kg on him would be good. But she did say not to worry too much and I think he'll start filling out soon anyway.
> 
> Hmmm. I think it is going to be round the block lead walks for the boys today. The roads are quite icey and I don't want to do any unnecessary driving. I might run but I'm not going to be attached to a dog while doing so in these conditions. :lol:


A lady here swims in one of those cossies with skirt attached......it's very, erm, retro! Leg suits are pretty popular now too - the ones that are shorts length and they look OK. Although swimming gets rid of my fat I haven't half got a good pair of shoulders and a muscly back .

The vet always approaches Kilo's weight that way....although he does say he's not seen a dog in as good condition for a long time so he can't think it's too bad.



moonviolet said:


> Thighs do not mention thighs. not only am i blessed with slightly dispropotionately short legs, all the hills around here mean that under the "insulation" i have soem pretty vast muscles. Why don't woman swim in big baggy shorts like the boys do. can we start a revolution :lol:


Muscular thighs and backside here too .



Twiggy said:


> But could you cope with a high drive maniac that insists you train him for hours every day on his return.....


Do I seem like I could cope from what you know?  :lol:. Probably drive me to an early grave :frown2:.

Absolutely superb walk this morning - both out together to the dog walking fields with us first on as there weren't any prints in the snow . The boys behaved very well, I tried to take some photos, we played, we did some recalls....someone I know with a BC that has been fine with Kilo and Rudi separately came in and they were all fine....the woman then said she'd stop throwing the ball when I said we were off but I said it was OK, they'd come anyway....and they did straight away :aureola::aureola:. She asked if I did any training with them or they had just "come like that"  . And then...walking back we passed a fair few dogs and sreeching, running kids at the school bus stop with no dramas at all AND THEN sat both boys in a 'watch' to let the little terrier that dislikes Kilo a lot past and they were nice and relaxed :thumbup1::thumbup1:. My best boys today :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## L/C

Blimey you lot - I can't keep up!

I'm using the myfitnesspal app atm to help track calories and workouts and I've lost 5lbs since the 5th Jan. I never realised quite how much crap I ate and I am doing quite high intensity work outs (to prepare for my insane event) so hopefully once I get my thyroxine sorted (need to go to the doctor again for a nag) then it will come off quicker.

I've put on 2 and half stone in the last 3 years because of the hypothyroidism so hopefully once I can finally get my medication at the right level then I'll actually be able to manage my weight for myself!

Back to the dogs. :lol:

Another social walk this morning to start with and Ely behaved brilliantly. The two Maxes (lurcher and GSD) had a very noisy wrestling and chasing match and while it did agitate him a bit, he was happy to walk off with me for a bit of focus work with only the occasional worried look and alert ears.

We then did a 2.5 mile run which they were both little stars doing. Happy to run with me and no lunging or wandering off. :thumbup1:


----------



## Nicki85

I was about 13stone last year but managed to get down to 10 and a half stone... now stable at that which is nice  Plan on losing another half stone once the weather improves and I can start (trying) to run. 

Rusty is very difficult to keep weight on... vet was very impressed with him last time (nice muscle tone, well used pads(!) etc.) but said not to let him drop. As he has been ill he has dropped another kg or 2 and is looking scrawny :-( He is still on three/ four meals a day as well. He is 16months now and weighs 20kg... he gets at least 1kg of raw a day :shocked: No idea where it goes!! I really hope one day I will be able to move him on to 2 meals a day 

Any way, not much to report! Teaching Rusty to "find the cat" at the moment so I can use him to disrupt scratching on furniture and the like. So I put a cat in the middle of the room and shaped his behaviour to touch the cat with his nose... Then he decided to take it one step further and put his paw on the cat's head  Cat doesn't mind... they are used to it!!! THey often play together :


----------



## Werehorse

I stopped feeding Oscar raw partly because I was shovelling more than I could afford down him (1kg or more for a 16-17kg dog!) and he was still losing weight at the drop of a hat and showing no signs of overfeeding (i.e. sloppy poos) - I just couldn't keep going like that. His weight seems more stable on kibble and with an egg on his breakfast I can get some weight on him without breaking the bank. Spaniels! Hugo is just... well if he was human and female he'd be a super-model. 

Dogless - I have enormous swimmers shoulders even when I don't swim. :lol: I've always been like that but over the past few years I've learned to swim properly AND bought a horse which mostly involves using a shovel to look after. :lol: I blame the horse riding for my huge thighs as well.  I have a cossie with thighs covered... I just need to buy a bigger one now! And well done the CHs! 

I will definitely have to check out myfitnesspal, but I don't have a magic phone so I'm hoping I can get it on my laptop....

L/C - good running and well done to the pointy twins. 

mv - I didn't see the programme but I heard about it. I was thinking I could potentially give it a go.

Sarah - what good is snow if you can't make a snow ball. :frown2: No fun.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I stopped feeding Oscar raw partly because I was shovelling more than I could afford down him (1kg or more for a 16-17kg dog!) and he was still losing weight at the drop of a hat and showing no signs of overfeeding (i.e. sloppy poos) - I just couldn't keep going like that. His weight seems more stable on kibble and with an egg on his breakfast I can get some weight on him without breaking the bank. Spaniels! Hugo is just... well if he was human and female he'd be a super-model.
> 
> Dogless - I have enormous swimmers shoulders even when I don't swim. :lol: I've always been like that but over the past few years I've learned to swim properly AND bought a horse which mostly involves using a shovel to look after. :lol: I blame the horse riding for my huge thighs as well.  I have a cossie with thighs covered... I just need to buy a bigger one now! And well done the CHs!
> 
> I will definitely have to check out myfitnesspal, but I don't have a magic phone so I'm hoping I can get it on my laptop....
> 
> L/C - good running and well done to the pointy twins.
> 
> mv - I didn't see the programme but I heard about it. I was thinking I could potentially give it a go.
> 
> Sarah - what good is snow if you can't make a snow ball. :frown2: No fun.


Long distance OW swimming is good for weight loss.....and you have lots of lakes there; good luck at this time of year though :shocked:. I have those shoulders whether I swim or not too - I blame swimming so much from such a young age, the more weight I loose the more out of proportion they seem to look!!! Good excuse for staying a bit lardy anyway.....


----------



## Werehorse

There's no way you'd catch me in a lake at this time of year!  I've never quite been brave enough to do it anyway, even in summer. (the few triathlons I did had pool swims and T1 was confusing enough :lol

I forgot the dogs!

Just been for seperate lead walks round the block. It was quite icey so we concentrated on LLW. Hugo was ok once he'd settled but I didn't really do much specific work with him just stopping when he pulled and attempting to get him earning sniffing rights with good walking or sitting. By the end he was paying more attention to me - he's still quite all or nothing though.

I decided to properly train Oscar round the block and took a bag of treats, and clicked and treated a lot as we went. He gave me a lot of focus and I had him on harness and collar with a double ended lead so I did a bit of silky leashing on the collar lead (e.g. harness lead went tight, tiny pressure on collar lead, click and treat for turning into the pressure) as well as lots of clicking and treats for just simply walking nicely. He was very, very good. Obviously I need to work on fading the clicks and rewards and building up to getting that level of focus in more distracting areas and/or for less treats! I still feel we are making progress - there was a time not so long ago that I wouldn't have got that level of attention even if both hands were full of treats and I kept shoving them under his nose!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> There's no way you'd catch me in a lake at this time of year!  I've never quite been brave enough to do it anyway, even in summer. (the few triathlons I did had pool swims and T1 was confusing enough :lol
> 
> I forgot the dogs!
> 
> Just been for seperate lead walks round the block. It was quite icey so we concentrated on LLW. Hugo was ok once he'd settled but I didn't really do much specific work with him just stopping when he pulled and attempting to get him earning sniffing rights with good walking or sitting. By the end he was paying more attention to me - he's still quite all or nothing though.
> 
> I decided to properly train Oscar round the block and took a bag of treats, and clicked and treated a lot as we went. He gave me a lot of focus and I had him on harness and collar with a double ended lead so I did a bit of silky leashing on the collar lead (e.g. harness lead went tight, tiny pressure on collar lead, click and treat for turning into the pressure) as well as lots of clicking and treats for just simply walking nicely. He was very, very good. Obviously I need to work on fading the clicks and rewards and building up to getting that level of focus in more distracting areas and/or for less treats! I still feel we are making progress - there was a time not so long ago that I wouldn't have got that level of attention even if both hands were full of treats and I kept shoving them under his nose!


I avoid the pool swim ones.....I like a nice long distance across a lake or in the sea .

Your two sound as if they are really getting there - especially Oscar :thumbup1:.


----------



## Sarah1983

So jealous of those who can and do go swimming. It's one of the exercises I've been advised to avoid since a seizure in the water could so easily be fatal. It's the one exercise I enjoy too. I go with hubby now and then but not very often.

Found out hubby isn't eligible for redundancy today. Lots of other people I know are but he's not despite being medically downgraded and non deployable. Not sure whether I'm happy or not about it, feeling really homesick right now so would love to go back to the UK but I suppose at least we've got another few months not worrying about where we'll live, whether we'll be able to get jobs etc.

And Spencer is doing my head in today. Any noise he hears out on the stairs means he's at the door whining. Just sent him to his bed where he currently appears to be sulking. I dunno whether it's coz he wants to go out in the snow, whether he thinks Rupert is out there or what but him keep leaping up and running to the door is driving me nuts!


----------



## Dogless

I can't 'like' your post Sarah...really hope you are feeling better soon . Redundancy is a funny one; I used to sometimes really want to get out and sometimes really want to stay in. In the end the cuts made the choice for me.


----------



## MollySmith

I am sorry to hear about your husband Sarah, I can empathise with the stress of it, at least I know where I stand. It's horrible being homesick too.

I am also a hopeless swimmer - well non-swimmer. My balance issues mean I struggle but I love being in the water. I am sure if I could swim I'd enjoy it an awful lot. I keep meaning to go on one of those intensive holidays but with Molly now it's hard to book.

I'll catch up later, I finally got to the station and on the train (3/4 hour walk on really slippery pavements) so better get working whilst I am here.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I am sorry to hear about your husband Sarah, I can empathise with the stress of it, at least I know where I stand. It's horrible being homesick too.
> 
> I am also a hopeless swimmer - well non-swimmer. My balance issues mean I struggle but I love being in the water. I am sure if I could swim I'd enjoy it an awful lot. I keep meaning to go on one of those intensive holidays but with Molly now it's hard to book.
> 
> I'll catch up later, I finally got to the station and on the train (3/4 hour walk on really slippery pavements) so better get working whilst I am here.


I used to swim with a deaf swimmer who had huge balance issues in the water - she persisted despite them and was really good :thumbup1:. I fancy one of those Swimtrek touring hols....I'd be on my own though!!


----------



## kat&molly

We done a lot of swimming in the river when we first came over here, it was so hot and our old dog wouldn't go in her own.
Had to stop that though when eating out one night sat on a terrace overlooking said river and I went the loo. OH said he watched my tissue float off.:yikes:

I would love to get back to cycling but I wouldn't want to do it without the girls and I'm not sure whether Evie has the build for it.

Sarah, it cant always be easy for you there-especially when you get home sick.

Nikki- thats double what Moll has to eat  she's around 18kg but quite tall. This is the first winter she hasn't dropped any weight, so far anyway.


----------



## Freddie and frank

sarah, sorry to hear about your husband. take care.

not long got back from a walk with baby bel.
bless her. she's a little darling, and she was very well behaved, just a little bit of pulling. did some recalls that we've been practising on the garden and she was brilliant.:001_wub:

i'm waiting for it all to go out the window soon, but deep down i'm hoping it won't cause she didn't have any form of training at her last home so i'm hoping she'll miss that stage.:lol: she didn't even know 'sit'.

as for the swimming....i'm like the blue rinse brigade and only doing breast stroke.slightly faster though and the occasional back crawl. front crawl is a no no.:nonod:
i'd rather be sitting on the side of the pool on a sun lounger with a cocktail in my hand :thumbup1:


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> *
> As soon as it warms up a bit I must make a big effort and go back on the Ryvitas for lunch - yuk!!*


*
Mmmm tasty, not! Thats my normal practice, cardboard and tasteless cream cheese for lunch, I figure if I eat boring for lunch I can have yummy for tea



Nicki85 said:



I was about 13stone last year but managed to get down to 10 and a half stone... now stable at that which is nice  Plan on losing another half stone once the weather improves and I can start (trying) to run.

Any way, not much to report! Teaching Rusty to "find the cat" at the moment so I can use him to disrupt scratching on furniture and the like. So I put a cat in the middle of the room and shaped his behaviour to touch the cat with his nose... Then he decided to take it one step further and put his paw on the cat's head  Cat doesn't mind... they are used to it!!! THey often play together :

Click to expand...

Well done everyone on the weight losses and attempts, I know its not easy, I did what you have managed Nikki, about 3 years ago. 13st8 to 10st4, swore I never wanted to go over 11st again  I went to WW really only so my competitive side came out  I felt all smug when I lost each week and other people didn't  god that sounds awful. I don't know why its so hard  its not rocket science, its just cutting out the crap but crap is lovely. I managed to let it creep back up to nearly 12st again but since getting the ninja the extra walking has helped & I would guess I am at around 11 again. Just need to do some toning up really I think now.

I love the idea of you cat being a training tool, but best of all to stop it scratching the furniture 

We had a quiet walk this morning, I had to be off earlyish so not many doggies about, she was pretty good with the school kids walking to the bus, got over excited but didn't lunge or bark at anything random.

Just one dog appeared near the end and she did have a bark but it was fairly halfhearted and pretty much aimed at the swishy slushy cars more than the dog so half a smiley I reckon, that will do type of thing 

On the daft clown trick front we have managed to get a spin action going, she would walk backwards instead of turning so I started from a sit/down and got the 360 degree action after a few days, now she will do it from standing with a food lure (that didn't work to start with ) and spins really fast with a leap in the air at the rear , we have a bow at 90% success, and a 100% I luff doing this one, jump in the air  trying to master the sit up beg its a bit variable as she likes the jump in the air so much 

Sorry you are feeling homesick Sarah but then hubby still has a job, work is hard to come by here.

Funny I was thinking about you and Dogless and whether it would affect you while listening to the news just now on the way back in the car.*


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I used to swim with a deaf swimmer who had huge balance issues in the water - she persisted despite them and was really good :thumbup1:. I fancy one of those Swimtrek touring hols....I'd be on my own though!!


Maybe I should use my redundancy money to go on one?


----------



## Twiggy

Kate&Molly: Yes that is Quiver in her rug. Her heart is in much better shape than her body these days and she still thinks she can do what she did as a young dog.

Werehorse: I also blame years of horse-riding for my big thighs and bum..!!

Moonviolet: If you do decide to go on the fasting diet I'll join you and we'll pick the same two days. We can at least then support each other....

Dogless: So when is Rudi arriving and can I send all this frozen snow in exchange?

Sarah: I'm really sorry you're feeling so homesick at the moment on top of everything else.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Maybe I should use my redundancy money to go on one?


You need to be able to swim a comfortable 5km open water I think from memory - you swim bewteen 2km an 5 km per day I think...heaven!



Twiggy said:


> Kate&Molly: Yes that is Quiver in her rug. Her heart is in much better shape than her body these days and she still thinks she can do what she did as a young dog.
> 
> Werehorse: I also blame years of horse-riding for my big thighs and bum..!!
> 
> Moonviolet: If you do decide to go on the fasting diet I'll join you and we'll pick the same two days. We can at least then support each other....
> 
> Dogless: So when is Rudi arriving and can I send all this frozen snow in exchange?
> 
> Sarah: I'm really sorry you're feeling so homesick at the moment on top of everything else.


Twiggy, can you imagine me coping with him after you've had your expert hands on him? And he's had his teeth on you?  .


----------



## L/C

I keep meaning to get down to Hampstead Heath and try the ponds there. I think I have a too over-active imagination for it though, I keep thinking that something's going to grab me from below!  Exactly what I think is lurking in a pond on Hampstead Heath I have no idea. 

If anyone is thinking about the fasting diet please be careful. There aren't any conclusive human studies yet (there are some but the ones that produce the super dooper anti-cancer etc. results are just on rats and mice) and some data indicates that intermittent fasting may be counter-indicated for women.

See here (silly paleo diet stuff aside on the blog it's actually a good review of what little data there is on this).

Sarah - sorry to hear you are homesick and about your OH. Hope things seem a bit better soon.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I can't 'like' your post Sarah...really hope you are feeling better soon . Redundancy is a funny one; I used to sometimes really want to get out and sometimes really want to stay in. In the end the cuts made the choice for me.


Thanks. He'd jump at the chance to take redundancy but the way things are job wise at the moment I'm kinda glad he can't choose to take it let alone be forced to. Means we're stuck here for the time being but means he's got a reliable income. So mixed feelings there.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks. He'd jump at the chance to take redundancy but the way things are job wise at the moment I'm kinda glad he can't choose to take it let alone be forced to. Means we're stuck here for the time being but means he's got a reliable income. So mixed feelings there.


I truly understand the mixed feelings...you are right though; the steady income in today's climate is not something to give up lightly.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You need to be able to swim a comfortable 5km open water I think from memory - you swim bewteen 2km an 5 km per day I think...heaven!
> 
> Twiggy, can you imagine me coping with him after you've had your expert hands on him? And he's had his teeth on you?  .


I had a friend's collie here for a week whilst she was on holiday a few years back. We did training, training and more training and I took her back via a dog show. I worked her at the show and we won Class 'C' (the top class) beating myself with Quiver who was 3rd, I think...!!

You're right though I'm terrible at winding them up....:devil:


----------



## L/C

I have a question to throw out to the masses.

Every night between 8pm and 9pm Gypsy spends about 10-15 minutes being a cow. A real cow. Whinging, barking, trying everything to get attention - looking right at me and going to chew the corner of the table, clawing at my leg, laying her head on my lap and then tugging at my clothes, performing every trick she knows and so on. She knows settle and will stop for a while but then will get up and it starts all over again.

It doesn't matter what we have done during the day or the evening - yesterday we did 4 hours of walks, a train journey and 2 training sessions. Still happened. On a normal work day she would have 2 hours of walks and a half hour training session but on days where she has less or more stimulation it still happens.

I'm at a loss and at the moment we use a combination of time outs and ignoring her to deal with it. Afterwards she goes to sleep and looks completely relaxed (it's not resigned sleep out of boredom iykwim). It's clearly a habit and I think that barking can be self reinforcing so I need another strategy to deal with it as ignoring clearly isn't working.

Any ideas?


----------



## Izzysmummy

moonviolet said:


> On the whole weight thing did anyone watch the horizon documentary I think it was called " Eat , Fast and live longer" very interesting, the health benefits seen from fasting were amazing. So when i've gathered my willpower i'm going to give fasting ( 400-500 cals a day) a couple of days a week a go.
> 
> The hound has jsut charged into the room and pounced on OH's slippers I guess she's awake and ready for a walk now


Wow! Everyones so motivated on this thread! Well done for those who've lost weight and good luck to those planning to lose some!

I saw a talk on this recently and there seemed to be positive results regarding the 2 day calorie restriction diets, I think you can also achieve similar results with a carb restriction diet so for those who dont like feeling hungry you can do it by restricting carb intake instead. I wouldnt mind trying this but I think Tarnus would be hard to convince and I couldnt sit and watch him eat lots of lovely food that I wasnt allowed so it would have to be a team effort.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - sounds like puppy witching hour doesn't it??? What if you take her out for a mini walk at that time for a while to try and break the habit?


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C - sounds like puppy witching hour doesn't it??? What if you take her out for a mini walk at that time for a while to try and break the habit?


I'm a bit worried that she'll make the connection of being an annoying cow and getting a walk/training session etc. She learnt very quickly that barking at my OH got her extra food and it took me 6 months to train that out of her!


----------



## Guest

Took him out today. I managed to drop the lead twice. First he didn't do anything. Second time he shot off into the distance. I knew exactly where he'd be though. Sitting by the gate of the lady who calls him hatter, her westie was in the garden not giving two damns about this gangly thing attempting to vault into his garden. :frown2
If in doubt, rememeber where the nearest dog is. 

Zander seemed to not know: LLW, wait, leave, his name, or treats either.

AND NOW TEH SKY IS THROWING DOWN GREAT BIG FAT SNOWFLAKES. 


BULLOCKS!!! :mad2:


----------



## Werehorse

L/C - I'm thinking pre-empt it with a walk too. Or a nice stuffed kong to chew - before it starts obviously! Anything to break the habit. Or mix up walks, a training session and quiet time with a nice chew so she doesn't expect one or the other but gets something distracting at that time.


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> L/C - I'm thinking pre-empt it with a walk too. Or a nice stuffed kong to chew - before it starts obviously! Anything to break the habit. Or mix up walks, a training session and quiet time with a nice chew so she doesn't expect one or the other but gets something distracting at that time.


Ah - doing it before is a good idea and probably what Dogless meant too.  I've tried giving her a chew before it starts but that just delays it rather then stopping it. A walk or training session might work though.

Will try it tonight and report back.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C Tink does a similar thing weve shape it to her sitting looking at me wagging expectantly, when i'm feeling generous she'll get offered " training" or a " walk" and the waggiest response is the one we do, other nights I choose 

thanks for the warning, I've had a similar eating pattern in the past with no ill effects, but i will take care if do decide to do it again.  i'm quite " robust" as described by my oh so romantic husband as one of the things he loves about me :lol::lol:


LO do you have a training lead? i clipped mine around my waist last night, so if i slipped i wouldn't let go of her ladyship but she's hve enoguh length to avoid my body crashing down on her. GLad it turned out ok but i bet yoru heart was in yoru mouth.


----------



## Guest

L/C will she do if you crate/shut her in another room? Cos then you could give her a chew or kong or something!

OOH AND THE BRIGHT COAT ARRIVED. 
Here's some crappy pics of it and Zand in the snow.


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> L/C will she do if you crate/shut her in another room? Cos then you could give her a chew or kong or something!
> 
> OOH AND THE BRIGHT COAT ARRIVED.
> Here's some crappy pics of it and Zand in the snow.
> 
> View attachment 106386
> 
> View attachment 106387
> 
> View attachment 106388


Don't have a crate and I currently use time outs but it doesn't stop it. Tried putting her in another room and it escalated to full on howling.

Ah Zand looks lovely.


----------



## Guest

L/C said:


> Don't have a crate and I currently use time outs but it doesn't stop it. Tried putting her in another room and it escalated to full on howling.
> 
> Ah Zand looks lovely.


Will she stop howling if ignored for a while? Would she still howl while with a kong? 
Maybe a ten minute training session before she starts??


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> Will she stop howling if ignored for a while? Would she still howl while with a kong?
> Maybe a ten minute training session before she starts??


Yep and Yep. I've tried ignoring - she escalates the behaviour. Again I think that howling/barking/whinging is rewarding and so self-reinforcing (which is why it's one of the things that dogs with SA do) and I think I need to interrupt rather then ignore.

I'm going to try pre-empting it with some activities tonight and see how that goes.


----------



## MollySmith

She sounds so like Molly L/C. I confess that we use training discs with Molly as she was so wilful when got her - zommies in the house and all over the place and it was a last resort. We find that these have worked well although I use them _very_ sparingly.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> I have a question to throw out to the masses.
> 
> Every night between 8pm and 9pm Gypsy spends about 10-15 minutes being a cow. A real cow. Whinging, barking, trying everything to get attention - looking right at me and going to chew the corner of the table, clawing at my leg, laying her head on my lap and then tugging at my clothes, performing every trick she knows and so on. She knows settle and will stop for a while but then will get up and it starts all over again.
> 
> It doesn't matter what we have done during the day or the evening - yesterday we did 4 hours of walks, a train journey and 2 training sessions. Still happened. On a normal work day she would have 2 hours of walks and a half hour training session but on days where she has less or more stimulation it still happens.
> 
> I'm at a loss and at the moment we use a combination of time outs and ignoring her to deal with it. Afterwards she goes to sleep and looks completely relaxed (it's not resigned sleep out of boredom iykwim). It's clearly a habit and I think that barking can be self reinforcing so I need another strategy to deal with it as ignoring clearly isn't working.
> 
> Any ideas?


Not wishing to sound like Grannie from hell but simply tell her "lie down" and mean it. If she does comply, go over to her after a couple of minutes and gently stroke her head and say something like "that's a very good down - good girl" and even reinforce it with a tit-bit.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Took him out today. I managed to drop the lead twice. First he didn't do anything. Second time he shot off into the distance. I knew exactly where he'd be though. Sitting by the gate of the lady who calls him hatter, her westie was in the garden not giving two damns about this gangly thing attempting to vault into his garden. :frown2
> If in doubt, rememeber where the nearest dog is.
> 
> Zander seemed to not know: LLW, wait, leave, his name, or treats either.
> 
> AND NOW TEH SKY IS THROWING DOWN GREAT BIG FAT SNOWFLAKES.
> 
> BULLOCKS!!! :mad2:


I'm not liking Zander being a little sod, I'm liking your reaction to snow, which is about the same as mine...


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Not wishing to sound like Grannie from hell but simply tell her "lie down" and mean it. If she does comply, go over to her after a couple of minutes and gently stroke her head and say something like "that's a very good down - good girl" and even reinforce it with a tit-bit.


I've been doing this Granny but she quickly cottoned onto it and started to whinge, look at me, lie down and then wait for her treat. :frown2: If it wasn't forthcoming she would repeat the process. I wasn't sure where to go from there - it's a bit humbling when your dog outsmarts you. 

It's much, much better then it was. When she was on restricted exercise and confined to a lead she would bark for hours - I didn't know much about training or mental stimulation so I wasn't meeting her needs. Now I'm a better owner she is much better but still keeps this one little hangover from before.

She's not really fussed about praise or petting. In fact she prefers not to be touched really and when she does she likes it to be on her own terms.


----------



## Twiggy

Right girls if this works I've cracked using my camera on movie mode. It's just a short bit of the dogs out for a walk this afternoon. Sorry for the loud sigh but gormless (sorry I mean my lovely hubby) was getting in the way:

P1000637.mp4 video by Wendystwinstwiggy | Photobucket

If it does work then thanks to Lurcher owner for her advice - a good crack with the lunge whip taught the camera a lesson...LOL


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> I've been doing this Granny but she quickly cottoned onto it and started to whinge, look at me, lie down and then wait for her treat. :frown2: If it wasn't forthcoming she would repeat the process. I wasn't sure where to go from there - it's a bit humbling when your dog outsmarts you.
> 
> It's much, much better then it was. When she was on restricted exercise and confined to a lead she would bark for hours - I didn't know much about training or mental stimulation so I wasn't meeting her needs. Now I'm a better owner she is much better but still keeps this one little hangover from before.
> 
> She's not really fussed about praise or petting. In fact she prefers not to be touched really and when she does she likes it to be on her own terms.


Well nasty old grannie says tell her to lie down, pick up a book or better still the newspaper and start reading so she can't make eye contact and totally ignore the whinging. She'll stop when she realises it isn't getting her anywhere.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- You reallydo need a refund on your defective Greyhound.:lol:
So much for '20 minutes around the block and then they sleep all day' 

Moll will ask for attention some evenings, she will stare first and then its the paws. I mostly play hide and seek but she usually settles then. Sometimes Evie wakes up, beats Scruff up then goes back to sleep.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Right girls if this works I've cracked using my camera on movie mode. It's just a short bit of the dogs out for a walk this afternoon. Sorry for the loud sigh but gormless (sorry I mean my lovely hubby) was getting in the way:
> 
> P1000637.mp4 video by Wendystwinstwiggy | Photobucket
> 
> If it does work then thanks to Lurcher owner for her advice - a good crack with the lunge whip taught the camera a lesson...LOL


Oh it works there's no stopping you now.


----------



## GingerRogers

Ginge will whinge, naturally, she will sit at your feet and do it, if you ignore her she slowly backs away until she knows she is in your eyeline and lies down, crosses her front paws and gurgles at you. The only way to avoid her gaze her would be to put the newspaper over your head .


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Ginge will whinge, naturally, she will sit at your feet and do it, if you ignore her she slowly backs away until she knows she is in your eyeline and lies down, crosses her front paws and gurgles at you. The only way to avoid her gaze her would be to put the newspaper over your head .


Gypsy comes up and uses her nose to shut my laptop and removes books from my hand. She's an evil genius.


----------



## MollySmith

L/C said:


> Gypsy comes up and uses her nose to shut my laptop and removes books from my hand. She's an evil genius.


Yup same here plus socks and the duvet cover!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Ginge will whinge, naturally, she will sit at your feet and do it, if you ignore her she slowly backs away until she knows she is in your eyeline and lies down, crosses her front paws and gurgles at you. The only way to avoid her gaze her would be to put the newspaper over your head .


You're actually on the right lines, holding the newspaper up so they can't see your face, so you are totally ignoring them.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Gypsy comes up and uses her nose to shut my laptop and removes books from my hand. She's an evil genius.


It's attention seeking and their happy knack of winding us round their little fingers.


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> It's attention seeking and their happy knack of winding us round their little fingers.


Oh I know. I just need to be stronger and pre-empt the barking before the neighbours band together to drive us from the street!


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Gypsy comes up and uses her nose to shut my laptop and removes books from my hand. She's an evil genius.


Since I have been target training her she will jump up and target my phone if I am surfing PF on it at night, if that doesn't work she will sort of drape herself round the front of my shoulders so I can't see, they are all evil genius/geniui   bet Gypsy and Ginge would know which word to use


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Since I have been target training her she will jump up and target my phone if I am surfing PF on it at night, if that doesn't work she will sort of drape herself round the front of my shoulders so I can't see, they are all evil genius/geniui   bet Gypsy and Ginge would know which word to use


Ah yes - target training. Simultaneously one of the most useful and most annoying things I've ever taught.


----------



## Guest

You know Zand was a little sod earlier? Well he has just redeemed himself. Went out for an half hour walk in the snow, in his new sheeplined coat and he walked to perfect heel and I managed to get his attention back mid bounce at a JRT.
But he did wimp out at a lady i know, wouldn't go near her at all.
But then the lady has a VERY high pitched voice so I don't know, getting a bit worrying cos he's done that with three people now.

Oh and he kept Gazelle jumping. Like, vertically, jumping upwards in the air.

Agreeing with grannie about absolute ignoring needed. Zander makes varying noises and nudges and poking, but If i know its not for toileting reasons, then playing on my games console, reading a book, or something helps. 

The only probs I have encountered is Zand doesn't bark often, and I will forever slop my drink or flinch whenever he does. :shocked:


----------



## moonviolet

Clearly i'm a bit soft because i like it, now it's not barking and shin scratching, right ly or wrongly i see it as confirmation she enjoys doing stuff with me, see how soft is that, but I finish the walk/ training with her on her bed doing "settle" and on the occasions for whatever reason i can't or don't want to train or walk at that time just skip to asking her to settle and she does.


----------



## Freddie and frank

:mad2: :cryin: that just about sums up my walk with frank.

Started off really well. Working on our 'steady' command is going well and came in handy for the icy pavements. No reaction going past another dog, great.
Got to a field, loosed him off, called him back from the river no problem. Big fuss made and liver treats munched. 
I was dancing around like a loon in the snow, throwing treats then we were digging them out. He loved it. Paid lots of attention. 
Walked on a bit then I called him to me as he was on a mission to roll in something. Got him on the lead and was just about getting his dogmatic on, cause I thought don't push your luck and he's been good so end on a good note. His head pricked up and off he took. I held onto him for a while but had to let go. There was no way I could hold him. 
There were two other dogs in the distance but he didn't run to them. I called him, and nothing. He just kept on going. 
He eventually stopped and looked at me so I shouted 'wait' and he did. 
It all seemed a pointless thing to have done 

Now I feel crap and like one of those irresponsible owners who can't control their dog. I never let him off unless I'm confident he will come back and I know this is going to set my confidence with him back again plus my oh will look at me and say ' I don't know why you let him off. Just accept that you'll have to keep him on a lead, he's that sort of dog'

On lead again he was good all the way home.
Where am I going wrong or what can I do?
The old saying.....he's golden at home, but sometimes he just switches off when we're out.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Clearly i'm a bit soft because i like it, now it's not barking and shin scratching, right ly or wrongly i see it as confirmation she enjoys doing stuff with me, see how soft is that, but I finish the walk/ training with her on her bed doing "settle" and on the occasions for whatever reason i can't or don't want to train or walk at that time just skip to asking her to settle and she does.


See I'd be happy with this. Just need to get there! I'm going to work on pre-empting her to break the habit and proofing her settle.

F&F - sorry you had such a pants walk.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Clearly i'm a bit soft because i like it, now it's not barking and shin scratching, right ly or wrongly i see it as confirmation she enjoys doing stuff with me, see how soft is that, but I finish the walk/ training with her on her bed doing "settle" and on the occasions for whatever reason i can't or don't want to train or walk at that time just skip to asking her to settle and she does.


I do similar. If Spencer comes and asks (politely!) for attention then I'll often get up and do something with him, even if it's just a 5 minute training session. Once I've done that he gets the "all done, go and lie down" and further attempts to get me to do something are ignored. On the odd occasion I can't or don't want to do something I just tell him to go and lie down and we're at the point where he will. Not without filthy looks and big sighs though lol.

F&F, sorry your walk ended so badly  I really don't know what to suggest. Spencer has his moments where he'll get mad zoomies and just run but that doesn't sound like what Frank was doing. I know what you mean about it knocking your confidence though, Spen did a runner just before Christmas and it was only last week I felt confident enough to let him off leash again somewhere other than outside our flat


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I do similar. If Spencer comes and asks (politely!) for attention then I'll often get up and do something with him, even if it's just a 5 minute training session. Once I've done that he gets the "all done, go and lie down" and further attempts to get me to do something are ignored. On the odd occasion I can't or don't want to do something I just tell him to go and lie down and we're at the point where he will. Not without filthy looks and big sighs though lol.
> 
> Exactly the same here Sarah.
> 
> Mine are certainly not angels and I allow all sorts of liberties but they are what they are (mad collies) so I have to have an "off switch".
> 
> Take Quiver in the evenings. If I allowed it she would be bringing me toys to throw behind the sofa for hours and hours until she was either very lame or collapsed with a heart attack. I hate saying "that's enough now, go and lie down" because she looks so hurt but.....


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- hope you can break Gypsy's habit. She's a madam isn't she.

F+F- sorry you had a bad walk  Its not nice when it knocks confidence.

LO- Love Donkey boys coat.

Twiggy- well done on learning the vid- I cant find the mute on mine.:frown2:

Had a very sloppy training session with Moll today. She places too much value on toys and dummies and not enough on random objects I choose.
Here she is-'can I go now'








Just about holding the cloth








wonder what Scruff's been doing.








Evie's definition of Stay.








In her coat.


----------



## kat&molly

Photomuckit playing up, try again with the coat pic.


----------



## Guest

Oh see I'm SURE evie would look lovely on our sofa.

And Scruff. 

Beautiful dogs!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Whats scruff been doing? Well digging like a good scruff of course   

LO I think Zanders coat looks very good on him, the colour suits, as does Evies, very smart, she does look naughty though, lol. Got to love it.

F&F sorry about Frank, I am sort of with your hubby though , he might just be one of those dogs, I am sort of there with Ginge, I hope one day I might trust her enough to let go but if not, well so be it. She doesn't seem to be bothered at all and as long as she gets some freedom from a long line every now and then I don't feel bad. I would love to let her run free but what I mean is don't feel you have to have the confidence with him, if he doesn't give it then so be it, don't beat yourself up about not letting him off, give yourself a break from the potential worry. I kept going with the ninja against my better judgement and she ends up down a hole I can't get her out of, if I had been on my own that day I would have been in bits I am sure, thank goodness for my friends son dismantling the gorse bush and pulling her out and getting bitten for his efforts.

Anyway you did control him, he did come back and he walked like an angel which is something most people cant manage. Is there a reason why you cant leave the head collar on? Sorry if thats a stupid question.


----------



## kat&molly

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh see I'm SURE evie would look lovely on our sofa.
> 
> And Scruff.
> 
> Beautiful dogs!!


I think you should have Evie, she's ever so obedient.


----------



## Guest

kat&molly said:


> I think you should have Evie, she's ever so obedient.


Hehehehehehe, are we talking Zander level Obedience or Quiver/Kilo obedience.

How much for postage and packaging!? :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Hehehehehehe, are we talking Zander level Obedience or Quiver/Kilo obedience.
> 
> How much for postage and packaging!? :lol:


Not much shes a small package!


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Not much shes a small package!


*Grabby hands*

I genuinely would consider a wirehaired daschund. :wub:


----------



## kat&molly

LurcherOwner said:


> *Grabby hands*
> 
> I genuinely would consider a wirehaired daschund. :wub:


Dont go there.:frown2:
She is working bred though.


----------



## Guest

kat&molly said:


> Dont go there.:frown2:
> She is working bred though.


I have met some cracking ones though!!


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Dont go there.:frown2:
> She is *working bred *though.


Ah see, she does look very different to a lady down the roads one, though they are exactly the same colours. Evie does look quite 'focused' and 'driven' can you not harness that to make her work for you , lol .

I forgot, I got Control Unleashed, hope its worth it Sarah , its pricey, I was a bit disappointed when it arrived its a tiny floppy book. However even though I have only read the first chapter it seems to be a very practical approach and i am really looking forward to it. When I have read it and digested it I am happy to *loan *it, I think it was LO who was interested and someone else. (As long as it doesn't come back wrinkled like one of my Boudica books did after my once good friend dropped it in the bath )


----------



## Thorne

Werehorse: Well done to Hugo for being good for the vet, and well done with your LLW!
MV: What a lovely bonus for your walk, proves not all pavement walks are dull.
Dogless: Glad you and your "ready trained" concrete heads had a good one, loved the photo thread earlier.
L/C: 2.5 miles of problem-free running! Definitely an achievement!
Nicki85: Your "find the cat" has made me smile, great idea 
-GR: Great work with the trick training! I've not done any for ages, teaching a bow is on my to-do list.
-LO: sorry to hear that Zand had a numbskull day, but pleased he redeemed himself! Scooter's been similar today so I can sympathise. Love the coat.
-F&F: Oh dear, what a shame about Frank, another naughty boy today! Again, I can sympathise and hope he improves.



Twiggy said:


> Well nasty old grannie says tell her to lie down, pick up a book or better still the newspaper and start reading so she can't make eye contact and totally ignore the whinging. She'll stop when she realises it isn't getting her anywhere.


This made me smile, a few weeks ago I was supervising Paddy in the staff flat to see how he settled in a "home" environment. Very well at first but he soon decided he wanted attention and responded to me telling him to "go to bed" and ignoring his yips by jumping on my lap  Crumpled the magazine I was using as an eye contact shield! at 26kg he was hard to ignore... He's a good boy in there now!

Shamefully I've not been to Blue Cross today, barely slept last night and woke up with the start of a migraine so didn't dare drive. Glad I stayed home because I've been dizzy and seeing in double vision most of the day, only now feeling more normal.

As previously mentioned, Scooter's been a sod today! He's spent a lot of time staring at me, poking me, panting at me asking to go in the garden, _definitely_ a bitch in season somewhere. Mum and I walked them this afternoon and we had the full teeth-chattering, scent-tracking, dribbling works from him so he's back to being an onlead dog for now. 
Breeze was a little star as usual, very jovial and relaxed which is lovely to see! She wanted to play but I had a dizzy spell and couldn't do any chasing games with her  Very very confident with the traffic, worked on walking to heel when crossing roads as she'll pull across them if I let her.

Not dog related but we nearly had a canary disaster tonight! Cosmo lives next to the kitchen so when mum put the kettle down on the hot hob (for reasons unknown!) and _melted_ it he was dangerously close to some very nasty plastic fumes. Thinking of canaries in mines and teflon fume poisoning I hastily shut him in my room, he's very puzzled indeed poor chap.
In all the confusion Scooter snuck back into the kitchen and counter-surfed, taking a mouthful of chips off mum's plate.
He's just had another air-humping session near Breeze, this must be his second childhood :crazy:


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Ah see, she does look very different to a lady down the roads one, though they are exactly the same colours. Evie does look quite 'focused' and 'driven' can you not harness that to make her work for you , lol .
> 
> I forgot, I got Control Unleashed, hope its worth it Sarah , its pricey, I was a bit disappointed when it arrived its a tiny floppy book. However even though I have only read the first chapter it seems to be a very practical approach and i am really looking forward to it. When I have read it and digested it I am happy to *loan *it, I think it was LO who was interested and someone else. (As long as it doesn't come back wrinkled like one of my Boudica books did after my once good friend dropped it in the bath )


ME ME ME ME ME MEEEE MEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PLEASE OH PICK ME PICK ME PICK MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Only if its good though. I was a bit dissapointed with Sarah Whiteheads "Clever dog". That might of been because I'd read it before without thinking. 
:lol:

And good grief thorne, your poor canary!! I have to admit, Zander has never ever ever ever ever humped a person on another dog. He humped a cushion once. That was it.


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Ah see, she does look very different to a lady down the roads one, though they are exactly the same colours. Evie does look quite 'focused' and 'driven' can you not harness that to make her work for you , lol .
> 
> I forgot, I got Control Unleashed, hope its worth it Sarah , its pricey, I was a bit disappointed when it arrived its a tiny floppy book. However even though I have only read the first chapter it seems to be a very practical approach and i am really looking forward to it. When I have read it and digested it I am happy to *loan *it, I think it was LO who was interested and someone else. (As long as it doesn't come back wrinkled like one of my Boudica books did after my once good friend dropped it in the bath )


No I cant.:frown2: I try but I'm just not a good enough handler to get through to her. Big Evie said she's the sort of dog that needs 'managing' and never to be trusted.
She also said she was the 'class clown' and I shouldn't waste my time entering her in any Obedience competitions.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thorne said:


> Dogless: Glad you and your "ready trained" concrete heads had a good one, loved the photo thread earlier.
> 
> Not dog related but we nearly had a canary disaster tonight! Cosmo lives next to the kitchen so when mum put the kettle down on the hot hob (for reasons unknown!) and _melted_ it he was dangerously close to some very nasty plastic fumes. Thinking of canaries in mines and teflon fume poisoning I hastily shut him in my room, he's very puzzled indeed poor chap.
> In all the confusion Scooter snuck back into the kitchen and counter-surfed, taking a mouthful of chips off mum's plate.
> He's just had another air-humping session near Breeze, this must be his second childhood :crazy:


I had forgotten about that comment about the ready trained CH's that made me laugh 

Hope the canary is ok  we have a hob top kettle I worry about getting an electric one in case either of us does that in a moment of vagueness, glad you are feeling better, hubby has had another one this week, they are fortnightly at the mo . Docs on Fri and I am going with him whether he likes it or not 

Air humping  Chips 



LurcherOwner said:


> ME ME ME ME ME MEEEE MEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PLEASE OH PICK ME PICK ME PICK MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
> 
> Only if its good though. I was a bit dissapointed with Sarah Whiteheads "Clever dog". That might of been because I'd read it before without thinking.
> :lol:


Of course, you may have to remind me though, brain like yours  I mean like a sieve 

Don't need any sympathetic words as i wasn't really close, but as I have let you know whats been going on, I will let you all know I had a call from my Mum earlier, her brother has sadly passed, she seemed ok though, glad he is out of pain I think .


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> And good grief thorne, your poor canary!! I have to admit, Zander has never ever ever ever ever humped a person on another dog. He humped a cushion once. That was it.


He's a tough cookie that bird! We think he had a stroke a few months ago but seems to have pulled through that, he coped with Scooter trying to kill him when he first arrived and unlike most canaries he puts up a fight when we clip his nails - most will freeze but he bites! Think it's safe to return him to his normal spot now so will go and fetch him.
My horrid hound has only humped one person and one dog (who was in season!) but his air-thrusts are equally as disturbing! I think he knows Breeze would tell him off if he tried it, she's in charge here


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> No I cant.:frown2: I try but I'm just not a good enough handler to get through to her. Big Evie said she's the sort of dog that needs *'managing' and never to be trusted*.
> She also said she was the 'class clown' and I shouldn't waste my time entering her in any Obedience competitions.


I have a feeling she may have said the same about a small ginger thing 

Oh has been letting her jump onto the chair where I keep her toys out the way today, I told him off for not telling her off but had to admit I did the same the other day, its kind of like she is settling in by being naughty in the house which is nice. Its slightly worrying as its got a big pile of stuff on it and isn't much lower than a kitchen worktop.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> No I cant.:frown2: I try but I'm just not a good enough handler to get through to her. Big Evie said she's the sort of dog that needs 'managing' and never to be trusted.
> *and She also said she was the 'class clown' I shouldn't waste my time entering her in any Obedience competitions.*




In that case I would *Luurve* to get my hands on her. I adore a challenge, especially with other breeds....

The friend that bred Quiver and Tremor posted a photo on Facebook the other day of her little mixed breeds terrier doing fabulous heelwork.


----------



## Thorne

Cosmo has been reinstated to his usual spot and apart from looking perturbed, seems unaffected by the fumes :thumbsup:


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Ah - doing it before is a good idea and probably what Dogless meant too.  I've tried giving her a chew before it starts but that just delays it rather then stopping it. A walk or training session might work though.
> 
> Will try it tonight and report back.


Yes; that's what I meant - not behave like a nutjob and get a reward :frown2: .



LurcherOwner said:


> Hehehehehehe, are we talking Zander level Obedience or Quiver/Kilo obedience.
> 
> How much for postage and packaging!? :lol:


Kilo obedience???? :lol::lol:. Although he has stared at a toy he wants down from the top of Rudi's crate for ages (he could reach it!), then sat down to try and get me to give it to him, and now is lying down staring beseechingly at it. He isn't getting it as it's a very noisy squeaky ball and Rudi is quite crackers already at present as it's approaching witching hour .

k&m and LO - great pics

Twiggy - no stopping you with technology now is there? :thumbup1:

F&F - sorry you had a rubbish walk

Good walks this afternoon - met BC woman again as soon as we set out bizarrely and walked together; Rudi was good. Attempted to jump on BC offlead in the manner he does to Kilo but I called him away and running he came :thumbup1:. Walked nicely on lead with the BC too .

Took Kilo running for an hour .


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> :mad2: :cryin: that just about sums up my walk with frank.
> 
> Started off really well. Working on our 'steady' command is going well and came in handy for the icy pavements. No reaction going past another dog, great.
> Got to a field, loosed him off, called him back from the river no problem. Big fuss made and liver treats munched.
> I was dancing around like a loon in the snow, throwing treats then we were digging them out. He loved it. Paid lots of attention.
> Walked on a bit then I called him to me as he was on a mission to roll in something. Got him on the lead and was just about getting his dogmatic on, cause I thought don't push your luck and he's been good so end on a good note. His head pricked up and off he took. I held onto him for a while but had to let go. There was no way I could hold him.
> There were two other dogs in the distance but he didn't run to them. I called him, and nothing. He just kept on going.
> He eventually stopped and looked at me so I shouted 'wait' and he did.
> It all seemed a pointless thing to have done
> 
> Now I feel crap and like one of those irresponsible owners who can't control their dog. I never let him off unless I'm confident he will come back and I know this is going to set my confidence with him back again plus my oh will look at me and say ' I don't know why you let him off. Just accept that you'll have to keep him on a lead, he's that sort of dog'
> 
> On lead again he was good all the way home.
> Where am I going wrong or what can I do?
> The old saying.....he's golden at home, but sometimes he just switches off when we're out.


Of course you're not an irresponsible dog owner and you did control your dog. He did after all stop on the 'wait' command.

Has this been an ongoing problem or was today just a one off?


----------



## Beth17

Lots of pages everyone 

Thorne hope your head is better, I hate migraines. 
Naughty Scooter and Frank and Zander :nono: Obviously naughty boy day.

K&M I love Evie, such a character 

L/C I hope the pre-empting tactics work tonight.

Sounds like a good day for you Dogless.

To everyone else I hope you had a good day 

Well separate street walks for these two today due to the hail making the roads to slippery to bother about driving. Both behaved perfectly and it was some nice one on one time. Sam didn't pull at all :thumbup1:

I also put his coat on him, well Oscar's coat but he refuses point blank to wear it, and he wasn't bothered at all. He needed the extra protection today whereas fat bum has enough blubber to keep him warm


----------



## GingerRogers

Quick question. What was the fitness diet thing app mentioned 6 million pages ago. Myfitnessplan or something. Hubby wants to know  tried to look but now on phone and can't find.


----------



## Beth17

Oh I forgot to ask, you lovely lot don't happen to have any presentation tips do you? I have to do a 20 minute one on thursday and am dreading it. I talk really fast, get tongue tied and forget my words :frown2:

I hate being a shy wuss :thumbdown:


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Oh I forgot to ask, you lovely lot don't happen to have any presentation tips do you? I have to do a 20 minute one on thursday and am dreading it. I talk really fast, get tongue tied and forget my words :frown2:
> 
> I hate being a shy wuss :thumbdown:


Big deep breathes and a bottle of Rescue Remedy....

I know the feeling as I used to play the piano in local concerts years ago. There were occasions when I sounded more like Les Dawson....!!


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Oh I forgot to ask, you lovely lot don't happen to have any presentation tips do you? I have to do a 20 minute one on thursday and am dreading it. I talk really fast, get tongue tied and forget my words :frown2:
> 
> I hate being a shy wuss :thumbdown:


I've had to do a few presentations in the past and what worked for me was not writing a script just a few cards with a topic with bullet points and any statsitics or references, It helped me pace myself.If i scripted it i could get a 20 min presentation done in 3 :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I've had to do a few presentations in the past and what worked for me was not writing a script just a few cards with a topic with bullet points and any statsitics or references, It helped me pace myself.If i scripted it i could get a 20 min presentation done in 3 :lol:


That worked for me too - and you can skip over or expand on points to suit your audience then too!


----------



## Beth17

moonviolet said:


> I've had to do a few presentations in the past and what worked for me was not writing a script just a few cards with a topic with bullet points and any statsitics or references, It helped me pace myself.If i scripted it i could get a 20 min presentation done in 3 :lol:


That is exactly what I have done, written an essay to read  Right tomorrows job then is to get some cue cards.


----------



## L/C

IT WORKED!

I just spent 15 minutes doing some clicking and treating for calm settled behaviour on her bed and she's now fast asleep! Why didn't I think of that before? 

I dug out my copy of control unleashed for the blinking thing and it actually seemed to have a calming effect. Thanks Sarah for reminding me of that. :thumbup1:

Ginge - the app is myfitnesspal.

Twiggy - would you like to take Gypsy for a challenge? 

Thorne - glad the hardy budgie is OK. Hope Scooter is calmer soon and the air humping stops.

Beth - glad the boys behaved for you. Don't really have any tips - I've never really gotten worried about stuff like that. Sorry.


----------



## GingerRogers

Definitely cue cards. You get lost with essays. I thinkers well be confident in what you're talking about. Know the speech but best of all know the the subject. Dont get panicked about needing to look at the audience and stuff let yourself relax into it and that can come. I hate public speaking but have to do it.


----------



## Ninedogs

Hi everyone I am working on recall,(ordered LNG leads) at the moment using 2-3 leads attached, mainly to stop the exciting hole in the fence temptation, seems to be working, however treats are costing a fortune. Joys go doggy training.....


----------



## Dogless

Ninedogs said:


> Hi everyone I am working on recall,(ordered LNG leads) at the moment using 2-3 leads attached, mainly to stop the exciting hole in the fence temptation, seems to be working, however treats are costing a fortune. Joys go doggy training.....


Liver / sardine / tuna etc cake can be made really cheaply if you want to save a bit of cash :thumbup1:.


----------



## L/C

Dried liver is also good. Buy a pack of liver from supermarket/butcher, boil it, cut it into pieces of whatever size you want and then bake in the oven on a very low heat for about 4 hours. Works like a charm.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Gr, I always have taken his head collar off when he's off lead. Don't know why really. Wonder if I left it on, would he not do what he did tonight. :confused5:

Twiggy, when it's just me and him, he's normally good at recalls and staying by me. And when I've got both boys, I'm careful where I loose frank off. If there's deer about, I keep him on a long line, after he ran off and he disappeared for ages once. 
We go to fields sometimes and I know he can't escape so I let him run around and now and then call him back and he comes. Is this a mistake doing this? 
Tonight was unexpected of him.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Will go and have a catch up.

Ooh, and Freddie was a bugger too. Must be something in the snow :frown2:


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Gr, I always have taken his head collar off when he's off lead. Don't know why really. Wonder if I left it on, would he not do what he did tonight. :confused5:
> 
> Twiggy, when it's just me and him, he's normally good at recalls and staying by me. And when I've got both boys, I'm careful where I loose frank off. If there's deer about, I keep him on a long line, after he ran off and he disappeared for ages once.
> We go to fields sometimes and I know he can't escape so I let him run around and now and then call him back and he comes. Is this a mistake doing this?
> Tonight was unexpected of him.


No it's not a mistake and don't beat yourself up especially if it was unexpected.

Might be worth a try leaving the headcollar on to see if it makes a difference. Just be careful he can't get caught up on it though.

Sensible to keep him on a line when there are deer around. Predatory aggression is not an easy one to cure.


----------



## Nicki85

Gah, Rusty still poorly :-( Just produced some lovely liquid poo.... dunno what to do with him! It's very random and he seems fine in him self. The last "episode" was yesterday lunchtime... and again a one off. He is usually one of those dogs that can eat anything without any side effects which is why it is so strange. THink I will put him on chicken only for a couple of days. If he is not OK by Fri or gets worse it will be the vets.

He was crazy out today as well- disappeared for a good two minutes (naughty pup) but I watched where he went on the tracker collar (on my iPhone) and it was interesting. He got totally confused where I was and ran off in the wrong direction at one point. Have to admit it has made me much more relaxed (in a good way) when walking him that he hasn't done a runner. He is not bad by any means and usually checks in at least every 30secs. 

I haven't read others posts sorry :-( Going into despair/ worry mode with Rusty... Will try harder tomorrow...


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> I forgot, I got Control Unleashed, hope its worth it Sarah , its pricey, I was a bit disappointed when it arrived its a tiny floppy book. However even though I have only read the first chapter it seems to be a very practical approach and i am really looking forward to it.


Lol, it is pricey compared to some of the others but it's been well worth the price for me. I even got the Puppy Program one despite not having a puppy


----------



## MollySmith

Nicki85 said:


> Gah, Rusty still poorly :-( Just produced some lovely liquid poo.... dunno what to do with him! It's very random and he seems fine in him self. The last "episode" was yesterday lunchtime... and again a one off. He is usually one of those dogs that can eat anything without any side effects which is why it is so strange. THink I will put him on chicken only for a couple of days. If he is not OK by Fri or gets worse it will be the vets.
> 
> He was crazy out today as well- disappeared for a good two minutes (naughty pup) but I watched where he went on the tracker collar (on my iPhone) and it was interesting. He got totally confused where I was and ran off in the wrong direction at one point. Have to admit it has made me much more relaxed (in a good way) when walking him that he hasn't done a runner. He is not bad by any means and usually checks in at least every 30secs.
> 
> I haven't read others posts sorry :-( Going into despair/ worry mode with Rusty... Will try harder tomorrow...


Sorry to hear that. Molly has been hyper and a bit runny with the poo too, I think it might be the piriton she's on for her swollen face but I've had her on rice and chicken for a couple of days and just spuds in her kong and she's okay now. Could be the sheer amount of snow she's consumed!

Is the collar the Retriva? We've got that for Molly and I have to say I'm pants at working it on the iPhone

Sorry not to catch up proper, been at work, walking in the ice and just back from seeing the surgeon about the op with so so news, off to bed, night everyone


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> No it's not a mistake and don't beat yourself up especially if it was unexpected.
> 
> Might be worth a try leaving the headcollar on to see if it makes a difference. Just be careful he can't get caught up on it though.
> 
> Sensible to keep him on a line when there are deer around. Predatory aggression is not an easy one to cure.


Thanks for that  
Never heard of predatory aggression, is that what he sounds like?


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - I'd pop Rusty to the vet tomorrow I think, just for reassurance.

MollySmith - do hope that you are OK x.


----------



## GingerRogers

Freddie and frank said:


> Gr, I always have taken his head collar off when he's off lead. Don't know why really. Wonder if I left it on, would he not do what he did tonight. :confused5:
> 
> Twiggy, when it's just me and him, he's normally good at recalls and staying by me. And when I've got both boys, I'm careful where I loose frank off. If there's deer about, I keep him on a long line, after he ran off and he disappeared for ages once.
> We go to fields sometimes and I know he can't escape so I let him run around and now and then call him back and he comes. Is this a mistake doing this?
> Tonight was unexpected of him.


Just meant maybe you could get control easier? ??


----------



## Nicki85

MollySmith said:


> Sorry to hear that. Molly has been hyper and a bit runny with the poo too, I think it might be the piriton she's on for her swollen face but I've had her on rice and chicken for a couple of days and just spuds in her kong and she's okay now. Could be the sheer amount of snow she's consumed!
> 
> Is the collar the Retriva? We've got that for Molly and I have to say I'm pants at working it on the iPhone
> 
> Sorry not to catch up proper, been at work, walking in the ice and just back from seeing the surgeon about the op with so so news, off to bed, night everyone


Yes it is the Retrieva one... only had it for a month or so but I like it so far! Only problem is when it does not have phone signal... I've got the viewranger app on the iphone so I can track him "live" so to speak! He has been hyper in the snow as well so nice to see he is not actually going that far away. It is amazing how fast he goes too!! How are you getting on with it?

Fingers crossed Rusty clears up soon as well... he is fed raw so just raw chicken for the next few days I think.


----------



## Freddie and frank

GingerRogers said:


> Just meant maybe you could get control easier? ??


Oh dear, I'm so dizzy. :shocked:


----------



## Sarah1983

LO, I've been disappointed in a lot of highly recommended books because people rave about them but then when I read them it's just the same stuff worded a different way. So many people raved about one for stopping dogs chasing and I got it thinking it'd help and then there was absolutely nothing I hadn't heard before in it and I was like "yeah, tried all that, didn't work"  Then there was that Plenty In Life Is Free which took me months to read because it felt like the author was ramming god down my throat. 

When Pigs Fly and Control Unleashed are two of my favourites. Not so much for new information as such (when you've read a billion dog behaviour books and spent so many years on forums really new stuff seems hard to come by) but because they made me look at things in a different way.


----------



## Werehorse

Beth17 said:


> Oh I forgot to ask, you lovely lot don't happen to have any presentation tips do you? I have to do a 20 minute one on thursday and am dreading it. I talk really fast, get tongue tied and forget my words :frown2:
> 
> I hate being a shy wuss :thumbdown:


Deep breathes and cue cards rather than a script. Pick a couple of people in the audience and concentrate on addressing them, at least at first. Stand tall and project confidence... know your subject so you feel confident about what you are saying. Smile at the start and the end. Say what you are going to say, say it, say what you said. :lol:

It is never as bad as you think it could be!

Talk slow enough to feel slightly silly at first and you'll be at about the right speed.  Think about the words being a tiny bit heavy if that makes any sense at all.

I think when I was teaching I was constantly thinking low, slow voice and stand up tall. It really does help if you can put some expression into what you are saying, practice it from your cue cards a number of times so you get a feel for the rythm of what you are saying.

It is possible to quite enjoy this stuff!  I used to not be able to feel my feet when asked to present at uni, or my hands, I was so nervous! and then when I started my teacher training it just clicked and I suddenly couldn't get enough of it.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Thanks for that
> Never heard of predatory aggression, is that what he sounds like?


Any dog that takes off after deer, foxes, hares, etc. etc. totally focused and ignoring everything else has a high prey drive.

Have you ever read any of Cleo38 posts about her GSD Roxy?

My daughter took on an 18 month old collie/retriever cross many years ago and we had a heck of a job sorting her out.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Any dog that takes off after deer, foxes, hares, etc. etc. totally focused and ignoring everything else has a high prey drive.
> 
> Have you ever read any of Cleo38 posts about her GSD Roxy?
> 
> My daughter took on an 18 month old collie/retriever cross many years ago and we had a heck of a job sorting her out.


That sounds like frank. Never thought about that before, just put it down to me doing something wrong. 
I haven't read her posts, will take a look at them.

Are there any sort of activities that'll help manage it?


----------



## Nicki85

Dogless said:


> Nicki - I'd pop Rusty to the vet tomorrow I think, just for reassurance.
> 
> MollySmith - do hope that you are OK x.


Yes, think i'll give them a ring tomorrow morning... check that my plan of action is OK.

Beth17- agree with Werehorse... I used to be like you and get tongue tied and speak at a million miles an hour! I found filming myself (yes I know it is horrible) and then watching it back so you can see really how fast you are talking- slowed me down. I learnt that a short pause really does not last forever ;-)

MollySmith- sorry, didn't see the bit about your op- hope everything is Ok

Freddie and Frank- I don't know all of your story so apologies if you have tried this! COuld you move the chase behaviour onto a ball or toy? Rusty likes to chase things (not intensely like yours by the sound of it though...) but has improved loads since making a big thing about chasing his froggy toy.... I think there is a guide somewhere how to do it... something about two toys and redirecting the drive onto the toy.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> That sounds like frank. Never thought about that before, just put it down to me doing something wrong.
> I haven't read her posts, will take a look at them.
> 
> Are there any sort of activities that'll help manage it?


Yes lots and lots and, depending on breed to a certain extent, redirecting their drive onto something more suitable will help.

With my daughter's bitch we avoided walking her in woods and forests for quite some time until she was much better trained.


----------



## Freddie and frank

good morning guys, sorry it's a quick visit again 

have read some of cleo38 threads and it sounds so much like frank, we've even had a swan incident like her....but with ducks 

nicki, i haven't tried it, he absolutely loves a ball in the garden but when i've taken them out he's not bothered in the slightest. worth a look at how to do it. thanks

can anyone point me in the right direction of what nicki has suggested please. thanks


----------



## Freddie and frank

:thumbup1:


Twiggy said:


> Yes lots and lots and, depending on breed to a certain extent, redirecting their drive onto something more suitable will help.
> 
> With my daughter's bitch we avoided walking her in woods and forests for quite some time until she was much better trained.


great, what can i do?

d'you know, i've had him from a pup and been to a few trainers one to one, spent a fortune, and not once did it occur to me or them that it could be his prey drive. how stupid. :frown2:

he's very alert and learns quickly, for a choc lab, also loves balls so i'm eager to get this sorted, or at least manage it.

eta, will pop back later, have to get some work done.
thanks in advance.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> :thumbup1:
> 
> great, what can i do?
> 
> d'you know, i've had him from a pup and been to a few trainers one to one, spent a fortune, and not once did it occur to me or them that it could be his prey drive. how stupid. :frown2:
> 
> he's very alert and learns quickly, for a choc lab, also loves balls so i'm eager to get this sorted, or at least manage it.
> 
> eta, will pop back later, have to get some work done.
> thanks in advance.


Right we'll have an indepth discussion on how to tackle Frank later....


----------



## moonviolet

Well we were having a lovely pavement walk yesterday evening until COcky Mr Fox decided it woul be fun to stand in a driveway a couple of metres from the pavement an stare at the beagle to see what she does :lol: I woul expected lunging and barking but actually only got totally stiffen up on toes, tail pointing skyward and vibrating like it was conducting electricity, accompanied by a couple of low woofs. Mr Fox then looked away and looke back and after that madame was happy to trot on. unfortunately she was slightly excited by the fox incident so she howled at a couple of dogs walking on the other side of the road. not great but they were staring and walking with dropped stalky shoulders. So i'm chalking that one down to experience :lol: 

Had a great little training session when we got in, i knew she's be too hyped to settle right after the wak, like asking somene to sleep after they have just got off a rollercoaster. She was super keen and really switched on...

Nicki I hope Rusty is better today. 

F+F hope you find soem practical ways of working with Frank I'm sure grannie and soem ofthe others will be able to help. 

MS hope everythign goes well


----------



## Werehorse

Aaaw, beagle howls. :lol:

I hope Rusty is feeling better this morning, Nicki. I would get him to the vet even if it is just for some reassurance.

Sarah - god in a dog behaviour book? :lol: interesting approach. I wonder if it works on atheist terriers. Did it advocate the "JESUS CHRIST, FENTON!" approach to recall.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Well we were having a lovely pavement walk yesterday evening until COcky Mr Fox decided it woul be fun to stand in a driveway a couple of metres from the pavement an stare at the beagle to see what she does :lol: I woul expected lunging and barking but actually only got totally stiffen up on toes, tail pointing skyward and vibrating like it was conducting electricity, accompanied by a couple of low woofs. Mr Fox then looked away and looke back and after that madame was happy to trot on. unfortunately she was slightly excited by the fox incident so she howled at a couple of dogs walking on the other side of the road. not great but they were staring and walking with dropped stalky shoulders. So i'm chalking that one down to experience :lol:
> 
> Had a great little training session when we got in, i knew she's be too hyped to settle right after the wak, like asking somene to sleep after they have just got off a rollercoaster. She was super keen and really switched on...
> 
> Nicki I hope Rusty is better today.
> 
> F+F hope you find soem practical ways of working with Frank I'm sure grannie and soem ofthe others will be able to help.
> 
> MS hope everythign goes well


Tink really is a little superstar!! Love your description of the Mr Fox encounter....


----------



## Twiggy

Quiver's lame on her front left shoulder this morning. That was half an hour's walk in the deepish snow yesterday.

Thank goodness they say we will be getting a thaw by the week-end. I hate to see the oldies struggle.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Quiver's lame on her front left shoulder this morning. That was half an hour's walk in the deepish snow yesterday.
> 
> Thank goodness they say we will be getting a thaw by the week-end. I hate to see the oldies struggle.


OH was saying temps could be back up to 10c next week, I'll admit i'll be quite happy about that. Hope Quivers sound again soon


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Sarah - god in a dog behaviour book? :lol: interesting approach. I wonder if it works on *atheist terriers*. Did it advocate the "JESUS CHRIST, FENTON!" approach to recall.


:lol::lol: If that was aimed at me and mine, its more a question of will it work for the atheist owner of an atheist terrier. However if CU works I will no longer be an atheist, I will worship the feet of Ms McDevitt. Sadly I suspect Ginge will always be wayward though  Just read the second chapter with a little ginger knee rug draped over my knees, I am liking the approach, practical and realistic. Like Sarah I am sick of the - teach a watch me command, be more interesting etc approach, those methods may well work eventually but I am doubting it, my dog is special :001_wub: (needs)  some of the methods I have read about are def working, the U turn is a definite winner if I get it in time.

This morning we managed to watch two dogs at a distance  but passing them even on opposite sides of the road is a no no still :frown2: and dogs approaching her from behind is a big problem :frown2:. Nearly lost her under a van as she spun round in circles by the main road as my hand slipped on the lead and only had her by a finger  but can you tell I am feeling much more positive, I am thinking it is progress not just flukes.

Hope Rusty is feeling better today, hope Quiver recovers and the snow goes, its mostly melting into slush here, not sure which is more difficult to walk on TBH 

Beth, Werehorses recommendation to talk really slowly is a good one, you will feel like a plank but if you do record yourself just to prove the point, you will see you actually sound normal. I was asked to do some readings at a friends wedding a couple of years ago and I hadn't done anything like that since school (electrocution lessons ) I followed that idea and everybody said how well I did, one bloke even said 'that sounded like a proper reading' 

Thanks L/C for the app - sadly I have realised I eat too much cereal 

F&F I do hope you can do something with Frank but still stand by what I said, don't feel the pressure to let him off, do it in your own time and only if/when you are happy, it will only knock you more if you aren't.


----------



## Nicki85

F&F- it is this link How do I stop my dog chasing? that is the general principle... I guess start off playing ball in somewhere that is not as distracting as the forest and then build up till he is concentrating on the ball where ever he is.

GR- well done on passing at distance... little steps and all that 

Rusty had no problems through the night and only went once on his morning walk. I've rung the vets and explained it all and they say to bring him in on Fri if he is still not 100% they think it is something working its way through... they don't want to give him pro-kaolin etc. as he is OKish the majority of the time... He seems a bit lethargic this morning but that may just be my over active imagination!! We have agility tonight so need to make a decision to go or not.


----------



## Werehorse

I officially give up. Hugo can stay a toast-rack for his entire life. I cannot feed him any more or any different than the recommended amount of kibble without disaster poos. 

I have gradually increased the amount of kibble over the last week and have given him an egg on his breakfast for two days and this morning! Argh! Sorry to be graphic but the kind of poo you can hear.  Some lumps, slop and with added blood to make me worry even more. Red blood, not black, so colitis rather than anything really nasty. It's a watch and see as I haven't got the car to do a paranoid rush to the vets today anyway. I think it is just a volume of food thing but he did have his jabs on Monday so I wonder if he's had a reaction to them as well. 

Bollockybollocky****bollocks.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Bollockybollocky****bollocks.


Liked for that phrase  not for poor poos .

He is only a baby still though isn't he, may he fill out as he matures? TBH though I have seen some very ribby collies and spaniels, they are both high energy dogs, he may have just got ribby genes from both sides. Hubby's old sheepdog never carried any weight even when he wasn't worked for weeks on end and spaniels wiggle too much to gain weight I reckon, (well generally, a neighbour had a huge spanner, it was all muscle apparently , they must have fed her an extortionate amount as she was always out and about with him).
Is this vets ganging up on you or your own thoughts, cos he looks awesome in the pictures of him, yes he is very lean, but not scrawny neglected style.


----------



## Nicki85

Werehorse- have you tried full fat goats milk? I found it was the one thing that put weight on my toast rack Springer.... gentle on the tum and high in protein.


----------



## L/C

F&F - I'll tell you how I manage Gypsy's prey drive and it might give you some ideas for Frank.

Two good books are David Ryan and Clarissa Von Reinhardt.

I've taken bits from both of them and adapted them to suit us. Gypsy isn't toy motivated so I use food for the recall game in the David Ryan book and obey the spirit rather then the letter - I minimise access to prey but there's nowhere we can walk that doesn't have any (we encounter squirrels, cats and foxes on pavement walks!). From the Clarissa Von Reinhardt I find the stuff on interactive walks very helpful but I ignore the bit about not letting your dog chase anything (even toys) as I've found that a dog with a high chase drive needs an outlet or you get frustrated behaviour (barking, destruction etc.).

The main thing that I have found very, very helpful is impulse control work. Since I've started working on that Gypsy is a lot more controllable and focused in areas that she knows there is prey.

*Recall Game*

You need a friend to help you with this.

Start with a toy/food that Frank loves (John Rogerson refers to them as Category A toys) and one that he likes but isn't mad about (Category B toy). 
Show him and tease him with the B toy and throw it towards your friend. Let Frank chase it and call him back with your recall command.

If he doesn't come have your friend pick up or stand on the toy so he can't get to it and not interact with Frank at all. When he looks in your direction (eventually maybe!) then show him the A toy that you had hidden and then throw it away from your friend. You need to chase it as well and make sure that you get to it before he does. Then tease him with it again but don't let him get it.

Rinse and repeat.

When he breaks off the chase for the B toy immediately when you call him then let him overtake you when you both run for the A toy and grab it. Then play with him and make it very exciting.

To keep his interest and the game exciting change it up a bit occasionally. Sometimes let him get the B toy when it is thrown and sometimes surprise him with really good treats as well as the toy when he comes back.

*Impulse Control*

Gypsy's big thing is food - so I practice leave a lot and down stays while I drop food around her. This is has been invaluable in improving her self control. We're also starting to work on this. We've only done it a couple of times so I can't tell yet if it's made much difference when we're out and about.

I've been proofing Gypsy's down stay as well and this is also contributing to her self control. We started just working on a down stay and I've gradually raised the distractions and have included some things that would trigger her chase instinct. So I started with me walking around, added in me running about, added in Ely running about and chasing his toy, I practice where she can see other dogs playing and running and where she can see my OH cycling. We also practice off lead heeling around other dogs running and playing and focus work in areas where I know there is prey (watch me, recall, target work).

*Interactive Walks *

Probably the most helpful thing though has been interactive walks. I've added in finding games, treat tree, nosework, training and drive work - so they never know what game I'm going to play next. That means that they are a lot more interested in what I am doing and less likely to wander off and look for their own entertainment. Even when they have free time, they are always coming back to check in with me and trying to get me to do something with them.

They are also allowed a hunting outlet so they can utilise those instincts. We have a patch of field covered in long grass that is inhabited by some sort of small rodents (I call it the field of tiny mice). When we get there they are allowed to go and track and hunt in the long grass - they never catch anything. I recall them periodically and then let them go again. If they don't recall then I go and get them, put them on the lead and we leave.

Of course none of that works once Gypsy has already locked onto something so in areas that I think she is likely to take off I put her on the lead so she can't practice chasing without permission.

Phew!

Hope something from that is helpful!


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks Nicki I might try that with Oscar as he seems to be able to eat anything... Hugo on the other hand! I'm a bit scared to try anything new, I can see me ending up attempting to use kibble for training treats at this rate.

Ginge - personally I don't really mind him this thin, but it doesn't show so much in photos that you can see most of the back section of his ribs, especially from above. The vet did say he was fine really and not to worry if he won't put any more on. He just gets quite a few comments, well they both do, usually from peopl with slightly pudgey dogs of course.  He does have a shiney coat and good muscle tone.

I kind of wish I could manage raw but financially and organisationally it is out of the question. Plus we don't have a big freezer or room for another one. Also I'm not sure it would help (would he just end up a toast rack with a bit mroe muscle tone!) or whether he would be able to tolerate it or anything.


----------



## L/C

So many posts while I was typing all of that out! 

Werehorse - hope Hugo is feeling better soon.  Goats milk does sound like a good idea if you haven't tried it yet.

I ignore all the god stuff in CU and just take the stuff I want from it. The clicking for blinking seemed to really work for Gypsy last night so I'm willing to overlook a bit of guff if I get a peaceful evening!

GR - well done for passing at a distance! Glad you have a positive head on!

Nicki - it sounds like Rusty is a bit better which is great. :thumbup1:

MV - howling Tink and Mr Fox. :001_wub:


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse- hope hugo's tummy settles down soon, and Rusty's Nikki. 

F+F- good luck finding something to interest Frank.

Beth- good luck with the talk, hope it goes well.

Moonviolet- what a cheeky fox  Tink was good though.

GR- Ginge is making progress isn't she.

Twiggy- Hope Quiver's leg is better soon, 

M.Smith- Hope evrythings ok.
I dont think I realised just how naughty Evie is, I know its mostly my fault , I let her away with too much and I dont know why.
Managed to get a 10 second stay from her this morning before we left for our walk- she tried it on 3 times first, but 10 bloomin seconds , just shows she is capable.
On the walk she doesn't think anything applies to her-she ignored the whistle, wouldn't sit when I asked and I had to run backwards to get her to come to me. I wouldn't mind but all this is on lead.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Thanks Nicki I might try that with Oscar as he seems to be able to eat anything... Hugo on the other hand! I'm a bit scared to try anything new, I can see me ending up attempting to use kibble for training treats at this rate.
> 
> Ginge - personally I don't really mind him this thin, but it doesn't show so much in photos that you can see most of the back section of his ribs, especially from above. The vet did say he was fine really and not to worry if he won't put any more on. He just gets quite a few comments, well they both do, usually from peopl with slightly pudgey dogs of course.  He does have a shiney coat and good muscle tone.
> 
> *I kind of wish I could manage raw but financially and organisationally it is out of the question. Plus we don't have a big freezer or room for another one. Also I'm not sure it would help (would he just end up a toast rack with a bit mroe muscle tone!) or whether he would be able to tolerate it or anything*.


Obviously you have dogs that need more food than mine but I was hesitating on taking the plunge (cheap drumsticks made me ) mainly for the organisational thing, I am the least organised person in the world.

However I resigned myself to having to buy food in weekly. We manage with, cough, cough, one (thats what hubby thinks anyway, actually two but I do all the cooking so we are unlikely to have defrosted kidneys for tea ) drawers in our freezer, we have a teeny kitchen so no room for more unless it goes in the dining room which isn't likely to go down well.

She survives mainly on chicken bits from the frozen or reduced section, an average drumstick or thigh per meal, balanced out over size, I've worked out the amount of liver & offal she needs (offal mainly kidney) and divide it into portions so she can have one or the other every other day, luckily half kidneys and an ice cube of liver works out perfect amounts. And thats her basic diet  with variety thrown in as and when I can get hold of something. We have some lamb necks and ribs in at the moment, and piggy trotters  I love watching her eat those . Also some unidentified steak things (I think they might be venison , left over from hubbys bosses inedible food parcels ) she turned her nose up at freezer burnt bit of pale sponge :frown2: but the normal looking bits she ate like a wolf.

If you have freezer space I am sure you could do it cheaper than me and cheaper than kibble, once you work out a basic portion of something each day you don't have to think too hard. But perhaps I am teaching grannies to suck eggs.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> So many posts while I was typing all of that out!
> 
> Werehorse - hope Hugo is feeling better soon.  Goats milk does sound like a good idea if you haven't tried it yet.
> 
> I ignore all the *god stuff *in CU and just take the stuff I want from it. The clicking for blinking seemed to really work for Gypsy last night so I'm willing to overlook a bit of guff if I get a peaceful evening!
> 
> GR - well done for passing at a distance! Glad you have a positive head on!
> 
> Nicki - it sounds like Rusty is a bit better which is great. :thumbup1:
> 
> MV - howling Tink and Mr Fox. :001_wub:


No! I was liking it so far, I don't do god stuff , I thought Sarah was referring to another book.

K&M - I think you have the ninja in disguise, 'All this is on lead' lol, I sometimes think I may as well not be there .


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> No! I was liking it so far, I don't do god stuff , I thought Sarah was referring to another book.
> 
> K&M - I think you have the ninja in disguise, 'All this is on lead' lol, I sometimes think I may as well not be there .


Oops ignore me. I'm running all my dog books into one - it's a while since I read CU so I've quite likely mixed it all up in my head. Possibly with Plenty in Life is Free. Sitting here flipping through CU and there's no God stuff - I am having a blonde moment.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Oops ignore me. I'm running all my dog books into one - it's a while since I read CU so I've quite likely mixed it all up in my head. Possibly with Plenty in Life is Free. Sitting here flipping through CU and there's no God stuff - I am having a blonde moment.


Oh Thank God


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Sarah - god in a dog behaviour book? :lol: interesting approach. I wonder if it works on atheist terriers. Did it advocate the "JESUS CHRIST, FENTON!" approach to recall.


Lol, I wish it had, that would have been amusing at least. No, she jut kept talking about god and using religion as examples of stuff. The examples made perfect sense but it really did feel like I was having religion rammed down my throat which is a huge turn off for me at the best of times never mind when on a topic that has nothing to do whatsoever with religion.

How old is Hugo now? It could be that with age he'll start to hold weight better. Rupert was 10kg underweight most of his life though, nothing I did put weight on him or kept it on and he ate vast amounts of food. Wolf was the same when young but once he got towards middle age he started holding weight better.

The Clarissa Von Reinhardt book was the one I was really disappointed in  I've no doubt the advice given is excellent but by the time I read it I'd been struggling for nearly 8 years and had already tried everything in it except the sausage tree which really wasn't practical anyway so I might as well have just read the very last part of it lol. Not noticed any god stuff in CU though  Plenty In Life Is Free is the one I had issues with coz of the constant references to god in the first few chapters.


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, I wish it had, that would have been amusing at least. No, she jut kept talking about god and using religion as examples of stuff. The examples made perfect sense but it really did feel like I was having religion rammed down my throat which is a huge turn off for me at the best of times never mind when on a topic that has nothing to do whatsoever with religion.
> 
> How old is Hugo now? It could be that with age he'll start to hold weight better. Rupert was 10kg underweight most of his life though, nothing I did put weight on him or kept it on and he ate vast amounts of food. Wolf was the same when young but once he got towards middle age he started holding weight better.
> 
> The Clarissa Von Reinhardt book was the one I was really disappointed in  I've no doubt the advice given is excellent but by the time I read it I'd been struggling for nearly 8 years and had already tried everything in it except the sausage tree which really wasn't practical anyway so I might as well have just read the very last part of it lol. Not noticed any god stuff in CU though  Plenty In Life Is Free is the one I had issues with coz of the constant references to god in the first few chapters.


Ignore me. I read the god stuff bit on a skim then the CU stuff - put 2 + 2 together and remembered I'd read a book that had it all in and then made 67.


----------



## Nicki85

And it's off to the vets we go! After thinking that he was improving this morning he has turned his nose up at a fresh chicken breast (apart from if I chop it up).. which is unlike him... more liquid from the other end as well :-( And there is a lot of lick lipping going on... 

Luckily agility has been cancelled so don't have to worry about that. We have our first show arranged for Sunday- starting to look unlikely that we will get to that now :-(

Vets appointment is at 2.40 .


----------



## L/C

Oh dear.

I hope he feels better soon and that it isn't anything too worrying at the vet?


----------



## Dogless

F&F - Kilo's prey drive is our biggest challenge - L/C beat me to the book recommendations. One of the most useful 'tricks' I have used since puppy hood is throwing a precious toy to divert the chase if I know that recall will fail as the fixation / stalking / running on has started. Have to get in there very fast though. I am going to put a whistle to it (too thick to have thought of it from the start :frown2 once the weather is better. All the ready...steady...drive building stuff we have also been doing (before it was so icy) has also helped to develop much more focus on a tug toy. I have also accepted that in some environments he stays onlead - in one forest teeming with deer I run with him but he is attached to me at all times; at dusk and dawn / night I have to be careful as he turns into a hugely vigilant hunter and if it moves he fixates on it to chase immediately and at a far greater distance away than he would in the day etc.

Twiggy - hope Quiver recovers soon.

Werehorse - I use goats milk when I need a little weight on the BW. If you get a good supplier raw can be cheap and easy; the CHs eat the best part of 4kg per day between them .

mv - love the Fantastic Mr Fox encounter....and the howls; Kilo is very, very unsure of Arrrooossss!

k&m - Evie is brilliant .

GR - you are making progress amongst all the madness :thumbup1:.

The CHs were fabulous again this morning - our 5 minutes to the top fields took about 15 because it was so treacherous but they walked well and we made it despite dogs, school bus stop chaos etc. We had one little incident....Rudi stopped to poo..which was fine and I transferred leads into one hand, then as I bent to pick it up he decided to grab my hat off my head :devil: and leap about with it, tangling leads and I up :w00t:. Anyhow, hat restored to it's rightful place on my head, leads sorted and on we went to assorted sniggers from kids and parents walking to the bus stop :crazy:. The CHs played and we did some recalls, sits, waits, leaves and walked back. I even went past the nursery as it was dropping off time and a chaos of small kids, buggies, bikes etc - I used to avoid it with just Kilo but we can just sail through now with Rudi and I want him to be accustomed to it. Best boys again :001_wub::001_wub:. It will be nice when it's less icy so I can carry on with Kilo's drive building stuff!

I then went swimming. My stupid back is even impacting on that at present, used to be one of my only almost pain - free activities :mad2:.


----------



## Dogless

Hope all is OK at the vet Nicki.


----------



## Beth17

I'm going to be good and do a quickish post cause then I have cue cards to sort out.

Thank you for all the advice everyone it really makes sense and I do feel a lot better. I'm sure it will be fine as half of my presentation is talking about dog behaviour 

I hope Rusty is feeling better poor lad

MV Love the idea of Tink and the fox.

Twiggy I hope Quivers leg heals soon and you get a thaw.

Werehorse I'm beginning to find that with Sam. He's very ribby yet his stomach is very sensitive and if I up his food he can have tummy issues. Hope Hugo is feeling better soon.

Lovely walk up the field today with them both. We've had some snow so that was fun. They both ignored all the dogs up there and Sam was off lead for most of it. The only problem was Oscar decided to be gobby when Sam was trying to play with the toy 

ETA sounds like a brilliant walk again Dogless. I hope your back eases up a bit.


----------



## Sarah1983

Nicki85 said:


> And there is a lot of *lick lipping* going on...


It probably shoudn't but that made me giggle when I finally figured out what wasn't right. Hope Rusty's feeling better soon and that it's nothing serious.

F&F, I never got anywhere with Rupert and his prey drive but he had a long history of killing and eating things and it never seemed to be the chase he was interested in so much as the kill. I even had lots of chats with a couple of ecollar trainers at one point, both agreed that it was highly unlikely to be effective given his history so he remained an on leash unless in a secure area dog. Spen on the other hand is all about the chase and doesn't know what to do if something doesn't run, just prances and whines.

Twiggy, hope Quiver is sound again soon. I hate this bloody weather. Spen loves it, it's me who usually ends up injured.

MV, Tink sounds so cute lol.

Dogless, glad you had a lovely walk and the incident with the hat made me giggle. Sounds like the pair of them are doing really, really well and that Rudi is having a great impact on Kilos worries about certain things. Long may it continue :thumbup1: Hope your back gets better quickly.


----------



## kat&molly

Nikki- I hope Rusty goes ok at the vets.

Dogless- would love to have seen Rudi nick your hat.


----------



## MollySmith

Nicki85 said:


> And it's off to the vets we go! After thinking that he was improving this morning he has turned his nose up at a fresh chicken breast (apart from if I chop it up).. which is unlike him... more liquid from the other end as well :-( And there is a lot of lick lipping going on...
> 
> Luckily agility has been cancelled so don't have to worry about that. We have our first show arranged for Sunday- starting to look unlikely that we will get to that now :-(
> 
> Vets appointment is at 2.40 .


Just quickly dropping in to say hope you get an answer  Take care, see everyone later back to work and off to a HR redundancy one to one where we all pretend to give a sh*t.


----------



## moonviolet

W/H hope Hugo is ok and his tummy settles, try not to worry too much about his skinny ribs, Tink was a toast rack until after she was 2. Now quite the "sturdy little hound"

Nicki hope you and Rusty get on ok at the vet's.

On our walk this morning Tink excelle herself by sniffing the rear of a crouching soldier. Totally my fault for not noticing him. I apologised and he saw the funny side, called her back and popped her lead on as we walked past a patrol and got a couple "nice dog" comments . Snow was thawing and falling of the trees in lumps, which made for a great game of pounce on the snow, Tink enjoyed it too 

It's just started snowing again souns like an excuse to light the woodburner to me and drink hot chocolate to me 

I doubt Tink's reaction woul have been the same if the fox had run so well done plucky little fox. Seem to have been lucky with plucky animals that dont' see Tink as a threat, oh the shame of being shouted at by a squirrel :lol: worked a treat to stop her chasing them.

K&M Evie is a force of nature :001_wub:


----------



## GingerRogers

OH Tink  glad he saw the funny side, I have really strange images of you striding out around soldiers doing exercises with tanks and guns and stuff, the things we do to keep away from the other dog walkers!

Love Rudi's hat stealing too! 

Hope Rusty is ok and good luck at your meeting mollysmith, hope they offer a good package !


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> OH Tink  glad he saw the funny side, I have really strange images of you striding out around soldiers doing exercises with tanks and guns and stuff, the things we do to keep away from the other dog walkers!
> 
> Love Rudi's hat stealing too!
> 
> Hope Rusty is ok and good luck at your meeting mollysmith, hope they offer a good package !


The areas i walk regularly are somewhat tamer than that, more like a big game of laser tag, no tanks, just the occasional crew cab pick up :lol

Dogless love Rudi an hte hat :lol:

MS hope the 1to 1 goes as well as it can.


----------



## Sarah1983

Ginge, I've played 101 things to do with a tank with Spencer :lol: It's one on display rather than one that's actually used but he took one look at it and went "uh uh, no way am I going past that!" so out came the clicker. 

Don't see tanks on walks though, just the odd land rover or something. And quite often see groups of soldiers running around carrying a big log of wood.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I officially give up. Hugo can stay a toast-rack for his entire life. I cannot feed him any more or any different than the recommended amount of kibble without disaster poos.
> 
> I have gradually increased the amount of kibble over the last week and have given him an egg on his breakfast for two days and this morning! Argh! Sorry to be graphic but the kind of poo you can hear.  Some lumps, slop and with added blood to make me worry even more. Red blood, not black, so colitis rather than anything really nasty. It's a watch and see as I haven't got the car to do a paranoid rush to the vets today anyway. I think it is just a volume of food thing but he did have his jabs on Monday so I wonder if he's had a reaction to them as well.
> 
> Bollockybollocky****bollocks.


Hugo won't stay like a toast rack for the rest of his life. Honestly.

I've done exactly the same ie stuffed the food in with just the same result as you're getting now.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Werehorse- have you tried full fat goats milk? I found it was the one thing that put weight on my toast rack Springer.... gentle on the tum and high in protein.


I can recommend the goats milk as well. Holly was given it for a good six months, because she was in such poor condition (thin with a staring coat) and it did make a difference.


----------



## Guest

He got out today (over six foot fencing) and played keepaway and nearly got hit by a car and I yelled at a group of people to help me catch him and they all pretended not to hear me and then i found his tags in the snow and then he kept running and running and then I lasooed him with slip lead and now he's in the living room and I may cry. 





Fudge.


----------



## Beth17

LO sorry Donkey boy has been such a pain today how frightening for you  
I hope he redeems himself for you again.


----------



## Guest

Beth17 said:


> LO sorry Donkey boy has been such a pain today how frightening for you
> I hope he redeems himself for you again.


Well I took him the charity shop this morn, and apart from jumping up at people, he was pretty good though. Everyone thought 'she' was pretty. :L


----------



## L/C

Sorry LO that he gave you such a fright. Glad he behaved a bit better later on.


----------



## GingerRogers

How scary, especially when you find his tags on the floor, bad donkey, scaring you like that !

I want to cry too but for much less important reasons, I chased up the little ones new coat as I realised I hadn't had confirmation or anything, there was a problem, but it will be sent today, but the snow is melting, now I have a dog coat I want my dog to wear it :cryin:

But she is starting to take to her new bed  - pic taken at lunchtime, can you tell there is food about , as requested by Dogless


----------



## Nicki85

LO- that must have been so scary :-( Glad you are both OK though.

Just got back from vets... back in again on fri for blood tests. Vet is concerned the lethargy and other symptoms are sign that the swollen lymph nodes are finally giving cause for concern so I guess they want to check for that cancer they get in the nodes. He had baseline bloods in November which were fine... that was when we first noticed they were swollen. Have some pro-kaolin for now and i'm to keep offering food. Poor lad :-( His temperature is fine though. Vet said his stomach was very fluidy and gassy. It is all just very random... today he is tired and can hardly jump in the car, yesterday he was running laps round the forest!


----------



## GingerRogers

Nicki85 said:


> LO- that must have been so scary :-( Glad you are both OK though.
> 
> Just got back from vets... back in again on fri for blood tests. Vet is concerned the lethargy and other symptoms are sign that the swollen lymph nodes are finally giving cause for concern so I guess they want to check for that cancer they get in the nodes. He had baseline bloods in November which were fine... that was when we first noticed they were swollen. Have some pro-kaolin for now and i'm to keep offering food. Poor lad :-( His temperature is fine though. Vet said his stomach was very fluidy and gassy. It is all just very random... today he is tired and can hardly jump in the car, yesterday he was running laps round the forest!


Oh dear, poor Rusty and poor you,  a bit of a worry, hope it all turns out to be a grumble in the belly.


----------



## Beth17

Nicki how worrying for you and it can't be nice for Rusty feeling like that. I hope they can get to the bottom of it soon.


----------



## L/C

Nicki85 said:


> LO- that must have been so scary :-( Glad you are both OK though.
> 
> Just got back from vets... back in again on fri for blood tests. Vet is concerned the lethargy and other symptoms are sign that the swollen lymph nodes are finally giving cause for concern so I guess they want to check for that cancer they get in the nodes. He had baseline bloods in November which were fine... that was when we first noticed they were swollen. Have some pro-kaolin for now and i'm to keep offering food. Poor lad :-( His temperature is fine though. Vet said his stomach was very fluidy and gassy. It is all just very random... today he is tired and can hardly jump in the car, yesterday he was running laps round the forest!


Sorry to hear that. Good thoughts for poor Rusty.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - positive thoughts for Rusty.

Donkey Boy. Bad Dog :frown2: :nono::nono:. Hope you're feeling a little better now LO.

Took Rudi to the park just now. Freezing cold. Empty bar one or two people but different sniffs etc for him I guess. BBbbbbrrrrrrr.

Think Kilo and I will be meeting Dizzy for his walk later, just waiting for a text to confirm or deny .


----------



## Guest

Now I've calmed down some:

Giving some good feeling vibes to you and rusty, nicki. 

Keep trying with the weight thing Were.

Glad rudi had a good time in the park. 


I'm just cross that there was NO recognition from my dog at all for anything.


----------



## Werehorse

Nicki - I don't know what to say.  I hope he's ok.

LO - Naughty donkey boy. 

Thanks for the tips and ideas re. Hugo everyone. I might get my mucky paws on some goats milk and see what happens. I've ordered a sample of some more energy rich kibble to see if agrees with them. I'm really not cut out for raw at the moment but thanks for the encouragement.


----------



## moonviolet

LO hope you've calmed own , what a horrible experience you boy sounds like he's part kangaroo.

Nicki healing thoughts for Rusty.

Dogless Rudi is such a good boy 

GR Ginge looks so cute in her bed  it might be the last of hte snow but winter isn't over yet, they'll be coat days before spring comes.

Werehorse hope the goats milk suits Hugo


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## Nicki85

Thanks all... bit in turmoil at the moment. He is only 15 months so very unlikely to have lymphoma, however it can not be ruled out :-( Blood tests are a pretty conclusive test for it so at least I will know one way or the other. His glands have always been swollen to a certain degree.

I think it is more likely to be a bacterial infection (giardia or similar?) and think maybe I should have pushed for a stool sample. But, vet has trained to treat dogs and knows best- I am sure a stool sample will follow if the blood test shows nothing. 

Might see if mum can take him in tomorrow morning for the blood test... i'm due in London (one day I'm not at home!).


----------



## kat&molly

Nikki- hope the vets sort it , fingers crossed for Rusty.

LO- Naughty Donkey, what a scare. I hope you've calmed down a bit now.

M.Smith- hope the meeting went well.

Ginge- Look at the Ninja in her new bed- and its named after her namesake

And Miss Tink- I think I'm going to come back as a Beagle if you can get away with that sort of stuff.

Dogless- wrap up warm.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> LO- that must have been so scary :-( Glad you are both OK though.
> 
> Just got back from vets... back in again on fri for blood tests. Vet is concerned the lethargy and other symptoms are sign that the swollen lymph nodes are finally giving cause for concern so I guess they want to check for that cancer they get in the nodes. He had baseline bloods in November which were fine... that was when we first noticed they were swollen. Have some pro-kaolin for now and i'm to keep offering food. Poor lad :-( His temperature is fine though. Vet said his stomach was very fluidy and gassy. It is all just very random... today he is tired and can hardly jump in the car, yesterday he was running laps round the forest!


I'm really sorry - poor Rusty.

Let's hope the blood tests don't point to lymphoma and it's something less serious.

My poor twin sister has just completed stem cell treatment at Kings Hospital in London for Tcell lymphoma.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Nicki - I don't know what to say.  I hope he's ok.
> 
> LO - Naughty donkey boy.
> 
> Thanks for the tips and ideas re. Hugo everyone. I might get my mucky paws on some goats milk and see what happens. I've ordered a sample of some more energy rich kibble to see if agrees with them. I'm really not cut out for raw at the moment but thanks for the encouragement.


Leafy's got raging diarrheoa now...!!

It's my fault as I've just swapped her from Sensitive to Senior as suggested by the chap at the Natural Dog Food Company but I did it too quickly. You can't leave her on the same food all the time as she builds up an intolerance. It's a nightmare with her really.

The trouble is it's easy to get a bit lax when she's OK.

I'm quite low on the sensitive and don't fancy the 35 mile drive, partly on minor roads, at the moment in all this frozen snow.

Hopefully I've got sufficient to last until early next week and thank goodness I've got almost two tubes of Pro-Kolin.


----------



## Nicki85

Thanks Twiggy- thoughts for your sister and family xx Hope Leafy recovers quickly as well! At this rate we will need to rename this thread....


----------



## Dogless

Poor Leafy...hope the pro kolin sees you through to a thaw!


----------



## Werehorse

The daily poo report thread... I like it.

Poor Leafy. Hope she's back on an even keel soon.

I wonder if you should push for a stool sample Nicki. How obvious are his glands? I had a period fo time thinking Oscar's were swollen all the time but my vet checked them and said they are just obvious because he has low body fat...


----------



## Twiggy

Forgot to add that Holly was really up for it this afternoon in the barn...

Of course there was a down side. I really must get some more Germolene..!!


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse, great that the poo's good, hope Leafy's tum settles down now.

Took Evie for a walk around the village, she was all happy and waggy to start with then got a little bit uptight when we didn't turn off for her off lead place. No-one about and I just kept throwing treats as we walked, a few noisy dogs and 1 loose one. As we turned off on to the track I saw 2 neighbours, she's seen them before but she still gets bothered. She stopped, I tried to turn back but she was like frozen to the spot. They must have been a good 25-30m away.
She was 'happy' to go forward , so we carried on but the neighbours were then hidden behind a parked van so we could hear them but not see them. She done quite well -for her.


----------



## Nicki85

Evie sounds like such a character! How did you come about her?


----------



## kat&molly

Nicki85 said:


> Evie sounds like such a character! How did you come about her?


Thanks, she is a character, came for foster and hasn't left yet.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Evie.

We were meant to walk with Dizzy, but they couldn't come at the last minute so took Kilo for a brisk 50 minute walk onlead instead. Nothing to report - not many people and dogs were brave (stupid!) enough to be out in the freezing cold .


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Hi everyone, I've tried to catch up everyone's news and how you're all doing but frankly it's just too much for my little brain to cope with :crazy:

I just can't keep up with this thread, but I would like to pick your brains on a slight problem I have at the moment with the Pickled pair....

For the last month or so for some reason they have decided that they can't exit the back door to the garden in a normal fashion anymore, it has to involve leaping up at the door as soon as my hand touches the handle, yipping, jumping, snapping at each other, and then when the door opens they hurtle out at 100mph scrabbling over the top of each other, barking and growling as they go!! It's as if they're convinced that when they get out there they're going to find a plethora of squirrels and rabbit and pigeons all over the garden!!! (there's never anything there  )

So.... progress so far.... I make them go BACK, SIT, WAIT and don't open the door until they are calm. I then walk out of the door all the time telling them to WAIT... all going well so far...

But then what do I do??? As soon as I 'release' them with an "OK" they just hurtle out the door in the same mental manner!!! 

What can I do to try and get them to just be NORMAL!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done Evie.
> 
> We were meant to walk with Dizzy, but they couldn't come at the last minute so took Kilo for a brisk 50 minute walk onlead instead. Nothing to report - not many people and dogs were brave (stupid!) enough to be out in the freezing cold .


It's been freezing cold here for nearly two weeks and we've had lying snow for 11 days now. If it gets to 3 degrees on Saturday, as promised by the Met Office, it will feel possibly balmy....LOL

I think I should award myself a gold star for going over to the barn this afternoon through the snow. My hands were absolutely freezing after about 10 minutes. I'm sure it slows my reactions down when Holly decides to launch an attack....


----------



## kat&molly

foxyrockmeister said:


> Hi everyone, I've tried to catch up everyone's news and how you're all doing but frankly it's just too much for my little brain to cope with :crazy:
> 
> I just can't keep up with this thread, but I would like to pick your brains on a slight problem I have at the moment with the Pickled pair....
> 
> For the last month or so for some reason they have decided that they can't exit the back door to the garden in a normal fashion anymore, it has to involve leaping up at the door as soon as my hand touches the handle, yipping, jumping, snapping at each other, and then when the door opens they hurtle out at 100mph scrabbling over the top of each other, barking and growling as they go!! It's as if they're convinced that when they get out there they're going to find a plethora of squirrels and rabbit and pigeons all over the garden!!! (there's never anything there  )
> 
> So.... progress so far.... I make them go BACK, SIT, WAIT and don't open the door until they are calm. I then walk out of the door all the time telling them to WAIT... all going well so far...
> 
> But then what do I do??? As soon as I 'release' them with an "OK" they just hurtle out the door in the same mental manner!!!
> 
> What can I do to try and get them to just be NORMAL!!


Mine will do the same if given the chance, if I let them go one at a time- with a few seconds in between its ok.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

kat&molly said:


> Mine will do the same if given the chance, if I let them go one at a time- with a few seconds in between its ok.


Thank you, I will try that. Although the other evening Branston went out on his own (Lily was fast asleep in the lounge) and he still did it when she wasn't there


----------



## kat&molly

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you, I will try that. Although the other evening Branston went out on his own (Lily was fast asleep in the lounge) and he still did it when she wasn't there


I get that occasionally as well, but all rushing out together is one thing I do worry about now , they all get on but I think it could quickly go the wrong way if they got too silly.


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you, I will try that. Although the other evening Branston went out on his own (Lily was fast asleep in the lounge) and he still did it when she wasn't there


Sounds to me like its become a good game and is now a habit.

Personally I'd put both of them on the lead for a few days and teach them "steady" and actualy insist they walk sensibly down the garden.

Then for another few days go out with them and make them walk with you on the command "steady".

Not what you want to hear in the middle of winter though.


----------



## MollySmith

I am sorry if I have missed anyone!

Lurcher Owner, oh my goodness, poor you what a nightmare our lurcher dogs are. Molly will bugger off when she smells something but to jump a 6ft fence! Are you okay?

Nicki85 - so sorry to hear about Rusty. I expect he's just reserving his energy for getting better and I hope he manages to eat soon.

Ginger Rogers - a lovely pic, just think how prepared you'll be for next Winter when the coat arrives!

Werehorse - hope Hugo is okay. I agree about raw, I think about it with Molly as she has dragged her bum a few times but has been to the vets for emptying before Christmas and seems okay but I have read raw is better for problems, not sure about going down this route yet. 

Twiggy - I am sorry to hear about your sister, that must be a huge worry

kat&molly - go Evie, that's great news. These tiny things mean so much and having a lead reactive lady I appreciate the breakthrough.

Dogless - brrrr is all I can say! I walked home from the railway station today and it was perishing. But I met a lovely dog on the way and a Michellen man - looked familar it was the husband and Molly under lots of layers to walk me home!


Hum I've had a weird old day. Meeting was rubbish, I wanted training completed before I left as it was promised to us and they agreed but it means getting from Cambridge to Greenwich for 8am which means getting up at 5am so I've declined. I would miss my physio appointment too and that's more important. Then this eve I went to physio only to find out it's next week - this redundancy thing is doing my brain to pieces. They now want us to stay until 19th Feb not 9th as legal have said we need longer than 30 day notice due to the amount of people going.

Molly had another lead walk with our trainer. Basically she's going to get Molly back on track so each Wed until end of Feb Molly is being lead walked in lots of different places and then we all get our lessons together. I know my dog can do it as I've seen her but we seem to have regressed for whatever reason. Anyway today she went to the pub and the local park and a shop. Saw 9 dogs and was okay with all except the first (just like last week) so we're are making progress I think.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It's been freezing cold here for nearly two weeks and we've had lying snow for 11 days now. If it gets to 3 degrees on Saturday, as promised by the Met Office, it will feel possibly balmy....LOL
> 
> I think I should award myself a gold star for going over to the barn this afternoon through the snow. My hands were absolutely freezing after about 10 minutes. I'm sure it slows my reactions down when Holly decides to launch an attack....


And teeth on freezing hands HURT  .



foxyrockmeister said:


> Hi everyone, I've tried to catch up everyone's news and how you're all doing but frankly it's just too much for my little brain to cope with :crazy:
> 
> I just can't keep up with this thread, but I would like to pick your brains on a slight problem I have at the moment with the Pickled pair....
> 
> For the last month or so for some reason they have decided that they can't exit the back door to the garden in a normal fashion anymore, it has to involve leaping up at the door as soon as my hand touches the handle, yipping, jumping, snapping at each other, and then when the door opens they hurtle out at 100mph scrabbling over the top of each other, barking and growling as they go!! It's as if they're convinced that when they get out there they're going to find a plethora of squirrels and rabbit and pigeons all over the garden!!! (there's never anything there  )
> 
> So.... progress so far.... I make them go BACK, SIT, WAIT and don't open the door until they are calm. I then walk out of the door all the time telling them to WAIT... all going well so far...
> 
> But then what do I do??? As soon as I 'release' them with an "OK" they just hurtle out the door in the same mental manner!!!
> 
> What can I do to try and get them to just be NORMAL!!


Do they know 'turns'? I work on 'Kilo's turn' / 'Rudi's turn' for all sorts of things - treats, food, toys attention etc. They got it pretty quickly. If they know this then you could get them out one by one hopefully.......


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Twiggy said:


> Sounds to me like its become a good game and is now a habit.
> 
> Personally I'd put both of them on the lead for a few days and teach them "steady" and actualy insist they walk sensibly down the garden.
> 
> Then for another few days go out with them and make them walk with you on the command "steady".
> 
> Not what you want to hear in the middle of winter though.


Thank you, I did actually say to hubby last night that I think we're going to have to put them on their leads to walk them out the door.

You're right, it has just become a habit now... a habit that we have to break!

It's frustrating because getting them to sit and wait has been really good, They still go to the door and leap at the handle first, but I've just got to take my hand away from the handle and look at them now and they'll back off, sit and wait until I open the door and tell them they can go, but then it's WHOOOOOSH!!!!


----------



## Guest

Blargh, my neighbour is being helpful. (not) 

"He gets out cos he's bored and you don't exercise him enough. He needs a run." 

I know he's trying to be helpful but I'm getting those "He'd be better off with a better owner" feelings again. Even though the homechecker whose seen Zander since he's been with us has said I've put more effort in than most.

AND you know theres that ONE secure field here?

WELL SOME BRADVURST HAS CUT THE FENCING INTO THE WOODS WITH CUTTERS. GREAT BIG ZANDER SIZED HOLE NOW. 

Right, enough of me being miss misery knickers.

Glad your walk was good dogless (I love it when we don't see anyone)
Um, hope leafy's bottom stops exploding.

Foxy, I agree with grannie (twiggy) about the lead thing, Zand went through a joyous stage of EXPLODING out the back door in search of cats.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> Do they know 'turns'? I work on 'Kilo's turn' / 'Rudi's turn' for all sorts of things - treats, food, toys attention etc. They got it pretty quickly. If they know this then you could get them out one by one hopefully.......


No they don't know 'turns', sounds like maybe they should!!

How did you go about teaching it?


----------



## Twiggy

Looks like I'm in for a long night with Leafy. The poor little dog needs to go out about every hour and it's running out of her. She's had nothing since her breakfast at 7.00am. I've already given her two 2mg doses of Pro-kolin and shall be giving her another dose shortly.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Looks like I'm in for a long night with Leafy. The poor little dog needs to go out about every hour and it's running out of her. She's had nothing since her breakfast at 7.00am. I've already given her two 2mg doses of Pro-kolin and shall be giving her another dose shortly.


Aww the poor cabbage. 
Has she been drinking plenty??


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> No they don't know 'turns', sounds like maybe they should!!
> 
> How did you go about teaching it?


I find it quite useful. I say it when I put the food bowls down (Kilo always fed first) and when I fuss one and the other pushes in I push them away gently and say "xxxx's turn" - whichever one I was fussing first. I also sit them in front of me with treats and say "xxxx's turn" and feed whichever dog who's name I said a treat.

Only took about three days of doing it for me to say "Rudi's turn" when Kilo had finished his food and for him to then walk out of the room and Rudi to come in.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Aww the poor cabbage.
> Has she been drinking plenty??


Not sure you should mention cabbage given the dire(rear) situation :frown2:. Poor Leafy; I do hope it settles soon for her.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Not sure you should mention cabbage given the dire(rear) situation :frown2:. Poor Leafy; I do hope it settles soon for her.


Oh, er, the poor egg? (Does egg help? Chicken maybe?)

Poor leafy anyway (lovely name).


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> I find it quite useful. I say it when I put the food bowls down (Kilo always fed first) and when I fuss one and the other pushes in I push them away gently and say "xxxx's turn" - whichever one I was fussing first. I also sit them in front of me with treats and say "xxxx's turn" and feed whichever dog who's name I said a treat.
> 
> Only took about three days of doing it for me to say "Rudi's turn" when Kilo had finished his food and for him to then walk out of the room and Rudi to come in.


Thanks, I'll start doing this more. I do always say their names when I put their meals down, although if I'm honest I'll probably say something like... "Heeeere's Lilylooloo's dindins..... and heeeere's Brannybranston's nomnoms" Or something equally ridiculous 

I'll start using their names properly and the word 'turn' too. It'll help when I'm trying to dry them off after walks and things too, rather than just having a bundle of Pickles both trying to muscle in on the action!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Good evening all 

I'll try not to forget anyone but apologies if I do. 

Mv,bless miss tink. Every girl loves a man in uniform 

Twiggy, hope quiver and leafy are ok and let's pray for warmer temperatures. Looking forward to hearing what you suggest for frank :thumbup1:

Gr, :thumbup1: to feeling positive and progress. I'm liking ginges new bed. 

Nicki, hope you get rusty sorted soon and thanks for the link. Will sit and have a good look. 

Werehorse,  at the new phrase. Bet it's not listed in the dictionary. Hugo looks in good shape to me but I can understand your worry. Frank was always skinny and its only been the last twelve months really that he has filled out. Not too much though.

K&M, bless little Evie. Ten seconds is better than none. 

Dogless,  rudi pinching your hat. Brilliant. My roamer lead arrived today and I must say the quality is excellent. Hope your back feels better. 

Beth, good luck with your presentation

L/o, how scary for you. 

L/c, wow, thanks for all the info. It's all very helpful. :thumbup1:

All three have been well behaved today on walks. Frank not been loosed off today though.
Bella's first class has been cancelled tomorrow night due to the weather  oh well.


----------



## Freddie and frank

My god, just as I've typed my mammoth post, there's another hundred to go through.


----------



## Guest

FREDFRANK! I spent and HOUR looking at ruffwear stuff yesterday! 


I blame you!!


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thanks, I'll start doing this more. I do always say their names when I put their meals down, although if I'm honest I'll probably say something like... "Heeeere's Lilylooloo's dindins..... and heeeere's Brannybranston's nomnoms" Or something equally ridiculous
> 
> I'll start using their names properly and the word 'turn' too. It'll help when I'm trying to dry them off after walks and things too, rather than just having a bundle of Pickles both trying to muscle in on the action!


It is very useful after walks for me in out little porch crammed in with the pair of them. It lets me get Kilo done first (definitely the easiest!) and let him into the house before I tackle crocopuppy .



Freddie and frank said:


> Dogless,  rudi pinching your hat. Brilliant. My roamer lead arrived today and I must say the quality is excellent. Hope your back feels better.
> 
> All three have been well behaved today on walks. Frank not been loosed off today though.
> Bella's first class has been cancelled tomorrow night due to the weather  oh well.


Shame about Bella's class, I am wondering about the CH's tomorrow as I drive up over some very high ground and the town it's in has been badly affected, but the roads are major and no text so I'm assuming all OK.

Well done to all three of yours today - gold stars.

Pleased you like the roamer and my back is just in a gradual state of decay taking me ever closer to Mac The Knife  :frown2:.


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> Blargh, my neighbour is being helpful. (not)
> 
> "He gets out cos he's bored and you don't exercise him enough. He needs a run."
> 
> I know he's trying to be helpful but I'm getting those "He'd be better off with a better owner" feelings again. Even though the homechecker whose seen Zander since he's been with us has said I've put more effort in than most.
> 
> AND you know theres that ONE secure field here?
> 
> WELL SOME BRADVURST HAS CUT THE FENCING INTO THE WOODS WITH CUTTERS. GREAT BIG ZANDER SIZED HOLE NOW.
> 
> Right, enough of me being miss misery knickers.
> 
> Glad your walk was good dogless (I love it when we don't see anyone)
> Um, hope leafy's bottom stops exploding.
> 
> Foxy, I agree with grannie (twiggy) about the lead thing, Zand went through a joyous stage of EXPLODING out the back door in search of cats.


There is always some idiot that thinks they know better, I don't think that's at all helpful. Take heart from the homechecker.


----------



## Guest

MollySmith said:


> There is always some idiot that thinks they know better, I don't think that's at all helpful. Take heart from the homechecker.


The homechecker has been wonderful! When I told her about the fence jumping she was like "He's not the first lurcher to, nor will he be the last!".

She does keep telling me he'll get to the "lazy bone stage" soon.

I shall believe that when I see it. :lol:

My last lurcher was labxgrey, and he was so so so laid back compared to Zand.


----------



## Guest

Heheh I just had the thought 'hmmm maybe I oughta teach the donkeey turns.'
Then I realised it might not work as well with only one dog. :lol:

Mind you he does wait nicely when I give the Cats tidbits. 

Oh, and K&M I very stupidly showed my mother your evie. She squealed. :lol:


----------



## Freddie and frank

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thanks, I'll start doing this more. I do always say their names when I put their meals down, although if I'm honest I'll probably say something like... "Heeeere's Lilylooloo's dindins..... and heeeere's Brannybranston's nomnoms" Or something equally ridiculous
> 
> I'll start using their names properly and the word 'turn' too. It'll help when I'm trying to dry them off after walks and things too, rather than just having a bundle of Pickles both trying to muscle in on the action!


 that made me laugh. I do similar too. Lol 
And I actually thought that 'turn' meant 'turn around' not as in 'it's your turn now' :shocked: I'm hard work sometimes.



LurcherOwner said:


> FREDFRANK! I spent and HOUR looking at ruffwear stuff yesterday!
> I blame you!!


RUFFWEAR. RUFFWEAR. RUFFWEAR. 
I've been banned from buying anymore dog related stuff until our new kitchen is done.  
The lady who I take the dogs swimming with has ruffwear collars and leads and I love it, but this is the first lot I've bought. I'm impressed.


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> The homechecker has been wonderful! When I told her about the fence jumping she was like "He's not the first lurcher to, nor will he be the last!".
> 
> She does keep telling me he'll get to the "lazy bone stage" soon.
> 
> I shall believe that when I see it. :lol:
> 
> My last lurcher was labxgrey, and he was so so so laid back compared to Zand.


I don't know if this helps but at 19 months Molly is slowing down a bit. A tiny bit but it's a blessing! I don't know what it is about my girl but she's rubbish with her back legs so she's not seemed that worried about jumping. Maybe that's the lab bit of the cross in her. Who knows? Our late cat was equally rubbish with jumping. Hated fences, trees and even got stuck on the bird bath and refused to come down on his own.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I don't know if this helps but at 19 months Molly is slowing down a bit. A tiny bit but it's a blessing! I don't know what it is about my girl but she's rubbish with her back legs so she's not seemed that worried about jumping. Maybe that's the lab bit of the cross in her. Who knows? Our late cat was equally rubbish with jumping. Hated fences, trees and* even got stuck on the bird bath and refused to come down on his own.*


:lol::lol::lol:


----------



## Guest

MollySmith said:


> I don't know if this helps but at 19 months Molly is slowing down a bit. A tiny bit but it's a blessing! I don't know what it is about my girl but she's rubbish with her back legs so she's not seemed that worried about jumping. Maybe that's the lab bit of the cross in her. Who knows? Our late cat was equally rubbish with jumping. Hated fences, trees and even got stuck on the bird bath and refused to come down on his own.


Only two and a half months to go then. :lol:

Oh I might of already said this but a lady asked me if Zand was being trained as a guide/assistance dog while he was cuddling the shopkeeper in his new coat. 
The shopkeeper got there first with
"Well he assists in driving his owner to insanity!!" :lol:

Zander would be a PANTS assistance/therapy dog.

Actually typing that, I've just had a thought, guide dogs ignore other dogs when working yeah? *TO GOOGLE!!!*

And Abraham our late cat wouldn't open doors even if they were already slightly open. He's just stare at you!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> And Abraham our late cat wouldn't open doors even if they were already slightly open. He's just stare at you!


Kilo does this; he'll stand and look at you rather than push it further open . Rudi won't - he tackles things head on. Literally :001_huh:.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Kilo does this; he'll stand and look at you rather than push it further open . Rudi won't - he tackles things head on. Literally :001_huh:.


When I try to shut the hallway door for putting on work shoes, Zander hooks his nose around the door. Have to be careful not to shut it in there!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> When I try to shut the hallway door for putting on work shoes, Zander hooks his nose around the door. Have to be careful not to shut it in there!!


Kilo doesn't even tread over a cable across his way if it's above his 'knee' height...he waits .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Kilo doesn't even tread over a cable across his way if it's above his 'knee' height...he waits .


Hell!!

Teach me your ways oh great one!!! :lol:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Hell!!
> 
> Teach me your ways oh great one!!! :lol:


I didn't teach him that; it's just one of his funny 'ways'  :001_wub:. Rudi on the other hand....flattens everything in his path like a tank..butts doors open with his head.....:shocked:.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Aww the poor cabbage.
> Has she been drinking plenty??


Yes she's fine in herself and starving hungry.

I could really kick myself for not introducing the senior food much more slowly, especially as this has happened before.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Yes she's fine in herself and starving hungry.
> 
> I could really kick myself for not introducing the senior food much more slowly, especially as this has happened before.


Well now you know how slowly to go next time. 

No point kicking yerself now, concentrate on helping with the poop exploder you live with.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Good evening all
> 
> I'll try not to forget anyone but apologies if I do.
> 
> Mv,bless miss tink. Every girl loves a man in uniform
> 
> Twiggy, hope quiver and leafy are ok and let's pray for warmer temperatures. Looking forward to hearing what you suggest for frank :thumbup1:
> 
> Gr, :thumbup1: to feeling positive and progress. I'm liking ginges new bed.
> 
> Nicki, hope you get rusty sorted soon and thanks for the link. Will sit and have a good look.
> 
> Werehorse,  at the new phrase. Bet it's not listed in the dictionary. Hugo looks in good shape to me but I can understand your worry. Frank was always skinny and its only been the last twelve months really that he has filled out. Not too much though.
> 
> K&M, bless little Evie. Ten seconds is better than none.
> 
> Dogless,  rudi pinching your hat. Brilliant. My roamer lead arrived today and I must say the quality is excellent. Hope your back feels better.
> 
> Beth, good luck with your presentation
> 
> L/o, how scary for you.
> 
> L/c, wow, thanks for all the info. It's all very helpful. :thumbup1:
> 
> All three have been well behaved today on walks. Frank not been loosed off today though.
> Bella's first class has been cancelled tomorrow night due to the weather  oh well.


Sorry for not getting back to you on Franks little problem. We'll talk about it tomorrow.

I've been up and down like a yo-yo with Leafy, washing her trousers, etc. etc.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Sorry for not getting back to you on Franks little problem. We'll talk about it tomorrow.
> 
> I've been up and down like a yo-yo with Leafy, washing her trousers, etc. etc.


Oh, don't worry at all about it. I'm sure I'll catch up with you.
Poor leafy, Hope you get her sorted.


----------



## Werehorse

Poor Leafy.

Hugo was Not Very Good at class.  We were doing sendaways and he just went completely blank, lost focus and wandered off to find something else to do. And after that kept going a few steps towards the mat and stopping and looking at me.  I don't know if he actually finds it really boring and/or stressful or far too exciting so he goes into a kind of brain freeze-overload  I don't know if I'm just not making it rewarding enough for him because I'm used to Oscar finding it really exciting to actually run out so he doesn't need much reward. I'm wondering if Hugo actually dislikes having to go away from me and thus needs it to be made more rewarding.

I suspect I've accidently done something that makes it more rewarding for him to pee about. 

When we moved on to the next exercise he was back as enthusiastic as ever.

I got worried because I was catatrophising thinking I'd broken him and he'd never be good ever again.


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> Poor Leafy.
> 
> Hugo was Not Very Good at class.  We were doing sendaways and he just went completely blank, lost focus and wandered off to find something else to do. And after that kept going a few steps towards the mat and stopping and looking at me.  I don't know if he actually finds it really boring and/or stressful or far too exciting so he goes into a kind of brain freeze-overload  I don't know if I'm just not making it rewarding enough for him because I'm used to Oscar finding it really exciting to actually run out so he doesn't need much reward. I'm wondering if Hugo actually dislikes having to go away from me and thus needs it to be made more rewarding.
> 
> I suspect I've accidently done something that makes it more rewarding for him to pee about.
> 
> When we moved on to the next exercise he was back as enthusiastic as ever.
> 
> I got worried because I was catatrophising thinking I'd broken him and he'd never be good ever again.


IT could have just been an offday. But maybe make it reallly realllllly rewarding everynow and then.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - I'm sorry that class didn't go too well, I'm sure you haven't broken him. mv and Twiggy are bound to have some ideas :thumbup1:.

Twiggy and Nicki - Hope Leafy and Rusty are doing a little better this morning.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope Leafy's a bit better this morning.

Is Rusty off to the vets again today?

Werehorse- I kept getting the same with Moll at our 1-2-1 lessons we had, worrying she wasn't enjoying what we were doing- I changed activities a few times.

Didn't mention our walk yesterday afternoon. 6 attempts of wait from Evie at the front door. We went to a field and I had fresh baked liver- short stuff was going mad for it  she was [on lead] chasing me and a couple of times even jumped up to grab it, never been that animated with food or toys outside before and she didn't even care what Scruff was up to.
I dont know why it was sooo good yesterday- we had liver last week. Was lovely to see her so excited with me.
I'm waiting on a call to see whether we can go to Moll's family for a run, we're so restricted here with the Chasse out hunting all the time and I have to be careful to avoid them- 3 large hounds charged us last week.
We have to wait and hear if the Chasse are out over there first. It will be our first visit since Lucy was rehomed.

Have a good day everyone, and hope it starts thawing- for those that want it.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Poor Leafy.
> 
> Hugo was Not Very Good at class.  We were doing sendaways and he just went completely blank, lost focus and wandered off to find something else to do. And after that kept going a few steps towards the mat and stopping and looking at me.  I don't know if he actually finds it really boring and/or stressful or far too exciting so he goes into a kind of brain freeze-overload  I don't know if I'm just not making it rewarding enough for him because I'm used to Oscar finding it really exciting to actually run out so he doesn't need much reward. I'm wondering if Hugo actually dislikes having to go away from me and thus needs it to be made more rewarding.
> 
> I suspect I've accidently done something that makes it more rewarding for him to pee about.
> 
> When we moved on to the next exercise he was back as enthusiastic as ever.
> 
> I got worried because I was catatrophising thinking I'd broken him and he'd never be good ever again.


No you haven't broken him and I'm sure it's relatively easily sorted. We'll descuss it later.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy hope leafy is better this morning poor girl.

Werehorse, If Hugo's tummy is sore he could be feeling more clingy, also are you building up the distance. if starting close and buildign the distance oesn't work, you could try baiting the mat with a treat jsut to make it a rewarding place to go. 

No fox on our evening walk last night, Tink behaved very nicely. Then OH decided he'd like to do a training session. Tink was great, OH needs supervision :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

I've been up most of the night with Leafy. The Pro-kolin isn't touching it and I'm ringing the vets in a minute. The diarrhea is obviously scouring her stomach as there is a fair bit of blood. I expect it will be yet another row with my lovely vet as he won't prescribe antibiotics for food allergies.

I've got to stop it somehow and turfing her out every hour through the night into sub-zero temperatures isn't helping the poor little dog. She hasn't had anything to eat for over 24 hours now either.


----------



## moonviolet

Poor Leafy, last think yo uneed after a night like this is an argument about meication.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Poor Leafy, last think yo uneed after a night like this is an argument about meication.


Well I've rung the vets about six times and there is still nobody on reception. They supposedly open at 8.30am....!!

Oh the difference with my old vet when at any time of the day and night a reassuring voice would say "Norman Drake here".


----------



## kat&molly

Hope you can get Leafy sorted today.


----------



## Werehorse

I hope you get through to them soon Twiggy. Sounds like a rough night. 

I would really appreciate your input on the sendaway but am in no hurry so if you don't feel up to it today I completely understand.  I'd actually be interested in an alternative way to teach a "proper" sendaway and keep plugging away on what I would then think of as "send to mat" in class, which is a useful exercise in itself but it doesn't feel like a competition sendaway to me.   As I say though - no rush! 

mv - I still randomly bait the mat and and pretend to bait the mat. I think we possibly just did too many in a row where there was no bait or even reward. I wonder if I need to do some mat work to build up a really happy association with the mat - I want him to feel as same and relaxed on the mat as possible. But I'm not sure where to start with that.


----------



## moonviolet

I know what you mean i miss our old farm vets terribly. i remember as a teenager my horse had colic and 3am the vet was there at the end of the phone and out to me asap. not like the extortionate out of hours servives these days. I'm not saying as a family we respected the vet more than the local GP, but my ailments were more often than not vet diagnosed. :lol:

Hope they've answered the phone now 

Werehorse, is it a formal sendaway or a send to mat in a pet owner go lay on your mat while I answer the door sort of thing the second i can help while, in fact i may possibly have been too successful.... Tink has to be lured off the mat :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

Let's say it is a send to mat in the style of a formal sendaway. :lol: And I'm greedy because I want a send to mat and a formal sendaway.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy I hope Leafy is feeling better soon. And that you've managed to get hold of the vet by now!

The Spendog has been a royal pain in the ass yesterday and so far today. He's acting the way Shadow used to when there was a bitch in season nearby, pacing a lot, whining at nothing, constantly wanting to be outside to sniff the air. His little friend only lives in one of the blocks behind us so now I'm even more convinced her owner said she was in season. He's still eating, still playful, still wants to do training so I definitely don't think he's ill.


----------



## Twiggy

Well Moonviolet you would have been proud of my inner hag...LOL

Just spoken to a vet (dear Marwen is away this week) and laid down the law in no uncertain terms.

The upshot is I'm on my way in a minute to pick up a course of antibiotics.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- glad you got through to the vets.

Werehorse- my post was meant to say I know whats its like to worry about enjoying things- I get paranoid about it.  Sure you'll sort it.
If it helps I can send one of these








Moll was always in a rush to get there when she had competition from Jenny Chook.









We are off to Molls Family.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Well Moonviolet you would have been proud of my inner hag...LOL
> 
> Just spoken to a vet (dear Marwen is away this week) and laid down the law in no uncertain terms.
> 
> The upshot is I'm on my way in a minute to pick up a course of antibiotics.


I am so sorry you had a bad night with Leafy but so pleased you've got the message over to the vets. I hope the antibiotics do the trick


----------



## moonviolet

I started by introducing the mat in a short clicker session, placing the mat right in front of me, shaping her to lie on it, it was pretty fast as it's one of her go to behaviours, If they are more wary just click and treat a paw on the mat then 2 etc etc. Then when laying on the mat just drop treats onto it periodically ( this wasn't a "settle" exercise so i wasn't targetting relaxed body langauge, i wanted comfortable but focussed.)

Repeated this for a couple sessions, I added a verbal cue when i was happy she reliably repeating the behaviour.

Then i began moving the mat around me in front, beside, behind only changing rooms etc then began adding distance, returning to her and dropping treats. Never using wait or stay. Why would she want to leave it she lays there and human drops treats what a great place to be. 

To reinforce it i take it to class and use it between other exercises, or send her to it when i can see shes needs a break from an exercise.


Twiggy glad your inner hag didn the trick


----------



## L/C

Twiggy - glad you got through to the vet and hope Leafy is on the mend soon.

K&M - hope you enjoy your visit to Moll's family.

Ely is ill.  He was up all night vomiting (about 6 times) and is very lethargic this morning. He also has developed a limp out of nowhere. No visible damage and he's happy to have the limb moved about. Spoken to the vet and with the symptoms, his breed and his age she wants him to come in for an x-ray if it isn't any better by Saturday.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C hope ELy is better soon poor boy


----------



## Izzysmummy

Wow! This thread had exploded again! So far behind!

Twiggy I really hope Leafy's ok.

L/C poorly Ely, hope he perks up soon, seems to be lots of bugs about at the moment!

Yesterday was school day for me and Izzy so we went along to the class, she did pretty well at first with a good sit-stay, good heelwork and nice tight turns. But then we got to the recall and she just got really unsettled, she wont come in straight and gets really timid and then for the rest of the class she cant focus. I think its the combination of the new class and different trainer, and Izzy's so focused on where the trainer is she cant concentrate on me. Its so frustrating though, I know she can do it and we practise everyday at home and she does it perfectly in the house and when out but I cant prepare for the class environment so the trainer just ends up thinking we're rubbish  

I dont know what to do about it, I guess it will just take time and lots of enthusiasm to try and get her excited about being there. She does enjoy going and she has come on in leaps and bounds since we started but moving up a class seems to have upskuttled her a bit. I think the main thing with the recall is the trainer stand to one side then once Ive called Izzy she moves to behind Izzy to check shes come in straight which she doesnt cos she has to keep an eye on the trainer and ends up coming in wonky! ARGHH!! 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can work on this?


----------



## L/C

Hopefully it's just a bug. Because of his age, breed, lines and the limp the vet is worried about osteosarcoma.


----------



## Guest

Hugs to both leafy and Ely. I hope they start to feel better and its not anything serious.


----------



## Izzysmummy

L/C said:


> Hopefully it's just a bug. Because of his age, breed, lines and the limp the vet is worried about osteosarcoma.


Got everything crossed here its not and its just a bug and he's just slept funny on his leg


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Poor Leafy.
> 
> Hugo was Not Very Good at class.  We were doing sendaways and he just went completely blank, lost focus and wandered off to find something else to do. And after that kept going a few steps towards the mat and stopping and looking at me.  I don't know if he actually finds it really boring and/or stressful or far too exciting so he goes into a kind of brain freeze-overload  I don't know if I'm just not making it rewarding enough for him because I'm used to Oscar finding it really exciting to actually run out so he doesn't need much reward. I'm wondering if Hugo actually dislikes having to go away from me and thus needs it to be made more rewarding.
> 
> I suspect I've accidently done something that makes it more rewarding for him to pee about.
> 
> When we moved on to the next exercise he was back as enthusiastic as ever.
> 
> I got worried because I was catatrophising thinking I'd broken him and he'd never be good ever again.


I just read something about that in Control Unleashed last night, I have to take it in small chunks otherwise it doesn't sink in and I suspect I must have read too much as I can't recall exactly  but I think it was to do with dogs thresholds and criteria being raised too much for that particular dog at that particular time I think, I will check at lunchtime, but yes, they can flip out and have zoomies or go into brain freeze from the stress and confusion and blank out.

Can't help on sendaways in particular as I have no idea what you are talking about   should have stayed at obedience classes.

Hope all the poorly doggies get better  well done Grannie Hag  hope you don't have to do too much trouser cleaning, I can imagine the problem, our friends Rosie dog has an impressive pair that tend to smell of wee nowadays  Poor Ely hope its nothing serious, if he's been vomiting could he have twisted or pulled something which is causing the limp like can happen to humans with bad coughs or sickness, I don't think we have had an update from Nikki .

Wheres Chazzie gone??

LO you are doing fine, he's a handful, thats ok, he will calm down, eventually  he'd be more of an handful for many more people I am sure. 
MS - cat stuck on bird bath lol  sorry the meeting didn't go the way you wanted, hope you feel better soon
K&M- enjoy Molls families land/house stuff  love the chook competition
Sarah - sorry spens being a pain, but thank you ever so much for the CU recommendation I really feel it will help, even if it just gives me some confidence. Its also getting me really excited about our reactive dog course 
Izzysmummy sounds like she is going through what Hugo did for similar reasons, new class and all that, it also says that the agility/obedience trainers just didn't seem to realise the effect the things they were asking had as they didn't necessarily have the formal behaviour training (look at me trying to be all expert having read a couple of chapters in a book).

Sorry can't catch up on everyone else MUST DO SOME WORK I have been at it since 7.30 so just having a little break. Had to go check on some jobs on site this morning so took the ninja on the common as it didn't involve trying to walk on lumpy pavements. We had a total numpty of an old man let his dog speed across the common towards us this morning, so quick I didn't see it coming, it came close then ran away when she barked at it but then returned several times, he must have been blind and deaf to not realise his dog was been a royal pain in the rear, he was just letting it zoom about willy nilly  he was too far away for me to give vent to inner hag luckily as it would only have made me feel bad, but I didn't let it get to me I just carried on trying to make it fun for Ginge to run with me (yes more running ) while she circled me madly, could have been an accident never mind anything else .


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> I just read something about that in Control Unleashed last night, I have to take it in small chunks otherwise it doesn't sink in and I suspect I must have read too much as I can't recall exactly  but I think it was to do with dogs thresholds and criteria being raised too much for that particular dog at that particular time I think, I will check at lunchtime, but yes, they can flip out and have zoomies or go into brain freeze from the stress and confusion and blank out.
> 
> Can't help on sendaways in particular as I have no idea what you are talking about   should have stayed at obedience classes.
> 
> Hope all the poorly doggies get better  well done Grannie Hag  hope you don't have to do too much trouser cleaning, I can imagine the problem, our friends Rosie dog has an impressive pair that tend to smell of wee nowadays  *Poor Ely hope its nothing serious, if he's been vomiting could he have twisted or pulled something which is causing the limp like can happen to humans with bad coughs or sickness,* I don't think we have had an update from Nikki .
> 
> Wheres Chazzie gone??
> 
> LO you are doing fine, he's a handful, thats ok, he will calm down, eventually  he'd be more of an handful for many more people I am sure.
> MS - cat stuck on bird bath lol  sorry the meeting didn't go the way you wanted, hope you feel better soon
> K&M- enjoy Molls families land/house stuff  love the chook competition
> Sarah - sorry spens being a pain, but thank you ever so much for the CU recommendation I really feel it will help, even if it just gives me some confidence. Its also getting me really excited about our reactive dog course
> Izzysmummy sounds like she is going through what Hugo did for similar reasons, new class and all that, it also says that the agility/obedience trainers just didn't seem to realise the effect the things they were asking had as they didn't necessarily have the formal behaviour training (look at me trying to be all expert having read a couple of chapters in a book).
> 
> Sorry can't catch up on everyone else MUST DO SOME WORK I have been at it since 7.30 so just having a little break. Had to go check on some jobs on site this morning so took the ninja on the common as it didn't involve trying to walk on lumpy pavements. We had a total numpty of an old man let his dog speed across the common towards us this morning, so quick I didn't see it coming, it came close then ran away when she barked at it but then returned several times, he must have been blind and deaf to not realise his dog was been a royal pain in the rear, he was just letting it zoom about willy nilly  he was too far away for me to give vent to inner hag luckily as it would only have made me feel bad, but I didn't let it get to me I just carried on trying to make it fun for Ginge to run with me (yes more running ) while she circled me madly, could have been an accident never mind anything else .


Vet said that it was more then likely that and she didn't want to worry but if it was still hanging around by Sat then we need to do tests asap as it's very aggressive. So I'm most likely being paranoid and feeling sorry for myself as I've had very little sleep. Thanks everyone for letting me vent. 

Sorry you had a bit of a pants walk with Ginge but think how fit you're getting with all the running!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - so pleased that you got through to the vet, I really hope that little Leafy improves soon.

L/C - sorry to hear about Ely; what a worry. My friend who I walk with's sister has a retired racer who has just experienced the same symptoms. Osteosacrcoma was the fear there too but 'luckily' it was a bug and some mild arthritis.

k&m - Hope you have a good day with Moll's family and I LOVE chooks doing sendaways .

We have had an OK day so far - up early to walk the boys before Rudi's school class. It took us 25 minutes to reach the top field rather than 5 - 10....Kilo decided to lunge at smells constantly :mad2: when he hasn't done that ever whilst walking with Rudi and Rudi tried to check out all the smells Kilo lunged at too . Then when we were nearly at the field Rudi decided that he'd choose today to try and pull there - he was just frustrated I think. So...we had about 8 stops in the last 30m or so.....Kilo sat and whined each time with frustration and Rudi crept backwards each time as if he thought I wouldn't notice what he'd done :frown2: . Anyhow; finally there and sat nicely to be released, had some play and they both walked back absolutely perfectly :aureola::aureola::aureola:.

Then...school for Rudi. He was an absolute little star, really fantastic for me; didn't put a paw wrong :thumbup1::thumbup1:. I had my doubts after this morning's performance and his massive excitement when I took him out of the car as the snow where school is is still really deep, but he didn't let me down :001_wub::001_wub:.

Weekly weigh in: 26.0kg.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I am so sorry you had a bad night with Leafy but so pleased you've got the message over to the vets. I hope the antibiotics do the trick


Well Leafy's had the first tablet; pity antibiotics take about 48 hours to kick in.

It's still running out of her and she's beginning to look a bit sorry for herself. I've just cleaned her up for the umpteenth time.

The young female vet I spoke to was actually quite sensible. Well she was after I'd snapped the receptionist's head off and then her's.
The receptionist was insisting I take Leafy in as they wouldn't prescribe anything without seeing her which was when I started to lose it. It's a good half an hours drive to get to the practice and there is no way Leafy could have held herself all the way there and back.

I've dealt with Leafy's intolerance problems for over 8 years and Twiggy's before her so I think I have some knowledge of the subject.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Twiggy - glad you got through to the vet and hope Leafy is on the mend soon.
> 
> K&M - hope you enjoy your visit to Moll's family.
> 
> Ely is ill.  He was up all night vomiting (about 6 times) and is very lethargic this morning. He also has developed a limp out of nowhere. No visible damage and he's happy to have the limb moved about. Spoken to the vet and with the symptoms, his breed and his age she wants him to come in for an x-ray if it isn't any better by Saturday.


Oh no not Ely as well. We seem to be putting a jinx on each other.

I hope he's feeling better soon. Such a worry.


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Wow! This thread had exploded again! So far behind!
> 
> Twiggy I really hope Leafy's ok.
> 
> L/C poorly Ely, hope he perks up soon, seems to be lots of bugs about at the moment!
> 
> Yesterday was school day for me and Izzy so we went along to the class, she did pretty well at first with a good sit-stay, good heelwork and nice tight turns. But then we got to the recall and she just got really unsettled, she wont come in straight and gets really timid and then for the rest of the class she cant focus. I think its the combination of the new class and different trainer, and Izzy's so focused on where the trainer is she cant concentrate on me. Its so frustrating though, I know she can do it and we practise everyday at home and she does it perfectly in the house and when out but I cant prepare for the class environment so the trainer just ends up thinking we're rubbish
> 
> *I dont know what to do about it, I guess it will just take time and lots of enthusiasm to try and get her excited about being there. She does enjoy going and she has come on in leaps and bounds since we started but* *moving up a class seems to have upskuttled her a bit. I think the main thing with the recall is the trainer stand to one side then once Ive called Izzy she moves to behind Izzy to check shes come in straight which she* *doesnt cos she has to keep an eye on the trainer and ends up coming in wonky! ARGHH!! *
> 
> Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can work on this?


Tell me exactly how you respond when she doesn't present straight?

Then I can make some suggestions.


----------



## Twiggy

Well rightly or wrongly I've just given Leafy two dessertspoonfuls of boiled brown rice and a tiny bit of tinned Chappie. She hasn't eaten for 36 hours now and I haven't seen her drinking so it will at least get a bit of liquid into her.

I'm not too when my girls are ill and start to panic at the slightest thing.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy said:


> Tell me exactly how you respond when she doesn't present straight?
> 
> Then I can make some suggestions.


Poor Leafy, it must be so worrying, glad you kicked some butt at the vets and got her sorted. Fingers crossed the med start working soon and she can keep some fluids in.

So when she doesnt present straight I start walking backwards to try and encourage her to come in straight (not sure if that makes sense) but she just ends up side stepping at the same wonky angle. Its tricky as when she gets like that I cant even lure her with a treat because she gets all shy and distracted. I dont reward her unless she gives a straight present.

The difficult bit is that I cant practise reacting to this response from her other than in the training room as its the only place where she gets like that  She was like this when we first started in the last class so hopefully she'll improve once she settles again


----------



## Werehorse

Izzysmummy - I would say your trainer needs to stand back a bit? If he is worrying Izzy enough to interfere with her concentration... And then working on gradually getting closer without her worrying.

L/C - you must be beside yourself.  (((hugs))) I hope it is just a bug. Get well Ely.

Twiggy - I hope the meds kick in soon. I hope she not too dehydrated.

Dogless - glad Rudi was a star for you at class! Re. the sniffs - as Rudi grows up Kilo will probably get more competitive for sniffs and things (grown up boys! :lol hence the lunging - getting in there first. I don't think you'll have too much of a problem because you do enough individual walks to re-inforce good behaviour.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Izzysmummy - I would say your trainer needs to stand back a bit? If he is worrying Izzy enough to interfere with her concentration... And then working on gradually getting closer without her worrying.


I was thinking that, at least for a few weeks till she is used to the class 

Werehorse the bit in the book was about finding a dogs optimal arousal, not under or over aroused. Under arousal can happen when they shut down because their brains have been overloaded and they can't process the information being given to them, which can happens for any number of reasons for particular dogs on particular days.

Poor Leafy, she doesn't sound very happy at all, hope she feels better for a bit of food.

Coats arrived -  http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288409-new-coat-pics.html#post1062645043 we will have to wait and see what she thinks of it outside later on.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Izzysmummy - I would say your trainer needs to stand back a bit? If he is worrying Izzy enough to interfere with her concentration... And then working on gradually getting closer without her worrying.
> 
> L/C - you must be beside yourself.  (((hugs))) I hope it is just a bug. Get well Ely.
> 
> Twiggy - I hope the meds kick in soon. I hope she not too dehydrated.
> 
> Dogless - glad Rudi was a star for you at class! Re. the sniffs - as Rudi grows up Kilo will probably get more competitive for sniffs and things (grown up boys! :lol hence the lunging - getting in there first. I don't think you'll have too much of a problem because you do enough individual walks to re-inforce good behaviour.


Yes....the sniffs thing did occur to me as Kilo and Dizzy can be very competitive over sniffing and marking .


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- so sorry to hear Ely is poorly, I hope it clears up soon. Is he any better at all now?

Twiggy- Hope Leafy picks up quickly now she's got some meds.

Dogless- Isn't Rudi a little star.

Ginge- Nasty man spoiling your walk.

Well, the things I go through to give my girls a change of scenery.:frown2: I always come away with such a headache from the dogs there and all the barking. Even without Lucy, its still 'wild'. It was a bit sad her not being there- think Moll noticed.
The girls were brill though and had a great run, Evie was good, I always worry she finds it a bit much but she coped well. What I do like is- they dont really mix they all just run and sniff but theres no problems between them. I always come away feeling really proud of my dogs behaviour.


----------



## Werehorse

GingerRogers said:


> I was thinking that, at least for a few weeks till she is used to the class
> 
> Werehorse the bit in the book was about finding a dogs optimal arousal, not under or over aroused. Under arousal can happen when they shut down because their brains have been overloaded and they can't process the information being given to them, which can happens for any number of reasons for particular dogs on particular days.
> 
> Poor Leafy, she doesn't sound very happy at all, hope she feels better for a bit of food.
> 
> Coats arrived -  http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288409-new-coat-pics.html#post1062645043 we will have to wait and see what she thinks of it outside later on.


Sounds like I need to get my hands on that book - Control Unleashed was it? This is really gross but I did notice just after him switching off that there was some do-dah stuff on his whatsit thingy...  Over-excitement perhaps? His winky does sometimes make an appearence at training... lordy the things I find myself discussing on the internet in the name of my dogs. 

Will go have a look at the coat and try not to go and buy some for the boys!


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Sounds like I need to get my hands on that book - Control Unleashed was it? This is really gross but I did notice just after him switching off that there was some do-dah stuff on his whatsit thingy...  Over-excitement perhaps? His winky does sometimes make an appearence at training... lordy the things I find myself discussing on the internet in the name of my dogs.
> 
> Will go have a look at the coat and try not to go and buy some for the boys!


Oook  perhaps he got a little over excited and brain melted we all know there's a connection between the two 

Sorry for making you want coats, it is really very smart and your boys would look excellent running over fells and peaks and stuff in them, sadly for big dogs they are more expensive :frown:, perhaps you should let us try it out for a couple of weeks and see if she wrecks it


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Poor Leafy, it must be so worrying, glad you kicked some butt at the vets and got her sorted. Fingers crossed the med start working soon and she can keep some fluids in.
> 
> So when she doesnt present straight I start walking backwards to try and encourage her to come in straight (not sure if that makes sense) but she just ends up side stepping at the same wonky angle. Its tricky as when she gets like that I cant even lure her with a treat because she gets all shy and distracted. I dont reward her unless she gives a straight present.
> 
> The difficult bit is that I cant practise reacting to this response from her other than in the training room as its the only place where she gets like that  She was like this when we first started in the last class so hopefully she'll improve once she settles again


Righty ho...LOL

Walking backwards won't do any good at all plus the minute you move you are criticising her which won't help if she's already nervous or sensitive. I don't mean you are telling her off but with many dogs (especially bitches) just moving is enough to put them off.

A novice recall (recall to front) contains several parts and each part needs to be taught separately ie sit/down stay when you leave them, maintaining position while you turn and face, the call up, the present and the finish.

Why does your instructor need to be anywhere near you? I can see whether a recall is straight sitting on my chair when I'm instructing and when I'm judging I don't go anywhere near the dogs in case some of them are nervous.

You need to get a lot more enthusiasm on the recall part by the sounds of it ( as do I with my little rescue youngster)..!! I will do anything and everything to get speed and enthusiasm - run like hell away from her, jump about waving her favourite toy, throw said toy or tit-bit through my legs as she approaches, etc. etc. etc.

With regards to straight presents it needs to be thoroughly taught and the easiest way is sitting on the edge of a hard kitchen type chair with your legs out in front of you in a channel and feet straight and flat on the floor. You just hold your dogs collar at the side of you, lob a tit-bit as far out in front as you can and say something like "ready, steady, get it".
As the dog eats the tit-bit have another one in your hand and call the dog into the present with loads of verbal encouragement and both hands together to draw the dog in. If your legs/feet are positioned correctly the dog can't present at an angle, it has to be straight. That's stage one and there are several more stages before you progress to leaning against a wall and then standing up straight.

If Werehorse is reading this she may be kind enough to put her video on again of Hugo doing retrieve using the same principle. It would be much easier for you to understand if you could actually see it. It is already on this thread but you would have to trawl back to find it.

Does any of this make sense?


----------



## Izzysmummy

Thanks Twiggy, I'll try and give this a go and have a think about how I can take this into the training room with me. The trainer understands she is nervous and gives her a lot of space, stands quite far back but the room isn't huge, maybe I'll not do the exercise in the middle of the room to give her more space and work at home to reinforce the straight present. 

Just came home a bit deflated last night as before Christmas she was doing really well and now she's gone back a bit but as she does it perfectly at home it's hard to work on the problem


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Poor Leafy.
> 
> Hugo was Not Very Good at class.  We were doing sendaways and he just went completely blank, lost focus and wandered off to find something else to do. And after that kept going a few steps towards the mat and stopping and looking at me.  I don't know if he actually finds it really boring and/or stressful or far too exciting so he goes into a kind of brain freeze-overload  I don't know if I'm just not making it rewarding enough for him because I'm used to Oscar finding it really exciting to actually run out so he doesn't need much reward. I'm wondering if Hugo actually dislikes having to go away from me and thus needs it to be made more rewarding.
> 
> I suspect I've accidently done something that makes it more rewarding for him to pee about.
> 
> When we moved on to the next exercise he was back as enthusiastic as ever.
> 
> I got worried because I was catatrophising thinking I'd broken him and he'd never be good ever again.


From what you've said I would say Hugo is a bit confused, doesn't really understand what you are asking him to do, and lacks motivation to try.

Ive had a little think about this and wonder if approaching the exercise from another angle might be worth a go.

I assume you need the sendaway to a mat for the GC Gold Award - yes?

How big does the mat have to be? I have a minor brainwave unfurling...


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Thanks Twiggy, I'll try and give this a go and have a think about how I can take this into the training room with me. The trainer understands she is nervous and gives her a lot of space, stands quite far back but the room isn't huge, maybe I'll not do the exercise in the middle of the room to give her more space and work at home to reinforce the straight present.
> 
> Just came home a bit deflated last night as before Christmas she was doing really well and now she's gone back a bit but as she does it perfectly at home it's hard to work on the problem


There are several things you can do at club:

Pull a chair to the middle of the room and have a go at what I've explained.

Get someone to hold her collar and run off and call her - there is no need to actually get the sit.

Put her in the sit/down and walk away. Turn to face and then run backwards calling with loads of enthusiasm. Again there is no need to get the present.

With all exercises its getting the speed and motivation that's the most important aspect, the accuracy can be shaped later.

If you get stuck on any of it just shout and I'll do my best to help.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> From what you've said I would say Hugo is a bit confused, doesn't really understand what you are asking him to do, and lacks motivation to try.
> 
> Ive had a little think about this and wonder if approaching the exercise from another angle might be worth a go.
> 
> I assume you need the sendaway to a mat for the GC Gold Award - yes?
> 
> How big does the mat have to be? I have a minor brainwave unfurling...


We've diverted slightly from the KC stuff (Hugo only has his bronze anyway but there is a send to bed on the Gold which is essentially the same) and the sendaway to mat is for the APDT progressive award. They need to be sent and hold a position on a mat for a certain length of time (can't remember how long). He can do the waiting on the mat until the cows come home - I'm not sure he likes it though, he doesn't exactly relax! It is the getting out there consistently and without glancing back at me like I've beaten him that is the problem. :frown2:

I don't think there is any constraints on the size of mat...

I'm going to dig out the videos of teaching him retrieve for Izzy'smummy in a sec too.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> We've diverted slightly from the KC stuff (Hugo only has his bronze anyway but there is a send to bed on the Gold which is essentially the same) and the sendaway to mat is for the APDT progressive award. They need to be sent and hold a position on a mat for a certain length of time (can't remember how long). He can do the waiting on the mat until the cows come home - I'm not sure he likes it though, he doesn't exactly relax! It is the getting out there consistently and without glancing back at me like I've beaten him that is the problem. :frown2:
> 
> I don't think there is any constraints on the size of mat...
> 
> I'm going to dig out the videos of teaching him retrieve for Izzy'smummy in a sec too.


Good...!!

How about trying this (especially as Hugo likes retrieve)? Cut a lump of old carpet or mat about 1 ft square and have a damn good game of tug with him - as rough as you like. When he's really into the game, grab his collar and throw the mat really excitedly saying something like "get it". Don't use "hold" as you don't want to mess up his retrieve. Once that's all going swimmingly, throw the mat as far as you can and say "get it" but this time run up behind him and down him on or near the mat. The minute he hits the deck either grab the mat and play tug or say "get it" and then play tug.

Try this first and if he likes it we can then work on him holding the down on the mat and finally waiting for you to send him.

It's sort of based on a method I've used before with a championship C dog that started to mess about circling on the run out. We cut out anything to do with sendaways as such and did a long retrieve to the back marker and it worked like a dream...


----------



## Werehorse

Ooooo, ok - we can do that. He like his retrieve but he LOVES tuggy so he may well be happy with this idea. I have a small piece of vetbed I can use too.


----------



## Werehorse

Izzy'smummy - unfortunately the video I think you need is the one my OH filmed portrait.  You'll have to tilt your head. 

Hugo Retrieve Stage 2 - YouTube


----------



## Dogless

Good walk this evening; I must confess I got sidetracked this afternoon and didn't leave enough time for individual walks before their dinner (early tonight - school for Kilo!) and took them out together. We did some walking nicely practice after this morning's shenanigans, they had an offlead play (as they didn't get much time this morning due to aforementioned shenanigans) and then we came home. Lazy bugger that I am :frown2:.

Weather warning for rain tomorrow. Ugh...looks wet in only the way NI can be!


----------



## Twiggy

Of course now I'm a leading expert in the world of IT, I can actually get someone to video my dogs doing whatever exercise to show you.......!!

Well Leafy went 3 hours without needing to go out and when she did it was only a wee. Fingers crossed she's a bit better.

I gave her two more dessertspoons of boiled rice and she didn't eat it all, which is a bit worrying but hopefully she can have some breakfast in the morning. Poor little mite.


----------



## Thorne

This thread just keeps on getting longer! Will have a read through in a minute to see how everyone's been getting on 

Scooter's still in the throes of sexual frustration, although no horrible humping today and didn't see any yesterday evening. He's just following Breeze around more than normal and gives her the occasional look of love.
Fortunately/unfortunately he lost interest in her on today's walk and started tracking whatever or whoever smells so enticing around here. Once again he was fairly unresponsive so no free-running for him! Had to do a few stop-starts to halt a bit of pulling then he was ok, just very preoccupied by sniffing.

Not much to report on Breeze, as usual she was a good girl, unusually we started our walk with a massive waggy tail! She normally does little wags while onlead but seemed happy today, think she likes the snow (still plenty around but disappearing fast now).
On our "to work on" list is buses; she really does not like them so think I may take advantage of the bus stop opposite our house where she can see them at low speed and without them sneaking up on her. She keeps getting better around them, then one will make her jump and we'll be back to square one  Think I'll wander over with her a few times tomorrow armed with a peanut butter kong.

Had a LOVELY long walk with Paddy at Blue Cross yesterday! He's been sulking in the recent cold weather but someone's found him a thicker coat and he seemed much happier. Took him down to the beach, he didn't much care for it but was an absolute star, save for a silly excited-Lurcher dance and grumble at a Bernese Mountain Dog on the way back.
Got humped by a Staff x who's quite frustrated about being in heat (!), walked Ollie and spent time in the garden playing and training him and a few of his kennelmates.


----------



## Nicki85

Hi will catch up with everyones posts later Wanted to give an update on Rusty.

Been in London (actually had to go to a meeting- shock horror!!) so left Rusty by him self :-( Mum left at 8.30am then dog walker for half an hour only at lunchtime then mum was back at 5pm. 

He trashed the kitchen/ conservatory- put my coat, slippers, wellies on the sofa so he was obviously a busy bee which is good (usual behaviour for him). He has only been to the toilet three times today and this evening it was a bit more solid before turning liquid (TMI- sorry) so bit of improvement there. He was happy to see me and did his waggly spaniel dance with toy so that was nice. He is still more lethargic than usual and not that interested in his raw chicken. I've boiled the rest and will pick it off the bone and feed with rice. No sickness but very windy(!) and smelly.

Blood tests tomorrow am....

And I got his KC activity registration through so he can compete in agility. His show name is Rusty Springs  Fingers crossed we will be able to compete at some point- trying to be positive that this is just a bacterial infection and the glands up are just one of those things.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hi will catch up with everyones posts later Wanted to give an update on Rusty.
> 
> Been in London (actually had to go to a meeting- shock horror!!) so left Rusty by him self :-( Mum left at 8.30am then dog walker for half an hour only at lunchtime then mum was back at 5pm.
> 
> He trashed the kitchen/ conservatory- put my coat, slippers, wellies on the sofa so he was obviously a busy bee which is good (usual behaviour for him). He has only been to the toilet three times today and this evening it was a bit more solid before turning liquid (TMI- sorry) so bit of improvement there. He was happy to see me and did his waggly spaniel dance with toy so that was nice. He is still more lethargic than usual and not that interested in his raw chicken. I've boiled the rest and will pick it off the bone and feed with rice. No sickness but very windy(!) and smelly.
> 
> Blood tests tomorrow am....
> 
> And I got his KC activity registration through so he can compete in agility. His show name is Rusty Springs  Fingers crossed we will be able to compete at some point- trying to be positive that this is just a bacterial infection and the glands up are just one of those things.


Well that sounds a bit better doesn't it? Fingers crossed for the blood tests tomorrow.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well wishes to all the poorly dogs.  what a worry. 

All good walks today apart from when I ran out of treats with bella  I even tied my glove, that smelt of the liver treats, on to the end of the lead and dangled it in front of her. Worked for a while but was glad to get home.

Frank doesn't seem himself tonight either. Taking him for injections in morning so will get him checked out.


----------



## Nicki85

MollySmith- hope the redundancy stuff gets sorted soon :-( We went through cuts over Christmas. It's so worrying and difficult :-(

Foxyrockmiester- i managed to trap Rusty in the door once when he rushed through without me realising. He was fine but it taught him that he should wait till I open the door!! My old Springer used to leap all over the place and bite the GR... she was naughty.

LO- that advice sounds terrible :-( I think dogs enjoy running but there are lots of other ways to exercise/ entertain them in a more safe way!

KM- glad you found something Evie loves (the liver)!! Makes getting attention sooooo much easier. She still sounds like such a character!

Werehorse- Rusty doesn't like send aways either... he always does it (he lives to obey bless him) but I have to make it soooo fun. He is a velcro dog and hates being away from me in those kind of situations. Actually, proper obedience makes him anxious as I have to concentrate and take it to seriously (without meaning to!) so he gets worried. We stick to fun tricks now.

Twiggy- hope Leafy is still improving... its so worrying isn't it? She sounds much worse than the symptoms Rusty is showing but I guess at least you know what caused it :-( Poor pups.

Sarah- Naughty Spen, maybe there is abitch in season near by? I'm still waiting for Rusty to react to an in season bitch but we have never met one and he has never really reacted to any scents... I don't think he really is a proper boy though!! (he is entire ;-) )

L/C- sorry to hear that there is another poorly dog on this thread :-( Hope Ely picks up soon and there is nothing of serious concern.

Ginge- well done on the running ;-) Isn't it fun!?

Dogless- Rusty is a sniff monster to and gets carried away on walks... in agility he can be a nightmare and we have to do a lot of concentration work. Sounds like other walk and Rudi's training classes were good!

Sorry to those that I have missed, I trieds my bestests!!

Rusty has just had some boiled chicken and rice which at frist he wouldn't touch... then I found some R/C proper sensitivity diet stuff and mixed 1/8th tin in... lets just say it was gone if 5secs flat :-0 He is now being starved for his blood test tomorrow.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Well wishes to all the poorly dogs.  what a worry.
> 
> All good walks today apart from when I ran out of treats with bella  I even tied my glove, that smelt of the liver treats, on to the end of the lead and dangled it in front of her. Worked for a while but was glad to get home.
> 
> *Frank doesn't seem himself tonight either. Taking him for injections in morning so will get him checked out.[/*QUOTE]
> 
> Oh no not another poorly dog. What seems to be the matter?


----------



## Thorne

-Twiggy: Really hope poor leafy gets better soon.

-K&M: Glad the liver went down so well! Was only saying to mum on our walk this evening that I think I'll try baking some liver, anything to try and get Scooter's attention  Watch out for the hunt!

-Sarah1983: Sounds like we're in much the same boat with our boys at the moment, hope Spen comes to his senses soon.

-MV: All this talk of mats has reminded me that Scooter (yes, being a general pain lately!) is getting sneaky about leaving his bed when sent to it, will take a leaf out of your book and try persuading him it's a good place to be.

-L/C: Oh dear, another poorly hound! Hope he pulls through quickly.

-Izzysmummy: I'm sure Izzy will settle in her new class, well done with the rest of her exercises.

-GR: Phew! What a total muppet that chap was. Well done for keeping your head. I like the new coat!

-Dogless: Sounds like perseverance paid off this morning, Breeze will try and wrestle Scooter out of the way for scents that I'm sure she'd normally ignore but she's a terrible copycat  Pleased Rudi was a good boy at class. He's only 6kg short of my "big" lad's weight now!

-Nicki85: Will be thinking of you and your boy's blood tests tomorrow, hope all goes well.

-F&F: Hope Frank is ok! Can't have any more poorly dogs on here!

We're thinking of changing Scooter's food (again!) from his lamb & rice Vitalin to Skinners Salmon/Duck F+T. The current food seems to suit him - gleaming coat, good skin, he's at a constant weight and his poos are pretty good - but he's getting _horrible_ wind! It's not constant and no other symptoms but it's pretty pungent, dad is making such a terrible fuss about it and is now getting stroppy with the dog to the point where it would be easier to try something else. He seems to be ok with anything but wheat and beef, so fingers crossed.
Think it must be the lamb itself, there's certainly a lamby-undertone to his flatulence


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Freddie and frank said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well wishes to all the poorly dogs.  what a worry.
> 
> All good walks today apart from when I ran out of treats with bella  I even tied my glove, that smelt of the liver treats, on to the end of the lead and dangled it in front of her. Worked for a while but was glad to get home.
> 
> *Frank doesn't seem himself tonight either. Taking him for injections in morning so will get him checked out.[/*QUOTE]
> 
> Oh no not another poorly dog. What seems to be the matter?
> 
> 
> 
> Oh I think I worded it wrong.Sorry.
> He's going for his yearly boosters.
> 
> He's ok on walks, very good actually. Is very willing to go out and chase a ball, but this evening he seems a bit lethargic,and not himself. Just getting him checked whilst I'm there.
> Probably being paranoid.
> 
> Eta, he looks a little bit sore in his nether regions, so I'm wondering if he has some sort of infection. His lipstick has made a few appearances in the last couple of weeks.
Click to expand...


----------



## Guest

Hoping all poorly ones are feeling better soon. 

Had two good walks. Lunged/leaped at a terrier. I really need to sort this out.

He's in enforced sleeptime in is crate as he has not slept today and has been howling at me. He's zonko now.

I bought a 2000 version of gwen baileys puppy book and she's on pack leaders.
:lol: 

Oh god and I saw the person I used to take Donkey for training with. They're very into the pack leader thing. 
"So how long did it take for you to ruin him?" 
No idea if that was meant jokingly.


Bah, I'm sorry, being a misery again hahah, I think its the weather!!


----------



## Nicki85

LO- please tell me they really didn't say that to you?! That is shocking...


----------



## Guest

Nicki85 said:


> LO- please tell me they really didn't say that to you?! That is shocking...


They did. But I think, they may have been joking.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Sorry to hear about Leafy and Ely, hope they're feeling much better soon.

We've had a good day, lovely but very cold walk on the downs, recalled perfectly away from the cattle and actually walked 'reasonably' well on their leads to pass them  Branston got a little bit boisterous with Benny (a little 10 year old Cav that we see quite a lot) but again he recalled away and then left him alone.

Back door has been open all day despite the cold so haven't had much of an opportunity to tackle 'back door bedlam' much yet but will put them on their leads before going out for bedtime wee this evening and see how that goes.

Big highlight of the day?? Successfully managed to clip ALL of the Pickle's nails :thumbup: I'm so chuffed, and will now be taking a tiny bit off at least once a week to hopefully get them so used to it that it won't be a problem at all 

Finished the 3rd book in the Pickle's Adventure Series, it took me aages but I think it's ok  
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288490-3rd-installment-pickles-adventure-series.html


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> They did. But I think, they may have been joking.


Hmm, I always thought jokes were meant to be funny!


----------



## cinnamontoast

Drum roll, please! Zak's trainer wanted to work on socialisation (or rather, ignore this beautiful dog next to you) for a couple of hours

Dah dah!










Note the lead lying on the ground....proud mummy!

OMG, I am Pete Mark Two, spanner and goldie!!


----------



## Thorne

cinnamontoast - Fantastic to see :thumbup: Well done you and Zak!


----------



## Dogless

Glad Rusty and Leafy seem to be improving a little.

Hope Ely and Frank are OK...this thread seems to be contagious .

CT - well done ZakAttack!!

Kilo was a good boy tonight at school; it was fun. He was very, very reluctant to do any 'downs' though as the heating was off and he usually hates lying on the hard floor anyway (typical RR) but he was shivering on it too tonight which meant all sorts of whines, crying, sighs of acceptance...can't say I blamed him really!!


----------



## cinnamontoast

Thorne said:


> cinnamontoast - Fantastic to see :thumbup: Well done you and Zak!


All credit to the fab trainer and my OH: I was at work!


----------



## MollySmith

Another sick dog  Well she's okay in herself but I don't know if this is linked to the lump under her chin? That has gone but she's been off piriton since Tues eve so this could be linked. Vet tomorrow (the new one) I think but I could try piriton again? Not sure.


----------



## Nicki85

CT- welldone!

MS- ouch :-( Looks like an allergy? sounds like it could all be related... is she bothering it all?

DL- Rusty hates sitting on the cold floor but will happily lie on it!


----------



## MollySmith

No she seems okay, I wonder if its Vitalin? She has been on this for about 3 weeks for anal glands but I'm not sure. She usually has Applaws.


----------



## Werehorse

MollySmith - ouch! Those do look allergy-ish. I'd be at the vets tomorrow if it were one of mine. 

So many poorly boys and girls at the moment!


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> No she seems okay, I wonder if its Vitalin? She has been on this for about 3 weeks for anal glands but I'm not sure. She usually has Applaws.


Perhaps it is the food? Have you compared ingredients just to try and identify something maybe?


----------



## Werehorse

X-post - it could well be the food. One of the horses at my yard has been suffering from a massive allergic reaction and the vet did say at one point that it can take quite a while for the allergen to have an effect at first, so 3 weeks is well within scope especially as her swollen neck started about a week or so ago?

I'd still go to the vets but I'd also think about changing back to Applaws or something renouned for being hypoallergenic like Burns or Arden Grange...


----------



## Guest

Silly idea but ya know I have a mekuti harness? Well could I attach a weeny little carabiner and use that as a front ring?


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Silly idea but ya know I have a mekuti harness? Well could I attach a weeny little carabiner and use that as a front ring?


I'd worry about it digging in as it's not flush to the harness - same as attaching a trigger hook to that ring. You could perhaps get another sewn on to the front harness strap but it would obviously then be off centre.


----------



## MollySmith

I have looked at Vitalin and there isn't anything obvious apart from it is high in grains so whilst her poop is healthy, I think it might be a delayed thing, she's been having it for her breakfast for three weeks. She was on James Wellbeloved until I saw that Applaws was better rated and gradually phased her over with no issues.

Vets tomorrow for sure.

I am sorry I've not read everyone's posts, shoulder is so sore I'm having trouble using my laptop. I've already decided that I'm staying at home and resting it tomorrow. They've got four full days out of me this week and I'm on a phased return so tomorrow home, hot water bottle and a catch up here.

I do hope all our sick doggies get well soon. It's less what we're working on and more bugs and illness today


----------



## Nicki85

Gah, awful night... Rusty brought up all of the undigested chicken and rice at about 1am and then had a bout of diarrhea as well to top it off. He has just had the blood test- results back this afternoon or tomorrow am. He is being starved for another 24hrs now :-( Asked about starting him on some antibiotics but they don't want to do that yet as they might not have any affect + they don't know which ones to give him. (I thought this a bit odd but will be seeing the vet again soon so left it). He is hungry at the moment and was quite cheerful on his 10min walk.


----------



## MollySmith

Nicki85 said:


> Gah, awful night... Rusty brought up all of the undigested chicken and rice at about 1am and then had a bout of diarrhea as well to top it off. He has just had the blood test- results back this afternoon or tomorrow am. He is being starved for another 24hrs now :-( Asked about starting him on some antibiotics but they don't want to do that yet as they might not have any affect + they don't know which ones to give him. (I thought this a bit odd but will be seeing the vet again soon so left it). He is hungry at the moment and was quite cheerful on his 10min walk.


Oh I am so sorry lovely, poor Rusty and poor you. I hope the vet has answers


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Glad Rusty and Leafy seem to be improving a little.
> 
> Hope Ely and Frank are OK...this thread seems to be contagious .
> 
> CT - well done ZakAttack!!
> 
> *Kilo was a good boy tonight at school; it was fun. He was very, very reluctant to do any 'downs' though as the heating was off and he usually hates lying on the hard floor anyway (typical RR) but he was shivering on it too tonight which meant all sorts of whines, crying, sighs of acceptance...can't say I blamed him really!!*




Personally I would ask your trainer if Kilo can give the down stay exercise a miss if its freezing cold as you are setting him up to fail, or at the very least leaving an unpleasant association.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Another sick dog  Well she's okay in herself but I don't know if this is linked to the lump under her chin? That has gone but she's been off piriton since Tues eve so this could be linked. Vet tomorrow (the new one) I think but I could try piriton again? Not sure.


Too much of a coincidence I'd say. Be interesting to see what the new vet comes up with.


----------



## Nicki85

MollySmith said:


> Oh I am so sorry lovely, poor Rusty and poor you. I hope the vet has answers


Thanks, feel a bit stretched to my limit at the moment. Just gave him a couple of tablespoons of the RC recovery stuff and rice... very hungry boy so see how that goes.  I don't think starving again is going to accomplish anything so a small meal now and another later. Just feel so helpless


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> No she seems okay, I wonder if its Vitalin? She has been on this for about 3 weeks for anal glands but I'm not sure. She usually has Applaws.


IMO diet makes absolutely no difference to anal gland problems and I'm not a fan of Vitalin either.

Arden Grange is a pretty good food for producing firm stools.


----------



## Beth17

Poor Molly it does look very allergy related. This was Sam last week when he cam out in hives. The pictures were taken after it had started to get better. They're not great as were taken on my phone.

Nicki sorry to hear Rusty is still not right. I hope the bloods show something easily treatable.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Gah, awful night... Rusty brought up all of the undigested chicken and rice at about 1am and then had a bout of diarrhea as well to top it off. He has just had the blood test- results back this afternoon or tomorrow am. He is being starved for another 24hrs now :-( Asked about starting him on some antibiotics but they don't want to do that yet as they might not have any affect + they don't know which ones to give him. (I thought this a bit odd but will be seeing the vet again soon so left it). He is hungry at the moment and was quite cheerful on his 10min walk.


Oh no poor Rusty. I hope you get the blood test results today and they show what the problem is.

I would think your vet won't prescribe antibiotics until he's looked at the blood results and will then have a clearer idea what to give him.

It could be something like camplobactor or giardia which needs a specific antibiotic. I think Erthyamycin (wrong spelling) is the only one for camplobactor for instance and Panacur for giardia.

Such a worry with a young dog.


----------



## Twiggy

Happy to report Leafy is much better this morning and has had some breakfast.

She had a very peaceful night on my bed and didn't need to go out during the night. I didn't have such a good night as she seemed to take up about 90 per cent of the bed...


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Poor Rusty, I hope you get him sorted soon.

Poor Molly too, I think I'm going to leave this thread before I catch anything! 

How are Leafy and Ely this morning?

Sending you all healing vibes 

There are some nasty viruses/bugs on the island at the moment, with dogs that have been walked in certain areas suffering. Maybe there is a lot going around? Bit like all the human bugs there have been this winter?

All well here, apart from the fact that our entire house STINKS of fish because I put a massive batch of sprats in the dehydrator last night!!! I hope the Pickles (and the cat) appreciate them :lol:

I'm at work all day today so hubby is on Pickle walk duty 
Looking forward to week 4 of New Years Resolution tomorrow though 

Hope you all have a good day x


----------



## L/C

Oh poor Rusty - I hope you figure out what is wrong with him soon. 

Glad Leafy seems a bit better.

Fingers crossed Ely seems to have perked up a bit. He's had over 24 hours with no vomiting and he's kept down some boiled rice. His limp is still there but seems to be worse on frozen ground and the pavement, he's moving almost normally on grass that isn't frozen. So I think it might be something to do with his pad even though I can't see anything. 

Mixed walk this morning. Great first part - it's thawed enough to do some training and they were both very good. I even managed to work on proofing their sit and down stays around a bitch in season! Gypsy has started offering me sits as well as downs so I've been working on capturing those. Now the snow has gone I think we'll get back to some nosework tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for all your well wishes for my boy. Sorry about the slightly hysterical posts yesterday.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Oh poor Rusty - I hope you figure out what is wrong with him soon.
> 
> Glad Leafy seems a bit better.
> 
> Fingers crossed Ely seems to have perked up a bit. He's had over 24 hours with no vomiting and he's kept down some boiled rice. His limp is still there but seems to be worse on frozen ground and the pavement, he's moving almost normally on grass that isn't frozen. So I think it might be something to do with his pad even though I can't see anything.
> 
> Mixed walk this morning. Great first part - it's thawed enough to do some training and they were both very good. I even managed to work on proofing their sit and down stays around a bitch in season! Gypsy has started offering me sits as well as downs so I've been working on capturing those. Now the snow has gone I think we'll get back to some nosework tomorrow.
> 
> Thank you everyone for all your well wishes for my boy. Sorry about the slightly hysterical posts yesterday.


Please to hear Ely seems a bit better as well as Leafy.

Mmm don't know about pad. This frozen ground really emphasizes any problems with joints as well. That's why Quiver has hardly been walked for the past 12 days and even Leafy has limped a bit on her dodgy left shoulder.

I've booked an appointment at my vets for next Wednesday for Leafy to have another laser treatment on her shoulder and I'm going to ring my vet on Monday, when he's back at the practice, to discuss treatment for Quiver. I've managed to hold off on any NSAIDS up to now but I think she needs either Previcox, Rimadyl or Cartophen injections and possibly a course of laser treatment. She's done very well but at 14.1/2 yrs old she has arthritis and this spell of frozen ground and snow has really been difficult for her.


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Please to hear Ely seems a bit better as well as Leafy.
> 
> Mmm don't know about pad. This frozen ground really emphasizes any problems with joints as well. That's why Quiver has hardly been walked for the past 12 days and even Leafy has limped a bit on her dodgy left shoulder.
> 
> I've booked an appointment at my vets for next Wednesday for Leafy to have another laser treatment on her shoulder and I'm going to ring my vet on Monday, when he's back at the practice, to discuss treatment for Quiver. I've managed to hold off on any NSAIDS up to now but I think she needs either Previcox, Rimadyl or Cartophen injections and possibly a course of laser treatment. She's done very well but at 14.1/2 yrs old she has arthritis and this spell of frozen ground and snow has really been difficult for her.


What's the laser treatment for arthritis? I haven't heard of that.


----------



## Thorne

Oh dear, poor Rusty  Hope that he and Molly feel better soon, poor things.

Very pleased to hear that Ely and Leafy are improving, very much hope they continue to do so!


----------



## Dogless

L/C - pleased that Ely seems to be doing better.

Nicki - what a worry with Rusty; hope the bloods help the vet to arrive at a diagnosis.



Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Personally I would ask your trainer if Kilo can give the down stay exercise a miss if its freezing cold as you are setting him up to fail, or at the very least leaving an unpleasant association.


I gave the down at a distance a miss and the sending to a mat as the mat I used was thin and he was even reluctant with that - there was no chance it was going to happen. It was so cold that everyone was in hats and outdoor clothing last night - I'll put Kilo in his Equafleece next week if it's that cold again.

I did separate walks this morning. I think Rudi is going through a fear stage - some new people who have moved into our street have two sibes. We saw them today and the sibes towed her down the street by the fields (she ended up running!) to meet Rudi. We were off to the side about 6m and when we stopped to chat Rudi's hackles all went up and he barked at them. Then on the way off the fields we passed a small bush we've passed loads of times and he gruffed and growled at it - there was nothing like a cat in it, I checked. He has also gruffed at the phone when it rang earlier.... I worry about his socialisation in this weather - I go to places and at times I expect to encounter people / dogs and he has met or seen at least one dog per day of all sizes but it's so foul that not many people come out. Hope I'm worrying over nothing.

Anyhow, we did lots of recalls on the field and some play - Rudi is getting the 'find it' concept with a toy and is learning to bring it back. He is still walking on lead like a dream.

Dedicated Kilo's walk to training as the weather has just turned so, so foul. We worked on heelwork, recalls without jumping at me in excitement and starting to learn 'hide' which he's picked up very fast. He kept pestering me to train as I had the clicker with me - so apart from some brief zooming sessions that's what we did .


----------



## Izzysmummy

I'm glad Ely and Leafy are a bit better today.

Nicky - I hope they work out what's wrong with Rusty soon, poor lad! 

MS - I hope Molly gets better soon too! Too many poorly dogs on this thread!

Had a good training walk last night although she was a bit wary of a man unloading a van and was so busy watching him she didn't look where she was going and I ended up stepping on her foot! She obviously yelped like I'd tried to murder her and made everyone stare at us . She then decided to get me back by limping on that leg further round our walk (me feeling guilty for stepping on her panicked that id broken her foot) so I stopped and checked and she'd just got a little holly leaf stuck on her paw :lol: she did a very good leave it with a cat who ran in front of us and I've started introducing the "sniff" command (thanks for the idea mv)!

I'm not at work this morning as I had an appointment at the hospital so I joined Tarnus on the morning walk and had a lovely wander round the park and Izzy enjoyed a game of fetch and met a few of her friends! Practised some recalls and off lead heel work, all very good. 

We're disappointed though as my parents and Millie-Moo were supposed to be coming to visit for the weekend but my Mums caught a horrible sickness bug and they can't come anymore


----------



## MollySmith

Back from the vets. What a good girl she is, endured a skin scrape, had a play with the vet and she's free of mange. It's probably an allergic reaction so she has antibiotics (plus some treats and a new antler chew...) 

Love the new vets soooo much! 

I will catch up in a mo with the threads, I've met the most awful person on another thread and feeling a bit p*ssed off so I'm going to take a break and get on with my work (I'm working from home can't you tell )


----------



## L/C

MollySmith said:


> Back from the vets. What a good girl she is, endured a skin scrape, had a play with the vet and she's free of mange. It's probably an allergic reaction so she has antibiotics (plus some treats and a new antler chew...)
> 
> Love the new vets soooo much!
> 
> I will catch up in a mo with the threads, *I've met the most awful person on another thread and feeling a bit p*ssed off *so I'm going to take a break and get on with my work (I'm working from home can't you tell )


I saw that. What a vile human being. TBH everything I've seen him/her post seems to have been geared to getting a reaction - hopefully they'll crawl back under their bridge soon.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Personally I would ask your trainer if Kilo can give the down stay exercise a miss if its freezing cold as you are setting him up to fail, or at the very least leaving an unpleasant association.


Or take a towel or something for him to lie on. That's what a couple of owners at our class used to do because their dogs really didn't like lying on the cold floor  That way they still did the exercise but were comfortable at the same time.


----------



## Izzysmummy

MollySmith said:


> Back from the vets. What a good girl she is, endured a skin scrape, had a play with the vet and she's free of mange. It's probably an allergic reaction so she has antibiotics (plus some treats and a new antler chew...)
> 
> Love the new vets soooo much!
> 
> I will catch up in a mo with the threads, I've met the most awful person on another thread and feeling a bit p*ssed off so I'm going to take a break and get on with my work (I'm working from home can't you tell )


I saw that too. Hope you're OK.

Some people just constantly look to cause friction and get a reaction, I've seen other threads where that poster has done the same, please dont let her upset you, she's not worth it!


----------



## GingerRogers

Sick dogs first 
Mollysmith - hope she feels better and they go down soon, & vets have some idea what it is 
Twiggy -glad leafy appears to be on the mend hope it continues. You are very generous giving all your time and advice to sort out all our training problems 
Nikki - oh no poor pair of you , really hope you get some results one way or the other so you know how to treat him.
L/C - glad Ely has perked up but hope the limp goes away too, it doesn't help there reactivity when they have aches and pains does it.

Like FRM says there do appear to be as many doggy bugs as human ones this year 

Thorne - we still struggle with buses and lorries unfortunately the buses are so few and far between round here  we can't really practice with them, I might have to take her to Lowestoft bus station  Glad you ahev had some nice waggy walks with breeze though. Hope the new food helps your Dads mood! Ginge's deposits are always a little bit pungent after lamb, when normally they are smell free(ish) 

F&F - well done on the improvised distraction glove, we tried leaving a sock in the liver treat box and putting a couple of lumps in it to work on heel work, it didn't work for long either even though it stunk. Hope frank is back on form, he better not be sulking cos you wont let him run free.

LO- well done Zander, hmy: to the training person, ******, I don't think that is a funny joke in any way, shape or form. How long did it take them to beat there dog into submission . As to your harness, I attach my lead direct to the front loop all the time , my trainer said you only need to feed it through for real pullers, which I guess Zand is , but I found it a royal pain to keep swapping sides and it twisted the harness round no matter how well adjusted it was. Never noticed it digging in, if you have a puller its pulling backwards so lies flat against the breast bone, or, IF, they ever walk nicely there should be no pressure anyway. HTH

FRM - well done to the pickles and another great book, so clever.

cinnamontoast -  What a good boy Zak is 

Dogless - as per usual Twiggy speaks sense, if he doesn't want to lie on the floor  ETA I see you took her advice before it even arrived anyway :wink5:

Izzysmummy - ooh the yelp of terrible beatings , and then the limp of despair  Ginge is particularly pathetic with prickles in her foot, we get little puppy flop downs and poor puppy dog eyes saying 'help!! help!! I am being eaten by spikes' Penelope pitstop stylee  hope the hosp goes well and that your Mum gets better, we only did Christmas last weekend as my mum had a terrible bug over xmas 

Phew think I am done.

We tried the new coat out in anger last night. Remember how it seemed as though the fleece one worked like a thundershirt  even though this is nice and snug we had a dancing bear who saw ghosts in every corner  she's ruddy cuckoo that dog!!!!! Was much better this morning though, I think it was boredom & frustration as hubby has had yet another week in bed with migraines and I have been working late, I had to chuck her in the bedroom yesterday evening so I could finish up as she was rustling under my desk, not that I don't trust her , I am sure she wouldn't eat cables, its not like she ate two plastic toothpicks 

Anyway we have doctor this arvo and I am going with him, even though I am fairly certain a lot of the migraines have to do with dehydration I also think anxiety/mild depression/insomnia might be contributing, he has steadfastly refused medication but has agreed something mild might be worth a try, seen as he has spent 2 & 1/2 weeks this year in bed already 

Hope all the poorly ones improve and the good ones stay that way


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> What's the laser treatment for arthritis? I haven't heard of that.


It's brilliant and of course totally drug free.

My chiropractor has been using a laser for about 4 years now, so I had some prior knowledge when my new vet invested £15,000.00 in his K-laser.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Leafy would be hopping lame on her left shoulder, especially playing mad games with Holly, if it wasn't for the top ups about every six weeks.

It works on the same principle as a canine massage therapist but much more powerful and because it's a beam can reach right into the troublesome areas.

Unfortunately there are very few practices that offer this service. Noel Fitzpatrick has one and two of the London vets but very few in the rest of the UK.

I can send you the leaflet if you'd like to look through it?


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> I saw that. What a vile human being. TBH everything I've seen him/her post seems to have been geared to getting a reaction - hopefully they'll crawl back under their bridge soon.


Lol, I had to go look I knew exactly who it would be and I was right, you are right, every time I see their name pop I think, oh what marvels shall we read about to day, try not to take the idiot to heart MS 

Hope molly clears up with the ABs


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> It's brilliant and of course totally drug free.
> 
> My chiropractor has been using a laser for about 4 years now, so I had some prior knowledge when my new vet invested £15,000.00 in his K-laser.
> 
> There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Leafy would be hopping lame on her left shoulder, especially playing mad games with Holly, if it wasn't for the top ups about every six weeks.
> 
> It works on the same principle as a canine massage therapist but much more powerful and because it's a beam can reach right into the troublesome areas.
> 
> Unfortunately there are very few practices that offer this service. Noel Fitzpatrick has one and two of the London vets but very few in the rest of the UK.
> 
> I can send you the leaflet if you'd like to look through it?


That would be great if you don't mind?


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Sick dogs first
> Mollysmith - hope she feels better and they go down soon, & vets have some idea what it is
> Twiggy -glad leafy appears to be on the mend hope it continues. You are very generous giving all your time and advice to sort out all our training problems
> Nikki - oh no poor pair of you , really hope you get some results one way or the other so you know how to treat him.
> L/C - glad Ely has perked up but hope the limp goes away too, it doesn't help there reactivity when they have aches and pains does it.
> 
> Like FRM says there do appear to be as many doggy bugs as human ones this year
> 
> Thorne - we still struggle with buses and lorries unfortunately the buses are so few and far between round here  we can't really practice with them, I might have to take her to Lowestoft bus station  Glad you ahev had some nice waggy walks with breeze though. Hope the new food helps your Dads mood! Ginge's deposits are always a little bit pungent after lamb, when normally they are smell free(ish)
> 
> F&F - well done on the improvised distraction glove, we tried leaving a sock in the liver treat box and putting a couple of lumps in it to work on heel work, it didn't work for long either even though it stunk. Hope frank is back on form, he better not be sulking cos you wont let him run free.
> 
> LO- well done Zander, hmy: to the training person, ******, I don't think that is a funny joke in any way, shape or form. How long did it take them to beat there dog into submission . As to your harness, I attach my lead direct to the front loop all the time , my trainer said you only need to feed it through for real pullers, which I guess Zand is , but I found it a royal pain to keep swapping sides and it twisted the harness round no matter how well adjusted it was. Never noticed it digging in, if you have a puller its pulling backwards so lies flat against the breast bone, or, IF, they ever walk nicely there should be no pressure anyway. HTH
> 
> FRM - well done to the pickles and another great book, so clever.
> 
> cinnamontoast -  What a good boy Zak is
> 
> Dogless - as per usual Twiggy speaks sense, if he doesn't want to lie on the floor  ETA I see you took her advice before it even arrived anyway :wink5:
> 
> Izzysmummy - ooh the yelp of terrible beatings , and then the limp of despair  Ginge is particularly pathetic with prickles in her foot, we get little puppy flop downs and poor puppy dog eyes saying 'help!! help!! I am being eaten by spikes' Penelope pitstop stylee  hope the hosp goes well and that your Mum gets better, we only did Christmas last weekend as my mum had a terrible bug over xmas
> 
> Phew think I am done.
> 
> We tried the new coat out in anger last night. Remember how it seemed as though the fleece one worked like a thundershirt  even though this is nice and snug we had a dancing bear who saw ghosts in every corner  she's ruddy cuckoo that dog!!!!! Was much better this morning though, I think it was boredom & frustration as hubby has had yet another week in bed with migraines and I have been working late, I had to chuck her in the bedroom yesterday evening so I could finish up as she was rustling under my desk, not that I don't trust her , I am sure she wouldn't eat cables, its not like she ate two plastic toothpicks
> 
> Anyway we have doctor this arvo and I am going with him, even though I am fairly certain a lot of the migraines have to do with dehydration I also think anxiety/mild depression/insomnia might be contributing, he has steadfastly refused medication but has agreed something mild might be worth a try, seen as he has spent 2 & 1/2 weeks this year in bed already
> 
> Hope all the poorly ones improve and the good ones stay that way


I hope your GP is helpful this afternoon and pleased you are going with him. Men gloss over things and don't tell doctors the truth most of the time.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> I hope your GP is helpful this afternoon and pleased you are going with him. Men gloss over things and don't tell doctors the truth most of the time.


Thank you, they were my thoughts precisely, all they have ever said, apparently, when he has gone on his own is give up smoking, cut down the alcohol, get more fresh air and exercise - he's a ruddy sheep farmer FGS and we have tried the first two, still no change.

He has just got up and I can hear him doing some kind of training with Ginge, all I can hear is wait, good girl, wait, good girl, in quick succession  - I am dying to ask but I will keep zipped


----------



## MollySmith

Thank you GingerRogers, I think it's a mystery but you know that gut reaction to life, I think it's the Vitalin so I'm starting there first. I am so sorry to hear about your husband, if it helps to know, my AD's have caused migraines and I truly hope you get help from the GP. 

Twiggy - I am so pleased Leafy is getting there and yes added thanks for your tips, I learn a lot from PF

F&F - genius idea! I shall steal this for Molly too. I'm trying to get our lady to settle nicely but gosh it's impossible today!

Thorne - nice to hear about walks 

LO - yay Zander. Agree with Ginger on the training. Not sure if this has been mentioned but when we use Molly's harness (rare now we are working on collar and lead) we have a long double ended clip lead from Indy that we use on her front of her eaziwalk and then the other on the collar. I think Indy or someone her sells padded harnesses that are front fastening.

FRM and cinnamontoast - congrats to the gorgeous pickles and Zak.

L/C - poor Ely and poor you, it must be tiring all round.

Dogless - sympathies, we have similar with Molly. I cheated and put Molly's favourite blankie on the radiator and she plonked down immediately.

Izzysmummy - oh dear to the standing on feet but well done on the walk. I hope hospital was okay and thank you for your kind words.


----------



## kat&molly

Bet I forget someone.

Nicki- hope you get your results soon and its 'just' an infection. Loved Rusty's name.

L/C- Thank Dog Ely is a bit better, and his limp goes away.

Twiggy- Good news on Leafy.

M.Smith- Hope that clears up- and what a good girl at the vets.

Ginge- More migraines Hope you get some help at the docs for OH.

Cinnamontoast- well done with Zac, he's made a fabulous improvement.

Dogless- Hope you get some nice new experiences for Rudi soon.
That Down is one of the reasons[there are a few] why I never went back to this new training we'd started.
Moll's down has always been fab- mud/puddles/cold have never bothered her but she was relunctant at this place in the mud. We were all told the dogs should because thats what we've told them to do. 100 percent positive- my ar*e.


----------



## Sarah1983

Got up an hour later than usual this morning so of course breakfast was late so of course Spencer thew up  The usual yellow foam he throws up when he's gone too long on an empty tummy so I don't think he's ill.

He's being a pain still, constantly wanting out on the balcony and then just standing there sniffing the air. Wouldn't mind but it's bloody freezing! If I shut him out there he opens the door and stays out. If I shut him in he paces. Oddly enough though when we're outside he's his usual self. Possibly a bit more sniffy but nothing extreme.

Hope all the sick dogs are feeling better soon. Really seems to be quite a run of illness on here this last week!


----------



## kat&molly

Clean a clip on here this morning, one of those kids toys. A little pole with different coloured rings to go over the pole 
If I cant find one in the shops I can make a pole but anyone any idea what to use for rings. Moll would like something like that.

Off to take Short stuff through the village- with more fresh baked liver.


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> *Clean a clip on here this morning, one of those kids toys. A little pole with different coloured rings to go over the pole
> If I cant find one in the shops I can make a pole but anyone any idea what to use for rings. Moll would like something like that.*
> 
> Off to take Short stuff through the village- with more fresh baked liver.


You what? Has there been a massive auto-correct fail somewhere?


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> You what? Has there been a massive auto-correct fail somewhere?


 ok then I saw a you tube clip this morning on here.
Is that better.

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288468-cool-video-talented-dog.html


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> *Clean a clip on here this morning*, one of those kids toys. A little pole with different coloured rings to go over the pole
> If I cant find one in the shops I can make a pole but anyone any idea what to use for rings. Moll would like something like that.
> 
> Off to take Short stuff through the village- with more fresh baked liver.


lol, like L/C that confused me, I sort of got the rest but the bolded bit still makes no sense , does hubby have a jigsaw and some ply or can you somehow chop up bits of hose pipe and melt the ends together


----------



## Freddie and frank

ms, just had a read through other threads, take no notice, rise above it.

gr, hope your hubby gets on ok. i'm another one on AD's. trying very slowly to come off them but if they're needed and it help. then so be it. 

took frank to the vets this morning and vet said he could possibly be feeling a bit down with all the past few weeks of bella being in season.also, we've moved into the other lounge where i have a fire and it may have put him out too. he's ok physically though. so i took him on a mom and frank walk and tried out his new roamer lead. its good but a bit iffy on the realy slippy bits.









it is attatched to his collar, not his dogmatic, like it looks.

on the way back we got him a new ball on a rope toy and some rice bones from PAH(paid cash for them, so hubby will never know) so he's a happy, fast asleep baby, curled up on the stairs atm.

took freddie and bella a good off lead walk over the chase and they were both well behaved. got a video of their recall, so i'll ask oh to put it on later. it's not as controlled as some i've seen but it works for me.

hubby's birthday tomorrow so i'm cake making inbetween working today. have had a quick read through and will pop back later or tomorrow. 
sunday, i want to have a good look at sorting out what i can do to manage frank and his prey drive, may even go to the library and get those books, due to the fact that i've been banned from buying anything dog related.

catch you all later and have a good day everyone. :thumbsup:


----------



## moonviolet

Is it the clip on this thread K&M? http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288468-cool-video-talented-dog.html

Hope all the poorly doggies get better I'm sorry i'm not naming them all i know i will forget one and feel horrible for it 

MS some people can be really hurtful, someone actually took a discussion into PM with me the other day. To be honest i found it inappropriate and uncomfortable and a little upsetting to be cornered in that way.

K&M I don't blame you for not going back I really find the "because i said so" attitude doesn't sit well with me either. 

Sarah Hope the girlie that's tantalising Spen is less alluring soon although huge gold stars for him being good when you take him out 

ETA Oops was so slow Xposted the link


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> ok then I saw a you tube clip this morning on here.
> Is that better.
> 
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288468-cool-video-talented-dog.html


That makes more sense!


----------



## kat&molly

Sorry, for confusing everyone- haven't touched a drop honest.
Yes that clip MV- the toy in that with the rings.

Ginge- haven't got a jigsaw, dont know how one would work.

I've got to pop to the shops perhaps I'll see something- I doubt it though these shops are duff.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Oh Oh! I think I just got it - is it meant to say '*seen*' a clip today, sorry I can't leave a puzzle .


----------



## Werehorse

Mollysmith - said person on t'other thread can only be described with words too rude for even this thread!

Glad Ely is feeling a bit better, L/C. And glad Molly was such a good girl at the vets and that you like your new vets, Mollysmith. 

Keeping my fingers crossed for Rusty's test results.

Ginge - I hope the doctor is helpful, good idea going with OH. 

The boys have had a couple of rest days this week - I wanted to make sure they were properly recovered from all the wainwright walking... they've hardly move off the sofa while in the house since! But last night Hugo was leaping all over me and Oscar came trotting into the room with OH's hat in his mouth at one point. And this morning the blanket was on the floor so they had obviously been playing Matadors before we got up.  So I took them for a proper walk again today. Round the snowy woods. They were very good. Got charged an barked at by a massive terrier thing but it stopped 10 yards short and Oscar ignored it and Hugo came into heel and it went away.

We saw blood in the snow! And a trail of blood where a kill had obviously been dragged away by something! It was quite creepy. The boys were intrigued but did a sit stay while I looked at it and then came away from it after I let them have a little sniff (I did have to say a slightly growly leave it to Hugo as he put his Sherlock Holmes hat on and started muttering about catching the perpertrator...  Watson, sorry... Oscar was so not bovvered.)

And then later on we did walking roughly to heel past a family inexplicably sat on the ground in the snow having a picnic in the middle of the woods. :lol: Which is fine but I bet their bums were cold.

And I've decided I'm going to attempt to brush the boys teeth every day.  They are actually really good and just look slightly confused "what's the mad woman doing now?" Whether they'll get more co-operative or less remains to be seen - we are on a upwards trend at the moment though. I brush with no toothpaste then they get to lick a bit of toothpaste from the tube, get another quick brush and then a biscuit. They like the toothpaste.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> We saw blood in the snow!
> 
> ........... past a family inexplicably sat on the ground in the snow having a picnic in the middle of the woods.


hmy: but, but,  what were they eating  

Love your description of Hugo's sherlock act :lol:
Picnic in the snow is a bit odd, think I would have wanted chair or at least cushion


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Bet I forget someone.
> 
> Nicki- hope you get your results soon and its 'just' an infection. Loved Rusty's name.
> 
> L/C- Thank Dog Ely is a bit better, and his limp goes away.
> 
> Twiggy- Good news on Leafy.
> 
> M.Smith- Hope that clears up- and what a good girl at the vets.
> 
> Ginge- More migraines Hope you get some help at the docs for OH.
> 
> Cinnamontoast- well done with Zac, he's made a fabulous improvement.
> 
> Dogless- Hope you get some nice new experiences for Rudi soon.
> That Down is one of the reasons[there are a few] why I never went back to this new training we'd started.
> *Moll's down has always been fab- mud/puddles/cold have never bothered her but she was relunctant at this place in the mud. We were all told the dogs should because thats what we've told them to do. 100 percent positive- my ar*e.*




Many years ago with my little Meg we were leading Class C at one of the very early shows. Come almost stay time it was snowing/sleeting and absolutely vile. I went back to the C ring and told the judge I was withdrawing her, as she was getting quite old and I wasn't prepared to leave her in a 2 minute sit, followed by a 10 minute down in those conditions. To say he didn't like it was an understatement but there is no way I abuse my girls and their wellbeing means far more to me than a red rosette.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> ms, just had a read through other threads, take no notice, rise above it.
> 
> gr, hope your hubby gets on ok. i'm another one on AD's. trying very slowly to come off them but if they're needed and it help. then so be it.
> 
> took frank to the vets this morning and vet said he could possibly be feeling a bit down with all the past few weeks of bella being in season.also, we've moved into the other lounge where i have a fire and it may have put him out too. he's ok physically though. so i took him on a mom and frank walk and tried out his new roamer lead. its good but a bit iffy on the realy slippy bits.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> it is attatched to his collar, not his dogmatic, like it looks.
> 
> on the way back we got him a new ball on a rope toy and some rice bones from PAH(paid cash for them, so hubby will never know) so he's a happy, fast asleep baby, curled up on the stairs atm.
> 
> took freddie and bella a good off lead walk over the chase and they were both well behaved. got a video of their recall, so i'll ask oh to put it on later. it's not as controlled as some i've seen but it works for me.
> 
> hubby's birthday tomorrow so i'm cake making inbetween working today. have had a quick read through and will pop back later or tomorrow.
> sunday, i want to have a good look at sorting out what i can do to manage frank and his prey drive, may even go to the library and get those books, due to the fact that i've been banned from buying anything dog related.
> 
> catch you all later and have a good day everyone. :thumbsup:


I haven't forgotten about Frank. I've left it to last as it's by far the most difficult to correct than straight presents and sendaways...


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear  I just posted on THAT thread and got a like I didn't expect  post 263


----------



## kat&molly

I got one. Woo woo, am amazed. 3 euros in the 2nd hand shop, bargain. Moll will love this as she can retrieve the rings.


----------



## Twiggy

Well guess where I've just got back from - that's right the vets.

Quiver started with diarrhea at lunchtime and as she's so old I wanted antibiotics today.

My heart fell when I spoke to the receptionist and she said the only vet on duty is the one I don't rate at all and I had a heck of a job to persuade her to leave the antibiotics out for me to collect.

In fairness unless you know the case history with Leafy, going back a good eight years, you would assume both she and Leafy have got an infection or bug but of course I know different..!!

Anyway, touching wood, Quiver isn't usually as bad as Leafy but I don't want to have to put her outside every hour tonight if the forecast is right and we get snow and wind.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Oh no! I hope poor Quiver recovers quickly! Sending your poorly girls a gentle squidge!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, I had to go look I knew exactly who it would be and I was right, you are right, every time I see their name pop I think, oh what marvels shall we read about to day, try not to take the idiot to heart MS
> 
> Which post are we talking about?


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lol, I had to go look I knew exactly who it would be and I was right, you are right, every time I see their name pop I think, oh what marvels shall we read about to day, try not to take the idiot to heart MS
> 
> Which post are we talking about?
> 
> 
> 
> Several in the 'do you trust your labrador' I seem to have killed it with my post though  lets hope it stays that way and it isn't izzysmummies like that I was referring to earlier
Click to expand...


----------



## Izzysmummy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Several in the 'do you trust your labrador' I seem to have killed it with my post though  lets hope it stays that way and it isn't izzysmummies like that I was referring to earlier
> 
> 
> 
> Didnt want you to get a complex about your post so thought I would like it too!  obviously I like what you said too!!
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Several in the 'do you trust your labrador' I seem to have killed it with my post though  lets hope it stays that way and it isn't izzysmummies like that I was referring to earlier
> 
> 
> 
> Right. Can't say I know most of those members. I've had more than a few heated exchanges with some on the training and behaviour page instead...!!
Click to expand...


----------



## GingerRogers

Izzysmummy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Didnt want you to get a complex about your post so thought I would like it too!  obviously I like what you said too!!
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, I did have to go back and re-read to see how it agreed with anything they agree with.
> 
> I posted earlier that hubby had decided to do some training with Ginge - he showed me at lunch time, it was 'roll over'  and it worked !
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Twiggy; hope Quiver is OK .

GR - I'm impressed with your hubby!!


----------



## Izzysmummy

GingerRogers said:


> Izzysmummy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, I did have to go back and re-read to see how it agreed with anything they agree with.
> 
> I posted earlier that hubby had decided to do some training with Ginge - he showed me at lunch time, it was 'roll over'  and it worked !
> 
> 
> 
> Well done hubby ! We've been working on "Bow" but it involves us getting on the floor and play bowing too, we look like a right pair of loons!! :lol:
> 
> Hope his docs appointment goes OK. Def a good idea to go with him.....3 years ago my Dad went for a cardiology check up and my Mum had to work so asked his sister who was a nurse at the hospital to go with him instead. Doc says "everything OK then?", my Dad "yeah fine", his sister "no it bl00dy isnt, you've collapsed twice in the night when you've got up to the loo", Dad "oh yeah, well apart from that Im fine". 2 weeks later he got a pacemaker fitted !!
> 
> Men!
Click to expand...


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> ok then I saw a you tube clip this morning on here.
> Is that better.
> 
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288468-cool-video-talented-dog.html


No coz it won't play in Germany :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Oh no Twiggy; hope Quiver is OK .
> 
> *GR - I'm impressed with your hubby!!*


 I am a teeny bit worried, fess up, you'd be worried if it was yours .

I too hope Quiver is ok, I know you have leafys history with food but is there a chance its coincidence and they have both got a bug, you don't want it passing through the rest of them, sorry for the poor pun  bet you wish you did have long coated collies at time like this, hey?


----------



## L/C

Izzysmummy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well done hubby ! We've been working on "Bow" but it involves us getting on the floor and play bowing too, we look like a right pair of loons!! :lol:
> 
> Hope his docs appointment goes OK. Def a good idea to go with him.....3 years ago my Dad went for a cardiology check up and my Mum had to work so asked his sister who was a nurse at the hospital to go with him instead. Doc says "everything OK then?", my Dad "yeah fine", his sister "no it bl00dy isnt, you've collapsed twice in the night when you've got up to the loo", Dad "oh yeah, well apart from that Im fine". 2 weeks later he got a pacemaker fitted !!
> 
> Men!
> 
> 
> 
> In my family I'm the one that has to be dragged to the doctor. My mother is taking me on Wed to get my thyroid medication sorted out as I've been resisting going back.  Glad your dad is ok now though!
> 
> I taught Gypsy bow by capturing it when she stretched and then clicking it when she offered it to me in free shaping sessions.
> 
> ETA: Twiggy I hope Quiver is ok.
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I am a teeny bit worried, fess up, you'd be worried if it was yours .


Of course I would be . Remember how worried I was when he came on that walk and announced that he needed to get more involved with the dogs etc? Well, he did that morning walk, skipped the evening one then did one on Christmas day with us, one in the park and one locally last week....so I estimate that since 25th December I have done in the region of 90 - 120 walks and hubby has done about 3 with us....:lol::lol:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh no Twiggy, hope Quiver is okay too! Just as you get one sorted another starts, how typical.

Well Spencer has just had a massive hissy fit, whining and practically screaming out on the balcony. I go rushing out to see what's wrong and his friend, the one I'm 99% sure is in season, is walking past. He normally has a bit of a whine at dogs passing but not like that! Brought him in and shut the door and he's chilled out on my coat.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Izzysmummy said:
> 
> 
> 
> In my family I'm the one that has to be dragged to the doctor.
> 
> 
> 
> That is me too .
Click to expand...


----------



## Beth17

I've not looked at that thread properly; had a quick read of the first couple of pages and then got bored with the question 
Might go and have a nosey.

Twiggy sorry Quiver is now not right, hope she picks up quickly 

Ginge impressive hubby :thumbup1:

K&M great find 

Dogless I'm sure its nothing to worry about with Rudi you've done so well with his training; Sam still has moments of barking at stuff he's seen before


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh no Twiggy, hope Quiver is okay too! Just as you get one sorted another starts, how typical.
> 
> Well Spencer has just had a massive hissy fit, whining and practically screaming out on the balcony. I go rushing out to see what's wrong and his friend, the one I'm 99% sure is in season, is walking past. He normally has a bit of a whine at dogs passing but not like that! Brought him in and shut the door and he's chilled out on my coat.


Well at least that confirms what has been buggin him  poor boy his girlfriend is giving him long distance come ons and he can't get to her  most teenagers would be having hissy fits, lol. Sorry I am sure its not really funny.


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Well at least that confirms what has been buggin him  poor boy his girlfriend is giving him long distance come ons and he can't get to her  most teenagers would be having hissy fits, lol. Sorry I am sure its not really funny.


Could be a hell of a lot worse to be honest. At least he's just pacing for the most part. He's not off his food and doesn't seem really distressed and isn't all that interested once we go out. Shadow used to behave the same way when there was a bitch in season nearby.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- Hope Quiver perks up, blimey what a week for poorly dogs.

Sarah- Poor Spen, at least he's not off his food. 
How come I can see the clip here but you cant there.

Ginge- Wow, how good[worrying] is your OH.
I told mine we'd teach Moll to fetch his slippers- but we use the word 'shoes' otherwise he would get my slippers. Makes perfect sense to me- do you think OH can say 'shoes'. Nooooo, he kept saying slippers. I've told him to fetch his bliddy own.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Just wanted to mention! We finally have some snow! Not much but it's still snowing


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I told mine we'd teach Moll to fetch his slippers- but we use the word 'shoes' otherwise he would get my slippers. Makes perfect sense to me- do you think OH can say 'shoes'. Nooooo, he kept saying slippers. I've told him to fetch his bliddy own.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Not much to report here.Lovely walk today, snow still underfoot an goo company both human and dogs. Have decided it's soon time to knuckle down and start getting my puzzle pieces together this at the moment is involving listening to more showtunes than is strictly healthy


----------



## MollySmith

Izzysmummy said:


> Just wanted to mention! We finally have some snow! Not much but it's still snowing


Ooooh what a gorgeous girl, I love her paws


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Oh dear  I just posted on THAT thread and got a like I didn't expect  post 263


 Step away from THE thread! And the other one about the dog in Barnsley too (I had ignore on but had to switch it off just to see I'm so nosey!). Thank you again for the pm's. I realise that I did kick it off but I detested the post this morning and rattled off a few things in haste. I really sunk to their level at several points but I hope with a little more respect. I must learn to 'wait' like Molly. I hope your thread as killed it, the mods still haven't shut it - I did report the OP - and I see that hawksport is a banned account so I can't even pm him.

Twiggy so sorry to hear about Quiver. We do have a poorly bunch at the moment.


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## Leam1307

deleted...


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## cinnamontoast

You know I said Zak was walking with another dog yesterday? Well check him out today!! The flat coat retriever is a dog, not a bitch (he's normally better with bitches). He's met him once or twice before. They started with the muzzle on but Zak hates it so it came off:

Zak & friends - YouTube


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> Not much to report here.Lovely walk today, snow still underfoot an goo company both human and dogs. Have decided it's soon time to knuckle down and start getting my puzzle pieces together this at the moment is involving listening to more showtunes than is strictly healthy




Tell me about it. I was constantly playing tapes; on the way to work, on the way to shows, constantly in the house, etc. Then when you decide on one you like the beats wrong. If its any help you really need 4/4 or 6/8 time - well certainly if there any heelwork involved.


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## Twiggy

cinammontoast said:


> You know I said Zak was walking with another dog yesterday? Well check him out today!! The flat coat retriever is a dog, not a bitch (he's normally better with bitches). He's met him once or twice before. They started with the muzzle on but Zak hates it so it came off:
> 
> Zak & friends - YouTube


:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


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## GingerRogers

K&M - husbands, while he was showing me the roll over I did have to point out that wait and stay were two different things and that it might be easier if he only tried to get her to go one way at a time  I couldn't help myself, but I had done well in not asking what they were up to anyway.

Yay for snow Izzysmummy, she has a lovely shiny coat 

MV - showtunes, are they buzzing round your head as you canter giddily around the living room with your dancing dog at heel 

Leam - hope deeks settles down, wont hurt to cut down the exercise for a week or two and what you do try to do away from home it might help him settle if there is a bitch about. Glad molly is settling down well.

CT - what a boy! But are flat coats spaniels in disguise, it almost looks like they are copying each others movements .

Well we been to the docs. He listened patiently to everything we said about dehydration, anxiety, insomnia etc (very patiently as I kept butting in ) he feels there isn't anything too much to worry about as in brain tumours etc, you know the way the brain goes into overdrive :blushing: as the symptoms are very classic and it became clear that they have become more frequent since we got the ninja  Not her fault except that worrying about me has added to things but when her previous owner left for Aus' Shane had to take over the tractor feeding, he doesn't like driving it anyway but was involved in an accident a few years back where two idiots drove into the side of his front wheel as they thought they could overtake despite the fact he was indicating right and he had to watch as they spun off and catapulted through their windscreen, they later walked out of hosp with minor bruising while he had nightmares for a few weeks  but anyway I digress, again .

He suggested trying to prevent them, why has no-one suggested this is an option before  ??? So has prescribed beta blockers, they should help prevent the migraines, and with the anxiety and also lower his blood pressure in one hit. So we have a month to see how he gets on, fingers crossed. Now have to go and work out what side effects they might cause, I wonder if one is headaches 

ETA then we went for a walk on the beach, are we mental you ask, yes! it ruddy freezing but as it was freezing and dark we took the longline as there was unlikely to be anyone about so the ginger one had a massive run about, which scared us as we couldn't see her half the time, was alright when she was putting pressure on the line but when it went slack it felt like she had escaped  but hubby continued the strange behavior by actually taking control of the line, and he did quite well there was only one incident when it wrapped round both our legs.


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## Dogless

GR - great to have a plan of action and reassurance from the doc that there is most likely nothing serious afoot . As for the Ninja contributing..... .

WELL DONE ZAK ATTACK .



moonviolet said:


> :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> Not much to report here.Lovely walk today, snow still underfoot an goo company both human and dogs. Have decided it's soon time to knuckle down and start getting my puzzle pieces together this at the moment is involving listening to more showtunes than is strictly healthy


^^^^^ Brilliant!!! Can't wait to see / hear what you're doing .

Good evening walk; weather foul so no one out at all again. Onlead only with both CHs together - walked to the onlead field, sniffs and home. Kilo had an episode of diarrhoea - oh no I hear you think.....well, don't feel too sorry for him - he dashed off at top speed this morning when I let him have a run about up to a stand of trees and scoffed something that I suspect was fox poo as it's where my friend's dog always rolled in it and the one bad poo is the usual consequence  .

I had a horrid feeling like we were being followed or watched through the abandoned estate but that must have been my imagination running wild as I'm sure Kilo would have picked up on anyone there :idea:.


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## kat&molly

MV- Have you got a shortlist?

IM- Lovely pic of Izzy- she will make some great shots against deep snow.

CT- Brilliant, you must be really pleased.

Leam- Has Molly grown in to that jumper yet- we need some fresh pics.

Ginge- Really hope the Beta-blockers work.
Had to giggle at Ginge going both ways, it sounds more like she's rocking than rolling.:001_tt2:
I cant really say much - Moll fetching my slippers for me- she much prefers me to hide them first. Sort of defeats the object.:blush2:

Took Evie through the village and around the block- only one part is street, 6 houses in all I think. Didn't see a soul, she heard a front door shut though- that put her in a panic, just the threat that she might see someone. We've done that stretch tonnes of times and still she's not comfortable.
She's extreme, and I feel mean taking her out on her own somewhere she's not at ease.

This afternoon she was off lead and even left Scruff to join me playing Find it with the Liver.:smilewinkgrin:


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## Twiggy

GR - Sounds like you saw a good GP. Hope his advice helps.

Dogless - I'd be very surprised if anyone had a go at you with great big Kilo and almost as big Rudi at your side.


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## Nicki85

DL- I think this thread is contagious!! But if he is going to eat fox poo....

I taught Rusty to bow and it is a fun trick! Think I just shaped with the clicker as he is very fond of bowing and stretching.

CT- you must be very pleased with your pup!

Well... don't want to jinx things but Rusty now appears fine :-/ He is absolutely ravenous, bugging me and following me from room to room. I'm really hopeful it's now passed- obv get bloods back tomorrow as well- not holding my breath though as he has seemed fine for a day and then gone down hill again. But still hopeful!


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> GR - Sounds like you saw a good GP. Hope his advice helps.
> 
> Dogless - I'd be very surprised if anyone had a go at you with great big Kilo and almost as big Rudi at your side.


Exactly Twiggy; I wasn't scared anything would happen; just felt spooked and kept looking around in the darkness .


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## cinnamontoast

Dogless said:


> Exactly Twiggy; I wasn't scared anything would happen; just felt spooked and kept looking around in the darkness .


The neighbour used to get rid of the local gang by taking her American Doberman for a walk and pretending he was pulling to get to them.

I honestly think a big dog is a fab deterrent and even my old Keeshond would go crazy at me play fighting, so I reckon Kilo would go mad at anyone you didn't want coming near you! Rudi will follow suit.


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## MollySmith

Nicki85 said:


> DL- I think this thread is contagious!! But if he is going to eat fox poo....
> 
> I taught Rusty to bow and it is a fun trick! Think I just shaped with the clicker as he is very fond of bowing and stretching.
> 
> CT- you must be very pleased with your pup!
> 
> Well... don't want to jinx things but Rusty now appears fine :-/ He is absolutely ravenous, bugging me and following me from room to room. I'm really hopeful it's now passed- obv get bloods back tomorrow as well- not holding my breath though as he has seemed fine for a day and then gone down hill again. But still hopeful!


We have paws crossed for Rusty!

GingerRogers - so pleased that you had a positive appointment. I hope you both notice a difference


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Exactly Twiggy; I wasn't scared anything would happen; just felt spooked and kept looking around in the darkness .


I used to live in a cemetery lodge and never worried about the dead, it was the living that bothered me!


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I used to live in a cemetery lodge and never worried about the dead, it was the living that bothered me!


Yes; the living bother me too - I didn't mean spooked as in dead; I meant spooked as in discombobulated :crazy:.


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## Thorne

-Dogless: Hope Rudi's spooky phase passes soon, glad he and kilo have otherwise been good lads. Can't say I feel too sorry for Kilo if he brought "the runs" upon himself  That being watched feeling is awful isn't it?
-Izzysmummy: A holly leaf, ouch! Healing thoughts to your mum, this thread does seem to be contagious.
-MS: Great that you're pleased with the new vet, and that Molly was happy and declared mange-free 
-GR: Glad Scooter isn't the only one who's a bit smelly after lamb! He's been pretty odourless today but still contemplating a change. Hope hubby's treatment works for him and, congrats to him with the work on "rollover"!
-F&F: Hope Frank is back to normal soon, sounds like Freddie and Bella had a good time.
-Werehorse: What brave picnic-ing folks! And good boys indeed, impressed with the Spanner-recall-from-blood-trail.
-Twiggy: Oh dear, poor Quiver  More healing thoughts your way.
-Sarah1983: That sounds fairly conclusive of her being in season! Pleased that he calmed down when inside, how frustrating for you both.
-MV: Your mention of "puzzle pieces" has reminded me I have a jigsaw I haven't yet tried! Off topic but quite looking forward to giving it a go, haven't done one for years. Good luck with forming a routine! How exciting!
-Leam: Sorry to hear about Deeks being a pain, sounds like he could be yet another one wound up by a bitch in season. Good to hear that Molly's doing well.
-cinnamontoast: Again, lovely to see Zak so relaxed with another dog! You might have to stop calling him your werewolf...
-K&M: Poor Evie, but please don't feel bad for taking her, you're far from flooding her and hopefully she'll become more relaxed over time.
-Nicki85: Keeping my fingers crossed for Rusty.

Speaking of wandering around in the dark getting spooked, I'm about to go on a pavement walk with Scooter, will report back soon!
Years ago he saw off someone who was following me on the other side of the hedge, I still trust him to stick up for me. Breeze would abandon me and save herself!


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Yes; the living bother me too - I didn't mean spooked as in dead; I meant spooked as in discombobulated :crazy:.


Oh I love that word! it's a word that Rowan Atkinson should have used in Blackadder!


----------



## Twiggy

I might be tempting fate but apart from that one very running poo at lunchtime, Quiver seems fine. Fingers crossed.

Had it been either of the other two I'd have left it for 24 hours but with her being so old plus this is what used to happen 7-8 years ago when Leafy had one of her bouts, I wasn't prepared to take any chances.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I might be tempting fate but apart from that one very running poo at lunchtime, Quiver seems fine. Fingers crossed.
> 
> Had it been either of the other two I'd have left it for 24 hours but with her being so old plus this is what used to happen 7-8 years ago when Leafy had one of her bouts, I wasn't prepared to take any chances.


So pleased to hear that Twiggy.


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## Guest

Hey guys!! 

Hope your doglets start to feel better twiggy!

Had a fabulous walk this morn, walked past a leaning bicycle by the shop and no hunching scary thing dance, but we had a small OOOHHHHSCAREHTHING dance at a wicker basket. 

Went down some steep steps and half way down them, a GR passes by the bottom. No bouncing from mine at all! And he didn't bounce at the terrier across the road either. (He'll still bounce if they're across the road too.) 

And he didn't pull once. I used a lovely leather lead. :drool: 
That was cause when I used the mekuti last night, I almost ripped a nail off on one of the metal rings when he lunged! O-o

Mind you he has been WHINGEY the past three days. Outside, whinge. Inside, whinge.

Wish they could talk sometimes!

Ans Sarah, Zand does high pitched chewbacca garbling when I won't let him meet another dog. :lol:


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## Werehorse

My head is full of kibble brands and percentages of stuff. :crazy: Totally got a bee in my bonnet. :crazy:

Some good newses on the thread I see, yay for dogs feeling better, yay for beta blockers, yay for spaniels enjoying the company of other dogs, yay for show tunes and jigsaws, yay for NOT ACTUALLY being followed in the dark...


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> My head is full of kibble brands and percentages of stuff. :crazy: Totally got a bee in my bonnet. :crazy:
> 
> Some good newses on the thread I see, yay for dogs feeling better, yay for beta blockers, yay for spaniels enjoying the company of other dogs, yay for show tunes and jigsaws, yay for NOT ACTUALLY being followed in the dark...


You sure your blood isn't full of alcohol?.......:scared:.


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> *My head is full of kibble brands and percentages of stuff. :crazy: Totally got a bee in my bonnet. :crazy:*
> 
> Some good newses on the thread I see, yay for dogs feeling better, yay for beta blockers, yay for spaniels enjoying the company of other dogs, yay for show tunes and jigsaws, yay for NOT ACTUALLY being followed in the dark...


It's a nightmare isn't it? I go through the same process at least once a year with Leafy when she builds up an intolerance to whatever food she's on.


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## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> You sure your blood isn't full of alcohol?.......:scared:.


Not touched a drop.  :lol:


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## Thorne

Werehorse said:


> My head is full of kibble brands and percentages of stuff. :crazy: Totally got a bee in my bonnet. :crazy:
> 
> Some good newses on the thread I see, yay for dogs feeling better, yay for beta blockers, yay for spaniels enjoying the company of other dogs, yay for show tunes and jigsaws, yay for NOT ACTUALLY being followed in the dark...


I'll have whatever you're having! 

LO: Well done donkey boy! Imagining his chewbacca noises has tickled me, daft Lurcher.

Had a rubbish start to the day, not sure my meds are helping me much at the moment so seeing a Dr about upping my dosage or finding an alternative is now on my to-do list. Bit disappointed because they've worked for me before but don't seem to quite cut the mustard this time around! 
Couldn't really do anything until about 2 this afternoon, then felt guilty for not practicing buses with Breeze and felt I had to get out of the house.

Breeze has had a mini adventure this afternoon  Needed some sandsheets and food for Cosmo so dropped mum off at Sainsburys then Breeze and I walked to PAH which is a 10 minute stroll away. There's a constant stream of fairly slow-moving traffic (including buses!) around there and wow, our counter-conditioning to cars has paid off! Did a similar trip about a year ago and she shivered and panted her way along, today she sat beautifully at crossings, put on a big wag and only looked worried when a car backfired. Fab :thumbup: 
She met a lady in a wheelchair which she's not experienced before and was unsure but not too worried, and she gained quite a fan club in PAH! Bought Scooter the biggest Stagbar I could find so he didn't feel jealous and let Breeze choose a couple of Antos chews for herself.

Scooter was good on our night walk, was brave (or stupid?) enough to give him a quick run along a field after I decided he wasn't tracking anything today. Did use my fishwife voice once to recall him away from a scent that he wouldn't leave but otherwise he was well behaved! Some real progress with heelwork I think, and good LLW too.

Sweet little Belle from Blue Cross is now up for homing, afraid I'm responsible for the dodgy photos but hopefully they're good enough to entice someone to enquire about her! The pictures always seem to look worse once they're on the website 
Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre


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## Leam1307

deleted ...


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## kat&molly

A light dusting of snow here.

Dont think the ring toss toy will work, the fit is quite tight , I'll have to try get another.

Hoping all the poorly dogs are doing well this morning.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> A light dusting of snow here.
> 
> Dont think the ring toss toy will work, the fit is quite tight , I'll have to try get another.
> 
> Hoping all the poorly dogs are doing well this morning.


We had about another inch last night but at least the sun is shining this morning for the first time in over two weeks.

Would different size curtain rings work on the pole?

Very pleased to report that both Quiver and Leafy seem fine this morning and have both had their breakfast....

If the ground softens up Quiver might get a walk today, bless her.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> We had about another inch last night but at least the sun is shining this morning for the first time in over two weeks.
> 
> Would different size curtain rings work on the pole?
> 
> Very pleased to report that both Quiver and Leafy seem fine this morning and have both had their breakfast....
> 
> If the ground softens up Quiver might get a walk today, bless her.


Good news on the girls.
I've just found the sink plunger  the rings fit much better on that.


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## moonviolet

K&M could you make ( or persuade your clever helpful OH ) to make a smaller pole? or if it's wooden you could sand it.

Twiggy so glad Quiver and Leafy are better today.

Leam sounds like little one is doing well.

Thorne brave Breeze  and well done Scooter 

GR hope the new meds help OH

LO Nice work Donkey Boy 

Werehorse hope you've solved your kibble dilemma.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Good news on the girls.
> *I've just found the sink plunger  the rings fit much better on that.*




Where there's a will, there's a way...!!


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## MollySmith

K&M - glad you've sorted it out!

Twiggy - great news about Quiver and Leafy, I hope they continue to get better

Nicki - how is your sick boy?

Leam - I've never thought to measure my Molly!

Thorne - I am so rude, I forgot to ask after you yesterday. It wasn't my best day online here! That's such good progress with Breeze.

GingerRogers - how are all of you today. 

LO - good on Donkey Boy. 

Werehorse - I've been much the same with Molly recently, it is confusing.

Please to report that my wounded soldier is a little bit better. Her face still looks sore but I think looks are deceptive. Her tablets are huge! But she's gobbling them down! Good news too that she's off to Big Walkies, a community free walk next weekend in Cambridge (I was thinking of going to Ipswich for the PF meet but I think that it's too far for my shoulder). I hope to meet Dimwit and her dog. Our trainer thinks Molly has made sufficient progress not be a lead pain. 

We've had rain that's frozen overnight, I've been to emergency physio this morning and it was lethal underfoot. Even my Yaktax have struggled.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy and MollySmith; so pleased that Quiver, Leafy and Molly seem to be on the mend; long may it continue.

Nicki - Hope Rusty's continuing to improve too.

Had an 'interesting' walk this morning. The dogs slept in until 0730 :yikes: which is the latest I've got up since getting Kilo.....THEN hubby was up at 0830 which was odd as as far as he's concerned there is only one 8.30 in the day . AND THEN he announced that he'd come on a walk hmy: hmy:. He has never been out with me with both dogs and only with Rudi and I twice since getting him. I asked whether he'd like to take a dog and which one...he said Rudi.

So....we set out and Rudi was launching to try and get to Kilo and I and pulling and just generally not listening at all.....but then why would he  hubby has never walked or trained him plus doesn't usually walk with us, so both dogs get more excited. I asked that he not let Rudi pull, but he got fed up with stopping and didn't praise any good behaviour so Rudi got more and more frustrated and wound up as he didn't have a clue what was expected and hubby lost his temper and had a face like thunder . He alternated between pulling him back and just giving up and letting him pull :cursing: until he resorted to telling me that "he just isn't listening, you said that he walked nicely and was a pleasure - you have him" ut:. So I did, and he walked nicely and stopped launching at Kilo...after he'd jumped up and ripped my coat when handed over with pure frustration .

So, we got to the top fields _after 35 minutes ut:ut:_ and hubby held Rudi whilst I let Kilo off - so Kilo sat, waited and got released....and Rudi wouldn't sit for hubby at all, predictably, and both got more and more and more wound up....and Kilo stood staring at the toy for me to throw it, then sat, then lay down whining - trying anything to get me to start the game. After about 5 minutes Rudi sat and was released and they then had a nice play for ages .

Funnily enough, I walked them both on the way home and they were both fantastic Singing:Singing:. We even saw the lady with the sheltie that we know and her kids and I sat the boys to let them pass as Rudi was excited by the kids and dog...and she said "Wow, he's well behaved already" .

So.....a very frustrating morning really - we were out for almost two hours but at least the CHs got a good play and we had a pleasant walk back .


----------



## MollySmith

If it helps, Dogless, my OH has a total block when it comes to lead training. It's why we keep having to retrain Molly. He pays not me but now I am going to be jobless he has to tackle this. It's very frustrating so you have my huge sympathies. He tells me that there is too much to learn but that applies to everything from his mobile to the internet. I do wonder how he got through life sometimes :cursing:

I am glad they had a nice play though and that it's long enough for them to have a lovely kip and hurray for a nice walk home.


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> If it helps, Dogless, my OH has a total block when it comes to lead training. It's why we keep having to retrain Molly. He pays not me but now I am going to be jobless he has to tackle this. It's very frustrating so you have my huge sympathies. He tells me that there is too much to learn but that applies to everything from his mobile to the internet. I do wonder how he got through life sometimes :cursing:
> 
> I am glad they had a nice play though and that it's long enough for them to have a lovely kip and hurray for a nice walk home.


It's just annoying that he wants nothing to do with any training but I am such a controlling nag it doesn't help. It's just frustrating when he's using words that the dogs don't even know and then gets angry that they "aren't listening" :cursing:. I have said time and again that he needs to walk with us more if he expects them to do as he asks...then I worry in case I ever need him to look after them on his own.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> It's just annoying that he wants nothing to do with any training but I am such a controlling nag it doesn't help. *It's just frustrating when he's using words that the dogs don't even know* and then gets angry that they "aren't listening" :cursing:. I have said time and again that he needs to walk with us more if he expects them to do as he asks...then I worry in case I ever need him to look after them on his own.


Yes! Exactly what my OH does! His best is 'go away' when Molly wants some of his biscuit or something. I've never trained that phrase once and he fails to see she's a dog and has no idea! She looks at me, and at him with this big eyes as if to say WTF!

Although credit to him he has looked after her since my shoulder op. I'm praying that a vague positive when I get laid off work is that I can spent a more time with the training. I am also a controlling nag, he made me that way


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- sympathies, that sounds like it was a bit frustrating. I look forward to my OH coming sometimes but when he does I just think 'Grrr wish he stayed at home'. It must be a genetic 'Man' thing- we all seem to have the same complaint.

MS- Good that Mollys doing better- hope your shoulder improves soon.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy and MollySmith; so pleased that Quiver, Leafy and Molly seem to be on the mend; long may it continue.
> 
> Nicki - Hope Rusty's continuing to improve too.
> 
> Had an 'interesting' walk this morning. The dogs slept in until 0730 :yikes: which is the latest I've got up since getting Kilo.....THEN hubby was up at 0830 which was odd as as far as he's concerned there is only one 8.30 in the day . AND THEN he announced that he'd come on a walk hmy: hmy:. He has never been out with me with both dogs and only with Rudi and I twice since getting him. I asked whether he'd like to take a dog and which one...he said Rudi.
> 
> So....we set out and Rudi was launching to try and get to Kilo and I and pulling and just generally not listening at all.....but then why would he  hubby has never walked or trained him plus doesn't usually walk with us, so both dogs get more excited. I asked that he not let Rudi pull, but he got fed up with stopping and didn't praise any good behaviour so Rudi got more and more frustrated and wound up as he didn't have a clue what was expected and hubby lost his temper and had a face like thunder . He alternated between pulling him back and just giving up and letting him pull :cursing: until he resorted to telling me that "he just isn't listening, you said that he walked nicely and was a pleasure - you have him" ut:. So I did, and he walked nicely and stopped launching at Kilo...after he'd jumped up and ripped my coat when handed over with pure frustration .
> 
> So, we got to the top fields _after 35 minutes ut:ut:_ and hubby held Rudi whilst I let Kilo off - so Kilo sat, waited and got released....and Rudi wouldn't sit for hubby at all, predictably, and both got more and more and more wound up....and Kilo stood staring at the toy for me to throw it, then sat, then lay down whining - trying anything to get me to start the game. After about 5 minutes Rudi sat and was released and they then had a nice play for ages .
> 
> Funnily enough, I walked them both on the way home and they were both fantastic Singing:Singing:. We even saw the lady with the sheltie that we know and her kids and I sat the boys to let them pass as Rudi was excited by the kids and dog...and she said "Wow, he's well behaved already" .
> 
> So.....a very frustrating morning really - we were out for almost two hours but at least the CHs got a good play and we had a pleasant walk back .


I'm really sorry but I've chuckled all the way through reading this....

I'm still laughing now..!!

Dear God men are so hopeless. I can just imagine your's, Kilo and Rudi's frustration and I've been there so, so many times.

Back in the dark ages when hubby occasionally came with me to dog shows I was leading a class with Sindy and lying second with Meg. One failed scent and the other broke stays. There was a great big shiny silver cup for the winner and hubby had already got it on the mantlepiece before my dogs decided otherwise!! Oh the drama and the verbal ranting - "I thought you could train dogs", etc. etc.

He actually did quite well out of the day though because I suggested we stop at a car dealers on the way home to cheer him up and he ordered a new car....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It's just annoying that he wants nothing to do with any training but I am such a controlling nag it doesn't help. It's just frustrating when he's using words that the dogs don't even know and then gets angry that they "aren't listening" :cursing:. I have said time and again that he needs to walk with us more if he expects them to do as he asks...then I worry in case I ever need him to look after them on his own.


I'd give up now and just grit your teeth if he decides to come for a walk. It's just not worth the hassle.

They never learn and mine's just as useless now as he was 35 years ago.

That's why I get paranoid if I go away at any time and I leave copious notes and telephone lots of times. It's always a big relief to get home and find they all have four legs each.


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## GingerRogers

Another controlling nag here. Not just with dog stuff he sometimes appears to have no brain  I am trying to learn how to put stuff in such a way that doesn't sound so critical but its very hard. Sorry it ruined what should have been a nice walk together.

We both took the ninja to a woodland trust wood we used to go to with Rozza. They had a lot more snow laying and it was very pleasant and pretty and I think we tired her out 
glad the girls are feeling better Twiggy.
Hope rusty is too
sounds like breeze had a great walk brave girl
and zander good boy

Who knows how oh is feeling I keep asking if he's feeling better already but apparently there's no change yet  thank you for all your good wishes


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## Nicki85

Laughing a bit at your descriptions of walking with your OHs! Have to say one of the pleasures of being single is that I never ever have to take any one with me or confuse the dog ;-) I do remember the frustration of my OH trying to train my previous dog/ complaining that she wasn't behaving.

Rusty still OK, strangely haven't heard from the vets- should have rung them but he seems fine... I will ring on Monday. He appears fine in every aspect of himself... Only problem is that he seems to be a bit uncontrollable now :-O not listening and generally being a bit of a nutcase! Good to see him feeling better but I don't want him over doing it....


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## Beth17

This is why I'm so glad I don't have an OH at the moment 

Lovely separate walks up the fields with the boys today, they have had rubbish walks the past couple of days due to me being so busy with uni work.

Oscar was really good although he did shoulder barge a chocolate lab 

Sam was an absolute star, it was quite quiet so was able to go offlead and we had a great time running around an chucking his toy. his recall was fabulous and you could see he was enjoying running around with me.
he also saw a lab not too far away watched it for a minute and then came back to play with his toy


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## Beth17

Nicki85 said:


> Laughing a bit at your descriptions of walking with your OHs! Have to say one of the pleasures of being single is that I never ever have to take any one with me or confuse the dog ;-) I do remember the frustration of my OH trying to train my previous dog/ complaining that she wasn't behaving.
> 
> Rusty still OK, strangely haven't heard from the vets- should have rung them but he seems fine... I will ring on Monday. He appears fine in every aspect of himself... Only problem is that he seems to be a bit uncontrollable now :-O not listening and generally being a bit of a nutcase! Good to see him feeling better but I don't want him over doing it....


No news is good news as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully nothing was thrown up so it's not urgent to ring you.Glad he's feeling better.


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## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Laughing a bit at your descriptions of walking with your OHs! Have to say one of the pleasures of being single is that I never ever have to take any one with me or confuse the dog ;-) I do remember the frustration of my OH trying to train my previous dog/ complaining that she wasn't behaving.
> 
> Rusty still OK, strangely haven't heard from the vets- should have rung them but he seems fine... I will ring on Monday. He appears fine in every aspect of himself... Only problem is that he seems to be a bit uncontrollable now :-O not listening and generally being a bit of a nutcase! Good to see him feeling better but I don't want him over doing it....


Very glad Rusty seems OK in himself. Work on the assumption that no news from the vets is good news.


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## Twiggy

*


Beth17 said:



No news is good news as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully nothing was thrown up so it's not urgent to

Click to expand...

*


Beth17 said:


> ring you.Glad he's feeling better.


Great minds think alike as they say....


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## Leam1307

deleted ...


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## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> I think all OH are like that! mine is hopeless with the dogs and cats... and the horses and goes all sulky when none of them pay attention to him, i try telling him well your not the one who feeds them and all you ever do is tell them to get out of the way of the TV, of course their arent going to pay attention.
> 
> Im sure the cats just think he is a talking ornament or something. lol
> 
> Same with the horses, he comes up and says he'll go get them from the field. I watch from behind the stables heart in throat as he goes to get them. They are normally fine but he doesnt seem to understand that the slightest thing COULD have them bolting down the field.. and he goes and wraps the rope around his hand. arggggh i have serious panic attacks about it until they are safely in the stable. lol Seems to think because he rode a shetland for a few months when he was 6 years old thats hes nick skelton or something lol




To be fair to mine, he was actually pretty good with the horses. That was a long time ago now though.


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## Thorne

Wow, Belle only went up for homing yesterday and her profile has already been removed so looks like she's been reserved! Hopefully she'll be in a new home soon, she's a real sweetie.

Had another bad day (sorry, I seem to be very good at bringing the mood down!) and don't know how much is in my head and how much is thanks to the cold I'm coming down with. It's so frustrating not feeling able to get up and be proactive 
Did manage to cut all of Breeze's nails today, realised yesterday that they were long overdue a clip so had little sister holding her collar and stroking her while I got to work on her feet. She hates it and I feel defeatist but I really can't see her ever accepting the clippers. Keep swinging between trying to counter condition her to them and thinking that they have to be done whether she likes it or not.

Mum walked them and apparently Scooter towed her over to a pair of Boxers (it's normally them pulling towards us) and Breeze was a bit nervy. It does seem that she's braver with me there so I feel awful for not going... Not like Scooter to pull towards other dogs, he normally can't be bothered in the slightest.


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## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Wow, Belle only went up for homing yesterday and her profile has already been removed so looks like she's been reserved! Hopefully she'll be in a new home soon, she's a real sweetie.
> 
> Had another bad day (sorry, I seem to be very good at bringing the mood down!) and don't know how much is in my head and how much is thanks to the cold I'm coming down with. It's so frustrating not feeling able to get up and be proactive
> Did manage to cut all of Breeze's nails today, realised yesterday that they were long overdue a clip so had little sister holding her collar and stroking her while I got to work on her feet. She hates it and I feel defeatist but I really can't see her ever accepting the clippers. Keep swinging between trying to counter condition her to them and thinking that they have to be done whether she likes it or not.
> 
> Mum walked them and apparently Scooter towed her over to a pair of Boxers (it's normally them pulling towards us) and Breeze was a bit nervy. It does seem that she's braver with me there so I feel awful for not going... Not like Scooter to pull towards other dogs, he normally can't be bothered in the slightest.


Oh dear I'm sorry you've had a rotten day but coming down with a cold won't help.

Hope the cold doesn't get too bad and hope you'll feel brighter in yourself tomorrow.

Don't give yourself a hard time for not walking the dogs; at least they got a walk which is more than many dogs do.


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## Dogless

Self - indulgent "woe is me" post coming up  :Yawn: :Yawn: .

1. Emailed former boss and another senior person who I used to work for, who thought immensely of me and said that I'd go on to great things and was a real loss etc etc. Reason? For a reference for a little part time job I've seen. Had massive tearful meltdown at how I've become nothing. Tried to talk to hubby a little more about what is going on in my tiny, mad little mind but he doesn't really 'get it' or want to know....bar saying I need to 'speak to someone'. Back to doc for repeat on my tablets that keep some feeling in my legs so I'll chat to her again. Maybe.

2. Walked Rudi this afternoon. Saw friend with her two big dogs. Rudi greeted with unsure growl again. Fine once offlead and hung about by me, then on the periphery of their play for a bit before joining in - tail up, relaxed, waggy so felt fine with that. He's definitely having a 'spooky' period but do I need to worry about the growling unduly or just keep on socialising? Sure it's the latter, but it's been one of 'those' days so molehills are great, granite - topped, towering mountains .

3. Walking past small field 2 minutes from home with Rudi on lead. Out of field barrels big dog (didn't know one was on there) and flattened Rudi who screamed. Dog made a few more half hearted charges to ??play?? then went back to owner. Short conversation with owner - I had to go and speak to them, they didn't come to see what was going on . Too tired to relate right now. Rudi was limping on his rear right leg - looked to be from the hip and he was holding it awkwardly :crying::crying:. Walked him home very slowly and gently (only 2 minutes) although he was trying to run for home with ears back  and the limp wore off. He has since run about like nothing has happened, attempted to counter surf and scratched at his collar with that leg so I'm pretty sure he is fine and just got a 'dead leg' but I'll keep a hugely close eye and rest him as much as possible tonight - no wrestling with Kilo. To say I am upset is an understatement - I am so, so fed up of living here sometimes .

Finally...a positive . Great training walk with Kilo - took out the clicker and did lots of repetitions of 'hide' in various distraction - free places, did some heelwork and some ready.....steady.....stuff (carefully, it's really wet and slippy!!!). Saw some dogs, perfectly relaxed and happy . But...just so it couldn't be totally great - it had been raining lightly all afternoon but we got caught in a massively heavy rainstorm which just about summed up the day for me  :sad:.


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## MollySmith

Dogless I am sorry you are feeling low. I'm new around these parts so I don't know any of you very well but I enjoy your posts and think you offer so much advice and are very friendly. I read something today about self esteem and the value of a brand new fiver compared to one which is scrumbled and trodden on, both have the same value so try not to give up hope. You seem to have a talent with dogs, is there anything you can do with that? 

I empathise a lot but won't be so trite as to say I know how it feels but the feelings I have about my redundancy make me feel useless and I've not even left yet! I'm not far away in an online sense if you ever want to chat. I don't know where you are in real terms but if we are close then shout


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Dogless I am sorry you are feeling low. I'm new around these parts so I don't know any of you very well but I enjoy your posts and think you offer so much advice and are very friendly. I read something today about self esteem and the value of a brand new fiver compared to one which is scrumbled and trodden on, both have the same value so try not to give up hope. *You seem to have a talent with dogs*, is there anything you can do with that?
> 
> I empathise a lot but won't be so trite as to say I know how it feels but the feelings I have about my redundancy make me feel useless and I've not even left yet! I'm not far away in an online sense if you ever want to chat. I don't know where you are in real terms but if we are close then shout


Bluddy hell....I wish, very nice but talent is not something I possess with dogs .

Thank you so much; I won't bombard you with PMs and luckily for you I live in Norn Iron...don't panic . The full story of my descent into madness is here - if you are suffering from insomnia at any point it may help you. If you are already low and not up to self - indulgent whining from someone who should know better, do not open the link; it just saves me from more hand - wringing and whining on this lovely thread. I am embarrassed to even read it now http://www.petforums.co.uk/health/164850-i-am-unravelling.html#post2463340


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## Beth17

Thorne and Dogless sorry you both had rubbish days. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit better.


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## foxyrockmeister

Evening folks 

So sorry you've had a crappy day Dogless  I can totally sympathise with OH frustration too, when we took the Pickles to puppy classes I handled Lily and hubby handled Branston, basically hubby was the class clown, didn't listen to how he was meant to anything so then obviously Branston's performance suffered. 
Between classes I did ALL the work with them, with hubby not once practising any of the things we were supposed to be working on. At home Branston would be fantastic with me but back in class and with hubby he would be useless!! 
When it came to the date to do our Bronze awards I explained to our trainer that hubby was going to be away for 2 weeks (lucky coincidence!), so I would be handling both of the pups for their tests. The handler very gently brought me to once side and told me that she wasn't sure that Branston was ready yet and perhaps it would be best to just do Lily's and keep working with Branston! 
I managed to convince her that she had only seen him with my hubby and that I was confident that he was capable, so she put us in for it too........... and of course he passed with flying colours!!
The trainer and another lady who helped out couldn't believe it and said he was like a different dog!!! 
Hubby also couldn't believe he'd passed when I phoned him to tell him, he was all like "But he's useless, he never passed the recall from toy?!! and he never did the 1 minute stay?!!" so I replied "He did them perfectly"......obviously not Branston who's usless :lol:

Sorry to hear you've had a bad second walk too, poor little(big) Rudi hope his limp is gone for good and it doesn't have any lasting physical or mental problems.

So what's the job you've applied for? Tell us all  You have not become nothing at all :nono: Stop being so down on yourself missus, I know I may as well talk to a brick wall saying that to you, but it's true.

Chin up chick (preferably with a glass of wine at your lips) x


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## Izzysmummy

Oh no, Dogless I'm sorry you've had a rubbish day. I hope Rudi is OK, no suggestions as to how to tackle his fear period, I guess just keep on as you are doing with his socialisation. Does having Kilo there help with his confidence at all? 

Please don't feel like you are nothing, you are EVERYTHING to your 2 boys! You give fab advice and have helped so many people on this forum. Have yourself a nice glass of wine and enjoy some sofa cuddles with the boys, tomorrow is another day.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- I'm really sorry to hear you're not having a good time of it at the minute. Not good with words-in case you hadn't noticed :001_tt2: but do speak to the docs, hope this little job comes off for you.
Poor Rudi, same thing happened a couple of times to Moll when she was a pup. Rudi's been doing so well, I'm sure he'll bounce back.
And you did get a lovely compliment on his behaviour this morning

Thore- sorry you aren't feeling well. Fingers crossed for Belle.

Nicki- Hoping no news is good news- its got to be. Poor boy must have had a nasty bug.

Took Evie around the block, walking up the street bit a black cat crossed the road , she looked but didn't react, then a few feet behind the cat was a woman. Probably 15 feet in front of us, then she went inside her gate but Evie just carried on- no panic, nothing. :smilewinkgrin:
I did go flying flat on my face in the mud this afternoon. Normally the girls have stopped and looked at me as if to say'what you doing down there'- today only Evie saw me and she just tootled on passed me.


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## purpleskyes

Oh guys sorry everyone is having a rubbish day, I have also had one.

Me and the OH have been together nearly a year, lived together for 9 months and recently moved to a new place. Things haven't been great recently and tonight we were looking at broadband packages he asked if he could put it in my name. When I asked why his reply was well you know..... If we break up... I was not impressed told him to stuff the broadband if that's how he feels as we might not be together by the installion date and then he stormed off!

On a happy note took Hudson to a totally new place with lots of people and dogs and managed to get him to sit 3 times which is awesome as he is a nightmare to get to do anything outside where there are distractions, everything else is usually more interesting than me!


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## Dogless

Thank you everyone; you are all lovely .



kat&molly said:


> Took Evie around the block, walking up the street bit a black cat crossed the road , she looked but didn't react, then a few feet behind the cat was a woman. Probably 15 feet in front of us, then she went inside her gate but Evie just carried on- no panic, nothing. :smilewinkgrin:
> I did go flying flat on my face in the mud this afternoon. Normally the girls have stopped and looked at me as if to say'what you doing down there'- *today only Evie saw me and she just tootled on passed me*.


Well done Evie but the part in bold made me chuckle...everything about Evie makes me chuckle!

ETA - purpleskyes, sorry you've had a mostly rotten day too. Well done to Hudson though!


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## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> Oh no, Dogless I'm sorry you've had a rubbish day. I hope Rudi is OK, no suggestions as to how to tackle his fear period, I guess just keep on as you are doing with his socialisation. Does having Kilo there help with his confidence at all?
> 
> Please don't feel like you are nothing, you are EVERYTHING to your 2 boys! You give fab advice and have helped so many people on this forum. Have yourself a nice glass of wine and enjoy some sofa cuddles with the boys, tomorrow is another day.


Rudi is (was!) the boldest pup ever until a day or two ago...think I'll just keep on riding out the fear period with lots of care and treats. I walk him most days with Kilo but like to walk them separately at least once per day so that he learns to listen to me and also not to depend on Kilo too much if that makes any sense?


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## Izzysmummy

Dogless said:


> Rudi is (was!) the boldest pup ever until a day or two ago...think I'll just keep on riding out the fear period with lots of care and treats. I walk him most days with Kilo but like to walk them separately at least once per day so that he learns to listen to me and also not to depend on Kilo too much if that makes any sense?


Ah bless him, he does sound like such a bold little (actually pretty massive) chap! Fingers crossed this period passes soon!


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## Werehorse

Dogless - can very much empathise with the "have come to nothing" feelings... Have been dealing with them alot over the past year (since quitting teaching) and have dealt with them pre-teaching while working temp admin jobs and living back with my parents after working hard to get myself a 1st class BSc and an MSc...  If you need to head spill feel free to PM me.

I think just keep plugging away with Rudi with the growling/fear - made more difficult by the blimmin big dog knocking him over . He seems a confident chap so I trust his bounce-back. Hugo had a barky-growly phase but it passed. The key thing I think is to keep light and happy and not force him to confront his fears (which would compound them), do some gentle counter-conditioning instead if that makes sense. You brought Kilo back round after his labrador troubles, you are more than capable.  I would possibly mention it to your trainer just to get a profesh opinion from someone who knows him "in person".

Thorne, sorry you had a rubbish day too. The dogs got walked so you shouldn't feel guilty (mine sometimes get "rest" days that are more to do with me feeling down that to do with them being tired   ) It gets better.  'Just' be kind to yourself.

I think I must have a very rare breed of OH. He's good with the dogs - the most I have to nag about when he trains Oscar are probably minor timing issues and sometimes over-using his name. And he even has just about enough patience to manage LLW training out and about (actually he can be more patient than me at times!  ) And he's better with the horses than I am too. I don't think I appreciate him enough.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Dogless - can very much empathise with the "have come to nothing" feelings... Have been dealing with them alot over the past year (since quitting teaching) and have dealt with them pre-teaching while working temp admin jobs and living back with my parents after working hard to get myself a 1st class BSc and an MSc...  If you need to head spill feel free to PM me.
> 
> I think just keep plugging away with Rudi with the growling/fear - made more difficult by the blimmin big dog knocking him over . He seems a confident chap so I trust his bounce-back. Hugo had a barky-growly phase but it passed. The key thing I think is to keep light and happy and not force him to confront his fears (which would compound them), do some gentle counter-conditioning instead if that makes sense. You brought Kilo back round after his labrador troubles, you are more than capable.  I would possibly mention it to your trainer just to get a profesh opinion from someone who knows him "in person".
> 
> Thorne, sorry you had a rubbish day too. The dogs got walked so you shouldn't feel guilty (mine sometimes get "rest" days that are more to do with me feeling down that to do with them being tired   ) It gets better.  'Just' be kind to yourself.
> 
> I think I must have a very rare breed of OH. He's good with the dogs - the most I have to nag about when he trains Oscar are probably minor timing issues and sometimes over-using his name. And he even has just about enough patience to manage LLW training out and about (actually he can be more patient than me at times!  ) And he's better with the horses than I am too. I don't think I appreciate him enough.


It is hard going from being a successful, respected career person with a close bond with your work colleagues and being part of a 'family' that is everything to you to feeling like nothing isn't it?

Rudi does certainly seem 'bounce - backable' and certainly seemed fine after being knocked for six - wasn't whirling around with tail between legs as Kilo would have done. I'm certainly not forcing him to confront anything that he is afraid of and do keep very cheerful about scary postboxes etc, I learnt an awful lot from some of Kilo's not so great early experiences.

You OH doesn't do online tutorials for other OHs does he???


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Self - indulgent "woe is me" post coming up  :Yawn: :Yawn: .
> 
> 1. Emailed former boss and another senior person who I used to work for, who thought immensely of me and said that I'd go on to great things and was a real loss etc etc. Reason? For a reference for a little part time job I've seen. Had massive tearful meltdown at how I've become nothing. Tried to talk to hubby a little more about what is going on in my tiny, mad little mind but he doesn't really 'get it' or want to know....bar saying I need to 'speak to someone'. Back to doc for repeat on my tablets that keep some feeling in my legs so I'll chat to her again. Maybe.
> 
> 2. Walked Rudi this afternoon. Saw friend with her two big dogs. Rudi greeted with unsure growl again. Fine once offlead and hung about by me, then on the periphery of their play for a bit before joining in - tail up, relaxed, waggy so felt fine with that. He's definitely having a 'spooky' period but do I need to worry about the growling unduly or just keep on socialising? Sure it's the latter, but it's been one of 'those' days so molehills are great, granite - topped, towering mountains .
> 
> 3. Walking past small field 2 minutes from home with Rudi on lead. Out of field barrels big dog (didn't know one was on there) and flattened Rudi who screamed. Dog made a few more half hearted charges to ??play?? then went back to owner. Short conversation with owner - I had to go and speak to them, they didn't come to see what was going on . Too tired to relate right now. Rudi was limping on his rear right leg - looked to be from the hip and he was holding it awkwardly :crying::crying:. Walked him home very slowly and gently (only 2 minutes) although he was trying to run for home with ears back  and the limp wore off. He has since run about like nothing has happened, attempted to counter surf and scratched at his collar with that leg so I'm pretty sure he is fine and just got a 'dead leg' but I'll keep a hugely close eye and rest him as much as possible tonight - no wrestling with Kilo. To say I am upset is an understatement - I am so, so fed up of living here sometimes .
> 
> Finally...a positive . Great training walk with Kilo - took out the clicker and did lots of repetitions of 'hide' in various distraction - free places, did some heelwork and some ready.....steady.....stuff (carefully, it's really wet and slippy!!!). Saw some dogs, perfectly relaxed and happy . But...just so it couldn't be totally great - it had been raining lightly all afternoon but we got caught in a massively heavy rainstorm which just about summed up the day for me  :sad:.


Oh Dogless I'm really sorry you are feeling so low and sending a big Grannie hug over to NI.

Sounds as if you've had a really tough time and it must be very difficult being posted somewhere you dislike and away from family and friends.

I'm also sorry that poor Rudi got flattened by yet another out of control dog, which is all you needed on top of everything else.

For what it's worth everybody has a talent for something and you most certainly have...


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## Twiggy

purpleskyes said:


> Oh guys sorry everyone is having a rubbish day, I have also had one.
> 
> Me and the OH have been together nearly a year, lived together for 9 months and recently moved to a new place. Things haven't been great recently and tonight we were looking at broadband packages he asked if he could put it in my name. When I asked why his reply was well you know..... If we break up... I was not impressed told him to stuff the broadband if that's how he feels as we might not be together by the installion date and then he stormed off!
> 
> On a happy note took Hudson to a totally new place with lots of people and dogs and managed to get him to sit 3 times which is awesome as he is a nightmare to get to do anything outside where there are distractions, everything else is usually more interesting than me!


Sending you a hug as well....


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## ballybee

ok not much to post, Dans getting better at not running over to other dogs now(still takes a good shout but he'll just stay still instead of moving now).

Tummel is impressing me a lot, the other day we were all out, both boys offlead and going like mad, when OH shouts "dog" (aka grab ours), all 3 dogs were offlead now(no owner in sight) so i shouted Dan and got him, and OH went to get Tummel(not the norm so expected Tummel to run) who hadn't moved at all, and was happy for Oh to get him 

Then we had an offlead time with 2 goldies, it was just myself and Tummel, the weather was by far the worst we've ever walked in(gusting hail, freezing etc etc) ad these 2 saw us and started to approach, now thankfully we do know them, have met them a few times so i let Tummel off, he happily bounded over and met them and enjoyed a good 15-20 minutes interacting(no play but loads of interaction between the 3) 

Then today, he managed to walk past 2 collies, do a sit/stay while OH took Dan over to meet a spinone(yep, we found one!) who was a bit wary of Tummel(i didn't let him meet her but he was ok with sitting and waiting for OH to move on) and he met an excitable, gorgeous visla who had come running up to see us, Tummel was a bit tense but soon relaxed and was trying to play 

So it looks like Tummels getting much better with dogs now,next topic to work on, recall(he's not gotten worse, just want to improve it a bit) and listening in general


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh Dogless I'm really sorry you are feeling so low and sending a big Grannie hug over to NI.
> 
> Sounds as if you've had a really tough time and it must be very difficult being posted somewhere you dislike and away from family and friends.
> 
> I'm also sorry that poor Rudi got flattened by yet another out of control dog, which is all you needed on top of everything else.
> 
> For what it's worth everybody has a talent for something and you most certainly have...


I have a talent for sport and used to be extremely good at my job (so I was told )....just need to find a talent for something else now!!

I am well used to being away from family and friends; it's what I have been used to for so long - moving constantly for many years; that's not too much of a problem...the fact that I am bonkers is more the problem I think :001_tt2:.

I was just so upset about Rudi; especially when he started to limp.

Thanks Grannie .


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## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> I have a talent for sport and used to be extremely good at my job (so I was told )....*just need to find a talent for something else now!!*


ermm.....cake decorating? I've seen your amazing talent 
Start your own little business? Working from home doing something you enjoy and are bloody good at? :yesnod:

Take a course in photography, get Springerpete to be your personal tutor and become dog photographer extraordinaire?


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## Sarah1983

Dogless, sorry you've had such a crappy day. Hope Rudi hasn't really been injured or affected by that encounter. I refused to leave the house with Rupert during the day while living there coz of all the out of control dogs. 

Spencer went through a phase of being nervy around strange dogs believe it or not. He got all excited when he saw them but if they came close he was like "ooh my god, not sure I like this!" but after a short period would be fine. I just kept taking him out, let him meet and greet other dogs where appropriate and he's come through it fine. He was also extremely sensitive to changes in the environment and would have a hissy fit at strange objects or if he got startled by something. Rudi has had a hell of a lot more socialisation than Spencer had before I got him and lots of good experiences with other dogs. Chances are it's just a phase he's going through, he's around the right age for a fear period isn't he?

Can also empathise with the ended up as nothing feelings. It's not quite the same coz I've never really had a good job or a career but I've always worked, always taken pride in being self sufficient and the fact that I now can't get even a part time job cleaning toilets is bloody depressing


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## Thorne

Oh Dogless, sorry to hear you're feeling low at the moment  Had a flick through your old thread and just wish I could help and was better at giving advice!
Hope you can speak to your GP about it when you feel ready, I can understand that it's hard to know when the right time is and what to say. Best wishes for applying for the job too!
I expect Rudi did just end up with a dead leg poor chap, hoping that his next canine encounter is positive. Pleased that Kilo was a lovely boy on your walk despite the rain.

Purpleskyes, sorry that you've had a rubbish day too! There must be something in the air at the moment. Hope things get back on track for you soon. Good boy Hudson 

K&M, great to hear that Evie didn't react tonight, to cat or lady! 

Werehorse, you have a very rare breed indeed!

ballybee, sounds like great progress with Tummel today, long may it continue.

Thanks for the kind words, people.
Mum is great with the dogs but I can't help but feel bad when I hear about Breeze getting spooked. Sometimes I'm amazed by how strongly Breeze seems to have bonded to me, Scooter is very independent and Aysha was very much dad's dog so she's a stark contrast in character.
The thought of going back to uni scares me for many reasons, and knowing that Breeze will spend a good week or so after I leave pacing, whinging and looking for me makes it even harder 

Sorry, going off track again


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Bluddy hell....I wish, very nice but talent is not something I possess with dogs .
> 
> Thank you so much; I won't bombard you with PMs and luckily for you I live in Norn Iron...don't panic . The full story of my descent into madness is here - if you are suffering from insomnia at any point it may help you. If you are already low and not up to self - indulgent whining from someone who should know better, do not open the link; it just saves me from more hand - wringing and whining on this lovely thread. I am embarrassed to even read it now http://www.petforums.co.uk/health/164850-i-am-unravelling.html#post2463340


Huge hugs then in that case, cos my friend is in a very similar starting point in feeling absent without her career like yours. You have value no matter how scrunched up you are, at least that's what I keep saying to myself. I feel honoured that you posted that link as it's a big deal to share.

As you saw yesterday a post touched a massive nerve with me for issues that I've mentioned in passing here as I didn't want to be known as the IVF lady! I'm sure I've gone on loads on FB so I try to keep a lid on it and issues with domestic abuse too. Some days are better than others aren't they?

I am rambling off again, but anyway here if you ever need a chat x I hope Rudi is okay.

ballybee - good for Tummel 

purpleskyes - hugs to you as well. I hate those sort of hypothetical type arguments, they always end up the worse but I hope Hudson's progress cheered you up. Well done that dog!

Werehorse - hugs to, I didn't know you had had a change too.

kat&molly - thank you, that made me smile!

My Molly still okay, I think her antibiotics are making her sleepy. She's had a walk with OH today and has been awake for about 4 hours all day, the rest of the time conked out snoring.

I do think she's hit a fear phase too Dogless. I was reading a little about this and thinking over her history as she would have hit the second phase if the general estimation of 8-14 months is right, at the start of her time in rescue. Then she got us, then OH was in the accident, then I went to work, then she went to Cornwall and got attacked by an off lead dog which began this trauma on top of the awful training class with reactive dogs in a tiny hall. Phew! So I am riding this out with her on top of set lessons to sort out the lead reactions. My aim is to build her up slowly. I'm staring the Big Walkies at the park as it has a nice cafe. She was okay with cafes and pubs when we first got her but since the dog incident in Cornwall very jumpy. She's less so now so I'm hoping she's moving beyond that and starting to trust that me and OH can look after her properly.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, sorry you've had such a crappy day. Hope Rudi hasn't really been injured or affected by that encounter. I refused to leave the house with Rupert during the day while living there coz of all the out of control dogs.
> 
> Spencer went through a phase of being nervy around strange dogs believe it or not. He got all excited when he saw them but if they came close he was like "ooh my god, not sure I like this!" but after a short period would be fine. I just kept taking him out, let him meet and greet other dogs where appropriate and he's come through it fine. He was also extremely sensitive to changes in the environment and would have a hissy fit at strange objects or if he got startled by something. Rudi has had a hell of a lot more socialisation than Spencer had before I got him and lots of good experiences with other dogs. Chances are it's just a phase he's going through, he's around the right age for a fear period isn't he?
> 
> Can also empathise with the ended up as nothing feelings. It's not quite the same coz I've never really had a good job or a career but I've always worked, always taken pride in being self sufficient and the fact that I now can't get even a part time job cleaning toilets is bloody depressing


Yes; he's about the right age for a fear period and the fact that it's been an overnight change without a bad experience to trigger it suggests that that is precisely what it is. The excitement followed by uncertainty is exactly it too.

I can see why you didn't leave the house in the day - out of control dogs are just the norm here aren't they? Upsetting really.

Thorne - I can understand your worries about going back to uni even though you know that the digs will actually be fine; I dread having to leave these two with OH as he loves them to pieces but as he has never walked them he doesn't 'know' their ways!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I have a talent for sport and used to be extremely good at my job (so I was told )....just need to find a talent for something else now!!
> 
> I am well used to being away from family and friends; it's what I have been used to for so long - moving constantly for many years; that's not too much of a problem...the fact that I am bonkers is more the problem I think :001_tt2:.
> 
> I was just so upset about Rudi; especially when he started to limp.
> 
> Thanks Grannie .


And you *will* find a talent for something else.

Of course you were upset about Rudi, it was a terrible thing to happen but I'm sure he'll bounce back because you've done such a lot of groundwork with him - that's yet another talent you have...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> And you *will* find a talent for something else.
> 
> Of course you were upset about Rudi, it was a terrible thing to happen but I'm sure he'll bounce back because you've done such a lot of groundwork with him - that's yet another talent you have...!!


Thank goodness it wasn't an old or injured / recovering dog either. Rudi is a resilient little bugger I think!


----------



## moonviolet

I feel terrible to say i've had a combination of a good and a lucky day.

I finally managed to visit my parents as awful as it sounds I haven't seen them in a couple of months, through them being cut off due to weather both flooding ( thankfully roads not their home) and snow, through illness both theirs and ours. So today we had a little belated christmas.  Dog walks were relaxing in fields and aroudn the ponds, somewhat muddy, but it was so nice not to be on alert.

now for the lucky and i'm sorry i hogged all the luck today but hope you will forgive me.

We were driving back home and the rain was properly lashing, the tarmac wasn't visible under the torrent of water, winscreen wipers on full were barely handling the down pour. We're on a dual carriageway when headlights are facing us in the outside lane, OH begins braking and we would have passed them but no, at the last moment this car decides a 3 point turn is just the ticket and pulls across both carriageways to do so.  ut::cursing:

I was a little shaken and shocked. OH was nonchalant until a couple of years ago he was notching up over 40,000 miles driving a year and has experienced his fair share and more of idiots on the road and was sufficiently skilled to be driving for the conditions and have the reactions to cope, another car coming across this driver may not have faired so well. 

Tink was on the backseat harnessed in safely and slept through the whole things, Just gave a bit of a sleepy grumble at being jiggled. I dread to think how an unsecured dog would have faired.

Home safe and sound and hoping to share the good fortune around a bit so everyone has a better day tomorrow. ( sorry i may have had a medicinal tot)


----------



## Izzysmummy

moonviolet said:


> I feel terrible to say i've had a combination of a good and a lucky day.
> 
> I finally managed to visit my parents as awful as it sounds I haven't seen them in a couple of months, through them being cut off due to weather both flooding ( thankfully roads not their home) and snow, through illness both theirs and ours. So today we had a little belated christmas.  Dog walks were relaxing in fields and aroudn the ponds, somewhat muddy, but it was so nice not to be on alert.
> 
> now for the lucky and i'm sorry i hogged all the luck today but hope you will forgive me.
> 
> We were driving back home and the rain was properly lashing, the tarmac wasn't visible under the torrent of water, winscreen wipers on full were barely handling the down pour. We're on a dual carriageway when headlights are facing us in the outside lane, OH begins braking and we would have passed them but no, at the last moment this car decides a 3 point turn is just the ticket and pulls across both carriageways to do so.  ut::cursing:
> 
> I was a little shaken and shocked. OH was nonchalant until a couple of years ago he was notching up over 40,000 miles driving a year and has experienced his fair share and more of idiots on the road and was sufficiently skilled to be driving for the conditions and have the reactions to cope, another car coming across this driver may not have faired so well.
> 
> Tink was on the backseat harnessed in safely and slept through the whole things, Just gave a bit of a sleepy grumble at being jiggled. I dread to think how an unsecured dog would have faired.
> 
> Home safe and sound and hoping to share the good fortune around a bit so everyone has a better day tomorrow. ( sorry i may have had a medicinal tot)


So glad the 3 of you are home safe and sound! Very scary experience! What an idiot


----------



## Dogless

Wow mv; I am pleased that you had all the luck today - it was obviously where it was needed most  .

Also glad that you had your belated Christmas - lovely to hear that someone on here has had a good day!! .


----------



## Thorne

Oh my goodness MV! Some people shouldn't be allowed on the road at all  Very relieved that you're safe, sounds like you needed the luck today.


----------



## Werehorse

Glad you're home safe mv - well done to your OH for reacting appropriately.

There are some *rude word* idiots on the roads! 

Because I drive quite sedately in the Landy (it's not really happy getting too close to 60 so even on main roads we tend to chug along at 57 ish plus because we spun and crashed on ice at quite a slow speed my whole perception of what is a safe speed has shifted downwards about 20mph!) I get to see some appalling over-taking manouvers! As if going 3 mph slower than the speed limit until it is SAFE to overtake or I turn off is worse than actual death.  Not that speed makes a difference, when I still had my car I would do the limit and still get idiots over taking on blind bends. ut:


----------



## MollySmith

moon violet, I am glad you did have all the luck today. Happy belated Christmas


----------



## moonviolet

I don't really praise "the saint that puts up with me" enough, but today I will admit he's a damn fine driver.


----------



## Thorne

Werehorse said:


> Glad you're home safe mv - well done to your OH for reacting appropriately.
> 
> There are some *rude word* idiots on the roads!
> 
> Because I drive quite sedately in the Landy (it's not really happy getting too close to 60 so even on main roads we tend to chug along at 57 ish plus because we spun and crashed on ice at quite a slow speed my whole perception of what is a safe speed has shifted downwards about 20mph!) I get to see some appalling over-taking manouvers! As if going 3 mph slower than the speed limit until it is SAFE to overtake or I turn off is worse than actual death.  Not that speed makes a difference, when I still had my car I would do the limit and still get idiots over taking on blind bends. ut:


I know how you feel about idiots and Land Rovers! They really seem to bring out the worst in other drivers for some reason. I live near the UK's largest container port so when I've dared take it on dual carriageways there's lorries everywhere, and there's something very unsettling about being overtaken and honked at by a stream of huge trucks and impatient car drivers.

The worst people are the ones you meet down country lanes who refuse to reverse into passing places, expecting you to take the Landy into a ditch or up a vertical bank to let them pass  Slowly creeping towards them seems to do the trick though


----------



## MollySmith

i have just seen I have a red blob by my name after yesterday! That's negative isn't it? Ooooh! 

Sorry I digress! I am glad he's a good driver. I did an advanced course years ago but after sliding out of our driveway this morning I ought to get a refresher! My OH is a biker so he tends to have more awareness than me but has no interest in cars whatsoever so it's usually me that drives.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> i have just seen I have a red blob by my name after yesterday! That's negative isn't it? Ooooh!
> 
> Sorry I digress! I am glad he's a good driver. I did an advanced course years ago but after sliding out of our driveway this morning I ought to get a refresher! My OH is a biker so he tends to have more awareness than me but has no interest in cars whatsoever so it's usually me that drives.


It is :nono::nono:. I gave you a green yesterday though I'm sure so maybe they'll even out? :idea:.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> It is :nono::nono:. I gave you a green yesterday though I'm sure so maybe they'll even out? :idea:.


I saw thank you. Do you know I only bad repped one of them and not the one I argued with the most. Oh I like being naughty, I always sat at the back of the class, it suits me well, i just don't agree with the reason why in this instance. I've been been stuck there for being honest about losing a child.


----------



## Werehorse

Thorne said:


> The worst people are the ones you meet down country lanes who refuse to reverse into passing places, expecting you to take the Landy into a ditch or up a vertical bank to let them pass  Slowly creeping towards them seems to do the trick though


I tend to get the opposite to that round here (although there are some people who expect me to drive in a ditch too - when that happens I just put on my "helpless female don't want to get my car dirty and don't know how to drive it" face )... I seem to get people desperately trying to dive out of the way on country lanes. :lol: This reaction might be enhanced by the different coloured bonnet and wing... If the verge looks good I drive on it round them while they dither about what to do. I shouldn't laugh but sometimes I feel the need to pick up a tiny bit of speed to avoid sinking into the verge too much and you sometimes see them look a tiny bit concerned that you're just going to keep going straight at them. 

I'm usually really nice though I promise! And give way and get out of the way and slow right down if it is narrow and all that stuff.

The way some other people drive terrifies me. As well as the over taking there is the plain coming round the corner on the wrong side of the road thing!  The amount of times I have had to brake hard or even swerve and the person on my side of the road doesn't even change course!! I don't think they even know they do it some of them!

Oh and by the way I bought some Fishmongers dog food from Pets At Home today. Fingers crossed there are no exploding bottoms and that it works for the boys. If the switchover goes well I'm planning on using that for a few months to see what difference if any I see in the boys. I'll probably wait a week or so and try and introduce some wet food too - wainwrights trays to start with. I'd like to find a wet food to mix in with the kibble that Hugo doesn't chuck straight back up but if I don't, I don't.


----------



## Sarah1983

Just been very naughty and done a training session with Spencer using leftover chips with salt and vinegar on them, how awful of me :001_tt2: Decided to work on teaching him to go to his bed which I have never actually bothered to teach. Didn't take long for him to get the vague idea but he doesn't seem to understand why lying down in the general vicinity and then reaching out to put a paw or his chin on the bed doesn't get him his click :lol: Kinda got there in the end though and got some lovely downs on the bed.

MV, glad you're okay! We nearly crashed into a bus yesterday coz the stupid cow just pulled out of a side street without even looking. School bus full of children too and the weather conditions aren't exactly good for making sudden stops!


----------



## MollySmith

Thorne said:


> I know how you feel about idiots and Land Rovers! They really seem to bring out the worst in other drivers for some reason. I live near the UK's largest container port so when I've dared take it on dual carriageways there's lorries everywhere, and there's something very unsettling about being overtaken and honked at by a stream of huge trucks and impatient car drivers.
> 
> The worst people are the ones you meet down country lanes who refuse to reverse into passing places, expecting you to take the Landy into a ditch or up a vertical bank to let them pass  Slowly creeping towards them seems to do the trick though


We had a Landy until it finally died. I see all sorts in Cambridge as our county council have put in rising bollards, width restrictions and we had someone drive up the cycle bridge the other week which made the national press. But the oddest was when I had to reverse a complete stranger's Volvo estate round a one way single track road by the Lizard lighthouse in Cornwall. We were staying there (I feel *GingerRogers* may see a theme of us holidaying in lighthouses...) and we were the right direction, using the road legally. She stormed up the wrong way and stopped. F'd and blinded at me, said I was a 4x4 nutter and so on then she finally refused to move. So I got out and said fine, I'll walk across that field to the lighthouse where I'm staying, you sort it out. Behind me was a small queue of irate tourists. I asked her if she wanted any help and she gave me the keys ut:. The most surreal thing I've done for years, reversing a strangers car with her elderly dumbstruck father in the back seat.


----------



## Thorne

Werehorse said:


> I tend to get the opposite to that round here (although there are some people who expect me to drive in a ditch too - when that happens I just put on my "helpless female don't want to get my car dirty and don't know how to drive it" face )... I seem to get people desperately trying to dive out of the way on country lanes. :lol: This reaction might be enhanced by the different coloured bonnet and wing... If the verge looks good I drive on it round them while they dither about what to do. I shouldn't laugh but sometimes I feel the need to pick up a tiny bit of speed to avoid sinking into the verge too much and you sometimes see them look a tiny bit concerned that you're just going to keep going straight at them.
> 
> I'm usually really nice though I promise! And give way and get out of the way and slow right down if it is narrow and all that stuff.
> 
> The way some other people drive terrifies me. As well as the over taking there is the plain coming round the corner on the wrong side of the road thing!  The amount of times I have had to brake hard or even swerve and the person on my side of the road doesn't even change course!! I don't think they even know they do it some of them!
> 
> Oh and by the way I bought some Fishmongers dog food from Pets At Home today. Fingers crossed there are no exploding bottoms and that it works for the boys. If the switchover goes well I'm planning on using that for a few months to see what difference if any I see in the boys. I'll probably wait a week or so and try and introduce some wet food too - wainwrights trays to start with. I'd like to find a wet food to mix in with the kibble that Hugo doesn't chuck straight back up but if I don't, I don't.


As a whole I try not to generalise, but the people who stubbornly sit and wait for me to perform a death-defying manoveur around them tend to be men in expensive German cars  The panickers tend to be in little cars and I do feel for them! I'm not nearly as confident in my little Fiesta as I am in the Landy and they don't half look big when you come face to face with one around a corner.
I also try to be nice, I was a terribly nervous learner so aim to give people the benefit of the doubt, but some people make it rather difficult!

Fingers crossed that the Fishmongers will do the trick, this food business can be so hard to get "right".


----------



## Guest

Good lordy you lot have had stressful days!! 

I don't drive now because idiots really really frighten me on the road. (and I can't afford it, and I haven't got a licence etc etc etc etc etc)

Only had two hours sleep. Knackered.

Have no places to let off my one now. The secure field is no longer secure. (Someone has cut all the fencing into the woods, which goes near livestock, not a risk I'm willing to take.)
So nice walks, with training mixed in are gonna be high on the agenda for a good while. Oh, i'm gonna try clicker training zand past other dogs. How do you fade a clicker out though? Or how do I calm him between "Tricks" so to speak. 

I'm just tiredly rambling now i think.

Lovely walk at 6am this morn, not a bugger to be seen just the way I like it.
(Even though he freaked out at the bicycle he happily passed yesterday.IDK.)

And be a photgrapher dogless and be awesome at it.


----------



## kat&molly

Blimey MV, that was a scare. I hate driving in those conditions , certainly doesn't need Muppets added in to the equation. Pleased you're all ok and well done to your OH.
What a nice time to have a mini Christmas- in boring January.

Dogless, I hope you and Thorne and Purpleskyes have a better day today.

Another day of wain, wain, wain here.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I feel terrible to say i've had a combination of a good and a lucky day.
> 
> I finally managed to visit my parents as awful as it sounds I haven't seen them in a couple of months, through them being cut off due to weather both flooding ( thankfully roads not their home) and snow, through illness both theirs and ours. So today we had a little belated christmas.  Dog walks were relaxing in fields and aroudn the ponds, somewhat muddy, but it was so nice not to be on alert.
> 
> now for the lucky and i'm sorry i hogged all the luck today but hope you will forgive me.
> 
> We were driving back home and the rain was properly lashing, the tarmac wasn't visible under the torrent of water, winscreen wipers on full were barely handling the down pour. We're on a dual carriageway when headlights are facing us in the outside lane, OH begins braking and we would have passed them but no, at the last moment this car decides a 3 point turn is just the ticket and pulls across both carriageways to do so.  ut::cursing:
> 
> I was a little shaken and shocked. OH was nonchalant until a couple of years ago he was notching up over 40,000 miles driving a year and has experienced his fair share and more of idiots on the road and was sufficiently skilled to be driving for the conditions and have the reactions to cope, another car coming across this driver may not have faired so well.
> 
> Tink was on the backseat harnessed in safely and slept through the whole things, Just gave a bit of a sleepy grumble at being jiggled. I dread to think how an unsecured dog would have faired.
> 
> Home safe and sound and hoping to share the good fortune around a bit so everyone has a better day tomorrow. ( sorry i may have had a medicinal tot)


Phew - well done OH...!!

I've met several vehicles coming the wrong way down motorways over the years including a particularly frightening experience early morning on the M3.


----------



## Twiggy

I hope you girls are feeling a bit better today?

I'm looking out of the window at green grass and all the white stuff has disappeared - yipee!! The green may well turn to brown mud but I don't care.


----------



## purpleskyes

Looks like another rubbish day today, I slept on the sofa, barely spoken to the OH last night apart from him saying I don't know what else to say. Guess I should cancel his present and bin the card as it's looks like we shall be spilt up by Wednesday.

To top it all off when Hudson woke up this morning I let him out of his crate and he vomitted about 6/7 times just clear liquid :/ he has been fine since?


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Phew - well done OH...!!
> 
> I've met several vehicles coming the wrong way down motorways over the years including a particularly frightening experience early morning on the M3.


OH has seen more than his fair share of numpties and frankly dangerous drivers over the years, We'd just been commenting, as we were driving, how it was like the start of the sort of scary film where at any moment the car would break down and the occupants would find they have no phone signal and have to go to the spooky looking house to ask for help.

K&M I can thoroughly recommend mini christmas in January


----------



## Freddie and frank

Oh dear, I just want to give you all a huge hug.
Not good with words but I genuinely hope you are all ok, and you will be.:yesnod:

Glad all the poorly ones are on the road to recovery
Gr, glad your oh is getting sorted
Dogless, poor rudi, hope he's ok. 



I too have a oh in that club. bless him, I love spending time with him and the dogs but it must look comical when this 6' man is walking a petite black lab with a matching spotty collar and lead,trying to control her, and a 5'2" me is behind him with two not so petite choc labs walking like angels. 
I did actually say to him yesterday that when we take all three out, it's best for me to have bella as the other two will listen to him. 

All the snow has gone here  really glad cause I can now walk the boys together on their evening walks again.


----------



## kat&molly

Glad everyones snow is going.

PS- hope things improve for you soon, sounds like Hudsons tummy was empty and he bought bile up?

Done some Target stuff with Moll this morning using the pole[plunger]-we have done some of that before so its going ok. Scruff and Evie came to join in so I gave them a go as well. Scruff was ok but a bit wary of the stick, as for Evie,pfft she done it but has the enthusiasm of a dead fish 
Cant find my clicker anywhere, so tried a mini stapler but the click was too slow, doing it without now.
I did briefly consider another use for the stapler- to get Evie's 'wait' at the front door. Joking.


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

I'm working on finding a training club that uses positive methods of training rather than bullying the dogs into submission


----------



## kat&molly

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I'm working on finding a training club that uses positive methods of training rather than bullying the dogs into submission


Its not easy is it.
I've just seen the video of your Daisy- she's a little smasher.:001_wub:


----------



## Freddie and frank

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I'm working on finding a training club that uses positive methods of training rather than bullying the dogs into submission


Oh no, hope you manage to find somewhere.

First one I went to was ok until I had one to one with frank and everytime he reacted to another dog I was told to stamp on his lead close this collar and put him in a down 
Second one told me to use a pinch collar 
Third one shook a tin of stones at dogs that barked in his class
Fourth one was ok until he told me to throw frank onto his back occasionally just to show him who's boss 

Starting clicker training with bella next week and they advertise positive reinforcement so hopefully I've got it right this time.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Glad everyones snow is going.
> 
> PS- hope things improve for you soon, sounds like Hudsons tummy was empty and he bought bile up?
> 
> Done some Target stuff with Moll this morning using the pole[plunger]-we have done some of that before so its going ok. Scruff and Evie came to join in so I gave them a go as well. Scruff was ok but a bit wary of the stick, as for Evie,pfft she done it but has the enthusiasm of a dead fish
> Cant find my clicker anywhere, so tried a mini stapler but the click was too slow, doing it without now.
> I did briefly consider another use for the stapler- to get Evie's 'wait' at the front door. Joking.


You could use a biro with a push in end instead of a clicker. Failing that a sharp and excited "yes" to mark the behaviour works just as well IMO.


----------



## Sarah1983

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I'm working on finding a training club that uses positive methods of training rather than bullying the dogs into submission


Join the club, not a single one near me that doesn't model itself after the great white toothed one  Might be worth posting asking whether anyone knows of any decent ones in your general area, got a few people on the forum who seem to know trainers all over the place lol.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Oh dear, I just want to give you all a huge hug.
> Not good with words but I genuinely hope you are all ok, and you will be.:yesnod:
> 
> Glad all the poorly ones are on the road to recovery
> Gr, glad your oh is getting sorted
> Dogless, poor rudi, hope he's ok.
> 
> I too have a oh in that club. bless him, I love spending time with him and the dogs but it must look comical when this 6' man is walking a petite black lab with a matching spotty collar and lead,trying to control her, and a 5'2" me is behind him with two not so petite choc labs walking like angels.
> I did actually say to him yesterday that when we take all three out, it's best for me to have bella as the other two will listen to him.
> 
> All the snow has gone here  really glad cause I can now walk the boys together on their evening walks again.


That made me smile...!!

Back in the early 1980's I was asked by a friend to go and see her neighbour's GSD as they were having horrendous problems with him barking and lunging at other dogs.

My sister was staying at the time and we duly set off taking Jessica with us in my car to act as a stooge dog.

When we got there we noticed a huge sign on the back gate 'Beware of the dog' and when we knocked on the door all hell broke loose. When the door opened this chap stood there and he must have been at least 6 ft 6 inches tall and out of the door shot this little mongrel, about collie bitch size.

How we kept a straight face I don't know. To think this little dog was taking the mickey out of his enormous owner beggared belief.

I think it took all of 20 minutes to have the dog walking nicely by Jessica and every other dog and owner we met. The dog wasn't aggressive, it had just become a good game that had got out of hand.


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I'm working on finding a training club that uses positive methods of training rather than bullying the dogs into submission


Whereabouts are you roughly? I know many trainers and clubs all over the UK so may be able to suggest someone.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - stapling Evie  .

purpleskyes - sorry about the crappy time you are having; think we all know how it feels unfortunately and I do hope that you'll sort it one way or the other soon rather than this torture xx. Hudson perhaps vomited as his stomach was really empty? Kilo can do that and has a biscuit at bedtime otherwise at about 0400 he will sometimes vomit bile.

Well.....my general feelings of uselessness and madness are still alive and kicking :sosp: BUT on the dog front I have had a *fantastic* morning .

I decided to take the dogs out slightly later than usual and separately so that Rudi would hopefully see more dogs / people as we're usually too early to see anyone at the weekend.

Took Kilo first as I thought that the later it got, the more people would be up and about. We went to the offlead fields and had been there for about 5 minutes when the lady who has moved in two doors down from us came in with her two sibes. I put Kilo onlead and went over - we had a brief chat and let them off and they played and played for an hour . A little puppy came past at the fence and the sibes raced over to see him and....Kilo stayed with me . I had a good chat with the lady, she is lovely and I had the chance to explain that, if I saw her coming head on with her dogs, I may turn around and ignore her if Kilo looked less than relaxed...then we talked vets etc. She is waiting for her one girl to come into season again before she spays her which I am not looking forward to with them so close . I also fell flat on my face in front of her by tripping on some rough ground . Anyway - out an hour and a half in total. Kilo then had to have his underside and legs washed as he was filthy - the fields are essentially a black bog.

All that meant that Rudi never went out until about 1040. We went to the offlead fields too. Saw a lovely, calm lab/collie cross that we have met before - recalled Rudi, put his lead on, as did the owner of the other dog, chatted and let them off (no growling from Rudi ). Rudi tried to play a bit too boisterously twice, got a quick telling off each time and then just mooched about with her. We did a lap of the field chatting and then someone came to the gate with a white sibe; Rudi nor the other dog took any notice so I left him offlead - the sibe was let off and came bombing across the field at lightening speed , but was friendly and playful and Rudi had a brilliant time playing, totally relaxed and happy. I recalled him from playing quite a few times and he came back straight away each time . Then, we walked back down the road together with Rudi walking to heel  (with treats regularly) and the sibe pulling and jumping and bouncing all over the shop; once she'd been caught to go onlead . Rudi, being shorter than Kilo, was black from head to tip of tail which earned him that hugely rare thing for dogs in our house.....a bath . Thought it would be a struggle but he stood there pretty relaxed, took treats no drama and then stood to be dried.

After all that it was 1200 so.....Rudi had lunch, Kilo had his snack and they both headed straight to the sofa to sleep :001_wub::001_wub:.

It turned out to be a very long morning but excellent for the CHs .


----------



## kat&molly

I'm sorry you aren't feeling better in yourself this morning Dogless, but it sounds like the boys at least managed to make you smile.


----------



## Freddie and frank

dogless, glad you've had an excellent morning with your boys.:thumbsup: sounds brilliant. its nice to have the chance to explain to people if you have to do an avoidence tactic sometimes. my boys had a bit of a confrontation with an old ladys dog once, couldn't be helped, and when we see each other now, i cross over and we both say hi and give each other a knowing smile. 

not long come out of a month of feeling useless, mad, and worthless myself, it's cack isn't it, especially when my doctor wants me to up my ad's  NO WAY HOSE 'A' :ciappa: the nights are getting lighter so hopefully my mood will.

hope you're feeling better soon.
well done boys.


----------



## Twiggy

Sorry you're still feeling awful Dogless but excellent news that Rudi doesn't appear to have any lasting effects after the trauma yesterday.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Sorry you're still feeling awful Dogless but excellent news that Rudi doesn't appear to have any lasting effects after the trauma yesterday.


Absolutely; that's the main thing for me.


----------



## MollySmith

kat&molly said:


> Its not easy is it.
> I've just seen the video of your Daisy- she's a little smasher.:001_wub:


Me too, she's a lovely girlie


----------



## MollySmith

I hope everyone is feeling a little better today? Kat&molly you made me laugh with the stapler - I tried to a click with my tongue as I couldn't find one here and my Molls looked at me and walked off in disgust!

We've had the oddest experience today. A man that has been up at our walk for a few times now owns a lovely dog, a lab called Buster. The dog is older than Molly and she adores him, they play a lot and nicely too. I think he is about 6 years old. Anyway, the man might have had a bit of a hangover, but he said he was rehoming Buster. We thought it was joking but he was most insistent, said he had no money to feed him and then he walked off with his wife and someone else came over and interrupted us. OH and I briefly talked about it and thought it strange. As we left the car park, we saw them again. OH ran out of the car (the man who only wants one dog!) and went over with one of my business cards and basically said we'd look after or take Buster... Wife glared at the husband apparently and asked him what he'd been saying. OH didn't press them anymore but said he'd hate to see such a lovely dog go into rescue. 

I'm more  about the OH than I am if Buster came here. We've seen the dog so many times that we know he's great on lead, good with Molly and seems okay with his recall too but it's such a weird thing to say. He really seemed to mean it.

Apart from that I was just glad to get out and about after feeling in so much pain yesterday. It was so muddy so we stayed in a big field and there were about 15 dogs at one point so Molly is knackered now!


----------



## Izzysmummy

LO - how annoying that someone has been a ruined your nice secure place!*

PS - I'm sorry things aren't great between you and OH. I hope you manage to resolve things. Only advice I can give is to do what will make you happy in the long run.

K+M - would love to see a video of your target training with your plunger!*

Dogless - sorry to hear your still feeling rubbish today, at least you had nice walks with both the boys!*

MS - Buster sounds a lovely lad, what a strange thing for his owner to say! But how lovely of OH! 

Well agility training was cancelled again this week due to poor ground conditions so we went for a wander to Lyme park instead. It's not far away and it's huge! Will definitely have to go there more often. Izzy had a couple of barks but think it was because she was so hyped up, she stayed on her harness and extender as we didn't know what or who we might come across but practised some recalls and she still had lots of fun running around! We even got a "dog on a log" pic for mv!

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288997-trip-lyme-park-pics.html#


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith - how odd - both your OH and Buster's owner .


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all,

sorry to hear that some of you are having a rough time of it lately :-( I hope that things pick up for you soon...

I think most of the dogs on this thread are now better and have been behaving themselves?! If so everyone deserves a bonio!! (or in Rusty's case some more boiled chicken and rice....)

THings appear fine here, Rusty still seems to be OK (fingers crossed) and is having 4-5 small meals of chicken and rice. One more day of that and then move him back onto raw. Got some Natural Instinct chicken mince so start him on that for a few days and then reintroduce other meats slowly. We did a little bit of training on his walks, just circles and asking him to go round things or keep close (good for sending him over a jump in agility). He loves these exercises- gets sooo excited! Also ran him through the weaves and he was very good. He is still a bit wild but hoping he will calm down again. He has also taken to begging as he is just soooo hungry. He must have lost 2-3kg (he weighs 19.5kg usually) and looks a bit like an RSPCA case :-( Don't want to overload his system though.

In other news the ES pups are due today :-O very exciting and hopeful that there will be enough bitches for me! Rusty evokes such strange reactions from other males that I would not get another dog with him... I am sure they won't mind me posting a link to their website for the pups- English Shepherd Puppies in the UK


----------



## MollySmith

Izzysmummy said:


> LO - how annoying that someone has been a ruined your nice secure place!*
> 
> PS - I'm sorry things aren't great between you and OH. I hope you manage to resolve things. Only advice I can give is to do what will make you happy in the long run.
> 
> K+M - would love to see a video of your target training with your plunger!*
> 
> Dogless - sorry to hear your still feeling rubbish today, at least you had nice walks with both the boys!*
> 
> MS - Buster sounds a lovely lad, what a strange thing for his owner to say! But how lovely of OH!
> 
> Well agility training was cancelled again this week due to poor ground conditions so we went for a wander to Lyme park instead. It's not far away and it's huge! Will definitely have to go there more often. Izzy had a couple of barks but think it was because she was so hyped up, she stayed on her harness and extender as we didn't know what or who we might come across but practised some recalls and she still had lots of fun running around! We even got a "dog on a log" pic for mv!
> 
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/288997-trip-lyme-park-pics.html#


Oh goodness Izzy is so similar to Molly in her look! And her hyperness too! They are wonderful pics x


----------



## Guest

well houndini managed to get out again today. Took me nearly half an hour to catch him. Mum says he wriggled under the fence, even though theres chicken wire there. I don't know as I wasn't there as I was putting my work uniform on. Managed to get to my work with a minute to spare after catching the blighter!! 

See in the garden he has a good recall, in the house good recall, in the secure field a good recall. When an escapee? Nope, we're RUNNNIIINNNNGGGG!!! rrr:

Reckon it may be very self rewarding. 
He sprinted and sprinted and leapt a five bar gate into some allotements, I finally managed to catch him while he was play bowing to this cat in the window.

Well after a half an hour sprinting session me thinks I shall only mentally tire him later.


----------



## MollySmith

Nicki85 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> sorry to hear that some of you are having a rough time of it lately :-( I hope that things pick up for you soon...
> 
> I think most of the dogs on this thread are now better and have been behaving themselves?! If so everyone deserves a bonio!! (or in Rusty's case some more boiled chicken and rice....)
> 
> THings appear fine here, Rusty still seems to be OK (fingers crossed) and is having 4-5 small meals of chicken and rice. One more day of that and then move him back onto raw. Got some Natural Instinct chicken mince so start him on that for a few days and then reintroduce other meats slowly. We did a little bit of training on his walks, just circles and asking him to go round things or keep close (good for sending him over a jump in agility). He loves these exercises- gets sooo excited! Also ran him through the weaves and he was very good. He is still a bit wild but hoping he will calm down again. He has also taken to begging as he is just soooo hungry. He must have lost 2-3kg (he weighs 19.5kg usually) and looks a bit like an RSPCA case :-( Don't want to overload his system though.
> 
> In other news the ES pups are due today :-O very exciting and hopeful that there will be enough bitches for me! Rusty evokes such strange reactions from other males that I would not get another dog with him... I am sure they won't mind me posting a link to their website for the pups- English Shepherd Puppies in the UK


Oh well done Rusty, you sound like you're making good progress with his food and I love the link, it's very exciting!


----------



## sailor

Dogless - Sorry to hear your mind isn't being kind to you, it sounds pants. But you are not 'nothing' your life has just changed and I know you are actually an amazing SOMEONE! regardless of what job you go on to do next :thumbsup:
Great to hear you went on to have some really good walks with Kilo and Rudi 

Kat&molly - what novel uses for a stapler :lol:

Freddie & frank - I never find it amusing to see manly men walking any kind of dog, with any behaviour..... but I do have to try very hard not to smirk when I see them using certain leads and collars. I always find myself asking... 'is he feminine or was that the wifes choice?' 

Purpleskyes - sorry to hear about the relationship woes  Hope the sick from Hudson was just caused by an empty tum and he just needs alittle snack before bed.

LurcherOwner - what a shame about the fencing! Wonder who did that and why?

Sarah1983 - love Spencer and how you describe him learning 'bed', how sweet! 
You just made me realise Toppa doesn't actually have a bed  He sleeps on the kitchen chairs and my bed at night... maybe I should treat him to a proper dog bed? But after the luxury of chairs and double beds... will he evn want to use it :lol:

Werehorse - how is the fishmongers food going down? Hope there have been no exploding bums  :lol:

Mollysmith - bummer about the red blob  You don't come across as one to deserve a red blob... what have you been upto :nono: 

Moonviolet - I am glad you hogged all the luck! And thankful you, your OH and Tink are all safe and well.

Ballybee - it sounds like you are doing well with Dan and Tummel, it is good to read!

Sorry... but I can't go further back through the pages to find more things, I am running out of time and the Children are due their dinner soon!
So, I shall bambard you with Toppa now 

Toppa is being really really good and he is a fab little dog full of character, everything you would expect from a JRT. 
He greets quiet dogs quietly, but if he comes across other barky JRTs he happily joins in a turns into a proper yapper and gives as good as he gets.
He has however stopped barking at people and dogs, barks even less at those approaching us and other suspicious characters like OAPs at bus stops and people trying to repair their gates.
But he still barks at odd things... like discraded car chairs in the middle of paths :skep:

I am not even going to mention the recall. He has his good days where he will recall and then he has his days where he wont even acknowledge me and stays as far away as possible.

I have noticed that recently, he has started to prefer to stay outside :???: We will be on an hour long walk, with training, playing, running, sniffing... it is basically action packed, despite being on a flexi. Then we return home with mud upto our armpits and Toppa will just sit outside the front door looking longingly at the gate, wanting to go back out 

So on the whole, his doing really well... we just want better recalls! They are fantastic indoors and in the garden, but on walks, they are practically non existant.

Here is a photo of Toppa from our walk today... it was long and muddy, the perfect kind :thumbsup:









What do you think MV & Tink? I know it's not a log but he tried to eat the log... so had to find something abit more robust :lol:









And here he is after his walk...looking totally miserable, wanting to go back to the mud and fun  He just sits like that intil you bribe him in with a treat or carry him in


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> sorry to hear that some of you are having a rough time of it lately :-( I hope that things pick up for you soon...
> 
> I think most of the dogs on this thread are now better and have been behaving themselves?! If so everyone deserves a bonio!! (or in Rusty's case some more boiled chicken and rice....)
> 
> THings appear fine here, Rusty still seems to be OK (fingers crossed) and is having 4-5 small meals of chicken and rice. One more day of that and then move him back onto raw. Got some Natural Instinct chicken mince so start him on that for a few days and then reintroduce other meats slowly. We did a little bit of training on his walks, just circles and asking him to go round things or keep close (good for sending him over a jump in agility). He loves these exercises- gets sooo excited! Also ran him through the weaves and he was very good. He is still a bit wild but hoping he will calm down again. He has also taken to begging as he is just soooo hungry. He must have lost 2-3kg (he weighs 19.5kg usually) and looks a bit like an RSPCA case :-( Don't want to overload his system though.
> 
> In other news the ES pups are due today :-O very exciting and hopeful that there will be enough bitches for me! Rusty evokes such strange reactions from other males that I would not get another dog with him... I am sure they won't mind me posting a link to their website for the pups- English Shepherd Puppies in the UK


Really pleased Rusty seems to be on the mend and everything crossed that you get a bitch pup.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh my word Toppa is a little stunner, he's looking so much more comfortable now, no longer little Mr Humptastic blur truly blossoming with you 

For the first time since my cold i felt full of energy this morning and proper full on giddy cantering was resumed. along with human and dog log leaping and much silliness. I was only slighty embarassed when a mountain biker appeared from nowhere and said "morning , nice day for it." I only skidded down one slope, mud surfing is a skill that needs more practise. Tink was a star and happily did some leg weaving, spins, twists jumping through arms etc in a wonderful flat area kept short by rabbits. only once pausing to munch upon a few rabbit bonbon :lol:

I used to beat myself up an awful lot about not fulfilling my potential now I'm getting better at lowering the expectations i have of myself... maybe too good... remembering to brush your hair before leaving the house is not really something that can be considered an achievement is it ?


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

Twiggy said:


> Whereabouts are you roughly? I know many trainers and clubs all over the UK so may be able to suggest someone.


Harlow, Essex


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh my word Toppa is a little stunner, he's looking so much more comfortable now, no longer little Mr Humptastic blur truly blossoming with you
> 
> For the first time since my cold i felt full of energy this morning and proper full on giddy cantering was resumed. along with human and dog log leaping and much silliness. I was only slighty embarassed when a mountain biker appeared from nowhere and said "morning , nice day for it." I only skidded down one slope, mud surfing is a skill that needs more practise. Tink was a star and happily did some leg weaving, spins, twists jumping through arms etc in a wonderful flat area kept short by rabbits. only once pausing to munch upon a few rabbit bonbon :lol:
> 
> *I used to beat myself up an awful lot about not fulfilling my potential now I'm getting better at lowering the expectations i have of myself... maybe too good... remembering to brush your hair before leaving the house is not really something that can be considered an achievement is it ?*




Or when you get to my age just waking up in the morning and thinking I'm still alive....


----------



## kat&molly

MS-A bizarre encounter with Busters owner. You think he was hungover but cant afford to feed his dog. Your OH was very good though. If someone said to us they were giving up their dog, my OH would stick his fingers in MY ears singing La la la laaa.

LO- what a scare for you again. You're right though its rewarding for him, can you escort him in the garden ?

IM- I might film the target training in the next couple of days. We aren't the tidiest of workers , me and my girly, I get things wrong and Moll can be very erm exuberant. I'll check your thread in a minute.

Nikki- Good to hear Rusty's still doing well.

Sailor- I love Toppa, he doesn't look happy to be leaving does he. I hope you can sort this recall problem.

Took Evie up through the village, one house has 3 barky dogs- 1 always runs out at us which she doesn't like. I told the dog to bugger off and a teenage lad came and shouted for it to get in. That upset her. 
I was a bit mean today , as the dog had gone I walked her back down the same road and back home. She isn't happy or completely comfortable but she's coping. Might start her on Valerian from tomorrow.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Oh my word Toppa is a little stunner, he's looking so much more comfortable now, no longer little Mr Humptastic blur truly blossoming with you
> 
> For the first time since my cold i felt full of energy this morning and proper
> full on giddy cantering was resumed. along with human and dog log leaping and much silliness. I was only slighty embarassed when a mountain biker appeared from nowhere and said "morning , nice day for it." I only skidded down one slope, mud surfing is a skill that needs more practise. Tink was a star and happily did some leg weaving, spins, twists jumping through arms etc in a wonderful flat area kept short by rabbits. only once pausing to munch upon a few rabbit bonbon :lol:
> 
> I used to beat myself up an awful lot about not fulfilling my potential now I'm getting better at lowering the expectations i have of myself... maybe too good... remembering to brush your hair before leaving the house is not really something that can be considered an achievement is it ?


Glad you're feeling better. Rabbit bon bon.:laugh:
And jumping through arms. wow. We need to see.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Glad you're feeling better. Rabbit bon bon.:laugh:
> *And jumping through arms. wow. We need to see.*




And guess who was the first handler to perform that move in competition in the UK....


----------



## Guest

K&M toiletting purposes are escorted via the mekuti lead. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> Harlow, Essex


Well off the top of my head I believe Harlow DTC is still going but don't know what their methods are like these days.

There is also Thurrock DTC and Elm Park DTC (all KC registered).

Leave it with me, I'll email a friend who lives in Harlow.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> And guess who was the first handler to perform that move in competition in the UK....


You. Dont suppose you've got it on film?


----------



## MollySmith

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> Harlow, Essex


That's where I work - at Pearson! Well until 19th Feb anyway!

Our trainer is Wuff Dog Training and she's in Cambridge. Bit of a trek but she's really good.

And look at my dot! It was red because I was being invisible when viewing threads apparently, not that I realised I had that option. Apparently it's pink not red according to mods. Who knew? Anyway my good manners are restored.


----------



## Werehorse

We've just got back in from a 12.5 mile run-walk (mostly walk) vaguely around Crummock water and Buttermere, a bit of a detour from the actual around the lake bit to take in Rannerdale (the valley of sheep death) and Mosedale (the most boggiestest place on the planet, maybe, specialising particularly in freezing cold icey bog that make it so you can't feel your feet once you get to the other side). It was WET. And WINDY. And BRILLIANT.  Dogs were good boys, totally ignoring even quite close up sheep and generally being well-behaved.

I got a dog on a log photo too. 

I feel slightly headachey and sick now. :lol: And I'm craving crisps. 

Sailor - have just started the change over with the meal they have just had (handful of Fishmongers in a slightly less than normal portion of Burns) so it'll be a couple of days before I see if there are going to be bumsplosions.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sailor, Spencer doesn't often use any of his beds, he prefers a coat or towel on the floor  Toppa's looking great, hope you manage to get his recall sorted out. Something we're still working on with Spencer, most of the time it's not bad but sometimes it's non existent.

Still got a whiny, pacing dog here. No focus from him when we're outside at all now. He's not running off or even wandering further but his nose is glued to the ground and he has no interest in treats or toys. I'm really, really hoping it is a bitch in season, at least that'll only last a few weeks! All this only started when we met his friend on the field last weekend :mad2:


----------



## Thorne

-Purpleskyes: Thinking of you at the moment, really hope things get better for you soon.
-K&M: Now that's an inventive use for a stapler!
-WhatWouldSidDo: Good luck finding a new training club.
-F&F: Sounds like you've really been through the mill with training classes, hope the new one is as good as it sounds.
-Dogless: Really pleased you've had a good day with the dogs! Good boys  Hope you feel better in yourself soon.
-MollySmith: Interesting encounter! Will wait with baited breath to hear about what becomes of Buster.
-Izzysmummy: Love the photos, looks like a great walk (despite the scary dog gate )
-Nicki85: Still crossing my fingers at the moment, both for Rusty continuing to improve and for lots of ES bitches!
-LO: What a cheeky bugger, very pleased you caught him and am impressed that you still got to work on time! Certainly a different way to start the day...
-Sailor: Toppa sounds like such a little character, your posts about him always make me smile. Hoping the recall falls into place soon.
-MV: What a fab walk, I have such vivid mental images of you playing and training with Tink.
-Werehorse: If I'd just ran-walked 12.5 miles I'd probably be dead as opposed to sick and headachey, good going!
-Twiggy: Rather impressed that you pioneered the jumping through arms, sometimes I regret having Labs because they're too big and clumsy for me to want to try it 
-Sarah1983: Has Spen been talking to Scooter? They sound like mirror images of each other and I hope for both our sakes that they're back to normal soon.

Don't feel quite as coldy today but still low, hopefully the emergence of sunshine and longer days will help ease that.

Had an interesting walk today, went past Breeze's former home to see if the kennels were still standing. They very much are! The kennel yards look fairly untouched from what I can see from the road but the house is definitely lived in and looking smarter. No barking so think they're standing empty which is a bit of a shame, it looked dead and spooky with no activity there.

Despite going out after 4 when it was getting dusky there were still some bangs which unsettled Breeze, who tried her hedge-diving act. Fortunately a gallop through a black boggy field took her mind off them and she was much more relaxed afterwards.
Scooter's still onlead because we had some fairly serious tracking on the way out. Lovely focus coming home but didn't want to risk losing him in the dark. Wish we had a big enclosed field to let him off in, thankfully our garden is big enough for a good run!

Met some ponies which Scooter ignored, one was very interested in Breeze so they had a quick nose sniff then it followed us along the field  After our last dog I'm so pleased that S&B are "horseproof", makes several of our walks a lot easier than with horse-hating Aysha.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted....


----------



## MollySmith

Leam1307 said:


> Well abit of a downer post here, im ready to hold my hands up with Deeks im afraid.
> 
> We have constant barking from about 5pm until 2am nearly every night, with a few barking sessions through the day too. I had spoke to the rescues behaviourist about it who said we were giving him too much exercise but after just two days on his new walking schedule he is back to tearing up the house including ripping chunks of plaster off the walls and his barking is worse (hes also started to *sing* again which he hasnt done since the first few days we got him)
> 
> Added to the fact that when out of the kitchen he has started to chase the cats and if i keep him on his leads in the house he goes into nutty mode of howling and jumping/flipping over everywhere trying to get the lead off and has landed on the floor more than a few times upside down. (wooden floors and he makes some crack when he lands on them head first)
> 
> Im just dreding the day the police turn up at my door as my neighbours on one side, who we dont get on with anyway, have hinted that this will happen if he doesnt stop. I dont want that to happen, i like where i live and dont want to cause problems. Added to the fact that Deeks very obviously isnt happy about something (he even left his food this morning and tonight to stand at the door and bark, he did eat it eventually though) Its not fair on him being kept in the kitchen either, hes in there way too long on his own i think but i just cant cope with him. I hold my hands up and say i made a mistake in taking him on, i stupidly didnt think it would be any different from a rescue dog from say dogs trust etc, it never entered my mind the problems he may have with not being used to a house added with the normal issues of an adolescent dog.  Just feel so crappy about it but its causing problems between me and OH too as in "will you shut YOUR bl**dy dog up and i dont want that either. so going to do what i think is best for all of us and see if the rescue can find him another home.
> 
> Sorry for putting this here, just needed to tell someone.


I just wanted to say I am so sorry. I don't blame you for thinking this way as you do stand to lose a lot - your house and your OH so you sound like you've been thinking it over a lot. I don't know that I can offer any words of comfort or advice, I wish I could but I can empathise with that frustration of an adolescent dog. Molly was awful enough but to have one that is not used to a home must be a huge challenge. You must be exhausted.

I expect you've already done the vet check to see if there is a health reason etc so I won't suggest that. Do you think the behaviourist might come to see Deeks in his home environment if they haven't already?


----------



## Nicki85

Leam- sorry to hear you are having such a tough time :-( I don't know about your situation or dog but it sounds like you have just taken him on from a rescue? What breed is he? What is his routine? How long have you had him?
When I first rehomed Rusty he could not be left at all without panicking and barking/ scratching/ biting the door... thank fully this improved and he rarely barks now.

Thorne- sounds like you had a good day with the dogs? Did Breeze used to live in kennels? She sounds like a very sweet girl. (Sorry, I don't know her story either!)


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh my word Toppa is a little stunner, he's looking so much more comfortable now, no longer little Mr Humptastic blur truly blossoming with you
> 
> For the first time since my cold i felt full of energy this morning and proper full on giddy cantering was resumed. along with human and dog log leaping and much silliness. I was only slighty embarassed when a mountain biker appeared from nowhere and said "morning , nice day for it." I only skidded down one slope, mud surfing is a skill that needs more practise. Tink was a star and happily did some leg weaving, spins, twists jumping through arms etc in a wonderful flat area kept short by rabbits. only once pausing to munch upon a few rabbit bonbon :lol:
> 
> I used to beat myself up an awful lot about not fulfilling my potential now I'm getting better at lowering the expectations i have of myself... maybe too good... *remembering to brush your hair before leaving the house is not really something that can be considered an achievement is it ?*


I really hope that it is..... But...Wow....Miss Tinks sounds like an acrobatic superstar we MUST see video soon. I am so very excited about seeing you at Crufts in a year or two...wonder what we'll have on our supporters' sweatshirts hmmmm...."Miss Tinks!! What are you working on?????" on the front "THIS!" on the back .



Leam1307 said:


> Well abit of a downer post here, im ready to hold my hands up with Deeks im afraid.
> 
> We have constant barking from about 5pm until 2am nearly every night, with a few barking sessions through the day too. I had spoke to the rescues behaviourist about it who said we were giving him too much exercise but after just two days on his new walking schedule he is back to tearing up the house including ripping chunks of plaster off the walls and his barking is worse (hes also started to *sing* again which he hasnt done since the first few days we got him)
> 
> Added to the fact that when out of the kitchen he has started to chase the cats and if i keep him on his leads in the house he goes into nutty mode of howling and jumping/flipping over everywhere trying to get the lead off and has landed on the floor more than a few times upside down. (wooden floors and he makes some crack when he lands on them head first)
> 
> Im just dreding the day the police turn up at my door as my neighbours on one side, who we dont get on with anyway, have hinted that this will happen if he doesnt stop. I dont want that to happen, i like where i live and dont want to cause problems. Added to the fact that Deeks very obviously isnt happy about something (he even left his food this morning and tonight to stand at the door and bark, he did eat it eventually though) Its not fair on him being kept in the kitchen either, hes in there way too long on his own i think but i just cant cope with him. *I hold my hands up and say i made a mistake in taking him on*, i stupidly didnt think it would be any different from a rescue dog from say dogs trust etc, it never entered my mind the problems he may have with not being used to a house added with the normal issues of an adolescent dog.  Just feel so crappy about it but its causing problems between me and OH too as in "will you shut YOUR bl**dy dog up and i dont want that either. so going to do what i think is best for all of us and see if the rescue can find him another home.
> 
> Sorry for putting this here, just needed to tell someone.


Right; I will most likely get slated totally by everyone and you won't like it either - but I think the mistake was in getting a puppy too. I would say take the pup back to the breeder - but as they aren't a good one I suspect that they wouldn't take her back or would resell without care. Being realistic I would think that the chance of getting a good forever home would be much higher for a cute pup without issues than for Deeks and he was with you first....so I would love to see all your time and energy go into Deeks and hear about a rescue finding pup a lovely home....


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## Leam1307

deleted ...


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## Dogless

Sailor - I LOVE Toppa as much as Evie I think - fabulous photos and just the right, crazy character for your house  .

Thorne - I am pleased that you have had a better day.

L/O - have you considered making money from your escapologist - clear box with Zand in closed with padlocked chains? That kind of jazz? "Roll up, Roll up, witness the amaaazzzzinnngggg Zander".....

Good second walks with the CHs - separate again. Rudi - roo met an 8 month cocker spaniel. The woman came out with a "sorry, he's a puppy, bit bouncy for your older dog etc" speech. Once I got a word in edgeways and told her Rudi was 4 months and just as playful she was  . Play growling with bows and bounces but no uncertain growling from the LCH . 

Training walk for the BCH - sailed past a few dogs, did some 'hide', heelwork and sniffing about .

So...my head is giving me grief, but my boys are not :001_wub::001_wub:. Touch wood!! Unless you count Rudi parading a toy snake around whilst Kilo launches ambushes from the sofa.....


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## Leam1307

deleted ...


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> Sailor - I LOVE Toppa as much as Evie I think - fabulous photos and just the right, crazy character for your house  .
> 
> Thorne - I am pleased that you have had a better day.
> 
> L/O - have you considered making money from your escapologist - clear box with Zand in closed with padlocked chains? That kind of jazz? "Roll up, Roll up, witness the amaaazzzzinnngggg Zander".....
> 
> Good second walks with the CHs - separate again. Rudi - roo met an 8 month cocker spaniel. The woman came out with a "sorry, he's a puppy, bit bouncy for your older dog etc" speech. Once I got a word in edgeways and told her Rudi was 4 months and just as playful she was  . Play growling with bows and bounces but no uncertain growling from the LCH .
> 
> Training walk for the BCH - sailed past a few dogs, did some 'hide', heelwork and sniffing about .
> 
> So...my head is giving me grief, but my boys are not :001_wub::001_wub:. Touch wood!! Unless you count Rudi parading a toy snake around whilst Kilo launches ambushes from the sofa.....


DOGLESS, DID YOU JUST MEET YOUR FIRST EVER CONSIDERATE OWNER?? :lol:

And yes, I'd make HOOOOOOGE amounts of lolly from houndini.

I'd love love love to take him to agility one day. But there would be other dogs there. And we know how AWESOME other dogs are, don't we??


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## kat&molly

Leam- I thought you were making progress? 
Can you tell us how his day goes-routine wise and is he on a good food?


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> DOGLESS, DID YOU JUST MEET YOUR FIRST EVER CONSIDERATE OWNER?? :lol:
> 
> And yes, I'd make HOOOOOOGE amounts of lolly from houndini.
> 
> I'd love love love to take him to agility one day. But there would be other dogs there. And we know how AWESOME other dogs are, don't we??


Nope...I met 3 today .


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## Beth17

What a great day for you and the boys Dogless, Love the idea of Kilo ambushing Rudi 

Thorne glad you have had a better day.

Sailor Toppa is such a cutie :yesnod:

MV Can't wait to see acrobatics from miss Tink.

Nicki fingers crossed there's a little girl for you.

Leam I presume you've tried a behaviourist that lives near you? if not I'd try that first if possible. He sounds like a hyperactive teenager, is it possible the new pup has actually magnified the problems?

Lovely day for us again. Lovely and sunny and good separate walks for the boys. Sam's recall and focus is doing really well, today he could see other dogs fairly close and although had a look he was far more interested in running around with me and playing tug. I may look like a lunatic but it works like a dream.
I do feel a bit mean that I'm getting him so focussed on me and his toy instead of letting him play with every tom, dick and harry; silly I know as he does get to play with others just not all the time.


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## Werehorse

Leam - barking all night because he's been walked too much?  Never heard that before. Have you been in touch with a different behaviourist perhaps... check out the Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors and see if there's one in your area. They are all modern science-based behaviourists as far as I am aware. I think you need someone to assess and help him and you in person.

Don't beat yourself up for getting him in the first place - from what I've seen in terms of "adverts" for Romanian etc rescues I don't think they are explicit enough about the problems you could be taking on. I think, given the average history of a street dog, that they are a big ask for pet homes and I don't think this is generally made obvious.  It's something that concerns me about the practice. It doesn't sound like you've had adequate support from the rescue either.

I think getting the pup as well, although obviously done with the best of intentions, probably hasn't helped (puppies are stressful at the best of times  ).

If I was in your shoes I would be contacting a behaviourist that can help you in person ASAP.  You're right, you don't want the police round or problems with OH but perhaps getting some professional help in can prevent those things without having to send either Deeks or Molly into rescue?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I really hope that it is..... But...Wow....Miss Tinks sounds like an acrobatic superstar we MUST see video soon. I am so very excited about seeing you at Crufts in a year or two...wonder what we'll have on our supporters' sweatshirts hmmmm...."Miss Tinks!! What are you working on?????" on the front "THIS!" on the back .


While i find this incredibly sweet :blush: I am going to continue to manage your expectations, She may never be more than a legend in our back garden :lol:
If i work hard in a couple of years I might invite you all to the local school fete  :lol: :lol:

Think we might start nice and small with some best trick classes at the local dog shows, to see how she handles things and make sure I dont' have a meltdown and trip over myself... too much... more than usual.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> If I was in your shoes I would be contacting a behaviourist that can help you in person ASAP.  You're right, you don't want the police round or problems with OH but perhaps getting some professional help in can prevent those things without having to send either Deeks or Molly into rescue?


Absolutely; seeing either in rescue isn't a good outcome, would be lovely to hear that both were doing well soon!


----------



## Guest

I JUST CLICKER TRAINED SOMETHING SUCCESSFULLY!

Zand has a knitted mouse. He now knows what 'mouse' is and nudges it with his nose when you say "Mouse". *WOO*


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I JUST CLICKER TRAINED SOMETHING SUCCESSFULLY!
> 
> Zand has a knitted mouse. He now knows what 'mouse' is and nudges it with his nose when you say "Mouse". *WOO*


Very good . I would be even more impressed if you'd trained him to actually knit the mouse . Sorry....I am in a stupid mood :sosp:.


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## MollySmith

Leam when the behavourist said a collar what did they mean? Not a prong or a shock? 

I absolutely agree that you must be shattered but I'll be honest, I see what you mean about wanting to go to work to stay away from him. I get that as Molly just didn't settle at all. We couldn't walk in our back garden for fear of her launching herself at us. And we did think what to do with her after group classes were awful and we met an idiot trainer who promised the world and delivered a prong collar. We met Cath who has been amazing and it's saved Molly from rescue. She comes to our house so she saw how hyper Molly was and has worked with her in real life situations. Facebook and phone is not a replacement for that at all. 

I don't mean to say that people or dogs can perform miracles, it maybe that Deeks isn't right for you but I know that if I hadn't called in Cath, I wouldn't be here with Molly now. And my life would be poorer for it.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> You. Dont suppose you've got it on film?


Yes I have. Rugby DTC, who were the organisers, produced an official tape that you could purchase. Trouble is it's a tape and even if it was on CD I wouldn't have a clue how to get it on here...!!

Remember it's taken me long enough to work out how to use the video facility on my camera and that was a huge achievement....


----------



## Leam1307

deleted...


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Twiggy

Twiggy said:


> Well off the top of my head I believe Harlow DTC is still going but don't know what their methods are like these days.
> 
> There is also Thurrock DTC and Elm Park DTC (all KC registered).
> 
> Leave it with me, I'll email a friend who lives in Harlow.


I've had an email back from my friend in Harlow to confirm that Harlow DTC is still running and there is another club in Harlow as well, but neither use clicker type methods I'm afraid.

I'm almost certain there is someone who runs classes in that area using positive modern methods but I can't remember the name at the moment.


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## foxyrockmeister

Soooooo many more pages since I was last on here :crazy:

I hope all the poorly dogs are much better today.

Dogless - so sorry to hear your head is still being mean to you but sounds like you've had a fantastic day with the concrete heads :thumbup:

MV - so glad you're all safe after your scare on the roads, sound like a total idiot, thank goodness for your OH and good driving. Loving to hear that you're well enough to start prancing again, looking forward to joining Dogless in the MV and Tink appreciation club at crufts 

Leam - So sorry to hear you're having such a tough time with Deeks, I don't really have anything useful to add to what others have already said but I hope you can work something out

PurpleSkyes - Sorry to hear things are not good in the OH department, like Dogless says we've all been there and it sucks, I hope you sort things out one way or another soon. Have a big smooch from that gorgeous boy Hudson 

Sailor - I completely adore Toppa, he makes me smile everytime I see him, he sounds like such a little character :lol:

MS - looking forward to hearing if there are any developments on the Buster front 

Sorry, if I've forgotten anyone but please refrain from stapling dogs, falling over in public, or feeding your dogs with chips and salt and vinegar :nono:

All good here, we've had Christmas today!!  We were all so ill at the time that we had to cancel a big family get together so we've had it today instead. Had all the old's here, Pickles behave impeccably after the initial excitement of all these people in our house  
I made Beef wellington for the first time ever and don't mind if I do say so myself it was bloody luuuuuuurvly :thumbup:

Hubby walked Pickles this morning as I was up to eyeballs in food prep and housework but he brought home two very clean, dry dogs so I have my suspisions that they did infact not go for a walk at all but went down the pub!!! 
I hate not walking them but needs must. We had a fab long walk yesterday though as part of resolution discovery mission, I think I've bored you all already though as no comments  It's only week 4.... Oh dear I think I'm going to be talking to myself for the next 48 weeks :lol:

We've been improving with 'back door bedlam' combination of leads on and going out individually and they seem to be getting the message :thumbup:


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## Werehorse

Scotland | Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors

See if you can get in touch with anyone from here. I don't think a decent behaviourist would suggest an aversive collar as the only solution.


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## Dogless

FRM..."Back Door Bedlam" . SO many jokes, all involving porn stars and music that goes bad a bap a dum..... . Pleased it's going well for you though....

Clean Pickles? Hubby definitely pulled a fast one. Definitely!! Oh...and Merry Christmas .


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## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> FRM*..."Back Door Bedlam" . SO many jokes, all involving porn stars and music that goes bad a bap a dum..... . Pleased it's going well for you though....*
> 
> Clean Pickles? Hubby definitely pulled a fast one. Definitely!! Oh...and Merry Christmas .


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## Werehorse

foxyrockmeister said:


> I hate not walking them but needs must. We had a fab long walk yesterday though as part of resolution discovery mission, *I think I've bored you all already though as no comments  It's only week 4.... Oh dear I think I'm going to be talking to myself for the next 48 weeks* :lol:
> 
> We've been improving with 'back door bedlam' combination of leads on and going out individually and they seem to be getting the message :thumbup:


Oh dear! I meant to leave a comment but must have forgotten.  Sorrys. "likes" make me a lazy commenter! I was thinking the same about my Wainwright bagging thread. :lol: I'll be talking to myself before long. Well maybe Dogless and mv might keep leaving comments if I'm nice and provide dogs on trigpoint pictures. :lol:

Well done on the beef wellington and the improvement in back door bedlam!


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## Beth17

Leam does he have separation anxiety at all? Does he get mental stimulation as opposed to just play and exercise?

It sounds like the trainers you have seen haven't been too helpful at all.

Happy Christmas FRM


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Oh dear! I meant to leave a comment but must have forgotten.  Sorrys. "likes" make me a lazy commenter! I was thinking the same about my Wainwright bagging thread. :lol: I'll be talking to myself before long. Well maybe Dogless and mv might keep leaving comments if I'm nice and provide dogs on trigpoint pictures. :lol:
> 
> Well done on the beef wellington and the improvement in back door bedlam!


I meant to comment too...... Sorry FRM .


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## foxyrockmeister

Werehorse said:


> Oh dear! I meant to leave a comment but must have forgotten.  Sorrys. "likes" make me a lazy commenter! I was thinking the same about my Wainwright bagging thread. :lol: I'll be talking to myself before long. Well maybe Dogless and mv might keep leaving comments if I'm nice and provide dogs on trigpoint pictures. :lol:
> 
> Well done on the beef wellington and the improvement in back door bedlam!


Ooooh has there been more wainwright bagging? I hadn't seen the update, off to go and gaze enviously at the pics now...........................

Perhaps we can make a pact - I'll comment on your next 200 wainwrights and you comment on my next 48 IOW walks and then at least we'll have one friend each even if everyone is sick to death of us :lol:


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## MollySmith

Leam1307 said:


> MollySmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> Leam when the behavourist said a collar what did they mean? Not a prong or a shock?
> 
> 
> 
> No they meant either a spray or one of those vibrating/sound ones, but they all say you cant use them with another dog in the vicinty as if the other dog barks then the one wearing the collar can get sprayed for nothing also with the sound ones, the other dog also hears it, which isnt fair.
> 
> 
> 
> You and Deeks really sound like you've been let down by lots of people on this. I think a vibrating collar is a cop out and there must be a lot that a professional can do, at least to advise you on a routine and visit the poor fella. Honestly, I'm cross for you.
> 
> It maybe that two nice longish walks suit him better? Molly was climbing the furniture as we lead walked her a lot. When we introduced tuggies and took her off lead to meet other dogs, she settled a lot more. I do think it's about seeing Deeks in situ. I hope you can find someone, he's had a lot of upheaval in his little life.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> DOGLESS, DID YOU JUST MEET YOUR FIRST EVER CONSIDERATE OWNER?? :lol:
> 
> And yes, I'd make HOOOOOOGE amounts of lolly from houndini.
> 
> I'd love love love to take him to agility one day. But there would be other dogs there. And we know how AWESOME other dogs are, don't we??


If you could find a suitable agility class I'd give it a go. If Zander really enjoyed it there is every possibility he might start ignoring the other dogs. On the other hand he may not but might be worth a try.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> While i find this incredibly sweet :blush: I am going to continue to manage your expectations, She may never be more than a legend in our back garden :lol:
> If i work hard in a couple of years I might invite you all to the local school fete  :lol: :lol:
> 
> Think we might start nice and small with some best trick classes at the local dog shows, to see how she handles things and make sure I dont' have a meltdown and trip over myself... too much... more than usual.


It was the HTM Crufts qualifying competitions in Warwickshire today.

My sister's friend got through...


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> What a great day for you and the boys Dogless, Love the idea of Kilo ambushing Rudi
> 
> Thorne glad you have had a better day.
> 
> Sailor Toppa is such a cutie :yesnod:
> 
> MV Can't wait to see acrobatics from miss Tink.
> 
> Nicki fingers crossed there's a little girl for you.
> 
> Leam I presume you've tried a behaviourist that lives near you? if not I'd try that first if possible. He sounds like a hyperactive teenager, is it possible the new pup has actually magnified the problems?
> 
> Lovely day for us again. Lovely and sunny and good separate walks for the boys. Sam's recall and focus is doing really well, today he could see other dogs fairly close and although had a look he was far more interested in running around with me and playing tug. I may look like a lunatic but it works like a dream.
> *I do feel a bit mean that I'm getting him so focussed on me and his toy instead of letting him play with every tom, dick and harry; silly I know as he does get to play with others just not all the time.*




I don't think there is anything remotely silly in what your doing. Eminently
sensible IMO and a great shame more owners don't interact with their dogs.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Very good . I would be even more impressed if you'd trained him to actually knit the mouse . Sorry....I am in a stupid mood :sosp:.


One of my friends from 'up north (Geordie land)' came down to a southern show with her white GSD. Judge said "dogs name please", friend said "Mouse". Judge said "Moose, that's a funny name". Friend said "no Mouse" - it went on for ages before we intervened....


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## Sarah1983

Just had a weird one with Spen, he got all frightened and for the first time in months turned into a Labrador fountain. And I have absolutely no idea what upset him  He did wander into the kitchen just before it but he's never been punished or shouted at for that, just calmly removed so not sure that would trigger that sort of reaction. And found out the Lab in the next bock is acting the exact same way as Spencer so it looks like the guess of bitch in season is right.

Leam, I'd be looking for a different behaviourist personally. A spray collar isn't the answer imo. That's not addressing the reason for his behaviour, it's just punishing the symptoms. I take it he's had a thorough vet check? If not then that would be my first step to ensure there's nothing physically wrong. Is there any sort of pattern to his barking? Any particular time it starts?  Anything that seems to set him off? Does he do it no matter what room he's in? You say he's been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, why is that? You also say you don't like him very much, chances are that's going to be having an effect on him too.


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## Werehorse

Moonviolet... for you!


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Moonviolet... for you!


I don't know how I missed your Wainwright thread - fabulous photos and 
I'm a massive Alfred Wainwright fan.


----------



## Beth17

Leam if the barking is only when you go out of the room, and I know it gets used as a label a lot, but is it possible it could be separation anxiety?


----------



## Dogless

Leam, have you tried a crate (door open as you had no luck door shut) but covered and made as dark and secure as possible? Maybe in front of the back door, but facing away so that he can't look out? Have you tried sleeping downstairs in close proximity for a while maybe? Maybe treat it as SA?

Sarah; poor Spendog, after talking to the lady with the sibes today I am dreading the one's upcoming season as they are only next door but one....so about 15 - 20m away garden to garden .


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Sarah; poor Spendog, after talking to the lady with the sibes today I am dreading the one's upcoming season as they are only next door but one....so about 15 - 20m away garden to garden .


That must be frustrating, I'm so glad Oscar has never really shown an inclination and Sam doesn't seem to have discovered girls yet. Although the poor lad will be being done within the next couple of months due to rescue policy so hopefully I won't have to worry too much.


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Leam if the barking is only when you go out of the room, and I know it gets used as a label a lot, but is it possible it could be separation anxiety?


I'm wondering the same to be honest. Or just a symptom of him spending so much time in the kitchen and not liking it. Another thought, has his eyesight been checked? I was reading about PRA for someone the other day and that generally starts off with problems as it gets dark. Do you know what breed/mix he is? I know some breeds are prone to it.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah; poor Spendog, after talking to the lady with the sibes today I am dreading the one's upcoming season as they are only next door but one....so about 15 - 20m away garden to garden .


Oh no, that won't be fun at all :nonod: Spen really isn't too bad, a bit whiny, pacing and unsettled but he's not shown any inclination to take off and if told to lie down will do. For about 10 minutes anyway


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh no, that won't be fun at all :nonod: Spen really isn't too bad, a bit whiny, pacing and unsettled but he's not shown any inclination to take off and if told to lie down will do. For about 10 minutes anyway


No; Kilo wasn't good when my colleague brought his in season bitch to work - I had to pay for the dog boarder to have Kilo whilst she was still in season to save him the stress.


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## Leam1307

deleted...


----------



## MollySmith

I feel sure that there is lot could be done for Deeks but I imagine the worry of the neighbours + a good pup with Molly + lack of help isn't equalling great right now. 

It def worth exploring more, have you tried recording your voices and playing them on a loop at night? Starting crate training from scratch? Popping an old jumper in there? And even moving cats elsewhere in the house so Deeks can be near you at night for a while then gradually move him further away. I feel that making him be alone is not helping him be successful, I'm far from an expert mind you. It could be that the fridge or a boiler might worry him or if he can hear next door rattling about. It might disturb him. Molly has her bed on the landing and we have a baby gate on our door so she can hear us but not leap about on our bed plus the landing is quiet.

Maybe post in chat or on training?


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## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Moonviolet... for you!


Awww Hugo he looks super adorable :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:


----------



## Beth17

That or put his barking on cue and reward for when he is quiet gradually increasing the time he needs to be quiet for before he gets a reward.


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## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Awww Hugo he looks super adorable :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:


He is :001_wub: He's a bit of a funny looking little thing with his MASSIVE ears and tiny skinny long legs but he is just so gorgeous in my eyes. :001_wub: :001_wub:


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> He is :001_wub: He's a bit of a funny looking little thing with his MASSIVE ears and tiny skinny long legs but he is just so gorgeous in my eyes. :001_wub: :001_wub:


I agree with you he's such a lovely earnest looking boy.:001_wub:


----------



## Thorne

Nicki85 said:


> Thorne- sounds like you had a good day with the dogs? Did Breeze used to live in kennels? She sounds like a very sweet girl. (Sorry, I don't know her story either!)


Thank you, she is a sweetie! Yes, she was a breeding dog that lived in kennels until we rehomed her aged 7, her story in brief is here: http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...-home-dog-lets-see-them-2.html#post1062652798. Think she prefers home life, she's certainly making the most of her retirement.

Leam, I really don't know that I can say anything to help, I just hope things get better for you and the dogs soon. Definitely agree with those who've suggested sourcing a good, accredited behaviourist who can help you in person. Even the best trainer in the world can't get the full picture through phone conversations.

Dogless - Dogs really are the best medicine aren't they?  Back door bedlam though..  not a connection I'd have made on my own!

Beth17 - Great stuff with the toy work, sounds like it's working so definitely more than worth looking like a loon for.

MV - Looking forward to the village fete!

LO - Yay for mouse!

FRM - So nice to hear that you've had a good belated Christmas, and that the Pickles were on best behaviour. Never had beef wellington but it's on my list of things to try! Bit ambitious for me to make though 

Sarah1983 - Poor Spen, and poor you! Really hope things are resolved soon.


Dogless said:


> Sarah; poor Spendog, after talking to the lady with the sibes today I am dreading the one's upcoming season as they are only next door but one....so about 15 - 20m away garden to garden .


We used to have an unspayed Beagle 2 gardens away who would howl when she was in season, and Scooter used to answer! He's always more sniffy when a bitch is in season around here but I don't miss the fence-pacing, crying and constant teeth-chattering in our own home. Good luck Dogless!

Thinking about Scooter's in-home behaviour, today he's not shown any significant interest in Breeze; no following, ear/bum sniffing, gazing lovingly at, air-humping. He seems more settled in general so fingers crossed that the worst is over!
Never saw any of this until he was about 6, so while I'm no fan of early neutering I'd be less keen to keep any future male dogs intact after seeing how nutty Scooter goes over girls


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> FRM..."Back Door Bedlam" . SO many jokes, all involving porn stars and music that goes bad a bap a dum..... . Pleased it's going well for you though....
> 
> Clean Pickles? Hubby definitely pulled a fast one. Definitely!! Oh...and Merry Christmas .


That made me laugh. Scruff has a terrible habit of trying to lick us to death- so I kept saying to her' No Licky licky' -OH said it sounded like it came from a certain type of film, I had to stop saying it and just put up with it now.

LO- well done on the clicker and the mouse.

Beth- Sam's doing really well.

Leam- I hope you can sort something for Deeks barking , before Molly starts behaving more like a puppy. I wonder if Valerian or Rescue Remedy could help- or Stress Less as I think Dogless said a higher dose can be given to start.
Caught Evie just in time last night as she was about to snaffle a packet of Jaffa Cakes.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> He is :001_wub: He's a bit of a funny looking little thing with his MASSIVE ears and tiny skinny long legs but he is just so gorgeous in my eyes. :001_wub: :001_wub:


How dare you say such a thing...!! Hugo is a very handsome chap.

I remember my sister having the raging giggles all the way from Sussex to a show in Norfolk, taking the mickey out of Twiggy every time she looked over the dog guard in the back of the car. She kept calling her ET.

She wasn't laughing a year later when Twiggy started beating her dogs and was rapidly winning her way through the classes.


----------



## Nicki85

Morning all!

Leam- just briefly read through your other posts and stuff... can't add much really except that you have only had Deeks since November(?), Molly for two weeks(?) and you also have a young cat that is also causing a bit of chaos. This is a short time to and you haven't had either of the dogs long enough for them to feel secure and the household settled.... any change upsets a dog be it the addition of a new pup or a change of house or even a change in your behavior (ie you may be spending more time with new pup etc.). You sound like you have a lot going on and not getting enough sleep always makes things feel even more desperate than they are. I know little (actually, nothing!) about Romanian street dogs but would think that they have had a completely different upbringing to most dogs in the UK and so need longer to get accustomed to living in a house with humans. I know my rescue Spaniel who has had a good start in his old home took a good 2-3 months to feel 100% comfortable and that was with a very stable and calm household (no changes to people/ animals). So, the only advice I can offer is that these things take time... not much help but reading through your situation it does seem that you have a lot of new additions/ young animals and it will take time for them to grow into decent adults! Do you take Deeks to any training classes? I would also second (or third!) the recommendation of finding a decent behaviorist (is there a good training club that can recommend one?) Lastly, does Deeks bark in the room when you are there? Does he listen if you ask him to be quiet? I would agree with MS about trying to sleep in the same room with him to comfort him. Could you pop round to your neighbours and explain what you are doing and that it won't last forever?

Thorne- Breeze is soooo sweet and I bet she loves her new life with you  Funny about un-nuetred males, Rusty is 16months now and has not been done and I have not noticed any strange behavior from him when it comes to bitches. I've never seen him hump or air hump either... I guess he may just be a little young but nope no reaction so far!

LO- aren't clickers great for teaching dogs odd things?! Rusty is funny as everything involves putting his paw on it... any object a nose touch is not enough! Must flatten it with his paw too....

Nothing to report here- Rusty is being looked after by Mum today as I am in London. QUite nice not to be watching his every move (I have been stressing about him being ill recently!).


----------



## Twiggy

Twiggy said:


> How dare you say such a thing...!! Hugo is a very handsome chap.
> 
> I remember my sister having the raging giggles all the way from Sussex to a show in Norfolk, taking the mickey out of Twiggy every time she looked over the dog guard in the back of the car. She kept calling her ET.
> 
> She wasn't laughing a year later when Twiggy started beating her dogs and was rapidly winning her way through the classes.


This is the love of my life in the main ring at Crufts 16 yrs ago. I've still got the blouse hanging in my wardrobe. I can't get in it but can't bear to part with it either:


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Morning all!
> 
> Nothing to report here- Rusty is being looked after by Mum today as I am in London. QUite nice not to be watching his every move (I have been stressing about him being ill recently!).


Do you get the blood results today? If so fingers crossed for a positive outcome.


----------



## Nicki85

I've asked Mum to give them a ring (hate calling people in the office....) she has rung but vets now in surgery so expecting a phonecall back when she is out. Have to admit I've been less than impressed with our vets this time around... we (my parents before...) have used the same vets for the last 25+ years but not impressed with their service this time round.


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## Freddie and frank

struggling to catch up with everything on here and get some work done, and i'm freezing cause the boiler has packed up.

anyway, my oh really enjoyed our walk yesterday with all three dogs :yesnod: i had bella in front and he had the boys. all well behaved. i've put freddie in a dogmatic cause it's so much easier to control his sniffing, which makes a more pleasent walk. he still gets to sniff and wee but not at every single lamp post.
frank was on lead past the ducks and swans so he was good, then off lead on the place we call rabbit hill, for obvious reasons. all good.

bella was the star this morning, on lead was great, off lead was brilliant. we met two tiny dogs, sorry not sure what they were,off lead and she went up to them slowly and more or less crawled the last bit to them.said hello and came when i called her.:001_wub: did lots of recalls with her and she was brilliant. my little star.
i really hope she stays this way. fingers crossed.

on lead walk with boys this morning was good too. having both on dogmatics gives me more confidence and it's only now and then that i need to correct them. liver treats are the best.:thumbup:

frank seems more settled now, not so down so perhaps bella's season affected him more than i thought or perhaps he had been missing his on lead walks with his big brother? i don't know.

twiggy, i know you've left me till last,no worries,  do you think anything like flyball would be good for him?


----------



## Izzysmummy

moonviolet said:


> While i find this incredibly sweet :blush: I am going to continue to manage your expectations, She may never be more than a legend in our back garden :lol:
> If i work hard in a couple of years I might invite you all to the local school fete  :lol: :lol:
> 
> Think we might start nice and small with some best trick classes at the local dog shows, to see how she handles things and make sure I dont' have a meltdown and trip over myself... too much... more than usual.


Awww, I was hoping to see you and Miss Tink on Britains Got Talent next year!! 



Twiggy said:


> Yes I have. Rugby DTC, who were the organisers, produced an official tape that you could purchase. Trouble is it's a tape and even if it was on CD I wouldn't have a clue how to get it on here...!!
> 
> Remember it's taken me long enough to work out how to use the video facility on my camera and that was a huge achievement....


Could you play the video and record whats showing on the TV screen using your camera, may not work but worth a go? Or Im sure Ive seen video to usb converters which would mean you could save straight to your computer? Then you will have a digital copy which you could back up and keep forever! And it means we can see it too :yesnod:

Leam, so sorry to hear of the problems you are having with Deeks, sounds like you have taken on a bit too much with 2 new dogs since November. With Deeks do you think he is hearing/seeing something or is it habbit? Something he had to do when he was living on the streets maybe to keep other dogs/animals from coming into his territory when it got dark or stealing his food? Is there something you can get which would stick on the outside of the windows to block his view to outside so he cant remove it? Do you leave a radio playing in the kitchen so he cant hear anthing outside? I would definitely look into a behaviourist who can come out and see his behaviour and give more specific advice. Another idea, could you give him a nice big meaty bone to chew on to keep him occupied so he gets out of the habbit of barking in the evening and learns to relax in his bed? Maybe try some massage in an evening before the behaviour usually starts? Another brief thought are you going into the room after he barks? Could it have become a kind of game?

All just random thoughts really, could be rubbish ?

After our explorations at Lyme park yesterday Izzy just had a little evening street walk then we were mean parents and left her for the evening and went to see Les Mis! It was great! Very long but I loved it and did shed a few tears ! This morning monkeydog had her usual morning run then came home and waited for breakfast time, not very patiently, I took a vid of her "give me breakfast now" technique, will try and upload it for you later! I was thinking of that "how subtle is your dog?" thread, conclusion.....about as subtle as a labrador to the head :ciappa: :lol:!


----------



## Freddie and frank

IM, loved the photo's yesterday. she's gorgeous.

and the subtle labrador thing.....bella brings her food bowl or kong to me each meal time


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

I've found this training club
Dog Training Clubs

The website says to take treats and a toy so I'm guessing they are using possitive methods. Think I'll pay them a visit


----------



## Beth17

We were adventurous this morning and went to check out a park that's only about 10mins walk away but I have never been there. Both boys walked lovely on lead and when we got there I was really pleased; it's gated at both ends with two poo bins and surrounded by houses so pretty secure for the deafie. There wasn't anyone in there so they got to go offlead and have a mad 20mins, although had forgotten their toy so they kept looking for that. It looks like quite a handy little park to use and I don't think it will get too busy during school hours so well chuffed :thumbup1:

It made me more determined to try and explore a bit more with them instead of going to the same few areas where I know they are allowed.

F&F sounds like a lovely walk yesterday, glad frank is happier now.

Twiggy what a lovely photo 

Nicki hope you have a good day and are able to relax and not worry about Rusty.

Subtle labradors :lol: I don't think I've ever met one.


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I've found this training club
> Dog Training Clubs
> 
> The website says to take treats and a toy so I'm guessing they are using possitive methods. Think I'll pay them a visit


That was the other club my friend mentioned yesterday. She's pretty sure it's not clicker type training though.

As you say, go and have a look without your dog initially, then you'll have a better idea. Kathy Woodger rings a bell somewhere.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> struggling to catch up with everything on here and get some work done, and i'm freezing cause the boiler has packed up.
> 
> anyway, my oh really enjoyed our walk yesterday with all three dogs :yesnod: i had bella in front and he had the boys. all well behaved. i've put freddie in a dogmatic cause it's so much easier to control his sniffing, which makes a more pleasent walk. he still gets to sniff and wee but not at every single lamp post.
> frank was on lead past the ducks and swans so he was good, then off lead on the place we call rabbit hill, for obvious reasons. all good.
> 
> bella was the star this morning, on lead was great, off lead was brilliant. we met two tiny dogs, sorry not sure what they were,off lead and she went up to them slowly and more or less crawled the last bit to them.said hello and came when i called her.:001_wub: did lots of recalls with her and she was brilliant. my little star.
> i really hope she stays this way. fingers crossed.
> 
> on lead walk with boys this morning was good too. having both on dogmatics gives me more confidence and it's only now and then that i need to correct them. liver treats are the best.:thumbup:
> 
> frank seems more settled now, not so down so perhaps bella's season affected him more than i thought or perhaps he had been missing his on lead walks with his big brother? i don't know.
> 
> *twiggy, i know you've left me till last,no worries,  do you think anything like flyball would be good for him?*


Any training that he really enjoys and where he interacts with you would be good. Certainly with all my daughters rescues training made all the difference. With some of them it took quite a long time but we always got there in the end.


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Awww, I was hoping to see you and Miss Tink on Britains Got Talent next year!!
> 
> *Could you play the video and record whats showing on the TV screen using your camera, may not work but worth a go? Or Im sure Ive seen video to usb converters which would mean you could save straight to your computer? Then you will have a digital copy which you could back up and keep forever! And it means we can see it too :yesnod:*
> 
> Hmm I'm not exactly a genius where IT is concerned. Hopefully when my sister is better she can do it for me.
> 
> She bought me a tape/DVD player thing and a camcorder about three years ago and patiently explained how it all worked. After several attempts every time she came to stay and I still hadn't got a clue, she got a tad ratty with me...LOL


----------



## Freddie and frank

what would be a good starting point with franks prey drive?


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## GingerRogers

Oh what a busy weekend on here 

I have had a lovely time. I did horses this weekend  with my dog walking friend, twas lovely and made me feel 11 years old with the smells. Her daughter in laws parents had gone away and forgot to ask the neighbour to look after them in time, it was too late, they were away too, so M said she would do it, she used to run a riding school and look after a string of polo ponies but she lost her nerve with them a few years back, so she just wanted the assistance as a confidence builder. The lovely bright Spring and cuddly furry little Willow were very polite and appreciative of their nicely mucked out stables and fresh grub 

Yesterday while I was out with M I was informed that hubby and Ginge had a training session  it involved watching an hour long program with dogs in   apparently she was ok! This is from a dog that attacked the telly when she saw someone dressed up as a dog in Neverland. I also took her round the bar next door last night to have a play with the Rudi and a sniff of Tamzin. R & T's owners said how much calmer she seemed  something is working. They had a proper good noisy terrier play with lots of growling, till Rudi started his sneezing , then Rudi went all submissive and rolled around on his back, so she sat on him , then he retired to the sofa for a rest (he had already had an hour playing with a bassettxsharpei pup , yes I did get that cross right ) so she jumped up and lay next to him and copied his submissive moves by waggling her legs in the air. She was brilliant, she had a little bark at him to encourage some play but stopped when I asked, so she got to sleep on the bed at hubbies request 

This morning I fancied a bit of a lie in but it seems she had other thoughts and brought me her squeaky egg 
So we had a great walk until I saw this chap coming who I am not very keen on, he has the occasionally muzzled border terrier and a golden lab but the BT seems to have disappeared and been replaced by a black lab this last week  he used to have a grey that just went one day as well. Any way I stepped into someones drive to keep out the way as I didn't really know which direction they were going to go when they reached us. The GL came charging round the corner and right up to the ninja, the GL didn't seem to be bothered by being barked at and kept coming back, as she has nipped its ear before, I felt I had to hold her back. The man appeared with the BL on lead and just said 'oh I have one like that' ................. and so 'WHY AREN'T YOU DOING SOMETHING YOU MUPPET' which I naturally didn't say . In the end I kind of shooed at it, flappy hand pushing at its face, all kind of feebly ineffective, and told it to go away and we just walked off. I wondered why I had bothered to get out the way 

Only to come face to face with my lovely Scottish friend A and her gorgeous little cocker Millie, I haven't seen her for ages, not since I ran away from her the day after we bit the terrier  I knew Millie would stay back till appropriate so I stopped and together we gazed down at the ginger one barking , A asked if she could give her a treat so I explained not while she was barking, so she shut up and she got the treat and we were able to have a chat and Millie came and politely said hello and she was able to tell me why she hadn't been out much (she is a fosterer and the last placement had gone pear shaped, so she had been feeling really down and I was the first person she had seen and spoken to about it in depth which was nice).

Then the lady who sees my behaviourist came along with her friend and the lurcher so I tried to hide behind a tree while they passed, which didn't really work as it wasn't a big tree, all the while the ninja is simultaneously lunging around it and biting my socks  I was a bit worried once they had passed as I didn't want her to transfer her frustration onto Millie but it was all OK she had a drink from a puddle and went off to sniff whatever Millie was sniffing till A told me Millie eats cat poo  

I really, really, do feel we are getting somewhere, and A bless her just said well its what terriers do, which is true but it still needs some control and she still gets SO stressed BUT she calms down much quicker so all in all a positively stressful experience I think   Oh and A said she didn't like the first man either which made me feel better. 

Off to catch up .

ETA just out of interest does any one elses dog drink after stress moments? I don't know if she needs too or if its a calming thing like sniffing.


----------



## Freddie and frank

gr, crikey, you have been busy.
well done to the ninja for getting there slowly.:thumbup1:

bit random but my husband thinks i look like a flump :lol:


----------



## Izzysmummy

Freddie and frank said:


> gr, crikey, you have been busy.
> well done to the ninja for getting there slowly.:thumbup1:
> 
> bit random but my husband thinks i look like a flump :lol:


Not a flump at all !! Naughty hubby! I love the pink and purple attire! *want*


----------



## Freddie and frank

Izzysmummy said:


> Not a flump at all !! Naughty hubby! I love the pink and purple attire! *want*


i'm going for black next time...pink coat doesn't go well with liver treats in pockets


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> anyway, my oh really enjoyed our walk yesterday with all three dogs :yesnod: i had bella in front and he had the boys. all well behaved. i've put freddie in a dogmatic cause it's so much easier to control his sniffing, which makes a more pleasent walk. he still gets to sniff and wee but not at every single lamp post.


Have you tried teaching a 'you don't get to stop at that one' command? I don't want to stop when running and use "on by" - Kilo picked it up really fast. He now knows that you don't stop to sniff anything whilst running on lead but 'on by' also works whilst walking. It's handy!



Freddie and frank said:


> what would be a good starting point with franks prey drive?


Kilo's prey drive is immense - if you can get him hugely interested in a special toy which only comes out on walks it may help. Kilo has a Kong Aqua which he loves - if he starts to look too interested in something I get his attention and throw the toy so he chases that instead.



GingerRogers said:


> ETA just out of interest does any one elses dog drink after stress moments? I don't know if she needs too or if its a calming thing like sniffing.


Yes; both of mine will. Glad you had a superb weekend!! .

Nicki - hope the blood results are OK.

Twiggy - love the photo.

Sarah - hope Spendog is a little more settled today.

Leam - hope that you're getting a plan of action together and feeling more positive.

We have had a crappy morning here. I woke up feeling really, really low so there was only one solution - 'our' forest.....the weather forecast was for rain and gales later but thought we'd make it with just light rain. How wrong could I be? :sosp:. By the time we got within 5 miles of the forest the gales were sending the torrential rain in horizontally and then we crossed the snow line into a blizzard. But...I parked the car, got the (reluctant!) boys out and started down the track as I reckoned that things would be fine once we got into the shelter of the trees.

But..then the gate was open; massively unusual and usually means that the Game Warden is about. There were loads of tyre tracks though and then....big signs forbidding entry as forestry works were in progress .

So, back to the car and the only option was the moorland (now clear of sheep again) that starts our 'wet walk'. Got the boys out - they just zoomed to keep warm, but I couldn't see for the snow being driven into my eyes and could barely stand in the wind. After only 20 minutes Rudi stopped running about and just sat at my feet and cried and I felt utterly miserable too...so we gave up and came home .

I've just played with them for a bit and now they're asleep. Poor boys, what a waste of half a day .


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> gr, crikey, you have been busy.
> well done to the ninja for getting there slowly.:thumbup1:
> 
> bit random but my husband thinks i look like a flump :lol:


Got the theme tune in my head now....unless hubby meant the sweet? . I think you look much more cheerful than I do in all my dark coloured attire .


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## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> Got the theme tune in my head now....unless hubby meant the sweet? . I think you look much more cheerful than I do in all my dark coloured attire .


no, he didn't mean the sweet. :lol: i'm a different flump with each hat too. it's his idea of a compliment. 

freddie knows 'no sniff' on walks but prob could do with using it a bit more i think. he doesn't sniff much on runs unless he's off lead.

will have to keep a special toy for walks with frank to try and keep him interested. only tried it with a ball before and he runs after it, has a sniff at it then leaves it. yet at home he will play fetch all day long.

sorry you've had a crappy morning, but at least they had a run about and are back in the warm now. 
i've still got that hat on cause my boiler man has not turned up.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> no, he didn't mean the sweet. :lol: i'm a different flump with each hat too. it's his idea of a compliment.
> 
> freddie knows 'no sniff' on walks but prob could do with using it a bit more i think. he doesn't sniff much on runs unless he's off lead.
> 
> will have to keep a special toy for walks with frank to try and keep him interested. only tried it with a ball before and he runs after it, has a sniff at it then leaves it. yet at home he will play fetch all day long.


The key with Kilo is something he can chase, but 'kill' and tug too. He loves tuggy but it's too big an ask when he's fixated to just expect him to come and tug it seems - yet he'll chase, 'kill' the toy and then we can start a game of keep - away or tug with the toy and he forgets about what he was fascinated by. Of course if it's a random sheep or something where it shouldn't be  I put his lead on as soon as he's on the way back to me, but will carry the game on if I can as a reward.


----------



## L/C

Bah, I had a whole long post typed out and then my pc crashed so I lost all of it. I don't have the strength of will to type it all out again so I'm afraid you'll have to settle for an abridged version.

I hope everyone who's been having a hard time starts to feel better soon.

Dogless - you are a wonderful person no matter what job you do. I know what you mean about not feeling like you're measuring up though. I have a 1st from Cambridge in Archaeology and Anthropology and an MPhil with distinction from UCL. I hated academia and quit before my doctorate which I know has perpetually disappointed my parents. I now have a good job which I'm going to jack in later this year to start dog walking and eventually an MSC in Animal Behaviour. Which will be another disappointment.

MV - glad you, the OH and Miss Tink are safe. I also want a "What are you Working on?" shirt for Crufts! 

Leam - I think you need to give Deeks more time. You've brought a new puppy in at a time when many rescues will start to display and escalate troubling behaviour (he's got his feet under the table so to speak). It's a lot of change in a very short time for him and he is bound to be feeling unsettled and worried.

The longer he displays the behaviour and the longer he is distressed and frustrated in the kitchen then the more likely he is to start to associate it with feeling that way. You may find that the barking starts before you put him in the kitchen as he starts to anticipate it. Barking is not just attention seeking but self soothing - that's why so many dogs with SA bark.

TBH if he is barking when you shut the door then it does sound like SA. Ely is the same - I can leave him with no problems when we're out of the house but it took an awfully long time for us to be able to leave him in another room while we were in the house. I found that a closed, solid door was the worst thing but that a babygate was better. We then built up the time he was left in there with a kong and chews and now he is happy to be left in another room while we are in the house.

Is there any reason you can't sleep with Deeks for a while? Either move him into your bedroom or camp out with him downstairs?

Well it's been a busy few days at chez pointy. 

Bad stuff first. Ely is still limping so his walks have been limited - we have an appointment at the vet on Wednesday morning so hopefully should know more then. No more sickness or any other symptoms now so best case scenario he's pulled a muscle or it's "just" arthritis. Off to order another tuffie for upstairs just in case (I was supposed to buy my trail running shoes for training this month but I fear that might have to wait).

Gypsy and I went for a 4 mile run on Saturday morning and it was great. She loves running with me and it's really helped to build and maintain her focus on me. We then did some training and she was very keen. At the end we were having a play and a socialise when we bumped into her favourite chase buddy Cujo the adolescent rottie. They had a great game until she pulled up short and limped back holding her front leg with blood gushing everywhere.  One trip to the vet and a dressing later (can't stitch it not enough skin) we have to keep an eye on it and take her back if it doesn't start to heal.

So we now have 2 lame dogs (although Gypsy doesn't seem to think so) and I'm forced to do my running at night on the pavement instead of with them in the morning. Oh well.

Good stuff now. We have had 5 days without any whinging or barking in the evening. :thumbup: I'm not sure why I never thought of pre-empting it before but thank you wise folk of this thread!  

Managed to drag OH out for a walk with us on Saturday afternoon (after the vet visit) and had the dogs off lead pottering about having a sniff when a fox appeared from the bushes. This was broad daylight so I was very surprised! Both dogs took off after it and then recalled straight away!  To say I was very surprised would be an understatement! Then were showered with treats and to OH's disgust I even got down in the mud to play with them. They were glued to me for the rest of the walk - so I might have been wet and muddy but it was definitely worth it.

I've upped the impulse control and leave it games with Gypsy. Now I am dropping the treat and then telling her to leave, before I was telling her and then dropping it. The first time I did it she lurched up to get it as I dropped it but relaxed immediately back into the down when I told her to leave. :thumbup: We also did some heeling past a squirrel that was running about on the ground. It is really all paying off.

ETA: Bloody hell ladies - so many posts while I was typing and re-typing that!


----------



## kat&molly

F+F- You reminded me of a ickle girl in that pic-its a compliment honest. Moll brings me her kong, sometimes she pulls a fast one though, after she's eaten the contents she tries it on with OH.

Ginge-That sounds really positive, you two are certainly moving forward. It must have been lovely to take her to the bar.

Beth- its great to find a new walk isn't it, a secure one must be a right bonus.

Nikki- fingers crossed for the results.

Dogless- sorry you had such a duff morning- what awful weather, hope it clears a bit for this afternoon.

Have taken Evie up through the village, she had some Valerian about 20/30 minutes before and I dont know if it helped but she seemed a bit more focused and was looking for treats- I've been throwing them in front so we have to run a couple of steps to get them, today she was taking them from my hand . 2 dogs out on their pathways, but the barky one didn't react today, still tense when we get near but ok. 
We heard the young lad shouting from inside his house  but we turned back and came the same way again.
I had originally hoped to get a bit of focus from her by doing this but it seems it might just improve her confidence a bit.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - very best vibes for the limping pointies .

BUT...WOW!! Recall from a fox, no whinging and heeling past a squirrel....reckon the pointies deserve a Platinum Star .

I know exactly how to perpetually disappoint parents - I have done well academically, sporting - wise and work - wise, yet a few choices that I have made have left them disappointed. I am desperately searching at present for my 'niche', endlessly researching courses, careers etc etc....

k&m - sounds as if Evie did you proud!!


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## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> gr, crikey, you have been busy.
> well done to the ninja for getting there slowly.:thumbup1:
> 
> bit random but my husband thinks i look like a flump :lol:


If I'd got your figure I'd be wearing a bikini most of the time.....


----------



## Nicki85

Firstly Rusty's bloods came back all OK so far   one slightly high kidney level but within normal range. One result still due back tomorrow (not sure what for though)

Second exciting news.... Holly (mum of ES pups) is in labour! Three girls and one boy so far. They are live streaming the birth as well on the website!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers: Really pleased to hear thingsd are improving and sounds like you've had a really good few days.

L/C Why don't you take that K-laser leaflet with you and show your vet. It works really well for arthritis and soft tissue injuries. He may know one of the London vets who has one. The treatment isn't that expensive either. Leafy's original 6 course treatment was about £120.00.

Dogless: You really are going through a bad patch at the moment with nothing going right for you. I'm really sorry and hope things improve soon.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Firstly Rusty's bloods came back all OK so far   one slightly high kidney level but within normal range. One result still due back tomorrow (not sure what for though)
> 
> Second exciting news.... Holly (mum of ES pups) is in labour! Three girls and one boy so far. *They are live streaming the birth as well on the website!*


How exciting....reckon you won't be the most productive person at work today .



Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers: Really pleased to hear thingsd are improving and sounds like you've had a really good few days.
> 
> L/C Why don't you take that K-laser leaflet with you and show your vet. It works really well for arthritis and soft tissue injuries. He may know one of the London vets who has one. The treatment isn't that expensive either. Leafy's original 6 course treatment was about £120.00.
> 
> Dogless: You really are going through a bad patch at the moment with nothing going right for you. I'm really sorry and hope things improve soon.


Things with the boys are going right in the main (touch wood!) and that's what's keeping me going . They're both snoring anyway, couldn't care less about being mucked about this morning!


----------



## Freddie and frank

L/C impressed with the fox recall.:thumbup: and hope poorly paws and legs get better soon.

k&m, well done evie. long as i don't look nearly 42 i don't mind. lol

brrrrrr, my boiler man is here hopefully fixing it.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> If I'd got your figure I'd be wearing a bikini most of the time.....


oh god no.
i'm good at holding things in :yesnod:


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- cross posted, I'm too slow. Sorry you've got 2 limpy pointies, but brilliant on all the other stuff.:thumbup:

Dogless- Evie did do me proud , I know I've shied away from dealing with it but when you see her get in a state at just one person its not easy putting her through it, but doing it this way and doing the same little route every day- she could refuse if she wanted to - and she hasn't. If it gets better I can increase the area.Baby steps.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> L/C- cross posted, I'm too slow. Sorry you've got 2 limpy pointies, but brilliant on all the other stuff.:thumbup:
> 
> Dogless- Evie did do me proud , I know I've shied away from dealing with it but when you see her get in a state at just one person its not easy putting her through it, but doing it this way and doing the same little route every day- she could refuse if she wanted to - and she hasn't. If it gets better I can increase the area.Baby steps.


Sounds like a plan, far less stressful for you both .


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> what would be a good starting point with franks prey drive?


Some of the suggestions Dogless has made are excellent.

It really is a case of the more training you do and the more he interacts with you the less chance of him belting off after deer, foxes and rabbits.

When I walk my dogs I am constantly playing, training and calling them so even if they get quite a way in front, or their noses down having a sniff, they've always got one eye on me in case I do something unexpected.

I fine tune it so much that I only have to say something like "well I'm going this way" in an excited voice and turn round, and they'll all stop whatever they're doing and come belting after me expecting something to happen. That something might be getting them to jump up me, throwing a favourite toy, lobbing tit-bits at them, asking one to hand-touch or doing a few paces of heelwork (with the other three all trying desperately to take up the heelwork position as well).

Do you see the sort of thing I mean and how much training (if they really enjoy it) makes a difference?


----------



## Freddie and frank

Nicki85 said:


> Firstly Rusty's bloods came back all OK so far   one slightly high kidney level but within normal range. One result still due back tomorrow (not sure what for though)
> 
> Second exciting news.... Holly (mum of ES pups) is in labour! Three girls and one boy so far. They are live streaming the birth as well on the website!


good news about rusty's results and fingers crossed for the awaiting ones. 

ooh, how exciting, hope you're not too busy.


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth - you must have worked so hard with Sam and Oscar. Oscar sounds like a different dog now and with Sams lack of hearing I think I would be terrified to ever let him off.

Thorne - hope you are feeling better, well done with the nail clipping I say, most would give in and get the vet or groomer to do them.

Dogless - hope you feel better too and that Rudi is still ok, perhaps a job however small and part time will help you feel back on course, I glean from your posts that you are probably the sort of person who needs to do stuff and not the type that is happy to sit back and let others  ..............Heck I just went and read the beginning and end of that thread (sorry couldn't manage the middle right now), well done for getting there in the end, let that be a lesson that letting things out isn't really as bad as you think it might be though  I have to remind hubby that all the time otherwise he explodes and I get the blasting  As you know, I agree with everything everyone else has said, you are certainly not nothing to us, you have been a giant help to me and the ginger one with your wise words and sense. Re: your comments about going from something to nothing I think these feeling are often emphasized by the Army environment as well, especially when you are still around it like you are. My ex sister in law felt similar when she left but they were still living in barracks (not that it bothered her as much, she very soon adjusted to be a stay at home wife )
Rudi and his bath - star - you and your face as well not good hope you are ok apart from pride bruising

K&M - oh dear flat on face isn't good, bad Evie for not caring  'what are you doing woman, if I can ignore a cat/lady the least you can do is stay upright!'. At least thats the one move the ginger one is actually likely to take notice of (wonder if I can remember that at a critical moment and use it as part of my repertoire??) Be careful with the mini stapler we don't want you stapling Evie to your leg, or perhaps.......

Purpleskyes - sorry things are ****, been there done that, sometimes its better to just call it a day, somethings are worth working on, unfortunately only you and OH can know which this is .

Ballybee - sounds like Tummel is really coming on 

MV glad you had a good late christmas, ours was lovely last weekend too! And well done on averting danger, we quite often come across what appear to be severely drunken drivers around here, being quite rural with scattered depleted settlements were the pubs have closed down. It sounds like that may have been what you came across, doing such randomly dangerous driving.

Werehorse - hope the new food works and stays inside

Twiggy - we lost all the white stuff on sat night too thanks to a HORRENDOUS downpour  was glad to have had a lovely walk in it Saturday but back to clean pavements now . The cold and lumpiness have been really playing up my achilles so I understand how you old girls feel, we can get back to normal service too!

Mollysmith - glad you are feeling a bit less painful and what a strange man!!

LO - can you fix the fence yourself?? Sorry tp see he escaped again, luckily unless there are rabbits involved Ginge actually seems pretty terrified when she escapes, like its kind of an accident and come back quite happily. And mouse 

Nikki glad Rusty seems on the mend and how exciting about the pups just had a look at the blog, 3 girls so far  fingers crossed for you.

Sailor - we bought a bed for Ginge which she uses when we put her in it at mealtimes and such but otherwise not so much! You still haven't shared your secret to reducing the barking with me though!  Pretty Please  Glad he is settling in so very very well  we have to let the ginger one straight back into the garden after a walk, she never stays there for long but she just likes to check on the holes and make sure no squirrels have snuck in. Toppa looks like the perfect quintessential JRT !

MV remembering to brush ones hair is a very good thing to do . A few weeks back i came home from my morning walk to find I had mascara all the way down my face, I had seen a friend and she hadn't said anything, and it was actually halloween , looked like I had started early. I picked the bone with her later and she said she hadn't noticed. Glad you are feeling better, the winter colds can take a while to shift can't they.

Werehorse - you tire me out hope the headache has gone and your crisp craving diminished.

Leam - sorry you are having a hard time with Deeks but I can't say I am surprised. I think I made it clear I thought you were mad getting a pup when you hadn't got him sorted or settled, it sounds like you were in over you head before. I am with Dogless I am afraid I feel you owed it to him to help him out first before getting a pup  if he is being relegated to the kitchen more and more and its no wonder he is playing up, sorry if I have got it all wrong, but its too late now, feel very sorry for him and perhaps he would be better off with another family but I would hate to see him go into rescue.

FRM - well done on the back door bedlam improvements, its amazing what a change you can make when you apply yourself , its just making the effort in the first place, so often we just get used to situations .

Cannot manage any more sorry if I have missed someone and now I see mores been rolling on since I started.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Firstly Rusty's bloods came back all OK so far   one slightly high kidney level but within normal range. One result still due back tomorrow (not sure what for though)
> 
> Second exciting news.... Holly (mum of ES pups) is in labour! Three girls and one boy so far. They are live streaming the birth as well on the website!


Excellent news on Rusty - phew!!

And exciting news on the puppy front, especially all the bitches. I do hope there's one for you.


----------



## Guest

Sending good vibes to the limping pointies!! 

Went out for an hour this morning cause I got lost around a house estate. 
He was very very good though. He fixated on a man behind us so I got him to sit and watch me while the man went past! And he sat while a lady went by on crutches!! There were alot or roadworks though and there was the occasional spinny panicked moments from him. He got cuddled by a lady in the charity shop. Then got himself stuck behind the till and was brilliant as the shopkeeper physically manovered him out!

And there was a lab across the road and Zand focused on me!! 

We saw a terrier or two but they all crossed over when they saw us so confrontation was avoided! 

Oh, and Zander has a brand new favourite toy. A plastic milk bottle! 
:lol: All I can here right now is CRUNCH CRUNCH RUSTLE CRUNCH.


----------



## Oscar12

Didn't think for the life of me at nearly 8 months old I'd be posting about this .... 

Maisie hasn't been 100% with her toilet training yet however she has got a lot better. For the past month or so she's had maybe one peeing accident every other day.... Not a big pee, but she comes right up beside you and leaves a wee dribble and it's also usually just when we're about to take them out 
Last week she decided to do a *big* pee on the couch !! No warning or anything, just a big mahoosive pee. Then again on the other couch a few days later. 
Trying the half hour walks again where possible, she was doing well going out at the set times with Oscar (first thing in the morning, before I leave for work, mid day, mid afternoon, before dinner, after dinner, before bed) but we're going back to square one with her


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Sending good vibes to the limping pointies!!
> 
> Went out for an hour this morning cause I got lost around a house estate.
> He was very very good though. He fixated on a man behind us so I got him to sit and watch me while the man went past! And he sat while a lady went by on crutches!! There were alot or roadworks though and there was the occasional spinny panicked moments from him. He got cuddled by a lady in the charity shop. *Then got himself stuck behind the till and was brilliant as the shopkeeper physically manovered him out!*
> 
> And there was a lab across the road and Zand focused on me!!
> 
> We saw a terrier or two but they all crossed over when they saw us so confrontation was avoided!
> 
> Oh, and Zander has a brand new favourite toy. A plastic milk bottle!
> :lol: All I can here right now is CRUNCH CRUNCH RUSTLE CRUNCH.


:lol::lol::lol::lol:.



Oscar12 said:


> Didn't think for the life of me at nearly 8 months old I'd be posting about this ....
> 
> Maisie hasn't been 100% with her toilet training yet however she has got a lot better. For the past month or so she's had maybe one peeing accident every other day.... Not a big pee, but she comes right up beside you and leaves a wee dribble and it's also usually just when we're about to take them out
> Last week she decided to do a *big* pee on the couch !! No warning or anything, just a big mahoosive pee. Then again on the other couch a few days later.
> Trying the half hour walks again where possible, she was doing well going out at the set times with Oscar (first thing in the morning, before I leave for work, mid day, mid afternoon, before dinner, after dinner, before bed) but we're going back to square one with her


Have you had her checked at the vet in case she has a UTI? You could get a sample and pop her along.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Some of the suggestions Dogless has made are excellent.
> 
> It really is a case of the more training you do and the more he interacts with you the less chance of him belting off after deer, foxes and rabbits.
> 
> When I walk my dogs I am constantly playing, training and calling them so even if they get quite a way in front, or their noses down having a sniff, they've always got one eye on me in case I do something unexpected.
> 
> I fine tune it so much that I only have to say something like "well I'm going this way" in an excited voice and turn round, and they'll all stop whatever they're doing and come belting after me expecting something to happen. That something might be getting them to jump up me, throwing a favourite toy, lobbing tit-bits at them, asking one to hand-touch or doing a few paces of heelwork (with the other three all trying desperately to take up the heelwork position as well).
> 
> Do you see the sort of thing I mean and how much training (if they really enjoy it) makes a difference?


i do see what you mean, yes. and thanks.

i've always taken the boys out together, whether on lead, running, or off lead. is it better to take frank out on his own or is it ok to mix it up a bit?

i do things like change directions and say 'this way', throw treats on the floor in front or behind me, so they can see them, and say'find it'.

thanks a lot for the advice. will look into flyball for him too.


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers: Really pleased to hear thingsd are improving and sounds like you've had a really good few days.
> 
> L/C Why don't you take that K-laser leaflet with you and show your vet. It works really well for arthritis and soft tissue injuries. He may know one of the London vets who has one. The treatment isn't that expensive either. Leafy's original 6 course treatment was about £120.00.
> 
> Dogless: You really are going through a bad patch at the moment with nothing going right for you. I'm really sorry and hope things improve soon.


That's a good idea - I'll print it off and bring it with me. I looked up where has them and there's one in Clerkenwell - so I think I'll try to get a referel to there. Plus my vet has a hydrotherapy pool attached so I think I'll ask about that too.

Thanks for all pointy well wishes.

K&M - sounds like Evie is making good progress. I'd keep taking her as long as she is happy to go.

F&F - not flump like at all! How dare your hubby?! :lol:

Nicki - so glad Rusty is on the mend and all his bloods are good. How very exciting about the pups - not sure I'd want to watch a livestream though!  ES's are lovely dogs - you're very lucky.



Twiggy said:


> Some of the suggestions Dogless has made are excellent.
> 
> It really is a case of the more training you do and the more he interacts with you the less chance of him belting off after deer, foxes and rabbits.
> 
> When I walk my dogs I am constantly playing, training and calling them so even if they get quite a way in front, or their noses down having a sniff, they've always got one eye on me in case I do something unexpected.
> 
> I fine tune it so much that I only have to say something like "well I'm going this way" in an excited voice and turn round, and they'll all stop whatever they're doing and come belting after me expecting something to happen. That something might be getting them to jump up me, throwing a favourite toy, lobbing tit-bits at them, asking one to hand-touch or doing a few paces of heelwork (with the other three all trying desperately to take up the heelwork position as well).
> 
> Do you see the sort of thing I mean and how much training (if they really enjoy it) makes a difference?


That's exactly how I've managed to keep Gypsy's attention on me and manage her prey drive. I try to be as exciting and surprising as possible so she's always interested in what I'm doing. Since I've started being more interactive it's been very different on walks and much more pleasant.

I forgot to add another of madam's achievements this morning. Having a potter with my pair of invalids when Gypsy dashes off. She's spotted the 4 bags of rubbish that someone has dumped (along with 2 wheelie bins? ) and manages to get a mouthful before I can say anything. I catch up and clip the lead on and she walked away without a struggle (which is surprising enough).

I let her off a bit further on and she turned back to go and have another scavenge. I called her and she turned back and came with me straight away with no hesitation! We then played some find it games and everytime she looked like she was thinking about going back for some food I called her and she came back and focused all her attention on me.

And best of all the food she was so desperate to get was chicken bones. Which she is usually powerless to resist. My very best girl. :001_wub:


----------



## Werehorse

Ginge - awesome progress! She's getting there. 

L/C - poor limping pointies! Hopefully they'll both be better soon. I actually wouldn't have believed that greyhounds could be as well trained as your two clearly are. The idea of of a sighthound doing a chase recall and walking to heel past a running rodent seems so unlikely!  Hats off to you!

Dogless - sorry you had a shitty morning.  I hate it when things just gang up like that! However, thank you for holding onto the bad weather long enough for my horses to have some field time this morning.  The wind and rain are here now though... I think it might be indoor training sessions for the boys this afternoon because I'm such a wuss and not totally hard-core like yourself. 

F&F - I'm going to have to google Flump because I thought you meant the sweets and no no other type of Flump.

Twiggy - Lovely picture of you and Twiggy. Of course I think Hugo is super-handsome  Just perhaps not conventionally so. :lol: I haven't tried your training tip yet (smacks own wrist - must have a go this afternoon).

Hugo is currently trying to sleep on a computer desk chair, he was sat bolt upright on it staring at me but seems to have decided that the collie mind waves aren't going to work today and has curled up to sleep. :crazy:

I forgot to say that yesterday morning I had a dog-poo induced panic attack. :lol: Honest to goodness there is so much of the stuff in all the verges in the village and the farm dog has done the most disgusting liquid one in our front garden.   (speaking of the farm dog I've had to flag down cars twice in 3 weeks to prevent her being run over, she's really old and just wanders across the road really slowly.  but that's a different rant). So I was on edge because of the poo in the front garden, I nearly let Hugo wander straight through it the night before when I took him out for last wees. And then there was just poo after poo after poo on the verges and the boys were doing the competing for smells things and diving around after each other and not looking where they were putting their feet (they can usually avoid standing in poo but when they are desperate to sniff something they seem less concerned). Everytime they almost stood in one I got a little more wound up. And then Hugo can't seem to poo without running in a fast half circle at the full extent of the lead before he squats.  And everytime he did it he headed straight for some poo so I had to pull him out of the way and then of course he stopped trying to poo and I got really cross with myself for basically punishing him for trying to poo, even though I was just trying to stop him standing in some.  And literally every verge on all sides of both the roads was just littered with the stuff. I ended up stood in the middle of the road crying and hyperventilating! :lol:  Oh lord, so pathetic! Oscar was just like "stupid mum " but Hugo gets himself all upset when I get upset so I felt even worse.  Poor OH had to talk me down when I staggered home. I think he thought the boys had been attacked or something. But no, just poo.

Then we went out for our run and I felt a lot better. 

I feel like I want to DO something about the poo in the village but I don't know what and even if I had an idea I doubt I'll have the motivation to follow it through anyway (story of life etc). I'm not even sure how much of it is people who walk with their dogs not picking up and how much of it is the farm dog (which is, you might have gathered, just allowed to wander and **** wherever it fancies). Le sigh.


----------



## Werehorse

Oscar12 said:


> Didn't think for the life of me at nearly 8 months old I'd be posting about this ....
> 
> Maisie hasn't been 100% with her toilet training yet however she has got a lot better. For the past month or so she's had maybe one peeing accident every other day.... Not a big pee, but she comes right up beside you and leaves a wee dribble and it's also usually just when we're about to take them out
> Last week she decided to do a *big* pee on the couch !! No warning or anything, just a big mahoosive pee. Then again on the other couch a few days later.
> Trying the half hour walks again where possible, she was doing well going out at the set times with Oscar (first thing in the morning, before I leave for work, mid day, mid afternoon, before dinner, after dinner, before bed) but we're going back to square one with her





Dogless said:


> Have you had her checked at the vet in case she has a UTI? You could get a sample and pop her along.


As Dogless says, get her checked for a UTI as soon as possible. They can be nasty if left and little dribbles esculating to big pees if fairly typical symptoms. When Oscar had one he kind of started weeing as he jumped on the sofa and couldn't seem to stop and Hugo did the same on the landing when he had one.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse; the amount of poo here is my hugest, hugest bugbear - especially as Kilo eats some of it :incazzato: never mind them and me treading in it. I am toying with the idea of going out with a can of bright spray paint (or 10!!!) and spraying it all - I read of a council who did it and it apparently reduced the amount left hugely...but it all started again once the spraying stopped.

I think we have had new big dogs / a new big dog move in around here that are allowed to sh!t all over the pavement as it started to suddenly appear all down out street a few weeks ago with a load outside our house and all over the verges near us too :incazzato::incazzato:. I keep picking it up as I'm paranoid people will think it's the CHs .


----------



## Oscar12

Werehorse said:


> I forgot to say that yesterday morning I had a dog-poo induced panic attack. :lol:


Just had a right laugh at your poo-nic attack ... I wasn't going to post my story but I now feel inclined to do so 
We stay in an area where the locals take a very different approach to poop than we do, as in nobody bother's their a*** to pick up anything, so the steets have had poo streamers let off at every turn :incazzato: Does my head in and every step leads to a new variation of poo.
SO .. I sent an email to the council stating that it was a health and safety hazzrd ya de ya and how it's not 'everyone' who doesnt pick up after their dogs (everyone apart from moi) and how a not so nice gentleman lets his akita offlead around the estate and it's not the friendliest of dogs *I shant repeat the terms he uses to call it* 
So off pops the email and I was impressed when the street sweeper came round the next day  Sparkly pavements again .. for a day rrr:
So gets a letter hand delivered the next day, as I'd asked for a reply to my email...
Oh no no no !! The letter read 'It has came to my attention that residents at this close have been letter their dogs do their business in the close and in the backyard. This needs to cease at once. It is totally uncalled for and I would like to remind you that on the spot fines will be issued if this happens again'
I was livid !!!! :incazzato::incazzato: My reply was by email as I was so mad I could hardly string a sentence together. Also mentioned that the close has indeed been used as a toilet but it was not by any of the furry residents but was the drunken moron and his stinking mates from downstairs.
My reply has yet to be answered so I'm going to give them a friendly phone call


----------



## Werehorse

Maybe a spray can, then a photo, then a flyer through every letterbox with the picture and a caption "this is ****ing digusting - sort yourselves out!"...


----------



## Oscar12

Dogless said:


> Werehorse; the amount of poo here is my hugest, hugest bugbear - especially as Kilo eats some of it :incazzato: never mind them and me treading in it. *I am toying with the idea of going out with a can of bright spray paint (or 10!!!) and spraying it all - I read of a council who did it and it apparently reduced the amount left hugely*...but it all started again once the spraying stopped.
> 
> I think we have had new big dogs / a new big dog move in around here that are allowed to sh!t all over the pavement as it started to suddenly appear all down out street a few weeks ago with a load outside our house and all over the verges near us too :incazzato::incazzato:. I keep picking it up as I'm paranoid people will think it's the CHs .


YOU ARE NOT ALONE !!!!! 
We could all agree on a colour and then send our pics to the papers lol !!
POO REBELLION !!!!

And as for Maisie I have phoned the vet to take her in for a check  We were there last week aswell, if only I'd thought of it being a UTI sooner. Thanks guys


----------



## Werehorse

Poo-nick attack! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Freddie and frank

werehorse, a dog poo panic attack, how awful for you. 

there seems to be only a couple of streets near me that tends to have lots of dog poo left so i don't walk that way much cause i don't want people to think it's me and i'm scared of the dogs walking in it. saying that, a bin was removed and signs saying about on the spot fines were put up instead.

POO REBELLION....


----------



## L/C

Werehorse - sorry you had Poo drama but thank you for the nice comments about the pointies. You only think that because you hear the good stuff on here - I didn't post about how she nicked a slice of bread off my plate last night when I wasn't looking. :lol:

The poo isn't bad on the streets round here but on the field in the long grass it's awful! But it's nowhere near as foul as coming across the piles of people poo.  I wonder if a name and shame campaign would work for that?

"Do you recognise this poo? Could someone you love be responsible for this? Call PooStoppers now."


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear Werehorse - poonick not good . It was rank around here yesterday I think Dogless theory on the one walk a year dogs is correct, it was beautiful weather so out they came to crap everywhere. This morning I passed a huge carrier bag full just sitting beside the footpath they hadn't even attempted to hide it or hang it  I still keep toying with the flag idea but we might get done for littering  we need biodegradable paper and flagsticks. A few months back a young girl drew a poster and put it up across town, it was so sweet and sad at the same time.

L/C sorry the pointies are limping but well done them and you on the recalls. I am going to steal your wording if we ever get round to the pooflags 'Do you recognise this poo? Could someone you love be responsible for this? Call PooStoppers now'  Trouble is it is always giant and orange so everyone could claim it 

Everytime a poo thread comes up I do wonder about the purple poo I saw a few weeks back, Rory had green, yellow and red poo from dog treat colourings, but what treats are purple 

Nicki - *5 bitches *now  Holly is stunning, I love the 'one more day till my due date' picture on the website blog, she looks like she is really looking forward to it .


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

Twiggy said:


> That was the other club my friend mentioned yesterday. She's pretty sure it's not clicker type training though.
> 
> As you say, go and have a look without your dog initially, then you'll have a better idea. Kathy Woodger rings a bell somewhere.


I phoned them, It's not clicker but it is reward based and they also do the KC Good Citizen scheme.

Clicker training is probably best on a one to one, so I don't mind that so much, I'll continue with it at home though and go to the club for socialisation.
The good citizen training may be useful because I want my Lab to be a P.A.T dog when he's older


----------



## Freddie and frank

dogless, what is the ready, steady thing you do with a toy to get kilo interested in it?
just been having a quick read through posts again.

frank is very fixated on me when i'm about to throw a ball in the garden, and i sort of jig about a bit excitedly saying 'do you want this', so if i can work on getting him towards that on walks it would help.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy said:


> With regards to straight presents it needs to be thoroughly taught and the easiest way is sitting on the edge of a hard kitchen type chair with your legs out in front of you in a channel and feet straight and flat on the floor. You just hold your dogs collar at the side of you, lob a tit-bit as far out in front as you can and say something like "ready, steady, get it".
> As the dog eats the tit-bit have another one in your hand and call the dog into the present with loads of verbal encouragement and both hands together to draw the dog in. If your legs/feet are positioned correctly the dog can't present at an angle, it has to be straight. That's stage one and there are several more stages before you progress to leaning against a wall and then standing up straight.


Ok, so Ive had a quick go at this at lunchtime, worked well, she was very interested, I would throw a treat on the floor then entice her back in with a better treat. Only problem is she stands quite far back and I dont know how to entice her closer so that her head is at my crotch like in Werehorses video? I was doing it on the edge of the sofa though so Im going to try again tonight with a dining chair which is open underneath and see if that encourages her to come in closer. Also do you put a command to it so its different to the recall??



GingerRogers said:


> Everytime a poo thread comes up I do wonder about the purple poo I saw a few weeks back, Rory had green, yellow and red poo from dog treat colourings, but what treats are purple


Maybe they've been eating berries? My Dad once got pooped on by a bird who must have been eating berries, it was bright purple! Poor Dad's bald and the poop got him right on top of the head and stained his baldy patch purple too!! :lol:!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Well Spencer and I are going absolutely nowhere until the weather stops farting around. It's like a skating rink and it's literally all I can do to stay upright just getting from the door of our block of flats to the grass about a metre away. First we had the snow, then it froze into ice, then it warmed up and started to melt and it rained, then it got cold again. 

I've been clearing out our spare bedroom. We've got so much stuff still in boxes and I'm sure a lot of it is just junk. Hubby has a tendency to keep everything, including the boxes and packaging things came in  Left to him you'd probably see us on one of these programs about hoarders. He's no objection to stuff being thrown away, it just doesn't seem to occur to him to get rid rather than keep  

Anyway, 1 box cleared so far, about 50 empty dvd cases thrown away along with a load of old paperwork of mine. Found a stuffed cat, put it on the kitchen counter to put with the rest of my teddies and the Spendog went counter surfing. Half an hour of zoomies around the flat later and the poor cat is all soggy and mangled and Spen is crashed out for the first time in a week. I guess I'm going to be sacrificing the cat for the sake of canine happiness. And it occurred to me while he was having such fun with it that while I've tried balls, tug toys, frisbees etc while out I haven't tried soft toys. In fact he hasn't even GOT any soft toys.

Werehorse, sorry to hear about your poonic attack. It's awful for dog mess around here, sometimes think there's only 2 of us pick up after our dogs. And it's all huge, orange turds too.


----------



## Freddie and frank

nicki, i'm working on tearing myself away from the live birth webcam.:001_wub:


----------



## GingerRogers

Awe Spen has a new friend. Will it replace giant tennis ball do you think??


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Awe Spen has a new friend. Will it replace giant tennis ball do you think??


No, stuffed toys are the one toy he will destroy so I'm going to keep it in the cupboard and just bring it out for playtime  And I think I might have to have a look for more stuffed toys for him, I'm sure we can find one that squeaks or something.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Sarah1983 said:


> No, stuffed toys are the one toy he will destroy so I'm going to keep it in the cupboard and just bring it out for playtime  And I think I might have to have a look for more stuffed toys for him, I'm sure we can find one that squeaks or something.


good idea. may try that one for franks special toy.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> No, stuffed toys are the one toy he will destroy so I'm going to keep it in the cupboard and just bring it out for playtime  And I think I might have to have a look for more stuffed toys for him, I'm sure we can find one that squeaks or something.


Gosh I can't think of the name of them but those stuffingless ones have been popular here, the squeaks are tough and not too annoying - we have a flat rabbit  unless its the stuffingness that he likes. Rory used to love his teddy, so daft, big tuff doggy with a teddy in his gob


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## L/C

Sarah - These are good for no stuffing and these have a soft toy, squeaker and ball combined. They are also the only thing that Gypsy will play with!


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## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Sarah - *These* are good for no stuffing and these have a soft toy, squeaker and ball combined. They are also the only thing that Gypsy will play with!


Skinflings - Thats the things


----------



## Sarah1983

Skinneeez are the ones I know of GR, thanks for the links LC, will save them and see whether I can get anything similar over here or delivered to us.


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## sailor

Moonviolet - Glad to read you are recovering well from your cold and it doesn't matter how cute you make poo sound, saying Tink was eating rabbnit bonbon still made me feel queasy!
Oh, have you brushed your hair this morning? And Tinks is not just a legend in your back garden, she is also a legend on PF  so it wont be long before she has world domination!

Werehorse - 12.5 miles run... way to go you! I can barelky run 12 steps :lol:
Love your dog on a log piccie :thumbsup:

Sarah1983 - we have fingers and paws crossed here that Spencer is playing silly due to a bitch in season and not because his turning into a mennace!
Sounds really odd and sad how he acted frightened, poor boy. 

Thorne - Good to hear you had some good walks with your two pups, scarey to think you was followed by a horse.... I would have tried out Breezes hedgediving move if I had been you!
Good to hear Scooter has settled now  I have all this to come with Toppa and as he already shows ALOT of interest in peemail and he teeth chatters already  I am preparing for the worst!

Leam1307 - I have nothing to say that wouldn't be repeating what others have said. I find it very sad tho and hope that you can get to the cause of Deeks barking and it is resolved ASAP!
I didn't realise you had only had Deeks since November (read in more recent posts), he has had no time to settle at all... added with a new puppy, things will all be very hectic! 

Dogless - great to hear you are having some good walks with Rudi and Kilo. I always love it when another walker looks flustered and is apologising for their puppy/dog, it is refreshing isn't it !
By the end of my mammoth catch up... looks liek your latest walk was as miserable as they can get  how pants... but this means your due an incredible and fantastic walk now  

Beth17 - I too run about like a lunatic with Toppa and ignore the world around me.... after awhile you just get used to it and no longer notice the audience of dog walkers/joggers/scared Children around you 
Your not being mean if Sam is enjoying it as much as you are 
Really great to read you found a nice encloused area to let your the deaf one have a run 

LurcherOwner - Congrats to Zand and his 'mouse' what a team 

Roxyfoxyrockfoxmeister - MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS  (sitting and hoping and praying there is some beef wellingotn about to be delivered)
Looked at your new years revolution thread finally last night, I liked all the piccies, but I can't remember if I made a comment hmmmmm
Great to hear the back door bedlam is improving 

Twiggy - Congratulations to your Sisters friend :thumbsup:
Lovely pic of you at crufts with the love of your life .... it is a lovely blouse indeed 

Nicki85 - no news is good news! Hope Rusty enjoyed his time with your Mum  and the results from the vets are good. (just got to the last post, fab news with results... fingers still crossed for second!)
Can't wait to readf about Hollys progress... still hoping you get a little girl 

Freddie and Frank - Really good to hear all is going well with your Trio... love the thought of Bella crawling up to some tiny dogs to say hello  bless her! 
As for the prey drive.... praying nothing runs past? I have no useful advice sorry 
You do not look like a flump btw, I thought you meant, flump as in sweet... what other kind of flump is there? Do they taste better mmmmmm
Are you warm yet? :lol:

Izzysmummy - Glad you enjoyed your evening out  Sounds like Izzy has mastered the fine art of being as subtle as a lab can be 

GingerRogers - Glad to read you had such a lovely time with the horses.... a smell that takes me back to my youth is sawdust! We used to have loads of rabbits when I was little!
Sounds like your hubby and Ginge did very well with the doggy tv...especially as she tried to attack the tv before  
Sounds like she had a lovely time with the other pups too... a sharpei bassett cross? What a mix... Im imagining a long short legged sharpei!
Sounds like you had a funfilled walk! 
I was told dogs will drink when stressed or as an avoidance technique. I imagine after all that barking, Ginge would have had a sore throat and a puddle was just the cure 

L/C - Hope Ely is ok at the vets on Wednesday... shame about the trainers  Was lovely to read that Gypsy was having fun... til the end bit, OUCH! I do hope that heats swiftly with no problems.
Fab to read you have had a good run of no barking  Sounds like apart from the vet side of things, everything is going very well :thumbsup:

Kat&molly - Good to read Evie is doing better and fingers rossed her confidence is indeed boosted!


OMG!! That took me soo long to catch up that I had to safe it all in notepad... then go on the school run fast as I didn't realise the time lol

Anyhow, trying to carry on where I left off and I bet there have been about 10 more pages added since I had to rush off on the school run :nono: 

Toppa is doing really well, he didn't bark at ANYONE/THING on our morning walk  Again once we got home, he just sat on the door step gazing back at the big wide world, wanting us to head back!
This was after an hours walk of path and park! He even got to greet a very friendly stafford and a very elderly toy poodle, which was dainty and fragile... I was terrified despite Toppa was the same size he would accidently hurt it from bouncing about like a puppy!

Then this afternoons walk, it was torrerntial rain  we both got drenched, Toppa was not impressed and kept trying to hide from the rain  when we finally got home an hour later, he was desperate to get inside :lol: no waiting about gazing at the big wide world :lol:

Recalls.... I am starting to wonder if it is time to try a different tactic with him, as crouching down and being happy with a handful of treats, is just having no effect at all!
Time to find a high value toy and start acting like a fleeing bird maybe?! He runs for those


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> That's a good idea - I'll print it off and bring it with me. I looked up where has them and there's one in Clerkenwell - so I think I'll try to get a referel to there. Plus my vet has a hydrotherapy pool attached so I think I'll ask about that too.
> 
> Thanks for all pointy well wishes.
> 
> K&M - sounds like Evie is making good progress. I'd keep taking her as long as she is happy to go.
> 
> F&F - not flump like at all! How dare your hubby?! :lol:
> 
> Nicki - so glad Rusty is on the mend and all his bloods are good. How very exciting about the pups - not sure I'd want to watch a livestream though!  ES's are lovely dogs - you're very lucky.
> 
> That's exactly how I've managed to keep Gypsy's attention on me and manage her prey drive. I try to be as exciting and surprising as possible so she's always interested in what I'm doing. Since I've started being more interactive it's been very different on walks and much more pleasant.
> 
> I forgot to add another of madam's achievements this morning. Having a potter with my pair of invalids when Gypsy dashes off. She's spotted the 4 bags of rubbish that someone has dumped (along with 2 wheelie bins? ) and manages to get a mouthful before I can say anything. I catch up and clip the lead on and she walked away without a struggle (which is surprising enough).
> 
> I let her off a bit further on and she turned back to go and have another scavenge. I called her and she turned back and came with me straight away with no hesitation! We then played some find it games and everytime she looked like she was thinking about going back for some food I called her and she came back and focused all her attention on me.
> 
> And best of all the food she was so desperate to get was chicken bones. Which she is usually powerless to resist. My very best girl. :001_wub:


Love it - well done you....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## GingerRogers

sailor said:


> GingerRogers - Glad to read you had such a lovely time with the horses.... a smell that takes me back to my youth is sawdust! We used to have loads of rabbits when I was little!
> Sounds like your hubby and Ginge did very well with the doggy tv...especially as she tried to attack the tv before
> Sounds like she had a lovely time with the other pups too... a sharpei bassett cross? What a mix... Im imagining a *long short legged sharpei!*
> Sounds like you had a funfilled walk!
> I was told dogs will drink when stressed or as an avoidance technique. I imagine after all that barking, Ginge would have had a sore throat and a puddle was just the cure
> 
> Then this afternoons walk, it was torrerntial rain  we both got drenched, Toppa was not impressed and kept trying to hide from the rain  when we finally got home an hour later, he was desperate to get inside :lol: no waiting about gazing at the big wide world :lol:


You are not far off Sailor. its quite a peculiar looking dog, bassett body with shar pei head, ears and wrinkles, every one thinks he is great but I just see health problems  product of a local puppy farmer sadly.

Bless Toppa this afternoon, I can imagine,we got caught in a hailstorm once and the poor little ninja didn't know what to do, run, hide, lie down


----------



## Werehorse

Sailor - have you tried being a little more low-key but dropping a handfull of goodies at your feet as you say your recall cue. Just around the house at first. And use the cue when you put his dinner down (also at your feet) too. For whatever reason he may be a little freaked by excited happiness (not used to it in previous homes? or just his personality, or just in the context of coming back to you - could he be expecting a chase game of some sort?)...  Maybe. Of course I'm asuming you're being manically excited here  you're probably not. :lol:

Sarah - bless Spen being so excited about the stuffed cat. :001_wub: And I keep meaning to say that I hope the bitch in season that is bothering him gets it over with soon! Must be a right pain. I've not really had it at home with my two yet and I'm not looking forward to it ever happening.

I've just sent an email officially asking for no more batman callouts. Nail in the coffin of another failed career option. :lol: On the plus side my parents aren't disappointed, more like they didn't expect anything other than this from me.  I'll never forget my mum suggesting (a short time after I was awarded my degree in Plant Sciences) that I look for a job in a flower shop. :lol: At least noone apart from me is having to lower expectations! Thing is I'd actually quite like to work in a flower shop now...

Twiggy - I tried the tuggy mat thing with Hugo. He very much got into the tug and dived out to the thrown mat very enthusiastically. The first 2-3 time he downed when asked and we had a game of tug. I should have stopped because the 4th time he didn't down when asked, instead he picked up the mat and tried to run off! I think running off and ripping it up might be more rewarding for him than tuggy.  Thankfully the room is narrow enough that I could stop him and take the mat off him. I put it away and the fun stopped so maybe he'll think twice next time?  Any suggestions? Should I try again, perhaps have a game of tug with something else and get him to down in order to earn a new game everytime?


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> dogless, what is the ready, steady thing you do with a toy to get kilo interested in it?
> just been having a quick read through posts again.
> 
> frank is very fixated on me when i'm about to throw a ball in the garden, and i sort of jig about a bit excitedly saying 'do you want this', so if i can work on getting him towards that on walks it would help.


You've got it - that's exactly the sort of thing....:thumbup:

You probably haven't read the problems I've had with my little rescue pup, Holly.

She was about 11-12 weeks old when I got her. She hadn't been handled or properly fed and it became apparent that the whole litter had been ill with parainfluzenza. She was undoubtedly Welsh puppy farm and the farmer was going to shoot the whole litter because he couldn't sell them but thank goodness they found their way into a specific collie resue centre.

It took ages before you could actually stroke her without her cowering and wetting herself with fear.

When I started training her she just didn't want to know. I'd go over to the barn or out in the paddock armed with every tit-bit known to man, plus a bagful of various tuggies, squeaky balls, etc. etc., and she'd just sniff a bush or chair.

She's been here just over a year now and we are at long last getting there. She will actually remind me most afternoons when it's time to go training and is really beginning to enjoy herself.

It's taken a heck of a lot of hard work and patience, and it does help that I am besotted with her. I adore training her and have found it very interesting having to think 'out of the box' most of the time.

There is a 'key' to every dog IMO although at times, I admit. finding it isn't always easy.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> No, stuffed toys are the one toy he will destroy so I'm going to keep it in the cupboard and just bring it out for playtime  And I think I might have to have a look for more stuffed toys for him, I'm sure we can find one that squeaks or something.


There's loads on Ebay. Just be careful not to get the ones that make animal noises as they have a plastic box in the middle full of battieries - very dangerous.


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I phoned them, It's not clicker but it is reward based and they also do the KC Good Citizen scheme.
> 
> Clicker training is probably best on a one to one, so I don't mind that so much, I'll continue with it at home though and go to the club for socialisation.
> The good citizen training may be useful because I want my Lab to be a P.A.T dog when he's older


That's good. Let us know how it goes.


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Ok, so Ive had a quick go at this at lunchtime, worked well, she was very interested, I would throw a treat on the floor then entice her back in with a better treat. Only problem is she stands quite far back and I dont know how to entice her closer so that her head is at my crotch like in Werehorses video? I was doing it on the edge of the sofa though so Im going to try again tonight with a dining chair which is open underneath and see if that encourages her to come in closer. Also do you put a command to it so its different to the recall??
> 
> Stretch your arms out right in front of you, waving the tit-bit and saying something like "what's this" in an excited voice, then as her nose is on the tit-bit draw her in (both hands together), keeping the banter going - "look what I've got", etc.
> 
> Don't expect perfection straight away. If she just comes in between your outstretched legs to start with give her the tit-bit and loads of praise. Everything can be shaped once she gets the idea. Keep it really fun.
> 
> Don't put any commands to any of it for now. The minute you put a command in you are setting yourself and the dog up for failure. The commands are put on cue once the dog is doing the exercise reliably.


----------



## L/C

I have a question for the ladies of WAYWO (and Sid).

I have to be in work an hour earlier then normal tomorrow (voice-over session). Do I:

*A.* Get up at 5:30 instead of 6:30 to walk the dogs 
*or*
*B. *Allow OH to walk them - bearing in mind they are both injured and have been working really well and when he walks them he tends to let them disappear off into the woods without supervision (increasing risk of exacerbating injury) and chase the wildlife.

********. Better have an early night.


----------



## GingerRogers

Could you not give him strict instructions that they are on lead only as they are injured  thats assuming you are still up to read this, I would have to be in bed around now to get up that early 

Had a conversation yesterday with M as she was concerned that the dogs hadn't had a good 'walk', she didn't think they would consider running about the horses yard a 'walk'. My figuring is that as long as they get some exercise, a pee and a poo and a bit of stimulation its doesn't matter what form it takes. Thoughts??


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Could you not give him strict instructions that they are on lead only as they are injured  thats assuming you are still up to read this, I would have to be in bed around now to get up that early
> 
> Had a conversation yesterday with M as she was concerned that the dogs hadn't had a good 'walk', she didn't think they would consider running about the horses yard a 'walk'. My figuring is that as long as they get some exercise, a pee and a poo and a bit of stimulation its doesn't matter what form it takes. Thoughts??


I could and he would go out with the best of intentions to do that but he'd start to feel sorry for them. And then he'd think - "It wouldn't hurt to let them off for a bit. I'll only do it for 10 minutes.."

Famous last words.

And in bed?! I'm still at work. I've got a 3 mile run, a dog walk and a weights session to go yet.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> dogless, what is the ready, steady thing you do with a toy to get kilo interested in it?
> just been having a quick read through posts again.
> 
> frank is very fixated on me when i'm about to throw a ball in the garden, and i sort of jig about a bit excitedly saying 'do you want this', so if i can work on getting him towards that on walks it would help.


Right; by now you're used to my awful powers of description but I'll give it a whirl - Twiggy correct any massively glaring errors please!

Kilo loves his Tuggy so I mainly use that. First of all I have a quick, really animated play with him with it, get him excited. Then, I put him on lead and throw the tuggy a good way away - as far as I can really. Then I say "Ready!!!!!.......Steady!!!!!!!......." in an exciting voice - all the time he's been fixated on his toy. Then on "Get It!!!!!!!!" I take off as fast as I possibly can, he grabs the tuggy and then we run back to the start point playing tug. Take it off him and repeat.

Once I had the above bit right I started to throw a "Down" in half way to the toy and the "Get It!!!!!" as the reward. He really trembles and whines and gets hugely excited over the exercise and really growly with the tugging.

I have started to do the very first exercise off lead but holding his collar.

After the first couple of times he sort of "clicked" and became really, really sharp and focussed on the toy when I was using it as a reward for heelwork etc.



L/C said:


> I have a question for the ladies of WAYWO (and Sid).
> 
> I have to be in work an hour earlier then normal tomorrow (voice-over session). Do I:
> 
> *A.* Get up at 5:30 instead of 6:30 to walk the dogs
> *or*
> *B. *Allow OH to walk them - bearing in mind they are both injured and have been working really well and when he walks them he tends to let them disappear off into the woods without supervision (increasing risk of exacerbating injury) and chase the wildlife.
> 
> ********. Better have an early night.


Get up at 0530 would be my option - every time .


----------



## Leam1307

deleted.....


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Get up at 0530 would be my option - every time .


Yes but that's just a normal morning for you. 

ETA: Leem that sounds a bit more positive. Hopefully she can help you sort something out.


----------



## Dogless

Another wet walk this afternoon. Thought I'd take the CHs up to the top field together for a play as the weekend was all about separate walks and training. I waited for a break in the rain until it was just light and headed out into the gales - got to the top fields (past a back lab, no dramas!) and the CHs had a good play. Just as we were about to head back anyway.....massively heavy rain, so Rudi sat down and cried and Kilo sat and shivered so back we trudged. Soaked and freezing yet again  . About two minutes after we got back the tap turned off again and the rain turned to light drizzle....I obviously have my own personal storm cloud .


----------



## Sarah1983

Sailor, since getting Spencer we've been told by a lot of people who've recognised him while out and about that he wasn't well treated by the people who used to own him. In the beginning he did a lot of cowering, peeing and going belly up at the slightest thing  I had to completely re-train down because although he knew it he did it so sadly and with such obvious apprehension that it was obvious he had bad associations with it. His tail had been broken before we got him, someone told me it was from being slammed in a door and that the owner just laughed about it  I thought it was sour grapes or something at first but there's been too many different people tell me similar things for me to just dismiss it. 

Have you tried not asking Toppa to recall at all? It might sound stupid but given his history you may have to take all the pressure off for a while. What I often do with Spencer is just have him off leash or on a long line wandering around and I click and treat any time he comes near me, even if it's just that he's happened to do so while sniffing. I find it's resulted in a dog who regularly comes to me of his own accord simply because it's rewarding to do so. Obviously you'll need to work on a proper recall at some point but for now I'd keep a line on him and just be rewarding him for coming near you. Start by rewarding for say him coming to within 6ft (just an example) of you and as he gets comfortable doing that make it so that you only reward if he comes to within 5ft and so on.

Ginge, I don't worry about it being a "proper" walk to be honest. If Spens had a good charge around out front with another dog or his frisbee he doesn't always get a long walk as well. We often just go around the estate for sniffs and a change of scenery. Not something I'd be happy with every day on a long term basis but now and then or for a few days while I'm ill or stuck in for some other reason I see no harm in it.

Twiggy, problem isn't finding the stuffed toys, it's finding ones I can get delivered out here. Zooplus.de is great but I can't find the stuffing free toys there. Might have to try German ebay or German amazon lol. Will definitely avoid the stuffed toys with batteries inside though!


----------



## Dogless

Leam - that sounds a little more positive. I've not been able to get Deeks out of my head since your post yesterday; I have so many emotions surrounding what is going on. I truly, truly hope that you can make everything work with all the animals you have taken on recently.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Twiggy, problem isn't finding the stuffed toys, it's finding ones I can get delivered out here. Zooplus.de is great but I can't find the stuffing free toys there. Might have to try German ebay or German amazon lol. Will definitely avoid the stuffed toys with batteries inside though!


UK Amazon have Skineez and other similar; they'll deliver if that's any good!


----------



## Werehorse

Leam - glad you've got someone coming in. If they turn out to be no good this chap is on the link I sent you and does home visits within 70 miles of Edinburgh... Just in case you missed him. There was another chap on the list in Edinburgh too, with just a phone number.

Mat Ward's Dog and Cat Behaviour and Training, Edinburgh, Scotland. Expert dog and cat behaviour advice from a qualified and experienced behaviourist and trainer


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> UK Amazon have Skineez and other similar; they'll deliver if that's any good!


I've not had any joy with Amazon lately, every time I try to get something delivered to either our BFPO address or to our German address I get told that the seller doesn't deliver to them. I know Amazon themselves will deliver so will go have a look whether it's sellers or them lol.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> I have a question for the ladies of WAYWO (and Sid).
> 
> I have to be in work an hour earlier then normal tomorrow (voice-over session). Do I:
> 
> *A.* Get up at 5:30 instead of 6:30 to walk the dogs
> *or*
> *B. *Allow OH to walk them - bearing in mind they are both injured and have been working really well and when he walks them he tends to let them disappear off into the woods without supervision (increasing risk of exacerbating injury) and chase the wildlife.
> 
> ********. Better have an early night.


Good choice IMO....


----------



## kat&molly

Leam- thats brilliant, I really hope the behaviourist can help you. Great that its someone who actually knows about Romanian dogs. Keep us posted.

L/C- I'd say the same as the others as I hate my OH taking our girls out,you've come so far with them and you've got injuries to think of but I do think they know what they can get away with , and with whom.

Sailor, what Sarah says about the recall works for Evie as well[mostly]. She doesn't do the few metre keep away thing, but she has learnt to just come and have a bit of fuss and treats. I try not to call her at all unless she's already on her way back. Whats this, for treats, or this way and changing direction work well. And a whistle, have you tried one- its better if you keep them around your neck though- took mine out my pocket today and it was jammed with treats and wouldn't blow.

Ginge- lovely pic of Rory.


----------



## Dogless

Nothing to do with dogs or rain....but just spoken to my Mum and her 5 year post cancer treatment scan and endoscopy have come back clear . Just bloods to go next week . 

And...my MIL has a date for her last op (bowel cancer that obstructed and landed her in ITU on the critical list for several weeks late last year) now - just routine stoma reversal in March .


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - I tried the tuggy mat thing with Hugo. He very much got into the tug and dived out to the thrown mat very enthusiastically. The first 2-3 time he downed when asked and we had a game of tug. I should have stopped because the 4th time he didn't down when asked, instead he picked up the mat and tried to run off! I think running off and ripping it up might be more rewarding for him than tuggy.  Thankfully the room is narrow enough that I could stop him and take the mat off him. I put it away and the fun stopped so maybe he'll think twice next time?  Any suggestions? Should I try again, perhaps have a game of tug with something else and get him to down in order to earn a new game everytime?


Yes you should have stopped after the first successful down, never mind attempt 3...!!

It's fine if Hugo likes ripping the mat up, the main thing is *he likes it.*

You can't have it both ways. Either you go to club and he isn't really interested and starts to cop out because there isn't any incentive for him to run out and drop or you play train it.

The bit that needs work on is the *down.* The hardest bit you've now got ie the run out with enthusiasm.

As a separate exercise (sort of) play with him tugging the mat and still winding him up with encouragement put the mat virtually at your feet (so you are in control of the situation) and down him on it. Wait about 5 seconds and then say "get it" or whatever. You can then build up the time he stays in the down on the mat. Don't overdo it though, otherwise he will get bored. Sometimes put the mat down and just say "get it".

See how you get on with that.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Nothing to do with dogs or rain....but just spoken to my Mum and her 5 year post cancer treatment scan and endoscopy have come back clear . Just bloods to go next week .
> 
> And...my MIL has a date for her last op (bowel cancer that obstructed and landed her in ITU on the critical list for several weeks late last year) now - just routine stoma reversal in March .


Great news :thumbup:


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## kat&molly

Lovely bit of news.


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Leam- thats brilliant, I really hope the behaviourist can help you. Great that its someone who actually knows about Romanian dogs. Keep us posted.
> 
> L/C- I'd say the same as the others as I hate my OH taking our girls out,you've come so far with them and you've got injuries to think of but I do think they know what they can get away with , and with whom.
> 
> Sailor, what Sarah says about the recall works for Evie as well[mostly]. She doesn't do the few metre keep away thing, but she has learnt to just come and have a bit of fuss and treats. I try not to call her at all unless she's already on her way back. Whats this, for treats, or this way and changing direction work well. And a whistle, have you tried one- its better if you keep them around your neck though- took mine out my pocket today and it was jammed with treats and wouldn't blow.
> 
> Ginge- lovely pic of Rory.


 thank you i am loving looking through his old pics tbh. I think the change in oh is him finally coming to terms with the ninja being not rory.
I have done the whistle thing too. Totally clogged with liver cake. Very inefficient

leam glad you have some one coming who sounds as if they know what they are talking about. Take good note of what they say but Be prepared for some work although he has sounded quick to learn in the past

sounds like some good news Dogless. 

eta Sarah if you want a stuffing toy our pet shop sells them happy to get one and post it to you.


----------



## Izzysmummy

That's great news Dogless! 

I think I've managed to put the video up from this morning with Subtle Izzy!

[youtube_browser]bFcj-IWwKTA[/youtube_browser]

We had a great evening walk, really good focus practising turns and doing some "sniff" and "leave it" work. Spoke to my Mum and she's doing a bit better and has managed to eat something today (went in to work despite us telling her not to then ended up coming home at lunchtime) she's been to the docs and had bloods taken to check her pancreas. Unfortunately Millie has now got limp-tail so has lost her wag and is feeling very sorry for herself


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Whoah, that's just taken me about an hour to catch up! I had all great intentions of making a personal reply to everyone on todays updates but it's just too hard and I don't actually have anything contructive to add so will just poke me head in and say.....










and.....



Dogless said:


> Nothing to do with dogs or rain....but just spoken to my Mum and her 5 year post cancer treatment scan and endoscopy have come back clear . Just bloods to go next week .
> 
> And...my MIL has a date for her last op (bowel cancer that obstructed and landed her in ITU on the critical list for several weeks late last year) now - just routine stoma reversal in March .


Fantastic news


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Nothing to do with dogs or rain....but just spoken to my Mum and her 5 year post cancer treatment scan and endoscopy have come back clear . Just bloods to go next week .
> 
> And...my MIL has a date for her last op (bowel cancer that obstructed and landed her in ITU on the critical list for several weeks late last year) now - just routine stoma reversal in March .


That's great! I'm so happy for you and your family. 

Looks like the consensus is early night so I will be up bright and early tomorrow.

Run and dog walk are done and have had a quick settle session with Gypsy and she is conked out on the sofa. Good night so far - just waiting for OH to finish cooking dinner.
I have nothing constructive to add to the discussion.


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy - Think the CHs and Izzy went to the same school of subtlety!! Isn't her face / head really changing now? She's maturing into a really stunning dog from really pretty puppy .

Hope your Mum and Millie recover soon xx.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Nothing to do with dogs or rain....but just spoken to my Mum and her 5 year post cancer treatment scan and endoscopy have come back clear . Just bloods to go next week .
> 
> And...my MIL has a date for her last op (bowel cancer that obstructed and landed her in ITU on the critical list for several weeks late last year) now - just routine stoma reversal in March .


That's wonderful news..!!

My sister walked her dogs yesterday; not very far but she did it.

She also had to drive down to Eastbourne Hospital today because her husband has pulled a muscle in his side. She then went round the local supermarket...

Hopefully the hospital will be removing the Hickman line next week and providing the blood results keep improving she may only need to go for blood tests once a week instead of twice.

It's looking a bit more positive now.

She said that she would be up to doing the dog training week-end course at the end of February and I'm now beginning to believe her....


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> That's great! I'm so happy for you and your family.
> 
> Looks like the consensus is early night so I will be up bright and early tomorrow.
> 
> Run and dog walk are done and have had a quick settle session with Gypsy and she is conked out on the sofa. Good night so far -* just waiting* *for OH to finish cooking dinner.*
> I have nothing constructive to add to the discussion.


So he has got some redeeming features - mine can't even boil an egg...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> So he has got some redeeming features - mine can't even boil an egg...


Nor mine.....:incazzato:.

Very promising progress for your sister too xx.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> So he has got some redeeming features - mine can't even boil an egg...


Mine can, but he'd be asking me for instructions all the way through. :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> eta Sarah if you want a stuffing toy our pet shop sells them happy to get one and post it to you.


Thanks for the offer, should be able to get some out here though  Zooplus are usually pretty good and we've got a huge Pets at Home type pet shop right by the supermarket where we do our local shop.

Just done some work on teaching Spen to lie on a towel. Don't see why I can't use a towel instead of a mat for the mat stuff in Control Unleashed. He got that I wanted him to lie on it pretty much straight away (probably coz we did the same thing with his bed the other night) so it wasn't difficult.

And we've been working on recall again coz it's gone to pot again  It's got to be my fault that it keeps happening, I think I'm going to have put real effort into it for a good long while. He doesn't run off and does come to me but it's slow and he'll stop to sniff or pee or finish what he's doing first. Not a complete disaster I suppose but definitely room for improvement. Let's hope the ground clears up soon coz I absolutely can NOT run in this!


----------



## Beth17

Fantastic news Dogless 

Twiggy your sister sounds so determined I'm sure she will at that training course.

5.30am L/C  

Izzysmummy I hope your mum and Millie feel better soon.

Leam hopefully tomorrow will help you to get a plan of action sorted.


----------



## Werehorse

My OH cooks dinner too. 

Dogless - Good news. 



Twiggy said:


> *Yes you should have stopped after the first successful down*, never mind attempt 3...!!
> 
> It's fine if Hugo likes ripping the mat up, the main thing is *he likes it.*
> 
> You can't have it both ways. Either you go to club and he isn't really interested and starts to cop out because there isn't any incentive for him to run out and drop or you play train it.
> 
> The bit that needs work on is the *down.* The hardest bit you've now got ie the run out with enthusiasm.
> 
> As a separate exercise (sort of) play with him tugging the mat and still winding him up with encouragement put the mat virtually at your feet (so you are in control of the situation) and down him on it. Wait about 5 seconds and then say "get it" or whatever. You can then build up the time he stays in the down on the mat. Don't overdo it though, otherwise he will get bored. Sometimes put the mat down and just say "get it".
> 
> See how you get on with that.


Ooops.    Will try the next bit, thank you.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> My OH cooks dinner too.
> 
> Dogless - Good news.
> 
> Ooops.    Will try the next bit, thank you.


I sound more like a school teacher than you now....


----------



## Twiggy

*For Moonviolet*

There's a Richard Curtis HTM workshop being advertised on Obedience UK. It's in November at Stoneham Barns, near Stowmarket, Suffolk.

I can get the details if you're interested. At the moment there are handling places or spectator places.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *For Moonviolet*
> 
> There's a Richard Curtis HTM workshop being advertised on Obedience UK. It's in November at Stoneham Barns, near Stowmarket, Suffolk.
> 
> I can get the details if you're interested. At the moment there are handling places or spectator places.


Keep pushing Twiggy...... :yesnod:.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Sailor, The flumps was one of my favourite programmes when I was little. also a nice sweet. Lol. 
Well done to toppa for being less vocal.

Twiggy, that story of holly broke my heart, bless her. Thank god she came to live with you. Good to know I'm doing it right. 

LC, go to bed. 

Dogless, I understood fully. Which is a bonus for me. Thanks. I'll try it in the garden tomorrow with him and see how we get on. He's easily excited so he should 'get' it. Pleased that you've had some brilliant news. :thumbup:

Leam, sounds positive. Let's hope it will be of some help. 

IM, izzy is really adorable.:001_wub: hope your mom and Millie pick up.

Very windy walks tonight but all good in the hood. 
Have emailed a local flyball place so hopefully will try frank at it, see how he goes.


----------



## MollySmith

I shall try to catch up

Twiggy so pleased to hear news on your sister, removing the Hickman Line is a massive step forward. 

Sarah  I hope Spens recall gets better. The weather is awful, Ive had to wash Mollys equafleece twice its caked in mud. I didnt realise poor Spen had awful owners, bless him. I am glad he has you.

Freddie&frank - I hope you hear back from flyball, sounds interesting

Sailor and F&F  de dump de dump de dump dah daaah  its been my earworm all day! No you do not look like any flump I ever saw!

L/C  thats just a cruel choice, poor you, Id walk them at 5.30&#9785; I hope Ely is okay on Wed

Dogless  great news about your Mum and your MIL, what a relief. I think you explained tuggy very well. We use drop, wait and play for our commands but basically the same results and its the best thing we do with Molly. She loves her tuggy time and the concentration means she gets tired fast so we limit it to 5 minutes, 10 as long as shes had a break.

Ginger  Rory is lovely &#9786;

Izzysmum oh shes lovely, me and OH have played the video twice, shes cute. Sending our best wishes to your Mum and Millie.

Leam I am so happy to read your post and I truly hope you have found someone to help you and Deeks. That is half the challenge won and what she says sounds so interesting and clearly with someone who knows these dogs. I have all fingers crossed. Like Dogless I have been thinking about you both so much but feel utterly unable to help you.

I am sorry if I have forgotten anyone. Moonviolet, Thorne and Werehorse, I hope you are all okay? Nicki I hope Rudi is still make good progress with his grub

Molly was out for about 2 hours playing with her friend Nelson. OH was there a bit longer in case Busters owners appeared but no sign and no news. Molly appears to have developed a lump on her lip (no bite that I can see). I did mention this to the vet last Friday but she seemed to think that was how Molly was made but it has got bigger and shes not made like that! Im going to give the antibiotics a chance to work as shes only been on them for 3 days and see if it reduces, if not take her back on Friday or Saturday. We are also working on recall. I want to go on this walk on Sat with Dimwit and her dog but saw there are woods in some pics on Facebook which means squirrel madness so I need to up it with Molly. Did some whistle work when I got back from physio this afternoon.


----------



## Sarah1983

Just had Spen out for a run around out front. Took part of his dinner with me in a tupperware container. For instant and speedy recall just add raw meat  Going to start feeding him only while out again for a while and see whether I can bring back the focus I had before the snow came. He was doing really, really well until that point. I think a combination of the snow being lots of fun and me being not so much fun coz of it being icy underfoot hasn't helped.


----------



## purpleskyes

Took Hudson out today and again he was happy to do sit and down for a stick. Very pleased at this, he can be a good boy when he wants to be.


----------



## Thorne

Wow, everyone's been busy today! Holding up my hands in defeat, can't keep up tonight I'm afraid.

GR - Lovely photo of dear Rory. In stark contrast to Breeze, I did Scooter's nails last night and he sat and stood patiently for all of them. Have often been tempted to get the vet to do Breeze's but don't want to tar her fairly positive opinion of the place!

Dogless - brilliant news about your mum, we've not long had a party to celebrate 5 years in the clear for my aunt  

Izzysmummy - LOVE "subtle" Izzy! A familiar sight in this household too!

Twiggy - The Richard Curtis workshop is right on my doorstep! Shame it's right in the middle of the uni term... Could I have some more info please, just in case it's in my reading week? Would only be spectating though, got 2 left feet 

Blue Cross today, have walked Suki (Cav), Dodger (Lab), Lola (SBT X) and dear Poppy.
Suki's very puppy-like and wanted to say hello to everyone but listened well, really cute little girl.
Think I've fallen in love with Dodger! He's a big chunky Lab but not fat. Handsome happy boy, his tail never stopped wagging :001_wub: He and Scooter are both 10 but Dodger looks a good few years older! Plenty of life and love in the old dog yet though.
Lola's at the very end of her heat but still gave my leg a good hump in the garden  fortunately she lost interest on our little side streets walk.
Poppy was a darling as usual. LLW, great focus on me, all around cutie.

Also spent time in the garden with Jack (Collie X), Belle (SBT), and nutty Paddy.
Jack has a short attention span but is a sucker for a tug toy! Practised "down" today, he throws himself on the floor. He's reserved 
Belle is still reserved too! I LOVE her! Typical soppy Staff, lives for fuss and tug toys. Very clear on/off switch in that big broad head of hers, someone's taking a cracking little dog home.
Paddy... well, he's Paddy! :crazy::rolleyes5: Chased a pigeon, did many laps around the yard (new game is "how close can I run past people without hitting them"), then had a game of tug. Practiced heelwork when he was a little calmer, all good!

S+B went out with mum, they're having their first day in the kennel for ages tomorrow so probably won't be too impressed!

Will aim to keep up with you all a bit better tomorrow.


----------



## sharloid

We still haven't been able to get Broder calm around other dogs. He'll still rear up and pull if he's in a confined space such as the vets waiting room but on a walk he'll lay down then jump up at them when they pass!

I'm thinking about getting a behaviorist in but I feel like such a failure.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted....


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Dogless  great news about your Mum and your MIL, what a relief. I think you explained tuggy very well. We use drop, wait and play for our commands but basically the same results and its the best thing we do with Molly. She loves her tuggy time and the concentration means she gets tired fast so we limit it to 5 minutes, 10 as long as shes had a break.
> 
> Molly was out for about 2 hours playing with her friend Nelson. OH was there a bit longer in case Busters owners appeared but no sign and no news. Molly appears to have developed a lump on her lip (no bite that I can see). I did mention this to the vet last Friday but she seemed to think that was how Molly was made but it has got bigger and shes not made like that! Im going to give the antibiotics a chance to work as shes only been on them for 3 days and see if it reduces, if not take her back on Friday or Saturday. We are also working on recall. I want to go on this walk on Sat with Dimwit and her dog but saw there are woods in some pics on Facebook which means squirrel madness so I need to up it with Molly. Did some whistle work when I got back from physio this afternoon.


Yes, for 'normal' tug I have always used (and still use) 'dead', 'wait' and 'OK Kilo' - such as in the house when I want less full-on squealing excitement to go and get it and work; I always thought he was really into it until I saw him go up a gear!!

Oh no, hope the A/Bs work for the lump on Molly's lip too . I wonder what really is going on with Buster? Hope it works out for the best either way for him.


----------



## Dogless

Leam - with Deeks being a teenage type age you may well have had to start everything pretty much from scratch again anyway! Sounds as if he's doing well though, I'm sure he'll pick up on the shift in you too - being happy to interact with him now and I'm pleased he was quiet. I wonder if there might be a connection there as he was quieter when you were chuffed with his progress in other areas before too?


----------



## Leam1307

deleted...


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- thats brilliant news on your sister.

Leam- good luck for today- you sound more positive and thats a good start.

MS- I hope Molly's lump is nothing to worry about.

Nikki- How many pups?


----------



## Twiggy

*Moonviolet and Thorne:*

*Richard Curtis course details:*

... Saturday 23 November HTM / Freestyle Workshop 9.00 for 9.30 start. 
Sunday 24 November Obedience Workshop 9.00 for 9.30 start.

The workshops are aimed at those who are interested in competing in Heelwork to Music / Canine Freestyle or those who are interested in energising their Obedience. Timing for training session - doors open from 9.00 - training from 9.30 - 4.30 or thereabouts. 
Handler places are limited to 15 to ensure you get individual attention. To secure your place, you must book and pay in advance.. Places are allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Costs and How To Apply
Handler & Dog- £35 per session, limited to 15 places
Spectators £20 per session. limited to 20 places

Please contact Denise before sending a cheque together with name, address, phone and email [email protected] or telephone 01449781725

Cheques made payable to Denise Jennings
The Acorns, Turkey Hall Lane, Bacton, Stowmarket, Stowmarket, IP14 4NN


----------



## moonviolet

I think i'm back, power cut followed by no internet yesterday. my word so much to catch up on.

Leam that sounds so much more positive, hope things go well today 

Twiggy So glad your Sister is doing well. Thank you for drawing my attention to that workshop with Richard Curtis  

I've booked us on a 2 hour workshop with my trainer this Sunday. As much as anything i need to build confidence in what i'm doing or i become horribly uncoordinated and muddled. 

Dogless fabulous news about your Mum and MIL  I think i borrowed your cloud last night when I got to the furtherest point of our pavement walk last night the light shower became a torrential and horizontal, at the end of the walk we just stood on the front step draining a bit before we went in :lol: and I ended up wringing the water out of my jeans. while Oh fussed over how wet Tink's head and ears wear :lol:

MS hope molly's lip lump is nothing to be too concerned about. Sounds like you're in for a fun walk at the weekend, pics please 

GR sounds like you and Ginge are making great progress now  I'm so pleased I have a huge soft spot for the ninja.:001_wub:

K&M How great that you can see Evie gaining confidence  another doggie that owns one of my heart strings :001_wub:

Thorne sounds like you had a good day at the blue cross today.  Hope S+B won't be too put out today.

Sarah the things we do for our dogs, Snow and a girlie in season you can't blame Spen for getting a bit silly. Hope he's back on track now.

L/C hope the 5.30am walk when well and the limpy pointies are getting better.

Sorry to anyone i missed i'm a bit rubbish.

Has anyone heard from Chazzie?


----------



## Werehorse

Right for the next 2 months I am going to be mostly working on losing weight.  Even the OH's clothes that I borrow most of the time are starting to feel tight now. And it is really friggin depressing. I am actually perfectly fine with how I look with no clothes on (ooo-er!) but I can't afford a whole new wardrobe so I just have to lose it. "It" being the 2.5 stone that has crept on since my first teaching practice started during the PGCE!

NO MORE BISCUITS!!!! :ciappa:

Right - vaccuum floor, Shred (exercise DVD thing), sort out horses, then RUN around the woods with the dogs. NO excuses. Rargh! etc. 

12stonefriggin2.5lbs this morning!


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Right for the next 2 months I am going to be mostly working on losing weight.  Even the OH's clothes that I borrow most of the time are starting to feel tight now. And it is really friggin depressing. I am actually perfectly fine with how I look with no clothes on (ooo-er!) but I can't afford a whole new wardrobe so I just have to lose it. "It" being the 2.5 stone that has crept on since my first teaching practice started during the PGCE!
> 
> NO MORE BISCUITS!!!! :ciappa:
> 
> Right - vaccuum floor, Shred (exercise DVD thing), sort out horses, then RUN around the woods with the dogs. NO excuses. Rargh! etc.
> 
> 12stonefriggin2.5lbs this morning!


I know the feeling - I was exactly the same weight as you after xmas which gave me a bit of a shock and motivated me to start tracking what I was eating and go back to the doctor to get my meds sorted (tomorrow!). I've now lost half a stone since 5th Jan - mostly by recording what I eat and exercise on the MyFitnessPal app. It's a bloody godsend. Can't recommend it enough - it really made me address the crap that I was eating.

Also to make sure you stick to your exercise programe you'll have to sign up for mad obstacle course and do it with me in September. 

5:30am walk went fine - thank you all for asking. Gypsy was a bit frustrated with very little off lead time (her leg seems fine now but she's still going to be limited for the rest of the week) and Ely was a little jumpy at being on the field in the dark.

But at the end when we bumped into some friends with dogs who had a bit of a loud, rough play he was very happy to ignore them and sit and do some tricks for me. Best boy. :001_wub:


----------



## Nicki85

Morning all!

I'm still on cloud 9 with Rusty being better and knowing that I will have my pup (I want to call her Shae I think...) so all happy happy happy here! There were 10 pups in total and the vet scanned 5-6(!). It was lovely watching the birth and I feel so much 'part' of Shae's life even from this early stage! 

Took Rusty out in the forest this morning and brought back a mud monster. He was very lively and bouncy and actually quite naughty. At one point I called him and he ran off after a scent in the opposite direction cheeky b***er! So obviously need to do more work on the recall. In hindsight I should have realised he was very "high" and shouldn't of set him up to fail. Never mind, I also need to get over the "yay you are better! go play, go have fun- don't worry about listening!"... I think we will do a training walk this afternoon with his tuggy and do some recalls and other exercises. I've obviously let things slip where I have been worried about him and we haven't done as much walking. He was very good when we met some dogs though- met a rude mini Schnauzer that ran up to him barking (Rusty actually turned to walk away) and I also asked him to walk to close past a cocker spaniel which he did perfectly until the other lady didn't call hers in so it ran round behind Rusty and he shot forward. Asked him to come back to close which he did beautifully and then released him.

Moved Rusty on to raw chicken today so fingers crossed his stomach stays settled. Will introduce some goats milk and yoghurt tomorrow to build him back up. 

Leam- glad to hear you have a plan of action, makes things feel so much better when you have a plan to work towards.
MS- more lumps? That's not good, is it allergy related still? 
WH- stick to the plan with the weight loss and it will come off!! My diet consists of cake usually so I really can not talk. I have also put weight on in the last couple of weeks :-( 
MV- what is the workshop focusing on?

I know i've missed loads of people- sorry :-(


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse I know the feeling, I have lost a fair few inches since getting the ninja but it seems to have stopped, I think I need to add something strenuous or lose the chocolate neither of which sounds fun 

MV if you do that course I will come and watch (I don't really do dancing dogs  but for you I will suffer )

Leam really hope things go well today and glad that you are feeling more positive and putting the effort in, I am sure/hope that is all it will take 

Thorne -  Paddys new game sounds 

Chazzie, not heard, I PM'd her a week or so ago and no reply, hope everything is ok 


Well I am feeling  :mad2:  hubby has another bleeding migraine, sigh! he says its not surprising as he hasn't really got rid of last weeks , well thats the first I heard of it, he said he had a headache but it WASNT a migraine  I just hope if he can throw this off properly the tablets will start to work and on top of that I have a stupid set of builders and even more stupid set of clients neither of whom seem to know what their arse is meant to be used for 

ETA Oh yeah, I have a dog and I walked her, we went to the wood which has turned into a bog, we had no dramas as apart from squizzels there was nothing to have a drama about which is exactly why I went there think we need beach tonight


----------



## L/C

Yay Rusty!

So glad he's better and very jealous of the pup. ES's are wonderful dogs - are you planning on doing anything like agility with her?


----------



## Nicki85

Yes she is destined for agility  Indeed as long as my trainer is happy she will probably start classes straight away. All dogs are inoculated at club and Stuart allows puppies into the beginner class immediately to get them used to it all. Obviously she won't be doing much of the actual agility for a good few months +!!! Great for socialisation as well  A lot you can work on though like stays, toy drive, circle work, going through the tunnel, touch pads.... just getting them used to concentrating at a young age in busy places. 

I might think about obedience or even working trials as well but haven't found a decent club in my area yet.


----------



## CaliDog

morning all! 
At the minute with cali we have gone back to basics with recall as she has complete cloth ears lately 

I need advice on a another issue we have, when someone comes in the house that she doesn't know she will go nuts and bark like mad at them, so we put her in the kitchen (its seperated by a baby gate through to lounge) as we answer the door and get the person to give her some of her favorite treats then she ussally she calms down abit, but yesterday there was no stoping at her barking at my cousin  how can i get her to be calm when people come in to house?


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- another migraine  I hope it goes soon.Fancy not telling you even though you'd asked. Men
How worrying- no reply from Chazzie, I hope everything is ok.

Moonviolet- exciting- be sure to tell us about the workshop. I hope it helps with your confidence.

Nikki-10 pups  how exciting that ones for you. I love the name. Fingers crossed Rusty's tum is settled now.

Horrible weather again.:incazzato:


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - I can feel the energy buzzing out of your posts!! So exciting .

Werehorse - know the feeling too....you'll get there. When I injured my shoulder and couldn't use it for about 7 months I put on 2 stone too; when I broke my back I was paranoid about it and ended up underweight . Sure there's a happy medium . Shred is AWESOME isn't it? Hope you run went well too .

mv - It was only polite to let you share my cloud. It's overhead again here and will be all day again I think.

GR - Agh. Poor OH and you. Really hope that there's some improvement soon. At least the ginger ninja didn't have any dramas this morning.

Nothing heard from Chazzie - I PMd her too.

Good walk eventually this morning. Went to a reservoir that I like as it has plenty of open moorland around it - however the gates were locked . It's the other side of a forest that I walk in sometimes, but on a main road so that side of the forest is more popular....anyhow, there is a parking place just up from the reservoir road so I parked and went in that way. It was drizzling away so no other cars there, but the entrance track is obviously popular with dog walkers judging by the carpet of dog poo on it :incazzato::incazzato:. I am guessing some dogs are walked just on the entrance track and back again as things were far nicer although far from poo - free once we got into the actual forest . Not a soul seen today and we had a nice walk....the heavy rain started just before we got back to the car, so I'll consider it mostly dodged this morning .


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Yes she is destined for agility  Indeed as long as my trainer is happy she will probably start classes straight away. All dogs are inoculated at club and Stuart allows puppies into the beginner class immediately to get them used to it all. Obviously she won't be doing much of the actual agility for a good few months +!!! Great for socialisation as well  A lot you can work on though like stays, toy drive, circle work, going through the tunnel, touch pads.... just getting them used to concentrating at a young age in busy places.
> 
> I might think about obedience or even working trials as well but haven't found a decent club in my area yet.


Where abouts are you as I know most of the good obedience trainers throughout the UK?


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Right for the next 2 months I am going to be mostly working on losing weight.  Even the OH's clothes that I borrow most of the time are starting to feel tight now. And it is really friggin depressing. I am actually perfectly fine with how I look with no clothes on (ooo-er!) but I can't afford a whole new wardrobe so I just have to lose it. "It" being the 2.5 stone that has crept on since my first teaching practice started during the PGCE!
> 
> NO MORE BISCUITS!!!! :ciappa:
> 
> Right - vaccuum floor, Shred (exercise DVD thing), sort out horses, then RUN around the woods with the dogs. NO excuses. Rargh! etc.
> 
> 12stonefriggin2.5lbs this morning!


I got on the scales this morning with great trepidation and I'm heavier than I've ever been.....

Cutting out all cakes and biscuits from now and starting on the Ryvitas - yuk!!


----------



## Nicki85

I'm in-between Reading and Basingstoke on the Hampshire/Berkshire border  Any suggestions welcome! Thank you- i'd like to give obedience a go as well if I could find a decent club.


----------



## Twiggy

It was lovely to see my very precious Quiver really enjoying herself this morning and I let her stay out with the others for the whole walk.

I have been so concerned about her during the last two weeks when she just couldn't manage the frozen ice and snow.

Both see and Leafy see the vet tomorrow lunchtime; Leafy for a top up of laser treatment on her shoulder and Quiver to see if there is anything more we can do to help her basically. Whatever my vet says I am not prepared to curb her exercise, because that's what she enjoys and if she collapses on a walk so be it. Better than being confined to the garden and depressed.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> I'm in-between Reading and Basingstoke on the Hampshire/Berkshire border  Any suggestions welcome! Thank you- i'd like to give obedience a go as well if I could find a decent club.


Well straight off the top of my head I can think of several good trainers in that area.

I'll look up contact details later send you a list.

Once my sister is better, she will be starting her once a month training class at Bordon again. Is that the sort of area?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It was lovely to see my very precious Quiver really enjoying herself this morning and I let her stay out with the others for the whole walk.
> 
> I have been so concerned about her during the last two weeks when she just couldn't manage the frozen ice and snow.
> 
> Both see and Leafy see the vet tomorrow lunchtime; Leafy for a top up of laser treatment on her shoulder and Quiver to see if there is anything more we can do to help her basically. *Whatever my vet says I am not prepared to curb her exercise, because that's what she enjoys and if she collapses on a walk so be it. Better than being confined to the garden and depressed.*


Absolutely agree Twiggy - so pleased to hear she managed to enjoy a good walk this morning too.


----------



## Nicki85

Bordon is about 50mins away so a little far- need somewhere probably only just south of Basingstoke- North of basingstoke is better  My postcode is RG7 if that helps?! Thank you.

Hope Quiver continues to enjoy her walks- I am completely with you on that, my old Springer still wanted to go out at the age 0f 16- it was what she enjoyed doing so that is what we did. She hated being confined to the house.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Absolutely agree Twiggy - so pleased to hear she managed to enjoy a good walk this morning too.


When I open the paddock gate it's like Quiver is a different dog and the years fall away from her.

She's a mad collie that is used to lots of exercise and training and although the collie brain over-rides any pain, she's happy...


----------



## GingerRogers

To my mind thats the measure of when you have to make that call, when they stop enjoying their walks, we suddenly realised that although Rory was managing 2 miles still he was only doing it cos he would follow us to the ends of the earth if he had to, he was struggling and out of breath and it was putting him in such pain he was grumpy with everyone. 

It breaks my heart to see our neighbor shuffle down the road with his collie in a sling 

So! Very glad Quiver still quivers at the thought of a run


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy, I agree with you. I'd much rather let a dog do what it enjoys (within reason of course!) and possibly have to say goodbye sooner than prevent them doing things and maybe living that bit longer but being miserable. I'm glad Quiver is still enjoying her walks and I hope she manages to do so for a good while longer yet.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> To my mind thats the measure of when you have to make that call, when they stop enjoying their walks, we suddenly realised that although Rory was managing 2 miles still he was only doing it cos he would follow us to the ends of the earth if he had to, he was struggling and out of breath and it was putting him in such pain he was grumpy with everyone.
> 
> It breaks my heart to see our neighbor shuffle down the road with his collie in a sling
> 
> So! Very glad Quiver still quivers at the thought of a run


Oh how right you are...!!

When I lost Fidget (aged almost 16 yrs) she had collapsed the previous evening, but seemed to recover and was desperate to come for a walk the following afternoon. That's how she went, with the plastic milk bottle she always carried in her mouth.

It's desperately sad but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way, because she was doing what she wanted to do.


----------



## Twiggy

Well a friend's just arrived and we're going training...!!

Come on Holly - you can do it....LOL


----------



## Beth17

Nicki it was lovely watching the pups being born. I can't wait for pictures of her 

Dogless glad your walk wasn't too bad this morning.

Twiggy I agree about the exercise, how lovely that Quiver was able to join you for the whole walk today.

Good luck to everyone trying to lose weight, it can't be much fun.

The boys walks were good this morning if wet and muddy. Had separate walks up to the field and think I may have got Sam too hooked on his toy, it seems to trump any treats I have  I may do a few walks without it, we'll see.

I'm having a fed up day today, well the past few weeks, but today it's really bugging me. I keep thinking what is the point, I'm doing a degree in something I enjoy and I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do when I'm finished but I have no clue how I'm going to achieve it and even if by some miracle I could find a job will I ever earn enough money to be able to live or buy a house in the future.

I'm 24 in may and just feel that I'm running out of time to start a career or earn decent money and maybe I should get any old job and start earning. I know my parents say they support me but I can't help thinking that I'm letting people down.

I don't think this weather helps. Sorry everyone ignore me and my musings  I'm off to get a big bar of chocolate.

And Sam has just dribbled all over my keyboard


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Nicki it was lovely watching the pups being born. I can't wait for pictures of her
> 
> Dogless glad your walk wasn't too bad this morning.
> 
> Twiggy I agree about the exercise, how lovely that Quiver was able to join you for the whole walk today.
> 
> Good luck to everyone trying to lose weight, it can't be much fun.
> 
> The boys walks were good this morning if wet and muddy. Had separate walks up to the field and think I may have got Sam too hooked on his toy, it seems to trump any treats I have  I may do a few walks without it, we'll see.
> 
> I'm having a fed up day today, well the past few weeks, but today it's really bugging me. I keep thinking what is the point, I'm doing a degree in something I enjoy and I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do when I'm finished but I have no clue how I'm going to achieve it and even if by some miracle I could find a job will I ever earn enough money to be able to live or buy a house in the future.
> 
> I'm 24 in may and just feel that I'm running out of time to start a career or earn decent money and maybe I should get any old job and start earning. I know my parents say they support me but I can't help thinking that I'm letting people down.
> 
> I don't think this weather helps. Sorry everyone ignore me and my musings  I'm off to get a big bar of chocolate.
> 
> And Sam has just dribbled all over my keyboard


Oh dear Beth...I have just had a bar of chocolate . Another 'what's the point?' day here too.....I am sure you'll attain what you want to as you have a clear idea of where you'd like to go xx.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Oh dear Beth...I have just had a bar of chocolate . Another 'what's the point?' day here too.....I am sure you'll attain what you want to as you have a clear idea of where you'd like to go xx.


Everyone else just makes it look so easy, I know that's not really the case but I just want to go rrr:

Hope the chocolate works for you


----------



## L/C

Twiggy - that's a lovely way to look at it. So glad Quiver enjoyed her walk and I hope she has many more with you.

Beth and Dogless - there's lots of point! Especially if you have chocolate.  Beth, money isn't everything - it's more important to have something fulfilling that lets you have a good work life balance; then loads of money.


----------



## Werehorse

Beth - at 24 you still have plenty of time.  Don't worry, you'll be ok. I'm sure you can make what you want to do work as a viable career - it helps that you know what you want to do!

I haven't run yet! But I did do my exercise DVD and sorted the horses out. Just letting lunch settle and trying to plug up the gumption to go for a run around the woods in the pissing rain, considering a road run option with one dog at a time instead but not sure if that would be better or worse.

Going to have an erbal tea and mull on it.


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth, there really is plenty of time, don't wish it away. I know at 24 you probably seem terribly old but really you aren't. I am only just settling into myself at 37  Living and buying houses is over rated TBH 

Enjoy finding out what it is you end up doing, and that goes for all of you lot really, Werehorse & Dogless !!! You are in the remarkable positions of being able to take your time and have parents/partners able to support you. I let hubby carry on with the pathetic earnings he gets from part time farm work as he loves it (plus I am not sure until we get the migraines sorted he could seriously look for anything else, at least his boss is supportive, so far!!) but it means I have to slog my guts out doing something which, TBF is much better than a lot of careers, but I certainly don't enjoy it. Its hard and stressful. We never seem to have quite enough and I would give anything to be in the position where I could sit back and retrain or just be!

Oh dear now you've made me all unsatisfied and miserable rrr:

I think I will go cuddle my dog, she has been clingy today!


----------



## GingerRogers

Re: What are you working on??? Well cleaning bits of eggshell out of the fluffy cushion Ginge has in my office  its hard to occupy her when hubby is in bed and I am working. TBF he had told me not to give her eggshells anymore as they are hard to hoover up, I thought she was eating them but no, just shredding, I am beginning to understand what he meant


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Beth, there really is plenty of time, don't wish it away. I know at 24 you probably seem terribly old but really you aren't. I am only just settling into myself at 37  Living and buying houses is over rated TBH
> 
> Enjoy finding out what it is you end up doing, and that goes for all of you lot really, Werehorse & Dogless !!! You are in the remarkable positions of being able to take your time and have parents/partners able to support you. I let hubby carry on with the pathetic earnings he gets from part time farm work as he loves it (plus I am not sure until we get the migraines sorted he could seriously look for anything else, at least his boss is supportive, so far!!) but it means I have to slog my guts out doing something which, TBF is much better than a lot of careers, but I certainly don't enjoy it. Its hard and stressful. We never seem to have quite enough and I would give anything to be in the position where I could sit back and retrain or just be!
> 
> Oh dear now you've made me all unsatisfied and miserable rrr:
> 
> I think I will go cuddle my dog, she has been clingy today!


Yes I've been in a similar position to you for the last 16 odd years, after my hubby was made redundant from a very good job and had health issues. He then took a job landscaping, which he enjoyed, but it paid peanuts.

You youngsters (Dogless, Werehorse and Beth) have your lives before you. Surely you must all have a dream and if you have, damn well go out and chase it....!!


----------



## Twiggy

Well Holly was flipping brilliant this afternoon and I was thrilled with her.

My friend hasn't seen her work for about two months and she was impressed by how much she'd improved....:thumbup1:

All three dogs went very well so we had a very enjoyable afternoon.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Re: What are you working on??? Well cleaning bits of eggshell out of the fluffy cushion Ginge has in my office  its hard to occupy her when hubby is in bed and I am working. TBF he had told me not to give her eggshells anymore as they are hard to hoover up, I thought she was eating them but no, just shredding, I am beginning to understand what he meant


For goodness' sake don't tell him he was right  .

Decided to drive into Belfast to the big PAH this afternoon as the weather was rubbish, Rudi had had enough exercise for one day and the PAH near dog school hasn't had tripe for four weeks on the bounce, which is why we go there  - plus to weigh Rudi; but the vet is only just down the road if needed. He was really well behaved, very, very proud of him - he got tons of fusses and was in heaven when two kids aged about 9 and 10 who had large dogs at home got down on the floor with him - his whole body wagged with joy  :001_wub:. They did have tripe and Antos veggie chew things so it was a successful trip .

One lady who dog sat for a living was fairly insistent that I should take him to a vet because of the mark on his back - even though I explained what breed he was  and another said loudly to her ?OH "Ugh, there's just nothing cute about big dogs, I can't stand them" . Thought it had been a while since I'd had any weird encounters :yesnod: :sosp:.

Hopefully walking Kilo with my friend and Dizzy later; anything to make going back out in that weather bearable .

Weight 27.2kg .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes I've been in a similar position to you for the last 16 odd years, after my hubby was made redundant from a very good job and had health issues. He then took a job landscaping, which he enjoyed, but it paid peanuts.
> 
> You youngsters (Dogless, Werehorse and Beth) have your lives before you. Surely you must all have a dream and if you have, damn well go out and chase it....!!


I will once on the mainland again....hopefully in the not too distant future .


----------



## Guest

Zander has been fab. Walked lovely. Sat and ignored a flattie which I bodyblocked. Watched but didn't bounce at a lurcher, who's owner was snidy with me. "Still bribing him then" 
Got up on a step and sat there while an army of small children went by.
Zander doesn't know what to do with children, he'll bounce about like he does with dogs, so I keep a distance.

Annnnnnnnnnd I shall feel like baby spice of the group of WAYWO.  
I shall be twenty in a month or so. 

eurgh I had a little old lady tut at me cause I still live with my mum. Silly woman.
Cannot afford to move out. I'm pleased I have a twenty hour a week job atm, most I know my age can't even get that.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Beth, there really is plenty of time, don't wish it away. I know at 24 you probably seem terribly old but really you aren't. I am only just settling into myself at 37  Living and buying houses is over rated TBH
> 
> Enjoy finding out what it is you end up doing, and that goes for all of you lot really, Werehorse & Dogless !!! You are in the remarkable positions of being able to take your time and have parents/partners able to support you. I let hubby carry on with the pathetic earnings he gets from part time farm work as he loves it (plus I am not sure until we get the migraines sorted he could seriously look for anything else, at least his boss is supportive, so far!!) but it means I have to slog my guts out doing something which, TBF is much better than a lot of careers, but I certainly don't enjoy it. Its hard and stressful. We never seem to have quite enough and I would give anything to be in the position where I could sit back and retrain or just be!
> 
> Oh dear now you've made me all unsatisfied and miserable rrr:
> 
> I think I will go cuddle my dog, she has been clingy today!


Yes; I am in a fortunate position work - wise .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I will once on the mainland again....hopefully in the not too distant future .


I'll have you training with a good instructor the minute you're back over here. Then we can meet up at dog shows.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'll have you training with a good instructor the minute you're back over here. Then we can meet up at dog shows.....


I would LOVE to find a good instructor.....although I'm not sure whether they's want to take on both CHs and me  . Don't think I'll ever be at show standard....but really would like to try agility with the BW too.

ETA: Trying to imagine the BW leaping through my arms in your signature HWTM move :w00t:.


----------



## sharloid

I made the call and we've got a behaviorist coming on Friday. He's bringing his dog so we can see what Broder's like with him. Fingers crossed this is the first step to being able to enjoy walking him!

I'm nervous and scared and feel like a failure but hopefully I'm doing right by him.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I would LOVE to find a good instructor.....although I'm not sure whether they's want to take on both CHs and me  . Don't think I'll ever be at show standard....but really would like to try agility with the BW too.
> 
> ETA: Trying to imagine the BW leaping through my arms in your signature HWTM move :w00t:.


Putting yourself down again are we....!!

Nonsense and balderdash - you are very capable.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Putting yourself down again are we....!!
> 
> Nonsense and balderdash - you are very capable.


You haven't seen me .


----------



## purpleskyes

Beth - I am 25, finished my degree when I was 24. I am now living out on my own well with the other half doing a job I really enjoy. I don't think anyone our age is ever going to be able to afford to but their own house, just think about getting a job that you actually enjoy going to, it makes life lots better when you don't dread going to work 

Hudson was very good this morning on his walk, good re call and he did sit, down and stay without any treats or toys. I got some nice snaps of him, expect a thread on this later 

I am worried about the fact he is 4 months now and hasn't really had any proper interaction with dogs. I don't know what to do about it though as I don't let him off lead around other dogs as he wouldn't come back. He is also rude and likes to just bop dogs on the head and jump on them :/


----------



## GingerRogers

sharloid said:


> I made the call and we've got a behaviorist coming on Friday. He's bringing his dog so we can see what Broder's like with him. Fingers crossed this is the first step to being able to enjoy walking him!
> 
> I'm nervous and scared and feel like a failure but hopefully I'm doing right by him.


Nervous and scared I understand  but why do you feel a failure . From what I can remember Broder has 'issues' like our ninja but amplified cos he is much much bigger??? I used to feel terrible about Ginge as I really felt we had contributed so much by chucking her in the deep end when we got her, but I now know she was always a bit mental. (Hubby saw one of the beaters the other day who said how glad they were that she wasn't going to be at beaters day this year  poor little tot she would have only been about 8 months then ) some dogs are just a bit more special than others and need a bit more care  sadly we can never tell which or what their issues will be. As I say i used to feel terrible, I still have days when I feel crap but not in the same way, most of the time recently I have been feeling really good about how she is improving, its a great feeling when you finally get them even if just a little.

As MV said to me its the difficult ones who make the best teachers, and all other dogs after him will be the better for the work he has put you through 

Well done on making the first step, don't put too much pressure on yourself, I had meltdowns after my two sessions as I felt I had even more to live up to once I had been given some 'tools' to use.

Good luck and heres to hoping we can both enjoy walks in the not too distant future.

Twiggy - Well done Holly, it must be nice to see it paying off as she sounds like much harder work than your other superstars, when she gets there she may end up being the best for the trouble you have taken .

WELL DONE ZANDER and baby spice  tut back at the woman, what is her issue, enjoy the comfort while you can. And more like a head butt  for the fool who doesn't believe in bribery!

ETA Dogless I am quite glad I have an antisocial dog sometimes . It did make me laugh, does she think you should groom the ridge out and I wasn't aware dogs were meant o be cute especially not big dogs. They are meant to be dogs and magnificent, as yours are 

Sorry if I made you all feel bad earlier I am having a 'day' and still picking bits of eggshell of the floor and out the fluff .

We had a lovely run on the beach (not real running, not me, just the dog ) on the long line, no-one about till the end and she barked into the dark at their silhouettes but that was fine I think, it was just spooky terrier protectiveness. Think it may have been a bit too dark as my imagination went bonkers . We found a welly and I had an awful thought it still had a leg in so I had to poke it, it was fine. Then we got a 2m giant eel wrapped around the long line , it turned out to be a rope 

I am however sad that Twiggy doesn't class me as a youngster  but at least I don't have to go out and prove myself in that case :ciappa:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Nervous and scared I understand  but why do you feel a failure . From what I can remember Broder has 'issues' like our ninja but amplified cos he is much much bigger??? I used to feel terrible about Ginge as I really felt we had contributed so much by chucking her in the deep end when we got her, but I now know she was always a bit mental. (Hubby saw one of the beaters the other day who said how glad they were that she wasn't going to be at beaters day this year  poor little tot she would have only been about 8 months then ) some dogs are just a bit more special than others and need a bit more care  sadly we can never tell which or what their issues will be. As I say i used to feel terrible, I still have days when I feel crap but not in the same way, most of the time recently I have been feeling really good about how she is improving, its a great feeling when you finally get them even if just a little.
> 
> As MV said to me its the difficult ones who make the best teachers, and all other dogs after him will be the better for the work he has put you through
> 
> Well done on making the first step, don't put too much pressure on yourself, I had meltdowns after my two sessions as I felt I had even more to live up to once I had been given some 'tools' to use.
> 
> Good luck and heres to hoping we can both enjoy walks in the not too distant future.
> 
> Twiggy - Well done Holly, it must be nice to see it paying off as she sounds like much harder work than your other superstars, when she gets there she may end up being the best for the trouble you have taken .
> 
> WELL DONE ZANDER and baby spice  tut back at the woman, what is her issue, enjoy the comfort while you can. And more like a head butt  for the fool who doesn't believe in bribery!
> 
> ETA Dogless I am quite glad I have an antisocial dog sometimes . It did make me laugh, does she think you should groom the ridge out and I wasn't aware dogs were meant o be cute especially not big dogs. They are meant to be dogs and magnificent, as yours are
> 
> Sorry if I made you all feel bad earlier I am having a 'day' and still picking bits of eggshell of the floor and out the fluff .
> 
> We had a lovely run on the beach (not real running, not me, just the dog ) on the long line, no-one about till the end and she barked into the dark at their silhouettes but that was fine I think, it was just spooky terrier protectiveness. Think it may have been a bit too dark as my imagination went bonkers . We found a welly and I had an awful thought it still had a leg in so I had to poke it, it was fine. Then we got a 2m giant eel wrapped around the long line , it turned out to be a rope
> 
> *I am however sad that Twiggy doesn't class me as a youngster*  but at least I don't have to go out and prove myself in that case :ciappa:


And you're only 2 years or less older than me . I just seem like an immature whining little brat whereas you are wise  .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> And you're only 2 years or less older than me . I just seem like an immature whining little brat whereas you are wise  .


I just spat my wine over the screen.  you immature  me wise  I think we need a mirror to reverse those roles 

ETA unlike Beth you better get a move on hey!!!!!

I am joking you know. About the last bit.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I just spat my wine over the screen.  you immature  me wise  I think we need a mirror to reverse those roles


Ooohhhhh...is it wine o' clock? . I shall join you tonight and propose a toast to......to......the WAYWO thread and all who sail upon her .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Ooohhhhh...is it wine o' clock? . I shall join you tonight and propose a toast to......to......the WAYWO thread and all who sail upon her .


It is, after the day I have had :incazzato:, I am still meant to be working, I can only get through it with the red stuff and distraction!

Heres to WAYWO(OOO) hic!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> ETA Dogless I am quite glad I have an antisocial dog sometimes . It did make me laugh, does she think you should groom the ridge out and I wasn't aware dogs were meant o be cute especially not big dogs. They are meant to be dogs and magnificent, as yours are


She thought that it was a mark caused by something wrong with Rudi . No stranger than the people who think that I have shaved the ridge in I suppose .


----------



## L/C

How dare you open the wine without the thread alcoholic.

I am offended. 

lol


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> She thought that it was a mark caused by something wrong with Rudi . No stranger than the people who think that I have shaved the ridge in I suppose .


Perhaps his back bone was put in upside down 

Now you may think the wine made me say that but no, I have a broken brain today, I have to tell someone , seen as hubby has been zonked again all day and I don't think its appropriate to tell clients I am a blondie nut job. Neighbours was on at lunchtime (my guilty pleasure aussie soaps ) I noticed it was coming up to Christmas on there so I thought about my friends son Ollie who is in Oz and thought OOhh wont it be weird for him to have Christmas at the end of January , it was only a fleeting thought, thankfully, there is still hope for my crumbling ancient brain.

Hurry up L/C get the corkscrew


----------



## Guest

WINE? Euuuuuuurgggggggggggggggh. 

Will Toffee Apple Cider do? 

When I say Zander ignored, I was shoving a winalot shape into his gob. Does that still count yeah??
I was SO chuffed with him I went down our shop and got him a pig trotter! :001_wub:


----------



## L/C

We are all off to the pub when OH gets home (pointies included ).

And LO that definitely counts.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> WINE? Euuuuuuurgggggggggggggggh.
> 
> *Will Toffee Apple Cider do?*
> 
> When I say Zander ignored, I was shoving a winalot shape into his gob. Does that still count yeah??
> I was SO chuffed with him I went down our shop and got him a pig trotter! :001_wub:


You Euuugh at wine but drink toffee apple cider 

Course it counts we don't judge for bribery here, tut tut!


----------



## sharloid

LurcherOwner said:


> WINE? Euuuuuuurgggggggggggggggh.
> 
> Will Toffee Apple Cider do?


... where do I buy some of that?


----------



## Guest

You buy it in shops. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> You buy it in shops. :lol:


Sounds revolting :yesnod:.


----------



## Nicki85

All this talk of alcohol! I have none :-/

Well, i'm 27 and living with my parents at the moment! I've given up with the shocked looks ;-) I want to buy a house, I need to save money for a deposit so it makes sense to stay put and save. I could rent but why bother? It would be a hell of a lot easier if I had an OH with another salary coming in but on the other hand I am stupidly independent these days. I have got a good job though so at least that is something. Just need to kerb my spending.... 

Any how... Rusty OK so far, raw chicken has caused a lot of mucus (!) so keeping an eye on him. Hate feeding commercial food as can't stand the stink but might have to move to it if he can't cope with raw for now.


----------



## kat&molly

Oh dear Dogless- you should get Rudi's Ridge checked at the vets.:yesnod:

And I'm nearly 42- guess that means I'm not a youngster.
I've opened the wine to commiserate.

After having a really bad stomach today , I took myself off to bed. Course the girls had to join me- a treat for them to all be allowed on the bed. It wasn't really a treat for me, half the bed was empty but my half had me sandwiched in between Moll one side and Scruff and Evie the other. I couldn't move and daren't even turned round as Scruff was lying in wait to lick me to death.
Slept for 3 hours  and woke up feeling a good bit better, I went straight to the bathroom. The girls started baking excitedly and I guessed the neighbour had come, the front door opens straight in to the kitchen. She walked in- even though I wasn't there.
I hate it because her dog rushes in first and course mine are rushing the other way to say hello. It always feels like a fight waiting to happen- and she searches round for bones or chews to pinch- my girls have always stood for it so far but one day they might not. Upset Tache the cat as well who was asleep on the chair.
We still had our 2 walks today but they weren't very good ones- and I didn't walk Evie through the village.

I shall stop moaning now and sit here quietly drinking my wine.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Sounds revolting :yesnod:.


TUT TUT. YOU WON'T KNOW TILL YOU TRY.

It's properly sweet though. Nomnomnom.


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> TUT TUT. YOU WON'T KNOW TILL YOU TRY.
> 
> It's properly sweet though. Nomnomnom.


in my grandmother's immortal words. " i don't think i'd care for it, so you won't have to share" :lol: :lol:

Getting ready for class, slept oddly last night and been limping and lurching about all day, could be an interesting class :lol:


----------



## Dogless

k&m - hope you're a little better....your neighbour sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!



LurcherOwner said:


> TUT TUT. YOU WON'T KNOW TILL YOU TRY.
> 
> It's properly sweet though. Nomnomnom.


That really isn't selling it......



moonviolet said:


> in my grandmother's immortal words. " i don't think i'd care for it, so you won't have to share" :lol: :lol:
> 
> Getting ready for class, slept oddly last night and been limping and lurching about all day, could be an interesting class :lol:


mv - please be careful at class  .

Well, my friend cancelled and the weather is awful so, for about the third time ever, Kilo hasn't had a second walk due to my laziness :incazzato:. He did zoom around like nobody's business for an hour and a half or so this morning though. What he has had is some training on his down at a distance, going to his mat and some 'leave' with ham....then Rudi had a little training...and then they had some together. They are pooped now .


----------



## Guest

But dogless! 

Its CIDER! With Toffee Apple!! AND IT'S SWEET!!! 

HOW IS THAT NOT SELLING IT! 

On another note I had a customer today spend 200 pounds on wine. :bored:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> But dogless!
> 
> Its CIDER! *With Toffee Apple!! AND IT'S SWEET!!! *
> 
> HOW IS THAT NOT SELLING IT!


That is how .


----------



## Werehorse

I'd quite like some toffee apple cider plz. I'm getting massive sugar cravings because I cut back today.  I didn't run in the end, dithered far too much - we just had a very wet plod round the block. Trying not to feel dismal about it. I did lots of things right today! Just got to keep chipping away, I'm making progress. I'm a bit special - like a rescue dog with issues. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You haven't seen me .


I don't need to. I've read enough of your posts to know....

Remember I've been instructing for donkys years...!!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Bloody hell girls, I can't catch up. 

I'm on my second glass of red though.  so I like all posts and may not comment on all of them. Sorry. 

While we're at it, can we all raise a glass to my nearly 42year old bladder. Been for my post op check up today and I'm good to run, trampoline, and do the other thing that's expected too. But may add one more week onto the recovery time for that. 

So, I've had a bounce, took the boys on a run, and :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: all good. 
I'm soooooo pleased.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> I'd quite like some toffee apple cider plz. I'm getting massive sugar cravings because I cut back today.  I didn't run in the end, dithered far too much - we just had a very wet plod round the block. Trying not to feel dismal about it. I did lots of things right today! Just got to keep chipping away, I'm making progress. I'm a bit special - like a rescue dog with issues. :lol:


Yeah baby steps, special one , don't attempt everything at once we aren't all Dogless's 

Nikki glad Rusty is on the mend.

MV careful there, I like your granny, sounds a bit like mine.

LO I am partial to certain brands of toffee vodka 

K&M you obviously are feeling better if you have broken out the wine, my glass is empty so I am going to have to leave my desk now and cook some tea, oh its bolognaise tonight, may have to put some wine in .

Ooh yay to your bladder F&F


----------



## Freddie and frank

Werehorse, try having a couple of squares of dark chocolate for your craving. I found I didn't need as much as milk choc.


----------



## Dogless

Nearing the end of a wonderful function and it's time for the loyal toasts.....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please be upstanding - Mr Vice." 

"Ladies and Gentlemen - Her Royal Highness, The Queen"
"The Queen"

"Absent Friends"
"Absent Friends"

"F&F's bladder"
"The bladder"

.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Yeah baby steps, special one , don't attempt everything at once we aren't all Dogless's
> 
> Nikki glad Rusty is on the mend.
> 
> MV careful there, I like your granny, sounds a bit like mine.
> 
> LO I am partial to certain brands of toffee vodka
> 
> K&M you obviously are feeling better if you have broken out the wine, my glass is empty so I am going to have to leave my desk now and cook some tea, oh its bolognaise tonight, may have to put some wine in .
> 
> Ooh yay to your bladder F&F


And just what is that supposed to mean?  .


----------



## Twiggy

*For Nicki85:*

I've just pm you with contact details of classes that are hopefully in your area.


----------



## Beth17

LO I agree wine is a bit icky however I don't think I like the sound of the toffee cider either.

F&F great news about the trampoline capable bladder 

K&M hope the stomach is better, what a strange neighbour I'd hate my space being invaded like that.

MV hope your class goes ok tonight.

Ginge wise words and I love neighbours, I will move to Australia one day :yesnod: What would you have done if you poked the welly and there was a leg in there 

Dogless it's not lazy by any stretch of the imagination, sometimes a night off is needed.

Thank you for all the reassuring words everyone it has helped. I know things will work out in the end I just get a bit impatient 

I got some halved stagbars today for the boys as they didn't like the whole ones. These went down a treat so I just have lazy dogs


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## Freddie and frank

I think perhaps BW means bionic woman as well as boy wonder.


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Yeah baby steps, special one , don't attempt everything at once we aren't all Dogless's
> 
> Nikki glad Rusty is on the mend.
> 
> MV careful there, I like your granny, sounds a bit like mine.
> 
> LO I am partial to certain brands of toffee vodka
> 
> K&M you obviously are feeling better if you have broken out the wine, my glass is empty so I am going to have to leave my desk now and cook some tea, oh its bolognaise tonight, may have to put some wine in .
> 
> Ooh yay to your bladder F&F


Thats not strictly true- if I was dying I'd still need it for medicinal purposes.
LO- toffee apple cider sounds disgusting-sowwy.
MV- have a good class.
F+F-Yay for your Bladder.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well, im ashamed to say, I have a Freddie who's fitness levels have slowly reduced since I've stopped running(tonight's effort proved this) so my big bear will be building up his distance with me. :yesnod:


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Well, im ashamed to say, I have a Freddie who's fitness levels have slowly reduced since I've stopped running(tonight's effort proved this) so my big bear will be building up his distance with me. :yesnod:


You'll both be back up there in no time at all .


----------



## Guest

Yeah but carrotcake SOUNDS disgusting and peeps still like it. A VEGETABLE IN MAH CAKE!? GET IT AWAY!!!! 

I've been watching fence jumping lurchers on utube. 
It's quite good to watch when you don't have to rush out with a slip lead in your slippers muttering "You've done it now donkeyboy, I'll swap you for a pekingnese next time." :lol: 

Yay for your bladder F&F!


----------



## Beth17

LurcherOwner said:


> Yeah but carrotcake SOUNDS disgusting and peeps still like it. A VEGETABLE IN MAH CAKE!? GET IT AWAY!!!!
> 
> I've been watching fence jumping lurchers on utube.
> It's quite good to watch when you don't have to rush out with a slip lead in your slippers muttering "You've done it now donkeyboy, I'll swap you for a pekingnese next time." :lol:
> 
> Yay for your bladder F&F!


LO I wish you and donkeyboy were a bit closer I'm sure he and Sam would have a great time together


----------



## Guest

Ooh guys can you reccomend a leather lead for me? I have that one with chain at the end still and I quite like it. I prefer it to the mekuti cause that gives him too much freedom, meaning less LLW. And that the metal rings along the mekuti lead seem to be out to kill me.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Ooh guys can you reccomend a leather lead for me? I have that one with chain at the end still and I quite like it. I prefer it to the mekuti cause that gives him too much freedom, meaning less LLW. And that the metal rings along the mekuti lead seem to be out to kill me.


The CSJ leads are a good 'bargain' option or...wait for it...Ann Rees . My faves aren't leather, they are the stuff that horses' reins are made from....Dogmatic Gripper! That said, I prefer training leads which the Gripper is...they might do normal ones too though!!


----------



## Guest

Beth17 said:


> LO I wish you and donkeyboy were a bit closer I'm sure he and Sam would have a great time together


They probably would as would Chazzies chaz (WHERE IS SHE BTW?).

Zand hasn't been offlead for nearly a month now.  
He doesn't seem remotley bothered though thank goodness.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> The CSJ leads are a good 'bargain' option or...wait for it...Ann Rees . My faves aren't leather, they are the stuff that horses' reins are made from....Dogmatic Gripper! That said, I prefer training leads which the Gripper is...they might do normal ones too though!!


Can't seem to find CSJ's but the dogmatic ones I LIKE. I do LIKE training leads but the metal rings injure me when Zander reaches lift off.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Don't have the leather one but do have a webbing dogmatic training lead for frank and it's so soft and comfy.


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy- thank you soooo much for those links. I'm going to do some ringing around in a couple of weeks  Basingstoke one is right on my doorstep... they do puppy classes so win win really. But Di looks quite good as well!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Can't seem to find CSJ's but the dogmatic ones I LIKE. I do LIKE training leads but the metal rings injure me when Zander reaches lift off.


They are fabulous; fab grip even in the rain!


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> But dogless!
> 
> Its CIDER! With Toffee Apple!! AND IT'S SWEET!!!
> 
> HOW IS THAT NOT SELLING IT!
> 
> On another note I had a customer today spend 200 pounds on wine. :bored:


Well I think it sounds yummy. I don't drink much but I'm partial to a glass of cider now and again and I love toffee apples.

Won't help my diet though but may make the Ryvita taste better...


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Well I think it sounds yummy. I don't drink much but I'm partial to a glass of cider now and again and I love toffee apples.
> 
> Won't help my diet though but may make the Ryvita taste better...


Ryvita?? DIET!?!?!

What leads do you use Twiggy?

Also I have fallen in love with a hound who is from the same rescue as Zand. He is called Mr Shuffles and he si cat friendly and would love a playful dog to live with. He's about Zander size so about 24 to 26 inches in height. I don't actually know how big Zand is. 
LOOK AT HIM :001_wub:

Our bungalow is too little anyways.

http://www.grwe.com/images/library/MR%20SUFFLES1.jpg

Also zander still has his OOHHH DOGS problem. So theres another reason. 
And he'd annoy even the MOST LAID back dog. SO theres that too.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Twiggy- thank you soooo much for those links. I'm going to do some ringing around in a couple of weeks  Basingstoke one is right on my doorstep... they do puppy classes so win win really. But Di looks quite good as well!


My pleasure....


----------



## Werehorse

Mmmmm, toffee ryvitas. They'd be nice. *drools*

Must get some dark choc in.

I've just taught Oscar to jump through my arms. Well started to teach. :lol: He kept laying down and resting his chin on my arm (heavy!) and drooling. But we got as far as him stepping through the arms, held about 5 inches off the floor and him doing it quite reliably then we stopped for a cup of tea!

Hugo's turn, this could be more dangerous!

I don't know why I'm doing this - I have other things to work on (sendaway for instance... Might do a bit of tug the mat and downing after we've attempted a bit of arm jumping! Don't want to get told off by teach again.  )


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Ryvita?? DIET!?!?!
> 
> What leads do you use Twiggy?
> 
> Also I have fallen in love with a hound who is from the same rescue as Zand. He is called Mr Shuffles and he si cat friendly and would love a playful dog to live with. He's about Zander size so about 24 to 26 inches in height. I don't actually know how big Zand is.
> LOOK AT HIM :001_wub:
> 
> Our bungalow is too little anyways.
> 
> http://www.grwe.com/images/library/MR SUFFLES1.jpg
> 
> Also zander still has his OOHHH DOGS problem. So theres another reason.
> And he'd annoy even the MOST LAID back dog. SO theres that too.


I'm on a diet because I stupidly got on the scales this morning and I'm hugely overweight....

Two of the dreaded Ryvitas and a piece of fruit at lunchtime usually sheds the pounds.

My preference is plain leather leads.

Two Zands - are you mad or have you had too much toffee apple cider tonight?....


----------



## Werehorse

LO- Mr Suffles is awesome! But I think you might go completely off your rocker with two donkeyboys in the house. :lol: I'm not sure it is advisable.


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> LO- Mr Suffles is awesome! But I think you might go completely off your rocker with two donkeyboys in the house. :lol: I'm not sure it is advisable.


Oh no no no I know that. I'm not going to have another dog for a VERY long time. And thats even if Zand can dare to share the limelight. :lol:
But Mr. Shuffles is a cutiepie regardless.


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## Leam1307

deleted ...


----------



## Sarah1983

Bloody hell, this thread gets harder and harder to keep up with!

Me and Spen have just had a mad 10 minutes outside. I took Kitteh (the stuffed cat if you didn't guess lol) out with us as well as a tub of tripe mince and we did some recalls and played some chase. He turned into a border collie when I produced Kitteh, all crouchy and starey :lol: Also been working on recall around the house for various rewards. Want to build as strong an association with the cue as I can and although it's extremely easy for him to come to me in the house I figure each one is another successful repetition.

LO, my mum likes that toffee apple cider. The cider bit puts me off it, reminds me of my days drinking White Shite as a teenager lol. Orange truffle Baileys on the other hand...:001_wub:

Werehorse, you sound like me, start teaching something then get distracted by something new and shiny to teach


----------



## Dogless

Leam - that sounds like a positive start - nice to have a plan and hopefully you'll bond much more with Deeks now too as you work .

I had assumed that Molly would have been going out from day one - are you going to carry that on now too? That also sounds positive!


----------



## Leam1307

deleted....


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless that meant you seem super human to little me with all your organisation and exercise.
Beth. What if i had found a leg. ??? Set the giant eel on it!
Leam glad you have a plan. I know I am guilty of giving up on training methods if it doesn't work right.away but they get there in the end. Think its time you got Molly out and about to experience life though or you could have another problem on your hands.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless that meant you seem super human to little me with all your organisation and exercise.
> Beth. What if i had found a leg. ??? Set the giant eel on it!
> Leam glad you have a plan. I know I am guilty of giving up on training methods if it doesn't work right.away but they get there in the end. *Think its time you got Molly out and about to experience life though or you could have another problem on your hands.*


Absolutely this! Leam - have you been carrying Molly everywhere with you? You could tuck her into your coat or use a sling; then she stays warm and snug whilst seeing lots of sights and meeting lots of people.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy - teaching sendaway with play... I reckon I fail at this one.  He just zoned out and went all blank and forgot what "down" means if it was clear I was in control of the mat or he snatched the mat and ran off before he downed if he thought he could get away with it.

Feel really shite.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Leam, so happy that there's a way forward. Sounds positive.


----------



## Thorne

Did someone mention wine?! May have to have a look in the drinks cupboard in a minute. The things that crop up on here eh? It's reminded me that I have no idea how much I weigh currently either...

-Sharloid: You're not a failure at all! Hope the behaviorist can help you and cheeky Broder.
-Leam: Very pleased to hear you're feeling more positive, best wishes for you, Deeks and Molly.
-Twiggy: Thanks for the info  Great to hear that Quiver's got a bit of bounce back.
-Werehorse: Best of luck with the weight-loss ambitions! And good luck with the jumping through arms trick, bravo.
-L/C: I admire your dedication to the early start! Given the circumstances I think I'd have done the same if I was in your shoes, although Scooter enjoys a lie-in.
-Nicki85: Fab that Rusty is still on the mend, a muddy Spaniel is a happy Spaniel after all. Sounds like a good walk, and excited on your behalf about your new pup!
-GR: Hope OH feels better soon, how miserable for you both. Glad you had a drama-free, if squelchy walk. And yes, Paddy's game is a bit nervewracking but I think he does look where he's going! Hasn't knocked me over... yet.
-Calidog: Welcome to the thread! I know what you mean about recall, Scooter's recently "forgotten" his so we're in much the same boat.
-Dogless: Can sympathise about the poo carpet; very good description of the start of an otherwise lovely walk I often take! Sounds like your literal personal storm cloud is subsiding, hope your mood picks up soon. Sounds like success at PAH, Breeze couldn't believe her luck when I let her choose her Antos chews 
-Beth17: Congrats on creating a toy addict! Hope your "fed up" spell passes swiftly. Slobbery keyboards though...!
-LO: We can't start calling you Baby Spice, it might end up suiting you  Good boy Zander, ignore the know-it-alls because they invariably don't know it all. Toffee apple cider, wow!
-K&M: Oh dear, hope you stomach feels better now? But what a treat for the girls, joining you on the bed.
-MV: Don't overdo it at training!
-F&F: Enjoy the bouncing, great that you've got the thumbs up from the Dr.
-Sarah1983: The thought of Spen the "collie" has made me smile, bless him.

*LO, don't mention fence-jumping Lurchers! *Guess what horrid Paddy did today?  The main exercise area was a slippery quagmire today so gave him a blast around the doggy play area. He's been in there countless times but today he had a poo dilemma, and had to bolt madly away from a dangleberry... which incorporated a gazelle-like bounce over the 4.5' gate.
It's too low for him really but he'd never attempted it before, recalled through the gate immediately and wouldn't have been able to get offsite. Alarming, but quite humorous really :crazy:

Despite his kangaroo act, Paddy was a star on both of his walks with me today, didn't put a foot wrong and was complimented on some super heelwork. Managed to avoid being humped by Lola although she tried it once, had a lovely walk with Ollie, was given kisses by Poppy and had a Staffie cuddle from Belle.

Breeze was being bathed when I got home, think she has a mud magnet in there somewhere! She's lovely and fluffy now though. Will aim to walk S&B tomorrow night, not taking them myself for 2 days feels like eternity.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - teaching sendaway with play... I reckon I fail at this one.  He just zoned out and went all blank and forgot what "down" means if it was clear I was in control of the mat or he snatched the mat and ran off before he downed if he thought he could get away with it.
> 
> Feel really shite.


Aww don't feel shite (I've had enough of that stuff here already with Leafy and Quiver a few days ago).

It would be much easier to see what's going wrong if you video it.


----------



## moonviolet

Just got back from class. Well seems i took Miss Keenie with me. She was blooming brilliant. We'd not been for a couple of week , with my lurgy and then the snow she was up for it and ready to work and work she did from the first moment until the end. My little star she's flaked out now  the heated seat on the drive there helped and I didn't lurch about too horribly. Hope she brings her A game again on sunday.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Just got back from class. Well seems i took Miss Keenie with me. She was blooming brilliant. We'd not been for a couple of week , with my lurgy and then the snow she was up for it and ready to work and work she did from the first moment until the end. My little star she's flaked out now  the heated seat on the drive there helped and I didn't lurch about too horribly. Hope she brings her A game again on sunday.


Platinum Star for Miss Tinks and her pet, Lurch .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Goodnight girls, I have three very tired and content babies so I'm off to bed. 
Got stacks of work on so need to be up early. 
Nite nite.


----------



## sailor

Freddie and Frank - *raises a toast to your bladder*
Dogless - If your dogs are getting atleast one walk a day, I wouldn't say you was lazy due to skipping a walk because of bad weather.
Despite calling yourself lazy, sounds like your Chs had a very energetic fun filled day !!! If only all lazy owners had your definition of lazy :lol:
Moonviolet - hope your class went well, despite all the limping and lurching 
Kat&molly - Hope you are feeling better and ... omg at your neighbour  how rude! Maybe keep your door locked for awhile, and reward her for using the knocker :lol:
Nicki85 - orijen smells lovely :arf: I had a small bag once as I was testing it out, and even I started to drool at the smell.... that and Chappie are the only dog foods that I 
'like' the smell of... but I think I am just weird 
L/C - how was the pub :w00t:
GingerRogers - Sorry can't comment seriously on your posts... as all I can think of is you pondering over a leg being left in a discarded welly :lol:
Purpleskyes - glad to read you have had a good walk with Hudson this morning. As for his socialisation.. his still young enough to go to some puppy social classes surely? 
Sharloid - good luck with the behaviorist and Broder :thumbsup:


I am sorry  I just can't keep up with you lot  I do try my best tho 
So sorry if I have missed you out, but I went back as far as I could before I spent the whole night in notepad!)

Toppa!
Morning walk (school run) he was well behaved, no barking and when at the school, he finally wagged his tail as he greeted a child (this Child has said hello to Toppa every morning for the last
week or two). This Child has also informed me today... that Toppa is gravely ill :nonod: because the poor pups tongue feels slightly rubbery. Poor Toppa.
I am soo glad this young thoughtful vet in the making pointed this out to me and I thanked him.
No afternoon walk as I was out at work.
But when I finally arrived home later on, I was greeted by a happy Toppa and a parcel  It was his Julius K9 harness!
So after dinner, I tried it on him and took him for a walk to pets at home, where he got to spend some pennies and greet a lovely shop assistant.
We got drenched as it was raining, but the harness had reflective strips and glow in the dark writing :w00t: so I didn't even notice the rain, I was like a moth to a flame!

On our way to [email protected] Toppa warned me of danger 
He started to bark and when I looked in the direction he was barking... from out of the darkness, I saw what looked like a human... but it had a bigger than normal head... with 
big round ears and two massive white eyes on the forehead.... freaky.... even I wanted to bark at it to go away 
As it got closer... it said in a very sweet femine voice. 'it's my hat isn't it' 
Yep a lovely lady wearing what looked like a destuffed teddy head for a hat :lol: Fashion has a lot to answer for 

Had a wee adventure with Ice today aswell, a good hours trek through the wood.... after an epic door handle fight :skep:


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> Oh she has, i take her out in my jacket when im walking Deeks or on her own too, we've been to the bus stop, into the school playgrounds with all the kids, into the post office where i swear she got more coo's than she did with the kids! Shes been into Asda, although we could only go as far as the clothes isles we werent allowed to the food bit which is fair enough. lol the security guy couldnt stop petting her and shes been down to the pub with me when OH is playing darts. We havent been out too long in each place though just 5mins or so to let her have a look about. Last day of work tomorrow for a long wkend so off to the train station with her and Deeks to do some sitting about, and my friend is competing at a horse show on Sat so will take them both with us there too. Its soo annoying though when people come up and go "oh its ok to put her down on the ground" emm no thank you i shall listen to my vets, shes quite happy snoozing in my jacket.


That all sounds great; bet everyone loves a teeny pup!


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## Leam1307

deleted ....


----------



## Guest

Thorne I bet your heart stopped when he gazelled!! 

Yep, paddy is defo not suitable for me. TWO HOUDINI's?? TWO!?!? 

*eye twitch* 

Mind you Paddy seems to have a recall!! Which is one up on donkeyboy here!!


----------



## Jenny Olley

Hope its ok for me to join in, everyone seems very busy.
If all goes well I will be competing in Working Trials with my pup when he is old enough.So today, he has been learning some normal puppy stuff, giving paw, rolling over, and some work for competition Sendaway and redirections, and article retrieve, obviously they are a work in progress. We play tug loads as well.


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> Thorne I bet your heart stopped when he gazelled!!
> 
> Yep, paddy is defo not suitable for me. TWO HOUDINI's?? TWO!?!?
> 
> *eye twitch*
> 
> Mind you Paddy seems to have a recall!! Which is one up on donkeyboy here!!


It did! Wasn't sure if I was seeing things at first. He has very good recall if you're waving a toy around


----------



## Dogless

Welcome Jenny Olley - Twiggy will be relieved that you've joined...someone else I can ask my daft questions to .


----------



## Guest

Jenny Olley said:


> Hope its ok for me to join in, everyone seems very busy.
> If all goes well I will be competing in Working Trials with my pup when he is old enough.So today, he has been learning some normal puppy stuff, giving paw, rolling over, and some work for competition Sendaway and redirections, and article retrieve, obviously they are a work in progress. We play tug loads as well.


Wooo!! Someone who knows things!! Welcome Welcome!!


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy - I'll try to get a video at some point but am unsure about doing it again because every time I say down and he doesn't I feel like I'm making more of a problem for myself. It is a pretty ingrained habit now as it is, he's been refusing to down on occasion for quite a while. He gets a funny vacant look in his eye and a stubborn tilt to his chin and just stays sitting looking slightly off to one side. 

I think I've fecked up somewhere.

Gah! I need sleep and to forget about training for a bit. Supposed to be doggie school tomorrow night but for the first time ever I'm really not looking forward to it - if he does what he did last week I'll be so upset.


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ,....


----------



## kat&molly

Leam- that behaviourist sounds really good, its sad that poor Deeks feels like he has to be on guard all the time but its great that you've probably found what was causing it. Woo-woo , a quiet night.

Jenny O- Little Archie is doing well. 

Twiggy- if only you could find me a decent training class-I'd be Really impressed.

Moonviolet- a good class, whats the A Game?

Thorne- those dogs at the BC certainly keep you busy.

Sailor- Toppa, Toppa, Toppa.:001_wub:

I still feel grotty today but will have to try plodding on and see if it helps. I knew the walks yesterday were rubbish, Evie came in whilst I was having a bath and nicked a toilet roll, then Scruff got an extra special beating 
We did manage a 2 second door wait yesterday. Crazy really she'll wait for food, when I remove the lead and getting out the car, but obviously this is too hard.
Ring toss is going so-so with Moll, we've had some success but not a lot. I'd like to get one of those basket ball kids games for the summer.


----------



## GingerRogers

Leam - sorry misunderstood your wording, glad she has been out and about, never mind the people telling you to put her down its the ones who think its ok to shove their hands down your clothes you need to watch , cute puppies melt brains I think.

Thorne - bad Paddy jumper, the description did make me laugh though, at least he redeemed himself, he sounds a superstar. Hope you get a good walk with S&B today.

Werehorse - don't get disheartened by one bad day, look at all the things your dogs can do especially bears and face licks, bringing a smile to peoples face is waaaaay more important than lying on mats honest  On a serious note just read your post about downs and eye slants, should you go back to basics, Ginge does it with sits and downs randomly, that slightly askance look .

Miss Tink another superstar, not that we didn't know it already. MV Glad you had a good if unbalanced session, hope you are feel more orientated today!

Sailor - Children and dogs often make me laugh, some make me :incazzato: but your little friend sounds . And new harnesses :yesnod: me gets excited about new stuff too :yesnod: hubby is always :rolleyes5: when I open packets straight away even if its something naff like a new pasta shape. Ginge has decided she needs to protect me from scary monsters in the dark on bedtime walk she got very offended at a two bodied couple (holding hands).

Jenny Not had any pictures of your little one recently I don't think!!  Never mind what everyone else says, you can join in as long as you fail at some stuff too !! we don't need to feel worse than we already do sometimes  at least Twiggy gets bitten!

K&M hope you feel better, little Evie is a stubborn miss isn't she, and poor Scruff extra special beating.

We haven't been out yet I am changing routine as I need to see the builders later and she can walk there with me.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Just got back from class. Well seems i took Miss Keenie with me. She was blooming brilliant. We'd not been for a couple of week , with my lurgy and then the snow she was up for it and ready to work and work she did from the first moment until the end. My little star she's flaked out now  the heated seat on the drive there helped and I didn't lurch about too horribly. Hope she brings her A game again on sunday.


Yah go Tink go....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Twiggy - I'll try to get a video at some point but am unsure about doing it again because every time I say down and he doesn't I feel like I'm making more of a problem for myself. It is a pretty ingrained habit now as it is, he's been refusing to down on occasion for quite a while. He gets a funny vacant look in his eye and a stubborn tilt to his chin and just stays sitting looking slightly off to one side.
> 
> I think I've fecked up somewhere.
> 
> Gah! I need sleep and to forget about training for a bit. Supposed to be doggie school tomorrow night but for the first time ever I'm really not looking forward to it - if he does what he did last week I'll be so upset.


Personally I wouldn't attempt sendaway with him at club until he's got the idea a bit better at home. It will only stress both of you.

Sounds as if you're both having a bit of a mental block on the down and Hugo clearly isn't finding it an enjoyable experience.

I take it Hugo is OK on sit and down stays?


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Leam- that behaviourist sounds really good, its sad that poor Deeks feels like he has to be on guard all the time but its great that you've probably found what was causing it. Woo-woo , a quiet night.
> 
> Jenny O- Little Archie is doing well.
> 
> *Twiggy- if only you could find me a decent training class-I'd be Really impressed.*
> 
> Moonviolet- a good class, whats the A Game?
> 
> Thorne- those dogs at the BC certainly keep you busy.
> 
> Sailor- Toppa, Toppa, Toppa.:001_wub:
> 
> I still feel grotty today but will have to try plodding on and see if it helps. I knew the walks yesterday were rubbish, Evie came in whilst I was having a bath and nicked a toilet roll, then Scruff got an extra special beating
> We did manage a 2 second door wait yesterday. Crazy really she'll wait for food, when I remove the lead and getting out the car, but obviously this is too hard.
> Ring toss is going so-so with Moll, we've had some success but not a lot. I'd like to get one of those basket ball kids games for the summer.


Sorry you're still feeling under the weather and hope you'll feel a bit better as the day progresses.

I'm afraid I don't know one single trainer in France - good or bad..

I know several in Holland but sadly not France.


----------



## GingerRogers

I forgot we did work on stuff last night. We did some scent work. 4 plastic mugs, she just goes round each one till she finds the right one, completely trial and error no nose involved  so I changed tactics and hid the old Parmesan rind under kitchen towel. Finally she got the sniffing bit but still being a well behaved dog where food is concerned, thought she had done the job by finding it and went to lay down looking pleased with herself, ** so I had to show her she could have it, then there was no stopping her, think I need something more substantial than kitchen roll next time  She down stays in the kitchen perfectly until called while I hide it, as long as she has something to lie on 

Then we did some muzzle training  she gets very excited by the game we play  but doesn't like it on, but last night we had head up and waggy tail whilst wearing it 

** realised that actually thats quite good I should work on that save her eating people when she does search and rescue


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I forgot we did work on stuff last night. We did some scent work. 4 plastic mugs, she just goes round each one till she finds the right one, completely trial and error no nose involved  so I changed tactics and hid the old Parmesan rind under kitchen towel. Finally she got the sniffing bit but still being a well behaved dog where food is concerned, thought she had done the job by finding it and went to lay down looking pleased with herself, ** so I had to show her she could have it, then there was no stopping her, think I need something more substantial than kitchen roll next time  She down stays in the kitchen perfectly until called while I hide it, as long as she has something to lie on
> 
> Then we did some muzzle training  she gets very excited by the game we play  but doesn't like it on, but last night we had head up and waggy tail whilst wearing it
> 
> ** realised that actually thats quite good I should work on that save her eating people when she does search and rescue


All good.... The main thing is you're beginning to enjoy Ginge and at the end of the day that's why we have them....


----------



## Nicki85

How is everyone this morning?

MV- sounds like you had a fab session! Yay! Love it when things go to plan.
Salior- sounds like Toppa is getting there  JR aren't my breed but have to admit he is CUTE!
Werehorse- if I was you I would retrain completely with different commands... i've done it with Rusty when I somehow messed his down up- changed to the word and retrained from the beginning.
KM- hope you are feeling better today, Evie's antics are still making me laugh 

Rusty all good, walk in the dark this morning round the forest as I had knee class (don't ask!) at 8am. Back home now  He is very very cuddly at the moment, the minute I get in and sit down he is on my lap and won't move till I do. I find it sweet but can get in the way of doing work when you have a Spaniel lump on you. Not sure if it is good for him either to be so clingy. He sleeps downstairs so does have "away" time from me... what do you reckon let him get on with it or try and enforce some more you and me time?

We have agility tonight- haven't been in a couple of weeks cause of his bug/virus thingy. Expecting comments on his weight as he is super skinny at the minute but he is very lively so should be OK. I'll keep an eye on him and not let him do too much.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> All good.... The main thing is you're beginning to enjoy Ginge and at the end of the day that's why we have them....


Oh I have always enjoyed her, even if she has been frustrating and stress inducing at times  it is just lovely seeing her learn to play and learning about her thought processes at the same time.


----------



## Freddie and frank

good morning.

bella was a little angel again this morning. on and off lead. 

took the boys out, along the canal and back over 'rabbit hill'. kept frank on his lead along the canal cause of the ducks and we met two HUGE chocolate labs  . same as me, one on lead and one off. did a quick hurry past with frank jumping up and biting the lead.
lovely walk back along the paths and both ok.

did the ready steady thing with frank in the garden, and he loves it. he's never been too fussed with a tug toy so got him a smaller ball on a rope. it was a success every time. so we'll be working on him getting really excited over his special toy then hopefully taking it on a walk with us and it having the same effect. 

well done to the ninja.:thumbup:
well done deeks for being quiet....shhh :thumbup:


----------



## Nicki85

What is this ready steady thing that everyone keeps talking about? I want to play!!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> What is this ready steady thing that everyone keeps talking about? I want to play!!


It's just a drive building / impulse control thing; I explained it a few pages back to F&F if you can find it - if not I'll try again . I am rubbish though - you sound way more advanced than me in terms of training so you probably do it already but just know the proper name for it .


----------



## Dogless

k&m - sorry you're not feeling great still, hope you're better soon.

Sounds like everyone else has had a great morning and well done Deeks last night too .

Just a walk to the top fields this morning so the boys could play and we did some recalls / random leads on and off / leaves. They were good apart from Rudi having a 5 minute period of attempting to leap at Kilo whilst we were walking there  and Kilo eating some poo :incazzato::incazzato:. Not sure what kind :rolleyes5:.


----------



## Werehorse

Apologies for being somewhat toys out of pram last night people.  I do get very upset with myself when I can't do something.

Back to basics with the down for a bit. I might give it a different cue... maybe he is getting confused/worried because Oscar's down cue is the same? And OH does somewhat bark the "down" at Oscar in class. But I'm not sure if the issue goes back further than that, I don't think it does... But then that wouldn't necessarily mean that he would start ignoring the down cue from me (I don't bark it  )

Twiggy - his sit and down stays are spot on. He doesn't often have a blank on the down when we are setting up for a down stay (although he has done it) and will even relax onto a hip on a hand signal and then doesn't move a muscle. His sit stays/sit waits are very good, I quite often leave him in a sit wait on the spot we are training while I go fill up on treats... he'll sit there with people and dogs training around him and not move.

Ginger - awesome scent training. 

Leam - so glad the behaviourist seems sensible and helpful! And well done Deeks for having a quiet night. Little Molly sounds like such a sweetie, careful not to coddle her too much... doesn't sound like you are but I know I'd be dreadful if I had a slightly vulnerable or small pup! :lol:

F&F - glad it is going so well with Bella! I keep meaning to ask how her weight is? Good going with Frank too. 

I think I'm a little wound up because my job stuff is starting this week - costume fitting today and atraining day on Friday... So freaking out a bit. :lol: Perhaps not the best week to be worrying about dog training.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Apologies for being somewhat toys out of pram last night people.  I do get very upset with myself when I can't do something.
> 
> Back to basics with the down for a bit. I might give it a different cue... maybe he is getting confused/worried because Oscar's down cue is the same? And OH does somewhat bark the "down" at Oscar in class. But I'm not sure if the issue goes back further than that, I don't think it does... But then that wouldn't necessarily mean that he would start ignoring the down cue from me (I don't bark it  )
> 
> Twiggy - his sit and down stays are spot on. He doesn't often have a blank on the down when we are setting up for a down stay (although he has done it) and will even relax onto a hip on a hand signal and then doesn't move a muscle. His sit stays/sit waits are very good, I quite often leave him in a sit wait on the spot we are training while I go fill up on treats... he'll sit there with people and dogs training around him and not move.
> 
> Ginger - awesome scent training.
> 
> Leam - so glad the behaviourist seems sensible and helpful! And well done Deeks for having a quiet night. Little Molly sounds like such a sweetie, careful not to coddle her too much... doesn't sound like you are but I know I'd be dreadful if I had a slightly vulnerable or small pup! :lol:
> 
> F&F - glad it is going so well with Bella! I keep meaning to ask how her weight is? Good going with Frank too.
> 
> I think I'm a little wound up because my job stuff is starting this week - *costume fitting today and atraining day on Friday*... So freaking out a bit. :lol: Perhaps not the best week to be worrying about dog training.


What is it? What is it? I'm sooooo nosey? A tourist guide? Wonder Woman? Bat Girl? A giant hotdog????????????

Pleased that you've tidied your toys up this morning . Mine get thrown out so often that they pretty much jump out on their own now .


----------



## MollySmith

I am sorry I didn't post last night, an awful day at work arguing with HR and directors and just awful. But the good news is interest from one agency for a design job and an interview on Friday.

I will catch up when I get home, off to kick arse at errant publishers.


----------



## MollySmith

Leam1307 said:


> We heard not a peep out of Deeks last night!!! think all the exitement must have tired him out!
> 
> One other thing we have to do is give him a proper bed time about 10pm, even if we are up we have not to go back in and take him out before we go to bed unless he asks to go out as it is just waking him up.


I will go back and look at your threads from yesterday - but just wanted to say that I am so happy for you and Deeks. Early days but massive hugs to you bot, you have cheered me up massively today


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I am sorry I didn't post last night, an awful day at work arguing with HR and directors and just awful. But the good news is interest from one agency for a design job and an interview on Friday.
> 
> I will catch up when I get home, off to kick arse at errant publishers.


You go girlfriend....in a dodgy deep southern accent with much mmmmm hmmmm and finger wagging :scared::crazy:.

Sorry to hear that you had a rotten day, but hopefully good will come of it with your interview.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> You go girlfriend....in a dodgy deep southern accent with much mmmmm hmmmm and finger wagging :scared::crazy:.
> 
> Sorry to hear that you had a rotten day, but hopefully good will come of it with your interview.


Thank you  It's nice to have the offer to go although I am not sure the job is what I want to do, it's experience.

I have a lot to think about. All this means we can't do IVF anymore so I have this feeling I need to grab this change before it chews me up and I get down and miserable. I feel that I might as I've tried not to dwell on what we've lost. Even if I get a job, I can't walk in and got off sick for IVF and age is against me. I have two years left to try.

My other option is that Penguin can give me some freelance work as long as I don't invoice in three months of leaving for tax reasons. It will give me 3 months work.

My mum has suggested that I think about dog biscuit baking too. I a bit random but I have been making them to sell in our local pub and my goddaughter sold them for me at her school. I was talking to the manager at a farm shop here and he would be interested in stocking them. I've got them all branded and packaged as I do my own design of course. I can set up a website too. I also know a lot of people in tourism in the West Country from when I lived there and ran a surf shop. The agency I book with stock them in their houses as 'welcome pack' for dogs. I thought about doing a mini box/hamper, maybe a monthly box scheme when I can send types. My kitchen is tiny but mum said I can use hers.

don't know, need to get my head sorted out.


----------



## Freddie and frank

nicki, p867 

werehorse, good luck with job stuff. bella weighs 24kg now and i can feel her ribs through her fur, as i couldn't before.she's lost 3.5kg since we've had her and i'm pleased with her weight now. she still has some loose flappy bits of skin either side of her tummy but that'll tone up in time. she is a lovely shape now, instead of a barrell.

ms, hope all goes well with your interview 

and kilo...poo eating :nono::nono:

eta....ms, i really hope things work out for you.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith; you really do have a lot to think about - perhaps all this is what you need. I would love to work for myself...if you did, I assume that you can then try IVF again? I do know how the longing for a baby feels xx.



Freddie and frank said:


> nicki, p867
> 
> werehorse, good luck with job stuff. bella weighs 24kg now and i can feel her ribs through her fur, as i couldn't before.she's lost 3.5kg since we've had her and i'm pleased with her weight now. she still has some loose flappy bits of skin either side of her tummy but that'll tone up in time. she is a lovely shape now, instead of a barrell.
> 
> ms, hope all goes well with your interview
> 
> and kilo...poo eating :nono::nono:


Bluddy hell, Rudi weighs just over 3kg more than Bella .


----------



## Leam1307

deleted ..


----------



## Freddie and frank

just a quicky, then back to work 

frank and bella just had a horrible sounding moment and i'm hoping it was nothing.

i had one of those toy squeeks in my dressing gown pocket from a couple of days ago,one of franks tennis balls in the other. anyway, i go into the bathroom,pick up my dressing gown and hang it up. the squeeky thing must have fallen out.
i'm in my work room and hear this allmighty growling and barking from bella and frank.like they were scrapping?? they're only a few feet away from me and it sounds awfull. 
i shouted loudly and they stopped, seperated and i found the squeeky on the floor.now in the bin.
frank normally lets out a little growl if freddie or bella go too close to him when he's got a chew or something, never over toys, but nothing like what i've just heard. it was a bit upsetting. never ever have i heard anything like that from any of them.


----------



## Freddie and frank

all calm here now.

no email back from the flyball place so i called another one who advertises fun and beginners flyball.
"they must have 100% recall, have done agility, know what over means cause of the jumps, and you can't do it for one whole hour cause they get bored and loose interest, also it puts too much stress on their front joints" that was the response i got when i enquired about frank having a go. didn't want to join the team, just wanted a try at the 'fun' or 'beginners' one.

another email sent to a beginners agility place close by.


----------



## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> And now you know why ive ended up with 3 baby animals all at once!:yesnod:
> 
> MollySmith, i really hope you get things sorted out and that you get the chance to continue with IVF.


Not really . I can't compare animals and babies, but if it helps you and the animals are all well cared for (as animals ) then I am guessing that that is a good thing.


----------



## Beth17

F&F that sounds like a minefield just to have a go  I wouldn't worry too much about dogs arguing my two had a handbags at dawn yesterday due to Sam going near to Oscar's kong.

Dogless sounds a good walk apart from the poo eating 

Leam that's great news from the trainer, sounds really positive.

MS a lot of thinking to do, I can't begin to imagine how you feel but I hope you can find your niche 

Werehorse costume fitting? I am suitably intrigued :yesnod:

It's lovely and sunny here today and feeling more positive. Good walk with the boys this morning although had a little bit of pulling and trying to trip me up.
I had a slight epiphany at 4 this morning when I let Sam out for a wee so have lots of thinking about jobs and planning to do. I'm another that hopes to work for myself.

Just making some lovely ginger biscuits and getting frustrated with sam as he keeps trying to chew his manky hoof on my lap and the laptop :cursing:


----------



## Nicki85

MS- sounds like you are going through a tough time at the moment :-( I hope it all works out for you- I really have no advice to offer just wanted to say that I was thinking of you.

F&F- I guess just keep an eye on things? Do you leave toys out normally? That's also ridiculous coming from the flyball club... aren't they trying to attract clients?! Bizarre.

Just been out for a lovely short walk with Rusty, he was very good! He did get confused and lost me at one point as it was windy and he really struggles to hear where I am calling from (hence getting the tracker/gps collar for him). I could actually see him the whole time but he just was going 100miles an hour trying to find me. He was ever so happy when he did though! We did some stay work and lots of playing 
And just because he was so so happy today here is a pic of him shouting at me to throw the toy and stop taking photos!!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Well Spen has just made me want the ground to open up and swallow me. Took him around the block and he saw another dog. So he lunged and squealed and lunged and lunged and squealed. Well I raised my voice slightly and he leaped back and cowered at my feet like he was expecting me to batter him. Talk about dirty looks from the other dog owner and two other people who saw. While I've lost my temper a few times and yelled at him it's never had that effect and I certainly don't hit him but I think they got the impression that I did!

F&F, I wouldn't be overly worried about a scrap that ended so easily and caused no harm. We had a few of them between Shadow and Wolf and they never came to anything. I think it's perfectly normal for dogs to have arguments now and then to be honest.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It's just a drive building / impulse control thing; I explained it a few pages back to F&F if you can find it - if not I'll try again . I am rubbish though - you sound way more advanced than me in terms of training so you probably do it already but just know the proper name for it .


Dogless you're doing it again..

I'm gonna really smack you if you keep putting yourself down - luv Grannie..


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Spen :nono:

Nicki what a fantastic photo


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> What is this ready steady thing that everyone keeps talking about? I want to play!!


Are you sure?.... If you saw my hand and arm, and that's with one little collie bitch, you might not be so keen..!!


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy- I was thinking this ;-) but thought i'd keep quiet instead ;-)

I do tuggy work with him but no impulse control as he had no impulse when I got him... we do the waits, drive to dead toy and stuff but it is only through agility. I wouldn't have done any of that if it wasn't for agiltiy TBH- I really think Kilo and you would have a fab time! Haven't been through and dug out the post yet as I really am supposed to be working.......


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Apologies for being somewhat toys out of pram last night people.  I do get very upset with myself when I can't do something.
> 
> Back to basics with the down for a bit. I might give it a different cue... maybe he is getting confused/worried because Oscar's down cue is the same? And OH does somewhat bark the "down" at Oscar in class. But I'm not sure if the issue goes back further than that, I don't think it does... But then that wouldn't necessarily mean that he would start ignoring the down cue from me (I don't bark it  )
> 
> Twiggy - his sit and down stays are spot on. He doesn't often have a blank on the down when we are setting up for a down stay (although he has done it) and will even relax onto a hip on a hand signal and then doesn't move a muscle. His sit stays/sit waits are very good, I quite often leave him in a sit wait on the spot we are training while I go fill up on treats... he'll sit there with people and dogs training around him and not move.
> 
> Ginger - awesome scent training.
> 
> Leam - so glad the behaviourist seems sensible and helpful! And well done Deeks for having a quiet night. Little Molly sounds like such a sweetie, careful not to coddle her too much... doesn't sound like you are but I know I'd be dreadful if I had a slightly vulnerable or small pup! :lol:
> 
> F&F - glad it is going so well with Bella! I keep meaning to ask how her weight is? Good going with Frank too.
> 
> I think I'm a little wound up because my job stuff is starting this week - costume fitting today and atraining day on Friday... So freaking out a bit. :lol: Perhaps not the best week to be worrying about dog training.


I will attempt to have a go with Tremor and a mat doing sendaways and an instant down - she's pretty hyper like Hugo, and then get someone to video it. It's not the way I train sendaways and don't normally do them inside but for demonstration purposes I'll try. You do realise she's got much bigger teeth than Holly and I shall be putting my life in jeopardy..!!


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I am sorry I didn't post last night, an awful day at work arguing with HR and directors and just awful. *But the good news is interest from one agency for a design job and an interview on Friday.*
> 
> I will catch up when I get home, off to kick arse at errant publishers.


That sounds very promising and we'll all be routing for you on Friday.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> all calm here now.
> 
> no email back from the flyball place so i called another one who advertises fun and beginners flyball.
> "they must have 100% recall, have done agility, know what over means cause of the jumps, and you can't do it for one whole hour cause they get bored and loose interest, also it puts too much stress on their front joints" that was the response i got when i enquired about frank having a go. didn't want to join the team, just wanted a try at the 'fun' or 'beginners' one.
> 
> another email sent to a beginners agility place close by.


Mmm not a very helpful response was it? I can understand the 100% recall and it's common sense they shouldn't run continually for an hour but the rest....!!

I wouldn't over worry about the minor scrap over the squeaky.

My response would have been something like "Oi we don't do that, now you all go and lie down".


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Are you sure?.... If you saw my hand and arm, and that's with one little collie bitch, you might not be so keen..!!


Yes.....the teeth are the downside I am finding....

Sarah - I'm sure Spendog is an evil genius you know .

Nicki - what a gorgeous photo of a very soggy dog!

F&F - pleased all is calm now and I'm surprised that flyball club gets and new joiners....

We have just done some training. I was having small dramas with sending Kilo to his mat - sometimes he'd sit and look confuddled and others he'd go straight there. I _think_ that mat and sit perhaps sounded a bit too similar so I changed it to 'place' and it seems to have solved things.....touch wood.

Did some more impulse control stuff with Rudi - he seems to have as much trouble controlling himself as Kilo did ... especially when ham is about but I'm sure we'll get there, he's a little star really!


----------



## Twiggy

Wonder how L/C got on at the vets this morning.

I haven't been back long from mine. I have to say Marwen has gone up a few more notches in my estimation as he was excellent with Quiver this morning.

After examination he agreed with me that she's only got one 'good' leg so she had laser treatment on her left shoulder and both hips and she's booked in for the six course treatment. We had a long discussion about NSAIDS and jointly decided on Rimadyl (yikes). At least she's had it in the past and hasn't had an adverse reaction and, sadly, she needs anti-inflammatory drugs now.


----------



## Nicki85

You see I have the opposite problem with Rusty- I tell him to leave a desirable item (roast chicken for example) and he will leave the room and not come back until I have removed said item. It is a bit extreme and he gets ever so stressed about it so we don't do much impulse control at all really! It's not even a slow walk away from it- it's fly away at 100miles an hour... I can only imagine it got a smack at some point before I had him for getting something he shouldn't have had!


----------



## Freddie and frank

nicki, that photo of rusty is wonderful  there's always balls on the garden and the odd toy left out, but i do rotate them. they have special ones that only come out when i play with them.

i'm so dippy sometimes, really.

this morning i posted about doing the ready, steady thing and that it went well.
reading it again, i did it wrong.:crazy::crazy: i threw it, held on to frank, said ready steady, let him go on 'get it' doh. 
must try harder. :blush:


----------



## GingerRogers

Nicki85 said:


> You see I have the opposite problem with Rusty- I tell him to leave a desirable item (roast chicken for example) and he will leave the room and not come back until I have removed said item. It is a bit extreme and he gets ever so stressed about it so we don't do much impulse control at all really! It's not even a slow walk away from it- it's fly away at 100miles an hour... I can only imagine it got a smack at some point before I had him for getting something he shouldn't have had!


I think we have the same issue here, she isn't as bad as Rusty but I certainly don't like to mess about with her food too much. We have been trying to get her to eat in the kitchen (wipe clean floor) as she doesn't like to keep it on her towel but even just outside the kitchen is too much for her if I am working in there. See last nights scent work, she finds it, then settles back saying yeah ok, but I know I shouldn't eat it, its good in most circumstances but can make some things frustrating to train.

Sarah - Spen  again Ginge does that if I use panic voice, it is rather awful isn't it  but it works, its been useful at times.

Nikki lovely picture he's another who looks fit to go 

F&F no advice on the scrapping but I am sure the others are right, I am the first to panic but I do know it is often all sound and slobber, Rory and Rosie collie used to have major scraps but only the first time was any harm done (chunk out of Rory's cheek ) and I think that was more out of surprise, next time he was ready for her, she is a little bitch, why I just can't trust her and Ginge to sort themselves out . What a very odd response from the flyball people 

MS well done on kicking butt, hope things sort themselves out.

Dogless this training lark makes us think as much as them I reckon.

Twiggy - glad your vet is being helpful

Ginge came to 'work' with me, we had a very muddy walk down there a couple of narrow misses/avoidance's with dogs then one unavoidable so we ran again , not far, but still enough to make me out of breath and hot when I got to site. She was very good and stayed out of 'most' harms way in the mess that was the bungalow and got very excited and flirty with every one of the builders and their boys  and is now so tired she could barely keep her eyes open while we had lunch. Hubby was back at work and feels a lot better, fingers crossed.

I think my knees might be finally wearing out  I injured one (cartilage(sp?) damage) when I was 11 which strained the other, but the physio said that if I had surgery then it would need doing again in 20 years whereas if I waited 20 yrs then the op would probably last my lifetime due to improvements, they have been okish but I think the increased walking I have done over the last couple of years and particularly the last few months have finally done for them. I think if I want to run far we need to do something


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes.....the teeth are the downside I am finding....
> 
> Sarah - I'm sure Spendog is an evil genius you know .
> 
> Nicki - what a gorgeous photo of a very soggy dog!
> 
> F&F - pleased all is calm now and I'm surprised that flyball club gets and new joiners....
> 
> *We have just done some training. I was having small dramas with sending Kilo to his mat - sometimes he'd sit and look confuddled and others he'd go straight there. I think that mat and sit perhaps sounded a bit too similar so I changed it to 'place' and it seems to have solved things.....touch wood.*
> 
> Well blow me I can't believe you worked that out as you're *such* a useless handler.
> 
> Luv Grannie


----------



## Sarah1983

Nicki85 said:


> You see I have the opposite problem with Rusty- I tell him to leave a desirable item (roast chicken for example) and he will leave the room and not come back until I have removed said item. It is a bit extreme and he gets ever so stressed about it so we don't do much impulse control at all really! It's not even a slow walk away from it- it's fly away at 100miles an hour... I can only imagine it got a smack at some point before I had him for getting something he shouldn't have had!


Rupert was like this. I remember trying the "it's yer choice" stuff (videos on youtube) with him and it took me 3 days to convince him he was allowed to eat after that.

Ginge, I wouldn't have minded if he'd just come back to me with his ears back or something, it's the fact he really, really cowered like he expected to be beaten. I don't want that, I don't want him to feel that fear


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> You see I have the opposite problem with Rusty- I tell him to leave a desirable item (roast chicken for example) and he will leave the room and not come back until I have removed said item. It is a bit extreme and he gets ever so stressed about it so we don't do much impulse control at all really! It's not even a slow walk away from it- it's fly away at 100miles an hour... I can only imagine it got a smack at some point before I had him for getting something he shouldn't have had!


Rusty is obviously very sensitive as is my Quiver.

Even looking at her wrong would cause her to have total meltdown. I've never dared to criticise anything, even in the mildest fashion.

I shall never forget the incident with the dustbin. It was in preparation for Crufts, when the steward moves a board with the six positions for distance control printed on it near to the dog. She froze on the spot and wouldn't attempt to do anything and I spent the next half an hour lobbing a tennis ball at the wretched dustbin.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Rupert was like this. I remember trying the "it's yer choice" stuff (videos on youtube) with him and it took me 3 days to convince him he was allowed to eat after that.
> 
> *Ginge, I wouldn't have minded if he'd just come back to me with his ears back or something, it's the fact he really, really cowered like he expected to be beaten. I don't want that, I don't want him to feel that fear *


No I know you don't, Ginge drops to the ground and rolls over ears pinned back in total submission but Rory did the cowering and creeping back, even after we had had him 10 years, I don't think they ever forget bad treatment sadly  sometimes things trigger that memory, its why I am so adamant she will be trained positively and why I feel so shitty if I do lose my rag, I just meant on the odd occasion when she could have harmed herself or escaped its worked.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes.....the teeth are the downside I am finding....
> 
> Sarah - I'm sure Spendog is an evil genius you know .
> 
> Nicki - what a gorgeous photo of a very soggy dog!
> 
> F&F - pleased all is calm now and I'm surprised that flyball club gets and new joiners....
> 
> *We have just done some training. I was having small dramas with sending Kilo to his mat - sometimes he'd sit and look confuddled and others he'd go straight there. I think that mat and sit perhaps sounded a bit too similar so I changed it to 'place' and it seems to have solved things.....touch wood.*
> 
> Well blow me I can't believe you worked that out as you're *such* a useless handler.
> 
> Luv Grannie
> 
> 
> 
> Dear Grannie,
> 
> rrr: rrr: rrr: rrr: rrr:
Click to expand...


----------



## Guest

Zand, although good this morning, LLW etc etc, I just KNEW that he would not be up to ignoring dogs today. He seemed a bit skittish, a bit all over the place mentally. Of course having a little bit of sun has meant the world has come out with their dogs, meanin a ridicilous amount of shooting up small side roads today. 
He also wouldn't let a man who he normally torpedo's at touch him either. He hunched and arced away. Didn't scare at a bike though and sat on the bench when i told him too while my neighbour spoke to me for twenty mins. Apart from a bit of whingey and a couple lead chews, he was good. 
My neighbour said that he's been well trained, even if he is a bit mental. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Two quick walks this afternoon - toilet walk for Kilo as he hadn't had a poo since yesterday morning (pretty normal) but had started whining and whistling so I put him out of his misery - Sir Kilo will only use the garden in dire straits for toiletting  . Black lab ran up to us across the road; I stamped, Kilo only bounced a little and back to distant owner it ran!

Training walk for Rudi - I wasn't expecting much as it's so windy - but he did lovely LLW and random sits and waits...little star . Nothing really seen in this weather again! Oh, the little bugger had to have his collar let out to the last hole too - thought it would last him many months longer...guess I'll be buying a large one then....

Kilo and I are meant to be meeting Dizzy and his human later, hence his mini walk.


----------



## Jenny Olley

Took Archie to get weighed, thought he was getting a big boy at 14Kilo's our adult collie bitches only weigh 15kilo, then I see he is only half the weight of Rudi, just a squirt, mind collie's tend to be a bit smaller that RR.

Did a little training in the vets and car park, just sits, downs and a bit of heelwork and dropping article for him to pick up, shame to miss an opportunity.

Few sendaways at the field, short, with Archie rewarded back with me, not at the marker. 

Liked the scent things you were doing with your dog gingerRogers.

Werehorse, I maybe too new on this thread for an opinion, but I agree with Twiggy, I wouldn't be doing a Sendaway in class, could you say you have been struggling with it, see if they'll let you just walk your dog out and down it on the mat.


----------



## GingerRogers

Jenny Olley said:


> Took Archie to get weighed, thought he was getting a big boy at 14Kilo's our adult collie bitches only weigh 15kilo, then I see he is only half the weight of Rudi, just a squirt, mind collie's tend to be a bit smaller that RR.
> 
> Did a little training in the vets and car park, just sits, downs and a bit of heelwork and dropping article for him to pick up, shame to miss an opportunity.
> 
> Few sendaways at the field, short, with Archie rewarded back with me, not at the marker.
> 
> *Liked the scent things you were doing with your dog gingerRogers*.
> 
> Werehorse, I maybe too new on this thread for an opinion, but I agree with Twiggy, I wouldn't be doing a Sendaway in class, could you say you have been struggling with it, see if they'll let you just walk your dog out and down it on the mat.


I know Rudi is as heavy as Rory was and he was a solid staffy cross collie  I cant quite picture how big Rudi really is 

Have you got any suggestions on more scent games I can work on/play, I was really only doing variations of what they showed us at basic training (when we went, I stopped as it was stressing us both and it made me cry ) she spends a lot of time with her nose stuck to the ground so thought I might be able to use this in some way perhaps direct her away from rabbit trails and she might be able to get some off lead time. Although until last night I did think she had a broken nose with her random trashing of the mugs, I haven't really a clue how to harness it though.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I know Rudi is as heavy as Rory was and he was a solid staffy cross collie  I cant quite picture how big Rudi really is
> 
> Have you got any suggestions on more scent games I can work on/play, I was really only doing variations of what they showed us at basic training (when we went, I stopped as it was stressing us both and it made me cry ) she spends a lot of time with her nose stuck to the ground so thought I might be able to use this in some way perhaps direct her away from rabbit trails and she might be able to get some off lead time. Although until last night I did think she had a broken nose with her random trashing of the mugs, I haven't really a clue how to harness it though.


He doesn't seem that big until I look at photos of him with Kilo; looks about 18 - 19kg to me though....although he's very solid. Mind you, Kilo doesn't look 48kg either; I think I have body dysmorphia by proxy .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> He doesn't seem that big until I look at photos of him with Kilo; looks about 18 - 19kg to me though....although he's very solid. Mind you, Kilo doesn't look 48kg either; I think I have body dysmorphia by proxy .


Lol, thats the thing Rory was collie sized but solid-er o) I can't imagine a 4mth pup being that big


----------



## Jenny Olley

GingerRogers said:


> I know Rudi is as heavy as Rory was and he was a solid staffy cross collie  I cant quite picture how big Rudi really is
> 
> Have you got any suggestions on more scent games I can work on/play, I was really only doing variations of what they showed us at basic training (when we went, I stopped as it was stressing us both and it made me cry ) she spends a lot of time with her nose stuck to the ground so thought I might be able to use this in some way perhaps direct her away from rabbit trails and she might be able to get some off lead time. Although until last night I did think she had a broken nose with her random trashing of the mugs, I haven't really a clue how to harness it though.


A couple of really simple things you could do are, take a handful of food and just scatter it in the garden, on the patio, in the kitchen, so your dog has to use its nose tpo go find it, when you do it on grass they will spend ages on the off chance they have missed one piece, obviously this is at meal times not extra.

Tracking, in its simplest form, once your dog is used to looking for food as above, start dropping it in trails, I would free track at first ie let the dog just go and find it, after a few sessions you could track with a lead attached to a collar or ideally a harness.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, thats the thing Rory was collie sized but solid-er o) I can't imagine a 4mth pup being that big


He's bigger than most collies we meet and the 8 month old labs and GR at puppy class so he probably is quite big; everyone always tells me he's huge...I don't see it!


----------



## GingerRogers

Jenny Olley said:


> A couple of really simple things you could do are, take a handful of food and just scatter it in the garden, on the patio, in the kitchen, so your dog has to use its nose tpo go find it, when you do it on grass they will spend ages on the off chance they have missed one piece, obviously this is at meal times not extra.
> 
> Tracking, in its simplest form, once your dog is used to looking for food as above, start dropping it in trails, I would free track at first ie let the dog just go and find it, after a few sessions you could track with a lead attached to a collar or ideally a harness.


See I was thinking thats the one downside of raw feeding, I don't want the neighbourhood blaming me for the rats , but then that was when I thought her nose might be broken, if it isn't she should find it all  and I am sure rats would like kibble anyway.


----------



## moonviolet

Well I think we broke the beagle :lol:

OH is off work today so we took her out for a romp in the woods and played various games including a great game of hide and seek Tink poor lamb was always "IT" and never got a turn at hiding , but she loves it that way. It's almost tea time and she's still doing an, almost, convincing impression of a sofa cushion :lol:

I forgot to mention I went to the sociable area for a walk yesterday ( because it's flat and i was limping and lurching) and got lots of compliments about how confident and comfortable Tink is now


----------



## diefenbaker

Went for a walk with Dief's Staffy friend buddy this morning. Buddy's hooman brought along his dog trainer who brought along her two dogs. Guess who's ran off after a cat.


----------



## moonviolet

diefenbaker said:


> Went for a walk with Dief's Staffy friend buddy this morning. Buddy's hooman brought along his dog trainer who brought along her two dogs. Guess who's ran off after a cat.


Dog trainer's?


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> I will attempt to have a go with Tremor and a mat doing sendaways and an instant down - she's pretty hyper like Hugo, and then get someone to video it. It's not the way I train sendaways and don't normally do them inside but for demonstration purposes I'll try. You do realise she's got much bigger teeth than Holly and I shall be putting my life in jeopardy..!!


 Don't risk your life on my account please! I actually just got the mat we have been using at class out at home and BAM he ran to it as soon as I put it on the floor and downed himself. I clicked, treated and set him up again and BAM he was there in a flash and down flat like he was herding sheep. SO actually he does know about going to the mat and downing. At home. And this is how he was when we first started in class. It's like he's lost his confidence with it there, perhaps the distance? Perhaps I'm more tense...



Nicki85 said:


> You see I have the opposite problem with Rusty- I tell him to leave a desirable item (roast chicken for example) and he will leave the room and not come back until I have removed said item. It is a bit extreme and he gets ever so stressed about it so we don't do much impulse control at all really! It's not even a slow walk away from it- it's fly away at 100miles an hour... I can only imagine it got a smack at some point before I had him for getting something he shouldn't have had!


Oh that is so sad! And Spen and Ginge getting all worried by raised voices like that. Hugo is sensitive enough to not like it when I raise my voice and get upset but he doesn't freak out because it has never been directed at him - I hate to think of how my two would be if they'd gone to a different home.



moonviolet said:


> Well I think we broke the beagle :lol:
> 
> OH is off work today so we took her out for a romp in the woods and played various games including a great game of hide and seek Tink poor lamb was always "IT" and never got a turn at hiding , but she loves it that way. It's almost tea time and she's still doing an, almost, convincing impression of a sofa cushion :lol:
> 
> I forgot to mention I went to the sociable area for a walk yesterday ( because it's flat and i was limping and lurching) and *got lots of compliments about how confident and comfortable Tink is now*


You're a star, mv. 

Poor response from the flyball club I reckon, F&F.

Rudi is such a little star, Dogless.  A credit to you already, I've found I learned so much with Oscar that meant Hugo was just so much easier! I have to remind myself of that if Oscar is naughty - I can't be cross because he taught me everything. :lol:

Jenny Olley - don't hesitate to give advice.  Thank you! You and Twiggy are right and we're planning on going right back to basics with treat on mat and sending from right next to the mat to build his confidence back up and not join in with any group sending to mats.

Also, rightly or wrongly, OH is going to take Hugo tonight and I'm going to take Oscar. OH is under strict instructions not to bark any commands at Hugo though  And to walk him on the right so he doesn't mess up my heelwork side. :lol: This is mostly because I'm getting too perfectionisty with him and need to take a step back to go forwards again. Plus I think it'll help Hugo long term to gain a bit more confidence away from me. Fun tonight, no stress. :yesnod:


----------



## Jenny Olley

GingerRogers said:


> See I was thinking thats the one downside of raw feeding, I don't want the neighbourhood blaming me for the rats , but then that was when I thought her nose might be broken, if it isn't she should find it all  and I am sure rats would like kibble anyway.


Loads do it with raw, like you say rats will eat kibble just as happily.


----------



## GingerRogers

Jenny Olley said:


> Loads do it with raw, like you say rats will eat kibble just as happily.


Yes I realised that as I talk typed out loud, I ramble sometimes . Thank you.

Good luck tonight werehorse, scary control loss


----------



## kat&molly

Phew!

Ginge- good news your OH is feeling better, I hope it lasts and that the meds have chance to kick in. Scent games are good fun aren't they, mine love 'Find it' - and now so does the neighbours dog and 'Moll's family' too.

F+F- All that weight Bella's lost already  The flyball club sounds ridiculous- one training club here states that all dogs must be '100 socialised' to attend.

Sarah- Poor Spen. Jay, Scruff and Evie are like that as well- I had a French woman ask me if Evie was like it because we beat her.

I gave Evie her Happy pill and we went through the village, She was really keen. We only saw one dog , that didn't bark and some Tumbleweed
Still nervous in a couple of places but doing well, we aren't really seeing any people -4 I think in about 10 days-so we need to see more but I dont want to adjust the route yet.
A bit more success on the Ring Toss game, we cut some off the plunger as it was a bit too high I think. I hold it in my hand at an angle for now.


----------



## cinnamontoast

Check out the collection of gun dogs in the latest Zak video!! (And his almost total ignoring of them-mostly )


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I forgot to mention I went to the sociable area for a walk yesterday ( because it's flat and i was limping and lurching) and got lots of compliments about how confident and comfortable Tink is now


^^^ That's great!!

CT - you've made a lot of progress with Zak .

Werehorse - hope you survive the loss of control with swapping dogs; not sure I would .

We went for a walk with Dizzy and human; had a nice time. Kilo barked at her daughter as we were saying goodbye as she had just been dropped off at the end of the alley wearing a martial arts suit and came running down full pelt and towards Kilo saying "Isn't he soooooo cuutttteeeee?". He hasn't done that for ages, but I can see his point when a bright white shrieky thing comes running at you. I apologised, all was well and we came home. Shame though .

Rudi has just gone waaay over the top biting which means he needs to sleep so he was put into his crate and snoozed within seconds.....shame I had to go through the pain, but never mind  :incazzato:.


----------



## cinnamontoast

moonviolet said:


> I forgot to mention I went to the sociable area for a walk yesterday ( because it's flat and i was limping and lurching) and got lots of compliments about how confident and comfortable Tink is now


That's excellent progress for her when she has been so nervous and progress for you too, cos I know how nerve wracking it is thinking some lump of a dog will come over and grab her. :thumbsup:



Dogless said:


> ^^^ That's great!!
> 
> CT - you've made a lot of progress with Zak .


Not me, I confess it's mostly the OH and the trainer is fab!



Dogless said:


> Rudi has just gone waaay over the top biting which means he needs to sleep so he was put into his crate and snoozed within seconds.....shame I had to go through the pain, but never mind  :incazzato:.


Crazy pup! It's like having a grizzly child! Needs a nap, pronto! Bless!


----------



## Dogless

cinammontoast said:


> That's excellent progress for her when she has been so nervous and progress for you too, cos I know how nerve wracking it is thinking some lump of a dog will come over and grab her. :thumbsup:
> 
> Not me, I confess it's mostly the OH and the trainer is fab!
> 
> Crazy pup! It's like having a grizzly child! Needs a nap, pronto! Bless!


AT least grizzly kids don't tear clothes and flesh :sosp:. Little bugger, good job I love him!


----------



## cinnamontoast

He's a big lad to be chewing on you!


----------



## Dogless

cinammontoast said:


> He's a big lad to be chewing on you!


He is indeed!


----------



## Dogless

Puprleskyes; judging from your cupcakes thread I am guessing that everything is sorted or at least far better? I hope so.


----------



## moonviolet

The first group of dogs we came up behind, we knew all the 5 dogs individually, but i thought it would be too much to see them all togetehr and was about to divert, but nope she didn't want that so I called out hello to them so we didn't startle anyone. Tink politely approached the group then stopped and waited to be sniffed, It was especially good as the first time we met one of these dogs , we tried to avoid them and it herded us and pinned Tink down. So touch wood i think we are pretty much at the tail end of a 29 month journey. phewwwwww :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



AT least grizzly kids don't tear clothes and flesh

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> :sosp:. Little bugger, good job I love him!


Don't they? My daughter aged about 4 bit the dentist when he tried to look in her mouth....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Don't they? My daughter aged about 4 bit the dentist when he tried to look in her mouth....*


*

That reminds me of trying to take sutures out of the tongue of a distressed 3 year old...sent them to hospital to be sedated in the end .*


----------



## Thorne

I'm knackered so will try to keep this brief tonight. 

-MV: Hooray for keen dogs and heated seats!
-Leam: Hooray for quiet nights!
-K&M: Get well soon, great to hear that Evie had a good trip to the village tonight!
-GR: Sounds like the muzzle training is going well, glad things are "clicking" for you and Ginge.
-Nicki: Have fun at agility, afraid I've got no advice on being cuddly because mine never are  Lovely photo.
-F&F: It's wonderful seeing them so excited about a toy isn't it? Bella really has slimmed down!
-Dogless: Shame that poo seems to taint so many of your walks! Cheeky (not so) little Rudi 
-Werehorse: Hope you manage to conquer the sendaway soon, will feel wonderful when you do.
-Beth: Pleased that you're feeling more positive, mmm ginger biscuits.
-Sarah: Ah, the classic "cruelty case" act, you know that you treat Spen well so that's what counts.
-Twiggy: Great to hear that the vet excelled himself today, hope the girls are on the mend.
-LO: Well-trained but mental! could be a million miles worse!
-Jenny: Seizing the moment indeed! I'm a fan of car park training too, this thread has inspired me to see training opportunities everywhere. 
-Diefenbaker: Blooming cats, I like them until I meet one on a dog walk!
-Cinnamontoast: WELL DONE ZAK!


Breeze is another one that's sensitive and worries when told to leave something, and heaven forbid you happen to move towards her when you ask for the "leave"! Scooter will ignore a sharp tone, whereas the same tone of voice will send Breeze into a lip-licking, furtively-glancing crouch. Much better than she used to be (used to bolt and shake and pant poor girl) but still a little worrier. 

BC again, cleaned and socialised cats in the morning then gave Paddy a blast in the HIGH FENCED garden. No attempt to leap the boundary but there's a random fenced-off section which he bounced in and out of. Springs over 4' like it's not even there  He's discovered the joy of bird-chasing too, there's always something! He's putty in anyone's hands if they've got his beloved rubber ring though. Another great walk with him, practiced heelwork in the park where he normally just wants to bomb off; great focus today and his heel gets tighter by the day.
Jack the puppy has had a Rudi day - bitey! He's almost got the hang of down but had a bit of a tantrum today and gave me a "sod off" look when I asked him for one too many, then lolloped off. He's charming but knows his own mind! Introduced Lola to a Nina Ottosson-esque toy which she loved, and worked on her retrieve. Got humped once, oh well. Worked on Ollie's wait, take it and leave it, he's a sweetie. 

I failed to walk S&B today  horrendous traffic meant I was grumpy and late home, and a recent lack of sleeping pattern isn't helping. Tomorrow is another day...
Ordered Breeze an Ezydog chestplate harness in camo blue, which arrived today and has been modelled without complaint by madam! Really impressed with Scooter's one so now I have a matching pair. Aiming to build a really positive association with it BEFORE walking her in it!

After last night's mention of weights and weight loss I stepped on the scales today. Was ill and lost a lot a couple of months ago but am putting it back on, nearly weigh enough to give blood again, but still only weigh 2kg more than Kilo! He definitely doesn't look 48kg, that's only 3kg short of S&B's COMBINED weight 
Met a 4 month old Cane Corso bitch pup last year who was 31kg!

ETA: That was anything but brief! :blushing::001_rolleyes:


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> After last night's mention of weights and weight loss I stepped on the scales today. Was ill and lost a lot a couple of months ago but am putting it back on, nearly weigh enough to give blood again, but still only weigh 2kg more than Kilo! He definitely doesn't look 48kg, that's only 3kg short of S&B's COMBINED weight
> Met a 4 month old Cane Corso bitch pup last year who was 31kg!
> 
> ETA: That was anything but brief! :blushing::001_rolleyes:


You're tiny....funny how we always want what we haven't got - I used to envy my tiny friend and she used to envy me for being bigger than her  . Kilo sounds like a porker put that way....together the CHs weigh 75kg .


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> You're tiny....funny how we always want what we haven't got - I used to envy my tiny friend and she used to envy me for being bigger than her  . Kilo sounds like a porker put that way....together the CHs weigh 75kg .


I'm on the short side so fortunately I'm not alarmingly tiny, a bit more substance on me would help me hold my own when walking big strong dogs so I'd welcome it! A fast metabolism has its benefits but finding out that some friends thought I stayed slim via an eating disorder was a bit of a shock, so I do try to keep an eye on my weight 
Had never considered how much the average RR weighs until seeing you post about the CH's weight, I'm sure my previous estimates would've been miles off!


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> I'm on the short side so fortunately I'm not alarmingly tiny, a bit more substance on me would help me hold my own when walking big strong dogs so I'd welcome it! A fast metabolism has its benefits but finding out that some friends thought I stayed slim via an eating disorder was a bit of a shock, so I do try to keep an eye on my weight
> Had never considered how much the average RR weighs until seeing you post about the CH's weight, I'm sure my previous estimates would've been miles off!


I think Kilo is deceptive as he is very lean, verging on skinny at times.


----------



## Beth17

Thorne said:


> I'm on the short side so fortunately I'm not alarmingly tiny, a bit more substance on me would help me hold my own when walking big strong dogs so I'd welcome it! A fast metabolism has its benefits but finding out that some friends thought I stayed slim via an eating disorder was a bit of a shock, so I do try to keep an eye on my weight
> Had never considered how much the average RR weighs until seeing you post about the CH's weight, I'm sure my previous estimates would've been miles off!


I'm the same the amount of people who have said to me that I need to put on some weight when they see me walking the boys is ridiculous. It's as if chucking a couple of stone on is easy


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> I'm the same the amount of people who have said to me that I need to put on some weight when they see me walking the boys is ridiculous. *It's as if chucking a couple of stone on is easy*


They even say that to me and I'm around 63kg usually . Think it's a woman / big dog combo stock remark for some folk....as for the bit in bold....it never used to be, but post 30.... :incazzato:.


----------



## Thorne

Beth17 said:


> I'm the same the amount of people who have said to me that I need to put on some weight when they see me walking the boys is ridiculous. It's as if chucking a couple of stone on is easy


Do you get the "who's walking who?" comments too? 

I imagine the middle-aged spread will hit me like a ton of bricks!


----------



## Beth17

Thorne said:


> Do you get the "who's walking who?" comments too?


Yes had that one a couple of days ago in fact; I wouldn't mind but they were both behaving for once and just sniffing a lamppost.

I even had one helpful man tell me on our walk this evening that I needed some wellies when walking through a muddy lane; Nevermind the fact that I was wearing my scabby trainers and couldn't give a toss that they were getting muddy


----------



## Nicki85

One of those training sessions that you come out of feeling a bit "flat". Sooooo he was very on the ball to all that smells, other dogs and food. Didn't want to play at. all. All toys were brought out and rejected one by one... we had pulling to other dogs, pulling to smells...
I couldn't keep his attention as I didn't want to stuff treats down his throat the whole session so we had to spend time apart from everyone else. Just a bit frustrating!

BUT when I was actively engaging with him and doing an exercise he did give me 100% concentration and was actually OK and driving to his toy. 

I need to learn to tell him left and right, to throw to where he can see the toy (or give it to someone to do for me!) and to not lean over (no idea what all that is about!). 

Any ideas on getting him to focus on his toy when we aren't actively doing anything? I've tried the usual tugging it along the floor and trying to play with him but not getting anywhere at the moment. I might try attaching it to a lead to make it more chaseable. I also need to learn how to wind him up- any tips? 

I need to relax a little I think and not worry so much about it all- remember to Rusty it is all a game!!! 

More of a note to myself... but very happy to hear others thoughts as well ;-)


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> One of those training sessions that you come out of feeling a bit "flat". Sooooo he was very on the ball to all that smells, other dogs and food. Didn't want to play at. all. All toys were brought out and rejected one by one... we had pulling to other dogs, pulling to smells...
> I couldn't keep his attention as I didn't want to stuff treats down his throat the whole session so we had to spend time apart from everyone else. Just a bit frustrating!
> 
> BUT when I was actively engaging with him and doing an exercise he did give me 100% concentration and was actually OK and driving to his toy.
> 
> I need to learn to tell him left and right, to throw to where he can see the toy (or give it to someone to do for me!) and to not lean over (no idea what all that is about!).
> 
> Any ideas on getting him to focus on his toy when we aren't actively doing anything? I've tried the usual tugging it along the floor and trying to play with him but not getting anywhere at the moment. I might try attaching it to a lead to make it more chaseable. * I also need to learn how to wind him up- any tips? *
> 
> I need to relax a little I think and not worry so much about it all- remember to Rusty it is all a game!!!
> 
> More of a note to myself... but very happy to hear others thoughts as well ;-)


Yes...."Reeeaaaaaddddddyyyyyy.......Steeeeeaaadddddddyyyy!!" . Makes Kilo go "Eeeeeeeeee......*Eeeeeeeeeeee"*.

Only joking, you're working way above my payscale!


----------



## Nicki85

Ha I don't think so- just got different problems ;-) I really need to learn how to get him excited.... he is just so chilled it is silly. He looks at me as if I am stupid. I think I am going to spend this week trying to find he excited button.

Forgot to say- I have the ready steady game in my book of tricks


----------



## Leam1307

Haha just a silly thing but why on earth would Molly smell of Dark Chocolate?? Neither my or the OH eat chocolate so its not like she has been eating it or rolling in it or anything, we dont even have any doggie chocolate in the house. But i swear her head and neck, espec behind the ears smell of dark chocolate!!! :yesnod:

hmmm fancy some now.


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## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Ha I don't think so- just got different problems ;-) I really need to learn how to get him excited.... he is just so chilled it is silly. He looks at me as if I am stupid. I think I am going to spend this week trying to find he excited button.


It is finding what turns them on. Some dogs love tuggy games, others love squeaky balls, etc. etc.

You will find Rusty's on button if you look hard enough.

It's taken about 9 months to partly find Holly's, I'm still not 100% there.


----------



## MollySmith

Much apologies for not catching up still but thought I'd drop by to say that OH and Molly did a lesson with trainer on lead walking. 16 dogs passed and two tiny pulls on the lead but no barking or lungeing at all. Not a sound. Nothing. OH had to check it was still our dog. Amazeballs :yikes: 

After the most pants day ever, I was so pleased to get a call from him and then later an email from our trainer so say it was the best lesson yet. Molly is knackered, her rewards was off lead play and OH showed off her distance down stays. 

Forgot to add the other day, my OH does perfect boiled eggs. Burns everything else or forgets to plug in the slow cooker. Whilst I was ill last month he made omelette. Now Molly loves microwave egg in her kong (thank you Sarah1983 and Spen for that tip!) but even she refused to entertain burnt omelette


----------



## Guest

MY. DOG. IS. ACTING. LIKE. A. FUDGING. LUNATIC.

He has just howled at me, headbutted me with his red jumper knotted ball (made from an old red jumper), let him out thinking it might be poopin time, he grabs a milk carton from the recycling and ZOOOOOOOOMZ around the garden. Dropped that, grabbed another ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED again, then ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED in when I told him too. 

He's gonna be sleeping in the living room tonight I think. 

Oh and I've just had a take a foundation make up bottle off of him too. 


He hasn't had a mad five mins like that for a good while.


FRUIT LOOP. :lol:


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> MY. DOG. IS. ACTING. LIKE. A. FUDGING. LUNATIC.
> 
> He has just howled at me, headbutted me with his red jumper knotted ball (made from an old red jumper), let him out thinking it might be poopin time, he grabs a milk carton from the recycling and ZOOOOOOOOMZ around the garden. Dropped that, grabbed another ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED again, then ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED in when I told him too.
> 
> He's gonna be sleeping in the living room tonight I think.
> 
> Oh and I've just had a take a foundation make up bottle off of him too.
> 
> He hasn't had a mad five mins like that for a good while.
> 
> FRUIT LOOP. :lol:


Oh my word, he really is Paddy's double!  :crazy:


----------



## Werehorse

Training was... fine.  Hugo did some very enthusiastic sendaway work for OH so I'm now convinced it is me that's the problem. Oscar seemed stressed and giddy but behaved himself for the most part... the biggest Toller was in this week, as a one off and hasn't been in for a while, so that might be why Oscar was worried - he is quite worried by him. Or Oscar was stressed cos he prefers OH, which is what my gremlins are insisting. 

Plus they didn't have a walk today because when I got to the woods, already pushed for time before going to work, the back door of The Shed (the landy) wouldn't open and I couldn't get them out of their crate (not in such a way that I could get them back in again to get them home. So I took them home and managed to collapse the crate around them to get them out.

Apparently the door just sticks sometimes.  When it is least convenient for it to do so clearly.

So yeah, the dogs and the OH were good. But my gremlins have gone mental again. :lol: I really don't know what to do with myself sometimes.


----------



## moonviolet

I'm finding myself wondering if hte universe would explode if Paddy and Zander met :lol:



Werehorse said:


> So yeah, the dogs and the OH were good. But my gremlins have gone mental again. :lol: I really don't know what to do with myself sometimes.


You've been feeding yoru gremlins after midnight adn giving them access to water again haven't you.

Breathe deeply and believe in yourself, remember this training lark is fun and you are good at it so let yourself enjoy it and it will all come together


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> I'm the same the amount of people who have said to me that I need to put on some weight when they see me walking the boys is ridiculous. It's as if chucking a couple of stone on is easy


I have some Keppra here, they put 6 stone on me in less than 6 months. It's getting it off that's not easy lol.

Feeling really low about Spens behaviour around other dogs at the moment. It's great that he's friendly but the lunging and squeaking and completely losing his mind isn't good. And I just don't know what to do about it. He won't be distracted, can't follow commands and he's strong enough that I do struggle to hang on to him with two hands let alone try to distract him with food or a toy  If he's able to say hello then he'll happily walk off with me calmly and pay attention to me but if not, well he's absolutely stupid for a good 10 minutes after seeing the dog. I thought we were getting somewhere with it but now he seems worse than ever.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah's it's such a shame you can't find a good class out there, it really is such a good way to get them to focus on you in the presence of other dogs 

Only other thing i can suggest is lurking at a huge distance, so he's under threshold, and playing "look at that."


----------



## Werehorse

Yes mv - I need to start going to bed before Gremlin feeding time. Also they like to play merry hell when I try and make positive change or get into a routine. Starting a new job AND having a new tutoring client in the same week PLUS managing to get into a routine with the horses for three days in a row and WEEEEEEEE gremlin party-time.  I just need to keep breathing and staying focusssssssssssssed. Grrr rargh etc.

Sarah -  *hugs and tea* It'll come back, he'll just be having a dip - could it be linked to having a couple of friends come to stay? Has he had how fun other dogs are confirmed to him maybe? So annoying for you that there aren't any decent training classes near you as I think that would help. Could you arrange to meet anyone for dog walks, or a group of people, so he gets regular contact with some familiar dogs and you can work on improving his responsiveness to you around them? But I don't know if that would just make him worse.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah's it's such a shame you can't find a good class out there, it really is such a good way to get them to focus on you in the presence of other dogs
> 
> Only other thing i can suggest is lurking at a huge distance, so he's under threshold, and playing "look at that."


It is and if I could find a good class I could get to I'd be there ASAP.

Problem is finding somewhere to lurk where we actually see other dogs. The park is the only place we regularly see them and it's just a big open space and other dogs just come trotting up. Which doesn't exactly help. We don't see other dogs very often on our walks on the fields.


----------



## Guest

I understand exactly how you feel sarah, I really do, when you have a squealing spinning lunging creature at the end of a lead it doesn't make you feel great. 
Maybe for a couple days try "Active avoidance". You see another dog, you go up a different road so spen doesn't react. Just to keep stress levels down.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Wow! Another marathon day girls!

Jenny olley - welcome to the thread!*

Leam - woohoo for a quiet night! How's Deeks been tonight?

K+M - hope you feeling better! And well done to Evie on her 2s stay, sounds like her confidence is getting better on you walk now too! Yey!

GR - Well done on the muzzle training, sounds like it's going well! Glad hubby is better!

Nicky - love the picture of Rusty! What a happy boy!*I hope agility has gone well tonight! Would love to see a video of Rusty in action!

F+F - well done Bella! Sounds like Frank has really taken to the "ready, steady" game, I've started doing it a bit with Izzy to get her all excited and hyped up to use at agility.

Dogless - hope you are feeling more positive, did I see a hint at you moving back to the mainland? Where? When? May I suggest Manchester as a fantabulous place, or Cumbria, I'd love to move back there eventually!

MS - good luck with the job interview! I hope everything works out for you with the IVF!

Werehorse - how was school tonight? What's your outfit like? Just seen you're a bit down after school, give those gremlins a good shake, maybe you're just getting a bit tense In class (Im a fine one to talk )

Sarah - oh dear, poor Spen! It's horrible to think he may have been treated that way before he came to you 

LO - well done Zand! Its been so windy today, it can make Izzy really skittish when it's this windy with all the leaves and stuff flying around!

Mv - well done Tink, what a little star and sounds like lovely walks today!

CT - well done Zak

Thorne - sounds like its going well at the BC!*

Twiggy - fingers crossed the laser treatment and new meds will kick in soon for Quiver!

Well this morning Izzy had her usual run at the park but unfortunately she got chased by a young German shepherd and it really frightened her, Tarnus was worried this dog was aggressive with the way the owner was shouting for it but he called Izzy back and got hold of her and this other dog just came a sat down in front of him with a big smile on his face, very relaxed so he was just very rude.

Tonight it was school night but we decided to see how she got on without*
Tarnus there (I dropped him off at a pub quiz on our way there) and she did really well. She didn't bark at all and was only slightly wonky on her recall but was so much more focused with her tail high and looking at me loads! I'm so pleased and have come home feeling much more positive than I was last week! Then we got home and I made a batch of cranberry and choc chip cookies for Tarnus to take into work tomorrow!*

Izzy's off to daycare tomorrow so I'm sure she'll be all wiggly to see the staff there (she doesn't like new people but once she knows you you get the wiggles!)


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all it's bed time but I just wanted to post a link to this site I found for all those looking to increase play drive... nothing new but just well written and something I feel I can work with 

Increasing Play Drive in Your Dog | Fanny&#039;s Clicker Dog Blog


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted ....


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Sarah -  *hugs and tea* It'll come back, he'll just be having a dip - could it be linked to having a couple of friends come to stay? Has he had how fun other dogs are confirmed to him maybe? So annoying for you that there aren't any decent training classes near you as I think that would help. Could you arrange to meet anyone for dog walks, or a group of people, so he gets regular contact with some familiar dogs and you can work on improving his responsiveness to you around them? But I don't know if that would just make him worse.


I've tried arranging to meet up with people for walks and nobody seems interested  And of course there's the language barrier when we do meet another dog and owner. I did a lot of work with him on paying attention to me when both Khan and Rupert were here and he did great with that. It could be linked but he's shown no signs of it up to this last week or 10 days. Wondering whether it could be linked to the bitch in season?

LO, I've practised active avoidance for so long it's a bit of a habit lol. I think part of the problem may be that we don't very often see other dogs so when we do it's a big deal.

Hope you get your gremlins under control Werehorse.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> The first group of dogs we came up behind, we knew all the 5 dogs individually, but i thought it would be too much to see them all togetehr and was about to divert, but nope she didn't want that so I called out hello to them so we didn't startle anyone. Tink politely approached the group then stopped and waited to be sniffed, It was especially good as the first time we met one of these dogs , we tried to avoid them and it herded us and pinned Tink down. So touch wood i think we are pretty much at the tail end of a 29 month journey. phewwwwww :lol:


Thats fabulous MV.:thumbup1: 
When I get downhearted with Evie's fear of people, I shall have to stop and think how long its taken you


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> It is and if I could find a good class I could get to I'd be there ASAP.
> 
> Problem is finding somewhere to lurk where we actually see other dogs. The park is the only place we regularly see them and it's just a big open space and other dogs just come trotting up. Which doesn't exactly help. We don't see other dogs very often on our walks on the fields.


I do wonder Sarah if any training class would be better than none.

Even if you don't agree with their methods but explained it's really the socialisation aspect you need.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Training was... fine.  Hugo did some very enthusiastic sendaway work for OH so I'm now convinced it is me that's the problem. Oscar seemed stressed and giddy but behaved himself for the most part... the biggest Toller was in this week, as a one off and hasn't been in for a while, so that might be why Oscar was worried - he is quite worried by him. Or Oscar was stressed cos he prefers OH, which is what my gremlins are insisting.
> 
> So yeah, the dogs and the OH were good. But my gremlins have gone mental again. :lol: I really don't know what to do with myself sometimes.


You're another one that needs a flipping smack!!

Of course it's not you - I've seen the videos and you did a brilliant job on retrieve.

OK you and Hugo had a bit of a blip on sendaway but we all have blips now and again.

I've spent all Winter teaching Tremor the English finish (going round the back of my legs and sitting in the heel position) because doing my preferred finish (from the present left about turn into the sit) she was virtually sitting all the way round. I've had to admit defeat and have gone back to default setting....!! Very frustrating but that's life....


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hi all it's bed time but I just wanted to post a link to this site I found for all those looking to increase play drive... nothing new but just well written and something I feel I can work with
> 
> Increasing Play Drive in Your Dog | Fanny's Clicker Dog Blog


Have a look on Youtube for Susan Garratt videos. She's American and a top agility handler who has written several books.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I do wonder Sarah if any training class would be better than none.
> 
> Even if you don't agree with their methods but explained it's really the socialisation aspect you need.


I've been wondering the same Twiggy. But then there's the problem that the trainers would just give a collar correction or a jab to the neck for the issues I'm having so are they actually going to be able to help me get a grip of his behaviour in a positive manner? Plus there's still the issue of me actually getting to the classes as I don't drive. Hubby's willing to take me but can't guarantee he'll be home in time to do so or won't be called away. And the language barrier coz my German sucks.

I'm seriously thinking about looking for a one to one trainer, might have more success there. I'd prefer a class but there seems so many obstacles in the way of going to one


----------



## Werehorse

Leam1307 said:


> On another note, does anyone here use Fishmongers food from [email protected]?? When did they change the mixture? I now have to sit beside Deeks bowl with my hand rattling it about before he will eat it. If i walk away from the bowl so does he and it will still be sitting there come dinner time.


I've only just started using it (just transferring now) and both mine love it. But honest to goodness I think they'd eat anything so they aren't the best judges! :lol: Oscar used to be super-picky with food, then I fed him raw for a bit, then he just went food mad generally and now gets stupidly excited about kibble. :crazy: I always think it is really useful if they eat dry kibble but I generally don't blame them if they don't cos it is a bit boring! Could you try adding a bit of wet? The collie I had growing up was eternally fussy but she ate her kibble if we hid a tiny bit of cheese/sausage/chicken at the bottom of the bowl, or "cooked" it (add hot water and let it soak a bit).

Good news on the quiet nights too. :thumbup:



Sarah1983 said:


> I've tried arranging to meet up with people for walks and nobody seems interested  And of course there's the language barrier when we do meet another dog and owner. I did a lot of work with him on paying attention to me when both Khan and Rupert were here and he did great with that. It could be linked but he's shown no signs of it up to this last week or 10 days. Wondering whether it could be linked to the bitch in season?
> 
> LO, I've practised active avoidance for so long it's a bit of a habit lol. I think part of the problem may be that we don't very often see other dogs so when we do it's a big deal.
> 
> Hope you get your gremlins under control Werehorse.


Quite possibly linked to the bitch in season actually! You're in a bit of tight jam out there regards classes and language barriers.  Hmmmmm.  I wonder if allowing him to greet other dogs and gradually asking for more and more focus on you before he does would be a way forward, literally starting with half a glance at you being enough for you to allow him the greeting - obviously this depends on the dog and the owner you would be greeting and with the language barrier it would be hard to explain what you are doing... hmmm, just thinking "out loud"...

Gremlins are reasonably controlled this morning!



Twiggy said:


> You're another one that needs a flipping smack!!
> 
> Of course it's not you - I've seen the videos and you did a brilliant job on retrieve.
> 
> OK you and Hugo had a bit of a blip on sendaway but we all have blips now and again.
> 
> I've spent all Winter teaching Tremor the English finish (going round the back of my legs and sitting in the heel position) because doing my preferred finish (from the present left about turn into the sit) she was virtually sitting all the way round. I've had to admit defeat and have gone back to default setting....!! Very frustrating but that's life....


 Yes I absolutely need a slap a lot of the time. :lol: I was thinking that Hugo needs to do things 2 or 3 times and then stop. I think after 2 or 3 goes (where he does them better each time) he starts to over-think it... kind of "why are we still doing this? I must be doing something wrong? What can I change?" and it starts to fall apart as he goes a bit cross-eyed with the brain effort. It is so easy to keep doing things when they are going right because it is rewarding to _me_! But actually it is better to stop and maybe change to some play or another bit of training. I get like that with my horse as well, when she goes well it is just such a nice thing that I want to keep going but actually the most rewarding thing for her is for work to stop and the great lump getting off her back and giving her a carrot - and doing this would increase the likelyhood of the nice work again in future! But so often I'm so busy revelling in the lovely trot she's doing I forget all this!  

Weather is foul, horses staying in, gives me more time to go running with dogs, who hopefully won't get stuck in the back if the car today!

Oh and my costume for work.... involved stays! Not as in "down/sit stay". :lol: Plus more clothes over the top - I haven't started a career as a "seamstress"!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Ohhh Werehorse new job in some kind of historical village type place? this is my good girl guess. you do not want to know about the other one  :lol: :lol:

glad the gremlins are under control today


----------



## GingerRogers

Are you doing some kind of historical tour guidey type thing, something literary (I did put literal then realised that wasn't the word), I always wanted to dress up as a wench  Keep a lid on your gremlins, silly! I reckon you are right though don't push each exercise too far, if he takes after you thats probably exactly what he is thinking, what have I done wrong 

Glad you have had another quiet night Leam.

Sarah - I can see how a class would help but you don't *sound *like you need 121. You seem to have a handle on what needs to be done its just the socialisation aspect. Although it does help me believe in myself, that what I am doing is right.

Nothing to report I think coming to work yesterday tired her out. Been hailing but sun has just come out so off out now. I have come to the conclusion that I will leave our morning walks till a bit later unless I get up really early. My theory is that the workers are getting their dog walks in in the morning as its dark by the time the get home, so once the evenings are bit lighter they will spread out their outings, so less encounters, I hope


----------



## Werehorse

This isn't actually me! :lol: But I think I that might be one of my options for jackets.

Mad job :crazy:


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> This isn't actually me! :lol: But I think I that might be one of my options for jackets.
> 
> Mad job :crazy:


Ohhh it looks like a fun job


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> This isn't actually me! :lol: But I think I that might be one of my options for jackets.
> 
> Mad job :crazy:


How exciting, I have always wanted a job like that for some obscure reason


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Sarah - I can see how a class would help but you don't *sound *like you need 121. You seem to have a handle on what needs to be done its just the socialisation aspect. Although it does help me believe in myself, that what I am doing is right.


That's why I wanted a class. I know what I need to do in theory, it's just putting it into practise in a real life situation is extremely difficult. Obviously I'd still have to take it into real life at some point but it's much easier to do that after building a solid foundation in a controlled environment. But I really don't think I'm going to find a class so maybe I can find a one to one trainer with stooge dogs instead.



> I wonder if allowing him to greet other dogs and gradually asking for more and more focus on you before he does would be a way forward, literally starting with half a glance at you being enough for you to allow him the greeting - obviously this depends on the dog and the owner you would be greeting and with the language barrier it would be hard to explain what you are doing... hmmm, just thinking "out loud"...


That probably would work. It just requires what I don't have, dogs to practise it with. As I say, I know there are plenty of options are for getting the behaviour under control, it's more putting them into practise that's the problem. I can practise watch me or whatever at home until the cows come home but it's not going to help when there's a dog 2ft away if I can't build him up to that.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> That's why I wanted a class. I know what I need to do in theory, it's just putting it into practise in a real life situation is extremely difficult. Obviously I'd still have to take it into real life at some point but it's much easier to do that after building a solid foundation in a controlled environment. But I really don't think I'm going to find a class so maybe I can find a one to one trainer with stooge dogs instead.
> 
> That probably would work. It just requires what I don't have, dogs to practise it with. As I say, I know there are plenty of options are for getting the behaviour under control, it's more putting them into practise that's the problem. I can practise watch me or whatever at home until the cows come home but it's not going to help when there's a dog 2ft away if I can't build him up to that.


Gosh it really is hard for you and frustrating , as you say stooge dogs may be the only way.


----------



## MollySmith

Werehorse said:


> This isn't actually me! :lol: But I think I that might be one of my options for jackets.
> 
> Mad job :crazy:


I used to do that at Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire. I also spent a summer at Audley End House in Essex for a Mozart celebration with a powdered wig and despite drinking my own body weight in booze most nights I ended up 2 stone lighter as it was so hot. The costumes were made from curtain fabric - I sold them ages ago. It wasn't a bad job, lots of fun and I made many friends but I did meet an awful lot of very earnest types who were really into their history. My best mates ex b/f was. He was last seen on telly living in Sherwood Forest wearing green tights pretending to be Robin Hood.

More good news from our trainer on Molly - she called to see if we wanted to take her on group walk this morning with her dogs. I'm stuck at work  but OH went with her and again more good news. She was perfect meeting all three of them. So so pleased.


----------



## L/C

Apologies for MIA yesterday - the pub trip on Tuesday ran late so I was still abed at a disgraceful time. And then fitting in the vet trip, my own (aborted) doctor's appointment, a run, lunch out with OH and the cinema meant there was time for browsing but not really posting!

Too much to catch up on but Werehorse that job looks like so much fun. 

Well grumpy dog is on bed rest and anti-inflamatories for a week. The vet prodded and poked at him and manipulated both his front legs - he seems to have strained a muscle in his shoulder on his right leg and done something to one of his toes on the left. Potential for that to be a fracture but the vet (and I agreed) thought it was best to try rest and medication and then x-ray if no better rather then skip straight to the general anaesthetic. So fingers crossed it's just muscular.

Had a nice training walk with Gypsy yesterday and I took her flirt pole to try and work on her toy drive. It was semi successful but I have to keep sessions really short or she gets bored. I also have 3 problems with it:

1. When I do get her interested and her drive up she defaults to zoomies. So she runs massive circles around me at top speed. She comes straight to me when called and focuses but I'm not sure how to get to the point where we skip the zoomies.

2. It's still the movement rather then the toy she is interested in. As soon as it stops moving she loses all interest.

3. She's often more interested in me then the flirt pole. I'll be trying to get her to chase the toy and she's staring at my face and giving me great eye contact. Should I be pleased by this or frustrated that she still doesn't want to engage with the toy?

Also I must describe to you, ladies of WAYWO (and Sid), the loonies that I ran into yesterday. I walked later then normal and clearly that's when the miserable folk come out! First I was walking with Gypsy to heel so we could pass a lady who had her dog on a lead. It lunged and kicked off and I told Gypsy to leave it. This incensed lady owner and she gave me a mouthful about how at least her dog had a personality and wasn't a robot like my dog and that the only way I'd gotten her so obedient was because I whipped her! I looked dumbfounded and realised she was referring to the flirt pole (lunge whip and toy!). I must admit I wasn't nice (or clever) and I said, "I'll whip you if you aren't careful you stupid woman."  

Second crazy person was a woman who accused me of starving Gypsy - saying she was far too skinny and that I should be ashamed of myself. Then she asked me for my address because she was going to report me to the RSPCA!  She had the obligatory fat lab so I made a comment about how it was cruel to overfeed dogs and I wanted her address to report her.  In my defence I was hungover and grumpy and not in the mood to put up with interfering old biddies.

Third encounter was the weirdest. Bumped into a bloke with a lurcher and Gypsy and his dog had a good old play. I was chatting to the him and he said he'd seen me training Gypsy and was asking me about it. Had a nice conversation with him and gave him some tips about deflecting prey drive. Not sure how it came up but it turned out he was a mate of a friend of mine so we talked for quite a while and walked together for a bit. 

I went to leave as I needed to get back and he asked me if I wanted to go for a drink with him. I said it would be great - he should bring his dog, we could go to the local dog friendly pub and then I mentioned something about OH. His face sort of fell and he said "Ah, I should have realised that someone as lovely as you had a boyfriend." My gob was not only smacked - it was beaten thoroughly with a bat! We parted ways slightly awkwardly.


----------



## Guest

Zand was horrendous this walk. We went for an hour. I didn't put his coat on stupidly and the walk was so WINDY!! 
He kept alternating between pulling like a husky, doing zoomies onlead around my feet growling and generally being a nutcase.

We nearly had a tantrum too.

He was completley unresponsive the whole walk. 


Bah I'm hoping it was just cause it was horrendously windy and he had no coat on. 

L/C WAHEEYYYYYYY!!! You got chatted up!!  :lol:


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## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> Dogless - hope you are feeling more positive, did I see a hint at you moving back to the mainland? Where? When? May I suggest Manchester as a fantabulous place, or Cumbria, I'd love to move back there eventually!


No choice as to where we go; t'is Hereford! I used to be a student in Manchester - loved it but couldn't live there now .



Twiggy said:


> I've spent all Winter teaching Tremor the English finish (going round the back of my legs and sitting in the heel position) because doing my preferred finish (from the present left about turn into the sit) she was virtually sitting all the way round. I've had to admit defeat and have gone back to default setting....!! Very frustrating but that's life....


I've been working on that as Kilo's size meant the Continental Finish (is that right???) was difficult for him and he ended up skew - wiff.....not that I actually mind as we only go training for fun but thought it would be best to try and get it something like right!

MollySmith - Well done to Molly!!! What fabulous progress .

L/C - I am guessing you wear nicer dog walking kit that me . How nice for your ego . Well done on unleashing your Inner Hag on RSPCA lady!

Sarah - I know what it's like out there; nothing to suggest unfortunately .

Werehorse - Don't let the Gremlins win (says me ).

LO - Do you have gales too then? The wind here is sending the CHs a bit batty!! .

Leam - No idea about the Fishmongers food but glad that Deeks was better again.

We have had a fantastic morning here at Concrete Central. Up early and both walked - went to the offlead fields against my better judgement as it was very windy and that's when Kilo tends to hunt and eat orange poo :incazzato::incazzato:. He hunted it...but didn't eat any . They walked there nicely and I just let them play really and play with me as it's school for both today. Had an 'oops' at the end. I was about 15m from the gate bent down picking up poo and Kilo disappeared - I hadn't heard the gate because it was so windy and a woman had come in with a springer and a super - dooper massive ball launcher thingy...unfortunately Kilo went over to introduce himself when he saw it but I went and got him and apologised; had a chat with the woman - she was very nice and no harm done .

Then school - Rudi was an absolute little star for me yet again, really, really pleased with him . We had to swap dogs with another handler briefly - I got the most adorable, teeny little CKCS who was just desperate to please - so, so easy. The poor retired lady who got Rudi was taken for a ride by the little git - I swear he has a sense of humour :yesnod: - and could just say "Wow, this is a strong dog" but he behaved for her once she was encouraged to ply him with food . A man at the end asked why he was in puppy class as he wasn't a puppy and that it wasn't fair - he was quite surprised when he found out that Rudi was a few weeks younger than his pup .

Then...went to Tesco to just nip in for a few things. A lady came over with her little boy saying that she'd seen me before and was my dog a RR - her little boy came to meet Rudi and he had his usual spasms of delight at meeting a child .

School for BCH tonight .


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## Guest

No idea if it was a gale as such but it was whistling through the tree's etc etc. 
Either way my dog was batty. I'm actually starting to think that him wearing a coat does help.

Ohhh and he kept LAUNCHING himself at every damn person we saw. Including little old ladies and children.


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## Freddie and frank

gold star for molly. well done :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

sarah, i hope you manage to find either a class or one to one for spen. 

werehorse, hope the gremlins have trotted off today. 

IM, a lab wiggle.....:001_wub:

mv, well done tinks, and you, 29 months wow.

lc, :lol::lol: for the first two you met. and :blushing: at the fella. 

lo, i think it's the wind cause the boys have been a pain this morning.

hello to everyone else.

i'm trying to be good and only coming on at lunch time, cause i've got stacks of work to do and i'm off to see my sister this weekend, so will be reporting from north yorkshire.

bella....good again this morning. nothing to report. ooh, training class tonight with her.

the boys were little ####'s this morning. pulling like mad to get to any little smell. frank more than freddie, liver treats didn't do much good today either, and i think i went invisible and mute. it's quite windy here so maybe that had an impact. 
may take them out seperately later to sort it out.

did the ready steady thing with frank, but did it right this time. he loved it and i think next time, a sports bra is needed  i am supposed to keep hold of the lead aren't i whilst sprinting towards the toy?? now, i'm not a sprinter, i'm a gentle jogger whereas frank gives a whippett a run for his money(we meet one sometimes)


----------



## GingerRogers

MS - He was last seen on telly living in Sherwood Forest wearing green tights pretending to be Robin Hood. :lol: that does sound earnest 
Well done Molly, its encouraging to know the hard work does pay off.

L/C - I would have thought the focus on you is essentially what you are after so it doesn't really matter she doesn't focus on the toy  on the other bits IDK Hope grumpy dog improves, I don't imagine a bed resting grumpy dog is much fun 

But look at you getting chatted up , that happened to me once its sort of flattering but all awkward and creepy too. Lets hope some time passes before you see him again . The other two sound like nutters :eek6:, but who knows so might the third 

LO - gah windy days are the worst. 

We too had a bit of a disappointing walk to start with. I thought I would try some muzzle training and then play in the garden to start with. It suddenly occurred to me that I have never played outside only in the house  The first part went fine, she did try and scrab it off a bit so we stopped and I tried to play and she was not interested but as I say she hasn't associated it yet, need to work on that one.

She was a loon on the end of the string as well. I don't know if it was just the wind or because I had left it much later.

Then we bumped into scottish friend, she has a new foster girl already. Being already hyped up I was worried what would happen, the ninja went straight into stalking mode which is never good. But actually Millie ran over in a curve, as is said to be polite, and they greeted without drama. My friend had picked up on what I said before and before I could recover from the shock of the good behaviour had got out a treat for the little one. Ninge then ran to the little girl but then got over excited and started barking but a quick quiet and she was good as gold. The little girl was also a little over excited (but appeared very happy around jumpy dogs) so we parted quite quickly and we tried to work on some calm walking not exactly LLW but we got some response, it was as though she calmed down after seeing Millie, who is a very calm dog (for a spaniel )


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## moonviolet

L/C hope the rest does the trick. I'm still laughing about encounters 1 and 2, as for encounter 3 awkward but quite nice little ego stroke.

MS well done Molly :thumbsup:

Hope the wind dies down and normal service is resumed LO and F+F

GR sounds like Ginge responded well to a polite approach 

We had a lovely couple of hours with our favourite dogs Hetty and Jasper, their owner was also walking a friends dog an exceptionally sweet but nervy staffie cross such a sweetheart i could have dognapped her. It was very sad to hear that all of her littermates have been PTS for being aggressive, it's so easy to see how it could happen if they were as sensitive as her and had been rough handled  Tink had a lovely time and is now dreaming :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> L/C hope the rest does the trick. I'm still laughing about encounters 1 and 2, as for encounter 3 awkward but quite nice little ego stroke.
> 
> MS well done Molly :thumbsup:
> 
> Hope the wind dies down and normal service is resumed LO and F+F
> 
> GR sounds like Ginge responded well to a polite approach
> 
> We had a lovely couple of hours with our favourite dogs Hetty and Jasper, their owner was also walking a friends dog an exceptionally sweet but nervy staffie cross such a sweetheart i could have dognapped her.* It was very sad to hear that all of her littermates have been PTS for being aggressive, it's so easy to see how it could happen if they were as sensitive as her and had been rough handled*  Tink had a lovely time and is now dreaming :lol:


That is very sad indeed .


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## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> L/C hope the rest does the trick. I'm still laughing about encounters 1 and 2, as for encounter 3 awkward but quite nice little ego stroke.
> 
> MS well done Molly :thumbsup:
> 
> Hope the wind dies down and normal service is resumed LO and F+F
> 
> *GR sounds like Ginge responded well to a polite approach *
> 
> We had a lovely couple of hours with our favourite dogs Hetty and Jasper, their owner was also walking a friends dog an exceptionally sweet but nervy staffie cross such a sweetheart i could have dognapped her. It was very sad to hear that all of her littermates have been PTS for being aggressive, it's so easy to see how it could happen if they were as sensitive as her and had been rough handled  Tink had a lovely time and is now dreaming :lol:


She did, but how to get *her *to do the same, I was amazed actually its only the 3rd or so time she has seen Millie and they have been very spread out meetings, she seems to need a few meetings before she will accept a dog as a friend, the way she was scampering towards her I thought she was going to kick off any moment, but no!

That is so sad about the staffie girls littermates, its so awful when you see nervy dogs with inappropriate owners, you just know its all gone wrong, thank goodness she has a good place.

Wonder what Tink is dreaming of


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## Freddie and frank

mv, that's sad about the littermates.
sweet dreams miss tink.

glad it's been a good day at concrete central.

gr, what a nice calm greeting. 

ok, so i've had a long lunch,
i'm a bit worried about another thread on dogs being stolen and what would you do if an attempt was made whilst walking them.
not sure what i could do and with the boys both wearing dogmatics, they'd be helpless too. suppose if i thought someone was folowing me, i could unclip them quickly, as i use double ended leads that attatch to the collars too. just a bit scarey really.


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## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> mv, that's sad about the littermates.
> sweet dreams miss tink.
> 
> glad it's been a good day at concrete central.
> 
> gr, what a nice calm greeting.
> 
> ok, so i've had a long lunch,
> i'm a bit worried about another thread on dogs being stolen and what would you do if an attempt was made whilst walking them.
> not sure what i could do and with the boys both wearing dogmatics, they'd be helpless too. suppose if i thought someone was folowing me, i could unclip them quickly, as i use double ended leads that attatch to the collars too. just a bit scarey really.


I think that as long as you employ common sense it's not worth worrying about - I'd tend to avoid places where vehicular access is easy at 'vulnerable' times if I was worried though.


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I've only just started using it (just transferring now) and both mine love it. But honest to goodness I think they'd eat anything so they aren't the best judges! :lol: Oscar used to be super-picky with food, then I fed him raw for a bit, then he just went food
> 
> * Yes I absolutely need a slap a lot of the time. :lol: I was thinking that Hugo needs to do things 2 or 3 times and then stop. I think after 2 or 3 goes (where he does them better each time) he starts to over-think it...* kind of "why are we still doing this? I must be doing something wrong? What can I change?" and it starts to fall apart as he goes a bit cross-eyed with the brain effort. It is so easy to keep doing things when they are going right because it is rewarding to _me_! But actually it is better to stop and maybe change to some play or another bit of training. I get like that with my horse as well, when she goes well it is just such a nice thing that I want to keep going but actually the most rewarding thing for her is for work to stop and the great lump getting off her back and giving her a carrot - and doing this would increase the likelyhood of the nice work again in future! But so often I'm so busy revelling in the lovely trot she's doing I forget all this!
> 
> Oh and my costume for work.... involved stays! Not as in "down/sit stay". :lol: Plus more clothes over the top - I haven't started a career as a "seamstress"!!!


If my dogs are successful first time at any exercise, that's it. I never ask them to repeat it. Why would you? Again you're only asking them to fail.


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## Twiggy

I've been instructing for the last two hours and now I've got to go and do a home check for a very well known rescue...!!

Ah the spice of life; as long as it's dog related...LOL


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## Nicki85

Hi all,

Soooo
Well done CHs, hope Kilo is just as good as Rudi tonight 
Sarah- hope you manage to find some stooge dogs to practice on... must be very tricky out there.
Werehorse- love the costumes and the job sounds really entertaining! Bet you meet some characters working there ;-)
Glad Gypsy (was it Gypsy?, sorry if I got the wrong one...) leg looks like to be muscular rather that anything more serious. Fingers crossed for a quick recovery. (it's not Gypsy is it cause you were walking her... sorry!) and on the toy thing we have a GH in agility that chases a small childs football as a reward- loves it! The owner kicks the ball away as the reward rather than tugging.
MS- glad Molly behaved herself talking to the other dogs  She sounds like she is really improving.
Tinks- same as Molly! She sounds like she is being a superstar at the moment.
Um, dogs getting stolen- have to say it is not something I really worry about :-/ I'm pretty confident Rusty wouldn't go with any one he didn't know. Also he has his tracking collar which I can lock on so no one can remove it. If they try I get alerted on my phone... We have had a lot of Springers stolen in the local area too.

Rusty has had a busy day so far, good walk this morning- nothing to report really 
This afternoon the second walk was a training walk.... i've worked out a new plan that we do tug before walks to build up toy drive and then we have a normal morning walk. Then we have a mid morning snack and play/training session.. then we have lunchtime walk with two- three short tug/ play sessions on the way round. He has now had lunch and is snoozing!! We will do another short play session when we shut the chickens up and leave it at that for the day. 

So I have done some experimenting with the toy drive he is brilliant in the house- loves it, not bad in the garden but does get distracted and likes to run off with said toy. In the forest he was hard work! Think I made it a bit difficult for my self TBH... he is obsessed with sticks and logs and fallen trees especially so would happily chase the toy and then start chewing up a stick. But I persevered and by looking like a crazy woman throwing the toy around he got interested in it and played some tug with me each time! We tried the ready steady game and I need to take a lead out with me next time as he kept running off with the toy ;-) He thought it was a lot of fun that I was running with him though. He doesn't like being restrained from the collar and tends to give up struggling to go and jsut stands there. Not sure if he will ever be one of those dogs that pulls pulls pulls when I grab his collar. 

What he really loves is sticks but I can't exactly take a stick to agility.... 

We also need to build on drive to weaves but I think that will be fairly easy.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> If my dogs are successful first time at any exercise, that's it. I never ask them to repeat it. Why would you? Again you're only asking them to fail.


How long do you leave it until you ask again? Do you take a short break and return to it or leave it until the next session? I am guilty of trying to get something done to perfection for me repeated and it often is nowhere near as good .


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## Thorne

-Izzysmummy: Rude Shepherd, but thank goodness it was a friendly soul. Mmm, cookies.
-Leam: Fantastic to hear that you had another (mostly) quiet night with Deeks.
-Sarah: Hope Spen's dog-mania eases soon, wish I could offer some advice other than finding willing stooge dogs and owners.
-Werehorse: Pleased that you've reined in the gremlins!
-L/C: Hoping it isn't a fracture and that Ely heals swiftly, sounds like the muppets were out in force yesterday.
-LO: Oh dear, the wind brings out the worst in them sometimes doesn't it? When I used to horse ride I always had the most problems when it was gale force. Paddy is most relaxed in a coat too, hoping your next walk is more successful.
-Dogless: Congrats on a poo-snack-free walk! Good boy Rudi, hope Kilo is as on point in his class tonight.
-F&F: Hope the boys redeem themselves soon, well done little Bella.
-GR: Another wind-affected dog! Brilliant that Millie was polite and the ginger one had a drama-free meeting.
-MV: That's so sad about the Staff X's littermates  But pleased to hear that Miss Tink is worn out and content now.

I'm having another low day and haven't really left the sofa, but about to get up and hoover, then will hopefully take Breeze to one of the parks in Ipswich to get away from the salvo of bangs I'm hearing around here today. Just really struggling to motivate myself, would really rather go back to bed 
Fortunately S&B aren't the demanding sort and have happily whiled away the day so far by napping and antler-chewing for Scooter, with a quick blast in the garden. Did do some new harness training with Breeze last night and this morning, she's happily shoving her head through the loop in anticipation of a treat so hopefully she won't start hiding from this one for a while.


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## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> What he really loves is sticks but I can't exactly take a stick to agility....
> 
> We also need to build on drive to weaves but I think that will be fairly easy.


How about a Safestix or something like it? Kong Safestix


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## Dogless

Hope you enjoy the park Thorne and it perks you up .


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## L/C

Dogless - I'd love to say I was dolled up and looking glam but my dog walking clothes consist of a lime green waterproof and old jeans over a pair of thermals and a pair of leggings. Lovely I was not! 

But it did make me feel a bit smug. 

GR - Ely has no problem with bed rest. He often has days off from walks to let him relax so a few days is no issue for him. He gets to go on the bed with OH while I'm out with Gypsy and cuddles on the bed is his very favourite part of the day. He was the one who got the memo about lazy greyhounds. :lol:

The reason I want focus on the toy is so I can build up how much she wants it and use tuggy as an extra reinforcer. At the moment I don't have much to use but food and chasing me as she just doesn't care about toys at all.

Well done Ginge! Gypsy went through a phase (and still would if I wasn't on top of her) of approaching dogs at full speed. Which with the speed of a greyhounds can be scary for the hardiest of dogs! When she was at her worse I would clip her on the lead and walk on. Now I call her to heel and allow her to greet when she's closer. It seems to be distance that is her trigger (she wants to get to them as quickly as possible) and closer she remembers her manners. Is that the sort of thing that Ginge is doing or is it the same however close she is?

MV - ah glad Miss Tink is happy and dreaming. It's so sad about those other little staffies though. 

F&F - I agree with Dogless. I think we can tie ourselves in knots worrying about whatif's that aren't actually likely to happen.

Also you can get a decent sports bra for £13 from JD Sports. I bought one last week for running in. 

LO - I think the wind does something to their brains. :lol: Gypsy had loads of mad zoomies this morning and didn't want to stay still for love nor dried heart.

Thorne - sorry you're having a bad day again. Hope the park perks you up and Breeze has a nice walk.

Nicki - safestix is a good idea. Ely has one and he loves it.


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## Nicki85

Thanks for the suggestion- will get a safestix for him... 

And Dogless- I am very guilty of doing this too :-( I really need to learn to not set him up to fail and make it easier rather than making it too difficult to start with and then wondering why we have to spend ages trying to *get* it.


----------



## grant wewelcomedogs

Trying to get my dog to stop barking at my neighbours - I dont mind it she scares away strangers too much but she barks at the cats on the road (understandable) but the birds in the sky near her house is a bit waring....
Any suggestions to help with this? We have tried a naughty chair where she knows she had done wrong but it dont last long...!


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> GR - Ely has no problem with bed rest. He often has days off from walks to let him relax so a few days is no issue for him. He gets to go on the bed with OH while I'm out with Gypsy and cuddles on the bed is his very favourite part of the day. He was the one who got the memo about lazy greyhounds. :lol:
> 
> Well done Ginge! Gypsy went through a phase (and still would if I wasn't on top of her) of approaching dogs at full speed. Which with the speed of a greyhounds can be scary for the hardiest of dogs! When she was at her worse I would clip her on the lead and walk on. Now I call her to heel and allow her to greet when she's closer. It seems to be distance that is her trigger (she wants to get to them as quickly as possible) and closer she remembers her manners. Is that the sort of thing that Ginge is doing or is it the same however close she is?


Ok glad he wont be too grumpy for long then if bed and cuddles are on the agenda 

 a thinking face - Ginge is always on lead for a start, but she scamper/scrabs at dogs whether making a row or not, if I had tried to get her to walk past that *would *have resulted in noise, but no she is the same no matter how close she is which is what makes it so nerve wracking, I would be happy to introduce her to more dogs if she didn't do that, its just how to teach it. Perhaps I need to meet Millie every morning.

I do know I need to work on LLW I know, I am sure she would be less reactive if she could walk calmly, I would be less stressed, and she would get different vibes from other dogs as well, but its so hard with the reactivity and it just sets me up for disappointment and frustration if we don't get there. If she is on a loose lead and decides to take offence at a car we are stuffed as well on narrow pavements.

Sorry you are feeling rubbish Thorne

Grant as you can tell I have no idea how to stop barking  never really bought into the naughty step for dogs though TBH have you tried redirection??


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## purpleskyes

Today we went for a walk and came across a rather nasty ridgeback who went for the pup. Hudson didnt do anything, he was onlead and the dog just approached us and went for him, I had to get inbetween the two of them. His owner was an old man who was rather useless and didnt even attempt to put the dog on a lead. 

We did however meet a nice lady and her dog and we got Hudson to sit while her dog was there I mean it did take about 5 mins but I was very pleased he did. She suggested getting a long line for him so he can interact with other dogs but I can still get him back. I am going to order one for him asap.


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## moonviolet

grant wewelcomedogs said:


> Trying to get my dog to stop barking at my neighbours - I dont mind it she scares away strangers too much but she barks at the cats on the road (understandable) but the birds in the sky near her house is a bit waring....
> Any suggestions to help with this? We have tried a naughty chair where she knows she had done wrong but it dont last long...!


Dogs don't really have a concept of right and wrong, but will have a concept of things that make you angry, anyway that aside. is this by sight or by sound?

If it's by sight i'd limit access to the looking outside, barking at stuff can be fun especially as in most cases it "works" in that the things that are being barked at usually move along.

Purp i think a longline is a great idea for Hudson 

GR would it possible to ask Millie's owner if they mind if you parallel walk with them , I always found stationary meet and greets harder than moving along together. just a thought. The social walks i used to go on actually didn't allow face to face greetings, we all had to wait to get the dogs out of the car until we were ready to head off. Then onlead we started the walk and one by one as they got into a chilled step dogs were let off lead ( longlines let out)

THorne i hope the park walk has pepped you up a bit 

my back is much improved today only minor cursing and minimal lurching :lol:


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogs don't really have a concept of right and wrong, but will have a concept of things that make you angry, anyway that aside. is this by sight or by sound?
> 
> If it's by sight i'd limit access to the looking outside, barking at stuff can be fun especially as in most cases it "works" in that the things that are being barked at usually move along.
> 
> Purp i think a longline is a great idea for Hudson
> 
> *GR would it possible to ask Millie's owner if they mind if you parallel walk with them , I always found stationary meet and greets harder than moving along together*. just a thought. The social walks i used to go on actually didn't allow face to face greetings, we all had to wait to get the dogs out of the car until we were ready to head off. Then onlead we started the walk and one by one as they got into a chilled step dogs were let off lead ( longlines let out)
> 
> THorne i hope the park walk has pepped you up a bit
> 
> my back is much improved today only minor cursing and minimal lurching :lol:


This absolutely; Kilo can be an awfully tense 'greeter' face to face on his lead and if he is going to react, it's then. He is fine parallel walking and can then go offlead with that dog without any problem after a minute or two.


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## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Dogs don't really have a concept of right and wrong, but will have a concept of things that make you angry, anyway that aside. is this by sight or by sound?
> 
> If it's by sight i'd limit access to the looking outside, barking at stuff can be fun especially as in most cases it "works" in that the things that are being barked at usually move along.
> 
> Purp i think a longline is a great idea for Hudson
> 
> *GR would it possible to ask Millie's owner if they mind if you parallel walk with them , I always found stationary meet and greets harder than moving along together. just a thought. The social walks i used to go on actually didn't allow face to face greetings, we all had to wait to get the dogs out of the car until we were ready to head off. Then onlead we started the walk and one by one as they got into a chilled step dogs were let off lead ( longlines let out) *
> 
> THorne i hope the park walk has pepped you up a bit
> 
> my back is much improved today only minor cursing and minimal lurching :lol:


Do you know I reckon it might  as soon as she has the new girl sorted at school she will be, well not quite at a loose end, but you know what I mean! I bet I don't bump into her for ages now though , although I could probably track her down :devil: I know which 3 houses she lives in and I know someone else who knows her well. She's one of those people I have known for ages and is lovely and we know her quite well, she has used us a sounding board for the fostering move, and we have given her a lot of support and shoulder, but only down the pub 

You may be a genius Moonviolet  thank you! I do try and avoid face to face as much as possible but sometimes its just too difficult to divert or turn back, if I had all the time in the world then we would have much longer tortuous routed walks and never see another soul by ducking down back alleys.

Purpleskyes - I too think a long line would be a good move, I love it when I can take Ginge on hers but be careful around trees and hedges and things you can get tangled in, parks and fields and big open spaces are the best


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> How long do you leave it until you ask again? Do you take a short break and return to it or leave it until the next session? I am guilty of trying to get something done to perfection for me repeated and it often is nowhere near as good .


Until the next session. When my friend came on Tuesday afternoon Holly picked the dumbbell up by the middle first time and presented nicely and we left it at that....  She still hasn't quite got the concept and if I'd done another one she may well have picked the dumbbell up by the end *and who's fault would that have been?......*

My motto is never be greedy.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> gold star for molly. well done :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
> 
> sarah, i hope you manage to find either a class or one to one for spen.
> 
> werehorse, hope the gremlins have trotted off today.
> 
> IM, a lab wiggle.....:001_wub:
> 
> mv, well done tinks, and you, 29 months wow.
> 
> lc, :lol::lol: for the first two you met. and :blushing: at the fella.
> 
> lo, i think it's the wind cause the boys have been a pain this morning.
> 
> hello to everyone else.
> 
> i'm trying to be good and only coming on at lunch time, cause i've got stacks of work to do and i'm off to see my sister this weekend, so will be reporting from north yorkshire.
> 
> bella....good again this morning. nothing to report. ooh, training class tonight with her.
> 
> the boys were little ####'s this morning. pulling like mad to get to any little smell. frank more than freddie, liver treats didn't do much good today either, and i think i went invisible and mute. it's quite windy here so maybe that had an impact.
> may take them out seperately later to sort it out.
> 
> *did the ready steady thing with frank, but did it right this time. he loved it and i think next time, a sports bra is needed  i am supposed to keep hold of the lead aren't i whilst sprinting towards the toy?? now, i'm not a sprinter, i'm a gentle jogger whereas frank gives a whippett a run for his money(we meet one sometimes) *




That's my girl. You'll soon end up with as many injuries as Dogless and I...:devil::devil::devil:

Luv Grannie


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Thanks for the suggestion- will get a safestix for him...
> 
> And Dogless- I am very guilty of doing this too :-( I really need to learn to not set him up to fail and make it easier rather than making it too difficult to start with and then wondering why we have to spend ages trying to *get* it.


Buy two. It's the same with balls - always have two identical ones as they always want the one you've got.

When the dog clears off with the first one you immediately start jumping up and down with the second one, banging it on the floor, etc. etc. and saying something like "I've got this one and it's the best one".

A word of warning - just be careful the men in white coats don't appear and take you away...


----------



## Werehorse

Soooo, I'm going a bit bonkers on Amazon... I only went on to buy a book to help with the new job, but I ended up looking at doggie books.

So far I have...

Don't Shoot The Dog - never read it, probably should!
Control Unleashed - because a focussed and confident dog sounds awesome.
Other End of The Leash
and
Brain Games for Dogs by Claire Arrowsmith...

Any others? Any of those not worth it?

I went running with the boys today and failed at everything else. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Apologies for MIA yesterday - the pub trip on Tuesday ran late so I was still abed at a disgraceful time. And then fitting in the vet trip, my own (aborted) doctor's appointment, a run, lunch out with OH and the cinema meant there was time for browsing but not really posting!
> 
> Third encounter was the weirdest. Bumped into a bloke with a lurcher and Gypsy and his dog had a good old play. I was chatting to the him and he said he'd seen me training Gypsy and was asking me about it. Had a nice conversation with him and gave him some tips about deflecting prey drive. Not sure how it came up but it turned out he was a mate of a friend of mine so we talked for quite a while and walked together for a bit.
> 
> *I went to leave as I needed to get back and he asked me if I wanted to go for a drink with him. I said it would be great - he should bring his dog, we could go to the local dog friendly pub and then I mentioned something about OH. His face sort of fell and he said "Ah, I should have realised that someone as lovely as you had a boyfriend." My gob was not only smacked - it was beaten thoroughly with a bat! We parted ways slightly awkwardly.*




I'd have had that encounter on Facebook and been ringing everyone I've known over the past 10 years.

That was a huge compliment and I'd have been recounting it for at least the next six months.

The only time I get chatted up these days is when I'm judging and they think flattery will help their cause....


----------



## Twiggy

grant wewelcomedogs said:


> Trying to get my dog to stop barking at my neighbours - I dont mind it she scares away strangers too much but she barks at the cats on the road (understandable) but the birds in the sky near her house is a bit waring....
> Any suggestions to help with this? We have tried a naughty chair where she knows she had done wrong but it dont last long...!


How old is your dog and have you had her from a puppy?

With the greatest respect she doesn't know she's done wrong which is why the 'naughty chair' doesn't last long.


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Soooo, I'm going a bit bonkers on Amazon... I only went on to buy a book to help with the new job, but I ended up looking at doggie books.
> 
> So far I have...
> 
> *Don't Shoot The Dog - never read it, probably should!*
> Control Unleashed - because a focussed and confident dog sounds awesome.
> Other End of The Leash
> and
> Brain Games for Dogs by Claire Arrowsmith...
> 
> Any others? Any of those not worth it?
> 
> I went running with the boys today and failed at everything else. :lol:


I'd recommend *Reaching the Animal Mind* if you want a Karen Pryor one. I found it a lot more helpful and informative then *Don't Shoot The Dog*.

*Inside of a Dog* by Alexandra Horowitz is good.

*How Dogs Learn* by Mary Burch and Jon Bailey is highly recommended and I liked it but I much preferred *Explaining How Dogs Learn and How Best to Teach Them* by Pamela Reid (I got it as an e-book through Dogwise though so I don't know how easy it is to get otherwise).

*The Dog Vinci Code* by John Rogerson was interesting for a slightly different take to my normal reading on dog traiing.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thank goodness I thought I was the only one on the planet who didn't rate Dont shoot the dog, never actually finished it yet TBH, it was just its style really rather than the content


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> This absolutely; Kilo can be an awfully tense 'greeter' face to face on his lead and if he is going to react, it's then. He is fine parallel walking and can then go offlead with that dog without any problem after a minute or two.


Many years ago one of the leading light idiots (a man of course) on the Obedience Council decided that a stand stay out of sight would be a good idea. The KC soon removed it after there was a terrible fight at one show with about 50 dogs in the ring and six stay stewards trying to control them.


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Thank goodness I thought I was the only one on the planet who didn't rate Dont shoot the dog, never actually finished it yet TBH, it was just its style really rather than the content


I've only gotten half way through it. Like it says early on - it isn't actually about dog training specifically. I found all the other stuff boring.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Soooo, I'm going a bit bonkers on Amazon... I only went on to buy a book to help with the new job, but I ended up looking at doggie books.
> 
> So far I have...
> 
> Don't Shoot The Dog - never read it, probably should!
> Control Unleashed - because a focussed and confident dog sounds awesome.
> Other End of The Leash
> and
> Brain Games for Dogs by Claire Arrowsmith...
> 
> Any others? Any of those not worth it?
> 
> I went running with the boys today and failed at everything else. :lol:


I am currently enjoying Anne Lill Kvam's "The Canine Kindgom Of Scent" and have "Smellorama! - Nose Games For Your Dog" by Viviane Theby waiting to be read.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Many years ago one of the leading light idiots (a man of course) on the Obedience Council decided that a stand stay out of sight would be a good idea. The KC soon removed it after there was a terrible fight at one show with about 50 dogs in the ring and six stay stewards trying to control them.


Yikes!!! .


----------



## Sarah1983

I like When Pigs Fly by Jane Killion. More aimed at those with less biddable breeds but lots of good stuff in it. Again, nothing really new for me but she's another who doesn't just tell you to be the most interesting thing in your dogs world, she actually gives you ways to achieve it lol.

I really like Don't Shoot the Dog and have read it a few times. Haven't read Reaching the Animal Mind to compare it with though.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I am currently enjoying Anne Lill Kvam's "The Canine Kindgom Of Scent" and have "Smellorama! - Nose Games For Your Dog" by Viviane Theby waiting to be read.


Oooh I meant to mention those too - they've been invaluable for helping teach Gypsy scentwork (esp. the first one).

Glen Johnson's *Tracking Dog 1997: Theory and Method * is good too.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Thank goodness I thought I was the only one on the planet who didn't rate Dont shoot the dog, never actually finished it yet TBH, it was just its style really rather than the content


That's the Karen Prior one I bought years ago to train my husband - didn't work...!!

I've got 2 copies of Jean Donaldson's 'The Culture Clash' if anybody want's it?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's the Karen Prior one I bought years ago to train my husband - didn't work...!!
> 
> I've got 2 copies of Jean Donaldson's 'The Culture Clash' if anybody want's it?


The woman that manages to come up with a reliable method of training husbands will become rich beyond her wildest imaginings!!


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> I've only gotten half way through it. Like it says early on - it isn't actually about dog training specifically. I found all the other stuff boring.


I was the opposite in that I found the other stuff interesting. My theory was that if she could clicker train an orchestra, one single male would be easy - WRONG...!!

A friend of mine trained her pet chicken to do a recall and heelwork though....


----------



## terencesmum

Twiggy said:


> That's the Karen Prior one I bought years ago to train my husband - didn't work...!!
> 
> I've got 2 copies of Jean Donaldson's 'The Culture Clash' if anybody want's it?


I feel a bit cheeky asking, since I am not a regular poster in this thread, but I would love a copy of "The Culture Clash". Am I being cheeky? :blush:


----------



## Sarah1983

Okay ladies, please PM me your addresses so I can send the book shopping bill to you 

I have book issues. Well over 1000 on my Kindle and about 500 or more in boxes and on book shelves. You are not helping :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I am currently enjoying Anne Lill Kvam's "The Canine Kindgom Of Scent" and have "Smellorama! - Nose Games For Your Dog" by Viviane Theby waiting to be read.


I'm currently reading 'The best herbal remedies for cuts and bruises'.

(Sorry I'm in a silly mood tonight)


----------



## GingerRogers

terencesmum said:


> I feel a bit cheeky asking, since I am not a regular poster in this thread, but I would love a copy of "The Culture Clash". Am I being cheeky? :blush:


You can actually download it free in pdf form, cant for the life of me find the link I got it from (as in I know one thats safe) but if you google there are plenty of sites that have it for some reason.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm currently reading 'The best herbal remedies for cuts and bruises'.
> 
> (Sorry I'm in a silly mood tonight)


If you have two copies, I have one of those . Have you read "A Stitch In Time: Self - Suturing for Dog Owners" by Luv Tusoe?


----------



## Twiggy

terencesmum said:


> I feel a bit cheeky asking, since I am not a regular poster in this thread, but I would love a copy of "The Culture Clash". Am I being cheeky? :blush:


No of course you're not!! PM me your address and I'll send it.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I was the opposite in that I found the other stuff interesting. My theory was that if she could clicker train an orchestra, one single male would be easy - WRONG...!!
> 
> A friend of mine trained her pet chicken to do a recall and heelwork though....


I'm so glad I'm not the only one who found all of it interesting, I don't feel quite such a geek now . I took A Level Psychology though so have an interest in that sort of thing anyway.


----------



## terencesmum

Twiggy said:


> No of course you're not!! PM me your address and I'll send it.


Thanks. 

PS: I am noting down all the books everybody is reading! Some interesting ideas. :thumbup:


----------



## kat&molly

Too much there today to comment on.

L/C- Hope the bed rest sorts Ely, and getting chatted up, lucky you.

Still feeling a bit cack today but managed to operate fully.

Evie's walk through the village went quite well. We saw 2 people.  First woman came out her house but turned away from us, Evie stopped[froze?] to stare, then carried on ok after she turned a corner.
Abit pully past the scary house with the barky dogs but it was quiet today. Coming back a woman and the other grumpy dog were coming the other way- Evie gave a couple of little barks and we were able step off the road and let them pass. She stared again and wanted to sniff where they'd walked after passing.
Both times that she stopped and stared- she gave a little snort  anyone else noticed that before? She's doing well though- many times she's bucked and freaked out and there hasn't been any of that.

Ring toss is going well  success nearly every time now- had trouble this morning but I had moved on too fast by putting the plunger on the floor. If I hold it at an angle its mostly ok- and its not easy for Moll to put the ring over the pole and then let go as the ring is quite wide.

Does my 'send away' with Jenny chicken count- even though she didn't get the down.:lol:

And - how sad is this.
OH has a big birthday coming up next week, I saw a card today and had to get it from the girls. It says'Daddy is better than chips'


----------



## Beth17

Far too tired to comment on everyone but sounds like most of you have had a good day 

Thorne sorry you're having a down day today 

Went to the enclosed arena place with the boys and they played quite happily with my dads dogs again so that was good.

I'm currently reading through the dog vinci code. Its good so far but some of his ideas I'm not sure I completely agree with. I have stacks of dog books left to get through, I enjoyed don't shoot the dog until about 2/3 through when I got distracted and never went back to it.


----------



## Guest

Just taken donkey for a second walk (he does better on two shorter walks then one looooong one) in his coat. Guess what? Good as gold. Seem much more calmer, did a couple shake off's too when we went near a scary bicycle and continued on fine. 
What am I gonna do in the summer? Get a heat reflecting coat?? :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Far too tired to comment on everyone but sounds like most of you have had a good day
> 
> Thorne sorry you're having a down day today
> 
> Went to the enclosed arena place with the boys and they played quite happily with my dads dogs again so that was good.
> 
> I'm currently reading through the dog vinci code. Its good so far but some of his ideas I'm not sure I completely agree with. I have stacks of dog books left to get through, I enjoyed don't shoot the dog until about 2/3 through when I got distracted and never went back to it.


You lot have got no staying power....LOL Years ago I ploughed through an American Guidedogs for the Blind dog behaviour book; it was huge and seemed like thousands of pages and so boring. It must have been back in the dark ages because the advice for dogs chasing cars was to sit in the back of a Jeep and throw buckets of water over them...!!


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> You lot have got no staying power....LOL Years ago I ploughed through an American Guidedogs for the Blind dog behaviour book; it was huge and seemed like thousands of pages and so boring. It must have been back in the dark ages because the advice for dogs chasing cars was to sit in the back of a Jeep and throw buckets of water over them...!!


I looooooooove reading books about dogs. I managed to finish the culture clash in less than a day. I love it, love it, love it. 
And I've just realised what I want for my birthday!! A book about dogs. Dunno what yet. :lol: Oh my poor dad. He doesn't like dogs and all I go on about is "DOGSDOGSZANDERZANDERDOGSTERRIERS!!"


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> You lot have got no staying power....LOL Years ago I ploughed through an American Guidedogs for the Blind dog behaviour book; it was huge and seemed like thousands of pages and so boring. It must have been back in the dark ages because the advice for dogs chasing cars was to sit in the back of a Jeep and throw buckets of water over them...!!


I have staying power, I managed to read Cesar Milans books :ciappa:


----------



## Werehorse

I have just ordered an entire library of dog books.. I blame you - yes you.

I do have a book problem and that didn't help. I actually have to avoid Amazon most of the time... :lol:


----------



## Thorne

Well, Breeze seems tired so our trip to town was a success in that respect!

As usual she was good as gold in the car, trotted with a big waggy tail to the park then in typical Breeze fashion had an "Oo-err! This is new and might be scary!" moment. Had a bit of panting and lip-licking but she settled nicely and got lots of sniffing done, not many other dogs around. Her recall was good, (at first!), we practiced heelwork which she loves and she kept focused on me. All basic little things but I'm pleased 

The park is very central so we strolled down to the high street! Again, she was a little worried at first but soon relaxed. Went to the bus station and sat on a bench where the buses wait between trips. Clicked and treated when one of them started up, she barely looked at it which makes me more certain it's the movement that worries her -she's used to various bikes, cars and machinery running at home so that would make sense. She even settled to eat a dentastix with stationary but noisy buses 10' away!

Walked back through town, she attracted lots of attention in her pink Equafleece! Had another wander around the park to get back to the car and it was all going well until she met a black Labrador. She stayed with me until the other dog did a lovely polite greeting and suddenly, I wasn't interesting! The madam trotted off after the Lab (owner on mobile, seemed oblivious), looked _offended_ when I recalled her and ignored me. Had to go and get her, black Labs and red BCs are her kryptonite so will go back to onlead greetings.

Overall a good trip for us 

Oh, and this is lovely Dodger from BC, anyone want a youthful oldie? Poppy has been reserved  
http://www.bluecross.org.uk/2566-111246/1/dodger.html?uf_Location=Felixstowe&


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I have just ordered an entire library of dog books.. I blame you - yes you.
> 
> I do have a book problem and that didn't help. I actually have to avoid Amazon most of the time... :lol:


I have most of the recommended books lol, just ordered 3 though and about 30 free books that were non dog related.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> You lot have got no staying power....LOL Years ago I ploughed through an American Guidedogs for the Blind dog behaviour book; it was huge and seemed like thousands of pages and so boring. It must have been back in the dark ages because the advice for dogs chasing cars was to sit in the back of a Jeep and throw buckets of water over them...!!


Well thats slightly kinder that Barbara Woodhouse saying get a friend to drive slowly and throw a substantial book at the dogs head :sosp:

I think Tink has finally got the idea of tug, its' always been a bit of a gentle affair but today poor ducky's head was almost ripped off 

Thorne Dodger looks like a lovely chap it always makes me sad to see older dogs in rescues


----------



## Jenny Olley

L/C said:


> Oooh I meant to mention those too - they've been invaluable for helping teach Gypsy scentwork (esp. the first one).
> 
> Glen Johnson's *Tracking Dog 1997: Theory and Method * is good too.


Glen Johnsons book is excellent, its good for starters and more experienced trackers. sounds like the flirt pole is starting to work, just take it a bit at the time.

Nicky85, I would definately put your tuggy on a string while you are building drive, it means you can get more movement in and slicker better movement that entices the dog, it also means you don't have to learn over the dog, and you can still get contol even when the dog has won. If you are going to use a lead, don't put clip end on the tuggy, many a dog has been put off by the metal clip hitting them in the face.
Most of Archies play items have a line on them as he is only a pup and I am trying to harness his natural drive and build more.

Today I have taken archie to a new area, we did distance downs and loads of play, and were frequently joined by other dogs.
In the afternoon I did some retrieve of articles, thrown and dropped, and other bits and bobs.

Very pleased with how things are going, spoke to one of our local farmers today he has some grassland we can use for tracking.


----------



## Dogless

Thorne - Breeze's antics made me laugh; at least she was up to feeling naughty!

k&m - glad you're a little better; are you going to do that same walk with EVie until she's relaxed and then do others? Sounds as if things are improving anyway. Kilo will snort too if he's stressed and really fixated.



moonviolet said:


> I think Tink has finally got the idea of tug, its' always been a bit of a gentle affair but today poor ducky's head was almost ripped off


The concrete heads would show her how to tug :yesnod: :devil:.

Kilo has just been my best boy at school :001_wub::001_wub:. Did lots of offlead stuff and he was very attentive - we even got the sending to our mat and down at a distance today . I have a small problem though - I use one of Kilo's old crate mats which doesn't fit the whole of him on now as he's a long dog when he lies down...he seems to have a preference for lying across the mat rather than along it (if that makes sense?) which isn't acceptable. I was getting him to lie along it today by leaving a treat in the far diagonal corner and walking him at heel to the end of the mat and asking for a down. I know that is a rubbish explanation...but is there a better way of doing it?

We even got a skid to a halt in a sit on the recall rather than massive enthusiasm, jumping head height and then sitting. I was however so pleased that my praise got a bit excited so he leapt as I took hold of his collar, smacking me in the nose :incazzato:. And....and....*HE LAY DOWN WHEN OTHER DOGS WERE RECALLING!!!!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!*. Granted there were only four of us there tonight and the other three dogs just tootled along to recall so no crazy running and barking...but still, what an improvement .

Final boast....Rudi will go up a class from the week after next if he's still as good as he has been so far next week .

Smug, boasting, self indulgent post over. Normal service will resume .

I love my concrete heads :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> Glen Johnsons book is excellent, its good for starters and more experienced trackers. sounds like the flirt pole is starting to work, just take it a bit at the time.
> 
> Nicky85, I would definately put your tuggy on a string while you are building drive, it means you can get more movement in and slicker better movement that entices the dog, it also means you don't have to learn over the dog, and you can still get contol even when the dog has won. If you are going to use a lead, don't put clip end on the tuggy, many a dog has been put off by the metal clip hitting them in the face.
> Most of Archies play items have a line on them as he is only a pup and I am trying to harness his natural drive and build more.
> 
> Today I have taken archie to a new area, we did distance downs and loads of play, and were frequently joined by other dogs.
> In the afternoon I did some retrieve of articles, thrown and dropped, and other bits and bobs.
> 
> Very pleased with how things are going, spoke to one of our local farmers today he has some grassland we can use for tracking.


All I can say is.....I am in awe of you .


----------



## Guest

WELL DONE CONCRETE HEADS!!! :thumbup:


----------



## Leam1307

I cant belive it has just taken me this long to work out what CH in your posts mean! lol  .. i think unless i have it wrong


----------



## Dogless

Leam1307 said:


> I cant belive it has just taken me this long to work out what CH in your posts mean! lol  .. i think unless i have it wrong


Yep...Concrete Heads...as I said, it's a well known fact that RRs have them :yesnod:. LCH and BCH....Little and Big!


----------



## moonviolet

What good concrete heads, well except for the broken nose :lol:


It's a bit sad to admit that Tink has never played tug with another dog. If another dog wants the toy, they can have it.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> What good concrete heads, well except for the broken nose :lol:
> 
> It's a bit sad to admit that Tink has never played tug with another dog. If another dog wants the toy, they can have it.


Kilo only plays tug with Rudi and with me - otherwise he gives up toys to other dogs too. Rudi on the other hand I suspect will not - he is always taking toys off Kilo. I have to give them back to Kilo!


----------



## Guest

Leam1307 said:


> I cant belive it has just taken me this long to work out what CH in your posts mean! lol  .. i think unless i have it wrong


A quick guide to the nicknames on Pf members dogs. :lol:

CH= Concrete heads = Dogless's Rhodesian's
The pointies = L/C's greyhounds
Donkeyboy = My bat eared lurch
The pickles = Foxymeister's two I think

Uh, I've forgotten if there's others. 
Theres the terrors who are charlie and d-something two JRT's who belongs to someone who's pf name I've forgotten.
:lol:

I've just watched the secret life of dogs, was properly AWWWIIING all the way through, with Zander on my lap. :001_wub:


----------



## Jenny Olley

Dogless said:


> All I can say is.....I am in awe of you .


And me you, and the fine job you make of your RR, it is a breed we have had many dealings with over the years, you wouldn't believe what a mess some people make of these fine animals.


----------



## Jenny Olley

moonviolet said:


> Well thats slightly kinder that Barbara Woodhouse saying get a friend to drive slowly and throw a substantial book at the dogs head :sosp:
> 
> I think Tink has finally got the idea of tug, its' always been a bit of a gentle affair but today poor ducky's head was almost ripped off
> 
> Thorne Dodger looks like a lovely chap it always makes me sad to see older dogs in rescues


My OH once found an old dog training manual by Barbara, with the strangest behaviour modification being for chicken chasing, the answer being to hit the dog with a dead chicken.


----------



## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> And me you, and the fine job you make of your RR, it is a breed we have had many dealings with over the years, you wouldn't believe what a mess some people make of these fine animals.


I initially went to classes where I was pretty much told that Kilo couldn't be trained and all the dogs were out of control really, then classes where we had to leave every time he got over excited (a lot!!) but they never gave me the skills to combat this....so I did mess Kilo up TBH (I've had loads of issues that I am certain I could have avoided, and some that I couldn't have done) but am now trying my very best to rectify it; things such as going bonkers when other dogs recall indoors.

I now have their measure a little better and hopefully, hopefully I am starting off on the right foot with Rudi. I desperately hope so.



LurcherOwner said:


> A quick guide to the nicknames on Pf members dogs. :lol:
> 
> CH= Concrete heads = Dogless's Rhodesian's
> The pointies = L/C's greyhounds
> Donkeyboy = My bat eared lurch
> The pickles = Foxymeister's two I think
> 
> Uh, I've forgotten if there's others.
> Theres the terrors who are charlie and d-something two JRT's who belongs to someone who's pf name I've forgotten.
> :lol:
> 
> I've just watched the secret life of dogs, was properly AWWWIIING all the way through, with Zander on my lap. :001_wub:


BW - Boy Wonder - Kilo
Little Snapper / Crocopuppy - Rudi 

I was looking forward to it and tried....until Kilo spotted dog feeding lamb...


----------



## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> My OH once found an old dog training manual by Barbara, with the strangest behaviour modification being for chicken chasing, the answer being to hit the dog with a dead chicken.


LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! What if your dog chases cyclists? .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! What if your dog chases cyclists? .


Or joggers!? Or anything that moves?! :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> My OH once found an old dog training manual by Barbara, with the strangest behaviour modification being for chicken chasing, the answer being to hit the dog with a dead chicken.


I loved the ones she did on horses, especially backing a young pony for the first time.

The pony used belonged to a friend of my sister and was in fact competing in 13hh working hunter pony classes pretty successfully at the time...!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! What if your dog chases cyclists? .


:lol: :lol: i actually remember watchign an episode of her TV show as a kid and there was a dog onlead and a man cycling in a most wobbly fashion holding a jug of water which was thrown in the dogs face. So she did stop short of hitting a dog with a dead cyclist.... well maybe if the water didn't work.


----------



## Sarah1983

Jenny Olley said:


> My OH once found an old dog training manual by Barbara, with the strangest behaviour modification being for chicken chasing, the answer being to hit the dog with a dead chicken.


Something tells me that wouldn't have worked with Rupert, he'd have just grabbed the chicken and eaten it :nonod:

Dogless, glad you've had a good day with the Concrete Heads.

I seem to have inadvertently taught the silly Spendog to make silly sneezing noises when he's got a toy  He quite often sneezed when first grabbing a toy and I've sometimes taken the mickey out of him and copied him (sort of a hff noise ) which got him all wiggly and silly. Well the last few days I've noticed him sneezing a lot and have tonight realised that it's whenever he's got a toy in his mouth. Isn't it wonderful how I can accidentally teach the stupidest of things and struggle so much with things I want to teach


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Something tells me that wouldn't have worked with Rupert, he'd have just grabbed the chicken and eaten it :nonod:
> 
> Dogless, glad you've had a good day with the Concrete Heads.
> 
> I seem to have inadvertently taught the silly Spendog to make silly sneezing noises when he's got a toy  He quite often sneezed when first grabbing a toy and I've sometimes taken the mickey out of him and copied him (sort of a hff noise ) which got him all wiggly and silly. Well the last few days I've noticed him sneezing a lot and have tonight realised that it's whenever he's got a toy in his mouth. Isn't it wonderful how I can accidentally teach the stupidest of things and struggle so much with things I want to teach


I did EXACTLY that with Kilo - he grabs a toy to greet me with when I come home and used to sneeze a fair bit....I 'sneezed' back and hey presto!! Same as Spendog. He also makes a funny noise when he stretches a lot (RRs are very 'talky') which I copied and now.....he looks up at me, stretches and does his noise!!


----------



## Jenny Olley

There have been some strange ideas over the years, like tying a dog to a car then driving (obviously slowly) to cure a traffic chaser.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :lol: :lol: i actually remember watchign an episode of her TV show as a kid and there was a dog onlead and a man cycling in a most wobbly fashion holding a jug of water which was thrown in the dogs face. So she did stop short of hitting a dog with a dead cyclist.... well maybe if the water didn't work.


Any mat ideas mv? Tink is Queen of the Mat after all....or is my method OK?


----------



## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> There have been some strange ideas over the years, like tying a dog to a car then driving (obviously slowly) to cure a traffic chaser.


A fair few folk exercise their dog that way round here .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I did EXACTLY that with Kilo - he grabs a toy to greet me with when I come home and used to sneeze a fair bit....I 'sneezed' back and hey presto!! Same as Spendog. He also makes a funny noise when he stretches a lot (RRs are very 'talky') which I copied and now.....he looks up at me, stretches and does his noise!!


Lol, I'm glad I'm not the only daft one  Spencer's recently found his voice and started vocalising a little when he's excited to see us. Hubby's been copying him and Silent Bob Dog has quickly gone from faint noises to a full on "auf, auf, auf" type noise :lol: I'm now woken in the morning by an elbow drop and "auf, auf".


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, I'm glad I'm not the only daft one  Spencer's recently found his voice and started vocalising a little when he's excited to see us. Hubby's been copying him and Silent Bob Dog has quickly gone from faint noises to a full on "auf, auf, auf" type noise :lol: I'm now woken in the morning by an elbow drop and "auf, auf".


"Auf Auf"...sounds very German .

Rudi is really vocal; he rumbles and growls as he parades a toy around (he is always parading around, he is a clown!!), moans whilst waiting for food, 'chats' to Kilo when I've had one out without the other and they greet each other.....I thought Kilo was chatty but Rudi takes it to a whole new level! I like it .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thorne - Breeze's antics made me laugh; at least she was up to feeling naughty!
> 
> The concrete heads would show her how to tug :yesnod: :devil:.
> 
> Kilo has just been my best boy at school :001_wub::001_wub:. Did lots of offlead stuff and he was very attentive - we even got the sending to our mat and *down at a distance today . I have a small problem though - I use one of Kilo's old crate mats which doesn't fit the whole of him on now as he's a long dog when he lies down...he seems to have a preference for lying across the mat rather than along it (if that makes sense?) which isn't acceptable. I was getting him to lie along it today by leaving a treat in the far diagonal corner and walking him at heel to the end of the mat and asking for a down. I know that is a rubbish explanation...but is there a better way of doing it?*
> 
> Smug, boasting, self indulgent post over. Normal service will resume .
> 
> I love my concrete heads :001_wub::001_wub:.


Well firstly why isn't it acceptable? Do you mean he's deviating?


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> "Auf Auf"...sounds very German .
> 
> Rudi is really vocal; he rumbles and growls as he parades a toy around (he is always parading around, he is a clown!!), moans whilst waiting for food, 'chats' to Kilo when I've had one out without the other and they greet each other.....I thought Kilo was chatty but Rudi takes it to a whole new level! I like it .


Lol, auf is the closest I can come to typing the daft noise he makes 

Rupert was extremely vocal. Not a barker, he only barked if there was good reason for it (doorbell, someone coming up the garden path etc) but he constantly grumbled, growled, groaned and woo woo'd at you. You could have a full on conversation with him and he had to have the last word. Spen on the other hand has been practically silent except for the frustration barks at other dogs or the whining at other dogs. I quite like the fact he's starting to vocalise a bit, it seems more natural than the utter silence we had before.

Sounds really sweet Rudi chatting to Kilo when one of them's been out without the other :001_wub:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Any mat ideas mv? Tink is Queen of the Mat after all....or is my method OK?


If it's working an getting him in the habit of getting on the mat the right way round I dont' see a reason to change what you are doing. I think i introduced it with a clicker sessions with the mat close and shaped her laying on it centrally.

Tink kind of launches herself at her mat. I must film it sometime she often kind of spins into position mid air, hence the need for a non slip addition. She is so enamoured with it she'll try to jump on it while i'm holding it vertically about to place it down.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well firstly why isn't it acceptable? Do you mean he's deviating?


No, he runs straight to his mat, but then lies across it - apparently not enough of him is on the mat that way  so he needs to lie along it. The trainer said that he wouldn't accept that if he was judging so I needed to change it. I was chuffed he was doing it in class this week TBH after all our work at home . If I took a mat / bit of vetbed big enough to fit a lying Kilo on entirely it would be huge! I don't mind at all working on it some more - just wondered if I was going about it in the right way...


----------



## sharloid

The behaviourist is coming tomorrow and the OH might not be in which means I'll have the puppy to deal with as well!

Please wish us luck


----------



## Nicki85

Dogless- no idea what kind of excersise you are working on really but how about making it smaller?! I remember doing sendaways with Rusty to a tiny square of carpet.


----------



## Dogless

sharloid said:


> The behaviourist is coming tomorrow and the OH might not be in which means I'll have the puppy to deal with as well!
> 
> Please wish us luck


I hope that it goes well and that you get a good plan of action from the assessment .


----------



## Nicki85

Good luck Sharloid- I'm sure you will be fine


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Dogless- no idea what kind of excersise you are working on really but how about making it smaller?! I remember doing sendaways with Rusty to a tiny square of carpet.


It is a sendaway to his mat. Needs to be bigger I think....Kilo lies across so that the mat is under him, but needs to be lengthways as most of him is still on the floor.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless - Can you turn the mat the other way? So that it "fits" the way he is laying at the moment. I can't quite picture what you are describing :lol: Me being dim.

Or try shaping a being completely on the mat from where he is now? When we did sendaways to a hulahoop I eventually managed to get Oscar curled completely within the hoop by shaping... well he stuck his front paws under it and rested his chin on the hoop but it was cute so I kept it.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Dogless - Can you turn the mat the other way? So that it "fits" the way he is laying at the moment. I can't quite picture what you are describing :lol: Me being dim.
> 
> Or try shaping a being completely on the mat from where he is now? When we did sendaways to a hulahoop I eventually managed to get Oscar curled completely within the hoop by shaping... well he stuck his front paws under it and rested his chin on the hoop but it was cute so I kept it.


If I turn the mat he turns himself before lying down. I have obviously rewarded him for it - I know I have - as I thought that lying on the mat was lying on the mat, no matter which way round it was...I just clicked contact with mat initially, then getting onto the mat, then lying on the mat. I'm sure I'll get there, Kilo is bright. Me on the other hand..... :incazzato:.


----------



## Thorne

Good luck sharloid 

Scooter is another one who "sneezes" when he's got a toy! He won't do it if he's just taking one off to chew somewhere but if he's playing with me or getting someone a welcome home present" he does terrific snorty sneezes! Glad he isn't the only nutter


----------



## Jenny Olley

Dogless said:


> No, he runs straight to his mat, but then lies across it - apparently not enough of him is on the mat that way  so he needs to lie along it. The trainer said that he wouldn't accept that if he was judging so I needed to change it. I was chuffed he was doing it in class this week TBH after all our work at home . If I took a mat / bit of vetbed big enough to fit a lying Kilo on entirely it would be huge! I don't mind at all working on it some more - just wondered if I was going about it in the right way...


If you need to change the way he lies on the mat, just spend time at the mat teaching which way you want the dog to lay. Try to limit or ideally stop him in the mean time practicing the wrong way of lying ie you doing sendawys him arriving at the mat and defaulting to his normal position.


----------



## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> If you need to change the way he lies on the mat, just spend time at the mat teaching which way you want the dog to lay. Try to limit or ideally stop him in the mean time practicing the wrong way of lying ie you doing sendawys him arriving at the mat and defaulting to his normal position.


Last night once I was told I needed to change it I stopped sending him to it and walked him to heel up to the mat and then lured him into the correct position by leaving a treat in the far corner so that he needed to stand the right way on the mat to reach it and then asked for a down once he was on. I'll keep doing that - it will be easier at home as I can use my clicker!


----------



## Jenny Olley

Dogless said:


> Last night once I was told I needed to change it I stopped sending him to it and walked him to heel up to the mat and then lured him into the correct position by leaving a treat in the far corner so that he needed to stand the right way on the mat to reach it and then asked for a down once he was on. I'll keep doing that - it will be easier at home as I can use my clicker!


Thats what I would do leave nothing to chance, I may even lure him into the down in the correct position to start with, but if what you are doing is getting the desired result stick with it, you will have to do a lot of it to override what he already thinks is right, but sure you already know that.


----------



## kat&molly

Sounds like a really good class Dogless. And Rudi possibly moving up a class already, big boy stuff.

And yes thats the plan for Evie, I'll add to this stretch when she's more comfortable and we've seen a few more people. At least the snorting is normal- I thought it might have been an Evie special.
The fixating thing, theres no budging her , unless I were to physically pull her away, but I'm not sure its all a bad thing, that and the sniffing where someone has walked seems to be a bit curious as well.

Hope it goes well with the behaviourist Sharloid.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Sounds like a really good class Dogless. And Rudi possibly moving up a class already, big boy stuff.
> 
> And yes thats the plan for Evie, I'll add to this stretch when she's more comfortable and we've seen a few more people. At least the snorting is normal- I thought it might have been an Evie special.
> The fixating thing, theres no budging her , unless I were to physically pull her away, but I'm not sure its all a bad thing, that and the sniffing where someone has walked seems to be a bit curious as well.
> 
> Hope it goes well with the behaviourist Sharloid.


When she fixates have you tried slowly crouching beside her, if she's the sort of dog that is soothed by touch you could try gentle stroking her hindquarters. Quite possibly won't help at all, I'm just throwing things out there that worked with Tink.

Good luck today Sharloid hope you get the support you need


----------



## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> Thats what I would do leave nothing to chance, I may even lure him into the down in the correct position to start with, but if what you are doing is getting the desired result stick with it, you will have to do a lot of it to override what he already thinks is right, but sure you already know that.


Or...I get a square mat .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Or...I get a square mat .


Lateral thinking! i like it :lol: :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> If it's working an getting him in the habit of getting on the mat the right way round I dont' see a reason to change what you are doing. I think i introduced it with a clicker sessions with the mat close and shaped her laying on it centrally.


This is what I've been doing with Spencer. Started off just clicking and treating for any part of him on the mat then shaped it so he had to be lying mostly on it. Still need to work on getting him on it lengthways rather than lying across it but we'll get there.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> No, he runs straight to his mat, but then lies across it - apparently not enough of him is on the mat that way  so he needs to lie along it. The trainer said that he wouldn't accept that if he was judging so I needed to change it. I was chuffed he was doing it in class this week TBH after all our work at home . If I took a mat / bit of vetbed big enough to fit a lying Kilo on entirely it would be huge! I don't mind at all working on it some more - just wondered if I was going about it in the right way...


I might well be being thick here but I don't understand what your trainer is saying...??

Is this for Good Citizens Gold or competitive obedience classes?

If Kilo's running straight and dropping on the mat I really don't see what the problem is, especially considering his size.


----------



## Jenny Olley

Dogless said:


> Or...I get a square mat .


Unless he thinks the exercise belly on the mat, front and back end on the floor.



Twiggy said:


> I might well be being thick here but I don't understand what your trainer is saying...??
> 
> Is this for Good Citizens Gold or competitive obedience classes?
> 
> If Kilo's running straight and dropping on the mat I really don't see what the problem is, especially considering his size.


I don't understand why it matters either, but I'm sure the trainer has a reason.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I might well be being thick here but I don't understand what your trainer is saying...??
> 
> Is this for Good Citizens Gold or competitive obedience classes?
> 
> If Kilo's running straight and dropping on the mat I really don't see what the problem is, especially considering his size.


I've gotta admit, neither do I. The reason I want Spen lay on his lengthways is because if I let him lie across it he tends to think that if just his belly or front legs on it is good enough then so is just a paw on it and I do actually want him on the mat, not next to it lol.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless said:


> Or...I get a square mat .


This was my thought too so theres no right or wrong way round for him to lie!!


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted ....


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> When she fixates have you tried slowly crouching beside her, if she's the sort of dog that is soothed by touch you could try gentle stroking her hindquarters. Quite possibly won't help at all, I'm just throwing things out there that worked with Tink.
> 
> Good luck today Sharloid hope you get the support you need


Thanks, I do crouch down , she doesn't seem to really notice I'm there-but she is focusing on me much more so maybe it will come. Stroking the hindquarters is a good idea.


----------



## Twiggy

Leam1307 said:


> Im sure it must have been mentioned before on this topic but how do you teach sendaway? And down from a distance, i take it you just gradually get further away when you give the command?
> 
> I didnt give Deeks his breakfast in a bowl this morning, instead i used it to do some training with him which he seemed very up for. Actually got excited about his kibble!
> 
> Well thats 3 nights in a row that Deeks has been quiet! hes still barking during the day and in the evening but come 10pm thats it, hes quiet! Oh it feels so good having an uninterupted sleep again.


There are many, many different ways of teaching sendaway and it also depends on how it is going to be applied.

You wouldn't teach a Good citizen's Gold Award type sendaway for competitive obedience or working trials/schutzund competitions.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Dogless - Can you turn the mat the other way? So that it "fits" the way he is laying at the moment. I can't quite picture what you are describing :lol: Me being dim.
> 
> Or try shaping a being completely on the mat from where he is now? When we did sendaways to a hulahoop I eventually managed to get Oscar curled completely within the hoop by shaping... well he stuck his front paws under it and rested his chin on the hoop but it was cute so I kept it.


Yes we've done similar in the past using a shallow box, when box type sendaways were more commonly used by judges.

These days, for competitive obedience, sendaways are mostly triangles requiring the dog to be directly in front of the back marker.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> If I turn the mat he turns himself before lying down. I have obviously rewarded him for it - I know I have - as I thought that lying on the mat was lying on the mat, no matter which way round it was...I just clicked contact with mat initially, then getting onto the mat, then lying on the mat. I'm sure I'll get there, Kilo is bright. *Me on* *the other hand*..... :incazzato:.


Here we go again - big, big smack coming.....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Last night once I was told I needed to change it I stopped sending him to it and walked him to heel up to the mat and then lured him into the correct position by leaving a treat in the far corner so that he needed to stand the right way on the mat to reach it and then asked for a down once he was on. I'll keep doing that - it will be easier at home as I can use my clicker!


I'm quite sure I can devise a method of teaching Kilo which will result in much blood loss and possibly several fingers.....


----------



## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> Unless he thinks the exercise belly on the mat, front and back end on the floor.
> 
> I don't understand why it matters either, but I'm sure the trainer has a reason.


Hmm - having judged and instructed over the Irish Sea some of the 'reasons' are shall we say peculiar..!!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I'm quite sure I can devise a method of teaching Kilo which will result in much blood loss and possibly several fingers.....


Dear Grannie

I have always been a little concerned about your masochistic tendencies :lol: :lol: but now it's seems you are branching out and encouraging this masochistic behaviour in others can we expect a book in the future maybe " 50 shades of bruise"  :lol: :lol:


----------



## Freddie and frank

k&m, frank huffs too if he sees another dog on lead. well done moll on the ring toss game. i think the card is a nice idea, i get my son,only child, a brother card from the dogs every birthday 

thorne, breeze sounds lovely. and dodger is gorgeous. i wanted to adopt an oldie before bella came along. perhaps in the future.

dogless, top marks for your boys.:thumbup::thumbup: 

L/O, i watched it too and i was in floods of tears. lovely programme.

sharloid, hope all goes well with the behaviourist 

well, the last books i read were the 50 shades books, and i'm still trying to train my husband.

back to dogs.......
bella's class last night was basic, beginner class, but she was a good girl. bit vocal but did everything well. and :001_wub: there is a 10 week old great dane puppy there. :001_wub: her name is 'blue' she's GORGEOUS 

boys were a bit of a nightmare again today, but had a run off lead then calmed down a bit. on the way back, i had both on dogmatics and we were coming up to a lady with 3 westies off lead in a quiet road. she was chatting to another lady with two more small dogs. 5 in total off lead. all dogs came up to my two and literally tied me up in knots. thankfully, the boys were ok and just sniffed, no barking or growling. peed me off a bit really cause she had to come over and get them away so i could untangle my two . oh well, i said 'not to worry' and smiled. walked nicely back home after so ended well. 

freddie, bless him is more interested in playing fetch and tug since i got him a new kong tuggie toy. it takes a lot to get freddie interested in fetching stuff. so pleased he likes this.
found an agility class to take frank to next sunday hopefully.

have good days everyone.


----------



## Guest

He was fab this morns walk. Sat and ignored a border terrier that lunged at him as it went past (less than a metre away!) Oh the power of a winalot shape.
A JRT lunged at us and Zander WOOFED at it once.
Been looking at thundershirts. May be something to look into as he gets extremely agitated by fireworks at the like.


----------



## Freddie and frank

ooh, forgot to add, not dog related but.......
everyone seems very well qualified on this thread,academically, :yesnod: i'm impressed. makes my 5 little 'o' levels and diploma in fashion a bit pants. lol :lol::lol: eta, i didn't go on to be the next christian dior but i'm a dammn good dressmaker.


----------



## GingerRogers

Firstly Good luck with the behaviorist today Sharloid, look forward to an update from you later.

Secondly I have no idea what sendaways are, I feel I should know, I feel unworthy 

Thirdly - Wow Leam  what a change a few days makes :thumbup:

Fourthly - Throne you are doing so well with Breeze, she is very lucky to have such a patient and understanding owner, cheer up soon 

Then all the rest - well done Rudi and Kilo, your two best boys :001_wub: (responding to all your hard work  thicko  I sincerely hope you aren't or theres not much hope for the rest of us)

Well done Tuggy Tink, not sure if Ginge would play tug with a dog or if that would be dangerous, its dangerous for us sometimes 

K&M Sounds like Evie is getting there, I missed her back story why is she such a nervous one? Glad Molly is enjoying the ring toss 

Well done F&F for finally finding a class for Frank, hope he enjoys it.

Zander is like the girl in the old nursery rhyme, 'when he is good he is very very good when he is bad he is horrid'  I am afraid to say that was sung to me quite often 

Ginge sneezes when she is lying on her back but I suspect thats a physical thing I have no intention of trying to cue it, it seems dangerous, I do like her gurgles and whines though and we do try and encourage them  but OH gets annoyed with her when it ramps up to play barks  Our Rudi sneezes when he is playing with other dogs, bless him its like he is allergic to excitement!

You may have noticed I didn't update you all on my nightly walk yesterday, thats cos OH took her  while I did our tax returns rrr: I made sure he waited till dark and took her to the beach where there would be no-one , he had her on the long line, said she was very good and semi-came back each time he called her. 

K&M you know you said it sounded like she was rocking and rolling when he tried to teach roll over  we worked on that  and we have spinning round in circles with the the target stick, not sure how many times she would go round, till she falls over dizzy I think, do dogs get dizzy 

Lovely peaceful walk this morning as it was raining, worked on the steady walking again for the last 10 mins then some version of be a tree type exercise outside the house before we came in


----------



## Nicki85

Morning all 

Morning walk OK, met a old woman (talking about 80 yrs old) with a BC. I put Rusty on the lead as that is what we do when we meet another dog we don't know... Any way, she decided shouting at me to tell me that her dog was fine (she was a way away)... but i kept Rusty on the lead. She got to me and her dog (which was harassing Rusty) then started going on about how sad it was that I was not letting them play. So, I stupidly let him off and a game of chase began (fine...) but the BC then started to take it one step further crouching and biting Rusty as he ran past.... BC obviously only interested in herding Rusty... so I walked off and her dog followed for ages (Rusty on lead again). Should have stuck to my instincts and kept him on lead!! The woman had no control over the BC- seriously an accident waiting to happen.

And now Rusty has just brought up his breakfast (sardines!) yum. He was just laying on the sofa next to me- fast asleep- and the all of a sudden jumps off and brings it all up in on the living room mat. Seems fine now- wanting to play etc. gave him some chicken mince to settle his stomach and he was still really hungry. It's been about 6 days since he was ill so really hoping this isn't the start of it again :-( He was 100% fine on his morning walk... I'm starting to think that he can't manage fish TBH. 

We will see how he goes... going for a walk with a friend and her two BC at lunchtime. She has just taken on another and it's not going as smoothly as I think she would have hoped :-(

Also, booked in for our first agiltiy workshop... very scary but not for another month so got time to practice. It is with Jo Tristram and is for 2.5 hrs!!! Also thinking of going to a workshop on relationship and motivational work by Kristina Glover thought it might be interesting. Only as a spectator though as all handling places gone.


----------



## GingerRogers

Nicki85 said:


> Morning all
> 
> ... I'm starting to think that he can't manage fish TBH.


Hope he is ok , but just to say, we had problems with sprats, even one, have yet to try her on anything else.

Sorry about the old lady and her BC, I often find the old ones are the worst and its not like they can do anything if anything does kick off !

Workshops  I am getting ridiculously excited about our reactive dog course :yesnod:


----------



## Guest

I think a sendaway is where you send the dog away to a mat or a place or something. Don't quote me on that though.

My mum has been given a book on JRT's, she was brought up on JRT's. 
All I can here is, "Come look at THIS one!" :lol:


----------



## Nicki85

Yes... he has salmon oil normally (well, not since he has been ill!) but it does seem that every time he is sick he has had sea fish (so sprats, oily mince from DAF or sardines) so I think I need to stop all fish for now. I hope that is all it is any how!!! But he has had fish fine before without any problems. 

Yay for workshops!!! TBH as long as what ever it is dog related i'm a happy bunny


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - agility workshop sounds good!! Hope Rusty is OK and the vomit was just a random one.

GR - tax returns .



Twiggy said:


> I might well be being thick here but I don't understand what your trainer is saying...??
> 
> Is this for Good Citizens Gold or competitive obedience classes?
> 
> If Kilo's running straight and dropping on the mat I really don't see what the problem is, especially considering his size.


Leam - sounds as if you and Deeks are beginning to bond a bit more now.



Jenny Olley said:


> Unless he thinks the exercise belly on the mat, front and back end on the floor.
> 
> I wondered about that....he doesn't even fit totally on when lengthways either.
> 
> I don't understand why it matters either, but I'm sure the trainer has a reason.





Twiggy said:


> I'm quite sure I can devise a method of teaching Kilo which will result in much blood loss and possibly several fingers.....


But then what will Rudi chew on .



Twiggy said:


> Hmm - having judged and instructed over the Irish Sea some of the 'reasons' are shall we say peculiar..!!


Not sure why; I go just for fun although lots of the helpers are into competitive obedience. When we did recalls last night a man spent ages explaining to me that sometimes we return to the dog, leave again etc before finally recalling as that is what a judge will ask you to do....I only do it because I like it!

Even to an amateur like me some of the reasons and methods are odd....and not all positive. I don't use the ones that aren't positive and don't agree with some of the philosophies....



Freddie and frank said:


> ooh, forgot to add, not dog related but.......
> everyone seems very well qualified on this thread,academically, :yesnod: i'm impressed. makes my 5 little 'o' levels and diploma in fashion a bit pants. lol :lol::lol: eta, i didn't go on to be the next christian dior but i'm a dammn good dressmaker.


That explains your very well put together flump outfit . I'd love to me able to dressmake, it's a real skill.

Good walk this morning; both CHs, out ages on the fields - they had a good play with three sibes that both dogs had met separately before, they were all together today but all was good. The owner of one is going to breed her - her uncle is a 'professional breeder', he does "every breed you could name" so she's going to send her dog to him; he'll keep her, mate her, she'll be there to whelp then he'll sell the pups and she'll get the dog back :incazzato::incazzato:. She couldn't decide whether to just have huskies or 'spruskies' as they are apparently becoming popular. She then looked at Kilo and said "now THAT would be an unusual breed". I said that a sibe x RR would be a dog that I would, never, ever, ever want to own for so many reasons, not least the prey drive...."What's prey drive?.......". How upsetting .


----------



## Nicki85

DL- it always amazes me how clueless some people are about breeding :-( it really is very sad on so many levels.

On one of the local groups I follow on FB it is filled with litters of staffies and huskies. None KC registered- just "family pets". Then on the same site they advertise rescue staffs and huskies- do the people breeding them not join up the dots?! It drives me crazy :-(


----------



## Sarah1983

There's just no getting through to some people Dogless :nonod: How sad that someone owning and planning on breeding their husky has absolutely no idea what prey drive is. Makes you wonder just how much they understand about their chosen breed.

Been reading The Dog Vinci Code since last night and am finding it quite interesting. Can't say I agree with everything he says but he seems to have confirmed my suspicion that I'm using high value food rewards when lower value rewards would serve just as well. So time to start changing things up a bit I think.

Just done his throw 10 toys (only I could only hold 8) three times and see whether there's one the dog chooses over all the others each time. Spencer surprised me, his squeaky latex pig was the one he chose over all the others. 3 out of 3 times he picked that one out. The selection included his giant tennis ball and two stuffed toys as well  When I took the pig away next on the list was a stuffed squeaky leopard type thing.


----------



## Nicki85

i'm reading the DOg Vinchi Code as well at the moment. I went on one of his workshops as well for recall training. It was very good. Haven't found anything I wouldn't try yet- i'm bit sceptical about some of the things in there though. Which bits do you disagree with? (just interested in others views!)


----------



## Sarah1983

Nicki85 said:


> i'm reading the DOg Vinchi Code as well at the moment. I went on one of his workshops as well for recall training. It was very good. Haven't found anything I wouldn't try yet- i'm bit sceptical about some of the things in there though. Which bits do you disagree with? (just interested in others views!)


Well the "even experts struggle to train more than 5 commands" part was a bit odd. I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that, whether he meant so that the dog is reliable in any given situation with a command or just in general. All my dogs have known way more than 5 commands and it's not been a struggle to teach. I highly doubt I'm some genius dog trainer either :lol:

It's not so much that I disagree with him for the most part, it's more that I think with some of his ideals he's a bit distant from the reality of being an average dog owner. For example, it's all very well saying his ideal puppy class wouldn't take place in a hall but would be a case of taking the pups round to different peoples houses and all that. I mean I see where he's coming from and I agree, that would make more sense, but it's really not practical for most of us. Same with a lot of his ways of making use of other dogs, that's great if you've got reliable people with reliable dogs on hand to do the exercise but many of us don't have those things. I can't even find a decent training class where I am let alone multiple well trained dogs and their equally interested in training owners lol.


----------



## cinnamontoast

I'm sat here with a wobbly bottom lip!! OK, it's not perfect, he should have told him to hold and not allowed him to shake before fetching the dummy, but oh my God, first ever water retrieval!! And he did it while I'm at work!! Rotten swine!!

VIDEO0148_zps0c556fe6.mp4 Video by Ghostcop99 | Photobucket


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Hope he is ok , but just to say, we had problems with sprats, even one, have yet to try her on anything else.
> 
> *Sorry about the old lady and her BC, I often find the old ones are the worst and its not like they can do anything if anything does kick off* !
> 
> Workshops  I am getting ridiculously excited about our reactive dog course :yesnod:


Whaddaya mean....!!!! luv Grannie


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Nicki - agility workshop sounds good!! Hope Rusty is OK and the vomit was just a random one.
> 
> *Not sure why; I go just for fun although lots of the helpers are into competitive obedience. When we did recalls last night a man spent ages explaining to me that sometimes we return to the dog, leave again etc before finally recalling as that is what a judge will ask you to do....I only do it because I like it!*
> 
> *Even to an amateur like me some of the reasons and methods are odd....and not all positive. I don't use the ones that aren't positive and don't agree with some of the philosophies....*
> 
> Well if they're teaching competitive obedience I really don't understand this mat business for sendaways. Back in the dark ages dogs were taught to go to a mat but not anymore. I can't remember the last time I saw a judge use a mat for sendaways and it would be a very, very rare occurence these days.
> 
> You would *never* (under KC rules) be asked to leave your dog, return and leave again. It's only done in training.


----------



## Guest

Hahaha bought Zand a monkey soft toy from the charity shop. Very little stuffing. Good job really as it now has an arm in the kitchen, one in the living, the tails in my room and the headless/now stuffingless body is being thrown around the living room. The legs are now on the sofa.
For 50p I don't mind. We had a good tug game when monkey still had legs. Zanders good at waiting to be told tug, dropping it not so much, but then he pulled a leg off so he just sat there throwing the leg about for a while.
New favourite toy to go with the knotted jumper. :lol: Easily entertained.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Sarah1983 said:



Well the "even experts struggle to train more than 5 commands" part was a bit odd. I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that,

Click to expand...

*


Sarah1983 said:


> whether he meant so that the dog is reliable in any given situation with a command or just in general. All my dogs have known way more than 5 commands and it's not been a struggle to teach. I highly doubt I'm some genius dog trainer either :lol:
> 
> It's not so much that I disagree with him for the most part, it's more that I think with some of his ideals he's a bit distant from the reality of being an average dog owner. For example, it's all very well saying his ideal puppy class wouldn't take place in a hall but would be a case of taking the pups round to different peoples houses and all that. I mean I see where he's coming from and I agree, that would make more sense, but it's really not practical for most of us. Same with a lot of his ways of making use of other dogs, that's great if you've got reliable people with reliable dogs on hand to do the exercise but many of us don't have those things. I can't even find a decent training class where I am let alone multiple well trained dogs and their equally interested in training owners lol.


Well we'd all be stuffed then... I try and keep commands to a minimum but even so: sit - down - stand - close - find - hold - away - come.


----------



## kat&molly

Why do these things always happen to me.

I woman I have met a few times rung last year to have her Springer groomed, she also asked if I wanted to take the dog on. I said no, my OH wouldn't let me have another. Anyhoo I groomed the dog and fell a little bit in love-she was beautiful.:001_wub: I had words with the woman and told her to just make more time for the dog and she'd be fine. She agreed - even though she said at first the dog would be PTS if I didn't take her.
She emailed yesterday saying the dog has to be rehomed , I know she's got a new man who doesn't like her, and suprise, suprise, a phone call just to say she needs grooming.

I'll go and catch up now.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Well we'd all be stuffed then... I try and keep commands to a minimum but even so: sit - down - stand - close - find - hold - away - come.*


*

Zand knows FOUR of those!! When can I apply to Mensa?? :lol:

Might have to teach stand. Twiggy, oh great one, how would I do that? Trying to do up his coat, when he instantly lies down is awkward.*


----------



## Guest

kat&molly said:


> Why do these things always happen to me.
> 
> I woman I have met a few times rung last year to have her Springer groomed, she also asked if I wanted to take the dog on. I said no, my OH wouldn't let me have another. Anyhoo I groomed the dog and fell a little bit in love-she was beautiful.:001_wub: I had words with the woman and told her to just make more time for the dog and she'd be fine. She agreed - even though she said at first the dog would be PTS if I didn't take her.
> She emailed yesterday saying the dog has to be rehomed , I know she's got a new man who doesn't like her, and suprise, suprise, a phone call just to say she needs grooming.
> 
> I'll go and catch up now.


People like that make me lose faith in human beings. Christ.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Whaddaya mean....!!!! luv Grannie


Singing: Well old lady border collie owners :frown2: runs and hides :scared:

:lol: whoops, I've upset Grannie  Of course I meant of the owners who haven't a clue, the older people seem to be worse as they are still throwing books at dogs from the back of cars, I've seen them carrying their jugs of water about 

ETA sorry about the spaniel owner K&M


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Zand knows FOUR of those!! When can I apply to Mensa?? :lol:
> 
> Might have to teach stand. Twiggy, oh great one, how would I do that? Trying to do up his coat, when he instantly lies down is awkward.


Ermmmm do you really think normal methods would work with Zand?..


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Why do these things always happen to me.
> 
> I woman I have met a few times rung last year to have her Springer groomed, she also asked if I wanted to take the dog on. I said no, my OH wouldn't let me have another. Anyhoo I groomed the dog and fell a little bit in love-she was beautiful.:001_wub: I had words with the woman and told her to just make more time for the dog and she'd be fine. She agreed - even though she said at first the dog would be PTS if I didn't take her.
> She emailed yesterday saying the dog has to be rehomed , I know she's got a new man who doesn't like her, and suprise, suprise, a phone call just to say she needs grooming.
> 
> I'll go and catch up now.


That's tantamount to blackmail really isn't it? Poor you.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Nicki - agility workshop sounds good!! Hope Rusty is OK and the vomit was just a random one.
> 
> *Not sure why; I go just for fun although lots of the helpers are into competitive obedience. When we did recalls last night a man spent ages explaining to me that sometimes we return to the dog, leave again etc before finally recalling as that is what a judge will ask you to do....I only do it because I like it!*
> 
> *Even to an amateur like me some of the reasons and methods are odd....and not all positive. I don't use the ones that aren't positive and don't agree with some of the philosophies....*
> 
> Well if they're teaching competitive obedience I really don't understand this mat business for sendaways. Back in the dark ages dogs were taught to go to a mat but not anymore. I can't remember the last time I saw a judge use a mat for sendaways and it would be a very, very rare occurence these days.
> 
> You would *never* (under KC rules) be asked to leave your dog, return and leave again. It's only done in training.
> 
> 
> 
> I haven't a clue Twiggy about what is needed in competitive obedience or about the KC rules (not that you'd guess :sosp: ); I just go and do stuff because I am enjoying it.
> 
> k&m - what an awful shame about the spaniel .
> 
> Sarah - agree with what you're saying about the Dog Vinci Code completely.
> 
> My dogs were almost 'humanless' today . Went to the pool for my usual 5km (Friday you see!). Did first km at a nice pace, all was well; then a man got in who I have to work to stay ahead of and we did 2km at race pace together; then the next km was nice and steady again and then....same sketch as before with someone else and the last km was race pace. Almost bluddy killed me :incazzato:. Tank was on empty for last 500m . If I'd known I'd be up at race pace I would have had an extra brew beforehand and another banana :sosp:. But, I survived. Just.
> 
> Saw the doc too; she thinks I am mad enough to see a consultant who will delve into my head - good luck to them :crazy:. Also got a referral to the pain clinic for my back as it's going downhill fast so hopefully they'll be able to sort something for me .
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> I haven't a clue Twiggy about what is needed in competitive obedience or about the KC rules (not that you'd guess :sosp: ); I just go and do stuff because I am enjoying it.
> 
> k&m - what an awful shame about the spaniel .
> 
> Sarah - agree with what you're saying about the Dog Vinci Code completely.
> 
> My dogs were almost 'humanless' today . Went to the pool for my usual 5km (Friday you see!). Did first km at a nice pace, all was well; then a man got in who I have to work to stay ahead of and we did 2km at race pace together; then the next km was nice and steady again and then....same sketch as before with someone else and the last km was race pace. Almost bluddy killed me :incazzato:. Tank was on empty for last 500m . If I'd known I'd be up at race pace I would have had an extra brew beforehand and another banana :sosp:. But, I survived. Just.
> 
> Saw the doc too; she thinks I am mad enough to see a consultant who will delve into my head - good luck to them :crazy:. Also got a referral to the pain clinic for my back as it's going downhill fast so hopefully they'll be able to sort something for me .
> 
> 
> 
> Yes just go to class and enjoy it and take some of the advice with a pinch of salt....
> 
> Ye Gods - swimming at race pace. Makes me tired just thinking about it.
> 
> Very pleased to hear your doctor is referring you on both count.
Click to expand...


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> That's tantamount to blackmail really isn't it? Poor you.


It is , my heads spinning with it all now.

F+F- Bella's first class went well, and agility for Frank. I'm so jealous of everyone with their classes and workshops.
Glad I'm not the only one to get a card- I dont normally but it made me laugh, thing is I wouldn't like to put it to the test-'Daddy or chips'

Dogless- hope both the Docs can help you.

Ginge- wow go the Ninja. She'll be up there with Miss Tink at this rate.
As for Evie, we dont know anything- neither did the rescue- she could have been a stray or even a failed chasse dog. She came for foster and behaved like an angel for the first month sucking me in.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes just go to class and enjoy it and take some of the advice with a pinch of salt....
> 
> 
> 
> Yes; I do, especially at puppy class .
Click to expand...


----------



## Nicki85

K&M- that sounds like a horrible situation with the Spaniel :-( I hope it all works out the best for dogs... owners... etc.

Sarah- yes I know what you mean... I remember at the workshop he did go on about dogs in Belgium having great socialisation as they could be taken everywhere. But it is not the same here! Also, the bit about abandoning your dog if it doesn't come back when it is a pup- seems harsh :-/ but then if said dog never runs off again then maybe it is a lesson worth teaching? (obviously only if required)

DL- sounds positive re. doctors? I go swimming two-three times a week but only do 1km at snails pace ;-) I am most definitely not a graceful or efficient swimmer!! But I am very very trying 

Just met up with friend for walk round Roman Wall- lovely walk Rusty was on top form finding every hole in the adjacent fields so he could do laps of honour round them... no livestock so let him get on with it!!! Met her new collie who unfortunately is not the right dog for her :-( It is very nervous and showing signs of aggression towards her other BC. I think its pretty obvious that once it becomes more confident it is going to be a handful... she is very experienced dog handler but always had them from pups. The dog came over from Ireland a week ago so poor thing has done the rounds. It's strange... but sometimes when you meet a dog you know you wouldn't trust them IYSWIM? Anyhow she is feeling terrible about it all- really feel for her :-( think the rescue sort of bullied her into taking him TBH.

Rusty got stuck in a thorn bush as well so lucky me had to go and free him.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Rusty got stuck in a thorn bush as well so lucky me had to go and free him.


Ouch!! My two would be too precious to go in in the first place . And too big!


----------



## Nicki85

It's the second time he's done it- he was yelping as if it was really serious (such as a broken leg etc.) but no, he has managed to get his ear wrapped round a thorn bush. No thanks after either- he just runs off like nothing has happened!!! There was no blood- literally just wrapped his ear round a bush. Makes you wonder why Springers have such long ears really.... 

I might stick to dogs less inclined to go through thorn bushes in the future.


----------



## GingerRogers

Nicki85 said:


> It's the second time he's done it- he was yelping as if it was really serious (such as a broken leg etc.) but no, he has managed to get his ear wrapped round a thorn bush. No thanks after either- he just runs off like nothing has happened!!! There was no blood- literally just wrapped his ear round a bush. Makes you wonder why Springers have such long ears really....
> 
> I might stick to dogs less inclined to go through thorn bushes in the future.


Ginge will do that sort of thing, she dives into a bramble patch then cowers and pleads with me when something attaches itself to her, I just think well duh!!
Poor Rusty with his ear wrapped round a bush, lol.

K&M - we are nowhere near as graceful as Tink, the rolling thing looks a bit like a stuck turtle, gives us a laugh 

Dogless you make me tired, we are going to the gym next week though  me hubby and Rosie dogs owner!!! There is a local one who does trained sessions for up to 5 people, £25 a session so if we could find 2 more people, no joining fee and stuff so we can back out if we want to


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Ermmmm do you really think normal methods would work with Zand?..


Er. er. erm.

Yes. Probably. :lol:

Righto, off to work now. Shall see's ya all later.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> K&M - we are nowhere near as graceful as Tink, the rolling thing looks a bit like a stuck turtle, gives us a laugh


Ginge does it much better than Tink
:lol: you forget Tink doesn't show her belly in public, so rollover is not in her reportoire

Dogless hope the docs can help 

Nicki, Rusty calls himself a spaniel? :lol: Sorry your friend doesn't seem to be gelling with her new dog, hope things improve.

ETA K&M what a horrible position to be put in


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> K&M- that sounds like a horrible situation with the Spaniel :-( I hope it all works out the best for dogs... owners... etc.
> 
> Sarah- yes I know what you mean... I remember at the workshop he did
> Just met up with friend for walk round Roman Wall- lovely walk Rusty was on top form finding every hole in the adjacent fields so he could do laps of honour round them... no livestock so let him get on with it!!! Met her new collie who unfortunately is not the right dog for her :-( It is very nervous and showing signs of aggression towards her other BC. I think its pretty obvious that once it becomes more confident it is going to be a handful... she is very experienced dog handler but always had them from pups. The dog came over from Ireland a week ago so poor thing has done the *rounds. It's strange... but sometimes when you meet a dog you know you wouldn't trust them IYSWIM? Anyhow she is feeling terrible about it all- really feel for her :-( think the rescue sort of bullied her into taking him TBH.*
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> My sister was in the same situation a few years back. The rescue weren't even very honest and didn't tell her at the time that the bitch had already been returned to them 3 or 4 times. I'm afraid she was pts, which made my sister feel terrible, but she wasn't safe.


----------



## Freddie and frank

just a very quick one 

k&m, ooh what a situation to be in. 

dogless, hope the docs can help with both.

ginge,nicki, frank does that too  i've had to wade into chest high nettles once when his 6'4" trainer man didn't cause he was wearing bloody shorts. 

well, my house has been horrible and quiet for a couple of hours cause i've dropped dogs off at dog sitters for the weekend. off to my sisters in a bit to give lots of aunty cuddles to my nephew dog, 'dennis'. (he gets too stressed out when he's with my three so they don't mix)

:thumbup1:


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> just a very quick one
> 
> k&m, ooh what a situation to be in.
> 
> dogless, hope the docs can help with both.
> 
> ginge,nicki, frank does that too  i've had to wade into chest high nettles once when his 6'4" trainer man didn't cause he was wearing bloody shorts.
> 
> well, my house has been horrible and quiet for a couple of hours cause i've dropped dogs off at dog sitters for the weekend. off to my sisters in a bit to give lots of aunty cuddles to my nephew dog, 'dennis'. (he gets too stressed out when he's with my three so they don't mix)
> 
> :thumbup1:


Hope you have a lovely week-end at your sisters..


----------



## paddyjulie

@Twiggy   I noticed a while back you posted a picture of the trick paws on feet.

Could you give me any tips regarding footwear? Chester can manage about four steps then he looses his balance and falls off  or is it just a matter of practice ?

I have been wearing Ugg boots , just because I was following a video on Youtube , who also wore Ugg boots :lol: :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Nicki85 said:


> Sarah- yes I know what you mean... I remember at the workshop he did go on about dogs in Belgium having great socialisation as they could be taken everywhere. But it is not the same here! Also, the bit about abandoning your dog if it doesn't come back when it is a pup- seems harsh :-/ but then if said dog never runs off again then maybe it is a lesson worth teaching? (obviously only if required)


The abandoning does work to some extent. I've done it a few times before. Rupert got shut out on the communal balcony of my first flat because he refused to come in, he never refused to come in again. Same with Spen at this flat, I've gone in and left him outside and he now comes running as soon as I head for the door. Obviously I've only done it where I can still see them and where they're safe and never to the point they're really distressed, just to the point they go "oh sh*t, where did she go?" Doesn't work with all dogs, some really couldn't give a damn that you've disappeared.

Can't say I agree with how he says to teach a stay though, sounds a hell of a lot more complicated than the way I do it and mine have all had solid sit and down stays. I got confused just reading about it never mind trying to teach it that way lol.

Here in Germany dogs are everywhere. They're allowed in many shops and taken tons of places and they're a lot better socialised and well mannered than most of the dogs you come across in the UK. There are dogs at tables outside cafes and ice cream parlours, dogs in the bowling alley, dogs going into town and waiting outside the butchers and bakery etc. I imagine it's the same sort of thing in Belgium. It's nice actually. But then people have a bit of consideration and aren't letting their dogs pee up everything or hassle other people or dogs. They're expected to behave and they will be made to do so if necessary.

Anyway, we bought Spen a football today. Naafi had them in for 2.5 euros so we grabbed one. Turns out they were actually a euro so might go grab another couple tomorrow. Pumped it up and Spen has gone nuts with it. Have had to take it off him in the flat lol. Will have to take him out with it in a bit and see what he thinks.


----------



## paddyjulie

paddyjulie said:


> @Twiggy   I noticed a while back you posted a picture of the trick paws on feet.
> 
> Could you give me any tips regarding footwear? Chester can manage about four steps then he looses his balance and falls off  or is it just a matter of practice ?
> 
> I have been wearing Ugg boots , just because I was following a video on Youtube , who also wore Ugg boots :lol: :lol:


or was it moonviolet ?? :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

F&F - have a lovely time at your sister's.

Sarah - I do remember quite how lovely Germany is for dogs.

I did some good training sessions this afternoon individually - Kilo got lying on his mat the 'right' way so I listened to Grannie and left it for tomorrow . Rudi's impulse control will take as much work as Kilo's I think :sosp: and they were good when we did some stuff together.

Our walk, however was awful :sosp:. Took them together to work on walking nicely together on lead....anyhow....tonight Rudi decided out of the blue to keep leaping up and attaching himself to my arm or to Kilo (I called it Kilo's 'jump bite' phase and HATED it when he went through it):incazzato::incazzato:. He went crackers right on a fairly busy street. A woman stopped and stared and started getting excited about needing to call the police to help etc  and as I reassured her that all was fine (it wasn't, tonight I had chosen to wear a short sleeved top under a thin coat rather than the fleece / thick coat I've worn every day since getting Rudi and I had forgotten how much it HURT :mad2 and she got more excited Kilo decided that it was all just too exciting and decided to join in by barking . Anyway, I couldn't have looked like any more of an incompetent owner with out of control dogs if I'd tried . Finally got away (with Rudi attached to my wellington) and then under control :rolleyes5:.

Reached the onlead field for a break to sniff about, all fine there then Kilo spotted a dog on the offlead field half a field away and across the road and just sat and barked his head off which is bizarre - just wound up I suspect. After that, I steeled myself for the walk home...and they were perfect .

Hubby is home from his course. Told him I'd spoken to the doc, big progress for me....


----------



## moonviolet

paddyjulie said:


> or was it moonviolet ?? :lol: :lol:


:yesnod::yesnod::yesnod: it was my fat ankles and chunky calves :lol:

Practise short sessions littel and often. If you can get them used to having your legs snuggled up to their sides its helps them read your movement and taking tiny geisha steps.

Tink splays her paws and digs her claws as i discovered when i tried it in socks one day ( Twiggy i'm sorry i didn't bleed) Anything non slippery footwear wise would make it easier so Ugg boots ( other sheepskin boots are available :lol are good i have a pair of meshy trainers and an old pair of clownish mary janes.

The other thing i think that helps Tink is her back end awareness.


----------



## GingerRogers

Liked that for the last bit dogless not the first, glad that you are being upfront with hubby, at last  poor woman she must have been very alarmed to have wanted to call the police  hope your arm is not too sore.

MV how do you work on back end awareness.

We just had a goodish walk, she is so on alert in the dark, straight off barked at the chemists across the road where they were packing up for the night. Then I thought we were in for it as I walked up the lane as I could hear the loopy spaniel and soggy ted both going for it in unison but I heard a click clunk just before I got there and they must of put the spaniel inside to stop the row  and we didn't pass soggy's garden tonight and thats the only time he rows. A young lad snuck up behind us later on which freaked me but we only had a little ruff. She was quite on edge as there was lots of neighbourhood barking going on. Everybody left the dogs at home and gone for a friday night pint perhaps?

I have been working on a mixed up version of 'be a tree' and control unleashed exercise for awareness which seems to be having an affect on both LLW and her focus on me


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Liked that for the last bit dogless not the first, glad that you are being upfront with hubby, at last  poor woman she must have been very alarmed to have wanted to call the police  hope your arm is not too sore.
> 
> MV how do you work on back end awareness.
> 
> We just had a goodish walk, she is so on alert in the dark, straight off barked at the chemists across the road where they were packing up for the night. Then I thought we were in for it as I walked up the lane as I could hear the loopy spaniel and soggy ted both going for it in unison but I heard a click clunk just before I got there and they must of put the spaniel inside to stop the row  and we didn't pass soggy's garden tonight and thats the only time he rows. A young lad snuck up behind us later on which freaked me but we only had a little ruff. She was quite on edge as there was lots of neighbourhood barking going on. Everybody left the dogs at home and gone for a friday night pint perhaps?
> 
> I have been working on a mixed up version of 'be a tree' and control unleashed exercise for awareness which seems to be having an affect on both LLW and her focus on me


She is afraid of dogs, always lets out a little shriek when we go past and crosses the road - we have always been under control before though!!

Glad your walk was OK .

Oh. I forgot to add that, to top it all off, Kilo was peeing up a tree and Rudi stuck his head in for a sniff and got peed on so I had to wash his head when we got home :incazzato:.


----------



## paddyjulie

moonviolet said:


> :yesnod::yesnod::yesnod: it was my fat ankles and chunky calves :lol:
> 
> Practise short sessions littel and often. If you can get them used to having your legs snuggled up to their sides its helps them read your movement and taking tiny geisha steps.
> 
> Tink splays her paws and digs her claws as i discovered when i tried it in socks one day ( Twiggy i'm sorry i didn't bleed) Anything non slippery footwear wise would make it easier so Ugg boots ( other sheepskin boots are available :lol are good i have a pair of meshy trainers and an old pair of clownish mary janes.
> 
> The other thing i think that helps Tink is her back end awareness.


Thanks moonviolet :yesnod: it was actually the beagle like paws that I remembered :lol: :lol:

Perhaps the back end awareness is also part of the problem, Chester back end often seems to have a mind of it's own  and my steps are perhaps a little long for us just learning


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> She is afraid of dogs, always lets out a little shriek when we go past and crosses the road - we have always been under control before though!!
> 
> Glad your walk was OK .
> 
> Oh. I forgot to add that, to top it all off, Kilo was peeing up a tree and Rudi stuck his head in for a sniff and got peed on so I had to wash his head when we got home :incazzato:.


Ohh pee head 

Rosie collie dog used to get peed on a lot, she is so focused on 'moving forward head down' she never spotted when Rory had cocked his leg  now she just pees on herself sadly, poor old girl  Our friend will *not *take her to the vets, its either old age incontinence or a UTI, we think the latter as she drinks for england and has a big bald patch on her back, but ironically he is afraid to find out bad news , keeps saying he will take her but never does, ironic but not for the poor dog, he has at least taken some advice re food and started mixing some nature diet into her cheap crap *and *you can see the difference its made to her  so perhaps he will start taking some notice. Sorry digressive ramble there, anyway my time for a friday night pint ta ra!


----------



## Nicki85

For back end awareness at agility we teach them to put their front paws on a tub (washing up tub is fine for small/ medium dogs) and then eventually get them to move their backends round the tub and their front feet stay on the tub. (does that make sense?!)

Friends dog being returned tomorrow I think :-( I honestly think she is making the right decision... I wouldn't trust him. 

Rusty still fine after this morning and currently has a bull pizzle to munch on so he is happy happy! We did a bit of training this afternoon- I really need to think of something new to teach him- he is far to biddable and makes it very easy. We've mastered touch the cat (or whack it with your paw) and now moved on to say your prayers which is going well


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless I have a motorbike jacket you can borrow :lol: At least this time you know it's a phase  the training sessions sound great and the walk home too 

Sarah i have a copy of that book. i'm yet to read it but i'm getting more and more intrigued.

F&F+B have a lovely weekend.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Ohh pee head
> 
> Rosie collie dog used to get peed on a lot, she is so focused on 'moving forward head down' she never spotted when Rory had cocked his leg  now she just pees on herself sadly, poor old girl  Our friend will *not *take her to the vets, its either old age incontinence or a UTI, we think the latter as she drinks for england and has a big bald patch on her back, but ironically he is afraid to find out bad news , keeps saying he will take her but never does, ironic but not for the poor dog, he has at least taken some advice re food and started mixing some nature diet into her cheap crap *and *you can see the difference its made to her  so perhaps he will start taking some notice. Sorry digressive ramble there, anyway my time for a friday night pint ta ra!


Poor dog . Enjoy your beer you old slosha .



Nicki85 said:


> For back end awareness at agility we teach them to put their front paws on a tub (washing up tub is fine for small/ medium dogs) and then eventually get them to move their backends round the tub and their front feet stay on the tub. (does that make sense?!)
> 
> Friends dog being returned tomorrow I think :-( I honestly think she is making the right decision... I wouldn't trust him.
> 
> Rusty still fine after this morning and currently has a bull pizzle to munch on so he is happy happy! We did a bit of training this afternoon- I really need to think of something new to teach him- *he is far to biddable and makes it very easy*. We've mastered touch the cat (or whack it with your paw) and now moved on to say your prayers which is going well


Oh how I'd love to utter those words . Pleased he's better now though .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- Our dogs certainly bring us back to earth with a bump dont they-just so that we dont get complacent.
Well done on telling OH- I hope he's supportive.

Nikki- Moll does exactly the same if she gets stuck- I do wonder how she'd cope on a proper shoot-probably get laughed out of town
Hope Rusty's sickness was a one off, my girls can only eat tinned fish.

Ginge- stuck turtle is what we call Jay. Whenever she has a good roll in the grass I think she's having a fit, it scares me to death every time. No finesse.

F+F- enjoy your weekend.

Sarah- is Spens football destined to end up like the large tennis ball.

Moll actually asked for a game of Ring Toss.
Evie done really well through the village. Saw the same woman and grumpy dog as yesterday, she did bark a bit- but it changed in to her 'silly bark'- her playful one. Then a young teenage lad came towards us- she looked but didn't react so we carried on walking and she was happy to go. There was no snorting or shake offs. Amazed.


----------



## Twiggy

paddyjulie said:


> or was it moonviolet ?? :lol: :lol:


Not me I'm afraid. It's clever little Tinks ably assisted by Moonvoilet..


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless I have a motorbike jacket you can borrow :lol: At least this time you know it's a phase  the training sessions sound great and the walk home too
> 
> Sarah i have a copy of that book. i'm yet to read it but i'm getting more and more intrigued.
> 
> F&F+B have a lovely weekend.


Kilo's was *horrendous* but at least I know better how to deal with it this time around. I'm not sure how, but I swear the little bugger knew that it was the very first time that I hadn't got a fleece and a thick coat on. He knew :devil::devil:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> F&F - have a lovely time at your sister's.
> 
> Sarah - I do remember quite how lovely Germany is for dogs.
> 
> I did some good training sessions this afternoon individually - Kilo got lying on his mat the 'right' way so I listened to Grannie and left it for tomorrow . Rudi's impulse control will take as much work as Kilo's I think :sosp: and they were good when we did some stuff together.
> 
> Our walk, however was awful :sosp:. Took them together to work on walking nicely together on lead....anyhow....tonight Rudi decided out of the blue to keep leaping up and attaching himself to my arm or to Kilo (I called it Kilo's 'jump bite' phase and HATED it when he went through it):incazzato::incazzato:. He went crackers right on a fairly busy street. A woman stopped and stared and started getting excited about needing to call the police to help etc  and as I reassured her that all was fine (it wasn't, tonight I had chosen to wear a short sleeved top under a thin coat rather than the fleece / thick coat I've worn every day since getting Rudi and I had forgotten how much it HURT :mad2 and she got more excited Kilo decided that it was all just too exciting and decided to join in by barking . Anyway, I couldn't have looked like any more of an incompetent owner with out of control dogs if I'd tried . Finally got away (with Rudi attached to my wellington) and then under control :rolleyes5:.
> 
> Reached the onlead field for a break to sniff about, all fine there then Kilo spotted a dog on the offlead field half a field away and across the road and just sat and barked his head off which is bizarre - just wound up I suspect. After that, I steeled myself for the walk home...and they were perfect .
> 
> Hubby is home from his course. Told him I'd spoken to the doc, big progress for me....


I know it's awful when our dogs show us up but it is only puppy exhurberance with Rudi and you can't really blame Kilo for wanting to join in the fun....

You do meet some very strange people over there don't you?

Mind you having said that when myself and co-judge arrived at Dublin Airport and were duly picked up by our host, we had only been travelling a few minutes when she said "which way do we go now?".....


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- Our dogs certainly bring us back to earth with a bump dont they-just so that we dont get complacent.
> Well done on telling OH- I hope he's supportive.
> 
> Nikki- Moll does exactly the same if she gets stuck- I do wonder how she'd cope on a proper shoot-probably get laughed out of town
> Hope Rusty's sickness was a one off, my girls can only eat tinned fish.
> 
> Ginge- stuck turtle is what we call Jay. Whenever she has a good roll in the grass I think she's having a fit, it scares me to death every time. No finesse.
> 
> F+F- enjoy your weekend.
> 
> Sarah- is Spens football destined to end up like the large tennis ball.
> 
> Moll actually asked for a game of Ring Toss.
> Evie done really well through the village. Saw the same woman and grumpy dog as yesterday, she did bark a bit- but it changed in to her 'silly bark'- her playful one. Then a young teenage lad came towards us- she looked but didn't react so we carried on walking and she was happy to go. There was no snorting or shake offs. Amazed.


That really good news with Evie - bless her little heart.


----------



## Twiggy

Holly Bolly hasn't been trained for the last couple of days but I took her and Tremor over to the barn for about 20 minutes this afternoon and she was really good again.
She's starting to bark and bounce about in the kitchen when I get the training bag out....

I took Quiver for her second laser treatment at lunchtime and was telling my vet that I'd done a home check yesterday. He said "I'm surprised you pass anyone, surely none of them meet your exacting standards"...


----------



## cinnamontoast

Dogless, the shame!!  Norty Rudi!!

Doctor for what, G?


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah i have a copy of that book. i'm yet to read it but i'm getting more and more intrigued.


It's interesting so far, well worth a read imo. A certain person may like him, he says at one point that one of the saddest sights he's ever seen is a group of children clicker training some dogs. He says there was no interaction or communication beyond the cue, click and feeding of a treat. He seems very, very into using your body language and emotions as communication, things like smiling at your dog when it's doing right, a disgusted look when it does wrong etc.

I've just made my hubby a cup of hot water, sugar and milk. Apparently that is not a cup of tea. Surprised the poor bugger hasn't divorced me yet. I think he was just grateful I didn't give him the milk and put his cup of not quite tea in the fridge.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I know it's awful when our dogs show us up but it is only puppy exhurberance with Rudi and you can't really blame Kilo for wanting to join in the fun....
> 
> You do meet some very strange people over there don't you?
> 
> Mind you having said that when myself and co-judge arrived at Dublin Airport and were duly picked up by our host, we had only been travelling a few minutes when she said "which way do we go now?".....


There are two nationalities of soldiers / wives that tend to be utterly petrified of dogs. Completely petrified.

I can see the funny side now - hard to at the time isn't it? .



Twiggy said:


> Holly Bolly hasn't been trained for the last couple of days but I took her and Tremor over to the barn for about 20 minutes this afternoon and she was really good again.
> She's starting to bark and bounce about in the kitchen when I get the training bag out....
> 
> I took Quiver for her second laser treatment at lunchtime and was telling my vet that I'd done a home check yesterday. * He said "I'm surprised you pass anyone, surely none of them meet your exacting standards"*...


I can imagine Grannie .



cinammontoast said:


> Dogless, the shame!!  Norty Rudi!!
> 
> Doctor for what, G?


He's forgiven - doctors for my glass back and pickled head!


----------



## cinnamontoast

Dogless said:


> He's forgiven - doctors for my glass back and pickled head!


Pickled head? Is that like pickled eggs?! Hope you're ok, hunny. 

I'm blaming mine on age, that or the fact that I can't get past 3.30 am asleep anymore. Very annoying, I feel extremely emotional sometimes and I'm sure it's lack of sleep. Think it takes a week of total deprivation before hallucinatory episodes can begin.


----------



## Dogless

cinammontoast said:


> Pickled head? Is that like pickled eggs?! Hope you're ok, hunny.
> 
> I'm blaming mine on age, that or the fact that I can't get past 3.30 am asleep anymore. Very annoying, I feel extremely emotional sometimes and I'm sure it's lack of sleep. Think it takes a week of total deprivation before hallucinatory episodes can begin.


Something like that; I'm mad, apparently .


----------



## cinnamontoast

Dogless said:


> Something like that; I'm mad, apparently .


Everyone is to some degree or another. You know this from your old job. It's normal to be slightly off kilter. Modern medicine is a marvellous thing, everything can be smoothed out.


----------



## Guest

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack! My god I literally got headbutted in the chin by Zander and he wrapped his front legs around my shoulders when I came through the front door like some sort of bizarre hug, my dog is weird haha. :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

paddyjulie said:


> Thanks moonviolet :yesnod: it was actually the beagle like paws that I remembered :lol: :lol:
> 
> Perhaps the back end awareness is also part of the problem, Chester back end often seems to have a mind of it's own  and my steps are perhaps a little long for us just learning


Nicki described something like this.
 Tink absolutely loves it and was begnning to work on doing the same thing with her back legs in this video.

Start slowly by either luring his front feet on or shaping which ever is your preference. Rewarding for being in front of you. Throwing a treat to for him to go get and rewarding him when he puts his front feet back on. once he's happy with this you can move onto taking a step left of right and luring his noseso he reamins in front of you by moving his back feet. ( hope that makes some sense)

There are other simple you can dog like onlead walking him slowly over things like a broom handle, upturned guttering in and out of a low box. Anything that means he needs to pick up his feet.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Evening chums 

Sorry I've not been at the party for a while but quite frankly this thread stresses me out  I can't keep up and then I feel bad and I don't want to miss things out and I don't have anything constructive to add but I want to be part of the gang and and and and and but but but but.............








I'm going back to my rum and ginger beer


----------



## Guest

foxyrockmeister said:


> Evening chums
> 
> Sorry I've not been at the party for a while but quite frankly this thread stresses me out  I can't keep up and then I feel bad and I don't want to miss things out and I don't have anything constructive to add but I want to be part of the gang and and and and and but but but but.............
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm going back to my rum and ginger beer


Cool, you can have the seat next me and my cheese on toast. :lol:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Now I can't get the video of Tink to play


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Now I can't get the video of Tink to play


Where are you getting all your too kool for skool emoticons from? .


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Now I can't get the video of Tink to play


if it makes you feel any better the ludite was holding her phone the wrong way when she took the video. so half of it is black stripes up eitehr side :lol:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> Where are you getting all your too kool for skool emoticons from? .


AHA!! Now that would be telling!









I've been looking for a reason to post this one though, now seems as good a time as any


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack! My god I literally got headbutted in the chin by Zander and he wrapped his front legs around my shoulders when I came through the front door like some sort of bizarre hug, my dog is weird haha. :lol:


Yes - On the rare occasions he's got four feet on the floor say "stand" - that should do the trick....


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> if it makes you feel any better the ludite was holding her phone the wrong way when she took the video. so half of it is black stripes up eitehr side :lol:


In defence of the ludite that's not as bad as videoing my sister's very fast clear agility round with the lens cap on....!!

The language wasn't nice when she went to play it back.


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> I've been looking for a reason to post this one though, now seems as good a time as any


I have whole days that are summed up by that emoticon, i jsut hope Sunday isnt' one of those days.

I'm not sure i can remain co-ordinated for 2 hours.


----------



## paddyjulie

moonviolet said:


> Nicki described something like this.
> Tink absolutely loves it and was begnning to work on doing the same thing with her back legs in this video.
> 
> Start slowly by either luring his front feet on or shaping which ever is your preference. Rewarding for being in front of you. Throwing a treat to for him to go get and rewarding him when he puts his front feet back on. once he's happy with this you can move onto taking a step left of right and luring his noseso he reamins in front of you by moving his back feet. ( hope that makes some sense)
> 
> There are other simple you can dog like onlead walking him slowly over things like a broom handle, upturned guttering in and out of a low box. Anything that means he needs to pick up his feet.


thanks for that, I will have a try tomorrow


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Yes - On the rare occasions he's got four feet on the floor say "stand" - that should do the trick....


Okay! But how do I make him stay still long enough to put a coat on?? :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Okay! But how do I make him stay still long enough to put a coat on?? :lol:


Does he know sit or down stay?


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Does he know sit or down stay?


He knows sit, and down and wait (Stay). And he will wait in a sit.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> He knows sit, and down and wait (Stay). And he will wait in a sit.


OK. There are several ways of teaching it but try this:

Ask Zand to sit (but not stay) with you standing directly in front of him, titbit in hand. Then walk straight at him and he will have to stand/walk backwards and as he does so say "stand". Immediately titbit him.

Don't dither just walk straight at him and I can assure you he won't let you trample him...LOL

Do that several times until he understands then add "stay" and wait a few seconds before titbitting him. You could also add a hand signal - flat of hand towards him (as if you are under-arm bowling).

Give that a try.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Oh. I forgot to add that, to top it all off, Kilo was peeing up a tree and Rudi stuck his head in for a sniff and got peed on so I had to wash his head when we got home :incazzato:.


The joys of two boys dogs! :lol: I once spent an entire 2 hours while I was at the yard warning everyone who approached the boys NOT to pat Oscar on the head. 

I've been working AAAAALLLL day!! There's should be laws against this. :yesnod: Training day for work at a castle 1.5 hours drive away (and I drove cos I'm not a very happy passenger) and then a tutoring session with a new client when I got back (had time for a very swift cuppa at home before heading out again). I'm knackered!!

The boys have had two round the block walks still though! I managed to get up early enough to take them this morning and OH took them when he got in from work mid-afternoon. This morning they just walked amazingly. Not like perfectly to heel but they hardly pulled at all with very little input from me!  Together this is unheard of!

Happy. Days.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> The boys have had two round the block walks still though! I managed to get up early enough to take them this morning and OH took them when he got in from work mid-afternoon. This morning they just walked amazingly. Not like perfectly to heel but they hardly pulled at all with very little input from me!  Together this is unheard of!
> 
> Happy. Days.


Breakthrough .


----------



## Werehorse

Possibly! I'm trying not to count too many chickens but it was quite a step forwards.

Can we assume I've said appropriate and lovely things in response to everyone's posts today without me actually trying to type them out? :lol: I was very nice to you all in my head as I read through the thread I promise!


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> The boys have had two round the block walks still though! I managed to get up early enough to take them this morning and OH took them when he got in from work mid-afternoon. This morning they just walked amazingly. Not like perfectly to heel but they hardly pulled at all with very little input from me!  Together this is unheard of!
> 
> Happy. Days.


Good boys 

Inspired by FRM's funky smileys


----------



## MollySmith

Werehorse said:


> Possibly! I'm trying not to count too many chickens but it was quite a step forwards.
> 
> *Can we assume I've said appropriate and lovely things in response to everyone's posts today without me actually trying to type them out? :lol: I was very nice to you all in my head as I read through the thread I promise!*


And me, well at least tomorrow I will!

Sorry to have been AWOL again. I had an interview so had to prepare for that. It was an agency making me go for a job where I had just one thing in common. So if I had got the job I'd have to learn a whole new product, a new bit of software and also Windows (I have only ever used Macs since I left art college in the early 1990's ) So in all a total waste of time but the agency have good publishing jobs sometimes.

Molly is getting better, lip lump has gone down. She walked with an elderly lab this afternoon and was so gentle it made me tearful but a lot is at the moment but on a dog walk is a tad embarrassing!

Been to bed with threatening migraine but it seems to have gone now but not risking the laptop screen anymore.

Night night, catch you all tomorrow and I will have a proper read through. Promise!

P.S Still no sign of Buster doggy, bit worried now.


----------



## Dogless

Hope the migraine holds off MollySmith and that Buster is OK; what a worry.


----------



## moonviolet

Hope you feel better in the morning MS glad molly's lip is better. Fingers crossed Buster is ok.


----------



## L/C

Bloody hell ladies, I spend one evening drinking and doing dodgy karaoke and look what happens!

You are all wonderful. Mwah.


----------



## Guest

Nghhhhhhhhhhhhh. I have just taken Zand out for and hour!!!! Did the walking towards him thing this morning. He poked me in the belly with his nose. Still in a sit. I shall try again later when I'm back from my first shift. I probably dithered.
Barely pulled this morn. Did keep leaping into the road though. 
Ignored a work collegue though. Which was good.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Nghhhhhhhhhhhhh. I have just taken Zand out for and hour!!!! Did the walking towards him thing this morning. He poked me in the belly with his nose. Still in a sit. I shall try again later when I'm back from my first shift.* I probably dithered.*
> Barely pulled this morn. Did keep leaping into the road though.
> Ignored a work collegue though. Which was good.


Undoubtedly..... Try lowering your hand with the tit-bit (underarm bowling) as you walk straight at him.


----------



## purpleskyes

Today we are going for a walk with a friend and her cocker to try and get some proper socialisation done. I don't see this going well as Hudson is being a little nightmare this morning, I can't even get him in from the garden now even with cheese or shreddie, he will sit and stay until I walk towards and he legs it. *sigh*


----------



## L/C

Ugh, inside voices this morning please. :sosp: I have a session with our trainer at 12pm - need to motivate myself and get the nurofen.

LO - I'm sure you'll get the stand and well done to Zand on your walk. Do you think he's settling down a bit? 

Purple - hope Hudson stops being a pain in time for your walk!


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I've just had a message from a trainee dog trainer. Saw my post on FB about looking for a dog trainer and sent me a message. Says she's doing a course and working towards the KC accreditation scheme and is helping people out for free in order to gain the experience she needs. Uses positive reinforcement methods too. So I've replied telling her what issues I'm having and fingers crossed she'll be willing to help out.


----------



## GingerRogers

Ooh eee that's awesome fingers crossed for you Sarah. 
We have a dog that appears to humping things this morning


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - that sounds massively hopeful; fingers crossed.

Purpleskyes - rather than going towards Hudson and making it a game, what about walking away from him (not even turning back to look) or standing or sitting with a ball or toy he finds exciting throwing it in the air and catching it, bouncing on on the floor and saying things like "Look what I've got, what a brilliant ball" etc. You sound like a looper but he should come over to see what's so interesting!

LC - Ooopsss....little too much to drink perhaps? :yesnod: . Hope training goes well.

L/O - Gold Star for Zand!

Separate walks this morning. Twiggy, you will be pleased to hear that both dogs drew blood  :incazzato:.

Walked Rudi first, he was really good on the lead today (which was lucky as it was really icy) but we did some training on the sports pitch using a toy offlead and he got way, way too over excited again, destuffed me in my long - suffering puffa jacket some more and hung off my hands. Hence blood. His triggers seem to be the same as Kilo's - movement, however slight, and praise that gets too 'exciting' in tone. BUT, he did really well at the training, he was excited to work with me and ignored dogs and people so I am pleased too. Because it was the first sunny day in a very long time lots of people were out with their dogs - he saw plenty but didn't get to greet which I was pleased with as he's played with the last few dogs that we've met and I want him to learn that that isn't the case with all dogs. I have also noticed that he has started to air scent and then stand very alert when there is a cat in the vicinity .

Then Kilo - met Dizzy and human as soon as we left the house so we walked together. I only had Kilo's tuggy as I had intended to have a training walk so we went to the top fields and I trained Kilo around Dizzy (Dizzy just runs around at a million miles per hour squeaking his ball!) which went really well. Did some "Ready Steady" and a few downs at a distance, plenty of waits etc. He was a little star. Caught my hand once as he went for the tuggy so Twiggy gets her blood .

Hubby back to work this morning having only got back from his course on the mainland yesterday evening so we're on our own again for three weeks or so bar the odd fleeting visit.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well I've just had a message from a trainee dog trainer. Saw my post on FB about looking for a dog trainer and sent me a message. Says she's doing a course and working towards the KC accreditation scheme and is helping people out for free in order to gain the experience she needs. Uses positive reinforcement methods too. So I've replied telling her what issues I'm having and fingers crossed she'll be willing to help out.


Oh that's brilliant Sarah, I'm really pleased for you.

Even if she's not experienced at least it's a bit of support for you and a different pair of eyes.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Sarah - that sounds massively hopeful; fingers crossed.
> 
> Purpleskyes - rather than going towards Hudson and making it a game, what about walking away from him (not even turning back to look) or standing or sitting with a ball or toy he finds exciting throwing it in the air and catching it, bouncing on on the floor and saying things like "Look what I've got, what a brilliant ball" etc. You sound like a looper but he should come over to see what's so interesting!
> 
> LC - Ooopsss....little too much to drink perhaps? :yesnod: . Hope training goes well.
> 
> L/O - Gold Star for Zand!
> 
> Separate walks this morning. Twiggy, you will be pleased to hear that both dogs drew blood  :incazzato:.
> 
> Walked Rudi first, he was really good on the lead today (which was lucky as it was really icy) but we did some training on the sports pitch using a toy offlead and he got way, way too over excited again, destuffed me in my long - suffering puffa jacket some more and hung off my hands. Hence blood. His triggers seem to be the same as Kilo's - movement, however slight, and praise that gets too 'exciting' in tone. BUT, he did really well at the training, he was excited to work with me and ignored dogs and people so I am pleased too. Because it was the first sunny day in a very long time lots of people were out with their dogs - he saw plenty but didn't get to greet which I was pleased with as he's played with the last few dogs that we've met and I want him to learn that that isn't the case with all dogs. I have also noticed that he has started to air scent and then stand very alert when there is a cat in the vicinity .
> 
> Then Kilo - met Dizzy and human as soon as we left the house so we walked together. I only had Kilo's tuggy as I had intended to have a training walk so we went to the top fields and I trained Kilo around Dizzy (Dizzy just runs around at a million miles per hour squeaking his ball!) which went really well. Did some "Ready Steady" and a few downs at a distance, plenty of waits etc. He was a little star. Caught my hand once as he went for the tuggy so Twiggy gets her blood .
> 
> Hubby back to work this morning having only got back from his course on the mainland yesterday evening so we're on our own again for three weeks or so bar the odd fleeting visit.


I agree the triggers for most dogs, especially those bred to do a job, is movement and over excited praise.

For somebody who puts herself down far, far too much I'm massively impressed on the training you are doing with your super boys. Gold Star...!!

It's quite a lonely life being a military wife by the sound of it and because you move around so much I don't suppose you have time to build up close friendships?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I agree the triggers for most dogs, especially those bred to do a job, is movement and over excited praise.
> 
> For somebody who puts herself down far, far too much I'm massively impressed on the training you are doing with your super boys. Gold Star...!!
> 
> It's quite a lonely life being a military wife by the sound of it and because you move around so much I don't suppose you have time to build up close friendships?


It is lonely, very, especially as 99% have kids. I don't want to be involved in gossip etc so keep myself to myself. I am lucky as I live on a pretty quiet street, not much gossip, polite neighbours to say hello to but not intrusive. My best friend used to actually live on our street by huge coincidence (knew her for years before I came here - used to work with her hubby) but she moved away. Dizzy's human is as close as I have now.

Not sure you'd be impressed if you saw us Twiggy - I am looking forward to trying to find a club on the mainland who perhaps do agility for fun, have outdoor classes maybe, have people that I might be able to meet for walks with etc. In fact...if you'd seen yesterday evening's fiasco you'd have been appalled; I said to my friend today when I told her that if she'd have gone past that it was one of those times that you'd say "Those dogs need some training, they're totally out of control!!"  .


----------



## Dogless

*Jenny Olley* - your comment on having seen quite a few RRs over the years and how they had been 'ruined' has had me thinking ever since....sure you've heard the gears grinding from there .

What are the main problems that you see with them? Is there a common theme or are they quite diverse? I am just interested to know.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Oh that's brilliant Sarah, I'm really pleased for you.
> 
> Even if she's not experienced at least it's a bit of support for you and a different pair of eyes.


That's what I'm thinking  Not someone I'd be comfortable going to for a serious behaviour issue coz of the lack of experience but for general training and helping teach him some control around other dogs I'm fine with it.


> It's quite a lonely life being a military wife by the sound of it and because you move around so much I don't suppose you have time to build up close friendships?


I think a lot of the time it depends on you as a person. Like Dogless I'm not interested in gossip and pulling other wives to pieces or being pulled to pieces myself. There's usually plenty to do if you have young kids, there was in Ireland when I was there and there's even more here. But if you're not into gossip and don't have kids you're a bit stuck lol.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I think a lot of the time it depends on you as a person. Like Dogless I'm not interested in gossip and pulling other wives to pieces or being pulled to pieces myself. There's usually plenty to do if you have young kids, there was in Ireland when I was there and there's even more here. But if you're not into gossip and don't have kids you're a bit stuck lol.


I had all these ideas Sarah about setting up a dog walking group / training group etc but when I was talking to other dog owners they just weren't interested at all....they want to just go to the fields, take the lead off and stand and chat. Loads moan about how their dog won't behave and I always tell them about classes - not one has ever, ever come!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I had all these ideas Sarah about setting up a dog walking group / training group etc but when I was talking to other dog owners they just weren't interested at all....they want to just go to the fields, take the lead off and stand and chat. Loads moan about how their dog won't behave and I always tell them about classes - not one has ever, ever come!


All you can do is plant the seed of an idea in their minds, who knows one day it might just germinate.

Sarah/Dogless it coudl be worse you could be here and be having to make polite excuses to avoid a mad beagle lady ut:


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- hope you're feeling better, and training goes well.

Sarah- that sounds really promising- be great if it works out.

Dogless-Sounds like a good session with the boys.

Well done Donkey boy.

Just groomed Meg, the Springer. 
Her owner is spending all her time with this new man and only goes to feed and walk the dog twice a day, so the rest of the time she's on her own apart from the cats. Poor girl.
Part of me feels sorry for the owner- she lost her husband a couple of years ago and I think she's just lonely.
So I said she can come here some days when I'm not working, but she has to bring her and fetch her back at tea time- see how she goes with my girls, if its ok, I'll foster her and get some Rescue back up for her to be rehomed.

She's so affectionate, it wasn't easy grooming her with her head stuck in the crook of my neck.
She'll be coming for the day Monday.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> L/C- hope you're feeling better, and training goes well.
> 
> Sarah- that sounds really promising- be great if it works out.
> 
> Dogless-Sounds like a good session with the boys.
> 
> Well done Donkey boy.
> 
> Just groomed Meg, the Springer.
> Her owner is spending all her time with this new man and only goes to feed and walk the dog twice a day, so the rest of the time she's on her own apart from the cats. Poor girl.
> Part of me feels sorry for the owner- she lost her husband a couple of years ago and I think she's just lonely.
> So I said she can come here some days when I'm not working, but she has to bring her and fetch her back at tea time- see how she goes with my girls, if its ok, I'll foster her and get some Rescue back up for her to be rehomed.
> 
> She's so affectionate, it wasn't easy grooming her with her head stuck in the crook of my neck.
> She'll be coming for the day Monday.


Awww Kat you are wonderful. I'm very pleased for Meg she sounds like a real sweetie and she would be easy to rehome with appropriate support fingers crossed it all goes well.

Whiel i feel sorry for her owners loss, I couldn't ever imagine begin able to choose a man over Tink.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I had all these ideas Sarah about setting up a dog walking group / training group etc but when I was talking to other dog owners they just weren't interested at all....they want to just go to the fields, take the lead off and stand and chat. Loads moan about how their dog won't behave and I always tell them about classes - not one has ever, ever come!


Lol, I've tried and tried getting people to meet up for walks and training purposes but nobody is actually interested. They say they are but when it comes to it nobody actually turns up. I know a couple of others have tried too and given up for the same reason. Unfortunately they were too far away for me to walk with.

K&M, you're a star you know  Hope all goes well with Meg, she sounds a sweet dog.

MV, I wouldn't make excuses to avoid the mad beagle lady, it'd be more likely your inner hag making an appearance at the loopy lunging Labrador and his hapless owner.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - you really are a lovely person; poor Meg being neglected like that . I know that you _say_ you have enough dogs but I can't help wondering if she'll ever leave......


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Awww Kat you are wonderful. I'm very pleased for Meg she sounds like a real sweetie and she would be easy to rehome with appropriate support fingers crossed it all goes well.
> 
> Whiel i feel sorry for her owners loss, I couldn't ever imagine begin able to choose a man over Tink.


I said exactly the same to her.
The new man is French, if the dog was a really small breed I bet he wouldn't have a problem with it- but they seem to think anything over that isn't a pet and it should live outside- the owner refused that.
Its how it seems to be in these parts  yet they are really gooey eyed over tiny dogs.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m - you really are a lovely person; poor Meg being neglected like that . I know that you _say_ you have enough dogs but I can't help wondering if she'll ever leave......


I know, my track record isn't very good is it.
TBH, if my girls were ok,and my business were flourishing , I wouldn't think twice, plus my OH is older and I do have worries about something happening to him and then I'm left with all these dogs that I'd struggle to keep. Sounds selfish when put like that- its not meant to be.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I know, my track record isn't very good is it.
> TBH, if my girls were ok,and my business were flourishing , I wouldn't think twice, plus my OH is older and I do have worries about something happening to him and then I'm left with all these dogs that I'd struggle to keep. Sounds selfish when put like that- its not meant to be.


Selfish? That's the last thing you are!


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## purpleskyes

Well my friend couldn't do this afternoon so we are meeting her tomorrow. OH arrived back home and informed Hudson played with some nice friendly dogs yesterday. We just got back from his walk at the new place we found where lots of people go and he played with some retrievers, some pugs and a staff pup. He is now napping after all that fun


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It is lonely, very, especially as 99% have kids. I don't want to be involved in gossip etc so keep myself to myself. I am lucky as I live on a pretty quiet street, not much gossip, polite neighbours to say hello to but not intrusive. My best friend used to actually live on our street by huge coincidence (knew her for years before I came here - used to work with her hubby) but she moved away. Dizzy's human is as close as I have now.
> 
> *Not sure you'd be impressed if you saw us Twiggy - I am looking forward to trying to find a club on the mainland who perhaps do agility for fun, have outdoor classes maybe, have people that I might be able to meet for walks with etc.* In fact...if you'd seen yesterday evening's fiasco you'd have been appalled; I said to my friend today when I told her that if she'd have gone past that it was one of those times that you'd say "Those dogs need some training, they're totally out of control!!"  .


That is one of the advantages of being involved in a dog sport. I know I could walk into any club, that have handlers who compete, anywhere in the UK plus parts of Europe, Channel Isles, etc. and I would know at least one of their members.

That's one of the reasons it would be good for you because however much you moved around the UK, you would know somebody in that locality.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I know, my track record isn't very good is it.
> TBH, if my girls were ok,and my business were flourishing , I wouldn't think twice, plus my OH is older and I do have worries about something happening to him and then I'm left with all these dogs that I'd struggle to keep. Sounds selfish when put like that- its not meant to be.


It doesn't sound selfish it sound sensible.

It's a sobering thought but I don't think I'll have another collie pup - it would probably outlive me...

When the two old girls have gone I think I might foster for the breed specific collie rescues. At least I have the experience to deal with their difficult, traumatised dogs. That's as long as I didn't end up with about 10 because I couldn't bear to part with them....


----------



## Twiggy

Right I'm going to get off my bum and take Holly over to the barn for half an hour.

The Wednesday class starts back next week (the last two months have gone by very fast) and if anyone dares to say the usual mantra "you're so lucky. You always get nice natured keen dogs" I swear I shall clout them...!!


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## Thorne

Well, will try and keep up today 

-LO: Sounds good apart from the road-jumping! Zander's nose-prodding made me laugh, I'm forever being poked by Breeze's snout when she wants attention which is quite sweet unless she's just eaten poo 
-purpleskyes: Hope nutty Hudson behaves himself and gets on well with your friend's Cocker tomorrow.
-L/C: Inside voices :lol: Hope training went well.
-Sarah: Hope the trainee can help you, fingers crossed!
-Dogless: Mind those crocodiles! I like having soft-mouthed dogs, have had my fair share of misguided play bites from S&B and puppy bites from Scooter but they've not managed to draw blood. At least your boys are enthusiastic, and you know their triggers!
-MV: Nothing wrong with a mad Beagle lady, I think we're all fairly nuts here 
-K&M: Poor Meg, hopefully her owner has just been lonely lately and will start spending more time with her soon. Have fun with her on Monday, she sounds sweet!
-Twiggy: Hope training goes well with Holly Bolly.

Had a fairly frustrating walk yesterday so decided to stew over it for a bit instead of inevitably ranting and making a "woe is me" post about it!

Basically, Breeze was a _MADAM_ and did _NOT_ want to go for a walk. She was her usual unimpressed self when the leads came out but was fairly willing to leave the house. Got to the driveway, sat and waited for some cars then gave our "let's go!" and crossed over. Breeze stopped halfway across and had to be bribed to move. 
We managed half a mile of her lagging behind with her head down (she sped up if I had a treat in my hand!), refusing to walk past 3 people who "awwed" at her, digging her heels in to watch a delivery man and just looking annoyed. When she shot under Scooter's belly as he was peeing and got covered in wee I decided to take her back for everyone's sake. Something must have upset her but she didn't seem scared, just very stubborn and sulky. Maybe I spoiled her with our park outing on thursday 
Will try again tonight - think I'll just chuck a slip lead over her head and leave with as little hassle as possible and see how she fares.

Scooter was very good despite all this! Took him out on his own after dropping Breeze off at home with a chew and had a lovely walk, mostly on the roads. Went a long way from where he's been wanting to run off lately, and gave him a quick offlead run. Good recall yesterday, still taking baby steps though! Mostly loose lead so he made up for a disappointing outing with Breeze.

About to take him for today's walk, we're having people over for dinner so would like to tire him out if at all possible!


----------



## Guest

Bought him a ruff and tuff toy today. Guess what now has bits chewed off? 
He's pleased with it though. 

Off to my second shift now, haven't had time to read through but I'm guessing meg is the spaniel? You now have a springer pair!! Is she nice?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, 
we've had a lovely walk, admiring the view!

There, I made a rhyme to make you all smile 

Again, I will fail to comment on how well/bad you are all doing but I promise I am reading everyone's post and making the appropriate signals and noises at the screen as I read.... :yesnod: :nonod: :nono: :hand: :yikes: :lol: :ciappa: etc etc...


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## Nicki85

Hello 

Well we have had a good day so far- morning walk I can't remember so it can't of been that bad ;-) Oh he did recall off of three deer leaping away from him so very pleased  And I got some strange looks for putting him on the lead when approaching a group of 5-6 dogs.... It didn't help that he came running at 100 MPH towards me as I called him and I put my hand out and he kind of ran straight into it... 

Then I went and learnt how to fuse glass. I made some coasters :sosp:

Our afternoon walk in the sun (lovely!) Was nice- we walked up to the dog fields in the main town and did some training with dog distractions. All very good! Then found his favourite toy (yup.... a stick) a did some agility work which he enjoyed. Could have shot myself for not bringing a tuggy toy out as he was really up for playing rrr: but we had fun with the stick and he was 100% concentrating on me :001_wub:. We even had dogs coming right up to him when I was asking for watch me and he was very good. Couple of times he did get excited and I had to ask a few times but eventually I got his concentration back. There were about 6 dogs in the field all offlead so I was pleased. 

I'm trying to figure him out round other dogs at the moment... he isn't as interested on forest walks about meeting them and playing. Previously he would be one of those annoying dogs that would run up to every dog to try and get it to play. Now even if they invite him to play he is more interested to carry on with his walk. I've done a lot of work on calling back before meeting etc. so maybe it has paid off. However, in the field he still gets very alert to dogs moving/ dogs entering field... same at agility... agility he is actually more alert to the other dogs than he has ever been. Very odd! I'm making agility into a no-talk zone for him from now on... no talking to other dogs allowed! Not sure it will work... our wednesday classes I just don't seem to be able to get his attention all that well with toys.

-LO: Well at least the LLW went well... apart from the jumping into the road  
-purpleskyes: Hope Hudson behaves himself tomorrow  
-Sarah: That sounds really positive- hope it works out 
-Dogless: You sound like you are doing such a fab job with your dogs... the only Ridgie round here is overweight and only waddles everywhere 
-K&M: Feel for Meg..... 
- Sounds like Breeze knows what she wants ;-) and how to get it!!!!


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## Thorne

Bless Rusty! He sounds like he's got great focus, and what a good boy for ignoring the other dogs around him  Impressed by your coaster-making too!
Breeze does indeed know what she wants and how to manipulate people to her will, cheeky mare.

Had a great walk with Scooter, I had his attention right from the start which was encouraging but had 15mins of pavement walking to make sure he was fairly settled before venturing onto the fields. Really was impressed by how focussed he was today so he ended up being offlead for the duration of our cross country walking 
Did lots of enthusiastic recalls inc. lead on/off, harness grabs, collar grabs, sit, watch me and "close" (Think this is the English Finish I've heard mentioned? It's something Mum was taught it at training classes in the 80's and has stuck ). Practiced heelwork which surpassed his usual standard, a real keenie today.
He was super, never put a foot wrong!

Breeze is napping, will take the minx out after dinner.


----------



## Jenny Olley

Dogless said:


> *Jenny Olley* - your comment on having seen quite a few RRs over the years and how they had been 'ruined' has had me thinking ever since....sure you've heard the gears grinding from there .
> 
> What are the main problems that you see with them? Is there a common theme or are they quite diverse? I am just interested to know.


Excessive nervousness leading to aggression, both dogs and people. On the other hand I also have a lady who has been coming with both her RR since puppyhood, they are now 10 and 8 and are super, but their recalls took a lot of work.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Bought him a ruff and tuff toy today. Guess what now has bits chewed off?
> He's pleased with it though.
> 
> Off to my second shift now, haven't had time to read through but I'm guessing meg is the spaniel? You now have a springer pair!! Is she nice?


Yes...I bought one of those....

Nicki your whole day sounds superb - want to come and train my two for me? . Recall away from leaping deer would be an immense achievement!! I hate to see fat RRs...hate it .

Thorne - well done to Scooter; hope Breeze is better later, I wonder what got into her?

Great afternoon at concrete central.

*Rudi:* Went to the park as the weather was gorgeous and it was packed. Got a zillion compliments on how well behaved Rudi was - he was brilliant, went past dogs and people nicely or sat to let them pass unless I let him meet . Got loads of advice as you do when you take a puppy anywhere, all of it rubbish, got a 'breed expert' who clearly thought he was a lab wittering on and had some offlead dogs running over with the inevitable - "He she / is cheeky" which translates here to "My little dog will bite yours" so got rid of the dogs; owners obviously said "Oh, he / she could have done with a good telling off" .

*Kilo:* took him on my run tonight. All good - he was doing his proud trot tonight; I always get Carly Simon "You're So Vain" in my head when he does it.


----------



## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> Excessive nervousness leading to aggression, both dogs and people. On the other hand I also have a lady who has been coming with both her RR since puppyhood, they are now 10 and 8 and are super, but their recalls took a lot of work.


Kilo has always been pretty nervy and highly - strung; he has taken an enormous amount of work and little things still stress him out immensely. Rudi is the opposite; unphased by pretty much everything and LOVES people whereas Kilo has always preferred to avoid.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I finished The Dog Vinci Code and I really enjoyed most of it. Even if he did use the dreaded D word at some points  Started on Total Recall now and have that Excelerated Learning one to read after that. And some trick training one coming in the snail mail, didn't want to buy the kindle version after reading reviews about the wonderful photos lol.

We took Spen out with his new football earlier. Football is now popped and is in bed with him. Poor tatty old giant tennis ball seems to have been abandoned for now. I took him out for a pee earlier and ended up playing fetch with the handle of the Flexi coz as soon as he'd peed he came back to me asking to play. He walked himself back to the flat which got a smile from someone who saw us lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

Wow this threads too busy, I am too tired to comment on everyone today, soz.
Busy day, the humping seems to have subsided, just an over enthusiastic morning thing  she has never done it before so I got 'excited *' that she might finally be coming into season *so we can get it over and done with type of excited.
The calm GR was at the end of its drive again this morning along with a giant teddy the same size as itself, Ginge just appeared not to notice it, I didn't dare walk past as I would have ruined the pleasure I got from the first time but I did do some work creeping closer and closer, we got about two houses away before she reared up and huffed at it but soon turned round and came away . Its odd as just the lump of it and its giant teddy would normally be enough to set her radar going even if she didn't realise its a dog, she still leaps at our neighbours mole statue  
Then she came shopping with us and to macdonalds , we had a walk (in between awful wintry showers) on the way home up a lovely quiet lane that overlooks the reed beds she walked like a star, very steady, hardly any pulling , either something is sinking in or she wasn't enjoying herself . Got home and, drum roll please, started decorating  dog has a white ear now. We have an open plan living room dining room stairs and I have been putting it off for years it seems so hard and so big. Then just took her for another walk when she was pully but very good, but apart form the GR this morn we haven't seen any other dogs today:thumbup1: now need to go see if she has eaten her tea, it appears she doesn't like her new meat intro to pigeon 

PS I want to learn how to fuse glass Nikki that sounds fun, we don't have any of those sort of classes here .


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Then she came shopping with us and to macdonalds , we had a walk (in between awful wintry showers) on the way home up a lovely quiet lane that overlooks the reed beds she walked like a star, very steady, hardly any pulling , either something is sinking in or she wasn't enjoying herself . Got home and, drum roll please, started decorating  dog has a white ear now. We have an open plan living room dining room stairs and I have been putting it off for years it seems so hard and so big. Then just took her for another walk when she was pully but very good, but apart form the GR this morn we haven't seen any other dogs today:thumbup1:


I reckon you should look on the bright side and.....she's getting it .

The decorating made me laugh; a friend of mine was selling her house and repainted the skirting boards - gloss white. Dog then lay down against them - hairy skirting boards with no time to repaint so hidden with long curtain and dog with white stripe from head to tip of tail that lasted for ages .


----------



## Dogless

Right; I have been thinking again ...which gives me a chance to tell one of my favourite jokes 

A boat gets into trouble in German waters.....
*"Mayday, mayday. Can you hear us? Can you hear us? We are sinking. We are sinking."*
"Hello. Zis is ze German coastguard."
"*We are sinking. We are sinking."*
"Vot are you sinking ABOUT?"

Anyhoo.....I have been sinking about the together / separate walks balance; do I have it right from what you folk are reading here?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- I think you made a mistake- you said your weather was gorgeous.
Rudi is doing amazingly well- and Moll was still drawing blood at his age. Would you believe I saw my first RR today - I was in the car so couldn't stop , but he was walking lovely on the lead through our little town.

Thorne- enjoy your meal.

Ginge- hope it is a season, so at least you know whats going on.

Nikki- Rusty's a good boy recalling from Deer, Moll has a lovely recall- I know I shouldn't say that , its tempting fate and wish I could say the same for that rotten little Hound Dog. The smallest one causes most of the trouble.:yesnod:

Sarah- I've downloaded that book- it was cheap on kindle.

Twiggy- hope Holly Bolly was a good girl, she is doing better now isn't she?

LO- another dead toy. Meg is gorgeous- but a contrast to Moll as she has loads of Liver.


----------



## Jenny Olley

Dogless said:


> Kilo has always been pretty nervy and highly - strung; he has taken an enormous amount of work and little things still stress him out immensely. Rudi is the opposite; unphased by pretty much everything and LOVES people whereas Kilo has always preferred to avoid.


Yes, and that is why you are an excellent owner, you noted issues and worked on them.


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## Guest

Back from my second shift, does meg have a nice temperment or is it too early to tell?
Well done Ginge, Spen and the CH's.

The once secure field that is no longer had SHEEP in it earlier. So deffo not going in there!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> Right; I have been thinking again ...which gives me a chance to tell one of my favourite jokes
> 
> A boat gets into trouble in German waters.....
> *"Mayday, mayday. Can you hear us? Can you hear us? We are sinking. We are sinking."*
> "Hello. Zis is ze German coastguard."
> "*We are sinking. We are sinking."*
> "Vot are you sinking ABOUT?"
> 
> Anyhoo.....I have been sinking about the together / separate walks balance; do I have it right from what you folk are reading here?










at your joke!!

Not really, I actually really like it









As for the balance of together / separate walks, I think it sounds like you've got it spot on :thumbup:

I wish I had done more separate walks with my two when they were younger, I had all the best intentions but defintitely should have done more


----------



## moonviolet

Sounds like a good day on the whole 

Not much to report here. Lovely couple of hours out messing around in the woods and on the heath today with some tree climbing to better enjoy the view :lol:

Some silliness dancing to the radio and a very light training session. 

Lovely pavement walk , nose to the ground as it's so chilly got to get close to get a good noseful, but she didn't react to some other dogs barking. :thumbsup:


Oh goodness LO insecure fence now sheep not good.


----------



## Guest

Well plenty of dogs live wonderful lives on-lead. (I know it shouldn't be a permanent thing but I have run out of places!)
Mind you I have found someone who does agility near me and T-TOUCH!! 

Do you need a vet referral for T-touch?? 
Haha I was trying to explain what is was to mum earlier. She was like "Sounds a bit... soft?"


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Well plenty of dogs live wonderful lives on-lead. (I know it shouldn't be a permanent thing but I have run out of places!)
> Mind you I have found someone who does agility near me and T-TOUCH!!
> 
> Do you need a vet referral for T-touch??
> Haha I was trying to explain what is was to mum earlier. She was like "Sounds a bit... soft?"


I did a T Touch workshop with Kilo when he was about 6 months old - it was really good. I especially liked the body awareness stuff.


----------



## Jenny Olley

Sounds like another busy day for everyone. 
Moonviolet, silliness is great it lightens everything up, I love messing.
Been taking classes today, but managed to get some training in with Archie, dolly also had a bit of a go.
Training Sendaway and redirection with archie, followed later by a session of play. 
In the break I got archie out and hid some of his articles in a large area of straw on the floor, my OH had been doing this with his group, he searched beautifully, and retreived his articles.
Later in Manwork class, Dolly my retired dog had a little dabble at the sleeve work.


----------



## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> Sounds like another busy day for everyone.
> Moonviolet, silliness is great it lightens everything up, I love messing.
> Been taking classes today, but managed to get some training in with Archie, dolly also had a bit of a go.
> Training Sendaway and redirection with archie, followed later by a session of play.
> In the break I got archie out and hid some of his articles in a large area of straw on the floor, my OH had been doing this with his group, he searched beautifully, and retreived his articles.
> Later in Manwork class, Dolly my retired dog had a little dabble at the sleeve work.


Archie does sound a super pup. You must be thrilled with him.

Holly was pretty good again today. Still not enough speed and commitment for me but she does try in her own little way. She managed to get the quick on my thumb but it only bled a bit....


----------



## MollySmith

kat&molly said:


> I know, my track record isn't very good is it.
> TBH, if my girls were ok,and my business were flourishing , I wouldn't think twice, plus my OH is older and I do have worries about something happening to him and then I'm left with all these dogs that I'd struggle to keep. Sounds selfish when put like that- its not meant to be.


I think you are very sensible - my OH is older than me. We struggle with just one dog when we're a 'man down'.


----------



## sharloid

So the behavioured came yesterday...

He said some stupid things such as 'huskies aren't really domesticated'. I told him I wanted to try and get Broder calm around dogs without having to use 'equipment' but he said he wouldn't even attempt it without the dogmatic. 

So outside we went, with Broder wearing the Dogmatic. His dog stayed in one place for us to practice on and apart from trying to get the head collar off he did really well. We're going to do as he suggested and buy a 5m lead so that it's easier for him to loose lead walk (a short, tight lead seems to make it worse).

For now we have to avoid confrontations/meeting dogs. We can turn around if we are going to be head on with a dog but what happens if there's one in front and one behind?


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I think you are very sensible - my OH is older than me. We struggle with just one dog when we're a 'man down'.


Mine is older than me too; he doesn't struggle at all as he doesn't do any of the care for the dogs  .


----------



## Guest

sharloid said:


> So the behavioured came yesterday...
> 
> He said some stupid things such as 'huskies aren't really domesticated'. I told him I wanted to try and get Broder calm around dogs without having to use 'equipment' but he said he wouldn't even attempt it without the dogmatic.
> 
> So outside we went, with Broder wearing the Dogmatic. His dog stayed in one place for us to practice on and apart from trying to get the head collar off he did really well. We're going to do as he suggested and buy a 5m lead so that it's easier for him to loose lead walk (a short, tight lead seems to make it worse).
> 
> For now we have to avoid confrontations/meeting dogs. We can turn around if we are going to be head on with a dog but what happens if there's one in front and one behind?


Well done Broder! Other than saying a couple idiot things was the behavioursit good? 
Um that last bit? Either cross over or CONTINUALLY SHOVEL FOOD INTO YOUR DOG THE SECOND HE LOOKS AT YOU. Well, thats what I do. :lol:


----------



## Jenny Olley

Twiggy said:


> Archie does sound a super pup. You must be thrilled with him.
> 
> Holly was pretty good again today. Still not enough speed and commitment for me but she does try in her own little way. She managed to get the quick on my thumb but it only bled a bit....


Thanks, I am thrilled and impressed with him, I waited a long time for the right pup to turn up, he is certainly it.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Mine is older than me too; he doesn't struggle at all as he doesn't do any of the care for the dogs  .


Well mine struggles in that he hasn't got any dog sense!!!


----------



## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> Thanks, I am thrilled and impressed with him, I waited a long time for the right pup to turn up, he is certainly it.


That's wonderful. It's so exciting when you just know you've got a pup that's a bit special.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's wonderful. It's so exciting when you just know you've got a pup that's a bit special.


It must be amazing to be like you and JO Grannie .

Mine are both a bit special.....but not in the sense that you mean it :scared:.


----------



## Werehorse

Hugo just growled at a labrador! 

In his defence we were walking along the road and as we approached the lab (with a collie x and two humans - we caught up with them as they were picking poo) I had a biscuit in my hand intended to keep Hugo in heel so we could get past. I did this because although I know he would walk past calmly biscuit or not I know the collie x is a bit old and grumpy and wouldn't appreciate even a hint of a sniff from Hugo so I wanted his attention on me. Anyway the lab, off-lead of course  , comes bounding up and puts his paws up on me and sniffs at the biscuit! Hugo was NOT happy about that and gave a very convincing warning growl. I put the biscuit away sharpish and the labrador ran back to his owners. I made a comment as I went past that made it clear that any growling was justified - in a perfectly light-hearted way, something like "Hugo doesn't like the idea of sharing his biscuits! Ha. Ha. Ha." . I actually like these people so didn't hag at them.

Otherwise I have just had individual walks round the block with 2 dogs I'm convinced aren't actually mine. They were so good, no pulling whatsoever and not even many tight lead moments!  I'm going to revel in that for a bit then start pushing out this behaviour into busier places!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> It must be amazing to be like you and JO Grannie .
> 
> Mine are both a bit special.....but not in the sense that you mean it :scared:.


I just think I lack dog sense. :lol: I'll learn it however. I haven't given up yet.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> They were so good, no pulling whatsoever and not even many tight lead moments!  I'm going to revel in that for a bit then start pushing out this behaviour into busier places!


See....it wasn't a fluke the other day . Think the growl was justified too .


----------



## MollySmith

Nicki  I fuse glass and make stained glass windows, did you enjoy it? I am thinking about teaching it as another string to my bow and spend this afternoon trying to scan in pics for my website. I have done craft fairs but need to sort out a thermostat problem with my kiln. Your walks sound like an adventure, I wonder what Rustys behaviour means? 

L/C  dodgy karaoko, what did you sing, you know you can tell us!

Lurcher Owner so pleased that Zand barely pulled, that is an earlier start! Molly has a ruff and tuff, well the last pieces of one somewhere in the garden.

Sarah 1983  paws crossed about the trainee trainer. 

Purpleskyes  like Dogless said, I walk away from Molly. Or walk backwards facign her making myself big by dancing around but I only ever call her once. If she dones come, I walk away back to her. She always comes to me. Then she gets clicks and jackpot treats.

Dogless  so sorry to hear about blood &#9785; I think that both dogs are so lucky to have someone so patient as you with them. Kilo seems to have done very well. I hope Rudi grows out of it, weve had to play endless tuggies and waits to get Molly able to manage her excitement but sometimes she launches herself and forgets. So sad too that your OH has gone off again, that must be tough and in our shared circumstances I can feel your heartbreak with the families around you ((hugs))

Oh dear GingerRogers about the randy one! Weirdly Molly used to lunge at a tortoise garden ornament in our road too. 

Thorne  how strange about Breeze, I hope she is more enthusiastic tomorrow. My grans dog Jodie was always a reluctant walker. It was an honour if anyone got a tail wag from her and crossing the gate was a major accolade. She was happy to pootle around in her own garden.

Foxyrockmeister - please can you do my open uni poetry homework?

Moonviolet  I am glad you had a nice day and two nice walks

Werehorse  I am glad you had good lead walks too. Shame about the other dog being off lead, we met an off lead dog in an onlead area today and Molly reacted a wee bit. Not as bad as before but I stupidly didnt her away and walk back to the car park but followed OH to some trees and it was too close and too tangley to get Molly to a comfy distance. Naturally off lead dog has to investigate.

Not much to report here. Back to Buster watch and no sign again which makes me worried more. But we were late today. It was odd out  as if someone had stuck a giant people magnet on top of Cambridge  the roads going into the city were so busy and we were the only car going out to the downs. So there wasnt a soul around to ask. Ive asked our trainer as she knows loads of people but it has got us thinking about a friend for Molly! Anyway went out for a while this afternoon and came back to find OH and Molly playing a new game. A combo of get the ball and Twister. Honestly, mad the pair of them but it is actually good for Molly as she doesnt bite or nip with the ball (its a chuck-it and it has lasted months, were impressed) and OH gets her to wait when he gets hold of it before he throws it. Hilariously she puts her front paws around his arm to get extra leverage like a baboon.


----------



## MollySmith

I've only scanned in four pieces, I need to find the drive with the rest of my photos on somewhere. That was my other task, clear out the office to make space for the work desk crap to come home. It was like an episode of the Hoarder next door.

Stained glass - Bee Creative


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Dogless  so sorry to hear about blood ☹ I think that both dogs are so lucky to have someone so patient as you with them. Kilo seems to have done very well. I hope Rudi grows out of it, weve had to play endless tuggies and waits to get Molly able to manage her excitement but sometimes she launches herself and forgets. So sad too that your OH has gone off again, that must be tough and in our shared circumstances I can feel your heartbreak with the families around you ((hugs))
> 
> Not much to report here. Back to Buster watch and no sign again which makes me worried more. But we were late today. It was odd out  as if someone had stuck a giant people magnet on top of Cambridge  the roads going into the city were so busy and we were the only car going out to the downs. So there wasnt a soul around to ask. Ive asked our trainer as she knows loads of people but it has got us thinking about a friend for Molly! Anyway went out for a while this afternoon and came back to find OH and Molly playing a new game. A combo of get the ball and Twister. Honestly, mad the pair of them but it is actually good for Molly as she doesnt bite or nip with the ball (its a chuck-it and it has lasted months, were impressed) and OH gets her to wait when he gets hold of it before he throws it. Hilariously she puts her front paws around his arm to get extra leverage like a baboon.


I'm not sorry about the blood; Rudi is a pup, just a big one so it's to be expected I guess and Kilo ran across a whole field to grab the little tuggy rope I was holding (pocket sized) and caught my hand too so no dramas . Hubby says that I have endless patience - I have had to have it with Kilo; he hasn't been easy at all! I love seeing them come good anyway .

As for hubby I am used to him (or me until recently) being away; but I'll never get used to the daily "Have you got kids?" - that bit is OK....followed by "Really? Didn't you want them?" - that bit isn't!! And endless other questions that people ask before they engage brain!



MollySmith said:


> I've only scanned in four pieces, I need to find the drive with the rest of my photos on somewhere. That was my other task, clear out the office to make space for the work desk crap to come home. It was like an episode of the Hoarder next door.
> 
> Stained glass - Bee Creative


I LOVE the second piece; it's fantastic!


----------



## sharloid

LurcherOwner said:


> Well done Broder! Other than saying a couple idiot things was the behavioursit good?
> Um that last bit? Either cross over or CONTINUALLY SHOVEL FOOD INTO YOUR DOG THE SECOND HE LOOKS AT YOU. Well, thats what I do. :lol:


He won't take food outside or look at me if he can see a dog and across the road isn't far enough away for him not to react!


----------



## Sarah1983

We've been stickied! No more searching for the thread when it's vanished off the first page now :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> We've been stickied! No more searching for the thread when it's vanished off the first page now :thumbup:


It was totally painless too .


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> He won't take food outside or look at me if he can see a dog and across the road isn't far enough away for him not to react!


I had this problem with Rupert, it was impossible to get far enough away that he could function properly. It's a nightmare really coz all people tended to keep telling me was "well you need to be further away, you need to keep him under threshold" and while in theory that's true reality often gets in the way.


----------



## sharloid

Sarah1983 said:


> I had this problem with Rupert, it was impossible to get far enough away that he could function properly. It's a nightmare really coz all people tended to keep telling me was "well you need to be further away, you need to keep him under threshold" and while in theory that's true reality often gets in the way.


We kept getting told 'well you just need a higher value treat'.

Totally doesn't work. If we keep waving it in front of his face he eventually will take it and just spit it out. 

We'll keep at it with the dogmatic and hopefully we'll see an improvement. Just not too sure how we're supposed to avoid every dog though!


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> We kept getting told 'well you just need a higher value treat'.
> 
> Totally doesn't work. If we keep waving it in front of his face he eventually will take it and just spit it out.
> 
> We'll keep at it with the dogmatic and hopefully we'll see an improvement.* Just not too sure how we're supposed to avoid every dog though!*


Lol, if you figure that out let me know! I never managed it. And yeah, I got the "you need higher value treats" too. And got called a liar when I said he wasn't interested in food even when relaxed and happy so no way he was going to want it when faced with something he found terrifying 

I ended up walking him at antisocial hours to avoid the vast majority of dogs. Torrential rain and gale force winds were reasons to dance a jig of pure joy. But even walking in those conditions you're not guaranteed to not see other dogs. It does really cut down on the number you see though if that's any help, makes it a lot easier to avoid them.


----------



## kat&molly

LurcherOwner said:


> Back from my second shift, does meg have a nice temperment or is it too early to tell?
> Well done Ginge, Spen and the CH's.
> 
> The once secure field that is no longer had SHEEP in it earlier. So deffo not going in there!


Meg, seems very insecure- hardly surprising. I do know she was rehomed previously to some English farmers here but was returned because they were worried she'd turn on the Grandson-then someone else told me yesterday the little lad was encouraged to kick her. Theres a lot of he said this, she said that, so we'll have to see.

And sheep :nonod: Evie's fine walking passed the fields with them inside, she's not daft and knows she cant do anything-but if any escape and are on the track then she screams.

Dogless- I think you're doing well how you walk the boys now. I will do more seperate walks when chasse season finishes. 

MSmith- those glass pieces are lovely.

Moonviolet- I hope you are feeling co ordinated today and non-lurchery. Enjoy the workshop.

Ithink Frank has his first agilty today, hope it goes well.

We've had a frost- we must be all rained out now.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Meg, seems very insecure- hardly surprising. I do know she was rehomed previously to some English farmers here but was returned because they were worried she'd turn on the Grandson-then someone else told me yesterday the little lad was encouraged to kick her. Theres a lot of he said this, she said that, so we'll have to see.
> 
> And sheep :nonod: Evie's fine walking passed the fields with them inside, she's not daft and knows she cant do anything-but if any escape and are on the track then she screams.
> 
> Dogless- I think you're doing well how you walk the boys now. I will do more seperate walks when chasse season finishes.
> 
> MSmith- those glass pieces are lovely.
> 
> Moonviolet- I hope you are feeling co ordinated today and non-lurchery. Enjoy the workshop.
> 
> Ithink Frank has his first agilty today, hope it goes well.
> 
> We've had a frost- we must be all rained out now.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Hard to know with bad feeling and hearsay floating about isn't it? Only time will tell I am sure...just don't let Evie teach her any bad habits :w00t::w00t:.

I _think_ I am doing fine too; a lot of people comment on how much I walk them separately and say it's unfair on them though so I wanted to check that I wasn't overdoing it!

ps - can't believe this thread has become immortalised :w00t::w00t:.


----------



## kat&molly

Thats crazy, people saying you're unfair, apart from the training aspect, I know my girls love a bit of 1-2-1 with me. Ignore the muppets.

And Evie teach bad habits- as if she would.:w00t:


----------



## cinnamontoast

Yay, a sticky!!


----------



## Werehorse

Seperate walks unfair? :lol: Rubbish. In the short term it might seem a little unfair but in terms of long term well-being it is more unfair NOT to do seperate walks. They need to bond with you individually and need to learn to be able to cope with isolation when you take the other one out... that way they are better equipped to cope with unpredictable future events! I think you have the balance just about perfect from what I've read, Dogless. 

I think I could have done/could do a hell of a lot more on the seperate walks front. 

And stickied!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless I think you are doing the right thing givng them plenty of seperate time. For Kilo to know he's not been ousted by the new kid and for you to bond with Rudi  Silly people , no doubt you didn't ask for their opinions  when these sort of people share their bilge with me, I often long to say " while we're sharing unsolicited opinion I don't like your hair/shoes/ coat :devil:

K&M It makes me so sad to hear things liek that i hope it's just exaggerated gossip.Thanks for the good luck for today i don't feel too lurchy this morning. However a certainly little lady is not happy with me. because i didn't want to play at 5 this morning. ( she woke up because the fire went out) and insult upon offence she had a reduced breakfast!!! right now she's considering packing her bags :lol: Hopefully i'll be forgiven when she sees me starting to get things ready.

Sharloid I think sometimes you have to try to avoid and when avoiding is impossible not lingering and getting away as quickly and efficiently is the best you can. I'm lucky enough to have areas here where i could get off hte main track so we could lurk and let hte world and theri dog pass by at a distance that didn't upset Tink or interfere with others walking ( in fact i think we were unnoticed most of the time) please keep us updated 

MS beautiful stained glass so many talented people on PF


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It must be amazing to be like you and JO Grannie .
> 
> Mine are both a bit special.....but not in the sense that you mean it :scared:.


 Quite. All our dogs are precious and adored pets but it's the buzz and tingle you get when you just know with a puppy that the potential is there to excel in your chosen discipline.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I just think I lack dog sense. :lol: I'll learn it however. I haven't given up yet.


You are doing your best, which is all any of us can do. I've said before Lurchers are not exactly easy.....!!


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I've only scanned in four pieces, I need to find the drive with the rest of my photos on somewhere. That was my other task, clear out the office to make space for the work desk crap to come home. It was like an episode of the Hoarder next door.
> 
> Stained glass - Bee Creative


Wow I loved stained glass - they are beautiful.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, if you figure that out let me know! I never managed it. And yeah, I got the "you need higher value treats" too. And got called a liar when I said he wasn't interested in food even when relaxed and happy so no way he was going to want it when faced with something he found terrifying
> 
> I ended up walking him at antisocial hours to avoid the vast majority of dogs. Torrential rain and gale force winds were reasons to dance a jig of pure joy. But even walking in those conditions you're not guaranteed to not see other dogs. It does really cut down on the number you see though if that's any help, makes it a lot easier to avoid them.


Yes unfortunately as much as some of these 'behaviourist' like to spout in real life half of the methods are just not practical.

With regards to high value treats, I could put a piece of top quality fillet steak on Tremor's nose when she's about to do retrieve and she wouldn't be remotely interested. When you magnify that with a highly reactive dog, it simply isn't going to work.


----------



## Beth17

Wow you lot, you got stickified :thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Wow you lot, you got stickified :thumbup:


US lot, you got sticky too  :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I _think_ I am doing fine too; a lot of people comment on how much I walk them separately and say it's unfair on them though so I wanted to check that I wasn't overdoing it!


How on earth can it be unfair for them each to get plenty of one to one quality time with their owner? Ignore these people Dogless, I think you're doing great with both your boys.



> Yes unfortunately as much as some of these 'behaviourist' like to spout in real life half of the methods are just not practical.
> 
> With regards to high value treats, I could put a piece of top quality fillet steak on Tremor's nose when she's about to do retrieve and she wouldn't be remotely interested. When you magnify that with a highly reactive dog, it simply isn't going to work.


I agree Twiggy, just a shame that some are so sold on the theory that they simply can't see that the practical side of it can sometimes be difficult at the best of times and downright impossible at others.

Good news, Spencer seems to be back to his usual self again. Not been pacing or whining for the last couple of days, isn't wanting to go and stand on the balcony and sniff and is just more chilled out in general.

Spoke to the trainer last night, she asked a ton of questions and basically came to the same conclusion we have, that a class or even just regular controlled walks with other dogs would be of the biggest benefit in teaching him to control himself and pay attention to me with other dogs around. Nothing's been said that I didn't already know and she's in the process of moving house at the moment so it'll be a couple of weeks before she's able to meet with us. In the meantime it's just carry on with what I've been doing really. She does have dogs of her own and said that there's somewhere we could walk them but obviously she wants to see Spen first. Can't say I blame her, I would too. And she reckons early socialisation and training (or lack of it!) has had a lot to do with his behaviour but that it should be fixable. So...nothing I didn't already know but hopefully we'll get somewhere.


----------



## Werehorse

I hope the trainer can help you practically as well as just confirming what you suspect already, Sarah. Glad Spendog has settled a bit.

Now we've been stickied do we have to behave ourselves?  :crazy:


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## Izzysmummy

Woohoo! Stickied!


----------



## MollySmith

Cor look at us up here. I get vertigo


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Now we've been stickied do we have to behave ourselves?  :crazy:


If so , I'll get my coat... my silky leash, my chain mail gloves and my " kong extreme" and leave now :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I hope the trainer can help you practically as well as just confirming what you suspect already, Sarah. Glad Spendog has settled a bit.
> 
> *Now we've been stickied do we have to behave ourselves?*  :crazy:


Hmmm - discussing the shape of certain dog toys etc. might have to be coded....


----------



## kat&molly

:laugh:


moonviolet said:


> If so , I'll get my coat... my silky leash, my chain mail gloves and my " kong extreme" and leave now :lol:


:laugh: :laugh:

Is it just me- being stickied feels 'spooky'.
Bit like everyones watching.:w00t:


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> *Yes unfortunately as much as some of these 'behaviourist' like to spout in real life half of the methods are just not practical.
> *
> With regards to high value treats, I could put a piece of top quality fillet steak on Tremor's nose when she's about to do retrieve and she wouldn't be remotely interested. When you magnify that with a highly reactive dog, it simply isn't going to work.


Agree. The only way that we can work with Molly's lead reactivity has been on real life situations. I heard about what I should do but that made no odds to Molly - like you say best fillet in the world and that made no difference. We've had to slowly slowly build up a iron cast watch me and work from there. I think we'll always been working on it.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> when these sort of people share their bilge with me, I often long to say " while we're sharing unsolicited opinion I don't like your hair/shoes/ coat :devil:


mv - you are such a brilliant hag .

Hope Miss Tinks forgives the reduced breakfast and you have a great time today!



Twiggy said:


> Quite. All our dogs are precious and adored pets but it's the buzz and tingle you get when you just know with a puppy that the potential is there to excel in your chosen discipline.


I can only imagine. The only thing I can equate it to in my life is trying a sporting event for the first time and realising that you have the potential to be good at it .



kat&molly said:


> :laugh:
> 
> :laugh: :laugh:
> 
> Is it just me- being stickied feels 'spooky'.
> Bit like everyones watching.:w00t:


It does feel weird.

We have had a good morning together in the main. Went up to the top fields with both CHs; Rudi tried to jump and bite a few times as we started off; but it only took a few repetitions of stopping dead for him to realise that he wasn't going to go anywhere if he did it - so they both walked perfectly there. Then they had a nice play, good recalls and 'leaves'. When we left to go back home Rudi went absolutely banzai on the jumping and biting front, really frenzied - took me about 10 minutes to sort it out as he started again every time I moved. When we were just about sorted the hysterical woman with the DA pug and her kids came along, so I took the boys well out of the way and got them sat whilst they went past....and then they walked nicely home. We saw a few dogs and got past fine. As we got back into our street the nice lady with the two sibes was just leaving for her walk with a friend (who was walking one of her sibes) so we said hello to them....and then I had to laugh as they turned to go as the sibe her friend was holding made a dash for it and she was rocketed down the street :w00t:.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

I fear that now we have been stickied I may have to leave the thread.... I'm under the impression that all the stickies are very important and serious subjects.... Something I feel I cannot be a part of :lol: 

Oh and dogless - definitely ignore anyone who suggests that individual walks are unfair, what a load of tosh!!! I admire you for the amount of walks you are doing everyday in order to give the boys 1-2-1 time as well as time together, it's something I definitely should have done (and should still do) more with my two. For one thing I'm sure they would be much better at walking on lead and walking from home if I had  only got myself to blame


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## MollySmith

I feel a urge to be sensible now and not reveal that my dog is under the blankets in my bed and I'm on the landing as she is having a farty moment. I feel I ought to be saying that we did some proper training like.

I will get up and walk her in a mo, just a bit gobsmacked at reading about last night on here. Blimey, the mods were busy bees.

*Sarah 1983* - are you still on the FB Dog Training Challenge? I tried but was dumped! I think it was a while ago but I missed this event.


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I feel a urge to be sensible now and not reveal that my dog is under the blankets in my bed and I'm on the landing as she is having a farty moment. I feel I ought to be saying that we did some proper training like.
> 
> I will get up and walk her in a mo,* just a bit gobsmacked at reading about last night on here. Blimey, the mods were busy bees.
> *
> *Sarah 1983* - are you still on the FB Dog Training Challenge? I tried but was dumped! I think it was a while ago but I missed this event.


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## kat&molly

I sent OH to the field with Moll , told him to go the bottom and hide. I followed up with Scruff and Evie, they were tracking his scent , Scruff was going mad to get there.
I let Evie off when we got there-told her to find OH. Guess what she did- my clever little scenthound????









Well, she ran about 10 paces, stopped for a poo, then had mad zoomies, all the time I'm urging her on, Scruff going mad on lead- then she ran to the wrong end of the field, zoomied back and stumbled across OH and Moll. She stood there barking - until she realised who it was.:nonod:


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I sent OH to the field with Moll , told him to go the bottom and hide. I followed up with Scruff and Evie, they were tracking his scent , Scruff was going mad to get there.
> I let Evie off when we got there-told her to find OH. Guess what she did- my clever little scenthound????
> 
> Well, she ran about 10 paces, stopped for a poo, then had mad zoomies, all the time I'm urging her on, Scruff going mad on lead- then she ran to the wrong end of the field, zoomied back and stumbled across OH and Moll. She stood there barking - until she realised who it was.:nonod:


Sorry but :lol::lol::lol: that paints such a picture . Evie is just sooooo adorable .


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## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> I will get up and walk her in a mo, just a bit gobsmacked at reading about last night on here. Blimey, the mods were busy bees.
> 
> *Sarah 1983* - are you still on the FB Dog Training Challenge? I tried but was dumped! I think it was a while ago but I missed this event.


 What did I miss? What happened on here last night?

Yeah, I'm still on the fb dog training challenge. I've missed the odd day here and there but not enough to get me kicked off the group.


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


>


I can see one thread locked and I had no idea that people where sniffy about crossbreeds. I'd hate to moderate. I don't suppose it's anything major. Just uncomfortable.

kat&molly, well done Evie. Sounds like she got her prorities in order, poop, zommies, humans

OH has gone out with Molly today. We're at sixes and sevens. I had an awful night's sleep and sorting out the pitful excuse of an office probably meant I over did it with the shoulder so it's very sore. I've been left with washing, ironing and hoovering plus putting on the slow cooker. I think I have the wrong end of the stick here.


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## WhatWouldSidDo

> I'm still on the fb dog training challenge


What's that?

I'm off to a nature reserve with the puppy today, lots of birds, ducks, swans and geese for him to see


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## Sarah1983

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> What's that?
> 
> I'm off to a nature reserve with the puppy today, lots of birds, ducks, swans and geese for him to see


Have fun!

The challenge is to train your dog (or dogs) every day for at least a month. 
http://www.facebook.com/groups/dogtrainingchallenge/


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## Guest

I wondered why I couldn't find the thread hahaha. We've been stickied! 
Took him out, he sat for two shelties walking past (bounced after them when one barked though, but no crushed shelties so fine) and a spanner. Leapt towards a woman and scared the crap out of her and I'm stood there like "ZANDER NOO! I'M SO SORRY, WE'RE STILL LEARNING!" :blush:
But then he stood and watched as a couple went past and one was like "I didn't think them skinny dogs could be assistant dogs cause they run after things!" :lol: 

They can't but I just nodded while Zand stood there good as gold. If people thinking he's an assistance in training stops em trying to stroke him, letting there dogs meet him than fine by me. 

Oh and Sarah and Sharloid, Zanders threshold is abysmal, you could be two streets away and he'll fixate. :w00t:


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## Nicki85

Sharloid-the behavourist plan sounds quite positive... I am sure that once the situation is under control using the dogmatic you can go back to using flat collar or a harness. I understand the issue of treats- Rusty won't take them out on walks if he is in that "state" of mind. For him usually if he has been chasing stuff in the hedges and I've recalled him in- try and reward with food... nope doesn't work!!
Twiggy and JO- nothing to comment on I am in awe of both of you!
MS- Yes, really enjoyed it actually. It was really interesting- i'll take some pics when I get them back ( bit laughable compared to yours which are beautiful!)! I'd definitely go again  No idea what's up with Rusty and his reactions to other dogs- i'm glad he is starting to ignore them out on walks but need him to in agility as well. Struggling to picture Molly and your hubbies game... can we see a video ?!!! ;-)
DL- I can cope with deer but pheasants?!?!?!? Nope we lose all control! Rusty can be a bit like jaws and grab my hand accidentally when playing tug- I never tell him off either- he doesn't mean it and i'm pretty sure i'd spoil the game forever if I told him off!!
K&M- Evie still sounds like such a character- well done you working through all her issues.
Sarah- at least the behaviourist is on the same level as you on what needs to be done. Hopefully between you you can come up with a way of exposing and practicing round more dogs.

Also agree that individual walks are the best way forward especially when you get a new dog. It's simple things like teaching new dog that what their name is... you see so many pairs of dogs where as long as one does the right thing the other will follow. In an ideal world you want them both listening separately and responding to the different commands you give them- I don't believe you get to that level if you are only walking them together.

Bit worried that we are now sticky... do our posts need to be more useful now?!

We had a good walk this morning  Decided to try out the last path that we have not explored round the village which goes accross farmland. Farmland is one of nemisises due to the high number of pheasants in hedges... also Rusty will follow the fence line and can get very carried away. But I was feeling brave this morning! He was very good  Allowed him offlead through the arable fields but put him back on when I saw some pheasant feeders... in hindsight i'll let him off next time as most have dispersed now I think and it was a very quiet area. Might be a good spot for training as well. Then we went in to stock fenced fields with no holes to let the dogs through so I had to pick him up and throw him over 4 stiles... He was good though- no wiggling! Went through these fields on the lead as I would never risk him being off round sheep. I don't think he'd chase them but he would spook them which would be just as bad. We saw chooks, lamas, alpacas, horses, sheep, cows, donkeys and geese- definitely going to remember these paths for when the new pup arrives!!! Went back through one of our usual forests and he had some offlead time and he was fab. Really responsive and just generally a really nice dog to walk. 
I did get a scare though as there were two cockers running through the forest yapping and they ran right upto the road... so scary. Owner not in sight :-( they seemed confident as in not lost and wouldn't come to me so I had to leave them. Will check dog lost in a mo. though. 

We will do some tuggy and weave work later  

I went out last night to a party(!) and this guy just could not understand why I would enjoy working from home so I could be with the animals... how can you NOT understand?! I get home and there is one Springer and two cats sat in front of the door so I can't get in... Bless 'em!


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## cinnamontoast

Zak has been sick for two days after his water retrieval so didn't even go out yesterday! Today, he's back to zoomies but not really eating so he had a short run with training on sitting facing me to return the dummy. Bear had the same training: he leaps backwards once he gives up the dummy, like a little flourish!! Funny boy. However, he has now been sick twice since getting home, but seems fine


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## MollySmith

I am glad you enjoyed it Nicki, I took a City and Guilds in it many years ago. We all start somewhere, I have my first piece of copperfoiled glass on a shelf to remind me that I can get better! 

Yes I will have to post a video or a photo, they are nuts, silly pair! All this from the man who was so reluctant to get a dog :wink:

Today Molly had two big things. She didn't react once to to two off lead dogs that walked past her, OH got her to sit and she watched them pass but was a good girl whilst OH reminded the owners that they were in a car park. Beggars belief really it does.

Second breakthrough was recall. There was a huge game of tag in the dog field, Sundays are always really busy. Molly and OH were going to come home and he put her on lead (utterly unreative, he was most bemused!) but she gave the tinest of wimpers and he realised her best mate Nelson was leading the tag game so OH relented and let her off for a few minutes. Half an hour later  and it's time to go home. There are about 10 dogs hurtling around the field having fun and OH thinks he has no chance of getting Molly back. There is quick break in the game and he whistles along with four other freezing cold dog owners. Who come back first? Molly! To the awe of the other owners.

So proud of her.


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## Nicki85

Go Molly!!!


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## Twiggy

Well done Molly - what a good girl.


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## Sarah1983

Well done Molly  Isn't it fantastic when hard work starts to pay off like that?

I've just been reading Total Recall and have now got a plan of action for the next week or so. I've found the whistle I bought months ago and am going to be working through the exercises step by step. No skipping steps, no rushing them, we're going to do it properly. Might have problems when it comes to introducing other dogs or people as a distraction but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. So for the next few weeks I'll be practically living with a whistle around my neck and looking for opportunities to use it since it says to give the recall whistle whenever your dog is coming to you even if you're not doing a training session. Whistle is going nowhere near hubby until we have a solid recall with it coz otherwise he's highly likely to undo all the work I put in.

Nicki, glad you had a nice walk except for the cockers.

LO, I never actually found the distance where Rupert didn't fixate. If he thought a speck on the horizon was a dog that was it, he was frozen in place, eyes glued to it. Even the sound of a dog barking or tags (or keys!) jingling had him rooted in place with his head practically spinning in an attempt to see where the dog was.

K&M, your Evie does make me laugh :lol:


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## purpleskyes

We are focusing on socialisation at the moment and the new walking place we have found is great for this, lots of friendly dogs and owners. Hudson had a great time on the beachy part playing with 3 other dogs, also had some one on one with a retriever and a cockapoo. All positive interactions and he played with some families.


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## Werehorse

Good plan Sarah! 

I'm :lol:ing at Evie the scenthound and Zander the Guide dog... whichever blind person he ends up with better be able to run fast and climb over fences!

Well done super-speedy recalling Molly dog. 

12 mile run up and down Ennerdale for us today. 2 v.tired doggies and 2 knackered hoomins in this house again. Boys were lovely good dogs again.  They even dropped banana skins on command today! Even Oscar!  I think this is cos just the other day Oscar picked up a banana skin, I was luckily close enough to grab his harness which meant that when asked to drop he did (he does when he is close enough) and I stuffed about 10 biscuits in him! :lol: It must have made an impression.

Oh and food! Fishmongers is going down well, starting to add in some Wainwrights wet too. On the poo front we seem to have more poo at the moment (annoying) but there has been no liquid poos or "runners trots" poos on walks - which is basically a miracle. Oscar, even on raw, has always got the trots after 30-40 minutes of off-lead running and spent about 10 minutes stopping everysooften to do a few drops of liquid. But not happened yet on this stuff.

They have dropped some weight though I think but I remember someone saying something about that being fairly normal when changing to a new food. We'll see.


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## Nicki85

We had a fun afternoon  Let the chickens out for a play and then realised we couldn't do weave/ tug work as Rusty might have rewarded himself with a chicken. So... we did some watch me work round the chooks which was VERY hard for Mr. Rusty. But he did it and showed some good self-control. We then went for a walk and had a really good game of tug in the forest! Yay!

There were alot of noisy dogs around this afternoon so it wasn't very peaceful. Then a BC attacked Rusty :-( Rusty was in the bushes to the side of me and the BC came at him.. Rusty came running straight back to me so I got him on the lead really quick. The BC gave up and then made another attempt to get to Rusty. The owners (lady and man) half heartedly tried to call him away afterwards(?)- they obviously did not think he was going to listen so didn't bother. I shouted out for her to put her dog on the lead if it was aggressive- she muttered something back... I was annoyed by this point so followed it up with her being liable to vet bills and the like if there was any damage to mine. She carried on walking- didn't want confrontation I guess ;-) Gah! I was very ready to discuss it with her!! The chap with her did shout out sorry as he walked away. Rusty was fine thank fully.
Rusty being Rusty was not bothered and then went up to see a different BC playing ball. (which I recalled him away from before he got there!).

We put the chooks away when we got back and did some weave practice. 

Werehorse- I have no idea how you run 12miles! Walking yes... running no. Your boys sound fab 
Purpleskyes- glad you and Hudson have found somewhere nice to train/walk 
CT- Rusty had some sort of sickness bug couple of weeks ago... started with him throwing up randomly and then progressed. He was properly ill with it- not nice! Fingers crossed for your guys that it is just a one off.
Sarah- might have to put that book on my list!


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## kat&molly

Evie is available for hire for all SAR needs- perhaps Donkey boy could be her assistant.:

MSmith- Yay for Molly.
Isn't your OH good :huh: mines great with the girls but I dont let him loose to walk or train them. I've even taken every lead I own shopping with me just so that he cant.

Sarah, hope the whistle helps, I wouldn't be without one now.

Werehorse- hope the food continues to agree with them.

CT- hope the boys are better soon.

Nicki- at least Rusty didn't get too upset by the other dog having a go. Whats is wrong with people.

Pleased Hudson had a good time.


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## Jenny Olley

Nicky85 - poor Rusty glad he didn't seem to bothered and after he had shown good self control earlier.
MollySmith - love the stained glass, I am sure people would love to learn how to do it.
Do you all write notes as you read the thread, I seem to have forgotten what I was going to say by the time I've got here.

Been taking classes again today, so a bit less time for my own training.

However got a bit of distance down and retrieve training in prior to my 1st class.
After the last class, took Archie for a walk, loads going on, cars arriving, joggers, cyclists, footballers coming and kicking their balls to each other, out of control dogs mugging Archie, just a normal day on York Knavesmire. He once again did some retrieve, play and just some general messing. I was going to do a bit of sendaway, but it was way too busy, it would have all ended in tears, probably mine.


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## Dogless

Oh no CT - hope the boys get better.

Sarah - the thing about hubby not getting his hands on the whistle made me laugh!! It's familiar .

Werehorse - sounds like a thoroughly lovely day and pleased the food seems to be suiting.

Nicki - Glad that Rusty is OK - sounds like a good day apart from the BC.

MollySmith - amazing work from Molly .

We had a so - so afternoon.

*Rudi:* Walked him by himself to the offlead fields. He started to jump and bite before we'd even left the street so we returned to the house 4 times and he finally got the message and walked really nicely to the fields. Had 5 minutes' peaceful walk when the man with the rottie and rottie x walked in (the ones walked by his wife when Kilo was attcked by the rottie they had at the time). He spotted us and Rudi and his went onlead - we had a chat and they were let off to play and we were joined by a teeny tiny 5 month old spaniel puppy. They all had a nice play and Rudi came every time he was called .

Went to leave the fields, rotties and LCH onlead, spaniel offlead jumping all over Rudi and getting smacked for doing so each time; seeing as we were coming up to a busy road, I assumed she'd be put onlead soon...but no, the owner said he loved cocker spaniels as they didn't need to be onlead. So, jogger passes the field exit on pavement and is chased a short way by spaniel - duly called back and manhandled into a sit. Rotties sit and Rudi sits and then we cross. Spaniel puppy told to 'stay' and we walk over the road and into the first part of the abandoned estate. At this point, you can see the bit of road where the puppy is, but not further than 2m to the right of it as a hedge obscures the view. Man calls puppy over road with no idea if any traffic is coming. Luckliy none is so he's probably proud of his showboating .

So we carried on walking back, Rudi is walking really nicely to heel with the aid of loads of titbits as the spaniel is still leaping all over him. I am just about to say she'll just HAVE to go onlead as I am beginning to struggle with Rudi who is really losing concentration and I think if he gets any more frustrated he will.....That was as far as that thought went as horrendous launching at me commenced. The other two owners looked at me horrified as he hung off my arms and launched himself again and again. Each time I got him calmed and sat we moved off and he started again. Finally got him under control but I am so, so angry at myself :mad2::mad2:.

*Kilo:* Very lazily took him for my run with me for an hour or so. All absolutely fine apart from a little part where he started to air scent and dance and look wildly around. That usually means cat :w00t: so I kept an eye out. I then saw a couple of dogs turning into a street about 30m in front of us and he lunged and made his high pitched frustrated noise, hackles up. Very odd .

So - a prize for all those that read that; it was very cathartic. I feel better now but still like a total failure. My arms are black and blue. I might start tying sacking around them .

What was nice was that the rottie owner (who was away at the time of the attack) talked to me about it and apologised. That meant a lot - he even said sorry in front of the other owner; takes quite a big man to do that I think.


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## Sarah1983

Nicki85 said:


> Sarah- might have to put that book on my list!


It seems very good so far, step by step guide to building a solid recall. I just need to bloody stick with it instead of leaping ahead coz I'm too impatient to go through all the steps. We need a facepalm smiley.

Sorry Rusty was attacked today but glad he doesn't seem bothered by it and that no harm was done. I really don't understand why people can't keep control of their aggressive dogs! In the 8 years I spent living with one he never once got the opportunity to run up to another dog and attack it. Every single attack took place with him on leash, by my side and the other dog coming to him.

Dogless, you have a hell of a lot more patience than me. My inner hag would have come out I'm afraid. So it looks like you'll have yet another idiot who doesn't believe in leashes to contend with :nonod: It's just not on. Glad you had decent walks other than that though. And nope, hubby will not lay hands on this whistle until Spens recall is at the maintenance stage lol.


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## Jenny Olley

that poor Spaniel pup it will be lucky to survive to adulthood.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, you have a hell of a lot more patience than me. My inner hag would have come out I'm afraid. So it looks like you'll have yet another idiot who doesn't believe in leashes to contend with :nonod: It's just not on. Glad you had decent walks other than that though. And nope, hubby will not lay hands on this whistle until Spens recall is at the maintenance stage lol.


You know how it is here - such a small place and it is me that is the 'abnormal' owner for actually trying. I did tell him that if he saw me with my larger dog and he got jumped on too much he wouldn't take it as well .



Jenny Olley said:


> that poor Spaniel pup it will be lucky to survive to adulthood.


I know. There was a springer pup that used to run across the road to see Kilo and I a lot around autumn time. The owners used to roll their eyes and say "He's an idiot, he's got no road sense at all" . I haven't seen them for ages - hoping they've moved away rather than something bad befalling the dog .


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## Jenny Olley

I can never understand how people can be so careless with their dogs, when a dog dies it is heartbreaking how could you ever live with it being your fault.


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## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> I can never understand how people can be so careless with their dogs, when a dog dies it is heartbreaking how could you ever live with it being your fault.


I couldn't; but then I couldn't manhandle it in the way that the little pup was. Wonder if it makes the owner feel like quite the big man? .

Today I felt like the failure having a pup out of control and biting me though I must admit . Proud of his recall and lead manners before that though :w00t:.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I couldn't; but then I couldn't manhandle it in the way that the little pup was. Wonder if it makes the owner feel like quite the big man? .
> 
> Today I felt like the failure having a pup out of control and biting me though I must admit . Proud of his recall and lead manners before that though :w00t:.


It's not you who's the failure, it's the bloke who can't put a leash on his dog and keep it under control. And if it does jump all over Kilo like that and he reacts no doubt you'll get the whole "he's just a puppy, he just wants to play" spiel 

And yup, know only too well what it's like there. I wouldn't set foot out of the house with Rupert during daylight hours. And even that was no guarantee we'd avoid the leash free brigade.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- that sounds frustrating- it does seem like Rudi coped with a lot until he lost it, and that poor Spaniel-it doesn't stand a chance with an owner like that. Another one to avoid.
Its nice that you eventually got an apology.

JO- yes sometimes I have to make notes otherwise I forget everything.
Your Little Man is doing really really well.

Took Evie through the village, , no people again but she's doing well.
I took Scruff and she was just so bouncy and silly, it was lovely. 2 dogs barked at her and I didn't distract her in time so had a little bark back but stopped quickly.
Then Moll, after a couple of lungy minutes she calmed down and walked lovely, she ignored the other dogs. Its hard to believe how bad she used to drag me through this village at one time- she's[nearly] a dream now.


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## diefenbaker

Not done anything new for a long time so I've started to work with Dief on "spin". He does "twirl" anti-clockwise... so "spin" will be clockwise. There's no point to it really other than to exercise his brain. And another excuse to give him treats.


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## Werehorse

Dogless - that poor little spangle pup.  And you shouldn't feel like a failure at all. You know the jumping and biting thing is just a phase and you have a toolbox to help you through it.  We saw two gorgeous ridgies today - really well-muscled and quite chunky but not at all fat. They were lovely. They were on-leads so we sat ours by the side of the track so they didn't greet but as they went past I thought how tiny they made my two ickle skinny boys look. :lol:

JO - Archie sounds so impressive!

K&M - well done Molly for not dragging you about... it's a long road to nice wallking with a spanner!

Deifenbaker - Trick training for fun is all good. :thumbup:


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Dogless - that poor little spangle pup.  And you shouldn't feel like a failure at all. You know the jumping and biting thing is just a phase and you have a toolbox to help you through it.  We saw two gorgeous ridgies today - really well-muscled and quite chunky but not at all fat. They were lovely. They were on-leads so we sat ours by the side of the track so they didn't greet but as they went past I thought how tiny they made my two ickle skinny boys look. :lol:
> 
> JO - Archie sounds so impressive!
> 
> K&M - well done Molly for not dragging you about... it's a long road to nice wallking with a spanner!
> 
> Deifenbaker - Trick training for fun is all good. :thumbup:


It's really dog - tastic where you live isn't it? . I do indeed know that the jumping and biting happens; I'd forgotten quite how battered I'd get and quite how tenacious the biting can be :w00t:. It's embarrassing the way folk look at you though  .


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I couldn't; but then I couldn't manhandle it in the way that the little pup was. Wonder if it makes the owner feel like quite the big man? .
> 
> Today I felt like the failure having a pup out of control and biting me though I must admit . Proud of his recall and lead manners before that though :w00t:.


But it wasn't your pup that was out of control was it?

The only failure on your part is being much too nice a person. I'm afraid I'd have spelt it out in big letters to the imbecile with the Spaniel pup.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> We had a fun afternoon  Let the chickens
> 
> There were alot of noisy dogs around this afternoon so it wasn't very peaceful. *Then a BC attacked Rusty* :-( Rusty was in the bushes to the side of me and the BC came at him.. Rusty came running straight back to me so I got him on the lead really quick. The BC gave up and then made another attempt to get to Rusty. The owners (lady and man) half heartedly tried to call him away afterwards(?)- they obviously did not think he was going to listen so didn't bother. I shouted out for her to put her dog on the lead if it was aggressive- she muttered something back... I was annoyed by this point so followed it up with her being liable to vet bills and the like if there was any damage to mine. She carried on walking- didn't want confrontation I guess ;-) Gah! I was very ready to discuss it with her!! The chap with her did shout out sorry as he walked away. Rusty was fine thank fully.
> Rusty being Rusty was not bothered and then went up to see a different BC playing ball. (which I recalled him away from before he got there!).
> 
> Sarah- might have to put that book on my list!


Good for you Nicki. I'd have had strong words as well.


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I couldn't; but then I couldn't manhandle it in the way that the little pup was. Wonder if it makes the owner feel like quite the big man? .
> 
> Today I felt like the failure having a pup out of control and biting me though I must admit . Proud of his recall and lead manners before that though :w00t:.


No you are far from the failure, I think you did so well in the circumstances which were exceptionally hard.


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## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> But it wasn't your pup that was out of control was it?
> 
> The only failure on your part is being much too nice a person. I'm afraid I'd have spelt it out in big letters to the imbecile with the Spaniel pup.


 Think I would have decked them.


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## Twiggy

I've got Tremor slightly lame now. I noticed a lump above her tail when I was brushing her on Saturday and I think it's either a hair follicle or an abcess of some sort. There was gunge coming out of it this morning so I've bathed it in warm salt water several times today. As it's pretty much on the base of the spine I think it may be pulling on her right hip so she's not quite sound.

I'll see how it is in the morning and may take her to the vets, as I'm going anyway for Quiver's 3rd laser treatment.

My vet's bills since 9 January have been over £300 - 

If I get another barbed comment following on from the "I'm surprised anyone meets your exacting standards" last Friday I might get a tad snappy..!!

Talking of careers, especially as I'm skint, how do you think exotic pole dancer in OAP homes would go?.....


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## Beth17

Twiggy I hope Tremor is feeling better soon, that sounds quite uncomfortable  
Regarding the pole dancing I imagine the residents would love it, the carers maybe not so much 

Dogless what a pleb owner that poor spaniel has, I think Rudi coped really well considering 

Nicki what a shame about that collie, glad that Rusty didn't seem too affected by it.

12 miles Werehorse very impressive :smile5: I would love to give running a go especially as Sam seems quite good when we've had a quick jog. Whereas Oscar gets overexcited and jumps up Sam just runs at a steady pace and keeps looking at me. I don't expect I'd last for longer than a minute though.

Good walks today, this morning went up tot he field with them both and it was surprisingly quiet. The boys played nicely and Sam was completely focused on me and Oscar and wasn't really interested in the couple of dogs we did see, so hopefully I'm doing something right with him


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## moonviolet

Dogless dont' feel bad, if you dont' feel comfortable hagging it if you encounter in future, i'd be prone to avoid or making polite excuses to get away without incident  

K&M
Glad your girls are enjoying their village walks  

MS sounds like Molly was yoru gold star girl today. 

Sarah hope the step by step programme does the trick

JO sounds like a busy doggie day 

Nicki Glad Rusty is Ok after his unpleasant encounter. soudns liek his self control around the chooks is great 

Dief I'm great fan of dogs using their brains for fun 

CT hope their bellies settle soon, glad they are ok in themselves.

WH woohoo at banana skin resistance and blooming heck at 12 mile run. 12 mile i can do but run... not blooming likely.

sorry to anyone i have forgotten or get muddled... must remember to open notepad i as i go.

We had a blooming fantastic time today, come home with a fair bit of homework for the next month. Her ladyship was just brilliant focussed willing and a joy to be be training with. On the down side my coordination took a dip in the middle but i got myself back under control after we took a little break 
Also discovered our timing seems to fit some big band songs and even seemed to assist my coordination. 

We got home and she slept for 4 hours straight 

On the downside she did bark at a rather inebriated man on our evening pavement walk.... balance restored, my feet were placed firmly back on the ground as i apologised.

ETA well done beth's boys
Twiggy hope Tremor is better in the morning. 
As for pole dancing the sports shop in my village closed earlier this year adn is now a pole dancing studio ! not sure how we could turn it into a new dog sport :yikes:


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## Dogless

Twiggy - I liked your post for the pole dancing idea....now perhaps I could do that too; after all if they have failing eyesight it would be a bonus :w00t:.

I hope that Tremor is better in the morning - not much luck at your place recently .



MollySmith said:


> Think I would have decked them.


I couldn't have lifted my arm with Rudi hanging off it :w00t:. I'm lucky it's still attached to my body.

I do feel like I was out of control. I KNOW the spaniel man was thinking 'just give him a smack' as he was smacking his pup for anything and everything :nonod:. He was looking at me like I was a right fool!


----------



## Dogless

mv - so pleased it went well. I used to play in a Big Band...how about "Fly Me To The Moon"? Cracking tune! Or....the Muppet Show Theme...we did a fab version and it might fit your coordination dramas :w00t:.


----------



## Beth17

mv sounds like a great day. Doggy pole dancing, the mind boggles :crazy:

Dogless you may feel like you weren't in control but you were as you didn't have to resort to hitting Rudi. When pups get the devil in them sometimes all you can do is ride it out, especially if outside forces are affecting your training methods


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## Werehorse

Glad you had a good day, mv.  I love a bit of big band music.

Don't be too impressed with the 12 miles people, there was a fair bit of walking mixed in. Which is fine as at the moment we're focussing on building up to very big distances at an "all day" kind of pace. 

Beth - you really only need to be able to run for 60 seconds to get started! Get yourself a copy of a book called "Running Made Easy" and get cracking.


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## Izzysmummy

That sounds like quite the career overhaul Twiggy, not sure OAP homes will be such a good source of extra money, I remember when my Great Grandad was still alive and in a home he would send my nana to the bookies for him every week with his 20p bets. You'd be jangling with all that silver in your undies :lol:! On a more serious note I hope Tremors OK.

Sorry for not doing individual replies, I have been keeping up with the thread but not had time to post! 

So yesterday Izzy had a daddy doggy day with Tarnus as I had a lie in then met a friend for afternoon tea, which was lovely! Apparently she has been so hyper to get to the park and saw her friend Lilla who was stood at the bottom of a tree barking at a squirrel in the top branch so Izzy got very excited and ran round in circles barking to herself for a while to get the crazies out :w00t:!

Today I got her up and took her for a quick run at the park then came home and had breakfast and got ready to go to agility. It was a bit cold and wet but we had fun, she loves the jumps and would jump all day if she could :001_tt1:! We did some working on the left and right, then we started introducing the weaves and teaching her to "in" she was doing really well but then I stepped on her foot with my clumsy feet and she got a bit unsure of them but sure she'll get there. Then we did some work on the agility equipment so see saw, A frame and dog walk and she's getting much better with her steady command and actually making her contacts which is great, still need work but at least she's not leaping off the end of it all!

She's been pretty tired since then although came earlier asking for a play so we had a little game of fetch with a soft toy then a little game of tug followed by some zoomies then she went back to bed! 

Dogless bless Rudi, stupid owner letting his spanner get Rudi all wound up. 

MS well done Molly on her great recall, and I love your stained glass!


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> We had a blooming fantastic time today, come home with a fair bit of homework for the next month. Her ladyship was just brilliant focussed willing and a joy to be be training with. On the down side my coordination took a dip in the middle but i got myself back under control after we took a little break
> Also discovered our timing seems to fit some big band songs and even seemed to assist my coordination.
> 
> *It's certainly not easy is it? Even when you've got a routine up to scratch the dog only needs to miss a move to totally throw the timing out ..*
> 
> As for pole dancing the sports shop in my village closed earlier this year adn is now a pole dancing studio ! not sure how we could turn it into a new dog sport
> 
> *Well I think the least you can do it join. Then you can post tips for me....*


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## Twiggy

Arrggghhhhh I've just remembered we are now a respectable sticky.

I didn't mean pole dancing. It should have been ballroom....:blush:


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Arrggghhhhh I've just remembered we are now a respectable sticky.
> 
> I didn't mean pole dancing. It should have been ballroom....:blush:


Just keep digging Twiggy Singing:Singing:.


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## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> *It's certainly not easy is it? Even when you've got a routine up to scratch the dog only needs to miss a move to totally throw the timing out ..*
> 
> As for pole dancing the sports shop in my village closed earlier this year adn is now a pole dancing studio ! not sure how we could turn it into a new dog sport
> 
> *Well I think the least you can do it join. Then you can post tips for me....*


ermmmm do you think pole dancing would help with my coordination? not sure it would be good for OH's blood pressure. It can't be that shockign if the WI have been involved with it 

So much harder than i ever imagined, but so much fun I'm enjoying every minute. It really is something i wouldn't have even thought of doing if i hadn't been signing up to every possible class i could to help Tink have positive experiences after her being attacked. She chose it, she was ok at agility she didnt' mind learning the basics of triebball, but the joy and focus she shows for this is on a different level.


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## Guest

Dear me, I go away for a few hours and I come back to pole dancing. :lol: 

I've been at my dad's for a bit. Came back and apparently Zand spend the whole day curled up by my door, but mum wouldn't let him in unsupervised. (Even supervised you cannot guarentee there won't be an attempt to digest something awful) He's now curled up next to me on my bed.

OH OH OH and GUESS WHAT!? 

I saw a BORZOI!! It was greying around the muzzle and I asked the owner If I could stroke it and they said I could and its fur was glorious and it leant on me and holy haddocks it was loooooooovellllllllly, and I nattered with the owner who was suprised I knew what it was (most people think its a lurch), and just....just... :001_tt1: *melts into a mess*


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## Thorne

Apologies for my absence and lack of individual replies :blush: Have had a tough few days to be honest (What's new you say? I MUST stop moaning at you all!). After several talks, reconciliations, arguments and apologies over the last couple of weeks, the "OH" and I have called it a day. It's been a difficult one because neither of us have been sure what we want over the last month or so, but I think it's come to a sensible, and fairly amicable conclusion. A warning to all - long distance relationships can work, but they make every little thing much, much harder than a "normal" relationship!
Needless to say very I'm upset about it, but rather this than us end it with a hideous fight further down the line.
And for anyone wondering, Major is still with him and hopefully will be able to stay, depending on his work arrangements when he finds a new job. The man has a sensible head on him so I know that should the dog need rehoming in the near future he'll find him a good home. If I only had the 1 dog here I'd step up myself, but Dad is understandably adamant that 2 is more than enough! Mum wants a 3rd though 

Now that's off my chest, back to the dogs!

Scooter went out with Mum this afternoon, she's not walked him on his own for a while and came back beaming because he'd been fantastic again. Went the same route as I went with him yesterday and apparently his recall was on top form and once again, not a foot put wrong. Think that probably proves that his recent loss of recall has been due to a bitch in heat, fingers crossed we can go back to normal.

Did a bit of harness and fleece training with Breeze earlier to hopefully change her opinion on getting dressed up for a walk, and took her out for 45 mins after dinner. Kept our "getting ready" ritual to a minimum; put her fleece on a couple of hours beforehand and got myself ready out of sight. Did a bit of training in the hallway before chucking on her slip lead and leaving as seamlessly as possible!

She was fab! Big waggy tail, no panting, stopping, or shivering at all. Feel bad about this given Dogless' encounter with the nutter whose Spaniel didn't "need" a lead, but after a while I let her off and she trotted along the pavements offlead.
--_I would never do this during the day, but felt confident doing so tonight as I can hear and see cars long before they're anywhere near; barely saw any because we're fairly rural and put her back onlead as soon as I did. She's quite velcro-y and barely left my side, and bless her, she doesn't seem to have a prey drive to worry about! Wouldn't dare do this with Scooter at any time of day!_--
After friday's failed outing I think that some offlead time benefited her, she's always 10x more confident without one on. Did a lap of the rec, which she loved, and had a dentastix break on a bench. Super girl tonight, nudged me for treats when we got passed by 4 cars in a row 

Still don't know what got into her on friday, maybe she just couldn't be bothered. Silly girl.

Blue Cross tomorrow, Poppy is still off the website so is either still reserved or has been homed! Will report back, it would be fab if this works out for her but I'll miss the little monkey.


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## Thorne

MV - Your mention of big band music has reminded me of a youth production of "Barnum" I did several years ago. Lots of big band songs with a circus theme, could make for some fun routines  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Barnum-Various/dp/B00006GOD0


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## Werehorse

Sorry to hear your news Thorne, it is probably for the best but it doesn't stop it being sad and difficult.  *hugs and tea*

LO - A borzoi!! Jealous, don't think I've ever seen one of them!


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## Dogless

Thorne - I am sorry that you have had such a difficult few days but at least you now know exactly where you stand, things have remained on civil terms and you know that Major will be OK. I know that it still feels rubbish though - look after yourself xx.

Well done to Scooter and Breeze today - especially Breeze. I hate, hate offlead dogs near roads at any time of day I must admit - but I'm sure you know all the reasons I could spout as there have been a zillion threads on it on here.

Fingers crossed that Poppy has found a forever home.


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## Werehorse

This photo from today made me laugh...










And so did this one. :lol:


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## Dogless

Love the photos Werehorse; they just gave me a real smile - needed one today .


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## Thorne

Werehorse said:


> Sorry to hear your news Thorne, it is probably for the best but it doesn't stop it being sad and difficult.  *hugs and tea*


Thank you, have not long had a lovely cup of tea and some apple crumble, good old comfort food!



Dogless said:


> Thorne - I am sorry that you have had such a difficult few days but at least you now know exactly where you stand, things have remained on civil terms and you know that Major will be OK. I know that it still feels rubbish though - look after yourself xx.
> 
> Well done to Scooter and Breeze today - especially Breeze. I hate, hate offlead dogs near roads at any time of day I must admit - but I'm sure you know all the reasons I could spout as there have been a zillion threads on it on here.
> 
> Fingers crossed that Poppy has found a forever home.


Thank you too, it is definitely a relief to know where we both stand, and after seeing my sister go through a horrendous break-up last year I'm actually quite grateful that it's ended the way it has!

The offlead walking isn't a habit I want to get into and to be honest I had a "that was _really_ daft of me" moment after we got home. I'm lucky to have Breeze the velcro dog, and to live in such a quiet area. 
More than anything I'm pleased that the little madam actually enjoyed her walk tonight, hopefully she'll still be keen tomorrow!


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## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> This photo from today made me laugh...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Hugo" He's doing that teleport thing again."*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Hugo:"Ha!! landing on Hoooman's right foot, that'll teach him to look before he teleports"*


Great pics  

Thorne Sorry to hear you an your OH have broken up, glad it was amicable. Hope Poppy has a new home and glad Breeze had a good one today.

LO I had to rep you for your unbridled enthusiasm and the religious fish :lol:


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## kat&molly

Twiggy- Hope Tremor is doing better this morning.

Moonviolet- sounds like you and Miss Tink had a great time- brt you cant wait for the next one.

Thorne- so sorry to hear you've decided to split. Never easy , chin up.

Lovely pics of Hugo and Oscar.


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## Dogless

I don't want to go out in this weather :scared: :yikes:. That is all.




Ooooooooh....yellow snow warning for this evening though.....


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I don't want to go out in this weather :scared: :yikes:. That is all.
> 
> Ooooooooh....yellow snow warning for this evening though.....


Sorry the weather is bad.... does it make me immature that I giggle every time hear anyone say _yellow snow _warning.....


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## Twiggy

Thorne - So sorry things haven't worked out and sending you a hug.

Dogless - Please keep the snow over there and if you meet yet more idiot dog owners today try and find your inner hag..!!

Werehorse - Love the pics.


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## MollySmith

Twiggy  I am so sorry about Tremor, I hope she is a bit better this morning? Maybe we should all take up pole dancing? Pole dancing with dogs err maybe not!

Nicki  I hope Rusty is okay

Moonviolet  good luck with your homework

Dogless  I can appreciate that you may have felt out of control but at least youre not daft like the spaniel owner to smack a dog. You were in a big bad? Wow!

Izzysmummy  agility sounds like so much fun, I really must think about this for Molly. You sound like you all had a great weekend.

Thorne - I am so sorry to hear your sad news, I hope today you feel a little brighter? ((hugs)) Good for Breeze, its the little things that make it all so rewarding and well done Scooter too.

Werehorse  I love your pics. You are inspiring us to come to Cumbria for our hols and to do a bit more running with Molly to shift the pounds. Your OH looks like he could do well with heelwork and music 


We still have no news about Buster but it has got us thinking about adding to our family. We both agree that Molly would love another dog around , well at least she shows all the signs of being agreeable. Its not the greatest time to do that yet as Ive no idea what will happen with my life right now, there is a chance we might still do IVF this year despite the job problem. Sort of feeling a bit overwhelmed by life today and wish so much I was at home. Plenty of time for that soon!


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## kat&molly

Meg, is here , we've all just had a nice walk. My girls said hello to her one at a time and they were just lovely- so calm, even Jay.
A little problem, she wees a bit when someone speaks to her, its something she's always done apparently, I think its because she's so insecure.
Its not every time, obviously to greet her , its better to call her outside, but now she's a bit out of sorts being in a strange house so she's lying in the other room if I go and speak to her she'll get worried and pee.

If I miss any it might start my girls doing it over the top mighten it? Anyone any thoughts on that?

Her owner is collecting her at 4.00 and I'll try and make sure she goes home as tired as possible.

I will ask later about posting some pics- she's overweight but is on horrible supermarket food, and the size of the 2 poos she just had...:scared:


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## Izzysmummy

K&M - Aw, poor Meg, at least she is having a nice day out with you and your girls, Im sure she'll settle soon and realise nothing bad is going to happen to her and the weeing will stop. 

Mv - yellow snow warning!! :lol:

Dogless - Hope todays walk goes well with a bit less devil puppy-itis!

Dogless and Twiggy - I forgot to mention that Izzy got a bit enthusiastic about taking her treat when I did a recall to heel at the park yesterday morning and Ive now got a blood blister on my hand (OK....its tiny , but can I still join the blood, sweat and bruises crew?) 

MS - Im sure Molly would love a little companion when the time is right. Got everything crossed for you to get your IVF!

Werehorse - lovely pics of the boys!


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## Dogless

MollySmith - it's totally understandable that you feel overwhelmed right now; anyone would. Try and look after yourself xx.

k&m - you are such a good person; I truly hope that what you are doing is appreciated.

Izzysmummy - it's a start 

Hard work but ultimately good morning here at Concrete Central. The gales kept me awake a lot of the night and were still going strong this morning, so I thought that it was definitely a separate walks morning - both can be crackers in the wind and Rudi is obviously in his jump/bite phase too .

*Kilo:* Took the BW out first. Had cheese and clicker and was intending to do quite a bit of work, but as soon as we were out of the door Kilo was in dressage pony mode and air scenting, head up, ears back and anything that moved at all - traffic, people, dogs had him all alert. So we did about 4 or so miles of pavement walking and it was all he could manage to walk nicely for me; took all his concentration. We went past the DA pug doing his thing without any dramas which was good. He was going to have a little offlead this morning and some play as a reward however I wasn't letting him off when he was finding it so hard to focus. Anyway; hard work but he did do well.

*Rudi:* Walked very nicely to the offlead fields. One tiny effort at jumping and biting stopped by me standing stock still. Got to the fields and got flattened by the two sibes we know as soon as we got inside the gate (I hadn't seen them, they came racing around the corner). I let Rudi off as he was getting freaked on his lead and he had a little play but wasn't bothered really; he recalled to me every time :thumbup: and preferred to stay with me; we were playing a bit of tuggy with his ball on rope but the sibes took it to go and chew so I got it back and put it away. They took Kilo's tuggie the other day so I should have known better. I was chuffed with Rudi though - he kept breaking off for little plays but listened to me the whole time :thumbup:. Then a woman with a BC that we know came in - ideal as her dog has no interest in other dogs at all, he just likes his ball. So I did a bit of play and training with Rudi whilst her dog chased his ball.

He launched a severe jump and bite effort half way home, you'll be pleased to hear that there was blood Twiggy . I used the 'attach lead to lamp post and step back out of reach' method that cured Kilo's very quickly and it seems to be working. He tried 5 times in total so it took us ages to get home, but by the 4th and 5th times as I headed towards a lamp post he stopped of his own accord .


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## Guest

K&M you deserve a proper gold star for what you do for other peoples dogs as well as your own. 
Thorne- (hugs) 

It was realllllllllllllllllllllllly windy today. Although with his jacket on Zand was still a bit :eek6: as we went around an about, so I kept the walk short. Don't want any freak outs when they're not needed. 
Ohh, he stood nicely and didn't even attempt to jump on a border terrier while it's owner dithered about, (she went up the road then came sprinting back down cause she forgot to lock her door), he was eating an apple he found throughout so wasn't bothered. 
And he got cuddled by a lady in the charity shop. Who then asked while cuddling him, if it was alright to cuddle him while in his special coat.
Bit late woman. :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Woah too much going on this weekend, I feel like we are being watched  now we are stuck up here cos lets face we will be staying at the top for quite some time 

The idea of Evie and Zander wandering the country ready to save and assist has me giggling a lot 

Way to go Molly on her recall and unreactiveness, that must have been awesome, its amazing when they do something that makes you proud, I am normally so gobsmacked I forget to praise and reward 

Sarah that sounds like a recall plan, it is really hard to follow exercises to the the letter isn't it , they seem so tedious but I am sure it pays off, *if *you stick to it 

CT hope the boys are better today 

PS glad you are getting some socialisation in for your boy at last.

Werehorse - hope the food continues to show improvements its a worry when things aren't quite right, brilliant photos 

Nikki Glad Rusty was ok, Border collies huh, our friends Rosie dog decided to have a go at Tamzin 'the wolfhound' on Friday , why people think they are all cute fluffies I don't know, I am always very suspicious of BC's  (sorry twiggy and jenny  I was going to remove this comment, but its true, I just don't trust them, Rosie has been the bane of our lives for the last 10 years, more so now, Rory could handle himself and she knew he could pin her but I just see Ginge being bitten in two  but her owner just thinks shes his baby and can do no wrong)

Dogless I read your post (the one 3,000 pages away ) as 'Rudi walked himself'  How maddening with the spaniel, its daft isn't it we so know what we should do and so often just don't when there are others involved , I have to really think 'whats best for my dog' and do it now and then I might make the right decisions some of the time  and I so understand about the out of control feeling (and uselessness I get as well) when people are looking at you thinking 'belt it one you idiot' how can being positive feel so negative sometimes. Glad the Rottie owner had the guts to apologise though  Also glad you had better walks this morning despite the winds best efforts.

Jenny I keep another window open for my reply as I scroll through reading  I had a newsletter from our behaviourist today they are running a scent workshop by Pam Mackinnon, got all excited  but its not till September  I might well book an observers place, we will have had Ginge exactly a year on the day it is run but who knows if she will have improved, I certainly hope so 

Twiggy hope Tremors ok, such a worry the old girls are  and i am sure you will make a killing with your new career move 

Beth - its great as most all of your posts are positive nowadays 

MV - sounds like you had a fantastic time , I am so glad HWTM doesn't float my boat, I would be horrendously disappointed as my co-ordination is atrocious  Personally I don't blame Tink for barking at drunk men Ginge is very unsure as well, I am sure she was repaying the favour and protecting you (I know its not really desired :frown.

LO - bless Zander for missing you see theres a big fat bond there you just need to get him to realise that means he has to do stuff for you 

Thorne  Sorry. Sounds like Breeze helped cheer you up though, they just seem to know when they need to step up sometimes don't they, and it would be fabulous if Poppy has a home 

K&M - you are a star  with Megs weeing, she may grow out of it once she feels more confident and settled (not that she is settling ) our old girl Misty used to do it when Dad got home, just getting her outside to greet him helped, as she wasn't worried about weeing in the house, we thought.

Phew!! Done catch up!! Now my news!


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## Werehorse

All my doggie books arrived today!  

Happy reading days coming up. Only disappointment - I bought one of those autobiographical dog books you get, this one about a chap and his search and rescue dogs... just had a quick look at the pictures and there's one of the author with bliddy CM dog-abuser and he's not punching him in the face - he's grinning and holding one of his books.


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## GingerRogers

Well a mixed weekend here, had a lovely morning on Saturday as I posted, slightly grumpy hubby in the afternoon but was assured it was just because he was trying to watch the Rugby  I suspected otherwise but was verging on dangerous ground, we went out in the evening and took the ninja for a play with Rudi, which was all going well till a treat caused a row, Ginge dropped it and Rudi went in for the kill before she got there, he is a bit of a dustbin, spent most of the evening with his nose in my pocket or pawing at the table trying to get the treat bag, then the ninja decided she was going to start guarding Rudis owner :frown: Got home and hubby erupted as I apparently haven't been agreeing with him enough and am too contradictory, my response probably didn't help. 'If you didn't talk out your a*** all the time I wouldn't need to' . So I went out for a midnight walk and slept on the sofa with my doggy. 

Yesterday we started off on a walk that was meant to be not too long as I was going to get back and do decorating but after we had waded through about 1/4 mile of ankle deep mud I decided I didn't want to turn round go back through the mud (nor go back and decorate on my own in a house with someone I wasn't allowed to talk to) so we carried on knowing that I could hit the byway and get back to the car that way :scared: my god that snow has a lot to answer to. Ginge had 3 layers of different gunk plastered over her legs and belly. First she jumped in the bog (the start of the walk was through a prehistoric feeling birch swamp) then we got to the outskirts of the marshes and the miles of ankle deep mud, then we got to the normally busier upper paths which have grey chippings on, I thought to make the paths more weatherproof and protect the banks, it was ninja deep in grey sludge, she looked like she had dipped herself in concrete. I was so relieved when we finally made it out, we passed some reedcutters having lunch which was quite picturesque, I knew I was going to be on the road soon so was able to keep going and not sink down and ask them to share  finally I could see the tarmac, but there was a barbed wire topped fence between us and it :mad2: nothing for it but to lob the little one over (the benefits of little ones) and clamber over at much danger to my nether region  I knew it was only a mile and a half from there to the car and although the tarmac runs out its still fairly easy walking. We saw only one dog free couple at the grey sludge, he only had trainers on but was laughing at his misfortune  it was great till we could see the car and an off lead spaniel bursts out the undergrowth  oh well it could have been worse. Someone had a shower when we got in, I am glad I didn't, see later!!

I worked out it was only about 6 miles but it felt like 12, like something out L/C's mental assault course 

Escaped again to meet my friend at our favourite harbour pub and got covered in river mud and dead seal  Buffer had found it on the beach  we had a little alcohol and walked back with her two, and had a good old fashioned loose woman style rant together 

This mornings walk was much less eventful just a quick trot round the block which was going so well until she decided the bus got too close so barked it away, which started the GSD and westie off (and something else by the sounds of it I hope they haven't accumulated another as the first two never get out) she was quite good and didn't really react to them too much, lots of liver cake chucked ahead of her to keep her moving past, round the corner to a stand off. A lady with another westie, she has stopped across the road, I have stopped, which way are either of us going  she shoveled treats in, I shoveled treats in then I backed down and went the other way, ninja was quite good just ruffing really no proper barks.

Cor feel better for getting that out, sorry if rantings not allowed in the new improved stickied thread rrr:


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## Guest

I have literally just got back from cuddling a ten year old pembroke corgi.
:001_tt1:


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## moonviolet

Wooohoo Izzymumys got a blood blister. I have a small bruise on my thigh form a rather odd flying beagle moment when I leant back against a fallen tree and a certain little lady thought she coudl sit on my vertical lap resulting in a rather awkward catch. Still no bllod here i must be doing it all wrong.

GR something must have been in the air yesterday me and Oh had a bit of a ding dong yesterday its not that i dont' take a our disagreement seriously but while we were throwing comments back and forth i was calmly making dinner and asking him questions about which veg he'd prefer 

K&M i'd try to ignore Meg as much as possible and just let her observe and quietly find her way around, Keeping the excitement to a minimum, is it possible for her owner to drop off a bed or blanket with her when she comes. I know when i take Tink to my parents i take one of her blankets in so she has a place that is hers.

Twiggy hope Tremor is better today.
CT hope the boys tummies are better.
Evie and Zander as a rescue team would be quite a combo.... I saw this and thought of Zander 


WH happy reading 

Dogless sounds liek an exceptionally well managed morning :thumbup:

MS I hope you get through this turbulent patch and get to calmer times soon.

TInk was a blooming star on our walk this morning as we arrived a GSD group walk was just leaving. All onlead/ under close control. The lady in front had her 3 and was about to step off the path to pass. I called out and sai no need i'd take the branch off to the side . So she slowed so i coudl get there. Tink was calm but cautious. Then was totally under threshol watching the whole group pass while we played look at that and she got lots of nice tasty tidbits. I was so happy following this i began singing some of the songs i am considering ( imagine a tortured cat and you'll be close to the sound of me singing) sadly i was so happy i didn't notice some soldiers laying in the unergrowth, and fell over in the mud when i did, i coudln't get up for laughing. so at least i gave some of britains finest a little cabaret :lol:

Ginge it's Tink's twisted sense of humour that we're "dancing". I think it's possibly up there with the hardest doggie sports. On the music front I think we'll be choosing something on the slow side :lol:

By way of celebration of the wind getting up she has torn up a cardboard box and charged around the garden with a flowerpot :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Sigh, this sticking to the exercises is hard work and I've only been at it a day! We're still at the blow whistle (3 pips I'm using for recall) and immediately feed dog a high value treat stage. Now Spen's got that already since anything involving food is picked up at the speed of light. But we've got another day of this yet and it's soooo tempting to skip ahead. But then I think well is this several days of doing this helping build a strong association with the whistle and good stuff? It seems very slow at the moment but the author does say it's important not to skip steps so I guess I'll keep plugging away at it. I've got at least a week of what feels like pointless stuff to do, what she calls "pre recall" stuff. Anyone want to lend me some patience? 

Ginge, sounds like you've had some interesting walks!

MV, I must be doing something wrong too, I don't get blood drawn. I have however been body slammed to the ground a few times because Spen gets over enthusiastic. And I've had several black eyes and more bruises than I can count.


----------



## Dogless

GR - what an eventful weekend - how did I know there would be a pub involved? 

mv - it's amazing that Miss Tinks can cope with a GSD group walk now; you have done so, so well.



Werehorse said:


> All my doggie books arrived today!
> 
> Happy reading days coming up. Only disappointment - I bought one of those autobiographical dog books you get, this one about a chap and his search and rescue dogs... just had a quick look at the pictures and there's one of the author with bliddy CM dog-abuser and he's not punching him in the face - he's grinning and holding one of his books.


The Neil Powell one?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Sigh, this sticking to the exercises is hard work and I've only been at it a day! We're still at the blow whistle (3 pips I'm using for recall) and immediately feed dog a high value treat stage. Now Spen's got that already since anything involving food is picked up at the speed of light. But we've got another day of this yet and it's soooo tempting to skip ahead. But then I think well is this several days of doing this helping build a strong association with the whistle and good stuff? It seems very slow at the moment but the author does say it's important not to skip steps so I guess I'll keep plugging away at it. I've got at least a week of what feels like pointless stuff to do, what she calls "pre recall" stuff. Anyone want to lend me some patience?
> 
> Ginge, sounds like you've had some interesting walks!
> 
> MV, I must be doing something wrong too, I don't get blood drawn. I have however been body slammed to the ground a few times because Spen gets over enthusiastic. And I've had several black eyes and more bruises than I can count.


Sarah, I am pretty sure that, compared to me, you're doing it right!!


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> K&M - Aw, poor Meg, at least she is having a nice day out with you and your girls, Im sure she'll settle soon and realise nothing bad is going to happen to her and the weeing will stop.
> 
> Mv - yellow snow warning!! :lol:
> 
> Dogless - Hope todays walk goes well with a bit less devil puppy-itis!
> 
> *Dogless and Twiggy - I forgot to mention that Izzy got a bit enthusiastic about taking her treat when I did a recall to heel at the park yesterday morning and Ive now got a blood blister on my hand (OK....its tiny , but can I still join the blood, sweat and bruises crew?) *
> 
> MS - Im sure Molly would love a little companion when the time is right. Got everything crossed for you to get your IVF!
> 
> Werehorse - lovely pics of the boys!


Oh yes enthusiastic bites certainly means you can join our crew....


----------



## Twiggy

*Rudi:* Walked very nicely to the offlead fields. One tiny effort at jumping and biting stopped by me standing stock still. Got to the fields and got flattened by the two sibes we know as soon as we got inside the gate (I 
He launched a severe jump and bite effort half way home, you'll be pleased to hear that there was blood Twiggy . I used the 'attach lead to lamp post and step back out of reach' method that cured Kilo's very quickly and it seems to be working. He tried 5 times in total so it took us ages to get home, but by the 4th and 5th times as I headed towards a lamp post he stopped of his own accord .[/QUOTE]

That's similar to the method I use when the launching and biting gets a bit too much.

Obviously mine are much smaller than RRs so I just hold them away at arms length and ignore them until they calm down a bit.

I know I invite and encourage Holly to have a nip when we're training, but there is a time and place.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Rudi:* Walked very nicely to the offlead fields. One tiny effort at jumping and biting stopped by me standing stock still. Got to the fields and got flattened by the two sibes we know as soon as we got inside the gate (I
> He launched a severe jump and bite effort half way home, you'll be pleased to hear that there was blood Twiggy . I used the 'attach lead to lamp post and step back out of reach' method that cured Kilo's very quickly and it seems to be working. He tried 5 times in total so it took us ages to get home, but by the 4th and 5th times as I headed towards a lamp post he stopped of his own accord .


That's similar to the method I use when the launching and biting gets a bit too much.

*Obviously mine are much smaller than RRs so I just hold them away at arms length and ignore them until they calm down a bit.
*
I know I invite and encourage Holly to have a nip when we're training, but there is a time and place.[/QUOTE]

That gets quite hard as he's so big and powerful already. We'll get there, took me ages of trying other methods with Kilo but the lamp post thing cracked it fast so I am hoping it does with Rudi too. I knew it would happen today as it's so massively windy and everything is moving!!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Woah too much going on this weekend, I feel like we are being watched  now we are stuck up here cos lets face we will be staying at the top for quite some time
> 
> The idea of Evie and Zander wandering the country ready to save and assist has me giggling a lot
> 
> Way to go Molly on her recall and unreactiveness, that must have been awesome, its amazing when they do something that makes you proud, I am normally so gobsmacked I forget to praise and reward
> 
> Sarah that sounds like a recall plan, it is really hard to follow exercises to the the letter isn't it , they seem so tedious but I am sure it pays off, *if *you stick to it
> 
> CT hope the boys are better today
> 
> PS glad you are getting some socialisation in for your boy at last.
> 
> Werehorse - hope the food continues to show improvements its a worry when things aren't quite right, brilliant photos
> 
> *Nikki Glad Rusty was ok, Border collies huh, our friends Rosie dog decided to have a go at Tamzin 'the wolfhound' on Friday , why people think they are all cute fluffies I don't know, I am always very suspicious of BC's  (sorry twiggy and jenny  I was going to remove this comment, but its true, I just don't trust them, Rosie has been the bane of our lives for the last 10 years, more so now, Rory could handle himself and she knew he could pin her but I just see Ginge being bitten in two  but her owner just thinks shes his baby and can do no wrong)*
> 
> Dogless I read your post (the one 3,000 pages away ) as 'Rudi walked himself'  How maddening with the spaniel, its daft isn't it we so know what we should do and so often just don't when there are others involved , I have to really think 'whats best for my dog' and do it now and then I might make the right decisions some of the time  and I so understand about the out of control feeling (and uselessness I get as well) when people are looking at you thinking 'belt it one you idiot' how can being positive feel so negative sometimes. Glad the Rottie owner had the guts to apologise though  Also glad you had better walks this morning despite the winds best efforts.
> 
> Jenny I keep another window open for my reply as I scroll through reading  I had a newsletter from our behaviourist today they are running a scent workshop by Pam Mackinnon, got all excited  but its not till September  I might well book an observers place, we will have had Ginge exactly a year on the day it is run but who knows if she will have improved, I certainly hope so
> 
> Twiggy hope Tremors ok, such a worry the old girls are  and i am sure you will make a killing with your new career move
> 
> Beth - its great as most all of your posts are positive nowadays
> 
> MV - sounds like you had a fantastic time , I am so glad HWTM doesn't float my boat, I would be horrendously disappointed as my co-ordination is atrocious  Personally I don't blame Tink for barking at drunk men Ginge is very unsure as well, I am sure she was repaying the favour and protecting you (I know its not really desired :frown.
> 
> LO - bless Zander for missing you see theres a big fat bond there you just need to get him to realise that means he has to do stuff for you
> 
> Thorne  Sorry. Sounds like Breeze helped cheer you up though, they just seem to know when they need to step up sometimes don't they, and it would be fabulous if Poppy has a home
> 
> K&M - you are a star  with Megs weeing, she may grow out of it once she feels more confident and settled (not that she is settling ) our old girl Misty used to do it when Dad got home, just getting her outside to greet him helped, as she wasn't worried about weeing in the house, we thought.
> 
> Phew!! Done catch up!! Now my news!


Very wise. There's been a few over the years that I haven't trusted either.....

Actually if you ask most decent trainers and behaviourist they will agree. Most dogs are polite enough to warn you when they are about to bite but collies rarely do and they're very quick with it...!!


----------



## Beth17

mv what a brilliant walk Tink did so well! but why do the embarrassing things always happen when people are around 

Enjoy the books Werehorse, fabulous pictures of the boys by the way really made me smile 

Ginge sounds like the ninja did well, dead seal sounds lovely 

What a brilliant morning Dogless sounds like good progress with Rudi.

Sarah keep going as tedious as it is I'm sure you'll see results soon. I'm just as bad for being impatient.

LO Zander did really well

k&m I hope Meg settles and becomes more comfortable soon.

Fantastic morning today probably one of my best walks with both of them. Both were really focused and Sam was happily going past other dogs offlead without batting an eyelid. He was watching and noticing other dogs and then carrying on playing and we had a spaniel come charging over a few times and both boys calmly sniffed it and then Sam came back to play first.
In fact the only slip up was right at the end just before I put them back on lead and Sam ran back dwon the path with the frisbee and Oscar followed  They bumped into the spaniel again and a labrador it was now with and calmly said hello again and not a word from Oscar :thumbup:

I'm really pleased with how Sam is getting on when out and about considering how young he is still and it's lovely the freedom he can have, hopefully it bodes well for the future 

Ooh their Tuffie bed arrived a couple days ago and I love it, it's really comfortable. It's taken them a day or so to get used to it but now they're quite happy to sleep on it all day.


----------



## L/C

We're a sticky! How posh  And I noticed a spam post a few pages back - ladies we have arrived!

The weekend was mostly spent in the foetal position after a rather heavy saturday night too.  But I have lost 3 lbs on a weekend where I ate lots, drank lots and then ate some more because I was drunk and it seemed like a good idea. :blink: So that's my new diet plan. 

Training session went well on Saturday and we now have some scent discrimination stuff to work on. Ran into some idiots on Sunday but breathe and let it go. 

Ely has had a couple of short walks and no sign of his limp returning so far - so fingers crossed it was just a pulled muscle.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Well a mixed weekend here, had a
> finally I could see the tarmac, but there was a barbed wire topped fence between us and it :mad2: nothing for it but to lob the little one over (the benefits of little ones) *and clamber over at much danger to* *my nether region*  I knew it was only a mile and a half from there to the car and although the tarmac runs out its still fairly easy walking. We saw only one dog free couple at the grey sludge, he only had trainers on but was laughing at his misfortune  it was great till we could see the car and an off lead spaniel bursts out the undergrowth  oh well it could have been worse. Someone had a shower when we got in, I am glad I didn't, see later!!
> 
> I did that and didn't make it resulting in a huge abcess. The doctor was horrified and wanted to send me to hospital to have it lanced. As I was judging in Holland about three days later I persuaded her to prescribe antibiotics. Bet the Dutch thought English women judges walk a bit oddly.....


----------



## Guest

Have just realised I am part of your 'crew' twiggy when I think about how its been about three months since Zand has had an arm clamping bruising tantrum. He's gonna be 18 months on the 3rd of march. :

Well done to those who've I've probably missed!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Wooohoo Izzymumys got a blood blister.
> *Ginge it's Tink's twisted sense of humour that we're "dancing". I think it's possibly up there with the hardest doggie sports. On the music front I think we'll be choosing something on the slow side* :lol:
> 
> That sounds sensible. A friend of mine with a Collie/Beardie cross decided to do the 'Can Can' - it nearly killed her and she was very red in the face by the time she finished the routine.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Sigh, this sticking to the exercises is hard work and I've only been at it a day! We're still at the blow whistle (3 pips I'm using for recall) and immediately feed dog a high value treat stage. Now Spen's got that already since anything involving food is picked up at the speed of light. But we've got another day of this yet and it's soooo tempting to skip ahead. But then I think well is this several days of doing this helping build a strong association with the whistle and good stuff? It seems very slow at the moment but the author does say it's important not to skip steps so I guess I'll keep plugging away at it. I've got at least a week of what feels like pointless stuff to do, what she calls "pre recall" stuff. Anyone want to lend me some patience?
> 
> Ginge, sounds like you've had some interesting walks!
> 
> *MV, I must be doing something wrong too, I don't get blood drawn. I have however been body slammed to the ground a few times because Spen gets over enthusiastic. And I've had several black eyes and more bruises than I can count.*




Impressive and I'd say that counts in allowing you to join our crew..!!


----------



## Werehorse

Are out of control spaniels becoming a theme? 



Dogless said:


> The Neil Powell one?


That's the one. I'm still going to read it... just hope their aren't too many :mad2: moments in it.


----------



## GingerRogers

MV I am a bit like that too  OH can be a grumpy sod but he rarely explodes so when he does its normally a bit OTT and amdram so I have to be quite careful not to put my foot in it, casual veggie prep is often the way to prevent poking the fire. I think you need a soldier radar so you can compose yourself when they are about  sounds like Tink was indeed a superstar this morning, flowerpot charging aside , I love those little snippets of her, she looks so composed and serious in your pictures.

That picture is very like the image I have of LO and Zander too !

Keep it up Sarah - I am *sure *it is important that you stick to the plan, it must make it more ingrained behaviour and if it saves time in the long run because you don't have to work harder at another stage 

Dogless - I need the pubs and wine they help me keep sane especially on days like that. Well done on the tantrum management.

Twiggy - I am glad you didn't take offence, that is so true, Rosie does the collie stare like a well practiced expert for hours, or she can just snap, we thought she had started to calm down as her and Rory were on a sort of equilibrium and she didn't seem to mind if he sat on her head or tripped over her, but she must have been making allowances. Like you say she doesn't give any real warning, sadly unless he gets her to the vets she is only going to get grumpier, don't think its going to happen any time soon though as he has just let us know his MIL passed away last night which will be a good excuse to put off any more drama, poor old girl .

Beth - Dead seal is not recommended :frown:, M's husband had dropped her off and she had walked back along the beach and arranged to meet him in the sports pavilion to watch the rugby, they smelt so bad she had to bathe them in the sinks  unfortunately Buffers fluffy bichon side fur absorbs smells so when he got wet in the river the next day, out came the seal again. Elsie has very fine sleek hair papillion side fur and stuff doesn't appear to stick thankfully. But what do you mean 'Ooh their Tuffie bed arrived a couple days ago and I love it, it's really comfortable' its their bed not yours .


----------



## Werehorse

Oh and I don't think I've suffered any injuries in the name of training.  I feel slightly left out but my hands and arms are happy.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Are out of control spaniels becoming a theme?
> 
> That's the one. I'm still going to read it... just hope their aren't too many :mad2: moments in it.


Most of the ones I see are quite crazy :crazy:, but totally focused on their own thing  generally they don't bother other dogs, they have their own agendas.


----------



## Werehorse

GingerRogers said:


> Most of the ones I see are quite crazy :crazy:, but totally focused on their own thing  generally they don't bother other dogs, they have their own agendas.


That's exactly what Oscar is like out and about - Important Spaniel Business, nothing else matters. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

I decided to take Tremor to the vets this morning along with Quiver for her third laser treatment.

I saw the young female vet who has prescribed 10 days of antibiotics to see if the abcess reduces in size, if that is what it is. If not it will mean sticking a needle in and sending it off for analysis and/or cutting it out. I'd rather not go there but we'll see.

I rather have a vague theory that it just might be related to vaccinations, as every time these lumps have appeared it's shortly after vacs. I may insist on titre testing when Tremor's next vacs are due.

The vet didn't think the slight awkward movement/lameness in her right hip is anything to do with the lump but I'm not so sure. Another strange co-incidence.

I think I'll get in touch with my chiropractor who will have a much better idea.


----------



## Beth17

Twiggy said:


> I decided to take Tremor to the vets this morning along with Quiver for her third laser treatment.
> 
> I saw the young female vet who has prescribed 10 days of antibiotics to see if the abcess reduces in size, if that is what it is. If not it will mean sticking a needle in and sending it off for analysis and/or cutting it out. I'd rather not go there but we'll see.
> 
> I rather have a vague theory that it just might be related to vaccinations, as every time these lumps have appeared it's shortly after vacs. I may insist on titre testing when Tremor's next vacs are due.
> 
> The vet didn't think the slight awkward movement/lameness in her right hip is anything to do with the lump but I'm not so sure. Another strange co-incidence.
> 
> I think I'll get in touch with my chiropractor who will have a much better idea.


Hopefully the antibiotics work Twiggy. I think you're right to ask someone else and trust your instincts, vets can be great you know your own dogs best. It like Oscar his hypothyroidism wouldn't have been discovered had I not kept going on at them


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Hopefully the antibiotics work Twiggy. I think you're right to ask someone else and trust your instincts, vets can be great you know your own dogs best. It like Oscar his hypothyroidism wouldn't have been discovered had I not kept going on at them


Exactly..!!

Tremor had a skin tag remove about 20 months ago and this is the fourth 'lump' to appear. My vet assured me that the lump on her neck was a sebaceous cyst, which he also wanted to cut out and it's now totally gone....!! A bit knife happy I'd say.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> That's the one. I'm still going to read it... just hope their aren't too many :mad2: moments in it.


Personally I think it's good to read stuff you don't agree with as well as stuff you do. I've read CMs books, Jan Fennel and Barbara Sykes and find them interesting even if I don't agree with a lot of what they say and do. But I like debating methods and feel it's necessary to at least know something about the methods you're arguing against as well as the ones you're for 



> Keep it up Sarah - I am sure it is important that you stick to the plan, it must make it more ingrained behaviour and if it saves time in the long run because you don't have to work harder at another stage


Yeah, that's the idea Ginge. I have no doubt he'll be ready to start Basic Recall stuff next week. Partly because I can do the Pre Recall stuff many times a day and partly coz he's already associating the whistle with warm sausage coated in melted cheese and his tail wags madly when he hears it lol.

We've just had a very nice walk around the estate, working on keeping a loose leash and on the things he knows well as I've been very sloppy in proofing them in various different areas so they tend to fall apart when we're just road walking  Anyway, decided that for now I'm going to focus on his general obedience while out and about because I do think that's going to help with him controlling himself around other dogs in the end. So most of his physical exercise will be play out front and his walks mostly training walks for a while.

Anyway, he was quite good today and I think it's sinking in on our usual route around the estate. He refused point blank to sit while I picked up after him though  Not quite sure why I bothered picking up as he pooped in a small space between giant mounds of poo others hadn't bothered picking up. But we did some sits, downs, eye contacts, on leash recalls (to voice, not whistle) and hand touches. And there was lots of laughter from me and happy bounciness from him and was just a fun walk. He wiggled at several children in the hopes they'd come say hello but they didn't and he didn't try to flatten them.

Back on the big strip of grass outside the flat I put him in a down, walked off and recalled him from about 30m away. He flew to me and we ran to the front door of our block together.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> And there was lots of laughter from me and happy bounciness from him and was just a fun walk. He wiggled at several children in the hopes they'd come say hello but they didn't and he didn't try to flatten them.
> 
> Back on the big strip of grass outside the flat I put him in a down, walked off and recalled him from about 30m away. * He flew to me and we ran to the front door of our block together*.


Awwwwwwwwwwww how lovely :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Hope your patience is holding out, I reckon it will pay dividends.

Twiggy I shall not be doing the can-can, dog or no dog :lol: I think with all medical type peoples you still have to follow your gut and not go blindly along.

Was so sunny and nicely breezy we headed out to heath this afternoon. didn't see a soul so of course i didn't fall over.

GR Tink does one of 2 things when you take her photo either become a blur or strikes a pose and look all serious.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Are out of control spaniels becoming a theme?
> 
> That's the one. I'm still going to read it... just hope their aren't too many :mad2: moments in it.


No there aren't many actually; it's pretty interesting - more so to me as much of it is based around the Mournes which I know pretty well so can imagine most of the routes / places / mountains that he's talking about.


----------



## Dogless

Right...just to warn you all......*I am close to the edge!!!! :mad2:*.

So...crap news; we are no longer coming back to the mainland at any time in the foreseeable future . Got that news just before walking the dogs, so at least time to think.

*Rudi* was first this evening. He walked like a dream; no jumping and biting at all :thumbup:. Went to the sports pitches in the gales and drizzle, did a little bit of training (not much, my heart wasn't in it ) and let him have zoomies. Then the heavens opened and we got stuck in the mother of all sleet / rain / snow showers so we headed home pronto. But a good walk really .

*Kilo* - rain had slowed to a drizzle but still gales so took Kilo running for an hour. Now the part that made me :mad2::mad2:. I blew my top at someone :scared: . We were running on the pavement through the abandoned estate when I heard some tags behind us from around a corner - I just ran on as I assumed that someone was walking their dog, as you would. Next thing I know a dog leaps on us from behind (friendly exuberance, not aggressive) , Kilo whirls around across in front of me and I trip  . Kilo, bless him didn't react at all bar looking at me in bemusement :aureola:.

The dog is really annoying me and I stamp, shout, swear, push away with my foot but it won't leave us . Still no owner in sight but I can hear a woman calling (still around the corner in the distance) so I ran on....but we still had a companion after about 30m, really getting under out feet and it's clear she's not going back to her owner. So I stood still so that she could go back. No joy. So I ran back the way we'd come just as a woman appears that I have walked with before with her other dog (not seen her for about 9 months as she went back to her parents' for a bit and she said she was getting a pup when she went back so this must have been it). And she can't catch the bloody dog which is having brilliant fun running in circles all around us. So I crouched down and called her and she came. Collar grabbed and dog returned to owner :thumbup:.

I am sorry to say that I totally blew my top at her - really badly - which is so unlike me  . She said sorry but that the dog was stubborn.

The rest of our run was incident - free, but I am still seething; not about this in particular, more about everything in general  :scared:.

I have seen the woman on a private 'Buy and Sell' group on Nosy Book for the area that I joined as I want another freezer, so have sent her a message explaining why I blew my top at her and apologising. Hopefully all OK.

Just.....*aaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhh:mad2::mad2:.*


----------



## cravensmum

Dogless said:


> Right...just to warn you all......*I am close to the edge!!!! :mad2:*.
> 
> So...crap news; we are no longer coming back to the mainland at any time in the foreseeable future . Got that news just before walking the dogs, so at least time to think.
> 
> *Rudi* was first this evening. He walked like a dream; no jumping and biting at all :thumbup:. Went to the sports pitches in the gales and drizzle, did a little bit of training (not much, my heart wasn't in it ) and let him have zoomies. Then the heavens opened and we got stuck in the mother of all sleet / rain / snow showers so we headed home pronto. But a good walk really .
> 
> *Kilo* - rain had slowed to a drizzle but still gales so took Kilo running for an hour. Now the part that made me :mad2::mad2:. I blew my top at someone :scared: . We were running on the pavement through the abandoned estate when I heard some tags behind us from around a corner - I just ran on as I assumed that someone was walking their dog, as you would. Next thing I know a dog leaps on us from behind (friendly exuberance, not aggressive) , Kilo whirls around across in front of me and I trip  . Kilo, bless him didn't react at all bar looking at me in bemusement :aureola:.
> 
> The dog is really annoying me and I stamp, shout, swear, push away with my foot but it won't leave us . Still no owner in sight but I can hear a woman calling (still around the corner in the distance) so I ran on....but we still had a companion after about 30m, really getting under out feet and it's clear she's not going back to her owner. So I stood still so that she could go back. No joy. So I ran back the way we'd come just as a woman appears that I have walked with before with her other dog (not seen her for about 9 months as she went back to her parents' for a bit and she said she was getting a pup when she went back so this must have been it). And she can't catch the bloody dog which is having brilliant fun running in circles all around us. So I crouched down and called her and she came. Collar grabbed and dog returned to owner :thumbup:.
> 
> I am sorry to say that I totally blew my top at her - really badly - which is so unlike me  . She said sorry but that the dog was stubborn.
> 
> The rest of our run was incident - free, but I am still seething; not about this in particular, more about everything in general  :scared:.
> 
> I have seen the woman on a private 'Buy and Sell' group on Nosy Book for the area that I joined as I want another freezer, so have sent her a message explaining why I blew my top at her and apologising. Hopefully all OK.
> 
> Just.....*aaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhh:mad2::mad2:.*


Sorry to hear your news Dogless,I really feel for you.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh crap Dogless, really sorry, I could see how much you wanted to not be there and from what you say i don't blame you. I am sure the woman will understand, not many would have taken the time to explain. I know how you feel though I hate blowing my top it makes me feel worse than them I am sure, equally I hate not saying stuff when it should be said but I would say this was a totally understandable explosion for both the immediate and not so immediate reasons.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh no Dogless  Sorry you're going to be stuck in that hell hole for the foreseeable future. And about the crappy run and blowing up at the other dogs owner. I hope things get better soon.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh crap Dogless, really sorry, I could see how much you wanted to not be there and from what you say i don't blame you. I am sure the woman will understand, not many would have taken the time to explain. I know how you feel though I hate blowing my top it makes me feel worse than them I am sure, equally I hate not saying stuff when it should be said but I would say this was a totally understandable explosion for both the immediate and not so immediate reasons.


All OK; she messaged back and apologised - I was right to be annoyed I think....but not as annoyed as I was .


----------



## kat&molly

M.Smith- I really hope this is your year.

Dogless-Hope the Lamp Post effect works quickly.

Ginge- your little disagreement made me laugh- thats the sort of thing I'd say There is no way though these days I'd give up my bed for a sofa- I have in the past considered a plank of wood down the middle so that OH didn't dare cross on my half 

LO- I met my first Corgi last year- he was a lovely natured boy.

MV- well done again to Miss Tink.  I'm sure the soldiers only practice when they know you're around to give them a laugh- and why dont you ever show us photos of them 

Beth- the boys are doing so well now. How do you know the Tuffie bed is comfortable.

Twiggy-Hope the AB's work for Tremor and the 2 aren't linked.

Meg has been an angel here today, the wee thing isn't too bad- its just knowing when it might happen. OH was working in the village today- it started raining heavy so he came back for a cup of tea, I told him not to talk to her and just let her approach him. Next thing I knew she came through to the kitchen, threw herself at him and never put him down until he left.
Her owner told me she was brilliant off lead so on the 2nd walk I went for it  she was fab but I had her playing with a ball.
Sure theres some show Springer in there - even without the extra weight she's heavier set than a Working one- her owner doesn't know.









Think there may be a RG problem with humans- so I have to watch that.
She's coming back tomorrow but she didn't want to leave.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless-[crossposted ]
Really sorry you wont be getting your move- you must be gutted.
I dont blame you for blowing your top- you have so many out of control dogs to put up with.


----------



## Beth17

Oh Dogless that sucks for you  I don't blame you for getting angry. 
At least Rudi behaved himself though 

K&M I may have had a lie down on the bed just to make sure it was suitable for my boys  What a pretty girl Meg is but she looks so sad


----------



## Izzysmummy

K+M - sounds like Meg has had a lovely day with you! Sounds like shes on the way to winning OH over and getting her feet under the table! 

Dogless - that's crap news! Liked your post for Rudi being a little angel not for the crap news. It's so much easier living somewhere you don't want to be when there's an end in sight, so sorry it's not worked out as you had hoped . Don't worry about blowing your top, at least you've apologised and you were right to be annoyed. 

We've had a street "training" type walk today, started to introduce a "hide" position with her walking behind me as I thought it might be useful for some situations in future. She's all booked in for daycare tomorrow and also booked in for boarding while we go to a wedding in Dogless' part of the world in August. Nothing much to report, she was in a bit of prancing pony mode at some points but it was just with the wind blowing and rattling things about. 

Also not dog related but I saw someone walking a horse down our street at lunchtime!  not something we see everyday, it's quite a busy street, I've no idea where they'd come from or were heading as there's nowhere nearby with enough private land for someone to keep a horse as far as I know !


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> All OK; she messaged back and apologised - I was right to be annoyed I think....but not as annoyed as I was .


Dogless. sorry about your bad news  sorry you were harassed and assaulted by this out of control dog. Sorry you feel upset you lost your temper. I hope you didn't hurt yourself in the fall.

You do realise that this dog was dangerously out of control? What if you had hit your head in the fall? losing your rag will hopefully prevent this dog coming to an unfortunate end.

Don't you dare feel bad about it lady, I simply won't have it! 
Well done Rudi and Kilo good boys.

K&M Meg looks adorable poor lamb not wanting to leave what a floosie jumping on your OH.

As for pics of the soldiers all you can see most of hte time is the whites of thier eyes an the yellow bits on on the end of their guns :lol: the buggers dont' make it easy for me.


----------



## L/C

Oh Dogless - that's such a shame and I think you were right to shout at the woman. Like MV said that dog could end up dead and hopefully it will give the woman pause and she might actually do something proactive.

K&M - Meg looks lovely. It's so sad. 

Izzysmummy - I often see police horses riding around Shepherds Bush green!  That's always a bout of a shock in central London.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> All OK; she messaged back and apologised - I was right to be annoyed I think....but not as annoyed as I was .


I'm really sorry you're stuck over there for the time being and it's no wonder you're feeling low.

I'm pleased though that you blew your top (you should do it more often).
The trouble is with you, you're much too polite and then bottle it up. In your case a few explosions at the half-wits over there won't do any harm.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Dogless. sorry about your bad news  sorry you were harassed and assaulted by this out of control dog. Sorry you feel upset you lost your temper. I hope you didn't hurt yourself in the fall.
> 
> You do realise that this dog was dangerously out of control? What if you had hit your head in the fall? losing your rag will hopefully prevent this dog coming to an unfortunate end.
> 
> *Don't you dare feel bad about it lady, I simply won't have it! *
> Well done Rudi and Kilo good boys.
> 
> K&M Meg looks adorable poor lamb not wanting to leave what a floosie jumping on your OH.
> 
> As for pics of the soldiers all you can see most of hte time is the whites of thier eyes an the yellow bits on on the end of their guns :lol: the buggers dont' make it easy for me.


Here, here - I'll second that...!!


----------



## L/C

STOP THE PRESSES!!!

GYPSY JUST PLAYED TUGGY WITH ME!

I ordered some toys from Tug-e-Nuff in the hope that one would excite her and she loved all 3! To test to make sure she wasn't just over excited because it was her witching hour I also tried her with an old toy and no reaction.

I have put the new toys away now so she doesn't get bored and we'll have some time each evening to play and then start to bring them out on walks.


----------



## Thorne

Sorry, still feeling too mentally (and physically!) exhausted to give everyone individual replies. Looks like a mixed bag from what I've seen, but hope everyone's had decent days and good walks.

Dogless, so sorry to hear you won't be moving yet  I can't imagine how that feels but judging by the military families I've known, and the uncertainty that's hung over them at times it must be beyond frustrating. Take care.

Fab news: POPPY HAS BEEN REHOMED! :thumbup:
I walked her this morning with Paddy and a staff member, both dogs were in the mood for a play fight which always looks hilarious given the size difference! Queen Poppy can more than stick up for herself and loves to play rough; a real case of it's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, it's the size of the fight in the dog! 
Briefly met her new owners on their way back in from a walk with her and Poppy seemed relaxed and content with them - said a quick goodbye and gave her a treat then made myself scarce  Everyone at the centre is very attached to her, but everyone is hoping she won't darken the doors again - hopefully this is her forever home.

Also walked Lola (no humping!), Matt (bizarre name for a dog) and William (scared of almost everything, but a sweetheart), had the usual garden exercise with Paddy, Ollie and William too, and shared my recent woes and a few tears with lovely Leroy the geriatric cat. He purred nonchalantly over my woes, complaining to cats may be the way forward.

Mum's walked the dogs today but she's out so I don't know how they were, other than Breeze coming home and doing a lap of the hideously swampy garden, thus turning into a black Lab. She knows how to keep her slaves in check


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> STOP THE PRESSES!!!
> 
> GYPSY JUST PLAYED TUGGY WITH ME!
> 
> I ordered some toys from Tug-e-Nuff in the hope that one would excite her and she loved all 3! To test to make sure she wasn't just over excited because it was her witching hour I also tried her with an old toy and no reaction.
> 
> I have put the new toys away now so she doesn't get bored and we'll have some time each evening to play and then start to bring them out on walks.


Fabulous!! :thumbup:. What did you get?


----------



## L/C

One of these

One if these

And one of these

The third one was her favourite - she grabbed it as soon as it came out of the packet and then picked it up off the side when I put it back. She played with them all really enthusiastically though. :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> STOP THE PRESSES!!!
> 
> GYPSY JUST PLAYED TUGGY WITH ME!
> 
> I ordered some toys from Tug-e-Nuff in the hope that one would excite her and she loved all 3! To test to make sure she wasn't just over excited because it was her witching hour I also tried her with an old toy and no reaction.
> 
> I have put the new toys away now so she doesn't get bored and we'll have some time each evening to play and then start to bring them out on walks.


Brilliant...:thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Sorry, still feeling too mentally (and physically!) exhausted to give everyone individual replies. Looks like a mixed bag from what I've seen, but hope everyone's had decent days and good walks.
> 
> Dogless, so sorry to hear you won't be moving yet  I can't imagine how that feels but judging by the military families I've known, and the uncertainty that's hung over them at times it must be beyond frustrating. Take care.
> 
> Fab news: POPPY HAS BEEN REHOMED! :thumbup:
> I walked her this morning with Paddy and a staff member, both dogs were in the mood for a play fight which always looks hilarious given the size difference! Queen Poppy can more than stick up for herself and loves to play rough; a real case of it's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, it's the size of the fight in the dog!
> Briefly met her new owners on their way back in from a walk with her and Poppy seemed relaxed and content with them - said a quick goodbye and gave her a treat then made myself scarce  Everyone at the centre is very attached to her, but everyone is hoping she won't darken the doors again - hopefully this is her forever home.
> 
> Also walked Lola (no humping!), Matt (bizarre name for a dog) and William (scared of almost everything, but a sweetheart), had the usual garden exercise with Paddy, Ollie and William too, and shared my recent woes and a few tears with lovely Leroy the geriatric cat. He purred nonchalantly over my woes, complaining to cats may be the way forward.
> 
> Mum's walked the dogs today but she's out so I don't know how they were, other than Breeze coming home and doing a lap of the hideously swampy garden, thus turning into a black Lab. She knows how to keep her slaves in check


That's really excellent news about Poppy. Fingers crossed it all works out.

So sorry you're still feeling rough, hang in there and I hope things improve soon.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> One of these
> 
> One if these
> 
> And one of these
> 
> The third one was her favourite - she grabbed it as soon as it came out of the packet and then picked it up off the side when I put it back. She played with them all really enthusiastically though. :thumbup:


Mine have got the first and third. Well did have the third until Holly ripped it to bits..


----------



## MollySmith

L/C  Fab news about tuggies! Well done Gypsy &#9786; Pleased to hear that Ely is still okay.

Dogless- I think youre absolutely right to get cross. Its better than she encountered you and not someone who was less caring about a strange dog. You did well and I hope the owner has learnt from this. I am so sorry about the move, thats rotten &#9785;

Ginge- I have to say I laughed at the disagreement too but you have my sympathies. My OH sounds like yours, mostly laid back but when he loses his temper its very OTT and woe is me! I have to stop myself calling up an orchestra.

LO- oddly we met a Corgi at the weekend, never seen one before. It wasnt the most well mannered unfortunately. 

Sarah  I think you are very wise to read the books, I wish I had the time, I have a huge pile of dog books beside the bed that I ordered before my op only to realize that it was hard to hold a book down with one arm! 

Twiggy  I hope the antibiotics work for Tremor, thinking of you.

Kat&molly, love the pics of Meg,how lovely of her to welcome your OH, bless her. I think its the most loveliest thing to do. 

Thorne, its just nice to hear from you and I completely see why its too knackering to go through each update. I am so pleased about Poppy, thats brilliant news.

You will be delighted to know that my Molly has not been replaced by an alien superdog as we were thinking (having shown off her recall once more on her walk today). She decided to bring in a poor wee hedgehog, thank goodness she only made it to the conservatory and dropped it as soon as I asked. It was still in a ball and I managed to haul her inside whilst OH grabbed a coal shovel and took the little mite out side. Our neighbour are away so he put it in their garden for safety so she can't get to again. It's her loss as OH took some of her wet dog food over in a little plant bowl and made it a wee nest in a box so it's safe and warm for the night. He'll check on it tomorrow. 

Molly's mouth has been thoroughly inspected and she's fine so I think she was thankfully very gentle and I see no blood on either party. Blumin beastie dog. We've since had a mad zoomie around the house and finally she's stopped after I shoved her behind the baby gate. I want the alien superdog baaaccck!


----------



## L/C

Poor hedgehog! Glad there were no injuries to either party - bad girl molly for bringing it in but good girl for not hurting it. It would have been an ex hedgehog here.


----------



## GingerRogers

Ooh mollysmith very lucky. Buffer came home the other day with blood all over his face where a hedgehog had 'sprung' at him but i suppose they are sleeping now.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless - you're in our bad books! You've sent your horrible Irish weather over here. It's completely white outside after a heavy snow/hail/thunder/lightening storm which sounded like it was taking the chimney off! :scared:


----------



## L/C

I meant to say than you to Nicki for the toy suggestions. :thumbup:


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all, 
looks like some are going through a rough time on this thread- hope life in general picks up for you soon. However, I think every ones dogs are behaving so we all get gold stars! And there is nothing quite like your dog showing how well behaved they are to put you in a good mood 

We have had a quiet day today! We met no one on our walks at all! Which was lovely. We played tug in the garden and practiced our excited weaving ;-) I added to jumps in to the mix today and things were a lot of fun according to Mr. Rusty. I've also booked our first agility show :-0 only the nursery round- no pressure for either of us! I got two books in the post... the calming signals one and the snooping around scent work one. Going to try the dragging food around the garden later this week.

Couple of quiet days (for Rusty) coming up as I'm in Newmarket tomorrow and then London on Wednesday. He has the dog walker at lunchtime but will be left 8-5 both days. One of those things unfortunately! Doesn't happen often so I try not to feel tooo bad.

L/C- glad I could be of help  Rusty is an awkward one with tug and we have a number of desirable toys on the go for agility! His favourite is this one at the moment- http://www.pawstrading.co.uk/lattic...-and-stuffed-with-fox-tail-dog-toy-4929-p.asp loves trying to take the fluff out!


----------



## Guest

*Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh on the canicross thread. The lady with 128/138 and the tan and white dog. That dog is zander's litter mate. He's called jake. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He's built like a tank ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
ahhhhhh
ah
ah
ah
*dies*
he's so lovely!!*


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> *Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh on the canicross thread. The lady with 128/138 and the tan and white dog. That dog is zander's litter mate. He's called jake. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> He's built like a tank ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
> ahhhhhh
> ah
> ah
> ah
> *dies*
> he's so lovely!!*


I'd better have a look!


----------



## Guest

Thorne said:


> I'd better have a look!


SCROLL LADY SCROLL! Apparently he's properly tall. Starting to think zand may have been the runt, he seems small and slim compared to some of his litter mates. :lol:


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> SCROLL LADY SCROLL! Apparently he's properly tall. Starting to think zand may have been the runt, he seems small and slim compared to some of his litter mates. :lol:


He's gorrrrrgeous


----------



## kat&molly

LurcherOwner said:


> *Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh on the canicross thread. The lady with 128/138 and the tan and white dog. That dog is zander's litter mate. He's called jake. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> He's built like a tank ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
> ahhhhhh
> ah
> ah
> ah
> *dies*
> he's so lovely!!*


Have you been eating Donkey Boys Winalot shapes.:lol:
Off to have a look at Jake.

Hope you're ok Dogless.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> SCROLL LADY SCROLL! Apparently he's properly tall. Starting to think zand may have been the runt, he seems small and slim compared to some of his litter mates. :lol:


He's a super looking dog. There you go then, a new hobby for you both..


----------



## Beth17

Morning all hope everyone has a good day 

Had a minor panic this morning with the youngster, I thought he may have been bloating as he couldn't get comfortable, had really pale gums and then threw up a tiny bit of white foam  Luckily he went outside and seemed to perk up so fingers crossed it was just a false alarm.
Calm walk in order this morning I think just to be on the safe side.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Morning all hope everyone has a good day
> 
> Had a minor panic this morning with the youngster, I thought he may have been bloating as he couldn't get comfortable, had really pale gums and then threw up a tiny bit of white foam  Luckily he went outside and seemed to perk up so fingers crossed it was just a false alarm.
> Calm walk in order this morning I think just to be on the safe side.


OMG Scary. Hope he's OK.


----------



## Werehorse

Beth - hope he's ok!

Dogless - rubbish news re. having to stay put. 

The boys did well on individual round the block lead walks this morning. So. Much. Poo. On the verges. 

Before starting on the monster pile of books from Amazon I finished reading a book about an explosives search dog in Afghanistan... I must have got pretty into it, apparently last night I was talking in my sleep saying "seek on lad" :lol: OH only knows this because he stayed up half the night reading the whole thing and I was asleep and dreaming by the time he got to bed.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Beth they certainly know how to give us grey hairs, hope he goes on ok.

LO He's lovely  

MS glad Molly was unscathed by her encounter with the prickly ball.

Nicki a couple of quiet days might do Rusty good after his recent illness.

L/C glad you have found some toys that float Gypsy's boat.

Dogless hope things are better today

K&M Hope Meg and you all have a good day.

Twiggy i hope all is well with your girls today.

WH nutter I talk in my sleep too, i'd make a rubbish spy 

I have resolved not to dither any longer and have chosen a song to work with for the coming week if i reach the end of next weekend and I feel it still suits, and i do not want to stick red hot pokers in my ears when i hear it, we will be committed.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh Beth they certainly know how to give us grey hairs, hope he goes on ok.
> 
> LO He's lovely
> 
> MS glad Molly was unscathed by her encounter with the prickly ball.
> 
> Nicki a couple of quiet days might do Rusty good after his recent illness.
> 
> L/C glad you have found some toys that float Gypsy's boat.
> 
> Dogless hope things are better today
> 
> K&M Hope Meg and you all have a good day.
> 
> Twiggy i hope all is well with your girls today.
> 
> WH nutter I talk in my sleep too, i'd make a rubbish spy
> 
> *I have resolved not to dither any longer and have chosen a song to work with for the coming week if i reach the end of next weekend and I feel it still suits, and i do not want to stick red hot pokers in my ears when i hear it, we will be committed. *




Choosing a song is a mammoth task never mind the rest...!!


----------



## kat&molly

Beth- I hope Sam's ok.

Thorne - fingers crossed you have a better day today.

Moonviolet- will you be singing the same tune in your head over and over and driving yourself mad.:lol: 

Meg was pleased to get here this morning and hardly a backward glance when her owner left, and a nice wag of the tail when she saw the girls.
We went up to the fields, I gave her a ball yesterday but she kept chomping on it so didn't take anything for her today- but she wanted something and was a good girl and didn't pinch Moll's so I knotted a lead for her and we played 'find it'- she caught on really quick.
They obviously put some work in to her as she's really obedient and has a fabulous recall.
Just need to keep a check on this RG - I've told OH if they all crowd around for fuss he should walk away , so lets see if he listens.


----------



## Dogless

Beth - how scary; I really hope all is OK.

mv - can't wait to see which song you choose!! Is it wrong that I am ridiculously excited about your venture? .

Things are OK here thanks all. Just carrying on with carrying on. Pretty pointless really, but there you go!

There was snow this morning  so I took both CHs out together to the top fields....Rudi was fabulous, no jumping or biting AT ALL :thumbup::thumbup:. I just let them play; did a few recalls and leaves, but that was it training - wise. We went past the school bus stop which was teeming with little kids all on about the "doggies' costumes" - they had their fleeces on as the wind was biting this morning, really bitter. There were a few sledges being dragged around the car park making a noise on the tarmac and kids shrieking and screaming and throwing snowballs.....Kilo didn't much like the sledges but behaved himself :001_wub:.


----------



## Sarah1983

There's a freaking blizzard raging outside my window :crying: I really don't want the snow back, I hate the slush and ice and am terrified of walking Spen in it coz it doesn't take much to have me off my feet.

Beth, hope Sam is okay!

Thorne, hope you're okay.

Werehorse, I talk in my sleep too. Hubby says he has conversations with me.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh, and the Spendog was sick last night. I spent most of the night on the couch with him on top of me and a giant tennis ball covering most of my face. It is possible to sleep like that but I would not recommend it. Little bugger seems fine now thankfully.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh, and the Spendog was sick last night. I spent most of the night on the couch with him on top of me and a giant tennis ball covering most of my face. It is possible to sleep like that but I would not recommend it. Little bugger seems fine now thankfully.


Poor Spendog (and you!!). I'm pleased he's better this morning.


----------



## moonviolet

Awww Sarah hope the Blizzard goes away. Glad Spendog is better this morning, Hope you aren't too squished by the cuddly night.

Dogless sounds liek you adn the boys had a good morning, my curiosity is nagging me. what did you play in the big band. My musical accomplishments scrape me a grade 3 in piano by one mark at that point i bowed out gracefully. Mind you my piano teacher was definitely more dominance and fear based tuition fearsome woman. 

As for my " project" you are allowed to as excited as you like on the condition you remember i'm aiming at making the difference to the day for some people in a care home or 2 not trying to change the world.  

K&M Aww Meg sounds like she is looking forward to another day with you and your girls ( and your OH) hoep the RG thing fades without incident but i thik you are wise to be mindful of it.

I'm already finding myeself humming the song but occassionally find myself drifting off into " keep young and beautiful" which is somethign of an irony when i'm out on a walk looking like a scarecrow! very much a " hun i dont' knwo how to break this to you, that ship has sailed." moment. :lol: :lol:


----------



## Beth17

What a lovely morning Dogless 

Sarah glad Spen seems alright this morning.

mv you've picked a song brilliant :thumbup:

k&m Meg really does sound lovely, I hope the OH listens to you 

Sam seems fine now thanks for the good wishes. Took them both for a nice sedate street walk and they did really well, a bit of pulling and Sam kept trying to chase the birds in the park area but other than that it went well.

It was a nice morning but we currently have a hailstorm going on


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Awww Sarah hope the Blizzard goes away. Glad Spendog is better this morning, Hope you aren't too squished by the cuddly night.
> 
> Dogless sounds liek you adn the boys had a good morning, my curiosity is nagging me. what did you play in the big band. My musical accomplishments scrape me a grade 3 in piano by one mark at that point i bowed out gracefully. Mind you my piano teacher was definitely more dominance and fear based tuition fearsome woman.
> 
> As for my " project" you are allowed to as excited as you like on the condition you remember i'm aiming at making the difference to the day for some people in a care home or 2 not trying to change the world.
> 
> K&M Aww Meg sounds like she is looking forward to another day with you and your girls ( and your OH) hoep the RG thing fades without incident but i thik you are wise to be mindful of it.
> 
> I'm already finding myeself humming the song but occassionally find myself drifting off into " keep young and beautiful" which is somethign of an irony when i'm out on a walk looking like a scarecrow! very much a " hun i dont' knwo how to break this to you, that ship has sailed." moment. :lol: :lol:


Yes, but you'll change their world for the better for a day; I think the big band theme is good too as the residents will probably identify with the music - perhaps it will spark some lovely memories? .

I played the Alto Sax in a Big Band, Flute in a county orchestra, school orchestra was flute, school jazz band was sax, town band was sax....I used to play a lot of music, it was something that I was good at.

Snow gone; just rain and sleet hammering down .


----------



## Guest

Just gonna quickly comment as I'm between shifts again.
Me and Zand? Cani-x? I think my face would meet the floor too much for my liking. Bet he'd enjoy though. Maybe he can compete with someone who has an ounce of fitness. :lol:
The weather is shite. Hailing, rain, hailing, sleet, hailing, snow, hailing.
When walked in hard hail, Zand will try and hide, or get properly skittish.

Hope spen and sam are alright now.


----------



## Freddie and frank

hi folks.

had a relaxing, funny, emotional, fizzy weekend and had a quick look at some posts. will have a good read tonight or tomorrow and catch up with what's been going on in the WAYWO world.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well the blizzard went away and it was nice and sunny so I figured I'd head up to camp to pay the phone bill and be ripped off by the Naafi for the few things we buy from there. Paid phone bill, spent a stupid amount of money on a few essentials, got to the doors of the Naafi and there's another freaking blizzard raging. 20 minute walk home in it. Fun times!

I found Spencer asleep on the bed earlier. First time I've known him go and get on the bed when nobody else is in it.


----------



## moonviolet

F&F(+B) Sounds like an interesting weekend.

Sarah sorry the blizzard didn't stay away, they sky has jsut turned a very ominous looking grey here, it's preparing to do something :lol:



Sarah1983 said:


> I found Spencer asleep on the bed earlier. First time I've known him go and get on the bed when nobody else is in it.


It's been a year he's really got his paws under the table now  he'll be launching his campaign for world domination soon :lol: :lol: :lol:

DOgless do you ever play now? ( mumble mumble blooming talented people mumble mumble)


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Awww Sarah hope the Blizzard goes
> 
> *As for my " project" you are allowed to as excited as you like on the condition you remember i'm aiming at making the difference to the day for some people in a care home or 2 not trying to change the world.  *
> 
> From little acorns big oak tree grow and all that.....**


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, but you'll change their world for the better for a day; I think the big band theme is good too as the residents will probably identify with the music - perhaps it will spark some lovely memories? .
> 
> *I played the Alto Sax in a Big Band, Flute in a county orchestra, school orchestra was flute, school jazz band was sax, town band was sax....I used to play a lot of music, it was something that I was good at.*
> 
> Career move - music teacher and you would be brilliant with your patience!!


----------



## Twiggy

Well the girls haven't had their second walk as it's blizzard like conditions here now and I'm not taking the oldies out in this.

At least Tremor and Holly have been in the barn training with friends for well over two hours.


----------



## Werehorse

I don't like my fitness pal. It's telling me bad news about how many calories I have left for my dinner!  I need to start walking and running the dogs' legs off everyday...


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> I don't like my fitness pal. It's telling me bad news about how many calories I have left for my dinner!  I need to start walking and running the dogs' legs off everyday...


They don't sound like any sort of pal to me :lol:
Please dont' snow here, I have games night with Tink tonight when no doubt she will make up her own rules again :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I don't like my fitness pal. It's telling me bad news about how many calories I have left for my dinner!  I need to start walking and running the dogs' legs off everyday...


Well my fitness pal is lovely...!!

Hubby and I both started on a diet last week and it went reasonably well for a few days. Then he bought a packet of six buns, the next day sausage rolls, and today large iced buns.....

He said as I've had Special K cereal for breakfast and Ryvita for lunch I'm allowed....


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> F&F(+B) Sounds like an interesting weekend.
> 
> Sarah sorry the blizzard didn't stay away, they sky has jsut turned a very ominous looking grey here, it's preparing to do something :lol:
> 
> It's been a year he's really got his paws under the table now  he'll be launching his campaign for world domination soon :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> DOgless do you ever play now? ( mumble mumble blooming talented people mumble mumble)


Not properly for about 10 years or so; instruments are in the attic.



Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, but you'll change their world for the better for a day; I think the big band theme is good too as the residents will probably identify with the music - perhaps it will spark some lovely memories? .
> 
> *I played the Alto Sax in a Big Band, Flute in a county orchestra, school orchestra was flute, school jazz band was sax, town band was sax....I used to play a lot of music, it was something that I was good at.*
> 
> Career move - music teacher and you would be brilliant with your patience!!
> 
> 
> 
> No; I can't play the piano - can't play the flute or sax now I wouldn't think come to that!! .
> 
> Separate walks tonight:
> 
> *Rudi:* Gales, rain but not torrential, he walked beautifully to the fields, we did some playing, I took some photos and I let him just explore and then he walked beautifully back :001_wub::001_wub: despite it being so windy. Tiny blip at the end about 20m from home where he tried a jump / bite but stopped when told . Gold Star .
> 
> *Kilo:* Gales and then totally torrential rain - the sort that gets driven into your face and hurts - at the end. Kilo was walking nicely and then I heard THE whistle and THE recall for THE fecking chocolate lab from down a street to the side of us :mad2:. Predictably we are ambushed by said lab  BUT only reaction from Kilo was a few quick bounces and then walking swiftly on with me and then a few good shake offs so I am very, very pleased with him indeed . I just kept walking, didn't even acknowledge or look at the man to see his usual look of disdain or hear the indignant "*my* dog's friendly" because I really felt like I'd blow my top again :mad5::mad5:.
> 
> After that, we walked around the onlead field and then went onto the offlead one....but the weather was hideous so we didn't spend too long; Kilo did his normal cowering and shivering so we headed home. Gold Star for Kilo too .
> 
> My best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.
Click to expand...


----------



## moonviolet

What good boys!!!:thumbup: the wind is bitter here but not gale focrce but definitely the rude sort that goes through you not around you.



Dogless said:


> instruments are in the attic.


I'm sorry this sounds like a euphemism :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Not much to report from the ninja outpost walks are becoming quite quiet mostly because of my superb management and deviation  had a quick about turn this morning but after a few ruffs gruffs she ran with me, beach this evening and just got back to the car as the dark fell along with some rather nasty cold wet stuff  which had turned to proper fluffy snow by the time I got back home. It would be so nice to be able to walk to the beach though, I hate having to drive to places it seems a waste of the distance, maybe one day. I also realised our neighbours will be back in march with their neurotic yapping sheltie posted on front door duty all day long, I had hoped for some real progress by then, back to exiting via the back gate I reckon and I might also use it as some distance practice. It might annoy them but if they didn't leave it sitting there barking at the world Singing:
Who knows we may learn some miracle at the course.

One thing I forgot to mention from the weekend, she gets proper angry if you try and play darts  not sure what that is all about 

Sarah I had to giggle at the idea of you trying to sleep on the sofa with spendog on top of you, ninja does that to me but, well, its a lot less dog 

MV - I am intrigued as to your tune and Dogless glad you have had a jolly good afternoon despite the rain and chocolate dog.

Twiggy I want your fitness pal  I still haven't worked up to cardboard lunches, I mean ryvita!

ETA love your enthusiasm LO and love Zanders bro!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Not much to report from the ninja
> 
> Twiggy I want your fitness pal  I still haven't worked up to cardboard lunches, I mean ryvita!
> 
> I'm on a better diet now....!!
> 
> Don't know if any of you have tried it - it's called the bluddy great box of Thornton's diet... Courtesy of the two collies this afternoon. An early Valentines Day present. Still the box is open at the side of hubby so they'll soon be gone.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Not properly for about 10 years or so; instruments are in the attic.
> 
> 
> 
> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> No; I can't play the piano - can't play the flute or sax now I wouldn't think come to that!! .
> 
> You're doing it again. Big smack for negativity...:mad2:
> 
> Of course you can still play. I haven't played the piona for years but I'd bet I could go now and get through the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata (maybe with a few mistakes...).
> 
> I'd bet there aren't many people that can teach flute and saxaphone in your area.
Click to expand...


----------



## Guest

I have just bathed Zand. I am now according to him the evil queen. :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- definately Gold Stars for the boys  We had some of your weather this afternoon- its been lousy.

Twiggy-now that sounds like my kinda diet.

Ginge- good idea to use the yappy dog for your training  I have some like that here- drives me mad.

Moonviolet- Hope Miss Tink has some fun at class tonight.

Well, I knew there had to be a link, there aren't many ESS in France so I done some digging and Meg is Moll's aunt  she's the sister of the Sire. I did tell Moll but she wasn't impressed.
Her owner collected her and told me she's had an enquiry- from a woman who has just lost her Springer at 13 years old- it sounded hopeful, but I wanted to cry . It didn't help that as she was leaving she looked at me and I swear her face said 'please dont make me go' 
Nothing's definate yet, she'll let me know.

I spoke to the owner of Moll's 'family'[Dam and Sire] she thinks I shouldn't even think about keeping Meg, as I have a great relationship with my girls, especially Moll, and I'd be compromising on that. A bittersweet compliment.

Going to award my girls a Halo for once again welcoming another dog in to their house. Evie's will be round her ankles by the morning but Hey- Ho.

I hope hundreds of people haven't cross posted as its taken an hour to write that.:arf:


----------



## Dogless

k&m - very bittersweet although the enquiry for Meg does sound hopeful I agree; you are amazing for helping her in the way that you are doing.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- definately Gold Stars for the boys  We had some of your weather this afternoon- its been lousy.
> 
> Twiggy-now that sounds like my kinda diet.
> 
> Ginge- good idea to use the yappy dog for your training  I have some like that here- drives me mad.
> 
> Moonviolet- Hope Miss Tink has some fun at class tonight.
> 
> Well, I knew there had to be a link, there aren't many ESS in France so I done some digging and Meg is Moll's aunt  she's the sister of the Sire. I did tell Moll but she wasn't impressed.
> Her owner collected her and told me she's had an enquiry- from a woman who has just lost her Springer at 13 years old- it sounded hopeful, but I wanted to cry . *It didn't help that as she was leaving she looked at me and I swear her face said 'please dont make me go' *
> Nothing's definate yet, she'll let me know.
> 
> I spoke to the owner of Moll's 'family'[Dam and Sire] she thinks I shouldn't even think about keeping Meg, as I have a great relationship with my girls, especially Moll, and I'd be compromising on that. A bittersweet compliment.
> 
> Going to award my girls a Halo for once again welcoming another dog in to their house. Evie's will be round her ankles by the morning but Hey- Ho.
> 
> I hope hundreds of people haven't cross posted as its taken an hour to write that.:arf:


Sadly I know just what you mean, which is why I won't have dogs here now when their owners go on holiday etc. I'm not as brave as you and it upsets me too much.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Sadly I know just what you mean, which is why I won't have dogs here now when their owners go on holiday etc. I'm not as brave as you and it upsets me too much.


I dont mind the odd Holiday dog- they have someone to love them, although OH did threaten to run off with someones Poodle.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I dont mind the odd Holiday dog- they have someone to love them, although OH did threaten to run off with someones Poodle.


Mmm I had quite a few here that have made it very plain they don't want to go home when their owners collect them. And then the next time I see the dog I can't look them in the eye and feel as if I've betrayed them.


----------



## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> I'm sorry this sounds like a euphemism :lol:


Ooo... now there's a challenge... and me being a juvenile Viz reader...

"Have you had an opportunity to play the silent trumpet recently Lady Chatterley ?"

"Unfortunately not Vicar, the instruments are in the attic."


----------



## moonviolet

I love games night we had lots of fun, Tink did really well despite a couple of handler errors. There was lots of laughter and fun, we won some of the games and came home with lots of treats and a key ring. 

We've (all) been invited for a 2 hours session on friday for a photo and video shoot for our trainer's website. Should be a giggle. 


Dief .... oo-err

K&M It must be so hard not to get attached and the coming and goign that makes it extra tough.

LO you are evil!!!! (sorry that was a message from Tink)

GR it is a shame you have to drive to walk at the moment but i may not be a permenant thing, but it seems to be workign your posts sound so much more positive these days and I suspect you are ripping less hair out 

Twiggy i liek the sound of your fitness pal and as for the big box of thorntons diet... I'm in :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

I just about managed to have a 300 calorie dinner and not feel too deprived. I've still gone a bit over-budget for today ( I'm not counting in the current cup of tea) so it's no wonder I'm a heifer! God this is going to be tough but I need to get back into some clothes!

Can anyone accurately guestimate a collar size for a Border Terriorist boy? My friends have just got a lovely little rescue chap and I want to buy him a pressie...


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I just about managed to have a 300 calorie dinner and not feel too deprived. I've still gone a bit over-budget for today ( I'm not counting in the current cup of tea) so it's no wonder I'm a heifer! God this is going to be tough but I need to get back into some clothes!
> 
> Can anyone accurately guestimate a collar size for a Border Terriorist boy? My friends have just got a lovely little rescue chap and I want to buy him a pressie...


Ugh. Dieting; I abandoned my healthy eating today as I felt as low as a low thing  .

Maybe message Firedog - she knows about BTs .


----------



## Sarah1983

Sigh, Spencer thinks the whistle is basically another clicker with a different sound. Whenever he sees it he starts offering me his tricks. Everything so far has been working towards getting the whistle associated with really great food so very much like the way you "charge" the clicker in the beginning. So I think I'm going to skip the rest of the steps in getting it associated with really great food because he's starting to get frustrated that it's not working like he believes it should. 

And my hubby has put his foot down for the first time in our marriage. I am going to the summer ball. I'd really rather not but he's adamant that he's taking me. So far I've managed to avoid every formal do going but looks like I'm stuck with going to this one. I might ask him to get me some body armour to deflect the knives I'll no doubt need to remove from my back over the course of the day. Ugh. Well, I suppose it gives me a definite time to have lost a load of weight by. Some time in June he says it'll be.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Ugh. Dieting; I abandoned my healthy eating today as I felt as low as a low thing  .
> 
> Maybe message Firedog - she knows about BTs .


Thank you, good call, have sent a message! 

I think it is verging on impossible to resist unhealthy food when feeling low! The amount of stress-induced biscuit consumption that took place while I was teaching - doesn't bare thinking about! Hope you are feeling less low soonest. The weather can't be helping.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> And my hubby has put his foot down for the first time in our marriage. I am going to the summer ball. I'd really rather not but he's adamant that he's taking me. So far I've managed to avoid every formal do going but looks like I'm stuck with going to this one. I might ask him to get me some body armour to deflect the knives I'll no doubt need to remove from my back over the course of the day. Ugh. Well, I suppose it gives me a definite time to have lost a load of weight by. Some time in June he says it'll be.


Don't pressure yourself too much Sarah; I have been there, done that and it is miserable. I was thin, but miserable!! Hubby is obviously proud to have you on his arm so still will be whether you have lost a little, a lot, or no weight at all.


----------



## Werehorse

It is nice he wants to take you Sarah - even if it will be awful. :lol: And I agree with Dogless!

Oh and mv - congrats on the treat and keyring prizes! :thumbup:


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Don't pressure yourself too much Sarah; I have been there, done that and it is miserable. I was thin, but miserable!! Hubby is obviously proud to have you on his arm so still will be whether you have lost a little, a lot, or no weight at all.


That's the thing though, I'm miserable being this big. I'm not just slightly overweight, I'm way into the obese range and it's affecting me both mentally and physically. I want the weight gone and while I know I'm not going to manage to lose 80lbs by June I don't want to have just lost a couple of pounds either. I'm doing Weight Watchers. I find I can stick to their plan and not feel deprived of anything. Add in a cheat meal once a week and I find it fairly easy to stick to on a long term basis too 

It's not my weight putting me off the summer ball either. It's the other wives. I don't like them lol.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah I understand entirely i'm not a big one for formal do's, but seeing as you aren't going to be allowed to avoid this one. Go and have a great time with Hubby, smile because he loves you and wants you there.

If you are feeling a little saintly try to remember they are pointing out flaws with others to deflect from their own copious flaws and unhappinesses.

Shame the WAYWO gang can't all crash the bash and really sort them out


----------



## Thorne

Not a lot to report here; Scooter has pulled his bad shoulder so has had a rest day, and Breeze REFUSED to go out in the sleet blizzard we were confronted with tonight! Was looking forward to a walk but no point in frustrating both of us which is the norm if madam puts her foot down  Had a good retrieving session with B instead, and a bit of training with both of them.
And made some cupcakes to cheer myself and the family up, we've all caught a rotten cold!

Was in the BC cattery most of today (Leroy the cat I mentioned yesterday was revealed to be a she today, so is now Leona!) but walked the Paddy monster and gave him a couple of garden sessions. We're currently trying to redirect his new bird-chasing game back to a toy-chasing game so I've been running around with tuggers and rubber rings making all sorts of bizarre noises  
_(I'm sure Twiggy will be pleased to hear that I've definitely pulled a muscle in my shoulder through some enthusiastic tug, and have got another bruise to my hand)_
Also practiced his leave it, which is very good unless it's a beloved rubber toy that's being tugged!
These 2 lovely girls went up for homing today, would happily take either of them home:
Suki Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
Lola Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre

Thank you to everyone for your kind words, it really does mean a lot  The kindness of strangers! You're all stars


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> That's the thing though, I'm miserable being this big. I'm not just slightly overweight, I'm way into the obese range and it's affecting me both mentally and physically. I want the weight gone and while I know I'm not going to manage to lose 80lbs by June I don't want to have just lost a couple of pounds either. I'm doing Weight Watchers. I find I can stick to their plan and not feel deprived of anything. Add in a cheat meal once a week and I find it fairly easy to stick to on a long term basis too
> 
> It's not my weight putting me off the summer ball either. It's the other wives. I don't like them lol.


I agree that if you're miserable then lose the weight definitely and I wish you success; I'm just saying don't pressure yourself to loose it in a less than healthy way for the do.....your plan sounds good. My plans in the past have been less than good .

I understand all about why you don't want to go to the ball....as punishment for hubby I'd get him to buy you a hideously expensive and very fabulous new dress and shoes....Hamburg has some shops that should deliver in terms of price and fabulousness :thumbup:.

mv - sorry I didn't say well done for games night .

ETA: I am wondering whether Rudi has KC, he coughed every time he tried to 'talk' this morning in what sounded like a KC cough, ending in a gag and coughed when he tried to get me to run after him for a toy. Ate his brek fine and is now asleep so hasn't done it again, but if he does I'll go to the vet after I've rung them to see if we need to come last / wait in the car park. It's 5 days since school last week so timing would be about right to have caught it there. Really, really hope he just had something irritating his throat which has now gone, I'll see when he wakes up and not walk him this morning where there are any other dogs just in case (if he doesn't cough again - if he does, I won't walk him).


----------



## Maria_1986

I hope its ok to post here before I have not yet collected my dog but I was hoping that you could confirm my plan of action is the right one (I'm going to be a first time dog owner and although I am very excited i am now also questioning my training plan)

Chevy is an 8yr old staffy rescue - the rescue have said she is house trained, has a reasonable recall and is eager to please. However as I have read that sometimes rescue dogs can forget a little of the house training when moving into a new home I was planning on going back to basics and reinforcing the house training by taking her out regularly and rewarding for going outside does this seem sensible? I also want to make sure she settles when we go out so was planning on having a kong specially to give to her with treats in when we go out and starting with only being out a few moments building up to the few hours while I am at work. As she has been passed around many homes before I want to make sure she is happy and knows that I will come back. Even if the house training and settling when left is 100% from the start is it still a good idea for me to reinforce it in the first few weeks?

I have plans to attended training and socialisation classes with her once she has settled in and have a trainer willing to come out and work with us at home if needed but I want to make sure I am giving her the best possible start here.


----------



## Dogless

Welcome Maria; I haven't ever taken on an older rescue but your plan sounds like a good one to me. I'd go back to basics and assume the 'worst' from the start in terms of house training and being left and if she turns out to be fine, then that's a brilliant bonus. Sure the others will have loads more advice for you!!


----------



## Maria_1986

Thanks dogless, good to know someone else thinks I thinking along the right lines.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse I would say around 12"-14" the ninja is 10" but I know thats very slim cos her collar is a good inch too big but doesn't go over her head which is fluffy but not as wide as a BT, but some of them can be very chunky necked and others quite slim, I would go by firedog not me  eek: I just mispelt your name, you don't want to know what spell check thought)

Sarah - would it not be a good idea to continue with the steps till he *knows *its different to the clicker or am I missing something  could the tasty food you use with whistle be completely separated from what you use for the clicker from now on. 
On the dieting thing I am with everyone else, don't pressure yourself too much, I found weight watchers meetings very helpful as my evil competitive streak came out  what MV and dogless said too, hubby loves you and TBH thats all that matters, corny but true, shame you couldn't invent a diet to slim down bitchy wives but then that sounds like an evil plan for world domination of army camps . And what Dogless said about expensive dress/outfit, although I find actually thats the worst bit of posh do's, I end up trying to find something I might wear again and just end up feeling underdressed in something I hate. I have actually got in my armoury an amazing billowing silky green dress with what looks like tie died bubbles on it. The pattern is me and the billowyness hides all sins and dinner bloating, its the only thing I have ever found and been comfy in, and I even get complimented 

MV that was a lovely thing to say and so very true, I am happy to join you and gate crash the party in my bilowy green dress , glad you had a good night, games night sounds fun!

Thorne - yes! That blizzard nearly caught me out too  don't blame Breeze for staying put, hope scooter is better soon.

Dogless -  oh no hope Rudi is ok, thats all you need the worry on top of everything else.

Maria it was really you I wanted to reply to, welcome and well done for taking on an older rescue . I would say your plan sounds just the ticket. To reassure you on one front, we got our last dog staffy/collie aged 5, he had been in the rescue for nearly 2 years so living in an outside kennel, we anticipated some toiletting issues but actually he was brilliant, especially with weeing, we praised him every time and hubby thought I was mad, pooing took a little while longer but accidents were always on the mat, so I think he remembered his training, just found them to be a bit more 'urgent' on occasion  it was only an occasion though and only for a couple of months.
With regards the leaving him though, that might need a bit of careful handling, staffies are very people orientated and can suffer from SA, if we had known we would done things very differently , so just a word of warning to keep an eye on that and build up slowly as you have already suggested. Good luck, pictures?????


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless I hope Rudi's cough was just a bit of dust and not KC fingers crossed.
I love the fabulous dress, shoes, suggestion! 

( no need for sorry this thread is too dynamic to keep up with everything )
Maria It sounds like a great plan for setting her up to succeed :thumbup: I hope it all goes smoothly. Please let us knwo how you are getting on when you bring her home 

Thorne do look after yourself the colds circulating this year seem to be extra mean. I hope you are all feeling better soonest. Suki and Lola both look lovely girls i hope they find new homes soon. I love the sound of your redirection game with Paddy nothing like a bit of lunacy in a good cause.:thumbup: one other thing mmmmmmmm cupcakes!!!!


----------



## Beth17

Dogless I hope LCH hasn't got the dreaded kennel cough, I keep waiting for Sam to catch it.

mv what a fab games night 

Thorne a cold  last thing you need, hopefully you can shift it quickly.

Sarah I sympathise I hate formal things with people I'm not keen on; it's lovely that your hubby really wants you to be there. WAYWO road trip to Germany sounds good 
I think Spen is too clever for his own good 

Maria welcome Chevy sounds like a lovely girl. I think what you have planned to do sounds a really good way to start off. I got Oscar at a year old and his housetraining and being left was absolutely fine thank goodness, so hopefully it will be the same for you.


----------



## Maria_1986

GingerRogers said:


> Maria it was really you I wanted to reply to, welcome and well done for taking on an older rescue . I would say your plan sounds just the ticket. To reassure you on one front, we got our last dog staffy/collie aged 5, he had been in the rescue for nearly 2 years so living in an outside kennel, we anticipated some toiletting issues but actually he was brilliant, especially with weeing, we praised him every time and hubby thought I was mad, pooing took a little while longer but accidents were always on the mat, so I think he remembered his training, just found them to be a bit more 'urgent' on occasion  it was only an occasion though and only for a couple of months.
> With regards the leaving him though, that might need a bit of careful handling, staffies are very people orientated and can suffer from SA, if we had known we would done things very differently , so just a word of warning to keep an eye on that and build up slowly as you have already suggested. Good luck, pictures?????


Thank you for your reply. I was aware of the SA after talking to a few people with staffies. At the moment she is in a kennel alone for a large amount of the time and is not at all destructive or noisey so hopefully she will learn to settle in a home, I have dug out my camcorder though to tape the first few times I leave her to see what her reaction is like. If there is no way that she will settle for me to go to work then she will go to a friends house while I am out but ideally I would like to be able to leave her at home.

I am so glad that I am not miles off with my plan of action - I really want to do whats best for her.

I don't have many photo's, but this is Chevy











Beth17 said:


> Maria welcome Chevy sounds like a lovely girl. I think what you have planned to do sounds a really good way to start off. I got Oscar at a year old and his housetraining and being left was absolutely fine thank goodness, so hopefully it will be the same for you.





moonviolet said:


> Maria It sounds like a great plan for setting her up to succeed :thumbup: I hope it all goes smoothly. Please let us knwo how you are getting on when you bring her home


 Thank you both for the replies


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Thank you for your reply. I was aware of the SA after talking to a few people with staffies. At the moment she is in a kennel alone for a large amount of the time and is not at all destructive or noisey so hopefully she will learn to settle in a home, I have dug out my camcorder though to tape the first few times I leave her to see what her reaction is like. If there is no way that she will settle for me to go to work then she will go to a friends house while I am out but ideally I would like to be able to leave her at home.
> 
> I am so glad that I am not miles off with my plan of action - I really want to do whats best for her.
> 
> I don't have many photo's, but this is Chevy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you both for the replies


Aww she looks a sweetheart bless her.

My daughter has taken on many rescues over the years. It's usually a case of getting them settled into a routine with time and patience.

Your plan of action sounds very sensible....


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Sarah I understand entirely i'm not a big one for formal do's, but seeing as you aren't going to be allowed to avoid this one. Go and have a great time with Hubby, smile because he loves you and wants you there.
> 
> If you are feeling a little saintly try to remember they are pointing out flaws with others to deflect from their own copious flaws and unhappinesses.
> 
> Shame the WAYWO gang can't all crash the bash and really sort them out


I'm up for a weekend away to Germany!  And I went to an all girls grammer - not much I don't know about bitchiness. :ciappa:



Maria_1986 said:


> I hope its ok to post here before I have not yet collected my dog but I was hoping that you could confirm my plan of action is the right one (I'm going to be a first time dog owner and although I am very excited i am now also questioning my training plan)
> 
> Chevy is an 8yr old staffy rescue - the rescue have said she is house trained, has a reasonable recall and is eager to please. However as I have read that sometimes rescue dogs can forget a little of the house training when moving into a new home I was planning on going back to basics and reinforcing the house training by taking her out regularly and rewarding for going outside does this seem sensible? I also want to make sure she settles when we go out so was planning on having a kong specially to give to her with treats in when we go out and starting with only being out a few moments building up to the few hours while I am at work. As she has been passed around many homes before I want to make sure she is happy and knows that I will come back. Even if the house training and settling when left is 100% from the start is it still a good idea for me to reinforce it in the first few weeks?
> 
> I have plans to attended training and socialisation classes with her once she has settled in and have a trainer willing to come out and work with us at home if needed but I want to make sure I am giving her the best possible start here.


That sounds good. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on her behaviour in kennels though - dogs can behave completely differently in home rather then kennels and I've even seen dogs have dramatic changes in their forever home when they've been fostered or gone straight from their previous home. She may be quiet and non-destructive in kennels because she is shut down.

Expect the first week/few weeks to be easier and then behavioural issues to come out (if they are there of course). The biggest time for dogs to bounce and for adopters to have real problems is between 2 weeks and a month as this seems to be when the dogs start to relax and the real issues start to emerge. For more severely shut down dogs it may take longer.

Of course hopefully you won't have any issues at all! Feel free to ask or PM me if you need anything - I do a lot of work for quite a few rescues (and having 2 myself) and I'm used to the teething problems and issues. I've been working with a family who have recently adopted a staffie in similar circumstances as you.

Thorne - glad you are feeling better. Hope everything continues to improve.

Dogless - hope it's not kennel cough and that LCH is better soon.

Werehorse - ah the curse of the low calorie dinner. :lol: Cottage pie with turkey mince and sweet potato is something I whip up when I've had an over eating day.


----------



## GingerRogers

Maria - Chevy looks to have a very sweet face I hope her nature matches 

Sounds like a trip to Germany is in order everyone  do you think your husband would mind Sarah, if you lose the weight secretly but wear an oversized gown we could sneak in under your skirt (ooh er ) to give moral support 

We just had a lovely walk, bumped into J with Tamzin and Rudi so had a walk with company  made a very pleasant change. The ninja was very relaxed and well behaved but I suspect she may have pee head now ! It does make me wonder if hubby is right and a friend would help calm her down *but *I am the one stuck here all day ready to break up a fight, what if it doesn't and we just end up with two reactive dogs, as it I can't think about things like a holiday, as she would have to go to M&D and I just don't think its fair on them with her behavior at the moment, but with two , I don't know. I think I will continue with the plan and try to sort her out then at least we can mix with more people, more the we can mix the more she will relax hopefully!!


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks Ginge re: collar size. I've ordered a 13" one from Indi-dog and I believe she puts a reasonable range of adjustment into hers so hopefully it'll fit him. I'm managing to use up the birthday money the parentals sent me without buying anything I initially thought I wanted. :lol: But I do have the biggest pile of dog books ever so it's not a bad thing!

Dogless - I hope Rudi is ok! 

Maria - yes, good plan.  Good luck with her - when does she arrive? Appologies if you already said, I missed it! Welcome to the madness of the WAYWO thread. :crazy:

L/C - I basically had a bag of salad with a tin of tuna and 100g of rice. :lol: It was quite nice but dreadfully green.

ETA - Ginge I do think long term she'd probably benefit from a pal but I also think your plan of getting her more sorted first is a good one! And it sounds like it is going really well at the moment.


----------



## L/C

Ginge - a friend might be good but I would def wait until she is more sorted. We added Gypsy too early and tbh they both suffered because of it (although it did help Ely as well).

Gah - just was looking at joining a a gym with a pool so I could add swimming into my training regime and the nearest one to us is closed until October 2013 for refurbishment. Poo.


----------



## Freddie and frank

good morning ladies.

promise i will do a read up later, honest. i want to catch up on what's been going on.:yesnod:

i've had horrible walks with the boys , well frank, the last couple of days.
at home he's my shadow and understands every word. we're playing a lot more and doing the ready steady thing on the garden. he's loving every minute of it, i can tell. 
soon as he gets out into the big wide world, it's like a switch has gone off. honestly, he's a different dog. his stance is different and his selective deafness reached a new level today. 
yesterday, i took his special toy with us and got him excited, threw it, he was excited, on 'get it' he pulled me the opposite way towards the river. so i put it away.

today, both boys came with me, and we went to 'rabbit hill'. loosed freddie off, got frank to 'sit' 'wait' took his lead off and even got him to do a few 'watch me' before saying 'ok' which he knows as 'good to go'.
he recalled, i threw some treats down and they both did 'find it'. he recalled away from two little jrt's. all was good so i decided to carry on and extend the walk.
down by the canal i distracted him enough as not to launch into the water, although he did do a horrendous poo roll.
then, he got through a newly made hole in the fence and he was off into the fields. chasing ducks, birds and swam across the flooded river into other fields.
i shouted him,tried everything and it fell on deaf ears. ten minutes i watched him swim about and chase things.:mad2: i couldn't have got through the gap else i would have gone to get him. he eventually got closer and came back through the hole. kept him on lead the rest of the way back.
walking back, freddie nearly pulled me and him infront of a car trying to get to a piece of toast in the middle of the road,:frown:

so feeling really crappy today, sorry. my husband is feeling very down and i'm trying to be upbeat for him but i struggle too with depression and it's tough being the one who has to hold it all together.today i actually feel like i can't cope with the dogs cause i'm the one that does everything with them, and i normally love it. i spend so much time with them, trying to get them to behave nicely so that when we all go out with them, it makes it enjoyable for all of us. after frank's little moment today, it makes me wonder where i have been going wrong.

found out yesterday that bella has never ever been to the vets so i have no record of vaccines. apparently, the breeder sorted out her vaccines but i think it sounds dodgy so i took her for injections and her anal glands needed expressing again.
she is doing really well on walks, even in the wind and rain last night, so that's a positive.

sorry for the woe is me post. i know people are going through a lot worse.
will hopefully be more positive later.


----------



## Dogless

Rudi has KC . I knew he did really from the sound of the cough. He was coughing and coughing when he tried to chase Kilo or run about with a toy. Took him to the vet, lungs clear but lots of crackling and rasping in upper respiratory tract. He even did a lovely demonstration of the coughing when Frank the practice cat wandered in and he got excited.

There is a large patch of grass up near the top fields where I have seen neither man nor beast so I may take him there for some sniffing about if keeping calm in the house with training, chews etc becomes difficult. I've never seen anyone on the top fields either to be honest, just Dizzy when we walk together.

After all that took Kilo out for an onlead walk; it's really windy and he was in "up on tiptoes, air scent, scan horizon for anything that moves" mode so wasn't going offlead round here. Again just getting him to pay attention to me, sit at road crossings etc was about the limit of our training.


----------



## Freddie and frank

oh, poor rudi. 
hope it clears up soon.

do they give ab's for it or do you just have to keep him away from others? is there a chance kilo can get it?


----------



## Dogless

Oh no F&F; what an horrendous time you're having, really hope you start to feel better soon .


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> oh, poor rudi.
> hope it clears up soon.
> 
> do they give ab's for it or do you just have to keep him away from others? is there a chance kilo can get it?


We have A/Bs as he's so young (easy to forget at his size, I do) and the vet said that the strain about at present seemed to be developing into secondary bacterial infection in most cases. He's his normal bouncy self, just has this cough and his temp was normal, although his nose and eyes are a bit runny.

Kilo is vaccinated (don't like to but he had to have it for kennels and training club) but may catch it depending on whether it's a different strain to that which he's vaccinated against.

I have a feeling that Rudi got it from puppy class last week as a kennel owner attends with her own dog but was saying how much trouble she was having with KC at the kennels at present.

The little tank weighed 30kg :yikes: when we checked it for the A/Bs.


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy said:


> Aww she looks a sweetheart bless her.
> 
> My daughter has taken on many rescues over the years. It's usually a case of getting them settled into a routine with time and patience.
> 
> Your plan of action sounds very sensible....


Thank you. I'm hoping time and routine work - I have had rescue cats and have fostered cats and that has worked for them so I know I can do time and routine at least even if the other dog specific stuff is all theory and no practice at the moment!



L/C said:


> That sounds good. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on her behaviour in kennels though - dogs can behave completely differently in home rather then kennels and I've even seen dogs have dramatic changes in their forever home when they've been fostered or gone straight from their previous home. She may be quiet and non-destructive in kennels because she is shut down.
> 
> Expect the first week/few weeks to be easier and then behavioural issues to come out (if they are there of course). The biggest time for dogs to bounce and for adopters to have real problems is between 2 weeks and a month as this seems to be when the dogs start to relax and the real issues start to emerge. For more severely shut down dogs it may take longer.
> 
> Of course hopefully you won't have any issues at all! Feel free to ask or PM me if you need anything - I do a lot of work for quite a few rescues (and having 2 myself) and I'm used to the teething problems and issues. I've been working with a family who have recently adopted a staffie in similar circumstances as you.


Thats really interesting, thank you. I think she may be quite shut down in kennels as she is not as keen on treats. She did go into a foster home for a week and had been previously rehomed but returned (the adopter was VERY house proud and not prepared for the mess that comes with dogs) and she was an angel in both homes however I'm not sure who long she was in the home for.

I think I will be a frequent visitor to this thread for help and support but it would be great to be able to PM someone if I get stuck too 



GingerRogers said:


> Maria - Chevy looks to have a very sweet face I hope her nature matches


Thank you



Werehorse said:


> Maria - yes, good plan.  Good luck with her - when does she arrive? Appologies if you already said, I missed it! Welcome to the madness of the WAYWO thread. :crazy:


We collect her on Sunday - its an 8 hour round trip so we are leaving at about 5am Sunday although I don't see me sleeping much that night anyway


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> We have A/Bs as he's so young (easy to forget at his size, I do) and the vet said that the strain about at present seemed to be developing into secondary bacterial infection in most cases. He's his normal bouncy self, just has this cough and his temp was normal, although his nose and eyes are a bit runny.
> 
> Kilo is vaccinated (don't like to but he had to have it for kennels and training club) but may catch it depending on whether it's a different strain to that which he's vaccinated against.
> 
> I have a feeling that Rudi got it from puppy class last week as a kennel owner attends with her own dog but was saying how much trouble she was having with KC at the kennels at present.


well i hope he gets over it soon and that it stays away from kilo.  my dog boarder asks for it so mine are vaccinated too.


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## moonviolet

F+F i liked your post becase you are here sharing it with us :thumbup: and that is very very very important. Sometimes the bags we need to carry are a bit too heavy and thats when friends come along and ask if they can carry a couple of them for you. Share the load 

Sorry to hear about Rudi having KC . Puppy class does sound like the source  Hope the little bruiser gets through it without delay.


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## GingerRogers

F&F - I will say it again, and truly I am not trying to be facetious (if thats even the word I mean ) but why do you feel you *have *to let Frank off yet, I feel for you really I do, as Ginge is the same, its not like she wont come back she does, she has better recall than many dogs I know but so often its in her own time and until she realises thats not ok she stays onlead, simple, it really doesn't harm her, she has runs in the garden and places we can take the long line. Because I know she will come eventually, the not letting her off is really for the sake of my sanity (rabbit hole diving aside) so _*I*_ feel bad about but I honestly don't think she does, and the little bit of guilt is nowhere near the stress of a rampant dog!! Ginge is also like Frank is in the house, stuck like glue, outside there is more important stuff to take notice of  Sorry you are feeling rubbish and there's other stuff going on too .

Dogless - oh dear poor you and Rudi, is Kilo vaccinated or is it likely he will get it too , TBH I have heard of be more KC about this year than ever, I wonder if its like the measles and mumps thing, that less people are vaccinating so its becoming more prevalent. Gives food for thought 
ETA see you have answered that  too slow!!!


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless said:


> Rudi has KC . I knew he did really from the sound of the cough. He was coughing and coughing when he tried to chase Kilo or run about with a toy. Took him to the vet, lungs clear but lots of crackling and rasping in upper respiratory tract. He even did a lovely demonstration of the coughing when Frank the practice cat wandered in and he got excited.


Sorry Rudi is poorly, I hope he is feeling better soon.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> F+F i liked your post becase you are here sharing it with us :thumbup: and that is very very very important. Sometimes the bags we need to carry are a bit too heavy and thats when friends come along and ask if they can carry a couple of them for you. Share the load
> 
> Sorry to hear about Rudi having KC . Puppy class does sound like the source  Hope the little bruiser gets through it without delay.


He is his normal self at present thankfully (or not, as keeping him from getting excited and bouncing isn't easy!!). The vet says that it will get worse before it gets better but thank goodness he's such a strong little pup; I'd worry like mad I think if I had a teeny dog .


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## GingerRogers

Just realised Rudi is 30kg  ye gods he is a tank isn't he and his legs still look huge in proportion on your pics from yesterday , are you revising you prediction that he will be similar size to Kilo yet


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Just realised Rudi is 30kg  ye gods he is a tank isn't he and his legs still look huge in proportion on your pics from yesterday , are you revising you prediction that he will be similar size to Kilo yet


I don't know .


----------



## Freddie and frank

gr, i doubt myself a hell of a lot, always have and always will. it's something i have to live with. which brings me onto why i loose frank off....i have it in my head that i don't do enough for the dogs, even though others have told me i do plenty. i have this ideal picture that he will stay with me when he's off lead, as does freddie. letting him have a run off lead makes me feel like i'm giving him what he wants , and he's happy. suppose i feel guilty if he has to stay on lead all the while.
does that make sense? ?

i don't loose him off where he can get into trouble and this was a new hole in the fence.had i known it was there, he would have stayed on lead.he will be if we go that way again. i am responsible, honest


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Sarah - would it not be a good idea to continue with the steps till he *knows *its different to the clicker or am I missing something  could the tasty food you use with whistle be completely separated from what you use for the clicker from now on.


That's the thing though, the steps are exactly the same as how you charge the clicker, click and treat immediately, whistle and treat immediately, that there is no difference yet. And the rest of the "Pre Recall" stuff is encouraging the dog to come towards you and whistling when he does, which I think is going to reinforce his view of the whistle as an alternative clicker sound. The step I'm going to jump to is the first step in the Basic Recall stuff. Which is pretty much blow the whistle and see if your dog comes to you, if not encourage him to do so using whatever means you can other than the whistle. I'm 99% sure Spen will come running if I whistle though. It's associated with extra yummy food after all lol.

Thanks for the comments on the weight loss and my hubby being proud to be with me everyone. I'll go read through the rest of the thread now coz you've apparently all been busy posting.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> gr, i doubt myself a hell of a lot, always have and always will. it's something i have to live with. which brings me onto why i loose frank off....i have it in my head that i don't do enough for the dogs, even though others have told me i do plenty. i have this ideal picture that he will stay with me when he's off lead, as does freddie. letting him have a run off lead makes me feel like i'm giving him what he wants , and he's happy. suppose i feel guilty if he has to stay on lead all the while.
> does that make sense? ?
> 
> i don't loose him off where he can get into trouble and this was a new hole in the fence.had i known it was there, he would have stayed on lead.he will be if we go that way again. i am responsible, honest


It does make sense; today I felt 'bad' for taking Kilo somewhere on part of our walk where he nearly always goes offlead - however today he wasn't focussed on me AT ALL so he stayed onlead. When I take him to one forest I am certain that he'd LOVE to be offlead as most of the dogs are but it is chockablock with deer and he'd disappear hunting and certainly chase deer if he saw them, so we run there with him attached to me. Other dog owners certainly don't help "oh look, he only wants to play, let him off" / "Aaaaw let him off, I'm sure he won't chase" / "Mine always chases the deer he loves it, disappears for ages and tires him out like nothing else" etc etc .


----------



## GingerRogers

Freddie and frank said:


> gr, i doubt myself a hell of a lot, always have and always will. it's something i have to live with. which brings me onto why i loose frank off....i have it in my head that i don't do enough for the dogs, even though others have told me i do plenty. i have this ideal picture that he will stay with me when he's off lead, as does freddie. letting him have a run off lead makes me feel like i'm giving him what he wants , and he's happy. suppose i feel guilty if he has to stay on lead all the while.
> does that make sense? ?
> 
> i don't loose him off where he can get into trouble and this was a new hole in the fence.had i known it was there, he would have stayed on lead.he will be if we go that way again. *i am responsible, honest *


Oh I am sure you are, I didn't mean to imply you weren't responsible, far from it (although I think I was irresponsible at times through listening to others) I was trying (and failing obviously ) to get you to see you don't have to let him off, at least not yet, carry on with your plan and work on his recall, but just making that decision that its not going to happen for now and you do feel better, honest, I have the odd momentary pang but its more for my own enjoyment of watching her run free than anything else.

I kept letting Ginge off cos everyone said I should, including hubby, we had a fair few rows about it TBH, 'let her be a dog', 'trust your dog' kind of tosh  but it just wasn't worth it in my eyes, I thought we were in a safe place and she got stuck .

Even he now agrees that he cringes inside when he thinks of the trouble she could have got into. I do sort of work on her recall its just not a priority right now and i hope it will get stronger as we build a bond. She is getting better she always comes to 'this way' on her long lead but I just know if she fixates on something she will be off if not attached.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> It does make sense; today I felt 'bad' for taking Kilo somewhere on part of our walk where he nearly always goes offlead - however today he wasn't focussed on me AT ALL so he stayed onlead. When I take him to one forest I am certain that he'd LOVE to be offlead as most of the dogs are but it is chockablock with deer and he'd disappear hunting and certainly chase deer if he saw them, so we run there with him attached to me. Other dog owners certainly don't help "oh look, he only wants to play, let him off" / "Aaaaw let him off, I'm sure he won't chase" / "Mine always chases the deer he loves it, disappears for ages and tires him out like nothing else" etc etc .


this is the exact reason why he stays on lead on some of our walks....deer. i still love to go there though cause it's beautiful.


----------



## Freddie and frank

GingerRogers said:


> Oh I am sure you are, I didn't mean to imply you weren't responsible, far from it (although I think I was irresponsible at times through listening to others) I was trying (and failing obviously ) to get you to see you don't have to let him off, at least not yet, carry on with your plan and work on his recall, but just making that decision that its not going to happen for now and you do feel better, honest, I have the odd momentary pang but its more for my own enjoyment of watching her run free than anything else.
> 
> I kept letting Ginge off cos everyone said I should, including hubby, we had a fair few rows about it TBH, 'let her be a dog', 'trust your dog' kind of tosh  but it just wasn't worth it in my eyes, I thought we were in a safe place and she got stuck .
> 
> Even he now agrees that he cringes inside when he thinks of the trouble she could have got into. I do sort of work on her recall its just not a priority right now and i hope it will get stronger as we build a bond. She is getting better she always comes to 'this way' on her long lead but I just know if she fixates on something she will be off if not attached.


oh, i did know what you mean, sorry. i'm not the best with words and especially when typing them out.
my husband is the opposite, he hates frank going off lead. i do need to just accept the fact that he has to stay on a long line for the time being until we've nailed it.


----------



## Sarah1983

F&F, have you thought about just keeping Frank on a long line if you can't trust him not to run off? We had very, very few safe areas we could let Rupert off leash in because of his prey drive and although a long line isn't ideal it's a lot better than the worry of them disappearing over the horizon. And if you're working on his recall it's important to make sure he can't practise disobeying it to start with  Spen's also only off leash in certain places but his is coz he'd go introducing himself to every dog he saw given the chance. I do sometimes feel bad keeping him on a line though.

Dogless, sorry to hear Rudi has KC. Fingers crossed Kilo doesn't catch it and hope Rudi recovers quickly. And Rudi weighs more than Spen now, Spen is 29.something kilos.

Maria, I would say don't expect her to be house trained when she comes home. Treat her like she were a new puppy and give her lots of opportunity to toilet in the right place and practically none to get it wrong. Neither of my adolescent dogs have been house trained when I got them here although one was in his previous home. And on moving house all my dogs have had to go back to basics for a few days on it.

MV, glad you had fun at your games night.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless - Really sorry that Rudi has kennel cough, although in some respects I always think once they've had it they never seem to get it quite so bad after that.

Does your training club shut down? We always close for about 3 weeks as a precaution.

F & F - Sorry you've had a couple of bad walks with Frank and that you're not feeling too good. The trouble is when you're low everything becomes magnified, including the dogs little foibles.

Wednesday class starts in half an hour. I expect I shall be tearing my hair out as they've had two months off and probably done very little training.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless how frustrating for you  I'm sure Rudi will get over it quickly it's just trying to keep them occupied isn't it. 30kg what a fattie 

F&F Sorry you've not had the best few days with walking Frank; if short term keeping him on longline is the way to go then don't feel guilty about it.

Good luck Twiggy 

Ginge sounds a fab walk today 

Really good walk again even if it was collies pick on Sam day 
Walked them both to the field as it was nice and breezy and takes about 20mins, the walk there was good a little bit of excited pulling but nothing major. Then got to the field and let them both off and they were running around minding their own business; I took their kong wubba today and they were just as focused on that. 

Took a wide berth around a group of collies that can be very barky and a couple have had a go at Oscar before, they came charging over barking and chased Sam who was enjoying playing until he got herded to their owner who had a mastiffy type on lead and then he was overwhelmed, went to ground and the collies started barking in his face. The lady pulled hers up by the collar and he was able to run back to me and we carried on, I was childish and ignored her apology  I wouldn't mind but this often happens and she teaches agility. All throughout Oscar had a quick run after them and then was more interested in me and his toy 

Well we carried on both boys ignoring all the other dogs, up through the fields and then down onto the wooded path, just as we turned the corner another group of collies appeared, everyone was a bit jammed in which I think was the reason this other collie then kicked off at Sam and bullied/pushed him off the path poor thing. Oscar was right in the middle and didn't do a thing,only his hackles were up slightly towards the end of the scuffle.

The boys then finished with a bit of zoomies around the woody bit before going back on lead and walking slowly home. As you can imagine they are now completely knackered. So today's lesson is that collies don't like Sam but Oscar hopefully doesn't feel the need to jump in too quickly. You never know I may actually be able to take them both to meet the Pickles when they are down this way


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless - Really sorry that Rudi has kennel cough, although in some respects I always think once they've had it they never seem to get it quite so bad after that.
> 
> Does your training club shut down? We always close for about 3 weeks as a precaution.
> 
> F & F - Sorry you've had a couple of bad walks with Frank and that you're not feeling too good. The trouble is when you're low everything becomes magnified, including the dogs little foibles.
> 
> Wednesday class starts in half an hour. I expect I shall be tearing my hair out as they've had two months off and probably done very little training.


I don't know Twiggy; am going to let the trainer know he has it shortly. It has never shut down whilst I've been there. I am obviously not taking Rudi tomorrow but won't take Kilo either as I don't know whether he might be incubating it and obviously he has close contact with Rudi - I'll keep them both away from other dogs. I would think that it's most likely Rudi got it there given the timeframe involved, but he has met lots of dogs this week so will never really know.

I am now worrying about his socialisation . Me just being me .


----------



## Dogless

Beth; your boys did amazingly under those circumstances, I'd be really proud - and definitely would have ignored the first woman's apology or said something if it's a regular thing .


----------



## Dogless

Leam - how are things? Hope no news is good news .


----------



## L/C

Oh no - poor Rudi! But 30kg!  That's 3 more then Ely and 5 more then Gypsy. 

Sorry you had a bad walk F&F - a long line might be a god send for you if you're worried about letting him off but still want to give him a run around. Wear gloves though! And I'd get a horse lunge line instead of a specific long line.

Thin nylon lunge line + no gloves + highly prey driven dog = huge amounts of pain and scars!


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Oh no - poor Rudi! But 30kg!  That's 3 more then Ely and 5 more then Gypsy.
> 
> Sorry you had a bad walk F&F - a long line might be a god send for you if you're worried about letting him off but still want to give him a run around. Wear gloves though! And I'd get a horse lunge line instead of a specific long line.
> 
> Thin nylon lunge line + no gloves + highly prey driven dog = huge amounts of pain and scars!


He says he's big boned OK - doesn't touch junk food and only eats salad  .


----------



## GingerRogers

Definitely second the gloves* with a long line, have been wondering what for the warmer months but decided my old riding gloves should be ok, I use them for canoeing as well. (*and ankle pads, got swiped round the ankle last night, on the one day I wasn't wearing my thick old boots  felt like I had split the skin open for a few minutes)


----------



## Beth17

L/C said:


> Sorry you had a bad walk F&F - a long line might be a god send for you if you're worried about letting him off but still want to give him a run around. Wear gloves though! And I'd get a horse lunge line instead of a specific long line.
> 
> Thin nylon lunge line + no gloves + highly prey driven dog = huge amounts of pain and scars!


Yes I've done that before :crying:


----------



## Werehorse

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - oh dear poor you and Rudi, is Kilo vaccinated or is it likely he will get it too , TBH I have heard of be more KC about this year than ever, I wonder if its like the measles and mumps thing, that less people are vaccinating so its becoming more prevalent. Gives food for thought
> ETA see you have answered that  too slow!!!


That could be possible but I suspect that the couple of wet summers we've had haven't helped - there seems to be a lot more human bugs going round, so probably doggie bugs too.

Poor little Rudi! I hope he is feeling better soon. And that Kilo manages to avoid picking it up too. Don't worry too much about his socialisation, you've done a lot already and he's pretty confident to start with - at least he can't have any bad experiences while you are avoiding other dogs!

F&F - sorry you're having a bad time. Listen to the ginger one for she is wise. 

Beth - Poor Sam.  But good that Oscar was calm about it all. All these out of control spaniels and now collies! I'm going to have to get my two a disguise to wear in the thread. 

Twiggy - I hope your students have done more homework than you think! :lol:

Me and the boys have been for a run again. Woop! Just 3 miles today. For some reason when I got them out of the car back at home they were like maniacs on strings! I gave them a kibble and a bit of wet-stuffed kongs to see if they would settle but they ate them and carried on being mental, generally just leaping all over me while I ate my meagre lunch. I'm afraid I cracked a little - managed not to shout but I have just bunged them both in the crate to calm down a bit!!   I know it's not the best practice but I just think they were so wound up from the running - and it isn't as far as they are used to when we're running - that they were still full of go. They've gone to sleep in there now so I'll let them out in a bit.


----------



## Guest

Poor rudi! And poor Sam too! 
And F+F defo wear gloves and get a horse lungline. I got dragged by Zand on a longline and had a fair few cuts into my hands and legs. So be careful.

We were accosted by three offlead pointers when I walked Zand this morning, they leapt all over him and me (which donkeyboy loved of course) I almost got knocked over/pulled over. The owner did bugger all cept wander on. I told him to "Put them on an effing lead or I'll be taking them on as strays!!" he just sneered at me. So I just walked off, with three pointers leaping about behind me and a beserk zander on the end of the lead. He came and got them eventually, the snobby old turnip. 

Zander was good the rest of the walk, I almost faceplanted the concrete again, when a neighbours cockapoo came shooting under their fence towards us and Zand launched. 

Just done a training session as I think it'll be just one walk today after this morn.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Me and the boys have been for a run again. Woop! Just 3 miles today. For some reason when I got them out of the car back at home they were like maniacs on strings! I gave them a kibble and a bit of wet-stuffed kongs to see if they would settle but they ate them and carried on being mental, generally just leaping all over me while I ate my meagre lunch. I'm afraid I cracked a little - managed not to shout but I have just bunged them both in the crate to calm down a bit!!   I know it's not the best practice but I just think they were so wound up from the running - and it isn't as far as they are used to when we're running - that they were still full of go. They've gone to sleep in there now so I'll let them out in a bit.


They are probably a bit hyper form the running a little enforced settle time will help them chill out. 

I tried to have a meagre lunch of stir fried veg .... then i happened upon some shortbread that "needed" eating :lol: I will get this house healthy even if i have to eat all the bad stuff myself :lol:

Beth gold stars to both your boys, but what a pain. Hope Poor Sam can shake it off.

This morning was fine apart from tag along dog.... had to change the route as the one i planned involved crossing a road, oh well.

LO bah what an arrogant turnip. sounds like it was quite a lively walk. well done for suriving it with yoru sense of humour intact.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Sarah - I can only echo what other have said! Try and ignore the other wives at your do and have a fun time with hubby, its lovely he's so determined to take you and he'll be proud to have you on your arm and not some horrible cow that one of his mates is stuck married too! With Spens pre-recall stuff do you just blow the whistle then treat? Or do you blow the whistle so that he comes to you from elsewhere in the house and then treat? Just seen that you've answered that, I think go to the step you mentioned so that he doesnt get frustrated trying to work out what to do to get the whistle and treat so he associates whistle with mummy has super yummy treats all for me! Nomnomnom!!

Thorne - Im eagerly awaiting my cupcake in the post. I hope you're OK, at least you have lots of eager listeners in S+B and all the BC lot!

Maria - Good luck with Chevy, she's gorgeous, hope that everything goes smoothly. I have no experience of taking on a rescue but would like to in the future and your plans sounds like a good one.

Dogless - Poor Rudi, fingers crossed BCH doesnt catch it. Izzy's vaccinated for going to daycare/boarding etc but I get paranoid everytime she coughs.

MV - well done on your games last night, sounds like Miss Tink is a little winner in the making.....next step BGT!!

GR - Im sure Ginge would love a little friend, we keep thinking the same of Izzy but want to get to a certain point with her before taking on another, plus we would ideally like an adult rescue who was calm and would reassure her but with working full time not many places would consider us so we'll have to wait a while.

Werehorse - well done on your super healthy supper last night! Sounds like the boys are full of beans today!

F+F - sorry you're not havin a good time with the boys, hopefully they'll be back on track soon!

Twiggy - good luck with the class today! Im sure Id be one of those you'd end up tearing your hair out about!!

Beth - Poor Sam, not a good day for his interactions with collies, sounds like they were both good boys for you though! 

LO - oh dear not the best walk, well done for having a go at that stupid man, I would feel awful if Izzy was behaving like that and causing someone to nearly fall over, I'll never understand some people!

So we woke up to a blizzard yesterday and cancelled Izzy's day at creche, the traffic would have been awful for Tarnus getting her there before work! But because we'd initially got up with intention of going to creche Id given her some breakfast so she just had a quick lead walk before work after her dinner had settled, she was pretty hyper with the snow and apparently when going around corners kept trying to do zoomies whilst still on the lead! :lol:

Then yesterday evening she was really good on her evening walk, took her down a busier street and she did really well, lots of sniffing and focus on me, there was a hairy moment when we went past a school as we passed the gate just as a mum and her daughter were coming out so Izzy cowered away a little bit and I just waited for them to go ahead and then she was fine until another kid came running out the gate and along the pavement (this stretch of pavement is fenced for safety so I had no escape and he came right up behind her so she was really anxious and kept checking behind but didnt bark so I just kept my voice light "its ok, lets go this way" type thing and crossed as soon as I could but then this kid crossed and came up behind us again, the mother was really far behind with no control over him so we quickly had to cross again as soon as there was another gap in the fence. I nearly unleashed my inner hag on the stupid mum (I would never let my hypothetical child run right up behind an unknown dog) but chickened out and just carried on and extended our walk down some quieter streets and Izzy soon shook it off!

Then last night Tarnus made us some weaves to practise with at home! So we had a go with those last night and at lunchtime today and she seems to be getting the hang of it;









We're off to school tonight so Id better get home am gonna take her for a quick play at the park with her ball to get some crazies out before class!


----------



## Freddie and frank

thanks guys.
i have a line that's about 10 mtrs. d'you think i need a longer one?


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## GingerRogers

Freddie and frank said:


> thanks guys.
> i have a line that's about 10 mtrs. d'you think i need a longer one?


Its entirely up to you and what you can manage TBH, I would have thought it will be fine, I do have 15m for Ginge, which is quite a loooooong way and inevitably have some of coiled up in my hand especially if near hedges or trees etc 

Don't think this was fully extended, its great, but obviously more cumbersome, especially as its Wyrds beta biothene rubbery plastic stuff which I love as it doesn't get sodden and catches on stuff far less but its not something I take on every walk and come the better weather would probably get something lighter, don't know if this gives you an impression of how far


----------



## Twiggy

Well I've got Tremor well and truly lame on her right hip now...!!..

Guess who walked them this morning whilst I was at the vets with Quiver.....:mad2: I told him to keep Tremor on the lead at least until she was calm.

And the only dog that wasn't very good in class was Holly. In her defence she doesn't like the black Gron dog after it stood over her 2 or 3 months ago. She did everything but not with much enthusiasm.

I'm about to try and get hold of my chiropractor.


----------



## Guest

Oh no poor tremor!! 

We just had a rather huge panic here. Me and mum had to go down the shop to get some elecky. So I sat with Zand in the foyer on a bench. The lady who usually cuddles him came to stroke him. Massive freak out from my one, He curled up under the bench, and started shaking. So i took him out of the foyer and stood outside in the carpark. We started to make chewbacca noises and trying to back out of our collar. Literally all the way home we were horrifically skittish, ignoring a goldie, and are now hutching around the house. 

I've noticed he definitley seems more scared when we have dark evening or morning walks. No idea if the different lighting would make things scary?
I mean he goes in that foyer a fair amount!


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy - indoor agility kit is pretty dedicated :thumbup:. Mind you, you have a rare husband in Tarnus; he's actually on board with this training lark .

Twiggy - sorry about Tremor, poor girl.

LO - Kilo is massively more keyed up in the half light - dawn / dusk type scenarios than at any other time, not sure if Zand might be similar? Well done on your hagginess earlier too .

mv - sorry you had to change your route for tag along dog :mad2:.

Werehorse - Kilo is sometimes a bit bonkers post - run. Adrenaline? Endorphins?

Pretty crappy afternoon here really. Rudi has obviously felt a bit under the weather as he slept until about 1600, bless him.

Took Rudi to that big patch of grass I was on about this morning, with the idea that he got a very short, gentle sniff about and toiletted. All the little bugger wanted to do was break the bones in my forearms from the second we got out and destuff my Puffa jacket :mad2:. The overexcitement of trying to seriously maim me plus cold air really set his coughing off, which has become worse anyway, so I abandoned that idea swiftly. Got home and Kilo jumped behind me and nipped which he hasn't done since he was Rudi's age ....then I saw that he had a mouthful of filler from my jacket....he had gone for that because when I took my jacket off I could see a few spots from which filler was tantalisingly hanging out :mad2::mad2:

Took Kilo on a lead walk and he was scent, secent, scent, hunt, hunt, hunt still. Had an OK walk, just very hard work and I felt like (unjustly) losing my rag more than once. Wasn't in the best mood after Rudi's efforts anyway .


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh no poor tremor!!
> 
> We just had a rather huge panic here. Me and mum had to go down the shop to get some elecky. So I sat with Zand in the foyer on a bench. The lady who usually cuddles him came to stroke him. Massive freak out from my one, He curled up under the bench, and started shaking. So i took him out of the foyer and stood outside in the carpark. We started to make chewbacca noises and trying to back out of our collar. Literally all the way home we were horrifically skittish, ignoring a goldie, and are now hutching around the house.
> 
> *I've noticed he definitley seems more scared when we have dark evening or morning walks. No idea if the different lighting would make things scary?*
> *I mean he goes in that foyer a fair amount!*




Might just be worth having his eyes checked as that sounds rather odd behaviour even from Zand.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Izzysmummy - indoor agility kit is pretty
> Took Rudi to that big patch of grass I was on about this morning, with the idea that he got a very short, gentle sniff about and toiletted. All the little bugger wanted to do was break the bones in my forearms from the second we got out and destuff my Puffa jacket :mad2:. The overexcitement of trying to seriously maim me plus cold air really set his coughing off, which has become worse anyway, so I abandoned that idea swiftly. Got home and Kilo jumped behind me and nipped which he hasn't done since he was Rudi's age ....then I saw that he had a mouthful of filler from my jacket....he had gone for that because when I took my jacket off I could see a few spots from which filler was tantalisingly hanging out :mad2::mad2:
> 
> Took Kilo on a lead walk and he was scent, secent, scent, hunt, hunt, hunt still. Had an OK walk, just very hard work and I felt like (unjustly) losing my rag more than once. Wasn't in the best mood after Rudi's efforts anyway .


Oh dear. Sounds as if most of us are not having a good day.

Have you got any Manuka honey for Rudi? It at least helps soothe the cough.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. Sounds as if most of us are not having a good day.
> 
> Have you got any Manuka honey for Rudi? It at least helps soothe the cough.


Yes, I have Manuka honey for him, plus some Tesco cough syrup for night that the vet recommended. Bless him, it's such a horrible sounding cough.


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## Beth17

LO poor Zand, I wonder what spooked him 

Izzysmummy I love the home made weaves.

Dogless sounds like a trying afternoon, roll on tomorrow.

Werehorse my two often end up having mad zoomies after a walk if we've not been out quite as long. At least they settled once in the crate.

Twiggy I hope poor Tremor isn't lame for long.

mv That's a noble thing you're doing, eating all the bad stuff so everyone esle is healthy 

Quiet evening here as boys were still tired from earlier. Sam however has developed a new habit over the past couple of weeks where he keeps trying to nibble you and hump; however this is only ever after he's eaten and then I've eaten. Strange dog.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Yes, I have Manuka honey for him, plus some Tesco cough syrup for night that the vet recommended. Bless him, it's such a horrible sounding cough.


I recommend manuka it helped me when I had pleurisy so its bound to help with kennel cough , hope he's better soon, for your sake if nothing else .


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## Izzysmummy

Dogless said:


> Izzysmummy - indoor agility kit is pretty dedicated :thumbup:. Mind you, you have a rare *husband* in Tarnus; he's actually on board with this training lark .
> 
> Twiggy - sorry about Tremor, poor girl.
> 
> LO - Kilo is massively more keyed up in the half light - dawn / dusk type scenarios than at any other time, not sure if Zand might be similar? Well done on your hagginess earlier too .
> 
> mv - sorry you had to change your route for tag along dog :mad2:.
> 
> Werehorse - Kilo is sometimes a bit bonkers post - run. Adrenaline? Endorphins?
> 
> Pretty crappy afternoon here really. Rudi has obviously felt a bit under the weather as he slept until about 1600, bless him.
> 
> Took Rudi to that big patch of grass I was on about this morning, with the idea that he got a very short, gentle sniff about and toiletted. All the little bugger wanted to do was break the bones in my forearms from the second we got out and destuff my Puffa jacket :mad2:. The overexcitement of trying to seriously maim me plus cold air really set his coughing off, which has become worse anyway, so I abandoned that idea swiftly. Got home and Kilo jumped behind me and nipped which he hasn't done since he was Rudi's age ....then I saw that he had a mouthful of filler from my jacket....he had gone for that because when I took my jacket off I could see a few spots from which filler was tantalisingly hanging out :mad2::mad2:
> 
> Took Kilo on a lead walk and he was scent, secent, scent, hunt, hunt, hunt still. Had an OK walk, just very hard work and I felt like (unjustly) losing my rag more than once. Wasn't in the best mood after Rudi's efforts anyway .


Hehe! Not quite! He's not asked me yet ......I've told him no more dogs until we're married to try and spur him on a bit 

Poor Rudi, bless him! Big hugs from us!


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## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> LO poor Zand, I wonder what spooked him
> 
> Izzysmummy I love the home made weaves.
> 
> Dogless sounds like a trying afternoon, roll on tomorrow.
> 
> Werehorse my two often end up having mad zoomies after a walk if we've not been out quite as long. At least they settled once in the crate.
> 
> *Twiggy I hope poor Tremor isn't lame for long.*
> 
> So do I...!! She's the only one I've got to work and I've put a fair amount of training into her this Winter.
> 
> I can't wait to get her to the chiropractor and find out whether she thinks it's a tear or a pull. Soft tissue injuries can take forever to come right.
> 
> Right now I could throttle a certain man who's sitting reading the newspaper without a care in the World....:devil: He's absolutely hopeless.


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## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> Hehe! Not quite! He's not asked me yet ......I've told him no more dogs until we're married to try and spur him on a bit
> 
> Poor Rudi, bless him! Big hugs from us!


Oops . Sorry......slip of the keyboard .


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## Werehorse

I reckon that Tarnus lad needs to pull his finger out and get asking. :lol: Mind you, he made you weave poles that's better than a wedding anyday. 

Oooo, a PF wedding. We'd all have to buy hats. And this is after we've all bought posh frocks so we can go to Sarah's do in Germany. :lol: This is going to get expensive.

Twiggy - poor Tremor. I hope she gets better soon. 

LO - I hope donkeyboy is ok... perhaps think about getting his eyes checked?

The boys are quite settled now- I think they just get really excited when I run. Weirdly more so when I run with them alone than when OH comes with. So I think they were just a bit wired on adrenalin.

Class tonight!


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## Jenny Olley

My, My hasn't everyone been busy, its only a couple of days since I was on and there are pages and pages.
Poor Rudi he's a big stong pup, he'll soon recover. Here's hoping Tremor a quick recovery.
Good luck Sarah with the diet, I need to loose some weight, going to put more work in training Archie, that might help, trouble is my diet is too much like yours moonviolet, healthy, then follow it up with something that needs eating.
Izzysmummy, nice weavy's.
Had a few good days with Archie despite the terrible weather, sendaways and redirects every day, he is starting to get an understanding. Was at Lincoln Lane Kennels today as OH was taking a class there, took it in the barn as the weather was yuk, Archie performed really well.
It was my birthday on Monday, had a lovely day out walking, playing messing and training with the dogs, we were going to go to the coast but decided against due to the wind.


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## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> My, My hasn't everyone been busy, its only a couple of days since I was on and there are pages and pages.
> Poor Rudi he's a big stong pup, he'll soon recover. Here's hoping Tremor a quick recovery.
> Good luck Sarah with the diet, I need to loose some weight, going to put more work in training Archie, that might help, trouble is my diet is too much like yours moonviolet, healthy, then follow it up with something that needs eating.
> Izzysmummy, nice weavy's.
> Had a few good days with Archie despite the terrible weather, sendaways and redirects every day, he is starting to get an understanding. Was at Lincoln Lane Kennels today as OH was taking a class there, took it in the barn as the weather was yuk, Archie performed really well.
> It was my birthday on Monday, had a lovely day out walking, playing messing and training with the dogs, we were going to go to the coast but decided against due to the wind. Our lovely dog and me on Monday.
> View attachment 107711


Can't open the attachment; says it's invalid . Happy (belated!) Birthday .

Rudi certainly isn't a delicate little flower; that much is true!


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## Guest

I cant open it neither!!  HAPPY BIIIRTHHHHHHDAYYY!!!


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## Jenny Olley

Me and our lovely dogs on Monday.


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## Jenny Olley

Dogless said:


> Can't open the attachment; says it's invalid . Happy (belated!) Birthday .
> 
> Rudi certainly isn't a delicate little flower; that much is true!





LurcherOwner said:


> I cant open it neither!!  HAPPY BIIIRTHHHHHHDAYYY!!!


I know I'm sorry have done it again on another post.


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## Guest

Jenny Olley said:


> View attachment 107712
> 
> Me and our lovely dogs on Monday.


*steals all the collies*

They're beautiful dogs! What sort of cross is the ginger one? (Sorry if I'm being stupid) GSD? Tis lovely anyway!


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## Dogless

JO - that is a gorgeous photo!


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## Guest

I've just been looking back at things from the fosterer when we first thought about choosing one of the pups.
One thing I've juuuuuust noticed now. Apparently the tan/white ones were the 'spiciest'. SPICY? Is that good!?!










He picked me. :lol: Came CHARGGGGINNNNG towards me, and leapt up on my lap. :lol:

His sibling could not have cared we were there at all.

Going down that very short memory lane.


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## Sarah1983

I'd hold off on the posh frocks, apparently the summer ball is going to have games and be quite messy! I'm hoping that means jeans and tshirt will be acceptable attire. My idea of dressed up is a pair of black trousers and a nice top, none of this formal bloody gown rubbish the army seem to demand! Even at my slimmest I found that a dress either fit boobs and hips and was horribly loose at the stomach or fit at the stomach and would have split if I'd sat down :lol:

For those who don't want nightmares cover your eyes now! This is my motivation picture to lose weight and keep it off. I think I'm slightly heavier than 140lbs in the slim pic coz it's a pic I sent to Calvin while he was in Iraq and I hit my goal weight just before he came home but it's close enough. I dunno where my boobs have gone in it, I've never been smaller than a C cup lol.









Hard to believe I went from the slim pic to the fat pic in just a few months.

JO, sounds like Archie is doing really well. Puts me and the silly Spendog to shame that's for sure!

Twiggy, I hope Tremor is okay soon!

LO, have you noticed odd behaviour from Zander as it's getting dark before?

Okay, so I've been working on blowing the whistle and rewarding him for coming to me today. He seems far less frustrated already. And he comes running every time. Problem is setting it up so he's not already next to me, I have to be sneaky and pretend to be doing something so he wanders away a little. All this is just in the house for the time being so it's all very easy for him to get right.


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## GingerRogers

Quick post on phone but had to say i nearly cried.on my walk. Big dog in garden never heard before. Was dark so didn't see. Ninja shot.over and pulled my arm out the.socket but barely a sound. Thought she.would be extra.jumpy after that but walked past known dog houses with barely a glance and no car barking either. Clever girl. Was dreading walk as so windy too.


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## Jenny Olley

LurcherOwner said:


> *steals all the collies*
> 
> They're beautiful dogs! What sort of cross is the ginger one? (Sorry if I'm being stupid) GSD? Tis lovely anyway!


His mum is GSd and dad is a BC, he is a little sweetheart.



Dogless said:


> JO - that is a gorgeous photo!


Thank you, my OH had aleady had us sat there ages while he took some photos, he then said I've got some good ones, when I looked he hadn't taken any, he'd been pressing the on and off button.


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## Guest

WELL DONE GINGE!! 

Hope it goes well Sarah!

And if we're on an early morning/ evening walk and its dark, he's more likely to shy away from peoples hands.


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## foxyrockmeister

Bad times here today 

Had a pretty crappy walk so thought I'd just let it all out here rather than making a 'moany moany woe is me' thread!

I took the Pickles on one of our 'new walks' that we discovered a couple of weeks ago as part of our new years resolution. 
Started off well but had 3 incidents that I was less than happy about. I'll try and keep it short...

1) Pickles are off lead and there's a man coming towards us with a border collie on lead, so I call the Pickles back to me to put their leads on but the guy calls to me "If they're ok then I'll let her off" so I call back "ok!" and let the Pickles go again, they run off to greet the BC and do their usual greeting of running quite fast towards her and then dropping to the ground about 10 feet in front of her tails wagging like fury, she obviously doesn't like this much and lunges at them all snarly snarly. Her owner tries to call her away as do I with the Pickles but it escalated into quite a handbags moment between the 3 of them. I don't think there was any 'real' aggression or contact made, just a lot of snarling and snapping. On a couple of occasions I managed to recall the Pickles away but the BC would chase after them snapping so Branston would spin back round and retaliate. This only lasted a few seconds really and the BC owner had the sense to run away calling his dog in an excited voice so she chased after him and we carried on in the opposite direction. Branston was limping but I think he must have just twinged something in the scuffle as no contact was made and the limp soon wore off.

I wasn't too upset about it, it was just one of those things and more of a handbags moment than a fight. But obviously would prefer it if it hadn't happened. I think I acted correctly in leaving them off lead after he let his dog off but clearly neither of us knew that our dogs were going to take such a disliking to each other?

2) We had to cross a small country lane so put the Pickles back on their leads. Branston reverted back to devil dog... doing his yelping, spinning, biting, attacking Lily thing that some of you will know about. I know that the trigger for this is excitement but I just don't know what caused it today. We have only been on this walk once before and we crossed this lane fine (I was with hubby so had a dog each before). It took about 5 minutes to walk about 20 yards as he was just being a total nightmare and I was really struggling to hold him 

3) Back off lead and walking through a large open field and a fox pops out of the hedge right infront of us  The Pickles can't believe their eyes and go charging after it, the fox is running for it's life with the pickles VERY close on it's heels. I'm shouting, whistling, doing everything I can to get them to stop and come back, but it's all falling on deaf ears. I'm starting to sh1t myself slightly, wondering what exactly is going to happen if they catch it, or how far they are going to chase it. 
The fox disappears through the hedge followed by the Pickles and I'm still screaming at them to come back. What seems like forever passes and then the fox reappears further down the field, no sign of the Pickles... part of me is thinking "great, the fox had managed to lose them, I hope it gets out of sight before the Pickles reappear" and the other part of me is thinking "Where the bloody hell are they?!!" Thankfully I knew that it was another field on the other side of the hedge and no roads nearby, and eventually they reappeared and came back to me once they realised the fox was now long gone. But I was pretty upset that I clearly had no control over them wahtsoever, instinct just seemed to take over and they completely ignored me  Their recall is normally extremely good.


Wow, sorry this has become an epic post. I just felt like I needed to get it off my chest and thought this might be the place to do it


----------



## Dogless

FRM - I let it all out on this thread too, rather than making others where people will start tearing each other limb from limb over the usual  rather than being constructive :scared:.

Sounds like a total nightmare walk; have you made much improvement with walking from home with them on the lead without Branston's bonkers routine?


----------



## tiatortilla

i feel like i'm missing out by not joining in here! i'll warn you now my phone is rubbish so quoting other people isn't easy but i will do my best 
we're working on liking other dogs as usual, she's doing so well and i'm really proud of her. she still barks at most dogs when she's on lead but i can get her to stop quickly probably 80% of the time.
she's fine off lead, so i try to keep her off as much as possible and then she usually just tries to play with any dogs that run at us! it's a real improvement.


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## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> FRM - I let it all out on this thread too, rather than making others where people will start tearing each other limb from limb over the usual  rather than being constructive :scared:.
> 
> Sounds like a total nightmare walk; have you made much improvement with walking from home with them on the lead without Branston's bonkers routine?


I haven't made any improvement  I just don't do it.

I know that's a cop out, but I really just can't face it. I tried everything I was advised and I know that the only way I'm going to get him over it is to persevere, but it was stressing him and me out so much and we just didn't seem to be making any progress at all.

In the end, I just thought "Why am I putting us both through this and making us both unhappy when I can just get in the car and go for a lovely walk that we will all enjoy and be relaxed?"

I know I should have been stronger, but I'm not


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> I haven't made any improvement  I just don't do it.
> 
> I know that's a cop out, but I really just can't face it. I tried everything I was advised and I know that the only way I'm going to get him over it is to persevere, but it was stressing him and me out so much and we just didn't seem to be making any progress at all.
> 
> In the end, I just thought "Why am I putting us both through this and making us both unhappy when I can just get in the car and go for a lovely walk that we will all enjoy and be relaxed?"
> 
> I know I should have been stronger, but I'm not


Stop beating yourself up lady  . Perhaps try putting him on and off lead on your normal walks for seconds at a time, building it up so that it becomes a non - event?


----------



## Thorne

-Maria: Welcome to the thread! Congratulations on your new addition, going back to basics definitely sounds like a good plan of action. One of mine had no training or housetraining at all when we got her aged 7, but she picked everything up very quickly. You never know, you might not have any accidents at all.
-Dogless: Oh poor Rudi  Hope he's back to normal soon! He's only 1kg lighter than Scooter now, incredible 
-GR: Hard to know whether a companion would be best isn't it? I think I'd stick with regular walking buddies if you're unsure, always a possibility for the future!
-F&F: How frustrating, I know the feeling though as Frank sounds a _lot_ like Scooter (but probably friendlier ). Hope things for you and hubby improve soon, and that the boys are good for your next walk - I second L/C's lunge line recommendation.
-Beth: Well done to you and the boys, despite Collie encounters! Good boys.
-Werehorse: Hope the weather was kind to you on your walk, it's been horrid here today.
-LO: Sounds like Zander was on "top form" today, what a shame about the Pointers. Mine are the opposite to Zander; more relaxed in the dark! Lovely photo btw.
-Izzysmummy: I don't think I trust the Royal Mail with cake! Besides, we won't have any trouble eating them up ourselves! I love the weavepoles, great job Tarnus, and glad you've had good walks.
-Twiggy: Hope that poor Tremor is feeling better soon.
-Jenny Olley: Glad that Archie's training is coming on nicely, Happy Birthday for monday!
-FRM: Sorry to hear you've had a crappy day  feel free to vent away at us! Hope tomorrow is better for you and the naughty Pickles.

I think our attempts at redirecting Paddy from birds to toys are working, he was grumbling and dancing around me with his ring as soon as I took him out this morning! Only went birdwatching while I was putting the toys away at the end of the session, don't think they crossed his mind until then. 
Was good on his walk too, we finished by escorting a BC staff member with a very frightened young Collie. Poor thing came in yesterday and is very, _very_ under-socialised but was happy to follow Paddy back to the centre.
Walked lovely Ollie and sweet Lola, and spent some time with a very poorly puppy :crying: Poor boy was meant to go home at the weekend but has been in and out of the vets and tests are still being done to find the problem. Think he enjoyed the company, bless.

Mine have had boring but stress-free pavement walks tonight, Scooter was particularly lovely and very clicker-happy! About to do some training with Breeze, she could do with a bit of a refresher session.

Hoping the weather is kind to us all tomorrow, I fancy a good long walk!


----------



## Sarah1983

FRM, could Branstons being a nightmare be related to the incident with the collie?

I wouldn't worry about venting on here, I think we all do it. And usually mine are nothing to do with the dog either


----------



## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> His mum is GSd and dad is a BC, he is a little sweetheart.
> 
> *Thank you, my OH had aleady had us sat there ages while he took some photos, he then said I've got some good ones, when I looked he hadn't taken any, he'd been pressing the on and off button.*




Yup that's about right..LOL I'm right off men tonight....


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> I haven't made any improvement  I just don't do it.
> 
> I know that's a cop out, but I really just can't face it. I tried everything I was advised and I know that the only way I'm going to get him over it is to persevere, but it was stressing him and me out so much and we just didn't seem to be making any progress at all.
> 
> In the end, I just thought "Why am I putting us both through this and making us both unhappy when I can just get in the car and go for a lovely walk that we will all enjoy and be relaxed?"
> 
> I know I should have been stronger, but I'm not


Have you ever considered taking Branston to training classes? I know a trainer on the IOW.


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> In the end, I just thought "Why am I putting us both through this and making us both unhappy when I can just get in the car and go for a lovely walk that we will all enjoy and be relaxed?"
> 
> I know I should have been stronger, but I'm not


Actually i think it's better to avoid it until such time ( if ever) you have the time patience and necessary feeling of calm to deal with it, by avoiding it you aren't letting him rehearse the behaviour :thumbup:

Sorry you had a crappy walk today, Tink can be a bit jumpy if outnumbered and the charge and stop and lie down approach is one that she shares with dogs she knows not strangers it's kind of play hunting, but if the other dog isn't sure it's play it could have unnerved them.

Ginge i could cry with you how far has your little ninja come 

Jo what a lovely photo  Happy Birthday 

Twiggy healing thoughts for Tremor

IM what a talented Chap Tarnus is, after 5 years together I said to OH I think September would be nice for a wedding which do you fancy the 14th or the 28th :lol: :lol:

Thorne sounds loperation bird distract with Paddy is goign really well  Hope sickly puppy and scared BC improve with care. Boring walks are good walks  have fun training sweet Breeze.

We've just had a great pavement walk, it was so nice i kept going and added an extra loop. It might have been the new fleece harness and matching lead so snuggly on the hand


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> Stop beating yourself up lady  . Perhaps try putting him on and off lead on your normal walks for seconds at a time, building it up so that it becomes a non - event?


I do this and 95% of the time he is absolutely fine on the lead (he pulls but he's ok) 
He only does the crazy wild dog thing if we walk from home and he's done it on about 5 other occasions in total on other walks, today included. Excitement seems to be the trigger, he just seems to have a switch in his head and when it flicks I can't do a thing with him 



Sarah1983 said:


> FRM, could Branstons being a nightmare be related to the incident with the collie?
> 
> I wouldn't worry about venting on here, I think we all do it. And usually mine are nothing to do with the dog either


I don't think it was as it was about half an hour later and he had been his normal self inbetween times 



Twiggy said:


> Have you ever considered taking Branston to training classes? I know a trainer on the IOW.


I am giving it some serious thought. We went to puppy classes and then we did our KC bronze but didn't carry on. I've been wondering about what sort of class I should look for? I'd be really interested if you know of someone you can recommend because I've ummed and arrhed about it for a while but don't know what sort of class to look for and who is any good.


----------



## MollySmith

I am sorry you had a problems with The Pickles  Walks like that do make you wonder why we do it ((hugs)). The only nugget I can offer is that when we walk Molly I put her on the lead at random moments. I tend to call her back and I only ever take liver cake for walks, she never gets it any other time apart from walks. I'll call her back, make her do a paw or a watch me and rewards. Then I mix it up so she can go play with her dog mates, call her back, pop her lead on for a few seconds, jackpot her and the release her, maybe call her back and pay with her kong wubber. Stuff like that so her lead is just a thing I do mixed in with the liver cake, a toy and doesn't just mean home time.

Dogless - hope Rudi is okay.

I am sorry i've been lame with posts tonight. I've done the longest drive since shoulder op to work and back to clear my desk and feel steam rollered and pissed off with life in general. Hours are so long I barely see my lovely dog. But she's been out with the trainer today for lead walk practise and perfect so lessons next week with all of us so I'm going to make up an interview just to get time off


----------



## moonviolet

MS (((hugs)))

Sarah I hope this isn't a weird thing for me to say but hell i'm going to say it anyway, you have beautiful skin! but please don't scrape you hair back like that ! yes i know this is out of order coming from scarecrow lady


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> I do this and 95% of the time he is absolutely fine on the lead (he pulls but he's ok)
> He only does the crazy wild dog thing if we walk from home and he's done it on about 5 other occasions in total on other walks, today included. Excitement seems to be the trigger, he just seems to have a switch in his head and when it flicks I can't do a thing with him
> 
> I don't think it was as it was about half an hour later and he had been his normal self inbetween times
> 
> I am giving it some serious thought. We went to puppy classes and then we did our KC bronze but didn't carry on. I've been wondering about what sort of class I should look for? I'd be really interested if you know of someone you can recommend because I've ummed and arrhed about it for a while but don't know what sort of class to look for and who is any good.


I'll PM you a contact email.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> MS (((hugs)))
> 
> Sarah I hope this isn't a weird thing for me to say but hell i'm going to say it anyway, you have beautiful skin! but please don't scrape you hair back like that ! yes i know this is out of order coming from scarecrow lady


Lol, any tips on what to do with it instead then? Hairdressers always want to layer it or feather it or do other strange things to it that then mean I can't tie it back and end up getting really angry coz it's in my eyes and mouth all the time and I'm in danger of coughing up furballs. I keep saying I'm gonna shave it all off and be done with it.

What Are You Working On? The only thread where we go from dog training to sex objects to hairstyles and back again :lol:


----------



## tiatortilla

Sarah1983 said:


> What Are You Working On? The only thread where we go from dog training to sex objects to hairstyles and back again :lol:


gosh, what have i missed out on here! sounds like this thread is going to be interesting lol


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, any tips on what to do with it instead then? Hairdressers always want to layer it or feather it or do other strange things to it that then mean I can't tie it back and end up getting really angry coz it's in my eyes and mouth all the time and I'm in danger of coughing up furballs. I keep saying I'm gonna shave it all off and be done with it.
> 
> What Are You Working On? The only thread where we go from dog training to sex objects to hairstyles and back again :lol:


I agree with Moonviolet. You have a pretty face and beautiful skin and I also think your hairstyle is too severe.

You're terribly brave to post those pictures - I wouldn't dare. I weighed under 8 stone for years and years and when I got on the scales the other days I was 10 stone 8 lbs....!! At my age the more hair that covering my face the better; it hides the wrinkles.....


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, any tips on what to do with it instead then? Hairdressers always want to layer it or feather it or do other strange things to it that then mean I can't tie it back and end up getting really angry coz it's in my eyes and mouth all the time and I'm in danger of coughing up furballs. I keep saying I'm gonna shave it all off and be done with it.
> 
> What Are You Working On? The only thread where we go from dog training to sex objects to hairstyles and back again :lol:


Well.....just before Christmas I went to the hairdresser intending to have a trim and I came out with it cut short :scared:. I thought "Why not? I don't need to scrape it back into a bun anymore!" :thumbup:. And....I love it .

I thought my face was fat and pretty hideous looking so had my doubts; but the hair makes it look better, not worse, even though I felt exposed at first!!


----------



## Sarah1983

tiatortilla said:


> gosh, what have i missed out on here! sounds like this thread is going to be interesting lol


Lol, let's just say you'll never look at a Kong the same way again 

Twiggy, the more places I post the pics the higher the motivation to lose the weight. Thank you for the compliments though  Hairdressers tell me I have lovely hair but I hate it, I just can't do anything with it so tie it all back on a day to day basis to keep it out of the way.


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah I know what you mean about hair, mine is very long and so curly, I cannot bear it about me that I wonder why I grow it sometimes so I am equally as guilty of tying it back too.

And I've yoyod like mad with weight. Been in hospital for anorexia and gained stones after IVF when I have to take a steroid which makes me feel starved. I've now got osteoarthritis so I can't run like I used to which kept me both sane and balanced with my weight. I think I can run a bit with Molly at our dog walking place as it's a long, secure off lead walk on grassy paths so less impact. I truly think that if you find something you like doing then the more you feel able. I'd prefer to run around a beach or outdoors with Molly than ever be in a gym.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Well.....just before Christmas I went to the hairdresser intending to have a trim and I came out with it cut short :scared:. I thought "Why not? I don't need to scrape it back into a bun anymore!" :thumbup:. And....I love it .
> 
> I thought my face was fat and pretty hideous looking so had my doubts; but the hair makes it look better, not worse, even though I felt exposed at first!!


I used to have mine short but I looked like Lion-O from the Thundercats every morning lol. I had to wash and blow dry it and then if it were wet or windy out I'd have a Lion-O hairstyle again in 5 minutes.


----------



## tiatortilla

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, let's just say you'll never look at a Kong the same way again


----------



## Izzysmummy

I'm also guilty of just tying my hair back and not doing anything nice with it! 

I'm getting it cut and coloured again at the weekend so I'll make more of an effort for a few weeks while my side fringe is a manageable length, once it gets too long I give up and and just tie it all back


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, any tips on what to do with it instead then? Hairdressers always want to layer it or feather it or do other strange things to it that then mean I can't tie it back and end up getting really angry coz it's in my eyes and mouth all the time and I'm in danger of coughing up furballs. I keep saying I'm gonna shave it all off and be done with it.
> 
> What Are You Working On? The only thread where we go from dog training to sex objects to hairstyles and back again :lol:





Dogless said:


> Well.....just before Christmas I went to the hairdresser intending to have a trim and I came out with it cut short :scared:. I thought "Why not? I don't need to scrape it back into a bun anymore!" :thumbup:. And....I love it .
> 
> I thought my face was fat and pretty hideous looking so had my doubts; but the hair makes it look better, not worse, even though I felt exposed at first!!


I was going to suggest getting it cut short too 

It'll be out of your face but you won't need to tie it up :thumbup:

I think you should wait until you've lost the weight that you want to lose, then get a drastic new haircut too..... The all new you 

Then you can feel all smug when people say "Oh wow Sarah, I didn't recognise you!" meaning "Bloody hell Sarah, you look AMAZING!!!" 

Oh and Dogless, come on be brave - lets see before and after pics of your hairdo to prove your point :yesnod:

Do you think we should go back to talking about dogs now instead of hairdo's, especially seeing as we're a sticky now?


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Well.....just before Christmas I went to the hairdresser intending to have a trim and I came out with it cut short :scared:. I thought "Why not? I don't need to scrape it back into a bun anymore!" :thumbup:. And....I love it .


i don't think i've ever seen a picture of you, dogless!
i went from long hair to short hair a while ago too  it's a lot easier to deal with! but i do kind of miss my long hair.
wasn't expecting to come in here and start talking about hair!


----------



## L/C

:001_wub: Aw Ginge - well done to the ninja. 

Frm - sorry you had such a bad walk. Training classes would be a good idea imo as hopefully they should help teach Branston to control himself.

MS - hugs. Hope things get a bit better soon.

Thorne - sounds like a nice day at BC, poor little collie though.

Having a bit of a down day too. Had a lovely walk with the pointies this am and fingers crossed Ely's limp seems to have cleared up. Had an uninspiring day at work and wasn't really in the mood to do anything this evening so have just been for a run and cooked dinner. Took neurotic dog on the run but apparently 4 miles wasn't enough and she's been a wingy pain all evening. Had a quick play session (Granny will be happy to know I am covered in bruises) but couldn't face a training one - we're working on scent discrimination stuff and I have to be really on the ball for it and I'm just not. 

So now she's wandering around moaning and generally being a pain (her party trick is tho start gnawing the corner of the coffee table while looking me directly in the face). And I feel like I'm letting her down because she is so obviously bored.

ETA : All the hair stuff happened while I was typing - I have my mine cut short and then let it grow and then have it cut again. 

Go for it Sarah and then post lots of pics!


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, let's just say you'll never look at a Kong the same way again
> 
> Twiggy, the more places I post the pics the higher the motivation to lose the weight. Thank you for the compliments though  Hairdressers tell me I have lovely hair but I hate it, I just can't do anything with it so tie it all back on a day to day basis to keep it out of the way.


Why don't you pop into the hairdresser and just have a chat about your hair and what you want/need. A new do can be a real boost. 

My hair is more accurate than a barometer, poker straight when the weather is dry or frosty and wild and wavy when it's humid or rainy.

FRM has a point going for the dramatic entrance but .... no harm in planning now 

Tia be warned we digress a little and it occasionally gets a little spicy :scared:


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> I was going to suggest getting it cut short too
> 
> It'll be out of your face but you won't need to tie it up :thumbup:
> 
> I think you should wait until you've lost the weight that you want to lose, then get a drastic new haircut too..... The all new you
> 
> Then you can feel all smug when people say "Oh wow Sarah, I didn't recognise you!" meaning "Bloody hell Sarah, you look AMAZING!!!"
> 
> Oh and Dogless, come on be brave - lets see before and after pics of your hairdo to prove your point :yesnod:
> 
> Do you think we should go back to talking about dogs now instead of hairdo's, especially seeing as we're a sticky now?


Well, I have very, very few photos; especially taken over the past few years as I have ishoos with my looks  . Haven't got any with my hair down as it really didn't suit. I only have these - utterly useless!!!:

After.....you can only just tell it's short!!










It is like the attachment photo.

Before....rubbish again!!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Well, from what I can tell from your (useless) photo's I think your hair looks fab short :thumbup: I love the style.

I can't see the point in having long hair if it's tied back all the time, might as well chop it all off 

And I can see absolutely no reason for you having ishoos with you looks :hand: But then again, show me someone who doesn't have issues with the way they look


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Well, from what I can tell from your (useless) photo's I think your hair looks fab short :thumbup: I love the style.
> 
> I can't see the point in having long hair if it's tied back all the time, might as well chop it all off
> 
> And I can see absolutely no reason for you having ishoos with you looks :hand: But then again, show me someone who doesn't have issues with the way they look


T'is a female affliction....to be fair Afghanistan and triathlon are never where you look your finest anyway!!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> T'is a female affliction....to be fair Afghanistan and triathlon are never where you look your finest anyway!!!!


And yet you still have a smile that could light up a room. I'm going to stop now before anything thinks they are being propositioned


----------



## Guest

I am another who had long witch hair, then I had it chopped short. Now its proper short. :lol: 
Love it short. 

And dogless I think your hair looks fab short!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> And yet you still have a smile that could light up a room. I'm going to stop now before anything thinks they are being propositioned


I have a huge smile on all the tour ones, it must be mania  - even after a three day patrol and sprint back to safety . That photo was taken before we went to clear a route that we'd been blown up on the day before on a vehicle patrol and a 'lucky' six of us spent all night in a wrecked vehicle .


----------



## moonviolet

moonviolet said:


> And yet you still have a smile that could light up a room. I'm going to stop now before any*thing* thinks they are being propositioned


Anyone.... i swear my fingers are possessed by demons


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Anyone.... i swear my fingers are possessed by demons


Uh-huh. We believe you.  The demons made you do it.


----------



## Thorne

All this hair talk is making me want to cut mine short again! It's just below my shoulders and making me look younger and younger as it grows, which I'd be very glad of a few years down the line but currently I'd rather look all 21 of my years! Surprised someone the other week who thought I wasn't old enough to be driving 
Am considering having it cut off again but think it'd look like a typical "crazy post break-up" act. I think everyone does something - my first ex grew a very impressive beard after I broke up with him (I never let him grow one), and my sister went out and got tattooed when she dumped her last man!

If anything I found there was more I could do with very short hair than with long, it's ponytail or nothing at the moment. Sarah, let us know what your hair decision is!


----------



## Nicki85

Right, Ive been back to page 940 (!) to try and catch up with today at least! So epic post.

Thorne- Sorry to hear that Scooter has pulled his bad shoulder- hope he is up to trouble again soon ;-) Breeze is certainly a madam- well done for making a probably annoying walk into a fun training session! Tuggying and bruised hands most definitely go hand in hand ;-) 

Dogless- Sorry to hear Rudi has KC &#9785; Poor boy! Sounds like he isnt suffering though or he is taking it out on your arm!

Maria_1986- welcome to thread! Good idea on reinforcing going outside to toilet- certainly wont harm her! She sounds lovely and looks really sweet!

GingerRogers- Walks with company are good! We dont have many. No idea on the thoughts of getting another dog- sorry. Might help on the other hand it may be terrible. Sounds like you are doing well with her at the moment- maybe a pal further down the line? Sorry to hear you had a rough evening walk. Sounds like she recovered well though?

Foxy- Sorry to hear it was one of those walks. Fox running infront- not many dogs would recall away. It always feels longer than it is as well Would second the thought of dog training classes wont offer any other advice as I dont know your situation.

MollySmith- &#9785; Hope your mood improves soon. Not fun.

F&F- Sorry to hear that the boys are playing up. I find getting Rusty to concentrate anywhere else on his toy etc. is incredibly difficult. I started off in a very boring fenced playing field (in the middle so nothing to sniff!) and then moved to the out skirts then moved to an unfenced field with some hedges etc. Im pretty sure a river (and the possibility of ducks!) would be too much for Rusty. He sounds awfully like Rusty deciding to find holes in hedges. I feel for you! Cant offer much advice but hiding or leaving him (if safe) works very well for us. Take every day as it comes- hope things improve.

Twiggy- training for us as well tonight! I do feel for you instructors I talk far to much, forget the commands and forget what I am supposed to be doing! Sorry to hear that Tremor Is lame &#9785; 

Beth17- Glad you had a good walk. We have trouble with collies round here as well! I sometimes think the real herdy ones are so different to say my Springer that he doesnt know what to do. Hope they were OK after the collie kicked off.

Werehorse- welldone on the run! Rusty is always hyper after exercise- we have to play when we come in then he will settle. 

Lurcherowner- Poor Zand! He doesnt stand a chance somedays does he? He sounds like he behaved well though &#9786; Hope he is OK after his strange reaction as well.

MV- Was it a dog you wanted that followed you- you could have dognapped it??? Glad you had a lovely pavement walk.

Izzysmum- Poor Izzy. What is it with some kids? And obviously the annoying thing is that if anything had happended it would have been your fault &#9785; even though it wasnt. We just use stakes in the ground for weaves! Would highly recommend the 2 by 2 method. 

JO-Happy Birthday for Monday!! Glad you had a good day with the dogs &#9786; 

Sarah- Good luck with the weight lose- you have the motivational photo- that is a good idea.

Tiatortilla- hello! Sounds like you have a good plan in place &#9786; 

L/C- Another having a rough day! Glad Elys limp has cleared up. 


Its funny isnt it? I always feel bad if I keep Rusty on lead if its the kind of place dogs usually go off! But I think his safety first and 80% he is offlead on his walks He is a tyke for pheasants and ducks and also finding holes in fences I sometimes see pics on here and think no way would I let him off! He is too fast and can be reactive to small furies. I honestly dont think he cares all that much! His little tail wags away and he is on his harness/ flexi lead.

I have nothing to add on hair or looks I hate going to the hairdresser but had it cut short in Dec- much easier! The kittens also had a habit of chewing it at night

Well quiet few days so havent been on here but we had agility this evening and he was a star. We still had the distracted sniffing inbetween excercises and once on course but he was much improved from last week! He was really keen to the weaves (and managed 12!) and we generally had a lot of fun. I made a new toy. Its very technical its a roast chicken and some livercake stuffed into two socks! He loved it and we had lots of tuggying &#9786; Its in the freezer now to see if I can use it on Sat as well (yes I know- yucK!) The indoor school we train in on Wednesday apparently smells a lot and I dont get as much concentration as I do in the school on Saturdays hopefully we can still use the fluffy toys on Saturday. We need to work on me remembering the course, telling him where to go (not just heeerrrrreeeee!!!!) he does know left and right so I should make use of it! And no more stays as they are so solid that he struggles to go need to do running starts &#9786;

One issue I can see coming up is height though &#9785; He is going to be measured for KC in Feb but pretty sure he will be large (by 2cm) and I honestly dont think he will be able to do it. We tried a couple of jumps inbetween the lower and large height and he was even struggling with them a bit. But we will see. If we only go to have fun and do NFC it will still be fun! And we can do UKA as they have a forth height.


----------



## Werehorse

Oooo, yes - getting hair cut short is brilliant. I tend to grow mine then get fed up and have it drastically short then grow it and repeat. Currently in a long phase so I can go longer between haircuts! Also I don't think short hair would work with my new job. :lol: By november when the property closes I'll be so grumpy with long hair I'll probably shave my head. 

Let me see if I can find some before and after. I think it suits me better short but I find it more managable when it is long enough to plait it.

FRM (((hugs))) I think the BC thing was one of those things and it sounds like that got Branston hyped - even if the results didn't materialise until later. And the fox thing... I don't think it could be helped - I don't know if I could call mine off from chasing a fox, I know I can't call Oscar off a cat chase  Chase recall, something I keep meaning to do some focussed work on.

Class was really frustrating tonight and I haven't figured out why yet. It doesn't help that my wisdom teeth seem to be making a final determined push and I don't think there's room for them as it feels like my front two bottom teeth are being pushed together. *vom* Not painful but naggingly uncomfortable...


----------



## Zoojie

Hey guys, so again been a while since I posted BUT...

Loki went off lead tonight at agility  :thumbup: 

From being unable to get into the hall, to being offlead and fully focused on the equipment in about 8 months ish I think. I'm so proud - he did the equipment well (apart from the tunnel but was too focused on the tennis ball I was holding and didn't like having it out of sight haha!) but all off lead and very attentive :

I can't believe it, I was so nervous to be letting him off - he did run off once barked a couple of times, but then came straight back when I called!  I was terrified but am like 1,000x more confident now I know I can get him to focus.

It's only been our 3rd session back at agility since we had to stop when he was attacked and became horrendously nervous and reactive. Fortunately he remembered most of the equipment and I've been practising the commands I learnt from Ambers sessions so we weren't far behind this group.

To be honest, I didn't care that he made mistakes. My boy has made so much improvement and I'm so proud that all that hard work is paying off! HOORAY!!

He's my baby boy! From this scared little wretch (5 months):









To this brave, focused, handsome boy! (2 years) who has put on a couple of kg too


----------



## Werehorse

Ok - short hair. Quite a few years ago...would quite like to be thin again too!










And long hair - this is the best I could do for hair down - me and Oscar had just got a soaking out on a run!










Getting a hair cut tomorrow - I wonder if having a fringe cut in is a good plan.


----------



## Thorne

Obviously going off on a tangent here (but what else is this thread for?) but according to Dogster, I didn't choose Scooter's name very wisely at all when I put my suggestion into the name hat 10yrs ago. Look what the "least trendy" male dog name of the last DECADE is!  It's towards the bottom of the page.
2012's Trendiest Puppy Names | Dogster
So THAT'S why I've never met another Scooter! Maybe the name's been jinxed since he took it on...

"Rudy" is #3


----------



## Dogless

Wow Zoojie, what a fabulous accomplishment - well done :thumbup:.

Werehorse, I love the short hair! Get a fringe cut in :thumbup:.



Thorne said:


> Obviously going off on a tangent here (but what else is this thread for?) but according to Dogster, I didn't choose Scooter's name very wisely at all when I put my suggestion into the name hat 10yrs ago. Look what the "least trendy" male dog name of the last DECADE is!  It's towards the bottom of the page.
> 2012's Trendiest Puppy Names | Dogster
> So THAT'S why I've never met another Scooter! Maybe the name's been jinxed since he took it on...
> 
> "Rudy" is #3


I have never met another Rudi / Rudy....maybe it's more popular in the US of A? There was me thinking I was being all original when I was simply being 'untrendy' .

Rudi is pretty bad this morning, the vet did say that it would get worse before it got better. Poor boy is really rasping and coughing and has big red eyes and runny nose. Still jumping about and of course still eating though. Not sure what to do to keep him occupied bar long lasting chews....he gets all excited no matter what training we do, I'll give some a whirl later and see!

Our weather forecast is horrendous for today too, rainy and with snow later. At least it's on a day when I can't take the boys anywhere nice anyway!


----------



## Maria_1986

Sorry I'm going back to a topic raised a few pages ago - I brought a 15m long line for Chevy so that she could have a bit more freedom without me worrying about her not coming back. I have some thin summer riding gloves do you think they will be enough to stop me losing half the flesh on my hands? (I'd not thought about it before this thread so thank you for saving me the pain)

I am also very jealous of all of you who can have your hair cut short - mine is so frizzy and horrible that any shorter than just above my shoulders leaves me looking like I stuck my finger in a plug socket.


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Sorry I'm going back to a topic raised a few pages ago - I brought a 15m long line for Chevy so that she could have a bit more freedom without me worrying about her not coming back. I have some thin summer riding gloves do you think they will be enough to stop me losing half the flesh on my hands? (I'd not thought about it before this thread so thank you for saving me the pain)
> 
> I am also very jealous of all of you who can have your hair cut short - mine is so frizzy and horrible that any shorter than just above my shoulders leaves me looking like I stuck my finger in a plug socket.


I'd think riding gloves would do the trick.


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## moonviolet

Zoojie Well done Loki , well done you. You must be delighted 

Werehorse those are hardly like for like photos :lol: :lol: 

Dogless i'm sorry Rudy's symptoms are worse this morning, but glad he's active and eating  On the bright side one look outside and he'll probably be happy to stay inside. It'll be no surprise I suggest some free shaping with a prop


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Wow Zoojie, what a fabulous accomplishment - well done :thumbup:.
> 
> Werehorse, I love the short hair! Get a fringe cut in :thumbup:.
> 
> I have never met another Rudi / Rudy....maybe it's more popular in the US of A? There was me thinking I was being all original when I was simply being 'untrendy' .
> 
> Rudi is pretty bad this morning, the vet did say that it would get worse before it got better. Poor boy is really rasping and coughing and has big red eyes and runny nose. Still jumping about and of course still eating though. Not sure what to do to keep him occupied bar long lasting chews....he gets all excited no matter what training we do, I'll give some a whirl later and see!
> 
> Our weather forecast is horrendous for today too, rainy and with snow later. At least it's on a day when I can't take the boys anywhere nice anyway!


Oh no poor Rudi. Sounds as if he's got a really bad strain of KC.

Something else you could try is the Olbas Oil battery operated fan. I bought one from the chemist last year when Holly infected my two oldies with some sort of parainfluenza. I faced it towards their beds and left it running all night. When I mentioned it to the vet he said they do exactly the same with hospitalised dogs and cats with any sort of upper respiratory tract infections.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Sorry I'm going back to a topic raised a few pages ago - I brought a 15m long line for Chevy so that she could have a bit more freedom without me worrying about her not coming back. I have some thin summer riding gloves do you think they will be enough to stop me losing half the flesh on my hands? (I'd not thought about it before this thread so thank you for saving me the pain)
> 
> I am also very jealous of all of you who can have your hair cut short - mine is so frizzy and horrible that any shorter than just above my shoulders leaves me looking like I stuck my finger in a plug socket.


The riding gloves should stop the pain....LOL

Love to see a pic of your electric shock hair...!!


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## Maria_1986

There are none! Apart from a few when I was a child and my parents were evil I have kept my hair longer and avoided photo's. The one time it was cut shorter than I wanted I worked out a way to keep it scraped back off my face and under control with lots and lots of mouse.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh no poor Rudi. Sounds as if he's got a really bad strain of KC.
> 
> Something else you could try is the Olbas Oil battery operated fan. I bought one from the chemist last year when Holly infected my two oldies with some sort of parainfluenza. I faced it towards their beds and left it running all night. When I mentioned it to the vet he said they do exactly the same with hospitalised dogs and cats with any sort of upper respiratory tract infections.


Is that just available from the chemist Twiggy? Poor little bugger that he is. ETA just re read and seen that you did indeed get it from a chemist  .

Just had a fabulous walk with the BW. Just went up to the top fields and for once just played and played, it was so nice. I forgot that we were a little later than usual and there were dogs and kids everywhere on the nursery run - the BW sailed through it all, even when dogs pulled or barked to get to him :thumbup:. My heart went out to a lady walking a staffie and some largeish terrier type; the terrier spotted us from across a car park and road and went up on his back legs barking and barking, so I went the other way to give them some space. The woman ended up following us but the terrier was barking constantly at every person, every dog everything and the staffie was getting all excited too. She looked like she was really struggling and the bark was just constant.

Before I walked Kilo I had a gentle play with Rudi in the garden and some gentle training too, bless him.


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## Werehorse

:lol: mv - I suppose they aren't exactly like for like.  However - The best I can do for a well-groomed long hair picture is completely "myspace" and I'm blonde. :lol: Nothing like an image crisis.

By the end of today I will have long dark hair with a fringe of some variety. It is decided.

Poor Rudi *gentle ear scritchies* for him.

I've been mulling over why I have found the last few classes so frustrating. I can't decide if it is the class itself or working Oscar. But I was starting to feel grumpy the last couple of time I worked Hugo too.

Oscar was really distracted and kind of fretting in that sillly-spaniel way last night and last week. He's been a lot more focussed on OH. Oscar has also started yowling and trilling at me when we stop for the instructor to speak - total frustration. It is like he just wants to be DOING something all the time and we're not. And I think the having a quick spin around the room at many opportunities is a result of the frustration as well. Launching himself away from me and hitting the end of the lead is another thing he did a few times last night.  Makes me feel like he just isn't interested in working with me which then gets me upset and _*I*_ start to shut down! 

I was mulling it over and when we are actually doing exercises it is fine and he is good but it doesn't _feel_ like we spend that much time actually doing exercises - I think this is perception though.

I don't know if I actually want to be working Hugo too much or something.

Or whether we aren't working towards a clear, structured goal - well we are but perhaps I need a clearer set of aims and easier to spot progress.

:mad2:

It is quite possible that my brain has to find _something_ for me to feel shite about at any one time and as I now have work and have sorted out a lot of issues with the ponies that I'm kind of directing my "I'm carp at this" beam of focus at the dog-training. Hmmm. More mulling to do. After all I can't solve the problem unless I can figure out what the heck the problem is!!

Boys were v good on individual lead walks round the block this morning and I had enough calories left by dinner time yesterday to eat a whole pizza. :thumbup: So those are two good things.

Right, got to get ponies sorted then go and have hairs cut.


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## L/C

Poor Rudi - hope he's feeling better soon.

Werehorse - could you get him to focus on you when the instructor is talking. Asking for a watch and then rewarding him? That way he gets to feel like he's working without being disruptive. Just thinking aloud - that might not be helpful.

Also we need to see blonde myspace photos!

Well after my whinging about Gypsy last night she was an absolute star this morning. It was a rest day for Ely so just me and her and I couldn't have been happier about how she behaved and worked. We were working on down stays and impulse control when a little dog bounded over - I released her to say hello and they had a quick play. I noticed that the other dog was getting a bit overwhelmed and I called her back. She came first time and I put her in a down on her mat (again no hesitating from her) and focused on me to the extent of ignoring the other dog when it came over and playbowed again. :thumbup:

Then we moved on and did a bit of chase and play in the field of tiny mice. Had a greet and move on with Paddy and Lexi and a few wait and find games. We met another new dog on a flexi who was desperate to play - this prompted a bit of mad zooming from madam but again she recalled and waited when I asked her. :thumbup:

Then we were walking with the two Maxes when a fox shot out in front of us. Both Maxes took off after it (one GSD and one lurcher) as did Gypsy _but she came straight back to me when I called!_ So proud of her.


----------



## Guest

Well you know Zand had a slight people freak out yesterday? Well today he wouldn't go near the librarian, and he would not even go near my neighbour, this is the neighbour that took him out for long walks when I had my accident at christmas, this is the neighbour who will save little bits of sausage, or liver, or sausage roll for Zand to give to him when he see's him. This is the neighbour Zand will attempt to clamber over his gate to see. My neighbour called him and Zander just flattened his ears and slunk away.
My neighbour reckons that someone may have scared him or something. I honestly don't know. The only time he's had a chance to meet people is with me, unless he met someone on an escape, but I shan't ever know.

Well Done GYPSY!! And poor old rudi!! 

And, yeah werehorse, try the watch me thing L/C suggested. No idea if its any help though!


----------



## GingerRogers

I know what you mean about exposed Dogless with short hair, for about 12 years I used to have very long wavy blonde hair, yes  I really did look like something out of an advert  !not! I actually just tied it back all the time as I couldn't be arsed to dry it properly without all the frizz. Then I got alopecia so I shaved it all off after seeing an old lady in the wind (her hair flapped up and she was really thin underneath it looked awful ) hubby did it for me, we both cried  and everyone thought I had cancer, some people still do and I get hand clasps and 'its so good to see you looking well'  every time I see them no matter what I say. I started painting my nails and wearing eyeshadow so people knew I was a girl 

When it finally grew back I had many styles, I think I liked the short bleach blonde look best, then as it got longer it was really curly, now its gone straighter than its ever been and its in a short bob type style! So there! Whatever just be grateful you all have hair rrr:

I had to drop some plans off with a client this morning so walked the dog down there, they asked me to go in and she was very good but started to get bored eventually, naturally, so she did ninja jumping on stuff , (she is so quick you cannot stop her), and gurgling at me, then tried whining . She did bark at the lady when she came through with a banana and an apple in her hand, don't think it was the ball shaped thing as we don't really do balls, we tried them but we had to go fetch  so gave up on that  I wonder if it was the gun shaped thing, although her previous owner was a shotgun man not a pistol shooter  Then as we were leaving she got very annoyed at something on the floor of their sitting room I think it was a teddy bear.

Hope Rudi gets better soon poor big man  I wonder what is up with Zander too  poor donkey

Well done pointies and well done dogless for having a play day 

Werehorse - my mother *has *to have something to fret about so perhaps it is your chattering monkeys, if nothing else arises she will worry whether we have done the housework and such things  hope the hair cut goes well. I love getting haircuts, I wake up the next morning and jump out of bed so I can go look at it 

No ideas on the pickle boys problem, if you aren't entirely sure on the combination that causes it its very difficult to work out what to do!


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Well you know Zand had a slight people freak out yesterday? Well today he wouldn't go near the librarian, and he would not even go near my neighbour, this is the neighbour that took him out for long walks when I had my accident at christmas, this is the neighbour who will save little bits of sausage, or liver, or sausage roll for Zand to give to him when he see's him. This is the neighbour Zand will attempt to clamber over his gate to see. My neighbour called him and Zander just flattened his ears and slunk away.
> My neighbour reckons that someone may have scared him or something. I honestly don't know. The only time he's had a chance to meet people is with me, unless he met someone on an escape, but I shan't ever know.
> 
> Well Done GYPSY!! And poor old rudi!!
> 
> And, yeah werehorse, try the watch me thing L/C suggested. No idea if its any help though!


Well someone has clearly frightened him if he doesn't even want to know your neighbour. Well at least it sounds as if there's nothing wrong with his eyesight.


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## kat&molly

Bladdy Hell- we've had no power for nigh on 24 hours. Grrrr.
It went in the middle of grooming 2 old Cocker boys, its just come back on, a fallen plylon or something.

Mega catch up later- can you all type slower for me:lol:


----------



## Freddie and frank

hi folks. i'll keep it quick, as per usual.

not feeling my best so forgive me if i don't post much for the next week. i've got loads going on and need to sort myself out. not been here long but i love all the help and support you lot give to one another, being it dog, hair, fashion or life related.
i shall be popping in to read now and again cause i'm too nosey... no, i do like to see how you're all doing.

thanks for all the advice regarding frank and a long line. it makes sense so i'm going to use it.

hope rudi perks up and everyone else is ok.

had an ok walk with the boys on lead today after a wobbly start, but it ended well.
bella was her usual golden self so positive things. training for her tonight which is good.

it's not one of those "i'm leaving to see how much attention i can get" posts, but i feel like you lot are so nice that i don't want you to think that i'm rude in not posting. so i want to tell you why i'll be a bit absent....jesus, what a flippin' ramble.

last bit...werehorse, have you tried belvita breakfast biscuits? helps with my biscuit craving cause i have a coffee with them for breakfast and they really do keep you going for 4 hours. on offer at morrisons atm.


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> :lol:
> 
> I've been mulling over why I have found the last few classes so frustrating. I can't decide if it is the class itself or working Oscar. But I was starting to feel grumpy the last couple of time I worked Hugo too.
> 
> Oscar was really distracted and kind of fretting in that sillly-spaniel way last night and last week. He's been a lot more focussed on OH. Oscar has also started yowling and trilling at me when we stop for the instructor to speak - total frustration. It is like he just wants to be DOING something all the time and we're not. And I think the having a quick spin around the room at many opportunities is a result of the frustration as well. Launching himself away from me and hitting the end of the lead is another thing he did a few times last night.  Makes me feel like he just isn't interested in working with me which then gets me upset and _*I*_ start to shut down!
> 
> I was mulling it over and when we are actually doing exercises it is fine and he is good but it doesn't _feel_ like we spend that much time actually doing exercises - I think this is perception though.
> 
> I don't know if I actually want to be working Hugo too much or something.
> 
> Or whether we aren't working towards a clear, structured goal - well we are but perhaps I need a clearer set of aims and easier to spot progress.
> 
> It is quite possible that my brain has to find _something_ for me to feel shite about at any one time and as I now have work and have sorted out a lot of issues with the ponies that I'm kind of directing my "I'm carp at this" beam of focus at the dog-training. Hmmm. More mulling to do. After all I can't solve the problem unless I can figure out what the heck the problem is!!
> 
> I don't understand what you mean. If Oscar isn't interested in working with you he wouldn't be doing the exercises fine or trilling when he isn't out on the floor....?


----------



## L/C

LO - quick thought, how old is Zand?

F&F - hope life is kind to you during your busy time. We'll miss you!

Ginge - I love your descriptions of the ninja, she's such a character!


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## moonviolet

LO How old is Zander now?

Wooohoo gypsy gold star girl. :thumbup:

Werehorse, hope you love the new do ... we need to see pics.... including the blonde myspace ones  
I think between exercises can be a tricky time and it's easy to lose focus, when you are divided between dog and trainer, between exercises Tink is " parked" on her mat at my left side , having treats periodically dropped onto the mat. She thinks she's working, she is quiet and comfortable and it adds value to the mat being a great place to be, so makes it even better for pub trips etc  not say this is an answer but it's an option that works for us.


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## L/C

moonviolet said:


> *LO How old is Zander now?*
> 
> Wooohoo gypsy gold star girl. :thumbup:
> 
> Werehorse, hope you love the new do ... we need to see pics.... including the blonde myspace ones
> I think between exercises can be a tricky time and it's easy to lose focus, when you are divided between dog and trainer, between exercises Tink is " parked" on her mat at my left side , having treats periodically dropped onto the mat. She thinks she's working, she is quiet and comfortable and it adds value to the mat being a great place to be, so makes it even better for pub trips etc  not say this is an answer but it's an option that works for us.


Great minds. 

I'm a bit worried that apparently I think like mv!


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## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Great minds.
> 
> I'm a bit worried that apparently I think like mv!


I dont' think it's anything to worry about at all


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I dont' think it's anything to worry about at all


I was the only one who go the butt plug picture....

Oh god.

:scared:


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry i coudln't put this in the same post i insinuate i'm crazy. F+F this thread is like a drop in centre, no obligations, but I do worry when people disappear. I hope things settle and you are feeling better soon. Sending lots of positive vibes your way


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## GingerRogers

Me too, what MV said, sort everything out F&F and good luck with Frank.

When I tyoe F&F I think of a local interior design shop it used to be called Fanny & Frank but changed its name for some reason to 'Fanny Hyde' 

L/C - the ninja certainly is a character, just not sure which one sometimes


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## L/C

In other news (and to give you all a laugh) we installed a pull up bar as part of training for the crazy, torture obstacle course. I tried to do one and just hung there flopping about like an injured fish. It was not pretty.

And the video I have been terrifying myself with.


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## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> In other news (and to give you all a laugh) we installed a pull up bar as part of training for the crazy, torture obstacle course. I tried to do one and just hung there flopping about like an injured fish. It was not pretty.
> 
> And the video I have been terrifying myself with.


Yep thats definitely the stuff I was wading through on Sunday  come to Walberswick marshes to practice :thumbup:


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## moonviolet

L/C I'm goign to watch it in segments... i've watch just over 2 mins iw as fine with the water.... but the crawl thingy.... reminds me of the way torturtured souls in hell are depicted in films :lol:

Incidently i'm thinking of showing OH this is just the sort of thing that would tickle his primitive man ego :lol:

Ginge i wasn't ignoring your post about hair or lack there of i'm glad yours has grown back but it sounds like a really tough time sounds like OH was really there involved and supporting you. I am terribly fond of my hair and it's wilful behaviour. Taming it made me run late on 7/7/2005 and ensured i wasn't going going through Aldgate at the time of the bombing there.

Just to menton the hound... fab walk this morning some zoomies and some nice training. Quite chuffed at leg weaves with a crow watching :lol:


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> I know what you mean about exposed Dogless with short hair, for about 12 years I used to have very long wavy blonde hair, yes  I really did look like something out of an advert  !not! I actually just tied it back all the time as I couldn't be arsed to dry it properly without all the frizz. Then I got alopecia so I shaved it all off after seeing an old lady in the wind (her hair flapped up and she was really thin underneath it looked awful ) hubby did it for me, we both cried  and everyone thought I had cancer, some people still do and I get hand clasps and 'its so good to see you looking well'  every time I see them no matter what I say. I started painting my nails and wearing eyeshadow so people knew I was a girl
> 
> When it finally grew back I had many styles, I think I liked the short bleach blonde look best, then as it got longer it was really curly, now its gone straighter than its ever been and its in a short bob type style! So there! Whatever just be grateful you all have hair rrr:
> 
> I had to drop some plans off with a client this morning so walked the dog down there, they asked me to go in and she was very good but started to get bored eventually, naturally, so she did ninja jumping on stuff , (she is so quick you cannot stop her), and gurgling at me, then tried whining . She did bark at the lady when she came through with a banana and an apple in her hand, don't think it was the ball shaped thing as we don't really do balls, we tried them but we had to go fetch  so gave up on that  I wonder if it was the gun shaped thing, although her previous owner was a shotgun man not a pistol shooter  Then as we were leaving she got very annoyed at something on the floor of their sitting room I think it was a teddy bear.
> 
> Hope Rudi gets better soon poor big man  I wonder what is up with Zander too  poor donkey
> 
> Well done pointies and well done dogless for having a play day
> 
> Werehorse - my mother *has *to have something to fret about so perhaps it is your chattering monkeys, if nothing else arises she will worry whether we have done the housework and such things  hope the hair cut goes well. I love getting haircuts, I wake up the next morning and jump out of bed so I can go look at it
> 
> No ideas on the pickle boys problem, if you aren't entirely sure on the combination that causes it its very difficult to work out what to do!


Hey just wanted ((hug)) my husband has suffered with alopecia, it's so difficult. He has very short shaven head now (it was before I met him) and goes up to our local support group to help people as he is a good success case of it growing back. He still has white patches though but he is now grey so it's blending better.

I was a goth so enough said about my hair - I've been blonde, red, black by mistake and used to use soap and a felt tip pen to dye it.

I'll catch up proper later but just saw that and wanted to reply x


----------



## GingerRogers

Thank you, I wasn't after sympathy just rambling with the first thing that popped into my head when I saw hairstyle discussions. MV - wow clever hair!! how lucky was that  now mine is straighter I do miss its wilfulness but it sometimes obliges .

ETA that sounds a bit rude, it isn't meant to be.

MS- glad your husbands has grown back too. It isn't very nice but its better than ACTUALLY having cancer, the worst bit was how everyone said how much I looked like my Dad  Yeah? Thank you thats made me feel a whole lot better  I too was a goth and a punk in my very much younger years, so had actually done the shaven headed thing with my mohawk  which made that bit a little easier. Hubby was in a phychobilly band at the time of the hair loss, it was the only time I felt at home at his gigs and the only time I didn't stand out in a crowd . I am often called on to give support to friends sisters best mates brothers, I get passed peoples phone 'for a chat' and introduced to random people in pubs for some advice 

Dog chat - Our dog is showing more of her 'character' by barking ferociously at chickens and Rick Steins Chalky this afternoon.


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted .....


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## moonviolet

Leam does he see his reflection in the glass? 

often if it's darker beyond the glass they act a little more like mirrors... just a thought.


----------



## Thorne

-Zoojie: Incredible progress! Three cheer for you and Loki, so pleased that your hard work is paying off.
-Werehorse: We await hair photos, I also vote fringe! Sorry I can't offer any helpful input RE your boys' training, but hope things start to flow better for you soon.
-Dogless: I've not met another Rudy/Rudi before and I think it's a great name, can see that and Scooter being more common in America for some reason! Sorry to hear the little man is feeling grotty today, hope the AB's kick in soon, gold star for Kilo.
-Maria: Riding gloves are definitely a good idea, I'd be lost without mine.
-L/C: Very pleased that Gypsy has redeemed herself, I'd be over the moon about a recall away from a fox!
-LO: Oh dear Zander. If only they could tell us why they're worried, would make things so much easier!
-GR: Sounds like the ninja is in a cheeky madam mood today.
-K&M: Mega power cut indeed, glad to see you with electricity fully restored.
-F&F: Hugs and best wishes from me, licks and nudges from Scooter and Breeze. Good luck with Frank and the longline, mine has been a saving grace for walks with Scooter!
-MV: I think your crow audience must have approved of Tink's weaving! Lovely to have a good mix of training and zoomies isn't it, I always feel like a walk isn't complete without one or the other.
-Leam: Hello again, good to see you back. Hope little Molly's leg heals quickly and that you find a solution or indeed trigger for Deek's door-slamming.

Well, nothing has happened here today  Thursday is chip van day so treated myself, turns out I've somehow lost more weight but don't know where it's going, whether it's fat or muscle mass that's disappearing or what's causing it! Bloods came back clear and I'm eating and exercising as normal. Weird. Really don't want to lose any more though.
Breeze's new collar arriving courtesy of Dogless and Rudi this morning so that's been the highlight of the day so far! She looks very smart indeed, will aim to upload pics later.

About to go and find a box to do some free shaping with. My prediction is that Breeze will get fed up and shout at me, and Scooter will stare blankly at me then suddenly "get it".
Still can't decide whether to do separate walks or a joint one, or where to go  The mud around here just makes me want to stay inside!


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted .....


----------



## tiatortilla

hello again 
i've just been having a proper read through, this thread moves very quickly!
*hugs* to rudi! poor little sausage, i hope he feels better soon.
i don't have any news, i'm a bit ill and exhausted so tia's having a rest day today! we're planning on having a nice day out tomorrow with a long walk though so i'll hopefully have something a bit more interesting to say then


----------



## moonviolet

Leam1307 said:


> He might see his reflection yes although we have tried having the outside light on and the inside one off, swapping them about etc. The fact that hes not really barking at night now, just during the day and the evening is confusing. Apart from changing the doors there isnt much we can do, the doors are french doors and it would cost us about £700 to get new ones external ones. There is no way for us to hang any coverings on them that he wouldnt just pull off.


can you not bring him away from them and maybe get him lay on a bed or mat and treat him for laying there. To help break the habit.


----------



## Dogless

Well, it was haircut day today and the hairdresser took photos of her handiwork for her portfolio and is sending them to me. I'll see if I'm brave enough to post any .

Rudi love him can hardly go a few steps without huffing and coughing but is still totally full of beans. Which is proving very difficult . Kilo also gets freaked if Rudi coughs in his face  . 

GR - you're amazing .

F&F - drop in now and again if you feel able so we know that you're OK(ish). I don;t mind listening to anything at all if you want to spill on here and I am sure others feel the same xxx.

tiatortilla - get well soon.

L/C - pull up bars are for winners!! Ours is in the garage doorway :thumbup:.

Werehorse - you worry as much as me. Perhaps even a week's break would help you to take the pressure off yourself a little?

LO - Poor Zand; wonder if he was frightened by anyone during his Great Escapes?

Thorne - sympathise about the mud and looking forward to seeing photos!

MS - I was a goth too .

mv - one day a crow as an audience, the next...the world :thumbup:.


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> LO How old is Zander now?
> 
> Wooohoo gypsy gold star girl. :thumbup:
> 
> Werehorse, hope you love the new do ... we need to see pics.... including the blonde myspace ones
> I think between exercises can be a tricky time and it's easy to lose focus, when you are divided between dog and trainer, between exercises Tink is " parked" on her mat at my left side , having treats periodically dropped onto the mat. She thinks she's working, she is quiet and comfortable and it adds value to the mat being a great place to be, so makes it even better for pub trips etc  not say this is an answer but it's an option that works for us.


He's 17 months. 
And dogless I do wonder whether it was during his escapes cause the only time he meets people is with me onlead!

I'm still going through past pages to bear with me if i miss u!


----------



## Sarah1983

My 101 Dog Tricks came today. Wasn't supposed to be getting here till the 12th so I'm well happy :thumbup: Me and Spen have lots to work on now.

The whistle/recall business is going better today. He's not coming to me at the speed of light but he never does in the flat. The frustration seems to have gone though so I really do think I made the right call in moving on sooner than recommended.

In the middle of cooking dinner so will read and respond to people later.


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted ....


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> He's 17 months.
> And dogless I do wonder whether it was during his escapes cause the only time he meets people is with me onlead!
> 
> I'm still going through past pages to bear with me if i miss u!


Yes; that's what occurred to me. Why does he have to keep you onlead? Do you jump up? :scared:. I know what you mean, I just read it that way and felt like being silly .


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> He's 17 months.
> And dogless I do wonder whether it was during his escapes cause the only time he meets people is with me onlead!
> 
> I'm still going through past pages to bear with me if i miss u!


It sounds like a fear period to me - dogs can have one between 14 -18 months. I'm not of the opinion that you should aggressively socialise during fear periods so I would allow him to avoid people if that's what he wants. It's much better then him having a bad experience and that sticking.


----------



## Guest

L/C said:


> It sounds like a fear period to me - dogs can have one between 14 -18 months. I'm not of the opinion that you should aggressively socialise during fear periods so I would allow him to avoid people if that's what he wants. It's much better then him having a bad experience and that sticking.


I haven't being pushing it don't worry. If someone tries to stroke him and he doesn't want to know, then I tell the person to not try again. I don't want it escalating at all. 
We went into the charity shop today however and he was quite happy to cuddle up to people there, so it could just be certain situations.
Either way I shan't push it.

:lol: Dogless, I have to be cause I'll go charging over towards puppies :lol:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I haven't being pushing it don't worry. If someone tries to stroke him and he doesn't want to know, then I tell the person to not try again. I don't want it escalating at all.
> We went into the charity shop today however and he was quite happy to cuddle up to people there, so it could just be certain situations.
> Either way I shan't push it.
> 
> :lol: Dogless, I have to be cause I'll go charging over towards puppies :lol:


I see :thumbup:. Talking of charging, Kilo welcomed me home this afternoon very enthusiastically. Concrete head met my mouth. Lip split .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I see :thumbup:. Talking of charging, Kilo welcomed me home this afternoon very enthusiastically. Concrete head met my mouth. Lip split .


Oh god, I've almost bitten my own tongue off cause Zand bounced at me and hit my chin. :lol: I think all dogs have a varying degree of concrete heads.


----------



## sharloid

I have to say that walks have been a lot more enjoyable since Broder has been wearing the dogmatic head collar. It hasn't seen much actual use, as he's been walking to heel so it hasn't had to do anything . 

We haven't seen many dogs when out yet so we haven't had to practise walking away from them, but he's certainly being more responsive and actually paying attention when I turn around etc.  


Now walking Kindra who's 4 months is a different matter...


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> I haven't being pushing it don't worry. If someone tries to stroke him and he doesn't want to know, then I tell the person to not try again. I don't want it escalating at all.
> We went into the charity shop today however and he was quite happy to cuddle up to people there, so it could just be certain situations.
> Either way I shan't push it.
> 
> :lol: Dogless, I have to be cause I'll go charging over towards puppies :lol:


Sounds good. Hopefully he'll be through it soon. :thumbup:



Dogless said:


> I see :thumbup:. Talking of charging, Kilo welcomed me home this afternoon very enthusiastically. Concrete head met my mouth. Lip split .


Oh dear!  I've lost count of the number of times Ely has headbutted me. Tall dog and excitement does not go together.

I am exercising my own impulse control and staying out of the tracking collar thread. How she thinks she'll ever train a chase recall by allowing her dog to run off and disappear for up to 20 minutes at a time is beyond me.

Oh dear - now I sound all miserable and judgey.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Sounds good. Hopefully he'll be through it soon. :thumbup:
> 
> Oh dear!  I've lost count of the number of times Ely has headbutted me. Tall dog and excitement does not go together.
> 
> I am exercising my own impulse control and staying out of the tracking collar thread. How she thinks she'll ever train a chase recall by allowing her dog to run off and disappear for up to 20 minutes at a time is beyond me.
> 
> Oh dear - now I sound all miserable and judgey.


Not seen that thread; will take a look because I'm a nosy beggar :scared:.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Not seen that thread; will take a look because I'm a nosy beggar :scared:.


Not to also sound gossipy, but the chance one kinda went from :thumbup: to :scared: pretty quickly.


----------



## moonviolet

Leam1307 said:


> He will come away from them and lay on his bed when told but as soon as we move he runs back to them, if we keep him in another room, with or without us there he slams against the doors to get back into the kitchen. Also not sure how to do this since we are out during the day. the cheeky B now moves his bed so it lies facing the doors so even when he is sitting on it as told he can still see out.
> 
> When we let him out he just sits at the top of the garden steps or on the decking and we then struggle to get him back in, toys/treats do not work. He shy's away like hes expecting to get hit and then growls at us. (just to note we have never hit him and always try to keep our movements slow around him due to his past) we have to try herd him back into the house or go get Molly or Callen at which point he will come over to investigate and will follow us back indoors. But thats not very fair to them as he chases Callen and jumps on Molly when he is excited.


can you make being in another room more fun , gving him something tasty to chew, doing some training, even just rewarding him for laying quietly. how about trying something like the relaxation protocol http://www.dogdaysnw.com/doc/OverallRelaxationProtocol.pdf or maybe some Tellington TTouch how would he react be being on a house line ( like a lead but no handle to get caught in things). could you take him into the garden, rather than just let him out. these sort of things can be a right royal pain in the R's to do but are often worth the effort for the results they yield.

I've jsut realised you've said the glass door slamming is happening when you are out. is there no way you can keep him away from the glass doors.


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> Not to also sound gossipy, but the chance one kinda went from :thumbup: to :scared: pretty quickly.


I din't even look at that until it got closed.

What? It's not like I have a thing for drama! :scared:

TBH it seemed like 6 of one and half a dozen of the other - but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable to have Chance off-lead and un-muzzled if he was my dog. Not least because if something did happen he could be deemed of type.


----------



## Sarah1983

I don't think my reply on the Chance thread was appreciated 

Just been flicking through 101 Dog Tricks and have to say I'm pretty appalled at some of the advice given  Bearing in mind this is marketed as someone who only uses positive training methods.

If your dog keeps nudging your hand with it nose instead of a paw bop it on the nose.

If your dog won't give up an item it has don't force it to do so as that may cause it to bite. Instead pull upwards on the skin behind its ribs.

On what planet are those things classed as positive reinforcement??? There's also a fair bit of physical manipulation involved too for basic things like the sit and the down.

Don't get me wrong, the general instructions for teaching the exercises seem fine at a glance although lots of luring rather than shaping, but I think the fact it recommends bopping the dog on the nose or pulling on its skin to teach FUN TRICKS is absolutely disgusting!


----------



## GingerRogers

Leam1307 said:


> He might see his reflection yes although we have tried having the outside light on and the inside one off, swapping them about etc. The fact that hes not really barking at night now, just during the day and the evening is confusing. Apart from changing the doors there isnt much we can do, the doors are french doors and it would cost us about £700 to get new ones external ones. There is no way for us to hang any coverings on them that he wouldnt just pull off.


What about taping news paper up or if you think he would pull that down, sounds a bit extreme but could you get hold of some of that white stuff they smear on shop windows when refitting just to see, if you knew it was reflections then maybe you could come up with something more permanent

Sorry a client rang me and so this answer may be completely obsolete by the time it appears .


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> I don't think my reply on the Chance thread was appreciated
> 
> Just been flicking through 101 Dog Tricks and have to say I'm pretty appalled at some of the advice given  Bearing in mind this is marketed as someone who only uses positive training methods.
> 
> If your dog keeps nudging your hand with it nose instead of a paw bop it on the nose.
> 
> If your dog won't give up an item it has don't force it to do so as that may cause it to bite. Instead pull upwards on the skin behind its ribs.
> 
> On what planet are those things classed as positive reinforcement??? There's also a fair bit of physical manipulation involved too for basic things like the sit and the down.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, the general instructions for teaching the exercises seem fine at a glance although lots of luring rather than shaping, but I think the fact it recommends bopping the dog on the nose or pulling on its skin to teach FUN TRICKS is absolutely disgusting!


Is that the one by the amusingly named Kyra Sundance?

I bought that and I wasn't impressed - haven't touched it since I first looked at it. Didn't realise that was the one you ordered or I'd have advised against it.


----------



## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> Is that the one by the amusingly named Kyra Sundance?
> 
> I bought that and I wasn't impressed - haven't touched it since I first looked at it. Didn't realise that was the one you ordered or I'd have advised against it.


That's the one. Got fantastic reviews on Amazon and there's lots of good ideas for tricks in there but very disappointed overall with the methods used. I think an Amazon review may be in order


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Not to also sound gossipy, but the chance one kinda went from :thumbup: to :scared: pretty quickly.





Sarah1983 said:


> I don't think my reply on the Chance thread was appreciated
> 
> Just been flicking through 101 Dog Tricks and have to say I'm pretty appalled at some of the advice given  Bearing in mind this is marketed as someone who only uses positive training methods.
> 
> If your dog keeps nudging your hand with it nose instead of a paw bop it on the nose.
> 
> If your dog won't give up an item it has don't force it to do so as that may cause it to bite. Instead pull upwards on the skin behind its ribs.
> 
> On what planet are those things classed as positive reinforcement??? There's also a fair bit of physical manipulation involved too for basic things like the sit and the down.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, the general instructions for teaching the exercises seem fine at a glance although lots of luring rather than shaping, but I think the fact it recommends bopping the dog on the nose or pulling on its skin to teach FUN TRICKS is absolutely disgusting!


Eh?? Pull upwards on the skin behind it's ribs??? How about swapping for another toy or a treat? :mad2: That would be more fun .


----------



## Dogless

Soo....being brave. Please ignore the ugly mug :scared:. Hairdresser used the one shot of my closed eyes for some reason...must have been a better one of the hair cut


----------



## Sarah1983

I left it a 2 star review. I think the layout is fantastic, the photos are lovely and the instructions are clear and of course there's loads of tricks in it so I don't hate it as such, I just wouldn't recommend it to anyone because of the advice given in some of the tips.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Soo....being brave. Please ignore the ugly mug :scared:. Hairdresser used the one shot of my closed eyes for some reason...must have been a better one of the hair cut


It's great! I love it. :thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Oh my word glamour puss  It looks great dogless.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh my word glamour puss  It looks great dogless.


Yes I agree - very glamorous indeed....:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh my word glamour puss  It looks great dogless.


It's already far less glamourous and far more 'mad dog lady' having gone out in the garden in the drizzle with Rudi :scared:.


----------



## L/C

Word of warning - I have a works do tonight with free drink. I can't promise there won't be drunken posts later. 

I apologise in advance.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Word of warning - I have a works do tonight with free drink. I can't promise there won't be drunken posts later.
> 
> I apologise in advance.


Thanks for the warning :thumbup:.


----------



## tiatortilla

L/C said:


> It's great! I love it. :thumbup:


agree - you look really nice


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Word of warning - I have a works do tonight with free drink. I can't promise there won't be drunken posts later.
> 
> I apologise in advance.


I loves you i do


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted .....


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted ....


----------



## Sarah1983

Leam1307 said:


> lol the white stuff is just dried thick windowlene which im pretty sure would be poisonious if he licked it off, and putting on the outside in winter.. i think the rain would get it. will try it though if we get a nice day.


There's stuff you can get to put on windows to sort of block the view. Comes off with soapy water and I know a lot of dog owners who use it to stop their dog barking at stuff it sees out the windows.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> There's stuff you can get to put on windows to sort of block the view. Comes off with soapy water and I know a lot of dog owners who use it to stop their dog barking at stuff it sees out the windows.


ohhhh yes this sort of stuff Window Film Supplier - Decorative WIndow Film - Brume Designs On Film


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> ohhhh yes this sort of stuff Window Film Supplier - Decorative WIndow Film - Brume Designs On Film


Yup, was hoping someone else would know what I meant coz I couldn't remember what it was called


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> It's already far less glamourous and far more 'mad dog lady' having gone out in the garden in the drizzle with Rudi :scared:.


Gah I know that feeling, when i said mine is straighter I didn't say it had lost the ability to frizz  The hair looks really great :smile5:, I keep trying to get my hairdresser to do an asymmetric job on mine but she wont, she doesn't even seem keen on the short back that I like and keep saying it needs more graduation but everyone else thinks it looks great.



L/C said:


> Word of warning - I have a works do tonight with free drink. I can't promise there won't be drunken posts later.
> 
> I apologise in advance.


 I have tried to stop myself posting, post wine, I cringe sometimes in the morning.



moonviolet said:


> can you make being in another room more fun , gving him something tasty to chew, doing some training, even just rewarding him for laying quietly. how about trying something like the relaxation protocol http://www.dogdaysnw.com/doc/OverallRelaxationProtocol.pdf or maybe some Tellington TTouch how would he react be being on a house line ( like a lead but no handle to get caught in things). could you take him into the garden, rather than just let him out. these sort of things can be a right royal pain in the R's to do but are often worth the effort for the results they yield.
> 
> I've jsut realised you've said the glass door slamming is happening when you are out. is there no way you can keep him away from the glass doors.


Great links MV the relaxation one is interesting, food for thought, and I like the ttouch one. Have I said  I am going to learn some of that next week on the reactive dog course, still ridiculously excited .

Had a nice dark walk with the long line on the beach with hubby tonight, only one minor blip as a man appeared right next to us out the gloom  with his dog off lead but it didn't approach and although Ginge had a gruffalo at it it wasn't much more than she would have done if it was just the man I don't think. Sadly I couldn't click and treat as she had tied my legs in knots again  Before we went out she was going nuts, I know some people would find disapproval for house zoomies and bouncing but she shows so little enthusiasm for a lot of the time indoors unless you are actively engaging with her, we can't help but laugh, she was running up and down the stairs so fast we had to stop her eventually or she would have broken something.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Yup, was hoping someone else would know what I meant coz I couldn't remember what it was called


We actually got some for our last house as the kitchen window was at the front and no one wanted to see me in the morning before coffee as they walked past :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> ohhhh yes this sort of stuff Window Film Supplier - Decorative WIndow Film - Brume Designs On Film


Oh Oh Ooooh MV I love that link even more, I have ideas for my new white walls now (well they aren't all white yet but ) :thumbup: the dining room is too dark to do anything but white we think but the wall stickers could look great, some of those films are pretty cool too.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> I don't understand what you mean. If Oscar isn't interested in working with you he wouldn't be doing the exercises fine or trilling when he isn't out on the floor....?


You're probably right, I think I'm trying to have a downer with that particular thought. But he is shooting off to the end of the lead and is easily distracted and running off at various points... I think he's a bit bored maybe?



Freddie and frank said:


> hi folks. i'll keep it quick, as per usual.
> 
> not feeling my best so forgive me if i don't post much for the next week. i've got loads going on and need to sort myself out. not been here long but i love all the help and support you lot give to one another, being it dog, hair, fashion or life related.
> i shall be popping in to read now and again cause i'm too nosey... no, i do like to see how you're all doing.
> 
> last bit...werehorse, have you tried belvita breakfast biscuits? helps with my biscuit craving cause i have a coffee with them for breakfast and they really do keep you going for 4 hours. on offer at morrisons atm.


Hope you're feeling better soon, lovely! I think the drop-in element of this thread is just perfect, noone should feel obliged to post or even respond to others :lol: It's nice to know where people are though.

I shall have a look at the biscuits thank you!



GingerRogers said:


> I know what you mean about exposed Dogless with short hair, for about 12 years I used to have very long wavy blonde hair, yes  I really did look like something out of an advert  !not! I actually just tied it back all the time as I couldn't be arsed to dry it properly without all the frizz. Then I got alopecia so I shaved it all off after seeing an old lady in the wind (her hair flapped up and she was really thin underneath it looked awful ) hubby did it for me, we both cried  and everyone thought I had cancer, some people still do and I get hand clasps and 'its so good to see you looking well'  every time I see them no matter what I say. I started painting my nails and wearing eyeshadow so people knew I was a girl
> 
> When it finally grew back I had many styles, I think I liked the short bleach blonde look best, then as it got longer it was really curly, now its gone straighter than its ever been and its in a short bob type style! So there! Whatever just be grateful you all have hair rrr:
> 
> Werehorse - my mother *has *to have something to fret about so perhaps it is your chattering monkeys, if nothing else arises she will worry whether we have done the housework and such things  hope the hair cut goes well. I love getting haircuts, I wake up the next morning and jump out of bed so I can go look at it


One of my friends at uni had alopecia, it made me really appreciate that i had hair to play with... I'd really struggle with it if I lost my hair I think - I don't think I'm particularly vain but I'm quite tall and broad shouldered and would feel quite unfeminine without some hair, although I was supprised that short hair made me look _more_ feminine rather than less! It sounds like you coped very well with it - awesome you is. 

I'm definitely a bit that way out with the worrying, although I try not to witter about it too much, not in real life! :lol: I witter away on here.  



moonviolet said:


> Werehorse, hope you love the new do ... we need to see pics.... including the blonde myspace ones
> I think between exercises can be a tricky time and it's easy to lose focus, when you are divided between dog and trainer, between exercises Tink is " parked" on her mat at my left side , having treats periodically dropped onto the mat. She thinks she's working, she is quiet and comfortable and it adds value to the mat being a great place to be, so makes it even better for pub trips etc  not say this is an answer but it's an option that works for us.


I need to try that - I have started Control Unleashed and I think I need to work on the settled downtime/Ttouch stuff. I can't seem to get my hands to do Ttouch very well though and get worked up  which defies the point. My hands are weird, I can draw with a really steady hand (oh gods, I _must_ crack on with some of those drawing I have agreed to do for people who sponsered OH last year  I'm such a massive procrastinating wreck sometimes! anyway...) but any other fine motor things make my hands kind of tingle and I get all short of breathe and knotted up and things like tying my shoelaces or putting a bridle on a horse take me FOR. EVER. :mad2: But yes, some focus on being settle on the mat between exercises. Sometime instructer stops us during exercises to say something and he's definitely worse then, which is probably fair enough! 



L/C said:


> In other news (and to give you all a laugh) we installed a pull up bar as part of training for the crazy, torture obstacle course. I tried to do one and just hung there flopping about like an injured fish. It was not pretty.
> 
> And the video I have been terrifying myself with.


:lol: :lol: :lol: that is all.



moonviolet said:


> Ginge i wasn't ignoring your post about hair or lack there of i'm glad yours has grown back but it sounds like a really tough time sounds like OH was really there involved and supporting you. I am terribly fond of my hair and it's wilful behaviour. Taming it made me run late on 7/7/2005 and ensured i wasn't going going through Aldgate at the time of the bombing there.


 Scary near miss stuff! I landed in San Francisco for my gap year on September 10th 2001...  Woke up the next morning to madness.  The only reason I didn't come straight home and managed to stay the whole year as planned was because there were no planes for a fortnight and I'd calmed down by then.



Thorne said:


> Well, nothing has happened here today  Thursday is chip van day so treated myself, turns out I've somehow lost more weight but don't know where it's going, whether it's fat or muscle mass that's disappearing or what's causing it! Bloods came back clear and I'm eating and exercising as normal. Weird. Really don't want to lose any more though.
> Breeze's new collar arriving courtesy of Dogless and Rudi this morning so that's been the highlight of the day so far! She looks very smart indeed, will aim to upload pics later.


I've always lost weight after a breakup even though I carried on eating as normal. No idea why!



Leam1307 said:


> He might see his reflection yes although we have tried having the outside light on and the inside one off, swapping them about etc. The fact that hes not really barking at night now, just during the day and the evening is confusing. Apart from changing the doors there isnt much we can do, the doors are french doors and it would cost us about £700 to get new ones external ones. There is no way for us to hang any coverings on them that he wouldnt just pull off.





Dogless said:


> Werehorse - you worry as much as me. Perhaps even a week's break would help you to take the pressure off yourself a little?
> 
> MS - I was a goth too .


 I know! I always read your posts and go "oh god she worries as much as I do" :lol:

Oh and I was a bit goth around the edges too once upon a time since we're all coming out. 



Sarah1983 said:


> That's the one. Got fantastic reviews on Amazon and there's lots of good ideas for tricks in there but very disappointed overall with the methods used. I think an Amazon review may be in order


Exactly what I was going to suggest!



Dogless said:


> Soo....being brave. Please ignore the ugly mug :scared:. Hairdresser used the one shot of my closed eyes for some reason...must have been a better one of the hair cut


It looks fantastic! Really showcases your cheekbones. 

I'm very pleased with my hair today! Have short layers round the front that can be persuaded to look like a fringe if I like. Might post pictures later! 

Right now I'm being nagged to go and do the horses, so best had.


----------



## Dogless

Forgot to say no Olbas Oil fan found today Twiggy . Poor puppy is really suffering tonight .


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted ....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Forgot to say no Olbas Oil fan found today Twiggy . Poor puppy is really suffering tonight .


Oh that's a shame as it would have helped poor Rudi.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh that's a shame as it would have helped poor Rudi.


I know. Lots of phlegm being coughed up now and cough loads worse but vet did warn me that it would get much worse before it got better as I went so early in the course of it. Wish I could explain why trying to wrestle with Kilo is a bad idea  .


----------



## Tarnus

Dogless - have you seen or tried the homemade KC remedy that Ceearott posted aaaaages ago? I remember quite a few people saying it was quite effective! I (or more accurately the OH) can dig it out if you wanted it!


----------



## Dogless

Tarnus said:


> Dogless - have you seen or tried the homemade KC remedy that Ceearott posted aaaaages ago? I remember quite a few people saying it was quite effective! I (or more accurately the OH) can dig it out if you wanted it!


Please Tarnus, that would be great :thumbup:.


----------



## Thorne

-Leam: Sounds like some good advice from other posters, combined with the behaviorist I hope you find something that works for Deeks soon! After the spray collar recommendation from the rescue I think I'd be less keen to follow their advice to be honest.

-Dogless: I like the hair! Been considering something similar but can see myself getting fed up with a fringe now I've been without one for so long  Poor old Rudi.

-LO: I was thinking fear period too, guess which other mad Lurcher I know has just had one of them?  We kept Paddy out of the way of people and dogs for a while, sticking to quiet side street walks. He's much better now but still gets a little spooked sometimes, think the worst is over though. Hope that gentle socialisation reassures Zand and that it passes soon. 

-Sarah: Interesting take on positive methods from Kyra Sundance there, won't be buying that one then. Good call on the window film.

-Sharloid: Glad the dogmatic is helping you and Broder!

-L/C: See you after the work do then  It's a good thing I'm not at uni at the moment, I used to think I was Queen of the internet after a night out!

-GR: Aww, bless the ninja! Nothing wrong with a bit of a wuff at a stranger, pleased to hear that you happened to meet a well-mannered dog! Wish I was a bit closer to the beach...

-Werehorse: Very interesting you say that you've lost weight after break-ups! No idea if there's previous correlation for me but so far I'm doing better than last time - stupidly took up smoking for a few months after being ditched, it revolts me now!

I'm being glared at by the dogs because dinner is late, back in a bit


----------



## Tarnus

Here you go, the OH wrote it down ages ago just incase! As you can see its a very precise recipe 

- 1 dollop Manuka Honey
- 1 dollop Blackcurrant Jam
- Mix with a little cooled boiled water
- 2 Drops Tea Tree Oil or Eucalyptus Essential Oil

Give as often as you like, sherry glass sized doses. 

Apparently it's supposed to be good for a human cold/flu too :thumbup:


----------



## moonviolet

Tarnus said:


> Here you go, the OH wrote it down ages ago just incase! As you can see its a very precise recipe
> 
> - 1 dollop Manuka Honey
> - 1 dollop Blackcurrant Jam
> - Mix with a little cooled boiled water
> - 2 Drops Tea Tree Oil or Eucalyptus Essential Oil
> 
> Give as often as you like, sherry glass sized doses.
> 
> Apparently it's supposed to be good for a human cold/flu too :thumbup:


i'm not entirely sure about tea tree or eucalyptus oil being taken internally.


----------



## kat&molly

So, I will try and catch up 
A nightmare without electric, I think we got about 45 mins last night then it kept flicking on and off - I went to bed about 8.30, at least Kindle Fire has a back light so I could read for a bit. 25 hours altogether.

We didn't do a walk through the village today, as Evie has had a bad one and it wasn't a good idea.
OH came back for lunch and She was soo excited to see him, but the horror when she realised he had another man with him who she didn't know 
there is a crate in the other room for her, a den in the bathroom and the back door was open so she could escape but she paced up and down the kitchen petrified. She used to run outside but doesn't anymore .
I gave her some Valerian and she sat on OH's lap having some fuss.
Even after they left,she wasn't right, keeps looking at the front door, waiting for someone scary to come through it- so I pulled the curtain across.
Didn't really settle all day, our walk this afternoon , we went to an empty field near home where I knew we wouldn't see anyone.
She finally settled about an hour ago with more Valerian and her jumper on. Its one thing to be worried outdoors with strangers but its even worse when its in her own home.

And Meg went to her new home today  it sounds lovely and I'm sure she'll get the attention she needs. Sad for me, even OH was quite taken with her-sure I could have talked him round but this will be better for her and I have to draw a line somewhere.


----------



## Tarnus

moonviolet said:


> i'm not entirely sure about tea tree or eucalyptus oil being taken internally.


It definitely shouldn't be ingested in large quantities but a couple of small drops shouldn't cause any problems, especially if mixed in with other stuff although if you don't want to risk it you could always make it without as the honey+jam would still be quite soothing and the honey will still add an anti-bacterial element to the mix


----------



## Thorne

Tarnus said:


> Here you go, the OH wrote it down ages ago just incase! As you can see its a very precise recipe
> 
> - 1 dollop Manuka Honey
> - 1 dollop Blackcurrant Jam
> - Mix with a little cooled boiled water
> - 2 Drops Tea Tree Oil or Eucalyptus Essential Oil
> 
> Give as often as you like, sherry glass sized doses.
> 
> Apparently it's supposed to be good for a human cold/flu too :thumbup:


That sounds good! Might be trying it myself should I fail to fight off my cold in the next few days.

Have fed the mutts so am back in their good books for now.

Our walk was a bit of a let-down really, had to postpone it and cut it short in favour of picking up my sister from a school club. We squelched off in the dark, lots of tracking and snuffling from Scooter who stayed onlead. I kept slipping and walking into the dogs despite hi-vis gear and a torch! 
Scooter did end up listening to me in exchange for some cheese, and Breeze had a wonderful time splashing about with her happy tail on. Lovely loose leads on the pavements home, no fretting from Breeze RE cars, good girl.

Scary moment at one point and I'm now not sure if I imagined it, but heard a noise behind me, turned around and my torchlight bounced off someone else's reflective jacket  If we weren't on a fairly remote muddy field I wouldn't have been bothered, but I was too alarmed to check if I was imagining things, let alone who they were. They must have changed route afterwards because when I next dared look they'd gone...

Breeze's free shaping went just as expected! She didn't do much apart from looking at the box at first, then had a silly barking tantrum  Let that pass and went back to rewarding looking at, sniffing in and eventually a lovely nose touch of the box - ended it there. Somehow she's both very curious and very suspicious of novel items so a nose touch was good enough for me today.
Will give Scooter some time to let his dinner go down before seeing how he takes to it.


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

Im hoping you guys can help me (Dogless has pointed me in this direction thanks!  )

Ive been told to use postive reward training to help with Sophie reactivness towards other dogs..... I would love to do that but there is one downfall.

I have never beeen able to pin point what dogs Sophie will kick off at, doesnt matter, boy, girl, intact, big/small more so knee hieght and taller, or colour or breed.

Sometimes we can be walking down at street, pass a dog on the other side and shell be fine, might give a grumble but nothing more.

On the flip side shell be on her hind legs, growling,lunging, drooling, barking etc 

The thing is its like me trying to talk LOUNDER then her, she barks LOUNDER then me and therefore hears nothing I say. Even if I spot the dog before her the moment she sees it screw the treat I have! I want to bark at that dog!

My routine now is to either carry on walking with me dragging her behind me cause screw that Ill still bark at them walking sideways. Or I try really hard to get her attention but it is pointless.

What I am thinking will work and Im just unsure have how to go about it is that I need to do something that will break her concentration and bring her attention right back to me.

Like I said me talking doesnt help, me using a deeper voice doesnt help, a correction with the lead and her martingale collar doesnt help, 

I need something thats gonna snap her attention from the dog to me (mom)

Ive tried training the watch me command but that only works with no dogs around, the moment their is a dog its like screw you! Ill bark at them.

I know shes doing it out of fear, and Id hate to scare her but I am thinking on using a can of pennies and shaking it really loud when shes starts?

And I have also debated on getting her a small halti (one designed so it doesnt snap their kneck to the side) as she lunges, pulls so I was thinking if I cut half the battle in her pulling and lunging it may be easier for me to get her attention?

I need help?

I also dont think we will be able to improve compleltly until we stop having run ins almost everyday with rude dogs as itll just reinforce her reactiveness?


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

I am also looking into a scented calming collar to.


----------



## Dogless

Thanks Tarnus :thumbup:



moonviolet said:


> i'm not entirely sure about tea tree or eucalyptus oil being taken internally.


No - I am going to make it without I think; he is already having Manuka honey which seems to soothe a little.

Just walked Kilo and came across pretty much our worst case scenario - walking down a very poorly lit road just before sports pitches. Spot man walking towards us - fine. Then black dog appears just in front of us racing in from the dark, making us both jump. Dog stands in front of us and stares. Oh crap thinks I BUT Kilo isn't too bad - interested but not posturing or dancing. Man calls dog, dog doesn't come. Man starts to walk back the way he came calling dog and dog goes with him eventually. Kilo had a shake off and carried on as normal - tons of praise and some dried chicken. He has come a very long way from the rottie attack :thumbup:.


----------



## moonviolet

Tarnus said:


> It definitely shouldn't be ingested in large quantities but a couple of small drops shouldn't cause any problems, especially if mixed in with other stuff although if you don't want to risk it you could always make it without as the honey+jam would still be quite soothing and the honey will still add an anti-bacterial element to the mix


I think it's always wise to exercise caution and a quantity that would have no ill effect on a rottie could be quite dangerous for a Chi. People often can be a little more careless when things are "natural" than maybe they should be.


----------



## moonviolet

Hi Miss Puddy cat ( can i shorten it to MPC please?)

I dont' know if you've heard of Grisha Stewarts Behaviour Adjustment Training. It's a gently way to help your dog here's the link to her website and Fb pages
Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) | Official site for BAT: dog-friendly training for reactivity (aggression, fear, frustration) by Grisha Stewart, MA
https://www.facebook.com/FunctionalRewards/photos_stream#!/FunctionalRewards/photos_stream

I'd try to explain but the videos on the first link do a better job than i could.


----------



## Dogless

Miss.PuddyCat said:


> Im hoping you guys can help me (Dogless has pointed me in this direction thanks!  )
> 
> *Welcome  t'is a friendly (if a little bonkers!) thread .*
> 
> Ive been told to use postive reward training to help with Sophie reactivness towards other dogs..... I would love to do that but there is one downfall.
> 
> I have never beeen able to pin point what dogs Sophie will kick off at, doesnt matter, boy, girl, intact, big/small more so knee hieght and taller, or colour or breed.
> 
> Sometimes we can be walking down at street, pass a dog on the other side and shell be fine, might give a grumble but nothing more.
> 
> On the flip side shell be on her hind legs, growling,lunging, drooling, barking etc
> 
> *I would try and gain her attention whenever you see any dog, then you don't have to guess / wonder what will happen.*
> 
> The thing is its like me trying to talk LOUNDER then her, she barks LOUNDER then me and therefore hears nothing I say. Even if I spot the dog before her the moment she sees it screw the treat I have! I want to bark at that dog!
> 
> *I think I told you about the LAT game before? Can't recall. Could you use a clicker rather than voice? I also have squeakers from murdered toys that I used to use - a sudden squeak used to gain Kilo's attention.*
> 
> My routine now is to either carry on walking with me dragging her behind me cause screw that Ill still bark at them walking sideways. Or I try really hard to get her attention but it is pointless.
> 
> *Could you practice avoidance? Not try and pass the dog - go down a sidestreet? Behind a parked car? Back the way you came? Wherever you need to go to gain enough distance for Sophie not to react?*
> 
> What I am thinking will work and Im just unsure have how to go about it is that I need to do something that will break her concentration and bring her attention right back to me.
> 
> *When Kilo fixates sometimes all that is needed is a quick turn with him at heel - I end up back the way I was originally going but once the initial eye contact has been broken he rarely bothers again - or sometimes I end up turning a few times. You will look a little deranged.*
> 
> Like I said me talking doesnt help, me using a deeper voice doesnt help, a correction with the lead and her martingale collar doesnt help,
> 
> *I wouldn't correct a fear behaviour using physical means as it may add to the fear - she is afraid AND knows that her collar will be jerked so approaching dog is an even worse thing than before.*
> 
> I need something thats gonna snap her attention from the dog to me (mom)
> 
> *Do you do lots of obedience and bonding stuff? I have found the more I train with Kilo the more I can gain his attention. Does she like toys? Squeaky tennis balls?*
> 
> Ive tried training the watch me command but that only works with no dogs around, the moment their is a dog its like screw you! Ill bark at them.
> 
> I know shes doing it out of fear, and Id hate to scare her but I am thinking on using a can of pennies and shaking it really loud when shes starts?
> 
> *For me I have dramas with things like that - they treat the problem (barking) by making it a thing that brings unpleasant consequences (the pennies) but don't treat the underlying problem.*
> 
> And I have also debated on getting her a small halti (one designed so it doesnt snap their kneck to the side) as she lunges, pulls so I was thinking if I cut half the battle in her pulling and lunging it may be easier for me to get her attention?
> 
> *It will allow you to turn her around quickly and head in another direction. I find Kilo's very useful, especially where cats are concerned!!*
> 
> I need help?
> 
> I also dont think we will be able to improve compleltly until we stop having run ins almost everyday with rude dogs as itll just reinforce her reactiveness?


 *As I said on your other thread I'd avoid the beach totally for now although Sophie enjoys it as that's where you have the majority of your problems. I do feel your pain - I have an encounter with a loose dog pretty much daily here - in fact had one tonight - and it can be disheartening when they set you back. I'd stick to quiet walks, walks where you have space to practice avoidance - don't set Sophie up to fail so no narrow paths, alleyways etc.*

All the stuff in red is just my own very amateur opinion - you'll find loads more knowledgeable folk than me on here. The key thing is we are all helpful, we'll listen to ANYTHING (moonviolet :scared::scared and everyone here will pull together and be supportive.


----------



## Sarah1983

MPC (sorry, I ain't typing out your whole username every time I talk to you  ) what do you do when Sophie doesn't react? Do you reward her for her non reaction? Is there anywhere you can go where you can stay a good distance from other dogs, where she can see them but isn't so worried about them that she has to scream and shout? That's the hardest part I found with a reactive dog, managed to keep other dogs at a distance. Voice of Doom is something I had great success with. Basically I'll step towards an approaching dog and in a low, growly voice tell it to "Go. Away!" Or piss off or f*ck off or something like that. It's the one "command" I've found even the worst trained dog tends to understand.

I would not be using a rattle bottle or anything like that to try to snap Sophie out of it. If anything it's likely to make her behaviour worse because she'll associate other dogs with the scary noise as well as with being attacked.


----------



## Dogless

On a positive note to do with Rudi......a nasty little puppy canine tooth fell out :thumbup:. Kennel cough and teething, poor little fella!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> On a positive note to do with Rudi......a nasty little puppy canine tooth fell out :thumbup:. Kennel cough and teething, poor little fella!


Poor boy. he's really going through it. Only other thing that came to mind was making sure the air at home isn't too dry. it can thicken the mucus. A vase of water on a radiator can help.


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you, I wasn't after sympathy just rambling with the first thing that popped into my head when I saw hairstyle discussions. MV - wow clever hair!! how lucky was that  now mine is straighter I do miss its wilfulness but it sometimes obliges .
> 
> ETA that sounds a bit rude, it isn't meant to be.
> 
> MS- glad your husbands has grown back too. It isn't very nice but its better than ACTUALLY having cancer, the worst bit was how everyone said how much I looked like my Dad  Yeah? Thank you thats made me feel a whole lot better  I too was a goth and a punk in my very much younger years, so had actually done the shaven headed thing with my mohawk  which made that bit a little easier. Hubby was in a phychobilly band at the time of the hair loss, it was the only time I felt at home at his gigs and the only time I didn't stand out in a crowd . I am often called on to give support to friends sisters best mates brothers, I get passed peoples phone 'for a chat' and introduced to random people in pubs for some advice
> 
> Dog chat - Our dog is showing more of her 'character' by barking ferociously at chickens and Rick Steins Chalky this afternoon.


Yay for the Goths! I used to go the Whitby Goth festival. I still haven't really grown out of it although the clothes won't fit! I don't recall shaving my hair, I've lopped it off with the kitchen scissors when I was in my teens and dyed it bleach blonde. My dad refused to talk to me for days. I grew it back and haven't much had it short since. I got some of cut when I dyed in black with a temp dye that stayed in as it was so fragile and porous. I was a size 8 at the time and just out of hospital after eating problems (I am 5' 7 tall) so I looked like a ghost, my little brother screamed with fright!

I don't think I can catch up with everyone, I am so sorry. Just still low. I've decided to book a holiday in June, anywhere coastal if anyone has any recommendations.

MPC - I agree with Dogless. The BAT book is really helpful too by Grisha Stewart and there are a few videos of BAT in action on You Tube. With Molly it's been a massive process that's taken all of 9 months to cure. We've had to constantly give her space and distance. Age has helped I am sure and the interesting thing was something that John Robertson said in Dog Vinci code that a lot of lead reactivity can be about not knowing lead manners and its' a case of teaching the dog how to behave on a collar and lead as opposed to training out lead reactivity. In otherwords forget the dogs for the moment and teach lead manners. This theory seems to have worked in practice for Molly. We ditched the harness and the halti and went to basics. Seems to be working (paws very tentatively crossed!)

One place we did some BAT work was outside the pet shop as all dogs would be on a lead as it's got a busy car park outside and we had space to move.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> On a positive note to do with Rudi......a nasty little puppy canine tooth fell out :thumbup:. Kennel cough and teething, poor little fella!


Oh poor Rudi xx


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> Poor boy. he's really going through it. Only other thing that came to mind was making sure the air at home isn't too dry. it can thicken the mucus. A vase of water on a radiator can help.


Oh perhaps you could get him to sit over a bowl of boiling water with a towel over his head! Worked for me when I had Kennel Cough :lol:

I am joking by the way just in case anyone actually fancies trying this with your dog, please don't!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Mpc - everything Dogless said. It really is about trying to keep her as calm as.possible. If you aren't feeling up for it.or you can't walk her somewhere quiet for whatever reason. Keep her in or keep it short and sweet. Then play and train at home instead.


----------



## Pupcakes

Good evening all! 

I have FINALLY decided to jump on the WAYWO??? band wagon! (please excuse any typos I'm on my sisters ipad!) 

So "what am I working on???" easier to ask what I'm not working on! :lol:

I put up a thread on here not too long ago about dreading dog walks and feeling overwhelmed by the whole experience so for a week or 2 I did just pavement walks with a few off lead sessions chucked in. Now I'm on my ADs I feel so much better and have gone back to 1-2-1 walks with The Terrors either before work or after.

I am now enjoying walks as I don't see it as a chore but something we can both enjoy. I am currently loosing weight so 2hours plus before work walking definitely helps! 

I've started walking them on flat collars and leads when on solo walks as Charlie walks beautifully to heel with no training, he just likes to plod along and p*** on everything! We take things slow and he would be content with a long pavement walk but does enjoy a good pelt about too.

I even started walking Dottie on a flat collar and normal lead! OMG!!! I never thought I'd be doing that! She normally has a harness then a halti and about 10001 more contraptions attached to her which makes her look like Robocop. 
It's such an amazing feeling to walk along like a "normal" dog and owner and not have your dog covered in equipment. I never thought I'd do LLW with Dottie I always dreaded walking her on the pavement anywhere but she's really proving me wrong! Yes she does yank to get to scents but what I do is make a big point of stopping when she pulls and she soon learnt yanking = stopping. She stops, turns her head to the side so she can see me out of the corner of her eye as if to say "yeah okay point made..." if she doesn't stop and look at me I know I haven't got her focus back and if we carry on walking she just yanks again because she hasn't realised we've stopped if that makes sense. She's too engrossed in the what's ahead.

So yeah LLW is going great! Havent done much socialising as I'm not ready to socialise myself yet!

Charlie did great today (on flexi) a Westie was stalking him and he kept looking at him and then barking but it was an excited aroused bark then he'd race back to me wagging his tail then repeat the dog kept stalking over but he did really well and didn't react! He also met a large springer x collie maybe? The male dog come over and Charlie was a bit tense (on lead) I kept things cheery and said "whose this dog?" it was so funny the dog was tagging his huge tail so much that as Charlie was trying to sniff his rear this MASSIVE tail kept whacking him in the face, I could hear the slapping! Charlie looked annoyed as if to say "for gods sake will you control that thing!" 

Dottie also played with a JR puppy bitch off lead. The puppy who out of control came over as Dottie was playing a game of fetch, Dottie then got her ball and did the whole sticking her bum in the air, growly "catch me catch me!!!" routine! They had a major zoomies and Dotties play growling was kept to a minimum thank god! That can be embarrassing! 

They then stopped, led down facing each other as to have a breather then reassumed the zoomies! It was great fun and Dottie didn't even mind when the pup jumped on her back.

Charlie had a walk with my friends 2 Jacks, he looks so huge compared to them with their short legs but they are older girls 8 and 16 so he's a whipper snapper and he really likes them. 

Dottie had a mental barking explosion at a guy on a bike, that was so not embarrassing  she barked at a jogger from far away yet was fine when one jogged right past us??!! She confuses me! 

Dottie also had a play with a SS but perhaps it was more a nervous play at first as her hackles were up and she was more noisy than usual, but there was lots of bums in the air but a bit too much rough play and I think the man looked scared, but if I leaded her up, as he wouldn't lead his up, I thought it would have been worse. So next time I'll lead up regardless until we're both sure.

So to sum up...

Separate walks at the moment
Not done much socialising work
Haven't done any formal training as such just taking it easy for a while
LLW for Dottie more so.

So now I am on the thread properly!

Thanks for reading!

Oh and the dogs are back on RAW now


----------



## L/C

Thorne said:


> -L/C: See you after the work do then  It's a good thing I'm not at uni at the moment, I used to think I was Queen of the internet after a night out!


Are you suggesting that am in actual fact not queen of the internet? 

You have no idea how hard I concentrated to delete all that stuff and maintain the bit I wanted and the tags...A more constructive post will follow tomorrow.

ETA: Also how the almighty f*** did I come back to 31 likes?! I haven't posted enough for that!


----------



## Werehorse

Welcome to the thread Pupcakes. 

As it is late at night and noone is looking I will post piccies.

New hair today.










And if you insist the myspace blonde moment. :lol: I was young ok?


----------



## Thorne

Knew you'd be back, L/C  Hope you had a good night!

Love the new do Werehorse!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - really love the 'do' .

L/C - hope your head is OK (ish!)

Pupcakes - welcome, welcome a thousand welcomes . Rudi play growls a lot like Dottie; he often play bows like mad and growls. About 50% of folk take their dogs away as they decide that it's aggressive and get huffy with me .

I _think_ Rudi seems a little better this morning, despite sounding like someone with a trachy who needs to clear it.


----------



## GingerRogers

Love the hair, both do's, Werehorse.
Welcome pupcakes so glad to hear you are feeling more under control 
Hope the heads ok L/C :smilewinkgrin: you get likes cos you is funny.
I have very excitable woofer this morning she's just brought me flat rabbit with my coffee in bed. And I have a door to paint before we go walking. Oh dear better go play some more before she throws it at me.
Glad Rudi seems a bit better this morning.


----------



## moonviolet

GR bless the ninja bringing you a toy with your morning coffee ( you get coffee in bed?) Have fun not painting the ninja :lol:

your new hair looks great W/H love the fringe over one eye gives you an air of mystery, You look great blonde too, you have a lovely skintone that looks good with blonde and brown hair 

Dogless glad you think Rudi is improving, hopefully the worst is over now  Hopefully it's a strain that Kilo is vacc'ed for.

Hi Pupcakes welcome Charlie and Dottie  glad you are finally here 

L/C hope you had a lovely time and are feeling ok this morning, but I thought I'd whisper just in case you were


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Morning all!

Rushed around like a blue arsed fly this morning to get everything done and get to work, then I get here and find that my first patient has cancelled  Could'a had an extra half hour with the Pickles 

Love the new 'do' Werehorse, I don't know how people can cope with the whole side fringe though, I think it looks great and it's kind of what mine is supposed to be like but I always end up tucking it behind my hear or clipping it back as it drives me crazy :crazy: in my eyes!

Welcome Pupcakes!! Lovely to see you and the Terrors here, and it sounds like you're making fab progress. I'm a bit of part timer on this thread, it moves so quickly I can't keep up! I pop in every now and then, have a moan about the Pickles, have a laugh with the regulars, don't add anything constructive and then bugger off for a while again :lol:

Glad to hear Rudi is feeling better this morning Dogless, hopefully he is on the mend 

Good luck with the painting today Ginge, have you got to the point where you really wish you hadn't started it yet? I always think decorating is a good idea and then really wish I hadn't!!

MORNING L/C!!!!!!!! HOW'S THE HEAD????!!!!!


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GR bless the ninja bringing you a toy with your morning coffee ( *you get coffee in bed?) *Have fun not painting the ninja :lol:


I do now, for some reason it started when we stopped smoking , she proceeded to bring me 3 legged sheepy, her new kong (which she really likes much more than the fake kong she had before) and a chew, but none got thrown at me thankfully, also thankfully she has stayed downstairs while I was doing the painting!



foxyrockmeister said:


> Good luck with the painting today Ginge, have you got to the point where you really wish you hadn't started it yet? I always think decorating is a good idea and then really wish I hadn't!!


I think we wished we had never had to start, its mammoth, open plan job, so stairs, landing, sitting room, and dining room, five doors (how we have so many when its all open plan I don't know) think we are going with all white though now which makes it easier, Shane got quite excited and spent all night looking at websites with wall art stickers, thanks MV, you can get Banksy ones and everything :001_tt1: Mum had said she would pay for someone to do it for us but I traded that for new flooring which makes the painting even easier as I don't have to worry about mess  Of course once we are finished the kitchen will look drab.

Think I have paint in my eye its gone sticky , off to find the wee one and go for a wander!


----------



## Thorne

Pupcakes: Welcome! Sounds like there's lots going on at Terror Central, keep up the great work. Robocop Dottie :lol:

L/C: How's the head today?

Dogless: Hoping that Rudi is feeling better today, poor little mite.

GR: Have fun with excited Ginge today! Hope you haven't got paint in your eye, doesn't sound very comfortable at all.

FRM: What a pain! Don't tell the Pickles, they'll be none the wiser 

I've woken up to a poorly Breeze! She was all fine and dandy yesterday but when dad let her out first thing she had the squits, and about half an hour ago I heard my sister fussing over her then letting her out to be sick 
Can't think of anything she's eaten that could have caused it so will have to keep an eye on her and go from there. If it's a bug I'm desperately hoping she doesn't pass it onto Scooter, he never handles stomach upsets well.
She's settled and sleeping now (some fantastic snoring going on, might as well have bought a Bulldog) but has been giving me puppy dog eyes and wanting fuss so far today. Poor little girl.

Mum and I WERE going to take the dogs to either the beach or some heathland for a long walk and change of scenery this afternoon but don't want to push Breeze if she's not 100%. Might still take Scooter somewhere out of the ordinary, will have a think.


----------



## moonviolet

Poor breeze hope she's all better soon and doens't share it with scooter. Hope you have a nice walk wherever you decide to go


----------



## Dogless

Poor Breeze; hope she's OK - so many poorly dogs .

Just had a great walk with the BW; made the whole thing a training session and went out armed with clicker, cheese and hotdog. We had a break on the onlead field for 5 minutes halfway but otherwise worked the whole time and Kilo was really up for it today . 'Hide' is coming on very well - I've taken it 'on the road' now and we're doing well although not tried it with people or dogs just yet, I don't want to ruin all our work. One teeny problem is that if we do it at a faster pace Kilo clips my heels as he's striding out more....

Anyhow, one very tired Kilo and one very happy me .

Rudi is definitely better today, bless him :001_wub::001_wub: although he's still doing a lot of coughing and huffing.

*MissPuddyCat* - have you tried a 'hide' at all? Putting Sophie behind you when something she doesn't like approaches?


----------



## moonviolet

DOgless you'll have to get yourself some of these


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> DOgless you'll have to get yourself some of these


How did you get a photo of my going out attire? .

They'd suit Kilo when he's in skittish dressage horse mode .


----------



## Izzysmummy

Werehorse - Love the new do! And the blonde, you suit both!
L/C - How you feeling this morning? Bit delicate??
Pupcakes - welcome to the thread! Sounds like you've done really well with the LLW! 
Dogless - Glad Rudi's feeling a little better this morning, sounds like a lovely walk with Kilo too! Gold stars for Kilo!
GR - Clever Ginge bringing you a toy and a coffee in bed! Need to get Izzy trained to do that!  She usually brings me up a toy then swaps it for MY stitch and runs back downstairs leaving me her lovely slobbery toy ! Hope you enjoyed your walk!
FRM - How annoying! But at least you could use the half an hour for a coffee and PF catch up!
Thorne - Poor Breeze! Bless her! Izzy had a bug like that a couple of weeks ago...you may have enjoyed my lovely pics as we were out when the bum explosion happened and she was sick in the night but it was just a 24hr thing so fingers crossed Breeze's OK again soon and doesn&#8217;t pass it on to Scooter. 


So yesterday Izzy was at daycare and had a swim in the hydrotherapy pool so she was shattered last night and took herself off to bed for most of the evening! She made me laugh though as we put her to bed and said night night then went up and we're getting ready for bed ourselves (she usually comes up for half an hour or so while we get ready for bed but we didn&#8217;t invite her up last night as she was so sleepy), Madam then starts barking so I went down to check her and she came running up the stairs and buried herself in the duvet! Think she just barked to let us know she wanted up! :lol:

She was good at the park this morning apparently although ran off to bark at something (Tarnus couldn&#8217;t see anything) but she came straight back when called so not too bad. We're off to visit my parents tonight so Izzy will have a great time with Millie and we're taking the coupler back up to try out on them. Getting my car MOT'd and serviced tomorrow so everyone keep your fingers crossed please that it doesn&#8217;t need too much doing so that I'll have more spending money for crufts next month! Also getting my hair done so a nice relaxing but expensive morning for me tomorrow! So I won't be around for a couple of days!

I hope everyone has lovely weekends!


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## L/C

Morning all. Thank you for all of the concern (I've got my eye on you FRM :cursing - my head is a bit fragile but I managed to do a 5 mile run with Gypsy before work so I think I deserved the McDonalds that I scoffed drunkenly last night. 

Dogless - glad Rudi is a bit better and that the BW was such a good boy. :thumbup:
Thorne - hope poor Breeze is better soon.
GR - how did you train Ginge to bring you coffee in bed?  Clever doggy. 
Werehorse - I love the new hair and you are gorgeous!
Pupcakes - nice to see you here with the terrors!

Here at chez pointy I used the excuse of a work do to be in a bit late this morning so they got an extra long walk. Gypsy and I went for a run first - she was brilliant. Currently we run with her off lead but I'm thinking of investing in some cani-x gear and starting seeing if she takes to that.

After the run I took both of them out together for a potter - still no sign of Ely's limp coming back but I'm going to keep to the one day on and one day off schedule that we've got atm. As you can see he's finding this very hard:










Gypsy continues to delight as she recalled from chasing a cat this morning!


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## GingerRogers

Oh dear Ely that looks a hard life.

@ L/C and Izzysmummy, I have a very clever dog, I have told you all this before 

We had a lovely quiet walk, saw a lady with 3 labs but the ninja didn't, she was walking very nicely with minimal effort, so thats all good.

Discovered what I think was the source of the excitability and the slightly gurgly belly this morning. A gold chocolate coin wrapper glinting at me from her little deposit . Thats the other trouble with decorating, moving furniture reveals things. The terrible thing is we both saw it, I did yesterday but had my hands full and hubby noticed it wasn't there when he hoovered yesterday. So bad hoomans 

I watched the Martin Clunes Horse thing last night (lovely big horses :001_tt1 she doesn't like horses much, a bit like the dog one last week, it resulted in lots of barking and launching herself from my lap at the telly. However.......... while we were eating, she lay on the floor keeping one eye on us one on the telly but didn't make a sound. I have also noticed if the telly is on but we aren't on the sofa with her she also doesn't bother with dogs and stuff . Something metaldog said in the thread about JRT traits, that they are very protective of their family made me wonder if that a lot to do with what the rucus is all about. We leave the telly on when we are out and the neighbours have never complained and there must have been some animals on there before, so perhaps she only reacts when she feels she needs to protect, would explain the random barking at people as well (or is that barking at random people ) .

Anyway I used it as a good chance to train and sat their with the clicker and treats trying to catch her before she went off, hubby joined in by giving me warnings if I didn't spot her tensing up, he has got the hang of things finally I think .


----------



## Pupcakes

Thank you all for your warm welcomes! 

So how does this work then? Do I get a free bottle of wine? Or is it more like a cult and I have to take an oath and drink a cup of blood? Either way, I'm game!

Forgive me if I forget to mention or reply back to people, this is one fast moving thread!

Just come back in from a dog walk, soooo pooped out from yesterday's walks. They had one each after work then after Weight Watchers I collected my sister from work so I took them back along for a 30min run in the grounds where I did some running too! Hence us all being shattered last night!

They enjoyed another RAW meal of chicken wing last night and I noticed they don't poo anywhere near as much like when they are on the dry! I'd be picking up 4 large bags of poo with Dottie now it was 3 small firm ones that didn't smell.

We just did an hour and a bit pavement walk with my mum. We did a different route up to the bank in the village where they haven't been before. Then 10mins of football in the garden and Charlie is sleeping away in my lap and Dottie is chasing shadows so just sent her to her bed to relax.

I know what you mean Dogless about people pulling their dogs away! Noisy dogs seem to send everyone running. My friend has a Staffy who does the same and she says people go mad and she has to explain he's just a noisy player! 

Just settling down to watch 4 Weddings now! And have a hard earned cup of tea before work! Dottie is chomping on the raw carrot in her bed so she's relaxing!

Hope you all have a great day!

Candice and Those Terrible Terrorifying Tithead Terrors!xxx


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## Maria_1986

Am I allowed to come in here for a little moan - its dog related I promise!

OH is being a pain in the backside. He wants us to push back picking up Chevy until next weekend because there is a small chance of snow. As we are going to be going in my Dad's 4x4 with my Dad doing most of the driving I called him to see what he thinks - we looked at the route and its 3/4 motorway or dual carriageway so we both think it will be fine, there is no snow forecast for either where we are or where she is on Saturday or Sunday or for any of the bits inbetween. Obviously if the situation changes between now and then I will reconsider but he seems to want to shut down for the weekend just incase of snow that the met office have rated as a small possibility. I do appreciate that making journeys in the snow is more dangerous and carries more risk, however I do not think we should totally write off this weekend on a low risk weather warning but asses the situation as it gets closer.

Anyway - the reason I came into this thread was to ask for recommendations on good dog care/training books.


----------



## L/C

Maria_1986 said:


> Am I allowed to come in here for a little moan - its dog related I promise!
> 
> OH is being a pain in the backside. He wants us to push back picking up Chevy until next weekend because there is a small chance of snow. As we are going to be going in my Dad's 4x4 with my Dad doing most of the driving I called him to see what he thinks - we looked at the route and its 3/4 motorway or dual carriageway so we both think it will be fine, there is no snow forecast for either where we are or where she is on Saturday or Sunday or for any of the bits inbetween. Obviously if the situation changes between now and then I will reconsider but he seems to want to shut down for the weekend just incase of snow that the met office have rated as a small possibility. I do appreciate that making journeys in the snow is more dangerous and carries more risk, however I do not think we should totally write off this weekend on a low risk weather warning but asses the situation as it gets closer.
> 
> Anyway - the reason I came into this thread was to ask for recommendations on good dog care/training books.


Oh dear - is he not willing to play it by ear and see what happens? I can't see the rescue not understanding if you have to delay if there is terrible snow!

What do you want from a dog care book? Something general or more specific? A good training one is When Pigs Fly by Jane Killion and a good one for general dog behaviour is Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson or Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor.


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## Guest

A good walk this morning.


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## Maria_1986

L/C said:


> Oh dear - is he not willing to play it by ear and see what happens? I can't see the rescue not understanding if you have to delay if there is terrible snow!
> 
> What do you want from a dog care book? Something general or more specific? A good training one is When Pigs Fly by Jane Killion and a good one for general dog behaviour is Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson or Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor.


Thanks for the recommendations, I will have a look at them on amazon.

He wants a decision now (well more like 8.30am this morning, but he was not getting it!) rather than playing it by ear. The rescue will be fine and they will understand, however its his inflexibility that is bugging me (quite possibly an over reaction on my part as I ran out of happy pills for a few days)


----------



## moonviolet

Maria do you think he maybe having cold feet. it can scary picking up a dog wondering how its going to change things. Might be worth having a chat to reassure him 

L/C life looks very tough for Ely :lol:

GR woohoo at hubby  gold star

Pupcakes sounds liek a good morning... glad you're game you need to be around here at times 

IM hope the car sails through the MOT I lvoe that Izzy barked to express her disgust at being left out of the bedtime ritual 

we had a lovely morning first a pavement walk to the furthest post box in the village then a training session and a romp with dog pals. before we met up with them i took a moment to sit on a tree stump and enjoy my lap warmer in the sun and snapped this pic.


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## Izzysmummy

Maria_1986 said:


> Thanks for the recommendations, I will have a look at them on amazon.
> 
> He wants a decision now (well more like 8.30am this morning, but he was not getting it!) rather than playing it by ear. The rescue will be fine and they will understand, however its his inflexibility that is bugging me (quite possibly an over reaction on my part as I ran out of happy pills for a few days)


Oh dear, I can understand him being concerned about travelling in the snow, maybe he's worried if the weather is bad and Chevy maybe being a nervous passenger and bad weather will make the whole journey more stressful. Could it possibly be a case of cold feet with the weekend looming and its suddenly become real? Sure all will work out fine and Chevy will be with you soon!

I got home at lunchtime to a lovely parcel from my friend, she's gone travelling round South-East Asia for a month so has sent me these ready for our hols next month!










How lovely, total surprise! I love getting post thats not bills or junk! Feeling very loved! 

ETA: MV - lovely picture of Tink!!


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## Maria_1986

I knew I liked it here - you all speak lots of sense  I had not thought about him getting cold feet about it all, but a thinking about it now you are probably right. I will sit down and have a chat with him about it tonight - thinking on it he has been a bit like this before each new addition to the household (well apart from his fish - it was me dragging my heels on that one) not helped by him being a bit stressed with work stuff as well recently. I think he feels guilty too that I can't keep fostering cats due to his allergies and maybe that is another reason to drag his feet over picking up Chevy.

Part of the reason we are going in Dad's car with Dad driving is so that we have a few extra pairs of hands and extra drivers should it be needed so its a nice stress free journey for us and Chevy, but it does mean my Dad and step mum staying over night and them not being able to get back home may also be worrying him (I love them but can't spend more than a few days with them without getting stressed myself)

Suppose I should stop thinking about how this affects Chevy and start thinking a little more about how it affects the OH :blushing:


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## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> A good walk this morning.


Are you sure  thats lacking your normal enthusiasm and capital letters :smilewinkgrin:

Maria - doesn't sound like an over reaction on your part, more like on OH's if what you say about the forecast is true, I would try and have a chat, it does sound like nerves, good luck, I hope you get her and the weather holds off. I know what its like, we got Ginge august BH monday, I was bugging hubby all weekend to see if her owner had got back and we could pick her up, he kept saying that he would call when he was ready to let her go  I second the first two recommendations, loved pigs fly and am currently working my way through Culture Clash, not read the other, I also found Turid Rugaas 'on talking terms with dogs' very interesting too and might help you can read her signals as she will be settling down and new to you. In terms of basic obedience, Pamela Dennison 'complete idiots guide to positive dog training' is a pretty comprehensive guide to the basics.

Lovely pic MV, I want to stroke her ears :001_tt1:

IM lovely surprise, how sweet of her.


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## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Lovely pic MV, I want to stroke her ears :001_tt1:


They are like warm silk velvet and she smells of digestive biscuits mmmmmmmmm biscuits...


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## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> They are like warm silk velvet and she smells of digestive biscuits mmmmmmmmm biscuits...


STAY AWAY FROM THE BISCUITS!! :smilewinkgrin:

I would ask why she smells of digestive biscuits but I daren't 

We just discovered that I can get somedogs undying attention when dunking chocolate chip cookies in my coffee  how can I utilise that to create a rock solid watch me, perhaps if I rename the command, cookies??


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> A good walk this morning.


You don't half rabbit on and on with your long winded posts  .

Izzysmummy - marvellous surprise!

L/C - a recall from a cat?????? Gypsy is brilliant . Ely looks like he was taking not going out pretty hard .

mv - lovely photo - I see it's your turn for a little sun? .

Maria - I'd go with the cold feet theory too; really hope that your chat is productive.

Rudi is suddenly hugely better - hardly coughing; amazing how fast they become ill and then bounce back . He has another wobbly canine .


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## Werehorse

Oh please don't mention biscuits! I'm dying from the cravings... I've been really good and stuck to my calorie budget for 3 days and still going. But I'm slumping massively today and yet again having a downer day.  Have to perk myself up as I have a tutoring job on ce soir.

Thank you for the hair compliments people.


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## Werehorse

Yay for Rudi getting better!

Good luck with the chat, Maria.

Recall from a cat... amazebobs. And Ely looks as happy to sleep in as my two, and that is saying something.

Love Tink, so pretty. 

What a brilliant present, Izzysmummy - I'd be the happiest girl alive if someone bought me a full Lake District Active Map set. 

Ginge -I think using the TV would be a good way to desensitise and counter-condition, at least to start.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Oh please don't mention biscuits! I'm dying from the cravings... I've been really good and stuck to my calorie budget for 3 days and still going. But I'm slumping massively today and yet again having a downer day.  Have to perk myself up as I have a tutoring job on ce soir.
> 
> Thank you for the hair compliments people.


I am just eating some Chocolate Fingers . I don't need them, having put a little weight on....but am having one of those 'ugh' days. I did go swimming earlier which is at least something .


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## Guest

Just got back from the afternoon walk. 

Zander almost flattened a pekingnese. I almost fell over several times. 

"With all due respect, you don't have any control over him, not in that harness. You need something around his neck, or a halti." From a stranger in the charity shop.

I know they probably meant well but its actually really upset me. I obviously can't be that good with him if strangers are noticing!?! :crying:

Bah, I have a shift. I'll be back later. 

Glad rudi's feeling better. Love that pic of ely, and tink.


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## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Ginge -I think using the TV would be a good way to desensitise and counter-condition, at least to start.


I did wonder  then thought it was a daft idea TBH but if you think so I will just have to find more dog programs to watch, maybe even some CM just so she knows how nice I am being  but it is scary  we got a new TV at Christmas she proper launches at it!


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## Izzysmummy

Werehorse said:


> Oh please don't mention biscuits! I'm dying from the cravings... I've been really good and stuck to my calorie budget for 3 days and still going. But I'm slumping massively today and yet again having a downer day.  Have to perk myself up as I have a tutoring job on ce soir.
> 
> Thank you for the hair compliments people.


Better not mention that Im driving up to Cumbria tonight with a batch of home-made choc chip cookies then  :lol:!


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## L/C

Izzysmummy said:


> Better not mention that Im driving up to Cumbria tonight with a batch of home-made choc chip cookies then  :lol:!


Werehorse is now definitely plotting to waylay you. :lol:

"Breaking news - woman ambushed on quiet Cumbrian road. Assailant described as having great hair and was muttering about biscuits."


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## Werehorse

Izzysmummy said:


> Better not mention that Im driving up to Cumbria tonight with a batch of home-made choc chip cookies then  :lol:!


OMG - drive here. My house. Now. :lol: *drools*

Fortunately I have this tutoring session so can't actually get out there and mug you. :lol:

I even managed to resist cake in the coffee shop I just went to.  But if tutee's mum offers me biscuits this evening I shall not be able to resist.


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## Dogless

Just had a good walk with Kilo. Short break in the rain meant loads of (reactive) dogs out - saw 10 at close quarters, got barked at by 8 , responded to none bar a brief growl at the akita . Most worrying was the huge Heinz57 dragging 3 shrieking smallish girls behind it barking like mad as they screamed and shouted at it and hung onto the flexi handle and girl holding the flexi for dear life .

Bit stressful BUT good for the non - reaction; gold star for the BW .


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## Maria_1986

Is there nothing you lot can't handle? Dog training, hair advice, communication/relationship advice!

Had a chat, turns out neither of us were communicating very clearly this morning, we were both wanting the same thing - a play it by ear but he heard I was going no matter what and I heard that he didn't want to go at all. Lesson learnt - listen and check our understanding in future.

So Chevy coming home is still set for Sunday, thank you so much for your help


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## L/C

Dogless - well done BW! :thumbup: He seems to be getting a lot more confident.

Had a great play session with Gypsy tonight but my hands are now bleeding and bruised! Not asking anything ogpf her yet - just getting her excited and used to playing with me.

Granny will be proud.


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## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Is there nothing you lot can't handle? Dog training, hair advice, communication/relationship advice!
> 
> Had a chat, turns out neither of us were communicating very clearly this morning, we were both wanting the same thing - a play it by ear but he heard I was going no matter what and I heard that he didn't want to go at all. Lesson learnt - listen and check our understanding in future.
> 
> So Chevy coming home is still set for Sunday, thank you so much for your help


Life - I can't handle my own life . I can handle everyone elses' though  . So pleased that it went well.



L/C said:


> Dogless - well done BW! :thumbup: He seems to be getting a lot more confident.
> 
> Had a great play session with Gypsy tonight but my hands are now bleeding and bruised! Not asking anything ogpf her yet - just getting her excited and used to playing with me.
> 
> Granny will be proud.


He really is, it's so nice to see. Grannie's bloomers will be on fire at that news hmy: .


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## Nicki85

Hi all! Going to be rubbish and not reply to everyone- sorry...

Today Rusty decided that the quickest way to get to me was down a 12ft wall. We were walking round the Roman Wall in Silchester (one of our regular walks!) and I was walking at the bottom cause it was slippery on top. Rusty was off lead having fun, being a good boy. Next thing I know he is careering off the top down towards me! I hadn't called him or anything... but he obviously saw me and decided to join me. Anyhow, thankfully he was fine... he clambered down the first 6ft and then leapt the last bit. He looked so worried when he got to the bottom though as I was running towards him basically screaming for him to stop. Poor lad! 

So that was all a bit scary :-( Will keep an eye on him tomorrow as I suspect he will be stiff. 

And... my dehydrator arrived yay! It's full of Ox heart, lambs liver, pig kidney and strips of skin. It stinks  so in the conservatory! Rusty is very excited and just sat by the door looking so hopeful- bless!


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## Guest

Back. Feeling a bit better than earlier. Thinking maybe I oughta get him used to walking on his collar? I don't know. I take things to heart terribly.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Life - I can't handle my own life . I can handle everyone elses' though  . So pleased that it went well.
> 
> He really is, it's so nice to see. Grannie's bloomers will be on fire at that news hmy: .


Sorry girls. It's been three traumatic days as my sister was admitted to Eastbourne Hospital on Wednesday morning with complications.

Fingers crossed and saying a few prayers but the doctors think they now know the cause and hopefully it isn't major.

I didn't sleep a wink last night and I'm off to see my sister in the morning which is a 350 mile round trip...!! I'm going to bed in a minute.

Dogless - I did manage to see that Rudi is a bit better today so that's good news.


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## Guest

Hope your sis is okay twig! x


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Sorry girls. It's been three traumatic days as my sister was admitted to Eastbourne Hospital on Wednesday morning with complications.
> 
> Fingers crossed and saying a few prayers but the doctors think they now know the cause and hopefully it isn't major.
> 
> I didn't sleep a wink last night and I'm off to see my sister in the morning which is a 350 mile round trip...!! I'm going to bed in a minute.
> 
> Dogless - I did manage to see that Rudi is a bit better today so that's good news.


Don't apologise Twiggy; I very much hope that there is nothing major going on with your sister. You and her are very much in my thoughts. Keep safe xx.


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## Nicki85

Sorry to hear that Twiggy- the news sounds positive though. Hoping she makes a full recovery soon.


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## L/C

Twiggy best wishes for your sister. I hope everything is OK.

Have a good trip tomorrow.


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## Beth17

Twiggy so sorry to hear this. I hope you have a safe drive tomorrow and the doctors can find the cause x


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## Maria_1986

Sorry to hear about your sister Twiggy, I hope that she makes a speedy recovery.


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## Werehorse

Very best wishes to your sister, Twiggy. Drive safely. x


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## Dogless

Ooohh I forgot to say; ordered a new chest freezer today :thumbsup::w00t:.


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## Guest

Tommorow after work, I'm going to be brave. I'm going to phone that ADPT trainer near me. When I tried last time, they picked up and I couldn't speak and I hung up. I have little cue cards written out so I know what to say and what questions to ask and stuff. I sound pathetic I know, but after the trainer I worked for when my one was young, it worries me. 
I have the early 6am walk tommorow and it will rain, I can start to walk him on his collar. I don't know why what that stranger said upset me so. I think its cause my dogs young and I'm young and he's my first proper dog and we're both still learning and there's so many opinions on how to train your dog and so many variations as to what's acceptable and things. And cause I'm young people need to tell me what they think or what they would do, or they have to tell me off. They wouldn't dare do it to mum. Their way is the right way. Everyone's way is the right way. Is mine? I don't know. Probably. 
I mean, Donkeyboy has certainly not been a 'textbook' dog. I met three puppies calmly meeting each other yesterday. Zand was already at the bouncing squealing jumping around stage then. But of course I thought his excitement was a GOOD thing, and that he'd grow out of it. It isn't and he hasn't. 

I don't know what the point of this post is really, sorry guys, I've been feeling very down since lunch.


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## Thorne

Dogless: Pleased you and Kilo had a good couple of walks, cheese and hotdog sausages are indeed the way forward  Get well soon Rudi, sounds like an improvement so far!

Izzysmummy: Yes, I remember Izzy's bum-explosion photos and fortunately Breeze has so far kept her housetraining! Compared to Scooter's last upset this is a fairly mild tummy trouble, but she's been a bit sulky and sleepier than normal today. Izzy sounds like a proper madam, she and B would probably get on well. Fingers crossed for your car!

L/C: Pleased that you're ok after last night  mmm McDonalds. WELL DONE GYPSY!

GR: So it was a sugar high after all! Glad it's passed through now. Good work on training the hubby. Ginge the TV dog made me laugh, our Collie used to get very wound up during wimbledon season!

Pupcakes: The first rule about WAYWO Club is you don't talk about WAYWO Club... Sounds like a good day at Terror HQ.

Maria: Hope all goes to plan on sunday, hope the snow leaves you well alone.

LO: I'm sure the harness comment was meant as constructive criticism but I'd have been upset to hear it said to me  I prefer a double ended lead attached to both harness and collar, always feel a little more in control than with just one attachment point. Scooter also tries squishing the local Peke, he desperately wants to play fight with it!

MV: Lovely photo of Miss Tink, nice to see some sunshine  My mum often recalls going to school with a girl who smelt of digestive biscuits...!

Nicki: I don't blame you for panicking! Hope Rusty bounces back, being a Springer I'm sure he probably will.

Twiggy: Best wishes to you, your sister and your family; thinking of you xx

Had another day not quite go to plan here - Mum and I got stuck in a massive traffic jam en route to the supermarket so a 20min journey took an hour. I then proceeded to have a dizzy spell in the shop. Couldn't see straight, couldn't think straight, couldn't balance... so that held us up too. Dinner was late so Scooter's had to make do with a pavement walk. 
I do wish that it wasn't just Mum and I who care for the dogs! There's 5 people here and 3 of them really could do more for the "family" pets.
He'll be getting an extra special walk tomorrow to make up for my failure today. Thank goodness he's not the hyperactive nutjob he used to be.
Bought him a good sized lamb bone in Morrisons, not bad for 22p :thumbup:

Breeze seems a little better but think she's bringing up bile then swallowing it again (grim!). Still got loose poo but no more sick so hopefully it's just a 24hr thing. She's had a quiet sulky day, not wanted to play but did ask for dinner and was heartbroken not to receive any!


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## Thorne

*FAO Dogless!*

Here's a couple of Breeze in her "new" collar courtesy of you and Rudi - I think it suits the little madam beautifully! Thank you 


















My IT consultant/PF co-pilot:









Bonus one of Scooter because he's super handsome:


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## Guest

Your dogs are beautiful!!!!!!


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## Dogless

LO - it would have upset the best of us, but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise or fate? It has prompted you to reevaluate. You sound like you have a solid plan of action together; the only way is up now :thumbup::thumbup:.

Thorne - the collar suits Breeze well; lovely photos .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> LO - it would have upset the best of us, but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise or fate? It has prompted you to reevaluate. You sound like you have a solid plan of action together; the only way is up now :thumbup::thumbup:.
> 
> Thorne - the collar suits Breeze well; lovely photos .


I shall try not to chicken out tommorow.  
Dunno bout Zand getting to be a scaredy cat, his owners turning into a great big wuss. :lol:

Do you find it easier walking Kilo on a collar? I mean do you find him easier to control? Um, I mean, if he tries to go after stuff how are you able to bring him back or not fall on your face like I seem to? I mean physically? Like when treats can't distract?

And thorne, aren't morrisons great for that? Zanders has a lamb bone a week from morrisons!!

Very glad there are no bum explosions too. (When Zand had one, we were in a training room and he went on the trainers sofa and they screeeeccchhheed at me. )


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I shall try not to chicken out tommorow.
> Dunno bout Zand getting to be a scaredy cat, his owners turning into a great big wuss. :lol:
> 
> Do you find it easier walking Kilo on a collar? I mean do you find him easier to control? Um, I mean, if he tries to go after stuff how are you able to bring him back or not fall on your face like I seem to? I mean physically? Like when treats can't distract?
> 
> And thorne, aren't morrisons great for that? Zanders has a lamb bone a week from morrisons!!
> 
> Very glad there are no bum explosions too. (When Zand had one, we were in a training room and he went on the trainers sofa and they screeeeccchhheed at me. )


Kilo walks better on a collar than a headcollar; probably because I do the majority of our training on just his collar. I do use a headcollar whenever we are anywhere where I think that there is a high probability of cats (our street!!) or on routes where I might encounter things in really close proximity (narrow pathways with hedges etc). If I have any doubts I use a headcollar, nothing like being nervous to make a situation you don't want to occur happen.

If we are in a situation where I don't have his headcollar on I do a good line in rapid direction changes (even if I have to run and look like a plonker!!) or producing tuggy from my pocket. If he is going to lunge and that is that I stand my ground, hands as close into my body as possible and wait for the wrenching pain and crunching in my back .


----------



## Thorne

Thank you LO! They are both flattered 

Best of luck for contacting the trainer; I'm terrible on the phone even with people I know so I can sympathise. You've done so much for Zander that so many people would have struggled with, he sounds like a typical nutty Lurcher aka a handful! But you're on the right track and as Dogless says, the only way is up.

Oh, just done some free shaping with Scooter and the box (he wanted to go straight to bed last night!). As predicted, he smelled the treats and sat beautifully in front of me, waiting hopefully  He ignored the box completely so threw a couple of treats in and rewarded his optimistic glances at it afterwards. Took a while but he got the hang of look at box = treat, then look in box = treat and finished with touch box = treat.
Have only free shaped him when teaching a touch before so it's still a new concept for him; most of his training had been through luring  Not bad for a first session!
Will get the box out again tomorrow and see if they remember what to do with it.


----------



## Pupcakes

Aaaah thank you Thorne! That clears things up! What's the WAYWO club again?:aureola:

The Terrors had another 40 min pavement walk once I got in from work. I was originally gonna play some games to poop them out but I thought they'd rather have a good sniff and this way they can have a wee and poo too before bed.

I don't like the idea of them not having mental stimulation. I know games do it too but I feel they'd be so bored otherwise and I know how excited Dottie gets as soon as I finish my breakfast and stand up she jumps up, jumps at me, puts her paws on my legs and starts tail wag 10001mph! So it makes me happy making them happy 

I'm pleased to say they only had one little poo each as well! Firm too! Actually I think Charlie had 2 but they were very small, firm and didn't smell too bad opposed to the 3/4 massive poos he'd take on kibble. And it was about 30mins into the walk he did it instead of as soon as he gets up the road like his bowels are busting, so it's a good sign I believe!

They come in very happy and got their chicken wing each, noshed it down and I hope are now dozing. I've just had a bath as I'm hot and bothered from work and my legs are pumped lol! That's the beauty of having two high energy dogs that need separate walks, building stamina and muscle!

I felt weak and in the mood for something naughty so a work during my break I ate 2 jam doughnuts and my god they were worth it! I just felt I needed to eat something naughty....oh and the Twirl bar I ate before work too!

I've been really good this past month and have completely changed the way I eat. So far I've lost 4lbs I think but it's frustrating (I go to weight watchers but don't follow their plan, just eat well and go to be weighed each week so I stick to it  )

The first week I ate CRAP me and Owain had a pizza hut buffet, I ate crisps and cheese sandwiches for breakfast and we scoffed lots. I walked all 3 Jacks, I also took my 2 for an hours walk but nothing OTT and I lost 2 1/2 lbs since then I then lost 1lb then I lost half a pound and this week I've stayed EXACTLY the same as last week! 

I cba to wash my work uniform one night this week so I thought stuff it I'll find a top and trousers to wear in the morning I'm sure I've got them somewhere. Morning comes I find a top fine and get some trousers from the airing cupboard. I put them on and realise they are quite tight and realise they a actually some trousers I bought but that didnt fit me so I dumped in the cupboard for my sister to have, I pulled the trousers up and could do them up properly! Granted still tight but before I couldn't even do them up! So despite the scales not moving I'm sure I'm loosing something...if not my sanity...

Idk if I'm going to do separate walks tomorrow or one big together one, we'll see. I'm emailing my local rescue to to speak to Sue the volunteers manager who is lovely as I'm volunteering to work along there and help with the dogs! Sooooo excited! I've been planning to do this since June but this got hectic and as I only do 24hrs a week I can work there too and hopefully apply for a paid role if one comes up, we'll see....PLUS my boyfriend is in the top two for getting a job at his local police station so keep everything crossed!

How's everyone been today?

Sorry to hear about your day L/O. I've had it too, the comments that stick and make you want to cry  I've had plenty! You'll come up with the right solution to your problem, bloody hell, everyday I'm still finding new solutions for my mad 2!

Sorry to hear about your sister Twiggy, fingers crossed all turns out okay xxx


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Sorry girls. It's been three traumatic days as my sister was admitted to Eastbourne Hospital on Wednesday morning with complications.
> 
> Fingers crossed and saying a few prayers but the doctors think they now know the cause and hopefully it isn't major.
> 
> I didn't sleep a wink last night and I'm off to see my sister in the morning which is a 350 mile round trip...!! I'm going to bed in a minute.
> 
> Dogless - I did manage to see that Rudi is a bit better today so that's good news.


Take care you and fingers crossed for your sister xx


----------



## GingerRogers

Quick reply cos its late. Just got back in from a charity quiz for orphans in goa supporting Rosie dogs mum whose going out in march to help. Her mum passed away on Sunday so she needed the support. Think it helped her getting out. 

Twiggy hope your sister is ok had wondered where you were 

LO hugs, you are doing great. Listen to your heart and head, take note of what others say but only use the bits you are comfortable with. I miss your excitement :smilewinkgrin:


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Quick reply cos its late. Just got back in from a charity quiz for orphans in goa supporting Rosie dogs mum whose going out in march to help. Her mum passed away on Sunday so she needed the support. Think it helped her getting out.
> 
> Twiggy hope your sister is ok had wondered where you were
> 
> LO hugs, you are doing great. Listen to your heart and head, take note of what others say but only use the bits you are comfortable with. I miss your excitement :smilewinkgrin:


Not 'liked' for that first bit  poor Rosie dog's Mum, but the rest.


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## Dogless

Pupcakes - the weight loss will come I'm sure if you eat a doughnut or two less .

The rescue work sounds exciting; our local one is strange - they appeal for volunteers so when you step forward they tell you that, sorry, there's a waiting list :crazy:.

Have a nice walk / walks today, whatever you decide .


----------



## Werehorse

Ok, the biscuit cravings were worth it - I'm now 11 stone 11! On a plan to lose 1lb a week I appear to have lost 5 in a week. :lol: No wonder I was hungry. But I'm used to it now so I shall continue. And resist cake.  Weirdly, not much difference in clothes fit although my walking trousers are slightly less tight, but it always seems to come off the narrow bit of my waist first and it is my bum and thighs (and back and bust ) where clothes are tight.

Pupcakes - loving the long posts.  I think I'm going to have to start with some longer road walks for the boys as well as their off-lead run.

I feel so unfocussed with everything, including the dog's training. I have so much to think about!

Ginger mentioning the charity quiz has made me realise I need to (along with three other people, but one being my OH) raise £1,400 for Oxfam before I do this mad Trailtrekker thing in 3 months and 3 weeks!  Anybody got any good fundraising ideas???  anybody want to sponser us?  It is 62 miles so it's not a small thing... I'd offer to do drawings again but since I haven't managed to do the ones I promised last year YET (they will happen, they are on my mind everyday  ) I don't think that is a good plan. 

Off to Keswick soon to get walking shoes/boots in the sale hopefully!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy i hope today brings good news I have everything crossed.

LO try to to take it to heart just use it as " i'll show them" fuel 

W/H congrats on the weight loss  as for the other stuff make a list/spreadsheet of everything you need to do. then each day "decant" a to do list.... if it helps get yourself some gold stars and make a chart :lol: You have lots of plates spinning at the moment. getting it all down on paper/spreadsheet makes it easier to chip away at it all. but you know all this stuff  Fund raising ermm tricky this close to rednose day, but organising local events like talent shows, battle of the bands etc can raise a lot at once, but take fair bit of organising. sorry i'm very boring and no help really:thumbdown:

Pupcakes it sounds like you are all organised and on your way  

Thorne the collar really suits Breeze  I love the sound of scooter session with the box, as he gets the hang of offering things he'll get quicker and more creative i'm sure 

Bah i should have taken notes :lol: sorry everyone i haven't mentioned :blushing:

Our 2 hour session last night overran and we were there for nearer 3. Tink did some lovely work and was very good with the waiting around and watching others. including 3 very very drivey little border collies ( one of whom drew blood) I dread to see myself on video :yikes: I'll be back in need of therapy if i'm not edited out :lol: :lol: Tink has gone back to bed the wee lamb was cream crackered by the end.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - well done on the weightloss; really good start!!

mv - Tink sounds like a star as ever for last night....do we get to see any of the action? .

Walked Rudi today as he hasn't been walked since Tuesday and he is now only coughing when over excited (meal times and wrestling too much). Went out early and to non - dog areas. Not a soul seen as it was pretty much still dark. He behaved like an angel for me :001_wub::001_wub:.

Then Kilo - up to the top fields. The poor boy appeared to be deaf when we first left the house . I think the evil pixies had visited in the night and turned his ears off :yikes: but lots of heelwork, sits, direction changes etc on the way there got them switched on again, thank goodness, and he was really attentive . Then, we had a good long play and did some Ready Steady stuff but with no 'downs' on the way to the tuggie - although he face planted a few times in the mud getting it I couldn't see any self - respecting RR enthusiastically throwing themselves onto their belly in the mud  and I didn't want to set him up to fail. Then he walked back very nicely. He was pooped so just pottered alongside me...probably thinking of the sofa :laugh:.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - I could help fundraise. Have some vague idea about swimming. 62 miles is 100km. I could swim 62 miles in 62 days for you? Less time as that wouldn't present a challenge at all? Currently I average 12km (7.8 miles) per week so could do it in 8 weeks ish at my 'normal' rate. Need something more difficult to achieve really? Who knows....if you have any bright ideas where friends of yours would sponsor me to raise funds for you......

....or you could come up with your own challenge / idea and I'll tell you if it's feasible. Could have a JustGiving page and get the Lifeguards to verify....who knows? Have a think!!


----------



## MollySmith

Werehorse if you want to do something like prizes or auctions I can donate a piece of stained glass or a tea light or something.

OOh an idea! I entered an online photo comp for dogs that someone ran on Facebook. Such a great idea for reactive dogs. Everyone paid a £2 to enter a class via paypal and there were little rosettes. I am a crap sewer but I can help you craft some so you can post them out if you like. Or you could get some prizes together and I can donate something for that.


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## Pupcakes

Dogless said:


> Pupcakes - the weight loss will come I'm sure if you eat a doughnut or two less .
> 
> The rescue work sounds exciting; our local one is strange - they appeal for volunteers so when you step forward they tell you that, sorry, there's a waiting list :crazy:.
> 
> Have a nice walk / walks today, whatever you decide .


Mmmmh less doughnuts...no dice! 
That is mad! Youd think they take all the folks they could and have them doing all sorts! I said to Sue I dont care if you just want me to clean up poo and wash out kennels, I just want to help...and see all the doggies 

Thank you very much! Just come back from a walk up the shops with mum, woke up feeling unwell today, throat really sore and painful (doesnt stop me yakking though :lol so The Terrors had another pavement walk up the shops where they saw Graham a lovely guy who used to walk his Dobes down the park for YEARS. Sadly Jessie had to be PTS and Monty the old boy had to be PTS too about over a year ago. He was Charlies big (massive!) brother and when a Lab went for Charlie when he was a puppy, Monty saw him off! It was really sweet because Graham has always had a soft spot for Charlie and vice versa and The Terrors jumped up and were all over him like he never left. Fantastic guy, really loves all dogs!



Werehorse said:


> Ok, the biscuit cravings were worth it - I'm now 11 stone 11! On a plan to lose 1lb a week I appear to have lost 5 in a week. :lol: No wonder I was hungry. But I'm used to it now so I shall continue. And resist cake.  Weirdly, not much difference in clothes fit although my walking trousers are slightly less tight, but it always seems to come off the narrow bit of my waist first and it is my bum and thighs (and back and bust ) where clothes are tight.
> 
> Pupcakes - loving the long posts.  I think I'm going to have to start with some longer road walks for the boys as well as their off-lead run.
> 
> I feel so unfocussed with everything, including the dog's training. I have so much to think about!


Aaaaah so youre cutting back and keeping fit too! If its any help Im 13st and 13 and a half lbs! Weight is a funny thing! Like you one week I lost loads! But for me that was when I ate really bad and on the weeks I eat properly and walk LOADS I either loose a pound or nothing! :lol:

I cant do short posts Im afraid  Im like this in real life I have a REALLY loud voice and talk really fast and HAVE to include EVERY detail in my stories "SOITOOKTHEDOGSUPTHEPARKTODAYANDTHEREWASTHISREALLYCUTEDOGANDDOTTIELIKEDHIMBUTCHARLIEDIDNTINFACTITHINKITWASTHESAMEDOGHEMETTHREEYEARSAGOUPTHESHOPSYOUKNOWTHATTIMEITWASREALLYHOTANDISAIDLETSJUSTDOASHORTWALKTODAYBUTWEDIDNTANDWEDIDALONGWALKDOWNTOWNYEAHITHINKITWASTHATDOGORHISBROTHERYOUKNOWTHEONESOANDSOOWNSWEMETHIMAFEWYEARSBACKWHENDOTTIEWASONLYSMALLYOUKNOWTHEMANHADATATTOOANDWECHATTEDABOUTTHEFOOTBALLANYWAYTODAYATTHEPARKITHINKITWASTHATDOG"

Its that but loud  It must be the Bajan in me. My god, when we go to my grandparents house my gran shouts, my grandad shouts my mum shouts and Im like "Oh my god...thats what I sound like to everyone else!" :lol: It must be a West Indian thing! Everyone always says "I can hear you all the way across the building" or they say trying to be polite "Yes youre the very bubbly girl" and I said "You mean the loud mouth, its okay" it works well in a care home though! 



moonviolet said:


> Pupcakes it sounds like you are all organised and on your way


Thank you MV! I like to think I am!

Oh god mums giving me a chocolate heart!...beautiful!


----------



## Sarah1983

Pfft, lightweights  I'm 14st 9lbs and have been 16st before. I'm 5ft 2 or 5ft3 so waaaaaaay obese. I've lost 3.5lbs since New Year and have just started Biggest Loser on the Wii. First workout was yesterday and I hurt now. My goal weight is 10st which if you go by BMI is either overweight or borderline but I don't think I look overweight in that pic I posted the other day. I may go for 9 and a half stone but we'll see.

Started working on Spen walking backwards last night. It didn't go well. He'll go backwards if I walk towards him but if he's sitting he shuffles backwards on his bottom lol. I don't think he quite got what I was after but did start offering to move all his paws which I clicked for as I figure it's a baby step in the right direction. Maybe.

Twiggy, I hope your sister is okay.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Pfft, lightweights  I'm 14st 9lbs and have been 16st before. I'm 5ft 2 or 5ft3 so waaaaaaay obese. I've lost 3.5lbs since New Year and have just started Biggest Loser on the Wii. First workout was yesterday and I hurt now. My goal weight is 10st which if you go by BMI is either overweight or borderline but I don't think I look overweight in that pic I posted the other day. I may go for 9 and a half stone but we'll see.
> 
> Started working on Spen walking backwards last night. It didn't go well. He'll go backwards if I walk towards him but if he's sitting he shuffles backwards on his bottom lol. I don't think he quite got what I was after but did start offering to move all his paws which I clicked for as I figure it's a baby step in the right direction. Maybe.
> 
> Twiggy, I hope your sister is okay.


I'd see how you look once you get into the 10st range. BMI isn't always the best measure. The Army had to increase the maximum acceptable BMI for it's entrance medicals as a lot of muscular athletic types came in too high! When I was competing at various things and massively fit I was much smaller than I am currently yet sometimes weighed more. I could be a very small size 10 and have folk concerned that I was too thin at 10st, yet I can stop training, weigh the same and be physically bigger, if that makes sense! I can no longer have scales in my house, I get a very unhealthy obsession with weighing myself and typically, take everything too far . I am sure you won't; you seem like a more balanced person than me :yikes: :laugh:.

If your training goes well, just see what you look like - you look fine to me in that first photo.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I'd see how you look once you get into the 10st range. BMI isn't always the best measure. The Army had to increase the maximum acceptable BMI for it's entrance medicals as a lot of muscular athletic types came in too high! When I was competing at various things and massively fit I was much smaller than I am currently yet sometimes weighed more. I could be a very small size 10 and have folk concerned that I was too thin at 10st, yet I can stop training, weigh the same and be physically bigger, if that makes sense! I can no longer have scales in my house, I get a very unhealthy obsession with weighing myself and typically, take everything too far . I am sure you won't; you seem like a more balanced person than me :yikes: :laugh:.
> 
> If your training goes well, just see what you look like - you look fine to me in that first photo.


If I am the right BMI then I look like Barbie. My boobs arrive three hours before I do which is great if you don't mind conversations aimed at the chest but I'm a tad more interesting than cleavage.

I tend to go err to the bigger end of the scale on that measure, so I hear what you're saying.


----------



## moonviolet

MollySmith said:


> If I am the right BMI then I look like Barbie. My boobs arrive three hours before I do which is great if you don't mind conversations aimed at the chest but I'm a tad more interesting than cleavage.
> 
> I tend to go err to the bigger end of the scale on that measure, so I hear what you're saying.


:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:
I have had the same problem not so much now i'm a scarecrow in scruffy sack like clothing. I think i'd scare myself if I scrubbed up :yikes:

Definitely a doggie duvet day here. Mind you we didn't get in till after 10.30 last night and she had 2 good walks in the day and a good charge around with friends. She's dreaming lots wagging and squeaking :lol:

ETA i just remembered what at the time was a horrifying experience but now it quite funny. I was around 16 at school our PE teachers had just been on a course that involved measuring fat with callipers etc so we we all lined up reaady to be weighed and at the time i was reasonably sport and pretty slim looking. I stepped on the scale the the teachers looked down, the techers looked at each other ... the room was silent as one exclaimed " bloody hell!" I was over 10st, but by eye looked no more than 8 ish. I'm heavy always have been under 11st and i start to look a bit haggard.


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## foxyrockmeister

Afternoon all, what a grot day (well it is here anyway) just got back from our walk, cold wet and miserable 

Twiggy - so sorry to hear about your sister, I hope it's nothing serious

MV - when do we get to see some evidence of yours and Miss Tinks wonderful work? 

Glad to hear that Rudi has been well enough to go out today and that the CH's are being their usual gold star deserving selves 

Werehorse - I would be very willing to sponsor you or help in fund raising in anyway I can 

As for being fatties/skinnies/heavies/boobies etc etc etc I have a degree in Sports Science and can categorically say that BMI is a load of B*ll*cks!! It gives a generalisation of weight:height ratio but doesn't take into account muscle mass or tone. My degree course was mainly formed of athletes, all of whom were very fit, healthy, sporty individuals but purely going on BMI the vast majority of us were in the 'overweight' zone. Myself included at the time being 5'9" and 11st 10lbs however when using far more accurate methods of calculating % body fat such as the use of skin fold calipers and underwater weighing (great fun!!) I came out at 17% body fat, which is below average for females (25%). As did the rest of the fit healthy people in the class.

I never go by weight, I think I'm currently about 11 and half stone, which is lighter than my Sports Science days but I know that I am much less fit and my % body fat is much higher. 
I go by whether my clothes fit or not! If they're getting a bit tight I just cut down on the pies or take the Pickles for some extra walks :thumbup:

Sorry once again we have taken this thread waaaaaaaaay off track, trust a bunch of women to turn a thread about dog training into a thread about hair styles and weight loss :lol:


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## Werehorse

foxyrockmeister said:


> Sorry once again we have taken this thread waaaaaaaaay off track, trust a bunch of women to turn a thread about dog training into a thread about hair styles and weight loss :lol:


Shocking isn't it? I feel like I'm letting the feminist side down. :lol:

I'm always heavier than I look. When I tell people I weigh nearly 12 stone they look at me like I must not be able to read numbers. :lol: I find weight works as a fairly good guide for me but will be happy enough once my nice clothes start fitting again.

I haz new walking boots and am heading out with the boys in a mo for a welcome home walk for them.  £30 off too, but my feet have expensive tastes apparently so I have to buy nothing now ever again.  Stupid, massive flipper feet. 

Thank you so much for the offers of help re: fundraising, you are all truely wonderful. I'll have a ponder. I'm wondering if I can make some kind of charity auction work on-line...

Right, dogs are gagging for a walk.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Right, back to the dogs....

This afternoon whilst walking the pickliest pair I put them onlead to go through some cattle and Branston was being a bit of a tit-face again, it wasn't helped by the fact that it was wet and windy, which always heightens his levels of lunacy  Anyway, once through the cows I let Lily off so I could concentrate on trying to calm the walnut brained one down, there were birds flying low over head, which was winding him up into a right tizzy. I carried on walking trying to get his focus but whilst leaping about on the end of the lead like a loony he managed to sort of leap halfway through it (I use the halti training leads) so that it was passing under his belly....

WELL........... What do you know? INSTANT calm dog walking to heel  :laugh:

Each time he went to pull I just lifted on the back of the lead so it pressed on his tummy and hey presto he stops pulling 

I have tried every gadget there is for pulling - dogmatic, halti, figure 8 head collar, anti pull harness, front leading harness, and none of them have worked.... but this?? Was a miracle.

I took a picture so that you can see what I mean, it's a bit like I was holding the handle of a bag, each time he pulled I just lifted on the handle and he stopped



















Now I am very tempted to just always walk him like this  My concern is that where the lead is under his belly it's against his 'manhood' so when I 'lift' the lead it squashes his bits against his tummy (which I would imagine is the reason he stops pulling!!) I wouldn't want to be causing him any pain or damage though so not sure if it's such a good idea 

Just to add, I obviously didn't pull up hard on the lead, just a little lift and he showed no sign of pain or discomfort, he just stopped pulling. I walked about 2 minutes with him like this praising him the whole time for such a nice walk (if he walked nicely then there was no pressure at all on either end of the lead) and then I let him off to play again.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on my accidentally found method of stopping Branston's lunacy as I must admit I'm not too sure what to make of it myself


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh I know BMI isn't a great way to tell whether someone is overweight or not but you try telling the doctors that :nonod: 10 stone and a size 10 and they were still telling me I needed to lose weight whereas I thought I was fine. The Wii Fit tells me I should aim for 8 stone! I don't want to be stick insect thin and am more aiming to get back into those clothes I was wearing than being a specific weight to be honest. I liked me then, I had curves in the right places and not in the wrong ones lol. I'm not the sort to obsess over my weight or diet, weigh in once a week and measure once a month is more than enough for me  

BMI or no BMI there's no getting away from the fact I'm seriously overweight at the moment and that has to change.


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> MV - when do we get to see some evidence of yours and Miss Tinks wonderful work?


Well the footage taken over the last week is for our Trainer's website, so when it's up, and assuming we dont' land on the cutting room floor I will gladly share


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well the footage taken over the last week is for our Trainer's website, so when it's up, and assuming we dont' land on the cutting room floor I will gladly share


Oooohhhhhh......is there champagne at the premiere? What do we wear? Black tie? How exciting!!!

FRM - I have no idea. My only concern as you said is that Branston stoppen pulling because to do so hurt - or maybe it was just an odd sensation to him? For instance Kilo will stop walking if Rudi's lead touches his back at all or a lead passes in front of his chest!!


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Right, back to the dogs....
> 
> This afternoon whilst walking the pickliest pair I put them onlead to go through some cattle and Branston was being a bit of a tit-face again, it wasn't helped by the fact that it was wet and windy, which always heightens his levels of lunacy  Anyway, once through the cows I let Lily off so I could concentrate on trying to calm the walnut brained one down, there were birds flying low over head, which was winding him up into a right tizzy. I carried on walking trying to get his focus but whilst leaping about on the end of the lead like a loony he managed to sort of leap halfway through it (I use the halti training leads) so that it was passing under his belly....
> 
> WELL........... What do you know? INSTANT calm dog walking to heel  :laugh:
> 
> Each time he went to pull I just lifted on the back of the lead so it pressed on his tummy and hey presto he stops pulling
> 
> I have tried every gadget there is for pulling - dogmatic, halti, figure 8 head collar, anti pull harness, front leading harness, and none of them have worked.... but this?? Was a miracle.
> 
> I took a picture so that you can see what I mean, it's a bit like I was holding the handle of a bag, each time he pulled I just lifted on the handle and he stopped
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now I am very tempted to just always walk him like this  My concern is that where the lead is under his belly it's against his 'manhood' so when I 'lift' the lead it squashes his bits against his tummy (which I would imagine is the reason he stops pulling!!) I wouldn't want to be causing him any pain or damage though so not sure if it's such a good idea
> 
> Just to add, I obviously didn't pull up hard on the lead, just a little lift and he showed no sign of pain or discomfort, he just stopped pulling. I walked about 2 minutes with him like this praising him the whole time for such a nice walk (if he walked nicely then there was no pressure at all on either end of the lead) and then I let him off to play again.
> 
> I'd appreciate your thoughts on my accidentally found method of stopping Branston's lunacy as I must admit I'm not too sure what to make of it myself


sorry i didn't see this before i went out with Tink but actually the placement of the lead in your pic is not dissimilar to the position of mekuti body wraps https://mekuti.co.uk/bodywraps.htm


----------



## Thorne

-Werehorse: That's fantastic progress with the weight loss! Well done you  If you are interested in drawings for fundraising I could do a couple for you (pet portraits), been a while but did some doodles the other night and think I've still got it...

-MV: These blood-drawing Collies are everywhere... well done to you and Tink for lasting so long, a real marathon training session! Hope she's enjoyed her duvet day.

-Dogless: Hope Rudi enjoyed his outing, glad he's very much on the mend. Pixies!  Doesn't sound like Kilo was under their spell long, great to hear.

-Pupcakes: Aww bless the Terrors and their friend, sad to hear about his Dobies though  Don't think we'll be missing any of your posts on here will we! I struggle with short posts too!

-Sarah: Hope the walking backwards work pays off, and the weight loss goals. 

-FRM: Interesting method, well done for getting Branston to walk nicely  Without seeing his err, manhood in relation to the lead in person I couldn't really comment on placement, but I think MV is onto something with the body wraps. If he's not too bothered I'd keep it as a backup method for pull-y days!

Interesting to hear about all these BMI inaccuracies, had heard it wasn't much use but it barely sounds worth adhering to at all! Always thought the categories were too narrow to possibly be applicable to everyone, wonder if/when the more accurate measures will start being used more frequently.

Breeze seems ok today! She's her normal cheeky self and has so far kept her chicken & rice breakfast in at both ends so hopefully that's all it was.
The lamb bone has gone down well, Scooter couldn't believe his luck and Breeze had a gnaw once it was a bit too small for him. She's also got the hang of chewing her stagbar sensibly, no more trying to snap bits off 

Had a good long walk today :thumbup: Decided it seemed fairly quiet and shooting party-free outside today so for the first time in ages Breeze has been out in bright sunny daylight! She was a bit unsure but biscuits (sorry Werehorse!) and my silly encouraging voice got her trotting along nicely. 
Let both of them off and they had a great time! Lots of frolicking and splashing in puddles, great recalls from both dogs and we had a communal run past a birdscarer in case in went off.
Scooter had an "ears off" moment down a new path and started tracking; fortunately he stopped when I put on my fishwife voice and let me catch him. Let him off after a while and he was fine afterwards.

LLW from both dogs on the roads back, absolutely chuffed with them. Didn't see a soul which was surprising as it's been a glorious day! :001_smile:
Scooter was going to get a second walk but that leg is looking a bit stiff again so don't want to overdo it, will do more of the box game later instead.


----------



## GingerRogers

Woe is me rant warning..............

had a bad day, being tired didn't help but.......hubby dropped me off while he went to get more paint and I walked home, the path had turned into a stream, then we had to climb a fallen tree. But then I saw horses coming, so spun round and backtracked looking for a way off the path, wasn't too far from a junction but didn't know which way they were going so I jumped into a ploughed field and trodged over that till they passed, she proper kicked off , we were so far away from them it was disheartening, she could barely see them. Anyway we carried on slightly disappointed in our walk now having previously been enjoying it. Get to the last field before home and see a couple I know with a lab, so again I cut into the next field and walk along a little way into the field, which normally works, she has a bit of a rumble but nothing major (this is a good half hour after the horse thing) this time she proper went for it, again she could barely see this couple and the dog through the hedge and we are a good 30m in the field. Then I hear the woman going 'oh dear, oh dear' at her making squeaky strangling noises (she is always on her harness so she isn't dying) but whether she thinks I am being cruel or is just up herself, I am not I am just holding the lead and trying to walk on, that sort of attitude always gets my goat especially as their dog, the man has told me is no angel. So I am proper peed off now, really annoyed at the woman and the ninja and start to cry :thumbdown:. Then she nearly pulls me over in the mud and I lost it, yanked her back and yelled at her like a fishwife mother at a two year old who doesn't know how to behave anyway. How I managed to get home with out bawling I don't know and she was been really subdued for an hour or so, so I know I got to her too, have tried to make it up with cuddles and am now off for another little walk to see if we can redeem anything between us. I just thought we were past the bursting into tears and had been making progress and we had been having some lovely walks, I had actually got to the stage where I was beginning to enjoy them and almost relax a bit but now I feel I am back to square one. Gah!!! Gah!!!!!!! Sorry hope to be back to good news tomorrow.


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## moonviolet

Oh GR huge huge hugs.

I know it feels like failure right now, but it's not, really it isn't, it's a setback, just a foot slipping off a stepping stone in your river crossing. 

Hope your little jaunt now is more successful and restores your faith in one another. Much love to you both


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## Thorne

Oh GR, sorry to hear you had a frustrating one  We've all been there, I yelled at Scooter and yanked him when he nearly pulled me over on thursday. I know it makes you feel awful (I ended up crying and cursing myself) but there's no shame in losing your temper sometimes.
Hoping you have a better time tonight and tmorrow, have a cup of tea later on and chill  Sending hugs.


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## Sarah1983

On no GR, I've been there too with those frustrating walks that end with you losing it and screeching like a fishwife  The dogs forget it before we do. Hugs to you and I hope your next walk is better. Ginge was probably still worked up over the horses even though it had been 30 minutes. I used to find that while Rupert could pass one trigger without reacting if we came across another trigger, even at a distance he could usually handle, then he went into meltdown. Walks were kept very short and sweet with him so as to avoid putting him over threshold as much as possible.

More recall to whistle training today. Tonight he got a jackpot of a leftover slice of pizza. I know, not the healthiest reward but he certainly enjoyed it. Really struggling to set up recalls with him though. Having to get hubby to distract him while I move away which means I'm calling him away from a distraction rather than calling him when he's not distracted but if I don't then he's practically glued to me. Not only do I provide these wonderful sessions where I give out food for simple behaviours but I now randomly make strange noises and produce fantastic treats, he ain't letting me out of his sight :lol:


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## foxyrockmeister

So sorry you had a crappy walk GR, we have all been there (well I know I have anyway) you should see me when Branston has one of his 'episodes' I look like a totally out of control crazy woman with 2 even more out of control crazy dogs. I hope the next walk was amuch more enjoyable experience for the both of you 

Sounds like Breeze, Scooter and Spen have been little stars this afternoon :thumbup:

Thanks for the link the body wraps MV, interesting stuff - I wonder whether the lead has a similar calming effect on him? It really was quite dramatic.

As for the positioning of the lead, I guess I could move it further forward or back but it was basically lying right across his wotsit about halfway down so when I lifted the lead it would have just pressed it against his tummy. He has quite a small manhood (poor boy will be mortified that I've just told everyone that he is not hugely endowed :lol: )

I wonder whereabouts those wrap things go on a male dog? As they do look quite far back in the picture.


I've just had a bath, the Pickles aren't allowed upstairs but I left the gate open. They stayed downstairs but then for some reason Branston started barking, I called out to him to try and get him to settle (couldn't be bothered to get out of my nice hot bubbly bath!) and then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs! Two Pickle heads appeared around the bathroom door..... It was so funny, you should have seen their faces :yikes: :yikes: They've never seen a bath before and have certainly never seen their mum lying in one all covered in bubbles and surrounded by steam :lol:


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## Sarah1983

foxyrockmeister said:


> They've never seen a bath before and have certainly never seen their mum lying in one all covered in bubbles and surrounded by steam :lol:


Spencer tries to eat the bubbles when I have one. And 9 times out of 10 I end up with a giant tennis ball in the bath with me  I could shut the bathroom door I suppose but then I have to put up with the pathetic noises he makes. Thankfully he settles down and sleeps next to the bath after about 10 minutes lol.


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## Werehorse

((((hugs)))) Ginge - it's ok, you'll be back to making progress tomorrow or soon. Don't worry about the fishwife moment - I think we've all been there. 

FRM - interesting with Branston and the lead loop... both mine have ended up with leads like that by accident but they have just jumped their back legs through.  I think he could just have been slowing down because of the weird sensation rather than any pain? 

Thorne - glad Breeze in feeling better and you have good walks with them both!

Oh and glad Rudi is feeling better too. 

My boys were very good on their walk today. Really nice, snappy recalls to their own names and cues - Hugo still sometimes runs back to Oscar's cue just in case but less often now. Hugo found a good stick, which was suitable for a throw into the undergrowth (I know :yikes: I don't make a habit of it, really - I only throw them into thick cover where the dogs have no chance of getting underneath them or catching on the bounce and I only ever throw risk-assessed sticks... I've probably thrown about 3 sticks ever!) and he brought it to me when asked and found it twice in the thick cover and brought it back, then I let him carry it for a bit until he got bored of it. If he is going to start bringing sticks to me instead of running off with them then I may invest in a Safestix, train him to retrieve it and let him carry it round on walks... Hugo also did some nice heelwork and Oscar did sniffing out biscuits (argh, biscuits :lol in clumps of bramble and bracken.

And my new boots were lovely jubbly. 

Oh and I saw a BORZOI in Keswick! :lol: Just after LO was saying she'd seen one the other day and I was thinking that I'd never seen one in real life... ta-da! One appears in Keswick. So very, very cute!


----------



## tiatortilla

GR *hugs* that sounds rubbish, hope you're feeling a bit better now!
-
didn't manage to have our nice long walk yet, hoping that i'll feel a bit better tomorrow. i'll feel guilty if we don't anyway, tia doesn't seem to mind but she's only had little walks for a few days so we need to do something a bit more interesting even if she is a lazy sod .


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## Dogless

GR - I can't put it any better than the inimitable mv. I can identify with 'those' walks . Hope your next one is better. Is Ginge still on the Stress-Less out of interest?

Thorne - so pleased you had a much better day.

Sarah - the Spendog sounds as if he's really turned the recall corner .

FRM - Pickles in the bathroom???? That can only mean trouble :yikes:.

Werehorse - I have new boot jealousy!!

Good walks eventually this evening. Tried walking them together but Rudi started jumping and biting before we'd even left our drive :incazzato::incazzato:. He had 3 returns to the porch to calm down and then was put into his crate whilst I walked the BW as I could feel my patience getting severely frayed :incazzato::incazzato:.

So...Kilo's walk was good; went on a different route than I was going with them both, saw loads of dogs, Kilo was relaxed . The same black dog that tripped us up running the other night ambushed us in exactly the same spot. Man walking the dogs this time. Just said "Come on ********" as he carried on walking. She didn't follow but Kilo just ignored her totally in a relaxed way :. He cocked his leg up a bush as she went to investigate - didn't get weed on but man was looking back and said "Watch out". I didn't say a word as I'd blown up at his wife the other night and then apologised so trap stayed shut.

Walked Rudi - he was mainly an angel again. Tried a jump and bite but stopped with a stern "off" .


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## Twiggy

I'm home....!!

I'll read through all the new posts tomorrow as I'm shattered.

True to form there was an accident on the M11 so we all sat there for over half an hour and then crawled for another half an hour, which was all I needed. It took nearly 4.1/2 hours to get to Eastbourne Hospital.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm home....!!
> 
> I'll read through all the new posts tomorrow as I'm shattered.
> 
> True to form there was an accident on the M11 so we all sat there for over half an hour and then crawled for another half an hour, which was all I needed. It took nearly 4.1/2 hours to get to Eastbourne Hospital.


Pleased you're safe, sorry that the journey was so awful. Hope you get some rest tonight xx.


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## Sarah1983

We'll see Dogless, all this recall work is only in the flat so far and that's never been a problem. The big test will come when we start working outside. Fingers crossed Rudi gets over the jumping and biting stage soon. I remember going through it with a fully grown Rupert who'd be about the same size as Rudi is now and it was not fun. I employed the strategy of tying him to a lamp post and walking out of reach too.

Twiggy, glad you got there and back safely despite the traffic issues.


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## moonviolet

Welcome home Twiggy, sounds like a terrible journey. I do hope that was the worst part of the day.

Dogless sounds like your boys did well even if the seperate walks weren't planned. I have been known to walk up and down our front path a dozen times and when that sisn't work i just went in took her TInk's lead off and had a cuppa before trying again :lol:

FRM
Lilly: " Branston do you think lady hooman is doing up there she's been an awful long time? do you think she's ok?"
Branston: " You're right Lils lets call out and see if she answers?"
Cue barks and FRM's reply
Lilly: " Did that sound like come and help to you?"
Branston " i'm not sure lets go investigate." 

I can just picture their little faces 

W/H good boys and Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu shooooooooooessssssssssssssss!!! sounds like a great day.

Sarah Sounds liek the exercises are having a great impact on Spendog's focus on you. How sweet of him to warm the bath mat for you 

TT If Tia is happy theres no need to beat yourself up over a long walk.

Her ladyship woke up earlier bright and breezy so she had a romp in the woods this afternoon and a pavement walk this evening... on which we saw not one but two foxes, not even a bark  she did bark as we were waiting to cross a road and a man decided to run across right at us. not like there wasn't another mile of straight road he could have run over :lol: Shortly after we saw a jogger Had Tink sit to the side and she was fine so I'm not going get too stressed over it. I'd have been a bit perturbed if i'd been stood there alone and he'd run at me to be fair. Saw other joggers and a group of inbetweeners no reaction so all in all not bad


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## Dogless

Talking of runners (and I am one...I'm not a runner - hater ) one was running through the abandoned estate the other day; opposite side of the road to me, we were just past a junction. Loads and loads of space. Runner wanted to take junction; could have had 20m of room; could see I had Rudi in a sit and 'watch'. Runner decided to cross road and run past so close that he just about avoided treading on Rudi :incazzato::incazzato:. He then looked back as he ran off a few times at me with a big grin on his face  .


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## Werehorse

Dogless - you don't half encounter some odd bods! :lol:

Mv - thanks for advice re: life organisation... I think a spreadsheet may well be a good idea! And I don't blame Tink for barking at a strange blerk running at you both, I'd probably have barked too in that situation!

Glad you're home safe, Twiggy.

Sarah I think him being so keen to be near you in the house can only be a good thing in view of transitioning it to the outside.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Talking of runners (and I am one...I'm not a runner - hater ) one was running through the abandoned estate the other day; opposite side of the road to me, we were just past a junction. Loads and loads of space. Runner wanted to take junction; could have had 20m of room; could see I had Rudi in a sit and 'watch'. Runner decided to cross road and run past so close that he just about avoided treading on Rudi :incazzato::incazzato:. He then looked back as he ran off a few times at me with a big grin on his face  .


I've had that with a mountain biker ( most of whom are lovely when they see you have your dog under control) almost running over Tink's tail. I have to put my chimp on a lead that day. It was tempted to rip his leg off and beat him with the soggy end.

To be fair to todays' pilchard I think he was too busy looking at the traffic and not where he was going if that makes sense.

The does seem to be a bit of an odd trend with runners here lately to wear headtorches and run on street lit pavements toward traffic i've been blinded when driving more than once... do they thing it's a good idea to blind the woman in control of the 2 ton shed?


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I've had that with a mountain biker ( most of whom are lovely when they see you have your dog under control) almost running over Tink's tail. I have to put my chimp on a lead that day. It was tempted to rip his leg off and beat him with the soggy end.
> 
> To be fair to todays' pilchard I think he was too busy looking at the traffic and not where he was going if that makes sense.
> 
> *The does seem to be a bit of an odd trend with runners here lately to wear headtorches and run on street lit pavements toward traffic* i've been blinded when driving more than once... do they thing it's a good idea to blind the woman in control of the 2 ton shed?


I noticed this here just the other night - odd .


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## Werehorse

No activity since 10pm last night??? Are we all getting shy up here in the heavens? :lol:

Myself and OH are currently debating our route options for The Weekly Big Run. It's pretty grim weather out there.


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## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> No activity since 10pm last night??? Are we all getting shy up here in the heavens? :lol:
> 
> Myself and OH are currently debating our route options for The Weekly Big Run. It's pretty grim weather out there.


Hope the weather clears and you have a great run.

I'm not great with heights


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## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Right, back to the dogs....
> 
> This afternoon whilst walking the pickliest pair I put them onlead to go through some cattle and Branston was being a bit of a tit-face again, it wasn't helped by the fact that it was wet and windy, which always heightens his levels of lunacy  Anyway, once through the cows I let Lily off so I could concentrate on trying to calm the walnut brained one down, there were birds flying low over head, which was winding him up into a right tizzy. I carried on walking trying to get his focus but whilst leaping about on the end of the lead like a loony he managed to sort of leap halfway through it (I use the halti training leads) so that it was passing under his belly....
> 
> WELL........... What do you know? INSTANT calm dog walking to heel  :laugh:
> 
> Each time he went to pull I just lifted on the back of the lead so it pressed on his tummy and hey presto he stops pulling
> 
> I have tried every gadget there is for pulling - dogmatic, halti, figure 8 head collar, anti pull harness, front leading harness, and none of them have worked.... but this?? Was a miracle.
> 
> I took a picture so that you can see what I mean, it's a bit like I was holding the handle of a bag, each time he pulled I just lifted on the handle and he stopped
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now I am very tempted to just always walk him like this  My concern is that where the lead is under his belly it's against his 'manhood' so when I 'lift' the lead it squashes his bits against his tummy (which I would imagine is the reason he stops pulling!!) I wouldn't want to be causing him any pain or damage though so not sure if it's such a good idea
> 
> Just to add, I obviously didn't pull up hard on the lead, just a little lift and he showed no sign of pain or discomfort, he just stopped pulling. I walked about 2 minutes with him like this praising him the whole time for such a nice walk (if he walked nicely then there was no pressure at all on either end of the lead) and then I let him off to play again.
> 
> I'd appreciate your thoughts on my accidentally found method of stopping Branston's lunacy as I must admit I'm not too sure what to make of it myself


My sister has always put a front leg over the lead if she has a dog pulling, which seems to work for her, and when they stop she just lifts the leg back again...


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## Twiggy

I had my sister on the phone at 8.00am this morning to say she'd had a decent nights sleep and had eaten a pretty good breakfast....:thumbup:

Hopefully, once she's seen the consultant tomorrow they will allow her home. She had an excruciating pain in her side at the beginning of last week, which is why she ended up in hospital. They have done every test possible including ultrasound and CT scan and have found nothing abnormal, which is excellent news, but doesn't explain the pain.

My girls were pains in the bum last night but I don't know how much exercise they got yesterday with OH in charge. Still I'm grateful they all had legs intact, etc. Always a relief!!

I went to bed at about 9.00 but let them all stay in the bedroom. Tremor and Holly were hurling toys at me and Leafy kept barking as she was convinced a toy was stuck under the bed.....very restful.


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## Sarah1983

Well something seems to have upset Spencers tummy. He had me up twice in the night and then when I got up he'd had an accident. Solid poops each time, just seems to be going a lot. He had a pigs head Friday night for the first time in ages though so could be that that's done it.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I had my sister on the phone at 8.00am this morning to say she'd had a decent nights sleep and had eaten a pretty good breakfast....:thumbup:


I wish that I could like this one hundred times over :thumbup::thumbup:. Hope they find the cause of the pain, but thank goodness nothing sinister on the scans.

Sarah - hope Spen is better soon; may well be the pig's head that's done it.

Good walk in hideous weather this morning...once we got out. Took a while as Rudi wanted to be chased to have his collar put on (he wasn't, Kilo and I sat down until he came to us ) and then grabbed the collar and wanted to be chased again . However, once out they were fab; went to the top fields, just played and did some recalls then came home. Just one attempt at jumping and biting, small cut on hand . Then...I cleaned the house from top to bottom and have just sat down :aureola:.


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## moonviolet

Twiggy it's such great news that they haven't found anything in the scans but i hope the source of the pain can be identified.

Sarah hope Spendogs' tum settles soon, hope it was jsut the pigs head

Dogless glad your walk was good after the cheeky monkey decided to stop messing and com along. 

We had a wet march and splash around followed by pupsters pedicure, a little session on toy motivation, then when we finished and i was putting the toy away in the cupboard somebody was opening her training bag and stealing another toy :lol: So i got her toy basket out of the cupboard and held it out and she popped it in there :thumbup: for that she got her favourite dried fish  and is now curled up beside me :001_wub:


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## Sarah1983

Tink always sounds like so much fun 

Dogless, sounds like Rudi is going to be a handful lol. Glad you had a nice walk when he finally let you get him ready.

I think it probably is the pigs head that's caused Spen to need to poop so much. If I remember right we had problems the first time he had one and it's been a while since he last had one. He's fine in himself so I'm not worried.

And in good news, he didn't go and introduce himself to other dogs he saw. Hubby had him out before I got up and apparently he spotted another dog but recalled and just watched it. Then later on he had the post poop zoomies and I stood no chance of recalling him but he spotted the other dog, did a few more laps around me and we came in for breakfast.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Tink always sounds like so much fun
> 
> Dogless, sounds like Rudi is going to be a handful lol. Glad you had a nice walk when he finally let you get him ready.
> 
> I think it probably is the pigs head that's caused Spen to need to poop so much. If I remember right we had problems the first time he had one and it's been a while since he last had one. He's fine in himself so I'm not worried.
> 
> And in good news, he didn't go and introduce himself to other dogs he saw. Hubby had him out before I got up and apparently he spotted another dog but recalled and just watched it. Then later on he had the post poop zoomies and I stood no chance of recalling him but he spotted the other dog, did a few more laps around me and we came in for breakfast.


Rudi is very much into chasing him games at present . He is a handful, but in a good way!

Well done Spen on the ignoring dogs front.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I wish that I could like this one hundred times over :thumbup::thumbup:. Hope they find the cause of the pain, but thank goodness nothing sinister on the scans.
> 
> Sarah - hope Spen is better soon; may well be the pig's head that's done it.
> 
> Good walk in hideous weather this morning...once we got out. Took a while as Rudi wanted to be chased to have his collar put on (he wasn't, Kilo and I sat down until he came to us ) and then grabbed the collar and wanted to be chased again . However, once out they were fab; went to the top fields, just played and did some recalls then came home. Just one attempt at jumping and biting, small cut on hand . Then...I cleaned the house from top to bottom and have just sat down :aureola:.


Thanks Dogless. Yes it was lovely to hear from my sister this morning.

The weather is hideous here as well - wet, windy and freezing cold with snow expected overnight. I don't think I shall take the old girl for a 2nd walk later in this.

I've got to catch up on housework. I did brush the dogs this morning and do bits and bobs but I still need to hoover through and put the washing machine on.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Rudi is very much into chasing him games at present . He is a handful, but in a good way!
> 
> Well done Spen on the ignoring dogs front.


Spencer loves chasing games, whether it's us chasing him or him chasing us. So I'm incorporating them in as rewards now, on cue of course.

The dogs were a fair distance away but we have to start somewhere and I'm pleased with him for not bothering about the :thumbup:


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## Dogless

Forgot to say - there is a field over the road from the top field we use. This morning I could hear sheep but didn't think much of it (I was still half asleep). Anyhow - I let Kilo off and he air scented then he bolted at top speed over the field (whilst I panicked, scanning for a cat, or wondering if somehow there was a hole in the fence :scared. They had moved sheep into the field and taken the hedge down and Kilo was stood, really alert, looking at the sheep BUT recalled straight away from the fence and played as usual. He was interested in the sheep at intervals but was easy enough to engage; so I was happy with that. 

There is no chance of him jumping the fence or there being a hole as it's our perimeter fence so very tall indeed and topped with nasty sharp razor wire and it's patrolled regularly so the sheep are safe BTW :thumbup:.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Spencer loves chasing games, whether it's us chasing him or him chasing us. So I'm incorporating them in as rewards now, on cue of course.
> 
> The dogs were a fair distance away but we have to start somewhere and I'm pleased with him for not bothering about the :thumbup:


Kilo does too and I use them as rewards - Rudi just hasn't got much in the way of self control yet . The girl that his breeder kept has been described by them as having a naughty toddler in the house......sounds as if they are both just pure mischief!!


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## Werehorse

We went and found some snow around the Back o' Skiddaw in the end. Only 7 miles today - OH has burgeoning manflu and it was pretty rank weather out there. The boys enjoyed themselves. They seem to have more energy on the new food as well as, I think, putting on a bit of weight and condition.

Piccies. Oscar climbed on the wall himself. 










And Hugo trying to catch a snowball. :lol:


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## Dogless

Fab pics Werehorse....hope the manflu doesn't develop into the full blown version, he'll be a misery .


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## Freddie and frank

Hello all. 

Twiggy, glad your sister had a good night.:thumbup:

WH, i would help if you needed anything sewing wise, not sure what, but give me a shout if I can help.

All the hair do's were great, and I'm up for a premier of mv and tink.

Me and hubby took all three out yesterday over Cannock chase, which is gorgeous and on my doorstep. I was very good and listened to your advice and kept frank attached to me. :thumbup:
Freddie and bella never go far and stay close to us no matter where we are but still did lots of recalling with them.
I had my walking belt on and had frank on a harness. I attached him to the belt with his roamer lead. All was good.:thumbup:..........apart from one little incident :scared:
We were going down a hill, around a bend, in the mud when I saw another off lead dog running towards us. Freddie and bella ran to meet this dog, very friendly meeting, then frank decided to drag us to meet it too.:yikes: oh god, what a state I looked, being dragged along, unable to stop, running down this hill shouting my husbands name over and over again in a high pitched shriek. Dropped the bag of liver treats I was carrying in a puddle of mud too. Oh, and I had slippy Wellies on too. 
Anyway, he stopped at the other dog and miraculously, I didn't fall flat on my face. The dogs owner was describing the whole event to the person on the other end of her phone as I hurtled past her. She did shout if I was ok once we had stopped. 
It all happened so fast. Shook me up a bit but my god, what a state I must have looked.i half expected to see a thread on here " hysterical lady being dragged along by a mad Labrador" 

Lesson one .......keep frank close when going down hills
Lesson two.......try to plan for a quick release

It was great not having him run off but my god, he's so so strong. And the steady command fell on deaf ears. I did things like changing directions, recalling him, which was all ok most of the time. 

I don't think I could stop if he decided to go after a scent 
But, it was the first time we tried the belt and having him attached to me so it was all new to both of us.
He was pulling a lot of the way so I need help on how to handle it.


Bit on me now......things are better here, well sort of. I'm not stressing about work load so much as I got loads done last week and hubby is feeling better too. I had some sad news on Friday night, my uncle had died after a battle with liver cancer (it ran in his family and all his siblings had died at early ages too) he was not much over 50 I think. No sympathies needed. To cut a long story short....my dads sister had fell out with us over her being nasty to my sisters daughter once and we had heard about my uncles bad health through my sons Facebook... nice. 
My sisters daughter found out about his death on Facebook.....nice again.
My parents have helped my aunty and uncle out heaps, financially, help with building work, etc, as you do. My dad asked my uncle once for his help when my mom was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer and he said "sorry, I'm busy" my dad asked him to help one day when we were having work done and he said "no, they can afford builders, so I'm not helping" 
I found out this, today after I've been so upset about his death, and not seeing them for a couple of years. Yes, it's sad, but im not getting upset anymore. 

Sorry for the big ramble again.

I'm going to whisper the next bit and then run and hide before being told off............on Wednesday, I decided to come off my anti depressants cold turkey style.......don't shout at me......I was on a tiny amount and was just so sick of taking them. I've been on and off them for about 13 years. So at the moment, I'm having terrible withdrawal symptoms, on and off but it's what I want to do and I'm sticking at it. It will get better and its not going to kill me. :thumbup:

Now, I'm hiding. Lol.


----------



## Freddie and frank

My word, sounds like a lot of well behaved doggies today. :thumbup:


----------



## Guest

Holy giant thread! Tried to read through it but gave up LOL! Lots of great advice and training and fun camaraderie going on - makes me want to join in!

We have a dog show coming up next weekend, rallyO Advanced-Excellent, and Novice obedience (AKC). 

In preparation we're working on attention, trying to tidy up muttdog's butt out heeling, and our moving down needs a lot of work. I'm hoping it won't show up on the rally course 

But mainly I need to work on show nerves. Had a wonderful training session yesterday and found myself wishing I could have as much fun in the ring as I do out in our back pasture.... If I didn't have so much trouble walking in straight lines anyway, I might consider doping myself with a glass of wine (or four) before going in!


----------



## Dogless

F&F - sorry about all the family politics etc surrounding your Uncle's death .

Is it wrong that I laughed at you flying down the hill? When all else fails I find a bellowed "Wait :scared:" usually works!!

As for you going cold turkey - you are an intelligent person, you know what you are doing. Hope you have told hubby so he can watch out for you xx.


----------



## Beth17

F&F you sound much more positive, what a great walk :thumbup: and don't worry i often look like a loon when attached to 2 pulling boxers 

Twiggy glad your sister had a good night and the girls were all in one peace when you got back 

Dogless what a cheeky pupster Rudi is but what a good walk and well done to Kilo for recalling from sheep. 

Werehorse lovely pics, hope OH isn't too poorly with the dreaded manflu 

mv I want Tink :001_wub:

Sarah hope Spen's tummy clears up but good progress with the ignoring dogs.

Had good walks up the field with both boys the past couple of days with very few people being seen due to the weather. Sam is offlead for most of the time and they behaved really well for most of their walk. They are however starting to have some silly moments and wind each other up such as going off too far when chasing each other, so am going to make a conscious effort to do some separate walks just to get the focus back.

Also how do I get Sam to leave the bins alone and stop jumping up at the worktops? he's driving me potty and nothing seems to sink in to his stubborn brain


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Holy giant thread! Tried to read through it but gave up LOL! Lots of great advice and training and fun camaraderie going on - makes me want to join in!
> 
> We have a dog show coming up next weekend, rallyO Advanced-Excellent, and Novice obedience (AKC).
> 
> In preparation we're working on attention, trying to tidy up muttdog's butt out heeling, and our moving down needs a lot of work. I'm hoping it won't show up on the rally course
> 
> But mainly I need to work on show nerves. Had a wonderful training session yesterday and found myself wishing I could have as much fun in the ring as I do out in our back pasture.... If I didn't have so much trouble walking in straight lines anyway, I might consider doping myself with a glass of wine (or four) before going in!


We had a go at Rally-O at training club; I LOVED it but can't find anywhere that does it round here unfortunately.

Funny but I had never imagined you getting nervous! What are you like with caffeine?? Big shot of espresso?....or would that make you worse? :scared:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> F&F you sound much more positive, what a great walk :thumbup: and don't worry i often look like a loon when attached to 2 pulling boxers
> 
> Twiggy glad your sister had a good night and the girls were all in one peace when you got back
> 
> Dogless what a cheeky pupster Rudi is but what a good walk and well done to Kilo for recalling from sheep.
> 
> Werehorse lovely pics, hope OH isn't too poorly with the dreaded manflu
> 
> mv I want Tink :001_wub:
> 
> Sarah hope Spen's tummy clears up but good progress with the ignoring dogs.
> 
> Had good walks up the field with both boys the past couple of days with very few people being seen due to the weather. Sam is offlead for most of the time and they behaved really well for most of their walk. They are however starting to have some silly moments and wind each other up such as going off too far when chasing each other, so am going to make a conscious effort to do some separate walks just to get the focus back.
> 
> Also how do I get Sam to leave the bins alone and stop jumping up at the worktops? he's driving me potty and nothing seems to sink in to his stubborn brain


My only solution to the bin is a lockable one .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> F&F - sorry about all the family politics etc surrounding your Uncle's death .
> 
> Is it wrong that I laughed at you flying down the hill? When all else fails I find a bellowed "Wait :scared:" usually works!!
> 
> As for you going cold turkey - you are an intelligent person, you know what you are doing. Hope you have told hubby so he can watch out for you xx.


It's good that you laughed. It must have looked so funny. 
I'm just going to have to be more aware of my surroundings. Lol.

Yes, I told my hubby after one day of cold turkey. Wasn't going to though but glad I did.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Beth, we went through lots of different bins, cause Freddie soon worked out that he could push his face on the lid and it would click open. We ended up with a sort of swing bin with a really tough spring loaded top. They gave up on bin raiding then.


----------



## tiatortilla

this has so many more pages then last time i came on...! i will try and catch up in a minute.
we had a nice drizzly walk and found a new field/park today. we didn't meet any other dogs off lead but we saw a few in town, including an italian spinone when i was just saying i'd never seen one before. they are big, lovely though. tia wasn't too keen, she had a bit of a bark but i got her attention quickly and she shut up in exchange for a treat. a good walk today 
back at home with a wet and sleepy dog now!


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Beth, we went through lots of different bins, cause Freddie soon worked out that he could push his face on the lid and it would click open. We ended up with a sort of swing bin with a really tough spring loaded top. They gave up on bin raiding then.


Kilo could work any out too; then I found one with a tab you pull out that locks the lid. Job done :thumbup: opposable thumbs needed!


----------



## Beth17

Yes I was afraid that the only solution would be to get a new bin; puppies are expensive


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> We had a go at Rally-O at training club; I LOVED it but can't find anywhere that does it round here unfortunately.
> 
> Funny but I had never imagined you getting nervous! What are you like with caffeine?? Big shot of espresso?....or would that make you worse? :scared:


Oh it's pathetic. I don't know why I get so anxious. Sometimes I do better than others, but it's completely unpredictable. I can be in the middle of a run and suddenly my face turns red, my head and ears start buzzing, and I get tunnel vision. It's crazy. 
I used to show horses - same thing. Never known when it's going to hit.

It's weird because in a true crisis, I'm the calmest, most rational one out there.


----------



## tiatortilla

so glad my dog is far too dense to work out how to open a bin


----------



## Werehorse

Welcome to the thread Ouesi! 

I forgot to say well done on the good behaviour for Kilo and Spendog. And a sneaky extra biscuit to Rudi and Tink for being naughty but super-cute. 

F&F - :lol: sorry. :lol: Keep training a steady or wait, it'll come. A quick release might be a good idea for safety's sake but he needs to get the idea that he attached and can't just bomb off too. Could he not be attached to your OH for the time being? When OH is avaliable anyway... Hmmm. You aren't alone mind, when Oscar is on one and I have him round my waist I get dragged around by a tiny spaniel which is far more embarassing than being dragged by a massive labrador!

Good luck with the coming off ADs - I had to come off mine very gradually but still got dreadful side-effects from coming off them for a good 4-5 weeks before things picked up again. I have to say that they were helpful while I was on them but having come off them I have made steady positive progress, whereas on them I was kind of ok, stable but not getting better if that makes sense?

Beth - hide the bins in cupboards. Can't help with the countersurfing... lets just say it is a bliddy good job my two are tiny. :lol: :aureola: Mine seem to run off further when they are together too - I think they are racing and it takes longer for them to think "oh, where's mum?" because they give each other than little bit of confidence. I have to shout "dogs! Too far!" and then they turn round and race each other back and nearly bowl me over.


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Oh it's pathetic. I don't know why I get so anxious. Sometimes I do better than others, but it's completely unpredictable. I can be in the middle of a run and suddenly my face turns red, my head and ears start buzzing, and I get tunnel vision. It's crazy.
> I used to show horses - same thing. Never known when it's going to hit.
> 
> It's weird because in a true crisis, I'm the calmest, most rational one out there.


I am exactly the same. I have been in some really dire situations and been calm and reliable yet get the feelings that you describe in some much less urgent ones - sports events for me .


----------



## Guest

Beth17 said:


> Also how do I get Sam to leave the bins alone and stop jumping up at the worktops? he's driving me potty and nothing seems to sink in to his stubborn brain


We lived for 15 years with a trash can in the coat closet 

Our current crew is very polite about not stealing food - I credit it to default leave its a la kikopup method. But it's situational. They'll leave food on the counters and coffee table, but food in any other context is fair game.

One of our danes has actually learned how to open the trash can by stepping on the lever with her foot. She sticks her head in there and sniffs, but won't take anything out thank goodness! Now the recycling bin is a whole 'nother story. Very often I come home to the tell tale signs of a roaring party with plastic recycling. In their defense, I was the one who introduced them to playing with water bottles... they love pouncing on them and crinkling them


----------



## Beth17

ouesi said:


> We lived for 15 years with a trash can in the coat closet
> 
> Our current crew is very polite about not stealing food - I credit it to default leave its a la kikopup method. But it's situational. They'll leave food on the counters and coffee table, but food in any other context is fair game.
> 
> One of our danes has actually learned how to open the trash can by stepping on the lever with her foot. She sticks her head in there and sniffs, but won't take anything out thank goodness! *Now the recycling bin is a whole 'nother story. Very often I come home to the tell tale signs of a roaring party with plastic recycling. In their defense, I was the one who introduced them to playing with water bottles... they love pouncing on them and crinkling them*


Yes Sam loves helping himself to the recycling bin, like you it's my own fault for giving him cardboard and bottles to chew when younger. It seemed like a good idea at the time :idea:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Yes Sam loves helping himself to the recycling bin, like you it's my own fault for giving him cardboard and bottles to chew when younger. It seemed like a good idea at the time :idea:


Luckily our recycling is put straight into the wheelie bin outside :thumbup:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Luckily our recycling is put straight into the wheelie bin outside :thumbup:.


ours is downstairs and away from tia too!
idk if she'd play with it or not, she doesn't really ever take anything that isn't hers but a box full of "new toys" might even be too tempting for her, plus our kitchen is tiny.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Hi all 

I've done the usual - read everyone's posts - nodded, smiled, shaked head, smiled and sympathised in all the right places!!

F&F I have sooooooooo been there being dragged down a hill by my two, last time I ended up on my bum but at least it was in the snow so a soft landing :thumbup:

Welcome to the thread Ouesi, it just seems to be growing and growing 

Hideous weather here today too, we did a new walk for my resolution (will update thread in a mo) have discovered that I need to re-waterproof my coat and trousers as after an hour and half of driving wind and rain it had all seeped through resulting in a very cold and wet me  Can anyone recommend some good easy stuff to waterproof coats, trousers and dog coats?

Branston had another 'moment' but so much easier to deal with when there's the two of us as Lily can be removed from the situation. It was flying birds overhead that triggered it today 

I think I've worked out the thought process in his walnut sized brain though....
- something exciting is happening (eg birds overhead)
- I want to chase them or at least run around like a loony, as I would if I was offlead
- I'm on my lead so I can't
- This is very frustrating
- I'm going to take my frustration out on the nearest thing (Lily)

We did have to do a fair bit of lead walking so I used my new found lead technique, which was very successful :thumbup:

I have decided that I am DEFINITELY going to contact the trainer that Twiggy has recommended to me after we get back from holiday in a fortnight. I am really rubbish at contacting people I don't know and starting something new, so I'm telling you all this so that you can pester the hell out of until I do it :hand:


----------



## moonviolet

Lovely Pics I love your boys  well done on the run and especial well done to OH showing such courage in the face of looming manflu   

F+F all credit to you for remaining on your feet that sounds like it was a something of a challenge  Hope the withdrawal period is short lived. 

Welcome Ouesi goign to love hearing how you are getting on. If you find a cure for stage fright please share 

Beth I'd send Tink to you but do you think you could handle another household imp? Our solution counter/table surfing and bin raiding have been clear surfaces and bin in cupboard :lol: Oh and she really snores but her sleep yodelling is loud!!! 

Glad you had a good walk TT  well done for distracting Tia 

can't keep up busy here today ... never goign to post this if i keep updating it to reply to all the lastest posts :lol:

so lasty last one is 

FRM contact them contact them contact them.
and a quick question can Branston be redirected onto a tuggy when he's frustrated like this?


----------



## Werehorse

When do you go on hollibobs, FRM? No harm in phoning trainer before - afterall they probably can't fit you in for a couple of weeks anyway. 

We use Nikwax to re-proof the Paramo jackets and trousers. It just goes in the washing machine when you wash them.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> When do you go on hollibobs, FRM? No harm in phoning trainer before - afterall they probably can't fit you in for a couple of weeks anyway.
> 
> We use Nikwax to re-proof the Paramo jackets and trousers. It just goes in the washing machine when you wash them.


Nikwax here too :thumbup:.


----------



## MollySmith

Beth17  I had two diabetic dogs and we used bunge cords for bins lids and the kitchen bin was under the sink cupboard with a childlock.

Welcome ouesi

Sarah 1983  well done Spen! I hope his tummy is okay.

Twiggy  so pleased to hear from you &#9786; I just hope that they can find a reason for your sisters pain. 

Dogless- well done Kilo too. That is such good behaviour around sheep. Molly adores chasing games but only recently have we let her as she was a little mad and forgot her brakes like Rudi I think!

Werehorse  I think Hugo can outspring Molly! I hope the manflu is no more than a sniffle &#9786;

mv - hope you are well

F&F  I am sorry to hear about your uncle, how sad that everyone is falling out, that cant be easy but you sound very logical about it all. And well done for coming off ADs. I wonder if it helps to measure the days? I tell my OH each day how my day feels, 10 means great, anything below 5 and he keeps watching me  this week has been 5s and 4s so I had extra support and attention from him. I find its so simple but dead useful and I dont have to talk it over too much if I dont feel like it? Anyway, dont hide, keep talking &#9786;

Foxyrockmeister  if it works, hey it works! Maybe just gradually ween off and see if hes any better? If not I feel you have set a new trend and need to patent it now!

Ginge you are human lovely, not superwoman. Bloody dogs drive us mad and I know that if Molly sees something like a horse or a cat, shell be wound up like a spring all day and ready to kick off on the lead at a poor passing dog. I hope you feel better today.

Anyway I bring news of a naughty dog to spoil the promises of all good things on this thread. I shall also offer out clothes pegs and smelling salt  flipping beastie from beastville was like a muddy ninja already and then found god only knows what to roll in on her walk. My car stinks like the bottom of dead parrots cage and shes been hosed down in the back garden. And as if that wasnt enough, she escaped our clutches and when zoomies in the house whilst half washed. 

But I bring news on Buster. We saw him again on our walk with the lady this time, not the bloke. Who has been ditched! The lady said she was never ever going to rehome Buster and the bloke was a knob. He left last week but she thanked us both for our offer to rehome him and said it was good to know we cared. She has been looking out for us too to say thanks. It has got us thinking about a second dog though.

A busy week ahead, Tues I have an interview and might pick up some charity work for a homeless shelter who need someone to design a template for a magazine, I have two lots of design work to do and Ive been papercutting. And I have a new kiln on order for my stained glass. Plus a meeting on Wed to find ou when I leave work and how much I get paid when I do. And its my Open Uni essay deadline on Thursday so if you see me around here again today tell me off.


----------



## Guest

Not really training related, but crazy dog person related...

I just used the "fix red eye" feature on photo editing on a picture of my dog sitting that had a bit too much "lipstick" if you know what I mean.

I'm not sure, but I think that crosses some line LOL!


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Not really training related, but crazy dog person related...
> 
> I just used the "fix red eye" feature on photo editing on a picture of my dog sitting that had a bit too much "lipstick" if you know what I mean.
> 
> I'm not sure, but I think that crosses some line LOL!


:scared::scared:.

Similar...but the face ID feature on my camera always recognises Kilo's 'meat and two veg' as a face :scared:.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> :scared::scared:.
> 
> Similar...but the face ID feature on my camera always recognises Kilo's 'meat and two veg' as a face :scared:.


OMG that is hilarious! I'm imagining uploading those shots to FB and having FB asks you who this person is and do you want to tag them! 
I can think of a few people I would like to "tag" as "meat and veggies" but I'm not friends with them on FB to do so LOL!!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> FRM contact them contact them contact them.
> and a quick question can Branston be redirected onto a tuggy when he's frustrated like this?


I haven't tried taking a tuggie out with me before, I've tried squeaky balls but he then just gets so excited and frustrated about them instead. I think a tuggy would be worth trying, not sure I have enough hands though, especially when I have Lily too. Yesterday I had to let go od her lead so that she could get away from him, thankfully we were in a safe place.



Werehorse said:


> When do you go on hollibobs, FRM? No harm in phoning trainer before - afterall they probably can't fit you in for a couple of weeks anyway.
> 
> We use Nikwax to re-proof the Paramo jackets and trousers. It just goes in the washing machine when you wash them.


We go on Saturday until the following Saturday...... I *could* contact her this week, but, but, but, I've got into to my head now that I'll do it when I get back  I know, I'm lame.

Nikwax sounds great, nice and easy, just what I like  Where do you get it? We have a Blacks here and a Scats but other than that are a bit lacking in outdoorsy shops.



ouesi said:


> Not really training related, but crazy dog person related...
> 
> I just used the "fix red eye" feature on photo editing on a picture of my dog sitting that had a bit too much "lipstick" if you know what I mean.
> 
> I'm not sure, but I think that crosses some line LOL!


----------



## Sarah1983

F&F, sorry but I laughed at hearing about your run down the hill. That's never happened to me but Rupert did once body slam me at the top of a hill and I rolled aaaaalllllll the way down it to land in a ditch full of god only knows what at the bottom. And 3 lads standing there laughing hysterically at me. It's the sort of thing you describe that really puts me off walking belts, at least I can let go of a leash in my hand lol.

Ouesi, welcome to the thread. It's a lot of fun but your mind may never be the same again :scared:

MS, sorry to hear your walk with Molly resulted in such vile smells but glad to hear that Busters owner has rehomed the right one.

Beth, I used to have to keep the kitchen door locked when we first got Rupert because although he wouldn't eat food we offered to him he would steal it by any means possible. He cured himself of food stealing by pulling a cupboard down on top of himself but I wouldn't recommend that method. Spen's banned from the kitchen but will go in if nobody is watching and the door is open. Yet food on the sofa he won't touch unless told. Oh he'll have his nose practically touching it but he won't take it.


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> OMG that is hilarious! I'm imagining uploading those shots to FB and having FB asks you who this person is and do you want to tag them!
> I can think of a few people I would like to "tag" as "meat and veggies" but I'm not friends with them on FB to do so LOL!!


My camera asks who the person is .


----------



## Werehorse

ouesi said:


> Not really training related, but crazy dog person related...
> 
> I just used the "fix red eye" feature on photo editing on a picture of my dog sitting that had a bit too much "lipstick" if you know what I mean.
> 
> I'm not sure, but I think that crosses some line LOL!


:lol: Been there, done that. 



Dogless said:


> :scared::scared:.
> 
> Similar...but the face ID feature on my camera always recognises Kilo's 'meat and two veg' as a face :scared:.


Facebook has done the same to Hugo's - I was so tempted to tag someone. :lol:


----------



## Beth17

Sarah1983 said:


> Beth, I used to have to keep the kitchen door locked when we first got Rupert because although he wouldn't eat food we offered to him he would steal it by any means possible. He cured himself of food stealing by pulling a cupboard down on top of himself but I wouldn't recommend that method. Spen's banned from the kitchen but will go in if nobody is watching and the door is open. Yet food on the sofa he won't touch unless told. Oh he'll have his nose practically touching it but he won't take it.


Yes cupboard on head might be a bit drastic, but if all else fails


----------



## Werehorse

We get Nikwax from Rathbones in Keswick... not v.helpful for you. I'm sure Blacks probably stock it too, I think Cotswolds have it so Blacks is likely to as well...


----------



## Twiggy

Tell me girls what do you do with your dogs when non-doggy friends visit?

Maybe I'm just feeling grumpy and tired today, but when I returned with my girls from their walk this morning a friend had arrived and was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. She's a lovely lady but she almost always has new clothes on or something white.....

I don't make too much effort to stop the dogs saying hello to be honest because their beds are in the kitchen and it is their home afterall.

This particular friend always says something like "oh get down, you're all wet and dirty"....!! I have to bite my tongue at times. She knows I have four collies and in the middle of winter they are going to be wet and dirty.

I do think non-doggy people think you can just magic them away, or maybe they think the dogs should be left outside in the pouring rain - strange.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Tell me girls what do you do with your dogs when non-doggy friends visit?
> 
> Maybe I'm just feeling grumpy and tired today, but when I returned with my girls from their walk this morning a friend had arrived and was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. She's a lovely lady but she almost always has new clothes on or something white.....
> 
> I don't make too much effort to stop the dogs saying hello to be honest because their beds are in the kitchen and it is their home afterall.
> 
> This particular friend always says something like "oh get down, you're all wet and dirty"....!! I have to bite my tongue at times. She knows I have four collies and in the middle of winter they are going to be wet and dirty.
> 
> I do think non-doggy people think you can just magic them away, or maybe they think the dogs should be left outside in the pouring rain - strange.


I take non - doggy folk into the lounge and leave the dogs in the kitchen. People shooing him gets Kilo all excited and bouncy and people nervous of him make him nervous too. To be frank, I have no friends here and no one has come to the house apart from workmen (a lot ) since my best friend left around October time.


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## Werehorse

If people come into this house they have to just accept the fact that the dogs will sit on them I'm affraid.  If someone really hated dogs I'd suggest meeting elsewhere rather than bringing them here. We don't really have people round anyway because the place is generally messy and there's nowhere for anyone to sit anyway :lol: - It's too small for more than a 2 seater sofa, a dog crate and a dog bed and the computer desk.


----------



## moonviolet

I dont' really have many non doggy friends and I tend to meet them for coffee away from the house saves all the fuss. For workmen. I just shut Tink away from where they are.

Is it wrong to feel a little bit sorry for people who dont' love dogs?


----------



## MollySmith

My sister in law to be hates dogs. It's very difficult as Molly loves people and she is generally very good. I tend to go out to visit non dog lovers or defriend...!


----------



## MollySmith

Werehorse said:


> :lol: Been there, done that.
> 
> Facebook has done the same to Hugo's - I was so tempted to tag someone. :lol:


I train people to use Photoshop so I have the power to do dreadful things to photos  Mostly I lose myself instant pounds with clever magic wanding and cloning.


----------



## Guest

Heyyyyyy guys, just gotten back from mammoth shifts so haven't read the past day or so's. Ya know I was brave yeah? Well nobody on the other end answered the phone. :lol: 
Shall try again tommorow. 
His donkeyearedness has had two slow walks in the rain and been pulling the "woe is me" sad hound face that pointies and their halfings seem to do. :lol:

He sat wonderfully when a lab went by. Sadly I had another "bribery" comment. 

Hope you're all okay!! 

And welcome Ouesi?


----------



## Guest

OH and if non-doggy people don't like my dog in my house, they can stay on the doorstep if it bothers them that much. Zand lives here, not them. :lol:

My father doesn't like dogs and doesn't know what to do when a lurcher stares at him all mournfully. Dads always like "Is he upset? He looks upset? Is he bored? Do I stroke him? AHH he's licking me, go away!!!!"
But he puts up with Zand cos he's my dog. (But Zands not allowed in his house.)


----------



## Sarah1983

People who don't like dogs generally don't come to my house more than once. It's his home and I refuse to lock him away. Workmen are the exception, apparently for insurance reasons they're not supposed to enter until dog is secured. And quite often the same workmen who refuse to enter the house with Spen loose will make a fuss of him if they meet him outside lol. 

For the few friends I've had who can't tolerate dogs it's been a case of meeting them elsewhere. Not hard to do really. And MV, I always find those who don't like dogs a bit odd. Not those who are frightened of them, just those who don't like them.


----------



## Werehorse

LurcherOwner said:


> Heyyyyyy guys, just gotten back from mammoth shifts so haven't read the past day or so's. Ya know I was brave yeah? Well nobody on the other end answered the phone. :lol:
> Shall try again tommorow.
> His donkeyearedness has had two slow walks in the rain and been pulling the "woe is me" sad hound face that pointies and their halfings seem to do. :lol:
> 
> He sat wonderfully when a lab went by.* Sadly I had another "bribery" comment. *
> 
> Hope you're all okay!!
> 
> And welcome Ouesi?


I'm getting really cross at all these people with their stupid comments on your behalf, LO. At least you're actually training him not just beating all behaviour out of him which is what I'll bet those people do. :mad2:

Been thinking about fundraising again... I think I might run a "guess our finishing time" competition with any prizes I can get donated. I think we can do that legally without any permissions needed...  My worry with that is that I might get prizes for dog owners or horse owners as well as generic prizes and then how do you make sure that people don't win something they really don't want... I suppose you could have a pick the prize from the prize table type thing, 1st place gets first pick and so on...

I'm also wondering if I can manage some kind of Bake Off competition in the village with a bake sale alongside.

I've been asking for sponsership on Facebook quite a lot and noone is biting, which is a bit frustrating - given that it is 100km... I guess people just don't have many pennies at this time of year.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I'm getting really cross at all these people with their stupid comments on your behalf, LO. At least you're actually training him not just beating all behaviour out of him which is what I'll bet those people do. :mad2:
> 
> Been thinking about fundraising again... I think I might run a "guess our finishing time" competition with any prizes I can get donated. I think we can do that legally without any permissions needed...  My worry with that is that I might get prizes for dog owners or horse owners as well as generic prizes and then how do you make sure that people don't win something they really don't want... I suppose you could have a pick the prize from the prize table type thing, 1st place gets first pick and so on...
> 
> *I'm also wondering if I can manage some kind of Bake Off competition in the village with a bake sale alongside.*
> 
> I've been asking for sponsership on Facebook quite a lot and noone is biting, which is a bit frustrating - given that it is 100km... I guess people just don't have many pennies at this time of year.


Love that idea!!


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Love that idea!!


Thanks, I'm just not sure if I can pull it off - it's not like I'm the heart and soul of the community. 

If anyone would like to like and share our Facebook page - I'd be much obliged.  http://www.facebook.com/TheMonochromeChaosCollective?ref=ts&fref=ts


I need to start getting updates on there and get my blog going again.


----------



## Sarah1983

LO, ignore other peoples comments. I get the bribery crap a hell of a lot and am always being told he should do stuff just because I say so and that there'll come a time when I don't have treats and then what will happen? Well there are times I don't have treats on me and guess what, he still performs!

Quite honestly if I followed all the advice I've been given in the past year I'd have Spen on a choke chain, harness, halti, spray collar and electric collar. I'd be punishing fast and enthusiastic recalls and downs and rewarding slow, sad ones. I'd be feeding him Bakers, Pedigree, Eukanuba, Royal Canin, Happy Dog and raw. I'd be jabbing him in the neck, alpha rolling him, bribing him, luring him, clicking to get his attention, clicking to recall him, not using a clicker at all because it's a punishment or because it's brainwashing. I'm not sure who'd be more confused, me or poor Spencer! And my husbands head would have exploded :lol: So yeah, just ignore what random people tell you you should or shouldn't be doing.


----------



## Guest

LurcherOwner said:


> Heyyyyyy guys, just gotten back from mammoth shifts so haven't read the past day or so's. Ya know I was brave yeah? Well nobody on the other end answered the phone. :lol:
> Shall try again tommorow.
> His donkeyearedness has had two slow walks in the rain and been pulling the "woe is me" sad hound face that pointies and their halfings seem to do. :lol:
> 
> He sat wonderfully when a lab went by. *Sadly I had another "bribery" comment. *
> 
> Hope you're all okay!!
> 
> And welcome Ouesi?


Thanks for the welcome 

Oy... the bribery comments...

About two years ago at a dog event for the local humane society, I had my recently rescued dane and another dog by the dane rescue booth. This guy walks up with his dog who took a huge liking to mine and basically was standing on his hind legs bouncing and pulling trying to get to my dogs. It was quite the spectacle, periodically punctuated by the dog having to stop and cough, hack, and gasp for air, only to begin the display again.

Despite his dog's obvious distress, he stood there and tried to engage me in conversation! He was impressed with the dane, wanted to know about the muttdog (thought he was a dane puppy :skep, and then proceeded to say "My dog would behave nicely too if I fed him cheese like you're doing".

Indeed I was rapid-fire treating the dane. I'd had him only about a year and this was his first big, busy event. I didn't know how he was going to react to the poor strangled dog lunging at him, so I was happy to shove treats at him as much as I needed to in order to keep him happy and relaxed. Which he did - brilliantly.

But that comment... It didn't bother me for me, but it really bothered me for his dog. He was basically saying that he would rather his dog remain distressed, and basically injure himself, if the alternative was to have to stoop to the level of feeding said dog tidbits.
And we label the dogs as stubborn....

I wish I could say I had a clever comeback to say to him like "well, you may want to consider it before your dog encounters another dog who isn't so well behaved" or some such. But I just sat there with this stupefied look on my face trying to process what he had said. He walked away quite pleased with himself.


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Thanks for the welcome
> 
> Oy... the bribery comments...
> 
> About two years ago at a dog event for the local humane society, I had my recently rescued dane and another dog by the dane rescue booth. This guy walks up with his dog who took a huge liking to mine and basically was standing on his hind legs bouncing and pulling trying to get to my dogs. It was quite the spectacle, periodically punctuated by the dog having to stop and cough, hack, and gasp for air, only to begin the display again.
> 
> Despite his dog's obvious distress, he stood there and tried to engage me in conversation! He was impressed with the dane, wanted to know about the muttdog (thought he was a dane puppy :skep, and then proceeded to say "My dog would behave nicely too if I fed him cheese like you're doing".
> 
> Indeed I was rapid-fire treating the dane. I'd had him only about a year and this was his first big, busy event. I didn't know how he was going to react to the poor strangled dog lunging at him, so I was happy to shove treats at him as much as I needed to in order to keep him happy and relaxed. Which he did - brilliantly.
> 
> But that comment... It didn't bother me for me, but it really bothered me for his dog. He was basically saying that he would rather his dog remain distressed, and basically injure himself, if the alternative was to have to stoop to the level of feeding said dog tidbits.
> And we label the dogs as stubborn....
> 
> I wish I could say I had a clever comeback to say to him like "well, you may want to consider it before your dog encounters another dog who isn't so well behaved" or some such. But I just sat there with this stupefied look on my face trying to process what he had said. He walked away quite pleased with himself.


I think we have all had the bribery comments whilst our dogs sit nicely whilst some smart - arse tells us they'd sort everything with a choke - chain . The amount of folk who have told me they'd get a choke chain on Rudi ASAP and same with Kilo when he was a pup is enormous, just for being a large breed .


----------



## simplysardonic

Hello! *waves*

It's been a while, & my little 9 month old hairy hooligan (AKA Rogue The Terrible) is, I believe, well into the kevins now 

So..... what are we working on? Currently, pretty much everything 

Her attitude varies from absolutely stinking to little angel  

Being left: we hadn't been leaving her home alone due to destroying furniture issues, had no choice the other day to leave the dogs for 2 hours & she was brill! She was left last night for almost 4 hours & again, brill!

Basic training: in the house food is a great motivator & she is focused, but out & about we are having issues with attention (ie: I might as well talk to a wall) so in the coming weeks we will be addressing this.

On lead: we've been working on this again as she's gradually become lax, so as soon as I feel tension on the harness I'm stopping & waiting for her & tonight we had a very satisfactory on-lead walk- good girl Rogue :thumbup:

Recall: currently our biggest challenge! After some progress & me allowing her off the Flexi, she got spooked the other week & ran home  so she's currently having on lead only walks, & I've been using an extendable lead so she can still have a limited run about. 

My plan of action is to work on basic training & LLW over the next couple of weeks, then move on to some recall, & maybe invest in a long line.


----------



## Howl

Simplysardonic: Long lines are great for recall and really lets them feel like they are off lead. It gave us a good idea about recall without risking them running off. 
Recall training can be hard but even if you feel like you aren't getting anywhere keep trying. You never know when you might need it! :thumbup:

Elsie is back in class. Although she and D have accepted Pru they have been a bit cagey with each other. Mainly Elsie, so we thought we would sign up for a dog club with both of them to help them feel a bit more secure and build up the bond with the new girl. 
Elsie did really well my OH took her and said her recall was brilliant and she learnt a few new things even went through the agility tunnel! 

So much to work on overall. Since the new arrival all the dogs seem to be very clingy more than normal. 
Could do with some fresh ideas for anxiety when they are home alone. We have always done the leaving for a few seconds and building up. Kong are ignored when Elsie is crated. None of them are destructive but they do howl and whine when we aren't there for a bit. They used to stop but as the new dog is more howly she seems to be setting the rest off. 
Resource guarding is another issue. Got all the dogs ok with swapping and all even the new girl are good at off but they resource guard with each other? Food isn't an issue but chews are. 

Also any ideas for getting a basset to lie down? the treat in the hand on the floor which I used with the girls just doesn't seem to work as her head is low to the floor to begin with?


----------



## Guest

OOH MOOOOOOOOOOORE NEW PEOPLES!!! Unless your not new on this thread or something I dunno. Either way WELCOME WELCOME! 

And that Boucing pulling hacking dog? Ouesi? Thats what mine does. I would MUCH rather be shovelling winalot shapes into him while he's sat nicely while a dog passes, than the usual behaviour. (He's a strong boy my dog, I am however made of noodles :lol


----------



## simplysardonic

Howl said:


> Also any ideas for getting a basset to lie down? the treat in the hand on the floor which I used with the girls just doesn't seem to work as her head is low to the floor to begin with?
> Also any ideas on getting a basset to lie down? the s


When I was trying to get Rogue to do a proper 'down' (as opposed to rolling & writhing about on the floor!) I sat on the floor with my knees drawn up so that they made an 'archway' & then encouraged her using a treat to crawl through. As soon as she was in an acceptable 'down' position she got praise & treat. It took a fair while but she now does a lovely neat 'down'


----------



## Werehorse

Howl have you tried that sitting on the floor making an arch with your legs and luring her trough - making it low enough so that she has to lie down and creep in order to get through, and then reward before she actually starts crawling forwards... if that explaination makes any sense at all!!?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

I've done it! I've emailed the trainer that Twiggy recommended!

...........................


----------



## Thorne

Howl - you could try luring your lovely Basset under your leg while you're kneeling down? Or capturing the behaviour when she does it of her own accord with a clicker if you're into them 

ETA: Werehorse got there first!


Werehorse said:


> Good luck with the coming off ADs - I had to come off mine very gradually but still got dreadful side-effects from coming off them for a good 4-5 weeks before things picked up again. *I have to say that they were helpful while I was on them but having come off them I have made steady positive progress, whereas on them I was kind of ok, stable but not getting better if that makes sense?*


This is what I'm finding with mine at the moment, I'm in two minds as to whether they're working for me at all! Been on and off the same brand for years and I'm now thinking they may be losing their touch - does anyone else find that AD's numb their emotions? Not sure if it's just me feeling down about my recent breakup but I've felt really "switched off" to other people and life in general over the last couple of months. _Sorry, I'm moaning again_ 
F&F best wishes for going cold turkey, take care xx

Hoping everyone's had good days, seems mostly positive from what I've read. Great to see some new faces on here!

We took the same route as yesterday. Breeze not enthusiastic until we got to the school (which she loves), and seemed positively delighted when I let her and S off. More lovely recalls and focus from both dogs today, but put Scooter back onlead when we were near where he wanted to run off yesterday - no problems from him. Can't complain about either of them today, they were little stars.
Weather was horrible though! Started off in cold, gusty weather, soon found ourselves in gale force winds with driving sleet  Like FRM I discovered today that I need to re-proof my coat, will try and pick up some nikwax asap!


----------



## MollySmith

I hope this works. I videod my lovely girl this evening and thought I'd share it so you can sort of 'meet' her. Apologies for my breathy voice! 
IMG_0231_zpsf3151bb0.mp4 Video by Mollysmith27 | Photobucket


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I think we have all had the bribery comments whilst our dogs sit nicely whilst some smart - arse tells us they'd sort everything with a choke - chain . The amount of folk who have told me they'd get a choke chain on Rudi ASAP and same with Kilo when he was a pup is enormous, just for being a large breed .


my aunt who has never owned a dog but thinks she knows everything spent all Xmas day telling me it was bribery and Molly was going to get fat. Grrrrrrrrr:mad2:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I take non - doggy folk into the lounge and leave the dogs in the kitchen. People shooing him gets Kilo all excited and bouncy and people nervous of him make him nervous too. To be frank, I have no friends here and no one has come to the house apart from workmen (a lot ) since my best friend left around October time.


Yes I have said that to hubby on many occasions "why don't you take them through to the lounge?" but he never does.......

Our friend this morning had a new top on - blue and white striped.....!!

By the time she left the white stripes weren't quite so white. Oh well.


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> I've done it! I've emailed the trainer that Twiggy recommended!
> 
> ...........................


:thumbup::thumbup: Big brave FRM :thumbup::thumbup:.

I took the easy option tonight and took the boys out together again because it was still persisting down and my weak self couldn't face two walks . Plus I was full of dinner . They walked beautifully :aureola::aureola:. I am, however feeling guilty and bemused in equal measures. I walked them across a wide car park so I could see dogs and avoid at all costs - Rudi has stopped coughing and has finished his A/Bs but I'm still keeping him away. Anyway....a lovely spaniel that I have met with Rudi a few times came belting across (I know, a loose dog or two a day here ) and jumped all over the boys. Kilo was very good apart from trying to leap out of the spaniel's way when he was getting jumped on. I was getting tangled, but apart from that all OK. Owner and friend came over to fetch dog. Owner apologised, we chatted briefly but Kilo started to whine (sat still in the rain). Owner's friend asked what was wrong with him; I said he was frustrated and she said "He's too big to be frustrated, how old is he?" I told her just over two years old and she said "Oh" . The guilty part? Truly hoping said spaniel doesn't get ill. Truly hoping.


----------



## MollySmith

Werehorse said:


> I'm getting really cross at all these people with their stupid comments on your behalf, LO. At least you're actually training him not just beating all behaviour out of him which is what I'll bet those people do. :mad2:
> 
> Been thinking about fundraising again... I think I might run a "guess our finishing time" competition with any prizes I can get donated. I think we can do that legally without any permissions needed...  My worry with that is that I might get prizes for dog owners or horse owners as well as generic prizes and then how do you make sure that people don't win something they really don't want... I suppose you could have a pick the prize from the prize table type thing, 1st place gets first pick and so on...
> 
> I'm also wondering if I can manage some kind of Bake Off competition in the village with a bake sale alongside.
> 
> I've been asking for sponsership on Facebook quite a lot and noone is biting, which is a bit frustrating - given that it is 100km... I guess people just don't have many pennies at this time of year.


I don't have many pennies but send over your words and I'll do you a poster to print. It will help me add stuff to my portfolio so we can help each other out.


----------



## Guest

MollySmith said:


> I hope this works. I videod my lovely girl this evening and thought I'd share it so you can sort of 'meet' her. Apologies for my breathy voice!
> IMG_0231_zpsf3151bb0.mp4 Video by Mollysmith27 | Photobucket


Molly is so gorgeous!! Look at dat shine on her coat! :wub:


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I hope this works. I videod my lovely girl this evening and thought I'd share it so you can sort of 'meet' her. Apologies for my breathy voice!
> IMG_0231_zpsf3151bb0.mp4 Video by Mollysmith27 | Photobucket


I listened with the sound off, but she is really lovely - very nice to 'meet' her .


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I dont' really have many non doggy friends and I tend to meet them for coffee away from the house saves all the fuss. For workmen. I just shut Tink away from where they are.
> 
> Is it wrong to feel a little bit sorry for people who dont' love dogs?


Most of our non-doggy friends like my girls. It's just they seem to think they are either robots or toys and once they've patted them on the head they will magically disappear and then they can sit and drink coffee and chat for two hours or so in peace...LOL

I really hate it when I've got a puppy. They all want to come and see the pup, cuddle it for about a minute and then the poor little thing is supposed to be put in it's crate for hours whilst they chat. It really annoys me but then they have no dog sense in the first place I suppose.


----------



## moonviolet

MS she's lovely. I watched with the sound off to. I loved whe she gave you her paw.


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## Izzysmummy

Hi, we're back! Had a lovely weekend, managed to keep up with the thread on my phone but no time to post.

Twiggy - so glad to hear there was nothing to sinister on your sisters scans, hopefully they can work out the cause of the pain and do something so that it doesn't cause anymore problems.

Sarah - hope Spens dicky tummy is OK now.

Mv and Dogless - cheeky Tink and Rudi make me 

Werehorse - nice pics, shame it wasn't better weather for your run today. Bake sales are always a good way of raising money, there's quite a few of those at my work, reckon there'll be a few coming up soon for the Keswick to Barrow walk that they have teams in for every year.

F+F - Picturing you being pulled down the hill made me :lol:. Tarnus usually has Izzy if she's on the roamer lead, I fall over when it's just me! On our hols last year Tarnus and Izzy made it down a steep grassy hill fine but I fell over not once but twice then make a dash for the woods cos I was laughing at myself so much and was very desperate for a wee!*
Good luck with coming off the anti-depressants, it's great if you can but please don't feel bad if you need to go back on them. My Nana is on a very low dose and has tried to come off them a few times in the past but it seems she just needs that very low dose just to keep things balanced.

Ouesi - would love to see some videos of you doing Rally-O. It's not something I'm hugely familiar with but have seen pics in a dog magazine and it looks fun.

Beth - good luck with finding a way to stop the bin raiding, luckily Izzy's never bother much with the bin, touch wood but she is a counter surfer, she uses the washing machine door to stand on and peep over the edge. She also nicked the meringue cream puddings on Christmas day cos my Mum forgot to shut the kitchen door while we were eating! 

TT - sounds like a nice walk!

FRM - hope you manage to remedy Branstons over excitement reaction. Well done for ringing the trainer!

MS - naughty smelly Molly, but good news about Buster! Glad to see someone get rid of the problem and not the dog! 

LO - well done Zand for sitting nicely, I sometimes get funny looks*when I give Izzy loads of treats whilst waiting for our training class to start, but for me an important part of her training is the waiting to go into the training hall so I'll happily give her lots of treats for sitting quietly and paying attention to me rather than the other dogs going crazy with excitement waiting to go in.

SS - well done Rogue for not eating furniture. Sounds like you have a good action plan for the other stuff and fingers crossed it goes well.

Howl - I was going to suggest the same as werehorse and SS! 

Thorne - sounds like a lovely walk with the dogs today despite the weather! Not sure about the ADs but have you considered counselling? I went for counselling a few years ago after lots of changes out of my control left me feeling really low but having someone to talk things through with really helped!

So on Friday we went up to stay with my parents and took Izzy to see Millie, they were so cute together, lots of play fighting and monkey noises from Izzy! Me and my Dad had our usual Daddy-Daughter evening dog walk and once the initial excitement and toileting was done we tried out the coupler and they walked really nicely. Only problem came when Millie lunged for something on the floor and we noticed at the last minute that there was loads of chocolate digestives on the floor, I held the lead up high so the dogs couldn't get their heads down but Millie was attached via her harness so got a gobfull of biscuits which my Dad had to remove! It was funny when we were out walking my Dad noticed that whenever we walked past someone Izzy looked at me!

Saturday morning was a very expensive one, hair and car sorted but within what I'd budgeted for so roll on crufts! My Dad walked both dogs on the coupler on his own on Saturday night and apart from a couple of little barks at 2 teenagers 2 mins after leaving the house Izzy had been fine! I was having kittens while he was out as its very rare that anyone else walks her!

Back last night ready for agility this morning which was great fun although very wet and muddy. We attempted a full course and she did really well, a bit nervous about the weaves and the see saw but went soaring over all the jumps and was brilliant at listening for commands and did pretty well on her contacts too! The see saw I think was a bit of a brain freeze, we did it 3 times earlier on really well but on the 4th she was just really vague and started wandering off.*


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> OH and if non-doggy people don't like my dog in my house, they can stay on the doorstep if it bothers them that much. Zand lives here, not them. :lol:
> 
> My father doesn't like dogs and doesn't know what to do when a lurcher stares at him all mournfully. Dads always like "Is he upset? He looks upset? Is he bored? Do I stroke him? AHH he's licking me, go away!!!!"
> But he puts up with Zand cos he's my dog. (But Zands not allowed in his house.)


 Yes I know exactly what you mean...LOL


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> So on Friday we went up to stay with my parents and took Izzy to see Millie, they were so cute together, lots of play fighting and monkey noises from Izzy! *Me and my Dad had our usual Daddy-Daughter evening dog walk and once the initial excitement and toileting was done* we tried out the coupler and they walked really nicely. Only problem came when Millie lunged for something on the floor and we noticed at the last minute that there was loads of chocolate digestives on the floor, I held the lead up high so the dogs couldn't get their heads down but Millie was attached via her harness so got a gobfull of biscuits which my Dad had to remove! It was funny when we were out walking my Dad noticed that whenever we walked past someone Izzy looked at me!
> 
> Saturday morning was a very expensive one, hair and car sorted but within what I'd budgeted for so roll on crufts! My Dad walked both dogs on the coupler on his own on Saturday night and apart from a couple of little barks at 2 teenagers 2 mins after leaving the house Izzy had been fine! I was having kittens while he was out as its very rare that anyone else walks her!
> 
> Back last night ready for agility this morning which was great fun although very wet and muddy. We attempted a full course and she did really well, a bit nervous about the weaves and the see saw but went soaring over all the jumps and was brilliant at listening for commands and did pretty well on her contacts too! The see saw I think was a bit of a brain freeze, we did it 3 times earlier on really well but on the 4th she was just really vague and started wandering off.*


I'm pleased that you had such a fabulous weekend and everything went well but, really, could you not have gone before you left the house? :yikes: :scared:.


----------



## Thorne

Molly is lovely! Thanks for sharing 

RE non-doggy guests, the dogs both go outside while people come in to avoid the full force of Scooter's initial distrust/dislike, then are brought in and put in their beds in the hall and the door closed. Unless we've got a visitor who's dog-phobic they are let in after a little while and usually settle after a quick greeting.
On the very rare occasions when we have a full house the dogs go in their kennel with a kong each. They seem fairly content and it stops them getting underfoot or overwhelmed!


----------



## Izzysmummy

Forgot to mention that at agility the later class had been merged with ours due to the terrible weather so we were joined in class by a lovely Ridgie! He was lovely and kept trying to mug me for treats! Izzy wasn't too keen as he was a bit too in her face ! Poor lad was freezing though and was getting a bit whiny at having to wait around in the cold and wet !


----------



## Thorne

Izzysmummy said:


> Thorne - sounds like a lovely walk with the dogs today despite the weather! Not sure about the ADs but have you considered counselling? I went for counselling a few years ago after lots of changes out of my control left me feeling really low but having someone to talk things through with really helped!


Thanks for the suggestion, it's probably something I should be looking into  Have had it before but by the time I was at the top of the waiting list the worst was over for me so it came at the wrong time - felt like I was wasting the poor lady's time! Will definitely bear it in mind, am thinking about seeing a Dr this week so will try and mention it.

Glad you've had a good weekend, great to hear that the car's all sorted! More trouble than they're worth sometimes aren't they? Sounds like Izzy the monkey is living up to her nickname


----------



## Werehorse

MollySmith said:


> I don't have many pennies but send over your words and I'll do you a poster to print. It will help me add stuff to my portfolio so we can help each other out.


That is a very kind offer - I'm going to have a think about how best to use it... Thank you.


----------



## Werehorse

And thank you to those who have liked the Facebook page - unfortunately as I'm not the page admin I can't see who you are to Facebook stalk you or know which of you are awesome. Feel free to friend me though! :lol: I just posted a picture on there...


----------



## Sarah1983

Thorne said:


> does anyone else find that AD's numb their emotions? Not sure if it's just me feeling down about my recent breakup but I've felt really "switched off" to other people and life in general over the last couple of months.


I'm not quite sure what I felt while I was on mine but oh my god stupid flashing advert at top of screen not good for epilepsy I didn't like it and decided to come off them. I just didn't feel like me if you know what I mean.

I think we might have just had a light bulb moment with the walking backwards. Spent a few minutes offering to close the already shut freezer door, nose targeting the freezer and jumping next to the freezer and then, I think in a bit of frustration, backed up. Click and jackpot. Stared at me a moment, backed up again. Twiggy, I know you say you quit after one successful rep but I've found Spen seems to hate that. He hates training sessions ending at the best of times but to end when he's just got it seems to really upset him and he tries everything he can to get me to restart the session. So we did a couple more reps and then quit.


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Hi, we're back! Had a lovely weekend, managed to keep up with the thread on my phone but no time to post.
> 
> *Saturday morning was a very expensive one, hair and car sorted but within what I'd budgeted for so roll on crufts! *
> 
> .*


*C R U F T S * Aaagghhhh Please don't mention the dreaded word.

It brings me out in a cold sweat and a rash.

I'll tell you why at a later date. Got to get my sister up and running first.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> And thank you to those who have liked the Facebook page - unfortunately as I'm not the page admin I can't see who you are to Facebook stalk you or know which of you are awesome. Feel free to friend me though! :lol: I just posted a picture on there...


I 'liked' you...but didn't befriend . Will do it now!



Twiggy said:


> *C R U F T S * Aaagghhhh Please don't mention the dreaded word.
> 
> It brings me out in a cold sweat and a rash.
> 
> I'll tell you why at a later date. Got to get my sister up and running first.


How intriguing.....


----------



## Guest

I would 'like' you werehorse, or friend you, but alas I haven't a facebook anymore. Can I sponsor you any other way??


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## Sarah1983

Lol, not sure what happened with my last post, a case of typing what I was thinking and not realising it I think 

Come on Twiggy, you can't leave us all hanging like that


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, not sure what happened with my last post, a case of typing what I was thinking and not realising it I think
> 
> Come on Twiggy, you can't leave us all hanging like that


I know I'm very naughty but I can't tell you yet....


----------



## Howl

Twiggy said:


> Most of our non-doggy friends like my girls. It's just they seem to think they are either robots or toys and once they've patted them on the head they will magically disappear and then they can sit and drink coffee and chat for two hours or so in peace...LOL
> 
> I really hate it when I've got a puppy. They all want to come and see the pup, cuddle it for about a minute and then the poor little thing is supposed to be put in it's crate for hours whilst they chat. It really annoys me but then they have no dog sense in the first place I suppose.


We visit some people and have had a few visit us but I get so so stressed out. I feel like people expect them to be very very well behaved which is not easy with them being younger dogs. I can get them to lie down and they sit. Often they are really good but I just worry too much about what they are doing. Then there is the added issues about the guests winding them up etc. Then there is always food. I can get them to behave but I always have one eye on them so I don't enjoy my food or the whole experience. I am sure all this rubs off on the dogs too. I don't want to appear like a training nazi but neither do I want to have a dog running riot. 
Even people who claim to like dogs often don't or only have experience of an old "perfect" dog in their past. 
Urg... The whole thing sends shivers. I am sure I will be the same when I have kids.


----------



## Twiggy

Rapidly changing the subject..... I had an email from my chiropractor. She could have treated Tremor tomorrow morning but unfortunately I have a vets appointment with Quiver, for her last laser treatment, and it's in the opposite direction.

Anyway we've arranged for the following Monday, so that's sorted.

The lump on Tremor's back hasn't gone down so it is unlikely to be an abcess and more likely a lipoma.

I'll see what my chiropractor says about it before deciding what to do next.


----------



## Thorne

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm not quite sure what I felt while I was on mine but oh my god stupid flashing advert at top of screen not good for epilepsy I didn't like it and decided to come off them. * I just didn't feel like me if you know what I mean.*
> 
> I think we might have just had a light bulb moment with the walking backwards. Spent a few minutes offering to close the already shut freezer door, nose targeting the freezer and jumping next to the freezer and then, I think in a bit of frustration, backed up. Click and jackpot. Stared at me a moment, backed up again. Twiggy, I know you say you quit after one successful rep but I've found Spen seems to hate that. He hates training sessions ending at the best of times but to end when he's just got it seems to really upset him and he tries everything he can to get me to restart the session. So we did a couple more reps and then quit.


That's much the same as what I'm feeling, the question is whether this is down to the meds not really working or whether it's them that's making me feel this way  Think I may as well finish this prescription then re-evaluate.

Excellent work with the backing-up! Scooter is the same and tends to forget what we've worked on unless we do a couple of reps, Breeze needs to end training as soon as she's got it or we get excited barking. Well done you and Spen.

Werehorse - liked and befriended you, I've been bad and spent too much since Christmas but I'll be sure to sponsor you soon


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## Werehorse

Oooo, I have shiney new Facebook friends. 



LurcherOwner said:


> I would 'like' you werehorse, or friend you, but alas I haven't a facebook anymore. Can I sponsor you any other way??


There's a link to my justgiving page in my siggie.


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> Oooo, I have shiney new Facebook friends.
> 
> There's a link to my justgiving page in my siggie.


I have donated a fiver, is that alright?


----------



## Werehorse

LurcherOwner said:


> I have donated a fiver, is that alright?


More than alright - thanking you.    You are officially super-awesome.


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> More than alright - thanking you.    You are officially super-awesome.


d'awwwww thank you. I used to 'work' in an oxfam bookshop. I met terry pratchet once there. He completely ignored me when I asked him three times if he wanted a cup of tea cause I was putting the kettle on. And there used to be a lady who used to bring her dog 'Bitz' into work with her. He was a small mutt and lovely lovely lovely. 
I used to spend all my time, reading all the books. :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Quicky as o n phone. Thanks for the hugs and reassurance it means an awful lot. We have reconciled somewhat. Last nihts walk wasnt great but i was still blugh but today we had a great 1 1/2 hours in the woods and saw not a soul. Met up with M as normal but plans changed.due.to rugby matches so we took the.three of them out for another 1 1/2 hours. Buffer and the ninja even had a play  Us two are now shattered although she has killed.one of flat rabbits squeakers tonight. Anyway thought i best check in as its uncles funeral.tomorrow so be off line most of he day and wanted to say how much i appreciate you all.
F&F WAS THINKING OF YOU TODAY ooh sorry didnt mean to shout. Glad you ok sorry bout your uncle. 
Every one else. Welcome. No its not your fault. They are pillocks dont listen.
:thumbup:


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> Molly is so gorgeous!! Look at dat shine on her coat! :wub:


Thank you. My sis in law wanted to 'see' her. They sadly had their Westie Barney PTS just after Christmas, he was very old and had been in poor health for a while and had a series of sudden strokes after a walk. Since then they've adopted a Yorkie also called Molly and I kept promising her and realised I do have the technology just needed to find the time! Anyway nice to share it as it's sometimes hard to get personality from a photo.

Her coat is very shiny, more so after rolling in the crap and having to endure a hose down.


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Quicky as o n phone. Thanks for the hugs and reassurance it means an awful lot. We have reconciled somewhat. Last nihts walk wasnt great but i was still blugh but today we had a great 1 1/2 hours in the woods and saw not a soul. Met up with M as normal but plans changed.due.to rugby matches so we took the.three of them out for another 1 1/2 hours. Buffer and the ninja even had a play  Us two are now shattered although she has killed.one of flat rabbits squeakers tonight. Anyway thought i best check in as its uncles funeral.tomorrow so be off line most of he day and wanted to say how much i appreciate you all.
> F&F WAS THINKING OF YOU TODAY ooh sorry didnt mean to shout. Glad you ok sorry bout your uncle.
> Every one else. Welcome. No its not your fault. They are pillocks dont listen.
> :thumbup:


Well done ninja and just to say that I hope tomorrow goes as well as it can. Take care of you


----------



## Dogless

Look after yourself GR xx.


----------



## Werehorse

Thinking about the ADs - the last ones I was on I felt pretty normal while I was under a lot of stress at work (until it got rediculous) but once I quit work and stress levels went down I just switched off completely and couldn't motivate myself to do anything. Previous ADs have just switched me off emotionally without completely draining motivation, but that was somehow worse; I felt like a zombie. I much prefer being off them completely but can see how I've benefitted from them when I've been on them.

I can't see your video of Molly, Mollysmith.  Says there's an error.

LO - :lol: at Pratchett ignoring you, that's a top class anecdote.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Good morning, 

Right, here goes......

Ouesi, hi  and the show nerves, not sure if it would help but have you tried 'rescue remedy' ? 
TT, I never manage to catch up with what's going on on here.its too quick for my tangled brain.

LO, :ciappa: to the bribery comment. 

Thorne, I would second counselling. Took me a few goes to find one I clicked with, and even when I felt ok I would still go. Take care. 

Ms, Molly is gorgeous in your video. :001_wub: and thanks, I'm now measuring my days. 

Dogless, glad rudi is feeling better. I did look in last week to see how he was getting on. 

Frm, I'm liking the new 'handbag dog' lead. :thumbup: for contacting trainer. Will be looking forward to hearing about how he's getting on. 

IM, sounds like a great weekend. I'm starting agility on Sunday with frank. Can't wait. 

Sarah, is spens tum ok today? 

Gr, hope all goes as well as it can today. Thinking of you. X

Wh, yes, I felt like a bit of a zombie too, but they did their job when I needed them to. Not on Facebook but will pop onto your just giving page later on. 

Twiggy, CRUFTS????????? 

Non doggy friends......don't really have many people we socialise with apart from family and most of them like the dogs anyway so just accept that there may be a hair or two in their coffee and yes, Freddie dribbles sometimes. 
We're having work started in about one month, and it's going to be a big job so that'll be fun with three dogs and workmen 

Apologies if I've forgotten anyone 

All three were ok yesterday despite the yucky weather and I'm just about to go and do pavement walks with the boys then a half and half with babybel. 

Catch you all later. Have a nice day folks and happy walks.


----------



## Sarah1983

Silly Spendogs tummy seems to be back to normal. So we'll put it down to the pigs head being "new" again. 

Recall work is still going well. Had to explain to hubby that we're not at a stage where we can use it outside yet. Don't think he quite understands but the whistle stays with me. Been asked again whether we'll breed Spen. Answer is still a resounding "hell no!" and it is not going to change.

More work on walking backwards this morning. I think he's getting it. We're still in the experiment stage though, he'll walk backwards a couple of times then try other things before walking backwards again. It's like he thinks he knows what's right but has to throw in other behaviours just to check lol.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> More work on walking backwards this morning. I think he's getting it. We're still in the experiment stage though, he'll walk backwards a couple of times then try other things before walking backwards again. It's like he thinks he knows what's right but has to throw in other behaviours just to check lol.


I'm glad you've said that because I thought i was going a bit bats when i saw Tink doing this. It was when she was learning to tidy her toys. On about our thrid session, I had gone crackers when she gently placed a toy in the basket. The next toy she picked up and placed gently down next to the basket, paused to look at me, when i didn't react she picked it up and placed in in the basket. It was like she was checking whether it was the gentle placement or putting it in the basket that was the desired behaviour.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I'm glad you've said that because I thought i was going a bit bats when i saw Tink doing this. It was when she was learning to tidy her toys. On about our thrid session, I had gone crackers when she gently placed a toy in the basket. The next toy she picked up and placed gently down next to the basket, paused to look at me, when i didn't react she picked it up and placed in in the basket. It was like she was checking whether it was the gentle placement or putting it in the basket that was the desired behaviour.


Yup, I get that sort of thing quite a bit with Spen. Like when taking things out of the washing machine he experimented to see whether he only got the click for going after clothes in the washing machine or whether picking up ones already pulled out worked too.

We also get what I've seen called the Learning W, where he'll seem to understand what I want and then it'll suddenly seem to fall apart and he'll offer various other behaviours before going back to the one I'm teaching. This will happen twice and then the behaviour I'm teaching sticks and becomes another trick he'll offer.


----------



## Freddie and frank

glad to hear spens tummy is back to normal.

actually had two good walks :yesnod:

bella first....came out of my drive and saw a lady with a red setter coming towards us. got bella's attention with a good old 'watch me' and the lady said "brilliant, thanks" as she walked past which made me feel like a good considerant owner. :yesnod:
got to the canal and let her off lead. said hello to the lady with the two chi's and an old dog with only one eye, bless him. all had a nice sniff and she came when called.:yesnod: did some recalls then met three more dogs, all good again. we did have a tag along dog for a bit, which i didn't think bella was too bothered about until her owner went down another path and bella followed her. but......i called her and my little angel came straight back. then met the lady with two big chocolate labs. one is always off lead and the other one she just holds the collar until dogs have passed him.not sure why, so we respect that and move past. bella did her usual greet.....slowly went up to the offlead dog, got on her belly then rolled over. all good  she always seems more interested in me than anything else and wants to be with me. i really hope it continues.

took the boys on an on lead walk and after a few minutes they settled down.
they know 'wait' cause i've always done it when crossing the road, and taking leads off etc, but i threw a few 'waits' in randomly today to see if it'll help with frank when he's attached to me. 

withdrawals are not too bad today, bit of confusion, headaches, nausea, so a good day:thumbsup: i have read that omega 3 oils with a high epa content helps so i've been having them for breakfast, lunch and tea.....:lol: 
there's a bottle of rescue remedy in the bedroom, the bathroom, the hall, my work room too.:yesnod:


----------



## Freddie and frank

oooh, what dehydrators do you lot have?

i was telling my hubby about them and he seemed quite interested so i said i would research them.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> oooh, what dehydrators do you lot have?
> 
> i was telling my hubby about them and he seemed quite interested so i said i would research them.


This one: AndrewJamesWorldwide

Pleased that the withdrawal's not too bad today .


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - that Spendog's a clever one. Kilo's default 'go to' is to lie down; he offers that whenever he's not sure. I think because it took a while to crack with him and I was so chuffed when he got it!!! He'll sink sllllllooowwwwwllllyyyyy whilst maintaining eye contact!

mv - Tink is fabulous, I'd love to see her in 'real life'. Roll on the Crufts where you're dancing .

An OK walk this morning, bit frustrating and I got a huge dressing down . Decided to go to the beach this morning as the weather's not great, but the rest of the week looks dire weather - wise. I have always driven past a tourist - signed beach on the way to one of the ones we go to and decided to go today; only stayed about 20 minutes as it was absolutely filthy and there was livestock and a road behind not too robust looking fencing!

Anyhow, no bother; we got back in the car and headed to the nature reserve. Quick walk through the dunes, quite busy today with a group there doing 'nature stuff' and quite a few other dog walkers. CHs are taken to one side and sat whenever people are heading towards us (narrow paths). Only one person has the decency to thank me or reply to my cheery "Good Morning!" as they pass, miserable buggers. All the rest pretend not to see or hear me. Few loose dogs run up, I get a bit tangled as Rudi wants to play but no bad reactions or nerves shown by Kilo, so all OK. CHs on lead in the reserve as dogs are supposed to be - livestock.

Get to the beach and the tide is all the way in . There is still a strip of beach to walk along, but the huge expanse of sand is all covered up - I must had misread the tide tables :incazzato::incazzato:. Anyhow, not too bad but there are loads of ways onto the beach over the dunes so people and dogs can suddenly appear so I have to be vigilant as Kilo can be very alert to people suddenly materialising. It's not a drama when the tide is out some way as we can move away from the dunes.

All was going well and I was taking some photos when a man and two dogs on leads appeared right in front of us. The man stopped when he saw us but Kilo started to go towards them so I said "Wait", which he did, and I moved forward to collect him and put him on lead. I said sorry to the man but then wished I hadn't as I got a big dressing down . In the end I walked off as there are only so many times that you can say sorry . I wasn't being vigilant enough and the body language between Kilo and his larger dog was not good at all but Kilo only got to within about 8-10m in front of them and did wait when asked.

I carried on with my walk, let Kilo back off and the man let his dogs off - neither were bothered about each other but the man and his dogs kept going back up into the dunes and reappearing, so my nerves were shot straining to see him coming all the time; each time I saw anyone appear I felt almost panicky to recall Kilo - and he picked up on that and became really vigilant, scanning with me; so I just put him on lead so we could both relax. Rudi is still at the stage where he wont approach anyone or anything or will recall from anything if they appear and approach him so he stayed off.

We got to a stretch where I could see more and where the dunes were fenced off so Kilo still got lots and lots of offlead zooming in, but it was quite a stressful morning!

Gratuitous photo:


----------



## Sarah1983

Sounds like another miserable git Dogless. As you say, Kilo didn't actually reach the other dog and waited when you told him to so where's the drama? What was he having a go at you about? 

Spen's go to position is a down too. Probably coz I put so much work into making it fun and pleasant instead of it meaning he was in trouble. But when the down doesn't work he'll offer looking left, nose and paw targets (sometimes both front paws and nose at once lol) to anything nearby and anything else he can think of.


----------



## Werehorse

Sounds stressful, Dogless - not quite sure what you did wrong to deserve a telling off.  Sounds like you were fully in control of Kilo and no-one can see through sanddunes unless the physical properties of light have changed and noone has told me (wouldn't discount it though with Govey at the helm of education  ). 8-10m is a reasonable distance away... if only all off lead dogs would stop 8-10m away!

But I liked it for the picture of the boys.  And the fact that Rudi was soooper-good and Kilo managed to get sopme nice zoomies in regardless. 

F&F - Bella is such a good girl.  Glad you're not feeling too bad with the withdrawals too.

Interesting reading how Tink and Spendog go through the learning process...

I took the MCC to the yard with me this lunchtime which is basically lead walking there and back. They were... ok actually. Not perfect - a long way from perfect - but we did have some significant stretches of nice walking particularly just at the end. Hugo got to play with his yard girlfriend, it is nice when that happens because he doesn't get much chance to play with other dogs and he seems to enjoy it... I let Oscar off to see if he would play too but he just went and stole carrots so I tied him up again.  They enjoy the yard and I need to take them more often but the lead walking can be quite daunting...


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Sounds like another miserable git Dogless. As you say, Kilo didn't actually reach the other dog and waited when you told him to so where's the drama? What was he having a go at you about?
> 
> Spen's go to position is a down too. Probably coz I put so much work into making it fun and pleasant instead of it meaning he was in trouble. But when the down doesn't work he'll offer looking left, nose and paw targets (sometimes both front paws and nose at once lol) to anything nearby and anything else he can think of.


He was a miserable git - this weather brought them all out today; not a smile or pleasant word to be had. The man was objecting to Kilo beginning to approach them and out of control dogs, me not recalling him when I saw them etc. He did go into 'stalk' mode once he'd seen the body language of the man's larger dog which is why I didn't recall him - he often won't first time as he doesn't like to turn his back I don't think, meanwhile gets more stressed, which gets me stressed and so on - so I told him to 'wait' which he will do.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> He was a miserable git - this weather brought them all out today; not a smile or pleasant word to be had. The man was objecting to Kilo beginning to approach them and out of control dogs, me not recalling him when I saw them etc. He did go into 'stalk' mode once he'd seen the body language of the man's larger dog which is why I didn't recall him - he often won't first time as he doesn't like to turn his back I don't think, meanwhile gets more stressed, which gets me stressed and so on - so I told him to 'wait' which he will do.


Yeah, dead out of control that dog who waited when you told him to  Some people really baffle me. Don't let him get to you, sounds like you did the right thing knowing he wasn't likely to turn his back on the other dog to come to you. God, I'd have killed for people just to be able to stop their dog like that when I had Rupert! And I'd kill to be able to stop Spen too. Although when he's seen dogs he knows and I've not leashed him he runs up and stops at a bit of a distance anyway.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Yeah, dead out of control that dog who waited when you told him to  Some people really baffle me. Don't let him get to you, sounds like you did the right thing knowing he wasn't likely to turn his back on the other dog to come to you. God, I'd have killed for people just to be able to stop their dog like that when I had Rupert! And I'd kill to be able to stop Spen too. Although when he's seen dogs he knows and I've not leashed him he runs up and stops at a bit of a distance anyway.


No; he not only doesn't turn his back but picks up on the anxiety in my voice (I forgot my whistle) and will start to creep forward until eventually lying down just in front of the dog. The greeting then either goes fine if the other dog is relaxed or is very stiff indeed. If the other dog doesn't move to greet Kilo stays lying down. So getting him to wait is much better sometimes!

I think the fact that he had to wait annoyed him - I did go over as fast as the shingle would allow though! Perhaps he'd had loose dogs jump on his all the way through the dunes as we had a few and I copped it .

It is me that makes him act that way too though. If I walk with anyone else or anyone else and their dogs he doesn't bother with anything appearing or approaching at all. Like when we walked with Cravensmum he just went past a few people and dogs without even a glance at them. When with me on my own he won't do that, he'll be really alert.


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry i think you did great and Kilo stopping was a great endorsement of the training you have and do with him. 

I have always found it useful to picture warts appearing on the face of anyone who is having a go at me. I do have to take care not to start smiling, it makes you look like a sociopath if you do  :yesnod:



Lovely photo of your boys 

Not much to report here lovely play with Ella the bull lurcher this morning she's too big but i'd love to slip her under my jacket and bring her home. Then we followed a couple of on lead GSD's for about 100metres at a comfortable distance and totally unnoticed before taking a side path toward our cross country agility area.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer's just made us laugh. Had to go get a crate of drinks and hubbys uniform out of the car and figured we'd take Spen with us so he could have a pee and coz he likes to get in the boot of the car. Get everything out of the car, get back to the grassy bit in front of our row of flats and let him off leash. He instantly leaps up at me, grabs one of hubbys boots and proudly carries it all the way to our front door, tail and head high and such an air of "aren't I great!" about him that we cracked up.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Spencer's just made us laugh. Had to go get a crate of drinks and hubbys uniform out of the car and figured we'd take Spen with us so he could have a pee and coz he likes to get in the boot of the car. Get everything out of the car, get back to the grassy bit in front of our row of flats and let him off leash. He instantly leaps up at me, grabs one of hubbys boots and proudly carries it all the way to our front door, tail and head high and such an air of "aren't I great!" about him that we cracked up.


:001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless - sorry you had to meet the miserable brigade today! 

I'm just sitting here wondering whether I should take Miss Izzy for a walk tonight. At lunchtime I took her out for a wee and one of our neighbours has been burning some garden rubbish and the air really smells of smoke, she cowered, lots of lip licking and she sat with her head down shaking. I've got home from work and it still smells really smokey so I'm not sure if to give our walk a miss tonight?


----------



## tiatortilla

hello again  i am reading everyone's posts honest, i'm just not keeping up very well! i will contribute if i feel i have anything useful to say though lol, i'm not half as knowledgable as most of you though!
we've been working on some lead walking today. since she's been pretty much fine with dogs off lead she just wants to be off all the time and will refuse to walk if she doesn't want to be on lead on occasion but she walked nicely today and only barked at two dogs. i'm happy with how it's going


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> Dogless - sorry you had to meet the miserable brigade today!
> 
> I'm just sitting here wondering whether I should take Miss Izzy for a walk tonight. At lunchtime I took her out for a wee and one of our neighbours has been burning some garden rubbish and the air really smells of smoke, she cowered, lots of lip licking and she sat with her head down shaking. I've got home from work and it still smells really smokey so I'm not sure if to give our walk a miss tonight?


How odd; I'd probably not go if she's that unhappy - or maybe pop somewhere in the car?



tiatortilla said:


> hello again  i am reading everyone's posts honest, i'm just not keeping up very well! i will contribute if i feel i have anything useful to say though lol, i'm not half as knowledgable as most of you though!
> we've been working on some lead walking today. since she's been pretty much fine with dogs off lead she just wants to be off all the time and will refuse to walk if she doesn't want to be on lead on occasion but she walked nicely today and only barked at two dogs. i'm happy with how it's going


Sounds like you're making good progress .


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## foxyrockmeister

Evening all 

Sorry to hear your day has been blighted by miserable gits today dogless, I really don't understand miserable people.... Does it somehow make them happy to be miserable  I think I must be lucky that most people are pretty cheerful around here, or at least civil to each other, even in yesterday's vile weather everyone we met had a cheery "hello" at the very least  

Branston was sick this morning, he only brought up bile but my god did he make a song and dance about it! I've never known a dog make such a drama about being sick, poor boy looked like he was dying and all he wanted was cuddles after. He seems to have been fine since and has had his normal meals, so not sure what brought that on but I did have a minor panic moment what with all the recent dog illness/deaths in our local area 

The pickles are going to have a tough week this week with lots of time being left on their own as me and hubby both have ridiculously busy weeks work wise, I've tried explaining to them that its all so we can go on holiday next week and then they will have company 24/7 but I don't think they get it!!!


----------



## Guest

Phew! You guys are hard to keep up with!

Love the description of Spencer and Tink "testing" behaviors. That's exactly what they do - so cool! Like you can see the wheels turning in their heads 

Sorry about the rotten person on your walk Dogless, seems to me like you had things under control. Oh well, some people are just grumps...

I'm kicking myself today, there's a church a short walk from our place with a big parking lot that I was going to practice in just to get in a different environment, but I talked myself out of it yesterday what with there being too many people there on Sunday, figured I could go today after work. Figures... today it's pouring down rain with no hint of letting up. And I'm just not dedicated enough to get sopping wet for a few heeling patterns LOL!

I think we'll just do some fun shaping inside today to keep Bates sharp. Maybe work on that darned moving down....


----------



## cinnamontoast

Omg, the day I never thought would come! Zak playing (faint!) with another dog!! Jess is a dog, btw, despite the name. Click for the video.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Sounds like you're making good progress .


we are  i can't take all the credit though, she's had quite a sudden change in confidence and i've heard of dogs going through another fear period around her age so i wouldn't be surprised if she's coming out of the other side of that.
sorry to hear you had a rubbish walk today, better luck tomorrow!


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> we are  i can't take all the credit though, she's had quite a sudden change in confidence and i've heard of dogs going through another fear period around her age so i wouldn't be surprised if she's coming out of the other side of that.
> sorry to hear you had a rubbish walk today, better luck tomorrow!


It wasn't all rubbish - just not as relaxing as the beach usually is!!


----------



## Thorne

F&F - Great to hear that the withdrawal isn't too bad for you today, glad you had good walks  I think zombie is a very apt description for me atm! 

Sarah - I love that Spen's double checking what you want from him, and the boot antics! He sounds like such a character.

Dogless - What a grump, don't think you deserved a telling off, Kilo was hardly out of control by the sounds of it. Handsome boys :001_wub:

Werehorse - Pleased that Hugo got to play with his girlfriend, and Oscar got his carrots! I always think a yard isn't complete without a few dogs.

Well done Zak!


It was nervous dog central at BC today! None more so than poor Bryn the Collie, who's 11 months old, not housetrained and very undersocialised. He wants to herd people, is very worried about traffic and just a spooky dog overall 
Did a couple of short, quiet walks with him and some clicker training. He's cracked sit and down, and is learning a hand touch. He's getting clicked for interest in toys too. Lovely affectionate boy, just a lot to learn.

Had the usual Paddy walk and blast in the garden, feel so sad for him because he's been here since september. Lovely walk apart from a bus lunge  and worked on his fetch and leave in the garden.

Had a short walk with Lily the tiny terrier, did lots of cleaning and tidying, and finished by walking Panda the Collie pup. I've fallen in love with another one :001_wub: She's 5months old, prick-eared and smooth-coated, just my type! Another undersocialised little one but keen to learn and full of love.

No progress with S&B today, mum took them around the pavements earlier. They're now demanding dinner!


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## cinnamontoast

Thorne, what's the story with Bryn? Do you work for a rescue? He sounds very cute!


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> Phew! You guys are hard to keep up with!
> 
> I'm kicking myself today, there's a church a short walk from our place with a big parking lot that I was going to practice in just to get in a different environment, but I talked myself out of it yesterday what with there being too many people there on Sunday, figured I could go today after work. *Figures... today it's pouring down rain with no hint of letting up. And I'm just not dedicated enough to get sopping wet for a few heeling patterns* LOL!
> 
> I think we'll just do some fun shaping inside today to keep Bates sharp. Maybe work on that darned moving down....


I used to be many, many years ago. I would to take the dogs in the winter months up to a supermarket carpark when it was empty at about 6.30am and train them several days a week...LOL


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## Tropical Fish Delivered

Heel work for me and Mojo


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## Guest

Twiggy said:


> I used to be many, many years ago. I would to take the dogs in the winter months up to a supermarket carpark when it was empty at about 6.30am and train them several days a week...LOL


I used to be too, when I was young and didn't do my own laundry  I was a barn brat and used to get up at 4 am, so I could get a few rides in before school, then right back at it after school.

The other thing is my dog is a hairless priss who doesn't like getting his butt wet or cold. Mind you, he has no issue crashing through the woods in any kind of weather for his own agenda, but so close to a show I don't want to make any of our training a chore for him. At least that's how I'm justifying it to myself 

Edit: and what is it about parking lots that makes them so perfect to train in?!


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## Thorne

cinammontoast said:


> Thorne, what's the story with Bryn? Do you work for a rescue? He sounds very cute!


I'm doing a work placement at my local Blue Cross rehoming centre, and he's one of the more unfortunate dogs that I've met  Not sure how much I can say about his background for the sake of his previous owners' privacy but suffice to say he's not had the best start and needs a lot of socialisation and training while he's at the centre. 
He is a sweetie though! Really affectionate boy with lots of potential in the right home.


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## cinnamontoast

How do you do it? My house would be overrun with dogs and I'd cry all the time! So hard to see all those lovely dogs and to hear potential horror stories.


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## Twiggy

I took Quiver for her final laser treatment this morning. Sod's law in that Marwen (my vet) wanted to inspect Tremor's mystery lump and I hadn't got her with me - damn!!

I trained Holly this afternoon for about 20 minutes. The first time since last Wednesday. She was very eager to get over to the barn and was OKish on most of the exercises. Perhaps I expect too much as she's never going to be a really keen, highly motivated little dog sadly. On the plus side, depending on how you view it, I haven't got any wounds...!!


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## Thorne

cinammontoast said:


> How do you do it? My house would be overrun with dogs and I'd cry all the time! So hard to see all those lovely dogs and to hear potential horror stories.


Fortunately/unfortunately my dad is very firm about 2 dogs being more than enough, so window shopping for new additions is completely off the cards  If it weren't for S&B he'd be easy to convince to bring a Collie home...
It is tough at times but the staff are brilliant and it's all worth it when a dog or cat goes to a new home and we get sent photos of them lounging on the sofa, with a follow-up form singing their praises!


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## Jenny Olley

You've all been busy again, Dogless the bloke is just being an idiot, I wish people could stop their dog prior to it jumping all over archie pup, the photo is stunning.
Sarah and MV, its great when dogs try other stuff, just so they can confirm what they thought was right is right. 
Sarah, how the diet going ? I've started one too, did a few vids of Archie pup and me for our group page on facebook last week and saw my rear view, oh dear.
Molly - what a lovely dog.
Archie's training going well, sendaway and tracking this morning, with a smattering of static heelwork positions and dumbell retrieve this evening, plus as always loads of tuggy.


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## Sarah1983

Thorne said:


> Sarah - I love that Spen's double checking what you want from him, and the boot antics! He sounds like such a character.


Oh he is. We said after Rupert died that the next dog would have huge, huge paw prints to fill because although he had some serious issues he had bags of character and could never be described as a boring dog. Spen is filling those paw prints pretty damn well. He's a lot more laid back and more serious than Rupert was but he has a big personality and certainly keeps us on our toes. He's certainly come out of his shell since we got him 

I often wonder how much difference the training methods make with a dogs "personality" (not the right word really but I can't think of the one I want). I mean, clicker training encourages and rewards a dog for experimenting and interacting with its environment whereas your more traditional methods tend to punish that and suppress behaviour. Do I get "weird" dogs because I encourage that weirdness? lol.

I hope Bryn learns that life isn't so scary after all and I hope he and all the others get fantastic forever homes. I loved volunteering at the local shelter but it was hard at times. I broke my heart over a scruffy little 15 year old dog who was turned in because he kept snapping at the new puppy. He was blind, mostly deaf and very, very stiff. If I hadn't had Rupert he wouldn't have even made it to a kennel, he'd have come straight home with me but Rupe would have killed him. He was found dead in his run a few days later :crying: I hope there's a special spot in hell reserved for his owners, they deserve it.

JO, I put on half a pound this week  No surprise really coz I was really off last week and hubby couldn't possibly cook as he'd sprained his finger so we had takeaway for a few days. Not that the sprained finger stopped him bowling 8 games though  But back on track now and doing Biggest Loser on the Wii which I swear is attempting to kill me. How the hell the actual contestants do it I don't know, a 25 minute light work out is leaving me barely able to lift my arms lol. Best of luck with your diet


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## moonviolet

******Unrant warning*****


I may have slipped into a parallel universe briefly.

Just got in from a pavement trot around the village, I've only rarely seen another dog of an evening, tonight we saw 4 and 2 of them we saw twice. All on lead and I have to say we were all doing rather well, i either crossed or the other people did each time ( the pavements are pretty narrow here) and only a pup was bouncing around like a puppet on a string but was soon distracted. A thoroughly pleasant experience.

The only dampner on proceedings was the sleet that started well sleeting. :lol:


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## Werehorse

Sarah1983 said:


> I often wonder how much difference the training methods make with a dogs "personality" (not the right word really but I can't think of the one I want). I mean, clicker training encourages and rewards a dog for experimenting and interacting with its environment whereas your more traditional methods tend to punish that and suppress behaviour. Do I get "weird" dogs because I encourage that weirdness? lol.


I think this is very true. People often comment on how "crazy" my dogs are or similar things. I'm convinced it is cos of the way they've been brought up with reward-based training... Although it is possible they just mean I can't control my dogs.


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## Guest

Helllllllllllooooooo!!!! Sounds like a miserable man you met dogless! Mind you they were all miserable too. I always get Zand to sit and bodyblock him from people so he doesn't lunge or whatever. A lady with a pram said thanks, but one lady actually GLARED at me. Today, Zand seemed to think the world was out to eat him. Everytime a car went past. Hunched or pulled to get away. Everytime a person can too close, same reaction. Same with lorries. And the wheelie bins. And the bin bags. 
Met a man with a westie. We both got our dogs to sit to let the other past. :lol: I managed to lure Zander past with a big treat. He looked at the westie, but everytime I went HEYYY LOOOK he would come back to look at the treat. So thumbsup there.

Stop making me like paddy thorne. :lol: 
Glad Spen's okay and Hope all your dogs are okay twig. 
Hope all of you are alright and so are your dogs, if I've missed you.


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## MollySmith

Cinnamontoast  a lovely video, what nice manners &#9786;
Sarah and MV you are so right about testing, just like Molly. Shes assuming that paw means the answer to everything right now. I do wish she could concentrate on the putting away of toys like Tink.

ouesi  I hope the rain eases and you do get to the car park. 
F&F  I am glad you had two great walks today, well done bella! I hope youre still feeling okay &#9786;
Foxyrockmeister - how is Branston, poor fella. I am sure theyll understand when you get them away.

Dogless  I am so sorry that you had a stressful time, sometimes you cant win whatever you do for the best. Miserable buggers. Anyway I love your photo.

Werehorse  I am glad you had a good walk to but empathise with the lead being daunting. Molly has been perfect apparently with our trainer on her lead but Im getting nervous about our lesson together in case she acts up. I am sorry the vid doesnt work. Photobucket does seem a bit silly.
GR  hope youre okay hun

I am sorry if Ive forgotten anyone. Its been a bit of a day, colleague in tears all day because of the redundancy and just generally a bit rubbish. I have agreed to pick up some freelance design work though for a tidy sum so thats good news. And a job interview tomorrow at 9am. Its a design manager for a chemical company  I have a bit of problem with that as Im allergic to most chemicals including the one that Id be working on promoting and do as much as I can organically because of it. Plus I hate using them for environmental reasons. Bit of a weird one but I think I need to lower my expectations and get on with it.


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## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> You've all been busy again, Dogless the bloke is just being an idiot, *I wish people could stop their dog prior to it jumping all over archie pup*, the photo is stunning.
> Sarah and MV, its great when dogs try other stuff, just so they can confirm what they thought was right is right.
> Sarah, how the diet going ? I've started one too, did a few vids of Archie pup and me for our group page on facebook last week and saw my rear view, oh dear.
> Molly - what a lovely dog.
> Archie's training going well, sendaway and tracking this morning, with a smattering of static heelwork positions and dumbell retrieve this evening, plus as always loads of tuggy.


Ditto for Rudi. I am so conscious that early experiences of Kilo's certainly didn't help him and really want Rudi to remain the confident little fella his is. I know that I should be able to recall which was the man's point and I am putting a lot of work in, but I also know Kilo. Oh well!


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## Guest

Twiggy said:


> I took Quiver for her final laser treatment this morning.


What's the laser treatment for?
Bates is getting his first accupuncture with laser treatment tomorrow. 
He has a bad leg that he favors every once in a while. He's been super sound lately, but he still flops that leg out on sits and on further inspection, has clear arthritic changes in the knee (he's only 4 ). I figure he must have hurt it before we got him. Anyway, we're going to try the laser/accupuncture/massage route. I'm excited to see if it makes a difference...


----------



## Dogless

**FREE TO A GOOD HOME**
TWO CONCRETE HEADED RHODESIAN RIDGEBACKS​
Not really I have just had a very, very frustrating walk :incazzato::incazzato:. Thought I'd do a very short indeed toilet walk with them tonight and work on walking nicely together. Rudi was having none of it tonight. Little git. Walk took an hour :sosp: :rolleyes5: when it should have taken about 15 minutes tops really. Anyway, I got them walking well with a lot of work, only to have Rudi launch the mother of all jump / bite episodes :incazzato:. More destuffing of my poor Puffa jacket and general bruising of my arm / cutting of my hand :sosp:. He has been so good recently too :yesnod::yesnod:. I almost, for a second or two of temper loss and frustration, understood why people give their dogs a good clout rather than going the long way about things . However, I regained my composure and he walked home like an angel. I know it's because he's tired which is why I'd planned such a short  outing.

Kilo gets all bossy when Rudi does it too, so I have to ensure he doesn't stick his oar in at the same time as dealing with Rudi...

Oh, and to top it all, just as we were approaching our street a cat shot out from under a car and ran from us :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> I often wonder how much difference the training methods make with a dogs "personality" (not the right word really but I can't think of the one I want). I mean, clicker training encourages and rewards a dog for experimenting and interacting with its environment whereas your more traditional methods tend to punish that and suppress behaviour. Do I get "weird" dogs because I encourage that weirdness? lol.


I've watched a trainer who was into more old fashioned methods and heavily relied on luring, take part in a clicker class. The goal was for the dog to push a bottle over with their nose, and the method was to shape from any interaction with the bottle. The dog just sat down and looked at their owner waiting to be shown what to do. all the other dogs were sniffing , pawing it, picking it up, running around you name it.

Dunno about you and weirdness but definitely encourage cheekiness.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless, thanks for the link. Balls to the miserable git. I think kilo did very well and they are both a huge credit to you. The photos show a great bond between them. :001_wub:

Wh, Hugo has a girlfriend....swit swoo. :hand: to Oscar the carrot thief. 

Mv, you're so funny:lol: I have a picture in my head of you with a huge dog in your coat. And thumbs up for tonight's walk.

Sarah, oh I do love hearing about spencer. What a star. :001_wub:

Tia, I don't offer any advice really, I'm not all that good at it but I can give lots of praise though.  sounds like you're doing well. 

IM, oh dear. I think I would have given it a miss If it had upset her. Hope she's ok. 

Frm, oh poor branston. Bet he had plenty of cuddles though. 

Well done Zak. :thumbsup:

Thorne, I admire you for your work at blue cross, it must be heart wrenching at times. Hope paddy finds a home soon. 

Twiggy, a wound free day. :thumbup:

LO, well done zand 

Hubby came with me on tonight's walks and because he won't have liver treats in his pocket or he doesn't talk much to the dogs, Freddie was pulling him a bit. He did do a 'steeeeaaaaddddyyyy' in a slow deep voice which was successful so he's forgiven. He can come again. 

I've now got bella snoring her head off next to me, frank on the other sofa and Freddie sulking on the floor cause there's no room for him.


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## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> You've all been busy again, Dogless the bloke is just being an idiot, I wish people could stop their dog prior to it jumping all over archie pup, the photo is stunning.
> Sarah and MV, its great when dogs try other stuff, just so they can confirm what they thought was right is right.
> Sarah, how the diet going ? I've started one too, did a few vids of Archie pup and me for our group page on facebook last week and saw my rear view, oh dear.
> Molly - what a lovely dog.
> Archie's training going well, sendaway and tracking this morning, with a smattering of static heelwork positions and dumbell retrieve this evening, plus as always loads of tuggy.


Please don't tell me that little Archie picks the dumbell up by the middle every time, otherwise I shall have to hit you...!! Holly has been retrieving for about 9 months now and still hasn't got the concept....


----------



## Jenny Olley

Twiggy said:


> Please don't tell me that little Archie picks the dumbell up by the middle every time, otherwise I shall have to hit you...!! Holly has been retrieving for about 9 months now and still hasn't got the concept....


I wont tell you then, but sorry he does, still need a bit of work on his desire, and I suspect when he desires more his sit at the start may be less steady.


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## Thorne

Oh dear Dogless, what a frustrating walk! I don't envy you about the cat, I used to struggle holding onto Scooter when he saw one, let alone holding 2 RRs! Got pulled over once by a pair of normally brilliantly behaved Rottie x GSD's, who'd never seen a goose before and thought they looked like great fun... 
The most important thing is that you only nearly understood why people completely lose it with their dogs, as opposed to losing it yourself 

Shameless plug for some BC dogs I haven't shared before:
Matt Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
Rags Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre

These are "Home Direct" dogs, living with their owners until a new home is found, not met these yet:
Ollie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
Ronnie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
Alfie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
Rio Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre


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## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> What's the laser treatment for?
> Bates is getting his first accupuncture with laser treatment tomorrow.
> He has a bad leg that he favors every once in a while. He's been super sound lately, but he still flops that leg out on sits and on further inspection, has clear arthritic changes in the knee (he's only 4 ). I figure he must have hurt it before we got him. Anyway, we're going to try the laser/accupuncture/massage route. I'm excited to see if it makes a difference...


The K-laser came from America and it treats all manner of things. Arthritis, soft tissue injuries, granulomas, ears, toes, eases tense muscles, etc.

My chiropractor also uses a laser, although not as powerful as my vets.

My dogs also see a Canine Sports Massage therapist now and again.

The K-laser has made a huge difference to Leafy's deeply traumatised shoulder and she's been sound since the initial 6 course treatment almost a year ago. She has a top up about every 6 weeks.

I'm not sure it will be quite as successful on Quiver given her age. She's 14.1/2 yrs old.


----------



## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> I wont tell you then, but sorry he does, still need a bit of work on his desire, and I suspect when he desires more his sit at the start may be less steady.


Yes I just knew he would....LOL I haven't taught Holly to sit and wait yet because if I did she would go out and come back at snail's pace.....

She isn't exactly fast with loads of winding up.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless, how frustrating. Least you got control and didn't loose it. 
If frank decides to have a 'moment' like that, I'm lucky that Freddie doesn't join in else I wouldn't be standing at the end of it. Now cats on the other hand  I wouldn't stand a chance if one ran out infront of us without their dogmatics on.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Dogless, how frustrating. Least you got control and didn't loose it.
> If frank decides to have a 'moment' like that, I'm lucky that Freddie doesn't join in else I wouldn't be standing at the end of it. Now cats on the other hand  I wouldn't stand a chance if one ran out infront of us without their dogmatics on.


Kilo had his headcollar on, Rudi is easy to hold; he feels light compared to Kilo!!


----------



## Guest

Thorne said:


> Oh dear Dogless, what a frustrating walk! I don't envy you about the cat, I used to struggle holding onto Scooter when he saw one, let alone holding 2 RRs! Got pulled over once by a pair of normally brilliantly behaved Rottie x GSD's, who'd never seen a goose before and thought they looked like great fun...
> The most important thing is that you only nearly understood why people completely lose it with their dogs, as opposed to losing it yourself
> 
> Shameless plug for some BC dogs I haven't shared before:
> Matt Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Rags Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> 
> These are "Home Direct" dogs, living with their owners until a new home is found, not met these yet:
> Ollie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Ronnie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Alfie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Rio Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre


Beautiful dogs!!!!!! (I like Rio, and Matt. Odd name for a dog. "MATTTT":lol
And god the amount of times I nearly go bum over face cause Zander 'lurches' forward. :lol:


----------



## Jenny Olley

Twiggy said:


> Yes I just knew he would....LOL I haven't taught Holly to sit and wait yet because if I did she would go out and come back at snail's pace.....
> 
> She isn't exactly fast with loads of winding up.


I can't believe how lucky I am with him, I just love working with him so much. Retrieve is so important in working trials, you will never qualify if your dog has not retrieved any articles, I had done loads of work with articles (pieces of leather, carpet, rubber, plastic etc) then I just thought I'd try the dumbell.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Thorne said:


> Oh dear Dogless, what a frustrating walk! I don't envy you about the cat, I used to struggle holding onto Scooter when he saw one, let alone holding 2 RRs! Got pulled over once by a pair of normally brilliantly behaved Rottie x GSD's, who'd never seen a goose before and thought they looked like great fun...
> The most important thing is that you only nearly understood why people completely lose it with their dogs, as opposed to losing it yourself
> 
> Shameless plug for some BC dogs I haven't shared before:
> Matt Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Rags Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> 
> These are "Home Direct" dogs, living with their owners until a new home is found, not met these yet:
> Ollie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Ronnie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Alfie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Rio Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre


Well, just have a guese at which one, or two, I want.


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne said:


> Shameless plug for some BC dogs I haven't shared before:
> Matt Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Rags Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> 
> These are "Home Direct" dogs, living with their owners until a new home is found, not met these yet:
> Ollie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Ronnie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Alfie Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Rio Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre


I hate seeing older dogs up for rehoming  i hope they all find loving forever homes soon.


----------



## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> I can't believe how lucky I am with him, I just love working with him so much. Retrieve is so important in working trials, you will never qualify if your dog has not retrieved any articles, I had done loads of work with articles (pieces of leather, carpet, rubber, plastic etc) then I just thought I'd try the dumbell.


Yes it's equally important in competitive obedience and is included in every class bar pre-beginners. Class B, C and ticket it can be anything including lumps of metal and no extra commands allowed.

I can just see Holly doing that....


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> I hate seeing older dogs up for rehoming  i hope they all find loving forever homes soon.


Me too. When I finally get my awesome dream house I'm going to have an oldies clubhouse in the big extra kitchen with the AGA in. Unfortunately I'll probably need to be in the oldies clubhouse too by the time I can get that kind of house.


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Thorne, that's a lethal post, I'm in love with them all. I was looking at The Oldies website at the weekend. 

I realise, and how awful of me, that I said nothing about Molly in my post. She's been around on her walks all day with Nelson, then Ralph turned up and she had a play with Dermot the dog/horse - I haven't seen them for ages and I will get a pic of Dermot so we can find out what breed he is. All I know is that he is huge and has a tail like a horse. Anyway, Molly ran with them all and bless her is still wacked out. She came to the door to greet me and then snored next to me all night. And now she's on my feet snoring again after a brief wee break. Gawd I love that dog so much.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Me too. When I finally get my awesome dream house I'm going to have an oldies clubhouse in the big extra kitchen with the AGA in. Unfortunately I'll probably need to be in the oldies clubhouse too by the time I can get that kind of house.


The idea of an oldies clubhouse is lovely - overstuffed comfy sofas, AGA burbling away, nice thick rugs on the floor......


----------



## Beth17

Hi everyone hope you're all ok. Sorry I've not been posting much but I have been reading it's just been a mad few days as I have decided to hopefully move out which is both exciting and a bit scary


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Hi everyone hope you're all ok. Sorry I've not been posting much but I have been reading it's just been a mad few days as I have decided to hopefully move out which is both exciting and a bit scary


That does sound exciting. Will you be moving far?


----------



## Beth17

Twiggy said:


> That does sound exciting. Will you be moving far?


I've been looking at flats/small houses (depending if my brother comes with me) in the same area as I currently am as it's close to uni and also a nice area for the boys.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Beth - New house sounds great! Fingers crossed for you!

Decided not to take Izzy out last night as she wouldnt enjoy it and starting out in the smoke wouldnt be the best start for a positive walk so we just did some training in the house, did some practise with the weaves and a few little jumps. Then we had a nice play. 

She's gone off to daycare today so will be having fun there.

So what are you all having on your pancakes tonight girls?


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Beth - New house sounds great! Fingers crossed for you!
> 
> Decided not to take Izzy out last night as she wouldnt enjoy it and starting out in the smoke wouldnt be the best start for a positive walk so we just did some training in the house, did some practise with the weaves and a few little jumps. Then we had a nice play.
> 
> She's gone off to daycare today so will be having fun there.
> 
> So what are you all having on your pancakes tonight girls?


I'm having a girls night out with friends (non-doggy). So no pancakes for me...LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Izzysmummy said:


> Beth - New house sounds great! Fingers crossed for you!
> 
> Decided not to take Izzy out last night as she wouldnt enjoy it and starting out in the smoke wouldnt be the best start for a positive walk so we just did some training in the house, did some practise with the weaves and a few little jumps. Then we had a nice play.
> 
> She's gone off to daycare today so will be having fun there.
> 
> So what are you all having on your pancakes tonight girls?


I'm glad you and Izzy enjoyed your training and play last night I think it was the best thing to do  No point putting both of your through something stressful needlessly.

I'm out training tonight but did makes slow cooked duck leg with pancakes, plum sauce and jullienne veg on sunday if that counts 

Beth that sounds really exciting good luck with the flat hunt 

WH aww i love the sound of your oldie house.


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## Beth17

Lots of lemon and sugar for me


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## Werehorse

_If_ I do the amount of exercise I'm planning on today, pancakes might be an option (sausages and maple syrup for the win - or lemon and sugar). I have got a feeling I *will* do the exercise because the boys are both completely insane this morning and clearly need some good running. I've gone and made them fit now haven't I? Darn it, and they've got a lot fitter, a lot faster than I have - serious catching up to be done!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello all, firstly non dog related stuff, yesterday was much more emotional for me than I thought, it was when the coffin came in carried by his two strapping sons and 3 even more strapping grandsons :crying: (one of my my cousins is 6'4" and his boys even taller at 17 & 18, all incredibly good looking and just looking so stoic and strong), my brother was also one of the bearers, he is a big lad but looked like a midget next the other boys  My Aunty was amazing, she first met Tony when she was 9 and he 15  (no funny business then :hand when he went to work on her family farm and they married when she was 16 so they really were childhood sweethearts :001_wub:, I can only imagine that as she has a lifetime of happy memories to look back on she is feeling grateful she had more than most, she killed me though. Throughout the funeral, the wake then the crematorium service she just had a smile on her face thanking everyone, even her sons breaking down when they gave their speeches and her granddaughter (whos also nearly 6' at 12 ) being held up by her dad as she tried to read a poem out didn't make her crumble (I mean this in an amazing way not that she is hardfaced) but as we left the crematorium she stopped and blew a kiss to him. there was clearly a lot more to the man than I ever knew and now I feel like a very bad hypocrite 

Any way back to the dogs, Aunty now has 4 collies to look after on her own, 3 of which they bred, in fact the only sign she was near breaking point was when she said she had been tempted to let them come to bed with her so she didn't feel that loneliness, I thought that a marvelous idea, her being buried under a pile of merle collie fluff 

I also met my brothers dog, Tilly, the 4mth vizsla pup. Bless her she is all legs, wiggly long body, and huge ears with an enormous amount of wrinkles to grow into. Ginge stayed at home (with hubby and his migraines again :angry, if it had been a less stressful occasion I would have taken her but there wasn't much time for careful introductions. Sadly Tilly is fed on Bakers and is used being left in the car all day curled up like a cumberland sausage  however Twiggy and Dogless will be please to know she draws blood, my mothers arms 

Any way we had quick but uneventful walks yesterday. A small bit of amusement, as I was about to head out the door yesterday morning I saw the corner shop owner with his giant schnauzer, clearly on a quick pee walk before he had to get to work, so I hovered in our porch unnoticed, he headed for the triangle of grass outside ours , then darted off in another direction, all I could hear was 'Oh Otto, I am getting really annoyed now, will you just do your business'  Glad I am not the only one who talks to their dog.

This morning was however a different story, straight off saw the nasty man with his labs way down the road but ninja kicked straight off, fair play I thought though as last time the golden got right in her ace and she knows them to be a bit urgh. Then saw the landlady and her GSD, the dog is a lovely boy but she has a mean sense of humour so I ran round the corner and up the lane only to be confronted by, 'mad lab' but actually decided her and Odie was the better option so we had a quick bark at him as he ran past, she actually called him on so perhaps she has got the message that not everyone like his friendliness . The rest of the walk was good but hyper. I did a bit of training outside the house then she shot off round the neighbours van as the other neighbour and his old collie hobbled out for their 5 mins so called it a day.

Can you spot the dog, I think she was cold last night.............

Sorry very dark as my phone doesn't have a flash, but she made herself a duvet tent 

Thorne I want all the terriers especially Alfie, he looks a bright little thing but not sure Ginge counts as a calm female yet, but how come they all seem to need care when handling round other dogs 

Dogless - what a pillock on the beach, I can only hope you were the last straw, I think we have all done that, taken it out on the wrong person. And it sounds like the CH behaviour was your last straw, as you know I get to that stage too 

Beth how exciting, I guess if you stay close you will still have the help from your family with the dogs  lots of lemon and sugar for me too, although it wont surprise any of you my favourite topping is bananas, maple syrup and cream with a splash of vodka :yesnod: vodka and maple syrup compliment each other surprisingly well however we have none of those things in the house.

Everyone else, again, well done/sorry/better luck next time 

Will try and keep up now I am back .


----------



## Freddie and frank

beth, how exciting, moving house. hope it all goes well. what are you doing at uni? 

mv, that sounds delightful :drool: my sort of tea.

another vote here for the oldies club :thumbup: i can bring cake.

as for pancackes, lemon and sugar for hubby, and chocolate sauce for me. 


bit of a sh***y walk this morning with boys. 
they pick up on my moods and i didn't wake up in the best state today so firstly bit hubbys head off for no reason then went out with boys both on headcollars.
they both lunged and pulled me about on the pavements. without warning too so they were the out of the blue sharp sudden pulls too. 
stopped, got their attention, carried on, lunged again. took ages to calm them down. 
loosed feddie off and kept frank on a lead and we did some 'watch me' but the little snapper turtle has invaded him again and he had that very alert look in him. but, i kept calm and persevered. got him to rabbitt hill, put him on a long line, asked him to sit, watch me a few times then told him to wait. once he was focused on me again, i let him have a wander. did recalls, threw treats, find it,. all was ok until they had to walk back and they just played up again. took a while and a few tears shed, but last few yards were ok. 

waiting until lunch time to take bella out and seperate walks for boys tonight i think so i can work on the 'no lunging at smells, and getting rid of the snapper turtle.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sounds like a plan F&F, especially at the mo, you need to minimise your stress to make the transition smooth and pain free, hugs for the bad walk.


----------



## Freddie and frank

gr, only read your first bit but just wanted to say, wow, what an amazing woman. ((((((hugs)))))) to you and thanks for sharing that with us.xx

off to read rest now.



eta....can just about see ginge in there. 
and sounds like you were doing a few ninja moves yourself, dodging everyone.
hope you have a good day.


----------



## Dogless

GR - sounds like a tough day yesterday xx.

F&F - ugh. Kilo in particular picks up on my moods too - if I'm stressed or frustrated he can be very hard work .



Beth17 said:


> Hi everyone hope you're all ok. Sorry I've not been posting much but I have been reading it's just been a mad few days as I have decided to hopefully move out which is both exciting and a bit scary


Very exciting, fingers crossed you find the right place soon .



Izzysmummy said:


> So what are you all having on your pancakes tonight girls?


If I decide that pancakes for one isn't too sad it will be sugar and lemon .



Twiggy said:


> I'm having a girls night out with friends (non-doggy). So no pancakes for me...LOL


Don't come on here after too much 'Sex On The Beach' Twiggy posting under the influence :hand: .

A trying but useful and successful training walk this morning. We spent a big chunk of the morning in the park. I decided to take our walking together into a place with more distractions as they're doing so well (apart from the odd blip like last night ). They walked nicely in the main; first 5 - 10 minutes were trying with Kilo lunging for smells and Rudi trying to follow. Cheese got things sorted :yesnod:.

Lots of runners out which was good for the LCH, lots of buggies and lots of folk with dogs. We stayed in areas where I could avoid easily as I didn't want Rudi in too much close contact with dogs yet as he's post kc and because I don't want them greeting on lead. They sat every time I asked them to to let any distractions past, no reactions from either of them . Rudi had three or four concerted efforts at jumping and biting, but terminated them fast when asked to sit - so that's good too.

We had a few loose dogs run up, but apart from me having to make a big effort to keep the boys under control, no dramas. A woman with two JRTs that ran up barking that she had to come and fetch as they wouldn't leave us when we walked away asked me if I trained them myself or went to classes. I said both. She said hers were untrainable - she had taken them to classes run by an ex police dog handler twice and they hadn't made any difference so she'd stopped :rolleyes5: :sosp:.

We are all really tired after all that effort; dogs snoring away and I'm tempted to join them .

Check out Rudi's lugs  :001_wub:. Kilo is doing a very wonky face too....


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I'm glad you and Izzy enjoyed your training and play last night I think it was the best thing to do  No point putting both of your through something stressful needlessly.
> 
> I'm out training tonight but did makes *slow cooked duck leg* with pancakes, plum sauce and jullienne veg on sunday if that counts
> 
> Beth that sounds really exciting good luck with the flat hunt
> 
> WH aww i love the sound of your oldie house.


That sounds delicious, duck is my favourite..


----------



## Freddie and frank

ahhh, that photo, dogless, is gorgeous. :001_wub:

well done to your boys this morning.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> ahhh, that photo, dogless, is gorgeous. :001_wub:
> 
> well done to your boys this morning.


Can't tell there's cheese being dangled at all can you? :sosp: Kilo's got his "No one ever feeds me" ears on and Rudi his hopeful ones!! .


----------



## GingerRogers

Rudi's ears - just like Tilly's her's flop over her eyes like a built in eye mask when she curls up (I cant type today I have a plaster on my index finger which seems to be throwing all the others off  I nearly said a very rude thing  to F&F earlier and nearly boo boo'd there as well with Crudi) except hers are attached to a very slim head (very slim, you can tell she was the runt bless her ) Lovely pic glad you had a better day and nice to see Rudi looking more like a 4mth puppy should be, as he looks small compared to Kilo in that one .


----------



## Beth17

F&F I'm doing animal science/animal conservation science which I love. I hope tonight's walks are less stressful for you.

Dogless what good boys you have and lovely picture  Nothing wrong with pancakes for one.

GR Tough day yesterday but what an amazing woman your Aunty sounds. Lovely picture of the ninja 

MV I've never tried duck but that sounds really nice.

Good walk this morning and took them down to that new park we found. Lots of pulling on the way there from Sam who just wanted to power on ahead but we got there in one piece. It was completely empty again and had their toy so they were both really focussed :thumbup1: It's funny to watch how their play differs in different places.

On another note I've applied for a couple of part time jobs as I'll need the money but I can't help feeling incredibly guilty about having to leave the boys occasionally. I know they are both happy to be left and I have people that can go in and let them out for a wee etc. I just can't help feeling like I'm letting them down.


----------



## L/C

Hey everyone - can't possibly catch up as this thread is mental. Have been dipping in and out all weekend as the in laws were visiting so no time to post. Also had a rather troubling medical appointment today - so just trying to process that atm. Was expecting just a regular review of my thyroid medication but have been referred for an ultrasound of my thyroid and potentially a fine needle aspiration depending on what the ultrasound shows, so a bit scary.

Haven't told anyone yet as I don't want to worry them.

In dog related stuff - Gypsy remains a star, although the squirrel that popped out in front of us yesterday morning was just too much to resist so that was chased up a tree. Positively though she came straight back rather then dancing around the base of the tree for ages or going off to search for more prey. We've also been working on not taking the bait bag out and using games and actions as rewards - so far that seems to be going quite well.

Ely is back on bed rest due to the return of the snow and ice. Don't want him putting his shoulder out again.


----------



## Dogless

L/C; how worrying - I do hope that the U/S appointment comes swiftly to stop your mind going into too much overdrive xx.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C; how worrying - I do hope that the U/S appointment comes swiftly to stop your mind going into too much overdrive xx.


It's Friday afternoon - sorry, meant to put that in the other post and forgot.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> It's Friday afternoon - sorry, meant to put that in the other post and forgot.


That is good; will send best thoughts your way.


----------



## Beth17

L/C I hope friday comes quickly for you and the ultrasound is all clear x


----------



## Twiggy

L/C Really sorry to hear you are having thyroid problems. I hope the U/S appointment comes quickly and is nothing to worry about.

My husband has had quite a few GP appointments and blood tests relating to his thyroid recently but his is more to do with whether he needs thyroxin or not.

Very sensible to be cautious with Ely at the moment. Soft tissue problems can be such a nightmare


----------



## moonviolet

L/C glad the wait for the ultra sound isn't too long, best wishes for you sighing a huge sigh of relief.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> It's Friday afternoon - sorry, meant to put that in the other post and forgot.


Well that's good - not too much time to work yourself up into a tizz.


----------



## L/C

Beth17 said:


> L/C I hope friday comes quickly for you and the ultrasound is all clear x


I'm sure it'll all be fine (webmd is not my friend!) and I'll be back on here feeling silly for being so dramatic. Like when I convinced myself Ely definitely had osteosarcoma and not just a pulled muscle. 

Thanks for all the kind words - not sure whether to tell OH and family because I don't want to worry them (mum is a terrible hypochondriac on behalf of me and my sister) so it helps to have somewhere to let it out here.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled thread on weight loss, hair styles, nights out and , oh yes, dog training.


----------



## Twiggy

Yes back to dog training..!! I'm sitting here waiting for Gary and his GSD to arrive. They should have been here at 1.45pm. Typical unreliable man.


----------



## Maria_1986

Sorry I haven't posted for a bit - I don't want you thinking I soaked up your advice and ran away however its been a busy few days. We left to pick up Chevy at about 6am Sunday morning and got home again at about 5pm. She traveled like an angel, has been clean in the house, asks to go out if she needs the toilet, will sit, give paw and wait for you to give the ok before launching herself on her breakfast/dinner, does not beg or hassle us when we are eating, has an ok recall on an extending lead and likes to sleep under the duvet with people (she makes a great hot water bottle! ). 

She doesn't seem interested in any toys as yet and is not that bothered by treats or food however she is very clingy at the moment so is responding better to a fuss and praise then food rewards at the moment. She is not great on a lead and seems to be incapable of walking in a straight line, she also goes deaf upon seeing a squirrel and is not very settled when left alone (although she is not noisey or destructive she is just not happy). So we have plenty to work on. We have put our names down for the next intake of a local training class thats been recommended to me but will continue to try to work on things at home in the mean time. 

My other half fell in love at first sight and has already broken his own 'no dogs on the sofa' rule within 2 hours of her being here by having her up on his lap for a cuddle  I think I'm going to be replaced as most loved living thing (the xbox holds the non living thing title) but I don't mind being second best to the dog as long as he realises he will also be second best to the dog! Her little tail has not stopped wagging and we are very glad she has joined our family.

I hope everyone else and their fur kids are doing well and are healthy and happy.


----------



## Werehorse

L/C - Hopefully it'll all come to nothing, at least it isn't too long to wait. *hugs and tea* for you. Personally I would tell OH, for the real life hugs and support, but we're all different. I wouldn't tell a hypochondriac mother until I knew exactly what as what.


----------



## Werehorse

We all officially need to get ourselves a guinea pig to train...

So you want to be a good dog trainer! | Roger Abrantes

And how cool is this??

Guinea Pig Flyball!!! - YouTube

ETA - and OMFG! This puts me to shame. :lol:


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> We all officially need to get ourselves a guinea pig to train...
> 
> So you want to be a good dog trainer! | Roger Abrantes
> 
> And how cool is this??
> 
> Guinea Pig Flyball!!! - YouTube


It wouldn't last long in this house!

I love piggies - I used to have them as a kid. :001_wub: I miss being able to have small furries but the dispatcher of all things rodent cannot be denied.


----------



## Maria_1986

Werehorse said:


> We all officially need to get ourselves a guinea pig to train...
> 
> So you want to be a good dog trainer! | Roger Abrantes
> 
> And how cool is this??
> 
> Guinea Pig Flyball!!! - YouTube


I have 4 guineas - I now want to try guinea pig flyball!


----------



## Sarah1983

I've clicker trained rats, does that count?

L/C, fingers crossed for you. I'd tell my hubby but not my mum until I knew more coz she'd get herself into a right state worrying.

Maria, sounds like Chevy is settling well


----------



## moonviolet

Maria sounds like Chevy is settling in very well  I'm so pleased for you ad it sounds like OH is besotted too 

WH interesting acticle. I love the videos, especially the mouse one :001_wub::001_wub:

On a side note, can someone explain to me the attraction of flyball, it seems like its just a fast retrieve with a couple of jumps. Is there more skill to it that i'm missing?


----------



## GingerRogers

How cute Guinea pig flyball  my friend M threatened to buy me a piggle for Christmas last year, I threatened to give it to Rory if she did, I was very worried when she said she had a present for me this year  As much as Ninja would love one to play with, I don't think it would last long somehow .

L/C - I am with Werehorse, tell OH but not mum, someone needs to be there for you in real life not just us screen phonies, hope youa re worrying about nothing.
Well done Gypsy.  Buffer ran out of sight after a squizzel once, all we could hear was this horrific squealing sound, we were convinced he must have got stuck in trap or something, but twas just frustration squeals 

Maria, so glad Chevy is settling down  and you OH has the gooey eyes already, makes it easier to get permission to buy more dog stuff 

Werehorse - woah! we all have a lot to learn about clicker training me thinks. Mices playing basket ball


----------



## Maria_1986

Thank you for the replies 



GingerRogers said:


> Maria, so glad Chevy is settling down  and you OH has the gooey eyes already, makes it easier to get permission to buy more dog stuff


Its funny you say that - in less than 24 hours he has gone from moaning about me wanting to buy another harness, collar and lead set for her to wondering if we should get two sets because he can't decide which colour she looks better in - oh and shouldn't we get her another coat so that she has one for when the one she has now is in the wash?


----------



## GingerRogers

Maria_1986 said:


> Thank you for the replies
> 
> Its funny you say that - in less than 24 hours he has gone from moaning about me wanting to buy another harness, collar and lead set for her to wondering if we should get two sets because he can't decide which colour she looks better in - oh and shouldn't we get her another coat so that she has one for when the one she has now is in the wash?


Yeah, he is officially hooked, I knew my hubby was when we went to the pet shop for chew treats, to stop her chewing the car, (she ate the seat belt while we were in the shop though ) and he chose a new toy for her, not just any old 1.99 toy either a 6.99 skineeze toy


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Yeah, he is officially hooked, I knew my hubby was when we went to the pet shop for chew treats, to stop her chewing the car, *(she ate the seat belt while we were in the shop though )* and he chose a new toy for her, not just any old 1.99 toy either a 6.99 skineeze toy


:laugh::laugh::laugh:

My hubby came back from the mainland this time with 3 packets of Fish4Dogs treats for the CHs....nothing for me.....despite his seeming total disinterest in all things 'dog' bar cuddling them when they're sleepy .


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless - lovely photo of the boys! :001_wub:

Beth - Good luck with the job applications, sounds like a nice walk this morning!

L/C - I definitely agree with everyone else and think you should tell OH. Maybe he can even go along to the appointment with you? I always think its good to have an extra set of ears to remember everything thats said and ask questions you may not think of. Poor Tarnus has been dragged along to all my colposcopy appointments and he usually has to open the results as I'll just sit looking at the envelope fretting about whats inside !
Got everything crossed everything goes OK on Friday!

Maria - Sounds like Chevy's got your OH smitten!! Wish Tarnus would be more keen when I suggest Izzy simply *has* to have something new!

Werehorse - I cant watch the videos at work ! Would love to have some guinea piglets to train though!


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> Dogless - lovely photo of the boys! :001_wub:
> 
> Beth - Good luck with the job applications, sounds like a nice walk this morning!
> 
> L/C - *I definitely agree with everyone else and think you should tell OH. *Maybe he can even go along to the appointment with you? I always think its good to have an extra set of ears to remember everything thats said and ask questions you may not think of. Poor Tarnus has been dragged along to all my colposcopy appointments and he usually has to open the results as I'll just sit looking at the envelope fretting about whats inside !
> Got everything crossed everything goes OK on Friday!
> 
> Maria - Sounds like Chevy's got your OH smitten!! Wish Tarnus would be more keen when I suggest Izzy simply *has* to have something new!
> 
> Werehorse - I cant watch the videos at work ! Would love to have some guinea piglets to train though!


I wouldn't tell my hubby. Wouldn't advise it either though, it's stupid, I can just never bring myself to tell anyone these things .


----------



## Freddie and frank

L/C, hope all goes ok. got my fingers crossed for you. yes, tell hubby. even if it's for another set of ears as Izzysmummy said.


----------



## tiatortilla

oh man, i cannot keep up with this!
maria - congrats on the addition, she sounds lovely!
hope everyone's had a good walk today!
tia made a nice little friend on our walk today, a yorkie crossed with something a bit bigger maybe? idk he was cute anyway, and tia liked him a lot.
i have a question - does anyone else's dog get their hackles up while playing? tia does rather a lot. and i've seen her playing with enough dogs to know that it's definitely play but i worry about her giving off the wrong signals.


----------



## Freddie and frank

tia, mine do, with tails wagging when they are playing nicely so i'm interested too as to what others say.

well, i took bella out on a walk and thought of a route which would include a game of fetch and lots of running around with me on a field.

down the road, towards canal, met a gorgeous lab x lurcher rescue. he was :001_wub: had a chat with the lady and she said how fit bella looked.

then we came to this.....
















it's a river that's about 10 yards in width, and normally has cows either side of it.

and we'd planned to go down these steps, across the field, and back towards the canal again.









and look at those for dysfunctional ears... i think maybe she was the runt of the litter, bless her.









anyway, we carried on along the path, met some more dogs, all friendly, then did a loop back through a bit of the town. had to go up a busy road, which she didn't like....ears back a lot, so i got her to hold her toy and we ran for a bit which she seemed to like. 
so, had a good walk in all.
sorry for the huge pictures, and the eye snot in the last pic.

ETA.... sorrry dogless, i should have put the ear picture in your thread. doh. i'm a bit dizzy.


----------



## L/C

Both hackles up and tails wagging are a sign of adrenaline which can be caused by fear or excitement.

So hackles up isn't always linked to an aggressive response and a wagging tail doesn't always mean a dog is happy.


----------



## tiatortilla

L/C said:


> Both hackles up and tails wagging are a sign of adrenaline which can be caused by fear or excitement.
> 
> So hackles up isn't always linked to an aggressive response and a wagging tail doesn't always mean a dog is happy.


i know it's not aggressive, but do other dogs always know that? that's what i mean, like, will the other dog know that she's only excited? no dogs have ever taken offense to it before so i suppose i just answered my own question lol..


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Both hackles up and tails wagging are a sign of adrenaline which can be caused by fear or excitement.
> 
> So hackles up isn't always linked to an aggressive response and a wagging tail doesn't always mean a dog is happy.


I had never thought about it that way, I knew a wagging tail wasn't a sure sign of happiness (glad I know that now, used to work with a bloke who was convinced that if a dog was barking but its tail wagging it was no threat , don't think he ever came to harm but.....) but never relayed that to hackles. Desperately trying to think of whose dog it was that used to do that and confuse us as we thought it was pleased at the time but the hackles made us think otherwise.

At Tia, I imagine a dog would understand as they read all of the signs given off, after all they understand the tail thing


----------



## L/C

tiatortilla said:


> i know it's not aggressive, but do other dogs always know that? that's what i mean, like, will the other dog know that she's only excited? no dogs have ever taken offense to it before so i suppose i just answered my own question lol..


They should do - they won't only be using the hackles as a guide but the rest of her body language. As long as they are stable dogs and she is polite then a play bow is universal the sign that everything that happens after is just in play even if normally it could be interpreted another way.

For example - if a dog play bowed to Gypsy and had hackles up and was barking - she would either reciprocate or walk off. As long as they respected that then no problem. But if they did the same to Ely he would interpret it as an aggressive gesture because he isn't particularly stable and doesn't seem to read body language and big picture very well.

If Tia has never had any problems and is interacting with known, sensible dogs then I wouldn't worry about it.


----------



## Freddie and frank

L/C said:


> Both hackles up and tails wagging are a sign of adrenaline which can be caused by fear or excitement.
> 
> So hackles up isn't always linked to an aggressive response and a wagging tail doesn't always mean a dog is happy.


i understand but wanted to ask something without seeming totally thick. 

so my three do it when they hear someone going past our garden.
we live on a corner with a huge hedge and about a 10 foot drop the other side so we can hear people but never see them. would that be fear or just not knowing what's going on???


----------



## L/C

Freddie and frank said:


> i understand but wanted to ask something without seeming totally thick.
> 
> so my three do it when they hear someone going past our garden.
> we live on a corner with a huge hedge and about a 10 foot drop the other side so we can hear people but never see them. would that be fear or just not knowing what's going on???


It's hard to say without seeing the rest of their body language or understanding how they respond to visitors.

Ely does it sometimes in the garden but from the rest of his body language it's usually excitement (the thought that he might get to meet someone or a fox/cat/hedgehog has triggered prey drive). Do they usually respond positively to visitors, do they alarm bark, what is their general body language like (stiff, loose, mouth closed or open, are their eyes soft)?


----------



## MollySmith

Afternoon all.

L/C - huggles and deep breaths, I hope it all goes okay. 

Ginge - so good to hear from you again and it sounds like yesterday went as well as it could do. What a brave family you have.

All this talk of body language makes me want to ask a question but I'm worried in case it means Molly is doing something naughty. When she seems another dog on her off lead walks that's also off lead she always drops to the ground on her belly as if to size up first. Always stays still to wait until I let her 'go play'. She's never had an problem with greetings so I'm assuming it's a good thing?

Anyway, apart from that we had a very very muddy walk. My god it's awful! Molly lost her footing and slid several times so she's caked. She hates being washed, loathes it and gets very scared so I feel bad but it has to be done. Saw no other dogs, sensible creature and I think we'll have to find another walk.


----------



## L/C

MollySmith said:


> Afternoon all.
> 
> L/C - huggles and deep breaths, I hope it all goes okay.
> 
> Ginge - so good to hear from you again and it sounds like yesterday went as well as it could do. What a brave family you have.
> 
> All this talk of body language makes me want to ask a question but I'm worried in case it means Molly is doing something naughty. When she seems another dog on her off lead walks that's also off lead she always drops to the ground on her belly as if to size up first. Always stays still to wait until I let her 'go play'. She's never had an problem with greetings so I'm assuming it's a good thing?
> 
> Anyway, apart from that we had a very very muddy walk. My god it's awful! Molly lost her footing and slid several times so she's caked. She hates being washed, loathes it and gets very scared so I feel bad but it has to be done. Saw no other dogs, sensible creature and I think we'll have to find another walk.


Again - it's difficult to say without seeing the rest of her body language but if she isn't having problems interacting with other dogs then I wouldn't think it was an issue. It is an issue when dogs drop to their belly to begin the stalk part of the chase sequence (most often collies and collie x's) but if you look at how that dog is presenting itself it is very tense. Hard face, stiff body, tight closed mouth, usually with a very intense stare and sometimes with a slowly wagging tail.

If Molly looks quite loose and relaxed, with a soft mouth and eyes then I wouldn't worry (and generally other dogs would avoid her and not be happy to greet if that wasn't the case). Some dogs like to stop and asses the situation before they go in for a greeting.

Also I know she has some lead frustration - did she have a similar excitement problem off lead? If you taught her to stop and check in with you before she goes to greet then it may be an extension of that.


----------



## MollySmith

L/C said:


> Again - it's difficult to say without seeing the rest of her body language but if she isn't having problems interacting with other dogs then I wouldn't think it was an issue. It is an issue when dogs drop to their belly to begin the stalk part of the chase sequence (most often collies and collie x's) but if you look at how that dog is presenting itself it is very tense. Hard face, stiff body, tight closed mouth, usually with a very intense stare and sometimes with a slowly wagging tail.
> 
> If Molly looks quite loose and relaxed, with a soft mouth and eyes then I wouldn't worry (and generally other dogs would avoid her and not be happy to greet if that was the case). Some dogs like to stop and asses the situation before they go in for a greeting.
> 
> Also I know she has some lead frustration - did she have a similar excitement problem off lead? If you taught her to stop and check in with you before she goes to greet then it may be an extension of that.


Yes we have taught her watch me so I think it's an extension. Certainly the behaviourist thinks she's grand at off lead play. I was watching her at w/e and thinking what is that all about!


----------



## Freddie and frank

L/C said:


> It's hard to say without seeing the rest of their body language or understanding how they respond to visitors.
> 
> Ely does it sometimes in the garden but from the rest of his body language it's usually excitement (the thought that he might get to meet someone or a fox/cat/hedgehog has triggered prey drive). Do they usually respond positively to visitors, do they alarm bark, what is their general body language like (stiff, loose, mouth closed or open, are their eyes soft)?


they all just wiggle a lot and go very bendy when we have visitors, with mouths open, usually with a ball or something in, and all eyes are soft.

when bella hears people going past the garden, she's a bit stiff with a bit of barking.
freddie barks quite deep, and runs towards the noise with tail straight out.

frank is the most alert really, and it's exactly like his switch has been flicked from a big bendy soft dog to a rigid alert dog. the same stance as he does on walks that i'm having probs with.

i can easily distract them though in the confines of the garden and they go all bendy again.
does that help?


----------



## L/C

Freddie and frank said:


> they all just wiggle a lot and go very bendy when we have visitors, with mouths open, usually with a ball or something in, and all eyes are soft.
> 
> when bella hears people going past the garden, she's a bit stiff with a bit of barking.
> freddie barks quite deep, and runs towards the noise with tail straight out.
> 
> frank is the most alert really, and it's exactly like his switch has been flicked from a big bendy soft dog to a rigid alert dog. the same stance as he does on walks that i'm having probs with.
> 
> i can easily distract them though in the confines of the garden and they go all bendy again.
> does that help?


Sounds like it's territorial then. As long as you can distract them - that's the main thing. Ultimately it is a fear thing (must protect territory from potential interloper) and it's that adrenaline which will cause the hackles to rise. Personally I wouldn't allow them to practice that behaviour as I would find it irritating and I try to keep adrenaline levels as low as possible to maintain the calm of grumpy dog.  It doesn't sound like it's a massive issue for them if they are easily distracted and not fixated.

It sounds like Frank is the one who is most interested - can you still bring him down quite easily?


----------



## tiatortilla

L/C, thanks! that all sounds fine then  she waits to get the 'ok' from me and then goes off for a sniff and then play bow or encourages the other dog to chase her and her body language is relaxed, so they should be able to see past the raised hackles 
it was only a small worry, not something that keeps me awake at night but i shall worry no longer!


----------



## Sarah1983

tiatortilla said:


> i have a question - does anyone else's dog get their hackles up while playing? tia does rather a lot. and i've seen her playing with enough dogs to know that it's definitely play but i worry about her giving off the wrong signals.


Yup. Spens hackles often go up when playing. It's a sign of arousal, not necessarily aggression. None of the other dogs have reacted badly to Spen but I usually call a time out then because I know he's on his way to getting silly and humpy.


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## Freddie and frank

L/C said:


> Sounds like it's territorial then. As long as you can distract them - that's the main thing. Ultimately it is a fear thing (must protect territory from potential interloper) and it's that adrenaline which will cause the hackles to rise. Personally I wouldn't allow them to practice that behaviour as I would find it irritating and I try to keep adrenaline levels as low as possible to maintain the calm of grumpy dog.  It doesn't sound like it's a massive issue for them if they are easily distracted and not fixated.
> 
> It sounds like Frank is the one who is most interested - can you still bring him down quite easily?


i can, yes. bit more tricky out on walks but we're working on it. 
i do step in straight away if they do make a fuss cause i don't want anyone to think i've got scary dogs.

thanks for that.

ooh, beth, sorry i forgot to say your uni sounds very interesting.


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## Freddie and frank

just another quicky, cause i'm still supposed to be working.

so when bella meets dogs, both off lead,she gets wiggly then she crawls to them then rolls over wagging her tail.... this is good? 

i know i have three and i should know things like this, but i'm so concious of being polite and courteous to other dogs and owners. more so since being on PF. 

excuse my spelling, i'm not on the i-pad.


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## Dogless

tiatortilla - Kilo's hackles can go up in play. He will also drop to his belly when another dog is approaching offlead but in an 'I'm no threat / soft sort of way'. If it is a dog he knows well and plays with he will sometimes stalk in play - as he will stalk me in play.

Occasionally, like yesterday, when the other dog's body language isn't good and he is nervous he will 'stalk' up to them as a very unsure approach. BUT not a good one - returns the fixed eye contact and maintains it and creeps forward, freezing in a point, then doing a little run in etc and repeat. If he gets there however he lies down. On this sort of approach I have to tell him to wait as he is very, very reluctant to turn his back on the dog. We once met a dog that did the same; they both got stuck in this horrendous 'point and stare' - very tense - and ended up having handbags - never closer together than 2 - 3m, both barking and backing off; two very unsure dogs. He has been known to do it onlead too when afraid of an approaching dog.


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## Guest

WE HAVE JUST HAD ANOTHER DOG IN THE HOUSE. ZANDER SNIFFED IT THEN WENT ABOUT HIS KINGDOM LIKE IT WASN'T THERE. 

ALMOST FLATTENED THE OWNER THOUGH.


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## L/C

Freddie and frank said:


> just another quicky, cause i'm still supposed to be working.
> 
> so when bella meets dogs, both off lead,she gets wiggly then she crawls to them then rolls over wagging her tail.... this is good?
> 
> i know i have three and i should know things like this, but i'm so concious of being polite and courteous to other dogs and owners. more so since being on PF.
> 
> excuse my spelling, i'm not on the i-pad.


As long as she seems generally happy to meet and this doesn't appear to be prompted by anxiety (overly submissive dogs that present with a lot of appeasement signals sometimes can be) then it's fine. Make sure that she doesn't start to irritate the other dog if she's a face licker (another appeasement signal) as I've seen things kick off when one dog did this for too long.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> As long as she seems generally happy to meet and this doesn't appear to be prompted by anxiety (overly submissive dogs that present with a lot of appeasement signals sometimes can be) then it's fine. Make sure that she doesn't start to irritate the other dog if she's a face licker (another appeasement signal) as I've seen things kick off when one dog did this for too long.


A dog here licks Kilo's face obsessively even if he turns his head away, walks off etc. Every time he stops playing to sniff a tree or something the dog is there, licking his face. I had to put him onlead the last couple of times and take him away as his mouth was getting tighter, face tenser, tail out like a rod. It was only a matter of time before he told him to bugger off.


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## L/C

Dogless said:


> A dog here licks Kilo's face obsessively even if he turns his head away, walks off etc. Every time he stops playing to sniff a tree or something the dog is there, licking his face. I had to put him onlead the last couple of times and take him away as his mouth was getting tighter, face tenser, tail out like a rod. It was only a matter of time before he told him to bugger off.


It seems to be quite a complicated behaviour. In anxious dogs it works like a displacement behaviour - they are anxious so they use an appeasement signal but because they are anxious they carry on doing it for too long. Plus I think it makes them feel less anxious (licking and chewing generally does) so you end up with this weird feedback loop.

I've seen other dogs use it almost as a bullying behaviour. On the surface it's appeasement but actually it seems to be more of an attention seeking thing - "Play with me! Do what I want! Now!" and it's done in a way that brings them maximum interaction. The dogs I've seen do this were rewarded for this sort of behaviour as a puppy and then have carried it on through to adolescence and adulthood.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> It seems to be quite a complicated behaviour. In anxious dogs it works like a displacement behaviour - they are anxious so they use an appeasement signal but because they are anxious they carry on doing it for too long. Plus I think it makes them feel less anxious (licking and chewing generally does) so you end up with this weird feedback loop.
> 
> I've seen other dogs use it almost as a bullying behaviour. On the surface it's appeasement but actually it seems to be more of an attention seeking thing - "Play with me! Do what I want! Now!" and it's done in a way that brings them maximum interaction. The dogs I've seen do this were rewarded for this sort of behaviour as a puppy and then have carried it on through to adolescence and adulthood.


This one is more the latter - I was thinking about it the other day funnily enough after we'd met again. He is a very confident dog, bordering on pushy.

There is a BC here who will do it briefly, but then roll over squirming about on his back before play commences! Rudi will do it after he's pushed Kilo too far and received a reprimand.

All this is absolutely fascinating.


----------



## moonviolet

Tagalong dog is a face licker and she really really persisitent i've seen a couple dogs get stressed by it and had a call her away, she's a lovely dog but it's a real pest having to manage these things and apologise for a dog that's just foisted themself upon you " sighs"


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> This one is more the latter - I was thinking about it the other day funnily enough after we'd met again. He is a very confident dog, bordering on pushy.
> 
> There is a BC here who will do it briefly, but then roll over squirming about on his back before play commences! Rudi will do it after he's pushed Kilo too far and received a reprimand.
> 
> All this is absolutely fascinating.


It is isn't it, I wish you could see Ginge kick off L/C, bet you would know what she's thinking (then again I am not sure she knows ) My old boss has a lovely gentle lurcher that does the face licking but I think thats in a totally appropriate 'I am not a threat you can be calm round me' way as Ginge has always accepted her completely and doesn't even try and jump on her head, she does get the licks in first though.

I always thought the rolling over and squirming thing was a bit of a worry in that its a bit too submissive unless required to diffuse a situation, our Rudi used to drop straight off on seeing Rory & Rosie, as well as other dogs, right over and let his bits be licked. He is less what I would call 'overly submissive' now he lives with Tamzin, he is still fairly wary of people but even jumped up on hubbies lap the other night (he has taken to bothering me persistently since I carry liver cake however)


----------



## Thorne

-Beth - Good luck with the moving-out! How exciting  Well done for a good, toy-focused walk.
-Izzysmummy - I think I would have done the same, but then again my wimpy dog has me wrapped around her finger and can bend me to her will... hope she had a good time at day care.
-MV - Hope training goes well tonight!
-Werehorse - Heard about your antics via facebook, well done!
-GR - Thinking of you and your family tonight, sounds like a lovely send off. I don't know Alfie from BC at all but a lot of the terriers that come in are sent over from Irish pounds after being found straying, so they've got no history and more often than not they're feisty little beggars! Sweet dogs really, but typical terriers.
-F&F - What a shame, they always seem to pick up on how we feel don't they?  Incredible floods! Pleased that babybel was good for you.
-Dogless - Cheese is the answer to almost everything! Sounds like the 3 of you had a good one, hope there were no grumps around today.
-L/C - Hope all goes well with your thyroid check, and that Ely's back out on walks soon.
-Maria - So pleased that Chevy is settling in well  She's already training your OH!
-TiaT - Lovely that Tia made a friend today. One of the Blue Cross dogs always plays with hackles up, I imagine some dogs would take offence but I can't see any aggression in him, he does it most noticeably when playing fetch so I think it's complete over-excitement. Scooter does it when he wrestles with my Aunt's Goldie but not in other play.
-MollyS - That sounds like nice calming body language from Molly, as opposed to a stalk. If she's having no problems offlead it sounds like she's doing something right! It's beyond muddy here too, never seen the fields (or garden!) this bad before and we're all sick of it!
-LO - GLAD THE DOG WASN'T FLATTENED TOO! :001_tt2:

I had an interesting morning! Went off with 2 dogs and 2 staff members to Suffolk Constabulary HQ  Blue Cross sometimes lends dogs to them for potential dog handler trials, to see how the applicants respond to unfamiliar, non-police dogs. Was really interesting to see how different each of the candidates were, all of them were good with the dogs and not rough or forceful, but these days I'm noticing little "mistakes" that I wouldn't have spotted before starting my placement, made me realise how much I've learnt (from PF as well as BC!). Rags and Bouncer the dogs were little stars and enjoyed their trip out, Emma and I enjoyed the men in uniform :ihih:

Paddy was in a daft mood today, had some good playtime with fetch and tug then he went into mental Lurcher mode and tried doing zoomies _into_ my legs, grumbling at me to play and ended up getting mouthy. So went back to the beloved rubber ring to get his focus on something other than my hands! Wasn't in the mood to learn today, just tug. Nutter.
Walked shy Bryn who was braver than yesterday but still very wired and worried, had Lola in the garden for fetch and toy destruction, and spent time with my new favourite girl, Panda :001_wub: Taught her a basic sit and had lots of playtime and cuddles. I _love_ Collies, can't wait until I'm able to have one of my own.

Mum took a keen Scooter and reluctant Breeze out today, and I've not long found a lump on Scooter's side  
He's had a recurring lump there for several years which has always died down by the time we decide to take him to the vets, and we've just been asked to monitor it. It's a little bigger than before (broad bean sized), hard and only attached to his skin. Nothing to see from the outside and doesn't seem to trouble him so will see what it's like tomorrow and re-evaluate.
Any ideas? We're hoping it's a fatty lump, he's an older boy after all.


----------



## Thorne

Sorry for the mammoth post!


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## Dogless

Thorne; sounds like a lipoma if it's edges are very defined and you can move it about. Really hope it's nothing serious.

Second walks for the CHs today were separate - Rudi before their dinner and Kilo a few hours after it; I wanted some respite from the bitter, bitter weather .

*Rudi:* Given how windy it was he was very good; sat to let a dog past without prompting when I took him to the side (alleyway) and ignored a jogger . Tried the jump / bite routine a few times but it was easily stopped. Probably because there's no fun in trying to destuff a Puffa jacket that already has most of it's stuffing missing  :devil:.

*Kilo:* I was hoping for a very quiet walk as it was very windy and dark, so thought the combo would make him a bit skittish. Wrong. Something has happened to him . He left the house very calmly, minimal prancing on the bogey street. Then, when we got around the corner there were loads of teen types with hoods up emerging from a dark area of grass / bushes where they like to 'hide' and drink, They saw us and made a load of 'whooping' and 'barking' noises and drifted all over the road, plus kicked a football about in front of us and....._the BW just trotted on by my side_. He wasn't 'shut down can't process any more' quiet but...simply not bothered...his tail was relaxed, trot was relaxed, ears relaxed and no lip licking or tension on the lead  . It was as if he was saying "I know your game young 'uns and it's not going to work any more" . I was so pleased that I wanted to cry . The rest of the walk was lovely and relaxed, not many folk out as the rain started to come in too. We saw a few folk, but no bother .

My best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.


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## MollySmith

Molly always licks dogs faces  Not constantly but she just does it if she's having a potter about. It doesn't seem to be a thing where she wants attention from them but more of a 'hello' I think. And not all dogs either and much less than used to.

The only off lead behaviour that I don't like of her is that she sort of licks and pushes at our friend's dog face. He's a funny old thing, my friend is convinced he smells of something as most dogs smell his man bits but Molly has zero interest in male parts so he loves to play with her.

When she's anxious though Molly sort of does this lick and push -it's not a nibble as she doesn't use any teeth. And only to him, not the other dogs. It does seem to be when we've left her there for a while, on her walks with him never, just when OH or I are not around.


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## Sarah1983

Well Spencer has been a royal pain in the ass today. If it's not nailed down he's nicked it. And would he let me charge my phone? No, he kept bringing it to me with the charger trailing behind. He lunged at the dog upstairs wanting to play with her. I would have left him off leash but I noticed the owner had her toddler with her and I didn't want Spen to go charging over and send her flying. So instead he did his silly lunging, prancing, "I'm going to dance on your head" routine coz of course the dog came over. He's sneaked into the kitchen and raided the bin although the weirdo chose a carrier bag over the half pack of bacon in there. And he took my clean washing out for a pee with him. I took it off him before opening the front door to the block, he grabbed it and took off with it when I released him to go outside. Little horror.

I used to know a Lab who constantly licked other dogs faces. It drove a lot of them mad but she was so fat she was very easy for them to get away from. It was really fast, really pushy licking and would go on for as long as they'd put up with it and even if they moved off she'd follow to try to carry on.


----------



## Beth17

Sam is a face licker although only really with Oscar. Oscar is a bugger for stalking dogs and doing a little run forward which looks very intimidating as he has very tight, stiff body language, I am constantly trying to distract him and redirect him.
My two often have hackles up when playing and enjoying themselves, it does mean I keep an eye on them because this is usually quickly followed by it going too far and then one ends up taking offence 

Thorne hopefully the lump is just a fatty one. Lucky you spending time with some men in uniform 

Dogless wasn't Kilo fantastic :thumbup:

MS I think Molly sounds like she has very good body language 

LO Yay for Zand ignoring the other dog 

Sam isn't very happy I was cutting his nails and he moved so I ended up cutting his quick. Cue blood everywhere.

ETA: Sorry Kevin was back again today Sarah. Hopefully he'll be gone tomorrow.


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## Dogless

Sarah...please say it wasn't your undies that he chose to take outside? .


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah...please say it wasn't your undies that he chose to take outside? .


Lol, it actually was :blushing: But they were in the laundry bag which is just a fabric shopping bag and it was all tied up so Spen could carry it without everything falling out (he's not mastered handles). So my undies weren't on show to the world.


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## Werehorse

I can't keep up today! Been running the legs of the boys and trying to earn pancakes which I haven't had in the end as we have no flour and I was too tired to be bothered to get some. :lol:

Both dogs had a run with me this morning on the roads, about 2.5 miles each. Then we went round Dodd Wood this afternoon for 5 miles. They were very good boys today after being totally crazy this morning. They seem to have more energy on the new food. 

So I've run 5 miles and walked 5 miles today. Pleased with that! 

Hugo licks Oscar's face but usually when one of Oscar's eyes is a bit sore from hammering the vegetation too hard  or when he has a wet face. Oscar always looks really grumpy about being licked but most of the time doesn't move away, just sits there looking sad. 

Crazy day for Spendog! ut: I think there's something in the air today; mine were gearing themselves up for a day of madness before I ran it out of them!

And well-done Kilo for coping with the teenagers. 

I hope Scooter's lump is nothing serious, Thorne. I'd get it checked (keeping in mind how trigger happy I am about getting to the vets!).


----------



## diefenbaker

Is there a prize for the 10,000th poster ? I'm so excited I can't go to sleep.


----------



## Malkam

i triyng hunting and stuff like that... i may use THIS  course to train my Dog  have you ever hear it?? is it any good??


----------



## Dogless

Malkam said:


> i triyng hunting and stuff like that... i may use THIS  course to train my Dog  have you ever hear it?? is it any good??


A quick fix to train my dogs? How superb, if we all buy it then there is no need for this thread at all. Thank you.

Oh...you wouldn't happen to have anything to do with trying to sell it at all would you? :Yawn::Yawn:.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well tears at the start of franks walk this morning. 
Stupid stupid me thought lets just try him without his dogmatic. Had it with me, thank god. 
A dog and owner came creeping up behind us and before I can get frank to watch me, he's going mental at this dog and I'm apologising holding on to him until they pass. I get the most snottiest look ever. 
Feel like a bit of a cop out using his dogmatic but least I have control. 
Soon as it went on he calmed down and the walk ended ok just feel cack. 

Bella and Freddie next and a busy day so hope you all have good mornings.


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## Dogless

Oh F&F, hope the next walks go better .


----------



## moonviolet

F+F Please dont' feel a cop out for using a tool to help you, with Frank. many dogs would redact to being crept up on it's not really a polite appraoch. I dont' even like humans creeping up on me., so why would dogs? Did you consider her face might always look like that  :lol: Well done for regaining Franks composure swiftly after they moved on.

Hope you have nice walks with Bella and Freddie and snotty lady is sharing her love and compassion elsewhere 

Spendog, he is an imp.

WH sounds like a great , except for the too tired to get flour bit :lol:

We had a great day, walked with 5 doggie friends on our main walk and had a good class.

K&M where are you?

Hope everyone has a great day.


----------



## Werehorse

Yes where is K&M? I was thinking about her yesterday when I took that picture of Hugo with Oscar having a poop in the background, because I remember her posting a similar "spaniel pooing ruins good photo" photo at some point or other :lol:

F&F - No shame in using the dogmatic. If mine were as big as yours and I wasn't a woman-mountain I would definitely need headcollars to avoid being dragged around at times!  Fortunately my doggies weigh a measly 16kg a piece and I'm 5'8" with what my Dad flatteringly calls "swimmers shoulders". :lol: Actually I still get a bit dragged at times, Oscar is like a friggin tank. So yes, we're all works in progress and some dogs will take more management in the mean-time.  

Glad you had a good day yesterday, Mv. 

We have the snow. OH has veto-d me driving to Keswick to look for shoes for work and has taken the car into work, so me and the boys are confined to where our legs can take us today!


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> WE HAVE JUST HAD ANOTHER DOG IN THE HOUSE. ZANDER SNIFFED IT THEN WENT ABOUT HIS KINGDOM LIKE IT WASN'T THERE.
> 
> ALMOST FLATTENED THE OWNER THOUGH.


I think I'm in love with Zander... Your posts about him always make me laugh.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> just another quicky, cause i'm still supposed to be working.
> 
> so when bella meets dogs, both off lead,she gets wiggly then she crawls to them then rolls over wagging her tail.... this is good?
> 
> i know i have three and i should know things like this, but i'm so concious of being polite and courteous to other dogs and owners. more so since being on PF.
> 
> excuse my spelling, i'm not on the i-pad.


Holly does much the same. It's pretty much telling the other dogs she's no threat and in her case it isn't anxiety, just her way of greeting.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> -Beth - Good luck with the moving-out! How Mum took a keen Scooter and reluctant Breeze out today, and I've not long found a lump on Scooter's side
> *He's had a recurring lump there for several years which has always died down by the time we decide to take him to the vets, and we've just been asked to monitor it. It's a little bigger than before (broad bean sized), hard and only attached to his skin. Nothing to see from the outside and doesn't seem to trouble him so will see what it's like tomorrow and re-evaluate.*
> *Any ideas? We're hoping it's a fatty lump, he's an older boy after all.*




It sounds very much like a lipoma (fatty lump) and as your vet has advised, just keep an eye on it.

Most of my dogs have had them from about 7 years old and onwards. My little Fidget had quite a number.

The mystery lump on Tremor isn't attached and could possibly be the same but she's only 4 yrs old, not obese and fed a good diet, which is why I want it investigating.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Sam is a face licker although only really with
> 
> *Sam isn't very happy I was cutting his nails and he moved so I ended up cutting his quick. Cue blood everywhere.*
> 
> ETA: Sorry Kevin was back again today Sarah. Hopefully he'll be gone tomorrow.


One of the easiest ways to stop bleeding if you've caught a quick is a good old bar of soap.


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## Dogless

Good walk today; the CHs behaved really well - walked nicely to the top field (still avoiding dogs until he's been a week clear of a cough), played and did some recalls and walked nicely home. No jumping or biting at all from Rudi . Nothing seen really as it's full waterproofs weather, really persisting down . I felt really proud walking back as there's some sort of conference on and there was a stream of traffic coming down the road and the boys were walking so well :001_wub::001_wub:. Surprised that Rudi didn't seize the opportunity to launch an attack - he seems to prefer an audience :devil:.

I did notice Rudi was too interested in tyres in the wet like Kilo used to be so we'll nip that in the bud.


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## WhatWouldSidDo

Took Barney to training class yesterday. He did very well first half hour but that was enough for him and he totally switched off after that. 
I normally do lots of 5 minute sessions at home so he's not used to long sessions and 60 minutes is far to long for 13 week old.

They gave me a good tip about not holding the treat in my right hand as it makes him want to walk across me when healing

But they insisted on holding him for the sit, wait, recall even though I said he can do it

I managed to notice that he wanted the loo and take him outside saving me from an embarrassing clean up:blushing:

On balance its not a bad place to socialise him


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## Guest

Well, he sat when there were dogs which was good.
We also have a new bad thing. He barked at a postman, one man, and an elderly lady today.  Thats a new thing. How do I go about it? 
Also, still sheep in his field. He showed far too much interest as we went past.

And Twiggy, at this rate, you can have him. :lol:


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## GingerRogers

F&F sorry you had a bad walk  (does it make you feel better that my eyes leaked a bit too this morning) but why on earth would you feel a cop out for using the dogmatic  if thats a reason to feel bad then you could say the same about collars, crates, gates etc etc all our dogs should miraculously do as we wish and be attached to us by invisible string - Silly Billy  Hope Bella and Freddie do you proud as they do!!

Well done Barney & Sid - I should think an hour is a bit long, our classes were 45 mins for adolescent dogs and that was plenty! I noticed one day that Ginge was about to chunder, luckily it was the day we had been asked to take a mat for go to bed work, so I swung it underneath her head and wrapped it up without anyone noticing, then lobbed it at other half to put in the car 

Twiggy & Thorne hope the lumps aren't anything too much, Rory was about 6ish when he got his first, but he certainly wasn't over weight either, it used to go up and down with his weight as he got older though.

Dogless glad Rudi resisted the audience 

Hubby dropped me in town this morning so I could check on my building project then walk the ninja back. Straight off we encountered a samoyed, which was ok, bit of a bark but subsided into grumbles and we used it as target practice. Got to the job, had a look round and left and guess what was now heading home, big white fluffy thing , so I ducked down an alley, only to come face to face with a spaniel , back we went, down to the sea front, we are on one side of the car park a lady and two spaniels on the other, about 50m away, cue WW3, so I did a slow trickley walk home up the footpath and then tried to stop the leaking as I walked back through the village  thought we would try and finish off well with a bit of work outside the house only for bliddy Otto to come past again. I got in and bawled. 

I am feeling a bit low as I didn't sleep too well, hubby woke up grumpy and snappy which made me grumpy and snappy. But worst of all was my first thought, we met up with a couple of friends last night, she is lovely, he can be really good company but he has this weird need to wind people up, he thinks its funny, so he was making shoot the dog comments and how I have said she doesn't bark any more and then a dog comes past (I have never said that, I have said she is improving) and I look like I am walking a yapping puppet etc  and I am frankly tired of it, insensitive comments like that coupled with her behaving like she did with the two spaniels (there is nothing I can do, short of beating her into submission, once she has kicked off like that, you just have to pass and hope she stops eventually it makes you feel like a pillock though) that just made me feel perhaps I am not the one for her. I also feel a bit persecuted, hubby makes me feel like it was all my decision to take her on, not true, I had actually said a couple of weeks before that I wasn't sure about getting another dog, it was him who had already made up his mind and him who led the should we shouldn't we conversation, I also had no idea she had 'issues' he was the one who saw her every day, so not quite sure why it now appears to be my fault we can't do a lot of the things we had planned to do, because my dog cant be taken anywhere.   sorry ranting again


----------



## Werehorse

I hate wind up merchants! I mean a bit of teasing is fine but it is completely dickish to take it too far. I hope you can straighten out the balance of things with OH too, it isn't fair for him to push the emotional responsibility for it onto you. Spaniels do just happen sometimes, you cope with it, it'll get better.


----------



## Guest

Ginger, I hope you can straighten things out. x (Hugs)


----------



## Dogless

GR - sorry you had such a rough morning too, coupled with your "friend's" insensitive comments  and the conversation with your OH . 

Hubby and I had a 'discussion' the other night when he was feeling snappy about how the dogs have changed our lives, how he can't 'chill out' in his own house in the evening any more because we have got Rudi (puppy witching hour), how he didn't like puppies etc etc etc. Really upset me as we discussed getting a second dog very, very carefully. He agreed that Kilo was more relaxed and confident with him around (a good thing) and that it was me that does all the extra work so it hasn't impacted on his time at all (agreed). He also agreed that it was him that had vetoed rescue dogs for one reason and another (we were offered a RR bitch who I would have considered taking, although she was possibly too old to have fitted in with our walks) and insisted on a puppy. I think we all have those irrational, angry days where we take everything out on the ones we love. 5 minutes after the conversation that had me in tears as I'd hate to think he resented the dogs he was snuggled up with Rudi on his lap saying "Hello Rudi - Roo" and tickling him under the chin .


----------



## GingerRogers

Thanks all of you I am just over tired today , ignore me.

Dogless its so frustrating isn't it, its like they don't seem to realise how their now seemingly throwaway comments impact on us oversensitive females


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## Guest

Sorry! Having trouble keeping up with everyone! I feel like i've missed a like or a comment since I've started following!



WhatWouldSidDo said:


> But they insisted on holding him for the sit, wait, recall even though I said he can do it


Maybe doing restrained recalls? Those are great for puppies 

We had our first laser/acupuncture treatment yesterday and Bates thought it was great fun. Never did relax, was too busy being goofy and trying to get the vet to play with him. I don't notice any difference, but he was pretty sound to begin with, so the show this weekend will be the true test. Especially since that venue is concrete flooring and its supposed to be really cold (well by our standards at least)!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Thanks all of you I am just over tired today , ignore me.
> 
> Dogless its so frustrating isn't it, its like they don't seem to realise how their now seemingly throwaway comments impact on us oversensitive females


I know; hubby has a knack of making me feel that something has only happened as he's gone along with it to make me happy when I know full well that everything is discussed carefully .

Coffee and chocolate and later, wine I think GR .


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Thanks all of you I am just over tired today , ignore me.
> 
> Dogless its so frustrating isn't it, its like they don't seem to realise how their now seemingly throwaway comments impact on us oversensitive females


Like when the lady said I had no control over zander, my parents couldn't understand why I was so upset!!
Or when people say "Ooh have you tried a headcollar or a chokechain?" or they go "Oooooohhh he's not friendly is he?" or "Who's walking who?"

MAKES ME WANT TO THROW THINGS AT THEM.

Goddamn these people who have nearly perfect dogs and they haven't done a damn thing with them. *huffs and puffs*


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> *I know; hubby has a knack of making me feel that something has only happened as he's gone along with it to make me happy when I know full well that everything is discussed carefully .
> *
> Coffee and chocolate and later, wine I think GR .


MY MUM DOES THIS TOO!! Everytime something bad happens she goes "Well it was YOUR decision to have a dog." or "WELL he doesn't do that when I walk him!" or "He's obviously feeding off of your bad mood."

And god forbid when I tell her not to shout at him. 

*eye twitch*


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## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Like when the lady said I had no control over zander, my parents couldn't understand why I was so upset!!
> Or when people say "Ooh have you tried a headcollar or a chokechain?" or they go "Oooooohhh he's not friendly is he?" or "Who's walking who?"
> 
> *MAKES ME WANT TO THROW THINGS AT THEM.*
> 
> Goddamn these people who have nearly perfect dogs and they haven't done a damn thing with them. *huffs and puffs*


 me too, it bad isn't it. I may be able to use that comment to get me past them in future I will just think, well LO wants to throw things . You know the tutters and the 'oh dear'ers


----------



## purpleskyes

The boyfriend is in France again which means I have a very whining puppy who misses his dad and is not getting any off lead time at all. Which seems to be making him worse pulling to get to other dogs, brought treats when walking yesterday to distract him but that didn't work at all. 

Silly dog walkers had about 10 dogs between 2 of them and most of then were off lead. Three of them ran up and surrounded the puppy and one of them started growling and snarling and the woman was pretty useless trying to sort her out while trying to control the rest of them.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I know; hubby has a knack of making me feel that something has only happened as he's gone along with it to make me happy when I know full well that everything is discussed carefully .
> 
> *Coffee and chocolate *and later, wine I think GR .


I am off now, we have giant buttons in the fridge , but have you not realised yet that *everything *is always our fault, and they always just go along with stuff as they have no thoughts of their own so its bound to be down to us if things go wrong (sorry any men and husbands reading this )


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> me too, it bad isn't it. I may be able to use that comment to get me past them in future I will just think, well LO wants to throw things . You know the tutters and the 'oh dear'ers


Sadly the only thing I have to hand are Winalot shapes or empty poo bags. (I can literally count on one hand how many times Zand has gone on a walk. He will hold till he's home.)

Unless I threw Zand at them. :ihih: :lol: (I can't even lift him!)


----------



## Guest

purpleskyes said:


> The boyfriend is in France again which means I have a very whining puppy who misses his dad and is not getting any off lead time at all. Which seems to be making him worse pulling to get to other dogs, brought treats when walking yesterday to distract him but that didn't work at all.
> 
> Silly dog walkers had about 10 dogs between 2 of them and most of then were off lead. Three of them ran up and surrounded the puppy and one of them started growling and snarling and the woman was pretty useless trying to sort her out while trying to control the rest of them.


Jesus, that sort of thing worries me at the best of times. And it worries me for a I finally ever manage to get a full time job and would like a dog walker. 
None of them hurt your little one?


----------



## purpleskyes

LurcherOwner said:


> Jesus, that sort of thing worries me at the best of times. And it worries me for a I finally ever manage to get a full time job and would like a dog walker.
> None of them hurt your little one?


No thankfully, I got in-between them until she could grab the dog. I have to say it makes me feel extremely lucky that I can take him to work with me because I dont think I would trust a dog walker if that's how they do things.


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## moonviolet

Huggles for all those who are having a hard day. Sorry you had a tough morning GR . It's been a bit of an emotional week but that doesn't excuse your OH or your "friend" a bit of a ribbing is fine but some people are emotionally thick and don't realise they are taking too far or do so to smokescreen their own failings.

OH's can be trivky beasts. Guess who hasn't walked Tink alone since she was attacked, i'm excluding the 2 times as statistically insignificant  *BUT* now I've worked through the worst of the fear ( with many tears and hair tearing moments, some sitting on tree stumps and rocking while humming) he's becoming interested in walking her again  I did suggest he gets his own dog and pointted him in the direction of a little rescue lad i've had my eye on.

The other thing GR never say never, you might not be able to do all the things you want to yet in time you might be able to, and then they will be all the sweeter for the journey.

Things you don't see everyday..... a presentation being given on a flipchart in the middle of the woods :lol:

Purp don't even get me started on dog walkers.... I could fill a thousand pages solo on that subject!


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## MollySmith

Oh GR, I am sorry you've had a bad morning. It's one thing to tease and another to take the piss and insult someone and it must hurt if it's not a united front between you and your OH.

My husband does look after Molly a lot, takes her for walks and enjoys her a lot but it's always said that she's my decision. That is true but equally it makes me sound like I just went out and got a dog when we'd spent years thinking about it.

Purple - blummmin dog walkers. I asked about doing this with a company who are advertising and they said to me I could take up to 8 dogs in one walk  Honestly rubbish.

Another low day here, I knew it was coming today but I've had my meeting and know that I am leaving on Tuesday. Bit awful but in a way at least I know that's it. Stupidly busy despite being made redundant...ut:

Anyway have a Molly photo, this is what I'll see every morning, that's no bad thing.


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## Sarah1983

GR, can you not avoid walking her in town for a bit? You need to let both Ginge and yourself calm down a bit by the sounds of things. I know it's not always possible and I was in a position with Rupert where I had no choice (lived in a built up area and can't drive) but I honestly don't think it helps to keep putting them in situations they can't handle day after day. Walking at anti social hours and choosing where I walked carefully was about all I could do and it did help. Sorry your OH is being so unsupportive  

Also, are you keeping a diary of what you're doing and how she's behaving? If not I would really, really recommend it. We tend to dwell on the bad days and looking back over a diary can help you see whether you really are having so many bad days and if so what you could change or whether you're actually making progress slowly but surely. You don't need long, wordy entries, just stuff like "saw a dog at 50m, managed to get her to watch me"


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## Dogless

Molly :001_wub::001_wub:.

Sarah - second the idea of quieter walks for Ginge; they really helped Kilo when he was at his jittery worst.


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> Took Barney to training class yesterday. He did very well first half hour but that was enough for him and he totally switched off after that.
> I normally do lots of 5 minute sessions at home so he's not used to long sessions and 60 minutes is far to long for 13 week old.
> 
> They gave me a good tip about not holding the treat in my right hand as it makes him want to walk across me when healing
> 
> But they insisted on holding him for the sit, wait, recall even though I said he can do it
> 
> I managed to notice that he wanted the loo and take him outside saving me from an embarrassing clean up:blushing:
> 
> On balance its not a bad place to socialise him


I'm glad your first class went well and as you say very good for socialisation.

In fairness to your instructor, he's a very young puppy on his first time in class and I would also have held him for the recall. The reason being you don't won't him to make a mistake.


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Well, he sat when there were dogs which was good.
> We also have a new bad thing. He barked at a postman, one man, and an elderly lady today.  Thats a new thing. How do I go about it?
> Also, still sheep in his field. He showed far too much interest as we went past.
> 
> And Twiggy, at this rate, you can have him. :lol:


But he sounds such a character and I love 'naughty' dogs...


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## moonviolet

MS What a sweet pic of Molly  I'm sure that sweet face is going to help you through this period of change. 

Sarah I third your opinion. I do agree quiet walks in areas where avoidance was a possibility helped Tink immensely.


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## GingerRogers

MV - what was being presented I am intrigued now???

MS - sorry to hear your news, but like you say, you knew it was coming and its best to know when and as you say on the plus side - look who your new colleague is, the beautiful Molly  take a few days to enjoy some time with her before throwing yourself into finding new work, thats what I say!!

Sarah - yes I am keeping a diary and it does help, thank you as it was you who suggested it before, and she is getting better I know that, its just that she seems to have gone a bit backwards the last few days for no obvious reason, unless it is me she is feeding off. As I say ignore me, I am being a big wuss today and I think I am feeling a bit over emotional with everything else thats going on.

As far as walking elsewhere unless I drop hubby off to work and then pick him up which costs too much in petrol TBH I can't have the car every day, so I am stuck with walking round here, in the main, we do make sure we have as many quiet days as possible. The trouble is there are so many dogs here , I live in a sort of suburb village on the outskirts of a small tourist town and you can get to fields etc in 5 mins walking, but that is through a housing estate, I honestly think at least every third house has a dog, and our estate is the route to the nice walks so everyone else in the village walks through. It really doesn't seem to matter what time you venture out (apart from my midnight wanderings the other weekend) there will be someone else about, except for around 7pm so at the moment our evening walks are normally quiet, but thats not guaranteed and certainly wont continue as the evenings get lighter .


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## Werehorse

Oi Ginge! Cheer up! :lol:










Craving chocolate and biscuits today like no-body's business.  It is pizza night so can't cave in because I need the calorie space for pizza!


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## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> Oi Ginge! Cheer up! :lol:


Lol, thank you  :001_tt2:


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## Goldendoodle123

We're working on getting Jasper to come back with his ball when it's thrown. He knows what 'fetch!' means, he just chooses not to come back. He's getting better at it now that little training treats are involved


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Thanks all of you I am just over tired today , ignore me.
> 
> Dogless its so frustrating isn't it, its like they don't seem to realise how their now seemingly throwaway comments impact on us oversensitive females


I'm really sorry you've had a rotten morning.

I don't take any notice of my hubby when he was a 'boyish' temper tantrum. Men have always got to blame somebody else and they know damn well the easiest way to upset us is to criticise our dogs.


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## moonviolet

GR i know I'd laugh if someone suggested this to me ( although i'm secretly workign toward it ooops not much of a secret now) Is it possible to run those 5 mins or at least run past the worst parts so theres no time for Ginge to stress.

As for what was being presented I have not a clue, I was on a main track and they were down a slope amongst the trees all sat in a semi circle around the flipchart too far for me to see. it jsut made me laugh at the absurdness of it, I was too busy trying to make sure i didn't trip over my feet as i was heading toward another group who were stood around having a chat and the other day in a similar situation i tripped over a root and ended up on my hands and knees in the mud... not something i wanted to repeat :blushing:

WH Awww flying kisses thats enough to cheer anyone up.


----------



## L/C

Molly - :001_wub:

GR - I fourth the quiet walks option. We hardly ever had the choice with Ely (living in a built up area with no car) so we walked him at mid-night and 6am when he was at his worst. 

Another rest day for Ely today so just me and Gypsy. Another platinum star day for her - perfect recalls from the field of tiny mice, other dogs and food on the pavement. A little reluctance to walk at first because it was cold but we did some touch exercises and a little bit of training on the doorstep and she soon loosend up.

On the walk she was great. In fact someone described her as the best trained dog on the field. *smug* I think I might need to start avoiding the people I usually walk with though. One of them has a trail hound who has a host of issues (mainly nervous around people, some dogs and recall). I love this dog - she is adorable and I would take her home in a heartbeat. 

But her owner just seems to let her do her own thing all the time. She's often at the opposite end of the field, she mugs everyone she knows for treats and she can have quite an aggressive response to some dogs. She's eminently trainable (she recalls to me instantly, sits, takes a treat gently etc.) but it doesn't seem like anyone bothers to train her. It makes me sad but her behaviour seems to be getting worse, she's had a pop at quite a few other dogs and even had a go at Gypsy the other morning. This morning I had to remove her from a sticky situation as her owner wasn't doing anything.

I'm worried if she starts anything when I have Ely then it could escalate very quickly and they would feed off each other - plus if I'm going to be starting dog walking etc in the autumn then I don't want to be associated with her behaviour as I don't want that reputation. It makes me really sad though as she will run the entire length of the field when she spots me and gives me full body cuddles. 

And one unrelated question - my trainer has suggested that I do a Masters in Clinical Animal Behaviour at Lincoln. He thinks I would enjoy it and that it would be good career development (he also thinks I should think about behaviour work/training). I'm quite excited about the idea but I'm a bit unsure about timelines - academic year 2013/14 or 2014/15. Currently I'm leaning toward 2014/15 to give me a year to build up my business first. Opinions?

ETA: Gah - a million replies whilst typing again!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Oi Ginge! Cheer up! :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Craving chocolate and biscuits today like no-body's business.  It is pizza night so can't cave in because I need the calorie space for pizza!


Ye Gods you are soooo fat. I'd like to be as fat as you.......


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> And one unrelated question - my trainer has suggested that I do a Masters in Clinical Animal Behaviour at Lincoln. He thinks I would enjoy it and that it would be good career development (he also thinks I should think about behaviour work/training). I'm quite excited about the idea but I'm a bit unsure about timelines - academic year 2013/14 or 2014/15. Currently I'm leaning toward 2014/15 to give me a year to build up my business first. Opinions?
> 
> ETA: Gah - a million replies whilst typing again!


I would most likely concentrate on building my business first and then start the course if I were you I think. Hmmmm, if I was being sensible that is. I have terrible impulse control and realistically would probably end up doing everything at once and becoming utterly frazzled .


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Ye Gods you are soooo fat. I'd like to be as fat as you.......


----------



## kat&molly

Sorry folks, only read some of todays- toooo much there. Moonviolet are you a mindreader. Hope everyone's ok.
Ginge- sorry you're having a rough time- Men.

I've had a really busy few days, including OH's van getting smashed in to by a young lad speeding and slipping on ice. Thankfully a miracle no-one was hurt, we should hear today if its repairable [doubtful] or he will be reimbursed.
He's been like a bear with a sore head since- which carried over in to the surprise meal for 12 I'd paid for, for his birthday. Dont know why I bothered

Evie has had a bad few days, since OH's work mate came last week- something about him she couldn't have liked. She's had extra Valerian, but can be clingy and spends time just watching the front door. I haven't taken her through the village- I just didn't think it was wise, until today, and she was fine, I'm sure she likes going.

New clicker finally arrived yesterday, so we've all been having fun. I've been teaching the others a 'go to mat'- even Jay plays  and Evie.
The clicker should help with this ring toss game, Moll has mostly got it, but I haven't been able to move on, so must be doing something wrong :001_tt2:


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- how exciting.

Lovely pic of Molly, and flying face licks from Hugo is enough to make anyone smile.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I would most likely concentrate on building my business first and then start the course if I were you I think. Hmmmm, if I was being sensible that is. I have terrible impulse control and realistically would probably end up doing everything at once and becoming utterly frazzled .


That's what I'm like as well - so I'm trying to be sensible atm! The alternative is delay leaving my job for a year and go part time and do the masters that way while getting more experience running classes and apprenticing with trainers around here. But the thought of doing my job for another year really puts me off.

K&M - glad your OH is ok - sorry he's grumpy though. Hope Evie perks up soon.


----------



## Sarah1983

And the mega thread has hit 1,000 pages.


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## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> And the mega thread has hit 1,000 pages.


Dun dun dun!

What happens now?! Does K&M get an award or will we cause a rift in space and time as it's mass collapses back in on itself?

Also how fitting that K&M had the first post on page 1000.


----------



## diefenbaker

Sarah1983 said:


> And the mega thread has hit 1,000 pages.


That's not important. It's the 10,000th post that's important. I really shouldn't be reading this while working. I'm an airline pilot. We're just coming in to land... sod that.. holding pattern.. I can't miss it.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Sorry folks, only read some of todays- toooo much there. Moonviolet are you a mindreader. Hope everyone's ok.
> Ginge- sorry you're having a rough time- Men.
> 
> I've had a really busy few days, including OH's van getting smashed in to by a young lad speeding and slipping on ice. Thankfully a miracle no-one was hurt, we should hear today if its repairable [doubtful] or he will be reimbursed.
> He's been like a bear with a sore head since- which carried over in to the surprise meal for 12 I'd paid for, for his birthday. Dont know why I bothered
> 
> Evie has had a bad few days, since OH's work mate came last week- something about him she couldn't have liked. She's had extra Valerian, but can be clingy and spends time just watching the front door. I haven't taken her through the village- I just didn't think it was wise, until today, and she was fine, I'm sure she likes going.
> 
> New clicker finally arrived yesterday, so we've all been having fun. I've been teaching the others a 'go to mat'- even Jay plays  and Evie.
> The clicker should help with this ring toss game, Moll has mostly got it, but I haven't been able to move on, so must be doing something wrong :001_tt2:


Spooky, aren't I :lol:
glad no one was hurt in the accident hope OH gets over the grumps soon.

Happy to hear Evie had a better day today 

Oh no not more clicker trained zombie dogs :001_tt2: :lol: :lol:

L?C i dont' know what to suggest really, It might be best to do it before you've built up your business as you may have more time as reputation builds, but equally you might want to throw everything itno getting the business going. If your heart wants to do it this year then I say go for it, You strike me as the sort of person who commits to decision and makes things happens


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C - how exciting, I would love to have the ability and knowledge to do something like that - but decisions - to throw a cat in - I would worry that I might never get round to the masters, that other stuff would get in the way if I was starting my own business as well 

Welcome back K&M - glad OH is ok, if grumpy perhaps the result of the vans outcome will cheer him up, will insurance cover it, not sure what its like in France.

I am feeling a bit better now, it began with the flying face licks, thanks Hugo and WH, I could feel his tongue from here  then OH redeemed himself slightly by bringing Tesco cheese and ham sandwiches and cheese and onion crisps (was going to be cardboard passed off as ryvita with philly light) and I had a cup of coffee with dunky choccy hob nobs and then got a fat lip from the ninja giving me lotsa love  think she was jealous of the face licks 

MV - you know you might have an idea, but like you I am not sure I could carry it off, I can but aim for something though .


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Spooky, aren't I :lol:
> glad no one was hurt in the accident hope OH gets over the grumps soon.
> 
> Happy to hear Evie had a better day today
> 
> Oh no not more clicker trained zombie dogs :001_tt2: :lol: :lol:


We're such terrible child molesters and animal abusers! 

I'm surprised my poor brain washed dog had the wherewithal to steal that slice of bread off the work top this morning. Clearly I must have clicker trained her to do that - no way she would be able to make a decision on her own! :001_tt2:


----------



## kat&molly

Glad you're feeling better Ginge- yes, insurance should cover it, it really wasn't OH's fault- so no need for the drama really.

MV- can you really see Evie as a zombie dog.:lol:

Have I got it, that 10,000th post- or just a plane aiming for me.


----------



## diefenbaker

Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss. I got it. I'm taking these holidaymakers on a loop-the-loop and a flypast of Buckingham Palace to celebrate. Gawd bless you Your Majesty.


----------



## Werehorse

MINE! :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

diefenbaker said:


> Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Yeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss. I got it. I'm taking these holidaymakers on a loop-the-loop and a flypast of Buckingham Palace to celebrate. Gawd bless you Your Majesty.


S'not fair.

Ginge- have you tried a clicker with the Ninja? I'm not very good with my timing  but used it to walk through the village with shortarse today, and just clicked every time she looked at me- I definately got more attention from her.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> MV- can you really see Evie as a zombie dog.:lol:


​


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> S'not fair.
> 
> Ginge- have you tried a clicker with the Ninja? I'm not very good with my timing  but used it to walk through the village with shortarse today, and just clicked every time she looked at me- I definately got more attention from her.


I was so tempted to steal 10,000 with a simple 'No!' after K&Ms 99,999 but thought I better leave it for the pilot  I have pictured your plane suddenly dropping, as you hit refresh in anticipation!

K&M -yes I do use a clicker, I am also rubbish with my timing, it wouldn't get much use if I waited for her to look at me while we are out though  No we do do that sort of exercise at random along the walks then I get spooked in case a dog appears while I am concentrating


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## Werehorse

Doggie class has been cancelled tonight. I feel slightly relieved. 

I am completely drowning in sugar/chocolate cravings.  I think I'm going to do some brain-washing work with the dogs in a bit to try and distract myself. Can't decide whether to look at some Control Unleashed stuff or try a Brain Game or too. Not read any sniffy books yet to start on sniffy stuff.


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> Doggie class has been cancelled tonight. I feel slightly relieved.
> 
> *I am completely drowning in sugar/chocolate cravings.*  I think I'm going to do some brain-washing work with the dogs in a bit to try and distract myself. Can't decide whether to look at some Control Unleashed stuff or try a Brain Game or too. Not read any sniffy books yet to start on sniffy stuff.


I went through this when I started trying to eat right. It's horrible - the more I read the more I think sugar is an evil substance, withdrawal from it is horrible (not that it stopped me eating pancakes with spray cream and strawberry sauce last night ). Have you got any banana's, peaches or any sweet fruit in the house? I find that makes it go away. Failing that a mug of green tea normally suppresses it as well.


----------



## Werehorse

No fruit in the house. :lol: I'm having liquorice tea... and I had a tiny bit of honey, even though that is just sugar too really.  I do think sugar must be really addictive - it's like my whole mind is taken up by the thought of it. :crazy:


----------



## Beth17

L/C how exciting but what a decision. I think building up your business is the wise idea but there would be the eager part of me that wanted to start the course.

WH sugar cravings are not good  Lovely picture of jumping doggie kisses.

Ginge glad you're a bit happier this afternoon

Everyone else hello, well done etc etc 

Crap walk this morning as the rain made my two go a bit bonkers and then Oscar kicked off at a couple of beagles that surprised him 

But please keep you fingers crossed as I have just this minute applied for a part time job working in a kennels  I really really want to get this as hopefully it's my way in to working with and training dogs :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

*Good Luck Beth!!*


----------



## L/C

Werehorse said:


> No fruit in the house. :lol: I'm having liquorice tea... and I had a tiny bit of honey, even though that is just sugar too really.  I do think sugar must be really addictive - it's like my whole mind is taken up by the thought of it. :crazy:


Have a look on youtube for a documentary called "Sugar: The Bitter Truth."

ETA: Here it is: Sugar: The Bitter Truth


----------



## L/C

And GOOD LUCK BETH


----------



## diefenbaker

Beth17 said:


> But please keep you fingers crossed as I have just this minute applied for a part time job working in a kennels  I really really want to get this as hopefully it's my way in to working with and training dogs :thumbup1:


Well jell. I think my days as a pilot may be numbered. I've been called in for a disciplinary hearing and it's all this thread's fault.


----------



## Werehorse

Good luck beth!


----------



## moonviolet

Good luck Beth fingers and paws crossed here for you.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Good luck Beth fingers *and paws crossed here* for you.


Clicker trained zombie dog  .


----------



## Guest

Just had a lovely walk. It rained. He freaked out slightly at all the cars but no people or dogs. Took him into the charity shop and he got all silly with the owner, trying to lick her chin and leaning her and everything? 

Well, I contacted a small agility place twenty mins or so away, have been told that they are not prepared to do one-to-one sessions.  

Trying to find email address for that trainer. 

GOOD LUCK BETH!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Clicker trained zombie dog  .


----------



## Dogless

Walked Rudi before dinner - tipping down still. Spent time by roads working on car tyres in the wet being less interesting. Successful and necessary, but boring really :Yawn::Yawn:. Still, did what I set out to do, got wet, came home . No attempts at jumping and biting .

Hubby has managed to come home for the evening so I'll take the BW out after our dinner when his has digested!


----------



## Twiggy

Good luck Beth and fingers crossed.


----------



## Werehorse

Did some "leave it" work with the boys using the technique in Control Unleashed. This is something I've never really properly established so it was nice to start afresh with a new method. They both did really well. Managed to get to the point with both of them where I was dropping a treat onto the floor and they left it without me actually saying anything. Happy with that. I could see them really having to think about it, Hugo actually stopped himself from chasing a particularly fast bouncing treat - I saw the chase instinct kick in and he half rose out of the sit and then he controlled himself. :thumbup:

They're better at leave it than I am!  Pizza is nearly ready. Can't come quick enough to be honest! I think I am going to be sightly over my calorie target today but I have gone a whole week being under-target.


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted ....


----------



## Sarah1983

We're going to the BFG sled dog meet up on Sunday  Apparently all breeds are welcome so we shall go along and see how things go.


----------



## moonviolet

Leam i'm sorry to read your news. It makes me very very sad and i'd be a liar if i didn't admit to wondering if you would have been more commited to working through Deeks issues if you hadn't bought yourself an underage puppy.

Dogs can present us with issues that we aren't equipped to deal with at any time. I went to a good breeder for Tink. I socialised her, took her to classes and she was growing into a fab young dog, then she was attacked and horribly injured as a result she wasn't able to go out for 10 days and in this time her fear of other dogs solidified. I sure as hell wasn't prepared for it. Her reactions in situations were far from text books at times. The journey we went on together took 29 months. 

Forgive me if i seem harsh but who's to say your pup, removed from mum too earlier, won't come with some baggage you arent' equipped to deal with yet.

I hope against hope that Deeks finds a forever home next time.


----------



## Sarah1983

I have to admit to wondering the same as MV I'm afraid. 

The dog I wasn't equipped to deal with was the love of my life. Despite everything, or perhaps because of everything, the bond I had with Rupert was something I've not had with any of my others. And the difficult ones teach you a hell of a lot more than the easy ones.

But you gotta do what you think is best. I just hope Deeks finds his forever home.


----------



## Leam1307

Deleted ....


----------



## MollySmith

I am glad that Molly is coming on well but I have to say that I wonder if having a great pup means that you can't help feel that Deeks is more of a problem? My Molly arrived actually relatively sound but still had a lot of problems settling down and not using the house like a race track, and she's still work in progress since April. I think dogs always are. I confess to comparing her to dogs I had in the past and cursing. 

I wish Deeks well and hope your neighbours can back off a bit.


My Molly had her lesson today. Not 100% on the lead sadly. I think she was having a day of it as OH wasn't well so he didn't play with her very much and she didn't get off lead as the park was packed with kids. I might be getting whatever it is too but equally could be stress so dunno what we'll do for walks tomorrow. Ho hum.


----------



## Freddie and frank

"like" to all posts, and big ((hugs)) to those who need it.  
:001_wub:


:thumbup:

Good luck,
Well done,
Thanks. You guys are amazing. And I don't feel so bad about the dogmatics tonight. 

Men are from mars......where all dogs come already trained and behave like angels.:001_tt2:

I'll be nominated driver tonight as I'm off alcohol until I feel back in the land of living.

Freddie and bella were so so this morning, but frank earned a gold star tonight. :001_wub: he was a little angel pie.
Bella was well behaved too.
Freddie, on the other hand was ok until we got ten yards away from my drive and we had to pass a little patterdale terrier, not the old ladies one but a smooth haired one. He's adorable and very very friendly.
Freddie completely took me by suprise and lunged straight across me, and literally spun around by his dogmatic. Thank god he had it on. 
I've not known Freddie to do this before and I was apologising to the man when he tried to do it again, spun around. 
The man was very nice and the little dog didn't seem upset about it. But I was mortified. 

Withdrawals seem to have a pattern to them 
Mornings are blank, confused, and headachy. 
Afternoons are dizzy, tiring, 
Evenings are anxious, cold and hot sweats then a bit of normality 
Emotions are all over the place.

Onwards and upwards.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Mv, I had no idea of what miss Tinks had been through, poor little love. 
She sounds amazing, well both of you do.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> "like" to all posts, and big ((hugs)) to those who need it.
> :001_wub:
> 
> 
> :thumbup:
> 
> Good luck,
> Well done,
> Thanks. You guys are amazing. And I don't feel so bad about the dogmatics tonight.
> 
> Men are from mars......where all dogs come already trained and behave like angels.:001_tt2:
> 
> I'll be nominated driver tonight as I'm off alcohol until I feel back in the land of living.
> 
> Freddie and bella were so so this morning, but frank earned a gold star tonight. :001_wub: he was a little angel pie.
> Bella was well behaved too.
> Freddie, on the other hand was ok until we got ten yards away from my drive and we had to pass a little patterdale terrier, not the old ladies one but a smooth haired one. He's adorable and very very friendly.
> Freddie completely took me by suprise and lunged straight across me, and literally spun around by his dogmatic. Thank god he had it on.
> I've not known Freddie to do this before and I was apologising to the man when he tried to do it again, spun around.
> The man was very nice and the little dog didn't seem upset about it. But I was mortified.
> 
> Withdrawals seem to have a pattern to them
> Mornings are blank, confused, and headachy.
> Afternoons are dizzy, tiring,
> Evenings are anxious, cold and hot sweats then a bit of normality
> Emotions are all over the place.
> 
> Onwards and upwards.


That's my girl - you'll get there....


----------



## Dogless

I fully agree with mv; I feel so sad. I can't right now articulate all my thoughts on here.

Just walked Kilo in the dark and rain. Saw man and huge ambull that gave Kilo a good stare. He stiffened but walked on. Walked around an abandoned estate in the dark. Came home, saw someone I know (and that Kilo knows) that lives on our street at the end of the road, she came to say hello and Kilo barked at her . She asked if I wanted her to go away or wait. I asked her to wait if she didn't mind and we then walked home together, Kilo trotting along quite unconcerned. I felt like crying, no idea why; I am sure he was just spooked and she was lovely about it but still....


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

moonviolet said:


> Hi Miss Puddy cat ( can i shorten it to MPC please?)
> 
> I dont' know if you've heard of Grisha Stewarts Behaviour Adjustment Training. It's a gently way to help your dog here's the link to her website and Fb pages
> Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) | Official site for BAT: dog-friendly training for reactivity (aggression, fear, frustration) by Grisha Stewart, MA
> https://www.facebook.com/FunctionalRewards/photos_stream#!/FunctionalRewards/photos_stream
> 
> I'd try to explain but the videos on the first link do a better job than i could.


Im sorry I have had a chance to reply to all your posts, it was a busy week at college with five tests, a snow day, the really bad snow storm that hit and shut down major roads and stores an ten minute bus ride took over an hour.

Yup you can shorten it to that or you can call me Suzie as what most people do.

No I have not her of her but ill give it a look, im up for anything as id really like to enjoy our walks and not have Sophie choking at the end of leash cause shes trying to bark at another dog.



Dogless said:


> *As I said on your other thread I'd avoid the beach totally for now although Sophie enjoys it as that's where you have the majority of your problems. I do feel your pain - I have an encounter with a loose dog pretty much daily here - in fact had one tonight - and it can be disheartening when they set you back. I'd stick to quiet walks, walks where you have space to practice avoidance - don't set Sophie up to fail so no narrow paths, alleyways etc.*
> 
> All the stuff in red is just my own very amateur opinion - you'll find loads more knowledgeable folk than me on here. The key thing is we are all helpful, we'll listen to ANYTHING (moonviolet :scared::scared and everyone here will pull together and be supportive.


We tried a city walk last week which we didnt see any other dogs tho lots of people we then went to the beach on the snow storm day and there was no one about and I got some great shots of Sophie plowing thru bunny hops as the snow was over her head, she greatly enjoyed it. But i am taking her to other walking places and if we see another dog we avoid them by going to another path or direction. Tho we have run into a few people in these places with dogs offlead thankfully they have not come to say Hi tho Sophie keeps one eye on them at all times.

Your advice is great and I just wish we lived more in the country then the city so we had more open spaces, here in the city the only legal places to let your dogs off is the overcrowded dog parks. Then if you go to a small green space you run into other dog owners who just let their dog off and do whatever it likes !



Sarah1983 said:


> MPC (sorry, I ain't typing out your whole username every time I talk to you  ) what do you do when Sophie doesn't react? Do you reward her for her non reaction? Is there anywhere you can go where you can stay a good distance from other dogs, where she can see them but isn't so worried about them that she has to scream and shout? That's the hardest part I found with a reactive dog, managed to keep other dogs at a distance. Voice of Doom is something I had great success with. Basically I'll step towards an approaching dog and in a low, growly voice tell it to "Go. Away!" Or piss off or f*ck off or something like that. It's the one "command" I've found even the worst trained dog tends to understand.
> 
> I would not be using a rattle bottle or anything like that to try to snap Sophie out of it. If anything it's likely to make her behaviour worse because she'll associate other dogs with the scary noise as well as with being attacked.


I do give Sophie praise if shes being a good girl, still do for when she goes to the bathroom, when I put her jacket on which she hates i tell her what a good girl she is.

The only place I can think of is a big public school yard which gives a good distance from other owners but this only works if those dogs are onlead Id say 90% of the time they arent and they come barging over from the other side to say "hello" I then do the blocking dance with Sophie screaming on one side and an over enthusiastic dog on the other side.

Ive bought a pet corrector spray and have been tempted to use it in the past week. Ive tried the voice of doom with a jrt last week and the bugger kept jumping up me and snapping at Sophie who in turn was trying to bite back at it.

Thats why i have been so afraid to use one because i dont want to scare her when she is reacting like this out of fear, I just dont know what else to do


----------



## Dogless

F&F - just keep on keeping on; you're a tougher cookie than the withdrawals  xx.


----------



## Thorne

Wow, over 1000 pages! Not sure I can keep up tonight but will bore you with my day then have a read on what you've all been up to 

Blue Cross again today, cleaned out the cats then took little Panda BC pup out for a wander. She's not too happy about cars but seemed to respond well to wandering the side streets and being fed cheese every time a car passed. She gets aww-ed at everywhere she goes and had some fuss from the smoking teachers group outside the school! Lovely girl!
Lola needed considerable coaxing to leave the centre because she hates the cold even with a coat on, but was fab once we got going, such good focus and not fazed by anything.
Paddy was a good lad on his walk too, really keen to work today but did steal a lost glove off the pavement and danced around with it.

Not 1 but 2 dogs got a bit OTT during playtime and caught my hands this afternoon, you know about it when it's Lab-sized SBT x Ollie!  At least they were motivated, right? 

Anyone know anyone looking for a lovely Border Collie? Panda and Bryn now up for homing:
Bryn: Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
Panda: Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre

*Dogs Today readers! *Have a look in the march issue's rehoming pages for Paddy and Poppy from BC! They're famous!  Poppy is apparently settling into her new home well.

Gave mine 45mins pavement and carpark training each tonight, Breeze was really keen, lovely to see her so motivated! Scooter is harder to motivate but fortunately was hungry so he was happy to work too. 
One thing Breeze doesn't really have is any impulse control, when she's "in the zone" she quickly gets over-excited then loses focus. A sit or down stay for example seem completely unattainable! She wasn't too bad tonight but I have to keep my voice fairly steady to keep her steady! Any ideas?


----------



## Werehorse

Kilo's just a sensitive chap, Dogless - she probably just startled him.  It is lovely that she was nice about it. 

Not sure what to say re: Deeks, Leam. I'm just really sad and sorry that you feel giving him up is the only way forward. I've never been tested in this way yet so don't feel I can judge, but I know I like to think that I would never give up a dog I had committed myself to - to me once they are in, they are in. Which is kind of why I now own a horse I can hardly ride.  Over-horsed myself massively but can't bare to be parted from her thinking about where she might end up. 

I don't know, I just feel sad.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I fully agree with mv; I feel so sad. I can't right now articulate all my thoughts on here.
> 
> Just walked Kilo in the dark and rain. Saw man and huge ambull that gave Kilo a good stare. He stiffened but walked on. Walked around an abandoned estate in the dark. Came home, saw someone I know (and that Kilo knows) that lives on our street at the end of the road, she came to say hello and Kilo barked at her . She asked if I wanted her to go away or wait. I asked her to wait if she didn't mind and we then walked home together, Kilo trotting along quite unconcerned. I felt like crying, no idea why; I am sure he was just spooked and she was lovely about it but still....


You'd just walked round an abandoned estate, it was dark, Kilo saw a figure and barked.....so what?

I'd want my little dears to bark in that situation.


----------



## MollySmith

Freddie and frank said:


> Mv, I had no idea of what miss Tinks had been through, poor little love.
> She sounds amazing, well both of you do.


Same as - Moonviolet, I had no idea and agree with you and Sarah that it's often the difficult dogs that teach us more. It's what I love about our trainer, all three of her dogs have oddities and it means she understand real life. She doesn't do any of her adult classes in a hall, it's outside in proper places. Her most recent dog was a Greekie dog that fled from the garden of her foster home and went on the run for 4 months. She refused to take food from a human hand, refused life indoors and has had real people problems but she's finally progressing and it's so nice to see. I know the trainer said she's learnt a lot from having her.

F&F - well done honey on your journey so far. You're doing so well. Naughty Freddie, I hope it's just a blip with that dog.

Sorry to not to catch up with everyone, I will try again tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Kilo's just a sensitive chap, Dogless - she probably just startled him.  It is lovely that she was nice about it.
> 
> Not sure what to say re: Deeks, Leam. I'm just really sad and sorry that you feel giving him up is the only way forward. I've never been tested in this way yet so don't feel I can judge, but I know I like to think that I would never give up a dog I had committed myself to - to me once they are in, they are in. Which is kind of why I now own a horse I can hardly ride.  Over-horsed myself massively but can't bare to be parted from her thinking about where she might end up.
> 
> I don't know, I just feel sad.


He is a very sensitive chap; love him.



Twiggy said:


> You'd just walked round an abandoned estate, it was dark, Kilo saw a figure and barked.....so what?
> 
> I'd want my little dears to bark in that situation.


I know; I was feeling pretty down anyway tonight. Some might say I overthink things massively  .


----------



## Werehorse

Thorne - I love both collies! Especially Panda! Gorgeous. Not sure re: stays... maybe just shaping it, building up your demand milli-second by milli-second? And rewarding for staying in position, rapid fire at first and gradually increasing gaps between treats?


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Wow, over 1000 pages! Not sure I can keep up tonight but will bore you with my day then have a read on what you've all been up to
> 
> Blue Cross again today, cleaned out the cats then took little Panda BC pup out for a wander. She's not too happy about cars but seemed to respond well to wandering the side streets and being fed cheese every time a car passed. She gets aww-ed at everywhere she goes and had some fuss from the smoking teachers group outside the school! Lovely girl!
> Lola needed considerable coaxing to leave the centre because she hates the cold even with a coat on, but was fab once we got going, such good focus and not fazed by anything.
> Paddy was a good lad on his walk too, really keen to work today but did steal a lost glove off the pavement and danced around with it.
> 
> Not 1 but 2 dogs got a bit OTT during playtime and caught my hands this afternoon, you know about it when it's Lab-sized SBT x Ollie!  At least they were motivated, right?
> 
> Anyone know anyone looking for a lovely Border Collie? Panda and Bryn now up for homing:
> Bryn: Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> Panda: Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> 
> *Dogs Today readers! *Have a look in the march issue's rehoming pages for Paddy and Poppy from BC! They're famous!  Poppy is apparently settling into her new home well.
> 
> Gave mine 45mins pavement and carpark training each tonight, Breeze was really keen, lovely to see her so motivated! Scooter is harder to motivate but fortunately was hungry so he was happy to work too.
> One thing Breeze doesn't really have is any impulse control, when she's "in the zone" she quickly gets over-excited then loses focus. A sit or down stay for example seem completely unattainable! She wasn't too bad tonight but I have to keep my voice fairly steady to keep her steady! Any ideas?


I really shouldn't have looked at Panda..... If I hear of anyone looking for a rescue pup, I'll put them in touch.

Can you enlarge on exactly what Breeze does when she gets over-excited and then loses focus when you ask for a sit or down stay?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> He is a very sensitive chap; love him.
> 
> I know; I was feeling pretty down anyway tonight. Some might say I overthink things massively  .


You certainly do - give yourself a break sometimes....


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> That's my girl - you'll get there....





Dogless said:


> F&F - just keep on keeping on; you're a tougher cookie than the withdrawals  xx.


Thanks. 

Dogless, mollysmith.....I'm really crap at advice but sounds like a few hugs are needed. 

Leam, not sure what to say, hope things work out for the best.

Sarah, BFG sled dog rally sounds fun.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Dogless, mollysmith.....I'm really crap at advice but sounds like a few hugs are needed.
> 
> Leam, not sure what to say, hope things work out for the best.
> 
> Sarah, BFG sled dog rally sounds fun.


You can have my ration of hugs until you're through your own rough patch  xx.


----------



## Twiggy

Blood - to cheer Dogless up.

I was really pleased with little Holly Bolly in class this afternoon, particularly the heelwork. I did however get bitten several times and some handlers commented about how brave I am to work her without a thick coat and gloves on...!!

Anyway we all did the scent discrimination exercise this afternoon and when it was Holly's go and I put my cloth down it was covered in blood from my thumb and forefinger. Holly didn't seem to mind....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You certainly do - give yourself a break sometimes....


Where's the fun in that? I need to beat myself up over something .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Blood - to cheer Dogless up.
> 
> I was really pleased with little Holly Bolly in class this afternoon, particularly the heelwork. I did however get bitten several times and some handlers commented about how brave I am to work her without a thick coat and gloves on...!!
> 
> Anyway we all did the scent discrimination exercise this afternoon and when it was Holly's go and I put my cloth down it was covered in blood from my thumb and forefinger. Holly didn't seem to mind....


Sounds like Rudi has competition  . He gave me a good bruise and set of teeth marks on our horrendous walk the other day right through my Puffa jacket :mad5:.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Thorne, Bryn and panda are gorgeous. I feel so sad though when dogs don't know how to play with toys. Hope they find someone special soon.


----------



## moonviolet

Freddie and frank said:


> Mv, I had no idea of what miss Tinks had been through, poor little love.
> She sounds amazing, well both of you do.





MollySmith said:


> Same as - Moonviolet, I had no idea and agree with you and Sarah that it's often the difficult dogs that teach us more.


Here's a link to a pic of Tink when she came home from the vet , It is a little gruesome. Don't feel obliged to look but if you are interested. http://www.petforums.co.uk/members/...er-course-antibiotics-just-medical-damage.jpg

She was wearing a leather whippet collar which took much of the brunt of the dogs lower teeth, The skin was torn as the attacking dogs owner yanked him off without the dog letting go.


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> I really shouldn't have looked at Panda..... If I hear of anyone looking for a rescue pup, I'll put them in touch.
> 
> Can you enlarge on exactly what Breeze does when she gets over-excited and then loses focus when you ask for a sit or down stay?


I have a feeling that lots of people will be interested in Panda because she's CUTE and WIGGLY but she's a typical full of beans working bred dog and quite drivey so would benefit from someone who knows Collies, Bryn _needs_ someone with breed experience!

Breeze is basically a typical Lab and goes nutty about food. I just use kibble for general training and only break out the high-value snacks as jackpot rewards or she'll just stare at my hands/treatbag/pockets, and nudge or mouth me for treats  It is mostly food that's the "problem" but too much excited voice just sends her into a whole body wag with teeth-snapping and bouncing at me. She'll sometimes work for her beloved soft toys but it's FOOD FOOD FOOD that makes her tick.
It's not specifically a stay that she gets too excited to do but I can get about 5-6ft from her before she decides she's far enough away and re-attaches to me. It's one of those things that I accepted as "something she doesn't do" and now that I'd like to work on it again I don't know where to start 

I've just made her sound much nuttier then she really is!


----------



## Twiggy

To return to the posts about men...!!

Well lo and behold I've just had an email from Gary (who didn't turn up yesterday) to say he'd looked in his diary and had he missed his lesson...

This is a bloke who owns two successful companys....... I rest my case.

He can sweat for a couple of days....:devil:


----------



## Guest

MV, sorry for the language but holy ****, you and your tink deserve masses of hugs and chocolate and a medal of awesomeness. 

Thorne, does paddy grab the stolen thing, then prance like them spanish horses do when they're on show? (You knooooow, when they really pick their legs up?) Or shake it? Or try and run with it? Cause thats what Zand does. He found a muddy old abandoned hat, and was prancing about with it. 

Lots of hugs and stuff for you F&F. 

And whats the sled dog thing sarah?

And dogless, don't worry about feeling upset on your walk. I get like that every now and then. They'll do ONE thing and suddenly your eyes feel a bit weird and you're interally like "Nooo don't be a turd please." and your also going "WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?" and then the moment will pass and then your fine and then the walk homes fine and you get home and its fine.

Well, that last bit might just be me. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Here's a link to a pic of Tink when she came home from the vet , It is a little gruesome. Don't feel obliged to look but if you are interested. http://www.petforums.co.uk/members/...er-course-antibiotics-just-medical-damage.jpg
> 
> She was wearing a leather whippet collar which took much of the brunt of the dogs lower teeth, The skin was torn as the attacking dogs owner yanked him off without the dog letting go.


OMG that's terrible. I knew Tink had been attacked but didn't realise the damage.


----------



## Guest

Oooh look i have asterix!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> MV, sorry for the language but holy ****, you and your tink deserve masses of hugs and chocolate and a medal of awesomeness.
> 
> Thorne, does paddy grab the stolen thing, then prance like them spanish horses do when they're on show? (You knooooow, when they really pick their legs up?) Or shake it? Or try and run with it? Cause thats what Zand does. He found a muddy old abandoned hat, and was prancing about with it.
> 
> Lots of hugs and stuff for you F&F.
> 
> And whats the sled dog thing sarah?
> 
> And dogless, don't worry about feeling upset on your walk. I get like that every now and then. They'll do ONE thing and suddenly your eyes feel a bit weird and you're interally like "Nooo don't be a turd please." and your also going "WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?" and then the moment will pass and then your fine and then the walk homes fine and you get home and its fine.
> 
> Well, that last bit might just be me. :lol:


Thanks; things aren't fine at all really which is why minor things become my focus. Not with the CHs - they are more than fine .


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> I have a feeling that lots of people will be interested in Panda because she's CUTE and WIGGLY but she's a typical full of beans working bred dog and quite drivey so would benefit from someone who knows Collies, Bryn _needs_ someone with breed experience!
> 
> Breeze is basically a typical Lab and goes nutty about food. I just use kibble for general training and only break out the high-value snacks as jackpot rewards or she'll just stare at my hands/treatbag/pockets, and nudge or mouth me for treats  It is mostly food that's the "problem" but too much excited voice just sends her into a whole body wag with teeth-snapping and bouncing at me. She'll sometimes work for her beloved soft toys but it's FOOD FOOD FOOD that makes her tick.
> It's not specifically a stay that she gets too excited to do but I can get about 5-6ft from her before she decides she's far enough away and re-attaches to me. It's one of those things that I accepted as "something she doesn't do" and now that I'd like to work on it again I don't know where to start
> 
> I've just made her sound much nuttier then she really is!


OK. It's time for my bed but tomorrow I'll post the way I teach a sit and down stay and you could perhaps give that a go.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Mv, that's shocking. 
She's done amazingly well.


----------



## Werehorse

ARGH! I'M HUNGRY AND OH IS EATING TOAST!!!! 

Is that grounds for murder?  If he dares complain he hasn't lost any weight..........


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear poor deeks. Sorry can't say much more 

Dogless - ninja barks at anything she doesn't like the look of. Its not good or nice but essentially normal. Silly billy. Can i use that twice in one day??

we had a dark walk on the beach so calm and quiet and finished emulsioning sitting area so can move furniture and onto dining area. Whoop whoop

will say hello to everyone else tomorrow just can't do it on the phone


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> Thorne, does paddy grab the stolen thing, then prance like them spanish horses do when they're on show? (You knooooow, when they really pick their legs up?) Or shake it? Or try and run with it? Cause thats what Zand does. He found a muddy old abandoned hat, and was prancing about with it.


He's done it a couple of times with curious abandoned articles, tends to sniff it and before I can ask him to leave he picks it up, does a fancy trot with it in his mouth, gives it a quick shake then loses interest  Not tried to run around with one yet! He'll leave it when asked but he normally spots them before I do!



Twiggy said:


> OK. It's time for my bed but tomorrow I'll post the way I teach a sit and down stay and you could perhaps give that a go.


Thanks twiggy 

MV that photo of Tink gets me every time, poor little girl. You've both come such a long way, it really is inspiring!


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> ARGH! I'M HUNGRY AND OH IS EATING TOAST!!!!
> 
> Is that grounds for murder?  If he dares complain he hasn't lost any weight..........


well if it is .... does trying to pass off a japanese rice cooker that *He* wanted as a valentines present for me qualify too ? :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> well if it is .... does trying to pass off a japanese rice cooker that *He* wanted as a valentines present for me qualify too ? :lol:


 Hell yes


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> And whats the sled dog thing sarah?


Apparently a bunch of people with husky type dogs meet up once a week for an off leash play session. And I asked tonight whether me and my Lab would be welcome and they said yes, it's not limited to just sled dog types. I've seen pics and videos of the meet ups and not seen anything to put me off so I figure we'll go along on Sunday and see how things go.

Also found out that someone with a young Boxer walks on the fields I often go to at certain times each day so might head up there and meet up with them since she said we'd be welcome, her dog would love a good play. And someone else moving over here in April wouldn't mind a dog walking buddy. So fingers crossed I can get Spen around other dogs and start working on him not lunging and screaming to meet them.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Hell yes


I did call him up on it and his reply was " well it was worth a try " :lol: :lol: :lol: romance has a little gravestone in our garden.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless, I liked for the CH's doing fine, but spill if you need to.

Wh, TOAST.....yes it is good grounds only if it has lots of butter on it. :drool:


----------



## sharloid

I need to work on Broder getting excited and nomming Kindra's ear. They'll be walking along fine and then...










He doesn't put any pressure on or hurt her but it's bloody annoying!

Any ideas?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - that all sounds very positive, hope it pans out well for you and the Spendog.



Freddie and frank said:


> Dogless, I liked for the CH's doing fine, but spill if you need to.
> 
> Wh, TOAST.....yes it is good grounds only if it has lots of butter on it. :drool:


If I spill I'll ruin the thread .



sharloid said:


> I need to work on Broder getting excited and nomming Kindra's ear. They'll be walking along fine and then...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> He doesn't put any pressure on or hurt her but it's bloody annoying!
> 
> Any ideas?


I am guessing that "leave it" doesn't work at all? Asking them to sit and then carrying on when the excitement's over? Bringing them to heel, one either side of you, and then letting them back out in front? Rudi will take a leap at Kilo now and again to grab his scruff; a firm "leave it" usually works, but I'm sure you've tried all the stuff my tiny brain can think of .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless can you please call your weather home


----------



## Maria_1986

My head is spinning after trying to catch up so sorry to the people i end up missing out

Sarah - I hope you both enjoy the group walk 

Moonviolet - Poor Tink, thats horrible

Dogless - I know its easy for me to say but not so easy for you to do but try not to worry too much about being upset over Kilo barking. I know how easy it is to become upset over minor stuff if there is something major going on else where (in the past I cried for half an hour because I dropped a cup when washing up - there were bigger issues I was trying to deal with around the same time but it was the minor stuff that was the final straw). Hugs to you.

werehorse - yep its grounds for murder! I have trained my OH to eat the bad stuff at work to help me stay away from chocolate and cake. Have you tried drinking a glass of skimmed milk when your hungry? I find it helps to fill my stomach enough to get rid of the hungry feeling but is relatively low calorie

Greetings and hugs to the people I've missed/that need them.

Chevy has met lots of people and dogs and greeted them all nicely, she spent some time playing with the collie of someone I know (well the collie played fetch, Chevy just ran around after her not quite knowing what to do) everyone who has met her has fallen in love. She saw the two resident cats at the home of the collie and even though she is supposedly not good with cats she did not react at all. She knows sit, paw, wait (and will wait till given the ok before eating her meals) and is still 100% clean in the house. 

I am waiting for the paperwork to come through so I can get us enrolled on the next intake for our local training class in around 5 weeks.


----------



## Twiggy

*I am guessing that "leave it" doesn't work at all? Asking them to sit and then carrying on when the excitement's over? Bringing them to heel, one either side of you, and then letting them back out in front? Rudi will take a leap at Kilo now and again to grab his scruff; a firm "leave it" usually works, but I'm sure you've tried all the stuff my tiny brain can think of .[/QUOTE]*

I agree with Dogless and use a firm "leave" when youngsters get over exhuberant and start annoying older dogs. Of course it has to be thoroughly taught before you start to implement it in these situations.


----------



## Werehorse

Glad it is going so well, so far, Maria.  She sounds very lovely.

mv - I told OH about the rice cooker. :lol: He was suitably appalled but then gave him kudos for being honest under pressure.  I might be saying "screw you" to the diet and going out for chips in the Landy tonight... it's a long story but essentially chips in the car is highly romantic in our house. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless can you please call your weather home


I have tried and tried to get a decent recall but just can't . If it helps it's sunny with showers here today :devil:.



Maria_1986 said:


> My head is spinning after trying to catch up so sorry to the people i end up missing out
> 
> Sarah - I hope you both enjoy the group walk
> 
> Moonviolet - Poor Tink, thats horrible
> 
> Dogless - I know its easy for me to say but not so easy for you to do but try not to worry too much about being upset over Kilo barking. I know how easy it is to become upset over minor stuff if there is something major going on else where (in the past I cried for half an hour because I dropped a cup when washing up - there were bigger issues I was trying to deal with around the same time but it was the minor stuff that was the final straw). Hugs to you.
> 
> werehorse - yep its grounds for murder! I have trained my OH to eat the bad stuff at work to help me stay away from chocolate and cake. Have you tried drinking a glass of skimmed milk when your hungry? I find it helps to fill my stomach enough to get rid of the hungry feeling but is relatively low calorie
> 
> Greetings and hugs to the people I've missed/that need them.
> 
> Chevy has met lots of people and dogs and greeted them all nicely, she spent some time playing with the collie of someone I know (well the collie played fetch, Chevy just ran around after her not quite knowing what to do) everyone who has met her has fallen in love. She saw the two resident cats at the home of the collie and even though she is supposedly not good with cats she did not react at all. She knows sit, paw, wait (and will wait till given the ok before eating her meals) and is still 100% clean in the house.
> 
> I am waiting for the paperwork to come through so I can get us enrolled on the next intake for our local training class in around 5 weeks.


Maria - everything sounds great so far; long may it continue .

I just made a mountain out of a molehill last night as I was feeling overwhelmed. It wouldn't normally have bothered me much . Thanks for being kind though .



Werehorse said:


> Glad it is going so well, so far, Maria.  She sounds very lovely.
> 
> mv - I told OH about the rice cooker. :lol: He was suitably appalled but then gave him kudos for being honest under pressure.  I might be saying "screw you" to the diet and going out for chips in the Landy tonight... it's a long story but essentially chips in the car is highly romantic in our house. :lol:


I don't even want to know .

Took the CHs to the park pretty early this morning. We saw lots of dogs straight off the bat so the first 10 minutes were :incazzato::w00t::crazy::blink:. Kilo was an utter star and disregarded them :thumbup1: but Rudi was hard to gain focus with. But..cheese and persistence paid off. We had a pleasant time and a man with a little cocker spaniel told me how lovely they were which is always nice . Rudi had a little jump / bite attempt in the cafe car park bit just as an immaculately dressed and very beautiful lady exited her car....I thought she was going to say something 'off' but instead grinned at me and said "One very good one and one bold one 'eh?" and we had a quick chat - she didn't think Rudi was a puppy like lots of folk don't because he's big.

So good morning, two puffed pigs' noses eaten by the boys and they're snoozing away :001_wub:.


----------



## MollySmith

Freddie and frank said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Dogless, mollysmith.....I'm really crap at advice but sounds like a few hugs are needed.
> 
> Leam, not sure what to say, hope things work out for the best.
> 
> Sarah, BFG sled dog rally sounds fun.


Thank you - all hugs are gratefully received


----------



## L/C

Bastarding cats and their bastarding owners! :mad5:

On the way to the field this morning a cat jumped off the wall it was sitting on and attacked us. In-*******-sane. It jumped onto Ely's head and went for his eyes, he shook it off and freaked out. I was trying to keep Gypsy away from it as she was going mad on the end of her lead so I couldn't stop it having another go at him - and it badly scratched him around his neck.

The bastard thing came back for another go and Gypsy got hold of it but dropped when I told her. It then came back again and I booted it in the ribs before either of mine was badly hurt (or so I thought) or it got itself killed. Owner finally came out of the house and laughed (!). "Oh he always does that - he hates dogs." Then keep your bastard cat in the house when you live on a road to a park. 

I informed (snarled at) her that she would be getting a vets bill if either of mine needed treatment and she better start to keep her cat in or next time it might not escape with a bit of lost fur and a boot to the ribs. She got a bit narky with me but finally apologised.

Got home and checked them over - Ely has a bad cut to his neck that has had to be stitched and Gypsy has a few scratches and has scrapped a lot of the skin off her bad leg from where she was dancing around. Invoice for vet has been posted through her door - with stitching, consultation fee and antibiotics it was over £150.

Gah! 

Sharloid - do you know what triggers off Broder's mouthing? Ely does it to Gypsy when he is frustrated when he can't get to something he wants to chase - he also feeds off her energy as well. It's classic re-directed aggression. To work on it I walked them separately and worked on their impulse control. Now we can normally walk past with a stern leave it and heel command. Though after today's fiasco I imagine I will be proofing all of this again.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no L/C - poor Ely and Gypsy . Hope the cat owner pays your vet bill.


----------



## GingerRogers

Leam1307 said:


> I just want whats best for him and i dont think we are capable of dealing with his issues and it is obviously upsetting him more. Hopefully he can find a lovely home with older dogs to show him the ropes and keep him company, and no cats to chase.
> 
> Im annoyed though because i have explained to the rescue that he has issues with other dogs too, great when he gets to meet but if not allowed then he lunges, growl and barks.. and they have put him up as "great with other dogs"!!!! I was also told when i got him that he was great with cats.... and that turned out so well.


Leam - I have to say last night I was furious when I read your post, also disappointed but not wholly surprised, sadly , it was clear to see that Deeks would be the one to go as soon as you got Molly, despite your protests. Not that it matters a jot to you what I think . I feel much as everyone else that you take a dog on, especially a rescue, especially one with such a known hard start in life and you should expect the road ahead to be pretty tough for a while. As far as their description of him with dogs and cats, for a start always take a rescues description with a pinch of salt, they need to re home the dogs after all, especially a rescue as dubious as yours appears to be  but also the behaviours exhibited in a rescue can be a million miles away from 'normal'. Rory just spun round and round his kennel at high speed and didn't stop for any attention. As soon as he got home he collapsed on the sofa and wanted attention from everybody. My own ninja is was also described as 'good with dogs', which she is, but not on lead which is what she has to be in our situation, where she did live she was off lead and left to her own devices to roam about the countryside. I could never imagine giving up on an animal I have taken in.

However on reflection, I think you are right, you are not equipped to cope with his issues , this was also fairly clear from the beginning, which is where a good rescue would have found him the correct place. I really hope they do a better job this time. What I am trying to say in a round about way is that actually, although I think you have made some hasty/wrong decisions in getting both him and Molly, it actually takes a certain type of guts and honesty to admit defeat (god knows I wonder several times a week if I should do the same ) and allow him to go and (hopefully) get the care he needs, and at the end of the day none of us are in your shoes and can experience exactly what its been like. So well done  and good luck, and I really hope the rescue find him the right place, the best you can do for him now is try and ensure that they don't let him down.

F&F - keep going I am sure you will come through the other side, pick a withdrawal symptom you like - perhaps dizzy  - and look forward to that time of day  sorry I really aren't much help.

MPC - regarding your comment about Sophie choking on the end of her leash, do you walk Sophie on a collar or harness, a harness would be less traumatic for both of you, I feel much less 'alarmed' when Ginge kicks off as I know she can't choke or damage her windpipe, even though she somehow still manages to sound like it  Also I feel for you about the place you live  although it must be even worse in Canada with the leash laws but ( I have said this before - F&F) a dog does not *have *to have an off lead run around on every walk. If it keeps you both calm stick to lead only places with less dogs for a few weeks, it sounds like it will take that long for her to calm.

MV - only just been able to see that pic of Tinks   you have done amazingly, just to get to the stage where you are happy walking around other dogs let alone her .

Sarah your plans sounds really good, the sled dog thing sounds great and the boxer play could be good  good luck with the training prospects.

Oooh can I join the club Twiggy I have a bloody scab on my shin from the encounter with mad lab the other day, not that mad lab bit me  that would be wholly inappropriate, nor did her dog, but ninja transferred her frustration on to me 

Dogless, thanks for the weather actually , we had a loooovely quiet walk when I eventually managed to drag myself out of bed and it had actually stopped to a drizzle buy the time I had dressed me and the ninja, I didn't really look over dressed , hell it was hammering it though, sideways , we don't often get rain like that! Can you keep it leashed in future or at least on a long line so you can get it back at short notice. Glad your mountains are receding this morning . Nice to meet a lady who surprised you!

WH - we like chips in the car too, we had especial fun in our old fiesta, don't worry no funny business , we parked up in the harbour, and put chips on the sun roof and scared ourselves with dive bombing herring gulls 

Maria :thumbup: Chevy sounds like she is getting along great, not to be the voice of doom and I am sure you know but don't drop your guard just yet, hopefully you wont need it she sounds an absolute sweetheart.

I just glossed the front door,  it covered Rory damage, about 6 years ago we went out and left him home one evening, my hairdryer was on the landing floor and he somehow turned it on . He went ballistic, we came home to a bloody mouthed terrified dog and a front door that had been ripped to shreds, it still has a slight bend, he was that desperate to escape  we cleared up and filled the holes but left it scarred as a reminder never to be so careless again, now it has gone like a little bit of Rory (although to be fair in doing the skirting boards I discovered he is well and truly here still in all the fluffy gaps )

Woah just checked I hadn't missed anything important in typing this essay, L/C :scared: thats one mental cat, jesus , hope the dogs recover ok and no long term damage although like you say its likely going to send them into over drive now with cats. We have a bold black one which will sit its ground and spit but christ if it did that I would be tempted to let the dogs get on with it next time  (sorry not a fan of cats at the best of times )


----------



## Izzysmummy

Hi all, Wow This thread has exploded again so sorry if I miss anyone!

GR- Sorry you had a rubbish day yesterday! I hope today is better, sounds like Ginge is picking up a bit on your emotions and maybe attempting to protect you? Try not to let these "friends" upset you. I would either avoid them for a while until you feel more able to withstand the "jokes" or have a quiet word, I have done this before in the past when I've felt particularly sensitive over an issue, I just said "look please can you not mention it because Im feeling a bit sensitive about it at the moment and I know you dont mean for your comments to get to me but they do". Then just left it at that and in future change the subject quickly if they ever have a lapse.
Ouesi - I hope the laser/acupuncture therapy works and you see some good results!
MS - I hope you're feeling a bit brighter today. I'm sure Molly will be very happy to have you at home for a while! Gorgeous picture BTW!
L/C - Masters sounds exciting. Id probably be tempted to do it first and then it could be an arm of your business to start building when you start dog walking. Good luck with the ultrasound tomorrow, hope all goes well! Oh dear just seen about your run in with the cat! Sounds like a little psyco with a death wish! Hope Ely and Gypsy are OK and fingers crossed the cats owner forks out, hopefully the owner will realise the cost of her irresponsible attitude!
K&M - nice to see you back, was thinking you'd not posted for a while. Very glad OH is ok and fingers crossed it all gets sorted out quickly with the insurance! Poor Evie, hopefully she'll be back on track soon!
Beth - Good luck! Got everything crossed for you!
WH - Well done with the boys "leave it" training! Hope you enjoy your chip supper tonight 
Leam - So sorry to hear this, no advice really. It's such a shame the rescue has not been more supportive and hadn't prepared you better for the reality. Also Izzy is a very fine built lab and she weighs 21-22ishkg, not sure about whippets. I would guess at final adult weight of 18kg and then adjust from there based by eye?
F+F - naughty Freddie, hope he's better today. Well done Frank for being a star, hope he keeps it up! Just keep at it with the withdrawal, hope you're OK! Big (((((hug)))))!
Dogless - Hope you're feeling brighter this morning, I think in the same situation as Kilo last night Izzy would definitely have barked too. She seems to really pick up on peoples body language, so somebody approaching us directly and looking at us would set her off even if she knew them, until she was close enough to realise that they're her friend, their body language from a distance and direct approach would freak her out. Feel free to PM if you need to talk. Hope all OK. Sending a big ((((hug)))) to you too!
Thorne - Sure Twiggy will be able to give you plenty of good tips for a sit stay, down stay. Either time or distance, and introduce each very slowly.
Twiggy - I hope you're now all bandaged up! We're going to be starting to do some scent work at class with Izzy so have to start playing with socks and making them stinky!
MV - Poor Tink, Ive never seen that photo! It makes me so sad to see her like that! You have both come so far! Well done for all your hard work with her!
Sarah - Thats good news that you've hopefully got some people and dogs to practise with! Looking forward to hearing how Spen gets on at the sled dog meet up at the weekend!
Maria - Glad Chevy is settling in well! What a little star she is!

Whoa, that was quite the marathon!

Hope you are all feeling a bit better towards the OH's! I feel guilty telling you that Tarnus came home with a bunch of flowers last night , looking forward to our Steak and chip dinner tonight (it's our treat meal for birthdays, valentines, anniversary etc.)! We were at class last night which went well, only one bark whilst waiting for the class to start, she was a little wimpy at the start as it was freezing in the little scout hut so the big ceiling mounted fan heater was turned on to thaw us out but it was quite noisy when it was first turned on and she wasnt keen but once it quietened down she settled and listened better. Did some nice heel work, good sit-stay and some good off-lead heelwork. Then A decided to get us to do a down on recall, he knows it's something I've done a little bit of in the past and got me to do it first to demonstrate and Izzy was brilliant :thumbup:! So proud of my little monkey! Then we sat at the back and chatted to P and gave Nell (BC) a fuss :001_wub:! Poor P was in our agility beginners class but has had an op on her shoulder so I havent seen her since Christmas! She's not able to return to agility for 6 months  she had just come along to watch the obedience and see everyone not take part! We've been told to get 4 socks and keep 3 clean and with the fourth start playing with it, stick it down our tops, in treat bags etc. to make it nice and stinky because in a few weeks we're going to start doing some scent work which will be good fun, it's not something we've done before so it'll be good to get our teeth into something new!

Tonight it'll be a street walk as we've not done a training street walk for a while!


----------



## moonviolet

Poor Ely and Gypsy, and what a horrible start to the day for you. Hope everything heals ok and it doesn't make things harder when you encounter furture cats. That cat needs an ASBO.

Dogless sounds like a good time in the park compliments and understanding


----------



## Guest

That cat sounded bloody insane!!  And its owner sounded like a right muppet. 

Walked himself on his headcollar this morning as I felt a bit fragile. I'd forgotten how wonderful a headcollar is. Was the most relaxed walk ever. Crossed the road at the same time as westie did, Zand was fine. Zand even excepted a treat off a stranger today! We followed some beardies today too. Zand stared alot but was okay. 
Sadly the headcollar is starting to already rub Zand's face. May have to invest in a dogmatic again. But he hated it last time.


----------



## Thorne

Maria -Lovely to hear how Chevy is getting on, hope there's space for you on the training course.

Dogless -Another grump-free walk?  Sounds like a good morning with the boys.

L/C -Just when I was starting to like cats... That's one that could do with being an indoors-only cat! What a horrible experience, hope the owner pays up and that Ely and Gypsy heal soon.

Izzysmummy -Glad that the class went well, exciting stuff about the scent work!

LO -Which headcollar are you using? Am trying to think of padded or softer ones that you could look into (Indi-Dog's figure of 8 one perhaps? Head Collar - Indi-Dog). Pleased that it helped you have a chilled out walk.

Valentines Day. Never been a fan even when I've had a boyfriend on the day (bit of a daft, artificial holiday isn't it?) but today I just feel crap  Think it's hit me that I'm on my own again. Oh well, at least the rain has stopped for now. Hope everyone's having a happier, more romantic day than I am.

Just played the box game with the muppets. Breeze was a scatterbrain and quickly went into her excited barks instead of paying the box much attention, we've not got any further than a nose touch before and today the most we got was her sniffing in it in case it vended treats  Will persevere!
Scooter was much more focused and we got a look at, look in, nose touches then he shoved it across the floor with his nose  He's normally slower to pick things up than Breeze but he's definitely got the hand of box!

About to go shopping for dad's birthday present so will head out on a walk when I get back.


----------



## Maria_1986

GingerRogers said:


> Maria :thumbup: Chevy sounds like she is getting along great, not to be the voice of doom and I am sure you know but don't drop your guard just yet, hopefully you wont need it she sounds an absolute sweetheart.


Please feel free to be the voice of doom - yes she is getting along great at the moment, she has shown us her cheeky side a couple of times but i am waiting for her to settle enough that she starts to test the boundaries. I have a dog behaviorist lined up to come visit in a couple of weeks for some one to one work on stuff that won't be covered in the classes. Although she sounded great at the rescue I kind of when into this expecting the worst but hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised and so far so good. I was told about 6 weeks is the standard for a rescue dog to get settled and start to show their true colours does that sound about right?


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- your poor Pointies, I hope they can get over this. Crazy lady letting a cat outdoors like that  my cats come and go as they please but they aren't a problem to anyone here. Fingers crossed the vet bill gets paid.

Beth- fingers crossed here you get the job you're after.

IM- Ooh scent work, that'll be exciting.

Maria- sounds like Chevy is settling lovely- I hope it continues.

We have to go to the shops then for another wet walk  but I just wanted to say I think someone has swapped my dog

I only picked the clicker up and Evie ran to the mat


----------



## Guest

I don't realllllllly wanna use one that squeezes Zand. Espesh if he decides to kick off over another dog!


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> I don't realllllllly wanna use one that squeezes Zand. Espesh if he decides to kick off over another dog!


Fair enough, now I think about it I wouldn't fancy using one on a reactive dog either! 

What about the Kumfi Dogalter? Products : Dogalter IMO there's not enough non-tightening designs out there, can't think of any more off the top of my head.


----------



## Guest

Thorne said:


> Fair enough, now I think about it I wouldn't fancy using one on a reactive dog either!
> 
> What about the Kumfi Dogalter? Products : Dogalter IMO there's not enough non-tightening designs out there, can't think of any more off the top of my head.


It does look good. But I may go with the dogmatic again because one of the main problems is fur is being rubbed of zander muzzle regardless of how well fitted the gentle leader/halti is. Rubbed nose = Very unhappy dog. 
Also I think I got the wrong size dogmatic last time but I shall be sure to phone up if the same happens again next time. IDK. :blushing:


----------



## tiatortilla

hello again  another lovely walk today, i think i could have done with joining this thread a few months ago when we were actually doing quite a lot of work! tia has got so much more confident lately, i love it  she made some more friends today, a spaniel and a yorkie x shih tzu. played with the yorkie x for ages, got extremely muddy and now she's just enjoying a pig trotter for dinner.
will catch up on all the new posts later on when i'm less busy!


----------



## moonviolet

LO I dont' know if this might be something that could be useful for Zander https://mekuti.co.uk/calm_bands.htm

K&M wooohoo at keenie Evie 

TT sounds like you and Tia are doing great 

IM SOunds liek Izzy coped well with the noisy heater adn scentwork will be fun 

Maria hope[ things carry on as they are, but great to have the behaviourist back up in place 

Thorne sounds like Scooer loves the box game 

GR hugs it really is quite and emotional week.


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear L/C that's all you needed. Poor Ely and Gypsy.

That cat sounds positively dangerous.

I hope you manage to get your vet's bill paid but even so it's not going to cover psychological trauma with both your dogs.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Please feel free to be the voice of doom - yes she is getting along great at the moment, she has shown us her cheeky side a couple of times but i am waiting for her to settle enough that she starts to test the boundaries. I have a dog behaviorist lined up to come visit in a couple of weeks for some one to one work on stuff that won't be covered in the classes. Although she sounded great at the rescue I kind of when into this expecting the worst but hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised and so far so good. I was told about 6 weeks is the standard for a rescue dog to get settled and start to show their true colours does that sound about right?


On past experience with all my daughter's rescues, anything from 1 - 3 months is when they start to show their true colours.

Of course your little girl may remain a total sweetheart...


----------



## Twiggy

I had 3 handlers from 'op North' for two hours training over lunchtime today.

One of their dogs is very closely related to my Quiver and Tremor and he is to die for. If the handler is sensible and doesn't do anything silly he's got Obedience Champion stamped all over him.

One of them brought along her delightful collie pup as well.

All the dogs were a joy and have excellent potential.

Needless to say I didn't take Holly Bolly over to the barn for demonstration purposes...!!


----------



## Dogless

k&m - I'd take Evie to the vet; there is something wrong - you need to do a titre for disobedience antibodies. STAT!!!!

Izzysmummy - I possibly hate you :devil:.

Well. "Not in a good place" as all the cheesy American sitcoms and stars being admitted to The Priory say . Took Kilo to PAH as I wanted to weigh him as I thought he was looking a bit skinny - rib. He has dropped some weight and I like to know what it is 'just in case'. The vet scales are a drama - small, crammed between door and chairs and tip alarmingly if the dog isn't central - whereas the BW will just walk onto the PAH ones. Needed tripe too.

It was busy with people and dogs. No dramas, I knew he'd behave and he did, very well indeed, I was very proud. Went to pay and there was a big long queue. Waited for a while as there was a small child running about near the queue mugging any dog that came near without mother giving a hoot.....so we went for a walk round the hamster bedding bit :idea:. Anyhow, came back round and joined the queue at the rear. Mother of the year had left a basket on the counter and gone to look at the calendars on sale whilst we all waited and her son made a pest of himself.

Kilo was sat, quietly waiting and horrid child spies us and approaches. I very nicely tell him not to stroke him, he doesn't like it. Child carries on approaching, so I just turned Kilo around and walked out of the queue. Little sh!t following. He manages to stroke Kilo on his back. No dramas, but I tell him he's had his stoke now and to please leave the dog alone. Mother calls him over. That's that thinks I. So I join the queue again. At the back. Again . I sit Kilo facing me this time watching me. Boy approaches yet again :cursing: whilst mother watches. I tell him not to stroke the dog. Whilst mother listens. Child determined, comes around to the front and stares at Kilo making stupid barking noise and Kilo gives two single massive barks without moving from his sit so still about 6ft from child.

Oh Christ. You would have though he had grabbed the child and torn him limb from limb. The whole bloody PAH world stopped turning on it's axis and all the "Oh dearers", Cluckers, Tutters and Professionally Outraged started their various noises. The two other dogs in the queue were hoisted up into their owners' arms whilst being reassured that it was OK and all children held tightly by the arm as if Kilo was running amok with a semi - automatic rifle threatening to shoot anyone that moved :mad5::mad5:. The boy's mother made a huge drama of calling him to her (not that she'd cared where he was for 10 minutes previously ) and telling him to get away from that dog and articulating her horror that such a monster could be brought into a pet store etc etc. I was so upset and so angry. One woman helpfully told me that they sold muzzles  and all I could do? Stand there trying not to cry  .

When I got to the till the assistant sweetly told me about the yellow ribbon scheme for dogs that are aggressive to other dogs and people. I know she was trying to help but told her it wouldn't really help displaying something asking that your dog is given space when it would be ignored.

So, all in all a minor, minor incident that I have totally blown out of all proportion _yet again _because I am feeling crappy. Ugh.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> k&m - I'd take Evie to the vet; there is something wrong - you need to do a titre for disobedience antibodies. STAT!!!!
> 
> Izzysmummy - I possibly hate you :devil:.
> 
> Well. "Not in a good place" as all the cheesy American sitcoms and stars being admitted to The Priory say . Took Kilo to PAH as I wanted to weigh him as I thought he was looking a bit skinny - rib. He has dropped some weight and I like to know what it is 'just in case'. The vet scales are a drama - small, crammed between door and chairs and tip alarmingly if the dog isn't central - whereas the BW will just walk onto the PAH ones. Needed tripe too.
> 
> It was busy with people and dogs. No dramas, I knew he'd behave and he did, very well indeed, I was very proud. Went to pay and there was a big long queue. Waited for a while as there was a small child running about near the queue mugging any dog that came near without mother giving a hoot.....so we went for a walk round the hamster bedding bit :idea:. Anyhow, came back round and joined the queue at the rear. Mother of the year had left a basket on the counter and gone to look at the calendars on sale whilst we all waited and her son made a pest of himself.
> 
> Kilo was sat, quietly waiting and horrid child spies us and approaches. I very nicely tell him not to stroke him, he doesn't like it. Child carries on approaching, so I just turned Kilo around and walked out of the queue. Little sh!t following. He manages to stroke Kilo on his back. No dramas, but I tell him he's had his stoke now and to please leave the dog alone. Mother calls him over. That's that thinks I. So I join the queue again. At the back. Again . I sit Kilo facing me this time watching me. Boy approaches yet again :cursing: whilst mother watches. I tell him not to stroke the dog. Whilst mother listens. Child determined, comes around to the front and stares at Kilo making stupid barking noise and Kilo gives two single massive barks without moving from his sit so still about 6ft from child.
> 
> Oh Christ. You would have though he had grabbed the child and torn him limb from limb. The whole bloody PAH world stopped turning on it's axis and all the "Oh dearers", Cluckers, Tutters and Professionally Outraged started their various noises. The two other dogs in the queue were hoisted up into their owners' arms whilst being reassured that it was OK and all children held tightly by the arm as if Kilo was running amok with a semi - automatic rifle threatening to shoot anyone that moved :mad5::mad5:. The boy's mother made a huge drama of calling him to her (not that she'd cared where he was for 10 minutes previously ) and telling him to get away from that dog and articulating her horror that such a monster could be brought into a pet store etc etc. I was so upset and so angry. One woman helpfully told me that they sold muzzles  and all I could do? Stand there trying not to cry  .
> 
> When I got to the till the assistant sweetly told me about the yellow ribbon scheme for dogs that are aggressive to other dogs and people. I know she was trying to help but told her it wouldn't really help displaying something asking that your dog is given space when it would be ignored.
> 
> So, all in all a minor, minor incident that I have totally blown out of all proportion _yet again _because I am feeling crappy. Ugh.


Well I can understand you feeling crappy in that situation and it must have been embarrassing. Even so it wasn't your's or Kilo's fault and I'll say again they seem to be very strange people in NI.

I'm afraid I've have asked the child's mother if he and she understood English, with as much sarcasm as I could muster.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I can understand you feeling crappy in that situation and it must have been embarrassing. Even so it wasn't your's or Kilo's fault and I'll say again they seem to be very strange people in NI.
> 
> I'm afraid I've have asked the child's mother if he and she understood English, with as much sarcasm as I could muster.


I just couldn't Twiggy. The problem with the area is mostly that people are 'small dog folk' and the most common question I get about Kilo is whether or not he is vicious. I am guessing you get pushy kids like that everywhere but I've not ever encountered quite so much rudeness / ignorance as here I must admit. Not at all. It would help if I could pull myself together and stop being so fecking spineless.

Can't believe I am worried for the second time in as many days because my dog barked :cursing:. That's what they do .


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Dogless sorry , hugs, I know I only have a little tyke but I do know how it feels when you get the public judging and tutting and acting all horrified :incazzato:, I am sure it must be magnified by his size and reputation, Kilo sounds like he behaved as well as he could under the circumstances, little ****, (we had a summer visitor last year like that, his name wasn't Felix by any chance, this LS came up to Buffer & Elsie snapping a glasses case at them and barking in their faces amongst other stuff whilst his parents sat nearby completely ignoring him, M's husband has a false leg and he actually walked up to him and peered up his shorts , then screamed blue murder when Buffer launched a bark fest at him )

This time I don't think you have blown it out of proportion (my nearest and dearest will probably disagree ), I would have cried there and then most likely  and probably unnecessarily, we should let these things roll off the ducks back but its not so easy especially when there is other stuff going on.

I haven't had the best of days, we need a new car, the exhaust blew on Monday on the way back from the funeral, hubby took it up for a quote today, £504.05  we only paid £800 for the car 2 years ago, we don't have any money for a new car and we have zero credit rating even if I wanted a loan, I don't, thats why we have no credit rating cos we is rubbish with money so rrr: now looking for someone who can weld it for a couple of weeks till we find something - I will NOT miss my course on Saturday


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh Dogless sorry , hugs, I know I only have a little tyke but I do know how it feels when you get the public judging and tutting and acting all horrified :incazzato:, I am sure it must be magnified by his size and reputation, Kilo sounds like he behaved as well as he could under the circumstances, little ****, (we had a summer visitor last year like that, his name wasn't Felix by any chance, this LS came up to Buffer & Elsie snapping a glasses case at them and barking in their faces amongst other stuff whilst his parents sat nearby completely ignoring him, M's husband has a false leg and he actually walked up to him and peered up his shorts , then screamed blue murder when Buffer launched a bark fest at him )
> 
> This time I don't think you have blown it out of proportion (my nearest and dearest will probably disagree ), I would have cried there and then most likely  and probably unnecessarily, we should let these things roll off the ducks back but its not so easy especially when there is other stuff going on.
> 
> I haven't had the best of days, we need a new car, the exhaust blew on Monday on the way back from the funeral, hubby took it up for a quote today, £504.05  we only paid £800 for the car 2 years ago, we don't have any money for a new car and we have zero credit rating even if I wanted a loan, I don't, thats why we have no credit rating cos we is rubbish with money so rrr: now looking for someone who can weld it for a couple of weeks till we find something - I will NOT miss my course on Saturday


Oh dear GR .

No, he wasn't called Felix . The little yorkie in there had yapped and marked his way around the store but Kilo's bark is so bloody enormous that you can't miss it .


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless said:


> k&m - I'd take Evie to the vet; there is something wrong - you need to do a titre for disobedience antibodies. STAT!!!!
> 
> Izzysmummy - I possibly hate you :devil:.
> 
> Well. "Not in a good place" as all the cheesy American sitcoms and stars being admitted to The Priory say . Took Kilo to PAH as I wanted to weigh him as I thought he was looking a bit skinny - rib. He has dropped some weight and I like to know what it is 'just in case'. The vet scales are a drama - small, crammed between door and chairs and tip alarmingly if the dog isn't central - whereas the BW will just walk onto the PAH ones. Needed tripe too.
> 
> It was busy with people and dogs. No dramas, I knew he'd behave and he did, very well indeed, I was very proud. Went to pay and there was a big long queue. Waited for a while as there was a small child running about near the queue mugging any dog that came near without mother giving a hoot.....so we went for a walk round the hamster bedding bit :idea:. Anyhow, came back round and joined the queue at the rear. Mother of the year had left a basket on the counter and gone to look at the calendars on sale whilst we all waited and her son made a pest of himself.
> 
> Kilo was sat, quietly waiting and horrid child spies us and approaches. I very nicely tell him not to stroke him, he doesn't like it. Child carries on approaching, so I just turned Kilo around and walked out of the queue. Little sh!t following. He manages to stroke Kilo on his back. No dramas, but I tell him he's had his stoke now and to please leave the dog alone. Mother calls him over. That's that thinks I. So I join the queue again. At the back. Again . I sit Kilo facing me this time watching me. Boy approaches yet again :cursing: whilst mother watches. I tell him not to stroke the dog. Whilst mother listens. Child determined, comes around to the front and stares at Kilo making stupid barking noise and Kilo gives two single massive barks without moving from his sit so still about 6ft from child.
> 
> Oh Christ. You would have though he had grabbed the child and torn him limb from limb. The whole bloody PAH world stopped turning on it's axis and all the "Oh dearers", Cluckers, Tutters and Professionally Outraged started their various noises. The two other dogs in the queue were hoisted up into their owners' arms whilst being reassured that it was OK and all children held tightly by the arm as if Kilo was running amok with a semi - automatic rifle threatening to shoot anyone that moved :mad5::mad5:. The boy's mother made a huge drama of calling him to her (not that she'd cared where he was for 10 minutes previously ) and telling him to get away from that dog and articulating her horror that such a monster could be brought into a pet store etc etc. I was so upset and so angry. One woman helpfully told me that they sold muzzles  and all I could do? Stand there trying not to cry  .
> 
> When I got to the till the assistant sweetly told me about the yellow ribbon scheme for dogs that are aggressive to other dogs and people. I know she was trying to help but told her it wouldn't really help displaying something asking that your dog is given space when it would be ignored.
> 
> So, all in all a minor, minor incident that I have totally blown out of all proportion _yet again _because I am feeling crappy. Ugh.


Oh dear, what a little monster  (child NOT Kilo!) Well Izzy would have reacted well before Kilo did and I think so would I! My protective streak can be very fishwifey ! Argh!!! I want to go and shout at all those silly tut tutters for you and have a very loud conversation about exactly why kids get bitten by dogs, because the parents wont control them!

My Mum says its not nice for me to tell off other people's children, I say that its better coming from me than coming from Izzy! 

Ooooh! Im all riled up now! :incazzato:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I just couldn't Twiggy. The problem with the area is mostly that people are 'small dog folk' and the most common question I get about Kilo is whether or not he is vicious. I am guessing you get pushy kids like that everywhere but I've not ever encountered quite so much rudeness / ignorance as here I must admit. Not at all. It would help if I could pull myself together and stop being so fecking spineless.
> 
> Can't believe I am worried for the second time in as many days because my dog barked :cursing:. That's what they do .


No you're not spineless, you're just too nice a person, whereas I can be a nasty old moo at times (especially where my dogs are concerned).

That day when my daughter and I were judging at a companion show and came back to my van only to find a small child clambering up the rear dog guard whilst her father watched I went absolutely ape-****. He really didn't know what had hit him and he couldn't get a word in edgeways. I was even waving my finger at him whilst I issued a very stern lecture.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I just couldn't Twiggy. The problem with the area is mostly that people are 'small dog folk' and the most common question I get about Kilo is whether or not he is vicious. I am guessing you get pushy kids like that everywhere but I've not ever encountered quite so much rudeness / ignorance as here I must admit. Not at all. It would help if I could pull myself together and stop being so fecking spineless.
> 
> *Can't believe I am worried for the second time in as many days because my dog barked :cursing:. That's what they do .[/*QUOTE]
> 
> I actually shouted that at a tutter on the prom one day, as ninja promptly attached herself to my ankle Singing: Hmmmm thats wasn't quite what I hoped would happen at that point
> 
> I bet his bark is loud. Don't be too hard on yourself, we all have a lot going on at the moment, I am at leaking point almost constantly


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> No you're not spineless, you're just too nice a person, whereas I can be a nasty old moo at times (especially where my dogs are concerned).
> 
> That day when my daughter and I were judging at a companion show and came back to my van only to find a small child clambering up the rear dog guard whilst her father watched I went absolutely ape-****. He really didn't know what had hit him and he couldn't get a word in edgeways. I was even waving my finger at him whilst I issued a very stern lecture.


Yes, but I never used to be . I used to be a little too much the other way. Someone has deflated me and left this wishy washy idiot behind :cursing:. I am still bright red, can feel my cheeks burning, when I'll hopefully never see the stupid woman and her little darling ever again.

I don't think I would have wanted to be that father!! What an idiot!


----------



## tiatortilla

will do a few replies now!
mv- thanks  she's doing great, i'm really impressed. hope you and tink are well!
l/c - i'm sorry to hear about the cat attack  that's awful - i hope she pays your vet bill.
dogless - oh god, that sounds horrendous. i don't think you were spineless ignoring it was probably the best idea. i don't know what's going on inside some people's heads!
and gr - sorry to hear you're having a hard time with the car too.
*hugs* all round!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> No you're not spineless, you're just too nice a person, whereas I can be a nasty old moo at times (especially where my dogs are concerned).
> 
> That day when my daughter and I were judging at a companion show and came back to my van only to find a small child clambering up the rear dog guard whilst her father watched I went absolutely ape-****. He really didn't know what had hit him and he couldn't get a word in edgeways. I was even waving my finger at him whilst I issued a very stern lecture.


I am actually ducking and cringing to avoid the imaginary blows and finger wagging now  some people really do seem to have brains full of fluff


----------



## moonviolet

GR I hope you can get the exhaust welded. Bloomign poor timing. Hope things settle down and you dont' feel quite so tearful soon.

Dogless (((hugs))) I always wonder how these parents would react if people started handling their children without permission.:devil: This is a joke and not a suggestion!!!

We had in interesting walk, we bumped into some labby friends going int he opposite direction, 
so we had a chat while the dogs either puddle paddled or continued with important sniffing when at the end of the track were on appears strange woman ( todays emsemble looked like an explosion a paint factory) and her offlead muzzled collie. the end of the track we are on is a roundabout of tracks with 5 tracks... does she continue straight over ... no she doesn't she turns and heads for us.

I lead up Tink as i've had issues with this dog before and say when asked why, one of the people there leads up his dog, the other is a bit head in the clouds and doesn't.... so _predictably_this dogs comes along all stiff and staring as the woman stressily trys to chivvy him past us and says " he's unpredictable" at this point he's staring at the leaded up lab who gives him a big bark. This dog has been " predictable for over a year .... so please explain to my why she needed to bring him past us, why she left him offlead etc etc. anyway no harm done. I ended up joining labby men to avoid further contact with this woman/dog. we of course have a discussion how it's all going to end in tears one day.

Saw the roving flipchart again... in an area of he woods nicknamed Narnia. Saw a GSD/owner stationery having a chat with a springer/owner ont he path ahead so went off piste to avoid a face to face with dogs we don't know. Then ended up behind them at a distance Tink was happily going forward my stride was faster and we began catching up so i took the next turn off and delicately tiptoed over the stick causeway in my oh so elegant wellies.

When right at the end I met 2 lovely lovely responsible owners I saw the peopel but couldn't see the dogs So to be on the safe side slipped Tink onlead.. they did the same and gave me a big smile. the path was very narrow ro exceptionally swift greetings then we turn at about 3or 4 metres apart and had a little chat about the dogs .... lovely end to the walk


----------



## Dogless

Sounds like a hectic walk mv . Bet the owner of the lab isn't taking a conniption on a forum somewhere because said lab barked  and collie owner probably hasn't given things a second thought either. T'is only the likes of us chickens (as in the song / saying rather than me calling you a chicken :ihih that ponder such things.....ain't nobody here on this thread but us chickens....


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Sounds like a hectic walk mv . Bet the owner of the lab isn't taking a conniption on a forum somewhere because said lab barked  and collie owner probably hasn't given things a second thought either. T'is only the likes of us chickens (as in the song / saying rather than me calling you a chicken :ihih that ponder such things.....ain't nobody here on this thread but us chickens....


Cluck cluck cluck 

I had told myself next time she uttered the word " unpredictable" I would say something..... i've heard her say it too many times for it to be unpredictable... She seems quite a nervy woman and I know the dog belongs to her son. I would rather think that was all the more reason to keep the dog on lead and to avoid rather than head for others:idea: but clearly not her way of thinking.

I'm really really supportive of anyone with a dog who has issues and is working on/managing them, but i know the lab would have seen it off if she hadn't been on lead.


----------



## Guest

People like that dogless make me dislike children and mothers immensly. 
Have just measured his donkeyness for a dogmatic. He's about a lurcher size, very difficult to measure his muzzle, he kept pawing the tape off. I shall order and if it don't fit I shall have to exchange it. Says they do on their website so...
He shall not be getting a second walk today. I have been feeling off all day. Mum has informed me that she will not take him out. Peanut butter kong it is. :lol:


----------



## L/C

Dogless - rrr: to that stupid woman and her stupid child. Hope you feel better soon.

GR - I hope you can get the exhaust fixed and it's all less stressful soon.#

Had a call from my vet and cat owner has paid the bill. Which I have to admit I'm surprised about but in a good way.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Dogless - rrr: to that stupid woman and her stupid child. Hope you feel better soon.
> 
> GR - I hope you can get the exhaust fixed and it's all less stressful soon.#
> 
> Had a call from my vet and cat owner has paid the bill. Which I have to admit I'm surprised about but in a good way.


Well at least that is something; hopefully actually having a consequence this time - bill plus cat grabbed - has made her think.

I'll be fine; having all sorts of mad "am I the right owner?" totally stupid and out of proportion thoughts :crazy::crazy::cryin:. Destined for the loony bin if I don't get a grip I'm sure!


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Dogless - rrr: to that stupid woman and her stupid child. Hope you feel better soon.
> 
> GR - I hope you can get the exhaust fixed and it's all less stressful soon.#
> 
> Had a call from my vet and cat owner has paid the bill. Which I have to admit I'm surprised about but in a good way.


Crikey,  perhaps that will make them think twice about the bluddy animal!!

Has anyone else been having problems on here today its like the hamsters on strike 

Just called a garage we use, No we haven't really got anything in at the moment. Can you call me if you get anything. Whats the name, explained who I was again, to find 'well actually my Son in law might have one for you, just got a company car so I will let you know', pays to have influence


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Well at least that is something; hopefully actually having a consequence this time - bill plus cat grabbed - has made her think.
> 
> I'll be fine; having all sorts of mad "am I the right owner?" totally stupid and out of proportion thoughts :crazy::crazy::cryin:. Destined for the loony bin if I don't get a grip I'm sure!


Shh - you're a great owner. Do we have to descend on NI en-mass to reassure you?

And while I'd love to think it would make her think twice - the receptionist confided to me that this isn't the first time she's had to pay a bill, although last time it was for another cat which was savaged in it's own home.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Shh - you're a great owner. Do we have to descend on NI en-mass to reassure you?
> 
> And while I'd love to think it would make her think twice - the receptionist confided to me that this isn't the first time she's had to pay a bill, although last time it was for another cat which was savaged in it's own home.


What??? It does mobile savaging???  .

Nope; I will get a grip....:001_tt2:.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C I'm glad the bill was paid but my word a repeat offender... really is an asbo cat.



Dogless said:


> What??? It does mobile savaging???  .
> 
> Nope; I will get a grip....:001_tt2:.


As you sure? we can all invade :lol: :lol:

GR hope your influence works


----------



## Guest

A serial assaulting cat!? Good grief!? 

DOGMATIC ORDERED! I ORDERED A YELLOW ONE CAUSE MUM WANTS A YELLOW TO GO WITH HIS GREEN COLLAR. :lol: IT WILL CLASH WITH HIS FACE THOUGH. 

Also I put some lamb bones in the freezer and they froze into one great big lump. Mum tried throwing it on the floor to break it, but it went up and hit her in the head. :blink: She's okay though, swore at me and Zander and the cat and is now sat in her chair muttering about why zand can't just eat bakers like everyone else. :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

To the kamakazi (spelled wrong I'm sure ) cat!! OM actual G.  At least the owner paid the bill!

And  x 1million at idiot mothers and idiot bystanders in PAH.       People. Are. *******. Stupid. Basically. 
Dogless, stop beating yourself up please.  You had a very normal emotional reaction to the situation, it is ok, you're ok. 

I GOT SHOES FOR WORK THAT FIT MY MONSTER FEET!  Happy days.


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> L/C I'm glad the bill was paid but my word a repeat offender... really is an asbo cat.
> 
> As you sure? we can all invade :lol: :lol:
> 
> GR hope your influence works


I can just see us storming NI from a dinghy. Charging towards where dogless lives with our brave hounds straining on their leads. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well at least that is something; hopefully actually having a consequence this time - bill plus cat grabbed - has made her think.
> 
> I'll be fine; having all sorts of mad "am I the right owner?" totally stupid and out of proportion thoughts :crazy::crazy::cryin:. Destined for the loony bin if I don't get a grip I'm sure!


Now stop that sort of talk - love Grannie


----------



## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> Bastarding cats and their bastarding owners! :mad5:
> 
> On the way to the field this morning a cat jumped off the wall it was sitting on and attacked us. In-*******-sane. It jumped onto Ely's head and went for his eyes, he shook it off and freaked out. I was trying to keep Gypsy away from it as she was going mad on the end of her lead so I couldn't stop it having another go at him - and it badly scratched him around his neck.
> 
> The bastard thing came back for another go and Gypsy got hold of it but dropped when I told her. It then came back again and I booted it in the ribs before either of mine was badly hurt (or so I thought) or it got itself killed. Owner finally came out of the house and laughed (!). "Oh he always does that - he hates dogs." Then keep your bastard cat in the house when you live on a road to a park.
> 
> I informed (snarled at) her that she would be getting a vets bill if either of mine needed treatment and she better start to keep her cat in or next time it might not escape with a bit of lost fur and a boot to the ribs. She got a bit narky with me but finally apologised.
> 
> Got home and checked them over - Ely has a bad cut to his neck that has had to be stitched and Gypsy has a few scratches and has scrapped a lot of the skin off her bad leg from where she was dancing around. Invoice for vet has been posted through her door - with stitching, consultation fee and antibiotics it was over £150.
> 
> Gah!


Having been the victim of two cat attacks you guys have my sympathy. They're bloody evil when they attack like that. So freaking quick and just a mass of teeth and claws. And people think it's funny or silly that I'm scared of cats :nonod: I hope Gypsy and Ely heal quickly, hope the cats owner pays the vet bill and hope it teaches her a lesson. I bet she'd have been the first to complain if one of your dogs had killed the damn thing.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, I use the Voice of Doom on brats like that. It works just as well on them as it does on other dogs and I've even found it to be successful with kids who don't speak English. Sod asking them nicely, a nasty "git out of it!" is what they get from me. So Kilo barked at a little sh*t who was tormenting him, it's not the end of the world and you never know, it might have taught the kid a lesson. Stop questioning whether you're the right owner and carry on enjoying the two fantastic dogs you have. You've done a great job with Kilo and are doing a great job with Rudi, don't let some self righteous know it alls in a pet shop make you think otherwise.

Spencer has had an excellent day today. We went for a walk to camp to post his insurance thing off. Then since it was almost 5 o clock we went to meet Calvin from work. Which meant Spencer got to play with his Great Dane friend for a bit. Until he got silly and humpy anyway, it's funny coz he's not gotten like that with any other dogs lately but it happens every time with Achilles. Then he got a ride home in the car which is always awesome in his mind. And then later he got to carry Calvins shoe from the car to the flat. Told him he's a lot braver than I am putting that thing in his mouth but he just trotted along next to me with his head and tail held high and that "look at how awesome I am!" attitude lol.


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah - I saw this and thought of Spendog.  Useful Dog Tricks performed by Jesse (Original Video) - YouTube


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Sarah - I saw this and thought of Spendog.  Useful Dog Tricks performed by Jesse (Original Video) - YouTube


Lol, my brother keeps sending me that and asking why Spen can't do all those things yet.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> A serial assaulting cat!? Good grief!?
> 
> DOGMATIC ORDERED! I ORDERED A YELLOW ONE CAUSE MUM WANTS A YELLOW TO GO WITH HIS GREEN COLLAR. :lol: IT WILL CLASH WITH HIS FACE THOUGH.
> 
> Also I put some lamb bones in the freezer and they froze into one great big lump. Mum tried throwing it on the floor to break it, but it went up and hit her in the head. :blink: She's okay though, swore at me and Zander and the cat and is now sat in her chair muttering about why zand can't just eat bakers like everyone else. :lol:


Kilo says that all the best dressed dogs wear that colour Dogmatic . Tell your Mum that if she thinks Zander is bouncy now she ain't seen nothing yet but you're prepared to have a Baker's trial .



LurcherOwner said:


> I can just see us storming NI from a dinghy. Charging towards where dogless lives with our brave hounds straining on their leads. :lol:


The sea can be awfully rough on the crossing to here.....good luck!! .

Sarah - Kilo gets humpy with a certain BC here. Every time. Drools and chatters as if he's a bitch. Same with Cravensmum's Flint....she said loads of dogs have that reaction to him too .

Had a good walk with LCH; a fair few dogs ignored - even a mini s that always goes batshit at every dog he sees. Mini s went batshit. Got battered for it . Rudi was a good boy apart from three attempts at fracturing my radius and ulna again.....he's bright though - he stops much sooner and 'gets' what will happen if we head towards a tree, lamp post etc. Met Kilo's mutual onlead enemy the beagle; the owner is going to get him castrated to see if it helps...had a discussion ref pros and cons of it and ref the fixation thang...

Did a bit of training with my beautiful and sensitive BCH, down at a distance bang on (only down our corridor, admittedly!!). I'll walk him later.


----------



## Thorne

Maria -It took a good 6 months before we saw the true colours of Breeze! I think everything took that bit longer because she was previously kennelled and all other aspects of life were foreign. She's turned into a cheeky girl but hasn't pushed her boundaries, hopefully Chevy will be much the same 

K&M -Hope you find the scoundrel that swapped Evie!

TiaT -Well done to you and Tia, sounds good.

MV -I think he is starting to love it! Took him ages to get the hang of doing something himself but I'm quite excited about seeing what he might think of next. Sounds like there's some "interesting" people near you.

Dogless -What a crappy experience  Crappy mother, crappy child, crappy shoppers! Much the same happened with Breeze and a child who kept running up behind her and roughly stroking her, ignoring my polite requests to leave her alone. She was really upset by it and I've not been back out of school hours since! Hopefully Kilo won't be too put off by today's encounter xx
As for barking, you should hear Scooter's grumbles and shouts in the vet's waiting room, I think I'm getting habituated to children being snatched away from the muzzled beast and other pets being hidden as well as possible... It does make mum and I feel rubbish but at the end of the day we know his bark is worse than his bite.

GR -Hope you find someone who can weld the exhaust for you, good luck car-hunting.

L/C -Brilliant that the cat owner has paid, shame that it had to happen in the first place! Hope she at least considers keeping it inside.


LurcherOwner said:


> I can just see us storming NI from a dinghy. Charging towards where dogless lives with our brave hounds straining on their leads. :lol:


Bet Breeze would be the first to fall in 

Sarah -What a great day for Spen, bless.

Had a pretty good walk with my numpties! Breeze did dig her heels in twice; once because she wanted to go inside with a family we passed going into their house, and again because I about turned to pick up after Scooter and she decided she was NOT repeating our walk! 
Other than that I can't complain about either of them. Scooter was great off the lead and kept checking in of his own accord, Breeze didn't bat an eyelid as we were passed by a bus, both walked nicely on the lead.

Scooter's just finished his dinner, Breeze is still working on her Kong (peanut butter, kibble and a wedge of bread which she's licked into an immovable mass). She's entertaining my dad's guest with her frantic determination!


----------



## GingerRogers

Why is it certain dogs and their owners appear to be your nemesis for days at a time . Stepping out the front door, after a good scan about, and theresssssss Otto coming round the corner, again , he very hard to see as his owner has a thing about black and black berets  in particular, so despite his giant scnauzeriness, he tends to materialise from the dark, he is a lovely dog but please stay away from my street  I think we have had encounters every day this week despite my vigilance  hence we had a hyper dog walk who wouldn't walk nicely or look at me or even take treats when I clicked for a good behaviour, she was too busy scanning. I have decided that scanning for threats must be important terrier business just like Oscars important spaniel business. 

I must try harder at scanning and take some tips from her it seems.

Question - am I over sensitive about the ninja, is she just being a typical terrier by barking at everything, I just want to be able to take her places, I feel that most people would just accept her behaviour and probably leave her at home which surely would exacerbate. I hate the 'oh typical terrier' 'small dog syndrome' comments and the 'you will never get that out of her' :001_unsure:, surely I can, eventually 

Loving the images of Spen strutting his stuff Sarah and I am sorry LO but when you described your Mum throwing lamb bones on the floor I laughed, I do hope she is ok though.

I just did this with chicken bits and it scared the ninja so she went to the furthest point of the house and lay down. Bum firmly planted on this mornings newly painted skirting board which isn't quite dry yet


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Having been the victim of two cat attacks you guys have my sympathy. They're bloody evil when they attack like that. So freaking quick and just a mass of teeth and claws. And people think it's funny or silly that I'm scared of cats :nonod: I hope Gypsy and Ely heal quickly, hope the cats owner pays the vet bill and hope it teaches her a lesson. I bet she'd have been the first to complain if one of your dogs had killed the damn thing.


That reminds me of a good friend years ago with 3 beautiful Siamese cats.
They were getting harassed by a stray cat coming into their garden and on occasions attacking them. My friend said when she tried to shoo it away it attacked her as well.

I said something like "oh for goodness sake it's only a cat. Ring me the next time it's in your garden and I'll deal with it"

Yeesssss..... I have never before or since seen such a big cat with a gigantic head that appeared to be grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat. I did venture into her garden for all of 30 seconds before legging it back into the safety of her kitchen.


----------



## kat&molly

Blimey, what a day for some of you. 
Dogless- what an awful visit to PAH- a horrid little kid and parent. Fingers crossed you get a whole 'Numpty- free' day tomorrow. Wouldn't that be nice. If everyone is going to arrive en masse to sort em out I need a bit of notice please.

L/C- pleased to hear the vet bill was paid- hope the Twins are ok, but what a stupid woman owner.

Ginge- hope you get something sorted with your good influence, that sounds an expensive exhaust. Scruff sends you one of her 'Licky Licks' - I'd send it back if I were you- she found a 1st human poo yesterday  and scarfed some before I realised.

Moonviolet- Pleased the walk ended well for you- people eh.

A Fab village walk with Evie today, I had soooo much focus- even passing the scary house, no people again ,but with the Clicker- wow.:001_tt2:

H [short in this house for Mr. Happy] has come in tonight with a poorly eye, swollen and painful, I've looked with a torch and cant see anything so bathed it and covered it for now- he's also showing full symptoms of Man Flu- but dont know if its connected.


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Why is it certain dogs and their owners appear to be your nemesis for days at a time . Stepping out the front door, after a good scan about, and theresssssss Otto coming round the corner, again , he very hard to see as his owner has a thing about black and black berets  in particular, so despite his giant scnauzeriness, he tends to materialise from the dark, he is a lovely dog but please stay away from my street  I think we have had encounters every day this week despite my vigilance  hence we had a hyper dog walk who wouldn't walk nicely or look at me or even take treats when I clicked for a good behaviour, she was too busy scanning. I have decided that scanning for threats must be important terrier business just like Oscars important spaniel business.
> 
> I must try harder at scanning and take some tips from her it seems.
> 
> Question - am I over sensitive about the ninja, is she just being a typical terrier by barking at everything, I just want to be able to take her places, I feel that most people would just accept her behaviour and probably leave her at home which surely would exacerbate. I hate the 'oh typical terrier' 'small dog syndrome' comments and the 'you will never get that out of her' :001_unsure:, surely I can, eventually
> 
> Loving the images of Spen strutting his stuff Sarah and I am sorry LO but when you described your Mum throwing lamb bones on the floor I laughed, I do hope she is ok though.
> 
> I just did this with chicken bits and it scared the ninja so she went to the furthest point of the house and lay down. Bum firmly planted on this mornings newly painted skirting board which isn't quite dry yet


Ginge- stop worrying about what other people say. The Ninja will get there, Scruff is about 80% better now than she was- it has taken a while though.

Sarah- Spendog always reminds me of Moll, she will carry anything. Cant go for a wee without something in her mouth, and every time she gets in the car she has to take a toy. Perhaps she's a secret Lab.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - that cat story made me smile .



GingerRogers said:


> Question - am I over sensitive about the ninja, is she just being a typical terrier by barking at everything, I just want to be able to take her places, I feel that most people would just accept her behaviour and probably leave her at home which surely would exacerbate. I hate the 'oh typical terrier' 'small dog syndrome' comments and the 'you will never get that out of her' :001_unsure:, surely I can, eventually


I'd keep on going as long as the experiences can be kept positive for the ninja, or at least positive in the main - as you said, you can keep working on it. It depends what you want the end result to be I suppose. As for oversensitive - I'm the wrong person to ask today .

Just had a lovely walk with my BW; spooked myself a little bit through the abandoned estate but then thought that Kilo had proved himself to have a hair trigger when it comes to utter suspicion in the dark so there was no way we were about to be set upon!!! Both CHs then had a veggie croc - Kilo's was done in about 2 minutes and he's fast asleep; Rudi's has taken him 10 minutes and will probably last a good 20 - 30 yet .


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne said:


> MV -I think he is starting to love it! Took him ages to get the hang of doing something himself but I'm quite excited about seeing what he might think of next.* Sounds like there's some "interesting" people near you.*


Oh you dont' know the half, I dont' know if you were around when I mentioned wheelie bin man (of whom i am very fond) He got the nickname after admitting during the course of a walk that he began replacing his bathroom some years ago and while the shower and the loo are plumbed in the bath wasn't and that showers are fine, but once in a while he fancies a bath.... so he clears out his wheelie bin fills up and has a soak :lol: :lol: I laughe until I cried thinking of him soaking in his wheelie bin in his back garden. :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Thorne

moonviolet said:


> Oh you dont' know the half, I dont' know if you were around when I mentioned wheelie bin man (of whom i am very fond) He got the nickname after admitting during the course of a walk that he began replacing his bathroom some years ago and while the shower and the loo are plumbed in the bath wasn't and that showers are fine, but once in a while he fancies a bath.... so he clears out his wheelie bin fills up and has a soak :lol: :lol: I laughe until I cried thinking of him soaking in his wheelie bin in his back garden. :lol: :lol: :lol:


Goodness me that is wonderful  Our local celebrity is T-Shirt Lady, who seems to wear one of a handful of t-shirts, large boots, and nothing else! On very cold days she wears a cardigan or parka but still nothing on her legs... Not uncommon to get more than just a glimpse of some Bridget Jones-esque knickers on a gusty day!


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne said:


> Goodness me that is wonderful  Our local celebrity is T-Shirt Lady, who seems to wear one of a handful of t-shirts, large boots, and nothing else! On very cold days she wears a cardigan or parka but still nothing on her legs... Not uncommon to get more than just a glimpse of some Bridget Jones-esque knickers on a gusty day!


:lol: nothing like a bit of local character


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## Thorne

moonviolet said:


> :lol: nothing like a bit of local character


Wouldn't feel like home without them! The Norwich Puppet Man is another, he's got fairly famous now! Been on the TV and everything  Norwich Puppet Man > Main Page


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## Werehorse

I don't think we have a local celeb like that. There is a chap who camps in a tent inside his own house though...


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## Sarah1983

Thorne said:


> Goodness me that is wonderful  Our local celebrity is T-Shirt Lady, who seems to wear one of a handful of t-shirts, large boots, and nothing else! On very cold days she wears a cardigan or parka but still nothing on her legs... Not uncommon to get more than just a glimpse of some Bridget Jones-esque knickers on a gusty day!


At least she wears knickers. When I was a teen there was an old lady used to sit on the benches at the market, skirt hiked up and legs wide open and she definitely didn't wear knickers :nonod:

We had some odd characters where I used to live. Some guy who was actually a really successful businessman but for some reason chose to never wash, never shave and live off tins of dog food 

Alex who used to hold conversations with the wheelie bins and other inanimate objects. He terrified my mum but I liked him even though talking to him was a bit surreal lol.

Nutter Paul who used to bite chunks out of himself and try to sell you his clothes. He was also prone to fly into terrible, violent rages for no apparent reason. He terrified us as kids. Looking back he was obviously mentally ill but as a kid you don't really understand that.


----------



## Guest

Hmm, well. 

Zander has just peed on my bed. No whinging to go out, nothing. Left him in there for two seconds as the cats decided to a have a hissy snarly fight in the kitchen. Came back and theres Zand stood on the floor, looking as sorry for himself as ever and a puddle on my bed. I didn't tell him off (there's no point after the event is there?) I just let him out to finish his pee while mum shoved the duvet (luckily it was only that and the top sheet and nothing else) in the wash.

He did a tiny pee on it the other day. No whinging to go out then either, he just did a tiny pee, looked really alarmed then jumped off the bed.

I'll keep an eye in him.


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## Werehorse

LO - go get him tested for a Urinary Tract Infection! Both mine have had one and both of them did peeing indoors and looking spectacularly alarmed about it.


----------



## Beth17

Agree with Werehorse Oscar has only done this twice and looked really surprised and downcast.


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## Thorne

Another in agreement with Werehorse here, Scooter has done the same and his housetraining is usually impeccable, turned out he had a UTI and hasn't had an accident since it was treated.


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> LO - go get him tested for a Urinary Tract Infection! Both mine have had one and both of them did peeing indoors and looking spectacularly alarmed about it.


I'll try and see if I can get him booked in tommorow morning. I have work tommorow afternoon but I think mum will be able to get him in. He needs a general check over anyway!

Are there any other signs of UTI's?

And, thank you guys. x


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## Werehorse

The vet will probably just do a urine test. Collecting a sample is fun. :lol: The frequency of wees outside has also gone up when mine had UTIs but it is hard to tell with boys who are keen to mark everything anyway. 

Oh I didn't tell you about my petshop adventure! I went into the pet shop to see if they had a Safestix for Hugo and maybe a toy for Oscar too. I came out with a collapsable water bowl.  How I didn't spend every penny I have I don't know! They have the red and blue Buster soft shells... I am not sure I'll be able to resist them in real life - resisting on the internet was hard enough.

So the Safestix. They had large ones and a medium sized one. The large ones were blue, which is a kind of acceptable colour - at least moderately hiding the ahem dodgey appearance... and they had orange which would be ok too, but the large ones would be too big for Hugo. The only medium they had on display was pink. Which rather enhanced the dodgey appearence! Hmmmm...

I waited until the shop was clear then asked the, thankfully female, assistant if they had any other colours of the medium in - and before I could stop myself I said "because in the pink it looks a little odd" :lol: Then blushed furiously. Fortunately the lady knew exactly what I meant and made a comment at some point during the following conversation that "you don't want to look like you're carrying a dildo through the park really do you?" :lol:

She's ordering in a half size orange Safestix for me.


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## Thorne

I'd definitely go for blue or green if I was in the market for Safestix, I'm almost relieved that they're not S&B's kind of toy! :001_tt2:


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## Guest

Jesus H, I was really trying to scratch my brain into thinking "Hows a safestix rude?". 

:lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> The vet will probably just do a urine test. Collecting a sample is fun. :lol: The frequency of wees outside has also gone up when mine had UTIs but it is hard to tell with boys who are keen to mark everything anyway.
> 
> Oh I didn't tell you about my petshop adventure! I went into the pet shop to see if they had a Safestix for Hugo and maybe a toy for Oscar too. I came out with a collapsable water bowl.  How I didn't spend every penny I have I don't know! They have the red and blue Buster soft shells... I am not sure I'll be able to resist them in real life - resisting on the internet was hard enough.
> 
> So the Safestix. They had large ones and a medium sized one. The large ones were blue, which is a kind of acceptable colour - at least moderately hiding the ahem dodgey appearance... and they had orange which would be ok too, but the large ones would be too big for Hugo. The only medium they had on display was pink. Which rather enhanced the dodgey appearence! Hmmmm...
> 
> I waited until the shop was clear then asked the, thankfully female, assistant if they had any other colours of the medium in - and before I could stop myself I said "because in the pink it looks a little odd" :lol: Then blushed furiously. Fortunately the lady knew exactly what I meant and made a comment at some point during the following conversation that "you don't want to look like you're carrying a dildo through the park really do you?" :lol:
> 
> She's ordering in a half size orange Safestix for me.


. My friend's dog has pink. Her hubby point blank refuses to take it out when he walks him .



Thorne said:


> I'd definitely go for blue or green if I was in the market for Safestix, I'm almost relieved that they're not S&B's kind of toy! :001_tt2:


I would be; I get some right looks and comments...but as it happens to be something the CHs LOVE I still take it out and about anyway .


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Jesus H, I was really trying to scratch my brain into thinking "Hows a safestix rude?".
> 
> :lol:


You've obviously not noticed the total derailment of some of my nice picture threads with it it  :incazzato: .

Hope Zand is good at the vet today and all goes well .


----------



## Beth17

I have still got to get the boys a safestix, I'm just not sure if I can bring myself to yet 

LO hope Zand is feeling better today.

Have a good day everyone else, we have a lovely sunny day today so really looking forward to our walk


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## Werehorse

I am currently working on NOT picking up all the farmdog turds on my front garden and shared driveway and flinging them at the farmhouse.  2 new ones overnight. Plus one on the driveway yesterday and two on the pavement just along the road in the last week. And several in our back garden.  And I have lost count of the number of times I have waved at cars to slow them down so the blimmin dog doesn't get run over as she stands in the middle of the road giving me frightened wolf stares. 

It's a nice day though so I want to get out for a long walk with the boys. The turds have wound me up to breaking point though - something in my head is determined that today is going to be a Bad Day! I already sent an entire cup of coffee flying this morning, well OH brought me a coffee this morning (he's good like that) but the edge of the cover was on the bedside table and I think he put the coffee down on top of it.   But for some reason spilliing it has made me feel really upset and guilty. :crazy: ut:

Right. I'm going to actually have a cup of coffee now and then take the boys out for long walks. I am. I am, I am, I am. Stupid gremlins aren't going to get me today.


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## GingerRogers

Urgh Werehorse - thats really not nice having to live with that, its bad enough when they are plastered along walks let alone your own garden. Bring your Gremlins under control and take your lovely boys for an amazing walk, its a beautiful day here, hope you have sunshine too. 

There was a series of walnut sized turds spread along the pavement at about 5m intervals for several houses length  how can people not pick it up, its bad enough on the country footpaths but in the middle of proper pavements :incazzato:

We had a mixed walk, no Otto yet today  but an unknown collie never seen before, a bit like your gremlins WH the dogs round here are multiplying I am sure :rolleyes5:, so I legged it down the other road, sure I looked a plonker, it worked though she eventually gave up barking and started running, felt a bit bad for the people having a lie in down that road though  

Then decided to try the field. I have realised that our walks have gradually become shorter and less varied as I start to avoid one place after another because of what are often one off incidents  (and mud). I hadn't done the field for a while as I haven't wanted to pass soggy doggy, if she has already had an encounter. Today it looked like he was not on the prowl  but he was  so I decided to run past again , this is a little narrow public footpath that runs between the fence of their garden and a hedge of someone elses and comes out on the sugarbeet field. It gets a fair bit if traffic and hence is quite muddy, I am sure this time I looked more than a plonker if anyone was watching my of wide legged trot slide.






But it worked   he was trotting down the garden towards us woof woof woofing and we trotted past before he reached the fence, she looked a bit bemused but considering we had already seen the collie I was impressed   we had an uneventful walk around the field, they are stripping the beet so not many people are using it at the moment, had to detour through the churchyard to avoid the beet lorry and cleaning machine (didn't want a beet dropped on my head) and saw a lovely little grave with just a wooden cross marked, covered in snowdrops, so much nicer than the formal stone markers.
Walked back along the road dodging aforementioned poo and nearly got home when she totally lost all her gold stars and barked at a lady, not sure which the lady was least impressed with her or my language  I called the ninja a rude word 

We stopped outside the house to watch the tree surgeons across the road which seemed quite alarming but gradually receded.

Hope Zander is ok LO

K&M thank Scruff for the licky lick please, I wasn't too sure but the Ninja quite liked it, she said there was an undertone of mud that set it off nicely 

Loving all the nutter stories, we have 'mad roy' amongst others, he rides around on his mobility scooter wearing either a hat with a fan on or one with a talking billy bass . And he goes round all the pubs shouting Awwwwite and sticking his thumbs up to everyone. Where I used to live there was Chub, a wealthy old boy who lived in a tarpaulin tent on the common, who talked complete and utter garbage a lot of the time, interspersed with tweets and twitches, sadly when I worked in a pub I could hold a conversation with him , he swore he had his cigarette lit by lightening while sheltering under a tree, you do wonder, also Sheriff bunny, full sheriff outfit with badge and holstered gun  no horse but he thought his bike was the equivalent.


----------



## Micky93

We are currently working on trying to improve Eddie's teeth to try and put off him needing to go to the vets for a full scale and polish etc. Tried so many things, a lot of the products out there are rubbish IMO. Currently trying the combination of Logic gel toothpaste (evenings) and Plaque off (mornings) but will take a good few weeks before we see any improvements.

Werehorse that's awful! Can't believe people would do that  I am mortified enough if Eddie decides to go in front of someones house on one of our pavement walks in case they are looking - and that's with me there hand all bagged up ready to dispose of it ASAP!


----------



## Guest

The vets was fully booked till 4. So mums taking him in solo while I am at work.

Had a nice walk this morning, barely pulled (typical after I've ordered a headcollar haha) and I managed to get him into an immediate sit when a corgi cross spaniel we know kicked off. All good.

He's been soooooooooo whingey today. We've asked for a general checkover due to behaviour changes such as the sudden timidness and peeing. 
Mum has a checklist of three things.

EARS
WEIGHT
BLADDER/UTI

:lol:


----------



## L/C

LO - hope you find out what is wrong with Donkey boy. 

WH - grrr - how annoying! Can you speak to the farm that farmdog comes from? Or do they not give a crap (excuse the pun!)?

Rude safestix!  Ladies we're a sticky now - we have to behave!

Good walk this morning. Ely was a bit nervous when we left the house but soon perked up. Gypsy went absolutely mental at a cat which was just sitting there - we've worked hard to get to the point where she will ignore them if they aren't running so that's a bit disappointing.

But they both behaved very well at the field. We did some nice impulse control work and Ely got to have a short potter off lead. I had been a bit worried about his socialisation as he's been on restricted walks but he ignored Penny the fearful dachshund when she barked at him so that was good.

An email went around today at work about this event and I'm considering it. I think I've gone completely crackers.

Cyclosportive 24H Cycling Le Mans 24 Hours circuit


----------



## Twiggy

Micky93 said:


> We are currently working on trying to improve Eddie's teeth to try and put off him needing to go to the vets for a full scale and polish etc. Tried so many things, a lot of the products out there are rubbish IMO. Currently trying the combination of Logic gel toothpaste (evenings) and Plaque off (mornings) but will take a good few weeks before we see any improvements.
> 
> Werehorse that's awful! Can't believe people would do that  I am mortified enough if Eddie decides to go in front of someones house on one of our pavement walks in case they are looking - and that's with me there hand all bagged up ready to dispose of it ASAP!


I've become something of an expert on canine teeth over the past 12 years because two of my bitches, who are closely related, have awful teeth.

I've tried just about everything available including fragaria, Plaque off, CSJ seaweed and parsley, Logic, etc. etc. etc.

Two of best IMO are Petzlife Oral Gel or Hatchwells Dentifresh tooth whitening powder. The powder is good because it's abrasive. Both can be purchased online.

HTH


----------



## Dogsupply

Our pets will get used to know on what they will be doing if they encounter it before. It's glad that they are improving and hope they continue to progress.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> LO - hope you find out what is wrong with Donkey boy.
> 
> WH - grrr - how annoying! Can you speak to the farm that farmdog comes from? Or do they not give a crap (excuse the pun!)?
> 
> Rude safestix!  Ladies we're a sticky now - we have to behave!
> 
> Good walk this morning. Ely was a bit nervous when we left the house but soon perked up. Gypsy went absolutely mental at a cat which was just sitting there - we've worked hard to get to the point where she will ignore them if they aren't running so that's a bit disappointing.
> 
> But they both behaved very well at the field. We did some nice impulse control work and Ely got to have a short potter off lead. I had been a bit worried about his socialisation as he's been on restricted walks but he ignored Penny the fearful dachshund when she barked at him so that was good.
> 
> An email went around today at work about this event and I'm considering it. I think I've gone completely crackers.
> 
> Cyclosportive 24H Cycling Le Mans 24 Hours circuit


Well all things considered they were very good kids weren't they?

And if you tackle Le Mans then yes you've gone completely crackers....


----------



## Sarah1983

Bit of a mixed one this. Just had Spen out front off leash, saw a bloke heading towards us so called him back and rewarded him. He generally doesn't bother about people so sent him off in a different direction. He spots the guy, head and tail go up and he starts huffing and goes to head towards him with every intention of having a barking fit at him. I have no idea why because he normally ignores people he doesn't know or if they show signs of being friendly he's all wiggles and wags. But I called him and he came to me although it took an "OI!" to get his attention. He then ignored him and offered walking next to me in the hope of more treats, which he got lol. Not pleased that he was considering barking at the guy but very pleased he came to me instead and was so easily distracted. Didn't bat an eyelid at anyone else who walked past, just this one guy


----------



## Dogless

L/C - hope you can get Gypsy sorted around cats again soon. How disappointing. Needless to say I think that cycle event looks great .

GR - loving all the running action in the mud .



Micky93 said:


> We are currently working on trying to improve Eddie's teeth to try and put off him needing to go to the vets for a full scale and polish etc. Tried so many things, a lot of the products out there are rubbish IMO. Currently trying the combination of Logic gel toothpaste (evenings) and Plaque off (mornings) but will take a good few weeks before we see any improvements.


What's Eddie fed? Have you tried a few nice chicken wings or lamb ribs maybe?

We had a mainly good walk - went to 'our' forest for the morning as the weather's good enough to get up there now, the CHs loved it and had a real spring in their steps .

All was great apart from Kilo chased a sheep hmy:. We went into a part of the forest where I have never seen one of the 'feral' sheep that we have come across now and again. Long story short, Kilo was away off up the track sniffing about and Rudi was close to me, looking in the ditch. He started to huff and gruff and I saw him face to face with a ram . Before I could just get him, the sheep ran and......Kilo saw him and went into full chase mode :sosp:. He closed the distance within seconds few and my heart was in my mouth . BUT he didn't bring the sheep down...he ran alongside and shoulder barged him into a narrow part of the path and then ran round the front of him to stop him going any further and then stood and barked. I ran over and he came to me once I was pretty much right next to him. I am guessing his instinct to bay must have kicked in. All very alarming and I don't want a repeat but I am somewhat relieved that he doesn't seem to chase to bring down or attack sheep.

"Me and my shadow" off exploring:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah - they say children and animals are the best judges of character so perhaps Spen knew something you didn't.

Dogless - are you quite sure Kilo isn't part collie. I'm very impressed; I've never seen a RR working sheep.....!!


----------



## Micky93

Dogless said:


> L/C - hope you can get Gypsy sorted around cats again soon. How disappointing. Needless to say I think that cycle event looks great .
> 
> GR - loving all the running action in the mud .
> 
> What's Eddie fed? Have you tried a few nice chicken wings or lamb ribs maybe?


Got another thread going in the main dog chat about helping clean his teeth. Think we're going to go up to the supermarket after work and get him a couple of chicken wings as a few others have suggested this too - obviously not feed him both. Just trying to find out all the info I need to know before giving him one. It's stupid but I'm nervous about it - never given him anything raw let alone a chicken wing before and you always hear people telling scaremongering stories... I'm just a worry wart :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Sarah - they say children and animals are the best judges of character so perhaps Spen knew something you didn't.
> 
> Dogless - are you quite sure Kilo isn't part collie. I'm very impressed; I've never seen a RR working sheep.....!!


Think he was baying it ready for the brave hunter to shoot in the absence of any lions . It was frightening as I didn't know what he'd do but feel almost relieved that I saw that he didn't chase to kill / injure - although no idea what he would have done had it kept on trying to run. He does get exceptionally interested when we walk through a field of sheep and one becomes separated from the flock. It's so hard trying to spot stray sheep in the forest - I go to this part as we've never seen one there, but there was forestry work in a few other parts so maybe the sheep have relocated .



Micky93 said:


> Got another thread going in the main dog chat about helping clean his teeth. Think we're going to go up to the supermarket after work and get him a couple of chicken wings as a few others have suggested this too - obviously not feed him both. Just trying to find out all the info I need to know before giving him one. It's stupid but I'm nervous about it - never given him anything raw let alone a chicken wing before and you always hear people telling scaremongering stories... I'm just a worry wart :lol:


You could always hold the chicken wing to 'teach' him to chew. Lamb ribs and spine are quite easy to crunch - Rudi can manage them and he hasn't got all of his adult teeth yet. You're not being stupid, you're being a normal, caring owner and if it doesn't sit right then there's no need to give it a whirl!


----------



## Twiggy

Micky93 said:


> Got another thread going in the main dog chat about helping clean his teeth. Think we're going to go up to the supermarket after work and get him a couple of chicken wings as a few others have suggested this too - obviously not feed him both. Just trying to find out all the info I need to know before giving him one. It's stupid but I'm nervous about it - never given him anything raw let alone a chicken wing before and you always hear people telling scaremongering stories... I'm just a worry wart :lol:


Without question the best thing to clean dog's teeth are raw meaty bones. Unfortunately I've got a bitch with a food intolerance/allergy and therefore I just can't use them.

Having said that the breeder of my bitches with awful teeth raw feeds and her dogs teeth are not great.


----------



## Freddie and frank

i'm under a mountain of work still so will catch you all later, just wanted to say hi......

did have a quick peek yesterday and i'll be there trotting along (in a bit of a dizzy state) with you all to sort out anyone who upsets WAYWO folk. :yesnod:

ooh ooh, hubby took frank out last night whilst i was at training with bella.

me..."did you put hids dogmatic on?"
oh..."no"
me..."did you take treats?"
oh..."no"
me..."did he pull?"
oh..."only a bit at the start, then he was really good"
me..."did you say 'close'? "
oh..."a couple of times"
me...   

typical :incazzato:


----------



## Twiggy

Micky93 said:


> Got another thread going in the main dog chat about helping clean his teeth. Think we're going to go up to the supermarket after work and get him a couple of chicken wings as a few others have suggested this too - obviously not feed him both. Just trying to find out all the info I need to know before giving him one. It's stupid but I'm nervous about it - never given him anything raw let alone a chicken wing before and you always hear people telling scaremongering stories... I'm just a worry wart :lol:


Just had another thought. I order this for a friend's Poodle crossbreed who had terrible problems with her teeth and gums and it worked really well:

*Hyalupet* Gingival *Gel* - Mouth and Gum Care for Dogs and Cats *...*

I think these days you can actually purchase it from the online pharmacies or Amazon. Back then it came direct from the makers.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Sarah - they say children and animals are the best judges of character so perhaps Spen knew something you didn't.


So they say Twiggy. Or could be he was just startled at turning round and seeing him. Either way I'll start getting upset when he starts reacting badly to most people. And given his reaction to people wanting to stroke him yesterday I don't think that'll happen soon.


----------



## moonviolet

Mixed bag here today too.

First the not so good. 

Took Tink to the post box this morning as i always do, when i dont' need to go into the post office. It's a micro mini walk all of 5 mins if that. there is a bus stop next to the zebra crossing, A bus was pulling in as we were approaching the crossing so i slowed as i prefer to see who's getting off. A sweet looking old man gets off the bus, his eyes brighten as sees Tink and he heads straight for her staring right at her, just to add to the slightly intimidating appearance he's wearing a red baseball cap and he's a little unsteaddy on his feet and without being unkind his gait would have not looked out of place in a zombie movie side. Tink unimpressed begins to bark so i head for the zebra crossing apologising saying I don't think she wants to say hello today :blushing: Once road was crossed big shake off. I really did do my best to socialise Tink but I failed on this particular combination. 

Any back home fun training session inspired by K&M's Moll and the ring stack, I came up with a heath robinson approach with a bit of (unused waste pipe) and some mini ring frisbees. 

Then out for a fun walk interacted and left a number of doogies friends. Happily watched the GSD walking group pass by. Would have been happy to follow but best to err on the side of caution and went the opposite way . Which was cool because we bumped into wheelie bin man, and his lovely dogs, who told me He found a a domestic rabbit in the park last night. Thankfully when it didn't run his lurcher didn't dispatch it and he was able to catch it and take it to the local vet who was happy to take charge.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> So they say Twiggy. Or could be he was just startled at turning round and seeing him. Either way I'll start getting upset when he starts reacting badly to most people. And given his reaction to people wanting to stroke him yesterday I don't think that'll happen soon.


I'll go with judge of character. Kilo goes in and out of the main gate in the car here almost daily and has never, ever barked or growled at the folk there. New man on yesterday and Kilo set up a really loud rumbling in the back and huffed and gruffed when he leant in a little to talk....same again today....


----------



## Micky93

Dogless said:


> Think he was baying it ready for the brave hunter to shoot in the absence of any lions . It was frightening as I didn't know what he'd do but feel almost relieved that I saw that he didn't chase to kill / injure - although no idea what he would have done had it kept on trying to run. He does get exceptionally interested when we walk through a field of sheep and one becomes separated from the flock. It's so hard trying to spot stray sheep in the forest - I go to this part as we've never seen one there, but there was forestry work in a few other parts so maybe the sheep have relocated .
> 
> You could always hold the chicken wing to 'teach' him to chew. Lamb ribs and spine are quite easy to crunch - Rudi can manage them and he hasn't got all of his adult teeth yet. You're not being stupid, you're being a normal, caring owner and if it doesn't sit right then there's no need to give it a whirl!


It is something I've been wanting to try for him for ages now, so i am willing to give it a go. Honestly, I could worry about anything and everything


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Mixed bag here today too.
> 
> First the not so good.
> 
> Took Tink to the post box this morning as i always do, when i dont' need to go into the post office. It's a micro mini walk all of 5 mins if that. there is a bus stop next to the zebra crossing, A bus was pulling in as we were approaching the crossing so i slowed as i prefer to see who's getting off. A sweet looking old man gets off the bus, his eyes brighten as sees Tink and he heads straight for her staring right at her, just to add to the slightly intimidating appearance he's wearing a red baseball cap and he's a little unsteaddy on his feet and without being unkind his gait would have not looked out of place in a zombie movie side. Tink unimpressed begins to bark so i head for the zebra crossing apologising saying I don't think she wants to say hello today :blushing: Once road was crossed big shake off. I really did do my best to socialise Tink but I failed on this particular combination.
> 
> Any back home fun training session inspired by K&M's Moll and the ring stack, I came up with a heath robinson approach with a bit of (unused waste pipe) and some mini ring frisbees.
> 
> Then out for a fun walk interacted and left a number of doogies friends. Happily watched the GSD walking group pass by. Would have been happy to follow but best to err on the side of caution and went the opposite way . Which was cool because we bumped into wheelie bin man, and his lovely dogs, who told me He found a a domestic rabbit in the park last night. Thankfully when it didn't run his lurcher didn't dispatch it and he was able to catch it and take it to the local vet who was happy to take charge.


This sounds awful  but I am almost pleased that the immaculately behaved Miss Tink has the odd bark at folk too . Not in a 'I'm pleased she was worried' way at all  but more because probably one of the best trained dogs on PF still has an off day . Sorry mv - I know that sounds awful and I am genuinely sorry that it was a bit rubbish for you.

Well done wheelie bin man for rescuing the rabbit and Tink for happily watching the GSDs again .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, glad Kilo only chased and held the sheep. Fingers crossed you don't have a repeat performance though! Funny how dogs will just take a dislike to someone for no apparent reasons isn't it? Rupert hated one of my brothers friends and we never figured out why. Nor would he have anything to do with making friends with him, he just lay under the table growling his head off any time Puds was there.

MV, sorry Tink had a bark at someone too. Glad your proper walk was better though and well done to Wheelie Bin Man for rescuing the rabbit.

Micky, I started Spencer out on bony things that were too big for him to attempt to swallow whole. It took him about 45 minutes to eat one chicken quarter that first time coz chewing had apparently never occurred to him :lol: Chicken wings are a no no for him as he just crunches down once and then swallows which means they make a reappearance later  but I think Eddie is a small dog isn't he?


----------



## Micky93

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, glad Kilo only chased and held the sheep. Fingers crossed you don't have a repeat performance though! Funny how dogs will just take a dislike to someone for no apparent reasons isn't it? Rupert hated one of my brothers friends and we never figured out why. Nor would he have anything to do with making friends with him, he just lay under the table growling his head off any time Puds was there.
> 
> MV, sorry Tink had a bark at someone too. Glad your proper walk was better though and well done to Wheelie Bin Man for rescuing the rabbit.
> 
> Micky, I started Spencer out on bony things that were too big for him to attempt to swallow whole. It took him about 45 minutes to eat one chicken quarter that first time coz chewing had apparently never occurred to him :lol: Chicken wings are a no no for him as he just crunches down once and then swallows which means they make a reappearance later  but I think Eddie is a small dog isn't he?


He weighs 4.5kg and is a yorkshire terrier x jack russell - so I would count him as small  Would a chicken wing still be too small for him though   I know nothing about RAW.. it seems so confusing :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Micky93 said:


> He weighs 4.5kg and is a yorkshire terrier x jack russell - so I would count him as small  Would a chicken wing still be too small for him though   I know nothing about RAW.. it seems so confusing :lol:


A chicken wing should be fine for him I would have thought.


----------



## Sarah1983

Micky93 said:


> He weighs 4.5kg and is a yorkshire terrier x jack russell - so I would count him as small  Would a chicken wing still be too small for him though   I know nothing about RAW.. it seems so confusing :lol:


I would have thought a chicken wing would be fine for him  Spen's roughly 30kg so a chicken wing is a mere mouthful for him. Plus he's a canine dustbin and prefers to swallow things without chewing. Rupert was a bigger dog but could safely have chicken wings, they just weren't practical to feed on a regular basis coz he'd have needed so many of them.


----------



## Guest

JRT x Yorkie you say? I SAY WE NEED PICCIES!!! 

Donkey was super duper excited when i put him in the car. Not so much when he went off without me. He pulled the RSPCA face as mum pulled away.

Was talking to a friend ordering the dogmatic and somebody butted in with "If you need a contraption then your not training him right." 
Its not the damn training we have problems with, its not the damn LLW walking we have problems with, its not even the problems of other dogs as such.
Its the fact that my dog is and probably always will be physically stronger than me. 

IF THE EVENT OCCURS THAT ZAND HAS A FREAKOUT AND I HAVE A 'CONTRAPTION' THAT STOPS MY FACE MEETING CONCRETE/TREE/BENCH/FLOOR, THEN I THINK I DESERVE A MEDAL FOR BEING AWESOME AND GIVING A CRAP ABOUT ME AND MY KANGAROO DOGS SAFETY.

Hell, if I ever get a proper big dog such as a Borzoi or something, I would probably use a headcollar or something just for physical safety.
I worked in kennels, I have been dragged across a field by a dogue de bourdeux. IT WAS NOT FUN.

GODDAMN PEOPLE. :sosp:


----------



## Guest

Basically. ETERNAL RAGE FROM DORSET.


----------



## Dogless

LO - I get loads of comments like "Why don't you just train your dog?" when Kilo has his on. Usually from the owners of tiny dogs who are coughing and choking on their collars as they're pulling so hard whilst Kilo's trotting along nicely  or those who have their dogs offlead no matter where they are as they can't walk them on the lead as they've never taught them how to :incazzato:.

I have his as you mention as a backup for safety - I certainly don't think he's completely untrained.


----------



## Sarah1983

Ah to hell with them LO. If a contraption gives me more control without hurting or scaring my dog then damn right I'll use it. 

I'd probably have asked them how they trained their dog without the use of any contraptions whatsoever though. And how they walk them since you could argue that even a collar and leash are just contraptions too.


----------



## Jenny Olley

I think head collars are great, they give control and confidence to people.

I am really happy, just found oud Archie pup and myself have made it into Dog World. Viewpoint >Dog World >Dog World Home >Dogworld
and I've lost 4lb's on my diet.

Going to have a good read through now, Archie is asleep.


----------



## Micky93

LurcherOwner said:


> JRT x Yorkie you say? I SAY WE NEED PICCIES!!!
> 
> Donkey was super duper excited when i put him in the car. Not so much when he went off without me. He pulled the RSPCA face as mum pulled away.
> 
> Was talking to a friend ordering the dogmatic and somebody butted in with "If you need a contraption then your not training him right."
> Its not the damn training we have problems with, its not the damn LLW walking we have problems with, its not even the problems of other dogs as such.
> Its the fact that my dog is and probably always will be physically stronger than me.
> 
> IF THE EVENT OCCURS THAT ZAND HAS A FREAKOUT AND I HAVE A 'CONTRAPTION' THAT STOPS MY FACE MEETING CONCRETE/TREE/BENCH/FLOOR, THEN I THINK I DESERVE A MEDAL FOR BEING AWESOME AND GIVING A CRAP ABOUT ME AND MY KANGAROO DOGS SAFETY.
> 
> Hell, if I ever get a proper big dog such as a Borzoi or something, I would probably use a headcollar or something just for physical safety.
> I worked in kennels, I have been dragged across a field by a dogue de bourdeux. IT WAS NOT FUN.
> 
> GODDAMN PEOPLE. :sosp:


Pictures you say? 
I'll add them as attachments rather than in this post as forgot to resize them and don't want to take over the thread :lol:


----------



## Guest

Micky93 said:


> Pictures you say?
> I'll add them as attachments rather than in this post as forgot to resize them and don't want to take over the thread :lol:


HE'S SO FLUFFY!! AND CUTE!!:001_wub:

And well done Jenny and Archie for your tracking!!


----------



## Dogless

Micky93 said:


> Pictures you say?
> I'll add them as attachments rather than in this post as forgot to resize them and don't want to take over the thread :lol:


Love the photos....anyone can take over this thread with anything...t'is random .


----------



## Micky93

Dogless said:


> Love the photos....anyone can take over this thread with anything...t'is random .


But for some reason my photos come out hugggeeee 

Thank you though  The last one is his biscuit face, as in the stare he gives you when you are eating a biscuit


----------



## GingerRogers

Eek what happens you go out to get the car patched and you go typing mental!! Yes M's lovely wonderful hubby has patched it up with a bit of central heating pipe and some fire cement held together with some jubilee clips and a new welded bracket, there was a hole the size of a 10p can't believe it wasn't noisier and Buffer and Elsie sat in the car the whole time he was working on it jacking it up and everything (just to make it dog related )

Sarah, I reckon you should probably listen to the random barks, ninja does it to lots of people but Spen is clever and bound to be a better judge.

Interesting day dogless, as you say at least you know what he does now. Looks like you had some nice weather as well 

MV ooh dear, the red baseball cap and gait don't sound like a good combo though, reckon Jania would have tried to have him!

F&F - part of me just wants someone else o take the ginger one over and prove she is perfectly well behaved and its just me she reacts with but I know I would be insanely jealous  well done Frankie boy though (but enxt time do it for your Mum)

LO people  tut tut when is someone going to train them properly to not be rude and stupid at the same time!

Well done Archie pup and well done Jenny x 2 

Unsurprisingly I think Eddie is great!

As I have the car temporarily patched I can now travel to my reactive dog course tomorrow in relative safety, I am still insanely excited  but also nervous even though I am not taking ninja tomorrow


----------



## Micky93

GingerRogers said:


> Eek what happens you go out to get the car patched and you go typing mental!! Yes M's lovely wonderful hubby has patched it up with a bit of central heating pipe and some fire cement held together with some jubilee clips and a new welded bracket, there was a hole the size of a 10p can't believe it wasn't noisier and Buffer and Elsie sat in the car the whole time he was working on it jacking it up and everything (just to make it dog related )
> 
> Sarah, I reckon you should probably listen to the random barks, ninja does it to lots of people but Spen is clever and bound to be a better judge.
> 
> Interesting day dogless, as you say at least you know what he does now. Looks like you had some nice weather as well
> 
> MV ooh dear, the red baseball cap and gait don't sound like a good combo though, reckon Jania would have tried to have him!
> 
> F&F - part of me just wants someone else o take the ginger one over and prove she is perfectly well behaved and its just me she reacts with but I know I would be insanely jealous  well done Frankie boy though (but enxt time do it for your Mum)
> 
> LO people  tut tut when is someone going to train them properly to not be rude and stupid at the same time!
> 
> Well done Archie pup and well done Jenny x 2
> 
> *Unsurprisingly I think Eddie is great!*
> 
> As I have the car temporarily patched I can now travel to my reactive dog course tomorrow in relative safety, I am still insanely excited  but also nervous even though I am not taking ninja tomorrow


Well, ginger ninjas need to stick together 

Glad to hear your car is sorted now!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> This sounds awful  but I am almost pleased that the immaculately behaved Miss Tink has the odd bark at folk too . Not in a 'I'm pleased she was worried' way at all  but more because probably one of the best trained dogs on PF still has an off day . Sorry mv - I know that sounds awful and I am genuinely sorry that it was a bit rubbish for you.
> 
> Well done wheelie bin man for rescuing the rabbit and Tink for happily watching the GSDs again .


:lol: :lol: She does on occasion take a dislike to someone and have a good old bark and i try not to stress about it, She doesn't do it at all out on non pavement walks, there is a pattern of sorts. onlead, person moving toward her fast and staring, adults not children generally men but there has been one woman, in the course of conversation it transpired she' owns a BC and understandably didn't think eye contact could be an issue.


----------



## Twiggy

Jenny Olley said:


> I think head collars are great, they give control and confidence to people.
> 
> I am really happy, just found oud Archie pup and myself have made it into Dog World. Viewpoint >Dog World >Dog World Home >Dogworld
> and I've lost 4lb's on my diet.
> 
> Going to have a good read through now, Archie is asleep.


Well done Archie (and you of course Jenny)...:thumbup:


----------



## tiatortilla

i can't reply to everyone but i am reading all your posts still! i'll get better at this when i'm using a computer i'm sure.
quite a nice walk today (there's a thread with some pictures if anyone's interested!) but we had to go through town, there was quite a lot of dogs and tia barked at all except one or two, the proper bit of the walk was nice though.

dogless, was it you i was talking to about turkey legs? well if it was, tia can manage a leg bone - easily, in fact!


----------



## tiatortilla

Micky93 said:


> He weighs 4.5kg and is a yorkshire terrier x jack russell - so I would count him as small  Would a chicken wing still be too small for him though   I know nothing about RAW.. it seems so confusing :lol:


bit late on this discussion, but tia has chicken wings - i just hold on to it to stop it from going down whole. it resulted in a bitten finger the first ever time but she's not done it since!
eddie is ADORABLE too


----------



## GingerRogers

Tia - sound like she did well, a whole leg bone , I had a turkey leg at xmas it made 20 meals for ninja.

Quickie evening walk as have Rosie dogs mums charity quiz and too much work and have I mentioned my course tomorrow can't find cheque book again and I am panicking slightly inside, too much to do! However we had a great walk, almost brilliant considering some of the recent attempts, some car barking to start with, outside the hotel seems to be a problem area, don't know if it is the memory of the giant great dane in the tiny car still ?????
Got to the end of the lane and there was loads of cars zooming past in and out of town, she didn't bat an eyelid at all the cars, we finally managed to get across the road and then, dom dom dom , we managed to walk past a moving bus , she did grump at a small child two minutes later but it could have been a dog it was dark , then we stood outside a house with a barking dog with relative calm and then she didn't bark at two big fast transit vans, good girlie. Feeling bad myself though about leaving her for longer than normal tonight then OH is in charge of her for most of tomorrow  Gone from having a dog we had to take everywhere as he had such terrible SA to me getting anxious about leaving ehr when she will be absolutely fine.

Funny thing, I started teaching some hand targeting yesterday. Today she kept head butting hubby  She picks stuff up so quick why can't she pick up the barking thing .


----------



## Werehorse

LO - any news from the vets? And sod the "contraption" lady - I take it her dog walks around with no collar and lead and is perfectly glued to her side at all times?

Well done Ninja for gaining a few gold stars even if she proceded to lose them all.  Ginge - mind your language young lady! :lol: V. glad you can still get to your course and you had a nice walk this evening. Bless her headbutting your OH. :lol:

Micky - don't know what to suggest re: the gorgeous Eddie's teeth. I understand the worry about bones, I can't quite bring myself to give them regularly either... I've just been brushing the boy's teeth when I remember and so far they seem ok. Oscar's back ones could be cleaner though...
Oh and the pooing on the drive dog doesn't have a person with it when it does it, it leaves the farm yard across the road, wanders over, causes traffic issues, cr*ps and wanders back over. 

L/C - speaking to the farmer would be the sensible, grown up thing to do. I honestly don't know what kind of reaction I would get though and I'm a bit scared to do it. I'm not sure they would care - everyone else in the village, including our neighbours who get it pooing on their veggie garden (!), just seem to shrug it off as one of those things. :susp:
V. annoying re: Gypsy and cats. *sigh* Hopefully you can get her back to where she was easier than you got there the first time! And the Cyclosportive looks super-awesome and you should definitely dooooooo it!

Sarah - Hugo has barked at people if they are acting strangely or he has perceived them to be acting strangely. I worried then I thought I quite like that he'll have a woof at someone giving off suspicious vibes... he barked at someone taking pictures of someone elses house and someone picking blackberries, I did wonder if the people were thinking that they shouldn't be doing what they were doing somehow and he picked up on it... He does seem to have stopped doing it now though.

Dogless - :-O :-O at Kilo and the sheep! I'd have freaked out! But it is good that he just held it at bay without attacking - as you say, not something that you want a repeat off but good to know all the same. One of those things, surprise sheep sometimes happen!

F&F - Hello. My two behave better for OH sometimes too, even though it is me who puts all the work in. Little buggers!

Mv - Glad the lurcher didn't kill the rabbit, I wonder if someone has just turned it loose/ "set it free".  You can't socialise for everything I don't think, hats, staring and weird walks in combo would probably be enough to make most dogs a bit warey. 

Jenny Olley - Good weight loss, well done!


----------



## Micky93

tiatortilla said:


> bit late on this discussion, but tia has chicken wings - i just hold on to it to stop it from going down whole. it resulted in a bitten finger the first ever time but she's not done it since!
> eddie is ADORABLE too


Thank you very much! And it's never to late to make a comment, they all help


----------



## Werehorse

And I managed to fight off the gremlins and get out for a lovely walk.  the boys were very good apart from Oscar having a complete recall fail right at the end and trotting up to a black lab and flatcoat retriever who were on leads next to the cars.  He got suitably flattened by the dogs, fortunately they weren't agressive just excitable.  I felt really bad because I'd managed to be so considerate all the way round the walk and they boys had recalled and sat to one side for numerous mountain bikers and a pair of on-lead dog reactive rescue doggies and then he just plain ignored me!   I think A. he was quite focussed on getting back to the car and B. he really, really, really seems to really love all things black lab. :sosp: There's one in the village who he practically wets himself with excitement everytime he sees and the one today looked a lot like him. The only black lab he had much to do with as a pup was a bitch who gave him a very severe telling off one day - so I wonder if the "excitement" is actually rooted in anxiety.  I have to get over there and show them I'm not a threat kind of thing...  Don't know. I shall have to be much more careful in future though.  

But happy things - Hugo's new harness is here. It fits nicely and I really like it. It seems kind of small but then you see him moving in it and attach a leed to it and actually see that it fits really well!


----------



## Thorne

Werehorse -How disgusting  What a shame for you and for the farmdog, doesn't sound like she's got the best life. Loved the photos from your walk!

GR -Glad you had a good one! Disappointing that she ended it on a bark but sounds positive overall.

Micky -Good luck with the teeth! I've seen improvements in Breeze's manky teeth since introducing her to antler chews and raw bones. They're still not great but any improvement is good news.

LO -Hope all went well at the vets  Sorry to hear he's been whingey today (if it is a UTI I can sympathise, I was whingey when I had one!) but pleased that he was a super boy on your walk. Ignore the muppet's talk of "contraptions", being dragged isn't fun at all!

L/C -Hoping it doesn't take long for Gypsy to return to her usual high standards around cats. I think you are indeed crackers, that's a lot of cycling!

Sarah -Strange  Maybe the chap just caught Spen off guard but I'm personally more guarded around people that Scooter takes a dislike to, his instincts have been spot-on about some people more than once.

Dogless -Blimmin heck! Very pleased on behalf of all involved that Kilo didn't bring the sheep down, bet it had a fright though  Worrying but can't see how it could have been avoided! Thanks for sharing the photos, Rudi is HUGE.

F&F -Typical, that's sod's law!

MV -It's a shame that some of the sweetest people around so often seem to lack dog sense isn't it? My nan loved dogs but like your old chap today she tended to unsettle them. Glad your day got better though 

JennyOlley -Congrats to you and Archie!

Lazy start to the day here, did some housework while the dogs kipped, cleaned out the bird then headed out for a walk at 4ish. 
Good dogs today! Another complaint-free walk, Scooter was quite sniffy to start but he always is on the way to the meadow and was fine once we were past his beloved spinney. They've both had a good long run with loads of recalls, lots of checking-in and Breeze heard shots in the distance and barely worried! 
Don't know if it's my imagination but I think she's more relaxed in her new EzyDog harness, it covers more of her than the previous harness and fits more snugly so maybe that combined with her equafleece is having a calming effect on her?

We met a massive dog who was out for a run with his owner, looked like a Goldie x Malamute or maybe GSD? He made Scooter look tiny and until recently Scooter was the biggest dog in the village! The dog stopped and wagged at us, good body language from all 3 dogs so we let them all meet. Breeze _loves_ big dogs, Scooter was content with a quick sniff.

Now off for a chinese to celebrate my dad and sister's birthdays


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## tiatortilla

werehorse- that looks like a really nice harness, what type is it if you don't mind me asking? lovely picture too, dog and books


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## Beth17

Blimey Dogless well done to Kilo for not actually taking down the sheep.

LO hope the vets went ok. Don't worry about using contraptions if it means you and donkey boy have a safe, happy walk. I occasionally consider a head collar for my two as they completely outweigh me, but they don't have the easiest of faces to fit.

JennyOlley well done to you and Archie :thumbup:

Werehorse lovely harness. Don't worry about Oscar going up sometimes they catch us off guard. The boys found a gap at the bottom of a fence today and proceeded to try and stick their heads through to say hello to the resident dog  they got swiftly dragged away 

Thorne what a good day  Enjoy the chinese.

Ginge doesn't sound like a bad day at all. I hope you enjoy the course tomorrow.

And sorry to the people I've missed out.

Good sunny walks today with the boys, saw our first bee of the year. It was lovely and warm and apart from Sam pulling like a train nothing really major to report other than the naughty boys trying to say hello to a dog in a garden


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## kat&molly

Phew, mammoth task 
Dogless- thats exactly what Evie did when she chased a sheep- except she didn't quite manage a shoulder barge.:lol: Hope you dont get any more surprises-bit scary aren't they. 

Ginge- enjoy your course tomorrow. Good you got the car patched -H has had an offer of 4000 euros offer for the van -which is quite good but its impossible to get a van here for that price. Ours was from the UK, bit of a headache really.

Moonviolet- ooh the ring toss game- I picked a bad time for a session today, Moll thought she heard H coming and everything went to pot.
You still haven't sent handsome WBM here to dig that hole, keeping him all for yourself.:yesnod:

Jenny O- well done on making the article.

F+F- My OH says that the girls have been good for him- but I've seen it myself-he tells porkies.

LO- hope the Donkey is ok. Ignore these people and their headcollar comments- if it helps you, so be it. The old saying that dogs are like their owners always rings true with you- I think you're very well matched.:lol:

Micky- Eddie is lovely- why are the scruffy Terriers ginger.

2nd afternoon walk was offlead for Evie, she has a new 'trick'- she runs up the track past me about 10 feet in front, I run to her give her some fusses, tap her rump and send her off in to mini zoomies, only to start again. Isn't MY recall good.

Walked her through the village- and we saw a human  she stopped and fixated but no snorting, a bit tense but she recovered quickly.

WH- love Hugo's harness. It suits him.

Thorne- enjoy your meal out.


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## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> dogless, was it you i was talking to about turkey legs? well if it was, tia can manage a leg bone - easily, in fact!


Excellent .



Werehorse said:


> Dogless - :-O :-O at Kilo and the sheep! I'd have freaked out! But it is good that he just held it at bay without attacking - as you say, not something that you want a repeat off but good to know all the same. One of those things, surprise sheep sometimes happen!


I did freak out . Not good at all - if I had for one second thought that there was a chance of a sheep in that area the boys would have been onlead. I really never want it to happen again - he is OK walking through fields of livestock (on lead, of course, without exception - he'd chase) now and DO NOT want him to become excitable again.



Thorne said:


> Dogless -Blimmin heck! Very pleased on behalf of all involved that Kilo didn't bring the sheep down, bet it had a fright though  Worrying but can't see how it could have been avoided! Thanks for sharing the photos, Rudi is HUGE.


It was a huge ram; I was quite worried about how Kilo might come off if he decided he'd had enough TBH, he was snorting and pawing the ground. Luckily both held their ground and I could just collect Kilo. He seemed OK as he trotted off so really think he's fine - hate the idea of harassing animals though .

Just met up with my friend and Dizzy with Kilo for a walk; they had an hour's offlead running so Kilo is sparked out. Rudi had enough physical exercise today so has had a little play. All good at Concrete Central.


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## Dogless

k&m - well done to Evie .

werehorse - love the new harness; it looks very smart indeed on it's very handsome model - wonder what got into Oscar? Perhaps some of your gremlins jumped ship to him? .

Thorne - enjoy your dinner . Pleased you had such a good day, especially with Breeze .

GR - hope the course is fantastic tomorrow .


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## Guest

Well.

Zanders Bladder is fine. His ears are fine. He weights 27.5kgs.

The vet has prescribed him Clomicalm due to his very high anxiety. He reckons his anxiousness is whats causing the peeing. And apparently he was awful at the vets. Normally he'll be a bit reserved about it, have whatever, then be quite happy to go home. This time he was shaking throughout and wouldn't let anyone touch him. He wouldn't take treats from mum either. The vet couldn't take his temperature because he was so bad.
He was even shaking in the car. 
The vet said to not pander to him but don't shout at him or get angry when he has a moment. Just pretend the scary thing isn't there and carry on as normal.
He even said that Zander sleeping on my bed should continue as it is normal.


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## Dogless

LO - I 'liked' that Zand's bladder is fine, not the rest. Really hope that Clomicalm helps him xx.


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## Tarnus

Werehorse said:


> . he really, really, really seems to really love all things black lab. :sosp:


Playing right into my dognapping plan!


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## Werehorse

tiatortilla said:


> werehorse- that looks like a really nice harness, what type is it if you don't mind me asking? lovely picture too, dog and books


It is from a place called e-dogz or something... hang on... eDog Fleece Dog Harness | Shop They've just opened a shop in my local town. 

Sorry Zand was/is so stressed, LO.  Poor boy. Contrary to a popular myth you can't reinforce anxiety so don't be affraid to offer him a bit of reassurance.  Myth of reinforcing fear | Fearful Dogs


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## tiatortilla

Werehorse said:


> It is from a place called e-dogz or something... hang on... eDog Fleece Dog Harness | Shop They've just opened a shop in my local town.


ooh thankyou, i do like these. and they have pink ones  i was thinking of getting a second harness...


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## kat&molly

Poor Zander, hope the meds help.


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## Izzysmummy

Sounds like all had good days! 

Dogless - very scary with the sheep, can imagine how panicked you were!

Wh - lovely pictures of your walk with the boys! Love the new harness too!

Not much to report today. Izzy was very hyper after her walk this morning and had done some more puddle bathing, apparently she was playing with a couple of friends and Tarnus called her back, she came but so did the other 2 dogs, elvis (labradoodle) jumped up at Tarnus so Izzy copied while Lila (Slovakian sheepdog) just moved closer which meant that when Izzy got down she ended up stuck on Lilas back. Think she kind of panicked and got a bit grumpy at Lila (just noise) who just stood there wondering what the big deal was! 

Had a training street walk this evening and at one point passed a little yorkie puppy who was straining at the end of its lead pulling its owner along and Izzy just trotted past doing perfect heel work and barely even looked at it!  heard the owner telling her dog "I hope when you're bigger you will be as good as that"! Feeling very smug and happy with my little monkey dog tonight! :001_wub:


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Well.
> 
> Zanders Bladder is fine. His ears are fine. He weights 27.5kgs.
> 
> The vet has prescribed him Clomicalm due to his very high anxiety. He reckons his anxiousness is whats causing the peeing. And apparently he was awful at the vets. Normally he'll be a bit reserved about it, have whatever, then be quite happy to go home. This time he was shaking throughout and wouldn't let anyone touch him. He wouldn't take treats from mum either. The vet couldn't take his temperature because he was so bad.
> He was even shaking in the car.
> The vet said to not pander to him but don't shout at him or get angry when he has a moment. Just pretend the scary thing isn't there and carry on as normal.
> He even said that Zander sleeping on my bed should continue as it is normal.


Oh dear - poor Zander. Clomicalm is a new one on me but if it doesn't work I can suggest loads of alternatives. I must have spent at least £300 on various stuff 3 yrs ago for Tremor's fear of travelling.

Have you ever tried a Thundershirt on him?


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## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear - poor Zander. Clomicalm is a new one on me but if it doesn't work I can suggest loads of alternatives. I must have spent at least £300 on various stuff 3 yrs ago for Tremor's fear of travelling.
> 
> Have you ever tried a Thundershirt on him?


I haven't tried one no but I have been looking into it for the past couple weeks.

See the problem is sometimes he'll be fine with something, then the next day, he won't be fine, then the third fine again.

Yesterday. Freaked out at traffic. 
Today. Completely fine.
Yesterday/day before Barked at people.
Yesterday/Today He took a treat from a person.

Three days ago, peed on my bed lying down.
Two days ago, fine.
Yesterday peed on bed, when cats had a fight.

The phrase Keep calm and carry on, comes to mind.


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## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Sounds like all had good days!
> 
> Dogless - very scary with the sheep, can imagine how panicked you were!
> 
> Wh - lovely pictures of your walk with the boys! Love the new harness too!
> 
> Not much to report today. Izzy was very hyper after her walk this morning and had done some more puddle bathing, apparently she was playing with a couple of friends and Tarnus called her back, she came but so did the other 2 dogs, elvis (labradoodle) jumped up at Tarnus so Izzy copied while Lila (Slovakian sheepdog) just moved closer which meant that when Izzy got down she ended up stuck on Lilas back. Think she kind of panicked and got a bit grumpy at Lila (just noise) who just stood there wondering what the big deal was!
> 
> *Had a training street walk this evening and at one point passed a little yorkie puppy who was straining at the end of its lead pulling its owner along and Izzy just trotted past doing perfect heel work and barely even looked at it!  heard the owner telling her dog "I hope when you're bigger you will be as good as that"! Feeling very smug and happy with my little monkey dog tonight! :001_wub:*




Like it...!! And so you should feel smug - good girl Izzy...

Actually I felt quite smug earlier this evening. I was telling hubby that I was working on 'beg' with Holly in the barn this afternoon, as a new trick (my back up plan to do HTM if she doesn't make the grade for competitive obedience). Anyway I said I'd show him and little Holly did it perfectly first time of asking...:thumbup1: She certainly isn't stupid, bless her.
She is actually very good at hooking her front paws onto things (which is why she draws so much blood when we're training) so I might do some work on getting her to hook onto a walking stick and pivot, etc.
Moonviolet watch this space.....:ciappa:


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## Beth17

Oh dear LO it could be a fear period he's going through again. Hopefully the meds will take the edge off of the anxiety so it doesn't develop into a full blown phobia. I'm glad he doesn't have a bladder infection.


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## Izzysmummy

LO-poor Zander. Fingers crossed the meds work for his anxiety. Have you tried skullcap and valerian? It doesn't seem to suit Izzy so if you want the remaining tablets to try I'll happily post them to you!

Forgot to mention we had the opportunity to do some training following a guy hobbling down the street on crutches. Just walked quietly behind letting her watch him and she was great, very calm!


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## Dogless

Izzysmummy - sounds as if Izzy has been brilliant today - Gold Star .


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## Twiggy

I know what I meant to say; I nipped to the vets this morning to pick up some more of the dreaded Rimadyl tablets for Quiver. There was a pot of 100 tablets (2mg) put aside for me and the cost was £51.50....!!

It's a good job my lovely vet was in surgery otherwise I'd have had a little word...

They are about 22p online, although you need a prescription, so the mark up was almost 150% which I think is pretty steep.


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## Guest

Oh my... had a rather embarrassing issue today LOL!

Day one of our 3 day show, today was 2 rally classes, Excellent and Advanced for what's called an RAE title. Have to Q in both classes the same day 10 times. 

Today was our first attempt.

Excellent class went okay. I was stressed, which showed in the dog, but still good enough for a 93 and a Q. I figured the next class would be better now that had a minute to breathe. 

Was not to be...

Somewhere between waiting at the gate and the start line, my neutered muttdog managed to get his rocket stuck. Which led to frantic licking at every sit trying to put things right. I didn't know whether to laugh, reach down and help him, or ignore the whole thing. I opted for the latter and eventually going over the jump put things back together (yeah, ouch LOL). After the jump we had a nice enough run, and managed to pull an 83 and another Q but OH MY....

I asked the judge what I should have done, and after she stopped laughing (she wasn't sure what the issue was), she said I should have said something and she would have given us a minute to deal with it.
Now my friends are joking about a KY sponsorship!

Go ahead and laugh, I did


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## Dogless

Oh Ouesi :lol::lol::yikes:. Well done though to you and especially muttdog for carrying on with everything all awry  .


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## foxyrockmeister

Branston's getting worse 

I have a hole in my trousers and a very sore hole in my leg courtesy of him yesterday :nonod:

Trying not to get to down hearted about it but obviously need to address it. I haven't heard back from the trainer I contacted. We're going away tomorrow so will search around for some classes when we get home. I'm wondering whether he needs a behaviourist rather than taking him to a class?

I was chatting to one of my patients today who appears to be having quite similar problems with her young beardie, she took him to a behaviourist via the vet and they have suggested an 8 week course of mild sedatives in order to socialise, acclimatise and train him through his stress triggers. It sounds rather extreme to me but she thinks it's the only option as she can't do a thing with him in certain situations. The behaviourist has said that it is very mild and will just take the edge off so that she can work with him, she has been told that she will have to work really hard in those 8 weeks. 

I don't want to drug my boy.


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## Guest

Foxy, take him to see a vet if you haven't already. If they suggest medication or a behaviourist then go with it. I understand why you don't want to drug him. I was surprised that the vet has put Zand on Clomicalm, but if it takes that edge off then it may help. 

But enjoy your trip first!


----------



## Guest

foxyrockmeister, I'm so sorry you're struggling with Branston. 
I haven't done a good job keeping up with this thread, is he redirecting on you?
I think a behaviorist might be in order. It's not the end of the world to have to medicate your dog. If he had a thyroid issue, you wouldn't balk at medicating that right? If it takes an 8 week course of meds to get him pointed in the right direction, it's totally worth it. But then again, you may not need them. Enjoy your time away and hopefully things will sort out soon


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## foxyrockmeister

ouesi said:


> foxyrockmeister, I'm so sorry you're struggling with Branston.
> I haven't done a good job keeping up with this thread, is he redirecting on you?
> I think a behaviorist might be in order. It's not the end of the world to have to medicate your dog. If he had a thyroid issue, you wouldn't balk at medicating that right? If it takes an 8 week course of meds to get him pointed in the right direction, it's totally worth it. But then again, you may not need them. Enjoy your time away and hopefully things will sort out soon


Just to fill you in briefly... Branston's problems occur when he is on the lead and then gets excited about something (the last two occasions have been birds flying over head - he's a bit obsessed with birds!) Because he's on his lead he gets frustrated and then takes this frustration out on the nearest thing, which is either his sister or me.

It doesn't happen everyday, but does seem to becoming more frequent with 2 or 3 episodes in the last couple of weeks, which is worrying


----------



## tiatortilla

LO how old is zand? tia is 15 months and it sounds like she was behaving a little like zand, with shaking and being very anxious etc. i'm not sure how much else is the same as i'm not keeping up that well! but my point is she started behaving like this a while ago and then (with a bit of work) she's come out of it over the last week or so and is now getting more confident all the time it seems *touch wood lol* so don't give up hope! i think the "fear period" thing answers for a lot tbh. hope the meds work!


----------



## Guest

foxyrockmeister said:


> Just to fill you in briefly... Branston's problems occur when he is on the lead and then gets excited about something (the last two occasions have been birds flying over head - he's a bit obsessed with birds!) Because he's on his lead he gets frustrated and then takes this frustration out on the nearest thing, which is either his sister or me.
> 
> It doesn't happen everyday, but does seem to becoming more frequent with 2 or 3 episodes in the last couple of weeks, which is worrying


Again, so sorry I'm not up to date, but I bet the lovely posters here have already told you this is super common behavior - especially with terriers.
And even better news, it's totally fixable 

One thing that seems to help tremendously are impulse control exercises. 
Impulse control is a tricky thing. There is a very subtle but significant difference between teaching a dog to control himself and teaching a dog that you will control him.

Let me use an example of an impulse control exercise I do with my impulsive boy: In the morning, his favorite thing to do is bolt out the door and see if he can surprise any critters. Now, I could body block him or use a leash to teach him to not bolt but that would only teach him that *I* control his impulses, not that he can control them. 
So instead I do this. I ask for an attentive sit (he has to look at me), and I open the door just a hair. If he loses his focus on me, the door closes. That's it. I don't say anything, I don't do anything but close the door. 
If he reconnects with me, I open the door a smidgen again. So long as he maintains focus on me, the door will continue to open slowly, as soon as he loses focus on me, the door closes. IOW, *he* is in control of opening the door by controlling himself.

I teach "leave it" the same way. The dog is in control of the treat becoming available by controlling himself.

These kind of exercises make a HUGE difference in other areas too. Dogs are terrible about generalizing, but for some reason, impulse control does seem to bleed over well in to a lot of areas. 
Leslie McDevitt's book "Control Unleashed" has a lot of good impulse control exercises in it.


----------



## Sarah1983

FRM, there's nothing wrong with a short course of medication to take the edge off while you work on an issue. I fought and fought to get Rupert medicated but none of the vets we saw would go for it, they saw him as a calm, confident dog coz they only bloody saw him in their surgery where he was calm and confident! I do wonder whether we'd have made progress had I been able to get him on something for his crippling fears.

I'm doing a lot of self control exercises with Spencer in the hope it'll help around other dogs.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

ouesi said:


> Again, so sorry I'm not up to date, but I bet the lovely posters here have already told you this is super common behavior - especially with terriers.
> And even better news, it's totally fixable
> 
> One thing that seems to help tremendously are impulse control exercises.
> Impulse control is a tricky thing. There is a very subtle but significant difference between teaching a dog to control himself and teaching a dog that you will control him.
> 
> Let me use an example of an impulse control exercise I do with my impulsive boy: In the morning, his favorite thing to do is bolt out the door and see if he can surprise any critters. Now, I could body block him or use a leash to teach him to not bolt but that would only teach him that *I* control his impulses, not that he can control them.
> So instead I do this. I ask for an attentive sit (he has to look at me), and I open the door just a hair. If he loses his focus on me, the door closes. That's it. I don't say anything, I don't do anything but close the door.
> If he reconnects with me, I open the door a smidgen again. So long as he maintains focus on me, the door will continue to open slowly, as soon as he loses focus on me, the door closes. IOW, *he* is in control of opening the door by controlling himself.
> 
> I teach "leave it" the same way. The dog is in control of the treat becoming available by controlling himself.
> 
> These kind of exercises make a HUGE difference in other areas too. Dogs are terrible about generalizing, but for some reason, impulse control does seem to bleed over well in to a lot of areas.
> Leslie McDevitt's book "Control Unleashed" has a lot of good impulse control exercises in it.


Thank you  Mine both do the bolting out the door thing too, which we have been trying to work on but I have another question on that one..

I can get them to sit and wait while I open the door (pretty much using your technique) but at some point, once the door is open I have to 'release' them, and as soon as I do that they go hurtling out the door at 100mph scrabbling over each other and barking! How do I get them to go through the door calmly?


----------



## Guest

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you  Mine both do the bolting out the door thing too, which we have been trying to work on but I have another question on that one..
> 
> I can get them to sit and wait while I open the door (pretty much using your technique) but at some point, once the door is open I have to 'release' them, and as soon as I do that they go hurtling out the door at 100mph scrabbling over each other and barking! How do I get them to go through the door calmly?


Well, if you release them, you release them and you don't get much say in how they decide to release 
If you want going through the door calmly to happen, you have to add in that criteria. Watch this video - she's talking about exactly this:

[youtube_browser]VLriCeTYxLM[/youtube_browser]


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## Thorne

Oh poor old Zander, really hope the clomicalm helps both of you.

FRM I hope you can get to the bottom of Branston's frustration 

Had a lovely, huge all you can eat meal! Ate far too much and feeling full and sleepy so will see you all tomorrow x


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## Dogless

GR - saw this and thought of you .


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Branston's getting worse
> 
> I have a hole in my trousers and a very sore hole in my leg courtesy of him yesterday :nonod:
> 
> Trying not to get to down hearted about it but obviously need to address it. I haven't heard back from the trainer I contacted. We're going away tomorrow so will search around for some classes when we get home. I'm wondering whether he needs a behaviourist rather than taking him to a class?
> 
> I was chatting to one of my patients today who appears to be having quite similar problems with her young beardie, she took him to a behaviourist via the vet and they have suggested an 8 week course of mild sedatives in order to socialise, acclimatise and train him through his stress triggers. It sounds rather extreme to me but she thinks it's the only option as she can't do a thing with him in certain situations. The behaviourist has said that it is very mild and will just take the edge off so that she can work with him, she has been told that she will have to work really hard in those 8 weeks.
> 
> I don't want to drug my boy.


I hope you hear back from the trainer I recommended soon.

There are loads of herbal type preparations/sedatives as an alternative to hard drugs and many work just as well.


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Just to fill you in briefly... Branston's problems occur when he is on the lead and then gets excited about something (the last two occasions have been birds flying over head - he's a bit obsessed with birds!) Because he's on his lead he gets frustrated and then takes this frustration out on the nearest thing, which is either his sister or me.
> 
> It doesn't happen everyday, but does seem to becoming more frequent with 2 or 3 episodes in the last couple of weeks, which is worrying


Well personally I would teach a very solid "leave" command.

That's what I use in those sort of circumstances.

Tremor was a right madam as a youngster and very prone to tantrums, resource guarding, etc. etc. and would certainly come back at me in all sorts of situations. She was also a great big bruiser and I'm only 5 ft nothing. She had to learn very quickly that is wasn't acceptable behaviour.

I believe training makes all the difference and the focus of her frustration was channelled into work. She only competed in 3 novice classes at just over a year old and won them all.


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you  Mine both do the bolting out the door thing too, which we have been trying to work on but I have another question on that one..
> 
> I can get them to sit and wait while I open the door (pretty much using your technique) but at some point, once the door is open I have to 'release' them, and as soon as I do that they go hurtling out the door at 100mph scrabbling over each other and barking! How do I get them to go through the door calmly?


It's called dog training - honestly.

Little Holly is a typical sheepdog and pretty good at plucking..!!

When I'm about to take mine for a walk and I'm putting wellies on in the conservatory, they all belt to the paddock gate and Holly, given the chance, will jump on Tremor or Leafy's back having a go at their necks.

Leafy is an old bitch with deep trauma in her left shoulder and Holly could really hurt her. So the twice daily routine is I open the kitchen and conservatory door and say "Holly wait". The other three go to the gate and Holly stays in the conservatory with me - simples...


----------



## Dogless

We have had a very good morning at Concrete Central .

The boys had enough adrenaline - fuelled fooling about yesterday so this morning was about being good on separate walks :aureola:.

Kilo went first; had an hour's walk on the pavements, those bluddy pixies had been and switched his hearing off _again_ :cursing: during the night, but 10 minutes' of hard graft and a big poo  later he was working really, really well. We just did lots of heelwork, random sits, waits etc. Did some more work on 'hide' and he's doing great. Saw two dogs including 'the' lab who was onlead  hmy: by the road and he just looked at them then me . He did his 'Carly Simon' trot all the way  .

Then Rudi - lead manners to the offlead dog walking fields / open sewer :nonod: :nonod: then some recalls, collar grabs, waits and then lead manners home. He was really keen this morning, love him. Not much seen as it was still really early for folk to be up round here. One very short attempt at jumping and biting.

My best boys - earned their puffed pig's snouts this morning :001_wub:. Hope everyone else is having a good walk / walks this morning.


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## Sarah1983

Glad you had a nice walk Dogless 

Spen woke me up at 8am by sticking his icy cold nose in my warm armpit hmy: Apparently he needed to pee and the best way to let me know is to make me leap up out of a sound sleep with a shriek loud enough to wake the dead :blushing:

And god forbid I go down to the cellar to do the washing on my own. He was working on a stuffed Kong so I got all the clothes in the bag and headed out the front door. Almost shut him in the door as he rushed out at the last minute to come with me  I can take the rubbish out without him moving from the top of the stairs. I can go get the mail without him moving from the top of the stairs. But go and do the washing? Not a chance, he's down the stairs before I can blink.


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## kat&molly

ouesi said:


> Again, so sorry I'm not up to date, but I bet the lovely posters here have already told you this is super common behavior - especially with terriers.
> And even better news, it's totally fixable
> 
> One thing that seems to help tremendously are impulse control exercises.
> Impulse control is a tricky thing. There is a very subtle but significant difference between teaching a dog to control himself and teaching a dog that you will control him.
> 
> Let me use an example of an impulse control exercise I do with my impulsive boy: In the morning, his favorite thing to do is bolt out the door and see if he can surprise any critters. Now, I could body block him or use a leash to teach him to not bolt but that would only teach him that *I* control his impulses, not that he can control them.
> So instead I do this. I ask for an attentive sit (he has to look at me), and I open the door just a hair. If he loses his focus on me, the door closes. That's it. I don't say anything, I don't do anything but close the door.
> If he reconnects with me, I open the door a smidgen again. So long as he maintains focus on me, the door will continue to open slowly, as soon as he loses focus on me, the door closes. IOW, *he* is in control of opening the door by controlling himself.
> 
> I teach "leave it" the same way. The dog is in control of the treat becoming available by controlling himself.
> 
> These kind of exercises make a HUGE difference in other areas too. Dogs are terrible about generalizing, but for some reason, impulse control does seem to bleed over well in to a lot of areas.
> Leslie McDevitt's book "Control Unleashed" has a lot of good impulse control exercises in it.


This worked really really well for me this morning  Mine do know they aren't to charge out but Moll quivers in anticipation, and Evie always pushes her luck and sometimes I have to body block her before she complies 
This morning I never said a word, just pushed the door back to if they went to move- much calmer. I released them one by one, by name- Evie last, for the first time ever she hadn't budged at all.hmy:
Thanks.


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## Micky93

So I had work this morning and had to leave the house at 7.55 as my first call was only around the corner - would Eddie get out of bed, not a chance.  So left him to the OH to deal with. Finished work at 1.30, walked in, got his lead, ball and some dog bags and off we went out again. Went for a good 40 minute fast paced walk which has tired him out (for now) so he's currently laid out next to me sound asleep :thumbup:

Got some chicken wings from Tesco last night but it was too late in the day to try him on one so the plan is Sunday, as both me and the OH are around and we can give it to him early evening just in case he does have a funny turn - popped them in the freezer until then as got a pack of like 10 for £2.50 and there is no way we will go through that many before tuesday (when they expire). Will get one out to defrost tomorrow morning and pop it in the fridge until the evening though  OH seems very up for it, I'm the one being nervous and worrying :lol:


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## Dogless

You make me laugh Micky93 . Have you got a digital clock counting down to the Great Chicken Wing Event?  :001_tt2:.


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## Micky93

Dogless said:


> You make me laugh Micky93 . Have you got a digital clock counting down to the Great Chicken Wing Event?  :001_tt2:.


Now that would be telling :001_tt2:


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## Dogless

Micky93 said:


> Now that would be telling :001_tt2:


You HAVE .


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## Beth17

Glad you had a good morning Dogless 

Sarah bless Spen for being so eager to help but what a shocking way to wake up 

Micky I did the exact same worrying when I gave Sam a chicken wing and then had a mild panic attack when he swallowed it whole 

K&M well done on the calm door manners.

Had one of those mornings as got the boys in the car to go up to the field and then find out the battery has died. Luckily mum was still at home and offered to drop us up so turfed them out and got up there; I then realised that I only had my trainers as my wellies are in my car  The mud had dried out slightly but still got covered and soaked slipping around. 

Boys behaved really well and then walked them home only we passed a couple of brats with popper things, This spooked Oscar as he's not keen on children at the best of times so he was a bit on edge for the rest of the walk but they did well. Sam was just oblivious and carried on charging forward


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## tiatortilla

FRM - i hope you see some results with branston soon - sounds very stressful 
dogless - glad you had a good walk today!
sarah1983 - spen sounds so funny 
beth17 - tia's scared of the popper things too. kids are annoying, there were kids shouting and messing around on scooters outside our house and tia just wouldn't walk past, pff! i had to carry her lol.
not much to say today, just a little walk earlier. football training in the field and tia wasn't even tempted to join in  (she likes footballs).


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## tiatortilla

oh, and micky93 - good luck with the chicken wings  if you wanted to hold on to them, someone suggested using kitchen tongs to me when i got bitten, maybe something to keep in mind! although i doubt being bitten by a yorkie x JRT hurts quite as much as being bitten by a staff haha.


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## Micky93

tiatortilla said:


> oh, and micky93 - good luck with the chicken wings  if you wanted to hold on to them, someone suggested using kitchen tongs to me when i got bitten, maybe something to keep in mind! although i doubt being bitten by a yorkie x JRT hurts quite as much as being bitten by a staff haha.


Thank you! 
And may not be quite as bad as having a munch from a staff, but I can definitely say it is painful!  The little sod has had my nose many a time when I've been rolling about on the floor playing rough and tumble with him - although he usually looks more shocked than me, and 9 times out of 10 will do it, then stop, stare at me a second then put himself to bed?! I will point out that at no point did I even utter ouch - he just decided he'd been naughty and was off before I bothered telling him off :lol:

He's very good with taking food though, always been gentle as a lamb, even when he was a pup. Think bringing him up around Meg (who wouldn't hurt a fly) taught him a lot of his house manners


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## Dogless

Beth - sounds as if Oscar did really well .

Micky93 - what are we on T - 24? .

Had a good afternoon too; I was going to take the CHs out to work on lead manners together but it's really mild out and not raining so every child in the world is hurtling round the streets on rollerblades and scooters shrieking - all the boarding school kids are over for holidays too. Added to that is all the dogs who have been hibernating all winter - so I took them out separately.

Rudi's walk was pretty chaotic - saw a DA terrier who has run over and taken a pop at Kilo before tied up _just_ out of lead's reach of two JRTs on a coupler who are always dog reactive onlead. Owners of all dogs in shop; unholy racket outside as these dogs give it all they've got . Owners come out, DA terrier gets a smacking, JRTs redirect onto each other and scrap all the way up the street . Man with small kids hangs back, Rudi is walking nicely with the aid of food and smiles at me and tells his kids he's a nice doggy . Then we have a nice walk until the end when we are ambushed by a very fast moving lab x that looks just like SLB's Pennie head on. Rudi crouches down, tail tucked and hackles up. I could hear people calling for their dog so they appeared fairly soon. The man said sorry and collected her, the woman told me to watch out if mine was a girl as "they'll probably have a bit of a scrap". I said he was a boy so she asked if he was neutered. I told her no, and she said that wasn't good. I couldn't bring myself to ask why . Meanwhile small child with couple is looking scared and crying - the woman said that she was scared of dogs as she is only over staying for the week and theirs had gone for her and bitten her on the face last night (you could see a mark). It was a dominance thing apparently and wouldn't happen again as she knew her place now :mad2::mad2:. I just left and we had a nice walk home.

Kilo's walk was utterly, blissfully uneventful - went past dogs, kids shrieking "doggy, doggy" and making barking noises, scooters etc etc. Then quiet walk around sports pitches and home.

Two big juices bones are currently being gnawed at by my best boys :001_wub:.


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## Dogless

Dear WAYWO folk...

For my whinging and wallowing and crippling self doubt 
I would like to apologise sincerely
And thank you all for hearing me out 

You're a fabulous bunch, both young and old :thumbup1:
Who befriend and support 
When my madness takes hold :crazy:

So from the mad dog lady blessed with two Concrete Heads :001_wub:
A big thank you to all
For being such good eggs


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Dear WAYWO folk...
> 
> For my whinging and wallowing and crippling self doubt
> I would like to apologise sincerely
> And thank you all for hearing me out
> 
> You're a fabulous bunch, both young and old :thumbup1:
> Who befriend and support
> When my madness takes hold :crazy:
> 
> So from the mad dog lady blessed with two Concrete Heads :001_wub:
> A big thank you to all
> For being such good eggs


Awww that's lovely, except I'm not so sure about the 'old' bit.

Love Grannie....


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Awww that's lovely, except I'm not so sure about the 'old' bit.
> 
> Love Grannie....


Dear Grannie,

Old was meant in the most respectful sense of the word 
Meaning all - knowing, wise and canny
A fountain of knowledge or so I have heard :idea:

Please don't take offence, think of your heart 
Take it easy and have a nice cup of tea
Because we need you Grannie and all your dark arts


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## moonviolet

Thats so sweet, there's a lovely supportive group on this thread. Some very good eggs indeed



Not much to report here. In addition to our big offlead walk we did a number of little pavement walks and had a gardening companion in the front garden, I have probably neglected this a while working on the other stuff ( and because i feel obliged to tidy myself up a bit more than a do for a stomp in the woods). Only one bark and that was when i'd timed a road crossing to fall in a fair distance behind woman only for her turn and block the way ahead to say hello to the doggie and lunged excitedly  She encountered young and old walkign sticks and hats, waggling newspapers wtc and handled them all well. So all in all good.

Had a couple of mini training sessions and fun games. All in all still my good girl.

Beth good boys.:thumbup1:

Micky good luck for operation chicken wing


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## kat&molly

Dogless- I had my fingers crossed you'd get a Numpty free day today- sadly it wasn't to be was it. The CH's were really good though- and its all good practice for when you have your 4 days of summer.

Beth- well done to Sam-hope the cars ok.

Micky- good luck with the chicken wing. I used to be really nervous when I first started - I'd only feed the girls during vets opening hours.

True to form, Evie couldn't do a repeat of this morning's door manners.:001_tt2: What is it with that Madam, every time I shut the door because she'd moved - she went and looked out the cat flap - the others were brilliant- and Jay was with us this afternoon. We got there eventually and it is much better this way. Little sod:smilewinkgrin:


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- I had my fingers crossed you'd get a Numpty free day today- sadly it wasn't to be was it. The CH's were really good though- and its all good practice for when you have your 4 days of summer.
> 
> Beth- well done to Sam-hope the cars ok.
> 
> Micky- good luck with the chicken wing. I used to be really nervous when I first started - I'd only feed the girls during vets opening hours.
> 
> True to form, Evie couldn't do a repeat of this morning's door manners.:001_tt2: What is it with that Madam, *every time I shut the door because she'd moved - she went and looked out the cat flap* - the others were brilliant- and Jay was with us this afternoon. We got there eventually and it is much better this way. Little sod:smilewinkgrin:


And THAT is why I love Evie so much :001_wub:.


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## Thorne

Twiggy -I'm in awe of your knowledge and experience with dogs, really I am 

Dogless -Sounds like a fab morning, you really do meet all sorts though! Hope Rudi's not too worried by the Lab X, well done you three. Love the poem 

Sarah -Don't envy you for your novel "alarm clock" this morning!

Ouesi & K&M -You've inspired me to work on my two's fairly lapse impulse control. Have been focused on recall for Scooter and confidence building for Breeze lately so a lot of other things have fallen by the wayside!

Micky -Good luck with the chicken wings, glad that OH is up for it.

Beth -Shame about the brats, poor Oscar  That would worry Breeze something terrible!

TiaT -Well done to Tia for resisting the football :thumbup:

MV -That chicken is brilliant, good eggs indeed! Sounds like a good day for you and Miss Tink, what a star.

Mum took Scooter, I went out on a pavement and quiet lanes walk with Breeze. 
Walking when it's dusk has massively improved her confidence, we don't get the shaking and panting that accompanies noisy daylight walks which is brilliant! She's not working herself up into a state before leaving the house so she's fretting far less about scary things once we're out  She was spooked by a car hitting a drain tonight but in fairness that made me jump too and she recovered quickly. 
We met a Kerry Blue Terrier named Lola who was polite but aloof, really pretty dog, it's a breed I have a weakness for! Gave Breeze a run along a bridleway which pleased her, she was an angel today.

Scooter's just finished a pig-free pigs ear, Breeze has had a gnaw on a pigskin roll and they're both looking happy and sleepy, bless.

We're currently on peacock watch - the KBT breeder has had a gorgeous white peacock escape and although it's staying close no-one's been able to catch it yet! Have seen it today and yesterday but it's flighty and very evasive, pesky thing. Just hoping it doesn't meet a nasty end on the road 
Scooter was very interested yesterday, I'm sure he'd like to try catching it...


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## Dogless

Thorne, Breeze sounds as if she's really improving. And peacock watch? I'd not let Kilo off until it had been caught if it was around here hmy:. Our neighbours used to have some where we used to live - bluddy noisy buggers!!


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## Guest

Heyyyy guys! Haven't read past the last page yet, will do in a minute.

A la Yellow dogmatic arrived. It fits perfectley except he can get the loop in his gob is he tries. Cannot go any smaller muzzle or neck wise so it'll be fine, may have to get a halti link thing or just spray it with anti-chew/vinegar.rub it with orange peel . Brilliantly made I must admit, far superior to the gentle leader
Been slowly putting it on and letting him lick my thumb covered in Peanut butter. I just put it on him. With no treats and he didn't kick off at all.
Shall try walking him on it tommorow as its SUNDAY. Therefore ALL the dogwalkers and full time walkers who don't appear during the week will come out in force.

He's actually been a bit more waggy tailed today. Shied away from a very quiet lady today. Got excited by another dog, actually met it, then shied away from that and its owner too. 

I am nackered. Have done two shifts and a trip to PAH. Bought a lurcher calender for a pound and several of those meat/tripe filled bones to help calm him during the day. Can also refill them with Peanut butter!


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## Werehorse

Can't keep up today - have been out on the fells for 6 hours. :crazy: ONly 13.5 miles in all that time but it did involve an awful lot of "up", some death rocks that required scrambling down and heavy going in some heather for a bit. Pleased to report dogs still have paws (rather than bloody stumps) attached and pads still appear intact even. And although Hugo was determined to pull like crazy most of the time when the lead was attached he behaved himself very very well over the whole death rock scramble bit, as did Oscar. They both dropped the various bits of sheep they found when asked, Oscar did look quite funny trotting along with a section of spine swinging merrily in his chops though!  There was a dead fox! *vom* They both sniffed it rather intently. *vom* but came off it when called/chased without nibbling it or rolling in it which was something of a blessing. *vom*

We went to a pub after for food and the boys behaved nicely. They are now dug in on the sofa with a very "not moving again today" look to them.


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## Thorne

Dogless, I think she is! Planning our walks to avoid potentially terrifying things seems to have helped far more than the calming remedies we've tried, I'm not even using the Thundershirt anymore because I think she's associating it with scary things. Just hoping this continues.
As for the peacock, Scooter certainly won't be going offlead around the area it's lurking in for a while! Noisy but I think they're great, really good guard "dogs" and they do make a place look fancy 

LO, hope tomorrow's walk goes well, and that Zander accepts the Dogmatic without a fuss.

Hope you and the boys had a lovely time today Werehorse, sounds like it


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## Guest

QUIT VOMMING ON OUR THREAD MISSUS! 
And can I have hugo please?? He's adorable,

And he WILL kick up a fuss Thorne, he'll do the three legged dance for quarter of an hour I bet. 

I met a mini daschund puppy today SO CUTE.
And people who were in PAH, buying stuff for a puppy they had literally only just picked up. A border collie puppy. I try not to be judgemental but I do worry sometimes.


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## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Dogless, I think she is! Planning our walks to avoid potentially terrifying things seems to have helped far more than the calming remedies we've tried, I'm not even using the Thundershirt anymore because I think she's associating it with scary things. Just hoping this continues.
> *As for the peacock, Scooter certainly won't be going offlead around the area it's lurking in for a while! Noisy but I think they're great, really good guard "dogs" and they do make a place look fancy*


You wouldn't think peacocks were great if you lived next door to the things. At our last house our neighbour had about 12 and they used to sit on our roof at first light (4.00am in the morning in summer) making a hell of a din. The Pea Hens are actually worse than the cock birds, although they were bad enough.

I wasn't a pretty sight in the early hours in my dressing gown, shouting obscenities as I turned the hosepipe on them.

It got to solicitors letters with the owners of the property on the other side of the lane when they broke the glass in their conservatory and greenhouse and scratched the roof of a new car.

When we were having an extension done, several of them got in and ruined the newly laid floor.

They were an absolute menace. My Twiggy was airborne on several occasions because I encouraged her to chase the wretched things.

Apparently they don't normally live very long in the UK and are susceptible to disease but our neighbours birds were unfortunately very hardy....


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## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> *You wouldn't think peacocks were great if you lived next door to the things. *At our last house our neighbour had about 12 and they used to sit on our roof at first light (4.00am in the morning in summer) making a hell of a din. The Pea Hens are actually worse than the cock birds, although they were bad enough.
> 
> I wasn't a pretty sight in the early hours in my dressing gown, shouting obscenities as I turned the hosepipe on them.
> 
> It got to solicitors letters with the owners of the property on the other side of the lane when they broke the glass in their conservatory and greenhouse and scratched the roof of a new car.
> 
> When we were having an extension done, several of them got in and ruined the newly laid floor.
> 
> They were an absolute menace. My Twiggy was airborne on several occasions because I encouraged her to chase the wretched things.
> 
> Apparently they don't normally live very long in the UK and are susceptible to disease but our neighbours birds were unfortunately very hardy....


I'm sure I wouldn't! These are about 1/2 a mile away and we can hear them sometimes at dusk, certainly piercing.

My boss keeps 2 peacocks and 2 peahens up at the kennels and they're very meek indeed compared to what you're describing! One of them sits on the roof of one of the kennel blocks in the mornings, peering through the high windows at whoever's cleaning in there  They keep their distance during opening hours but apparently are quick to raise the alarm (and wake up the guard geese!) if someone's around at unsociable hours or strayed past the main yard.
It's those geese that I'm scared of; noisy, smelly, cantankerous and very stubborn.


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## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> I'm sure I wouldn't! These are about 1/2 a mile away and we can hear them sometimes at dusk, certainly piercing.
> 
> My boss keeps 2 peacocks and 2 peahens up at the kennels and they're very meek indeed compared to what you're describing! One of them sits on the roof of one of the kennel blocks in the mornings, peering through the high windows at whoever's cleaning in there  They keep their distance during opening hours but apparently are quick to raise the alarm (and wake up the guard geese!) if someone's around at unsociable hours or strayed past the main yard.
> It's those geese that I'm scared of; noisy, smelly, cantankerous and very stubborn.


Yes our ex-neighbour had geese as well. And pigs and chickens. In fact is was like Old MacDonalds.... they were all free-range.....LOL

I remember a friend's mare escaping from a paddock round the corner and his wife rang me in a tizzy to say her poor little daughter was holding onto the horse in the lane and could I go and take over before her daughter got dragged. Said daughter was built like the proverbial brick s...house and about 24 yrs old....

They were all pretty bonkers. For about a year they had a wild fox living in their bungalow. The mess and the smell was awful and I always refused the offer of cups of tea or cake!!


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes our ex-neighbour had geese as well. And pigs and chickens. In fact is was like Old MacDonalds.... they were all free-range.....LOL
> 
> I remember a friend's mare escaping from a paddock round the corner and his wife rang me in a tizzy to say her poor little daughter was holding onto the horse in the lane and could I go and take over before her daughter got dragged. Said daughter was built like the proverbial brick s...house and about 24 yrs old....
> 
> They were all pretty bonkers. For about a year they had a wild fox living in their bungalow. The mess and the smell was awful and I always refused the offer of cups of tea or cake!!


Please don't say you used to live at the foot of the Black Mountains....sounds like my mad great aunt's place....ducks in the bath and a donkey in the living rooom .


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## Werehorse

I'm getting myself a bit upset because I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with Hugo's harness afterall.  Does it look too small to you?










When he was pulling on the lead today it seemed to be pulling on his neck too, which is kind of not the point of a harness.  I'm starting to feel really disappointed and upset because they seemed to really know their stuff and were really good to us in terms of customer service.


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## MollySmith

I have a phobia of peacocks. We went to Brownsea Island and I refused to go to the teashop as the grounds had loads of them around. Absolutely terrified of them I am. 1/2 mile is too close.


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## Thorne

Dogless said:


> Please don't say you used to live at the foot of the Black Mountains....sounds like my mad great aunt's place....ducks in the bath and a donkey in the living rooom .


Oi! We've had ducks in the bath!  They weren't a permanent fixture though, they were an orphaned brood that stayed with us near the house until they were big enough to join the others, they had daily swim in the bath to let them practise. We're not mad, honest :crazy:


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## MollySmith

Ah it's okay Thorne, as well as having a very unusual first name and curly red hair, my parents also had a myna bird called Cesear for a pet. On Pet Day at school I had to take a recording of the bird in on a cassette as the vicious little ****** was never kept in a cage - my dad built a lean two that the bird flew around. Another one of my mum's rescue birds. We had pigeons, probably ducks. I can't remember. I hate feathers and it's probably something to do with this. The next Pet Day I took my grandmother's dog Lulu and regained some stret cred as Lulu liked to sing to Abba.

Anyway sorry I've not been about. Molly is a very happy girlie I hope. She had a new ruff tuff toy that slipped into my basket and she's been addicted to it. We tore her away from it for a walk today, it's really lovely weather in Cambridge and the mud seems to have dried out a bit. OH took her around and I went over to the farm shop and met them on the way back. Dafty dog, I walked up the hill and she came storming along the ridge past me and then suddenly slammed on her anchors and did a comedy cartoon double take! She was so funny, the most enthusiastic welcome I've ever had.


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## moonviolet

WH I'm far from an expert on harnesses and without seeing how it is on Hugo moving around it's hard to say, but it looks snug, like it won't move around and rub. Also doesn't look like it would restrict his shoulder movement. From the picture im not sure how it would pull on his neck if it's done up well and not riding up. From the pic it's really hard to tell how it's sitting with the "armpit". 

If you are unhappy or unsure if it's possible why not pop into the shop with Hugo and see what they say


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## Werehorse

Thanks mv. It was making him wheeze and choke when he pulled really hard today.  It doesn't quite sit on his breast-bone, it slips to the side of it (like it is tight so it has to sit to one side) - which might be impossible to not have happen because he is so pidgeon chested. I do want to go back to the shop with it and have them look and explain my concern but OH is getting a bit grumpy round the edges when I suggest it. 

Another couple of pictures, you can see the slipping off the breastbone in this one;









And how it sits into the armpit in this one;









I don't know if I'm over-thinking it. But I didn't like the choking sounds.


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## moonviolet

I can see what you mean about slipping to one side. Is it tight enough? ( think about yoru horse's saddle) I think we can be a little over cautious with the tightness of the "girth" and cause the twisty problem walking with them to one to side of us 

Armpit wise when I have Tink in a harness before we head off on a walk i always get her to give me each front paw in turn to ensure the harness isn't pinching the armpit area. I does look right up in his armpit in the pic, is the muscle there sitting naturally or at all scrumpled up?

I can understand not liking the choking sounds, I wouldn't either


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## Werehorse

Thanks again, mv. I've tightened up the girth a bit will have to see if it helps with the choking when pulling as I think if it will sit centrally on his breast bone it shouldn't choke him. It doesn't appear to be restricting him in the armpit area at all - I *think* the muscle is sitting naturally. And on the whole the shoulder blade seems to be moving freely. 

Hmmm. Need sleep - I think I'm just massively tired and getting fussed and bothered by things.


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## Dogless

Leam - I have been reading your other thread. Hope you are still on this one. I have been thinking about Deeks still and some of his behaviour seems like the normal vile older pup / teenage behaviour that Kilo showed. The hanging off your arm at 4 months old (in fact Rudi does it too, just like Kilo did), the having a bit of a tantrum at times if he couldn't get what he wanted (seeing another dog). Perhaps Twiggy knows of good training classes in Fife (think that's where you are) that would take you on? It does seem as if he has quite 'normal' dramas bar the barking. If you learn how to sort these things then if Molly develops the obnoxious habits too you'll know what to do. Maybe even take Deeks and Molly training on alternate weeks / have a helper hold one whilst the other watches the class if that is possible?

Perhaps once he's happier and more settled and has a better foundation of obedience the barking will calm? Or we we can find more solutions to the barking?


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## Werehorse

Well Oscar, OH and myself are still knackered this morning! Hugo however says "are we going again today, mum? Are we? Are we? Are we?"  I'm going to have to get him a doggie backpack so he can carry his own water if he's going to be like that. :lol:

Oscar can hardly move. :lol: He did spend the entire 6 hours in full blown spaniel mode, trying to run at full pelt through heather and up and down quite steep slopes. ut:


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## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Thanks again, mv. I've tightened up the girth a bit will have to see if it helps with the choking when pulling as I think if it will sit centrally on his breast bone it shouldn't choke him. It doesn't appear to be restricting him in the armpit area at all - I *think* the muscle is sitting naturally. And on the whole the shoulder blade seems to be moving freely.
> 
> Hmmm. Need sleep - I think I'm just massively tired and getting fussed and bothered by things.


Hmm I really know nothing abut harnesses as I've never used them but I agree with you that it shouldn't slip to one side, as it can't be comfortable for him.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Well Oscar, OH and myself are still knackered this morning! *Hugo however says "are we going again today, mum? Are we? Are we? Are we?"  I'm going to have to get him a doggie backpack so he can carry his own water if he's going to be like that*. :lol:
> 
> Oscar can hardly move. :lol: He did spend the entire 6 hours in full blown spaniel mode, trying to run at full pelt through heather and up and down quite steep slopes. ut:


Or some sedatives.....

Good walk again here. Walked up to the top fields, no one about early on a Sunday so nothing seen. Rudi was a bit of a handful but we were up there in 15 minutes when it's taken 30 before so it can't have been too bad!! They had a good play and we did some recalls and manners but I just let them play and played with them after yesterday's efforts. A man walking down the road on the other side of the perimeter fence wound Kilo up hugely by coming up to the fence and whistling at him repeatedly - he did his huge, fierce dog impression. The man said "What a lovely dog" I thanked him and told him he was really winding him up though and he said "Oh, sorry, I never thought about that" . All good after that .

Quite a few folk seen on the way home which is odd, normally no one is awake until noon pretty much :eek6:. Heard a woman and son discussing whether they were the same breed etc etc as they were in a sit (waiting for 'the' lab to turn into his road and get into the house as Kilo hackled up as soon as they came into sight) and all their theories were amusing . Saw a woman who said it was nice to see them walked together (I didn't now her, must go past her house) and how she'd walked her mini yorkiepoos together from day one which was better in her opinion. She reckoned I should get a coupler.....not the best idea I've ever heard with this pair :eek6:....as it's so much easier having one lead. Id be toast :scared:. She was being helpful so I just said that they could both be a handful and were just very different dogs to hers. Bless her, she was sweet but 8kg for her on one lead is a far cry from the 80kg I'd have on mine at present - and potentially around 100kg when fully grown :scared::scared:. I could just imagine pottering along and a cat running :yikes: :cryin:


----------



## Dogless

Ugh. Forgot to say...there was a bloodbath :eek6::eek6:. Rudi lost three premolars on each side at the bottom this morning so six teeth :scared:. Poor gummy bugger!!


----------



## Guest

Well after the "free willie" incident Friday, I managed to have an even worse day Saturday. I'm so angry with myself. I made my dog sit in that damned building ALL friggin' day... Everything was running late, and my ring time was delayed 3 hours... Finally, we're two away, I'm doing some quick warm ups with my dog, and the steward comes up to me and tells me I'm in the ring - now. 

Apparently they moved the dog in front of me but didn't post that on the board. So I run in the ring, start my heeling pattern (which was going great), and about 30 seconds in the judge stops me, looks sorry, points to the cheese stick I have sticking out of my back pocket and says she has to dismiss me. ARGH!!!! How did I forget I had cheese in my pocket?! 
So all day sitting in a concrete building for nothing  

Today is the last day of the show and I'm just feeling defeated. I'm hoping my luck turns around!


----------



## Dogless

Ouesi I am sorry; sending you masses of luck for today - hope it makes the two less than great ones worth it xx.


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## Dogless

I have 'Sunday Brunch' on C4 on...folk sent pictures of their dogs in for a caption thing, some of which were on sofas. One of the presenters told viewers that dogs shouldn't go on the couch as a matter of course as it makes them think that they are above everyone and King of the Castle, which causes bad behavioural problems :mad2:.


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## Sarah1983

Oh no Ouesi, hope today turns out better than the last couple have.

Dogless, peoples attitudes towards size difference baffles me. You get some who don't seem to realise that 80lbs of dog lunging after something or jumping on someone is very, very different to 8lbs of dog doing the same :lol: Glad you had a decent walk, surprising how many people just don't think about their behaviour and the effect it might have on a dog. It's quite sad really.

Werehorse, I hope you're going to take Hugo for an epic walk again today lol. Yesterdays clearly wasn't long enough for his liking  Spencer makes some awful choking noises on a harness and I can't figure out why because neither of them put any pressure on his neck at all  He wheezes, huffs, coughs, pants and all sorts though.

Well Spen is being a royal pain in the backside today. In the 4 hours we've been up he's stolen practically everything he can get his teeth on, including my cross stitch! had the zoomies with a squashed plastic bottle, spent 5 minutes draping himself with the curtains only to free himself and do it all over again and has nearly sent me flying with body slams and going through my legs, stopping halfway through then rearing up so he can shove me backwards or forwards with his neck/shoulders.

We're off to the sled dog meet up in an hour, just hoping he doesn't show me up with the mood he's in :scared:

Oh, I finished another page of my cross stitch last night if anyone's interested. And even if you're not here it is anyway


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## moonviolet

Ouesi, What a terrible shame after all that waiting 
On the bright side it wasn't a performance issue 

Hope today is as good as yesterday was bad  


Dogless i'm giggling thikning of yorkiepoo lady walking yoru 2 fine boys on a coupler:devil:


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## Dogless

Sarah; I know very little about cross stitch but that looks like a very complex one to me - so many shades of colour. You must have a lot of patience. It will be nice to see the completed piece. What do you do with them? Frame them?

Hope Spen is getting all his naughtiness out before the meet .


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Ouesi, What a terrible shame after all that waiting
> On the bright side it wasn't a performance issue
> 
> Hope today is as good as yesterday was bad
> 
> Dogless i'm giggling thikning of yorkiepoo lady walking yoru 2 fine boys on a coupler:devil:


Me too; she was so sweet about it, love her. I should ask her to lend me a coupler and show me what to do whilst scaring a cat out of a bush in front of her...:lol:. To be fair to her well trained dogs shouldn't be pulling, lunging after cats etc but mine are nowhere good enough for that :scared:. It's mostly small dog owners that tell me that I should always walk them together, they have from day one etc and I wonder whether or not it's a control issue even just in terms of the sheer weight of what's on the leads? I saw an owner struggling yesterday with a pug going ballistic at a dog and a puppy and the fact that neither dog was very heavy seemed to save the day!!


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah; I know very little about cross stitch but that looks like a very complex one to me - so many shades of colour. You must have a lot of patience. It will be nice to see the completed piece. What do you do with them? Frame them?
> 
> Hope Spen is getting all his naughtiness out before the meet .


I don't know, I've never finished one yet  Well, I've done a couple of little ones like Tatty Ted but Train of Dreams is my first big one. The chart is 16 full pages and 2 partial pages (just a small one by HAED standards, my white tiger is more than 40 pages!) and it has 90 colours in it. But it has no fancy or fiddly stitches so it's actually easier than some of the small, simple looking Disney designs lol. They're big and there can be a lot of faffing around changing colour every few stitches but the detail in them is fantastic.

I hope Spen gets his naughtiness out before the meet too. Or runs it out when we get there!


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## kat&molly

Ouesi- I hope today is better for you, 

Dogless- pleased you had a good walk- dont understand why you dont fancy the coupler idea though.:lol:

Sarah- that cross stitich looks fab- I haven't got the patience for things like that. Have a good day, you may even meet some people to walk with.

Werehorse- hope you can make a decision on the harness. 

Its a gorgeous day here today, shame the chasse are out I could have carried on and on.... Another couple of weeks until the season finishes and the worlds our oyster again.
Evie was perfect at the door this morning, she's so contrary that one.

Moonviolet- can I ask, the ring toss , have you started with the 'pole' in stand up position from the off?
I have been sitting on the floor holding the plunger at an angle, once she had that I worked slowly to eventually get it upright on the floor. Moll cant get that though? It doesn't matter much as I can still hide the rings and she can still place them-just wondered if I should have started the other way?

Moll done her happy, woo woo we're going for a walk this morning and danced off with my slipper, I sent her to get it back and she went and fetched my old one that Evie had taken in the garden a fortnight ago, it was sopping wet.:lol:

Have been asked to foster an 11 month old Cocker boy, he's in kennels and has to be castrated first- theres a good chance he'll be rehomed before then but if not... anyway apparently he needs to learn 'he's not the master of the house'- this from the rescue.


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> Well after the "free willie" incident Friday, I managed to have an even worse day Saturday. I'm so angry with myself. I made my dog sit in that damned building ALL friggin' day... Everything was running late, and my ring time was delayed 3 hours... Finally, we're two away, I'm doing some quick warm ups with my dog, and the steward comes up to me and tells me I'm in the ring - now.
> 
> Apparently they moved the dog in front of me but didn't post that on the board. So I run in the ring, start my heeling pattern (which was going great), and about 30 seconds in the judge stops me, looks sorry, points to the cheese stick I have sticking out of my back pocket and says she has to dismiss me. ARGH!!!! How did I forget I had cheese in my pocket?!
> So all day sitting in a concrete building for nothing
> 
> Today is the last day of the show and I'm just feeling defeated. I'm hoping my luck turns around!


Whoa steady on.....!! Tick it all up to experience and calm down. Frustration with yourself is part and parcel of most dog shows I'm afraid.

We all been there done that many, many times. Just try and enjoy the last day win or lose.

I well remember travelling with my sister about 220 miles to a ticket show where she was drawn 2nd in the ring at 8.30am. Her bitch missed the sendaway so she retired from the rest of the round. She was so annoyed with herself that we gave the dogs a quick walk and went home. A very long day for nothing. That's the way it goes.

I always say shows are made up of 99% disappointment and 1% elation...LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah hope you and spen have fun on the meet, I loves the naughty thievery Your cross stitich looks amazing 

K&M I have starte with it on the floor but because she isn't the tallest dog in the world to make it easier i've cut ( and sanded the end) of the pipe quite short. Right now it's incredibly hit and miss. I think there's merits for both ways. Moll will probably get the idea of ring on plunger quickly and in small steps you should be able to slowly move it more and more vertical and lower it to the ground. I've starts on the floor as i don't trust myself not to do the work  If I can't get consistency I'll review to see how I can make it a bit easier I'm keeping it to very short sessions as i can see the cogs really working hard.


----------



## Guest

Sorry you had a dissapointing day Ouesi! 

The dogmatic is a success this time. Good job as there like 20 dogs out and about 12 joggers. I wish joggers would show some savvy and not run less than a metre away from a dog they don't know. Especially a dog that is finding people a bit frightening recently. Luckily he sat every I told him too. 

And a man with a terrier said "Ooh he's getting better isn't he?" 

Had a slight moment when a fluffy dog went for Zand, but I intercepted with my wellington. The owner had the gall to huff at me.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Sarah hope you and spen have fun on the meet, I loves the naughty thievery Your cross stitich looks amazing
> 
> K&M I have starte with it on the floor but because she isn't the tallest dog in the world to make it easier i've cut ( and sanded the end) of the pipe quite short. Right now it's incredibly hit and miss. I think there's merits for both ways. Moll will probably get the idea of ring on plunger quickly and in small steps you should be able to slowly move it more and more vertical and lower it to the ground. I've starts on the floor as i don't trust myself not to do the work  If I can't get consistency I'll review to see how I can make it a bit easier I'm keeping it to very short sessions as i can see the cogs really working hard.


Thanks MV. We have really good success if I'm holding it- think I must have rushed the moving on. Good Luck with Miss Tink, its not an easy one is it.:lol:

LO- that sounds a great walk, lovely that he's accepted the Dogmatic, should make things easier for you.


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## Sarah1983

Well we're back from our sled dog meet  We weren't the only non sled dog there, there was a GSD and an elderly Malinois too. For the most part things went really well and Spen had a blast running around and playing. We did have a couple of hissy fit moments, one that started when another dog was attempting to bully Spen and he told it to knock it off, literally just handbags and forgotten about 2 minutes later. The other was a bit more than that and fur was literally flying :yikes: Not quite sure what set it off but there was no damage done other than a few clumps of hair missing and neither dog held a grudge. It made Spen a bit wary of the dog, Demon, for a while but he quickly got over it and they played together. Figured it was best to just let Spen get straight back in there than make a big deal about what happened. 

Then as we were going home one of the huskies escaped and we spent half an hour trying to catch her. Thankfully a couple walking their dogs got hold of her when she went to say hello. 

I took my camera and completely forgot about it so no pictures I'm afraid. We'll be going again next weekend though and will try to get some then. I kinda fell in love with a big white dog with blue eyes. No idea what he was but he was gorgeous!


----------



## Maria_1986

We have a pretty good sit and wait but when out on walks Chevys attention wanders which affects her recall (she is not off lead yet but on a long line/extendable). Having read posts on here that talk about the 'watch me' command I was wondering what the best way of teaching it is and if it would be helpful for when she sees a squirrel. She is not very food driven and responds better to fuss than treats or toys.

Also am I better to get one thing 100% before moving onto the next or is it ok to mix commands within a training session? I have read that mixing a few will help to keep them from getting bored but how many is too many for each session?


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## Izzysmummy

Wh - bless Hugo! Wish I could tap into some of his energy! Not sure what to suggest about his harness, it does look snug but if it was bigger it would move and rub! I know how he feels being an awkward shape (I can never get shoes to fit my stubby feet !).

Dogless- sounds like a lovely walk this morning! In my head I've added a pair of roller skates to the coupler idea! :lol: we've tried a coupler on Millie and Izzy (combined 50kg) but only on street walks where they won't really pull. You can get in a bit of a knot if one slips behind you onto your other side. Could end up with a spectacular "clothesline" stunt if a cat ran past at that point !

Ouesi - good luck today! Fingers crossed it goes better than yesterday with no more willy or cheese moments! 

Sarah - that's a lovely cross stitch! Well done! I'm part way through one I started 10years ago, don't think it'll ever get finished! Did do one for my friends baby though, a farmyard theme one but the threads were rubbish and kept knotting! My Mums done loads so if you need any advice on washing/stretching/framing I can ask her for you! Glad the meet went well! Sounds like Spen had a great time racing around with some new friends!

K+M - sounds like a good start to the day!*

LO - glad the dogmatic is a success!*

Been a busy weekend here, Izzy had a nice run at the park yesterday morning then I spent the afternoon pottering in the garden getting it ready for spring and finding a nice place for my new addition (doggy garden ornament). Then we took Izzy to the water park for a nice stroll and she had a great time sniffing around and having a swim. She was a bit unsure of a little boy on a really noisy scooter but other than that was very good! Then last night I had my friend come round (Izzy's favourite person in the world!) for a girls night and Tarnus had a boys night out. Izzy was groaning a lot yesterday evening like she couldn't get comfy and then her tail was weird when I took her out for a wee at bedtime. Got up this morning and it's still the same, she's got limber tail! *

I took her for a run with her ball to see if it was bothering her and she seemed fine so I took her to agility. We had a really good session, she did really well and her weaves were brilliant so the practising with our indoor set is paying off! The trainer said she could tell we'd been practising!  towards the end though I think her tail started to hurt as she didn't want to go over the jumps anymore so we just called it a day and came home. So now all of us are tired (woken up by Tarnus coming in at 4am)! Think it'll be a lazy afternoon for us with hopefully a nap on the sofa!


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## Beth17

Ouesi I hope today runs more to plan 

Dogless sounds a good walk. I think a coupler would be awful for my two as well, they'd probably end up strangling each other.

Sarah well done for having the patience to do that it looks lovely. Sounds a lovely way for Spen to make some friends even if there were a few handbags 

Izzysmummy sound s a lovely weekend, I hope Izzy's tail perks up 

LO yay for the dogmatic being a success.

Lovely day here today so the boys have spent most of the day bombing in and out playing in the garden and have finally gone to sleep. Had separate street walks this morning with a little bit of offlead thrown in. Sam was an absolute star and greeted a few dogs calmly and then we moved on. 
Oscar was also really good but seemed to have regressed to puppyhood and so we had a few incidences of playing tug with the lead and going a bit hyper


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## moonviolet

Sarah the meet sounds eventful is it a static affair or a walking thing?



Maria_1986 said:


> Also am I better to get one thing 100% before moving onto the next or is it ok to mix commands within a training session? I have read that mixing a few will help to keep them from getting bored but how many is too many for each session?


I keep training sessions short 10-15 mins and cover 2 or 3 things in that time, if she gets it buckets of praise and reats mine is hugely food motivated and then move on to the next thing, I try to include a new thing ( lots of thinking when it's new), an active thing and a improving/reinforcing a familiar thing in each session.



Izzysmummy said:


> Dogless- sounds like a lovely walk this morning! In my head I've added a pair of roller skates to the coupler idea! :lol: Add bodyform type music and Dogless would be invincible :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> Beth17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lovely day here today so the boys have spent most of the day bombing in and out playing in the garden and have finally gone to sleep. Had separate street walks this morning with a little bit of offlead thrown in. Sam was an absolute star and greeted a few dogs calmly and then we moved on.
> Oscar was also really good but seemed to have regressed to puppyhood and so we had a few incidences of playing tug with the lead and going a bit hyper
> 
> 
> 
> There's an hint of spring in the air. Tink has definitely got the cheeky up to full volume today.
> 
> Had Tink in the frint garden with me this morning. she was on her mat having a chew when we saw would could be considered and accident in waiting...
> 
> ... First to enter the scene a CKCS 5 meters or so behind was the human holding the flexi handle, they were rapidly overtaken by a childof all of 4 or 5 holding the lead of a lab puppy being dragged along then came Dad and bringing up the rear was another child .... I think my chin was on the floor.
> 
> Tink calmly watched them go by :thumbsup: and even had a nice chew on nice dried animal part as the whole of life passed her by. ( in case anyone is wondering she is in harness and tethered as my front garden isn't secure and even if it was i wouldn't want her fence running so this is a good solution for us
Click to expand...


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## Sarah1983

Thanks Izzysmummy, might have to pick your mums brain when I finally finish one of mine. Been working at this one for about 18 months on and off now. Definitely going to need to wash them when they're done! I'm not a big fan of kits, had some awful ones with rubbish threads or not enough thread so tend to go for just charts and buy the fabric and thread myself now.

Hope Izzys tail is better soon.

Beth, sounds like a good day for you guys :thumbup:

LO, glad the Dogmatic seems to be a success.

Spen definitely enjoyed himself despite the scuffles. He had a big grin on his face and he played with every dog there at some point. I managed to get a sit from him before letting him off and he did check in a few times. He also responded to "this way" when he was getting a bit far away and did a lovely couple of recalls too. Once he was tired anyway lol, I didn't even try until I thought there was a good chance of him coming. 

I was actually quite surprised at how small most of the huskies were. The few I've met before were quite big but all these were much lighter in build than Spencer and around the same height or smaller.


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## kat&molly

IM- Hope Izzy's tail heals quickly.

Spring is definately in the air!!
A walk through the village with Evie was going really well, but at the scary house 2 lads were in their garage opposite, a Collie was chained up and another dog in the road, she was doing great, alert but happy to carry on , as we got level the kids started screaming, shouting and whistling, the dog barked and obviously she went to pot. Really , really mad with myself now, I should have turned back before that happened.
Re-reading the BAT book now to see what I can get from that- its easier on the Kindle Fire.
Next I took Moll- she was fine with all the racket going on, thanks to the clicker and Liver she didn't even have the silly Spanner 2 minutes of madness . Lovely.
Scruff next and she was brill, just one little wuff at the dog but thats all.
OH came for a walk this afternoon, and they were brilliant with the door manners- Evie only checked the cat flap once, but then went and sat and waited lovely.

Sarah sounds like the meet was mostly a success.


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## Werehorse

Sounds like everyone has had good days. :thumbup: I hope Ouesi has too!

Hugo was eventually persuaded that he really was quite tired afterall.  I've been out doing horse-based activities today and OH says that neither dog moved from the sofa despite him being in and out of the house. :lol:

Spring is most definitely in the air according to my horse.  I took her for a ride out for the first time in ages and she scared me senseless.  She's got a bit of a cough so I thought a nice gentle walk round the block would help clear things out a little. And it would have been fine if about 1/3 of the way round she hadn't heard one of the horses neighing back at the yard - she called back and then went mental for the rest of the way.  She has never bucked, reared or bolted with me and I honestly don't think she would. But she does a fine line in jogging and neck arched head tossing and _feeling_ like she's about to throw a massive buck and head for the hills. Of course as she got herself all worked up she started these massive coughs that were pulling me out the saddle.  I really tried hard to stay calm but eventually I was starting to freak out a bit.  I phoned OH to come and find me and walk back to the yard with me. I would have gotten off but I actually couldn't stop her in order to do so!! :lol: Blimmin creature! She's always a bit bonkers on the first hack out in a bit but today was the worst she's been. I guess the answer is trying to ride her more and a bit of HTFU from me. Not sure what to do about the cough though. It could be a vet job.


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## Micky93

Well today was SUPPOSED to be Eddie's special walk day - every Sunday me and the OH take him somewhere special for a really nice long offlead run. Its the highlight of the week (we both work in the weekdays so he has hour walks either round the block or beach etc). 

However... Eddie decided today he was going to work on his gorse bush diving technique in preparation for the 2016 olympics :scared: This was the result of a crow flying over said gorse bush and Eddie being more focused on the crow than in front of him... hence tipping into a ditch completely filled with gorse. I was freaking out and he came bouncing out EVENTUALLY recalling (  ) looking happy as larry. However, he did hurt his paw somehow; I think its just he has taken the skin off one of his pads AGAIN, as couldn't see any other obvious injury to his foot, and he's been gnawing at the pad. He also has lots of little pin prick type marks/cuts up his thighs from the lovely gorse. 

Cue me having to trek back through the beautiful country being weighed down by a 4-5kg lump who was loving the vantage height of being carried. And then after finally regaining the strength in my arms (it was a long walk! :scared: ) driving home and running him a lovely warm salt bath. 

Not quite the day I had planned after work :crazy:


----------



## Thorne

Jealous of all those who've had lovely sunny days! Woke up to blue skies and warm sunshine but it clouded over and fog rolled in too quick for comfort, oh well...

Werehorse -Spaniel mode  Not sure about the harness without seeing it in person but the choking doesn't sound good, think I'd go back to the shop with him and ask for advice. Hope your horse's cough improves soon, she definitely sounds fresh despite it!

Dogless -What a daft man, hopefully he won't try that with a short-tempered or under-socialised dog. I don't like the sound of a coupler at all! Briefly considered one when we first got Breeze but concluded she'd be dragged and/or trampled by Scooter  Glad the boys were good for you.

Ouesi -Hope today has been better for you than yesterday, how frustrating.

Sarah -Goodness me, your post about Spen being a pain took me back to when Scooter was a naughty youngster, can't say I miss it! How old is the cheeky monkey now? Sounds like you had a good time with the sled dogs despite the scuffles.

K&M -Glad you got your (soggy) slipper back! Keep us updated about the Cocker. Poor Evie 

LO -You're preaching to the converted about joggers, if only I had a pound for every time one has startled a dog that I've been walking... Very pleased that you had a successful walk, well done you.

Izzysmummy -Hope monkey dog's tail is back to normal soon! Scooter gets it after a bath and in a couple of days it sorts itself out. Didn't half panic when he first got it though!

Beth -Silly Oscar  Glad you had a lovely walk.

Maria -What MV said!

MV -Has Tink turned into a bouncy spring lamb? I've said it once and I'll say it again, some strange folk near you...

Micky -Hope Eddie's paw heals soon.

Had a pretty good walk today! Went to the meadow with both dogs, Scooter was an angel for me :001_wub: Kept him onlead for a while but once he was off he kept on checking in and running back to me, and his recalls were excellent. Did have a moment of worry when he started trotting and air-scenting but a fishwife "WAIT" let me catch up with him and put him onlead again.
Breeze was quite confident and ignored distant shots while she was scampering around and shoulder-barging Scooter but was spooked towards the end of the walk by some bangs just after I put the lead on. Some treats and a jolly voice perked her up again and got her out of the "get home quick!" mindset.

My granddad comes over for dinner on sundays and should be here soon, Scooter loves him to bits so that should round of the day brilliantly for him


----------



## Thorne

Oh, remember Scooter's lump that I mentioned? It's disappeared again! It's back to "normal" now and feels like half a pea under his skin which is what it's been like for years. Spoke to the vet about it and we're to take him in if/when it next flares up, and will be taking him in anyway in about a fortnight because Breeze's vaccs are due.

Very strange.


----------



## Dogless

Well look at me typing this on my brand new MacBook Pro :thumbsup: .

Thorne - Kilo was short tempered about it .

Sarah - sounds a bit stressful but at least the positive outweighed the negative.

Werehorse - I've always been wary of any mode of transport capable of thinking for themselves  beautiful and awe inspiring as horses are .

Micky93 - well......well.....did you do it????????

mv - think some of 'my' oddballs have moved your way :eek6:.

Beth - good boys :thumbsup:.

IM - poor monkey - hope all is right soon!

k&m - when will you be taking the foster?

Good separate walks this afternoon - training ones. Many kids screaming and shrieking and lots of dogs out. Human frazzled, dogs frazzled but all good .


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> Well look at me typing this on my brand new MacBook Pro :thumbsup: .
> 
> Thorne - Kilo was short tempered about it .


Good job he was short-tempered with a fence between him and the daft bloke! Scooter would've given him a good telling off too


----------



## Guest

Yay better day today! 3rd in Excellent and 4th in Advanced and one more leg for an RAE title. I stressed him out with my nerves (as usual) so some of his sits were laggy, but even when he's off, he's good enough to be in the ribbons. Such a good boy!

Twiggy, thanks for the pep talk, I really do need to settle down. This is a rescued dog who started out life as a foundling half dead in the woods. Ended up with me with all sorts of behavior problems. The fact that he's even out there showing is pretty awesome, that he manages to be in the ribbons against border collies and shelties even cooler. 

He won two toys today and promptly killed the squeaker in one of them  
Currently he's snoozing adorably on the sofa in a beam of sunlight. 

Okay off to read where I left off and see how everyone else is getting along


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## kat&molly

Werehorse- that sounds scary.:scared: I like horses- but only to look at.:lol: Hope the cough clears.

Thorne-Breeze has had a good couple of days. Has the Peacock been rounded up?

Hope Eddies paw is better soon.

Dogless-sounds like a busy day for you and CH's:crazy: We've seen a good few people today, apart from through the village they were all at good safe distances.
I dont know about the Cocker, whether he'll come for recovery or after the snip, just wait to hear now.

Hope Ginge has enjoyed the course.

ETA well done Ouesi, glad you had a better day, makes it all worth it.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Well look at me typing this on my brand new MacBook Pro :thumbsup:


Nice!! I love apple products. I've slowly converted the whole household  Hubby got a macbook air for Christmas and he is still raving about it. Keeps saying "why didn't you tell me!" (Of course I've been bugging him to get rid of the Dell forever!)



Maria_1986 said:


> We have a pretty good sit and wait but when out on walks Chevys attention wanders which affects her recall (she is not off lead yet but on a long line/extendable). Having read posts on here that talk about the 'watch me' command I was wondering what the best way of teaching it is and if it would be helpful for when she sees a squirrel. She is not very food driven and responds better to fuss than treats or toys.
> 
> Also am I better to get one thing 100% before moving onto the next or is it ok to mix commands within a training session? I have read that mixing a few will help to keep them from getting bored but how many is too many for each session?


 Yes, you can train more than one thing at a time, and yep, watch me is awesome for distractions. Have you tried toys instead of food? She might be more interested if you have a toy on you...

Moonviolet that incident with the flexi and kid sounds scary. Kudos to Tink for just watching and not reacting!

Sara, is it wrong that I giggled a little (okay a lot) at your description of Spencer's antics? Especially wrapping himself up in the curtains  
Sorry about the scuffles, but it's great that he's so quick to recover and get over it!

K&M, the foster sounds cool, hope you get him  Evie sounds like she's making good progress. Setbacks happen, just keep moving forward right?

Yay for dogmatic success LO!
And Yay for brilliant weaves Izzy'smummy!

Werehorse, yikes, scary ride! Hope that cough gets better. Have you changed hay recently?

Micky, I hope poor Eddie's paw is okay! And your arms!!

Thorne, glad Scooter's lump went away, that is weird...


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - sounds a bit stressful but at least the positive outweighed the negative.


I didn't really find it stressful to be honest, rightly or wrongly I expect the odd scuffle in a group of dogs from time to time (although I do try to prevent it) and as long as it's not serious I don't tend to worry about it when the inevitable happens. Yet had I been walking him down the street and a dog had come up and had a go like that there would have been tears and panic and all sorts and I'd be afraid to take him out for a few days.


----------



## Guest

In other news, I don't know about in the UK, but here, dog shows can be pretty depressing  

Saw a young, freaked out dane being dragged and shoved in to a crate despite her bucking and basically strangling herself pulling against her lead, a terrorized pointer being dragged around, owner (handler?) oblivious to the distress the dog was in, oodles of dogs standing strung up on grooming tables for hours on end... 

Saw WAY too many dogs on the obedience side having the snot "checked" out of them. Talked to this one guy with the cutest papillon, and he said he had to get in to a smaller breed, he used to be in labs, and he tore up his rotator cuff checking the dog. Said it like it was normal. Saw absolutely nothing wrong with that. Thankfully he was talking to me and my friend, and my friend was able to formulate a response while I picked my chin up off the floor.

Just *sigh* I have a love/hate relationship with dog shows. I love my small group of people, and have met some awesome folks and their dogs through showing, but then, there really is a dark side. I hope things continue to change in obedience.


----------



## Sarah1983

Ouesi, glad you had a better day today. Spencer has a real thing for the curtains, he buries his toys and treats in them and seems to want to dress himself up in them :confused1:

This is a normal sight in my house









As I say, I'm not one to worry too much about scuffles, not with a dog like Spen who's not nervous of other dogs and can be a bit full on anyway, would have been another matter with Rupert! I think the good outweighed the bad anyway though, he played nicely with the other dogs for most of the hour and a half we were there and was even best buddies with the dog he had the worst scrap with by the end of it.

Thorne, Spen will be 2 in May so still young yet.


----------



## Guest

Spencer and the curtains! He is hilarious! Gotta love a goofball dog


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> In other news, I don't know about in the UK, but here, dog shows can be pretty depressing
> 
> Saw a young, freaked out dane being dragged and shoved in to a crate despite her bucking and basically strangling herself pulling against her lead, a terrorized pointer being dragged around, owner (handler?) oblivious to the distress the dog was in, oodles of dogs standing strung up on grooming tables for hours on end...
> 
> Saw WAY too many dogs on the obedience side having the snot "checked" out of them. Talked to this one guy with the cutest papillon, and he said he had to get in to a smaller breed, he used to be in labs, and* he tore up his rotator cuff checking the dog*. Said it like it was normal. Saw absolutely nothing wrong with that. Thankfully he was talking to me and my friend, and my friend was able to formulate a response while I picked my chin up off the floor.
> 
> Just *sigh* I have a love/hate relationship with dog shows. I love my small group of people, and have met some awesome folks and their dogs through showing, but then, there really is a dark side. I hope things continue to change in obedience.


Wow; I have torn mine but it took some doing .


----------



## Sarah1983

ouesi said:


> Spencer and the curtains! He is hilarious! Gotta love a goofball dog


Shhh...he's a brainwashed zombie dog don't ya know!



> Talked to this one guy with the cutest papillon, and he said he had to get in to a smaller breed, he used to be in labs, and he tore up his rotator cuff checking the dog.


:yikes: Poor, poor dogs! I'll admit I've given the odd jerk on the leash when I've lost my temper but I can't even imagine checking a dog with the sort of force to do myself damage.


----------



## Thorne

Ouesi -Very pleased that you had a good day today! Well done!  Such a shame about the unhappy dogs though. If that bloke tore his rotator cuff then what on earth did he do to the dog? Crazy.

K&M -I'm not sure if Mrs Peacock (realised yesterday it's a Peahen as it's not got a hint of a long tail) has been caught, not been down that way today. Will keep an eye out!

Sarah -Enjoy the mad exuberance still to come 

Just had a look on the Blue Cross website. PADDY, PANDA, BRYNN and MATT have all been taken down so are either reserved or homed!  They were all on there yesterday so I imagine they won't have left yet, sounds like the staff had a busy weekend.
When I first met Paddy I was actually scared of him, but the thought of going to the kennels and him not being there is quite upsetting! Hope he finds a fantastic home, he's a brilliant dog.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Sounds like everyone has had good days. :thumbup: I hope Ouesi has too!
> 
> Hugo was eventually persuaded that he really was quite tired afterall.  I've been out doing horse-based activities today and OH says that neither dog moved from the sofa despite him being in and out of the house. :lol:
> 
> Spring is most definitely in the air according to my horse.  I took her for a ride out for the first time in ages and she scared me senseless.  She's got a bit of a cough so I thought a nice gentle walk round the block would help clear things out a little. And it would have been fine if about 1/3 of the way round she hadn't heard one of the horses neighing back at the yard - she called back and then went mental for the rest of the way.  She has never bucked, reared or bolted with me and I honestly don't think she would. But she does a fine line in jogging and neck arched head tossing and _feeling_ like she's about to throw a massive buck and head for the hills. Of course as she got herself all worked up she started these massive coughs that were pulling me out the saddle.  I really tried hard to stay calm but eventually I was starting to freak out a bit.  I phoned OH to come and find me and walk back to the yard with me. I would have gotten off but I actually couldn't stop her in order to do so!! :lol: Blimmin creature! She's always a bit bonkers on the first hack out in a bit but today was the worst she's been. I guess the answer is trying to ride her more and a bit of HTFU from me. Not sure what to do about the cough though. It could be a vet job.


What's your mare bedded on?


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Oh, remember Scooter's lump that I mentioned? It's disappeared again! It's back to "normal" now and feels like half a pea under his skin which is what it's been like for years. Spoke to the vet about it and we're to take him in if/when it next flares up, and will be taking him in anyway in about a fortnight because Breeze's vaccs are due.
> 
> Very strange.


Well it's good the lump has almost disappeared and I wish Tremor's would.

She sees the chiropractor tomorrow afternoon, although she is sound again now.

I do wonder whether its another sebaceous cyst. She had one on the base of her neck about a year ago and this one is just above the tail - hmmmm.


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> In other news, I don't know about in the UK, but here, dog shows can be pretty depressing
> 
> Saw a young, freaked out dane being dragged and shoved in to a crate despite her bucking and basically strangling herself pulling against her lead, a terrorized pointer being dragged around, owner (handler?) oblivious to the distress the dog was in, oodles of dogs standing strung up on grooming tables for hours on end...
> 
> Saw WAY too many dogs on the obedience side having the snot "checked" out of them. Talked to this one guy with the cutest papillon, and he said he had to get in to a smaller breed, he used to be in labs, and he tore up his rotator cuff checking the dog. Said it like it was normal. Saw absolutely nothing wrong with that. Thankfully he was talking to me and my friend, and my friend was able to formulate a response while I picked my chin up off the floor.
> 
> Just *sigh* I have a love/hate relationship with dog shows. I love my small group of people, and have met some awesome folks and their dogs through showing, but then, there really is a dark side. I hope things continue to change in obedience.


Well things are much better over here these days and most people train using positive methods. There are always plenty of tit-bit pots and balls in evidence as well.... Of course there are still some 'old school' that will never change their ways sadly.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> What's your mare bedded on?


She's on rubber matting with just a tiny bit of shavings. Last time she got a bad cough was when the yard looked after her for 10 days and they put far too much shavings in and let the stable get dusty. I keep it pretty well swept out now.

She is on un-soaked hay so that could be contributing but she's been on unsoaked hay since I got her and she hasn't coughed that much in 2 and a bit years. I use the hay the yard provides so don't really know if we've changed to a different "batch" or not.  Considering a move to haylage...

OH's horse is coughing too so it is looking more likely to be a bug of some sort.  It seems to get aggrevated by exercise (I have discovered this evening) which is probably why I first noticed it when they'd been out in the field... It has got worse in the last 48hrs so I think I'll be calling the vet tomorrow. They are both alright in themselves though as demonstrated by Poppy's efforts on the hack today.  And Jester tried to rear and barge me into the stable block this evening when he thought (wrongly) that his tea would be in his stable - this horse is 22 and acts like a friggin 4 year old. 

Sorry WAYWO people I'm being a bit high-maintenance the last couple of days what with my harness drama (still unresolved but on back burner) last night and the coughing horses tonight. 

Glad it all went better for you today, Ouesi.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Well things are much better over here these days and most people train using positive methods. There are always plenty of tit-bit pots and balls in evidence as well.... Of course there are still some 'old school' that will never change their ways sadly.


Here it seems like obedience and conformation are the last bastions for "old school" folks. There's one gal locally who does use treats, but if the dog gets it wrong, she's all about a "firm" correction. I've seen her version of a "firm" correction and I can see how someone would wear out their rotator cuff "firmly" correcting a dog like that over time. She also only uses a very specific type of dog - unsurprising really... Only a very specific type of dog can be trained that way. Things have definitely changed, but after what I saw this weekend, change can't happen fast enough!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> She's on rubber matting with just a tiny bit of shavings. Last time she got a bad cough was when the yard looked after her for 10 days and they put far too much shavings in and let the stable get dusty. I keep it pretty well swept out now.
> 
> She is on un-soaked hay so that could be contributing but she's been on unsoaked hay since I got her and she hasn't coughed that much in 2 and a bit years. I use the hay the yard provides so don't really know if we've changed to a different "batch" or not.  Considering a move to haylage...
> 
> OH's horse is coughing too so it is looking more likely to be a bug of some sort.  It seems to get aggrevated by exercise (I have discovered this evening) which is probably why I first noticed it when they'd been out in the field... It has got worse in the last 48hrs so I think I'll be calling the vet tomorrow. They are both alright in themselves though as demonstrated by Poppy's efforts on the hack today.  And Jester tried to rear and barge me into the stable block this evening when he thought (wrongly) that his tea would be in his stable - this horse is 22 and acts like a friggin 4 year old.
> 
> Sorry WAYWO people I'm being a bit high-maintenance the last couple of days what with my harness drama (still unresolved but on back burner) last night and the coughing horses tonight.
> 
> Probably wise to get the vet out. Are there any others on the yard coughing? It could be a bad batch of hay - have you smelt it?


----------



## Werehorse

The hay is ok, but a bit variable... It has been so wet I'm wondering if it has more mould spores than it usually would. Another thing is that it is _this year's_ hay rather than it being older (they couldn't get any from last year that was half decent).. so I wonder if that could be causing a problem. If I could just get them out in the field for a decent length of time I could hose/pressure their stables out but we're on limited turnout for at least another month I'd say.

Haylage. Even though it makes Jester's bum explode apparently. 

And vet. The horse next door to us is having the vet out on Tuesday so hopefully they'll not be so bad tomorrow and I can wait til Tuesday and share the call-out charge.


----------



## Guest

Thorne said:


> Ouesi -Very pleased that you had a good day today! Well done!  Such a shame about the unhappy dogs though. If that bloke tore his rotator cuff then what on earth did he do to the dog? Crazy.
> 
> K&M -I'm not sure if Mrs Peacock (realised yesterday it's a Peahen as it's not got a hint of a long tail) has been caught, not been down that way today. Will keep an eye out!
> 
> Sarah -Enjoy the mad exuberance still to come
> 
> Just had a look on the Blue Cross website. PADDY, PANDA, BRYNN and MATT have all been taken down so are either reserved or homed!  They were all on there yesterday so I imagine they won't have left yet, sounds like the staff had a busy weekend.
> When I first met Paddy I was actually scared of him, but the thought of going to the kennels and him not being there is quite upsetting! Hope he finds a fantastic home, he's a brilliant dog.


P-P-PADDY!?!?! :crying:


----------



## Guest

And me and mum have just worked out that Zand is quite literally half my weight. No wonder I can't bloody lift him :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

*


Werehorse said:



The hay is ok, but a bit variable... It has been so wet I'm wondering if it has more mould spores than it usually would.

Click to expand...

*


Werehorse said:


> Another thing is that it is _this year's_ hay rather than it being older (they couldn't get any from last year that was half decent).. so I wonder if that could be causing a problem. If I could just get them out in the field for a decent length of time I could hose/pressure their stables out but we're on limited turnout for at least another month I'd say.
> 
> Haylage. Even though it makes Jester's bum explode apparently.
> 
> And vet. The horse next door to us is having the vet out on Tuesday so hopefully they'll not be so bad tomorrow and I can wait til Tuesday and share the call-out charge.


That was my thoughts as well.

Hopefully you can hang on until Tuesday. Vets out to horses is extremely expensive isn't it.


----------



## Symone

So, I'm working on teaching Shamaya that she shouldn't pull on her lead! All tips and such would be gladly appreciated. Although I did just receive a lot of help on my headcollar thread.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> So, I'm working on teaching Shamaya that she shouldn't pull on her lead! All tips and such would be gladly appreciated. Although I did just receive a lot of help on my headcollar thread.


Just to save Grannie the search..... http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/292843-headcollars-personal-experiences-regarding-pulling.html


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> That was my thoughts as well.
> 
> Hopefully you can hang on until Tuesday. Vets out to horses is extremely expensive isn't it.*


*

Yes, very.  I feel bad because if the dogs are ill they go straight in but to get them out for the poor horses just costs so much more. And if they have to have Ventipulmin we'll be eating baked beans for a month.  I wish the yard weren't so precious about their blimmin fields so I could get them out more, but then I suppose I'd be grumpy if there was no grass and the field was just a mudbath.

So much worry and expense for a horse I'm too scared to ride. *


----------



## moonviolet

Symone said:


> So, I'm working on teaching Shamaya that she shouldn't pull on her lead! All tips and such would be gladly appreciated. Although I did just receive a lot of help on my headcollar thread.


What methods have you tried?

This is a really useful blog entry for loose leash walking 
Leash Walking « Ahimsa Dog Blog


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> So, I'm working on teaching Shamaya that she shouldn't pull on her lead! All tips and such would be gladly appreciated. Although I did just receive a lot of help on my headcollar thread.


She's a little collie bitch puppy and it really shouldn't be necessary to resort to a headcollar IMO.

Are their any decent dog training classes in your area where you will be shown how to teach her to walk nicely without pulling?

One of the easiest ways to start them off is to put their dinner bowl down in the middle of the kitchen, attach the lead at the door and walk her towards the bowl. Every time she pulls just stand still for a second and repeat. She'll soon learn.


----------



## MollySmith

*Symone * hello ☺ Ive been gradually building Molly up from pulling like a steam train when we got her to an easy walk front harness and although I used a head collar we found it made her lead upset worse. So weve got straight to collar and lead from the harness. I guess it works differently for every dog but she cant pull at all on the harness so she seems to have largely forgotten she can do it. With the collar and lead I just stop dead if she pulls or I walk the opposite way, only going forward when shes slackened the lead and click/treat when she does. I also introduced a turn phrase which is the the BAT training book so if we see anything that will bug her, I can get her to come around fast and we can walk the opposite way. It has taken months and months though. Were still not 100% there with the lead upset but almost.

*Ouesi* and *Dogless*  welcome to my Apple world. Ive only ever used a Mac and never worked a PC in my life in any job or at home . Ive still got my 1989 Mac classic and it still starts up.

Gobsmacked by the dog show. Ive just had an op for a torn rotator cuff and other injuries. I hope it hurt that owner more than the dog.

*Marie_1986*  watch me has been so useful for Molly and I think its the best thing weve learned. <olly prefers a game of ball and its our best motivator when she sees another dog and cant play because of the lead. I have a kong wubba only for that. When we train we use specific treats  I get liver cake ordered from a PF person  Willow I think. Its a high enough value to motivate her and reward her well.

*MV*-I hope youre okay and well done Tinks.

*Sarah* - I love hearing about Spen, how is his tummy now? It sounds like a good meet up. Molly completely rolled her friend Lizzie who snapped at her on their first meet off lead and theyve had the odd grump at each other since mostly because Molly forgets her manners and steals the ball from Lizzie who has guarding issues. They seem fine mostly and its taught Molly not be so hairbrained and over enthusiastic so I dont mind. I think you did well to leave them to sort it out.

*K&M*  paws crossed for the foster, Id love to know how you get on, its something Id love to do one day. Evie sounds so lovely.

*Thorne* I am glad Scooters lump went and hope that its good news for Tremor, *Twiggy*.

*Izzys Mum*  I hope your gorgeous girls tail heals. Licks and wags from my Molly.

*Micky 93*  I hear gorse bush diving is going to be the next big thing  Poor Eddie, hope his pad heals up.

*Werehorse* - I dont know what to suggest with the harness. Molly had two easy walks, both the same size and the first one seemed to wear through and twist badly but the second one is fine  very odd.

No news here, Ive not seem much of Molly today as Ive been out this afternoon with friends but we played tuggies when I got back. She's started to bring her balls when we play and has to place them 'just so' on my lap which is so like our old family dog it makes me very soppy!

Some advice please if I can? Im aware that with me being at home soon, that Molly may well get too used to us being there and wed like to build her up to leaving her for a while (maybe 2-3 hours). I have done this before when my OH was in hospital, I had no choice, but when he came out and was still fragile, he rarely left her and now its just the odd trip into town for an hour. How long do you leave yours for? I do give her kongs and she has a lot of toys.


----------



## Werehorse

Symone - the link mv posted or Kikopup on youtube are good places to look. Personally I would walk her on a harness in exciting places and if she is really un-responsive don't "nag" at her or up the ante with the value of the treats (you can end up rewarding the pulling if you aren't careful... "oh she's pulling more I'll get the tasty treats out..." ). I took the approach that if they are too distracted they are too distracted, the harness is there so they won't hurt their necks and I need to get them out and about and used to these exciting places so I'm just going to let them get on with it. But then I have dogs that still pull so I'm probably not the best person to listen too. 

However I have trained the LLW almost seperately to normal walking, working on getting them responsive to collar pressure with the silky leash technique and doing lots of work on general focus (while stationary) in gradually more distracting places and it is slowly coming together.

I am rediculously impatient and have not been consistant enough to get it properly sorted yet. But even so it continues to improve and I can go for walks around the village with very little pulling whereas previously Oscar was literally leaning into his harness and pulling as hard as he could at all times.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spens tummy is fine thanks MS  Definitely think it was the fact he hadn't had a pigs head in so long. We didn't just leave the dogs to fight it out, we separated them and gave them a few minutes to calm down and kept a close eye out after it but other than that they sorted it out between themselves. I don't think leaving them to sort it out is always the best way but I think sometimes it works better than us humans stepping in and complicating things.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> *Ouesi* and *Dogless*  welcome to my Apple world. Ive only ever used a Mac and never worked a PC in my life in any job or at home . Ive still got my 1989 Mac classic and it still starts up.
> 
> Some advice please if I can? Im aware that with me being at home soon, that Molly may well get too used to us being there and wed like to build her up to leaving her for a while (maybe 2-3 hours). I have done this before when my OH was in hospital, I had no choice, but when he came out and was still fragile, he rarely left her and now its just the odd trip into town for an hour. How long do you leave yours for? I do give her kongs and she has a lot of toys.


Thanks - I've been using Mac products since about 2006 so a novice compared to you...but I wouldn't go back .

Mine get left every day several times a day in combos really whilst the other one is walked, I go for a run, for a swim, shopping or similar. 3 hours is usually the max in one go (rare) but they were left for 4 the other week when I got unavoidably stuck somewhere :scared:. The average is probably an hour and a half to two hours and they may be left two or three times per day for an hour at a time - I think it's good to be in and out quite a lot. That said neither of them has ever had a drama with being left from day one so I have been very lucky in that respect.


----------



## Maria_1986

Thanks for the replies. We will try watch me, she has no interest in toys at the moment but higher reward treats may work better, so thank you for the suggestion


----------



## kat&molly

Maria_1986 said:


> Thanks for the replies. We will try watch me, she has no interest in toys at the moment but higher reward treats may work better, so thank you for the suggestion


Have you tried baked Liver- its a big hit in this house.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> *Symone * hello ☺ Ive been gradually
> 
> *Ouesi and Dogless  welcome to my Apple world. Ive only ever used a Mac and never worked a PC in my life in any job or at home . Ive still got my 1989 Mac classic and it still starts up.*
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> Ah the good old Apple Mac...LOL When I worked for the Educational Development Centre we were the first institution outside the boffins in Shire Hall to be given a Mac. Myself and our graphic designer were given about an hours instruction on the last day of term just after our Christmas lunch (with lots of booze).
> 
> Come the start of term in January, the work was piling in for booklets, leaflets, etc. and there sat the Mac with us scratching our heads. Poor Gay (our graphic designer) sadly had to resort to smoking my ciggies....


----------



## Twiggy

*Ginge:*

When to we get to hear how you and Ginge got on yesterday?


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

I've been teaching Barney to fetch my keys. It's still work in progress but he has a strong instinct for bringing me things.

The keys - YouTube

also training him to sit automatically during heel work.

Had a bad walk with him yesterday as he got charged at by an off lead Staffie by a main road, Why are people so bloody stupid
There was no harm done but it made me a bit angry.


----------



## Maria_1986

kat&molly said:


> Have you tried baked Liver- its a big hit in this house.


Do you just stick it in the oven and bake it like that? What temp and for how long?

I haven't tried it, the smell of liver cooking makes me feel sick, but the next Saturday I work I will get OH to cook it while I'm out.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Do you just stick it in the oven and bake it like that? What temp and for how long?
> 
> I haven't tried it, the smell of liver cooking makes me feel sick, but the next Saturday I work I will get OH to cook it while I'm out.


And me...LOL I get a friend to make liver and tuna cake for me. I'd throw up making either.


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I've been teaching Barney to fetch my keys. It's still work in progress but he has a strong instinct for bringing me things.
> 
> The keys - YouTube
> 
> also training him to sit automatically during heel work.
> 
> Had a bad walk with him yesterday as he got charged at by an off lead Staffie by a main road, Why are people so bloody stupid
> There was no harm done but it made me a bit angry.


I agree some owners are totally irresponsible but glad there was no harm done.

Just watched your video. Be careful you are very clear with your commands, and correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying "find" the keys?

How do you mean sit automatically during heelwork? I'm curious.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Ive attempted liver cake and it was quite hard work (and very smelly) but Izzy loves it! A simpler option was tuna cake, I made it to give out as a gift at Christmas for the trainers at our club (well for their dogs anyways) and apparently it went down really well!

Izzy only gets liver/tuna cake at training and agility so its special for her! The natures menu treats are really good if you dont fancy baking and Izzy only gets them out on walks when we are walking past children :thumbsup:


----------



## Izzysmummy

Thanks all for the well wishes, Izzy's tail has a bit more wag today but still not fully healed. Tuesday is usually creche day but think we'll wait and send her on Thursday to give it more time to heal. 

Happy Monday everyone!


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

Twiggy said:


> I agree some owners are totally irresponsible but glad there was no harm done.
> 
> Just watched your video. Be careful you are very clear with your commands, and correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying "find" the keys?
> 
> How do you mean sit automatically during heelwork? I'm curious.


I'm saying "get the keys" He isn't really going from the command though, he will pick up anything that I drop.

By sit automatically I mean, when i stop walking he sits beside me without a command to sit.

*Liver*
I boil it for 10 minutes then bake it in the oven for 20 minutes. I then chop it into small cubes and freeze it.


----------



## Nicki85

Haven't been on this thread for a while- it is too much! Can't keep up with it!

But... I need some specific advice so wondered if you lot could help?

You might have seen my other thread on a Keeshound we are having troubles with on our walks. Three times the dog has been offlead and the owner has failed to recall it away from Rusty. Unfortunately this has led to the Keeshound coming over to Rusty and initiating a fight and needing to be pulled off him. Rusty has been onlead everytime this has happened as I always put him onlead when we see a dog i'm not sure of. 

After the third time I decided to contact the owner and arrange to meet up and walk them together to overcome this. But how do I go about it? My plan at the moment is..

Both dogs on short leads, people in middle... and just walk. Maybe a spot of training (watch me/ simple sits and downs) then move onto longlines and recalling away. I guess this will depend on how reactive they both are. 

Rusty is good with other dogs and has never had an issue with another dog regardless of what it does to him. He gives out a lot of calming signals (looking away, sniffing the ground and occasionally laying down) when meeting and will do so regardless of what the other dog is doing unless playing. When the Keeshound has come over he isn't cowering but he isn't barking/growling acting aggressively in return either. The third time that we met it and it got on to Rusty was the first time I have heard him properly growl... So in short I have no idea if Rusty will react when he sees him again. I don't think he will but I don't know!


----------



## GingerRogers

Morning all, another eventful WAYWO weekend I see. I havent been on or even lurked as I wanted to thoroughly digest all the stuff we went through on the course on Saturday, more about that later.

Working through what I have missed.

FRM impulse control is a great tool, its one of the things we work on and Ginge picks up quickly whats needed (except as always with other dogs) however we do rush out the smallest crack of back door just in case there is a squizzell roving through the garden so this morning I worked on that. I do hope you get Branston sorted I know what the transference feels like (I wear thick leather boots).

Ouesi Its good to know the transference thing is common with terriers, I watched the beginning of that clip you posted, I already said about the back door excitement, ironically we always manage the front door exit as we need to put wellies on and scan for dogs etc, BUT we so do what she describes once we are out, its excitement were off again, and if a dog happens to be lurking behind our neighbours van (happens often) then she is so roused up its game over really. So I will watch the rest and try it out. Sorry you had such a frustrating/disappointing weekend but glad it ended on a better note.

LO  I know how you feel I really dont want to use drugs on my little one but there was a lady on my course on Saturday whose spanner is on clomicalm. She says it helps him, along with mashed potato and vitamin B6 (I think not 100% about the B6 bit), I dont know about this as it sounds a bit bonkers, I need to research it and ponder the reasoning but apparently a bowl of mashed potato in the evening works wonders, as this lady and one of the trainers who has a brain damaged dog testify. And yay for the dogmatic, hope it continues to be helpful. And positive comments!!

Dogless  love the cartoon, it was a bit like that. I have now set that as my desk top. Sounds like you have had a very good weekend with your best boys. Like the poem to us as well, I echo those sentiments.

Mickey I was reading through the posts in anticipation for the Great Chicken Wing Adventure and nothing......................

K&M love Evie looking through the cat flap , you have a clever one there, I was discussing how quick Ginge is to pick up stuff and one of the trainers said that can be the trouble, they are too clever, but hopefully one day things just click. Dont be too mad at yourself for pushing her at the noisy house, we all make those bad judgements form time to time. More fosters!! You are lovely.

Sounds like Tink and Tia and Beth & Thornes boys and girls have been good too!

WH cant comment on the harness apart from the slipping to the side thing is common with pigeon chests I wonder if one of the broader fronted harnesses might be better? But Ginge also manages to sound like I am strangling her when she lunges and it is nowhere near her throat. Hugos does look quite high, near his neck as though the back piece isnt long enough but I assume thats the design. Hope your horse gets better.

Sarah glad you enjoyed your day bar the handbags, but sounds like a good experience overall, even the handbags are useful I sometimes think as long as thats all they are, helps them get things sorted and know where the limits are.

Hope Izzys tail gets better.

No advice for Molly I am afraid we had a dog with horrific SA and had no idea what to do about it so he came with us everywhere .

Similarly Symone no advice as my dog pulls like a train most of the time although saying that since I have been working on a sort of re-orientate to handler type of exercise. We stop and as soon as she turns or even flicks an ear at me she gets clicked and treats and also we just walk up and down outside the house turning round everytime she reaches the end of the lead and click and treat as soon as she come with me, its getting better, but slowly, but then I think if something is learnt slowly its more likely to stick.

Thorne, so pleased if the dogs are reserved , we had the fog too but from early on, no sunshine at all. Went for a walk with M in the marshes at dusk was very eerie and pretty cool. Buffer got the scent of something and legged it, very unlike him unless there has been any bangs, we hadn't heard any but we worried for a moment, till he came charging back over the hill.

Maria the lack of interest in treats may change with time, Ginge was not interested at all but is now unless over threshold.

I enjoyed our day on Saturday and will tell you more about it later, need to do some work now, but there was nothing mind blowing discussed. Most of the stuff was stuff I do or had read about or you lovely lot had suggested , and a lot of things we will be working on will be like the control unleashed exercises which I expected but its really good to have the encouragement and reinforcement that what I am doing is right and will focus me more, at the moment I am a bit lacklustre in somethings as I dont imagine them working and I know it will be really helpful practicing the exercises with observation and around the other dogs. The best bit was that I was imagining everyone else would have giant dogs, rotties and the like and there would be me with my ittie bitty terrier but there are 3 terriers including us, a cocker and an irish water spaniel who sounds incredibly nervous but looking forward to seeing them all next session.

Phew, more later!


----------



## Guest

Um, had a very bad walk. 

Walked past some fencing that has sheep in the field.
The sheep started to run and bleet towards us.
Zander started to buck and he squealed and squealed and squealed and just bucked and leapt about. 

Got home, had a small cry. Then mum goes on about rehoming back to the rescue. I tell her to go away very impolitely. 



Bad feels in this house.


----------



## Dogless

Can't like your post LO; horrid walk . Could you do some desensitisation work using that field full of sheep maybe? Get closer and closer without a reaction type thing? It sounds mad but Kilo used to be hugely bonkers walking through or past fields of sheep. I used to carry a squeaker in my pocket and each time he even started to fixate squeaked so he looked around however briefly so I had something to reward and sort of built it up like that. We walk past a field of sheep most days here and play next to one which I never would have thought possible- he'll play and recall away from near to the fence without a drama. Our walk in the forest the other day obviously showed that if he surprises one that runs he will chase :frown: :frown2:.


----------



## Guest

I could try, but the fact is the sheep run at you when they see you. (I assume they think they're gonna get fed) He's fine till they start bloody running and it freaks him the hell out. He'll bark squeal, try to back out of the headcollar and collar. I'm going to avoid it for a bit.

I feel a bit stressed. Sorry for being a misery guts.


----------



## Dogless

Good, but manic, morning at Concrete Central .

Up and at 'em at 0510 - CHs, fed, walked, housework done, shopping done :thumbsup:.

It's beautiful weather this morning so I wanted to head out but hubby borrowed the car to take to work so we walked to the top fields, had a play and back again. CHs behaved very nicely and Kilo was exceptionally zoomy :crazy:. Rudi launched a concerted jumping / biting attack on the way back and got tethered to the nearest lamp post...he had the *mother* of all tantrums :lol:. He made nearly every single noise in a RR's repertoire (and they are very chatty!) at maximum volume. I turned my back and crossed my arms whilst Kilo sat looking very bemused....I daren't laugh or smile in case it encourages it but it was quite funny .

I saw a kennel / run like this: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=k...Workshops%2Ftabid%2F64%2FDefault.aspx;640;480 advertised on our Nosy Book free ads type page, as new, for a very good price the other day which hubby is going to collect with some muscle and a van tomorrow :thumbsup:. I am very excited - it's a 7ft x 5ft kennel area with covered run attached and we have a 13ft x 10ft horrid mulch area in our garden that the last occupants kept kids' play stuff or something on. I've wanted somewhere safe to put the dogs for a while when workmen or visitors come that's larger than their crate and bed for peace of mind for all. I'll get a few raised beds in there and job done . Not that I've had visitors in a very long time - partly as my best friend moved away and partly because the few folk who might come are scared of dogs.


----------



## kat&molly

Re- the Liver- I HATE the way it stodges up when making a 'cake'- so I boil and bake as it is.

Ginge- the course sounds interesting, I didn't realise you were going back, great stuff. Some of the BAT book is starting to sink in for me[I forget most of what I've read-always] although some of the jargon leaves me a bit :crazy:

LO- sorry you had a bad walk , I've had exactly the same with Evie-the sheep tend not to run up when the weathers better and the grass is growing. Dogless advice is good- avoid it until you feel better.Chin up.

Dogless would love to see Rudi's little temper tantrum :lol: It is hard to keep a straight face- I'm sure thats half the reason shortarse plays me up.

Gorgeous weather here this morning again.
Another check out the cat flap before Evie sat and waited this morning. Little madam. Off in a minute for seperate walks through the village.

Hope everyones having a good day.


----------



## Micky93

GingerRogers said:


> Morning all, another eventful WAYWO weekend I see. I havent been on or even lurked as I wanted to thoroughly digest all the stuff we went through on the course on Saturday, more about that later.
> 
> Working through what I have missed.
> 
> FRM impulse control is a great tool, its one of the things we work on and Ginge picks up quickly whats needed (except as always with other dogs) however we do rush out the smallest crack of back door just in case there is a squizzell roving through the garden so this morning I worked on that. I do hope you get Branston sorted I know what the transference feels like (I wear thick leather boots).
> 
> Ouesi Its good to know the transference thing is common with terriers, I watched the beginning of that clip you posted, I already said about the back door excitement, ironically we always manage the front door exit as we need to put wellies on and scan for dogs etc, BUT we so do what she describes once we are out, its excitement were off again, and if a dog happens to be lurking behind our neighbours van (happens often) then she is so roused up its game over really. So I will watch the rest and try it out. Sorry you had such a frustrating/disappointing weekend but glad it ended on a better note.
> 
> LO  I know how you feel I really dont want to use drugs on my little one but there was a lady on my course on Saturday whose spanner is on clomicalm. She says it helps him, along with mashed potato and vitamin B6 (I think not 100% about the B6 bit), I dont know about this as it sounds a bit bonkers, I need to research it and ponder the reasoning but apparently a bowl of mashed potato in the evening works wonders, as this lady and one of the trainers who has a brain damaged dog testify. And yay for the dogmatic, hope it continues to be helpful. And positive comments!!
> 
> Dogless  love the cartoon, it was a bit like that. I have now set that as my desk top. Sounds like you have had a very good weekend with your best boys. Like the poem to us as well, I echo those sentiments.
> 
> *Mickey I was reading through the posts in anticipation for the Great Chicken Wing Adventure and nothing......................*
> 
> K&M love Evie looking through the cat flap , you have a clever one there, I was discussing how quick Ginge is to pick up stuff and one of the trainers said that can be the trouble, they are too clever, but hopefully one day things just click. Dont be too mad at yourself for pushing her at the noisy house, we all make those bad judgements form time to time. More fosters!! You are lovely.
> 
> Sounds like Tink and Tia and Beth & Thornes boys and girls have been good too!
> 
> WH cant comment on the harness apart from the slipping to the side thing is common with pigeon chests I wonder if one of the broader fronted harnesses might be better? But Ginge also manages to sound like I am strangling her when she lunges and it is nowhere near her throat. Hugos does look quite high, near his neck as though the back piece isnt long enough but I assume thats the design. Hope your horse gets better.
> 
> Sarah glad you enjoyed your day bar the handbags, but sounds like a good experience overall, even the handbags are useful I sometimes think as long as thats all they are, helps them get things sorted and know where the limits are.
> 
> Hope Izzys tail gets better.
> 
> No advice for Molly I am afraid we had a dog with horrific SA and had no idea what to do about it so he came with us everywhere .
> 
> Similarly Symone no advice as my dog pulls like a train most of the time although saying that since I have been working on a sort of re-orientate to handler type of exercise. We stop and as soon as she turns or even flicks an ear at me she gets clicked and treats and also we just walk up and down outside the house turning round everytime she reaches the end of the lead and click and treat as soon as she come with me, its getting better, but slowly, but then I think if something is learnt slowly its more likely to stick.
> 
> Thorne, so pleased if the dogs are reserved , we had the fog too but from early on, no sunshine at all. Went for a walk with M in the marshes at dusk was very eerie and pretty cool. Buffer got the scent of something and legged it, very unlike him unless there has been any bangs, we hadn't heard any but we worried for a moment, till he came charging back over the hill.
> 
> Maria the lack of interest in treats may change with time, Ginge was not interested at all but is now unless over threshold.
> 
> I enjoyed our day on Saturday and will tell you more about it later, need to do some work now, but there was nothing mind blowing discussed. Most of the stuff was stuff I do or had read about or you lovely lot had suggested , and a lot of things we will be working on will be like the control unleashed exercises which I expected but its really good to have the encouragement and reinforcement that what I am doing is right and will focus me more, at the moment I am a bit lacklustre in somethings as I dont imagine them working and I know it will be really helpful practicing the exercises with observation and around the other dogs. The best bit was that I was imagining everyone else would have giant dogs, rotties and the like and there would be me with my ittie bitty terrier but there are 3 terriers including us, a cocker and an irish water spaniel who sounds incredibly nervous but looking forward to seeing them all next session.
> 
> Phew, more later!


I am so sorry! I didn't realise we had an audience :scared:

You'll be very excited to know it's defrosting now ready for tonight - by the time we'd got back and given the little sod a salt bath and was sorting out all his cuts there wasn't time  Look out for photos tonight :scared:


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy said:


> And me...LOL I get a friend to make liver and tuna cake for me. I'd throw up making either.





Izzysmummy said:


> Ive attempted liver cake and it was quite hard work (and very smelly) but Izzy loves it! A simpler option was tuna cake, I made it to give out as a gift at Christmas for the trainers at our club (well for their dogs anyways) and apparently it went down really well!
> 
> Izzy only gets liver/tuna cake at training and agility so its special for her! The natures menu treats are really good if you dont fancy baking and Izzy only gets them out on walks when we are walking past children :thumbsup:


Tuna I can deal with - off to google tuna cake now  Would be good to use up the tins of tuna in the cupboard that the OH doesn't seem to be eating.



WhatWouldSidDo said:


> *Liver*
> I boil it for 10 minutes then bake it in the oven for 20 minutes. I then chop it into small cubes and freeze it.


Thanks, I will get OH to cook some up next time I'm out.


----------



## Sarah1983

Maria_1986 said:


> Tuna I can deal with - off to google tuna cake now  Would be good to use up the tins of tuna in the cupboard that the OH doesn't seem to be eating.


I use liver cake recipe and simply use tuna instead of liver. Works well enough lol.


----------



## purpleskyes

Hudson good points:

Very well behaved on the 16 hour car journey we had to get to France.

His re call on walks in France has been very good even though the OH parents dog has kept walking he comes back when called.

Bad points:

He hasnt learnt when no means no when it comes to playing so will just keep trying to play with their dog when he has had enough

and

Even though he is 100% house trained back at home, he keeps peeing and pooing in the OH parents house. All I can say is thank the lord they dont have carpet


----------



## Maria_1986

I think tomorrow will be doggy baking day :w00t: (should probably make boyfriend a cake too otherwise he might get jealous)

Thank you for the help and suggestions


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> I think tomorrow will be doggy baking day :w00t: (should probably make boyfriend a cake too otherwise he might get jealous)
> 
> Thank you for the help and suggestions


Just don't get the cakes mixed up :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I'm saying "get the keys" He isn't really going from the command though, he will pick up anything that I drop.
> 
> By sit automatically I mean, when i stop walking he sits beside me without a command to sit.
> 
> *Liver*
> I boil it for 10 minutes then bake it in the oven for 20 minutes. I then chop it into small cubes and freeze it.


OK fine on both counts....


----------



## ballybee

Haven't been on this thread for a while, glad it's been made a sticky 

Nothing much to report here, Dan is in full teen mode so just reinforcing everything at the moment, he's really bad for not recalling from other dogs at the moment but we're getting there.

Tummel for the moment is actually being good, his recall is pretty consistant, he's not pulling on the lead as badly, his Sa isn't too bad(we seem to have fixed this for now by crating Dan and moving the crate in front of the bedroom door so he can't rip up the carpets, done this 3 times(50 minutes max at the moment) and never come home to a stressed or barking dog...so we think Dan was getting Tummel worked up which kicked off his SA.

The one thing that gets me is his selective DR. We went for a lovely long walk on Friday, encountered 14 dogs, he got to meet 9(mix of on and offlead) and apart from a few growls there was nothing(growls were justified when they occured), then Saturday he was reactive, and sunday he was reactive.....he's very confusing but i'm just working on watching his body language and when he gets tense we don't meet a dog...it's simple and seems to be working as he's mostly friendly towards dogs now.


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless said:


> Just don't get the cakes mixed up :scared:.


Good point, feeding Chevy chocolate cake would not be good... thanks for giving me a great reason not to have to make OH a cake too  Although he is so besotted with her he probably won't mind missing out on cake as long as she likes hers.


----------



## Beth17

LO sorry you had a naff walk 

Dogless well done to the boys, puppy temper tantrums are so funny 

Maria enjoy the doggy baking day. I made livercake yesterday and stunk the house out with garlic. I quite like the smell the rest of the family are not quite so enamoured 

purpleskyes well done to Hudson.

K&M enjoy your walks.

Gorgeous weather again here today so had a bit of LLW and some offlead play. Both boys behaved well although Sam did keep getting impatient when Oscar was sniffing something. I can't help but worry because we don't see that many dogs at the moment for Sam to play with and I'm worried he's going to suddenly become antisocial; not that he has shown any signs whatsoever 

Oh and the poor boy is in on friday for the chop, I couldn't put it off any longer so lots of zooplus treats are on their way to keep him occupied.

ETA ballybee Oscar is like that, he's been getting much better but sometimes he does just decide to be an arse. Like you I've just been going on body language and letting him meet appropriate dogs.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> LO sorry you had a naff walk
> 
> Dogless well done to the boys, puppy temper tantrums are so funny
> 
> Maria enjoy the doggy baking day. I made livercake yesterday and stunk the house out with garlic. I quite like the smell the rest of the family are not quite so enamoured
> 
> purpleskyes well done to Hudson.
> 
> K&M enjoy your walks.
> 
> Gorgeous weather again here today so had a bit of LLW and some offlead play. Both boys behaved well although Sam did keep getting impatient when Oscar was sniffing something. I can't help but worry because we don't see that many dogs at the moment for Sam to play with and I'm worried he's going to suddenly become antisocial; not that he has shown any signs whatsoever
> 
> Oh and the poor boy is in on friday for the chop, I couldn't put it off any longer so lots of zooplus treats are on their way to keep him occupied.
> 
> ETA ballybee Oscar is like that, he's been getting much better but sometimes he does just decide to be an arse. Like you I've just been going on body language and letting him meet appropriate dogs.


Is Sam having the chop as it's a requirement of rescuing him? I'm having a real quandry over Kilo. I don't really want to have him neutered but there are so many dogs here and so many in season bitches walked as normal. I'm dreading the neighbour's sibe coming into season. That and we have so many dogs running up to us and then reacting badly as Kilo is entire. Big con for me is that he's very nervy and highly strung and I'd hate to make it any worse. We don't have any marking problems or humping etc (well....apart from *that* day :eek6.


----------



## kat&molly

That didn't go well.
There were 3 people soon as we'd stepped in to the village, I didn't know they were there- she reacted badly. I detoured but she was too bad so I bought her home. She was extreme but I think they suprised her, and me. Poor Lamb.

Moll next, she was fine, these people are viewing a house so haveing a good walk around , she's not really interested in other dogs or people anyway, but 3 'travellers' came towards us holding big sticks- she was suspicious of them, not like her at all so I think she was right to be. She wasn't naughty just couldn't focus because she was too busy watching them.

Then Scruff, she wuffed a bit at the viewers- but I got her attention and I even stopped as 1 of them spoke to me, she was quiet the whole time whilst I drip fed her.:lol: She really has come a long way.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - Moll and Scruff seem to be doing well. Seems like it just wasn't Evie's day - I would have come home too; no point increasing stress levels I wouldn't think.


----------



## L/C

Have been lurking on the thread but been very busy so no real time to update (short version Gypsy remains an angel and Ely is back on bed rest as our attempt to let him have some off lead time yesterday resulted in a bargy game of chase and him limping again. ).



Dogless said:


> Is Sam having the chop as it's a requirement of rescuing him? I'm having a real quandry over Kilo. I don't really want to have him neutered but there are so many dogs here and so many in season bitches walked as normal. I'm dreading the neighbour's sibe coming into season. That and we have so many dogs running up to us and then reacting badly as Kilo is entire. *Big con for me is that he's very nervy and highly strung *and I'd hate to make it any worse. We don't have any marking problems or humping etc (well....apart from *that* day :eek6.


Just wanted to comment on this - if it was me I wouldn't have him done. If I had the choice (and the knowledge that I have now) I would never have had Ely done. I really think it is detrimental to nervous dogs - they need every bit of testosterone they can get! If you aren't having any problems and he isn't making your life miserable then I would hold off.

Of course if things change and you and he are miserable and stressed then I would re-evaluate. As things stand and from what you say - I wouldn't but obviously you know more 'on the ground' as it were.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Have been lurking on the thread but been very busy so no real time to update (short version Gypsy remains an angel and Ely is back on bed rest as our attempt to let him have some off lead time yesterday resulted in a bargy game of chase and him limping again. ).
> 
> Just wanted to comment on this - if it was me I wouldn't have him done. If I had the choice (and the knowledge that I have now) I would never have had Ely done. I really think it is detrimental to nervous dogs - they need every bit of testosterone they can get! If you aren't having any problems and he isn't making your life miserable then I would hold off.
> 
> Of course if things change and you and he are miserable and stressed then I would re-evaluate. As things stand and from what you say - I wouldn't but obviously you know more 'on the ground' as it were.


No; he seems perfectly happy - and thinking of castration to accommodate others seems crazy, we have just had a few dogs recently either in season or who dislike entire males run up to us. I would just hate all the work that we've done to be undone...but then as you say my main, overriding reasons for not having it done at present are his temperament and because if something ain't broke, why on earth fix it? I am more musing really, thinking aloud, canvassing opinion...


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Haven't been on this thread for a while- it is too much! Can't keep up with it!
> 
> But... I need some specific advice so wondered if you lot could help?
> 
> You might have seen my other thread on a Keeshound we are having troubles with on our walks. Three times the dog has been offlead and the owner has failed to recall it away from Rusty. Unfortunately this has led to the Keeshound coming over to Rusty and initiating a fight and needing to be pulled off him. Rusty has been onlead everytime this has happened as I always put him onlead when we see a dog i'm not sure of.
> 
> After the third time I decided to contact the owner and arrange to meet up and walk them together to overcome this. But how do I go about it? My plan at the moment is..
> 
> Both dogs on short leads, people in middle... and just walk. Maybe a spot of training (watch me/ simple sits and downs) then move onto longlines and recalling away. I guess this will depend on how reactive they both are.
> 
> Rusty is good with other dogs and has never had an issue with another dog regardless of what it does to him. He gives out a lot of calming signals (looking away, sniffing the ground and occasionally laying down) when meeting and will do so regardless of what the other dog is doing unless playing. When the Keeshound has come over he isn't cowering but he isn't barking/growling acting aggressively in return either. The third time that we met it and it got on to Rusty was the first time I have heard him properly growl... So in short I have no idea if Rusty will react when he sees him again. I don't think he will but I don't know!


Well personally I think it's very generous of you to help this lady with her reactive dog. I'd have been quoting the Dangerous Dogs Act to her if the Keeshound had got on one of mine.

Your plan of action sounds OK, if you really think it's in Rusty's best interest to be used as a stooge dog and providing he doesn't react, given what happened. Just be careful.


----------



## Dogless

Right....off to get changed and then brave what will be a very busy park to do some training with LCH :eek6:.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Um, had a very bad walk.
> 
> Walked past some fencing that has sheep in the field.
> The sheep started to run and bleet towards us.
> Zander started to buck and he squealed and squealed and squealed and just bucked and leapt about.
> 
> Got home, had a small cry. Then mum goes on about rehoming back to the rescue. I tell her to go away very impolitely.
> 
> Bad feels in this house.


In Zander's defense (especially as I have a very soft spot for him) many dogs would have reacted in that situation.

If it makes you feel any better I had to shove Twiggy into the car and lay on top of her to hold her down, when I went to watch my sister compete in a sheepdog trial at East of England Showground. She went berserk and was hell bent on rounding the sheep up.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Is Sam having the chop as it's a requirement of rescuing him? I'm having a real quandry over Kilo. I don't really want to have him neutered but there are so many dogs here and so many in season bitches walked as normal. I'm dreading the neighbour's sibe coming into season. That and we have so many dogs running up to us and then reacting badly as Kilo is entire. Big con for me is that he's very nervy and highly strung and I'd hate to make it any worse. We don't have any marking problems or humping etc (well....apart from *that* day :eek6.


Yes that is the main reason and why I'm not waiting until he's over 18 months or not doing it at all. I'm on halfterm from uni this next couple of weeks and so can keep a close eye on him. Like Kilo he doesn't have any real problems he's never marked in the house and only humps through over excitement which Oscar does as well. I have noticed he is much more scent driven than Oscar and the past couple of weeks has been going further away and being more determined when after a smell. Whereas with a hearing dog I'd work some more on his recall with him I don't think I can really risk it.

Also as lovely as he is there is no way he should accidentally pass on any of his genes. Were he from a breeder and completely normal then I probably wouldn't bother unless for a good reason but I think for him the negatives of neutering are outweighed by the positives. I'm hoping he's such a happy stable boy that his temperament won't change.

It is such a tough decision when you know both the positives and negatives to neutering. Would it be worth you looking into the implant?


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> MollySmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> *Symone * hello ☺ Ive been gradually
> 
> *Ouesi and Dogless  welcome to my Apple world. Ive only ever used a Mac and never worked a PC in my life in any job or at home . Ive still got my 1989 Mac classic and it still starts up.*
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> Ah the good old Apple Mac...LOL When I worked for the Educational Development Centre we were the first institution outside the boffins in Shire Hall to be given a Mac. Myself and our graphic designer were given about an hours instruction on the last day of term just after our Christmas lunch (with lots of booze).
> 
> Come the start of term in January, the work was piling in for booklets, leaflets, etc. and there sat the Mac with us scratching our heads. Poor Gay (our graphic designer) sadly had to resort to smoking my ciggies....
> 
> 
> 
> sounds like my intro. I was happily doing paste up as the junior in a design studio and then one arrived and I got to play with it. That's how I learnt, baptism of fire!
Click to expand...


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Thanks - I've been using Mac products since about 2006 so a novice compared to you...but I wouldn't go back .
> 
> Mine get left every day several times a day in combos really whilst the other one is walked, I go for a run, for a swim, shopping or similar. 3 hours is usually the max in one go (rare) but they were left for 4 the other week when I got unavoidably stuck somewhere :scared:. The average is probably an hour and a half to two hours and they may be left two or three times per day for an hour at a time - I think it's good to be in and out quite a lot. That said neither of them has ever had a drama with being left from day one so I have been very lucky in that respect.


Thank you for the advice. Molly doesn't get SA as such, just mournful, I think I have the SA 

I'll start to make an effort to build it up. A friend of mine said we must meet for coffee each week and I said to OH that he ought to meet me or go out at the same time so she's just used to a one or two hours as I can see it being a issue.


----------



## Guest

I agree with L/C I wouldn't get him done really. If Zand wasn't a fence jumper extrodinaire and we didn't have to get him done by eight months due to the rescue agreement, I wouldn't have got him done till he was between 18 months to 2 and half years.


----------



## Beth17

I do often wonder if being neutered at a year is why Oscar can be a grumpy git and also be very nervy; I do wonder as well if it contributed to him developing hypothyroidism. He had to be done as well due to being a rescue and for medical reasons but it does make you think.


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Ginge- the course sounds interesting, I didn't realise you were going back, great stuff. Some of the BAT book is starting to sink in for me[I forget most of what I've read-always] although some of the jargon leaves me a bit :crazy:


Yes, Saturday was a theory day for owners then there are 3 more 2 hr sessions with dogs each a fortnight apart. :scared: I am nervous about that already  I know what you mean about it not sinking in, thats why I am so looking forward to the practical side of the course 



Micky93 said:


> I am so sorry! I didn't realise we had an audience :scared:
> 
> You'll be very excited to know it's defrosting now ready for tonight - by the time we'd got back and given the little sod a salt bath and was sorting out all his cuts there wasn't time  Look out for photos tonight :scared:


Sorry of gorse , I forgot about his prickly encounter, hope he is ok, I am sure a chicken wing will be the perfect way to cheer him up .

LO sorry you had a bad walk, sheep can be very stupid and they do all have a suicide wish (thats actually true :lol

Well a bit of time to tell about the course, as I say there are 5 of us and two trainers.
To start with we did the AA style introductions, sad to hear that 3 of the others problems are soley down to bad/over enthusiastic encounters with out of control off lead dogs .
Then they took us through the work books, first up was a discussion on body language and we watched a dvd then they brought two of their dogs in and got us to watch them and shout out what we were seeing which was a very useful exercise. We take that home and observe our own dogs so we can better recognise stress/relaxation. I am hoping that we might do similar with our own dogs as it would be very useful to know what other people see in case I am missing a signal. But it made me realise that actually the ninja spends very little time truly relaxed .
Then we talked about how to minimise stress, all the things you have all mentioned, re stress levels, feeding, minimising tuggy, chase and rough play , keeping walks to a minimum or cutting them out completely for the course of the program, not walking them for at least 24 if not 48 hrs before the next session. This one I still find so hard to get my head round, its so ingrained to walk your dog but now I have got my head round it its actually a big relief for me. I had been making so much effort to make sure she got out at least twice a day for a decent length of time, that coupled with her DR, it was beginning to overwhelm me so she has had only 10-15 mins at a time since and at times when we shouldn't meet anything (lunchtimes are apparently good for one of the trainers, just tried it, not so here  however disaster avoided)
Then we did some TTouch which we will be practicing at the end of each session with all the dogs in the hall together 
The they ran through the clicker training exercises they want us to practice. The one bloke was funny, he was like me when I first heard of clicker training, very sceptical and couldn't get his head round why it works then said so I guess she wont need breakfast then . There is hand targeting, find it, check it, go to mat, re-orientate to handler esp at thresholds and a couple of others I can't quite recall. at the mo.

So I have been restricting walks, we have had no encounters at all. This morning we did some 3x10 hand targeting, then tried go to mat which they reckon can take weeks to get, 2x10 click sessions later she's lying on the mat with regularity  little bugger, if we ever get to the bottom of this and she isn't then the best behaved dog in the world I will exchange her 
Then she had 'chicken en terrace' for her brekky, watching her work out how to get leaves off her food was quite funny but not sure what my neighbours think of me feeding my dog bits of raw chicken in the garden 'well no wonder she has problems , mental old bint' I reckon its working already she certainly seems calmer.

As I say its all stuff I had read or you lot had suggested but its just put it all together in a consistent way. Watch this space :thumbsup:.

ETA also they said feeding little and often to make sure their blood sugar doesn't drop which led me to ask about I always feed after a walk so she is hungry and in theory more focused on treats, but thats going to change to see if it makes a difference. Still don't get the mashed potato thing


----------



## Guest

Beth17 said:


> I do often wonder if being neutered at a year is why Oscar can be a grumpy git and also be very nervy; I do wonder as well if it contributed to him developing hypothyroidism. He had to be done as well due to being a rescue and for medical reasons but it does make you think.


It does make you think. When I see how nervy Zand's getting I do partially regret getting him done at 7 and a half months.

But then the amount of in-season bitches who are just sauntered around here wily-nily, I wouldn't like to risk mongrel pups.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Is Sam having the chop as it's a requirement of rescuing him? I'm having a real quandry over Kilo. I don't really want to have him neutered but there are so many dogs here and so many in season bitches walked as normal. I'm dreading the neighbour's sibe coming into season. That and we have so many dogs running up to us and then reacting badly as Kilo is entire. Big con for me is that he's very nervy and highly strung and I'd hate to make it any worse. We don't have any marking problems or humping etc (well....apart from *that* day :eek6.


Have you thought about trying the implant with him? I think the way you say he reacts to bitches in season would push me towards trying it, especially with the sheer number walked as usual and running loose there.

But then I know where you're coming from with him being nervy. It's why I held off on neutering Rupert for so long. Not that neutering affected him one way or another, he was no more nervous after being done than he was while intact. Neither was Shadow but supremely confident would be a far more accurate description for him anyway.


----------



## Werehorse

In a way it is quite a dilemma for you, Dogless. Eternal management due to where you live and his interest in bitches weighed up against his somewhat nervy temperament which benefits from the testosterone plus the health implications.  I'm lucky in where I live and Oscar's seeming lack of interest in bitches meaning I can let him keep the testosterone he needs without management to the nth degree for me and stress for him. I don't think Hugo is quite old enough to tell how he'll pan out yet but the way it is going he'll be keeping the knackers too.

I wish there was a light at the end of tunnel for you in terms of living somewhere else. 

I'm having a seriously shite day and nothing bad has happened at all. Just completely locked inside my own head - sometimes on lovely sunny days I seem to put so much pressure on myself to get out and make the most of them that I just completely and utterly freak out. :scared: Such fun! Horses have been out for 6 hours as a result of the head-case-ness so I'm being very naughty.  The dogs don't seem too worried that they haven't been out yet but we all need a walk really. It is just that whole _leaving the house_ thing that seems like a massive hurdle today.


----------



## Guest

Can you smuggle me and zand in next time ginge?? 

Please? 

All Zand is doing is whinge. He barked when my neighbour opened her back door. He barked when mum went out and emptied the bins.

The cat has just clawed him in the face. 

I think we'll just have a nice trick training session tonight after my shift instead of a walk. Any idea's on a trick I could teach? He knows paw, hop (He jumps up to headbutt my hand), down, crawl, twist and touch. 

The mothership said she might take him out for five minutes while I work and I asked her to use the dogmatic to help him get more used to it etc etc.
I got told that she didn't need to use it because it wasn't her who had the problems. I'm trying not to get annoyed but whenever anything goes wrong she's about as helpful as a paper umbrella.


----------



## Micky93

GingerRogers said:


> Yes, Saturday was a theory day for owners then there are 3 more 2 hr sessions with dogs each a fortnight apart. :scared: I am nervous about that already  I know what you mean about it not sinking in, thats why I am so looking forward to the practical side of the course
> 
> *Sorry of gorse , I forgot about his prickly encounter, hope he is ok, I am sure a chicken wing will be the perfect way to cheer him up *.
> 
> LO sorry you had a bad walk, sheep can be very stupid and they do all have a suicide wish (thats actually true :lol
> 
> Well a bit of time to tell about the course, as I say there are 5 of us and two trainers.
> To start with we did the AA style introductions, sad to hear that 3 of the others problems are soley down to bad/over enthusiastic encounters with out of control off lead dogs .
> Then they took us through the work books, first up was a discussion on body language and we watched a dvd then they brought two of their dogs in and got us to watch them and shout out what we were seeing which was a very useful exercise. We take that home and observe our own dogs so we can better recognise stress/relaxation. I am hoping that we might do similar with our own dogs as it would be very useful to know what other people see in case I am missing a signal. But it made me realise that actually the ninja spends very little time truly relaxed .
> Then we talked about how to minimise stress, all the things you have all mentioned, re stress levels, feeding, minimising tuggy, chase and rough play , keeping walks to a minimum or cutting them out completely for the course of the program, not walking them for at least 24 if not 48 hrs before the next session. This one I still find so hard to get my head round, its so ingrained to walk your dog but now I have got my head round it its actually a big relief for me. I had been making so much effort to make sure she got out at least twice a day for a decent length of time, that coupled with her DR, it was beginning to overwhelm me so she has had only 10-15 mins at a time since and at times when we shouldn't meet anything (lunchtimes are apparently good for one of the trainers, just tried it, not so here  however disaster avoided)
> Then we did some TTouch which we will be practicing at the end of each session with all the dogs in the hall together
> The they ran through the clicker training exercises they want us to practice. The one bloke was funny, he was like me when I first heard of clicker training, very sceptical and couldn't get his head round why it works then said so I guess she wont need breakfast then . There is hand targeting, find it, check it, go to mat, re-orientate to handler esp at thresholds and a couple of others I can't quite recall. at the mo.
> 
> So I have been restricting walks, we have had no encounters at all. This morning we did some 3x10 hand targeting, then tried go to mat which they reckon can take weeks to get, 2x10 click sessions later she's lying on the mat with regularity  little bugger, if we ever get to the bottom of this and she isn't then the best behaved dog in the world I will exchange her
> Then she had 'chicken en terrace' for her brekky, watching her work out how to get leaves off her food was quite funny but not sure what my neighbours think of me feeding my dog bits of raw chicken in the garden 'well no wonder she has problems , mental old bint' I reckon its working already she certainly seems calmer.
> 
> As I say its all stuff I had read or you lot had suggested but its just put it all together in a consistent way. Watch this space :thumbsup:.
> 
> ETA also they said feeding little and often to make sure their blood sugar doesn't drop which led me to ask about I always feed after a walk so she is hungry and in theory more focused on treats, but thats going to change to see if it makes a difference. Still don't get the mashed potato thing


Oh, very clever :thumbsup:

Eddie picked up the mat thing quite well too - was very proud of that. I'm trying to work out what to try and do next in regards to his training, I'd like the idea of him putting his toys away, but can't see that happening in the not too distant future :sneaky2:

Also, just for you and Dogless to mock me: I froze the big pack of chicken wings on friday as don't have a long shelf life - stupidly though I didn't think to separate them out, so was stood there with a bread knife and metal pasta spoon trying to prise one away from the big frozen pile of chicken wings :scared: Got there in the end and it's out defrosting ready for this evening :thumbsup:

Edit to say: sorry Dogless, just realised I've missed a load of comments! What a situation for you  Isn't there an implant you can have in for a while which triggers the same thing as being neutered but can be removed? That could be worth a shot as it's not permanent?


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- that course sounds fab- I'm really jealous.
At least you're all in the same boat together.

Dilemma indeed Dogless- I see both sides, in these parts I dont have many problems with other dogs, its neighbours dogs which give us the most grief- I'd really hate what you have to put up with, but Kilo's sensitive nature is something to think of as well.
Even the implant is a risk isn't it? Didn't Paddyjulie have a rough time with Chester? At least it wears off though and he's fine now isn't he.


Talking of knackers being removed, the Cocker is probably coming tomorrow. I'm to take him to my vets for the op.:scared:


----------



## GingerRogers

Micky93 said:


> Oh, very clever :thumbsup:
> 
> Eddie picked up the mat thing quite well too - was very proud of that. I'm trying to work out what to try and do next in regards to his training, I'd like the idea of him putting his toys away, but can't see that happening in the not too distant future :sneaky2:
> 
> Also, just for you and Dogless to mock me: I froze the big pack of chicken wings on friday as don't have a long shelf life - stupidly though I didn't think to separate them out, so was stood there with a bread knife and metal pasta spoon trying to prise one away from the big frozen pile of chicken wings :scared: Got there in the end and it's out defrosting ready for this evening :thumbsup:


Oh no mocking here, I have spent the morning going downstairs to throw bags of chicken bits, chopped pig heart and kidney half's at the kitchen floor as I was too lazy and lacking in freezer space to freeze them separately yesterday, I just lob them, wait for some bits to fall off then leave to defrost for a bit longer, and repeat, until its all separated, and hopefully not so defrosted the process needs to be done allover again 

LO - I would love to smuggle you in but not sure Zand will fit under my coat , what about bow, beg, roll over, not sure lurches like those last two actually, what about hand targeting if you haven't already, that can be used for lots of stuff.

Hope you feel better WH, you know getting out there should help the gremlins though, how about just plan a quick one then see how you feel when you are out??


----------



## tiatortilla

hello all! i've missed rather a lot again, haven't i.. i'll try to catch up in a minute!
we had a lovely walk today. tia didn't bark at a little dog and a collie when she was on lead, played with a huuuuuge yellow lab for about 30 seconds (and then she had a rethink and changed her mind lol) and the leave it command worked at a reasonable distance twice  so all in all, a successful outing!
hope everyone is well


----------



## moonviolet

If the weather remains sunny i'll shall simply be working on getting through the week. Got to love half term. Kids who scream relentlessly and dogs who charge from 200 yards then give it the "cock of the north" posturing are so much fun  ( it's unnecessary to mention their recall is spans the range poor to nonexistent and not one owner came to fetch their dog.)Tink was a star and when faced with the third of these over the top charges decided instead of remaining behind me it was time to sit between my feet while i handled it:lol: I've never seen anchors sling on so fast. I must forget to brush my hair more often.

Did a little heelwork training session in the front garden (with Tink attached to waist) Must remember to run when I give the mat cue. Her focus was good.

I can't possibly comment on everything :scared: Glad you enjoyed the first session of your course GR.

Hope Izzy and Eddie are healing up nicely.

be back later


----------



## Dogless

I did a lot of thinking about the implant, but I spoke to Paddyjulie about it a lot and a few other folk that I know have had it (well, their dogs) and they all had fairly bad experiences so I am reluctant.

GR - sounds as if the course will be worthwhile; it will be interesting to hear how it develops.

Great if exhausting afternoon :thumbsup:.

*Rudi:* Went to the park - I have never seen it as busy I don't think, which was ideal for training. LCH did very well. We were dive bombed by lots of dogs, both on and off lead which I did my best at warding off. We also had lots of polite greetings with people and dogs. If I had a pound for every owner of dogs who dragged them over to see us or who's dogs ran up to us telling me that dogs needed to socialise I'd have a nice full purse . Luckily he chose the moment we were back to the car to decide to jump and bite so I could throw him in the boot swiftly :thumbsup:. Not throw literally.....:eek6:.

*Kilo:* Bit the bullet and took him out knowing that every child and dog possible would be out...and they were. All very good, but the very best bit was I tried "Hide" for the first time with approaching dogs and.....total success . Very proud of the BCH. Got ambushed rapidly by an offlead lab and Kilo ran around the other side of me which was good, apart from meaning that he wrapped his lead round my legs which gave the other owner a good laugh at me untangling myself :eek6: .


----------



## Izzysmummy

TT, Mv and Dogless - sounds like you all had good walks today!

A so-so walk with monkeydog tonight, decided to go on a route we've not been on for a while as its not very well lit and I don't like going that way when it's dark. Hmm, well it seems nobody's bothered to pick up any poo all winter and there was piles everywhere! Monkeydog is obsessed with sniffing poo, she doesn't eat it but would happily spend a good 5 mins giving every pile the once over if given the chance!  and as we'd not been that way for ages there was loads of really interesting smells which meant her ears switched off. She spooked once at nothing (that I could see anyways) and had a few gruffs but soon shook it off. I was just getting a bit frustrated as she was a bit all over the place tonight and not very focussed. 

Planning on having a training session later tonight on the weaves and having a play session with her sock in preparation for the scent work we'll be doing in class soon.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Can you smuggle me and zand in next time ginge??
> 
> Please?
> 
> All Zand is doing is whinge. He barked when my neighbour opened her back door. He barked when mum went out and emptied the bins.
> 
> The cat has just clawed him in the face.
> 
> *I think we'll just have a nice trick training session tonight after my shift instead of a walk. Any idea's on a trick I could teach? He knows paw, hop (He jumps up to headbutt my hand), down, crawl, twist and touch. *
> 
> The mothership said she might take him out for five minutes while I work and I asked her to use the dogmatic to help him get more used to it etc etc.
> I got told that she didn't need to use it because it wasn't her who had the problems. I'm trying not to get annoyed but whenever anything goes wrong she's about as helpful as a paper umbrella.


How about teaching him to lift a hind paw on command?

Another good one (which most dogs like) is 'round' ie they go from either the front of you or heelwork position all the way round you really fast several times. I should think that would be right up Zand's street...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> How about teaching him to lift a hind paw on command?
> 
> Another good one (which most dogs like) is 'round' ie *they go from either the front of you or heelwork position all the way round you really fast several times. I should think that would be right up Zand's street*...


Where there's blame...there's a claim :eek6:.


----------



## Twiggy

Well Tremor had her much needed visit to the chiropractor this afternoon. She doesn't think the mystery lump is affecting Tremor's movement but her back was well and truly out.

I took Holly with us as she likes going in the car. My chiro wanted to see her so I let her out in the yard and she thought about going to help an ex-racehorse with his pole work in the new menage....LOL


----------



## Thorne

Quick one tonight, not feeling up to much reading or writing I'm afraid 

Brynn, Panda and Matt from Blue Cross are indeed reserved; Panda's people are planning to do agility with her, good to know that they intend to engage her Collie brain!
Walked Matt to town, Brynn over the fields and Ollie around the pavements. Bit of play and training with Panda, Ollie and Lola too.

Paddy isn't reserved but has been taken off homing because on thursday he's being transferred to Blue Cross Burford. There's been little to no interest in him here (poor boy!) so hopefully a fresh "audience" will bring him a new home, and he'd probably appreciate their larger exercise areas. It's where their behaviour dept is based so he'll be in good hands. Wednesday will be the last day I see him :crying: I really shouldn't be this upset about it!
Had my usual garden session with him; fetch and tug, and a crude attempt at lure coursing (me running around dragging a toy tied to a longline!).

Rest day for S&B so it's been Kongs and antler chews this evening, along with Breeze's obligatory swamp-sprints around the garden (even Scooter joined in despite running for most of yesterday's walk and knackering himself!). My sisters have been assigned to walk the dogs tomorrow, could be interesting! Hopefully "middle sister" has grown out of yelling at Scooter every time the lead goes tight... probably better if she walks Breeze


----------



## Guest

Only 90 miles between me and burford! 

HOW CAN NO-ONE WANT HIM!?!?!? I WOULD ACTUALLY KILL TO HAVE MY OVERLY EXUBERANT NUTCASE DOGGIE BACK RATHER THAN THE WET DISHCLOTHED BRAINED ONE I SEEM TO HAVE NOW WHEN STUFF HAPPENS.


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> Only 90 miles between me and burford!
> 
> HOW CAN NO-ONE WANT HIM!?!?!? I WOULD ACTUALLY KILL TO HAVE MY OVERLY EXUBERANT NUTCASE DOGGIE BACK RATHER THAN THE WET DISHCLOTHED BRAINED ONE I SEEM TO HAVE NOW WHEN STUFF HAPPENS.


Dye Zand's tan bits black and do a stealthy swap, no-one will know the difference and I'd never tell


----------



## Guest

Thorne said:


> Dye Zand's tan bits black and do a stealthy swap, no-one will know the difference and I'd never tell


:scared: NoOOOOOOOOO. I shall never give up Zand. Not even for paddy. :lol:

I have emailed the rescue Zand was from however, just to say about his nervousness and what do they advice etc etc.

I could never give him up, especially not now, he's my problem and we will sort it, he shall not be palmed off to be somebody elses problem.


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> :scared: NoOOOOOOOOO. I shall never give up Zand. Not even for paddy. :lol:
> 
> I have emailed the rescue Zand was from however, just to say about his nervousness and what do they advice etc etc.
> 
> I could never give him up, especially not now, he's my problem and we will sort it, he shall not be palmed off to be somebody elses problem.


Lovely to hear (not that I can ever imagine you giving him up!), hope they can give you some sound advice to help him through his spooky phase 

I'll have to kidnap Paddy myself at this rate...

:lol:


----------



## cinnamontoast

This is Brig. Brig is from working stock on the Welsh border. However,he has never done a scrap of gundog training in his life. He has seen Bear doing retrieval once and decided, aged nearly ten, that he wanted to retrieve this week. He is the best at return to hand out of the three! This is his second time ever doing this:


----------



## Guest

Well teaching Zand round isn't going well hahah, he's just dozing on the sofa.
Got excited when i got home from work but just slept afterwards. 

Brigs is wonderful cinnamon. 

And thorne, I think your Labs may have heart attacks via paddy. :lol:


----------



## cinnamontoast

Twiggy said:


> Well personally I think it's very generous of you to help this lady with her reactive dog. I'd have been quoting the Dangerous Dogs Act to her if the Keeshound had got on one of mine.
> 
> Your plan of action sounds OK, if you really think it's in Rusty's best interest to be used as a stooge dog and providing he doesn't react, given what happened. Just be careful.


Yes, do be very careful, although as it's a Keeshond, I'd be there in a flash 



Dogless said:


> Is Sam having the chop as it's a requirement of rescuing him? I'm having a real quandry over Kilo. I don't really want to have him neutered but there are so many dogs here and so many in season bitches walked as normal. I'm dreading the neighbour's sibe coming into season. That and we have so many dogs running up to us and then reacting badly as Kilo is entire. Big con for me is that he's very nervy and highly strung and I'd hate to make it any worse. We don't have any marking problems or humping etc (well....apart from *that* day :eek6.


I don't know if it would make a huge difference re being nervy.



Sarah1983 said:


> Have you thought about trying the implant with him? I think the way you say he reacts to bitches in season would push me towards trying it, especially with the sheer number walked as usual and running loose there.
> 
> But then I know where you're coming from with him being nervy. It's why I held off on neutering Rupert for so long.


I've also heard really bad things about the implant ie much higher incidence of cancer etc in later life.

Dogless, you know I was dead set against neutering my boys. Brig is still entire and never a bother. I don't see a difference with Zak, but Bear has changed immeasurably, for the better. He is disinterested in girls, where before he humped everything and annoyed even Brig. He's even soppier, if that's possible. I'm not so dead against it anymore. There are definitely bonuses for some dogs.


----------



## Thorne

LurcherOwner said:


> And thorne, I think your Labs may have heart attacks via paddy. :lol:


They'd pack their bags and leave! Then Paddy would do a gazelle bounce over the low-ish back fence to find himself a pheasant and I'd be left with no dogs at all 

Well done Brig, who said you can't teach old dogs new tricks eh?

Regarding this neutering talk, I'm all for the case-by-case approach to it and think a lot of dogs must benefit from it or not be affected by it. Scooter was a nervous, fairly highly strung youngster and for that reason I'm glad we left him entire. I don't feel the same when he goes into bitch-hunt overdrive though so I can see both sides. 
Have met plenty of well-rounded dogs that are neutered, and plenty that aren't!


----------



## Sarah1983

Thorne said:


> Regarding this neutering talk, I'm all for the case-by-case approach to it and think a lot of dogs must benefit from it or not be affected by it. Scooter was a nervous, fairly highly strung youngster and for that reason I'm glad we left him entire. I don't feel the same when he goes into bitch-hunt overdrive though so I can see both sides.
> Have met plenty of well-rounded dogs that are neutered, and plenty that aren't!


Same here, I don't like the blanket neuter all dogs thinking and I don't like the blanket neutering is always bad thinking, I think some dogs do benefit from it and others don't. Neither of the dogs I've had done have shown any negative effects from it. It didn't seem to have any positive effects on Rupert but it stopped Shadow being so interested in the bitches in season we so often encountered.

The reason I'd go for the implant over the actual surgery if I were unsure is because once they've been lopped off there's no going back. It is a tough one with a nervy dog though and I'm not sure what I'd do.


----------



## Guest

We've neutered a lot of older dogs in rescue, and I can't say that I see much difference. Granted they usually neuter them early on when we get them, so not much pre-personality to go by.

If it were up to me, I'd keep males intact. I've never had an intact male that had behavior issues, so clearly I'm biased there. But then our neutered males don't have behavior issues either. 
LOL! Who knows what the right answer is! Do whatever feels right to you!

And now, may I draw your attention to a gratuitous brag photo of Bates with his weekend winnings 
Not bad for a muttdog!


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## Miss.PuddyCat

Well I have some good news! 

Last week we took Sophie for a walk. I mentioned that we should go else where for a walk but my dad was admit that we go to the forest/beach walk.

We were making our way down the trail when I let Sophie off with my dad in front and me behind her. She is still skittish at sounds of other dogs barking or shell have moment were she really does look like she is gonna book it.

Well my dad ran ahead and around a bend with Sophie hot on his heels, tripping over herself cause the snow is so deep. I raced to catch up when they went out of sight. As I came around the bend I could see a figure over the bushes to my right on the hill with three leads with no dogs attached :scared:

I panic and once I catch up to my dad and Sophie I met with......................
Sophie wiggling her tail and playing chase with three other small dogs that we really only bump into every few months (So far I knew she was fine around dogs she sees on a daily bases and dislikes dogs shell see once and thats it)

I was quite surprised to see her act so puppy like and this is the first time I have seen her wag her tail in over a year at the sight of another dog!

Then we ran into another couple with two dogs we see every few months, they were a bit more enthusiastic with the hellos but still Sophie was still wagging her tail and even chasing after them when they took off. She even gave out a few barks but not in the get away piss off type but more the hello friends type of bark.

We did have to bad experiences tho. One when a boxer ran for us and cornered us in with some trees. I didnt like the way it was postering or how intent it looked at Sophie. after trying to shoo it off the owner came running and was like shes friendly friendly. And just as he got it on lead it lunged for Sophie snarling. Friendly yeh right

Then this past weekend we went for her quick pee walk around the block when I get home from work when we passed a house and I heard the door open behind me.

Sure enough here comes a goofy large dog bounding over, Sophie goes into her lunging at it, barking, growling drooling mode and me trying to hold the dog back. Thing is Ive seen this dog around before and it never ever has a leash or collar on it, the man walks it around offlead. A lady comes and gets it by wrapping a scarf around its neck and taking it away.

Sure enough minutes later it comes back, when the lady came back this time I turned to her and said " just so you know its called a leash and collar I suggest you get one " I was didnt even bother to look at her and walked off.

Ive also started walking Sophie on her walking belt. The joints in my hands, wrists and elbows have gotten worse over the past week (maybe due to the minus 25 weather we are having) but they are swelling up and my fingers cramp and get stiff if I try to hold onto anything to long.

At my age I didnt think Id feel 80 when getting out of bed!

But here I some photos that I got last week.

Sophie and Gramps










Sophie say Hi










Out on the frozen lake










Gramps was braver and went out further.










Almost over her head










Snow dog Sophie 










Sophie tripping up




























Sophie and I










Making new trail




























And the face that melts my heart


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## Miss.PuddyCat

Sorry for how big those came out


----------



## Dogless

Lovely snowy photos MPC - a real winter wonderland . I'm so pleased that you had some good walks.

CT / Sarah - I do believe that neutering should be looked at dog-by-dog too. It just seems wrong in a way that I probably wouldn't be mulling it over at all if we were going to Hereford within the year as planned. With another three years or so (at the moment) to face here and the sheer amount of in season bitches walked as normal, kept to breed from with any dog and allowed to bomb up to you, plus loose dogs that dislike entire males it is making me wonder. I'll see how he is when the sibe comes into season - he wasn't at all good when my colleague brought his in season bitch into work; I paid for daycare for him for the rest of the week rather than take him into the office. I am almost considering kennels for him, but I haven't yet found kennels here that I'm really happy with....and none of the small home boarding type places take entire males.Ugh. Just want to do the best by the big fella.


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## kat&molly

CT- lovely vid- Brig looks keen.

Ouesi- Bates is gorgeous- obviously taken before any de squeaking of toys had happened.

MPC- Sophie looks lovely, but you can keep that snow.

Thorne- hope Paddy fares better with the move. Dont miss him too much.

Forgot yesterday, I think I'm going to change the route through the village- the scary house have now moved both Collies to the front, chained up. In sheer frustration the poor sods bark at everything- then fight, its really not nice to see. I want ed to call someone out yesterday and scream at them to do something about it- but having my girls with me I couldn't.:sad:
We'll have to go to the other end of the village now.

I'm going to lock the cat flap this morning before our walk :devil:
Hope shorty doesn't smash it with her head.:lol:

Have a nice day everyone.


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne I hope the move means Paddy finds a loving home.

Ouesi What a lovely photo, Bates is a stunning dog.

CT lovely video, He looks so happy.

MPC glad you've had some good walks and Sophie had some fun with the 3 little dogs. Shame about the boxer and the dog thats allowed to roam. Wonderful photos.

Dogless It's a really tricky decision to make but i know you have BCH's best interests at heart. Bit of a curve ball, would it be worth considering short term use of a sedative type product when there are in season bitches around. I know you wouldn't want to medicate unnecessarily but if he's distressed maybe this could be an option. 

K&M Maybe you should fit the willful one with a helmet :lol: :lol: What a shame about those poor collies  but i think you are right to change your route.


----------



## Guest

kat&molly said:


> Ouesi- Bates is gorgeous- obviously taken before any de squeaking of toys had happened.


Oh no. The pink pig he killed while we were still at the show LOL. It's plastic, not fluff filled, and he de-squeaked it


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## GingerRogers

MPC - glad you got a good walk and run about in the snow, so much snow, loving Sophies cosy jacket can I have one, that last picture is adorable, snow baubles 

Dogless it is such a hard one isn't it and all because of where you are forced to live, very unfair. I think you just need to take it a day at a time and each bitches season at a time. If it were me and I knew I had to stay there and he was so very interested by the bitches that he was distressed I would probably (very angrily and with a feeling of total frustration and unfairness) think very hard about either getting him chopped, or try the implant. I imagine RR don't have a huge lifespan so in 3 years, he will be 5, thats perhaps half his life spent in eternal despair  in what should be his prime. I guess the other thing to think of is would it affect his relationship with Rudi as well  I know nothing about the implant and its risks though. I do not envy you your decision and pity your position. But if it helps as I say don't fret about it now while there isn't an in season bitch, enjoy him and just wait and see how he is, fret then 

We are having trouble understanding mats are for relaxing on  and she wont lie still properly for any TTouch work I also can't manage not to walk her at all  but am keeping it to a minimum and avoiding everything. Loving feeding her in the garden though she gets really excited about it (is that a good thing, she is supposed to be calming down ) and we work on impulse at the same time, she didn't even notice the squizzell that came to investigate.

Hope Evie doesn't hurt her head 

Bates :001_wub:

Hopefully the change will find Paddy a good home.

Have another funeral in a bit, Rosie dogs mums mum, I didn't really know her but wanted to support RD mum. Although I am full of frustration too. They have her cousin staying with a 12 yr terrier. Tom humps for England and Rosie is not happy, how she has resisted not killing him I don't know, but everyone thinks its hilarious except me and hubby  and poor Tom can't be happy either.

ETA CT - I liked it cos it sounds like Brig is loving his new skills social and retrieve but I can't see it


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> CT- lovely vid- Brig looks keen.
> 
> Ouesi- Bates is gorgeous- obviously taken before any de squeaking of toys had happened.
> 
> MPC- Sophie looks lovely, but you can keep that snow.
> 
> Thorne- hope Paddy fares better with the move. Dont miss him too much.
> 
> Forgot yesterday, I think I'm going to change the route through the village- the scary house have now moved both Collies to the front, chained up. In sheer frustration the poor sods bark at everything- then fight, its really not nice to see. I want ed to call someone out yesterday and scream at them to do something about it- but having my girls with me I couldn't.:sad:
> We'll have to go to the other end of the village now.
> 
> I'm going to lock the cat flap this morning before our walk :devil:
> Hope shorty doesn't smash it with her head.:lol:
> 
> Have a nice day everyone.


Talk about the fun police  . I can picture locked cat flap with cartoon dog shape through it now....:scared::scared:.

Those poor collies; how distressing.



moonviolet said:


> Dogless It's a really tricky decision to make but i know you have BCH's best interests at heart. Bit of a curve ball, would it be worth considering short term use of a sedative type product when there are in season bitches around. I know you wouldn't want to medicate unnecessarily but if he's distressed maybe this could be an option.


Thing is, we encounter them so much that he'd end up sedated a lot!! I don't want to medicate or neuter him really. I just want to do what's best.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> MPC - glad you got a good walk and run about in the snow, so much snow, loving Sophies cosy jacket can I have one, that last picture is adorable, snow baubles
> 
> Dogless it is such a hard one isn't it and all because of where you are forced to live, very unfair. I think you just need to take it a day at a time and each bitches season at a time. If it were me and I knew I had to stay there and he was so very interested by the bitches that he was distressed I would probably (very angrily and with a feeling of total frustration and unfairness) think very hard about either getting him chopped, or try the implant. I imagine RR don't have a huge lifespan so in 3 years, he will be 5, thats perhaps half his life spent in eternal despair  in what should be his prime. I guess the other thing to think of is would it affect his relationship with Rudi as well  I know nothing about the implant and its risks though. I do not envy you your decision and pity your position. But if it helps as I say don't fret about it now while there isn't an in season bitch, enjoy him and just wait and see how he is, fret then
> 
> We are having trouble understanding mats are for relaxing on  and she wont lie still properly for any TTouch work I also can't manage not to walk her at all  but am keeping it to a minimum and avoiding everything. Loving feeding her in the garden though she gets really excited about it (is that a good thing, she is supposed to be calming down ) and we work on impulse at the same time, she didn't even notice the squizzell that came to investigate.
> 
> Hope Evie doesn't hurt her head
> 
> Bates :001_wub:
> 
> Hopefully the change will find Paddy a good home.
> 
> Have another funeral in a bit, Rosie dogs mums mum, I didn't really know her but wanted to support RD mum. Although I am full of frustration too. They have her cousin staying with a 12 yr terrier. Tom humps for England and Rosie is not happy, how she has resisted not killing him I don't know, but everyone thinks its hilarious except me and hubby  and poor Tom can't be happy either.
> 
> ETA CT - I liked it cos it sounds like Brig is loving his new skills social and retrieve but I can't see it


He isn't in eternal despair, that makes me feel awful . I think he's pretty happy in the main. I hope so, really hope so. Their lifespan is about 10 - 12 years. I don't know what it would do with his relationship with Rudi. Rudi is already very much the boss and Kilo is happy for him to be so I think, although I am sure things will very much change around Rudi's adolescence.

I hope the funeral is OK; how lovely of you to go and support RD's mum.


----------



## Dogless

Spent most of the morning in the park this morning with the CHs. It was :mad2::mad2: in the extreme. First bad walk I've had with them, so it was due. They had been a bit mental before we went which should have been a little warning!

Kilo spent the first 15 - 20 minutes bitching, bitching, bitching - lunging, teeth chattering, drooling. I had to work really hard to get his attention and consequently Rudi started to lunge to try and pick up sticks etc because I wasn't engaging with him too :incazzato:. I almost gave up and came home but what would that achieve?

We saw quite a few dogs and all was OK until a lab we see fairly often ran up to us and stopped about 5m away posturing and staring as he always does; today Kilo went _postal_ when he doesn't usually do anything and the lab was called away. A few stares and tut - tuts but .

After that, a blissful period of walking nicely and I got brave enough to do a little circuit that brings us out of the park and down the road. Good CHs behaved :thumbsup:

Last bit as we were near the car was :mad2::mad2: again. Kilo was bitching, Rudi became possessed with the need to zoom but, being on lead, launched a crocattack on me. Right outside the cafe and car park bit, so maximum audience  :scared:. So, he got tethered to a telegraph pole whilst I turned my back and had Kilo in a down / stay. This was repeated for oh, about 25 minutes :yikes::frown2:. Rudi had another mega tantrum, just in case one or two people had missed the show :scared: Anyhow, finally tantrums stopped, Rudi calmed down and we walked very quickly to the car before anything else happened . My fault really - Rudi had become over tired (his eyes were bright red) and we were all frustrated. Obviously lots of advice was forthcoming from various experts .

LCH caught a vein as he bit as I now have a nice haematoma which makes it painful to clench my fist. Little git :eek6::lol:.

To top it all, loads of kids have decided to play in our street, outside our house .

On the plus side, the kennel things is in the garage drying out and the freezer is due between 1325 and 1725 :thumbsup:


----------



## Sarah1983

Bloody hell Dogless, hope your day gets better!


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody hell Dogless, hope your day gets better!


I was the epitome of stressed owner with out of control dogs...well, one being good at a time and the other mucking about .


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## Nicki85

DL- that does not sound like a fun walk! Sounds like you kept your cool though 

Exciting news here- going to see the puppies tomorrow! I have a meeting in Glasgow so thought i'd fly up the night before and tie in a visit to see the puppies! 

Bad news.... Snow cat is very poorly and there is a very likely chance she could lose her eye sight  She is only 8months old. She is with the eye specialist now so fingers crossed.

Rusty is being good boy Rusty at the moment! We had our first workshop for agility last weekend, he was a star and then had a pub lunch and he laid under the table like a good boy whilst I ate pudding. We found the toy of choice and it is a sock stuffed with roast chicken/ cheese/ meatballs/ liver treats (!) that comes out for training but lives in the freezer. He is obsessed with it... I let him have it for 5mins at the end for a good chew. Kept him occupied for the whole two hours of the workshop which I thought he would struggle with. 
So glad i've found something he wants!


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I was the epitome of stressed owner with *out of control dogs*...well, one being good at a time and the other mucking about .


They may not have been behaving angelicly but out of control they were not. They were not making a nuisance of themselves to anyone but you.


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## Dogless

Nicky - hope Snow cat doesn't lose her sight . The rest of your news was good though...puppy silky fur to stroke .



moonviolet said:


> They may not have been behaving angelicly but out of control they were not. They were not making a nuisance of themselves to anyone but you.


That's true. They were a bluddy nuisance  :eek6:. Snoring away all angelically now though as if they wouldn't be a jot of bother to anyone :lol:.


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## Beth17

Dogless I have liked for the period of nice walking  What a morning you had 

Nicky puppies how very exciting. Poor Snow cat 

Oscar and I have not long been back from an hour of being dragged along by a possessed puppy. My god I'm surprised my arm is actually still in its socket. Something really got in him today and no matter what I did he was powering along and trying to dart through openings; at one point I was having to anchor myself against a tree and lean back with all my weight to keep him from going the way he wanted :cursing:

We were then being dragged up the road towards the woods when a fairly big male boxer appeared up ahead out of a side road with its owner but not wearing a collar or lead and wandering in the road. I warned her about Oscar she said 'it's fine he'll beck down' I said no it's not, she then said 'he's not wearing a collar I can't get hold of him' :mad2: Oscar actually behaved like a star as I ended up marching past it when it came over and he just carried on going so he was a good boy.

Sam ended up with no offlead time as he would have been gone and we eventually got home. He is now out in the garden probably getting up to no good 

Eta He has now got mud all over the carpet...


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## kat&molly

Dogless- I've 'liked' you for having the patience of a saint.:lol:
Hopefully thats that and today is better now.

Nikki- hope the cats ok. Enjoy the pups.

Ginge- another funeral.

We can put the helmet on hold- Evie sat and waited like an angel.:lol:
Bet she cant make it twice it one day though so dont cancel it just yet.

Haldol :eek6: is here[OH is calling him Kevin]
Seems a nice natured boy- very erm exuberant.:lol:
Think the girls are a bit put out there is a 'Rude boy' in the house- but I'm sure he'll be fine once he settles.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Dogless I have liked for the period of nice walking  What a morning you had
> 
> Nicky puppies how very exciting. Poor Snow cat
> 
> Oscar and I have not long been back from an hour of being dragged along by a possessed puppy. My god I'm surprised my arm is actually still in its socket. Something really got in him today and no matter what I did he was powering along and trying to dart through openings; at one point I was having to anchor myself against a tree and lean back with all my weight to keep him from going the way he wanted :cursing:
> 
> We were then being dragged up the road towards the woods when a fairly big male boxer appeared up ahead out of a side road with its owner but not wearing a collar or lead and wandering in the road. I warned her about Oscar she said 'it's fine he'll beck down' I said no it's not, she then said 'he's not wearing a collar I can't get hold of him' :mad2: Oscar actually behaved like a star as I ended up marching past it when it came over and he just carried on going so he was a good boy.
> 
> Sam ended up with no offlead time as he would have been gone and we eventually got home. He is now out in the garden probably getting up to no good


Sounds like whatever Kilo and Rudi had was contagious :eek6:. I hate it when people like that boxer owner say their dogs will back down. A dog always runs up to us at the park to block our way barking his head off and the owner always tells me to get past as hers will back down. I've talked to her a few times but always had to go back the way I'd come and around as she just can't get her dog .


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- I've 'liked' you for having the patience of a saint.:lol:
> Hopefully thats that and today is better now.
> 
> Nikki- hope the cats ok. Enjoy the pups.
> 
> Ginge- another funeral.
> 
> We can put the helmet on hold- Evie sat and waited like an angel.:lol:
> Bet she cant make it twice it one day though so dont cancel it just yet.
> 
> Haldol :eek6: is here[OH is calling him Kevin]
> Seems a nice natured boy- very erm exuberant.:lol:
> Think the girls are a bit put out there is a 'Rude boy' in the house- but I'm sure he'll be fine once he settles.


Haldol :eek6:. I only know that as the brand name of Haloperidol...an antipsychotic :eek6:. Once again, you're being amazing!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Haldol :eek6:. I only know that as the brand name of Haloperidol...an antipsychotic :eek6:. Once again, you're being amazing!


I think I'm the psychotic one.:lol: I have 4 reasonably good calm[ish] girls and I do stupid things like this.

I wonder if thats what he was really named after- I'm worried now.:lol:


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## Maria_1986

So I attempted tuna cake, decided that what I had looked more like cookie dough so made tuna cookies instead. They don't smell as bad as I was expecting. I haven't tried them on the dog yet as I want to save them for being high reward treats if possible in more difficult situations. I will break them up before using them - I just wanted to play with my new cookie cutters. :blushing:


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> So I attempted tuna cake, decided that what I had looked more like cookie dough so made tuna cookies instead. They don't smell as bad as I was expecting. I haven't tried them on the dog yet as I want to save them for being high reward treats if possible in more difficult situations. I will break them up before using them - I just wanted to play with my new cookie cutters. :blushing:


Very cute :thumbsup:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> He isn't in eternal despair, that makes me feel awful . I think he's pretty happy in the main. I hope so, really hope so. Their lifespan is about 10 - 12 years. I don't know what it would do with his relationship with Rudi. Rudi is already very much the boss and Kilo is happy for him to be so I think, although I am sure things will very much change around Rudi's adolescence.
> 
> I hope the funeral is OK; how lovely of you to go and support RD's mum.


Argh now I feel awful. I didnt mean he is now but if the season bitches got to much.
I dont know about good I bawled when I saw her and her brother crying. I barely knew the woman. Felt a right plonker


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Argh now I feel awful. I didnt mean he is now but if the season bitches got to much.
> I dont know about good I bawled when I saw her and her brother crying. I barely knew the woman. Felt a right plonker


Right; let's both stop feeling awful....t'is no good . I will talk to his breeder I think. Sibe due in season soon so maybe I should try Suprlorin sooner rather than later? Lots of good stories on the internet as well as bad. More good by far; but then that's no comfort at all if it's no good for Kilo. Agh. The lab today was an entire male and Kilo is a lot 'sharper' with entire males...one of the reasons I am very careful that he just doesn't run around greeting dogs. He won't 'start' something but will rise to a challenge with entire males...only ever noise (touch wood!)....what a worry. I can't be humped like I was ever again either.

You're not a plonker; you're just human!

ETA: Sent the CHs' breeder an email for advice.


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## Sarah1983

It's a real dilemma isn't it Dogless? You won't know what effect it'll have unless you try it but then if it doesn't go the right way you're stuck with it for months. It's the behaviour you describe when there's a bitch in season that'd have me thinking of it rather than his behaviour with other intact males since he doesn't start anything. And that humping day sounded bloody scary, did you ever figure out what caused it though? I honestly don't know what I'd do in your situation. Well, if I lived there still I don't think I'd have a choice since I'd be stuck with walking on the poo fields. Speaking to his breeder sounds like a good idea. Perhaps they'll be able to suggest something.

Not done a lot today coz we've had that really wet, slippery snow and even taking Spen out for a pee is bloody dangerous when you're me. It'll be a good run around with the ball for him later and mental exercise I'm afraid. We've done some more walking backwards and I'm now starting to turn away from him so that he's going backwards without me facing him. He's very hesitant on that and has gone from a few quick steps backwards to a shuffle again but it'll build back up 

I recalled him from broken glass earlier. I spotted it under a tree, really big jagged shards of it, when he was about 2ft from it and recalled him and he came trotting over without a "just a minute, need to sniff the tree" first :thumbup: I had warm cheesy turkey in my pocket and he got some of that. He then kept going to the end of the flexi and staring at me so I'd call him again :lol: He didn't always get turkey though, sometimes he got boring kibble or a little meaty chunk dog treat that he quite likes although at 4% meat I don't think they deserve the name meaty chunk.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It's a real dilemma isn't it Dogless? You won't know what effect it'll have unless you try it but then if it doesn't go the right way you're stuck with it for months. *It's the behaviour you describe when there's a bitch in season that'd have me thinking of it rather than his behaviour with other intact males since he doesn't start anything.* And that humping day sounded bloody scary, did you ever figure out what caused it though? I honestly don't know what I'd do in your situation. Well, if I lived there still I don't think I'd have a choice since I'd be stuck with walking on the poo fields. Speaking to his breeder sounds like a good idea. Perhaps they'll be able to suggest something.
> 
> Not done a lot today coz we've had that really wet, slippery snow and even taking Spen out for a pee is bloody dangerous when you're me. It'll be a good run around with the ball for him later and mental exercise I'm afraid. We've done some more walking backwards and I'm now starting to turn away from him so that he's going backwards without me facing him. He's very hesitant on that and has gone from a few quick steps backwards to a shuffle again but it'll build back up
> 
> I recalled him from broken glass earlier. I spotted it under a tree, really big jagged shards of it, when he was about 2ft from it and recalled him and he came trotting over without a "just a minute, need to sniff the tree" first :thumbup: I had warm cheesy turkey in my pocket and he got some of that. He then kept going to the end of the flexi and staring at me so I'd call him again :lol: He didn't always get turkey though, sometimes he got boring kibble or a little meaty chunk dog treat that he quite likes although at 4% meat I don't think they deserve the name meaty chunk.


Yes; that's the main one - and as you know they roam the streets or get walked as normal with owners really upset  to be having an accidental litter or asking outright.....or just walking them as normal because it's their 'right' then get upset when they get attention from male dogs. That humping must have been an in season bitch nearby. MUST have been - it was awful, couldn't even be in the same room as Kilo.

So pleased that recall really is back on track, especially with the glass situation :eek6:. I taught Kilo to go backwards...but it was easy as he has to back out of loads of places that he goes into forwards...has a thing for narrow spaces .


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> So I attempted tuna cake, decided that what I had looked more like cookie dough so made tuna cookies instead. They don't smell as bad as I was expecting. I haven't tried them on the dog yet as I want to save them for being high reward treats if possible in more difficult situations. I will break them up before using them - I just wanted to play with my new cookie cutters. :blushing:


Aww that's sweet. I've got a crouching Border Collie cutter which I still haven't used.


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## purpleskyes

What am I working on ladies??

I am working on not losing the will to live with my boyfriends parents who are doing their best to pressure me into moving to France. I arrived on Saturday evening and everyday at least one of them or both of them start going on at me about it.


----------



## Maria_1986

purpleskyes said:


> What am I working on ladies??
> 
> I am working on not losing the will to live with my boyfriends parents who are doing their best to pressure me into moving to France. I arrived on Saturday evening and everyday at least one of them or both of them start going on at me about it.


Boyfriends parents putting pressure on you is horrible. OH's mum wants a grandchild OH grandmother wants us married - I want neither but hear about having kids everytime I visit. I have no good advice, just wanted to let you know that your not alone.


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## sharloid

We're concentrating on Broder learning all his scooter commands. He's doing brilliantly. I was so proud when I watched him go round a tight corner perfectly. :001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Right; let's both stop feeling awful....t'is no good . I will talk to his breeder I think. Sibe due in season soon so maybe I should try Suprlorin sooner rather than later? Lots of good stories on the internet as well as bad. More good by far; but then that's no comfort at all if it's no good for Kilo. Agh. The lab today was an entire male and Kilo is a lot 'sharper' with entire males...one of the reasons I am very careful that he just doesn't run around greeting dogs. He won't 'start' something but will rise to a challenge with entire males...only ever noise (touch wood!)....what a worry. I can't be humped like I was ever again either.
> 
> You're not a plonker; you're just human!
> 
> ETA: Sent the CHs' breeder an email for advice.


It's a difficult one isn't it? Not that I know anything really about castrating male dogs.

Last Thursday, when the girls came training from up North, the 12 month old collie who is related to Quiver and Tremor was obsessed with trying to get at the young bitch. On one occasion he did more or less mount her and she was frightened.

There was lots of advice about getting him done, implant, etc. but when I spoke to his breeder later she said it's only that particular bitch and she's hoping he isn't castrated.

I know the owner is very reluctant to have him castrated yet but he has the potential to be a top class obedience dog and it's weighing up just how much having sex on the brain is going to affect his training.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope the breeder can help you decide Dogless. Are the Sibe owners getting the bitch done after her season?

Maria - those biscuits look fab.


----------



## Symone

So, I was working on finding my last post so I could read posts since then. I kind of gave up 

Some good news with Shamaya. She got her new collar today so I decided to try walking her on just her collar. (She has had a harness since a week after we started to walk her, and her new puppy class I signed her up for said don't bring a harness.. me deciding to walk her on her collar was because i wanted some training before class tonight!) She pulled once - Realised the pressure was on her neck then sulked up to my side. She then tried lunging later on and realised the same.. This was the loveliest walk we have ever had, apart from those two choking sounds when she tried pulling/lunging.
Could it be she was only pulling because she didn't mind the feeling of it with her harness? She really hated pulling with her lead attached to her collar. 
She also happily had dry liver as a treat today. (She didn't like my peanut bacon cookies?!) and was fed it for most of the walk. I now have to make more for puppy class. (They said to bring treats for her)

So.. overall a good walk! Realised that I forgot to buy mince for her, though.. So we're to pop off out soon for it! (Still feel bad for her - two teeth being ripped out  )


----------



## purpleskyes

Maria_1986 said:


> Boyfriends parents putting pressure on you is horrible. OH's mum wants a grandchild OH grandmother wants us married - I want neither but hear about having kids everytime I visit. I have no good advice, just wanted to let you know that your not alone.


Kids is the other issue, I have a geunine phobia of all things pregnancy and childbirth. My OH really want his own kid so we have discussed surrogancy this isnt good enough for his parents! They also got the wires crossed and thought I had simply changed my mind and would have kids so that was another awkward chat.

Why cant they just accept their kids are now adults and cut the apron strings my parents arent like this at all they just let me get on with my own life. I am here until the 26th I might just lose the will to live and go back early.

My boyfriend is out here working with his dad and has been here for a week already and now the dad is trying to get him to stay until early March and then come back again mid march to help with another job. I have put my foot down and said no way I have had to put up with him being away for between 7 - 14 days every month for the last 10 months and I have had enough.

I just feel like my options right now are either I move to France for 1 year til 18 months or I learn to put up with a boyfriend that is gone every month which in my eyes might as well be a long distance relationship and I dont want either option!

Oh God guys sorry for the rant I just needed to get that off my chest.

Back to doggy things Hudson continues to be a very good boy while in France although yesterday Bouncer for on top of him and got abit rough and Hudson growled at him, its the first time I have ever heard him growl!


----------



## Nicki85

Well good news is that Snow cat eyes are fine! But she has something wrong with lipid metabolism... more tests.

She is home now and has spent 5 mins rolling around on Rusty's (dirty) belly and chewing his paws... he looks a bit baffled but i've told him to let her get on with it. She must want to get the smell of vets off her. 

I have strange animals!


----------



## Freddie and frank

My word, I have a lot to catch up on, but I'm going to give it a good go.

Non dog related first.....withdrawals are slowly leaving the building. :thumbup: and feeling normal is becoming a daily occurrence.  yay 

Took Freddie and bella to meet the pickles today. I was so excited, felt like i was meeting royalty. Awwww, they're adorable.:001_wub::001_wub: Branston was a bit off colour but all four dogs got on well and it was lovely to meet them. 
Bella did a roll in something smelly, probably showing off to Lilly  then she ate a dead bird on the way back. Wouldn't drop it, wouldn't let go, even when I tried to pull it out her mouth. Just wouldn't budge with it. Not even tuna treats worked. YUK. 

Had some good walks in last few days, kept frank on his long line too.:thumbsup: so when he did pop through the hedge along the canal, I could get him back.....easy peasy.....he seems to be getting more used to it and it's more reassuring too.....ok, ok, I should have used it sooner, just needed a push in the right direction. 

Me and frank did his first agility on Sunday. 
I LOVED IT. 
only basic stuff like going through a tunnel, which he loved, walking over a very low frame thing ???, which he got after a few goes, walking over a box to get his back legs on it ???? Walking over some poles on the floor???? He seemed to enjoy himself and behaved too. No shouting at other dogs :thumbsup:

Off to do a quick catch up. I've missed you all.:lol::lol::lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Wow you sound so positive, I want to double like that post F&F  jealous of you meeting the pickles though


----------



## Dogless

F&F - brilliant to hear you sounding so much better . Meeting the Pickles...did you curtsey?

Good walk with Rudi just now; he got barked at by Kilo's onlead enemy the beagle as we passed on the other side of the road, passed everything fine; got terrified by a child riding scooter full pelt at him saying "Hello puppy wuppy...." in a strange voice. Like one of those freaky kids in horror films, I was expecting her head to spin round :lol:.

No way am I taking the BW out until later - we may be meeting Dizzy. The play parks conveniently situated on the other side of our fence are PACKED again this afternoon with shrieking, screaming kids who are playing the 'bang on the fence and bark' game again like the summer holidays :mad2::mad2:. I am NOT NOT NOT going to have to repeat the 'kids are OK training' this year. Hopefully.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> F&F - brilliant to hear you sounding so much better . Meeting the Pickles...did you curtsey?
> 
> Good walk with Rudi just now; he got barked at by Kilo's onlead enemy the beagle as we passed on the other side of the road, passed everything fine; *got terrified by a child riding scooter full pelt at him saying "Hello puppy wuppy...." in a strange voice. Like one of those freaky kids in horror films, I was expecting her head to spin round :lol:.*
> 
> No way am I taking the BW out until later - we may be meeting Dizzy. The play parks conveniently situated on the other side of our fence are PACKED again this afternoon with shrieking, screaming kids who are playing the 'bang on the fence and bark' game again like the summer holidays :mad2::mad2:. I am NOT NOT NOT going to have to repeat the 'kids are OK training' this year. Hopefully.


 :scared:  :scared: :lol:

I can so picture it


----------



## Symone

I have creepy children in my mind now!

So, I took shamaya out to tire her out before puppy class (in 45 min) and I stupidly said the word "beach"
Guess who pulled the whole way there 
However, she again walked beautifully on the way home.
Win some and lose some?


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> I have creepy children in my mind now!
> 
> So, I took shamaya out to tire her out before puppy class (in 45 min) and I stupidly said the word "beach"
> Guess who pulled the whole way there
> However, she again walked beautifully on the way home.
> Win some and lose some?


Just my personal view - but you might need to be tough - she doesn't get to the beach if she pulls, she gets as far as time allows even if that's 30m. I do think you need to be consistent though as otherwise it's mixed messages. It's like gambling I think - the behaviour continues and is addictive as SOMETIMES you hit the jackpot...


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> Just my personal view - but you might need to be tough - she doesn't get to the beach if she pulls, she gets as far as time allows even if that's 30m. I do think you need to be consistent though as otherwise it's mixed messages.


True. Shall I just turn around and go home with her each time she pulls? 
She seems to have figured out the "stop" way, now. Each time I stop she sits at my side. If we are walking home she stays walking at my side. (Unless some teenaged girls scream "OMG PUPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPY" in which case she gets excited and pulls, as I found out today... 
But if we're walking to somewhere like the beach she sits beside me, then lunge forwards.

I can see what you mean when I wrote that. Hopefully she will understand pulling = no getting to where she wants to go to. 
Fingers crossed the person teaching the puppy class can also help.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> True. Shall I just turn around and go home with her each time she pulls?
> She seems to have figured out the "stop" way, now. Each time I stop she sits at my side. If we are walking home she stays walking at my side. (Unless some teenaged girls scream "OMG PUPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPY" in which case she gets excited and pulls, as I found out today...
> But if we're walking to somewhere like the beach she sits beside me, then lunge forwards.
> 
> I can see what you mean when I wrote that. *Hopefully she will understand pulling = no getting to where she wants to go to. *
> Fingers crossed the person teaching the puppy class can also help.


That's what I was getting at in your headcollars thread. Getting to her favourite place (beach) by pulling there is a big reward.

I'd use whatever technique you are using to stop her pulling; one consistent technique. I am using stopping with Rudi and going when he's in the right place but you can use whatever you like. If he tries to bolt off at the start or jump and bite as soon as we start we turn around and swiftly go back to the house though.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Freddie and frank said:


> My word, I have a lot to catch up on, but I'm going to give it a good go.
> 
> Non dog related first.....withdrawals are slowly leaving the building. :thumbup: and feeling normal is becoming a daily occurrence.  yay
> 
> Took Freddie and bella to meet the pickles today. I was so excited, felt like i was meeting royalty. Awwww, they're adorable.:001_wub::001_wub: Branston was a bit off colour but all four dogs got on well and it was lovely to meet them.
> Bella did a roll in something smelly, probably showing off to Lilly  then she ate a dead bird on the way back. Wouldn't drop it, wouldn't let go, even when I tried to pull it out her mouth. Just wouldn't budge with it. Not even tuna treats worked. YUK.
> 
> Had some good walks in last few days, kept frank on his long line too.:thumbsup: so when he did pop through the hedge along the canal, I could get him back.....easy peasy.....he seems to be getting more used to it and it's more reassuring too.....ok, ok, I should have used it sooner, just needed a push in the right direction.
> 
> Me and frank did his first agility on Sunday.
> I LOVED IT.
> only basic stuff like going through a tunnel, which he loved, walking over a very low frame thing ???, which he got after a few goes, walking over a box to get his back legs on it ???? Walking over some poles on the floor???? He seemed to enjoy himself and behaved too. No shouting at other dogs :thumbsup:
> 
> Off to do a quick catch up. I've missed you all.:lol::lol::lol:


Such a lovely positive post F+F!

So jealous of you meeting the pickles! Izzy and Tarnus have met them but I was away for a hen weekend  sounds like they all had a lovely time. Bella had obviously heard of Lilys reputation and wanted to establish herself as part of the cool crew early on! 

So glad Franks agility went well, I really enjoy doing it with Izzy, even when we do things wrong it's such good fun and I just end up laughing at us both! :lol:

Maybe we could meet up at a show somewhere to watch the pro's?


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> That's what I was getting at in your headcollars thread. Getting to her favourite place (beach) by pulling there is a big reward.
> 
> I'd use whatever technique you are using to stop her pulling; one consistent technique. I am using stopping with Rudi and going when he's in the right place but you can use whatever you like. If he tries to bolt off at the start or jump and bite as soon as we start we turn around and swiftly go back to the house though.


Sometimes I have brainfog which stops me from seeing the simplest of things 

I'll make sure to do that from now on  
Fingers crossed she will gasp what's going on quickly. 
Thanks again <3

Got to get her ready for her puppy class now. I feel knackered though


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Sometimes I have brainfog which stops me from seeing the simplest of things
> 
> I'll make sure to do that from now on
> Fingers crossed she will gasp what's going on quickly.
> Thanks again <3
> 
> Got to get her ready for her puppy class now. I feel knackered though


Enjoy class .


----------



## Sarah1983

Symone, I can't drive (dunno whether you can) so what I do with loose leash walking is have one piece of equipment I use when I have the time and patience to insist on the leash being loose and another that I use when I just want/need to get from A to B without taking all day about it. I use a regular collar for loose leash walking and a harness when I don't have time/patience for it or when we're going somewhere where I know he's going to be too excited to be able to walk nicely. I just have to make sure not to get lazy and just stick the harness on to get to nice places to walk  It's probably better if you can to be consistent about a loose leash at all times but I know sometimes I just want to get out and go somewhere nice for a walk without worrying about faffing around on the way there.


----------



## kat&molly

F+F, sounds brilliant,and pleased you enjoyed the agility. Nice to see you back.

Symone- enjoy class.

Well, we've had a few scraps here, if the young man hasn't got his nose glued to the girls backsides- he's having a go at them.
I'm sure it's novelty and he's feeling bewildered. Dont know whether he's crate trained but he went in one with a kong ok- so thats good and he's finally flopped now at my feet.

Dogless- hope the kids have buggered off.


----------



## Symone

Well - Class was interesting... 
Shamaya was great at recall, sitting, laying down, staying (Which shocked me for we hardly worked on stay) However pulling was where we failed 
Spoke to the instructor at the end and she showed me a way to improve it at home, however she said many puppies pull at this age, but it's a perfect age to correct it. She did say that her pulling is quite bad, though. And she said that we have to work on it at home. 
We were the only newbies, as well.. I was overall really proud of her.  
One thing I didn't like was she said all dogs have to stay on the left hand side.. That was the main problem for us, there. Shamaya has been taught to stay on my right, and she kept trying to go there. I felt guilty having to reposition her all of the time.  (I'm right handed - and I would rather have my strongest hand on her lead.)
But over all was an interesting lesson. I think it went well.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Well - Class was interesting...
> Shamaya was great at recall, sitting, laying down, staying (Which shocked me for we hardly worked on stay) However pulling was where we failed
> Spoke to the instructor at the end and she showed me a way to improve it at home, however she said many puppies pull at this age, but it's a perfect age to correct it. She did say that her pulling is quite bad, though. And she said that we have to work on it at home.
> We were the only newbies, as well.. I was overall really proud of her.
> One thing I didn't like was she said all dogs have to stay on the left hand side.. That was the main problem for us, there. Shamaya has been taught to stay on my right, and she kept trying to go there. I felt guilty having to reposition her all of the time.  (I'm right handed - and I would rather have my strongest hand on her lead.)
> But over all was an interesting lesson. I think it went well.


If you are taught to hold the lead with two hands then your strongest hand is that opposite the side that the dog is on - so if dog is on left, lead is held predominantly with the right hand, comes across your body and the left hand can be used to guide, treat etc. Is that the kind of thing you were taught? I do prefer to walk one dog like that; I teach them to be happy on either side, but do like holding the lead that way. When I walk them both I can't do that, but I do feel that it offers more control.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> If you are taught to hold the lead with two hands then your strongest hand is that opposite the side that the dog is on - so if dog is on left, lead is held predominantly with the right hand, comes across your body and the left hand can be used to guide, treat etc. Is that the kind of thing you were taught? I do prefer to walk one dog like that; I teach them to be happy on either side, but do like holding the lead that way. When I walk them both I can't do that, but I do feel that it offers more control.


It was that way for the pullers, however even if it was loose they were to be on the left. :3 
I just prefer her to be on my right.. I'm weird 
But I'll try it this way from now on.


----------



## Sarah1983

I've just realised, we start recall away from food tomorrow :yikes: With a typical stomach on legs Labrador :yikes: :yikes: He's passed all the previous stages with flying colours so fingers crossed he'll pass this one too. God knows how I'm going to do the other dog parts though, the book suggests hiring a trainer if you have no friends with suitable dogs but I can't bloody find a trainer! Well I guess I'll just have to do what I can.

Currently working on keeping my gob shut on a certain thread.


----------



## Dogless

Kilo and I just had a lovely long walk with Dizzy and human in the dark; the BW was very playful tonight, bless him and behaved well :001_wub:. Good job they both bucked their ideas up this afternoon....


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> It was that way for the pullers, however even if it was loose they were to be on the left. :3
> I just prefer her to be on my right.. I'm weird
> But I'll try it this way from now on.


Yes, the lead should be loose. If she were to be on your right you can hold the lead with your left hand and have the right there for treats, guidance etc if you're doing it that way.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I've just realised, we start recall away from food tomorrow :yikes: With a typical stomach on legs Labrador :yikes: :yikes: He's passed all the previous stages with flying colours so fingers crossed he'll pass this one too. God knows how I'm going to do the other dog parts though, the book suggests hiring a trainer if you have no friends with suitable dogs but I can't bloody find a trainer! Well I guess I'll just have to do what I can.
> 
> *Currently working on keeping my gob shut on a certain thread.*


Hmmm....off to catch up with what I've missed whilst out....


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Last bit as we were near the car was :mad2::mad2: again. Kilo was bitching, *Rudi became possessed with the need to zoom but, being on lead, launched a crocattack on me.* Right outside the cafe and car park bit, so maximum audience  :scared:. *So, he got tethered to a telegraph pole whilst I turned my back and had Kilo in a down / stay.* This was repeated for oh, about 25 minutes :yikes::frown2:. *Rudi had another mega tantrum, just in case one or two people had missed the show *:scared: Anyhow, finally tantrums stopped, Rudi calmed down and we walked very quickly to the car before anything else happened . My fault really - Rudi had become over tired (his eyes were bright red) and we were all frustrated. Obviously lots of advice was forthcoming from various experts .


Okay, I know I shouldn't laugh  But picturing Rudi having his crockattack tantrum is giving me the giggles. Nothing like a giant puppy launching himself at you in full hissy fit mode! I don't know why but it does make me laugh when they do that - especially when the hissy fit is directed at someone other than me! Our Breez (dane girl) had a few tantrums with DH and it would crack me up every time. Funnily, he was not equally amused  



Sarah1983 said:


> I've just realised, we start recall away from food tomorrow :yikes: With a typical stomach on legs Labrador :yikes: :yikes: He's passed all the previous stages with flying colours so fingers crossed he'll pass this one too. God knows how I'm going to do the other dog parts though, the book suggests hiring a trainer if you have no friends with suitable dogs but I can't bloody find a trainer! Well I guess I'll just have to do what I can.
> 
> Currently working on keeping my gob shut on a certain thread.


Got a playdate set up to do some recall away from favorite doggy friend - gonna do recalls and premack. Good luck! Great training strategy!

And what thread would that be? Did I miss something or start something?


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Okay, I know I shouldn't laugh  But picturing Rudi having his crockattack tantrum is giving me the giggles. Nothing like a giant puppy launching himself at you in full hissy fit mode! I don't know why but it does make me laugh when they do that - especially when the hissy fit is directed at someone other than me! Our Breez (dane girl) had a few tantrums with DH and it would crack me up every time. Funnily, he was not equally amused


I really wanted to laugh when he did it yesterday (or was it day before? can't recall!) but just had to turn my back. All he needs is a smile or a laugh as encouragement :scared:. It's funny now, but there wasn't much danger of me smiling after the morning they'd given me earlier :scared: .


----------



## tiatortilla

oh, why didn't i check this earlier... now i've got about a million pages to catch up on! i might just wait til tomorrow and join in properly then, sorry i'm being so useless on this thread!
fairly uneventful day today, tia did very well at not barking at other dogs on lead until going absolutely schizo at a boxer who did it back which makes her even worse, cue plenty of dirty looks from the other owner even though his dog was doing it too! off lead walkies were good though


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> It was that way for the pullers, however even if it was loose they were to be on the left. :3
> I just prefer her to be on my right.. I'm weird
> But I'll try it this way from now on.


There is no reason that you can't teach Shamaya to walk on your right if you prefer.

The left hand side is purely down to tradition and quite honestly unless you were intending to compete in obedience, working trials, Rally O, etc. (where the dogs have to be on the LH side of the handlers) I can't see it matters.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Sarah1983 said:


> I've just realised, we start recall away from food tomorrow :yikes: With a typical stomach on legs Labrador :yikes: :yikes: He's passed all the previous stages with flying colours so fingers crossed he'll pass this one too. God knows how I'm going to do the other dog parts though, the book suggests hiring a trainer if you have no friends with suitable dogs but I can't bloody find a trainer! Well I guess I'll just have to do what I can.
> 
> *Currently working on keeping my gob shut on a certain thread.*


Ooh, which thread?! Have I missed something?


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> There is no reason that you can't teach Shamaya to walk on your right if you prefer.
> 
> The left hand side is purely down to tradition and quite honestly unless you were intending to compete in obedience, working trials, Rally O, etc. (where the dogs have to be on the LH side of the handlers) I can't see it matters.


Fair enough! I never knew this. 
I know the... oh dear, the word has gone from my mind. The main womany person. (I must sound silly) Is KC registered, so I guess it all has to be done a certain way.

One thing I do like is it seems to be far better than the puppy class at the vets. More professional. I feel that this one lesson has been better for shamaya than the past.. 5? I think it is... not sure.. classes at the vets. 
At the vets they tend to just be let off lead and play.. good for socialising I suppose o:
But I like this new one far more.. Kinda wish that I started there.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Fair enough! I never knew this.
> I know the... oh dear, the word has gone from my mind. The main womany person. (I must sound silly) Is KC registered, so I guess it all has to be done a certain way.
> 
> One thing I do like is it seems to be far better than the puppy class at the vets. More professional. I feel that this one lesson has been better for shamaya than the past.. 5? I think it is... not sure.. classes at the vets.
> At the vets they tend to just be let off lead and play.. good for socialising I suppose o:
> But I like this new one far more.. Kinda wish that I started there.


Is it a KC registered club? If so they may well be doing KC Good Citizen's tests and for those you would need Shamaya to LLW on your left hand side.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Is it a KC registered club? If so they may well be doing KC Good Citizen's tests and for those you would need Shamaya to LLW on your left hand side.


Yeah, it's KC registered. I saw the certificate and something else (Brain's asleep and I can't remember what atm) before I handed over money. (Had to pay for 4 sessions up front) 
And I know they give certificates out to dogs that have highly improved.. I'll ask about the KC Good Citizen's tests next week. Chance is they do it. I could also just phone her up but she's hard to understand over the phone.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Yeah, it's KC registered. I saw the certificate and something else (Brain's asleep and I can't remember what atm) before I handed over money. (Had to pay for 4 sessions up front)
> And I know they give certificates out to dogs that have highly improved.. I'll ask about the KC Good Citizen's tests next week. Chance is they do it. I could also just phone her up but she's hard to understand over the phone.


Whereabouts are you in Kent and which club is it?


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Whereabouts are you in Kent and which club is it?


I'm in east kent.
The club is in St peters, Broadstairs. 
Welcome to Thanet District Council Community Portal - More information

edit : Just read the info, lol!

Dog training and puppy socialisation classes which are run by an experienced trainer. This club is Kennel Club listed and *promotes the Kennel Club good citizen tests*. Meet Tuesday evenings 6.30 onwards St. Peter's Memorial Hall, High Street, St. Peter's Broadstairs.


----------



## Guest

Zand has been okay today. Didn't flinch at traffic. Got worried when a lady tried to stroke him even when I told her not to touch him. 
Feel sorry for you having the crocopup dogless, makes me cringe in rememberance. 
Bought In the defence of dogs today. 
Have had synese (Spelling sorry) headaches all day. 

Me and the mothership had a wee argument today. 
She seems to think that this anxiety is my fault as I am an anxious person myself. I know it doesn't help, as in when Zand panics, I get nervy so it just gets worse etc etc, but making it out like its all my fault has not made me feel better. She is still refusing to use the headcollar.

Glad you are all okay. x


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer didn't bark at a young Turkish man who kinda sneaked up behind us and passed just a couple of feet away. He jumped a bit and watched him but it didn't trigger a lunging, barking, snarling hissy fit like it would have done a year ago :thumbup: His old owners let him run up to some of the Turks when he was a puppy and apparently they hit him with sticks coz they don't like dogs. His resulting aggression towards them was encouraged because it was seen as him protecting his people and his house and so by the time we got him he was putting on quite spectacular displays. Especially at night near the flat :yikes: He's still wary of them now but it's been a hell of a long time since he's done more than huff a little.


----------



## moonviolet

A lovely day at Tinker Towers (pfft) today. 

We're having coffee/tea breaks on the front door step and watchng the world go by from the safety of a place where scooters, pavement cyclists pushchairs, dogs etc etc etc dare not tread. Totally unflustered by anything today. (avoiding the park for the unruly dogs has meant we've lost a lot of the familiarity we had with these things previously).

She had her first bath of the year... sand bath that is. the sun had warmed some so she just had to take advantage. She's wired " special"

Great fun games class tonight much enthusiasm and good focus. 
Now the little traitor is snuggling with OH


----------



## Thorne

Knackered, didn't really sleep last night so it'll be bedtime for me in a minute. Looks like a healthy mix of positive and "eventful" days for everyone!

Cattery almost all day today but met a lovely Lab x Springer belonging to one of the Blue Cross staff. She's like a black, big-eared version of Breeze! Stole my seat the moment I got up to use the bin at lunch time 
In the last 2 days 3 dogs have come into the kennels and none gone out so it's fairly hectic down there at the moment, surprised by the relative lack of Christmas Present Puppies though. Suppose that can only be a good thing but there's still time...

Had a play with Paddy who heartbreakingly enough was in a super-focused work mode (really drivey!) then went all soppy. He's always happy to see people but it's rare to have him come over and lean you, asking for fuss. This clever, manipulative, lovable little sod has me wrapped well and truly round his finger! No-one wants to see him go and I'm sure there'll be a bit of blubbing from more than one person tomorrow afternoon.
Will put my camera in my bag tomorrow and hopefully get a couple of snaps to remember the big numpty by.

Little Bouncer is now available, has bags of character bless him!
Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
New photos for Ollie too, can't understand why people aren't queuing out the door for him!
Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre

Predictably my middle sister refused to walk the dogs and little sister can't take both so when I got home mum was just on her way in with them. All good apart from the hideous mud and a few worries from Breeze regarding not too distant bangs.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> I'm in east kent.
> The club is in St peters, Broadstairs.
> Welcome to Thanet District Council Community Portal - More information
> 
> edit : Just read the info, lol!
> 
> Dog training and puppy socialisation classes which are run by an experienced trainer. This club is Kennel Club listed and *promotes the Kennel Club good citizen tests*. Meet Tuesday evenings 6.30 onwards St. Peter's Memorial Hall, High Street, St. Peters Broadstairs.


So it's KC listed not registered. At least that explains why they want you to teach LLW on the left.

BTW I was in a convalescent home in Broadstairs for almost a year when I was about 7-8 yrs old. I was a sickly child.....


----------



## Guest

Wish I hadn't said nothing about on-lead dogs on another thread. I keep being quoted every few pages or so. I can't keep up! :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> Wish I hadn't said nothing about on-lead dogs on another thread. I keep being quoted every few pages or so. I can't keep up! :lol:


Come sit in the corner with me.... I'm trying to sit on my hands, regarding another thread, as I dont' think I could say anything nice.


----------



## MollySmith

I am sorry, I'm just going to update and catch up another time as I am beat.

Last day at work today so I feel berefit and have been tearful for most of it and overtired. I am sure that Molly picks up on this. I feel all out sorts and deconstructed or something. It's so strange.

I took her out before I went in today, I decided to go in late and come home later so I could get out. Anyway we met a dog about Molly's age, a girl. And it was so strange, they pottered about the field, ignored everyone else and then just sat down together. One would roll over and the other would sort of 'hug' and then the other did it and my girl appears to have met her face licking match, they both kept doing it. Perfectly happy and utterly uneventful but if you saw the, you'd think they were best buds and lived together.  I do really wonder if she'd like a friend, she's been so down since we got back. Did a five minute mad zoom around the garden and OH said she's slept all day apart from a reluctant trudge to the kitchen for food.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Come sit in the corner with me.... I'm trying to sit on my hands, regarding another thread, as I dont' think I could say anything nice.


Can I join you in the corner? My hands are going purple they've been sat on so hard.


----------



## Dogless

I know what that feels like MollySmith; I do hope that you manage some sleep and start to feel a little more 'OK' in the morning.


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Come sit in the corner with me.... I'm trying to sit on my hands, regarding another thread, as I dont' think I could say anything nice.


I do wish you could convey tone via the internet!

I keep seeing replies and I'm like I DIDN'T MEAN IT AS IF ALL DOGS WOULD BE ALRIGHT ONLEAD ONLY IMMA JUST SAYING ITS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD!! But of course I say it only in my head. :lol:

*Goes and sits in the corner with MV* :lol:

You should see me try and argue in real life Im one of those people who points in the air and then I kinda go "Ah.. um..." *puts hand down* :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Off to bed; you ladies behave....you know my thoughts on things I am certain .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Read loads of pages and getting more and more confused, which isn't hard 

Ouesi, bates is gorgeous. :001_wub:

Thorne, will you be updated about paddy? 

Dogless, a 25 min tantrum :yikes: glad tonight's walk was good.

Gr, your course sounds interesting. 

Sarah, your cross stitch is amazing. And good boy spen. 

Maria, love the biscuits

Mv, a sand bath ?????? Glad alls good at Tinks towers, bless her. 

K&m, Hope alls well with the foster.


Falling asleep and I know I've missed some but will try and catch up.

Well, I was going to be nosey too and have a look at 'other threads' but I'm just sooooo tired.

Franks evening walk was excellent. :thumbsup: gold star awarded to my little angel pie.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Come sit in the corner with me.... I'm trying to sit on my hands, regarding another thread, as I dont' think I could say anything nice.


Yes same here.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope everyone's ok here today.

Hal spent a good night in the crate- odd bit of whinging but not much.
He's really gobby and has no manners at all, it will be a seperate walk for all of them later I think.

The girls aren't keen but its because he's hyper, once he settles a bit I'm sure he'll be fine. Until then its all a bit :crazy:

He seems to pee a lot, so might take a sample when he goes if it doesn't calm down. The vets want a seperate visit to check his heart etc and then another to do his op. 

A French woman knocked the door yesterday, do I want a Dalmation  I'm a bloody magnet  I said no but to get me some photos and details and I'll speak to the rescues.


----------



## purpleskyes

I was eating cereal this morning and Hudson loves cereal so was walking along by my side as I was wandering around the kitchen. Used this opportunity to work on the heel command. Which I will try out later on when we go for a stroll during which I am going to try and get some snaps as its been weeks since I have bombed the forum with any and can use the fact he is on holiday as an excuse.

As he is getting older he has found his vocals abit more which I am finding annoying, he is tied up outside majority of the time on a lunge line so he still has plenty of room to wander around. This is for his own safety as my OH parents place isnt fenced in and his mum also owns a riding school which is just across the way and I wouldnt want him getting crushed by a horse. As soon as he spots a horse he starts barking like crazy and last night when his mum came to the door and a man was walking up the stairs to his b and b room he started barking like crazy...


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Hope everyone's ok here today.
> 
> Hal spent a good night in the crate- odd bit of whinging but not much.
> He's really gobby and has no manners at all, it will be a seperate walk for all of them later I think.
> 
> The girls aren't keen but its because he's hyper, once he settles a bit I'm sure he'll be fine. Until then its all a bit :crazy:
> 
> He seems to pee a lot, so might take a sample when he goes if it doesn't calm down. The vets want a seperate visit to check his heart etc and then another to do his op.
> 
> A French woman knocked the door yesterday, do I want a Dalmation  I'm a bloody magnet  I said no but to get me some photos and details and I'll speak to the rescues.


You see this is what happens when you call yourself Kat... you end up with all the dogs chasing you   Cripes what was the story with the Dally?

I'm glad Hal had an ok first night. He sounds a very excitable little chap, on the bright side i bet your girls are looking like angels  I hope he settles soon.

Kat you are so good.


----------



## moonviolet

F+F lovely to see you back and so positive :thumbup1:

MS Best wishes as you go through this transition period. 

Purp Having him tied up outside doens't sound ideal to me as he's going to be practising this barking at everything that appears in the area he sees unless you are with him to distract him and reward him for not barking. Can he not be inside when you aren't out with him? if he picks up this habit of barkign at people/horses on holiday there's a chance he'll bring it home. Probably not a habit you want to encourage.


----------



## Beth17

Well I was just thinking of taking the boys out but Sam has a few hives developing again so am going to hold off for a while just in case he needs vets. God knows what he's been doing this time,he was really itchy in the night again though. 

K&M blimey never a dull day for you 

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> You see this is what happens when you call yourself Kat... you end up with all the dogs chasing you   Cripes what was the story with the Dally?
> 
> I'm glad Hal had an ok first night. He sounds a very excitable little chap, on the bright side i bet your girls are looking like angels  I hope he settles soon.
> 
> Kat you are so good.


Am changing my name.


I dont know the story with the Dally, my French isn't too bad but she was rambling soooo fast I couldn't keep up. Hopefully she'll bring me details today.

My girls definately look like angels :001_huh: Teenage boys, who'd have em.

I am confident he'll be fine once he settles a bit- I'll get some pics later, Miss Tink will be fluttering her eyelashes as he's so handsome and proud looking.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Am changing my name.
> 
> 
> I dont know the story with the Dally, my French isn't too bad but she was rambling soooo fast I couldn't keep up. Hopefully she'll bring me details today.
> 
> My girls definately look like angels :001_huh: Teenage boys, who'd have em.
> 
> I am confident he'll be fine once he settles a bit- I'll get some pics later, Miss Tink will be fluttering her eyelashes as he's so handsome and proud looking.


She is a tart for the boys and has a particular soft spot for spaniels. We saw her friend the workign cocker the other day not seen him for months and it was zoomies followed by side by side running gently bumping into each other for the first 10 mins, the little floosie.


----------



## purpleskyes

moonviolet said:


> F+F lovely to see you back and so positive :thumbup1:
> 
> MS Best wishes as you go through this transition period.
> 
> Purp Having him tied up outside doens't sound ideal to me as he's going to be practising this barking at everything that appears in the area he sees unless you are with him to distract him and reward him for not barking. Can he not be inside when you aren't out with him? if he picks up this habit of barkign at people/horses on holiday there's a chance he'll bring it home. Probably not a habit you want to encourage.


I can't really have him indoors so much as his house training seems to have gone out the window and he keeps pooing and peeing everywhere in their house which isnt on really and they aren't very happy about. I mean like yesterday boyfriend let him outside in the morning for a wee/poo before giving him his breakfast indoors, he came indoors and did a poo on their kitchen floor.

The day before that he has been outside for maybe an hour and half and I let him indoors and he did a wee on their floor within 5 mins, he is driving me mental at the moment.


----------



## GingerRogers

Hope Hal settles down soon before he teaches your angels some bad behaviour K&M. STEP AWAY FROM THE SPOTTY DOG, seriously what is wrong with the people around you, most of my experience of french dog owners is of people who don't really care what their dog is up to so wouldn't dream of re-homing it, they just let it wander and it gets fed wherever it happens to be. When we camped in our friends garden their neighbours dog scared the living daylight out of us in the middle of the night sniffing round our tent at 3am  they are English but their own dog wanders all over.

MS - hope you are feeling better today, enjoy the extra time with your beautiful girl.

Nikki - puppy time 

I must be feeling extra insensitive (there's a first time for everything, lol ) as I cant pick the threads you are all trying to avoid, someone let me know I want scandal and outrage!!

Well day 4 of minimal walks (still going out 3 times, I can't help it , but they are only short and at quiet times so far only seen a boxer who crept up behind us and a poodle), doing lots of training. Last night I tried the 101 box game as a bit of fun, she nosed it straight away, then started shoving it about quite hard but couldn't get much more and she started to lie down, perhaps I tried for too long. 
Then despite getting go to mat quickly she now just lays down near it, she will get up after about 20 secs and go to it but she has started to roll it up with her nose then their is less for her to lie down on.

Any one got any tips on how to move her on from default 'lie down and cross my paws looking cute'?

I also found that she likes to do some fun stuff after the serious and roll over is now her favourite


----------



## Dogless

k&m - a spot too? :skep:. You really are a magnet, what is it with folk giving their dogs away at present :frown2: . There's lots being given away here at the moment too - most around 4 months of age though so I am guessing chrimbo pups .

Beth - hope Sam is OK.

Good walk with the CHs - they walked nicely to the offlead fields / open dog sewer :frown2: and had a good play. When we'd nearly finished anyway the woman with the BC that Kilo seems convinced is an in season bitch came in; he went on the lead as soon as they started to come over as he whines, drools, teeth chatters and tries to hump . Put Rudi onlead so he doesn't get into the habit of just greeting, then let him off. He took BC's ball a few times and then he too tried to hump   which he hasn't done at all, ever - even excited puppy humping . He went onlead too and it was a good opportunity to practise his 'watch' as BC ran about after his ball and I talked to BC's human. Both boys sat very nicely on relaxed leads :thumbup1:. Rudi didn't get many fusses as he was in over excited, tired puppy mode and tried to launch himself at human with gusto whenever she went to fuss him after the first fusses which he stood nicely for.

Then - they both walked nicely home; one attempt at jumping and biting but very quick and stopped as soon as I stood still.

But...but....the best thing....BC's human said "I watched you walk and they both had slack leads, that's really good and they're sat on slack leads as mine runs about, mine is nearly two and still pulls" . Smug? Me? Just a little . Next time she sees us Rudi will probably be in tantrum mode . That will take me down a peg or two :skep:.


----------



## Sarah1983

purpleskyes said:


> I can't really have him indoors so much as his house training seems to have gone out the window and he keeps pooing and peeing everywhere in their house which isnt on really and they aren't very happy about. I mean like yesterday boyfriend let him outside in the morning for a wee/poo before giving him his breakfast indoors, he came indoors and did a poo on their kitchen floor.
> 
> The day before that he has been outside for maybe an hour and half and I let him indoors and he did a wee on their floor within 5 mins, he is driving me mental at the moment.


If you're in a new place then you need to go back to the very basics on house training with him. It's something I've found hasn't generalised with any of my dogs, take them to someone elses house and they need to be watched lie a hawk the first couple of days and taught that the same rules apply.


----------



## Guest

Had a kinda good walk. Walked nicely, and just watched as a small child ran towards us. Freaked out when a little old man was talking to his friend and gestured with a walking stick. Zander properly bucked and almost got hit by a van. He kept trying to drag me home after that.


----------



## L/C

Sorry I have been awol ladies - we have been interviewing for a new minion for me at work and it's been all hands on deck as we are short staffed. Still waiting for the results of the ultrasound as they said they saw some nodules so the radiologist has to look at it rather then just the technician. Which isn't massively encouraging. Have an appointment tomorrow for blood test results but not sure if they'll have the ultrasound ones (they said a week).

So - bleh. 

Ely is back on normal walks and is doing fine in terms of soundness but he is a lot more nervous so I'm working on building his confidence again. He's fine with the dogs he knows but is very anxious around unfamiliar ones. So we've been doing a lot of stopping and watching. He's starting to relax a bit but is still more reactive then I'd like.

Gypsy continues to be my angel - we had a slight tantrum in the house last night as I didn't take her on my run (I was doing 5 miles on pavement and it's just too much for her leg). But we did some scentwork for the first time in ages (I've been neglecting her training sessions for my own training and I feel horribly guilty about that). I can now hide a sponge scented with vanilla essence out of her sight and she will come in and search for it. The next step is indicating in some way (haven't decided what signal to use yet) and then picking the item that is scented out of a pile of similar ones.

And in a very bizarre turn of events - I helped a friend out over the weekend with a training session to work on some basics (downs, down-stays, LLW and drop/swap) and she insisted on paying me for it. And then she has phoned me today to say another friend of hers would like to hire me for a session. I said I'd have to think about it. Not sure if I feel right taking money for it...


----------



## Dogless

L/C - the waiting is hard; do hope you know what's going on ASAP.



L/C said:


> And in a very bizarre turn of events - I helped a friend out over the weekend with a training session to work on some basics (downs, down-stays, LLW and drop/swap) and she insisted on paying me for it. And then she has phoned me today to say another friend of hers would like to hire me for a session. I said I'd have to think about it. Not sure if I feel right taking money for it...


Well; you aren't claiming to be anything that you are not, but are providing valuable help to folk who want and need it - I would feel odd accepting money too but actually, why not?


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> If you're in a new place then you need to go back to the very basics on house training with him. It's something I've found hasn't generalised with any of my dogs, take them to someone elses house and they need to be watched lie a hawk the first couple of days and taught that the same rules apply.


Totally agree with this. 

L/C hope you don't have to wait too long for answers

L/O sorry your walk was mixed. Dogless how lovely to get a compliment.

We've had a post box walk followed by a noisy walk on the ranges now it's coffee on the front step. Nice weather for it


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C - the waiting is hard; do hope you know what's going on ASAP.
> 
> Well; you aren't claiming to be anything that you are not, but are providing valuable help to folk who want and need it - I would feel odd accepting money too but actually, why not?


Does that mean I can call myself a dog trainer? Granny will be spinning!  :lol:

I'm just sort of ignoring it at the moment - I refuse to dwell on it and frighten myself. OH has banned me from the NHS site and WebMD.


----------



## Guest

Mum has just come out with a gem
"Maybe we should stop giving him treats!" :lol:


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> Mum has just come out with a gem
> "Maybe we should stop giving him treats!" :lol:


What do you feed Zand? The treats thing is a bit mad but he might settle a bit better on a different food. Gypsy can't have lamb as it seems to make her very hyperactive (particularly lamb tripe).


----------



## Guest

L/C said:


> What do you feed Zand? The treats thing is a bit mad but he might settle a bit better on a different food. Gypsy can't have lamb as it seems to make her very hyperactive (particularly lamb tripe).


Um, don't shoot me, but currently Supadog Greyhound and Lurcher food. He seems okay with it.

Treatwise, winalot shapes cause they're big and he has to crunch them as a dog passes.

*dives for cover*


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Does that mean I can call myself a dog trainer? Granny will be spinning!  :lol:
> 
> I'm just sort of ignoring it at the moment - I refuse to dwell on it and frighten myself. OH has banned me from the NHS site and WebMD.


I reckon Grannie will send Holly Bolly to chomp your arm and see what you're made of :devil:.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Um, don't shoot me, but currently Supadog Greyhound and Lurcher food. He seems okay with it.
> 
> Treatwise, winalot shapes cause they're big and he has to crunch them as a dog passes.
> 
> *dives for cover*


When someone at work used to give Kilo Winalot shapes he went a bit doolally....


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> When someone at work used to give Kilo Winalot shapes he went a bit doolally....


:

Well, I still have a celebrations tin worth to get through. Dang it.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> :
> 
> Well, I still have a celebrations tin worth to get through. Dang it.


You could do a trial without maybe? Those and the PAH own version that they give at the tills are like rocket fuel for these two! Kilo was given loads once and I had a really rough afternoon with him .


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> You could do a trial without maybe? Those and the PAH own version that they give at the tills are like rocket fuel for these two! Kilo was given loads once and I had a really rough afternoon with him .


how long would u suggest? I can just use his kibble as treats if needed


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> how long would u suggest? I can just use his kibble as treats if needed


I really don't know I'm afraid; won't take long I wouldn't have thought to see if it makes a difference.


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> Um, don't shoot me, but currently Supadog Greyhound and Lurcher food. He seems okay with it.
> 
> Treatwise, winalot shapes cause they're big and he has to crunch them as a dog passes.
> 
> *dives for cover*


If it were me I would consider changing him - for cost more then anything. I would have thought you must get through about a bag a month at his size? If you switched to something with a higher meat content and a lower filler content then you would probably get two months out of one bag as he would need less.

With my pointies I've found they've never settled on the richer foods (applaws, eden, orijen etc.) and they gave them the runs. Fish4Dogs has a lower meat content but they both do very well on it. For the two of them for three days of food (the other four days they have raw) a 12kg bag lasts 2 months - they have about 225g - 250g a day each.



Dogless said:


> I reckon Grannie will send Holly Bolly to chomp your arm and see what you're made of :devil:.


----------



## Guest

I shall look at the winalot packaging while in morriosons. If they have them EEC additives that contribute to hyperness than I shall give it a miss. 
Mum has just yelled "BUT HE'S NOT HYPER!?" :skep: :lol:


----------



## Guest

L/C said:


> If it were me I would consider changing him - for cost more then anything. I would have thought you must get through about a bag a month at his size? If you switched to something with a higher meat content and a lower filler content then you would probably get two months out of one bag as he would need less.
> 
> With my pointies I've found they've never settled on the richer foods (applaws, eden, orijen etc.) and they gave them the runs. Fish4Dogs has a lower meat content but they both do very well on it. For the two of them for three days of food (the other four days they have raw) a 12kg bag lasts 2 months - they have about 225g - 250g a day each.


Well I'll change it I think after this bag, (bought a 13kg one the other day).


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I shall look at the winalot packaging while in morriosons. If they have them EEC additives that contribute to hyperness than I shall give it a miss.
> Mum has just yelled "BUT HE'S NOT HYPER!?" :skep: :lol:


Here you go: Ingredients
Cereals, Meat and animal derivatives, Derivatives of vegetable origin (of which charcoal min 4% in Paw Print biscuit), Minerals (of which 1.6% calcium diphosphate and 1% calcium carbonate), Oils and fats.
With antioxidants and coloured with EC additives
Nutritional Data
Nutrition
Typical values per 100g
Protein 14g
Fibre 1.5g
Oil 5.5%
Ash 6.5%
Copper 29mg/kg
Calcium 1.1mg


----------



## Sarah1983

I'd definitely be looking into food causing some of his issues. We gave Spencer Wagg for a few days, never again :yikes: I would think treats could very easily have the same effect.

Have you thought about something like a tube of Primula? If it's the being engrossed in a treat that stops him reacting then chances are licking a tube of cheese or something would have the same effect.


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> I'd definitely be looking into food causing some of his issues. We gave Spencer Wagg for a few days, never again :yikes: I would think treats could very easily have the same effect.
> 
> *Have you thought about something like a tube of Primula? If it's the being engrossed in a treat that stops him reacting then chances are licking a tube of cheese or something would have the same effect.*


Oh yes - I love primula. It's great for distracting Gypsy around fleeing wildlife. :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Them shapes are odd, they turned Rorys poo green once when our local muppet/dog walker/poacher fed him loads - however 'when we was little' my nan had an ice cream tub under her sink and me and my cousin used to go raid it, yes for us , so there may be some unknown attractive additives in there. I don't know but I have always been told to use easy eating treats and give loads of small bits to keep occupied while distracting. But I make liver cake, I like the smell, my last batch is such a nice consistency I reckon I could eat it (despite the shape thing I haven't tried honest) we give teeny smaller than a finger nail bits and lots of them.

Not sure why stopping treats would make Zand less nervy anyway  although his food could have something to do with it. Like dogless says, a trial shouldn't take long, get some new treats and a small bag of F4D like L/C says and try him for a week. I don't think kibble as treats will work long term unless he really really likes it as they wont be treats then will they. ETA Sarahs idea is great too and you can eat some too if you get a funny turn 

L/C sorry you are still waiting  but glad your OH is in on it though, not something you should panic about on your own. As far as paying for your help, I would feel funny for friends but if its friend of a friend and they are happy with what you do then why not. You give great advice on here, as long as you don't say you are anything you are not eg: I have to remind all my clients I am *not *an architect as I don't have the RIBA status (Architect is copyrighted ), but I then go on to tell them I can do a better job though  naturally I am a woman after all


----------



## tiatortilla

I've caught up! Nothing of any value to offer anyone but I read the posts and that's the main thing 
We just got back from our walk - no one about today (presumably because it's not sunny like it was yesterday, tut!) so we had the field to ourselves. Used that as an excuse for a bit of "stay"ing and "leave its", Tia was very good 
And the best part of the walk was her rolling on a worm! Not poo or mud like a normal dog, a worm lol. I spent about 5 minutes walking round giggling to myself after that


----------



## Dogless

Kilo's breeder has got back to me; they don't know sufficient about Suprelorin to advise but are talking to some friends in Oz for me who apparently know lots about this sort of stuff. They aren't worried about the relationship with Rudi. I can't stop puzzling all this stuff around in my head.


----------



## Beth17

Well the hives haven't really come to anything so we went to the fields. Both boys were good and it was quiet up there. Oscar was a bit of an twit when Sam was playing with the toy.

However I wormed him last night as he was due and this morning it looks like he has roundworms in his poo :frown2: which is rather disgusting although not surprising as he is such a pain for eating soil. Trouble is I'm now paranoid I've caught them from him 
Honestly I've never had anything like this with Oscar, Sam just seems to be one of these that will attract trouble.

Dogless what a good walk enjoy basking in the glory 

L/C I'm glad the pointies are ok. I'm awful for using dr google and getting myself in a tiz. 

LO It will be interesting to see if food does make a difference. I use the burgess but the sensitive ones. The boys do well on it and don't need a lot to keep condition.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless it's lovely your breeders are so supportive


----------



## tiatortilla

L/C said:


> Oh yes - I love primula. It's great for distracting Gypsy around fleeing wildlife. :lol:


Another primula fan here  It's fab for getting their attention!


----------



## Sarah1983

tiatortilla said:


> And the best part of the walk was her rolling on a worm! Not poo or mud like a normal dog, a worm lol. I spent about 5 minutes walking round giggling to myself after that


The only thing my collie ever rolled in was a cockle we dropped on the floor. They're very strange at times aren't they?


----------



## kat&molly

LO-defo try and change the food. I dont know about my other girls[because I learnt my lesson] but Moll had colours with colours and additives and- never again.:frown2: Its amazing the difference food can make.

I'm having a problem with what to feed Hal. I went in to the new pet shop and asked for the best food without cereals . The girl tried to give me the spiel about a particular one, Salmon and Rice- the rice was 50%  and they wanted 50 euros a bag. I'd pay if it was good.
He cant have Raw- because whoever takes him probably wont want to feed it- he had stew for tea and breakfast and some Tuna in a kong.

Ginge- the dogs here, in these parts anyway, dont roam really. Mostly they're tied up outside.

Beth- hope Sams ok.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Hope Hal settles down soon before he teaches your angels some bad behaviour K&M. STEP AWAY FROM THE
> I must be feeling extra insensitive (there's a first time for everything, lol ) as I cant pick the threads you are all trying to avoid, someone let me know I want scandal and outrage!!
> 
> *Well day 4 of minimal walks (still going out 3 times, I can't help it , but they are only short and at quiet times so far only seen a boxer who crept up behind us and a poodle), doing lots of training. Last night I tried the 101 box game as a bit of fun, she nosed it straight away, then started shoving it about quite hard but couldn't get much more and she started to lie down, perhaps I tried for too long. *
> *Then despite getting go to mat quickly she now just lays down near it, she will get up after about 20 secs and go to it but she has started to roll it up with her nose then their is less for her to lie down on.*
> 
> Any one got any tips on how to move her on from default 'lie down and cross my paws looking cute'?
> 
> I also found that she likes to do some fun stuff after the serious and roll over is now her favourite


You don't think the box game and lying on the mat is confusing her and she's nosing the mat looking for the treat?


----------



## tiatortilla

Sarah1983 said:


> The only thing my collie ever rolled in was a cockle we dropped on the floor. They're very strange at times aren't they?


Haha, I'm sure cockles smell interesting, do worms smell?!
She is a bit of a roller, she just likes writhing around on her back more than actually rolling IN stuff though. I saw her sniffing it and was like, oh no sh*t, don't eat it and then she just rolled on it... I'm not sure why I find it so hilarious, I'm giggling again just thinking about it!


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Sorry I have been awol ladies - we have been interviewing for a new minion for me at work and it's been all hands on deck as we are short staffed. Still waiting for the results of the ultrasound as they said they saw some nodules so the radiologist has to look at it rather then just the technician. Which isn't massively encouraging. Have an appointment tomorrow for blood test results but not sure if they'll have the ultrasound ones (they said a week).
> 
> So - bleh.
> 
> Ely is back on normal walks and is doing fine in terms of soundness but he is a lot more nervous so I'm working on building his confidence again. He's fine with the dogs he knows but is very anxious around unfamiliar ones. So we've been doing a lot of stopping and watching. He's starting to relax a bit but is still more reactive then I'd like.
> 
> Gypsy continues to be my angel - we had a slight tantrum in the house last night as I didn't take her on my run (I was doing 5 miles on pavement and it's just too much for her leg). But we did some scentwork for the first time in ages (I've been neglecting her training sessions for my own training and I feel horribly guilty about that). I can now hide a sponge scented with vanilla essence out of her sight and she will come in and search for it. The next step is indicating in some way (haven't decided what signal to use yet) and then picking the item that is scented out of a pile of similar ones.
> 
> *And in a very bizarre turn of events - I helped a friend out over the weekend with a training session to work on some basics (downs, down-stays, LLW and drop/swap) and she insisted on paying me for it. And then she has phoned me today to say another friend of hers would like to hire me for a session. I said I'd have to think about it. Not sure if I feel right taking money for it...*




Why not? Look at it from your friend's point of view. She obviously feels happier to pay for taking up your time and if she's recommended you to another friend she is very pleased with the help and advice you offered.


----------



## Symone

Well.. Shamaya's doing well-ish! (Ish for she was being a cheeky devil when I was putting out the rubbish.)
I got my fish4dogs sample pack today. (I plan on feeding it along with Raw when we live in Switzerland.. It'll be so much easier money wise) 
She loves the training treats! Already taught her they come out of this special bag which I will always wear on my left to encourage her to walk there. 
She also loves the small salmon pellets (Which she thought was treats.. She was really happy getting them) Not so fond on the large ones but I think that's because she was full up 
Thought the fish skins was a toy. I might just save them for in a month or so. They should hold.
Going to try her on the moose tonight 

Walk went well-ish. She did try to pull but I just moved her back to my left hand side with "beside" as a command. It's what the dog trainer suggested. (Although I can't remember what command she said  ) She said give her treats if she stays there for over 1 min, slowly increasing the time between it, but don't make a fuss. Do it every time she pulls or leaves my side.
Well, she didn't really understand it until the end (Which was the end for I needed a nice cup of tea!), but then she was trying to pull as well. I think she was annoyed because we didn't go to the beach.
If she does better on her walk when she wakes up she will go there for a treat.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Here you go: Ingredients
> Cereals, Meat and animal derivatives, Derivatives of vegetable origin (of which charcoal min 4% in Paw Print biscuit), Minerals (of which 1.6% calcium diphosphate and 1% calcium carbonate), Oils and fats.
> With antioxidants and coloured with EC additives
> Nutritional Data
> Nutrition
> Typical values per 100g
> Protein 14g
> Fibre 1.5g
> Oil 5.5%
> Ash 6.5%
> Copper 29mg/kg
> Calcium 1.1mg


Perhaps I ought to buy Holly a bag to hype her up then....


----------



## Sarah1983

Symone said:


> She said give her treats if she stays there for over 1 min, slowly increasing the time between it, but don't make a fuss. Do it every time she pulls or leaves my side.


1 minute before getting a reward is far too long for a dog who's just starting to learn it imo. I'd be rewarding for a couple of seconds at first and gradually increase the time between treats from that.


----------



## L/C

Oh and in more positive news I have lost a stone since new year - so 2lbs a week. Am very proud of myself.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well done L/C, that's awesome! I've lost 4lbs in that time lol. But a loss is a loss and considering the first 3 weeks I lost nothing at all it's not really that bad. 

I just bought Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training Crazy Dogs from Over the Top to Under Control coz someone recommended it on a dog training facebook group. I think I may have book buying issues.


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Well done L/C, that's awesome! I've lost 4lbs in that time lol. But a loss is a loss and considering the first 3 weeks I lost nothing at all it's not really that bad.
> 
> I just bought F*ired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training Crazy Dogs from Over the Top to Under Control* coz someone recommended it on a dog training facebook group. I think I may have book buying issues.


Ooh I've never heard of that one. Is it on kindle or just hard copy?

*off to Amazon*


----------



## L/C

L/C said:


> Ooh I've never heard of that one. Is it on kindle or just hard copy?
> 
> *off to Amazon*


It's on kindle for £5.10. Should I? Shouldn't I?

*dithers*


----------



## Sarah1983

L/C said:


> It's on kindle for £5.10. Should I? Shouldn't I?
> 
> *dithers*


I'll be reading it tonight so if you want to wait I'll let you know whether I think it's any good lol.


----------



## L/C

L/C said:


> Ooh I've never heard of that one. Is it on kindle or just hard copy?
> 
> *off to Amazon*





Sarah1983 said:


> I'll be reading it tonight so if you want to wait I'll let you know whether I think it's any good lol.


Too late - just bought it.


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> I shall look at the winalot packaging while in morriosons. If they have them EEC additives that contribute to hyperness than I shall give it a miss.
> Mum has just yelled "BUT HE'S NOT HYPER!?" :skep: :lol:


I make up huge treats for Molly - I use a tin of carrots, tin of peas, wholemeal flour, skimmed dried milk, an egg and olive oil whizzed in the Magimix and cut into large biscuit shapes. She has to work on them. I forget the quantities but if you're interested I can dig them out and post them. I understand what you mean about giving them something to work on whilst a dog passes and these do well as does primula.

Molly and I had lead lessons today and she's doing massively well, good as gold for her. She's a bit tuggy when she sees a passing dog and a wee whimper but nothing like the somersaults and roaring of the summer. I've been given permission to go a group walk. Dimwit goes each week and now we can too.

We have a training plan in place for me and her now I'm here at home. Anytime about now she'll wake up and want to play. So I shall reward her with playtime and then take her out for a lead walk for half an hour with the clicker, treats and discs and get her used to the side streets. Either that or take her on a usual off lead play and then stop at a village and walk her around on her lead, gradually building up to a small town around here (Saffron Walden) which can be busyish but not as bad as parts of Cambridge. It's a bit like the sort of town we'd go to visit on holidays but haven't done with her yet. Well we did but she went mental and we had to leave.

Pleased with her but I have got to work on my nervousness about this and try to relax. I shan't walk her out until I feel I can really stop stressing myself. Even writing about it worries me!


----------



## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> Pleased with her but I have got to work on my nervousness about this and try to relax. I shan't walk her out until I feel I can really stop stressing myself. Even writing about it worries me!


I know that feeling. I still get anxious about walking Spencer at times. Especially if I know we're likely to meet other dogs. It's not even his behaviour that stresses me out, it's Ruperts!


----------



## Symone

Urgh. I'm working really hard on keeping my cool right now.
I bumped into a friend while walking shamaya.. thankfully he listened to me after 3 times of me saying don't push her away when taking her toy.. (She loves playing tug before fetch) Really riled me up though.
But then he pretty much invited himself in to our flat despite saying he was going home.. I don't want guests over, I've not tidied. I said this and he said "I don't care i can be messy too) Then goes to play the xbox.. didn't ask :/ And pretty much ordered me to play too but I said no.
Ended up sitting on the floor. I've taught shamaya that when I'm on the floor it's play time. She didn't understand he didn't want to play. He kept pushing her away and told her to eff off. I told him to sit on the sofa and he moaned at me.
It's her home not his. I said this to the OH but he just crated her.
I feel really angry right now. Why should she be crated for something I reward her for? (Play on the floor) I set aside time to play with her and it's always on the floor. She knows not to play with us when we're busy on the pc or something. 
Think i'll just say i'm busy next time. Put my foot down. I feel rather angry and upset right now.

Other than that the walk went wellish.. She was really good at stopping and coming to our side before we got to the beach entrance. I took a photo of her pulling there so you can see how she is. 
She got picked up when she wouldn't stop pulling and we carried her on to the beach - she doesn't like being carried now, but I felt she still deserved the reward of the beach for how nicely she walked there. I didn't want her to see pulling as a way to get there though hence the carry.

Edit : Here's a pic of her pulling, you can see how excited she gets when close to the beach (Literally 15 steps away from the sand) 
Thankfully she didn't pull like this on the way there


----------



## Guest

WELL THEN, the shapes are full of crap. 
The celebrations tin shall be donated to local dogs charity thing.
Might not change his actual food as he seems to be alright on that. One thing at a time. So I'll do a winalot free trial till friday (payday then, I can order some good treats). 

I bought some diced pig heart will that do? Or bits of veg? 

WHAT ARE GOOD TREATS?

We've just had a small clicker training session. Tried waiting for him to come near me so I can start to shape the "Circle" around me. I just got stared at. 
So, instead of getting frustrated, I did some find it games with his dinner (he has an early dinner), sniffer dog is not in my dogs future :lol:


----------



## Symone

LurcherOwner said:


> WELL THEN, the shapes are full of crap.
> The celebrations tin shall be donated to local dogs charity thing.
> Might not change his actual food as he seems to be alright on that. One thing at a time. So I'll do a winalot free trial till friday (payday then, I can order some good treats).
> 
> I bought some diced pig heart will that do? Or bits of veg?
> 
> WHAT ARE GOOD TREATS?
> 
> We've just had a small clicker training session. Tried waiting for him to come near me so I can start to shape the "Circle" around me. I just got stared at.
> So, instead of getting frustrated, I did some find it games with his dinner (he has an early dinner), sniffer dog is not in my dogs future :lol:


What about some dried liver? Boil for like 10 mins then in the oven for 20. Make sure it doesn't burn, though.. I burnt my last batch and shamaya didn't touch them!


----------



## L/C

LurcherOwner said:


> WELL THEN, the shapes are full of crap.
> The celebrations tin shall be donated to local dogs charity thing.
> Might not change his actual food as he seems to be alright on that. One thing at a time. So I'll do a winalot free trial till friday (payday then, I can order some good treats).
> 
> *I bought some diced pig heart will that do?* Or bits of veg?
> 
> WHAT ARE GOOD TREATS?
> 
> We've just had a small clicker training session. Tried waiting for him to come near me so I can start to shape the "Circle" around me. I just got stared at.
> So, instead of getting frustrated, I did some find it games with his dinner (he has an early dinner), sniffer dog is not in my dogs future :lol:


Diced pigs heart is great. Boil it first and then bake it in the oven on a low heat for an hour or so. It will dry out and you can use it a biscuit type treat. It'll be a bit chewy so providing he can't swallow it whole it will take him a bit longer to eat.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> You don't think the box game and lying on the mat is confusing her and she's nosing the mat looking for the treat?


 Lol, you might think but we only played the box game last night for the first time  and the mat thing she did before unless :idea:...... perhaps the little monkey can remember when I did some scent work a couple of weeks back with cheese under kitchen roll (I know kitchen roll was not ideal but I couldn't think of anything else at the time)??? but she is looking to me after she does it, so its not as if she expects the treat to be under there and she will still lie on the rolled up mat  I am just using an old pashmina style scarf as it was suggested to use something portable that they had never seen before but perhaps I need something more 'solid' what would you recommend?



Sarah1983 said:


> 1 minute before getting a reward is far too long for a dog who's just starting to learn it imo. I'd be rewarding for a couple of seconds at first and gradually increase the time between treats from that.


 I would agree with that, we would never get anywhere if I expected a whole minute of LLW before rewarding, not sure I have ever got a whole minute, mmm  now I have a target to aim for instead of randomly trying and giving it up.



Sarah1983 said:


> Well done L/C, that's awesome! I've lost 4lbs in that time lol. But a loss is a loss and considering the first 3 weeks I lost nothing at all it's not really that bad.


Well done both of you, its making that start Sarah thats the hardest at least now you have something to spur you on.

And you all made me go look at books,  I may have downloaded some samples, thing is I don't want to confuse myself while doing this course.


----------



## Guest

Currently reading tiny bits of In the Defence of Dogs. Like I literally just pick a random page and read that, then go off and do something else, cause YAY for synese headaches. :lol:
Really interesting bit about fear, and about how dogs cannot tell themselves to calm down. Very cool.

May pop down the shop and get some reduced veggies to use as treats. I'll but them in the freezer so they'll last a couple days.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Currently reading tiny bits of In the Defence of Dogs. Like I literally just pick a random page and read that, then go off and do something else, cause YAY for synese headaches. :lol:
> Really interesting bit about fear, and about how dogs cannot tell themselves to calm down. Very cool.
> 
> May pop down the shop and get some reduced veggies to use as treats. I'll but them in the freezer so they'll last a couple days.


Sorry knew there was something else I meant to say. Which was use anything that he likes, if he likes veggies then that will be fine, ninja doesn't really do them except peppers and I am not sure even they would be enough to make her go ooh nice pepper! Lol.


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry knew there was something else I meant to say. Which was use anything that he likes, if he likes veggies then that will be fine, ninja doesn't really do them except peppers and I am not sure even they would be enough to make her go ooh nice pepper! Lol.


Won't really matter if its reduced and it doesn't make him less distracted as I can fill a kong with it.

Are mushrooms safe??


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Oh and in more positive news I have lost a stone since new year - so 2lbs a week. Am very proud of myself.


Gosh I'm impressed.....:thumbup1:

I've lost 2 lb in the last month but I've been pretty naughty.

Once the weather warms up a bit I really must go back on the awful Ryvita.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> WELL THEN, the shapes are full of crap.
> The celebrations tin shall be donated to local dogs charity thing.
> Might not change his actual food as he seems to be alright on that. One thing at a time. So I'll do a winalot free trial till friday (payday then, I can order some good treats).
> 
> I bought some diced pig heart will that do? Or bits of veg?
> 
> WHAT ARE GOOD TREATS?
> 
> We've just had a small clicker training session. Tried waiting for him to come near me so I can start to shape the "Circle" around me. I just got stared at.
> So, instead of getting frustrated, I did some find it games with his dinner (he has an early dinner), sniffer dog is not in my dogs future :lol:


I'm lazy and don't make my own titbits. Instead I buy a packet of 40 cocktail sausages from Tescos for about £2.00 and chop them up. I think they are at least healthier than the hot dog type sausages which are full of E numbers and hype the dogs up.

To start the circle when Zand is standing in front of you staring, have the clicker in one hand and a tit-bit in the other and put your hand out to offer him the tit-bit. If he moves towards the tit-bit, click and drop the tit-bit on the floor. Repeat several times and then start throwing the tit-bit slightly behind you. Once he's got that you would lure him towards you with the tit-bit and throw it behind your legs, etc. etc.


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> WHAT ARE GOOD TREATS?


Lol, now that seems to depend on the dog. Everyone raves about liver cake, Rupert was horrified by it and acted like I was trying to poison him. Spencer is going nuts for warm meat with melted cheese (nuked in the microwave for 30 seconds before I go out) at the moment but it seems it's almost as good cold as warm. Good job since keeping it warm for a couple of hours is tricky. Shadows ultimate treat was cinnamon. Anything at all with cinnamon in it.

Spen will happily work for fruit and veg in low distraction settings but no way they'll cut it around big distractions. I quite often mix together some diced carrot, diced apple and diced chicken or sausage though and he gets whatever I pull out of the bag. I tend to carry something high value (squeezy cheese or the warm meat) so that I can quickly get a top reward out if he has a moment of genius or I need it for a big distraction


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, you might think but we only played the box game last night for the first time  and the mat thing she did before unless :idea:...... perhaps the little monkey can remember when I did some scent work a couple of weeks back with cheese under kitchen roll (I know kitchen roll was not ideal but I couldn't think of anything else at the time)??? but she is looking to me after she does it, so its not as if she expects the treat to be under there and she will still lie on the rolled *up mat  I am just using an old pashmina style scarf as it was suggested to use something portable that they had never seen before but perhaps I need something more 'solid' what would you recommend?*
> 
> You've lost me (it's not hard). Are you using the scarf as the 'mat'?


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lol, you might think but we only played the box game last night for the first time  and the mat thing she did before unless :idea:...... perhaps the little monkey can remember when I did some scent work a couple of weeks back with cheese under kitchen roll (I know kitchen roll was not ideal but I couldn't think of anything else at the time)??? but she is looking to me after she does it, so its not as if she expects the treat to be under there and she will still lie on the rolled *up mat  I am just using an old pashmina style scarf as it was suggested to use something portable that they had never seen before but perhaps I need something more 'solid' what would you recommend?*
> 
> You've lost me (it's not hard). Are you using the scarf as the 'mat'?
> 
> 
> 
> Yes , I take it thats bad,  the trainer was using what looked like an old tablecloth or something so I thought that would be fine  ohhhh!
Click to expand...


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Gosh I'm impressed.....:thumbup1:
> 
> I've lost 2 lb in the last month but I've been pretty naughty.
> 
> Once the weather warms up a bit I really must go back on the awful Ryvita.


I keep thinking the ryvita will come out today and then its cold so I need warm rubbish food.


----------



## Sarah1983

I use a towel for mat work, it works for us. The problem with the more "solid" mats is that they're less portable and not as easy to fit in a backpack. Spen tried all sorts of things with the towel at first but as he only got his click and treat for lying on it the other behaviours died out. I've thought about getting a car mat though since they're different to anything else and not so huge and inflexible that I couldn't fit it in my backpack.


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Gosh I'm impressed.....:thumbup1:
> 
> I've lost 2 lb in the last month but I've been pretty naughty.
> 
> Once the weather warms up a bit I really must go back on the awful Ryvita.





GingerRogers said:


> I keep thinking the ryvita will come out today and then its cold so I need warm rubbish food.


It's partly training for terrifying obstacle course and potential mental cycle race (still undecided on that) and a concious diet change. I've cut carbs and upped protein as I need to build muscle so I'm eating on average between 100 and 120g of protein a day. Average day:

Breakfast - 2 bananas

Lunch - Spinach with roasted sweet potato and protein source (usually meat like steak or chicken and some cheese)

Dinner - Lots and lots of veg (over half the meal), sweet potato and spinach again and a protein source - meat or eggs normally.

Plus high intensity exercise 5 days a week and lower impact 2 days a week (I'm climbing tonight - lower impact and ran 5 miles and did strength training last night - higher impact).


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes , I take it thats bad,  the trainer was using what looked like an old tablecloth or something so I thought that would be fine  ohhhh!
> 
> 
> 
> Well it's not bad but a carpet tile, (or square), kept just for that exercise would be more ideal IMO.
> 
> I would say Ginge has got confused with scent and sending to her mat.
> 
> They can so easily get confused even the very highly trained dogs. I won't name names but one of the top agility, HTM and obedience handler's dog tried to walk backwards from the scent pattern and through her legs one year in the championships at Crufts!!
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I keep thinking the ryvita will come out today and then its cold so I need warm rubbish food.


Exactly..LOL We'll get the Ryvita out when it's warmer and stick to the stodge for now.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I won't name names but one of the top agility, HTM and obedience handler's dog tried to walk backwards from the scent pattern and through her legs one year in the championships at Crufts!!


:lol: that's the sort of disaster I'd find myself caught up in if I competed at anything. Nice to hear it can even happen to the experts though.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> It's partly training for terrifying obstacle course and potential mental cycle race (still undecided on that) and a concious diet change. I've cut carbs and upped protein as I need to build muscle so I'm eating on average between 100 and 120g of protein a day. Average day:
> 
> Breakfast - 2 bananas
> 
> Lunch - Spinach with roasted sweet potato and protein source (usually meat like steak or chicken and some cheese)
> 
> Dinner - Lots and lots of veg (over half the meal), sweet potato and spinach again and a protein source - meat or eggs normally.
> 
> Plus high intensity exercise 5 days a week and lower impact 2 days a week (I'm climbing tonight - lower impact and ran 5 miles and did strength training last night - higher impact).


I'm even more impressed now.....

So where do the cream cakes, nice crusty rolls, and hearty casseroles fit into your diet?


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> :lol: that's the sort of disaster I'd find myself caught up in if I competed at anything. Nice to hear it can even happen to the experts though.


Well she was adamant that HTM didn't interfere with the obedience exercises up to that point...LOL


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> I'm even more impressed now.....
> 
> So where do the cream cakes, nice crusty rolls, and hearty casseroles fit into your diet?


Midnight snack? 

I'm supposed to be on a diet and i just ordered a take away...


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Urgh. I'm working really hard on keeping my cool right now.
> I bumped into a friend while walking shamaya.. thankfully he listened to me after 3 times of me saying don't push her away when taking her toy.. (She loves playing tug before fetch) Really riled me up though.
> But then he pretty much invited himself in to our flat despite saying he was going home.. I don't want guests over, I've not tidied. I said this and he said "I don't care i can be messy too) Then goes to play the xbox.. didn't ask :/ And pretty much ordered me to play too but I said no.
> Ended up sitting on the floor. I've taught shamaya that when I'm on the floor it's play time. She didn't understand he didn't want to play. He kept pushing her away and told her to eff off. I told him to sit on the sofa and he moaned at me.
> It's her home not his. I said this to the OH but he just crated her.
> I feel really angry right now. Why should she be crated for something I reward her for? (Play on the floor) I set aside time to play with her and it's always on the floor. She knows not to play with us when we're busy on the pc or something.
> Think i'll just say i'm busy next time. Put my foot down. I feel rather angry and upset right now.
> 
> Other than that the walk went wellish.. She was really good at stopping and coming to our side before we got to the beach entrance. I took a photo of her pulling there so you can see how she is.
> She got picked up when she wouldn't stop pulling and we carried her on to the beach - she doesn't like being carried now, but I felt she still deserved the reward of the beach for how nicely she walked there. I didn't want her to see pulling as a way to get there though hence the carry.
> 
> Edit : Here's a pic of her pulling, you can see how excited she gets when close to the beach (Literally 15 steps away from the sand)
> Thankfully she didn't pull like this on the way there


Wow she really is pulling isn't she?

You can't have that, she will hurt herself.

Did you read my post on this thread about making her walk towards her dinner bowl?


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well it's not bad but a carpet tile, (or square), kept just for that exercise would be more ideal IMO.
> 
> I would say Ginge has got confused with scent and sending to her mat.
> 
> They can so easily get confused even the very highly trained dogs. I won't name names but one of the top agility, HTM and obedience handler's dog tried to walk backwards from the scent pattern and through her legs one year in the championships at Crufts!!
> 
> 
> 
> Buuuuuuuuut our floor is made up of bits of random carpet (courtesy of our old dog, there are a lot of stains needing hiding ) I will ask my friendly carpet shop owner for something brightly coloured as ours is all sludge variations  thank you. I wonder if I can get a deep pile, it is for relaxing massage after all
> 
> Sarah, the towel would not work, 'someone' had already taught her towels are for playing with makes it really good fun when she is wet  just cos he was a manky old farmer boy
Click to expand...


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Buuuuuuuuut our floor is made up of bits of random carpet (courtesy of our old dog, there are a lot of stains needing hiding ) I will ask my friendly carpet shop owner for something brightly coloured as ours is all sludge variations  thank you. I wonder if I can get a deep pile, it is for relaxing massage after all
> 
> Sarah, the towel would not work, 'someone' had already taught her towels are for playing with makes it really good fun when she is wet  just cos he was a manky old farmer boy
> 
> 
> 
> Just another option i have a piece of on old yoga mat it fits in my walking bag, it's easily hosed off if it gets grubby outdoors and it doesn't slide if used on a hard floor.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just another option i have a piece of on old yoga mat it fits in my walking bag, it's easily hosed off if it gets grubby outdoors and it doesn't slide if used on a hard floor.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes exactly anything like that. How about a square of artificial grass; that would be different?
Click to expand...


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Wow she really is pulling isn't she?
> 
> You can't have that, she will hurt herself.
> 
> Did you read my post on this thread about making her walk towards her dinner bowl?


Yes I did. Thing is she didn't care when I put it down. She also does not mind about her lead being on inside our home. 
Why can I not have one of those food obsessed puppies?! Her litter brother would probably break his neck trying to get to it! 
Although today she really liked some fish4dogs dry food we got in a sample pack. I might buy a big bag and try it with that.. She was really keen on it. Even more so than her raw food! (We plan to feed her 50/50 when we live in Switzerland, and there's a Fish4dog supplier there which is why we chose it.  )

I will walk her a completely new rout tomorrow, since she should now be able to make the walk.. (Aim is to get to this lovely park) Since she won't know the walk so I am hoping she will not pull much. She will get lots of treats if she doesn't pull so I am hoping it will click. (Also bought a new clicker  )
I've also been looking on google maps for different walks. Just hoping it will work. ^^;


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Exactly..LOL We'll get the Ryvita out when it's warmer and stick to the stodge for now.


I feel bad for eating a curry and 2 pompadoms but I've remembered it's for medicinal reasons for the OH to clear a cold and it's good practise for Molly to stop begging.

I'll find a reason to excuse the wine later...


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> I know that feeling. I still get anxious about walking Spencer at times. Especially if I know we're likely to meet other dogs. It's not even his behaviour that stresses me out, it's Ruperts!


I keep reciting something I saw in a book by Karen Prior 'it's only a behaviour'. I shall sing it to myself all the way there!


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I just bought Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training Crazy Dogs from Over the Top to Under Control coz someone recommended it on a dog training facebook group. I think I may have book buying issues.


Oooohh, looking forward to a review....might be another for my bookshelf!

Good weight loss people :thumbup1::thumbup1:. Not been on the scales but can sort of guess what state mine is in :shocked: :frown2:.

Very busy afternoon here...

Took Rudi to PAH; we were over an hour in there as it was packed and loads of people wanted to meet Rudi - he LOVED it; did his waggy spasms of delight :thumbup1:. He behaved like an absolute angel, not a paw wrong :aureola::aureola:. A woman was saying how well behaved he was; I told her that he had his moments like the biting. She said "ooh yes, they do still do those little puppy nibbles at that age don't they? Like soft little loving kissy nibbles". I told her it was more an attempt at amputation Singing: but she just laughed and told me how cute it was :biggrin:.

Then...swapped dogs and took the BW to a very packed, very cold park. Not much to say apart from not a paw wrong from him either :thumbup1::001_wub: and he was nice and relaxed.

My best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Oooohh, looking forward to a review....might be another for my bookshelf!


Well I've read about 60% of it so far and so far nothing new really (but then I don't expect there to be really). Good examples of how to go about mat work and using mat work to keep a dog calm in the face of its triggers though. Uses very specific examples but easy to see how to use them for other triggers. Very easy read in comparison to things like Control Unleashed imo.

Sounds like you've had a good day with your boys today :thumbup1:



> I keep reciting something I saw in a book by Karen Prior 'it's only a behaviour'. I shall sing it to myself all the way there!


Lol, it's true that it's all just behaviour but when that behaviour often results in injury it's hard to think like that. I'm still working on breaking the habits I got into with Rupert rather than it being Spencers behaviour that's the issue. Okay his behaviour around other dogs needs work but at least I know he won't make a serious attempt to kill them


----------



## Guest

Small carrot is being carefully chewed by my dog. Not entirely sure he likes it. :lol: 

Met a lady who DID until last week do dog training. (I have such luck don't I? :lol She basically told me to continue desensitising really and to try dorwest stuff and not the chemicals the vets giving me, but I'll see how the clomicalm goes tbh.


----------



## kat&molly

Sorry everyone, I've read the posts but haven't taken much in- in between working, controlling the hooligan, walking, cleaning muddy floors and windows I'm a bit knackered  OH has even had to cook his own tea 

The little man has done a bit better today, he's slowly learning that jumping up constantly gets you nothing, and the novelty of clamping a nose to a girls butt is wearing off :thumbup1:

He seems to have a lot of bad points that I hope will iron out with some stability but 2 things are a bit worrying. He's quick to have a go at the girls if they wont play with him- thats got better today, but he did go at Moll tonight and he isn't cat friendly like I was told- apparently he lived with one It was the deciding factor on me taking him. I dont know if given his age and food obsession[indoors anyway], it maybe something I can work on- dont know.

Heres the handsome beast- and a sneaky one of Moll from today.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - he's certainly a very handsome hooligan; things are never as straightforward as they are presented are they? . Sounds as if small steps towards civilised behaviour have been made though. Lovely photo of Moll too.


----------



## Dogless

Forgot to say weight was 31.4kg today so growth is slowing as I thought it was; only 1.4kg put on in a fortnight this time rather than the 2 - 2.5kg that it had been per week!!


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Kat, he is handsome hope he continues to improve.

Our doorstep sitting session was on the whole good,had a a bit of an unfortunate start while i was getting her settled with my back to the garden gate.... the ( exceptionally late) postman appeared, Tink had a good old bark she was tethered so i left her and went to collect the post from him. By the time he'd handed over the post she was laying on her mat :thumbup1: ignored all the local sights including 4 dogs passing  and only gave half hearted gruffs when on 2 occasions dogs were tied up to bark outside the paper shop. I even managed to get a little weeding done.

We had a breakthrough with the ring toss tonight I think she's now clicked It was so hard to stop as this has been a tricky one. I bet she will have forgotten tomorrow :lol:

ETA: she did test out a coupe of new theories first including placing the ring on my knee and trying to stand on the post! :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m - he's certainly a very handsome hooligan; things are never as straightforward as they are presented are they? . Sounds as if small steps towards civilised behaviour have been made though. Lovely photo of Moll too.


I'm used to finding out things the hard way - he doesn't do ant damage to the girls, but he wont stop, I have to intervene and then he's all in a tizzy:crazy: I just had to put him in the crate and cover it for 10 minutes and he's back out now, and he's fine.

I'm sure some stability and routine will help loads.

Thats good news isn't it , Rudi slowing a bit? I thought you might need to take the roof off.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I'm used to finding out things the hard way - he doesn't do ant damage to the girls, but he wont stop, I have to intervene and then he's all in a tizzy:crazy: I just had to put him in the crate and cover it for 10 minutes and he's back out now, and he's fine.
> 
> I'm sure some stability and routine will help loads.
> 
> Thats good news isn't it , Rudi slowing a bit? *I thought you might need to take the roof off*.


You're not the only one :shocked:.

Hopefully Hal will get the message soon kat, you have so much patience and compassion - luckily for all these poor dogs.


----------



## moonviolet

Kat, Moll always looks like such a wise kind girl. 

I think you are right with soem patient consistency Hal will improve rapidly, lucky boy to find you as a stepping stone on his journey.


----------



## Twiggy

K&M - Wow he's a stunning little chap isn't he?

I'm sure you'll iron out his little foibles. Whatever people say, they always seem to come with baggage. Some of the rescues my daughter has taken on were supposed to be good with other dogs, cats, children, etc. etc. - Hmmmm

I'd be inclined to teach him 'leave' and that applies to your girls, cat and anything else he thinks he might have a go at.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Symone said:



Yes I did. Thing is she didn't care when I put it down. She also does not mind about her lead being on inside our home.

Click to expand...

*


Symone said:


> Why can I not have one of those food obsessed puppies?! Her litter brother would probably break his neck trying to get to it!
> Although today she really liked some fish4dogs dry food we got in a sample pack. I might buy a big bag and try it with that.. She was really keen on it. Even more so than her raw food! (We plan to feed her 50/50 when we live in Switzerland, and there's a Fish4dog supplier there which is why we chose it.  )
> 
> I will walk her a completely new rout tomorrow, since she should now be able to make the walk.. (Aim is to get to this lovely park) Since she won't know the walk so I am hoping she will not pull much. She will get lots of treats if she doesn't pull so I am hoping it will click. (Also bought a new clicker  )
> I've also been looking on google maps for different walks. Just hoping it will work. ^^;


Can you elaborate on that? Do you mean she wasn't interested in the food bowl or that she didn't pull?


----------



## Beth17

K&M he is very handsome. I'm sure a few days with you will get him on the straight and narrow 

MV sounds like a lovely doorstep session 

Dogless I'm glad he's slowed down a bit. What good boys you have 

Going to the enclosed arena tomorrow so Sam can have a last good long offlead run about without me having to worry before friday. There should be plenty of dogs for him to play with as well.

I am now watching something on brain surgery, absolutely fascinating.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> You're not the only one :shocked:.
> 
> Hopefully Hal will get the message soon kat, you have so much patience and compassion - luckily for all these poor dogs.


I'm no bloody saint, he's pushed me to the limit today, if my girls or cats get upset so do I.
OH is stressed because I got stressed- he should understand by now these things happen, you get through them. Eventually.

Perhaps its teenage stuff and I need to install a lamp-post to tie him to.:lol:

Twiggy- I'm already working on leave- he seems to only just be learning his name, I think its us shortening it and the English accent. With the cats I expect them to be chased at first- but this was a frenzy. I can only try, at least it warns potential homes.

MV- Moll dropped the ring on my knee sometimes as well, and typically for her tried to retrieve the pole.

Thanks for listening.


----------



## Sarah1983

K&M he's lovely! Fingers crossed things settle down soon for you though. Hopefully all he needs is a bit of consistency and some boundaries and he'l settle.

HAED is killing me. How the hell am I supposed to resist charts like these???


















Done some more mat work with Spencer tonight. Working on staying there with distractions. He managed to stay when I accidentally dropped his ball on his head so pretty damn impressed with that. I can step over him, walk around him, jump up and down in front of him and open the kitchen door without him moving. His tail wags the whole time as if to say "I know what your game is, I'll just stay here thanks" lol.

Dogless, Rudi weighs more than my Spendog does now. Mega puppy!


----------



## moonviolet

Just had a rather bracing trot around the village. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr it's chilly out there. Tink is deserving of some serious gold stars... ignored all the men we encountered from the milk marcher to the hunched hoodie to the cockney waddle ( i didn't realise how much i'd missed seeing that walk :lol

She was trotting along on a beautiful loose lead and i'll admit iw as feeling pretty proud.... I should know that is cosmic warning of an impending challenge and tonights challenge came in the form of not one but 2 foxes. who proceeded to trot in the road ( quiet residential) about 5 metres ahead of us for the next 100m after an initial tensing and soem huffing she took to her new role of fox *herding*.


----------



## Thorne

Sorry, struggling to keep up again tonight  
Kat, your new young charge is very handsome indeed, good luck with him! Dogless, Rudi's now officially as big as Scooter, I'm always amazed by large and giant breed pups.

Took my camera to Blue Cross... but forgot to put the newly charged battery back in  But here's a phone photo of my favourite boy grinning at me. Will miss him!









This mention of Winalot Shapes and other potentially "hyper" treats prompted me to investigate the biscuits mum picked up in co-op today.
*They're 6.7% glucose * Considerably more sugar in them than there is meat, even had a nibble of one and could've dunked it in a cuppa and eaten it myself! Needless to say they'll be carefully rationed...


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Just had a rather bracing trot around the village. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr it's chilly out there. Tink is deserving of some serious gold stars... ignored all the men we encountered from the milk marcher to the hunched hoodie to the cockney waddle ( i didn't realise how much i'd missed seeing that walk :lol
> 
> She was trotting along on a beautiful loose lead and i'll admit iw as feeling pretty proud.... *I should know that is cosmic warning of an impending challenge *and tonights challenge came in the form of not one but 2 foxes. who proceeded to trot in the road ( quiet residential) about 5 metres ahead of us for the next 100m after an initial tensing and soem huffing she took to her new role of fox herding.


Now that is true :yesnod::yesnod:. However, Miss Tinks deals with such challenges in a dignified manner whereas the CHs sometimes resort to other means


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Can you elaborate on that? Do you mean she wasn't interested in the food bowl or that she didn't pull?*


*

Both. She doesn't seem to be that interested in food, and she didn't pull inside.*


----------



## moonviolet

Has anyone seen Werehorse?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Has anyone seen Werehorse?


Seen her on Nosy Book....she is hiding post taking a Safestix out in public I suspect .


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Both. She doesn't seem to be that interested in food, and she didn't pull inside.


She must like some food - cheese, chicken, liver?

If she's OK in the house, try putting the bowl by the garden gate and doing the same outside.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> K&M he's lovely! Fingers crossed things settle down soon for you though. Hopefully all he needs is a bit of consistency and some boundaries and he'l settle.
> 
> HAED is killing me. How the hell am I supposed to resist charts like these???
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Done some more mat work with Spencer tonight. Working on staying there with distractions. He managed to stay when I accidentally dropped his ball on his head so pretty damn impressed with that. I can step over him, walk around him, jump up and down in front of him and open the kitchen door without him moving. His tail wags the whole time as if to say "I know what your game is, I'll just stay here thanks" lol.
> 
> Dogless, Rudi weighs more than my Spendog does now. Mega puppy!


The second one is really nice  and Spendog is great - Kilo stays there when I do all sorts too but I think that's because he's a lazy ridge!!

Rudi weighs more than Spen? Crikey, Spen always looks like a fairly large dog to me .


----------



## Guest

Had a slight disagreement.
Have been told by mum that she could find it quite easy to rehome him as she finds him quite hard at times and that I don't do enough and I don't walk him enough and my anxiousness has to be affecting him. 

Keeping calm and carrying on. 


He's beautiful kat.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Had a slight disagreement.
> Have been told by mum that she could find it quite easy to rehome him as she finds him quite hard at times and that I don't do enough and I don't walk him enough and my anxiousness has to be affecting him.
> 
> *Keeping calm and carrying on. *
> 
> He's beautiful kat.


Just this. You'll get there, tiny step by tiny step. When I am anxious with Kilo it really does affect him...I have to particularly watch that I don't hold my breath in some situations; hard to manage.


----------



## Dogless

Hubby reckons I'm just overplaying things with Kilo in terms of how in season bitches affect him and in the dramas we can have with other males reacting to him. Says we won't be here forever and will live somewhere quieter. We won't be here forever, no, but potentially another 3 years. I found it hard to remain calm with the overplaying stuff. How would he know? He is rarely here and when he is he doesn't come on any walks. He goes back to the mainland tomorrow for a bit so it wasn't the time to really get into it. I'll wait and see what the folk in Oz say about it all. Hubby lets me make any dog decision, but I'd rather we agreed over things.


----------



## Dogless

Back to school tomorrow :thumbup1:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hubby reckons I'm just overplaying things with Kilo in terms of how in season bitches affect him and in the dramas we can have with other males reacting to him. Says we won't be here forever and will live somewhere quieter. We won't be here forever, no, but potentially another 3 years. I found it hard to remain calm with the overplaying stuff. How would he know? He is rarely here and when he is he doesn't come on any walks. He goes back to the mainland tomorrow for a bit so it wasn't the time to really get into it. I'll wait and see what the folk in Oz say about it all. Hubby lets me make any dog decision, but I'd rather we agreed over things.


Well they don't know which is why they become experts.

Think calm thoughts and count to 10.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well they don't know which is why they become experts.
> 
> Think calm thoughts and count to 10.


He popped home tonight but otherwise hadn't seen him for a while and won't do until Monday so I have time to calm down . Two walks he has been on with us since Christmas. Two walks :mad5: .


----------



## GingerRogers

:frown2: to hubbies I would use the sticky out tongue rasberry blowing one but on my phone and cant open two windows at once apparently. 
What does he know as you say he doesnt have to deal with it. I know how you feel.though decision making together makes you at least 'feel' as though you you are in it together even if it is all your effort for you.

LO you will get there. We both will promise. I know it doesnt feel like it a lot of the time but we will. 

kat hal is handsome.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> The second one is really nice  and Spendog is great - Kilo stays there when I do all sorts too but I think that's because he's a lazy ridge!!
> 
> Rudi weighs more than Spen? Crikey, Spen always looks like a fairly large dog to me .


I really like the 2nd one. But I've got 2 projects ongoing as it is and they'll take up the next year or two.

Spen finds it quite hard to stay when I'm doing stuff, he wants to join in. Good for his self control though I figure. Spen's about 25 inches at the shoulder and just under 30kg. So I wouldn't call him a small dog lol. Rupert was bigger and Rudi's only a couple of kilos off him, he was usually around 33kg but should have been around 35.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I really like the 2nd one. But I've got 2 projects ongoing as it is and they'll take up the next year or two.
> 
> Spen finds it quite hard to stay when I'm doing stuff, he wants to join in. Good for his self control though I figure. Spen's about 25 inches at the shoulder and just under 30kg. So I wouldn't call him a small dog lol. Rupert was bigger and Rudi's only a couple of kilos off him, he was usually around 33kg but should have been around 35.


Rudi always seems like a cute little puppy to me; it's only when we meet other dogs that I realise he's quite big. No idea how tall he is. Kilo is about 32" to the shoulder so I'd think Rudi is about 25" too or not far off..no idea really!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Rudi always seems like a cute little puppy to me; it's only when we meet other dogs that I realise he's quite big. No idea how tall he is. Kilo is about 32" to the shoulder so I'd think Rudi is about 25" too or not far off..no idea really!


I never realised how big Rupert was until I saw someone else walking him. To me he was always about cocker spaniel size. In reality he was 26 inches and lean at 35kg, not much difference between my perception and the reality was there :lol:


----------



## missRV

rudi is younger than my rose bud, looking at his pictures hed easily have her in a game of wrestle ;-) 
we were meant to have a home visit today from a doggy school while were waiting for her first season.... my mum got the dates wrong hes coming next week :-(


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I never realised how big Rupert was until I saw someone else walking him. To me he was always about cocker spaniel size. In reality he was 26 inches and lean at 35kg, not much difference between my perception and the reality was there :lol:


I know what you mean; sometimes I see Kilo in window or something with me and think "Crikey! He's big!". People always tell me he's big...but I see him as much smaller.


----------



## Dogless

missRV said:


> rudi is younger than my rose bud, looking at his pictures hed easily have her in a game of wrestle ;-)
> we were meant to have a home visit today from a doggy school while were waiting for her first season.... my mum got the dates wrong hes coming next week :-(


He has Kilo in game of wrestle . Determined little bugger.










Oh dear to your Mum.....at least you've got next week to look forward to now and time to brush up pup's basics before the trainer arrives  .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I know what you mean; sometimes I see Kilo in window or something with me and think "Crikey! He's big!". People always tell me he's big...but I see him as much smaller.


Yeah, I get those comments with Spen, "oooh, he's a big lad!" but I honestly don't see him as being that big. It's not like he's a ridiculously over sized Lab either. But as my mum says "he has legs!" lol. Doesn't have the short stumpy legs a lot of Labs seem to have these days.


----------



## Werehorse

Hello, I'm here! Been struggling to keep up and felt badly for being constantly grumpy/whingey so went into my cave for a day or two. I was annoying myself so must have been REALLY annoying you lot  But I've bought a BLUE Safestix and cheered up remarkably today - Hugo thinks it is THE BEST THING EVER and ran in big circles with it in his mouth, growling happy growls, for a full 5 minutes - with Oscar running round with him saying "he's FINALLY learned to be a spaniel, mum!!". And he brought in back (once he'd got over how happy he was) for throwing... repeatedly. Celebart! I can play fetch in the park with my dogs!  Even had a GOOD training session with no grumpy gremlins bothering me. I took Hugo back.  I love Oscar to bits and love training him but Hugo suits me better and Oscar suits OH better.... they're more, erm, freestyle. :lol: Me and Hugo like precision. 

The horses have "just" got a hay mould/dust/similar allergy/asthma type thing. Not a viral/basterial infection like I feared. And the vet was a good boy and advised against ventipulmin at £60 a pop for the time being, saying to try management stratergies. So it is haylege and as much turnout as possible and sweeping the dust out as much as possible and tying them up outside instead of inside the stable block etc etc - all stuff I should have been doing anyway but have let slide because there didn't seem to have been a problem... so it should be fixed easily enough. Fingers crossed.

Oh and! I took them *both* to Keswick with me to get Hugo's Safestix and they were really, really good with regards LLW in a pretty busy Keswick with both of them.  I was slightly amazed. It took a while to do the final stretch to the park after I'd had them sat in a coffee shop with me for 20 minutes (two dogs who very much wanted to get to the park) but I held my patience for once and did the stopping and waiting thing. It _kind of_ worked. By the time we got to the park though Oscar was singing with frustration. :lol: And when I let him off he ran in circles yapping for a minute. :lol: Some boys playing football just stopped and stared at the mad spaniel!


----------



## Beth17

Werehorse what a great post :thumbup:

Dogless/Sarah I agree about the size thing both of mine are big for boxers, Sam ridiculously so, but I still just see them both as quite little and stare wistfully at bigger dogs  
I think Rudi is about equal to Sam now in height and weight though he looks far more substantial and balanced, Sam still looks like a skinny minny


----------



## moonviolet

Morning all, I've jsut watched this and i'm feeling all inspired Get your dog to do exactly what you want!Susan Garrett webinar, not sure i love the title !!!
and am now waiting impatiently for the next installment.

W/H so good to see you back and so upbeat :thumbup1: I'm glad to hear the safestix is a hit and how well behaved your boys were in Keswick :thumbup1::thumbup1: I'm glad hte vet was helpful and didn't want to needlessly medicate. For the record i didnt' think you were being whingey or grumpy just expressing how you were feeling. we aren't in disneyland, it's perfectly ok to be unhappy sometimes.

I know comparitively Tink is a tiddler but the smaller than she is effect still applies and i'm always surprised when I see her next to small jrt's. chi's etc that she looks so big :lol:

Hang in there LO being a young adult at home is hard, as your relationship with those you were once so dependant upon changes.

Dogless i'm taking it OH wasn't involved in the great hump day and dont' forget most men wince at the mention of castration.

K&M Hope Hal had a good night and today is a better day.


----------



## missRV

Oh my gosh the little face on Kilo, like "get him off me!" 
She's not been to puppy school for about 4 weeks; the trainer said she thought Rosie was due to come into season soon but it's not happened yet. I'm keeping her away until she's had it  but in the meantime we're keeping the training up at home  she seems to have grown up so much in the last week


----------



## Twiggy

*Werehorse *- What a wonderful post.

Pleased you're feeling better, that you have got the horses sorted and your boys are being good lads.


----------



## Twiggy

I meant to say yesterday that Holly was really good yesterday afternoon in class.

Nobody said anything, but then they don't, it's sort of expected with my dogs.

Anyway as we were finishing two of the handlers were still chatting in the barn and commented that I've worked an absolute miracle on Holly and they couldn't believe the improvement in less than a year.....

How nice was that..!! We all need a bit of praise and encouragement at times.


----------



## GingerRogers

Lovely Twiggy . Especially as the trainer I bet you don't get praise very often.

Inspired by Symones posts on stopping pulling I decided to try and work on it last night. Boy did I pick the wrong night to play a stop start game, it was brass bleeding monkeys out there  we kept at it for as long as i could bear but we had to come home, it was a night for forced marching to keep warm not forced standing about. However I have noticed that using the mekuti harness the way its intended does not work. If you cant get your dog to walk beside in the first place it has no benefit (for those of you who have them you will know what I mean) if I had a much bigger dog I can see it would make me more able to hold it back but with the little squirt it slows her but makes her walk wonky if you alternate the back and front pressure. What we normally do is walk through the estate on front and back then release the front so she has a longer lead for sniffing about at the quieter bits. I have been lazy and just shortened the lead up or attached it to the back or shoulders rather than the front when we get back to the road and noticed she appears to walk better so last night I thought I would try attaching the lead to the collar and harness  slight pressure on the collar brought her back not to eel but to not pulling which is all I am after at the moment. I am sure if she doesn't pull she will be more relaxed I just didn't feel up to working on it and didn't feel it was possible with a harness.

So MV time to bring out the slky leash I think . She understands steady but gets into a pulling frenzy and can't listen so I hope by doing some training walks on collar and harness so I can utilise the gentle pressure to bring her back to some semblance of calm walking. I wont be doing this if I think there is a slight chance of reaction though as we do get the training lead twisted and I get confused which end is collar and which harness .

I also saw your post MV about the yoga mat and rushed with joy to the porch, where, for the last fortnight, as part of the decorating clean up, an old camping mat has been residing waiting for chucking.  Typically it had finally been removed


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - not much to say apart from I, too, love your post :thumbup1: .

GR - how typical that the mat had been thrown away .

Twiggy - what a lovely compliment! I'd be bursting with pride!!



Beth17 said:


> Werehorse what a great post :thumbup:
> 
> Dogless/Sarah I agree about the size thing both of mine are big for boxers, Sam ridiculously so, but I still just see them both as quite little and stare wistfully at bigger dogs
> I think Rudi is about equal to Sam now in height and weight though he looks far more substantial and balanced, Sam still looks like a skinny minny


It's interesting - Kilo grew very tall very fast and was so skinny people used to comment and then filled out. Rudi has grown in a much more balanced way and I'd not have any more weight on him. I am wondering if it's a difference between raw and kibble (Kilo had kibble until 7 months of age) or simply different dogs. Or both. Mind you, Kilo is still on the skinny side if I'm not careful - I have noticed today that he needs a tad more on him again.



moonviolet said:


> Dogless i'm taking it OH wasn't involved in the great hump day and dont' forget most men wince at the mention of castration.


He used to want to castrate as that is what his family (and mine) has always had done, until I presented reasons for keeping him entire. And no, he wasn't involved in hideous hump day :shocked:.

Very frustrating morning here. Up early and sorted for school; walked both CHs together to top fields for some play and home - both behaved and walked nicely bar one tantrum from Rudi which was pretty short lived. Got home later than I wanted to because of tantrum, raced the 18 miles or so to school to find the barrier down and hall all locked up. Waited a while, went for fuel and drove back past. No signs of life - I am guessing the club is on a half term break but no one had thought to let me know with not going for the past fortnight. It's not like I haven't been every single week apart from one Thursday night when I went back to the UK and one when hubby came home. I'm Mrs Reliable Attender. Have texted trainer to see what the score is. Oh well. The boys will have training walks this afternoon / evening instead - liver cake aplenty is defrosted .


----------



## Dogless

missRV said:


> Oh my gosh the little face on Kilo, like "get him off me!"
> She's not been to puppy school for about 4 weeks; the trainer said she thought Rosie was due to come into season soon but it's not happened yet. I'm keeping her away until she's had it  but in the meantime we're keeping the training up at home  she seems to have grown up so much in the last week


Kilo had started that one . How frustrating waiting for a season that hasn't come yet :frown2:.


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## Sarah1983

How annoying Dogless, they could have let you know if school is closed!

We've just done our first recall away from food trial and it was a success. But then food stealing is one of my biggest pet peeves and so Spen learned long ago not to touch plates on someones lap, left on the sofa or on the computer desk and he's very good about it. Oh he'll sniff and lick his lips but he won't touch and after a sniff and a lick of his lips goes and lies down. Book says to put it out of reach but he's not going to be remotely interested in a plate of food on top of the fridge so I had it on the sofa where he's interested but unlikely to touch. He was sniffing and licking his lips but as soon as I blew the whistle he came to me. Gotta be happy with that from a stomach on legs!


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> We've just done our first recall away from food trial and it was a success. But then food stealing is one of my biggest pet peeves and so Spen learned long ago not to touch plates on someones lap, left on the sofa or on the computer desk and he's very good about it. Oh he'll sniff and lick his lips but he won't touch and after a sniff and a lick of his lips goes and lies down. Book says to put it out of reach but he's not going to be remotely interested in a plate of food on top of the fridge so I had it on the sofa where he's interested but unlikely to touch. He was sniffing and licking his lips but as soon as I blew the whistle he came to me. Gotta be happy with that from a stomach on legs!


:thumbup::thumbup: From one owner of two canine dustbins to another - that is awesome!! Well done to you and the Spendog. Platinum Star


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## kat&molly

Glad you're feeling better werehorse- the safe stix sounds like a hit.

MV- had to laugh at Tink wanting to herd foxes. Funny girl.

Well done Spendog- that mat work sounds brill.

Twiggy- how nice to get a compliment.

LO- hang in there- it will get easier [says she with a nut job in the house.]

Ginge- good luck with Silky leash.

Beth- Hope Sam has a good day today- before he has his plums off. I've been threatening to save the vets a job in this house.

Little man slept until about 6.15 this morning so that was ok. He is picking things up quickly- he's bright and will be lovely with a good bit of work put in to him. He still annoys the girls so gets a few telling offs- I try and stop these before they happen, this morning he hasn't retaliated [yet]
he is incredibly annoying and knows how to push my buttons, I've never come across such a whingy, whiny barky dog-I hope that lessons as it gives me headache.
I want to try and do more seperately with him today , he is improving slowly.

Dogless- how annoying , no training and no-one letting you know.:frown2:


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## Micky93

Dogless.....GingerRogers.... Are you ready?

I can only apologise for keeping you waiting for so long.....


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Spendog and Kudos to you Sarah   :thumbup1:

Dogless what a shame about trianing, but i'm sure you won't let the livercake go to waste 

Twiggy how nice of them to notice and comment. 

GInge i dont' blame you for not wanting to hang about it was so bitter last night. I did find the adrenaline rush of seeing 2 foxes warmed me up rapidly. When tink was at her sled dog best I set myself a vague time limit rather than a route, that way if i had to change direction I didn't " fail" if we only managed 50 meters from the house I didn't "fail." we need to set ourselves up for success as well as our dogs 



kat&molly said:


> he is incredibly annoying and knows how to push my buttons, I've never come across such a whingy, whiny barky dog-I hope that lessons as it gives me headache.
> I want to try and do more seperately with him today , he is improving slowly.


I'm guess he's just repeating behaviour thats has worked for him in the past. Might be worth getting yoruself some earplugs for the time being 

Micky Eddie looks very happy with the wing 

Had this sent to me this morning maybe I should print it off and hand it to the gundog " trainer" I see bawling at, and pickign up his dogs by the jowls and throwing them backwards http://thecognitivecanine.wordpress...g-training-with-thomas-aaron-of-fetchmasters/


----------



## Symone

Well.. Interesting night.
Shamaya has found her vocal cords. The puppy that rarely (first time was with the staffy) barked.. Is Barking more!
And ofc she chose last night to start practising. 
So here I am, tired, and I have a puppy sleeping next to me. She has been sleeping all morning so hasn't even gone out for a proper walk yet! 

I was wondering if anyone knew of any really smelly dog treats? Smelly enough to get Shamayas attention? 
I'm tempted to order some green tripe for her since that reeks. (She normally has it in minces)

I also tried the breakfast outside thing, today... She wasn't even interested. She tried to play instead and didn't end up eating it. It is now covered in the fridge.

Things I've tried to get her interested in food when out; (Probably should had mentioned this yesterday but it slipped my mind)
Walks when she should be due a meal, skipping a meal so she's hungry, a mix bag so she wouldn't know what was coming. None worked.. She just does not show any interest in food when out.


----------



## Sarah1983

What about toys instead of food? Some dogs are stomachs on legs, other dogs prefer a toy. 

Thanks MV and K&M, I love it when work shows signs of paying off. I think we're ready to move on to mat work outside now (been working at it on and off for ages indoors with various distractions) but I'm not going to try it until the snow's gone. I wouldn't like to lie on a cold, damp towel in the snow so I'm not going to ask Spencer to. I think after another few days of recall away from food we get to take recall work outside too and start from scratch again lol. That'll be when the real hard work starts I think. Its all so easy inside for him but we need that solid foundation first.

K&M, Spencer was a pain in the ass when we got him. He was hyper as hell, he was a thief, he jumped all over us and was just generally your average untrained young dog. It didn't take long for him to start showing huge signs of improvement. I'm sure Hal will also show signs of improvement quickly once he's gone some rules in place an knows what's expected of him.

Micky, looks like Eddies enjoying that


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## Dogless

Micky.....so impressed I gave you rep for that :thumbup1: . A predator is born..according to the busybodies around here anyway :skep:.



moonviolet said:


> Dogless what a shame about trianing, but i'm sure you won't let the livercake go to waste
> 
> When tink was at her sled dog best I set myself a vague time limit rather than a route, that way if i had to change direction I didn't " fail" if we only managed 50 meters from the house I didn't "fail." we need to set ourselves up for success as well as our dogs
> 
> Had this sent to me this morning maybe I should print it off and hand it to the gundog " trainer" I see bawling at, and pickign up his dogs by the jowls and throwing them backwards Positive Gun Dog Training With Thomas Aaron of FetchMasters « The Cognitive Canine


Nope; training walks will occur later. The masses of dogs and people have disappeared as it's freezing but I'll work on Kilo's 'hide' some more plus heel work I think and just manners. Nothing more challenging as the wind is strong and they were both preoccupied by scents this morning. Rudi just attention and walking nicely / manners I think - calm stuff as everything is blowing about in the wind and it's hard work for him to control himself. High risk conditions for him trying to amputate my arm :frown2:.

Yep; time limits were set a lot with Kilo. Rudi not at present as he's more handler - oriented than Kilo. So far!

Great article .



Symone said:


> Well.. Interesting night.
> Shamaya has found her vocal cords. The puppy that rarely (first time was with the staffy) barked.. Is Barking more!
> And ofc she chose last night to start practising.
> So here I am, tired, and I have a puppy sleeping next to me. She has been sleeping all morning so hasn't even gone out for a proper walk yet!
> 
> I was wondering if anyone knew of any really smelly dog treats? Smelly enough to get Shamayas attention?
> I'm tempted to order some green tripe for her since that reeks. (She normally has it in minces)
> 
> I also tried the breakfast outside thing, today... She wasn't even interested. She tried to play instead and didn't end up eating it. It is now covered in the fridge.
> 
> Things I've tried to get her interested in food when out; (Probably should had mentioned this yesterday but it slipped my mind)
> Walks when she should be due a meal, skipping a meal so she's hungry, a mix bag so she wouldn't know what was coming. None worked.. She just does not show any interest in food when out.


Zooplus do dried tripe. It stinks. The drama is that it needs to be chewed up - it's not nice, little treats that you can feed on the move.

If she really doesn't respond to treats how about a favourite ball? You can bounce it on the ground, throw it up on the air, talk to it  - make it something very, very special?


----------



## moonviolet

Symone said:


> Things I've tried to get her interested in food when out; (Probably should had mentioned this yesterday but it slipped my mind)
> Walks when she should be due a meal, skipping a meal so she's hungry, a mix bag so she wouldn't know what was coming. None worked.. She just does not show any interest in food when out.


I'm wondering if she finds being out for a walk so exciting she can't even think about eating. Have you tried sitting on a bench away from the busiest area and letting the world go by. praising her when she relaxes, the goal is for it for become almost boring, commonplace and banal. teaching yoru pup to relax in as many situations as you can will pay dividends when she's all grown up 

ETA i wonder if the barking comes from being a little over stimulated too.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GInge i dont' blame you for not wanting to hang about it was so bitter last night. I did find the adrenaline rush of seeing 2 foxes warmed me up rapidly. When tink was at her sled dog best I set myself a vague time limit rather than a route, that way if i had to change direction I didn't " fail" if we only managed 50 meters from the house I didn't "fail." we need to set ourselves up for success as well as our dogs


You are right of course MV  so often I have felt miserable if the walking stuff hasn't worked, got disheartened and then given up and gone for a stomp with a steam train, even last night I was bit  as I felt I needed to be determined but she also needed a bit of a walk, but does she really need to walk different pavements surely the same bit several times is fine?
2 foxes would have warmed me up too, how lovely.

Yeah Mickey and Eddie , he looked like he liked it, did he, did you, will you do it again?????


----------



## Sarah1983

Ginge, why not do what I do? One piece of equipment for loose leash walking and another for those times you just want to get from A to B. That way you're not undoing all your work every time you want to give her a proper walk without faffing around insisting on a loose leash. It's what's recommended with the silky leash thing too.

Symone, I wondered the same thing as Moonviolet. Rupert couldn't eat while out. Not even the best, yummiest, smelliest treats. It was far too stressful for him out on walks to even think of eating.


----------



## Symone

moonviolet said:


> I'm wondering if she finds being out for a walk so exciting she can't even think about eating. Have you tried sitting on a bench away from the busiest area and letting the world go by. praising her when she relaxes, the goal is for it for become almost boring, commonplace and banal. teaching yoru pup to relax in as many situations as you can will pay dividends when she's all grown up


I have done that with her before, but she does get really excited when anyone walks past. Her tail goes mad.
It also doesn't help that everyone wants to stoke her. Many people don't ask and just do it. 
I think I'll just hold up a big sign saying "Please ignore my puppy" and praise her when she's calm.  
I'll take her to mid town later on. It's very busy there and it would be good for her to learn. I'll just have to learn to say "no, don't touch my pup!" when people come close. 

Dogless / Sarah - Yeah, I think I'll do the toy thing. 
However I think I will stick to a safestick for it is longer than a ball. She can have some of it in her mouth while I hold the other end. If I just hold a ball she will jump up for it. 
If I let her hold it she tends to drop it. Lost one under a bus like so! (Right after buying it, too.  )

Edit : Actually lost 3 balls like so, however we got one back again, lol!
And - barking i think was because the neighbours were having a gathering, lots of people were standing in the hallway. Oh was actually worried someone broke in!


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> You are right of course MV  so often I have felt miserable if the walking stuff hasn't worked, got disheartened and then given up and gone for a stomp with a steam train, even last night I was bit  as I felt I needed to be determined but she also needed a bit of a walk, but does she really need to walk different pavements surely the same bit several times is fine?
> 2 foxes would have warmed me up too, how lovely.
> 
> Yeah Mickey and Eddie , he looked like he liked it, did he, did you, will you do it again?????


It wasn't unheard of to take 15 mins to walk up the path between the front door and the gate the pavement beyond was a distant dream :lol:

I do agree with Sarah having a seperate set of kit for training walks right now would be a good idea. Otherwise you send mixed messages. Clarity about your expectations will help the wee ninja be successful and confident and brings the joy to it for both of you.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> I have done that with her before, but she does get really excited when anyone walks past. Her tail goes mad.
> It also doesn't help that everyone wants to stoke her. Many people don't ask and just do it.
> I think I'll just hold up a big sign saying "Please ignore my puppy" and praise her when she's calm.
> I'll take her to mid town later on. It's very busy there and it would be good for her to learn. I'll just have to learn to say "no, don't touch my pup!" when people come close.
> 
> Dogless / Sarah - Yeah, I think I'll do the toy thing.
> However I think I will stick to a safestick for it is longer than a ball. She can have some of it in her mouth while I hold the other end. If I just hold a ball she will jump up for it.
> If I let her hold it she tends to drop it. Lost one under a bus like so! (Right after buying it, too.  )


Sometimes I sit with Rudi facing me, just doing 'watch' as people go past. If you look engrossed in training your pup people tend to leave you alone more. Or because you're a mad dog lady talking to your dog - who knows? .

I don't mean give her the toy to carry for the walk so she gets bored and drops it; it's good if she wants to jump for the ball I think. I meant a few steps and she gets it for a tiny while, then you have it back - sort of leaving her wanting more. I do / did a lot of work with Kilo that way.


----------



## Micky93

Dogless said:


> Micky.....*so impressed I gave you rep for that :thumbup1: . A predator is born..according to the busybodies around here anywa*y :skep:.
> 
> Nope; training walks will occur later. The masses of dogs and people have disappeared as it's freezing but I'll work on Kilo's 'hide' some more plus heel work I think and just manners. Nothing more challenging as the wind is strong and they were both preoccupied by scents this morning. Rudi just attention and walking nicely / manners I think - calm stuff as everything is blowing about in the wind and it's hard work for him to control himself. High risk conditions for him trying to amputate my arm :frown2:.
> 
> Yep; time limits were set a lot with Kilo. Rudi not at present as he's more handler - oriented than Kilo. So far!
> 
> Great article .
> 
> Zooplus do dried tripe. It stinks. The drama is that it needs to be chewed up - it's not nice, little treats that you can feed on the move.
> 
> If she really doesn't respond to treats how about a favourite ball? You can bounce it on the ground, throw it up on the air, talk to it  - make it something very, very special?





GingerRogers said:


> You are right of course MV  so often I have felt miserable if the walking stuff hasn't worked, got disheartened and then given up and gone for a stomp with a steam train, even last night I was bit  as I felt I needed to be determined but she also needed a bit of a walk, but does she really need to walk different pavements surely the same bit several times is fine?
> 2 foxes would have warmed me up too, how lovely.
> 
> *Yeah Mickey and Eddie , he looked like he liked it, did he, did you, will you do it again?????*


Thank you  Well I have noticed he's been staring at the guinea pigs more intensely lately 

Yeah think we will do it again. He took a very long time just licking and he didn't eat the bone - but it was his first time and I think next time he'll have more idea of what he's got to do


----------



## moonviolet

Symone said:


> I have done that with her before, but she does get really excited when anyone walks past. Her tail goes mad.
> It also doesn't help that everyone wants to stoke her. Many people don't ask and just do it.
> I think I'll just hold up a big sign saying "Please ignore my puppy" and praise her when she's calm.
> *I'll take her to mid town later on. It's very busy there and it would be good for her to learn. *I'll just have to learn to say "no, don't touch my pup!" when people come close.
> 
> Dogless / Sarah - Yeah, I think I'll do the toy thing.
> However I think I will stick to a safestick for it is longer than a ball. She can have some of it in her mouth while I hold the other end. If I just hold a ball she will jump up for it.
> If I let her hold it she tends to drop it. Lost one under a bus like so! (Right after buying it, too.  )
> 
> Edit : Actually lost 3 balls like so, however we got one back again, lol!
> And - barking i think was because the neighbours were having a gathering, lots of people were standing in the hallway. Oh was actually worried someone broke in!


Help her succeed by starting on a bench in a quiet area... I found request bus stops good. and then working up to busier ones. You can't focus on Shamaya if you're fending off everyone else.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> Sometimes I sit with Rudi facing me, just doing 'watch' as people go past. If you look engrossed in training your pup people tend to leave you alone more. Or because you're a mad dog lady talking to your dog - who knows? .
> 
> I don't mean give her the toy to carry for the walk so she gets bored and drops it; it's good if she wants to jump for the ball I think. I meant a few steps and she gets it for a tiny while, then you have it back - sort of leaving her wanting more. I do / did a lot of work with Kilo that way.


I'll do that then! 
She's starting to wake up now (Lazy girl) So we'll leave after she has eaten. I'll let you know how it goes  Thanks!


----------



## Sarah1983

Micky93 said:


> Thank you  Well I have noticed he's been staring at the guinea pigs more intensely lately
> 
> Yeah think we will do it again. He took a very long time just licking and he didn't eat the bone - but it was his first time and I think next time he'll have more idea of what he's got to do


It took Spencer ages to figure out what to do. But being a stomach on legs once he realised it was food there was no way he was leaving any of it. Even if it was strange and crunchy and too big to inhale lol.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless how frustrating that they didn't let you know. It is interesting whether being fed kibble does make a difference. It's tempting to try and do some research on it for my dissertation next year but I can't see that being easy to do. :confused1:

MV fascinating article thanks for posting the link 

K&M I hope he calms down soon and doesn't get much worse before he gets better.

Well done to Spen :thumbup:

Symone good luck with the walk into town. I have also found that toys generally beat food when out with my two, they go nuts for a frisbee.

Twiggy what a lovely compliment 

Well the boys were stars today. Only a small bust up when Oscar and one of my dads lot went for the same ball but it was all noise and they were soon friends again. I didn't take Oscars frisbee and he was much more relaxed and willing to interact without getting arsey so really pleased with that. Sam was able to have a good run and let off steam as well and they are now both snoring away


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Dogless how frustrating that they didn't let you know. It is interesting whether being fed kibble does make a difference. It's tempting to try and do some research on it for my dissertation next year but I can't see that being easy to do. :confused1:


There would be so many variables - you'd need to study a whole litter; all kibble fed dogs would need to be fed the same I would think, same for the raw fed - exactly the same diet; exercise would have to be exactly the same...everything really....very hard. Then there is the sex of the dogs, the starting weight / build....


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> There would be so many variables - you'd need to study a whole litter; all kibble fed dogs would need to be fed the same I would think, same for the raw fed - exactly the same diet; exercise would have to be exactly the same...everything really....very hard. Then there is the sex of the dogs, the starting weight / build....


Yes, maybe I'll save that for when I'm a world famous animal scientist


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> :thumbup::thumbup: From one owner of two canine dustbins to another - that is awesome!! Well done to you and the Spendog. Platinum Star


Agreed - well done you and Spen.

I have to say little Leafy is not above having a sneaky lick of dinner plates if she thinks she isn't being watched. Her tongue seems to stretch to about 2 ft long...LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Agreed - well done you and Spen.
> 
> I have to say little Leafy is not above having a sneaky lick of dinner plates if she thinks she isn't being watched. Her tongue seems to stretch to about 2 ft long...LOL


Kilo and Rudi have heads at counter top height and have this ability to turn them over to the side so they're not up counter surfing and then lick the worktop if they think I'm not looking too.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> There would be so many variables - you'd need to study a whole litter; all kibble fed dogs would need to be fed the same I would think, same for the raw fed - exactly the same diet; exercise would have to be exactly the same...everything really....very hard. Then there is the sex of the dogs, the starting weight / build....


I think various foods can make a difference. Years ago, when there wasn't anything like as much choice as nowadays, a lot of competition dogs were fed on a certain type of Wafcol because it made them so hyped up you virtually had to scrape them off the ceiling...!!

Another supplement a lot of people used was SA37 for racing greyhounds.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I think various foods can make a difference. Years ago, when there wasn't anything like as much choice as nowadays, a lot of competition dogs were fed on a certain type of Wafcol because it made them so hyped up you virtually had to scrape them off the ceiling...!!
> 
> Another supplement a lot of people used was SA37 for racing greyhounds.


Yes, I am sure foods can make a huge difference - I was just thinking that to study it for a dissertation would be very difficult due the number of variables. I know that some treats make Kilo totally crackers!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Werehorse - not much to say apart from I, too, love your post :thumbup1: .
> 
> GR - how typical that the mat had been thrown away .
> 
> Twiggy - what a lovely compliment! I'd be bursting with pride!!
> 
> *Very frustrating morning here. Up early and sorted for school; walked both CHs together to top fields for some play and home - both behaved and walked nicely bar one tantrum from Rudi which was pretty short lived. Got home later than I wanted to because of tantrum, raced the 18 miles or so to school to find the barrier down and hall all locked up.* Waited a while, went for fuel and drove back past. No signs of life - I am guessing the club is on a half term break but no one had thought to let me know with not going for the past fortnight. It's not like I haven't been every single week apart from one Thursday night when I went back to the UK and one when hubby came home. I'm Mrs Reliable Attender. Have texted trainer to see what the score is. Oh well. The boys will have training walks this afternoon / evening instead - liver cake aplenty is defrosted .


That's naughty. I always ring everyone that comes here if we cancel for whatever reason. I have to say though I am rarely treated to the same courtesy by some of the handlers.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's naughty. I always ring everyone that comes here if we cancel for whatever reason. I have to say though I am rarely treated to the same courtesy by some of the handlers.


I am sure everyone was told last week, but I wasn't there due to Rudi's kc. I had informed them about the kc and told to miss a couple of weeks so I was expected back today. I do say when I am not going to attend (only happened twice since April or whenever it was we started). I've had no reply today so won't be trekking over there again this evening - shame really, I have missed school. Probably a half term break.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Agreed - well done you and Spen.
> 
> I have to say little Leafy is not above having a sneaky lick of dinner plates if she thinks she isn't being watched. Her tongue seems to stretch to about 2 ft long...LOL


Thank you  There's been the odd time Spen has tried having a sneaky lick but he's always been caught and so seems to have given up. I have no doubt if I left him loose with plates on the sofa while I went out he'd help himself though lol. He'll raid the bin any chance he gets too.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> I'll do that then!
> She's starting to wake up now (Lazy girl) So we'll leave after she has eaten. I'll let you know how it goes  Thanks!


You can buy plenty of balls on a rope including the Kong squeaky tennis balls.

Tanglewood posted this morning a variation on a theme using food dropped behind you as a way of teaching LLW but of course useless unless you have a greedy dog, although I suppose the method could be adapted with a toy/ball.

Shamaya will eventually take tit-bits. Many collies are too 'busy' to bother with food as puppies/youngsters. Holly was the same until Leafy taught her to scrounge out on walks at about six months old. She's quite greedy now. Both she and Leafy have to earn tit-bits though; they are not given freely and that's how I've taught Holly most of her tricks.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Holly was the same until Leafy taught her to scrounge out on walks at about six months old. She's quite greedy now.


Ooooh; maybe I have found my business niche? I can use these two natural scroungers to teach busy collies their art and charge owners for the privilege :lol::crazy::w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Ooooh; maybe I have found my business niche? I can use these two natural scroungers to teach busy collies their art and charge owners for the privilege :lol::crazy::w00t:.


There you go - an ideal business opportunity....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Trainer is in Abu Dhabi training dogs apparently until Monday. He says club _should_ be back on (wasn't last week it seems) tonight but I'm not driving all that way again - last time it _should_ have been on only I turned up and ended up waiting for any others to come...they didn't so I had to come home again.


----------



## Symone

Well... Someones favourite tug was ignored the second we stepped outside. OH was putting her back into position then walking but every step was a pull.
He was like "sod this" and turned around to go home.
Guess who stopped pulling on the way home..
We got to out door and she started pulling there (We live in a flat) so I decided to do training in the hall. The second I started to walk with her she pulled again. Because turning around worked when out I thought I would do it that way. So holding the lead like the instructor showed me I turned whenever she pulled. After 5 min she realised she wasn't getting her way and started walking nicely. At this moment she noticed I had her yummy fish4dogs treats hanging from my belt. She jumped up at them so i loosened the bag and gave her a treat every 5-10 secs of walking nicely.
after 10 mins it was going well. I held the lead only in my left hand and she pulled again, so I put it back to how it was.
I decided she will only be walked like this from now on. Training will be done for 5 min before going out and if she pulls on going out we're going back straight away. Hopefully if we do it first she will get the idea. 
Any way, after she was walking nicely I decided we could go inside for a play. Got close to the door and she pulled to go in. I turned around and after the 6th time she got the idea and walked nicely until I unclipped her lead. Then she ran to the OH as if to say "Mummy was mean to me." She's now sleeping behind him xD

So.. Didn't get to go where we wanted, but at least we had some training. Baby steps.. 
I dunno if i should leave an hour before going to her puppy class to train on the way... It'll be cold though so I might just stick on her harness. It's only a 20 min walk :/


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> Trainer is in Abu Dhabi training dogs apparently until Monday. He says club _should_ be back on (wasn't last week it seems) tonight but I'm not driving all that way again - last time it _should_ have been on only I turned up and ended up waiting for any others to come...they didn't so I had to come home again.


Did they tell the others it wasn't on but said nothing to you? 
I would be annoyed, personally.
And I don't blame you for not wanting to drive far again.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless- How annoying that school wasnt on. Ours has a facebook page and if a class in cancelled they ask everyone to comment if they have read the message and they will contact anyone who hasnt commented. Maybe you could suggest a facebook page for this sort of thing, change of times, cancellations etc.

Twiggy - Well done to little Holly Bolly! Nice for you to overhear others praise too! :thumbup1:

Werehorse - What a lovely positive post, so glad the horses are ok and the boys have been on their best behaviour. Think we may have to look into getting Izzy a safestix (I'll add it to my crufts list)

*crufts* just reminded me, can you let us in on your secret yet Twiggy??

Sarah - Sounds like Spens recall training with the whistle is going really well!

MS - I hope you are OK. I was thinking about you yesterday with all the stuff on the news yesterday. Im not sure how relevant the new guidelines are for you but I hope it'll be a help.

GR and shamaya - good luck with the LLW. With Izzy I found turning round and going the other way worked better than stopping when she pulled because if I stopped then she enjoyed having a really good sniff about , also just be careful when you treat for the LLW as Izzy at one point started pulling then dropping back to heel and nudging my hand for a treat over and over so she thought it was the sequence of events that I was treating for rather than the LLW! (Not sure if all that makes sense, it does in my head :lol

Mv - Impressed at Tink the fox herder. Izzy just didnt know what to make of it when we saw one. She couldnt work out if it was a cat or a dog I think? 


So Izzys tail is all fine now and back to normal! Yey! Ive got my wigglebum back! We were at school last night so took her for a run at the park with Lila and Brandy to get the crazies out and us hoomans were pickled!! Brrrr!

She did really well in class, some really nice off-lead heelwork, good sit-stay and down-stay, recall to heel and a good almost perfectly straight recall!! :thumbup1: Trainer is getting used to Izzys little quirks and best of all Izzy didnt even bother about the kid watching at the back of the room (not a really young kid but quite fidgety)! So she was my best girl last night!

She been off to creche today so tonight we'll use up the rest of the liver cake with some weaves practise!

We're off up to visit my parents and Millie again tomorrow night so she'll be very happy to see them and my sis will be there too. She'll also have Tarnus' Mum for company tomorrow afternoon as she gets back from Hong Kong and we're going to take her back up North with us (OH's and my parents live in the same town)


----------



## moonviolet

Symone if turning is working i'd stick with it  It's a real pain now but keep thinking how lovely it will be when she's trotting along without trying to rip your arm out of it's socket every day  

IM I'm so pleased to hear Izzy has her wag back it's horribly when their wag doesn't work. It sounds like she has been your very best girl :thumbup1::thumbup1: Hope you have a fun time visiting


----------



## GingerRogers

Symone said:


> Well... Someones favourite tug was ignored the second we stepped outside. OH was putting her back into position then walking but every step was a pull.
> He was like "sod this" and turned around to go home.
> Guess who stopped pulling on the way home..
> We got to out door and she started pulling there (We live in a flat) so I decided to do training in the hall. The second I started to walk with her she pulled again. Because turning around worked when out I thought I would do it that way. So holding the lead like the instructor showed me I turned whenever she pulled. After 5 min she realised she wasn't getting her way and started walking nicely. At this moment she noticed I had her yummy fish4dogs treats hanging from my belt. She jumped up at them so i loosened the bag and gave her a treat every 5-10 secs of walking nicely.
> after 10 mins it was going well. I held the lead only in my left hand and she pulled again, so I put it back to how it was.
> I decided she will only be walked like this from now on. Training will be done for 5 min before going out and if she pulls on going out we're going back straight away. Hopefully if we do it first she will get the idea.
> Any way, after she was walking nicely I decided we could go inside for a play. Got close to the door and she pulled to go in. I turned around and after the 6th time she got the idea and walked nicely until I unclipped her lead. Then she ran to the OH as if to say "Mummy was mean to me." She's now sleeping behind him xD
> 
> So.. Didn't get to go where we wanted, but at least we had some training. Baby steps..
> I dunno if i should leave an hour before going to her puppy class to train on the way... *It'll be cold though so I might just stick on her harness. *It's only a 20 min walk :/


Sounds like she picked that up quickly, but it is cold and LL training in the cold is not fun 

We just popped out to the post box, I am still trying to find a time thats quiet but not in the dark as she is a bit spooky in the dark anyway. 3.45 seems a good one, parents are back with the littlies from school but the biggies are still on their busses so mummies waiting in for them. Hoeeeever some one has decided that if their is nothing to bark at she will just bark at nothing  literally just out the door standing on the step waiting for her orientate to me and she just let off a couple to see what she sounded like it seems, I know on reflection I should have stuck her back inside and gone on my own but she was good for the rest of the walk.

MV and Sarah - I get what you are both saying I am just very reluctant to have her attached to just her collar, there are so many dogs round here that they do pop up out of the blue and I don't want her lunging on her collar  I don't suppose a completely different style of harness would work. I need to do something as the harness walking isn't working.

ETA  I feel like I am always being contradictory when you lovelies give me advice, invariably I get back to what you say and it works, I should learn from that, I am just scared to take her on just her collar, even bedtime wees we get all bondaged up 

However Izzysmummy and Shamaya, the ninja does walk lovely if we turn round, until we reach a limit of distance or the point when we are going over new ground, as soon as you turn again she seems to know you are going back the first way and again she is off. Perhaps I am just not determined enough like MV says if it takes 15 mins to get to the pavement and we come back again then so be it.

I can't do the stopping method as she then barks at cars if she isn't moving 

Dogless - very annoying  but how is it supposed to be on if the trainer is still in Abu till Mon 

IM - glad Izzies tail is back to normal


----------



## Izzysmummy

Sorry Symone, realised I used shamayas name instead of your username! Whoops! 

I think I see the S and your sig and my mind thinks your username is Shamaya too! Sorry!

Sure you know I meant you though!


----------



## GingerRogers

Izzysmummy said:


> Sorry Symone, realised I used shamayas name instead of your username! Whoops!
> 
> I think I see the S and your sig and my mind thinks your username is Shamaya too! Sorry!
> 
> Sure you know I meant you though!


oops and I copied you


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> MV and Sarah - I get what you are both saying I am just very reluctant to have her attached to just her collar, there are so many dogs round here that they do pop up out of the blue and I don't want her lunging on her collar  I don't suppose a completely different style of harness would work. I need to do something as the harness walking isn't working.
> 
> ETA  I feel like I am always being contradictory when you lovelies give me advice, invariably I get back to what you say and it works, I should learn from that, I am just scared to take her on just her collar, even bedtime wees we get all bondaged up


You just enjoy bondage by proxy :lol: :lol:

GR you know Ginge best it's always best to cherry pick what you believe it right for you and your dog. I put Tink in a whippet collar ( very soft leather) so it didn't cut in or make her gag on the occasions she did pull. just another option.


----------



## Symone

Izzysmummy said:


> Sorry Symone, realised I used shamayas name instead of your username! Whoops!
> 
> I think I see the S and your sig and my mind thinks your username is Shamaya too! Sorry!
> 
> Sure you know I meant you though!


Haha, it's all right! 
You never know, Maybe Shamaya is a really advanced dog that can read, write and type. It could be her typing!!! (I wish... )
But really, don't worry, lol.  
And her name's quite unique so I realised it was intended for me.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Did they tell the others it wasn't on but said nothing to you?
> I would be annoyed, personally.
> And I don't blame you for not wanting to drive far again.


Not really; I missed the last two weeks through Rudi having kc.



GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - very annoying  but how is it supposed to be on if the trainer is still in Abu till Mon


Because someone else would take it; that is what happened the last time.

IM - glad Izzy's found her wag .

Just had a very successful training walk with Rudi; he was a star apart from one meeting and earnt the liver cake that he would have had at school :thumbup1:. Fed them early just now like I do on a school night and Kilo will earn his later...hopefully I will have thawed enough to venture back out . The blip....We saw the BC that Kilo drools and chatters over and tries to hump - he ran over and Rudi immediately greeted him really rudely - jumped on him and tried to hump. So odd . He also tries to jump up at the owner when his greetings are usually good, but she does speak very excitedly and not 'commit' to stroking - pulls hands away at last minute and swoops in and out. Got him sat by my side instead so he'd behave.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> You just enjoy bondage by proxy :lol: :lol:
> 
> GR you know Ginge best it's always best to cherry pick what you believe it right for you and your dog. I put Tink in a whippet collar ( very soft leather) so it didn't cut in or make her gag on the occasions she did pull. just another option.


: You have my number, lol. :

I do get what you mean though and bearing in mind th confusion over mat/scents it would be a bad thing I just dont like walking ehr on just her collar but a wide one........does that mean I could get one of those hound collars in beautiful fabric  she has a long neck she could take it :biggrin:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Not really; I missed the last two weeks through Rudi having kc.
> 
> Because someone else would take it; that is what happened the last time.
> 
> IM - glad Izzy's found her wag .
> 
> Just had a very successful training walk with Rudi; he was a star apart from one meeting and earnt the liver cake that he would have had at school :thumbup1:. Fed them early just now like I do on a school night and Kilo will earn his later...hopefully I will have thawed enough to venture back out . The blip....We saw the BC that Kilo drools and chatters over and tries to hump - he ran over and Rudi immediately greeted him really rudely - jumped on him and tried to hump. So odd . He also tries to jump up at the owner when his greetings are usually good, but she does speak very excitedly and not 'commit' to stroking - pulls hands away at last minute and swoops in and out. Got him sat by my side instead so he'd behave.


That is very strange they both react to the collie  perhaps she is just a particularly attractive or trampy little bitch. We are always saying why should dogs like all dogs etc, perhaps they have those floozies all the men flock round too!!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> That is very strange they both react to the collie  perhaps she is just a particularly attractive or trampy little bitch. We are always saying why should dogs like all dogs etc, perhaps they have those floozies all the men flock round too!!


T'is a dog . Neutered very early which I have heard sometimes makes dogs smell like in season bitches . He is very submissive and face licky and needs taking away from Kilo or Rudi even when they are on leads - comes back for more . Kilo drools, teeth chatters, whines and if he catches his scent he is off - ran two fields to catch them up once which he has only ever done for an in season bitch (that I didn't know was in season, obviously!!). Rudi at present has never tried to hump any other dog, object or person bar this BC .


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> T'is a dog . Neutered very early which I have heard sometimes makes dogs smell like in season bitches . He is very submissive and face licky and needs taking away from Kilo or Rudi even when they are on leads - comes back for more . Kilo drools, teeth chatters, whines and if he catches his scent he is off - ran two fields to catch them up once which he has only ever done for an in season bitch (that I didn't know was in season, obviously!!). Rudi at present has never tried to hump any other dog, object person bar this BC .


Duh right I can see that now, even stranger, would make a bit of sense though. I had a client with prostate cancer (bear with me ) part of his treatment was to reduce his testosterone by increasing his female hormones, he did start to look more feminine in a very odd way bless him  so yeah early neutering I guess could feasibly mean there was more of the female hormones than the males and you have some very confused doggies.

ETA and IME dogs aren't exactly particular any way in the way they get their kicks


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## Thorne

LO -Hope you feel better today?

Twiggy -Ah, deserved praise I think! Well done you (and Holly Bolly).

GR -Gosh you were brave on your training walk last night, it was too cold for comfort and still is I think! Sounds like progress was made, good luck.

Dogless -Very frustrating  But at least the boys were good bar the mini tantrum this morning. Well done for a successful walk with Rudi. Floozie male collie 

Sarah -Good work on recall away from food, mine will recall away from food that's not theirs but still scavenge when my back is turned. Stomachs on legs indeed...

K&M -Don't think I could have a Cocker myself, all the ones I've met have been whingey so I'd either be fretting about what they want or being driven mad by their noisiness :crazy: No retaliation is good, I'm sure the improvements will come thick and fast!

Micky -Looks like the wings went down well!

Symone -Sorry you had a rough night with little madam. I've noticed that lots of collies refuse treats, ours was never a "foodie". I also vote for trying out exciting toys, this link was brought up earlier on the thread: How to Create a Motivating Toy
Even Scooter refuses treats when he's very overstimulated on walks so it could be a case of that. Pleased you made progress today though!

Beth -Glad you and the boys had a good walk, nothing wrong with a bit of handbags at dawn 

Izzysmummy -Very pleased that Izzy is back to normal now!

Had a pretty good walk with Scooter despite a rubbish start; he was a bit pully and refused hot dog sausage so I thought I was in for a rough ride! Kept him onlead until he started tuning into me, did some heelwork and watch me to test his focus then let him off. Had some lovely recalls and check-ins of his own accord, and wasn't disheartened by a brief "brain off nose on" moment because he did stop and let me catch him. Scoo got growled at by a GSP but otherwise we were the only ones braving the elements.
Went (onlead!) through the area the white peacock's been loose in, no sign of it so hopefully it's been captured!

Something I love about walking Scooter is that I don't have to shovel treats into him when a giant rattly tractor passes, and don't have to scan the horizon for bird scarers. One went off less than 200m from us today and he didn't even look up, just flicked an ear and kept going.

Will get Breeze kitted out and take her for a walk in a few minutes


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## Guest

Had two offlead dogs charge at us. A spaniel, which the owner found hilarious. Zand looked very upset the whole exchange (Ears back etc) but did sniff the spanners back end. I said No to the owner when they asked if they could meet but she still thrust the spanner forward.
An offlead JRT that was just running around with no owner, it launched itself at Zand, zand screamed, and then a girl came out from a field and threw a jumper over it and caught it. Neither of us knew who it belonged to but the girl said she might have an idea. Brave girl. 
The dogmatic looks really tight on zand, but I can get one to two fingers between it and his face and size 3 seems HUGGGGGGE cause its for dobermans and setters and the like.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless, my friend had a GSD who attracted all the intact males as if he were a bitch in season. He had a medical issue that was causing it but I have no idea what it was. If this dog gets the same response from dogs other than yours it might be worth his owner getting him a thorough vet check. The dog Spen humps was neutered very early too though.

IM, glad Izzys tail's better.

Well we've been 2 months without a cooker now. Phoned them up today and apparently the cooker is here and should have been fitted this week. So where the bloody hell is it??? Let's hope it comes tomorrow. 

Spen's just given himself a mohican coz he heard the dog he doesn't like going past  Any other dog he whines and wants to play with, this one he gets all huffy and hackly and growly. I can tell without even looking when it goes by. It's dog aggressive and although they've never met close up it's lunged and barked and snarled at him from a distance a lot.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, my friend had a GSD who attracted all the intact males as if he were a bitch in season. He had a medical issue that was causing it but I have no idea what it was. If this dog gets the same response from dogs other than yours it might be worth his owner getting him a thorough vet check. The dog Spen humps was neutered very early too though.
> 
> IM, glad Izzys tail's better.
> 
> Well we've been 2 months without a cooker now. Phoned them up today and apparently the cooker is here and should have been fitted this week. So where the bloody hell is it??? Let's hope it comes tomorrow.
> 
> Spen's just given himself a mohican coz he heard the dog he doesn't like going past  Any other dog he whines and wants to play with, this one he gets all huffy and hackly and growly. I can tell without even looking when it goes by. It's dog aggressive and although they've never met close up it's lunged and barked and snarled at him from a distance a lot.


Hmmmm; the BC does get it from all intact males apparently. Kilo also acted the same with Flint on and off (got worse as the walk went on) and he was neutered late though. Cravensmum said he got that from a lot of dogs too .

The cooker situation sounds about right; we were ages without a light and extractor fan for the bathroom. Hope it's sorted soonest.


----------



## Dogless

Platinum Star for the BCH . He left the house in work mode, we did lots of heelwork, 'hides', sits etc just doing stuff as we went along and he was as sharp as a tack - well, as sharp as a hound gets . Then, we met our friends with the vizsla and Kilo approached on a nice loose lead to get a proper vizzie greeting . He also got some fusses as the owners are two of the very few folk on this planet that Kilo loves fusses from :thumbup1:. Talked for a bit and moved on doing some more work, went past the dog walking field with some dogs playing without having a pull to see if we were going in. Back past the field on the way back a woman was just coming out with a sibe. Her dog was up on his back legs trying to reach us and giving her a very hard time, she couldn't walk away. I said "I'll give you some space, looks like he really wants to meet him" (as in her dog wanted to meet Kilo). A bit further down the road there was a pavement on each side, so I crossed and passed and she looked scared - I said something about it being hard near the dog walking field as all dogs wonder if others want to play or something as she looked so stricken. She said "Doesn't he want to eat him any more?" . I asked what she meant and she thought I'd said "I'll give you some space, he really wants to eat him" as in Kilo wanted to snack on her dog :shocked: :blink::crazy::yikes: . T'was quite funny but I guess you would have to have been there .

Just before we reached home the same dog that had run up to Rudi the other evening (that the woman said scrapped with females and had asked if Rudi was neutered and said it wasn't good when I replied that he wasn't) ran up to us and...Kilo did a 'hide' and the dog ran back off again :thumbup1:.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah, hope you get a cooker soon. 2 months.

Dogless-not quite the same- but Jay will occasionally go after the other girls bits then start teeth chattering.:shocked:

We very nearly had a better day, until about an hour ago.:frown2:
Jay growled at him- he hadn't done anything, so he flew at her, I put him in his crate for 10 mins, only for it to happen again not long after.
When I say he hadn't done anything- he really hadn't, Jay growls at dogs being in her breathing space, but these and most others ignore her.
Then theres the cats.:frown2: Makes me feel guilty for agreeing to take him- but its temporary - and I took a chance with 3 of these.

He's done quite a bit better in other ways though, I walked him with the girls this morning, but its frustrating for him, he was on a 10m line but he cant run around proper with them. So his 2nd walk was around the village,he didn't react to a man or barky dogs- he was rather interested in the sheep though.

I got him a kong wubba today to save just for walks, we took that for our 3rd walk- he loves toys and it went down well.


----------



## Jenny Olley

Dogless - I have a few times come across early neutered males who attract other males, can't help feeling sorry for them.

Symone - have you tried attaching your toy to a line so you can get better movement when outside, have you also tried playing in the house with the lead on, as often its the lead that stops them playing outside.

Archie's training continues to go well, he is shaping up really well, had a great compliment tonight, Archie needed to go out to the loo and I just said jokingly "I'm not taking him, I'm sick of him," my OH immediately said "I'll have him" praise indeed.


----------



## Werehorse

I can't keep up. :lol: I've been working! 

K&M - you're a saint for taking on the spangle (he is gorgeous BTW) and working with him. I do hope he comes good.

I have begun training for the mad job and my head is swimming! Need to lay down in a dark room. Poor Oscar and Hugo will have to get used to being on their own for two days a week.  I feel a bit guilty but I know from the down days I have had that they are perfectly capable of sleeping all day if left to it. Today however someone left the door to the bedroom open and they had been playing "matadors" (Hugo's favourite game - he's the matador, Oscar is the bull.  ) with a towel they found. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I can't keep up. :lol: I've been working!
> 
> K&M - you're a saint for taking on the spangle (he is gorgeous BTW) and working with him. I do hope he comes good.
> 
> I have begun training for the mad job and my head is swimming! Need to lay down in a dark room. Poor Oscar and Hugo will have to get used to being on their own for two days a week.  I feel a bit guilty but I know from the down days I have had that they are perfectly capable of sleeping all day if left to it. Today however someone left the door to the bedroom open and *they had been playing "matadors" (Hugo's favourite game - he's the matador, Oscar is the bull.  ) with a towel they found.* :lol:


That sounds so cute....you'll have to get it on video for us .


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> That sounds so cute....you'll have to get it on video for us .


It is super-cute but they haven't played it while I'm around for a while.  I might have to encourage them. :devil:


----------



## Guest

My dog is currently snoozing next to me after being a whingey bar steward the whole damn day. 

I *think* his field may be sheep free, but I'm still worried about going due to his running into people thing and the CONSTANT TRAFFIC OF PEOPLE AND DOGS. TWO SECONDS AND I HAVE TO PUT ZAND ON-LEAD AGAIN. 

And I do think his headcollar may be a wee tight, but the size three is huge and it hasn't left any indent makes on him so it'll be fine. 

Jesus, I'm actually sat here worried over ****all. :lol: 

That dog is so beautiful kat and you actual deserve medals.


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## Beth17

Dogless well done to both CH 

K&M I hope he calms down for you soon.

Werehorse that games sounds really sweet 

Sarah 2 months without a cooker 

LO I hope your field is free. What a shame about the two offlead dogs 

IM I'm glad Izzy's tail has its wag back 

Well my two have spent the majority of the day sleeping off this mornings run  Sam however has been very keen to hump today, I think he knows something is up :skep:


----------



## Dogless

LO - the zillions of folk and dogs is a real pain, you need a swivel head!!

Beth - maybe Sam's making the most of what he's got whilst he still has them? .

Just had a conversation with Mum that has left me (and I suspect her) feeling pretty upset. She is concerned about the change in me, says it worries her a lot . I try not to seem any different when I ring home or go home but apparently she only gets the odd glimpse of 'me'. Which makes me feel awful. Mind you, she said after my first tour to Iraq that I had come back totally different. Same for the second, same for Afghanistan....but this time she seems really worried. Poor Mum  I tried to reassure her but she was still .


----------



## Thorne

Breeze gets humped quite a lot, but she's a tart so she brings it on herself  Think Scooter's only been humped by another dog once, he looked very shocked indeed!

LO -Grr at the offlead dog owners  If you can fit 2 fingers under the dogmatic I'm sure it's fine for now.

Sarah -Love the term mohican for hackles! 

Dogless -Sounds like a fantastic walk, gold stars all round I think.

K&M -What a shame to end a good day on a disappointing note  At least you're finding out what makes him tick and if the good outweighs the bad then that's something. 

Jenny -Now that is high praise indeed! 

Werehorse -Getting a lovely mental image of the matador game, good luck with new job training.

Beth -Cheeky Sam 

Had a lovely walk with Breeze! On the way to the rec she was startled by Jake the noisy Lab X who was out in his garden, and wasn't impressed by a Saxo with subs and a back box but shook these off and seemed happy. Big wags and springy steps! 

Did a bit of training in the carpark but she went loopy with excitement and lost focus when I asked her to retrieve my glove. Started her teeth-snapping and silly dance routine, maybe someone's given her some of the 7% glucose treats!
Jogged around the rec and had a play then finished with a bit more training. Clicked and jackpot treated as a huge lorry passed on the way home; no swerving, hiding, bolt attempts or any significant reaction :thumbup: Very pleased indeed.

Hoping to see sid&kira tomorrow and am taking Breeze to meet the pack, she's met Kira before but not sure what she'll make of all three! Will try to remember my camera (and the battery this time).


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hello again.

I've hardly got time to trump these days, honestly. :cornut:

Been doing separate walks with all three ATM, as well as trying to get on with my work, hence not having time for computers. and being very disciplined too.

Quite enjoying taking them out individually.......shows me the strengths and weaknesses so to speak. 

Bella is good at LLW, recall, but is getting a little bit more interested in the ducks on the canal so need to do a bit of work on that before it gets to the frank stage, and it turns into a full on launch and swim after them even though they'll never be caught. 

Freddie thinks he needs to sniff every bit of grass, and eat any bit of food dropped. :frown2: but is good at recalls and ' steeeeaaaadddyyyy' bless him, he's walking along nicely then soon as I say 'steady' , it's as if he goes into high concentration mode and slowly creeps along. 

Now frank.....I think ive enjoyed one on one time with him the most. does that make me a bad mommy???.
After the first five minutes,Which are so difficult and tense, he settles from being on high alert, very flinchy, and looking everywhere, to relaxed and more focused on me. he seems to relax more which makes me relax so perhaps it's been a bit of a thingy, with me making him tense....  if anyone understands that then its a miracle.
It's still a huge challenge to try and get his focus off ducks and this morning he did try to launch into the canal but I had him on his roamer lead and so managed to get him out and we ran on ahead. 

Walking frank this morning,along the pavement,we were approaching a lady, in the distance,with two boxers that looked like they were pulling her arms out, poor woman. She looked so stressed, so we crossed over to give them space and she held onto the dogs until we had passed, still on opposite sides . I really really felt for this woman cause have been in her position so many times. 

Anyway, I'm going to bed in a bit with my iPad and will do a bit of catching up.. Was doing a bit of catching up last night but watching the Brits took over, sorry.
Is it wrong that I find nick grimshaw from radio 1 quite attractive???????


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## Dogless

F&F - I understand the Frank stress 'thingy' perfectly...and, no, Nick Grimshaw does have something about him  .

I'm looking at holiday cottages etc in Cornwall (thinking of going to visit folks and although welcome at theirs with dogs it's too stressful in a way....) and so many accept up to two medium sized dogs. Wonder if the CHs could be classed as medium by any stretch.....


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## Werehorse

Seperate walks are good, F&F - even if they take up loads of time. Seperate lead walks with the boys really helped move me on a few steps with them. 

Dogless - I honestly don't know what to say re: the military tours... so far beyond my range of experience - I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through emotionally. The stress-load must be just beyond anything - I'm not surprised it has had an affect on you. I can't imagine that even with all the training you must get that it _wouldn't_ have a profound affect on someone. I'm kind of assuming you have been getting some kind of councelling (can't spell, sorry) already? If not are there channels through which you can seek some? I'm a fine one to advise this though - I can't stand talk therapies myself. :lol: I just end up re-directing all my anger and frustration at the therapist and then feel guilty and quit going.  Or I just can't forgive the therapist for being even a tiny bit patronising and/or disinterested sounding. :lol: Stroppy cow that I am. Visits home can be very grounding if you have a good relationship with your folks.  CHs are totally "medium". Well they are chihuahuas or great danes are they? Therefore - medium.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Seperate walks are good, F&F - even if they take up loads of time. Seperate lead walks with the boys really helped move me on a few steps with them.
> 
> Dogless - I honestly don't know what to say re: the military tours... so far beyond my range of experience - I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through emotionally. The stress-load must be just beyond anything - I'm not surprised it has had an affect on you. I can't imagine that even with all the training you must get that it _wouldn't_ have a profound affect on someone. I'm kind of assuming you have been getting some kind of councelling (can't spell, sorry) already? If not are there channels through which you can seek some? I'm a fine one to advise this though - I can't stand talk therapies myself. :lol: I just end up re-directing all my anger and frustration at the therapist and then feel guilty and quit going.  Or I just can't forgive the therapist for being even a tiny bit patronising and/or disinterested sounding. :lol: Stroppy cow that I am. Visits home can be very grounding if you have a good relationship with your folks.  *CHs are totally "medium". Well they are chihuahuas or great danes are they? Therefore - medium*.


Yes....that was my line of thought . An awful lot say small only but I don't think I can quite wrangle that one.

The doc has referred me to someone about 3 weeks ago, hopefully I'll get a letter soon and then after that the wait is a few months. I'm not sure it's the military stuff on it's own - I think work was a tether and now I'm not the madness is taking hold  . Oh well, I'll ring Mum later again so I know she's OK.


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## kat&molly

All the best to young Sam for his op today.

Dogless- a break away will do you the world of good. Hope you can find somewhere to stay.


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## Dogless

Good luck Sam xx.


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## Beth17

Thank you everyone he went in happy as larry charming the nurses so I'm sure he'll be fine  Going to have some quality Oscar time and after getting some tyres going to have a nice long walk with him. Then get home and cook up some chicken and rice for the poor boy.

Dogless a break sounds like a really good idea. And Devon isn't too far away   

Werehorse I saw the school councillor when I was younger and hated talking to them so they gave up and just labelled me a problem child :lol:

F&F I'm glad the separate walks are going well. It's not bad that you've enjoyed one on one with Frank the most. It is however very wrong that you think Nick Grimshaw has something about him :shocked: :001_tt2:

Thorne hope you have a good walk today with sid&kira


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## moonviolet

Good luck today Sam.

Sarah I hope you get your cooker installed soon sounds like the wheels turn very slowly there.

F+F I hope you have time to trump soon :lol: Glad you are enjoying the seperate walks.

Dogless a break sounds wonderful. I hope you can organise something soon  please be kind to yourself and try not to feel bad about your Mum worrying it's only natural that she is concerned.

Thorne I love the sound of excited breeze  sounds like she really enjoyed herself 

LO Zander is a great young dog and you are a committed competent owner. Every single one of us has apologised on behalf of our dogs at soem time or other.

We had some fun last night my latest zooplus order had arrived in the day and I'd got some trixie balls and was hiding them for her ladyship to find. I love to see her using her nose properly her whole body language changes.


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## GingerRogers

We have a mentallist here today she has already pile drived my face first thing  and keeps gurgling at me  which means play but I have no idea what she wants . I am off out in a bit so hopefully she might sleep it off. I discovered she likes sweet potato. Two bits of roasted shoved in a kong last night occupied her for about 1 1/2 hrs, no idea why it took so long but she was determined. Evil me froze a bit this morning 

Good luck Sam.

Dogless, don't stress about your mother stressing, it is what they do. Does she know about your recent revelations, if not perhaps she should, they have habits of guessing these things and then worrying more when you say nothing. Also you may well have changed somewhat now you are being upfront with docs and hubby and acknowledging your 'special personality'  out loud. I swear my mum has had a sixth sense at times over the years. However I think a trip to Cornwall (jealous) will do you the world of good, your Mum will be happy to see you no doubt and even if she is still worried it will reassure her you haven't grown an extra head, and you seriously need to get away from the numpties over there for a bit. As to size well Rudi is a pup so he is 'small' so that balances out as two medium doesn't it 

Must go clients await.


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## Freddie and frank

I've gone back loads of pages so will probably confuse everyone but in my crazed mind it'll all make sense. :biggrin:

Werehorse, glad you're feeling more upbeat and well done boys for behaving in Keswick. :thumbup1:

K&M, Hal is a handsome lad and I'm currently battling through teenage lad stage of the human kind though. It's trying at times. Nice pic of moll.

Beth, hope Sam is ok. 

LC, well done on the weight loss and hope all goes ok re ultrasound and blood tests.

Sarah, well done for the weight loss and spen recalling away from food....it's something I dream about. 

Mv, what's the doorstep thing your doing? Or am I being dizzy again 

Lo, I use tuna and garlic treats, honey and banana treats and liver. 

Ms, sounds like things are going well with Molly. Hope you're ok. 

Twiggy, what a nice compliment. 

Mickey, love eddies face in the second pic. 

Im, yay to izzys tail and would love to see some pros doing agility. :thumbup1:

Gr and symone, good luck with LLW. With bella, I just stop and wait for her to realise that we don't go any further until the lead goes slack. I walk a couple of steps, click and treat. I repeat this until she gets it. It's taken ages but she walks really nice now. Just wished I'd have stuck to it with the boys. But one thing that works for me may not necessarily work for another.
One trainer told me to count out loud too. Not sure if it's called the premack theory?????? May be wrong. I do one step, click, then return to start. Next time do two steps, click, treat then return and so on until I get to 300 
Hopefully by that time theyve got it. If you get to say 40 and they pull again then go back to one. 
God, not sure if that helps or makes sense but it helped with frank.

Dogless,love the picture of 31.4kg rudi.  
And the BC that attracts the attention makes sense to me.....I had Freddie and frank neutered early....on my vets advice and stupidly took it......but Freddie has always attracted male dogs and certain ones never leave him alone. This is probably why. 
Hope you get sorted with your doctors appointment and a break away will help I'm sure. Can't even begin to imagine how you feel with regards to military stuff but take care and look after yourself. We are human after all and not robots. Xx

Sorry if I've missed out anyone, hope you all have good days. 
And I still stand by my nick grimshaw crush. :cornut:


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## kat&molly

F+F- I dont even know who Nick whotshis face is 

MV- Moll's the same when I hide stuff- she just loves it, when indoors I use the bedroom mostly, but it gets trashed in her excitement.

Thorne- hope you all have a good day today with Sid.

Ginge- the gurgling sounds really sweet.:001_wub:

The little man has been a bit better this morning. He's had a walk with his pink wubba. He's learning so fast that he has to sit and that jumping up doors doesn't get them opened. He loves the garden and wants you to keep standing out there to watch him parade around with a toy in his mouth- theres only so much of that I can stand in this biting wind.

A nice walk with the girls, except short stuff ignored a recall so we all ran off and hid from her ,she soon came.rrr:


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## Freddie and frank

Oh I missed Thorne, sorry.
Hope you enjoy your day with Sid and kira.


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## Dogless

Thank you everyone, you are all lovely .

Beth - hope you enjoy some quality Oscar time and it's nice to hear how happily Sam went into the vet.

k&m - the little man seems to be doing brilliantly, and your walk with the girls sounds nice.

F&F - interesting about the neutering.

GR - Mums do know, I just hate the thought of causing her worry.



moonviolet said:


> We had some fun last night my latest zooplus order had arrived in the day and I'd got some trixie balls and was hiding them for her ladyship to find. I love to see her using her nose properly her whole body language changes.


We got some of those with our Zooplus the other day; I gave them to Dizzy's human as they were a bit smaller than I thought they'd be.

Fantastic separate walks this morning; I was armed with hotdog and clicker and the boys both engaged with me really well. We also went out much later than normal so there was more 'stuff' going on. Kilo did some 'hides' when we saw dogs and talked to humans and tripped off on a lovely loose lead when we moved on when the dogs were pulling to get to him :thumbup1: and ignored a loose tiny pug puppy running all over the road (pug's human was carrying a toddler so both hands occupied). Rudi's highlight was ignoring the beagle barking and lunging at him :thumbup1:. He is so different to Kilo - Kilo would have cowered and shook and gone in between my knees at Rudi's age if that happened - Rudi looked and carried on. One brief attempt at jumping and biting when I got Rudi over excited with his ball on a rope, but it was stopped very quickly when I told him to sit :thumbup1:. My best boys this morning :001_wub::001_wub:.


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## Guest

I HAVE JUST MADE A TUNA CAKE BALL. Woooooo!!


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## kat&molly

A good walk Dogless.:thumbup1:

What 'easy' clicker stuff can I try with Hal- I was just using Moll's plunger for touch but he didn't catch on as he was too busy trying to get treats.

I dont know how I've done it but Scruff always thinks 'touch' means lick.:laugh:

Just thought- a target sick.


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## Guest

And cornwall you say? Thats only a couple counties away from me! :lol:


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## Nicki85

Haven't gone right back again sorry 

Rusty is an unneutered male and attracts the wrong type of attention usually from other males. My agility trainer when her male BC went for (both on lead, just a bark/ grumble) Rusty and said that it was almost like he wasn't sure if he should be flirting with him or telling him off... I can only imagine he gives off some funny pheromones. We get this from most males. I have thought about neutering him but worried it might make it worse. He has got permanently swollen lymph nodes so I wonder if that has something to do about it. He's had two lots of blood tests that have been fine....

Anyhow, we met with the dog that keeps going for Rusty and he was fab, completely ignored the other dog and got on with his "important Spaniel business". Eventually worked up to them both being offlead together but the other dog was very heightened and bossy so I worked on getting the other owner to call hers back when he went over to Rusty. It worked and I feel more comfortable now... would not trust them offlead though. Rusty was worried by it posturing at him when I wasn't by his side but did the right things so all OK. Only let them meet three times offlead before calling it a day. She has had some "interesting" instruction based on pack and dominance theory so I gave her the number of a positive reinforcement instructor. 

I also went to see the ES pups, oh my they are gorgeous! Loved mum and dad who were complete opposites- mum had to have a close eye on me whereas dad was Mr. chilled. Got to handle all the girls lovely pups and parents! 

Oh and Rusty recalled off a deer in full chase which I was sooo impressed with! First whistle he ignored but second he came back! I gave him so much fuss and threw his special chase toy for him... which is what he wanted- fuss is for home!

Love my Rusty pup very much!


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## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Haven't gone right back again sorry
> 
> Rusty is an unneutered male and attracts the wrong type of attention usually from other males. My agility trainer when her male BC went for (both on lead, just a bark/ grumble) Rusty and said that it was almost like he wasn't sure if he should be flirting with him or telling him off... I can only imagine he gives off some funny pheromones. We get this from most males. I have thought about neutering him but worried it might make it worse. He has got permanently swollen lymph nodes so I wonder if that has something to do about it. He's had two lots of blood tests that have been fine....
> 
> Anyhow, we met with the dog that keeps going for Rusty and he was fab, completely ignored the other dog and got on with his "important Spaniel business". Eventually worked up to them both being offlead together but the other dog was very heightened and bossy so I worked on getting the other owner to call hers back when he went over to Rusty. It worked and I feel more comfortable now... would not trust them offlead though. Rusty was worried by it posturing at him when I wasn't by his side but did the right things so all OK. Only let them meet three times offlead before calling it a day. She has had some "interesting" instruction based on pack and dominance theory so I gave her the number of a positive reinforcement instructor.
> 
> I also went to see the ES pups, oh my they are gorgeous! Loved mum and dad who were complete opposites- mum had to have a close eye on me whereas dad was Mr. chilled. Got to handle all the girls lovely pups and parents!
> 
> *Oh and Rusty recalled off a deer in full chase which I was sooo impressed with! First whistle he ignored but second he came back! * I gave him so much fuss and threw his special chase toy for him... which is what he wanted- fuss is for home!
> 
> Love my Rusty pup very much!


Your whole post sounds very positive but the part in bold....I am in awe . That would be the Holy Grail for me with Kilo!!


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## Nicki85

If only I could get the same in a hedge with a pheasant sat in it!!!


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> A good walk Dogless.:thumbup1:
> 
> What 'easy' clicker stuff can I try with Hal- I was just using Moll's plunger for touch but he didn't catch on as he was too busy trying to get treats.
> 
> I dont know how I've done it but Scruff always thinks 'touch' means lick.:laugh:
> 
> Just thought- a target sick.


Maybe start with a bit of impulse control ( you may need to wear a glove for this, if you aren't rock hard like grannie) have a handful of treats and click and treat the very moment he stops bothering your hand aiming to eventually be able to have the hand open without him going for them. It might take a few sessions but by the sounds of it is going to be worth it he sounds like a foodie 

F+F the doorstep stuff is desensitization/ counter conditioning. Shameful as it is to admit a lot of her basic socialisation went out of the window when I had to be so very careful with her interactions with other dogs. Our house is on the way to the park so we see all the bikes scooters dogs children etc etc walking past. but from the front doorstep she gets to lurk mainly unnoticed. Playing "look at that" for anything that is wildly exciting or she's a little unsure of.. it's important to whisper " look at that" when saying it about people :lol: This technique was very useful helping her recover her confidence after being attacked.


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## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Maybe start with a bit of impulse control ( you may need to wear a glove for this, if you aren't rock hard like grannie) have a handful of treats and click and treat the very moment he stops bothering your hand aiming to eventually be able to have the hand open without him going for them. It might take a few sessions but by the sounds of it is going to be worth it he sounds like a foodie
> 
> F+F the doorstep stuff is desensitization/ counter conditioning. Shameful as it is to admit a lot of her basic socialisation went out of the window when I had to be so very careful with her interactions with other dogs. How house is on the way to the park so we see all the bikes scooters dogs children etc etc walking past. but from the front doorstep she gets to lurk mainly unnoticed. Playing "look at that" for anything that is wildly exciting or she's a little unsure of.. it's important to whisper " look at that" when saying it about people :lol: This technique was very useful helping her recover her confidence after being attacked.


Could you explain the 'look at that' in detail please?
Might it help with Zand's confidence??

Zander was spinning on his headcollar to meet a westie today. REALLY WANTED TO SAY HI to the dog but kept shooting back at its owner... 
He cannot eat largish treats with the headcollar on. :S


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## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> Could you explain the 'look at that' in detail please?
> Might it help with Zand's confidence??
> 
> Zander was spinning on his headcollar to meet a westie today. REALLY WANTED TO SAY HI to the dog but kept shooting back at its owner...
> He cannot eat largish treats with the headcollar on. :S


Take a look at this it explains it much better than i possibly could 

Look At That Game For Fearful/Shy Dogs - How to train - YouTube


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Could you explain the 'look at that' in detail please?
> Might it help with Zand's confidence??
> 
> Zander was spinning on his headcollar to meet a westie today. REALLY WANTED TO SAY HI to the dog but kept shooting back at its owner...
> He cannot eat largish treats with the headcollar on. :S


It sounds fairly tight for a Dogmatic LO - Kilo can still pant / hold a small toy / eat treats and it's not loose enough to move around on his face.


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## kat&molly

Thanks Moonviolet, anything like that will be great.


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> It sounds fairly tight for a Dogmatic LO - Kilo can still pant / hold a small toy / eat treats and it's not loose enough to move around on his face.


Sadly I am too late to exchange sizes. :glare:

But size three though, is for like, boxers and labs and setters and stuff and it will be huge on him I know it. I REALLY LIKE THIS HEADCOLLAR, I LIKE IT, ITS NOOOOT FAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIR!! *wails*

But he can eat small treats, dunno bout panting yet...

I shall have mosey at that vid.


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## Beth17

Well Sam is completely fine and sailed through, however didn't quite get the walk we imagined. I got tyres and got home about 11 ready to take him out when I saw I had a missed voicemail. It was the vets asking if I could pick Sam up early as he had woken up quickly and was now singing/howling and upsetting all the other dogs  So We had a quickish walk and then went and picked him up about an hour ago.

He's now zonked out in the chair. It would have to be him causing trouble  I'll take Oscar out again later when my mum is home to watch him.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Sadly I am too late to exchange sizes. :glare:
> 
> But size three though, is for like, boxers and labs and setters and stuff and it will be huge on him I know it. I REALLY LIKE THIS HEADCOLLAR, I LIKE IT, ITS NOOOOT FAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIR!! *wails*
> 
> But he can eat small treats, dunno bout panting yet...
> 
> I shall have mosey at that vid.


I'm sure it's fine then if he can eat treats; they are good headcollars I think .


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## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Well Sam is completely fine and sailed through, however didn't quite get the walk we imagined. I got tyres and got home about 11 ready to take him out when I saw I had a missed voicemail. It was the vets asking if I could pick Sam up early as he had woken up quickly and was now singing/howling and upsetting all the other dogs  So We had a quickish walk and then went and picked him up about an hour ago.
> 
> He's now zonked out in the chair. It would have to be him causing trouble  I'll take Oscar out again later when my mum is home to watch him.


Wow that was fast; so pleased that Sam got through so easily - wishing him a swift recovery .


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## kat&molly

Beth17 said:


> Well Sam is completely fine and sailed through, however didn't quite get the walk we imagined. I got tyres and got home about 11 ready to take him out when I saw I had a missed voicemail. It was the vets asking if I could pick Sam up early as he had woken up quickly and was now singing/howling and upsetting all the other dogs  So We had a quickish walk and then went and picked him up about an hour ago.
> 
> He's now zonked out in the chair. It would have to be him causing trouble  I'll take Oscar out again later when my mum is home to watch him.


:lol: :lol: Naughty boy- it must be a relief to have him back though.


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## Freddie and frank

LurcherOwner said:


> I HAVE JUST MADE A TUNA CAKE BALL. Woooooo!!


:thumbup1: fab, hope it goes down well.
Frank can eat treats quite well with his dogmatic on and his tongue sticks out when he pants. Think I need the next size up for Freddie cause he can manage treats ok but just seems a wee bit small. Hoping to get one from crufts though. 



Dogless said:


> Your whole post sounds very positive but the part in bold....I am in awe . That would be the Holy Grail for me with Kilo!!


Oh god, me too with frank. . Freddie will come away from deer but that's probably because he's oblivious to anything. 

:thumbup1: to your best boys Dogless.

Mv, thanks for clarifying that. 

Beth, glad Sam is home and ok.


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## Guest

What sizes to your lot have?


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> What sizes to your lot have?


4L for the BW. I think - cut the label out!!

ETA 4 - found the order email!!


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## Guest

And bless Sam, my one was like that.:lol: They were all like "He'll be drowsy and sleepy." Then they opened the door and a nurse nearly fell on her face cause zand was all like YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY all the way through the waiting room. :lol:


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> 4L for the BW.


I wish they did a 2L. :lol:


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## moonviolet

Well done Sam :lol: better to have to pick him up early than them wanting to keep him in for a "bit longer"

F+F i'm quire possibly being over cautious but i do want her to be happy out there with me gardening in the summer and best to restart easy and move quickly than overwhlem her and have to fix stuff!


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## Izzysmummy

K+M - sounds like Hal is settling OK. He's a handsome lad!

Beth - So glad Sam is OK! We had to wait ages to be able to pick up Izzy after getting her spayed and when we did she was staggering like a drunk person!

Dogless - A break in cornwall sounds good. Hope you can find somewhere that'll be happy taking the boys! Sounds like the boys have been on their best behaviour today!

F+F - Oooh, what day are you going to crufts? 

LO- Sorry we dont have a dogmatic, I really like the look of them though!

Thorne - Hope you have a nice walk with sid and Kira! Looking forward to pics!

Mv - maybe I'll start sitting outside the front door with Izzy so she can watch the world go by and learn to relax outside a bit more. Need a comfy seat out there first though!

So Izzy was good at the park this morning but was a bit of a monkey when she got back, Tarnus put his bowl of cereal down while he opened the curtains and when he turned around she was having a sly munch on his cereal!!  For some reason he decided to finish them anyways! Yuck!! :hand: :crazy:

Think shes having a nice day with her Dad at home and Ive had a picture text off my Mum with a picture of Millie saying shes looking forward to seeing Izzy tonight!


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## Sarah1983

Feeling all sorry for myself today, it's my 30th birthday and I'm spending it all alone coz hubby has some stupid 3 course meal thing he can't get out of and won't be home till at least 1am and probably later. It's times like this I hate being so far from my friends and family :crying: And of course he's gonna be in no fit state to do anything tomorrow either. Doesn't help I'm seeing all my friends making plans for their 30th, having parties, going out for meals etc and I'm stuck in another country for those too. Being homesick to start with probably doesn't help.

Spencer has helped me unload the shopping today. He brought me the microwave hotdog I bought for lunch. Then he brought me two jars of curry sauce. A bag of crisps. A can of Relentless. And finally the pack of liver I got to make him treats out of. I didn't ask him to, I was busy putting other stuff away and could have done without his help really but it made me smile anyway.

And now I'd best go back and catch up on what I've missed while wrapped in my cocoon of self pity.


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## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Feeling all sorry for myself today, it's my 30th birthday and I'm spending it all alone coz hubby has some stupid 3 course meal thing he can't get out of and won't be home till at least 1am and probably later. It's times like this I hate being so far from my friends and family :crying: And of course he's gonna be in no fit state to do anything tomorrow either. Doesn't help I'm seeing all my friends making plans for their 30th, having parties, going out for meals etc and I'm stuck in another country for those too. Being homesick to start with probably doesn't help.
> 
> Spencer has helped me unload the shopping today. He brought me the microwave hotdog I bought for lunch. Then he brought me two jars of curry sauce. A bag of crisps. A can of Relentless. And finally the pack of liver I got to make him treats out of. I didn't ask him to, I was busy putting other stuff away and could have done without his help really but it made me smile anyway.
> 
> And now I'd best go back and catch up on what I've missed while wrapped in my cocoon of self pity.


Aww no, don't be sad! (Hugs)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!:thumbup1:


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## Guest

I really really wish people WOULD PAY ATTENTION when I say "If he backs away don't try to stoke him"

Have had about 5 people go "Oh no its alright I have dogs!" and then do kissy, its alright noises at my dog who is quivering by now. :mad5:

Met the doberman lurch who kinda tried to have a go at mine. The owner has asked if she can borrow my old gentle leader.


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## moonviolet

Aww Sarah Happy 30th Birthday


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## GingerRogers

Oi you SARAH!!!



Think yourself lucky I was made to eat garlic mushrooms on my 30th followed by lamb stew with more mushrooms in and then my cake wasn't even chocolate


----------



## moonviolet

LO is there anyway you can avoid these well meaning folk? I cross the road an awful lot


----------



## Nicki85

Happy Birthday Sarah! Glad Spen is trying to cheer you up- give him a hug!


----------



## GingerRogers

Well we just went out for 10 mins and managed to get all the way round the triangle of grass with out pulling  it sounds good but the triangle is not big enough for a maypole dance but I love having a trip trappy dog next to me instead of a jumping rabbit, she was like a dancing pony so no where near relaxed but its a step in the right direction. She has started to poo in the garden :thumbup1: so think we will stick to this so outside gets really boring, as I had felt I had to take her somewhere till she poo'd.

LO - Someone gave me an idea earlier, think it was F&F, does Zand like banana and would those dried slices of banana work as a small but hard treat. Try him on sweet potato too, ninja is going potty for it .

Some one we know took the pee last night when my 'big scary aggressive dog' barked at him  while we were working our little street corner. I am sure everyone thinks I am so over thinking this but they haven't seen what she is like when she goes proper bonkers, thank god hubby has and knows why or I might just give up. I do think we are both relaxing with this new regime though, and hubby reckons her skin is looser which I gather is a good thing.

Bet you are pleased Sam is back to his naughty self hope his recovery continues as normal and he is causing proper mayhem again soon  I realised with all the talk about dog sizes that we don't see enough pics of your boys, 

F&F I cant do the stopping unfortunately thing as it gives her time to look about and find something else to react to  particularly cars, but the keep moving and turning round once I have got my head round actually not going anywhere appears to slowly be working.

Dogless - I know  re: mums but she is worrying anyway  she would be much happier knowing what is going on and that you are getting help. Gosh I can be bossy when I want to.

Wheres Chazzie, again ? 

Nikki -  puppies :001_wub: have you had one picked yet?


----------



## MollySmith

Happy Birthday Sarah  :thumbup1:

*Izzysmum,* thank you for thinking of me. I unfortuanately would have to get help in the next two weeks to qualify as I hit the grand age of 43 on 7th March but I hope that it helps lots of others if their PCT sign up. Unfortunately it's not compulsory so it's still very much a postcode lottery. In Cambridge we have the world famous Bourn Hall but we had to pay to go there as the Cambridgeshire PCT did not support it, if I had moved 9 miles to Saffron Walden they would. It's so stupid.

Sorry not to catch up proper, I have caused myself an injury to my back, no idea what but could be my chair at home. The pauper and skinflint in me won't go out and buy a nice back support one when I ought to. I've been hobbling all day and then yesterday was bed ridden in pain. I have been for a short walk today and managed to hobble with a stick.

Peeved with the hound and cross with myself today. She was ever so good on her walk. Her recall great even though her mate Nelson was miles away. Nelson is not our dog but the owner was chatting away to another person so my OH had to get him   He came back with the errant beastie and we had a great play in the field with numerous other dogs. It was grand. She walked well on the lead out of the car park with her doggy mates.

But little minx saw a spaniel she didn't know and up she was again barking just like she used to. I just wasn't expected it as everyone had said she'd improved but not with me one bit :frown2: OH was great, took the lead and said sit and she did. I think it's me who needs the lessons. I feel a bit annoyed with myself, not Molly although she's testing her training to the limit here.


----------



## GingerRogers

Not liking for the bad back the age or Molly barking but for her being so good for OH shows she really is getting there

I think especially if she had taken you by surprise and your are feeling tender anyway its not surprising that you struggled. I know both me and especially my OH know what to do but sometimes cant quite manage it in the event its really needed, especially with surprises, not even simple U turns, its like a brain freeze happens and you just don't get there in time. The act of passing the lead over probably snapped her out a bit in any case. Don't be too hard on your self.


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Not liking for the bad back the age or Molly barking but for her being so good for OH shows she really is getting there
> 
> I think especially if she had taken you by surprise and your are feeling tender anyway its not surprising that you struggled. I know both me and especially my OH know what to do but sometimes cant quite manage it in the event its really needed, especially with surprises, not even simple U turns, its like a brain freeze happens and you just don't get there in time. The act of passing the lead over probably snapped her out a bit in any case. Don't be too hard on your self.


Thank you, yes I guess also that I'd been caught out by the spaniel too and she was fine but maybe I wobble in my voice or probably pulled the lead as I was thinking 'here we go' and not trusting her when in fact I think if my OH had her, it would have been a lot better. At least she sat and composed herself and we then were able to walk to the car. Blummin brain freeze, at my age I should expect them


----------



## Freddie and frank

LurcherOwner said:


> What sizes to your lot have?


Size 3 for frank I think
Size 3L for Freddie.

Put franks size3 in washer and I thought it shrunk so ordered 3L and it was too big so just used it for Freddie.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Sarah;









MS - Im so sorry to hear the new guidelines wont help you. The postcode lottery is insane, I dont know how they can justify it! Try not to dwell on Molly's reaction, it could be that she felt your tension through the lead or was just being a bit protective over you if you were in pain. Izzy definitely picks up on my emotions a lot and is much worse if Im stressed.

GS - Good work on the LLW! Stick with it! The day you overhear someone wishing their dog was as well behaved as ninja will make it all worthwhile!! Even just a little smile from someone passing feels like such a huge compliment!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Happy birthday Sarah. 
Bless gorgeous spencer helping you. Oh I do love him. 

IM, hopefully going on the Saturday. Not got tickets yet but want to book them this weekend.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh MS I hope your back is better soon, if you need a more appropriate chair, you need one, the loss of quality of life and potentially earnings too doesn't bear thinking about in comparison with the cost of a rated chair.

Glad Molly gathered herself nicely. We've all been caught out by the brain freeze.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Oh MS I hope your back is better soon, if you need a more appropriate chair, you need one, the loss of quality of life and potentially earnings too doesn't bear thinking about in comparison with the cost of a rated chair.
> 
> Glad Molly gathered herself nicely. We've all been caught out by the brain freeze.


Totally agree with that (ignore the old thing I am sitting on ) I am amazed at the amount of people who put up with back problems when they can be helped so much with a bit of care. Cost of chair = £1-200 versus cost of time in pain (was going to say off work ) and chiro/osteo treatment. Trouble is we really do just get used to the stiffness/twinges of pain when there is no need.


----------



## Werehorse

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!!  Plan yourself an awesome unbirthday for when your OH is next available. Make sure it involves him pampering you massively - he won't be able to say no cos he missed your real birthday so you can go super-OTT with it. :thumbup: 

I have been being trained today again, just got in, brain is melting out my ears and now I have to go and teach a poor child some physics!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!!  Plan yourself an awesome unbirthday for when your OH is next available. Make sure it involves him pampering you massively - he won't be able to say no cos he missed your real birthday so you can go super-OTT with it. :thumbup:
> 
> I have been being trained today again, just got in, brain is melting out my ears and now I have to go and teach a poor child some physics!!


Historical physics or hysterical physics 

Second your unbirthday plan, guilt card


----------



## Symone

Happy Birthday, Sarah. <3

Today has been an uneventful day today.. I've felt tired and bummed out so not really done anything. Not even been out on a proper walk :/ Shamaya doesn't seem to mind, though.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Feeling all sorry for myself today, it's my 30th birthday and I'm spending it all alone coz hubby has some stupid 3 course meal thing he can't get out of and won't be home till at least 1am and probably later. It's times like this I hate being so far from my friends and family :crying: And of course he's gonna be in no fit state to do anything tomorrow either. Doesn't help I'm seeing all my friends making plans for their 30th, having parties, going out for meals etc and I'm stuck in another country for those too. Being homesick to start with probably doesn't help.
> 
> Spencer has helped me unload the shopping today. He brought me the microwave hotdog I bought for lunch. Then he brought me two jars of curry sauce. A bag of crisps. A can of Relentless. And finally the pack of liver I got to make him treats out of. I didn't ask him to, I was busy putting other stuff away and could have done without his help really but it made me smile anyway.
> 
> And now I'd best go back and catch up on what I've missed while wrapped in my cocoon of self pity.


Happy Birthday Sarah. Really sorry you can't spend it with your OH though.


----------



## Freddie and frank

My three have just had pigs trotters for tea.
I always feed Freddie and frank outside, always have.
They both have their own spot on the garden where they take their food to eat, away from each other and they just leave each other alone until they've finished.

I've always fed bella in the kitchen with the gate to the utility shut so they don't bother her as she's slower than them and don't want any confrontation.

Soon as she's finished, I open the gate and Freddie is normally waiting to scan for any left overs. They each then go and look to see if either of them has left any. 
Tonight, Freddie wanted to come past her and she had a right go at him, snapped at him,with heckles up, wouldn't let him past. She had finished btw. She does this after she's finished breakfast in a kong too. She doesn't have to be near the kong but soon as Freddie goes near it, she goes mad at him and I normally have to do a loud ENOUGH. 

I'm always there when they're eating and I always separate bella from the boys cause F&F just get on with it and leave each other alone.

Just wanted anyone's thoughts on this really.


----------



## Maria_1986

Happy Birthday Sarah!


----------



## Thorne

Hope Sam is recovering well after his op 

MV -I'd love to see Tink really using her nose! Will be trying the "look at that" game I think.

GR -Hope the pile driving has subsided from mad terrierist.

K&M -Very pleased that you've had a good day with Hal, bless him and his Wubba. He sounds like a bright spark!

Dogless -Hotdog and clicker is the way forward  Sounds like you had a lovely morning with them! Cornwall is lovely, would definitely recommend. I've stayed in Perranporth and would go again tomorrrow.

LO -Bet that tuna cake smells nice :lol: I want to meet Zand, he sounds like such a great character. If in doubt with well-meaning but potentially worrying people I cross the road and ignore any funny looks.

Nicky -Brilliant that Rusty recalled away from deer and ignored the pesky dog, thumbs up!

Izzysmummy -Blooming Labradors! Cheeky monkey indeed.

Sarah -HAPPY BIRTHDAY  What a lovely helper you have in Spen.

MollyS -Hope your back gets better soon, and try not to let a little blip get you down.

Symone -Hoping you'll have a better day tomorrow.

F&F -Sorry, not sure what to suggest as mine are soft gits with food and will take it from each other's mouths without fussing  I'm sure someone on her can offer some advice!

Breeze is quite tired after our adventure today! She was a bit overwhelmed by a full-on Husky greeting (we both got jumped on by 3 overjoyed fluffy dogs) but was quick to settle and got some fuss and treats from Sid and her OH. Predictably she got humped - by Kira! Apparently she's normally the one being humped 
Had about an hour's walk, Breeze enjoyed most of it but got fed up towards the end, Kira, Keyu and Grey were very excited. Full credit to Sid for being nearly 8 months pregnant but still confidently walking 2 strong dogs, was very impressed by her walking belt indeed.
All 4 dogs crashed out when we got in, Breeze was over the moon at being allowed on the sofa! Had coffee and talked collars, was lovely to actually socialise with someone other than family and colleagues.

Sorry, was too busy having Sibe fuss inside (had gorgeous Keyu snuggled up to me on the sofa!) and chivvying Breeze along on the walk to take any photos...

Scooter's been out on an onlead walk with Mum, sounds like they had a good long one and he's certainly tired now. Good day here and my bean chilli is nearly ready, mmm.


----------



## kat&molly

Happy 30th Birthday Sarah. I hope you get another day soon to make up for today.

I have read everything but my brains a bit frazzled.
Hal had a go at Evie this morning, she sniffed by his crate, I keep the door closed because he's a bit possessive of it. He's got really silly a few times and tried humping- it doesn't go down well, I have to put him in his crate for a couple of minutes and then he's fine till the next time.
I had considered whether it was a good idea posting about our little problems, but after speaking to the Wise One that is Moonviolet, I shall carry on.
He is probably finding it strange living with other dogs, I think its hard he's quite manic so none of them will play with him 
He might have been kept short of food because he's soooo greedy 

I might move his crate tomorrow- the only other place I have is the pantry  but its a large walk in type and I can move tins and packets high up. Its the only place the other dogs cant get to and might make him feel better.

OH and a friend took him for his check up at the vets this afternoon, apparently he was golden in the car and the vets, he even went with them to a coffee shop and sat still just noseying about.
He has his danglies removed next Thursday.


----------



## Symone

F&F - Is there any chance you can clean the area before Freddie gets there? That way Bella has no reason to snap? :/ Assuming she left something noticeably to be cleaned. If not maybe just let Bella out and then shut the gate again so Frankie can't go in? 

I have no idea really. Shamaya is a lone dog. 

--

So, decided to get off my bottom and give the little missy a walk. When it was hard to turn and walk the other way (something in the way) I turned her in a circle around me. Her lead had no chance to leave any marks on my hands! (Normally they're a little red after walks due to holding the lead so tight)
So... we're getting there.  I just wish I stuck to this way before.. lol 
It does make walks take much longer but it is working. Deffo worth it. I got a bite on my jeans out of frustration on her part though!

Also, her coat is getting noticeably better since I have been giving her salmon oil (She avoided all fish I gave her before.) so I'm a happy bunny, now.  
A question though - I'm now using F4D as treats (She'll be fed half raw half F4D due to money in Switzerland.. Thought I would get her use to it first but she loves it so much I feel like I didn't need to have bothered!) will I still need to give her Salmon oil? Will F4D be enough "Fish" for her diet? 

I'll guess that she will have about 300g worth of F4D dry food a week as treats. (Who knew she could eat so much on walks  ) I've actually had to order some more for she finished off her 2nd to last sample bag, today! 
I also have the star treats that she also loves.  
And her poos luckily aren't bigger yet. Hurray all around! 
Going to try to go to the beach tomorrow - However will use a different entrance she has never used to try to control how bad her pulling gets there. (will be a 10 min longer walk which is why we didn't try it before)

And another question - Could Shamaya just dislike fish flesh? She loves the F4D food. 
Oh.. And another - F4D feeding guideline is 300-400g for Shamayas weight/Age. Is that per meal or per day?
Dry food newbie here.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! 30ths are overrated; mine was spent alone on bedrest for my broken back .

MS - 'dislike' bad back 'like' that Molly has shown so much improvement .

GR - despite the idiots that you meet it sounds as if the Ninja is really improving.

LO - hopefully all those folk will start to think the Dogmatic is a muzzle; people often do with Kilo; t'is handy sometimes!

F&F - bought some lovely fleece jammie bottoms in your clothing department today . Not sure about the Bella thing having only owned one dog before - Rudi sees Kilo off if he comes near his food / treats but I see that as appropriate and Kilo heeds the growl.

Talked to Mum again today; all is OK . Seen a few 'possibles' for properties. Seems daft paying for one when Mum and Dad have an annexe we could use and an unlet cottage plus secure paddock, but I feel like a holiday as we've not had one for a long time and staying at Mum and Dad's can be stressful - I kennel Kilo.

Spent most of the afternoon sorting a huge raw order to fill the new freezer and have just been out for an hour with the CHs for an onlead walk. Wasn't meant to take an hour - let's just say Kilo was such an angel that I had to check if the lead was attached a few times...and Rudi was a 'handful' :devil:. Luckily when we were nearly home and crossed a busy car park both were behaving really well and we stopped to talk to a couple who live on our street; both sat nicely and then walked off on perfectly loose leads . Never mind that I'd been almost tearing my hair out two minutes before :skep: :cryin:.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I have read everything but my brains a bit frazzled.
> Hal had a go at Evie this morning, she sniffed by his crate, I keep the door closed because he's a bit possessive of it. He's got really silly a few times and tried humping- it doesn't go down well, I have to put him in his crate for a couple of minutes and then he's fine till the next time.
> I had considered whether it was a good idea posting about our little problems, but after speaking to *the Wise One that is Moonviolet*, I shall carry on.
> He is probably finding it strange living with other dogs, I think its hard he's quite manic so none of them will play with him
> He might have been kept short of food because he's soooo greedy
> 
> I might move his crate tomorrow- the only other place I have is the pantry  but its a large walk in type and I can move tins and packets high up. Its the only place the other dogs cant get to and might make him feel better.
> 
> OH and a friend took him for his check up at the vets this afternoon, apparently he was golden in the car and the vets, he even went with them to a coffee shop and sat still just noseying about.
> He has his danglies removed next Thursday.


Hmm you might be a little misguided describing me as wise :lol: you know i'm the nutter that plays hide and seek and race you to the tree stump with my dog and have been known to sing "nellie the elephant" when walking through the village to distract her from a cat :lol: :lol::frown2::frown2:

The pantry sounds like a great idea, as the humping is often a stress thing, Having a little sanctuary might help him unfrazzle.

Symone gald you are feeling positve about your walking now. 

Thorne sounds liek a great day, but boo hiss!! no pics!!

F+F tricky situation can you get Bella to leave the area she was eating before the boys come in, or call her into the garden.


----------



## Dogless

Symone - the guidelines are usually per day; the pack should say though. ETA: here you are - daily amounts http://www.fish4dogs.com/nutrition/feeding.aspx

k&m - moving the crate sounds like a good idea; a safe place for him. mv is very wise - I agree!


----------



## Sarah1983

Thanks all. I've had garlic bread for dinner since hubby's buggered off out. He's allergic to garlic  And I had a cake. And some ice cream. And some chocolate. And some crisps. I now feel a little sick  I think a cup of tea and some cross stitch may be in order.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> My three have just had pigs trotters for tea.
> I always feed Freddie and frank outside, always have.
> They both have their own spot on the garden where they take their food to eat, away from each other and they just leave each other alone until they've finished.
> 
> I've always fed bella in the kitchen with the gate to the utility shut so they don't bother her as she's slower than them and don't want any confrontation.
> 
> Soon as she's finished, I open the gate and Freddie is normally waiting to scan for any left overs. They each then go and look to see if either of them has left any.
> Tonight, Freddie wanted to come past her and she had a right go at him, snapped at him,with heckles up, wouldn't let him past. She had finished btw. She does this after she's finished breakfast in a kong too. She doesn't have to be near the kong but soon as Freddie goes near it, she goes mad at him and I normally have to do a loud ENOUGH.
> 
> I'm always there when they're eating and I always separate bella from the boys cause F&F just get on with it and leave each other alone.
> 
> Just wanted anyone's thoughts on this really.


Mine are all OK but I do sit on their Futon sofa bed in the kitchen and just keep an eye. Leafy has her meals in the lobby with the door pulled to as she hates being watched - bless!!


----------



## Twiggy

Sadly won't be doing the training course this week-end with Holly and Mini as my sister isn't very well. She has a chest infection now on top of everything else and had her GP out this afternoon.

It's very disappointing as she had rather set this week-end as her goal post to be well enough to work her dog.

I was going down to see her tomorrow but they have snow forecast so I might leave it until Sunday.

Wish I had a magic wand and also that I lived 20 miles up the road instead of over 150.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Sadly won't be doing the training course this week-end with Holly and Mini as my sister isn't very well. She has a chest infection now on top of everything else and had her GP out this afternoon.
> 
> It's very disappointing as she had rather set this week-end as her goal post to be well enough to work her dog.
> 
> I was going down to see her tomorrow but they have snow forecast so I might leave it until Sunday.
> 
> Wish I had a magic wand and also that I lived 20 miles up the road instead of over 150.


Oh no, I hope she gets over it quickly.


----------



## Dogless

I do hope your sister recovers from her chest infection quickly Twiggy xx.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Twiggy i'm sorry to hear about your sister, hope the snow forecast is wildly exaggerated and you get to see her this weekend. sending healing thoughts.

Dogless glad you spoke to your Mum today and that things are ok  have the holiday you want. holidays arent' really about taking the sensible options


----------



## Twiggy

Thank you K&M and Dogless. I'm afraid my sister isn't doing too well at the moment.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Thank you K&M and Dogless. I'm afraid my sister isn't doing too well at the moment.


I very much wish that there was something that I could do to help Twiggy.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Thank you K&M and Dogless. I'm afraid my sister isn't doing too well at the moment.


I am so sorry to hear this xx


----------



## Symone

I hope that your sister will get well soon. x


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy, sorry to hear about your sister. 
Sending well wishes and thinking of you. Xx


----------



## Thorne

Thinking of you Twiggy, so sorry to hear about your sister  xx


----------



## Dogless

Just...peaceful Holiday at Frenchman's Creek, Helford, Cornwall


----------



## Freddie and frank

I want to live there Dogless.

It's just heavenly. And don't forget to pack your new jim jams cause every little helps.


----------



## Dogless

Freddie and frank said:


> I want to live there Dogless.
> 
> It's just heavenly. And don't forget to pack your new jim jams cause every little helps.


Very good :frown2: .

Not decided that's the place....looks lovely though...


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Just...peaceful Holiday at Frenchman's Creek, Helford, Cornwall


I love the Landmark Trust and never knew they had something in Helford. I do love Cornwall, it was the only nice thing about the relationship with my ex, and despite all that I'm still not put off going. We lived in Daymer Bay on the North coast. It was a great place for dogs.

Do go to Loe Bar, it's dog friendy all year around and absolutely stunning. There is a lodge on the beach that I'd love to stay in but only if I won the lottery


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- hoping for some better news for you today, and you'll be able to visit soon. Have you got snow?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Just...peaceful Holiday at Frenchman's Creek, Helford, Cornwall


That looks lovely- very French. Reminds me so much of an old Mill we have in the little town not far from here, its been renovated and they do painting holidays last I heard.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Twiggy I do hope your sister gets well soon and you get to see her too. It seems.so unfair when you fight.the disease to get secondary infections. My friend got one from a splinter on her front door.after battling leukemia. She is very well now. I am sure your.sister will join her ranks she.sounds a fighter.

Dogless even more jealous. I love cornwall and i love Frenchman creek the novel.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Twiggy- hoping for some better news for you today, and you'll be able to visit soon. Have you got snow?


Thanks.

It's snowing at the moment but not enough to settle.

Providing the weather isn't too bad I'll go down to Sussex to see my sister tomorrow.


----------



## Beth17

Happy birthday for yesterday Sarah 

Twiggy I really hope the weather holds so that you can get to see your sister. Wishing her all the best.

We had a good night although Sam refuses to wear the cone of shame; luckily he was fairly easy to distract and too out of it to nibble stitches.

This morning we are back to normal so may not be around much as have to attempt to stop him from leaping around like nothings happened and busting his stitches. Thank goodness he is able to have gentle lead walks. Off to the vets for his post op check in a bit.


----------



## Dogless

Beth - Pleased that Sam's fine :thumbup1:.

Just had a lovely walk; no one about apart from some people we saw on the way back with dogs Kilo plays with sometimes - didn't stop to chat or meet as they had guests with them. Went to the fields, just let the boys play and played with them and walked back. Kilo was as good as gold again and Rudi...bit of a handful but not too bad. He has discovered the 'bite Kilo's lead' game :frown2:. He has had a few roars for it so hopefully it won't last long....it's boring walking down the road saying "Rudi, leave" constantly :frown2:.

This might be a real contender: Holiday House in Port Navas, Falmouth, Cornwall, UK E4444


----------



## Symone

OH took Shamaya out without me this morning (Apparently I was "deeply asleep".. Yay lie in?) And said she hardly pulled, and when she did he did the turning thing. Only time she properly pulled was near the beach, but that was to be expected. Apparently he didn't have to hold the lead the way the puppy class teacher told us on the way back. She was walking with a loose lead next to his side! Made me wish that I had got up just so I had seen it. I'm proud of our little girl. <3

Dogless, that 2nd property looks lovely! I want to go there.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well my babybell has chewed up my sons 'beats' hd headphones 

Kept asking him to not leave stuff in her reach.:frown2:

Off to take all three over Cannock chase for a chilly but fresh walk. Back to the scene of the walking belt incident.  

Hope you all have good days, see you later.


----------



## kat&molly

Pleased Sams ok Beth- hope he stays calm for you.

Well done Shamaya 

Dogless- that sounds like me, every time Hal stops doing one thing , he's on to another.

A good morning here, I've moved the crate and now the poor boy is in the pantry.:frown2: but it works better so thats all that matters.

Moll even played chase in the garden with him this morning.:thumbup1: brilliant except, it was 7.30 and he was the one doing the chasing -vocally.

I was lazy as its bitter cold and took them all to the fields, he was [mostly] good- but its easier to take him seperate so I'll do that later.

I coaxed Tache cat in to the bedroom, let him see through the window but as we were on our way out he didn't react.
Wormed him this morning and saw some worms in his poo,lovely, it might help him a bit stop thinking he's starving.

Hope everyone's having a good day.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I feel rough as f*ck. Hubby finally rolled in at around 4am. Couldn't get his shoes off. Proceeded to fall on me really, really hurting my knee. Spent about half an hour with his head down the toilet. Came back to bed, fell on me again, refused to use his sleep apnea machine, kicked me, elbowed me, snored in my face. I spent the night on the sofa with Spencer in the end. Fuming is not the word :mad5: Fantastic birthday that was. No card, no present, spent the day alone and the night on the sofa with the dog! Guess him forgetting to book the restaurant for tonight was a good thing since he's in no fit state to drive. He's in bed again now, no doubt he'll stay there till evening then be up all night and in bed all day tomorrow too.

Believe it or not I'm not usually one to get all worked up over birthdays. It's the fact he'd gone on about how he'd made plans, how we were going out and were going to celebrate it for once and then nothing come of it that's p*ssed me off. And the state he was in last night has just added to how p*ssed off I am.

Twiggy, sorry to hear your sister isn't doing so well. Fingers crossed things take a turn for the better very soon.

Beth, hope you manage to keep Sam quiet. Shadow was a nightmare, he wanted his games of fetch, tug and his long walks and was most unimpressed at not getting them. Rupe was fairly easy but we couldn't keep the cone of shame on him for love nor money. If you've got a pet shop near you it might be worth seeing whether an inflatable collar would work. Would offer to lend you mine but by the time it got to you from here it wouldn't be needed.


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## Dogless

Oh dear Sarah. Hubby certainly has a huge amount of making up to do :mad5: :frown2:.


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## Beth17

Oh Sarah I hope he makes it up to you :mad5: The inflatable collar idea is a good one, no idea why my daft brain didn't think of that  Going to go and have a look in a bit.

F&F hope you have a good walk with no dramas 

K&M glad things seem to be settling down a bit for you.

Well so far so good he's not been too difficult. Had a half hour street walk while mum took Oscar up tot he field. And they are now both asleep after having a kong. Will take them out again later for another short street walk.


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## Symone

Wow Sarah, I hope he makes it up to you.
If you want, I'll come take you out for a nice day? Ofc I won't steal Spencer or anything. 
But really, I hope he makes it up to you.


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## moonviolet

Oh Sarah  men can be such utter neanderthals at times. I hope he redeems himself.

Beth i'm glad Sam is being a good boy.

K&M I'm so glad you are having a better morning . Sounds like Hal is beginning to feel at home  Goodness me i bet he'll feel better now he's not worm infested.

F+F hope you have a lovely time on cannock chase. 

Nothing much to report here 2 nice walks (one onlead one off) so far and made zoomies and rolling on my new rug :lol: I guess she approves.


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## Twiggy

Oh Sarah that's awful. Men really are a different breed.


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## Guest

Oh Sarah that sucks!! Hugs to you!

Twiggy, I'm so sorry about your sister. Hugs to you also!


Apologies for being negative, but I have to vent somewhere where I can be anonymous...

I'm a public school teacher in a small town where everyone knows everyone. Yesterday was one of those days where I needed to be in 3 different places at the same time. First world dilemmas and all. Left son at my school with a fellow teacher (M) who's son is the same age as mine and they're good friends, ran daughter to a friend's house so they could go to a sleepover party, was on my way back to school to pick up son and his friend so MY friend (M) could go do HER errands. 

It was a frigid, rainy, dreary day yesterday, and as I'm driving too fast down a 2 lane highway back in to town, I nearly run over two dogs. I recover from the shock, get a niggling feeling, turn back and go check on the dogs - they're still there. 
I pull in to the church parking lot right next to where they are, and they both come running up to the car. They're sopping wet. One is a weimie shivering from cold. The other is a mostly yellow lab mutt. Could probably pass for a pure bred lab. They obviously belong to someone, they're obviously together. 

No collars or any identification whatsoever.

I have a spare leash in the car (only one) so I noose the lab who seems to be the bolder of the two, the other jumps in my car as soon as I open the door.

I *could* have called the police non-emergency line and had someone come pick them up rather than dealing with it myself, but I thought I'd at least give it a shot. Texted (M) told her what was going on, and then texted another friend who lives in the area to ask her if she knew of any dogs that fit the description of these two. Nope... Knock on the church offices door and ask if they know. Nope, but they did see these same dogs earlier in the week.

Call the vet, receptionist tries to tell me that without a collar there is nothing I can do. I insist that she ask the vet if she knows of any clients with a weimie and a lab mutt. She gets back on the phone to say someone in the waiting room recognized the dogs' description, that they might belong to X. X happens to be a "big wig" at the district office for our school district. I call him. Yep it's his dogs. 

On the phone he sighs and asks me to wait for him, he'll be there in a minute. He sounds more annoyed that relieved or grateful. 
He shows up, sees that I have the one on a leash, and asks where the other one is. 
"In the car, he was freezing." 
"Oh get him out! He's way too nasty (as in dirty) to be in there!" Said more as an admonishment to me for my poor choice than concern for the car.

I'm getting a bit annoyed now. I've yet to hear a thank you.

I breathe, figure he's just embarrassed that his dogs got loose, and listen to him ramble on about how his fence went out last week, and that he's getting a new one first thing tomorrow. 
Fence going out is in reference to an underground fence.
Remember the dogs were not wearing ANY collar. Not a buckle collar, not an e-fence receiver collar. 
I'm starting to wonder if he just put them outside hoping they would stay in the yard??
Somewhere in there I try to emphasize that I nearly RAN THE DOGS OVER WITH MY CAR, which is why I didn't drive off and leave them. I did not want his dogs to get hurt or cause an accident on an already poor visibility day. 
He responds that he's going to get a new fence first thing tomorrow. 

While he's rambling on about the fence, and ignoring my points about the danger of your dog being loose next to a 2 lane highway, he's trying to shove the lab mutt in to the car. Lab mutt is balking and keeps running back to me. 
Finally, I simply pick him up and move to put him in the car, and the man grabs him from me and does it himself. Grabs the weimie and does the same thing.

Closes the door, says something about the lab being a stray that he fell in love with and kept, and that he's the one who gets loose and the weimie follows. 
I tell him if he neutered the lab that might help (it won't but at least he won't father any litters with his wanderings). He says the weimie is neutered and that he probably should get the lab done too. 

*bang head on brick wall* 

So, he drives off with the two lovely dogs who didn't even want to get in the car with him. 
No thanks to me for standing out in the freezing rain in nothing but a thin raincoat and my school clothes while my hands turn purple trying to text everyone I know to get the dogs back to their rightful owners.

On a brighter note, my dear friend (M) just took both boys with her on errands and was as always lovely and understanding and didn't mind at all that I stood her up to save two dogs for an ungrateful jerk of an owner.

The irony is that this man can be a total jerk over policy, he's the guy who you have to get permission from for things like field trips and busses etc. He's a real pain to deal with and I've had a few go arounds with him in the past over him refusing to bend "policy" even when bending it makes more sense and saves the district money...

Yet here I am doing him a huge favor (as I see it), and he doesn't even act grateful. Whatever...

Oh geez that's a novel! Sorry!!!


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## moonviolet

Ouesi ..... and breathe...... bet it feels better to get that of*f* your chest. Poor dogs  and what an irresponsible arrogant ungrateful jerk of an owner

Lovely to have a friend like M


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## Sarah1983

Ugh, some people just shouldn't have dogs Ouesi :frown2: He probably didn't see you picking his dogs up as a favour, after all, he had to come out and get them whereas if they'd just been left he wouldn't have had to put himself out.

Symone, you'd be welcome to take a trip to Germany (and bring Shamaya of course) but I'm pretty sure you'd soon return the Spendog if you stole him :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Oh dear, sarah, hubby should quite rightly be in the very bad boys dog house for a while. I know exactly what you mean about the anticipation, they say they WILL be doing something nice so you look forward to this amazing out of the ordinary thing and they can't manage it to fulfill the prophecy. like you say if he hadn't promised you wouldn't be disapointed. I think some punishment is in order. Thing is if he is anything like mine he can't remember the reason why you are even more pee'd off than would be expected. Mine just ignores ME until I tell him whats up. Just like a dog come to think of it who has done something wrong so skulks out of your way.

Ouesi - isn't it always the posh nob big wigs who are the most infuriating, well done you and the other little people for managing to cope in a world where pricks like him are in charge

We haven't done any dog stuff. We have been looking at cars, I have now set my heart on a megane that does 62 mpg and £30 tax a year. I love the idea of such cheap running costs. Trouble is 'papa the bank' and hubby (who hasn't a clue or any say TBF ) think its a dogdy buy, for different reasons, Dad thinks its too dirty  (  I don't need to pay someone to clean my car I can do that myself if the price reflects it, frankly squeaky clean ones normally hide somthing) hubby thinks the dealer talks a lot of squit (whats new isn't that a prerequisite of a car dealer ) but 'I WANT THAT CAR' I am even compromising on a 3dr here. The only other I can find that comes close is a 5 dr megane estate, £100 tax band still 62 mpg though but I know what I will get told, 'we don't need an estate'!!!!! However it is £400 cheaper!

Off to do some dog stuff


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## Twiggy

Poor you Ouesi. He sound an awful arrogant person.


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## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Ugh, some people just shouldn't have dogs Ouesi :frown2: *He probably didn't see you picking his dogs up as a favour*, after all, he had to come out and get them whereas if they'd just been left he wouldn't have had to put himself out.


I really didn't feel like he did. He acted more like it was an inconvenience. 
He was probably thought they'd eventually find their way home had I not stopped and interfered  As clearly they had found their way home before. That's why I was trying to impress upon him that I nearly ran them over, i.e.: they could have been injured, or, even if he doesn't care about the dogs, *I* could have been injured or caused a bad traffic accident. 
I don't think he got any of that though...



moonviolet said:


> Ouesi ..... and breathe...... bet it feels better to get that of*f* your chest. Poor dogs  and what an irresponsible arrogant ungrateful jerk of an owner
> 
> Lovely to have a friend like M


It does feel better. Some people are just jerks and not a thing you can do about it other than avoid them. 
M is truly a lovely person, a ray of sunshine and she always makes me smile. Thank goodness for people like her in the world 



Twiggy said:


> Poor you Ouesi. He sound an awful arrogant person.


He is LOL! I'm sure he must have redeeming qualities, I just haven't experienced any of them yet.


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## Symone

Sarah1983 said:


> Ugh, some people just shouldn't have dogs Ouesi :frown2: He probably didn't see you picking his dogs up as a favour, after all, he had to come out and get them whereas if they'd just been left he wouldn't have had to put himself out.
> 
> Symone, you'd be welcome to take a trip to Germany (and bring Shamaya of course) but I'm pretty sure you'd soon return the Spendog if you stole him :lol:


I'll pop in when we're driving all our stuff over 
If the little missy is still teething i'll leave her with you.. 
And Spencer's cute. I could never return him :devil:

That guy sounds just charming, Ouesi! hmy:
Good on you for doing a good deed, though. Hopefully the dogs won't get out again.


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## Beth17

Honestly Ouesi words fail me, silly man.

Enjoy doing dog stuff Ginge and I hope you get the car you want 

MV glad you had a couple of good walks!

Good afternoon here the boys slept until about 3.30 so decided not to take them out again as it's rather chilly  Sam has been good leaving his stitches alone although poor lad keeps trying to do a lap of the garden before he gets dragged in  They have both compromised and have settled for gentle laying down bitey face and playing tug with a ball in a sock.

They've now crashed out again.


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## Dogless

Ugh Ouesi; I hate it when you do people a favour and they act as if you've gone out of your way to cause them problems :mad5:. I'm sure karma will have a little something in store for the charming gentleman .

Fantastic separate walks with the CHs this afternoon. Every man, woman and child was out walking their dogs which was good for training. Rudi went past them all (with food!) very calmly - I WISH I'd done that when Kilo was a pup - and had a play with my friends' vizsla. We dodged the small kids walking the two large dogs who towed them barking their heads off when they saw us with kids screeching hysterically, down the street towards us as they always do. Quite frankly they scare me. Poor dogs always get hit when they manage to bring them to a halt too.

Kilo had I also had a good walk and managed to avoid loose dog who 'starts scraps' as we saw them and they didn't see us.

Both CHs were very well behaved - not even a single jump and bite from LCH .


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## kat&molly

Sarah- what a rotten birthday you've had. All I'll say is... Men.:mad5:

Ouesi, some people just dont give a toss, hope he sorts his fence.
This week one of my clients, a lovely Belgian lady had a similar thing - only worse , as she was coming home late at night, 2 dogs run out in front of her and she couldn't avoid them, and ended up hitting one and killed it. 
She was devastated- and knew who owned them so she made a phone call explaining what had happened and he moaned about having to come out.

No scraps today- woo woo.:thumbup1: I've diverted a few, he just gets over the top and goes silly and manic:crazy: if I put him in the pantry he just flops and sleeps. He's bloomin hard work- because I've got the others as well I suppose, and I feel quite knackered all the time but he is a smashing little boy.:001_wub:

Moonviolet- we have done the Impulse Control exercise you suggested- he done really well  he jumped on me in between every time but soon remembered to sit and be good- I started with low value stuff and will up the ante soon- no gloves needed 
A bit of Ring toss, and playing in the garden, 2 walks and thats been it for me today.


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## Symone

I just found out they're building a morrisons in my area.
Bad news is it's due up 1-2 weeks after I am due to have moved! No cheap meat for shamaya it seems, lol!

Glad to hear he's doing well on the Impulse Control, K&M!


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> No scraps today- woo woo.:thumbup1: I've diverted a few, he just gets over the top and goes silly and manic:crazy: if I put him in the pantry he just flops and sleeps. He's bloomin hard work- because I've got the others as well I suppose, and I feel quite knackered all the time but he is a smashing little boy.:001_wub:
> 
> Moonviolet- we have done the Impulse Control exercise you suggested- he done really well  he jumped on me in between every time but soon remembered to sit and be good- I started with low value stuff and will up the ante soon- no gloves needed
> A bit of Ring toss, and playing in the garden, 2 walks and thats been it for me today.


Wooohooo sounds like a good day. great that he relaxes in the pantry 

well done for spotting and preventing scraps 

I'm glad he's doing well on that impulse control exercise, and no gloves!! Tink wasn't a nibbler, her preference was digging :lol:


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## Werehorse

Twiggy - sorry to hear your sister is unwell.  I hope she recovers soon. x

Sarah - What dreadful behaviour from hubby. I hope he pulls his finger out and really makes it up to you. 

Ouesi - sorry your good deed wasn't appreciated. Some people are just sociopaths at the end of the day. 

Beth - glad Sam is leaving his stitches alone, good luck keeping him contained until he's healed up!

K&M - awesome work with the little mad lad.  He's probably never been taught to chill out. I had to actually teach that to both mine with careful crate use - if I hadn't crate trained I'm sure they wouldn't know how to relax.

Dogless - glad the CHs are being good for you. 

Ginger - sounds like "papa the bank" needs some persuasion applied!

We haven't done our big running today.  OH had to work and we were both so tired and grumpy last night we had an argument and didn't sleep well - which didn't help with the tired and grumpy.   Next door had left some bread out by their back door, just a few slices on the ground right next to where I walk the dogs past (why would anyone do that?) and Oscar snaffled it, and Hugo snaffled some off him and I convinced myself that it must have been rat-poisoned and had a faff/panic and OH lost his temper because, yes I am annoying when I get a bee in my bonnet  :lol: It's all blown over today but goodness what a pair of grumps.

I've spent all my money spoiling the dogs today though! Special offer coats from Pets at Home and special offer collars too - for putting on when I don't want the nice new Indi-dog ones that are on their way (  ) getting dirty. The coats are nice and light-weight which is better for carrying on the big walks.










I weighed in at 11 stone 8.2 pounds this morning!  That is 6 pounds lost in quite a short time. I'm slowing myself down slightly by having fat boy chinese takeaway tonight then back on the wagon from tomorrow.  It isn't good to lose weight too quickly after all is it?


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## Dogless

Werehorse; what fantastic weight loss - Chinese most definitely deserved :thumbup1:. Rudi has that 3 Peaks coat - good for the money even if the sizing is crazily small!! He is in XXL - the waist strap is XXL but the coat length isn't . The boys look very dapper and coordinated and love Hugo's over the shoulder glancing pose .


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## Guest

Werehorse, love the picture  Sweet boys!!


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## Guest

See, Ouesi, If you had managed to retrieve Zand if he had escaped (again.) I would have hugged you so hard. :lol: Arrogant tart. 

And Sarah, your hubby deserves no dinner for a month. :mad5:

Hope you manage to visit your sister, twiggy and that she gets the treatment she needs and she feels better quickly. 

Glad your boys have been good, dogless and werehorse and glad you are still kinda keeping your sanity kat. 

Zand has had three 20 -30 minute walks today as I had two shifts today. He has been very good. Mum walked him on the headcollar and is impressed, finally. :thumbup1:

Mum bought a dog encyclopedia and keeps telling me "You should get a little dog next time!" 

We have kinda come to a compromise in the form of a whippet. Smaller, but houndy. Italian grey's would get damaged in this household. :lol: 

NOT THAT WE'RE PLANNING ON A SECOND DOG. :skep:


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## Twiggy

Hmm the snow's settling here now but hopefully I'll get to see my sister tomorrow.

I've done some baking for her this afternoon which will tempt her to eat with a bit of luck.

I've cleaned the house and walked the dogs twice and that's about all.

Haven't trained Holly today, partly because I didn't have time and partly because it's so flipping cold.

Hope you all have a good day tomorrow and think of me driving round the lovely M25.


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## Guest

LurcherOwner said:


> See, Ouesi, If you had managed to retrieve Zand if he had escaped (again.) I would have hugged you so hard. :lol: Arrogant tart.


That's what I get for "if it were me" thinking!
I turned around thinking *if it were me* I'd want someone to try and keep them out of the road.
I called everyone I knew thinking *if it were me* I'd want someone to try and contact me.
I got irritated at not being thanked thinking *if it were me* I'd do like LO, shamelessly hug the person and buy them dinner, then send a thank you card in the mail, maybe with a gift certificate... 
LOL...


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## Dogless

Safe journey Twiggy; I do hope that your baking sparks a bit of an appetite. Sending thoughts to you and your sister xx.


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## sianrees1979

with daniel it's his screaming like a banchee at any strange dogs he doesn't know  it's bloody embarrassing sometimes when he starts and doesn't seem to listen when he starts :frown2:


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## Dogless

ouesi said:


> That's what I get for "if it were me" thinking!
> I turned around thinking *if it were me* I'd want someone to try and keep them out of the road.
> I called everyone I knew thinking *if it were me* I'd want someone to try and contact me.
> I got irritated at not being thanked thinking *if it were me* I'd do like LO, shamelessly hug the person and buy them dinner, then send a thank you card in the mail, maybe with a gift certificate...
> LOL...


I think I'd fall at them, sobbing because my precious Concrete Heads had been saved from being killed on the road . Once I'd regained a little composure I'd organise card / flowers / gift certificate :thumbup1:.

Of the dogs that I have taken home a few times since moving here plus the one I walked around with for hours until the owner was found (no ID) not one owner has thanked me. Think it's gone out of fashion .


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## kat&molly

Twiggy- safe trip tomorrow, hope your sis is feeling a bit better.

Werehorse- lovely pic- and Hugo's posing-that makes a change [not]

LO- great that the headcollar got used by your mum today.:thumbup1: Singing from the same hymnsheet always helps.


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## kat&molly

sianrees1979 said:


> with daniel it's his screaming like a banchee at any strange dogs he doesn't know  it's bloody embarrassing sometimes when he starts and doesn't seem to listen when he starts :frown2:


He sounds really scared.


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## sianrees1979

kat&molly said:


> He sounds really scared.


that's what i was thinking, he's only been doing it since 6 months old, don't understand why  i take him out every day on his own and every week with the other 2 (his mum dinky and my other dachshie dai), he's never ever been attacked by any other dog just screams at them, just wish he could speak to tell me what's wrong


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## Freddie and frank

sarah...oh what a crappy thing  he has a lot of making up to do....else we'll all come over and make a huge fuss of you.

mv....check out my photo's of a sort of dog on a log. best i could do. 
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/293925-my-trio-last-week-today.html

gr...happy car hunting.

beth...glad to hear sam is ok.

dogless...well done to your boys :thumbup1: :thumbup1:
i wished i'd done things with f&f from the start, that i'm doing with bella now. would have made things a lot easier.

k&m...what a busy day you've had, sounds like you enjoy it though.

werehorse...lovely pics of the boys.well done on the weight loss and enjoy your take away.

lo...glad you're getting somewhere with the headcollar/mum situation. 

twiggy...take care on your journey to your sisters and thoughts are with you. xx

only managed one walk today.... but it was lovely....fresh, tried to snow, but all three were really good.

i got frank this harness at a country fair last year, does it look ok or is it too restrictive on him???


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## Freddie and frank

ouesi...oh god, sorry i forgot. what a horrible thing...some people


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## MollySmith

sianrees1979 said:


> that's what i was thinking, he's only been doing it since 6 months old, don't understand why  i take him out every day on his own and every week with the other 2 (his mum dinky and my other dachshie dai), he's never ever been attacked by any other dog just screams at them, just wish he could speak to tell me what's wrong


He sounds a little like Molly was (still occassionally is but not often if that's of any help), she's sort of scared as a dog hijacked her on our first holiday when she was on lead in a car park and it was off lead. She seems much better but thinks it's her right to meet all dogs and gets herself so excited. I wish she could speak too.

Ouesi - what a frustrating time, I am so glad you had the niggle and saved them but yes, I'd have smacked the owner in the chops.

Sarah - oh that's not nice, I hope he bloody apologies, I think I'd have made my OH sleep in the shed.

Twiggy - safe journey, thinking of you.

LO - of course you're not thinking of another dog. No more than I am staring at a 3 year old male lab called Charlie....

Took my Molly out this afternoon for a lead walk around the local streets to help us both a bit after yesterday. Still in lots of pain so we didn't get far. She was so good, no episodes. I click and treated with liver cake. She was on her lead not the harness and I wonder if that's some sort of clue  Anyway a nice afternoon, shattered mind, been working all week since I left employment on freelance and really exhausted.


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## Sarah1983

I know I've moaned about hubby and probably painted a horrible picture but to be fair it's the first time I've known him to get like that. He's not a big drinker and doesn't often go out, it was more the timing of it than anything. 

Not done anything with Spen today really, been too bloody knackered. Off to the sled dog meet tomorrow if I can get there without slipping and breaking my neck. It's snowing again. Can't wait for some warmer weather now. Hopefully we'll have no handbags this week and no running around trying to catch an escaped husky.

Ouesi, if my dog escaped and someone caught him for me and called me to go get him I'd be eternally grateful. I don't understand these people who aren't, do they just not care??


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## Freddie and frank

Sarah, don't worry, I think all our partners/ husbands make us have a good old rant sometimes.  I had my friend on the phone to me on Friday...rah rah rah about her hubby, he's lovely but she just needed to let it all out. 

Enjoy tomorrow.


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## Dogless

F&F - hard to see from the photo but that harness looks OK as long as it's not cutting into the armpits to me. And hindsight's a wonderful thing isn't it when it comes to dog training / socialisation? All part of the learning process I suppose!

MS - maybe Molly associates the harness with reacting? It's hard - I know that Kilo can be more reactive in his head collar, but have to use his headcollar where it's very busy in case cats jump out, loose dogs run at us etc. Catch - 22. Hope you mange to have a rest today.

Sarah - hope you and Spen the sled dog enjoy today's meet!


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## moonviolet

Sarah, Don't worry i can't speak for anyone else but the fact you were upset said to me it was a rare occurence  hope OH's hangover is better now and you can enjoy today together. Forgive him for all the times he gets it right Have fun at the sled dog meet  Along the way you'll probably pick up a few of these stories and in time be able to laugh about them I can laugh about spending our tenth wedding anniversary alone, now.


MS sounds liek Molly was a gold star girl, i hope you are feeling better today.

LO Glad your Mum gave the headcollar a go.

Sian when does it happen. on or offlead, how far away are the dogs, how are they approaching etc.


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## MollySmith

My house is like...a house where a dog has been for a midnight wander! Honestly! I heard her and OH after I went to bed wandering about, this morning I have a tub of lavender down the stairs where madam dropped her kong in it, she's chewed the top off the wubba so there is rubber all over the living room too! 

Sarah - I appreciated what you mean about husbands and beer. Mine doesn't that much now but when he does it's always with excessive style and last time he was in a&e so anything less gets forgotten! I think you deserved to have a good grumble


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## Dogless

I have had a wonderful morning with the CHs - we went for a walk very early to the fields and they just played and played; it is so sunny and so cold - just beautiful. Didn't see a soul.

I feel almost guilty as I feel that I should 'go somewhere' for training as places will be busy today but I just wanted to relax and enjoy the boys. Would have gone to 'our' forest but it would have been too icy to get up there I think. When we got home the boys went into the garden and did some of this - they both had massive zoomies today!


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## Freddie and frank

Look at those blue skies...fab. Love mornings like that.
Gorgeous photo Dogless.


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## Sarah1983

Been rather brave this morning. Left the Spendog loose while we went to the Naafi. We're only gone about 15-20 minutes for a Naafi run so it seemed the ideal time to try him loose for the first time. He was most confused about being left and not in his crate but we came home to no destruction. Won't trust him for long periods yet but it's a start.

Dogless, don't you dare feel guilty about not going anywhere for training. Just relax and enjoy the boys. It'll probably do all 3 of you good 

Off for our meet up very soon. It's all snowy so chances are I'm gonna freeze lol.


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## Dogless

Well done the Spendog . The sled dogs will love the weather....wrap up warm Sarah!


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Well done the Spendog . The sled dogs will love the weather....wrap up warm Sarah!


Will be taking a jumper with me and dig out my gloves. Walking there will keep me warm but gonna need a bit more than just tshirt and coat when standing around on the field methinks. Spen likes the snow but I think he'd prefer it to thaw so that the HUGE puddle on the field would be unfrozen lol.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Will be taking a jumper with me and dig out my gloves. Walking there will keep me warm but gonna need a bit more than just tshirt and coat when standing around on the field methinks. Spen likes the snow but I think he'd prefer it to thaw so that the HUGE puddle on the field would be unfrozen lol.


Yes....not much mud available when everything's frozen .


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## Freddie and frank

well done spencer :thumbup:
enjoy your meet up sarah.


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## kat&molly

Gorgeous pic of the boys Dogless- enjoy the sunshine.

Well done Spendog- enjoy the meet.

Think a certain dog is feeling at home- he's nicked my jeans out the bathroom, a pair of socks, a slipper and his harness.
Took him for a big walk with just Moll. Had a lesson in you bark, whine and pull- me no move. He calmed after about 20 minutes and I put him on the 10m line. He was good as gold pottering along sniffing and recalling to my pathetic whistle.
On the way back we went in some fields and he ran around chasing Moll, and just 'lolloping' - he managed to wrap me up and sent me flying on my butt.
Came back and took my girls[and Moll again ],he makes me really appreciate just how good they[mostly] are.:001_wub:

I know he's still a pup really at 1 year old in March but he reminds me of a much younger dog- he's clumsy  not very agile, even when he tries to play he still seems babyish.
He's different with Scruff-like he's trying to seek her approval, if he was a bit calmer she's play with him- but he takes her telling him off and she's the only one he hasn't had a go at.

Hope everyones having a good day.


----------



## Dogless

kat - that's all really positive (although stealing everything must be annoying!!). I am chuffed for you that he's 'getting it' so fast. The sun is about to go in; clouds are gathering - but it was lovely while it lasted :laugh:.


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> kat - that's all really positive (although stealing everything must be annoying!!). I am chuffed for you that he's 'getting it' so fast. The sun is about to go in; clouds are gathering - but it was lovely while it lasted :laugh:.


I'm really pleased with him, was worried about the scraps as I felt it wasn't fair on the girls, but touch wood he's settling. I cant relax yet as he's still too full on and annoying. He'll make a lovely dog for someone who has more time than me.
He wears me out.:yikes:

We haven't had any sunshine here- and its bitterly cold.Brrrr


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## Sarah1983

K&M, he sounds a hell of a lot like Spencer. Stealing, being too full on and annoying and full of energy.

We're back from our meet up. Spen was less "OHMYGODDOGS!" this week. He was still very excited but didn't completely lose his brain. I dunno whether it was walking there that had that effect or whether it wasn't such a novelty this week or a bit of both. No scuffles this week. A bit of posturing between him and another male around the same age but nothing major and they soon settled down. 

Oh, and a little girl said she thinks Spencer is part mastiff. Apparently he looks mastiffy around his head and muzzle


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## sianrees1979

well, just took daniel for a short walk, he useally screams if he hears or sees other dogs and occasionally if he sees other people, took some dried liver with me and no screaming when he heard a dog barking in a house or when we passed some people chatting :thumbup1: think i'll be keeping some liver on me all times when i take him out  

first time since he was 6 months old he hasn't screamed while out for a walk, did pull a bit on the lead but never screamed


----------



## Freddie and frank

Just back from agility with frank....

Not sure if it's me or what but didn't enjoy it this week.
Gut feeling is that I'm not too keen on the fella who takes it. He gets us all to get close to the other dogs at the end of the lesson whilst they're all on leads and I'm not comfortable with it so I stand back.i know my dog and i know he doesnt like it. He likes to watch and explain dogs body language  

We were going around cones and an off lead dog from the other class ran up to frank and he pulled the lead out my hand. Twice this happened. . I know they have to be off lead but it wound me up a little cause they shouted "don't worry, she only wants to say hello" ..... Think I'm in one of those moods. 
Probably me in all honesty but just feel a bit deflated this week after a good start last week. 
Frank did well though, going through tunnels, standing with back legs on boxes, going through a gate......not sure what to do next week now though.


----------



## Thorne

Just popping in to say I might not be around much over the next few days, my depression is trying its hardest to get the better of me so I'm not in a particularly good place at the moment (an oncoming migraine isn't helping things today either!).
Mum took the dogs out yesterday and I'm working myself up to taking them out this afternoon but currently they're having a snooze and don't seem bothered by their lazy day.

Hope everyone is well and making good progress with their pooches.

Ollie from Blue Cross is reserved, crossing my fingers for him.


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## Izzysmummy

Twiggy - I hope you managed to get to see you sister today. I hope she's OK.

Beth - I hope Sam is behaving himself! Its so difficult to contain the crazies while they recover!

Mv - Sounds like a good day at Tink Towers!

Symone - Shamayas smart, it wont take her long to grasp that pulling doesnt get her where she wants to be! Sounds like you've made great progress so far!

Sarah - Sorry You had a rubbish birthday! I hope hubby makes it up to you! Glad the sled dog meet went well!

ouesi - What an ungrateful man! Id be beside myself with worry if Izzy ever escaped and would probably have hugged you and sobbed my eyes out with relief if that had been me!

GR - Good luck with the car hunt!

Werehorse - Well done on the weight loss! Love the boys coats! Such posers! :001_wub:

LO - snap! A whippet is on our list of potential next dogs!

MS - Im sure it wasnt Molly! It was the pixies what did it! Honest! 

Dogless - What a lovely day! Have a nice day enjoying the boys and have yourself a day off from training!

K+M - Sounds like things are settling down a bit now. Hope things continue as they are and you can relax a bit more soon! 

F+F - So sorry to hear you didnt enjoy agility today! It sounds like its more the people/place rather than the actual agility side of things. I noticed on the agilitynet website that there were training places available here Fun Agility - Pads Dog Training. Not sure if its anywhere close to you?

Thorne - Take care of yourself! Big hug!

Well we're back! It was a flying visit up North to see the family! Izzy had a great time with Millie and seeing my sister and parents! Arrived back lateish last night and then up early for agility this morning! Tarnus is coming down with a cold so it was just me and monkeydog!

She did really well, listened well to my commands, we introduced some directional commands which we've been building up at home for months so that went pretty well! Completely fine jumping at full height (was a bit concerned after last week but it must just have been her tail hurting) and her weaves are fab! Did a little course at the end and she was brilliant....I on the other hand ended up on my bum ! Got lots of positive comments from the trainers who seem impressed at how well shes doing!

Shes now snoozing after her busy morning! Very proud of my little monkey today!! :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

F&F - I am sorry. Perhaps see what you think tomorrow when you are less upset and give it another shot next week? If you are still unhappy, look for another class? I think that you do right keeping Frank back if he wouldn't be happy - I do at school too.

Thorne - look after yourself as best you can; hope to see you soon.

IM - hope Tarnus' man flu doesn't render him incapable of making the brews . Sounds as if Izzy was a real little star today too, well done .

The play parks behind our back fence are PACKED with screaming kids again and, yet again, they are playing 'bark at the dogs' whenever they hear them in the garden, so I have two whining dogs who want to go out and play cooped up in the house . I'll take Rudi for a walk soon anyway and then Kilo probably later, depending how many kids are left outside.


----------



## Symone

F&F - I also don't like it when people let their dogs approach yours without asking. Even more so if mine's on lead and theirs is off lead. 
Had it happen today and I'm trying to get shamaya to not be so excited after everything. After being approached by a lab she was pulling so bad and my hand still hurts.

Thorne - Hope you will be okay. What about a nice cuddle with the dogs and a hot chocolate? 
I'll also keep my fingers crossed for Ollie. 

--
Well.. Today has been a so and so day. I woke up at 5am really needing the loo. Stick Shamayas collar on her, go for a wee then get my coat and slippers on. She didn't do anything out so I took her back in. Let her off and I slowly took my coat off. Go into the bedroom and she has had a massive poo on the bed.  And the OH had slightly rolled into it. He was not happy at all.

Took her out at 10am. Later than normal but everyone was grouchy and tired. She decided to pull so I kept doing the turn around thing. We didn't get far at all and ended up only going as far as the parking lot of our flats...

1pmish.. 2nd walk.. I was freezing. She walked nicely until we were a min away from the beach. I walked past her normal enterence while she was pulling and she sat down and had a right strop! I picked her up and we went to the next enterence. When I started to walk past that one because she was pulling, she got the idea and walked nicely. 
Way back she decided she had to keep zooming under my feet! I tripped over her so I shoved her lead into the OHs hands. Guess who she walked nicely for. :incazzato:
So yeah... fuuuunnn day!

here's a pic of her walking nicely for the OH.. as you can see she still prefers the right:









and a pic of her, just because


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## Sarah1983

Thorne, hope you're feeling better soon.

IM, gad Izzy is doing well.

F&F, not sure what to suggest. Maybe try it again next week and if you're still not happy look elsewhere?


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse great weight loss  hope the Chinese was nice and look at your lovely boys in their new coats, even Oscar is looking rather pleased for himself (and still ) I am a little 'demanding' when I get an idea in my head as well  its like once started there is no off switch 

Kat well done with the new arrival he sounds like he will be sorted in no time  (just don't let him chat to Evie too much ) hope the butt is ok 

F&F love the dog under and on a log pictures. I would do what sarah says take him next week and see but do hold back on anything you are unsure of, you know your dog. One thing I have gleaned from both the control unleashed book and the course I am doing is that agility trainers are not necessarily dog behavior experts and as you want the agility to help with his it would make sense to create more issues.

Mollysmith take care, dont over work on the freelance stuff especially as you are still in pain. But good girl molly  and then I read on and she ruined it in the night, lol. 

Moonviolet, what lovely things to say re Sarahs hubby  2 gold stars for you 

Dogless will you stop feeling guilty for enjoying your lovely boys, how nice to have seen some sun. Hope the kids run away to tea soon.

Sarah, well done Spen for not destroying the house, lets hope his good behavior continues, it is so much nicer when you dont have to shut them away if you are going out. Ginge just lays on the sofa or armchair now, she barely stirs as I go out and just wiggles at me from the same spot when i get back. I videoed her the first time she went upstairs for 5 min then came down and went to sleep, twas rather dull 

Sian -that sounds more positive can you send him over to teach Ginge the way to do it too please?

Izzysmummy - gold stars for izzy too, hope your butt is also ok and that the cold doesn't bring out the man flu

Thorne - take care and push those demons back int here box, I am sure hubbys migraines and anxiety/depression are closely linked  feel better soon.

Symone - your clever collie is certainly picking things up quick, she is a beautiful little thing, you must be very proud.

We have been mostly looking at cars today again, I won, we put a deposit on this, I rather like it  it looks quite grown up lol !!



Papa bank doesnt know yet though as he is away, ran it past mama bank though and as it is a lot cheaper actually £700 cheaper with part exchange (he will actually take our junk heap off our hands). Its a year older than the other one but the more I thought about it the more I thought that although the men weren't right , I didn't want to get a car from the other dealer, so I pick it up next Saturday after my course, will be a very long day for the little un. Very excited, 62mpg, £100 tax per year, £180 insurance :thumbup1:

I think it has been quite good for the tiny one too, 2 days out in the car and no exciting walks for her, I think she might have realised that car does not equal excitement. I think she will be relegated to the boot in the new car :yikes:

Before we went out we did some training and finished off with some box stuff, she got straight in it and sat down, my we laughed  not sure where she can take it from there???


----------



## sianrees1979

i asked the dog listener jan fennell some advice, explained what daniel does and had a fast reply
The best advice is to go back to working in the home with Stop, Start, Change Direction. There are trust issues here and you need to establish yourself as leader in the home before you can gain trust outside. Good luck. 

i don't get it though, never hit him or done things to loose his trust butwill work on the trust issues and ordered her books & dvd


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## Sarah1983

sianrees1979 said:


> i asked the dog listener jan fennell some advice, explained what daniel does and had a fast reply
> The best advice is to go back to working in the home with Stop, Start, Change Direction. There are trust issues here and you need to establish yourself as leader in the home before you can gain trust outside. Good luck.
> 
> i don't get it though, never hit him or done things to loose his trust but will work on the trust issues and ordered her books & dvd


Oh no  This is one of the trainers I'd avoid like the plague I'm afraid. Lots of rank reduction rubbish, making sure your dog walks behind you, ignoring them for long periods of time and psycho babble.

For a reactive dog you'd be better off with Click to Calm or Control Unleashed or Scaredy Dog imo.


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## sianrees1979

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh no  This is one of the trainers I'd avoid like the plague I'm afraid. Lots of rank reduction rubbish, making sure your dog walks behind you, ignoring them for long periods of time and psycho babble.
> 
> For a reactive dog you'd be better off with Click to Calm or Control Unleashed or Scaredy Dog imo.


thanks, i don't believe he has lost trust in me as he's never too far from me, has slept in my bed since 11 weeks old so think he does trust me, i'll probably re list the books & dvd if i don't like the advice given (didn't pay full price for them so haven't wasted my money) think i'll carry on with the liver and hope the screaming stops


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## Sarah1983

sianrees1979 said:


> thanks, i don't believe he has lost trust in me as he's never too far from me, has slept in my bed since 11 weeks old so think he does trust me, i'll probably re list the books & dvd if i don't like the advice given (didn't pay full price for them so haven't wasted my money) think i'll carry on with the liver and hope the screaming stops


It's probably a better way of stopping it to be honest. At least it's not likely to have any sort of negative effect on him 

Do you know whether he's screaming through fear or just being over excited? Spen can be quite vocal with other dogs but his is all due to wanting so desperately to go and play  Off leash and allowed to socialise there's no barking, whining or screeching like there can be on leash.


----------



## sianrees1979

Sarah1983 said:


> It's probably a better way of stopping it to be honest. At least it's not likely to have any sort of negative effect on him
> 
> Do you know whether he's screaming through fear or just being over excited? Spen can be quite vocal with other dogs but his is all due to wanting so desperately to go and play  Off leash and allowed to socialise there's no barking, whining or screeching like there can be on leash.


think it's fear as if he gets too close or a off lead dog comes to sniff he'll try and bite it, then i get more funny looks off the owners of the other dogs, daniel also tries to jumop in my arms and starts shaking when he sees other dogs, he screams at our GSD also but lex just looks at him and walks away to lay down by the front door.


----------



## Maria_1986

Today we went for a walk today in a slightly more crowed part of town. Met a few people with dogs, all of which got an interest from Chevy and one staffy boy got barked at (with C wagging her tail). One in particular though that is concerning me. A couple with a JRT on a flexi lead stopped as their dog wanted to say hi - I did say she was new to us and i didn't know how she would react. Both dogs had tails wagging, Chev had her mouth relaxed and open but was making grumbly noises at him and they were going backwards and forwards with mouths to each others ears before she stepped away and threw herself on the floor to have a roll on her back (she does this often!). She came away nicely and the JRT owners commented on how nicely she met their dog even with the grumbly noise and said she just wanted to play. I think they were right but OH is not so sure and is now worried about her meeting other dogs. We are due to start our training and socialization classes on 5th March and had been trying to keep the number of dogs she met until then to a minimum so that we could work in a controlled environment so see how she reacts to things. I know a wagging tail is not always a good thing but how else can I tell what it means? I've been reading through the calming/body language stuff on the links from the sticking in the training forum but I am struggling to be able to take everything in and then see the behaviours in her at the time when we are out.

Is keeping the dog interactions at a minimum the right thing to do or could that be what has made her so keen to interact with other dogs now?

I'm a little concerned that I am screwing up this dog ownership thing


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## Guest

Had three walks today. Didn't meet a soul on any of them. Suddenly realised my little town has a tennis court with high fences. But the field it sits in, your not allowed to let your dog offlead so I assume me asking about the tennis courts will result in a "Well if you, then so will others" etc. 

Coming up to our third on-lead only month. :


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## kat&molly

Ginge- like the car- it is very grown up, you'll have to be good now. The Ninja will get lost in that boot.

Thorne- Hope you're feeling better soon.

F+F- sorry you had a bad lesson- its really deflating.

Sian- another good book, so far, is Help for your fearful dog' by Nicole Wilde- if you do read the JF stuff, try at least one of these other books mentioned here- compare the advice- see which you think is more suited for a little dog who's just scared.

Dogless- hope the kids have buggered off.:thumbdown:

Izzy's mummy- Izzy's enjoying her agility .

Symone- pretty girl- she's learning quick.

I cheated because its so cold  and took them altogether but it was off lead for Evie so easier. A good walk but 3 times he had barking fits at me- he wanted the toy out of my hand- so I had to just stand still till he shut up, first time seemed to last forever but the 3rd was considerably shorter. 

Tried the IC exercise that MV suggested-he's pretty good, but it'll be a while before I am able to open my hands.:laugh:

Thought I'd try with my own :yikes: think I'll try the gloves, Moll pawed me - but when she got it had a good run.
Scruff- licked and licked and licked - 
Evie- was the best 
Jay was sat on OH's lap and wouldn't even come and have a go.

Have you all tried it? Can you open your hands?


----------



## Dogless

Took Rudi for a walk - he was a little star again . Not much to report, I enjoyed it. Went past the playpark on way home - the 'barkers' had buggered off leaving little kids playing nicely on the equipment .

Whilst I took Rudi out I gave Kilo max dose of 'Stress - Less', left TV on and shut curtains. Then took Kilo out as the 'barkers' weren't there. He skipped and skittered for a street or so and then relaxed. Great walk - 'hide' used to great effect again . At the end met a bitch coming into season - all those that caused us such dramas in the summer that I ended up driving everywhere for weeks and weeks must be due again around now as this was one of them :thumbdown::thumbdown:.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Tried the IC exercise that MV suggested-he's pretty good, but it'll be a while before I am able to open my hands.:laugh:
> 
> Thought I'd try with my own :yikes: think I'll try the gloves, Moll pawed me - but when she got it had a good run.
> Scruff- licked and licked and licked -
> Evie- was the best
> Jay was sat on OH's lap and wouldn't even come and have a go.
> 
> Have you all tried it? Can you open your hands?


I missed MVs advice, is this the treat in the hand and the dog has to leave it? I can open my hand once Spen realises what we're doing but as I often feed him from an open palm (he has a tendency to snatch at times) I do have to cue him that we're doing it or he, quite understandably, gets confused.

LO, I feel for you. I'm dreading April because our 4 months of life on a leash starts then. Someone did say the place we have the meet up is exempt from it but we'll see.

Maria, some dogs are just very vocal in play. We had a Rottie here for a week who honestly sounded like he was killing Spencer at times. But it was definitely play and he's just a noisy dog. A couple of the huskies at the meet up are also very vocal with lots of growling and grumbling. My own dog on the other hand is Silent Bob and at the most may give a very, very quiet growl when playing tug with another dog. Staffies, ime, are quite vocal dogs.


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## Dogless

Maria, Kilo as a puppy used to greet with a rumble (doesn't now) and Rudi can greet really vocally, bouncing, growling etc - he greets me by grabbing a toy and running about rumbling away whilst wagging himself stupid. My two also sound awful when playing at times - if Chevy's body language was relaxed and friendly, plus neither JRT nor owner had any misgivings then I'm guessing it was playful. I must admit I don't 'do' onlead greetings anymore if I can help it which is something that I wish I'd done with Kilo from the start - totally personal choice though.


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## moonviolet

If anyone is interested here's the link to the second in the series of the webinars I was raving about the other day

Pre-Super Charge Reinforcement.

Off to watch it now


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hi all. 
Have read all posts.
Had a bit of a meltdown this afternoon whilst our with Freddie and bella. 
Hubby came to fetch me and took me home. Calmed down and took them out seperately. 

Just a bad day and a little blip. 
Will catch you all later. Having a really early night. 

Thorne..... Take care. X

Sorry it's short. I'm on my phone.


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## Dogless

F&F - you take good care too; hope to see you feeling a little better very soon xx.


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## Beth17

F&F and Thorne look after yourselves and we'll all still be here when you're feeling better x

Dogless glad you have had a good day with the boys.

Sarah sounds like another successful meet for you and Spen 

Good day with the boys and a nice calm walk although poor Sam is desperate to run about and wrestle. Going to head to [email protected] tomorrow and get him a couple of new toys to ease the boredom.


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## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> F&F and Thorne look after yourselves and we'll all still be here when you're feeling better x
> 
> Dogless glad you have had a good day with the boys.
> 
> Sarah sounds like another successful meet for you and Spen
> 
> Good day with the boys and a nice calm walk although poor Sam is desperate to run about and wrestle. Going to head to [email protected] tomorrow and get him a couple of new toys to ease the boredom.


At least he's lively and wants to play though I guess Beth? Far less worrying than if he wasn't!


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> At least he's lively and wants to play though I guess Beth? Far less worrying than if he wasn't!


Oh yes definitely preferable and in a week normal service can resume


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## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Oh yes definitely preferable and in a week normal service can resume


And he'll have a week's worth of energy to let out.....:yikes::yikes:.


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## Twiggy

I'm home safe and sound, shattered and won't be long before my lovely bed....LOL

My sister was of course thrilled to have me there even if it was for only three hours.

She's lost weight, which is a bit worrying, but then she isn't eating much.

I'll catch up on all your posts tomorrow.

btw Four little girlies were very pleased to see me when I got in...!!


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## L/C

Lots to catch up on! 

Ouesi - what a ****! I have nothing more eloquent to say on the matter.

Sarah - hope hubby has been significantly contrite and that much grovelling has been done.

Thorne - feel better soon. We're all here for you.

Dogless - hope horrible kids disappear soon and that you aren't too tormented by in season bitches. rrr:

Maria - both mine are can be quite vocal in play and greeting. It doesn't sound like anything to worry about to me.

K&M - your new lodger looks and sounds adorable , if a little nutty. Just my type of dog.  Can you send him and Evie to me please. 

F&F - hope your next lesson goes better.

IM - yay for you and Izzy. Sounds like agility was great.

Werehorse - congrats on the weight loss. :thumbup:

LO - hope you can get Zand off lead soon.

Twiggy - I hope there is good news about your sister and that you got to see her.

Phew - I think that's everything but i'm certain I missed something so I'm very sorry.

Busy few days at chez pointy. Friday I had a whirlwind of work, doctor's appointments and climbing. Good news there is nothing nasty currently lurking in my thyroid gland but I need to have it monitored and scanned again in 6 months time. Bad news I have an infected lymph node which is apparently linked to a constant low level infection in my tonsils so I have to decide if I wasn't them out or not. Currently debating the pros and cons of that.

Saturday I arranged a little treasure hunt around London for OH, culminating in a trip to the cinema to see the new die hard film. Avoid at all costs.  In the morning we had an unremarkable walk and nothing much to report. Both dogs were well behaved and Ely is staying sound despite being back off lead. 

This morning OH came out for a walk with us yikes which was nice. He let Ely off the lead without me realising and before I knew it there was a nice, nippy, bargy chase game going on between Ely and Gypsy which was shortly joined in by a jrt! I had visions of it all going very wrong but Ely actually played nicely, greeted and broke of his chase to come back when I called him. I didn't want to push my luck so he went straight back in the lead and OH got a stern talking to about safe places to let Ely play. Gypsy was my star and recalled away from food, a squirrel and played tuggy outside. :thumbup:


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## Dogless

L/C - I am sorry you have an infection going on BUT so relieved you have no lurking nasties. Very pleased for you - odd that you can worry about folk that you'll never meet but I do about the WAYWO ladies . Are you sure your OH is OK though coming on a walk? I always worry slightly when mine decides that he will :yikes:.

Treasure hunt sounds like great fun as does the nippy, bargy game....and both pointies really sound as if they are behaving brilliantly. Has Ely got most of his confidence back following the 'setback'  you had?


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## Beth17

Glad there is nothing sinister lurking around L/C I hope you can shift that infection. Well done to both pointies for being so well behaved 

Twiggy glad you were able to see your sister 

Maria sorry I forgot you earlier. I think Chevy sounds like a lovely girl, Sam is incredibly vocal when playing.


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## Werehorse

Pictures of the day - the boys standing on artwork. :lol:



















Walked round Derwentwater. The boys were rather full of themselves and not as responsive as I would have liked, but I think it was just excitement as they haven't had a massive amount of walking this week. They didn't actually do anything naughty though.

Thorne and F&F - I hope you are both feeling better soon.

Twiggy - glad you made it to your sister and got back safely. 

L/C - good news that there's nothing nasty lurking at present. Tonsil thing doesn't sound fun though.


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## moonviolet

:001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:Oh my word those pics W/H:001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:

I can't remember everything again

Twiggy hope seeing you was jsut the boost your sister needed healing thoughts to her and everythign else who is fighting health issues.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C - I am sorry you have an infection going on BUT so relieved you have no lurking nasties. Very pleased for you - odd that you can worry about folk that you'll never meet but I do about the WAYWO ladies . Are you sure your OH is OK though coming on a walk? I always worry slightly when mine decides that he will :yikes:.
> 
> Treasure hunt sounds like great fun as does the nippy, bargy game....and both pointies really sound as if they are behaving brilliantly. Has Ely got most of his confidence back following the 'setback'  you had?


He usually manages one a week so not too bad. 

Ely is much better but we're still playing the LAT game a lot when we encounter strange dogs. Enforced bed rest has set him back a bit as well but he was much more confident today as opposed to this time last week.

Beth - glad Sam is happy and bouncy, even if he is being a pain to keep still. 

Forgot to say that I went to visit a workmate today to give him a hand with his girlfriend's, flatmate's dog (that's a convoluted link!). Initially it was just to help them out with the basics but the poor thing has a lot of issues that they didn't tell me about. She is a kelpie x gsd living in central London, who was bought at 4 weeks old, lived in a student house at first, received no dog socialisation during her socialisation period and so has no idea about a lot of signalling and body language and can be dog reactive, can be left alone for up to 9 hours a day and whose owner is going to work abroad for 10 months leaving her with the housemates (hence said housemate asking me for tips).

I gave them some tips and strategies that we used for Ely and advised a behaviorist. All credit to my workmate and gf for taking this dog on and trying to sort her out - gf has taken on most of the walking and makes sure that she now gets at least one walk a day so that's something.

She's such a cracking little dog though - I wanted to take her home with me.


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## Sarah1983

Lol WH, Hugo looks amused at being in a giant hand while poor Oscar looks a little worried. I want to take pictures of Spencer interacting with cool artwork now!


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## Guest

Okay, I'm worthless... I can't remember everything when I finally get to the end of the thread!!
Twiggy, so glad you got to see your sister!
Everyone else sounds like they had a great day too! Good doggies!!
Werehorse, love the hand picture!! How cool!

Just got in from a FUN playdate with my friend who has the rhodie. 
She came here since we have over 500 acres of safe land for the dogs to be off leash. We took Bates and the rhodie for a long walk, play, swim, then came back and let the rhodie meet the danes. Ended up only letting her meet our male as she was a bit overwhelmed by him and he was SO sweet, and got her calmed down, we thought we'd leave it on a good note. Breez (our female dane) *can* be good, but she can also be, well, a bitch LOL. 

I can't wait for her to post pictures! I didn't take a one! She took all of them with her nicer camera 

Can I just say, Bates is just about as goofy, silly, and exuberantly in love with life as they come. He just cracks me up!


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Just got in from a FUN playdate with my friend who has the rhodie.
> She came here since we have over 500 acres of safe land for the dogs to be off leash. We took Bates and the rhodie for a long walk, play, swim,


I'm not jealous. Nope. Not at all - no loose dogs running up, in season bitches etc etc. Green with envy doesn't even begin to cover it :laugh:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I'm not jealous. Nope. Not at all - no loose dogs running up, in season bitches etc etc. Green with envy doesn't even begin to cover it :laugh:.


I reckon we should move in. Surely there's room for us on those 500 acres. Wouldn't even notice us :laugh:

Ouesi, I remember Spencers reaction to meeting his first Great Dane. He's best buddies with him now but he was definitely all "holy crap, what the hell is that???" at first. Poor Achilles just can't keep up with him though.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I'm not jealous. Nope. Not at all - no loose dogs running up, in season bitches etc etc. Green with envy doesn't even begin to cover it :laugh:.


LOL... We are spoiled rotten here. 

But, if it makes you feel any better, we have coyotes, saw tons of tracks in the fresh mud, we have water moccasins and copperheads (poisonous snakes), though they're likely not out this time of year, and plenty of other wildlife that can be dangerous.

Thankfully though, our dogs are "street smart" about wildlife, and for the most part wildlife leaves us alone if we leave them alone. I do worry about snakes in the summer though... Our guys are big enough that a bite is not likely to kill them, but it's still a worry. 
And then I also have the dog with no sense of self-preservation who likes to impale himself on fallen tree branches and leap over rusty barbed wire and tear up his legs


----------



## Guest

So after we have gotten off the dinghy in NI to fend dogless from various muppets we're gonna board a even bigger dinghy and sail to the US? 

WHERE DO I SIGN!?! :L 

We could totally live on them 500 acres, Zand could run round all he liked. 

This is gonna sound really dumb guys but, when you let your dogs off, do they stay near you? Cause Zand will just SPRINT SPRINT SPRINT to the other end of the field (or even get himself lost in the woods once) its like him running takes over his brain and I'm not there. He does come back when called but.... (Well I assume he would now, as we are coming up to teh three month no offlead mark)

Cause he has sprinted into me before, into other people before and sprinted into other dogs. His vision is fine though...

Is it cause he's a lurcher?? 

OH AND I SAVED A PIGEON.
It was waddling round the garden, obvs engorged itself not to fly. Managed to drag Zand indoors so as not to kill it. I grabbed it and plonked it over my neighbours gate. The think didn't flinch.  Might be ill.

Everyone here has such wonderful dogs.:001_wub:


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> I reckon we should move in. Surely there's room for us on those 500 acres. Wouldn't even notice us :laugh:
> 
> Ouesi, I remember Spencers reaction to meeting his first Great Dane. He's best buddies with him now but he was definitely all "holy crap, what the hell is that???" at first. Poor Achilles just can't keep up with him though.


Come on! We love company!! 

Yeah, poor rhodie girl I think is used to always being the biggest dog, and when Lunar walked in it was definitely a "what the hell???!!!" moment!
He used to be feral though, and one of the good things about ferals is they tend to have excellent dog skills, which he does, and he was a lesson in calming signals, and backing off as necessary, and being very aware and respectful of her space. I wish I had taped it, it was really cool to watch from a behavior POV.


----------



## Guest

ouesi said:


> Come on! We love company!!
> 
> Yeah, poor rhodie girl I think is used to always being the biggest dog, and when Lunar walked in it was definitely a "what the hell???!!!" moment!
> He used to be feral though, and one of the good things about ferals is they tend to have excellent dog skills, which he does, and he was a lesson in calming signals, and backing off as necessary, and being very aware and respectful of her space. I wish I had taped it, it was really cool to watch from a behavior POV.


Bugger me, a feral great dane!?! Imagine seeing that in the shadows, you'd think you'd seen a blummin bear or something!?

Haha.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Weaving and seasaw. As these are the parts Rasco needs work on. Staying 100% of the time comes later.


----------



## Guest

LurcherOwner said:


> So after we have gotten off the dinghy in NI to fend dogless from various muppets we're gonna board a even bigger dinghy and sail to the US?
> 
> WHERE DO I SIGN!?! :L
> 
> We could totally live on them 500 acres, Zand could run round all he liked.
> 
> *This is gonna sound really dumb guys but, when you let your dogs off, do they stay near you? *Cause Zand will just SPRINT SPRINT SPRINT to the other end of the field (or even get himself lost in the woods once) its like him running takes over his brain and I'm not there. He does come back when called but.... (Well I assume he would now, as we are coming up to teh three month no offlead mark)
> 
> Cause he has sprinted into me before, into other people before and sprinted into other dogs. His vision is fine though...
> 
> Is it cause he's a lurcher??
> 
> OH AND I SAVED A PIGEON.
> It was waddling round the garden, obvs engorged itself not to fly. Managed to drag Zand indoors so as not to kill it. I grabbed it and plonked it over my neighbours gate. The think didn't flinch.  Might be ill.
> 
> Everyone here has such wonderful dogs.:001_wub:


My guys wander further if we're in an area they are familiar with. But they always check in constantly. But they're also totally used to being off leash. Most dogs go nuts when you UNclip the leash, mine thing getting the leash put ON is special 

This is pretty typical. The danes are velcro dogs, Bates will run off further, but before you know it he's back under foot.
And just a tease of where you can come play when you cross over in that dinghy 
DSCN1045.MOV - YouTube


----------



## Kicksforkills

Here's Poppy on a day she decided to do agility.


----------



## Guest

LurcherOwner said:


> Bugger me, a feral great dane!?! Imagine seeing that in the shadows, you'd think you'd seen a blummin bear or something!?
> 
> Haha.


LOL! Sadly it's not *that* uncommon. Around here people "dump" dogs they no longer want as shelters make them pay a fee to turn a dog in. So people drive out to some remote location, let the dog out, and leave. Most dogs die from predators, vehicles, or disease, but the ones who make it essentially turn feral. Lunar was roaming the state park about 10 miles from our house for months before they finally caught him - in a BEAR trap LOL!

Edit:
Fantastic shot of Poppy!!! Love it!!


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thanks, it was the day after Halloween so she had her witches cape on and didn't know there would be a photographer there.


----------



## Sarah1983

LO, Spencer will take off and do laps if we're on our own. But once he's let off steam he usually stays fairly close and checks in regularly. On the field with other dogs he goes further coz he'll follow them but he still checks in with me from time to time. Not as often as he does when alone but he checked in more today than he did last week and more last week than he used to walking with other dogs last summer. It seems everyone elses treats are more interesting than mine though  Sausage or chicken or liver or a bit of dry biscuit from someone else, dry biscuit wins every single time. If I take dry biscuit, the same ones they use, he doesn't want it, awkward git.


----------



## Dogless

LO - Yes, Kilo stays near me or comes to see where I am constantly if he's exploring where I can't see him in the woods. He is a typical velcro dog, always looking back to see if I'm coming if he's up ahead. Rudi seems to be the same but is still in his puppy 'not leave my side apart from venturing a few metres' stage. It's the breed I think. HOWEVER, if he were to see a deer or sheep  then the chase is on. So far I have spotted deer first and, once I know there are deer in an area, that's him onlead whenever we return! A lot of people tell me you can't let RRs off or they'll just be gone - usually the same people who tell me they'll turn on their handler if hungry .



ouesi said:


> Come on! We love company!!


Don't tempt me .


----------



## Maria_1986

Sarah1983 said:


> Maria, some dogs are just very vocal in play. We had a Rottie here for a week who honestly sounded like he was killing Spencer at times. But it was definitely play and he's just a noisy dog. A couple of the huskies at the meet up are also very vocal with lots of growling and grumbling. My own dog on the other hand is Silent Bob and at the most may give a very, very quiet growl when playing tug with another dog. Staffies, ime, are quite vocal dogs.





Dogless said:


> Maria, Kilo as a puppy used to greet with a rumble (doesn't now) and Rudi can greet really vocally, bouncing, growling etc - he greets me by grabbing a toy and running about rumbling away whilst wagging himself stupid. My two also sound awful when playing at times - if Chevy's body language was relaxed and friendly, plus neither JRT nor owner had any misgivings then I'm guessing it was playful. I must admit I don't 'do' onlead greetings anymore if I can help it which is something that I wish I'd done with Kilo from the start - totally personal choice though.





L/C said:


> Maria - both mine are can be quite vocal in play and greeting. It doesn't sound like anything to worry about to me.





Beth17 said:


> Maria sorry I forgot you earlier. I think Chevy sounds like a lovely girl, Sam is incredibly vocal when playing.


Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

She finally played with a toy yesterday night and was very vocal in doing that too (for the first time since we have had her:biggrin5 so I think you are all right and she is just a vocal dog in play.

We worked a little on recall, down and watch at home last night, recall is good away from distractions, down is 50/50 and watch seems to be all over the place although I think she is finally getting the hang of what I want if the guineas/neighbors/wind makes a noise the attention is gone again.

I hope everyone has a great day today and thank you again for your help and reassurance.


----------



## Beth17

LO my two will generally stay close unless they are sniffing something and i get ahead and they then come running back. They tend to go further and act sillier if they are together. I think it is a breed thing as well though.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Sarah, don't worry, I think all our partners/ husbands make us have a good old rant sometimes.  I had my friend on the phone to me on Friday...rah rah rah about her hubby, he's lovely but she just needed to let it all out.
> 
> Enjoy tomorrow.


I'm afraid men think differently to us and seem to come from a another planet at times but occasionally they are thoughtful.

My hubby came home with a huge bunch of flowers for me on Friday. His way of trying to cheer me up because he knows I'm so worried about my sister.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Just back from agility with frank....
> 
> Not sure if it's me or what but didn't enjoy it this week.
> Gut feeling is that I'm not too keen on the fella who takes it. He gets us all to get close to the other dogs at the end of the lesson whilst they're all on leads and I'm not comfortable with it so I stand back.i know my dog and i know he doesnt like it. He likes to watch and explain dogs body language
> 
> We were going around cones and an off lead dog from the other class ran up to frank and he pulled the lead out my hand. Twice this happened. . I know they have to be off lead but it wound me up a little cause they shouted "don't worry, she only wants to say hello" ..... Think I'm in one of those moods.
> Probably me in all honesty but just feel a bit deflated this week after a good start last week.
> Frank did well though, going through tunnels, standing with back legs on boxes, going through a gate......not sure what to do next week now though.


I certainly wouldn't have been happy if an off lead had interferred with any of mine on an agility course, as apart from anything else it's dangerous.

I used to teach agility a few years back (sold all my equipment about five years ago) and that was one of the things firmly instilled into handlers.


----------



## Kiwi

Still working on.......leave the cat's butt alone (eternal fascination) and stop trying to jump on top of her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:cursing:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> If anyone is interested here's the link to the second in the series of the webinars I was raving about the other day
> 
> Pre-Super Charge Reinforcement.
> 
> Off to watch it now


Susan Garratt is a woman after my own heart....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Oh yes definitely preferable and in a week normal service can resume


When Leafy had to be rested for months as a puppy following her OCD op, I used to give her toilet roll middles and cereal boxes to attack as one of the ways to try and keep her amused.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> L/C - I am sorry you have an infection going on BUT so relieved you have no lurking nasties. Very pleased for you - odd that you can worry about folk that you'll never meet but I do about the WAYWO ladies . Are you sure your OH is OK though coming on a walk? I always worry slightly when mine decides that he will :yikes:.
> 
> Yes agreed. I had to leave my four in hubby's less than capable hands all day yesterday. Some of what I told him had got through though because he kept Tremor on the lead for both walks.... She is actually sound but he didn't want to get the blame had she gone lame again.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> So after we have gotten off the dinghy in NI to fend dogless from various muppets we're gonna board a even bigger dinghy and sail to the US?
> 
> WHERE DO I SIGN!?! :L
> 
> We could totally live on them 500 acres, Zand could run round all he liked.
> 
> This is gonna sound really dumb guys but, when you let your dogs off, do they stay near you? Cause Zand will just SPRINT SPRINT SPRINT to the other end of the field (or even get himself lost in the woods once) its like him running takes over his brain and I'm not there. He does come back when called but.... (Well I assume he would now, as we are coming up to teh three month no offlead mark)
> 
> Cause he has sprinted into me before, into other people before and sprinted into other dogs. His vision is fine though...
> 
> Is it cause he's a lurcher??
> 
> OH AND I SAVED A PIGEON.
> It was waddling round the garden, obvs engorged itself not to fly. Managed to drag Zand indoors so as not to kill it. I grabbed it and plonked it over my neighbours gate. The think didn't flinch.  Might be ill.
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> I think it greatly depends on where you are as to whether the dogs all take off. Mine tend to do it at the coast, you get on the beach and they all take off for the sea however far the tide is out...!! Providing it's safe I let them get on with it.
> 
> btw The pigeon sounds ill unless it's a racing pigeon that's used to being handled.


----------



## Twiggy

Right finally caught up with you all through umpteen pages since Saturday evening. I think I deserve a medal..!!

I've now got to catch up on housework and make a trip to Tescos - nice.

I was dispatched 3 miles down the road from where my sister lives yesterday to stick my head round the door where the training course was being held to say hello to everyone. I'm not sure little Holly would have coped all that well as there were at least 30 spectators sitting on the stage.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Maria_1986 said:


> Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
> 
> She finally played with a toy yesterday night and was very vocal in doing that too (for the first time since we have had her:biggrin5 so I think you are all right and she is just a vocal dog in play.
> 
> We worked a little on recall, down and watch at home last night, recall is good away from distractions, down is 50/50 and watch seems to be all over the place although I think she is finally getting the hang of what I want if the guineas/neighbors/wind makes a noise the attention is gone again.
> 
> I hope everyone has a great day today and thank you again for your help and reassurance.


I would agree with everyone else that its just noisy play. My Aunts staffy is very growly when playing!


----------



## Guest

Freddie and frank said:


> We were going around cones and an off lead dog from the other class ran up to frank and he pulled the lead out my hand. Twice this happened. . I know they have to be off lead but it wound me up a little cause they shouted "don't worry, she only wants to say hello" ..... Think I'm in one of those moods.
> Probably me in all honesty but just feel a bit deflated this week after a good start last week.
> Frank did well though, going through tunnels, standing with back legs on boxes, going through a gate......not sure what to do next week now though.


I'm with Twiggy, I would not have been happy about that at all. It's flat unsafe.
Our agility instructor had a mantra about agility, "Be safe, have fun. If you're not being safe you're not gonna have fun, 'cause someone will get hurt."
My dog was one of the dogs (once) who took off after another dog as he popped out of the chute. I think she had a prey moment. She recalled quickly enough, but the instructor was right there about to intercept her, and we were very careful about it not happening again. It's completely unfair to the other dog.
Sorry that happened to you


----------



## Freddie and frank

good morning.....feeling bit better today. 

IM...thanks for the link.i have heard of them, they were the ones who were a bit snotty about the flyball 'rules'. going to have a good old think this week and see how i feel. glad you had a nice trip to see your family. 

gr...that car is great. 62mpg...wow. enjoy it. 

maria....i don't do onlead greetings with the boys, they're not good with it, neither am i, but bella is great. all three are quite vocal sometimes when playing together. 

k&m....the IC excersise  if it is the leave it thing, then all three of mine will do it but i have to say 'leave it'....they relax a bit then i can say 'ok, take it' 

sarah and LO...i've probably missed it but what's the on leash for so long for??? knowing me i'm just being a bit dizzy.

mv...had a quick peek at the webinar thing...will have a better look tonight. looks good 

beth...glad sam's recovering really well.

twiggy...was thinking of you yesterday. how nice of your hubby to buy you flowers. mine sends me two bouquets each year. one on our anniversary and one on valentines day. always white lillies and white orchids, same as my wedding bouquet. even though it's predictable, i still love it. bless him.

LC...good news about your thyroid and gold stars for ely and gypsy.

werehorse...WOW WOW WOW those pictures are fabaroony. there's similar artwork on cannock chase by me but it's always busy so i tend not to take dogs there...maybee one at a time though. you may have started a new trend...' dogs on art':skep:

ouesi....wow, jealous too...room for another three???  ooh, i have to use a notebook when replying. 

LO...freddie will stay quite close to me and will wander but never out of sight. he knows i always have treats.
frank...depending on where we are. but he's always on a long line now, thanks to the advice of the lovely people on here, so he's never far.
bella....velcro dog, thank god, and i intend to keep it that way.
when we take all three out, she goes wherever freddie is so that's not far. 

KFK...what a great photo.

dogless...what's 'hide' ?? and i'm another one who worries about the WAYWO folk. 


well, my meltdown yesterday was just pants.
i set myself up for failing and don't see it until it's too late.

hubby had to go into town so i said take me, freddie and bella and drop us off. we'll walk back home along the river, fields, canal...it'll be nice. :frown2:

bella would not even acknowledge me or the sprats, liver, cheese i had in my pocket. freddie was a pain in the bum. i had to walk past a really annoying drunk, foul mouthed bloke, who had a bike with him so i thought he could get me at any point.  saw lots of kids and dogs coming towards me in the distance so my only option was to go back past this bloke. no...i stopped, felt totally trapped and helpless, cried my eyes out and phoned my husband who, bless him, came running down the riverside to me and rescued me.
what a flippin muppet i am. i'd only been walking for ten mins.:mad2:

anyway... feel bit better today and seperate walks this morning were all good. 

having a think this week about agility...i have to pay for 4 weeks next week if i go.

mammouth post again...sorry.

ooh, i haven't seen sailor...have i missed something???


----------



## Izzysmummy

Freddie and frank said:


> good morning.....feeling bit better today.
> 
> IM...thanks for the link.i have heard of them, they were the ones who were a bit snotty about the flyball 'rules'. going to have a good old think this week and see how i feel. glad you had a nice trip to see your family.
> 
> Ah, maybe that clubs not a good option if they were being funny about the flyball. Could you explain to the club that you're still not sure if its for you but you would like to come along for one more week before you commit to paying a load of money out upfront?
> 
> maria....i don't do onlead greetings with the boys, they're not good with it, neither am i, but bella is great. all three are quite vocal sometimes when playing together.
> 
> Izzy is also very vocal when playing with Millie, she definitely lives up to her nickname "Monkey", she sounds like a chimp with lots of "ooh, ooh, ah, ah" type noises!
> 
> well, my meltdown yesterday was just pants.
> i set myself up for failing and don't see it until it's too late.
> 
> hubby had to go into town so i said take me, freddie and bella and drop us off. we'll walk back home along the river, fields, canal...it'll be nice. :frown2:
> 
> bella would not even acknowledge me or the sprats, liver, cheese i had in my pocket. freddie was a pain in the bum. i had to walk past a really annoying drunk, foul mouthed bloke, who had a bike with him so i thought he could get me at any point.  saw lots of kids and dogs coming towards me in the distance so my only option was to go back past this bloke. no...i stopped, felt totally trapped and helpless, cried my eyes out and phoned my husband who, bless him, came running down the riverside to me and rescued me.
> what a flippin muppet i am. i'd only been walking for ten mins.:mad2:
> 
> anyway... feel bit better today and seperate walks this morning were all good.
> 
> having a think this week about agility...i have to pay for 4 weeks next week if i go.
> 
> mammouth post again...sorry.
> 
> ooh, i haven't seen sailor...have i missed something???


Not seen Sailor around for ages! I hope her and Toppa are OK!

Sorry you had a bad day. It sounds like it all just got a bit too much but I'm glad you're feeling a bit better today! Try to write yesterday off as just a bad day and not dwell on it too much. We've all had days like that! Big hug!


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry you had such a crappy day F&F, hope today is much better for you!

The 3 and a half months on leash here is law. From April to mid July dogs have to be kept on leash, something to do with breeding season. Not that most people we saw seemed to be complying with it last year.


----------



## kat&molly

F+F- Good you're feeling a bit better today, hope Thorne is too.

Werehorse- lovely pics of the boys, as always.

L/C- sorry you've got an infection, not nice, at least you've no nasties lurking.
And no , sorry you cant have Evie, you and Moonviolet would no doubt turn her in to an obedient little dog-and wheres the fun in that.:lol:
You can have a Nutty Cocker though- he's my type of dog as well- just blooming hard work with the others.

Twiggy-glad you got there and back in one piece, and obviously the girls have all their legs still intact.

Moonviolet- I watched that- but need to see the 2 when I get some peace and quiet.

Took Hal out with Moll again, we've had quite a bit of snow here.
We have to pass a garden with 2 English Setters, that go mad along the fence barking. I cant avoid it and it set him off jumping and flailing around in a frenzy- there was no distracting him so I just had to stand there and listen to the 3 of them :001_rolleyes: Took a good 3 or 4 minutes, Moll good as gold just lay down waiting for me not batting an eyelid.
Coming back I could use some treats, he was fine.

Ouesi- we're on the way.


----------



## Maria_1986

Freddie and frank said:


> g
> 
> maria....i don't do onlead greetings with the boys, they're not good with it, neither am i, but bella is great. all three are quite vocal sometimes when playing together.
> 
> well, my meltdown yesterday was just pants.
> i set myself up for failing and don't see it until it's too late.
> 
> hubby had to go into town so i said take me, freddie and bella and drop us off. we'll walk back home along the river, fields, canal...it'll be nice. :frown2:
> 
> bella would not even acknowledge me or the sprats, liver, cheese i had in my pocket. freddie was a pain in the bum. i had to walk past a really annoying drunk, foul mouthed bloke, who had a bike with him so i thought he could get me at any point.  saw lots of kids and dogs coming towards me in the distance so my only option was to go back past this bloke. no...i stopped, felt totally trapped and helpless, cried my eyes out and phoned my husband who, bless him, came running down the riverside to me and rescued me.
> what a flippin muppet i am. i'd only been walking for ten mins.:mad2:
> 
> anyway... feel bit better today and seperate walks this morning were all good.
> 
> having a think this week about agility...i have to pay for 4 weeks next week if i go.
> 
> mammouth post again...sorry.
> 
> ooh, i haven't seen sailor...have i missed something???


Thank you. Glad that your feeling a bit better this morning, I hope the day continues to go well.



Izzysmummy said:


> I would agree with everyone else that its just noisy play. My Aunts staffy is very growly when playing!


Thank you.


----------



## Dogless

F&F - pleased that you're feeling better. 'Hide' is getting Kilo to step behind me when I want him to - takes the stress away if he's anxious about an oncoming dog etc. I worked for ages in the house and garden and then walks doing it more statically and without any distractions and am slowly starting to add in more situations where I want him to do it but know that he won't fail (if that makes any sense).

Well, not sure if you all remember the local forest that I used to take Kilo to about 3 - 4 times per week? I stopped going as we bumped into the lab that went for him about 3 times on the bounce, then a mal that did too and I got really stressed out and just stopped going . I thought about it a lot last week and decided that today I would go back. We had a lovely time and just saw one man and his dogs, but I was off to the side which suited me fine. The one bad bit was that Kilo found and ate a HUGE quantity of stinking human poo and quite a good amount of toilet roll :mad5::mad2::incazzato:. I spent the rest of the walk hoping he'd vomit, but no. That aside, we had a lovely time...

Tried to upload a video of the boys zooming about enjoying themselves but Photobucket's playing up . Here is a rubbish phone pic:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless your post made me thing of this Reclaim the space! Love the pics the boys look liek they are havign a great time. ewww at the human poo I bet you are on high alert for heaving now.

F+F glad you are feeling a bit better today and your seperate walks went well.

K&M the boy is coming on leaps and bounds with you  I love Evie just the way she is 

I had a real mixed walk. Soon after arriving Tink still onlead I spot an offlead Husky eyeing us up, way ahead of it's owners who are chatting, so resolve to take the first turn off, I don't know this dog its staring and not breaking gaze etc etc So we head off up the turn and are joined in shortly by a charging Husky. I turn and block, Tink behind me, Husky stops loses all the intensity in it's body and Tink is now happy to be sniffed ( despite being onlead) I keep it short and we start walking with Husky in tow..... only now does it's owner begin calling it. we carry on and after a few minutes the dog turns back. I take it got back to it's owner for a beating as I heard it yelp a couple of times   So for us this was a huge indicator of how far Tink has come no tail to her belly, no please don't kill me peeing. but that poor poor dog.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless your post made me thing of this Reclaim the space! Love the pics the boys look liek they are havign a great time. ewww at the human poo I bet you are on high alert for heaving now.
> 
> F+F glad you are feeling a bit better today and your seperate walks went well.
> 
> K&M the boy is coming on leaps and bounds with you  I love Evie just the way she is
> 
> I had a real mixed walk. Soon after arriving Tink still onlead I spot an offlead Husky eyeing us up, way ahead of it's owners who are chatting, so resolve to take the first turn off, I don't know this dog its staring and not breaking gaze etc etc So we head off up the turn and are joined in shortly by a charging Husky. I turn and block, Tink behind me, Husky stops loses all the intensity in it's body and Tink is now happy to be sniffed ( despite being onlead) I keep it short and we start walking with Husky in tow..... only now does it's owner begin calling it. we carry on and after a few minutes the dog turns back. I take it got back to it's owner for a beating as I heard it yelp a couple of times   So for us this was a huge indicator of how far Tink has come no tail to her belly, no please don't kill me peeing. but that poor poor dog.


I like that blog mv - will read some more.

I 'liked' your post because of the massive strides that Miss Tink and you have made, not because that poor dog got a beating. How sad .

Think the vid works now....it's a rubbish phone one....


----------



## moonviolet

That is Tink's idea of heaven, a good game a chase and dodge


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless-great pic. And the human poo, yuk, Scruff found some last week. It has to be the worst ever.

Moonviolet- I think we all love Evie as she is really. Her independant streak just makes me laugh. Mostly.:001_rolleyes:
That poor Husky  I had the same this morning , bloody neighbour found us on the way back, I knew Hal would be a pest so I reeled his line in and she kept letting her dog come over and tell him off  then she'd poke her with her walking stick.
Tink done well.

Dogless- bet those 2 wear each other out.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> That is Tink's idea of heaven, a good game a chase and dodge


The BW's favourite kind of game; the only dog he'll wrestle with is Rudi - doesn't like it with any others at all. He'll play chases all day though. As it is they played it for almost the whole walk...two very tired pups now!


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless-great pic. And the human poo, yuk, Scruff found some last week. It has to be the worst ever.
> 
> Moonviolet- I think we all love Evie as she is really. Her independant streak just makes me laugh. Mostly.:001_rolleyes:
> That poor Husky  I had the same this morning , bloody neighbour found us on the way back, I knew Hal would be a pest so I reeled his line in and she kept letting her dog come over and tell him off  then she'd poke her with her walking stick.
> Tink done well.
> 
> Dogless- bet those 2 wear each other out.


It is the worst ever . There was a huge amount this morning...plus he ate most of the paper which he hasn't done for a long time  . He is stinking now. Horrible creature :skep:  .

Poor neighbour's dog too...


----------



## Symone

Gosh.. what was that? 4-5? pages I read then.. and my head is already blank  

So, I just got annoyed on facebook. A "Registered breeder" was letting pups go at 6 weeks, saying that they were eating and drinking fine at 3 weeks so they're all right to go.

I really shouldn't look at these pages.....


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, I am so, SO glad I do not have a poo eater. Watch Spen prove me wrong next time we're out in the woods now. Hope the human poo doesn't come back all over your carpets :yikes:

I'm ill. I dunno what's up but I'm freezing, boiling, shaky and waaaaaay spacey. I think maybe just a cold, I always suffer worse with a common bloody cold than anything else. Still no cooker. And my hands are refusing to be sat on today. Maybe I should get off the internet until I feel better.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, I am so, SO glad I do not have a poo eater. Watch Spen prove me wrong next time we're out in the woods now. Hope the human poo doesn't come back all over your carpets :yikes:
> 
> I'm ill. I dunno what's up but I'm freezing, boiling, shaky and waaaaaay spacey. I think maybe just a cold, I always suffer worse with a common bloody cold than anything else. Still no cooker. And my hands are refusing to be sat on today. Maybe I should get off the internet until I feel better.


Oh no Sarah; hope you feel better soon . Hands? I'm going to get looking at all the threads.....

The poo has only ever come back on my carpets once (touch wood!!) and the window of time has hopefully passed now. The BW STINKS though and keeps putting his head on my lap and snoring :frown5:. Rudi wasn't interested but Kilo snatched the paper and ran off - first thing I've ever seen him guardy with from Rudi - must be very valuable as it's about the only thing I just can't get him to leave either  .


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, I am so, SO glad I do not have a poo eater. Watch Spen prove me wrong next time we're out in the woods now. Hope the human poo doesn't come back all over your carpets :yikes:
> 
> I'm ill. I dunno what's up but I'm freezing, boiling, shaky and waaaaaay spacey. I think maybe just a cold, I always suffer worse with a common bloody cold than anything else. Still no cooker. *And my hands are refusing to be sat on today.* Maybe I should get off the internet until I feel better.


Hope you feel better soon. the colds seem to be particularly unpleasant this year.

As for hand sitting, I mine slipped out yesterday and I felt unable to not reply this morning when it was suggested i was undermedicated.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope you feel better soon Sarah. Think I know which thread you mean-awful.


----------



## L/C

Sarah - I hope you feel better soon.



moonviolet said:


> Hope you feel better soon. the colds seem to be particularly unpleasant this year.
> 
> *As for hand sitting, I mine slipped out yesterday and I felt unable to not reply this morning when it was suggested i was undermedicated.*


What?! Who was so bloody rude?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Hope you feel better soon. the colds seem to be particularly unpleasant this year.
> 
> As for hand sitting, I mine slipped out yesterday and I felt unable to not reply this morning when it was suggested i was undermedicated.





kat&molly said:


> Hope you feel better soon Sarah. Think I know which thread you mean-awful.


I have no idea whatsoever what is going on. Good job I don't want to be a detective.....


----------



## Sarah1983

Thanks ladies. It's not just on here I'm unable to sit on my hands, it's facebook too. I think I'll hide from the real world, I'm likely to get myself hurt 

MV, I have no idea which thread you're on about but I'm off to look now lol.

Dogless, I hope the smell goes away very soon. I think I'd relegate Spen to the balcony :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

I once didn't say anything when visiting friends and their child was hugging and bothering their dog. I could see he was uncomfortable, a few weeks later the child ended up in A&E having had her face bitten and still now, bears the scars.

Fortunately the dog ended up being rehomed to a couple with no kids and were told about his bite history. Now, I find it incredibly hard not to say anything when i see a dog looking uncomfortable being hugged or leaned on and find myself wanting to point it out.  i know it's not a popular thing to do and i probably should mind my own business.


----------



## Sarah1983

Ooooh I know which thread you're on about now.


----------



## Twiggy

Hope you feel better soon Sarah.

Dogless - What can I say about the primitive tribe that seem to live in your area over there. Beyond belief.


----------



## L/C

I just stalked back through your posts to find it (what - that's not weird!) and I have to say I really agree.

Definitely not a happy dog - whether it's the camera or the kids. 

(I resisted the urge to be rude to the poster who suggested you'd forgotten your happy pills - I thought you'd want to keep the moral high ground. )


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hope you feel better soon Sarah.
> 
> Dogless - What can I say about the primitive tribe that seem to live in your area over there. Beyond belief.


The CHs or those who poo in the woods  :biggrin:?....wouldn't be so bad if they at least buried it. I bloody *knew* what it was when he stopped mid - zoom, air scented then ran to an area and started eating something : .


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> (I resisted the urge to be rude to the poster who suggested you'd forgotten your happy pills - I thought you'd want to keep the moral high ground. )


It's a pleasant change from the rather more murky things i've posted on this thread from time to time :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> It's a pleasant change from the rather more murky things i've posted on this thread from time to time :lol:


I think you were right , if it makes just one person stop and think, then its been worth it.

Dogless- the only way I recognised what Scruff was eating last week was the dirty tissues next to it.
Wouldn't have minded but it was orange- whoever it was must eat Bakers.:lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Bloody smart arse dogs! I'm not sure I like being outwitted by a Labrador  Not started the recall outside thing yet, was going to start today but feeling ill means I'm going out as little as possible. So carrying on with recall away from food. This time with food in a tupperware container on the floor since there's no challenge to recalling away from food on the sofa or computer desk or tv cabinet or bed. Well this is much harder for Spencer and he's really, really torn between staying near the food and coming to me. You can see the indecision in his eyes and body language, the fact he knows he needs to come to me to get his reward but that he can't bear to leave the food to do so. So what does he do? He picks up the tupperware container and races to me with it :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody smart arse dogs! I'm not sure I like being outwitted by a Labrador  Not started the recall outside thing yet, was going to start today but feeling ill means I'm going out as little as possible. So carrying on with recall away from food. This time with food in a tupperware container on the floor since there's no challenge to recalling away from food on the sofa or computer desk or tv cabinet or bed. Well this is much harder for Spencer and he's really, really torn between staying near the food and coming to me. You can see the indecision in his eyes and body language, the fact he knows he needs to come to me to get his reward but that he can't bear to leave the food to do so. So what does he do? He picks up the tupperware container and races to me with it :lol:


LOVE the Spendog - Kilo would probably trudge over very reluctantly, step by step, whilst drowning in his own drool .


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody smart arse dogs! I'm not sure I like being outwitted by a Labrador  Not started the recall outside thing yet, was going to start today but feeling ill means I'm going out as little as possible. So carrying on with recall away from food. This time with food in a tupperware container on the floor since there's no challenge to recalling away from food on the sofa or computer desk or tv cabinet or bed. Well this is much harder for Spencer and he's really, really torn between staying near the food and coming to me. You can see the indecision in his eyes and body language, the fact he knows he needs to come to me to get his reward but that he can't bear to leave the food to do so. So what does he do? He picks up the tupperware container and races to me with it :lol:


Oh Spendog. :001_wub:

Dogless - meant to say I feel your pain on the poo front. Ely managed to eat a load yesterday evening. Picking up his poo this morning was not pleasant (there were little bits of tissue in it! :cryin


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> LOVE the Spendog - Kilo would probably trudge over very reluctantly, step by step, whilst drowning in his own drool .


That's what I thought Spencer would do. I knew he'd have grabbed loose food which is why I used a container he couldn't get into for the time being. Wasn't expecting him to think to bring the bloody thing to me! lol. We did get some recalls without him bringing it with him once I'd stopped laughing though. Hesitant ones requiring encouragement but once he realises that the way to get the food is to come to me I'm sure he'll pick up the pace again.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Oh Spendog. :001_wub:
> 
> Dogless - meant to say I feel your pain on the poo front. Ely managed to eat a load yesterday evening. Picking up his poo this morning was not pleasant (there were little bits of tissue in it! :cryin


No......I dread the after effects :cryin::cryin:. Last time I needed 3 poo bags when usually he does one small poo  .....and the smell :skep: .


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> No......I dread the after effects :cryin::cryin:. Last time I needed 3 poo bags when usually he does one small poo  .....and the smell :skep: .


It truly is vile.

If anyone reading this is a public shitter - please stop. It's a park - there's a public toilet not 5 minutes away! If it's further then that, then at least bury your leavings. :skep:


----------



## Beth17

Human poo  what is wrong with people! Glad you had a good walk other than that incident Dogless.

mv for what its worth I thought you were right, especially as at the moment I'm reading for the love of a dog and she talks about whale eye in there. It's absolutely fascinating and how rude of that poster to say about happy pills 

Sarah, Spen is just brilliant 

Sorry my mind has gone blank about everyone else 

Good separate walks with the boys. Sam still on lead but he found a tennis ball that he proudly carried for the rest of the walk. Went to the fields with Oscar and he behaved well although got a bit silly towards the end again. They are both now eating a kong stuffed with naturediet and gravy. It's a bit messy


----------



## Izzysmummy

kat&molly said:


> I think you were right , if it makes just one person stop and think, then its been worth it.
> 
> Dogless- the only way I recognised what Scruff was eating last week was the dirty tissues next to it.
> Wouldn't have minded but it was orange- whoever it was must eat Bakers.:lol:





Dogless said:


> The CHs or those who poo in the woods  :biggrin:?....wouldn't be so bad if they at least buried it. I bloody *knew* what it was when he stopped mid - zoom, air scented then ran to an area and started eating something : .





L/C said:


> Oh Spendog. :001_wub:
> 
> Dogless - meant to say I feel your pain on the poo front. Ely managed to eat a load yesterday evening. Picking up his poo this morning was not pleasant (there were little bits of tissue in it! :cryin


Im rather concerned! I have never come across human poo but it sounds like its rather common! Who are these public poopers :skep:? I think they should engage in some sphincter muscle building excercises so they can hold it in until they reach a toilet!


----------



## Freddie and frank

ok, i'm going to stop reading now cause i'm heaving......and i can't stop thinking about it and it's just a vicious circle....: but, yes, freddie has eaten it too once...yuk. 

dogless, that video is fab. what a lovely place. it's nice to see the dogs on PF in action. 

mv, poor dog  but well done to miss tinks :thumbsup: and just read that thread...happy pills 

sarah, hope you feel better soon. spen is just so munchable, bless him, he's so good.

no need for me to sit on my hands cause i'm always too slow to think of replies, and if i did it'd probably just be an "oh up yours" followed by a diva strop.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah, Oh my goodness I want Spendog I love the smartarses !!!! 

Beth i lvoe the thought of Sam trotting along with his found treasure. 

IM are you offering to hold sphincter tightening seminars? There's a few mountain bikers around here that might be candidates. :biggrin:


----------



## Izzysmummy

moonviolet said:


> Sarah, Oh my goodness I want Spendog I love the smartarses !!!!
> 
> Beth i lvoe the thought of Sam trotting along with his found treasure.
> 
> IM are you offering to hold sphincter tightening seminars? There's a few mountain bikers around here that might be candidates. :biggrin:


Hmmm, well if I cant find something before the end of September when my contract runs out I may have to consider it !!

hmmm.......Im now wondering how I could make my millions from this, perhaps the pelvic floor strengthening device that I saw on American dragons den could be adapted ??!!

ETA; Ooops, forgot about sticky status!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Maria - Lol, you aren't a proper dog owner till you fret you are getting it all wrong at least not by WAYWO standards anyway . Sounds like you are doing just fine.

F&F sorry you had a melt down glad you are feeling better today.

Sarah - I was reading through the thread last night and commented to hubby about you having to lead walk for 4 months and he demanded I ask why - but I see my guess was right and its to do with breeding seasons, is this just in your area, is it a high wildlife/bird are or is it a country wide thing??? Bless clever Spen  I can picture the indecision face and then, sod it I will just take it with me, lol. Hope you feel better soon.

Twiggy - glad you got to see your sister at least, hope she picks up soon.

L/C glad its nothing too serious, hope the infection clears up soon. The tonsil thing is tricky, a friend of mine had hers out at 26, it was not a pleasant experience I am afraid  but then if the infections stop perhaps its worth it  it wasn't a nice few days for her immediately after though, I wont go into details unless you want to know and of course its not bad for everyone. Well done for helping the dog, kelpiexgsd  doesn't sound like the sort of dog to be happy for 9 hrs a day on its own  good for your friends for taking it on. i am convinced a lot of Gingges issues come from being taking from the litter too early.

WH love the arty pics, Oscar looks rather dashing in an arrogant filmstar just come out the water kind of way 

Ouesi so jealous, I am coming in the dinghy too, we had that freedom for our last dogs initial years, miss it. You should video the two dogs if they meet again, it was one of the most interesting/useful exercises we did on the course last week, observing the trainers dogs to pick up the signals in reality. So much easier than trying to learn with your own dogs as you miss so much when you are used to them, I have been watching Ginge like a hawk but hubby still picks up stuff quicker than me .

Not stepping foot in Ireland though I don't know what kind of poo I might step in  urgh poor you Dogless. Lovely pic, ooh and vid now, so lovely they can enjoy each other like that and glad the forest was uneventful apart from the poo!

Thorne hope you'se bearing up.

Kicks amazing photo of Poppy 

Moonviolet - I feel I need to do a bit of reclaiming my space one day, we are on reduced walks right now but they had been getter more and more restricted and less enjoyable anyway. Well done Tink for continuing to amaze and improve  and its the worst thing about finding this helpful forum I now notice uncomfortable dogs, I mostly just say nothing but I couldn't but comment on Tom humping Rosie dog the other day, I was looked at in amazement when I suggested neither of them were happy about the whole scenario  your child biting scenario just goes to show though, its best to speak up.

LO - when we actually let the ninja off she would often stay pretty close then all of a sudden zoom off, like in a 'oh oh! shes gone' kind of way, then she would turn round and zoom all the way back again  she stayed very close after as she was knackered I should imagine. Cant hurt to ask about the tennis courts?? They can only say no or even better YES!

I have been reading Turid Rugaas Barking book. She describes the different type of barks and excitement barking at other dogs

_1. It can be that the dog has always played either too much or too wildly with other dogs. This causes stress levels to go up at the sight another dog, and the excitement and stress makes him bark.

2. The other reason may be that he rarely meets other dogs and gets hysterical when he does see one.

Turid Rugaas. Barking: The Sound of a Language (Dogwise Training Manual) (Kindle Locations 165-166). Kindle Edition. _

It made me go    particularly the first, why did her previous owner leave me with this mess?????

From that book that I have decided it is a bit excitement and a bit guarding. She hasn't seen a dog on a walk for a week so has taken to barking at people.

We had a very demanding doggie here at lunchtime so I took her outside to the 'triangle' for a bit, she is now lying at my feet trying to pull the keyboard off. We can get right round the triangle but not in a complete loop, at one end she gets over excited about the fence through which we normally duck through to get to the hotel  and the other end is a corner hedge, she likes to be able to see round corners so pulls to get past, so that is our work for the next few days a full loop.


----------



## Guest

Very quick update as I have work in ten mins. 
Went to vet, Zand was a quivering squealy dog. 
Getting more clomicalm tommorow.
Was given a number of a local behaviourist. 

The vet reckons him sleeping on my bed doesn't help.


----------



## Sarah1983

Smart ass Spen says he's available to anyone who wants him, all he asks is you feed him. Lots. And let him carry things every moment he's not eating.

GR, I think the leash law is a state wide thing. Different states here have different laws which can be quite confusing.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Smart ass Spen says he's available to anyone who wants him, all he asks is you feed him. Lots. And let him carry things every moment he's not eating.
> 
> GR, I think the leash law is a state wide thing. Different states here have different laws which can be quite confusing.


I can imagine, its confusing enough to work out if and when and what part of the beach we are allowed on and they paint the rules on the pavement 

LO - I really feel for you you seem to be being torn in different directions and all you want is whats best for your dog. Does your insurance cover the behaviourist or can you afford to pay direct, its worth a go BUT make sure you are 100% happy with their methods before you hand over any cash, I don't think the vet knows what they are talking about though, pretty sure sleeping on your bed is not the problem!!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The CHs or those who poo in the woods  :biggrin:?....wouldn't be so bad if they at least buried it. I bloody *knew* what it was when he stopped mid - zoom, air scented then ran to an area and started eating something : .


Kilo and Rudi are perfect gentlemen - it's the natives, who are not only rude and bad mannered with untrained dogs but seemingly are back in the dark ages with regards to modern conveniences...!!


----------



## Maria_1986

GingerRogers said:


> Maria - Lol, you aren't a proper dog owner till you fret you are getting it all wrong at least not by WAYWO standards anyway . Sounds like you are doing just fine.


Thanks.

And thank you to everyone discussing poo - I am no longer feeling very hungry which means I might actually be within my calorie target for today! 
Chevy had a nice horse poo snack on our long walk today, she has also hoovered up some guinea pig poop for me today after I made a mess cleaning them out - luckily though we are yet to find anything quite so nasty as human poo!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Kilo and Rudi are perfect gentlemen - it's the natives, who are not only rude and bad mannered with untrained dogs but seemingly are back in the dark ages with regards to modern conveniences...!!


I wouldn't go as far as perfect gentlemen . Both had short separate lead walks tonight...both well behaved; used 'hide' for the entire male lab who doesn't like Kilo and it worked a treat again . I won't elaborate on the inevitable consequences of Kilo's earlier indulgence :skep:  :cryin:.


----------



## Guest

Sarah if it's the thread I was on too, I'm so glad you spoke up. 
MV just went to the thread you were referring to, and I'm glad you spoke up too, and I agree, though honestly I never know how to handle that sort of thing..

About a year ago, I was pretty vocal with a dane owner on another forum that what she was doing (punishing the growl) was foolhardy and *could* lead to her child being bitten instead of growled at. We went back and forth and it got heated.
A few months later she was back on, her child had been bitten in the face by a full grown great dane   I felt awful. To top it off, I get a private message from her to the tune of "I'm sure you're happy now." I was SO hurt. The whole reason I was so adamant before is because I did NOT want this to happen. Why on earth would I be HAPPY her child was bitten?! The whole thing really upset me. So now I'm very cautious about getting involved in that sort of discussion


----------



## Guest

And OMG Dogless!!! I thought Bates was horrid for rolling in rotting deer guts. OMG human waste?! Who DOES that?!?! You definitely need to come live with me. I've never encountered that!


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> And OMG Dogless!!! I thought Bates was horrid for rolling in rotting deer guts. OMG human waste?! Who DOES that?!?! You definitely need to come live with me. I've never encountered that!


Careful what you say....remember I am currently person without portfolio given to impulsive decisions...DO NOT divulge your address  .

We encounter it a fair bit in the woods .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- I hope it never landed indoors.

LO- hope you get some help sorted, dont understand the bed bit though.

Maria- It sounds like Chevy has settled really well, I think she's landed on her paws with you. 

OH hasn't worked today, he cooked tea. Knowing that we have young bouncy food obsessed Cocker in the house, he sensibly put a saucepan on the front ring of the cooker. I made a point of saying' I'll just move this to the back as its an accident waiting to happen'- less than 10 minutes later he put another saucepan on the same ring.:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- I hope it never landed indoors.
> 
> LO- hope you get some help sorted, dont understand the bed bit though.
> 
> Maria- It sounds like Chevy has settled really well, I think she's landed on her paws with you.
> 
> OH hasn't worked today, he cooked tea. Knowing that we have young bouncy food obsessed Cocker in the house, he sensibly put a saucepan on the front ring of the cooker. I made a point of saying' I'll just move this to the back as its an accident waiting to happen'- less than 10 minutes later he put another saucepan on the same ring.:


No...all bagged and binned :arf::arf:.

Oh dear...men...the biggest training challenge known to, erm, man :skep:


----------



## moonviolet

ouesi said:


> Sarah if it's the thread I was on too, I'm so glad you spoke up.
> MV just went to the thread you were referring to, and I'm glad you spoke up too, and I agree, though honestly I never know how to handle that sort of thing..
> 
> About a year ago, I was pretty vocal with a dane owner on another forum that what she was doing (punishing the growl) was foolhardy and *could* lead to her child being bitten instead of growled at. We went back and forth and it got heated.
> A few months later she was back on, her child had been bitten in the face by a full grown great dane   I felt awful. To top it off, I get a private message from her to the tune of "I'm sure you're happy now." I was SO hurt. The whole reason I was so adamant before is because I did NOT want this to happen. Why on earth would I be HAPPY her child was bitten?! The whole thing really upset me. So now I'm very cautious about getting involved in that sort of discussion


I can fully understand why you were upset  no one would wish to be " right" under such sad circumstances. the very nature of forums means you may not have helped the original poster but just maybe other people read what you said and you changed the way they did things.

I'm afraid I can be one of those speak your mind and be damned people, but I do try to be tactful and respectful about it. 

Maria :lol: the WAYWO diet


----------



## sianrees1979

think i have found my weapon to use on daniel with his screaming when he sees other dogs, liver  took him to town today and seen chi the chihuahua, gave him liver and no screaming, was shaking but no screaming :thumbup1:

lets hope i'm getting through to the little mexican hotdogs head


----------



## Twiggy

[*QUOTE=Dogless;1062734513]No...all bagged and binned* :arf::arf:.

There used to be a dog show down south on playing fields that was renown for human poo...!! I only went once.....

*Oh dear...men...the biggest training challenge known to, erm, man* :skep:[/QUOTE]

There's no challenge involved. Any female would be extremely foolhardy to try, as in 99.1/2% of cases they would be doomed to failure.

They just don't think, listen or have any sense, particularly where dogs are concerned. That is just so typical, putting a saucepan where a young dog could knock it flying.

I've said this hundreds of times but I firmly believe it; behind every great man there is a greater woman. So good on yer Mrs W Churchill, Mrs A Lincoln, etc. etc.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [*QUOTE=Dogless;1062734513]No...all bagged and binned* :arf::arf:.
> 
> There used to be a dog show down south on playing fields that was renown for human poo...!! I only went once.....
> 
> *Oh dear...men...the biggest training challenge known to, erm, man* :skep:


There's no challenge involved. Any female would be extremely foolhardy to try, as in 99.1/2% of cases they would be doomed to failure.

They just don't think, listen or have any sense, particularly where dogs are concerned. That is just so typical, putting a saucepan where a young dog could knock it flying.

I've said this hundreds of times but I firmly believe it; behind every great man there is a greater woman. So good on yer Mrs W Churchill, Mrs A Lincoln, etc. etc.[/QUOTE]

Coming from a trainer of your calibre Grannie I shall take that as permission to give up.....I haven't failed, it's just an impossible task :biggrin:.


----------



## diefenbaker

Men are born fully trained. You simply cannot improve on perfektion.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Men are born fully trained. You simply cannot improve on perfektion.


Egsaktly so according to my hubby...and possibly his mother .


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## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Men are born fully trained. You simply cannot improve on perfektion.


Yes - it's what their trained in that worries me....!!


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## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Yes - it's what their trained in that worries me....!!


We are trained in a womb. I thought I'd already explained that.


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## Guest

Whats this thread I've missed??


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## moonviolet

Imagine you set up a test walk in much the manner of a driving test. That's how this evening's pavement walk was. A cold wind blowing every uncleared leaf, a cat, barking dogs, joggers, a van driving toward us on the pavement, a scantily clad woman running from driveway to house with some associated door slamming, a group of mumbling hoodies, a carrier bag swinger and a banging unsecured gate. Tink handled it all without so much as a gruff. Just a couple of shake offs, such a good girl


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## Guest

TIS OKAY I FOUND IT I THINK.


I am worried about phoning this behaviourist. WHAT IF SHE SAYS THAT I SPOIL HIM TOO MUCH OR SOMETHING. OR THAT HE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED ON THE BED? OR THAT I'M NOT A GOOD OWNER OR SOMETHING. 

Argh. 

KEEPING CALM.


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## L/C

Well tonight it is pointies - 1 Humans - 0.

Came in from work, OH had been in early but gone out again and so I assumed he hadn't fed them. So I did and I gave them an extra big portion as it's been really cold here. Only to get a call while Gypsy was finishing her dinner to say he was on his way back and that he had fed them before he left.

There was no hesitation before they started to eat and no slowing down or any indication that they had already had a meal. So tonight they have had 2 cups of fish4dogs, 2 eggs, half a tin tomatoes, and some chicken bones each.

Well played pointies.

Well played.


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## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> TIS OKAY I FOUND IT I THINK.
> 
> I am worried about phoning this behaviourist. WHAT IF SHE SAYS THAT I SPOIL HIM TOO MUCH OR SOMETHING. OR THAT HE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED ON THE BED? OR THAT I'M NOT A GOOD OWNER OR SOMETHING.
> 
> Argh.
> 
> KEEPING CALM.


Breathe..... slowly.

Please please don't get upset, a qualified professional should never make you feel inadequate, they should be there to help you, to give you the tools and the confidence to move forward with Zander.


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## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Breathe..... slowly.
> 
> Please please don't get upset, a qualified professional should never make you feel inadequate, they should be there to help you, to give you the tools and the confidence to move forward with Zander.


I think I worry because the last "trainer" I saw, who I used to work for, was horrible to clients and would say that they've "Ruined their dog" etc etc and it's kinda whats been putting be off. 
They were also very into the dominance stuff etc etc. :001_unsure:


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## Dogless

Kilo and Rudi would be exceptionally impressed, pointies .


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## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> I think I worry because the last "trainer" I saw, who I used to work for, was horrible to clients and would say that they've "Ruined their dog" etc etc and it's kinda whats been putting be off.
> They were also very into the dominance stuff etc etc. :001_unsure:


Big hugs, not everyone is like that and I'll be down the A303 faster than you can say Donkeyboy if anyone tells you you have ruined Zander.

L/C Lucky pointies 2 dinners sounds like a dream come true to floppy ears.


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## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Big hugs, not everyone is like that and I'll be down the A303 faster than you can say Donkeyboy if anyone tells you you have ruined Zander.


You're a lovely person, you are. 

AND TWO DINNERS!? Zander is impressed!!


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## Guest

AM I AFTER A ONE TO ONE? OR A BEHAVIOURAL CONSULTATION?? 

the second one needs a vet signature though?


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> AM I AFTER A ONE TO ONE? OR A BEHAVIOURAL CONSULTATION??
> 
> the second one needs a vet signature though?


Behavioural I would have thought....


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> TIS OKAY I FOUND IT I THINK.
> 
> I am worried about phoning this behaviourist. WHAT IF SHE SAYS THAT I SPOIL HIM TOO MUCH OR SOMETHING. OR THAT HE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED ON THE BED? OR THAT I'M NOT A GOOD OWNER OR SOMETHING.
> 
> Argh.
> 
> KEEPING CALM.


Of course she won't.... If she dared to say anything like that I'd personally come and punch her lights out...LOL


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## Freddie and frank

LC..... shhhh F,F&B not tried that one yet. 

Double gold star for miss Tinks. :thumbup:

LO....oh, hope you find a good trainer. I struggled to find decent ones. It's tricky isn't it. 

All ok here. Evening walks well behaved.Nothing to report. 

Looked at 101 things to do with a box again.....bear with me, I'm hard work sometimes...
Put box in middle of room
Threw treat in box
Dog gets treat
Click and reward

Is this how I start off ?


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## moonviolet

Freddie and frank said:


> LC..... shhhh F,F&B not tried that one yet.
> 
> Double gold star for miss Tinks. :thumbup:
> 
> LO....oh, hope you find a good trainer. I struggled to find decent ones. It's tricky isn't it.
> 
> All ok here. Evening walks well behaved.Nothing to report.
> 
> Looked at 101 things to do with a box again.....bear with me, I'm hard work sometimes...
> Put box in middle of room
> Threw treat in box
> Dog gets treat
> Click and reward
> 
> Is this how I start off ?


101 Things to Do with a Box | Karen Pryor Clicker Training

Here's a step by step on Karen Pryor's site


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## Freddie and frank

Thanks MV. 

Did a little bit with each one but soon as they know I have treats on me, they just sit and look at me, without budging, unless I walk about the room. Chocolate Labradors hey.....bless em.


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## Werehorse

Good work Pointies.  Hugo and Oscar tried that the other day,they almost had me convinced OH hadn't given them breakfast but I was pretty sure he probably had, I came very close to feeding them again but asked OH before I did! :lol:

LO - as mv says no professional should make you feel badly about yourself. You hire them to help you solve a problem not to remonstrate (is that the right word?) you for it.

Well done Miss Tinks - sounds like an eventful walk. 

I was trained in Food Hygeine today. I have decided I must have a healthy immune system. And I now have 3 jobs. :lol: Mad job, tutoring and occasional days (like 2-3 a month) in the cafe. I am hyper-employed. :lol: Slightly guilty about leaving the boys but will just have to put more effort in on non-work days and get up earlier on work days!  This morning when it was clear I was going out to work and not taking them with me they both just piled on the sofa with an "ahhhh! Lovely day off!" look about them.


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## Sarah1983

Freddie and frank said:


> Thanks MV.
> 
> Did a little bit with each one but soon as they know I have treats on me, they just sit and look at me, without budging, unless I walk about the room. Chocolate Labradors hey.....bless em.


I take it you're just starting with either clicker training or shaping? Personally I've had no joy with 101 things to do with a box until a dog is clicker savvy. It's a hell of a step for a dog to go from being told what to do or following food to interacting with a random object so I pick something the dog naturally does as a starting point. A nose touch to hand or a target stick is easy since most dogs will naturally move towards something held out and it's very easy to make the lure of holding it out smaller and smaller. I don't tend to go on to 101 things to do with a box till I've had the light bulb moment, that moment where the dog realises it can make the click happen by offering something.


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## Freddie and frank

Sarah1983 said:


> I take it you're just starting with either clicker training or shaping? Personally I've had no joy with 101 things to do with a box until a dog is clicker savvy. It's a hell of a step for a dog to go from being told what to do or following food to interacting with a random object so I pick something the dog naturally does as a starting point. A nose touch to hand or a target stick is easy since most dogs will naturally move towards something held out and it's very easy to make the lure of holding it out smaller and smaller. I don't tend to go on to 101 things to do with a box till I've had the light bulb moment, that moment where the dog realises it can make the click happen by offering something.


Frank does the nose to hand touch very quick, bella is doing very well and Freddie is getting there. 
They all know that offering the correct behaviour, eg...walking close to me with a loose lead, focusing on me when we see cats, dogs, even birds with bella, recalling, will get a click and treat. 
Bella is doing so well using the clicker, just wished I'd have given it a go earlier with F&F.

did the nose to hand touch tonight and fancied doing something different. Had a rare night off from working.


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## Maria_1986

moonviolet said:


> Imagine you set up a test walk in much the manner of a driving test. That's how this evening's pavement walk was. A cold wind blowing every uncleared leaf, a cat, barking dogs, joggers, a van driving toward us on the pavement, a scantily clad woman running from driveway to house with some associated door slamming, a group of mumbling hoodies, a carrier bag swinger and a banging unsecured gate. Tink handled it all without so much as a gruff. Just a couple of shake offs, such a good girl


Congratulations to you and Tink



LurcherOwner said:


> TIS OKAY I FOUND IT I THINK.
> 
> I am worried about phoning this behaviourist. WHAT IF SHE SAYS THAT I SPOIL HIM TOO MUCH OR SOMETHING. OR THAT HE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED ON THE BED? OR THAT I'M NOT A GOOD OWNER OR SOMETHING.
> 
> Argh.
> 
> KEEPING CALM.


I was having the same panic attack over going to training classes, then I realised that doing something is better than doing nothing at all and as we are paying these people if we don't agree with their methods then we can take our money elsewhere and find someone who will be encouraging not judgmental. I don't think anyone who tries to help their pet by consulting with a behaviourist can be a bad owner - bad owners would continue to ignore/encourage the bad behaviour.


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## kat&molly

Well done Tink, that was a lot to contend with.

L/C-Well done to the Pointies 


Hal is settling down a bit, he's only a PITA half the time now.:lol: He's gotten much better with the girls, still a pain for sniffing and trying to get them to play but he's ignoring Jays grumps, and I think Moll is quite enjoying having a fellow Spanner in the house. 

I'm managing to get the cats in to the bedroom , I'm pleased about that as its so bloomin cold out. When Hal sees them he goes in to one of his mad barking frenzies  I dont now think its aggressive- but I'd still hate to see what happened if he got to them. I'll try to film it if I can.

LO- A behaviourist shouldn't put you down for anything- they're there to help you, and if they dont we will all pile in the WAYWO dinghy. 

I'm not neglecting Evie's village walking- the road is being dug up at that end, hopefully they'll be finished soon.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Kiwi

:lol:Today we are working on:

- Don't glue nose to cat's bum (still)
- Don't bark at planes even tho they haven't got flight clearances for overhead flights of Boo garden
- Don't try to kill birds who have landed in Boo's garden without proper visas..... :lol:


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## sianrees1979

had my cautious canine, how to help dogs conquer their fears by patricia B McConnell, ph.d book back this morning, will be reading it later after my driving lesson


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## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Frank does the nose to hand touch very quick, bella is doing very well and Freddie is getting there.
> They all know that offering the correct behaviour, eg...walking close to me with a loose lead, focusing on me when we see cats, dogs, even birds with bella, recalling, will get a click and treat.
> Bella is doing so well using the clicker, just wished I'd have given it a go earlier with F&F.
> 
> did the nose to hand touch tonight and fancied doing something different. Had a rare night off from working.


I've never bothered teaching my dogs that sort of thing but I would have thought you could cheat a bit to get them started ie walk slowly up to the box staring intently at it but don't say a word. I'll almost bet one, if not all of your dogs, will follow suit and if they look at the box then click.


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## GingerRogers

LO- I think you want a one to one behavioral consultation just to be awkward. You cant do the second if its not the first can you  and like everyone else says, no self respecting professional behaviourist should belittle you or insult your ownership skills and as has already been said, the fact that you are trying to get help shows you are not a bad owner. I totally understand that you have been burnt before though.

I would advise calling them up or do they have a website, many professional behaviorists do, you need to find out what sort of methods they use, if they are purely positive they are even more unlikely to be admonishing you. If they believe things like Zanders problems are all down to sleeping on your bed then, well they are quite likely to be idiots and want to make you feel like one too.

Can you find out anyone else who has used them, some behaviorists are very cagey about their methods and wont give you an inkling of what they do, personally I would steer well clear, if they use positive methods and get good results then although they may not want to give advice over the phone or give you any pointers before assessment, but they can still tell you the sort of methods they use. Thats not to say that some of the things you might not like or want to do but as long as they are positive thats ok, I can't walk my dog properly or play tug or chase with her at the moment  I don't like it and its hard but hubby just says '£200 Charlotte'  and we are finding other fun things to do.

Please don't be afraid to ask them questions and trust your gut instinct, if you feel like whining at them they might be wrong, if they make you want to talk in excited capitals then they may just be alright  If they aren't then I am also more than happy to drive down the 303, I love that road, it means holidays 

MV didn't Tink do well faced with such a plethora of nuisances. 

F&F - the ninja can just lay down and stare but will eventually get up and do something, can you hide the treats so they don't know they are there, thats one of the things we were taught at obedience and was mentioned last week, keep the treats in your pocket and don't leave your hand in your pocket or they will just stare.

Well done Sian, hope it keeps up.

Pointies, impressive :biggrin:, we managed the opposite and the ninja only got half her tea on saturday 

I had another tantrum last night. We went out for our little jaunt, aim was to get from our triangle to the triangle of exciting smells without pulling (normally two minutes walk ), we did so very well, despite a few false starts, and barking at people  and were happily returning with lovely steady walking when bloody Otto and his owner crept out the dark, just before we got to the front door (no matter what time I go out they are there ). I ran to the front door, Ginge bashed into a fence post of the neighbours and knocked it over while she was too busy barking backwards at the dog (don't panic its just an old stair spindle as a sort of symbolic fence with a rotten base hence its collapse, no harm done to doggy and I sort of fixed it ), I burst in the front door and just went :cryin: :cryin: totally unreasonable of me, hubby is sort of laughing at me , I just think how the hell am I supposed to do this when we live here. I just unreasonably want everyone else to understand and stay away from us, I think it was so upsetting as we had done so well and were so nearly safe. Its those sort of things that made me start to restrict the walks anyway, you think the longer we are out the more chance there is of something happening.

On a more positive note, we have been doing more mat work, decided on our old bath mat, as its soft, portable but fairly weighty. Plus I managed to get bleach on it the other week, so now it has a new use I will just have to buy a new one for the bathroom, never quite liked the colour anyway  (its orange so quite appropriate) She has really got the hang of it, decided on the word settle as that seems to have uses not just for relaxation massage but never sure when to introduce the cue word and when to say it ???? She does the cutest little whip round and shuffle backwards when she realises her paws aren't quite on the mat :001_wub:


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## moonviolet

LO I've linked this blog on this thread a few times and i know i've linked this particular entry but it's a wonderful one. I hope you like it  Canine Confidence - Tellington TTouch - Reward-based Dog Training - Coaching

K&M only a PITA half the time? what an improvement :biggrin:

GR shame about stalking Otto/owner so close to the end of your walk. Glad the mat work is going well though. I hope you see some real benefits from the course for you and Ginge you both deserve to be able to enjoy your walks.


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## GingerRogers

I have seen you post that before, but for me as well thank you!


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> LO- I think you want a one to one
> 
> *F&F - the ninja can just lay down and stare but will eventually get up and do something, can you hide the treats so they don't know they are there, thats one of the things we were taught at obedience and was mentioned last week, keep the treats in your pocket and don't leave your hand in your pocket or they will just stare.*
> 
> Personally I do it the other way - "here's the tit-bit/toy, now work out how you get it".
> 
> Take retrieve for instance. If I suggest to most handlers they have a ball/tit-bit in their hand they invariably say "Oh but my dog will drop the dumbbell if they see food/ball in my hand" To which I reply "Yes of course they bl..dy will until they understand the rules"
> 
> It works just the same on any exercise whatever you happen to be doing with your dogs.
> 
> *On a more positive note, we have been doing more mat work, decided on our old bath mat, as its soft, portable but fairly weighty. Plus I managed to get bleach on it the other week, so now it has a new use I will just have to buy a new one for the bathroom, never quite liked the colour anyway  (its orange so quite appropriate) She has really got the hang of it, decided on the word settle as that seems to have uses not just for relaxation massage but never sure when to introduce the cue word and when to say it ???? She does the cutest little whip round and shuffle backwards when she realises her paws aren't quite on the mat* :001_wub:


You introduce the cue work once they are doing any exercise reliably and you say it as they are performing it.


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## GingerRogers

Thanks Twiggy but do you mean as she is in the process of lying on the mat or after she has laid down, sorry for being a doofus, I just know my timing is so atrocious and if I don't get it right she will be even more confused


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Thanks Twiggy but do you mean as she is in the process of lying on the mat or after she has laid down, sorry for being a doofus, I just know my timing is so atrocious and if I don't get it right she will be even more confused


Explain exactly what your are asking her to do in as much detail as you can. You are quite right, timing is everything.


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## Sarah1983

How did you go about teaching those things F&F? Did the dogs figure out what you wanted themselves step by step or did you lure them with food or something? Not trying to be pedantic, it really does make a difference in my experience 

If I want Spen to interact with an object I'm ready to click as soon as I get the item out. Most dogs will show interest in something you put down on the floor and a lot of the time because the trainer isn't ready they miss the chance to click that interest and get the ball rolling. I also watch for the slightest movement towards the object, whether it's a glance, a step or whatever, and click that to start with, even if it's only accidental movement in the right direction.


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## GingerRogers

ETA for a moment Twiggy I thought you meant explain to her  see I am confused!

Mmm I guess I am not quite sure actually . Its one of the exercises they gave us to work on they call it 'go to place' but they seemed to think it would take a while to get it reliably. This is what they say in the workbook.

Go to relax mat.
Getting your dog to go to a mat so you can begin relaxation work is an important part of the programme. You will need to have a relaxation mat that is new to your dog and one that will only be used for your massage and encouraging your dog into a calm state. To ensure that your dog will always go to the mat for massage you first need to train the 'go to mat' behaviour.

*Put your dogs mat on the floor*
*Look at the mat, not your dog and keep silent during the exercise* (whoops I have been praising her )
*Click your dog for looking at the mat or turning its head towards the mat, toss the treat on the floor away from the mat. This will set your dog up for the next repetition.*
*Continue to click and treat for any movement towards the mat. Your goal is for the dog to keep all 4 paws on the mat. *(she went straight to downs)
*Once your dog is reliably going to the mat and getting on with all 4 paws, begin to click and treat for behaviours like sit or down.*
*Pick either a sit or a down and shape on the mat *(they said to choose whatever your dog did more as a default behavior, she picks downs every time) 
*Once your dog will stay on the mat until you tell them to get off add a verbal cue like go to mat before the behaviour takes place *(see its this bit that confuses me, every other clicked trained behavior I have read about or tried seems to say as you did, cue as they are doing it, she does it so quick and readily (and unrelaxed  she is hyper alert when working on anything) she does it with out a cue, the cue is the mat on the floor it seems , I feel I need to cue the point when she actually relaxes not the go to mat - or could I need two cues, go to mat and then settle?? 
*Practice this behavior in a variety of environments until your dog is reliable anywhere you train* (obviously have not moved out of the house as yet)

 Please grannie  help the confused bunny, I know I could email the trainers but I pestered them last week and sometimes my brain is a bit obtuse and likes to get another point of view.


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## foxyrockmeister

Hi everyone, sorry but I haven't kept up with how everyone's doing but have mustered the courage to come back on here and share our problems 

I was going to start my own thread as things get lost so quickly in here and I though that having a thread dedicated to Branston's problem might motivate me more to keep working at solving it, but then I decided that was a bit self indulgent and you guys in here know a bit of the history and have already given me great advice so I'm gonna stick around here more often 

So, as some of you know, Branston has been having a few redirected aggression issues. This only happens when he is on his lead and is excited by something eg a bird, squirrel etc. He then takes his frustration out on whatever is nearest - either Lily, or me  
Up until recently this has been relatively minor incidents, with yipping, yelping, jumping and nipping. He has torn my clothes and broken my skin (which I realise is unacceptable) but never done any serious damage.

Anyway, this all escalated last week when we were on holiday... We took a walk up into a village (me, hubby, mum, dad and pickles) so dogs on lead walking in a new place along a pavement up to a village. 
Branston saw some birds flying overhead (this has become one of the most common triggers) and I immediately felt him tense up, the flick switched in his brain and he lost it, he was spinning on his lead, jumping, yelping, nipping and then he sunk his teeth into my leg! I couldn't believe the power in his jaw as he gripped my calf and I literally felt his teeth sink into my muscle. It was over within seconds.

This is the first time my hubby or parents have witnessed one of his 'moments' and this was way worse than any before so they were pretty shocked. 
I guess I tried to play it down a bit really because I was ashamed and felt as though I had failed. My parents are a bit of the old school way of thinking and think I am too soft on the dogs. Although I was quite surprised and in a way pleased to hear my dad say "There is nothing you could do when he's like that, there would be no point in punishing (ie hitting) him as it wouldn't achieve anything" I know this to be true but I did think that they would just say he needed a beating 

I took Branston back to the boat - walking very purposefully and fast, not giving him a chance to look or think. All the time feeling the blood seeping into my jeans.

So, now you know 

This is how my leg looked straight after:



















When my mum saw it she had a bit of a flap and wanted to take me to a&e but I managed to convince her it was ok and gave it a good clean, squirted some antiseptic in it (bejeesus did that sting  !) and put a dressing on it

I seem to have got away with it and it hasn't got infected or anything, a week on and it looks like this:










Anyway, enough of the gore, now on to the 'What the bloody hell are we going to do about it!!??"

As horrible as this was it has given me the kick up the arse I needed to try and sort this out.

SO... I have just spent 20 minutes on the phone to the very lovely sounding trainer that Twiggy recommended to me :thumbup: I've explained it all as best I can and she has said it sounds like classic redirected aggression and she herself has a BC who suffers with it.

I have to get him a basket muzzle, which I will get tomorrow and start slowly and gradually introducing him to it. He won't need to wear it all the time but for me to have it with me if a stressful situation occurs.

The trainer is coming to our home on Friday for a one to one session, the plan is to start teaching him some calming techniques, starting off in the home. I have to get him something to use as 'his mat' (I was thinking of a bit of vet bed?) and some uber tasty treats.

I'm so relieved that I've finally made the call and that she seems to understand his issues really well. She's assured me that he is not an aggressive dog, which I already knew so it's a great relief that she thinks the same, as I was worried everyone would just write him off as an aggressive dog who needs muzzling or pts because he bit me 

So there you have it. Sorry for the epic post but I think keeping a record of his problems and how we're tackling it is really going to help me keep this up. The trainer has told me it is not going to be a quick fix and that I'm going to have to work really hard, so I'm hoping that when I'm tearing my hair out and getting upset that you lovely people can get me back on track


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## Izzysmummy

FRM - Im so sorry this had happened. Your leg looks really sore! 

Dont worry, we all know Branston isnt aggressive but I definitely think a muzzle will help you and Lily to stay unharmed while you work on it. 

The trainer sounds wonderful and Im sure she'll have lots of great ideas!

Big hug!


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## GingerRogers

Ouch, he got you a good un didn't he, I don't really 'like' that but I 'liked' as I sympathise with a lot of your feelings. I haven't got any help but lots of support , the trainer sounds like the way to go, and the muzzle to give you peace of mind but its tricky to know when and what birds will kick him off. It was my own safety that swung the muzzle for me not that we have used it in anger yet, I am still hoping we can manage it and train it out and we haven't had many ankle biting incidents recently. I wear thick leather ankle boots all the time just in case, at least she is small, Branston can get higher up I guess, but will have thick socks up my legs as well for Saturdays training session.

It does make you feel a bit ashamed  I am not sure why but it does. It is difficult to explain it really isn't nasty or intended. The first time she kicked off in front of hubby he was very shocked as he hadn't really listened when I described what she did doesn't ever ) and when she first did it to hubby  oh dear. It does sound pretty classic redirection but not sure about 'aggression', the ninjas is more frustration I think, the barking book describes it perfectly in the over excitement bit. She did it in training class to a wooden toy we had been given to distract her with while the others did a bit of agility stuff, proper turned on it and just gnawed away with a totally frustrated look on her face, like a kid banging its fists or head or something when it doesn't get its own way. It was interesting as I hadn't ever seen her do it as it was always to me so I was too interested in stopping her than observing if you know what I mean.

So like I say no help but lots of hugs and sympathy.


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## Sarah1983

Sorry that's happened FRM but as you say, at least it's given you the kick up the backside you need to sort it out. Not sure how the muzzle will work just for stressful situations though, I'm not sure you'd have time to get it on him between seeing the trigger and him reacting to it. And even if you can the muzzle could well become a cue for him to react if only used in the presence of his triggers.

Here's a good method for introducing a muzzle, I dunno whether you've seen it before but figured it can't hurt to post it
Teaching A Dog To Wear A Muzzle (Muzzle Training) - YouTube

Glad your leg is on the mend and fingers crossed you get the problem under control.


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## Maria_1986

I have no useful suggestions FRM but I'm glad your leg is healing ok and I hope that the sessions with the trainer go well.

Today we have had a lovely walk, met a 2 yr old dog of some kind who was a little bigger than Chevy and she was calm, quiet and respectful and met him nicely, the same again with a black lab and a huge black frizzy dog of some kind. A few differences I noticed though - they were all bigger than her and we were in an open field rather than a more built up area. The noisey playful meetings were little dogs on the path to the park on a housing estate. I think I need to keep an eye on how she is behaving in different areas and with different size dogs and see if there is a pattern. Have worked on watch, sit and down again today in the flat and worked a little on recall while out (on a flexi) and she came back when called!!! I made sure I took cheese to reward while out and as we managed to repeat coming back on three occasions(I only tried it 3 times so 100% success rate) I think cheese is the reward of choice when we go to training classes.


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## Freddie and frank

Frm. Sorry that's happened. Wished I'd had more advice last week for you. I'm sure it'll get sorted with the help of the trainer. Lots of support from me too. 
Take care. X

Sarah. On my phone at moment but when I get a minute later ill try to explain how I was taught to use the clicker and what I do.


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## foxyrockmeister

Thanks for your replies everyone, it's so nice to have some support 

The reason both myself and the trainer don't think he needs to wear a muzzle all the time is that 99% of the time he is off lead and he never has a problem. He only reacts when he is onlead and something else excites him.

So for times like last week when we walked him through a new village on his lead then he will now wear a muzzle, but like today when we have spent 2 hours tramping around the forest off lead he doesn't need to be wearing a muzzle. 

Thank you so much for that video too Sarah, he is doing exactly what the trainer has told me to do with regards to introducing a muzzle, so that's really encouraging. I will go and buy him one tomorrow and start on the acclimatisation.


----------



## Sarah1983

Ah, I get you now. I thought you were meaning only putting it on him when faced with a trigger.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Ah, I get you now. I thought you were meaning only putting it on him when faced with a trigger.


So did I, I am extra confused today though!!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> ETA for a moment Twiggy I thought you meant explain to her  see I am confused!....*Haha..*
> 
> Mmm I guess I am not quite sure actually . Its one of the exercises they gave us to work on they call it 'go to place' but they seemed to think it would take a while to get it reliably. This is what they say in the workbook.
> 
> Go to relax mat.
> Getting your dog to go to a mat so you can begin relaxation work is an important part of the programme. You will need to have a relaxation mat that is new to your dog and one that will only be used for your massage and encouraging your dog into a calm state. To ensure that your dog will always go to the mat for massage you first need to train the 'go to mat' behaviour.
> 
> Put your dogs mat on the floor
> Look at the mat, not your dog and keep silent during the exercise (whoops I have been praising her )
> Click your dog for looking at the mat or turning its head towards the mat, toss the treat on the floor away from the mat. This will set your dog up for the next repetition.
> Continue to click and treat for any movement towards the mat. Your goal is for the dog to keep all 4 paws on the mat.(she went straight to downs)
> Once your dog is reliably going to the mat and getting on with all 4 paws, begin to click and treat for behaviours like sit or down.
> Pick either a sit or a down and shape on the mat (they said to choose whatever your dog did more as a default behavior, she picks downs every time)
> Once your dog will stay on the mat until you tell them to get off add a verbal cue like go to mat before the behaviour takes place (see its this bit that confuses me, every other clicked trained behavior I have read about or tried seems to say as you did, cue as they are doing it, she does it so quick and readily (and unrelaxed  she is hyper alert when working on anything) she does it with out a cue, the cue is the mat on the floor it seems , I feel I need to cue the point when she actually relaxes not the go to mat - or could I need two cues, go to mat and then settle??
> 
> *As little Ginge is heading for the mat say "mat"*
> 
> *As she goes into the down say "down" and then go and reward her gently (whilst she is still in the down) with a tit-bit.*
> 
> *Well that's what I would do.*
> 
> Practice this behavior in a variety of environments until your dog is reliable anywhere you train (obviously have not moved out of the house as yet)
> 
> Please grannie  help the confused bunny, I know I could email the trainers but I pestered them last week and sometimes my brain is a bit obtuse and likes to get another point of view.


*This exercise is basically teaching a sendaway as per the Good Citizens Gold Award and personally to call it a relaxation mat is a little contradictory to my mind. My girls would be anything but relaxed (particularly Quiver) as they all find sendaway a really exciting exercise and it would be the last thing I'd do with mine if I wanted them calm prior to being massaged. Actually when I took Leafy on that Canine Sports Massage course last November, she thought she was going to do heelwork, retrieve, sendaway, etc. when she got in the hall and saw all the other dogs and it took me quite a while to persaude her otherwise and calm her down.*


----------



## moonviolet

FRM Sorry you were on the receiving end of that frustration, but it looks like some good is going to come out of it  Glad Grannie (Twiggy) has guided toward some support there and you'll have lashings and lashings of support here. So dont' be a stranger!!!!! Or the WAYWO dinghy will be sailing your way and hunting you down (Could we not have a luxury yacht instead of a dinghy? and if this dinghy is inflatible I think i'll swim instead :lol: :lol 

Maria it sounds like things are going so nicely with Chevy 

Ginge, I think I'd just point to get her to go to her mat and focus on the shaping the relaxing at the moment as thats the more important part of the exercise. I have 2 cues one for in class and one for relaxing

I went looking for a GSD this morning. Poor soul is lost on the local ranges didn't spot him hope he's found soon.


----------



## Twiggy

Anyway, enough of the gore, now on to the 'What the bloody hell are we 
So there you have it. Sorry for the epic post but I think keeping a record of his problems and how we're tackling it is really going to help me keep this up. The trainer has told me it is not going to be a quick fix and that I'm going to have to work really hard, so I'm hoping that when I'm tearing my hair out and getting upset that you lovely people can get me back on track [/QUOTE]

*I'm so sorry you've ended up with cuts and bruises but really pleased you made that call.*

*The trainer has been instructing and competing for many, many years and has made two dogs up to Obedience Champions.*

*Another plus is that her day job is medical and she knows all about blood....*


----------



## Sarah1983

Ginge, we're also working on relaxing on a mat. We're at the point now where Spencer will go to his mat and lie on it as soon as I put it on the floor. Now I'm clicking and treating for things like head on the floor, rolling onto his hip (or side) instead of being in a down he can just pop up from etc. Yes, they're offered behaviours at the moment but according to all the things I've read about it that's fine. Because they're behaviours that naturally happen when a dog is relaxed apparently they will actually start to feel relaxed when offering them. Or something like that.

I've not actually put the going to mat on cue yet, I want a relaxed down on it so won't name the behaviour until that's what's being offered.


----------



## Maria_1986

moonviolet said:


> Maria it sounds like things are going so nicely with Chevy


I have been pleasantly surprised that it is all going so well so far! I do seem to have adopted an 18kg lap dog though as she is currently sat on my lap (well as much of her as can fit anyway!) and I can no longer feel my feet, however I love having cuddles so don't want to move her. I am still waiting for her to get really settled and start pushing the boundaries but I am hoping that the training classes will help equip me to deal with it if and when it happens.


----------



## Dogless

FRM - loads of support from me; what a wake up call . I know what you mean about feeling ashamed too - I even do when Rudi has his puppy jumping / biting tantrums - even though there is no logical reason to. Sounds as if you have a fabulous trainer and there's always support on this thread (or via PM) as and when you need it .

k&m - good half the time is impressive .

Maria - Chevy really sounds like she's doing well.

Tiring but good morning at Concrete Central.

Took Rudi to the 'deer' forest that Kilo stays onlead in where we run. Glad he was on his own as there was loads of fresh deer poo near to the path in all sorts of places and Kilo would have been massively excitable. Secondly we met a huge black lab who approached really stiffly ignoring his owner's recall and stood, hackles up, with his head pressed over Rudi's neck and tail straight up in the air slowly wagging. The owner told me that if my dog made "a wrong move" his would go for him. I called Rudi away as cheerfully as I could (he was onlead, but I didn't want to pull him away) for a treat. That would NOT have gone well with Kilo at all. Other than that we had a nice walk.

Took Kilo to the park; he was quite skittery today for no reason that I could tell 
so I took a wide route around any dog that looked desperate to greet. That said, a few offlead dogs came up to him and he just walked on nicely so he was very good. Had a coffee there too and he just sat quietly as usual.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> I have been pleasantly surprised that it is all going so well so far! I do seem to have adopted an 18kg lap dog though as she is currently sat on my lap (well as much of her as can fit anyway!) and I can no longer feel my feet, however I love having cuddles so don't want to move her. *I am still waiting for her to get really settled* *and start pushing the boundaries* but I am hoping that the training classes will help equip me to deal with it if and when it happens.


She may not. Some of them are little angels from day one.


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy said:


> She may not. Some of them are little angels from day one.


That would be good, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she will keep her halo. If she does start to get cheeky we will work thought it, poor girl has already had far too many homes in her life, I think we are about number 6 or 7 so she is here to stay and we will work through any issues that do arise.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> FRM - loads of support from me; what a wake up call . I know what you mean about feeling ashamed too - I even do when Rudi has his puppy jumping / biting tantrums - even though there is no logical reason to. Sounds as if you have a fabulous trainer and there's always support on this thread (or via PM) as and when you need it .
> 
> k&m - good half the time is impressive .
> 
> Maria - Chevy really sounds like she's doing well.
> 
> Tiring but good morning at Concrete Central.
> 
> Took Rudi to the 'deer' forest that Kilo stays onlead in where we run. Glad he was on his own as there was loads of fresh deer poo near to the path in all sorts of places and Kilo would have been massively excitable. Secondly we met a *huge black lab who approached really stiffly ignoring his owner's recall and stood, hackles up, with his head pressed over Rudi's neck and tail straight up in the air slowly wagging. The owner told me that if my dog made "a wrong move" his would go for him*. I called Rudi away as cheerfully as I could (he was onlead, but I didn't want to pull him away) for a treat. That would NOT have gone well with Kilo at all. Other than that we had a nice walk.
> 
> Took Kilo to the park; he was quite skittery today for no reason that I could tell
> so I took a wide route around any dog that looked desperate to greet. That said, a few offlead dogs came up to him and he just walked on nicely so he was very good. Had a coffee there too and he just sat quietly as usual.


Oh my word once the situation was diffused i think i may have let my Hag out to play!!!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh my word once the situation was diffused i think i may have let my Hag out to play!!!


It's just normal here mv - he was an elderly "let dogs be dogs" man. Another reason I stopped going to that forest so much. Interestingly the gent with him put his (very friendly and waggy looking) dog on a lead and stopped for a chat about what a "lovely looking article" Rudi was.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> That would be good, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she will keep her halo. If she does start to get cheeky we will work thought it, poor girl has already had far too many homes in her life, I think we are about number 6 or 7 so she is here to stay and we will work through any issues that do arise.


Good for you and you will find it both enjoyable and rewarding.

I was discussing with the trainer down in Sussex at the week-end (he was tearing his hair out with some of the handlers) that problem solving and the interaction between dog and handler is where I get my 'kicks' these days.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Good for you and you will find it both enjoyable and rewarding.
> 
> I was discussing with the trainer down in Sussex at the week-end (he was tearing his hair out with some of the handlers) that problem solving and the interaction between dog and handler is where I get my 'kicks' these days.


You'd have a field day with me Grannie and probably end up totally bald .


----------



## Twiggy

Right it's no good. The house needs hoovering and then I need to see how little Holly and I interact this afternoon (we weren't on form yesterday, probably because I was still shattered).


----------



## kat&molly

FRM- Your leg looks to be healing well. Fantastic that you've got some help for the problem now as well.

MV- hope the GSD turns up.
A Yacht is a fab idea- shall we have a whip round.:lol:

This dog is a Goofball. Theres a little armchair here in the kitchen, with bags of wood for the fire at the side of it, he seems to like the crinkle noise the bags make. He purposely jumps on the armchair with a toy in his mouth- drops the toy down the back of the chair so that he has to walk over the noisy bags-every time.
And he's just brought me a pair of my knickers- suppose I should be pleased he didn't give them to anyone else.


----------



## Symone

Well. I have to give puppy class a miss.
I was reading in bed this morning, Shamaya was eating her breakfast.
Next thing I know she has jumped full weight onto my bad knee (It never properly healed after it broke) and I am struggling to walk  It has swollen up as well which is annoying.
And she's being a fussy thing and refusing to walk with the OH.. Seems she just wants to stay by my side.

We have been training her inside today to try keep her more stimulated since she refuses to go out with the OH. She has nearly got the hang of "beg" (Sitting cutely) but keeps falling. It's rather adorable. 
Also tried to teach her roll over but she doesn't understand it.. I'll try again when she's older  

On her last walk yesterday I felt like crying.. We were walking back from Asda (OH wanted chocolate) and someone was walking a lovely GSD x (I think GSD x Rough collie. or sheltie) and he was happy to see Shamaya, and wanted to cross the road to say hello. (Wasn't pulling, just stood facing her with his tail wagging a lot)
The next thing I hear is a huge yelp. It had a choke chain on and the owner said "that's what you get for being naughty" .. All he wanted to do was say hello, and got chocked by his owner instead! 

I know some people may agree with them, but I don't and that sight truly upset me. 

Other than those mishaps every thing's going well.  Shamaya has been a little angel for me. (apart from hurting me! was an accident though) 
Toileting is improving again. Going back to baby steps was all it took.
No comment on the pulling really.. She's improving but it is still bad at times. Put her harness on yesterday and she walked nicely until 1 min from home.

Now to go and read all the posts I've missed...


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> This dog is a Goofball. Theres a little armchair here in the kitchen, with bags of wood for the fire at the side of it, he seems to like the crinkle noise the bags make. He purposely jumps on the armchair with a toy in his mouth- drops the toy down the back of the chair so that he has to walk over the noisy bags-every time.
> And he's just brought me a pair of my knickers- suppose I should be pleased he didn't give them to anyone else.


Are you beginning to get a soft spot for this goofball?

Re: the yacht I've checked my pockets and so far yielded 5p, a button, an old cheese cube and some fluff.. I'll check the back of the sofa next :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Are you beginning to get a soft spot for this goofball?
> 
> Re: the yacht I've checked my pockets and so far yielded 5p, a button, an old cheese cube and some fluff.. I'll check the back of the sofa next :lol:


Have you been in my pockets.:lol:

Me, never.
I keep having, what if.. thoughts :001_rolleyes: but being sensible , I know I'd fall down on some of the things that need sorting. I have times where I'm rushing or dont feel like training , so it wouldn't be good.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Have you been in my pockets.:lol:
> 
> Me, never.
> I keep having, what if.. thoughts :001_rolleyes: but being sensible , I know I'd fall down on some of the things that need sorting. *I have times where I'm rushing or dont feel like training , so it wouldn't be good*.


I think we all have those and understand the need to be sensible, I could jsut see a change in tone of your posts.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I think we all have those and understand the need to be sensible, *I could jsut see a change in tone of your posts.*


My thoughts exactly......


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> *This exercise is basically teaching a sendaway as per the Good Citizens Gold Award and personally to call it a relaxation mat is a little contradictory to my mind. My girls would be anything but relaxed (particularly Quiver) as they all find sendaway a really exciting exercise and it would be the last thing I'd do with mine if I wanted them calm prior to being massaged. Actually when I took Leafy on that Canine Sports Massage course last November, she thought she was going to do heelwork, retrieve, sendaway, etc. when she got in the hall and saw all the other dogs and it took me quite a while to persaude her otherwise and calm her down.*


Thanks Twiggy, yes we are having this problem, she goes over and throws herself down on it tail wagging and expectant face and if I try and get her settled for any massage she tries roll over and overs  I don't know if they are used to people coming to the course with very little training work having gone into the dogs before or what, but Ginge gets excited as soon as the mat comes out, she knows she it means fun and treats.



moonviolet said:


> FRM Sorry you were on the receiving end of that frustration, but it looks like some good is going to come out of it  Glad Grannie (Twiggy) has guided toward some support there and you'll have lashings and lashings of support here. So dont' be a stranger!!!!! Or the WAYWO dinghy will be sailing your way and hunting you down (Could we not have a luxury yacht instead of a dinghy? and if this dinghy is inflatible I think i'll swim instead :lol: :lol
> 
> Maria it sounds like things are going so nicely with Chevy
> 
> Ginge, I think I'd just point to get her to go to her mat and focus on the shaping the relaxing at the moment as thats the more important part of the exercise. I have 2 cues one for in class and one for relaxing
> 
> I went looking for a GSD this morning. Poor soul is lost on the local ranges didn't spot him hope he's found soon.


I think the yacht might be on order we have a fair few trips to make now. Hope the GSD gets found poor soul. I think that the two cues might be necessary, eventually.



Sarah1983 said:


> Ginge, we're also working on relaxing on a mat. We're at the point now where Spencer will go to his mat and lie on it as soon as I put it on the floor. Now I'm clicking and treating for things like head on the floor, rolling onto his hip (or side) instead of being in a down he can just pop up from etc. Yes, they're offered behaviours at the moment but according to all the things I've read about it that's fine. Because they're behaviours that naturally happen when a dog is relaxed apparently they will actually start to feel relaxed when offering them. Or something like that.
> 
> I've not actually put the going to mat on cue yet, I want a relaxed down on it so won't name the behaviour until that's what's being offered.


Ah ha! I have read that method somewhere, go to mat can be, go to mat, but the relaxation is something else. Yes, just doing the things that dogs do when relaxed, even if on cue, does apparently relax them doesn't it.

Dogless - how re-assuring that he could at least read his dogs body language   I think I am with MV on that one

Maria - how sad that such a sweet girl has been moved round so much, perhaps thats her problem , not tough enough :

K&M - I think he has you 

Symone - ouch hope your knee is better soon.

Twiggy enjoy training holly


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I think we all have those and understand the need to be sensible, I could jsut see a change in tone of your posts.


I was really stressed for a few days, him having a go at the girls really upset me- I did consider finding another foster home for him  but it felt like letting him down and it wouldn't have been a fair assessment of his character.
I can see now he was just stressed, its just we had a bad experience with one foster boy and I panicked it was a repeat of that.
Now that he's had a chance to chill a bit, I can cope with the other stuff. He is a full on hooligan.
You helped more than you know- so Thank you.:thumbup:


----------



## Maria_1986

Symone - Ouch! I hope your knee is better soon. 

Ginger - One of her homes she was given up for that reason. Most of the homes were American air force families and as they went back to the states she got passed onto a new family until eventually there were no new families and she was left with the dog warden and put in the council pound, rehomed to someone who thought she would make a good status dog and she failed at being aggressive then on to someone who wanted to keep her cream carpets spotless (Chevy is a jump in dirty muddle puddles dog). It makes me so angry that people can just pass a dog around like its some object instead of a living breathing animal that has emotions and feelings.


----------



## tiatortilla

Ohh dear, sorry I haven't been into this thread for a while! Bit of a mad week, I'll be better this week 
Tia went to her first concert on Sunday, my mum's a music teacher and was doing a concert with her pupils so we went down to watch. Tia doesn't like clapping at all but she got lots of fuss and "Oh isn't she well behaved" etc. 
I think it was the most people she's ever seen in one room too but she doesn't care at all, people are just exciting!
Hope everyone's well, I'll catch up now


----------



## GingerRogers

Maria_1986 said:


> Symone - Ouch! I hope your knee is better soon.
> 
> Ginger - One of her homes she was given up for that reason. Most of the homes were American air force families and as they went back to the states she got passed onto a new family until eventually there were no new families and she was left with the dog warden and put in the council pound, rehomed to someone who thought she would make a good status dog and she failed at being aggressive then on to someone who wanted to keep her cream carpets spotless (Chevy is a jump in dirty muddle puddles dog). It makes me so angry that people can just pass a dog around like its some object instead of a living breathing animal that has emotions and feelings.


 well she is definitely in the right place now I think


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Sarah1983 said:


> Ah, I get you now. I thought you were meaning only putting it on him when faced with a trigger.





GingerRogers said:


> So did I, I am extra confused today though!!


Sorry, the way the words sound in my head never read the same on the screen!



moonviolet said:


> FRM Sorry you were on the receiving end of that frustration, but it looks like some good is going to come out of it  Glad Grannie (Twiggy) has guided toward some support there and you'll have lashings and lashings of support here. So dont' be a stranger!!!!! Or the WAYWO dinghy will be sailing your way and hunting you down (Could we not have a luxury yacht instead of a dinghy? and if this dinghy is inflatible I think i'll swim instead :lol: :lol





moonviolet said:


> Re: the yacht I've checked my pockets and so far yielded 5p, a button, an old cheese cube and some fluff.. I'll check the back of the sofa next :lol:


Oooh yes I like the idea of a yacht, I can add a hair grip, a poo bag, a twisty bag tie thing and some fluff to our funds!



Twiggy said:


> *I'm so sorry you've ended up with cuts and bruises but really pleased you made that call.*
> 
> *The trainer has been instructing and competing for many, many years and has made two dogs up to Obedience Champions.*
> 
> *Another plus is that her day job is medical and she knows all about blood....*


Thank you so much Twiggy, I feel so much happier having spoken to her now and can't wait to get started. No doubt she wille be moaning to you in a few days asking why on earth you sent this crazy woman and her even crazier dog in her direction :crazy:


----------



## Dogless

Good onlead walk with Rudi just now. Odd thing is that someone from our street stopped to talk just as we got into our front garden and hoisted up her toddler to see him (low hedge) and Rudi dissolved into fits of barking - scared I think of person in air as he was backing off. Unfortunately same woman that Kilo barked at the other night . She's met him lots of times and he's been happy and wiggly, but still, had to be the same person!! .

Walking Kilo with Dizzy later.


----------



## pearltheplank

I've not looked at this thread before but I'll certainly be keeping up on it now!

Foxy, I feel for you my boy went through a similar stage but only got me through my coat in those instances

Dog less, kids on hips frighten my boy to death. I was thinking its the ' in the air' thing that doesn't sit right with him?!

I will return and post but for now it's their tea time


----------



## Guest

Thank you for that link Mv, (I am Joan) and thanks for the encouragement. 

Mum has tried phoning this lady several times while I was at work, but nobody answered the phone. Mum has offered to phone her as she is better at explaining on the phone than I am, (My brain goes blank and I just go UMMMMMMM or hang up) which is nice.

Took Zand to the vets to try and get him to be calmer in there (And to get more of his tablets) . Literally shot in, went into the empty vet room, gave him some treats. The receptionist gave him a treat and then we went on a nice short walk near the vets, so that the car doesn't always equal the vets. 

Met an offlead goldie who really wanted to play, but I was so chuffed with the dogmatic as Zand and me did not budge. (He just sniffed and was good) 

Ooh and someones Shitzu got out and I helped retrieve it, while mum continued with Zand. The little thing couldn't half move.  It was safely caught by its owner however. 

Zands field is now free of sheep. But there is still live eletrical fencing.


----------



## Werehorse

FRM - have lots of *hugs and tea*... I really feel for you - I would find it so, so hard if one of mine was doing that. I mean emotionally; logically and practically you can work on it but it would do all kinds of odd things emotionally. I found it hard when Oscar started his resource guarding stuff. Your trainer sounds really good though. 

Symone - Ouch!  I had a problem with my stomach lining when Oscar was a bouncey pup (due to stress of teaching and too much coffee  ) and he seemed to know *just* how to land on my stomach with both front paws that would have me doubled over and squeeling. :lol: I think he found it quite funny.  I hope the knee gets better soon!

Maria - Chevy sounds so sweet, I am shocked by the amount of homes she's had. Poor little love. She's found you now though, lucky pup. 

K&M - Spangle boy sounds super-awesomely cute! Glad he's getting less of a PITA too. 

Dogless -   At the "one wrong move" dog! It is so backwards, how are YOU supposed to control what your dog does when he has allowed his crazy dog to approach... I don't quite know how to say what I mean. At least Rudi made all the right moves.  Oscar would pretty much wet himself if another dog did that to him and knowing Hugo's luck he'd probably make a "wrong move" 

We just went round our woods today. It was a lovely relaxed afternoon walk. Didn't see anyone apart from two runners who the boys sat nicely to one side for.  I've decided to try recalling slightly less often and rewarding slightly more generously for particularly good ones to try and build a quicker response. I have paw prints on my jacket that say Hugo is pretty enthused by this idea.  Oscar was very good, giving me much sharper turn arounds rather than a rather lazy loop in. Will continue and see how it goes.

They have new collars from Indi-dog, so pleased with them.  My friend's really liked the one I got for their little rescue chap too.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Are you beginning to get a soft spot for this goofball?
> 
> Re:* the yacht I've checked my pockets and so far yielded 5p,* a button, an old cheese cube and some fluff.. I'll check the back of the sofa next :lol:


Yes same here...LOL I had a dentist appointment this morning and he reckons I need a filling and a polish so that's another £100.

Thinking of resurrecting the pole dancing for over 65s at this rate.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You'd have a field day with me Grannie and probably end up totally bald .


You're doing it again - big Grannie smack being sent....


----------



## Sarah1983

Well if we're saving up for a luxury yacht to sail around the world and visit people for slappings and support then I suppose I could make use of Spencers criminal tendencies.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well if we're saving up for a luxury yacht to sail around the world and visit people for slappings and support then I suppose I could make use of Spencers criminal tendencies.


Yes I think Spen stealing would probably be the only way we'd raise the funds for a luxury yacht, unless of course there was a very old multi-millionaire that was totally besotted with my pole dancing routine...


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Well if we're saving up for a luxury yacht to sail around the world and visit people for slappings and support then I suppose I could make use of Spencers criminal tendencies.


We joked in class the other day about teaching our dogs to pickpockets and steal wallets


----------



## Guest

Hhahah! Zander could distract with his anxiousness so people feel sorry for him and then Spen could steal all their money. Ginge would also be a prime distacter. Kilo and Rudi could be the 'hired muscle'. :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Woof Woof 

Building myself up to attempting to avoid my stalker Otto.

Building myself up to not completely freaking out about taking my dog to a class with other dogs on Saturday, I have a long time to not freak!


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> We joked in class the other day about teaching our dogs to pickpockets and steal wallets


Lol, it's no joke here, Spen will happily go through pockets and take things  His preferences is tissues or poo bags but he's also been known to take phones, wallets, treat bags and anything else he can find. He's bloody good at it too, first thing I usually know about it is when my phone gets shoved into my hand.


----------



## Werehorse

Spendog is a criminal mastermind. How cute is he? 

DON'T FREAK OUT, GINGE! Does that help?

I hope this luxury yacht is going to be heated. It's flippin freezing in my house and i need a break from it!


----------



## catz4m8z

I havent been on this thread for ages....now Im confused!
Is somebody teaching their dog to steal in order to buy a yacht? (coz Im quite excited about the thought of training the Midget Army to hold up a bank for me!!).
We had some nice walks today...Adam and Hannah came over the fields with me and Adam got to be socialable with some other dogs and Hannah got to roll in poop! Then Alfie and Heidi came out with me for an on lead walk round the streets and some scrubland. I think Alfie is def going to be on lead for the moment....I did find an area to let them off as people clearly objected to a popular field being bought by a school and fenced off and have ripped out some fence sections!LOL This meant I could let them off in a fairly secure area. 
But then somebody else came in with a couple of dogs. They were only small (a chi and a CKCS) but Alfie got really scared and I could tell by how he was behaving that if they got closer he would of just run away....and kept running! Its def making socialising difficult when he is so scared of other dogs and just wants to run away. But at least he has his bestest bud Heidi around to run amok with!!:biggrin5:


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Well. I have to give puppy class a miss.
> I was reading in bed this morning, Shamaya was eating her breakfast.
> Next thing I know she has jumped full weight onto my bad knee (It never properly healed after it broke) and I am struggling to walk  It has swollen up as well which is annoying.
> 
> *Ouch that sounds painful. Hope the swelling goes down soon.*
> 
> And she's being a fussy thing and refusing to walk with the OH.. Seems she just wants to stay by my side.
> 
> *Just be careful and try and ensure she doesn't become a 'one man dog'. Collies can be like that and it could make life difficult. My little Meg only had eyes for me, which was lovely but if she had to be left with someone else in an emergency she would get in a state, she wasn't above growling at my hubby if she was on the bed with me, my sister never trusted her, etc. etc.*
> 
> We have been training her inside today to try keep her more stimulated since she refuses to go out with the OH. She has nearly got the hang of "beg" (Sitting cutely) but keeps falling. It's rather adorable.
> Also tried to teach her roll over but she doesn't understand it.. I'll try again when she's older
> 
> *Again just be careful teaching her those sort of things. I've competed in both agility and HTM but never trained either discipline until the dogs were mature and well over a year old because of putting undue pressure on young bones, particularly the spine.*


----------



## Guest

Oooh foxyrockmeister, Branston got you good! That looks sore! 
I'm sorry you got bitten, but on the bright side, it sounds like you have a wonderful trainer to work with - those are worth their weight in gold!
The other good news is that re-directed aggression is really very predictable. For example you know walks are going to be a trigger, so for now, you muzzle on walks. Totally manageable. 

I'm sure the trainer will talk to you about impulse control, but just wanted to throw it out there again. Any impulse control exercises you can do - like "it's yer choice" (on youtube) are great. You also might want to check out positive interruptors. At this point a PI probably won't make any difference, but as you work on impulse control, and also work on building up that positive interruptor, you will see an improvement later on. It just takes time... 

Poor you, I know this is no fun to deal with!
I used to walk a malamute and a chessie mix, both over 100 pounds, and the malamute would re-direct on to the chessie. It was a nightmare! I got bitten a few times with that too, and as much as it hurts, it's also just embarrassing to have your own dog bite you! 
So don't feel bad, many of us have been there, and sympathise!


----------



## pearltheplank

Today is the start of the rest of Storms life  Clicker book arrived, read and now got to get him not scared of the clicker.....silly boy


----------



## moonviolet

pearltheplank said:


> Today is the start of the rest of Storms life  Clicker book arrived, read and now got to get him not scared of the clicker.....silly boy


If even with the volume down on the clicker it still scares him there are alternatives, the security "pop" on a jam jar lid is quite a soft sound, but failing that you can choose a marker word and use it exactly the same way as you would the clicker.


----------



## Symone

Hope you will be okay, FRM!



Twiggy said:


> Well. I have to give puppy class a miss.
> I was reading in bed this morning, Shamaya was eating her breakfast.
> Next thing I know she has jumped full weight onto my bad knee (It never properly healed after it broke) and I am struggling to walk  It has swollen up as well which is annoying.
> 
> *Ouch that sounds painful. Hope the swelling goes down soon.*
> 
> And she's being a fussy thing and refusing to walk with the OH.. Seems she just wants to stay by my side.
> 
> *Just be careful and try and ensure she doesn't become a 'one man dog'. Collies can be like that and it could make life difficult. My little Meg only had eyes for me, which was lovely but if she had to be left with someone else in an emergency she would get in a state, she wasn't above growling at my hubby if she was on the bed with me, my sister never trusted her, etc. etc.*
> 
> We have been training her inside today to try keep her more stimulated since she refuses to go out with the OH. She has nearly got the hang of "beg" (Sitting cutely) but keeps falling. It's rather adorable.
> Also tried to teach her roll over but she doesn't understand it.. I'll try again when she's older
> 
> *Again just be careful teaching her those sort of things. I've competed in both agility and HTM but never trained either discipline until the dogs were mature and well over a year old because of putting undue pressure on young bones, particularly the spine.*


A bag of frozen sweetcorn helped a bit.  As did painkillers. I've been enjoying relaxing all day  

It's just walking with Shamaya. She's happy to stay with the OH if I go out alone, and she's also happy to stay with friends if she knows them. (When the OH was working away it was needed so I could do some shopping. This was when I realised how expensive deliverys were!) 
She tends to hate other people holding her lead as well, but she's happy for the OH to do it. 
She did go out with him today, at about 4-5pm. He said he had to pick her up in the beginning for she would not budge, but apparently she was happy to walk when he said "beach" and they were gone for a good hour! Seems it's the actual "leaving" without me that she doesn't like. I'm tempted to bribe friends with home made cakes to take her out so she will get used to it since we'll be getting a dog walker in Switzerland. (If I find a job that is.)
I've not experienced it being that quiet since before we got her.. lol! 
I will get the OH to do either first thing in the morning or right before bed walks alone with her so she gets used to it, as well. 

Oh, I never knew that.. It didn't even cross my mind. I'll stop the tricks which require movement like so. Thanks for letting me know. 

colour coded it so it would be easier for me to reply 
Thanks again.


----------



## Twiggy

Well Holly Bolly was much improved training this afternoon or perhaps I should say I was - I was so tired yesterday....

In fact she was so 'up for it' that she has put several new rips in my coat on the way over to the barn lunging at my arm and I'm sporting quite a number of new cuts, grazes and bruises on my hands and arms.....LOL

I know it's not what most owners want but for me attitude is the most important thing and I don't care if I get bitten in play.

Her little feet were flying on heelwork and recall to front, recall to heel and retrieve are getting much faster and enthusiastic.

We took Tremor with us today as she seems perfectly sound and she was doing the light fantastic tied to one of the rings in the wall - she dances on the spot and drools all over the floor with excitement.

I really enjoyed a mad half an hour and so did they.....:thumbup1:


----------



## Thorne

Oh FRM, I hope your leg is on the mend!  Sorry to hear about your incident with Branston but pleased you've made the call, best of luck with the muzzle intro and new trainer.

Feeling cross with myself today, inadvertently pushed a dog over his threshold and he ended up getting frightened.
Was walking little Murray and saw a lady with a Great Dane that I know to be polite and dog-friendly approaching. Nice wide path so we arced around them, good body language from both dogs so we said hello and let them meet. Dane ignored Murray and greeted me, Murray went to sniff the owner who spoke to him, then he just _screamed_. Not just a squeal but 3-4 seconds of screaming and wetting himself :frown5:
I think he just went in to say hello before engaging brain and suddenly felt overwhelmed, so he panicked. Unless someone stood on his foot neither the dog or lady (both were concerned and sympathetic over his meltdown!) made contact with him, or even attempted to do so.
He seemed to forget this quite quickly so I'm hoping and hoping that I've not set him back... he's a bit highly-strung anyway but this completely surprised me and probably him too! Hopefully I'll be able to walk him tomorrow without any incidents.

Had a lovely dusky walk with Breeze, and my trips out with Ollie and Lola were stress-free so not all bad I suppose.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Dogless -   At the "one wrong move" dog! It is so backwards, how are YOU supposed to control what your dog does when he has allowed his crazy dog to approach... I don't quite know how to say what I mean. At least Rudi made all the right moves.  Oscar would pretty much wet himself if another dog did that to him and knowing Hugo's luck he'd probably make a "wrong move"
> 
> *If it had been Kilo I suspect handbags would have happened and then the other owner would have tutted!*
> 
> I've decided to try recalling slightly less often and rewarding slightly more generously for particularly good ones to try and build a quicker response. I have paw prints on my jacket that say Hugo is pretty enthused by this idea.  Oscar was very good, giving me much sharper turn arounds rather than a rather lazy loop in. Will continue and see how it goes.


Do you know, I was wondering about doing this the other day - I recall almost obsessively and Kilo has always flown back but has started to saunter a bit now and again. Rudi is in fly back at a zillion miles per hour mode at present!



Sarah1983 said:


> Well if we're saving up for a luxury yacht to sail around the world and visit people for slappings and support then I suppose I could make use of Spencers criminal tendencies.


Hmmmm.....get down to Kiel and Bob's your uncle .



LurcherOwner said:


> Hhahah! Zander could distract with his anxiousness so people feel sorry for him and then Spen could steal all their money. Ginge would also be a prime distacter. Kilo and Rudi could be the 'hired muscle'. :lol:


They could probably break into a bank vault by smashing through the wall .

OK walk with Dizzy tonight; Kilo was still skittish, whiney and anxious and really keyed - up, even Dizzy's human noticed. I am wondering if he's a bit off - colour, nothing major but he's not greeted me for the past two mornings with much enthusiasm but pretty much dragged himself out of bed and stayed on the sofa apparently when hubby got up (I was out with Rudi). He's also pretty red - eyed and wants to sleep - even more than usual!! I think I'll give him a couple of short onlead walks tomorrow. That said, I showed Dizzy's human how to teach 'hide' tonight and got Kilo doing really enthusiastic heelwork etc all whilst Dizzy ran round and round squeaking his ball, so bless him he still tried :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Thorne - poor Murray . You weren't to know that would happen.

Twiggy - sounds as if both you and HB needed a mad half hour . You'll be disappointed to hear that Rudi hasn't jumped and bitten at all today (hope he doesn't read this...there's still time ) and Kilo hasn't missed a toy and caught me either :frown5:  .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thorne - poor Murray . You weren't to know that would happen.
> 
> Twiggy - sounds as if both you and HB needed a mad half hour . You'll be disappointed to hear that Rudi hasn't jumped and bitten at all today (hope he doesn't read this...there's still time ) and Kilo hasn't missed a toy and caught me either :frown5:  .


That's the first time Holly has caught me in a while. I don't know whether it was because Tremor was with us and that wound her up.

btw Have you checked Kilo's anal glands lately? That can make them lethargic.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Oh FRM, I hope your leg is on the mend!  Sorry to hear about your incident with Branston but pleased you've made the call, best of luck with the muzzle intro and new trainer.
> 
> Feeling cross with myself today, inadvertently pushed a dog over his threshold and he ended up getting frightened.
> Was walking little Murray and saw a lady with a Great Dane that I know to be polite and dog-friendly approaching. Nice wide path so we arced around them, good body language from both dogs so we said hello and let them meet. Dane ignored Murray and greeted me, Murray went to sniff the owner who spoke to him, then he just _screamed_. Not just a squeal but 3-4 seconds of screaming and wetting himself :frown5:
> I think he just went in to say hello before engaging brain and suddenly felt overwhelmed, so he panicked. Unless someone stood on his foot neither the dog or lady (both were concerned and sympathetic over his meltdown!) made contact with him, or even attempted to do so.
> He seemed to forget this quite quickly so I'm hoping and hoping that I've not set him back... he's a bit highly-strung anyway but this completely surprised me and probably him too! Hopefully I'll be able to walk him tomorrow without any incidents.
> 
> Had a lovely dusky walk with Breeze, and my trips out with Ollie and Lola were stress-free so not all bad I suppose.


Oh dear, poor Murray but of course you weren't to know that he would panic so violently. What breed is he?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's the first time Holly has caught me in a while. I don't know whether it was because Tremor was with us and that wound her up.
> 
> btw Have you checked Kilo's anal glands lately? That can make them lethargic.


No; never have - I can see them empty at the end of a poo I think; he has really firm poos and just after he has this tiny bit of liquid squirts out. He doesn't have any more symptoms. I think that he is just exhausted as Rudi and him have zoomed and played non stop on walks and then at home in the sunny weather. He has had far less sleep than usual. I'll see how he is tomorrow.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah- would Spendog like an apprentice  I had to have a walk earlier in one brown glove and one black one..

Dogless-hope the Big Fella's ok.

Ginge- dont stress!!! It doesn't matter how the Ninja is really, Thats why you're on the course in the first place 

Am enjoying comparing comparing 'Spannerisms' between Hal and Moll.


----------



## Beth17

Well had a naughty puppy on our walk today. Nothing in particular he was just being a royal pain in the ass. Pulling, lunging attempting to run on his lead and bouncing back. Tripping me up numerous times and refusing to walk in a straight line or deciding to go a completely different way to us :mad2: Poor Oscar was stuck in the middle of our battle of wills  
I was getting frustrated at him and then getting frustrated at myself for being irritated with him. Poor boy.

He has however been pretty good for the rest of the day and was able to have a gentle wrestling session with Oscar as his wound is healing nicely. Roll on monday!


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Sarah- would Spendog like an apprentice  I had to have a walk earlier in one brown glove and one black one..


Lol, that's perfectly normal here. I don't think I have a single pair of socks or gloves left, they're all odd. And I'm constantly looking for one shoe!

Earlier I found my Stitch fridge magnet in Spens bed.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Am enjoying comparing comparing 'Spannerisms' between Hal and Moll.


Not to be confused with Spoonerisms....although owning a canner probably leads to sponfusion .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Not to be confused with Spoonerisms....although owning a canner probably leads to sponfusion .


I've got CONfusion, is it related.:lol:
Whats a canner?


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I've got CONfusion, is it related.:lol:
> Whats a canner?


It was my attempt at a spoonerism....but as usual my attempt at being funny wasn't actually funny . Spoonerism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Well had a naughty puppy on our walk today. Nothing in particular he was just being a royal pain in the ass. Pulling, lunging attempting to run on his lead and bouncing back. Tripping me up numerous times and refusing to walk in a straight line or deciding to go a completely different way to us :mad2: Poor Oscar was stuck in the middle of our battle of wills
> I was getting frustrated at him and then getting frustrated at myself for being irritated with him. Poor boy.
> 
> He has however been pretty good for the rest of the day and was able to have a gentle wrestling session with Oscar as his wound is healing nicely. Roll on monday!


Pleased to hear Oscar's wound is healing well.

Isn't that what puppies are supposed to do - drive us to distraction...


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> It was my attempt at a spoonerism....but as usual my attempt at being funny wasn't actually funny . Spoonerism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Ah, t'was me- I thought spoonerism meant something else 
I am tired . Sorry to spoil your joke


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear, poor Murray but of course you weren't to know that he would panic so violently. What breed is he?


He's a young Cocker from show lines, but very drivey and acts more like a working-bred dog. Really did come as a surprise because otherwise he comes across as a sunny, cheeky little character. Hopefully it was just an off day for him (and me!).


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hope everyone's ok.
Will try and catch up soon as I get chance but I wanted to try and reply to Sarah. 

Sarah, I will try to explain how the trainer introduced me to clicker training. I do get confused at times so apologies if I dont make sense....I told Frm last week that Beth was organising a north west meet.....doh....it's Labrador Laura I think.  

I went to a trainer last year to try and sort out franks recall, pulling on the lead, sometimes seemingly aggression when on lead towards other dogs. 

He started by giving treats to frank and clicking each time he had one so he would associate the click with a treat.
Next step was to lure him into a sit. Soon as he sat, he clicked and treated. Told me all about timing the click right.
We then went onto targeting the hand with his nose......he held out his right hand, which obviously smelt of treats, and waited for frank to touch it. Waited patiently but he did it eventually. Soon as his nose touched his left hand, he clicked and treated from his right hand. frank soon got the hang of this.
I had to practise this at home with frank until he was getting a high % success rate doing it in reps of five. One after the other. 
After five reps, I had to give him a huge fuss and start the next five.

He then started on the LLW, using the 300 peck method....I wrongly called it something else on a post last week I think......confusion setting in.
We took one step. If frank was close to me, I clicked and treated. Went back to start position.
We took two steps. Clicked and treated if frank stayed close to me. Went back to start position. 
And so on until we got to 300. If he pulled or lost interest, we had to start from one again. I had to also count aloud whilst doing it. 

We did watch me starting from one second and building it up to 60 seconds.

I found the introduction to the clicker very helpful. I stopped going to him cause he told me to occasionally give frank a rough fuss and pull his tail towards me then grab him and almost throw him onto his back to show him who's boss. 

I introduced the clicker to Freddie and bella in the same way. 
It's been a godsend with bella and her LLW. 
Basically, when I'm out with them separately I click soon as I see the behaviour I want. 

Hope this explains what you asked me. 
They're my first dogs and i dont do things by halves having three, I know.  they're quite well behaved and I give them a hell of a lot of time. Along with juggling a full time job, at home mostly, a 14 yr old son, and Flppin housework. Yuk. 

What do you think??? Am I doing ok? Is there anything I'm doing that's confusing them?? Is there anything I could do to help any better??

Ooh, one more thing....when frank passed dogs, cats, birds etc, he used to jump up at me and the lead and bite and growl. Sounded awfull. I used a 'watch me' along with a ckicker and it seems to have helped a great deal. Sort of diverted his attention. Whereas before I just used to carry on past with him until he had calmed down. 

Crikey, sorry for the ramble. 


Since being on PF, I've learnt so much more


----------



## foxyrockmeister

ouesi said:


> Oooh foxyrockmeister, Branston got you good! That looks sore!
> I'm sorry you got bitten, but on the bright side, it sounds like you have a wonderful trainer to work with - those are worth their weight in gold!
> The other good news is that re-directed aggression is really very predictable. For example you know walks are going to be a trigger, so for now, you muzzle on walks. Totally manageable.
> 
> I'm sure the trainer will talk to you about impulse control, but just wanted to throw it out there again. Any impulse control exercises you can do - like "it's yer choice" (on youtube) are great. You also might want to check out positive interruptors. At this point a PI probably won't make any difference, but as you work on impulse control, and also work on building up that positive interruptor, you will see an improvement later on. It just takes time...
> 
> Poor you, I know this is no fun to deal with!
> I used to walk a malamute and a chessie mix, both over 100 pounds, and the malamute would re-direct on to the chessie. It was a nightmare! I got bitten a few times with that too, and as much as it hurts, it's also just embarrassing to have your own dog bite you!
> So don't feel bad, many of us have been there, and sympathise!


Thank you 

I'm feeling really positive now that I've spoken to the trainer, although I'm aware it's going to take a lot of hard work and patience (not something I'm naturally blessed with unfortunately!)

I'm definitely going to look into more impulse control stuff as I think this will help in other aspects of Branston's world, not just the redirection.

I'm a bit scared of doing too much all at once though, I know I'm impatient but I also know that Branston needs softly softly gently gently slowly slowly in order for him to be able to cope. When I do any form of training he's so excited and happy to be doing it and wants to do the right thing that he ends up getting into a total spin and just doing every command he's ever been taught all in one go :crazy:

I think Dogless summed him up well to me the other day in saying that he's a bit 'highly strung'









Oh, and Dogless - I got your spoonerism :yesnod:


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

Had training club today and it was a really good session.
They used Barney's Wait/Recall to show the class what they should be aiming for they also promoted us to the next class on just our third week.
And I was also being asked by others how I get him to do stuff so well.

Whilst it feels great that training is going so well, the downside is that I don't like being in the spot light and really don't want others to think I'm showing off. Barney is just such a great dog to train, he makes me look like I'm a better trainer than I really am.


----------



## Sarah1983

I don't think it's so much a right or wrong way F&F, just a difference in the way things are trained  I do a lot of shaping, breaking a behaviour down into tiny parts and building it up gradually to the full behaviour. So touch, for example, I teach by first clicking and treating for even a glance towards the target. Once the dog is glancing at it reliably I hold off on the click and either get a longer look at the target or a movement towards it, sort of a "hey, I'm looking, did you not see?". Once that's being offered reliably I hold out for a little more. Movement towards the target or a bigger movement towards it.

I'll also have sessions where I just click for whatever the dog does. If he shifts a paw, click and treat. Flicks an ear, click and treat. Sits, click and treat. And so on. Basically anything he does gets the click and treat. A bit like the 101 things to do with a box but without the added criteria of interacting with the box. I find it quite quickly teaches the dog to offer behaviours rather than stand there and stare at me. As long as I click the little things anyway.

An interesting article (or I think it is anyway, some just see it as pedantic) 
Are You Clicker Training, or Training with a Clicker? | Karen Pryor Clicker Training


----------



## Freddie and frank

Thanks Sarah, will have a look at that tomorrow. 

Had one of the best walks for ages tonight.  just what we needed I think.

F&F over 'rabbit hill'. We met up with three dogs and owners that we've never met before.....a 3yr old beagle, a 1.5yr old golden retriever and a Dalmatian.
All had a good old play and run about together, no grumps or growls. Lovely owners too and had a good chat with them. 
Hope we meet them again sometime. 

Very busy next few days so see you all soon and hope you all have good walks.


----------



## Dogless

Well Kilo still seems pretty tired; bright enough but I think I'll make today about chilling for him. Might feed him a little more too, he's going down the skinny route yet again.


----------



## Maria_1986

F&F sounds like a great walk, I hope you get to repeat it often.

Dogless - hope Kilo enjoys his chill out day

FRM - glad you are feeling positive after speaking to the trainer, good luck with it.

WWSD - congrats on being moved up a class 

OH had a go at training last night - Chevy did well and he listened to what I was telling him about how I had been asking for each thing (I am trying to teach hand signals as well as vocal cues). The only down side was that when he tried to recall her from the kitchen to the spare room she ran to me instead of him. 

We are both going to be going the training classes so that we are both doing the same things, but the trainer said that only one person can do each exercise to avoid confusion which is fine so that was why I was sat reading a book on the sofa while OH was doing recall but she still came to me. Also should I be waiting for to start classes to do training with her - the stuff we are doing now she already knows but is not consistent and sometimes very slow so I am trying to get her to respond correctly and quickly more often plus tie in the hand signals I want too. I had been trying to teach watch but it doesn't seem to be going so well at the moment so I have shelved it until I can ask the trainer for help.

I guess that we are confusing her in some way if she is coming back to me and not OH, but what are we doing wrong and how do we fix it?


----------



## Werehorse

Mine sometimes come back to me on walks when OH has called them... they know who carries the dog treats.   And it is simply that I train them more I think and they associate the cue with coming to _me_ more than generalising to _go to who called you_. If you've been training recall OH may have to re-train it from the ground up to allow her to generalise the cue to going to him...


----------



## Sarah1983

Maria_1986 said:


> F&F sounds like a great walk, I hope you get to repeat it often.
> 
> Dogless - hope Kilo enjoys his chill out day
> 
> FRM - glad you are feeling positive after speaking to the trainer, good luck with it.
> 
> WWSD - congrats on being moved up a class
> 
> OH had a go at training last night - Chevy did well and he listened to what I was telling him about how I had been asking for each thing (I am trying to teach hand signals as well as vocal cues). The only down side was that when he tried to recall her from the kitchen to the spare room she ran to me instead of him.
> 
> We are both going to be going the training classes so that we are both doing the same things, but the trainer said that only one person can do each exercise to avoid confusion which is fine so that was why I was sat reading a book on the sofa while OH was doing recall but she still came to me. Also should I be waiting for to start classes to do training with her - the stuff we are doing now she already knows but is not consistent and sometimes very slow so I am trying to get her to respond correctly and quickly more often plus tie in the hand signals I want too. I had been trying to teach watch but it doesn't seem to be going so well at the moment so I have shelved it until I can ask the trainer for help.
> 
> I guess that we are confusing her in some way if she is coming back to me and not OH, but what are we doing wrong and how do we fix it?


Something hubby and I do with Spencer is recalls between us. We'll be a distance apart, he'll call Spen and do whatever it takes to encourage him to him and reward him when he gets there, then I'll do the same.


----------



## Maria_1986

Thank you both for the replies. I will get OH to start again from the beginning rather than just assuming that she knows to go to whoever calls her - I had not thought about her needing to learn to know who to go to.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless sounds like Kilo needs a double dinner duvet day :lol: Hmmmm havign a younger brother is slimming.... I think it's a bit late to ask my parents to oblige 

Maria, I agree with W/H  and as she has explained so well I shall just nod :yesnod: We also play the game Sarah has suggested here it's nicknamed "Tinker tennis" 

F+F glad you had a great walk 

We had a fun class last night. I do love games class, this round we are a small class of 3 dogs Tink and 2 springers. So among extending other games we are embarking on creating sniffer dogs, which should be right up their street 

if anyone is following them the 3rd and final of those webinars is out Synchronizing Desires


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Thank you both for the replies. I will get OH to start again from the beginning rather than just assuming that she knows to go to whoever calls her - I had not thought about her needing to learn to know who to go to.


I'm with your trainer on this one. Until she is really consistent on what you are asking her to do it might be better if you're the only one that's training her. To my mind that's why she came to you when OH called her.

Dogs are clever and read many things even on a basic recall. It's not just our different voice tone, it's also facial expressions, body movement, mindset, etc.


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy said:


> I'm with your trainer on this one. Until she is really consistent on what you are asking her to do it might be better if you're the only one that's training her. To my mind that's why she came to you when OH called her.
> 
> Dogs are clever and read many things even on a basic recall. It's not just our different voice tone, it's also facial expressions, body movement, mindset, etc.


So one person train each thing until its perfect before the other person trains her to do it you mean? So I would teach sit, paw, recall and he could teach down and stay for example then when she is how we want her for each thing then we swap?

Sorry if I'm asking silly questions, I just really want to get it right to make it easier for her to learn.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I don't think it's so much a right or wrong way F&F, just a difference in the way things are trained  I do a lot of shaping, breaking a behaviour down into tiny parts and building it up gradually to the full behaviour. So touch, for example, I teach by first clicking and treating for even a glance towards the target. Once the dog is glancing at it reliably I hold off on the click and either get a longer look at the target or a movement towards it, sort of a "hey, I'm looking, did you not see?". Once that's being offered reliably I hold out for a little more. Movement towards the target or a bigger movement towards it.
> 
> I'll also have sessions where I just click for whatever the dog does. If he shifts a paw, click and treat. Flicks an ear, click and treat. Sits, click and treat. And so on. Basically anything he does gets the click and treat. A bit like the 101 things to do with a box but without the added criteria of interacting with the box. I find it quite quickly teaches the dog to offer behaviours rather than stand there and stare at me. As long as I click the little things anyway.
> 
> An interesting article (or I think it is anyway, some just see it as pedantic)
> Are You Clicker Training, or Training with a Clicker? | Karen Pryor Clicker Training


I agree Sarah. There are many trainers who have jumped on the 'clicker training' bandwagon and you could go to half a dozen trainers and their take on it would be completely different.

My approach it pretty much the same as yours and I do an awful lot of shaping. It's been particularly appropriate with Holly.

I use "yes" instead of a clicker for practical purposes with my girls training but other than that it's very similar.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> So one person train each thing until its perfect before the other person trains her to do it you mean? So I would teach sit, paw, recall and he could teach down and stay for example then when she is how we want her for each thing then we swap?
> 
> Sorry if I'm asking silly questions, I just really want to get it right to make it easier for her to learn.


IMHO it would be better if only one of you trained all the exercises to begin with. She will learn much quicker and it will avoid confusion.

As a matter of interest I use my dogs quite a bit when handlers are struggling on any given exercise. For instance if a handler's dog is shooting behind them on a left turn, I will ask them to do the turn with one of mine (who know exactly how to do it). Then if my dog shoots behind them we know it's the handlers body signals that is causing the problem. The handler may only be moving their shoulder a tiny smidgeon but it's enough of a cue to the dog to shoot behind them.

Hope that makes sense to you?


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy said:


> IMHO it would be better if only one of you trained all the exercises to begin with. She will learn much quicker and it will avoid confusion.
> 
> As a matter of interest I use my dogs quite a bit when handlers are struggling on any given exercise. For instance if a handler's dog is shooting behind them on a left turn, I will ask them to do the turn with one of mine (who know exactly how to do it). Then if my dog shoots behind them we know it's the handlers body signals that is causing the problem. The handler may only be moving their shoulder a tiny smidgeon but it's enough of a cue to the dog to shoot behind them.
> 
> Hope that makes sense to you?


That does. Thank you so much for your help. As I'm the one with her for more of the time and I am doing most of it anyway as OH works full time and I only work a few hours a day I will train everything first then I think. I know that most of the mistakes we are encountering with learning things is most likely my doing so I can't wait to be trained myself in our classes.


----------



## Dogless

Ugh, this is going to be a _I am just about at the end of my tether with living here_ post.

Took Rudi to the forest that we avoided for so long again today. Went to the busy part, it was totally unrecognisable - pretty much razed to the ground with all the little tracks big forestry roads now and others having just vanished. It was also really low cloud today so we couldn't see far, so I am glad I didn't have Kilo as he stays really alert when it's like that. We had a mostly lovely walk - doing recalls, practising Rudi coming in close and walking to heel to go round bends etc and he had a good explore. Didn't meet a soul until 10 minutes from the end. Saw some dogs up ahead, they paused, clocked us and ran at Rudi barking - Rudi was terrified, tail clamped down, all hackles up and ran. Dogs' owner arrived, I called Rudi to me (whilst man asked me what the matter with him was, chuckling away). I politely explained what the matter was with my puppy and he explained that it was his big dog's 'time' - she had come into season last week - so she didn't like other dogs near her and his males were protective, plus chasing dogs was their 'thing'. I left and am ashamed to say that I cried a bit once I got to the car.

I arrived home so bloody frustrated and upset. It seems that the friendlier dogs go to the busier parks and dogs with dramas are taken to quiet places like forests.

I explained all to hubby and he just said that Rudi was fine, look at him, he's not bothered. He just doesn't understand my frustration. I said that if Kilo had been with me that was a classic recipe for a scrap and he just said but Kilo wasn't with me so why worry. It's not like it was an isolated incident though. It is normal and I hate it; I just want to be able to relax and enjoy my dogs, not spend walks tense and nervous.

Took Kilo for a short on lead sniff about. Thankfully no dramas or I would have dissolved I think.


----------



## Sarah1983

Aww, I feel for you Dogless, I really do. That sort of attitude really p*sses me off. It's so hard to enjoy walks when you're just waiting for the next irresponsibl ******* and their out of control bully of a dog to come along and spoil things for you :nonod: I've often gone home and cried because of less than positive encounters. My dad never understood either. Hubby was always a bit more understanding but I think he sometimes thought I was making a mountain out of a molehill.

I dreamed about Cesar Milan last night. Even worse, I was agreeing with him about something or other :yikes: I can only assume it was a parallel universe or that hell had frozen over momentarily or something.

Stuck in waiting for Spens food today  Really fancy going for a nice walk too, especially as it's warmed up and the snow has melted. Just hoping it comes today coz I'm at the doctors in the morning.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless, what ar*ehole that man was. I think I would have cried as well.


----------



## moonviolet

What a self absorbed idiot. Dogless I probably would have shouted and cried simultaneously. the lack of control of his dogs was wrong on so many levels. Hope Rudi just shakes it off he seems to be a naturally confident chap.

So many people have multiple dogs and seem to think it's fine for them to go charging over to any dog(s) they want to and can't see a reason why that is intimidating behaviour and assume every lone dog they see has issues. I want to swear loudly on yoru behalf.

As for the things OH said i'm willing to bet he wasn't trying to belittle your feelings but trying to "fix" them because thats what men like to do 

Think it's time to book that break!

Sarah your dream is rather disturbing although I really dislike the bilge that man spews in amongst that awful amount of chaff there is the rare grain of sense so i'm goign to assume you were agreeing over one of those grains. the dream really could have bene a lot worse  :blink:

Had short training session this morning on some of the things we covered last night and blooming chilly walk on another section of the ranges, still no sign of the missing GSD


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah - argh what horrible dreams you have, did you eat all Spens cheese, lol.

Dogless - don't be ashamed, I told you yesterday I came in from an encounter with a perfectly normal well behaved dog on a lead who came nowhere near us and broke down. I totally understand where you are coming from, we live in dogs central so much so that I just don't want to go out the front door any more, I never noticed it with Rory because as long as the dogs kept away from him he was fine, but at least most of the dogs are under control and well behaved and the owners are for the most part polite (there is a correlation between knobheads and put of control dogs though even here), and my hubby really doesn't get why I get upset, he gets annoyed at me and then at the dog for upsetting me so I feel I can't even vent at him. For you it seems 10 trillion times worse as the owners seem so stuck in the dark ages. 

It took me a while but I spot your goonerism. Tis what the two ronnies did so well isn't it 

WWSD - well done you and Barney, I never had to worry as the trainer always nicked Ginge off me  so I just sat and watched the little madam show off on her own.

Welcome Pearl - lots of small round things of wisdom here 

Maria - I am also the normal go to person for recalls whether hubby has treats or not. I would agree, we tried to work on fetch yesterday and hubby wanted a go as he had some thoughts on how best to do it, no rolly eyes he actually seemed really keen and got the messages I have been trying to send him, BUT, ninja was completely done in by the idea of him trying to work with the clicker 

WH - no it doesn't help :nono: thank you :raspberry blowing face:, I did just go to the chemist for calms and rescue remedy though, they might but now I am worried as it says the calms can make you drowsy, I have to drive and take in the information and co-ordinate my tiny brain and body.

K&M - I know, I know, but I keep panicking at the thought, then panicking that that will just set her off more  and circles round and round, hence the calms and RR

Thorne - dont feel too bad , you weren't to know how he would react were you! Hope it goes better today.

Beth - sounds like Sam is getting frustrated, roll on Monday indeed, bet you will be treating him to a good old run and rough play.

Last night I had someone  steal the liver cake I left on the sofa for 5 secs, some might say stupid, but she has always left it when asked before, then this morning she kept bringing me bits of rubbish from the bathroom again something she has never done before.

I just got back and me and the littl'un had a good triangle walk despite the local dogs barking in the background, she is really gettign the hang, just corners need work, and people are now the must bark at thing 

Now have to go and recook the liver cake as it is grey and squidgy in the middle


----------



## Dogless

mv - hope the GSD is found soon. I always feel so sad when we walk in places with 'dogs missing' posters .

GR - wonder who stole the liver cake? .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Ugh, this is going to be a _I am just about at the end of my tether with living here_ post.
> 
> Took Rudi to the forest that we avoided for so long again today. Went to the busy part, it was totally unrecognisable - pretty much razed to the ground with all the little tracks big forestry roads now and others having just vanished. It was also really low cloud today so we couldn't see far, so I am glad I didn't have Kilo as he stays really alert when it's like that. We had a mostly lovely walk - doing recalls, practising Rudi coming in close and walking to heel to go round bends etc and he had a good explore. Didn't meet a soul until 10 minutes from the end. Saw some dogs up ahead, they paused, clocked us and ran at Rudi barking - Rudi was terrified, tail clamped down, all hackles up and ran. Dogs' owner arrived, I called Rudi to me (whilst man asked me what the matter with him was, chuckling away). I politely explained what the matter was with my puppy and he explained that it was his big dog's 'time' - she had come into season last week - so she didn't like other dogs near her and his males were protective, plus chasing dogs was their 'thing'. I left and am ashamed to say that I cried a bit once I got to the car.
> 
> I arrived home so bloody frustrated and upset. It seems that the friendlier dogs go to the busier parks and dogs with dramas are taken to quiet places like forests.
> 
> I explained all to hubby and he just said that Rudi was fine, look at him, he's not bothered. He just doesn't understand my frustration. I said that if Kilo had been with me that was a classic recipe for a scrap and he just said but Kilo wasn't with me so why worry. It's not like it was an isolated incident though. It is normal and I hate it; I just want to be able to relax and enjoy my dogs, not spend walks tense and nervous.
> 
> Took Kilo for a short on lead sniff about. Thankfully no dramas or I would have dissolved I think.


If it's any consolation I think I'd kick, scream and shout if I lived over there for any length of time and I can totally understand your sheer frustration.

I remember two friends going over there a few years back with their dogs, which were being used in a film. They commented on how laid back and lax their attitude to dogs were in Ireland.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> If it's any consolation I think I'd kick, scream and shout if I lived over there for any length of time and I can totally understand your sheer frustration.
> 
> I remember two friends going over there a few years back with their dogs, which were being used in a film. They commented on how laid back and lax their attitude to dogs were in Ireland.


Sometimes I get so frustrated I think why don't I just open my boot, let the dogs out and just "let dogs be dogs" as everyone is always saying here. I won't, of course, but it's tempting at times. If I'd have met those dogs with Kilo an in season bitch plus protective males really, really wouldn't have gone well; same as yesterday's meet wouldn't have gone well. I'd hate mine to be hurt or to hurt another dog or otherwise be affected / affect others badly.


----------



## Symone

I hope that you will feel better soon, Dogless. It's a shame when other people ruin walks for you  I think that I also would had cried. 
How is Rudi now?

Well.. Today has been fun. I had to sign on (I really hate being unemployed) and I couldn't find my book.
Re-wrote it on paper, and just as I was leaving I found it. Shamaya hid it in her dog bed. I have no idea what it was covered in.
Walking there was nice. The OH has a day off so we went together. Shamaya wasn't pulling much until she saw the sea up one of the roads.
When it came clear we weren't going to the beach she refused to move. Oh had to carry her! (And I took a photo so you guys could see how big she is getting.. will put it at the end of this)
At the job centre I bumped into a friend. He was really upset because he just lost his job. He is due to get married in a month as well so losing it is bad timing! Poor guy.. Some Shamaya licks cheered him up a little, though. 
Walking home was a nightmare. She kept pulling. I had to carry her because I was scared that she was going to break her neck. I think the walking to heel training will have to be with the harness at this rate. I feel like she is trying to pull more because she knows she shouldn't. 
Did some training when we got in (working on her staying from further distances today) which went well. 
Think I might go have a nice cup of tea... It's too early for the wine I think. 

Here's the picture of her looking all sad because we weren't going to the beach. It's weird seeing how much she has grown.


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## moonviolet

Symone this is purely a question as i can't see i couldn't possibly say one way or another but when she pulling so hard could it be that she was finding the pavement a little overwhelming and wanted to get to somewhere she considers a safer place. I'm quite possibly completely wrong but I thought i'd put it out there as something to be considered. 

I think i'd want her in a harness if she is pulling that hard, but really be working on the loose lead walking at home as even in a harness pulling that hard will not be comfortable for her. 

She realy is a stunning pup your OH looks completely smitten


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## Symone

moonviolet said:


> Symone this is purely a question as i can't see i couldn't possibly say one way or another but when she pulling so hard could it be that she was finding the pavement a little overwhelming and wanted to get to somewhere she considers a safer place. I'm quite possibly completely wrong but I thought i'd put it out there as something to be considered.
> 
> I think i'd want her in a harness if she is pulling that hard, but really be working on the loose lead walking at home as even in a harness pulling that hard will not be comfortable for her.
> 
> She realy is a stunning pup your OH looks completely smitten


He sure is smitten 
And it is excitement for her to pull so much. She thinks she knows where we are going and she gets really excited.
She walks nicely when we're going home (Normally) and that's on the pavement.
Quiet paths she has never gone on before mean she walks nicely, however finding some that aren't covered in broken bottles is proving very hard. I really hate this area. 
The cleanest quiet place I have found is the pier. This doesn't work because she can see the beach from there (even if it is like a 50 foot drop) and she gets excited.

I think I will have to stick to a harness for her.. And buy a traffic lead. Fingers crossed that that will help.
Hopefully toady is just a bad day. She has been really good with learning lately. I shouldn't push her too hard  
Today just gave me a headache, though.

A friend said that she has an old head collar that I can borrow. I'm tempted to try it out but I don't want to use one with her being so young. And I don't want to give up so soon, either.
I'll keep sticking to the turning when she pulls thing. I should had left earlier to get that in tbh...


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Symone this is purely a question as i can't see i couldn't possibly say one way or another but when she pulling so hard could it be that she was finding the pavement a little overwhelming and wanted to get to somewhere she considers a safer place. I'm quite possibly completely wrong but I thought i'd put it out there as something to be considered.
> 
> I think i'd want her in a harness if she is pulling that hard, but really be working on the loose lead walking at home as even in a harness pulling that hard will not be comfortable for her.
> 
> *She realy is a stunning pup your OH looks completely smitten*


She is so pretty and she is growing up, I can remember the pic you have posted of when your OH carried her home when you first got her :001_smile:.

Now that MV has mentioned it I wonder the same, the ninja is a proper scampering puller, does she kind of hug the ground (I know lots of collies do that anyway but then lots of collies are actually pretty nervous).

You may think you are fighting a losing battle with the loose lead stuff and especially on a harness, BUT here now wait for a positive post from me. We have actually nearly got there, I have just given up time and time again before, but, because we have been restricted to short walks, no destination, no need to get so far/for so long etc etc, I have been concentrating on it much more, plus I figured she has to be calmer if she isn't doing rabbit impressions and darting off everywhere. We haven't had a walk for a week that hasn't had to be 'steady' we have just done the same as you have been trying, turning round and even going back home if she pulls and we got all the way to the end of the road and back after lunch   not so far, not even 1/2 mile, but, I seriously didn't think it was possible.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> You may think you are fighting a losing battle with the loose lead stuff and especially on a harness, BUT here now wait for a positive post from me. We have actually nearly got there, I have just given up time and time again before, but, because we have been restricted to short walks, no destination, no need to get so far/for so long etc etc, I have been concentrating on it much more, plus I figured she has to be calmer if she isn't doing rabbit impressions and darting off everywhere. We haven't had a walk for a week that hasn't had to be 'steady' we have just done the same as you have been trying, turning round and even going back home if she pulls and we got all the way to the end of the road and back after lunch   not so far, not even 1/2 mile, but, I seriously didn't think it was possible.


Woohoooo congratulations!!!!


----------



## Symone

GingerRogers said:


> She is so pretty and she is growing up, I can remember the pic you have posted of when your OH carried her home when you first got her :001_smile:.
> 
> Now that MV has mentioned it I wonder the same, the ninja is a proper scampering puller, does she kind of hug the ground (I know lots of collies do that anyway but then lots of collies are actually pretty nervous).
> 
> You may think you are fighting a losing battle with the loose lead stuff and especially on a harness, BUT here now wait for a positive post from me. We have actually nearly got there, I have just given up time and time again before, but, because we have been restricted to short walks, no destination, no need to get so far/for so long etc etc, I have been concentrating on it much more, plus I figured she has to be calmer if she isn't doing rabbit impressions and darting off everywhere. We haven't had a walk for a week that hasn't had to be 'steady' we have just done the same as you have been trying, turning round and even going back home if she pulls and we got all the way to the end of the road and back after lunch   not so far, not even 1/2 mile, but, I seriously didn't think it was possible.


I'm really happy for you


----------



## Dogless

WELL DONE GR AND THE NINJA .

Symone - second what mv threw into the pot about anxiety possibly causing the pulling. With Kilo there is a fine line between 'happy' excitement and anxious excitement (if you see what I mean) and he used to need to be watched pretty carefully to determine which one it was. Either way, trying to keep either at bay might be an idea....much easier said than done I know.

Kilo is much livelier again now and his eyes aren't bright red with tiredness; I'll just take him for a short toilet walk again this evening as he's still happy to settle and snooze.

Had a great little training walk with Rudi..loads of dogs out and he behaved very nicely for me; managed to walk to heel up to them all. Got the usual bribery comment off one person again . Met a 6 month old Basset Fauve de Bretagne - he was a gorgeous, cheeky character . Had to ask what breed he was and the woman was very proud to tell me that he's a show dog, he was a little cracker!


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## Izzysmummy

Well done Ginge!

Hope Rudi is OK! Stupid man letting his dogs scare him like that!

So we're off to school tonight so I took Izzy for a quick run with her ball to get the crazies out and we bumped into loads of people we hadn't seen for ages! Had a nice catch up and she had a good run around but unfortunately others were also throwing her ball for her and she got tired and tiredness brings out the monkey!  she took her ball off about 5m away and laid down with it and I couldn't get near! Tried treats, squeaky ball etc but nope! Little miss wasnt for coming to me. I tried to approach her but she just runs off and lays down again! 

Eventually I decided to leg it and she ran after me and came into heel and I managed to get hold of her!

More annoyed at myself as I could see she was getting tired but didn't step in quick enough! 

Now to get ready for school.....we'll see what else monkeydog has in store for me!


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## Werehorse

Symone - I'll third what mv said about nervousness. And second what Dogless said about it being very close to excitement and hard to distinguish. I think Oscar's pulling is rooted in both nervy-ness and excitement, the calmer and more confident he is the less he pulls. Water is a massive excitement trigger for him as well though and it is quite difficult to tell whether he is a bit over-whelmed or just wants to go swimming.  :lol:

Patience grasshopper. Perservere with it, get a harness - a static one, not a "no pull" one - so she doesn't hurt herself in the mean-time and just keep working on it. I do think that if I can be starting to get there with Oscar then it is possible for any dog to be trained not to pull in a positive way! :lol: He was soooooooo bad for so long! I did employ a headcollar very, very briefly (not until he was over a year old) just to give me a tiny bit of an "in" into the complete flat out pulling madness. :crazy:

Ginger - nice work lady.


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## Werehorse

Had a rather potentially eventful but amazingly not eventful walk today. I went up Sale Fell, which turned out to be Covered in Sheep. But due to keeping a sharp eye out and copious levels of biscuits the boys managed to stay off-lead the whole way, apart from on little bit where the sheep were actually on the path and trapped between us and a wall, and didn't do more than look at them a tiny bit. Hugo thinks the game is Spot the Sheep Get the Biscuit. :lol: It wasn't exactly a relaxing walk but it was good training.

They also managed to mostly not eat various bits of tissue - some of which looked decidedly "does the Pope **** in the woods?"

Right at the end of the walk there is a path through some gorse bushes to the gate. I stopped at the top because a chap haad just come through with a bonkers cocker and he's already shouted at it twice and been soundly ignored. As he was running as well I thought I wait at the top were there was more space for the dog to greet ( it was clear that a greeting was on the cards whether _I_ liked it or not. I got the boys sitting and waiting until the spaniel was practically on top of them, then released them to "say hello" as I didn't want them to fail by trying to get them to hold the sit while being spanieled. So the both step forward and unusually Oscar is really interested and Hugo goes for a back end sniff before having a look at the front end first... I'm thinking "shiiiiiit, she's in season " when she starts running again but Hugo's nose is attached to her bum and he chases her. Oscar went to but got distracted by something and recalled pretty easily.  Hugo, the dog that will usually recall from the most fun games with other dogs with no problem whatsoever, has gone deaf.  I nearly, nearly asked the bloke if she was a bitch in season - I didn't because I basically knew the answer would be yes (at which point I would have been unable to avoid myself starting an argument - the hag would have taken full flight!) but if it wasn't I didn't want to be one of those owners that excuses their dogs' bad behaviour by insisting every other dog is a bitch in season.  Hugo did come away after a very short time (seemed longer) then the darn thing came running back for more flirting and he was off again. :nono: Eventually the spaniel took off after her (disappearing) owner, he wouldn't even know it if he had little Sprockollies on the way he just vamoosed  and Hugo came back to me looking very thoughtful with an impressive foam beard going on. 

Fortunately, being a spaniel and probably not quite the right time, the bitch didn't actually stop and stand (I did briefly, wonder whether spaniels can mate "in flight" like mayflys) but if she had her owner wouldn't have been any use - I'd have been dealing with it myself and given how far away the pair of them got... well I _might_ have been able to reach them to stop it.

All preventable by a lead on the in-season bitch of course. Or even a warning from the owner "she's in season" as they approached - I could easily have put lead on mine and not let them greet if I'd had some warning.

As annoying as it was though I was pleased with Oscar who stayed rightnext to me the whole time, well he was spanieling in the gorse but he was pretty much next to me. And pleased with Hugo for coming away eventually from what must have been extreme temptation.

*phew*

School tonight!


----------



## tiatortilla

Izzysmummy - oh dear, I had a similar problem today!
Dogless - Poor Rudi I hope he's ok
GR- well done Ginge!
Bit of a scary moment with Tia earlier. Not really scary, just that she always, always recalls so well and today she just refused to twice. We weren't near a road or anything and she went back on the lead straight away because the idea of having a dog off-lead that doesn't come back turns me into a ball of anxiety! I hope she doesn't do that again though, it's really unlike her :/


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## Kicksforkills

tiatortilla said:


> Izzysmummy - oh dear, I had a similar problem today!
> Dogless - Poor Rudi I hope he's ok
> GR- well done Ginge!
> Bit of a scary moment with Tia earlier. Not really scary, just that she always, always recalls so well and today she just refused to twice. We weren't near a road of anything and she went back on the lead straight away because the idea of having a dog off-lead that doesn't come back turns me into a ball of anxiety! I hope she doesn't do that again though, it's really unlike her :/


Mine come back eventually, I know they won't stray into roads and are just sniffing something. They like going through a hole in the fence then trotting along to another entrance where they re-appear after about five minutes. People get worried but I know my dogs so I don't


----------



## tiatortilla

Kicksforkills said:


> Mine come back eventually, I know they won't stray into roads and are just sniffing something. They like going through a hole in the fence then trotting along to another entrance where they re-appear after about five minutes. People get worried but I know my dogs so I don't


Mm. That's like the opposite of my pov. I prefer to know exactly where my dog is and I prefer her to return the second I ask her to - minimises any risks!


----------



## kat&molly

Woo- woo well done Ginge.

MV- Moll wants to come to Games class and be a sniffer dog. How are you doing on Ring Toss? We've had a couple of days off it  but done well today- I held it right away from me and in an almost upright position  Seems to have taken forever to get to this stage, I know thats my fault though.

Had a couple of clicker sessions with them all today, Evie's face when she's concentrating, its a picture. :001_wub: Scruff managed to fight her demons and not turn it in to a Licker session.

The little man has drove me potty today.:cryin: He hasn't stopped. I took him for a lead walk on his own this morning. Armed with the clicker and treats, he wasn't really interested at all, and is better with the wubba.
This afternoon I took him with the girls to get a bit of a run on the long line. In between I feel like a stuck record, Off, Sit , Leave.:tongue_smilie:
Just a bad day I suppose, he lived with a single woman who worked a lot so this is probably overwhelming for him here, I do make sure he gets a sleep in the crate a couple of times a day. 

He has his danglies removed tomorrow - he seems so young. How the hell do I keep him calm for the next 10 days.:blink:


----------



## moonviolet

tiatortilla said:


> Izzysmummy - oh dear, I had a similar problem today!
> Dogless - Poor Rudi I hope he's ok
> GR- well done Ginge!
> Bit of a scary moment with Tia earlier. Not really scary, just that she always, always recalls so well and today she just refused to twice. We weren't near a road of anything and she went back on the lead straight away because the idea of having a dog off-lead that doesn't come back turns me into a ball of anxiety! I hope she doesn't do that again though, it's really unlike her :/


I'd do some really rewarding recall games at home and in the garden and when out and about do some where you recall her for a game she really enjoys to make to fun to come 

K&M about to do a little training session including the ringtoss so i'll update when we're done 

W/H good good boys!! what a fool that poor spanners owner is


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> She is so pretty and she is growing up, I can remember the pic you have posted of when your OH carried her home when you first got her :001_smile:.
> 
> Now that MV has mentioned it I wonder the same, the ninja is a proper scampering puller, does she kind of hug the ground (I know lots of collies do that anyway but then lots of collies are actually pretty nervous).
> 
> You may think you are fighting a losing battle with the loose lead stuff and especially on a harness, BUT here now wait for a positive post from me. We have actually nearly got there, I have just given up time and time again before, but, because we have been restricted to short walks, no destination, no need to get so far/for so long etc etc, I have been concentrating on it much more, plus I figured she has to be calmer if she isn't doing rabbit impressions and darting off everywhere. We haven't had a walk for a week that hasn't had to be 'steady' we have just done the same as you have been trying, turning round and even going back home if she pulls and we got all the way to the end of the road and back after lunch   not so far, not even 1/2 mile, but, I seriously didn't think it was possible.


That brilliant news. Well done to you and the Ninja.....:thumbup:


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> I'd do some really rewarding recall games at home and in the garden and when out and about do some where you recall her for a game she really enjoys to make to fun to come


Thankyou  I will do, it's just never been needed before (well, not since she was a tiny puppy!), she always gets a treat for recalling because I'm a pushover and she expects one lol and I always do it several times a walk, I just don't know what happened today!


----------



## Kicksforkills

tiatortilla said:


> Mm. That's like the opposite of my pov. I prefer to know exactly where my dog is and I prefer her to return the second I ask her to - minimises any risks!


Hehe, well I can see them as its just a chain link fence around the border of the field.


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## Dogless

k&m - I think the little fella's learning from Evie :cryin: . Hope his plumectomy goes well .



Werehorse said:


> Symone - I'll third what mv said about nervousness. And second what Dogless said about it being very close to excitement and hard to distinguish. *I think Oscar's pulling is rooted in both nervy-ness and excitement, the calmer and more confident he is the less he pulls. *Water is a massive excitement trigger for him as well though and it is quite difficult to tell whether he is a bit over-whelmed or just wants to go swimming.  :lol:


The bold part absolutely - Kilo will pull like mad towards something that is worrying him if it's facing him / moving towards him if allowed then panic when he gets there. If I stop him moving towards it, sit him and let whatever is worrying him past he is fine.

I am also totally in awe of your control around sheep. Totally. And know what you mean about not wanting to be 'that' owner who excuses every bit of bad behaviour with the 'she must be in season' excuse. Thankfully I was told today although Rudi had no idea.

Had a nice, calm walk with Kilo. He is fine now and not skittish but sparked out again so clearly needed a day off, love him. A woman followed us for a while with her dog choking, wheezing and coughing - I felt like turning around and saying "Does that not bother you? Cos it fecking bothers me :nono:".


----------



## tiatortilla

Kicksforkills said:


> Hehe, well I can see them as its just a chain link fence around the border of the field.


Well I hope that nothing ever distracts your dogs while they're on the other side of a fence to you and that you can always get their attention because that would be totally nerve wracking for me (and most others, I'd guess!) :/


----------



## Kicksforkills

tiatortilla said:


> Well I hope that nothing ever distracts your dogs while they're on the other side of a fence to you and that you can always get their attention because that would be totally nerve wracking for me (and most others, I'd guess!) :/


Haha, even if it did they wouldn't go past where I can see them. They are four now so they are pretty used to the routine of things-and that's just one of the things.

You might be thinking of the field wrong -it doesn't have road anywhere near it-just an alley and road to shops out of an entrance and down a path. There is a big river seperating the other side of the fence where they go along sniffing and more grass.

All they do is sniff along the same place then run back to me!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless - Poor Rudi, and poor you  it's so frustrating when you put in so much hard work and other people are just so blasé. Sorry that it upset you too.

W/H - Sounds like a very successful walk, well done to the boys especially in the face of such temptation with sheep and in season bitches 

GR - Fantastic Ninja :thumbup:

Tia - Don't get too disheartened about recall, mine went through a bit of a phase where ignoring me was preferable. Lily still occasionally decides she can't be bothered to respond but one fail safe way of getting her to come is to run away from her, so might be worth trying that with Tia?


I have THE MAT!

I bought a bit of vetbed to use as Branston's mat in readiness for the trainer on Saturday (she had to change the day from Friday) I'm itching to get started now but am not going to do anything until Saturday in case I go about it all wrong. I want to start totally fresh with trainer lady and then do everything she says :yesnod:

I went to get a muzzle today but they didn't have any the right size, but by some bizarre coincidence Sixtar has just listed one of the right size on the freecycle thread and she's said I can have it :thumbup:

I've been watching the "how to introduce a muzzle" clip and am determined to be patient with it so he doesn't see it as some sort of death trap! Until we've cracked that I am just sticking to walks that I know he can be off lead and relaxed.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> A woman followed us for a while with her dog choking, wheezing and coughing - I felt like turning around and saying "Does that not bother you? Cos it fecking bothers me :nono:".


I was this woman on Sunday  We had a Great Dane in front of us and Spen was convinced it was his friend Achilles (it may have been, I wouldn't know his female owner if I fell over her) so he was pulling and yipping and coughing and spluttering even though he was on his harness. Drives me mad but when it comes to Achilles he will not be distracted so all I could do was stop and wait till they were way ahead.

We've just had a lovely session of "stare a hole in your owners head while she talks to the neighbour". Despite being off leash and told "off you go" Spen chose to sit and stare at me. So I figured I'd make the most of it and click and treat him every so often  I did a couple of click whatever he offers sessions earlier too but he was really distracted then. Tonight he was about as focused as I could want. He did wander off for a brief sniff a couple of times when I told him "off you go" but quickly came back to insist that staring at me was more fun.

Stolen goods today include tissues, kindle, empty coke bottle, packet of cigarettes, mobile phone and a shoe.


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse- well done to the boys.Had to giggle at the Mate in Flight bit- I bet they could.

Dogless- great news that Kilo is feeling better- tell him I know the feeling.
The red eyes are normal here for Moll, since she was a pup noticed Hal gets them too, the others dont though.

Sarah- rather disappointing on the theft here today- just a potato.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Werehorse- well done to the boys.Had to giggle at the Mate in Flight bit- I bet they could.
> 
> Dogless- great news that Kilo is feeling better- tell him I know the feeling.
> The red eyes are normal here for Moll, since she was a pup noticed Hal gets them too, the others dont though.
> 
> Sarah- rather disappointing on the theft here today- just a potato.


Red eyes are normal for tired CHs too....but Kilo's had become permanent for a day or two, bless the poor little fella.


----------



## moonviolet

Well not a stellar evening. Handler error... I know i should walk then train but I'm stupidly excited by some of the things we're working on so decided to go about things in reverse order. Cinnamon stick detection dog ( very useful you never know when you are going to have to seek a cinnamon stick) is doing well at stage 1... sniffing :lol:
Ring toss is still at the random stage but a few really accurate carefully placed ones. Keeping it short as she hasn't fully clicked at what she has to yet.
On her podium we're tidying up her rotate to heel/close positions she loves this and beginning to do it with confidence and style, adding the verbal cue now.

Then i took her out for a pavement trot... and she barked at a woman who appeared behind us from a dark garden not awful but not great. Then we had a cat bob out of a hedge and then back in. Decided i didn't want to get any further from home so plonked myself on a bus stop bench invited her ladyship onto my lap and we the comings and goings at the indian restaurant across the road while she had a calming butt rub..... then I walked home with an angel. Great dog shame about the handler


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Well not a stellar evening. Handler error... I know i should walk then train but I'm stupidly excited by some of the things we're working on so decided to go about things in reverse order. Cinnamon stick detection dog ( very useful you never know when you are going to have to seek a cinnamon stick) is doing well at stage 1... sniffing :lol:
> Ring toss is still at the random stage but a few really accurate carefully placed ones. Keeping it short as she hasn't fully clicked at what she has to yet.
> On her podium we're tidying up her rotate to heel/close positions she loves this and beginning to do it with confidence and style, adding the verbal cue now.
> 
> Then i took her out for a pavement trot... and she barked at a woman who appeared behind us from a dark garden not awful but not great. Then we had a cat bob out of a hedge and then back in. Decided i didn't want to get any further from home so plonked myself on a bus stop bench invited her ladyship onto my lap and we the comings and goings at the indian restaurant across the road while she had a calming butt rub..... then I walked home with an angel. Great dog shame about the handler


Only a very, very minor one...LOL


----------



## Werehorse

kat&molly said:


> Werehorse- well done to the boys.Had to giggle at the Mate in Flight bit- I bet they could.
> 
> Dogless- great news that Kilo is feeling better- tell him I know the feeling.
> *The red eyes are normal here for Moll, since she was a pup noticed Hal gets them too*, the others dont though.
> 
> Sarah- rather disappointing on the theft here today- just a potato.


Oscar gets tired red eyes too. Hugo doesn't (I don't think he "does" tired) but I always know when Oscar is tired.

Dogless - I think I missed your post about Kilo being tired! Bless his cottons. Oscar says having a younger brother is very tiring especially when they are all growing up and want to play all the time and haven't learned about doggies' bedtime properly yet. I hope he's feeling chirpier after his rest day. 

Mixed class - Hugo was very good. Oscar was incrediably distracted and not really listening to OH much - having said that he did all the exercises fine just didn't dial in very well. I think it was mental fatigue after having to concentrate so hard ignoring the sheep today! Is that possible? Oscar does find it harder than Hugo to ignore the sheep (weirdly) and has less limitless mental energy... He has pretty much just crawled in from the car and collapsed onto the sofa too. I might rest him tomorrow and just take Hugo out somewhere, but I'm working Friday (which will mean a rest day anyway) so not sure if I should.


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

Sorry I havent posted alot been busy with school and life gets in the way 

Sophie is doing better, the other night though she must haved been spooked by something in the dark and had a barking fit which set off everyone elses dogs in the houses nearby. For a little dog Sophie has a big loud bark.

I know someone commented on her coat  I went into the shop randomly and the lady told me that because I am friends with the store online. That I get 40 percent off any winter clothes.

So the coat cost 50 roughly and got it for 25 

The other day we took her for a walk and we ran into soooo many dogs  but all were onlead bar one and all were friendly or over friendly but kept under control. She got to share some sniffs etc the one offlead was very old so he just pottered about while Sophie gave him a sniff then as soon as he looked at her shed run behind me and bark 

Then on our walk yesterday we ran into two offlead Australasian sheps and you know what happened ......................



There is Sophie playing chase back and fourth with both of them  I was gobsmacked and it all went nicely as they made no body contact with her which is what she hates!


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Oscar gets tired red eyes too. Hugo doesn't (I don't think he "does" tired) but I always know when Oscar is tired.
> 
> Dogless - I think I missed your post about Kilo being tired! Bless his cottons. Oscar says having a younger brother is very tiring especially when they are all growing up and want to play all the time and haven't learned about doggies' bedtime properly yet. I hope he's feeling chirpier after his rest day.
> 
> *Mixed class - Hugo was very good. Oscar was incrediably distracted and not really listening to OH much - having said that he did all the exercises fine just didn't dial in very well. I think it was mental fatigue after having to concentrate so hard ignoring the sheep today! Is that possible? Oscar does find it harder than Hugo to ignore the sheep (weirdly) and has less limitless mental energy... He has pretty much just crawled in from the car and collapsed onto the sofa too. I might rest him tomorrow and just take Hugo out somewhere, but I'm working Friday (which will mean a rest day anyway) so not sure if I should. *




Hmm could be Oscar was mentally tired and they do need a high level of concentration for class. At the risk of being chauvanist, men generally are not as adept at motivating and inspiring dogs to work as women IMHO.


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## Kicksforkills

I'll let you know in three hours after Poppy's Agility class.

I might use the slip lead on her. Normally I can have her offlead for all class. 

I'll let you know.


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## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Hmm could be Oscar was mentally tired and they do need a high level of concentration for class. At the risk of being chauvanist, men generally are not as adept at motivating and inspiring dogs to work as women IMHO.


:lol: OH is usually very good but he is usually quite tired himself by Wednesday night and if Oscar is off on one he doesn't have the high energy level needed to get him excited and focussed again. He tends to try saying "Oscar,Oscar,Oscar" and gets ignored rather than waiting for any attention and rewarding it. If I told him this during training though he woud get very grumpy so I have to find a way to get him to think it is his idea during the week sometime. :lol:


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## GingerRogers

WH - :thumbup: well done boys for ignoring/not chasing sheep, I am now picturing Hugo, pondering his new acquaintance, finger and thumb stroking his foam beard in contemplation, one eyebrow slightly raised, possibly wearing a smoking jacket 
I reckon Oscar was tired, sheep avoidance must be quite a strain on the brain, :yesnod: seriously!

K&M hope Hal gets on ok today, love the fact that Scruff has 'Licker Training'

Dogless - glad Kilo has perked up. Not quite the same but I always think "Does that not bother you? Cos it fecking bothers me and everyone else " when this a couple round here, who have a little terrier cross type thing, take it to the pub when they go for a meal, its a very well behaved dog but as soon as the food arrives this thing starts retching/choking noises under the table :scared: I presume it does it all the time at home as they seem oblivious to it but other diners not so  

FRM - glad you are so enthused about the new training , really hope it helps (it might help with the slug phobia as well )

MV - quite right  you never know when you need to find a cinnamon stick in an emergency 

MPC - glad you have had some more pleasant encounters :thumbup:

Kicks - I am afraid I have no idea what you are on about


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## L/C

Ladies of WAYWO - I need to submit a request for a leave of absence. Work is mad and my training for terrifying obstacle course is taking quite a lot of my free time. So while I'll be lurking I'm not going to have much time to post (not that I have been anyway!). So keep up the good work and I will be watching! :lol:

One quick update - this morning we were pottering about in one the few places that I let Ely off lead when I heard rustling in the bushes and both of them took off. I thought it was a squirrel so I didn't call them back as I didn't want to weaken their chase recall but then I saw the flash of a tail and realised it was a dog. I was not calm at this point as I was worried Ely would get over stimulated and grab so I did everything I shouldn't - repeatedly called them, ran after them and basically broke all the rules...

They both completely ignored me rolleyes and disappeared off into the woods chasing the dog. I stayed put and then all 3 of them came zooming past me as they completed their loop and I realised it was a dog we know (Albie the lucher). They zoomed past me, then stopped, had a sniff and a shake and then the game began again. 

They played for a few minutes before Albie's owner and I managed to catch them and nary a cross word was had. It's the first time in over a year that he's been able to play with another dog without it spilling over and I was so chuffed. I was obviously less chuffed that my recall completely failed.


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## GingerRogers

Mmm we have a slightly lethargic dog today. Vets this afternoon just because we get a check up free, I want to weigh her as well, I suspect she is more than the 5.8kg she was, she has a good muscle layer now and appears to be bigger even though I didn't think she would grow much more, we will see. I wouldn't really be taking her this week but I also think she needs her anal glands doing as she has been bothering her rear end for a couple of weeks, worse this week and she keeps dropping to the floor, which from what Twiggy says could be making her lethargic.

A 'little' bit of scary walk last night, from a psychological point of view . Took her out about 8.30 for a short potter. Our estate is basically built up of two roads that run parallel and link at the ends with three little passages/open cul de sac things linking them along the length, hence how we are able to dart off in different directions.

Saw a couple approaching and couldn't quite make out if they had a dog or a big bag  so I went up the middle link road, halfway along I spot a GSD at the other end, so I about turn and there's it is again at the end we have just come from. Was like some kind of horror film where the ghost appears at both ends of the corridor :yikes: I was a bit stunned stupid for a moment (its ok they were different owners so presumably different dogs not some clever mirror trick )

TBF the ninja was very good, she just looked at the first :thumbup: but did have a little bark at the second :frown: which was hardly surprising if she felt anything like I did at the time and I did dither somewhat  It was only a little bark and she looked to me after :thumbup: so I dropped lots of treats by which time the first one had passed and we could continue and not be held permanently stuck in no mans land


----------



## Izzysmummy

FRM - Got everything crossed for Saturday! Glad to hear you so positive about it, it'll help so much if you're approaching with a positive attitude!

Sarah - Sounds like Spen had a good haul yesterday! Hope he keeps up the good work so we can get out yacht! 

Dogless - Hope Kilo is better today after his rest yesterday!

MV - I agree with twiggy! You're far too hard on yourself !

wh - Sounds like you had a good class! Poor Oscar, sounds like he was just over-tired! As you can see from my post yesterday, when Izzys tired her alter ego monkeydog takes over!!

MPC- Well done Sophie, sounds like things are going well

L/C - Take care! Good luck with the training (crazy woman :crazy Nice for Ely and Gypsy to have a play with their friend!

GR - I would have been well and truely freaked out by that too! Well done ninja!

School went well last night! Tarnus came with us so I was expecting that and her earlier monkeyness to be a recipe for disaster but she was brill! Some great off lead heelwork for pretty much the whole lesson, sit-stay and down-stay was fab and her downs at a distance were really good (too good in fact, she kept lying down whenever the other handlers were asking their dogs to "down" too!!). There was no wandering off to check on Tarnus (he was under instructions not to fuss any other dogs as she gets very jealous)!

Was nice at the start as Tarnus had taken her off for a quick wee while I stood at the door to the training hall and once she was done I called her and she ran over all wiggly and excited to get inside! Also let her off for a little zoom on the field after class and she did a very enthusiastic recall so redeemed herself slightly !


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## kat&molly

Thanks Ginge- yes just rung and he's come around ok. Phew.


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## Maria_1986

L/C - good luck with the training.

Izzysmummy - glad you had a good class

Ginger - I would have had a :yikes: moment too! Glad she behaved herself though.

W/H - good luck with training your OH 

I'm having another good day so far. Recalling in the flat is going really well so I tried recalling away from a bit of food on the floor and my little angel came to me (there was a moments hesitation while she worked out which was better - cheese on the floor or sausage in my hand) we also had some nice recalls while out walking too 

After a little training session indoors we went out for a short walk/training session outside then in the car to go to the local pet supply shop so that we could try on some nice new coats. Came away with a danish design 2 in 1 coat which looks really smart on her and will stop her getting a cold belly - she enjoyed splashing in the puddles but as soon as the water touches her belly she jumps out  She was a star in the shop and met the staff in there really nicely with a waggy tail and staffy smile especially when they gave her a treat and made me so proud by sitting when told to by the staff member  I was worried it would be all too overwhelming for her and was prepared to ask if I could take coats to the car to try on her if she got stressed but she loved the fuss and attention she got.

I hope everyone else is having a good day.


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## Dogless

L/C - leave granted!! Hope to 'see' you again very soon . Pleased that Ely managed to play well, but what a fright initially!!

IM - good monkey :thumbup:.

GR - the spooky experience doesn't sound fun at all!!

We have had a good day so far....started way too early at 0510 as Rudi was whining in his crate and only does that if he needs the toilet so I let him out. Took the CHs for a walk to the top fields together - not as much time offlead as they were going to get as LCH seemed to have declared 28th February Official Utterly Crucify Human (OUCH) day and did loads of jumping and biting over the least little excitement :scared: . Then they had a nice play and behaved...then OUCH day continued on the way back....hasn't been that bad in ages and ages :frown:. Kilo behaved perfectly, luckily even when the kids at the bus stop started to get interested in what Rudi was doing to me .

So....not a promising start and I was dreading school a bit . However he was perfect for me :thumbup: :aureola::aureola:. So much focus, love him, we have been moved up to the next class from next lesson as we were told we would be if he was as good as the last time again :thumbup::thumbup:. Bless him, thank goodness he got all his vile behaviour out before school. None next week because of Crufts though .

What is odd is that Kilo dislikes the trainer and so does Rudi. Rudi wouldn't take treats from him today and as soon as he takes his lead he almost panics and tries to get away . He was yipping and yelping to get to me during the recalls (not excitement like Kilo shows), yet other handlers can take his lead and he's fine and loves treats and fusses from them. The trainer's pretty loud and does lots of direct eye contact which is what I'm putting it down to I guess. Very odd. School for BCH tonight.

The CHs are asleep and I've come upstairs to give them and me a little breathing space...Thursdays are intense!


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## Dogless

Maria - Chevy just sounds like the perfect match for you; such a good girl.


----------



## Sarah1983

Kinda productive day here so far. Had to go to the docs this morning so figured I'd go renew Spencers registration since it's only across the road from the med centre. They didn't have him in the system  They did however still have Rupert in the system so it looks like the wrong dog has been deleted. No need for me to re-apply for permission to have a dog (good bloody job as they're not letting you get a new dog if you live in a flat!) and they registered him with the details I knew off the top of my head so I just need to go back and give them his microchip number at some point.

Then to the doctors. Not so good. Been having pain in my right breast for a couple of months and figured I'd best get it checked out. Doc checked me out which really hurt on that side (same checks on the other side completely pain free) and I'm off to hospital for a scan in a few weeks. Fingers crossed it's nothing serious. I don't think I'm going to tell my parents anything till I know what's actually going on. My aunt fought breast cancer several times so I know my mum will worry herself sick thinking I've got cancer and am going to die if I say anything. 

Earlier today Spencer went through my coat pockets and brought me the tube of squeezy cheese. Not been anywhere or done anything with him yet, my entire morning was taken up by going to the doctors since hubby was inconveniently taken off PT this morning meaning I had to bloody walk there instead of him dropping me off when he went back to work after PT lol.


----------



## Dogless

What a worry Sarah; hope all turns out to be nothing serious - at least you have access to fantastic civvy healthcare there (even if ze Germans are very, very knife - happy ).

Think Spen might be giving you a hint....what dog doesn't want a bit of training so he gets some squeezy cheese? Not quite a yacht...but a good start .


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## Maria_1986

Dogless - I can't believe you have done so much in one morning - are you secretly superwoman? Chevy does seem to be the perfect fit for our household which I am really glad about as I spent hours talking to various rescues about their dogs and their habits, likes dislikes, behaviour etc to try to find the right one.

Sarah - I hope that the tests will bring good news. I will be keeping my fingers crossed for you.


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Dogless - I can't believe you have done so much in one morning - are you secretly superwoman? Chevy does seem to be the perfect fit for our household which I am really glad about as I spent hours talking to various rescues about their dogs and their habits, likes dislikes, behaviour etc to try to find the right one.
> 
> Sarah - I hope that the tests will bring good news. I will be keeping my fingers crossed for you.


No....but I do like to work out precise timings etc. Everything is a bit of a military operation here . Had more time than I had planned anyway due to the slightly earlier start .


----------



## L/C

Sarah - fingers crossed it's nothing serious. Lots of positive thoughts for you here.


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless said:


> No....but I do like to work out precise timings etc. Everything is a bit of a military operation here . Had more time than I had planned anyway due to the slightly earlier start .


Please come plan my life for me!! I would love to get everything a bit more organised here rather than it just being that everything else is fitted in around what is in the diary for the day.


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Please come plan my life for me!! I would love to get everything a bit more organised here rather than it just being that everything else is fitted in around what is in the diary for the day.


You'd hate it, trust me. If I have to go anywhere with OH I work stuff out like exactly what time we should leave the house to get to the ferry, then factor in walks for the dogs and a bit of fudge factor etc etc. He is totally laid back and prone to faffing whereas even the idea of being late for anything sends me into a flat spin . I am a "5 minutes before 5 minutes before" sort of person and have probably wasted a significant portion of my life in waiting about as I'm always early :mad2:.


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## Maria_1986

Dogless we have the same issue here - If I am not 5 mins early for something in my head I'm late and I hate being late, I have been known to have a minor panic attack if I know I'm running late. OH however is lucky if he gets somewhere 15 mins after he was supposed to be there, whenever we go anywhere together I tell him we are leaving an hour before we need to. I'm good with the stuff that is planned for a certain time its just all the bits in the middle I know I should do but don't plan for that get forgotten or I run out of time for.


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## Sarah1983

He's just brought me his collar and flexi leash now. I really think he may be hinting at something. But what :idea:

Thanks for the good thoughts. I spent months panicking when they thought I had a brain tumour. I am NOT going to spend months panicking over this. If it is something sinister then I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. At least the German healthcare system is fantastic. Or at least what I've experienced of it so far has been. Wonder if I'll get pics of the inside of my boobs, I got pics of the inside of my brain after a brain scan :yikes:

If you could spare a few good thoughts for our neighbours little boy they'd be appreciated. He was screaming and screaming Saturday morning, so loud it actually woke me up. I figured it was just a tantrum or something. He's now in hospital, has had several operations and is expected to lose some of his hearing  He's only about 5 and a lovely little kid, he doesn't deserve this.


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## moonviolet

L/C jsut post a smilie once ina while so we knwo how you are 

K&M Glad Hal is ok  it's always a worry.

Maria Isn't Chevey doing great.

Sarah fingers crossed it's nothing worrying, I'd be the same and not tell Mum until i knew what was going on.



Dogless said:


> You'd hate it, trust me. If I have to go anywhere with OH I work stuff out like exactly what time we should leave the house to get to the ferry, then factor in walks for the dogs and a bit of fudge factor etc etc. He is totally laid back and prone to faffing whereas even the idea of being late for anything sends me into a flat spin .* I am a "5 minutes before 5 minutes before" sort of person and have probably wasted a significant portion of my life in waiting about as I'm always early *:mad2:.


This was another thing that supported the horrible smoking habit, 9 months smoke free now 

Well done Rudi for being so good in class... not so great for OUCH day.
Hope things go as well with Kilo


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## tiatortilla

Maria- Chevy sounds fab  are there any pictures, I haven't seen her yet!
Sarah- Hope it's nothing serious, sending thoughts your way!
Dogless - I am exactly the same as you about being late  I also have an OH who faffs about and is late for everything, drives me insane!
-
Recall was better today! I took a ball out but she gets bored of playing with toys outside after about 10 minutes and would rather run about sniffing things.. but it worked for a while anyway and all subsequent recalls were good


----------



## Izzysmummy

Sarah - Fingers crossed it's nothing to worry about and you get seen soon!

Oh dear, I think in my relationship Im the one who faffs and is always late ! I think I'd drive all you super organised ladies crazy :crazy:! (flights/ferrys are different though as Im terrified they'll go without me so am always uber early )

ETA: Forgot to mention that a friend at work ordered 4kg of bananas in her weekly shop instead of 4 individual bananas so I've been given a few! So Im going to have a baking night and try out FRM's banana treat recipe!


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## kat&molly

Sarah- fingers firmly crossed for you  I had a similar thing a few years ago and it turned out to be cysts. At least that sort of thing is dealt with quickly so you shouldn't have to worry for too long.
Hope all goes well for the little lad .

Ginge- that sounded a bit spooky.

Dogless- well done to the LCH at class.

MV- being nosey again  whats the eventual aim with the cinnamon stick? To indicate/bark. Sounds interesting.

I had worked myself in to a tizz over Hal going in today, someone I know lost a 7 month old bitch under GA last week. I know its rare but doesn't stop the mind going in to overdrive. Its been so quiet today - cant believe I'll be pleased to have him home.:scared:

Gorgeous walk this morning, a huge area I call the Loop, Evie never is off lead because of Sheep- but for the first time ever today there weren't any so she had a great time.:thumbup:
The girls have more or less got the IC on leave now. Scruff really had to fight against licking again- but managed it.:thumbup:
The workmen are everywhere- which would explain why we didn't have water until about 30 minutes ago- only someone forgot to warn us.
I did manage to find 1 workman working on his own so I got Evie out the car and we just stood watching from a distance for a few minutes.


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah - fingers firmly crossed for you sweetie. x And the little lad next door. 

I am definitely the messy, faffy, lazy and disorganised one around here.


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## GingerRogers

I heard about this on Radio 4 news this morning (heres a couple of links) and Dogless I thought of you, not for the personal reasons  but isn't that more or less what the stressless is supposed to help with, calcium flow , and that was developed for humans first wasn't it. I was interested when I heard about the stressless link as I had come across similar theory when researching migraines and the link to depression/anxiety, was thinking of dosing OH up as well 

OnMedica - News - Five psychiatric disorders genetically linked

Five major psychiatric disorders share common genetic link | Fox News

Hope OUCH day has finished  you and maria would hate to know me, I hate waiting around so I make it a mission to always be late  (I don't really but the first bits true and I always am the second bit )

Sarah - really hope its nothing serious  but pictures of inside your boobs :thumbup: interesting, you can display them next to the brain ones, like the school photos people have of their kids, you can have 'inside my body parts' 

Whats wrong with the neighbours little boy, poor lad, hope he is ok in the long run!

L/C - well done Ely  take care and don't over do it, this forum thing does take up a bit too much time doesn't it 

K&M -glad Hal is ok  hope you can keep him calm 

MV - :thumbup1: at 9 months, we are at 5 months now but its a weekly battle to keep hubby off them, he claims to feel worse rather than better :confused1:

IM - 4 kg of bananas :scared:


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## moonviolet

K&M Bless you for missing the chaos that is Hal  I can fully understand the GA. Tink has under under twice and both times i was a wreck.

The final aim is to have her indicate the presence of a cinnamon stick with a sit just for fun and for her to get to use her awesome nose.( I chose a sit because a down is one of her go to behaviours) We've started with the sticks in the jar while the jar is held to prevent her licking, biting, holding, So now she is sniffing with enthusiasm, i'm requesting a sit before she gets the reward.
Sounds like a great walk and yay for lurking with Evie. We had an event free walk and a lovely chilly coffee on the front step session.


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## Dogless

Very interesting GR - wonder if I'll start taking some Stress-Less . Had a phone call from my GP the other day to check that I was OK  and that my appointment letter had come through. Thought it would be for a nurse or someone but it's for the Consultant Psychiatrist . Evidently I am mad :yikes::crazy:.


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## GingerRogers

Forgot the reason for posting, just got back from the vets and Ginge now weighs 7.4 kg  but the vet thinks she is cute so thats all good  even after doing her anal gland (just the one needing emptying which I think was the case last time) she showed me what to do, rule #1 was never stand directly behind 

Unfortunately she sensed a dog in the waiting room and *totally *  kicked off so need to keep her really calm from now till saturday 

Oh and we had some drama last night, non doggy, my 70 yr old Dad is ski-ing in Austria  with a couple of friends, due to return today, Mum had a call yesterday evening, from the hospital  
Thankfully no broken bones, he has torn his leg tricep :confused1: it was very painful last night but after a dose of painkillers and a night in hospital he was up to being discharged and should be on the flight home as I type, reckons he will be running round like a youngster soon  Thank goodness he can come today as getting home without his friends would have been tricky, (and we wouldn't have been able to pick up our new car) but he will be sending my poor Mum up the wall no doubt


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Very interesting GR - wonder if I'll start taking some Stress-Less . Had a phone call from my GP the other day to check that I was OK  and that my appointment letter had come through. Thought it would be for a nurse or someone but it's for the Consultant Psychiatrist . Evidently I am mad :yikes::crazy:.


I thought it was interesting, although not sure treating brain disorders as purely physical things is completely the right way to go , it was just that they were making out as though it was a complete breakthrough.......... :confused1:

It only fitting that they are sending you straight to the top


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## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> MV - :thumbup1: at 9 months, we are at 5 months now but its a weekly battle to keep hubby off them, he claims to feel worse rather than better :confused1:


He may well feel worse rather than better while his body is working on all the damage the smoking has done. Of course no one tells you that, before you give up. Tell him to hang in there I'm sure it will get better


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Very interesting GR - wonder if I'll start taking some Stress-Less . Had a phone call from my GP the other day to check that I was OK  and that my appointment letter had come through. Thought it would be for a nurse or someone but it's for the Consultant Psychiatrist . *Evidently I am mad :yikes::crazy*:.


Well we knew that, all the best people are


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## Miss.PuddyCat

If my new Ipod would only load the video that I just took of Sophie and I out in the back yard playing Id post it here.

I asked this question awhile ago but no on replied to my post. Ive taken Sophies grooming on myself and want to get her hair back to its full length. The thing is since can be minus 25 or colder here right now Id like to avoid giving her a bath.

I gave her one the other day as she rolled in pee and then a dead animal (her fav)

I was looking at dry shampoo was wondering if anyone had any recommendations? Sophie hair picks up alot alot of smells.

Thanks again


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## moonviolet

Sorry MCP i know nothign about grooming a dog that needs much more than a wipe over with a damp cloth


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## Miss.PuddyCat

moonviolet said:


> Sorry MCP i know nothign about grooming a dog that needs much more than a wipe over with a damp cloth


To be honest I sometimes wish Sophie was like that as her hair collects alot of things, sand, dirt, twigs, leafs, bug etc the sink is black at times, she also loves swimming so can smell of seaweed, dead fish etc. And she loves rolling in dead animals. So bathing her once a month is the norm, I just feel bad with how cold it is as I have to wrap her in towels and blow dry her as she shivers.

Her hair also collects alot of smells like if we make tacos, she smells like one etc.

I dont mind grooming her and itll save me 400$ a year in taking her to the groomers and so far Ive not had any trouble doing it myself.

I also wont be taking her back as my mom told me this morning that three people were fired as they were on their phones instead of supervising the dogs.


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## Beth17

Sarah keeping fingers crossed everything is fine and also for your next door neighbour. poor lad 

Dogless you're not mad it's everyone else :crazy:

MV glad you had a lovely if chilly doorstep session.

K&M Glad Hal is ok. Good luck keeping him calm.

Ginge I hope your mum can keep your dad calm while he heals 

L/C good luck with the training!

Well had a hectic day as back at uni so lots of mad rushing about to get Sam to my dads, get to uni; come back from uni to walk Oscar and then back to uni again before finally picking Sam up and home. Oscars walk was nice and uneventful and he was fantastic; he then spent the afternoon with my mum in bed as she has flu. 
Sam was apparently a star and was quite happy running errands and playing with their new foster girl  He is now asleep and Oscar is pestering and whining as he wants to play with him


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## Sarah1983

Next one is out MV 
Synchronizing Desires

Ginge, I hope your dad heals quickly! And that he's not too difficult to keep calm.

MPC, I have no idea about grooming either, short haired dogs only for me!

Dogless, all the best people are completely mad 

Spen made me go :001_wub: tonight. I was washing the dishes and he proceeded to bring me every item that I'd left on the sofa, one by one. Everything except the half full bag of popcorn. Which was on top of several of the items he brought me. He'd pushed it aside but hadn't eaten it. Can't say for certain whether any of it fell out and got eaten but he hadn't raided the bag. Good going for a starving stomach on legs!


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## GingerRogers

Just to let you all know, just in case you were alarmed  I just checked and the ninja was not 5.8kg she was 6.8kg now 7.4kg which is good as I was becoming increasingly alarmed as the day wore on, the proportion of weight she had put on was quite vast  phew 

I did however forget to pick up her flea and wormer as she was too busy bark bark barking.

Dads home, he is walking about so apparently not as alarming as we thought  thats not like a man to over play things is it  I think she will be able to keep him calm, but herself off the wine, not much hope 

Bless Spen, :001_wub: I love him (and I love popcorn)

MPC I too know nothing about grooming, I can't imagine the dry shampoos will get dead animal smells out though :confused1: not if they are anyhting like Buffers dead seal smell :frown:

Glad Sam has been good and hope he resists play tonight


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## kat&molly

Ginge- hope you're Dad's ok- and your poor Mum copes. 

Dogless-Hope your appt. is soon.

L/C- dont be a stranger.

OH has done the vets visits for me, I told him to ask about Keyhole- apparently thats what they were doing- but they haven't.
I think this cone is too short, so I have to go get another tomorrow. Have ordered a comfy one but it wont be here till Monday- I tried leaving it off for a bit but he can get right at the stitches. He's tried jumping up the work surface, playing in the garden and getting on the armchair  and of course he was starving. He's determined to send me to an early grave.:scared:

MV and Ginge- well done on all that time now without the weed. Just dont get asking me.

MPC- never used a dry shampoo either- sorry.


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## Twiggy

Sarah - Hope there is nothing to worry about - fingers crossed.

K&M - Pleased Hal is feeling fine, even if he is driving you loopy.

Ginge and MV - Well done on the ciggy front but, like K&M, I'm failing miserably at the moment.

I've been instructing all day so I'm shattered now but all the dogs worked very well and we had an enjoyable time.


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## Maria_1986

tiatortilla said:


> Maria- Chevy sounds fab  are there any pictures, I haven't seen her yet!


She is the dog in the pic on my profile.


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## moonviolet

Maria_1986 said:


> She is the dog in the pic on my profile.


That is such a beautiful photo.


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## MollySmith

I am here *waves* I don't know if I can get through the last four or five days I've missed! I will try to later.

We are all fine, just busy with a nocturnal client, arguing with a knob who blocked in our driveway today and trying to catch up with my OU stuff too, nevermind the freelance stuff 

Molly is well, mentally happy to have both of us home. Sadly I've been too busy to leave her yet but she's settling well anyway  

I hope everyone is okay?


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## Izzysmummy

Nice to see you back MS. 

K+M - glad to head Hals ok. I'm sure he'll be giving you grey hairs running around for the next 10days when he's supposed to be recovering! 

Had a lovely walk with monkey dog tonight, decided on a training street walk, came across a man up a ladder emptying some gutters and sat and watched him for a while, she was great! Continued on and came across some men putting up some scaffolding so sat and watched them for a minute too. Then walked past a cat on a wall next to us and she was completely oblivious! Checked out a building site (they're building a house on a pretty small site so I have a nosy to see what they're doing whenever we go past ) then we got home and it was almost time for Tarnus to be arriving home so we waited at the end of the drive and watched the world go by and did some training until he got back.

Ive also made a batch of the banana and carrot biscuits which have gone done well and the peanut butter and banana ones are in the oven and smelling very good! :thumbup:


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## kat&molly

Thats a lovely pic of Chevy.

IM- those biscuits sound good- my girls are strange, they dont like Banana.


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## Miss.PuddyCat

Yeh I dont think itd bring out the dead seagull smell 

Im hoping to take Sophie out for a walk later at the beach and hopefully we continue to meet nice mannered dogs, dont want to push our luck tho.


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## Symone

Well today has been a long day and I feel tired.
Shamaya was being either really good or really bad on her walks. She only pulled when we were near some other dogs or close to our destination..
She had her last puppy group session at the vets today. I asked about her pulling there (Lucky for me the trainer saw how she is because she was behind us when we waked to the vets)
She said that it looks like she is just really excited, and couldn't see any nervousness at all, but she said not to rule it out.
She said that her GSD was the same and recommended a head collar. She did say to continue trying the stopping method with a harness on first, though. 

I feel really bad for letting her get this bad with her pulling. I should had put a foot down the first time she ever pulled but ofc it wasn't bad then so I didn't realise.. I really should had done more research on stuff like walking to heel before I even got her, but it did not cross my mind.
I feel like a bad owner right now.


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## Miss.PuddyCat

Symone said:


> Well today has been a long day and I feel tired.
> Shamaya was being either really good or really bad on her walks. She only pulled when we were near some other dogs or close to our destination..
> She had her last puppy group session at the vets today. I asked about her pulling there (Lucky for me the trainer saw how she is because she was behind us when we waked to the vets)
> She said that it looks like she is just really excited, and couldn't see any nervousness at all, but she said not to rule it out.
> She said that her GSD was the same and recommended a head collar. She did say to continue trying the stopping method with a harness on first, though.
> 
> I feel really bad for letting her get this bad with her pulling. I should had put a foot down the first time she ever pulled but ofc it wasn't bad then so I didn't realise.. I really should had done more research on stuff like walking to heel before I even got her, but it did not cross my mind.
> I feel like a bad owner right now.


Dont feel bad, the amount of mistakes I feel I made with Sophie is huge, times were I knew I should have stepped in but didnt till it got to much.

Sophie pulls when she sees another dog, or small rodent. I find a bungee leash helps lessen the strain on my arms and on her. I know the one thing we failed at dog training was heel. I dont like her walking beside me or any where close she tends to get under foot and I strike a pose to not land on her.


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## Symone

Miss.PuddyCat said:


> Dont feel bad, the amount of mistakes I feel I made with Sophie is huge, times were I knew I should have stepped in but didnt till it got to much.
> 
> Sophie pulls when she sees another dog, or small rodent. I find a bungee leash helps lessen the strain on my arms and on her. I know the one thing we failed at dog training was heel. I dont like her walking beside me or any where close she tends to get under foot and I strike a pose to not land on her.


I guess people don't see a problem until it is too bad 
And I might get a bungee leash if it will help her  I don't mind too much about my arms (At the moment that is.. probably will if she still pulls when stronger  ) I just want what's best for her. And I'm sure she will overall prefer no strain on her neck or chest (when harnessed) so.. I really need to tackle this.

I also don't like shamaya walking too close beside me. I nearly stepped on her today when she was walking nicely.

How long did it take Sophie to get used to the bungee leash?


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## moonviolet

Great to see you MS i was about to send my sniffer dog after you. 

IM sounds liek a great walk. I'm a big fan of just sitting sometimes and thats not *just*because i'ma lazy mare  the treats sound yummy 

Twiggy glad you have an enjoyable day, Have you trained your dogs to massage yoru feet adn bring you something relaxing to drink? that would be quite handy right now.

K&M you are going to have a job on yoru hands keeping that livewire calm.

Sarah Spen is such a sweetie.

Symone dont' beat yoruself up many many many young dogs pull, You can't be a bad owner you care and are working on it.!

GR glad your Dad is doing OK  and that Ginge hasn't put on a scary amount of weight.


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## Twiggy

Symone said:


> I guess people don't see a problem until it is too bad
> And I might get a bungee leash if it will help her  I don't mind too much about my arms (At the moment that is.. probably will if she still pulls when stronger  ) I just want what's best for her. And I'm sure she will overall prefer no strain on her neck or chest (when harnessed) so.. I really need to tackle this.
> 
> I also don't like shamaya walking too close beside me. I nearly stepped on her today when she was walking nicely.
> 
> How long did it take Sophie to get used to the bungee leash?


Don't give yourself grief. I've made mistakes with every single dog I've had. OK perhaps not the same mistake twice but lots of different ones....LOL

Shamaya is only a puppy and you will succeed with the LLW in time.


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## Miss.PuddyCat

Symone said:


> I guess people don't see a problem until it is too bad
> And I might get a bungee leash if it will help her  I don't mind too much about my arms (At the moment that is.. probably will if she still pulls when stronger  ) I just want what's best for her. And I'm sure she will overall prefer no strain on her neck or chest (when harnessed) so.. I really need to tackle this.
> 
> I also don't like shamaya walking too close beside me. I nearly stepped on her today when she was walking nicely.
> 
> How long did it take Sophie to get used to the bungee leash?


I think my mom is finally realizing this with feeding Sophie at the table as she now sits and barks until given a treat, and I think my mom is finally getting annoyed with it.

I think if Sophie was a bigger dog like a lab, golden etc I wouldnt mind her beside me but because is so small she gets under foot or I have even kicked her not knowingly as she got to close infront and I lifted her bum up!

I think she was shocked the first time she took a zoom on it and bounced right back lol but overall shes fine and its one of my most used leashes.

I also find she doesnt choke herself as much on the bungee as it has more give in it. If out of all my leashes my bungee one is my fav.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Great to see you MS i was about to send my sniffer dog after you.
> 
> IM sounds liek a great walk. I'm a big fan of just sitting sometimes and thats not *just*because i'ma lazy mare  the treats sound yummy
> 
> *Twiggy glad you have an enjoyable day, Have you trained your dogs to massage yoru feet adn bring you something relaxing to drink? that would be quite handy right now.*
> 
> By rights it should be hubby trained to do that shouldn't it? At least he's good at making cups of tea - that's all he's good at, but never mind....


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## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Don't give yourself grief. I've made mistakes with every single dog I've had. OK perhaps not the same mistake twice but lots of different ones....LOL
> 
> Shamaya is only a puppy and you will succeed with the LLW in time.


I guess it is impossible to be perfect. 
I also guess that I will probably make many more mistakes? Hopefully no serious ones. 
It's nice knowing that i'm not the only one to make a mistake..  I just feel bad because I did a lot of research on dogs before I got her and walking to heel never crossed my mind. 
And I just made another mistake.. Rubbed my eye and it's the first time in ages that I'm wearing makeup! At least I made myself laugh. My finger's multicoloured now. 

And true.  She seems to understand that I would prefer her at my side, but if it's her choice she prefers to pull. 
It also doesn't help that the OH doesn't like to do it. He says she will just grow out of it.


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## foxyrockmeister

Wow, I forget how fast this thread moves 

I'm glad you're all ok though what with spooky GSD's, OUCH day, stolen cheese, chasing lurchers, tonnes of bananas, tired dogs, tired owners, stinky dogs and whatever else I may have missed!!

MPC - I have this for my little stink bomb Dogs & Co Foaming Mousse Dry Dog Shampoo. No Alcohol, No Salt. Eliminates Fox & Badger.: Amazon.co.uk: Pet Supplies It's not as effective as a wash in 'fox poo shampoo' but it does help freshen her up a bit and I'm sure Sophie isn't quite as vile as Lily!!

We've had a good day, took them to the forest this morning and no dramas at all :thumbup: I had to cross two little lanes so had to put them on their leads, it's a walk we've done a million times before without a problem but I was still a bit nervous of these 2 crossings as I haven't yet had a successful experience of having them both on lead together since 'the incident' and Branston's muzzle hasn't arrived yet. Anyway I told myself to get a grip as we've crossed these lanes soo many times without a problem, We got out onto lane 1 and all is going ok when a bliddy blackbird goes and lands about 20ft ahead of us :yikes: Branston sees it and his body tenses, he starts to pull towards it... Now I don't know if I did the right thing here or not... I got the feeling that if I were to try and pull him back or correct him for lungeing to the bird then that would send him into one of his spins and he would end up redirecting again onto either Lily or me, so I just stayed calm and kept walking, just letting him pull like train. We got to the gap in the hedge where we go back into the forest and I made him sit and watch before letting him off... and then breathed a huge sigh of relief.
It's sad really as it made me realise how much has changed in the past 2 weeks, we have done that walk so many times with no problems but now I feel like I'm walking on eggshells with him 

Anyway, all that said he was a diamond for the whole walk, crossed the other lane with no tension at all, did LOADS of recalls and random popping him back on his lead just for a few steps without Lily.

He is now rearranging his bed as clearly having the mattress up the right way inside the bed just isn't good enough.... Oh... now he's turned it upside down, folded it in half and kicked it out of the bed completely, he's jumped up on the sofa


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## Sarah1983

Symone said:


> And I might get a bungee leash if it will help her


I wouldn't bother. They're fine if your dog just does the occasional lunge but with a dog who puts constant pressure on them I've found they very quickly lose their elasticity.


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## Thorne

Hi all, I will aim to catch up tomorrow 

This little chap that I was so worried about after his screaming episode is now up for homing, I expect there'll be lots of interest in him: Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
Took him on two short walks yesterday which were incident-free, apart from a jump and a worried look when a nearby Lab barked at him on our morning walk. Crossed the road to avoid other dogs and rewarded him for looking at them, Murray didn't seem troubled bless him. He is a thief to his core though, always looking for interesting pavement treasures to grab!
He had onlead and offlead dog-to-dog sessions in the garden with a dog his size and was apparently wimpy but not stressed, so sounds very promising.

Poor Breeze was spooked in the garden by someone out shooting this morning so we postponed our walk until dusk. Not much to say really, went to our meadow for sniffing and galloping, both dogs were on their best behaviour :thumbsup:
Planning to go a bit further afield with one or both of them over the weekend for variety's sake.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Great to see you MS i was about to send my sniffer dog after you.


If MS wears cinnamon perfume she'll be on it :thumbup:.

FRM - glad you had a good day .

GR - thank goodness Ninja isn't rapidly expanding .

k&m - hope Hal The Hurricane isn't egging Evie on too :aureola:.

Sarah - VERY impressed that the popcorn wasn't eaten :thumbup:.

MPC - another clueless person about grooming I'm afraid!!

An OK training class. Loads of people at the end of the hall chatting (pre Crufts excitement I think) and in and out banging the doors plus dogs in and out all greeting excitedly etc. BCH did very well under the circumstances but it was bloody hard work :scared:. There is club next week for Kilo as someone else is taking it - the same man who did the Rally - O night for us so I'm looking forward to it...wish I'd asked if we could do that again.


----------



## Guest

I shall go back on a liking spree in a second. Today wasn't too good, a man touched Z and Zand shot back like he'd been hit. Then some woman goes to me "I hope he isn't going to have that strap on his face for the rest of his life is he? Really at his age." tutted then shut the shop door on me. The way she said it, I very very nearly cried there and then in the shop. Then I went into the local feed shop to get a bone for Zand, mum refused to hold Zand, then when he properly started bucking away as I started paying (again the cashier was male) mum was like "Well you do get stressed over nothing." Luckily the shop people weren't bothered and just ignored Zand while he was bucking. Got tutted by another woman. I was getting more and more upset by this, then as I was walking past a pub, a curly haired dog barked at close range. Near heart attack for both. Walked home. Cried like a girl. 

On the plus, Zand walked LLW very well. On the negative, the dogmatic has left indent marks on his face, only the fur though I think. Shall have to do for a bit longer as I had unexpected BT bills yesterday. 
Also, the other lurcher owner came in at work and was all "I'VE BEEN CONVERTED!! I LOVE IT!!" over the Gentle leader. Her lurch is huge and a complete powerhouse, so pleased there. 

Have been asleep the past four hours due to Syneses.

Sorry for the whinge and hope you are all okay. 

STILL CAN'T GET HOLD OF BEHAVIOUR LADY. At least it shows she's busy and demand. :lol: I shall try emailing her tommorow


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## tiatortilla

Maria_1986 said:


> She is the dog in the pic on my profile.


Aw what a pretty girl! Lovely face


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## tiatortilla

LO - Sorry you've had a bit of a rubbish day, it's awful being tutted at. Can't believe a woman shut a door on you for using a headcollar!
Symone- Don't worry about the LLW, sometimes it's finding the method that works best. Tia's 15 months and still pulls about 1/2 of the time. I've tried a few methods which didn't work and I just don't stress about it now - she gets loads of praise for walking nicely and I just ignore her if she won't do it, and that's worked better than anything else has for her


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## Guest

Anyone want to see pictures of our playdate last weekend? 

Happy dogs!


















LOL



























Fishing 









Should I start taking reservations?


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## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Anyone want to see pictures of our playdate last weekend?
> 
> Happy dogs!
> 
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> LOL
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> Fishing
> 
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> Should I start taking reservations?


First in the queue here :thumbup:.


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## Sarah1983

Ouesi, sod the reservations, Spencer wants to know if he can move in right away. 

LO, sorry you've had a crap day 

Dogless, I am also extremely impressed the popcorn wasn't eaten. I'd forgotten it was there.

FRM, Spen rearranges his bed (and towels and our bed and coats and anything else he can possibly find to lie on) and then walks off too. I can lay a towel out nice and flat on the floor, he'll come along, bunch it all up and then seem to try to straighten it out again. Sorry about the blackbird incident. I think you did the right thing in avoiding him kicking off though. Sometimes we have to pick our battles and let something a bit less important slide for a while while we work on something else.


----------



## Guest

L/C that's awesome you had a high intensity play without spill over, gosh I bet that was a great feeling!

Ginger, yay for ninjas barking less and checking in with you!! Gotta love the magic treats dropping from the sky to help with dog issues 

Izzy, so glad you had a great class!

Maria, love that recall past food game, and now I want to see pictures of the new coat!

Dogless, I'm trying really hard not to giggle at Rudi being a little furry piranha. Just keep saying "this too shall pass, this too shall pass, this too shall pass." And yeah, for good class and a well behaved LCH 

As for the trainer, our Breez won't take treats from one of our agility trainers, and I chalked it up to her being a smoker. We're not, and I guess her fingers smell funny to Breez. 

Sarah, fingers crossed for you... Love that Spencer brought you the cheese, what a cutie 

Tiatortilla, glad recalls are improving!

K&M yay for off lead time!

Moonviolet is that nosework you're doing? I'm totally intrigued by nose work and want to get in to it in my non-existent spare time LOL.

MissPuddyCat, sorry, I know nothing about dry shampoos... Our version of a bath most days is to take the furballs to the stream. The only time we use shampoo is when the gross one rolls in dead disgustingness and then I use kid shampoo.

Twiggy, yay for good classes and good doggies 

FRM no dramas is GOOD! Glad to hear it!


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

Thanks FRM Ill give that a hunt down and see if I can find it. Im afraid a dip in the bay shed be bring out seaweed stuck in her hair 

Just a moan on the outside of the dog topic but I am feel very overwhelmed by all my school work, I just see it piling up and up and up. Last week I understood all this and felt good. Right now I feel like shite and cant make heads or tails of my work.

Its also reading week so I cant get ahold of any professors. I think i bit more off then I can chew trying to be a nurse  I just feel so exhausted and Im tried of my body feeling like 80 and not 23. Some morning it takes me a bit to get going just cause my body feels drained. I tried to put in a work complaint about it as it is work related but was told it was my own doing and to suck it as its part of the job.

I didnt realize I was supposed to loose feeling in my fingers and hands, shots of pain up my arms from my thumbs, and that my wrists sound like cement grinders when they crack or I twist them :scared:

Time to hit the sack and cuddle Sophie


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear MPC - the hard slog will be worth it in the end, honestly.


----------



## kat&molly

Symone- you wont crack the LLW if your OH isn't on board- and they dont 'just grow out of it'. I'll second what Sarah says about the Bungee leads- I think they encourage pulling .

Sorry you had a bad day LO. Hope todays better.

Ouesi- I'd love to say how gorgeous those photos are but I'm already in the Dinghy.:001_tt1:

The Little Man doesn't know what to do with himself this morning :crying: he does manage to forget he's poorly when theres food around though.
I've already got bruises and he had a poo then somehow managed to drag the cone through it.


----------



## Maria_1986

IM - those biscuits sound good - is there a book/site you use for recipes?

MPC - not a clue about grooming but dead seagull smell sounds horrible, I hope you find something to use.

L/O - sorry you had a bad day, how rude of people to tut at you. I hope today is a better day.

ouesi - can I reserve 1st jan through to 31st dec please?

K&M - poo covered cone - eww! Hope he is feeling better soon

Sorry to the people I've missed - I think I need to get a WAYWO notebook so I can take notes as I read new posts!


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> L/C that's awesome you had a high intensity play without spill over, gosh I bet that was a great feeling!
> 
> *As for the trainer, our Breez won't take treats from one of our agility trainers, and I chalked it up to her being a smoker. We're not, and I guess her fingers smell funny to Breez. *
> 
> FRM no dramas is GOOD! Glad to hear it!


Eh? I'm a smoker and I can't get rid of most of the doggies that come here. I'm like the Pied Piper and could cheerfully disappear into the blue yonder with all their dogs behind me....


----------



## Izzysmummy

Ouesi - Ive packed our bags and we're on our way!!

K+M - Poor Hal! Ewww to the poo cone! Hope you caught him before he ran back in the house with his poo-shade on! 

MPC - Stick with it! It'll all be worth it in the end!

LO - I hope you're feeling better today! What horrible people you have living near you!

FRM - Well done for trusting your instincts and it worked, he didnt redirect so I think thats a positive. And something else to mention to the trainer so she can get an idea of the triggers that contribute to the reaction.

Maria - I got one of the recipes from this thread http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/287595-pickles-have-had-baking-day.html
The peanut butter and banana ones I just googled and found one. I think I left them in a bit long cos they're a bit burnt on the edges but Izzy doesnt seem to mind !

Izzy had her usual run around at the park this morning and was very excited when she got home, ran upstairs on the bed, grabbed my stitch teddy and then proceeded to have zoomies round the house! Maybe she knows Millie Moo is coming to stay tonight?!


----------



## Maria_1986

Izzysmummy said:


> Maria - I got one of the recipes from this thread http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/287595-pickles-have-had-baking-day.html
> The peanut butter and banana ones I just googled and found one. I think I left them in a bit long cos they're a bit burnt on the edges but Izzy doesnt seem to mind !


Thank you  I think I will have a go at the banana and carrot ones this weekend.


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> I shall go back on a liking spree in a second. Today wasn't too good, a man touched Z and Zand shot back like he'd been hit. Then some woman goes to me "I hope he isn't going to have that strap on his face for the rest of his life is he? Really at his age." tutted then shut the shop door on me. The way she said it, I very very nearly cried there and then in the shop. Then I went into the local feed shop to get a bone for Zand, mum refused to hold Zand, then when he properly started bucking away as I started paying (again the cashier was male) mum was like "Well you do get stressed over nothing." Luckily the shop people weren't bothered and just ignored Zand while he was bucking. Got tutted by another woman. I was getting more and more upset by this, then as I was walking past a pub, a curly haired dog barked at close range. Near heart attack for both. Walked home. Cried like a girl.
> 
> On the plus, Zand walked LLW very well. On the negative, the dogmatic has left indent marks on his face, only the fur though I think. Shall have to do for a bit longer as I had unexpected BT bills yesterday.
> Also, the other lurcher owner came in at work and was all "I'VE BEEN CONVERTED!! I LOVE IT!!" over the Gentle leader. Her lurch is huge and a complete powerhouse, so pleased there.
> 
> Have been asleep the past four hours due to Syneses.
> 
> Sorry for the whinge and hope you are all okay.
> 
> STILL CAN'T GET HOLD OF BEHAVIOUR LADY. At least it shows she's busy and demand. :lol: I shall try emailing her tommorow


What a horrible afternoon. You know what though, I read it and thought what an ignorant woman she was and how stupid she sounded. I think I might have told her she sounded silly 

I've not done this but thought about it, a friend has a rescue that hates people and dogs and my friend is easing her back into life and it's going well, ups and downs...you know. She has a standard reflective vest that she bought from a cycle shop and has written on the back in a marker pen that her 'Dog is in training'. She wrote it over a template she printed out so the writing looks very neat and official and it explains at lot and sometimes stops people being so judgemental. When she gets comments she merely points to her back, it's a bit of protection that she finds stupid judgemental types can relate to. People mistake her for being a charity and have tried to donate 

Off to walk beasty, she's barking at everything in the house this morning, waiting for OH to get back. I fear she'll be very disappointed when she sees I'm taking her out instead.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> If MS wears cinnamon perfume she'll be on it :thumbup:.
> 
> FRM - glad you had a good day .
> 
> GR - thank goodness Ninja isn't rapidly expanding .
> 
> k&m - hope Hal The Hurricane isn't egging Evie on too :aureola:.
> 
> Sarah - VERY impressed that the popcorn wasn't eaten :thumbup:.
> 
> MPC - another clueless person about grooming I'm afraid!!
> 
> *An OK training class. Loads of people at the end of the hall chatting (pre Crufts excitement I think) and in and out banging the doors plus dogs in and out all greeting excitedly etc. BCH did very well under the circumstances but it was bloody hard work :scared:. There is club next week for Kilo as someone else is taking it - the same man who did the Rally - O night for us so I'm looking forward to it...wish I'd asked if we could do that again.*




NI always enter a team in the World Cup Obedience on the Sunday at Crufts and I think Mr M McCartney is Team Manager - hence the excitement!!


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Eh? I'm a smoker and I can't get rid of most of the doggies that come here. I'm like the Pied Piper and could cheerfully disappear into the blue yonder with all their dogs behind me....


LOL well then I just don't know! But Breez will NOT take anything from this trainer, and she will take treats from other people. 
Then again, Breez is a bit of a diva, no telling what her issue is...


----------



## Guest

Thank you for the comfort guys. This mornings walk was better. Met the same spaniel three times though. :lol: We followed a very slow old lady and we couldn't go around because of traffic. Then she stepped up a driveway till we could pass, then said hello to Zand, who of course, made a biiiiiiggg arc around her. Had to stop and sit for about three prams too. He has been good, and there were no snidey comments either.  We do have a bright yellow reflective coat, my handwriting is a bit naff though. Thanks for the idea though.

Mum shall try to phone behaviourist while I'm on the evening shift tonight as we have tried the morning and afternoon and there is a better chance she'll be home. 

Can I come live with you Ouesi? CAN WE? CAN WE? :lol:


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## Izzysmummy

Hi ladies,

I know it was a while ago that we were discussing it but I just found out today that the talk I went to about the 2 day diet was actually given by the author of this book if anyone was still thinking about it. The 2-Day Diet: Diet Two Days a Week. Eat Normally for Five.: Amazon.co.uk: Dr. Michelle Harvie, Professor Tony Howell: Books

She spoke in the talk about an alternative to the calorie restriction with 2 days of carb restriction of 50g/day which according to the research she showed worked just as well.


----------



## Sarah1983

Feeling a little frustrated at the moment. Seem to be getting nowhere with Spencers focus on me away from the flat. He doesn't want whatever food I have, doesn't want to play, doesn't want fusses. I don't know what it is he does want! Get him back outside the flat and its like a switch has been flicked, he's focused and wants treats and games. If I get him to the fields he'll also work happily for me. I thought it was the leash making the difference at first but he works on and off leash in these areas with no difference.

I assume I've gone wrong somewhere but now I'm not sure how to fix it. It's not like I'm going from a boring environment to one with huge distractions either, it's just grass and a quiet road. Outside the flat is just grass and a footpath. He can follow commands but is clearly distracted and not really interested and will almost take my fingers off when taking treats. I assume he's stressed about something but god only knows what. Anyone have any advice?


----------



## moonviolet

LO glad you had a better walk his morning. Tink isn't one for the affection of strangers especially if they go straight for her head. SHe steps back and wants to sniff their hand, by which point most are looking at me liek i beat her, so i make a comment about her being quite discerning and accompany it with a big smile :lol: The exception to this is grey haired men, to a point where OH has asked if I'm after a sugar daddy. 


Ouesi yes it's a bit of silly nosework, Tink already finds hidden objects, keys, toys, scentcloth. This is the first time I will be asking for an indication not a retrieve. We're a bit jack of all trades master of none, but it's all so much, so many games to play. Those photos look like doggy heaven, love the flying ears/ bow with swerve preparation one 

Talkings of games the ring toss is coming along another short session this morning with an improving success rate 

Sarah you know my suggestion to so many things is sit and wait.


----------



## GingerRogers

Getting butterfly's about tomorrow , hubby has gone to get the new car :smile5:, ninja ate a small plastic shepherd last night 

LO - I don't like that lady, ignore her.

Ouesi - I need to live with you then I wont need to go tomorrow


----------



## Symone

Hope you will find something that works, Sarah. 

IM - I think i'll have to give that diet a try. Sounds good. 

Today has been boring with Shamaya and I. One of those lazy days spent in bed until 11amish. 
She was happily playing at the end of the bed while I read. Decided to nosey out of the window at one point and sat on my face to do so.
I have such a lady like puppy.

Got vets later for her pet passport. Today marks day 21 since her rabies jab so fingers crossed they let me part with the £81 for it! (Well.. the oh.  He is good for some things )

Fingers crossed that she won't wet herself out of excitement again...  Every time at the vet. She got her tail in it as well causing a bigger mess, last time. Wagging it and getting wee drops everywhere!!!

Also, I bought her one of those cube feeders and put a bit of fish4dogs dry food in it and she seems confused as what to do with it. I rolled it about so some fell out and she decided that pouncing on it was more interesting. Annoying really for she loved getting food out at the one at the vets! (was something for them to try at puppy class)
It's times like this I believe I bought a cat, instead.. I'm pretty sure she meow'd the other day :001_tongue:

Edit : Hope tomorrow will go well for you, GR! Only saw your post after I posted


----------



## Maria_1986

L/O - glad this mornings walk was better

Sarah - I have no suggestions but I hope you find the solution.

GR - I hope tomorrow goes well

Symone - sounds like a really nice morning. I will keep my fingers crossed for a dry vet visit, although if it makes you feel any better we get a lot of dogs that come in to work and pee on the floor - one peed on my foot a few weeks ago. We do do have one poor dog that poos as soon as he comes through the door out of fear


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> NI always enter a team in the World Cup Obedience on the Sunday at Crufts and I think Mr M McCartney is Team Manager - hence the excitement!!


Indeed he is, much hustle and bustle .

Sarah - I have no idea about the Spendog's focus; hopefully it will come back in time if not 'pushed'?

GR - Hope tomorrow goes well and you enjoy taking the new car there . As for the plastic shepherd....poo watch . I was picking up Kilo's poo once and was surprised to see it looking back at me....he had swallowed a googly eye :crazy:. Not to mention the expanding poo when he had swallowed some sponge :yikes:.

Great walk with the CHs this morning; they walked nicely together to the top fields, we all just played and enjoyed it and then they walked nicely home . Just one attempt at tearing me limb from limb by Rudi which was very short lived . Went much later than normal as hubby had given a grand speech the night before last about doing more with the boys (again :huh and identified one of the reasons why he doesn't do many walks at all with us as the fact that I am getting back from a walk as he's getting up; I go too early. This morning I waited a few hours until he got up, had a coffee etc and then asked....didn't want to come  :incazzato:. Took them out for an hour and a half - then got taken for lunch....male human version of appeasement signals being thrown out all over the place .


----------



## Maria_1986

An overall good walk today. I came in with a huge grin on my face but also with a list of stuff to work more on. This photo explains why I was grinning










This is Chevy's first off lead recall from more than a few steps away  She was being such a good girl on the flexi with recalling that when I saw that there was nobody around I decided to attempt an off lead recall training session. Started by stepping back once and getting her to come to me built up to 10 steps away and then sent her off to explore before recalling for cheese and sausage.

However we met another small dog further along our walk, I had put her back on lead by this point but even though we were nowhere built up she still did a very noisey play bow and proceeded to bounce around a bit, a few mins later we met a black lab and she was excited but not so bouncy and was quiet. So I have roped in the help of my Cinnamon Trust Doggies (2 bichon x cavs) to help do some small dog training if needed. Unfortunately the concentration we had previously went after meeting the westie so I worked on getting her to concentrate on me again but it was not as successful as it had been before encountering the other dogs. Had huge issues getting her attention on the way home too once we got back on the pavements as she was trying to catch up with the person walking in front of us (no dog).


----------



## MollySmith

Well done Chevy  You must be so proud, it's a great moment Maria 

IzzysMum - if you're doing that diet, can we team up online somehow? I have bought the book by Dr Mosley and watched the Horizon programme (it was still on iplayer two weeks ago). I thought I'd do my two days from 2 until 2 so I'm asleep for some of it!

Well I came back from the walk and it was okay. She spun like a top at a dog getting out of the car so I look her off the harness when we were at the end and we walked across the car park on a lead with her new friend Billy a beautiful choc lab (my favourites!) with no problem. I do think it's that bloody harness.

I have also been a brave lady and booked a break for June in Weybourne on the Norfolk coast with the aim of being able to walk my lady around Holt and Wells next to the sea. I have a goal! We shall take a run up next week for my birthday and go to Old Hunstanton beach and get chips. 

And I've managed to click my shoulder, felt very faint and in doing so, the bath overran and I've flooded the house and blew the electrics....


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> As for the plastic shepherd....poo watch . I was picking up Kilo's poo once and was surprised to see it looking back at me....he had swallowed a googly eye :crazy:. Not to mention the expanding poo when he had swallowed some sponge :yikes:.


When I say ate I mean chewed, looking at the debris she can't have ingested much if any. It was hubbys when he was little (so practically an antique ), his mum rooted it out a few years back and its been sitting on the dashboard of the car ever since, as the car is going today, shepherd came in, and promptly died . She was only left for 5-10mins with him and I was still here!! I had no idea what it was to start with as all the paint had come off and it was just pink, it looked like nipples  I think that bit was where his legs attached to the base 

maria - what a little star Chevy is

Dogless - oh dear, they just can't quite get it right can they :nonod: I love the idea of expanding poo though, 'what if' the sponge had had googley eyes 

ETA oh dear for mollysmith too, hope both shoulder and electrics are easily fixed.


----------



## Dogless

MS - hope your shoulder is OK.



GingerRogers said:


> When I say ate I mean chewed, looking at the debris she can't have ingested much if any. It was hubbys when he was little (so practically an antique ), his mum rooted it out a few years back and its been sitting on the dashboard of the car ever since, as the car is going today, shepherd came in, and promptly died . She was only left for 5-10mins with him and I was still here!! I had no idea what it was to start with as all the paint had come off and it was just pink, it looked like nipples  I think that bit was where his legs attached to the base
> 
> maria - what a little star Chevy is
> 
> Dogless - oh dear, they just can't quite get it right can they :nonod: I love the idea of expanding poo though, *'what if' the sponge had had googley eyes *


It would have looked like the poo was leaping out at me :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## Sarah1983

MV, sitting and waiting is my answer to a lot too. It's just so bloody cold and muddy lol.

Just had him out again for another brief training session. Took some nuked in the microwave german sausage out this time. Horrible greasy, smelly stuff it is when it's warm. Seemed to do the trick though. He was nowhere near as focused as he is just outside the flat but he was trying so it's a start. I just planted myself on a rock, waited for him to notice, clicked and treated a few times for attention and a couple of downs he offered then released him and moved on to another rock a little distance away and did the same.

Dogless, we've always had less focus on road walks than we have on the fields. I think because on the fields and in the woods I just sort of let him wander then click and treat when he comes near or looks at me while on the streets I'm more focused on keeping him safe from traffic and making sure he's not a nuisance. Can't really stop doing that but perhaps I should just relax a bit and do what I did in safe areas. Plenty of quiet streets I can practise on with him. Less management, more training perhaps.

I love this thread. I come here with a problem, muse about it to you guys and suddenly the solution seems so clear  Might be back in a couple of days whining about the same thing though lol.

Maria, seems like you're doing really well with her :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

So....organised to discuss Suprelorin with the vet today. I had pretty much decided upon it after extensive research and he believes it's the right thing to do - totally understood my stance on neutering / not neutering. Says he usually advises neutering due to the amount of in season bitches just walked / wandering around here but I seemed like a very responsible owner. He would have done it this afternoon but I wanted the weekend to think some more so Monday morning he'll have it unless I call and cancel.

Took Rudi to weigh him (32.5kg) on the horrendously tippy scales  and just so he got a vet visit that only involved fusses and treats rather than anything unpleasant. He greeted everyone with his normal happy enthusiasm - even Frank the practice cat .


----------



## GingerRogers

:thumbup1: glad you have made a decision Dogless (well almost, lol), hope it all goes well.

Totally un doggy (well I have been admiring hatch bags on that thread, they cost 1/17th of the car though ) just took the new car for a spin, love it , I get to drive it all on my own tonight when I go to stay at M&D's.

But Ginge has managed to munch the yellow plastic tag that came with the key already  HUBBY!!!!


----------



## moonviolet

GR Before you get lost in the fluff that is my brain i must say best wishes for tomorrow, please remember you are *all* there because you have reactive dogs and care about improving things. Each one of you wants help and support and there is never ever any shame in needing help  You have probably had a lot of shared experiences and it's one place where you should experience understanding not judgement.

Don't focus on anyone's else's dog, whether they be better or worse, you are there with Ginge. It's your time together. Team WAYWO are all behind you and with you in spirit.

Dogless Aww Rudi is 2 and a bit Tinkers now  If you do decide to try the suprelorin I hope it suits Kilo. Re: the human appeasement gestures did you click and treat? these behaviours should be encouraged 

Sarah, I'm not sure any dog could resist hot german sausage. Hope you find the new approach to pavement walks works, I suspect with SPen being such a bright button he's going to respond well 

MS i hope the shoulder adn he electrics are ok. Nice to have a break booked soemthign to look forward to 

Maria another wonderful pic of Chevy. My reaction to lack of focus is to stop and wait until i get attention then reward and proceed. 

Symone hope you get yoru pet passport ok.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GR Before you get lost in the fluff that is my brain i must say best wishes for tomorrow, please remember you are *all* there because you have reactive dogs and care about improving things. Each one of you wants help and support and there is never ever any shame in needing help  You have probably had a lot of shared experiences and it's one place where you should experience understanding not judgement.
> 
> Don't focus on anyone's else's dog, whether they be better or worse, you are there with Ginge. It's your time together. Team WAYWO are all behind you and with you in spirit. *THANK YOU*
> 
> Dogless Aww Rudi is 2 and a bit Tinker's now  If you do decide to try the suprelorin I hope it suits Kilo. *Re: the human appeasement gestures did you click and treat? these behaviours should be encouraged *
> 
> Sarah, I'm not sure any dog could resist hot german sausage. Hope you find the new approach to pavement walks works, I suspect with SPen being such a bright button he's going to respond well
> 
> MS i hope the shoulder adn he electrics are ok. Nice to have a break booked soemthign to look forward to
> 
> Maria another wonderful pic of Chevy. My reaction to lack of focus is to stop and wait until i get attention then reward and proceed.
> 
> Symone hope you get yoru pet passport ok.


Always mark the human appeasement gestures


----------



## Symone

Pet passport went fine  Only cost £74 in the end which was good. (Huzzar discount!)
There was a slight hiccup where they couldn't find the date of her being microchipped, but it was on the petplan website.

Her pulling was rather bad.. I filmed it this time so you guys could see. The lead was held how we did it before, so not LLW (Just for the filming to show how bad it gets)
She looks scared in the first one :/ But in person she looked excited.. Ofc I got it when her tail wasn't wagging much.

here are the two vids : 
1. Pavement walking : Shamaya pulling 1 - YouTube
2. Crossing the road : Shamaya pulling 2 - YouTube

If it is nervousness as a few said the other day, what do you think that I should do about it?


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah, I'm not sure any dog could resist *hot german sausage.* Hope you find the new approach to pavement walks works, I suspect with SPen being such a bright button he's going to respond well


 Best be careful, this is a sticky now remember!  I can't resist hot german sausage though, I think the fact I'm eating his treats makes it even more appealing lol. He's all like "heeeey! Those are mine!".

GR, what did I miss? Are you going to a reactive dog class or something? Hope all goes well whatever it is.

Dogless, Rudi is up there with Rupert in weight now, he spent most of his time around the 33kg mark. Coulda done with a little more on him but never managed to keep it on. He sounds like Spen with his happy greetings to everyone including the cat lol. I hope the Suprelorin does the trick with Kilo. Seems unfair that you're pretty much pushed into it because of irresponsible owners but if it helps Kilo I guess it's for the best.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Best be careful, this is a sticky now remember!  I can't resist hot german sausage though, I think the fact I'm eating his treats makes it even more appealing lol. He's all like "heeeey! Those are mine!".
> 
> GR, what did I miss? Are you going to a reactive dog class or something? Hope all goes well whatever it is.
> 
> Dogless, Rudi is up there with Rupert in weight now, he spent most of his time around the 33kg mark. Coulda done with a little more on him but never managed to keep it on. He sounds like Spen with his happy greetings to everyone including the cat lol. *I hope the Suprelorin does the trick with Kilo. Seems unfair that you're pretty much pushed into it because of irresponsible owners but if it helps Kilo I guess it's for the best.*


I hope it helps him; it can't be fun becoming stressed so often and he is 'bitching' more and more, the more contact he (inadvertently) has. If it helps dramatically then I may well castrate; if negligible or negative I obviously won't. Scares me though!!


----------



## Izzysmummy

Just got home from work, I'm not usually back this late but I went to get supplies for my parents coming to stay on my way home. So a bit of history, the last time I was late home from work was the night of the poo-explosion! 

Walk in the door and the baby gate is open!  OMG! Panic starts to set in! "where's my Izzy?".........nothing! OMG! Something awful has happened! Where is she? Why hasnt she come to greet me! Panic! Argh!

I look up the stairs and see Tarnus' backpack there but no car on the drive ! Phew! Panic subsiding and I'm now sat hoping he's got home before me and taken her for a walk somewhere  he'll be in trouble when he gets home for nicking my dog and not telling me!


----------



## Kicksforkills

We did a seven obstacle course yesterday at Agility and apart from one instance throughout the whole class Poppy waited, sat down. I might start using the slip lead with her now too.


Also sent off the Activity Register forms today, eep!


----------



## Twiggy

I had an awful 15 minutes in the barn with Holly about 3 hours ago and I really don't know what it was all about.

I took her and Leafy with me this afternoon to get the old girl's dog food, which is about a 56 mile round trip and we were out for just over 1.1/2 hours but they both love going out for rides in the car.

I hadn't got time to train Tremor as well before they were all walked at 3.45 ish so just took Holly.

She simply didn't want to know and wouldn't even chase a ball or play tug and the worse bit was she seemed scared of me.

I had her in the barn yesterday when the group were here training because it helps to socialise her and I think she did one retrieve and a little bit of heelwork and seemed fine.

Really strange and I simply don't know what upset her. Yet when we went for a walk almost immediately afterwards she was quite happy to do heelwork, recall, chase a ball etc.

I think I'll take Tremor with us tomorrow afternoon and hope whatever she'd got into her head she will have forgotten about.

I have to say it's rather upset me because she normally loves going in the barn these days.


----------



## Dogless

How horrible Twiggy; hope it was just an 'off' day and the time with Tremor tomorrow helps.


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Feeling a little frustrated at the moment. Seem to be getting nowhere with Spencers focus on me away from the flat. He doesn't want whatever food I have, doesn't want to play, doesn't want fusses. I don't know what it is he does want! Get him back outside the flat and its like a switch has been flicked, he's focused and wants treats and games. If I get him to the fields he'll also work happily for me. I thought it was the leash making the difference at first but he works on and off leash in these areas with no difference.


I'm with MV, I think I'd just sit and wait. Sometimes the only training I do with Bates is to take him outside while the kids are playing and the other dogs are playing, and all I ask him to do is sit in a heel and hold eye contact. I don't ask for it, I just stand there and when he offers eye contact I click and treat. Eventually you wait to click so you get longer stretches of eye contact. 
You could also try premack. If what he wants is to go off and do his own thing, make that contingent on 5, 10, 30 seconds of eye contact. He gives you attention, you release him to go sniff. 
Susan Garrett's blog is full of good stuff on getting a dog to pay attention to you and your reinforcement value:
Grow the Value | Susan Garrett&#039;s Dog Training Blog



moonviolet said:


> Ouesi yes it's a bit of silly nosework, Tink already finds hidden objects, keys, toys, scentcloth. This is the first time I will be asking for an indication not a retrieve. We're a bit jack of all trades master of none, but it's all so much, so many games to play. Those photos look like doggy heaven, love the flying ears/ bow with swerve preparation one


Cool! I'm really starting to get antsy to try nosework, but I can only handle one class a night so our nosework class will have to wait until this summer  My son (10) is going through a military dog obsession right now and when he found out our trainer was offering a nosework class, he got very excited, so it may be that I lose my dog to my son, but that's okay, I have a few others to choose from LOL!


----------



## MollySmith

Symone said:


> Pet passport went fine  Only cost £74 in the end which was good. (Huzzar discount!)
> There was a slight hiccup where they couldn't find the date of her being microchipped, but it was on the petplan website.
> 
> Her pulling was rather bad.. I filmed it this time so you guys could see. The lead was held how we did it before, so not LLW (Just for the filming to show how bad it gets)
> She looks scared in the first one :/ But in person she looked excited.. Ofc I got it when her tail wasn't wagging much.
> 
> here are the two vids :
> 1. Pavement walking : Shamaya pulling 1 - YouTube
> 2. Crossing the road : Shamaya pulling 2 - YouTube
> 
> If it is nervousness as a few said the other day, what do you think that I should do about it?


I haven't caught up at all in the last few days so my apologies to everyone and you if I'm saying stuff that's been said before.

Molly pulled like mad when we first got her. Three things that have pretty much stopped her are
- not putting her on a shoulder harness like you have in the video. We use an easywalk front leader for just getting her from a to b fast. I know that shoulder harnesses work for some but for Molly she uses it to put all her body weight in and virtually crawl along the floor! 
- always clicking and treating when she looks up at me when she's not pulling, any form of engagement with us is good as it means she's not eyeballing and bawling at other dogs. When she sees another dog she has to sit. She can walk past them, I've seen her do it for the trainer but never for me.
- I only use the collar and lead when I am training her otherwise it's harness time. And I stop dead if she pulls. It can take forever to get down our lane but that's what I do. A dead stop and wait for her to slacken the lead, click treat and we go on. It's mind draggingly slow but it seemed to work. I simply don't move, response or anything. I had to start in our house and in our back garden and then outside. The way I see it is that if I allow her to pull at any point on the lead and she gets to where she wants to be, she's rewarded by being naughty.

I can't say that Molly is perfect, she has lead problems in general that we're struggling with but pulling is not the worst thing.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Pet passport went fine  Only cost £74 in the end which was good. (Huzzar discount!)
> There was a slight hiccup where they couldn't find the date of her being microchipped, but it was on the petplan website.
> 
> Her pulling was rather bad.. I filmed it this time so you guys could see. The lead was held how we did it before, so not LLW (Just for the filming to show how bad it gets)
> She looks scared in the first one :/ But in person she looked excited.. Ofc I got it when her tail wasn't wagging much.
> 
> here are the two vids :
> 1. Pavement walking : Shamaya pulling 1 - YouTube
> 2. Crossing the road : Shamaya pulling 2 - YouTube
> 
> If it is nervousness as a few said the other day, what do you think that I should do about it?


Are you letting her pull on a harness and training on collar and lead? I forget . If not, her pulling might be worsened by being intermittently rewarded - she is getting where she wants to go sometimes - jackpot!! - and others when you are training she isn't. Like I tried to explain (badly) with the gambling analogy she will keep doing it as sometimes she 'wins big'.


----------



## Dogless

*Leam if you are still reading this thread I am very pleased to see that Deeks has gone to Ballybee and hope he does well there. Please feel that you can stick around and talk about Molly's training if you are having any dramas, have any questions or just want to share stuff. Better to stick around than struggle alone if any problems occur.*


----------



## Symone

MollySmith said:


> I haven't caught up at all in the last few days so my apologies to everyone and you if I'm saying stuff that's been said before.
> 
> Molly pulled like mad when we first got her. Three things that have pretty much stopped her are
> - not putting her on a shoulder harness like you have in the video. We use an easywalk front leader for just getting her from a to b fast. I know that shoulder harnesses work for some but for Molly she uses it to put all her body weight in and virtually crawl along the floor!
> - always clicking and treating when she looks up at me when she's not pulling, any form of engagement with us is good as it means she's not eyeballing and bawling at other dogs. When she sees another dog she has to sit. She can walk past them, I've seen her do it for the trainer but never for me.
> - I only use the collar and lead when I am training her otherwise it's harness time. And I stop dead if she pulls. It can take forever to get down our lane but that's what I do. A dead stop and wait for her to slacken the lead, click treat and we go on. It's mind draggingly slow but it seemed to work. I simply don't move, response or anything. I had to start in our house and in our back garden and then outside. The way I see it is that if I allow her to pull at any point on the lead and she gets to where she wants to be, she's rewarded by being naughty.
> 
> I can't say that Molly is perfect, she has lead problems in general that we're struggling with but pulling is not the worst thing.


Thank you for the tips! 
- The easy walk front leader - is that like the zooplus k9 harness? Or do you mean one that has one of those rings at the front and clips on there? Just so I know what to buy  I get paid tomorrow so I can pop into my local pet shop, then. (Or order if it is like the Zooplus one)
- I'll try that method. Need to buy a new clicker, really. Someone got a hold of her old one and I have yet to replace it. 
At least Shamaya has no problem with other dogs or anything like so. She just seems to think pulling will get us to where she wants to get faster.

Thanks again. <3 I'll read out your post to the OH when he isn't distracted by his xBox so he too, knows. 



Dogless said:


> Are you letting her pull on a harness and training on collar and lead? I forget . If not, her pulling might be worsened by being intermittently rewarded - she is getting where she wants to go sometimes - jackpot!! - and others when you are training she isn't. Like I tried to explain (badly) with the gambling analogy she will keep doing it as sometimes she 'wins big'.


I'm trying to train on both. Trying being the key word 
I am trying to use the harness less, though. Main reason it went on today is because her Vet appointment was at 3pm. School ends near then and children get her excited so I knew she would most probably lunge and try to play at some point. (Vet is near 2 high schools) I didn't want her to hurt her neck.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> I'm trying to train on both. Trying being the key word
> I am trying to use the harness less, though. Main reason it went on today is because her Vet appointment was at 3pm. School ends near then and children get her excited so I knew she would most probably lunge and try to play at some point. (Vet is near 2 high schools) I didn't want her to hurt her neck.


I think I'd save collar and lead for when it's absolutely verboten to pull. Those times when it doesn't matter if you move 20m in an hour and save the harness for when you have to be somewhere like the vet so pulling is inevitable. She should be able to differentiate between the equipment. That way she is getting clear signals as at present they seem rather mixed.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I think I'd save collar and lead for when it's absolutely verboten to pull. Those times when it doesn't matter if you move 20m in an hour and save the harness for when you have to be somewhere like the vet so pulling is inevitable. She should be able to differentiate between the equipment. That way she is getting clear signals as at present they seem rather mixed.


This. One piece of equipment where she is ALWAYS expected to walk with a loose leash, one piece for those times when you can't be bothered or don't have time to train. I use a collar for loose leash, a harness for the times I either don't have time or don't stand a chance yet. That way there are no mixed messages like there are if sometimes they're allowed to pull on a collar/harness and sometimes not.


----------



## kat&molly

Its been a busy day for you all.

Ginge- I hope you really , really enjoy tomorrow and come away with a big bubble of excitment about it all. I hope the Ninja likes the new car.

Dogless- Big decision for you, whatever you decide I hope it works out. It sounds like you've got an understanding vet.

I've left loads out but I'm knackered.

This [to pinch Dogless' words] Hurricane Hal is feeling 'normal' now.
I've given him 2 x 15 lead walks and I've had to try and stop him tearing around , he's literally like a whirlwind- non stop, he just makes me dizzy.:huh:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!







It's been a long day, I've cracked open the vino, I come on here and there's talk of expanding poo's with googly eyes and chewed up shepherds with nipples for hips...... I can't cope!!!!









Anyway, good to see you are all on form as usual 

Nothing exciting to report from Pickle Towers today, all present and correct 

BUT it's the big day tomorrow







I'm really nervous about the trainer coming, I've gone from being uber positive about it all to feeling like a big yellow wussy pants about it all 

Looks like Ginge and Branston are both in for big days tomorrow


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## Dogless

Good Luck FRM and Branston Pickle .


----------



## Twiggy

Good luck to Ginge and Branston tomorrow although I'm sure you'll both be fine.

Whether your Mummys will be is a very different matter....


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## Werehorse

I shouldn't worry that Hugo did a bark-growl-lunge at a dog that essentially came at him paws first after dragging his owner towards us should I? 

I'll stand further off the pavement next time and take my chances with the dog shite on the verge. 

They are both a bit bonkers today.  Feeling very guilty about having been in work, which is stoopid but there you go. I should have given them a longer walk yesterday but I was in a proper depressive fug.   And I think there's a bitch in season in the village which isn't helping.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> I shouldn't worry that Hugo did a bark-growl-lunge at a dog that essentially came at him paws first after dragging his owner towards us should I?
> 
> I'll stand further off the pavement next time and take my chances with the dog shite on the verge.
> 
> They are both a bit bonkers today.  Feeling very guilty about having been in work, which is stoopid but there you go. I should have given them a longer walk yesterday but I was in a proper depressive fug.   And I think there's a bitch in season in the village which isn't helping.


Oh the joy of the pavement walk  I think i would say sling yer 'ook to anyone who approached me that way too. In Tink's case i always intercept them myself.

Dont' beat yourself up about them being a bit bonkers the weekend is at your feet  Hope work went well.

I crossed the road many times tonight and had a really good pavement walk. I'm not sure the owner of the small fluffy dog on the fully extended flexi had such a good one, as their dog decided to try to cross the road to say hi.

Good luck tomorrow FRM and Branston.


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## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I shouldn't worry that Hugo did a bark-growl-lunge at a dog that essentially came at him paws first after dragging his owner towards us should I?


It's not something I'd worry about. I'd yell at some stranger coming towards me like that too!

Good luck tomorrow Ginge and FRM.


----------



## MollySmith

Symone said:


> Thank you for the tips!
> - The easy walk front leader - is that like the zooplus k9 harness? Or do you mean one that has one of those rings at the front and clips on there? Just so I know what to buy  I get paid tomorrow so I can pop into my local pet shop, then. (Or order if it is like the Zooplus one)
> - I'll try that method. Need to buy a new clicker, really. Someone got a hold of her old one and I have yet to replace it.
> At least Shamaya has no problem with other dogs or anything like so. She just seems to think pulling will get us to where she wants to get faster.
> 
> Thanks again. <3 I'll read out your post to the OH when he isn't distracted by his xBox so he too, knows.
> 
> I'm trying to train on both. Trying being the key word
> I am trying to use the harness less, though. Main reason it went on today is because her Vet appointment was at 3pm. School ends near then and children get her excited so I knew she would most probably lunge and try to play at some point. (Vet is near 2 high schools) I didn't want her to hurt her neck.


keep it simple, hopefully a harness (eazywalk loops under the rib cage, clips the lead at the chest) and I use a double ended clip lead, one end on the harness and the other on the collar. I always think there ought to a lending library for dog equipment so you can try before you buy, I wasted loads on Molly before I got to the eazywalk! It has sort of helped her not to pull in general when we got to the collar as she ends up going sideways.

But biggest rule is to learn to separate the collar and lead for training times when you have all your equipment plus patience and time. And wine or chocolate for afters 

good luck Ginge and Branston doggies


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## GingerRogers

Thanks for all the good .wishes ladies. Iwill think of you all as i am about to go into melt down and hold my head up high. 
Good luck foxyrox i reckon Twiggy is right. The naughty pickle and the ninja will have a fine old time its us that's going to need early wine


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## Dogless

Good luck for today GR and FRM; hope all goes well :thumbup:.


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## moonviolet

Good Luck GR and FRM


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Thanks for all the good .wishes ladies. Iwill think of you all as i am about to go into melt down and hold my head up high.
> Good luck foxyrox i reckon Twiggy is right. The naughty pickle and the ninja will have a fine old time its us that's going to need early wine


You will both be absolutely fine. A good teacher will put you as ease and be sympathetic to your problems.

I'm instructing Shelties all day tomorrow and I understand there are several newbies, who will undoubtedly be nervous wrecks. I gently cajole and have a laugh and joke and normally they are laughing with me within the first half an hour. It's as much about understanding the handlers as the dogs, if not more so.


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## kat&molly

Good luck today Ginge and FRM.


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## Dogless

Up and at 'em early here, walked to the dog walking fields, played and did some training, walked back. Perfect behaviour from both CHs . They're cutting down trees at present and it seems to be our street's turn this morning. Lorries, vans, people - and they walked calmly through it all, even the people milling about outside our house. I just smiled and said hello to everyone and it was one of those moments when you just feel so proud   with two dogs on lovely loose leads . No doubt if they're here all day they will witness Rudi trying to tear my arm off or take a chunk out of my buttocks at some point :nonod: :crying:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Up and at 'em early here, walked to the dog walking fields, played and did some training, walked back. Perfect behaviour from both CHs . They're cutting down trees at present and it seems to be our street's turn this morning. Lorries, vans, people - and they walked calmly through it all, even the people milling about outside our house. I just smiled and said hello to everyone and it was one of those moments when you just feel so proud   with two dogs on lovely loose leads . No doubt if they're here all day they will witness Rudi trying to tear my arm off or take a chunk out of my buttocks at some point :nonod: :crying:.


Well I'm rather hoping Holly does take chunks out of me this afternoon after the trauma yesterday. The only thing I can think of is that she caught a nail or tooth on my jumper, or something like that, which frightened her. She is very sensitive.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm rather hoping Holly does take chunks out of me this afternoon after the trauma yesterday. The only thing I can think of is that she caught a nail or tooth on my jumper, or something like that, which frightened her. She is very sensitive.


Sounds odd, but I hope that Holly takes chunks out of you too. Fingers crossed. Kilo can be very sensitive like that - the slightest small fright really affects him. We had blood yesterday, Rudi caught my hand playing tug .


----------



## Sarah1983

If it makes you feel any better Twiggy we had a bizarre fearful episode with Spencer a few weeks ago. I have absolutely no idea what triggered it but he was terrified, to the point of shaking and wetting himself. He's not shown any signs of fear since, not of me, hubby or anything in the vicinity of the episode  Hope Holly is also back to her usual self today.


----------



## Werehorse

Good luck Ginger and Branston Pickle! Look after your mums! 

I hope Holly has perked up today, Twiggy.

I'm reading "other end of the leash" and was just reading about how dogs don't like hugs and kisses when Hugo jumped onto my knee, put a paw over each shoulder, pressed his chest into mine and licked my face.  :lol: He ain't right.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> I'm reading "other end of the leash" and was just reading about how dogs don't like hugs and kisses when Hugo jumped onto my knee, put a paw over each shoulder, pressed his chest into mine and licked my face.  :lol: He ain't right.


Lol, I used to say Rupert had forgotten to read the doggy rule book. He would push and shove at you until he'd managed to wiggle his way onto your lap with your arms around him. Then he'd heave this huge sigh and rest the top of his head against your forehead and sit there for ages.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> If it makes you feel any better Twiggy we had a bizarre fearful episode with Spencer a few weeks ago. I have absolutely no idea what triggered it but he was terrified, to the point of shaking and wetting himself. He's not shown any signs of fear since, not of me, hubby or anything in the vicinity of the episode  Hope Holly is also back to her usual self today.


Thanks. It's times like that when you really wish they could talk.

In hindsight I should have just left it instead of saying "what's the matter?" and trying to get her to chase a ball.

I was going to take her with me tomorrow but I'm having second thoughts now. If she gets frightened I can't bring her home so probably not a good idea.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Thanks for all the well wishes 

I must confess I'm feeling a tad nervous  

Keeping myself busy by cleaning the house (because obviously the dog trainer is going to be really interested in how shiny the oven splashback is, how dust-free the lights are, and the fact that the dogs have clean blankets on their beds  )

Do you think it would be a good idea to take the Pickles for a nice long walk just before the trainer is due so that they are not so hyper? Or should I take them now so they've had a rest before she comes?
Or am I over-thinking/worrying? :lol:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Oh and the pickles LOVE cuddles too  Last night me and Lily fell asleep on the sofa, she was sprawled full length along my body with her head resting on my face :001_wub:


----------



## Sarah1983

foxyrockmeister said:


> Do you think it would be a good idea to take the Pickles for a nice long walk just before the trainer is due so that they are not so hyper? Or should I take them now so they've had a rest before she comes?
> Or am I over-thinking/worrying? :lol:


I'd let the trainer see them at their worst to be honest.


----------



## Werehorse

Just make sure you dust the tops of the doors and wipe down the skirting boards and you'l be fine FRM. 

I would try to keep the routine fairly normal... I would take them for a short to moderate walk this morning. It probably doesn't matter too much but I wouldn't try to knacker them out completely as you want them to be showing *some* behaviour other than snoring.


----------



## Symone

Good luck FRM & Ginge 

Hope Holly will be back to her normal self today, Twiggy. 

Glad the CHs were good with all those distractions, Dogless! Shamaya would try to get everyones attention assuming they were wearing hi-fiz (sp?) clothing! The OH wears that for work so she is use to it.. he normally can't be bothered to change and associated that with play, i think.. The other day there was street work going on and she managed to get attention from one guy... Bad thing is she jumped up and her paws hit him where men don't like to be hit! 
Luckily I could hold in the giggles. 


Uneventful morning, here. Got woken up at silly o'clock (2am) because the little missy slept in her crate and needed a wee. (We normally take her out 3-4am for a quick wee)
Ended up sleeping until 10:30 am  and Shamaya only woke up properly about 30 min ago.. Lazier bugger than me!! 

Going to pop off to the pet shop later to see if they have that harness.. But going to do that with training on the way. Will let you know how long a normally 10 min walk will take!


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Good luck FRM & Ginge
> 
> Hope Holly will be back to her normal self today, Twiggy.
> 
> Glad the CHs were good with all those distractions, Dogless! Shamaya would try to get everyones attention assuming they were wearing hi-fiz (sp?) clothing! The OH wears that for work so she is use to it.. he normally can't be bothered to change and associated that with play, i think.. The other day there was street work going on and she managed to get attention from one guy... Bad thing is she jumped up and her paws hit him where men don't like to be hit!
> Luckily I could hold in the giggles.
> 
> Uneventful morning, here. Got woken up at silly o'clock (2am) because the little missy slept in her crate and needed a wee. (We normally take her out 3-4am for a quick wee)
> Ended up sleeping until 10:30 am  and Shamaya only woke up properly about 30 min ago.. Lazier bugger than me!!
> 
> Going to pop off to the pet shop later to see if they have that harness.. But going to do that with training on the way. Will let you know how long a normally 10 min walk will take!


Very jealous of your lie in; 0550 start here again. I LOVE early but just sometimes would like to lie in a little.

Rudi was on a short lead but miraculously it stayed slack. I am mean and don't let him greet everyone that he wants to. That's everyone at present .


----------



## MollySmith

FRM - def at their worst then the trainer has a good idea and be pleased with yourself! Enough of the worries and think how great it is to get the help. I think I fell at our trainers feet in desperation and the best bit is knowing how far Molly has come.

Twiggy, I hope that all is well with Holly, oh for the power of talking dogs.Molly got herself a total state the morning of my op when we left her with the trainer who she usually adores. Five minutes later she was tearing around the field having a fab time so it's all very strange.

Molly has been for a walk with the horse dog Dermot who I keep meaning to photograph. I didn't take a camera of any sort this morning and when I do, he's not there! I'm not so good though, beasties came up behind me and went into my knee which gave way, GAWD!!! OUCHH! OH drove home and I have an ice pack on it. After nearly electrocuting myself yesterday, I'm going to be lucky to survive until Monday 

She was fine, currently fast asleep on my feet, she has to have body contact and adores cuddles. She pines for the OH and glues herself to him.


----------



## Thorne

My catch-up plan failed somewhat  Hope you've all had a good few days!

FRM and GR, hope all goes well for you today.

Twiggy -Enjoy the Shelties!

Dogless -Very pleased that the boys were on top form for you this morning, lovely stuff. Those moments make it all worthwhile.

Werehorse -You have an oddball on your hands  mine don't cuddle but I've met plenty that do!

Shamaya -Hope the 10min walk didn't take too long! I had a similar outing with a Collie pup on wednesday who's discovered the joys of pulling on a lead. A 5min toilet walk turned into a 20min training walk but was worth it!

MollyS -Ouch, sending healing vibes to you for your knee. Would love to see some photos of Dermot one day 

Having a quiet day here, about to bake some liver (much to dad's disgust!) for treats and will take the mutts out just as it's starting to get dark. Might do a bit of clicker training in the meantime.

Exciting news though, I'm going to Crufts next thursday! Anyone else on here going? (I'm looking at you, Twiggy!)


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> My catch-up plan failed somewhat  Hope you've all had a good few days!
> 
> FRM and GR, hope all goes well for you today.
> 
> Twiggy -Enjoy the Shelties!
> 
> Dogless -Very pleased that the boys were on top form for you this morning, lovely stuff. Those moments make it all worthwhile.
> 
> Werehorse -You have an oddball on your hands  mine don't cuddle but I've met plenty that do!
> 
> Shamaya -Hope the 10min walk didn't take too long! I had a similar outing with a Collie pup on wednesday who's discovered the joys of pulling on a lead. A 5min toilet walk turned into a 20min training walk but was worth it!
> 
> MollyS -Ouch, sending healing vibes to you for your knee. Would love to see some photos of Dermot one day
> 
> Having a quiet day here, about to bake some liver (much to dad's disgust!) for treats and will take the mutts out just as it's starting to get dark. Might do a bit of clicker training in the meantime.
> 
> *Exciting news though, I'm going to Crufts next thursday! Anyone else on here going? (I'm looking at you, Twiggy!)*




Yes I'm going on Friday to watch the Bitch Obedience Championship.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> You will both be absolutely fine. A good teacher will put you as ease and be sympathetic to your problems.
> 
> I'm instructing Shelties all day tomorrow and I understand there are several newbies, who will undoubtedly be nervous wrecks. I gently cajole and have a laugh and joke and normally they are laughing with me within the first half an hour. It's as much about understanding the handlers as the dogs, if not more so.


Thanks Twiggy, hope none of the shelties are like our neighbours, a more nervous dog I have never seen, also hope Holly has taken chunks out of you again today, how peculiar.
I was just talking to my ever so 'not' understanding friend  about the course, he couldn't understand how they could of helped us when we didn't take the dogs the first week, he has been a dog owner of several breeds I wouldn't say are for the faint hearted as well, you would think he would have a bit of a clue.



Symone said:


> Good luck FRM & Ginge
> Going to pop off to the pet shop later to see if they have that harness.. But going to do that with training on the way. Will let you know how long a normally 10 min walk will take!


Persevere Symone, they do get their eventually, see below!!

We had a tiring morning, can dogs get bags under their eyes, bless her she is shattered  never mind me.

Got there and saw the field laid out with some cones and poles in the middle and a windbreak right up the far end. Went into the hall and they said we are going to put you down the end later so you can nip out into the side room if you need and can come in through the fire exit. :blush: and we will be putting you up the far end of the field, yes :nonod: the windbreak was ours to hide behind if it got too much for her.

We learnt about lead handling, stroking the lead (instead of tugging them to return to handler), melting the lead (just giving a bit more so the lead slackens) about using the two points of contact as efficiently as possible and using you knees to turn and body to block and encourage rather than just tugging with your shoulders. We watched them with their dog and then we were banished to our various positions and a handler came round and told us what to do with our particular dog. I was to just take a step at a time and as soon as she lunged or pulled I was to melt the lead and wait for her to disengage with whatever it was, birds, grass or the other dogs. Stroking the lead if need be  then as soon as she disengaged I was to 'lets go' and take a few steps in the opposite direction and treat. It took a few goes for me spot the moment but we were soon moving like pros with enthusiasm and she actually looked like she was having fun.

The lead work I had done with her really showed, she was relaxed and happy with very little tension most of the time. :thumbup: I was amazed she could transfer it to that environment but very very proud of her.

We then paired up and still keeping our distances used each other as targets to move towards, the lesson was to spot the moment before they went over threshold, we didn't get very 'towards' but she disengaged herself well every time. I reckon we had at most two growly lunges but they were hardly that.

Then it was time to move into the hall for relaxation. I had already decided that we were going to stay in the side room today, we made about 30 secs until she realised the other dogs were not far away and kicked off, I shut the door she carried on, eventually we moved outside and was told to just try and get her up to the door without reacting, by now my eyes had reacted  and I was feeling a plonker. It was like all the adrenalin I had had from her doing so well just popped my brain. I am going to ask if next session we can get there early and have a look round the hall first. It was a new place, its echo y etc but other than that I have to pull my car up to the side and can work on her in there if needs be and pull my weeping self together it outrageous but once i have started I cant stop.

On the plus side the others all said that while outside they couldn't see why we there as we were doing so well, bless the little munchkin.

And bless the lone bloke, when we sat down for a debrief, he said if it makes you feel any better, T has had me in tears before now  It didn't at eh time but it makes me smile now 

I think I forgot about you all rooting for us for a while, next time I will remember and I wont let you down 

Looking forward to hearing how Branstons day has gone!

Oh and gingers like cuddles too, she is curled up with the other half right now, she rushed through the door to see him and tarted herself prone on his lap


----------



## Twiggy

Well done you and Ginge. All in all it sounds very positive and you've got the first day over.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done GR I for one am proud of you both, So your eyes leaked a bit hardly surprising, you've had quite a build up to today. The outside stuff sounded fantastic. :thumbup: 

Tink proudly rolled in some fox poo today and had her first bath of the year a more mournful sight you never did see.


----------



## Symone

Well done Ginge <3
And I know we will get there in the end... 

So... Walk went bad! Very bad! Although only at the end.. 

The walk to the pet shop took 30ish min I think! Not bad with her. They did have the harness in that I wanted... But only in large! Even adjusted to the smallest bit was too big for Shamaya. 
Took her to the beach after (Well the OH did. I was chatting in the pet shop) I caught up after 5 mins, though.
She was really well behaved. We saw a very pregnant husky that looked just lovely. Recall was 100%. Met a lady with 6 dogs! (Gosh they were lovely...) Her boxer kept chasing Shamaya. She had a blast 

We then went up to the side where benches are and threw shamayas ball down on to the sand. She loved it. She then caught me with a claw and I bled.  Then the caught the OH! Then I noticed a lot of blood on the floor.. Thought she got the OH really badly.. Nope.
Cut pad! 
It was dripping a lot. I wrapped my scarf around and applied lots of pressure then the OH sat with her while I went and holla'd at the lady with the 6 dogs. She said bathe it when we get in and leave off tomorrows walk. She also suggested no beach for a few days.
Decided to take a short cut home to be quicker and we came across a shiatsu with no collar on! The chippy next to the place with the pup had a lot of people so i stuck my head in and asked if it was anyones there. One of the lads told me "Finders keepers" and I should take it home and keep it.   
I said I'll take it home and call the warden. 
The chippy manager ran out and asked to see it, turns out she knew the dog (He was glad to see her) and the owner.. And he lived up the road. The owner was worried when we knocked because his dog didn't bark. Turns out it opened the door and escaped!!! He was very relieved and I feel happy for doing my good deed of the day.
Shamayas paw is no longer bleeding. Bathed it in a bowl of salt water (which turned pink) and padded it dry. She's now sleeping.

So yeah.. Eventful! 

Should I leave her pad to air out or bandage it up?


----------



## tiatortilla

Oh dear, missed lots again!
FRM and Symone- Good luck with your respective training!
Dogless and GR- Well done to both of you and your doglets 
MV- Tink seems far too ladylike to roll in fox poo haha, I can't imagine it!
-
Had a funny moment earlier, it would seem I failed to socialise Tia with low flying hot air balloons as a pup  You try so hard to expose them to everything but some things just don't even cross your mind! One went past our house earlier and I've never heard her make such a fuss!


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- sounds like it was a tough day, but I think you and the Ninja done brilliant.:thumbup: What a nice to man to admit that he'd been in tears himself. 

Symone, not sure on the cut pad, I would try and stop any muck getting in on walks though.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Well done Ginge <3
> And I know we will get there in the end...
> 
> So... Walk went bad! Very bad! Although only at the end..
> 
> The walk to the pet shop took 30ish min I think! Not bad with her. They did have the harness in that I wanted... But only in large! Even adjusted to the smallest bit was too big for Shamaya.
> Took her to the beach after (Well the OH did. I was chatting in the pet shop) I caught up after 5 mins, though.
> She was really well behaved. We saw a very pregnant husky that looked just lovely. Recall was 100%. Met a lady with 6 dogs! (Gosh they were lovely...) Her boxer kept chasing Shamaya. She had a blast
> 
> We then went up to the side where benches are and threw shamayas ball down on to the sand. She loved it. She then caught me with a claw and I bled.  Then the caught the OH! Then I noticed a lot of blood on the floor.. Thought she got the OH really badly.. Nope.
> Cut pad!
> It was dripping a lot. I wrapped my scarf around and applied lots of pressure then the OH sat with her while I went and holla'd at the lady with the 6 dogs. She said bathe it when we get in and leave off tomorrows walk. She also suggested no beach for a few days.
> Decided to take a short cut home to be quicker and we came across a shiatsu with no collar on! The chippy next to the place with the pup had a lot of people so i stuck my head in and asked if it was anyones there. One of the lads told me "Finders keepers" and I should take it home and keep it.
> I said I'll take it home and call the warden.
> The chippy manager ran out and asked to see it, turns out she knew the dog (He was glad to see her) and the owner.. And he lived up the road. The owner was worried when we knocked because his dog didn't bark. Turns out it opened the door and escaped!!! He was very relieved and I feel happy for doing my good deed of the day.
> Shamayas paw is no longer bleeding. Bathed it in a bowl of salt water (which turned pink) and padded it dry. She's now sleeping.
> 
> So yeah.. Eventful!
> 
> Should I leave her pad to air out or bandage it up?


Which pad is it and how big and deep is the cut?


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Which pad is it and how big and deep is the cut?


Back left (her left)
Cut is very small. 2mm maybe? was very hard to find. It's right by the far left (her left again. If looking at it it is the right) toe. Was actually hard to find.
edit : forgot to say that it doesn't look deep at all. I can't see any flesh at least.

edit again : OH said my measurement guesses are rubbish. He thinks it's about 4-5mm


----------



## Twiggy

Well Holly was fine in the barn this afternoon. I took Tremor with us and did a bit with her first.

I had virtually the same clothes on, same tit-bits, same toys, same commands, so I've no idea what yesterday was about.

Strange little dog but something upset her yesterday and the bit that was really worrying was that it was almost as if she was frightened to come near me.

I cut all the dogs nails this morning just in case she had caught one on my clothing.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Well Holly was fine in the barn this afternoon. I took Tremor with us and did a bit with her first.
> 
> I had virtually the same clothes on, same tit-bits, same toys, same commands, so I've no idea what yesterday was about.
> 
> Strange little dog but something upset her yesterday and the bit that was really worrying was that it was almost as if she was frightened to come near me.
> 
> I cut all the dogs nails this morning just in case she had caught one on my clothing.


Glad to hear that she was fine today


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Back left (her left)
> Cut is very small. 2mm maybe? was very hard to find. It's right by the far left (her left again. If looking at it it is the right) toe. Was actually hard to find.
> edit : forgot to say that it doesn't look deep at all. I can't see any flesh at least.


In that case just keep an eye on it in case it gets infected.

I wouldn't bandage it but if there's a supermarket near you that sells kiddies socks I'd buy a pair and pop one on when she's goes outside. I run Elastoplast fabric tape towards the top of the sock on hold it in place.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> In that case just keep an eye on it in case it gets infected.
> 
> I wouldn't bandage it but if there's a supermarket near you that sells kiddies socks I'd buy a pair and pop one on when she's goes outside. I run Elastoplast fabric tape towards the top of the sock on hold it in place.


I'll phone the OH. he's on his way to asda. I'll tell him to get fabric tape and not normal tape!


----------



## Dogless

GR - I am so proud of you and the Ninja, sincerely .

Tiatortilla - you are clearly a very irresponsible owner not having socialised your girl to low flying hot air balloons :hand: .

mv - fox poo :nonod:.

Symone - sorry about the cut pad.



Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Yes I'm going on Friday to watch the Bitch Obedience Championship.


What was the Crufts secret that you were going to tell us?  . Pleased that little HB was fine too.

Great afternoon here - played some football in the garden, did some training, did separate walks. Both CHs behaved beautifully on their walks; loads of things going on as it was a nice day and both were chilled and just engaged with me :001_wub:. So proud of them . Did some recalls across the sports pitch with Kilo - the speed that he builds up in that distance is frightening :w00t::crazy: but I survived and he's skidding to a halt in a sit now 99% of the time...we had one overshoot today but he came back around .


----------



## Werehorse

Ginge - sounds like a tough day but successful mostly. I cry at the drop of a hat, I'd have been bawling just at the bit when she was doing well outside. :lol: The people sound lovely and supportive too. 

Symone - can't advise re: pad... I just know they can get nasty if there is anything in there so keep a close eye on it and, personally, I would consider a vet visit if it is bad - but I am kind of just like that. 

Had two nice seperate lead walks with the boys just now. Definitely a bitch in season in the village but we haven't met the actual dog yet, just had some investigation of wee and a foam beard. So hopefully whoever it is is at least keeping un-sociable hours. Hopefully. Both boys were very good though, lots of nice walking and focus.  Hugo met a big Golden Retriever puppy and he was very good, mostly just sitting and focussing on me. Oscar did a nice down-stay on a traffic free path while I picked up poop.

There's a lovely Husky I have been admiring, seems to have very dedicated owners that trek with it for big long road walks everyday. Me and Hugo popped out on the road behind it today. It kept turning back to eye-ball him a bit, just curious. It was good practice for Hugo to focus on me as he does like a bit of eye-balling himself, so lots of clicks and treats for some nice focussed heelwork. All good. Apart from the Husky's owner giving it a good ol' lead yank and a CM style belly-kick.  I hadn't chatted to them or anything but they looked nice and I'm (irrationally) disappointed.


----------



## kat&molly

MS- I think you need wrapping in cotton wool for your own safety.


Another day of :scared: :crazy: with the Nutty Cocker today, he's just so happy and excited all the time- he thinks every day is Crunchie day, and trying to keep him calm after his op is nigh on impossible- I have considered getting the stapler back out.:laugh:

Does anyone have any other ideas on the counter surfing- its still terrible, I literally have to fend him off just to peel a potato.
I'm putting him away when I'm preparing or cooking food but I dont think its helping him learn not to do it.?

Jumping up doors is getting better- he still jumps once , then realises and sits.

He's doing well considering, he's learnt his name, sit, Find Wubba, and started doing little stays where I leave a room for a second and he doesn't jump and whine at the door.


----------



## Werehorse

Glad Holly was a good girl today, Twiggy. Hopefully yesterday will never happen again so you'll never get chance to solve the mystery.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Ginge - sounds like a tough day but successful mostly. I cry at the drop of a hat, I'd have been bawling just at the bit when she was doing well outside. :lol: The people sound lovely and supportive too.
> 
> Symone - can't advise re: pad... I just know they can get nasty if there is anything in there so keep a close eye on it and, personally, I would consider a vet visit if it is bad - but I am kind of just like that.
> 
> Had two nice seperate lead walks with the boys just now. Definitely a bitch in season in the village but we haven't met the actual dog yet,* just had some investigation of wee and a foam beard.* So hopefully whoever it is is at least keeping un-sociable hours. Hopefully. Both boys were very good though, lots of nice walking and focus.  Hugo met a big Golden Retriever puppy and he was very good, mostly just sitting and focussing on me. Oscar did a nice down-stay on a traffic free path while I picked up poop.
> 
> There's a lovely Husky I have been admiring, seems to have very dedicated owners that trek with it for big long road walks everyday. Me and Hugo popped out on the road behind it today. It kept turning back to eye-ball him a bit, just curious. It was good practice for Hugo to focus on me as he does like a bit of eye-balling himself, so lots of clicks and treats for some nice focussed heelwork. All good. Apart from the Husky's owner giving it a good ol' lead yank and a CM style belly-kick.  I hadn't chatted to them or anything but they looked nice and I'm (irrationally) disappointed.


Welcome to Kilo's world . I also know what you mean about the irrational disappointment in folk - I get that quite a lot . Sure some people feel it about me too .



Werehorse said:


> Glad Holly was a good girl today, Twiggy. *Hopefully yesterday will never happen again *so you'll never get chance to solve the mystery.


I know what you mean but that made me chuckle .

k&m - Hurricane Hal has definitely been getting tuition from Evie . With mine being put behind a baby gate each time food is being prepared works pretty fast; the gate can be left open within a fairly short space of time and they sit at the threshold to the kitchen looking starving. I call it their 'good boy spot' as they sit very alert but don't venture into the kitchen. If I'm too long they'll lie down but stay in the same spot!! I have a slip lead in the kitchen to pop on and lead Rudi out still when he tries.


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## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> Oh dear, missed lots again!
> FRM and Symone- Good luck with your respective training!
> Dogless and GR- Well done to both of you and your doglets
> MV- Tink seems far too ladylike to roll in fox poo haha, I can't imagine it!
> -
> Had a funny moment earlier, it would seem I failed to socialise Tia with low flying hot air balloons as a pup  You try so hard to expose them to everything but some things just don't even cross your mind! One went past our house earlier and I've never heard her make such a fuss!


oh lol. Rory didn't much like them either who da known it hey

Thanks every one but Werehorse i am still crying now intermittently.

Hope shamayas paws ok.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well done Ginge  Sorry you ended up in tears but it sounds like both of you did really well.

Symone, I tend to clean a cut pad the once and then keep an eye on it. If it's muddy out I put a food bag over the paw and put a sock over that (sounds backwards but it's easier to tape the sock on and the sock holds the food bag on) but that's it. The one time I did take a dog to the vets with a cut pad they didn't do anything different and charged a fortune for it so they get treated at home here. Generally if it's an injury I wouldn't go to the doctors with it's an injury I won't go to the vets with 

K&M, I did a lot of Doggy Zen with Spencer when I got him. Mostly so I could eat my meals without fending off a starving Labrador.
Training Level ONE

Werehorse, poor husky 

Dogless, glad you've had a good day.

Twiggy, glad Holly seems to be back to her normal self.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- I never even thought of a baby gate. Probably because I haven't got one  but I have got a wooden trellis thingy that'll do the job.Thanks.

Twiggy-pleased to hear Holly was ok today, Moll's done the same thing to me-its upsetting when you dont know what it is.


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## kat&molly

Thanks Sarah- I'll take a look.


----------



## Thorne

GR -Sounds like you've found a really good trainer there, fingers crossed things continue as they've started. Well done 

MV -Poor Tink, I bet there's nothing quite like puppy-dog eyes from a Beagle (except maybe a Spaniel!).

Symonone -Oh what a shame about Shamaya's paw  hope it heals quickly. Pleased she was good for you otherwise.

TiaT -Hot air balloons are the bane of Scooter's life, he thinks anything he can see in the sky over the garden is in "his" airspace but these make him especially cross! We shut him in if we see one because in his younger, bouncier days he'd scramble over the fence to shout at them from the back field!

Twiggy -Very pleased that Holly was back to normal today.

Dogless -More good walks! Brilliant stuff! You've reminded me to have a look for Scooter's football, think he's got it jammed behind the shed...

Werehorse -Foam beard :lol: We mostly get a drippy nose here! Glad you had 2 lovely walks aside from the CM wannabe.

K&M -Don't think I'm brave enough to take on a Cocker, don't know how to handle that level of nuttiness on a daily basis! But it sounds like he's doing well! 

Sarah -Think I'll have a look into doggy zen, could be useful for when Breeze is having a scatty day. Thanks 

We had a good walk this afternoon but got to dash off babysitting, so will regale you with the tale and a few photos later if I'm not too late back!


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## moonviolet

By jove I think she's got it!!! Tink now fully understands the ring toss game :thumbup1: Clever dog.



Thorne said:


> MV -Poor Tink, I bet there's nothing quite like puppy-dog eyes from a Beagle (except maybe a Spaniel!).


Add those eyes to a bit of sad whimpering it's heart breaking, soon as the rinsing is done it's party time she loves being towel dried. Please no one tell her she has a bit of a quiff thing going on where she lounged in front of the fire slightly damp.


----------



## kat&molly

Well done Tink. Brilliant.
I'm at the plunger on the floor in an upright position stage. As long as my hand is on it she's ok. Not an easy one to teach.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Well done Tink. Brilliant.
> I'm at the plunger on the floor in an upright position stage. As long as my hand is on it she's ok. Not an easy one to teach.


There was definitely the sound of cogs whirring.

Her aim is still a bt wonky at times :lol:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Well, we survived :thumbup:

Trainer lady was here for 2 and half hours  and it was really really good. 

We sat and chatted loads first then she said she wanted to see him in action so could we take him out for a street walk? :yikes: As some of you are aware I haven't walked straight from home in...... well....... maybe a year??? Ok, maybe not quite that long, but a loooong time as this was one of his main triggers.

She recommended a Mekuti balance harness and had brought one with her to try. I must admit I was really worried about taking him out on the road as his muzzle only arrived today so I haven't acclimatised him to it yet so we couldn't use it. She said that she would take him in case he redirected (I would have rather he bit me than her though!) anyway, that plan went out the window when she approached him with the harness and he growled at her!! So I put the harness on him and she stuffed him fully of sausages, at which point he decided that actually he quite likes this lady 

Anyway, long story short... He was Brilliant!!! Ok, in comparison to most dogs he was hyper, scatty, skittish, over excited and all in all a bit loony, BUT for Branston in this situation he was brilliant! First of all we did some training on the driveway before heading out onto the pavement. She used loads and loads of reward based stuff, so basically loads and loads of treats every time he focused on me rather than everything going on around him. He walked 'reasonably' well on the harness and seemed to be really enjoying it.

He had a couple of occasions where he 'fixed' on something, once was a bird and the other one we don't even know what he saw. She says he has all the classic collie traits, fixing with the eyes, then the whimpering and then the redirection. She said I was already halfway there in the fact that I had already picked up on all his signals so now I need to learn what to do to redirect his focus back before he goes passed stage 1. Lots of stopping, turning, getting him to do some sits and watches, lots of rewards. One thing she did that I have never thought of was to throw the treats on to the ground for him to get rather than just hand feeding them to him, this seemed to work really well at giving him something fun to focus on :thumbup:

We walked for about 10 minutes and then did some more training on the drive before going back inside. I am just so so pleased that we managed that, I feel confident that I am going to be able to do this myself everyday now.

We then did some work inside with the 'mat' I won't go into details as I know you all know far more about this than me anyway but I was so impressed at how quickly he worked out what he needed to do without any instruction. We then did some back door work (sorry that sounds dodgy) and again she made him work it out for himself rather than telling him what to do. You could almost see the cogs turning in his brain and he really really enjoyed it 

Basically her conclusion is that he is quite a nervous, very hyper alert and excitable boy, BUT he is very willing and very intelligent and wasn't as bad as she was expecting  She thinks he is probably under mentally stimulated, so although he gets of oodles of fab long walks etc, they're not challenging his brain enough and being very collie-ish he needs to use his brain.

SO I NEED TO BE AS WILLING AND INTELLIGENT AS HE IS!!!

She recommended a book called: Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training the Crazy Dog from Over the Top to Under Control by Laura VanArendonk Baugh, sounds perfect!!! So have just ordered it 

We talked about classes etc and basically agreed that I need to spend more 1-2-1 time with the Pickles, doing more fun training stuff rather than just walks, and loads of focused based stuff with the boy. 

So I'm a bit poorer after paying for her time and purchasing the harness but at the moment I feel that it was worth every penny as I am feeling so much more positive and confident about it all 

Thank you so much Twiggy for recommending this fabulous lady to me and thank you to the rest of you in advance for keeping me motivated and giving me regular kicks up the @rse to keep going

I AM GOING TO SORT THIS!!!!!!!

Oh and Branston? He is k-nackered!!!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

wow, just realised how long that post was - sorry 

Off now to catch up on how you all (especially GR) have got on today


----------



## ballybee

Well we have 3 dogs here now  full house 

Tummel - has been perfect today, took him out for some socialising, he did a perfect sit/stay while 7 dogs went past, his brillaint behaviour was noticed and recieved compliments  He didn't pull too much and listened to me  Inside he's also been great, he's taken the role of battling 2 teenage dogs in his stride and can wrestle with Dan while playing bitey face with Deeks 

Dan - well still being a teen, doesn't listen much on the first telling but we;ll get there. Took him out for socialising and he did pull a bit, nothing major though.

Deeks - Well. He pulls. A lot. Stopping dead doesn't work, he just strains, turning and walking doesn't work, he's not wanting to get to anything in particular, can't check him and he's not overly foody so bribing doesn't work. I'm hoping he'll settle and we can work on it soon enough. Otherwise he's fine really, he does strain to meet other dogs but this morning he actually went to my other side to avoid meeting a dog so he can't be that bothered really. He's met a few peoplenicely too, he did growl at a couple of people who were staring him out(fair enough i think lol). Did some basic training with him this evening, he knwos sit and down which is good, will start using meals for training tomorrow 

Otherwise he's a great wee dog, hilarious character


----------



## moonviolet

FRM I am so pleased for you and for Branston I coudl dance what you and GR dont' knwo is I've been on pins all day hoping you both had productive days.

I think you could be on the brink of lots and lots of fun. The mental stimualtion stuff is so rewarding and horribly addictive


----------



## Sarah1983

Glad things went well FRM  I read that book the other day. I preferred Control Unleashed but Fired Up is a much easier and quicker read with quite a lot of the same stuff in there. And yeah, intelligent dogs are hard work at times lol. My collie was and Spencer reminds me of him with how much mental stimulation he needs. I do a lot of fun tricks to work his brain as well as the more serious stuff. I love it  

Ballybee, Spen was like that when I got him. Didn't really care which way he was pulling, he was just pulling. I've used a combination of Choose to Heel, Silky Leash and turning and going in another direction. It's still a work in progress but for the most part my arms remain in my sockets. It'd probably be less of a work in progress if I focused on it more but it's so bloody boring! I think it's me rather than Spen who really has the loose leash walking problem


----------



## Dogless

FRM - can't quite say how pleased I am for you; what a positive day and new start to a calmer Branston (and you!). That book sounds great too - I may order it .


----------



## kat&molly

Great news FRM, sounds a really nice trainer too.

Ballybee-Good luck.


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> wow, just realised how long that post was - sorry
> 
> Off now to catch up on how you all (especially GR) have got on today


I'm delighted it went well but I sort of knew it would....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm delighted it went well but I sort of knew it would....


That's because you are our wise oracle Grannie .


----------



## Dogless

Right....things that I need to sort out before I have an accident.

1. I seem to have trained Rudi when we are doing heelwork to often get a paw on top of my left foot or he almost cross a leg slightly in front of mine at speed when he's striding out. I almost tripped over in front of a few folk the other day - at least my stumbling gave them a laugh! His rear end sticks out away from me so he's obviously not straight which is the drama. 

2. Another striding out drama is when I do "hide" with Kilo at speed - he treads on the backs of my heels.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Thank you everyone, I do feel so much better about everything now and looking forward to getting to work.

My biggest concern is managing to do all the 1-2-1 stuff, It would be so much easier if I only had one dog but having them both makes it harder to dedicate the time they need. It's so much easier to just think "Oh I'll shove them in the car and take them for a nice long walk on the downs together, they'll have fun, I'll have fun etc etc" rather than "Ok you're going to stay here and get in a flap while I take your brother out" and vice versa. 
I KNOW that this will be beneficial from the other end to - getting them used to being left on their own while I take the other one . Any advice for this seeing as while we were out on the drive with Branston today all I could hear was Lily whining and barking inside  Is it just a case of building it up slowly and maybe giving them kongs etc to keep them occupied?

Oh, it's becoming apparent just how many mistakes I have made with the pickling pair


----------



## Werehorse

Yay for Branston Pickle.   Really pleased it went well and you are feeling good about it all.

Mv - do we get a video of Miss Tinks and the hoop game? I might die of cuteness though!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Congratulations GR it sounds like the Ninja did really well and so what if you had a little cry?! 
The classes sound really good, I'd like to find something like that to do with Branston, the trainer I saw today does some classes but unfortunately they're all at times that I work  apart from one class on a Wednesday that is for advanced competition obedience, not sure we're quite up to that at the moment :lol: although she did say I could go along and watch and see what I think 

Sounds like everyone else has had a pretty good day all round 
Sorry to hear about Shamaya's paw, I hope it's just minor and heals quickly. Branston cut his pad a few weeks back and although it looked quite bad it actually healed really well and quickly although he did wear a boot for a couple of days on walks just to keep it clean.

Lily is mightily impressed with Tink's efforts today, although she sympathises with the bath incident and subsequent quiff!! :lol:

Sounds like the CH's have been totally amazing stars once again :thumbup: Even if they are clearly making it their aim to send you arse over tit  :lol:


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## Werehorse

Dogless - I'm not sure.... perhaps some focussed work on his heel position, being very careful to click when he ISN'T stood on your foot?  I managed to stop Hugo walking bent round in front of me by just being more careful when I clciked.

You have reminded me though - I had to go shoe shopping again (  the first lovely pair I got for work weren't right  )... anyway we got a laugh out of it - there was a lady trying on a pair of shoes off the shelf and she tried to walk without realising they were fastened together :lol: She didn't actually fall over though. OH thinks he's earned 1000 brownie points by coming shoe shopping with me, I say it doesn't count because I don't _enjoy_ shoe shopping; but I made him a cup of tea when we got home so I earned 10000000000 brownie points. Clearly.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Dogless - I'm not sure.... perhaps some focussed work on his heel position, being very careful to click when he ISN'T stood on your foot?  I managed to stop Hugo walking bent round in front of me by just being more careful when I clciked.
> 
> You have reminded me though - I had to go shoe shopping again (  the first lovely pair I got for work weren't right  )... anyway we got a laugh out of it - *there was a lady trying on a pair of shoes off the shelf and she tried to walk without realising they were fastened together* :lol: She didn't actually fall over though. OH thinks he's earned 1000 brownie points by coming shoe shopping with me, I say it doesn't count because I don't _enjoy_ shoe shopping; but I made him a cup of tea when we got home so I earned 10000000000 brownie points. Clearly.


:lol::lol::lol: Sounds like something I'd do!!

Yes; I'm going to just reward a 'better' position. I was thinking that walking close to a wall or something for a bit might stop LCH swinging his backside out so far. I'm not bothered from a 'correct' POV as I just want a dog that will come in close when asked to....but would rather not fall over :nonod:.


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## moonviolet

Oh Dogless that those would both be accidents in waiting for me. I didn't mention that I did a classic the other day , tripped over a tree root and twisted my right ankle, wasn't too bad so decided to walk it off only to trip over another tree root and twisted my left ankle, this was a more impressive job and warranted a couple of days in vetrap :lol:

W/H There will be a video soon i'll just let her get a little more polished


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## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Congratulations GR it sounds like the Ninja did really well and so what if you had a little cry?!
> The classes sound really good, I'd like to find something like that to do with Branston, the trainer I saw today does some classes but unfortunately they're all at times that I work  apart from one class on a Wednesday that is for advanced competition obedience, not sure we're quite up to that at the moment :lol: although she did say I could go along and watch and see what I think


If she's happy for you to attend the advanced competition class, I'd say go for it.

The classes I run here are a mix of raw beginners upto Championship C dogs. I think the beginner handlers learn quicker and it's more interesting for the dogs.

From my point of view it's fascinating to see handlers strengths and weaknesses and sometimes a beginner handler teaches a specific exercise better than someone with vast experience, including me...LOL


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## foxyrockmeister

Twiggy said:


> If she's happy for you to attend the advanced competition class, I'd say go for it.
> 
> The classes I run here are a mix of raw beginners upto Championship C dogs. I think the beginner handlers learn quicker and it's more interesting for the dogs.
> 
> From my point of view it's fascinating to see handlers strengths and weaknesses and sometimes a beginner handler teaches a specific exercise better than someone with vast experience, including me...LOL


She's away at Crufts this week but next week I might go along without the dogs just to watch and see what it's like and have another chat with her as to whether we'd really be welcome!! Also gives me a few weeks of working on the things she's taught me today before attempting a class


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Right....things that I need to sort out before I have an accident.
> 
> 1. I seem to have trained Rudi when we are doing heelwork to often get a paw on top of my left foot or he almost cross a leg slightly in front of mine at speed when he's striding out. I almost tripped over in front of a few folk the other day - at least my stumbling gave them a laugh! His rear end sticks out away from me so he's obviously not straight which is the drama.
> 
> 2. Another striding out drama is when I do "hide" with Kilo at speed - he treads on the backs of my heels.


Err yes been there, done that. The worse occasion was with horses though when I'd got my daughter and niece (aged about 5 and 7) on leading reins each side of me and they wanted to trot. I managed to get my leg tangled with the cob and ended up flat out on the lane with four pairs of eyes staring at me in bewilderment.

I know exactly what you're doing Dogless - you've got Rudi's head too far round your body, hence he's not in a straight line. Therefore his bum is sticking out and he's impeding you with his head and shoulder.

It's a common fault and was exactly what Chewy, the Schutzhund GSD, was doing when he first came here.

Try taking your left hand further back above your hip and about level with the seam of your trousers.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Err yes been there, done that. The worse occasion was with horses though when I'd got my daughter and niece (aged about 5 and 7) on leading reins each side of me and they wanted to trot. I managed to get my leg tangled with the cob and ended up flat out on the lane with four pairs of eyes staring at me in bewilderment.
> 
> I know exactly what you're doing Dogless - you've got Rudi's head too far round your body, hence he's not in a straight line. Therefore his bum is sticking out and he's impeding you with his head and shoulder.
> 
> It's a common fault and was exactly what Chewy, the Schutzhund GSD, was doing when he first came here.
> 
> Try taking your left hand further back above your hip and about level with the seam of your trousers.


Thanks Grannie; yes, his head does curve round my body because, thinking about it, my hand is round near my hip bone so slightly in front of me. I can feel his shoulder and head on my hip as we walk.

Horses would be way above my ability level  .


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> Right....things that I need to sort out before I have an accident.
> 
> 1. I seem to have trained Rudi when we are doing heelwork to often get a paw on top of my left foot or he almost cross a leg slightly in front of mine at speed when he's striding out. I almost tripped over in front of a few folk the other day - at least my stumbling gave them a laugh! His rear end sticks out away from me so he's obviously not straight which is the drama.
> 
> 2. Another striding out drama is when I do "hide" with Kilo at speed - he treads on the backs of my heels.


Hahahaha maybe Bates is an honorary rhodesian after all, he does that too, but he does it for the automatic sits. He's very purposeful about it too, sit, stomp. I don't know if it's a connection thing, if it's a boxer-mutt thing where he just has to paw thump something, or if it's a Bates thing where he just feels compelled to add his own flair to every exercise I teach him.

Honestly, rhodies are pretty paws-ey as far as using their paws. In that slow motion video I posted of Bates and the rhodesian, you can see how much they both smack each other with paws. 
I think Twiggy has a good point with where you deliver the reward, but I also think rhodies are going to use their paws on their people in any way they can get away with it


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## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Hahahaha maybe Bates is an honorary rhodesian after all, he does that too, but he does it for the automatic sits. He's very purposeful about it too, sit, stomp. I don't know if it's a connection thing, if it's a boxer-mutt thing where he just has to paw thump something, or if it's a Bates thing where he just feels compelled to add his own flair to every exercise I teach him.
> 
> Honestly, rhodies are pretty paws-ey as far as using their paws. In that slow motion video I posted of Bates and the rhodesian, you can see how much they both smack each other with paws.
> I think Twiggy has a good point with where you deliver the reward, but I also think rhodies are going to use their paws on their people in any way they can get away with it


You're not wrong - paws rule in this house. I have to watch Rudi as he goes to paw - smash any dog whereas Kilo has always known to be gentle with small dogs. Mind you, Kilo has always been very cautious in general with other dogs whereas Rudi can be a little hooligan once allowed to play and needs watching carefully!

Kilo does the paw when he sits at the kerb quite a lot. If they want attention from me or each other - pawing is the answer, they bat at each other in play loads etc etc. Contact with their human is essential!


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## Guest

foxyrockmeister; your update was wonderful to read! That book is on my to-read list, lots of folks commenting on it lately  So glad you have found a great trainer, they're worth their weight in gold!

Twiggy, did you take Holly to the barn? Did I miss it? Was wondering how she's doing  Trying to keep up with this thread is not easy!


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## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> foxyrockmeister; your update was wonderful to read! That book is on my to-read list, lots of folks commenting on it lately  So glad you have found a great trainer, they're worth their weight in gold!
> 
> *Twiggy, did you take Holly to the barn? Did I miss it? Was wondering how she's doing  Trying to keep up with this thread is not easy!*




Thanks for asking. Holly was absolutely fine and I've no idea what yesterday was about but something clearly upset her.

Right I'm off to bed. Must be mentally prepared for the little people tomorrow....LOL


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## Symone

OH being a typical man went to a small tescos instead of Asda. No children socks were bought home for they don't sell clothing there.
So, I got out my sowing kit, and just spent the past hour making shamaya a sock. (I wear mens socks because I have huge feet! would be too big for the little pup.)
Got a bit of elastic ribbon from an old nightie which I was gunna chuck.. It now will be used to keep the make shift sock up!

Best thing is, if I would of had a sowing machine it would had taken like 5 mins...


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## MollySmith

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you everyone, I do feel so much better about everything now and looking forward to getting to work.
> 
> My biggest concern is managing to do all the 1-2-1 stuff, It would be so much easier if I only had one dog but having them both makes it harder to dedicate the time they need. It's so much easier to just think "Oh I'll shove them in the car and take them for a nice long walk on the downs together, they'll have fun, I'll have fun etc etc" rather than "Ok you're going to stay here and get in a flap while I take your brother out" and vice versa.
> I KNOW that this will be beneficial from the other end to - getting them used to being left on their own while I take the other one . Any advice for this seeing as while we were out on the drive with Branston today all I could hear was Lily whining and barking inside  Is it just a case of building it up slowly and maybe giving them kongs etc to keep them occupied?
> 
> Oh, it's becoming apparent just how many mistakes I have made with the pickling pair


Well done to you and Branston and GR on all your work ...yesterday (I must go to bed!)

I suspect kongs but I don't have two dogs, so I can't really advise, but I am having to up Molly's lead work so all of what you and GR have been saying in your threads are so similar to what our trainer is doing with us (phew!). I have now got back into a routine these last few days. OH tends to take Molly out in the morning and when she wakes up at about 4, I do the lead practice. At the moment around the street which has been a massive problem for her as we have so many cats here. I'm also going to chuck her in the car on weekdays when it's less traffic and take her to random villages and maybe give her a small off lead run too. I think the only way I can crack it is to practice each day , even just for a few minutes. Little and often. I tend to say that's okay when she's managed to deal with five out of five dogs successively and go home.

Right ZZzz before I start talking even more crap


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## Maria_1986

Glad your sessions went well yesterday GR and FRM.

Symone - I hope Shamaya's foot heals quickly


Yesterday was a bit of a rubbish day here - I had to work all day so Chevy spent most of the day with OH - I did get him to met me on my lunch hour so that Chev could have a quick walk and I could get my doggy cuddle fix and then I took her out again when I got home from work, however I managed to trip over 2 tree roots on our after work walk which has irritated my already injured knee and this morning its all swollen and stiff again, also managed to walk into the edge of the baby gate and have a huge lump and bruise on the top of my leg that hurts anytime I move or roll over onto it so I kept waking myself up last night. So this morning I am tired and grumpy and I think I've broken the coffee maker so I'm stuck with instant.

Anyway plans for today - Chevy is going to just happen to bump into my cinnamon trust doggies in the park today. I want to know how she reacts in a more controlled situation to small dogs so that I can warn the trainer before our first class on Tuesday and get some advice as I don't think its fair to the other people if we turn up with a dog that thinks all small dogs want to play and a handler that has given no prior warning of this fact. Does this seem like a sensible idea?


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## moonviolet

Oh Maria we are an accident prone lot on this thread ( although Grannie is a masochist and delights in her injuries ) Hope your knee recovers soon.

About the small dog plan, just be careful that if Chevy does get silly excited your aren't causing the little dogs undue stress.

MS I definitely recommend the little and often approach it's easier for you both.

FRM. I can tell you what i would do not what i do right now so any anwer from the multi dog households will probably be more useful.


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## Maria_1986

moonviolet said:


> Oh Maria we are an accident prone lot on this thread ( although Grannie is a masochist and delights in her injuries ) Hope your knee recovers soon.
> 
> About the small dog plan, just be careful that if Chevy does get silly excited your aren't causing the little dogs undue stress.


Thanks its a standing joke in my family is that I have a reserved seat at A&E 

We are planning on starting from a distance and getting closer (in more of an arch shape as I have read its more natural for dogs to meet this way rather than head on) depending on how Chevy reacts. Does this sound like it will be enough to stop D&C (the CT dogs) getting too stressed out? I want to try to keep this a very calm and positive meeting for all as my hope would be that eventually Chevy can join us when I take Dougal and Candy out.


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## Sarah1983

We've just taken advantage of the sunshine we've had the last couple of days and taken mat work outside since the ground is now dry. Didn't do anything fancy, literally just clicking and treating for him being on the towel we use as a mat. Raw chicken heart cut into pieces was used for rewards (will have to get more of those, they're ideal!) and the session was a success. Rewarded a few sits on it at first, which was what he offered as soon as I put the mat on the floor, then held out for a down and rewarded him in place. Very short session as I thought I'd end while he was doing so well.

Off to the sled dog meet in a few hours. Hubby is coming with us hmy: so hopefully will have a few pics to share later. He's much better with the camera than I am when it comes to action shots, I tend to get lots of blurry images and tips of tails lol. Hopefully this week we won't have soldiers come telling us we have to leave, we've got permission to be there but some Jobsworth doesn't like it.

Spencer decided he fancied an egg this morning when I got them out for our breakfast and followed me from fridge to kitchen and back again eyeing me hopefully and licking his lips. Gave him one and he carried it to the towel he's fed on and ate it there.


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## moonviolet

Sarah that mat session sounds great. I think it's probably been one of the most useful things with Tink. We had a coffee on the front step (Tink on her mat) this morning and watched bleary eyed people going to the shop for milk or the papers and a few dogs on their way to the park without reaction. 

The quiff has all but disappeared this morning, leaving a determined little tufy sticking straight up between her shoulders :biggrin:


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## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> Sarah that mat session sounds great. I think it's probably been one of the most useful things with Tink. We had a coffee on the front step (Tink on her mat) this morning and watched bleary eyed people going to the shop for milk or the papers and a few dogs on their way to the park without reaction.
> 
> The quiff has all but disappeared this morning, leaving a determined little tufy sticking straight up between her shoulders :biggrin:


Well done Tink  I have to start oh this with Molly. She knows 'bed' but only when treats are about and thinks it means lie down so I have some unravelling to do. Off to walk her with OH in a mo and get some liver from the the butchers so I can cook up some liver cake.


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## purpleskyes

I have given up completely on re call training, in France he was really good and would come when called without even toys or treats. Now back in the UK he is back to being a nightmare out walking yesterday with a bag of cut up sausages and he didn't even look back, had to chase after him.


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## Dogless

mv - Miss Tinks' quiff sounds cute.

FRM - the reason that I haven't given an opinion on the leaving one dog behind thing is that both have been walked / trained separately from the first day I got Rudi - and Rudi had to be left totally alone on the third day as hubby went back to work and I had to walk Kilo. They are both fine with it so not sure - your Kong idea sounds good though, should make being left behind a positive thing.

Maria - I'm accident prone too...hope you heal soon!!

Sarah - that session sounds good...and enjoy your sled dog meet!

Great walk again with the CHs to the top field, they had a play for ages that left both exhausted; tons of bounce this morning, so they're both snoring away, one on each side of me :001_wub:. We were down wind of the sheep this morning and they were in the field closest to the fence - Kilo was interested initially but then played as normal. When their feed arrived the noise and running meant that Kilo chased up and down the fence line (they were facing away, so couldn't even see him and are over the other side of the road, plus separated by two hedges). I didn't try to recall him as he was utterly focussed, but he recalled once the running had stopped. I'm pleased they're there, getting him more used to them can't be a bad thing.


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## Dogless

purpleskyes said:


> I have given up completely on re call training, in France he was really good and would come when called without even toys or treats. Now back in the UK he is back to being a nightmare out walking yesterday with a bag of cut up sausages and he didn't even look back, had to chase after him.


Don't give up entirely; sure it's just a blip and he's getting some independence . Could you try a longline?


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## moonviolet

purpleskyes said:


> I have given up completely on re call training, in France he was really good and would come when called without even toys or treats. Now back in the UK he is back to being a nightmare out walking yesterday with a bag of cut up sausages and he didn't even look back, had to chase after him.


Don't give up just think of it as a game of snakes and ladders, and go back to the start, the easy recall in the house no distractions and work up again. You may never choose to let him offlead BUT there could be an equipment failure or an occasion you accidentally drop the lead. Having that recall there could be essential. Deep breath chest out, shoulders down, you can do it


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## Symone

small update on the pad. seeing dry this morning in the sun looks like it is healing well. she showed no pain when i cleaned it this morning which is good. going to take it easy with her today and hope that it will continue to get better.

will do a proper update and respond to posts when on my pc.


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## Sarah1983

Ooooh, I completely forgot to post about this. Last night we were out with Spen for his last outing before bed. Hubby was throwing his ball, I was picking up poo and a Turkish guy appeared. Spens about half way between us and the guy, staring at him and clearly not too happy about his sudden appearance. I call "Spendog, come on bud" and he turns and heads straight to me. Leash on, squeezy cheese out, not a peep out of Spencer. He did keep looking over at the guy but quickly turned back to the cheese each time. Once the guy had gone we had another ball game before heading in for bed.

Purpleskyes, don't give up on recall. We've been backwards and forwards with it and as MV says, even with a breed not known for great recall it does pay to have taught it anyway. Leashes and collars/harnesses can fail or be dropped, doors can accidentally be left open. Long line works for us when we're going through a "sod you, I'll do what I want" phase.

MV, we were pretty much on our doorstep too. The mat was literally just outside the block door but we didn't have anyone passing thankfully, don't think we're ready for that yet. It does seem a very handy thing to teach and it's good impulse control for Spencer when I'm going "can you lie on the mat while I do this? How about this? This?" It's getting easier and easier for him, he's no longer starting forwards and settling back, just wags his tail and looks at me as if to say "you're not gonna catch me out, I'll stay here for the treats" lol. Did you use Karen Overalls relaxation protocol for it? Tinks quiff sounded cute


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## Dogless

How good about Sepndog and the Turkish man Sarah, he's really come on!


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## kat&molly

I downloaded the book that FRM mentioned and want to do the mat work with Scruff especially for when someone comes to the door- not sure whether its asking too much of her with the other dogs.

FRM- dont know if I'm any help, my other dogs are ok when I do seperate walks but not Evie- she would get stressed and even broke the cat flap once. I had to crate her , which she was more happier with , she wouldn't touch treats left for her though. Now that she's got used to it she's ok , doesn't like it, but accepts it .

Took all the dogs around our Loop walk this morning, its a gorgeous day- and still no sheep. OH came and Hal had his long line on- even found a secureish field for him to have a sniff around in, I dropped the line and practised lots of recalls and he was really good. Dogs were all good but OH was a PITA.
Off to catch up.


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## Thorne

FRM -Sounds like you had a fantastic day yesterday! Brilliant to hear, really pleased for you.

Maria -Hope the meetup with the Cinnamon Trust dogs goes well, and that your knee feels better soon.

Sarah -Great work with the mat, and what a lovely recall given his distrust of the man last night.

MV -Morning people-watching, lovely mental image of you and Tink! Well done.

MollyS -Enjoy that stinky liver cake 

purpleskyes -I agree with Dogless about the longline. I'm not the best person to give recall advice after the drama we've had over the years with Scooter but a longline really was a godsend while training a recall. Hopefully yesterday was just an unfortunate hiccup!

Dogless -I think the sheep exposure is a good thing so long as there's no escapees! Lots of controlled exposure to horses quickly turned Scooter from a lunger and barker to a dog that was very bored of horses. Top marks for your best bouncy boys.

Symone -Great news about Shamaya's cut pad 

K&M -Good to hear about the dogs, shame about the OH!

Our walk yesterday was unusual in as much as my dad joined us  I think he's probably been on a dozen walks in the 10yrs we've had Scooter so both dogs seemed a bit perplexed! 
Scoo tends to get overexcited when he's with us so pulled and snuffled his way to the fields, but did calm down once we were past his main sniffing area and was lovely offlead. His recalls were at a very leisurely trot but he stayed close and listened well!
Breeze was upset at first by some kids repeatedly kicking a ball against a fence but we had her usual magnificent transformation from wimpy to cheerful when the lead came off. She was overexcited too and danced around tripping us all up, talking to us  Lots of back and forward running from both dogs and no dramas except my dad whinging about how long the walk was (all of 45mins!).

A few pics that didn't seem worth making a thread about 

Typical Breeze recall! Legs and ears everywhere!


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## Dogless

Thorne said:


> Dogless -I think the sheep exposure is a good thing so long as there's no escapees! Lots of controlled exposure to horses quickly turned Scooter from a lunger and barker to a dog that was very bored of horses. Top marks for your best bouncy boys.


Don't worry - they would have to get through their fence, then a hedge, then through the hedge on our side of the road, then a secure perimeter fence.


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## Maria_1986

Meet up went ok. She was very excited to see them, and did get a little bouncy so we walked away from them, when she had calmed down a little we did a side by side walk around the field starting with lots of space between us then closing the gap and by the time we split up she was walking nicely right by their sides earning lots of treats and praise  We still need to do more work on it but I am very hopeful that it is something we can fix. 

OH decided he needed a drink after that (I think he was more stressed about it than the dogs were) so we decided that some pub training would also be good to start on, she had a sniff in the pub wagged her tail at all the other customers then laid down and fell asleep. Had a little mumble when a cocker spaniel came in but then settled again quickly. Decided to get lunch there and she laid under the table the whole time with no fuss, even when the waitress came to bring food/clear plates. OH has decided we should try pub training in a few different pubs - so we know for sure she will settle of course - nothing to do with trying different beers in each pub! I am now on the hunt for dog friendly country pubs so we can have a nice walk followed by a pint for the OH.

Lots of mental stimulation today and she is now snoring on her bed - have not walked as much today due to my knee although NSAIDs and vet wrap are helping so I think we will be back to having a longer walk tomorrow as long as I wrap it.


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## moonviolet

K&M Good doggies, Shame OH can't follow their example 

Thorne what lovely pics. The first one of Breeze is brilliant.

Maria sounds like a great day, I bet OH is chuffed pub training is going so well. Glad i'm not hte only one who vetwraps themself :lol:

Edited to add. Sarah what a good boy spendog was with the turkish man  and yes I did use karen overall's relaxation protocol for Tink's "settle" . Although i think it's time to spring clean it a bit  it's a bit confusing but her "mat" is a relaxed stay but be ready to "OK, lets go" at any moment.


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## Symone

Thorne - What lovely pics 

Sarah - Glad to hear about Spendog.  It must be nice knowing your training is working!

purpleskyes - I too would agree with Dogless - a long line but continue to work on recall. How old is Hudson now? He looks lovely  

Well.. I did something bad  I borrowed my friends head collar.
Shamayas pulling is still bad and I don't want her to hurt her paw more when we go out for wees and such. She pulled earlier and there was a small bit of blood in her sock. I'm not sure if it was the pulling or turning around when she pulled which let it open a bit. It was only a short 5 min walk.

Been introducing it since we got home, given her treats whenever she sniffed it and tons when putting it on.She doesn't even mind wearing it.
I bet it'll chance on her next wee outing, though. 
It's only temporary until her paw is better. Been working on training inside on the rug. She was very confused and just wanted to play, bless her.  

Would something like a plaster on her pad be all right and mean I won't need the head collar? Not sure if a plaster would be all right though.. Would need to get something that won't pull her fur out when it gets taken off.
I just don't want her to hurt her paw more, yet also don't want to use the head collar. She does need to go out for wees, though.

A question - I see many people mentioning a mat. What exactly is the idea behind it?


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## Izzysmummy

FRM and GR - Sounds like it went well for both of you yesterday! Dont worry about the leaky eyes GR, its happened to me plenty of times!

Symone - Hope shamayas pad heals soon, no advice but I doubt a plaster would stick very well.

Thorne - lovely pics

Sarah - hope the meet goes well, looking forward to some pics!

Dogless - Izzy's another one who loves to use her paws! Millie is also very dextrous (sp??) and will tap on a door for attention 

Maria - sounds like Chevy is doing well!

K+M - Sounds like Hal is doing great!

wh - I hate shoe shopping too!!

Had a busy weekend here, my parents and Millie arrived on Friday evening and were here for most of the day yesterday. The dogs were brilliant together as always, Izzy can be a little monkey for always wanting to play and will go up and tap Millie and make monkey noises at her but they get on so well!

We had our agility training this morning, it went really well! There were some pretty complicated courses which involved some much trickier handling than we've done before. I attempted the jumps at the large height but Izzy wasn't so sure as some of the angles into the jumps were a bit tricky so we stuck to medium height today. I think I'm definitely the weak link in the team! Did a full course at the end (20 obstacles) which we'd built up during the session, practising the trickiest bits and then putting it all together at the end! One of our trainers was asking if we would be competing  but I said I wasnt sure, Im not sure how she would deal with the busy competition atmosphere as shes such a sensitive little monkey and I wouldnt want her to do it if its not something she would enjoy. He suggested taking her along to a comp at some point, one where there will be quite a few members of the club attending just to see how she is.

She is doing so well there though, considering how nervous she was at first, she now goes for a sniff of people and sits nudging their treat pocket! 

Since we got back this is what she's been doing!!


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## moonviolet

IM look at your girl ... did you squeeze her from a tube?  that's one tired happy dog 

Symone here's a link to Karen Overall's relaxation protocol. have a read i think it explains quite well at the start. There are times when we'd like our dogs to stay not in a formal way but stay and also relax, having a mat we can take with us where we have trained this behaviour can really help in the pub beer garden, at the cafe etc

http://www.dogdaysnw.com/doc/OverallRelaxationProtocol.pdf

Teaching your dog it's a relaxing is a good thing can be important if they haven't naturally come with an off switch or find aspects of life stressful or extremely exciting.


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## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> IM look at your girl ... did you squeeze her from a tube?  that's one tired happy dog
> 
> Symone here's a link to Karen Overall's relaxation protocol. have a read i think it explains quite well at the start. There are times when we'd like our dogs to stay not in a formal way but stay and also relax, having a mat we can take with us where we have trained this behaviour can really help in the pub beer garden, at the cafe etc
> 
> http://www.dogdaysnw.com/doc/OverallRelaxationProtocol.pdf
> 
> Teaching your dog it's a relaxing is a good thing can be important if they haven't naturally come with an off switch or find aspects of life stressful or extremely exciting.


Thanks from me and Molly for this too 

We had a lovely walk although Molly was thieving balls. OH is very tight about balls (innuendo meant) and only has cheap ones so I'm going to take her with a chuck it ones, the only sort she can't eat and has lasted since November. They're not cheap but she adores them so I think she'd hang on to it and not take anyone else's, we shall see....

and the lady next door has bummed off for a weekend away and left the cat crying outside so it's driving Molly nuts. She's finally given up and gone to sleep and is assuming very similar position to Izzy, in fact they could be twins 

I appear to be arguing with wilful students who are parking and blocking up my driveway which is really peeing me off and arguing with Yellow Dog on their thread on FB. Oooh I'm a grumpy old bum fluff these days.


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## Sarah1983

We're back from the sled dog meet and pics have been posted. Spen had a scuffle with the same dog he's had a scuffle with each week so far. They have a brief teeth and noise and slobber moment then mostly ignore each other the rest of the time we're there.

There's a dog there though who Spen seems to have mutual humping sessions with. One will hump then they'll switch places and the one being humped will hump. WTH is that all about? It's very brief and usually too far away to step in before it's all over and done with. Neither Spen nor the other dog seem to mind yet if another dog tries it they're told off  Neither dog humps any of the others either.

Spendog is crashed out in his crate now, it's nice and peaceful  Someone mentioned something about placid Labradors today, I was like "where do you get these placid Labs coz Spen is anything but!"

Oh, and he outdid himself. 6 poos I had to pick up! 6! Think he was too worried about missing out to actually stop and finish one


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## Dogless

LCH. Park. Packed. Hard work. Shattered. .

Walking with Dizzy at 6 with BCH.


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## GingerRogers

K&M I meant to agree with you yesterday, it was very nice of the man to confide his tears, it has made me feel much better the more I think about it 
IMHE  Cockers and sprockers and to some degree springers always seem to fall into the completely nutty or wonderfully well behaved camps, from what I have learnt since getting the ninja I am betting the nutty ones just have too much intelligence going to waste and the beautifully well behaved ones have experienced handlers who put in the time, so Hal will be the latter very soon  honest. Hope your other halfs mood has improved 

Well done Tink, I think  are you actually trying to teach them to throw or put the rings on the post at a guess?

FRM - well done so glad you had a positive day too, sounds like a lot of the techniques we are being taught as well. The throwing treats on the ground is a god send, especially in the cold weather a slightly overwrought dog snapping at your fingers isn't fun is it. We are also meant to ' always treat at the feet' I admit I don't always as I would rather throw the treat in front of her to distract a stare than let it continue if she doesn't turn round for it.
The harness is also what I use, the multiple attachment points are great and we worked on using them properly this week, using the front to guide the dog round. Oh and Branston being k-nackered, , its awesome isn't it, just shows its true what they say about mental stimulation and it doesn't have to be what we think is tiring.
As to getting the time for the 121 stuff and them getting used to being left out, I am sure they will, get used to it that is, TBH its almost tough if they don't as I think the training is probably more important as long as it doesn't get out of hand, neither is presumably used to being left behind for anything exciting, could you start by making it a team effort, perhaps one day take Branston for training while OH takes Lily for a walk and then swap it about? Its ideal if you can do some every day but if you cant manage then do what you can.

Ballybee, I am sure Deeks focus will improve once he settles a bit and understands what you are after, great that the other two and particularly Tummel are being welcoming 

Dogless hope you get your footfall problems sorted before a visit to A&E 

MV I love your snakes and ladders analogy, that is what dog training is but hopefully the snakes get shorter and the ladders longer.

Grannie you are so wise with your tips, to know what Rudi was doing without seeing it  so I was quite relieved to see you are human with the tripping horse story, sorry 

Sarah - I have no idea what the mutual humping is all about but pretty sure I have mentioned hubbys two gay rams before  similar behaviour but well done Spen in the face of the scary turk 

Thorne  I *love *breezes blurry and very pink recall, it gives a completely different picture of a dog to the one thats jumps at at strange noises.

Maria Chevy is doing great  I would so love to have a pub lunch with the ninja but it seems indoor dogs are worse than outdoor dogs, its such a change for us as Rory was a proper come with us everywhere pub dog due to his chronic SA. Hope the knee gets better.


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## GingerRogers

Forgot us again, we had a day trip in the car today, hubby wanted a play. He informed me that for our adventure we were going to drive under the Orwell bridge  WTF why? BEcuase I never have he said, it actually turned ut a nice day, we drove down to Shotley gate and looked across the waters at Felixtowe docks and Harwich then stopped near the church for a field walk with Ginge, no training involved :001_tt2:. Had a look round the church and graveyard and came across some very moving naval graves. The navy had a training school there 'Boy 2nd class, aged 15, 1906' 'Boy first class aged 16, 1905' etc, and also whole merchant ships crews sunk in WW2 none of them over 26 

Anyway got back and as the ninja had been stuck in the boot most of the afternoon bravely (it is Sunday) went on a training walk. Wanted to see what if anything had sunk in since yesterday, part of me wanted to see a dog, but it was all quiet the estate is obviously sleeping off their roasts. We didn't see any nasties but nonetheless she was a superstar, every time I stopped she disengaged and re-orientated right back at me, only slight blip is that she instigates lets go turn arounds even when I don't want to now


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## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Forgot us again, we had a day trip in the car today, hubby wanted a play. He informed me that for our adventure we were going to drive under the Orwell bridge  WTF why? BEcuase I never have he said, it actually turned ut a nice day, we drove down to Shotley gate and looked across the waters at Felixtowe docks and Harwich then stopped near the church for a field walk with Ginge, no training involved :001_tt2:. Had a look round the church and graveyard and came across some very moving naval graves. The navy had a training school there 'Boy 2nd class, aged 15, 1906' 'Boy first class aged 16, 1905' etc, and also whole merchant ships crews sunk in WW2 none of them over 26
> 
> Anyway got back and as the ninja had been stuck in the boot most of the afternoon bravely (it is Sunday) went on a training walk. Wanted to see what if anything had sunk in since yesterday, part of me wanted to see a dog, but it was all quiet the estate is obviously sleeping off their roasts. We didn't see any nasties but nonetheless she was a superstar, every time I stopped she disengaged and re-orientated right back at me, only slight blip is that she instigates lets go turn arounds even when I don't want to now


You must be so close to me in Cambridge, that sounds like the nice sort of trip that we'd make. It's such a shame our ninjas have similar problems otherwise I'd suggest a meet and a walk at Felixstowe beach.


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## foxyrockmeister

Maria - Glad to hear the meet went well with the other dog and the pub experience :thumbup: I think your OH's idea of finding more dog friendly pubs is a great one  Hope your knee feels better soon

Sarah -Sounds like Spens been an all round star  Great work with the mat and ignoring the man. I'm off to look at your sled dog meet pics in a mo, but no idea about the humping!

MV -Glad to hear Tink still has a tuft! Thank you for that link, we've just started on mat work and I have high hopes 

MS -Being a grump every now and then is good for the soul!! Sorry to hear about the parking issues though, must be very frustrating  I've been thinking about getting some of the chuckit balls, are they good? Tennis balls last about 2 minutes in Branston's possession 

PS - Don't give up on the recall, we've all had days like that I assure you 

Dogless - Sheep desensitisation sounds good  You sound exhausted, pour yourself some grape juice and collapse on the sofa with the CH's

Symone - Glad to hear Shamaya's pad is healing well, when Branston cut his I used this boot to protect it










K&M - Glad you like the book, I've ordered the hard copy so haven't got it yet but looking forward to reading it.

Thorne - Lovely pics of your walk, Breeze has the same collar as Branston 



GingerRogers said:


> As to getting the time for the 121 stuff and them getting used to being left out, I am sure they will, get used to it that is, TBH its almost tough if they don't as I think the training is probably more important as long as it doesn't get out of hand, neither is presumably used to being left behind for anything exciting, could you start by making it a team effort, perhaps one day take Branston for training while OH takes Lily for a walk and then swap it about? Its ideal if you can do some every day but if you cant manage then do what you can.


I think that they will just have to get used it, they used to be ok as when they were pups we put a lot of effort into doing things separately and getting them used to being left alone but then we let it slide and now they don't like it  I think just gradually building it up is the way to go, I'm only doing 5-10mins anyway to start with for Branston out on his lead so it works both ways building the time up gradually for both ends of the exercise! Today was ok as OH was here but most of the time he is at work so I'll have to go it alone!

Hope I haven't forgotten anyone  I'm off to rescue the joint of pork out the oven now :drool:

ETA: Just realised I forgot IM  so sorry! Sounds like you've had a busy but fun weekend  Love the pic of the exhausted monkey dog!


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## Werehorse

Hello everyone - hope you're all good and had good days.  I am completely pooped! We did our big Gone Runnings today... 13 miles including up and down Blencathra - out for 4 hours despite doing a reasonable amount of running, including all the way down Blencathra which made my thighs scream!!

We managed to collect a third dog for the up and down Blencathra bit. Turns out she had bolted after us from the car-park at the bottom.  We were a good way up when she joined us and we just assumed her owners were on their way up too and she would turn round and run back down to them at some point, but she didn't she stayed with us all the way to the summit.  Her owner had tried to follow her with two youngish kids in tow and had had to turn back because the kids weren't dressed for the conditions. I felt really bad that we hadn't kind of stopped and hung around for a bit but by the time we thought it there was noone in sight behind us for a long way.  And we kind of just needed to press on. We were planning on heading off the back of Blencathra over Mungrisedale Common, perhaps over Great Calva and Skiddaw too (to be honest I think it'd have been a bit much anyway!) but we decided that we needed to go back the way we came and see if we could find the dog's family! So we did and we did, because she had a mobile number on her tag and we had mobile reception in the car-park. Her owner was very apologetic and upset that the dog had run off and "bothered" us. I felt a bit bad that we'd kidnapped her for a bit.

Her and the boys had a lovely time though! :lol: They all got on nicely and Hugo had a good play with her and she had a good time trying to herd Oscar.  The only bit that was a bit  was the snow cornices on the ridge up to Blencathra, could have done without a third dog at that point, especially not a bonkers collie who was trying to get the boys to play near the edge.  And she kept running up to people and jumping up at them, and was a bit boistrous with a staffie that clearly didn't want the attention - we had to keep apologising and explaining and saying "colliieeeee BISCUITS!" as excitedly as possible to try and get her away.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- know.the.feeling. Enjoy your walk with Dizzy.

Thorne- I loved that first pic of Breeze.

IM- poor Izzy, she worked hard today.

Sarah- well done to the Spendog.

Maria- Chevy is doing so well, and lucky girl got to go the pub as well.

Ginge- Someone's had a good day- you even wanted to see a dog. 

I have managed to fit quite a bit in today. Hal's been like this again ut: he's had 2 good walks and some training sessions with the clicker- he loves that. Been doing the IC exercise, a bit of target[which he got really quick] and started on Down. He is hard work though, its as if unless you are doing something with him , he'll find his own trouble. Barking is another problem-be it the cats in the bedroom, in the garden or the chickens- I can distract him now though.
Ginge-he wont end up really good here :001_tt2: he does need someone
who has more time for him. The rescue have contacted me today about advertising for a new home

A seperate walk for my girls as well. I stayed up this end of the village- one of the Collies has been moved to the back but I didn't want to go that far anyway. Evie was doing well but about 20 metres? away from the scary house she stopped still and looked back- I took that as my cue to turn around. Scruff was lovely and I had lots of focus. Moll -walked lovely and some stunning heelwork from her.
Introduced a new mat each for Moll and Scruff. Moll being Moll offers different things till she gets it. Scruff, bless her, just stares at me- she got the mat bit, I'll just have to go slow with her.


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## foxyrockmeister

Wow W/H and I thought I'd had a busy day!! Walking up Blencathra was lovely, but RUNNING up it!! :yikes:

We've had a good day...

Did some individual training with the Pickles this morning - mat stuff, back door stuff and muzzle acclimatising!

We then went for a resolution walk and were out for 2 and half hours, pics here:
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/284613-our-new-years-resolution-12.html

Then this afternoon I took Branston out for a training street walk  Pockets loaded with ham, harness on , lots of layers on for me and off we went. He was very excited, not sure if it was the going out or the ham but we did some sits, downs and watches on the drive first and then headed onto the street. We only went about 50 yards with lots of stopping and treating and then turned back home (for our first attempt I just wanted to keep it really short) In that 50 yds we met 4 other dogs though!! 1 lady with a springer, I got Branston's focus and we crossed the road :thumbup: then a lady with 3 little scruffies (she always makes me think of Fleur as she has 1 black scruffy, 1 grey scruffy and a bichon!) She could obviously tell I was training Branston so she took her 3 up a little side road and waited for us to pass 
He 'fixed' a couple of times, once on a bird and once on something I couldn't see, but both times I was able to spot the signals, turn him, remove his focus and throw some treats on the ground :thumbup:

So all in all feeling quite proud of my boy and myself 

My neighbours must think I'm a right weirdo, but I know I need to stop caring about what other people think of me and just get on and do what's best for us.


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## kat&molly

FRM- what a great start.

WH- that sounds crazy with the Collie.


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## Dogless

Werehorse - bet that lady's got one shattered dog now. You'll know she's taking advantage if you find yourself with her dog again  . Sounds like you had an awesome day....I know which i'd prefer between a packed park doing some training and a nice run! My vicarious living through you continues....

FRM - good day at Pickle Palace too I see .

GR - sounds like the Good Day fairy visited you too.

k&m - you fitted loads in.... .

Good walk with Dizzy. 'The' choc lab has been away for a week and D's human and I were saying how lovely it was when...they drove past us on their way home. As soon as we got to the street next to ours Kilo was air scenting and up on his toes...... No reaction actually even when we walked past. 

Suprelorin tomorrow. Feeling quite worried about it. Not the procedure itself. Kilo did a huge foaming at the mouth, teeth chattering display when he found some urine when we were walking - so much so that D's human asked he was OK so that helped to reassure me that I am doing the right thing. I hope.


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## cinnamontoast

Is he after the girls, Dogless? I must say when Bear was like this, I just made a very quick decision and got him cut. I researched the implant, because I worried neutering would make no difference. It hasn't to Zak but made 100% difference in a good way with Bear.

I hope you see a difference with Kilo. Wll you neuter if it works the way you want or are you going to wait and see how things go?


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## Twiggy

Well the Sheltie training day went well and all the dogs were little angels really.

Mostly Shelties although there was also a ASD pup, 1 collie bitch, 1 BSD and I think a 'Lowchen'. Dear little dog whatever he was. Oh and a Sheltie cross Corgi..!!

I'm absolutely whacked now - it's the mental concentration for 7 hours rather than physically tiring.

Hope everyone else has had a good day.


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## Dogless

cinammontoast said:


> Is he after the girls, Dogless? I must say when Bear was like this, I just made a very quick decision and got him cut. I researched the implant, because I worried neutering would make no difference. It hasn't to Zak but made 100% difference in a good way with Bear.
> 
> I hope you see a difference with Kilo. Wll you neuter if it works the way you want or are you going to wait and see how things go?


Yes he is and becoming stressed with it too. Our new neighbours but one have a bitch due in season soon and it would be awful for him which has given me a push really. If it has a positive effect then I will neuter; if negligible or negative then I won't. I'd perhaps ride it out if we had been moving as planned but now we're staying here for an indefinite amount of time I need to do something.


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## Thorne

Sarah -Liked your sled dog meet pic thread, thanks for sharing!

GR -Thank you, there are definitely two Breezes; super-worried Breeze and excited fruitloop Breeze  My nan lives near Shotley Gate, lovely area to walk in isn't it? Great progress btw!

Werehorse -Sounds like your enthusiasm today was infectious, you're like the Pied Piper of Blencathra with your extra dog. Bet she enjoyed her adventure! Eternally amazed by your athleticism.

K&M -This boy is certainly keeping you on your toes! Fingers crossed he finds a great forever home soon.

FRM -Brilliant progress with Mr B Pickle, long may it continue :thumbup:

Dogless -Hope all goes well with the Suprelorin.

Was Scooter's turn to be a star pupil today, but I'm sure he only had eyes for the baked liver in my treat bag really! Started him out on the lead as usual but no pulling like he was yesterday, and once offlead we had lovely fast recalls from him, lots of check-ins and sauntering back to me without being asked. Wish he was like this all the time!
Breeze was in nutcase/hungry mode and kept nudging and mouthing my hand for treats, so I spent quite a while ignoring her  Tried dropping treats for her instead of shovelling them in by hand, she's a bit too keen on liver I think! Other than that she was a good girl, lots of sniffing and zooming. Some gunshots on our way back did upset her which was a shame but overall a good trip out.

Did the usual recalls/wait/sit/heel which felt a bit lazy of me, but now I think about it it's more than a lot of people seem to do on dog walks! Haven't seen the lady with the Labradoodle (which zooms around independent of her) and Kindle (which gets her full attention) lately, madness ut:


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## moonviolet

W/H sounds like a great day, although my thighs were screaming just reading about it.

GR sounds liek a a good day.

FRM lovely NYR walk and well done on the pavement walk, I thik it's wise to start short and sweet to build both your confidence. how lovely that lady going up the side street to let you pass:thumbup: As for what other people think, pfft embrace the madness and I can assure you will be having more fun than they are.  

Dogless for what it's worth i think you are doing the right thing trying the suprelorin, It will give you answers one way or another.

K&M that sounds liek a very busy day, sounds like you did great  I hope hurricane Hal can find a home where he is shown as much care and stimulation as you have been showing him.

Sunday afternoon training session, cinnamon sniffing getting more enthusiastic, 6/8 frisbees placed on the pipe first time  then jsut soem familiar fun stuff.

This evenings pavement walk was a little like Inidiana Jones and the temple of doom. Dodging things left right and centre. I think we'd hit the rush hour for people putting out their wheeliebins and dreaded food bins so many chirpy "let's go"'s were uttered to preempt the desire to sniff. ( I'd be lying if i didnt' confess by the time we got home a few weren't through gritted teeth) Tink did momentraily spook as a man caming clankign down his driveway carrying an ironing board, I stopped to let her look as she pretty familiar with ironing boards and said " nothing to scared of it's just an ironing board." Only to have the man reply 

"Well i think it's bliddy scary myself" :lol:

He has a point :biggrin:

no barking at anything a few great shake offs after wheelie bin related moments.


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## purpleskyes

I would multi quote but I am replying on my phone so that is not an option.

I was hoping it was a one off but then today we walked off where we thought there were no dogs and let him off. For abit he was fine and came back when called until he spotted a dog over 300 yards away and he was off.

So yes we are going back to the long line for the time being or maybe forever! 

Hudson is nearly 5 months old now.


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## Dogless

Well, today's the day. Do you reckon a small bag of cheese for nice behaviour and distraction at the vet's makes up for being chemically castrated?....I suspect a man's answer would be very different from the WAYWO ladies'  .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Well, today's the day. Do you reckon a small bag of cheese for nice behaviour and distraction at the vet's makes up for being chemically castrated?....I suspect a man's answer would be very different from the WAYWO ladies'  .


 :lol: :lol: :lol: I think you might be right.

Hope it all goes smoothly and Kilo enjoys the cheese


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## Beth17

Hope all goes well at the vets Dogless  Oscar would sell his soul for cheese so for him it would be enough 

We're off in an hour or so to hopefully get Sams stitches out. Just got to work out how to keep him still as when the vets get on the floor he thinks it's time for play and fuss 

Off to have a read and liking spree as been a bit AWOL again.


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## kat&molly

Hope it goes well today Dogless. Fingers crossed it helps.

That sounds like a hectic walk MV- I have to agree about ironing boards, I go in to a big panic every time I need to use mine.:yesnod:

Lovely sunny morning here, going to see how much I can squeeze in today- wont be as much as yesterday - I didn't do anything else really. 

Hope the comfy collar comes today- he only wears the cone at bedtime now but he's broke it  and last night I had to risk him not pulling at stitches.

Pleased you had a good day Twiggy- sounds tiring.:Yawn: 

Have a good day everyone.


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## GingerRogers

Hope it goes well at vets for both Dogless and Beth.
Hope kilo isn't feeling too masculine. Is it a simple injection or an implant. And does it just control his emotions or render him infertility too sorry its not something i had come across before.
Hope Sam stays still.


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## Sarah1983

Hope all goes well Dogless.


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## moonviolet

Beth nice to see the return of our resident bouncy boxers  Hope Sam can stand still for his stitches to be removed. 

K&M hope Hal's comfy collar comes and you have a lovely day.

*waves randomly at L/C* in case shes reading


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## Twiggy

I hope all goes well at the vets today Dogless and Beth.


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## Sarah1983

Oops, missed yours Beth! Hope all goes well for you too.


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## MollySmith

Wishing Dogless and Beth well at the vets. 

I have a mad Molly today, OH's first trip out was to the doctors and not on her walk, how dare he! So she's currently pulling all his clothes downstairs in a pile in the living room and sitting on them. It's making me laugh and he was a grumpy arse this morning so I'm letting her.... so far two jumpers, numerous pants and socks and a pair of jeans have made it down. :ciappa:


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## foxyrockmeister

Good luck to Dogless and Kilo, and Beth and Sam at the vets today. Hope all goes smoothly for all of you


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Hope it goes well at vets for both Dogless and Beth.
> Hope kilo isn't feeling too masculine. Is it a simple injection or an implant. And does it just control his emotions or render him infertility too sorry its not something i had come across before.
> Hope Sam stays still.


Here is a link that tells you all about it: NOAH Compendium of Animal Medicines: Suprelorin 4.7 mg implant for dogs - Introduction It is an implant that suppresses testosterone so mimics the effect of a surgical neuter.

Beth - hope Sam isn't too wriggly.

All was fine; we had the vet that did his kc vaccination which I was pleased about as he doesn't fuss and try to make friends with Kilo when I tell him it's best to ignore him. Kilo just stood perfectly still whilst I held his head, love him, although he was lip smacking and drooling and then started to shake afterwards. Vet said he is the picture of health and what a dog should be which was nice. He behaved brilliantly though from start to finish, even in the waiting room as a dog on someone's lap growled and grumped at him, he just sat nicely and I got complimented on his behaviour. Poor boy is a bit sore I think and confused but has just settled on the sofa and I'll take Rudi to the pet shop to replace the bowl of his that I manged to smash yesterday so Kilo has some peace and quiet :incazzato:.

Both CHs were very good on their onlead walk this morning too (didn't want lots of excitement and playing before the vet's).


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## MollySmith

Pleased to hear that it went well Dogless, what a star, Kilo


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## Izzysmummy

Pleased it went well at the vets dogless! Gold stars for Kilo being a good boy! Fingers crossed it helps him be more relaxed when out and about!

Beth, hope all goes well at the vets with Sam too!


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## Sarah1983

Glad the vets went well Dogless. Let's hope it helps Kilo with his bitch in season problem.

Spencer has recovered from yesterdays run around and it's a lovely day here so I think we're going to go for a nice walk. Probably a stupid idea since all the fair weather walkers will be out but the vile weather has kept us to the same few short walks for weeks and while Spen seems happy enough I'm bored with them. Think I might take a leaf out of FRMs book and go exploring. Hubby's off so if I get lost I can get him to come find me :lol:

And we definitely need more pics like this don't we?


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## Symone

Glad that it went well, Dogless!

Hope all goes well for Beth, too


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## kat&molly

Pleased it went well Dogless, hope young Sam is behaving.

MS- would love to be watching Molly drag all those clothes downstairs.

I needed new pics to send to the rescue so decided to take Hal to the fields with Moll- I can drop his long line then. Horrendous trying to get past the barking Setters - really bad, I had to sit in the field for 10 minutes after until he [and I] had calmed down.
Photos weren't very good , I'll have to try again.
I had to be quick to get this.
















This one is bad, but look in the background- it looks like someone's been over Moll with a steam roller.:yesnod:


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## Beth17

Glad all went well Dogless. Lets hope it means Kilo can relax when there are bitches about.

Lovely pic of Spen Sarah. Have fun exploring.

Ginge and FRM really glad everything went well with the behaviourists at the weekend 

K&M Hal is a lovely looking boy.

Well he was good as gold and wasn't too wriggly thanks to lots of treats, although he did nearly take the nurses eye out with his tail. Got home and took them both for a walk with lots of nice LLW and walking fairly calmly past dogs. Had a bit of offlead messing around and then walked calmly home. 

A couple of minutes from home a coupe of workmen were digging up the grass verge and stopped to say hello to the boys. So ended up chatting to them for 5mins and the boys were trying to help dig up the hole for them. Went to leave and Sam lay down and was watching them so had to bribe him to move which they found amusing  He really is an attention seeker.


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## kat&molly

Silly me , I didn't even post it.


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## Beth17

I'm glad you said that as I couldn't see and thought I was being a bit daft


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## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> I'm glad you said that as I couldn't see and thought I was being a bit daft


Me too - lovely pictures everyone. You can just tell that Hal is a handful!!

Sarah - hope you and the Spendog have a lovely new walk.

Beth - Sam makes me smile, what a little star! Pleased the vet went well for you too .


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## Sarah1983

Lol K&M, I spent ages looking for Moll and couldn't find her. Didn't realise you hadn't even posted the pic! Hal reminds me so much of Spencer from what you say about him. The Spendog is a fantastic dog but he was a royal pain in the ass at first! Still can be sometimes.


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## kat&molly

I bet you all thought Moll really had been squished :laugh:
I'm blaming this dog- I'm losing the plot.:yesnod:


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> I'm glad you said that as I couldn't see and thought I was being a bit daft


Yes same here...LOL


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol K&M, I spent ages looking for Moll and couldn't find her. Didn't realise you hadn't even posted the pic! Hal reminds me so much of Spencer from what you say about him. The Spendog is a fantastic dog but he was a royal pain in the ass at first! Still can be sometimes.


Me too!! I thought 'blimey, she must be very flat!!'

In the ACTUAL picture  it is clear to see that she hasn't been steam rollered at all but has been taking lessons from Lily in Stealth moves 

Beth - Glad Sam was a good boy at the vets too


----------



## Symone

Well, Pad is still improving so I took her out for her first walk on the headcollar.
She tried to pull then shook her head, then walked nicely for 15 mins. We then went home for I didn't want to over do it.
I checked her pad and sock and there was no blood, so I might keep using it for the next few days until her pad is fully healed. 
I kept treating her for walking so nicely at my side. I can honestly say it was the nicest walk that we've ever had. And even she seemed more relaxed by not pulling. Maybe once her pad is fully healed she will continue to walk how she does on the head collar? I'll keep my fingers crossed, lol!
Going to take her to the beach later, not go near the sea so there's nothing to cut her pad on. Maybe a small run on soft sand will be nice for her.

Overall feel really happy right now. Not sure if it was because of the nice walk or the sun being out.
It's just one of those days where you can't feel down.


----------



## L/C

Still here - lurking about.

Just signed up for the Susan Garrett online course Recallers 4.0 - very excited. Looking through the Pre-course games atm...


----------



## Sarah1983

Well we've just had a lovely road walk. Thought I'd head further into the estate and see where it led. I have no idea where we ended up but there were lots of grassy bits for Spencer to sniff, lots of trees and bushes and it made a nice change from our usual walks even if he did have to stay on leash. I had him on the harness because I really couldn't be bothered trying to get him focusing and walking nicely in a new place. He wasn't too bad. I put on the brakes with any of the head down, shoulder to the floor pulling so that soon stopped. We found a bench and sat and watched the world go by for a while. It was very quiet so we just did some work on eye contact and just generally chilling out while we sat there.

Had a bit of a blip when an Akita rushed out at us barking and snarling but someone grabbed it just before it reached us. Spen didn't react badly, just watched it. We saw 3 other dogs, one ignored him and 2 little ones shouted and swore at him. He had a bit of a whine but didn't totally lose his mind and we were walking parallel to the 2nd one for a while on the opposite side of the street. I think both of us owners used it as a training opportunity coz the bloke with the other dog was doing much the same as me, I presume telling his dog to leave and then praising when it did. We were walking faster though so left them behind after a while. Very pleased with Spens reaction to all the dogs. Not so long ago he'd have been lunging and whining and spinning out of frustration at not being able to greet, today he whined but there was no lunging and spinning.

As we were coming back someone said it was nice to see him being taken for a proper walk for once instead of me just letting him out for a pee and taking him back in :nonod: I pointed out that if he were just let out to toilet and not exercised regularly he wouldn't be in such good shape. Yes, most of his "walks" are just for toilet purposes but it's rare he doesn't get a proper walk at some point during the day!


----------



## moonviolet

K&M please dont' do that again I was about to go to the Opticians to get my prescription checked. He does look such a lovely boy. I loe Molly's stealth moves I'm sure Miss lilly Pickle approves.

L/C i was tempted but i can't justify the pennies right now, grumble MOT grumble grumble.

Symone glad shamaya's pad is healing nicely.

Kilo and Sam well done for being good boys at the vet's. 
Beth I love picturing the boys getting recruited to be professional hole diggers. 

We had a lovely lovely walk this morning gorgeous weather, the sort that makes you wish you could be out all day. Bumped into friends and their dogs at various points and it was bliss.


----------



## Twiggy

*


moonviolet said:



K&M please dont' do that again I was about to go to the Opticians to get my prescription checked. He does look such a lovely boy. I loe Molly's stealth moves I'm sure Miss lilly Pickle approves.

Click to expand...

*


moonviolet said:


> Yes I kept straining my eyes to see if I could make out the faintest glimpse of the top of Molly's ears to no avail and then when some of you had 'liked' the pic I was thinking it must be me...!!
> 
> Right I'm going outside to clean the car as it's absolutely filthy and then I might train Holly and Tremor in the paddock for the first time this year.


----------



## GingerRogers

Symone - I meant to say yesterday not to feel bad about using a head collar, its certainly better for her than pulling as hard as she does, and she needs to be a bit less 'scrabbly' while her paw heals.

Sarah - sounds like Spendog was awesome today  sometimes its nice to just walk isn't it.

Today is a lovely day here too, out of the wind its a glorious sunshiney day. We just went out for a little practice after lunch, she was quite good, we got out the house with very nice waiting and steady with no mad rushing, really getting the hang of walking nicely, I'm saying steady less, its more just as we get to corners or she sees/smells something interesting but the techniques we learnt Saturday are really helping. We actually got around the hotel corner today, at the end of the road is a little bench that one day I plan to sit down on MV stylee but not today as a couple of women with a push chair came round the corner so rather than push my luck I turned back, it was the right decision as she gave one little warning bark but then came nicely home. The women gave me a glare as they passed, think they thought I was praising her for barking at their precious one  

Need to work on sit as she just lies down recently, not sure when the need for 'sits' and not 'downs' might arise but I feel she has lost the understanding of it for some reason. She also gets very over excited when the target stick comes out and cant quite co-ordinate her brain or legs so think we need to give that a miss for a while .

Glad the boys got on ok at the vets!


----------



## MollySmith

Some walk photos to bore you with  This is at the Gog Magog downs about four miles from our house and it has lots off lead areas and a huge field at the end.

Admiring the view - it is the only hill in Cambridge and apparently it's a sleepy giant. Molly identifies with resting a lot









Ninja dog!









With some other dogs we met, Mylo and Ruby and further proof that our first trainers were utterly wrong about Molly not being sociable. Bitter me... never 









Molly and Ruby head home


----------



## Sarah1983

Sounds like things are going really well Ginge  Good decision on calling it when you did, it's so easy to push them that little too far and instead of ending on success feeling like a failure. 

And yup, sometimes it is nice to just go for a walk instead of training. I did throw in a little training but for the most part we just wandered. I didn't want to come home really but thought I best had. We were only out about an hour but I had phone calls to make and hubbys off today and tomorrow so thought I'd best spend some time with him lol.

Spencer lies down if I verbally cue a sit. He'll sit to a hand signal though. I keep meaning to sort it out but like you haven't thought of a situation where a down won't do just as well. Especially as with a hand signal I can get a sit easily.

MS, great pics  Blue skies all round today is it?


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Sounds like things are going really well Ginge  Good decision on calling it when you did, *it's so easy to push them that little too far and instead of ending on success feeling like a failure*.
> 
> And yup, sometimes it is nice to just go for a walk instead of training. I did throw in a little training but for the most part we just wandered. I didn't want to come home really but thought I best had. We were only out about an hour but I had phone calls to make and hubbys off today and tomorrow so thought I'd best spend some time with him lol.
> 
> Spencer lies down if I verbally cue a sit. He'll sit to a hand signal though. I keep meaning to sort it out but like you haven't thought of a situation where a down won't do just as well. Especially as with a hand signal I can get a sit easily.
> 
> MS, great pics  Blue skies all round today is it?


I think I am finally getting this being good for my own sanity if not hers. It just so hard when things are going well not to push it that step too far, but I realised on Saturday thats exactly what I did, I should have calmed her and me before going anywhere near the building if I even did. Next time I will try and remember but I think the trainers understood anyway and doubt they will let me push her too far again.

With he sit thing I have a vague idea of 'what if' I were to go back to classes one day, don't really think it will happen unless advisable from a socialisation point of view, but I just keep imagining our old trainers annoying voice every time she lies down instead  its obedience you know


----------



## GingerRogers

Hubby has just told me that Rosie dogs Dad has finally taken the poor girl to the vets and sur-pucking-rise (sorry but very  about this, if he ever dares to give me dog advice, so help me*) she has a UTI at least she has finally had the AB's to hopefully clear it up but the poor girl has been suffering for months 

I know he was scared to take her in case it was something more serious, we have been on at him for weeks, at least he has gone though and I am actually surprised he managed it while his wife is away in India, he would have been unable to cope if it was something more with her away 

*he tried on saturday saying 'well its obviously just a building thing isn't it', this is because the ninja will kick off indoors with Rosie but not outside (she is fine with other dogs she knows) cos Rosie stares, I know collies do that, but actually, you could stop her mate


----------



## Kicksforkills

Perfect and best in agility class again.

8 Obstacle course with Rasco 

Also walked the biggest dog I have ever walked today. A big male Boxer.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Hubby has just told me that Rosie dogs Dad has finally taken the poor girl to the vets and sur-pucking-rise (sorry but very  about this, if he ever dares to give me dog advice, so help me*) she has a UTI at least she has finally had the AB's to hopefully clear it up but the poor girl has been suffering for months
> 
> I know he was scared to take her in case it was something more serious, we have been on at him for weeks, at least he has gone though and I am actually surprised he managed it while his wife is away in India, he would have been unable to cope if it was something more with her away
> 
> *he tried on saturday saying 'well its obviously just a building thing isn't it', this is because the ninja will kick off indoors with Rosie but not outside (she is fine with other dogs she knows) cos Rosie stares, I know collies do that, but actually, you could stop her mate


Glad poor Rosie dog has finally got the AB's she needs.

I had a similar thing when i asked a woman to recall her 2 collies as htey were tryign to herd Tink when she was minding her own business having a sniff, and was told thats what collies do. So i fixed her with a collie stare and made it quite clear if she wasn't going to control her dogs i was quite willing to do it for her.


----------



## GingerRogers

:lol: I don't think I would have liked to be on the end of your collie stare


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> :lol: I don't think I would have liked to be on the end of your collie stare


Apparently i can be quite intense


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Big smiles from Pickle towers 

Hubby took them out on the downs first thing as I had an early start at work, but I left them some scrummy kongs and stuffed hooves for him to give them when he went to work. 
I got home about 3.30 and we got straight in the car and went to our new found fave forest, it's sooo dry and so quiet. We tramped around for an hour, they were offlead the whole time but I did lots of recalls and some sits/watches etc.

Then when we got back I decided to take Branston out for his training street walk, so I put on his harness, decided to leave back door open so Lily had choice of house or garden and gave her a bit of paddywhack and headed out the gate with Branston....

He was so hyped up on the drive I started to get really worried and nearly turned straight back round, but we hid behind the car for a bit and did some sits/downs/watches unitl I got some focus, then went to the front of the drive and did the same, then headed out onto the pavement. He was REALLY GOOD  Super vigilant and on his toes but I didn't fear for my limbs at all. He fixed once on a bird so we turned around then back again, he got as far as a couple of whimpers, which worried me but I seemed to manage to get his focus again. 

Then I saw my next door neighbour coming up the street... I was really worried because boy can he talk !! I can never escape him whenever I see him. He's a nice guy but you don't want to bump into him when you're in a hurry! I was worried, thinking this is the last thing we need and tried to explain to him what I was doing, but as well as loving to talk, he doesn't really listen  Anyway, actually I think it turned into a positive as Branston was a star, as we were talking several other people walked past, loads of cars went by, lots of general noise and business, and he stood really nicely :thumbup: he did 'notice' some birds a couple of times but each time I got his attention again and he was fine *huge sigh of relief* and THEN, we walked back home (all of 30 yards away!) and he walked beautifully - Loose lead, calm, wagging tail. I was so proud!

We were only out for about 5 minutes in total but it felt like such an achievement!! and Lily? We got back in and she was on her bed happily chomping on the paddywhack 

Then we did some mat work - I can put it down at one end of the kitchen, walk to the other end and just look at the mat and he trots straight over to it and lies down looking expectantly at me. What do I do now? Still waiting for my book to arrive 

Sorry for the epic post, I know all these things seem so minor and ridiculous but I'm just so happy that we're making (very slow steady) progress.

Oh and also I can now say 'muzzle' and Branston will shove his face straight in it (searching for ham!) I have also clipped it around his neck (without his nose in the muzzle) with no drama, so I think the acclimatisation is going well. 

Right, I have finished now and off to catch up on what you've all been up to on this fine day


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless - glad all went well at the vets. Fingers crossed for maximum positive and minimum negative effects for him.

FRM - Yay! Well done - all good stuffs.

Beth - :lol: at Sam and Oscar the work-boxers.  I've forgotten if you posted after being to the vets today - hope it went well anyways.

Ginger - well done on your walk.  Steady progress. 

Mv - collie stare. 

K&M - still giggling at the VERY flat Molly. :lol: I zoomed right in on the image hunting for her and everything. Hal... :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub: If three dogs was even an option I'd be so tempted to come and take him off your hands but it is so, so out of the question for us right now.

Mollysmith - love the pictures of Molly and the taking of OH's clothes downstairs. :lol:

More working for me today! The boys were tired from yesterday so they've been ok.  I'm slowly building up to the idea of 5:30/6am starts to get them a really good walk in before a work day, so far they've managed with epic walks before I work a couple of days and just shorter walks on work days but work days are becoming more frequent so early morning woods walks will be the order of the day. Eeep. I'm not a morning person which is a fact that has always p*ssed me off no end - all my favourite things to do benefit from getting up early and all my least favourite things to do involve staying up late, yet my body-clock is set the wrong way round.


----------



## ballybee

ok, so Deeks has been with us for 3 days now, i think i'm smitten 

He's been brilliant, he barely pulls now, ok if he see's another dog he will but he's getting better at just walking past and not meeting. His recall is good, he doesn't really wander too far, he loves a cuddle...he's just a great dog 

Really hoping he finds a forever home soon, i was sitting on the bedrrom floor with him in the crate(doors open) and fussing him, then he climbed onto my knee and cuddled me  He's really very trusting of me already :001_wub:

Dan and Tummel have been fine too, they're more than fine with him being here. Dan still gets a bit jealous when Deeks is getting a play with a toy but we're working on it. I'm mixing it up, they have 1 walk seperate(Deeks alone then my 2 together) and 1 walk as a group per day which they al love


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers - I wish we could flush out horrible trainers voices, I get the same about Molly and I steam inside my tiny brain about it! You've done well and you need to trust your instinct, we know our dogs best. What a relief that the vet was called on too. 

Werehorse - not long until the clocks change and the mornings are more bearable, boo to work.

FRM - well done Branston and Lily, I completely feel your happy vibes and hope that your boy does too. Small but big steps. 

Molly was a madam on her lead walk, saw her mate Wicken who is lead reactive so they were both having a mare in the car park. So this afternoon I had the scariest interview of my life (no idea how it went, just lots of people firing questions Apprentice style and powerpoint) so I thought I'd go home and do lead walk. Blummin lazy beast, she's still snoring. Must be the ninja karate ball jumps. I had that pic on my big iMac screen and we were adding captions to it that's how sad me and OH are...


----------



## tiatortilla

Well I was just really good and caught up with TWELVE whole pages! Hope you all have a suitably annoying amount of notifications now 
Sounds like things have been going well for everyone - great to hear!
I'm too tired to write much today so here's a of picture of Tia playing with her favourite labrador instead, think we probably owe this girly Tia getting over being scared of labradors, she's pretty boisterous but a lovely pup


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge and FRM- you both sound more positive.
Good that Rosie dog has finally got some treatment

Ballybee-- Deeks is doing so well now.

I've been wondering if Hurricane Hal is getting too much here- he's come from living with 1 woman[and apparently a cat :rolleyes5:] who worked a lot , to a house with 2 whole people , 4 girlys, 2 cats and the chickens. Its a big change in a fortnight, and the kennels in between. And the neutering.
He gets 2 good walks at least, little training sessions and Moll, Scruff, OH and I play with him.
I made his 2nd walk a lead walk but it was a bad idea due to the dogs in this village running out at us. Think I need to cut the stimulation down a bit somehow. He's still on the go now.

Werehorse- he's crate trained and you could use coming here as one of your practice runs.:lol:


----------



## Beth17

Tiatortilla lovely picture 

MS lovely pictures and had to laugh at her moving your OH clothes downstairs 

MV I imagine your collie stare to be very intimidating :yesnod:

FRM what a really positive post, so glad you had a good walk.

Ginge sounds like a good walk with progress for you and the ninja.

Werehorse I'm the same I'd love to get up early and mean to but just don't quite make it, especially in winter. It doesn't help having lazy dogs that sleep in until 9  This spring/summer I'm really going to make the effort.


----------



## Symone

Well, just met up with Shamayas breeder to get some food for her, and asked him about her pulling. 
He suggested a harness but we told him that she can pull quite hard on it.. 
He then said that we might be too soft on her. Said we should pin her on her back from time to time to get her to be submissive to us, so she knows who's boss.

Think it could be something simple like we are too soft so she thinks she will get away with it? 

On other news.. we walked her with just her Collar then, for it was a really short walk. She was so-so with walking there, pulling when her flexi (her other leads are wet.. fell in the bucket while the floor was drying.  ) was on lock close, but if it wasn't on lock or was long she was quite good. 
Decided I would rather use a wet lead next time, though. I locked it near a road and it came undone! Thinking of chucking it straight in the bin


----------



## Dogless

MS - hope the interview brings a good result .

GR - so pleased that Rosie dog is getting treatment now; understand why you were so annoyed.

Werehorse and Beth - the CHs could teach you a thing or two about early mornings .

kicksforkills - pleased that you were the best...one day that will be us . Maybe :sosp:.

k&m - must be a huge upheaval for HH....all good stuff but so much!

Ballybee - brilliant to hear how Deeks is doing.

I walked Kilo and Rudi separately tonight. Rudi was a little star, met and talked to someone that put me in a vaguely bad mood...but won't post about it as I've cheered up again now. Kilo was a little star too, lead walk as I didn't want him to overdo it just for today, nearly let him off round the sports pitches for a potter but there was a footie match going on on the astroturf....a very serious one and although Kilo wasn't showing any interest at all I just thought it was best not to tempt fate . A man appeared from behind a tree on his phone in the dark which Kilo tensed at, but a good 'leave' and he showed no further interest...also good .

I have been analysing the dogs that we struggle with in terms of them posturing and barking at Kilo and / or him doing the same to them or those that he reacts to if they run over to him when he's onlead and jump on him or glue themselves to his backside like the bulldog. There are 5 (one moved, so 4 now) that spring to mind immediately...and every single one is an entire male. I don't think that the Suprelorin will be a magic bullet by any means but am hopeful that it will enable any training to be more effective. I cannot recall Kilo ever posturing or reacting badly to a bitch. Drooling, teeth chattering etc, yes, but no aggressive response.


----------



## Beth17

Symone it's not a case of being too soft and needing to show her whose boss. As you know and have been doing it's is purely about consistency and persevering with training and she will get there eventually. Sam is still a pain with pulling when he wants to get somewhere, but he is much better than he was and tbh I have been a bit slack with his LLW lately; So it's my fault as opposed to his


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Well, just met up with Shamayas breeder to get some food for her, and asked him about her pulling.
> He suggested a harness but we told him that she can pull quite hard on it..
> *He then said that we might be too soft on her. Said we should pin her on her back from time to time to get her to be submissive to us, so she knows who's boss.*
> 
> Think it could be something simple like we are too soft so she thinks she will get away with it?
> 
> On other news.. we walked her with just her Collar then, for it was a really short walk. She was so-so with walking there, pulling when her flexi (her other leads are wet.. fell in the bucket while the floor was drying.  ) was on lock close, but if it wasn't on lock or was long she was quite good.
> Decided I would rather use a wet lead next time, though. I locked it near a road and it came undone! Thinking of chucking it straight in the bin


Please don't follow the breeders advice, he's talking absolute rubbish.

I've had collies for over 35 years, plus I've handled, trained and judged hundreds (possibly thousands) more and I've never had to resort to pinning any of them on their backs.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Well, just met up with Shamayas breeder to get some food for her, and asked him about her pulling.
> He suggested a harness but we told him that she can pull quite hard on it..
> He then said that we might be too soft on her. Said we should pin her on her back from time to time to get her to be submissive to us, so she knows who's boss.
> 
> Think it could be something simple like we are too soft so she thinks she will get away with it?
> 
> On other news.. we walked her with just her Collar then, for it was a really short walk. She was so-so with walking there, pulling when her flexi (her other leads are wet.. fell in the bucket while the floor was drying.  ) was on lock close, but if it wasn't on lock or was long she was quite good.
> Decided I would rather use a wet lead next time, though. I locked it near a road and it came undone! Thinking of chucking it straight in the bin


I certainly wouldn't pin Shamaya, but perhaps you're not quite firm or consistent enough? TBH you don't seem very consistent at all at present which probably confuses Shamaya although I know you're sorting this already. I have to be quite firm with both of mine from time to time (not physically so) otherwise they will see what they can get away with - just testing their boundaries I think.

You'll get there, we all will. I hope .


----------



## Sarah1983

Please don't take his advice and pin Shamaya. That honestly won't teach her not to pull and it will only frighten her. It's quite possibly a case of you being too soft as in not being consistent enough with insisting she walks nicely but it's bugger all to do with her needing to "know who's boss" or anything like that. 

Like Dogless I've had to be pretty firm and insist on something at times but not in a physical way. Spencer is a pain with pulling at times and that's my fault. I hate loose leash walking training, I'd rather just walk, so haven't put the effort needed into teaching it properly. He's not too bad on the collar but I'm guilty of too often just putting the harness on and going out to enjoy a walk


----------



## Guest

Donkeyboy has been good, still nervous of most people. Had a wonderful walk in the countryside and there were no dogs, no owners nothing. Just us. Lovely. 
Feeling very 'got at' the past few days, very down, anxious, and feeling very unsupported by those around me. I think I shall just lurk, rather than post, just for a bit.


----------



## Sarah1983

Hope it's not any of us you're feeling got at by LO. Was just thinking about you and Zander last night. Hope you're both okay.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Donkeyboy has been good, still nervous of most people. Had a wonderful walk in the countryside and there were no dogs, no owners nothing. Just us. Lovely.
> Feeling very 'got at' the past few days, very down, anxious, and feeling very unsupported by those around me. I think I shall just lurk, rather than post, just for a bit.


Aww I'm sorry to hear you're feeling down and anxious. Don't forget you're among friends on this thread and I for one will always try and support you. Remember all of us can only do our best for our dogs.


----------



## Symone

LO - Sorry to hear that you're feeling anxious & down. I hope that you will feel better soon.


Well since coming here I have been more consistent, and have seen some improvement. (It would be nice for a sudden complete no pulling change but I know it doesn't happen like so..  ) I'll just continue what I'm doing and one day we'll get there. 
I was just a little unsure of the whole pinning her thing, I was worried that I left out something important, lol! 
At least I can come here and you guys can tell me otherwise  It's all learning, I suppose! And I wouldn't learn without asking. (And I would rather ask than make a mistake)

Thanks for the replies. 

And I think I can maybe be too soft at times.. Like I should probably correct Shamayas sticking her tongue in my ear for fun.. But she only does it when we lay in bed and I think it might be a kiss but I am not sure... 
OH just said he enjoys her doing that....


----------



## Dogless

LO - full support from me too; sorry you're feeling awful.


----------



## Werehorse

LO - sorry you're feeling rubbish. We're all here to support you, even if you aren't getting any support InRealLife. Your walk sounds nice.


----------



## MollySmith

LO - I too am here if there is anything I can do for you. Massive hugs, my mantra is 'this soon will pass' and it will xxx

Symone - I think it's terribly easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of training advice. Can I say that what I learned is that the quick fix is usually the most painful one for the dog and the slow route is the most pleasant? And that a happy dog is the best of those two outcomes.

I had someone try to take the fast route with Molly and it was horrible to see my beautiful dog so worried. I'd much rather spend a week walking up and down pavements clicking and treating, to get her to stop pulling. I have and it largely works. It will for you. Slow down, take your time and don't expect a miracle. There aren't any sadly. And be consistent. Pick one thing and do that or you run the risk of overwhelming your dog. I am glad you find this place useful but keep in mind as I have tried to with Molly's lead aggression, that it's only a behaviour. It can be lessened or stopped. And who cares about sticking your tongue in your ear, she loves you, let her


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

I hope everyones weekend was good 

Mine was busy,

I left Sophie for her first night  I have never ever left her alone for a whole night. Felt horrible walking from the house and her in the window watching. But she did really well so I was probably worried for nothing.

I tried out my first bar, yup at the age of 23 Ive taken up drinking and bars wont become a habit tho. Didnt even have a hang over 

Sophie met the new boyfriend again and she was stuck to him like glue! Hes admit he loves animals but dogs arent high on his list more into reptiles (hes got a gecko named puge)

In the past two weeks I have seen a change in Sophie we have run into more friendly dogs then not which is a huge surprise because our walks were turning into nightmares with other peoples dogs.

Last week she started play with two aussies and had a quick run while still on her flexi. I have not seen her wag her tail or play with a dog like that since she was a pup (shes two now)

Now the photos Im about to show you are jaw dropping scary! Never in my life did I think this would happen.

The old man (gramps!) and the other owner Gloria

With Tobi, Charlie, and Benji!










Hey you guys, you wanna play!










Sophies fast moves!










Zooooooom!





































Weve run into her before but either they have been leaving or we were. But this time we bothed pulled into the parking lot the same time. She got to have a good 30 minute run with them, never seen her have so much fun with them:001_wub: I was gonna cry I was soooo happy she was actually playing!

We ran into another group of dog walkers, I put Sophie on a leash then as their dogs came charging into our group (goldens and mutts) and Sophie let out a high pitch whine and I could tell she was getting over whelmed.

Then these cheap poop bags that my dad bought, one exploded on me and cover me and her flexi leash( the handle part in ****!) Ill stick to my pricey biodegradable bags.


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## Dogless

How lovely to see Sophie playing with other dogs . Oh, and hangovers....they start to creep in around mid thirties.....:sosp:.


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## moonviolet

LO your walk with Zan sounds wonderful, i'm sorry you are feeling anxious and down. even if you dont' feel like posting wave once in a while so we know you're safe in the quiet corner. If you ever want to someone to listen feel free to pm.

Symone I agree with everyone else. ( I know dogs arent' human however bear with me) the relationship you have with your dog is not entirely disimilar to working in a management role. You can either have a team that do their work through fear as you demand their respect forcing them to do things in a regimented manner, use punishments freely for any mistakes or you can have a team who like and respect you as you reward, praise and recognise their efforts, guiding them by giving them choices they can get right, being consistent so they can become confident in what is right . The second sort of relationship takes time to build, but makes the work itself rewarding for both of you. ( sorry for the ramble I shouldn't post before coffee) 

MPC what lovely pics i hope you bump into them again 

I had a breakthrough last night... more with OH than Tink really I was some doing delayed retrieves, OH was watching as Tink waited to be released, Miss Nonchalant actually looking like a coiled spring. It was at this point the lightbulb went on over his head,:idea: and he said releasing her to get the toy is going to be a reward isn't it? :yesnod::yesnod::yesnod: so the work itself is a reward :yesnod::yesnod::yesnod: 

i'm off to make coffee before I lay out my plan for world peace.


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## kat&molly

LO- sorry you feel down and anxious, we are all here to give you support if you need it- thats what our fluffy thread is for. Sounds like a lovely walk you and the Donkey had.:yesnod:

MPC- Lovely pics of Sophie.

Symone- Agree with the others, and I can never understand this pinning business, I bet these people own dogs who dont have any bloomin spirit.LLW is the worst thing to teach[IMO] you have to be consistent.

MV- Wanna swap OH's.

HH was playing his game last night, the one where he jumps on the armchair drops a toy behind it then walks on the crinkly bag to retreive said toy,must have done it a dozen times- nothing unusual in that, except OH was sat in the chair at the time.:lol:

Have a good day everyone- the wind is blowing a hoolie here.:001_huh:


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> MV- *Wanna swap OH'*s.
> 
> HH was playing his game last night, the one where he jumps on the armchair drops a toy behind it then walks on the crinkly bag to retreive said toy,must have done it a dozen times- nothing unusual in that, except OH was sat in the chair at the time.:lol:
> 
> Have a good day everyone- the wind is blowing a hoolie here.:001_huh:


I say!! what a suggestion  :lol: :lol: :lol:

It's interesting that Hal creates a game to amuse himself. I wonder if that's because he was alone a fair bit in his previous home. I love that your Oh being in the chair was no barrier to his game. :lol:


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I say!! what a suggestion  :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> It's interesting that Hal creates a game to amuse himself. I wonder if that's because he was alone a fair bit in his previous home. I love that your Oh being in the chair was no barrier to his game. :lol:


Well t'is not fair- yours has 'light bulb moments'- mine cant even connect that he lets Hal jump up for fusses and jumping up to pinch his cake.:001_rolleyes:

It probably is because he spent so much time on his own- its when he is amusing himself , I have to worry what he's up to.:laugh:

You can tell he didn't live with other dogs, if he wants to sit or lie down - he will just plonk where he is and it doesn't matter that there may be another dogs head underneath.


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## Twiggy

*Moonviolet* - never in the 35 years plus that I've owned dogs has my hubby had a 'light bulb' moment and I think I would faint with shock if he ever did...LOL

*Symone* - Relax. Stop 'overthinking' and trying too hard with Shamaya. Just enjoy her being a puppy. The house rules are up to you as to what she is allowed and not allowed to do.

In this house it is very simple.  My dogs are pretty much allowed to do what they like, including jumping all over the sofas and beds, scrounging tit-bits, throwing toys all over the place, etc. etc. The firm rules are they come when called, do not bark excessively, show no aggression among themselves, or to other dogs or people, do not pull on the lead and toilet outside. That's it really.


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## Maria_1986

I'm sorry not to reply to people individually, I have read but not really taken in as I was up most of last night being sick cos I forgot to take one of my meds the day before. Tonight is training class number 1 - I'm nervous and excited and scared that I will be told I'm doing it all wrong I'm also a little worried that I will screw it up not only because its a fear I've had since signing up but also because my braincell is not functioning at all today.

I hope everyones day goes well.


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## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> I'm sorry not to reply to people individually, I have read but not really taken in as I was up most of last night being sick cos I forgot to take one of my meds the day before. Tonight is training class number 1 - I'm nervous and excited and scared that I will be told I'm doing it all wrong I'm also a little worried that I will screw it up not only because its a fear I've had since signing up but also because my braincell is not functioning at all today.
> 
> I hope everyones day goes well.


Really sorry you've had a rough night and hope you'll feel better as the day progresses.

I'm sure you'll be fine tonight after the first few minutes. Remember the trainer has seen it all before many, many times and will understand that newcomers are going to be nervous. I'm also quite certain he/she won't tell you that you're doing it all wrong...!!


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## Dogless

Maria - hope you're feeling better, what a horrible night. Very best of luck at classes....I was really nervous to start new classes when I came here and thought that I'd be the worst. I wasn't by a long chalk and I am sure you won't be either .

mv - OHs...lightbulb moments :sosp: . Were you sober and otherwise free of mind - altering substances? . I had an argument with mine yesterday as he hates me using the word 'aggression / aggressive' in any context to do with Kilo....says I make him sound like a vicious snarling beast . 

k&m - love HH's game....especially picturing him trampling your OH to carry on playing :lol::lol:.

Good walk to the top fields today. Sheep ignored, CHs bonkers. Kilo made a break from the field to go and drool and teeth chatter and whine over a scent on a lamp post. Had to forcibly remove him in the end - not something that I like doing. Never mind, other than that, all good, beautiful walking from the pair of them, even past the noisy kids at the bus stop.

Tiny bit annoyed as the weather is gorgeous and forecast from tomorrow miserable, but I couldn't go anywhere as I had to take the car for new tyres. Only to be told at the garage that the tyres aren't in yet and to call again tomorrow :incazzato:.


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## GingerRogers

Well I ruined all my hard work last night :sad: stupid girl that I am, I needed to go to the post box at the bottom of the road and thought that would be a good goal, barely got past the neighbours the first attempt I saw a man coming so dived back into the porch and he stood and stared at me  which I thought a little odd and rude  until the fattest slowest barrel of a lab toddled past seemingly 5 mins later  We stayed in to give them time to get way past and tried again, another person, she gets very barky at night so back we go, try again, the bloody starey slow pair are coming back  so I gave up, went in and poured myself a glass of wine  and hid her tea about the house instead. Tried again about 9pm :mad2: I should have learnt my lesson and left it. We got to the post box ok although she wasn't doing great on the nice walking, I stupidly let it slide as I wanted to get to the post (it didn't really matter they weren't going anywhere last night, I should have gone on my own another time) we turned round to head home and the DA GSD is coming home, we are standing next to its home  so we legged it up the road out their way and played 'find it' by the bus stop. Then tried again, of course she is a little more hyper by now, a spaniel appears, we hide again, little more hyper again. The chef from the hotel is walking home she barks at him from over 100m  so we hide again in the triangle of interesting smells and trudge home defeated and deflated. She spends the rest of the evening barking at random stuff on the telly even when I cover her up with a blanket 

This morning she was barking at the breakfast news, they had sheep, Curtis Stieger and a lady with test tubes all of which were apparently offensive to terriers 

I gave her brekky hidden amongst the pile of rubble in the garden which kept her occupied for a good 20mins :thumbsup: then thought I would try some hand target outside, back garden no good too distracted so we moved back to just inside the back door, ok, as soon as one of my feet went outside, she was still indoors, she lost focus again, slowly we managed to get two steps from the back door :thumbsup: 

Lessons to be learnt, slowly, slowly up the ante, stay near home for walks, but, whine whinge, its such a nice day I want to go somewhere :incazzato:


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## GingerRogers

LO - sorry you are feeling low, as everyone else said we are all here for you, in public or pm, try some more of those lovely sounding walks, I am missing mine so very much, they make you feel great.

K&M I love the idea of Hal oblivious to your OH, TBF the ninja would ignore you too if you were int he way of her fun 

Maria - you will be fine (says the woman who cries at every class as she finds it all just too emotional) you will most certainly not be the worst or doing it all wrong, unless you are lying in your posts  you are getting it just right, even if you aren't sure you are taking it slow and asking the questions (no rushing in and ruining stuff for you missy )

MPC -


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## Dogless

Oh GR . I can fully understand your frustration and upset - tomorrow is another day....I know how it feels to dodge a trigger only to come face to face with another, dodge that one and another.....



GingerRogers said:


> This morning she was barking at the breakfast news, they had sheep, Curtis Stieger and a lady with test tubes all of which were apparently offensive to terriers


^^^^All offensive to RRs too, some growling and "Am am ams" going on until I said "What on earth are you doing?" and they just shut up and looked at me, then went back to sleep!


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> ^^^^All offensive to RRs too, some growling and "Am am ams" going on until I said "What on earth are you doing?" and they just shut up and looked at me, then went back to sleep!


 fair play, pretty much what I said but I was a bit more angry, got up in a grump this morning!


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## moonviolet

Flying post Ginge why not stick moving into the garden today with hand targets and llw and possibly mat. You get to be outdoors


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## kat&molly

Ginge- I think we're all guilty of pushing things too far occasionally, I know I am , then want to beat myself with a stick after.

Maria- hope you're feeling better for classes- and stop worrying, you're doing a grand job with Chevy 

Dogless- if the implant is to work , is it an 'instant' thing or more gradual?
Hal has more or less stopped clamping his nose to the girls bits now- but I'm not sure if thats down to the op or the novelty has worn off- he'd lick pee as well.

I dont know what the rescue are up to, they update all the other dogs status' on the website- but they haven't added to his at all.
Am wondering if they think he's not 'rehomable' yet from what I've said?? I dont think being a teenage boy without any training should be a problem should it.

Took HH out on his own, he was ok but kicked off at some sheep. Took the girls had a nice walk, Evie played her game where its me that has good recall- really dont know what its all about, she only does it in one place- think I need to start putting it on cue though.


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## MollySmith

A very quick post as I'm meant to me working  Ginge I know that if Molly gets upset by one thing, then it affects her all day so maybe the ninja got ramped up and stayed there so your later walk was inevitable? Maybe take a break today? 

Maria - hope you feel better 

OH has taken Molly out today and we have a family lesson tomorrow with the trainer as OH claims he wasn't taught lead walking.. he was...


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> A very quick post as I'm meant to me working  Ginge *I know that if Molly gets upset by one thing, then it affects her all day* so maybe the ninja got ramped up and stayed there so your later walk was inevitable? Maybe take a break today?
> 
> Maria - hope you feel better
> 
> OH has taken Molly out today and we have a family lesson tomorrow with the trainer as OH claims he wasn't taught lead walking.. he was...


Ditto this for Kilo; in fact he remains 'hyped' for several days.


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## Sarah1983

Yup, was the same for Rupert. One Rupert Eating Monster on a walk and that would be it for the day. Several Rupert Eating Monsters and that was it for a few days. It's why I kept walks with him so short and would usually do them at unsociable hours.


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## GingerRogers

No I know  thats why I am so annoyed with myself, I should have just called it a day or at least stuck to the triangle outside 

She didn't see or bark at the fat lab but she knew something was there and could probably feel my frustration too but as she hadn't reacted obviously I didn't pick up on it!


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## Dogless

k&m - maybe the rescue think there's no point updating for another reason?  .



kat&molly said:


> Dogless- if the implant is to work , is it an 'instant' thing or more gradual?
> Hal has more or less stopped clamping his nose to the girls bits now- but I'm not sure if thats down to the op or the novelty has worn off- he'd lick pee as well.


Infertility occurs within 6 weeks but other effects can be seen much sooner apparently. There is a real lack of solid, scientific research into behavioural effects of the Suprelorin. There is anecdotal evidence of a testosterone surge within the first week or two causing testosterone - driven behaviour to be amplified and then calming. However, many folk say that they have never noticed this increase in 'bad' behaviour at all (the majority it seems), so I'm remaining open - minded on that one. Licking of urine and marking reduces within the first few weeks it seems as does posturing etc at other males IF the behaviour is testosterone driven. It may well not be with Kilo, but I am fairly sure it is because of it's specificity. Plums shrink after about 3 months apparently. Here is another link: Chemical and Surgical Castration of Male Dogs: Behavioral Effects


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## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> No I know  thats why I am so annoyed with myself, I should have just called it a day or at least stuck to the triangle outside
> 
> She didn't see or bark at the fat lab but she knew something was there and could probably feel my frustration too but as she hadn't reacted obviously I didn't pick up on it!


We've all done it, no point being annoyed with yourself, after all it's a perfectly human failing and you are human ... aren't you ?  
live love LEARN 
It's a bit like yoga ... if you can't smile while you are doing it, you are pushing too hard.

Have a relaxing lovely fun day together today.


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## Beth17

Maria I'm sure it will be fine tonight. I hope you feel better in time 

Ginge maybe a relaxing day in the garden is in order. Not a lot you can do when triggers keep popping up from nowhere 

K&M maybe they think you'll become a failed fosterer 

Dogless sounds like your boys were excellent. What a pain about the tyres though.

LO I hope you're not feeling too fed up 

mpc lovely photos. I hope you bump into them again.

Well my mum gave me the flu thing she had rrr: so feel a bit rough but it's a lovely day. Took the boys to the park I discovered as not been there for a couple of weeks and they were really good. Walking there wasn't too bad, and then there was only one other person using it at the other end so they got to go off and have a good run about. Sam kept stopping every 2 minutes to have a good roll in the cool grass 

Then started the walk home and as you can imagine their LLW was perfect  Although we did have to stop for a couple of minutes as Sam decided to lay down on a grassy bank by the road and have a rest


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## kat&molly

Beth-hope you feel better soon. Had to laugh at Sam resting-Evie does that, and the rolling.

Ginge-stop beating yourself up, you can borrow my stick.

Dogless-thats interesting.Its a shame his plums have to shrink though.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Beth-hope you feel better soon. Had to laugh at Sam resting-Evie does that, and the rolling.
> 
> Ginge-stop beating yourself up, you can borrow my stick.
> 
> Dogless-thats interesting.Its a shame his plums have to shrink though.


It is; a very rare side effect is that one can become so small that it slips back up through the inguinal ring .


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## Guest

Trying to persuade mum to take me and zand out on a nice walk. ( I still can't drive.) I shall be back later and 'like' or try to like things. Still feeling a bit gloomy. 


AND THE OFF-LEAD THREAD IS MAKING ME CROSS.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Trying to persuade mum to take me and zand out on a nice walk. ( I still can't drive.) I shall be back later and 'like' or try to like things. Still feeling a bit gloomy.
> 
> AND THE OFF-LEAD THREAD IS MAKING ME CROSS.


I hope you get out and have a lovely walk with the Donkey Boy. Fingers crossed.


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## Dogless

Walking Kilo with Dizzy later; talking about taking Rudi too with Dizzy's human - he has been with us when we've met accidentally twice and they were fine so we might take the plunge; although predominantly keep the walks with Dizzy as Kilo's 'thing' I think - he doesn't need any direction around Dizzy, they just rub along really well together. Rudi will need plenty as Dizzy doesn't like being leapt on....

Neither needs a walk just now; I mowed the lawns for the first time this year just now and they were both very 'helpful' indeed so are sleeping soundly now .


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## Barcode

A problem that, after fifteen months of Border Terrier calm, has arrived is Scrabble barking on other dogs whilst on-lead. I know it seems strange to say that she is a non-aggressive dog displaying aggressive behavior, but she really is brilliant off-lead and in all other situations. We think it is a combination of:

(1) Her age - teenage stage has arrived.
(2) Starting to have walks with Matilda, the new-ish pup that came home in Dec - they play together nicely inside, and walk nicely together, but I guess it's a big change to her routine.
(3) Her being ill - she's being tested for campylobacter and has a minor skin infection - I guess if she's not feeling too good inside, this might be one expression of it.

So, we've taken a few steps back and have been treating her as another dog goes past which seems to be working - we had a few grumbles this morning, but not that whole barking-like-a-banshee thing that is a nightmare. And as for me, I'm trying to be a bit less stressed out and telling myself it is a phase, and we'll get through it - I'm not sure a dog without any problems whatsoever as it grows up exists!


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## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> Trying to persuade mum to take me and zand out on a nice walk. ( I still can't drive.) I shall be back later and 'like' or try to like things. Still feeling a bit gloomy.
> 
> AND THE OFF-LEAD THREAD IS MAKING ME CROSS.


I've scan read that thread and not posted as post the same old thing.... respect, courtesy, common sense, education, link to etiquette yada yada :lol:

Hope you persuade your Mum to take you and Zand out and you have a lovely time, is it sunny there? the sunshine can make you feel a bit perkier 

Barcode sounds like you have a plan


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> *I've scan read that thread and not posted as post the same old thing.... respect, courtesy, common sense, education, link to etiquette yada yada :lol:*
> 
> Hope you persuade your Mum to take you and Zand out and you have a lovely time, is it sunny there? the sunshine can make you feel a bit perkier


I did the same; typed a reply then couldn't be arsed to submit it, I have nothing new to say and even bore myself now .


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## moonviolet

I'm goign to give myself a hefty slap on the forehead if forget to say Have fun tonight Maria 

DOgless i'm glad i'm no the only one that bores themself sometimes.


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## Barcode

Last week I was feeling fed-up, dispirited, and like a rubbish dog owner. We've taken her out of training class this week to give her a break (lots of dogs, might be overwhelming), and I want to go back - she's just gotten into the advanced one where they do sendaways and stuff, so I don't want to stop now.

Sometimes, I think I overestimate her chilled nature. We've had massive changes with the arrival of the new pup, and it's enough to make even the most calm dog occasionally grumpy - if she's not going to express it indoors, then I suppose outside is an outlet.

We'll get there, and it'll settle down - she's always been reactive in that, if a dog barks at her first, she'll bark back (terrier trait), and I can deal with that, but would hate to dread taking her out for walks.


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## Symone

Dogless : Them being helpful is just one step away from them mowing the lawn for you! Teach Shamaya, please. 

Barcode : Good luck! Sounds like you have everything sorted, all ready. 

LO : Hope you manage to have a nice walk.  I too don't drive! I fear my parents may become my taxi service when I move closer.  (Unless the OH gets a car)

Beth : Hope that you feel well soon 

Today has been lovely. 
Followed everyone's advice and been more relaxed over Shamaya pulling. After all you're all right and she is only a puppy. Small baby steps will get her to stop pulling. 

Got a delivery of Fish4dogs treats today (There's an offer on the superstar treats, and these actually get shamaya to stop) 20 packs! Will last forever.
She got really nosey as I opened it, and ran off with a pack! Her little treat bag was running low so I got it out, and she ran back with the treats she stole and sat nicely.. I don't think it was that much of a hint, do you? 

Did a small bit of training then. (Small old things like lay down, turn, left & right, forwards) and she did them all but confused me! She was facing me and I was like "no that's left... Wait no that's your right. Never mind!" I think the OH laughed at me. (He blamed the laughter on his xbox.. I think he lied! )

Got puppy class tonight (The professional one.. Vet one has finished, now.) Will be taking her head collar because of her paw.

I used it today when going to the beach, she did this weird jumping thing when she tried to pull right by the beach. Treated her for sitting calmly when she stopped and then she actually WALKED NICELY still on her lead, on to the beach! 
I was so shocked... Lol!

I do need to work on stairs and crossing roads with her. She tries to run across roads when we're crossing, rather than walk with me. I suppose that is a good thing though, wanting to get out of the road! 
Stairs is the other way around. Because the ones near the beach are steep I go down slowly, and she takes the mick and goes even slower than me  She is considerate to go slow, though.  With the OH she pretty much tries to run down them.

No head collar on the way home, but knowing I had it with me helped me to relax. She didn't pull at all on the way home. Walked slightly in front of me, but the lead was slack! No tightness at all (apart from crossing the road) 
OFC she got tons of treats, and I think she is starting to realise it's nicer when she isn't trying to choke herself.  (Or I just had a good day, lol!)

And to think.. I was only going to originally post just a pic of her here. (I just took one, it's very cute.)

So, thank you for everyone for telling me to relax. It just feels nicer when I'm not on edge feeling like a useless owner, lol.. 
I think Shamaya too picked up on me being more relaxed. 

Well.. Here's a pic I just (okay, probably 30 mins ago, now) took of Shamaya. I thought she looked really pretty in it. 
Please forgive the mess in the back. It's right by the OHs desk.. I'm sure you all know how messy men can be.


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## Sarah1983

Only reason I've replied more than the once to that thread is because I strongly disagree that a dog can't have a fulfilled life if it has to stay on leash. Don't like the implication that those who don't let their dogs off leash are neglecting their dogs welfare. Any one of us could end up with a dog who isn't safe off leash for whatever reason.

Can anyone please explain to me why Spencer finds everyone elses treats more exciting than mine? It doesn't matter what I have and what they have, theirs are always more interesting. Even if they've never given him one! Crappy dry dog biscuits are far superior to cooked liver or cheese or tuna cake it seems. Unless I have crappy dry dog biscuits, can't possibly eat them then.

Not had the greatest of walks with him, he was all over the place, not the slightest bit interested in me or what I wanted and certainly didn't want to engage with me at all. I ended up just turning around and coming home before I got really annoyed.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I'm goign to give myself a hefty slap on the forehead if forget to say Have fun tonight Maria
> 
> DOgless i'm glad i'm no the only one that bores themself sometimes.


Yes I'm another one that at times can't be bothered to reply.

I do wish some of the posters would read the stickies, particularly on the training and behaviour section, as it's usually the same old problems time and time again.


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## Werehorse

Flying visit between working and a going to chat to a new tutoring client! But just wanted to put on record that I got up and got the boys to the woods for an hour's walk before work this morning! And got the horses done! Hurrah... admittedly I didn't have to be in work until 11am but it is still a minor miracle.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Flying visit between working and a going to chat to a new tutoring client! But just wanted to put on record that I got up and got the boys to the woods for an hour's walk before work this morning! And got the horses done! Hurrah... admittedly I didn't have to be in work until 11am but it is still a minor miracle.


Mighty oaks from little acorns grow :yesnod:.


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## moonviolet

I'm not sure WH but i think she's calling you nuts  



Dogless said:


> Mighty oaks from little acorns grow :yesnod:.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless, not meaning to seem rude or nosey or to offend you, just wondering roughly how much you paid for Kilo to have the implant? I know someone who's just been quoted £250 which seems a hell of a lot. If you don't want to say what you paid that's fine though, I know money is one of those things people often don't like to discuss  

Me and Spendog have been out doing some training with a mixture of treats and ball on a rope. Ball on a rope was much more interesting apparently. I can see me going out on walks loaded down with a hundred different types of treats and sacks full of toys at this rate. Wouldn't mind but his "favourite" toy seems to change on a daily basis. Sometimes it's his squeaky pig. Another day it's his rope. Another the stuffed cat. Anyone have a sleigh and a couple of reindeer they can lend me?


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm not sure WH but i think she's calling you nuts


Now that you mention it.....:devil::w00t:.

Warning: about to explode with pride...

Just back from taking both CHs out with Dizzy.....LCH did brilliantly!!!! Every single time he got a little too OTT for Dizzy chasing him for his toy back he recalled to me and sat. Every. Single. Blummin. Time. In the middle of chasing....cannot believe how proud I am :001_wub: :001_wub:. He walked on lead alongside nicely after a few minutes of trying to greet Dizzy on the way there and very well on the way back...and attempted just two jumping / biting episodes which I was expecting with all the excitement.

And...the BCH behaved brilliantly too :001_wub:.

Just one of those good walks, I got lots of compliments on Rudi and Kilo's behaviour from Dizzy's human which were genuine and I could have just burst .

Sickening, self indulgent prattle I know but it's so, so lovely to see hard work paying off as you all know.

Maybe I'll look back on posts like this and weep when adolescence hits  .


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## kat&molly

Werehorse- well done. I'm very good with early mornings- no problem at all, its the getting my backside in gear after that I have trouble with.

Took HH out in the car with the girls for our afternoon walk, a bad idea as he plays up with them[but is good in the car on his own]. It takes less than a minute to get there- and a full 12  minutes waiting for him to stop barking and whining before we could get out.
Felt really guilty as the girls were sat there good as gold- I wont do it again- I just felt really tired.

His status has been updated- spooky.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Werehorse- well done. I'm very good with early mornings- no problem at all, its the getting my backside in gear after that I have trouble with.
> 
> Took HH out in the car with the girls for our afternoon walk, a bad idea as he plays up with them[but is good in the car on his own]. It takes less than a minute to get there- and a full 12  minutes waiting for him to stop barking and whining before we could get out.
> Felt really guilty as the girls were sat there good as gold- I wont do it again- I just felt really tired.
> 
> His status has been updated- spooky.


12 minutes . He sure has sticking power .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> 12 minutes . He sure has sticking power .


I know. It probably wouldn't have been quite that long but the grumpy dog came out and barked at us.:

Big well done to the CH's and Spendog-


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## Guest

Well done dogs and owners of WAYWO!! 

We didn't go anywhere for a nice walk, but mum did accompany this time.
Found a ball on a rope in the hedge that I previously flung into their. We stood and stared at sheep for a bit. Sat on a bench while traffic went by.
Every two seconds "STOP WORRYING." from mum. :lol: 
He tried to flatten a yorkie and a terrier. 
May have just won a ebay auction for a leather size 3 dogmatic. 
Met a man with a spaniel near some fields and he was all like "Why don't you let him off?" The fencing was that crap fencing where its the panel, then a gap, then a panel. Zand can get over and under that in less than five seconds. So nope, still on-lead only here. (I have sat on my hands very well today) 
AND I JUST MADE SCRAMBLED EGGS IN THE MICROWAVE. Which is cool. I like the microwave much more than the oven!!

Ohh and the butchers let me have two marrow bones for a quid. They said that lamb bones are dangerous for dogs though.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, not meaning to seem rude or nosey or to offend you, just wondering roughly how much you paid for Kilo to have the implant? I know someone who's just been quoted £250 which seems a hell of a lot. If you don't want to say what you paid that's fine though, I know money is one of those things people often don't like to discuss
> 
> Me and Spendog have been out doing some training with a mixture of treats and ball on a rope. Ball on a rope was much more interesting apparently. I can see me going out on walks loaded down with a hundred different types of treats and sacks full of toys at this rate. Wouldn't mind but his "favourite" toy seems to change on a daily basis. Sometimes it's his squeaky pig. Another day it's his rope. Another the stuffed cat. Anyone have a sleigh and a couple of reindeer they can lend me?


Oops, sorry Sarah - I missed your post, wasn't ignoring you! I don't mind telling you about the cost of vet treatment, it's very different from people asking anything personal . I paid £78 for the implant and worming tablets for Rudi. I paid nothing for the appointment on the Friday before to discuss the implant.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Well done dogs and owners of WAYWO!!
> 
> We didn't go anywhere for a nice walk, but mum did accompany this time.
> Found a ball on a rope in the hedge that I previously flung into their. We stood and stared at sheep for a bit. Sat on a bench while traffic went by.
> Every two seconds "STOP WORRYING." from mum. :lol:
> He tried to flatten a yorkie and a terrier.
> May have just won a ebay auction for a leather size 3 dogmatic.
> Met a man with a spaniel near some fields and he was all like "Why don't you let him off?" The fencing was that crap fencing where its the panel, then a gap, then a panel. Zand can get over and under that in less than five seconds. So nope, still on-lead only here. (I have sat on my hands very well today)
> AND I JUST MADE SCRAMBLED EGGS IN THE MICROWAVE. Which is cool. I like the microwave much more than the oven!!
> 
> Ohh and the butchers let me have two marrow bones for a quid. They said that lamb bones are dangerous for dogs though.


Sounds good on balance LO .

Raw lamb bones are fine for dogs; can be crunched and eaten more easily that beef bones, depending on what the particular bones are. Watch the fat content though if Zebedee Zander isn't used to lamb.....don't want a bum explosion .


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Oops, sorry Sarah - I missed your post, wasn't ignoring you! I don't mind telling you about the cost of vet treatment, it's very different from people asking anything personal . I paid £78 for the implant and worming tablets for Rudi. I paid nothing for the appointment on the Friday before to discuss the implant.


Thank you  Will let this person know that £250 seems extortionate. Our neighbours paid 80 euros for it for their Lab.

Well done to both Concrete Heads today, long may it continue 

LO, Spendog gets lamb regularly. Bones, kidney, liver and tripe anyway, he doesn't get lamb meat coz it's too bloody expensive! Never had a problem with it. Pork seems to be our problem, he's fine if he has it regularly but if not he poops for England (or Germany lol).


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> Sounds good on balance LO .
> 
> Raw lamb bones are fine for dogs; can be crunched and eaten more easily that beef bones, depending on what the particular bones are. Watch the fat content though if Zebedee Zander isn't used to lamb.....don't want a bum explosion .


I think I shall restuff his marrow bones with peanut butter or low fat yoghut or carrot or something. We have like six of the things lying about. I shall restuff and freeze. Ah, yes, the first time we gave a pig trotter to Zand, Bum explosions AHOYYYYYYYYY!!! :lol:

He started to retch up bile at 5am this morn so I gave him a slice of bread. Seemed to do the trick. (AND I NEED TO REMEMBER TO GIVE HIM A COUPLE TREATS BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP!!) 
Oh, and my neighbour has put a wheelbarrow next to his gate, according to Zand this means that hackles must be raised and IT MUST be barked out. 
He's been very barky this eve.

Oh and welldone too mini concrete head!! Zand has always been a "OHHHHH DOGS!!!"" *Flattens, clambers, jumps around like a pillock, STARES INTENTLY AT OTHER DOG* even when very young. I have yet to be able to walk him alongside another dog.


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## foxyrockmeister

Congratulations everyone!! Sounds like the sunshine has brought out the best in most of us 

Well done to Werehorse for getting your @rse out of bed this morning!

Well done Concrete Heads for being utterly amazing and making Dogless nearly burst!

Well done Shamaya for lovely LLW

Well done MV and Dogless for not being drawn into yadayada and boring yourselves to death!

Well done LO for scrambling eggs!

Well done the rest of you for managing to respond to everyone else far better than I ever can 

Good day here  (mostly)

We started the morning with a bit of training - mat, muzzle, back door, basic commands etc. Played a bit of 'find it' with bits of ham under some upturned cups! It would seem Lily finds the cups more exciting than the ham though and kept running off with them 

Then we went for a hike on the down in the WARM SUNSHINE  I got too hot, that's a first for this year! But unbelievably for such a glorious day we had the whole place to ourselves :thumbup:

Couldn't help taking a couple of pics because it was just so heavenly




























managed to squeeze in some sits and watches too!










MASSIVELY pleased with LLW from Mr Pickle through a herd of cows and over a road     little bit of excitement over a bird but soon regained focus.

Then got home for some street training - didn't start well  Got out onto the drive and he was so excited he just jumped up and nipped at me. Nothing too bad and we turned straight back through the gate. Did some training in the garden then tried again, much better 2nd time around went to the end of the street and back, he was very excitable but on the whole not bad at all.

Then decided it was about time Lily had some 1-2-1 time so we went for a little street walk too, she was AMAZING!!! She was so chuffed, and looked so cute jut trotting along with her head held high, her tail wagging and just looking so happy AND 70% of the time with LLW :thumbup:
I was tempted to take her to the local park as a reward but then remembered this was the first time I'd left Branston on his own in ages so we headed home, and sure enough once we were in ear shot of the house I could hear him barking  So we're going to have to build him up gradually to being left alone (Lily seems to have accepted it already as when I got back from Branstons walk she was laying in the garden in the sunshine!)

Sat out in the garden in the sunshine feeling very happy with my cup of herbal tea for lunch (today is first fasting day) but then had to go to work 
Just got home now and had to share with you all 

Sorry again for epic post, please feel free to skip me :lol:


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## Twiggy

Dogless - be proud...!!

FRM - Sounds as if things are going in the right direction - well done.

LO - How do you make scrambled eggs in the microwave?

Sarah - Spen sounds just like Holly, which is why my training bag is huge..!!

Werehorse - Well done on your early morning walk. I'm quite good at getting up and feeding the dogs and letting them out but then retire back to bed with a cup of tea..LOL

The GSD Schutzhund dog came for a lesson this afternoon. First time since the beginning of December. He was actually pretty good considering the length of time since I last saw him.


----------



## Dogless

Well done FRM and Pickles - sounds as if you are making good progress . Poor lonesome Branston though . I have such crippling 'open spaces' walk envy still - I NEED walks like that without narrow paths and corners all the time...so much less stressful :yesnod:.


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## Sarah1983

Oh, I forgot to mention we got our cooker today. 2 and a half months after reporting the old one being broken. I paid a visit to Welfare yesterday and put a call in to the estate manager. Surprising how quickly things get done when certain people put the boot to backsides. I'm not one to go crying to Welfare at the drop of a hat like some do but 2 months without a working cooker takes the p*ss. Amazingly we went from "the cooker hasn't arrived yet" yesterday to it being here and ready to install today.

Now I gotta learn how to use it


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh, I forgot to mention we got our cooker today. 2 and a half months after reporting the old one being broken. I paid a visit to Welfare yesterday and put a call in to the estate manager. Surprising how quickly things get done when certain people put the boot to backsides. I'm not one to go crying to Welfare at the drop of a hat like some do but 2 months without a working cooker takes the p*ss. Amazingly we went from "the cooker hasn't arrived yet" yesterday to it being here and ready to install today.
> 
> Now I gotta learn how to use it


Spendog can probably teach you .


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## foxyrockmeister

Ok, stupid question alert...

How can I teach Branston how to play fetch?

The trainer suggested a special toy that I use to play with him but is then put away so he doesn't get it all the time, this toy can then also be used as rewards and distraction when on walks too.
Today I made him a toy from an old plastic water bottle stuffed in an old sock! He loves it and I tried to play fetch with him just at home but he doesn't get it 

Lily loves fetch but Branston always gets uber excited about you throwing something for him, goes racing after it, but then just takes it off somewhere to destroy it rather than bringing it back. He's not interested in treats for me to 'swap' when he's got a ball or toy as he obviously prefers what he's got. At home he takes it straight to his bed and starts shredding it and out on walks he just runs off to another part of the field and does the same!


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## Guest

Can I come live with you FRM? Look at that SPACE!! AND NO PEOPLE. No clue about the fetch thing, Zand tends to be a "ITS MOVIIIIIIIIIIIIING ZOOOM! Oh, its boring now" when its still. Apart from tennis balls, he'll bring them back for food. 

Actually guys how do you teach give? Or trade? Cause Zand will have a thing and no tuna cake is good enough for release. 

And twig you beat an egg in a microwavable dish, put some butter in and some milk, mix then put in microwave for ONE MINUTE. If its too runny beat again, then place in for like ten to thirty seconds. INSTANT FOOD. (The microwave is my friend, the oven scares me :lol: And i can't really bend down for the door)


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Thank you  Will let this person know that £250 seems extortionate. Our neighbours paid 80 euros for it for their Lab.
> 
> Well done to both Concrete Heads today, long may it continue
> 
> LO, Spendog gets lamb regularly. Bones, kidney, liver and tripe anyway, he doesn't get lamb meat coz it's too bloody expensive! Never had a problem with it. Pork seems to be our problem, he's fine if he has it regularly but if not he poops for England (or Germany lol).


£250 sounds crazy! Have they been offered a local anaesthetic or something as well?

What have your neighbours made of the effects on their lab?


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## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Ok, stupid question alert...
> 
> How can I teach Branston how to play fetch?
> 
> The trainer suggested a special toy that I use to play with him but is then put away so he doesn't get it all the time, this toy can then also be used as rewards and distraction when on walks too.
> Today I made him a toy from an old plastic water bottle stuffed in an old sock! He loves it and I tried to play fetch with him just at home but he doesn't get it
> 
> Lily loves fetch but Branston always gets uber excited about you throwing something for him, goes racing after it, but then just takes it off somewhere to destroy it rather than bringing it back. He's not interested in treats for me to 'swap' when he's got a ball or toy as he obviously prefers what he's got. At home he takes it straight to his bed and starts shredding it and out on walks he just runs off to another part of the field and does the same!


Put another old water bottle in a sock so that you have two.

When you've thrown the first one for Branston and he picks it up, jump up and down and generally go berserk waving the other one and saying "I've got this one" in a very excited voice. It works on the principle that they always want the one you've got. Don't try this anywhere too public or you may be in danger of being locked up...!!


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## MollySmith

Barcode &#8211; you sound very sensible and I think it could be age. We adopted Molly at the start of her teenage phase and her lead aggression (I hate using aggression as it&#8217;s not really) began then. Lots of changes in a short space of time and a dog having a go at her when she was on lead so could be the same for Scrabble. I hope you don&#8217;t feel like me sometimes and dread taking her out &#9786;

LO &#8211; lovely to hear from you, I am glad you got out and about.

Guys the off lead thread is just noisy whawhawha in my brain. Honestly will someone change the record, I wish I did not feel compelled to join in. I don&#8217;t diagree with you at all Sarah or Ginge, I expect that didn&#8217;t come over. It gets lost in context with the (can&#8217;t really say what male anatomy I want to here but I think you&#8217;ll guess) waving going on.

Maria &#8211; hope you are okay and good luck for tonight.

Ginge &#8211; are you okay? You sounded really low about last night, don&#8217;t be too hard on yourself.

Dogless &#8211; brilliant &#9786; 

Symone &#8211; it sonds like a good walk today and I hope puppy class goes well for you both.

Not much to report here, OH took Molly out and they had a nice time. I worked all day. We have a lesson tomorrow around the park to see if Molly can behave nicely on lead and to drum home to the OH what we do with lead walking. God he drives me mental sometimes by putting her on the lead without the harness when he&#8217;s not learned what to do. He blithely says, &#8216;she&#8217;s fine&#8217; but the problem is that if she&#8217;s not and they do meet a dog and she reacts then he hasn&#8217;t got the training discs or the clicker to deal with it making it all pointless with the lessons. I find it a bit hard to believe that they have never ever met a dog at all on these occasions. I'm nervous already


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## Werehorse

FRM - I had to teach Hugo fetch from scratch... him and Branston are very similar sometimes :lol:... I have videos of the various stages we went through with the instruction and guidance of the wonderful Twiggy. 

Hang on... this is the first one and you should be able to find the other from there.... Hugo Retrieve 1 - YouTube He already had a very strong hand target which helped.


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## MollySmith

Sorry FRM I meant to say I love the photos so much, can I live there please? And for fetching , what Twiggy said except we use Chuck It Balls or the Kong balls with the noodles on that squeak? If it squeaks it saves me jumping around too much and I look less in need of help and arresting. I hope.


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## MollySmith

What annoys me the most about half the threads is that they are entirely hypothetical. I do a reply and then get cross and think 'hang on' I've wasted an hour of my life on a question or situation that isn't even real. Good grief!

Anyway look good news! I won a competition for a family portrait  I have to diet like mad (fasting diet is the plan) for the date in May so I don't get mistaken for a whale. Organising my family to get there might take pounds off me too.


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## foxyrockmeister

Twiggy said:


> Put another old water bottle in a sock so that you have two.
> 
> When you've thrown the first one for Branston and he picks it up, jump up and down and generally go berserk waving the other one and saying "I've got this one" in a very excited voice. It works on the principle that they always want the one you've got. Don't try this anywhere too public or you may be in danger of being locked up...!!


I've tried this when we've been out on walks with balls, but as soon as he sees that you have another ball he just drops the one he has and come running back leaving it behind 

I'm slowly taking on the whole 'I don't care what other people think' attitude so not too worried about acting the fool if necessary :lol:



Werehorse said:


> FRM - I had to teach Hugo fetch from scratch... him and Branston are very similar sometimes :lol:... I have videos of the various stages we went through with the instruction and guidance of the wonderful Twiggy.
> 
> Hang on... this is the first one and you should be able to find the other from there.... Hugo Retrieve 1 - YouTube He already had a very strong hand target which helped.


Thank you, I can see the 1st video but can't see any links to the rest  (probably me being a bit dim!)

ETA: found them!!


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## foxyrockmeister

Oh and yes, you can all come and live here


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> £250 sounds crazy! Have they been offered a local anaesthetic or something as well?
> 
> What have your neighbours made of the effects on their lab?


It doesn't sound crazy to me, sadly. Just the way of the World.

My sister was talking tonight about two friends of ours, both with young collie bitches from the same litter. One friend was charged £130 to have her bitch spayed and the other paid £360. The vet practices are no more than 10 miles apart.

My sister registered her dogs with a different practice last week. Her vet of some 25 years sadly died recently and as she feels no loyalty to the practice, especially as the evening and week-end cover changed 18 months ago to Vets Now, she decided to move her dogs to a vets much nearer home.

The new practice insisted she took all 4 bitches in and charged £144 to tell her they were healthy, which of course she already knew. Then yesterday she rang them for a prescription to get Penny's Epiphen and heart drugs, only to be told they wouldn't issue one without doing full bloods. Penny hasn't had a fit or any problems for the last 6 years and she told them pretty emphatically that she didn't want to change any of her medication. So she traipsed back up there this morning with Penny and had very strong words with the vet she saw. He rang her with the blood results this afternoon and lo and behold there was absolutely no change since she had full bloods taken the last time.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> £250 sounds crazy! Have they been offered a local anaesthetic or something as well?
> 
> What have your neighbours made of the effects on their lab?


Not sure, they're going to phone around other vets and see what they quote them.

Neighbour said they haven't really seen any effect on their Lab. She said the trainer they had out thought the problems they were having were down to the day care they had him in though rather than being hormone related. Problems apparently stopped when they took him out of there.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It doesn't sound crazy to me, sadly. Just the way of the World.
> 
> My sister was talking tonight about two friends of ours, both with young collie bitches from the same litter. One friend was charged £130 to have her bitch spayed and the other paid £360. The vet practices are no more than 10 miles apart.
> 
> My sister registered her dogs with a different practice last week. Her vet of some 25 years sadly died recently and as she feels no loyalty to the practice, especially as the evening and week-end cover changed 18 months ago to Vets Now, she decided to move her dogs to a vets much nearer home.
> 
> The new practice insisted she took all 4 bitches in and charged £144 to tell her they were healthy, which of course she already knew. Then yesterday she rang them for a prescription to get Penny's Epiphen and heart drugs, only to be told they wouldn't issue one without doing full bloods. Penny hasn't had a fit or any problems for the last 6 years and she told them pretty emphatically that she didn't want to change any of her medication. So she traipsed back up there this morning with Penny and had very strong words with the vet she saw. He rang her with the blood results this afternoon and lo and behold there was absolutely no change since she had full bloods taken the last time.


I've come across some quite big price differences....but a mark up of that magnitude on the implant is mind boggling to me! Sounds as if your sister's been fleeced a little too, but she had very little choice :sosp:.


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## Maria_1986

Thank you for all the nice replies to me getting myself in a flap.

Dogless - glad you had a good walks with well bahaved doggies, thats rather annoying about the garage though.

GR - sorry your trip to the post box turned into such a stressful one, I hope tomorrow is better.

Beth - hope you feel better soon. I don't blame Sam for stopping, if the weather there was anything like it was here I would have stopped for a chill out by the river too!

Symone - I'm so glad that you had a nice walk with a loose lead  

L/O - mmm scrambled eggs.... Chev also tried to play with/flatten a yorkie recently, maybe they have something that says squish me on them?

FRM - those photo's are great. I'm slightly jelous of your surroundings.


The last few days have been interesting, yesterday we have finally found out why Chev has a slight limp, turns out she has quite advanced DJD in her hip. The orthopedic vet at work will do a replacement of the ball part of the joint if it really starts to bother her, but right now she copes with it well so we are sticking to NSAIDs and gentle exercise for the time being and will revisit to see what if anything has changed in 4 weeks.

Today we met up with my friend and her two dogs so that she could show me a nice local walk, Chevy had great fun sniffing and running through bushes with my friends setter we then stopped in at my friends house on the way home so I could try to fix her computer - Chevy is supposed to not be great with cats and she has 4 cats - turns out that Chevy is interested in the cats but is actually ok with them - her and the male bengal were sniffing each others bottoms at one point and she came away from him when asked to.

Training class was really good. We didn't do a huge amount and as its a small group at the moment so we pretty much got the whole of it as 1-2-1 time with one of the trainers (there are 2 trainers and one helper). Our homework is to work on getting her to walk on a collar and lead with a loose lead (I have been using a harness as I didn't want her to damage herself until I learnt how to deal with the pulling) and working on getting her attention and rewarding for it. A lot of the session today was letting her get used to being there as she was quite stressed when we went in. At no point did the trainer tell me I was an awful owner or that I was doing everything wrong. My new Indi Dog stuff arrived today as well so she put on a nice new outfit for class and everyone commented on how lovely her matching collar and lead set were and how lovely she was 

We were taught to walk and stop when the lead is taught, wait for her to turn and the lead to be slack, praise and walk again including about turns if needed. But the end of the session we got a 30 second walk with a loose lead  Trainer was very pleased at how nicely she was responding to her name and how quickly she picked up the idea of walking on the lead. She also said I was doing the right thing by recalling when out to put the lead on for a bit in the middle of the walk and just recalling to treat then let her go again.

I now have a very tired Chevy who fell asleep in the car on the way home almost as soon as the engine started and has only briefly woken up since to get out the car and then to eat her dinner.

TL;DR - you were all right - was a good training session


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## Dogless

Well done Chevy and you with the cats and the class . Great that it was quiet tonight so that Chevy could settle . Not good about the DJD but it sounds as if you'll be able to manage it well medically as it stands.


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## Miss.PuddyCat

To get Sophie spayed it cost 550$!

I was once quoted 600$ for my one cat!  I was like sorry but im not rich!

I got all the cats spayed and neutered for under 200 including being chipped.

Today was a good day!

Last night Sophie was passed out in bed! First time I have seen her like that in ages. 

We headed down into the city to our fav petstore, got some toys for the cats and an antler bone for Sophie! I resisted the collars tho I saw ones I wanted! a nice leather one would be nice.

We then went to the big garden gallery, which is huge! Spent a good hour and half walking around! Sophie was very well behaved, even fell asleep at one point! Then just as I took my eyes of her, a lady came over and rammed her hand on Sophies head to pet her, didnt ask!

I was like Sorry she is very nervous but I didnt pull Sophie away as I didnt want her to get frighted. The lady said ooo dont worry I wont kill you :sosp: who the hell says that!

Then as we were cashing ourselves out another lady, told me how well behaved she was and that who ever did her grooming (felt really proud!) did a fantastic job, as her coat was great looking :001_wub:

She did have one barking match with a dog through a fence on a walk, and then when we passed another yard and another dog parked at us. I said leave it in a really deep voice and she actually listened.

Usually Im dragging her away, I really want to nip her barking at every noise. In two to three years Id like to get my own apt and cant have barking at every little noise.


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## moonviolet

Well doen Maria sounds like you and Chevy had a lovely walk, visit and a good training class. Sorry to hear about the DJD

MPC Sounds like Sophie did well and you are doing a good job of grooming her. 

We had a good day yesterday. successful post box trot, lovely offlead walk and a great class. Among other things we've moved on to stage2 cinnamon detection. ( we can jump a little as she already understands find) so now it's sniff pot1 go find pot2 which at the moment close and not well hidden. So far so good


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## Sarah1983

Just done some more mat work outside. Not directly outside the door this time since we've got people repairing a broken pipe in the cellar and they're in and out. Spencer did great. Was only a short session but he offered downs with his head on his paws or on the mat right away. The only thing we've worked on so far outside is lying on the mat so he's clearly remembered what's been rewarded inside. I wouldn't say he's relaxed out there on it yet but I imagine that will come in time. 

Then I released him to go sniff/pee/whatever but he didn't want to so we played 101 things to do with the bench at his request. One paw on it, two paws, three paws, two paws and nose, three paws and nose, a weird sort of down with his front legs and chest on the bench and his rear end still on the floor, stand on it, stand on it while nose targeting it, target the mat in my hand while having 3 paws on the bench.


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## Dogless

Two good separate training walks with the boys this morning. DA pug seen with Kilo - no reaction and loose dog ran up to him; he was fine as we have met the dog before and it's not a 'jump on head' type. Few dogs seen with Rudi - met one, walked past others. I am shattered, Kilo has been a pain in the posterior this morning :crazy:.


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## kat&molly

I'm going to rant.:cursing:

I have to get past the barky Setters otherwise I'm stuck for walks. I've just spent 35 minutes turning round every time he kicked off- we still didn't get there, but I've had enough and this ruddy dog is not going to beat me. No wonder I am constantly tired and I've had a mouthful of ulcers for a fortnight.

Going to take my lovely girls for a nice walk now. And breathe.:huh:

Have a nice day everyone.


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## Dogless

k&m - you're amazing; hope you have a good time with the girls .


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## Sarah1983

Oh no Dogless, what's Kilo been doing? K&M, sorry to hear you're having problems with Hal and barky setters. Hope you have a nice walk with the girls.


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## Guest

Oh dear folks of WAYWO, I'm really struggling to keep up with you all, but I'm here in spirit! 
Lots of good updates, and lovely pictures, I'm just going to keep reading, please forgive me for not giving specific replies!


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## GingerRogers

Woah! busy bees again last night weren't we? I bunked off early and went for a walk across the marshes with M and Buffer & Elsie, I haven't seen them for a couple of weeks and this Sunday is Mothers day so won't catch up then. Buffer was pleased to see me I think , he rudely pushed Elsie off my lap for fuss 

I didn't take the little one out at all yesterday as advised, I had to try very hard to resist, we did some outside work but still lacking focus then had a light bulb moment sadly at 4am this morning  if I had had her on lead she wouldn't have been able to wander off for sniffs would she, slap my head. We set up a little agility course in the sitting room when I got back.

This morning I had to go see a builder at 8am, due to the early light bulbs I was tired and didn't manage to drag myself up till 7.30 so dashed out the door, gone 15mins and came back (bear in mind hubby was here as he is still suffering from his migraines) to a chewed pen (a good one I nicked from mum and dads at the weekend ) a chewed pencil (don't know where she got that from), she had another go at the rescue remedy and has chewed the spray bit this time, (I can still squirt it if I squash the nozzle against my teeth) and also a packet of calms which she manage to extract one tablet from, sadly, she didn't bliddy eat it  Was quite annoyed as I had already decided to take her up the wood for some nice lonesome fun walking and then I felt like not as punishment, but she had no idea what she had done and kept wiggling her little bum every time I pointed at her demolition pile, bless her 

Thing is when other people post this stuff, I just shake my head and say keep the stuff out the way and they can't chew it or give her something else to destroy - Firstly I thought the things were out the way but she has obviously developed the habit of jumping on the coffee table while we are out, secondly she has a collection of antlers and chews which she is keeps in a pile on the sofa!

Anyways we had a lovely half hour in the wood which has really dried up in the last few weeks, its a place full of interesting smells and she is now curled up in her bed (a first) and looking more relaxed than she has done in weeks 

Have left any training till later as she looks so soft and happy.

Am thinking of getting a plug in thingy as I have realised she is very rarely completely relaxed even indoors, or even especially indoors, as she wasn't used to neighbour noises and I am getting a bit fed up at the reacting to the telly, last night it was a cartoon donut on an advert , I am not, not watching telly for he sake of the dog on top of everything else.

Dogless, helpful dogs in the lawn cutting department, mmm  Glad they were good with Dizzy (Sickening, self indulgent prattle it is is not, justified pride in all the work you have done it is) but bad Kilo for exhausting you this morning though! What was up with him then?

Barcode - good luck on the trying not to stress bit , could it be she is protective of Matilda (I would be , I wuvs her :001_wub also seem to recall you had a bit of a terrier scrapping incident earlier this year, that could have contributed even if she was fine straight after. Really hope you manage to nip it in the bud though!

Symone - well done on the relaxing  and well done Shamaya

Werehorse - well done on the chores, I for one am impressed 

Pickles - well done both of you and aren't they lovely pics your mum took, lucky you having such a lovely big wide open space with no other bugger in it to play in, can I come visit? (lol  as I read on I realise you have a full house already)

Sarah - good luck on your cooking lessons from Spen today, first he has to work out which of your toys will motivate you most  Love the idea of 101 things to do with a bench too! Can he turn it upside down yet or shove it with his nose . Hubby gets much more action from the box than I do now he gets it but I suspect he has been cheating and luring her a little 

Molly- I am fine, thank you, just annoyed with myself , a good walk out with the kids last night and another this morning with my little one sorted me out. Good luck with the lesson today -OH's make me go     :cursing: sometimes 

Maria - sorry to hear of Chevys DJD, what ever it is  (I am guessing something like Degenerative Joint Disorder or something ) Glad class wasn't as scary as you thought 

MPC -  again, clever girls both of you.

MV - glad you had a good day, when can I call on Tinks skills next time I lose my cinnamon pot then  ps i thought you meant eh jumping was the next stage for a little while 

And hopefully finally, the thread grows as I am typing, K&M have a nice walk with your girls, I know the feeling as the barky sheltie will be back next door soon .

Oh and last night (we may have had to stop at the harbour side pub in the sunshine ) I met the vets new doggy, she has an old fluffy grey lurcher already which they took on about 5 years ago as she was going to be PTS as the owners couldn't (be bothered to ) find the money for the treatment she needed, Meg is now a glorious 17. Last Friday when I popped in to get the flea stuff she confessed she had just agreed to take on another, similar circumstances but this one is only 4 :cursing:, her new hubby was not too impressed apparently but he looked suitably besotted with their new 'foster' , anyway she is lovely bright eyed thing, but very calm, didn't bat an eyelid when Buffs grumbled at the newcomer to his little pack, and matches their other one almost perfectly.


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## GingerRogers

Christ thats a long one even for me!!! I said you had been busy didn't I

Ouesi - don't blame ya!


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## Maria_1986

Dogless said:


> Well done Chevy and you with the cats and the class . Great that it was quiet tonight so that Chevy could settle . Not good about the DJD but it sounds as if you'll be able to manage it well medically as it stands.





moonviolet said:


> Well doen Maria sounds like you and Chevy had a lovely walk, visit and a good training class. Sorry to hear about the DJD





GingerRogers said:


> Maria - sorry to hear of Chevys DJD, what ever it is  (I am guessing something like Degenerative Joint Disorder or something ) Glad class wasn't as scary as you thought


Thank you all  And yep DJD is degenerative joint disease - basically she has osteoarthritis in her hip. She started her new tablets this morning as I didn't want new tablets and new class yesterday just incase of any reaction to the meds. Today is a chill out day for both of us, she is currently snoring and I am snuggled up on the sofa with my duvet and a hot chocolate. We did a short training walk earlier working on not pulling which was ok but not great, I should have recorded the session last night cos I now feel like I have forgotten everything. We will go for a longer walk when she wakes up on her harness as the trainer said it was ok for her to enjoy a longer walk on a harness even if she pulls a bit for now or if we need to get somewhere on time as long as she works out that with a collar and lead she is to walk nicely. She also said something about putting a ring on the front of her harness to help control the pulling when she is on the harness but I forgot how she said it helps - does anyone here know?


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## Barcode

I hadn't thought of her being protective of Matilda and seeing the need to protect her from other dogs. Strange though, because off-lead, she comes back to check Matilda is there as well as me these days. They have their squabbles, but never anything major, and usually end the day asleep on the sofa together, so I do think there is a good bond.

Our dog trainer said she might also be a bit fearful and when you have no means to escape on-lead that barking is a behavioral manifestation.

If only dogs could tell us, eh.

Yes, she was fine after the terrier scrap, but that was off-lead, then again, it probably is another thing to take into account - it's just that that happened in Jan., and the barking has only manifested itself over the past week or two.


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## GingerRogers

Have a little notebook and when things come back to you jot them down, I find the process of writing it down makes me remember so I stop doing it and then start forgetting again  Keep it in the car so you can make notes after the classes as well if it helps.

The front harness attachment - I will try and explain, dogs have whats known as an opposition reflex, when they pull against the lead, you pull back and they pull even harder, I understand its a survival thing, terriers and spaniels in particular are terrible for it as they are used for rummaging in undergrowth and need to be able to pull them selves through patches of brambles etc. Basically they will push into in the opposite direction of tension. Having a front attachment means they aren't subjected to the same kind of lead tension, not to mention when used correctly with a double ended lead it is an excellent tool for guiding a dog who has any form of reactivity. I love mine more so since my lesson on Saturday where they gave us some pointers on how to use it.

I don't think I have really explained it right or got it right really, someone else will do a better job I am sure.


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## GingerRogers

Barcode said:


> Yes, she was fine after the terrier scrap, but that was off-lead, then again, it probably is another thing to take into account - it's just that that happened in Jan., and the barking has only manifested itself over the past week or two.


I only mentioned that as Ginge wasn't reactive to begin with it was something that gradually developed and got worse so I am not sure that dogs quite assimilate things the same way as us, it may have taken a while for her to associate various things to the point where she feels the need to change her behaviour


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## Dogless

Don't worry Sarah and GR, nothing the matter with the BW it was a 'poo issue'. Kilo won't poo in the garden unless he's unwell and it's an emergency. Never needs a poo in the early morning so fed them both and had planned a fairly late (for us!) walk at around 9 or something this morning as both dogs were tired from all their play yesterday and I'm tired too. Anyhow about half an hour after they had eaten Kilo started to whinge at the back door, so I let him out, to be repeated constantly as well as crying and pawing at me, going to the front door and the garden gate. It's not as simple as taking him to a close patch of grass as he has to find the 'right' spot so I had to wait until long enough after his breakfast to take him for a proper walk, which I did. Then he whined and pulled and lunged for the first 10 minutes until he was satisfied that he'd found the place....and behaved like a dream after that!


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## Dogless

Oh dear GR, naughty chewing Ninja  .


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I'm going to rant.:cursing:
> 
> I have to get past the barky Setters otherwise I'm stuck for walks. I've just spent 35 minutes turning round every time he kicked off- we still didn't get there, but I've had enough and this ruddy dog is not going to beat me. No wonder I am constantly tired and I've had a mouthful of ulcers for a fortnight.
> 
> Going to take my lovely girls for a nice walk now. And breathe.:huh:
> 
> Have a nice day everyone.


I sympathise as I had the same problem when Tremor was a puppy with the two spaniels that lived next door. The only excitement in their lives was belting down the hedge and going ballistic when I walked my dogs.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Don't worry Sarah and GR, nothing the matter with the BW it was a 'poo issue'. Kilo won't poo in the garden unless he's unwell and it's an emergency. Never needs a poo in the early morning so fed them both and had planned a fairly late (for us!) walk at around 9 or something this morning as both dogs were tired from all their play yesterday and I'm tired too. Anyhow about half an hour after they had eaten Kilo started to whinge at the back door, so I let him out, to be repeated constantly as well as crying and pawing at me, going to the front door and the garden gate. It's not as simple as taking him to a close patch of grass as he has to find the 'right' spot so I had to wait until long enough after his breakfast to take him for a proper walk, which I did. Then he whined and pulled and lunged for the first 10 minutes until he was satisfied that he'd found the place....and behaved like a dream after that!


Our dogs certainly have their little foibles don't they?

Leafy will only eat her meals in the lobby with the door shut, presumably so that no one is watching her...LOL


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## Barcode

The notebook suggestion is a good tip. I might do that. If there is a pattern, I have noticed it tends to be towards small dogs (Matilda is still small at the moment?). We went past a sheepdog yesterday without incident, but when we came out the pub the other night all hell broke loose, took me a while to see the tiny Yorkie she was barking at! Clearly, we can't have that, not only for Scrabble, but for the other dog.

I'm not sure I understand the harness thing, but I don't think we're at that stage yet. 

The first thing to do is to get her better: she's ill again today, acting a bit like when she had colic before - tests are coming back this week, so we should have a better idea of what's going on then. She's on antibiotics for her skin thing which seems to be clearing up fast.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Our dogs certainly have their little foibles don't they?
> 
> Leafy will only eat her meals in the lobby with the door shut, presumably so that no one is watching her...LOL


Kilo has a few little foibles, but his insistence on finding the exact spot that is suitable for a poo can drive you mad!! Worse still is when I know he's desperate (but won't yet go) he finds it really hard to listen and can be quite reactive and stress. Once he's had one he's great. It is imperative that he has one before class otherwise he doesn't work at all well!!


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## Guest

See Zand is the opposite on the pooping scale. He won't go anywhere apart from the garden. He'll pee on walks, but he'll only go poo on walks if he's REALLY desperate, otherwise he'll just hold then want to go in the garden. 

Weird dog. :lol:


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## Izzysmummy

We have a similar thing here Dogless! If Izzy need to poo shes really distracted and cant focus but then it takes her ages to decide on the perfect spot to actually perform!

Then the roles reverse when Ive picked up her poo because for some reason I get really stressed and flustered when carrying the poo bag until I can find a bin to put it in! For some reason carrying that little bag around with me is something I find really distracting and I dont feel as "on the ball" if any potential stressful situations are approaching  !


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## Sarah1983

Spencer'll poo anywhere. He has his preferred places (under a certain tree and on a tree stump) but if we go for a walk he won't wait till he gets back. If we're just out front then he ALWAYS goes under the tree. If we walk around the block it's either under one of two trees or on the stump.

Izzysmummy, I have issues with carrying a bag of any sort in my hand. On walks I take a backpack with an old ice cream tub in it and just pop used poo bags in there and put the lid on till we come to a bin. And it means Spencer can't grab at it if he gets all excited over something.


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## Symone

Holey moley, I swear that was 5 pages of stuff that I just read! 
... And most of it has gone out of my head. I think I will do what GR does and get a note pad! I feel like I need it at this point lol 

GR - Wow, that was a huge chew pile! Shamaya use to be like that so I moved the things she liked (Mostly pencils and pens) to on top of the highest cupboard.... I must remember to tell myself that for I am forever looking for pens... Forget that they're there, Oops!

FRM - (wow I remembered something so far back...!!!!) How the OH and I taught Shamaya fetch was :
Teaching her what items were called. Such as the classic fetch item, ball. 
Then it was teaching her to find things. I said "Where's your ball, Sid" (she would watch the OH) and he would get it. Then I said it to Shamaya and she did it too, and got lots of praise. Then it started on me throwing it, then saying "where's your ball" then she would run, but wouldn't bring it back. She would play with it there.
Then was recall while having a toy in her mouth - She use to drop it when I recalled her.
So it was "Shamaya come, TOY!!" and she associated it with come back with the toy. 

For getting her to drop it I said "Drop" then got out a treat. She got the treat when she dropped it and she soon got the hang of it. 

Hopefully that will help.  

--

Sooo, Puppy Class..! Well... Shamaya was upset in the beginning, I think it's because we just got there on time so she didn't get a chance to say hello to all of the dogs (At least 20..!) 
I took her to the side to calm her down, but the instructor told me to go in the middle and let her see them all. She was fine after that. 

She walked really nicely on her head collar.. I tried taking it off and she straight away tried to drag me over to Jimmy (Her litter brother) so it went back on again. I kept praising her and stuffing her full with treats, so that went well. 
There was then this activity of random dogs going around and staying by their owners side. All dogs got to walk and sit. It was to keep them at your side in exciting situations. (Who wouldn't be excited by 20 strange dogs?!) 
Shamaya made me laugh.. When she was supposed to be sitting she laid down and went to sleep!  so I had to get her attention, lol! 
Then it was the recall.. I think Shamaya tried to make me look bad! I went further back and she came, got her treat, then ran off! Went to go bug Jimmy! 

Then it was some walking with about turns, sitting in the middle of lots of dogs, laying down, stay.. Which she did well with!  We even had a further distance with stay than all of the others! I was really happy with her. 

Once it ended we walked back to Wills Van.. The pups decided that this time was better spent play fighting! Then as soon as they were in the van they both fell asleep. Shamaya waking up when Will dropped me off, and started to wee as we were getting out! My jeans went straight in the wash. I'm thankful that none got on Wills van. 
She pretty much slept until bed time after that. She's such a good girly. 

Today I took her for a walk at 5-6am, for the OH left for work then. She was tired and pulled back so we cuddled up for another hour or so. I just read for I was too awake.

Then my Electric ran out! It beeped and startled Shamaya. So I wrapped up warmy, a hoodie, coat, gloves, scarf.... Only to be sweating after a min! Ended up taking it all off and still being too hot. I bet this is our "3 days of summer" She sat in the middle of the road when she realised that we weren't going to the beach. Thankfully after the 3rd time telling her to come she did. 

She's asleep now. I think it's also too hot for her. I'll take her to the beach later.
Other than the small mishap with the road she walked really nicely! She seems to have learned that pulling on the head collar is uncomfortable. I just need to get her used to walking like so on just the collar, now.
Overall feeling really proud. 

Also spoke to her breeder and one of the pups had to go to the Emergency Vets  (was the one the Breeders Mum kept back.. Well, she's technically the breeder. I should refer to my guy as the breeders son, really..) He ate something he shouldn't of (didn't say what the item was, I'm guessing a stone based on what he said).. Was a blockage, needed to be operated on. He's on the mend now, I hope that he will be better soon. Poor little guy.

One question - Jimmy's eyes are blood shot and Will was a little worried. The puppy school instructor suggested some human eye drops but he forgot what the brand is. Does any one have any idea what the brand could be?


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## GingerRogers

We aren't that bad but she will find her 'spot' and I swear sometimes it has taken at least 5 mins of pacing and turning before she will go, getting tangled in the undergrowth as she goes, if there is a dog coming I have had to move her on and then we have to go through the whole thing again and again if its following us.

Thats a positive effect of the reduced walking as I haven't been taking her out round here in the morning, when she normally goes, so she has had to get used to going in the garden and I don't have to hang around and watch the whole palava from start to finish  I go make a cup of coffee while I am waiting now


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Kilo has a few little foibles, but his insistence on finding the exact spot that is suitable for a poo can drive you mad!! Worse still is when I know he's desperate (but won't yet go) he finds it really hard to listen and can be quite reactive and stress. Once he's had one he's great. It is imperative that he has one before class otherwise he doesn't work at all well!!


Yup. My sister's Tilly (Leafy's half sister) is the same and it does drive you mad. We all have to freeze like statues, in case we disturb her, when she finally decides on the right spot.


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## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> Spencer'll poo anywhere. He has his preferred places (under a certain tree and on a tree stump) but if we go for a walk he won't wait till he gets back. If we're just out front then he ALWAYS goes under the tree. If we walk around the block it's either under one of two trees or on the stump.
> 
> Izzysmummy, I have issues with carrying a bag of any sort in my hand. On walks I take a backpack with an old ice cream tub in it and just pop used poo bags in there and put the lid on till we come to a bin. And it means Spencer can't grab at it if he gets all excited over something.


Molly goes wherever but gets really frantic to go out which is good, we know the poo sign! My OH missed it once and has never done this again.

You can get dicky bags IM, they're really good and clip to a belt. I hate carrying bags too and would like to see a nice coat with pockets in that looks decent and not sensibly boring so my hands were free. I'd prob complain about being too hot then...

Molly likes to have her food with someone with her or at least likes to know where one of us is. She'll start to eat and stop to look for us and go back. Weird thing. She's just come back from her walk (OH again as I've got more work - yippee but boo as I'm glued to my Mac) and I am in need of Molly cuddles


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## Symone

I may have found the perfect flat in Switzerland! 
It's 3 1/2 rooms (Living room & kitchen is open.. like no walls between if i've understood the 3 1/2 thing correctly, bedroom, 2nd bedroom or office) 
And it has a garden! No idea about how secure it is but I just asked the current person living there. Waiting for a reply.
It's available 1st may.. (Perfect tie in with the OH finishing this job..!!!) And I'm suddenly really excited! It's also cheap for where it is, and it ALLOWS DOGS. 
I'm really excited now.. Oh dear. I think I may go walk Shamaya now to burn off some of this excitement.


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## Maria_1986

Symone said:


> I may have found the perfect flat in Switzerland!
> It's 3 1/2 rooms (Living room & kitchen is open.. like no walls between if i've understood the 3 1/2 thing correctly, bedroom, 2nd bedroom or office)
> And it has a garden! No idea about how secure it is but I just asked the current person living there. Waiting for a reply.
> It's available 1st may.. (Perfect tie in with the OH finishing this job..!!!) And I'm suddenly really excited! It's also cheap for where it is, and it ALLOWS DOGS.
> I'm really excited now.. Oh dear. I think I may go walk Shamaya now to burn off some of this excitement.


When are you looking to move to switzerland and where abouts? Mine and OH long term plan is to move to switzerland for a few years as he really wants to follow in his grandfathers footsteps and work at CERN.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yup. My sister's Tilly (Leafy's half sister) is the same and it does drive you mad. We all have to freeze like statues, in case we disturb her, when she finally decides on the right spot.


This!! I had to say to Dizzy's human last night "Stop! Hang On! Kilo's found a poo spot!!!!". She's used to him now  .

Symone - 20 dogs in a puppy class sounds loads, but as long as you feel you're benefitting then all good I guess; I'm pleased that Shamaya has been a good girl today .


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## Symone

Maria_1986 said:


> When are you looking to move to switzerland and where abouts? Mine and OH long term plan is to move to switzerland for a few years as he really wants to follow in his grandfathers footsteps and work at CERN.


I want to live in Canton Bern. My preferred town is Langenthal, however this flat is in Fraubrunnen. (Better location tbh) 
The original time for moving was April, but the OH wants to earn more money first (despite having savings... lol..) 
This flat coming up 1st may would be great. Perfect timing really. 

Even if you're in a completely different part of Switzerland, it would be easy to meet with the Doggies.  The public transport there is heavenly... I miss it so much.

And you and your OH should go for it!  If you need help at all I can help you. We've got almost everything sorted now. Only things left is OH finding a job. (It'll be easier for me to find one when I'm there) Packing, and re-painting the walls here. Luckily we've already looked for work for the OH, and there's many jobs going in Canton Bern. (He wants to work in construction there) So I doubt we'll have a problem.
Problems may come up winter time, but we'll just keep money aside for then. Also I should be working though the winter, and we won't have to pay for Doggy day care since the OH will be home. (Construction season is normally only 3/4 of a year.)


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## Dogless

Well....I got far more than new tyres at the garage just now ......


.....Now, now ladies :hand::hand:.

I was chatting to the owner and he asked what kind of dog I had, so I told him and we just chatted dogs for a bit (he has a chow chow). He said I should bring them next time so they can have a run out back whilst he sorted the car. I said "Thanks, but they're quite big" thinking he meant the little yard. Oh no, ladies, he just happens to own the three large fields behind the garage.....so I said to him that I've been looking for somewhere secure and quiet to train and walk the dogs for a while and wondered if I might be able to use his land a little more often if I paid him a reasonable amount. He has refused any money and said that I can park my car in his yard and use the fields at any time I want - then walked me to the gate that leads into them and showed me them so I could be sure I got the right ones (whole area is farmland!!). He said to just "walk away" and enjoy them   There may well be livestock at the end of April and on and off in the summer months but I can just use them whenever they're clear - and they're only about a mile and a bit from our house!

I will take the boys at the garage a lovely big tin of biscuits next time I go shopping I think .


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## Symone

Dogless said:


> This!! I had to say to Dizzy's human last night "Stop! Hang On! Kilo's found a poo spot!!!!". She's used to him now  .
> 
> Symone - 20 dogs in a puppy class sounds loads, but as long as you feel you're benefitting then all good I guess; I'm pleased that Shamaya has been a good girl today .


It's a very huge hall. 
The only thing that I don't like is there isn't really any 1:1 there, unless you stop to speak to her at the end.

How long does it normally take for Kilo to find a poo spot?
Shamaya's the opposite.. If we're crossing the road and she needs to go, she will go there!


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## Dogless

Symone said:


> It's a very huge hall.
> The only thing that I don't like is there isn't really any 1:1 there, unless you stop to speak to her at the end.
> 
> How long does it normally take for Kilo to find a poo spot?
> Shamaya's the opposite.. If we're crossing the road and she needs to go, she will go there!


Should be good for focus around other dogs, she'll be a pro at ignoring them before long!

The longest has been two days  . He usually goes once a day; either morning or evening, usually morning, but if the spot isn't right.....


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## MollySmith

Great news Dogless, it really makes a massive difference having a safe space


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## Symone

Dogless said:


> The longest has been two days  . He usually goes once a day; either morning or evening, usually morning, but if the spot isn't right.....


Goodness! 
Shamaya goes like 3 times a day.. But then again she is still a wee pup 

Congratulations on finding a secure spot to train! I bet you're well chuffed.


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## L/C

Dogless - that's a great find!

Symone - glad puppy class went well and that moving sounds like it's getting sorted. :thumbup:

Everyone else - yay or boo depending on what is appropriate. 

Been having a grumpy "I hate all those pricks in the racing industry" few days. I've been trying to think of a way to add Gypsy into my training as I feel like I'm neglecting the dogs (I'm not they are still having the same amount of walks and training - I'm just not having any sitting on my arse time in the evening, getting up an hour earlier and running and swimming in my lunch hour) and I feel really guilty. But because of her leg she can't really run very far (2 miles on pavement and 3-5 on grass) - so while I'd really like to try cani-x or bike-joring I don't think she could cope.

Which annoys/disappoints me as I really want to try it and then I feel guilty as it seems like I don't think she's good enough but I do and blah. OH is trying to convince me to try it with Ely (NO NO NO) and I try to gently explain why that wouldn't work and then I go into a spiral about do I really want to add a pup when the time is right or do I just want Gypsy to be sound enough to do the things I want to do? Boo.

On the plus side Ely had a mooch about off lead today with another dog (Max the GSD who stayed with them over Xmas) and he was perfectly relaxed. Gold star special boy.


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## Dogless

L/C - it sounds as if you do the same kind of over thinking and over analysing that I do; going through every scenario again and again and again . Sounds as if the pointies are getting exactly what they need still, but I do see where you're coming from. And breathe xx.


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## Sarah1983

Well Spencer certainly deserves a gold start today! Just got back in from our walk. We walked down the dirt path that runs alongside camp and back up through camp to come home. We met two horses on the path. I moved Spen off the path into the field coz I've never met horses close up with him so didn't want to risk a lunging, barking fit at close range. He wasn't at all bothered by them. Sat quietly and was more interested in the treats I had than in the horses.

Then just as we came off the path onto the road we ran into two people with buggies and 3 dogs between them. Not even a dance and a whine, he just looked at the dogs and carried on walking. They were about 6ft away. Then I discovered we'd timed our walk so that we were coming home just as the school we pass lets out. So loads of kids, adults, buggies, buses and general bustle. Absolute star. He did go to jump up at a soldier but an "ah" stopped him in his tracks.

Back on the public road we saw a lady with a little boy and he sat nicely on the grass verge to let them pass. That's something he does find difficult so pleased he didn't succumb to the urge to smother the little boy in kisses. I was ready to block him if he did but he held his sit. Minor blip a few minutes later when we saw a dog that barked at him. He had a whine and got a bit pully but didn't lose his mind. So all in all an extremely pleasant walk. I guess I'm not looking after his welfare properly though as he was on either a flexi or regular leash for the entire walk.

Spen excelled himself with the pooping on Sunday. 9 times he went that day. 7 times on the husky meet up, twice just before bed  It's usually 2-4 times a day but he'll do 3 on our walk, one normal and 2 tiny ones, and then one before bed.


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## L/C

Dogless said:


> L/C - it sounds as if you do the same kind of over thinking and over analysing that I do; going through every scenario again and again and again . Sounds as if the pointies are getting exactly what they need still, but I do see where you're coming from. And breathe xx.


I think if OH was more 'hands on' I'd feel a bit better about going for a run in the evening - but while he's great with attention and cuddles, he'll just ignore Gypsy if she's bored and starts barking/whinging. So by the time I get back she's worked her self into such a state that I have to spend ages calming her down and re-directing her.

I've taken to leaving her with a chew/kong/treat ball and limiting my runs to half an hour. Ah well. It is funny though when I try to do weights/calisthenics in the living room on my mat. I get very concerned doggy faces looming over me!


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## Maria_1986

Symone - thats really exciting, I hope the move goes well. We are probably not looking to move for another few years yet and then it will depend on what animals we have at the time and if renting out our flat will cover our mortgage/if its worth selling it. OH needs to find a job here first that will give him the rest of the skills and experience CERN are looking for as the language he currently programmes in is not one they look for or something (or some other computer geeky sounds thing). It has been his dream for as long as I've known him but he is dragging his feet slightly - I think he is worried that he will apply and get turned down 

Dogless - thats great news about the field


----------



## Dogless

Spendog deserves several gold stars for that lot - what a good dog . And 9 poos? 9 poos? must have been all the excitement!! That's about Kilo's weekly allowance .


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> I think if OH was more 'hands on' I'd feel a bit better about going for a run in the evening - but while he's great with attention and cuddles, he'll just ignore Gypsy if she's bored and starts barking/whinging. So by the time I get back she's worked her self into such a state that I have to spend ages calming her down and re-directing her.
> 
> I've taken to leaving her with a chew/kong/treat ball and limiting my runs to half an hour. Ah well. It is funny though when I try to do weights/calisthenics in the living room on my mat. I get very concerned doggy faces looming over me!


I'm wondering whether we share the same OH :yikes:.


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Symone - thats really exciting, I hope the move goes well. We are probably not looking to move for another few years yet and then it will depend on what animals we have at the time and if renting out our flat will cover our mortgage/if its worth selling it. OH needs to find a job here first that will give him the rest of the skills and experience CERN are looking for as the language he currently programmes in is not one they look for or something (or some other computer geeky sounds thing). It has been his dream for as long as I've known him but he is dragging his feet slightly - I think he is worried that he will apply and get turned down
> 
> Dogless - thats great news about the field


3 fields :yesnod::yesnod: 3 whole fields :w00t: :w00t: AND there is a big stream through one of them too .


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I'm wondering whether we share the same OH :yikes:.


Hmm - mine has been spending a lot of time at the British library, supposedly preparing for a PhD. Perhaps he as actually been popping across to NI! 

(If so can you keep him for a while? I'd love a week to myself! )

ETA: Actually I'll leave him here and bring me and the pointies for a visit. I am jealous of your fields!


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless - sounds like a little bit of heaven with the stream too, I bet your boys will have great fun!


----------



## Beth17

Dogless that is fabulous news about the fields


----------



## GingerRogers

Just back from our lunchtime toddle, she was very good, no pulling at all to get out the door, that normally takes several attempts before she gets it. We even managed to cross the road and investigate new smells. Then I saw a couple come round the corner, ok, I was about to cross back again and go home anyway she was calm so I thought she would manage this, then I spotted the tell tale lead holding signs hmy: so we had to leg it home again! 

I really am doing my best with this here plan of action but I keep getting thwarted. I used to think we lived in a lovely place but now I am beginning to not like it so much. 

Do you think anyone would mind if I set up a kind of system where anyone planning to walk past our house had to ring a bell before they get within sight  I could leave chocolates or dog treats as bribes.

The field sounds amazing, you deserve some luck Dogless.

L/C The pointies sound just fine, its not forever is it, and I don't really see how much more you could do. 

:thumbup: to Ely and Spen :thumbup: gold start indeed.


----------



## Maria_1986

GR - your leaving chocolates and doggie treats outside? Chev and I promise not to walk past without letting you know but where can we find these treats? On a serious note - glad the start of your outing was good even if you had to leg it home at the end and doing your best is all anyone can ask or expect.

We wandered out for a leg stretch and i decided that as she was listening to me well on the harness I would take it off and walk her from the collar for a bit in the middle, at the point where she was starting to turn and slacken off the lead really quickly each time I put the harness back on and let her have more of an explore and sniff. Should I have kept going at this point? I didn't want to overwhelm her or to tire her out too much but I'm not sure when I should be stopping.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Spendog deserves several gold stars for that lot - what a good dog . And 9 poos? 9 poos? must have been all the excitement!! That's about Kilo's weekly allowance .


Doesn't he? He was absolutely awesome, so pleased with him.

And yeah, 9 poos. I think it was a case of him simply not stopping to finish one coz there was too much going on.

Congrats on the field, nice to know you have somewhere that's hopefully not poo covered and where there are no bitches in season and no morons walking their dogs.


----------



## Dogless

GR - how about warning signs and claymores in a cordon pattern around your house?


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

Sarah - thats great about Spen, sounds like a switch has been thrown. Even tho Sophie has been really great the last to weeks Iam still waiting for the ugly hairy beast to arise again cause I cant believe how one day she was a small hairy canary barking at everyone and everything on her lead and now she is ooo so good.

Ging - Im interested in this front clip harness? Ive seen one before but didnt want to start a harness collection! I wonder if itd help her with wanting to chase the squarrils, we seem to live in squarril city. Once took her on a walk and they were everywhere! She tried to chase but choked herself with her bum flying out on the end of the leash.

This week in our next step in grooming, Im gonna try to shave her belly,chest and underpit area and bum area! Shes gonna look like a kid tried to cut her hair lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

Good luck in the grooming 

Do Harnesses Make Dogs Pull? this is obviously a company website but explains their use better than I can, yes it would help you keep control, if only for the reason that you have that front connection as a sort of steering guide. If you learn to use them properly they are great I can't wait till the next session as I thought it was a bit defective to start with and a marketing gimic.

We didn't see any squizzells in the wood today but she was looking for them


----------



## Sarah1983

Miss.PuddyCat said:


> Sarah - thats great about Spen, sounds like a switch has been thrown. Even tho Sophie has been really great the last to weeks Iam still waiting for the ugly hairy beast to arise again cause I cant believe how one day she was a small hairy canary barking at everyone and everything on her lead and now she is ooo so good.


I take each day as it comes  Spen isn't even 2 yet so while he's past the terrible teens and into the young adult stage he still behaves like a lout at times lol. I know what you mean about waiting for the unwanted behaviour to rear its ugly head again though, been there so often with Rupert and his fears. One day not reacting, another day reacting.

Maria, I tend to do loose leash walking practise in brief spurts. Partly because I bloody hate it myself and partly because I want to end while my dog is doing well. Obviously at some point you need to build up to longer periods but for starting out I would say short and sweet is better. I often use being released to go wander and sniff as a reward, whether for loose leash walking or simply for sitting to let someone pass or whatever. Hell, it was the ONLY reward I used with Rupert coz it was the only one he was interested in lol.


----------



## Guest

Just quick cos I need to take Zand out for his walk but... 

DOGLESS CAN I COME AND LIVE WITH YOU??? I NEED THOSE FIELDS!! 

Sounds absolutely wonderful!!!


Oooh and Zand was 18 months on sunday!!!! He's a big boy now. (Not in his head though)


----------



## Symone

That reminds me.. Shamaya is 5 months old, today. 
She's getting old!

Just gave her some tripe and it stinks :frown:
Times like this I wish that she was more interested in her food! It is good that she takes her time eating it, though 

Had a lovely walk through some side roads, took us near one of our main walking paths so we had a quick play on the beach.. She barely pulled.

I checked her paw and it seems all fine now.. I should probably stop using the head collar and get down to proper training when out. Or if I do continue to use one, go and buy a dogmatic headcollar. After all this one does belong to a friend! I will have to return it at some point 

She seems happy with it on, though!










What do you think? how happy is my girl? 
(That was taken after treating her for sitting nicely when we were getting close to the beach)


----------



## Dogless

Separate lead walks again this afternoon - they had two long offlead plays / walks yesterday so wanted to take the adrenaline back down a notch!! Rudi was a little star, he's so eager to please and learn at present, love him. Just two short jump / bite attacks which was to be expected given how windy it is!

Kilo was really, really up on his toes and nervous as we went down the street where 'the' lab lives - can really tell he's back, Kilo was totally relaxed on that street when he was away. Small child walking big lab puppy on flexi and getting pulled over to say hello rudely dodged as I didn't want Kilo to react, mostly for him but also so the little girl and pup didn't get a fright...I think anything lab shaped on that street today would have got a very tense meet indeed and possibly barked at. He chilled as we left the street and carried on but had to mark everything possible today, lunging for scents. Then we followed a lady with a springer who was obviously female judging by Kilo's reaction. I wonder if this sudden very much stronger obsession with bitches over the last two days is down to the testosterone peak from the implant that is meant to happen during the first week or so or maybe Rudi's hormones are playing a part? It's really noticeable and pretty hard to manage...never mind the stress inflicted on the BW. Saw a few more dogs and all fine, then came back home and Kilo turned into a dressage horse once again as we headed down the streets near to out house. So not the best walk, but definitely not the worst either...just frustrating for both man and beast .



LurcherOwner said:


> Just quick cos I need to take Zand out for his walk but...
> 
> DOGLESS CAN I COME AND LIVE WITH YOU??? I NEED THOSE FIELDS!!
> 
> Sounds absolutely wonderful!!!
> 
> Oooh and Zand was 18 months on sunday!!!! He's a big boy now. (Not in his head though)


It's not worth it for the rest of the sh!t this place offers, believe me  .

Happy 18 months Zand .

Symone - Shamaya looks like a sweet little pup.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well....I got far more than new tyres at the garage just now ......
> 
> .....Now, now ladies :hand::hand:.
> 
> I was chatting to the owner and he asked what kind of dog I had, so I told him and we just chatted dogs for a bit (he has a chow chow). He said I should bring them next time so they can have a run out back whilst he sorted the car. I said "Thanks, but they're quite big" thinking he meant the little yard. Oh no, ladies, he just happens to own the three large fields behind the garage.....so I said to him that I've been looking for somewhere secure and quiet to train and walk the dogs for a while and wondered if I might be able to use his land a little more often if I paid him a reasonable amount. He has refused any money and said that I can park my car in his yard and use the fields at any time I want - then walked me to the gate that leads into them and showed me them so I could be sure I got the right ones (whole area is farmland!!). He said to just "walk away" and enjoy them   There may well be livestock at the end of April and on and off in the summer months but I can just use them whenever they're clear - and they're only about a mile and a bit from our house!
> 
> I will take the boys at the garage a lovely big tin of biscuits next time I go shopping I think .


That's brilliant news and I'm so delighted for you, Kilo and Rudi...:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's brilliant news and I'm so delighted for you, Kilo and Rudi...:thumbup:


It means so much to me, really does. We'll be there tomorrow .


----------



## Werehorse

*Such* good news about the field, Dogless.

We have class tonight.  I have a pretty big day at work tomorrow and am feeling rather nervous about it, as well as starting to really ramp up the panic levels for the weekend (Sunday will be my first proper day doing the actual job!). I think it is making me feel nervy about dog class as a kind of over-spill!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> *Such* good news about the field, Dogless.
> 
> We have class tonight.  I have a pretty big day at work tomorrow and am feeling rather nervous about it, as well as starting to really ramp up the panic levels for the weekend (Sunday will be my first proper day doing the actual job!). I think it is making me feel nervy about dog class as a kind of over-spill!


Hope all goes well at work - I reckon you'll be fabulous . As for dog class....you KNOW you'll do well there  xx.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse ^^^ what she said although I totally understand the nerves and the overspill


----------



## Guest

OMG GUYS! MUM FINALLY GOT THROUGH TO AN ANSWERPHONE TO THE BEHAVIOURIST. MUM THINKS SHE MAY HAVE BEEN PHONING THE WRONG NUMBER :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- that is fabulous news on the fields, just what you and the boys need.

Big well done to the Spendog.:smilewinkgrin:

Werehorse- class will be fine, and I hope you enjoy the new job.

Having a meh, real woe is me day today.
I spent another 50 minutes trying to walk past the Setters, then the owner came home and the dogs went inside with him.:crying: Really all that was for nothing wasn't it??
Apart from that, although they obviously dont bother about their dogs barking all day every day- its not right for me to keep passing their house with a Rabid dog of my own is it?
Does anyone have any other ideas- please?

Its not just this one thing- its everything with him at the minute, I know he's just being an obnoxious Teenager, think I'm just tired.

Sorry for being a grump.


----------



## Dogless

Oh kat . Times like this are when I wish we were all friends within driving distance on this thread; even a bit of help would probably lighten the load.

I don't really have any ideas ref the barking...run past?? I know I say 'run' for everything . Throw a toy and then 'chase' it as fast as your legs will carry you with HH???? What a totally frustrating situation for you and the poor setters.


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- that is fabulous news on the fields, just what you and the boys need.
> 
> Big well done to the Spendog.:smilewinkgrin:
> 
> Werehorse- class will be fine, and I hope you enjoy the new job.
> 
> Having a meh, real woe is me day today.
> I spent another 50 minutes trying to walk past the Setters, then the owner came home and the dogs went inside with him.:crying: Really all that was for nothing wasn't it??
> *Apart from that, although they obviously dont bother about their dogs barking all day every day- its not right for me to keep passing their house with a Rabid dog of my own is it?*
> Does anyone have any other ideas- please?
> 
> Its not just this one thing- its everything with him at the minute, I know he's just being an obnoxious Teenager, think I'm just tired.
> 
> Sorry for being a grump.


Do you think he would be still rabid if they were inside/under control/just not barking in their garden all day long on their own? Or would you be able to control him, eventually. If the latter then you aren't doing anything wrong, you are trying to work on him, a poor lad who doesn't know any different at the moment. I feel for you though, I feel the same round here some days, I try and pick quiet times so we don't meet dogs on the street, only to find they are all in their gardens instead  big hugs x

Just a thought I think I know the answer but do they know what they do all day and would they care if they didn't?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Oh kat . Times like this are when I wish we were all friends within driving distance on this thread; even a bit of help would probably lighten the load.
> 
> I don't really have any ideas ref the barking...run past?? I know I say 'run' for everything . Throw a toy and then 'chase' it as fast as your legs will carry you with HH???? What a totally frustrating situation for you and the poor setters.


Thanks. I did try running and throwing a ball- I could try running faster I suppose.
I'd really like to stop it if I can, somehow.
I'm a bit worried because the rescue have up dated with his pics only, after everything I've said they've only mentioned he was impeccable at the vets.


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Do you think he would be still rabid if they were inside/under control/just not barking in their garden all day long on their own? Or would you be able to control him, eventually. If the latter then you aren't doing anything wrong, you are trying to work on him, a poor lad who doesn't know any different at the moment. I feel for you though, I feel the same round here some days, I try and pick quiet times so we don't meet dogs on the street, only to find they are all in their gardens instead  big hugs x
> 
> Just a thought I think I know the answer but do they know what they do all day and would they care if they didn't?


He was ok when he first came- its all the dogs here that caused his reations. If they were inside he'd be up on his toes but he'd be ok I think?
The woman is at home- they dont give a toss.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks. I did try running and throwing a ball- I could try running faster I suppose.
> I'd really like to stop it if I can, somehow.
> I'm a bit worried because the rescue have up dated with his pics only, after everything I've said they've only mentioned he was impeccable at the vets.


Calming cap? Blinker type job????? This is one for mv and Grannie .


----------



## kat&molly

Forgot to say, I could just ignore it all really, but I feel if he left here now with these habits , he could well end up back in rescue.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Forgot to say, I could just ignore it all really, but I feel if he left here now with these habits , he could well end up back in rescue.


Can you have a day off tomorrow, let both of your stress levels subside a bit? x


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Can you have a day off tomorrow, let both of your stress levels subside a bit? x


Yes- I think thats a good idea-I'll take him somewhere different in the car[on his own] he does need to let some steam off. Thanks both.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Yes- I think thats a good idea-I'll take him somewhere different in the car[on his own] *he does need to let some steam off. *Thanks both.


You both do...be kind to yourself lovely lady! x


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> He was ok when he first came- its all the dogs here that caused his reations. If they were inside he'd be up on his toes but he'd be ok I think?
> The woman is at home- they dont give a toss.





kat&molly said:


> Forgot to say, I could just ignore it all really, but I feel if he left here now with these habits , he could well end up back in rescue.





kat&molly said:


> Yes- I think thats a good idea-I'll take him somewhere different in the car[on his own] he does need to let some steam off. Thanks both.


In response to your first reply firstly  then dogless idea seems a great idea, if you think a walk on his own will help then try that too, after all you don't want a pile of chewed stuff like I got this morning , before it gets too out of hand, says the idiot who keeps forgetting these things herself 

To the second, we all know you wont, but yes you could and lots would!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> You both do...be kind to yourself lovely lady! x


I wasn't lovely today- I called the Rotter some names under my breath- I was shocked I even knew some of the words.:yikes:


----------



## GingerRogers

Lol, it all helps 

Well it probably doesn't always makes me feel terrible


----------



## Guest

Well I was gonna say K&M, why don't you try running past or marching past like the dogs aren't there but someone got their first :lol: 

I have realised that the dogmatic left and indent on Zands face today... 
BUT when I rubbed it, it went, so I am assuming its just the fur... 

And my dear dad has bought me and magazine subscription to 'YOur dog' magazine for my birthday!! YaaaayyyY!


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, it all helps
> 
> Well it probably doesn't always makes me feel terrible


I didn't feel too guilty. I figured it was better than shouting at him.

LO- Please tell your Dad its my birthday soon.


----------



## Beth17

K&M a day off sounds like a plan. There aren't many that would put in all the effort you do. I usually call the dogs names in a singsong voice so they think I'm being nice 

LO that was nice of your dad 

Can't quite find the energy to remember enough to write a comment for everyone sorry 

Still feeling yucky and have this irritating need to sneeze but can't quite do it. I did however manage to apply to [email protected] for a job today.

I'm feeling really puppy broody although can't realistically add another for at least a year, probably longer . I think it's because the little 'un is a year old in a couple of weeks and those gorgeous pictures of Zab. Where does the time go?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Evening all  Wow that's a lot of pages to get through since last night  We sure know how to natter :lol:

FANTASTIC news about the 3 FIELDS.... with STREAM!!!!!!!!! Dogless :thumbup: looking forward to seeing some pics of you in your very own wiiiiiiiiide open spaaaaaaace









I have a confession...

I haven't done any training today :nono:

I haven't done any street walking today :nono:

In fact I haven't walked the Pickles at all :nono:

What have I done today?

I have sat in a detox box, I have sweated in a sauna, I have had a mild heart attack jumping into a cold plunge pool, I have lolled about in a Jacuzzi, I have been massaged, I have had a facial, I have had my nails painted (which I've already ruined  ), I have drank more cups of herbal tea than can possibly be healthy and I have chatted a lot!!!
Yes ladies, I have had my very first ever spa day! It is sooo not me, I'm not one for pampering really or anything particularly girly or self indulgent, but I have to admit it was very relaxing and I could quite happily make a habit of it 

So, what about the Pickles? They have spent the day with my dad, who picked them up and 8.30am armed with his GPS and a packed lunch and apparently they got home at 2.30pm!!!!! So I think they've had a pretty good day and are now flat out :Yawn:


----------



## Beth17

FRM sounds like a brilliant way to spend the day and sounds as if the Pickles had a great time as well.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Having a meh, real woe is me day today.
> I spent another 50 minutes trying to walk past the Setters, then the owner came home and the dogs went inside with him.:crying: Really all that was for nothing wasn't it??
> Apart from that, although they obviously dont bother about their dogs barking all day every day- its not right for me to keep passing their house with a Rabid dog of my own is it?
> Does anyone have any other ideas- please?


To be honest, I'd just get him past ASAP to minimise the reaction on both sides. I don't think it'll help to keep exposing him to them for long periods, especially if he's over threshold and reacting back. Is it only these dogs he reacts like this to or is it other dogs too? Is there a distance where he can see/hear them but not be reacting?

ETA: I can understand wanting to sort the behaviour out to prevent him ending up back in rescue because of it but honestly, I think you're aiming too high right now. If he's reacting he's not learning anything and keeping trying for 50 minutes is more likely to just get him more and more wound up than teach him anything I'm afraid  I'd start at a distance where he can see and/or hear them but isn't beyond where he can respond to you. I'd spend a minute or two rewarding him and move away. Doing that several times a day rather than one long session. It's a pain in the ass when you're stuck having to pass dogs that you know make yours react badly and I really do feel for you.


----------



## Thorne

Sorry all, been a grade A lurker on here lately  Hope all is well where you are! Feeling a bit disconnected at the moment which is weird, but better than feeling too down I suppose.

Had a lovely walk with Breeze in the sunshine yesterday, about to make a thread with photos  Scooter and I went out under cover of darkness for a pavement and LL training walk. Had another good walk tonight with both of them, Scooter's recall was stellar, Breeze nice and keen tonight.

Breeze was a bit of a pain at times, she's moved on from keeping her nose near my hand when walking to heel, to nudging, and now she's starting to mouth it. It's not a problem (at the moment!) but is a nuisance, she knows that food comes from my hands and seems to be trying to hurry me up in handing over titbits. I don't lure her with a treat and am trying to use more praise and less food rewards with the madam, am also dropping treats on the ground for her to try and stop her targeting my hand/s. Any other ideas?
Now I think about it, she's been much bolder with her nudging and nipping since I taught a hand touch! Oops! 

Off to Crufts tomorrow, very excited about it all


----------



## Dogless

Have a fabulous day Thorne - hound day, you lucky thing! .


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> Have a fabulous day Thorne - hound day, you lucky thing! .


Will definitely think of you when I see the first Ridgie of the day, really looking forward to seeing all the beautiful leggy sighthounds!


----------



## Guest

Have a fabtabulous day tommorow thorne, all those pointies and ridgies and scenties!!


----------



## MollySmith

A quick reply, I have tried to catch up but I've just deleted the long post by mistake - sorry 

We had our lesson today. Molly angelic with all the dogs, honestly couldn't believe it although her pulling wasn't amazing. The park we used has on and off lead dogs and she was so good. Let her off lead to play and she took off after a football but thankfully brought it back unpunctured and it was fine (they were miles down the other end of the huge park too). 

Blotted her copybook big style with a little Yorkie as we walked back to the car. There is pavement on the road side and path inside the park hemmed in with a high metal fence and this Yorkie did a face off with Molly who lunged but not as bad as she was. Blumming Yorkie got through the bars and onto the path and was off onto the road. So scary! So trainer has Molly and I'm dropping treats to get the escapee onto the path. Owner seemed fairly blase about it all oddly. We put Molly in the car as she was so hyped up it wasn't good.

I could seriously left OH in the park though. I wonder what planet the man is on, I swear. The trainer showed very clearly that Molly responds to the clicker. I've told him that all the things she can do, like tidy her toys in her box aren't miracles, it's done by clicker. He's telling the trainer he does all this, I outed him because I said 'but you don't take a clicker do you?' Finally he confessed he doesn't and the trainer was really firm that he has too. So we get to the car and she asks if we have any questions, he has none but we've gone barely 1 min in the car and he starts, how am I meant to hold Molly on a lead and a click and treat. 'The same way I do when I take her out each night...' then he asks what do I do if I've got dogs off lead around her and I'm treating her. 'You treat Molly, the click is for her not them and why did you not ask the trainer this?' 

I despair. I love that he walks Molly and loves to walk her but this is the third time I've had to do a lesson with him and me and Molly and the trainer to ensure he 'gets' it. He still doesn't understand the clicker - why? How? And how not rewarding her means we're undermining the trainer's work. He has done the lead walking and the clicking around reactive dogs before, I know he has but he goes freestyle and asks her to sit, doesn't click her and claims that's his and Molly's way. :cursing: 

I think I need to give him something to learn with Molly with the clicker at home in the safety of the garden. And a coat to keep stuff in so he doesn't use the 'I can't carry it all' excuse again. 

Sorry, still so furious with him, I really don't know what to do about this now.


----------



## Werehorse

I am so tired. Bed for me ASAP.

Class was good. Hugo gets v bored doing any heelwork at all, well for longer than a few times round the room... not sure how to make it more interesting for him? But his sendaway (to mat) had come on an awful lot and he gets out there much quicker now. No idea how that actually happened though. I need to properly clicker train him more.

Oscar and OH are still having fun rather than working on finesse.  But OH was saying something about wanting to tidy up his heelwork so there is a small flame to fan there. 

Both boys did spot on sit and down stays despite both of them being utterly bonkers tonight. 

Right, sleep.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> To be honest, I'd just get him past ASAP to minimise the reaction on both sides. I don't think it'll help to keep exposing him to them for long periods, especially if he's over threshold and reacting back. Is it only these dogs he reacts like this to or is it other dogs too? Is there a distance where he can see/hear them but not be reacting?
> 
> ETA: I can understand wanting to sort the behaviour out to prevent him ending up back in rescue because of it but honestly, I think you're aiming too high right now. If he's reacting he's not learning anything and keeping trying for 50 minutes is more likely to just get him more and more wound up than teach him anything I'm afraid  I'd start at a distance where he can see and/or hear them but isn't beyond where he can respond to you. I'd spend a minute or two rewarding him and move away. Doing that several times a day rather than one long session. It's a pain in the ass when you're stuck having to pass dogs that you know make yours react badly and I really do feel for you.


Thanks Sarah. Its not just these dogs its everywhere in the bloody village. All I've done is make it 10 times worse. Poor boy, I should never have put him through that.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Sarah. Its not just these dogs its everywhere in the bloody village. All I've done is make it 10 times worse. Poor boy, I should never have put him through that.


k&m - never mind poor boy; you've actually taken him in and given him a chance when most wouldn't :yesnod:. He was probably going to get worse anyway as he settled in with you.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - pleased that class went so well; just what you needed!


----------



## MollySmith

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Sarah. Its not just these dogs its everywhere in the bloody village. All I've done is make it 10 times worse. Poor boy, I should never have put him through that.


((hugs)) it's so hard to manage though as I found out again yesterday. Don't be too hard in yourself, sometimes you have to just try now a little. Just like Sarah rightly said, you've given him a home filled with love. That means so much.

Anyway, sorry for my rant last night. I had to get that off my chest and today we move on. Working early (on my birthday too  ) so I can go out on the dog walk and find some solutions to the carrying stuff problem.


----------



## Dogless

MS - no idea what to do about your OH. If you find a way of getting through then please share it with the rest of us .


----------



## MollySmith

I'm thinking soothing bruised egos and bribery by beer and Molly pulling her best big puppy eyes face.


----------



## moonviolet

Kat don't be hard on yourself as Dogless says behaviours often pop up when dogs settle in and he came to you with teenage angst. Elsewhere can you imagine the approach that would have been used on him

W/H Glad Hugo's sendaways have improved, WIth the heelwork, i guess it's either making it more rewarding or more interesting if he's getting bored, I guess it depends on what the aim of going around is, I used to add spins twists and side swaps here and there just to keep Tink on her toes ( pet obedience class) 
It's great that OH is having fun with Oscar. 

THorne have a great day today 

MS arggghh!!! i dont' know what to say, i think its' time to get OH a batman-esque utility belt! Or maybe consider a clickerword if you think You OH could get on better with that.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks for trying to make me feel better everyone. I had thought about the 'getting worse' bit- as if he could  but yesterday morning he had a little go at Evie and the day before it was Jay. We'd had nothing for a week.
I'm going to put him in the car and take him to walk around the Loop.
Some things are sinking in so its not all bad.

MS- Happy Birthday. I have no idea regarding your OH, Moonviolets idea of a word is good but you are expecting him to Multi-Task and we all know how difficult that is.

Thorne- enjoy Crufts today, I'm very jealous.

Werehorse- sounds like a good class, great on the send aways.


----------



## moonviolet

Happy birthday MS


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Sarah. Its not just these dogs its everywhere in the bloody village. All I've done is make it 10 times worse. Poor boy, I should never have put him through that.


Never mind poor boy, you've taken him in and are trying to work with him, it's more than a lot of people would do. So you made a mistake, who hasn't? 

MS, is your OH not rewarding Molly or just not clicking her? If he's not rewarding her then the last thing you want is him clicking and not rewarding. I don't insist my hubby use a clicker coz he'd only balls it up. He gets by with good old fashioned praise, fusses and play which he's happy to do but he won't touch the clicker.

I've got to admit, I struggle with the clicker when I've got Spen on leash, especially when faced with something he may react to, so quite often don't use it where it would likely be beneficial. We still make progress because I use my voice and still reward him like I would if I clicked. Perhaps your OH would be more willing to use a certain word rather than a clicker? Not quite as effective in my experience but it does work, you don't need a clicker to clicker train.

Weather isn't as nice here today, it's dull and cloudy. And apparently we'll have snow again this weekend :crying: I twisted my ankle bowling last night so Spencer will have to make do with just toilet walks today I think. Will see how I feel this afternoon. Might manage a hobble to the field. He won't mind if he just gets a game with his frisbee and some training but I've been enjoying getting out and about properly again.


----------



## Twiggy

Sorry ladies I was out with friends for a birthday celebration last night so I've quickly scanned through the last few pages.

*MollySmith *Personally I'd give up on OH and the clicker. You will give yourself much too much stress and he'll never 'get it'. Dogs are not stupid and my hubby's total lack of any dog sense (including never being able to even master the difference between sit and down) has never affected my dogs training or behaviour. I do rely on him quite heavily at times to walk my dogs too.

*Werehorse *Heelwork can be as exciting or as boring as the handler wishes to make it and trailing round a hall in ever decreasing circles would, in all honesty, bore even the best of them.

*K&M *It's always a problem with reactive dogs that are allowed to go ballistic at every dog that passes their property. Sadly, in most cases, it's the only stimulation they get. Our new neighbours that moves in about 20 months ago are breeding Miniature Schnauzers on a big scale and now have about 15. The poor little things are kept for one purpose only - to make lots of money, with puppies selling for about £800 each..!! Last summer they were stuck out in a small paddock for hours and left to yap, scream and howl from dawn to dusk - unhappy, bored and frustrated. Again the only excitement they got was running the hedge antagonizing my girls every time I walked them down the paddock. I've had strong words with them twice and if it happens again this year I shall report them. Nonetheless my girls have to ignore them, including Tremor, who would really love to answer back.
When Tremor was a puppy and we had the two spaniels next door (previous owners - same property) I would either try and get by the end of their paddock quickly but if I couldn't I would just stand still and silently battle it out. Tremor would be up on her hind legs letting rip with all her might and I would hold her out away from me and say nothing. Once she was back on all fours and had stopped barking (even for a second) I would praise and continue forward. I couldn't react in any case because Quiver is so sensitive she would probably have run back home had I slightly got annoyed, plus I had 15 yr old Fidget so Tremor just had to stay on the lead until she's done her circuit and taken herself off home. I was working at the time so it was rarely possible to walk them separately. It's a different situation with your foster dog because Tremor was being intensively trained for competition and as the training progressed Ihad much more control over her.


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> Happy birthday MS


Awh thank you


----------



## Guest

happy birthday!!!!


----------



## Dogless

*HAPPY BIRTHDAY MS .*

Twiggy - your poor neighbour's dogs .

This morning the boys had a zoomy, wet, muddy, happy time exploring and playing in the fields and splashing up and down the stream. No training at all....I just kept them under some sort of control and that was it . They had bright red tired eyes by the end and have collapsed onto the sofa now for lots of much - needed sleep. It was lovely . The owner's chow - chow was at his fence and had a bit of a bark (and what a weird bark!!) but the boys didn't even approach her or take any notice at all; they were far too busy being happy to bother .

No nice tins of biscuits in the shop so I dropped chocolates off to the garage instead; the owner wasn't there but I'm sure the message will be passed on .


----------



## Guest

Happy Birthday MollySmith!!

I'm excited about this afternoon. We normally have class at 7:30 in the evening, but our instructor is away at clicker expo so she me and my friend in charge (muahahahaha). 
We've decided to meet early, take the goobers to the nearby park, mess around, then go have dinner at a really yummy restaurant nearby that has outdoor seating so we can bring the dogs, THEN go to class. Does that sound like a great evening or what?


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Happy Birthday MollySmith!!
> 
> I'm excited about this afternoon. We normally have class at 7:30 in the evening, but our instructor is away at clicker expo so she me and my friend in charge (muahahahaha).
> We've decided to meet early, take the goobers to the nearby park, mess around, then go have dinner at a really yummy restaurant nearby that has outdoor seating so we can bring the dogs, THEN go to class. Does that sound like a great evening or what?


Perfect Ouesi....what are you going to do in class?


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Perfect Ouesi....what are you going to do in class?


Practice rally runs. Probably some heeling runs as well, and long sits and downs. Normally we're a pretty goofy bunch and we try to distract each other and our dogs. But there is a new gal coming tonight, so we have to behave - sort of...


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear MollySmith - like I said OH's can be so :incazzato: I think I am with Twiggy et al, the clicker is only a tool for us to make it easier to mark the behaviour TBH, if what he does works then thats great or use a marker word instead, i am rubbish at that though I say all sorts then remember what it was supposed to be. On Saturday they even told me to not worry about the clicker for now but its part of my 'armour' and I found I could help it  If you want to insist on it though could he have one round his neck or one thats on a band that goes round the palm, mines just a cheapy box type, has a thin elastic strap which I wrap twice round my wrist, so if I drop it its still there.
ANNNNND HAPPY BIRTHDAY 

Werehorse - If your OH and Oscar are having fun I reckon thats all that matters, finesse is over rated, I was always told I rode like a rag doll and to tighten up and stop flailing but it always worked for me and I had fun and the horses I rode never complained in fact some of them worked better for me than anyone else (Oscar did  actually big blummin fool of a horse)

K&M - Days off really do work, calm walks away from the triggers, training try and keep him away from the girls as well if he gets over excited with them. Don't feel bad he is still getting way more stimulation than he was isn't he, he will recover.

Thorne have fun today but don't come home with any four legged parcels 

Have fun Ouesi and don't be too goofy on the new girl 

We have a floppy dog again this morning all because she hasn't seen any monsters for a couple of days  

OH is STILL suffering with the migraines but went back to the docs on tues who upped the meds, don't think he will be back at work this week though , so he can finish the decorating off, or at least get started on preparing it for me 

We had such a lovely calm dog yesterday we went back to the woods this morning (I dread the day I go up there and someone elses car is in the car park  its my wood , all mine rrr OH came too to get some fresh air which made a nice change, I don't mind him coming on walks like that cos no training is involved really, its just a big run about and sniff fest. Plus he can spot interesting things which I don't normally, we saw a tree creeper as soon as we got to the woods and two jays fighting with crests up and then a buzzard flew through the trees, not something I have seen before (in the woods I mean) was very primeval 

Got home with a dirty dog, now I wanted new vinyl flooring as I thought it would be easier to look after with a dirty dawg but have been convinced thats not good and to go with carpet but this morning I thought  Oh I don't know!! How do you all cope, its not really been a problem as the carpets manky so we don't care. Rory always cleaned himself up but madam doesn't have the urge. This morning she just wrapped herself up in the bottom of the sofa throw and slept for an hour :rolleyes5:

ETA we actually got relaxing on the mat last night too , bit of a joint effort which was nice. But I emailed the trainers about a couple of things part of the reply was 

'You have a huge challenge with her.........'  I thought that but was hoping I was over reacting


----------



## Symone

Happy birthday, MS!!

Am about to pop out so I will go on a liking spree, later. 

I do have a question though... Does your dog try to clean you after you've showered/bathed? 

Shamaya does. Had a shower this morning and she decided to try to lick me all over! I think i'll wait until the OH can distract her next time.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer tries to lick me dry while I'm still in the bath  I have to send him to lie down. I could shut the door but then he makes pathetic noises outside it lol.


----------



## Dogless

Mine aren't allowed upstairs so no shower / bath dramas .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Mine aren't allowed upstairs so no shower / bath dramas .


I can't really do that in a flat lol. It's not just the shower/bath here, if I've been washing up Spencer is pretty damn persistent at getting to my hands and if they're the slightest bit wet he has to lick them.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I can't really do that in a flat lol. It's not just the shower/bath here, if I've been washing up Spencer is pretty damn persistent at getting to my hands and if they're the slightest bit wet he has to lick them.


Yes....the boys like the bubbles when I wash up!!


----------



## kat&molly

Someone sounds like a happy bunny Dogless-The Hurricane that is Hal and I thought about joining you today- but then thought we're the sort of owner and dog you're trying to escape.:scared:

Ginge- The Ninja definately sounds more relaxed, I'm not sure the trainer should have said that to you though.
I've got wooden and tiled floors in here- 3 times I hoovered and mopped yesterday.

Have fun Ouesi.

Scruff always lick us when when we're wet- its any excuse for her to go on a Lick Fest though.

Took HH around the Loop, on his long line, it was lovely and peaceful- I feel much calmer but drained, dread to think how he's feeling. He's chilling at the moment . Came back and had to do it all again with the Girls.
The bestest bit is I got Moll's old crate out, he fits in it, so I used that in the car, even better Scruff fits in no problem, its so deceiving.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> ETA *we actually got relaxing on the mat last night too , *bit of a joint effort which was nice. But I emailed the trainers about a couple of things part of the reply was
> 
> 'You have a huge challenge with her.........'  I thought that but was hoping I was over reacting


*Woooohooooo congratulations what a vast step to be hidden in an ETA well done!!!! *

*and what progress you are making already, nothing worth doing was ever easy *


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Someone sounds like a happy bunny Dogless-The Hurricane that is Hal and I thought about joining you today- *but then thought we're the sort of owner and dog you're trying to escape*.:scared:
> 
> Ginge- The Ninja definately sounds more relaxed, I'm not sure the trainer should have said that to you though.
> I've got wooden and tiled floors in here- 3 times I hoovered and mopped yesterday.
> 
> Have fun Ouesi.
> 
> Scruff always lick us when when we're wet- its any excuse for her to go on a Lick Fest though.
> 
> Took HH around the Loop, on his long line, it was lovely and peaceful- I feel much calmer but drained, dread to think how he's feeling. He's chilling at the moment . Came back and had to do it all again with the Girls.
> The bestest bit is I got Moll's old crate out, he fits in it, so I used that in the car, even better Scruff fits in no problem, its so deceiving.


Not at all; Rudi and Hal could have been hooligans together whilst Kilo feigned being above all that nonsense . I'm only going to tell Dizzy's human and maybe we'll go together. Other than that I'm keeping schtum about it...

SO pleased that you have a peaceful walk with HH; maybe same again until you're feeling more recovered and destressed? .


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Someone sounds like a happy bunny Dogless-The Hurricane that is Hal and I thought about joining you today- but then thought we're the sort of owner and dog you're trying to escape.:scared:
> 
> Ginge- The Ninja definately sounds more relaxed, *I'm not sure the trainer should have said that to you though.*
> * I've got wooden and tiled floors in here- 3 times I hoovered and mopped yesterday.*
> 
> Have fun Ouesi.
> 
> Scruff always lick us when when we're wet- its any excuse for her to go on a Lick Fest though.
> 
> Took HH around the Loop, on his long line, it was lovely and peaceful- I feel much calmer but drained, dread to think how he's feeling. He's chilling at the moment . Came back and had to do it all again with the Girls.
> The bestest bit is I got Moll's old crate out, he fits in it, so I used that in the car, even better Scruff fits in no problem, its so deceiving.


Well she has a dog with brain damage from meningitis so I guess she is used to long term prognosis  TBF I would rather not think this can be a quick fix, if it is fixed quick then we will all be chuffed.

So Mummy dearest might be right with carpets then, we are the least houseproud people going, my thought is that vinyl can just be mopped over or brushed, her thought is 'but it wont happen ' and at least mud will dry and drop into the carpet and can be hoovered up once a year 

Glad you had a better walk, it does help me so much, I am glad I have been back to the wood as the short toddles on training round here weren't really giving either of us much relief, pleasure for me yes as she has been doing so well, but no deep sighs of betterness.


----------



## Twiggy

*MS* - Wishing you a very Happy Birthday.

*Dogless -* Your fields sound bliss. With regards to my neighbours dogs I feel very sorry for them but the noise is horrendous.

*Shamaya *- Lots of dogs try and lick you after a shower/bath. Leafy tries to go one better by joining me in the shower or bath given half a chance...LOL

*Ginge* - Well done with the mat. It's all sounding better.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *MS* - Wishing you a very Happy Birthday.
> 
> *Dogless -* Your fields sound bliss. With regards to my neighbours dogs I feel very sorry for them but the noise is horrendous.
> 
> *Shamaya *- Lots of dogs try and lick you after a shower/bath. Leafy tries to go one better by joining me in the shower or bath given half a chance...LOL
> 
> *Ginge* - Well done with the mat. It's all sounding better.


I'll bet .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Not at all; Rudi and Hal could have been hooligans together whilst Kilo feigned being above all that nonsense . I'm only going to tell Dizzy's human and maybe we'll go together. Other than that I'm keeping schtum about it...
> 
> SO pleased that you have a peaceful walk with HH; maybe same again until you're feeling more recovered and destressed? .


Yes, I definately need to go slower- thats my problem, I panic and try to rush things- it doesn't work.
Thanks to everyone for helping and not making me feel worse than I already do,

Ginge- Not sure I'd ever have carpet again with my lot. I get my rugs cleaned every couple of months and they are always filthy. 1 dog is a bit different to 5 though.

Twiggy-All the dogs here are like that- they aren't ever walked either. I see the Setters owners out cycling and I just think what selfish sods when they could at least take the poor dogs with them.


----------



## MollySmith

Thanks so much for the advice about OH. He has, oh bless him I feel rotten, walked her down our road to see how he gets on, put a large bit of rope on the ball thrower so he can wear it across him when he goes for a walk and remain mostly hands free! 

They've had to go off together as I'm stuffed with work at the moment and he is going to try the clicker (he does click and treat, it's the principle and capturing the moment that's the trouble although next door's cat that thinks it can take on Molly was a useful practice this morning!) I have also suggested the key word and he thinks 'easy' is a good one to use. 

Thanks also for birthday wishes  I am so sorry not to have caught up with news, I will when I've stopped chasing my tail at this end.


----------



## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> Thanks so much for the advice about OH. He has, oh bless him I feel rotten, walked her down our road to see how he gets on, put a large bit of rope on the ball thrower so he can wear it across him when he goes for a walk and remain mostly hands free!
> 
> They've had to go off together as I'm stuffed with work at the moment and he is going to try the clicker (he does click and treat, it's the principle and capturing the moment that's the trouble although next door's cat that thinks it can take on Molly was a useful practice this morning!) I have also suggested the key word and he thinks 'easy' is a good one to use.
> 
> Thanks also for birthday wishes  I am so sorry not to have caught up with news, I will when I've stopped chasing my tail at this end.


 I think the key is sometimes to just let them get their heads round things and then they *sometimes*run off with the ideas better than you


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> I think the key is sometimes to just let them get their heads round things and then they often run off with the ideas better than you


Not in this house. Sitdown is one word.


----------



## GingerRogers

:lol: we have 'Wait ginger, _ginger wait_, *wait*, wait Ginger WAIT!' and thats normally for 'sit and let me put your harness on' :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Couple of terrible little phone videos of Tink and the ring toss, I'll sort out an outtakes video soon :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Love the videos mv - Miss Tinks' tail doesn't stop wagging!!


----------



## kat&molly

Wow MV- Fab.:001_wub:
She's lovely and quick- precise too. Your pole is much better than my plunger, I will post Moll when its , ahem, a bit more polished.





* goes off to cut plunger in half*


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Love the videos mv - Miss Tinks' tail doesn't stop wagging!!


she's a bit tired in these videos really as we'd jsut come back from the woods where herd of young soldiers with huge rucksacks were being chased by a pickup truck, there was some motivational calls goign through the herd, so we had to stop and watch them for a while until i'd convinced Tink it wasn't anythign to be concenred about.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Wow MV- Fab.:001_wub:
> She's lovely and quick- precise too. Your pole is much better than my plunger, I will post Moll when its , ahem, a bit more polished.
> 
> * goes off to cut plunger in half*


These were good ones, Just wait for the outtakes video :lol:


----------



## Dogless

I have an announcement.....

I am going to go and see Angela Stockdale with the CHs next month and spend three days with her; ferry booking and accommodation just confirmed. I am very excited .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I have an announcement.....
> 
> I am going to go and see Angela Stockdale with the CHs next month and spend three days with her; ferry booking and accommodation just confirmed. I am very excited .


Sounds very exciting


----------



## Kicksforkills

13 Obstacle course wih Poppy today in agility class. Most either of mine have done.

EDIT; In the rain


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Not in this house. Sitdown is one word.


Exactly - and that's after over 35 years of training....


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Yes, I definately need to go slower- thats my problem, I panic and try to rush things- it doesn't work.
> Thanks to everyone for helping and not making me feel worse than I already do,
> 
> *Ginge- Not sure I'd ever have carpet again with my lot. I get my rugs cleaned every couple of months and they are always filthy. 1 dog is a bit different to 5 though.*
> 
> Twiggy-All the dogs here are like that- they aren't ever walked either. I see the Setters owners out cycling and I just think what selfish sods when they could at least take the poor dogs with them.


We're carpeted throughout, apart from half the kitchen which is cushionflooring. I do have a carpet shampooer and steam cleaner though.


----------



## Twiggy

Moonviolet - your videos wouldn't work on my computer. I think Quicktime needs updating.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> We're carpeted throughout, apart from half the kitchen which is cushionflooring. I do have a carpet shampooer and steam cleaner though.


We have carpet too; the carpet cleaner is my friend!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Moonviolet - your videos wouldn't work on my computer. I think Quicktime needs updating.


Aww thats a shame, not that your missing much. just a bit of fun silliness.


----------



## Twiggy

I've just spent over an hour taking the dog's covers and other related gear out of the flipping car and then thoroughly cleaning the inside. Husband has just put the single seat back in so it's ready to take three passengers to Crufts at 6.15am tomorrow morning. Then Saturday I shall have to spend another hour putting all the stuff back in it...!!

I'm off the train Holly and Tremor in a minute, neither of which were very good in class yesterday. Tremor was much too excited and Holly was just the opposite.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless that sounds very exciting :yesnod: but I take it that is your little break will it be relaxing or more intense training :rolleyes5:

Moonviolet love the videos, thought I couldn't see them to start with  then they appeared . Love the flying leap on to the ring 

I am thinking if we had a carpet cleaner we would probably wouldn't need a new carpet 

Twiggy we just took about 2 whole mins collapsing the seats in our new estate car to take an old sofa to the dump and less than that putting it back up  (I can gloat as the last car only had half a collapsible seat ) Have a good day tomorrow.

The ninja came with us and *didn't *escape the car given the right opportunity of unattended open boot :thumbup1: she sat very nicely in the foot well the whole time as no room for her crate until we stopped at the supermarket to get lunch and the 'friend who is mean about her' came past and she tried to jump out the window to say hello :rolleyes5:. Lunch time toddle went very well, she is getting much better at not barging out the door. Although she did bark at pigeons round the back when I went to the bin (she does this outside the garden, inside the garden she doesn't ) and the chef from the hotel, again, TBF he is exceedingly odd


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless that sounds very exciting :yesnod: but I take it that is your little break will it be relaxing or more intense training :rolleyes5:
> 
> Moonviolet love the videos, thought I couldn't see them to start with  then they appeared . Love the flying leap on to the ring
> 
> I am thinking if we had a carpet cleaner we would probably wouldn't need a new carpet
> 
> Twiggy we just took about 2 whole mins collapsing the seats in our new estate car to take an old sofa to the dump and less than that putting it back up  (I can gloat as the last car only had half a collapsible seat ) Have a good day tomorrow.
> 
> The ninja came with us and *didn't *escape the car given the right opportunity of unattended open boot :thumbup1: she sat very nicely in the foot well the whole time as no room for her crate until we stopped at the supermarket to get lunch and the 'friend who is mean about her' came past and she tried to jump out the window to say hello :rolleyes5:. Lunch time toddle went very well, she is getting much better at not barging out the door. Although she did bark at pigeons round the back when I went to the bin (she does this outside the garden, inside the garden she doesn't ) and the chef from the hotel, again, TBF he is exceedingly odd


Well done the Ninja .

No, we're having a little break with hubby soon too; this is "geeky dog stuff" - hubby's words!! - which is to be done on our own.


----------



## Symone

Dogless - Can I come?

MV - Love the vids.  

--

Well.. I was a little annoyed! Left and it was bright and sunny... Middle of our lovely training walk in a new area and it started chucking it down. I got soaked!!

Walked back over the beach, that took a good hour. Had a bit of ball play there.
Luckily the tide was out mostly! Other wise would had swam the whole way!!

She didn't pull at all in the new area (next town up) so I think I may have to go exploring more often with her. She also didn't pull to go to the beach, could be because she didn't know the area at all there.

She got treated lots, got some yummy chicken from my sandwich.. She was really good!
We got a giggle, though. She was cold at one point so I took her in my arms to warm her up. She decided to become a parrot and sit on my shoulder 

She also went proper swimming for the first time today (And I got wet feet) the tide was in a little at one bit of the beach, so getting wet was unavoidable. She went out of her way to paddle after swimming! She normally avoids water at all costs so I was really proud of her.

Want to know the best thing about our walk? Her head collar was in my pocket the whole time. No pulling what so ever on her collar! The lead did get tight at times, but she didn't pull (Or hug the floor)

Also, I took her lead off at the beach and she walked by my side at all times apart from when I threw her ball. 

Over all great walk!

Heating is on, now.. Shamaya's wrapped up in blankets & sleeping.. I'm still shivering and about to change.
Just wanted to share our good day, first.


----------



## GingerRogers

Yay!! 

See they do get it eventually, perseverance (and patience and cheese )


----------



## Symone

GingerRogers said:


> Yay!!
> 
> See they do get it eventually, perseverance (and patience and cheese )


Yummy chicken or fish, here! Cheese gives Shamaya really bad farts! And sometimes a runny bum


----------



## Dogless

Simone.....You want to come?????? And brave the CHs??????   .


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> Simone.....You want to come?????? And brave the CHs??????   .


As long as you won't mind me possibly dog-napping them  
I would love to meet them, they're lovely :001_wub:

Btw, how is the implant? Any affect yet?


----------



## Guest

I'm sure Zand and Shamaya would get on while we rowed a small dinghy to NI to see dogless's field :lol: :yesnod:


I'm actually really curious as to if my dog can swim with them spindly lurcher legs.:lol: 

And yes, ginge, the whole "WAIT WAIT STAY STILL YOU STAY STILL IF YOU MOVE AGAIN ZANDER WAIT" happens here too, with putting on his coat. :yesnod:


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> As long as you won't mind me possibly dog-napping them
> I would love to meet them, they're lovely :001_wub:
> 
> Btw, how is the implant? Any affect yet?


Thing is, you'd come all that way and Kilo would most likely not want to know you . He's good like that! Loads of people say they'd love to meet him, in reality they get to look but not touch unless you're one of the very rare folk he takes to immediately .

Not sure - seem to have had an increase in lunging for scents and bitching and have only socialised with known dogs with no change in behaviour. Walked past others but am doing my best to avoid (apart from Dizzy) TBH for the first week or so as that's when apparently they can become a bit testosterone - fuelled. I want to manage him as best as I can until we go and see Angela - don't want to take a stressed out dog to her as it's going to be hard work anyway I think.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Haha my mum got a new cream carpet in our lounge just before she bought our dogs 

Good luck cream carpet with two Jack Russell Terrier puppies toilet training


----------



## Dogless

The boys are still fast asleep...they woke up and played and pottered a bit at lunch time, ate their snacks and that's been it for the day . Onlead walks this evening I think!! 

Rudi had no school today as trainer is at Crufts and I'm not sure I'll take Kilo tonight....almost everyone is at Crufts and the last few times similar has happened I turned up, waited for someone else to turn up and came home again. Not sure......


----------



## GingerRogers

Kicksforkills said:


> Haha my mum got a new cream carpet in our lounge just before she bought our dogs
> 
> Good luck cream carpet with two Jack Russell Terrier puppies toilet training


We are going with lumpy grey stuff in the hope that will be practical


----------



## Sarah1983

I wanted to go see Angela Stockdale with Rupert but it just wasn't feasible. I know she deals with livestock issues as well as aggression so it would have been ideal. Hope you have a great time Dogless  As for Kilo, well I'd happily admire him without touching. I've had a dog myself who didn't appreciate strangers mauling him.

Hope his extra lunging an bitching is just a temporary side effect and soon wears off.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I wanted to go see Angela Stockdale with Rupert but it just wasn't feasible. I know she deals with livestock issues as well as aggression so it would have been ideal. Hope you have a great time Dogless  As for Kilo, well I'd happily admire him without touching. I've had a dog myself who didn't appreciate strangers mauling him.
> 
> Hope his extra lunging an bitching is just a temporary side effect and soon wears off.


Once he knows you he won't stop asking for fusses - funny dog!

Yes; I want to go to just make that final step towards managing his reactivity towards dogs that run up to him when he's onlead, lunge / stare at him etc. I can take him anywhere within reason and he will behave well, but I'd like to go with him relaxed and not prancing about so much. I need some help gaining the tools to do that and to evaluate things from an expert perspective as I may well be entirely wrong. Can't say I'm not nervous though!!!!

ETA: It's one hell of a trek. Ferry then 10 hours of driving.


----------



## Sarah1983

Shadow was the same. Hated strangers interacting with him but once he knew someone he was all over them. He had a few people he took to instantly as well. Now I've got Spencer who thinks everyone should maul him and be mauled in return 

Hope Angela can help you with Kilo. Are you taking Rudi as well?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Shadow was the same. Hated strangers interacting with him but once he knew someone he was all over them. He had a few people he took to instantly as well. Now I've got Spencer who thinks everyone should maul him and be mauled in return
> 
> Hope Angela can help you with Kilo. Are you taking Rudi as well?


Yes, both CHs are going!


----------



## JadeNic

What's the most you have ever spent on your pooch? Is your dog treated like a king?


----------



## moonviolet

JadeNic said:


> What's the most you have ever spent on your pooch? Is your dog treated like a king?


How are these questions relevant to this thread?


----------



## L/C

Dogless - Angela Stockdale - I am jealous. I thought about going to see her with Ely after the incident with the goat eek but then rationalised that the cost vs the amount of time he's likely to encounter livestock didn't make much sense!

You have to feed back and let me know what it's like!



LurcherOwner said:


> I'm sure Zand and Shamaya would get on while we rowed a small dinghy to NI to see dogless's field :lol: :yesnod:
> 
> I'm actually really curious as to if my dog can swim with them spindly lurcher legs.:lol:
> 
> And yes, ginge, the whole "WAIT WAIT STAY STILL YOU STAY STILL IF YOU MOVE AGAIN ZANDER WAIT" happens here too, with putting on his coat. :yesnod:


Ely can swim so I bet Zand can too - whether he'd want to is another story!


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> How are these questions relevant to this thread?


We've been spammed!

To the batmobile!


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> How are these questions relevant to this thread?


It governs how much we work, on,


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Once he knows you he won't stop asking for fusses - funny dog!
> 
> Yes; I want to go to just make that final step towards managing his reactivity towards dogs that run up to him when he's onlead, lunge / stare at him etc. I can take him anywhere within reason and he will behave well, but I'd like to go with him relaxed and not prancing about so much. I need some help gaining the tools to do that and to evaluate things from an expert perspective as I may well be entirely wrong. Can't say I'm not nervous though!!!!
> 
> *ETA: It's one hell of a trek. Ferry then 10 hours of driving.*




Angela Stockdale is West Country isn't she?


----------



## Twiggy

Well Holly came very close to throwing another wobbler in the barn..!!

We did a couple of very jolly circuits heelwork and she was fine then all of a sudden she dropped the ball and ran to the door looking scared.

I handled it differently this time and just said "OK, fine" and then worked Tremor. Once I'd worked Tremor for about 15 minutes I swapped them and Holly was as right as rain again. Dunno - she's certainly a strange little girl.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Dogless - Angela Stockdale - I am jealous. I thought about going to see her with Ely after the incident with the goat eek but then rationalised that the cost vs the amount of time he's likely to encounter livestock didn't make much sense!
> 
> You have to feed back and let me know what it's like!
> 
> Ely can swim so I bet Zand can too - whether he'd want to is another story!


I will do; I'm very excited - going to make notes every evening for myself.



Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Angela Stockdale is West Country isn't she?


Yes Twiggy. I wonder what's up with little HB? Hope you find what's upsetting her.

Two good walks with the CHs this afternoon - shortish but fairly intense with me armed with clicker / treats. Weather foul so not much seen; two dogs with Rudi who were passed nicely and a woman who stopped me to ask all about RRs with Kilo. Both boys were very good indeed :001_wub:.

Not taking Kilo to school as slack as that seems. It's quite a trudge over there to either just come home or not get too much from it .


----------



## Dogless

Oh Christ. Really. Lhasa Apso puppies for sale on the local Nosy Book buy and sell page. Nothing new there :incazzato: however these are dressed in a fecking pink dress and hat "Would make lovely Mother's Day presents". There are dogs on there every single day unfortunately - just today the same man is selling a GSD who was selling a staffie a few days back, two litters of sickly looking pups and a male staffie free to a good home with the following as comments (I kid you not!): "Is that Diamond?"
Advertiser: "Yes"
"She's a female lol"
Advertiser: "ffs lol lol"


Aaaaaaagaggghhhh :incazzato::incazzato:.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Poor poor Diamond :crying: :nonod:


----------



## Guest

the behaviourist phoned!!!! She sounded really nice and our appointment is on the 26th of march, ill miss an hour with her due to work but she'll natter with mum etc and ahhhhh my brain went mushy went i spoke to her lots of me umming but she sounds really nice and yeah. *dies*


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> the behaviourist phoned!!!! She sounded really nice and our appointment is on the 26th of march, ill miss an hour with her due to work but she'll natter with mum etc and ahhhhh my brain went mushy went i spoke to her lots of me umming but she sounds really nice and yeah. *dies*


Guides LO to a chair before she faints.... head between your knees and kiss your butt goodbye... oh no wait thats for plane crashes

Glad you have a date and that she sounds nice


----------



## Maria_1986

Walking on a lead was not great today - we just seemed to be going backwards (progress wise) so I gave up and put her on the harness as I was starting to get frustrated, more with myself than her because the trainer made it look so easy but I seem to be struggling with it. We were both wet and miserable by the end of the 'training' so we went and played in the park and chased each other round the park for a bit, we came home wet and muddy but happier. Did lots of work on getting the attention at home and it is working well in the flat so we tried it in the communal garden and apart from a passing mum and pushchair (she loves kids and gets excited when she sees a pram) that she fixated on until they were out of sight we managed pretty well. I think tomorrow our lead training walk will be around the communal garden instead and build up from there.


----------



## MollySmith

Kat and molly  the go slow is something I learned yesterday in our lesson. I think I was expecting to see Molly walk right past a dog on a path like a saint but thats not possible given how dreadful she was six months ago. She can go within 4 feet of two off lead very calm terriers (and react to a mad Yorkie!) but I was reminded its little and often. How to eat an elephant, one bite at a time &#9786;

Who said carpets  were getting ours taken out when I get afford to. Its proper wrecked really and I have a weird crush on floorboards.

Ginge  you are soo right, let them think they invented it! Well done ninja &#9786;

MV  awh Tinks video is lovely, thank you for sharing, shes a darling wee thing. Do the outtakes! We should all post outtake videos at the end of the year!

Dogless you are amazing, the great thank you thread and now Ive learned something too. I will look at Angelas website, it looks so interesting and I hope you find it useful. Very exciting and I am sure itll be worth it.

KFK  well done Poppy, I would love to try agility. Well Molly, not me obv.

Twiggy  have lots of fun at Crufts tomorrow &#9786; How odd about Holly but glad she sorted herself out.


Werehorse, fan the flame! Hope you got some sleep. Im rubbish when Im tired (says me the only one awake on my birthday evening?!?)

Symone  yay for Shamaya, sounds like a great walk, so jealous of you being near the sea. I hope you are warmed up now?

LO  Molly is scared of water, she might paddle if we go in too but no idea if my part lurcher can swim or not


LO and MV  I think I may have adopted crash position after hearing from The Saint trainer in our house. LO how exciting!!!!


In between our lead walking yesterday I confess that Molly also went loopy over a squeaky toy and refused to give it back so this afternoon we, or rather OH did click and treat for drop it after finding this on the internet (bypassing my Karen Pryor book of course!). A good session and one tired dog.


----------



## Dogless

mv mv an agility beagle at Crufts!!!!!!!!


----------



## kat&molly

LO- Woo- woo, great news.

Dogless- Lucky you going on the workshop.:yesnod:

MS- Your OH is good isn't he Had to laugh at bypassing the book though- that would be like reading instrutions to a man wouldn't it.

Bit of an incident when the neighbour and her dog came  I had to grab Hals collar because I knew he would have jumped on the dog and it would have started a fight, obviously he kicked off so I had to put him in his crate  bloody woman knows I've got another dog here. I need to say something but they are moving soon so I'm just trying to keep the peace.
Anyway she and another neighbour had taken the dog around the Loop  you can tell the weather was good today. She'd been attacked by another big brown dog and wanted something to clean it- when I looked the skin had been broken on her hind quarters- but nothing serious luckily.

She asked how HH was getting on 'apart from being gobby' I said actually he's stressed, he's had a lot to put up with , and he's p1ssed off with the dogs in this village'rrr:

Not wanting to risk the Loop , I took HH in the car down the road, I took the Tennis ball in case I needed it- and I did as the Pointer girl ran down the road barking at us and I managed to distract him. He was a good boy.
Dont think I'd realised how much the girls do put up with here.

Phew, mammoth for me.:rolleyes5:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv mv an agility beagle at Crufts!!!!!!!!


 :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:

Tink could do it but I have to confess.... as a kid on my pony I always got eliminated for getting the course wrong :lol: :lol: I'm this poor dog's biggest handicap.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - your neighbour is a trauma what with fleas and one thing and another :incazzato:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m - your neighbour is a trauma what with fleas and one thing and another :incazzato:.


She is a trauma, the sooner she goes the better really- before it ends in an argument.

Twiggy- hope you can find out whats upsetting Holly, how strange.

MV- when I done those few weeks of agility with Moll, I was bloomin hopeless.:yesnod:


----------



## Dogless

Anyone else surprised to hear a breeder at Crufts say that they decided to really up the exercise their dog had in preparation so walked her _every single day_ come rain or shine?? I thought it was normal to walk every day!

ETA: Just seen the camera pan around all the waiting hounds.....and the only one snoozing on the floor? Ridgie of course...


----------



## Werehorse

I've had a deeply surreal day but I can't tell you anything about it. :lol: And I'm currently googling 18th century folk music. 

I think I'm going to start throwing in spins and side swaps to liven up any in class heelwork. I absolutely don't blame Hugo for being bored with it and when I get chance I make sure I do lots of turns and changes of pace and things but we do sometimes have to walk round and round a bit where me turning and stuff would disrupt others working if that makes sense.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Anyone else surprised to hear a breeder at Crufts say that they decided to really up the exercise their dog had in preparation so walked her _every single day_ come rain or shine?? I thought it was normal to walk every day!
> 
> ETA: Just seen the camera pan around all the waiting hounds.....and the only one snoozing on the floor? Ridgie of course...


I haven't put it on because of upsetting a certain dawg. Presume its ch4 again, I wasn't impressed with the coverage last year.

So the poor dog goes back to less exercise once Crufts is over.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I haven't put it on because of upsetting a certain dawg. Presume its ch4 again, I wasn't impressed with the coverage last year.
> 
> So the poor dog goes back to less exercise once Crufts is over.


More4 but way better coverage this year. They said they didn't have any shows last year or something like that so had to get her in tip top condition. I've realised I've become quite the Beagle fan - must be that pesky mv's doing!!


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> LO- Woo- woo, great news.
> 
> Dogless- Lucky you going on the workshop.:yesnod:
> 
> MS- Your OH is good isn't he Had to laugh at bypassing the book though- that would be like reading instrutions to a man wouldn't it.
> 
> Bit of an incident when the neighbour and her dog came  I had to grab Hals collar because I knew he would have jumped on the dog and it would have started a fight, obviously he kicked off so I had to put him in his crate  bloody woman knows I've got another dog here. I need to say something but they are moving soon so I'm just trying to keep the peace.
> Anyway she and another neighbour had taken the dog around the Loop  you can tell the weather was good today. She'd been attacked by another big brown dog and wanted something to clean it- when I looked the skin had been broken on her hind quarters- but nothing serious luckily.
> 
> She asked how HH was getting on 'apart from being gobby' I said actually he's stressed, he's had a lot to put up with , and he's p1ssed off with the dogs in this village'rrr:
> 
> Not wanting to risk the Loop , I took HH in the car down the road, I took the Tennis ball in case I needed it- and I did as the Pointer girl ran down the road barking at us and I managed to distract him. He was a good boy.
> Dont think I'd realised how much the girls do put up with here.
> 
> Phew, mammoth for me.:rolleyes5:


Oh dear it sounds almost as bad as NI...!!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:
> 
> Tink could do it but I have to confess.... as a kid on my pony I always got eliminated for getting the course wrong :lol: :lol: I'm this poor dog's biggest handicap.


Twiggy used to get us eliminated a lot. Mainly because she was half way round the course before I'd attempted to run two or three steps, so she'd just jump anything whilst she was waiting....


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I've had a deeply surreal day but I can't tell you anything about it. :lol: And I'm currently googling 18th century folk music.
> 
> *I think I'm going to start throwing in spins and side swaps to liven up any in class heelwork. I absolutely don't blame Hugo for being bored with it and when I get chance I make sure I do lots of turns and changes of pace and things but we do sometimes have to walk round and round a bit where me turning and stuff would disrupt others working if that makes sense.*




Please, please don't tell me they do mass heelwork at your club?.....

Ye Gods surely not. That was back in the dark ages.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear it sounds almost as bad as NI...!!


Maybe any country that you can get a ferry to from mainland UK suffers the same affliction?  :incazzato:.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Please, please don't tell me they do mass heelwork at your club?.....
> 
> Ye Gods surely not. That was back in the dark ages.


You'll never guess what we do?  .


----------



## Beth17

LO so pleased that you finally have an appointment!

Dogless the crufts Ridgie was lovely. That course sounds really interesting and only an hour away from me. I always find these things are miles away  Mind you I don't envy you the trek to get there.

Everyone else I hope you have had a good day and if not then tomorrow will be better 

Had a busy day at uni so Sam spent the day at my dads while I dashed back and forth so that Oscar could be walked. He behaved well although it was very misty and so had to watch him as he was far more alert.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You'll never guess what we do?  .


You're kidding surely?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You're kidding surely?


Absolutely not Twiggy; very old fashioned indeed yet infinitely better than every other club that employs check chains, prong collars etc. Not much variety here - hence why I am always jealous of mv's creative classes and why I was so over the moon when we had a Rally-O taster that once. I LOVED it!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Absolutely not Twiggy; very old fashioned indeed yet infinitely better than every other club that employs check chains, prong collars etc. Not much variety here - hence why I am always jealous of mv's creative classes and why I was so over the moon when we had a Rally-O taster that once. I LOVED it!!


Well yes certainly better than check chains, etc. but still unbelieveable in this day and age.

Right I'm off to bed ready for an early start tomorrow. The Met Office are now saying fog, which will be lovely on the M6.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well yes certainly better than check chains, etc. but still unbelieveable in this day and age.
> 
> Right I'm off to bed ready for an early start tomorrow. The Met Office are now saying fog, which will be lovely on the M6.


Either you move here then or all the exciting stuff will have to wait until I get back!! To be fair, we do some good, individual work too that I really enjoy - I suppose it's a mixture but the beginning and end is always mass heelwork in a circle.

Safe journey.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Either you move here then or all the exciting stuff will have to wait until I get back!! To be fair, we do some good, individual work too that I really enjoy - I suppose it's a mixture but the beginning and end is always mass heelwork in a circle.
> 
> Safe journey.


I've just worked out that the last time I took basic dog training classes was over 16 years ago for the local County Council and I didn't do anything on mass even back then....!!

I can't believe it still goes on.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Absolutely not Twiggy; very old fashioned indeed yet infinitely better than every other club that employs check chains, prong collars etc. Not much variety here - hence why I am always jealous of mv's creative classes and why I was so over the moon when we had a Rally-O taster that once. I LOVED it!!


I feel quite guilty to admit to you and Sarah that my wonderful trainer is an army wife.

BTW She's started editing the videos for her website.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just worked out that the last time I took basic dog training classes was over 16 years ago for the local County Council and I didn't do anything on mass even back then....!!
> 
> I can't believe it still goes on.


Very much so! BUT when we had the Rally-O every single person bar me said they wouldn't have gone that night if they'd have known what it was going to have been, everyone was moaning. The man that took it was going to do it once a month, but no one else wanted it.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - what book did you mention a few days ago? Meant to have a closer look and probably order but forgot .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Very much so! BUT when we had the Rally-O every single person bar me said they wouldn't have gone that night if they'd have known what it was going to have been, everyone was moaning. The man that took it was going to do it once a month, but no one else wanted it.


What a shame


----------



## Werehorse

Yes we do a bit of heelwork all together - all of us parading around the outside is kept to a minimum but even 1 or 2 circuits is too long for Hugo, even with direction changes. Usually if we are doing heelwork we can move freely around the room - doing the whole mingling with other dogs and stuff which I can keep interesting enough. I'l be trying to keep it interesting for him with so moving from side to side and spins I think, and tightening up my criteria regards his position...


----------



## Guest

Sadly my insurance does not cover the consultation. Which sucks a bit, but hey, this is why I have set up a savings account. 

Silly question but when you do heelwork is it offlead?


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - what book did you mention a few days ago? Meant to have a closer look and probably order but forgot .


Was it the Fired Up one? Can't remember the full title off the top of my head  If you've got Control Unleashed or have done mat work then I wouldn't bother with it in all honesty but if not it's worth a look.

ETA: found it http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb...ntic+and+freaked+out&sprefix=fired+up,aps,392 Even the bloody authors name isn't easy to remember!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Sadly my insurance does not cover the consultation. Which sucks a bit, but hey, this is why I have set up a savings account.
> 
> Silly question but when you do heelwork is it offlead?


In class? Some onlead, some off. We tend to do the old fashioned mass heel work on lead or with a few off at a time but other work off lead. Dependent upon who's there we can either do a lot offlead (all of it when I was lucky enough for just two of us to turn up once) or very little. Mind you, our classes as you have heard are very old fashioned :yesnod:.



Sarah1983 said:


> Was it the Fired Up one? Can't remember the full title off the top of my head  If you've got Control Unleashed or have done mat work then I wouldn't bother with it in all honesty but if not it's worth a look.
> 
> ETA: found it http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb...ntic+and+freaked+out&sprefix=fired+up,aps,392 Even the bloody authors name isn't easy to remember!


Thanks buddy, that's the one. I do have CU and have done some mat work....maybe I'll give it a miss....


----------



## kat&molly

I'm compiling a list of books for my birthday, I know you all like CU, but is it a lot of science stuff? I only read in bed , when I'm already tired so need easy reading.:rolleyes5:
Also fancy If pigs could Fly- anyone read it?


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I'm compiling a list of books for my birthday, I know you all like CU, but is it a lot of science stuff? I only read in bed , when I'm already tired so need easy reading.:rolleyes5:
> Also fancy If pigs could Fly- anyone read it?


When Pigs Fly is one I'd recommend. Handy for those of us with breeds who apparently just hang around waiting to follow our every command (ha!) as well as those with the less biddable breeds too. Quite an easy read, doesn't require you to get your head around all the scientific jargon or anything like that.

I didn't find CU to be full of science stuff but it took me a couple of reads to take it all in. I found the Puppy Program one better for telling you how to teach the things she talks about though. If you need easy reading then the Fired Up book is probably a better option imo. It's not got everything in there that's in CU but it's a lot easier to read and take in imo.

John Rogersons Dog Vinci Code was an interesting read.

Dogless, if you have CU then I honestly don't think Fired Up is worth bothering with. There's nothing in there that isn't in CU as far as I remember. Most of it is based around mat work and relaxation stuff. It's a much easier read than CU though.


----------



## Dogless

Good walk with the CHs if a bit challenging. I decided to walk to the top fields and back as it would be all too easy to just go to our new fields every day, open the boot and let the CHs play. They walked there very nicely and had to work really hard to resist leaf pouncing as it's blowing a hoolie; went past loads of kids, workmen, dogs, people going to work etc very nicely or sat to let them past. Kilo was pretty lungey for smells but not too awful.

Then let them off, hard work engaging as Kilo was a little too into the sheep - wind direction I think - and easily distracted so we did an awful lot of play to keep him from getting too excited. They went mad in the wind.

Then we walked back - Rudi decided to jump and bite just as a man walked past with a dog that always runs up to Kilo growling. They had a good stare at each other (hard to engage Kilo with Rudi attached to me by his teeth) and Kilo had two quick barks at him. Not great but not too bad either.

Rudi had a leap at a woman who smiled at him but luckily we were too far away for him to make contact; I apologised and she said he was lovely so think she would have fussed him for being naughty! Another woman said it was nice to see them actually being walked together  and a man made all his friends laugh with a very hilarious "Shouldn't you be at Crufts with all the other snobby dogs?" . Crufts always brings the negative comments it seems .


----------



## moonviolet

what is it with some men, do they never grow out of trying to impress their mates? I always think they must be over compensating for other (self perceived)inadequacies.

I was hoping to do some training on the patio today but I dont' think precious would appreciate the rain

Does it make me mad that as part of a very wide ranging and vivid dream, W/H was doing heelwork to what i assume was 18th century music.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks Sarah- I've just finished Fired up- so is it worth me getting CU- I do fancy looking at the Impulse Control exercises some of you mentioned.

Dogless- there was no need for those comments.:incazzato:

Just took HH round the Loop, as we got back in the car I spotted the big brown dog. That'll be the end of Evie's off lead up there now- I think she could bolt if a charged at her.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Sarah- I've just finished Fired up- so is it worth me getting CU- I do fancy looking at the Impulse Control exercises some of you mentioned.
> 
> Dogless- there was no need for those comments.:incazzato:
> 
> Just took HH round the Loop, as we got back in the car I spotted the big brown dog. That'll be the end of Evie's off lead up there now- I think she could bolt if a charged at her.


I didn't mind the one about them being walked together - the woman who said it walks a pair of JRTs that just pull her up the road and bark at anything, then end up scrapping. She always tells me how you should walk dogs together from day one, she did :yesnod: . It's hard to resist saying "And look where that got you" but she means well so my mouth stays zipped. I walked her two once helping out a dog walker who had hurt her back. The pulling was horrendous.

Hope the big brown dog buggers off soon .


----------



## kat&molly

Ah, but Dogless, other people always know better. I cant see a problem with the CH's dragging you down the road.:w00t:

I've walked the girls past the Setters this morning, and they've been put in a large pen type thing, Its huge and I presume its for the dogs anyway but isn't used. You can still see them and hear them  but they're about 20 metres back. Wonder if its been done for my benefit- problem is it wont last- Hal would still react I think but it would be easier.
The girls are fine as long as I throw treats, Moll doesn't bat an eyelid.


The big brown dog wont bugger off- he lives up there , guess I've been lucky until now.


Its beginning to feel like NI.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Ah, but Dogless, other people always know better. I cant see a problem with the CH's dragging you down the road.:w00t:
> 
> I've walked the girls past the Setters this morning, and they've been put in a large pen type thing, Its huge and I presume its for the dogs anyway but isn't used. You can still see them and hear them  but they're about 20 metres back. Wonder if its been done for my benefit- problem is it wont last- Hal would still react I think but it would be easier.
> The girls are fine as long as I throw treats, Moll doesn't bat an eyelid.
> 
> The big brown dog wont bugger off- he lives up there , guess I've been lucky until now.
> 
> Its beginning to feel like NI.


What? Grey and permanently raining where all that is under your feet is bog???  .

When we win the lottery I'll buy my much longed for isolated small property with immense amounts of land and will offer respite holidays for the frazzled WAYWO folk . A retreat if you will. Concrete Retreat! No loose dogs, no idiots (apart from me!) no vehicles, no livestock......we'll do heelwork en masse every morning and evening just for Twiggy too .


----------



## GingerRogers

Just a quickie today MUST WORK 

LO - glad you finally go through to the behaviourist, can you not adjust your work hours, start earlier or something, its a shame to miss anything as you have waited so long and are paying for it.

rrr: to all the silly/stupid/ downright dangerous owners.

We are being unimaginative and went back to the wood this morning, OH came AGAIN. There were people there today  but it was ok they were a working party with chainsaws  very foggy and doesn't look like its going to lift.

Got back and had a row with OH. I got out the shower and all I could hear was. In your bed, in your bed, Ginge get in your bed, on a continuous loop :rolleyes5:, she was muddy and he was annoyed about the footprints on the floor he hoovered yesterday so as trying to get her to stay still, she doesn't really know what in your bed means anyway . I tried to say nicely that that really wasn't going to work but think we are both in stroppy moods today. Apparently he has taught her things when I haven't been there before don't you know rrr:, yeah half of paw and roll over, all the work I put in had no bearing on anything did it . Then we rowed about what to do on mothers day, so Ginge hid under the sofa throw again and went to sleep for an hour & half again. Can't say I blame her .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hello folks....remember me 

Feel a bit cheeky coming on and asking adivice after being absent  

Been enjoying lots of early morning walks with dogs, even took all three out, on my own, at 6am over Cannock chase one morning in the frost. It was gorgeous. still keeping frank on long line. 
Discovered a fab field with a river so been taking frank out on his line and our special ball.....he's doing great. 
Freddie is still good....on a diet. His weight has crept up, my fault.  but with nice light mornings and me sorting out priorities, we're in a good routine so we'll get it sorted quick enough. 

Now on to bella.  
Still a little star. :001_wub:
She was spayed yesterday. All went ok. Two very neat stitches and she's currently snoring her head off with a comfy collar on.ive got lavender in oil burner for a calming effect too.

Blood tests yesterday came back with low platelet count.
Vet has asked for poo samples over three days to check for lung worm, even though she had milbemax in January. 
Got to keep her extra calm just incase of internal bleeding so you can imagine how worried I am.
My parents were looking after her tomorrow at their house whilst we went to crufts but I can't leave her so have given tickets to the vets nurses. Least they won't go to waste. 

Soooo, hello everyone. Hope all are ok. Sorry it's a flying visit. Anyone got any ideas????.
Got to pop back to vets on Tuesday for a check up. Hopefully will Be able to drop poo samples off tomorrow so test results will be there tue.


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello Stranger , no advice just wanted to say I hope she is ok and glad you are ok, you sound nicely upbeat despite Bellas problem.


----------



## Freddie and frank

GingerRogers said:


> Hello Stranger , no advice just wanted to say I hope she is ok and glad you are ok, you sound nicely upbeat despite Bellas problem.


Thanks, I do feel good about the dogs ATM. Think I spent too much time worrying about wether I'm doing things right and not enjoying them enough. 
I still hold you responsible (in a good way) for keeping frank on his long line.....I'm eternally grateful. THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Hi all,

Sorry Ive been a bit AWOL this week! Been lurking but not had time to sit down and do a proper post and now Im so far behind :frown:

So we've had a pretty good week. Izzy did another of her "I dont want to go home" tricks at the park on Wednesday  but luckily for me another dog ran over and pinched her ball then dropped it where I could get it before monkey dog.....and with Izzy, the one with the ball has the power ! I had another ball and tried to get her interested in the one I had but unfortunately she's quite happy with the one she's got and just goes :ciappa: :dita:! 

Obviously need to work on it and for now she will only get to play fetch when theres no other dogs/people around as it seems to make her more likely to play "keep away"!

Wednesday evening she was my bestest girl and was perfect at class! Off lead for the whole class and really focussed, even when another dog made a break for it and ended up doing excited zoomies around the hall, Izzy just sat looking at me, I swear she was thinking "oh, these silly boys! Can we just get on with it Mum?!". The trainers OH was so impressed we were asked if we wanted another dog , I though she was joking but she was actually serious and wondered if we fancied rehoming a GSD of a friend of hers! Good job Tarnus wasnt there as a GSD is one of his dream breeds! 

Last night I decided to try walking Izzy down poo alley again with the aim to really concentrate on her focus around interesting smells! Not the best walk, she spooked a bit at a Dad and little boy on a scooter who were coming the other way. Unfortunately they were on the side of the pavement I would usually walk Izzy on and kind of appeared from the side as they had been tucked in a grassy verge trying to get poo off the wheels of the scooter ! This sudden appearance and them bending down trying to sort the poo issue freaked her out a bit and she bounced and gruffed a bit. Am a bit disappointed as she's sailed past 5/6 kids on scooters this week with no problems ! Also she got something sharp stuck to her pad and started limping and yelped when I removed it but was then fine for the rest of the walk. I also fended off an over interested young girl who was staring at Izzy and drifting across the pavement towards us but a loud "just ignore her please!" and me marching past averted that !

She was a little bit barky at random noises last night which she hasnt done for ages!! I initially thought it was down to the moon cycle but now Im thinking it may be more MY cycle . Maybe TMI but Ive changed pill recently which means Ive not had a TOTM since christmas and she was barky just before christmas so now Im thinking I may be due a TOTM....sods law when we're off on holiday to the hot tub cottage next week!  Has anyone else noticed anything like this?

So dropped her off with her stuff at daycare today and shes staying with the owner until Sunday as we head down to Birmingham this afternoon ready for Crufts tomorrow! Cant wait!! . She was very cute when I dropped her off (usually Tarnus drops her off and I pick her up), I let her run down to the gate off-lead and when S came out Izzy heard her voice and jumped up at the gate and gave her loads of kisses over the gate before heading in all wiggly!! :001_wub:

Gonna miss my little monkey!

Probably wont be around for the next 10 days so take care WAYWO ladies! I'll be back when we get back off hols and will be able to innundate you with photos!


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I'm back from another fantastic walk with the Silly Spendog. We did the same walk we did the day we saw the horses coz my ankle is still sore and it's a fairly easy one with no hills or really rough ground. Didn't see any other dogs or horses today but we did have to move off the path and let a bunch of running, yelling soldiers pass. Spen ignores single runners or a small group of 3 or 4 but larger groups are a bit much usually. He air sniffed and his bum lifted off the ground a little but then he settled back into his sit  

He seems to be learning that when he comes to the end of the flexi he needs to loosen the leash otherwise we just stop dead. I'm giving him a "steady" warning just before he reaches the end and he seems to be starting to take notice. He's on a harness so no sudden jerk to the neck.

On the way home he suddenly started to offer walking by my side. he still spent a good part of the walk home wandering along the grass verge sniffing but he spent about a third of it walking nicely by my side without any prompting whatsoever from me. At first I clicked and treated the moment he was at my side but by the time we got home I was holding out for a couple of steps with him by my side before clicking it. All this was on his harness which I don't use for loose leash walking. I hadn't set out to do any training and really wasn't in the mood for LLW training but I'm certainly not going to throw away an opportunity like that to work on it. It's not every day your dog tells you he'd like to practise walking nicely after all lol. I did get a few funny looks for the "oh you're so clever!" comments I made to him though 

On the bad new front, we're expecting around 25cm of snow this weekend :crying:


----------



## Symone

Sarah - Does Spendog like snow? If yes it can't be too bad of a thing. 

So, I'm very tired. The neighbours dog decided to bark all last night. Shamaya didn't like this and kept grumbling. In the end she wedged herself between the OH and I (More of trying to kick me out of the bed) and fell asleep.

Can I ask for everyone's opinion on Shamayas weight? She's about 13.4kg.. and a bit bigger than her litter brother.
I can feel her spine and ribs, but with her litter brother you can really feel his ribs.
She's a fussy eater and doesn't eat more than she should in my opinion.. getting her to eat what she should do is hard. (recommended amount and such)

I'll attach the latest pic of Jimmy so you can see what I mean difference wise, and one I took of Shamaya last night when she was waiting for the OH (please forgive the mess btw, it's the main hall of the flat. No matter how much I clean it it is soon messy and I have given up since the neighbours don't care.)

Jimmy (taken 5th feb.. Gosh I need to meet up with them for walks again..!)










Shamaya and Jimmy 5th feb










Shamaya last night (7th march) (Again, please forgive the mess of the hall way. )


----------



## Sarah1983

Shamaya looks fine to me but it's hard to tell from pics. 

Spencer loves the snow. Unfortunately I do NOT love the on leash zoomies it causes. Nor the lack of recall. Or the freezing cold hands and feet. Or the ice it turns to which then sends me slipping and sliding on my backside.


----------



## GingerRogers

I think Shamaya looks just perfect, she is lovely, I am not a huge collie fan though I love the OH sheepdogs  I think its cos mostly they look so samey, hence why I love her look, it is hard to tell from photos but I would say that its Jimmy who looks a bit on the scrawny side but pups quite often can. I presume you have been told shes the overweight one from your comments.


----------



## Symone

Sarah1983 said:


> Shamaya looks fine to me but it's hard to tell from pics.
> 
> Spencer loves the snow. Unfortunately I do NOT love the on leash zoomies it causes. Nor the lack of recall. Or the freezing cold hands and feet. Or the ice it turns to which then sends me slipping and sliding on my backside.


Thanks. 

And fair enough! Hopefully it won't snow much and it will melt right away without it being icy.
And a trick I did when I lived in Switzerland.. I'm not sure what they're called, but they're these jell like things with a metal circle that you "pop" They get really hot and I stuck them down my shoes.
For gloves, if you have wooly ones just stick some washing up gloves on top of them. No more wetness, and keeps your hands warm


----------



## kat&molly

Hello F+F- sorry Bellas poorly, hope it sorted soon.

Dogless- concrete retreat sounds like heaven.:yesnod: We'll all get there on the WAYWO Yacht.

Symone- Shamays looks lovely to me, pups do burn weight off quickly.

IM-enjoy your Hols. 

Ginge- hope you and OH are in better moods now.

Sarah- Spendog , he's doing so well.

I had a Butchers Block from our old house, it didn't fit in this kitchen so we adapted it to take a bathroom sink  with nice posh towels on the bottom shelf. Except, Moll had other ideas and kept lying on them - so I gave up and put a rug there. Now Evie sleeps there sometimes and the other night I found this


----------



## Symone

GingerRogers said:


> I think Shamaya looks just perfect, she is lovely, I am not a huge collie fan though I love the OH sheepdogs  I think its cos mostly they look so samey, hence why I love her look, it is hard to tell from photos but I would say that its Jimmy who looks a bit on the scrawny side but pups quite often can. I presume you have been told shes the overweight one from your comments.


Nah, no one said that she's over weight, but they have said she's big for a 5 month old pup.. Not sure what kind of big they meant though.. Tall, larger than the breed standard, or over weight. My paranoid mind over thinks. 
I think it's also more of because Jimmy is slimmer and his owner has had quite a few dogs that made me think could I be feeding her too much.
I just want her to be has healthy as can be. I guess I was worrying too much again.
I voiced it to the OH last night, but he told me to stop being silly. :/


----------



## moonviolet

I was so tempted to abscond with tag along dog today. Tink and i had a lovely if wet walk soem bouncing and giddy canter and some leaping over things and hoping there weren't witnesses when my landings weren't entirely as elegant as intended. On our return to the Tag along dog was sat next to it 

Just makes me so sad.


----------



## Guest

Have just taken zand through a field on-lead. He kept trying to sprint the ninny and some idiot has two offlead dogs in a field full of goddamn horses. 

Oh, and STILES, we cannot do them. I got over with my funny knee and I put Zands paws on the stiles as a incentive. It wobbled and Zand shot backwards and I nearly fell face first off the stile. 

Surely you could pretend the tag along dogs a stray MV? Take it to the vet? Or something? Would the owner care?? 

Symone can I steal your doggie please? She and her brother are actually gorgeous!!!


----------



## kat&molly

Poor dog MV.

Just saw that L/C has liked a post by Dief on the other thread- someone only has to mention poop and out she comes from her hidey place.:lol:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Poor dog MV.
> 
> Just saw that L/C has liked a post by Dief on the other thread- someone only has to mention poop and out she comes from her hidey place.:lol:


Certain words trigger her spidey senses :yesnod:.

POOP.....

Hello L/C .


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> Poor dog MV.
> 
> Just saw that L/C has liked a post by Dief on the other thread- someone only has to mention poop and out she comes from her hidey place.:lol:


Just what are you implying? 

:lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Symone - your other half is right, stop being silly!!  

LO - stiles are not easy, I know! You should get a smaller dog  :sosp:

MV - poor tag along, so sad 

We just had our lunch time toddle, didn't take long , its really icky weather here today, that damp runny fog stuff 

She was a superstar, she so gets it , I dont actually wnat to move on from this program and do anything more challenging.

OH watched us from indoors , didn't she do well I said,  but you didn't see any dogs he said :nonod: just when you think they are getting it :rolleyes5:


----------



## Dogless

Something has just happened to me. I am shocked.

I was walking up a long straight road with Rudi on his absolutely very best behaviour doing some heel work. Someone walking their dog made a beeline for me, being dragged to meet Rudi. I thought I was about to receive the usual unsolicited advice about putting Rudi on a choke chain before it was too late as he's a dominant breed etc etc. But the fellow dog walker said he'd been watching us and I had my dog's complete attention and was really impressed. Could have knocked me down with a feather  .

Separate onlead training walks for the boys. Both on their very best behaviour :001_wub:. Only folk out were two fellow dog walkers - one seen with Rudi and one with Kilo. Nothing else due to the foul weather.


----------



## Werehorse

in from work and straight out tutoring again... but :lol: at Mv's dream. :lol: Hello, goodbye! Homeostasis this evening, all good fun.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Something has just happened to me. I am shocked.
> 
> I was walking up a long straight road with Rudi on his absolutely very best behaviour doing some heel work. Someone walking their dog made a beeline for me, being dragged to meet Rudi. I thought I was about to receive the usual unsolicited advice about putting Rudi on a choke chain before it was too late as he's a dominant breed etc etc. But the fellow dog walker said he'd been watching us and I had my dog's complete attention and was really impressed. Could have knocked me down with a feather  .
> 
> Separate onlead training walks for the boys. Both on their very best behaviour :001_wub:. Only folk out were two fellow dog walkers - one seen with Rudi and one with Kilo. Nothing else due to the foul weather.


  astounded, hands cupping my face in shock, they aren't all dullards round you then!!!

We have rainy rain too I might get to go for a longer walk tonight no-one is ever out in the rain here, thing is I get nervous the further away from home we get


----------



## moonviolet

WH you were terribly elegant and had Hugo's full and undivided attention 

Dogless How wonderfully bizarre, did you slip into a parallel universe momentarily?


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> WH you were terribly elegant and had Hugo's full and undivided attention
> 
> Dogless How wonderfully bizarre, did you slip into a parallel universe momentarily?


Yes; it was so nice there.


----------



## Dogless

THORNE.....how was Crufts? 
What did you buy? 
Did you see lots of lovely hounds?
Did you watch any agility?
Did you watch any flyball?
Did you get to meet any lovely dogs?
What colour socks did you have on? Only kidding about this one ......


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless met a Non- Numpty, what a great compliment.
I was wondering about Thorne- we've had no pics or anyfink.

Great stuff Ginge, are you back tomorrow?

Werehorse- you're a very busy Bee, hope the early mornings are ok.
Are you in costume for the new job- and do we get pics?



Well, dare I say it, today has been a good day. HH is still a mad Head the Ball- but he's been sooo much better- even his barking here has reduced. Really dont know why I tried to tackle it the way I did, its not as if I haven't read enough on this thread alone,....Even my mouth ulcers have calmed down today.
He heard the Setters today but stopped and listened briefly before carrying on playing, he seems to prefer a Tennis ball to the Wubba so I'm trying to build on that.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> what is it with some men, do they never grow out of trying to impress their mates? I always think they must be over compensating for other (self perceived)inadequacies.
> 
> I was hoping to do some training on the patio today but I dont' think precious would appreciate the rain
> 
> Does it make me mad that as part of a very wide ranging and vivid dream, W/H was doing heelwork to what i assume was 18th century music.


I had a peculiar dream last night as well. My sister had moved into a flat in East London and I was somewhere in London and lost but the Prime Minister gave me a lift then dropped me off near a railway line and pointed out directions...? Makes no sense at all...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I had a peculiar dream last night as well. My sister had moved into a flat in East London and I was somewhere in London and lost but the Prime Minister gave me a lift then dropped me off near a railway line and pointed out directions...? Makes no sense at all...


I had one too - must have been the night for them...

I went to go diving and had Rudi...it was in a fast flowing river. I had got in and into the centre of the river when I realised that I was wearing my diving boots but didn't have any fins so was going to get carried by the current. I kicked and kicked but couldn't fight it. I was panicking like mad when I was carried past a bridge with very narrow struts. Managed to grab one and hold on. Looked downriver and there was a sort of weir but a deep trench that I knew would kill us if I let go. Dream ended with me clinging on. Awful.


----------



## Werehorse

I think if Hugo saw me in my costume with my bonnet I most definitely would have his undivided attention - probably at face-level. :lol: I wish I could take the boys into work to add some authentic doggie ambience to the place but it'd be an elf and safety minefield! :lol: Plus they might chew the artifacts! 

I do feel like a very busy bee at the moment, early mornings about to become a necessary reality... I've just taken on another tutoring client too.  but  too.

K&M - Yes, Georgian costume! I will try and get pictures at some point - it is fantastic! 

ETA - I used to have some fecking weird dreams, utterly dreadful. They seem to have calmed significantly these days. Twiggy, that is just weird - I find it so odd when famous people pop up in my dreams. Dogless yours is just frightening and very much like what my vivid horrible dreams used to be like!


----------



## Twiggy

I had a very foggy drive to Crufts and even foggier drive home in heavy traffic along the M6.

I watch all the Bitch Obedience Championships including the parade and didn't actually go out of Hall 5 at all.

Sadly the two leading bitches both failed scent so the bitch that won wasn't in qualifying marks, therefore ticket withheld.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Evening all  I've had a manic couple of days so not been commenting but I promise I have been reading and trying to keep up!

Welcome back F&F, I hope Bella is ok and glad to hear you sounding relaxed and upbeat :thumbup:

Glad to hear there are some non-numpties in your world Dogless!!

Thorne - Where are you??!! We want to hear about your day at Crufts.

I'm thinking of entering the Pickles into Scrufts next year, what do you think? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Glad to hear MV has been cantering and prancing as usual!! I couldn't get the videos of Tink to work  very upset :crying:

We've had another good day, took the pickles to the forest this morning for an hour before work, miserable weather but we had a good walk, the highlight being a couple of horses and riders coming towards us on the track so I recalled the Pickles, put them on their leads and stepped aside into a gateway to let them pass, the pickles sat and waited keenly watching but keeping calm and quiet. The horse riders thanked me as they passed and said "Oh, aren't they gorgeous, and sooo well behaved, they're lovely!" 
Ahhh proud mummy moment for me  (if only they knew the truth!!!)

Then after work I took them both out individually for some street walk training, Branston Pickle man first, he was really good, no fixing, no whimpering, he was hyper vigilant as always but no over excitement :thumbup: we met the lady with the 3 scruffies again and he took no notice, we then passed a GSD (on the other side of the road) and no problem. Then a man with a young girl were walking towards us, Branston is not good with children, so I pulled him to one side (luckily we were on a really wide bit of pavement) made him sit and stuffed him full of sausage as the girl passed! All good :thumbup: We ventured a little bit further as he was doing so well and actually walked past our little local shop, he did bark at a lady as she walked out of the shop  but I let him off that minor offence after being so good.

Miss Picalilli next - she was so excited and happy again, pulling a bit more than Branston so I think I need to work more on her LLW, I am loving the Mekuti harnesses though  All in all she was a little star and I would have liked to have gone further, but Branston is NOT happy about being left on his own  so we're going to have to build that up really gradually.

The book I ordered still hasn't arrived  I'm annoyed as I feel like I've kind of ground to a halt with Branston's mat work because I don't really know what I'm meant to do next, so was waiting for the book. Hopefully it will come tomorrow 

As for dreams - I have crazy, stupid, bizarre dreams EVERY single night and I always remember them clear as day. My hubby never remembers any dreams at all, weird


----------



## Dogless

Wow; all so much better at Pickle Palace FRM - I'm chuffed for you . All apart from lonely Branston of course but I'm sure you'll get there with that too.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> Wow; all so much better at Pickle Palace FRM - I'm chuffed for you . All apart from lonely Branston of course but I'm sure you'll get there with that too.


Thank you  I am really pleased with the way things are going. It's only tiny little things we're managing to do really, I mean I'm pretty sure 99% of dog owners could quite happily walk out of their own house and up their street with their dog without it feeling like a massive achievement, but for us it is!! 

I'm literally not getting further than a 100 yards from home and I'm sure my neighbours must think I'm a complete loony, but I don't care and will keep taking tiny steps in the right direction 

I can't wait until the day I can walk with both of my dogs from my home to the local park for a play and back again with no fear or drama, it will make all of our lives so much better as I will be happy and they will get more walks and stimulation too.

Actually... I CAN wait, because I have too, but the day it happens you will all know about it


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> I can't wait until the day I can walk with both of my dogs from my home to the local park for a play and back again with no fear or drama, it will make all of our lives so much better as I will be happy and they will get more walks and stimulation too.
> 
> Actually... I CAN wait, because I have too, but the day it happens you will all know about it


Looking forward to that day .


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy glad you are home safe and sound with all the fog and traffic. Sounds like a very interesting day shame about the two leading bitches 

F+F hope it turns out to be soemthign easily treatable with Bella, best wishes for her recovery.

FRM what fantastic progress and I lvoe how committed focussed and proud you sound  I'm uploading the videos to youtube now will add the links in a mo.

Went for a little pavement walk this evening

TAKE 1 : Cat on front lawn ,cat ran we turned and went inside for a few mins

TAKE 2 good walk not a soul about on foot in the rain :lol:

Does this work?

hoopla - YouTube

hoopla2 - YouTube


----------



## Beth17

Well you all seem to have had pretty good days today which is excellent :thumbup1: 
Although you all seem to have very strange dreams. You must stop eating cheese before bed :yesnod:

F&F hope it's nothing too major with Bella. You sound really positive though which is great 

FRM big thumbs up for your day :thumbup:

Had uni again today so not much to talk about. Both boys were good this morning on their walk and then Sam went up to my dads for the afternoon. He did make friends with a nervous postie which was nice. Just dropping him off and the postie had a parcel for my dad and you could see he didn't want to come near. Reassured him that Sam was fine and he eventually came over and gave Sam lots of fuss which was lovely to see. 

He said he is nervous because he has been bitten so many times which is a real shame  Hopefully Sam has helped to show him that not all dogs are to be worried about. I actually think once he's calmed down and grown up a bit he'd make quite a good pets as therapy dog.

I have to spend more money and get a new laptop battery rrr:

Ooh and I got called today about the kennel job I applied for. I have an interview next week


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> Does this work?
> 
> hoopla - YouTube
> 
> hoopla2 - YouTube


YAY!! :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy glad you are home safe and sound with all the fog and traffic. Sounds like a very interesting day shame about the two leading bitches
> 
> F+F hope it turns out to be soemthign easily treatable with Bella, best wishes for her recovery.
> 
> FRM what fantastic progress and I lvoe how committed focussed and proud you sound  I'm uploading the videos to youtube now will add the links in a mo.
> 
> Went for a little pavement walk this evening
> 
> TAKE 1 : Cat on front lawn ,cat ran we turned and went inside for a few mins
> 
> TAKE 2 good walk not a soul about on foot in the rain :lol:
> 
> Does this work?
> 
> hoopla - YouTube
> 
> hoopla2 - YouTube


Well the first one played on my computer but the second one wouldn't...

Tinks is such a super little girl and I loved the bit I saw.

BTW I purchased two Kong squeaky tennis balls on ropes today in the hope that they'll inspire Holly.


----------



## Dogless

Good luck for next week's interview Beth .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well the first one played on my computer but the second one wouldn't...
> 
> Tinks is such a super little girl and I loved the bit I saw.
> 
> BTW I purchased two Kong squeaky tennis balls on ropes today in the hope that they'll inspire Holly.


The CHs LOVE their Kong squeaky balls on ropes. Kilo doesn't love them quite as much as a tug rope....but they're up there.


----------



## Sarah1983

Seem to be having a feeding issue with Spencer. He gets a small breakfast at around 10am and his main meal at 10pm (timings we've found prevent him throwing up bile) but he seems to be starving by 7pm and is pacing and whining and pestering me until I feed him. Soon as he's been fed he settles down again. If I feed him dinner earlier he's sick at daft o clock in the morning. If I feed him breakfast later he's sick. So think I'm going to have to start splitting his evening meal into two and giving him a meal when we have dinner and then another at 10pm. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now and I put it down to him just being greedy and wanting his dinner (Shadow used to pester for his about half an hour before he got fed) but 3 hours early seems a bit much for that. He's been wormed recently so that shouldn't be causing it. Will see how he goes on 3 meals, if he still seems starving like that it'll be a vet check.

And don't even get me started on strange dreams. Agreeing with Cesar Milan, stabbing Spen in the stomach and pushing him out the door coz I didn't want him, beetles with hyperactivity issues caused by eating poop from Bakers fed dogs (I blame this thread, I think we talked about it here) and all sorts here. I usually wake in the morning going "WTF??" but then a couple of hours later I've forgotten what I dreamed about lol.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - can you feed bedtime biscuits or a snack at lunch time maybe? Kilo will vomit bile if his stomach is empty for too long so he has brek at about 0530, little snack after morning walk (small piece of dried tripe or something), bigger snack at lunchtime (veggie heggie / cow's ear - something of that size), dinner anywhere between 1630 and 1900, snack at about 2030 - 2100 (smaller one) then a few charcoal biscuits at bedtime around 2300.

Looks like a lot of food when I type it out .


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The CHs LOVE their Kong squeaky balls on ropes. Kilo doesn't love them quite as much as a tug rope....but they're up there.


Hmmm that doesn't auger well for Holly then...LOL She's already gone off the squeaky tennis balls not on a rope and both tuggies.

I also bought the spoilt little madam two more Spacehopper Lob Its. Perhaps I'll try one of those in the barn as well.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - can you feed bedtime biscuits or a snack at lunch time maybe? Kilo will vomit bile if his stomach is empty for too long so he has brek at about 0530, little snack after morning walk (small piece of dried tripe or something), bigger snack at lunchtime (veggie heggie / cow's ear - something of that size), dinner anywhere between 1630 and 1900, snack at about 2030 - 2100 (smaller one) then a few charcoal biscuits at bedtime around 2300.
> 
> Looks like a lot of food when I type it out .


We've tried an earlier dinner and a few biscuits at bedtime but he's still sick. Tried a later breakfast and a small snack early morning instead, still sick. Not tried a snack in the afternoon though. He gets about 600g food a day plus training treats and easily maintains weight on that so I'm a bit hesitant to increase how much food he's getting. I may try bulking his meals out with some veggies though or giving him veggies as an afternoon snack. Least they're not likely to put weight on him. I don't want him getting fat but I don't want the poor sod starving hungry either.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> We've tried an earlier dinner and a few biscuits at bedtime but he's still sick. Tried a later breakfast and a small snack early morning instead, still sick. Not tried a snack in the afternoon though. He gets about 600g food a day plus training treats and easily maintains weight on that so I'm a bit hesitant to increase how much food he's getting. I may try bulking his meals out with some veggies though or giving him veggies as an afternoon snack. Least they're not likely to put weight on him. I don't want him getting fat but I don't want the poor sod starving hungry either.


It's tricky - the answer with Kilo is feed all the time pretty much; but he's always been hard to keep weight on and often verges on skinny. Rudi on the other hand I think I'll have to watch much more carefully! Maybe a carrot or something as an afternoon snack?


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> Seem to be having a feeding issue with Spencer. He gets a small breakfast at around 10am and his main meal at 10pm (timings we've found prevent him throwing up bile) but he seems to be starving by 7pm and is pacing and whining and pestering me until I feed him. Soon as he's been fed he settles down again. If I feed him dinner earlier he's sick at daft o clock in the morning. If I feed him breakfast later he's sick. So think I'm going to have to start splitting his evening meal into two and giving him a meal when we have dinner and then another at 10pm. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now and I put it down to him just being greedy and wanting his dinner (Shadow used to pester for his about half an hour before he got fed) but 3 hours early seems a bit much for that. He's been wormed recently so that shouldn't be causing it. Will see how he goes on 3 meals, if he still seems starving like that it'll be a vet check.
> 
> And don't even get me started on strange dreams. Agreeing with Cesar Milan, stabbing Spen in the stomach and pushing him out the door coz I didn't want him, beetles with hyperactivity issues caused by eating poop from Bakers fed dogs (I blame this thread, I think we talked about it here) and all sorts here. I usually wake in the morning going "WTF??" but then a couple of hours later I've forgotten what I dreamed about lol.


I hope Spendog is okay, poor chap. Would a kong help him space out his food or is he, as I suspect, like my madam and finishes them in seconds.

I had the most stupid dream last night that I had a tiny brown whippet and I was so fat I kept squashing it and I wanted my Molly back. I had to get up to check she was still there.

FRM - great news, I love your commitment it has inspired me to take Molly to my mum's tomorrow for a long walk around their village.

F+F, I am sorry to hear about Bella 

Twiggy - glad it went okay and you get back safe, I did think about you this morning in foggy Cambridge

MV - love love love the videos 

Beth - fab news, well done, I hope it goes really well

Molly is okay here - went for walks today and she was great on lead apart from meeting her mad mate Wicken and they began boxing whilst on leads but at least it wasn't lurching. I didn't want them to say hello, but his owner is on another planet is my conclusion. I finally got my hair cut and dyed since Sept (Molly refused to move from the conservatory until I came home) and really pleased that I have more work than I need and off to London in two weeks to meet a potential contact for more. So pleased, we might keep to our ivf prep appointment in April if we have enough funds *prays*


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I hope Spendog is okay, poor chap. Would a kong help him space out his food or is he, as I suspect, like my madam and finishes them in seconds.
> 
> I had the most stupid dream last night that I had a tiny brown whippet and I was so fat I kept squashing it and I wanted my Molly back. I had to get up to check she was still there.
> 
> FRM - great news, I love your commitment it has inspired me to take Molly to my mum's tomorrow for a long walk around their village.
> 
> F+F, I am sorry to hear about Bella
> 
> Twiggy - glad it went okay and you get back safe, I did think about you this morning in foggy Cambridge
> 
> MV - love love love the videos
> 
> Beth - fab news, well done, I hope it goes really well
> 
> Molly is okay here - went for walks today and she was great on lead apart from meeting her mad mate Wicken and they began boxing whilst on leads but at least it wasn't lurching. I didn't want them to say hello, but his owner is on another planet is my conclusion. I finally got my hair cut and dyed since Sept (Molly refused to move from the conservatory until I came home) and really pleased that I have more work than I need and off to London in two weeks to meet a potential contact for more. *So pleased, we might keep to our ivf prep appointment in April if we have enough funds *prays**


Fingers crossed for you here; everything crossed xx.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> It's tricky - the answer with Kilo is feed all the time pretty much; but he's always been hard to keep weight on and often verges on skinny. Rudi on the other hand I think I'll have to watch much more carefully! Maybe a carrot or something as an afternoon snack?


Hubby reckons Spen could do with a little more weight but I dunno, I think he looks fine how he is. I may pick up a pack of chicken legs tomorrow and see how he goes with one of those as an afternoon snack each day. It'd take his food up to around 800g a day but with the exercise he gets maybe it'll be fine. Thinking about it, this has only been happening since his exercise has increased. We've been doing longer walks in the nicer weather and been going to the sled dog meets so maybe he does actually need a little more. And he's far from fat now so if he does start to gain I can cut back before he gets to a point where it's a problem.

Rupert was like Kilo, keeping weight on him was a nightmare. He ate more than most people feed their giant breeds and struggled to maintain on it.


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## Beth17

MS I really hope you are able to keep the april appointment. Will be keeping everything tightly crossed for you


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Rupert was like Kilo, keeping weight on him was a nightmare. He ate more than most people feed their giant breeds and struggled to maintain on it.


Yes; Kilo eats way, way more than he 'should' do and drops weight rapidly; only takes one good day's walking. Rudi on the other hand is really a little tank of a dog and I suspect he will end up needing less than the BW.


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## Sarah1983

MS, fingers crossed for you! And yeah, a Kong may help space Spens meals out a bit but it's not always gonna work with raw. Can't stuff a chicken leg or a whole sardine into a Kong unfortunately. And they disappear quickly! His minces he gets in the evening so wouldn't really help with the problem I'm having even though they could easily be put in a Kong. Hmm...what I could do is put some in a Kong for him, freeze it again and give it him in the afternoon then just give him the remainder in the evening in his bow. Might try that one too.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Yes; Kilo eats way, way more than he 'should' do and drops weight rapidly; only takes one good day's walking. Rudi on the other hand is really a little tank of a dog and I suspect he will end up needing less than the BW.


Ruperts was stress. 2 days in kennels he dropped 5kg. Wish I had his metabolism sometimes, I'd be lovely and slim then! I was so worried about him spending nearly 3 weeks in kennels when my dad was ill. But the kennels here were fantastic, managed to keep him eating and he didn't drop too much. He was skinny when hubby got back but not emaciated.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Ruperts was stress. 2 days in kennels he dropped 5kg. *Wish I had his metabolism sometimes*, I'd be lovely and slim then! I was so worried about him spending nearly 3 weeks in kennels when my dad was ill. But the kennels here were fantastic, managed to keep him eating and he didn't drop too much. He was skinny when hubby got back but not emaciated.


I think that too about Kilo at times!!


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## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> MS, fingers crossed for you! And yeah, a Kong may help space Spens meals out a bit but it's not always gonna work with raw. Can't stuff a chicken leg or a whole sardine into a Kong unfortunately. And they disappear quickly! His minces he gets in the evening so wouldn't really help with the problem I'm having even though they could easily be put in a Kong. Hmm...what I could do is put some in a Kong for him, freeze it again and give it him in the afternoon then just give him the remainder in the evening in his bow. Might try that one too.


Oh sorry lovely, I completely forgot he was raw. I was thinking that if Molly eats too fast she gets a bit sicky so I give her most meals in a kong or a buster but she's not raw. I wonder if mashing up sardines might fit into Kong and freeze?

Gawd I wish I had Molly's metabolism too. I start the fast diet next week, even I'm not so vile to myself to start on my birthday week. Dreading it but I've stared at myself for three hours at the hairdressers and I'm very fat.


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Oh sorry lovely, I completely forgot he was raw. I was thinking that if Molly eats too fast she gets a bit sicky so I give her most meals in a kong or a buster but she's not raw. I wonder if mashing up sardines might fit into Kong and freeze?


Sardines mashed and mixed with probiotic yoghurt and frozen goes down well here .


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## MollySmith

I've not given Molly fish, she adores carrots so a mashed spud and carrots is heaven to her with cheese cubes. I will try sardines, husband loves them in his sandwiches so I think he'd be most put out  - weird stuff I've noticed is that they seem to like similar food...


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I've not given Molly fish, she adores carrots so a mashed spud and carrots is heaven to her with cheese cubes. I will try sardines, husband loves them in his sandwiches so I think he'd be most put out  - weird stuff I've noticed is that they seem to like similar food...


I can guess which ones easiest to train........:sosp:.


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## MollySmith

:yesnod:


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## moonviolet

Sarah Tink has breakfast and dinner , lunchtime snack and a couple of charcoal cobs before bed or she becomes a horrible scavenger. 

MS Fingers crossed for April and don't forget to take care of yourself with all this influx of work.


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## Dogless

Funny how when the weather's gorgeous the boys are charging about by now for their walk.....at present with the rain hammering on the window and the wind blowing a gale....fast asleep again .


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Funny how when the weather's gorgeous the boys are charging about by now for their walk.....at present with the rain hammering on the window and the wind blowing a gale....fast asleep again .


Sensible boys


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## foxyrockmeister

I don't blame them! 

It's actually sunny here at the moment, although it is not set to last so I am just off out with the Pickles over to my parents house (hubby's working today) to go for a 'resolution walk' with them 

Hopefully my book will arrive today too

Hope you all have a good day


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## Dogless

Bloody hell. What a walk in the fields. All the factors were there for something to go wrong - I forgot Kilo's Kong Aqua which may not sound much to anyone but I can divert him from a chase (you can see where this is going already ) with it and NEVER do an offlead walk without it; it was very windy; sheep had been moved into a field next door and although I'd checked the fence line on the first day Kilo was interested now and again and it put me (and him) on edge. If I'd have had a toy I would have been way more relaxed.

Because of the sheep we went into the top field away from them. We were walking round, had done some heelwork and recalls and the boys were playing. I was idly thinking that I could hear loud traffic noise that I hadn't noticed the other day with the wind direction when I saw Kilo look up, see the fast moving traffic in the distance (very busy road) and take off as fast as he could. He ran the hedgeline until he saw a tiny gap (no wire fencing like the border to the sheep fields has, just a hedge), burst through it and was just off as fast as he could go across the (mercifully livestock free) fields towards the traffic. Luckily for me he paused as he was a speck in the distance, turned towards me to see where I was and I ran about like a loony jumped up and down etc and he came tearing back at the same warp speed he'd gone out. When he's in full chase mode like that he will come back, bounce off me and then run straight back out so I got him to sit and grabbed him fast. Needless to say his lead went on as he is then so hyped he'd chase anything at all.

So - maybe our fields aren't as perfect as I thought at first . I could occupy the BW with a toy and he'd not go after traffic again no problem, but the sheep make me uneasy.


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## moonviolet

Bliddy hell Dogless my heart was in my mouth reading that. Glad it was all ok in the end but phewwwww.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Bliddy hell Dogless my heart was in my mouth ready that. Glad it was all ok in the end but phewwwww.


It was awful. Kilo's instinct to chase is just so strong.

I did one walk in the forest where we came into an open area and we could see traffic on the very quiet road in the very, very far distance - specks. Kilo took off towards a car when the sun glinted on it's windscreen and got about half a mile before he turned to see where I was and came back - I have never done that one again.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- that sounds very very scary, but top marks to the Lad for actually stopping and coming back- if Evie done that I'm sure she wouldn't.:thumbup:




Not the best morning here, HH has had one on him since he got up this morning, throwing himself at doors , windows and running down the garden barking like crazy.
I need a break so I've put him away to walk the Girls and do some shopping.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> It was awful. Kilo's instinct to chase is just so strong.
> 
> I did one walk in the forest where we came into an open area and we could see traffic on the very quiet road in the very, very far distance - specks. Kilo took off towards a car when the sun glinted on it's windscreen and got about half a mile before he turned to see where I was and came back - I have never done that one again.


Boomin heck I don't blame you

Makes me feel how lucky i am. In a pack Tink would happily go along for the run, but be absolutely clueless that they were chasing anything. Earlier this week we were walking along a path that had been cleared from an area of head high young fir trees. I coudl hear movement to our left with that a deer burst out just behind us. I coudl almost have touched it , it was so close. Tink jsut stood and watched it as it headed off up the hill then just had a nice sniff in the area it had come from.


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## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Boomin heck I don't blame you
> 
> Makes me feel how lucky i am. In a pack Tink would happily go along for the run, but be absolutely clueless that they were chasing anything. Earlier this week we were walking along a path that had been cleared from an area of head high young fir trees. I coudl hear movement to our left with that a deer burst out just behind us. I coudl almost have touched it , it was so close. Tink jsut stood and watched it as it headed off up the hill then just had a nice sniff in the area it had come from.


:lol: Miss Tink is broken.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Boomin heck I don't blame you
> 
> Makes me feel how lucky i am. In a pack Tink would happily go along for the run, but be absolutely clueless that they were chasing anything. Earlier this week we were walking along a path that had been cleared from an area of head high young fir trees. I coudl hear movement to our left with that a deer burst out just behind us. I coudl almost have touched it , it was so close. Tink jsut stood and watched it as it headed off up the hill then just had a nice sniff in the area it had come from.


I am jealous of people who have dogs that aren't as severely reactive to movement as Kilo.

Kilo just reacts in a nanosecond if he's going to chase and he is very, very fast at top speed. If I catch him at the moment he begins to react I can divert him onto a toy. I was going to say we'd gone a long, long while (about a year) without me losing control of him like that - but we had the sheep not long ago .


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> :lol: Miss Tink is broken.


:thumbup: Yup great isnt' it.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- that sounds very very scary, but top marks to the Lad for actually stopping and coming back- if Evie done that I'm sure she wouldn't.:thumbup:
> 
> Not the best morning here, HH has had one on him since he got up this morning, throwing himself at doors , windows and running down the garden barking like crazy.
> I need a break so I've put him away to walk the Girls and do some shopping.


Enjoy your respite from HH. Kilo hits a point where he'll stop and pause momentarily to see where I am and at that point I can usually get him back - even if it's just for half a second before he goes straight back out again unless I nab him!!


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Enjoy your respite from HH. Kilo hits a point where he'll stop and pause momentarily to see where I am and at that point I can usually get him back - even if it's just for half a second before he goes straight back out again unless I nab him!!


The others are fine- although they aren't interested in sheep, they get hyped up when Evie does but they will listen and not take chase- I dont think Evie even hears me panicking. I wish she was broken.

What did Rudi do- was he excited?


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> The others are fine- although they aren't interested in sheep, they get hyped up when Evie does but they will listen and not take chase- I dont think Evie even hears me panicking. I wish she was broken.
> 
> What did Rudi do- was he excited?


He was excited because I was clearly petrified, but just stuck round my feet, trying to get treats out of me for being close and generally being a nuisance .

So far he doesn't show anywhere near the desire to chase that Kilo does; but he is approaching the age when Kilo began to lunge at traffic, try and chase wheels when cars pulled up alongside us etc etc. It took a lot of training to get him to disregard vehicles when walking along the road and a lot of work to ignore runners, bikes etc. Because of Kilo I've been diverting Rudi from watching moving things too keenly from day one and he will recall from chasing a dog he's playing with or toy at present. Sheep don't yet interest Rudi at all, but cats do already. He does chase a toy very keenly and chase Kilo.


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## Sarah1983

Bloody hell Dogless, how scary! Glad he stopped and came back to you though. I was always so, so glad Rupert wasn't reactive to traffic or cyclists or anything like that. I don't think I'd ever have dared walk him if he had been.

MV, Spencer has had the exact same reaction to the deer we've encountered. Just watch them bound away and then carry on sniffing. 

Hubby insisted on getting Spencer a new bed today. He's been looking at beds every time we go to Fressnapf and the one he really liked was half price today at 35 euros. I think it's bigger than our bed! This is for the dog who will choose a sweater or coat that's fallen on the floor over anything else to sleep on. But Calvin really wanted to get it him and all his other beds were Ruperts first so we got it.

We also got him a safe stick in blue. It seems to be a big hit, especially if I pretend he's not allowed it and then give in. That's what seemed to make carrying the washing so highly valuable. And the flexi leash (he has to carry that in when we've been out on it) became so valuable in the same way. Several minutes of keeping it away from him and pushing him away and then "okay fine, carry it then!"

And it seems we may be looking after Khan again at Easter. Nothing confirmed yet but they're looking to book to go away and have asked if we'll have him if they do. So I could be getting my Rottie fix again :thumbup1:


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## Dogless

Where's the obligatory photo of handsome Spendog in his new bed . Even if he never goes in it ever again .

Kilo isn't reactive to runners / cyclists etc any more and very rarely traffic. But today with it moving at high speed in the distance and no toy to divert him with......


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## Sarah1983

Oh well if you insist on photos how can I say no? 










And one of him with his stick. As you can see it's already been christened with mud.









ETA: Not sure why that ones on its side


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## Dogless

That bed looks really comfortable!


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> That bed looks really comfortable!


I know. It's all thick and soft and Spens all sunk into the middle of it asleep at the moment. He thought it was a toy at first and tried bringing it to us but couldn't quite manage it :lol:


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## foxyrockmeister

Whoah Dogless, that sounds very scary  I can imagine your relief when he came hurtling back to you though 

We had a similar chase issue today too although ours was a pheasant! 
Now I know they say that if you know your dog is going to fail then not to give the command as it reinforces them ignoring you (is that right?) But what exactly ARE you supposed to do?! 
I knew that Branston wouldn't listen if I tried to recall him when he was in full chase mode, as with Kilo, but I was still yelling and whistling as much as I could! But what else can you do? Just stand and watch their arse disappear into the distance, until they decide they've had enough and want to come back? 

Just to add, the Pickles recall in most circumstances is excellent and I have no concerns, but as with Kilo, Branston has a very high chase drive.

Just got back from a lovely new walk on the downs (will post pics on resolution walk later) and my book has arrived :thumbup: so I'm gonna settle down with a cuppa and educate myself  

Watch this space for some excellent mat work from Mr B Pickle himself :lol:

ETA: Sarah - Spen's bed looks lovely, I'd love to get the Pickles a nice squishy bed but they'd destroy it!!! They do have duvets overnight and when we're here during the day but we have to lift them up if they're being left during the day otherwise we'd come home to a house full of fluff


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## moonviolet

Awww Spendog looks so comfy on his new bed 

Had a lovely walk this morning met a 10 month old beagle lad such a sweet boy, however there was an issue..... lovely meeting both wanted to play chase but no one wanted to do the chasing :lol: :lol: then after being a little sociable headed off to the quite areas so we had a bit of peace to be nutters.


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## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Whoah Dogless, that sounds very scary  I can imagine your relief when he came hurtling back to you though
> 
> We had a similar chase issue today too although ours was a pheasant!
> Now I know they say that if you know your dog is going to fail then not to give the command as it reinforces them ignoring you (is that right?) But what exactly ARE you supposed to do?!
> I knew that Branston wouldn't listen if I tried to recall him when he was in full chase mode, as with Kilo, but I was still yelling and whistling as much as I could! But what else can you do? Just stand and watch their arse disappear into the distance, until they decide they've had enough and want to come back?
> 
> Just to add, the Pickles recall in most circumstances is excellent and I have no concerns, but as with Kilo, Branston has a very high chase drive.
> 
> Just got back from a lovely new walk on the downs (will post pics on resolution walk later) and my book has arrived :thumbup: so I'm gonna settle down with a cuppa and educate myself
> 
> Watch this space from some excellent mat work from Mr B Pickle himself :lol:


I didn't try and call Kilo as the wind was really, really strong and blowing in the wrong direction entirely, it would have been utterly wasted - I did opt for the running about jumping up and down thing as I said as soon as he turned round for that second. As soon as he's seen me he will come straight back when called which I suppose is good, although is so excited I do have to get him under control the instant he's anywhere near me or he'll be straight back off again. However, I wish I'd used my brain a little more in the first place and kept him on lead or carried on doing some training or otherwise engaging him as I knew I'd forgotton his toy and KNEW that high wind makes him very 'chasey' indeed, KNEW that smelling the sheep on the wind would make him a bit hair trigger too.....totally and utterly my fault. If he had been hurt / killed / caused an accident in which others were hurt or killed it would have been something which I could have prevented.

Pleased you had a lovely walk and your book has arrived and I'm expecting great things from the wonderful Mr B :thumbup:.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> I didn't try and call Kilo as the wind was really, really strong and blowing in the wrong direction entirely, it would have been utterly wasted - I did opt for the running about jumping up and down thing as I said as soon as he turned round for that second. As soon as he's seen me he will come straight back when called which I suppose is good, although is so excited I do have to get him under control the instant he's anywhere near me or he'll be straight back off again. However, I wish I'd used my brain a little more in the first place and kept him on lead or carried on doing some training or otherwise engaging him as I knew I'd forgotton his toy and KNEW that high wind makes him very 'chasey' indeed, KNEW that smelling the sheep on the wind would make him a bit hair trigger too.....totally and utterly my fault. If he had been hurt / killed / caused an accident in which others were hurt or killed it would have been something which I could have prevented.
> 
> Pleased you had a lovely walk and your book has arrived and I'm expecting great things from the wonderful Mr B :thumbup:.


Don't beat yourself up about it 

The thing is you can't ALWAYS predict when these things will happen and my question is what can you do when it does? Other than keeping a dog who 99% of the time has perfect recall on a lead all the time just 'in case' a rabbit shoots across a field or they spot a faraway car window glint in the sun?

I've had a couple of scary occasions with Branston, once when a fox ran out of the hedge in front of him and once with a cat that appeared from nowhere. I couldn't have predicted either and didn't have any time to spot the signs in order to distract him before he went into chase mode. Both times he gave up once the fox/cat managed to get away and then he came back to me but it could have been worse if there had been roads etc


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Don't beat yourself up about it
> 
> The thing is you can't ALWAYS predict when these things will happen and my question is what can you do when it does? Other than keeping a dog who 99% of the time has perfect recall on a lead all the time just 'in case' a rabbit shoots across a field or they spot a faraway car window glint in the sun?
> 
> I've had a couple of scary occasions with Branston, once when a fox ran out of the hedge in front of him and once with a cat that appeared from nowhere. I couldn't have predicted either and didn't have any time to spot the signs in order to distract him before he went into chase mode. Both times he gave up once the fox/cat managed to get away and then he came back to me but it could have been worse if there had been roads etc


Yes, I have had the sheep occasion (loose, in a wood, not where it should have been!) and a deer one over a year back. The thing about today is I was debating whether or not to let him off, just had a niggling doubt because of all the factors, yet I didn't listen to my gut (or common sense :mad2.

On the sheep occasion I caught him up as he'd bayed the sheep and I could see him and just put him on the lead. Easy. With the deer he was off so fast and within 30 - 40 seconds or so I heard his bark way off in the distance. I stood where he'd disappeared from and called 'this way' a lot so he could find me rather than a recall. The bonus with Kilo I suppose is that he bays something and tells you he has done so. I think the running straight back off again stems from the need to lead you to what he's bayed? No idea.

Had he got through the final hedge to the main road? I suspect he would have chased the vehicles along the road and most likely run out into the road. I have always been warned by many experienced breed folk to never let him off near to a road as many of them are killed in RTIs. What could I have done? Nothing I don't think.


----------



## Beth17

Oh Dogless what a scary few moments for you  But don't beat yourself up about it, hindsight is a wonderful thing and the main thing is that he did stop to look at you and came charging back.

MV Sounds a lovely walk. Bless them both wanting to be chased  

Sarah love Spen's new bed and he looks very pleased with his safestix.

FRM Glad you had a good walk look forward to the pics and the mat work.

Good separate walks up the fields with both the boys today. Sam was focussed and recalling well although I was daft and let him get a bit close to a brambly hedge he's shown interest in before. He had a look and then went through a dog sized hole and disappeared. I stayed put as not much else I could do and didn't want to confuse him and heard him after a minute coming out from a different direction round the corner. Lots of praise for coming back and then I'm afraid he had to go onlead. We then wandered down a little way through the woods.

Oscar was a little star and behaved perfectly, although he did take a shine to a female Dobe and followed her a little way back from where we'd already been. Then went into the woods and explored a couple of new paths so we were out for a good hour 1/2. They are now waking up for tea


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless - I'm sorry you had a really scary moment with Kilo. Alls well that ends well though so don't give yourself a hard time.

Sarah - Spen's new bed looks very cosy.

FRM - Please your book has finally arrived. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Beth - Sounds as if your bosy are doing really well.

It's been vile weather here again today but instead of fog it's been heavy drizzle/rain all day and they are saying snow tonight.

I took Holly over to the barn with the new tennis ball which she seemed quite keen on, well at least for the time being...LOL


----------



## moonviolet

FRM glad your book has arrived adn i'm looking forward to seeing pics from this morning

Beth sounds liek you tired yoru boys out nicely. I wonder what was on the other side of the hedge.



Twiggy said:


> I took Holly over to the barn with the new tennis ball which she seemed quite keen on, well at least for the time being...LOL


Bit of a diva young Holly Bolly :lol:


----------



## blossom21

Well we are still working on the same old same old-recall. Lots of things have improved in the 9 months Ive had Bramble when I sit and think about it. Now when we are out walking either on his long line or his 10 metre extracetable lead,he is being very good on being called to me 9 times out of 10. Still very much nose to the ground,but thats the spaniel thing I suppose. Today I have bought a hands free walking belt from amazon as I find I can interact better with him when I have both hands free.Usually I attach his long line to a loop in my jeans,but I do worry in case he legs it and break the loop. So looking forward to delivery of the belt, hopefully at only 15 kilo he cant pull me off my feet. Plus I know I tense when an over friendly dog approaches for a sniff and Im sure me tensing on the lead makes him react more.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - I love how little HB likes to call the shots  .

Beth - Sounds like a great day apart from Sam and the hole in the hedge!

Separate, freezing cold, rainy walks in the gales for the boys this afternoon. Both behaved impeccably. Only other person out was DA beagle and human - seen with Rudi which is my preference as Rudi just trots past for a treat. Kilo reacts about 8 times out of 10 and we saw them where there weren't any quick escape routes bar turning round and going a fairly long way back.


----------



## L/C

Just had to leave Ely in the emergency vet for sedation and stitches. He was running and playing with Gypsy and she nipped as he turned and he now has a bloody big hole in his side.  He was in so much pain that he couldn't even sit or lie down as it stretched the wound.

He has to stay overnight. He's never stayed anywhere away from us without Gypsy.  I'm really worried about him being frightened and the fact that he has to have another GA.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no L/C, how awful. I hope that everything goes well for him .


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Oh no poor Ely  and poor you 

I'm sure he's going to be fine but what a worry for you


----------



## moonviolet

Oh L/C poor Ely Sending calming healing thoughts his way.


----------



## L/C

Thanks - I know he will and I was fine and calm and rational when it happened, when I got them home and made the appointment, while we were waiting and during the appointment - until I walked out the front door of the vets. And then I burst into tears


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Thanks - I know he will and I was fine and calm and rational when it happened, when I got them home and made the appointment, while we were waiting and during the appointment - until I walked out the front door of the vets. And then I burst into tears


I can empathise with that. I phoned and warned the vets we were coming in after Tink was attacked, I drove there. I held her while they washed her wound took her temp and sedated her, then took her through... I went back into the waiting room and almost fainted, ended up with my head between my knees, when my head stopped swimming thats when the sobbing started.


----------



## Symone

Poor Ely.  I hope that he will be back to his normal self soon. 
Hope you will be okay, too. 

I need to go back and read everything, just didn't want to read and run from that. 
Really hope he will be okay soon.


----------



## Beth17

L/C how awful poor Ely  I think I would have reacted the same. I hope he heals quickly.


----------



## blossom21

Sending healing thoughts for Ely, hope he is soon bounding around again.


----------



## Werehorse

fingers crossed for a swift recovery, L/C.


----------



## Twiggy

*Bit of a diva young Holly Bolly* :lol:[/QUOTE]

It's cos she's my little cuddly spoilt doggie who has me wrapped round her paws and I indulge her every whim.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Just had to leave Ely in the emergency vet for sedation and stitches. He was running and playing with Gypsy and she nipped as he turned and he now has a bloody big hole in his side.  He was in so much pain that he couldn't even sit or lie down as it stretched the wound.
> 
> He has to stay overnight. He's never stayed anywhere away from us without Gypsy.  I'm really worried about him being frightened and the fact that he has to have another GA.


Oh no - poor Ely....

Trying to put your mind at rest a tad; he'll be heavily sedated I would think and won't know where he is.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh no L/C, fingers crossed for a quick recover for poor Ely  Seems to be one of the drawbacks to the pointy dogs, very thin skin. I know of a few people who've had something similar happen. I'm sure he'll be fine at the vets. Hugs to you.

Safestix are not very safe. Not when your dog smacks you in the nose with one anyway :frown2:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Safestix are not very safe. Not when your dog smacks you in the nose with one anyway :frown2:


No, or shins. And when two run at you at speed, one holding either end, it's only going to end one way :shocked:.


----------



## MollySmith

I am so sorry to hear about Ely, try really hard not to worry x


----------



## Guest

Hoping for a quick recovery for Ely, poor lad and try not to worry too much.

We met a lovely border terrier today, they met onlead but then got really really tangled.  

He sat for several dogs too which was nice. Not able to do it without a high value treat but still, its better then him trying to flatten them. 

May have won a size 3 dogmatic buckle webbing one for about 11 pounds on ebay. If it doesn't fit Zand then it can go to GRWE. 

I have done two shifts with only an hour between today. Bit tired.


----------



## Symone

Well, during my liking spree the OH asked where his meat and potato pie was that I promised him.. Been in the kitchen for the past two hours! Although I have been popping back every now and again to like some posts 
Since then I lost my place...

And I wrote some notes for replies on my phone... Guess who was a numpty and didn't save it. 
Going to go by memory now.. 

MS - I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. Hopefully you can keep that april appointment x

Beth - Good luck with the job interview!!!!

Dogless - Goodness, I feel sorry for you. I would had been terrified in your place. I'm so happy that he came back and you managed to get his lead on. I was scared reading your post. 

Sarah - Love the photo of Spendog!  

--

So.. Today has been an interesting day. 
Shamaya had her normal training before her beach walk.. Harness on and head collar in my pocket.
I guess she associates her harness with "huzzar I can pull"  
I put her head collar on for the walk there after she tried to pull me into the road. She grumbled then walked nicely. Sort of like "I suppose I have to walk nicely now. I don't like you."
Took the headcollar off after 10 mins (We were walking a completely different way that I thought was only a road with no pavement.. hence not walking it before.. However there was a pavement!) and she walked nicely then. Was a good little girl.  
Never walking there again, though.. I would guess at seeing 30 different poos in less than 5 minutes. People sure take care of this area 
No pulling when we walked onto the beach.. Lead went off and had some ball fun. Had to cut the walk short though because I forgot her water flask and she tried to drink sea water 

Went to the pet shop later and again walked her on the harness. She pulled once then seemed to have remembered and walked just slightly in front of me! I was shocked and happy. Bought 2kg of minced tripe and some pig ears then went home again.. Still a loose lead!  

Also since found out that AmberNero lives close to me, so we're going to meet up for a walk.  I'll make sure to get photos! Will be Shamayas first time on a bus (Unless I get the train..) so that should be fun.  
And it will also be the first PFer that we meet in person. Might bake the dogs some liver cake.  

Shamaya has since been a cheeky little thing and pinched some onion.. Thankfully distracting her with a toy ensured she didn't eat it. I doubt she would even like the taste of red onion! 
She did however get some leftovers with all of the onion picked out. (I ate it. I love onion) mixed with her tripe. She was a happy bunny.


----------



## Dogless

Off to bed; tomorrow's another day 'eh? Hubby even listened this evening when he rang, I must have sounded like I'd had a scare . 

I have a cunning plan though.....I could walk Rudi in the fields, then lay a track for Kilo or hide some objects whilst Rudi's in the boot. Then take Rudi home and bring Kilo on his harness and longline to do some tracking.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- Poor Pointy, hope he's ok. That must have shook you up.

Beth- completely forgot, meant to say well done to young Sam with the Postman the other day. Fingers crossed for your interview.

Dogless-sounds like a plan, as long as no other dog comes along inbetween.:devil:

OH had been at work yesterday morning when I left, after shopping I came back to be told by him that he'd taken Hal for a walk[with Jay] - and had been up past the Setters  
I was so angry, all I could ask was 'why' - to be told 'well he'll bark anyway.
It wouldn't be so bad but only 3 days ago I told him about the problems and said I need to keep him calm and walk him away from any other dogs at the moment.
I dont understand it, he is really good with the dogs, yet when it comes to any training I do I swear he does the exact opposite.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I have a cunning plan though.....I could walk Rudi in the fields, then lay a track for Kilo or hide some objects whilst Rudi's in the boot. Then take Rudi home and bring Kilo on his harness and longline to do some tracking.


Oh you're _as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University_
Sounds like fun to me 

K&M How frustrating. I'm lucky in a way, that i get pretty much no help. He does remove her harness for me after i've been for a pavement walk :lol: Improtnat job for which he gets lots of praise :001_tt2: and will play a games etc.

LO sounds like Donkey boy did very well you asked him for high value self control and he earned a high value reward 

Symone how exciting to be planning a meet 

L/C hope this morning brings good news from the vet's

Anyoen got a dog i can borrow? a certain little someone has taken her paws upstairs for a lie in and I really fancy a walk.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> Anyoen got a dog i can borrow? a certain little someone has taken her paws upstairs for a lie in and I really fancy a walk.


Mine would be no good to you either, I appear to have a pair of sleepy heads this morning too  Most unusual!


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Mine would be no good to you either, I appear to have a pair of sleepy heads this morning too  Most unusual!


All the excitement of their resolution walk and that dang pheasant  Tink's not really a morning. This evening when I'd be happy to put my feet up ...then then she will want training and a pavement walk.  :lol: Just as well she's so gorgeous


----------



## kat&molly

I dont get help either- just interference occasionally.
You can take your pick MV from any one of these 5- they're all waiting on me getting my back side in gear. I should hurry the weathers lovely at the minute.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I dont get help either- just interference occasionally.
> You can take your pick MV from any one of these 5- they're all waiting on me getting my back side in gear. I should hurry the weathers lovely at the minute.


 how i wish i could , but you might have to attach a GPS tracker to me just to make sure i'm not dognapping. Hope the weather holds and you have lovely walk(s)


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh you're _as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University_
> Sounds like fun to me
> 
> K&M How frustrating. I'm lucky in a way, that i get pretty much no help. He does remove her harness for me after i've been for a pavement walk :lol: Improtnat job for which he gets lots of praise :001_tt2: and will play a games etc.
> 
> LO sounds like Donkey boy did very well you asked him for high value self control and he earned a high value reward
> 
> Symone how exciting to be planning a meet
> 
> L/C hope this morning brings good news from the vet's
> 
> *Anyoen got a dog i can borrow? a certain little someone has taken her paws upstairs for a lie in and I really fancy a walk*.


I'll send Holly, Tremor and Leafy down to you, they're all raring to go. Pity it's very windy and snowing...!!


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> L/C- Poor Pointy, hope he's ok. That must have shook you up.
> 
> Beth- completely forgot, meant to say well done to young Sam with the Postman the other day. Fingers crossed for your interview.
> 
> Dogless-sounds like a plan, as long as no other dog comes along inbetween.:devil:
> 
> OH had been at work yesterday morning when I left, after shopping I came back to be told by him that he'd taken Hal for a walk[with Jay] - and had been up past the Setters
> I was so angry, all I could ask was 'why' - to be told 'well he'll bark anyway.
> It wouldn't be so bad but only 3 days ago I told him about the problems and said I need to keep him calm and walk him away from any other dogs at the moment.
> I dont understand it, he is really good with the dogs, yet when it comes to any training I do I swear he does the exact opposite.


You won't understand it. OHs have a different logic to us and they always know best when it comes to training dogs....


----------



## Twiggy

I do hope Ely is OK and coming home this morning.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - hope this morning brings good news.

k&m - no idea why OHs do what they do. None at all .



moonviolet said:


> Anyoen got a dog i can borrow? a certain little someone has taken her paws upstairs for a lie in and I really fancy a walk.


Just back in with mine, we were out at 0730...and you can keep them the mood I'm in today .

Went out early - ish this morning. Walked to the top fields, did some training and play and walked back. Both dogs were a handful in their own way and it was all really hard work. I almost disliked them at one point. Don't mean it of course but there was none of that lovely bond there. Rudi was too keen on using his teeth right from the outset today and Kilo whined and pulled because he needed a poo but obviously needed to find the right spot . Nothing bad particularly, they were just really, really hard work.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> L/C - hope this morning brings good news.
> 
> k&m - no idea why OHs do what they do. None at all .
> 
> Just back in with mine, we were out at 0730...and you can keep them the mood I'm in today .
> 
> Went out early - ish this morning. Walked to the top fields, did some training and play and walked back. Both dogs were a handful in their own way and it was all really hard work. I almost disliked them at one point. Don't mean it of course but there was none of that lovely bond there. Rudi was too keen on using his teeth right from the outset today and Kilo whined and pulled because he needed a poo but obviously needed to find the right spot . Nothing bad particularly, they were just really, really hard work.


Oh dear. Sounds like you're having a bad day. Rudi is only a pup and they are, as you know, very testing at that age. This awful weather tends to wind them up and nips hurt much more when your hands are frozen.


----------



## L/C

Hi everyone, we heard from the vet last night but I didn't have time to update as I was dealing with gypsy. She's taken the separation from Ely very hard and was very distressed last. She spent the whole night crying and pacing from room to room, making us open any closed doors, constantly coming in and out of the garden and generally very upset (also manifesting in inappropriate chewing, scratching and trying to pull her own fur out). It's the first time since we got her that she's spent anytime apart from him (except for desperate walks etc.) and it's really thrown her. She finally gave in and fell asleep at quarter to 1 but was up again at half 6. A very tiring night.

Ely had the procedure last night and it all went fine. In addition to the actual wound, the skin had also come away from the muscle in quite a significant tear so they flushed it and stitched it. The first time he came round from the anesthetic he was very hyper and was at risk if tearing the stitches so they had to sedate him again, the second time he was much calmer and cuddled up to the vet nurse and was trying to sit on her lap. They are going to call us later this morning to let us know when we can collect him.

Thanks for all the lovely messages - it really means as lot.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- Poor Gypsy pining like that  you must be shattered. Hope you get to bring Ely home later and keep them both calm.


----------



## Beth17

Oh L/C what a night for you all. I'm really pleased that Ely has come through it alright and hope you can pick him up soon.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C poor Gypsy I dont' envy you managing a calm reunion  Glad Ely's procedure went well, sounds like he came around a little too well at first  Hope you can bring him home soon. Lots of healing calming thoughts.



Dogless said:


> Just back in with mine, we were out at 0730...and you can keep them the mood I'm in today .


I have it in writing i'll be over to collect as soon as we've got the yacht sorted 

Twiggy send them here it's only grey, no rain no snow


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> L/C- Poor Gypsy pining like that  you must be shattered. Hope you get to bring Ely home later and keep them both calm.


It's interesting because if you saw them together you would think that they barely tolerate each other. They rarely play, never sleep together and if I come home from work unexpectedly (so they aren't waiting in the living room) they are on completely different floors of the house!


----------



## Dogless

L/C - what a night; I do hope that you can collect Ely soon and Gypsy regains her equilibrium with him back .



Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. Sounds like you're having a bad day. Rudi is only a pup and they are, as you know, very testing at that age. This awful weather tends to wind them up and nips hurt much more when your hands are frozen.


Not too bad; had my porridge and a brew and the CHs are asleep and temper restored . Kilo was always very hard work indeed in the wind and is still inclined to be...as is Rudi. And they were . They weren't actually horrendous - it's just frustrating at times isn't it and I didn't start the day in that good a temper as I didn't want to get up this morning . I have decided that actually I quite like them again .


----------



## Twiggy

Thanks for letting us know L/C - you must be shattered and it's going to be hard work for a few days.

Have you got any Rescue Remedy (or something similar) you can give Gypsy - a bit late now I know.


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Thanks for letting us know L/C - you must be shattered and it's going to be hard work for a few days.
> 
> Have you got any Rescue Remedy (or something similar) you can give Gypsy - a bit late now I know.


We got a dap diffuser and had that running and a collar as well. It didn't seem to make much difference - she managed to chew through the collar.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> L/C - what a night; I do hope that you can collect Ely soon and Gypsy regains her equilibrium with him back .
> 
> Not too bad; had my porridge and a brew and the CHs are asleep and temper restored . Kilo was always very hard work indeed in the wind and is still inclined to be...as is Rudi. And they were . They weren't actually horrendous - it's just frustrating at times isn't it and I didn't start the day in that good a temper as I didn't want to get up this morning . I have decided that actually I quite like them again .


Pleased to hear it....

I do know what you mean though. Many's the time I've dragged myself out to train various dogs when it's freezing cold only to get bitten, because my reactions are not as quick in those sort of temperatures, and then immediately gone on a 'downer' and wished I hadn't bothered.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> It's interesting because if you saw them together you would think that they barely tolerate each other. They rarely play, never sleep together and if I come home from work unexpectedly (so they aren't waiting in the living room) they are on completely different floors of the house!


That makes them sound like a married couple.:001_tt2:
The only 2 of mine who have a close bond is Scruff and Evie, makes me wonder how they would fare now.

Dogless-pleased your good mood has returned, I hope mine does walking the dogs.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Pleased to hear it....
> 
> I do know what you mean though. Many's the time I've dragged myself out to train various dogs when it's freezing cold only to get bitten, because my reactions are not as quick in those sort of temperatures, and then immediately gone on a 'downer' and wished I hadn't bothered.


Rudi was just being an over boisterous puppy really, but he's too big and heavy to be leaping about on the lead like he was, plus as you say it was cold and teeth hurt when it's cold....then there's Kilo actually being good (I always put him in a sit / stay whilst I deal with Rudi) but whining and whistling because he needs a poo....

It's all everyday type stuff really, I just had a shorter fuse than usual - I'm normally far more patient. Another problem is that if I get frustrated and a bit 'growly voiced' towards Rudi, Kilo gets worried and puts his ears back, lip licks etc as he's a sensitive soul.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless I'm glad harmony has been restored 

I shall be walking the boys separately this morning as Sam is irritating Oscar to no end and I think there'll be fisticuffs soon


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Dogless I'm glad harmony has been restored
> 
> I shall be walking the boys separately this morning as Sam is irritating Oscar to no end and I think there'll be fisticuffs soon


On my third coffee now so all's well! Must be something in the air .


----------



## moonviolet

It certainly wasn't included in her pedigree but i think there might be some mountain goat and steam locomotive in Tink's heritage.

Cinnamon detection work continues apace, over this week we have moved through easy hiding ( behind things) to slightly harder (under towel/)blanket and now adding height, which a challenge to a short Rs ground sniffer... this cuminated in the mountain goat climbing deftly from chair arm over the back of the sofa to find the contraband cinnamon sticks :lol: all the while she sounds like she's built up a good head of speed and coudl give Stephenson's Rocket a run for it's money.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> It certainly wasn't included in her pedigree but i think there might be some mountain goat and steam locomotive in Tink's heritage.
> 
> Cinnamon detection work continues apace, over this week we have moved through easy hiding ( behind things) to slightly harder (under towel/)blanket and now adding height, which a challenge to a short Rs ground sniffer... this cuminated in the mountain goat climbing deftly from chair arm over the back of the sofa to find the contraband cinnamon sticks :lol: all the while she sounds like she's built up a good head of speed and coudl give Stephenson's Rocket a run for it's money.


It's funny to see the differences in the way breeds search. Kilo is a fairly big air scenter and doesn't have too much difficulty finding objects placed higher up. He will also get 'so far' following a scent trail and then start breaking off and searching visually, returning to the scent trail if the object isn't spotted - doesn't solely follow nose until object found.


----------



## Sarah1983

Setting off for our sled dog meet up in a short while. It's snowed  Not the 25cm it said we were getting thankfully but last time I looked it was still snowing  Hubby's on duty today so gotta walk all the way to the field and all the way back. Dunno about Spencer being knackered but I bloody will be!

Dogless, sorry to hear you had a less than great walk. Sometimes the little things seem worse than the big things, they just all add up really.

Beth, hope you don't end up with fisticuffs.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> It's funny to see the differences in the way breeds search. Kilo is a fairly big air scenter and doesn't have too much difficulty finding objects placed higher up. He will also get 'so far' following a scent trail and then start breaking off and searching visually, returning to the scent trail if the object isn't spotted - doesn't solely follow nose until object found.


I'm always in awe of their noses, it's a total joy to watch.

Tink does air scent but this developed more for detecting other dogs on the wind at the height of her "Nervous Nelly" phase. Her true passion is her vaccum cleaner impression


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm always in awe of their noses, it's a total joy to watch.
> 
> Tink does air scent but *this developed more for detecting other dogs on the wind at the height of her "Nervous Nelly" phase*. Her true passion is her vaccum cleaner impression


Unfortunately that's what Kilo employs his air scenting for most at present - tells me I should put his lead on and get the treats out but upsets me to see him start prancing about and reacting a little before the dog even comes into sight (the dogs he has bad times with here) and swivelling his head to try and spot them. That or sheep / goats.

Kilo (and Rudi) sounds disgusting when his nose is really down on the floor. I used to call him 'pig puppy' - it's really loud and sounds like one of those disgusting people who don't blow their nose when they have a cold and drag the snot up their nose :arf:. Rudi randomly snorts when he's excited!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Unfortunately that's what Kilo employs his air scenting for most at present - tells me I should put his lead on and get the treats out but upsets me to see him start prancing about and reacting a little before the dog even comes into sight (the dogs he has bad times with here) and swivelling his head to try and spot them. That or sheep / goats.
> 
> Kilo (and Rudi) sounds disgusting when his nose is really down on the floor. I used to call him 'pig puppy' -* it's really loud and sounds like one of those disgusting people who don't blow their nose when they have a cold and drag the snot up their nose :arf:. *Rudi randomly snorts when he's excited!


That has reminded me of the worst ever Job interview i had, the interviewer had a terrible cold and was doing that and clearly quite distressed, halfway through the third question ( which i was making a total hash of answering) I said I hope you won't be offended but would you like a tissue?:blushing: He accepted but the interview continued in a horribly awkward fashion. I just couldn't get back on track and he rescued me by pointing the pile of lever arch files i'd trekked across London with and asked if i'd like to show them to him :lol: I got the job and worked with him for 2 very happy years. Sorry bit of a ramble there.


----------



## L/C

Well the patient is back home and settled with a Kong. Apparently he refused to eat this morning and was quite distressed in the kennel so we got to pick him up a bit earlier. He was happy to see the vet though which was nice as it's not our usual practice so I was a bit concerned. We'll be going to our normal place for follow up.

The wound looks good - no inflammation or anything but he has given himself a black eye where he was rubbing his head on the kennel. 

Gypsy has settled down now even though she's only had a half hour walk today. I think today will be a rest day with plenty of training and chews for calm.


----------



## Dogless

Pleased that Ely's back home and can start his recovery now.


----------



## moonviolet

So glad the patient is home and enjoying his kong after the night you all had I think a duvet day is most definitely in order.


----------



## Sarah1983

Glad Ely's home, duvet day sounds like a good idea.

Remind me never to just pop into the shop for anything while I have Spencer with me. Or at least if I do to make sure it all fits in my backpack. They had no bread yesterday so thought I'd pop in today to see whether they had some. They did. Couldn't fit two loaves in my backpack so guess who carried the other one home? It was either let him carry it or end up with him ripping it open coz he kept grabbing for it :nonod: I managed to wrap the bag around it and tie it so he could hold it fairly easily and oh he was so, so proud of himself trotting along carrying this loaf of bread ut: If only I'd had my camera on me.

Sled dog meet was good except for the vile weather. We passed another dog on the way there, it was in a sit on one side of the path and we passed on the other side. Normally this triggers lunging and whining coz Spen wants to say hi at that close distance but he just looked at it and carried on walking. A bit of prancing and pulling but a million times better than he was. He was happy to recall from the other dogs until Willow arrived. Once Willow is there nothing else seems to exist in Spencers world. He didn't go running up to the Lab and Dachshund who came on. Or attempt to get to the two Labs who walked past the field on the path that runs alongside it. He looked but a "this way" brought him back towards us. 

We're gonna chill out for the rest of the day now. He's crashed out on his new bed already lol.


----------



## Beth17

MV sounds like Miss Tink will be out searching and rescuing in no time  
My two are very much nose to the ground sniffers although Oscar prefers to search visually if he can.

Sarah glad the meet went well. I would have loved to see Spen carrying the bread. Now he's a proper lab 

L/C really glad Ely is home and hopefully you can all have a good rest.

Had two good very wet walks. It even started to snow for a bit. Took Sam down through the woods and had a bit of pulling as he's not been along that route before. All in all though he was very well behaved.

Then walked Oscar down into the woods using a slightly longer route and had a slight incident. Had just gone through the gates into the woods and there were 3 collies a a way back but coming towards us. As you know Oscar can be a bit nervous especially head on so pulled him well out of the way to the side on his lead and just waited. Suddenly one of the collies ran full pelt at us round me and tried to nip Oscar. Poor lad jumped a mile  
The bloke walking them just said 'he's alright he just charges at you' ut: I told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn't alright as he is a nervous dog and that would just make him worse. I do wonder about some people :cursing:

We walked on a bit and Oscar had a good shake and his tail went back up so the rest of the walk went really nicely and he had a great time charging about the woods. Is it any wonder though that he can be defensive.


----------



## Dogless

I'm pleased Oscar shook off his collie experience; so many owners say stuff like that - they must know that it's not a good thing? In fact, the fact that they probably do makes it worse :cursing:. Glad you had a great time otherwise though .

This pair are driving me potty today - numerous small training sessions, footie in the garden.....the usual sofa dwellers are full of it .


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> MV sounds like Miss Tink will be out searching and rescuing in no time


Only if they stuff their pockets with cinnamon sticks :lol: :lol:



Beth17 said:


> Then walked Oscar down into the woods using a slightly longer route and had a slight incident. Had just gone through the gates into the woods and there were 3 collies a a way back but coming towards us. As you know Oscar can be a bit nervous especially head on so pulled him well out of the way to the side on his lead and just waited. Suddenly one of the collies ran full pelt at us round me and tried to nip Oscar. Poor lad jumped a mile
> The bloke walking them just said 'he's alright he just charges at you' ut: I told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn't alright as he is a nervous dog and that would just make him worse. I do wonder about some people :cursing:
> 
> We walked on a bit and Oscar had a good shake and his tail went back up so the rest of the walk went really nicely and he had a great time charging about the woods. Is it any wonder though that he can be defensive.


Well done Oscar shaking it off so well. I had a similar incident and was told with a shrug by their owner " thats what border collies do." :cursing:
He would have been perfectly justified in telling the BC to sling it's hook.

Sarah, I would love to have seen that!! Spendog is just wonderful like having a butler who is offended by you trying to help him do his work. Maybe he needs his own shopping bag 

Just got back from the woods only saw 2 other dogs up close, an OES who Tink likes very much and a slightly portly RR who we'd not met before. Lovely offlead meeting very polite indeed, so proud of my girl she does seem to have a soft spot for the big boys


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> I'm pleased Oscar shook off his collie experience; so many owners say stuff like that - they must know that it's not a good thing? In fact, the fact that they probably do makes it worse :cursing:. Glad you had a great time otherwise though .
> 
> This pair are driving me potty today - numerous small training sessions, footie in the garden.....the usual sofa dwellers are full of it .


I think that annoyed me more. The fact he knows his dog does this and didn't even shout a warning and then no apology really wound me up.

They sound like they've been at the smarties


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - Spendog really is a superstar; no way would a greedy CH carry bread, they'd snaffle it . 

Well done for passing that dog nicely on the way to the meet too; absolutely superb .


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah, I would love to have seen that!! Spendog is just wonderful like having a butler who is offended by you trying to help him do his work. Maybe he needs his own shopping bag


Lol, it can be a bit of a pain at times. He can be very persistent when he wants to carry something. And then when he does carry something he can't seem to do it slowly, it's at a fast trot that I can't keep up with easily, especially after a 3 mile walk and then an hour standing around in the snow lol. I very rarely take him to the shop with me because I don't like leaving him outside but the thought of walking past the shop to go home then coming all the way back was just too much for me today.

Beth, I think people think that because their dog doesn't attack behaviour like that is acceptable. It doesn't seem to occur to them that it might frighten another dog or its owner.

Dogless, he'll carry anything. It doesn't seem to occur to him that he could tear something open and eat it, he just seems to see it as an object to be retrieved or carried. Now if I gave him a bag containing one of the hot garlic chickens they do at the Naafi it might be another matter lol.

And I'm well pleased with him passing the other dog, it's the biggest problem I've been having with him and it seems regular interaction with other dogs has really helped make them less exciting to him. He's still delighted to meet and greet if allowed but hasn't thrown a hissy fit about not being able to do so in a few weeks now.


----------



## Twiggy

Really pleased you've got Ely home L/C. I hope it all goes well.

I've just had my daughter and grandchildren to visit as it's Mother's Day, for about 3 hours, so don't think the girls will get a second walk today. It's now snowing quite heavily and blowing horizontally as well. Too much for the old girls and they'll want to come if I do venture out.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Really pleased you've got Ely home L/C. I hope it all goes well.
> 
> I've just had my daughter and grandchildren to visit as it's Mother's Day, for about 3 hours, so don't think the girls will get a second walk today. It's now snowing quite heavily and blowing horizontally as well. Too much for the old girls and they'll want to come if I do venture out.


I liked that you've had a Mothers' Day visit, not the snow. I know how you feel about that and you've certainly had more than your fair share this year - hope it doesn't stick around.


----------



## purpleskyes

I invested in a 7m flexi lead for the pooch so I can stop being a bad akita owner. I find it rather annoying and also people seem to avoid you more with a pooch on a lead, Then even if they don't he doesn't really get to play when he is attached to a lead. So not really doing wonders for his socalisation.

Also found 2 places near by that do the good citizen dog training scheme so going to sign up to one of those this month.


----------



## Twiggy

Well it looks as if Holland have won the team World Cup Obedience at Crufts today on my calculations with the sit stay still to do.

England were in the lead but Janet's dog failed scent.

Mary Ray and Levi have probably won the individual for England. What a dog - he won the dog obedience championships yesterday as well...!!


----------



## Guest

Glad Ely's home now!! 

Didn't win the dogmatic size three. His lordship is eating a marrowbone.


----------



## Dogless

Good individual walks this afternoon. Took two angels out compared to this morning...good job as my back is in massive spasm from Rudi's antics and I almost didn't take them. 

Nothing at all seen with the BW as snow and hail were coming in horizontally. Couple of dogs with Rudi.

So...a little quiz:

When the hail and snow were blowing in so that it stung your face and got into your eyes did the BW 
a. Step in front of his human like the loyal hound he is to try and shield her from the weather?
b. Walk nicely by his human's side?
c. Walk behind his human's legs happy for her to bear the full force of the weather so that he could be sheltered?

Answers on a postcard please .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Good individual walks this afternoon. Took two angels out compared to this morning...good job as my back is in massive spasm from Rudi's antics and I almost didn't take them.
> 
> Nothing at all seen with the BW as snow and hail were coming in horizontally. Couple of dogs with Rudi.
> 
> So...a little quiz:
> 
> When the hail and snow were blowing in so that it stung your face and got into your eyes did the BW
> a. Step in front of his human like the loyal hound he is to try and shield her from the weather?
> b. Walk nicely by his human's side?
> c. Walk behind his human's legs happy for her to bear the full force of the weather so that he could be sheltered?
> Answers on a postcard please .


Hmmm could it be "c"

I have a question for you... why the heck does my dog roll in empty ration packs! Today's canine fragrance of choice was chicken panang :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Hmmm could it be "c"
> 
> I have a question for you... why they heck does my dog rolled in empty ration packs! Today's canine fragrance of choise was chicken panang :lol:


Because she's........special? .


----------



## Twiggy

Well my dogs got a second walk apart from Quiver. I sneaked the other 3 out whilst she was asleep...

Btw Dogless - NI weren't placed....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well my dogs got a second walk apart from Quiver. I sneaked the other 3 out whilst she was asleep...
> 
> Btw Dogless - NI weren't placed....


Won't ask too much about it on Thursday then :frown2:. I wanted to watch but the livestreaming annoyed me too much with all the pauses.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well it's day 2 of Spen having a chicken leg in the afternoon and so far it seems to be working. He started pestering me for his dinner last night about 20 minutes before he's usually fed but I think that's just coz he knows it's coming up to meal time rather than because he's starving. Fingers crossed it'll be the same tonight.

Dogless, I'm guessing the answer is C. Poor sod should be out in the sunshine of Africa, not subjected to the vile weather conditions of NI after all 

MV, hubby reckons they probably make better doggie deodorant than they do food :frown2:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Well it's day 2 of Spen having a chicken leg in the afternoon and so far it seems to be working. He started pestering me for his dinner last night about 20 minutes before he's usually fed but I think that's just coz he knows it's coming up to meal time rather than because he's starving. Fingers crossed it'll be the same tonight.
> 
> Dogless, I'm guessing the answer is C. Poor sod should be out in the sunshine of Africa, not subjected to the vile weather conditions of NI after all
> 
> *MV, hubby reckons they probably make better doggie deodorant than they do food *:frown2:


I used to quite like most of them apart from the puddings which were all foul bar the rice pudding and fruit in syrup .

Glad Spen's doing well; fingers crossed you've found the solution :thumbup1:.


----------



## Dogless

Hope Miss Tinks watched that HTM routine just now - Mary Ray and Levi are something else!! Kilo watched it, head on paws and looked like "feck THAT for a game of soldiers" . Rudi watched sat straight up, alert and transfixed...maybe he's got aspirations? He is a little show off.

The attentiveness of the dogs blows me away, to think I'm so chuffed when I get this pair to walk nicely together, never mind dance in step with each other .


----------



## Beth17

The HTM was brilliant to watch. Sam was also suitably enthralled. He is now however having a mad dash around the house so maybe some more work until we get to a level like that


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> The HTM was brilliant to watch. Sam was also suitably enthralled. He is now however having a mad dash around the house so maybe some more work until we get to a level like that


I've got it recorded to be watched without "helpful man" comments. :lol:

How cool would that be to see Sam doing HTM


----------



## Beth17

moonviolet said:


> I've got it recorded to be watched without "helpful man" comments. :lol:
> 
> How cool would that be to see Sam doing HTM


Watch out Crufts 2014


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Watch out Crufts 2014


Maybe we'll have Rudi and Sam dancing in unison : :ihih:.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Maybe we'll have Rudi and Sam dancing in unison : :ihih:.


That would be a sight to see.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> That would be a sight to see.


It would indeed.....it's as likely to happen as the WAYWO yacht I think .


----------



## Guest

I lurvveed the HTM. Mum was like "YOU COULD DO THAT!!" :lol: Pfft yeah right mother. :L 

Guys, I'm trying to teach Zander to get off my bed when I tell him too. He will NOT get off for treats. Will not, just hunches down. If I try and even hold his collar gently his tail will go to his belly and he'll shake. 

And yesterday, mum was trying to get him into the living room so she could hoover my floor while I was at work. (we live in a bungalow so there's only one hallway.) And apparently he just kept his nose against either my bedroom door or hers, ears back against his head, shaking like a lead, tail between his legs. Wouldn't take treats neither. 

Also, I F**ked up on my shift today. Actually had a small tear up and the shakes myself, while on my station. It wasn't even anything big. God I must have come across as a wreck to my managers. 

On a good note, Zand walked wonderfully today.


----------



## Dogless

However...I do have hopes that Miss Tinks will be there one day. Can't wait to get those sweatshirts printed!


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Watch out Crufts 2014


Mmmmm...!!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I lurvveed the HTM. Mum was like "YOU COULD DO THAT!!" :lol: Pfft yeah right mother. :L
> 
> Guys, I'm trying to teach Zander to get off my bed when I tell him too. He will NOT get off for treats. Will not, just hunches down. If I try and even hold his collar gently his tail will go to his belly and he'll shake.
> 
> And yesterday, mum was trying to get him into the living room so she could hoover my floor while I was at work. (we live in a bungalow so there's only one hallway.) And apparently he just kept his nose against either my bedroom door or hers, ears back against his head, shaking like a lead, tail between his legs. Wouldn't take treats neither.
> 
> Also, I F**ked up on my shift today. Actually had a small tear up and the shakes myself, while on my station. It wasn't even anything big. God I must have come across as a wreck to my managers.
> 
> On a good note, Zand walked wonderfully today.


I can't recall what you do (I know you have said somewhere), but I hope that you'll be able to go back to work with your head held high; we've all had 'those' days where we've come across as a loon .

Would leaving a houseline on Zand work? Throwing a tennis ball as you say 'off'?

Pleased he walked well though :thumbup1:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> However...I do have hopes that Miss Tinks will be there one day. Can't wait to get those sweatshirts printed!


She'd be getting the train  even if we were to make the grade ( which i seriously doubt) Does the phrase crippling stage fright mean anything to you ? :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> She'd be getting the train  even if we were to make the grade ( which i seriously doubt) Does the phrase crippling stage fright mean anything to you ? :lol: :lol:


It most certainly does . Does the word 'shots' help? : :frown2:.


----------



## Beth17

LO I have liked for the good lead walking.

Sorry you had a naff day at work  When I used to work at a supermarket one day it all got a bit much and I ended up breaking down in tears. 

I'd love to see mv and Tink at crufts. There'd be lots of loony ladies ringside cheering her on


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> LO I have liked for the good lead walking.
> 
> Sorry you had a naff day at work  When I used to work at a supermarket one day it all got a bit much and I ended up breaking down in tears.
> 
> I'd love to see mv and Tink at crufts. *There'd be lots of loony ladies ringside cheering her on*


Don't disrespect Grannie :frown2:. I know you don't mean me because I'm totally sane. Even if medical opinion is that I'm mad :skep:.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> She'd be getting the train  even if we were to make the grade ( which i seriously doubt) Does the phrase crippling stage fright mean anything to you ? :lol: :lol:


Yes it certainly does, especially where Crufts is concerned. I still get the churning stomach and the shivers even when I'm not competing just walking towards the arena.

When Quiver won the obedience championships the BBC panned in for a close up of my hands as I was giving her scent off the cloth. My hands were shaking violently for all their viewers to see....

And when we were in the collecting ring on the 10 minutes out of sight down stay, which Quiver had only got to do to win, they stuck a camera right on my face. One of my supporters told the cameraman to ....off, especially as I'd got a ciggie in one hand and they were plying me with wine in the other in an effort to calm me down....LOL


----------



## Sarah1983

Well Twiggy you'd be proud of us right now. Spencer has just caught my neck with a tooth, there is blood :nonod:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> However...I do have hopes that Miss Tinks will be there one day. Can't wait to get those sweatshirts printed!


I've just watched the winning HTM routine. It was a very animated Beardie and a super display. I can't seem to find the winning freestyle routine on YouTube.


----------



## moonviolet

LO *hugs* and more *hugs*


----------



## Kicksforkills

Recently working on Rasco's down stay for the pause table 

Hope we will do a long course tomorrow like Poppy did on Thursday.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I've just watched the winning HTM routine. It was a very animated Beardie and a super display. I can't seem to find the winning freestyle routine on YouTube.


Was that the toys one? I watched one with a Beardie and a woman dressed as a soldier last night


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Was that the toys one? I watched one with a Beardie and a woman dressed as a soldier last night


I don't know but don't think so. The handler was dragging a chair through most of the routine.

I've just watched the international freestyle winner. It almost brought a tear to my eye as it was a brown and white collie who looked very much like my little Fidget.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I don't know but don't think so. The handler was dragging a chair through most of the routine.
> 
> I've just watched the international freestyle winner. It almost brought a tear to my eye as it was a brown and white collie who looked very much like my little Fidget.


No, not the same one I watched then. I watched a brown and white collie too, some sort of dog catcher routine. I have no idea who it was though, just followed a link on the Crufts website.


----------



## MollySmith

Hugs LO, I hope you have a better day tomorrow. You're human not superwoman so take it easy on yourself. 

Sorry everyone for not being around. I hate today and tend to hide away from it all and I've had a thumpity headache. Luckily I have an OU assignment to deliver this week to amuse me  I actually feel asleep editing it and it's meant to be a scary ghost story.

Anyway took Molly on her walk today as OH's arthiritis is sore - we had to toss a coin to see who went as we were both grim. Blummin freezing! Anyway she was a little star, walking really well in the car park on her lead, no pulls. Dead pleased. And she was quiet all day, I suspect defrosting and now curled under a massive heap of her blankets having spent a good ten minutes rearranging them into a silly heap. 

Night night, sweet dreams.


----------



## Guest

Well, today I worked on Breez's dog skills. She really has no idea how to greet a dog who's acting apprehensive. OTT play bow doesn't cut it 

Lunar and Bates are such champs about it, they know to give space, they give calming signals, they ignore... But Breez is really clueless. She's such an "easy" dog compared to the two goobers, I haven't put as much time in to her dog skills, and I realized today she needs a lot more work. She doesn't have to be perfect, but she doesn't need to make the dogs even more scared either!

Fortunately the days are getting longer and summer is around the corner, so more and more time to work dogs 

Today was just gorgeous. Kids were in bathing suits, granted their skin turned purple in the stream, but still! Lots of doggy and human play time.


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

Yesterday Sophie went on her first bus ride in a long while and was perfect. We then did a 40 minute street walk at a brisk pace. She was skittish at some parts, tail low, especially when we heard other dogs in the distance and let out a few high pitch whines.

I priced out front clip harness so itll be added to the list. I bought her a shaver as this week we are gonna attempt my first go at shaving her. She may look like Edward Scissor Hands got her.

I wanted to take her for another walk today as it was lovely out, but after my shower I laid down for a few minutes and ended up passing out for a few hours! It was to late to go for a long walk.

I felt bad yesterday as in some parts of her walk she refused to move and I used to pick her up and carry her until she felt comfortable to walk again. Thing is I just dont have the strength to pick her up let alone carry her, So I had to drag her a bit with some encouraging words but she walked the whole way.

This week is really busy for us, I have a 2000 world essay I need to start researching for and writing due in three weeks, tests and other things planned. Im trying not to let my depression get the best of me, but my one wrist hurts to bend let alone type this, and my one shoulder feels like someone tried to pull it out of its socket. I want to do well in school but I just feel so exhausted and I only work two days a week but those days are brutal.


----------



## Dogless

MS - sorry you felt awful yesterday (I was wondering how you were). I'm pleased that Molly was a little star though so at least it was good on that front.



ouesi said:


> Well, today I worked on Breez's dog skills. She really has no idea how to greet a dog who's acting apprehensive. *OTT play bow doesn't cut it *


Are you sure? That's what Rudi thinks is a good way to greet most dogs at present. That and flailing his front paw around in the air in front of them. Not forgetting daft ridgie noises .

MPC - sounds like a good day; I wouldn't worry that you couldn't carry Sophie for some parts of her walk, probably did her a little good to realise that those parts of the walk weren't so scary after all! Hope you battle through and get that essay done.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Are you sure? That's what Rudi thinks is a good way to greet most dogs at present. *That and flailing his front paw around in the air in front of them. *Not forgetting daft ridgie noises


Ha ha!! That's exactly what my friend's ridgie does when she sees Bates and she's still on leash. Too funny!


----------



## Twiggy

*Moonviolet - *Are you quite sure you're not telling us all porkies?

I've just seen on another thread that there was a Beagle competing in the freestyle HTM.


----------



## L/C

LO and MS big hugs.

I have drawn the morning shift of supervision patient and so far he has been really good about his wound. He hasn't tried to touch it at all - so no need for the cone of shame that we have waiting in the kitchen.

Here he is last night:










And a gruesome close up:










Have to mention Gypsy as well she was great yesterday. Very excited to see him but also really gentle. She pulled her sheepskin over as close to his bed as he would let her and then lay with her nose touching his for most of the afternoon. :001_wub: Despite only having a half hour walk and very little attention there was almost no Whinging or bad behaviour.

And this morning on her walk she was attentive, responsive and just perfect. Focusing on me and ignoring all distractions, ignoring the cold, recalling on a sixpence away from prey and walking to heel past dropped food. My best girl. :001_wub:


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> *Moonviolet - *Are you quite sure you're not telling us all porkies?
> 
> I've just seen on another thread that there was a Beagle competing in the freestyle HTM.


Very very sure :lol: i'm still struggling to string half a dozen moves together, and lookign forawrd to longer days when i can get outside, practising in thehouse is a might challenging and i've come to blows with the coffee and kitchen tables on more than one occasion.

L/C Aww Ely's wound looks as good as a wound can. Glad gypsy is being a good recovery companion


----------



## Beth17

Ouesi Sam is a bit over the top and likes to thump around with his paws. Bloomin boxers  Silly question but how would you stop that. Oscar grew out of it fairly quickly but I can't see that happening with Sam as he gets so excited 

Moonviolet and Tink undercover at crufts? Well I never 

MS Hope you're feeling better today. Glad Molly was a good girl 

MPC Sounds like you and Sophie did well yesterday. I sympathise with the essay writing. I have loads due in in the next couple of months.

Today it is blowing a gale and we have a small smattering of snow so is lovely and icey. It shall be separate walks I think or else I may not be back.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Very very sure :lol: i'm still struggling to string half a dozen moves together, and lookign forawrd to longer days when i can get outside, practising in thehouse is a might challenging and i've come to blows with the coffee and kitchen tables on more than one occasion.


It's the first step in a furniture uprising! 

(Sorry in a weird mood! I've already had my Go Miss Tink WAYWO t shirt printed. )

Eta: yep it's pretty good. Nice, neat stitches, no sign of inflammation or discoloration - just some brushing which is to be expected. He's being very good although he does seem to forget it's there sometimes and roll on it. Which prompts a bit of a scream and me and Gypsy rushing over very concerned.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> It's the first step in a furniture uprising!
> 
> (Sorry in a weird mood! I've already had my Go Miss Tink WAYWO t shirt printed. )
> 
> Eta: yep it's pretty good. Nice, neat stitches, no sign of inflammation or discoloration - just some brushing which is to be expected. He's being very good although he does seem to forget it's there sometimes and roll on it. Which prompts a bit of a scream and me and Gypsy rushing over very concerned.


Ely's wound looks pretty good - bless him.

So pleased Gypsy is behaving - they just know don't they?


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Ouesi Sam is a bit over the top and likes to thump around with his paws. Bloomin boxers  Silly question but how would you stop that. Oscar grew out of it fairly quickly but I can't see that happening with Sam as he gets so excited
> 
> Moonviolet and Tink undercover at crufts? Well I never
> 
> MS Hope you're feeling better today. Glad Molly was a good girl
> 
> MPC Sounds like you and Sophie did well yesterday. I sympathise with the essay writing. I have loads due in in the next couple of months.
> 
> Today it is blowing a gale and we have a small smattering of snow so is lovely and icey. It shall be separate walks I think or else I may not be back.


It's vile weather here as well. Friday we had pretty thick fog all day, Saturday it poured with rain all day, yesterday it snowed most of the day, and today we've got heavy snow showers and very strong winds.

We've got lying snow and when I let the girls out at 7.00am it was blizzard conditions. They certainly didn't stay out long..!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Weather here is awful too  I'm ankle deep in snow and it's still falling. Weather forecast for the week has awful predictions such as "frozen mix" and "freezing rain" :crying: And I was out walking in just a tshirt last Wednesday!


----------



## L/C

Freezing and snowing here too. Ah well we had a nice 3 days of spring and summer last week.


----------



## Guest

Beth17 said:


> Ouesi Sam is a bit over the top and likes to thump around with his paws. Bloomin boxers  Silly question but how would you stop that. Oscar grew out of it fairly quickly but I can't see that happening with Sam as he gets so excited


 If you look at this thread
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/296303-anyone-want-play-what-happened-next.html
you can see that neither Bates nor my friend's ridgie have grown out of the paw smacking in the least. I don't think you can really *train* play style in a dog. Bates at least though will pay attention to the other dog's cues, and has learned to back off if he realizes he has frightened the other dog. Breez just gets more amped up if the other dog shows any kind of apprehension.

So, what I'll work on with Breez is her impulse control, and give her lots of practice first ignoring other dogs, then acknowledging and moving away. I don't hold out hope that she will learn to be chivalrous like the boys, but she can at least not make things worse like she does now.

L/C Ely looks great. Those greys and their paper thin skin... I have a friend who has a house full and they're always doing similar to each other - no aggressive intent at all, just have really thin skin...


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> It's the first step in a furniture uprising!
> 
> (Sorry in a weird mood! I've already had my Go Miss Tink WAYWO t shirt printed. )


I think you might be onto something, i swear i didn't leave it there.


----------



## moonviolet

I was only out for 20 mins, but i wish i'd filmed Tink in my absence. All I can say for sure is I _*know*_ i didn't leave the gymball by the kitchen sink :lol:


----------



## Guest

It snowed a bit last night. And it has been WINDY. Like constant Icy wind. Awful. Zand kept trying to charge forward which was annoying and I slipped about a bit today. Bashed my knee. He was good though. Sorta. He leapt at a lab, that nearly weed itself in fright poor thing. Met THAT ONE postman that Zand barks at THREE times on our walk. He barks then backs off then barks again etc etc, sounds really ferocious. The postman just said morning.


----------



## Symone

Oh I feel tired and like a sour puss, today.

OH and I had a bit of a.. well, not argument, but more of snapping at each other when I got him up for work. (5am) 
There was some toss pot with his head so far up his back side last night, was shouting for someone called Chris from 1am - 4am. Needless to say we were both tired and took it out on each other.
He also sent me a text.. No more work because they worked too fast. The contract was 1.5 months. How long did they work? 4 days..... Ofc decided to call him and talk about it more.
He's also only getting paid 8h a day when he has working 10. I told him to leave early today (I think it worked out like 6-8 hours free working) but he needs the money so he can't. I didn't know that bosses were allowed to do this!!!! 
Needless to say I had a very colourful vocabulary this morning on the phone to the OH when he told me. 

So, I also have an ear infection (I think it's from the little missy licking out my ear, since it's my right that's infected and she only licks my right one.) and it's snowing. I feel glum and depressed and can't even get myself to give her a walk. She has had to have her wees and poos on the balcony. (Mopped up the wee so it wouldn't dribble on someones head!! Poo went down the loo  )

Shamaya has been really good today, though. She didn't try to escape when the OH left for work, she didn't try to push me out of bed with us going back to sleep at 5:30isham, she hasn't had her normal "Lets nibble on you until you wake up, making sure to only use my sharp puppy teeth" moment (I'm thankful!) And she has been the right old angel. 
I'm thinking of teaching her to tidy her toys today.. It's something to try to do. She tends to leave them in the most badly chosen spots (Pointy one under the rug.....) so it could work out well! I have no idea how to teach her, though. Time to google. 

Hope that every one else has had a nice day so far.


----------



## kat&molly

Poor Ely, looks a bit sorry for himself, his wound looks neat though.

Is Miss Tink making up her own routine.


----------



## MollySmith

L/C - oh bless Ely and Gypsy. What little stars they are. I imagine they're both a bit unnerved by events and taking it easy for a while. How are you holding up?

I get to stay indoors today, OH wants to go out - I said he was mad didn't I? I've been paid by a client and just £40 short of my £200 donation to the rescue too!


----------



## Dogless

Oh Gypsy :001_wub::001_wub:. What a lovely pair of pointies.

Symone - hope your mood improves soon.

mv - Miss Tinks makes me laugh. Maybe she's doing that cruel trick of moving things about to fool you into thinking you're going potty? Or maybe she's too late for that......

Twiggy and Beth - hope your weather improves.

Very cold, still blowing a hoolie and icy here with a smattering of snow, but has been sunny so far. Dark clouds gathering so not for much longer!

I took my pair to the park; it was quiet because it was so cold I think but we saw a few dogs and people and ran into a few friends and....the CHs were my best boys, they behaved beautifully :001_wub::001_wub:. Rudi is getting the hang of sitting if he wants to meet a person or dog (doesn't mean he gets to, but far better than pulling towards them and I can move him on easily enough).
I only had to get the cheese out once when a black dog was approaching us really excitedly and Kilo was getting a bit fixated so I sat them and cheese rained into their mouths :thumbsup:.

The male half of our elderly friends with the Kerry Blue walks very unsteadily and with two sticks but was just saying how you expect to be jumped on by dogs when you're walking with a dog so don't worry about it if Rudi wanted to jump - I said he'd knock him flying if he jumped at him . Two men also stopped to tell me that I had beautiful dogs. I am a very, very proud human this morning :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless sounds like your boys did you proud today :thumbup:

MV Tink has impressive skills. Wouldn't you just love to know what went through her head 

L/C your pointies are lovely. Isn't Gypsy a sweetheart.

Twiggy I hope the weather isn't too bad.

Symone sorry you're not feeling great. 

MS Yay for getting to stay indoors :thumbup1:

Well have been out and have just warmed up with a shower. It is bitter out there today. Took both boys in the end and it was a mixed bag. We stuck to the main roads and went down to our little park which was empty and the boys had a good run about. The wind was making the boys a bit silly and Oscar was a little skittish when walking down. Oscar also decided it would be marvellous fun to jump up trying to grab my arms and sleeves. I am now sporting a couple of bruises and scratches.

Off to [email protected] in a minute to stock up on treats and wet food. The who knows maybe some impulse control work when we get back.


----------



## Miss.PuddyCat

Haven't had a chance to read everything but happy that everything is alright L/C. Sophie's rewarded me with eatting half a tube of lip balm (all naturel) so I'm gonna rush home to let out,I just hope it doesn't come out messy!


----------



## Werehorse

Dammit, I'm having a cake fail. 

I don't even know why I'm attempting to bake cakes, it is always just a waste of sugar and butter to be honest. The new job is going to me head. So worried about scones on Wednesday. 

The good news is that it only took once chucking Hugo back over the baby gate for him to stop trying to get into the kitchen. Oscar was a little more persistant.


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse- I hate baking as well- cant you just buy some.


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello everyone, no time to catch up, busy bee is me, but had to scroll back to find out what happened to Ely, poor boy, hope he is ok.

And to everyone else who I haven't caught up on yet, Hi, sorry, oh dear, and well done etc etc.

We have snow and wind and wind and snow and rivers bursting banks and then some more snow but it could be wind blowing snow around, proper drifts up the road like when I was little . Very little to report, ninja seems to have turned a corner and is much calmer, met a dog whilst walking in the snow at 8am yesterday, thought I would be safe in the vile Sunday morning weather , before we went out with Mums, she reacted but nowhere near what would normally have happened, she stopped for the day with hubbys Dad, they had cuddles, and walks, they live in the middle of nowhere, so although I knew it would be fine it was scary , then they snuggled down to watch the rugby, she was pleased to see us though and licked the stairs window in excitement when we got back :001_wub: I made her do a head stand in the snow in the woods this morning , she was refusing to come with me when she found a nice scent, I just put a little pressure on the lead thinking she would back down, but she didn't her head was truly stuck in her snow hole  I laughed out loud!!

Bye 'waves' back soon!


----------



## moonviolet

K&M Hmm maybe Tink is trying to put together her own routine. Nothing would shock me,

Dogless that ship has most definitely sailed


Despite the bitter wind and the blowing snow a lovelt walk with friends 



Werehorse said:


> Dammit, I'm having a cake fail.
> 
> I don't even know why I'm attempting to bake cakes, it is always just a waste of sugar and butter to be honest. The new job is going to me head. So worried about scones on Wednesday.
> 
> The good news is that it only took once chucking Hugo back over the baby gate for him to stop trying to get into the kitchen. Oscar was a little more persistant.


Scones on Wednesday? for an important occasion?


----------



## Symone

Want me to bake them for you? I LOVE baking. 
No idea if you're close or not, though!
My dad's far better than me at baking, though... I need to learn more from him!


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well we did an eight obstacle course, which had weaves which just me and two other people had to try.

Didn't think Rasco would do it but on his last, third, try he did!

The other dogs didn't do them.

That beats doing more obstacles tbh


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Hi all,

Well what a lovely spring day!! We have snow too and icy cold winds making it a bit blizzardy out there! Everytime it snows on the island you'd think we've never seen it before - everything grinds to a halt, everything closes and people daren't go out  Because of that every single one of my patients had cancelled their appointment today  To be fair, despite the forecast warning us that the snow was coming the council obviously decided that they weren't going to treat any of the roads so it's a bit crap out there 

Anyway I'm kind of relieved as I have somehow managed to hurt my back - not a great advert for myself - very difficult to treat myself -so an impromptu day off ain't so bad after all 

However, I did have to just pop into work to get some stuff and STUPID STUPID STUPID me forgot to lift up the Pickle's duvets before I left, so I have just come home to what looks like a snowstorm inside the house as well as out........ Duvet stuffing EVERYWHERE!!!! :nonod:

So.... my afternoon off is going to be spent doing little training sessions with the Pickling pair, we're currently working on targeting and relaxing on the mat :thumbup: Oh and I've bought some squeezy cheese to move onto the next stage of muzzle desensitisation!!!

Just a couple of little pics of our snowy walk in the woods this morning before it got too bad:



















Keep warm everyone 

Oh and Werehorse, if you fancy sending some scones down here I'll be a willing taste tester for you!


----------



## Kicksforkills

You have more snow then is but I'm sure we'll catch up.

Got a text while at agility asking if I could walk someone's dogs for an hour half an hour after I got home. Was sorely tempted to say no but ended up saying yes!


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Werehorse- I hate baking as well- cant you just buy some.


I'm about to spend an hour or so cooking. I thought I'd make a meat and potato pie and something wholesome with plums. It might warm us up a bit...LOL

I made a date and walnut loaf last week (first time for about 30 years). It must have been OK as hubby ate it in two days..!!

My girls only got 25 minutes this morning, in between blizzards. Hopefully we'll have better luck later this afternoon.

I ought to be brave and take Holly and Tremor over to the barn but it is perishing.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm about to spend an hour or so cooking. I thought I'd make a meat and potato pie and something wholesome with plums. It might warm us up a bit...LOL
> 
> I made a date and walnut loaf last week (first time for about 30 years). It must have been OK as hubby ate it in two days..!!
> 
> My girls only got 25 minutes this morning, in between blizzards. Hopefully we'll have better luck later this afternoon.
> 
> I ought to be brave and take Holly and Tremor over to the barn but it is perishing.


Plum crumble and custard :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

*


moonviolet said:



K&M Hmm maybe Tink is trying to put together her own routine. Nothing would shock me,

Click to expand...

*


moonviolet said:


> Twiggy did... But then she used to take her own line agility and even put her own slant on obedience in the main ring at Crufts.


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> Scones on Wednesday? for an important occasion?


I've been asked to do casual shifts in the cafe at work as well as the mad job... this involves baking scones!  For people to actually buy to actually eat... I think they must think I was being coy about my baking skills when they decided to ask me, it is only 2 shifts a month though so I probably won't bring the entire cafe into disrepute... probably.

i'm not sure why I think making apple cake will help though... I should probably just give the scone recipe a go. :lol:


----------



## Maria_1986

I need a hat - I can't feel my ears! We keep having little snow flurries but nothing thats settled but the wind is awful and bitterly cold. Chevy didn't much like it either so we only had a short one for our lunchtime walk today (normally the longest walk of the day) but a loose lead walk was achieved consistently on the way out - only problem was that the lead was on her harness not the collar. Getting her attention is going ok as well, failed a few times while out today and she tried to lunge across the road after a squirrel on the way home but she seemed rather worked up in general as soon as we got out of the shelter of the houses and the wind picked up. 

Hope everyone else is wrapped up warm and doesn;t have to go out too much today. I think I'm gonna get myself a hot chocolate so I can defrost myself from the inside out!


----------



## Beth17

Twiggy glad you were able to get a walk. Enjoy the baking.

Werehorse I love baking and scones are easy don't worry 

Maria hot chocolate sounds a plan. Well done on the LLW

Moonviolet glad you had a good walk.

FRM enjoy the unscheduled day off 

Well just got back from [email protected] to absolute carnage. Sam had managed to empty the recycling bin, pull down numerous trays, a casserole dish and the frying pans. He also managed to take the metal hob top off of the cooker. Bloomin' dog :crazy:


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> I'm about to spend an hour or so cooking. I thought I'd make a meat and potato pie and something wholesome with plums. It might warm us up a bit...LOL
> 
> I made a date and walnut loaf last week (first time for about 30 years). It must have been OK as hubby ate it in two days..!!
> 
> My girls only got 25 minutes this morning, in between blizzards. Hopefully we'll have better luck later this afternoon.
> 
> I ought to be brave and take Holly and Tremor over to the barn but it is perishing.


You can move in here then, I even gave up on a Trifle when the jelly hadn't set after 3 days.:crying:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Oh dear God, they're frightened of the squeezy cheese!!


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Oh dear God, they're frightened of the squeezy cheese!!


Oh lawdy they are a special pair :lol:

Is it the tube or the cheese? If you squeeze some onto a finger will they lick it off?

Ahhh I see W/H i was going to give you my cheats recipe if it had been for home use.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> You can move in here then, I even gave up on a Trifle when the jelly hadn't set after 3 days.:crying:


Believe me I've had more than my fair share of disasters on the cooking front over the years....:smilewinkgrin:


----------



## Twiggy

Well I've been such a good girl this afternoon I might give myself a game with a tuggy toy and munch some liver cake....LOL

I made the meat pie and a plum tart, took Tremor and Holly over to the barn for half an hour and have just walked all 4 of them. It was only for 25 minutes again between blizzards but better than nothing.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - meat pie and plum tart sound lovely....I love baking.



foxyrockmeister said:


> Oh dear God, they're frightened of the squeezy cheese!!


You just have to LOVE the pickled pair .

I was lazy this afternoon and walked the boys together again - I just couldn't face going out twice in the awful weather. They were as good as gold again. A police car stopped and the driver asked me loads of questions and said that they were absolutely gorgeous dogs. Something in the air today!! I didn't let them off, Kilo was air scenting and teeth chattering at a scent on the ground hugely and I learnt my lesson about not listening to myself well and truly the other day.

They'd already wrestled their way around the garden and I'd played footie with them so they'd had a run about.


----------



## kat&molly

Blimey, sounds like you've all got winter again. Its rained really heavy here but the temperatures were ok- think they're set to drop though. Spring keeps teasing us.:huh:

A mixed bag here with HH, he's had another go at Evie today, I missed what started it as I had the hoover on. He still doesn't seem to be using his teeth, and we've had no injuries, but its looking and sounding worse- I dont know what it is, he seems to goad[?] her , or charge at her.
He gets on really well with Scruff, she's doing a brilliant job of teaching him to play nicely. I've seen Moll give him 'the look' a couple of times - and he's taken it nicely and walked away- there's been the odd skirmish with Jay- once because someone came to the door and in the excitement he redirected on to her.
Whether its a little dog thing- because he can- I dont know.

This afternoon because the weather was so bad I risked taking them all in the car,I'd been working and was late. He was brilliant, in the crate, and only a little bit of whining/barking.
On the edge of 1 field there are 6 Hounds in kennels, we have to pass about 10 metres away and a couple of them always bark at us- he never bothered with them at all - no barking, no lunging , nothing.

All this here is a lot for him still I think, the rehome, neuter, and 4 dogs. I'm going to give the rescue a little push now to try and find his new home, not another Foster home, he is slooowly learning the ropes here, unless it were to get worse with Evie, I'm hoping it wont, I dont think he dislikes her.
He's currently asleep, on the crinkle wood bags.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry K&M - answer to a Friday question, no we are back this Saturday, the sessions are fortnightly, really hopeful as I know not to push her and she really does seem to haev deflated a bit bless her, thankfully without losing character though which was my concern, I didn't want a well behaved dog who was boring, but this mornings headstand proved that will not be the case.

Glad Hal has calmed down, well at this point in my catch up he has  oh dear I just read on, 

The night you all had strange dreams I had to round up a never ending stream of wire haired vizslas, I have that sort of dream often, the neverending type, it my version of a nightmare, the endless panic, you cant even wake up from them as you drop back in as soon as you nod off again plus they re the only ones I normally remember .

FRM - :thumbup: to you and the pickles, glad its going so well, and it is amazing the amount of joy you can get from the little achievements isn't it.

Beth - exciting news about the job, fingers crossed for you. Glad Sam was able to make friends with the postie, we have a lady postie who carries gravy bones for the doggies, she says she is determined to be friends with them all

MS - good news for you too on the work front, hope it all bodes well for another round of IVF, a successful one  Hairdresser mirror staring, its never good, I always have spots when I go as well, I never get spots normally 

Sarah - hope you sort out Spens eating/pacing thing, you finally figured out what I was going to suggest :wink: loving Spens new bed, can we all borrow it when we all come stay!!

Dogless -  you had a bit of a mare then with kilo didn't you BUT he did come back :thumbup1: so don't beat yourself up too much, short of keeping them permanently on leads they are dogs they will occasionally do bad stuff, it doesn't make it your fault.

MV -  at broken Tink, be grateful, very grateful, and the fruitless game of chase between the two beagles  We also get the grand help of harness removal  and mountain goat and steam train! I was laughing at my brother as his Tilly is proving to be an expert counter surfer, but ninja jumped onto the back of the sofa the other day when we were playing, thats higher than the worktops  I hide her tea round the sitting room, she sits in the kitchen on a towel which is always hurled across the room when you go back for the next round, such is the force of her 'come and find it' 

L/C - hows Ely doing, someone I know with a slightly grumpy pointy dog bumped into another friend with his slightly grumpy hairy dog and pointy came off with a big tissue paper rip and ended up in Newmarket for repair, was about 8" tear I think, must have been horrid . I recognise the delayed shock thing, happened when Rory got hit by a van :crying: Reading on I now say poor Gypsy, how heartbreaking for you to see! Glad she is being a good nursemaid now though.

LO - sorry you are still feeling gah! hugs x

MPC - hope the lip balm went down/came out ok 

I feel the need to explain about the head stand this morning, as it read like I must have really yanked her but it was like her nose was pressed into the ground with such force it only took a tiny bit of pressure from me and up she went :lol:, laughing very loudly in an empty wood makes you feel quite crazy :crazy:

Its is rubbish and cold and Hubby has another friggin migraine, I am going to venture out to get wine!!!


----------



## Dogless

I have a real dilemma. It is of the utmost world - shattering importance :yikes:.

I am going to get the boys a buckle collar from Ann Rees each - don't like Kilo playing with Rudi in his half check as Rudi tends to go for the chain. Much as I love their Dublin Dog collars they are a little narrow for me to feel that I have full control of Kilo when needed and Kilo's is on the last hole of the size L.

Kilo's will be brown on red as his half check is. That's easy. Can't decide for Rudi. Brown on dark green? Brown on a bright colour - blue? green? Black on mushroom? Something with tan? He has a lighter muzzle and much lighter eyes than the BW. annrees: material colours

Ann can make one with enough adjustment to see Rudi through - he wears a size L Dublin Dog already but on the second hole in!


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Blimey, sounds like you've all got winter again. Its rained really heavy here but the temperatures were ok- think they're set to drop though. Spring keeps teasing us.:huh:
> 
> A mixed bag here with HH, he's had another go at Evie today, I missed what started it as I had the hoover on. He still doesn't seem to be using his teeth, and we've had no injuries, but its looking and sounding worse- I dont know what it is, he seems to goad[?] her , or charge at her.
> He gets on really well with Scruff, she's doing a brilliant job of teaching him to play nicely. I've seen Moll give him 'the look' a couple of times - and he's taken it nicely and walked away- there's been the odd skirmish with Jay- once because someone came to the door and in the excitement he redirected on to her.
> Whether its a little dog thing- because he can- I dont know.
> 
> This afternoon because the weather was so bad I risked taking them all in the car,I'd been working and was late. He was brilliant, in the crate, and only a little bit of whining/barking.
> On the edge of 1 field there are 6 Hounds in kennels, we have to pass about 10 metres away and a couple of them always bark at us- he never bothered with them at all - no barking, no lunging , nothing.
> 
> * All this here is a lot for him still I think, the rehome, neuter, and 4 dogs. I'm going to give the rescue a little push now to try and find his new home*, not another Foster home, he is slooowly learning the ropes here, unless it were to get worse with Evie, I'm hoping it wont, I dont think he dislikes her.
> He's currently asleep, on the crinkle wood bags.


That sounds good; can't have Evie and him stressed on a long term basis. He's really come on in the time he's been with you though.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I have a real dilemma. It is of the utmost world - shattering importance :yikes:.
> 
> I am going to get the boys a buckle collar from Ann Rees each - don't like Kilo playing with Rudi in his half check as Rudi tends to go for the chain. Much as I love their Dublin Dog collars they are a little narrow for me to feel that I have full control of Kilo when needed and Kilo's is on the last hole of the size L.
> 
> Kilo's will be brown on red as his half check is. That's easy. Can't decide for Rudi. Brown on dark green? Brown on a bright colour - blue? green? Black on mushroom? Something with tan? He has a lighter muzzle and much lighter eyes than the BW. annrees: material colours
> 
> Ann can make one with enough adjustment to see Rudi through - he wears a size L Dublin Dog already but on the second hole in!


What about purple, Elsie is the same lovely red colour and purple looks great against her, don't know if its a bit girly though  or the vintage green would look very good too


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> What about purple, Elsie is the same lovely red colour and purple looks great against her, don't know if its a bit girly though  or the vintage green would look very good too


Purple's for girls .

Not sure whether to stick with brown and have different colour padding so he matches Kilo . I say mushroom and black as the slip lead I have (for moving naughty dogs barking whilst good dogs are eating their dinner ) is a mushroomy colour and looks gorgeous on Rudi. Not that he's the naughty dog with shocking impulse control .


----------



## Beth17

Dogless I love that green colour in between the red and brown.

K&M you really are a star for doing all you do 

Ginge enjoy the wine!

I have two sleeping doggies as did some basic training refresher, I've been a bit rubbish and Sam has forgotten a few manners. He cottoned back on quickly so shouldn't take too much to get him back up to standard.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Dogless I love that green colour in between the red and brown.
> 
> K&M you really are a star for doing all you do
> 
> Ginge enjoy the wine!
> 
> I have two sleeping doggies as did some basic training refresher, I've been a bit rubbish and Sam has forgotten a few manners. He cottoned back on quickly so shouldn't take too much to get him back up to standard.


That is nice...what colour padding?


----------



## Beth17

The mushroom colour padding is nice. However I am not renowned for my colour choosing skills so whether it would look ok made up is anyone's guess.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- you and your collars  I cant help, dont understand backing, webbing etc!!! I see a collar I like in the shop and I buy it.

Ginge- Hubby still getting Migraines :crying:. I thought perhaps you'd done the headstand maybe in excitement at the Ninja doing so well.


I dont think Evie or Hal are stressed in each other's company, Evie gets upset when he kicks off, but there doesn't seem to be any tension between them at other times. Something I suppose.


----------



## moonviolet

Flying visit to say.... Dogless I like the leaf green with mushroom


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Flying visit to say.... Dogless I like the leaf green with mushroom


You're a genius.....That may be 'the one'; I like mushroom but thought black might be too harsh...

Brass fittings....


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- you and your collars  I cant help, dont understand backing, webbing etc!!! I see a collar I like in the shop and I buy it.
> 
> Ginge- Hubby still getting Migraines :crying:. I thought perhaps you'd done the headstand maybe in excitement at the Ninja doing so well.
> 
> I dont think Evie or Hal are stressed in each other's company, Evie gets upset when he kicks off, but there doesn't seem to be any tension between them at other times. Something I suppose.


It's tragic. I usually dress in old, falling apart clothes yet the CHs always look good .


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> Oh lawdy they are a special pair :lol:
> 
> Is it the tube or the cheese? If you squeeze some onto a finger will they lick it off?


It was the tube  Clearly it looks like some kind of Pickle destroying death machine, even though it excretes yummy gooey cheese!!!!



Dogless said:


> You just have to LOVE the pickled pair .


Someone's got to!!!! :lol:

Collar predicament -I would keep the brown leather so he matches Kilo but go for a green padding, either the lime or the forest would look lovely  
I'm a big fan of green though.


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless said:


> It's tragic. I usually dress in old, falling apart clothes yet the CHs always look good .


This made me giggle as it sums me up too. Most of the time I look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards - I throw on the first thing to hand to walk the dog in and end up covered in mud, however I chose what collar Chevy has on carefully - if its really gross out then its her original plain black one, not too muddy then the teal indi dog, going to training/meet new people then its her owl one. Then there is the which coat should she wear dilema...


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> It was the tube  Clearly it looks like some kind of Pickle destroying death machine, even though it excretes yummy gooey cheese!!!!
> 
> Someone's got to!!!! :lol:
> 
> Collar predicament -I would keep the brown leather so he matches Kilo but go for a green padding, either the lime or the forest would look lovely
> I'm a big fan of green though.


I'm torn....matching Kilo or mv's idea.....

The cheese can't be as terrifying as a tape measure surely? Nothing gets Kilo running like a tape measure .


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> I'm torn....matching Kilo or mv's idea.....
> 
> The cheese can't be as terrifying as a tape measure surely? Nothing gets Kilo running like a tape measure .


Perhaps you'll have to get him both 

I think the green of his Dublin collar really suits him, but like I say I'm a green fan!! I'm also a bit geeky that I think it would be nice for them to match, I like the Pickles to have the same but different 

The squeezy cheese pretty much received the same reaction as the tape measure..... and the nail clippers...... and the grooming mitt..... and the dry shampoo.............


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You genius.....That may be 'the one'; I like mushroom but thought black might be too harsh...
> 
> Brass fittings....


Leaf green and mushroom would be my choice as well - but then green is my favourite colour...


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> It's tragic. I usually dress in old, falling apart clothes yet the CHs always look good .


Lol, I'd probably have a piece of old rope on Spen if I didn't need a collar so I don't think I'm any help. I just don't see the attraction I'm afraid  Once my new bank card arrives (if it ever does!) Spen will have a Cat in the Hat collar though. It's just gotta be done lol.

Another night where he's not pestered for his dinner yet. Last night he was fed around 11:30pm coz I actually forgot about it  It's 10pm, usual feed time, and he's asleep on his bed. I'm guessing it was him being genuinely hungry making him pester me for dinner so early. Now I've just gotta watch for weight gain with the little bit extra added in.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Quick question...

When I'm street training Branston and he fixes on something I distract him, turn him away and get him to focus on me and then reward him.

If when I then turn back in the direction he's going and he immediately fixes again, I repeat the above. Should I just turn and walk the other way? Or should I keep repeating this to try and get him past whatever it is that's bothering him?


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Quick question...
> 
> When I'm street training Branston and he fixes on something I distract him, turn him away and get him to focus on me and then reward him.
> 
> If when I then turn back in the direction he's going and he immediately fixes again, I repeat the above. Should I just turn and walk the other way? Or should I keep repeating this to try and get him past whatever it is that's bothering him?


I tend to repeat with Kilo if it's just a 'spook' but if he's truly afraid or reacting I walk away.


----------



## Sarah1983

foxyrockmeister said:


> Quick question...
> 
> When I'm street training Branston and he fixes on something I distract him, turn him away and get him to focus on me and then reward him.
> 
> If when I then turn back in the direction he's going and he immediately fixes again, I repeat the above. Should I just turn and walk the other way? Or should I keep repeating this to try and get him past whatever it is that's bothering him?


That's a tricky one imo. I think it depends on the dog and just how worked up about it they are. If Spencer is fixated on something I often just keep going (although at his pace, if he stops or slows I stop or slow) because 99% of the time once he gets closer he'll realise that the mohican he's suddenly started sporting is unnecessary and will then ignore it. Or we'll play 101 things to do with the scary object and it'll become something fun instead.

With Rupert it was a turn around and go home because once he'd fixated on something there wasn't a hope in hell of regaining his attention and he'd be highly reactive for the rest of the walk. Sometimes of course it was a case of getting him past it ASAP but that was a last resort.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Thank you for your replies 

I think I just need to read each incident individually, today this happened and I couldn't even see what he was fixing on so I turned, got his attention, rewarded and then turned back in the direction we were going, but he immediately fixed again and started to whimper, obviously wanting to avoid any escalation or redirection I turned him again, distracted and rewarded, then tried again, same, so I turned and we walked back the way we came.

I was pleased in the sense that I had interrupted him and prevented any redirection from happening when he had obviously been bothered by something, but also a bit unsure of whether always avoiding anything that triggers him is the right thing to do.

I'm thinking that because it's still very early days then perhaps it is best. Would you agree?


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you for your replies
> 
> I think I just need to read each incident individually, today this happened and I couldn't even see what he was fixing on so I turned, got his attention, rewarded and then turned back in the direction we were going, but he immediately fixed again and started to whimper, obviously wanting to avoid any escalation or redirection I turned him again, distracted and rewarded, then tried again, same, so I turned and we walked back the way we came.
> 
> I was pleased in the sense that I had interrupted him and prevented any redirection from happening when he had obviously been bothered by something, but also a bit unsure of whether always avoiding anything that triggers him is the right thing to do.
> 
> I'm thinking that because it's still very early days then perhaps it is best. Would you agree?


I'd agree that avoiding any kind of full blown reaction is best. I try to avoid it with Kilo at all costs. The more he reacts the more reactive he becomes both on that walk and for several afterwards too.


----------



## GingerRogers

Green and mushroom sounds lovely  clever Mv

where do we get cat in the hat collars from Sarah 

tape measures  my job involves brandishing them in strange houses. Not a big thing with cats or dogs although one day using the long fabric one a neighbour had one of those cats that look like little leopards  can't remember what they are but he thought the tape was THE best thing ever. Very handsome and cute cat that :001_tongue:

frm i dont know enough to answer he first question but gut says do what it takes to avoid confrontations. Hopefully only for now remember. As to the second. I had trouble getting my head round avoidance as tactic but it definitely working. Apparently its about changing their emotional response to things. Instead of feeling he has to fixate and go on to react he will eventually realise he doesn't have to confront therefore eventually hopefully not feel the need atall. I then remember rory, 3 years of almost isolation gave hike the ability to take anything inhis stride. Not that it should take that long. It was just circumstance but it proved avoidance didn't escalate the problems and it does seem.to work with ninja noo


----------



## foxyrockmeister

GingerRogers said:


> frm i dont know enough to answer he first question but gut says do what it takes to avoid confrontations. Hopefully only for now remember. As to the second. I had trouble getting my head round avoidance as tactic but it definitely working. Apparently its about changing their emotional response to things. *Instead of feeling he has to fixate and go on to react he will eventually realise he doesn't have to confront therefore eventually hopefully not feel the need atall*. I then remember rory, 3 years of almost isolation gave hike the ability to take anything inhis stride. Not that it should take that long. It was just circumstance but it proved avoidance didn't escalate the problems and it does seem.to work with ninja noo


Thank you, that makes a lot of sense 

It doesn't help when I get 'helpful' comments from other people saying that I am letting him rule me and if I'm going that way then I should continue going that way otherwise he has 'won'.

I know that's not true at all, but it's good to read it put so well, this is what I will now be able to tell these 'helpful' people when they question the way I'm doing things


----------



## GingerRogers

Be careful, phrases like 'changing his emotional response' and 'get him to reorientate when he disengages' apparently make you sound like a nutter whose dog will probably go on to rule he roost too


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> where do we get cat in the hat collars from Sarah


Will get mine from Tillymint  Very pleased with the quality of the snowflake collar I got from her. I just need to get my bank card sorted so I can pay lol.


----------



## Leon1987

I'm working on getting my boys to heel.... Mowgli my terrier is grand when he is alone... But when I have Fox the beagle out he loses it.... And fox never has it.... To be honest I'm starting to wonder if fox ever will get it... He gets distracted so easily by smells when he is out and about... He loves to sniff lol


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Will get mine from Tillymint  Very pleased with the quality of the snowflake collar I got from her. I just need to get my bank card sorted so I can pay lol.


Oh haven't seen them. Need something cool to convince oh i haven't lost the plot 

welcome Leon. I am sure fox will get it ( great beagle name) you just have to persevere. Ask moonviolet she has a beagle who has got it and has been encouraging me with my terrier who is getting it 

slowly


----------



## Dogless

Leon1987 said:


> I'm working on getting my boys to heel.... Mowgli my terrier is grand when he is alone... But when I have Fox the beagle out he loses it.... And fox never has it.... To be honest I'm starting to wonder if fox ever will get it... He gets distracted so easily by smells when he is out and about... He loves to sniff lol


Yep...mv's your woman!!


----------



## Leon1987

GingerRogers said:


> Oh haven't seen them. Need something cool to convince oh i haven't lost the plot
> 
> welcome Leon. I am sure fox will get it ( great beagle name) you just have to persevere. Ask moonviolet she has a beagle who has got it and has been encouraging me with my terrier who is getting it
> 
> slowly


Excellent thanks for th advice... Oh I'm hoping he will get it slowly and steady wins the race


----------



## Kicksforkills

I make cakes which frequently turn out to look terrible but taste delightful!

Apart from my Lemon Drizzle...Pizza.


----------



## MollySmith

FRM- - I always try to get Molly to focus on me first as you do with Branston. But I do a 101 thing as Sarah does with Spencer unless she&#8217;s really upset (Molls not Sarah ) . By 101 what we do now is click and treat when she&#8217;s not reacting even if she is pulling a tiny bit on the lead. The sound of the clicker distracts her from the fix but it has taken us a while to get that far. She will, as in the case of the escaping Yorkie last week, tip over and it has to be a turn away. I think to get his attention once fixed is a big breakthrough, well done  I agree that avoiding any reactions is the best way forward and rewarding loads when they manage to do anything but lunge is good. BAT therapy which is mostly what I vaguely follow with Molly is to increase the distance and try again if you feel able. I do find that if we do this it helps Molly to control that ramping up where she gets hyper and stays there. She can calm down, she did when we first did stooge dog work with our trainer&#8217;s dogs but we&#8217;ve become lazy.

Dogless where do you get your collars from? Molly only has one and I&#8217;m washing the thing everyday so she needs another. Green and mushroom btw gets my vote 

Molly managed to sit down in a group of dogs today. Two she had played with in a snow storm and the others she didn&#8217;t know at all and were off lead (grrrrrrrrrrr) in an onlead area. And walked past a dog getting out of the car. Always on the way back from her run never going out so I think that is the key if we want to take her somewhere &#8211; lots of running about first. The owner of the off lead dogs said she was very good. Yeah well.... Ahem..


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> FRM- - I always try to get Molly to focus on me first as you do with Branston. But I do a 101 thing as Sarah does with Spencer unless she's really upset (Molls not Sarah ) . By 101 what we do now is click and treat when she's not reacting even if she is pulling a tiny bit on the lead. The sound of the clicker distracts her from the fix but it has taken us a while to get that far. She will, as in the case of the escaping Yorkie last week, tip over and it has to be a turn away. I think to get his attention once fixed is a big breakthrough, well done  I agree that avoiding any reactions is the best way forward and rewarding loads when they manage to do anything but lunge is good. BAT therapy which is mostly what I vaguely follow with Molly is to increase the distance and try again if you feel able. I do find that if we do this it helps Molly to control that ramping up where she gets hyper and stays there. She can calm down, she did when we first did stooge dog work with our trainer's dogs but we've become lazy.
> 
> Dogless where do you get your collars from? Molly only has one and I'm washing the thing everyday so she needs another. Green and mushroom btw gets my vote
> 
> Molly managed to sit down in a group of dogs today. Two she had played with in a snow storm and the others she didn't know at all and were off lead (grrrrrrrrrrr) in an onlead area. And walked past a dog getting out of the car. Always on the way back from her run never going out so I think that is the key if we want to take her somewhere - lots of running about first. The owner of the off lead dogs said she was very good. Yeah well.... Ahem..


Which ones?????? .

Leather - Ann Rees. Fabulous.
Material - Tillymint. Great quality, some fun designs.
Waterproof - Dublin Dog.

Not that the CHs are spoilt. If I spent less time looking at collars and more time training who knows how good they'd be? . Only joking, they sleep so much the lazy ridges that I have loads of time!


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Oh haven't seen them. Need something cool to convince oh i haven't lost the plot


If you find a ribbon you'd like on a collar then chances are she'll be happy to help if you contact her  Etsy has loads of ribbons.


----------



## MollySmith

OMG Tillymint's fleece collars are lush!


----------



## MollySmith

Want. This. Now.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Want. This. Now.


A few clicks and one like it could be yours :devil:.


----------



## moonviolet

MS watch that Dogless she'll lure you to the darkside :lol: and have you penniless but Molly will be sporting the finest collars money can buy :lol: 

Hi Leon, Being a nosy parker I found your photo thread, young fox is gorgeous and Mowgli is adorable. http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-photo-galleries/296462-fox-mowgli.html

If you ever get stuck my brain such as it is here for the picking. The one thing I will say for Fox make all your training fun. you'll both enjoy it more and you will definitely see better results.


----------



## Dogless

Hmmmmm......I know a certain Beagle who has quite a fine wardrobe too.... .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Hmmmmm......I know a certain Beagle who has quite a fine wardrobe too.... .


Singing: Singing: Singing: Singing:


----------



## Leon1987

moonviolet said:


> MS watch that Dogless she'll lure you to the darkside :lol: and have you penniless but Molly will be sporting the finest collars money can buy :lol:
> 
> Hi Leon, Being a nosy parker I found your photo thread, young fox is gorgeous and Mowgli is adorable. http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-photo-galleries/296462-fox-mowgli.html
> 
> If you ever get stuck my brain such as it is here for the picking. The one thing I will say for Fox make all your training fun. you'll both enjoy it more and you will definitely see better results.


Thanks mv!! He's a very smart cookie is catching onto everything real quick... Though I was thinking of starting some sniffing training with him.. Just around the house not game or anything.. Any tips?


----------



## moonviolet

Leon1987 said:


> Thanks mv!! He's a very smart cookie is catching onto everything real quick... Though I was thinking of starting some sniffing training with him.. Just around the house not game or anything.. Any tips?


I'm probably going to be a pest and rain a thousand questions down on you sorry in advance. They are wonderful bright dogs and if we don't keep those bright minds busy they'll make their own fun 

I'd keep it pretty simple with treat trails and "which hand?" nose games are quite tiring.

Earlier you mention walking to heel, is this for a a class or do you mean loose leash walking? Hwat method are you using?
Those smells are so distracting for his powerful nose, training a really strong sit lifts their nose off the ground and can be a godsend to assist in getting his focus back on you.

Impulse control exercises are great too.

Sorry I dont' mean to bombard you


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> MS watch that Dogless she'll lure you to the darkside :lol: and have you penniless but Molly will be sporting the finest collars money can buy :lol:
> 
> Hi Leon, Being a nosy parker I found your photo thread, young fox is gorgeous and Mowgli is adorable. http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-photo-galleries/296462-fox-mowgli.html
> 
> If you ever get stuck my brain such as it is here for the picking. The one thing I will say for Fox make all your training fun. you'll both enjoy it more and you will definitely see better results.


I'm banned from any more Apple stuff, can't fit anymore shoes into my house and I've lost my Penguin staff discount so this is my sin (along with mini eggs). Plus I'm Pisces, we're easily led


----------



## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> Plus I'm Pisces, we're easily led


 I think I must be broken!

Spen has just had an accident in his sleep. He got up from where he'd been sleeping next to the couch and there was a poo on the floor


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> I think I must be broken!
> 
> Spen has just had an accident in his sleep. He got up from where he'd been sleeping next to the couch and there was a poo on the floor


Eh.. it happens. 
How old is he? Sometimes back issues can cause this, but sometimes it just happens...


----------



## Sarah1983

ouesi said:


> Eh.. it happens.
> How old is he? Sometimes back issues can cause this, but sometimes it just happens...


Yeah, I remember Wolf doing the same a couple of times. Spen is 2 in May.


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Yeah, I remember Wolf doing the same a couple of times. Spen is 2 in May.


I wouldn't worry unless it becomes a regular thing


----------



## Symone

This morning went much better than yesterday. Shamaya even got a longer wee walk out of my happiness now. She's pooped out again so I will either nap or read.

Will update and reply properly when I'm on my pc. Hope that everyone is having a nice morning.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I think I must be broken!
> 
> Spen has just had an accident in his sleep. He got up from where he'd been sleeping next to the couch and there was a poo on the floor


That's odd. Hopefully a one off.


----------



## MollySmith

Oh poor Spen, that does not sound like him from what you've said. I hope a one off too and he's eating okay today.


----------



## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> Oh poor Spen, that does not sound like him from what you've said. I hope a one off too *and he's eating okay today*.


Ha, he'd have to be 3 days dead to not be eating okay :lol: He seems absolutely fine, hasn't seemed to be ill or off colour in any way. It just made me think of Shadow, it was a regular thing with him the last few years of his life and it was down to his health issues. But it happened a couple of times with Wolf and he was fine so hopefully it's just one of those things.


----------



## moonviolet

Hope just a one off with Spen 

Symone glad you had a nice start to today with Shamaya


----------



## Beth17

I'm sure Spen is fine Sarah. Probably just in a deep sleep. When Oscar was younger he was asleep and woke up in a puddle, this happened a couple of times. He was absolutely fine and I just put it down to him being really tired.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah - Hopefully just a one off, at least he doesn't sleep in your bed  Just a thought but could it be linked to him having an extra ration??? perhaps he needs an additional toilet trip in his routine but even he hasn't realised it???

Gorgeously sunny today but still bitterly cold but I needed to get straight down to work, miss doesn't seem to mind, think she got as much sleep as me with the wind rattling all night.


----------



## Dogless

Good walk with the CHs, mostly. They walked nicely to the offlead fields and had a play, then walked nicely to another little field on the way back and we did some training just sitting, waiting, recalling together and walking at heel (well close) together offlead. Pushed them a bit far, Rudi lost it and jumped and bit at my coat, Kilo didn't like that and told him off then that made him so excited he jumped up as I was bending down and smashed me in the face with his concrete skull. Small nosebleed and tender swollen eye area. Hopefully no black eye on the way but I won't hold my breath as it hurts when I blink  .

It's hard to know whether or not the Suprelorin is having any effect yet on Kilo, his increased bitching from last week has decreased I think. Today a dog that always barks at him waiting at the school bus stop barked today...Kilo usually gets up on his toes and postures at this dog and needs distracting but just looked and went past today. Seemed less bothered by the DA pug too - he hasn't barked in return at the pug for ages but still usually gets all 'male' about it up on his toes and hackled and posturing. Today - looked a bit excited but that's all. The problem is is that anything good or anything bad at present I keep wondering - I'm looking too hard of that makes sense. I suspect we will need to be about 3 weeks in to see an effect. Maybe :.


----------



## Dogless

Maybe green collars for them both, mushroom padding for Rudi, red for Kilo...... mv, mv, help me :scared:.


----------



## L/C

Sarah - hope it's just a one off thing with Spen and that he's ok.

Dogless - not sure about Superlorin, I would think it would take a while before you see any real effects? How long has he had it now? 

As for the collars - I don't think I'd go for red and green together, it's a bit christmassy for me.

Strange morning here at chez pointy. Ely had a very restless night and in the end would only relax and go to sleep curled up against me. Which meant I didn't get much sleep. I had an early start so I was up at 5.30 to get Gypsy out - got her all togged up and out the door. Where she promptly started shivering and refused to go anywhere, I took her back inside and she curled up on the sofa straight away and went back to sleep. OH tried again with her an hour and a half later but she was having none of it. She's fine in herself so I just imagine she didn't fancy a walk in the cold (it was -4 when I tried to take her out!).

I don't think it will be too much of an issue - we have the pre-games of the recallers course to be getting on with and my crate games dvd came yesterday so I've got plenty to keep her busy with (plus I'm working from home this afternoon so I can keep an eye on them).


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Sarah - hope it's just a one off thing with Spen and that he's ok.
> 
> Dogless - not sure about Superlorin, I would think it would take a while before you see any real effects? How long has he had it now?
> 
> As for the collars - I don't think I'd go for red and green together, it's a bit christmassy for me.
> 
> Strange morning here at chez pointy. Ely had a very restless night and in the end would only relax and go to sleep curled up against me. Which meant I didn't get much sleep. I had an early start so I was up at 5.30 to get Gypsy out - got her all togged up and out the door. Where she promptly started shivering and refused to go anywhere, I took her back inside and she curled up on the sofa straight away and went back to sleep. OH tried again with her an hour and a half later but she was having none of it. She's fine in herself so I just imagine she didn't fancy a walk in the cold (it was -4 when I tried to take her out!).
> 
> I don't think it will be too much of an issue - we have the pre-games of the recallers course to be getting on with and my crate games dvd came yesterday so I've got plenty to keep her busy with (plus I'm working from home this afternoon so I can keep an eye on them).


Sounds as if Gypsy was just voting with her feet! Sensible pointy . Hope Ely starts to settle better too.

Yes, a bit Christmassy - I like the green but sort of want them in the same, but different .

Suprelorin - only a week, so that's why I doubt myself. Some folk say that their dogs become aggressive etc within the first week or two due to a testosterone rush and I am convinced Kilo's marking and bitching increased but I am probably completely wrong. Within 3 weeks seems to be the point at which change is noticed. Who knows for sure? I just have to over analyse .


----------



## MollySmith

Oh amazeballs, OH has called from the garage, car has a puncture on the way to the walk! Persuaded the nice Kwik Fit man to fit the spare so OH can at least take Molly for a walk and then he'll come back here with the car and I'll take to back to the garage for new tyres. Gawd knows what Molly makes of this, she was in the car when they drove it into the workshop :confused1:

I'm now fretting that the other tyre will go as they did need changing. He has no money or mobile blumin bloke. I'll be glad to have them home.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Oh amazeballs, OH has called from the garage, car has a puncture on the way to the walk! Persuaded the nice Kwik Fit man to fit the spare so OH can at least take Molly for a walk and then he'll come back here with the car and I'll take to back to the garage for new tyres. Gawd knows what Molly makes of this, she was in the car when they drove it into the workshop :confused1:
> 
> I'm now fretting that the other tyre will go as they did need changing. He has no money or mobile blumin bloke. I'll be glad to have them home.


At least he's not returning without having completed his assigned task of walking Molly :lol:.


----------



## Dogless

Might have to leave the local buy / sell page on nosy book, just too many puppy and dog ads (not to mention cat / kitten), so many every day . Got involved in a debate last night which stayed polite but I know anything I said probably fell on deaf ears. Last night the original post was "I want a puppy!!!!!! Anyone got any going cheap / free?????"....the first and second answers were "Try Gumtree hun", "Yep, Gumtree, always loads of cheap dogs on there". You can imagine what I put.

Today....first thing I see "Anyone got a female French Bulldog?"; you can guess why.  .


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear Dogless a black eye - your two sound more 'dangerous' than mine...!!

MS - Hope you get the tyres sorted and OH and Molly safely back home.

L/C Sorry to hear Ely had a restless night and hope he's feeling better soon.

Holly's got 3 little friends coming training in a minute - hope she doesn't decide to go into one...LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless I like this combo ... but I can't work out what colour the padding is???

Hope you haven't developed a blackeye

MS Hope the car and Molly arrive home safely.

Twiggy have a fun afternoon


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless I like this combo ... but I can't work out what colour the padding is???
> 
> Hope you haven't developed a blackeye
> 
> MS Hope the car and Molly arrive home safely.
> 
> Twiggy have a fun afternoon


I like that too. Maybe I'll get a green one for Rudi and Brown for Kilo after all. Tan would suit Rudi too maybe. I even thought the brown with yellow as it's just an edging so not too bright but I am really not sure :scared:. I even managed to hoover the house thinking solely of collars :lol:.


----------



## Beth17

Ouch Dogless I hope you don't get a blackeye. I think you need to invest in a padded body suit and helmet  

MS hope your OH gets Molly home safely and walked 

Twiggy hope Holly enjoys her afternoon.

L/C hope the Pointies are alright. I don't blame Gypsy for not wanting to go out.

Had a lovely walk with the boys this morning. Nice LLW with a few attempts at pulling when over excited by the flying leaves. Saw a dog on the other side of the road and didn't lunge to say hello and quickly stopped focussing on it. They also had a lovely game of chase and wrestling although Sam sent Oscar flying with a bodyslam. Surprised he didn't break his ribs it was that hard.


----------



## L/C

MS - hope it all went smoothly with your OH and the car.

Beth - sounds like the boys had a lovely time.

Twiggy - hope Holly Bolly behaves. 

Just took both pointies for a slow amble around the field and Ely seemed to enjoy himself. We weren't out long but i wanted to get him out and socialising as he starts to get nervous again very quickly if i isolate him too much. He's zonked out now but Gypsy is bothering me for a game. Might go and do some scent work in sec.


----------



## moonviolet

That wind has a lot to answer for, Her ladyship while having a lovely game of tag with her friends her ladyship made a particularly impressive dodge and sadly ripped a claw out. It was fully out not a hanger on ( phew) and she wasn't even limping. Got her home and washed it and called the vet. We've jsut popped in I went into guilt mode  and have been told in no uncertain terms her claws are beautifully short and it happens to active dogs  We saw a differen vet really lovely friendly relaxed manner about him, in fact he was quite tasty but he only had eyes for Tink and was telling me how brave, lovely and pretty she is


----------



## L/C

Oh dear poor miss tink. Hope she isn't in any pain - I'm an expert at this from Ely. We don't even go to the vet anymore. 

I liked your post for the attractive vet. :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Oh dear poor miss tink. Hope she isn't in any pain - I'm an expert at this from Ely. We don't even go to the vet anymore.
> 
> I liked your post for the attractive vet. :lol:


She hasn't even limped at all in fact I had to stop her playing, she was splattering blood all up her side. I think she did a pretty clean job and having too much fun to notice beyond the momentary ye-ouch.


----------



## Guest

Offlead border terrier on our walk. Grr. The wind drove Zand batty, lots of kids and prams. Bought him some puffed jerky and tripe sticks to shove in kong. They look feel and smell weird. He likes though. He's gonna be on his own on and off today. He should be alright though. I'm tired. 

Hope you are all okay. I'll read later.


----------



## L/C

You OK LO? Your post seems a bit down and deflated.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - pleased to hear that Ely was up to a plod.

mv - sorry about Miss Tinks' claw; sounds as if it bothered you more than her though 

LO - hope Zand enjoys his new treats!

Beth - pleased your boys were good today too.

Two great walks this afternoon; only took Kilo on a short one as we're off out with Dizzy later but it was great. A woman on the sports pitches was throwing the ball for her dog directly at us pretty much, no matter where we went. Lots of clicking and treating and Kilo was walking along on a beautifully loose lead at my side. Some feat for the BW - chaser of Things Wot Move. I was chuffed enough with that, but we then managed it with a cat, noisy kids and a mini schnauzer who was jumping about trying to pull across to us on the way home  :thumbsup:.

Rudi walked really nicely, then I let him potter and zoom, then he walked nicely home .

My best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.

Jade? Is jade padding on a dark brown collar too girly? :scared:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I like that too. Maybe I'll get a green one for Rudi and Brown for Kilo after all. Tan would suit Rudi too maybe. I even thought the brown with yellow as it's just an edging so not too bright but I am really not sure :scared:. I even managed to hoover the house thinking solely of collars :lol:.


Brown and yellow - yuk. Haven't you got any taste woman....

He'll look like a jobsworth from Elf and Safety...!!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> That wind has a lot to answer for, Her ladyship while having a lovely game of tag with her friends her ladyship made a particularly impressive dodge and sadly ripped a claw out. It was fully out not a hanger on ( phew) and she wasn't even limping. Got her home and washed it and called the vet. We've jsut popped in I went into guilt mode  and have been told in no uncertain terms her claws are beautifully short and it happens to active dogs  We saw a differen vet really lovely friendly relaxed manner about him, in fact he was quite tasty but he only had eyes for Tink and was telling me how brave, lovely and pretty she is


Oh dear poor Tink that sounds sore. The vet is right - it is the active dogs that do it. Tremor's done it three times now.

I've never met a dishy vet but that dairy farmer where we stayed on holiday in Wales......and me a married woman.


----------



## moonviolet

LO More hugs gald Zander likes his new treats, sound like you could do with some treats too.

Dogless I think you summed up the situation beautifully. I think the jade is nicely gender neutral. 

Twiggy I grew up around dairy farmers, I am immune to their charms, married woman... oh yeah... now i remember so am I :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Brown and yellow - yuk. Haven't you got any taste woman....
> 
> He'll look like a jobsworth from Elf and Safety...!!


I was just feeling desperate :scared:. But, looking at Rudi's collar he has now I reckon jade would be nice with dark brown.....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless you sure do have a collar fetish....

Holly was a really good girl this afternoon and did everything I asked of her very nicely.

Tremor was fab and I used her a lot for demonstration purposes. It's lovely to have a dog so attentive that you can talk and explain things to handlers whilst doing fast, slow and normal pace heelwork and still she holds position as if she's glued there.....LOL

I got a tad cross a couple of times, particularly on retrieve when they 'ah, ah' their dogs or sternly said 'sit' because the dogs were anticipating. Again I used Tremor, held her collar and really wound her up, doing manic throws with the retrieve article and then just called her to heel said 'sit' in a calm and pleasant voice and threw the article again and of course she sat there, bless her.

I really must try and work her this year as she is such a super girlie.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh here we go again , the threads getting dragged to the gutter with the ladies of WAYWO getting their knickers in a twist with dishy dairy farmers and vets indeed,  remember your vows women  

Glad Ely has managed a potter, sorry about Tinks claw, ouchy, well done to the CH's and Beths boys.

LO  cheer up  big grins and hugs coming your way.

MS I reckon you should get OH to buy that spotty collar to make it up to you both for the worry and the delayed walk, I am sure it would help Molly get over the trauma of going to the garage 

Dogless oh dear you are getting yourself in a pickle with collar choices aren't you 

I have a very patient lovely doggie who was very nice to the carpet man when he came - even though he brought a nasty tape measure  

I am feeling pretty overwhelmed at the moment what with work, with hubby and his migraines, with trying to get the decorating done, with trying to look after the dog, walking her seems easier than this keeping her calm, feed us all, (made a big pot of chilli last night so's I got a break today but the poor lamb wants something bland) find things to feed us on (hate washing up thats his job), generally live and breathe all by myself :eek6: and the worst thing is that I cant tell him, it just adds to his anxiety rrr: poor lamb  and gives him another reason for, I mean adds fuel to his migraine load. 

Have managed to get through the day by taking too many Calms :lol: I think its nearly wine time though :thumbsup:


----------



## Dogless

Booked our holiday - going at the end of April. Don't want to link to the place as any old freak on t'internet will know where I'll be :scared:.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Oh here we go again , the threads getting dragged to the gutter with the ladies of WAYWO getting their *knickers in a twist *with dishy dairy farmers and vets indeed,  remember your vows women
> 
> I am feeling pretty overwhelmed at the moment what with work, with hubby and his migraines, with trying to get the decorating done, with trying to look after the dog, walking her seems easier than this keeping her calm, feed us all, (made a big pot of chilli last night so's I got a break today but the poor lamb wants something bland) find things to feed us on (hate washing up thats his job), generally live and breathe all by myself :eek6: and the worst thing is that I cant tell him, it just adds to his anxiety rrr: poor lamb  and gives him another reason for, I mean adds fuel to his migraine load.
> 
> Have managed to get through the day by taking too many Calms :lol: I think its nearly wine time though :thumbsup:


Definitely sounds like wine o'clock.

He wants bland? ..rice, microwave 11 minutes....can't get more bland than that 

You can't decorate right now woman " the light isn't good enough"  and that is the excuse i'm sticking too until spring comes.

*Just for the record my underwear remained pristine and untwisted*  no harm in admiring the view  and who can blame me OH has just described me as a weird old woman for doing a training session in the empty waiting room while waiting for the bill to be prepared :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

I'm really pleased you've booked your holiday *Dogless* - it will do you the power to good to get away for a bit.

*Ginge -* Sorry you are feeling overwhelmed. It's not nice when you don't know which way to turn and things start getting on top of you. Hope the wine helps, at least for this evening.


----------



## Werehorse

Ginge - you're making my current workoad/list of worries seem very light and I'm feeling crazed enough! Just back in from taking the boys to the field out the back which is temporarily sheep and cow free - had to take them for a quick blast after work. And will be off out to do some tutoring in 10 mins. And then it is 2 days in the cafe which looks like it'll be 9-5 at the very least.  I'm off work on Friday but have two tutees in the evening and then I'm working the weekend. Fortunately OH is more than pulling his weight with the dogs and ponies and it all eases up after this weekend!

Both my boys are being very naughty at the moment - but they've had a sudden drop in contact time so I'm not surprised.  and the early am starts haven't happened yet cos I'm a useless baggage.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Ginge - you're making my current workoad/list of worries seem very light and I'm feeling crazed enough! Just back in from taking the boys to the field out the back which is temporarily sheep and cow free - had to take them for a quick blast after work. And will be off out to do some tutoring in 10 mins. And then it is 2 days in the cafe which looks like it'll be 9-5 at the very least.  I'm off work on Friday but have two tutees in the evening and then I'm working the weekend. Fortunately OH is more than pulling his weight with the dogs and ponies and it all eases up after this weekend!
> 
> Both my boys are being very naughty at the moment - but they've had a sudden drop in contact time so I'm not surprised.  and the early am starts haven't happened yet cos I'm a *human being and i haven't adjusted yet either*.


*The MV remix* 

Life is tough, we are only human, no need to be hard on ourselves too


----------



## Dogless

Just had an hour walking offlead with Dizzy. Kilo was my very best boy :001_wub::001_wub:.

Werehorse...sure the boys will settle again for you once they adjust and it's great to hear that your OH is pulling his weight. You shouldn't be allowed on this thread, yours always does :scared:.


----------



## Leon1987

moonviolet said:


> I'm probably going to be a pest and rain a thousand questions down on you sorry in advance. They are wonderful bright dogs and if we don't keep those bright minds busy they'll make their own fun
> 
> I'd keep it pretty simple with treat trails and "which hand?" nose games are quite tiring.
> 
> Earlier you mention walking to heel, is this for a a class or do you mean loose leash walking? Hwat method are you using?
> Those smells are so distracting for his powerful nose, training a really strong sit lifts their nose off the ground and can be a godsend to assist in getting his focus back on you.
> 
> Impulse control exercises are great too.
> 
> Sorry I dont' mean to bombard you


It's grand I'm happy for the help 

Trying to get him to heel is just so he isn't gonna pull the arm off me when he is bigger, we haven't attended any classes or anything, basically I'm starting with him by my side... Once he walks there for a few paces I'm giving him a treat and praise.. Then I'm leaving it longer and longer between the treats... If he runs ahead I just stop walking unto he stands at my heel again (this was how I got Mowgli to heel).

His sit is great... I've managed so far to make sure he keeps sitting still when getting dinner and treats to I tell him he is a good boy and he can then eat it..

I'll try the "which hand" later this evening as hopefully that will get his little mid working  thanks again


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Ginge - you're making my current workoad/list of worries seem very light and I'm feeling crazed enough! Just back in from taking the boys to the field out the back which is temporarily sheep and cow free - had to take them for a quick blast after work. And will be off out to do some tutoring in 10 mins. And then it is 2 days in the cafe which looks like it'll be 9-5 at the very least.  I'm off work on Friday but have two tutees in the evening and then I'm working the weekend. Fortunately OH is more than pulling his weight with the dogs and ponies and it all eases up after this weekend!
> 
> Both my boys are being very naughty at the moment - but they've had a sudden drop in contact time so I'm not surprised.  and the early am starts haven't happened yet cos I'm a useless baggage.


Mmm that sounds a pretty big workload to me.

Don't worry about your boys, they'll survive...


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- hope you're ok, those migraines must be a drain on both of you.

L/C- hope the Pointys settle tonight and you all get some sleep.

L/O- hope you're ok, am missing your crazy posts lately.

Dogless- a very cautious :thumbsup: on the implant, and just order the collars already.

MV- Poor Tink and the claw,ouchy, but jealous of a tasty vet- I haven't seen a nice one in 10 years.

Sorry if I've forgotten anyone but I'm so slow and knackered, plus I had the Teckel sisters for grooming today.:lol:

I've spoken to the rescue lady tonight, who admitted he hasn't been pushed- but thats because they're soo busy, apparently this year is proving even worse than last year already- and its only March.:sad:
She said it sounds like he needs a home without dogs- or with an older bigger dog, and no cats.
There's not been any scraps today,:thumbsup: but I've just given them all a chew, the girls haven't been able to have any, I kept him on lead but he really wanted to get to Evie and Jay. The girls are so good and tolerant, they share their space, toys, beds, me- no problem, and Scruff is such a Wise old bird sometimes- such a good teacher.
I'm sure the old nursery rhyme Little Jack Horner was written for him, 'when he was good, he was very, very good but when he was bad he was horrid.:lol:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Evening all 

Sounds like it's been an all round good day for the WAYWO ladies, oh apart from Tink and her poor claw, I hope she doesn't suddenly realise later that actually she is in a lot of pain 

Great work from the CH's, Holly and Beth's boys :thumbup:

GR - You sound very stressed  time to sit down, put your feet up and have that glass o' wine








I'm afraid I haven't followed your hubby's migraine story so don't know if you know the cause of them or not, but just wanted to ask whether you have considered if it is coming from his neck? I'm a Chiropractor and am the IOW's consultant Chiro for HeadacheClinicsUK, I treat a lot of patients for migraines that are actually referred from nerve impingement or muscle tension in the neck. Lots of different things can cause migraine, but if there's a chance it could be referring from his neck then Chiro can have some pretty amazing results.
On the upside - well done Ginge for not freaking out over the tape measure :thumbup:

So pleased to hear Ely's doing ok, hope he heals up nice and quick

Welcome to the thread Leon, I'm off to look at the pics of your boys  Love the name Fox by the way (not that I'm at all bias  )

Dogless - oooooooooh Holibobs!!! I reckon you're definitely due one  Where are you going? I know you don't want to post the exact place but give us a clue 

MS - sorry to hear about the car and impromptu garage visit, they never work out cheap do they  But glad Molly didn't miss out on her walk

W/H you sound like a very busy bee at the mo, glad to hear you have the support of your OH, I think you need to share him around with the rest of us!!

Sorry if I've missed anyone 

Nothing major to report from Pickle palace today....

nice long walk in the snowy forest this morning, the loony pair spent about 10 minutes running back and forth through one of those little tunnel things you get under the paths for the water  They were so funny to watch!

Training session at lunchtime - they're both doing really well :thumbup: Branston had muzzle on for about 30 seconds with no face pawing.

Then I had to go to work  and have only just got back so I have failed on any street walk training today.... slapped wrist for FRM


----------



## Dogless

FRM - don't panic...not your sunny isle . Devon, not far from my parents' place in Cornwall so that we can get to see them too.

k&m - the rescue situation sounds dire . Pleased HH hasn't been causing too much devastation today though! I have ordered the collars .


----------



## Symone

Oh I'm so tired! Haven't read back yet.. I will probably do it tomorrow. 

Just got back from puppy class... There was another collie there and it looked exactly like one from Shamayas litter! Was only 17 weeks old so couldn't had been.. They were quite close with towns they were born in so I'm thinking possibly the same sire. I'll download a pic of the the pup from Shamayas litter onto my phone next week so his owner can see how similar they look. 

Shamaya was good for most of puppy class.. I was told I need to be more firm with her.. Reason being whenever she saw Jimmy she tried to play with him! With the recall exercise she ran straight for him and not me.  
Seems we will be doing recall training this week.

Will said he went to the vet and they said Jimmy needs to put on some weight, he's only 11kg. Guess you guys were right about Jimmy being skinny and Shamaya not being fat! Jimmy did have a sudden burst over the week and he shot up in height. He's so cute.


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Then I had to go to work  and have only just got back so I have failed on any street walk training today.... slapped wrist for FRM


Not another WAYWO member self flagellating a day off a _pavement_ walk is no biggie ( street walking :nonod: :lol

Thanks for the concern, She's flaked out in front of the fire, a picture of contentment.

I did send apologies to games class tonight, didn't want to risk it starting bleeding again in her enthusiasm.


----------



## Beth17

I'm going to have to do me some Ridgeback kidnapping :ihih:

LO hope you're ok.

Werehorse and Ginge try not to stress too much. Easier said then done I know 

K&M I'm glad things have been easier today. Hope the rescue situation sorts itself out.

MV We have quite a dishy vet at our practice. Glad Tink's paw isn't bothering her too much.

Twiggy glad you had a good afternoon.

Symone glad puppy class was good.

We had a good training session this afternoon working on the basics again. I also tried to get Sam to weave through my legs. He's almost too tall though


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Oh I'm so tired! Haven't read back yet.. I will probably do it tomorrow.
> 
> *Shamaya was good for most of puppy class.. I was told I need to be more firm with her.. Reason being whenever she saw Jimmy she tried to play with him! With the recall exercise she ran straight for him and not me.  *
> *Seems we will be doing recall training this week.*
> 
> It's not so much a case of being firm with Shamaya on recall, it's more a case of you being more exciting than Jimmy.
> 
> When we have puppies here I usually hold their collars (or just hold them) and get the handlers to run off backwards waving a favourite toy or a juicy tit-bit with lots of encouragement.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> I'm going to have to do me some Ridgeback kidnapping :ihih:
> 
> LO hope you're ok.
> 
> Werehorse and Ginge try not to stress too much. Easier said then done I know
> 
> K&M I'm glad things have been easier today. Hope the rescue situation sorts itself out.
> 
> MV We have quite a dishy vet at our practice. Glad Tink's paw isn't bothering her too much.
> 
> Twiggy glad you had a good afternoon.
> 
> Symone glad puppy class was good.
> 
> We had a good training session this afternoon working on the basics again. I also tried to get Sam to weave through my legs. He's almost too tall though


I was going to suggest perhaps Rudi and Sam having a rumble about :scared: but I'm with hubby and we haven't holidayed in a couple of years together (he's always been unable to come at the last minute due to work) plus I never see him, so we need to just spend time as a family really. Just for once :scared:. If you happen however to spot a harassed looking woman and very chilled out man with two ridgies do come and introduce yourself........not that I know whereabouts in Devon you are :lol:. Just need to find some quiet walks now, love researching walks .


----------



## missRV

Well I've not reported this yet, but we got Rosie spayed last week, after so much research and information gathering, consultations with numerous vets etc... 

She's recovered like a dream, the scar has heeled so nicely and she's now back to her daft old self. 

We have a sponsored walk at the weekend, I work with autistic children so I've told them that they must not touch her belly or her mouth as she's still doing that annoying "grab" with her jaw, not biting as there's no pressure... she seems good with children I'm just being nervous I guess  

She's made some new friends recently, we tried her off lead 2 weeks ago but we need to work on recall before trying again  

That's all Rosie's news, I wanted to off load as much as I could


----------



## Dogless

I'm pleased that Rosie's recovered well. If I had any doubts that the children would behave as I'd asked I'd probably leave her at home for the sponsored walk if she's still a bit tender and still mouthing - if any parent saw teeth on skin you could be in trouble . Rudi still bites (only me ) but I'm exceptionally careful when it comes to kids - mostly to protect him.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> I was going to suggest perhaps Rudi and Sam having a rumble about :scared: but I'm with hubby and we haven't holidayed in a couple of years together (he's always been unable to come at the last minute due to work) plus I never see him, so we need to just spend time as a family really. Just for once :scared:. If you happen however to spot a harassed looking woman and very chilled out man with two ridgies do come and introduce yourself........not that I know whereabouts in Devon you are :lol:. Just need to find some quiet walks now, love researching walks .


Oh I completely understand family time is far more important.

I have this book which details a good few walks in it around plymouth, exeter etc. depending on the area you are in. They look pretty good although must confess I've not got around to doing many of them 
Toby's Dog Friendly Dog Walks: Bk. 1: South Devon (Book) by Toby the Dalmatian, et al. (2007): Waterstones.com


----------



## Thorne

Not really had much to input on here lately but thought I'd pass on the sad news that "my" Paddy from BC was put to sleep today :crying:

RIP sweet, boy, if there is a rainbow bridge I know you're up there now with all the rubber rings and zoomies space you could ever wish for.


----------



## missRV

That's a good idea  she's not vicious at all, but dafty playful. I'm tempted to give this year's walk a miss to be honest, I'll take her on the walk route but maybe the day later when there aren't any kids


----------



## missRV

Thorne said:


> Not really had much to input on here lately but thought I'd pass on the sad news that "my" Paddy from BC was put to sleep today :crying:
> 
> RIP sweet, crazy boy, if there is a rainbow bridge I know you're up there now with all the rubber rings and zoomies space you could ever wish for.


I'm sorry


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> *We had a good training session this afternoon working on the basics again. I also tried to get Sam to weave through my legs. He's almost too tall though *




Did I ever tell you all about the mad woman I had here with the St Bernard?

I dropped myself right in it in a moment of weakness when she said on an obedience course that she wanted to have a go at heelwork to music. I told her if she got stuck getting a routine up that I would help her...!!

Anyway she rang me several months later and said she'd taught the dog lots of moves, had a selection of music which she thought was suitable, etc. etc. and could she come over to see what I thought.

Come the day she turns up with a lackey (I think it was her groom, as she had dressage horses plus pots of money), gets out of her vehicle with the dog and minces off to the barn leaving the lackey and I to lug my damn great big cassette/CD player and all her stuff.

I thought she'd bought my a pot plant as a 'thank you' but on closer inspection it was one of her props.

I asked for her CDs of suitable music only to discover she'd only brought one of American big band music, all of which was much to fast, bearing in mind the dog was bigger than most Shetland ponies and could only lumber about!!

I then asked to see the moves she'd taught the dog, which is when both the lackey and I tried to hide behind said pot plant prop with tears rolling down our faces.

Ye Gods it wasn't a pretty picture, especially the weave between her legs which looked extremely painful as she was only about 5 ft tall.

When I'd composed myself enough to speak I suggested she taught the dog more suitable moves applicable to his size and to find a CD with much slower tracks and then give me another call. I'm still waiting......


----------



## Beth17

Oh Thorne I'm sorry


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne said:


> Not really had much to input on here lately but thought I'd pass on the sad news that "my" Paddy from BC was put to sleep today :crying:
> 
> RIP sweet, boy, if there is a rainbow bridge I know you're up there now with all the rubber rings and zoomies space you could ever wish for.


Oh honey heart breaking. (((Hugs)))


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Oh I completely understand family time is far more important.
> 
> I have this book which details a good few walks in it around plymouth, exeter etc. depending on the area you are in. They look pretty good although must confess I've not got around to doing many of them
> Toby's Dog Friendly Dog Walks: Bk. 1: South Devon (Book) by Toby the Dalmatian, et al. (2007): Waterstones.com


Thank you - near Okehampton. I will take a look, you're a star :thumbsup:.



Thorne said:


> Not really had much to input on here lately but thought I'd pass on the sad news that "my" Paddy from BC was put to sleep today :crying:
> 
> RIP sweet, boy, if there is a rainbow bridge I know you're up there now with all the rubber rings and zoomies space you could ever wish for.


I am so very sorry . RIP Paddy, I feel like we 'knew' him a little on here .


----------



## foxyrockmeister

So Sorry Thorne :crying:

Run free Paddy xx


----------



## Beth17

Twiggy that sounds hilarious :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Did I ever tell you all about the mad woman I had here with the St Bernard?
> 
> I dropped myself right in it in a moment of weakness when she said on an obedience course that she wanted to have a go at heelwork to music. I told her if she got stuck getting a routine up that I would help her...!!
> 
> Anyway she rang me several months later and said she'd taught the dog lots of moves, had a selection of music which she thought was suitable, etc. etc. and could she come over to see what I thought.
> 
> Come the day she turns up with a lackey (I think it was her groom, as she had dressage horses plus pots of money), gets out of her vehicle with the dog and minces off to the barn leaving the lackey and I to lug my damn great big cassette/CD player and all her stuff.
> 
> I thought she'd bought my a pot plant as a 'thank you' but on closer inspection it was one of her props.
> 
> I asked for her CDs of suitable music only to discover she'd only brought one of American big band music, all of which was much to fast, bearing in mind the dog was bigger than most Shetland ponies and could only lumber about!!
> 
> I then asked to see the moves she'd taught the dog, which is when both the lackey and I tried to hide behind said pot plant prop with tears rolling down our faces.
> 
> Ye Gods it wasn't a pretty picture, especially the weave between her legs which looked extremely painful as she was only about 5 ft tall.
> 
> When I'd composed myself enough to speak I suggested she taught the dog more suitable moves applicable to his size and to find a CD with much slower tracks and then give me another call. I'm still waiting......


Where was your video camera when you needed it???? :lol::lol:. That made me laugh just picturing the scene!


----------



## Werehorse

Oh Thorne, I'm so sorry. Run free Paddy. x


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Not really had much to input on here lately but thought I'd pass on the sad news that "my" Paddy from BC was put to sleep today :crying:
> 
> RIP sweet, boy, if there is a rainbow bridge I know you're up there now with all the rubber rings and zoomies space you could ever wish for.


Oh Thorne I'm so, so sorry.


----------



## MollySmith

I am so sorry to hear that Thorne ((hugs))


----------



## L/C

Thorne I'm so sorry. It must be very hard for you.

RIP Paddy. 

Was he ill?


----------



## Guest

Oh jesus thorne, I'm so sorry. Run free loony Paddy. x


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy, I have vision and it&#8217;s very funny! Some people are truly mad. I saw a fantastic dog show at Lowestoft once, long before we had Molly with a massive St Bernard and a tiny lady with a pink feather boa, I was laughing my socks off!

FRM &#8211; I confess no streetwalking since Saturday. We did go out tonight to allow Miss Molly to redeem herself a little. Cor it was freezing out there!

Beth &#8211; I am pleased you had a good training session, it&#8217;s so nice to come away feeling postive.

Dogless &#8211; were are you going in Devon, Slapton Ley was lovely for dogs, the beach is dog friendly all year around and you can walk a fair way although it does narrow in places near the road&#8230;. We also had a lovely walk to Start Point lighthouse, on lead for dogs though. I am trying to think of other places as we love our walks. Dogs Today had a walk in Exmoor I think this issue. I&#8217;ll look tomorrow and let you know. We didn&#8217;t take Molly with us in Sept as she was so dreadful on lead and there were so many dogs around it would have been madness. 

GR &#8211; I am so sorry to hear of your troubles. I am trying to think of anything to help you. Do you have a slow cooker you can just shove some things into? What is your husband&#8217;s prognosis with the migraines? (sorry if that&#8217;s being nosey, I get them and have to avoid things in my diet and take anti sickness prescription that oddly seems to stop them). I had a month last summer to cope on my own and it was hell, you have to try to look after you even if that&#8217;s just going to bed half an hour earlier to read a book or get someone to walk the ninja for you. 

Werehorse &#8211; I am glad your OH is helping and you take care too, don&#8217;t over do it (I must listen to my own advice!)

MV &#8211; hugs to little Tinks &#9786; I hope she gets better. 

Katand molly &#8211; I&#8217;m glad you gave the rescue a push and I hope he finds a home that suits him, it sounds like his time with you is worthwhile as you are finding out lots.

So pleased that Ely is on the mend, poor fella his injury looks like the one the horsedog at our park got the other day. 

Sarah - how is Spencer? Molly requires an update!

Well Molly and OH made it home. She was devil on the lead, barking and lunging at all dogs after that on her walk but I think I can appreciate why, being driven into a garage by an odd man and then made to wait in Kwik Fit for half an hour is no fun! Car is fixed anyway and a massive bill all because of one nail in the road  Oh well, upside is that she was good in Kwik Fit and redeemed herself with a nice lead walk this afternoon. 

And I&#8217;ve ordered the collar and lead from lovely Tilly Mint


----------



## Dogless

MS - Of course you ordered the collar and lead set  . Molly will look beautiful in it .

We are staying close to Okehampton. Ideally I'm after quiet walks where I can relax a little with hubby and let the CHs have some freedom. Nothing long because Rudi's only a young 'un yet! There's a footpath right by the house so I'll have to get a map out and see where it leads to .


----------



## missnaomi

I'm back!

Have been intermittently reading this, but didn't have much to report. Doing lots of Look At Me with Ringo, and some clicker, he's learning "touch" etc to prepare for starting agility again when the field dries out... and we're re-learning recall to a whistle using Total Recall.

But now have Toby pup to look after. We thought he was 12 weeks old, was handed in by owner who said it was due to lack of time following a break up/working... had his vaccs today and the vet (and the people who work at the dog centre I'm fostering for) reckon he's more like 8-9 weeks. Which means either his owner told the truth and said he was with them for 3 weeks and they got him at 5-6 weeks, or they only had him a few days. He is very bitey, very barky, very annoying, resource guards high value food items 

And is very very cute 

So I am re-introducing myself because I think I'm going to need your help! xx


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> MS - Of course you ordered the collar and lead set  . Molly will look beautiful in it .
> 
> We are staying close to Okehampton. Ideally I'm after quiet walks where I can relax a little with hubby and let the CHs have some freedom. Nothing long because Rudi's only a young 'un yet! There's a footpath right by the house so I'll have to get a map out and see where it leads to .


I'll have a rummage through my books. I think most books I have are Cornwall as that's where we end up but I do love walking so I accumulate lots of maps and books for all sorts of places.


----------



## GingerRogers

Had to just say how  I am thorne. Can i ask why. He seemed like he was doing so well. Hugs.


----------



## Thorne

Thanks for the kind words all. No L/C he wasn't unwell which is the saddest thing, oughtn't divulge details (turns out I'm the only volunteer the full story has been shared with) but an incident yesterday led to the decision to PTS. Naturally I'm devastated after all the work we'd done with him and the bond I had with the big idiot, but can understand why the choice was made.

At the end of the day he'd spent almost all his life in Blue Cross' care and would have needed an exceptional owner to manage him let alone help him to flourish away from the controlled environment he knew.

He challenged, mouthed, body slammed, barked at, entertained, charmed, licked and loved many people in his short life and I know that I'm not the only one to have cried for him today.
I really do have an awful lot to thank Paddy for, working with him gave me a reason to get up in the morning when nothing else could.


----------



## Sarah1983

I'm so sorry Thorne 

MV, hope Tink heals quickly. 

Spencer is doing fine. The chicken leg early evening has stopped him pestering me for his dinner. No more accidents either.

If hubby is still with this regiment when they pull out of Germany we'll be going to Fife apparently. He's due posting next summer though so god knows where we'll end up.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm so sorry Thorne
> 
> MV, hope Tink heals quickly.
> 
> Spencer is doing fine. The chicken leg early evening has stopped him pestering me for his dinner. No more accidents either.
> 
> If hubby is still with this regiment when they pull out of Germany we'll be going to Fife apparently. He's due posting next summer though so god knows where we'll end up.


Fife would be nice wouldn't it? Loads of nice walks for the Spendog. Or not so good for you?


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I'll have a rummage through my books. I think most books I have are Cornwall as that's where we end up but I do love walking so I accumulate lots of maps and books for all sorts of places.


Thank you; I've actually never really stayed in Devon apart from at my in -laws' and that's a whirl of seeing people. We used to go when I was a child a lot and do loads of walking then....but that was a while ago . Someone said there's even electrickery there now  .


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Thorne, it so sad to read your post this morning, I woke up wondering how you were.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Thank you; I've actually never really stayed in Devon apart from at my in -laws' and that's a whirl of seeing people. We used to go when I was a child a lot and do loads of walking then....but that was a while ago . Someone said there's even electrickery there now  .


There is electrickery and lots of the tourist types or emmets as we call them!

Sarah - I hope you do get back to the UK, that must be nicer for you and Spencer, I don't know Scotland very well at all but Fife always looks nice.

We've had a great start to the morning, a dead blackbird on the lawn, I know it wasn't Molly as it was not there last night and she's been inside all night so I am thinking the cats next door. Well I'm hoping it's the cats anyway and not my dog. Anyway I have a completely bird phobia, honestly I can't even touch feathers, and OH is helpfully asleep and tells me to keep the dog in until he can wake up to move said bird. Dog is desperate to pee and poo. OH still snoring. So I take the bin and get it as close as I can to the bird on the lawn and hoist it in with a very long spade, screaming as I did so. Neighbour and OH then both up and I get shouted at by OH for not being patient. I think he overlooked Molly peeing like a rugby player after 6 pints. Apparently he now has to take the bird from the bin and wrap it up in case of maggots. Bleurgghhhh! I curse them all :cursing:


----------



## kat&molly

Thorne- I'm sorry to hear about Paddy. We all know how fond of him you were.
Run free xxx


----------



## kat&molly

MS- that doesn't sound like a good start to the day. Phobias are horrible- its spiders for me.

Twiggy- that was a great story, would love to have seen it. Beth- I'm having visions of Sam trying to buckaroo you on his way through.

Miss naomi- Poor Toby- had a rough start already.:crying:

I should have been working today, but the client's changed her appt. due to the freezing weather- cant say I blame them, we're forecast snow today.

I had to creep out of bed last night to get the camera and snap this, Darcy cat taking advantage. Cheeky girl stayed there for hours, you cant see Scruff at the other end under the duvet.


----------



## moonviolet

MollySmith said:


> We've had a great start to the morning, a dead blackbird on the lawn, I know it wasn't Molly as it was not there last night and she's been inside all night so I am thinking the cats next door. Well I'm hoping it's the cats anyway and not my dog. Anyway I have a completely bird phobia, honestly I can't even touch feathers, and OH is helpfully asleep and tells me to keep the dog in until he can wake up to move said bird. Dog is desperate to pee and poo. OH still snoring. So I take the bin and get it as close as I can to the bird on the lawn and hoist it in with a very long spade, screaming as I did so. Neighbour and OH then both up and I get shouted at by OH for not being patient. I think he overlooked Molly peeing like a rugby player after 6 pints. Apparently he now has to take the bird from the bin and wrap it up in case of maggots. *Bleurgghhhh! I curse them all *:cursing:


I'm so sorry to laugh at your predicament. i think you were very brave considering your bird phobia but the bold phrase made me roar laughing :blush: :lol: :lol:

MN nice to see you back Aww wee Toby, not the best start but he's with you now 

Thorne thinking of you this morning

K&M glad you lit a fire under the rescue, I think you are going a great job with Hal but those paws need to find their forever home


----------



## Beth17

MS Dead bird not nice. Naughty OH for not sorting it out :nono:
One day Oscar chased a pigeon in the garden under a bush. He didn't come out for a while so went to check and the bird was dead with Oscar looking at it. I left it all day for my mum to sort out although she thought it had flown into the wall as there was only a tiny bit of blood on its head.

Dogless we have electrickery, decent roads and even the odd supermarket down here. We are fully in the 21st century!  We call the tourists grockles  

missnaomi welcome back. How lucky for Toby to have found you :yesnod:

K&M lovely picture


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> MS - Of course you ordered the collar and lead set  . Molly will look beautiful in it .
> 
> We are staying close to Okehampton. Ideally I'm after quiet walks where I can relax a little with hubby and let the CHs have some freedom. Nothing long because Rudi's only a young 'un yet! There's a footpath right by the house so I'll have to get a map out and see where it leads to .


Isn't Okehampton on the Northern edge of Dartmoor?

We had a brilliant weeks holiday staying near Ashburton about 15 years ago and walked the dogs for miles across Dartmoor.


----------



## Twiggy

*


MollySmith said:



Twiggy, I have vision and its very funny! Some people are truly mad. I saw a fantastic dog show at Lowestoft once, long before we had Molly with a massive St Bernard and a tiny lady with a pink feather boa, I was laughing my socks off!

Click to expand...

*


MollySmith said:


> Very probably the same dog and owner. They are top class show dogs and she lives in the East.


----------



## GingerRogers

foxyrockmeister said:


> I'm afraid I haven't followed your hubby's migraine story so don't know if you know the cause of them or not, but just wanted to ask whether you have considered if it is coming from his neck? I'm a Chiropractor and am the IOW's consultant Chiro for HeadacheClinicsUK, I treat a lot of patients for migraines that are actually referred from nerve impingement or muscle tension in the neck. Lots of different things can cause migraine, but if there's a chance it could be referring from his neck then Chiro can have some pretty amazing results.


FRM you may well be onto something (she says as she strokes her beard thoughtfully ) would it be ok it I PM you rather than clog up this thread?



MollySmith said:


> What is your husband's prognosis with the migraines? (sorry if that's being nosey, I get them and have to avoid things in my diet and take anti sickness prescription that oddly seems to stop them).


The doc is fairly certain they are linked to tension/anxiety/sleep patterns, and has diagnosed beta blockers, but he has only just upped the dose, there doesn't seem to be any particular food trigger, types of processed foods & takeaways can precede them (MSG???) which to me infers a dehydration issue (too much alcohol also seems to be a trigger ) he has always had them but they have been *terrible *since we got Ginge  :001_tongue:

Not her fault I am sure although he has been worried about me worrying about her, her previous owner used to drive the tractor on the farm hubby works on so since he has gone, hubby has been driving the tractor, which for a start he hates and feels nervous about, he had an accident in it years ago where two idiots tried to overtake and bounced their van off his front wheel and he had to watch them flying through the windscreen, (they walked out of hospital after 20 mins but the police forgot to let hubby know till he saw the officer in town 3 days later  but our local landlord is convinced that driving heavy machinery has affected him in the past, the vibrations and bouncing, so what FRM says is very interesting and could be all linked to the other possible causes. Molly will look stunning in that collar and lead set, I look at those padded collars and think they would look daft on the hairy one. Well done on the bird front, a friend of ours is bird phobic, she got trapped in her garden once when one of the neighbors hens escaped, she was going to join our burlesque course, but the boas 

Thinking of you this morning Thorne, lovely Paddy, enjoy your memories of him x

Dogless, hollibobs, yeah , Devon, Yeah. There is the lovely moors of course but they have livestock running free in lots of places  I would look at the coastal paths. We did stay near Woolacombe for a couple of days on our honeymoon (atually there was a loose bull on eone of those walks!!) and a slightly scary night in an 'adult only' campsite near Okehampton before we dropped the campervan off :nonod:, but we tend to do Cornwall more and haven't taken dogs, but coastal paths might be the way to go.

Twiggy your large dog story made me die :001_tongue: I would have loved to have seen her!!

Miss Naomi - hello and good luck with the little one.

Beth we have grockles here too, but I think we might have picked it up from your neck of the woods and passed it round!

K&M love the night time antics, bless them


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Fife would be nice wouldn't it? Loads of nice walks for the Spendog. Or not so good for you?


No idea, would depend how far from stuff we were. Would really like somewhere where I can go do the shopping and stuff like that without dragging hubby along, I hate shopping with him. But as long as I could get out and about even if it's only with Spen I'll be happy enough. As I say, we're due posting before the move but I'll believe it when it happens lol. I know people who should have been posted months ago and haven't been.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

GingerRogers said:


> FRM you may well be onto something (she says as she strokes her beard thoughtfully ) would it be ok it I PM you rather than clog up this thread?


Of course  I'm happy to help in any way I can.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Isn't Okehampton on the Northern edge of Dartmoor?
> 
> We had a brilliant weeks holiday staying near Ashburton about 15 years ago and walked the dogs for miles across Dartmoor.


Indeed; there is a footpath and cycle trail running through the farm that the house we're renting is on the edge of. I would walk for a full day with Kilo (not sure hubby would though!!) but obviously I can't with Rudi.

MS - the bird thing sounds horrid if you're afraid of them. Rudi grabbed a headless one the other day. He got too many feathers in his mouth and was a bit confused so he dropped it quite easily for me.

GR - the heavy machinery theory may be a good one for OH's migraines :idea:.

k&m - love the photo.

The CHs and I went on a walk that I haven't been on for a very long time, it's nice but we kept meeting English Setter Man so I abandoned it. Wanted to go to one of our favourite NT places but needed to know that I could handle the boys onlead on paths that can be narrow with lots of sniffs etc around. They were very well behaved apart from Rudi having a fairly prolonged attempt at tearing me limb from limb and destuffing me....but he had a poo and all was calm again. No idea what the drama surrounding having a poo is with either of them  :blink:. Kilo also had a bark when we were in the car park at a dog walking through, but it was more a waggy, loose, nose to the sky "haven't been here in ages and I love it" bark - he whined in the car when he realised where we were - and the woman just smiled at me. He hasn't looked that waggy around another dog in a very, very long time.

Rubbish phone photos to accompany another of my brain teasers.
Is the pushy, bossy dog..... a. Kilo?
b. Rudi?

No prizes, just for fun


----------



## GingerRogers

B) RUDI 

I will be embarrassed for using loud capitals if I am wrong, lovely pictures 

Nice for Kilo to have happy relaxed barks, even Ginges happy barks aren't relaxed they are very, mm, abrupt and loud I think is the best way to describe them.


----------



## GingerRogers

foxyrockmeister said:


> Of course  I'm happy to help in any way I can.


Thank you will try later when I am not trying to distract myself from working!!!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> B) RUDI
> 
> I will be embarrassed for using loud capitals if I am wrong, lovely pictures
> 
> Nice for Kilo to have happy relaxed barks, even Ginges happy barks aren't relaxed they are very, mm, abrupt and loud I think is the best way to describe them.


Spot on! Rudi bosses Kilo about and Kilo is pleased for it to be so I think!

Kilo's are loud, but very different to his unsure, defensive ones .


----------



## tiatortilla

Hellooo!
It's been rather a while since I last came into this thread, life's been getting on top of me a bit the last couple of weeks, I haven't forgotten about you all though 
Just a little update on how Tia's doing with other dogs... We saw one of her friends (little shih tzu x yorkie) out today and they were with a reeeaaally big black lab and some kind of large fluffy brown dog (no idea what!) and I am so impressed with my girly! She had a nice sniff with the big two and played with her friend so I asked if we could walk round with them and then we met the big yellow lab that I mentioned on here before too!
So at one point, she was fairly surrounded by three big dogs and she did so well  She wasn't exactly overjoyed with the situation, but she was okay and it's a long way from the Tia of 6 months ago who'd run away from anything bigger than a spaniel! I let her keep her distance and hang around me when she wanted to and she got lots of treats for her confident moments, she even shared a few play bows with the lab and brown fluffy dog after a while. Really goes to show that hard work pays off


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla - how fantastic, I wanted to 'like' your news x 100 .


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> tiatortilla - how fantastic, I wanted to 'like' your news x 100 .


Thankyou, I'm a very happy bunny right now!

I *almost* can't tell your two apart now! Rudi still has puppy ears though


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Thankyou, I'm a very happy bunny right now!
> 
> I *almost* can't tell your two apart now! Rudi still has puppy ears though


He's still much smaller than Kilo, just always comes to the front ...and Kilo had his "fed up of sitting for a photo" ears on by the last one too :lol:. I think their faces and colouring are very different, but then I see them every day....if you struggle look at their chests, and Rudi has a white toe too!


----------



## L/C

Dogless - I'm going to go with Rudi too. And they may have electricky down in Devon but wi-fi and phone signal are still a dangerous myth. 

K&M - that photo is lovely. :001_wub: I miss having fluffy cats but I think Gypsy might object.

Thorne - hope you're ok this morning.

Gypsy and I had a really lovely walk this morning. It was not too cold, sunny and we worked through the first 3 stages of crate games but using her mat. I cheated a bit in that we already have a very solid stay on her mat but we're working on the "Yer In, Yer Out" game. It's good in that she pops off her mat and then goes straight back to it but we could do with a bit more speed and enthusiasm. The collar garb game is going to take a bit more work because atm I use a touch of her collar or harness to get her to stand still. So not quite sure how to change that.


----------



## tiatortilla

Just had a wee catch-up, I can't respond to all but just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear about Paddy, Thorne. Take care of yourself x


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Branston and I have just walked ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!










A BIRD landed in front of us!!!! We saw the POSTMAN with a big bag and a HAT on!!! We saw a lady with a WALKING STICK!!! Lots of BIRDS were flying above our heads!!!!!!!!

and I didn't get bitten :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

I can't exactly say it was a relaxed walk, my overgrown puppy was on high alert the whole time and I was having to be super vigilant, but........ WE DID IT!!!

can you tell I'm just a little bit chuffed with our minor achievement?! 

Just had to drop in and share, off out with Miss Lily Pickle now - apologies if you can hear Branston whining and barkingfrom where you are!


----------



## Dogless

*well done frm and branston pickle!!!!!!*


----------



## L/C

Yay FRM and Branston!


And don't worry about being chuffed about minor achievements - I posted on here when Ely managed to walk past a man scraping the ice off his windscreen without freaking out.


----------



## moonviolet

Well done Branston and FRM  

Well done Tia 

L/C we want to seeeeeeeeeeeeeeee videos please 

Dogless it looks like Rudi is the one that's all keen and likes to be centre of attention, Kilo would rahter sit in the corner and make sarcastic comments  on no my mistake thats me :lol:

GR hope FRM is onto to something and you and hubby can have soem reliefe from his migraines. My OH used to have terrible headaches when he had a company car with a terrible seat.

Oops forgot my stuff Tink is doing well , an hour of weird loops around the village. Huffed at 2 cats but was easily distracted with a bit of sardine cake, had a bit of a shock when car pulled up onto the pavement in a slightly erratic manner only to discover it was wheelie bin man wanting to know how Tink is  SHe loved it and was trotting around very happily... I foolishly thought it was a great opportunity to break in soem new boots.... the blisters say perhaps it wasn't :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Branston and FRM
> 
> Well done Tia
> 
> L/C we want to seeeeeeeeeeeeeeee videos please
> 
> Dogless it looks liek Rudi is the one that's all keen and likes to be centre of attention, Kilo would rahter sit in the corner and make sarcastic comments  on no my mistake thats me :lol:
> 
> GR hope FRM is onto to something and you and hubby can have soem reliefe from his migraines. My OH used to have terrible headaches when he had a company car with a terrible seat.


Something like that . Kilo wants to be centre of attention when playing or training with me (they both do!) but he concedes to Rudi in all areas of life - seems more relaxed TBH. I spent ages making sure Kilo got out of the car first etc....but he hangs back and prefers Rudi out first. Clever dog - if there was a Ridgie Eating Monster out there it would get Rudi first .


----------



## L/C

Ladies of WAYWO I need opinions on something not related to dog training at all (I know a deviation from the thread subject!  What am I playing at?). OH is concerned that I may be taking training for terrifying obstacle course to an extreme and that I am not eating enough to compensate.

On an average day I eat between 1200 and 1700 calories a day depending on the intensity of my workout (so I eat more if I've been climbing then running). My weekly workout regime goes like this:

*Monday*
Am - Swim (50 lengths of pool)
Evening - Weights

*Tuesday*
Am - Run (5miles)
Lunch - Swim (25 lengths of pool)
Evening - Calisthenics

*Wednesday*
Am - Swim
Evening - Climbing (3-4 hours)

*Thursday*
Am - Run
Lunch - Swim
Evening - Weights

*Friday*
Rest Day

*Saturday*
Am - Swim
Lunch - Run
Evening - Weights

*Sunday*
Am - Run
Lunch - Swim
Afternoon - Calisthenics

Obviously this is all an ideal workout plan as things change and I have a social life too! I'd say I stick to it about 80% of the time. So what do you think?

(Full disclosure - OH is worried as I had an eating/exercise disorder at uni)


----------



## moonviolet

L/C i'm completely unqualified to answer and i'm goign to be a total cow and suggest you probably know the answer yourself.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - I'm not best placed to comment as I have had problems in the past that recur a lot related to eating too little and exercising too much too, I was doing it earlier this year and late last year .

Sensible head - eat much more; I used to eat almost 3000 calories per day when I was sensible and doing my triathlon stuff on top of work PT and stay slim (it was A LOT though - some of the work stuff lasted half a day and the triathlon stuff was grim too!!).

Disordered head - looks ideal.

I think the fact that my disordered head thinks it looks good gives you your answer .


----------



## L/C

Yes - that's what I was afraid of. It looks a bit mad all written down - plus I haven't added in the dogs walks which is another 2+ hours a day (and that includes running about like a loon to encourage Gypsy).

Right off to have a think and sort out a more sensible way forward.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Yes - that's what I was afraid of. It looks a bit mad all written down - plus I haven't added in the dogs walks which is another 2+ hours a day (and that includes running about like a loon to encourage Gypsy).
> 
> Right off to have a think and sort out a more sensible way forward.


I understand how it begins to rule your head completely . When I am bad I cannot miss a session, not for anything :nonod:. When I am 'OK' like now I'll just do the dogs' walks and one or two sessions of exercise per day. Apart from 5km swim day when that tends to be it apart from dog walking. My hubby HATES it.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- Gypsy is a bright girl.
And to my untrained eye- that looks a lot, hope you can come up with a more suitable plan.

Dogless- I think its easy to tell the boys apart if you can see their faces proper- its when they're play fighting I have trouble.


Took all the girls and HH out in the car, he is so much better in the crate. I find it really hard to hold his 10 metre line though- its bloomin dangerous the way he runs around. He is learning 'wait' - said in a loud panicky voice  and 'this way'. I dropped it today in the fields, he's pretty good as long as he has a toy, and he ran and ran and ran 
Evie took her Teckel sniffing duties a bit too serious today when she climbed to the top of a huge pile of branches, twigs and hay. Must be a good 15- 20 foot high. I held my breath waiting for her to crash through the middle.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> L/C- Gypsy is a bright girl.
> And to my untrained eye- that looks a lot, hope you can come up with a more suitable plan.
> 
> Dogless- I think its easy to tell the boys apart if you can see their faces proper- its when they're play fighting I have trouble.
> 
> Took all the girls and HH out in the car, he is so much better in the crate. I find it really hard to hold his 10 metre line though- its bloomin dangerous the way he runs around. He is learning 'wait' - said in a loud panicky voice  and 'this way'. I dropped it today in the fields, he's pretty good as long as he has a toy, and he ran and ran and ran
> Evie took her Teckel sniffing duties a bit too serious today when she climbed to the top of a huge pile of branches, twigs and hay. Must be a good 15- 20 foot high. I held my breath waiting for her to crash through the middle.


Evie would be boring if she was normal :nonod:. She is just brilliant .


----------



## Beth17

Well done FRM and Branston! 

Tiatortilla well done as well :thumbup1:

MV Sounds a lovely walk for you and Tink apart from the sore feet.

L/C glad you had a good walk this morning. That does seem a lot of exercise and maybe not quite enough food.

Dogless glad you had a good walk and how nice that Kilo seemed so relaxed  I know what you mean about Rudi and Kilo as it's a similar set-up here. Sam takes the lead as everybody is a potential friend and of course everyone wants to pat the waggy puppy; whereas Oscar can hang back without the focus on him and choose to interact or not.

K&M :lol: Evie is fab.

Well the boys had a thoroughly enjoyable walk embarrassing me this morning  The walked lovely down to the onlead mansion gardens we sometimes go to. They walked really well around apart from trying to get in the pond. On the way back round and out Sam stopped to roll in grass and Oscar pounced. Cue 5 minutes of play fighting on lead with lots of awful sounding noises. When I got them to stop and focus Sam would stop, drop and roll and it would start again. Of course it is a lovely sunny day so there were quite a few people witness to this spectacle :blush:

We eventually got out and they then walked beautifully home. Gotta love them


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Well done FRM and Branston!
> 
> Tiatortilla well done as well :thumbup1:
> 
> MV Sounds a lovely walk for you and Tink apart from the sore feet.
> 
> L/C glad you had a good walk this morning. That does seem a lot of exercise and maybe not quite enough food.
> 
> Dogless glad you had a good walk and how nice that Kilo seemed so relaxed  I know what you mean about Rudi and Kilo as it's a similar set-up here. Sam takes the lead as everybody is a potential friend and of course everyone wants to pat the waggy puppy; whereas Oscar can hang back without the focus on him and choose to interact or not.
> 
> K&M :lol: Evie is fab.
> 
> Well the boys had a thoroughly enjoyable walk embarrassing me this morning  The walked lovely down to the onlead mansion gardens we sometimes go to. They walked really well around apart from trying to get in the pond. On the way back round and out Sam stopped to roll in grass and Oscar pounced. Cue 5 minutes of play fighting on lead with lots of awful sounding noises. When I got them to stop and focus Sam would stop, drop and roll and it would start again. Of course it is a lovely sunny day so* there were quite a few people witness to this spectacle* :blush:
> 
> We eventually got out and they then walked beautifully home. Gotta love them


Probably tutting about the dreadful woman who lets her dogs fight .


----------



## foxyrockmeister

L/C said:


> Ladies of WAYWO I need opinions on something not related to dog training at all (I know a deviation from the thread subject!  What am I playing at?). OH is concerned that I may be taking training for terrifying obstacle course to an extreme and that I am not eating enough to compensate.
> 
> On an average day I eat between 1200 and 1700 calories a day depending on the intensity of my workout (so I eat more if I've been climbing then running). My weekly workout regime goes like this:
> 
> *Monday*
> Am - Swim (50 lengths of pool)
> Evening - Weights
> 
> *Tuesday*
> Am - Run (5miles)
> Lunch - Swim (25 lengths of pool)
> Evening - Calisthenics
> 
> *Wednesday*
> Am - Swim
> Evening - Climbing (3-4 hours)
> 
> *Thursday*
> Am - Run
> Lunch - Swim
> Evening - Weights
> 
> *Friday*
> Rest Day
> 
> *Saturday*
> Am - Swim
> Lunch - Run
> Evening - Weights
> 
> *Sunday*
> Am - Run
> Lunch - Swim
> Afternoon - Calisthenics
> 
> Obviously this is all an ideal workout plan as things change and I have a social life too! I'd say I stick to it about 80% of the time. So what do you think?
> 
> (Full disclosure - OH is worried as I had an eating/exercise disorder at uni)


Without seeing you it's not possible to say. If you are overweight and looking to lose a lot of weight, then this looks good. However if you are not overweight and especially if you are on the slim side then you are definitely not taking in enough calories for this level of exercise.

If you enjoy this level of exercise and are not unhealthily obsessing over it then I think your training plan looks good, but you need to up your calorie intake 

Hope that helps, I have a degree in Sports Science


----------



## L/C

Thanks FRM.

I've lost a stone and a half since the start of Jan and I'm looking to lose about another stone (which would put me at about 9 and a half). I've reduced my body fat percentage to 24% and I'm aiming for 20-21 - I had it measured in one of those bod pod things so I know it was accurate. My resting hear rate is 66bpm.

Not sure if any of that is useful (thanks for letting me pick your brain ).


----------



## Symone

Thorne - I'm so sorry to hear about Paddy. 

FRM - CONGRATULATIONS! I bet that you feel really happy. 

--

Well.. Today has been fun.. I went for my first "swim" of the year because of my "I suddenly don't want to go in the water, lets let my expensive new ball drift out in the sea" dog. :thumbdown:

Well, I was to meet a friend today and I completely forgot until 5 mins before I was supposed to be there. Hairbrush rammed through my hair and Shamayas harness on and we left. I find it funny how I hardly bother with getting ready any more.. I use to spend a good hour before we had Shamaya.

Despite being on the harness she didn't pull, much! She did when she got excited and wanted attention, so I was really pleased.  
I bought two balls after doing stuff that needed to be done, one with a string on because I fail at throwing and I thought it could give it more oomph.

We got the the beach with minimal pulling (Lead was tight but no pavement hugging!!!) and I threw her ball with the rope on. She gave it back, I threw it again... It flew right behind me and landed on top of the old casinos roof. My friend decided this would be the perfect moment to laugh at me.

Got out her new sponge ball and she loved it, but it was impossible to take out of her mouth! Today Shamaya learned drop. I am very proud of her!

She also went swimming (The tide came in weirdly and made an island.. the water was knee high around it) I kept throwing her ball in there and she kept getting it, I was so proud. 
Until she got fed up. I had to go get it. I wasn't going to lose another expensive ball. It was slowly making its way into the main sea bit so i got my shoes and socks off, rolled my jeans up.. paddled out to get the ball... A wave hit me. I kinda fell and my jeans were soaked. And I was freezing. Then Shamaya joined me and I felt annoyed! She could had got it but she was being lazy 

It went into the sea a few more times after, and I bribed my friend to get it. Because of what happened to me she pretty much stripped down! Only undies and her t-shirt. It was snowing the other day so she sure is a brave woman  I kinda owe her a fiver, now...

Walking home I had to keep stopping Shamaya. Her lead was so loose she kept stepping in it and getting her leg stuck  I did roll it a bit into my hand after the 2nd time.

Apart from making me "swim", I am really proud of my little girl.

Edit : And here is a picture of her running out of the water. You can see the mini island behind her.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

L/C said:


> Thanks FRM.
> 
> I've lost a stone and a half since the start of Jan and I'm looking to lose about another stone (which would put me at about 9 and a half). I've reduced my body fat percentage to 24% and I'm aiming for 20-21 - I had it measured in one of those bod pod things so I know it was accurate. My resting hear rate is 66bpm.
> 
> Not sure if any of that is useful (thanks for letting me pick your brain ).


Don't get too hung up on the numbers. Have you been 9 and a half stone before? Do you think that's your ideal weight or have you just plucked a number out the air because it sounds about right for your height? The reason I ask is that weight is often pretty meaningless, your bodyfat % is healthy, your resting HR suggests you are physically fit, do you need to lose another stone?
Before I got married I wanted to get down to 10 stone as I thought that would be about right for my height, however I got down to 10 and half and started to look skeletal, in fear of losing my boobs and bum completely I decided that clearly I was not meant to be 10 stone!!

Well done on losing the stone and a half already, over 2 and a half months that's an average of 2lb per week loss, which is a good steady weight loss. 
Don't forget muscle is a lot heavier than fat, so with all the exercise you are doing you will be building more muscle and toning up so it's likely that your weight loss will slow down, this is fine 

Please try to go more on how you feel and look - do you feel like you have plenty of energy? Is your skin and hair healthy? rather than what the scales say!


----------



## MollySmith

l/C I am the same as Dogless, ended up in hospital for anorexia in my late teens. With that in mind, yes I think you could be overdoing it as there doesn't seem to be much rest time in there. I went to see a personal trainer when I was well enough and a nutritionist and I'd recommend that. Much much better than hospital and forced into paths you'd not want to take (I was told to drink full fat milk which was contradictory to what I was doing) but a plan with health in mind was good. I am not qualified for either of this things but life experience tells me that I'd rather be honest with you. It is easily balanced again though 


FRM - I am so delighted for you! Well done the Branston (OH thinks they are lovely, we did PF picture show and tell yesterday afternooon - you can tell I was procrastinating over my OU assignment.. oddly I am now as well...)

I report good news from Molly land. A massive long walk with our trainer and her dogs, perfect manners from my lady and we passed two off lead dogs, no reaction. I seek permission to retract the curses, especially since my OH volunteered to take the car to the garage. Being of generous chest I do not like garages very much.


----------



## MollySmith

foxyrockmeister said:


> Don't get too hung up on the numbers. Have you been 9 and a half stone before? Do you think that's your ideal weight or have you just plucked a number out the air because it sounds about right for your height? The reason I ask is that weight is often pretty meaningless, your bodyfat % is healthy, your resting HR suggests you are physically fit, do you need to lose another stone?
> Before I got married I wanted to get down to 10 stone as I thought that would be about right for my height, however I got down to 10 and half and started to look skeletal, in fear of losing my boobs and bum completely I decided that clearly I was not meant to be 10 stone!!
> 
> Well done on losing the stone and a half already, over 2 and a half months that's an average of 2lb per week loss, which is a good steady weight loss.
> Don't forget muscle is a lot heavier than fat, so with all the exercise you are doing you will be building more muscle and toning up so it's likely that your weight loss will slow down, this is fine
> 
> Please try to go more on how you feel and look - do you feel like you have plenty of energy? Is your skin and hair healthy? rather than what the scales say!


Well put, I was 7 stone once and I'm 5' 7", I looked like death, please don't do that. It is so much about what visually is best. My BMI wotsit said 9 stone but I look like blummin Barbie, all tits and no arse it's awful. BMI is silly as FRM says, muscle is heavier than fat so you will weigh more.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> l/C I am the same as Dogless, ended up in hospital for anorexia in my late teens. With that in mind, yes I think you could be overdoing it as there doesn't seem to be much rest time in there. I went to see a personal trainer when I was well enough and a nutritionist and I'd recommend that. Much much better than hospital and forced into paths you'd not want to take (I was told to drink full fat milk which was contradictory to what I was doing) but a plan with health in mind was good. I am not qualified for either of this things but life experience tells me that I'd rather be honest with you. It is easily balanced again though
> 
> FRM - I am so delighted for you! Well done the Branston (OH thinks they are lovely, we did PF picture show and tell yesterday afternooon - you can tell I was procrastinating over my OU assignment.. oddly I am now as well...)
> 
> I report good news from Molly land. A massive long walk with our trainer and her dogs, perfect manners from my lady and we passed two off lead dogs, no reaction. I seek permission to retract the curses, especially since my OH volunteered to take the car to the garage.* Being of generous chest I do not like garages very much.*


That phrase in itself deserves several 'likes' :lol: :lol: :w00t:

My drama wasn't so much not eating (although I didn't eat much and did become very thin - hard to believe now!!) as sheer over exercise. I got banned from the gym outside work PT sessions at one point .


----------



## tiatortilla

Symone said:


> We got the the beach with minimal pulling (Lead was tight but no pavement hugging!!!)


This made me giggle. Do you mean that when she's pulling she bends her legs and runs along with her belly close to the pavement?
I call it rock climbing when Tia does it, because it looks like she's rock climbing but... on the floor, rather than vertically


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C - no expert opinions from me I am afraid but that does look like a dieting intake, and coupled with the amount of exercise sounds excessive but how do you feel, I mean physically not mentally as I guess your brain might be telling you its fine if there is problem rearing its head. When I was dieting and not even exercising that much I found myself way more tired than normal, if I was doing that amount of exercise I reckon I would have been passing out, I would certainly have been lightheaded I too got to 10 1/2 stone at 5' 8"and left it there, I wasn't stick like yet but you could just tell I would be getting that way. Like FRM says gauge it on how you feel and look, but honestly not with bad head on. I think I concur with others that as you are asking you know the answer yourself .

*Well done FRM & Mr B Pickle *:thumbup1: thats a lot of scary potentially threatening things to encounter.

Your boys sound funny not embarrassing Beth :001_tongue:

Hope your feet are ok MV nothing worse (well I am sure there is ) than the first wear of new boots and they make your feet hurty 

Evie :001_tt1:

Mm not sure what to say Shamaya, its a tad cold for human swimming I say  but well done on the walking bit 

MS - I know the garage feeling but working in construction I have had to get over it and learn to use it to my advantage  Well done Molly

I had a word with OH and he thinks a few of you may be onto something 

ETA soz forgot Tia, well done to you too, good times!


----------



## L/C

foxyrockmeister said:


> Don't get too hung up on the numbers. Have you been 9 and a half stone before? Do you think that's your ideal weight or have you just plucked a number out the air because it sounds about right for your height? The reason I ask is that weight is often pretty meaningless, your bodyfat % is healthy, your resting HR suggests you are physically fit, do you need to lose another stone?
> Before I got married I wanted to get down to 10 stone as I thought that would be about right for my height, however I got down to 10 and half and started to look skeletal, in fear of losing my boobs and bum completely I decided that clearly I was not meant to be 10 stone!!
> 
> Well done on losing the stone and a half already, over 2 and a half months that's an average of 2lb per week loss, which is a good steady weight loss.
> Don't forget muscle is a lot heavier than fat, so with all the exercise you are doing you will be building more muscle and toning up so it's likely that your weight loss will slow down, this is fine
> 
> Please try to go more on how you feel and look - do you feel like you have plenty of energy? Is your skin and hair healthy? rather than what the scales say!


This is really, really helpful - thanks!

9 and a half stone is what I was before my thyroid packed up and I put on loads of weight trying to get it sorted out (I have hypothryoidism and it has taken 2 years since diagnosis to get my meds stabilised at the correct level). Now my TSH and T4 levels have been stable for the last two tests I decided that it was time to sort my weight out.

I'm not too bothered about where my weight ends up tbh - I'm mainly doing it to sort my fitness out and because before the thyroid stuff caused the weight gain and stole all of my energy I used to really enjoy being active. And the fear of terrifying obstacle course is very motivating. I feel really good at the moment (or I did before Ely decided that the only way he could sleep was on top of me!), lots of energy and really positive. I also feel very motivated about other things as well and I'm less inclined to sit around not doing very much - I'd rather be up and out.

My main worry with the eating/exercise balance is that I need to put on muscle mass on my upper body (to cope with terrifying obstacle course) so I don't want to be eating into my lean muscle mass too much. I've upped my protein and tried to diversify my protein sources as well (incorporating nuts and high protein veggies as well as animal sources) so I'm hoping that compensates.

ETA: So many replies while I was typing! I am also generous of chest and have the euphemistic 'child bearing' hips but I'm 5' 6" so not that tall. Thanks everyone for indulging me and giving me your views - I'm really aware that for me there is a fine line between healthy plan and harmful obsession.


----------



## Symone

tiatortilla said:


> This made me giggle. Do you mean that when she's pulling she bends her legs and runs along with her belly close to the pavement?
> I call it rock climbing when Tia does it, because it looks like she's rock climbing but... on the floor, rather than vertically


Lol yep! 
And that's a good word for it. Rock climbing, I like it 

So.. There's a snow storm here, now! so thankful that I changed into dry clothes... Blimey.


----------



## moonviolet

Is it ok to have a belated whinge about something that happened yesterday? If not move along to the next post nothing to see here  :lol:

Shortly after beginning our walk yesterday, we encounted 3 runners and their 3 dogs, the runners were taking up the whole width of the roadway which is i'd say a a vehicle width and a half, the dogs were offlead and very hyped, one was divign off the track chasing birds the other 2 were chasing and almost tripping the runners. So i decided it woudl be best for us to move to the side and wait for them to pass. Tink was offlead but in a sit at my side.

They did not move over, they did not call hte dogs to them, they jsut looked at me liek iw as something they'd stepped , carried on running and without looking back all 3 dogs charged over and one of whom started barking in Tinks face such a star just looked at me. This and the cyclists who do the same are beggining to become a common problem around here


----------



## GingerRogers

Liked for Tink being a star and your apologies for belated griping  you probably get the filthy looks because you are only humble walking in your humble walking clothes, not supercharged leg and wheel moving in magic lycra  stuff them I say, giddy cantering is the way to go.

FRM beware long PM coming your way sorry for off loading.


----------



## Dogless

All too common I think mv . I nearly fell over the other day when two women stopped running, popped leads on their (remarkably well behaved) dogs and thanked me . Mind you, when I'm running other folk out walking let their dogs come after us too . Bad times :nonod:.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Liked for Tink being a star and your apologies for belated griping  you probably get the filthy looks because you are only humble walking in your humble walking clothes, not supercharged leg and wheel moving in magic lycra  stuff them I say, giddy cantering is the way to go.
> .


It would have to be miracle performing lycra if it could turn my giddy canter into a respectable running stride :lol:



Dogless said:


> All too common I think mv . I nearly fell over the other day when two women stopped running, popped leads on their (remarkably well behaved) dogs and thanked me . Mind you, when I'm running other folk out walking let their dogs come after us too . Bad times :nonod:.


You're absolutely right, it's that hoping common courtesy in an " i'm all right Jack" society thing again. I've seen people let their dogs chase runners in fact i heard a particularly cool come back from a runner once. he stopped adn asked the owners to recall the dog, and said "it's for his safety a friend got tangled with a dog whilst running and broke the dogs leg." the dog didn't recall but was duly collected but it's owner.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> You're absolutely right, it's that hoping common courtesy in an " i'm all right Jack" society thing again. I've seen people let their dogs chase runners in fact i heard a particularly cool come back from a runner once. he stopped adn asked the owners to recall the dog, and said "it's for his safety a friend got tangled with a dog whilst running and broke the dogs leg." the dog didn't recall but was duly collected but it's owner.


Remember all the chat about those people who you like to walk with sometimes but also have a dilemma about because of some of the things they do? My lady lets her dog go after runners - she just says "Oh, she hates runners" :nonod: .


----------



## MollySmith

L/C said:


> This is really, really helpful - thanks!
> 
> 9 and a half stone is what I was before my thyroid packed up and I put on loads of weight trying to get it sorted out (I have hypothryoidism and it has taken 2 years since diagnosis to get my meds stabilised at the correct level). Now my TSH and T4 levels have been stable for the last two tests I decided that it was time to sort my weight out.
> 
> I'm not too bothered about where my weight ends up tbh -* I'm mainly doing it to sort my fitness out and because before the thyroid stuff caused the weight gain and stole all of my energy I used to really enjoy being active.* And the fear of terrifying obstacle course is very motivating. I feel really good at the moment (or I did before Ely decided that the only way he could sleep was on top of me!), lots of energy and really positive. I also feel very motivated about other things as well and I'm less inclined to sit around not doing very much - I'd rather be up and out.
> 
> My main worry with the eating/exercise balance is that I need to put on muscle mass on my upper body (to cope with terrifying obstacle course) so I don't want to be eating into my lean muscle mass too much. I've upped my protein and tried to diversify my protein sources as well (incorporating nuts and high protein veggies as well as animal sources) so I'm hoping that compensates.
> 
> ETA: So many replies while I was typing! I am also generous of chest and have the euphemistic 'child bearing' hips but I'm 5' 6" so not that tall. Thanks everyone for indulging me and giving me your views - I'm really aware that for me there is a fine line between healthy plan and harmful obsession.


I am an underactive so I feel your pain, it took years to sort it out and everytime I go through IVF I gain a stone, so six round = 6 stone if I'd sat on my arse so I understand why you want to keep active. 

Honestly I have a proper hourglass so my boobs arrive half hour before the rest of me, it's silly. There was this awful bloke in the pub, well I thought he wasn't as we got on really well, he was nice looking too but I realised he was only staring at my boobs when we spoke. I stuck his hands on them in front of the whole pub and said you may as well cop a feel and get it over and done with. He ran away, too embarrassed to speak to me since.


----------



## Sarah1983

Not having a great day here, my epilepsy is apparently causing me problems. I'm not sure where the day went coz I don't remember much. Hubby says I keep ahving absence seizures. Had takeaway for dinner. I threw part of a portion of chips at the wall (I get sudden jerky movements) and Rupert left them when told to apparently. So that's good I guess. Think I'll just curl up quietly with my cross stitch for the rest of the evening.

Hope everyone else is okay, will hopefully be feeling better tomorrow and will catch up then.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh no! Take care Sarah, feel better soon


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> Is it ok to have a belated whinge about something that happened yesterday? If not move along to the next post nothing to see here  :lol:
> 
> Shortly after beginning our walk yesterday, we encounted 3 runners and their 3 dogs, the runners were taking up the whole width of the roadway which is i'd say a a vehicle width and a half, the dogs were offlead and very hyped, one was divign off the track chasing birds the other 2 were chasing and almost tripping the runners. So i decided it woudl be best for us to move to the side and wait for them to pass. Tink was offlead but in a sit at my side.
> 
> They did not move over, they did not call hte dogs to them, they jsut looked at me liek iw as something they'd stepped , carried on running and without looking back all 3 dogs charged over and one of whom started barking in Tinks face such a star just looked at me. This and the cyclists who do the same are beggining to become a common problem around here


Oh I hear you on the cyclists! We have runners on our regular walk but they get fenced off for their own good but the odd idiot comes to the dog area and looks at us like we're silly.

Cambridge is cycle hell, the paper is full of drivers and cyclists ranting on about each other. I do both and think common respect for life but I do wish cyclists thought about dogs. There is a lovely walk from my house to the river that I like to take Molly but have to cross a main road by some lights but the pavement is too narrow. I hate walking her there as she'll sit so nice at the crossing and every time we get a bike on the path, inches from her tail. She sits still but if one ran it over that's massive vet bill and probably she'd jump into the road too avoid them and into a car. Hateful and inconsiderate. I'd never do that to a dog when I'm on my bike.


----------



## MollySmith

Hugs Sarah, take it easy lovely xx


----------



## Symone

Oh no, Sarah! 
Relax and take it easy, I hope you get better soon.


----------



## L/C

MollySmith said:


> I am an underactive so I feel your pain, it took years to sort it out and everytime I go through IVF I gain a stone, so six round = 6 stone if I'd sat on my arse so I understand why you want to keep active.
> 
> Honestly I have a proper hourglass so my boobs arrive half hour before the rest of me, it's silly. There was this awful bloke in the pub, well I thought he wasn't as we got on really well, he was nice looking too but I realised he was only staring at my boobs when we spoke. I stuck his hands on them in front of the whole pub and said you may as well cop a feel and get it over and done with. He ran away, too embarrassed to speak to me since.


Ha that's a brilliant story. 



Sarah1983 said:


> Not having a great day here, my epilepsy is apparently causing me problems. I'm not sure where the day went coz I don't remember much. Hubby says I keep ahving absence seizures. Had takeaway for dinner. I threw part of a portion of chips at the wall (I get sudden jerky movements) and Rupert left them when told to apparently. So that's good I guess. Think I'll just curl up quietly with my cross stitch for the rest of the evening.
> 
> Hope everyone else is okay, will hopefully be feeling better tomorrow and will catch up then.


Feel better soon Sarah. Hugs for you.



MollySmith said:


> Oh I hear you on the cyclists! We have runners on our regular walk but they get fenced off for their own good but the odd idiot comes to the dog area and looks at us like we're silly.
> 
> Cambridge is cycle hell, the paper is full of drivers and cyclists ranting on about each other. I do both and think common respect for life but I do wish cyclists thought about dogs. There is a lovely walk from my house to the river that I like to take Molly but have to cross a main road by some lights but the pavement is too narrow. I hate walking her there as she'll sit so nice at the crossing and every time we get a bike on the path, inches from her tail. She sits still but if one ran it over that's massive vet bill and probably she'd jump into the road too avoid them and into a car. Hateful and inconsiderate. I'd never do that to a dog when I'm on my bike.


Grr Cambridge and cyclists.  I was on my way to a lecture once when I actually yanked a bloke off his bike by his backpack. He had sailed through a red light on a pedestrian crossing and was about to run into a couple and their kid. He gave me a mouthful but he was a posh boy and I'm from Chatham - I can out swear a sailor and over privileged children hold no fear. Plus his girlfriend was on my course and she gave him a bollocking when she saw him later too.


----------



## Dogless

Be kind to yourself Sarah, hope that you are restored to normal working order soon xx.


----------



## Sarah1983

Ugh, Spencer left the chips, not Rupert! Obviously my brain isn't working right.

Thanks all. I'll either have a full blown seizure and get it over with or I'll be fine in the morning. I'm well overdue one and weird as it sounds I wish it'd just happen so I could be done with it.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Ugh, Spencer left the chips, not Rupert! Obviously my brain isn't working right.
> 
> Thanks all. I'll either have a full blown seizure and get it over with or I'll be fine in the morning. *I'm well overdue one and weird as it sounds I wish it'd just happen so I could be done with it*.


I was thinking that, you never did have one a while back did you. It must be horrible, on the one hand you want to never have them again but then how will you ever know if you are never having one again so you are always waiting so best to just expect them


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Sarah one way or another i hope normal service resumes soonest.


In other business:

Note to self do not upset L/C

Do not admire MS's chest. i have n't done that but i have looked down at my boobs also and waited until they have realised i'm waiting for eye contact ( i've jsut realised it's a bit like waiting for attention from a dog :lol: :lol

One other thing, one of the lab men said my hair looked nice yesterday, i thought he must have been taking the mick as it was quite windy. Turned out he wasn't, so i'm not even goign to bother brushing it anymore :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

I hope you're feeling better soon Sarah. It's a horrible thing to cope with.


----------



## tiatortilla

Take care, Sarah, I hope you feel better tomorrow.


----------



## Beth17

Sarah take it easy and look after yourself.

MV what horrible runners. Why do some people feel they are above common courtesy.

rrr: to all you hourglasses. 

I don't feel well. I just ate 8 pancakes with golden syrup. That'll teach me to be greedy 

A man just rang the doorbell and was selling raffle tickets for dogs trust. I didn't have any cash on me and had to decline. He was lovely about it but I feel really guilty now :frown2: I do seem to live in a perpetual state of guilt though.

Oscar is being a pain with guarding toys tonight so have had to remove certain ones.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Sarah take it easy and look after yourself.
> 
> MV what horrible runners. Why do some people feel they are above common courtesy.
> 
> rrr: to all you hourglasses.
> 
> I don't feel well. I just ate 8 pancakes with golden syrup. That'll teach me to be greedy
> 
> A man just rang the doorbell and was selling raffle tickets for dogs trust. I didn't have any cash on me and had to decline. He was lovely about it but I feel really guilty now :frown2: I do seem to live in a perpetual state of guilt though.
> 
> Oscar is being a pain with guarding toys tonight so have had to remove certain ones.


Don't worry; my best friend said I was an "upside down triangle" once  - broad shoulders and narrower hips. I did once win "Rear of the Year" at a work function though (2009 I think!!!).....very odd knowing that the squaddies had been watching that closely in PT . Apparently I wasn't that great a cyclist when 4 of us used to go out training for triathlons...I was allowed to start at the front because the boys were being...boys :nonod: :hand:. Strangely enough I miss those days so, so badly .


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Sarah take it easy and look after yourself.
> 
> MV what horrible runners. Why do some people feel they are above common courtesy.
> 
> rrr: to all you hourglasses.
> 
> I don't feel well. I just ate 8 pancakes with golden syrup. That'll teach me to be greedy
> 
> A man just rang the doorbell and was selling raffle tickets for dogs trust. I didn't have any cash on me and had to decline. He was lovely about it but I feel really guilty now :frown2: I do seem to live in a perpetual state of guilt though.
> 
> Oscar is being a pain with guarding toys tonight so have had to remove certain ones.


That's my girl....!! It's much too cold to be dieting - luv Grannie (who's just polished off half a home-made mincemeat tart with custard).


----------



## Werehorse

jumping end of thread for quick reply... totally out of place now but am off to dog training in a second, but L/C I think you need to be eating a lot more for that amount of activity - it'll help you perform better too in the long run.  I think 2000 a day at the very least but aiming for some more. I'd check with my fitness pal for a better estimate of what you should be having.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Sarah - so sorry you're having a rough day, I hope things return to normal soon for you, tell that wonder dog of yours to stick the kettle on for you 

MV - What horrid runners, this is just another reason why you should all move here, I keep hearing reports of rude and miserable walkers, runners and cyclists but I have to confess I've never experienced it myself (maybe I'm the rude, miserable one and everyone's complaining about me!  ) We met some runners on our walk at the weekend, I moved the pickles to the side as they went passed, they thanked me, admired the pickles, and made some small talk about the weather  Same happened the other day in the forest with some horse riders and some cyclists, sorry 

L/C Glad to be able to help, it sounds like you know what you should and shouldn't be doing really, listen to your body it's very good at telling you what it needs  There's nothing wrong with lots of exercise as long as it doesn't become an obsession, just make sure you're giving your body the right amount and right type of fuel for it cope with it


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah- I hope you feel better soon- it must be a worry waiting for one to come/pass.

MV-Its a lack of consideration for others- I hate it, its turning me in to my Nan prematurely.:nonod:

Not good here, again.
Hal had a go at Moll tonight, because she sniffed the crinkle wood bags  again no teeth, but he will not stop, I have to pull him off and put him away to calm down-, theres never a problem after and the girls aren't even scared of him. He still hasn't had a go at Scruff- and I dont think he will either, its his mission in life that she'll be his friend.
Apart from the fact that I'm constantly frazzled, I cant even pop out to the washing machine for 2 minutes unless I put him away first, his behaviour is horrendous a lot of the time-I can just about cope with him BUT,

I'm worried , his status has been updated, I've told them- no cats, no small dogs , needs a LOT of training, constant scrounger and great with people,blah, blah, blah.
This with Moll tonight has got me scared- my girls haven't fought back, if he went to a home where another dog did it could be serious.


Another thing, OH and I had agreed not to take any more Male dogs as fosters- perhaps they struggle more coming in to a house with 4 Bitches  we thought Hal would be ok because he's not even 1 year old until Saturday.

I'm not sure I should even put all this here- wish I had BE to help.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - I'm so sorry, things sound really tough at present . Especially without BE .

Horrible walk just now. Very late because we did training, play, then they had big bones, then I made liver, cheese and garlic cake for training. Shouldn't have taken Rudi as I thought he was a bit over tired, but I did; he was a nightmare for trying to have zoomies on the lead and then biting when frustrated. Had to take Kilo as he won't toilet in the garden. To top it all, as if my back isn't screaming and my patience isn't at the end of it's tether Kilo sniffed a lot in our garden, started to teeth chatter, drool and had to be dragged away (which I hate doing) then knocked me down as soon as we got into the house trying to hump me. I was NOT having a repeat of THAT afternoon and I really pushed and yelled at him which I have never done. Felt awful and he wouldn't come near me for 5 minutes at all, cowered away and was a bit afraid to come and get his cow's ear . All OK now, he's settled next to me on the sofa and asked for fusses so I hope no damage done. What a night :nonod:.


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear K&M and Dogless you're both having a difficult evening.

I hope the rescue find Hal a suitable home soon as it sounds very stressful trying to cope with him.

Dogless - Kilo will get over it and it may have taught him to think twice before trying to hump you. 

I had a flipping awful training class this afternoon; Holly went right into one because there was a lot of dogs today and I brought her back into the house after only 20 minutes. Then one of the handlers attempted to do a sit, wait and recall with a 16 week old pup and was about to tell the poor little thing off for breaking the sit and I flew at her, followed by a male handler with a very sensitive collie pushing his dog back on the floor because it dared to sit up on return of the down stay. He got the very sharp end of my tongue. And to cap it all a very experienced handler doing something ridiculous with her very talented bitch. I despair sometimes. Most of them don't want to train their dogs, they just want to test them all the time.

Oh well girls tomorrow is another day.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Oh no K&M and Dogless, sorry you've both had a rubbish time 

Don't feel guilty about shouting at Kilo though Dogless, it sounds like he's forgiven you already  and you definitely did not want a repeat of THAT afternoon 

We've had a good day, after Branston's very successful walk round the block I took Lily out for hers, she was very good  a cat ran out in front of us so she lunged and yelped trying to chase it, I turned her and tried (and failed) to get her focus until it was out of sight. It was frustrating but I wasn't overly worried, just very concerned about what the story would have been if the cat had chosen to run out in front of Branston 10 minutes earlier 

Then we did some training, Branston now loves his mat, just have to get it out of the cupboard and he goes and lies down on it straight away, he's even mastered the 'relaxing on the mat' rather than looking expectantly at me!










We still get a bit of anticipation










but he's definitely learnt that chilling out on the mat is a good thing :thumbup:

Then we went up on the downs for a proper walk, most of our snow has gone now but there were a few bits where it had drifted so they had a good play, sorry not worthy of it's own thread but wanted to share some pics 




























2 tired out doggies now and a contented FRM


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Twiggy, sounds like a real trial too 

To be fair, we had a lovely day until that walk, so not all testing! I have an angelic ridgie asleep on either side of me now, cuddling up :001_wub:. All is forgiven. Can't blame anyone but myself for Rudi'd behaviour, I knew he was possibly a bit tired and tired = silly. Kilo? There were two dogs running loose earlier, same as the ones that were loose the other morning when the one pooed in our front garden :incazzato: so I can only guess that one is a bitch that smells fairly alluring from Kilo's intense reaction. Roll on the Suprelorin kicking in ...as long as there aren't any negative effects on my boy...that worries me, but doesn't everything? .

As you said, tomorrow's another day . Our first day in the next class up for Rudi.


----------



## Sarah1983

Don't beat yourself up Dogless, Kilo will survive being yelled at and maybe he'll think twice about trying to hump you again. I think most of us would yell if knocked down by a large dog trying to hump us.

FRM, Branston looks very relaxed on his mat. Spencer likes mat work but sometimes he's so eager he forgets he actually has to be ON the mat rather than next to it. And when I insist he'll grab the mat, drag it closer and put his chin on it as if to say "well now I'm on it" :lol:

K&M, sorry you're struggling so much with Hal 

I'm still alive. Still no major seizure, just lots of little brain farts. Nothing else has been flung across the room but huge amounts of chocolate have been eaten and a bottle of coke has been drunk. The waiting and wondering is definitely worse than actually having one :nonod:


----------



## Thorne

Firstly, thanks again to those asking after me today  You're all superstars.
Was in the cattery today but there's little reminders of Paddy everywhere. There's a sign saying "PADDY IN STAFF ROOM, PLEASE KNOCK!", the reminder to not let him jump up when getting him out of kennels (with a baby photo of him attached), and his behaviour notes folder. Had a flick through today, made me smile 
I've not found his favourite rubber ring yet, if it does turn up in the undergrowth I might ask to keep it. The idea of playing with it and another dog doesn't feel right, it really was "his" ring.
Overall I'm very upset that he's gone, but I'll be ok. It's just been a long time since a dog close to me passed away (fortunately!).

Off to have a proper read through everyone's updates, have had a quick flick through, and will try and keep up with you all as of tomorrow. 

Dogless - Had to laugh at the photos of your boys, they look very much like my attempts at photographing S&B together! Breeze invariably elbows Scooter out of the way while he poses beautifully in the background 

It's Breeze's birthday tomorrow so expect a celebratory thread at some point!


----------



## Guest

I hope you start to feel better soon Sarah. 
Oh dear for humping kilo, I would have yelled too!
Cyclists and Runners and people in general annoy me MV. Glad tinkers was good. I cuddled a beagle today actually. So calm. 
Love those pics FRM. 

If I've forgotten you sorry! 

Mum took him out this morn as it's my 20th and I took him out this afternoon. He freaked out at the postman and growled at a puppy when a lady stopped to chat when I had him in a nice sit. 

I've eaten alot today. xx


----------



## Dogless

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LO !!!!!!!!

I do hope you've had a good one xx.


----------



## MollySmith

K&M - so sorry it&#8217;s so stressful with Hal, I hope the rescue will get a move on. It must be very hard to watch yours all the time. 

Sarah lovely to hear from you, I cant' imagine what it must be like, take care xx

Twiggy &#8211; I don&#8217;t know where you get the patience you have lovely, I hope the idiots have learned something. People do seem to expect far too much from their dogs.

Dogless &#8211; and patience does run out too. Don&#8217;t feel bad, dogs have to know some boundaries and I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;ll have forgotten soon enough.

FRM - love love love the photos and the good news, OH loves the Pickles photos too. 

Sorry to report another testing evening here. It started good, I got Molly doing drop with her squeaky kong ball then OH joined in (and changed drop cue to 'give' ) annnnway, they were playing so well, it's nice to see. We'll progress to the garden tomorrow and then in the park if it ever gets warm.

Not Molly&#8217;s fault in fact she was wonderful. Next door have an entrance across the back of our garden. Dim and Dozy Rosy next door brings her bike around sometimes and has forgotten to lock the gate (this is a grown woman btw) and we&#8217;ve said before that whilst we do check it before we let Molly out, it&#8217;s manners for humans to shut it. Anyway we let Molly out and whilst the gate was shut she&#8217;d not looped the chain over properly so when Molly pushed it, it opened but it only opens one way. Ten minutes later and we&#8217;re doing our nut. Twenty minutes and I&#8217;m in the front garden in hysterics. Bless her heart, Molly was sat down by the gate quiet as mouse and cos she&#8217;s black we couldn&#8217;t see her. She&#8217;d gone nowhere and I think got a real fright as she couldn&#8217;t get back in. Massive cuddles and licks and all her toy box on our laps.

What a week and it&#8217;s only Wednesday!


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> K&M - so sorry its so stressful with Hal, I hope the rescue will get a move on. It must be very hard to watch yours all the time.
> 
> Sarah lovely to hear from you, I cant' imagine what it must be like, take care xx
> 
> Twiggy  I dont know where you get the patience you have lovely, I hope the idiots have learned something. People do seem to expect far too much from their dogs.
> 
> Dogless  and patience does run out too. Dont feel bad, *dogs have to know some boundaries* and Im sure hell have forgotten soon enough.
> 
> FRM - love love love the photos and the good news, OH loves the Pickles photos too.
> 
> Sorry to report another testing evening here. It started good, I got Molly doing drop with her squeaky kong ball then OH joined in (and changed drop cue to 'give' ) annnnway, they were playing so well, it's nice to see. We'll progress to the garden tomorrow and then in the park if it ever gets warm.
> 
> Not Mollys fault in fact she was wonderful. Next door have an entrance across the back of our garden. Dim and Dozy Rosy next door brings her bike around sometimes and has forgotten to lock the gate (this is a grown woman btw) and weve said before that whilst we do check it before we let Molly out, its manners for humans to shut it. Anyway we let Molly out and whilst the gate was shut shed not looped the chain over properly so when Molly pushed it, it opened but it only opens one way. Ten minutes later and were doing our nut. Twenty minutes and Im in the front garden in hysterics. Bless her heart, Molly was sat down by the gate quiet as mouse and cos shes black we couldnt see her. Shed gone nowhere and I think got a real fright as she couldnt get back in. Massive cuddles and licks and all her toy box on our laps.
> 
> What a week and its only Wednesday!


Please don't think I don't set any boundaries for this pair, I do try - but don't normally resort to shouting. Especially as I know what a surprisingly sensitive soul Kilo is!

I'm sorry to hear about your awful evening too - seems like it's catching!! Bless little Molly though, waiting all along .


----------



## MollySmith

Oh and me both Dogless! We have a babygate gathering dust that's meant to show boundaries but she's pretty much allowed most places... she's currently sleeping in the bedroom and that was never meant to be.


----------



## Maria_1986

L/C said:


> I'm from Chatham -


My condolences! I moved away from Chatham about 5 years ago, unfortunately some of my family are still there so I do still have to go back.

Sarah - I hope you are doing better soon.

I'm sorry I've not been around much but the last few days have been a bit hard as my little friend Dougal, one of my cinnamon trust doggies, was put to sleep Monday. He was only 4/5ish. Found out on Tuesday when I went to walk them and as selfish as it sounds I'm not sure I want to go back for a while as I was very attached to him and have been rather upset about it. I will go back though as Candy will need the routine to help her cope as she can get a bit stressed about changes.

Chevy however was a star at training on Tuesday night, really tuned into me and did a wonderful LLW. I came out with a grin as apparently it was clear that I had put in lots of time and effort during the week so my stressing about doing it all wrong was a little of an over reaction. Last night we learnt a game where she has to touch her nose to our hand to get a treat, she seemed to really enjoy it and so did I. Infact she seemed to really enjoy the class last night, she was much more relaxed and much happier with a relaxed wagging tail, bright eyes and a cheeky grin.


----------



## Werehorse

Class was ok. Stupidly tired. Wish Oscar didn't seem quite so stressed sometimes.  Lots of stressy shakes at class this evening.  Hugo was perfect paws including really exaggerating his "up the chuff" presents with a dishcloth... instructor not keen on this kind of present so felt  OH seemed to manage to train Oscar to drop the dishcloth 3ft away from him because he kept clicking him for "being cute".  First time I've actually just wanted to get cross about something with OH training him. 

Have been teaching the boys a new trick rather than doing anything serious at home.  It started with Hugo just sitting still and me seeing if Oscar would run round him on a whim, thinking he wouldn't... then Oscar did, then Hugo added his own little florish... It is far from perfect yet.

Round and Round the Hugo... - YouTube


----------



## Thorne

*HAPPY BIRTHDAY LO, hope you've had a good'un!*

Big hugs to everyone who's had tough days today 

Sarah -Hope you're on the mend asap, take care.

K&M -Sorry to hear about Hal being difficult again, hoping the others are coping ok with it, and you! Crossing my fingers that the rescue will be able to help you out soon.

Dogless -I know most people would have done the same in your position (absolutely no puns intended btw!) and many would have gone out of their way to scold him. I remember doing the same when I caught Scooter trying to hump one of my sister's friends, who was only about 5 at the time and in the process of being pinned. Really screamed at him and dragged him away, he barely looked at me until the next day so I felt awful  Fortunately he's not attempted it since.

Maria -Sounds like we're in a similar boat at the moment; so sorry to hear about Dougal, another one gone so young 

Apologies to everyone I've skipped, hope to catch up soon xx


----------



## Werehorse

Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY LURCHEROWNER!!!


----------



## Dogless

Maria - Chevy sounds as if she's just getting better and better, so pleased. She seems such a sunny girl.

Werehorse - that video is so, so cute!


----------



## moonviolet

*LO*

MS what a good girl Molly was but how scary. As for OH maybe make him a cue card :lol:

K&M i does sound a bit like walking on eggshells, it's probably very stimulating fo Hal having all the girls and cats around. If he was used to being alone for a large propoartion of the day I don't thik it would be cruel to crate him in a quiet place for a couple of hours here and there to help him chill.

Dogless being humped by a dog of Kilo's size and strength is an emergency situation, much as I am pretty fluffy I have yelled in an emergency at dogs, children etc.

Maria You and Chevy were made for each other sounds liek you have bonded so nicely. I love the hand touch game, it's a great warm up focus game , it's great distraction game when out and about and you don't wnat them fixating on something, it's the beginning of them watching you hand which can be the door way into other activities. 

K&M what a super cute video. clever Oscar and Hugo what a clown 

Thorne good to see you , I'm surprised Breeze pushes in front of Scooter seem to have her as a very sweet little lady in my head :lol:

Tink is just a tiny bit lame on her 3 claw paw but i actually think a pavement walk is gentler on it than a training session. I'll see how she's doing when she gets up, she's had a mini breakfast, run out for a superfast brr it's cold out here wee and gone back to bed :lol: terrible hard life


----------



## MollySmith

Happy Birthday LO


----------



## Beth17

Happy birthday LO. Hope you had a good day 

Werehorse what a great video. They are so sweet.

I hope everyone has a better day today.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- I dont blame you for yelling- I'm sure most of us would in that position.

Sarah- hope you're feeling better today.

MV- hope Miss Tinks paw isn't too sore.

Hope you had a good birthday LO.

Werehorse-Twiggy will know, but I dont understand the Trainer not being keen on a close  sit.

Sorry if I've forgot anyone.

I've been awake half the night worrying about what to do. When he's walked on his own or when I'm doing a bit of training - he's lovely, a normal young Spaniel- he's not even that bothered by food outside, prefering toys.
Indoors with the girls, hes wild, some of you have heard me mention Moll's family, well he manages to make them look Angelic.
He's so reactive, throwing himself at doors, windows , I'm forever cleaning mud off things. And he is always on the scrounge for food- he would steal from your hands if he got the chance.
I really think a lot of it is because he's now living with 4 girls and the cats etc. Its strange that the girls aren't scared of him but it must be affecting them.
There is a behaviourist who lives miles away but helped me out once with a foster dog by email- I'm going to see if she's still about and although I hate to let the rescue down, I may suggest he's taken off rehoming for the moment and placed with another foster family- without dogs for a true assessment.
MV- he does get crated- as you know he's in the pantry  thats worked much better. He goes in if I'm working or shopping[or driving me mad] and he's brilliant, I have always given him a kong or something. Sometimes he even asks to go in just because he knows he gets a bit of food.

Sorry for pouring it all out here.


----------



## MollySmith

Keep talking kat&molly if it helps. I think you have to do what is right for yours and for Hal. If the others cause him stress it sounds like its best for him to find another foster, that sounds fair all round and at least you have gained a thorough insight into how he behaves. ((Hugs))


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I've been awake half the night worrying about what to do. When he's walked on his own or when I'm doing a bit of training - he's lovely, a normal young Spaniel- he's not even that bothered by food outside, prefering toys.
> Indoors with the girls, hes wild, some of you have heard me mention Moll's family, well he manages to make them look Angelic.
> He's so reactive, throwing himself at doors, windows , I'm forever cleaning mud off things. And he is always on the scrounge for food- he would steal from your hands if he got the chance.
> I really think a lot of it is because he's now living with 4 girls and the cats etc. Its strange that the girls aren't scared of him but it must be affecting them.
> There is a behaviourist who lives miles away but helped me out once with a foster dog by email- I'm going to see if she's still about and although I hate to let the rescue down, I may suggest he's taken off rehoming for the moment and placed with another foster family- without dogs for a true assessment.
> MV- he does get crated- as you know he's in the pantry  thats worked much better. He goes in if I'm working or shopping[or driving me mad] and he's brilliant, I have always given him a kong or something. Sometimes he even asks to go in just because he knows he gets a bit of food.
> 
> Sorry for pouring it all out here.


He sounds a little like an overstimulated , over tired pup. I think another foster home might be good but in the mean time i'd consider a routine for him with regular chill out times and time outs the moment he starts to get silly. I wonder if time with humans/dogs has always meant playtime for him so he's unable to settle in company.. does that make any sense.

Hope you are able to get soem help from the behaviourist and the rescue. The above is just a suggestion for a survival plan for the time being that might help Hal learn to tone down his hurricane a little.

Don't be sorry for offloading


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks both, and yes MV- it does make sense because he is definately overstimulated[IMO].
I'll give him more down time and look at what else I can do to keep him calm. He does mostly settle of an evening now-[unless he hears something] so thats good because we're all frazzled by then.:laugh:


----------



## MollySmith

Molly got very hyper dog when she stayed with our trainer and her three, just would not settle at all in the house for the first day, as far as we know she had never been in a house with other dogs before. It was over excitement no aggression. I just emailed her to see what she did in case it helps you and she replied to say that she kept Molly on a house line when she was around the others and left it trailing but she could pop her foot on it needed, crating her as you are and letting her settle with her favourite dog than all of them at once, using a baby gate to divide them. She's off out but said she will email later if she can think of anything else.


----------



## kat&molly

MollySmith said:


> Molly got very hyper dog when she stayed with our trainer and her three, just would not settle at all in the house for the first day, as far as we know she had never been in a house with other dogs before. It was over excitement no aggression. I just emailed her to see what she did in case it helps you and she replied to say that she kept Molly on a house line when she was around the others and left it trailing but she could pop her foot on it needed, crating her as you are and letting her settle with her favourite dog than all of them at once, using a baby gate to divide them. She's off out but said she will email later if she can think of anything else.


That was kind of you thanks. I have used the long line indoors a few times- its a pain but helps. I'm sure the fact that he doesn't use his teeth shows he doesn't 'mean harm' . We've had the odd good day so I'm aiming for another one today.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - this thread is all about outpourings; we're all here to listen. Can't add to mv's sage words I'm afraid though xx.

mv - I am pleased that Miss T isn't too much of a hoppalong this morning, she's a real little trooper :001_wub:.

Good walk this morning; both boys were brilliant - little Rudi Roo walked as if he didn't have a lead attached and there was no jumping and biting . Kilo walked well too (always does, pretty much, love him) and we went to the top fields for a play. He got very interested in our hedge and drooled, chattered etc again then started to look as if he was going to hump me but I managed to deter him, so he's a good boy!

They're both sparked out but I'm about to wake Rudi up for school...at least with earlier school we went straight back out so the poor little fella didn't have a chance for blissful sleep first. Prefer an hour later though, gives me room for some fudge factor!!


----------



## kat&molly

Have agood class Dogless.

Well, just had a phone call from the rescue and hes being moved this afternoon. Gutted its so quick. Poor boy, doesn't know whether he's coming or going.


----------



## Symone

Happy Birthday, LO!!!! 

Werehorse - I love that video! It's so cute.  

Dogless - Glad that you had a good walk  Hope Rudi will enjoy School!

K&M - I have no advice, but good luck! Hopefully something soon will work 


Well, I don't know if Shamaya is smart or silly! She had a wee accident over night (Luckily in the hall) 
However.. She decided to clean it up. With herself. She was completely covered in wee.
Smart for cleaning it up. Not so with using herself as a mop! He white fur was stained yellow. Thankfully a wash got it out. 

Nothing else to say, really.. She has been good all day so far. Going to take her out for her proper morning walk when the OH is back... Hope he's buying me some chocolate.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



Please don't think I don't set any boundaries for this pair, I do try - but don't normally resort to shouting. Especially as I know what a surprisingly sensitive soul Kilo is!

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> I'm sorry to hear about your awful evening too - seems like it's catching!! Bless little Molly though, waiting all along .


I'm quite sure you don't normally resort to shouting and I don't normally lose my rag when I'm teaching but......

I had a doctors appointment early this morning and, among other things, he took my blood pressure. Good job my appointment wasn't 4.45pm yesterday because it would have been sky high...LOL


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Have agood class Dogless.
> 
> Well, just had a phone call from the rescue and hes being moved this afternoon. Gutted its so quick. Poor boy, doesn't know whether he's coming or going.


Don't feel gutted. In your heart of hearts you know it's for the best and you've tried very hard with him.


----------



## Twiggy

*LO* - Belated Happy Birthday wishes.

*Werehorse* - It greatly depends on the degree of 'up the jumper presents' and a lot of judges mark for it if the dog's front legs or chest are through the handler's legs.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Don't feel gutted. In your heart of hearts you know it's for the best and you've tried very hard with him.


Think I;m just a bit shocked at how fast really, I only emailed to ask for the behaviourist details and said it may be best if he went to a quieter house for fostering.
He's off to stay with the behaviourist , so he should get what he needs.


----------



## MollySmith

kat&molly said:


> Think I;m just a bit shocked at how fast really, I only emailed to ask for the behaviourist details and said it may be best if he went to a quieter house for fostering.
> He's off to stay with the behaviourist , so he should get what he needs.


Oh sweetheart, that is fast but it's great news that he's going to the behaviourist and you've done a huge part in helping to get him the right home for life by seeing how he reacts to things. I am sure that if he could speak he'd be grateful for that and so will his new family as they'll be the right one thanks to you


----------



## Thorne

moonviolet said:


> Thorne good to see you , I'm surprised Breeze pushes in front of Scooter seem to have her as a very sweet little lady in my head :lol:


She is a Madam with a capital M! 

Hoping everyone has good days today, and don't worry about outpouring K&M. You've done some brilliant work with him but it does sound like he'd benefit from a quieter house, so hoping the move goes well. Thinking of you.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - that is rapid. At least you know that you have given him a great start in his onward journey, you really are a caring, giving person xx.

Symone - yuck at dog mop :nonod:.

Rudi was really good at school, really pleased with him . He likes the trainer less and less though every week we go. Greets every other person with huge enthusiasm, massively waggy tail (well, whole back end), loves all the attention he can get. When the trainer comes over he tucks his tail and tries to get behind me - handing over to do the recall is a trauma as he thrashes to get away; needless to say his recall is spot on!! The trainer says that all dogs love him apart from my two - which is true, Kilo doesn't like him either . Maybe Rudi associates him with the anxiety of being held for the recall??? 

Odd thing is, someone's dog from the class before pooed on the floor whilst i was waiting at the side and they took the dog out but left the poo so I cleaned it up before the others trampled in it. Anyhow, a lady held Rudi for me and when I came back he was just washing one lady's face whilst another fussed him in his element so it's not all people that hold him by any means.


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## kat&molly

I never realised, he's going quick because of transport- one dog leaves today and he goes in. We're leaving shortly to deliver him half way.

Its not me feeling sorry for myself[ although I am]:laugh: but I dont think it has done him much good being here- its been way too much for him after being stuck on his own in the last home- I'm sure he thinks every day is like Christmas and he's been constantly on edge. Hopefully someone who knows what they're doing can keep him calmer.

Thanks to everyone for helping me [again]- especially MV- who puts up with my PM's of woe.

Dogless- I think your trainer should take the hint if neither of the boys like him.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> k&m - that is rapid. At least you know that you have given him a great start in his onward journey, you really are a caring, giving person xx.
> 
> Symone - yuck at dog mop :nonod:.
> 
> Rudi was really good at school, really pleased with him . He likes the trainer less and less though every week we go. Greets every other person with huge enthusiasm, massively waggy tail (well, whole back end), loves all the attention he can get. When the trainer comes over he tucks his tail and tries to get behind me - handing over to do the recall is a trauma as he thrashes to get away; needless to say his recall is spot on!! The trainer says that all dogs love him apart from my two - which is true, Kilo doesn't like him either . Maybe Rudi associates him with the anxiety of being held for the recall???
> 
> Odd thing is, someone's dog from the class before pooed on the floor whilst i was waiting at the side and they took the dog out but left the poo so I cleaned it up before the others trampled in it. Anyhow, a lady held Rudi for me and when I came back he was just washing one lady's face whilst another fussed him in his element so it's not all people that hold him by any means.


Well done Rudi and well done you for cleaning up the poo, who would walk out and not clean up the poo?

How do you feel about the trainer?

K&M They haven't given you any time to adjust have they? I think you've done a grand job with him and are doing the best for him now which is the selfless thing to do.  I put up with your pm's of woe as you put up with mine 

Thorne I love that Breeze is a Madam I love her even more now 

Twiggy It's a shame when people are so focussed on the goal they aren't enjoying the journey. I dont' think i'd be able to keep my temper with them at all.

Have done a mixture games and a shorter pavement walk this morning here's a little video of her playing the " where has that mad cow hidden her keys this time?"

amusingtink - YouTube


----------



## Leam1307

Well i thought i would give you all a wee update on how Molly is getting on if your interested. shes getting really big now at 14weeks old and has almost outgrown her 14" coat. I weighed her last week and she was 5.1kg! which is brilliant considering what she was when we got her. Shes lost the tubby tummy now and is looking very svelt, without being too ribby.

Shes really enjoying her walks (although not if its raining, even treats wont make her go out the door in that) She now sits beautifully at kerbs and waits for cars to go past, or if i stop to talk to someone she lies down at my side and waits. She has met quite alot of dogs in the neighbourhood now from a bulldog pup to a giant newfoundland! (she doesnt even meet his knees!) Although shes very interested to meet them, she will walk away calmly if a meeting isnt to take place or she will play bow and then lie down and wait for them to come say hello..then she tries to smother them in kisses.

We met one dog that had just had a altracation with another and was abit growly at her but the owner wanted it to say hello and Molly just lay down then gave it one lick on the nose then she got up and walked the other way. Apart from a few pieces of paper or cardboard she hasnt chewed anything in the house and is really coming along with her housetraining. Will now go to the door and sit down when she needs out or if im not in the same room will come through with her lead in her mouth. She usually only needs after shes had food and about 10am and 8pm so its pretty easy to keep on top of it so there isnt any accidents.

Last night we took her to the pub as OH was playing pool so she met lots of strange noisy men and seemed to love everyone, her tail didnt stop wagging the whole time, she also lay down quietly when there was a game on and the guys gave her lots of fuss afterwards for being good. (very funny seeing these burly men doting on a wee pup) Shes been up to the stables a few times too and has met the horses, she likes to keep a respectable distance from them though.

Oh and she LOVES the cats! shes very good with them, has figured out that if she bounces over to them they will run away and thats no fun, so she lies down and waits for them to inspect her...although her bum moves about with the tail wagging. The other day i didnt realise one of them had fallen asleep in her bed and he didnt even move when Molly jumped in beside him. The other one is positive that Molly isnt clean enough and has taken to grooming her head once shes had some food (although im pretty sure its the food and not molly hes interested in) They (the cats) have settled right down again, are back to their talkitive selves bringing their fav toys for you to look at and apart from the first night without Deeks we havent had a single cat fight from them. :smile5:

Im so glad reading Ballybees updates on how he is getting on that he seems to have settled right down with Dan and Tummell and is now happy.

Sorry for the long post.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, can you not avoid the trainer having to hold them? Seems very odd that both your two have such an aversion to him. Could someone else not hold them for recall if it's absolutely necessary that they're held?

K&M, sorry things haven't worked out with Hal but it really does sound like the environment may be too much for him. He sounds a lot like Spencer was when we got him but obviously we didn't have other dogs so could just concentrate on him. Not every home or foster home is going to be suitable for every dog 

Apologies for everything I've missed. I've not had a seizure but am still feeling very off. No walk for Spen today, he'll have to make do with games of fetch out front and some training sessions. Feel a bit guilty about not taking him anywhere at all but I don't dare go anywhere feeling like this. It's not like he'll mind, he'll get to run around after his toys and do some work with me so all will be well in his world.

And let's face it, he hardly looks like he's in dire need of a good walk does he?


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


>


OMG Sarah such cruelty that dog is climbing the walls :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sorry you arent' feeling better today, it's a horrible sort of Limbo situation to be in. I'm sure Spendog will be more than happy playing some games doing some training


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> k&m - that is rapid. At least you know that you have given him a great start in his onward journey, you really are a caring, giving person xx.
> 
> Symone - yuck at dog mop :nonod:.
> 
> Rudi was really good at school, really pleased with him . He likes the trainer less and less though every week we go. Greets every other person with huge enthusiasm, massively waggy tail (well, whole back end), loves all the attention he can get. When the trainer comes over he tucks his tail and tries to get behind me - handing over to do the recall is a trauma as he thrashes to get away; needless to say his recall is spot on!! The trainer says that all dogs love him apart from my two - which is true, Kilo doesn't like him either . Maybe Rudi associates him with the anxiety of being held for the recall???
> 
> Odd thing is, someone's dog from the class before pooed on the floor whilst i was waiting at the side and they took the dog out but left the poo so I cleaned it up before the others trampled in it. Anyhow, a lady held Rudi for me and when I came back he was just washing one lady's face whilst another fussed him in his element so it's not all people that hold him by any means.


Why put Rudi through it for the sake of a recall? If the trainer persists in holding onto him sooner or later Rudi is going to nip him out of fear.

There are always ways round these things ie you hold his collar and throw a tit-bit out in front of you as far as you can and as Rudi eats the tit-bit call him - simples!!


----------



## Barcode

Well, progress with the on-lead barking of sorts.

It's gone from a 'I-look-like-I-want-to-kill-you' to 'please-please-let-me-play' type barking (hard to explain, but we know our dogs and can tell the difference), so ... I think there may be something to the being frustrated theory. It is almost as if Scrabble has regressed in time and forgotten how to interact nicely.

But ... we have met a few dogs nicely on-lead this week, and OH has reported calmer morning walks. The suspected campylobacter should be under control with antibiotics now, and we're going to try taking her back to class on sunday.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> OMG Sarah such cruelty that dog is climbing the walls :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> Sorry you arent' feeling better today, it's a horrible sort of Limbo situation to be in. I'm sure Spendog will be more than happy playing some games doing some training


I know, it's awful isn't it? Poor Spen, I should be reported and banned from keeping animals for life :nonod: I'm sure he will be happy with some games and training, it's not like he never gets walked and he's used to the odd lazy day here and there. Might do some recall work outside, p*ss off all the neighbours by blowing my whistle :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I never realised, he's going quick because of transport- one dog leaves today and he goes in. We're leaving shortly to deliver him half way.
> 
> Its not me feeling sorry for myself[ although I am]:laugh: but I dont think it has done him much good being here- its been way too much for him after being stuck on his own in the last home- I'm sure he thinks every day is like Christmas and he's been constantly on edge. Hopefully someone who knows what they're doing can keep him calmer.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for helping me [again]- especially MV- who puts up with my PM's of woe.
> 
> Oh bless you. You haven't failed him; you've done your very best to help him. How could you have possibly known how he was going to react to your girls.
> 
> I looked after a friend's young collie dog whilst she was away for the week-end a few years ago and he nearly drove me mad. He never stopped. I was mightily relieved to hand him back and let peace and tranquility descend on the house. Apparently when she got him home he slept for about 24 hours which didn't surprise me at all.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I looked after a friend's young collie dog whilst she was away for the week-end a few years ago and he nearly drove me mad. He never stopped. I was mightily relieved to hand him back and let peace and tranquility descend on the house. Apparently when she got him home he slept for about 24 hours which didn't surprise me at all.


Lol, we had this looking after next doors dog. He was all go go go go go, so much so that he even wore Spencer out! Apparently he was so calm when he went home :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

O Dogless - you know I know how rubbish you felt last night, it is horrid of our dogs to push us to the end of our tether and make us shout at them  especially when we try so hard to do things the nice way. No one could blame you for losing it not after 'that' day. At least he still loves you and has been a good boy ever since. And Rudi, I am with the others why does the instructor insist on holding them its a disaster waiting to happen isn't it. He should just accept that they don't like him, he has all the other dogs he can't have your two as well. It is strange though.

Sorry you had a frustrating blood pressure raising day as well Twiggy.

FRM - WOW look at Mr B Pickle, chillin' *how *have you managed that so quickly, we still have anticipation, I can synthesise relaxation by making her do half a roll over and then stroking her till she gets the message but its not really working. & I have been meaning to ask what is the book you got? Thank you very much for your help, I printed off your PM and showed hubby, he thought :thumbup1: so I have emailed a local practitioner, we are so grasping at any hope but it does make a lot of sense in his case.

Happy Birthday Madam Breeze 

Belated Happy Birthday Madam Lurcher Owner 
MS how scary but bless her for not actually going anywhere :001_wub:

Maria sorry to hear about your news too  but good Chevy for putting a grin on your face.

Werehorse - your boys, that video so lovely :001_wub:

MS what a good girl Molly was but how scary. As for OH maybe make him a cue card :lol:

MV - another lovely vid from you :001_wub:, hope Miss Tinks paw is OK.

K&M - hugs for you, you ahev done more than expected, you gave him a home when needed and gave the rescue time to find a place, its a ll timing anyway, if you hadn't had him he wouldn't have the place at the behaviorist, he's in good hands (hopefully) and its all thanks to you, you lovely kind hearted person you! 

Symone - I don't know about smart Shamaya, but yuck , if she was smart she would wait for another dog to come round and get them to 'clean' it up lol.

Barcode - result on the barking front, perhaps her feeling poorly had something to do with it or perhaps as you say she just needed a reminder of her manners, hope it continues.

Sorry if I missed anyone.

We have a little sweetheart here today, she came with me to see a client which took a lot longer than I thought but she hasn't held it against me for being stuck in the boot for ages, we had a nice walk along the estuary on the way home and it started to snow, proper big white fluffy floaty flakes, none of the horrid driving, hail like stuff we have been having. Had a good training session with hand targets first thing this morning starting inside and gradually moving into the garden, her response got slower but it was still there. She didn't bark at a dog on and advert at lunch time either  we had made her sit in her bed while we ate (have always been a bit lax on that say 'go and lay down' and she lays down just doesn't go anywhere, bless ) hubby (hes picking up on stuff ) suggested it was because she had to stay in her bed and barking at the telly involves rushing at it and smashing her throat on the side of the coffee table hence leaving her bed 

Her vulva is definitely swollen, we think , is she finally coming into season, who knows?


----------



## Symone

Well, had a lovely day at the beach!

I stupidly said "Beach" before we left so she knew where we were going.. Couldn't use a different path as well, because the tide was insanely in! Hardly any beach to walk on, lol! 

Did a bit of training.. And I went over board with my camera. (I made a thread with the pics on.. won't bore you all with posting twice, lol!)

She was lovely with this whippet we met, which was nice  He was so lovely. 
She went in the water loads, and I'm happy that she's getting over her fear of water. 

No pulling on the way home apart from one part where she suddenly yanked the lead and nearly pulled me over into the road. 

It was overall a lovely walk. I'll probably take her there again in an hour, was nice having the OH with us.


----------



## Barcode

Afternoon walk a success.

Met two on-lead labs on way home, with Scrabble and Matilda also on-lead. Woman stopped for a fuss as "I love Staffies" (nicer than usual response!), then decided to get out a treat. I thought "here we go" knowing that, Matilda excepted, Scrabble can be a bit growly in this situation. But ...

Nothing.

She just sat there, nicely, waiting for her treat (more than can be said for Matilda!). Sniffed the labs, no pulling, jumping, making noises or anything else. That is the Scrabble I had before all this began, so I'm hoping we've just had a little blip and are on our way back to normal.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I took Holly over to the barn this afternoon with Tremor, wondering what response I'd get from her, but she was absolutely fine - I've got blood to prove it...LOL

I think all the dogs and handlers yesterday were a bit too much especially as some of them are a bit loud.

I really must try and get her out and about a bit more and hopefully to more shows this year.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Well done Rudi and well done you for cleaning up the poo, who would walk out and not clean up the poo?
> 
> How do you feel about the trainer?
> 
> K&M They haven't given you any time to adjust have they? I think you've done a grand job with him and are doing the best for him now which is the selfless thing to do.  I put up with your pm's of woe as you put up with mine
> 
> Thorne I love that Breeze is a Madam I love her even more now
> 
> Twiggy It's a shame when people are so focussed on the goal they aren't enjoying the journey. I dont' think i'd be able to keep my temper with them at all.
> 
> Have done a mixture games and a shorter pavement walk this morning here's a little video of her playing the " where has that mad cow hidden her keys this time?"
> 
> amusingtink - YouTube


I get a bit nervous of him after Kilo nipped him that night because he does get in his face to show him that he isn't afraid of him. I dread anything like the grooming TBH as he'll stand very close and trap Kilo. He's never shown any aggression again like that nip (the night his phone went) but I am on edge. I'm not nervous when I have Rudi.



Twiggy said:


> Why put Rudi through it for the sake of a recall? If the trainer persists in holding onto him sooner or later Rudi is going to nip him out of fear.
> 
> There are always ways round these things ie you hold his collar and throw a tit-bit out in front of you as far as you can and as Rudi eats the tit-bit call him - simples!!


I _think _that Rudi would sit, wait and recall as we train it every day, but not sure in the class environment. Kilo is no drama at all as in their class they do sit, wait, recall so no one is holding them. Kilo strangely is OK with the trainer holding his lead but Rudi hates it.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - poor Spendog, looks as if he's suffering badly with his lack of walks :hand: :nonod:.


----------



## Twiggy

I _think _that Rudi would sit, wait and recall as we train it every day, but not sure in the class environment. Kilo is no drama at all as in their class they do sit, wait, recall so no one is holding them. Kilo strangely is OK with the trainer holding his lead but Rudi hates it.[/QUOTE]

*I think* is no good...!! That's one of the reasons I blew my top yesterday.
Unless the dog's sit stay is 100% after lots of proofing and working against distractions, if a handler attempts it in any guise (a recall to front in this case) then they are setting their dog up to fail.

Here endeth the third lesson - luv Grannie....:hand:


----------



## Dogless

Thanks Grannie - as I suspected, please don't blow your top though....I do listen, honest . I'm not sure how to broach someone else holding him or me throwing a tit bit....he more takes the 'this dog will do as it's told' approach I think as he just grabbed him today whilst saying "hold it still" to me. I will mull it over before next week.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thanks Grannie - as I suspected, please don't blow your top though....I do listen, honest . I'm not sure how to broach someone else holding him or me throwing a tit bit....he more takes the 'this dog will do as it's told' approach I think as he just grabbed him today whilst saying "hold it still" to me. I will mull it over before next week.


I agree it is difficult without being rude (which I would be!!).

OK how about having Rudi on the lead, walking round him a couple saying something like "good sit" and then running backwards and calling him? You can tell the trainer it's progress, when really it's a 'get out clause'.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I agree it is difficult without being rude (which I would be!!).
> 
> OK how about having Rudi on the lead, walking round him a couple saying something like "good sit" and then running backwards and calling him? You can tell the trainer it's progress, when really it's a 'get out clause'.....


Good idea Grannie! Rudi loves classes apart from the being held bit, parades in there wagging his tail and really does work well. I suspect I will be told not to muck about and the dog has to learn who is in control.....but will see what he thinks .


----------



## Dimwit

*pokes head round door* Please may I come in????
I have always been a bit scared to post in here (mainly because if I listed all the things I have to work on I will be here all night) but I need some advice on how to get Sprocket to focus on me when we are trying to do heelwork (or any form of obedience) instead of spending his whole time with his nose glued to the floor.

I know that it is my fault for being a rubbish trainer and that I need to make myself more exciting/rewarding but I don't know how. He is especially bad at training classes, which is partly why I stopped going as I got fed up of the instructor telling me that I just need to use a higher value treat. It doesn't help that his nose is so close to the ground or that sometimes he uses sniffing as a displacement activity when he gets anxious or he doesn't understand what I am asking but sometimes it is just a case of "yay, I'm somewhere with new and exciting smells and someone may have dropped food here, isn't this fun and why is the stupid human asking me to sit"

So, any ideas on how I can make myself more interesting and get the little dimwit to focus on me???


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> *pokes head round door* Please may I come in????
> I have always been a bit scared to post in here (mainly because if I listed all the things I have to work on I will be here all night) but I need some advice on how to get Sprocket to focus on me when we are trying to do heelwork (or any form of obedience) instead of spending his whole time with his nose glued to the floor.
> 
> I know that it is my fault for being a rubbish trainer and that I need to make myself more exciting/rewarding but I don't know how. He is especially bad at training classes, which is partly why I stopped going as I got fed up of the instructor telling me that I just need to use a higher value treat. It doesn't help that his nose is so close to the ground or that sometimes he uses sniffing as a displacement activity when he gets anxious or he doesn't understand what I am asking but sometimes it is just a case of "yay, I'm somewhere with new and exciting smells and someone may have dropped food here, isn't this fun and why is the stupid human asking me to sit"
> 
> So, any ideas on how I can make myself more interesting and get the little dimwit to focus on me???


Oh we're all lovely on this particular thread and are very honest about our failings as trainers, our failings with diets, our failings with husbands, etc. etc....

I'm about to put dinner on the table and I'm then going out but will reply to your problem later tonight or tomorrow.

I see you are Cambridge. Do you mind me asking who you train with?


----------



## Dogless

Welcome Dimwit ....that sounds insulting . Twiggy is the font of all knowledge, so I shan't offer any of my measly advice, but didn't want to ignore you!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> *pokes head round door* Please may I come in????
> I have always been a bit scared to post in here (mainly because if I listed all the things I have to work on I will be here all night) but I need some advice on how to get Sprocket to focus on me when we are trying to do heelwork (or any form of obedience) instead of spending his whole time with his nose glued to the floor.
> 
> I know that it is my fault for being a rubbish trainer and that I need to make myself more exciting/rewarding but I don't know how. He is especially bad at training classes, which is partly why I stopped going as I got fed up of the instructor telling me that I just need to use a higher value treat. It doesn't help that his nose is so close to the ground or that sometimes he uses sniffing as a displacement activity when he gets anxious or he doesn't understand what I am asking but sometimes it is just a case of "yay, I'm somewhere with new and exciting smells and someone may have dropped food here, isn't this fun and why is the stupid human asking me to sit"
> 
> So, any ideas on how I can make myself more interesting and get the little dimwit to focus on me???


Come take a seat and please stop beating yourself up 

Training your dog can and should be fun 

I dont' think you need to make yourself more interesting or up the value of treats to truffle stuffed cheese or beluga caviaar Instead consider how to make focussing on you rewarding for him. i'd start with something really simple at home, being vertically challenged i'd sit on the floor with him and reward him every time he looks at you, marking it with a markerword or clicker ( that have been previously introduced) then tossing a treat. just repeat for a few minutes.

Anytime you he shows you attention mark it. reward it toy/praise/treat whichever he enjoys.

Classes are a high distraction environment starting in a quieter place then building up to more and more distractions will make it easier on both of you.

For me that chain looks like ... in the house, in the enclosed and quiet back garden, in the front garden with pedestrians and traffic visible.

Welcome to the world of WAYWO


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## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> *pokes head round door* Please may I come in????
> I have always been a bit scared to post in here (mainly because if I listed all the things I have to work on I will be here all night) but I need some advice on how to get Sprocket to focus on me when we are trying to do heelwork (or any form of obedience) instead of spending his whole time with his nose glued to the floor.
> 
> I know that it is my fault for being a rubbish trainer and that I need to make myself more exciting/rewarding but I don't know how. He is especially bad at training classes, which is partly why I stopped going as I got fed up of the instructor telling me that I just need to use a higher value treat. It doesn't help that his nose is so close to the ground or that sometimes he uses sniffing as a displacement activity when he gets anxious or he doesn't understand what I am asking but sometimes it is just a case of "yay, I'm somewhere with new and exciting smells and someone may have dropped food here, isn't this fun and why is the stupid human asking me to sit"
> 
> So, any ideas on how I can make myself more interesting and get the little dimwit to focus on me???


Oh hello lovely 

Does Cath have any recommendations on this? It's not one of Molly's traits but I do recall that to get her recall spot on it was finding out what makes her tick around a busy park. Squeaky toys are more rewarding for her than a high value treat. I have to give her a flippin chicken thigh to distract her from a squeaker!

Have you done a 'look at me' with the clicker. It took ages for Molls to focus, her eyes went all over the place but for a while virtually every treat in the house had to earn a look at me for a long time. it is loads and loads easier in the home and then you can gradually build it up - I like MV's idea too - we're doing mat work that way at the moment.

And as for listing the problem, you know what we're up against here. I am still trying to pluck up the courage to come on BW! OH is around this weekend so I might get him to come with us as the Mollster actually seems to listen to him!


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> I see you are Cambridge. Do you mind me asking who you train with?


I used to go to CCEG but don't go to any classes at the moment. I do want to find some classes but I don't know where to go. The behaviourist who has been helping with Sprocket's many issues does training classes, but only for puppies until the weather gets warmer.

I don't have a husband but I can certainly join in with diet failings as well


----------



## MollySmith

Oh good grief, OH is in the loft, the beast has been whining in confusion and pawing the ladder. He's come down and honestly it's like a reunion from Love Story.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Oh hello lovely
> 
> Does Cath have any recommendations on this?


I haven't discussed it with her TBH - concentrating more on his reactiveness. She has seen how scent-focussed he is though even on the parking area by my house.
In quiet places his watch me command is pretty good and even out on quiet walks I can usually catch his attention and then praise. The main problem (I think) is that sniffing is very self-rewarding so at the moment I am trying to click and treat every time he looks at me and then send him back to go sniff (of course this only works if he ever stops sniffing). I can sometimes use a squeaky toy or ball to distract him.



> I am still trying to pluck up the courage to come on BW! OH is around this weekend so I might get him to come with us as the Mollster actually seems to listen to him!


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Welcome Dimwit ....that sounds insulting .


I've been called worse


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello (she waves) at Dimwit, don't be scared, their loverly in here, very clever bunch of people who put up with all sorts, but can be quite rude  so watch out 

Reading the advice they have just given you I have realised it is I who might be a dimwit. 

I have never ever ever tried a watch me/look at me game with a clicker, what a plonker, I think I must have dismissed it as a lost cause by the time I started seriously clicking  We have the sniffing is way more fun thing too. On a pavement walk I can stop and she will re-orientate to me quite quickly but in the woods or somewhere, she moves away if I stop dead still, but just wanders off to sniff a new spot  I don't get how to use the sniff as a reward if she doesn't stop either.


----------



## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> I don't get how to use the sniff as a reward if she doesn't stop either.


Snap!
On the plus side, he does love scentwork and it is the only thing he is good at (probably because it is the only thing that requires minimal input from me), especially since he has now decided he is too much of a wuss to do flyball :crying:


----------



## Guest

Bonjourno Dimwit!! Can I hug your dog please? He looks like a huggable dog? :lol:

We've had a good day today, met far too many people and their dogs though. Ran out of jerky! 

I met one of them 'normal' lurchers today. Ya know, them ones that plod along (mine does in his ever so fetching headcollar.) and wouldn't say boo to a goose and what not. :lol: 

Mind you I don't know anyone who's ever taken on a lurch pup. They all seem to be adult rescues.

You have done your best for Hal kat. You deserve the biggest hugs and pat on the backs. *pats* 

Zand's problem with sniffing is he'll U-turn suddenly for a missed sniff... 

I did alot of fast walking today because some lady decided to follow me around my walk with her dog. So every time Zand fixated, (don't take much) I was like "COME ON MATE" *Zoom*. Tried to run with him. He doesn't do that inbetween pace. It's either full on lurcher sprint or that slow prancey thing.


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## Thorne

Dogless -Well done for preventing another hump attack, definitely something to smile about! Bless him and Rudi Roo, its lovely when it feels like they're not attached to you at all isn't it? A shame that they're not keen on the trainer though.

Symone -I've had the "pleasure" of experiencing the Collie Mop System before and it's not pretty! A bitch I was helping out with after her first litter was too intent on staying with her pups to leave the whelping box and ended up peeing in it. 2 week-old BCs are quite absorbent and needed a lot of careful cleaning! :scared:

MV -I love the little video of Tink, I think she and the Madam would get on well.

Leam -So pleased that Molly is coming on in leaps and bounds, we'll need photo updates of her! It's lovely to have the updates on Deeks too, sounds like he's getting on very well.

Sarah -Just don't mention the W Word and he'll be fine without a walk  Sorry to hear you're still feeling off, hope things improve soon.

Barcode -Well done to you and Scrabble! Especially for the encounter with the lady and the treats. Fab 

GR -Sounds like the ninja may be turning into a lady (of sorts!). If she's being sweet and clingy as well as swollen then season is very likely.

Twiggy -We know you've had a successful training session when you're bleeding 

Dimwit -Welcome to the thread! Poor focus is something I need to improve on too so I don't feel qualified to advise you I'm afraid, but the very knowledgeable folk on here are bound to be able to help.

MollyS -Sickening isn't it? Mum gets a more enthusiastic greeting from Scooter when she comes out of the bathroom than the greeting I get from him if I've been away at uni for a term! 

LO -Normal Lurcher? Not met one of those for a while, think he must have been a mirage! Now I think about it, I don't think I ever saw Paddy "plodding", he went everywhere at a brisk trot or 100mph. Poor lad.

**Congrats if you've got this far!**

Am about to upload photos for a thread in honour of B's birthday, I think she's had a good one! As a special treat she's not had a walk, but we've had lots of play and retrieving sessions with the new toy mum bought her. An antos chew at lunchtime and a tray of ND for tea too - bliss!

Had a long walk with Scooter down birdscarer alley. There's 3 in the same field at one part of the walk so needless to say it's not Breeze-friendly! He was very overexcited to start with as it's a busy walking route with lots to sniff, but was able to get some good focus from him off the beaten track and let him off. He had a real belt around, very happy boy! 
He's just gone into my bad books though, has laid down next to me and let out a massive fart...


----------



## Dimwit

LurcherOwner said:


> Bonjourno Dimwit!! Can I hug your dog please? He looks like a huggable dog? :lol:


You can try, but he doesn't really like being hugged and he is scared of strangers


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## Beth17

Welcome Dimwit we don't bite honest  I'm certain you're not a rubbish trainer and the knowledgeable people on here will always try and help.

Sarah I hope Spen is looking after you 

K&M sorry to see Hal go however it may well be best for everyone. You did your best for him.

Leam really pleased to read an update. It sounds like Molly is dong really well.

I have read and liked and seems as if everyone has had a much better day so I am really pleased for you all :thumbup:

Had a lovely sunny walk with the boys and then dropped Sam up to my dads. He got to spend the day with his girlfriends and Oscar had a nice relaxing afternoon


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## kat&molly

Thorne- Happy birthday to Breeze . And Madams are the best - Evie told me to say that.:huh:

Sarah- hope you're feeling better, has Spen picked up on anything different ? How comfy does he look in that bed- but I reckon he is climbing the walls really- you've just trained him to close his eyes.

MV- love the vid of Miss Tink- she always looks so in control, happy and 'tidy'- I'm really going to try and remember some of Moll at the weekend, she's like a bull in a china shop.

Ginge- will you have to miss the course if the Ninja comes in to season?

Hello Dimwit - welcome to the WAYWO thread. Whenever I see it written like that, I always think it should be the 'Wayward' thread- its probably more apt.

True to form, I got to the town centre 40 minutes early, went round in circles looking for the car park to meet S the rescue lady- ending up 10 minutes late  even went the wrong way down a One way street - I thought it looked narrow  I shouldn't be allowed out on my own.
Sad handing him over but I was assured he'll be fine and they'll let me know how he goes. Off he trotted not even a backward glance :crying:

They all wanted to do a bit of training tonight, Evie dragged her ass over only when she heard the click.


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## GingerRogers

No i just heard back. The one lad is neutered and the dogs in the course after are all girls. Thank goodness. Dont be sad about Hal. Sounds like the girls were pleased to see the back of him. Just not as selfless as you another 
Good days for everyone else.


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## foxyrockmeister

GingerRogers said:


> FRM - WOW look at Mr B Pickle, chillin' *how *have you managed that so quickly, we still have anticipation, I can synthesise relaxation by making her do half a roll over and then stroking her till she gets the message but its not really working. & I have been meaning to ask what is the book you got? Thank you very much for your help, I printed off your PM and showed hubby, he thought :thumbup1: so I have emailed a local practitioner, we are so grasping at any hope but it does make a lot of sense in his case.


I think Branston can take the credit for this rather than me  I am beginning to realise just how much I have been letting him down by not doing more training with him because he is soooo eager to please and everything we've done so far he has picked up straight away, and it sure isn't down to my talents as a dog handler!!!! 

I swear he just reads my mind, he got to the stage of just going and lying straight on the mat as soon as it appeared on day 2 of training, that's when I got a bit stuck because I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do next and the book hadn't arrived (Oh, this is the book by the way: Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training the Crazy Dog from Over the Top to Under Control: Amazon.co.uk: Laura VanArendonk Baugh: Books )
So the next time we got the mat out, he went to lay on it and looked at me awaiting reward, so when he didn't get a treat straight away you could almost see the cogs turning in his head trying to work out what he had to do. I just stayed perfectly still, just looking at the mat, and after a few seconds he visibly relaxed so I rewarded him. It then took him about 10 repetitions to work out relaxing meant reward :thumbup: Now he gets on his mat, looks at me for reward, when it doesn't come he rests his head on the mat!!! I'm gradually increasing the time he has his head down to when he gets reward, I hope I'm doing it right 

I've just sent you another epic PM re hubby and his migraines


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## Guest

Dimwit said:


> You can try, but he doesn't really like being hugged and he is scared of strangers


Sounds like my dog at the moment tbh.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hello folks. Quickie again.

Bella's test for lungworm came back negative so she's had more blood taken today to see if her platelets are still low. If so, then he's going to test for tick borne diseases. He told me not to worry as they're treatable. So waiting until early next week for any results. 

Had a quick read today...Sarah, hope you feel better soon. Take care. X

Hello to everyone else, and hope you're all doing ok. I do think about you lot even though I'm not on much these days. See you again soon. :thumbsup:


----------



## MollySmith

How are you Ginger? 

Leam soooo good to hear from you, and it's nice to hear about Molly progress.

FRM - please can Branston teach Molly all this. Actually more like me as I'm a bit pants at the settle stuff. At the moment she knows 'go bed' and thinks it's lie down :nonod:

Sarah - are you okay lovely?

Lo - good point, I don't know any lurcher pups, all rescues. 

Apart from love story and yes we also have farting Thorne (who doesn't?) we've played tuggy and some more drop it work. I realise that I leap about with this dog like an idiot most of the time but she is a total lush over himself. He walks her. I feed her, create interesting dog biscuits, cut her nails, do the kongs, supply training and well... honestly little Madam where is she now? Stretched over the OH licking his neck on her back with her legs apart, what a tart. I am on Dogs Blog looking for a boyfriend.


----------



## Dogless

School good tonight, Kilo decided the trainer was OK (hotdogs kept appearing from his hand as we went past ) and he behaved himself for me in the main - bit of skittering and spooking when we were doing some exercises and people were sweeping right behind us with big brooms but other than that good. Exhausted as usual for a Thursday .


----------



## GingerRogers

GingerRogers said:


> No i just heard back. The one lad is neutered and the dogs in the course after are all girls. Thank goodness. Dont be sad about Hal. Sounds like the girls were pleased to see the back of him. Just not as selfless as you another
> Good days for everyone else.


 my phone put that 'another' in. I have no idea what it was meant to be now.

F&f &b hello glad you are still here.

Mollysmith I am fed up and over emotional  thank you for asking. Dont suppose you really wanted to hear that though.

I just had a dog asking for play/training so we did some 101 box then brought her mat out. She kept running under the coffee table to nudge her box rather than relaxing :hand:


----------



## MollySmith

I'm just pleased to hear from you, just keep talking if that helps. It's so hard to look after everything, I appreciate that from the times my OH has been ill. I think I'd have been so rich if I had a £1 for every time someone said sit down and relax because that's impossible most of the time.


----------



## Dogless

I just wanted to say Thank You Grannie for the moving my hand tip for heel work. I feel far less of a health and safety risk now .

Sarah - hope all OK x.


----------



## kat&molly

Hello F+F- nice to see you- hope you find out whats going on with Bella soon.

Jay certainly had the devil in her last night, she 'attacked' me 
That'll teach me for running out of carrots.

Sarah and Ginge- hope you both have a better day today.


----------



## Twiggy

*FRM -* There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the more training/interaction you do with your dogs from a very early age, the better behaved they are later on. I've been training dogs for a lot of years and I've never had problems with recall, teenage stage, etc. etc. because they begin training the minute they arrive and are usually competing at about a year old. The rules are very simple ie you can do what you like providing when I say "come", you come, when I say "steady" I expect the lead to be loose. when I say "enough - lie down" you lie down and you show no aggression to humans or other dogs.

*Ginge - *ditto. Most dogs love interacting/training with us and it makes a massive difference.

*Dimwit -* What breed is your dog (it's difficult to tell from your picture) and how long have you had him?

*K&M -* Sounds as if your girls are much happier already now that the status quo is restored.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> *Dimwit -* What breed is your dog (it's difficult to tell from your picture) and how long have you had him?


He is springer spaniel/patterdale x working cocker. I have had him since he was about 13 weeks old


----------



## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> I'm just pleased to hear from you, just keep talking if that helps. It's so hard to look after everything, I appreciate that from the times my OH has been ill. I think I'd have been so rich if I had a £1 for every time someone said sit down and relax because that's impossible most of the time.


 Or 'Deep breath' and 'Smile' if it was that ruddy easy don't ya think I would :crying: he seems much better this morning, see below. Thank you!



Twiggy said:


> *FRM -* There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the more training/interaction you do with your dogs from a very early age, the better behaved they are later on. I've been training dogs for a lot of years and I've never had problems with recall, teenage stage, etc. etc. because they begin training the minute they arrive and are usually competing at about a year old. The rules are very simple ie you can do what you like providing when I say "come", you come, when I say "steady" I expect the lead to be loose. when I say "enough - lie down" you lie down and you show no aggression to humans or other dogs.
> 
> *Ginge - *ditto. Most dogs love interacting/training with us and it makes a massive difference.


I am sure you are right Twiggy and I am also sure thats half the trouble. We got the ninja at 14 months having had no real training or interaction at all, she has had no structure whatsoever and having a very typical terrier brain she is proving rather more difficult than anticipated but as MV says we are learning so much (I will keep telling myself that ).

She interacted very well with my leg this morning, not sure that counts though .

Hubby came with us and we went to the woods by the estuary as I have *never *seen anyone there early in the morning. Hubby went back to the car, too much mud  We carry on and theres only a ruddy jogger  coming towards so I get us off the path as far as possible, he kindly thanks me as he goes past, which causes the barking monster to latch on to my shin, bloody hurt, I actually ouched out loud  I got back to the car and told hubby that just for today I hated her . He dropped me off and went to the shop (yes the migraine appears to be waning just left with a bad head and very funny coloured skin ) I had a shower, then brekky and then we had a cuddle, I appear to have forgotten I hated her today. When hubby got back he asked if I had told her off as she was being very subdued. I hadn't said a word not even at the time apart from the ouch  She was fine while we were walking but has been looking at me with sideways eyes. I was sort of ignoring her for a little while just so I didn't say anything I might regret, you do wonder how much they know. She also didn't bark at the dogs on the BBC trailer thingy (the bit between programmes, I know it has a name) she was on my lap, and staring at them normally a sure fire trigger


----------



## Sarah1983

I'm okay thanks, still feeling a little odd but a hell of a lot better than I was. 

Really missing a dog who goes nuts at the doorbell or barks on command at the moment. Just had someone buzzing every flat in the block and banging on the main door. They didn't answer me over the buzzer and by the time I'd got Spens leash on to go take a look there was nobody in sight. I dunno whether it was kids messing around, someone legitimately wanting entry or what. I'm the only one in in the whole block though. Was so easy teaching my previous dogs to "speak" but I haven't found a way with Silent Bob yet. 

We did mat work last night and I brought out Piggy. Piggy seems to be his favourite toy and is just a pig that makes a weird noise when you squeeze it. He did some nice relaxed ignoring of food and other toys dropped on the floor so we had a game with Piggy as a reward. 

We've also practised "leave it" with some crisps someone has dropped on the stairs. I should probably clean them up really but they're so handy. He's not touched them and is now looking at them then turning back to me for a reward. All bets might be off if someone drops hot roast beef or something but he's doing well at leaving low value food stuff without being told to. Apple cores, crisps, the bread tree etc.


----------



## Thorne

K&M -I'm sure Hal will settle into his new foster home in no time, will you keep us updated? Evie does make me smile, and Jay's tantrum reminds me of a certain yellow Lab I know when the food runs out... 

FRM -I think I missed you last night? That's brilliant process with Branston, well done to the pair of you! Lovely photos of him on the mat, I'm very impressed with his mind-reading skills too.

F&F -Good to see you around again, hoping the tests give you some easily treatable answers for Bella.

MollyS -Boyfriend hunting, how exciting!  That'd make the little tart jealous.

Dogless -Hope that some hotdogs magic their way towards Rudi from the trainer next week!

GR -Hope you're feeling better today?

Am taking S&B to Blue Cross to _finally_ get them microchipped this afternoon so will do a quick walk before going in, need to try and minimise the chances of Scooter scent-marking on top of all the other doggy smells... Unfortunately it's in a fairly busy area with loads of dog and people traffic, so am expecting Scooter to go a bit berserk with sniffing and pulling.

Really hoping he won't go into "vet mode" in the centre, am taking cheese in an attempt to appease him. I know the staff will be more than happy to give me a hand and look after Breeze while I hold Scooter but the juggling act between the pair of them is probably why I've not got them chipped sooner. It's also the first time I've take them both in my car together without an extra pair of hands to help.
This must be the epitome of worrying unnecessarily! I know my dogs inside out and the BC staff are brilliant, but still can't stop the "what ifs"!

Wish us luck


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## GingerRogers

Good luck Thorne, I hope they do you proud, we are daft aren't we


----------



## Dogless

Oh GR, what a morning . Hope the day improves for you.

Twiggy - you always speak so much sense .

Great morning at the park this morning, managed to get back to the car before the heavens opened . It was pretty busy and Kilo sailed past all the dogs, more relaxed than I have seen him in a very long time. Rudi needed reminding but I had the clicker and the liver cake left from training yesterday so had attentive dogs. Rudi had a bit of silliness when he wanted to zoom but was on lead, but it was short lived. Happened to be in front of a few folk though, but they just laughed :nonod: . We even got past the rottie that went for Kilo that once that the man just about managed to yank back on his choke chain before contact was made and said "That was a close encounter of the third kind" as he laughed  - he was sat pretty much blocking the path today having photos taken and stood up and fixated on us as we approached. Miracle of miracles Kilo chose not to stare and posture back and did some sniffing the bushes instead . Rottie lunged as we passed, Rudi growled but I can't really blame him. Not that I want to encourage it.

Their totally different characters really seem to be working well together. Quite a few people stopped and wanted to fuss them - Rudi gets allowed to step forward as the 'greeter' and Kilo sits quietly, relieved that people aren't trying to fuss him.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - careful what you wish for with Silent Bob  .

Thorne - hope S&B are good for you .


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Or 'Deep breath' and 'Smile' if it was that ruddy easy don't ya think I would :crying: he seems much better this morning, see below. Thank you!
> 
> I am sure you are right Twiggy and I am also sure thats half the trouble. We got the ninja at 14 months having had no real training or interaction at all, she has had no structure whatsoever and having a very typical terrier brain she is proving rather more difficult than anticipated but as MV says we are learning so much (I will keep telling myself that ).
> 
> She interacted very well with my leg this morning, not sure that counts though .
> 
> Hubby came with us and we went to the woods by the estuary as I have *never *seen anyone there early in the morning. Hubby went back to the car, too much mud  We carry on and theres only a ruddy jogger  coming towards so I get us off the path as far as possible, he kindly thanks me as he goes past, which causes the barking monster to latch on to my shin, bloody hurt, I actually ouched out loud  I got back to the car and told hubby that just for today I hated her . He dropped me off and went to the shop (yes the migraine appears to be waning just left with a bad head and very funny coloured skin ) I had a shower, then brekky and then we had a cuddle, I appear to have forgotten I hated her today. When hubby got back he asked if I had told her off as she was being very subdued. I hadn't said a word not even at the time apart from the ouch  She was fine while we were walking but has been looking at me with sideways eyes. I was sort of ignoring her for a little while just so I didn't say anything I might regret, you do wonder how much they know. She also didn't bark at the dogs on the BBC trailer thingy (the bit between programmes, I know it has a name) she was on my lap, and staring at them normally a sure fire trigger


It is always more difficult when they are older rescue dogs and you're doing sterling work with the Ninge. No problem is insummountable and you'll get there.

When I get a bit of time next week I'm going to try a little experiment with one of my girls with regard to the little dears coming back and biting their handlers through frustration or whatever when out walking on the lead. Bear with me I have a plan.....


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> K&M -I'm sure Hal will settle into his new
> Really hoping he won't go into "vet mode" in the centre, am taking cheese in an attempt to appease him. I know the staff will be more than happy to give me a hand and look after Breeze while I hold Scooter but the juggling act between the pair of them is probably why I've not got them chipped sooner. It's also the first time I've take them both in my car together without an extra pair of hands to help.
> This must be the epitome of worrying unnecessarily! I know my dogs inside out and the BC staff are brilliant, but still can't stop the "what ifs"!
> 
> Wish us luck


Good luck - I'm sure it will be fine...:smile5:


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> It is always more difficult when they are older rescue dogs and you're doing sterling work with the Ninge. No problem is insummountable and you'll get there.
> 
> When I get a bit of time next week I'm going to try a little experiment with one of my girls with regard to the little dears coming back and biting their handlers through frustration or whatever when out walking on the lead. Bear with me I have a plan.....


Ooh I am intrigued, my shins anxiously await your answers 

Dogless, feeling a bit better now , hubby brought me a cup of coffee and a Crunchie biscuit, nom nom, they are yummy :001_tt1:, they may be pricey and teeny tiny and only have 8 in a packet but they are eminently nibblable. I love the way your two compliment each other, you can almost hear Kilos sighs from here that he can just relax in the background. Hubby and I are a bit like that, he is very sociable and me less so.

Have been thinking after what you said about Kilos sniffing and not reacting. I think I made a mistake this morning, Ningey saw the jogger coming and lurched towards him, but when I stepped off to the side she dived towards the water and the reeds, my instinct was to reel her in, if I had let her carry on investigating perhaps we would still have smooth milky white shins but maybe it would just have given her the length of lead to hang off the jogger instead 

I just got the book FRM has and Sarah recommended, on kindle, sshh , I really like CU the ideas and concepts but find it slightly off putting, a bit too agility based, and love Control Unleashed, both I am still working through as I find them a bit too weighty for my brain, it gets used too much at work to work at other times , and a lot of the exercises either need someone else, which Sarah said, or just seem way out the question for the ninja at this stage. So hoping Fired up might be more accessible to my tired mind and my frustrated dog.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Ooh I am intrigued, my shins anxiously await your answers
> 
> Dogless, feeling a bit better now , hubby brought me a cup of coffee and a Crunchie biscuit, nom nom, they are yummy :001_tt1:, they may be pricey and teeny tiny and only have 8 in a packet but they are eminently nibblable. I love the way your two compliment each other, you can almost hear Kilos sighs from here that he can just relax in the background. Hubby and I are a bit like that, he is very sociable and me less so.
> 
> Have been thinking after what you said about Kilos sniffing and not reacting. I think I made a mistake this morning, Ningey saw the jogger coming and lurched towards him, but when I stepped off to the side she dived towards the water and the reeds, my instinct was to reel her in, if I had let her carry on investigating perhaps we would still have smooth milky white shins but maybe it would just have given her the length of lead to hang off the jogger instead
> 
> I just got the book FRM has and Sarah recommended, on kindle, sshh , I really like CU the ideas and concepts but find it slightly off putting, a bit too agility based, and love Control Unleashed, both I am still working through as I find them a bit too weighty for my brain, it gets used too much at work to work at other times , and a lot of the exercises either need someone else, which Sarah said, or just seem way out the question for the ninja at this stage. So hoping Fired up might be more accessible to my tired mind and my frustrated dog.


I have always praised Kilo when he makes the decision to dive at a tree, the grass or whatever to sniff when something that worries him comes along. Not sure if that is right or wrong but he does then relax, so it is a behaviour that I much prefer to fixating on something.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I have always praised Kilo when he makes the decision to dive at a tree, the grass or whatever to sniff when something that worries him comes along. Not sure if that is right or wrong but he does then relax, so it is a behaviour that I much prefer to fixating on something.


Me too. In fact as long as she's not massively pulling on the lead we do click and treat Molly and our trainer has said that's fine as she's not reacting. If she looks at a dog and does a little tug then I still click and treat if she's calm. It goes a bit like 'she looks up at dog - I click and treat - she looks again - I do a click treat and then a watch me - we turn then and walk off' OH can get her to sit when she sees the dog which I don't do as I think it's over complicating it (for me as much as Molly) but I'm not moaning now as I am truly grateful for his help at the moment and it seems to work. OMG the control freak Smith has let go... what am I on? :lol:


----------



## L/C

So many pages!

Welcome Dimwit - you've said you do scentwork what scent games do you play and what cues do you use for them? Could you try to incorporate that? For example if Gypsy is obsessively scenting - then I use her search cue and initiate a game and then afterwards release her to carry on sniffing. That might be a bit harder in a class but if she is in an on lead situation then I hide a treat in my hand behind my back and then ask her to find. She loves the game so much that she would rather do that.

Thorne - Happy Birthday Breeze! Hope they don't show you up at the microchipping. 

Ginge - Hope you and OH are ok. We're all here for you.

K&M - Hal will be fine - you've done the best thing for him.

Dogless - glad you had a good time at the park with the CHs.

Sarah - glad you're a bit better and that Spendog is being a good boy.

Well crate games and recallers continues and Gypsy is being a star. We didn't do anything this morning as Ely came out for a potter but yesterday morning she was very good. The collar grab game isn't going well as she just stands there when I hold it - I haven't managed to engage her oppositional reflex.

Her return to the mat still isn't particuarly fast but she clearly sees it as a good place to be as she stayed on it rather then chase a squirrel yesterday. Her stay on it is solid around the distractions that I've tested with it so far (dropping food, throwing toys, dogs running about, me running about, me walking off and me hiding behind a bush) but her release command needs firming up. Very much enjoying working with her atm - she is being very good.

And since Ely came back from the hospital my two normally anti-social, not interested in each other dogs have become slightly more cuddly - to the point that we had this last night:


----------



## GingerRogers

Both of you make perfect sense, my brain had already started on 'you need to shorten the lead to stop the jogger being bitten' train of thought  I think I might up the muzzle work again even if its only for a little while at least it gives her the choice as to what to do doesn't it, now off to explain it to her  and her nipping me was an excessive reaction, it wasn't a prolonged confrontation which is when it would normally happen.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - what a lovely photo; wonder if they'll go back to lying in separate places when Ely's totally healed or whether they'll stay closer?


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Both of you make perfect sense, my brain had already started on 'you need to shorten the lead to stop the jogger being bitten' train of thought  I think I might up the muzzle work again even if its only for a little while at least it gives her the choice as to what to do doesn't it, now off to explain it to her  and her nipping me was an excessive reaction, it wasn't a prolonged confrontation which is when it would normally happen.


Perhaps it was a little frustration as she felt unable to avoid the situation in the way she wanted - the displacement behaviour of sniffing? Maybe the muzzle would give you more confidence?


----------



## MollySmith

Oh L/C, I had a little weep, a gorgeous photo


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Perhaps it was a little frustration as she felt unable to avoid the situation in the way she wanted - the displacement behaviour of sniffing? Maybe the muzzle would give you more confidence?


I would like to believe the first, but honestly I don't think her brain works that way, it didn't used to, but perhaps the stuff we have been doing is working and she is learning  after all what we have been practicing is avoidance and turning the other way, which wasn't really an option here as he would have caught us eventually.

*My *confidence is certainly the idea behind the muzzle, I am still not sure about the root of the dog reactions but the people and other stuff ones I am fairly certain is a guarding thing and if I go  when I see someone because I think she might react/lunge/bark/even bite if she gets the chance, she is bound to up her reaction I would have thought.

L/C that is a lovely lovely photo of your two :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> *My *confidence is certainly the idea behind the muzzle, I am still not sure about the root of the dog reactions but the people and other stuff ones I am fairly certain is a guarding thing and if I go  when I see someone because I think she might react/lunge/bark/even bite if she gets the chance, she is bound to up her reaction I would have thought.


I have found with Kilo that if I feel a little nervous about somebody - like they pop out from behind a tree like the other night  - then he will get up on his toes and become very vigilant. Sounds daft but have you tried just calling "Evening!" or morning etc etc in a cheery voice - this gets Kilo relaxed again. "Leave!" also works and he'll turn his head away and pay no more regard as does "On by!", but it always sounds as if I have a monster on the lead to me as I have to say "Leave!" very firmly, so it's better to sound slightly batty but cheerful to me .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I have found with Kilo that if I feel a little nervous about somebody - like they pop out from behind a tree like the other night  - then he will get up on his toes and become very vigilant. *Sounds daft but have you tried just calling "Evening!" or morning etc etc in a cheery voice *- this gets Kilo relaxed again. "Leave!" also works and he'll turn his head away and pay no more regard as does "On by!", but it always sounds as if I have a monster on the lead to me as I have to say "Leave!" very firmly, so it's better to sound slightly batty but cheerful to me .


I have but it only works with people I do actually know, doesn't matter whether she does or not, so perhaps my voice is still betraying something. Yep 'leave it' can work too but like you say only if very stern  not tried an 'on by' which could sound more cheerful.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I have but it only works with people I do actually know, doesn't matter whether she does or not, so perhaps my voice is still betraying something. Yep 'leave it' can work too but like you say only if very stern  not tried an 'on by' which could sound more cheerful.


That's was hubby's idea . When we run "on by!" means exactly that and I say it quite cheerfully...I had never thought to use it when out walking normally  :nonod:.


----------



## L/C

Ginge - will she take treats when stressed? With Ely, if I'm worried that he's going to react then I scatter treats on the ground and tell him to "find it." We practised this a lot without any stressors about and then I started incorporating it to distract him.

Would something like that help? The she is sniffing to relax her and focused on a goal plus getting the reinforcement of the food.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Sounds daft but have you tried just calling "Evening!" or morning etc etc in a cheery voice - this gets Kilo relaxed again.


I always say "who's this" in a very happy voice - works for both people and dogs (as the dimwit is scared of both) and then I do the bar open/bar closed thing as they pass us (although I only do this for people now as he is so much better with dogs)...


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Ginge - will she take treats when stressed? With Ely, if I'm worried that he's going to react then I scatter treats on the ground and tell him to "find it." We practised this a lot without any stressors about and then I started incorporating it to distract him.
> 
> Would something like that help? The she is sniffing to relax her and focused on a goal plus getting the reinforcement of the food.


Probably but tiny brain has never thought of that either :nonod:, as long as she is not completely over threshold she will take treats, I don't know why it didn't occur to me, I do it when we are walking down the street, we did it in the last class session, I do it pretty much every where  I am so bad at generalising 



Dimwit said:


> I always say "who's this" in a very happy voice - works for both people and dogs (as the dimwit is scared of both) and then I do the *bar open/bar closed *thing as they pass us (although I only do this for people now as he is so much better with dogs)...


What is this please  like I need another idea to forget about when the proverbial hits the fan :001_tongue:


----------



## Dimwit

L/C said:


> Welcome Dimwit - you've said you do scentwork what scent games do you play and what cues do you use for them? Could you try to incorporate that? For example if Gypsy is obsessively scenting - then I use her search cue and initiate a game and then afterwards release her to carry on sniffing. That might be a bit harder in a class but if she is in an on lead situation then I hide a treat in my hand behind my back and then ask her to find. She loves the game so much that she would rather do that.


We are working our way through the TD scentwork workshops (brilliant - and I would recommend to anyone) and I do quite a bit of food finding on walks - either guessing which hand the treat is in or just dropping treats and then sending him to find them. It works quite well out on walks, he does get obsessed with scenting so I use this to focus him and then move on but the problem is in a class setting there are usually so many dropped treats lying around (not to mention where people have smeared cheese/liver paste into the ground to keep thier dogs in a down stay) that he will always find a "reward" for his sniffing.


----------



## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> What is this please  like I need another idea to forget about when the proverbial hits the fan :001_tongue:


You just keep feeding the whole time that the person or dog is passing and then stop as soon as they are out of sight. I used primula cheese for this (which he loves) and only use it for when you meet dogs/people, the main advantage being that he only actually gets a small amount of cheese but has a great time trying to get to it.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> So many pages!
> 
> Welcome Dimwit - you've said you do scentwork what scent games do you play and what cues do you use for them? Could you try to incorporate that? For example if Gypsy is obsessively scenting - then I use her search cue and initiate a game and then afterwards release her to carry on sniffing. That might be a bit harder in a class but if she is in an on lead situation then I hide a treat in my hand behind my back and then ask her to find. She loves the game so much that she would rather do that.
> 
> Thorne - Happy Birthday Breeze! Hope they don't show you up at the microchipping.
> 
> Ginge - Hope you and OH are ok. We're all here for you.
> 
> K&M - Hal will be fine - you've done the best thing for him.
> 
> Dogless - glad you had a good time at the park with the CHs.
> 
> Sarah - glad you're a bit better and that Spendog is being a good boy.
> 
> Well crate games and recallers continues and Gypsy is being a star. We didn't do anything this morning as Ely came out for a potter but yesterday morning she was very good. The collar grab game isn't going well as she just stands there when I hold it - I haven't managed to engage her oppositional reflex.
> 
> Her return to the mat still isn't particuarly fast but she clearly sees it as a good place to be as she stayed on it rather then chase a squirrel yesterday. Her stay on it is solid around the distractions that I've tested with it so far (dropping food, throwing toys, dogs running about, me running about, me walking off and me hiding behind a bush) but her release command needs firming up. Very much enjoying working with her atm - she is being very good.
> 
> And since Ely came back from the hospital my two normally anti-social, not interested in each other dogs have become slightly more cuddly - to the point that we had this last night:


Aww that's a super pic.

Is that one of Susan Garrett's books you're reading L/C?


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Aww that's a super pic.
> 
> Is that one of Susan Garrett's books you're reading L/C?


It's the crate games dvd and I've enrolled on her recallers 4.0 online course that started on Wednesday. Mostly I'm hoping to build enthusiasm in her and focus.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> It's the crate games dvd and I've enrolled on her recallers 4.0 online course that started on Wednesday. Mostly I'm hoping to build enthusiasm in her and focus.


OK I thought is was either book/dvd. She's a great motivator although I didn't like the crate training dvd very much, but for the life of me I can't remember why now.


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## Guest

I'm being a bad owner today. He's only getting one walk today. Feeling tired. Got home after going to the doctors and went to sleep till 1, luckily I don't have a shift till later. Did some 'training' (lots of sits and downs and hiding treats, he's rubbish at finding treats. :lol: because me being tired meant that when I issued a more difficult command, I just got a blank look, bless) and lots and lots and lots of food in kongs today. My neighbour accidentally left his gate open so Zand has unintented zoomies. But he came back when I called. Neighbour came out and said hi to zand, didn't go towards him or anything, just spoke and Zand's ears went right back and he slunk back into the house. We had an unexpected guest yesterday and it led to a man coming into our house for a minute and Zand went and hid on my bed. 

That picture is wonderful L/C. 

Ah, Ginge, you've joined the "has been bruised and battered by our dogs group."

Had a small incident with a dog earlier. Zand got really excited about the GR, but kept jumping away from its owner. There was no time for treat distraction, literally a case of brace your arm muscles and hold. Thank F8ck for the headcollar. It's still cutting into his fur on his face, but when I rub it it goes back to normal. But we do have a new tailor stitchy place opening tommorow so I may ask if they could some how should alter the nose band by like a few millimetres or something.... The neck bands fine.

See this was meant to be a proper short post. That didn't happen.
I also posted with intention to ask twiggy or you lot a training question.

But I've forgotten what it was. :huh:


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> Ah, Ginge, you've joined the "has been bruised and battered by our dogs group."


If only I was only joining now :nonod:, the most annoying thing is although she hasn't done it for weeks, I had only just got rid of the last set of purple teeth marks, and this one really hurt 

Don't feel bad, Zander is fine, he has had zoomies, that will be enough for any self respecting lurch 

Whens your behaviourist lady coming?? That cant be far off now, will be lovely for you to figure out how to help the big donkey!


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> If only I was only joining now :nonod:, the most annoying thing is although she hasn't done it for weeks, I had only just got rid of the last set of purple teeth marks, and this one really hurt
> 
> Don't feel bad, Zander is fine, he has had zoomies, that will be enough for any self respecting lurch
> 
> Whens your behaviourist lady coming?? That cant be far off now, will be lovely for you to figure out how to help the big donkey!


ELEVEN DAYS!! Not that I'm counting. :blush:


----------



## GingerRogers

Arrgh so long, less than a week though, you now can say its next week 

Dogless - I have just been looking on the safestix website, is that your puppy Kilo on the gallery :001_wub: cos otherwise there's other Kilo ridgies about.


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Arrgh so long, less than a week though, you now can say its next week
> 
> Dogless - I have just been looking on the safestix website, is that your puppy Kilo on the gallery :001_wub: cos otherwise there's other Kilo ridgies about.


How many days are in a week gingey??:lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> How many days are in a week gingey??:lol:


Urr Ummm Oh :nonod: I dont know,  why did I say that  I dont even know what I meant to say now 

Made you lol though  which of course was my intention all along :001_tongue:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Arrgh so long, less than a week though, you now can say its next week
> 
> Dogless - I have just been looking on the safestix website, is that your puppy Kilo on the gallery :001_wub: cos otherwise there's other Kilo ridgies about.


It is - forgot he was on there!

Just took Rudi to PAH, he was an absolute star :001_wub:.

Walking the BW with Dizzy later, he's still chilled out on the sofa as he is every Friday - all that being good at school makes for chilled Friday dogs


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> He is springer spaniel/patterdale x working cocker. I have had him since he was about 13 weeks old


So what are the main issues you are having with him?

I've gleaned that he seems uncomfortable with other dogs and sniffing is his main priority on walks, although that's probably true of most spaniels..LOL


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## Dimwit

The main issue is getting his attention and getting him to focus on me (rather than doing whatever he wants while I just stand on the other end of the lead uselessly wafting treats in his direction). We're never going to set the world of obedience alight but when he does focus on me he works quite nicely and he does enjoy learning (and he's so high energy that I need to keep him using his brain cell). I would love to be able to go back to a training class and not end up driving home in tears feeling useless.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dimwit, have you read When Pigs Fly by Jane Killion? Great book on working with the less biddable dogs. Handy for those of us who do have reasonably biddable dogs too  And the Premack Principle worked wonders for me. Better explanation here than I could give
K - 12 - FamilyEducation.com


----------



## Dimwit

No, I haven't - will look into it though, thanks


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## Dogless

Great walk with Dizzy just now, much zooming about done by the dogs and some company for me . Now it's wine o' clock and I would like to raise a glass to the WAYWO ladies..."cheers!" .


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## kat&molly

L/C- I love that pic of the Pointy's.

Ginge- Fired up was very easy on my tired forgetful brain. Hope you have a great day tomorrow.

Dogless-the Boys are on good form, enjoy your walk with Dizzy.

Thorne- hope the chipping went well today.

Nice walks with the Girls, we haven't done a lot as I've worked as well, did play our 'run to mat' game- all of us at the same time and they have to sit- a bit chaotic but they enjoy it and Moll has collected all the toys from the garden and put them away.
Only sour point is I've really missed that rotten dog today, dont know why, I must be mad, if I thought it would be good for him I'd ask for him to come back after the behaviourist has finished.:crying:

Jays happy- I remembered the carrots.


P.S Ginge- tomorrow is less than a week.


----------



## Dogless

K&m - you miss him because you're a good person . Hope you are OK xx.


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## Beth17

L/C what a lovely picture :001_wub:

Sarah glad you're feeling a bit better today.

Thorne hope the microchipping went smoothly.

Dogless you seem to have had a really good day 

K&M it's understandable that you miss Hal. I'm glad that normality has been restored for you though.

LO hope you're ok. Glad Zand has been good.

Ginge I hope tomorrow is better. I often tell the boys I don't like them when they are testing my patience. They haven't taken the hint and gone yet though 

Nothing much to report today. Average walk as Sam was leaping all over trying to catch leaves and twigs in the wind. Oscar also kept stopping abruptly to sniff things and therefore yanking his neck to the side. I may actually get around to getting him a harness as he's doing it more and more lately and I don't want him to hurt himself.

ETA: I have also decided to treat Sam to a safestix for his birthday.


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## Leam1307

Just a few photos for those who want to see how big Molly is getting now. We had another fab walk today and she got to meet Hamish the JR again, this was the one that was abit growly at her before because a Pom had just had a go at him 2 seconds before. He was lovely but i thought abit tense and rigid, then seemed to realise Molly wasnt going to do anything and then his tail started wagging and they had a wee sniff of each other. Just had our first full day of clean (so far) from Molly, no pees or poops in the house!

Shes funny in the morning though as likes to steal my make up brushes and take them into the bedroom, its always the one im about to use aswell.

Anyway heres some photos. The ones with the other dog are from 4th March the rest are from today. Couldnt chose so there might be a few :blush:


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## Beth17

Leam she is such a pretty little thing


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## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> The main issue is getting his attention and getting him to focus on me (rather than doing whatever he wants while I just stand on the other end of the lead uselessly wafting treats in his direction). We're never going to set the world of obedience alight but when he does focus on me he works quite nicely and he does enjoy learning (and he's so high energy that I need to keep him using his brain cell). I would love to be able to go back to a training class and not end up driving home in tears feeling useless.


I've sent you a PM....:smile5:


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Great walk with Dizzy just now, much zooming about done by the dogs and some company for me . Now it's wine o' clock and I would like to raise a glass to the WAYWO ladies..."cheers!" .


And "cheers" to you too....!! I'd join you but I'm instructing all day tomorrow and will definitely need a clear head.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> And "cheers" to you too....!! I'd join you but I'm instructing all day tomorrow and will definitely need a clear head.....


Hope you have a much better day Grannie and don't need to shout again .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hope you have a much better day Grannie and don't need to shout again .


Yes so do I...!!

It was the fact that the 3 handlers I shouted at have been training dogs for years and years and quite honestly should have known better. All three are on at least their 4th competitive obedience dog - one of them has been training dogs longer than I have, for goodness sake...


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## missnaomi

Really enjoy reading this thread...
Taking Toby to puppy play - it's a properly supervised event, and have also signed up for puppy training starting on Wednesday.

The rescue I foster for stemmed from a training place that took in a few dogs - so the staff know what they're doing...but Toby is going to be hard work I reckon.

He already food guards, I think he just wants to fill in all the other puppies...but he's really smart. I all week I've been clicking and treating - with his meals - and now he knows the clicker means something good I've started to use it whilst he's chilling out and being a good boy. He knows sit from just verbal cue too...got to try and manage "down" to be the star of puppy class though and I can't even get him to go into the position... but that's next...we'll keep you posted...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes so do I...!!
> 
> It was the fact that the 3 handlers I shouted at have been training dogs for years and years and quite honestly should have known better. All three are on at least their 4th competitive obedience dog - one of them has been training dogs longer than I have, for goodness sake...


Chin up Grannie, hope they surprise you in a good way next time.


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## moonviolet

3 days onlead pavements walks have had no detrimental effect on the floppy eared one, her minor lameness has improved this morning just a little head nod this evening she appeared sound  , Not quite the same for me however being sensible on pavements is making me feel a bit

Thankfully we should be oK for a bit of offlead fun tomorrow, giddy cantering and general sillyness can return.

I'll read up on what i've missed while i've been in grumpy corner


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## GingerRogers

Somedog is definitely in season we discovered as i arrived at my Mums. Bit naughty really, i had lobbed an envelope for the post into her crate as i carried our stuff to the car then forgot it. Poor girl had to sit on it all the way. But you can guess what i found. She is being very clean and mum the ocd cleaner hasn't freaked yet. She's been really lovely to her poor lamb. Is it like a human period are they in pain.

Eta Mv i know how you feel. I am going to more restricted now Bugger can't work on her pavement stuff for a while either. But at last.


----------



## Dogless

mv - sensible? That's not like you, I thought you'd be cantering about from lamp post to lamp post :ihih:.

GR - thank goodness she's in season at last!

missnaomi - have you tried sitting down on the floor with your knees bent up and luring Toby under them so that he has to lie down?


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - sensible? *That's not like you, I thought you'd be cantering about from lamp post to lamp post* :ihih:.
> 
> GR - thank goodness she's in season at last!
> 
> missnaomi - have you tried sitting down on the floor with your knees bent up and luring Toby under them so that he has to lie down?


I did catch myself singing the other day, But pavement walks are definitely more mentally exhausting around here, we have an annoying combination of single file pavements and super wide park a car on pavements. so you are either crossing back and forth to avoid buggies or dodging cars pulling up on the pavement, the " quiet" residential streets have herds of cats that must be gruffed at etc etc a mixture i can handle but all tarmac all the time just doesn't suit me :lol:


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## kat&molly

Ginge- I dont know about them being in pain during a season -but I dont see why not. Some sail through them - and some are definately 'hormonal' 

MV- I'm sure you and Miss Tink will more than make up for pavement walks today.

Twiggy- hope your Humans behave themselves today.

I've got the 2 Estralas coming for grooming today- they are good as gold , but crumbs my back knows about it later.


Have a good day everyone.


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Leam she's gorgeous 

Hope everyone is okay, I had a stupid busy day yesterday but took Molly for a walk in the afternoon to do lead work and she was very good, no pulls but the weather means still no wildlife around for practice. Pulled my poorly shoulder badly last night before bed and fainted, it's still sore this morning. I was hoping to come to BW, Dimwit, but I can't drive today


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Oh Leam she's gorgeous
> 
> Hope everyone is okay, I had a stupid busy day yesterday but took Molly for a walk in the afternoon to do lead work and she was very good, no pulls but the weather means still no wildlife around for practice. Pulled my poorly shoulder badly last night before bed and fainted, it's still sore this morning. I was hoping to come to BW, Dimwit, but I can't drive today


Sounds as if you need a couple of quiet days. If the pain from your shoulder made you faint you most certainly need to rest it. Be careful - luv Grannie..:smile5:


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Pulled my poorly shoulder badly last night before bed and fainted, it's still sore this morning. I was hoping to come to BW, Dimwit, but I can't drive today


I know the truth - you're just avoiding me because I threatened to dognap Molly and leave you with the dimwit :lol:
Seriously though, take care of yourself!
Busy day today here, off out to big walkies soon (which I suspect will be a bit wet and windy) and then we are off to do some scentwork this afternoon which hopefully means I will have a calm and sleepy dimwit later on...


----------



## MollySmith

Damm, we've sussed out our plans Dimwit.

thank you Grannie  x


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit, I meant to ask ages ago, have you heard of any one to one or private agility places in Cambridgeshire? I was thinking of taking Molly to see how she got on on her own but drawn a blank.


----------



## Dogless

Take care MS - operated on shoulders really, really do hurt from what I recall..... :nonod:.

Two really good (if very cold, very wet) separate walks this morning. Took Rudi to the fields for some individual play and attention. Nothing seen bar lots of snowflakes. We had fun though .

Then for Kilo we did a lead walk - some training and some pottering and sniffing. He was going crazy playing last night so I thought something more sedate and less adrenaline - fuelled was in order this morning. We had an amazing walk.....two things happened that are probably so small for everyone else but fabulous for us. The first one was that we saw a man with his two dogs that Kilo sometimes plays with - they were running chasing their ball and the man kept throwing it....Kilo kept a nice, loose lead and I managed to walk past, all relaxed and waved and said "morning!" rather than having to control an excited Kilo . He had a few skips and almost walked into a tree watching at first, but got his attention back on me quickly . So...that was a small, but nice achievement.

Just as we were almost home the entire male, big black lab that has run over and growled at us a few times was out for a run with his owner - he fixated on us and had to be dragged along.....but _Kilo didn't fixate and posture in return :huh: _. He wasn't happy BUT only looked at the lab a few times (got clicked / treated for it) and carried on with me on a loose lead. _No staring, no posturing, NO HACKLES UP, no tension on the lead_. Oh. My. Word. I almost cried and the BW got showered with praise and treats. No headcollar on either as we only see soggy cats on windowsills desperate to be let in in the rain.

I have to tell you lot as hubby will be suitably underwhelmed :nonod:.

ETA: The BW's plums are becoming more.....grapes....so the Suprelorin is starting to have an effect .


----------



## GingerRogers

We just got back. I ain't cryin 
only on phone at mo but good session. Tried thundershirt  dont know if it made a.difference. The trainers thought she looked relaxed. We had more noise than last time but it was all just that no frenzied mental fits. And only at another barking black cocker  Woof woof stay away type stuff. Very very pleased. We actually got into the building for a few seconds too.
Happy tired pair.

she did dig herself a hole at one point and refuse to come out bless her it was all getting a bit much by then. I had to pick her up and physically move her. She was all blinky eyes and stiff legs like she had just woken up. Mum is now feeding her peppers but i think she would rather be sleeping.

Wow well.done kilo too you must be over the moon:001_tongue:


----------



## MollySmith

Awh so happy for Kilo and Ginge, well done doggies


----------



## MollySmith

dimwit - gawds it's like I'm stalking you, does mini dimwit like bones? Gog Magog farm shop are selling bones in a bag for a £1. Molly has some but I've had to take it away as we started off well with the chewing and then she decided to bury in the sofa.

anyone any ideas on how to help her with this? Only bones rarely kongs and never stag bars. she seems distressed when she does it too.


----------



## missnaomi

Dogless said:


> missnaomi - have you tried sitting down on the floor with your knees bent up and luring Toby under them so that he has to lie down?


No - will try that when he wakes up from his nap! x


----------



## Sarah1983

Fairly nice walk with Spencer today. Still not feeling quite right but can't sit around forever, it's not fair on him not to be walked, so got hubby to drop us off on camp as he was going in and we had a nice wander round. Met a dog the size of his head who rushed up to him and invited him to play. Needless to say the bull in the china shop was not allowed to play with tiny fluffball, it would have only ended in tears. We saw some horses who came to the fence to investigate while I was picking up after Spen. He wasn't overly interested in them but seemed a little unsure as they got close so we moved on fairly quickly. He did some offering to walk by my side on the way home which of course I clicked and treated for (holding out for a few steps now) and we made a detour to the boring field for a few minutes of off leash time before coming home.

Got home to find my Crate Games DVD has arrived. Estimated date was 21st so it's early but I won't complain! Going to watch that later and hopefully get started with it this evening. I've also updated my blog for the first time in 2 months (I'm awful at this blogging thing) and am thinking of setting a goal of learning one new trick or component towards a trick each week. Just to have something to work towards other than the endless recall and loose leash walking.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless and Ginge really really pleased you had such a good morning :thumbup:

MS Oscar does this although not so much now we have Sam. He used to carry a chew round and round try and bury it, then dig it up, then try and bury in in the chair and so on. He wouldn't relax and I'd end up taking it off him. 
I figured that it may be because he wasn't hungry and just resorted to giving him small chews every now and then.

We have had a really good morning as well. Took Sam to the field and he was really focused and recalling well. He was able to go on lead and greet a few dogs fairly calmly and also got to have a really nice play with a Weimaraner. Also had a lady say how much he is progressing which was lovely to hear 

Then took Oscar up and had a good run in the field and had a quick play with a beagle before heading down into the woods. I couldn't fault his behaviour either.

ETA Sarah glad you had a good walk with. Enjoy the dvd.


----------



## L/C

Well done Ginge and Dogless. :thumbup:

Mixed bag at pointy HQ. 

Bad: Ely had the last dose of his painkillers 36 hours ago (each dose lasts 24 hours) and he's definitely feeling it. Lots of jumping, yelping and looking reproachfully at his side. We had to cut our walk short so they have just been for a 45 minute potter around the field.

Good: A suicidal cat ran straight at us as we were walking home and I was able to distract both of them. No lunging, crying or huffing at all. Gypsy even managed to walk to heel past the spot where it had disappeared. I let her sniff there as a reward. And despite only having had a 45 minute potter they are both sound asleep now.

ETA: Beth sounds like a lovely walk. Sarah - I'm excited to see what you make of Crate Games - we're still working stages 1 -3 atm as madam is still not rushing back to her mat.


----------



## Symone

I fear how many pages I have to go back and read! I'll go through them when not too busy  (Currently making a late lunch for the OH.. Chicken's cooking so having a sit down!)

Shamaya has been really good, lately. Her pulling is no where near as bad as it was when I first came here, so for that I am thankful!

Met up for a walk with Will.. Jimmy has grown since tuesday! It's like his rib cage suddenly popped out! He is starting to look more like an adult than a puppy.

Shamaya kept losing balls, and we got soaked.. I ended up hiding under this small bit to try to stay dry.

Shamaya was shaking like mad when we got home so I towel dried her and got out the hair dryer. She fell asleep whilst being dried.. Was cute 

I honestly can't think of anything else to say! I'll post some pictures from today so you can see how much Jimmy has grown!














































Now to finish cooking, then go on a liking spree.


----------



## missnaomi

What is crate games?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Hi everyone, 

Looks like I have many pages to catch up on!! I'll go back and read them all in a mo 

Today we have:

Spent 2 hours trekking about in a very muddy forest, found a lovely new route though and Lily fell in a stream!! She disappeared right under and then I had to haul her out by her collar as the bank was too steep 

We've done lots of training, I think I can confidently say that I now have a reliable 'touch' and 'watch me' from both of them :thumbup:

Branston even managed some basic commands whilst wearing his muzzle 

Just got back from some street walking.. sorry MV - 'pavement training' with Branston and he was a big fat shiny star :thumbup: it was windy so he was a bit hyped up, but birds flew over us, lots of people and traffic past us, he even got lunged at barked at by a cavy and each time I was able to distract him and move on with no drama 

AND just to top it all off, I have now just managed to clip all 20 front claws!!!  I think doing all this extra training and stuff has made our bond stronger too as it was the easiest it's ever been to do them  Branston just stood there and let me clip them without even batting an eyelid, I was even able to go back over and shape them a bit  Lily wasn't quite so calm about it but this is the 1st time ever I have managed to do all of them in one go so I'm a very happy bunny 

Just going to pop to the shop now to buy the ingredients to make something yummy for pudding as a treat to myself 

Hope you've all had good a couple of days


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Dimwit, I meant to ask ages ago, have you heard of any one to one or private agility places in Cambridgeshire? I was thinking of taking Molly to see how she got on on her own but drawn a blank.


No I haven't but I do know a few people I can ask. I want to try and do some proper agility with the dimwit but I think we need someone who teaches it properly and the only people I know are based too far away really but I can see if they have any recommendations for good instructors.

ETA: Just seen your other post and yes, he does like bones but sometimes they make him quite anxious so I tend to give him small ones he can eat in one go rather than bigger ones.

I don't know about the little dimwit but big dimwit is shattered now. BW was fun this morning and all dogs enjoyed covering themselves in mud - and there were no swans to woof at so all was good.

Then we have had a fun afternoon of scentwork - he was a bit manic at first because it was a new place and new dogs but then he settled down and did pretty well and even did his first outdoor search!


----------



## Dogless

FRM - I am OVER THE MOON for you . Your posts / mood has done such an about face .

L/C - Ouch, poor Ely, I have heard the Greyhound Scream of Death....hope he didn't do one of those, they are awful . BUT Wow!!!!! on the suicidal cat front. I am in total awe.

Symone - nice pics.

GR - so pleased at the lack of tears today .

Beth and Sarah - good days too.

I am liking the positive vibes flying around WAYWO today .

Good afternoon walk; on lead, went through throngs of worse for wear people on the way to watch the England match.....kept their focus on me....job done, good boys . Nothing else to report really. Come on England, 6 points behind right now .

Hubby is taking me out for dinner  later. He is home tonight as off to the mainland for a week tomorrow morning.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> FRM - I am OVER THE MOON for you . Your posts / mood has done such an about face .
> 
> Hubby is taking me out for dinner  later. He is home tonight as off to the mainland for a week tomorrow morning.


Thank you  I know  I'm a little bit worried that it's all going to go arse over tit soon though as all I seem to be doing at the moment is happy positive reports......... How long can it last? 

Have a lovely meal this evening with hubby


----------



## kat&molly

Ok-  reading through, every one of you has had a great day-:thumbup1:
for everyone, I hope poor Ely is feeling more comfortable soon.

Feeling a bit cream crackered- 110 kilo with those 2 dogs today.:crying:

Evie outdone herself today - she managed to sh*te on my wellies :blush: I wouldn't mind but I was wearing them at the time and she was off lead.
Only Evie..:nonod:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Evie outdone herself today - she managed to sh*te on my wellies :blush: I wouldn't mind but I was wearing them at the time and she was off lead.
> Only Evie..:nonod:


I'm sorry....but....:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I'm sorry....but....:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


Whats she like eh? I couldn't stop giggling.


----------



## missnaomi

OK, so sitting down, luring Toby under my legs and into a down then clicking and treating, but once this is reliable, how do I get him to do this when I'm standing - so I need to make it associated with the word command first or am I missing something?


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Dimwit, I meant to ask ages ago, have you heard of any one to one or private agility places in Cambridgeshire? I was thinking of taking Molly to see how she got on on her own but drawn a blank.


I'm pretty sure Wendy (Racing Red) does private agility lessons but she's based far North Cambridgeshire.

I can find a contact email/tel?


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> No I haven't but I do know a few people I can ask. I want to try and do some proper agility with the dimwit but I think we need someone who teaches it properly and the only people I know are based too far away really but I can see if they have any recommendations for good instructors.
> 
> ETA: Just seen your other post and yes, he does like bones but sometimes they make him quite anxious so I tend to give him small ones he can eat in one go rather than bigger ones.
> 
> I don't know about the little dimwit but big dimwit is shattered now. BW was fun this morning and all dogs enjoyed covering themselves in mud - and there were no swans to woof at so all was good.
> 
> Then we have had a fun afternoon of scentwork - he was a bit manic at first because it was a new place and new dogs but then he settled down and did pretty well and even did his first outdoor search!


Same as you with agility, I was thinking of doing a holiday somewhere as I can't find anything, that way if she hates it we can at least go out.

Glad BW was good, this human is tired, fell asleep this afternoon but Molly had a good day, saw her friend Ralph, a lovely staffy cross with identical colouring to Molly. She has a new toy, my old slipper boot with a squeaky toy, win win as it deadens the noise and stops her breaking the ball!

Oh Evie, I am sorry k&m but that is priceless.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> I'm pretty sure Wendy (Racing Red) does private agility lessons but she's based far North Cambridgeshire.
> 
> I can find a contact email/tel?


Oh yes please


----------



## Sarah1983

Well we've made a start on crate games. Spen caught on pretty much straight away. Wouldn't say he's racing back to his crate but he doesn't race to do anything around the flat so I think this is about the best we're going to get. He's coming out and immediately turning and going back in. Need to work on getting him sitting reliably, his default position is a down so of course he's going back in and lying down.


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you  I know  I'm a little bit worried that it's all going to go arse over tit soon though as all I seem to be doing at the moment is happy positive reports......... *How long can it last? *
> 
> Have a lovely meal this evening with hubby


It will last because you are now training your dogs and in so doing you are forming a bond of trust and mutual respect which will last their lifetime.

Keep up the good work and WELL DONE YOU!!

Enjoy your meal tonight...:smile5:


----------



## Twiggy

Well I've had a very long day and I'm shattered now. I was instructing from 10.00 until 4.30 without a break and then one of the handlers cars wouldn't start, my hubby couldn't start it either, and it was gone 5.30pm before the breakdown guy arrived. Deep joy.

I should have finished at 4.00pm but as usual I ran over time and hubby was going to give my girls a second walk once everyone had gone. Sadly because of the car problem they didn't get their walk and I've now got 4 very bored dogs and I'm too tired to entertain them.


----------



## Barcode

Sometimes things seem to go smoothly, other times, not so.

We went to the dog park today (well, it's a little enclosed field called a dog park) as we thought it'd be good for Matilda to do a little recalls, meet other dogs etc - that all went fine. But ...

Scrabble. She did play nicely, but had a minor handbags-at-dawn-moment with another dog. What made it worse was that it was a dog from training class  I don't know if it was Scrabble, the woman's dog or whatever - this time, I responded within seconds and no harm done.

Then a bit later on, another handbags-at-dawn-moment with another dog. Again, I don't know if this was Scrabble. I had seen the dog pinning down a little Staffy earlier, and Scrabble has always hated being confined in any way, so I *think* the play got a bit out of hand when the other dog pinned Scrabble down (I don't think that's acceptable play behavior, but it's what it looked like to me ....). Again, no harm done. The owner apologised, so did we, and all was forgotten about.

But ... it's getting to the point where I'm starting to wonder what the hell will happen next when I take Scrabble out. I don't want to be feeling like this. We're going to see the first dog in training class tomorrow, and don't think I can cope if Scrabble goes off barking/lunging/whatever.

I feel fed up because we seem to have had this dog that loved everyone and everything, and now sometimes goes off on a mad one. Obviously, I don't expect her to be an obedient robot; but neither do I want to feel on guard waiting for the next encounter either.

Just a rant. Does anyone identify ?!


----------



## Thorne

Scooter was unexpectedly good for his microchipping at Blue Cross yesterday  He was quite relaxed; no grumbles, shivering, barking, or any inclination to nip anyone. He did get a bit twitchy when he was briefly scruffed for the chip but it was over quickly and he made friends with Emma who gave him some treats and fuss while I held Breeze for her chip. She squeaked bless her 

As usual the staff were brilliant and we did the chipping in the staff room as it's less vet-like than their little clinic, and they had a bowl of hot dog and cheese ready for me to post through Scooter's muzzle. 
Both dogs met the staff one at a time with polite sniffs and waggy tails, Breeze even leaned against one of them for fuss which I've never seen her do with a stranger! Kept Scooter away from the older men who were there as dog walkers (his least favourite kind of person) but he was fairly indifferent to everyone really, brilliant :thumbup:

They got lots of compliments for their behaviour and condition and I feel silly for worrying now! 

Had a very disorganised-head couple of days, getting some massive highs then massive lows which are a bit bewildering but I'm sure it'll pass. Been invited for a job interview on monday so am trying to aim for something between elation and terror but am just bouncing between the two extremes :blush:

Hope everyone else is doing well


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Oh yes please


I've PM you.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Twiggy said:


> It will last because you are now training your dogs and* in so doing you are forming a bond of trust and mutual respect which will last their lifetime.*
> 
> Keep up the good work and WELL DONE YOU!!


Aww that made me go a bit  :crying: inside, I really do hope so. I always thought we had a good bond anyway and thought I was giving them the life of Riley with basically all off lead walks and being able to pretty much do as they please (without causing harm or offence to anyone else of course!) but since doing this little bit of training I can already notice calmer, happier dogs who are better connected to me  Branston especially is constantly looking to me for the next thing 'what shall we do now mum' kinda thing 

Thank you all so much for all your support and advice


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy sounds like a very long and busy day hope tomorrow is more relaxing.

Thorne glad the chipping went well, Good luck with the job interview A looming job interview can scramble the calmest of minds.

FRM what lovely posts adn what a change from a few weeks ago  :thumbup1: I second what Twiggy says there' is nothing quite like the bond that training builds 

K&M Evie remains a legend :lol: :lol: :lol:

L/C I hope Ely is more comfortable. 

Sarah hope crate games continues to go well 

Barcode i'm not really a fan of play in stationary areas as i think it has more potential for negative interactions. In class again i'd be avoiding interactions with other dogs and working on Scrabble focusing on me as her adrenaline levels are likely still elevated make it easy for her by not setting her up to fail  ( hope this makes sense)

MS hope your shoulder is feeling a bit better now. 

Sorry to everyone I missed, The thread is getting a little busy for my poor fuddled brain.

We had my parents visiting today and for the first time i showed them some of the things Tink knows and we're working on. She was very good and I was ridiculously proud of her :blush: On the downside Tink barked at a man with a ridiculously large umbrella ( I swear i've camped in smaller tents) I apologised he was fine about it  I would have crossed the road if he hadn't popped out of his house just as cars were coming. Nevermind just another thing on the list. Pooped pupster is toasting herself by the fire.


----------



## Beth17

Barcode does it only happen when you have Matilda with you? As I have this with Oscar. He used to be absolutely fine but since getting Sam he can be an absolute pain and kick off at other dogs with no obvious pattern. This is only when out with Sam as well. 
Failing that maybe a thyroid check or similar is in order as Oscar also was found to have a low count. Since being on medication he is noticeably better and less grumpy.

FRM well done you and Branston are doing so well and in such a short time 

Thorne glad yesterday went smoothly. Good luck for Monday.

Twiggy sounds a very long day. Hope you can have a relaxing evening.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Barcode said:


> Sometimes things seem to go smoothly, other times, not so.
> 
> We went to the dog park today (well, it's a little enclosed field called a dog park) as we thought it'd be good for Matilda to do a little recalls, meet other dogs etc - that all went fine. But ...
> 
> Scrabble. She did play nicely, but had a minor handbags-at-dawn-moment with another dog. What made it worse was that it was a dog from training class  I don't know if it was Scrabble, the woman's dog or whatever - this time, I responded within seconds and no harm done.
> 
> Then a bit later on, another handbags-at-dawn-moment with another dog. Again, I don't know if this was Scrabble. I had seen the dog pinning down a little Staffy earlier, and Scrabble has always hated being confined in any way, so I *think* the play got a bit out of hand when the other dog pinned Scrabble down (I don't think that's acceptable play behavior, but it's what it looked like to me ....). Again, no harm done. The owner apologised, so did we, and all was forgotten about.
> 
> But ... it's getting to the point where I'm starting to wonder what the hell will happen next when I take Scrabble out. I don't want to be feeling like this. We're going to see the first dog in training class tomorrow, and don't think I can cope if Scrabble goes off barking/lunging/whatever.
> 
> I feel fed up because we seem to have had this dog that loved everyone and everything, and now sometimes goes off on a mad one. Obviously, I don't expect her to be an obedient robot; but neither do I want to feel on guard waiting for the next encounter either.
> 
> Just a rant. Does anyone identify ?!


Just watch Scrabble's behaviour when this happens as well as the other dog's and then let us know


----------



## Nicki85

Jumping back on this thread- haven't had much to report really... Rusty has been a good boy.

But we had our first agility show today   I asked a lot from him... it was raining, windy, very slippery, we were near fields and hedgerows, on a river bank with geese (!), loads of other dogs.... and I asked him to jump a full set of 18 jumps at standard height (we usually practice at medium...) . But the boy did good  I was very flustered and handled him poorly but somehow he did the first bit perfectly. THen he saw the hedge and hopped over the rope and turned to look at me... I was so scared..... I honestly thought I was about to lose him in the hedge. But no, I recalled he came back uber-excited and we played tug a little! then carried on... in my excitement I repeated the jumps an extra time... Then our second run he was really good, really drivey  He jumped out again but this time because he thought it was a jump (if that makes sense!) I was more useful as a handler and actually told him/encouraged him which helped  

It was all very nerve wracking and I am not sure I was all that much help to poor Rusty... At one point I was getting all flustered trying to get him to play and I just knelt down and he came over all waggy tail "Mum I have no idea why you want to play, can I just have cuddles?" so we had cuddles. But it is all new... I need to be calmer and not ask so much of him. 

Only down side was that he would not entertain playing at all with me before going in... complete blank  Which was a shame as we have worked so hard to get a game going in the forest and in the fields. Not sure what else to do apart from keep trying. 

Picking up puppy next weekend and then hope to get out and about to a few more local shows. I think I enjoyed the experience- I definitely want to give it another shot...


----------



## Barcode

Thing is, it seemed like a light switch: one moment all was calm, next minute, it had all changed. I was standing right next to Scrabble when it happened, and the only one I can make sense of is when the other dog possibly became OTT in its play.

Anyway. On reflection, yes, I think it mostly happens when Matilda is there. Beth: was it a phase? Has it calmed down? I'm trying to tell myself this as Scrabble is right in the middle of the 'teenage' stage.


----------



## Beth17

I have been managing the situation tbh as I wasn't completely sure how to deal with it so I haven't been able to cure it. I think it's a form of resource guarding with Oscar especially as he will resource guard certain toys. He has however seemed to have gotten better as Sam has gotten older. Oscar never makes contact it's all noise, slobber and chasing the other dog off. 
The other week he was able to sit focussing on his toy when a strange male lab came charging over trying to join in and he didn't bat an eyelid, so it is definitely workable with.

Is it worth seeing if your trainer has any ideas?


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> I've PM you.


Gosh, just looked at the location, it's only a few miles from where Molly was picked up and her rescue kennels. Spooky!

Barcode - yes I do appreciate your problem, when my OH was poorly and before we met the trainer we call The Saint, and I was walking Molly all the time, I dreaded it. I wonder, is the training group, I am sorry if I've missed any past reference to it, it's so hard to keep up on here sometimes! Molly is doing better on a one to one. For her she hit teens as we adopted her plus the OH was poorly for week and then on hols she had a nasty incident with an off lead dog so it's a group of things but certainly not helped by age. We think she's two in June and already starting to slow a tiny bit. Our first trainer considered Molly a lost cause and advised us to rehome, the second tried to put a prong collar on her and the third is a behavourist and trainer who does real life stuff and has three wonderful dogs who Molly loves to play and learn with. Third time most certainly lucky so it can be gotten through. We've done so much since last summer - polished the basics as she had sit and stay and down to include watch me, bed and the biggest thing was tuggies which the first trainer said Molly was too violent to play (oh how I wish you could all meet Molly and see how stupid this assumption was) as it has taught Molly to wait and stopped her nipping. Loads of things as well as constantly monitoring the lead work too which is, I confess, up and down but we have more good than bad days now. I still do not feel I could walk her through a town and when I get the heebeyjeebies about it, I arrange a lesson with the trainer to build up confidence. What I have also found is that calm dogs are cool around her but as with last week's random off lead Yorkshire Terrier face off, often its not Molly that's the cause but the reaction to the bad manners.

There was one phrase I read from Karon Pryor, 'it's only a behaviour', the suggestion is that slowly and steadily it can be unlearned as it was learned. I hope that's the case for Scrabble and Molly - just take faith from how wonderfully FRM is doing with the Pickles 

Thorne - so pleased to hear about Scooter and whoop whoop for the interviews, well done 

Sorry waffled on there a tad :wink:


----------



## Sarah1983

Bloody men! Spencer woke hubby up being sick early this morning (just bile but god knows why!) and what did hubby do? Did he get up, let Spen out on the balcony to finish throwing up and clean up the mess in the bedroom? Did he heck! No, he shook me awake, told me Spen had been sick, rolled over and went back to sleep. Meanwhile I'm knackered and unable to get back to sleep.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody men! Spencer woke hubby up being sick early this morning (just bile but god knows why!) and what did hubby do? Did he get up, let Spen out on the balcony to finish throwing up and clean up the mess in the bedroom? Did he heck! No, he shook me awake, told me Spen had been sick, rolled over and went back to sleep. Meanwhile I'm knackered and unable to get back to sleep.


I feel your pain


----------



## Dogless

missnaomi said:


> OK, so sitting down, luring Toby under my legs and into a down then clicking and treating, but once this is reliable, how do I get him to do this when I'm standing - so I need to make it associated with the word command first or am I missing something?





Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody men! Spencer woke hubby up being sick early this morning (just bile but god knows why!) and what did hubby do? Did he get up, let Spen out on the balcony to finish throwing up and clean up the mess in the bedroom? Did he heck! No, he shook me awake, told me Spen had been sick, rolled over and went back to sleep. Meanwhile I'm knackered and unable to get back to sleep.


That is exactly what would happen in this house  IF hubby woke up - doubtful as he'd sleep through anything. Hence having never, ever, even once got up with the dogs. Men  .

Good walk this morning, up and out early. Walked like dreams to dog walking fields, played, walked back like dreams. My best boys :001_wub:.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> I'm pretty sure Wendy (Racing Red) does private agility lessons but she's based far North Cambridgeshire.
> 
> I can find a contact email/tel?


I've never done agility with Wendy but she used to do hydrotherapy sessions for our flyball club and she is very good - she is one of the very few strangers that Sprocket was happy to be handled by, even if she did make him wear the silly hat...


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> I've never done agility with Wendy but she used to do hydrotherapy sessions for our flyball club and she is very good - she is one of the very few strangers that Sprocket was happy to be handled by, even if she did make him wear the silly hat...


That hat, bless him!! Take it it's to stop water entering the lug holes rather than for fashion? .


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> That hat, bless him!! Take it it's to stop water entering the lug holes rather than for fashion? .


Yes, but it is very funny as well


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody men! Spencer woke hubby up being sick early this morning (just bile but god knows why!) and what did hubby do? Did he get up, let Spen out on the balcony to finish throwing up and clean up the mess in the bedroom? Did he heck! No, he shook me awake, told me Spen had been sick, rolled over and went back to sleep. Meanwhile I'm knackered and unable to get back to sleep.


Yes that sounds about right and just what my OH would do....!!


----------



## MollySmith

I always look after Molly the morning. She's good mind, doesn't get up until 7 at the earliest bless her, I used to have to wake her up when I used to catch the train at 6. She hated it. 

We've been out for a walk this morning - shock of her life again. It's nice here and I thought I'll go and get a paper (I can take Molly into the newsagent, they don't mind). Generally okay apart from next door's cat who does face off with Molly. Molly ended up hiding behind my legs...

Poor you, poor Spen, Sarah.


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> I've never done agility with Wendy but she used to do hydrotherapy sessions for our flyball club and she is very good - she is one of the very few strangers that Sprocket was happy to be handled by, even if she did make him wear the silly hat...


Way way too cute for words 

*resumes kidnap mission*


----------



## Twiggy

I used to swim my girls there with Mark:










I understand Wendy isn't there anymore and runs agility classes at another farm nearby.


----------



## Sarah1983

Back from the sled dog meet. Wasn't a particularly pleasant walk there as it started to snow _really_ heavily when I was half way there. It was also windy so the snow wasn't coming down so much as flying sideways  Sideways in this case meant right into my face. Even Spen wasn't best impressed at that! We met the GSD who goes to the meets part way there and after a brief moment of lunging and whining Spen was able to walk with him without trying to dance on his head. Was very pully but can work on that easily enough. Had a nice run around there and hubby picked us up and brought us home. Now I'm gonna have a lazy afternoon/evening with my CSI Miami and my cross stitch. Might do some more crate games later, will see how awake Spencer is.

Oh, and Spen checked in with me several times at the meet up. Only very briefly but he came to me without prompting, got his treat and went back off to play. He also sat when someone else told their dog to sit lol. And he offered to walk next to me on the way there several times, he normally only does that on the way home so it looks like we are making progress. His pulling when he's not by my side is a lot less in general too. When we're not walking with another dog or hubby anyway lol.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless pleased the boys were stars.

Sarah sounds as if Spen did really well. Shame about the snow. 

MS sounds a lovely morning walk 

Had another really lovely morning with the boys. We had a bit of snow overnight and so took Sam out just as it was thawing. He walked perfectly on lead and greeted a a 6 month old Samoyed without using his feet  Had some good offlead play and was generally a star.

Then walked Oscar and ended up in the woods. Didn't really see a soul however there was one lovely moment. I had put him onlead as there were a couple of young kids and their parents just coming up some slippery steps. We stood to the side and as the parents got to the top warned them that he was a bit nervous. 
They went past quietly with the kids explaining to them that he was a lovely dog but some dogs are nervous like people and so shouldn't be touched or bothered. Oscar was able to just watch them calmly without getting worried and have a positive experience.

It was so nice to see such well behaved children and obviously sensible parents


----------



## Sarah1983

That's great Beth! Makes such a nice change to see responsible parents and well behaved children instead of out of control brats left to do as they please while the parents look on smiling indulgently.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Quite a busy day tomorrow! Walking a Boxer at 10. Got to be home by 11/11.15 to get ready for Agility class with Rasco at 12. Then got to walk a very excitable Boston/Parson terrier. Yes, she is very excitable.

Plus someone down my road tends to ask me an hour or two beforehand if I can walk his two dogs. I would rather be asked me before but be is good to me so I don't mind. Looking after his Chi puppy for a night in May!


----------



## Beth17

I forgot I was going to pop up a couple of pictures.










This one of him eating snow made me laugh









And one Oscar posing. I'm really pleased as he's lost a little bit of the thyroid weight finally.









ETA: sorry about the size. The new photobucket sucks.


----------



## Dogless

Beth - the boys are looking good!! Love Sam's snow - eating face and pleased you had a good day; what a nice family you met too.

Sarah - well done to Spen, what nice behaviour!

Walked Rudi this afternoon and he was a little star, not many folk about. Was meant to be walking with Dizzy, but Dizzy's human has just cancelled as her daughter is in Big Trouble of some sort :hand::hand:. Kilo's crying as he wants his walk (poo most likely ), but they've been fed now so he'll just have to wait. I'll take him on a lead walk, they ran like loonies this morning!!


----------



## Dogless

Mixed walk with Kilo. However, another moment that made me want to have a few tears of happiness .

Walked through obnoxious teenagers running about, shouting and showing off, think they had snuck some St Patrick's day cheer from the families' function . That was good - BW watched me the whole time. Onlead round the pitches when I was going to do some offlead training as he was very preoccupied by a scent and I had to work hard to keep any attention, to the point he wasn't taking treats at times. No big deal. Then ignored a dog running about chasing a stick, so that was good.

Then....we got ambushed from behind a building by a big (male, it turns out) dog running at us full pelt. I dropped Kilo's lead so it wasn't tight and....he had a relaxed greeting, no hackles, no posturing, no tension with tail out like a rod. Then I knew what would happen so picked up his lead....big dog play bowed and zoomed off inviting a chase. Cue my shoulder and back being wrenched as Kilo attempted to chase. I would have LOVED to have let him off the lead for a play but we were on a field next to a road, next to bins where we see stray cats and next to the airfield and there are large gaps under an emergency gate, so just too many snags. I really would have liked to meet the owner and even suggest we went onto the pitches next door so they could play, but he was a speck right at the other end of the field.

I am so pleased that the posturing and tension was absent yet again. Really, really pleased .


----------



## moonviolet

Beth what great pics Oscar is look great must be so nice to see his thyroid weight going. Sam looks a right monkey in the snow eating pic and such a little heart melter with the quizzical tilty head look in the other pic. What a lovely family you encountered today. 

Sarah Spen really does seem to be making steady consistent improvement  Hope you had a lovely quiet afternoon with CSI Miami and your cross stitch. 

Great hydro pics Twiggy and Dimwit. 

MS glad you had nice weather for your morning walk, it's been persistent here all day. 

Dogless glad RUdi's walk was good. Kilo's sounds challenging but didn't you and the big lad do well  

We've had a good day, lovely walks despite the girls having a screaming match at the bus stop ( lets hope they never need to scream for a reason as everyone around here will be used to the sound ), play and a couple of little training sessions. Thinking of signing up for a Rally-O workshop as a handler in June 

In other news, OH has created a new wooden peg for Tink to place her frisbees over... all i can say is ... picture early learning centre meets Ann Summers :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

mv - Rally-O how exciting . I am jealous - the girls round here scream constantly too, really irritates me . And the peg.....I can only imagine :crazy:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - Rally-O how exciting . I am jealous - the girls round here scream constantly too, really irritates me . And the peg.....I can only imagine :crazy:.


Dont' get me wrong I think it's really sad the council spend sooooooooooo much money on kids play areas. There are 4 within 5 minute walk from my house. But once they grow a bit older there is literally nothing for them to do so hanging out at the bus stop in the rain screaming is a valid way to spend their time I guess 

The peg looks more innocent once it has frisbees over it  I think that activity it beginning to move from training to game now


----------



## sharloid

On tonight's walk, we went round a corner and there was a couple with a staffie. At a close proximity, the dog started growling and they crossed the road. Broder kept looking at it, but didn't lunge and I can proudly say that he kept four paws on the floor. 

I think we're actually starting to see an improvement. He's been wearing the dogmatic on most walks, but has been walking on a loose lead. Before we started using the head collar there was no chance of getting him to look away and he'd be at the end of the lead swinging! 

Yaaay.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah Spen really does seem to be making steady consistent improvement  Hope you had a lovely quiet afternoon with CSI Miami and your cross stitch.


He does  They're only small steps in the grand scheme of things but that's okay, he's consistently getting better and better and that's what counts. Little steps will get us there. I have done many stitches on what looks like a grey/black/white/purple mass. Perhaps in a few months it will look like something lol. Not impressed with all the snow though, it's up over my ankles again.



> We've had a good day, lovely walks despite the girls having a screaming match at the bus stop ( lets hope they never need to scream for a reason as everyone around here will be used to the sound ), play and a couple of little training sessions. Thinking of signing up for a Rally-O workshop as a handler in June
> 
> In other news, OH has created a new wooden peg for Tink to place her frisbees over... all i can say is ... picture early learning centre meets Ann Summers :lol: :lol: :lol:


My mum and dad say the exact same thing about girls screaming for no reason. One day they'll be screaming for a reason and nobody will even notice it. Go on, be a devil and sign up for Rally-O! I would love to have something I could sign up for here, even basic training classes would be nice.

Nice that your OH is happy to make stuff for you and Tink to train with. And why shouldn't it look like something from Ann Summers, we have Kongs and Safestix after all! 

Dogless, glad you had a good walk even if you did have to deal with obnoxious kids and out of control dogs.

Beth, I really need a Boxer. Can I come kidnap yours?


----------



## Kicksforkills

Sarah, I'll take picture of the Boxer tomorrow for you


----------



## Beth17

Dogless it's so nice to hear that Kilo was so relaxed. I hope you meet them again 

mv you're dragging the thread into the gutter again :crazy: You should definitely sign up for Rally-O. I'd never have the nerve.

Sharloid well done to Broder. Isn't it lovely when you can see the training finally starting to pay off.

Sarah they are all yours. I'm afraid they are nowhere near as trained as the lovely Spen though


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Dogless it's so nice to hear that Kilo was so relaxed. I hope you meet them again
> 
> mv you're dragging the thread into the gutter again :crazy: You should definitely sign up for Rally-O. I'd never have the nerve.
> 
> Sharloid well done to Broder. Isn't it lovely when you can see the training finally starting to pay off.
> 
> Sarah they are all yours. I'm afraid they are nowhere near as trained as the lovely Spen though


I'd like to meet the dog with the owner too  . There is always the risk I have found of getting a real ear bashing for letting my dog off to make the greeting more relaxed and allowing interaction from the other dog's owner - even if their dog was offlead running up to dogs and nowhere near their owner. Weird one! :crazy:.

Sharloid - well done to you with Broder.

Beth- - can't imagine Sam doing all the washing and ironing like the Spendog does . Not that mine would either :crazy:.


----------



## Werehorse

*I have a whole day off work tomorrow! No mad job, no cafe, no tutoring clients!!* OMG, whatever will I do. Considering going out for a 16 mile ish walk... Need to start really cranking up the mileage when I get the chance.

Hope everyone is ok!? I just have not had chance to keep up.


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Dogless it's so nice to hear that Kilo was so relaxed. I hope you meet them again
> 
> mv you're dragging the thread into the gutter again :crazy: *You should definitely sign up for Rally-O. I'd never have the nerve.*
> Sharloid well done to Broder. Isn't it lovely when you can see the training finally starting to pay off.
> 
> Sarah they are all yours. I'm afraid they are nowhere near as trained as the lovely Spen though


It is one of the advantages of having an " untrainable" breed most people don't expect too much :lol: :lol: :lol: as for the gutter, Plus its' just a beginners introduction workshop, explaining it all and then a "have a go" session outside.

Well done sharloid 

WH whatever you decide to do tomorrow have a great one and take pics I miss the MCC


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> *I have a whole day off work tomorrow! No mad job, no cafe, no tutoring clients!!* OMG, whatever will I do. Considering going out for a 16 mile ish walk... Need to start really cranking up the mileage when I get the chance.
> 
> Hope everyone is ok!? I just have not had chance to keep up.


Have a superb day off; a long walk sounds great - letting off steam with the boys .


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> *It is one of the advantages of having an " untrainable" breed most people don't expect too much* :lol: :lol: :lol: as for the gutter, Plus its' just a beginners introduction workshop, explaining it all and then a "have a go" session outside.
> 
> Well done sharloid


When we did our taster session that I LOVED so much (which is why I'm very jealous!) I liked the fact that no one ever expects too much obedience from a ridgie . He's a good boy at school though. Mostly!!!

Miss Tinks on the other hand is a superstar .


----------



## Sarah1983

Have I just seen the words "well trained" and "Spencer" in the same sentence? Surely not  Still got a long way to go before he could be called that ladies :lol: I'm jealous of those with great recall, leash manners and whose dogs don't jump up.

Once the snow clears (if it ever does!) I'm going to make a real push on loose leash walking and see whether we can crack it. The leash law comes into effect in another 2 weeks and then he'll be on leash for the better part of 4 months so might as well make use of it.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> When we did our taster session that I LOVED so much (which is why I'm very jealous!) I liked the fact that no one ever expects too much obedience from a ridgie . He's a good boy at school though. Mostly!!!
> 
> Miss Tinks on the other hand is a superstar .


In fairness she is pretty good mostly, but in truth we haven't done very much formal stuff outside so it could be fun if there's some good sniffs :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Have I just seen the words "well trained" and "Spencer" in the same sentence? Surely not  Still got a long way to go before he could be called that ladies :lol: I'm jealous of those with great recall, leash manners and whose dogs don't jump up.
> 
> Once the snow clears (if it ever does!) I'm going to make a real push on loose leash walking and see whether we can crack it. The leash law comes into effect in another 2 weeks and then he'll be on leash for the better part of 4 months so might as well make use of it.


Wow, seems as if the leash time's come around again fast!!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> It is one of the advantages of having an " untrainable" breed most people don't expect too much :lol: :lol: :lol: as for the gutter, Plus its' just a beginners introduction workshop, explaining it all and then a "have a go" session outside.
> 
> Well done sharloid
> 
> WH whatever you decide to do tomorrow have a great one and take pics I miss the MCC


#

I know a few people that have competed in Rally-O. I think it's a combination of obedience/agility - well sort of..!!

The weather has been horrendous here today. Heavy/torrential rain and it's still tipping down. I managed to get the girls out for 45 minutes this morning between heavy showers but since then it's been awful. I took Leafy with me to hoover the barn after training yesterday and the path was flooded. As I'd got just flat shoes on I got very wet feet.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Wow, seems as if the leash time's come around again fast!!


I think it's probably coz he spent several months after it on a long line coz we were well and truly into the Kevin stage and recall kinda disappeared.

I've got the opposite, a breed considered highly trainable (or born well behaved, opinion seems divided) so I look a muppet when my dog acts up lol.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> #
> 
> I know a few people that have competed in Rally-O. I think it's a combination of obedience/agility - well sort of..!!
> 
> The weather has been horrendous here today. Heavy/torrential rain and it's still tipping down. I managed to get the girls out for 45 minutes this morning between heavy showers but since then it's been awful. I took Leafy with me to hoover the barn after training yesterday and the path was flooded. As I'd got just flat shoes on I got very wet feet.


Does Leafy hoover the house too or doesn't she generalise very well? .


----------



## moonviolet

Mind you don't float away Grannie. 



Twiggy said:


> #
> 
> *I know a few people that have competed in Rally-O. I think it's a combination of obedience/agility - well sort of..!!*
> The weather has been horrendous here today. Heavy/torrential rain and it's still tipping down. I managed to get the girls out for 45 minutes this morning between heavy showers but since then it's been awful. I took Leafy with me to hoover the barn after training yesterday and the path was flooded. As I'd got just flat shoes on I got very wet feet.


Yes we had a little go about a year ago. I thought it would be a fun day out and something else to share  I've downloaded the level 1 signs and descriptions from the kennel club website to have a look at....there are a few that will become clear only with a video methinks :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Does Leafy hoover the house too or doesn't she generalise very well? .


Leafy would love to hoover the house as well as the barn....LOL It's her very favourite activity. She's only allowed in the barn though, where the Dyson is a more robust machine.

I only have to say "shall we go and hoover the barn?" and she's at the kitchen door like a bullet, dancing about and barking her head off...

Pity she doesn't like dusting and ironing..!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Leafy would love to hoover the house as well as the barn....LOL It's her very favourite activity. She's only allowed in the barn though, where the Dyson is a more robust machine.
> 
> I only have to say "shall we go and hoover the barn?" and she's at the kitchen door like a bullet, dancing about and barking her head off...
> 
> Pity she doesn't like dusting and ironing..!!


Hoovering would be a good start here - my big brave boys retreat to the safety of the sofa when the Cupboard Monster's on the prowl :crazy:.


----------



## Sarah1983

My Silent Bob dog and I have just had a massive growly game of tug. No cowering or wetting himself  Just shows how far he's come in some ways.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Depressing, ranty, angry, upset post warning...

Sorry WAYWO folk I haven't yet read through the posts since I was last here but hope you're all doing ok and I'll go back up and catch up once I've got all this off my chest, feeling like utter [email protected] at the moment 

Yesterday we took the Pickles out together for our latest resolution walk, so a new place. I'll try to keep this short but basically Branston had about 4 occasions where he fixated and got as far as whimpering and lungeing, each episode was when he was on his lead (to go through a farmyard or cross a road) and there were birds flying over head. The good news is each time I managed to distract him and prevent him from redirecting, and after a couple of minutes of changing direction and doing some focus work, we were able to walk nicely through the yard/over the road. He was the worse he's been for a little while but I'm putting that down to being in a completely new place. Anyway, I was actually quite pleased and said to my husband (who had just been standing watching what I was doing while holding Lily) "Well if this walk had been a couple of weeks ago I'm pretty sure I'd have ripped clothes and skin by now, don't you?!" In a kind of light-hearted, didn't he do well kind of way, only for him to say "Well it's not exactly great is it? He's still got a long way to go." ... What does he expect?!!!  a miracle? 

Anyway I let that go over my head and we carried on but then we got to a lane where we had to walk quite a way on lead... Branston was walking really nicely and I was giving him loads of praise. Lily was pulling like a train and hubby just kept YANKING her back and shouting "HEEL" at her! It wasn't working (obviously) and she just kept pulling, I tried to keep quiet at first but just couldn't put up with the constant "HEEL, HEEL, HEEL, HEEL!" and watching him yanking her lead  So I tried to calmly explain where he was going wrong and how well I have managed to get her walking during the week......... WELL......... this escalated into a MASSIVE row, we were literally yelling at each other :nonod: He was shouting at me saying that I couldn't FORCE my thoughts on him and that he would do it his way, and just because I'd had one session with a trainer didn't mean I was better than him, he had a right go about me coming on here, saying I was easily led and spent too much time on here and took everything complete strangers were telling me as gospel. blah blah blah blah. 
I got really upset and basically told him that he could say what he liked but I wasn't going to just stand back and watch him doing that to Lily, so then he got mad again saying I was accusing him of being cruel to her, to which I said that he was!!

Oh, it was horrendous, I marched off ahead of him and told him that from now I would do all the dog walking on my own 

We have barely uttered 2 words to each other since 

I just feel like utter sh1t, what's the point of putting all this hard work in?

Sorry, rant over, tears flowing, but just wanted to get it all out as I won't speak to anyone in RL about it.


----------



## kat&molly

Is It today Thorne the interview, if so Good Luck.

Beth- have you had yours? I loved the photos of the Boys, Sam eating snow reminded me of those Gurning' pics you see. We need one of them together now for size comparison.

Very jealous of everyone - Hydrotherapy, Rally-O and Sled Dog Meets. Even dog shows, they dont do Obedience here. I might just look up the breed shows for this year and get to a few of them with Moll just for a nosey.

I took my camera to the neighbour yesterday and he found the mute button- tried filming Moll last night and I needed more hands, OH was busy.

Just seen an ad for a 5 year old bitch Afghan Hound up for rehoming. I would reply and offer to foster but dont know whats happening with Hal yet- if no other foster homes are available he may come back here.

Anyone know anything about Quail?:crazy:


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh foxy  big hugs. Been there done that. We were actually very close to separating at one point. Dont think giving up the **** helped but it was all around the dog and how i wanted him to work with me. Slowly he has realised things are working and even gets some stuff quicker than me. For us it works if i do the bulk of the training which includes walking. It works for any dog to have the consistency as well but for you though you have always shared the dog chores. It would be a silly if you had to do it all.
As much as i hate to admit it i would probably make a false apology to allow him to save face then you are in the position to calmly explain that if you are going to get over branstons issues (assuming he wants to save your shins) then you both need to be on the same page. You need to find a way for him to see.the way you are doing things is best without just telling him so. Let him figure it out himself. Can he have a session with the trainer. They often accept stuff from experts and not their wife

With my Hubby it was a mixture of jealousy helplessness and ignorance. It took a bit of deep breathing and hard swallowing of anger to get past it. We still have moments but i am allowed to mention forum stuff now and sometimes he fiegns interest :001_rolleyes:
Eta really well.done with the progress so far. You got home un bitten. I got that scepticism too. It takes a while. It took me a long time to get my head round how long a journey this behavior adjustment lark can take.

more big hugs Xx


----------



## Beth17

Oh FRM I'm sorry hubby was being a plonker  You've been making so much progress with Branston already it's understandable he's going to have a few lapses. I hope you have a better day today.

K&M my interview was last friday. I think it went ok but my uni hours may be a problem but we'll see. Gurning :biggrin5: I'd not thought of it like that but you're right. I'll try and get a picture of the boys stood still next to each other. Ooh Hal may be coming back? he's a lucky boy. I love Afghans but the haircare would drive me mad I think.
Quail is a bird and you can eat it. That is the extent of my experience with it 

Good luck Thorne!

We have a lovely sunny day here so can't wait to get out there for our walk.


----------



## kat&molly

FRM- I'm really sorry you had a bad day, no consolation but my OH can be similar when it comes to the dogs- I can never understand it. It really upsets me- and last week he got told that he wasn't ever to walk the dogs again.

Sorry, no help , but I do know what its like.


----------



## Maria_1986

FRM - sorry that it turned into such a bad walk. Well done for distracting Branston and shame on your hubby for not recognising that its all down to your hard work. I hope that you can sit down and talk about it once you have both calmed down and that he realises that you do know what your talking about and that you have found ways to work with the pickles that work for them.


Very busy weekend - my cousin got married so Chevy had to spend her first night away from us (and yes I cried). She stayed with her paternal grandparents and their black lab. OH's grandmother also lives with his parents so she spent the night in the granny annexe as we didn't want to leave the two dogs alone together overnight. OH's grandma didn't want her to leave when we picked her up yesterday and they reported that she was very well behaved  Am a very proud but tired mummy after having driven about 400 miles this weekend half of which Chev was in the car for, I am so glad that she travels well!


----------



## moonviolet

Oh FRM (((Big hugs)))

I'd apologise to him for upsetting him and try to open a dialogue calmly and quietly together and aim for a plan. It could be you do all the training and when he has Lilly she's in a harness so he doesn't undo any LLW work you are doing or maybe he'd like to be more involved and you coudl arrange a session with the trainer for him and Lilly or somewhere in between jsut something that works for you.

Has he looked at the book you got the other day? we know you're right but there's no point being right if it makes you and the man you love miserable. Just find a way that works for both of you.

_Please appreciate my restraint in not suggestion you pop a collar on his neck and yank it a few times until you have him walking to heel  see my impulse control is improving _

K&M wow an Afghan such beautiful dogs to look at and perfect for a mud-less environment! 
In addition to Beth's quail knowledge their eggs are tasty but tiny had them with crab once very nice.

Beth defintely need that pic .. and lots of others I love your boys. Hope you get good news from the interview.

Sarah woohoo at silent Bob playing tug happily yay!!!!!:thumbup:

Maria i'm glad Chevy was so well behaved and stole another heart


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## kat&molly

FRM- wise words from the others, another thing, my Girls play up a bit when OH comes- they just get so excited that we're all out together, then if we go somewhere new its worse,maybe its worth toning down exciting places until you have got further along with the training. Branston done well though didn't he.

It would solve my problems if I could eat the Quail but I cant.


----------



## MollySmith

FRM - Oh lovely, your post sounded so familiar to be. After our last training session me and OH spent an hour or more arguing as he didn't see the point of clicker training. Excuses range from 'I don't have enough hands to manage all her stuff' to 'my way works'. 

I don't know that we've worked a way around it as such but to prove that clicker does work I gave him the job of teaching her to drop her ball. He didn't know it was a lesson - me and Molly just started to do it and then he joined in and took the clicker. So he sort of gets that it works.

I can't take on all Molly's training as I'm so busy chasing work and studying so we have to divide it up and she's his dog too. I also think he has to know because if I do end up back at work full time, he will be walking all the time. I don't know that he does benefit from the trainer to be honest - it depends on the man, OH says he engages but I think he sees it but fails to understand it. He has had two lead sessions now with trainer and Molly, the same as mine and whilst I get it, he doesn't and goes a bit freestyle. He doesn't pass with the dogs but makes her sit and watch me - it's actually fine but he wasn't ever clicking her and was a bit sharp with her when she broke her sit or in the past did nothing but like your OH, just yank her back. I didn't know he did that and it was so B*&$dy annoying. He'd complain that he wasn't able to walk her to the pub yet failed to do anything to support her or leave it up to me to train her at the weekends when I walked her when I was working in London. He didn't understand consistency.

We've reached a compromise. He gets Molly to sit rather than walk past. All I ask is that he clicks and treats her when she's good. That's it. The passing nicely I deal with on our little lead walk sessions and I have asked him to make up the shortfall in his handling by paying the trainer to walk Molly once a week. So basically Molly gets her 1-2 hour morning walk off lead with him at a specific park where they can take an off lead route around and she's less reactive to the car as she knows the dogs if she's played with them. Then I do her lead walks around places where she might not know the dogs and we practice her not pulling, I do about 30-40 minutes daily if I can. The trainer takes Molly out on a Wed as I have physio on that day, and she gives Molly an intensive lesson in lead work and OH or I will go along too. 

So after months of no progress, we've got a sort of system and I hope it'll work. I can't change what he does but mould it and occassionally go on the walks with them to check his progress. I'm not sure he doesn't let her pull but so far what I do seems to be sinking in sufficiently. 

But I have had to look at myself too. I am a total control freak :crazy: so I have had to lower my standards a bit. It's hard because we had an awful start with Molly. Two appalling trainers and then OH was in hospital on neurology ward for two weeks and it did affect his personaility a little whilst he was recovering and I had to take charge of her with no assistance until I found Saintly trainer who has helped me so much. I guess it didn't help that trainer and I get on well - I've wept in the park over the recall with her because Molly was so blummin good (we were told by the first trainer to rehome her - and they are a popular training group in Cambridge so I believed them but thought it was worth one last try) and Saintly trainer said that we've adopted a really bright and clever dog. She still says that she'd take Molly home and really means it. But I think I relied on her much like your OH says you rely on here, sometimes you need that support cos it's lacking at home  I had to slacken off the training to let him into Molly's life so that is why he does her day walks a lot and allow him to discover things about her that I usually know already but I act surprised 

It is so frustrating, I have so much empathy with you. I really truly do. The dogs are often the easy bit and I know that despite all this, I will be on here grumbling and ranting about him again!

You have done so ruddy well it's amazing. We've all told you that and we're the experts in mad dogs and I've said I think you're inspiring - I was slacking on the lead walks but your updates have made me move my fat arse and do something (so there's a great reason for being on PF, you help others too!). Do not let this undermine you. Have a goal (ours is to walk Molly around Holt in Norfolk on our hols in June) and go for it. We're with you all the way. 

Sorry for the long post.


----------



## MollySmith

Oh and also be kind to you and him too. It was a lot to take on for everyone - new place, he was there too. Set yourself up for success and perhaps go to your usual walks together and see how that goes? 

Also copy the posts you've made from here maybe and note them down in a diary so you can see your progress? I was inspired by Sarah's blog to do that, in fact she might not know how much of a comfort it was to read about Spencer's antics when Molly was a loony nut. Long before I found PF. Made me realise someone else got that and his pictures made me smile. Blogs and stuff are great to measure your progress and evidence to shove at disbelieving OH's to show how far you've come.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Thank you so much everyone 

Your loveliness has me in tears again 

It's nice to have people who understand

I don't know what I'm going to do about it, probably what we always do - be huffy with each other for a few days, then act like it never happened without actually addressing it 

I'm off out now with the Pickles for a stomp around the forest in the rain, hoping the fresh air and exercise with my best buddies will make me feel better. I'm not sure whether to do any training walks today as I don't think I'm in the right frame of mind


----------



## Werehorse

Just sitting having a cuppa before heading out into the pissing rain  - so far every day I have worked has been lovely weather (so less visitors to an indoor attraction, so less to do which I don't like  ) and every day I have had off has been pissing rain which I just have to head out in anyway because it is my only chance. I need to Woman The F*** Up and just do it. 

Foxy  How upsetting. I so rarely argue with OH that it makes it all the worse when it happens and I hate it. Especially if it is about the dogs.  Once the dust settles you could see if you can manage a calm chat about how he feels re: the dog training and how you feel when he tries to manage it "his way"... go for "I feel like you might be hurting her" "I feel uncomfortable watching you pull her lead like that" etc rather than "YOU ARE hurting her" etc Much less confrontational and less likely to break down into another argument (afterall you feel how you feel, hurting her is open to debate - even if most of us here would say a lead yank would be hurting her, there are people who strongly disagree - your feelings are not open to debate). Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs.  My OH has taught me a thing or two about having calm discussions, he pulls all the psychological tricks on me which is utterly infuriating but my inner angry chimp just ends up with nothing to respond to when he does it! I end up being forced into a reasonable discussion - drives me mad but it does work for long term harmony!

I wonder if both of you going to a dog class with a dog each would be a good long term goal. I've noticed OH has been a lot better with the dogs since he actually started handling Oscar at class - he was pretty good before because he has sat in nearly every class and been thoroughly converted from CM-ish thinking to positive reward thinking but his actual handling of the dogs and his patience just took a step forward when he actually had to start doing it himself at class.

Really sorry you had a fight though, it's awful to be all not talking and stuff. Can you make him a cup of tea peace offering just to get the worst of it over?


----------



## GingerRogers

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thank you so much everyone
> 
> Your loveliness has me in tears again
> 
> It's nice to have people who understand
> 
> I don't know what I'm going to do about it, probably what we always do - be huffy with each other for a few days, then act like it never happened without actually addressing it
> 
> I'm off out now with the Pickles for a stomp around the forest in the rain, hoping the fresh air and exercise with my best buddies will make me feel better. I'm not sure whether to do any training walks today as I don't think I'm in the right frame of mind


Sounds like a plan. Try and train today and if it all goes wrong you will feel even worse. go and enjoy them.


----------



## GingerRogers

Well yesterday we had a quiet day, I left little missy at home with hubby, she was still shattered from Saturday, and was feeling all discombobulated with her season I think. She snuggled up and watched the Grand Prix with hubby, and he actually took her for a little walk so I could go out with my friend (drove her to a field in the middle of nowhere)

I don't think she minded me leaving her 



Hubby really is a complete sap where she is concerned  this is what he did for her 


Will you please get that phone out of my face!! 


I almost wish I hadn't though, my friend told me halfway through our walk that she was reading a Cesar Milan book  and 'a lot of what he says makes sense'  to which I replied 'yeah apart from the bits where he says to beat your dog up to make sure it knows its place at the bottom of the pack' I was so gobsmacked I couldn't quite say anything sensible or rational that made any sense when it came out my mouth. There is no way she would employ any aggressive tactics on her two but it just saddens me that that is what is out there for the average dog trainer. She then kept saying 'I never used treats on my two' and kept looking at me  

How do you lot approach this sort of thing, I couldn't even explain to my best friend as I felt a)like a mad woman believing in fairies b)like I was openly criticising her belief they didn't exist


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry you ended up rowing about the dogs FRM. I guess that's one way I'm lucky in that it's me who does all the dog stuff. Hubby comes out once in a blue moon and it's even rarer he does any training and then he just goes along with what I'm doing. I have had the "yeah but he's still not good" sort of comment though. Me and hubby have sat and talked about training a few times. I find explaining to him why I'm doing certain things and what the goal is really does help him understand.

Would definitely advise keeping a diary of your progress. It was probably the best piece of advice given to me when I was working on Ruperts issues and I've sort of carried it on with Spencer. My blog is a more general day to day life one though rather than a specific training one. It really does help to be able to look back over the weeks or months and see exactly how you've progressed.

MS, glad Spencers naughtiness and my struggles helped inspire you and make you feel better about your problems with Molly


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## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> How do you lot approach this sort of thing, I couldn't even explain to my best friend as I felt a)like a mad woman believing in fairies b)like I was openly criticising her belief they didn't exist


Ah it's a tough one. Especially when it's a friend. I often just recommend Culture Clash and The Other End of the Leash and books like that. As I said to someone the other day, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I've got friends I strongly disagree with about dog training, it's a subject we avoid now. They know not to use their methods with my dog and I bite my tongue about them using them with their dogs. It's hard but at the end of the day I can't force them to believe as I do.

Ginge looks very comfy and not too traumatised about you leaving her


----------



## Dogless

FRM - I am so sorry. In some respects it's easier that I do everything with the boys and hubby only comes on a walk once a month or so. We have had a row about it several times when he stands back and lets Rudi or Kilo away with something or doesn't help me - but it comes down to the fact that I am a vile, controlling monster who makes him feel awful if he tries to help and does it wrong . Possibly because he is very rarely at home, who knows? I resent the lack of help but at the same time don't want to relinquish one tiny bit of control . These things are so difficult; just enjoy the Pickles today and maybe just open a calm conversation about why the walk went as it did, I think sometimes it's hard for the one who hasn't struggled with the training issues to appreciate quite the amount of hard work involved sometimes. Big hugs xxxx.

GR - love the pictures! We don't see enough of the Ninja!! The CM stuff? I tend to calmly say that I disagree and why and if they push and push just say we'll have to agree to disagree and change the subject. Everyone believes in CM round here and talks about bribery etc when the treats come out.

Maria - Can Chevy do no wrong? She just seems to be a dream, I'm so pleased for you.

k&m - Afghan Hound? Wow! I'd end up keeping such a magnificent beastie I am sure. Quail - I like a good Quail Spatchcock and the eggs wouldn't fill you up.....not want you need to hear I am guessing? :crazy:.


Even though we were up at 0520 I waited until 0930 to take the boys out as it's Bank Holiday and I thought with folk being off work there might be more about, but there weren't really. Sometimes I panic that Rudi doesn't come across enough 'stuff'. Anyhow they walked like a dream to the fields and played. Shamefully I couldn't be arsed to do any training . We saw one dog on the way back and both boys just walked well. We also came around a corner to see the DA DDB offlead - the woman panicked like mad when she saw and was trying to recall him, but he hadn't seen us so we swiftly turned around and went down the next street - Kilo would have reacted to him I think, he often does. I went across and around the car park to the shop so there were lots of folk with kids and buggies hurrying across. But all in all not much about. I had chosen not to go to the park as it's by the lough so really freezing and windy in this weather and would have been totally deserted.

The weather is very, very cold and wet and 'our' forest will be inaccessible due to snow otherwise I'd like to go there tomorrow - not been since the sheep incident!!

ETA: I heard a cracker yesterday when I walked to the shop......making my very own thread. So there!!


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## GingerRogers

Ooh I forgot about K&Ms afghan hound :001_wub:.

My mum had them when she was younger, she bred one and ended up up hand rearing the litter , we were only talking about them on Saturday as she had had my brothers pup for a couple of days and she mentioned he has finally twigged its probably not a good idea in the future to breed his runt of the litter especially when he has to ask mum to look after her while he goes on work trips 

Anyway Afghans are stunning, I think I have only ever seen one in real life, I think from her stories that my mum would say - beautiful though they might be they can be handful :001_rolleyes:. 

And quails no nothing, never even eaten one or their eggs.  Is yours poorly Kat or do you have a training problem?


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## Dimwit

Sarah1983 said:


> Would definitely advise keeping a diary of your progress. It was probably the best piece of advice given to me when I was working on Ruperts issues and I've sort of carried it on with Spencer.


I would definitely recommend this as well - although mine is just on my computer as I very much doubt that anybody out there in internetland would be remotely interested in reading it 

I am sorry for the people having dog-related arguments, I guess this is one of the few good things about being single, although it does mean that I have to take all the blame for messing up my dog 
It is difficult though when you are trying to do your best for your dog and getting little support - I get lots of comments from my family along the lines of "well, you are doing all this training with him and it hasn't had much effect so why bother" which is nice - but at least I don't see them all that often...

I hope everyone has a nice day - I am waiting for my boss to turn up to do my appraisal which will no doubt be hideous...


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## Kicksforkills

Here you go;

Out and about;

Boxer - YouTube

http://i.imgur.com/vDtDoZ0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/DwHrlXP.jpg

Back home, very wet and muddy;

http://i.imgur.com/A82uVQp.jpg

As I'm about to leave;

http://i.imgur.com/zukypM7.jpg


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## Sarah1983

Dimwit said:


> I would definitely recommend this as well - although mine is just on my computer as I very much doubt that anybody out there in internetland would be remotely interested in reading it


You might be surprised  My blog has only been written for me but I've got a few followers. I lost Ruperts diary when the computer it was on died so figured an online one might be safer.


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## foxyrockmeister

What a sorry state I am....

Just got back from walking the Pickles, it's pouring with rain here so we went to the forest. I was just bumbling along thinking things over while the pickles chased and played around, when......... BANG! I went down like a sack of sh1t!!! I got my foot caught in a root and went arse over tit!! Now I'm always slipping and tripping what with all the mud but this was a proper smash, face first into the ground!! Luckily the mud gave me a soft landing.

I pulled myself up out of the mud, seemingly unhurt (other than my pride), now normally I would have had a great laugh at my own stupidity/misfortune but today I just stood there, dripping with rain and mud and sobbed. What a numpty!!
Thankfully no-one was there to see me as I trudged through the woods caked in mud and sobbing my eyes out... WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??!!

I don't do things like this normally at all but today I just feel like bursting in to tears at the stupidest things :crying:

Oh well, we're home now and I'm off to have a hot shower and wash the mud out of my nostrils (yes, I literally did land face first!!)

Then I'm going to give myself a right royal kick up the @rse for being so pathetic, before having to get to work this afternoon - thank fully I have a really quiet day today, only 4 patients, because I am really not in the mood!

Sorry, for the woe is me post again, but hopefully visions of a sopping wet mud monster crying their eyes out in the middle of the woods will give you all a laugh...... in fact, just writing about it now has made me chuckle at it myself :lol:


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## kat&molly

Look at the Ninja :001_wub:

The Afghan, all I saw[private ad ] was 5 year old bitch spayed, needs a home due to chasing the neighbours chickens  I mean for Fecks sake  she doesn't look very elegant in the pic - looks as though she's really short. I LOVE them, but am led to believe they're crazy and scatty.
I would enquire if the rescue let me know whats happening with Hal- if its a choice between me and the pound, I'll manage. From what I've since found out - the behaviourists isn't even a calmer enviroment- I wont bore you with it all but I'm not happy.

The Quail  you all know I lost one of them - it left me with 3, turns out only one female and 2 male[not what I asked for] I need tp know I can just add others to even it out a bit- dont want anymore but 1 male is being pushed out.
Does anyone have any training advice.:w00t:


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> I almost wish I hadn't though, my friend told me halfway through our walk that she was reading a Cesar Milan book  and 'a lot of what he says makes sense'  to which I replied 'yeah apart from the bits where he says to beat your dog up to make sure it knows its place at the bottom of the pack' I was so gobsmacked I couldn't quite say anything sensible or rational that made any sense when it came out my mouth. There is no way she would employ any aggressive tactics on her two but it just saddens me that that is what is out there for the average dog trainer. She then kept saying 'I never used treats on my two' and kept looking at me
> 
> *How do you lot approach this sort of thing*, I couldn't even explain to my best friend as I felt a)like a mad woman believing in fairies b)like I was openly criticising her belief they didn't exist


My aunt was like this (I posted on the sticking the oar in thread) and she is truly the sort of person who is a total martyr if you tell her she's wrong (Molly was great on Xmas day and isn't overweight, all her assumptions that I could easily counter). She doesn't even own a dog and never has. My gran doesn't give treats but I'm prepared to acknowledge because she's had dogs all her life, she's 90 and it's another generation plus she respects that Molly is my dog. I've had the time and space to show them clicker work which you might not have on a walk.

The man who tried to put a prong collar on her - an awful man called G3 dogs in Cambridge, Dimwit, avoid them - I asked him to put it own himself. And then I walked out.

I'd do her the favour of lending her a good book or pointing her at you tube videos. It is hard to explain clicking training without demonstrating it 

Oh and love sappy OH, sort of thing mine does for Molly!

Oh *FRM*, bless you. And sorry made me laugh, it's two of those sorts of days! I hope this afternoon is better xx


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## Dogless

FRM - we've all had 'em, sometimes a good old cry and mope is needed . Hope you feel better after a nice hot shower xx.


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## Dogless

Kilo my beautiful boy is getting his first grey hairs under his chin. Makes me feel a little sad, don't know why, as he's only young .


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## sharloid

We have managed to find a tennis court within walking distance that we can use at night, yaaay!

We've been working on sits and stays in the house with Kindra, but haven't done any with Broder around. We practiced stays with them both together in the tennis court and called them one at a time whilst the other stayed put.

Only little things but it made me smile.


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## moonviolet

Oh FRM hope the day improves. Bet lilly loved your new look


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## GingerRogers

foxyrockmeister said:


> Thankfully no-one was there to see me as I trudged through the woods caked in mud and sobbing my eyes out... WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??!!


Sorry, lol, I laughed too, out of sympathy, I was bit like that on Friday morning after OH bailed on the walk then the little bitch nipped me cos of the jogger. Sometimes its good to have another reason to cry like falling face first in the mud rather than getting hopelessly bogged down with the real reason, I like a good weepy film or book sometimes for therapy purposes.

Oh  I just thought of something that might help your OH be convinced.

The lone lad on our course, big burly chap who confesses to crying over his terrier, had another confession moment on Saturday.

He said he was finally understanding that all the stuff he was doing before which seemed natural was completely the opposite to what he should be doing. He had just wanted to squish her down when she reacted and thought he could manage her reactivity by exposure, so he took her to the local town to work on her car issues, basically giving us images of him shoving her out into the traffic  when suddenly she transferred and leapt up and nipped him.................in the balls...............  the rest of us ladies were terrible and all laughed very loudly at him. One of the trainers was nearly crying and said if she had been driving past and seen that she would have crashed - so perhaps you could just let him take Branston for once, go to a sure fire reactive place and see what happens...........he might change his mind very quickly 



kat&molly said:


> Look at the Ninja :001_wub:
> 
> The Afghan, all I saw[private ad ] was 5 year old bitch spayed, needs a home due to chasing the neighbours chickens  I mean for Fecks sake  she doesn't look very elegant in the pic - looks as though she's really short. I LOVE them, but am led to believe they're crazy and scatty.
> I would enquire if the rescue let me know whats happening with Hal- if its a choice between me and the pound, I'll manage. From what I've since found out - *the behaviourists isn't even a calmer enviroment*- I wont bore you with it all but I'm not happy.
> 
> The Quail  you all know I lost one of them - it left me with 3, turns out only one female and 2 male[not what I asked for] I need tp know I can just add others to even it out a bit- dont want anymore but 1 male is being pushed out.
> Does anyone have any training advice.:w00t:


 oh poor you, I did wonder about that, figuring a behaviourist would probably have dogs, potentially problem dogs, but that she would at least know how to handle him - sounds like he really does need a calm home for a bit though poor lad.



MollySmith said:


> I'd do her the favour of lending her a good book or pointing her at you tube videos. It is hard to explain clicking training without demonstrating it


Oh I didn't even bother trying to explain clicker work , my mum asked me on Friday 'do you really think thats helping, it seems to distract her'


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh I didn't even bother trying to explain clicker work , my mum asked me on Friday 'do you really think thats helping, it seems to distract her'


I met someone I see now and again with their dog the other day. I had my clicker with me and was clicking Rudi for sitting nicely, lying down, no lunging after her dog chasing the ball that she was throwing for him, attention on me whilst we talked (I didn't have a toy with me for Rudi and he was chasing her dog's ball if I had him offlead, which her dog guards). Anyway she said "You've got one of those clicker things? It didn't work for my dog". Turns out she disagrees with using food and was expecting her dog to feel rewarded with just the click.


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## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Oh I didn't even bother trying to explain clicker work , my mum asked me on Friday 'do you really think thats helping, it seems to distract her'


I tried explaining shaping to my mum once. She hasn't asked how clicker training works since :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I met someone I see now and again with their dog the other day. I had my clicker with me and was clicking Rudi for sitting nicely, lying down, no lunging after her dog chasing the ball that she was throwing for him, attention on me whilst we talked (I didn't have a toy with me for Rudi and he was chasing her dog's ball if I had him offlead, which her dog guards). Anyway she said "You've got one of those clicker things? It didn't work for my dog". Turns out she disagrees with using food and was expecting her dog to feel rewarded with just the click.


 yes thats kind of how I felt after M had repeatedly said she didn't use treats, actually she disagreed with CM on that point, as he said a dog wouldnt work for praise alone 

ETA to add would 'nt' which has a completely different meaning to 'would'


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> yes thats kind of how I felt after M had repeatedly said she didn't use treats, actually she disagreed with CM on that point, as he said a dog wouldnt work for praise alone
> 
> ETA to add would 'nt' which has a completely different meaning to 'would'


Loads of people think that using treats and toys is wrong it seems. One man said that Rudi was brilliant as he didn't pull to see his dog, who had towed him over, then said "Mind you, it was for treats, I don't bribe my dog, he knows who's boss". I said that I'd not work for no wages, but got a mini talk about how your dog must respect you. I really try not to get into training conversations even if I'm asked how I've achieved something TBH. Only with Dizzy's human, she gets it!!


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Loads of people think that using treats and toys is wrong it seems. One man said that Rudi was brilliant as he didn't pull to see his dog, who had towed him over, then said "Mind you, it was for treats, I don't bribe my dog, he knows who's boss". I said that I'd not work for no wages, but got a mini talk about how your dog must respect you. I really try not to get into training conversations even if I'm asked how I've achieved something TBH. Only with Dizzy's human, she gets it!!


Do they not realise the irony? No you don't bribe your dog, well done, your dog just does what it likes because after all YOU are the boss


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Do they not realise the irony? No you don't bribe your dog, well done, your dog just does what it likes because after all YOU are the boss


I know, it's hard not to say anything when they're up there on their high horse....:crazy:.


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## sharloid

Dogless said:


> Loads of people think that using treats and toys is wrong it seems. One man said that Rudi was brilliant as he didn't pull to see his dog, who had towed him over, then said "Mind you, it was for treats, I don't bribe my dog, he knows who's boss". I said that I'd not work for no wages, but got a mini talk about how your dog must respect you. I really try not to get into training conversations even if I'm asked how I've achieved something TBH. Only with Dizzy's human, she gets it!!


Rudi's the same age as Kindra... and he doesn't pull to things? Bloody hell! 
It was going well with Kindra not reacting to dogs or people, she was a little cautious of them and wouldn't approach. But now, after a few walks with Broder...


----------



## Dogless

sharloid said:


> Rudi's the same age as Kindra... and he doesn't pull to things? Bloody hell!
> It was going well with Kindra not reacting to dogs or people, she was a little cautious of them and wouldn't approach. But now, after a few walks with Broder...


Not too much, no. Some things he stops and stares at - kids as he seems to love them and I have to move him on. He'll try and pull if he knows he'll get a fuss or something (like into PAH!!) but as long as I can engage him he won't and he's not too hard to engage. Not at present anyway - I'm aware that it could all go to pot at any moment . He is better on his own than with Kilo, but not too bad when I have them together. I've been really strict with him. Not in a 'bad' way!!


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## sharloid

Dogless said:


> Not too much, no. Some things he stops and stares at - kids as he seems to love them and I have to move him on. He'll try and pull if he knows he'll get a fuss or something (like into PAH!!) but as long as I can engage him he won't and he's not too hard to engage. Not at present anyway - I'm aware that it could all go to pot at any moment . He is better on his own than with Kilo, but not too bad when I have them together. I've been really strict with him. Not in a 'bad' way!!


When they're together they seem to make a game out of who can be in front. Being on lead, this does not work. 

She used to be very food orientated outside, which made it a lot easier. Now though, dogs seem to be her favourite thing. I'm working very hard to try and make sure she doesn't end up like Broder. I feel I'm failing a bit though.


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## kat&molly

Just the opposite to what you're all saying - when we walk past the barky Setter house- the girls are fine but I HAVE to throw treats for them to find. Theres a really old man who sometimes tends the veg patch there, one day my timing was off and Scruff barked- he shouted' wheres your treats'.:lol:


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## moonviolet

Got dropped off a couple of miles from home and meandered our way back this morning. Was lovely just what i needed. Did get a slightly odd comment from the woman who told me ages ago beagles are untrainable, but advised joining the dog club she's involved with ( then saw her being dragged by her spaniel cross and losing her rag with it.) She informed me that Tinker should be more vocal and preceeded to try to get her to bay :lol: :lol:, now she will on occasion bay at the beagles across the lane in the summer, if they have been left out the front while their ower is mowing the lawn, but other than that she's pretty quiet. I'm more than happy with her frugal use of the bay and made a concerted effort not to laugh at it when she was a pup. I wish i could have filmed this woman :lol:

No limp and lots of running jumping, a bit of paddling so good to be back to normal. She was even good walking past all the emptied food bins left on the pavement. 

Those pics of Ginge are gorgeous GR  I do love her eyes.


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## Dogless

mv - I have a brilliant image of a baying old lady with Miss Tinks just looking up at her in a puzzled fashion .

Sharloid - maybe let neither be in front? I have "walk nice" which sounds stupid but means I want them both close; I walk one on either side. Can't say "close" as that applies to the dog on my left (always Rudi at present) and can't say "right" as that applies to the dog on my right :crazy:. Walk nice means both dogs in close and earns treats / praise etc. From there you can get a nice "watch" in - well, I can with Rudi, much harder with Kilo as he's far more worried about his surroundings than Rudi. If dogs are approaching and Kilo looks worried I tend to sit them in front of me and belt feed treats for a watch, or even change direction. Makes you look a chump at times though .


----------



## Twiggy

I've had computer problems since early this morning but hopefully it will behave itself now.

I've had a very quick scan through your posts:

*GingersRogers -* loved the pics!!

*FRM - *Really sorry you came to blows with your OH. Quite honestly you're better to grit your teeth and let him get on with it. They always think they know best and hate being told. I've been in that situation many times with both dogs and horses but these days I don't bother arguing; it's simply not worth it.

With regard to Joe Public's mainly misguided views on training their dogs the same applies really. Again I don't bother and usually say something like "yes I'm sure you're right" - if only to shut them up...LOL


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## sharloid

Dogless said:


> mv - I have a brilliant image of a baying old lady with Miss Tinks just looking up at her in a puzzled fashion .
> 
> Sharloid - maybe let neither be in front? I have "walk nice" which sounds stupid but means I want them both close; I walk one on either side. Can't say "close" as that applies to the dog on my left (always Rudi at present) and can't say "right" as that applies to the dog on my right :crazy:. Walk nice means both dogs in close and earns treats / praise etc. From there you can get a nice "watch" in - well, I can with Rudi, much harder with Kilo as he's far more worried about his surroundings than Rudi. If dogs are approaching and Kilo looks worried I tend to sit them in front of me and belt feed treats for a watch, or even change direction. Makes you look a chump at times though .


They both know the command to walk next to me and will do it when they're by themselves, but together they just want to pull. I guess it's made harder by the fact that we do want them to be able to pull together, but on command! Broder's watch me and come around commands are good when there isn't a big distraction, but with Kindra she has a tendency to wander off if I'm not constantly praising/making eye contact.

I've never walked both of them by myself, they both get taken out if the OH comes with me. This is usually if we're going somewhere for a nice walk in the car.

I guess it's just another thing to add to the list of things to work on!


----------



## Dogless

sharloid said:


> They both know the command to walk next to me and will do it when they're by themselves, but together they just want to pull. I guess it's made harder by the fact that we do want them to be able to pull together, but on command! Broder's watch me and come around commands are good when there isn't a big distraction, but with Kindra she has a tendency to wander off if I'm not constantly praising/making eye contact.
> 
> I've never walked both of them by myself, they both get taken out if the OH comes with me. This is usually if we're going somewhere for a nice walk in the car.
> 
> I guess it's just another thing to add to the list of things to work on!


Maybe the 'racing' is because one of you has each? Kilo in general walks really nicely and doesn't need too many reminders, but when we walk with Dizzy and his human the pair of them try to race (on the way there, Kilo plods on the way back...Dizzy is still racing, his name fits!!!) and when OH came out with me with both dogs (the one and only time!!!) he initially held Rudi, but Rudi was a nightmare for him and tried pulling - he gave him back to me and he walked really nicely. HOWEVER hubby never walks the dogs so Rudi may well have just wanted to get back to me or not understood what hubby wanted - he lost his temper, which helped .


----------



## Symone

Shamaya too tries to "race" when walked with other dogs.. normally her litter sibling 

FRM - Sorry about your bad walk, and getting muddy. 

GR - Love the pics! 



Well.. Shamaya.. OH took her out on her morning walk alone for I was "taking ages to get ready" (I was tired) and a big mishap happened!
She was on her harness and trying to pull, OH got to the top of our road, crossed and she was pulling mad (Crossing the road seems to be where she pulls the most) He went to swap the lead into his other hand and she pulled, The lead left the OHs hands. She did not answer to recall, and OH tried that making himself look more fun by running the other way thing for she ran off. She stopped, but when he approached her she ran off again.
She kept running, down some steep steps, over the road... And then she was waiting at the beach. OH was running behind her trying to get her. 
Ended up getting her at the beach and turned around and went straight home. I have no idea why she didn't answer to recall.. She could had died when she ran over the road  
So.. I've decided no beach walks until she improves.. I can't risk something like that happening again. Seems it's 2 things to work on now, recall and pulling. 
I'm guessing the best way around this beach excitement is a mix of LLW & long line recall practise by the pier? What do you guys suggest?

I still feel sad thinking that I could had lost my little girl, today


----------



## Dogless

What a scare Symone! I suspect she didn't recall as she was having great fun and games; it was just one of those horrendous accidents that happen but turn out fine, like Kilo chasing the traffic last week . 

Perhaps a long line at the beach is the way forward - I am guessing the beach is next to the road?


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> What a scare Symone! I suspect she didn't recall as she was having great fun and games; it was just one of those horrendous accidents that happen but turn out fine, like Kilo chasing the traffic last week .
> 
> Perhaps a long line at the beach is the way forward - I am guessing the beach is next to the road?


Well, There's an arcade and chippy, then road, then an old casino and the beach is behind that.. She ofc ran over the road to get to the beach.

Thing is she recalls fine ON the beach, however this is the first time we've had to recall her on the walk there.. And the walk there is kinda next to a really busy road so I haven't tested her off lead, there. If we stop while she is on lead she will sit by our side and such. 

Why must our dogs scare us so?


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Well, There's an arcade and chippy, then road, then an old casino and the beach is behind that.. She ofc ran over the road to get to the beach.
> 
> Thing is she recalls fine ON the beach, however this is the first time we've had to recall her on the walk there.. And the walk there is kinda next to a really busy road so I haven't tested her off lead, there. If we stop while she is on lead she will sit by our side and such.
> 
> Why must our dogs scare us so?


She's at the age at which they start testing their boundaries too, becoming less velcro and more independent. Perhaps she also got a bit scared running through busy places and with the (understandably) scared tone to your OH's voice and just kept on going until she reached somewhere 'safe'?


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless said:


> Maria - Can Chevy do no wrong? She just seems to be a dream, I'm so pleased for you.


She does plenty wrong but I think we are still in the honeymoon period so I don't mind so much. (e.g. we are back on the long line as the recall is back to being hit and miss, LLW is still hit and miss if there is something more interesting to me to try to get to, watch me has been given up on for now cos we don't seem to be getting anywhere with it and I seem to be confusing her) However I am very lucky that I seem to have adopted a very placid, mostly well behaved, already half trained dog.

Symone - that sounds like a really scary experience for your OH, I'm glad she is ok.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> She's at the age at which they start testing their boundaries too, becoming less velcro and more independent. Perhaps she also got a bit scared running through busy places and with the (understandably) scared tone to your OH's voice and just kept on going until she reached somewhere 'safe'?


OH is insisting that she knew what she was doing, lol. 
He said he sounded more of annoyed than scared (I can't really picture a big northern guy sounding scared.) However maybe she thought he was scared.. I'm sure that he was. 
He's now cuddling with her, looks cute. She looks fed up, though! 
And it could well be that she ran to her safe place. I'm just thankful that she is safe, now.


----------



## Beth17

FRM I'm sorry you fell over. These things always happen all at once don't they 

Maria Chevy sounds like she was a real star again.

Symone how scary. I expect it's her age and also all of the things going on her around that caused her to keep running. Glad she's ok though.

mv how on earth did you not burst out laughing at the baying woman  

Ginge what cute pictures of the ninja. A real lady of leisure pose 

Good lead walk with the boys today with some offlead antics. Sam was a bit enthusiatic when grabbing for his toy so have a nice dent in my hand again  Oscar also decided to have a grumble when we saw the lady with the terriers. We were in a lane so pulled them to one side and got past without any real drama other than that grumble.

I have a theory that he reacted because this pup is only a couple of months younger than Sam but is very jumpy and bouncy and runs up to all dogs it sees. He also strains at the end of his lead on his back legs to say hello and gives quite direct eye contact. When we see them up the fields he's always bugging Oscar so I think he's almost pre-empting this pup being a pain.

Daft thing was, a bit further on in a wooded area we were coming up a path and at the top was an offlead dog who the owner quickly put on lead. As it went past it pulled its lips right back and started barking and lunging quite forcefully and my two just stood and watched. So Oscar obviously didn't have an issue with that 

Got quite a shock at home when out the back picking up mess. Went to pop it in the bin and on the other side of the fence is a half dug up dead cat  It doesn't look very peaceful either. Trouble is the owners are out at the moment. Thankfully the bys haven't really noticed it, but that did give me quite a start :thumbdown:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Beth - dead cat doesn't sound too nice  Is it in your neighbours garden? who dug it up?

Symone - sorry to hear you had a scare with Shamaya, it sounds like it was an unfortunate accident that your OH let go of the lead. As for her not recalling, it was probably because she saw it as a great game and just wanted to get to the beach asap. I wouldn't get too hung up on it, just keep doing as much recall as poss as she is reaching the teenage stage when they do seem to somehow forget everything they've learnt!!

Wish I'd seen the baying crazy lady with Tink, I need something to give me a good laugh today!!

Well, I'm at work now, 2 patient's down, 2 to go and it seems I have may have underestimated the effects of my mud diving this morning - my neck and arm are killing me now  I must have jarred it when my face hit the ground!!! 
Think I need to see a Chiropractor


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth I liked for the boys sitting nicely for the snarling not the dead cat 

Can I please just scream and vent completely un-dog related stuff, yes, ok thanks.

Arrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just having a conversation with the OH about the way forward with his migraines/work etc. Went quite well, he was communicating a little which is good for him. Stupidly I started to get a bit overwhelmed and mentioned how it was affecting me, how I'm not sleeping because I wonder whether he is getting up in the morning, how I feel I am not performing well at work, how I feel I have failed at that, and with him, and then mentioned the dog, so he pointed out very kindly that I was *'Just Feeling Sorry for Myself' *

The words that describe him going through my head right now are not very polite. I just stood up and came back to work and sadly dropped to a low level and parted with 'oh sorry, of course thats your domain isn't it!' Now he is so ruddy bothered that he has upset me that he is snoring  FFS is it any wonder I am feeling sorry for myself 

Sorry let normal service resume back to dog stuff.


----------



## sharloid

Just got back from a lovely little walk. We went to the fenced in place we found last week. As I'm sure you all know, my dogs don't go off lead. I really hope we aren't asked to stop using it!

The only problem is it's some kind of reservoir/water run off storage so since it's been raining it's become a bog. A bit of mud and water is a small price to pay for their freedom.

Not only is it good for them to run and play fetch, it's great to be able to practice long distance recall etc. Here we are practicing recall, look how big it is!










Sorry, just wanted to share my excitement. 

Now, how do we teach Broder to stop doing this...


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Beth I liked for the boys sitting nicely for the snarling not the dead cat
> 
> Can I please just scream and vent completely un-dog related stuff, yes, ok thanks.
> 
> Arrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Just having a conversation with the OH about the way forward with his migraines/work etc. Went quite well, he was communicating a little which is good for him. Stupidly I started to get a bit overwhelmed and mentioned how it was affecting me, how I'm not sleeping because I wonder whether he is getting up in the morning, how I feel I am not performing well at work, how I feel I have failed at that, and with him, and then mentioned the dog, so he pointed out very kindly that I was *'Just Feeling Sorry for Myself' *
> 
> The words that describe him going through my head right now are not very polite. I just stood up and came back to work and sadly dropped to a low level and parted with 'oh sorry, of course thats your domain isn't it!' Now he is so ruddy bothered that he has upset me that he is snoring  FFS is it any wonder I am feeling sorry for myself
> 
> Sorry let normal service resume back to dog stuff.


You vent and scream away. I can only say I'm sorry and that men generally, when they are not well, are not exactly easy to live with.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Oh no GR, not yours as well 

Men. Who needs em?


----------



## Nicki85

We have had such a good day today! I have to post- no one else understands 

Our morning walk we went over to the dog fields in the other village and he was star recalling well and doing some onlead walking on the pavement. He played with a male Rottie really nicely and came when I asked (so the other person could catch the Rottie!). Then in the fields we did a bit of training and then I released him to go talk to a couple of cockers. Again he came straight back when asked. 

This afternoon I decided to take him to a scary place... Last time he went on this walk with my brother and dad (who never walk him I should add!) he chased a hare a good distance and the joined up with them later on down the path. I've been really worried about going there again  and as it is a local walk I was getting really worried/ anxious that it would happen again. Anyhow, he was a star! He recalled perfectly and didn't dive into any of the fields. I was soooo happy with him. 

He is really starting to "get" playing with his kong safestix as well instead of sticks so that is nice. It's a really good thing to reward his recall as he isn't interested in treats or fuss really when we are out.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Beth I liked for the boys sitting nicely for the snarling not the dead cat
> 
> Can I please just scream and vent completely un-dog related stuff, yes, ok thanks.
> 
> Arrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Just having a conversation with the OH about the way forward with his migraines/work etc. Went quite well, he was communicating a little which is good for him. Stupidly I started to get a bit overwhelmed and mentioned how it was affecting me, how I'm not sleeping because I wonder whether he is getting up in the morning, how I feel I am not performing well at work, how I feel I have failed at that, and with him, and then mentioned the dog, so he pointed out very kindly that I was *'Just Feeling Sorry for Myself' *
> 
> The words that describe him going through my head right now are not very polite. I just stood up and came back to work and sadly dropped to a low level and parted with 'oh sorry, of course thats your domain isn't it!' Now he is so ruddy bothered that he has upset me that he is snoring  FFS is it any wonder I am feeling sorry for myself
> 
> Sorry let normal service resume back to dog stuff.


They are a bit of a lost cause when they aren't well.

Only this weekend my mum and I discussed her moving up here and my OH moving in with my Dad :lol: :lol: there's a possibility we would all be happier :lol: :lol: mines been slightly unwell but he won't help himself.... he has a neck ache and associated aches from excessive driving... he's been to a physio in the past will he do his exercises will he heck 10 mins a day they take.... but no he's rather whinge ..... every flaming waking minute :lol: :lol:

Lovely pics Sharloid

FRM you are never to far from a well meaning nutter around here :lol: and i'm not fgoign to exclude myself from that 

Beth glad your walk went well, shame about the poor cat being exhumed


----------



## moonviolet

Seeing as we could do with a giggle 

This ...










...is...










... a dog toy :biggrin5:


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- , what can I say except just look at MV's 'toy':laugh: 
That should have come with a health warning, I nearly wet myself.


----------



## MollySmith

Crikey MV I was most shocked, I have a massive 27" Mac screen - blumming heck 

Ginge - men what can I say? It must be so hard and you have the patience of saints, I couldn't do it. I wish there was something I could say to make it better.

Beth - crikey, a cat that's not good.

Symone - oh dear, I do think Dogless is right, it's the testing time but with good training as you're doing so well these incidents will be less often I'm sure.

Well, who knew how much excitement a book case could bring to the Smith house today? It's _huge_, I shall take a photo with dog later. Anyway took me an hour to find it under the packaging. Molly went nuts after her walk and I used her madness to help me shred cardboard. Then she buried my slipper in the garden and we've just had house zoomies which is very naughty. I could hear her barking at the OH and I just marched downstairs and did 'bad dog' voice and for the first time this year had to pick up the discs and do some time out. We had some hugs, did a tiny bit of tuggies and peace reigns. I'm happy cos I'm being a right sad muppet and organising my books by spine colour and height. Yes I know I'm weird.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> We have had such a good day today! I have to post- no one else understands
> 
> Our morning walk we went over to the dog fields in the other village and he was star recalling well and doing some onlead walking on the pavement. He played with a male Rottie really nicely and came when I asked (so the other person could catch the Rottie!). Then in the fields we did a bit of training and then I released him to go talk to a couple of cockers. Again he came straight back when asked.
> 
> This afternoon I decided to take him to a scary place... Last time he went on this walk with my brother and dad (who never walk him I should add!) he chased a hare a good distance and the joined up with them later on down the path. I've been really worried about going there again  and as it is a local walk I was getting really worried/ anxious that it would happen again. Anyhow, he was a star! He recalled perfectly and didn't dive into any of the fields. I was soooo happy with him.
> 
> He is really starting to "get" playing with his kong safestix as well instead of sticks so that is nice. It's a really good thing to reward his recall as he isn't interested in treats or fuss really when we are out.


That's great - well done to you both...

Really good to hear he's starting to play with his Safestix and hopefully he'll get better and better. Patience and slowly, slowly catchi monkey.

I'm finding my little rescue fascinating. Holly is 16 months old now and has gone from not wanting to know me on walks (or training for that matter - much preferring the other dogs) to hurling her Space Hopper Lob It at me continually and totally ignoring Tremor's plea to play.

We had a really good training session this afternoon as well. No going into one and very much up for it. Time and patience makes all the difference..


----------



## GingerRogers

MV  


sharloid no you can't stop broder doing that he looks like he is in doggy heaven

i just took the ninja to the far away field but the fog had rolled in unlike the beautiful day earlier. But ain't it good to walk in daylight at this time. :001_smile:

I am still rightly fuming. The pillocks doesn't appear to know why exactly. Rough idea but not quite got it. But he is looking for jobs 

earlier i bumped into a neighbour who commented she doesn't often see me without my wee doggy. I explained she was in heat so she told me about the time she thought her mini daxie had been got at by a friends pug  when she unexpectedly came in. This was years ago before the days of scans etc, she alarmed them further by swelling and producing milk, poor thing had a phantom. She now knows a lot more about a itches reproductive cycle than she did then. Pughunds :crazy:


----------



## Werehorse

Hello - we did, well I did, 16.5 miles today. Which means Oscar probably did about 30 miles and Hugo at least 20. :lol: They're knackered. Hugo is upside down on the sofa looking like he won't move until morning and Oscar is curled into the smallest ball possible next to him and actually can't keep his eyes open - he keeps trying to watch OH move round the room but his eyes are all bright red from tiredness! Bless him.

They were very good boys. Even did a reasonable amount of nice loose lead walking and even when they were pulling it was pull-back off-pull-back off rather than flat out towing. They were very responsive with recalls and waiting at the side of the path etc. Hugo did pick up what can only be described as a log and carried it for a mile or so.  I let him because it didn't look dangerous - apart from maybe potentially causing a jaw dislocation. 

And Oscar fulfilled his little spaniel life and flushed 100 geese early on in the walk and later a pheasant from some thick cover... it even looked deliberate rather than entirely accidental!


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse-Geese- Oscars brave, a friend keeps some and the Girls keep their distance.

Sharloid- what a fabulous place for the dogs to run free, and you cant stop Broder lying in puddles- but dont let them see you laughing, I'm sure its encouraged mine.:tongue_smilie:


----------



## moonviolet

WH sounds like you had a great day off.  Geese they are feisty creatures we had them as a child and they were amazing guard animals. Hugo sounds like he enjoyed carrying his tree 

A while ago I mentioned that we were filmed at games class, here's a snippet video. (

Dog Activity Spot - Games Class - YouTube


----------



## Dogless

mv - you have surpassed all boundaries of decency, really outdone yourself :yikes::yikes::crazy:.

GR - vent away. I'm sorry, unfortunately I think we all understand. Ill men. Not easy .

Beth - well done to the boys. Sorry about exhumed kitty .

Sharloid - nice place to let them off!! Broder certainly looks like he enjoys swamps .

FRM - I hate it when pain starts to creep in later...hope it's not too sore in the morning.

Twiggy - little HB is turning into a good girl :aureola:.



Warning; I am having one of my 'over thinking' spells  .

Good walk with Rudi this afternoon, chose a time when I thought there would be other dogs on the fields as he really needs more practise at ignoring them when offlead. No one there again - funny really as in the summer they are over crowded and somewhere I tend to avoid like the plague. Saw and passed three other dogs, one we stopped and had a quick chat with the owner and the other two were the DA beagle and DA mini schnauzer so I took Rudi past with a treat in hand, but he doesn't even seem to notice dogs barking at him :crazy:. Better that I saw them with him in a way as we saw the schnauzer when we had no real option but to pass. Funny how it is allowed to come to within inches of us on it's flexi when I'm with Rudi, but when I'm with Kilo it's held in close . Anyway, we practised recalls but not much else, chuffed with him . However, he's only just settled, he's been cruising about looking for trouble for the hour since he was fed - over tired as he's got bright red eyes. I've said 'enough' to get him to leave Kilo alone pretty much on loop 

Kilo was a bit of a handful. My fault. I took his headcollar off a little early before we had crossed the shop car park. I know that the shop feeds the feral cats and that there are loads of them at present, kittens everywhere too. Anyhow, Kilo saw a cat before me and had a total meltdown, the likes of which he hasn't had in ages . I got him under physical control very quickly as he sat when told, but some cyclists passing by were treating to all manner of high pitched whines, whistles and singing noises :crazy:. Took me about 10 minutes to get him focussed and down off his toes - every leaf blowing in the wind got him on alert etc etc - think he was dreaming of being some great predator . Then we just did some training, real basics. Saw some cats on the way back, but I saw them first and put his headcollar on early so the clicker and I won that one . Also saw a black lab heading towards us - no worries.

Now the over thinking part....

1. Is Kilo happy? He's on alert so much and such a 'worried' dog. Not sure what I could do to change things for him though, bar moving and we all want that!

2. I did an experiment after watching him lunge for the cat. I think that the sound of the chain on his collar as his lead goes tight keys him up - maybe he associates it with the lead being shortened in anticipation of a reaction? I tried randomly shortening his lead when we were walking (not jerking, just taking it in short) and as soon as he heard the chain he was up on his toes, alert and scanning for 'trouble'. I mainly use the half checks as he used to slip his fixed collar if he panicked or wanted to bolt for something, but he hasn't tried in a long time. When he's on his flat collar he seems less alert - but then I use it in places where him slipping it wouldn't be too drastic and when he is going to be playing with Rudi. I'll be interested to see what he is like on his flat Ann Rees collar when it comes; I'm not comfortable with just using the Dublin Dog one at the moment as it's on then last hole and is only 1" wide so just a little narrow for my liking with him.

Phew. Thanks for reading the worries of a mad lady.


----------



## Dogless

WH - geese . Brave little spanner, I've had a run in with them before . Apart from that it sounds like a fabulous day off. Hope you are that sort of lovely 'outdoors tired' now...you know, wind burnt cheeks, achy legs and all that jazz :crazy:.


----------



## Beth17

Ginge sorry your OH is being a pain now. I have just googled pug/dachshund crosses. They are called Daugs and kinda cute 

mv that toy is rather brilliant 

Sharloid that looks a great place for the dogs to let off steam.

Werehorse that is very impressive. Makes me feel tired just reading it 

I think the poor cat was dug up by an animal as can't find any other explanation. It's in next doors flower bed 

ETA: FRM I hope the pain isn't too bad.

Twiggy sounds a lovely day.

Dogless I'm sure Kilo is perfectly happy so stop worrying!


----------



## Dogless

mv - just watched that clip; it's brilliant - I did get confused when you changed though :crazy:. The class looks like such a fun way to work with Miss Tinks - I thought it was adorable when she got into the small box :001_wub: and loved the collies' heads moving in unison a few minutes in as they watched another dog working .


----------



## missnaomi

Dogless said:


> Kilo my beautiful boy is getting his first grey hairs under his chin. Makes me feel a little sad, don't know why, as he's only young .


Ringo claims it's cos of having a baby brother... he thinks it's my fault for fostering Toby...


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless I'll be interested on any thoughts about collars. Molly is always on a flat collar but we think her harness is her associated with playtime and she seems more reactive in this. I am sure Kilo is happy though


----------



## missnaomi

Ok so it's puppy class in two days and Toby and I are practicing lots so we can be top of the class (like I'm that lucky...) we've learnt touch and sit - and are working on down (still not going too well) and stand...and for our socialisation exercise, we went to my friends Brownie pack this evening and let 24 little girls give him a treat one after the other! They were very good and just said "hello Toby" and gave him the treat on the flat of their hands and giggled a little when he licked it. He's calmed down a bit around Ringo and stopped with the craziness somewhat so that's good - and he's sleeping through the night after some initial barking before he settles. He does bark at me though, I think for attention - so I am ignoring it - do you think that's the right thing to do?


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Dogless I'll be interested on any thoughts about collars. Molly is always on a flat collar but we think her harness is her associated with playtime and she seems more reactive in this. I am sure Kilo is happy though


I'm sure he's happy really, I just get really anxious now and again that I'm not doing my best by them when I absolutely know I am really..... . I do think that the noise of the chain tightening puts him 'on guard', have wondered for a while but have really noticed it recently.


----------



## Beth17

mv the video is lovely. All the dogs look like they are having so much fun. Tink in the box :001_wub:


----------



## MollySmith

Yeah I know. I seem to have spent all day telling Molly off 

I am going to hide here, I love PF sometimes but gawd it gets heated. I often read threads and think I'm just human and it's so easy to make a cock up.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Beth17 said:


> mv the video is lovely. All the dogs look like they are having so much fun. Tink in the box :001_wub:


^^ This exactly :thumbup:


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, if you think the sound of the chain on his collar is causing him to be more reactive then you could desensitize him to that. And to having the leash shortened. And all the other "panic" signals you can think of. One of the books I've got (Click To Calm I think) suggests teaching the dog that those panic signals mean he's to look to you rather than that there's something to react to.


----------



## kat&molly

MV- that video is fabulous, all the dogs are enjoying it, I'm not quite sure how I'd imagined your Games class to be -but I'm really jealous now. 

Dogless- you're doing your best , its all you can do. Would a Martingale make you feel any safer.

Miss Naomi- Hal used to bark at me when he was here- If we were on a walk I'd just sit down on the grass and ignore him- dread to think if anyone saw me.Hope class goes well.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, if you think the sound of the chain on his collar is causing him to be more reactive then you could desensitize him to that. And to having the leash shortened. And all the other "panic" signals you can think of. One of the books I've got (Click To Calm I think) suggests teaching the dog that those panic signals mean he's to look to you rather than that there's something to react to.


I could do - I read that somewhere too but only just clicked on today. Sometimes I'm so slow and oblivious to what's under my nose it's unreal!! I am hoping that Angela Stockdale will be able to help with all this sort of stuff. Sure I'll have some home truths to face about my poor handling  .



kat&molly said:


> MV- that video is fabulous, all the dogs are enjoying it, I'm not quite sure how I'd imagined your Games class to be -but I'm really jealous now.
> 
> Dogless- you're doing your best , its all you can do. Would a Martingale make you feel any safer.
> 
> Miss Naomi- Hal used to bark at me when he was here- If we were on a walk I'd just sit down on the grass and ignore him- dread to think if anyone saw me.Hope class goes well.


I'm actually not sure we need a half check any more as he doesn't tend to try and slip a collar now (touch wood!) but I do like the fact it can hang loose when he's walking nicely whereas a flat one has to be fitted pretty high up due to his neck narrowing hugely and a flat collar sitting lower down being easy to slip if he wants to. I have a martingale but don't really like it too much as the loop tends to stand proud.


----------



## Thorne

Hi guys, will try not to miss anyone out!

FRM -Sorry to hear about your row  I'm sure we can all sympathise, I know I can as dogs were the main thing the ex and I didn't agree on. It's so disheartening isn't it? But well done for distracting Branston. As for the tumble, it really isn't you day is it? Hugs xx

K&M -An Afghan! I'd be champing at the bit too, they're one of the few "hairys" I'm taken by. There's a pair in the village and they're stunning dogs but are thoroughly wrapped up to guard against mud!

Beth -Crossing my fingers for you regarding the interview. Twiggy will be pleased to hear about your dented hand!  at the poor cat! Think I'd be tempted to re-bury it and leave a note depending on how accessible it is.

Maria -Sounds like Chevy enchants everyone she meets! Enjoy the rest of the honeymoon period, long may it last.

Molly -I'm sure he'll be trained in no time now that he understands the clicker  We can dream! Hoping your new system works for the three of you.

Werehorse -You're a braver soul than I am! Bet Oscar will be dreaming of flushing fowl tonight, bless him. Geese are no friends of mine; amusing at a distance but up close, no thanks!

GR -Ginge looks very comfy, and engrossed in the Grand Prix!

Dogless- Think of how many people do no training at all with their dogs, one training-free morning is nothing to feel guilty about woman! I used to walk a BC who was on his toes as soon as the chain on his collar tightened, and Breeze freaks out at the sound alone. Maybe a sighthound martingale would be a good compromise? They seem to have less of a loop than thinner ones IME.

Dimwit -Hoping the appraisal went well 

Sharloid -Enjoy the tennis courts, great that you've found somewhere new to let them have a belt around offlead.

MV -Very pleased to hear that Tink is limp-free and didn't do any bin-diving! LOVE the toy :ihih: Thanks for sharing the video, lovely stuff!

Symone -How frightening  I think beach avoidance does sound like a good plan for a while. On a positive note, she is looking gorgeous and very grown-up in your sig.

Nicki -Thumbs up for you and Rusty! What a lovely couple of walks.

Twiggy -Great stuff with Twiggy, but I hope that poor Tremor doesn't feel too left out 

Phew! Will be back in a bit with some notes about my day.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> WH sounds like you had a great day off.  Geese they are feisty creatures we had them as a child and they were amazing guard animals. Hugo sounds like he enjoyed carrying his tree
> 
> A while ago I mentioned that we were filmed at games class, here's a snippet video. (
> 
> Dog Activity Spot - Games Class - YouTube


Oh Moonviolet that was super. I absolutely loved it and wonderful to see so many happy doggies thoroughly enjoying themselves.:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh Moonviolet that was super. I absolutely loved it and *wonderful to see so many happy doggies thoroughly enjoying themselves*.:thumbup:


I so, so want to move somewhere where we can do this sort of thing - really having fun whilst training. I get so jealous of mv's classes  .


----------



## Guest

Hey guys! I shall actually go back and read in a mo. 

Just had zanders nose loop on his dogmatic adjusted by like 5mm for three quid at the tailors. 

Himself has been good. I have been at a friends. They have a mini schauzer.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh of course, I forgot you were going to see Angela Stockdale. I'm sure she'll be able to help you  If all else fails then maybe one of the all fabric/leather half check types might work. No chain to make a sound then but still not the risk of it being slipped as easily as a regular collar.

AND WHY CAN I NOT GET VIDEO TO PLAY???


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I so, so want to move somewhere where we can do this sort of thing - really having fun whilst training. I get so jealous of mv's classes  .


Me too, now where did you put that WAYWO island...


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Me too, now where did you put that WAYWO island...


What, Concrete Retreat? Come Saturday when I'm a jackpot winner it will be a reality . Can't wait - it will be doggie paradise and all owners vetted carefully before they can set foot on the island.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> What, Concrete Retreat? Come Saturday when I'm a jackpot winner it will be a reality . Can't wait - it will be doggie paradise and all owners vetted carefully before they can set foot on the island.


I'm not sure the thuggish Spendog would make the grade. Although he did wait rather than run up to the black Lab that lives in the next block so maybe there's hope


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I'm sure he's happy really, I just get really anxious now and again that I'm not doing my best by them when I absolutely know I am really..... . I do think that the noise of the chain tightening puts him 'on guard', have wondered for a while but have really noticed it recently.


Well let's put it this way - Kilo is happier with you than he would be in most other homes that's for sure....

Some dogs are simply stress buckets (Quiver is), much the same as some people fret a lot more than others. They can't help it and whoever had them they would be the same *except *most owners wouldn't be able to 'read' them. Quiver is a very clever and talented bitch but most handlers would have pushed her beyond endurance and ended up with a total wreck.

With regards to the half check collar, there is no question that they can wind a lot of dogs up. Which is why many handlers use them on 'obedience' dogs.

Luv Grannie....


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm not sure the thuggish Spendog would make the grade. Although he did wait rather than run up to the black Lab that lives in the next block so maybe there's hope


If a little dog that sh1ts on wellies is getting in- I'm sure the Spendog will pass.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm not sure the thuggish Spendog would make the grade. Although he did wait rather than run up to the black Lab that lives in the next block so maybe there's hope


I said the owners would be vetted  :yikes:. Spendog would be more than welcome, as would you!! .



Twiggy said:


> Well let's put it this way - Kilo is happier with you than he would be in most other homes that's for sure....
> 
> Some dogs are simply stress buckets (Quiver is), much the same as some people fret a lot more than others. They can't help it and whoever had them they would be the same *except *most owners wouldn't be able to 'read' them. Quiver is a very clever and talented bitch but most handlers would have pushed her beyond endurance and ended up with a total wreck.
> 
> With regards to the half check collar, there is no question that they can wind a lot of dogs up. Which is why many handlers use them on 'obedience' dogs.
> 
> Luv Grannie....


I do actually believe he is, truly hope so .

I can't believe that it's taken me so long to realise that the collar can trigger a heightened response, I've had an inkling for a while. I have never used it to 'check', it's just for safety, but of course the chain does make a noise when the lead is tightened. If I had a brain, I'd be dangerous!!

Kilo is indeed a stress bucket, but when I can get him happy and relaxed he's so joyful and so playful. I suppose he's happy and relaxed most of the time, but it can take the teeniest thing to tip him into stress mode. I hadn't realised quite how 'hair trigger' he was even as a puppy until Rudi came along with his laid back and happy go lucky ways. I'd describe him as an 'emotional' dog if that makes sense? Not in human terms, but in that he seems to respond emotionally to a lot of things. Probably not much sense in what I'm saying.

Not that his owner's a stress bucket too .


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> If a little dog that sh1ts on wellies is getting in- I'm sure the Spendog will pass.


As long as she doesn't sh!t on Grannie's wellies  .


----------



## moonviolet

Thank you for all the lovely comments  I'm glad you couldn't hear the banter that was going on at the time :lol:
Sarah I dont' know why you can't see it, I'm rubbish with these things 

I do love our games classes they are so much fun without any pressure.


----------



## missnaomi

MV - that class looks ace!!! Very envious! Going to suggest it to my trainer


----------



## Thorne

LO -Bargain :thumbup: 

Dogless -Well that's Scooter ruled out! Although he probably couldn't be bothered with dog paradise, a snooze by the fire and a good walk is what he loves the most.

Sarah -I missed you out, sorry  How are you feeling today? Good on silent Bob for getting growly with you last night!

My interview was indeed today, I really don't know how it went, could go either way easily I think! Fingers crossed though, got car tax and an MOT coming up so could do with the extra income.

Breeze has had an adventure, we hitched a ride to a small local town with mum who was heading that way for a meeting and had a good wander around. I've spent a lot of good nights out in the area (loads of pubs to choose from!) so introduced her to some great little back routes and hidden footpaths. We have a Tink in the making - did a bit of free-shaping with some tree stumps much to B's delight! Good mix of offroad, pavement and high-street walking today, was lovely to be away from birdscarers.
A few little shivery moments but the waggy tail dominated today  She was called a "sweetie" and a "lovely hound" by a pair of very posh, very elderly ladies, and looked a picture trotting down the thoroughfare holding the Antos rice bone I bought her!
The outing has truly knocked her for six, she's flat out on her bed and Scooter's resigned to the floor.

Scooter went out with mum when we got back with B, apparently he was a super boy today.

Have stunk the house out by baking liver again, dad is NOT impressed!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> As long as she doesn't sh!t on Grannie's wellies  .


I'd forgive her....LOL


----------



## Werehorse

mv - that video!:001_wub::001_wub: Miss Tink is so enthusiastic!

Oscar would like you all to know that he used his amazing spaniel powers to flush the geese from behind a gate! He just appeared at full run in the gateway and the whole lot took off.  He was still very pleased with himself though.


----------



## Sarah1983

I'm okay thanks Thorne, brain seems to be back to normal. Or as normal as mine ever is anyway  Just had another fun game with Spencer. Some tug, some fetch, some push you down and pin you. He loves it and I usually end up in fits of the giggles trying to stop him from sitting on my head. 

I shall be on my best behaviour at Concrete Retreat, I promise. 

We're having the lovely Khan come to stay again at the end of the month  I love that dog, he's such a happy, friendly boy.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Thank you for all the lovely comments  I'm glad you couldn't hear the banter that was going on at the time :lol:
> Sarah I dont' know why you can't see it, I'm rubbish with these things
> 
> I do love our games classes they are so much fun without any pressure.


I need your advice. I'm currently teaching Holly to weave between my legs (command - weave) and hooking her front leg around mine (command - hook) but I'm stuck on what command to use when she launches herself and takes great big chunks out of my arm.......?


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I need your advice. I'm currently teaching Holly to weave between my legs (command - weave) and hooking her front leg around mine (command - hook) but I'm stuck on what command to use when she launches herself and takes great big chunks out of my arm.......?


I would opt for "Ouch!" :tongue_smilie::tongue_smilie::lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I need your advice. I'm currently teaching Holly to weave between my legs (command - weave) and hooking her front leg around mine (command - hook) but I'm stuck on what command to use when she launches herself and takes great big chunks out of my arm.......?


Crocattack?


----------



## Symone

MV - Love that video!!

Well..... OH and I were talking about stocks and money we could invest and stuff.. And then came out with how we could win the lottery and use that money for it..
Ofc I went over my head and I've now found a house that I love.. 
THE BATH IS A SWIMMING POOL!!!
Okay, it's probably just a swimming pool......

What do you guys think about it? 

Liegenschaft für gehobene Ansprüche, Thörigen | buy single house | homegate.ch

Also saw a lovely farm land property, with 3 buildings.. Ofc I went over my head then, as well... I was planning on converting the farm houses in to vacation houses for family and friends.. and then I went over my head with changing the fencing to high fencing and making the doggy heaven out door area.... And then it came in to mind that I could convert one of the houses into a doggy house, but I would rather stay with them so I would be living in the dog house...... I'm being silly, lol!

Pferdeparadies, Wolfisberg | buy farm house | homegate.ch

I may have to buy a lottery ticket now, lol! Euro millions is at £80 million according to the website! Imagine what a life Shamaya could have with that 

Really getting over my head now, lol!!

It's nice to live in a fantasy world in my head, some times.


----------



## Werehorse

The reason I can't get action shots of the boys... This what happens when I walk holding the camera... 

IMGP1400 - YouTube


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> The reason I can't get action shots of the boys... This what happens when I walk holding the camera...
> 
> IMGP1400 - YouTube


Love it....:biggrin5:


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> The reason I can't get action shots of the boys... This what happens when I walk holding the camera...
> 
> IMGP1400 - YouTube


:lol::lol:.


----------



## Thorne

Just got choked up by stumbling on this photo of a Collie Lurcher, no prizes for guessing why :crying: Striking resemblance.









But it reminded me that I didn't mention on of my Crufts purchases. Found a stand selling toys and was drawn like a magnet to the little model dogs (have a small collection sitting on the bookshelf) and came away with one of these:








Given that Paddy was PTS less than a week later, I'm pleased I bought one as a keepsake.

I know I'm mad, but you're the only people I know bar the people who worked with him the most at BC who understand that he wasn't "just a dog".


----------



## MollySmith

Werehorse said:


> The reason I can't get action shots of the boys... This what happens when I walk holding the camera...
> 
> IMGP1400 - YouTube


Oh  Brilliant!

Thorne ((hugs)) what a nice thing to remember him by and no you're not mad, you're compassionate which means you're normal.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> I need your advice. I'm currently teaching Holly to weave between my legs (command - weave) and hooking her front leg around mine (command - hook) but I'm stuck on what command to use when she launches herself and takes great big chunks out of my arm.......?


I can't really say what I'd say, I think I'd banned


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> I need your advice. I'm currently teaching Holly to weave between my legs (command - weave) and hooking her front leg around mine (command - hook) but I'm stuck on what command to use when she launches herself and takes great big chunks out of my arm.......?


Dont you say 'Good girl'.:laugh:

Werehorse- great vid- daft boys.

MV- I was thinking about Evie if she were at your games class, and had visions of me sat in the box.:huh:


----------



## Maria_1986

Thorne - ((hugs)) Your not mad and he was not 'just a dog'. Or at least if your mad then so am I as I'm due to be walking my cinnamon trust dogs in about 20 mins and am sat here crying cos Dougal isn't going to be there. No animal is 'just a....' they are all individuals with their own little quirks and personalities that you learn to love them for and that you miss when they are gone.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Dont you say 'Good girl'.:laugh:
> 
> Werehorse- great vid- daft boys.
> 
> MV- I was thinking about Evie if she were at your games class, and had visions of me sat in the box.:huh:


Yes I was thinking similar with the mat on sendaway. With either Twiggy or Quiver the mat would be sent flying across the floor with their speed and enthusiasm. Twiggy almost had the barrier down in the main ring at Crufts because she was going so fast and couldn't put the brakes on in time...LOL


----------



## Dogless

Walk in the snow and howling wind today - went up past the nursery at dropping off time which was really busy and a weird route up to the top fields to walk through workmen laying pipes etc. The CHs, despite it being windy, were model citizens today  . They walked really nicely, had a good play and then walked nicely home. Kilo was really chilled and happy, serves me right for being concerned about his stress head tendencies last night. Rudi, as ever, was chilled and ever - wagging. My best boys :001_wub::001_wub:. Kilo had his flat DD collar on and I recalled them for two runners, when I popped Kilo's lead on and sat him he was totally relaxed, on the half check he would have been scanning around looking for a cause for concern (not the runners, he is chilled about those!).

Only saw one dog on the other side of the road, Kilo looked and trotted on, Rudi wasn't bothered. Seems that dogs just don't get walked in the weather we've had recently! Would have been ideal to go to a forest, but they are all much higher than here up minor roads and I suspect the snow and ice would have made them fairly inaccessible.


----------



## MollySmith

Great to hear that Dogless  I see a good reason for collar shopping...

Maria 1986 - I hope it won't be too traumatic today, think of the happiness you have given and still are


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Great to hear that Dogless  I see a good reason for collar shopping...
> 
> Maria 1986 - I hope it won't be too traumatic today, think of the happiness you have given and still are


I have those Ann Rees ones one the way .


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Yes I was thinking similar with the mat on sendaway. With either Twiggy or Quiver the mat would be sent flying across the floor with their speed and enthusiasm. Twiggy almost had the barrier down in the main ring at Crufts because she was going so fast and couldn't put the brakes on in time...LOL


We had to attach some rug slip stop stuff to the underside for this very reason :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> We had to attach some rug slip stop stuff to the underside for this very reason :lol: :lol:


I was wondering about that too!! Bet it was funny before you had it :w00t:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I was wondering about that too!! Bet it was funny before you had it :w00t:.


She ended up doing the flying carpet bit many times and up in a crumpled heap against the wall a good few before I added the slip stop stuff. 

The floor is slippery hence we work on the mats. Which is cool as we practise on our own set of mats (across the hall) during the term it's nice and you don't get space hogging or tangled with others working. Then at the end of term we work on the length of the room and come together and it's all supportive and quite fluffy 

I love it as it's just having fun with yoru dog no pressure to compete, its' all stuff you can do at home etc. it's nice to have games other than fetch and tug to play

Hugs to Thorne and Maria 

K&M Evie shaping you into the box woudl be well worth watching :lol:

FRM hope you are having a better one today

Got dumped out of the car again today. lovely walk saw lots of lovely dogs and it was all wonderful until right at the end walking down the street to my house i saw a bernese being walked toward us. I crossed, as i know they lady has 3. She walks 2 together and the youngster solo, ad the last thing I want is a young but full size bernie slapping his paw down on TInks head. Tink was aware of it but fine until it started the whining...she gave a bit of a whine back then was happy to " lets go". I didn's even look across the road I coudl hear the yanking and cursing


----------



## GingerRogers

Morning all. Despite the hubby being in bed *again *with *another *migraine I am feeling much better.

I knew he would get another as he was nearly crosseyed with aggro yesterday 

Anyway I had to go see a new client at 8.30 so I took the ninja and we had a walk on a secluded bridleway on the way back, a proper one, somewhere quiet, different and rainy and it has made me feel great  and we went silly when we got home. I am sorry but I don't even care about any poor entire males who may have to pass that way  we both needed it.

I got very cross with a small ginger thing last night, her reacting to the tv is reaching moronic levels. If it was just dogs and identifiable stuff I could cope, I can watch for things and redirect her very easily now, which is progress  but its almost as if she is finding new things to react to just so she gets treats  Sometimes she can be curled up behind me, back to the telly and she will leap up and start barking so it must be some kind of noise trigger but what I don't know, and she properly watches the screen, it gets worse as the evening wears on. I think a programme of no cuddles on the sofa late and confined to her bed with a kong or something might be the answer, need be a bit more firm with her to get her out of the habit. Its so different from Rory who took absolutely no notice of the tv whatsoever.

And it wasn't because she was bored, we had done 'find your tea' which she was very good at, lamb heart must smell better than chicken  we had done 'go to your mat/bed' and alternate when I tell you (they have excused me from trying to get her to relax on her mat so now we can have fun with it which is great as she is very enthusiastic about it normally), and also 'find cheese under the kitchen roll' which worked by her running very fast at the trail so all the pieces wafted into the air and she could see the cheese 

I am worried that all our LLW will go out the window as we cant work around our boring estate and where can I look for mat games?

I was going to reply last night but was on phone and couldn't face it (prescriptive text has gone a bit :crazy

Dogless - I think Kilo is as happy as he would be anywhere with you, he does sound a stress head anyway but you can only do so much to reduce that for him, I am pretty sure he would be happier living somewhere else, with you, but only as you would be happier too! I know exactly how you feel though. I am constantly thinking the ninja would be happier with someone else who would let her do terrier things and bark and dig holes and run about willy nilly, just like she used to, but it only works for her in certain locations, if she ever moved from the farm she would be back to square one or even worse because she would be with someone who wasn't watching out for her.

FRM - hope you aren't too stiff today and things are looking less frosty on the home front.

Well done Breeze,  she comes across as a worrier I wouldn't have thought she would be happy in towns, very glad she wasn't on our walk this morning, they have those firecracker birdscarers out, my word they are sooooo *LOUD*

Kat&Molly I have visions of you sat in the box while Evie .......... no we can't go there  I read the bit about her sh!tting on your feet while I was in the pub and it made me laugh out loud 

MV - I watched it again, I love it, do you just shape all the stuff or what? I thought of the classes we used to go to, I ponder if we could ever go back one day but actually they were really :Yawn:
Well done Tink today 

WH - love your video too, Mum mum mum mum I'm here, no I'm here, mum mum mum we are heeeeere 

Hope things aren't too sad Maria 

Symone have you come back to earth yet


----------



## Dogless

Glad you're feeling better GR....can't like the "sod the entire male dogs" bit  as seeing your dog bomb off not being sure where he's going or whether he's going to be hit by a car, get lost or encounter livestock etc is absolutely terrifying and horrendous, but understand why you wanted to walk - and am glad that you had a nice, relaxing time. You needed it .

The plan of Kong and bed rather than obsessing over the TV sounds good. You might just need to break the habit and then she'll be able to come back onto the sofa in time.

I never think that Kilo needs another home, I am just always wondering what else I can do. But I'm that sort of person, over analytical to the point of obsession. Something else to tell the doc when I have my appointment for being mad :nonod:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Glad you're feeling better GR....can't like the "sod the entire male dogs" bit  as seeing your dog bomb off not being sure where he's going or whether he's going to be hit by a car, get lost or encounter livestock etc is absolutely terrifying and horrendous, but understand why you wanted to walk - and am glad that you had a nice, relaxing time. You needed it .
> 
> The plan of Kong and bed rather than obsessing over the TV sounds good. You might just need to break the habit and then she'll be able to come back onto the sofa in time.
> 
> I never think that Kilo needs another home, I am just always wondering what else I can do. But I'm that sort of person, over analytical to the point of obsession. Something else to tell the doc when I have my appointment for being mad :nonod:.


Thank you for understanding even if you didn't like it . I don't really mean it I just really needed to get out with her for some 'normal' dog time. It was a place very out the way and away from roads. I know some people will just not walk bitches in heat and there is no way I would walk her round here the concentration of dogs is just too high as you know from my previous descriptions, but I cant not walk her at all, even with lots of additional training stuff thats when she starts eating things.

Thats what I am hoping with the TV, to just break the habit. The trainers did say some things might get worse before they get better, I am sure part of her just likes barking  as she doesn't get to do it to random stuff outside, she does it to random stuff on the telly instead. I might try the mashed potato thing, still dont really get that though 

I never really think she needs another home either, I guess what I really wonder is where she was happiest, here with love and care and time or there with freedom (at least for 2 hrs a day), one of the problems with taking on a dog from elsewhere, I am now worrying, as he is coming back soon, whether he will think I have done right by her, even though I know I am doing better than he did and he gave her to us as he knew he couldn't do right by her, she just seemed more carefree then but I don't really know.

Oh bugger now I am upset again.  Stop thinking!! Right Now!


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh see now Dogless you have made me feel terrible (I don't mean I blame you) I have images of magnificent dogs running through the countryside getting run over left right and centre all because I was so selfish I wanted to walk my dog 

You aren't the only over thinker. I guess I think of in season bitches only causing problems for the sort of people who have no control over their dogs, who let them roam free anyway, and its not them who have to pick up the pieces, because I am responsible and keep Ginge under control why can't they. But there is no way of letting responsible owners know where we are walking  .


----------



## moonviolet

GR Do you really think she was carefree? the dogs i come across that do just exactly what they want rarely seem carefree to me. I think you are doing a grand job building her confidence and coping skills. 

If you are worried about your LLW going to pot why not practise at home and set up some challenges food, toys etc 

if you ever get the mashed potato thing explained do share i'm intrigued


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh see now Dogless you have made me feel terrible (I don't mean I blame you) I have images of magnificent dogs running through the countryside getting run over left right and centre all because I was so selfish I wanted to walk my dog
> 
> You aren't the only over thinker. I guess I think of in season bitches only causing problems for the sort of people who have no control over their dogs, who let them roam free anyway, and its not them who have to pick up the pieces, because I am responsible and keep Ginge under control why can't they. *But there is no way of letting responsible owners know where we are walki**ng*  .


That's the drama; we don't know where an in season bitch has been walked although now if I see Kilo really teeth chattering and starting to get really animated over a scent or air scenting and chattering I nab him fast! Once he smelt a patch of grass, did a little squeal and pelted off - I found him with the poor owner of two in season bitches (litter sisters) trying to fend off his amorous advances . He had run across the road too . If onlead he's safe but pulls, whines etc then continues to be stressed for a day or so at home - plus the awful humping which means I can't be in the same room  .

It's hard GR - we all want to walk our dogs and we all have to have courtesy. You have done your best to stay away from other dogs which is polite of you and the very best that you can do for the Ninja - rather than the loons that walk as normal around here, past my house and let their bitches wee on my front lawn and make my life a misery - or that awful few weeks in the summer where the dog walking fields were used as normal so I had to drive out of camp for every single walk :nonod:.


----------



## Beth17

Ginge what's done is done. It sounded as if you both needed that walk and I'm sure if it is as secluded as you say it is and was raining things should be fine.

Dogless gold stars for the boys today :thumbup: Bet you can't wait for the collars to come.

Maria I hope today isn't too sad.

mv sounds a lovely walk. I agree about not wanting a bernese paw on the head. I have images of Tink skidding along with ears flying out 

Lovely walk with my two this morning. We were out for around an hour and a half as the weather is lovely, really sunny and pretty warm. They walked nicely down to the field and then had a really nice play as it was deserted. We then had a slow plod home and they are now out for the count.


----------



## Sarah1983

Ginge, I think there's only so much you can do. As long as you're not going to areas frequented by tons of dogs then I see nothing wrong with walking an in season bitch. Some dogs really aren't going to cope well being cooped up for weeks and for others it's just not an option due to lack of garden. It's those who bring their dogs to the popular dog walking areas at busy times I have issues with. I honestly wonder how common it is for an intact male to take off after the scent of a bitch, I've known a hell of a lot and not one of them has done it. Sorry Dogless, that's not a dig at you and I know you have problems with it with Kilo but he's actually the first one I've heard of to take off like that so just wondering whether it's just certain males or whether I've only known abnormal ones lol. Most would take it if offered it on a plate but none have gone seeking it as such.

Played some more crate games this morning. He's coming out and going straight back in now so I guess I should see what the next step is. I don't think I'm going to be able to practise with the crate in different locations, it's too big to cart around, so I think we'll stick with the mat for outside the house.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Ginge, I think there's only so much you can do. As long as you're not going to areas frequented by tons of dogs then I see nothing wrong with walking an in season bitch. Some dogs really aren't going to cope well being cooped up for weeks and for others it's just not an option due to lack of garden. It's those who bring their dogs to the popular dog walking areas at busy times I have issues with. I honestly wonder how common it is for an intact male to take off after the scent of a bitch, I've known a hell of a lot and not one of them has done it. Sorry Dogless, that's not a dig at you and I know you have problems with it with Kilo but he's actually the first one I've heard of to take off like that so just wondering whether it's just certain males or whether I've only known abnormal ones lol. Most would take it if offered it on a plate but none have gone seeking it as such.
> 
> Played some more crate games this morning. He's coming out and going straight back in now so I guess I should see what the next step is. I don't think I'm going to be able to practise with the crate in different locations, it's too big to cart around, so I think we'll stick with the mat for outside the house.


I've known a few to do it - but do agree with your post. It may possibly be something wrong that I've done perhaps at some point .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- I dont think you've done anything wrong- Kilo has a high Drive thats all, its probably not been helped where you live with the torment of it everywhere.
We used to have males hanging outside our house.

Ginge- I think you were courteous in taking Ginge somewhere secluded- sounds like you both needed it.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I've known a few to do it - but do agree with your post. It may possibly be something wrong that I've done perhaps at some point .


Or just that some dogs are more highly sexed than others which isn't something you have any control over  I wasn't meaning to imply you'd done something wrong.

I've heard horror stories about males disappearing for days coz they've smelled a bitch so assume it must happen at times but have never actually known one to do it. Knowing my luck now I've said that Spen will turn out to be one of those that does  It's one of the few things that would make me consider neutering to be honest. As much for his sake as mine.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I've known a few to do it - but do agree with your post. It may possibly be something wrong that I've done perhaps at some point .


NOw now :hand::hand:

would say unlikely to be something you did wrong, likely that the drive to reproduce varies and Kilo is at the upper end of that range.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I've known a few to do it - but do agree with your post. It may possibly be something wrong that I've done perhaps at some point .


Dogless - grannie will be here with smacks for that  you have surpassed even your self deprecating self with that comment .

I sincerely hope (in fact I think I can say I know) you haven't 'done'  something to encourage Kilo to be hornier than the average teenager  its more likely the environment he has had to grow up in if anything has caused but even thats unlikely, some dogs are just more interested than others.

Unless its the lingering odour of doggy de parfum you waft as a you leave the room.

I can remember on a ski-ing holiday when I was little the guesthouse owners OES kept legging it after a bitch, I can still picture him running through the snow, it was how they had acquired him in fact, as he had legged it after an old bitch of theirs and they couldn't find where he lived.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *I've known a few to do it* - but do agree with your post. It may possibly be something wrong that I've done perhaps at some point .


Yes so have I...

I got bitten again this morning but it was Quiver this time... I was throwing their toys round the back of the sofa, whilst having a tea break, and she mistook my hand for her toy. Bless her, her eyes are not very good now but it flipping hurt and I've still got teeth imprints in my hand.


----------



## Beth17

I think like anything it depends on the dog. Oscar has never really shown the slightest bit of interest in an in season bitch and so I doubt would ever take off. Sam on the other hand is much more scent orientated and will lick, dribble and froth at the mouth over urine and so I think he probably would. I therefore make sure I keep an even closer eye on him than I would with Oscar.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Or just that some dogs are more highly sexed than others which isn't something you have any control over  I wasn't meaning to imply you'd done something wrong.
> 
> I've heard horror stories about males disappearing for days coz they've smelled a bitch so assume it must happen at times but have never actually known one to do it. Knowing my luck now I've said that Spen will turn out to be one of those that does  *It's one of the few things that would make me consider neutering to be honest. * As much for his sake as mine.


Yup; hence Kilo's Suprelorin....he will most likely end up being surgically neutered I suspect.


----------



## kat&molly

We had one big dog get his willy stuck on our fence. He was a big GSD cross- and I said to OH to go and get him off but he was too scared, so I had to unhook him:laugh:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> We had one big dog get his willy stuck on our fence. He was a big GSD cross- and I said to OH to go and get him off but he was too scared, so I had to unhook him:laugh:


:yikes::yikes: Not even going to ask how .


----------



## Beth17

K&M I have no words


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> :yikes::yikes: Not even going to ask how .


Very bloody carefully.:blink:


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Yup; hence Kilo's Suprelorin....he will most likely end up being surgically neutered I suspect.


Have you noticed a difference with him then?


----------



## moonviolet

K&M I'm shocked and horrified :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Very bloody carefully.:blink:


How did it get stuck in the first place..... . The mind boggles :huh:.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> How did it get stuck in the first place..... . The mind boggles :huh:.


I think he was trying to jump the fence in to the garden and got erm..stuck.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> How did it get stuck in the first place..... . The mind boggles :huh:.


Apparently they can mate through things like crates, chain link fences etc. Perhaps he was trying that lol.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Have you noticed a difference with him then?


Not sure if it is too soon as it's only just over two weeks but I think that I am beginning to - it could be because I want it to work, rather than it is working if you see what I mean, although his plums have definitely shrunk a bit!! We haven't met any dogs offlead apart from Dizzy really as the weather's been bad, but the few that have run up like the big male the other evening haven't been greeted in such a stiff "I'm the big man" manner and hubby said he seemed more settled in general. He is marking and bitching a little less I'm sure - Dizzy's human said she could notice a difference and that was without me asking her an opinion. I'll wait and see.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Yup; hence Kilo's Suprelorin....he will most likely end up being surgically neutered I suspect.


Not to really upset you but that hasn't stopped Ely. He will lick, chatter and obsessively follow the scent of some urine and has taken off after a scent before. I don't know for sure but I suspect that he might have been used to father a litter at some point - he's met plenty of bitches in season rolleyes but the only ones he ever shown obsessive interest in are the ones who are in their most receptive stage and are actually flagging.  He doesn't hump and isn't a sex pest but definitely seems to know what he's doing when given a chance by stupid owners.

Can't really reply to the whole thread as it's far too long but it's been busy at chez pointy. We've had a house guest for the past few days - Max the GSD. He's slotted in nicely and I've had the chance to do some training with him - it's very different to working with my pointies. He's far more attentive and seems to pick up verbal commands much easier.

ETA: K&M 

Also MV and your toy - we're a sticky now! We're supposed to be respectable!


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Apparently they can mate through things like crates, chain link fences etc. Perhaps he was trying that lol.


Yes...that is what I had feared :nonod:.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Not to really upset you but that hasn't stopped Ely. He will lick, chatter and obsessively follow the scent of some urine and has taken off after a scent before. I don't know for sure but I suspect that he might have been used to father a litter at some point - he's met plenty of bitches in season rolleyes but the only ones he ever shown obsessive interest in are the ones who are in their most receptive stage and are actually flagging.  He doesn't hump and isn't a sex pest but definitely seems to know what he's doing when given a chance by stupid owners.
> 
> Can't really reply to the whole thread as it's far too long but it's been busy at chez pointy. We've had a house guest for the past few days - Max the GSD. He's slotted in nicely and I've had the chance to do some training with him - it's very different to working with my pointies. He's far more attentive and seems to pick up verbal commands much easier.


I'll just have to wait and see; a few folk at training club have used it and said that it did really help with the bitching - so I have a 50 / 50 chance I guess. I can only see what happens really.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I'll just have to wait and see; a few folk at training club have used it and said that it did really help with the bitching - so I have a 50 / 50 chance I guess. I can only see what happens really.


If you think the superlorin is making a difference then I would think that's a good sign that surgical castration would help.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Not sure if it is too soon as it's only just over two weeks but I think that I am beginning to - it could be because I want it to work, rather than it is working if you see what I mean, although his plums have definitely shrunk a bit!! We haven't met any dogs offlead apart from Dizzy really as the weather's been bad, but the few that have run up like the big male the other evening haven't been greeted in such a stiff "I'm the big man" manner and hubby said he seemed more settled in general. He is marking and bitching a little less I'm sure - Dizzy's human said she could notice a difference and that was without me asking her an opinion. I'll wait and see.


Sounds promising then, fingers crossed it just has the effect you wanted and doesn't cause any problems.

Neutering didn't stop Shadow if a bitch offered it him on a plate, he knew what to do and was more than willing. He was still interested in their pee too. It did stop the air scenting, pacing and whining though so it did benefit him. And us.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> If you think the superlorin is making a difference then I would think that's a good sign that surgical castration would help.


Early days yet, we'll see - it isn't something that I want to do unless I definitely see positive changes.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Sounds promising then, *fingers crossed it just has the effect you wanted and doesn't cause any problems.*
> 
> Neutering didn't stop Shadow if a bitch offered it him on a plate, he knew what to do and was more than willing. He was still interested in their pee too. It did stop the air scenting, pacing and whining though so it did benefit him. And us.


This totally. I really hope that it doesn't have a negative impact. The vet reckoned the first two - three weeks were the ones to watch for big negatives due to the testosterone surge, but I have read so much conflicting info online that I can only monitor his behaviour really. Even if he remains interested in pee and bitches in season when they offer it on a plate as it were, if he does stop the whining, pacing, returning of the challenging body language of other entire males etc it would be good.


----------



## Maria_1986

Thank you all for your kind words. 

Chevy has been very very good and very very bad today, LLW on grass in the park, infact she was not just on a loose lead but walking beside me (OK so I had a huge handful of fish4dogs treats but I'm still marking it as progress!) and she was being so good and attentive and coming back on the long line when called, even recalling away from another dog, until I dropped my focus for a few seconds as my phone went off, she saw a squirrel and shot off to the other side of the park leaving me on my knees in a muddy puddle and dragging the dropped line behind her. She refused to recall and instead was jumping and whining around the bottom of the tree that the squirrel had disappeared up. I then tied the line around my waist so that should I end up eating mud again she can't disappear. She also managed to roll in the largest muddy puddle we went past today meaning I now have a stinky soggy dog with a stinky, soggy harness to go with my wet muddy jeans coat and gloves.


----------



## Dogless

Oh Chevy :hand: :nonod:. I too have been left face down in the mud by a dastardly squirrel teasing poor, innocent Kilo  . Hope only your pride was hurt.......well done on the LLW though .


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless - luckily yes only pride hurt and thankfully nobody else was around to see either the fall or my run across the park to get her back (I don't do running and its not a pretty sight when I do have to). Those evil squirrels really should stop taunting our poor dogs


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Oh Chevy :hand: :nonod:. I too have been left face down in the mud by a dastardly squirrel teasing poor, innocent Kilo  . Hope only your pride was hurt.......well done on the LLW though .


I've still got the scars from when Gypsy did it when I had her on the long line. :crying:

It does get better though Maria - I can now walk Gypsy to heel past squirrels and get her to stay on her mat and ignore them. And she's not only a chaser but a finisher as well.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> This totally. I really hope that it doesn't have a negative impact. The vet reckoned the first two - three weeks were the ones to watch for big negatives due to the testosterone surge, but I have read so much conflicting info online that I can only monitor his behaviour really. Even if he remains interested in pee and bitches in season when they offer it on a plate as it were, if he does stop the whining, pacing, returning of the challenging body language of other entire males etc it would be good.


Yeah, sometimes it's take what you can get. It didn't stop Shadow rising to the challenge with other males but I think that may have just been his personality. He wouldn't start anything but neither would he back down. But it was rare other dogs challenged him, most just fawned over him while he did his best to completely ignore them lol. Hopefully it does help with Kilo.

Rupert was neutered in the hopes it would make some difference with him and other dogs. Either stopping him being so reactive or stopping him seemingly having a "kick me" sign on his back. Made no difference at all to him, not with other dogs and not with his anxiety in general. All these studies seem to focus on early spay/neuter but I've yet to see one that looks at dogs done after maturity and whether it still has similar effects on behaviour. Both Shadow and Rupert were neutered as fully mature adults and we noticed no difference at all except in regards to Shadow and the in season bitches.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Yeah, sometimes it's take what you can get. It didn't stop Shadow rising to the challenge with other males but I think that may have just been his personality. He wouldn't start anything but neither would he back down. But it was rare other dogs challenged him, most just fawned over him while he did his best to completely ignore them lol. Hopefully it does help with Kilo.
> 
> Rupert was neutered in the hopes it would make some difference with him and other dogs. Either stopping him being so reactive or stopping him seemingly having a "kick me" sign on his back. Made no difference at all to him, not with other dogs and not with his anxiety in general. All these studies seem to focus on early spay/neuter but I've yet to see one that looks at dogs done after maturity and whether it still has similar effects on behaviour. Both Shadow and Rupert were neutered as fully mature adults and we noticed no difference at all except in regards to Shadow and the in season bitches.


Well, we have sailed past a few dogs that I have posted about over the last few days that normally we wouldn't have done because of their fixating and posturing as I said - but again, that could be because I want it to help so much that it is, because it's relaxing me and in turn making Kilo behave differently.


----------



## Maria_1986

L/C said:


> I've still got the scars from when Gypsy did it when I had her on the long line. :crying:
> 
> It does get better though Maria - I can now walk Gypsy to heel past squirrels and get her to stay on her mat and ignore them. And she's not only a chaser but a finisher as well.


I think it was on this thread that someone said to use gloves with a longline - I am crediting them with saving my hands today otherwise I would probably have scars to show for it too.

Do you mind me asking what sort of things you did to be able to get Gypsy to ignore them?


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear maria  Oh well we have to take the good with the bad, as so often just as we think things are going well  Hope you don't have any lasting damage except to your pride, I sometimes feel more embarrassed when things like that happen in private than when people see them for some unknown reason 
My friends dog legged it after a squirrel once, he went out of sight and made such unearthly noises we were convinced he had been injured, it was just frustration as he stared longingly up the tree 

Dogless - I really do hope the Superlorin helps Kilo, even if you just have to use it till you can get back to the mainland/normal life.

We just tried the settle in your bed if you are going to kick off at the telly thing (people on neighbours ) she jumped straight in, but then made a noise like grnnnnnuuuunnnyyyynnnuunnnnwwwhhirrrrrnnnnnn for about 1 1/2 mins till we could hold our laughter no longer. Think we need a better plan of action, like go to bed then get out after 30 sec for a treat or something . I also don't want her to think bed is a punishment, not after we have finally got her to understand what it is.


----------



## MollySmith

I use gloves with the long line but I've gone a over t so many times I just don't use it anymore. she's either on short lead or off on our walks. 

Had a lovely family walk (I'm skiving work!) around the fields, an extra long one and so grateful to have Molly after telling her off so much yesterday, she's good really. Passed three very nervous spaniels, they seemed young on lead. I walked her very wide round - a road width i guess - over a muddy field but no reaction at all, I clicked and treated her calm behaviour and was so pleased. She had a play with a handsome ridgeback greyhound cross that outran her, boxed with a gorgeous Dalmatian and now she is fast asleep.


----------



## L/C

Maria_1986 said:


> I think it was on this thread that someone said to use gloves with a longline - I am crediting them with saving my hands today otherwise I would probably have scars to show for it too.
> 
> Do you mind me asking what sort of things you did to be able to get Gypsy to ignore them?


Lots and lots of impulse control work so she can control herself around her triggers. I started the impulse control stuff to help Ely and his reactivity and it was so successful I adapted it for Gypsy.

The first thing is to learn Chevy's body language so you can identify when she's seen something she's likely to chase. With Gypsy she goes very still, her ears go up and her body is low to the ground. Because she exhibits all of the chase sequence (as opposed to having been selectively bred to emphasise one part of it) I have a bit more leeway as opposed to a dog that will instantly chase without stalking.

In the initial stages of controlling her prey drive I didn't allow her the freedom to chase at all. I had to do this as if she saw prey she would be up on her hind legs screaming at it. I'm guessing Chevy isn't that bad though! I found the less she was allowed to chase, the less she was obsessed with it. This did have a downside though as she became very frustrated and her behaviour deteriorated in other ways - if I had been able to transfer her chase drive onto a toy then it would have been better.

I left it for a while and worked on her recall - avoiding high prey places and just accepting that she would occasionally take off after a squirrel. After we moved I started working on her training more seriously and so I needed to be able to control her in a high prey environment (pretty much everywhere we walk!).

I started off by working on her focus outside - initially all I did was say her name and click and treat when she made eye contact with me. When this was reliable I moved onto distracting her when she started to fixate. To do this I just scattered treats on the ground by my feet and said her name. When she started to automatically look for food when I said her name I upped the criteria and clicked for eye contact again. Every time I managed to break her fixation I would then walk the opposite way from the prey so I never set her up to fail.

For heeling I practised it low distraction areas and then upped the criteria. Whenever I did I went back to basics so again I was not setting her up to fail. Primula cheese is great for this!

Mat work is great. I started off by building up the association of the mat being a good place and getting her to relax on it. I then worked on her down stay until it was solid with me next to her, and then me a little bit away but still in sight and then me out of sight behind her and then me out of sight behind a bush or out of the room. Then I went back to basics and added in a distraction with me standing next to her and then me a little bit away etc. And I worked from there.

Now she loves her mat so much that when I try to put it away she grabs it with her paws and tries to stop me!


----------



## Maria_1986

MS - sounds like a great walk

GR - She is mostly good so the bad is not so bad, although today I did tell her that it was a good job I loved her when I saw the state the car was in when we both got out of it! The little monkey is currently snoring on her bed looking all cute and innocent.

I feel like I'm crazy for admitting this but I did laugh afterwards once we were back in the car as she just looked so happy and pleased with herself for tracking down the squirrel. Then she got out the car at the other end and tried to throw herself at my neighbours white trousers as she opened her door as we went past - admittedly the car already contained most of the water and mud she had accrued on our outing but white trousers were probably not the best thing to get rid of the rest of it on. Luckily she listened to me and was on a short lead so disaster was averted. 

I can't wait to see what happens at training class tonight - it could be interesting!


----------



## L/C

Just found a post that I wrote for F&F on prey drive earlier in the thread - some bits that I didn't put in the epic post that I just wrote.

You might find something else useful in it - here.


----------



## L/C

It's about human intervention in the lives of companion animals - focusing on dogs. It contains the distressing statistic (cited from another paper that I haven't read so I can't vouch for the accuracy) that 64% of dogs acquired as puppies have been disposed of within a year of being bought.

ETA: Having read it - it focuses mostly on tail docking - an issue that I am on the fence about and goes on to suggest the spay an neuter debate for further questions. It's an interesting read but a bit too much about feelings and less about actual welfare or evidence for my tastes. It reads a bit like someone who has read a lot on the subject but has little hands on experience.


----------



## Dogless

Thanks L/C - I'll have a read!

Good walk just now with Rudi. Chose a lull in the weather so it was just pouring rather than hammering down; nothing seen but he was very well behaved. lots of recall practise done . Walking Kilo with Dizzy later .


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Just in case anyone is interested -is free to read until the end of the day. It's about human intervention in the lives of companion animals - focusing on dogs. It contains the distressing statistic (cited from another paper that I haven't read so I can't vouch for the accuracy) that 64% of dogs acquired as puppies have been disposed of within a year of being bought.
> 
> ETA: Having read it - it focuses mostly on tail docking - an issue that I am on the fence about and goes on to suggest the spay an neuter debate for further questions. It's an interesting read but a bit too much about feelings and less about actual welfare or evidence for my tastes. It reads a bit like someone who has read a lot on the subject but has little hands on experience.


Having a read in little chunks my brain has been tested by a 23 minute phonecall to a classic insurance company,after which i may have insurance for my relic landrover or i may have sold my sister I'm not entirely sure I'll wait for the paperwork.

Interestign that they suggest that dogs are a disappointment to some because they do not live up to fictional depictions, such as Lassie and 101 dalmatians.... really are people that stupid?

I'll get on to the tail docking section later


----------



## Symone

Started liking posts but then ran out of time - Leaving for puppy class, soon.

Shamayas new easy walk harness came today... I can't get it to fit properly so will probably send it back.. I'm helpless  Even looked at videos and I can't see what I am doing wrong, haha!

Shamaya hated trying the harness on.. I don't blame her. So, took her on a walk to cheer her up and she walked quite nicely! Proud of her.  

Also had a conversation about moving with the OH, today... April/May is crossed out, and seems we won't be moving for another year, yet. I am really gutted!  We would had been able to move had his 2nd to last boss not messed him around before.  

Ah well, means I can get Shamaya all trained up and out of the teenage stage before we move, which I am kind of relieved about to be honest.. 

Hope that everyone else is having a nice day while the sun shines!


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Having a read in little chunks my brain has been tested by a 23 minute phonecall to a classic insurance company,after which i may have insurance for my relic landrover or i may have sold my sister I'm not entirely sure I'll wait for the paperwork.
> 
> *Interestign that they suggest that dogs are a disappointment to some because they do not live up to fictional depictions, such as Lassie and 101 dalmatians.... really are people that stupid?*
> 
> I'll get on to the tail docking section later


It's a similar point to one Jean Donaldson makes in the Culture Clash - the disneyfication of the dog.


----------



## moonviolet

L/C said:


> It's a similar point to one Jean Donaldson makes in the Culture Clash - the disneyfication of the dog.


Yes i knew i'd seen it before, just couldn't remember where. I guess because I grew up with very much real dogs doing real dog things. I never considered applying the film dogs persona to real ones anymore than i thought the life of children in films, books and tv was anything like my life.

I suppose without any hands on experience there are extremes the romanticised dog of films and books and the polar opposite dogs attacks reported in the mail to form your opinions on.


----------



## Sarah1983

Don't know whether it's of interest to anyone here but just found out Ian Dunbars After You Get Your Puppy can be downloaded free if you create a free account.
AFTER You Get Your Puppy | Dog Star Daily

I don't have a puppy nor am I likely to have one any time soon but I got it and will read it anyway. Do I have issues? 

I do think the disneyfication of dogs is a big factor in why so many people get them then dump them. I also think way too many people picture nice walks in an idyllic setting in nice weather with a well behaved dog. And the reality turns out to be very different.


----------



## kat&molly

The Disneyfication thing doesn't surprise me - you only have to look at some of the threads posted here, toilet training/nipping inparticular shows people dont realise what they're getting.

Symone- I'm sorry your move is being postponed.

Just heard back from the Rescue, Hal is fine and hasn't shown any problems at all  Apparently he just 'knows' he has to behave there.
I really, really miss him but suppose I have to hope another foster/permanent home is found for him-for his sake.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Don't know whether it's of interest to anyone here but just found out Ian Dunbars After You Get Your Puppy can be downloaded free if you create a free account.
> AFTER You Get Your Puppy | Dog Star Daily
> 
> I don't have a puppy nor am I likely to have one any time soon but I got it and will read it anyway. Do I have issues?
> 
> I do think the disneyfication of dogs is a big factor in why so many people get them then dump them.* I also think way too many people picture nice walks in an idyllic setting in nice weather with a well behaved dog. And the reality turns out to be very different.*




Agreed...!!


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Don't know whether it's of interest to anyone here but just found out Ian Dunbars After You Get Your Puppy can be downloaded free if you create a free account.
> AFTER You Get Your Puppy | Dog Star Daily
> 
> I don't have a puppy nor am I likely to have one any time soon but I got it and will read it anyway. Do I have issues?
> 
> I do think the disneyfication of dogs is a big factor in why so many people get them then dump them. I also think way too many people picture nice walks in an idyllic setting in nice weather with a well behaved dog. And the reality turns out to be very different.


You're probably right in the same way people thing they will live happily every after, without working on their relationships.

I also think it's worth mentioning the " I want it now."attitude even if i'm not ready/ my lifestyle doesn't fit/ I am not financially secure etc.


----------



## MollySmith

I think most heartbreaking dog incident that me and OH saw was when we picked up Molly, a gorgeous Lab pup being returned to the rescue. he was bouncing along and then realised where he was, oh God, makes me tearful now. I asked the owner about it and she said they had it for 3 weeks and had just decided it didn't suit, she had tried for 7 days to get them support and they just seem to expect the wee pup to be perfect. Just awful and proper Disney scenarios.


----------



## Dimwit

Sarah1983 said:


> I do think the disneyfication of dogs is a big factor in why so many people get them then dump them. I also think way too many people picture nice walks in an idyllic setting in nice weather with a well behaved dog. And the reality turns out to be very different.


Absolutely, I grew up with dogs so I knew what I was getting myself into when I got the dimwit. Even on the coldest, wettest days and when his reactiveness was at its worst I could never imagine giving him away (though I do often think he would be better off with someone who actually knows what they are doing)...


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I also think way too many people picture nice walks in an idyllic setting in nice weather with a well behaved dog. And the reality turns out to be very different.


I still have a fantasy of being one of those beautiful people who drift through the park in the sun wearing flip flops and a floaty dress with well behaved dogs happily trotting beside me.........

Back in the real world I have just walked for an hour in the lovely NI climate .

Ended up not walking with Dizzy for one reason and another so I took Kilo out on his flat collar; definitely, definitely less reactive than on half check only and less reactive than wearing a head collar. I know that his head collar can increase his reactivity at times, but it's a rock and hard place thing when I need that extra control. Took treats and clicker and just had some fun - footie match on, people popping out from behind buildings etc, shop car park busy and he was a relaxed gem .


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Absolutely, I grew up with dogs so I knew what I was getting myself into when I got the dimwit. Even on the coldest, wettest days and when his reactiveness was at its worst I could never imagine giving him away (though I do often think he would be better off with someone who actually knows what they are doing)...


Oh god yes, we were told by the first trainer to take her back. We had an idea she would need training, even if she was,,there are edges to polish and routines to deal with. Thank god I found someone who knew what to do with her and tell us  I hate Molly's reactiveness but in a way it means I'm not complacent too.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I still have a fantasy of being one of those beautiful people who drift through the park in the sun wearing flip flops and a floaty dress with well behaved dogs happily trotting beside me.........
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> Yuk - can't think of anything worse.... What's wrong with t-shirt and jeans?
> 
> Usually the beautiful people who drift through the park are thinking beautiful thoughts and their dogs have bu....ed off to interfere with the sensible owners (in T-shirts and jeans) obedient dogs...


----------



## Symone

Gosh, "Disney" Dogs... People that want a dog like so with no training, then take them back or sell them if they're not like so are too high in numbers! Annoys me a lot. 

Well.... Puppy class was fun! There was a 7 month old Mal that was so cute! I wanted to hide him under my top and just whistle and walk out... However I doubt even his head would had fit! He was HUGE! So cute.. <3
There was also a spitz, chinese/american I think the owner said.. Was the first time I saw one in person! 
There was also the most adorable Merle Chi. I have to admit my first thought was "I bet that he cost a good bit of money."

Shamaya was.. er... Well, better behaved. However she kept laying down after sitting and the instructor didn't seem pleased with that. However Shamaya was too hot! Her fur was sticking down on her head :/ 
This time I got her with the recall! No running to Jimmy, lol! 
She was good with the walking, about turns, so I'm happy.. However she decided to completely forget "Stay"  Guess we'll be working on that some more this week!
I have to say, I do not understand why I'm supposed to cover her eyes when I say "stay".  She hates it.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> I still have a fantasy of being one of those beautiful people who drift through the park in the sun wearing flip flops and a floaty dress with well behaved dogs happily trotting beside me.........
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> Yuk - can't think of anything worse.... What's wrong with t-shirt and jeans?
> 
> Usually the beautiful people who drift through the park are thinking beautiful thoughts and their dogs have bu....ed off to interfere with the sensible owners (in T-shirts and jeans) obedient dogs...
> 
> 
> 
> Nothing really; it's what I live in.....it's just awe really that they stay so pristine .
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

No idea why you are meant to cover Shamaya's eyes Symone; I've not seen that before but I'm sure Grannie knows why you might be being asked to . 

With the down - do you always follow asking her to sit with asking her to lie down when training? Perhaps if you do you've inadvertently taught her that that is what sit is always followed by?


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> No idea why you are meant to cover Shamaya's eyes Symone; I've not seen that before but I'm sure Grannie knows why you might be being asked to .
> 
> With the down - do you always follow asking her to sit with asking her to lie down when training? Perhaps if you do you've inadvertently taught her that that is what sit is always followed by?


Nah, training is completely random for this was something I was trying to avoid, lol!
I think it's just how she is most comfortable. Also she stretched out a lot so my assumption is she did it to try to cool down.. Even I was too hot, there. I may bring a travel water bottle with me next time and put a bit of cold water on her tummy or so.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> No idea why you are meant to cover Shamaya's eyes Symone; I've not seen that before but I'm sure Grannie knows why you might be being asked to .
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> That's a new one on me as well and haven't got the foggiest idea.
> 
> I'm not surprised Shamaya didn't like it, neither would mine..!!


----------



## Beth17

I would love a Disney dog, wouldn't life be easier  Probably far duller though. I do find myself biting my tongue when I see a few posts :blush:

Symone I don't understand the covering of eyes either; although that would completely bugger Sam up 

I have been browsing through old pictures and videos and found this of Sam and it made me laugh.

Also mv was it you that wanted to see a size comparison of the boys? Apologies if not and sorry for being a picture bore


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Just floating in with my immaculate hair, nails, clothes and dogs 

Thank you for asking after me 

Today has been a good day apart from the fact when I woke up this morning I could barely move my head or arms!! It would appear that I did rather more damage than first thought with my face plant into the dirt yesterday... I've got whiplash :lol: I've had 9 patients today and it's not easy when your head won't turn and your arms don't work!!!

But despite that we had a good training session this morning, Lily has now mastered 'touch' too and being inspired by MV and Tinks video yesterday I have been teaching Branston the move where he goes round behind my legs and sits at my side (does it have a name?) Also MV, I watched your vid with no sound - do you use a command for that or is it just the hand signals? He picked it up straight away with me just doing a signal sort of sweeping my hand backwards, but wasn't sure whether I ought to add a voice command?

We then had a nice long walk and swim in the forest, I took Branston's muzzle to try on a walk as he's happy with it at home now. I just put it on for a couple of minutes at a time, just want him to realise he can carry on and have fun while he's wearing it  He kept scratching at it and rubbing his face on the ground  Any advice? Does he just have to get used to it or should I be approaching it differently somehow?

Werehorse - would you be able to post the link to your videos of how you taught Hugo fetch again? I can't find them but want to try it with Branston (after a disastrous attempt at playing fetch in the forest today  )

Just been chatting to my bro, poor Nelly dog has most probably got elbow dysplasia  she's had x-rays today and is being referred for CT scans


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I still have a fantasy of being one of those beautiful people who drift through the park in the sun wearing flip flops and a floaty dress with well behaved dogs happily trotting beside me.........


Nothing wrong with having the fantasy as long as you realise it isn't reality :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Nothing wrong with having the fantasy as long as you realise it isn't reality :lol:


It's OK; I'm not that far descended into madness .


----------



## Dogless

FRM - maybe it's an 'English Finish' that you're doing with Branston? Sorry to hear about your whiplash, sore stuff!!! And sorry to hear about Nelly dog .

Beth - Sam and Oscar are brilliant - Sam's really pushing his luck in that video!! .


----------



## Kicksforkills

Excited -more than not I'm going to get the puppy!


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> That's a new one on me as well and haven't got the foggiest idea.
> 
> I'm not surprised Shamaya didn't like it, neither would mine..!!


I think I may just not use her tactic for this! I didn't like causing Shamaya stress.. Poor baby.


----------



## Beth17

Symone you definitely have to do what's right for you and Shamaya and what feels comfortable.


----------



## Symone

Beth17 said:


> Symone you definitely have to do what's right for you and Shamaya and what feels comfortable.


I agree  
I may just do all of her training by myself/with the OH. :/ Apart from being around a lot of dogs I can't see what the difference is. Or, I could look for a different class.


----------



## Sarah1983

Symone, I have never covered my dogs eyes for a stay and really can't see how it would help  If anything it'd make Spen shy away and break position before I'd even moved!


----------



## GingerRogers

Frm sorry you are.feeling. So sore. It doesn't sound like an easy day. Glad the pickles were good though. Sounds like you haven't worked long enough on the muzzle indoors and doing fun stuff. I have been halfheartedly working on it since Nov. We can only get a minute without wanting it off still and she has only just started looking at me in it. 

symone no idea what the eye covering is all about. I do extend my hand for a stay but not to her face.

We have mashed mashed potato on hand for use after some training. Fingers crossed i can relax for half an hour.

Beth love.the pics and vid. Hubby is in love:001_tt1: can he come visit he says.

I am guilty of wanting the Disney dog and film family lifestyle. I do know its not gonna happen though.


----------



## Thorne

Sliding dogs! Breeze once scared herself silly by making her bed slide with her in it, she slept in Scooter's for several nights after that!

Haven't (yet) had a dog sh*t on my wellies either, suppose it's something to look forward to...

Missed L/C's article but you've all reminded me that I need to get myself a copy of The Culture Clash, definitely agree about the "Disneyfication" of dogs!

Molly -Not sure about normal, but thank you  sounds like you had a lovely long walk.
Maria -Hope today wasn't too sad without Dougal? Chevy sounds like a real character, what a clown!
Dogless -What good boys, very interesting about the collar too! Hoping Kilo's suprelorin helps you all out; I think we were very lucky that at when Scooter was at his fittest and most stubborn he was only interested in chasing rabbits, not girls!
MV -I'm enamoured with your training class just from reading your posts :001_wub: Sounds like heaven! Shame about the yanked and cursed at Bernese (but can sympathise with you regarding feet).
GR -I'm rubbish with advice but think a kong to break the habit sounds very sensible. Breeze is fine with towns so long as it's not rush hour or peak shopping time, Ipswich town centre has been done with mixed results! 
Beth -Jealous of your sunshine rrr: Well done to you and your well-behaved boys!
Sarah -Scooter seems liable to run off after bitches, I think the only thing that's stopped him from barrelling off every time there's one in heat is how long he takes to sniff and lick pee; gives me time to catch him! I agree it would be interesting to know how many would leg it after the girls and how many wouldn't.
Twiggy -That Holly is a bad influence on your oldies  Bless Quiver and her aging eyes, got to love her enthusiam though!
K&M -That poor dog 
L/C -Rep for your fab impulse control post! Glad that Max has settled in with you well.
Symone -Sorry to hear that the move has been postponed, but did see this Red Dingo tag and think of you! Red Dingo Enamel Tag Swiss Cross Red 01-SC-RE (1SCRS / 1SCRM / 1SCRL) No idea about the eye-covering either...
FRM -Not liking for poor Nell or your whiplash  but for the clever Pickles. Not sure what you've tried with the muzzle but you could try the same process you went through at home i.e. not even fastening it at first, just feeding him through it?
Kicksforkills -What have I missed? What sort of pup are you getting? 

Off to put the canary to bed...


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> I agree
> I may just do all of her training by myself/with the OH. :/ Apart from being around a lot of dogs I can't see what the difference is. Or, I could look for a different class.


If you like the rest of the class, which you said you did you can carry on going but use your own hand signal for stay I'm sure - working around other dogs is a real benefit.


----------



## Symone

Sarah1983 said:


> Symone, I have never covered my dogs eyes for a stay and really can't see how it would help  If anything it'd make Spen shy away and break position before I'd even moved!


Exactly how Shamaya reacted.

GR - When I do it myself, I get her in a sit, say stay, and if she goes to move put my hand up like the common "halt" sign, step away then treat. She can still see me and seems to understand that far more.

Thorne - I may have to buy that, now...!


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> I am guilty of wanting the Disney dog and film family lifestyle. I do know its not gonna happen though.


Lol, I'm guilty of it too. And I dunno whether it's looking back with rose tinted glasses but I pretty much had it with my first two. Once adolescence was over in Shadows case anyway. Obviously the weather didn't always comply with my wishes but I had two dogs I could take out and not worry about their behaviour. They could be off leash pretty much anywhere, didn't bother livestock or wildlife, came back (or waited in Shadows case) when called and were just generally really great dogs to walk. They weren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but they were generally well behaved dogs when out and about.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> I think I may just not use her tactic for this! I didn't like causing Shamaya stress.. Poor baby.


Can you ask your trainer why you have to cover her eyes? I'm curious to hear the explanation.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> If you like the rest of the class, which you said you did you can carry on going but use your own hand signal for stay I'm sure - working around other dogs is a real benefit.


True  
I may however look for a slightly smaller class. I would like to actually be able to properly speak to the instructor while there (like asking a simple question - Why cover eyes?), and with 20+ dogs (I think there were 23 today) it does make it kind of hard. 
I'll ask her if she does smaller classes at all ^^;


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Can you ask your trainer why you have to cover her eyes? I'm curious to hear the explanation.


I'll phone her up tomorrow (Or Thursday, tomorrow is busy and I might forget) and ask her. 
I too am curious.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Exactly how Shamaya reacted.
> 
> GR - When I do it myself, I get her in a sit, say stay, and if she goes to move put my hand up like the common "halt" sign, step away then treat. She can still see me and seems to understand that far more.
> 
> Personally I absolutely hate finger pointing, halt signs or anything else that the dogs might perceive as a threat.
> 
> I don't use a "stay" or "wait" command either.
> 
> As far as I'm concerned sit is sit, down is down and stand is stand, until the dog is instructed to do something else.
> 
> Having said that many people do use hand signals and verbal stay commands but I've seen too many dogs looking worried.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

GingerRogers said:


> Frm sorry you are.feeling. So sore. It doesn't sound like an easy day. Glad the pickles were good though. Sounds like you haven't worked long enough on the muzzle indoors and doing fun stuff. I have been halfheartedly working on it since Nov. We can only get a minute without wanting it off still and she has only just started looking at me in it.


Hmmm I wondered whether I was expecting too much too soon, I'm so impatient!!

He's really good with it on at home now though, he's had it on for about 5 minutes and will do 'watch me', 'touch', 'sit' and 'down' with it on.

I thought maybe putting it on while he was off lead in the woods would show him that he can carry on as normal with it on, but I'm probably wrong! He did quite well, he did potter along a bit, had a sniff, even had a pee, which I thought must mean he feels reasonably relaxed with it on but every 10 seconds or so he would make a half hearted attempt to get it off.


----------



## Beth17

GR of course he can visit as long as he brings a certain little dog with him 

Symone I would definitely stay working in a class if possible although a slightly smaller one may well be better for you both.

FRM Ouch  and Poor Nell


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Symone said:
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly how Shamaya reacted.
> 
> GR - When I do it myself, I get her in a sit, say stay, and if she goes to move put my hand up like the common "halt" sign, step away then treat. She can still see me and seems to understand that far more.
> 
> *Personally I absolutely hate finger pointing, halt signs or anything else that the dogs might perceive as a threat.*
> 
> I don't use a "stay" or "wait" command either.
> 
> As far as I'm concerned sit is sit, down is down and stand is stand, until the dog is instructed to do something else.
> 
> Having said that many people do use hand signals and verbal stay commands but I've seen too many dogs looking worried.
> 
> 
> 
> I had never even thought of that. I hold my hand up for 'stay' and Kilo the stress head actually seems to relax in a stay, I am going to watch him more carefully now though. A lot of the handlers in class use flat palm of hand pushed very quickly and assertively towards the dog's face as 'wait' which I have always seen as a bit threatening as it's almost like a 'hit' that just falls short. I know that Kilo would not like that one bit.
Click to expand...


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thorne said:


> Sliding dogs! Breeze once scared herself silly by making her bed slide with her in it, she slept in Scooter's for several nights after that!
> 
> Haven't (yet) had a dog sh*t on my wellies either, suppose it's something to look forward to...
> 
> Missed L/C's article but you've all reminded me that I need to get myself a copy of The Culture Clash, definitely agree about the "Disneyfication" of dogs!
> 
> Molly -Not sure about normal, but thank you  sounds like you had a lovely long walk.
> Maria -Hope today wasn't too sad without Dougal? Chevy sounds like a real character, what a clown!
> Dogless -What good boys, very interesting about the collar too! Hoping Kilo's suprelorin helps you all out; I think we were very lucky that at when Scooter was at his fittest and most stubborn he was only interested in chasing rabbits, not girls!
> MV -I'm enamoured with your training class just from reading your posts :001_wub: Sounds like heaven! Shame about the yanked and cursed at Bernese (but can sympathise with you regarding feet).
> GR -I'm rubbish with advice but think a kong to break the habit sounds very sensible. Breeze is fine with towns so long as it's not rush hour or peak shopping time, Ipswich town centre has been done with mixed results!
> Beth -Jealous of your sunshine rrr: Well done to you and your well-behaved boys!
> Sarah -Scooter seems liable to run off after bitches, I think the only thing that's stopped him from barrelling off every time there's one in heat is how long he takes to sniff and lick pee; gives me time to catch him! I agree it would be interesting to know how many would leg it after the girls and how many wouldn't.
> Twiggy -That Holly is a bad influence on your oldies  Bless Quiver and her aging eyes, got to love her enthusiam though!
> K&M -That poor dog
> L/C -Rep for your fab impulse control post! Glad that Max has settled in with you well.
> Symone -Sorry to hear that the move has been postponed, but did see this Red Dingo tag and think of you! Red Dingo Enamel Tag Swiss Cross Red 01-SC-RE (1SCRS / 1SCRM / 1SCRL) No idea about the eye-covering either...
> FRM -Not liking for poor Nell or your whiplash  but for the clever Pickles. Not sure what you've tried with the muzzle but you could try the same process you went through at home i.e. not even fastening it at first, just feeding him through it?
> Kicksforkills -What have I missed? What sort of pup are you getting?
> 
> Off to put the canary to bed...


Papillon, male. Will know before Saturday


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Symone said:
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly how Shamaya reacted.
> 
> GR - When I do it myself, I get her in a sit, say stay, and if she goes to move put my hand up like the common "halt" sign, step away then treat. She can still see me and seems to understand that far more.
> 
> Personally I absolutely hate finger pointing, halt signs or anything else that the dogs might perceive as a threat.
> 
> I don't use a "stay" or "wait" command either.
> 
> As far as I'm concerned sit is sit, down is down and stand is stand, until the dog is instructed to do something else.
> 
> Having said that many people do use hand signals and verbal stay commands but I've seen too many dogs looking worried.
> 
> 
> 
> I'll use your technique, then
> Personally I like your way a lot more, I don't know why something like so didn't come to mind before.
Click to expand...


----------



## Kicksforkills

Agility or general Obiedence?

Anyway, at agility, I make sure they sit behind the first obstacle and then have to really firmly pronounce "wait" a few times while getting in position. Then ok and command 


I can see how the "sit is sit" method works well


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Personally I absolutely hate finger pointing, halt signs or anything else that the dogs might perceive as a threat.
> 
> I don't use a "stay" or "wait" command either.
> 
> As far as I'm concerned sit is sit, down is down and stand is stand, until the dog is instructed to do something else.
> 
> Having said that many people do use hand signals and verbal stay commands but I've seen too many dogs looking worried.


See I always had that mindset Twiggy, a sit is a sit until told to do otherwise etc. But then hubby came along and he'd tell Rupert to sit as he was going out the door to work....the solid stays I had disappeared very quickly :nonod:

I use a raised index finger as a stay signal but it's not introduced until my dog is staying in position for a decent length of time. Hasn't seemed to stress either of mine out but perhaps that's because it's introduced after they're reliable and happy with the behaviour and doesn't signify anything stressful.


----------



## Beth17

Question for safestix owners. What size should I go for? large or medium.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> I had never even thought of that. I hold my hand up for 'stay' and Kilo the stress head actually seems to relax in a stay, I am going to watch him more carefully now though. A lot of the handlers in class use flat palm of hand pushed very quickly and assertively towards the dog's face as 'wait' which I have always seen as a bit threatening as it's almost like a 'hit' that just falls short. I know that Kilo would not like that one bit.
> 
> 
> 
> Have a good look at the dogs the next time you do a group stay in class - you'll be shocked by how many look worried/fearful.
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Question for safestix owners. What size should I go for? large or medium.


We have a large, but that was the only option when I got mine....it's good for two dogs to tug!



Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Have a good look at the dogs the next time you do a group stay in class - you'll be shocked by how many look worried/fearful.
> 
> 
> 
> I will; the handlers who use that aggressive 'wait' signal have dogs who look anxious I have noticed.
Click to expand...


----------



## Thorne

Kicksforkills said:


> Papillon, male. Will know before Saturday


I am horrendously jealous, I love Papillons! Have fallen in love with one at Blue Cross who's fortunately/unfortunately reserved and going to his new home soon. Brilliant little dogs!

FRM -Scooter accepted his muzzle very quickly but still dodges having it put on unless I post a treat through and rolls once (only once, strange dog) during walks to try and dislodge it. Otherwise he ignores it and hopefully Branston will adjust to it quickly too 

Spent most of my day at Blue Cross cleaning. I quite enjoy it  Walked William the mad terrier in the morning and even madder Rags the terrier in the afternoon. Both have really come on in leaps and bounds since they arrived but are typical cheeky, fiesty little terrierists! Rags on best behaviour today, William rolled in horse poo 
Anyone want a really nutty but smart little dog? Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre

Scooter's been a bit odd this evening, earlier he was drooling heavily and looking very sheepish but seems to be ok now. No vomiting/attempts, his teeth seem fine and don't think it's his anal glands so will keep an eye on him. 
Had a lovely walk with Breeze, pavement stroll to the fields, then some shaping and jumping on the mini assault course at the rec. Very focused today but still up for a game of chase with me 
Heard some distant bangs but she barely worried at all - this is with no thundershirt/t-shirt/fleece/adaptil, just the Skulcap and Valerian tablets lovely izzysmummy sent me via the freecycle. Either they're having a positive effect on her or a placebo effect on me, will monitor!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> See I always had that mindset Twiggy, a sit is a sit until told to do otherwise etc. But then hubby came along and he'd tell Rupert to sit as he was going out the door to work....the solid stays I had disappeared very quickly :nonod:
> 
> I use a raised index finger as a stay signal but it's not introduced until my dog is staying in position for a decent length of time. Hasn't seemed to stress either of mine out but perhaps that's because it's introduced after they're reliable and happy with the behaviour and doesn't signify anything stressful.


You know my views on men.....

A raised index finger when the dog is already perfectly happy in a stay shouldn't cause stress although, to be honest, I can't see the point.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Have a good look at the dogs the next time you do a group stay in class - you'll be shocked by how many look worried/fearful.


I've gotta admit, this was one of the things I picked up on in the class I went to. But then it was no wonder really. It was a traditional class and people set the dogs up to fail rather than succeed on the stay. I also saw a lot of people who, when the dog broke the stay, would grab it, drag it back to where it had been in a stay, shove it back into position and bellow "STAY!" at it :nonod:


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> You know my views on men.....
> 
> A raised index finger when the dog is already perfectly happy in a stay shouldn't cause stress although, to be honest, I can't see the point.


For us it just signifies the difference between being allowed to break from the position and being expected to hold the position until told otherwise. It works for us and seems to stop the stress and confusion of "well am I supposed to stay here or can I move?" that I saw in Rupert before introducing it. It would be unnecessary if I could just train the husband but I'm sure you'll agree that that won't happen.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thorne -


----------



## GingerRogers

foxyrockmeister said:


> Hmmm I wondered whether I was expecting too much too soon, I'm so impatient!!
> 
> He's really good with it on at home now though, he's had it on for about 5 minutes and will do 'watch me', 'touch', 'sit' and 'down' with it on.
> 
> I thought maybe putting it on while he was off lead in the woods would show him that he can carry on as normal with it on, but I'm probably wrong! He did quite well, he did potter along a bit, had a sniff, even had a pee, which I thought must mean he feels reasonably relaxed with it on but every 10 seconds or so he would make a half hearted attempt to get it off.


If its only half hearted attempts then perhaps i am wrong. You inspired me to do some training on it again tonight. She actually wore it for longer. Looked at me and moved about without a paw going near it. 
Have kept her occupied so far with sweet and potato mash bit in her small Kong alike. What's she done with the real one. This one is very slurpy.
I hadn't thought about worrying the dogs with hand signals. But you're right. Stay hands are ok but she seems to enjoy the challenge a firm finger wiggle for sit gets frowns.
Beth Hubby has packed their bags :smile5: I showed him the video and he went all mushy at the point where Oscar head poke out from under Sam.


----------



## Guest

I like rags thorne! And daisy and Lucy and Danny!!

My darling dog decided to bring me the dead mouse the cat had killed into my room. He did drop it when I shreiked at the blood on the carpet. 

Too many dogs on our walks, too many. 

Also, Sam is huge Beth! 

Tried to towel his feet. Nope. Not happening. I still have to feed him to do it!

Also, muzzle training! I was training it for when Zand was going through the arm clamp thing. But then he stopped and I forgot and then I found the muzzle in the kitchen.  

Hope you are all okay in yourselfs as are your dogs.
I am still feeling down every now and then. Had an awfully rude member of the public yesterday. 
And people keep going on about 'how easy it is to drive!", which is getting my goat. 

The behaviourist is coming in a week! I shall be working on Zand's "Off" regarding furniture. Ahhhh, I don't even know.


----------



## Maria_1986

L/C - thanks for the link, I will have a look and see if I can get those books from the library or if they come on kindle (I'm banned from buying more books due to lack of space!)

FRM - hope you are feeling better soon.

Thorne - thanks, I didn't get to walk my CT dogs after all due to a mix up with dates and times so was not as bad a day as I thought it might be. I hope Scooter is ok.

I have to admit I would love the 'disney' dog however I would also like a winning lottery ticket, to be a size 8 and to have straight manageable hair but I know they are all about as likely to happen as me going to the moon! 

Chevy decided that after her little blip earlier she was going to be a little angel in class today and work nicely. We were having an issue this week with her grabbing treats while on the move when rewarding for a good LLW so we have to practice taking treats nicely this week as well as continuing to work on LLW in higher distraction situations, we are starting 'leave' this week as well (we think she already has a good idea what it means). The trainer had planned for us to start teaching 'bed' this week too but a quick demo proved that she already knows it even if she is not at home as she went to her pillow and sat and chilled on it with no fuss or hesitation.

I stayed on after the class to watch a wag and tone class which the trainer does afterwards and it looks like great fun so I think once we have the basics down if our vet says its ok with her hip we may give it a try.


----------



## Dogless

The boys love Chuckit balls and love tug....just seen these and reckon they'll become new favourite toys...

Chuckit Ultra Tug | Dog Tug Toys

Chuckit Duo Tug | Tug Toys For Dogs


----------



## L/C

Aw Beth, those pics are lovely. :001_wub:

Gypsy is getting me down. She is perfect and amazing and responsive on walks but in the house she can be a right little madam. I know it's not her fault as she is getting mixed messages from OH (he feeds her leftovers off his plate and let's her lick it after he's done) but I've just had enough tonight. She's stolen 2 slices of pizza off his plate and a cooked chicken bone and I got bitten trying to wrestle the bone off her. 

OH proceeded to leave his plate with food scraps on it where she could get to it and just pushing her away when she went for it. I took his plate out to the kitchen as I was annoyed and then she got hold of the chicken bone as it had fallen onto the floor. OH just sat there while I sorted it out and got bit so I'm afraid I had a real tantrum and flounced off upstairs. In my defense I was up at 6 to walk 3 dogs, I have had a sore throat, nausea and a temperature of 39 degrees for the past 2 days and can't take anytime off work plus it's, ahem, hormonal time.

Gypsy is now curled up asleep on my lap and I have come to there realisation that I have to sort out her manners. I need to start by not setting her up to fail every time we eat, stop OH feeding her and work on her control around food. I should add, she never steals from me or room mate - it's just OH. When he's not here she just lays on her bed while anyone has food.


----------



## Dogless

Maria - well done to you and your little star . What is "Wag and Tone"?

L/C - hope you're feeling better soon. Men....maybe we'll have the Concrete Retreat as ladies only and men can visit but only when all the dogs are safely out of the way?  . Hope OH is feeling suitably ashamed of himself.....but if he's anything like mine he'll not really see what the big deal is!! .


----------



## Werehorse

Feeling very guilty re: the dogs today. 

Number 1 - I put on their coats under their harnesses for our walk yesterday and now they both have rubbed skin behind their elbows.  And they didn't even really need their coats (although Oscar was shivering after 12 miles ish I think it was just being tired and a bit nesh).

Number 2 - the amount I've been working seems to have un-settled Oscar and he seems to be getting a few anxious characteristics back again.  He has started refusing to get off the sofa to go out for last wees, only if it is OH taking him though and he has gone more tense while eating his dinner again - like the resource guarding is back. And he seems more anxious being handled and acts as if we are going to push him about. It makes me feel terrible and I'm not sure what we've done to him or how to mend it.  I think OH was occasionally a bit over-bearing with him when Oscar was a pup but OH is now a lot better and more sympathetic and I'm less stressed and more consistant myself these days - But neither of us have ever hit him or really dragged him around. I don't know, it just makes me sad that he doesn't seem to trust us 100%.    And I don't know what to do about it either. Maybe it's just bubbling up out of the general anxiety from the change of me going back to work. He was like this when we got Hugo and I stopped full time work too.

Sorry - whingers corner for me. I'm just tired.


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless - its a bit of a mix between an exercise class and a training class. There are various things that help to tone up the handler and the dog learns new commands. There are some videos on you tube of some of the exercises.


----------



## Dogless

Oh Werehorse; I just don't know . The coats can't be helped; one of those things. Oscar? Do you think he might just settle again? Did he settle himself when he was like it before when Hugo arrived?

Virtual hugs xxx.


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks Dogless. I hope he will just settle. He did eventually with Hugo and work is due to calm down a bit quite soon as well, which'll help. I'm going to have to squeeze some 1-2-1 time with them both in, that seems to help - and some TTouch again although I really struggle with it as I find controlling the pressure from my hands so hard I feel physically sick from concentrating (I know - effing weird, I think it is linked in with my inability to tie shoe-laces without taking a "special" amount of time about it) and then it kind of loses the point because I'm not relaxed so that doesn't help with him relaxing.  I think I needs to try some proper massage that doesn't involve tiny circles and light pressure.

But for now I think a good night's sleep will help and then get through the next week or so and things will calm down.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Maria - well done to you and your little star . What is "Wag and Tone"?
> 
> L/C - hope you're feeling better soon. Men....maybe we'll have the Concrete Retreat as ladies only and men can visit but only when all the dogs are safely out of the way?  . Hope OH is feeling suitably ashamed of himself.....but if he's anything like mine he'll not really see what the big deal is!! .


I don't often lose my temper (especially not with the dogs) so I think he realised he'd messed up pretty bad quite quickly. Whether or not it will translate into any actual changed behaviour... Well your guess is as good as mine.

Werehorse - hope Oscar settles down soon. I'm sure you have but have you tried just sitting with him? When Ely is particularly stressy even light touches can hype him up so I just sit next to him and try to radiate calm. He seems tho settle down relatively quickly and rests his head on my lap - then I start with light ear rubs to send him to sleep.


----------



## BessieDog

Can I come in and have a frustrated moan and ask for ideas? 

Bess is getting worse and worse at pulling on her lead. I was walking her through a wood on her harness on Monday when she suddenly took off - she wasn't chasing anything, just decided to run full pelt ahead. Well, I took off too! I so very nearly fell flat on my face but I was determined not to let go off the lead. It took about 20 steps with me almost horizontal for me to get my balance and manage to stop her. Doesn't sound much but it really shook me up. Luckily OH was there and he took her the rest of the way. 

On my own yesterday, so I used the dogmatic. Trouble is, although she doesn't lunge on this, she does keep pulling all the time. It's rubbed the fur off her cheek so I don't want to use that again! 

I'm at the stage where I'm frightened to walk my dog. If I take her out with a harness or collar she could pull out in front of a car. I can control her on the headcollar, but that's uncomfortable for her, and I don't want her face hurt. 

It's crazy - I used to have a 10 stone Great Dane, and I'd walk him and the spaniel together with no worries. But Bess! 

If I could let her off lead it wouldn't be so much of a problem. I'm going to have to take her out later, but I'm not sure how.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Have a good look at the dogs the next time you do a group stay in class - you'll be shocked by how many look worried/fearful.
> 
> 
> 
> My dog always looked very worried when we had to do group stays in classes - in fact he could just about manage a sit stay but I could never get him to lie down. It didn't help that one instructor told me that he clearly wasn't anxious as he wasn't even looking at the other dogs and that I should lure him into a down and then stand on his lead close to the collar so that he physically couldn't get up
> I have worked pretty hard on his stays and while they are still work in progress they are getting better (without the use of a stay or wait command or hand signal).
Click to expand...


----------



## MollySmith

L/C I am sorry you had to lose your temper, what is is with all our OH's at the moment? It's good that you can see what the problem is though and I guess you have to nag him to stop doing it. I had to nag myself to stop leaving bits out in the kitchen, now I don't Molly has just stopped counter surfing, so hopefully Gypsy will realise this very quickly.

Werehorse - I hope Oscar settles, it's a change for you all. I agree with L/C, maybe just sitting with him would help more than TTouch? A bit of ear stroking maybe but just some quiet time together might be good? 

Dogless and Dimwit - Molly was awful in group, hated it so much (not helped by one of the four dogs that had to be placed in a kitchen it was so DA and really wasn't a good place for him to be). I truly think it made her lead issues much much worse. I have always said on here and to any owner who asks, assess the dog and see if you think they like group. Just because group format is there, it does not mean it suits all dogs. We've done much better on one to one. 

Bess - Molly would do the same - run on the lead if there was a wood. My way around this apart from stopping the lead pulling (by standing like a statue each time she pulls and only walking on when she comes back to my side, plus clicks and treats for when she looks up at me on the lead) is to walk in an appropriate place. We have two walks close by but both have woodland that is not fenced off so madam goes charging off and our walks there always ended in disaster so we don't go there. I walk her in open spaces. Her recall is great, really good for a lurcher cross, but if she saw woods it's pointless so I look for places where I can set her up for success such as open parks, beaches and away from sheep. Would Bess run out in any environment and what sort of harness do you have? Molly got on well with the eazywalk front fastener - I used to clip the lead to her collar and the harness. That way if she decided to take off, she actually ended up turning in a circle as I could guide the lead from the front and control her that way.



We have our last lesson today - well I think we do. The last group lesson we had ended in face off with the escaping yorkie, so we'll have to see how it goes today. I feel bags more confident after yesterday and guiding her past the LA spaniels. OH and I had a chat and we think we're going to cut back a bit with the trainer, we have to really. At the moment Molly gets Wed with our trainer for walks or lessons. On one week she has a group walk and there is nearly always a new dog to run with and do lead work with and then the other Weds she gets 2 hours of lead and off lead work on her own. Not sure which to stop - I think the walk as we can do that ourselves really, it was set up to give OH a break as he gets arthritis badly and I was working so now I'm at home we can share the walks more. The lead work is much more important and I think one we have to keep working on.


----------



## BessieDog

Yes, Bess will run in any environment. She'll be okay on our field walks until a pheasant flies out of the hedgerow then she just loses it. I've tried standing still, calling her back and trying to calm her, but she stands there quivering and shaking with excitement, and that's that for the walk then. She will not calm down. Can't give her treats in that state as she's not listening at all. 

If we don't see a pheasant on that walk then she isn't too bad, but that's the exception, not the rule.

I walk her on a Julius K9 - the front fastening one sounds a good idea, but Bess is always right at the end of her lead so wouldn't that be uncomfortable?


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> For us it just signifies the difference between being allowed to break from the position and being expected to hold the position until told otherwise. It works for us and seems to stop the stress and confusion of "well am I supposed to stay here or can I move?" that I saw in Rupert before introducing it. It would be unnecessary if I could just train the husband but I'm sure you'll agree that that won't happen.


No you won't train the husband - never in a million years. I found the only useful purpose of "Don't shoot the Dog" as far as my husband was concerned, was bashing him with it....


----------



## Twiggy

Kicksforkills said:


> Agility or general Obiedence?
> 
> Anyway, at agility, I make sure they sit behind the first obstacle and then have to really firmly pronounce "wait" a few times while getting in position. Then ok and command
> 
> I can see how the "sit is sit" method works well


I feel I need to confess here....

When I competed at agility shows with Twiggy, and she was a championship class obedience dog, I had a heck of a job keeping her on the start line. As soon as the steward said "when you're ready" she was gone like a bat out of hell and we generally met somewhere about the middle of the course..!!

To be fair we didn't do that many agility shows and I didn't exactly put much work into it but, providing she took off in the right direction, we did win quite a number of classes. I remember her beating 300 other dogs down at South of England Showground in the early 1990s.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The boys love Chuckit balls and love tug....just seen these and reckon they'll become new favourite toys...
> 
> Chuckit Ultra Tug | Dog Tug Toys
> 
> Chuckit Duo Tug | Tug Toys For Dogs


They look good but not sure dear little Holly Bolly would be keen if they didn't squeak.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Aw Beth, those pics are lovely. :001_wub:
> 
> Gypsy is getting me down. She is perfect and amazing and responsive on walks but in the house she can be a right little madam. I know it's not her fault as she is getting mixed messages from OH (he feeds her leftovers off his plate and let's her lick it after he's done) but I've just had enough tonight. She's stolen 2 slices of pizza off his plate and a cooked chicken bone and I got bitten trying to wrestle the bone off her.
> 
> OH proceeded to leave his plate with food scraps on it where she could get to it and just pushing her away when she went for it. I took his plate out to the kitchen as I was annoyed and then she got hold of the chicken bone as it had fallen onto the floor. OH just sat there while I sorted it out and got bit so I'm afraid I had a real tantrum and flounced off upstairs. In my defense I was up at 6 to walk 3 dogs, I have had a sore throat, nausea and a temperature of 39 degrees for the past 2 days and can't take anytime off work plus it's, ahem, hormonal time.
> 
> Gypsy is now curled up asleep on my lap and I have come to there realisation that I have to sort out her manners. I need to start by not setting her up to fail every time we eat, stop OH feeding her and work on her control around food. I should add, she never steals from me or room mate - it's just OH. When he's not here she just lays on her bed while anyone has food.


Wouldn't dog training be so much easier without the input of husbands/OHs?

My sister was going on alarming the other night on the phone. Sadly she's still not well enough to walk her girls and although grateful that her husband walks them, they are really playing him up. She had a phone call from him one morning last week enquiring if Mini (the 1 yr old youngster) had arrived home. My sister found her outside the kitchen door, frightened and foaming at the mouth because she'd been chased by a dog, whilst gormless husband stood chatting to the owner in the woods behind their property..!!

She now has to supervise the leads being put on before they're walked otherwise they bite him in excitement. It's the collie nip the ankles/back of legs sort of thing to hurry him up.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Thanks Dogless. I hope he will just settle. He did eventually with Hugo and work is due to calm down a bit quite soon as well, which'll help. I'm going to have to squeeze some 1-2-1 time with them both in, that seems to help - and some TTouch again although I really struggle with it as I find controlling the pressure from my hands so hard I feel physically sick from concentrating (I know - effing weird, I think it is linked in with my inability to tie shoe-laces without taking a "special" amount of time about it) and then it kind of loses the point because I'm not relaxed so that doesn't help with him relaxing.  I think I needs to try some proper massage that doesn't involve tiny circles and light pressure.
> 
> But for now I think a good night's sleep will help and then get through the next week or so and things will calm down.


If your tired and anxious Oscar will undoubtedly pick up on it.

Hopefully he will adjust and as you say things are due to calm down shortly.

With regards to massage, I was also pretty crap at doing it when I attended the workshop back in November. I have the course notes which I could email to you if that's any help? The basic massage wasn't difficult and was really more or less stroking your dog in a certain way.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> My dog always looked very worried when we had to do group stays in classes - in fact he could just about manage a sit stay but I could never get him to lie down. *It didn't help that one instructor told me that he clearly wasn't anxious as he wasn't even looking at the other dogs and that I should lure him into a down and then stand on his lead close to the collar so that he physically couldn't get up *
> I have worked pretty hard on his stays and while they are still work in progress they are getting better (without the use of a stay or wait command or hand signal).
> 
> 
> 
> OMG that's awful - your poor dog.
Click to expand...


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy i liked yoru post because it reallydoes seem to be a universal issue.
I do hope your sister is well enough to walk her dogs again soon.

Bessiedog If i'm reading correctly you have 2 issues? loose lead walk and prey drive? L/C has done some cracking posts on prey drive http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-818.html#post1062641303
and here
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-1241.html

We had a fab class last night despite someone being completely over excited to be htere after missing a week, One of us entered the hall squeaking with delight  Took a little longer than usual to get her focussed being end of this term it was games night, where we play all the games we've been learning/improving over the term. Good fun.

hope everyone has a good day today.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy i liked yoru post because it reallydoes seem to be a universal issue.
> I do hope your sister is well enough to walk her dogs again soon.
> 
> Bessiedog If i'm reading correctly you have 2 issues? loose lead walk and prey drive? L/C has done some cracking posts on prey drive http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-818.html#post1062641303
> and here
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-1241.html
> 
> We had a fab class last night despite someone being completely over excited to be htere after missing a week, One of us entered the hall squeaking with delight  Took a little longer than usual to get her focussed being end of this term it was games night, were we play all the games we've been learning/improving over the term. Good fun.
> 
> hope everyone has a good day today.


You are so lucky to have such a positive and fun class to attend. I wish there were more all over the UK like yours instead of the yank and shout brigade, which still seems to prevail even in this day and age.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> You are so lucky to have such a positive and fun class to attend. I wish there were more all over the UK like yours instead of the yank and shout brigade, which still seems to prevail even in this day and age.


I count my blessings daily. I really wish everyone had access to classes that were based around building a relationship with their dog, not scaring them into submission. There does seem a real lack of this in pet dog training. I cannot recommend my trainer highly enough.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I count my blessings daily. I really wish everyone had access to classes that were based around building a relationship with their dog, not scaring them into submission. There does seem a real lack of this in pet dog training. I cannot recommend my trainer highly enough.


Totally agree and it's not just pet training either. It also prevails in most dog sports. I thought things were improving but now I'm not so sure.

It's snowing heavily here and I can't take the old girls out in this. I hope it's going to stop soon - flipping weather. Where's Spring?


----------



## Beth17

Sorry Twiggy I think I've stolen it  Just going to take the boys out for a trek. I hope the weather lets up for you.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> OMG that's awful - your poor dog.


I may not know much about dog training but I do know my dog and even I could see that forcing him to lie down like that was only going to make him more anxious and was only going to make him less inclined to lie down in future - so I ignored the advice.

It is difficult as I do want to find a training class as it does do him so much good to learn to work calmly around other dogs, but then so many classes are just interested in using quick fixes that it just becomes counter-productive...


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy i liked yoru post because it reallydoes seem to be a universal issue.
> I do hope your sister is well enough to walk her dogs again soon.
> 
> Bessiedog If i'm reading correctly you have 2 issues? loose lead walk and prey drive? L/C has done some cracking posts on prey drive http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-818.html#post1062641303
> and here
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-1241.html
> 
> We had a fab class last night despite someone being completely over excited to be htere after missing a week, One of us entered the hall squeaking with delight  Took a little longer than usual to get her focussed being end of this term it was games night, where we play all the games we've been learning/improving over the term. Good fun.
> 
> hope everyone has a good day today.


Ah thanks. 

I am jealous of your classes - we have 2 different really good trainers near to me but because I don't drive it's just too difficult to get to them. So I make do with 1-2-1 sessions when I can afford it!

Well OH has slightly redeemed himself this morning by springing up when my alarm went off to take the dogs out *WITHOUT ME ASKING*  (Max was picked up by my friend last night so it was just our 2). That meant I got to sleep in until 8am! A revelation.


----------



## kat&molly

Bad morning.

Just walked the girls up around the Loop, Jay's at home today so she was with us, she always walks a bit slower due to her hips.
Next thing , she's screaming  the big brown dog was on top of her laying in to her, I ran over , he must have been scared seeing me coming and he ran. Jay ran screaming the other way so I chased her to check her over and I cant see any damage. 
I turned round and the other 3 have took chase   next thing Scruff's having a tussle with him and then his feckwit of an owner came so the dog ran off and they turned round.

I was fuming, we walked back to the car and I drove to the womans house, the annoying thing was she wouldn't have seen what had happened to Jay- only the girls chasing him and a scuffle.
I told her he'd attacked my little dog who has arthritic hips- she denied it, I mentioned the neighbours dog- she denied that. Then tried giving me 'When in France 'crap'- she copped some venom then, just because I'm in France doesn't give her aggressive dog the right to attack mine.


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

the barking control again...sigh...

dogs seem to love to be useful..;sitting on balconies barking at anything that moves in distance occupies them enormously...

the one and main thing that sets them off ? is OTHER DOGS BARKING ! lol ! yes mine are not the PACK LEADERS if there is such a term for starting it, the normal barking of dogs nearby here greeting their returning owners home sets others dogs into dog songs to join in ! i edited this in as this is a point i failed to make as the main reason for any barking .... dogs seem to like to sing their dogsongs ! a bit likes wolves liked to howl in songs too ? or humans singing ? lol ! from the tones of the barks when it kicks off it definately seems some kind of communication between dogs ! joyful even ! 

and in the car one of my dogs adores challenging oncoming traffic especially lorries...barking and lunging...sigh...

they have to relearn the order to stop barking...giving them a pet for looking at me when barking for attention for a few seconds then trying to distract them...and finally yelling to shut up ! sigh !

i edit in that i am fortunate that being PRESENT with my dogs stopping the kick of of barking is easy for me, seconds only it takes, if i were not around the inter-dog songs would continue i am sure ! 

there was a dog here who barked and howled all day while owners were out for months and months until they probably moved...i did not complain but it is a modern day issue and i just edit this in saying when absent like that owners of that dog could not control the barking of course not.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Bad morning.
> 
> Just walked the girls up around the Loop, Jay's at home today so she was with us, she always walks a bit slower due to her hips.
> Next thing , she's screaming  the big brown dog was on top of her laying in to her, I ran over , he must have been scared seeing me coming and he ran. Jay ran screaming the other way so I chased her to check her over and I cant see any damage.
> I turned round and the other 3 have took chase   next thing Scruff's having a tussle with him and then his feckwit of an owner came so the dog ran off and they turned round.
> 
> I was fuming, we walked back to the car and I drove to the womans house, the annoying thing was she wouldn't have seen what had happened to Jay- only the girls chasing him and a scuffle.
> I told her he'd attacked my little dog who has arthritic hips- she denied it, I mentioned the neighbours dog- she denied that. Then tried giving me 'When in France 'crap'- she copped some venom then, just because I'm in France doesn't give her aggressive dog the right to attack mine.


Oh Kat what a terrible morning. Hope you are all uninjured. 
What an awful situation. Is it to early for something medicinal?


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Oh Kat what a terrible morning. Hope you are all uninjured.
> What an awful situation. Is it to early for something medicinal?


Who for me or Jay.
I'm upset that bloody bully had to pick on the weakest one- I hope he thinks twice about doing it to others now.
I've given her some Valerian and she'll have extra meds- its a miracle she isn't injured.


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

'When in France 'crap'. 

sigh people so often defend their own dogs or kids bad behaviour. playing the national card is always an easy one too. implying it is your fault for being there !

dogs not used to socialising get out of hand when suddenly faced with options to let rip. sigh. hope she gets over it.


----------



## kat&molly

FEJA JUODAS said:


> 'When in France 'crap'.
> 
> sigh people so often defend their own dogs or kids bad behaviour. playing the national card is always an easy one too. implying it is your fault for being there !
> 
> dogs not used to socialising get out of hand when suddenly faced with options to let rip. sigh. hope she gets over it.


To be fair, reading it back , it sounds like mine were just as bad for chasing him like that- but its not like them at all normally, perhaps Jay being jumped on upset them.


----------



## BessieDog

moonviolet said:


> Bessiedog If i'm reading correctly you have 2 issues? loose lead walk and prey drive? L/C has done some cracking posts on prey drive http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-818.html#post1062641303
> and here
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-1241.html


Thanks!!


----------



## Dogless

Oh k&m, what crap . I really must win the lottery, the need for Concrete Retreat is getting greater and greater. I do hope that you and Jay are OK. Not much else you can do either if the rubbish owner doesn't want to know .



Twiggy said:


> They look good but not sure dear little Holly Bolly would be keen if they didn't squeak.


I have a vision of you running about going "eep eep eep" each time she chomps down to get her all fired up :crazy:.



Twiggy said:


> You are so lucky to have such a positive and fun class to attend. I wish there were more all over the UK like yours instead of the yank and shout brigade, which still seems to prevail even in this day and age.


I wish that so very much too; I can't even find one in the whole of NI. It's amazing I've found somewhere that doesn't promote choke chains and shock collars...never mind asking for more 



moonviolet said:


> I count my blessings daily. I really wish everyone had access to classes that were based around building a relationship with their dog, not scaring them into submission. There does seem a real lack of this in pet dog training. I cannot recommend my trainer highly enough.


It would be utterly fantastic for all to have access to people like your trainer - you always look like you're having so much fun!

Well, I have had a cracking morning but also feel a bit guilty / sad .

I took Kilo out and did half an hour's training - all stuff he knows mixed up and really fast paced and exciting on a big patch of grass next to a building site (whole area used to be a dog walking area) and next to buildings with folk coming and going etc. Because of all the distractions I left a lead attached to Kilo, but I needn't have done. He was ON FIRE!!!!! (not literally, that would have been very bad). We did lots of heelwork, mixed up with downs and sits at a distance, Ready...Steady...with downs on the way to the toy, sitting and staying whilst I threw his toy in all directions and collected it then finally let him have it etc. He was BRILLIANT, still wanted to work when I put the toy away but I was exhausted and so was he I think. After that we just had a half hour of gentle mooching. He was my very, very best boy :001_wub::001_wub:.

Then the guilty bit; I took Rudi to a forest without Kilo. I took just Rudi because the only forest I could get to in the snow / slush is one that tends to be busy, has lots of blind bends and narrow paths and Kilo tends to be pretty vigilant until the walk's well under way as it's where we met the lab that took lumps out of him a few times. So far Kilo hasn't had a bad reaction to anything whilst we've been with Rudi and I want to keep it that way until Rudi's matured a little - well, I'd like that forever but....

As it turns out it was probably the right decision. Hardly anyone was there for once, but the two walkers we saw had non dog - friendly dogs. The first saw us on a very narrow path, put his dog's lead on and told me he didn't like other dogs, so I moved off the path and all was fine, his dog had a little growl but was well under control. I was more stunned that someone here had a collar and lead AND controlled their dog . The next dog we saw ran almost up to us and postured and stared...his owner managed to get him back and held his collar, but looked and sounded a bit anxious, so I turned and went up a different path. A few seconds later I heard the man shouting and his dog is belting up behind us - Rudi stayed behind my leg and I saw the dog off.

Minor stuff but Kilo may not have reacted favourably and the paths were narrow. Other than that we had a lovely walk, Kilo really would have liked it, zooming about with Rudi . Rudi is still at the perfect stage of running to me as soon as he sees anything up ahead so I feed and praise him and keep him just behind my leg. I really, really hope I can keep him doing that but know that adolescent curiosity will probably kick in at some point 

So...both boys were by best boys this morning :001_wub::001_wub:. I hope that Kilo enjoyed his hour as much as Rudi enjoyed his walk - feels awful not taking him to the forest, he loves his forests.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> To be fair, reading it back , it sounds like mine were just as bad for chasing him like that- but its not like them at all normally, perhaps Jay being jumped on upset them.


I find it pretty understandable to be honest. My collie would always go wading in if another dog had a go at our rottie mix. I know people say dogs don't form packs as such but I've noticed that sort of behaviour in so many dogs who live together or are together on a regular basis, if one's attacked (or attacking) the others tend to jump in too.

I hope poor Jay is okay and so glad it wasn't worse. I hope you're okay too.

I went for my scan this morning. Made me laugh that I'm lying there with my boobs out and a towel covering my belly lol. Good news is there is nothing sinister there. Bad news is that we have absolutely no idea what's causing the pain. And because it's non cyclical apparently it will be extremely difficult to pinpoint what is causing it.


----------



## Dogless

Pleased there's nothing sinister going on Sarah .


----------



## kat&molly

Pleased theres nothing bad going on Sarah.  I remember going for mine, having to take all my top half off - and being left for a few minutes in a Freezing cold room.

Dogless, I feel guilty as well, and always imagine the others knowing where we've been.

I do think the others taking chase is sort of 'normal' - but I was embarressed I think , it put the girls in a bad light as far as the woman was concerned, when it was her and her dog that were in the wrong in the first place. If I hadn't gone after Jay it probably wouldn't have happened.
I'll guess it was Scruff who ran first- as for Moll and Evie, they are a couple of wusses , and must have run for 'moral support'


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Pleased theres nothing bad going on Sarah.  I remember going for mine, having to take all my top half off - and being left for a few minutes in a Freezing cold room.
> 
> Dogless,* I feel guilty as well, and always imagine the others knowing where we've been*.
> 
> I do think the others taking chase is sort of 'normal' - but I was embarressed I think , it put the girls in a bad light as far as the woman was concerned, when it was her and her dog that were in the wrong in the first place. If I hadn't gone after Jay it probably wouldn't have happened.
> I'll guess it was Scruff who ran first- as for Moll and Evie, they are a couple of wusses , and must have run for 'moral support'


This; I felt a bit upset walking in a way too as if I had abandoned Kilo and Rudi was getting the 'good stuff'. Nonsense really :nonod: .

It's a shame the girls - why do I always think of chooks or old people with little lap dogs "come and meet the girls"? :huh: - chased but you can't realy blame them. The biggest shame is that it gives the other owner a bit of 'come back' .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> This; I felt a bit upset walking in a way too as if I had abandoned Kilo and Rudi was getting the 'good stuff'. Nonsense really :nonod: .
> 
> It's a shame the girls - why do I always think of chooks or old people with little lap dogs "come and meet the girls"? :huh: - chased but you can't realy blame them. The biggest shame is that it gives the other owner a bit of 'come back' .


It does give the owner some comeback  Them taking chase was understandable but not really acceptable. 3 years we've been walking there without a problem- we've come across the occasional dog but not one like that. Bugger.

I am old- nearly 42.


----------



## moonviolet

Kat, i think it's perfectly natural your other dogs reacted in the way they did.
Silly woman would have seen what happen if she had had her dog in sight.

Sarah i'm glad there's nothing sinister, but sad you are no closer to a resolution 

Dogless, it sounds like both your boys had a fantastic time with you this morning and you have no reason for guilt what so ever, Kilo would not have been so focussed if he wasn't having fun. I knwo you find it hard to believe it but to Kilo your attention *IS*the good stuff.

We had a funny walk, I had the route and soem training bits all mapped out in my head and didn't achieve either :lol: Despite this it was a successful walk in other ways.

I have discovered if i have sardine cake in my pocket the dog walkers charges flying toward me and Tink are coming for me not her. I was sat on a tree stump waiting her Tink to sniff out the treats i'd hidden when i was mobbed. Tink made me laugh by trotting back to me and jumping on my lap. There was a time with would have freaked her out and she would have peeped out from behind a tree, She has met all the dogs involved previously but not in quite this way.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Kat, i think it's perfectly natural your other dogs reacted in the way they did.
> Silly woman would have seen what happen if she had had her dog in sight.
> 
> Sarah i'm glad there's nothing sinister, but sad you are no closer to a resolution
> 
> Dogless, it sounds like both your boys had a fantastic time with you this morning and you have no reason for guilt what so ever, Kilo would not have been so focussed if he wasn't having fun. I knwo you find it hard to believe it but to Kilo your attention *IS*the good stuff.
> 
> We had a funny walk, I had the route and soem training bits all mapped out in my head and didn't achieve either :lol: Despite this it was a successful walk in other ways.
> 
> I have discovered if i have sardine cake in my pocket the dog walkers charges flying toward me and Tink are coming for me not her. I was sat on a tree stump waiting her Tink to sniff out the treats i'd hidden when i was mobbed. Tink made me laugh by trotting back to me and jumping on my lap. There was a time with would have freaked her out and she would have peeped out from behind a tree, She has met all the dogs involved previously but not in quite this way.


My attention is always the good stuff for the BW; doesn't like to be far from his human. He is still flat out snoring and really was engaged this morning so I'm sure he did have a nice walk, just different.

Amazing how much Tink's confidence has blossomed with your dedicated training; she's a fabulous girl. Hope you didn't get too trampled .


----------



## kat&molly

MV- Tink has gotten so brave. But maybe you should try taking Ration Packs out as treats, it'd keep the other dogs away -but not Miss Tink.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> My attention is always the good stuff for the BW; doesn't like to be far from his human. He is still flat out snoring and really was engaged this morning so I'm sure he did have a nice walk, just different.
> 
> Amazing how much Tink's confidence has blossomed with your dedicated training; she's a fabulous girl. Hope you didn't get too trampled .


Thankfully other than the GSD cross ( she's black so we dont' think Tink has realised) they were all medium or small so standing pretty much solved most of the mobbing except one who is on a diet and is so hungry she kept jumping up. ( the floaty dress would have been in tatters :lol

She really is doing so well, I forgot to say yesterday she was sniffed by Murphy who is a very beautful elderly GSD normally we do a wide walk by ( his owner is lovely and wonderfully understanding about nervous nelly) but yesterday bless her offlead, i started to walk wide expecting her to join me, she just stopped and turned her bum and waited to be sniffed. She is such a star.

Kat i love that idea, I'm going to start picking up the ones she loves to bring home and do some impulse control with, I'm a nutter,


----------



## kat&molly

Just thinking about that this morning, and walking lots of dogs together.I always say- I can because we dont have a problem with other dogs, but if I lived somewhere more populated I'd do much more seperate walks , whilst mine are normally  under control, you cant control wayward dogs as well.
Dont know what I could have done different because my concern was for Jay. Ignore me, just waffling aloud really. I think with multidogs , its not possible to always be in control.

Anyway, off out in a minute, Jay's a bit stiff she'll have to stay behind.


MV- for Tinks reward does she get a roll or a taste.:lol:


----------



## Beth17

Dogless you have nothing to feel guilty about. It sounds as if Kilo had a great non-stressed time. 

I do get what you mean about guilt though. I get it when out and Sam has to stay onlead for his safety whereas Oscar can get off for a run about. I am really hoping to do lots of different new walks with them this year as got a new books of walks through the post; however I know that on a lot of them Sam will have to stay onlead and that does make me feel mean and guilty as I worry he's missing out.

mv Tink is amazing and so are you. I wonder how many people would have gone to the lengths you have 

K&M I hope poor Jay is ok. I understand the others giving chase even if we don't really want them to.

Sarah really pleased there is nothing sinister. I hope they can get to the bottom of the pain though.

Well the sun has gone :thumbdown: but we had lovely weather for our walk and the boys are now shattered. Took a completely different route down along the beach, although the tide was right in, and along a short stretch of coastal path before going in a loop to get back home. Had a good hour and half out and they were well behaved if rather excitable and looking like hooligans when they realised we were in a new area  They calmed down eventually though which was something.

On the way back we cut across a small park and around the corner were a couple of unsavoury characters who asked if I had something or other. I said no tried to move the boys on and guess who decided to lie down and attempt to roll :hand: I do feel safe with boys though as they can look intimidating when they want to so I wasn't too worried.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Just thinking about that this morning, and walking lots of dogs together.I always say- I can because we dont have a problem with other dogs, but if I lived somewhere more populated I'd do much more seperate walks , whilst mine are normally  under control, you cant control wayward dogs as well.
> Dont know what I could have done different because my concern was for Jay. Ignore me, just waffling aloud really. I think with multidogs , its not possible to always be in control.
> 
> Anyway, off out in a minute, Jay's a bit stiff she'll have to stay behind.
> 
> MV- for Tinks reward does she get a roll or a taste.:lol:


It's hard k&m isn't it? At present I'm OK because I only have to call Kilo and get him under control and Rudi won't move from my side - I am well aware that he may well start to bugger off / do his own thing though very soon. One reason for today being separate was the narrow, twisty paths - OK on leads but I was wary of Kilo becoming anxious and passing that to Rudi and that second dog would have made him anxious I'm certain. I don't think you could have done any different today - you can't control what others do, just try and mitigate when you know that something is likely to happen....and you couldn't have done any more today.


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

Working on Wait/Retrieve. He managed it at training club last night but I'd never done it before so I took him over the field today and had a go outside.
He really seems to be a natural at this as it took no training at all really.

Wait Retrieve - YouTube


----------



## Twiggy

FEJA JUODAS said:


> the barking control again...sigh...
> 
> dogs seem to love to be useful..;sitting on balconies barking at anything that moves in distance occupies them enormously...
> 
> *and in the car one of my dogs adores challenging oncoming traffic especially lorries...barking and lunging...sigh...*
> 
> they have to relearn the order to stop barking...giving them a pet for looking at me when barking for attention for a few seconds then trying to distract them...and finally yelling to shut up ! sigh !


Teach him a down stay and then apply it to the car - by far the best way to stop him barking and lunging at traffic, which is highly distracting and dangerous for the driver.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> It's hard k&m isn't it? At present I'm OK because I only have to call Kilo and get him under control and Rudi won't move from my side - I am well aware that he may well start to bugger off / do his own thing though very soon. One reason for today being separate was the narrow, twisty paths - OK on leads but I was wary of Kilo becoming anxious and passing that to Rudi and that second dog would have made him anxious I'm certain. I don't think you could have done any different today - you can't control what others do, just try and mitigate when you know that something is likely to happen....and you couldn't have done any more today.


Well normally mine recall - but I didn't call them. I wasn't in control of me nevermind the dogs  In an ideal world, I'd have called them first but in my panic...
Wonder how 'dog walkers' manage lots of dogs.

Beth- Let me guess...Sam  Loved the pics, Sam is so tall, and that vid, he was pushing his luck there.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Well normally mine recall - but I didn't call them. I wasn't in control of me nevermind the dogs  In an ideal world, I'd have called them first but in my panic...
> Wonder how 'dog walkers' manage lots of dogs.
> 
> Beth- Let me guess...Sam  Loved the pics, Sam is so tall, and that vid, he was pushing his luck there.


You did fine k&m, you weren't to know what would happen.

The 'professional' dog walkers that I met where I used to live just let groups of 10 - 12 dogs chase a terrified Kilo whilst telling me it was good for his socialisation  and saying that 'they won't do a thing for me anyway' when I got angry and they tried to recall . They were aged about 18 and 20 and said that they did it for the money as something to do that didn't involve working for others. Another used to have clients' dogs travelling in the front of the van unrestrained :nonod:.

There's a dog walker who comes to training class with his own dog and he seems as if he'd be very good from what he says. Only takes a few dogs and is a really natural 'dog person' - they all love him.


----------



## BessieDog

Had a better walk today! :thumbup1:

Took us nearly twice as long as usual, but concentrated on getting a better walk along the road part (lots of stopping and calling back to heel), and then when we got to the fields everytime she pulled forwards I just stopped instead of letting her pull like a steam train the whole way. I'd taken a squeaky toy which got her attention exactly once!

She started to get the hang of going to the end of the flexi, and then coming back a bit - actually a much better walk for her as she ends up going twice the distance, and better for me as my arms not being pulled out the socket! 

The pheasant still got her lunging, but luckily I saw it at the same time and got the brake on before she got up any speed - still managed to pull me a few steps though. Couldn't get her attention back for a time, so it was back to short lead and walking at heel (well, dragging her back to my side more like, but at least she couldn't pull me off my feet like that).

She started at a blackbird later on, but interestingly gave up chasing it as soon as she realised what it was. Apparently it's game birds she's after. Oh, and seagulls - we had a pair of those flying way up in the sky and she raced to chase those.  I don't think she's got any height perception, unless she thinks they are going to drop out of the sky (which actually, a trained gun dog would think, but I really can't believe that that could be instinct).

But at least I didn't come back feeling I wanted to cry today - yesterday I was thinking that I wasn't able to walk my dog!

I need to find something that will distract her attention - unfortunately food won't work.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> You did fine k&m, you weren't to know what would happen.
> 
> The 'professional' dog walkers that I met where I used to live just let groups of 10 - 12 dogs chase a terrified Kilo whilst telling me it was good for his socialisation  and saying that 'they won't do a thing for me anyway' when I got angry and they tried to recall . They were aged about 18 and 20 and said that they did it for the money as something to do that didn't involve working for others. Another used to have clients' dogs travelling in the front of the van unrestrained :nonod:.
> 
> There's a dog walker who comes to training class with his own dog and he seems as if he'd be very good from what he says. Only takes a few dogs and is a really natural 'dog person' - they all love him.


That must have been awful for you and Kilo. I dont think people realise just how powerful and fast dogs can be.

These things do shake you up.


----------



## Symone

Dogless - You shouldn't feel guilty. I would had done the same if I were you.  I'm happy that you had a good training session with Kilo!

So, I tried calling the instructor.. No answer so left a message! Typical, lol.

Worked on Stay today without saying it, I got her to sit, treated her, then stepped away while facing her, then treat. Got to 5 steps away, I'm proud of her.  
Also did it with "lay down" and she got it with that, too. 
She did try to follow if I turned the other way, however she is doing well for this being the first time like so without a stay command or hand signal. I am quite proud of her... 

We have a friend over, too... Shamaya has a new best friend! He plays with her ALL of the time! (Also hit me in the head twice with her toy...  ) She loves him.  
However she doesn't understand that she isn't allowed to steal his food, so she is crated during meal times with a yummy kong. 

It was also cute, last night.. She was sitting by the living room door (He slept in the living room) wanting to play with him again! She soon came in to the bedroom when she realised it was bed time. 

Also, this morning she seems to have remembered toilet training again! (went through a small blip where she seemed to have forgotten that she is supposed to toilet outside - we just took her out more often and she got lots of praise) We got up at a very late time of 10am. (we were up until like 2amish), got her collar on and straight out. No wees or poos inside! I am quite proud of her.  
However... We have accidentally made the command for poop "poop face" because she gets this face right before she poops! I actually have a photo... I shall look for it! (It was an accidental photo)










So, yeah. Proud of her, today.  
She just woke up and is already harassing our friend with her green tug.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah - really pleased the scan showed nothing sinister, although frustrating not knowing what the problem is.

K&M - Considering the situation there is nothing you could have done differently. When owners are in the wrong, they will always look for excuses and try and blame somebody else.

Beth - Really jealous that you have the nice weather. It has stopped snowing here but it's windy and freezing cold.

Hubby has just treated me to a fish and chip dinner in a small town to the north of here. It's a restaurant that's been in the same family since the dark ages and they sure know how to cook fish in batter!!

Dogless - I'm not superwoman. If I went beep, beep, beep with the Chuckit ball I wouldn't have a arm left. Holly's bad enough now...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Sarah - really pleased the scan showed nothing sinister, although frustrating not knowing what the problem is.
> 
> K&M - Considering the situation there is nothing you could have done differently. When owners are in the wrong, they will always look for excuses and try and blame somebody else.
> 
> Beth - Really jealous that you have the nice weather. It has stopped snowing here but it's windy and freezing cold.
> 
> Hubby has just treated me to a fish and chip dinner in a small town to the north of here. It's a restaurant that's been in the same family since the dark ages and they sure know how to cook fish in batter!!
> 
> Dogless -* I'm not superwoman*. If I went beep, beep, beep with the Chuckit ball I wouldn't have a arm left. Holly's bad enough now...


Remember this?


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> I may not know much about dog training but I do know my dog and even I could see that forcing him to lie down like that was only going to make him more anxious and was only going to make him less inclined to lie down in future - so I ignored the advice.
> 
> It is difficult as I do want to find a training class as it does do him so much good to learn to work calmly around other dogs, but then so many classes are just interested in using quick fixes that it just becomes counter-productive...


I'll have a think about a suitable class in your area - I know quite a few trainers out your way.

I have to say that on occasions I've resorted to quick fixes because most of the handlers that come here expect a magic wand to fix whatever went wrong in the ring the previous week-end, and they are not prepared to put the hard work in or back track for a while. Rosettes on the brain I'm afraid.


----------



## Symone

BessieDog - Have you tried having a toy only for outside play? 
It's one of the suggestions that someone (sorry, can't remember who) gave me when I was asking for advice on Shamayas pulling.  (She tends to ignore treats when out, however now at a much slower pace she takes them... sometimes.  We're slowly getting there... lol!)


----------



## GingerRogers

Groan - you lot natter too much, I don't have time to go back over it all, I don't have time to natter at all TBH.

Sorry Dogless  me & OH went for another walk today somewhere different. With sheep  Ginge was pretty good, up on her toes a bit but refocused when asked, she is used to them as they used to have orphans running round her old garden but she is used to being able to run about with them  so she did good really.

Sarah glad you had a positive result, wonder what is up  especially if it isn't cyclical. Do you haev pictures for the mantlepiece :001_tongue:

Dogless - sounds like your boys had lovely days each, how many more forests has Kilo been to?? But what if Rudi went back and gloated  perhaps Kilo said 'ah but she prefers to play with me' 

Kat sorry to hear about your encounter and hope Jay is ok (whats the story with Jay as you dont mention her much and you said 'as she was home') personally I think its perfectly understandable they took offence on Jays behalf its just a shame the owner didn't see the first part. What does she mean anyway when in france.....we let our dogs run about out of control and attack others TBF that first bit is true in Brittany where our friends live.

Rory was always the opposite with Rosie dog, although he would go for certain dogs (the biggest meanest looking ones you can imagine generally  I think they had their own invisible posturing going on to determine who was the bravest) Rosie dog is a spikey old thing and would launch at anything just for looking at her or her human. Rory normally waded in on her as if to say 'FGS pull yourself together woman' but then he had been on the receiving end of her spikes, but only the once did he let her get the better of him, by then end she was positively reverent  in fact this was taken about 18mths ago probably just after he had sat on her head by accident  two men and their dogs doing what they love


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Remember this?


Oh my a blast from the past "Supergran"

Bessiedog, Glad you had a better walk. Bess probably over theshold and completely focussed when she sees a pheasant and will ignore treats/toys, Working on her impulse control will help her learn to make good decisions.

I know you are doing rigcraft but i dont' where she's at with other training. Things like asking for a sit before she can have her meals. sit before you open the door etc Asking her to wait before fetching ( placing the toy is less stimulating than throwing to start) helping her to learn to control herself and make good decisions.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Oh my a blast from the past "Supergran"
> 
> Bessiedog, Glad you had a better walk. Bess probably over theshold and completely focussed when she sees a pheasant and will ignore treats/toys, Working on her impulse control will help her learn to make good decisions.
> 
> I know you are doing rigcraft but i dont' where she's at with other training. Things like asking for a sit before she can have her meals. sit before you open the door etc *Asking her to wait before fetching ( placing the toy is less stimulating than throwing to start) helping her to learn to control herself and make good decisions.*


This has been especially helpful for 'Born To chase' Kilo. I never thought I'd see the day when he would sit and I'd chuck a toy all around him and only release him to get it now and again, get a 'down' as he's running out to his toy or Dizzy could run all around him squeaking a toy and barking and he'd just focus on me and the tug I have. All the 'Ready.... Steady" stuff has been brilliant. Maybe Bess would like all that stuff Bessiedog? It really does help.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry MV I meant to say what a brave girl Miss Tink was. I was only saying I never have anything to say about you, lol, then I forget when I do.

I would second the impulse control games. I don't know what you actually do Bess but from your posts it sounds like its easiest for you to take her out in the fields on her flexi. If you don't already a few more short lead training walks wouldn't do her any harm I know they sound boring but when the dog 'gets' it they are anything but. Anyway impulse control, we have done a fair bit on this and she has really improved. We saw a rabbit  today, it ran out in front of us. Now fair play she was on the lead, if she had been off lead who knows, but she paused before launching after it and if I had needed to and been quick enough I reckon I could have stopped even that, she didn't lunge after it though.

I forgot to say we showed hubby the training exercises we have been doing by practicing on sheep  he was very impressed ad saw that she is turning almost automatically now. :smile5:


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- the dogs have that look on their faces as if to say' pfft we're in here again.

I know it always sounds like I leave Jay out- I dont honest, she goes with OH to work mostly. Even though she's 'our' dog, she is more bonded to him.


----------



## BessieDog

moonviolet said:


> Oh my a blast from the past "Supergran"
> 
> Bessiedog, Glad you had a better walk. Bess probably over theshold and completely focussed when she sees a pheasant and will ignore treats/toys, Working on her impulse control will help her learn to make good decisions.
> 
> I know you are doing rigcraft but i dont' where she's at with other training. Things like asking for a sit before she can have her meals. sit before you open the door etc Asking her to wait before fetching ( placing the toy is less stimulating than throwing to start) helping her to learn to control herself and make good decisions.


No point asking her to sit before her meals - whatever you put in her bowl she won't even look at - maybe she'll deign to wander over after a few minutes... or maybe not! If you do ask her to sit she'll watch you put the bowl down, and then will walk out of the room. Unless it's rabbit, when her bum's on the floor ready waiting for it. Never known a dog like it.  (she is eating the right amount now, so I'm not worried about that anymore - we've just had to adapt to her rather strange eating habits!)

She has to sit before I open the door to the kitchen (from outside) - either she'll do this herself or I just stand and cross my arms which seems to be a good signal. She sits for a treat (and will sometimes sit as a hint for one), her sit stays in house and garden are good, and we're working on down stay. She knows the 'leave it' command at home, but doesn't seem able to apply it to anything outside the house. I've not tried asking her to wait before fetching, but I'll give that a go!

I have just realised that she seems to have remembered what the word 'no' means - maybe she's starting to be less of a teenager. It's surprising how it takes you by surprise after months of being ignored when you say 'no', how suddenly it works. Little steps, eh?


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Ginge- the dogs have that look on their faces as if to say' pfft we're in here again.
> 
> I know it always sounds like I leave Jay out- I dont honest, she goes with OH to work mostly. *I see I expect shes the good one as well * Even though she's 'our' dog, she is more bonded to him.


 that was Rorys default I need sympathy face towards the end. Rosie actually has one spiky eye on me in a very typical collie way, its not that clear on the post, they didn't mind honest, Rosie is 'happy'  wherever her human is, (he is actually convinced she needs to go there, if he is away and we walk her he actually asks us to take her down there as 'she will miss it' :nonod as was Rory but pub meant fusses from *everyone * hence the I am so hard done by face just to suck a few more in.

Actually now I know a bit about dog language I feel terrible about the poor old boy


----------



## moonviolet

:lol: Bess Bess Bess

ALl the things can be tailored to the things your particular dog wants. Impulse control for food is harder for my dog , for my mum's young dog it's toys.

There are other things. Like getting out of the car when invited, not leaping out the minute the door is open 

when out on walks the flexi isn't unlocked until she is walking nicely and giving you attention. then it's released for a while for her to sniff. then after a while if you feel she's becoming ( for wnat of a better word)disconnected from you, shorten it again and get that focus back etc otherwise there is a danger of when its long she can do just what she pleases. ( I hope that makes sense I'm quite rubbish at explaining) 

I do a similar thing although Tink is mainly offlead I still have periods when she is called in close for a game some training so we have periods of interaction.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :lol: Bess Bess Bess
> 
> ALl the things can be tailored to the things your particular dog wants. Impulse control for food is harder for my dog , for my mum's young dog it's toys.
> 
> There are other things. Like getting out of the car when invited, not leaping out the minute the door is open
> 
> when out on walks the flexi isn't unlocked until she is walking nicely and giving you attention. then it's released for a while for her to sniff. then after a while if you feel she's becoming ( for wnat of a better word)disconnected from you, shorten it again and get that focus back etc otherwise there is a danger of when its long she can do just what she pleases. ( I hope that makes sense I'm quite rubbish at explaining)
> 
> I do a similar thing although Tink is mainly offlead *I still have periods when she is called in close for a game some training so we have periods of interaction.*


I do this too....when I start to 'lose' Kilo to hunting or "looking for trouble" - just hunting for stuff to do . I do however have the problem that, once a toy comes out he pesters me for it for the rest of the walk so have started to do stuff for food instead!


----------



## Twiggy

*Bessiedog *I'm very much with Moonviolet and Dogless on impulse control and basic training.

About 15 minutes basic training (sit, down, leave, heelwork, etc. etc.) makes all the difference and the dogs enjoy using their brains if the techniques are applied correctly.


----------



## Guest

Ah, the launching forward at stuff thing. I feel your pain bessiedog I really really do. I have actually damaged my wrist into swelling due to a lunge with Zand. Twice, actually when I think of it. And my knee's. :lol: 
He does have impulse control with food though. I 'dropped' some earlier and told him to wait and he did! 

I have started to notice that he paces alot though. And he shows the whites of his eyes alot. Like when he's being stroked (even by me) and I am noticing alot of yawns and lip licking over mundane things such as being stroked, direct eye contact from me etc. I hadn't noticed before. 

We had a nice "sniffy" walk. Which is a slow doddley walk with lots of sniffing done. He likes them. 

Met so many damn dogs this morning. Eurgh. And I've realised that nobody even looks at your when you graciously move your dog into a sit or something so they can pass let alone saying thank you. I got nothing but glares this morning. And lots of children being clung to by their mothers at the sight of the obviously "Vicious" dog. Jesus christ can't do nothing right. 

Oh and I've realised that I get tense when I walk other peoples dogs and I see a dog. I was like it with a friends spaniel who's ya know 'normal' and can just walk past another dog fine and what have you and I saw another dog and I tensed and froze! :lol: 
And today mum was like "There's a cat following us." and I tensed up and she then told me off because wasn't actually a cat there but she just wanted to know how I would react. :crying:

I hope Jay's alright K and M. 
And Rory is bloody beautiful. :001_tt1: But that face he's pulling? Zand does that 99.9% of the time.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Bessiedog *I'm very much with Moonviolet and Dogless on impulse control and basic training.
> 
> About 15 minutes basic training (sit, down, leave, heelwork, etc. etc.) makes all the difference and the dogs enjoy using their brains if the techniques are applied correctly.


It took me soooooo long to truly get Kilo 'switched on' - sure you remember the post on here Twiggy  . He had always done as I'd asked and done fine at 'school' Bessiedog when we did the basics, but I found what really fired him up and he is a different dog - really animated about training; this morning he wanted to do more and more and watched me the whole time. I NEVER thought he'd be doing 'downs' on grass where I see rabbits every evening without him engaging nose and wandering off .


----------



## Kicksforkills

Trying to decide between Twix and Eddie.

Also, research research research of course


----------



## Sarah1983

Impulse control around anything is difficult for Spencer :nonod: Lots of mat work here and we've just started Crate Games too (Twiggy, still trying to figure out what you hated about that and the only thing I can think of is the collar grab  ) and Spencer is definitely getting better. Lots of Premacking too, he does something for me then he can go do something he likes to do. We're also working on him not grabbing at stuff in my hands, he's getting a little too insistent on taking things off me to carry them and needs to learn that he can only do it when give permission. I also bring Spen in and do training with him when we're out and about. Not long stretches but a couple of sits, downs, a recall or two, just something to get him focused back on me and less likely to go selectively deaf.

Out on the flexi or long line if it goes tight then we don't move until it's loosened again. Spen's getting the idea. We also do quite a bit of Choose to Heel, both around the flat and outside it and he's starting to offer it quite a bit on walks. Only a few steps here and there but it's a start and he'd probably be much better at it if I'd actually put more work in 

Sorry GR, no boob pictures to go with the brain pictures. Quite disappointing really :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Bess, greatest respect but you sound a bit defeatist 

I think I can say this, as I do/have done exactly the same, I come on here and ask for advice and someone like Twiggy will say do this and this and I say no that wont work because..........then I think about it and try it or adapt and we have a something that works.

It isn't easy by any means when you have a dog that challenges you.

Your mum LO , why can't she just help boost your confidence, Mums can be very mean sometimes  I really hope you get some answers from your behaviourist, have you managed to get any time off so YOU can be there the whole time  it does sound like perhaps something happened to him when off on one of his 'jaunts' I know it didn't kick in right after but it could have been something triggered a memory or something  if he isn't enjoying attention (I know its hard) can you try not giving it unless he comes and asks on his terms rather than forcing it.

And Rory was a loverly old boy :crying:


----------



## Beth17

Ok seeing as we're on impulse control. Is the boys over excitement and pyulling ahead when out on new walks down lo lack of lead manners (which wouldn't surprise me as this is still a work in progress), or due to lack of self/impulse control.

I expect it's probably both.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well, it's new they probably want to explore and get where they're going quicker!


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## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> Ok seeing as we're on impulse control. Is the boys over excitement and pyulling ahead when out on new walks down lo lack of lead manners (which wouldn't surprise me as this is still a work in progress), or due to lack of self/impulse control.
> 
> I expect it's probably both.


Those things are intermingled and if they find new places exciting it's a bit like asking for post graduate level behaviour 

Ironically Tink is the opposite new places are always a little scary so she tends to be uber close and terribly well behaved.


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Bess, greatest respect but you sound a bit defeatist
> 
> I think I can say this, as I do/have done exactly the same, I come on here and ask for advice and someone like Twiggy will say do this and this and I say no that wont work because..........then I think about it and try it or adapt and we have a something that works.
> 
> It isn't easy by any means when you have a dog that challenges you.
> 
> Your mum LO , why can't she just help boost your confidence, Mums can be very mean sometimes  I really hope you get some answers from your behaviourist, have you managed to get any time off so YOU can be there the whole time  it does sound like perhaps something happened to him when off on one of his 'jaunts' I know it didn't kick in right after but it could have been something triggered a memory or something  if he isn't enjoying attention (I know its hard) can you try not giving it unless he comes and asks on his terms rather than forcing it.
> 
> And Rory was a loverly old boy :crying:


What was rory? A Staffi cross?

And I think mum only did it because she thinks that alot of it is me being nervous or twitchy which doesn't help Zand with the lungey/trying to back out or collar behaviour. She has been coming on walks with me though and she walked him on her own yesterday!!

I'll try not to force it, but today when I was in bed (He's been starting the night in my room but if I move suddenly, he goes into the living room on his own) he clambered on top of me and lay there and when I stroked him he started to lick his lips/yawn/whale at me.

Oh and when I was away, mum tried to put him in the living room for the night, but he ended up in with her, because when she shut our bedroom doors (bungalow so only one hallway for ALL the rooms) so she could lure him into the living room, she said his tail went to his belly and he began to shake really violently.

Also what if he doesn't be nervous for the behaviourist? O-o

He actually went in his crate when I told him today which was nice. He's asleep next to me on the bed now.

I think I shall have to bath him/smother him in wet wipes cause he doesn't smell none too nice.

It's kinda annoying that we got to 16/17 months with barely any issues (the whole excitement/lunging/staring at other dogs isn't that big of an issue, we're working on it) then BAM, there was peeing while lying down, then the anxiety explosions at the vets and stuff. :huh:

But hey ho, at least I can say that for a First dog of my own, it's been an experience. :hand:


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> Ok seeing as we're on impulse control. Is the boys over excitement and pyulling ahead when out on new walks down lo lack of lead manners (which wouldn't surprise me as this is still a work in progress), or due to lack of self/impulse control.
> 
> *I expect it's probably both*.


I suspect it might be . When working on lead manners round here we get places so slowly because as soon as we get to a patch of pavement she hasn't sniffed yet just 'today' its excitement overdrive, pull, pull, rabbit jumping, we turn round, nothing, we already know that bit  mum, back again, oh heres a new bit, turn, nothing, back again and all is well till we get to the next new bit and so on. But eventually she got it and now, not quite no matter where, but if I really try she understands almost, well shes better :001_tongue:.

So yeah if they aren't very good on lead anyway and its all new exciting smells its going to be hard, I don't envy you that must be some pull they have combined


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## Dogless

Well, both dogs are still sparked out - Kilo's always like this after having to engage his brain....and Rudi zoomed for an hour .

Beth - what mv said. I've found with the boys so far that holding them on short leads and practising "walk nice" (why did I call it that . Sounds like when people say "be nice" before their dog tries to take your dog's head off ) and then allowing them to roam once they realise I'm there works in the main.....so far.....Rudi is still in his 'you are my world' phase before adolescence hits :nonod:.


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## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> What was rory? A Staffi cross? *Yes x collie *
> 
> And I think mum only did it because she thinks that alot of it is me being nervous or twitchy which doesn't help Zand with the lungey/trying to back out or collar behaviour. She has been coming on walks with me though and she walked him on her own yesterday!!
> 
> I'll try not to force it, but today when I was in bed (He's been starting the night in my room but if I move suddenly, he goes into the living room on his own) he clambered on top of me and lay there and when I stroked him he started to lick his lips/yawn/whale at me.
> 
> Oh and when I was away, mum tried to put him in the living room for the night, but he ended up in with her, because when she shut our bedroom doors (bungalow so only one hallway for ALL the rooms) so she could lure him into the living room, she said his tail went to his belly and he began to shake really violently.
> 
> Also what if he doesn't be nervous for the behaviourist? O-o
> 
> He actually went in his crate when I told him today which was nice. He's asleep next to me on the bed now.
> 
> I think I shall have to bath him/smother him in wet wipes cause he doesn't smell none too nice.
> 
> It's kinda annoying that we got to 16/17 months with barely any issues (the whole excitement/lunging/staring at other dogs isn't that big of an issue, we're working on it) then BAM, there was peeing while lying down, then the anxiety explosions at the vets and stuff. :huh:
> 
> But hey ho, at least I can say that for a First dog of my own, it's been an experience. :hand:


He is certainly that ^^^ but thats good right MV :001_tongue:

Sounds like he will be very nervous with the behaviourist and if she is any good she will spot the signs even if he is on best behaviour. I know we shouldn't speculate but it sounds so like someone perhaps tried to grab him and shut him up somewhere or something poor lamb, if only they could talk 

Mums I know they mean well but sometimes sheesh you just want them to hold you hand and keep quiet, mine is being a royal PITA  with the whole 'your husband isn't at work, AGAIN' thing - do ya think I don't feel the things you say I just want hugs, MUUUUM! Moan about him when I haven't phoned you up for a shoulder to cry on, when I am feeling stronger.

If it make you feel better I am becoming increasingly convinced that a lot of Ginges extremes of behaviour are down to her picking up on my body responses, big bloody vicious circles


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> He is certainly that ^^^ but thats good right MV :001_tongue:
> 
> Sounds like he will be very nervous with the behaviourist and if she is any good she will spot the signs even if he is on best behaviour. I know we shouldn't speculate but it sounds so like someone perhaps tried to grab him and shut him up somewhere or something poor lamb, if only they could talk
> 
> Mums I know they mean well but sometimes sheesh you just want them to hold you hand and keep quiet, mine is being a royal PITA  with the whole 'your husband isn't at work, AGAIN' thing - do ya think I don't feel the things you say I just want hugs, MUUUUM! Moan about him when I haven't phoned you up for a shoulder to cry on, when I am feeling stronger.
> 
> If it make you feel better I am becoming increasingly convinced that* a lot of Ginges extremes of behaviour are down to her picking up on my body responses*, big bloody vicious circles


I know Kilo's are - quite hard to change your own responses though isn't it? I know I hold my breath a lot passing something I'm nervous of (with Kilo, not Rudi) and have to force myself to breathe. Also noticed I hold my right arm up stiffly rather than leaving it relaxed. The clicking of the chain on the half check. The anxiety - infused voice. Christ no wonder the poor dog's a stress head at times. Today I'm happy and relaxed....guess who else is? .


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## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> He is certainly that ^^^ but thats good right MV :001_tongue:
> 
> Sounds like he will be very nervous with the behaviourist and if she is any good she will spot the signs even if he is on best behaviour. I know we shouldn't speculate but it sounds so like someone perhaps tried to grab him and shut him up somewhere or something poor lamb, if only they could talk
> 
> Mums I know they mean well but sometimes sheesh you just want them to hold you hand and keep quiet, mine is being a royal PITA  with the whole 'your husband isn't at work, AGAIN' thing - do ya think I don't feel the things you say I just want hugs, MUUUUM! Moan about him when I haven't phoned you up for a shoulder to cry on, when I am feeling stronger.
> 
> If it make you feel better I am becoming increasingly convinced that a lot of Ginges extremes of behaviour are down to her picking up on my body responses, big bloody vicious circles


Gotta love Mums!!

I think someone may have tried to grab him, but probably so they could return him home. I remember once a man told me that Zand was in his conservatory as he couldn't hold him still long enough to read the tag as Zand was bouncing so much!!

I think they do pick up body responses to a point.

Sadly I am in the cateragory of "PANNIC WORRY PANIC OVER NOTHING PANIIICCCCCC STATIONS" Probably another factor in the failing of several driving tests. ( I have given up on that!)

I think I'm gonna do a CBT in the summer and get around on a moped.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> I think I'm gonna do a CBT in the summer and get around on a moped.


Hope you aren't planning on doing a 5headh and sticking Zander in a box on the back :001_tongue:


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Hope you aren't planning on doing a 5headh and sticking Zander in a box on the back :001_tongue:


No....Zander will have his own sidecar like Grommit .


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## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Ok seeing as we're on impulse control. Is the boys over excitement and pyulling ahead when out on new walks down lo lack of lead manners (which wouldn't surprise me as this is still a work in progress), or due to lack of self/impulse control.
> 
> I expect it's probably both.


I'd go with both.

Spens problem is that he tends to forget I exist on leash walks. I seem to have conditioned him to pay attention to me off leash and ignore me on leash. Which is the opposite of what most people manage to do  So we're working on paying attention to the human. Doesn't matter what he does, if he acknowledges my presence it's click, reward (sometimes a treat, sometimes an "off you go" so he can sniff for a few minutes).

Hmm...I seem to be working on a lot of things don't I? Maybe I should focus on one or two of them for now. Jack of all trades, master of none and all that lol.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> I'll have a think about a suitable class in your area - I know quite a few trainers out your way.
> 
> I have to say that on occasions I've resorted to quick fixes because most of the handlers that come here expect a magic wand to fix whatever went wrong in the ring the previous week-end, and they are not prepared to put the hard work in or back track for a while. Rosettes on the brain I'm afraid.


That would be great - I am working on stuff at home with him but I do like going to classes as it gives me something to work towards, plus I don't know enough to know if he is doing well or if I am doing everything wrong etc...

I see what you mean about people wanting a quick-fix, and I certainly see a fair amount of that attitude at competitions (and also at training classes), and they do seem to work for some dogs. I just found it frustrating that I am willing to put the work in (I know that we are never going to win rosettes for our obedience so) but just always felt pressured because we weren't progressing quickly enough.


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## Sarah1983

I want a quick fix for loose leash walking and recall. If anyone happens to find a magic wand please please let me borrow it.


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## moonviolet

LO i'm going to say soemthing completely off doggie topic and say
I think you are bloody brilliant, at your age I was a flaming nightmare. I think you are a sweet, sensitive, sensible, open hearted human being and you should be proud of yourself.


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## kat&molly

Beth- I bet the boys are much better on their own aren't they.
I hadn't got Moll's sorted when Scruff came, and she wasn't good anyway, then Evie came. :crying:
For mine I'm sure its the competition thing.


----------



## Beth17

kat&molly said:


> Beth- I bet the boys are much better on their own aren't they.
> I hadn't got Moll's sorted when Scruff came, and she wasn't good anyway, then Evie came. :crying:
> For mine I'm sure its the competition thing.


So much better even in new places. But like you it's almost as if they race and see who can get there the fastest


----------



## BessieDog

Hey guys, thanks. You've given me some great ideas! So glad I popped in because I was feeling defeated - not just defeatist! 

Bess has quite good manners really other than walking, so the things you've suggested that she does do (waits to be told to get out the car for example) have showed me she's not all bad. 

Not thought of it as impulse control before. It's nice to have some things to work on. 

Ringcraft tonight - we've not been for 4 weeks as she was in season. Be interesting to see how she behaves!


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## Dimwit

Sarah1983 said:


> I want a quick fix for loose leash walking and recall. If anyone happens to find a magic wand please please let me borrow it.


Can I have the magic wand after you please? I quite fancy one of those beautifully obedient Disney dogs...

Also, thanks to everyone for all the impulse control ideas - it is something I am doing quite a lot of work on with Sprocket, and something he finds very difficult (particularly when food or tennis balls are involved).


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## Twiggy

Just given the dogs their second walk and Leafy has raging diarrheoa again...

I've just emailed the Working Dog Company as they do an Allergy X hydrolised fish dog food and hope they get back to me quickly as I'm running out of foods that I haven't tried with her.

My vet is going to push Purina hydrolised soya and I really don't want to use it unless I have no alternative.

She's been on the Natural Dog Food Company Sensitive for about a year now but here we go again.....


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## Dogless

Oh no, poor Leafy. Not again Twiggy . Hope that you manage to get it under control again soon.


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## GingerRogers

Ooh poor Leafy, its very hard isn't it. We had Rorys diet under control with a peculiar mix of good, middle and very bad foods, but then I had a mother who very kindly looked after him occasionally


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## moonviolet

Poor Leafy  I hope you find find soemthing she can settle on again


----------



## MollySmith

OH Good God save me!:mad2::mad2:

Molly barks at cats (6 of them next door) so I said to OH let's buy some opaque window film, it's been known to stop it. So it arrived and I did one window. He says 'but we can't see out either' WTF??! Does he think there is a special human film as opposed to dog film. There is an episode of The League of Gentlemen where they have a cinema for cats and one for dogs. This is my life, I live in Royston Vasey. 

I am not trusting myself to speak at present. It cost over a £100 quid.

soz for rant, back to work for me for a bit and I'll catch up proper later


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> OH Good God save me!:mad2::mad2:
> 
> Molly barks at cats (6 of them next door) so I said to OH let's buy some opaque window film, it's been known to stop it. So it arrived and I did one window. *He says 'but we can't see out either' WTF??! Does he think there is a special human film as opposed to dog film*. There is an episode of The League of Gentlemen where they have a cinema for cats and one for dogs. This is my life, I live in Royston Vasey.
> 
> I am not trusting myself to speak at present. It cost over a £100 quid.
> 
> soz for rant, back to work for me for a bit and I'll catch up proper later


:lol::lol::lol:.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> He says 'but we can't see out either' WTF??!


I'm sorry, but that made me laugh. A lot :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy, hope Leafy's tum settles soon.


----------



## GingerRogers

I just had a facebook message from my vets husband - do ya think I can swap architectural advice for a spay


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## Dogless

So; a problem with Rudi that I need to nip in the bud immediately. Kilo took longer to finish his chew than Rudi the other day, Rudi flew at him aggressively and Kilo backed off so Rudi swallowed the last of the chew. I thought that it was a one off and it was the first time that they had had a pizzle together so assumed they were really high value and to give them when they were separated in the future. They will eat meals in the same room and have bones together without any signs of tension at all -even swap bones - BUT Kilo always finishes first apart from the pizzles the other day. Rudi will share long lasting chews like Stagbars with Kilo, no problem.

Tonight, I was getting the lamb ribs out and putting them into bowls with Kilo looking on patiently and Rudi flew at him again (noise, not contact) - Kilo ran out of the room and Rudi has never flown out of the kitchen and into the back garden so fast in his life - door opened and shoved out by me. He stayed out there whilst I fed Kilo. He had his afterwards.

Rudi does not have any issue whatsoever with people being around food and will try and give you his bones to hold etc. I can remove anything that I need to from his chops (safety wise) although do offer a swap when it's high value. He has given Kilo a small growl before when Kilo has approached his bowl after he's finished but never anything more and I tell Kilo to "leave" and he goes and lies down.

What else to do? Keep both out of the room when food is prepped? Leave a lead on Rudi so that he can be controlled?

Kilo guards neither toys or food against dogs or people so I haven't had to deal with this before. My concern is that he aggresses towards another dog whilst out and about when people are feeding treats as well - although Kilo has dropped treats before or Rudi has and they have found food on the ground together before and there has never been an issue. Same at puppy class when handlers are encouraged to give other dogs treats.

Thoughts please.


----------



## GingerRogers

I don't know dogless, couldn't read and run though, separate feeding is a start, but not a solution 

Has anything else been similar about these situations. It could be just really high value items. We have discovered the last few days that lamb is really smelly for a dog, Ginge has been getting bits of lamb heart for tea hidden about the house (on a saucer, don't panic ) she has been scenting it out really quickly, so I swapped it for chicken/ox as an experiment and confusion reigned again , with the lamb she runs into the sitting room at top speed and skids to a halt as she passes wherever it is past, chicken can take 5 mins . So the pizzle = nice yummy treat, lamb = nice stinky tea possibly??

Sure someone else will have a better idea.


----------



## Guest

moonviolet said:


> LO i'm going to say soemthing completely off doggie topic and say
> I think you are bloody brilliant, at your age I was a flaming nightmare. I think you are a sweet, sensitive, sensible, open hearted human being and you should be proud of yourself.


Awwwww mate, shuddup. :blush:  Thank you, though. All of you really for being just a nice bunch to natter to

Hahah Zander would have to go in a sidecar I think. (He'd look a proper cutie in goggles)

And dogless maybe just keep them outta the kitchen for a bit. I don't know really.

And can I have the recall wand please? Does it come with a "ignoring other dogs wand" too? :001_tt1:


----------



## kat&molly

I suppose Dogless, he's just trying it on isn't he  I've had it with Jay a couple of times- she's actually charged one of the others to pinch what they have, I've just made sure I've taken it straight back off her. It hasn't escalated at all- in fact now you mention it- it hasn't happened for a while.



LO- good to hear you sounding a bit happier.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> So; a problem with Rudi that I need to nip in the bud immediately. Kilo took longer to finish his chew than Rudi the other day, Rudi flew at him aggressively and Kilo backed off so Rudi swallowed the last of the chew. I thought that it was a one off and it was the first time that they had had a pizzle together so assumed they were really high value and to give them when they were separated in the future. They will eat meals in the same room and have bones together without any signs of tension at all -even swap bones - BUT Kilo always finishes first apart from the pizzles the other day. Rudi will share long lasting chews like Stagbars with Kilo, no problem.
> 
> Tonight, I was getting the lamb ribs out and putting them into bowls with Kilo looking on patiently and Rudi flew at him again (noise, not contact) - Kilo ran out of the room and Rudi has never flown out of the kitchen and into the back garden so fast in his life - door opened and shoved out by me. He stayed out there whilst I fed Kilo. He had his afterwards.
> 
> Rudi does not have any issue whatsoever with people being around food and will try and give you his bones to hold etc. I can remove anything that I need to from his chops (safety wise) although do offer a swap when it's high value. He has given Kilo a small growl before when Kilo has approached his bowl after he's finished but never anything more and I tell Kilo to "leave" and he goes and lies down.
> 
> What else to do? Keep both out of the room when food is prepped? Leave a lead on Rudi so that he can be controlled?
> 
> Kilo guards neither toys or food against dogs or people so I haven't had to deal with this before. My concern is that he aggresses towards another dog whilst out and about when people are feeding treats as well - although Kilo has dropped treats before or Rudi has and they have found food on the ground together before and there has never been an issue. Same at puppy class when handlers are encouraged to give other dogs treats.
> 
> Thoughts please.


Hmmm Rudi is beginning to feel his feet isn't he?

Yes I'd put him on a lead and yes you need to nip it in the bud now, before it escalates.

I'd have done the same as you, whether it's right or wrong. Rudi needs to learn that it isn't acceptable behaviour.

I had similar issues with Tremor going for Quiver and Leafy over food and toys at about the same age (possibly a bit younger). At the time I still had 15 yr old Fidget so Tremor was fed on her own in the hall and there wasn't much I could do about the toy issue with the old girl wandering about. It was as much as I could do to try and prevent Tremor knocking her over.

I was working at the time and doing a lot of instructing, plus I wasn't very well and the food issue came to a head one evening when my husband brushed by Tremor as she was eating and she growled and bit him on the leg. I basically lost my temper, minced into the hall, went up to her and she growled at me so I hurled the bowl of food one way up the hall and her the other and stood in the middle and said something like "go on then".
Not pretty but in this instance the short sharp shock treatment worked.

With regard to snatching toys off the other dogs and guarding them, I had to wait until Fidget had left us and then had about three days of intensive training. The toy box was removed from the lounge and I selected a toy each. Every time Tremor snatched one off either of the other dogs, I got off the sofa, took it from her and returned it to Leafy or Quiver saying something like "leave it, you have this one". I was up and down like a yoyo for about three days but Tremor got the message.

To be fair Tremor had too much free rein as a puppy, because it was so difficult coping with a great big fiesty pup and a 15 yr old who was very frail, especially as I wasn't feeling very well. Tremor's litter was bred for me but the timing was terrible and I didn't expect that dear old Fidget would still be with us when she arrived.

Happily by the time Tremor reached a year old she was a paragon of virtue and I've never had any issues with her since. They all eat together in the kitchen and she's fine with toys and chews.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> If your tired and anxious Oscar will undoubtedly pick up on it.
> 
> Hopefully he will adjust and as you say things are due to calm down shortly.
> 
> With regards to massage, I was also pretty crap at doing it when I attended the workshop back in November. I have the course notes which I could email to you if that's any help? The basic massage wasn't difficult and was really more or less stroking your dog in a certain way.


That would be really good, Twiggy - I did have a TTouch session with him a while back but I can't remember anything and have lost the notes.  I'm still not sure I'll be able to do it and it seems to be some kind of fine motor control thing (I struggle with buckles and laces more than a normal adult should :lol: - but then I get confused about that because I can draw!   ) But yes, I'll PM you my email address.

Oscar seems a bit better today. OH has noticed that he seems more anxious though too and we have decided to just be really consciously quiet and gentle with him for a few weeks. I do think he gets slightly worse after a long walk... aching muscles making a grumpy Oscar??

Dogless - mine resource guard food from each other, but just grump growls at most, a hard stare is generally the most violent it gets. Hugo once ended up trapped in the crate for the whole time Oscar ate a chew and some time after cos Oscar just stared him down every time he went to move.  :lol: To be honest I just let them get on with it as it isn't esculating and noone is getting bullied (they are fairly evenly matched in tenacity when it comes to food) But they don't grump with each other if *I* am still in possession of the food so I can't really advise from any experience re: what Rudi did the other day. I think you did right in how you responded though.

If Hugo has bullied something away from Oscar ever (a low-value chew or a toy Oscar will sometimes give up) I take it off Hugo and give back to Oscar. Oscar often doesn't actually want it back so I then let Hugo have it, but if Oscar does want it I just distract Hugo for a bit/get him on the sofa next to me for belly rubs and hold his collar if necessary until Oscar gets bored with it and then he can have it. I haven't had to do this for a while so I think Hugo got the message.

Sorry, all completely useless info.

We have class tonight!


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless  I dont know my lovely, I wish I did but hope you find a solution.

GR  I found the same with Molly! She doesnt bother much at all about chicken for her tea, we have Applaws at the moment but I got a Bob and lush sample box with duck and shes gone nuts for that. Chcken cant smell of much I guess?

L/C  I have a CBT as my OH is a biker and used to teach the training part-time, it is very useful to have. Any questions ask, Im sure hell be happy to help.

Dimwit  its a shame Cath doesnt do more classes beyond the puppy one. She did walkies at the Gogs but said it was so much trouble to do that she stopped. I would honestly ask her or if youd prefer not too, I dont mind asking for you. The ones we used were Cambridge Dogs and whilst they were not great for Molly they might suit little Dimwit. I didnt warm to Samantha at all, I found she lacked a lot of stuff that Cath know but I guess thats the difference in services but the other lady (Gemma?) was really useful. G3 are the ones to avoid  hes a cruel b*stard.

Twiggy  so sorry to hear about Leafy, what a nightmare. I hope the Working Dog Co food works, I have heard good reports of it. Paws crossed 


GR and LO  With you on the mums thing. Sometimes you just need a good old sob not a moan back dont you? My mums words when I told her I was infertile was Children arent all they are cracked up to be read into this what you will. If it helps, I agree LO you are doing so well and with so much maturity too. GR  ((hugs)) you are so patient, far far more than me.

Bess  I agree on impulse control. Molly has to perform a something for every treat, the most useful was clicking for waiting when I balance food on my hand. It just catches her attention enough to give her a few manners. Likewise we do wait between tuggies and it has helped her to just slow down a tad. I dont know if that helps?

Sorry if Ive missed anyone. 

I bring good news of a great walk with Molly. We used the headcollar around the park and she did wonderfully. Every. Single. Dog. No. Reaction. At. All! Whooooooopey doooodey! So delighted. Her LLW is awful so her head collar is essential. Were going to carry on for another month with lessons as its working so well, I feel weve got miles ahead of where we were in January so I want to keep going. The Saint trainer said this on her website about my dog this afternoon I had a fantastic lesson with a lurcher x on lead reactivity. She improves every week. It just goes to show you how with consistency, rewards and perseverance you can get there.

And the window film - ye Gods the man drives me mad. We have compromised after a heated discussion. Film on two side panels so I dont feel Ive wasted so much money, this is where the cats cross, a cat deterent in the front garden and the fence that I wanted to put up three years ago before Molly was even a thought will go up this month. Ill do it myself if I must but his manliness means he must apparently.


----------



## Kicksforkills

I'm sort of freaking out that even though we picked a name for the puppy because she said he looked like the name.

What are the chances of urning it down when she knows how good the breeder, pedigree and I am when we are at the breeders?

Honestly I thought she was sorted but then she just throws a "doesn't mean we will buy him" at me!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm Rudi is beginning to feel his feet isn't he?
> 
> Yes I'd put him on a lead and yes you need to nip it in the bud now, before it escalates.
> 
> I'd have done the same as you, whether it's right or wrong. Rudi needs to learn that it isn't acceptable behaviour.
> 
> I had similar issues with Tremor going for Quiver and Leafy over food and toys at about the same age (possibly a bit younger). At the time I still had 15 yr old Fidget so Tremor was fed on her own in the hall and there wasn't much I could do about the toy issue with the old girl wandering about. It was as much as I could do to try and prevent Tremor knocking her over.
> 
> I was working at the time and doing a lot of instructing, plus I wasn't very well and the food issue came to a head one evening when my husband brushed by Tremor as she was eating and she growled and bit him on the leg. I basically lost my temper, minced into the hall, went up to her and she growled at me so I hurled the bowl of food one way up the hall and her the other and stood in the middle and said something like "go on then".
> Not pretty but in this instance the short sharp shock treatment worked.
> 
> With regard to snatching toys off the other dogs and guarding them, I had to wait until Fidget had left us and then had about three days of intensive training. The toy box was removed from the lounge and I selected a toy each. Every time Tremor snatched one off either of the other dogs, I got off the sofa, took it from her and returned it to Leafy or Quiver saying something like "leave it, you have this one". I was up and down like a yoyo for about three days but Tremor got the message.
> 
> To be fair Tremor had too much free rein as a puppy, because it was so difficult coping with a great big fiesty pup and a 15 yr old who was very frail, especially as I wasn't feeling very well. Tremor's litter was bred for me but the timing was terrible and I didn't expect that dear old Fidget would still be with us when she arrived.
> 
> Happily by the time Tremor reached a year old she was a paragon of virtue and I've never had any issues with her since. They all eat together in the kitchen and she's fine with toys and chews.


Thanks Grannie, sense as ever.

I think he's just trying it on - they're eating cows' ears quite happily side by side now, moved close together. In fact Kilo has finished his first and walked past Rudi without even a look from either of them. I'm not hugely worried and he doesn't guard toys which is good - and guards nothing from people at all. I think I'll be able to sort it. Fingers crossed.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I don't know dogless, couldn't read and run though, separate feeding is a start, but not a solution
> 
> Has anything else been similar about these situations. It could be just really high value items. We have discovered the last few days that lamb is really smelly for a dog, Ginge has been getting bits of lamb heart for tea hidden about the house (on a saucer, don't panic ) she has been scenting it out really quickly, so I swapped it for chicken/ox as an experiment and confusion reigned again , with the lamb she runs into the sitting room at top speed and skids to a halt as she passes wherever it is past, chicken can take 5 mins . So the pizzle = nice yummy treat, lamb = nice stinky tea possibly??
> 
> Sure someone else will have a better idea.


Think that it is high value and Rudi is seeing what he can get away with. Luckily for him Kilo ran, tail between legs rather than retaliated BUT I'm not having Kilo bullied so Rudi isn't going to get away with it.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Ah Dogless what does this mean?! Is she just trying to mess wih me or does she want me to keep up the overly friendly and helpful attitude ?!

Share with me your pearls of wisdom!


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Ah Dogless what does this mean?! Is she just trying to mess wih me or does she want me to keep up the overly friendly and helpful attitude ?!
> 
> Share with me your pearls of wisdom!


Eh? Pearls of wisdom...me? I have none really bar....your Mum's house, your Mum's money......your Mum's rules. You'll just have to hope that she likes the pup and believes the time's right for another I think .


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> Eh? Pearls of wisdom...me? I have none really bar....your Mum's house, your Mum's money......your Mum's rules. You'll just have to hope that she likes the pup and believes the time's right for another I think .


Thank you for those pearls of wisdom oh mighty Dogless!

*chants* dogggg...less........dog.....less*chants*

See? I'm not used to being stressed.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Thank you for those pearls of wisdom oh mighty Dogless!
> 
> *chants* dogggg...less........dog.....less*chants*
> 
> See? I'm not used to being stressed.


I'll have a glass of whatever you're having please :w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Think that it is high value and Rudi is seeing what he can get away with. Luckily for him Kilo ran, tail between legs rather than retaliated BUT I'm not having Kilo bullied so Rudi isn't going to get away with it.


That's my girl - we have to be 'nasty' mummy sometimes (or in my case nasty old lady).....luv Grannie....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's my girl - we have to be 'nasty' mummy sometimes (or in my case nasty old lady).....luv Grannie....


It's OK Grannie, I can do 'firm' and they do listen as I so rarely have to. I can't have any behaviour that could escalate into serious stuff further down the line. Especially not at their size and strength. I think Rudi is just trying to be Cock O The Walk as all young lads do......


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> I'll have a glass of whatever you're having please :w00t:.


Sorry, my insanity has to sit in a wine cellar for a few decades first.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Sorry, my insanity has to sit in a wine cellar for a few decades first.


And the docs tell me I'm mad!!


----------



## Beth17

Twiggy I hope you can get poor Leafy sorted again.

MS I had to laugh at the window film comment. Really pleased you had such a good walk :thumbup1:

WH Glad to hear Oscar is a bit perkier today. Have a good class.

Bessiedog Glad you are feeling more positive again.

Dogless Can't add anything to the great advice you've had. Sam will occasionally try and take things off of Oscar who will then give a look or warning grumble and Sam will back down and just whinge. I've never had Oscar try it on with Sam, he'll have a quick sniff but Sam has never bothered about it. Most of the time now they sit side by side and chew.

I'm sure you'll get it sorted though


----------



## kat&molly

I've just finished reading 'Plenty in life is free' by Kathy Sdao.
Is it just me or was anyone else left feeling :crazy: :crazy:


----------



## Maria_1986

Too many pages for my braincell to cope with!

dogless - I hope that you find a way to deal with Rudi. 

MS - the window thing did make me laugh sorry - it just sounded a little like something I would say :blush:. If I waited for OH to take care of all the 'manly jobs' here I would be waiting until the next millennium! I love my tool box!

K&M - sorry that you had a bad walk, I hope poor Jay isn't too stiff as a result.

Twiggy - I hope Leafy is feeling better soon 

L/O - good luck with the CTB (the bike kind) if you are very panic over not much (I am too)have you thought of doing some CBT (the therapy kind) type stuff to help you stay calm, I have done quite a bit of CBT (therapy) to work on anxiety issues and its helped a lot to keep me calm in situations that would have triggered a major panic attack previously.


Tonights training session sort of turned into a game with me running round the flat and her following me with me then randomly getting her to sit, wait, down or recall. Her tail was wagging the whole time and she had a huge smile and a generally relaxed air about her. Probably not the best way to go about training but it was good fun.

She had her first hydro session today and was on the treadmill. she was a little worried to start with but once she worked out that if she walked on the strange wet thing that moved she got a treat she soon got the hang of it - it amazing what she will do for coachies

I expected a tired dog this evening and I was warned not to overdo it today too much so we have done a few shorter walks but no long one around the fields but she has been bouncy and full of energy tonight hence the charging around the flat. Once she had burnt off a bit of physical energy we worked on leave and I can now ask her to sit, drop a treat and leave and she will do it (for a rather quick count of 5)


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Twiggy I hope you can get poor Leafy sorted again.
> 
> MS I had to laugh at the window film comment. Really pleased you had such a good walk :thumbup1:
> 
> WH Glad to hear Oscar is a bit perkier today. Have a good class.
> 
> Bessiedog Glad you are feeling more positive again.
> 
> Dogless Can't add anything to the great advice you've had. Sam will occasionally try and take things off of Oscar who will then give a look or warning grumble and Sam will back down and just whinge. I've never had Oscar try it on with Sam, he'll have a quick sniff but Sam has never bothered about it. Most of the time now they sit side by side and chew.
> 
> I'm sure you'll get it sorted though


Mine have just chewed side by side again with their cows' ears - I think there was an element of excitement as well as high value stuff involved both times I've had troubles. With the pizzles I'd not long come home and tonight we'd been playing footie in the garden and Rudi in particular had been excited both times. I'm sure all will be fine, Rudi just needs reminding not to get too big for his boots!


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I've just finished reading 'Plenty in life is free' by Kathy Sdao.
> Is it just me or was anyone else left feeling :crazy: :crazy:


I have yet to read it....hope my tiny brain copes .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> I have yet to read it....hope my tiny brain copes .


Could be just me- I shouldn't read when I'm so tired. Waste of money really.:lol:

Well done to Chevy, Hydro as well, lucky girl. Hope it helps her hips.


----------



## Guest

Maria_1986 said:


> Too many pages for my braincell to cope with!
> 
> dogless - I hope that you find a way to deal with Rudi.
> 
> MS - the window thing did make me laugh sorry - it just sounded a little like something I would say :blush:. If I waited for OH to take care of all the 'manly jobs' here I would be waiting until the next millennium! I love my tool box!
> 
> K&M - sorry that you had a bad walk, I hope poor Jay isn't too stiff as a result.
> 
> Twiggy - I hope Leafy is feeling better soon
> 
> L/O - good luck with the CTB (the bike kind) if you are very panic over not much (I am too)have you thought of doing some CBT (the therapy kind) type stuff to help you stay calm, I have done quite a bit of CBT (therapy) to work on anxiety issues and its helped a lot to keep me calm in situations that would have triggered a major panic attack previously.
> 
> Tonights training session sort of turned into a game with me running round the flat and her following me with me then randomly getting her to sit, wait, down or recall. Her tail was wagging the whole time and she had a huge smile and a generally relaxed air about her. Probably not the best way to go about training but it was good fun.
> 
> She had her first hydro session today and was on the treadmill. she was a little worried to start with but once she worked out that if she walked on the strange wet thing that moved she got a treat she soon got the hang of it - it amazing what she will do for coachies
> 
> I expected a tired dog this evening and I was warned not to overdo it today too much so we have done a few shorter walks but no long one around the fields but she has been bouncy and full of energy tonight hence the charging around the flat. Once she had burnt off a bit of physical energy we worked on leave and I can now ask her to sit, drop a treat and leave and she will do it (for a rather quick count of 5)


Do you need a gp refferal? For the Cognitive bit?


----------



## Maria_1986

LurcherOwner said:


> Do you need a gp refferal? For the Cognitive bit?


if you want to sit down with someone and you don't want to go private then normally yes you will need to be referred by your GP, but there are also CBT workbooks that can be useful too(I have CBT for dummies which I have been back to a few times for various things)

Thanks K&M, we think it should help but just not sure how much yet.


----------



## MollySmith

I have had CBT for needle phobia and also to help me get over my abusive ex. it helped a lot


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Dimwit  its a shame Cath doesnt do more classes beyond the puppy one. She did walkies at the Gogs but said it was so much trouble to do that she stopped. I would honestly ask her or if youd prefer not too, I dont mind asking for you. The ones we used were Cambridge Dogs and whilst they were not great for Molly they might suit little Dimwit. I didnt warm to Samantha at all, I found she lacked a lot of stuff that Cath know but I guess thats the difference in services but the other lady (Gemma?) was really useful. G3 are the ones to avoid  hes a cruel b*stard.


I think Cath said she does classes for adult dogs, but not over winter so I think I'll just keep an eye out for that - there's no desperate hurry, it would just be good to feel like I am actually doing something with him...



> I bring good news of a great walk with Molly. We used the headcollar around the park and she did wonderfully. Every. Single. Dog. No. Reaction. At. All! Whooooooopey doooodey! So delighted. Her LLW is awful so her head collar is essential. Were going to carry on for another month with lessons as its working so well, I feel weve got miles ahead of where we were in January so I want to keep going. The Saint trainer said this on her website about my dog this afternoon *'I had a fantastic lesson with a lurcher x on lead reactivity. She improves every week. It just goes to show you how with consistency, rewards and perseverance you can get there.*


I saw this, and I was so pleased for you


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> I've just finished reading 'Plenty in life is free' by Kathy Sdao.
> Is it just me or was anyone else left feeling :crazy: :crazy:


I really disliked that book. Felt like I was having religion rammed down my throat for a good part of it :nonod:

Dogless, we had the occasional spat between Shadow and Wolf over high value stuff. We taught them to stay away from each others bowls and chews and yelled at them to knock it off on the rare occasion it did kick off. Never had a serious issue. Knowing what sort of things was likely to set them off (bones!) helped as did the fact Wolf was so submissive and would usually just back off until we dealt with Shadow being an a**hole.


----------



## BessieDog

Ringcraft was great tonight. They rotate trainers and this chap is only there every 6 weeks or so. Never remembers us - until tonight. I explained we hadn't been for 4 weeks so didn't know how it would go..... 

He did remember us from last time though, and after her first stand said I must have been practicing a lot!! (I hadn't -sort of wondered what some time off would do). 

The only thing she did wrong was after we'd run up and down he asked for a stand again. Now they don't ask for that in my breed - we just go back to the end of the line. Bess wouldn't stand, but she wasn't stressed or nasty - she jumped up at me as if to say 'we don't do that, mum!' 

Anyway, she stood after and he was impressed. I was chuffed with my girl - don't know what she'll be like at the show on Sunday though.


----------



## missnaomi

Puppy class with Toby was lovely... we've worked really hard to be ready...
and at the other side of the room was someone with a small terrier. And FOR ONCE IT WASN'T ME. It was so nice not to be the one with gremlin dog, the over excitable one, the one that wants to do it on his terms...and to be just really enjoying the class. I love Ringo, but he's been a steep learning curve and flipping hard work...and most of the time I honestly blamed myself - I thought I had made him the way he is, and maybe I didn't train him perfectly, or bring him out of it as quickly as I'd have liked. But some of it is definitely his personality...

So for any of you with the scaredy dog, the reactive dog, the over exuberant dog or the generally bonkers dog - I learnt today, it's not alway your fault! It did really bring home that different dogs have such different personalities and some are just "easier" than others.


----------



## Dogless

missnaomi said:


> So for any of you with the scaredy dog, the reactive dog, the over exuberant dog or the generally bonkers dog - I learnt today, it's not alway your fault! It did really bring home that different dogs have such different personalities and some are just "easier" than others.


Rudi has made me realise that they certainly are all different. Pleased it went well for you .


----------



## BessieDog

missnaomi said:


> Puppy class with Toby was lovely... we've worked really hard to be ready...
> and at the other side of the room was someone with a small terrier. And FOR ONCE IT WASN'T ME. It was so nice not to be the one with gremlin dog, the over excitable one, the one that wants to do it on his terms...and to be just really enjoying the class. I love Ringo, but he's been a steep learning curve and flipping hard work...and most of the time I honestly blamed myself - I thought I had made him the way he is, and maybe I didn't train him perfectly, or bring him out of it as quickly as I'd have liked. But some of it is definitely his personality...
> 
> So for any of you with the scaredy dog, the reactive dog, the over exuberant dog or the generally bonkers dog - I learnt today, it's not alway your fault! It did really bring home that different dogs have such different personalities and some are just "easier" than others.


Absolutely agree - and I've got an award to prove it. 

But sometimes it is us as well. Bess burst into the hall tonight knocking the door flying and proceeding to jump on everything... Dog...one whilst I was queuing to pay. I was apologising as normal. Then, getting fed up I said 'SIT'. And to my surprise she did! . Turns out she can be better behaved -she just needs me to tell her what to do.

Don't you just love 'em.


----------



## Thorne

Gosh, this thread has grown today!

Bessiedog -Best of luck with Bess, you'll get there but in the meantime tea and chocolate is probably a good plan!

Feja -Hope you manage to crack the barking and lunging.

K&M -What a morning  I'm not surprised the others pitched in and gave chase, hope Jay isn't too black and blue.

Sarah -Glad the scan results were positive 

MV -Brave girl Tink! Her antics do make me smile.

Symone -I thought you'd cloned Shamya at first glance at that photo!

KFK -Eddie gets my vote.

Twiggy -Poor Leafy  hope she recovers quickly.

Speaking of sidecars, my dad has this grand idea that "if"(!) he lives to retire, he's going to get himself a Border Collie which will ride in his sidecar  If he were to get a Collie anything like the last one it'll be far too interested in the bike wheels to stay put for long!
Hope he doesn't go out and get a Collie, he wouldn't walk or train it...

My eyes are very sore so not going to read or like further tonight I'm afraid.

Have walked Leo (terrier) and Mo (Papillon!) today, both good boys for me but Mo hates the cold despite being very fluffy and wearing a coat. He looked so miserable towards the end of the walk that I carried him back to the centre, he's a real lapdog and loves a cuddle.
Had Mo and Rags out in the garden for play & training too, am finally getting to know what makes Rags tick so we had great focus and enthusiasm, worked on her impulse control.

We're using a BAT program with Lola as she's learnt that if she barks at someone either they go away or she is removed from the situation, so she barks whenever she's unsure of someone. So another volunteer, one of the staff and I have been "appearing" at one end of the garden while Lola is clicked and trotted away for offering calm behaviours at the other end. Bec and I ended up skipping around our place marker with me in a dressing gown and her in a vet coat and bobble hat  Lola did a tiny bark the first time she saw the bobble hat but that was it, really interesting to see the technique being used first hand! 

At home we either have a poorly dog or a disgusting one - we know that horrible Breeze has eaten poo this morning so we think the mess my sister came home to was poo vomit resulting from this, but Scooter's got horrible breath and after his profuse drooling and restlessness yesterday is being closely watched. Neither had dinner tonight to be on the safe side and will have to keep an eye on them while I'm around tomorrow.
Here's hoping it's just Breeze being vile, both seem well in themselves so fingers crossed.


----------



## Dogless

Thorne, hope Breeze was just being disgusting and your two are OK today .


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thanks Thorne, yeah we picked Eddie as my friend said she liked the name and my mum said she thought he looks like an Eddie. Plus mum picked the name. The JRT from Fraiser as we were watching it yesterday morning.

I didn't like it at first but now it's grown on me.


Up at 6.25. Not bad, getting better. I suppose most of the stress is not there anymore so my brain can relax more.

It's official. 14:30 on Saturday. I'm keeping myself somewhat busy wih dogwalking and cleaning the house as well as agility and research.

But still the mind wanders of course.


----------



## Maria_1986

Keeping my fingers crossed for disgusting not poorly Thorne.

ETA - I think Chev might have a UTI - she has never had an accident in the house but last night I thought I smelt something strange in her room, had a hunt and it was coming from her bed stripped off the cover to find a stained patch with a slightly sweet smell. Looks like I will be chasing her round with a uripet today so I can test a sample later, no pu/pd so don't think its anything more sinister.


----------



## kat&molly

Hope Breeze is just being disgusting Thorne. Our dogs are horrid creatures at times.

Maria, I count myself very lucky that none of mine have ever had a UTI - it cant be easy trying to catch pee. Hope Chevy's ok.

KFK- Nice name.

BD and MN- Good classes !! and definately agree some are easier than others.

Amazingly Jay seems fine this morning, she's had extra meds anyway but its a big relief, Scruff has a patch of fur missing but no broken skin.

If it ever warms up today I'm going to do some weeding[big groan] , inspired by a book I'm reading , Moll will be helping me  only problem with that is she will want me to weed every single day.:nonod:

One of the cats has brought a bloody mouse in. Its proving really hard for the girls to resist and I've had to shut Moll in the bedroom  Evie's being really good, but she doesn't want to be.
This keeps on happening and I'm sure the cats are bringing them in purposely for the dogs- both cats are in here not batting an eyelid. Getting fed up of saving them and getting bitten because they panic.:crying:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Haha my cat once was playing with a mouse in the kitchen (dead I think).

A few days later we started to notice this awful smell.

What had happened was she had accidentally batted it under the fridge.

We pulled the fridge out and you can imagine...pancake mouse.


----------



## Twiggy

missnaomi said:


> Puppy class with Toby was lovely... we've worked really hard to be ready...
> and at the other side of the room was someone with a small terrier. And FOR ONCE IT WASN'T ME. It was so nice not to be the one with gremlin dog, the over excitable one, the one that wants to do it on his terms...and to be just really enjoying the class. I love Ringo, but he's been a steep learning curve and flipping hard work...and most of the time I honestly blamed myself - I thought I had made him the way he is, and maybe I didn't train him perfectly, or bring him out of it as quickly as I'd have liked. But some of it is definitely his personality...
> 
> So for any of you with the scaredy dog, the reactive dog, the over exuberant dog or the generally bonkers dog - I learnt today, it's not alway your fault! It did really bring home that different dogs have such different personalities and some are just "easier" than others.


I'll second that..!!

I've always trained and owned collies but they've all been very different. Some have been very easy to train and some have been just the opposite. None of them can help being what they are, anymore than we can.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne - Hope Breeze is OK today and it was just she'd eaten something disgusting.

K&M - Pleased Jay seems to be alright this morning, well at least physically..!!

Maria - Hope it's not a UTI - I hate getting urine samples!!

I only had to get up with Leafy once during the night so hopefully the Prokolin has done some good and she isn't going to be as bad as she was in January - fingers crossed.

I had a reply from the Working Dog Food Company this morning and he's going to send me a sample of the Allergy X food, so that's good.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - so pleased that Jay is fine this morning, what a relief .

Maria - good luck pee catching, hope it's just a simple UTI.

Our walk this morning was hard work. Walked to the top fields, had a play, came back. The one word I'd use to describe Kilo this morning is 'predatory', very. He went offlead but I engaged with him (or Rudi did, playing) constantly and kept a very close eye on what he was up to and where he was looking. To describe Rudi...'handful'. He didn't pull but jumped and snatched at the toy, catching my thumb and two fingers which decided to bleed like mad, spent half the walk trying to hang off my wellie and then, to top it all, decided to jump on Kilo's head on the walk back (right by the busy road of course ). Kilo told him off and he tried to have zoomies but was on lead so tried jumping on Kilo's head again. A man stopped in his van to ask if I was OK and if they were fighting....I said no, not fighting, being a handful (this stopped them mucking about anyway as they were so nosy at what was going on) and he asked again if I was OK - then realised that my hand was covered in blood and I had got blood on Kilo and Rudi  :crazy:. I am on some meds that can apparently increase bleeding and they're not wrong as I've got three small nicks now I've cleaned my hand up 

Anyhow....we've not had a bad walk in a while and it is very windy PLUS is a school day and Rudi always seems to play up before school. Much better than playing up at school . Wasn't all bad TBH, just hard work .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Thorne - Hope Breeze is OK today and it was just she'd eaten something disgusting.
> 
> K&M - Pleased Jay seems to be alright this morning, well at least physically..!!
> 
> Maria - Hope it's not a UTI - I hate getting urine samples!!
> 
> I only had to get up with Leafy once during the night so hopefully the Prokolin has done some good and she isn't going to be as bad as she was in January - fingers crossed.
> 
> I had a reply from the Working Dog Food Company this morning and he's going to send me a sample of the Allergy X food, so that's good.


That's good news Twiggy .


----------



## BessieDog

Maria_1986 said:


> Keeping my fingers crossed for disgusting not poorly Thorne.
> 
> ETA - I think Chev might have a UTI - she has never had an accident in the house but last night I thought I smelt something strange in her room, had a hunt and it was coming from her bed stripped off the cover to find a stained patch with a slightly sweet smell. Looks like I will be chasing her round with a uripet today so I can test a sample later, no pu/pd so don't think its anything more sinister.


I know it's a bit late, but the vet advised getting a sample first wee of the day as once they've started that they keep on going!  I remember my son and I trying to get a sample from Bess last summer. We were sitting in the garden with her and leaping off the chair when we thought she was going to wee. Trouble was that made her jump and stop! So I don't envy you. Hopefully if it is a UTI you'll have caught it quickly and a course of ABs will clear it up.

Had a lovely sunny walk this morning with Bess - glorious. Frost on the ground but that sun was warm. Got back home and it's clouded over and looks a horrible day.

Off to London today to have lunch with two people who used to work for me. Really looking forward to catching up with all the goings on. Hope Bess is okay - she's not used to me going out for long during the day now.


----------



## MollySmith

K&M- so pleased that Jay is getting better. 

Thorne - how is Breeze, I hope it was a small blip and she's better too.

Maria - I recall chasing my grandmother's diabetic dogs for urine, nightmare, hope you managed to get a bit! 

Twiggy - paws crossed for Leafy, that's great news about the sample pack. 

No news here, Molly still snoring away and OH will have to do the walk as I've got clients to see and covers to design.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- sorry, shouldn't laugh but that was funny- wonder what the man in the van was thinking. Have a good class.

That sounds promising Twiggy.

Well, I couldn't catch the mouse, it was running here there and everywhere on a suicide mission- so I let Moll back out because she is at least soft mouthed, she caught it, then ran and took it on our bed .
No blood but it looks a bit poorly so its in a box to see if it recovers. Locked cat flap and litter tray for night times now me thinks. 

Get a cat they say if you've got a mouse problem, huh, its the fecking cats that CAUSE the mouse problem.:nonod:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> k&m - so pleased that Jay is fine this morning, what a relief .
> 
> Maria - good luck pee catching, hope it's just a simple UTI.
> 
> Our walk this morning was hard work. Walked to the top fields, had a play, came back. The one word I'd use to describe Kilo this morning is 'predatory', very. He went offlead but I engaged with him (or Rudi did, playing) constantly and kept a very close eye on what he was up to and where he was looking. *To describe Rudi...'handful'. He didn't pull but jumped and snatched at the toy, catching my thumb and two fingers which decided to bleed like mad, spent half the walk trying to hang off my wellie and then, to top it all, decided to jump on Kilo's head on the walk back (right by the busy road of course ). Kilo told him off and he tried* to have zoomies but was on lead so tried jumping on Kilo's head again. A man stopped in his van to ask if I was OK and if they were fighting....I said no, not fighting, being a handful (this stopped them mucking about anyway as they were so nosy at what was going on) and he asked again if I was OK - then realised that my hand was covered in blood and I had got blood on Kilo and Rudi  :crazy:. I am on some meds that can apparently increase bleeding and they're not wrong as I've got three small nicks now I've cleaned my hand up
> 
> Anyhow....we've not had a bad walk in a while and it is very windy PLUS is a school day and Rudi always seems to play up before school. Much better than playing up at school . Wasn't all bad TBH, just hard work .


Oh dear poor you. I'm not really sitting here killing myself with laughter - honest....


----------



## Symone

Talking about dead mice and such, when I was a wee baby I slept in my parents room, and then there was a fowl smell.. Turns out a rat crawled into the wall and died! Poor thing. 

Twiggy - I hope that she will be better on the Allergy x food. 

Thorne - Fingers crossed it was something disgusting! 

BD - Hope you have a nice day, and fingers crossed that Bess will be fine with you being out!

Dogless - I hope that the bleeding wasn't too bad! This one time Jimmy nipped Will (back when it was snowing) and his hand bled like mad. The park looked like a murder scene! 

Maria - I hope that Chev will be all right, soon.  

Sorry if I've missed anyone!


Well, this morning was okay. Dday (Friend) left today and Shamaya was over excited about him being here, still.. Tried to follow him out  I think she will be sad when she realises that he's not coming back! (He lives in Brighton)

One accident over night.. :/ Will take her out at 4am again, now. Woke up for a wee at 5am, and she had already done it by this point. She went out before bed so she must had drank a lot! 

Did a little bit of stay training with just the sit command, can get to 7 steps away now! Still no answer when I phoned the instructor.... 


I was wondering, is a steam mop enough to get her scent off the floor and stuff? I have some feeling that she may be having accidents because I haven't cleaned it properly. (I steam mop the floors, then use floor cleaner on top of it) her accidents aren't exactly big, and I'm sure she could hold it until 6-8 tbh. 
So, does anything know of something that gets rid of wee scents? 

I also emailed my local rescue asking if I can help out at all. No idea how I could help, but even if it's something small like cleaning or so I would happily do it.  I doubt I would be allowed to foster because I live in a flat! It's a shame because they have many dogs advertised on their page... I really hope that I can help.

Hope that everyone's having a nice day!


----------



## Twiggy

*Symone -* Bicarbonate of Soda or biological washing powder removes the scent of urine best.

With regard to the sit stay I'll reply later on how to build it up as I've got to go food shopping now - deep joy.

*Dogless *- At least Holly attacks me in the privacy of the barn - not on a public highway....!!


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> *Symone -* Bicarbonate of Soda or biological washing powder removes the scent of urine best.
> 
> With regard to the sit stay I'll reply later on how to build it up as I've got to go food shopping now - deep joy.
> 
> *Dogless *- At least Holly attacks me in the privacy of the barn - not on a public highway....!!


Thank you!


----------



## GingerRogers

Symone - you need to use something a bit more, I 'think' what happens is the uric acid crystallises and the crystals stay behind leaving a trace scent, assuming you're talking carpet? I have heard that washing powder works (can't remember if bio or non bio ) but there are also lots of specialist products out there, the only one we found works is the Rug Doctor Stuff - they have their carpet cleaners to rent in DIY store/supermarkets and sell bottles of different products. The one for urine, I think it worked for us as it was so easy. You just spray it on and leave with a damp towel over it for 24 hrs, no scrubbing at all. We had a real problem with Rory, he was around 14yrs old so we thought it was age incontinence and feared the worst, we restricted his water over night and made sure we took him for a bedtime wee rather than just let him in the garden, we got up in the night to let him out the lot and he still kept peeing over the back of the sofa, we tried lots of other stuff including vinegar etc then we got that stuff  hope that helps.

Thorne hope Breeze was being revolting and the two of them are ok today.

Dogless - I am sorry I chuckled too  Poor man in the van 

Maria - hope Chevy is ok, at least you work in the right place to get help 

Glad MissNaomi and Bessiedog had good classes, good luck for Sunday BD.

Kat - glad Jay seems ok and scruff is just a little scruffier 

Twiggy - glad Leafy doesn't seem too bad and hope the new food agrees

We have had/still have a glorious morning - all week I have had to get up and out early for clients really struggled, today I have no appts but I wake up at 6.30am  so we went up to the woods, was lovely but very, very muddy, very mucky dog. She was doing an awful lot of digging today  could she hear the little plants stretching up to the sunshine as it seems spring is here at least for today.

Hubby has gone for his chiro appointment, fingers crossed for some results, thanks FRM for all your help we are both pinning our hopes on this , (hope you are recovered). He admitted yesterday that he actually didn't remember much about his foulness on Monday  Afterwards he is going to speak to his boss, he is self employed so he is going to see if they can agree for him to have a couple of weeks off officially, no money earned but at least no worry for him or me, think thats why I was awake so early as I slept well for the first time in ages. He is also going to look for another job, his specialty is working with the mentally ill but he hasn't done it for 10 years. New horizons and all that, either way if its stress/anxiety related or physical linked to the things he does at work, he needs a change.


----------



## Sarah1983

I don't know how Twiggy builds up the stay and am interested to find out but the way I do it is to start building duration with me right by the dog. First I click and treat just for the position. Once that's being given reliably I wait 1 second before clicking and treating. Once that's reliable I wait 2 seconds. And so on. For distance I start by moving 1 step away and going straight back to the dog (if that causes them to break I can lower it to simply moving one of my feet and starting with that). When that's reliable I go 2 steps and straight back. And so on. Only when the dog is reliable with me moving away and coming back do I start building on duration of me being away, again done in 1 second increments. When I introduce distractions I do it with me right by the dog and only when they're reliable with me there do I start to move away. I figure if the dog can't hold the position with me right there it certainly won't be able to with me at a distance 

Sounds really long winded and complicated but I find it actually goes very quickly. 

I currently have a Spencer sitting here staring a hole through my head. I have absolutely no idea what he wants. He's been out and he's had breakfast. Think I might go play some crate games with him before hubby gets home on lunch. Oh, he's just gone playing dress up with the curtain again lol.


----------



## Symone

GR - Hope that hubby will be on the mend, now.. Fingers crossed that everything sails upwards. 

And it's normal laminated flooring. (Which I hate.. Council won't let us put down new flooring or put carpet down... and it looks horrendous. I'm in the process of mass buying rugs to cover it, lol! One's being delivered at 3pmish today, in fact....) 
Shamaya only goes in one spot, though... Right behind the arm chair OH uses.. Maybe she got some wee on that? will use your cleaning trick on the arm chair, too. 

I'm going to be moving around the room tomorrow, so I'm going to try to cover it with some furniture so she has no access to that spot. Hoping that may help. (Main reason for moving it around is more space, though.  )
One would normally think that a steam mop would do the job on laminated flooring.


----------



## Symone

Sarah1983 said:


> I don't know how Twiggy builds up the stay and am interested to find out but the way I do it is to start building duration with me right by the dog. First I click and treat just for the position. Once that's being given reliably I wait 1 second before clicking and treating. Once that's reliable I wait 2 seconds. And so on. For distance I start by moving 1 step away and going straight back to the dog (if that causes them to break I can lower it to simply moving one of my feet and starting with that). When that's reliable I go 2 steps and straight back. And so on. Only when the dog is reliable with me moving away and coming back do I start building on duration of me being away, again done in 1 second increments. When I introduce distractions I do it with me right by the dog and only when they're reliable with me there do I start to move away. I figure if the dog can't hold the position with me right there it certainly won't be able to with me at a distance
> 
> Sounds really long winded and complicated but I find it actually goes very quickly.
> 
> I currently have a Spencer sitting here staring a hole through my head. I have absolutely no idea what he wants. He's been out and he's had breakfast. Think I might go play some crate games with him before hubby gets home on lunch. Oh, he's just gone playing dress up with the curtain again lol.


Thank you, that has really helped! 

And I would love to see a picture of Spencer playing dress up with the curtain!


----------



## Sarah1983

Here you go Symone 









He has a thing about that curtain, he's often found under or behind it and most of his toys live behind the part that doesn't really get moved for some reason (he puts them there, not me).


----------



## Symone

Haha, I love it! He sure seems happy and in place, there.


----------



## Thorne

Not wanting to tempt fate but I think yesterday's mess was indeed poo-vomit from disgusting Breeze. Was all cleared up when I got home last night (hooray!) but my sister enthusiastically shared photos of it all. Looked horrendous but we had an accident-free night last night and a normal poo from both dogs this morning.
Did find a "splat" of poo on the lawn that I assume is from yesterday so someone's been feeling a bit under the weather, they're not owning up though! Dad has now banned them from the house when they're left for more than an hour, fortunately they seem to like their kennel.

KFK -Very exciting, hopefully the days will fly by now.

Maria -Any luck with wee-catching?  Hoping it's a simple and easy to treat UTI.

K&M -Really glad little Jay is ok! Poor little mouse has been through the wars today, would be lovely if it were to pull through.

Twiggy -Crossing my fingers for you and Leafy, hopefully the food will suit her. Will wait with interest to see how you build up a stay, it's something I need to work on with Breeze!

Dogless -You must have given that chap a fright standing there all bloodied with two raging beasts! :lol: Mine have never tried the onlead zoomies thank goodness, but I have had a Great Dane and a couple of nutty Lurchers try it, must be a leggy dog thing. Hope the rest of your day is calmer!

Bessiedog -Enjoy your day in London, was Bess fairly calm on your walk this morning then?

Symone -Don't know about steam mops but I second the biological washing powder suggestion, it'll denature the enzymes in the urine.

GR -That's sod's law for you! Glad you enjoyed Suffolk's hour or so of spring weather 

Sarah -Love the curtain shot  I was thinking something along the same lines as what you describe for building a stay, these days I seem to do far more thinking than training so I ought to actually make a start on it! Scooter got the idea very quickly as a pup, Breeze is more velcro-y so is very inclined to stick to my side!

Lots of bangs going off here today so Breeze will go out later on, not sure about Scooter yet but they're currently both snoozing as usual. 
It's a dog's life!


----------



## Guest

Glad that your two may be feeling better Thorne!!

We met that blummin postman this morning, the one that Zand whines and barks and grumps at. He's the only person he does it to.

Ohh and I'm looking for a "back-up" headcollar. A cheapy just for those days when the dogmatics under repair or in the wash or something.

I like these

NO PULL EASYSTEER DOG HALTER/HEADCOLLAR-NUTS AB&#039;T MUTTS | eBay

But but but I also like those Indi-dog martingale ones but if its puts pressure on the muzzle and makes the head go down wou'dn't it damage Zand id he lunged etc?

I don't like halti's cos they can close the mouth, don't want him lunging then his gob being slammed shut. O-O

And I'm sorry dogless but I chuckled too.


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- hope the Chiro helps for OH. A change of job sounds a good idea as well- although working in Mental Health would be even more stressful wouldn't it.

Thorne- good to hear the dogs are ok now.

Anyone else have such an unforgiving dog as me? Been doing a bit of weeding and Moll wont come out in case I take her to the parlour for a bath. Every now and again she gets these things in her head- wouldn't mind but I think she had 3 baths last year and none yet this year.:frown2:
I'll have to cheat and play with a toy first.


----------



## GingerRogers

Does she actually come and weed with you then, bless her , and you have bathed her after she has helped you :nonod: don't blame her for hiding, meanie 

Bizarrely no he loves that sort of work cos he is bloody good at it, anything with people, they don't have to be ill, naughty children will do. With his current work its the things he doesn't like doing, he doesn't mind driving the tractor round fields but hates road driving and towing loads of straw and stuff, he loves his sheep and especially his rams  but not the cows :nonod: although he is better, these things are high stress for him. I can understand that, its associated stress from past experiences, crashes and cow attacks etc plus I am terrified of cows  but most of all (if it is the stress thats contributing) I think its the catch 22 situation of worrying he might get a migraine, and letting D down, so he gets a migraine and lets D down. D isn't particularly forgiving although he has been really good about health stuff, I wish he would get back and tell me how it went


----------



## GingerRogers

PS I have been naughty on another thread :hand:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless *- At least Holly attacks me in the privacy of the barn - not on a public highway....!!


Rudi loves an audience  . Pleased I gave everyone a chuckle this morning .

School was OK. Our worst week yet but actually not bad, just not as fantastic as he has been. Nothing awful and he did work, but we weren't at our best together, I was still a little frustrated with him I think from the walk. Everyone was to try the 'gate' exercise offlead but I left Rudi's on as he was mucking about a bit, no point failing and getting frustrated. He really is suddenly Billy Big Balls. There's a big, fat, friendly, lolloping, labradoodle there who leaps about like a loony, barking and jumping at dogs to play and going on laps of honour when we take leads / collars etc off - he was snapped at by quite a few dogs today and Rudi decided to snap too when he got leapt at - a proper 'look at my teeth' display. I see his point but need to guide the little devil through this hormonal burst (I assume) carefully.

ETA: On the way back I saw a man desperately trying to catch a puppy running round the busy road, so I was a good samaritan, stopped my car and knelt in the road with liver cake. Puppy came straight to investigate and I scooped him up. Thought he'd escaped but he's normally offlead there apparently but the wind had made him naughty!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> PS I have been naughty on another thread :hand:


Intriguing....must go and search threads....


----------



## kat&molly

Well Ginge, sounds like it would be good then.
Thats my plan to get her helping- dont you read posts woman 


Sorry Dogless- Billy Big Balls.:001_tongue: He is finding his feet isn't he.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless - don't get too excited  I just try not to get personal normally  but some people :nonod:

Kat - Of course I do! Every single post and word in great detail, especially yours, its just I was imagining what Ginges 'help' might entail  I can't imagine it would be very discriminatory


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - don't get too excited  I just try not to get personal normally  but some people :nonod:


This person only seems to raise their head on certain threads and then it's to come out with something almost guaranteed to get a reaction. I'm thinking troll to be perfectly honest.

Dogless, do you think he's on his way to the dreaded adolescence already? Can I yell "off with his balls!" which is exactly what I picture my vet yelling at every owner that goes in with an adolescent male


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - don't get too excited  I just try not to get personal normally  but some people :nonod:
> 
> Kat - Of course I do! Every single post and word in great detail, especially yours, its just I was imagining what Ginges 'help' might entail  I can't imagine it would be very discriminatory


Found it .



Sarah1983 said:


> This person only seems to raise their head on certain threads and then it's to come out with something almost guaranteed to get a reaction. I'm thinking troll to be perfectly honest.
> 
> Dogless, do you think he's on his way to the dreaded adolescence already? Can I yell "off with his balls!" which is exactly what I picture my vet yelling at every owner that goes in with an adolescent male


Yup - the person only comes onto those kinds of threads. Rudi? Maybe....not sure, he's still a 'stick to my human like glue' puppy so who knows? He's certainly testing the waters a little I think.


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> PS I have been naughty on another thread :hand:


I dont' blame you.

I have begun to write a reply to that thread so many times but i lose the will about 3 sentences in. I am so boring sometimes.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> This person only seems to raise their head on certain threads and then it's to come out with something almost guaranteed to get a reaction. I'm thinking troll to be perfectly honest.
> 
> Dogless, do you think he's on his way to the dreaded adolescence already? Can I yell "off with his balls!" which is exactly what I picture my vet yelling at every owner that goes in with an adolescent male


I know  I just couldn't help it, they are so stupid , they also probably wont respond to me, they only respond to people who get over excited about the things they say!

Love the vet image , hope he doesn't get too much of a handful Dogless, it does sound like he is pushing things a bit, is it not a bit early for teenage tantrums, but could that be a good sign, he gets it all over and done quickly??

Hubby just called, he has been with the lady for 2 1/4 hours  (she said 1 &1/2 for the first session) said he is knackered but confident in her doing something, he was scrunched and all bent out of shape so at least something will have been done even if it doesn't switch his head! She was fairly confident, can't be 100%, that she could help as well. So lets just wait a week or two


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I dont' blame you.
> 
> I have begun to write a reply to that thread so many times but i lose the will about 3 sentences in. I am so boring sometimes.


I typed a long reply to it early this morning, And gave up. :nonod:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I typed a long reply to it early this morning, And gave up. :nonod:.


I have been formulating other thoughts over the past few days but that seemed the most appropriate in the end  those threads are infuriating but I know I would get carried away if I got too involved.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I have been formulating other thoughts over the past few days but that seemed the most appropriate in the end  those threads are infuriating but I know I would get carried away if I got too involved.


That's the risk....you get sucked in :nonod:.


----------



## moonviolet

I think for me it's because i would have to source my experience with Tink and to be honest i was a long slog but she has let it go and now i feel like i want to as well. Certainly in a situation where it's all a bit hypothetical. If either of the owners involved had posted the thread I might have been more motivated to reply.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I think for me it's because i would have to source my experience with Tink and to be honest i was a long slog but *she has let it go and now i feel like i want to as well*. Certainly in a situation where it's all a bit hypothetical. If either of the owners involved had posted the thread I might have been more motivated to reply.


It is brilliant that you finally feel able to. You and Miss Tink are a lesson to us all.


----------



## Dogless

Ooh I forgot to say; a lady that comes to class had a car with the name of a boarding kennels on it that I'd not heard of so I asked her lots of questions . She seemed very nice and told me all about the place; she only has 7 kennels and the dogs are walked properly every day (most kennels just have outdoor runs on them here). She invited me to go and have a look and I've just looked at her website - they do look promising. I will go and have a look; it would be great to find a kennels that I'd actually leave the boys in here!!


----------



## moonviolet

We're havign a bit of a loved up day here today. So remind my smugness *IS* goign to kick squarely in the R's , probably tomorrow.

Fab training session. lovely walk. much leaping around treat hiding and general silliness. Didn't see anyone else, felt like the world was ours... if indeed it is ours I'm going to redecorate... get rid of that grey sky and turn up the heating a bit 

Walked passed an old man ( Tink's weakness) beautifully to heel on a narrow pavement and got a " what an obedient dog" comment. I did reply " she has her moments" :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

Molls not playing.:nonod:

I picked up the clicker and treats- so of course she came out. Straight off she picked up 2 weeds and dropped them in the box, I C+T for both, then she ran to fetch a toy and burned a hole in my head before that went in the weed box.:crying:


----------



## Maria_1986

Argh! I just wrote a long post in reply and then hit the wrong button and lost it 

Don't have time to go through and write it all out again so will re read and reply again later. 

Wee sample was easy to get but only cos I picked up a Uripet to use (best invention ever!) just using the sample bottle would have been a nightmare. Just gotta wait till I'm due to go back in later now to test it and see what happens. No more accidents so hopefully its not a UTI either and was just a one off as the sample looks and smells normal (yes I'm a little odd and did sniff the sample!)


----------



## L/C

I've been sitting on my hands on that thread too. :nonod: It does seem to bring the trolls out of the woodwork.

Dogless - I had a bit of a giggle at Rudi. Sorry. 

K&M - at least Moll's got the idea of dropping things in the box. :001_tongue:

Ginge - seems positive about OH then? Hopefully it's a step towards beating the migraines. 

Dragged my lurgified arse out of bed this morning to walk the dogs as although OH tries, bless him, Gypsy is always just too hyped up when he takes them out. She was absolutely unbearable last night - whinging, scratching, chewing and just generally being a pain. A combination of boredom plus being wound up because he allows her to chase and generally do what she wants on a walk. :nonod:

But this morning she was a star - we did some more crate games mat work and she is really, really solid on staying there. :thumbup: The one thing that she seems to find difficult is ignoring food if there is another dog there - I assume because she is worried the other dog will take it. But I did some practice of me running around, me running with Ely and me and Ely walking off and she held the stay the whole time.

I've given up on the collar grab game as she doesn't seem to like it and her return to the mat is getting faster on it's own. I think I'll give it a couple more days and then move onto stage 4.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Does she actually come and weed with you then, bless her , and you have bathed her after she has helped you :nonod: don't blame her for hiding, meanie
> 
> Bizarrely no he loves that sort of work cos he is bloody good at it, anything with people, they don't have to be ill, naughty children will do. With his current work its the things he doesn't like doing, he doesn't mind driving the tractor round fields but hates road driving and towing loads of straw and stuff, he loves his sheep and especially his rams  but not the cows :nonod: although he is better, these things are high stress for him. I can understand that, its associated stress from past experiences, crashes and cow attacks etc plus I am terrified of cows  but most of all (if it is the stress thats contributing) I think its the catch 22 situation of worrying he might get a migraine, and letting D down, so he gets a migraine and lets D down. D isn't particularly forgiving although he has been really good about health stuff, I wish he would get back and tell me how it went


I do hope the chiropractor can help him. I'm a massive fan, both for humans and animals and my chiro is my first port of call when something isn't quite right and/or lameness with the dogs.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - sounds good about the potential kennels. I am so lucky that I have found a place where the dimwit is happy. They are not ideal on paper but he never wants to come with me when I go to collect him so that's good enough for me 

If anyone ever wants help with gardening I can lend you the dimwit - he is very very good at digging up stuff, I will never forget a couple of days after I got him when I heard lots of clattering as he came in from the garden and the next minute he ran into the living room with a shrub in his mouth that was bigger than he was 

We had a (very) minor breakthrough this morning when we met a very cute JRT puppy and Sprocket pulled towards him, but in a happy "I want to play" way rather than an "I am a bit scared so I'm going to see him off" way 
Obviously, having worked so hard on his reactiveness I don't want to encourage this but it is the first time that he has met a new dog and hasn't had that initial fear/anxiety response so I am thrilled


----------



## kat&molly

Still poorly L/C. That Gypsy, she certainly keeps you busy.:lol:

Moll can drop things in a box from putting her toys away.
I tried again, she picked up the weed and dropped it in the box so I clicked and threw a toy. Then the toy goes in the box and she actively turns her head away and wont look at the weeds.

I dont think Moll likes gardening.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Still poorly L/C. That Gypsy, she certainly keeps you busy.:lol:
> 
> Moll can drop things in a box from putting her toys away.
> I tried again, she picked up the weed and dropped it in the box so I clicked and threw a toy. Then the toy goes in the box and she actively turns her head away and wont look at the weeds.
> 
> I dont think Moll likes gardening.


TBH I don't like weeding myself .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> TBH I don't like weeding myself .


Neither do I, thats why I wanted 'help'


----------



## ThelifeofPi

I have been working on my husband and trying to get him to work consistently with me. 

Had lots of good advice on here and last night I think we may of had a bit of a breakthrough.


----------



## Guest

dogless said:


> that's the risk....you get sucked in :nonod:.


oh god i commented. Blood pressure is rising at the stupidity.


----------



## Dogless

ThelifeofPi said:


> I have been working on my husband and trying to get him to work consistently with me.
> 
> Had lots of good advice on here and last night I think we may of had a bit of a breakthrough.


I have given up trying to train my hubby...Twiggy has tried for many years and despite being a distinguished trainer of dogs has not managed to train hers :nonod:.

Pleased you've had a breakthrough - what did you do? Give him a tenner and tell him to go to the pub for a drink? Buy him a new game? Lock him in a cupboard? Have him debarked?  .


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> oh god i commented. Blood pressure is rising at the stupidity.


I saw :huh:.


----------



## kat&molly

ThelifeofPi said:


> I have been working on my husband and trying to get him to work consistently with me.
> 
> Had lots of good advice on here and last night I think we may of had a bit of a breakthrough.


Well done.You could earn an absolute fortune now training other husbands - but as it was my business idea I'm sending mine first.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> TBH I don't like weeding myself .


Sigh, I just misread that as "I don't like weeing myself" and thought it a rather odd and random comment


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I don't know how Twiggy builds up the stay and am interested to find out but the way I do it is to start building duration with me right by the dog. First I click and treat just for the position. Once that's being given reliably I wait 1 second before clicking and treating. Once that's reliable I wait 2 seconds. And so on. For distance I start by moving 1 step away and going straight back to the dog (if that causes them to break I can lower it to simply moving one of my feet and starting with that). When that's reliable I go 2 steps and straight back. And so on. Only when the dog is reliable with me moving away and coming back do I start building on duration of me being away, again done in 1 second increments. When I introduce distractions I do it with me right by the dog and only when they're reliable with me there do I start to move away. I figure if the dog can't hold the position with me right there it certainly won't be able to with me at a distance
> 
> Sounds really long winded and complicated but I find it actually goes very quickly.
> 
> My methods pretty similar although perhaps more geared for the stay ring at shows and a class environment.
> 
> We always start puppies/youngster off on the lead. The lead doesn't actually do anything other than stopping them wandering off but it does seem to have a calming effect on them and helps keep them concentrating.
> 
> We have them loosely in the heel position (on the handlers left hand side) and ask them to sit. If they do we move about* 6 inches* to the right away from them for about two seconds, return to the heel position and release and praise. We probably repeat this exercise two or three times and then leave it for the next session.
> 
> Once the dogs are reliably sitting for about 30 seconds we take the small step away from them and then take a step forward or backwards, count to 10 in our heads and return to the heel position and release and play.
> 
> We tend to start putting distractions in fairly quickly ie taking the small step away and then waving our outside leg, lightly (to start with) clapping our hands, jumping up and down, etc. etc. etc.
> 
> If the dogs move at any point we simply return them to the spot they were on and say "sit" (nicely of course) and probably do the basic move and then release and play.
> 
> It's all kept very light and jolly and usually within about 7 days I can run round my dogs, clapping my hands or bouncing a tennis ball.
> 
> Until the dogs are reliable with distractions we keep them on the lead, partly because in a class situation it would be bedlam, and possibly dangerous, when things like tennis balls and squeaky toys are being used and also because the first time you produce a ball the dog will invariably move.
> 
> I always teach the sit first and only when that is reliable with distractions to I start on the down, in exactly the same manner.
> 
> With the senior dogs when we are outside in the summer I will sometimes throw a ball along the line in front of them or hype one of mine up in front or behind them, etc. etc.
> 
> They need to be rock solid on stays because there can be upto 60 dogs in the stay ring per class at shows, it isn't always in a quiet corner and there is usually lots going on nearby.
> 
> I've been using this method for donkeys years and it has always worked well for me, so I see no reason to change it.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Sigh, I just misread that as "I don't like weeing myself" and thought it a rather odd and random comment


:lol::lol::lol:

I did too but then I did see your comment first, that made me giggle, lots of times, I am going to bookmark this page :001_tongue:.

LO - step away from the thread for the sake of your health 

Just had a good chat with hubby, he was very pleased with the McT lady, apparently he is the most tense person she has ever had, quite ironic considering how much lying around doing nothing he does 

She is fairly confident she can help him at least that the tenseness was not helping. Reckons he actually can't relax he has been tense for so long, so we need to find some ways to help him :nonod:

His boss was very good, said to see how it goes and if he feels up to the odd day or two to give him a call. Sent him home with a leg of mutton  Ginge thought it was Christmas as he carried that through the house  (D's gifts don't come shrink wrapped) not really sure what to do with it, was only slaughtered yesterday so at least I know its fresh and fit for human consumption, might be easier if I doubted it then she could have it.

Mutton cooking ideas please, only ever stripped a leg for curry before and I am NOT doing that again, not much knowledge on roasting here


----------



## moonviolet

GR fingers crossed that your OH is about to turn a corner 

As for the leg of mutton, I'd slow roast it until it was falling off the bone.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy - Thank you so much! That really has helped.  I will be doing it like so!

So, just had a really long walk with the pup! (And only just got back in time for the rug to be delivered.. oops)

I met up with a friend in the beginning, and I needed to do a little bit of shopping so I got out the head collar  I know I shouldn't have done it, but I was literally weighed down!

Then shopping on the side of the beach and we had a great time playing fetch, and Shamayas new friend Missy was there (She's 7 and apparently doesn't get on well with others dogs.. however she and Shamaya were like best friends!)

Found out that her owner lives one floor down from my ex flat mate, and he has apparently been saying loads of bull poo about me  I find it funny for he owes me £200 - £300 due to.. erm.. ordering naughty movies on sky. (It was in my name, and I had to pay it off. Unfortunately I can't prove it's him... :/ )
She pretty much face palmed when I told her the truth, and said she thought that there was another side to it all... 
I shouldn't really be annoyed.. He's the typical jobless scum type of a person..

Anyway, moving on.. Shamaya was a star! She was really good at the beach, really good walking there, really good walking home.. I ended up just walking her on her collar for the head collar wasn't needed at all. I am proud 

Anyway, Shamaya approves of the new rug!


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> GR fingers crossed that your OH is about to turn a corner
> 
> As for the leg of mutton, I'd slow roast it until it was falling off the bone.


Me too, he is having a rest now bless him 

How hot for how long? Sorry  I can do chickens but scared myself with dried up bits of expensive beef, daft, as I am an amazing cook  well average then.

Shamaya looks lovely on the rug, it matches her colouring very well


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Me too, he is having a rest now bless him
> 
> How hot for how long? Sorry  I can do chickens but scared myself with dried up bits of expensive beef, daft, as I am an amazing cook  well average then.
> 
> Shamaya looks lovely on the rug, it matches her colouring very well


How heavy is it? I'd stick garlic in it (make slits with knife, put whole cloves in), put it in a roasting tin, pour some red wine over it and put it on really low - 150 - 160c ish for hours and hours with foil over then take the foil off for the last bit so it browns nicely.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> How heavy is it? I'd stick garlic in it (make slits with knife, put whole cloves in), put it in a roasting tin, pour some red wine over it and put it on really low - 150 - 160c ish for hours and hours with foil over then take the foil off for the last bit so it browns nicely.


I think that I may need to do that for my tea, now!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> How heavy is it? I'd stick garlic in it (make slits with knife, put whole cloves in), put it in a roasting tin, pour some red wine over it and put it on really low - 150 - 160c ish for hours and hours with foil over then take the foil off for the last bit so it browns nicely.


Fairly  it is a whole skinned leg, looks like an anatomy lesson, might have to chop some off any way, (yes Gingey you can have some). So sunday tea then, ooh don't know if it will fit in the fridge actually  how many hours? Can I ruin it that way? Isn't it a waste of wine


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Fairly  it is a whole skinned leg, looks like an anatomy lesson, might have to chop some off any way, (yes Gingey you can have some). So sunday tea then, ooh don't know if it will fit in the fridge actually  how many hours? Can I ruin it that way? Isn't it a waste of wine


It's hard to know without seeing the size, but for every kg maybe I'd do about 1 1/2 - 2 hours if you keep the heat really low, then add on 30 - 45 minutes for the browning at a guess? Hard to know without seeing it!! Not a waste of wine to me, but you could use stock or water too!


----------



## moonviolet

:yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod: in agreement of dogless' cookery lesson


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> :yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod: in agreement of dogless' cookery lesson


And / or fresh rosemary too would be nice!


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Well done.You could earn an absolute fortune now training other husbands - but as it was my business idea I'm sending mine first.


Yes and swiftly followed by mine....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> How heavy is it? I'd stick garlic in it (make slits with knife, put whole cloves in), put it in a roasting tin, pour some red wine over it and put it on really low - 150 - 160c ish for hours and hours with foil over then take the foil off for the last bit so it browns nicely.


Stop it - you're making me drool....


----------



## Dimwit

Symone said:


> I met up with a friend in the beginning, and I needed to do a little bit of shopping so I got out the head collar  I know I shouldn't have done it, but I was literally weighed down!


Sorry if I have missed something but why shouldn't you have used a headcollar?

I am very jealous of you living so close to a beach - the dimwit loves the seaside but it is such a trek from here that we very rarely go.


----------



## Dimwit

Also, I am very jealous of all this cooking talk - sheep in any form makes me sick and, even worse, I am not supposed to have red wine


----------



## Symone

Dimwit said:


> Sorry if I have missed something but why shouldn't you have used a headcollar?
> 
> I am very jealous of you living so close to a beach - the dimwit loves the seaside but it is such a trek from here that we very rarely go.


Because my pup is so young and I shouldn't have to use it on her. 
I'm working on her pulling, so far it is going well, however since the town is next door to the beach it's a key pull area. Since I knew I would be shopping I needed to make sure she would not pull at all.. I feel like I cheated today to be honest.. But then again she walked lovely for me and she didn't need it any way.. 

My overall goal is LLW with a loose lead. The main problem we have with that is she starts to slowly walk in front of me! However she is young and we have plenty of time to work on it. 

And you will just have to come visit with the Dimwit! I have a spare crate.. I'm sure the two of you won't mind snuggling close 

But really.. I am lucky! quickest rout is a 5 min walk from being on the sand.. Shamaya will be peeved off when we're not allowed on it for the summer! however there's a part further down left that they're apparently allowed on.. Seems like it's time for exploring!


----------



## Twiggy

*GR* Really pleased your hubby got on well with the Chiropractor and hope it helps, as I'm sure it will.

Holly was a good little girl again training today although she seems to have more aptitude for picking up HTM moves than obedience exercises. Her twist and twirl at a distance are quite impressive and she will beg just on a verbal command about six foot away. She'll lift one front paw and then the other in either the sit or down at quite a distance too and has sort of got weave after two or three goes. I know they are all easy and basic moves but still....

*L/C *They do have their little foibles don't they? Holly doesn't like me stroking her shoulder when she's sitting in the heel position - she drops her head and looks away even if I use a lullaby voice and immediately throw her toy or use a tit-bit.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dimwit said:


> Also, I am very jealous of all this cooking talk - sheep in any form makes me sick and, even worse, I am not supposed to have red wine


Oh no thats terrible 

Do seasons make dogs tired  she has been sleeping all day too alongside poor manipulated hubby?


----------



## Dogless

MUCH improved afternoon at Concrete Central. Took the boys out together for a lead walk, despite my misgivings as it's even windier than this morning. However, I was lazy and couldn't face separate walks today . Apart from some leaf pouncing from Rudi they were perfect . Found out that the DA mini schnauzer is only aggressive on lead. How do I know? Because it was being walked offlead by the road, didn't recall and ran up to us. Oh crap, thinks I.....and a relaxed meeting was had by all. Kilo was fabulous again, no hackles, no tension.

Amber snow warning. Winter Wonderland alert .


----------



## Dimwit

Ah, I see. I only asked because I LLW was a huge problem for me and I still "cheat" occasionally and use the headcollar - the idea being to never let pulling work for him and so if I am not confident that he will walk on a loose lead and I don't have time to work on it then he is either walked on a harness and flexi or his headcollar. Try not to think of it as cheating - just making sure that she never has the chance to associate collar and lead with pulling...

The dimwit naturally likes to walk just in front of me so unless I am specifically trying to work on heelwork I let him, as long as he is not actually pulling and stops/turns/looks at me when I ask him to I tend to just leave him to it


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *GR* Really pleased your hubby got on well with the Chiropractor and hope it helps, as I'm sure it will.
> 
> Holly was a good little girl again training today although she seems to have more aptitude for picking up HTM moves than obedience exercises. Her twist and twirl at a distance are quite impressive and she will beg just on a verbal command about six foot away. She'll lift one front paw and then the other in either the sit or down at quite a distance too and has sort of got weave after two or three goes. I know they are all easy and basic moves but still....
> 
> *L/C *They do have their little foibles don't they? Holly doesn't like me stroking her shoulder when she's sitting in the heel position - she drops her head and looks away even if I use a lullaby voice and immediately throw her toy or use a tit-bit.


Easy basic moves??? I'd be chuffed if I got the BW doing them!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Easy basic moves??? I'd be chuffed if I got the BW doing them!


They are basic honestly and certainly by todays standard of HTM.

I'll video when I've taught her something spectacular....

I deeply regret I never got to perform the paso doblo routine with Fidget and I haven't even got it on video. It was so technically demanding on both of us and finished with me swinging her round holding onto the cape and into a 'dead' down with my triumphant foot on her.

The funny bit (which I have got on tape somewhere) is when a friend of a friend, who was a dancing teacher, tried to work on my deportment especially the 'O la' flourish at the end. My husband was wetting himself...!!


----------



## sharloid

OH just got back from walking Broder. He only encoutered two dogs which were both on the other side of the road. He said Broder didn't even blink!

I'm chuffed.  

Meanwhile, Kindra isn't allowed to walk due to her poorly shoulder so I'm dreading her first walk when she's better.  

But yay for Broder!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> They are basic honestly and certainly by todays standard of HTM.
> 
> I'll video when I've taught her something spectacular....
> 
> I deeply regret I never got to perform the paso doblo routine with Fidget and I haven't even got it on video. It was so technically demanding on both of us and finished with me swinging her round holding onto the cape and into a 'dead' down with my triumphant foot on her.
> 
> The funny bit (which I have got on tape somewhere) is when a friend of a friend, who was a dancing teacher, tried to work on my deportment especially the 'O la' flourish at the end. My husband was wetting himself...!!


I'm impressed that I have a 'twist' close by me and a down and sit at a distance...never mind everything else at a distance . As for leg weaves....I'd end up in hospital. Kilo's always barging straight through them playing anyway - although I put 'through' to it for some reason so he'll do it on command too .


----------



## Kicksforkills

The people at agility agreed wih me that my mother will not be able to turn down Eddie when we meet him unless something drastic happens.

Dog I walk daily was attacked today while I was walking her today -not hurt seriously just a few minor injuries -my coat needs a wash now as I spent twenty minutes washing blood off her.


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> This person only seems to raise their head on certain threads and then it's to come out with something almost guaranteed to get a reaction. I'm thinking troll to be perfectly honest.
> 
> Dogless, do you think he's on his way to the dreaded adolescence already? Can I yell "off with his balls!" which is exactly what I picture my vet yelling at every owner that goes in with an adolescent male


I do think that said person is on my ignore list, the only one on it, for being total arse the last time we communicated. I have not looked


----------



## GingerRogers

KFK I am sure mum will fall for him if hes half as cute as his picture. Hope the dog is OK 

Just a quick few piccys beware raw meat visible

Is there any there for me mum??


Please


Pretty Please


Oh give it already!! 


Only 4 1/2 lb though according to the scales seems a bit small, looking forward to sunday already


----------



## Dogless

Oh GR - teasing the Ninja!!

Incidentally Rudi has been very well behaved about food today - perhaps he remembers flying out into the garden? .


----------



## Guest

I had NO CLUE she was THAT CUTE! Good grief. Awww. :001_tt1:

My dogs asleep again. Which is nice.
Some little grotbags were throwing gumballs at our window earlier. 

Oh and we had a salesman knock on our door. A small pic of a GSD on our door and loud barking from a lurch caused him to go down several steps. :lol: We still didn't answer the door.


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- Its sounds positive on the Chiro front. And all round to yours for Sunday Lunch then- I might just make it.

Twiggy- Holly Bolly is knuckling down and catching up now. 

Jay stayed at home today, just in case, and I managed to coax her out to join us this afternoon. We didn't go around the Loop, obviously. In one part we have to pass some dogs in kennels- about 10 metres away and she wouldn't pass- never bothered her before. 
She wasn't too bad for the rest of the walk but I stayed even closer to her anyway.

Been trying to put this 'stop' of Evie's on cue, without even thinking I'd been saying 'Hello Piddle' :blush: Really dont know where that came from- seems to be working though.

Took a glove for Moll to find, just dropped it casually a couple of times and sent her back- she flushed a couple of ducks, think they might have been nesting so we'll have to avoid that field now for a while


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Evening all 

So glad to hear your hubby got on ok with the McT today GR, the fact that she spent so long with him is really promising, she is obviously very thorough and not just an 'in, crack, money, out' kinda chiro!! I really hope he gets some positive results from it, feel free to ask me anything you or he are unsure of 
It's amazing how many people don't know how to relax, we actually run relaxation classes at my clinic, which sounds absurd but it's incredible the amount of people out there who have to be taught how to properly relax.

Me? Personally I have noooooooooo problem!









Really looking forward to coming round to yours for Sunday lunch too, sounds delicious, obviously I won't be able to bring Branston as he has issues with meat of ovine origin









All ok at Pickle Palace, apart from a very grumpy hubby who bought a new work van yesterday and some *insert expletive* person decided that they somehow had the right to come onto our drive overnight and steal the wheel trims :incazzato:

Our guard dogs did nothing to alert us to the thieving barsteward


----------



## Sarah1983

I really really REALLY want a Greggs sausage roll. Germany doesn't have Greggs :crying: It's 20 past 8 and still not eaten because I can't find anything I want. I just want a Greggs sausage roll. Why can I not be craving cauliflower again? I have that in. 

Spen's asleep on his bed and I'm too grumpy to do any training with him right now. I'm having my own little pity party on the sofa instead


----------



## Kicksforkills

GingerRogers said:


> KFK I am sure mum will fall for him if hes half as cute as his picture. Hope the dog is OK
> 
> Just a quick few piccys beware raw meat visible
> 
> Is there any there for me mum??
> 
> 
> Please
> 
> 
> Pretty Please
> 
> 
> Oh give it already!!
> 
> 
> Only 4 1/2 lb though according to the scales seems a bit small, looking forward to sunday already


Oh so adorable!

The dog is fine in herself, just a little puncture mark on her head and a little nip on her ear. I rang the owners and said (when asked) that she didn't need to go to the vet, but for them to do what they think is best.

I said I'd check on her before they got home, managed to clean lots more fur- blood off her and she seems fine still.


----------



## moonviolet

FRM glad things are OK at Pickle palace. How annoying about OH's van I don't blame him for being upset 

GR I love that little ninja, She's probably planninga midnight fridge raid for teasing her 

Sarah I dont had a greggs nearby but i have a lovely local bakery i could get you one in the post in the morning?

Twiggy sounds like Holy bolly is coming on in leaps and bounds.:smile5:

Are you trained in Doggie first aid KFK?


----------



## Kicksforkills

moonviolet said:


> FRM glad things are OK at Pickle palace. How annoying about OH's van I don't blame him for being upset
> 
> GR I love that little ninja, She's probably planninga midnight fridge raid for teasing her
> 
> Sarah I dont had a greggs nearby but i have a lovely local bakery i could get you one in the post in the morning?
> 
> Twiggy sounds like Holy bolly is coming on in leaps and bounds.:smile5:
> 
> Are you trained in Doggie first aid KFK?


I know I shouldn't find it evilly ironic, but I did, that they gave us a letter after Agility for their first aid course.

It's not that difficult to tell if a dog needs a vet or not in his kind of situaion really. If in doubt, ring the vet to see if you need to come in.


----------



## Maria_1986

Sarah - I have a Greggs in town, shall I put a sausage roll in the post for you?

GR - good luck with the mutton leg

sharloid - yay for Broder 

L/O - please can Zand come and teach Chev how to scare off sales people - she doesn't even bark if someone comes to the door, we are lucky if she even wakes up if the bell goes

FRM - sorry bout your hubby's wheel trims

Dogless - glad your boys were well behaved on your walk.

Please can I sign up for the hubby training classes? Does it matter that I'm not married to him? I would like to train him to put his dirty socks in the washing basket not on the floor then pushed under the bed, aiming at the toilet would also be a nice one for him to learn too.

Urine sample was all fine and normal, so its not a physical issue from what we can tell. Going back to basics for a while and will take her out more often and reward for going outside again and see how we get on, I will also take her out later at night just incase she is struggling on the overnight stretch and see what happens. all her bedding has been washed to get rid of the smell so fingers crossed it was a one off.

Can I also just thank that everyone on here that has replied, liked or just taken the time to read my posts, it means a lot to me that people are willing to help and give support and its making being a first time dog owner much easier and enjoyable for me.


----------



## moonviolet

Kicksforkills said:


> I know I shouldn't find it evilly ironic, but I did, that they gave us a letter after Agility for their first aid course.
> 
> It's not that difficult to tell if a dog needs a vet or not in his kind of situaion really. If in doubt, ring the vet to see if you need to come in.


I'm sure you didn't mean that to come across with the tone it seems to have, I was just interested as you are a dog walker was it something you have under your belt. I'll not show interest again.

Maria I had a similar issue with my OH when we first moved in together many moons ago.... i just ignored all the stuff he left on the floor and only washed things that made it into the laundry basket...After running out of sock and underwear he soon learned


----------



## Werehorse

Work continues busy. Oscar continues grumpy-jumpy . Hugo continues bonkers in a general Hugo kind of way . I continue sending good wishes to you all but not having time to read and respond, which continues to make me feel a bit sad.  

I learned to cast on (knitting) today... it was a struggle - by november I might have knitted a dish-cloth.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Work continues busy. Oscar continues grumpy-jumpy . Hugo continues bonkers in a general Hugo kind of way . I continue sending good wishes to you all but not having time to read and respond, which continues to make me feel a bit sad.
> 
> I learned to cast on (knitting) today... it was a struggle - by november I might have knitted a dish-cloth.


HuGs we miss you. How was class. I learned to knit last autumn and flooded family iwth ugly knitted things for Christmas :lol:


----------



## Beth17

Hello everyone have read and liked but far too tired to type out a long reply. Sorry. Glad to read most of you have had a good day.

I have scanned through that thread and tbh I can't be bothered to reply. It'll keep going round and round until it gets locked :nonod:

ETA if I was walking dogs regularly I'd get a first aid certificate. I'm actually thinking of getting one anyway. Who knows when basic first aid could save a dog before you get tot he vets.


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> HuGs we miss you. How was class. I learned to knit last autumn and flooded family iwth ugly knitted things for Christmas :lol:


Thanks mv.  Class was ok - Oscar was all over the shop, Hugo was pretty good but I was a bit scatty. We didn't really do anything new again - probably a good thing this week! There is a plan in the offing to mix it up with some agility which will be really good for us all I think.

I can't imagine ever knitting anything more complex than a dishcloth!!


----------



## Symone

Knitting is fun! I wish that I were good at it... 

Well... Shamaya has claimed the new rug as hers. Naps on it, kong on it, chewing toys on it, seems to like training on it  I suppose it can be her "Mat" 
Since she seems to like relaxing on it


----------



## Kicksforkills

moonviolet said:


> I'm sure you didn't mean that to come across with the tone it seems to have, I was just interested as you are a dog walker was it something you have under your belt. I'll not show interest again.
> 
> Maria I had a similar issue with my OH when we first moved in together many moons ago.... i just ignored all the stuff he left on the floor and only washed things that made it into the laundry basket...After running out of sock and underwear he soon learned


Yeah, I would quite like to go on the course. I said to my mum about it and she said much what I have said in the post.

Can't get there on my own as its their other facility!

May look into it in the future though as like you say, it's another thin under my belt!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I'm sure you didn't mean that to come across with the tone it seems to have, I was just interested as you are a dog walker was it something you have under your belt. I'll not show interest again.
> 
> Maria I had a similar issue with my OH when we first moved in together many moons ago.... i just ignored all the stuff he left on the floor and only washed things that made it into the laundry basket...After running out of sock and underwear he soon learned


Oh Moonviolet can I enrol on your husband/boyfriend/partner/OH training
course please?

As I've said before we've been married almost 60 years and despite my best efforts he still persists in changing muddy boots on the kitchen carpet, leaving crumbs all over the worktops and then spreading the newspaper on top to read, leaving dirty underwear on the bedroom floor, cups on the coffee tables in the lounge for the servant to remove, etc. etc. - I could go on for pages and pages.........


----------



## Kicksforkills

Yes I much prefer dogs to relationships.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Oh Moonviolet can I enrol on your husband/boyfriend/partner/OH training
> course please?
> 
> As I've said before we've been married almost 60 years and despite my best efforts he still persists in changing muddy boots on the kitchen carpet, leaving crumbs all over the worktops and then spreading the newspaper on top to read, leaving dirty underwear on the bedroom floor, cups on the coffee tables in the lounge for the servant to remove, etc. etc. - I could go on for pages and pages.........


the only ones i've cracked in 20 years are the underwear and the muddy boots much slower process than training dogs :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Kilo was great at training; focussed really well. Also didn't posture at the trainer's BC or any others as they were brought in for the class after ours which was a first - he seems to have lost a bit of 'attitude' - AND not a peep, not even a whine or chewbacca noise during the recalls. Still wound up by them as his back leg was shaking like mad BUT controlling himself so well. A far cry from the dog that would go totally batshit not that long ago. 

Trainer was in a bad mood and a bit irritable, but still good!

He came home and shot into the garden and had some diarrhoea (has to be desperate to use the garden!) so prokolin given and we'll see how he goes. Hopefully a one off as he did eat something in the bushes offlead this morning .


----------



## BessieDog

Twiggy said:


> Oh Moonviolet can I enrol on your husband/boyfriend/partner/OH training
> course please?
> 
> As I've said before we've been married almost 60 years and despite my best efforts he still persists in changing muddy boots on the kitchen carpet, leaving crumbs all over the worktops and then spreading the newspaper on top to read, leaving dirty underwear on the bedroom floor, cups on the coffee tables in the lounge for the servant to remove, etc. etc. - I could go on for pages and pages.........


My OH always changes into slippers when he comes home.

The slippers are on the far side of our bedroom.

For 25 years he has traipsed his muddy shoes across the hall, up the stairs, into the bedroom and around the bed and still cannot see anything wrong!


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> k&m - so pleased that Jay is fine this morning, what a relief .
> 
> Maria - good luck pee catching, hope it's just a simple UTI.
> 
> Our walk this morning was hard work. Walked to the top fields, had a play, came back. The one word I'd use to describe Kilo this morning is 'predatory', very. He went offlead but I engaged with him (or Rudi did, playing) constantly and kept a very close eye on what he was up to and where he was looking. To describe Rudi...'handful'. He didn't pull but jumped and snatched at the toy, catching my thumb and two fingers which decided to bleed like mad, spent half the walk trying to hang off my wellie and then, to top it all, decided to jump on Kilo's head on the walk back (right by the busy road of course ). Kilo told him off and he tried to have zoomies but was on lead so tried jumping on Kilo's head again. A man stopped in his van to ask if I was OK and if they were fighting....I said no, not fighting, being a handful (this stopped them mucking about anyway as they were so nosy at what was going on) and he asked again if I was OK - then realised that my hand was covered in blood and I had got blood on Kilo and Rudi  :crazy:. I am on some meds that can apparently increase bleeding and they're not wrong as I've got three small nicks now I've cleaned my hand up
> 
> Anyhow....we've not had a bad walk in a while and it is very windy PLUS is a school day and Rudi always seems to play up before school. Much better than playing up at school . Wasn't all bad TBH, just hard work .


Only just caught up with this. Those puppy teeth can be killers - sharp as razors! Ok, that's my sympathy gone I'm laughing at the thought of the van driver!


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> Only just caught up with this. Those puppy teeth can be killers - sharp as razors! Ok, that's my sympathy gone I'm laughing at the thought of the van driver!


He has his adult set - came in pretty early.....just the molars still cutting through now . In all seriousness, at least he cared! It's a crazy man that wades into two big dogs having a 'fight' though!!


----------



## BessieDog

Had a great day in London! As soon as I stepped of the train at Hackney I heard sirens and was stepping over beggars. Thought I might have a lot less money but I don't miss this!!

Nice seeing old friends though 

Ended up leaving Bess for six hours, but she was absolutely fine!! Nothing destroyed, and her normal self this evening.


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> He has his adult set - came in pretty early.....just the molars still cutting through now .


Bess hasn't broken skin with those - but she's left some fairly impressive bruises! I've felt I had to explain, on more than one occasion, that I wasn't a beaten wife!!


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> Bess hasn't broken skin with those - but she's left some fairly impressive bruises! I've felt I had to explain, on more than one occasion, that I wasn't a beaten wife!!


In Rudi's defence I have awful, thin, papery skin on my hands at present. That, teeth and meds.....not a great combo .


----------



## moonviolet

I forgot to bore you with my bit tonight, thought for a change we'd go to the wood for our evening walk. All was going well until i met the crazy lady who lives down the lane. She is terribly terribly proud of her daughters (quite justifiably Im sure) who i have never met and has the power to talk about them without a pause or hesitation rendering you unable to make a polite " I won't keep you" So ther we are barely 5 mins into our walk pinned by the talking machine ( i you could harness her as a power source you'd be laughing) All the while her very lovely collie is flinging a fir cone at me. If I kick it her wants it again again again again if i stop her whines, barks, runs his claws down my thigh. This also does not cause her to break her stride. 

Then a couple appear on the horizon with 4 dogs I look over her shoulder at them for a momnet just long enough to make her look and finally there was a pause I mumbled that i must be going and went :lol: :lol: And a poor Tink as finally able to break the bored sit she had put herself into.

This was a great success after the time she trapped me for 45 mins in the rain :lol:

The rest of the walk was fun and event free.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Half three today. Abou 5 hours sleep, which is ok I guess. We only need four right?

Lol

Been researching for the last hour, mainly on questions the breeder may ask (though covered everything in emails) and home visits (as the breeder said if we like the puppy thy would drop it round to us).


----------



## Dogless

Oh mv, sounds very frustrating...like your getaway style though .

ETA: Oh my word. The weather :. I have my winter wonderland, but the wind!!!! :.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Half three today. Abou 5 hours sleep, which is ok I guess. We only need four right?
> 
> Lol
> 
> Been researching for the last hour, mainly on questions the breeder may ask (though covered everything in emails) and home visits (as the breeder said if we like the puppy thy would drop it round to us).


You just need to be yourself for the breeder. They will ask a lot of questions (or should do) but nothing difficult I wouldn't have thought. We were asked more about our lifestyle, thoughts on training, thoughts on feeding, exercise etc. We were totally grilled, but nothing that needed extensive research - just the basics of breed traits really.

I know that you're set on this puppy, but remember to look at everything objectively and be prepared to walk away or rather accept your Mum's decision to walk away if needed.


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> Oh mv, sounds very frustrating...like your getaway style though .
> 
> ETA: Oh my word. The weather :. I have my winter wonderland, but the wind!!!! :.


We've not got the snow but the wind is terrible! Waiting in for a repair man this morning so that gives me an excuse not to go out until later, but trying to think of somewhere sheltered - but I don't think there's anywhere. 

Going to have to keep a close watch on the fence panels today. They are already making very threatening noises.

Keep safe out there!


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- you certainly meet your fair share of 'people'  dont you.

Bad weather again for you others  I've checked ours its not showing any but its not warm at all for the time of year. It is meant to be 18 today- we'll see.


Moll help me put some washing out today by passing me the pegs :thumbup1:she done really well, until the others heard the clicker and came to investigate- then she got worried and took off with the peg basket in case they pinched it.

Preparing OH's lunch this morning and Evie jumped up me and had a good lick of the tomatoe- should make for an extra tasty sandwich though, she'd just finished her breakfast of Tripe.:ciappa:


----------



## BessieDog

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- you certainly meet your fair share of 'people'  dont you.
> 
> Bad weather again for you others  I've checked ours its not showing any but its not warm at all for the time of year. It is meant to be 18 today- we'll see.
> 
> Moll help me put some washing out today by passing me the pegs :thumbup1:she done really well, until the others heard the clicker and came to investigate- then she got worried and took off with the peg basket in case they pinched it.
> 
> Preparing OH's lunch this morning and Evie jumped up me and had a good lick of the tomatoe- should make for an extra tasty sandwich though, she'd just finished her breakfast of Tripe.:ciappa:


I like that you didn't throw the tomato away. . Sort of thing I'd do. What the eye doesn't see and all that.

Love the image of Moll running away with the peg bag. I haven't been able to use my washing line since I've had Bess. As fast as I'd hang it up she'd be pulling clothes off the line and running them round the garden. Too much temptation I think.


----------



## kat&molly

Moll used to take the clothes off the line as a pup but luckily outgrew it.
I took the peg idea from a book I've just read, 'A dog in a million' by Hazel Carter. Its a 'story', but she taught her Newfie loads of things-even putting rubbish in the bin because then they dont think to take it out.


----------



## BessieDog

Well Bess has learned one trick. As soon as I tidy up and put all her toys in her toy box she carefully takes them out again. 

I'd love to train her to put her toys away, but don't really know where to start. It would be nice to have a helpful dog like yours.


----------



## kat&molly

BessieDog said:


> Well Bess has learned one trick. As soon as I tidy up and put all her toys in her toy box she carefully takes them out again.
> 
> I'd love to train her to put her toys away, but don't really know where to start. It would be nice to have a helpful dog like yours.


I'm really bad at explaining how to teach things  There are you tube vids on it and someone else may kindly explain it better than I could.

Moll isn't always helpful.


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> Bess hasn't broken skin with those - but she's left some fairly impressive bruises! I've felt I had to explain, on more than one occasion, that I wasn't a beaten wife!!


Err yes. I've got to have full blood tests this morning and my arms look like a junkie..!!


----------



## MollySmith

kat&molly said:


> I'm really bad at explaining how to teach things  There are you tube vids on it and someone else may kindly explain it better than I could.
> 
> Moll isn't always helpful.


I've been doing this with our Molly. I have been freeshaping her. I am sure that there must be a quicker way but I take out all her most exciting toys (which is a bit depressing as I see how few she really likes!) and get her to fetch them and have the box near to me but not so near she thinks it's a drop it (which we're also working on). I also keep a clicker and some biscuit treats tucked away in the living room and watch her carefully so I can click and treat if she does it without me.

Like I say, it's slow progress so I'm not sure it's the right way.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh mv, sounds very frustrating...like your getaway style though .
> 
> ETA: Oh my word. The weather :. I have my winter wonderland, but the wind!!!! :.


Snowing here as well but not settled yet and also very windy.

Hope you don't get a power cut, it looks pretty bad in parts of NI.


----------



## MollySmith

BessieDog said:


> Bess hasn't broken skin with those - but she's left some fairly impressive bruises! I've felt I had to explain, on more than one occasion, that I wasn't a beaten wife!!


I did have a very awkward conversation with the GP last summer. My notes show that I was a beaten wife. I'm a quarter titanium and have lots of fun at airport security (most in Qatar where I went a few times for my old job and got questioned by a guard holding a gun). Anyway the meds I take for blood thinning mean that I bruise so badly and the GP called me in for a 'chat'. Oh my  Anyway I had to show a photo of Molly and explain that there wasn't a problem at home and it was my ex not my lovely OH that was the issue in the past and this time an overexcited young dogster! Very very embarrassing :biggrin:

It's very windy in Cambridge too, no snow thank goodness - *Dimwit*, I hope mini Dim doesn't take off on his walk!


----------



## Twiggy

Kicksforkills said:


> Half three today. Abou 5 hours sleep, which is ok I guess. We only need four right?
> 
> Lol
> 
> Been researching for the last hour, mainly on questions the breeder may ask (though covered everything in emails) and home visits (as the breeder said if we like the puppy thy would drop it round to us).


I agree with Dogless - just be yourself.

I suppose I've been lucky in that respect over the years. Because most of my collies have been 'obedience' bred it is very easy for breeders to check my credentials if they don't know me personally, which most do. I'm being offered puppies all the time.

Even with Holly, it only took the rescue centre one phone call to verify who I was and if I wanted her, or any other collie in their centre, then they would be mine. No home check or adoption procedure..!!


----------



## moonviolet

MS Sorry to correct you but what you have described sounds like "capturing" not free shaping.

How i trained it, depends slightly on the dog and whether on a retrieve they default to dropping the toy at your feet or putting it in your hand

If they generally drop then place the container at your feet and throw the toy clicking and treating if they put it in the box/basket pausing a moment if they don't. After a while they might try again, as they work out what gets them the treat let them , if they dont after a short pause throw again. Don't let them become bored or frustrated , this is hard so keep the sessions short and finish your session with something they know and enjoy.

If they retrieve to hand ( like Tink does) then holding the box in hand then slowly lowering after they have got it to with practise being able to add distance. Hope that helps.

No snow no wind but no sign of warm spring weather,


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> *MS Sorry to correct you but what you have described sounds like "capturing" not free shaping.*
> 
> How i trained it depends slightly on the dog and whether on a retrieve the default to dropping the toy at your feet or putting it in your hand
> 
> If they generally drop then place the container at your feet and throw the toy clicking and treating if they put it in the box/basket pausing a moment if they don't, after a while they might try again as they work out what gets them the treat let them , if they dont after a short pause throw again don't let them become bored or frustrated , this is hard to keep the sessions short and inish your session they know and enjoy.
> 
> I they retrieve to hand ( like Tink does) then holding the box in hand then slowly lowering after they have got it to with practise being able to add distance. Hope that helps.
> 
> No snow no wind but no sign of warm spring weather,


 I'm so new to this so I need all the advice and help I can get. It's good to know that it's something I need to keep to short sessions. I think I also need to break it down for Molly and concentrate on drop it first to avoid confusion.

We're off to the big field to try to migrate the retrieval work we've been doing in the house and garden to an outside space. So far it's been good here but she's a pain for leaving her ball at the other end of the field and steal another ball.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> MS Sorry to correct you but what you have described sounds like "capturing" not free shaping.
> 
> How i trained it depends slightly on the dog and whether on a retrieve the default to dropping the toy at your feet or putting it in your hand
> 
> If they generally drop then place the container at your feet and throw the toy clicking and treating if they put it in the box/basket pausing a moment if they don't, after a while they might try again as they work out what gets them the treat let them , if they dont after a short pause throw again don't let them become bored or frustrated , this is hard to keep the sessions short and inish your session they know and enjoy.
> 
> I they retrieve to hand ( like Tink does) then holding the box in hand then slowly lowering after they have got it to with practise being able to add distance. Hope that helps.
> 
> No snow no wind but no sign of warm spring weather,


Thats it - I taught it with the box at my feet.

I think Moll didn't like the weeding yesterday because it could possibly have been peed on.hmy:


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Thats it - I taught it with the box at my feet.
> 
> *I think Moll didn't like the weeding yesterday because it could possibly have been peed on.hmy:*




That made me laugh..!!

Off to brave the weather in a minute as I can't leave it until later this morning because of blood tests. I don't think we'll be out for long, it's too nasty for the old girls and they'll want to come.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> It's very windy in Cambridge too, no snow thank goodness - *Dimwit*, I hope mini Dim doesn't take off on his walk!


It's always a worry - especially with his ears
It was more snowy than windy at 6:00 this morning when I took him out and he is now safely at home and no doubt snuggled up on my sofa while I am stuck at work earning money to keep him in gravy bones 

Luckily I don't have much occasion to strip off in front of other people as my legs are covered in bruises from the little hooligan - he likes to practice his box turns on me and, for a little, dog he certainly hits you with some force when he has built up a bit of speed


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> It's always a worry - especially with his ears
> It was more snowy than windy at 6:00 this morning when I took him out and he is now safely at home and no doubt snuggled up on my sofa while I am stuck at work earning money to keep him in gravy bones
> 
> Luckily I don't have much occasion to strip off in front of other people as my legs are covered in bruises from the little hooligan - he likes to practice his box turns on me and, for a little, dog he certainly hits you with some force when he has built up a bit of speed


I confess to using picnic benches at the Gogs as cover sometimes as I've been taken down a few times by mad zoomie Molly and her mates. She and her mate Wicken caught my knee once, it hurt so much, and I should have toppled over, it would have been less painful


----------



## moonviolet

If you haven't trained a drop this is a method i've found successful.


----------



## Maria_1986

Well beef stew for dogs is a hit and it goes nicely in a kong for freezing. She had some with her Eden this morning for breakfast and came back to ask for more 

No more accidents so hopefully it was just a one off and I panicked over nothing, still going to set the alarm an hour earlier though to get up and take her out earlier.

OH and I had a chat about her training last night as I was saying how well she was doing and how nicely she has started to walk on a lead now when we are out but he said that he thinks she is getting worse. Turns out she pulls really badly with him but then he lets her get away with it on occasions so its getting worse. I could have beaten him over the head with something as he comes to training classes with us, he knows what he needs to do but is not consistent and cos she is a smart little thing she knows that with me walking nicely on a collar is a must but with OH she can get away with it. He has now been banned from walking her on a collar and must take her out with her harness at all times instead now unless I'm there. This weekend we will be working on getting her to walk nicely on a collar for him. Leave and touch are coming along nicely, still need lots of work but I can see an improvement and I'm very proud of my little sausage.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Snowing here as well but not settled yet and also very windy.
> 
> Hope you don't get a power cut, it looks pretty bad in parts of NI.


It's wild. Lights have been flickering on and off since last night. Braved the elements to take the CHs out this morning, it was like some sort of computer game, dodging flying wheelie bins, bits of peoples' houses, anything not nailed down  then gingerly walking in the snow and then trying to see where in the blizzard the thrown toy had gone. That said the boys were perfect for me this morning :001_wub::001_wub:. An hour out was enough to chill me and the dogs to the bone.....a van stopped and the driver wound down the window to tell me I should have stayed home in the warm . It's snowing like crazy again. Hubby on mainland and probably will be unable to fly back, but no worries I'm used to it!

Maria....men. Enough said :frown2:


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Thats it - I taught it with the box at my feet.
> 
> I think Moll didn't like the weeding yesterday because it could possibly have been peed on.hmy:


:lol::lol: Has dogless been round then  sorry still giggling about yesterday


----------



## sharloid

I've just got back from a two hour walk in the snow with Broder on his long line. It didn't go too well. 

First dog - I put him on his short lead and dogmatic, he pulled to it but was calm enough. He said hello and came away fine.

Second dog - We were playing fetch and practicing recall and a flat grassy bit away from the path. A lurcher comes running up to us, man makes no attempt to call it away. Broder and lurcher spend 5 mins running around in circles with me having to spin around to keep up and getting dragged all over! In the end the lurcher ran away and Broder recalled. 

Third dog and second dog again - We stayed practicing recall for a little bit then walked on. As soon as we got to the path we saw lurcher and another dog. Broder laid down waiting for them. Wouldn't recall and I ended up dragging him along the floor but my hands were so cold that it didn't work and Broder ended up saying hello to both of them. Lurcher kept running around and Broder followed, rather stressfull. Ended up getting the long line wrapped around my leg, fell over and now have a huge bruise on the back of my calf. 

Fourth and fith dog - Decided to cut the walk short and went to another flat grassy bit to practice recall. He did really well and ignored two westies that went past. He watched them for a few seconds but then recalled. 

The whole incident with the lurcher has left me feeling a bit sad. Plus my bruise is about the size of a foot print. 

I applaud and thank anyone that read it all!


----------



## GingerRogers

We got up early and went to the RSPB reserve, hubby went the other day and came home to gloat that he had seen an otter! and a bitten! and smew's 

No otter today  but we did see some red deer hinds, long tailed tits :001_wub:, and there were at least 5 marsh harriers circling the mere doing the mating dance thing, absolutely spectacular, didn't need binoculars they were so close, the harriers and and the tits are my special favourites.
But the boardwalk through the reed beds to get to the hide was exposed, bitter brrr, safe to say its ruddy windy here today too! 

Then we took the little one for a nice trot through the woods (the creaky trees were a bit alarming) and over the heath where she saw muntjac, and wabbits, lots of wabbits . She's forgiven me my teasing 

Sarah - hope you found something to satisfy your greggs cravings and spen wasn't too put out

FRM- thank you so much for your help and the suggestion in the first place, he is feeling very positive which is a step in the right direction anyway. Sorry that the good turn hasn't been returned and some little scrote stole the wheel trims 

Maria - glad Chevy seems physically ok - back to basics it is, for the hubby too! Why does it always come back to them 

Werehorse -you can never have too many dishcloths  is that a mad job thing? Hope Oscar settles soon 

Dogless hope Kilos ok, we are not sure that mutton :frown2: agrees with someone this morning either 

Bess - the muddy boots, oh dear, I do get hubby to take his off in the porch but he comes in with his work jeans on, covered in mud and all sorts of animal excrement, turn ups full of corn and takes them off in the dining room , new rules if he is still at it when we get the new carpet  Glad you had a nice day and Bess behaved 

MV - you have too many crazy people 

Kat - Moll sounds as much a character as Evie, bless her running off with the pegs and bless Evie just wanting to share her lovely breakfast  How do you teach these things, the pegs not the tripe licking 

Sharloid - sorry your walk has left you feeling sad, at least he was friendly though 

We really must train a fetch/retrieve type thing but again not sure how???


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Sharloid . Does sound like there are a fair few positives in there too though - the first meet sounds as if he was polite and listened to you. Not sure what to suggest really apart from calling a day at one successful meet and then avoiding dogs until he's calm again - easier said than done when other dogs jump on you. This I know only too well.

I've also had to drag Kilo away a fair few times, but there's a Kikopup video on YouTube that's about responding positively to a pull on the lead and going with it rather than engaging the opposition reflex and the Turid Rugaas LLW booklet has a similar concept. I use Turid's method which I rate really highly; it does work - but again depends on the distraction level. With Kilo I do a sort of run the other way if he's really fixated as he likes running with an excited sort of "Yes! That's the one!!" and perhpas treats or his tuggy toy. Well done if you understood any of that.


----------



## TessNRooRoo

We are currently working our staffys greed...she eats like a creature possesed so kuch so she blocks her throat up. She has a special bowl with like lumps in it to slow her down but not working...She would cross hell n high water for a morsel of food!!!!


----------



## Dogless

GR - Kilo's fine; guts of iron that boy. Good job with the stuff he eats :mad5: :frown2:. The nature reserve sounds gorgeous.



TessNRooRoo said:


> We are currently working our staffys greed...she eats like a creature possesed so kuch so she blocks her throat up. She has a special bowl with like lumps in it to slow her down but not working...She would cross hell n high water for a morsel of food!!!!


Maybe hand feed? Or she works for her food throughout the day?


----------



## englishshepherdgroupie

Our girl has just had a litter of 10 pups, currently 7.5 weeks old... as a group they do "sit" really well for treats and tickles but we're working on their sits individually without getting too excited and distracted and a few have picked up "down" already (so proud!!)... just another 8 to get it now!!!


----------



## Canine K9

Currently on his dog reactiveness and still tackling painful puppy biting! I don`t know anyone who can help for his reactiveness I asked someone I vaguely know with a nice calm dog "No I don`t want aggressive dogs round mine"  Will have to think of another plan! Puppy biting is just consitency really.


----------



## GingerRogers

7 weeks already they are adorable :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Currently on his dog reactiveness and still tackling painful puppy biting! I don`t know anyone who can help for his reactiveness I asked someone I vaguely know with a nice calm dog "No I don`t want aggressive dogs round mine"  Will have to think of another plan! Puppy biting is just consitency really.


What does the trainer at class think? Is he entering adolescence too and really testing the water with you perhaps as well? Could you go to a park, find the distance from dogs playing etc at which he's happy and treat / play etc just for looking at them, slowly getting closer and closer? Not easy in this weather, I know. Can you pass dogs closely in class?


----------



## sharloid

Dogless said:


> Oh dear Sharloid . Does sound like there are a fair few positives in there too though - the first meet sounds as if he was polite and listened to you. Not sure what to suggest really apart from calling a day at one successful meet and then avoiding dogs until he's calm again - easier said than done when other dogs jump on you. This I know only too well.
> 
> I've also had to drag Kilo away a fair few times, but there's a Kikopup video on YouTube that's about responding positively to a pull on the lead and going with it rather than engaging the opposition reflex and the Turid Rugaas LLW booklet has a similar concept. I use Turid's method which I rate really highly; it does work - but again depends on the distraction level. With Kilo I do a sort of run the other way if he's really fixated as he likes running with an excited sort of "Yes! That's the one!!" and perhpas treats or his tuggy toy. Well done if you understood any of that.


I think it's hard as well as we only saw those few dogs within the walk. Sometimes when I walk him we see no dogs at all so even when he's behaving on lead he doesn't get to practice often. 

It shocked me because he's been doing so well not lunging and being an idiot when he's been on his normal lead that I wrongly assumed he would be a little better on the long line than he used to be. My mistake. I'm thinking of enrolling him in another basic obedience class just to try and get him used to more dogs but to be honest that doesn't translate well to outside dogs.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> What does the trainer at class think? Is he entering adolescence too and really testing the water with you perhaps as well? Could you go to a park, find the distance from dogs playing etc at which he's happy and treat / play etc just for looking at them, slowly getting closer and closer? Not easy in this weather, I know. Can you pass dogs closely in class?


I`ve not really spoke to her yet; am planning to do though. I think he might be but it is really embarrasing he doesn`t even have to see a dog just hear one barking and he`ll be growling and lunging. I`ve stopped letting him off lead I just worry another dog will come. I`m going to reward him for seeing other dogs at a distance though and hopefully we can build it up


----------



## Symone

Shamaya has been good so far  I wonder how long it will last for, though...
In a few mins we're going to completely move around the room... No idea how she will react to that, lol! She hated it that one time when we moved her bed 

*Sharloid* : I have a funny(ish) bruise story.. We had a garden and my mum use to keep cactus's on the steps.. cat jumped into her and she fell! My brother had to tweezer needles out of her bum/hip
Fast forwarding a few days - my 11th birthday (And no Harry potter letter - I was well gutted!) and we went to an amusement park. There was this "mouse trap" rollercoaster that we all went on. Only had bars down and no seatbelts... Mum forgot about her bruise and went on. She wasn't happy!
Looking back on it it probably wasn't funny for her, lol 
Hope yours will get better, soon. 
*
K9* : Have you tried to stick to just one method for trying to stop Bailey from biting? If you try many you will only confuse him. I would say stop all interaction with him when he bites and leave the room.. He should learn biting = no play time with you, shouldn't take too long.

*ESG* : You can't say that without pictures! I would love to see them. 

*Tess *: I would second hand feeding.. Or possibly try to feed out of a kong? Maybe a puzzle feeder? or something like so : 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buster-274080-Food-Cube-Black/dp/B003XLG14W

*GR *: I was confused when you said long tail tits! Took me like 20 seconds until I realised what you were on about.. I feel embarrassed!


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Well beef stew for dogs is a hit and it goes nicely in a kong for freezing. She had some with her Eden this morning for breakfast and came back to ask for more
> 
> No more accidents so hopefully it was just a one off and I panicked over nothing, still going to set the alarm an hour earlier though to get up and take her out earlier.
> 
> OH and I had a chat about her training last night as I was saying how well she was doing and how nicely she has started to walk on a lead now when we are out but he said that he thinks she is getting worse. Turns out she pulls really badly with him but then he lets her get away with it on occasions so its getting worse. I could have beaten him over the head with something as he comes to training classes with us, he knows what he needs to do but is not consistent and cos she is a smart little thing she knows that with me walking nicely on a collar is a must but with OH she can get away with it. He has now been banned from walking her on a collar and must take her out with her harness at all times instead now unless I'm there. This weekend we will be working on getting her to walk nicely on a collar for him. Leave and touch are coming along nicely, still need lots of work but I can see an improvement and I'm very proud of my little sausage.


I rest my case yet again...!! They really are from another planet.

Mine's gone off for a wander round our small town because it's too horrid weather to be busy doing nothing outside. He could have walked the dogs for me but no......


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> I rest my case yet again...!! They really are from another planet.
> 
> Mine's gone off for a wander round our small town because it's too horrid weather to be busy doing nothing outside. He could have walked the dogs for me but no......


Sounds like mine this morning.. He went to the shop for a bar of chocolate. No mention of walking Shamaya from him 
Weather's good enough for Chocolate, yet too bad for walking Shamaya.


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> It shocked me because he's been doing so well not lunging and being an idiot when he's been on his normal lead that I wrongly assumed he would be a little better on the long line than he used to be. My mistake. I'm thinking of enrolling him in another basic *obedience class just to try and get him used to more dogs but to be honest that doesn't translate well to outside dogs.*


Well it should if the methods are correctly applied.

Take for instance "sit". If taught correctly that is just what it means in any circumstances. It's the same with "heel" - "loose lead walking" or whatever you want to call it. If taught correctly that is just what it means in any circumstances.

The more training you do with your dog the better these exercises become.


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> I`ve not really spoke to her yet; am planning to do though. I think he might be but it is really embarrasing he doesn`t even have to see a dog just hear one barking and he`ll be growling and lunging. I`ve stopped letting him off lead I just worry another dog will come. I`m going to reward him for seeing other dogs at a distance though and hopefully we can build it up


The one sure fire method for Kilo reacting to something is me being anxious and nervous. I'm awful for thinking "Oh no....don't bark....don't lunge" etc etc. Sounds crazy but I try and think "Oh good! That small squealing child on a scooter's coming straight for us!!" and even say something in a happy tone. I try not to hold my breath as I'm awful for it and have to pay real attention to my own body language - I tense and lift my right hand a little, keep the lead taut etc if I don't think about it.

If you have a good 'watch' or Bailey loves tug or a tennis ball you can use these as distractions and positive interactions that happen when you hear barking.


----------



## sharloid

Twiggy said:


> Well it should if the methods are correctly applied.
> 
> Take for instance "sit". If taught correctly that is just what it means in any circumstances. It's the same with "heel" - "loose lead walking" or whatever you want to call it. If taught correctly that is just what it means in any circumstances.
> 
> The more training you do with your dog the better these exercises become.


If he learns to sit after being around a group of dogs in a class, he's not then able to sit when when seeing dogs outside.

The distraction is too great!


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> The one sure fire method for Kilo reacting to something is me being anxious and nervous. I'm awful for thinking "Oh no....don't bark....don't lunge" etc etc. Sounds crazy but I try and think "Oh good! That small squealing child on a scooter's coming straight for us!!" and even say something in a happy tone.


This is exactly like me. As soon as I see anything coming towards us that he might react to I say "who's this" in the happiest voice I can while chucking treats at the dimwit. When I first started working on his reactiveness I used to muzzle him which, if nothing else, made me much more relaxed because I knew that he couldn't bite (and yes I know that even a muzzled dog can hurt other dogs etc etc).

One other tactic for calming yourself down is to sing nursery rhymes (although it does have the side effect of making anyone around you think you are insane). It is very hard to be tense and sing silly songs at the same time and does tend to get your dog's attention...


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> This is exactly like me. As soon as I see anything coming towards us that he might react to I say "who's this" in the happiest voice I can while chucking treats at the dimwit. When I first started working on his reactiveness I used to muzzle him which, if nothing else, made me much more relaxed because I knew that he couldn't bite (and yes I know that even a muzzled dog can hurt other dogs etc etc).
> 
> One other tactic for calming yourself down is to sing nursery rhymes (although it does have the side effect of making anyone around you think you are insane). It is very hard to be tense and sing silly songs at the same time and does tend to get your dog's attention...


"Happy Birthday" is my tune of choice  .


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> "Happy Birthday" is my tune of choice  .


That's probably more sane than me walking along singing "Mr Sprocket, Mr Sprocket, your ears are mighty long"...


----------



## L/C

Canine K9 said:


> I`ve not really spoke to her yet; am planning to do though. I think he might be but it is really embarrasing he doesn`t even have to see a dog just hear one barking and he`ll be growling and lunging. I`ve stopped letting him off lead I just worry another dog will come. I`m going to reward him for seeing other dogs at a distance though and hopefully we can build it up


What do you think is behind the reaction? Is he a frustrated greeter or is he fearful of other dogs?



sharloid said:


> If he learns to sit after being around a group of dogs in a class, he's not then able to sit when when seeing dogs outside.
> 
> The distraction is too great!


Do you do any training with him outside when other dogs aren't around? You mentioned recall but do you go through any obedience exercises? Do you play any games or do any simple scentwork? I've found since incorporating all of these things into our walks that Gypsy is a lot more focused on me and what exciting thing I'm going to do next rather then looking for trouble (other dogs/prey/interesting scents). Does that make sense?


----------



## moonviolet

Sharloid, ( Tink has been a bit of a situational learner and didn't immediately generalise new things) Do you think he could he do it with dogs in the distance? and then work to reduce the distance? 
Making a sit a really rewarding thing to do by askign for one before anyone things he likes or wants ( meals, door opening etc) can help reinforce how great it is to sit 

With spring coming maybe look out for an outdoor class?

GR either everyone around her is a bit eccentric.... or possibly it's time to accept that they are alll sane it's just MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Dimwit my current favourite song is "sunny side of the street" but i have sung Nellie the elephant and the grand old duke of york  I fear this may support the "it's jsut me" theory,but I'm happy and harmless:biggrin:


----------



## L/C

Forgot to add my own update.

The patient had his stitches out last night - we went to our lovely regular vet and Ely was very happy to see her, which was nice. Nor drama at all - he didn't even notice her doing as I had a tube of primula shoved in his face. 

The walk this morning was lovely - bitterly cold with a biting wind and snow but that meant no was around and so combine that with no stitches it meant that Ely spent the majority of the walk off his lead having a potter and a bit of a run. A bit cold for mat work so we played lots of find it games, I laid a track for Gypsy and we had some fun recall games. Both of them were perfect and I couldn't fault them. :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Well done lovely pointies . Pleased that Ely's stitch - free now; is Gypsy still cuddling with him or has she gone back to keeping her distance?


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> If he learns to sit after being around a group of dogs in a class, he's not then able to sit when when seeing dogs outside.
> 
> The distraction is too great!


That's because it hasn't been sufficiently well taught and proofed.

As I said yesterday re the post on stays, at obedience shows there are sometimes 1,000 dogs, 24 rings with judges, stewards, dogs doing retrieve, exciting sendaways, handlers throwing toys, cars driving out, handlers exercising dogs, etc. etc. and the stay ring may well be in the middle of all this. In the Novice Class many of the dogs are only 10-12 months old and they have to do a 1 minute sit stay, followed by a 2 minute down off the lead with their handlers in the middle of the ring behind the stewards. It's very rare for a dog to leave the ring, which is only a single rope, because they've been trained.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Well done lovely pointies . Pleased that Ely's stitch - free now; is Gypsy still cuddling with him or has she gone back to keeping her distance?


Unfortunately with the cold weather setting back in her leg is bad atm and is causing her a bit of pain, so she's a bit grumpy and quite protective of her space. But I came home early with the lurgy on Monday and found them both curled up on the sofa again. :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Unfortunately with the cold weather setting back in her leg is bad atm and is causing her a bit of pain, so she's a bit grumpy and quite protective of her space. *But I came home early with the lurgy on Monday and found them both curled up on the sofa again.* :001_wub:


That's lovely!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> That's because it hasn't been sufficiently well taught and proofed.
> 
> As I said yesterday re the post on stays, at obedience shows there are sometimes 1,000 dogs, 24 rings with judges, stewards, dogs doing retrieve, exciting sendaways, handlers throwing toys, cars driving out, handlers exercising dogs, etc. etc. and the stay ring may well be in the middle of all this. In the Novice Class many of the dogs are only 10-12 months old and they have to do a 1 minute sit stay, followed by a 2 minute down off the lead with their handlers in the middle of the ring behind the stewards. It's very rare for a dog to leave the ring, which is only a single rope, because they've been trained.


Its taken me ages to actually really understand this, I still dont get my head round how you get it that well proofed though 

Ginge is the same she will get used to certain dogs in classes, friends etc and not react to them but new dogs the gloves are off. Are you saying that with any level of reactivity a simple command can overcome it


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Its taken me ages to actually really understand this, I still dont get my head round how you get it that well proofed though
> 
> Ginge is the same she will get used to certain dogs in classes, friends etc and not react to them but new dogs the gloves are off. Are you saying that with any level of reactivity a simple command can overcome it


From my own experience - yes. But you have to proof it again and again and again in a less distracting environment. For Ely it was reinforcing the sit as his default behaviour (a la Control Unleashed) and working on eye contact, eye contact, eye contact. I found the simpler the behaviour the better and making it a default - I used a similar thing for an emergency recall. I didn't want him to think about it and make a choice, I wanted it to become a reflex that he did automatically.


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> If he learns to sit after being around a group of dogs in a class, he's not then able to sit when when seeing dogs outside.
> 
> The distraction is too great!


Do you do a lot of training with him outside? The more you train him in various places and situations the more he'll generalise obedience. Working around other dogs in the average class environment doesn't teach them to work around other dogs in a less controlled environment in my experience, you have to put the work in outside of the class as well. Which can be really difficult if every dog you see is allowed to just come bounding up before your dog is ready to deal with that.


----------



## BessieDog

Terrible walk with Bess today - but I've noticed before she's a bit crazy in windy weather. And you could definitely call today windy! She didn't get the not pulling bit at all, so three quarters of the way round I gave up and put her on a short lead with her dogmatic. At least my shoulders weren't going to be pulled out the sockets. We'll try again when it's a bit calmer. 

Been madly cleaning the house today - son's coming back from Uni this afternoon. :thumbup1: (don't know why I'm cleaning cos he won't notice)

But I always get worried about him driving, so I'll be a bit distracted until he's home. Think his little fiesta's going get blown around a bit! 

Be interesting to see if Bess is calmer around him - they act more like siblings than boy and dog. Oh, and that means I have to fight 2 creatures for my seat on the settee! 

DOGLESS - hope the storms aren't too bad for you!


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> Terrible walk with Bess today - but I've noticed before she's a bit crazy in windy weather. And you could definitely call today windy! She didn't get the not pulling bit at all, so three quarters of the way round I gave up and put her on a short lead with her dogmatic. At least my shoulders weren't going to be pulled out the sockets. We'll try again when it's a bit calmer.
> 
> Been madly cleaning the house today - son's coming back from Uni this afternoon. :thumbup1: (don't know why I'm cleaning cos he won't notice)
> 
> But I always get worried about him driving, so I'll be a bit distracted until he's home. Think his little fiesta's going get blown around a bit!
> 
> Be interesting to see if Bess is calmer around him - they act more like siblings than boy and dog. Oh, and that means I have to fight 2 creatures for my seat on the settee!
> 
> DOGLESS - hope the storms aren't too bad for you!


The storm is a wild one....we'll venture back out in it later if the boys are willing. And even if they're not or Kilo won't go to the toilet and he'll whine and whinge. They're lying as still and sleepy as possible as they always do when the weather's really bad . Plus it's Friday, and they're always wiped out the day after school .

Sorry about your walk; dogs always seem very much more excitable in the wind - can't blame them really with lots of stuff moving about, all those smells swirling, the feel of the wind etc . Hope your son appreciates your Mrs Mop efforts!!!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Its taken me ages to actually really understand this, I still dont get my head round how you get it that well proofed though
> 
> Ginge is the same she will get used to certain dogs in classes, friends etc and not react to them but new dogs the gloves are off. Are you saying that with any level of reactivity a simple command can overcome it


In a nutshell yes.

My belief is that the more basic training you do with your dog the better, because you are building mutual respect and a sound and trusting relationship.

Obviously for dogs to compete at shows all exercises are very well proofed, particularly against distractions.

Having said that when I ran pet training classes for the County Council a few years back, most of the time we trained on the playing fields which were vast.

From memory the exercises for intake class (10 weeks) were LLW with a sit at the beginning and end, recall to front commencing with a sit and finishing with a sit in the present, 1/2 minute sit stay and 1 minutes down stay. The pass mark was set high and on test night it was an outside judge. The second class (again 10 weeks) all exercises were off the lead including stays.

I ran the classes for three years, until it all became too much due to other commitments, and we didn't have one failure.


----------



## Canine K9

L/C said:


> What do you think is behind the reaction? Is he a frustrated greeter or is he fearful of other dogs?
> 
> Do you do any training with him outside when other dogs aren't around? You mentioned recall but do you go through any obedience exercises? Do you play any games or do any simple scentwork? I've found since incorporating all of these things into our walks that Gypsy is a lot more focused on me and what exciting thing I'm going to do next rather then looking for trouble (other dogs/prey/interesting scents). Does that make sense?


Fearful I think since he was bit by a Setter


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I ran the classes for three years, until it all became too much due to other commitments, and we didn't have one failure.


But do you know how they all performed outside the class setting? I used to see a lot of the dogs I went to class with out and about and some of the best behaved dogs in class behaved shockingly in a real life setting.


----------



## Twiggy

Have you got much snow? It looked pretty awful on the news this morning.

It's dry here now but very windy and freezing cold.

I'm going to brush the dogs in a minute and then take them for an early second walk as all of them are going to the vets at 4.30, apart from Holly.

Leafy and Quiver need a 'top up' laser treatment and I want dear Marwen to look at Tremor's lump. I also need to pick up some more Rimadyl. I dread to think what the bill will be but never mind it's only money....!!


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> :lol::lol: Has dogless been round then  sorry still giggling about yesterday


My Reply must have been worse then, I needed 'help' to do it.:001_huh:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> But do you know how they all performed outside the class setting? I used to see a lot of the dogs I went to class with out and about and some of the best behaved dogs in class behaved shockingly in a real life setting.


Well the playing fields where we trained behind the comprehensive school were at least 20 acres, therefore bigger than most public parks and Joe Public walked their dogs on there. They probably weren't suppose to but they did, so it provided an ideal scenario in many ways.


----------



## Canine K9

Twiggy said:


> Have you got much snow? It looked pretty awful on the news this morning.
> 
> It's dry here now but very windy and freezing cold.
> 
> I'm going to brush the dogs in a minute and then take them for an early second walk as all of them are going to the vets at 4.30, apart from Holly.
> 
> Leafy and Quiver need a 'top up' laser treatment and I want dear Marwen to look at Tremor's lump. I also need to pick up some more Rimadyl. I dread to think what the bill will be but never mind it's only money....!!


We`ve tons of the stuff, I swear it would be warmer in Antartica.


----------



## GingerRogers

Mmmm that makes me feel a bit crap really, if its that simple  especially as I am spending a small fortune on this course.

TBH the basic training has slid by the wayside as we work on more of the behaviour adjustment stuff. I did have to put some work in a couple of weeks ago as I had lost sit, hubby still had it (but thats probably because he repeats it at her endlessly, like wait wait wait sit sit sit wait ) its amazing how pleased I am when she sits for me now 

The ninja's default, with me anyway is a down (often with crossed paws :001_wub but she isn't keen to do it on certain surfaces and will do more of a bow and as its when dogs appear that I need the default behaviour I don't know if that would be wise as it might entice dogs in to play 

Hubby has just removed the mattress from my tiny office, ninja has never seen behind the mattress, she has never been able to stand behind my chair, she is now sniffing my fat rear 

I had lunch and asked her what she wanted to play/train. Hubby said mattress so we did hand touches against the mattress moved on to touch the mattress then put my hand higher and did jump at the mattress. Then I put the washing basket on the floor upside down it took about 3 clicks for her to jump on top, but then she didn't want to get off again. 

We also stopped her barking at the horse on 'Neighbours' 

All in all a very productive 10 mins at lunch time :biggrin:


----------



## kat&molly

I cant keep up, having really bad pooter problems, screen starts flickering and jumping so I'm going to walk the girls as its about to start again.


Sorry to tell you all but its really warm here and I've just cut my grass.
Its a one day special offer though, back to rain tomorrow.


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> *Mmmm that makes me feel a bit crap really, if its that simple  especially as I am spending a small fortune on this course.
> *
> TBH the basic training has slid by the wayside as we work on more of the behaviour adjustment stuff. I did have to put some work in a couple of weeks ago as I had lost sit, hubby still had it (but thats probably because he repeats it at her endlessly, like wait wait wait sit sit sit wait ) its amazing how pleased I am when she sits for me now
> 
> The ninja's default, with me anyway is a down (often with crossed paws :001_wub but she isn't keen to do it on certain surfaces and will do more of a bow and as its when dogs appear that I need the default behaviour I don't know if that would be wise as it might entice dogs in to play
> 
> Hubby has just removed the mattress from my tiny office, ninja has never seen behind the mattress, she has never been able to stand behind my chair, she is now sniffing my fat rear
> 
> I had lunch and asked her what she wanted to play/train. Hubby said mattress so we did hand touches against the mattress moved on to touch the mattress then put my hand higher and did jump at the mattress. Then I put the washing basket on the floor upside down it took about 3 clicks for her to jump on top, but then she didn't want to get off again.
> 
> We also stopped her barking at the horse on 'Neighbours'
> 
> All in all a very productive 10 mins at lunch time :biggrin:


I wouldn't say it was simple (well maybe in theory but definitely not in execution! ). I did have to get Ely to certain level of confidence outside before I even attempted to get him to perform simple behaviours (he couldn't do anything when he was shaking and wetting himself in fear) and I did that with CC and being fortunate enough to have access to a park with polite dogs.

But for his lunging and biting asking him for a behaviour was the easiest way to distract him and 'talk him down'. Once he was reacting it was too late but pre-empting it worked very well.


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> I wouldn't say it was simple (well maybe in theory but definitely not in execution! ). I did have to get Ely to certain level of confidence outside before I even attempted to get him to perform simple behaviours (he couldn't do anything when he was shaking and wetting himself in fear) and I did that with CC and being fortunate enough to have access to a park with polite dogs.
> 
> But for his lunging and biting asking him for a behaviour was the easiest way to distract him and 'talk him down'. Once he was reacting it was too late but pre-empting it worked very well.


Oh yeah I meant in concept not in practice :frown2:

CC ??? 

And I don't believe you. There's a park with polite dogs somewhere :001_huh:


----------



## moonviolet

GR you aren't doing simple training you are unpicking behaviour which is a whole different kettle of fish.... I have always been able to train Tink new things.... but change her reaction to seeing a big hairy dog coming toward her took 29 months!

For instance, I bet you could learn to play a new card game easily.... but how hard has it been to give up smoking. (not exactly the same but a woolly comparison to get the idea)


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> Oh yeah I meant in concept not in practice :frown2:
> 
> CC ???
> 
> And I don't believe you. There's a park with polite dogs somewhere :001_huh:


Sorry - counter conditioning. So happy things happen when you see other dogs.


----------



## Dogless

Well hubby's flight back cancelled - what a surprise  considering the weather and the fact that the airport keeps being shut :skep:. Can't wait to go back out into the storm later and I bet the boys can't either  .


----------



## moonviolet

We headed out to the sheltered side of the hills this morning and were greeted by some sunshine. Tink even went for a significant paddle she must have felt warm a rare event for catdog. Hid some treats higher up she tends to be a ground sniffer didn't take long for the nose on legs to get the hang of it.

Normal service has now resumed blooming chilly and lashing with rain.

GR I found this book helpful not too scientific, Lots of simply laid out protocols for various situations. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Help-Fearfu...3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363964853&sr=1-3-fkmr1


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Well the playing fields where we trained behind the comprehensive school were at least 20 acres, therefore bigger than most public parks and Joe Public walked their dogs on there. They probably weren't suppose to but they did, so it provided an ideal scenario in many ways.


Ours were held in a community hut and on the playing fields behind it. Lots of drunken teenagers, other dog walkers, people on dirt bikes and all sorts. The dogs still knew the difference between class and not class though. At least the ones whose owners didn't put in any work outside of class did.

GR, I spent 8 years trying to change some of Ruperts behaviour and didn't manage it. So while in theory it does seem simple actually putting it into practise can be another matter. Changing a dogs opinion about something its worried about can take a hell of a long time.


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> Ours were held in a community hut and on the playing fields behind it. Lots of drunken teenagers, other dog walkers, people on dirt bikes and all sorts. The dogs still knew the difference between class and not class though. At least the ones whose owners didn't put in any work outside of class did.
> 
> GR, I spent 8 years trying to change some of Ruperts behaviour and didn't manage it. *So while in theory it does seem simple actually putting it into practise can be another matter. Changing a dogs opinion about something its worried about can take a hell of a long time*.


Oh so true. It's taken us months to just get Molly to a point where we can talk her down and in the meantime loose lead walking has gone to put so that's my afternoon job. We did have a reasonable walk today. I dropped them off at the park to go to the butchers and then meet halfway. For the walk I did she was great, perfect around dogs but OH said she just vanished on the first park (thankfully it's all enclosed) but she'd gone. I wonder if she was either looking for me (unlikely since we do this a lot) or just the wind?  The cat used to do mental zoommies when it was windy. Weird, it's not like her at all. We will start in the field I think tomorrow just so she can burn off her energy first, it might be safer.

It is absolutely freezing here, my house is ancient and cold, I need a job so I can have warmth from human bodies. No OH and the dog is under the duvet on the spare bed.


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> If you haven't trained a drop this is a method i've found successful.


Thank you lovely 



Maria_1986 said:


> Well beef stew for dogs is a hit and it goes nicely in a kong for freezing. She had some with her Eden this morning for breakfast and came back to ask for more
> 
> No more accidents so hopefully it was just a one off and I panicked over nothing, still going to set the alarm an hour earlier though to get up and take her out earlier.
> 
> OH and I had a chat about her training last night as I was saying how well she was doing and how nicely she has started to walk on a lead now when we are out but he said that he thinks she is getting worse. Turns out she pulls really badly with him *but then he lets her get away with it on occasions so its getting wors*e. I could have beaten him over the head with something as he comes to training classes with us, he knows what he needs to do but is not consistent and cos she is a smart little thing she knows that with me walking nicely on a collar is a must but with OH she can get away with it. He has now been banned from walking her on a collar and must take her out with her harness at all times instead now unless I'm there. This weekend we will be working on getting her to walk nicely on a collar for him. Leave and touch are coming along nicely, still need lots of work but I can see an improvement and I'm very proud of my little sausage.


Yup, I hear you! I noticed it today on our walk although I can see that the wind is prob the worse weather for LLW practice but OH actually sort of shook the lead, hard to explain but like a sharp pull which is not what we've been taught. Because with both walk her, i have found I sort of use joint walks to spy on him. He is good with her but can only train one thing where as I treat the walk as one long session with fun play in between. I can see that Molly will think it's fine to pull unless I really rely on her and I doing a session daily and her seeing that as default. I shouldn't have to rely on my dog but the humans! Oh well 



Dogless said:


> The one sure fire method for Kilo reacting to something is me being anxious and nervous. I'm awful for thinking "Oh no....don't bark....don't lunge" etc etc. Sounds crazy but I try and think "Oh good! That small squealing child on a scooter's coming straight for us!!" and even say something in a happy tone. I try not to hold my breath as I'm awful for it and have to pay real attention to my own body language - I tense and lift my right hand a little, keep the lead taut etc if I don't think about it.
> 
> If you have a good 'watch' or Bailey loves tug or a tennis ball you can use these as distractions and positive interactions that happen when you hear barking.


Agree, I had no idea I was so tense around dogs. I sing a little song now whatever I last heard on the radio. I have to be careful what ear worms I have but it's so true, the tension really goes down the lead. OH is better with this as he doesn't much care what people think, I do far too much. My mantra in life is 'Soon this will be over, as it applies to good and bad stuff and that's the other thing I repeat.


----------



## L/C

Sarah1983 said:


> Ours were held in a community hut and on the playing fields behind it. Lots of drunken teenagers, other dog walkers, people on dirt bikes and all sorts. The dogs still knew the difference between class and not class though. At least the ones whose owners didn't put in any work outside of class did.
> 
> GR, I spent 8 years trying to change some of Ruperts behaviour and didn't manage it. So while in theory it does seem simple actually putting it into practise can be another matter. *Changing a dogs opinion about something its worried about can take a hell of a long time.*


Oh yes - I didn't mean to imply that it would be a quick thing at all. It took pretty much a year to get Ely comfortable outside (I was so chuffed the first time he relaxed in the park that I made a thread). And that was just being comfortable outside in the same general vicinity as other dogs not actually greeting them.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> We headed out to the sheltered side of the hills this morning and were greeted by some sunshine. Tink even went for a significant paddle she must have felt warm a rare event for catdog. Hid some treats higher up she tends to be a ground sniffer didn't take long for the nose on legs to get the hang of is.
> 
> Normal service has now resumed blooming chilly and lashing with rain.
> 
> GR I found this book helpful not too scientific, Lots of simply laid out protocols for various situations. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Help-Fearfu...3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363964853&sr=1-3-fkmr1


Thanks MV  another added to my wish list, nearly bought the kindle version but I do that so often I have several still to read  must learn to not click buy now!!!

Molly our house is the same, not that its old but when the wind blows like this its ruddy freezing inside.

Sorry the flights been cancelled Dogless 

Most of us might be grateful at the moment what with the waywardness of our hubbys


----------



## Dogless

I'd call myself a hardy individual but only just managed 35 minutes outside with the boys just now, trudged through the howling winds and snow to the (surprisingly deserted :skep dog walking fields, did a lap whilst the boys zoomed and had a great time but at the end of which they sat and shivered, even in their fleeces, and then a brisk trudge home again. Poor old Kilo puppy found out from two vehicles that passed slowly that walking on the outside got you soaked with slush from the road :frown2: so walked in behind my legs when the third crept up behind us. It really is wild out there and is meant to pretty much snow then freeze tonight and snow again tomorrow.

Lights are flickering like mad and I know lots of the area is without power....hoping ours doesn't go!


----------



## moonviolet

It must be bad!!! you are a most hardy soul.

Hope the power holds up. would be different if OH was home they huddling in candlelight can be quite fun then.

I must not read threads about beagle woes it always makes me so sad.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I must not read threads about beagle woes it always makes me so sad.


I always think of you. I feel the same when I read ridgie ones that aren't positive too.....funny how passionate you can feel about the breed you own; I think it's the fact that the drama being experienced is often a well known breed trait - so if the person finds it a problem perhaps they shouldn't have got that breed.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> I'd call myself a hardy individual but only just managed 35 minutes outside with the boys just now,


Yikes! I don't consider myself hardy at all and luckily we seem to have got off quite lightly where I am (though snow forecast fro tomorrow) but I didn't manage much of a walk tonight.
It is times like this that I am very grateful to have a ball obsessed dog - we had a fun session chasing chuckit ball and I think we will do some impulse-control work this evening


----------



## GingerRogers

I managed to control my urges on that and the patterdale one I got all WTF 

Hubby has the telly on, Ginge has had the urge to bark at a couple of adverts so he has been telling her no and following through on making her get off the sofa and redirecting her, if she still moans, she goes in her bed.

I had a little dog come running upstairs to me 'Mummy mummy he been mean he not let me bark'


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I managed to control my urges on that and the patterdale one I got all WTF
> 
> Hubby has the telly on, Ginge has had the urge to bark at a couple of adverts so he has been telling her no *and following through on making her get off the sofa and redirecting her*, if she still moans, she goes in her bed.
> 
> I had a little dog come running upstairs to me 'Mummy mummy he been mean he not let me bark'


 . Looks as if your boy's growing up, those training classes are paying off - no need to castrate him after all .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> . Looks as if your boy's growing up, those training classes are paying off - no need to castrate him after all .


Ohhh 

Can I still threaten it


----------



## SLB

I can't remember which page I posted on..  

Anyway;

As well as Bikejoring - which I will keep as a separate thread I am working on the following with Louie and Pen.

- Walking nicely on the lead; more Pen's training as Lou will walk relatively well on a loose leash.

- Coming when called at that moment - not after that sniff, not after they've done a full circle of the field - NOW! 

- Stop whistles; we're almost there - but again, I'm defeated by the sniffs - Lou will stop but the sit isn't quite there.. Pen will stop and sit, but not when she's in long grass.. 

- Hand directions. 

- Cold game retrieves; holding them rather than spitting them out to have a snuffle in the feathers (Louie)

- Hold; PEN JUST KEEP IT IN YOUR MOUTH AND SIT!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Ohhh
> 
> Can I still threaten it


Of course :devil:.


----------



## Guest

I've been working on the whole "Sit and watch me" thing for a good while. He does really really well, he can hold it JUUUUUST until the dog passes with us. Then he starts to whinge. He almost had be over a wall this morn. There was a GR behind it. Guess who almost leapt it with me attached? :frown2:

He's thrown up 4 times today. And he sleeping right now. 

Mum has issued a "HE IS NOT BEING FED ANYTHING BUT DOG FOOD. EVER. NO YOGHURT NO SQUEEZY CHEESE, NO PEOPLEY FOOD EVER." rule. 

She is undecided about whether to include the 'offal' (occasional bone kidney etc) in the rule.:001_huh:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Finding a ringcraft class nearby. Found one!

How long do people go for? Does it become more of a social event when you know all the basics?

Also does anyone think that Eddie needs to go to puppy school? His breeder is already at ringcraft and has socialised him? I think just ringcraft and agility should be grand since I think Puppy School is for younger puppies.

May go to puppy pre-agility play with him though. They can be up to 10 months. Though I told my trainer and I'm not sure if they have any other toy breeds there if the photos on Facebook are anything to go by. Haha. I don't mind focusing on the agility part and socialising him with the chi puppy that one of m clients has 


EDIT; Might do Good Citizen Obiedence so he has hose titles before 18 months when we start proper doggy agility


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Finding a ringcraft class nearby. Found one!
> 
> How long do people go for? Does it become more of a social event when you know all the basics?
> 
> Also does anyone think that Eddie needs to go to puppy school? His breeder is already at ringcraft and has socialised him? I think just ringcraft and agility should be grand since I think Puppy School is for younger puppies.
> 
> May go to puppy pre-agility play with him though. They can be up to 10 months. Though I told my trainer and I'm not sure if they have any other toy breeds there if the photos on Facebook are anything to go by. Haha. I don't mind focusing on the agility part and socialising him with the chi puppy that one of m clients has
> 
> EDIT; Might do Good Citizen Obiedence so he has hose titles before 18 months when we start proper doggy agility


I used to go to ringcraft - yes, it was sociable but people never stop learning and once you have a good grasp you can then help others. I used to go with Kilo's breeder and one or two of their dogs, they helped me immensely and everyone was very welcoming. What you need to remember there is that many of the dogs actually don't go to socialise and mix freely - some of the entire males of some breeds in particular aren't dog friendly - they will happily be in the ring with other dogs, but dogs in their faces are a no - no.

I'd say 'yes' to pet dog training classes. The pup won't have any bond with you and these would be a good way to get one as well as continuing socialisation. We started puppy classes but Rudi was a little star for me and we moved up after three sessions into the next class - so if you're too advanced for puppy classes I'm sure you'll be placed in the appropriate group for you. Not that I was any good; just that the LCH is a good boy in general - so far!! It would give you a good grounding for agility I would have thought in terms of strong basic commands and a dog who is confident with you at the helm!



LurcherOwner said:


> He's thrown up 4 times today. And he sleeping right now.


Oh no Donkey Boy; hope it's just a bug. Is he drinking and gums etc all OK?


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> I used to go to ringcraft - yes, it was sociable but people never stop learning and once you have a good grasp you can then help others. I used to go with Kilo's breeder and one or two of their dogs, they helped me immensely and everyone was very welcoming. What you need to remember there is that many of the dogs actually don't go to socialise and mix freely - some of the entire males of some breeds in particular aren't dog friendly - they will happily be in the ring with other dogs, but dogs in their faces are a no - no.
> 
> I'd say 'yes' to pet dog training classes. The pup won't have any bond with you and these would be a good way to get one as well as continuing socialisation. We started puppy classes but Rudi was a little star for me and we moved up after three sessions into the next class - so if you're too advanced for puppy classes I'm sure you'll be placed in the appropriate group for you. Not that I was any good; just that the LCH is a good boy in general - so far!! It would give you a good grounding for agility I would have thought in terms of strong basic commands and a dog who is confident with you at the helm!
> 
> Oh no Donkey Boy; hope it's just a bug. Is he drinking and gums etc all OK?


Well he's been eating a ton of grass, have just checked his gums, they seem alright. He's been drinking today like normal. He's even just let mum comb him!! Mind you he has only just woken up.:lol:

Kicksforkills GO TO PUPPY CLASSES!! A GOOD ONE!

I went to an awful awful one and it really really put me off trainers. Now we have problems that may have been avoided.

Tonight I me and mum are going to see the homechecker for the charity we got Zand from at a charity skittles thing. Will be nice.


----------



## Dogless

Have fun at the skittles LO; don't drink too much of that horrid sweet cider you like so much .

ETA: No point to telling folk this at all; but I have a ridgie cuddled each side of me, love them :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well hubby's flight back cancelled - what a surprise  considering the weather and the fact that the airport keeps being shut :skep:. Can't wait to go back out into the storm later and I bet the boys can't either  .


I've just seen on the obedience forum that Lisburn open obedience show scheduled for tomorrow has just been cancelled due to the horrendous weather.

The poor secretary and committee - all that work for nothing and then having to try and get in touch with all the judges, stewards and competitors.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just seen on the obedience forum that Lisburn open obedience show scheduled for tomorrow has just been cancelled due to the horrendous weather.
> 
> The poor secretary and committee - all that work for nothing and then having to try and get in touch with all the judges, stewards and competitors.


It's still snowing  and the wind is completely insane!! It's always awful when so much work comes to nothing, what a shame indeed .


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I've just seen on the obedience forum that Lisburn open obedience show scheduled for tomorrow has just been cancelled due to the horrendous weather.
> 
> The poor secretary and committee - all that work for nothing and then having to try and get in touch with all the judges, stewards and competitors.


How disappointing for all involved


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Ours were held in a community hut and on the playing fields behind it. Lots of drunken teenagers, other dog walkers, people on dirt bikes and all sorts. The dogs still knew the difference between class and not class though. *At least the ones whose owners didn't put in any work outside of class did. *
> 
> Well there you go. That is always the problem and if owners are not prepared to put the work in out of class training their dogs then they will encounter bad behaviour.
> 
> I used to drum it in, and still do for that matter, that they come to me to be shown how to train their dogs. The hard work is done at home.
> 
> Some of it must have gone in because from initially running two intake classes we ended up with intake, intermediate and advanced due to the fact that nearly all of them enrolled for the next class.
> 
> Quite a number went on to compete with their dogs in agility or obedience and I still have some handlers training with me now that started off in the intake class and it's got to be 20 plus years ago now.
> 
> Btw if Beth happens to read this we had some fabulous Boxers. I remember one lady and her lovely boy winning the cup on test night for gaining the highest marks and she then went on to win the Intermediate cup after the next term...


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thanks all.

I do have it all planned really. Just need them to like us and us to like them and the puppy. I already like the breeder and puppy from our emails. Though I realise its different when you meet.

Ringcraft, puppy pre-agility and obiedence ASAP

pre-agility finishes at 10 months though as he's such a small breed, unlike he BC puppy that has joined my agility class at 10 months, he may be able to continue with this for a bit longer. Obiedence will stop when he has his gold. 

Then, lets say he has his gold at 18 months, so Obiedence stops. Then his continues Ringcraft and his Agility until retired 

Puppy pre-agility and agility take place at the same venue. Obiedence same club but different venue. Ringcraft not far. 

Least if they ask me what training I have planned they will not be disappointed.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I'd call myself a hardy individual but only just managed 35 minutes outside with the boys just now, trudged through the howling winds and snow to the (surprisingly deserted :skep dog walking fields, did a lap whilst the boys zoomed and had a great time but at the end of which they sat and shivered, even in their fleeces, and then a brisk trudge home again. Poor old Kilo puppy found out from two vehicles that passed slowly that walking on the outside got you soaked with slush from the road :frown2: so walked in behind my legs when the third crept up behind us. It really is wild out there and is meant to pretty much snow then freeze tonight and snow again tomorrow.
> 
> Lights are flickering like mad and I know lots of the area is without power....hoping ours doesn't go!


I'm afraid mine only got 35 minutes this morning and again this afternoon, although hubby did take Holly out again whilst I was at the vets.

The vet visit took two hours, due to heavy Friday afternoon traffic and Marwen dealing with an emergency.

They wanted me to hand the two oldies over to a vet nurse to do the laser treatment whilst Marwen saw Tremor. I politely said "over my dead body"....


----------



## Dogless

Just had a power cut. Lit all candles, then it came back on  .

I had typed a long reply to kicksforkills' post. Gist was - let pup be pup and develop at his own rate. Enjoy him and don't put so much pressure and strict timelines on yourselves. He may be a fast or a slow learner or even not enjoy agility or ring craft - just take notice how how he's feeling and do your best by him.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Just had a power cut. Lit all candles, then it came back on  .
> 
> I had typed a long reply to kicksforkills' post. Gist was - let pup be pup and develop at his own rate. Enjoy him and don't put so much pressure and strict timelines on yourselves. He may be a fast or a slow learner or even not enjoy agility or ring craft - just take notice how how he's feeling and do your best by him.


So true, fab advice.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> So true, fab advice.


If Kilo has taught me anything it's to go carefully; he worries a lot about getting things wrong I think and even a slightly harsh tone or frown can worry him. Rudi bursts and swaggers into a room saying "Look at me!!!! Look what I can do!!!!". I have to be a lot 'harder' with Rudi than Kilo.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> Just had a power cut. Lit all candles, then it came back on  .
> 
> I had typed a long reply to kicksforkills' post. Gist was - let pup be pup and develop at his own rate. Enjoy him and don't put so much pressure and strict timelines on yourselves. He may be a fast or a slow learner or even not enjoy agility or ring craft - just take notice how how he's feeling and do your best by him.


Oh obviously he will still be able to be a puppy 

If my current dogs didn't like agility then I wouldn't do it with them 

We had one the other day -turned out the garage was the problem and causing all the other electrics to click off. Fuse box -all but garage on.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Oh obviously he will still be able to be a puppy
> 
> If my current dogs didn't like agility then I wouldn't do it with them
> 
> We had one the other day -turned out the garage was the problem and causing all the other electrics to click off. Fuse box -all but garage on.


T'is the storms here....oven now on for my dinner in case we have another one .

All I'm saying is don't put too much pressure on yourself either. Luckily with Ridgies I don't have any great obedience expectations  although would very much like to try agility!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- your weather sounds awful, I hope it calms down soon.

Pooter seems to be fixed and I've caught up, sort of . 

Ginge- I 2nd the book MV recommended- was easy on my braincell. Shame I cant send it from my Kindle.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- your weather sounds awful, I hope it calms down soon.
> 
> Pooter seems to be fixed and I've caught up, sort of .
> 
> Ginge- I 2nd the book MV recommended- was easy on my braincell. Shame I cant send it from my Kindle.


It's absolutely crazy weather k&m - not seen anything like it in quite some time. I do love the Winter Wonderland....but the wind  .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It's absolutely crazy weather k&m - not seen anything like it in quite some time. I do love the Winter Wonderland....but the wind  .


Well you just keep it over there. It talks of heavy snow for us tonight.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well you just keep it over there. It talks of heavy snow for us tonight.


Hope not as i know how you feel about it!! It's going to freeze and snow lots more here. Not massively convinced hubby's flight in the morning will come in either!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> It's absolutely crazy weather k&m - not seen anything like it in quite some time. I do love the Winter Wonderland....but the wind  .


I hate that cold wind that cuts through you :frown2: Especially in March. Shame Hubby cant get back-is tomorrow looking any better?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

So, this is Spring. Nice.

TFI Friday, What a week!

Up at 5.30 this morning ( I know that's normal for you Dogless!) because I had an early start at work and wanted to get the Pickles out for a decent long walk before leaving them for 7 hours  I took them to the really popular forest that we never normally go to because it's far too busy for my liking, but surprisingly at 05:45 in the wind and the rain we were the only ones there!! 
When we got home I went and showered and got ready for work, leaving it at least half an hour before giving the Pickles their breakfast. Immediately on finishing hers though Lily ran straight to the back door, retching. I let her out and she immediately started eating the plant on the patio so she must have felt sick  She was really unsettled and I was worried about leaving her. I checked her tummy and it all seemed ok. I phoned hubby who I knew was going to be flitting all over the island today so he said he'd flit by home in about 45 mins time so he'd pop in and check on her, so I reluctantly left for work. 

Anyway, she was absolutely fine, do you think it was from having a walk without breakfast? They normally get breakfast first thing then a rest before a walk but I did it the other way around this morning.

We went for another walk to a different forest after work, again we had the place to ourselves, I just can't understand why nobody else wants to be out walking in this glorious weather!! Did loads of training with them both and they were both little stars :thumbup:

Happy days

Cheers WAYWO folk!


----------



## Beth17

Blimey ladies lots of chatting today. I am all 'liked' out for now  
Hope you are all ok in this horrible weather. Thankfully down here we just have heavy rain and some wind.

Twiggy there's hope for my two tearaways yet then 

Had a nice quite walk at 8 this morning as had to be out early. They were good and got to calmly go past a few of dogs. I have spent the day facepainting children at uni. I am not the most artistic of people but at least you could recognise what was on the kids faces :biggrin:


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I hate that cold wind that cuts through you :frown2: Especially in March. Shame Hubby cant get back-is tomorrow looking any better?


Nope, tomorrow is severe too. TBH I am so used to hubby not being here that it's just normal life!! I love the deep snow, but am wary of quite how icy it's going to be in the morning....


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> T'is the storms here....oven now on for my dinner in case we have another one .
> 
> All I'm saying is don't put too much pressure on yourself either. Luckily with Ridgies I don't have any great obedience expectations  although would very much like to try agility!


Ah, that's ok. I don't have much of a social life unlike my either who goes down the pub and out with friends. I don't get stressed either (apart from when it comes to purchasing puppies, obviously!)

Just had some fireworks. Too close to be Thorpe Park.


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> So, this is Spring. Nice.
> 
> TFI Friday, What a week!
> 
> *Anyway, she was absolutely fine, do you think it was from having a walk without breakfast?* They normally get breakfast first thing then a rest before a walk but I did it the other way around this morning.
> 
> We went for another walk to a different forest after work, again we had the place to ourselves, I just can't understand why nobody else wants to be out walking in this glorious weather!! Did loads of training with them both and they were both little stars :thumbup:
> 
> Happy days
> 
> Cheers WAYWO folk!


Sounds as if Lily gobbled her breakfast too quickly. Mine do similar occasionally.


----------



## sharloid

L/C said:


> What do you think is behind the reaction? Is he a frustrated greeter or is he fearful of other dogs?
> 
> Do you do any training with him outside when other dogs aren't around? You mentioned recall but do you go through any obedience exercises? Do you play any games or do any simple scentwork? I've found since incorporating all of these things into our walks that Gypsy is a lot more focused on me and what exciting thing I'm going to do next rather then looking for trouble (other dogs/prey/interesting scents). Does that make sense?


He just wants to say hello to every dog we see! We have a mixture of street walks and long line walks. When he's on the long line we play fetch, find it, work on his recall and his stays etc.



moonviolet said:


> Sharloid, ( Tink has been a bit of a situational learner and didn't immediately generalise new things) Do you think he could he do it with dogs in the distance? and then work to reduce the distance?
> Making a sit a really rewarding thing to do by askign for one before anyone things he likes or wants ( meals, door opening etc) can help reinforce how great it is to sit
> 
> With spring coming maybe look out for an outdoor class?


It really is as soon as he sees the dog, which could be at the other side of the field. Also as we don't see many dogs, it's hard to make a situation where we can distance ourselves.

We use 'NILF' so he doesn't get something for nothing as it is. I never thought of an outside class, I just presumed they wouldn't allow us to use a long line (or are outdoor classes still done on lead?).



Twiggy said:


> That's because it hasn't been sufficiently well taught and proofed.
> 
> As I said yesterday re the post on stays, at obedience shows there are sometimes 1,000 dogs, 24 rings with judges, stewards, dogs doing retrieve, exciting sendaways, handlers throwing toys, cars driving out, handlers exercising dogs, etc. etc. and the stay ring may well be in the middle of all this. In the Novice Class many of the dogs are only 10-12 months old and they have to do a 1 minute sit stay, followed by a 2 minute down off the lead with their handlers in the middle of the ring behind the stewards. It's very rare for a dog to leave the ring, which is only a single rope, because they've been trained.


Well that's all very well and good... but how do you sufficiently teach it? When dogs aren't around he knows that sit is the automatic reaction when we stop or when he wants the front door opening or throw a ball for him. He becomes 'deaf' when he spots another dog. He will come away from it once he's got to say hello but having a dog come head long at us is quite stressful for both of us.


----------



## Thorne

Feeling guilty about how little I've been contributing to this thread lately  Hope everyone is doing well, will have a read of today's posts in a minute!

I have some exciting news, as of April 6 I'll officially be a Blue Cross Animal Welfare Assistant on a zero hours contract!  One of the staff has just had a major hip operation so will be completely out of action until the end of May, and will be part-time for most of the summer. I'm helping to cover for her and some pre-booked holiday cover, should be 2 days a week on top of the 3 I do for placement.
It'll only be until I go back to uni at the end of september but I'm genuinely ecstatic and touched that I've been offered a place on the team. I'll have a name badge and everything  
Quite pleased that I've been offered this instead of the co-op job I was interviewed for on monday, definitely know where I'd rather be.

Did more BAT work with Lola, took her for a walk, and had a long walk with this gorgeous little man:
Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre

Regarding S&B, they've had a scary walk (shooting) and a scary night to come (Scooter is very spooked by the wind howling down the chimney) but have had a nice chilled evening. We try to do some training everyday but they've had a lazy one today and seem very content


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Feeling guilty about how little I've been contributing to this thread lately  Hope everyone is doing well, will have a read of today's posts in a minute!
> 
> I have some exciting news, as of April 6 I'll officially be a Blue Cross Animal Welfare Assistant on a zero hours contract!  One of the staff has just had a major hip operation so will be completely out of action until the end of May, and will be part-time for most of the summer. I'm helping to cover for her and some pre-booked holiday cover, should be 2 days a week on top of the 3 I do for placement.
> It'll only be until I go back to uni at the end of september but I'm genuinely ecstatic and touched that I've been offered a place on the team. I'll have a name badge and everything
> Quite pleased that I've been offered this instead of the co-op job I was interviewed for on monday, definitely know where I'd rather be.
> 
> Did more BAT work with Lola, took her for a walk, and had a long walk with this gorgeous little man:
> Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> 
> Regarding S&B, they've had a scary walk (shooting) and a scary night to come (Scooter is very spooked by the wind howling down the chimney) but have had a nice chilled evening. We try to do some training everyday but they've had a lazy one today and seem very content


Congratulations to you, that's brilliant news. Be proud....


----------



## Twiggy

Well that's all very well and good... *but how do you sufficiently teach it?* When dogs aren't around he knows that sit is the automatic reaction when we stop or when he wants the front door opening or throw a ball for him. He becomes 'deaf' when he spots another dog. He will come away from it once he's got to say hello but having a dog come head long at us is quite stressful for both of us.[/QUOTE]

Very difficult to say without seeing you and your dog.

I will say though that I would be very rich if I'd been given a £1 for every time handlers have told me their dog *knows* a sit stay...LOL

Have you attended a decent training class with him?


----------



## sharloid

Twiggy said:


> Very difficult to say without seeing you and your dog.
> 
> I will say though that I would be very rich if I'd been given a £1 for every time handlers have told me their dog *knows* a sit stay...LOL
> 
> Have you attended a decent training class with him?


I only said he knows to sit in certain situations. 

We have been to a class, and we're thinking of enrolling him in another. I'm not sure it will help though.

We'll keep trying.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Thorne...a name badge too 'eh? :thumbup1: .


----------



## MollySmith

Awh well done Thorne, that's wonderful news


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well done Thorne!


----------



## moonviolet

Congratulations Thorne, pleased for you and the animals at the BC

Lovely last pavement walk in the rain 2 main reasons 1)she was an absolute dream trotting along beautifully, didn't bat an eyelid at anything.
2) we got to test out her new , "lets not get wet before bed" raincoat and it was brilliant no slipping, sliding, bunching etc.


----------



## sharloid

The walk this morning might not have gone so well, but he did excellent this afternoon when we took him scootering. He went 'on by' past me whilst the OH was riding when he usually stops and he even went 'on by' to some dogs that were a little distance a way.

Plus, we got some pictures of him looking super happy.


----------



## Beth17

Congratulations Thorne! I'm really pleased for you


----------



## Kicksforkills

2;45-3:30 awake. Then slept til half six. Which is rather good really.

I have a closed throat and slight sickness but that's probably nerves and/or being thirsty, so I've two hot cross buns, a Cadbury Sun, the rest of my mint Aero from yesterday and a diet coke.

It's not a co-ownership so PHEW!

We'll be leaving our house at 13:00. 

Ahhhh!


----------



## Dogless

Went to bed earlyish last night as we had a 'proper' power cut. Just came back on about an hour ago. No heating though. Ugh....hope hubby knows what might be the drama (must be an electrical switch somewhere that does something). Have hot water so maybe it's the thermostat switch instead? Who knows?

Hubby's flight so far delayed a couple of hours.

Kicksforkills - you really need to try and take a step back and breathe. Maybe take your dogs for a nice long walk or go for a run?


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> Went to bed earlyish last night as we had a 'proper' power cut. Just came back on about an hour ago. No heating though. Ugh....hope hubby knows what might be the drama (must be an electrical switch somewhere that does something). Have hot water so maybe it's the thermostat switch instead? Who knows?
> 
> Kicksforkills - you really need to try and take a step back and breathe. Maybe take your dogs for a nice long walk or go for a run?


Try switching off every switch then one a a time and wait about 30 seconds inbetween each one

Ours was garage cause of the rain.

Yep, definate snow/rain today.

Ah no ill be fine Dogless. Running? I reserve my running for agility as I look silly when running  too tall. As for the walk, yeah maybe a quick one.

Btw, do you think the breeders, when they home visit, will go upstairs and look in our bedrooms?

The puppy will be downstairs 98% of the time. Thanks.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Try switching off every switch then one a a time and wait about 30 seconds inbetween each one
> 
> Ours was garage cause of the rain.
> 
> Yep, definate snow/rain today.
> 
> Ah no ill be fine Dogless. Running? I reserve my running for agility as I look silly when running  too tall. As for the walk, yeah maybe a quick one.
> 
> Btw, do you think the breeders, when they home visit, will go upstairs and look in our bedrooms?
> 
> The puppy will be downstairs 98% of the time. Thanks.


Think it's probably the boiler ignition to be honest - oil fired. Going to have another look shortly.

I think the breeder will want to check that what you have told her is truthful and accurate and probably see how your other dogs behave - really not sure. I know the boys' breeder has caught someone who told her they lived in a large house etc out on Google Earth and they lived in a flat .

A walk sounds good unless the dogs have already been out for theirs, you'll have to take them anyway this morning I'd guess. Two walks by 7.30 would be quite energetic!


----------



## kat&molly

Brrr, Dogless, hope you get the heating sorted soon, and its not icy outside.
A 2 hour delay sounds optimistic.:thumbup1:

Great news Thorne and a name badge, woo woo.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Not sure if energetic is the right word...wet and muddy, however.

I don't see why the breeder would go in our bedrooms tbh -just check out garden, other dogs and general space probably.

I might ask them if they can take the puppy to the local field as of course dogs are going to be territorial in the house. In the garden they are normally fine but obviously neutral territory would be better


----------



## Maria_1986

Congratulations Thorne!

Woke up to find diarrhoea all over the floor in Chevy's room (luckily its lino flooring left from foster cat days) so at 7am on a Saturday I have been scrubbing the floor. More worried about her though as she has eaten most things with out ill effects - trying to work out what could have caused it to be last night as she had the home made stew on thursday evening and Friday morning so if that was going to have any bad effects I would have expected it to be before last night. Dinner last night was plain kibble as she had been given her wet food in a kong while I was out at work but it was the same wet food that she has been having previously. She did have a chew yesterday afternoon that she had not tried before and thats the only thing I can think of that would have upset her tummy unless she has the bug that has been doing the rounds here recently. 

Was supposed to be meeting the doggy day care lady today to make sure I was happy with her so that if I have to leave Chevy for the day I have a back up plan so that she is not alone. I have text her to let her know and am awaiting a reply to let me know what she would like to do. Going to pop into work and grab a tube of prokolin incase it continues so that I have it ready and will starve her and see how things go. She is well in her self and is wanting her breakfast so hopefully she isn't feeling too bad now.


----------



## kat&molly

Poor Chevy. Hope its just the chew that's upset her and not a bug.
Not very nice to wake up to.:frown2:


----------



## GingerRogers

Well done thorne. Really chuffed for you. 
hope you get the heating sorted Dogless  or you may have to snuggle up with pair of ridgies. And that Hubby gets back eventually.
Hope its nothing serious with lily and chevy 
kicks take some really deep breathes and chill. You keep stressing like this you gonna make her think you are a nutter.  pictures are a must later.


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> I only said he knows to sit in certain situations.
> 
> We have been to a class, and we're thinking of enrolling him in another. I'm not sure it will help though.
> 
> We'll keep trying.


It will honestly. The more you train him and socialise him the better his behaviour will be.


----------



## MollySmith

Poor Chevy, I hope you hear back soon Maria.

Dog less stay as warm as you can.

Snow here in Cambridge, it's settling fast. Molly was very unimpressed and is so lazy! Honestly, she slept after her walk yesterday for about 4 hours, did 3 hours of games, training and trying to climb into packing boxes and went to bed at 6pm. Apart from a wee break at 10 and 7 this morning she has slept. I'll have to budge her soon before the roads get too bad or no walks.


----------



## Twiggy

I hope you are all OK this morning, particularly *Dogless and Werehorse.*

It's snowing, blowing and settling here but looks much worse in Cumbria and Northern Ireland.

I think I'm going to bake comfort foods this morning. I really fancy an apple pie and jam tarts for some strange reason....


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> It will honestly. The more you train him and socialise him the better his behaviour will be.


Agree, it's taken about 8 months to find a technique that works for Molly and at least a month of slow introductions to proof it, it's been about 2 weeks since she last reacted but we are being sensible. I desperately want to take Molly to a group walk with Dimwit and her dog but I know to just take it carefully and move at Molly's pace. If I moved at mine I'd be in danger of flooding her. Sharloid it will get better but patience is the key. Like I think I said before write a blog or diary so you can see the little improvements grow into big steps.


----------



## Kicksforkills

GingerRogers said:


> Well done thorne. Really chuffed for you.
> hope you get the heating sorted Dogless  or you may have to snuggle up with pair of ridgies. And that Hubby gets back eventually.
> Hope its nothing serious with lily and chevy
> kicks take some really deep breathes and chill. You keep stressing like this you gonna make her think you are a nutter.  pictures are a must later.


But I thought you were supposed to be honest? 

Yes will take pics and unless we sit/step on a dog by accident then I think the puppy is coming to our house!

EDIT; Snowing more here.


----------



## Twiggy

Kicksforkills said:


> Not sure if energetic is the right word...wet and muddy, however.
> 
> I don't see why the breeder would go in our bedrooms tbh -just check out garden, other dogs and general space probably.
> 
> I might ask them if they can take the puppy to the local field as of course dogs are going to be territorial in the house. In the garden they are normally fine but obviously neutral territory would be better


Are we taking an 8 week old puppy here or is it older?

Don't suggest the local field unless the pup has had it's vaccinations.

I'm sure everything will be fine. Try and keep calm.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> It will honestly. The more you train him and socialise him the better his behaviour will be.


You are (of course) absolutely right. I am guilty in the past of saying "but he knows how to sit/lie down" but of course what I meant was that, in my living room, his sit and down are pretty reliable but that he is particularly rubbish at generalising

I hope everyone is OK - luckily although it is snowing here it doesn't seem to be settling on the roads so we are going to brave big walkies this morning, in the hope that the dimwit will then let me spend most of the afternoon lying on the sofa with hot chocolate and rubbish telly


----------



## Kicksforkills

Twiggy said:


> Are we taking an 8 week old puppy here or is it older?
> 
> Don't suggest the local field unless the pup has had it's vaccinations.
> 
> I'm sure everything will be fine. Try and keep calm.


Thanks.

He is six months old so is already going to ringcraft, walking nicely on the lead and microchipped as well as all his shots a long time ago.


----------



## moonviolet

Snow here too... while the snow lovers in the household have been wrapped up inside I've been out and done the grocery shop , roads are a bit dicey in places with deep slippery slush. Think i'll give the hills a miss.
Tink dashed out for a wee then back to bed so i guess she's in no raging hurry to go out for a walk.

Take care everyone.


KFK please take a few slow deep breaths before you burst 

Poor Chevy hope she's better soon.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Unfortunatly, my mother and I have slight food poisoning today. Not full on though, just belly aches and side effects of that.


----------



## Beth17

Morning everyone stay safe in this awful weather. 

The little white terror turned 1 today  where has the year gone. Luckily we still only have rain and wind so going to take him out for a nice birthday walk once his breakfast has gone down.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Happy birthday Sam!


----------



## BessieDog

Hope you get the heating sorted Dogless. We're off to get some coal in a moment as often get power cuts here in bad weather 

And bad it certainly is! We've not done the weekly shop so have no food in - will have to venture out and get that done first.


----------



## Twiggy

Kicksforkills said:


> Thanks.
> 
> He is six months old so is already going to ringcraft, walking nicely on the lead and microchipped as well as all his shots a long time ago.


Well if the breeder could see all the over thinking and getting yourself into a state for the past 24 hours, she would give you a gold star never mind allowing you to have the puppy...

Have you got any Bach Rescue Remedy in the house because I suggest a double dose half an hour before she arrives...!!

It's the stuff I swig almost continuously when I venture onto planes.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Happy Birthday Sam! I can't believe he's 1 already 

I hope you are all keeping safe and warm in this vile weather, no snow here, just rain and icy cold wind, Yuk! 
Dogless if you haven't managed to fix your heating yet then I suggest you snuggle up on the sofa under a couple of big red dogs!

Just done some training with the Pickles, I still can't quite get over just how much Branston LOVES it all  and he's so quick to pick up on everything, I really must find a suitable class to start with him. Lily loves it too but she's not a natural :lol: I think she just loves the 1 to 1 time with me though and it's made me realise how much more I need to do  
I shut the dog I'm not training behind the baby gate so I can just concentrate on them one a time but Branston is terrible.... whining, barking, jumping up at the gate, he's so jealous of me spending time with Lily, he ignores any treats or kongs I give him to try and pacify him. Should I just carry on and ignore him, I guess he just has to get used to it?

I'm off to work to get my neck fixed at lunchtime so really ought to take them out for their proper walk beforehand but it's sooooo grim out there!

Twiggy - today definitely seems like a good baking day  Can anyone recommend cakes I can make that will freeze well? We're having an afternoon tea for my nans 90th in April for 70 people  so need to get baking!!


----------



## Dogless

Poor Chevy  hope it's just a bug.

FRM - good luck with the neck fixing. Coffee cake, fruit cake and plain victoria sponge freeze well.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sam!!!!

Well, hubby has boarded a flight. He needs to check I haven't missed anything obvious with the heating and then I'll report it. No rush as they won't look until Monday earliest because we don't have children. So - no heating, no hot water THEN a cupboard door fell off in the kitchen :crazy: and the flush broke on the upstairs loo :frown2:. Thank goodness the shower is electric so I had a nice hot one before venturing out into the storm again .

The CHs were very good this morning, walked really well to the dog walking fields. Empty, of course in this weather and early at the weekend. We stayed out for about an hour and a quarter and they walked nicely back. We're all frozen and they have curled themselves up into little balls on the sofa but they had fun mucking about in the snow I think  :thumbup1:. Even if Rudi stuck his big head under Kilo as he peed again .

The snow is fascinating really - you get to see what the normally mysterious scents are that the dogs are interested in following - birds tracks, footprints etc.


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> You are (of course) absolutely right. I am guilty in the past of saying "but he knows how to sit/lie down" but of course what I meant was that, in my living room, his sit and down are pretty reliable but that he is particularly rubbish at generalising
> 
> I hope everyone is OK - luckily although it is snowing here it doesn't seem to be settling on the roads so we are going to brave big walkies this morning, in the hope that the dimwit will then let me spend most of the afternoon lying on the sofa with hot chocolate and rubbish telly


Enjoy BW, the roads on this side are okay, I always get a weather report from my parents as their village is the highest point in Canbs (Balsham) and the roads are fine.

I think I learned very early on with Molly about proofing just because of the lead reactivity. It has reduced me to tears but in a way I'm glad of it because if it wasn't for it I'd not found the Saintly trainer and learned more.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless I am cross for you, wont look till Mon cos no children grrrrr....


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Dogless I am cross for you, wont look till Mon cos no children grrrrr....


They might do and surprise me, but that is the usual drill at the weekend for 'emergency' stuff. Maybe they'll make an exception due to the weather? I'll see when I call if I've not missed something obvious.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills - are you certain that all is above board with this pup? You were told that it was 8 weeks old, then 2 months, then 5 months and now 6 months. It just raises a few red flags with me. I hope it is and I'm just being over cautious.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Twiggy said:


> Well if the breeder could see all the over thinking and getting yourself into a state for the past 24 hours, she would give you a gold star never mind allowing you to have the puppy...
> 
> Have you got any Bach Rescue Remedy in the house because I suggest a double dose half an hour before she arrives...!!
> 
> It's the stuff I swig almost continuously when I venture onto planes.


Haha nope I don't. Today I'm the one going to her house. If that goes well then she will bring him here. If that goes well (I haven't lied about having a big garden or other pets so why shouldn't it?), then we will get the puppy.

I'm going to give myself a gold star on behalf of her as she cannot be here right now 

Edit;



Dogless said:


> Kicksforkills - are you certain that all is above board with this pup? You were told that it was 8 weeks old, then 2 months, then 5 months and now 6 months. It just raises a few red flags with me. I hope it is and I'm just being over cautious.


No I wasn't told that I just worked out his age wrong


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Happy Birthday Sam! I can't believe he's 1 already
> 
> I hope you are all keeping safe and warm in this vile weather, no snow here, just rain and icy cold wind, Yuk!
> Dogless if you haven't managed to fix your heating yet then I suggest you snuggle up on the sofa under a couple of big red dogs!
> 
> *Just done some training with the Pickles, I still can't quite get over just how much Branston LOVES it all  and he's so quick to pick up on everything, I really must find a suitable class to start with him. Lily loves it too but she's not a natural :lol: I think she just loves the 1 to 1 time with me though and it's made me realise how much more I need to do*
> I shut the dog I'm not training behind the baby gate so I can just concentrate on them one a time but Branston is terrible.... whining, barking, jumping up at the gate, he's so jealous of me spending time with Lily, he ignores any treats or kongs I give him to try and pacify him. Should I just carry on and ignore him, I guess he just has to get used to it?
> 
> I could hug and kiss you for that (in a Grannie sort of way)....:thumbup1:
> 
> That is exactly what I mean and keep trying to explain. Just simple basic training, done consistently, makes such a huge difference. The dogs love it because they are interacting with their handler and using their brains.
> 
> Not sure which cakes freeze well, as my husband devours more or less everything within 24 hours.


----------



## moonviolet

FRM this is only a suggestion but could you do a session with Branstons mat the other side of the babygate and rewarding him for settling on it ... with the long goal of this being his "work" while you train Lilly.

Just to give you an idea of waht i mean... look at the collies waiting their turn at 1:10 in this video of our games class. Dog Activity Spot - Games Class - YouTube


----------



## Dogless

Crap. I haven't thought to check oil level.....last delivery December and hubby meant to check the other week......I reckon t'is a FAIL on our part rather than the boiler being kaput....


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Crap. I haven't thought to check oil level.....last delivery December and hubby meant to check the other week......I reckon t'is a FAIL on our part rather than the boiler being kaput....


Ooohhhh Nooo


----------



## GingerRogers

Argh face palm Dogless.
Have you got any electric heaters them oil filled ones are nice to huddle round.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Electric blankets are mostly good too.


----------



## MollySmith

Oh no Dogless! 

FRM so so pleased to hear about The Pickles! It is so rewarding, Molly loves the clicker and can't wait, it makes it so worthwhile


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Ooohhhh Nooo


Yup . Caught oil lorry on way round - he is here as we speak with tank being filled .

    .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Yup . Caught oil lorry on way round - he is here as we speak with tank being filled .
> 
> .


I do not even want to know what you did to make him stop :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> Yup . Caught oil lorry on way round - he is here as we speak with tank being filled .
> 
> .


You're lucky!! We have to wait at least a week to get a delivery! Ran out just after Christmas once as the weather suddenly turned cold. Very miserable new year huddled round the coal fire. 

Glad you got it sorted.

Shopping done. Off to brave a walk in the woods. Still snowing here - roads not too bad.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Crap. I haven't thought to check oil level.....last delivery December and hubby meant to check the other week......I reckon t'is a FAIL on our part rather than the boiler being kaput....


Oh dear, we did that ourselves at one point. Luckily we did check before reporting anything. I do not miss having oil one bit, I hated it.

FRM, all mine have loved their training sessions. Spencer will quite often ask for one lol. I'd go with MVs suggestion of having Branstons work while you work with Lily to be lying on his mat. Kikopup has a video explaining how to go about teaching one dog to settle while working with another. I'm off out shortly but will have a look for it when I get back for you.

Me and Spencer are supposed to be off for a walk with his buddy Milo at 2. They didn't turn up last time so hopefully they do this time. If not we'll go on our own again.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Crap. I haven't thought to check oil level.....last delivery December and hubby meant to check the other week......I reckon t'is a FAIL on our part rather than the boiler being kaput....


Oh dear..!! I'm afraid that's happened to us a few times when husband has forgotten to check.

It's snowing like the blazes now and my dogs are bored and thinking they are overdue a walk. I don't know whether to try and sneak the others out without Quiver and nip them twice round the back field...


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well, I'm off. See you all on the other side!


----------



## Twiggy

Kicksforkills said:


> Well, I'm off. See you all on the other side!


Good luck...!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yup . Caught oil lorry on way round - he is here as we speak with tank being filled .
> 
> .


Oh thank goodness for that...:thumbup1:

I see Moonviolet is again lowering the tone of our highly respectable sticky..

Husband has just taken the three youngest dogs out and Quiver is lying at my feet asleep, bless her.

I've knocked up a shepherds pie, three meat and vegetable rolls and I'm about to start on an apple pie, jam tart and cheese straws...

I bought myself a half leg of lamb on Thursday, after Dogless made me drool which I'll have for dinner tomorrow. Husband only likes beef, sausages and bacon but never mind the dogs like lamb.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh thank goodness for that...:thumbup1:
> 
> I see Moonviolet is again lowering the tone of our highly respectable sticky..
> 
> Husband has just taken the three youngest dogs out and Quiver is lying at my feet asleep, bless her.
> 
> I've knocked up a shepherds pie, three meat and vegetable rolls and I'm about to start on an apple pie, jam tart and cheese straws...
> 
> I bought myself a half leg of lamb on Thursday, after Dogless made me drool which I'll have for dinner tomorrow. Husband only likes beef, sausages and bacon but never mind the dogs like lamb.


Lamb is my favourite :thumbup1: . Beef is hubby's. An apple pie sounds tempting today too .


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> You're lucky!! We have to wait at least a week to get a delivery! Ran out just after Christmas once as the weather suddenly turned cold. Very miserable new year huddled round the coal fire.
> 
> Glad you got it sorted.
> 
> Shopping done. Off to brave a walk in the woods. Still snowing here - roads not too bad.


Normally same or next day here as oil is the only option and there are loads and loads of oil companies. Loads of shops and garages sell emergency small drums of oil too.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Oh thank goodness for that...:thumbup1:
> 
> I see Moonviolet is again lowering the tone of our highly respectable sticky..
> 
> Husband has just taken the three youngest dogs out and Quiver is lying at my feet asleep, bless her.
> 
> I've knocked up a shepherds pie, three meat and vegetable rolls and I'm about to start on an apple pie, jam tart and cheese straws...
> 
> I bought myself a half leg of lamb on Thursday, after Dogless made me drool which I'll have for dinner tomorrow. Husband only likes beef, sausages and bacon but never mind the dogs like lamb.


*gets in car to find Twiggy's house, thank goodness I have a lurcher* 


I might also make a cake, I have apples and need to put the oven on for a massive pork shoulder roast today. I can never put the oven on for one thing, it has to be stacked full of cooking food.

So pleased you have oil Dogless, that week in January when our boiler broke was dreadful, never ever been so cold. We're gas but we have working fireplaces up and downstairs but it was still horrendous.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> *I see Moonviolet is again lowering the tone of our highly respectable sticky..:*eek:


It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.:cornut:

Tink i'm going to bake some bread, got some fresh yeast this morning 

Just got back from a walk, not too bad considering :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

I know Bambi is sweet an' all but could someone please shoot all the deer in my area. I had another sphincter moment today. Fortunately no equipment malfunction this time. I can supply guns and caps if anyone's interested.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.:cornut:
> 
> *Tink i'm going to bake some bread*, got some fresh yeast this morning
> 
> Just got back from a walk, not too bad considering :lol:


You talking aloud? Or is Tink baking.......nothing would surprise me, she's got some impressive tricks up her sleeve.....

I want to bake now but the cupboards are pretty much bare. Shortbread maybe, have some cornflower in I think . Hubby home :thumbup1:.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I know Bambi is sweet an' all but could someone please shoot all the deer in my area. I had another sphincter moment today. Fortunately no equipment malfunction this time. I can supply guns and caps if anyone's interested.


I'd get rid of the deer and feral goats and sheep here first...never know what's going to be in the forest .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You talking aloud? Or is Tink baking.......nothing would surprise me, she's got some impressive tricks up her sleeve.....
> 
> I want to bake now but the cupboards are pretty much bare. Shortbread maybe, have some cornflower in I think . Hubby home :thumbup1:.


Can just see her in a chef's hat :lol: :lol:

Glad hubby's home safely.


----------



## Dimwit

Blimey, it was cold out there this morning
Little dimwit is now showing how "special" he is and is curled up asleep ON TOP of his crate

Inspired by all of the Domestic Goddessery on here I have just made a plum crumble for my pudding tonight and I have pulled pork bubbling away in the slow cooker


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Twiggy said:


> I could hug and kiss you for that (in a Grannie sort of way)....:thumbup1:
> 
> That is exactly what I mean and keep trying to explain. Just simple basic training, done consistently, makes such a huge difference. The dogs love it because they are interacting with their handler and using their brains.
> 
> Not sure which cakes freeze well, as my husband devours more or less everything within 24 hours.


Aww Thank you 



moonviolet said:


> FRM this is only a suggestion but could you do a session with Branstons mat the other side of the babygate and rewarding him for settling on it ... with the long goal of this being his "work" while you train Lilly.
> 
> Just to give you an idea of waht i mean... look at the collies waiting their turn at 1:10 in this video of our games class. Dog Activity Spot - Games Class - YouTube





Sarah1983 said:


> Oh dear, we did that ourselves at one point. Luckily we did check before reporting anything. I do not miss having oil one bit, I hated it.
> 
> FRM, all mine have loved their training sessions. Spencer will quite often ask for one lol. I'd go with MVs suggestion of having Branstons work while you work with Lily to be lying on his mat. Kikopup has a video explaining how to go about teaching one dog to settle while working with another. I'm off out shortly but will have a look for it when I get back for you.
> 
> Me and Spencer are supposed to be off for a walk with his buddy Milo at 2. They didn't turn up last time so hopefully they do this time. If not we'll go on our own again.


This is why I come on here for advice  If you've got a video clip of how to achieve this Sarah I'd be really grateful :thumbup:

Glad you sorted the heating situation Dogless 

Getting very hungry with all this food talk, we're going out to my favourite pub for dinner tonight with some friends, they use all local produce and it's delicious, can't wait :drool:

Just got back from having my neck fixed, feeling better already  Just got to try staying on my feet now when walking the Pickles!


----------



## BessieDog

Wow - can't believe the amount of cooking that goes on in this thread! It's making me hungry!

Had a nice snowy walk in the woods - maybe put some pics up later. 

Bess has decided she really does not like her Julius K9 harness. She dived in her crate to stop me putting it on her today. Can't work out why - it doesn't seem to rub anywhere. Once she's got it on she's okay.

She'll let me put her dogmatic on no problem, even though she then spends half the walk trying to rub it off. It also takes the fur off her face, so I'm trying not to use it!

So what's the matter with the harness?


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.:cornut:
> 
> Tink i'm going to bake some bread, got some fresh yeast this morning
> 
> Just got back from a walk, not too bad considering :lol:


In that case we'll all head down South...LOL Fresh bread - yummy!!

I haven't made fresh bread for years and gave my breadmaker away.


----------



## Sarah1983

Here you go FRM, the video links to a couple of other things you may need to work on first.
How to train more than one dog- clicker dog training - YouTube

Just got back from our walk. Ashamed to say Spencer ignored recall to go up to another dog : Other dog owner was far from impressed despite my apology and me hurrying to get Spen but to be fair her dog was off leash and also ignored recall to meet Spen half way so wasn't ALL me in the wrong. And he didn't just go charging up, he waited about 10m away and was very polite. He also ignored the leashed dog we passed other than having a bit of a whine. His recall was pretty awful the whole time we were out though  He'd respond to "this way" and change direction but come to me? Forget it. Really need to work on it when walking with someone coz it seems to fall apart whenever we're not alone.

Other than the recall issue it was a very nice walk. Spencer and Milo both decided that temperatures of -3 were not going to stop them playing in the stream we cross and the big puddle further along  I brought home a black and tan Labrador. At one point Spen picked up a stick that must have been a good 7ft long and insisted on dragging it around with him. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so didn't get any pics


----------



## Twiggy

There's a little dog tapping me on the leg because she wants to go over to the barn to train...!!

That's the trouble with collies, they've never had enough. They didn't come in until gone 1.00pm and hubby said they were all belting about but now they're all bored including Quiver, who admittedly didn't get a walk this morning.

At least it's not snowing so heavily now so hopefully they'll get their second walk.

*FRM *I stick a ball in Tremor's mouth when I'm giving Holly her go at training. She dances about and drools but doesn't whinge or bark.


----------



## GingerRogers

BessieDog said:


> Wow - can't believe the amount of cooking that goes on in this thread! It's making me hungry!
> 
> Had a nice snowy walk in the woods - maybe put some pics up


Me too, hungry and woods. Went to the dry woods by the estuary in the hope it might be a bit sheltered. Was all sprinkled with icing sugar  but i forgot about the shelter bit and took anew path out the woods through the bracken. Ginge loved it though, lots of yummy smells and flushed a woodcock out at one point.

No help with the harness we have this conversation every time we put any thing on. Harness collar or coat.
No not wearing it.
Well you can't go out with out it.
No i will lie down so you can't.
Ginger come on.
Oh ok.


----------



## L/C

So much baking! I made meat cake for the dogs - that's the extent of my cooking today. :lol:

Thorne - congrats on the job!

Happy birthday Sam!

Kfk - hope everything goes well with pup.

Dogless - glad the heating is sorted, we won't mention anything about it again. 

FRM - sounds like you're making progress. :thumbup1:

Mixed morning at chez pointy. My temperature hit 40 overnight and I have added the symptoms of painful, upset stomach and flemmy cough to sore throat, painful joints, headache and nausea. Ugh.

OH is in trouble again, asked him to help me walk the dogs as feeling crap and he refused as he was hungover! Had major words when I got back (from snow and biting wind after 2 hours) and he seems to feel suitably guilty. Would say he is in the dog house but here the dog house is lovely - maybe the crappy OH house? 

A brilliant walk though - happy, snow zoomies, good and enthusiastic recalls and some nice find it games and tracking. Too cold again for mat work so I think we'll do some later in the house. Ely seems pain free and his wound is almost completely healed now. They had a good game of chase and no snapping or cross words (was a bit worried Ely might be apprehensive but he was fine). Didn't see anyone else again so he had another nice long walk off the lead.

Just got back from my shift at the gallery I volunteer at and had a game of tuggy with Gypsy that she initiated and didn't gave to involve Ely at anytime. It's lovely that she's learning to play with toys and wants to play with me in ways that don't need me to run around like a loon. She's now staring a hole in the side of my head so I will do something with her. Unfortunately I need to curl up with the duvet and my Ely hot water bottle so she will have to make do with a cow's ear.

So highs and lows this morning!


----------



## Beth17

Dogless glad hubby is home safe and the heating is sorted.

FRM glad the neck is sorted and training is going so well.

BD sounds like a lovely snowy walk. 

Sarah naughty Spen not recalling. Sounds like a lovely walk other than that 

I'm feeling hungry with all this baking going on.

Well I have two tired dogs flaked out next to the radiators. Had a really lovely walk although Sam did try killing me in the woods a few times as it was so slippery. Didn't see many people out due to the weather so the boys got to have a good run about in the fields before heading down into the woods. There were some sheep in the top field which the boys were quite interested in so we moved swiftly on. Found lots of deep puddles to paddle in and took a new path that came up onto the main road. 

We then had to walk back to the car and pass the sheep field again. The lambs next to the gate ran when they spotted us coming along and that stirred my two's predatory instinct and I had to drag them past. They've never really come close to sheep before so I know for future reference that they will chase if given the chance.

They have tripe for dinner as a treat and also Sam has a Safestix hidden away until later. I got a medium one from the shop however they only had it in pink. I then had to walk up my street with it on show as didn't have a bag 

I am off to make a birthday/picture thread for Sam to bore everyone with


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Me too, hungry and woods. Went to the dry woods by the estuary in the hope it might be a bit sheltered. Was all sprinkled with icing sugar  but i forgot about the shelter bit and took anew path out the woods through the bracken. Ginge loved it though, lots of yummy smells and flushed a woodcock out at one point.
> 
> No help with the harness we have this conversation every time we put any thing on. Harness collar or coat.
> No not wearing it.
> Well you can't go out with out it.
> No i will lie down so you can't.
> Ginger come on.
> Oh ok.


Ginge sounds like Quiver when I approach her with pills.

She's also good as no - shan't - won't and although she doesn't bite she closes her teeth on my hand so that I can't move it.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Sarah1983 said:


> Here you go FRM, the video links to a couple of other things you may need to work on first.
> How to train more than one dog- clicker dog training - YouTube


Thank you :thumbup: Just watched them all and saved them to my favourites. Going to start right NOW!!!


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> So much baking! I made meat cake for the dogs - that's the extent of my cooking today. :lol:
> 
> Thorne - congrats on the job!
> 
> Happy birthday Sam!
> 
> Kfk - hope everything goes well with pup.
> 
> Dogless - glad the heating is sorted, we won't mention anything about it again.
> 
> FRM - sounds like you're making progress. :thumbup1:
> 
> Mixed morning at chez pointy. My temperature hit 40 overnight and I have added the symptoms of painful, upset stomach and flemmy cough to sore throat, painful joints, headache and nausea. Ugh.
> 
> OH is in trouble again, asked him to help me walk the dogs as feeling crap and he refused as he was hungover! Had major words when I got back (from snow and biting wind after 2 hours) and he seems to feel suitably guilty. Would say he is in the dog house but here the dog house is lovely - maybe the crappy OH house?
> 
> A brilliant walk though - happy, snow zoomies, good and enthusiastic recalls and some nice find it games and tracking. Too cold again for mat work so I think we'll do some later in the house. Ely seems pain free and his wound is almost completely healed now. They had a good game of chase and no snapping or cross words (was a bit worried Ely might be apprehensive but he was fine). Didn't see anyone else again so he had another nice long walk off the lead.
> 
> Just got back from my shift at the gallery I volunteer at and had a game of tuggy with Gypsy that she initiated and didn't gave to involve Ely at anytime. It's lovely that she's learning to play with toys and wants to play with me in ways that don't need me to run around like a loon. She's now staring a hole in the side of my head so I will do something with her. Unfortunately I need to curl up with the duvet and my Ely hot water bottle so she will have to make do with a cow's ear.
> 
> So highs and lows this morning!


It sounds as if you should be tucked up in bed not out in this weather walking dogs.


----------



## Beth17

L/C sorry you're still feeling ill  Sounds like a really good morning with the Pointies though.

Ginge what a lovely walk with the ninja


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Dogless glad hubby is home safe and the heating is sorted.
> 
> FRM glad the neck is sorted and training is going so well.
> 
> BD sounds like a lovely snowy walk.
> 
> Sarah naughty Spen not recalling. Sounds like a lovely walk other than that
> 
> I'm feeling hungry with all this baking going on.
> 
> Well I have two tired dogs flaked out next to the radiators. Had a really lovely walk although Sam did try killing me in the woods a few times as it was so slippery. Didn't see many people out due to the weather so the boys got to have a good run about in the fields before heading down into the woods. There were some sheep in the top field which the boys were quite interested in so we moved swiftly on. Found lots of deep puddles to paddle in and took a new path that came up onto the main road.
> 
> We then had to walk back to the car and pass the sheep field again. The lambs next to the gate ran when they spotted us coming along and that stirred my two's predatory instinct and I had to drag them past. They've never really come close to sheep before so I know for future reference that they will chase if given the chance.
> 
> They have tripe for dinner as a treat and also Sam has a Safestix hidden away until later.* I got a medium one from the shop however they only had it in pink. I then had to walk up my street with it on show as didn't have a bag *
> 
> I am off to make a birthday/picture thread for Sam to bore everyone with


Don't you start now, we're very respectable on this sticky. You ask Moonviolet....


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Well it turns out I'm sharing my house with a pair of four legged genius'  

We have just achieved one dog lying settled on the mat whilst the other one does some training right in front of them :thumbup:

We started with very basic sits and downs and after a mere 10 minutes I was running around the kitchen with Branston playing 'touch' whilst Lily just chilled on the mat and then.......... get this............. VICE VERSA with Branston RELAXING on the mat while I played touch with Lily    

I actually can't believe how easy it is when you go about it the right way. Thank you so much for all your help as always, I have two very happy pooches (who currently have bellies full of cocktail sausages!  )


----------



## Beth17

You have pair of very clever Pickles FRM


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Beth17 said:


> You have pair of very clever Pickles FRM


It really would appear so  I honestly can't believe how quickly they learn... when I'm going the right way about teaching them :lol:

Clearly I have been letting them down for the past 2 years by not harnessing their genius potential


----------



## MollySmith

OMG Beth, I've done that too with Molly's pink one. It's mortifying!


----------



## Dogless

L/C - 'like' your post apart from being ill still. 'Dislike' that :frown2:.

Beth - Pink!!!!! You actually bought a pink one  .

FRM - Genius Pickle.....maybe people would buy it to spread on their sandwiches in the hope their brainpower would be boosted : .

Good lead walk with the CHs. No one seen again, not many dogs being walked at all at present it seems - come the first warm, sunny day and there'll be legions of dog walkers out . I was pondering - sibes and mals are very popular here at present. Their owners often proudly announce them as being "snow dogs". So, how come when it snows they're kept indoors?  .


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Well it turns out I'm sharing my house with a pair of four legged genius'
> 
> We have just achieved one dog lying settled on the mat whilst the other one does some training right in front of them :thumbup:
> 
> We started with very basic sits and downs and after a mere 10 minutes I was running around the kitchen with Branston playing 'touch' whilst Lily just chilled on the mat and then.......... get this............. VICE VERSA with Branston RELAXING on the mat while I played touch with Lily
> 
> *I actually can't believe how easy it is when you go about it the right way.* Thank you so much for all your help as always, I have two very happy pooches (who currently have bellies full of cocktail sausages!  )


BIG, Big gold STAR - luv Grannie..:thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> L/C - 'like' your post apart from being ill still. 'Dislike' that :frown2:.
> 
> Beth - Pink!!!!! You actually bought a pink one  .
> 
> FRM - Genius Pickle.....maybe people would buy it to spread on their sandwiches in the hope their brainpower would be boosted : .
> 
> Good lead walk with the CHs. No one seen again, not many dogs being walked at all at present it seems - come the first warm, sunny day and there'll be legions of dog walkers out . I was pondering - sibes and mals are very popular here at present. Their owners often proudly announce them as being "snow dogs". So, how come when it snows they're kept indoors?  .


What's the weather like over there now?

It's awful here and still snowing heavily. According to the Met Office it isn't going to stop until tomorrow lunchtime either.

I don't know what husband did when he walked the girls this morning but Leafy is now lame... I kept her on the lead this afternoon and only gave her and Quiver about 20 minutes, then went back out with the other two so they had a decent walk.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> What's the weather like over there now?
> 
> It's awful here and still snowing heavily. According to the Met Office it isn't going to stop until tomorrow lunchtime either.
> 
> I don't know what husband did when he walked the girls this morning but Leafy is now lame... I kept her on the lead this afternoon and only gave her and Quiver about 20 minutes, then went back out with the other two so they had a decent walk.


Oh no, poor Leafy . Snow stopped mid morning ish apart from the odd flake or two - still very, very windy and very cold. I'm sorry that it's bad with you. Not seen a storm like last night in a long time.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless, glad you had good lead walks, I too have wondered about the distinct lack of snow dogs when it's snowing.

MS and Beth funny how the pink ones are the ones that always seem to be in stock in pet shops :lol:

Beth Happy birthday Sam, I shall going hunting your pic thread shortly.

FRM I love reading you posts these days ... you dog training evangelist :lol: :lol: :lol: we did warn you it's addictive right ?

Sarah Tink's a bit more cocky when she's with friends, sounds like Spendog is too :lol: 

Twiggy do you think the ball in mouth trick woudl work with OH , when he suddenly urgently needs a conversation when i'm training Tink :skep:

Oh no poor leafy Hope she's better in the morning.

GR sounds like a fun walk 

L/C Glad teh pointies had a good time. Please take care of yourself I hope you are feeling better very soon.

The smell here is heavenly. made some foccacia and some rolls. I can Highly recommend Richard Bertinet's book "dough", and his alternative kneading method. Tidied up and having a cuppa while a certain floppy eared creature sits staring at me and mumbling occasionally , guess she'd like to play some games and do some training.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy do you think the ball in mouth trick woudl work with OH , when she suddenly urgently needs a conversation when i'm training Tink :skep:
> 
> The smell here is heavenly. made some foccacia and some rolls. I can Highly recommend Richard Bertinet's book "dough", and his alternative kneading method. Tidied up and having a cuppa while a certain floppy eared creature sits staring at me and mumbling occasionally , guess she'd like to play some games and do some training.


Boot.....with or without your foot in. Your choice :skep:.

Foccacia....mmmmmm. My friend bought me a 'Great British Bake Off' book the chrimbo before last and some of the breads in there are delicious too.


----------



## moonviolet

I really can't wait for better weather I cant wait to play hoopla in the garden, We played 2 rounds of 8 frisbees tonight broken by 2 rounds of cinnamon sniffer dog, a 4 toy tidy toys and bring the basket. SOme heelwork with toy against thigh and random retrieves and various other malarky and she wants moreeeeeeee. 

I love the way she looks at me when were training/playing :001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Dogless, glad you had good lead walks, I too have wondered about the distinct lack of snow dogs when it's snowing.
> 
> MS and Beth funny how the pink ones are the ones that always seem to be in stock in pet shops :lol:
> 
> Beth Happy birthday Sam, I shall going hunting your pic thread shortly.
> 
> FRM I love reading you posts these days ... you dog training evangelist :lol: :lol: :lol: we did warn you it's addictive right ?
> 
> Sarah Tink's a bit more cocky when she's with friends, sounds like Spendog is too :lol:
> 
> *Twiggy do you think the ball in mouth trick woudl work with OH , when he suddenly urgently needs a conversation when i'm training Tink* :skep:
> 
> Oh no poor leafy Hope she's better in the morning.
> 
> Right now I'd like to exterminate all of them....
> 
> Leafy only had laser treatment on her extremely iffy shoulder yesterday and I've more or less kept her sound for over a year.
> 
> I know what my beloved did. The only one he had on a lead this morning when he went off down the paddock was Tremor. So I expect Leafy went belting off with Holly and.......
> 
> Gormless, zero dog sense and never listen seems to be the norm with men.
> 
> Unfortunately Leafy will now be lead walking only, as it usually takes at least two weeks before she comes sound, and that's with careful management.
> 
> Husband is cheerfully whistling away whilst he gets ready to go out and poor little Leafy is hopping lame.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Twiggy  

It might be best if he's out of your sight this evening


----------



## Dogless

At least he's going out Twiggy. Only chance he has of staying in one piece I suspect :frown2:.

mv - I love the way Kilo and Rudi look when I get them engaged in training too, really intense and like I'm all that matters in their whole world :001_wub:


----------



## moonviolet

Just watching images from Cumbria on the news , I do hope Werehorse is OK


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> Just watching images from Cumbria on the news , I do hope Werehorse is OK


Just looked it up on BBC website - it looks really bad. 

Twiggy - do you think we should send our OH's off somewhere together?


----------



## MollySmith

I appear to have lost my OH. He was last seen heading to shops for milk and prob went to the pub. I wish he had said, I get worried after his accident last May, I heard nothing for 3 hours until the hospital called and he still doesn't understand why I just like to know where he is. oh well, it's his tea that will be spoiling. Blummin men :mad5:

I hope leafy is okay, poor wee thing, I agree he is probably best to disappear Twiggy.

I saw Cumbria and spoke to my OH's family in Lancs and it is grim, their daughter, our niece, is overdue and can't get to maternity hospital so they are all worried.


----------



## MollySmith

L/C said:


> Just looked it up on BBC website - it looks really bad.
> 
> Twiggy - do you think we should send our OH's off somewhere together?


Man Camp.
Classes in recall 
clicker training with beer
Rest breaks involving cooking for kongs whilst cleaning floor with broom up the bottom
Walkies (and useful shopping)

I could go on...


----------



## sharloid

Can anyone recommend any books about training games? I know it sounds silly but I don't know what to do... 

We're spending time going over the basics and working on 'watch me' but they get bored doing the same few things over and over.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh Twiggy
> 
> It might be best if he's out of your sight this evening


Very true...!! Although I haven't said anything because, at times, I have to rely heavily on him to walk the dogs.

I've already had the usual mantra "these things always happen when I'm walking them" to which I feel like replying "I wonder why?"

The reason Leafy has deep soft tissue trauma in her left shoulder is because when she was young he thought is was amusing to let her chase the wheelbarrow and snap at the wheels. Even when she'd been very lame on several occasions I'd still catch him allowing her to do it, and then he wondered why I got annoyed.

Men - I despair sometimes....


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Very true...!! Although I haven't said anything because, at times, I have to rely heavily on him to walk the dogs.
> 
> I've already had the usual mantra "these things always happen when I'm walking them" to which I feel like replying "I wonder why?"
> 
> The reason Leafy has deep soft tissue trauma in her left shoulder is because when she was young he thought is was amusing to let her chase the wheelbarrow and snap at the wheels. Even when she'd been very lame on several occasions I'd still catch him allowing her to do it, and then he wondered why I got annoyed.
> 
> Men - I despair sometimes....


They are idiots at times, I had my mum on the phone yesterday it was her birthday, I'd sent her a card and had a present delivered, during the course of the call, i stupidly asked what Dad had got her ( I asked him last weekend if he needed me to do anything he assured me he had it organised) NOTHING he got her nothing not a card not a gift nothing! I could kick the man seriously i could. He absolutely adores her, is it really so hard to get her a card, a gift.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Man Camp.
> Classes in recall
> clicker training with beer
> Rest breaks involving cooking for kongs whilst cleaning floor with broom up the bottom
> Walkies (and useful shopping)
> 
> I could go on...


Basic common sense.....:001_huh:. Mind you, I'm not sure that can be taught.....:frown2:.



sharloid said:


> Can anyone recommend any books about training games? I know it sounds silly but I don't know what to do...
> 
> We're spending time going over the basics and working on 'watch me' but they get bored doing the same few things over and over.


How about some scent work? Or the book "Chase!: Managing Your Dog's Predatory Instincts" has some games that make walks more interactive.

Making them work for tug? Building all the basics like a stay up so that they're sat steady whilst you throw a toy around them then release them to get it? My "Ready..Steady" stuff - Twiggy what is it called? That's brilliant.

TBH training classes are where I get ideas for impulse control stuff, downs at a distance etc.


----------



## moonviolet

Sharloid, Kikopup has a huge amount of things on you tube. Lots to inspire there


----------



## Beth17

Well I bought a pink one as that was the only one in the pet shop-I did ask if they had any others. I didn't get round to getting one online didn't want to wait and so got it  It seems to be a hit and is resisting chewing attempts so may get another colour for outside.

Twiggy poor Leafy 

MS I hope the OH turns up and that your niece stays safe.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sharloid, Kikopup has a huge amount of things on you tube. Lots to inspire there


Would 2nd this. Check out Just Jesse on youtube too, doesn't go into how to teach them but lots of really cool stuff.


----------



## Werehorse

Oh carp, FRM asked ages back if I could re-link the vids of Hugo learning retrieve... Hugo Retrieve 1 - YouTube Sorry sweetie.  Better late than never!

Twiggy - I'm ok in terms of snow, well away from the worst of it. Although rather stupidly I did drive from Cockermouth to Keswick yesterday. Dressed as a Georgian, with a car full of other people also dressed as Georgians. Life is a very odd thing sometimes.

I think I could actually kill for central heating right now - or a multi-fuel stove. Just about got the fire going but it'll be another hour before really gets going and it stops feeling like the walls are leaking cold air onto me and then it'll be blimmin bed time and the bedroom will be cold.  No wonder my toes are basically one giant chill blain this year! Driving me mad! 

It was a cafe day today, day off tomorrow then work Monday, Tuesday then things are looking to calm down! On the plus side I brought home two unsold National Trust cheese scones made by my own fair hand, so we'll be having them with tea.  I'm definitely going to start leaving bigger tips in cafes! It is hard going. 

The boys have officially gone bonkers and did a bit of de-stuffing of the duvet we keep on the sofa this morning (OH went in to work this morning too). But OH took them for a good walk this afternoon thankfully! Oscar was "bouncing off the sky" apparently. :lol:

WELL DONE THORNE!!!  Awesome news.


----------



## Guest

WELL DONE FRM!!!! 

Dare I ask why a pink safestix is mortifying? It is cos your dogs are male? 

I SUCK at skittles :lol: And it seemed everyone else there had them perfect lurchers and greys, them ones that are and I quote "Like air on the end of the lead!" 

I was also the only one to own a fence jumper :lol:

He was good this morn, he sat whenever I went "HEEEEEYYYY ZANNNDER!! Sit."
but not when I just told him to sit on its own. 

I think its cos when we have to face a dog, I'm like "HEEEEEYYYY" to stop him doing the THERES A DOG thing.

We were literally like three streets away from this dog this morn and Zand was chewbacca whining. :001_huh:

He's only thrown up once today. Its been like a white bilious stuff, with lots of grass. 

I had the lovely two shifts, with a small gap between. I slept. And Zand spent his time rooting under my bed.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Dare I ask why a pink safestix is mortifying? It is cos your dogs are male?


Just take a look and use your imagination :scared:.......


----------



## Beth17

Yes not so much the pink as the boys seem to prefer pink toys, more the shape...


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Just take a look and use your imagination :scared:.......





Beth17 said:


> Yes not so much the pink as the boys seem to prefer pink toys, more the shape...


I got it.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Just looked it up on BBC website - it looks really bad.
> 
> Twiggy - do you think we should send our OH's off somewhere together?


Siberia...?


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Siberia...?


Can we send the lurcherowners mothership too? I keep telling her not to yell at him. That seems an impossible task.


----------



## Twiggy

*Werehorse*

Really pleased you've posted as I was beginning to get worried. I imagined you snowed in with no power.

Luv Grannie


----------



## Werehorse

Sorry Grannie, no just busy, busy, busy rather than trapped in a car somewhere!


----------



## blossom21

Any ideas for this one,ever since I have had Bramble he will run into my bedroom if the door is open and hide under my bed.Coaxing him out is a nightmare,ring the doorbell as he always runs to the door when that goes, nope doesnt work in this instance,treats nope wont work either,happy,silly voice,nope,whistle nope. This is an established behaviour as his previous owner said he did it at her place. :mad5:


----------



## Werehorse

Is there any reason not to just leave him under there until he realises it is boring and comes looking for trouble in a different way? Sometimes the more fuss you make the worse a behaviour becomes because the fuss and attention is rewarding.


----------



## Werehorse

Oh and keep the bedroom door shut to prevent him going in in the first place.


----------



## Werehorse

This is what Oscar and Hugo act like after nearly 8 miles of off-lead walking...

(best watched with sound down or off due to Oscar shouting at me for standing still.  )

Hugo and the Stick Part 2 - YouTube


----------



## Guest

Zand has just put his head on my lap and I stroked him and there was no lip licking!! Yaaaayyy!! THE LADY COMES ON TUESDAY! I AM STARTING TO POO BRICKS IN MY HEAD. Ack.

Ooh and measuring him for a martingale headcollar is fun. :skep:

Lets say he lunged on it yeah? Would the nose pressure damage him? Like WOULD IT HURT? Ah, I don't wanna buy something negative. 

OOOh and the tailors that I'm taking the dogmatic back too (hasn't QUITE worked) said "Well why don't you bring your dog in?" 

CAUSE HE'LL EAT YOUR FABRIC AND MAY PEE AND BE GENERALLY FRIGHTENED AND WHAT NOT AND JUMP AROUND.

"He's a bit wary of strangers, so maybe not for a while." Was what I actually said :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - they're so funny - Oscar's so impatient and Hugo's got one of the cutest faces on PF, plus immense tail wagging!! Kilo has to 'rescue' sticks from water too .


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Zand has just put his head on my lap and I stroked him and there was no lip licking!! Yaaaayyy!! THE LADY COMES ON TUESDAY! I AM STARTING TO POO BRICKS IN MY HEAD. Ack.
> 
> Ooh and measuring him for a martingale headcollar is fun. :skep:
> 
> Lets say he lunged on it yeah? Would the nose pressure damage him? Like WOULD IT HURT? Ah, I don't wanna buy something negative.
> 
> OOOh and the tailors that I'm taking the dogmatic back too (hasn't QUITE worked) said "Well why don't you bring your dog in?"
> 
> CAUSE HE'LL EAT YOUR FABRIC AND MAY PEE AND BE GENERALLY FRIGHTENED AND WHAT NOT AND JUMP AROUND.
> 
> "He's a bit wary of strangers, so maybe not for a while." Was what I actually said :lol:


I think that any piece of equipment that he lunged on with any effort would hurt to some degree. The trick for me is to preempt a lunge and walk on a very short lead in areas with cats etc - still a slack lead but no length to build up any momentum.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> This is what Oscar and Hugo act like after nearly 8 miles of off-lead walking...
> 
> (best watched with sound down or off due to Oscar shouting at me for standing still.  )
> 
> Hugo and the Stick Part 2 - YouTube


Very impressive.. I loved the way Hugo worked out how to get the stick when the first bank was too steep. Clever boy Hugo...:thumbup1:


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> This is what Oscar and Hugo act like after nearly 8 miles of off-lead walking...
> 
> (best watched with sound down or off due to Oscar shouting at me for standing still.  )
> 
> Hugo and the Stick Part 2 - YouTube


:001_wub::001_wub::001_wub: Aww I love your boys 

LO Awwww Zander seeking a stroke thats wonderful 

Sorry I know nothign about headgear


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Zand has just put his head on my lap and I stroked him and there was no lip licking!! Yaaaayyy!! THE LADY COMES ON TUESDAY! I AM STARTING TO POO BRICKS IN MY HEAD. Ack.
> 
> Ooh and measuring him for a martingale headcollar is fun. :skep:
> 
> Lets say he lunged on it yeah? Would the nose pressure damage him? Like WOULD IT HURT? Ah, I don't wanna buy something negative.
> 
> OOOh and the tailors that I'm taking the dogmatic back too (hasn't QUITE worked) said "Well why don't you bring your dog in?"
> 
> CAUSE HE'LL EAT YOUR FABRIC AND MAY PEE AND BE GENERALLY FRIGHTENED AND WHAT NOT AND JUMP AROUND.
> 
> "He's a bit wary of strangers, so maybe not for a while." Was what I actually said :lol:


I'm sure it will be OK and can't wait for you to report back on Tuesday evening.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub: Aww I love your boys
> 
> LO Awwww Zander seeking a stroke thats wonderful
> 
> Sorry I know nothign about headgear


So you won't be wearing a hat for your HTM performance?....


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> So you won't be wearing a hat for your HTM performance?....


:lol: Actually funny you should say that the song i've been playing with has a line about hat in it... but anything that smells of my hair Tink rolls on  :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

I've just looked out of the window and don't need to send husband to Siberia - Siberia has come to us....

If this keeps up all night we may well be snowed in tomorrow morning and it's freezing.

That's all Quiver and Leafy need, especially now Leafy's lame.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> :lol: Actually funny you should that the song i've been playing with has a line about hat in it... but anything that smells of my hair Tink rolls on  :lol:


OMG Moonviolet surely not Tom Jones from 'The Full Monty'....

Where do we buy tickets?


----------



## Guest

Poor leafy and quiver! (and you of course!) 

Makes me glad I am in the southwest!

I had a question that a kept forgetting to ask (Story of my lifffeeee! :biggrin
but I've remembered finally!

Thundershirts are a wee bit expensive so atm I can't get one for a little while, moneywise. 
So, do you think a lightweight coat that is put on snugly would have the same effect?


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I've just looked out of the window and don't need to send husband to Siberia - Siberia has come to us....
> 
> If this keeps up all night we may well be snowed in tomorrow morning and it's freezing.
> 
> That's all Quiver and Leafy need, especially now Leafy's lame.


I'll try to send our thaw your way, it's pretty much all gone now here.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just looked out of the window and don't need to send husband to Siberia - Siberia has come to us....
> 
> If this keeps up all night we may well be snowed in tomorrow morning and it's freezing.
> 
> That's all Quiver and Leafy need, especially now Leafy's lame.


Oh no...I TOLD it to miss you out .


----------



## Dogless

mv.....Camptown Races? 

"Well I came down there with my hat caved in" ??????


----------



## Dogless

Wonder if we're going to get another power cut...TV signal gone for the last hour or so...lights flickering....


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Poor leafy and quiver! (and you of course!)
> 
> Makes me glad I am in the southwest!
> 
> I had a question that a kept forgetting to ask (Story of my lifffeeee! :biggrin
> but I've remembered finally!
> 
> Thundershirts are a wee bit expensive so atm I can't get one for a little while, moneywise.
> So, do you think a lightweight coat that is put on snugly would have the same effect?


Get the widest stretch crepe bandage that you can find and try wrapping him in that. Pressure wraps were around before the Thundershirt and it will give you a good idea whether a Thundershirt will have any effect.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv.....Camptown Races?
> 
> "Well I came down there with my hat caved in" ??????


Lol nope the line is.... " grab your coat and get your hat."


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Lol nope the line is.... " grab your coat and get your hat."


Sunny Side of The Street? .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Sunny Side of The Street? .


yup, i think it's possibly one of the most covered songs ever. every one from Louis armstrong. Doris Day Rod Stewart and even the pogues :lol:

Being stupidly sentimental the lyrics do seem to be apt for Tink. particularly "I used to walk in the shade with my blues on parade 
But I'm not afraid...this rover' s crossed over"


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> yup, i think it's possibly one of the most covered songs ever


Sure is.....perfect though for you and Miss Tinks.....can't wait to see your performance  :thumbup1:.


----------



## Maria_1986

W/H - glad your ok and not stuck out somewhere in the snow.

Twiggy - when you send your hubby to Sibera, please can I pack my OH in his case

L/O - good luck for Tuesday, I'm sure it will be fine. Are you still having to miss a bit of it due to working?



No diarrhoea in 24 hours! No poo at all actually, but then she had been starved until dinner last night and then dinner was a small portion. Just put breakfast in her kong so keeping fingers crossed.

Tried a bit of training on recall yesterday just in the flat but for praise instead of food and she did really well and still recalled even when she worked out we had no treats. We didn't attempt any outdoor training yesterday because without the food lure I was not sure she would concentrate and I didn't want to set us up to fail.

I'm off to help out at a local lambing open day this morning (unfortunately not with the lambs ) so I'm having to leave Chevy in the not so capable hands of OH, I can see me getting a phone call to ask me to come home to pick up poo if its still a bit soft when she finally goes.

Hope everyone has a good day and that for those of you with snow it goes soon and doesn't cause too much chaos


----------



## kat&molly

Beth- please wish Sam a belated Happy Birthday from me-where has the time gone.

Twiggy- sorry to hear about Leafy, hope she improves soon. I'm sure we've got the same husband sometimes.:frown2: 

Moonviolet-I'm Glad Dogless got your song right- reading through it was driving me mad and I couldn't think which one it was.

FRM- well done to you and the Pickles-brilliant.:thumbup1:

LO- cant wait to hear what the behaviourist says.

Dogless- Any let up on the weather yet.

Werrehorse- lovely vid.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Relaxing. It's not going brilliantly. Lol.


----------



## moonviolet

KFK Less sugar, yoga, camomile tea?

K&M hope things are good there.

Maria so glad Chevy has been non productive, hopefully it will be all right and not too scary for OH when she does :lol: :lol:

Anyone got a dog that needs walking? mines snugging on the bed with OH looking like she's settled for the day :lol:


----------



## kat&molly

I got When pigs Fly downloaded last night and have Crate Games on order- should have checked first , is that ok to do with just a mat?
The book is making so much sense as far as Scruff and Evie are concerned- I end up feeling fraudulent with Moll- she learns so easy. Scruff is biddable but I still worry that she's worrying when she doesn't get something.
Evie is more interested in things with me now but again like Scruff, neither of them offer anything else so we don't get very far.
Trying to read the book in small sections , hoping I can retain something.

OH got these for me, even after all these years[about 15] I had to remind him it was my birthday in March-not May.:frown2:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> OH got these for me, even after all these years[about 15] I had to remind him it was my birthday in March-not May.:frown2:


They are a bit rubbish, i wonder if they would improve with castration. Unbeknown to him, my dad has ordered my Mum some sorry flowers and chocs. 

Yes you can adapt crate games for a mat.

Maria, I meant to say I'd be reluctant to remove treats from recall or you may lose it... randomly treating makes it a lottery and can make it more reliable, Having a breed who has a reputation for poor recall I make sure most recalls are to have fun or are rewarded by a return to fun.


----------



## Maria_1986

MV - you can walk Chevy as long as you will pick up squidgy poop. I only removed the treats from training yesterday as she was being starved but I didn't want to have a day totally training free. As long as poop is normal today we will go back for rewarding - I'm downgrading the value of some of the treats at the moment for recall so that sometimes she will get a bit of apple, sometimes its a fish4dogs treat and sometimes its cheese/sausage, do you think thats ok?


----------



## moonviolet

Maria_1986 said:


> MV - you can walk Chevy as long as you will pick up squidgy poop. I only removed the treats from training yesterday as she was being starved but I didn't want to have a day totally training free. As long as poop is normal today we will go back for rewarding - I'm downgrading the value of some of the treats at the moment for recall so that sometimes she will get a bit of apple, sometimes its a fish4dogs treat and sometimes its cheese/sausage, do you think thats ok?


Yes I think thats perfect, i carry "pick and mix" treats too. Dogs are gamblers, if soemthign has paid off big once before they will try it again even if it doesn't pay off each time. As I think Dogless was saying the other day, its' the gambler that makes dogs hard to teach LLW if you arent' consistent because sometimes it works to pull.


----------



## Symone

Sorry, no time to read through really.. I'm sure that I would have about 10 pages to read! Will go back later and go on a mass liking spree 

Shamaya was really good yesterday.. Got most of the cleaning tackled then.. 
Bought a new steam mop, and this one is great.. was only £30, too! Seems much better than expensive brands.. Quite happy to have got a new one  
Shamaya however suddenly hates this one, and has taken to hating the hoover.. No idea why 
Taken to treating her when it is being used, hope it won't take too long for her to not mind it.  

No bad walks.. Lead hardly went tight, was a good day yesterday 

This morning there was snow, and she decided she had to jump on every bench.. Nothing else to say, really!

Hope that everyone is having a nice morning.


----------



## Dimwit

Thanks to whoever it was who recommended When Pigs Fly, I downloaded it the other night - clearly my "must not buy any more books" resolution doesn't apply to this as a) it is on my kindle and doesn't count, and b) it is educational :lol:
It does seem to make a lot of sense so far and I have started clicking and rewarding him for sniffing (in fact he is doing so well with this that I have started adding in a cue)...

I was VERY proud of him this morning, more snow last night so, while the roads are clear the paths are a bit slippery and we went for a walk and HE DIDN"T PULL ONCE 
He has been pretty good recently but snow is always very exciting so I was very pleased with him, he then had great fun tearing round like a lunatic and we did lots of recall practice and he was brilliant!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> They are a bit rubbish, i wonder if they would improve with castration. Unbeknown to him, my dad has ordered my Mum some sorry flowers and chocs.
> 
> Yes you can adapt crate games for a mat.
> 
> *Maria, I meant to say I'd be reluctant to remove treats from recall or you may lose it... randomly treating makes it a lottery and can make it more reliable, Having a breed who has a reputation for poor recall I make sure most recalls are to have fun or are rewarded by a return to fun.*




Very much agree. Dogs are like us - they don't do anything for nothing.

As Moonviolet has also said the treats/toys become random though *but*
only when the exercise has been very well taught and proofed.

So it's not "You Can Keep Your Hat On" then? It would have suited you (lots of things you can do with a hat..!!) but probably unsuitable for Miss Tink, who would die with embarrassment.

I looked a bu...r when Quiver and I did a Grimsthorpe Colliery Band number. The miner's orange all in one and helmet were authentic and borrowed from a friend's husband and my face and hands were smeared with black...LOL

I'm toying with an instrumental version of "Skye Boat Song". Trouble is I have rather a lot of big commitments over the next 12 months. It would be heelwork to music as opposed to freestyle.

Well it obviously snowed for most of the night, and still is, although it's only very light snow now. It's minus 3 and blowing as well.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Sorry, no time to read through really.. I'm sure that I would have about 10 pages to read! Will go back later and go on a mass liking spree
> 
> Shamaya was really good yesterday.. Got most of the cleaning tackled then..
> Bought a new steam mop, and this one is great.. was only £30, too! Seems much better than expensive brands.. Quite happy to have got a new one
> *Shamaya however suddenly hates this one, and has taken to hating the hoover.. No idea why *
> Taken to treating her when it is being used, hope it won't take too long for her to not mind it.
> 
> Most collies either love the hoover/steam mop/carpet shompooer/etc and want to herd and bite them or they're terrified of them.
> 
> A friend's collie bitch, who is now almost 15 yrs old, is a very fiesty and confident lady until you produce the hoover and then she's a nervous wreck.
> 
> Please to hear the LLW went well. Sounds as if you're getting there..:thumbup1:


----------



## BessieDog

Missing another show due to this weather. Maybe could have gone but roads a bit dodgey round here, and I didn't want to risk an accident with Bess in the car. But feeling a bit at a loose end now. Haven't been to a show since the beginning of Feb! 

Symone - Bess is terrified of the Hoover. She runs to her crate when I get it out. Don't think there's anything I can do about that, but at least she not under my feet when I'm hoovering.


----------



## Kicksforkills

MV -Went for a brisk freezing walk with the dogs early this morning which seems to have worked.

Bessie -Have seen many facebooks saying not cancelled then about an hour later saying its cancelled. Like someone said, it's a shame for everyone involved.


----------



## Canine K9

Biting has got a lot better, obviously the reactive behaviour to other dogs will take time. His recall is pretty good too but he is one of the most stubborn dogs I know! He will try and get around whatever I want him to do, little beggar  Bring on the teenage phase


----------



## moonviolet

Canine K9 said:


> Biting has got a lot better, obviously the reactive behaviour to other dogs will take time. His recall is pretty good too but he is one of the most stubborn dogs I know! He will try and get around whatever I want him to do, little beggar  Bring on the teenage phase


Dogs often aren't really stubborn they more often either don't understand what we want them to do or they don't find it rewarding enough, the good news we have the power to deal with both of these scenarios


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Dogs often aren't really stubborn they more often either don't understand what we want them to do or they don't find it rewarding enough, the good news we have the power to deal with both of these scenarios


This. I've often said Evie is stubborn [for want of a better word] but she isn't really, its just the way I've gone about things, I'm chipping away and getting there slowly.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Morning all 

Just had another successful training session, mat work, etc. Thanks for the videos Werehorse, it's the next thing on our list :thumbup:

I'm just off out now for a resolution walk with the Pickles, on my own  Wish me luck!!! Hubby is busy trying to unblock the toilet at my clinic bless him, I think I know what I'd rather be doing. I'm a little bit nervous of taking them somewhere new on my own but I've planned a route which is kind of new but also kind of part of a forest we normally walk (so a bit of a cheats resolution walk really, but I don't want to set Branston up to fail when he's been doing do well).

Then this afternoon if hubby is back home my intention is to walk them individually to our local park to do some pavement training and some 1 to 1 training in a different environment  I can't do this yet unless hubby is about as I wouldn't be comfortable with leaving Branston at home for that long on his own 

Hope you all have a good day and are keeping warm


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> This. I've often said Evie is stubborn [for want of a better word] but she isn't really, its just the way I've gone about things, I'm chipping away and getting there slowly.


I think it's common in hounds and terriers, but in fairness historically we have breed them to work for us, usually with a good dose of independance, not with us in the way herding breeds have.


----------



## Dogless

I am proud to announce that I have the Concrete Heads of The Year this morning . I decided to walk them separately and a couple of hours later than usual this morning as I get concerned when they don't See Stuff for a while and I thought that later on a Sunday would give us our best chance.

Saw a few dogs with Kilo - he looked at them, looked to me and we carried on training, did lots of impulse control stuff, heelwork, play. The Chuckit ball toy has proved to be a very wise choice, Kilo loves it and it's perfect to fit in a coat pocket :thumbup1:. No loose dogs ran up and he was much better on his flat collar - my half check theory really is correct I think.

Rudi - saw a few dogs on the way to the fields, passed nicely. Went on the fields and did a lap on our own just playing. Then two people came in that I know which was ideal as if we'd had a 'fail' it wouldn't be a disaster....we did another lap of the one field where they were, one chasing it's ball and the other person's dogs were playing together and my little star stayed 'close' when told (helped with treats!). I then walked over to the one owner who has the playful dog as he'd been away for a few months anyway so thought I'd go and have a chat as we used to see each other a lot and released Rudi to play. When I wanted to walk on he came with me straight away, no bother at all. To top it all, we saw someone with a dog on the way back who stopped for a brief chat and he approached on a loose lead and waited nicely :thumbup1:.

I couldn't have asked for any more from my best boys this morning, really couldn't :001_wub::001_wub:. The bonus is that I knew which kind of dog walkers would be out in this sort of weather .


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I think it's common in hounds and terriers, but in fairness historically we have breed them to work for us, usually with a good dose of independance, not with us in the way herding breeds have.


Yes, I'm told that RRs are very stubborn all the time.

FRM - have a great resolution walk.

Twiggy - sorry about your weather still .

Maria - pleased that Chevy is OK.

Bessiedog - sorry about your show .


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> I think it's common in hounds and terriers, but in fairness historically we have breed them to work for us, usually with a good dose of independance, not with us in the way herding breeds have.


Yep. That's exactly what the book says as well and because my brain is programmed in to Spaniel 'what are we doing next' mode , I' haven't been doing that well.

I've just had a go at the clicker training more than 1 dog that Sarah posted yesterday. Done really well, easy when you know how.
It will help loads, I always feel compelled to do a session with all the dogs separately- which takes a long time- that way they are all sort of being included and treated.:thumbup1:

Good boys Dogless.


----------



## Sarah1983

We seem to have had a return of the Kevins today  Pulled horrendously all the way to the sled dog meet. Then he kept humping one of the dogs there and having to be removed. They went home earlier than us (they never stay long which is why I didn't leave but kept Spen leashed). 5 minutes after they'd gone I let Spen off leash, took off straight after them, off the field and up towards the road. Once he realised she wasn't there though he came straight back and panicked at not being able to find the gap in the fence he left through. So yeah, not a great success today. Not like him at all. There are dogs leaving before us every week and he never follows them as they're going let alone 5 minutes after they've gone out of sight! Wasn't even the dog he's usually glued to which makes it even stranger. She's one he'll play with but only if the love of his life won't play whereas today he ignored her in favour of this one. Dogs, who'd have them?

I really, really need to get him working around other dogs so I think next time we go I'll spend some time having him do stuff at a bit of a distance from them and then release him to play. He's brilliant when the other dogs aren't there but as soon as they appear it all goes to sh*t. I feel a bit mean asking him to do stuff while the others are having fun and playing but if I do a couple of basic things then release him to go play it will mean he's getting a huge reward for doing as I ask.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Found a new local Obiedence trainer for Dexter as my mum thinks my agility people are too "overly-friendly".

Have the Ringcraft sorted for him.

Will ask when their next puppy pre-agility session is (they do one a month until around 10 months). Then probably won't do agility with him until he's 18 months or so. Wow, thinking about that is surreal. May do agility with him younger than that but see how financial things work out.

Entered Dexter in the Breed Club Show next month that both the breeder we met at Crufts and my breeder will be at. Found out you don't have to qualify for the Windsor Championship show just enter so when we get the papers with him we will enter him for that. Who knows, he could be a Champion before he's one, like his father.

Told breeder his name will be Dexter and she said they will try not to call him what they have been calling him and call him Dexter. She said she liked that name the best .


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah I liked your post for the second paragraph not the first. 

The first one gets this :001_huh: :frown2:


----------



## Twiggy

Well I'm having a b awful day....!!

Took the dogs out and the snow is so deep in places that neither Quiver or Leafy could cope so they had to come back. Quiver fell over twice..

I discovered a pile of sick in one of their beds just before we went out as well and since coming back Holly has been sick another 4 times. I expect its copraphobia because everything else is covered with snow. I've given her Prokolin and I'll see if she settles down otherwise an emergency trip to the vets. They were open from 10-12 this morning but I noticed too late for that, damn it.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm having a b awful day....!!
> 
> Took the dogs out and the snow is so deep in places that neither Quiver or Leafy could cope so they had to come back. Quiver fell over twice..
> 
> I discovered a pile of sick in one of their beds just before we went out as well and since coming back Holly has been sick another 4 times. I expect its copraphobia because everything else is covered with snow. I've given her Prokolin and I'll see if she settles down otherwise an emergency trip to the vets. They were open from 10-12 this morning but I noticed too late for that, damn it.


Hope everything is ok x


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm having a b awful day....!!
> 
> Took the dogs out and the snow is so deep in places that neither Quiver or Leafy could cope so they had to come back. Quiver fell over twice..
> 
> I discovered a pile of sick in one of their beds just before we went out as well and since coming back Holly has been sick another 4 times. I expect its copraphobia because everything else is covered with snow. I've given her Prokolin and I'll see if she settles down otherwise an emergency trip to the vets. They were open from 10-12 this morning but I noticed too late for that, damn it.


 oh no, Hope the prokolin does the trick for Holly. Hope the snow goes soon so things can get back to normal.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Twiggy, really hope all gets better for you. Quickly .


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy - hope the prokolin helps

Dogless - Yay for CHOTY! 

Lambing open day was great fun, got to cuddle lambs one of which stuck its chin on my shoulder and went to sleep :001_wub: Was very cold though and I can only just feel my toes again!

Chevy was good for OH but still no poo. She has had a couple of kongs this morning filled with sensitive food so hopefully something of normal consistency will come out soon.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh no Twiggy, hope things get better soon. 

MV, I dunno what's with him the last couple of days. I thought we were past the teenage "FU!" stage but he seems to have regressed. I think possibly with it being so cold I've been doing less with him while out and about so will up the training and interaction and see whether that helps. 

We've only got one more week of off leash freedom left  I think the polo pitch is exempt from the on leash rule but don't want to go there every day, it's just a big flat empty field.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy - I hope that the prokolin works. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Hope the snow also lessens so normal walks can come back.


Well.. OHs parents and one of his sisters visited today.. Ofc timing was perfect for us being mid moving everything around. However they all decided to help! (Which I was very thankful for) 
Ended up having a mass blitz of the place as well.. Both steamer pads are dark brown in colour! I don't understand how since the floors are mopped & steamed regularly. 

Shamaya was an angel! She was very hyper and excited to begin with, then soon settled down. She ended up harassing the OHs mum with her favourite toy 

She did pull a LOT on her "main" walk so there was no going to the beach. However she was very excited so it's understandable for why she was so pully.. She ended up walking nicely when the OHs sister held her lead.. She was very strict with her. I think I need to take a page out of her book! It could well be that I'm letting her get away with too much when she is excited. Or maybe she behaved because she hated her coat! I think it was fur or fake fur.. Not sure which but Shamaya wasn't fond of it! 

Well, going to finish moving around the room now! Not that much is left to do, really.. Just setting up the computers and moving the telly, then sorting out the wireing. (I've currently pinched the OHs laptop  )

Fingers crossed that no one else has sore feet like I do. Cleaning and moving everything sure can be a bother at times! However it looks far nicer so I am indeed very happy. It's far roomier. (I joked to the OH saying that we now have room for a second dog. His face fell. I laughed!)


----------



## MollySmith

Another crap walk here too. Absolutely awful mud. Fell over twice despite muck boots so I need to find somewhere else to walk. Any suggestions Dimwit?

We usually go into a field last but because Molly was a pain in the wotsits and went out of OH's sight during the week on the off lead walk, we have reserved it so she's less full of steam in that area. However it increases her lead reactivity at the end of the walk when it's been fine so we can't win. To be fair I think it was 50/50 - I had the lead and was doing some llw practice but ran out of treats as a couple with a bull breed came at us as I was walking her away. They just surprised me by walking at us (I guess because until they got too close Molly wasn't too awful). OH threw some treats at us so we vaguely rescued it. We then saw another dog and credit where it's due, she didn't ramp up but coped better - lunged but no noises or barking. So no as awful as it could have been but not great. I hate weekend walking, the downs seem to attract stupid who leave gates open and ill behaved owners, during the week it's much nicer.

I am sorry to hear your news Twiggy, I hope the prokolin works.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy and Maria, I hope normal poo service resumes for you soon.

I was having a lovely dog day, gave the girls separate walks at the other end of the village, when it came to Molls turn a Collie came from no-where and was lunging and snapping just inches from us, Moll was petrified spinning and twisting on her lead. A chap came out and grabbed the dog, I had a go at him, he belted the dog , so I had another go at him.
She is the one dog that just isn't interested in other dogs at all, she's quite happy to ignore them all- dread to think what this weeks done to her now.

Apart from that , we've had lovely clicker sessions, I've definitely been asking too much too soon from Scruff and Evie so we had success today in a small way.
Then, I had my sunglasses holding my hair back , they fell off in the field when out with Scruff so when I went out with Moll I sent her to find them - and she did.Clever girl.:thumbup1:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Sorry to hear about the poorly tums, hope everyone's back to normal soon.

The mud is a nightmare isn't it MS, I hope you didn't hurt yourself when you fell 
Also hoping the snow disappears soon for the rest of you, thank fully we don't have any here but it's still cold an miserable, I'm seriously ready for spring now!

Glad to hear the CH's were stars for you this morning, hope you've had an equally successful afternoon 

Well done on all the rearranging Symone, and on Shamaya for being such a star with all the excitement.

Sorry to hear Spen's being a bit of a Kevin at the moment Sarah, I have no advice (I'm a taker, not a giver on this thread :lol:  )

We had a good resolution walk, pics here for anyone who's interested http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/284613-our-new-years-resolution-13.html

The Pickles were very well behaved apart from Lily barking at a couple of dogs we met  
We did a fair amount of recalls, watch me's and touch games while we were out too, all very successfully  They recalled perfectly when some cyclists came down the path and sat nicely while they passed.

I put them back on their leads for the last stretch and they both walked LLW :thumbup: Ok, so they had been off lead zoomy-ing for 2 and half hours so were probably knackered but any LLW is a pleasure 

There are some pretty disgusting aromas coming from Lily's rear end while she's lying on the sofa next to me, which is very unusual for her, I hope this isn't something nasty brewing!!!


----------



## Dogless

Ugh MS - 'those' walks are just the worst . Hopefully the next one will make up for it xx.

k&m - :frown2: :frown2: for the walk - I'm sure we live in the same place!! Fab that the sunglasses were found and the clicker training went well though .

Symone - Did you see how OH's sister engaged with Shamaya? Maybe she was doing something subtly different to you? How stricter - like standing still at every pull type thing?

FRM - fabulous Pickles for LLW :thumbup1::thumbup1:. Hope the 'aromas' aren't trouble :frown2:.

Quick lead walk with them both just now. Good boys :thumbup1:. Taking Kilo out with Dizzy in an hour .


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Another crap walk here too. Absolutely awful mud. Fell over twice despite muck boots so I need to find somewhere else to walk. Any suggestions Dimwit?


The best place I know to walk in mud like that is Milton Park - they do at least have reasonable paths so even when muddy they aren't too bad (except in a couple of places but still nowhere near as bad as other places). I stupidly decided it would be a good idea last weekend to walk round the perimeter of the magog down - sploshing up that hill at the end with my books caked in mud was not fun 



> I hate weekend walking, the downs seem to attract stupid who leave gates open and ill behaved owners, during the week it's much nicer.


I only ever get to go at weekends but I generally go either first thing in the morning or wait till the weather is really bad which limits how many other dogs we see.

Twiggy and Maria - hope your dogs are better soon and sympathies to everyone who had bad walks today - maybe there is something in the air?

Flyball training this afternoon which was COLD but the little dimwit was very good - just a shame it all goes wrong at competitions  ON the plus side, he won't need another walk this evening


----------



## Guest

We have sort of good walks. Zand sat every time I told him too but was properly skittish all the time on both walks. Its bitter cold out there. 
Then right at the end, a JRT barked and growled at us through a gate, poking its head out. 
Zander froze, then whinged, then span around on his dogmatic, I finally managed to get him moving, then he tried to drag me home. Bizarre. 

I hope the prokolin works twiggy!

And Sorry that kevins reappeared Sarah! We are about to enter out fourth month next week of on-lead only walks. Still sheepies in the field. Found another field but its only got flimsy wire fencing and HORSES next door. Zand reacts to horses the same as sheep. Barks at them then tries to back out of any collars and whatnot. Basically shouting at it to scare it off then trying to run when that doesn't work. Some wazzock had his dogs offlead in the field with horses. 

People are idiots!


----------



## Kicksforkills

Need a new Ringcraft in or around Staines in Surrey. Only one I've found does it on the same night as Puppy Obiedence!

Thanks anyone that can help.

Tried the KC site to no avail.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Need a new Ringcraft in or around Staines in Surrey. Only one I've found does it on the same night as Puppy Obiedence!
> 
> Thanks anyone that can help.
> 
> Tried the KC site to no avail.


If you post in the showing section here someone will probably be able to help.


----------



## Thorne

*This is WAYWO post #13,000, this thread is huge!*

Hope that Chevy's upset stomach continues to improve, and that the pro-kolin helps poor Holly Bolly today.

K&M (and Dimwit)-Have been tempted by When Pigs Fly before, hope you find it to be a good read! I think I need more dog books really  These OH's though, such trouble!

Symone -As twiggy said, most Collies seem to either want to herd hoovers and similar or are scared of them. Our Collie herded anything with small wheels (cars etc were ignored thankfully)and the hoover was a favourite target. Scooter is scared of the hoover when it's moving but isn't too concerned so long as he can "escape" it.

Dimwit -Well done you two for the LLW! Glad you had a good but chilly flyball session.

Bessiedog -What a disappointment about the show  But better safe than sorry.

FRM -Good work with the Pickles' training, will have a nosy at your pics in a bit 

MV -Agree about stubbornness in dogs, more of a human characteristic and I'd also call it independence. Breeze is a typical biddable Lab, Scooter... isn't. He's a scenthound in a gundog body  Very independent-thinker until the high-value treats come out!

Dogless -Woohoo! Congrats to you and your super CH's, what a lovely way to start the day.

Sarah -Kevin indeed, and a bit of a lady's man today by the sounds of it  Hope you and him have a better day tomorrow!

KFK -I love the name Dexter for a Pap, lovely choice. You're certainly going to be busy with him!

Twiggy -Your poor oldies, hope the snow melts fast where you are with minimal ice.

Maria -Somewhat jealous of your lamb cuddles, bless them.

MollyS -Hope the weather improves for you too! Miserable for spring isn't it?

LO -I don't blame Zand for being skittish in these temperatures, even Scooter shivered a bit today which I've never seen him do from cold  Sorry to hear about the JRT spook, they make me jump too!

Just got back from a snowy walk with Scooter, it's very deep in places, went up to his belly a couple of times and had some go over the tops of my boots : There's ~2' drifts around which we rightly avoided. He wasn't too sure about it at first as it's very windy here too, but had a good roar around and ended up loving it. Good boy today, stayed close and generally was very responsive and focused, lovely stuff.
He seems to have an unsettled tummy today as well! Am watching his motions like a hawk.

Breeze is yet to go out but had a great day yesterday, went to my nan's to move some firewood for her and Breeze came along for the daytrip. It's not Scooter-safe as there's chickens around and it's only partially fenced but Breeze was a star and was never more than 10' away from one of us. Gemma the Cocker was pleased to see us all and politely shared her toys with Breeze. Super little dogs the pair of them.

Wish me luck in convincing B that she can go out in this weather without being frozen or blown away...


----------



## blossom21

Hooray working on spin around has paid off,he did it 3 times in a row for a treat naturally.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> If you post in the showing section here someone will probably be able to help.


Thanks, decided to decline the Obiedence and take the ringcraft as ringcraft are rarer so now just looking for an Obiedence class hehe

EDIT; Thorne -He will be so tired he'll be a Phalene by the time I've finished with him!


----------



## Twiggy

Well so much for my lovely lamb joint. Looks as if it might be beans on toast for dinner..!!

Holly kept on being sick and was feeling very sorry for herself so I rang the emergency vet. He agreed with me to starve her, only give her tiny amounts of water, and wait and see. He said if it only started this morning and she's a fit and well collie he couldn't see the point of me taking her in. We agreed that I'd monitor the situation for a couple of hours and see how she was then.

Fingers crossed and touching wood she's resting now and hasn't been sick again, so hopefully she will soon be feeling better.

These little working sheepdogs really are their own worse enemies. My sister has had the same problems with Barley in the past, and I'm pretty sure they're related.

I've spent most of the afternoon washing bedding and scrubbing the carpets, plus worrying myself silly. I hate it when the dogs are ill.


----------



## blossom21

I assume she got to the lamb,poor you and poor holly. Beans are very nutritious though you know :biggrin:


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Twiggy, I hope that starving works. And the lamb maybe tomorrow?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Poor Holly, hope she feels better soon 

I have a confession... You know I was going to do individual training walks to the park this afternoon?

Well... it's miserable outside and I didn't really feel like it... and since we've been back from our 2 and a half hour walk earlier the Pickles have been like this...



















I don't know what you think, but they don't look too bothered about going out again to me :lol:


----------



## Guest

Hope the starving works twig. 

I was gonna go for an indi-dog headcollar but I have found a similar one online (and indi-dog won't be open due to impending motherdom :lol

So which colour guys?? :lol: (I MEASURED HIM AND HE WAS FINE!! Took it like a man he did! )










OR


----------



## Werehorse

I hope little Holly is feeling better soon, Twiggy.  Poor girl and poor you - it's such a horrid worry when they're ill.

Sarah - could the dog Spen followed be coming into season? I always wonder that when my boys take a particular interest in a dog because they so rarely bother, especially Oscar. I don't think they have to even be IN season I think the boys can pick up on it earlier.

We've been out for a 3 and a half hour walk today - not as far or as long as I was hoping but better than nothing. I managed to bang my knee on a rock and nearly passed out trying to take a photo though. :lol: Nothing damaged I think I just hit a big nerve.  The boys had a very nice time playing in the snow drifts and were generally good, bit pully which was more stressful than usual because we didn't put their harnesses on so they were pulling into collars  but actually slightly less pulling than usual so they are at least more responsive to collar pressure.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Decided I can teach basic Obiedence at home. If I want him to do Good Citizen later on then I will.


----------



## Symone

Dogless : No idea, really. I think it could possibly be because it was a new person, or more stern of a voice.. My voice is a little soft with her.


----------



## sharloid

LurcherOwner said:


> Hope the starving works twig.
> 
> I was gonna go for an indi-dog headcollar but I have found a similar one online (and indi-dog won't be open due to impending motherdom :lol
> 
> So which colour guys?? :lol: (I MEASURED HIM AND HE WAS FINE!! Took it like a man he did! )
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> OR


Out of those two I prefer the burgundy. Though if it's the seller I've seen she also has camo which I like too.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Sarah - could the dog Spen followed be coming into season? I always wonder that when my boys take a particular interest in a dog because they so rarely bother, especially Oscar. I don't think they have to even be IN season I think the boys can pick up on it earlier.


I wondered the same, I've got no idea whether she's spayed or not and Spen has met her several times and not behaved like that before. He's always played with her but today he was completely blanking the bitch he tends to stick like glue to in favour of this one.

Hope your knee is okay!


----------



## Kicksforkills

I agree with the burgundy


----------



## Beth17

LO I am liking the burgundy. 

FRM you've broken the Pickles 

Dogless what good boys you have.

Twiggy I hope poor Holly is feeling better. 

Maria I hope Chevy is ok as well.

Thorne don't envy poo watch. Sounds a lovely day though and well done Breeze for being so good with the chickens 

Sarah I hope Spen reverts to being a well behaved boy soon.

MS I hope tomorrow goes better for you. I am so fed up with slipping around in the mud.

K&M poor Moll. Well done her for finding your sunglasses.

Sorry if I've forgotten anyone.

Had good separate walks with the boys. First took Oscar down into some woods we've not ventured into and had a great hour and half getting lost  I am really enjoying trying out these new walks with them and will definitely keep it up.

Got back and took Sam out and his LLW was brilliant. A bit of pulling in excitement when a couple of dogs were seen but nothing too bad. He was focused and kept looking at me and getting treated for doing so; although he was so good at it he walked into a wall . He was fine though bless him :crazy:


----------



## Dogless

Beth - of course Sam was good...he's all grown up now :w00t:.

FRM - hope you enjoyed chilling with the Pickles.

Twiggy - very best wishes for little HB's swift recovery. They certainly know how to worry us .

LO - Burgundy

Blossom - well done :thumbup1:.

Werehorse - I HATE banging my knee like that, not good!! Hope the bruise isn't too immense tomorrow x.

Thorne - hope Miss B enjoyed her walk!

Fab walk with Dizzy and human....BCH was a very well behaved boy. Very good day at Concrete Central :001_wub:.


----------



## Maria_1986

Thorne - I hope that Breeze has a good walk.

W/H - hope your knee is ok

L/O - I like the burgandy too

Beth - Hope Sam is alright and looks out for walls in future!

Chevy's digestive system has resumed normal service  or at least it has on sensitivity food, shall be reintroducing normal food half and half for breakfast tomorrow then we can get back to normal in time for class on Tuesday hopefully.

Had a bit of a bad walk though this evening, as I wasn't sure to start with if she had the bug doing the rounds we have only been for short outings to the little bit of grass at the back of the flat to avoid spreading germs about. Went a little further this evening as she was so hyper, but unfortunately hyper meant total lack of concentration and we ended up back at the start on the LLW. Luckily I had put her harness on her too so I walked her from that mainly so as not to allow her to get away with pulling on the collar but it looks like tomorrow we will be working on LLW again.


----------



## moonviolet

Great day here 

Just got back from the weekly temple of doom wheelie bin dodging walk, today's added extra was a yorkie tied up outside the shop barking it's precious little head off. Poor mite. I heard it in advance guessed where it was and crossed. Tink paused to look at it then was happy to walk on. No bosy was barked at, just a couple of shake offs, Wee star.

On our main walk this morning she went particularly out of her way to pause to meet a dog we have observed from a distance a few times in the past. A large long haired black and tan dog. His owner is not entirely sure his best guess is rottie rough collie cross :thumbup1: one route I'd planned to take was a knee deep swamp so gave that a miss :lol:

Now for the shocking.... OH played hoopla with Tink earlier it was just about the cutest thing i've ever seen :001_wub:

More baking today soft buttery breakfast rolls and lazybones lemonade scones. The diet...can wait until spring


----------



## Werehorse

lemonade scones?? Sound awesome.


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy -Poor Holly  Sending healing vibes for her, hope she's on the mend soon.

FRM -Don't think the Pickles mind at all!

LO -I'm a sucker for rainbow patterns so would always choose that, but burgundy would look very sophisticated I think.

Werehorse -Ouch, hope no damage has been done beyond a sharp shock earlier! Scooter was pully as well today, always is in the snow so I was expecting it, naughty boys.

KFK -There's always time for formal obedience classes later on, well done for finding a ringcraft class.

Beth -New walks are lovely aren't they? Thought I'd exhausted the accessible by foot walks around here but today I found another footpath sign, will try it another day. Excellent to hear that Sam's LLW was on top form!

Well, I couldn't convince Breeze to walk  She likes snow on the ground but got a faceful of it blown into her face and stopped dead. Short of carrying her there was no shifting her so we've just had a retrieving session in the warm! She's starting to get enthusiastic about tennis balls which pleased me, she'll fetch and carry most things but it's great to see her actively enjoying things.
Am working on shaping a bow with her so will get the clicker out shortly.

I thought Labs were meant to be all-weather dogs?   At least she's bombed around the garden a few times today, sulky little diva.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> lemonade scones?? Sound awesome.


They actually taste like normal scones, but are super easy to make and so light. in case you aren't seeing enough scones at work :lol:

325g SR Flour
167ml lemonade
167ml double or whipping cream or if being more wholesome can replace with yougurt

Mix the lemonade and cream in a jug then fold into the flour you have sieved into a bowl, once combine turn the sticky mixture out onto a floured surface Shape with a light touch (do not roll) into a square-ish shape around 2.5 cm deep. Cut with a knife into square

place on a lined baking sheet, glaze tops with milk and bake for 12-15 mins in a hot oven 220c For soft tops place a tea towel over the top as they cool.

Just to make this dog chat worthy Tink is now sleeping :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> lemonade scones?? Sound awesome.


Quite the scone fanatic now  .

mv - they sound lovely!! Must get lemonade and cream tomorrow as hubby is home for his leave now . Also pleased you've had such a great day with Miss Tinks .

I see the doctor for the insane tomorrow :frown2:.


----------



## Thorne

Dogless said:


> I see the doctor for the insane tomorrow :frown2:.


Hope it goes as well as it can for you, saw a similar one on thursday myself :blushing:


----------



## Werehorse

Scone fanatic. :lol: Just had one of my cheese ones that didn't sell yesterday - very nice it was too. Not going to do the weightloss much good if I get addicted to baking though - so I make it so that I can treat myself to baking something at home every time I lose another couple of lbs or something. :lol: I'll add emonade scones to the list. 

Good luck at the docs, Dogless.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thorne -Acually someone who was in my agility class before Christmas told me her husband ran a ringcraft class very locally. I didn't hear back from her as she was leaving after she gave me her number to breed her Spaniel (bettering the breed). The puppies are seven weeks old now and I talked to her today. So I'm going to her husband's class on Thursday nights. Luckily they aren't having a class

Two puppy pre-agility play sessions in April that I'll ask tomorrow at agility to book on. They are either side of the day of the Club Show lol busy


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> They actually taste like normal scones, but are super easy to make and so light. in case you aren't seeing enough scones at work :lol:
> 
> 325g SR Flour
> 167ml lemonade
> 167ml double or whipping cream or if being more wholesome can replace with yougurt
> 
> Mix the lemonade and cream in a jug then fold into the flour you have sieved into a bowl, once combine turn the sticky mixture out onto a floured surface Shape with a light touch (do not roll) into a square-ish shape around 2.5 cm deep. Cut with a knife into square
> 
> place on a lined baking sheet, glaze tops with milk and bake for 12-15 mins in a hot oven 220c For soft tops place a tea towel over the top as they cool.
> 
> Just to make this dog chat worthy Tink is now sleeping :lol:


I've given up on the diet until it gets a bit warmer.

Those scones sound yummy.

Husband has scoffed all 12 jam tarts, 20 odd cheese straws and we also had half the large apple pie I made yesterday for dessert tonight.

No wonder his cholestoral is high again.

He did manage to shout "Holly's been sick again" whilst he was watching the Grand Prix....


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* - I hope your doctors visit goes well tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've given up on the diet until it gets a bit warmer.
> 
> Those scones sound yummy.
> 
> Husband has scoffed all 12 jam tarts, 20 odd cheese straws and we also had half the large apple pie I made yesterday for dessert tonight.
> 
> No wonder his cholestoral is high again.
> 
> *He did manage to shout "Holly's been sick again" whilst he was watching the Grand Prix....*


How good of him; hope you thanked him .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless* - I hope your doctors visit goes well tomorrow.


Thanks. Dreading it :frown2:.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy .. well that was terribly helpful of him

Hope it goes well tomorrow Dogless.


----------



## Beth17

Good luck tomorrow Dogless.

Lemonade scones sounds lovely. I'll have to have a baking day.

Thorne I love diva Breeze 

I am looking at maps so that I can plan new dogwalks etc. (I know I'm getting all serious about dog walks ) however I don't know how detailed I need it to be. I am such a worrywart and worry about walking places I'm not allowed so what would you recommend?


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Good luck tomorrow Dogless.
> 
> Lemonade scones sounds lovely. I'll have to have a baking day.
> 
> Thorne I love diva Breeze
> 
> I am looking at maps so that I can plan new dogwalks etc. (I know I'm getting all serious about dog walks ) however I don't know how detailed I need it to be. I am such a worrywart and worry about walking places I'm not allowed so what would you recommend?


Love this site: Walkingworld - Britain's walking community


----------



## Werehorse

Beth - follow the green dotted lines.  Or go where you like if the area is shaded in an orangey colour (open access land).


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Beth - follow the green dotted lines.  Or go where you like if the area is shaded in an orangey colour (open access land).


Don't go in red areas that say "Danger: Live Firing Ranges" .


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Don't go in red areas that say "Danger: Live Firing Ranges" .


You'll struggle to have a nice walk in any blue bits too.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Oooh lemonade scones sound good, perhaps they should go on the list for Nan's 90th garden party :thumbup: Can I add sultanas to them too?

I'm disappointed in the lack of suggestions of cakes I can make in advance and freeze for the big do from you baking experts :hand:

Hope it goes ok tomorrow Dogless 

Twiggy - my hubby is about as useful as yours when the Grand Prix is on  How's Holly now?

Beth - as the others have said green dotted lines and open access areas  I normally photocopy the bit of the map I want (or take a picture on my phone) so I don't have to carry the whole map with me.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> How good of him; hope you thanked him .


No I uttered obscenities under my breathe....

Why are you dreading seeing the doctor tomorrow? He's a doctor, the same as any other specialist and his job is to help you - luv Grannie.

I think Holly is feeling a bit better. She keep telling me it's past her dinner time. She also keeps wanting to go out and doesn't like it if I stand in the conservatory watching her - I wonder why? I've just been looking on Ebay at basket muzzles, which is what she'll be wearing if this happens again.


----------



## Werehorse

oooooo, FRM - you should make seed cake! Lots of vistors go into a rapsody of reminisence when we have that on tastings at work - would go down well at a 90th birthday party I imagine . No idea if you can freeze it though.


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Oooh lemonade scones sound good, perhaps they should go on the list for Nan's 90th garden party :thumbup: Can I add sultanas to them too?
> 
> I'm disappointed in the lack of suggestions of cakes I can make in advance and freeze for the big do from you baking experts :hand:


yes you can add sultanas.

Simple but effective are filled cupcakes, when you're spooning the mixture into the cases put half the amount in spread it a little then add a small amount of lemon curd or jam before adding the rest of the mixture. bake as usual.

Traybakes are good as they are less time consuming in terms of decorating.


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Oooh lemonade scones sound good, perhaps they should go on the list for Nan's 90th garden party :thumbup: Can I add sultanas to them too?
> 
> I'm disappointed in the lack of suggestions of cakes I can make in advance and freeze for the big do from you baking experts :hand:
> 
> Hope it goes ok tomorrow Dogless
> 
> Twiggy - my hubby is about as useful as yours when the Grand Prix is on  How's Holly now?
> 
> Beth - as the others have said green dotted lines and open access areas  I normally photocopy the bit of the map I want (or take a picture on my phone) so I don't have to carry the whole map with me.


I gave you three.....what more do you want? . I'll add chocolate sponge, cherry cake, muffins to them :thumbup1:.


----------



## Beth17

Lemon drizzle, fruit cake and ginger cake.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> I gave you three.....what more do you want? . I'll add chocolate sponge, cherry cake, muffins to them :thumbup1:.


Eh? Where? I missed them, sorry 

Off to find them now and hang my head in shame :nonod:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

I was thinking traybakes too as they could be cut into quite small portions too so would go further than round cakes.

Do you think it's pretty much ok to freeze any cakes?


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Good luck tomorrow Dogless.
> 
> Lemonade scones sounds lovely. I'll have to have a baking day.
> 
> Thorne I love diva Breeze
> 
> *I am looking at maps so that I can plan new dogwalks etc. (I know I'm getting all serious about dog walks ) however I don't know how detailed I need it to be. I am such a worrywart and worry about walking places I'm not allowed so what would you recommend?*




As far as I am aware there is no such thing as trespass. The landowner has to prove criminal damage. If you stray off a byway, bridleway or footpath that isn't well marked and signposted they can't shout at you.
You are also within your rights to take a route around any obstructions.

I was secretary of the local riding club for several years and dealt with planners, councils, etc. We had some very heated arguments...


----------



## Beth17

foxyrockmeister said:


> I was thinking traybakes too as they could be cut into quite small portions too so would go further than round cakes.
> 
> Do you think it's pretty much ok to freeze any cakes?


According to Nigella and Delia you can freeze most cakes as long as they are wrapped properly


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Thanks. Dreading it :frown2:.


((Hugs))I had my insanity check up last week and I hopes yours goes well x I managed to escape okay but pretty sure I shouldn't have.

twiggy, how helpful of OH! Hope Holly is okay

FRM I freeze lots of cakes, I tend to bake in a crisis and not eat as my tummy gets knotted, thank god for freezers! Most cake without cream is okay. Delia online is a good place to,check.

That walk link was great. Dimwit, the Gogs outside walk was the one we did today, so depressing. I might do a volunteer day there if they'd let me shred the wood and put the chip on the paths.

Miserable week ahead, redundancy pay arrived so I need to get head around that and I'm in London on a training course for social media on Thursday.


----------



## Sarah1983

Only cakes I've ever frozen are liver cake and tuna cake so no help there I'm afraid. Not unless the people you're going to serve them to have weird taste in cake anyway.

Dogless, hope your insanity check goes okay.

Lemonade scones sound good. Might have to make some and see what hubby thinks (not telling him they're not "normal" scone until later of course). I still have a cake mix in that I've been unable to make sense of. The instructions talk about sprinkling on the potion powder and making things groovy. Bit concerned about what might be in it with instructions like that :lol: It's funny, I hate cooking meals, having to do it puts me in a really bad mood, but love baking cakes and stuff like that.


----------



## Dogless

Hope your weather's eased up Twiggy. After slipping on the ice in the garden this morning I think it's safe to say Kilo will have his headcollar on this morning until we're on grass :shocked:.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Slept til 6.30. Yay! First time in about a week.

Maybe the food poisoning is gone. I am feeling a bit better.

I keep thinking Eddie when I mean Dexter. I'm sure it'll pass in time.

DEXTER and Josh (his brother) are getting their microchips implanted today or tomorrow. The breeder will try to get my detail's on it but going to have it done anyway then change it afterwards. She said she's getting the most experienced vet there to do it as its a big needle.

I might offer the chi puppy down the road some training (he doesn't sit or anything) and to play with Dexter. Already offered the playing

Ringcraft classes sorted. Which his breeder will be happy to hear.

Puppy pre-agility classes are sorted. I believe they have two a month, two days apart. Not sure how long or how much they are but if £10 a class then I figure its worth it

Will need to get a handle on the excited biting that he does. His breeder said hey grow out of it but I've never heard of that? So I will be teaching him not to bite  I would imagine it wouldn't take very long as when we saw them he bit my little finger and I retracted it saying "ouch" and he put his paws either side of his head and looked at me. If you've seen that kitten video where they tickle then stop and it does that then you know what I mean.

Was saying to my mum we need to go shopping for him (I'll pay). She said why, I said he needs a bed, she said why, we can just put a blanket at the bottom of his crate, I said no he needs a bed. Thought for a second then said he also needs a normal collar, tags, harness (suggestions?) and show lead. Apparently he already walks nicely on the lead but not sure if for normal walks up the field when he'll be on a flexi lead for awhile if a body harness is the way to go? 

Anyway, I might wait until we have him to see his size. I'd reckon he'd be a small. might suggest going on he Monday we get him? As I will need one for ringcraft on Thursday. His bed though, it would be nice to have his crate set up when they drop him off 

Oh, also food and water bowls and toys.

For ringcraft do you use a show lead or a normal lead? (Not that they look a lot different from what the breeders use)

My JRT's need to go to the vets anyway. Poppy has been scooting awhile and they both need their nails clipped, which is covered by their insurance.

So, will need to make an appointment for all three of them and don't guidelines require getting him looked at within 48 hours?


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Slept til 6.30. Yay! First time in about a week.
> 
> Maybe the food poisoning is gone. I am feeling a bit better.
> 
> I keep thinking Eddie when I mean Dexter. I'm sure it'll pass in time.
> 
> DEXTER and Josh (his brother) are getting their microchips implanted today or tomorrow. The breeder will try to get my detail's on it but going to have it done anyway then change it afterwards. She said she's getting the most experienced vet there to do it as its a big needle.
> 
> I might offer the chi puppy down the road some training (he doesn't sit or anything) and to play with Dexter. Already offered the playing
> 
> Ringcraft classes sorted. Which his breeder will be happy to hear.
> 
> Puppy pre-agility classes are sorted. I believe they have two a month, two days apart. Not sure how long or how much they are but if £10 a class then I figure its worth it
> 
> Will need to get a handle on the excited biting that he does. His breeder said hey grow out of it but I've never heard of that? So I will be teaching him not to bite  I would imagine it wouldn't take very long as when we saw them he bit my little finger and I retracted it saying "ouch" and he put his paws either side of his head and looked at me. If you've seen that kitten video where they tickle then stop and it does that then you know what I mean.
> 
> Was saying to my mum we need to go shopping for him (I'll pay). She said why, I said he needs a bed, she said why, we can just put a blanket at the bottom of his crate, I said no he needs a bed. Thought for a second then said he also needs a normal collar, tags, harness (suggestions?) and show lead. Apparently he already walks nicely on the lead but not sure if for normal walks up the field when he'll be on a flexi lead for awhile if a body harness is the way to go?
> 
> Anyway, I might wait until we have him to see his size. I'd reckon he'd be a small. might suggest going on he Monday we get him? As I will need one for ringcraft on Thursday. His bed though, it would be nice to have his crate set up when they drop him off
> 
> Oh, also food and water bowls and toys.
> 
> For ringcraft do you use a show lead or a normal lead? (Not that they look a lot different from what the breeders use)
> 
> My JRT's need to go to the vets anyway. Poppy has been scooting awhile and they both need their nails clipped, which is covered by their insurance.
> 
> So, will need to make an appointment for all three of them and don't guidelines require getting him looked at within 48 hours?


Can't help with show leads as mine for ringraft was a 1/2 inch plain leather and brass slip lead - RRs are shown on just leather and it has to be loose as then run so very different I think. Babycham has some pretty ones for her CCs I think; perhaps send her a message? Or see what the breeder says the breed is shown on? Some seem to have a preference for separate little half checks and leads, some slip leads etc.

If you're going to use a flexi then I'd use a harness. No idea again about teeny dogs.

The vet - depends on your contract with the breeder. Ours have been vet checks within 48 hours.

A blanket in a crate or crate mat is fine to start - I'd wait and see if he destroyed beds first TBH. Have started both mine off on real cheapys to see.

Biting? Both Kilo and Rudi have been awful for "jump / bite" as I call it  when very excited. Rudi's just calming now which is nice as walking down the road with 35kg of dog hanging from your arm amuses and alarms people. To some extent they do grow out of it as well as training them out of it. Lead, lamp post, step back and try not to laugh at tantrum!!

I'm sure the breeder can guide you through most of that stuff - she'll know exactly what you need. Can't beat puppy shopping though!!


----------



## kat&molly

Hope it goes well with the Doc today Dogless, and drive carefully in the snow/ice.

OH has taken Scruff on a couple of his errands this weekend- her little face this morning when she couldn't go to work with him, she's so upset and has gone back to bed.:frown2:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Good luck at the doctors!

Ah ok thanks, maybe we'll leave the bed for now then. 

An hah. Yeah I mean if he walks nicely on lead then be can walk just as nicely on a harness. Plus it'll be a bit safer. I'll still put his collar with tags on though. Sure you can do recall training on a harness and flexi.

Apart from recall, crate and house training I will need him to be able to stay for agility. I'm not sure if harnesses are allowed for puppy agility. I'll talk to my trainers today. Only problem is my Monday class finishes at 1pm and the puppy class starts at 1.15, it's a 15 minute walk either way ! So may have to either leave 20 mins early or change the day once a month! He'll only be doing that class for a couple of months unless they say as he's small he can continue longer. If not, may do Good Citizen with him then until he can do proper agility. 

Oh right and to sit/lay down for the table. I can teach him anything else later. He knows stand already.


----------



## Twiggy

*Lemonade scones sound good. Might have to make some and see what hubby thinks (not telling him they're not "normal" scone until later of course).* I still have a cake mix in that I've been unable to make sense of. The instructions talk about sprinkling on the potion powder and making things groovy. Bit concerned about what might be in it with instructions like that :lol: It's funny, I hate cooking meals, having to do it puts me in a really bad mood, but love baking cakes and stuff like that.[/QUOTE]

Always best not to tell husbands/OHs what the ingredients are. My husband won't eat lamb but always tells me how nice the home made shepherds pies are. Made with lamb mince of course....


----------



## Twiggy

Touch wood Holly seems better this morning. She spent the night on my bed and was very ready for her breakfast this morning. I think she's still a little bit 'off' and probably has a sore stomach although at the moment she's playing with a toy with her big chum Tremor.

I hope I can get all four girls out for a walk twice today. Quiver particularly otherwise she'll cease up.

Hope you all have a good day.

I'm taking Tremor to the chiropractor late afternoon and hope the roads out that way are OK as its a 40 mile round trip.


----------



## x clo x

im currently working on competition style heelwork with roxi my lurcher (id like to attempt working trials or something with her but may be a bit ambitious!) 

me and asbo are working on targets and contacts. im hoping to start agility with him once i pass my driving test (got it again on wednesday!)


----------



## Maria_1986

Glad Holly seems a little better this morning Twiggy.

Dogless - I hope the dr goes ok today.

Sarah - sounds like an interesting cake mix!!

Lemonade scones sound interesting, probably a really silly question but can I just check if you use fizzy lemonade or home made(flat) lemonade?

My plan for today is to bake some human and some dog stuff - tuna biccies for Chev and Mocha and/or peanut butter and chocolate cookies for OH


----------



## moonviolet

Maria_1986 said:


> Lemonade scones sound interesting, probably a really silly question but can I just check if you use fizzy lemonade or home made(flat) lemonade?


Fizzy lemonade, and minimal mixing make the scones super light


----------



## GingerRogers

I really shouldn't leave it so long over weekends to catch up.

Twiggy hope the tums get better and the snow goes away. I actually dreamt about big drifting snow last night in which lots of collies kept getting lost .

Sarah sorry Kevins come to stay, hope he leaves before Khan comes back 

Thorne you have more snow than us, woke up about 6.30 yesterday to see an absolute horizontal blizzard blowing past the bedroom window (no curtains) dozed on and off for a couple of hours with the snow still haring past, looked a bit like we were in one of those snow globes  but I reckon it all blew down south to you as there was barely a covering 

LO burgundy collar, glad he has been good, only one more sleep 

HAPPY BELATED 1ST BIRTHDAY SAM  - sorry I missed it  

WH hope the knees ok, ouchy!

MV thank you, I have copied that scone recipe, OH has a thing about making scones, he can have a go. Last time he made them very tiny, they were very nice but bite sized, he thought they would rise more than they did.

Dogless :thumbup1: to the mutton cooking, thank you it was yummy! So yummy I decided to only do roasties and we just pulled it apart on the table and stuffed roasties soaked in gravy and big lumps of melted mutton in our gobs  Good luck for the doctors, don't forget to share (with them not us, not unless you want to of course)

Kicks - sounds like you will be one of those so called 'helicopter' dog owners, like the mums that have 60 different after school clubs 

Clo - good luck with the driving test 

Kat - poor Scruff been left behind


----------



## Twiggy

*


x clo x said:



im currently working on competition style heelwork with roxi my lurcher (id like to attempt working trials or something with her but may be a bit ambitious!)

Click to expand...

*


x clo x said:


> me and asbo are working on targets and contacts. im hoping to start agility with him once i pass my driving test (got it again on wednesday!)


Go for it..!! You have a choice of WTs, competition obedience or Rally O. There are several very nice lurchers that compete in obedience in the higher classes.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Glad Holly seems a little better this morning Twiggy.
> 
> Dogless - I hope the dr goes ok today.
> 
> Sarah - sounds like an interesting cake mix!!
> 
> Lemonade scones sound interesting, probably a really silly question but can I just check if you use fizzy lemonade or home made(flat) lemonade?
> 
> *My plan for today is to bake some human and some dog stuff - tuna biccies for Chev and Mocha and/or peanut butter and chocolate cookies for OH*




We may moan about them but we spoil husbands/OHs really don't we?..


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> We may moan about them but we spoil husbands/OHs really don't we?..


I don't.:lol:
He's taken the mick too many times with my cake baking 'skills'. When I made scones he said they were like ships biscuits.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I really shouldn't leave it so long over weekends to catch up.
> 
> *Twiggy hope the tums get better and the snow goes away. I actually dreamt about big drifting snow last night in which lots of collies kept getting lost .*
> 
> I hope that's not a premonition as it talks of more snow for us at the end of the week...**
> 
> I was hoping to go down to Sussex to see my sister on Saturday but the weather was too iffy for such a long drive so now I'm hoping to go Good Friday, but weather permitting yet again..!!
> 
> I should be judging on Sunday in the midlands. The show committe are making a decision today as, at the moment, the field is under 6" of snow.
> Really awful for them as it's a one day open show followed by a two day championship show and they have a huge entry.


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> We may moan about them but we spoil husbands/OHs really don't we?..


As mine has the full time job and is the main earner and didn't make me go and get a boring office job with full time hours it allowed me to take a part time job I love, working with animals, I have to keep him sweet so he pays the mortgage!

Plus he has the 'I'm starving, nobody loves me' expression perfected.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy I hope not too , me and hubby were talking about the whole cancelled event thing yesterday, it must be heartbreaking especially for something like that as its not like a village fete that can be rescheduled the next week as there are so many other scheduled shows already planned.

Maria, can we all have your husband , I am hoping mine might get himself sorted out and then I might be able to take a step back for a while.

I forgot to update our weekend, was a quiet one yesterday, went back to the dry woods, as its Easter holidays its tricky to find people and dog free places round here for the next fortnight, but although a lovely spot its near to some more tourist parts so stays fairly quiet. We arrived though to find a family with a small toddler had just arrived. I let them get a bit ahead before I got the ninja out and she just stared at them, the toddler was wrapped up in a blanket in someones arms and I would have said that was sure fire trigger for scaredy guard dog so well pleased there.

We spent most of Saturday clearing out the dining room and I found a plastic box which she will now stand on like a circus pony  even though it makes a funny noise when the base indents! She wont get inside it though, too high and threatens to tip over, we may keep trying.

Hubby has taken her out this morning, they were going to do a half hour route but he has been gone more than an hour now


----------



## MollySmith

Awh I love my OH really. He's good to me and pretty much does the big off lead walk most days with Molly so I can get on with finding work and doing work. It's good that he sees I'm not 'at home' but actually working at home. In 16 years of marriage we've been through loads from miscarriage, treatment, my insanity and now my redundancy plus the Open University course. He has the patience of a saint.

We're off to look at a camper van this afternoon  I have a second interview for a visitor services guide at a National Trust place this week. The salary is awful but it's an area of work I want to move to from design and if I get it, it means a second car. We figured we might as well get a useful second car so it might be a camper van as opposed to a van.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Awh I love my OH really. He's good to me and pretty much does the big off lead walk most days with Molly so I can get on with finding work and doing work. It's good that he sees I'm not 'at home' but actually working at home. In 16 years of marriage we've been through loads from miscarriage, treatment, my insanity and now my redundancy plus the Open University course. He has the patience of a saint.
> 
> We're off to look at a camper van this afternoon  I have a second interview for a visitor services guide at a National Trust place this week. The salary is awful but it's an area of work I want to move to from design and if I get it, it means a second car. We figured we might as well get a useful second car so it might be a camper van as opposed to a van.


Camping is great fun and especially if you have dogs.

I sold my caravan in the autumn but have had some great times in it at shows and on courses, holidays, etc.


----------



## Maria_1986

GingerRogers said:


> Maria, can we all have your husband , I am hoping mine might get himself sorted out and then I might be able to take a step back for a while.


I moan about him and he does annoy me at times, but I love him really and he has supported me through some very tough times (I had a bit of a breakdown, ended up in hospital and couldn't work for a while) and sits and listens to my ranting and crying when my extended family situation all gets too much for me and I couldn't live without him, so you can't have the original but I could send you a hair sample so you can clone him if you want? I will warn you though, you do need to keep the fridge stocked with beer and chocolate to get the best out of him!


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Camping is great fun and especially if you have dogs.
> 
> I sold my caravan in the autumn but have had some great times in it at shows and on courses, holidays, etc.


I used to have one with my ex, and miss it a lot (far more than him). Even if we don't camp in it, the luxury of finding a secluded place and knowing we can have tea is bliss.


----------



## MollySmith

Maria_1986 said:


> I moan about him and he does annoy me at times, but I love him really and he has supported me through some very tough times (I had a bit of a breakdown, ended up in hospital and couldn't work for a while) and sits and listens to my ranting and crying when my extended family situation all gets too much for me and I couldn't live without him, so you can't have the original but I could send you a hair sample so you can clone him if you want? I will warn you though, you do need to keep the fridge stocked with beer and chocolate to get the best out of him!


I may have cloned him, beer and chocolate in fridge sound very familiar...


----------



## Maria_1986

MollySmith said:


> I may have cloned him, beer and chocolate in fridge sound very familiar...


Its the look of excitement when I bring home something chocolate that always makes me smile - I picked up some reduced valentines day stuff in the co-op last week and he was so happy


----------



## Kicksforkills

Haha, two or three more classes a week really isn't much lol


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I'm feeling like death warmed up. Sore throat, headache, toothache, earache, face ache, every little movement hurts and I have no voice. If anyone tells me it's "just a cold" I may well kill them. When I'm able to move again anyway. I know it's a bloody cold, it still knocks me on my ass for a few days. It's ridiculous, I can carry on as usual with more serious things but give me a cold and I'm laid up in agony :frown2:

It's a lovely day here today too, would like to go out with Spen but it's just not gonna happen.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear Sarah, feel better soon.

I am the same with colds, I do carry on with work, but they completely throw me, the only time I get really depressed, I hate that goldfish bowl head thing and refuse to go anywhere


----------



## Izzysmummy

Beth17 said:


> Good luck tomorrow Dogless.
> 
> Lemonade scones sounds lovely. I'll have to have a baking day.
> 
> Thorne I love diva Breeze
> 
> I am looking at maps so that I can plan new dogwalks etc. (I know I'm getting all serious about dog walks ) however I don't know how detailed I need it to be. I am such a worrywart and worry about walking places I'm not allowed so what would you recommend?


Beth - my best suggestion is to look at bridleways, then you know there wont be any stiles for the boys (most stiles are built with a hole for a dog but often the hole is only big enough for a jack russell)! We discovered that on our holiday! Only downside is that as theres a lot of horses use the bridleways they can be a bit muddy at this time of year. Also be wary of where they cross streams, they're not always crossable on foot!



Dogless said:


> Quite the scone fanatic now  .
> 
> mv - they sound lovely!! Must get lemonade and cream tomorrow as hubby is home for his leave now . Also pleased you've had such a great day with Miss Tinks .
> 
> I see the doctor for the insane tomorrow :frown2:.


Hope it all went well at the doctors Dogless!



moonviolet said:


> They actually taste like normal scones, but are super easy to make and so light. in case you aren't seeing enough scones at work :lol:
> 
> 325g SR Flour
> 167ml lemonade
> 167ml double or whipping cream or if being more wholesome can replace with yougurt
> 
> Mix the lemonade and cream in a jug then fold into the flour you have sieved into a bowl, once combine turn the sticky mixture out onto a floured surface Shape with a light touch (do not roll) into a square-ish shape around 2.5 cm deep. Cut with a knife into square
> 
> place on a lined baking sheet, glaze tops with milk and bake for 12-15 mins in a hot oven 220c For soft tops place a tea towel over the top as they cool.
> 
> Just to make this dog chat worthy Tink is now sleeping :lol:


These sounds amazing, I may have to try making these tonight! Does it matter what lemonade you use?



foxyrockmeister said:


> Oooh lemonade scones sound good, perhaps they should go on the list for Nan's 90th garden party :thumbup: Can I add sultanas to them too?
> 
> I'm disappointed in the lack of suggestions of cakes I can make in advance and freeze for the big do from you baking experts :hand:


FRM I have a great recipe for cookies, you could probably make and freeze the dough and then just thaw on the day and pop into the oven for 10 mins and voila! They are lovely, Tarnus cant get enough of them! Let me know if you want it and I can PM it to you! Or I have a good malteaser cake recipe (traybake - just melt then chill) which is a chocolate lovers heaven!

Sorry for the lack of updates, was on holiday then been hectic since we got back! All good here, we had my parents and sis to stay at the weekend with Millie, they managed to get here despite the weather and we all went to see The Lion King at the theatre which was brilliant :thumbup1:!

Izzy has been really tired since our holiday and luckily agility was cancelled yesterday so it gives her more time to recover !

Training on Wednesday last week went pretty well considering we'd been away and not practised very much, just a few minor things to work on and something new to start trying with positions on the move.

Hope all been ok here!


----------



## kat&molly

Hope you're feeling better soon Sarah- the winter bugs have been terrible this year.

Ginge- think we need a pic of the Ninja on her podium.


Just done another session with Scruff and Evie and the box. Its only a small box and I'm aiming for 2 front feet in it. Really slow going , I just have to be patient I suppose , they're interested so that's good. 
Scruff's doing a bit better , she's sort of realised its all about the box but neither of them have moved on from sniffing it yet.


----------



## MollySmith

Maria_1986 said:


> Its the look of excitement when I bring home something chocolate that always makes me smile - I picked up some reduced valentines day stuff in the co-op last week and he was so happy


OMG!  yes if I mange to buy something and it was cheap, well that's just time to get the party balloons out 

Off to see the camper van now! OH has also found an old ambulance, not so keen myself, looks nice but like his motorbikes (all 3) it'll be a long time waiting for it to be roadworthy unless I do it myself.

sorry to hear you are feeling crap Sarah, maybe you're run down after the last few weeks? Wrap up warm and hug the dog xx

IM, so nice to hear from you, I must insist on Izzy on holiday pics


----------



## Twiggy

*FRM I have a great recipe for cookies, you could probably make and freeze the dough and then just thaw on the day and pop into the oven for 10 mins and voila! They are lovely, Tarnus cant get enough of them! Let me know if you want it and I can PM it to you! Or I have a good malteaser cake recipe (traybake - just melt then chill) which is a chocolate lovers heaven!*

*Training on Wednesday last week went pretty well considering we'd been away and not practised very much, just a few minor things to work on and something new to start trying with positions on the move.*

[/QUOTE]

I love Maltesers - can we have the recipe pretty please?

Positions on the move as in sit - down - stand at normal pace?


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well I'm feeling like death warmed up. Sore throat, headache, toothache, earache, face ache, every little movement hurts and I have no voice. If anyone tells me it's "just a cold" I may well kill them. When I'm able to move again anyway. I know it's a bloody cold, it still knocks me on my ass for a few days. It's ridiculous, I can carry on as usual with more serious things but give me a cold and I'm laid up in agony :frown2:
> 
> It's a lovely day here today too, would like to go out with Spen but it's just not gonna happen.


Oh dear Sarah. There's nothing worse than a really heavy cold IMO.
Hope you soon feel better.


----------



## moonviolet

Izzysmummy said:


> These sounds amazing, I may have to try making these tonight! Does it matter what lemonade you use?


I use just normal fizzy sugary stuff, never tried diet. ( no shock there :biggrin

Sarah hope you are feeling better soon.

Good to see you IM glad you are all ok


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I used to have one with my ex, and miss it a lot (far more than him). Even if we don't camp in it, the luxury of finding a secluded place and knowing we can have tea is bliss.


Yes and brilliant at dogs shows to disappear into for a nice cup of tea, especially if it's raining.

This is mine and my sister's caravans when we did a weeks training course down in Suffolk. When we arrived on the Sunday evening we spent about two hours erecting the flipping fence so all the little doggies could run about. Come Monday morning, when I was first to go on the other side of the field with Tremor, they all got under it and came and joined us..LOL


----------



## Maria_1986

Hope your feeling better soon Sarah

MS - we don't quite have clones after all - mine collects broken computers not vehicles (I am so tired of opening a draw to find buts of computer cable that 'might be useful one day'). Hope finding a camper van goes well


----------



## Izzysmummy

MollySmith said:


> OMG!  yes if I mange to buy something and it was cheap, well that's just time to get the party balloons out
> 
> Off to see the camper van now! OH has also found an old ambulance, not so keen myself, looks nice but like his motorbikes (all 3) it'll be a long time waiting for it to be roadworthy unless I do it myself.
> 
> sorry to hear you are feeling crap Sarah, maybe you're run down after the last few weeks? Wrap up warm and hug the dog xx
> 
> IM, so nice to hear from you, I must insist on Izzy on holiday pics


MS here's the thread Tarnus made with our holiday pics http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/297620-holiday-snaps.html



Twiggy said:


> *FRM I have a great recipe for cookies, you could probably make and freeze the dough and then just thaw on the day and pop into the oven for 10 mins and voila! They are lovely, Tarnus cant get enough of them! Let me know if you want it and I can PM it to you! Or I have a good malteaser cake recipe (traybake - just melt then chill) which is a chocolate lovers heaven!*
> 
> *Training on Wednesday last week went pretty well considering we'd been away and not practised very much, just a few minor things to work on and something new to start trying with positions on the move.*
> 
> 
> 
> I love Maltesers - can we have the recipe pretty please?
> 
> Positions on the move as in sit - down - stand at normal pace?


Ok Twiggy, just for you! 

Malteaser cake
100g marg
6tbs syrup
250g chocolate
Melt the above together over a low heat

Crush 200g digestives and 200g malteasers (not too crushed so you still have some big chunks) add these to the melted ingredients and mix.
Press into a lined, greased tin
Chill in the fridge and keep refrigerated!

Yup positions on the move, starting with a sit whilst we continue walking then collect to heel as we pass them again. The transitions are still a bit slow at the minute so working on streamlining it and making the transition smoother and phasing out the wait command but we've only just started it so taking it very slowly.

For anyone interested the cookie recipe is

225g marg
225g caster sugar
170g condensed milk
175g SR flour

Cream marg and sugar, mix in condensed milk and sift in flour to get your dough.

Then you can add what you like but our favourite is 100g white chocolate chips, 100g milk chocolate chips and 170g dried cranberries.

Should make 20-24 cookies.

Roll each into a ball into your hand then press onto a tray lined with grease proof paper so it's about 1-2cm thick.

Bake at 180 degrees for 10-12 mins until the edges are golden.


----------



## Dogless

MS - campervan...very exciting :thumbup1:.

Twiggy - pleased that little HB seems better - the dogs getting under your camping fence story made me smile!

Sarah - get well soon.

Dogs walked separately this morning. So cold it's unreal in the biting wind - both were very good. I'm introducing Rudi to tug as a reward for recall and other stuff outside, but I have to let him tug for seconds few at present as otherwise he gets too wound up and hangs off my arm . He's less carried away when we do it in the house. 

Doctors was dogsh!t. An hour and a half of psychobabble, she hadn't a scoobies about the Army lifestyle, wasn't too hot on English and seemed desperate to label me. I have declined further help from her. She is writing to inform my GP.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> MS - campervan...very exciting :thumbup1:.
> 
> Twiggy - pleased that little HB seems better - the dogs getting under your camping fence story made me smile!
> 
> Sarah - get well soon.
> 
> Dogs walked separately this morning. So cold it's unreal in the biting wind - both were very good. I'm introducing Rudi to tug as a reward for recall and other stuff outside, but I have to let him tug for seconds few at present as otherwise he gets too wound up and hangs off my arm . He's less carried away when we do it in the house.
> 
> *Doctors was dogsh!t. An hour and a half of psychobabble, she hadn't a scoobies about the Army lifestyle, wasn't too hot on English and seemed desperate to label me. I have declined further help from her. She is writing to inform my GP.*




Oh dear. I'm really sorry to hear that.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- that's not good, can you ask to see another one?


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> MS here's the thread Tarnus made with our holiday pics http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/297620-holiday-snaps.html
> 
> Ok Twiggy, just for you!
> 
> Malteaser cake
> 100g marg
> 6tbs syrup
> 250g chocolate
> Melt the above together over a low heat
> 
> Crush 200g digestives and 200g malteasers (not too crushed so you still have some big chunks) add these to the melted ingredients and mix.
> Press into a lined, greased tin
> Chill in the fridge and keep refrigerated!
> 
> *Yup positions on the move, starting with a sit whilst we continue walking then collect to heel as we pass them again. The transitions are still a bit slow at the minute so working on streamlining it and making the transition smoother and phasing out the wait command but we've only just started it so taking it very slowly.*
> 
> Can I ask why your instructor is teaching ASSD, assuming these are pet dogs?
> 
> Thanks for the recipes - they sound very indulgent and will make hubby's cholestoral go off the Richter scale...!!


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- that's not good, can you ask to see another one?


Will talk to my GP again. The psychiatrist said at the end "Well, you'll be pleased to know I'm not going to keep you in" :yikes::yikes:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Its a bit like 'What are you baking on?' at the moment on here 

We have an oddly behaved dog here today. Hubby said she refused to get back in the car when he took her out earlier, then she didn't want to do any training, just stared at me and lay down when I got the box out, even refused to roll over  kept her backright leg at a funny angle so she couldn't really as she rolls that way, but would half do it the other way . To the point we decided she must have injured herself or something, she was so lethargic and wouldn't even run for a treat. Couldn't feel anything, decided to let her out the back as a test, she went nuts, no injury there I don't think  so just putting it down to period pains r change in routine with hubby taking her out 

Just had a thundershirt delivered, we will see, how shall I test it, walk her down the high street ! 

Oh forgot, saw the vet on Fri evening, I told her Ginge was in heat and so we could book her in for spaying and she said that they would be very careful not to undo all my hard work  I didn't really get her, why would it, surely if the op affects temperament they would be careful with all dogs??? She meant they would make sure it was a quiet day at the surgery, book us in at a quiet time etc, even setting up a collapsible crate in the staff room if necessary to stop her being stressed on recovery, how nice was that? 

Dogless liked for the CH's, 
 for the doctors. Why on earth would your doctor, who presumably knows and to a point understands you, send you to someone like that 

I can totally understand how someone as clearly intelligent as you would hate being babbled at by someone who doesn't understand what you have experienced let alone actually speak good English  

I had a period when I was a whole lot younger when it was assumed I needed 'seeing', I hated it. In the end my Mum set me up with a lady who ran a Youth Centre, she got me in to help out with the kids with crafts and stuff and sometimes we spent one to one days out, no pressure, just was there if needed, suited me much more and worked . I realise your situation is different, I was just a bit messed up, not clinically diagnosed for anything but still  for you. Hope there is someone who is right for you though, don't write them all off.

ETA glad they aren't keeping you in   :frown2:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Will talk to my GP again. The psychiatrist said at the end "Well, you'll be pleased to know I'm not going to keep you in" :yikes::yikes:.


They've let you out to torment us then.
I would definitely speak to the GP again- don't let it go.

Ginge- what lovely vets you have.:thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Dear WAYWO ladies,

I have a confession :001_huh:. You know the half check collar drama? And the suggestion of a hound martingale?

I may just have ordered Kilo two from Silver Peacock that arrived today and are* beautiful*.

It gets worse.

I had to order co ordinating ones for Rudi when he's bigger....although they'll fit now he's probably a bit wee for wide ones.

Can't take a photo just now. Hubby is home and I haven't yet dared tell him :skep: .

The Ann Rees ones aren't here yet as she is busy fulfilling Crufts orders....but at least he knows about those .

Luv Dogless.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Its a bit like 'What are you baking on?' at the moment on here
> 
> We have an oddly behaved dog here today. Hubby said she refused to get back in the car when he took her out earlier, then she didn't want to do any training, just stared at me and lay down when I got the box out, even refused to roll over  kept her backright leg at a funny angle so she couldn't really as she rolls that way, but would half do it the other way . To the point we decided she must have injured herself or something, she was so lethargic and wouldn't even run for a treat. Couldn't feel anything, decided to let her out the back as a test, she went nuts, no injury there I don't think  so just putting it down to period pains r change in routine with hubby taking her out
> 
> Just had a thundershirt delivered, we will see, how shall I test it, walk her down the high street !
> 
> Oh forgot, saw the vet on Fri evening, I told her Ginge was in heat and so we could book her in for spaying and she said that they would be very careful not to undo all my hard work  I didn't really get her, why would it, surely if the op affects temperament they would be careful with all dogs??? She meant they would make sure it was a quiet day at the surgery, book us in at a quiet time etc, even setting up a collapsible crate in the staff room if necessary to stop her being stressed on recovery, how nice was that?
> 
> Dogless liked for the CH's,
> for the doctors. *Why on earth would your doctor, who presumably knows and to a point understands you, send you to someone like that
> 
> I can totally understand how someone as clearly intelligent as you would hate being babbled at by someone who doesn't understand what you have experienced let alone actually speak good English  *
> 
> I had a period when I was a whole lot younger when it was assumed I needed 'seeing', I hated it. In the end my Mum set me up with a lady who ran a Youth Centre, she got me in to help out with the kids with crafts and stuff and sometimes we spent one to one days out, no pressure, just was there if needed, suited me much more and worked . I realise your situation is different, I was just a bit messed up, not clinically diagnosed for anything but still  for you. Hope there is someone who is right for you though, don't write them all off.
> 
> ETA glad they aren't keeping you in   :frown2:


My GP is fabulous; I was referred to the Consultant Psychiatrist and got one of his juniors - pot luck I think. As for me being clearly intelligent :shocked: .

Your vet sounds really awesome - how considerate .


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Dogless so sorry it was rubbish, I do agree with Ginger, sometimes you have to seek out the right person. I've been kept in once for two weeks - hell it was, and probably not advisable but I do think, on reflection I was led into it. I did eventually, third time lucky, find someone who helped me through the childlessness stuff and just because she had experiences of it. I hope you find someone useful.

Speaking of baking - did anyone watch Paul Hollywood? I just don't get the crush thing, my friends were almost licking their TV's over him.

Maria, I agree, not clones. Mine avoids the internet at all costs and still struggles to use a mobile phone. I suspect I might be the computer collector, I was cleaning up the study this week as it's hell sharing the space and shoved a box up into the loft cupboard full of 'Apple Mac stuff' 

Saw camper van, very nice but very rusty and we think overpriced. I can see it needs oil change already and the tyres need replacing none of which was on the advert so heaven knows what else we will find. The search continues.

Molly being a total 'pain in the arse' OH's words not mine about loose lead walking so off to do a lesson with her when she wakes up.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oooh can't wait, they are stunning collars, but with such stunning boys


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oooh can't wait, they are stunning collars, but with such stunning boys


They are even nicer 'in person'. Hubby off to work just for the night tonight so he doesn't wake us up at 0400 when he goes for the ferry (day trip to MOT car)!! He's otherwise on leave at present. Will photograph when I'm alone...... TBH he doesn't care, just rolls his eyes  .


----------



## Dogless

MS - Boo for the campervan . I'm sure the ideal one's just round the corner!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> My GP is fabulous; I was referred to the Consultant Psychiatrist and got one of his juniors - pot luck I think. As for me being clearly intelligent :shocked: .
> 
> Your vet sounds really awesome - how considerate .


The vet is very lovely , she is fairly young but always listens to any ideas I have, although she was horrified at the idea of raw feeding, still her 'vet' head says no, she listened and took it on board and doesn't lecture, and she has been very interested in the course I have been on, very pleased, especially as we stopped going to the other vets with Rory as they just didn't seem to be able to handle him.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy said:


> Can I ask why your instructor is teaching ASSD, assuming these are pet dogs?
> 
> Thanks for the recipes - they sound very indulgent and will make hubby's cholestoral go off the Richter scale...!!


Im not sure what ASSD is but I think its just to introduce new things and keep things interesting, advance on our heelwork some more.



Dogless said:


> Dogs walked separately this morning. So cold it's unreal in the biting wind - both were very good. I'm introducing Rudi to tug as a reward for recall and other stuff outside, but I have to let him tug for seconds few at present as otherwise he gets too wound up and hangs off my arm . He's less carried away when we do it in the house.
> 
> Doctors was dogsh!t. An hour and a half of psychobabble, she hadn't a scoobies about the Army lifestyle, wasn't too hot on English and seemed desperate to label me. I have declined further help from her. She is writing to inform my GP.


Dogless - sorry the head doctor was rubbish! Is there anyone more specialised in army issues you could see either through the army or a charity for ex-military people? Sorry if thats not helpful or been covered before. 

Ginge - how lovely of your vets to be so considerate of how ginge will deal with her spay op. Our vets let us go through the back to collect Izzy from her recovery room as they could tell she was really nervous and didnt want to stress her out anymore than needed.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless lets hope you get a more understanding person next time. I definitely think you need some help for this collar obsession though  Can't wait to see them 

Ginge what a lovely vet. It'll be interesting to see if the Thundershirt works.

MS I don't get the Paul Hollywood thing. Then again I'm not the hugest fan of the Liverpool accent 
I hope you can find a decent campervan.

We had a fairly normal bring walk this morning. They both behaved and then we went up to my dads for a couple of hours. They spent the whole time playing and have come home, had a mad 5 minutes chucking the rubber chicken around and trekking mud everywhere before going to sleep.


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> MS I don't get the Paul Hollywood thing. Then again I'm not the hugest fan of the Liverpool accent


The fact that at first glance I think he's Cesar Milan puts me off.


----------



## Symone

Sarah : Hope you feel better soon.

Dogless : I want to see those collars! I bet that they will look stunning on your boys  
I suppose that I'm lucky with my OH.. Even though he has mentioned that I spend more on Shamaya than myself, he doesn't mind all that I buy for her. 


Well, I just took Shamaya on a walk.. It was bloody cold and we had a mishap  
Went to the beach, and there was this drain hole thingie uncovered, no lid in sight.. Luckily it was full of rubbish because as soon as we discovered it Shamaya ran and didn't see the hole, fell in it and smacked her chin on the top. Luckily there was no blood but I will keep a close eye on her. I'm pretty sure that it will be sore for a few days. 
TBH the councils cleaner for the beach should had seen this and reported it or secured off the area.. I think I may write an angry e-mail. 

Other than that Shamaya walked semi-nicely. She pulled like mad when the OH went in to a different shop, and decided to hug everyones legs in the pet shop! 

Btw, how does everyone keep their rugs/carpets clean?! Shamaya has covered it in fur already.. So far it is requiring a daily hoover and then steam. I dread to think how it would get if I wouldn't do it for a week, lol


----------



## kat&molly

I got this through the window today. 
Anyone for tug.


----------



## GingerRogers

What the chicken or the tuggy  they strangely match, is that the sendaway hen?


----------



## Dogless

Onlead walk with both CHs just now, Rudi was a bit of a pain BUT....we got barked at by two dogs - no repsonse from Kilo, Rudi got excited and tried to hump my leg  :001_huh:. Then....saw the loose dog - you know "hope they're not bitches, they'll have a scrap / if they're males are they castrated". No dramas THEN the BC that Kilo will react to as he eyeballs and pulls towards us - nothing from the BW AND THEN we saw "the" lab at the other end of the street and....nothing :thumbup1: but I didn't push my luck and took a different route rather than trying to pass. Rudi did a bot of jumpinbg on Kilo's head / jumping and biting my arm and generally being a loon which wore my patience thin...but good outweighed the bad.

Hubby has nipped out...time to photograph the collars . Not on the boys. They're snoozing off their dinner .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Hubby has nipped out...time to photograph the collars . Not on the boys. They're snoozing off their dinner .


Ohhh didn't Kilo do well. Sorry you didn't get gel with the head doc 

Can't wait to see the new collars.....However should you ever be asked ..... " What these old things, we've had them ages, don't you remember me showing them too you, oh dear you really do forget everything, we'll have to keep an eye on 
that "  :devil:

K&M :lol: tuggy chuck


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Ohhh didn't Kilo do well. Sorry you didn't get gel with the head doc
> 
> Can't wait to see the new collars.....However should you ever be asked ..... " What these old things, we've had them ages, don't you remember me showing them too you, oh dear you really do forget everything, we'll have to keep an eye on that "  :devil:


He actually doesn't mind....I usually say Kilo's had them ages as he does't walk with us!! Rudi only has one....two with his Ann Rees one on the way.....or did :shocked:. Bloody lead from camera isn't playing right now :frown2:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> He actually doesn't mind....I usually say Kilo's had them ages as he does't walk with us!! Rudi only has one....two with his Ann Rees one on the way.....or did :shocked:. Bloody lead from camera isn't playing right now :frown2:.


Nor does mine, but it takes the sport out of it :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Here we go :thumbup1:.

Not the best photos but top two Kilo's, bottom two Rudi's....the rust coloured one isn't smaller, it was just folded over!


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Dear WAYWO ladies,
> 
> I have a confession :001_huh:. You know the half check collar drama? And the suggestion of a hound martingale?
> 
> I may just have ordered Kilo two from Silver Peacock that arrived today and are* beautiful*.
> 
> It gets worse.
> 
> I had to order co ordinating ones for Rudi when he's bigger....although they'll fit now he's probably a bit wee for wide ones.
> 
> Can't take a photo just now. Hubby is home and I haven't yet dared tell him :skep: .
> 
> The Ann Rees ones aren't here yet as she is busy fulfilling Crufts orders....but at least he knows about those .
> 
> Luv Dogless.


Ummm, Molly's one from Tillymint is on the way and I sharen't share my new collar website find but I have shared it with Tillymint so she can see what fabrics others are using...!

Gawd, an eventful afternoon, you know I said I'd take Molly for a lead walk? I had to find her first. Bl**dy dog ended up in next doors garden. :mad5: She managed to jump the fence after a daring cat got into ours and went hell for leather after it. We've got 4-5ft between us and next door and it's a bit of sore point as it's her boundary and frankly her garden is a nightmare - 6ft high with weeds and she cultivates in a 'natural' way. We asked her long before Molly arrived if she could fix the fence but she never has. Over winter the weeds have pushed the wire fence we put in and that's how Molly got it. OH has been to B&Q and got some willow so we're going to do that, as it's cheaper and 6ft high, I'm sick of looking at her mess. In the meantime I've put a large pallet up. Molly got stuck in the garden with the cat on the fence so we got her back okay but terrified the life of me. So it's fence fix tomorrow.

Good news is that the lead walk was okay, not great but okay - I have resorted to the halti, gave up with the lead and collar. I know she was perfect but she's slipped so badly in the last week, I think where OH was yanking her back and not stopping or turning. Oh well, I don't mind if the halti is the way to walk her, as long as it works. I am sure the harness makes her react more to dogs, perhaps she feels too contained? We saw another cat but managed a nice turn and a beagle on a lead. I took her to a distance and we did look at me well, no reaction when she saw it coming but I did do a turn as I feel she's in one of those moods today.

*Twiggy* - I am even more obsessed by camper vans now I know I can do the fence thing too. If I can get madam better with dogs on lead it's a great idea.

*kat&molly* - agree with Ginger, they really do match hen and tuggy!


----------



## Dogless

Oh MS......at least you got her back - and the halti sounds like a plan if you think the harness makes things worse.

k&m - don't get the hen and the tuggy mixed up .


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Here we go :thumbup1:.
> 
> Not the best photos but top two Kilo's, bottom two Rudi's....the rust coloured one isn't smaller, it was just folded over!


I love them all but especially the stripes.

*must not spend redundancy pay on collars, sob* Actually dog doesn't deserve them today, I've been using the naughty voice a bit too often.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Dogless they are :001_wub:
The silky ones will look stunning on them very luxurious :thumbup1:


----------



## Dimwit

Am I spotting a theme of WAYWO ladies attempting to bump off their OHs by baking lots of cholesterol-raising goodies :lol:
Actually, I may have to try some of these myself - though I will take them into work!

MS: I love watching anything involving cooking/baking so am indeed watching Paul Hollywood (though I did think he burnt his bloomer last week), but I also don't get the weird crush thing...
Also, the dimwit is more reactive when he just has his harness on but he does walk quite nicely on a gentle leader (well, he has moments of walking nicely interspersed with "oh my god, what's this on my face, I can't possibly walk in this so I must either scratch it off or throw myself on the ground and look all pathetic")

Dogless: I LOVE the collars, the dogs will look even more handsome in them! I really have to stop looking at collars for the dimwit but he is a very good dog to buy collars for as he is black and very short-coated so they stand out well

K&M: Love the hen/tuggy combination

I think I may have inadvertently taught the dimwit a new trick tonight - as I was getting ready to take him out he ran off with one of my gloves so I just said "bring it" (which is what I use when throwing the ball as he has a tendency to run back to me with it and then just drop it somewhere in my vicinity) and he ran over to me and then threw the glove at me - I was so impressed I tried it with the other glove and he did the same (and was VERY pleased with himself. I'm not sure he will ever do it again but it was very cute


----------



## Guest

Agh, Twiggy, help!

Guess what Bates did in the ring Saturday and got us DQ'd - well, that and me and my green handling skills... 

On the recall, he's supposed to front, then I wait for the judge's signal, then finish. He ran at me straight as an arrow, skipped right over the front, and flew in to a dramatic flip finish. Beautiful finish, but... yeah...

So I take him home, practice recalls, and he's perfect for every one. Not a single missed front. 

We have a couple things he does in the ring that he never does in practice, so I'm kind of at a loss as to how to work on them. Like his stand for exam. He has to start in a sit, I ask for a stand, leave the dog, etc. His cue for stand is a hand signal. He NEVER misses this hand signal because it's based on touch and he LOVES the touch cue. In the ring he just stared at my hand and wouldn't move. I had to double cue him (another no-no).

How do you work on things that the dog does in the ring but never in practice?
I know it's got a lot to do with my nerves, do I just need to pay to show and jolly him through even though I know I'm going to NQ?

On a good note, he rocked his long sits and downs. During the down the handler one ring over threw her dumbell to where it bounced in to our ring and rolled across the end of the ring. The three dogs on the end (including Bates) perked their ears and got *really* attentive, but everyone held their stay. We had a good laugh at that one! Phew!!


----------



## moonviolet

MS what an eventful afternoon. Glad you got Molly back unscathed and didn't have to send a search party into the wilderness. Just out of interest which technique did you use when you got Molly at a distance "look at that" or "watch me"? If she's under theshold and can calmly look at the trigger without reacting then "Look at that" is great for helping with desensitizing and counter conditioning.

Hour and a half out on the heath today and then back through the woods unsurprisingly didn't see a soul. Played hide and seek, tag, did a few other silly things, Glad OF wasn't home I would have had to explai how i got green slime on my inner thighs running from Tink under estimated tha t height/girth of a fallen tree , honestly :lol:

Dogless they are lovely  can't wait till the boys are awake to model. 

Ouesi bit of a random thought . did anyone film you? in your nervous state could you be giving him confusing body language?


----------



## Kicksforkills

Over the food poisoning yay!

Think that was causing me to think I was a bit "am I sure about this?" About Dexter. Now I'm starting to get excited.

I realise I may get post-puppy depression those first few weeks -I can imagine it now

My mum stopped by the vets and brought Adaptil as it worked to calm out GR down from the fireworks. She thought it might help calm Rasco down about the puppy if we plug it in the day before. Anyone used it/think it will help?

Dexter and Josh (his brother the breeder is keeping)'s microchip implantation is planned for Thursday afternoon. He breeder rightly said that she would get it done at her vet's so that Dexter's first time at my vet wasn't an unpleasant one.

My mum and I both think Dexter will be bigger than his mum and his father. The breeder of his father, an international champion, came to see the litter to assess their show potential. He said Dexter was like his sire's father but Josh is like the litter's dam.

One of the people today at agility told me that they go to the ringcraft that Dexter will be going to. Since next week's class is re-scheduled for the Friday that week, the next time I see him will be at Ringcraft 

Agility trainer said I should do puppy Obiedence when I was talking to her about the puppy agility, I smiled and said I wasn't soon Obiedence with him, then the trainer said the later I leave it the harder it'll be, as in she thought I wouldn't so any training at home.

Booked Dexter on the puppy pre-agility sessions this month. 13th and 15th.

The breeder said this is where they get their leads;

http://www.essenjayleathersupplies.co.uk/

Anyone used them?


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> What the chicken or the tuggy  they strangely match, is that the sendaway hen?


Yes, that's sendaway hen- suppose the colour is a bit similar, its not meant to be.

Love the collars Dogless- they wouldn't stay clean for 2 minutes here.

Well done to Dimwit for bringing the glove.


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> MS what an eventful afternoon. Glad you got Molly back unscathed and didn't have to send a search party into the wilderness. Just out of interest which technique did you use when you got Molly at a distance "look at that" or "watch me"? If she's under theshold and can calmly look at the trigger without reacting then "Look at that" is great for helping with desensitizing and counter conditioning.
> 
> Hour and a half out on the heath today and then back through the woods unsurprisingly didn't see a soul. Played hide and seek, tag, did a few other silly things, Glad OF wasn't home I would have had to explai how i got green slime on my inner thighs running from Tink under estimated tha t height/girth of a fallen tree , honestly :lol:
> 
> Dogless they are lovely  can't wait till the boys are awake to model.
> 
> Ouesi bit of a random thought . did anyone film you? in your nervous state could you be giving him confusing body language?


I am so pleased too, honestly! I think I'm over threshold today 

I did a look at that and as the dog got closer and I could feel her tipping a touch over, we went for watch me, so all in all, I was impressed. We had a look at that for a cat and I was so surprised she did that given it was barely an hour since she did her Usain Bolt over the fence.


----------



## kat&molly

Moonviolet- OF  =Old fart?


----------



## Nicki85

So I feel like I can rejoin this thread now! Rusty is always Mr Perfect... honestly I have never met a dog who goes out of his way to be so helpful and good (he would be one of those swots at school!).

But now I have Miss Shae! And we have loads to work on  

1. to get her comfortable by herself while I walk Rusty. The crate is up and she is going in for treats/ chews but door closing = screaming. So doing a lot of treats in and in/out of crate then will build up to door closing. So can't really shut her in there at the moment. Going to shut her in the kitchen tomorrow which I don't think she will like but it is safe at least. Any tips on this? At night I have her in a cornered off part of my room and she doesn't make a peep (apart from needing a wee!) but again not a viable option as there are things she can chew etc. 

2. To get her "good" around the cats. Cats are just about coming round to the idea of another dog but Shae really wants to play with them. I've been a bit more serious than I would like to as I don't want her getting scratched and her attempt at getting them to play involves yips and growls and puppy charges! So strict no and getting inbetween cat and her and then redirecting onto something more suitable- hopefully she will get the message 

Apart from this we are doing the usual clicker training with hand touches, walking by myside on lead without biting lead, sit ,down and she likes to play tug so we are doing some early "enough" as in let go and then play again. I'm just changing facial expressions/ tone when using "enough" and then rewarding with more play but might mix and match this with a treat reward. 

Next on the list is leave it as she is a minx for picking things up in the garden and eating the cat litter....

She is booked in for a puppy play hour thing which is run by a good behaviourist on Saturday and on Friday we are meeting a friend and her young puppy. For Rusty he has some sessions booked with Dave Munnings for some one-2-one agility training.


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moonviolet- OF  =Old fart?


:lol: whoops sounds about right


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless - sorry the docs was carp.  I hope you can find someone who can help you. 

Sooooooo tired today! Work and 2 hours of tutoring tomorrow then 3 days off apart from one hour of tutoring on Wednesday evening (no dog class as it is holibobs). I am so much in need of the more than one day off in a row! :lol: When I think about the amount of work I used to do when teaching though  I'm just being a bit pathetic now... I think my stress threshold has massively lowered.


----------



## Guest

Soooooooooo I'm totally not gonna blame dogless for showing us them pretty collars for the fact I have been drooling at silver peacock collars? :lol: 

TOMMOROW IS THE SCARY DAY. Still can't get that one hour off sadly so mum will have to answer questions, not sure if that worries me yet. 

Zander pulled like a friggin train!! 

And we met the tailor who said to bring him in for the headcollar adjustments.
Zander just stopped mid-step (like he had one paw in the air) and the man was good, just said hello quietly didn't try to stroke him or anything. But when he moved to walk past, Zander pulled to get away then. 

The tailor firsts words were 
"OHHHHH IT's A GREYHOUND BITCH!!" :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> The breeder said this is where they get their leads;
> 
> Essenjay Leather Supplies - hand crafted leather dog leads and collars


Yes I've used them; got Kilo's leather show slip lead from them, very good quality. Nowadays it's used to capture loose dogs and taken them home!


----------



## Dogless

LO - very best of luck for tomorrow :thumbup1:. Sure your Mum will handle it, although understand why you'd want to be there.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> Yes I've used them; got Kilo's leather show slip lead from them, very good quality. Nowadays it's used to capture loose dogs and taken them home!


Ah hah, thanks.


----------



## Twiggy

Well a better day here thank goodness. About 80% of the snow has gone so the girls got two walks today and Holly seems more or less back to normal tonight, plus Leafy is only slightly lame now.

I took Tremor to the chiropractor and she was quite pleased with her. Her back and neck were out but nothing like as bad as a month ago. The journey was a tad hairy once I got off the main road as the lane leading to the village was single track with snow piled up both sides approaching 8 ft in places. It was like being in Switzerland and I had my fingers tightly crossed that there wouldn't be any vehicles coming the other way..!! It was actually a 60 miles round trip and I didn't get home until 6.45pm. Tremor was fascinated by the cat sitting on the back of a settee. Her eyes were out on stalks.

I had my slow roasted lamb joint for dinner and very nice it was too.

*MS *You see loads of 'gardens' surrounding caravans and camper vans at dog shows.

*LO *Hope tomorrow goes well. Such a pity you can't get the time off work though.

*Dogless *The collars are fabulous - lucky boys.


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> Agh, Twiggy, help!
> 
> Guess what Bates did in the ring Saturday and got us DQ'd - well, that and me and my green handling skills...
> 
> *On the recall, he's supposed to front, then I wait for the judge's signal, then finish. He ran at me straight as an arrow, skipped right over the front, and flew in to a dramatic flip finish. Beautiful finish, but... yeah...*
> 
> _Do you practice the present and finish as separate exercises in training and what commands/hand signals do you use?_
> 
> So I take him home, practice recalls, and he's perfect for every one. Not a single missed front.
> 
> *We have a couple things he does in the ring that he never does in practice, so I'm kind of at a loss as to how to work on them. Like his stand for exam. He has to start in a sit, I ask for a stand, leave the dog, etc. His cue for stand is a hand signal. He NEVER misses this hand signal because it's based on touch and he LOVES the touch cue. In the ring he just stared at my hand and wouldn't move. I had to double cue him (another no-no).*
> 
> _Do you practice at home or training class with a stranger standing near him as a dummy judge if you like?_
> 
> *How do you work on things that the dog does in the ring but never in practice?*
> *I know it's got a lot to do with my nerves, do I just need to pay to show and jolly him through even though I know I'm going to NQ?*
> 
> _If it's humanly possible I put things right before I leave the ring but I don't know what the rules are over the pond. Take the novice recall you described above. I'd have asked the judge if I could do it again and forego the other exercises, smiling nicely and being very polite of course._
> _I would have requested the steward to call the recall again and providing the dog came into the present, I would have asked the steward to call "finish" several times in an excited voice but kept the dog in the present and then gone mad with praise._
> 
> *On a good note, he rocked his long sits and downs. During the down the handler one ring over threw her dumbell to where it bounced in to our ring and rolled across the end of the ring. The three dogs on the end (including Bates) perked their ears and got *really* attentive, but everyone held their stay. We had a good laugh at that one! Phew!!*




_That was very good and the sort of distractions you get at shows, which I was trying to explain on here a few nights back._


----------



## GingerRogers

Good luck tomorrow lurcherowner dont be sad if you have a melt down. I did  x hugs of support x


----------



## Sarah1983

I think I've lost my mind. With having no voice I've been scribbling messages to hubby on a notepad. Well I've just written one saying "do you want out?" and shown it to Spen. I know he's clever but he's not that bloody clever :mad2: He just tried to eat the notepad. Thankfully hubby was too engrossed in his computer game to notice so he won't be taking the pee out of me for the rest of my life.

Still feeling like death but just thought I'd pop in and give you all a giggle.


----------



## MollySmith

Do any of you get wobbles? I think Molly's adventure this afternoon upset me more than I thought. I start thinking it's all too much for me and she's better elsewhere.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I think I've lost my mind. With having no voice I've been scribbling messages to hubby on a notepad. Well I've just written one saying "do you want out?" and shown it to Spen. I know he's clever but he's not that bloody clever :mad2: He just tried to eat the notepad. Thankfully hubby was too engrossed in his computer game to notice so he won't be taking the pee out of me for the rest of my life.
> 
> Still feeling like death but just thought I'd pop in and give you all a giggle.


:biggrin::frown2:. Love it!!! Do hope you feel better soon though.



MollySmith said:


> Do any of you get wobbles? I think Molly's adventure this afternoon upset me more than I thought. I start thinking it's all too much for me and she's better elsewhere.


Hugely; I hope it's a sign of possessing a conscience and doing the best that you can do for a dog / dogs. That or insanity. Maybe both :shocked:.


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Good luck tomorrow lurcherowner dont be sad if you have a melt down. I did  x hugs of support x


I just know I am probably gonna have a little cry. I can't take criticism at all.



MollySmith said:


> Do any of you get wobbles? I think Molly's adventure this afternoon upset me more than I thought. I start thinking it's all too much for me and she's better elsewhere.


All the time. Don't worry about it too much. I think it means that you care alot and are a human being with proper feelings and stuff. Unlike those who dispose of their dogs like furniture.

Thanks for the support guys.


----------



## Izzysmummy

MollySmith said:


> Do any of you get wobbles? I think Molly's adventure this afternoon upset me more than I thought. I start thinking it's all too much for me and she's better elsewhere.


Of course! I'm sure we all do and it's just because we care so much for them and want them to have the very best that we question ourselves.

Don't worry, get yourself an early night and have a nice bedtime cuddle with your girl and it'll all feel better in the morning after a good nights sleep!

Big hug from me and a lick from Izzymonkey!


----------



## Beth17

Sarah hope you are feeling better tomorrow. Illness does strange things to our logic. Wouldn't it have been great if he had read and understood though 

LO good luck for tomorrow.

MS yes I often think of how much better a life they could have; especially when reading about other peoples dogs and their adventures etc. However they could also have a much worse life I suppose


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> I just know I am probably gonna have a little cry. I can't take criticism at all.
> 
> All the time. Don't worry about it too much. I think it means that you care alot and are a human being with proper feelings and stuff. Unlike those who dispose of their dogs like furniture.
> 
> Thanks for the support guys.


She isn't coming to criticise she is coming to help and guide you. If she criticise we will all be flying down there


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> She isn't coming to criticise she is coming to help and guide you. If she criticise we will all be flying down there


I'll still cry I reckon. :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> I'll still cry I reckon. :lol:


That's ok tis allowed. You care. X


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> I just know I am probably gonna have a little cry. I can't take criticism at all.
> 
> All the time. Don't worry about it too much. I think it means that you care alot and are a human being with proper feelings and stuff. Unlike those who dispose of their dogs like furniture.
> 
> Thanks for the support guys.


thank you, thanks everyone.

LO lovely, best thing I did was doing what you are doing tomorrow. Yes it's hard but you have made a huge step in the right direction. Knowing there is work to be done is half the journey made.


----------



## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> thank you, thanks everyone.
> 
> LO lovely, best thing I did was doing what you are doing tomorrow. Yes it's hard but you have made a huge step in the right direction. Knowing there is work to be done is half the journey made.


Yep I said.it before but we know an ex forces dog.trainer. He.told Hubby last time he bumped into him to tell me how proud he should be. So few people actually take the time to work with their dogs problems.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

MollySmith said:


> thank you, thanks everyone.
> 
> LO lovely,* best thing I did was doing what you are doing tomorrow*. Yes it's hard but you have made a huge step in the right direction. Knowing there is work to be done is half the journey made.


Ditto 

Good luck LO


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Yep I said.it before but we know an ex forces dog.trainer. He.told Hubby last time he bumped into him to tell me how proud he should be. So few people actually take the time to work with their dogs problems.


I hear horror stories from our behaviourist who said she has to work with people who expect her to solve everything in one hour with no input from them at all at no point. It's a bit like sending them off for an instant fix. I honestly can say I've not encountered a group of more hard working owners than all of you here.


----------



## Beth17

Oh my goodness. I have just been looking at silver peacock collars and they are all gorgeous. I also love the coats and jumpers they do. Only problem is those things just will not look right on bulky boxers.

I have therefore decided that I now need to get a sighthound :001_wub:


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## Werehorse

I have wobbles about not doing the best for the boys (and the horses) quite regularly.  Especially now I'm back at work again. I worry that they don't get enough _stuff_ to keep them really happy and I have felt terrible when Oscar is clearly upset by the change of me going back to work.


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## moonviolet

LO good luck for tomorrow. 

MS many many times i've have wondered if her ladyship would be better off elsewhere. So many times i have felt like i have failed her, but each time I resolve to do better.

Unremarkable pavement trot followed by some games and a blissfully sleeping pup is toasting by the fire.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> I have wobbles about not doing the best for the boys (and the horses) quite regularly.  Especially now I'm back at work again. I worry that they don't get enough _stuff_ to keep them really happy and I have felt terrible when Oscar is clearly upset by the change of me going back to work.


Think it means you're ....... normal . For a WAYWO participant anyway :001_huh: .


----------



## Thorne

Had a quick skim through before bed, hope everyone is well 

Dogless -Sorry to hear that you ended up seeing a [email protected] Dr, hoping you find a more helpful and easy to understand one soon! Love the collars and am shamefully browsing the SP website.

Symone -I'd definitely write an email! Sorry that Shamaya took a tumble, it could have just as easily been someone breaking an ankle so worth a few minutes' rant I reckon!

Kat -What a beautiful chicken! Is that a frizzle? 

LO -Hope tomorrow goes well for you x

I'm being eased into more staff-y roles at work, today I was assigned a radio (walkie talkie)! Used to take one with me when I had Paddy in the garden in case he scaled a fence or went bananas but it's very novel, I quite like knowing who's doing what and where around the centre.
Cattery today but walked Skip in the morning. Met a numpty with a large pup that ignored her mumbled "come here" and bounded over to dog-reactive Skip. Fortunately pup kept a respectful distance when it reached us so was able to usher Skip away with a treat before he took exception to the intruder. He's a sweet little chap but can't be bothered with most other dogs.
Also walked Lola whose BAT training is going well, but met more numpties in the car park who squealed at her and fussed her despite me asking them not to/to give her space/she's nervous, we couldn't really avoid them . Thankfully L sniffed their pockets for treats then retreated 

S&B are spending a day in kennels next month while we're all in London so they had their KC vaccs this evening, Scooter was a star! We were able to go straight into the consulting room so no time for him to get stressed while waiting, and the vet was very calm and respectful of him. Breeze didn't like this poor vet and was quite shivery and licky until she smelt the biscuits in my pocket. Both pulled faces about their vaccs but were pretty good dogs for us tonight.
Very pleased, when the vet asked how old Scooter was he thought mum was joking when she said nearly 11, and said he'd have put him at 6 or 7 :biggrin: 

Found out tonight that it's possible to fit 2 Labs on the back seat of a Ford Fiesta (much to B's disgust!).


----------



## Sarah1983

Another who has the odd wobble here and there. Spen has such a desire to be doing something, anything, that I often wonder if he'd be better off with someone who wants more than just a pet. I do a fair bit of training with him but we don't work towards anything as such. 

But then I think about it and think that even if I'm not the absolute perfect home for him he could be far worse off. He could have owners who can't be bothered even teaching him the basics or taking him for walks and just leave him bored to tears all day every day. 

I used to worry with Rupert too because of his issues. I know I wasn't the best home for him, environment was all wrong and I was too inexperienced, but you don't exactly have people queueing up to take on a neurotic,terrified, dog aggressive dog who will kill anything non human he can get hold of and who's never going to see "normal" with a telescope. And again, at least I was willing to put in the work and do my best by him, that's gotta count for something


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Do you practice the present and finish as separate exercises in training and what commands/hand signals do you use?


Yes we do. Front (present) is simply "come" with both hands to my side. We're not allowed to move at all otherwise as that counts as a double cue and double cue in the recall is automatic NQ.
Finish is left hand flick or right hand flick depending on whether I'm asking for a left or right finish. We're only allowed to do either signal or verbal, not both. I generally don't do verbals, (we're not there yet) but when I do it will be "finish" and "around".
Judges are different, they all stand behind the dog but some will call the commands out to you, others will signal with a hand up, or even the clipboard (which freaks some dogs out).



Twiggy said:


> Do you practice at home or training class with a stranger standing near him as a dummy judge if you like?


Yes, we have all sorts of set ups - clipboard and everything. We fling arms where the dog can see us and give orders and all sorts of stuff. Bates rocks it all. He knows the drill. I think the last time he blew through a front was almost a year ago. 
He does have a habit of putting his own spin on things... He went through a phase of stomping on rally signs with his front feet, another time there was a toy in a figure 8 (distraction in rally) that he's supposed to ignore. He managed to snatch up the toy while never breaking heel and did the next 4 stations with the toy in his mouth . That was another NQ...
If nothing else it's always entertaining with him!



Twiggy said:


> If it's humanly possible I put things right before I leave the ring but I don't know what the rules are over the pond. Take the novice recall you described above. I'd have asked the judge if I could do it again and forego the other exercises, smiling nicely and being very polite of course.
> I would have requested the steward to call the recall again and providing the dog came into the present, I would have asked the steward to call "finish" several times in an excited voice but kept the dog in the present and then gone mad with praise.


Oh gosh that would be awesome! But sadly, no, we're not allowed to do any of that. They are *very* strict about "fixing" things in the ring. You blow it, you either move on or get excused.


----------



## Guest

I'm not ignoring everyone else  I do pop in here and try to keep up with you guys, it's just hard to stay on top of what's going on! I do try though!


----------



## sharloid

Dogless said:


> Yes I've used them; got Kilo's leather show slip lead from them, very good quality. Nowadays it's used to capture loose dogs and taken them home!


Oh there are lots of things I like on that site. You guys are dangerous!


----------



## Maria_1986

L/O - best of luck for tonight. Try to remember that she is there to help you and that she is only there because you are a good, responsible owner and have asked for the help and give yourself a big pat on the back for that. She may correct the way you do a few things but (and I really do know how hard this is) please try hard not to see it as personal criticism but as help and guidance. 

Yesterday Chevy met a pig (well a pig came up to investigate her) through a fence. I though we were ok as she was sniffing along the fence but the pigs were the other side of the field, but one of the pigs started to come over and although as soon as is headed in our direction I tried to call her away she fixated on it and ignored me. So something else to add to our list of things to work on - anyone got a pig I can borrow?

I'm dreading training today, because of her funny tummy we have had a few days of not working on anything as I didn't want to put treats in her and upset her tummy again and unlike when I was at school we can't just copy some one elses homework. I think I will ask if we can continue working on the stuff we covered last week instead of adding anything new this week as I don't feel like we have had long enough to work on it to the point where we can add anything new, is that a good idea?


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> LO lovely, best thing I did was doing what you are doing tomorrow. Yes it's hard but you have made a huge step in the right direction. Knowing there is work to be done is half the journey made.


This! It is scary but a good behaviourist/trainer will not just sit there and criticise you. I felt so relieved and positive after my first session with the behaviourist because she made me realise that I was NOT to blame for all of the dimwit's issues, and she helped me to come up with a plan to work on them.

I have frequent wobbles because I know that my dog would be better off in a home with someone who actually knows what they are doing but for some reason I love the strange little dog and so I will continue to do my best for him...


----------



## kat&molly

LO- Good luck for today, I'm sure you'll feel much better when she's given you some advice. Look forward to hear what she says.

Thorne- She's a Pekin Frizzle. I did have a Frizzle, she's passed away now but she was lovely.


I think we all have wobbles. I don't worry so much about Jay, Scruff and Evie- I know I have to be doing better than what they've had in the past. Moll is the one that bothers me - she'd love to do other activities.
I have had a few comments about how my Girls look like happy dogs and that's nice.

Werehorse- I'm sure Oscar will settle, its a big change for all of you.

Maria- sorry no pigs here.


----------



## GingerRogers

Ignoring ginger smelly bum 
mutton offcuts are the culprit. Sadly i was sleeping on the sofa with her as Hubby has another head  he says its not so bad though
also wondering why it sounds like we have a steam train outside


----------



## Maria_1986

GR - I probably have read this before (so my apologies for my braincell not retaining the info) but whats wrong with your hubby's head?


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I hear horror stories from our behaviourist who said she has to work with people who expect her to solve everything in one hour with no input from them at all at no point. It's a bit like sending them off for an instant fix. I honestly can say I've not encountered a group of more hard working owners than all of you here.


I can empathise as I get exactly the same from handlers expecting a magic wand solution.

Some of them come here with a massive problem that's been ongoing for several months/years and expect me to sort it out within the hour..


----------



## Kicksforkills

Ah no, sleeping properly means I have to actually catch up on this thread?

NOOOOO!


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> I can empathise as I get exactly the same from handlers expecting a magic wand solution.
> 
> Some of them come here with a massive problem that's been ongoing for several months/years and expect me to sort it out within the hour..


It is bonkers. I think it's up there with the couple I saw using a clicker to call their dog back :shocked: Needless to say it kept running away the more they clicked... I find it hard to understand that since there is so much on the internet on clicker training even if they don't get a trainer. The worst she had was a lady who I see at our dog walking place. She has a spaniel with the most appalling manners - leaps and jumps, nips, no recall and all sorts. She bugged the trainer to go onto her puppy course and then went to two and left saying she had all she needed. Yet this puppy has grown up into a real pain.

Thanks guys for your wobble confessions yesterday. I felt I was grumpy with her all day and OH was moaning too. I had a brief blip when I thought that my life was better without her, this is not true of course. Just some days are hard work and I am lucky we have few of them. Molly was meant to get her collar today but the Royal Mail decided to knock at the door and forget the crucial 'wait' part of the command :mad5:


----------



## Twiggy

Oh gosh that would be awesome! But sadly, no, we're not allowed to do any of that. They are *very* strict about "fixing" things in the ring. You blow it, you either move on or get excused.[/QUOTE]

Mmm I had a nasty feeling you were going to say that you are not allowed to do 'training rounds' over there.

It used to be frowned on over here several years ago (and still is by some) and wasn't allowed in either agility or HTM initially.

IMO it is very short-sighted and shows the lack of understanding of dogs basically, by the powers that be.

As we know, dogs have a brain and they very quickly put their own stamp on things. For instance on the present. If they know they will be doing a finish every time they compete in the ring, the clever dogs will obligingly go straight into the finish position and skip the present.

Years ago my little Meg would put herself into the down position on stays as I returned from out of sight at the end of the sit stay. She wasn't being naughty, simply using her brain and as it had taken her years to work that one out and she was approaching retirement, I hadn't the heart to do anything about it.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> It is bonkers. I think it's up there with the couple I saw using a clicker to call their dog back :shocked: Needless to say it kept running away the more they clicked... I find it hard to understand that since there is so much on the internet on clicker training even if they don't get a trainer. The worst she had was a lady who I see at our dog walking place. She has a spaniel with the most appalling manners - leaps and jumps, nips, no recall and all sorts. She bugged the trainer to go onto her puppy course and then went to two and left saying she had all she needed. Yet this puppy has grown up into a real pain.
> 
> Thanks guys for your wobble confessions yesterday. I felt I was grumpy with her all day and OH was moaning too. I had a brief blip when I thought that my life was better without her, this is not true of course. Just some days are hard work and I am lucky we have few of them. Molly was meant to get her collar today but the Royal Mail decided to knock at the door and forget the crucial 'wait' part of the command :mad5:


There is absolutely no way that any of the dogs belonging to us on this thread would be better off with a new owner because we care very deeply for their wellbeing and worry ourselves stupid about them.

An awful lots of owners wouldn't even notice behavioural problems, illness, etc. or just shrug their shoulders and think it's what dogs do.

The only wobble I've had in recent years was Tremor as a puppy, mainly because I thought I'd taken on more than I could chew at my age. She was so big and fiesty and really hurt my iffy back and neck on a number of occasions.


----------



## Guest

LOL Twiggy, you pegged it with the clever dogs. I can just see Bates saying "I know you're going to ask me to finish, I'll just save you the extra step". Ever helpful that one 

I think I'm just not going to worry about it for now, my biggest issue is still the nerves and him getting upset because he senses I'm upset. I'm not going to nit-pick when I can't even get my own self together!


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> LOL Twiggy, you pegged it with the clever dogs. I can just see Bates saying "I know you're going to ask me to finish, I'll just save you the extra step". Ever helpful that one
> 
> I think I'm just not going to worry about it for now, my biggest issue is still the nerves and him getting upset because he senses I'm upset. I'm not going to nit-pick when I can't even get my own self together!


That sounds an eminently sensible strategy to me....


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> There is absolutely no way that any of the dogs belonging to us on this thread would be better off with a new owner because we care very deeply for their wellbeing and worry ourselves stupid about them.
> 
> An awful lots of owners wouldn't even notice behavioural problems, illness, etc. or just shrug their shoulders and think it's what dogs do.
> 
> The only wobble I've had in recent years was Tremor as a puppy, mainly because I thought I'd taken on more than I could chew at my age. She was so big and fiesty and really hurt my iffy back and neck on a number of occasions.


We should be the 'What are we worrying over' thread


----------



## Kicksforkills

Just found out the breeders will bring Dexter here before 11am on Monday. So plenty of time for shopping and "aww look at him" 

One of my friends down the field recommended a guy who trained her dog 10 years ago. Googled him and he's CEO of an animal company who just so happen to be ten minute drive away and just so happen to have a puppy class starting next Thursday at 18:00. Only problem is unless me brother takes us (he finishes work at 5, my mother at 5.30), we won't be able to go. I can ask him sure, and he'd just need to drop us there. 

That lasts an hour, then I have ringcraft at 8pm about a five minute drive from my house. 

I'll ask my brother, if he is ok with dropping us off then I'll go for it.


----------



## GingerRogers

Maria_1986 said:


> GR - I probably have read this before (so my apologies for my braincell not retaining the info) but whats wrong with your hubby's head?


Lol, that made me laugh, where do I start 

Sorry  he has been having bad weekly migraines which we thought we had found a solution to, and we may well have, but I was working at Mollysmiths pace  to quick for the boy! I just want him mended soon


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> We should be the 'What are we worrying over' thread


:laugh::laugh:. Too true 



Kicksforkills said:


> Just found out the breeders will bring Dexter here before 11am on Monday. So plenty of time for shopping and "aww look at him"
> 
> One of my friends down the field recommended a guy who trained her dog 10 years ago. Googled him and he's CEO of an animal company who just so happen to be ten minute drive away and just so happen to have a puppy class starting next Thursday at 18:00. Only problem is unless me brother takes us (he finishes work at 5, my mother at 5.30), we won't be able to go. I can ask him sure, and he'd just need to drop us there.
> 
> That lasts an hour, then I have ringcraft at 8pm about a five minute drive from my house.
> 
> I'll ask my brother, if he is ok with dropping us off then I'll go for it.


Two classes per night is a huge ask of a new puppy and you I think with only a short break in between. Both my dogs are knackered after an hour's training class, not to mention me. Perhaps go to alternate clubs on alternate weeks?

Maria - sure training will be OK. Take really smelly treats : and pray . No substitute for training I know....but all I can suggest :frown2:.

Took the boys to the top fields today for a play. After a week or even two of not jumping and biting Rudi decided that he'd resurrect the behaviour today . Took us a while to walk up there. Several stops whilst Kilo and I waited out LCH's very, very loud and dramatic tantrums :crazy:. Then he grabbed at the toy and got my hand BUT their recalls, sits and waits were good and we passed a pug with no skipping or hackles from the BW. The best bit? When we'd just got onto our drive I heard a woman frantically calling her dog, who ran in front of a van (who braked sharply ) to see us. Just one brief gruff and a bounce from the BW and I carried on walking sharpish. Very good as he's territorial once on his drive / in his garden. So....an exhausting walk really but I managed not to reach the end of my tether  .

The new collars are far too small :cryin::cryin:. The measurements must be with them unchecked and I had assumed checked. Oh well, they were only for non - muddy lead walks anyway .


----------



## Twiggy

*


ouesi said:



Yes we do. Front (present) is simply "come" with both hands to my side. We're not allowed to move at all otherwise as that counts as a double cue and double cue in the recall is automatic NQ.

Click to expand...

*


ouesi said:


> *Finish is left hand flick or right hand flick depending on whether I'm asking for a left or right finish. We're only allowed to do either signal or verbal, not both. I generally don't do verbals, (we're not there yet) but when I do it will be "finish" and "around".*
> Judges are different, they all stand behind the dog but some will call the commands out to you, others will signal with a hand up, or even the clipboard (which freaks some dogs out).
> 
> I've been thinking about this. Are you allowed the dog's name with a signal and would you be allowed to place your hands together in front of you rather than by your side?
> 
> Also why are you training both finishes?


----------



## sharloid

The books I ordered came today! I got:

'Dogwise' by J Fisher
'Behavior Adjustment Training' by G Stewart
'When Pigs Fly' by J Killion. 

I'll finish reading 'The Culture Clash' by J Donaldson then I'll have to decide which to read next!

I'm working on training me.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, that made me laugh, where do I start
> 
> Sorry  he has been having bad weekly migraines which we thought we had found a solution to, and we may well have, but I was working at Mollysmiths pace  to quick for the boy! I just want him mended soon


He won't be fixed after just one treatment :hand: patience woman, patience!!

When's his next appointment?


----------



## GingerRogers

foxyrockmeister said:


> He won't be fixed after just one treatment :hand: patience woman, patience!!
> 
> When's his next appointment?


 I know , especially as she said he was the tensest person she had ever treated , it was just that he hasn't been working, we thought it best to try and stop the ever decreasing vicious circle, so just took that out the equation, then he isn't worrying about it and he isn't continuing any damage he might be doing in the tractor so I really hoped the weekly tuesday head wouldn't arrive


----------



## MollySmith

sharloid said:


> The books I ordered came today! I got:
> 
> 'Dogwise' by J Fisher
> 'Behavior Adjustment Training' by G Stewart
> 'When Pigs Fly' by J Killion.
> 
> I'll finish reading 'The Culture Clash' by J Donaldson then I'll have to decide which to read next!
> 
> I'm working on training me.


Good choices. I have these.

I just wish my OH would read them. I've been told all the stuff that Molly isn't doing again. This time jumping up at people on walks, my suggestion that he does a watch me apparently doesn't work as he has to catch her first.. 

I shall find the relevant pages and tag them. Men really are from another planet.:frown2:


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- what a pity with the collars-you'll just have to get some more.

Beth- meant to say have you seen the Saluki in the rehoming section here? He is :001_tt1: he'd go very nicely some Peacock collars.

Lovely walk here this morning, sun shining, birds singing, muddy dogs  what more could you want.

Ginge- sorry you're having another bad head day there.

Sharloid- when pigs fly-just fab.:thumbup1:

Moonviolet- Heeelp please  6 sessions now with the box with Scruff and Evie and we still haven't moved on from sniffing the box. The only thing Evie's offered is to nick the treats out of my pockets.
I tried waiting it out with Scruff today but gave in and clicked for sniffing again. Doing my bestest to not compare to Moll[who got this in one session]. They haven't yet learnt to 'offer' stuff- should I just stick at it or is there something simpler to have a go at with them.Thanks.


----------



## Kicksforkills

K&M -How many chickens have you got? I've got 6.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Good choices. I have these.
> 
> I just wish my OH would read them. I've been told all the stuff that Molly isn't doing again. This time jumping up at people on walks, my suggestion that he does a watch me apparently doesn't work as he has to catch her first..
> 
> I shall find the relevant pages and tag them. Men really are from another planet.:frown2:


MS - you're just going to have to get a shock collar for your OH :frown2:.

k&m - oh, the saluki :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless - That's the only Ringcraft class I can get to, and as for the pupp Obiedence the next one I could get to would be the 23rd of April, on Tuesdays. But the class is for six months and under and he'll be almost seven. Are you sure that with an hour break it wouldn't be ok?


EDIT: My breeder and her husband are judges of Saluki's, thy even judge at Crufts. We saw one of their Saluki's as we were leaving. She was beautiful and white. They told us she was deaf.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Dogless - That's the only Ringcraft class I can get to, and as for the pupp Obiedence the next one I could get to would be the 23rd of April, on Tuesdays. But the class is for six months and under and he'll be almost seven. Are you sure that with an hour break it wouldn't be ok?
> 
> EDIT: My breeder and her husband are judges of Saluki's, thy even judge at Crufts. We saw one of their Saluki's as we were leaving. She was beautiful and white. They told us she was deaf.


I can't say whether it would be OK or not; only you can. If it were me with Rudi (six months tomorrow) it would be too much. We just make it to the end of our pet obedience class without him losing focus and he sleeps for the rest of the day. He is a lazy ridgie though and I have a teeny brain myself so you may well be fine!! Sounds a lot for a puppy that hasn't yet bonded with you either but then I don't know how experienced / advanced you are. I am not very (both of those ) so they're just the thoughts of a novice. I'd listen to Twiggy / mv etc over me .


----------



## Dimwit

Kicksforkills said:


> Dogless - That's the only Ringcraft class I can get to, and as for the pupp Obiedence the next one I could get to would be the 23rd of April, on Tuesdays. But the class is for six months and under and he'll be almost seven. Are you sure that with an hour break it wouldn't be ok?


I think it depends on the dog but given how young he is and how you will only have had him for a couple of days I think it is asking a lot to expect him to do 2 classes in one night. Even if he has done most of the exercises before he will be in a new environment with a new handler...


----------



## moonviolet

K&M As this is a totally new way of learning for them and you want to make it easy or them I'd " cheat" a bit by hiding a treat in the box/under the box/ behind the box. Present the box up the right way upside down.
Just to unstick their needles a bit if that makes sense. At the moment they probably think sniffing is the only right answer.

KFK I agree with Dogless 2 classes in one night does sound very taxing.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> K&M As this is a totally new way of learning for them and you want to make it easy or them I'd " cheat" a bit by hiding a treat in the box/under the box/ behind the box. Present the box up the right way upside down.
> Just to unstick their needles a bit if that makes sense. At the moment they probably think sniffing is the only right answer.
> 
> KFK I agree with Dogless 2 classes in one night does sound very taxing.


Two in one day with different dogs is enough for me .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Two in one day with different dogs is enough for me .


Last time we did the 2 hour Htm class we both came home and had a nap :lol:


----------



## sharloid

Dogless said:


> I can't say whether it would be OK or not; only you can. If it were me with Rudi (six months tomorrow) it would be too much. We just make it to the end of our pet obedience class without him losing focus and he sleeps for the rest of the day. He is a lazy ridgie though and I have a teeny brain myself so you may well be fine!! Sounds a lot for a puppy that hasn't yet bonded with you either but then I don't know how experienced / advanced you are. I am not very (both of those ) so they're just the thoughts of a novice. I'd listen to Twiggy / mv etc over me .


Kindra is just over 5 months and falls asleep after an hour of puppy class or ringcraft. Actually, ring craft is two hours. But there's an hour where you actively participate and then the second where you can just dip in and out. I certainly wouldn't be putting her through both in one day, but it's your choice.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks MV- we'll try that. Poor girls , I can see the wheels turning , it just isn't coming naturally to them yet.

KFK- I'm down to just 6 chucks now.
I think 2 classes would be too much as well- the little man will need a sleep.


----------



## Sarah1983

K&M, is it 101 things to do with a box you're playing with them? If so then I've had no joy with that until the dog has learned to offer behaviours. I see it recommended a lot for starting clicker training but I know quite a few people whose dogs have just gotten extremely frustrated because they don't know the "rules" of clicker training yet. 

I start off without the box. Just clicking for anything at all that the dog does. A paw movement, ear flick, head turn, shift of weight, whatever. 

KFK, I would not do two classes in one night. It's too much imo. You seem to want to cram everything in RIGHT NOW and honestly, I'd take a step back and just enjoy the pup. Find out who he is, what he likes and build your bond with him instead of trying to do everything at once. 

I'm still feeling like death. Beginning to think it may be tonsilitis as I've been spitting up blood. But even if I can get a doctors appointment I can't actually get to the doctors, it's a 40 minute walk away at the best of times! My house desperately needs cleaning and tidying but it won't get done unless I can find the energy to get off the sofa and do it. Which isn't likely considering I can barely take Spen out front for a pee without collapsing in a heap. Hubby drives me mad when I'm ill. Constantly goes on about how I should ask him if I need something doing but when I do ask him to do something like the washing up or hoovering he pulls his face and does it with such a bad attitude that it's not worth the hassle. So I end up doing it then he yells at me coz I'm ill and should be resting :frown2: Can't win.


----------



## BessieDog

KFK - I agree with the others I'm afraid. I did do ringcraft followed by the entry obedience classes for 4 weeks, but Bess had been doing ringcraft for a while by then so knew what to expect. She also knew most of the obedience stuff as well, so it wasn't too taxing. She did lose concentration half way through as well.

It depends what you want to do. If you want to show then maybe go to ringcraft and do obedience at home? That's what I do - mainly because the next class up is held at the same time as ringcraft and I had to make a choice. 

My morning: Well, Bess is being far too good today that it's worrying! I've been working upstairs since 8.00 and she's been lying quietly downstairs (I go down and have a quick play/cuddle about once an hour). It's very disturbing. She seems okay when she's playing or running around in the garden, but she's being far too good for my liking!  

Can you imagine me taking her to a vet? 'What are the symptoms?' 'She's behaving herself!' 

Will take her for a walk in a minute and see what she's like then.


----------



## Dimwit

Sarah1983 said:


> KFK, I would not do two classes in one night. It's too much imo. You seem to want to cram everything in RIGHT NOW and honestly, I'd take a step back and just enjoy the pup. Find out who he is, what he likes and build your bond with him instead of trying to do everything at once.


Excellent advice. Why not take some time to get to know the pup and work out what you actually want to do with him rather than trying to do everything all at once. He is still a young pup and you have lots of time, whatever you decide to do, why not just enjoy spending time with him and focus on basic training without the pressure of thinking about showing/GCDS/Agility..


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - sorry you're feeling rubbish still. My hubby is like that - says I need help when my back's awful, yet isn't actually prepared to help .

BessieDog - how odd....hopefully she's growing up rather than lulling you into a false sense of security :shocked: :biggrin:.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah, you do sound poorly.

I'm not doing the 101 things to do with a box?- its the exercise from Pigs fly book. You 'aim' for a behaviour, so thought I'd go for 2 front feet in the box, its only a small one.
I'm sure they get the clicker though, we've used it a lot for other little things - I wonder whether its me but then I have taught Moll these things, I don't know.There really is a big difference to the way they learn , Molls been learning from a pup but the others haven't.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

I thought shooting season was over? 

Lovely relaxing walk in the woods nearly ended in disaster when a shotgun went off literally 20 yards from us  I hadn't seen him and I'm assuming (hoping) that he hadn't seen me either otherwise I would like to think he wouldn't have fired. It was so loud it was nearly a 'clean pants please' moment for me, and even Branston jumped out of his skin and he is not normally phased by loud noises at all.

Even with his ear defenders on I think the gunman heard me screeching for Lily though! Thankfully my quivering jelly dog didn't go too far before deciding that coming back to mummy would be the safest thing (huge sigh of relief). He definitely saw us then and raised his hand - again I'm hoping that it was in a kind of 'sorry, didn't see you there, I won't shoot again until you're well out of the way' manner, so I put Lily on her lead and we made a hasty retreat.

No more shots until about 15 minutes later and we were much further away but Lily stayed on her lead with her ears and tail firmly clamped to her body for the rest of the walk 

That's another walk that she is going to be too terrifed to go on now


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> Sarah, you do sound poorly.
> 
> I'm not doing the 101 things to do with a box?- its the exercise from Pigs fly book. You 'aim' for a behaviour, so thought I'd go for 2 front feet in the box, its only a small one.
> I'm sure they get the clicker though, we've used it a lot for other little things - I wonder whether its me but then I have taught Moll these things, I don't know.There really is a big difference to the way they learn , Molls been learning from a pup but the others haven't.


Ah I see. What about the reward placement? Have you tried throwing the treat into the box or past the box? I've found that where you give the reward can be really helpful with getting unstuck on something. I was stuck with Spen just putting his front paws in a box when I wanted all 4 paws in it so threw the treat past the box, as he went to get it at least one of his back paws would usually go into the box and I'd click and treat that.

I know what you mean about them learning differently. Rupert was slow with picking things up. He really seemed to enjoy clicker training but it would take him forever to have that "light bulb moment" where he realised exactly what he needed to do. I thought it was me doing something wrong but I had a few sessions with my cousins collie and she picked up on things sooooo quickly. Spen's the same, catches on so quickly and effortlessly I struggle to keep up with him lol.


----------



## kat&molly

I have thrown treats in the box- but I'll try past the box. Thanks.
MV- I just put a treat underneath- Scruff nudged it gently ,and got the treat without even disturbing the box. :lol:

I think I need a box the size of this room and reduce it.

Meanwhile over in easy dog camp, Moll put the ring over the plunger from being on the floor- twice[too scared to try again]. Finally.:thumbup1::thumbup1:


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> I have thrown treats in the box- but I'll try past the box. Thanks.
> MV- I just put a treat underneath- Scruff nudged it gently ,and got the treat without even disturbing the box. :lol:
> 
> I think I need a box the size of this room and reduce it.
> 
> Meanwhile over in easy dog camp, Moll put the ring over the plunger from being on the floor- twice[too scared to try again]. Finally.:thumbup1::thumbup1:


:lol: Scruff. what happens if you put one in the box at the far end of it. I think for now like Sarah has said it's about making it fun and rewarding for them . Thinking back Tink has always had fun interactions with boxes. as i pup i'd hide treats under a blanket or shredded newpaper for her to find. So she's always been pleased to see a box :lol:

Well done Moll !!i'd leave it it at that for this session and just do something she enjoys to finish off


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thanks all, given your advice I will stick to doing Obiedence at home.

Bessie; he has been doing ringcraft with his breeder and already stands perfectly. 

I think I wanted to do things to try to get a bond with him sooner -as he is an older puppy.

I'll stick with ringcraft, which is once a week and puppy play pre-agility sessions -which are only twice a month. 

Then do recall etc at home. Obviously enjoy his puppy time too


----------



## Maria_1986

GR - I remember now, sorry  Hope you find a solution that works well soon, I get bad migraines, luckily not as often as I used to and I have now found a medication that works for mine 90% of the time so I know how awful they can be.

Dogless - its funny you say smelly treats - tonights treats are turkey, sausage and f4d treats - thought I would go smelly and high value in the hopes nobody notices I've failed miserably at putting the time and effort I know is required into training this week. I am actually going to tell the trainer what happened this week so that we have the time to work on her leave again in class as thats the one I'm struggling with at the moment. I also want them to go over the LLW with OH again this week cos he won't listen to me.

FRM - I'm so sorry that your walk was ruined and that Lily was scared by it. I hope that it has no long lasting effects and that she will still do that walk in future.

KFK - I would agree with everyone else and say stick to one class per night. We do 1 hour basic training and me, Chevy and my OH all come home and collapse in a heap, I think our heads would explode if we did anything longer than an hour!

Has been a mixed morning - CT dog walk without Dougal was sad and Candy has a problem with her eye so was very jumpy and not particularly happy today (vet visit is booked) but Chevy was a star on our walk today. She was responsive to commands and generally behaving herself. We stopped on one path (large ditch on one side, livestock fencing the other so she had nowhere to go) and practised off lead recalls, sit and wait and even when she spotted a bird in one of the bushes near by she still listened to me  We also did some LLW stuff too on the way home and she walked for 10 whole minutes with a loose lead even past a person on the other side of the road


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> :lol: Scruff. what happens if you put one in the box at the far end of it. I think for now like Sarah has said it's about making it fun and rewarding for them . Thinking back Tink has always had fun interactions with boxes. as i pup i'd hide treats under a blanket or shredded newpaper for her to find. So she's always been pleased to see a box :lol:
> 
> Well done Moll !!i'd leave it it at that for this session and just do something she enjoys to finish off


I wonder if my box is too small? Its probably the size of a dinner plate[squared]

I've just tried one past the box and one at the other end. No joy.


----------



## Twiggy

Kicksforkills said:


> Dogless - That's the only Ringcraft class I can get to, and as for the pupp Obiedence the next one I could get to would be the 23rd of April, on Tuesdays. But the class is for six months and under and he'll be almost seven. Are you sure that with an hour break it wouldn't be ok?
> 
> Do you mean an hours break between doing a ringcraft class with your new pup and then an obedience class?
> 
> If so I think it would be too much to ask of a youngster.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> K&M, is it 101 things to do with a box you're playing with them? If so then I've had no joy with that until the dog has learned to offer behaviours. I see it recommended a lot for starting clicker training but I know quite a few people whose dogs have just gotten extremely frustrated because they don't know the "rules" of clicker training yet.
> 
> I start off without the box. Just clicking for anything at all that the dog does. A paw movement, ear flick, head turn, shift of weight, whatever.
> 
> KFK, I would not do two classes in one night. It's too much imo. You seem to want to cram everything in RIGHT NOW and honestly, I'd take a step back and just enjoy the pup. Find out who he is, what he likes and build your bond with him instead of trying to do everything at once.
> 
> I'm still feeling like death. Beginning to think it may be tonsilitis as I've been spitting up blood. But even if I can get a doctors appointment I can't actually get to the doctors, it's a 40 minute walk away at the best of times! My house desperately needs cleaning and tidying but it won't get done unless I can find the energy to get off the sofa and do it. Which isn't likely considering I can barely take Spen out front for a pee without collapsing in a heap. Hubby drives me mad when I'm ill. Constantly goes on about how I should ask him if I need something doing but when I do ask him to do something like the washing up or hoovering he pulls his face and does it with such a bad attitude that it's not worth the hassle. So I end up doing it then he yells at me coz I'm ill and should be resting :frown2: Can't win.


Is there any chance you could get a doctor out to you? You certainly sound as if you need to see one asap.

I sympathise with regards to your hubby and know the feeling. They don't like us being ill basically in case they actually have to do something that resembles housework. Mine always says "leave it til you feel better" and then I want to smack him..!!


----------



## moonviolet

This morning's big walk middle bit was fine lots of fun and silliness. much of it too keep warm the wind is biting today.

The start was a bit annoying walking up to the barrier the pedestrian entrance is to the left, as i see 2 pople and their dogs coming through i move to the right of the lane to give htem spave and to avoid an onlead greeting, hint was not taken, as their dogs dragged over to us and one firmly shoved it's nose up Tik butt and the other into her face, I would have moved over but at this point we were pinned against the fence. ( the track is wide enough for 2 vehicles to pass so not exactly narrow.:skep: With nowhere to go I managed to squeeze between the dogs and excuse ourselves after a second or two....but jeez if TInk had reacted i wonder what they woould have said ... some people are so clueless.


Same place at the end of the walk as was are approaching the barrier. A car pulls up , this usually means dogs will be pouring out of the car offlead to run amok, these are the ones that caused the barrier to become bogey barriers and we had finally made really progress and i no longer had to canter through them singing. So understandably my heart sank. when I saw the car doors begin to open and the noise inside the car was reaching fever pitch. I marched onward hoping to be passed before the dogs poured out....

Tink's tail tucked at the sound. then somethign surprising happened... all dogs exitted the vehicle on leads!!! We were now beyond in and I paused for Tink to see and have a little shake off. So disaster averted. :biggrin:

FRM Sorry Lilly had a bad walk poor girl it's so horrible seeing them scared and not being able to take he fear away. Shooting season is over but "pests" can be shot all year round.

Sarah I hope you are feeling better soon


----------



## Beth17

KFK I've come in a bit late but agree to stick to one class for now. Sam was knackered at that age after an hour and if he got overtired he'd play up and not learn anyway. Just enjoy your pup 

K&M that Saluki is lovely. I wonder if I can sneak him in? My two don't get what to do when presented with a box they simply sniff and then look around for the treats. Sam then just starts trying to chew and shred it 

Dogless what a shame about the collars  Kilo did really well again 

Sarah really hope you start to feel better.

LO good luck today!

FRM Poor Lily 

Bessiedog I hope bess isn't sat there thinking up some trouble to get into :biggrin: I always worry when mine go quiet.

Had a mixed walk today. The beginning was trying however the end went well. Took them both to the woods I explored the other day with Oscar. They got far to excited to begin with and when I let Oscar off he charged off and kept trying to get Sam to play. Of course I couldn't let Sam off and so ended up putting Oscar back onlead and then felt really mean.

Lots of pulling through the woods as it was all new however they started to calm down when we got back in familiar territory. They walked nicely past a couple of springers and the met a lab coming the other way. It was coming straight towards us so let Oscar off and hung back with Sam. Oscar greeted nicely and then kept trying to instigate play and Sam was then able to say hello. We then moved on quickly as they were a bit much for this dog. 

Walked nicely past some more dogs including one that was put onlead due to not liking boxers however the dog it was with came over to investigate and Oscar just sniffed it before Sam startled it by jumping up :frown2: Eventually got into the fields and let them off for a good run. A gundog pup came over that we often meet and is quite a nervous thing but always wants to have a look at what the boys are doing. It started to run back to its owner and then the boys who hadn't taken any notice until then took chase. However I made lots of noise and they both broke off and came straight back.

So overall I'm really pleased with how they were around other dogs today and their recall. However I may rethink joint wood walks for now.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Sarah, you do sound poorly.
> 
> I'm not doing the 101 things to do with a box?- its the exercise from Pigs fly book. You 'aim' for a behaviour, so thought I'd go for 2 front feet in the box, its only a small one.
> I'm sure they get the clicker though, we've used it a lot for other little things - I wonder whether its me but then I have taught Moll these things, I don't know.There really is a big difference to the way they learn , Molls been learning from a pup but the others haven't.


Fascinating though isn't it? That's where I get my 'kicks' these days. observing how different dogs brains work. Then add a handler into the mix...


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Is there any chance you could get a doctor out to you? You certainly sound as if you need to see one asap.
> 
> I sympathise with regards to your hubby and know the feeling. They don't like us being ill basically in case they actually have to do something that resembles housework. Mine always says "leave it til you feel better" and then I want to smack him..!!


I seriously doubt it  I'd be lucky to get an appointment for me to go see them in the next 3 weeks never mind get one for them to come see me, I'm not even sure they do home visits. And with no voice I can't even phone and ask. If I'm no better tomorrow I'll get hubby to phone them and see what can be done.

And yeah, my hubby tells me to leave things till I feel better. Which is all very well but who the hell's going to do the cooking? And if I've not washed up what are we going to cook with and eat off? He won't think to wash up. Last night we had takeaway coz I'm in no fit state to cook. Have a funny feeling tonight may be the same.


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> The books I ordered came today! I got:
> 
> 'Dogwise' by J Fisher
> 'Behavior Adjustment Training' by G Stewart
> 'When Pigs Fly' by J Killion.
> 
> I'll finish reading 'The Culture Clash' by J Donaldson then I'll have to decide which to read next!
> 
> I'm working on training me.


This is a conversation I had with a behaviourist on a course several years ago:

Me: I want to refer a Red Setter to you. Will you see him?

Behaviourist: Is he nasty?

Me: No not in the slightest but he is manic and I'm running out of ideas to suggest to his owner.

Behavourist: Well if you can't sort the dog out I certainly can't...:shocked:

The behavourist had spent most of his lunchtime watching me train Twiggy and then run her round an agility course and yes it was one of the above authors...

That why I'm a sceptical old baggage and take such a lot with a pinch of salt.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> The behavourist had spent most of his lunchtime watching me train Twiggy and then run her round an agility course and yes it was one of the above authors...
> 
> That why I'm a sceptical old baggage and take such a lot with a pinch of salt.


Lol, now I wonder which author that could have been....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> This is a conversation I had with a behaviourist on a course several years ago:
> 
> Me: I want to refer a Red Setter to you. Will you see him?
> 
> Behaviourist: Is he nasty?
> 
> Me: No not in the slightest but he is manic and I'm running out of ideas to suggest to his owner.
> 
> Behavourist: Well if you can't sort the dog out I certainly can't...:shocked:
> 
> The behavourist had spent most of his lunchtime watching me train Twiggy and then run her round an agility course and yes it was one of the above authors...
> 
> That why I'm a sceptical old baggage and take such a lot with a pinch of salt.


Well the gender narrows it down to.....one.....very subtle Twiggy .


----------



## moonviolet

Kat random question are you giving them a warm up before you start this exercise? With Tink ( not a naturally fizzy want to work sort) I always start a session with some easy stuff she knows well and lavish her with buckets of praise and lots of treats as a motivator and confidence boost in preparation for the harder stuff to come. If i went into the harder stuff cold I'd probably get a blank look.


----------



## Dimwit

The dimwit believes that there is only one thing to do with a cardboard box which is to kill it (unless we are doing scentwork, in which case he checks to see if there is anything hiding in them and if not he ignores them).
I do something similar to the boxwork with a quality street tin (other confectionary is also available) - you have to remove/eat all the chocolate and then just put it on the floor and see what the dog does. I weigh it down so it doesn't move so easily and so far he will stand with his front legs on it and do clockwise or anticlockwise circles.


----------



## sharloid

Dogless said:


> Well the gender narrows it down to.....one.....very subtle Twiggy .


Hah!

If it's the first one on my list then I got it on eBay for £2 including p+p. I thought for that price it might be worth a read.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Kat random question are you giving them a warm up before you start this exercise? With Tink ( not a naturally fizzy want to work sort) I always start a session with some easy stuff she knows well and lavish her with buckets of praise and lots of treats as a motivator and confidence boost in preparation for the harder stuff to come. If i went into the harder stuff cold I'd probably get a blank look.


  erm, no. I've never thought to.
That's a good point though, Moll is naturally bouncy and ready for anything,the others , although they look happy and waggy-its seems more serious. I'll gee it up for the next one.Thanks.


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> Hah!
> 
> If it's the first one on my list then I got it on eBay for £2 including p+p. I thought for that price it might be worth a read.


Of course it's worth a read and he was a lovely man. All I'm saying is form your own opinions on everything.


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner - thinking of you 

FRM - Sorry lily had a scare, well you both thats a bit alarming, whenever i hear shots I always carry on safe in the knowledge that they aren't allowed to shoot ME but thats quite scary 

Some sad news - our neighbour came round to tell us they had to have Blaize, their red collie put down today  she was in a poor old state bless her, she had suffered from fits for the past 5 or so years and was being walked on sling, the last few days she said they had been carrying her round the garden. Cant help feel she should have gone sooner  but it was their call  They have never been without a collie but not sure he can manage another as he is waiting for a knee op and looks like he needs as much help getting about as Blaize did. Its coming up for a year since Rory, it was the wed after Easter :crying: 

Some good news - Hubby is out of bed so it really wasn't as bad :thumbup1:, he has taken to using one pillow though, as advised, but it makes him snore more, even during the day I find it annoying 

We have had a training session, I am finally working on hide (behind me) I have her coming and sitting almost behind me  but its pretty lacklustre, don't think she is finding it fun, but then boxes and rollovers aren't either at the moment  she is fine on walks and running about, must just be feeling a bit 'meh'.

There is a couple round here with 2 Salukis, very gorgeous pointy dogs, sadly they have just taken on a new ginger boy called Archie or I would have pointed them in his direction.


----------



## L/C

Sorry haven't got time to reply to everyone - just a quick post. I swear Ely is trying to give me a heart attack! He has a sore on the back of his neck from where he had injections while he was in the vet overnight (apparently this is common in greyhounds) that I only noticed on Saturday evening so I've been anxiously watching that to make sure it doesn't develop into a hot spot.

Today I've been off this afternoon with lurgy (had to go in this morning), came home and gave the pointies a cow's ear each, the finished that and then I let them out into the garden. About ten minutes later I noticed Ely was shaking his head a lot. Looked more closely and his mouth was swollen and his eyes. Had a bit of a panic and called the vet who said it was fine to give him a piriton. Didn't have any in the house so I've run out to boots and have now dosed him up. He's gone straight to sleep and the swelling has started to go down.

No idea what caused it - he'd finished the cow's ear about an hour before so I assume something in the garden? 

It's always him. :frown2:

ETA: He also had us up at 4am throwing up bile.


----------



## Maria_1986

Opinions please...

Do you think we would blow Chevy's brain if we went along to this Newbury Dog Show, All about dogs, Newbury show ground I quite fancy it and I would love to be able to enter her in gorgeous golden oldie but mostly I just want to go to shop and find her a new harness as the clip on the trixie one we currently had is stuck and although I can still use it its more of a hassle to get on and off.

If we do go and she comes with us, what would I be expected to do for a fun dog show class - does she need to know walking to heel or any tricks?

I think she would be very excited at first but then settle nicely as thats what she has done so far in every new situation but I don't want to overwhelm her and I'm worried that its too soon to be looking at doing something like this.


----------



## BessieDog

The day is getting worse! I've just had a fantastic walk with Bess. No pulling at all! She was lovely, lively and happy though. So much so I had a little run round a playing field with her (why do I forget I've got a bad knee until afterwards!!). We had a great time even though I got very cold, very painful hands as its still so flipping cold!!

So Bess is being exceptionally good today. 

It cannot last! And yes, she probably plotting something.


----------



## Dogless

I can't like your post L/C or yours FRM . 

L/C - mad as it sounds I saw my first puny wasp the other day (maybe from that spell of warm weather before the freeze.....) - maybe, just maybe he got stung? Who knows; hope the sore heals soon too. He's certainly putting you through it :frown2:.

Dimwit - I wonder if I should try every type of choc and biscuit variety to see which box is best? :idea:.


----------



## Beth17

Blimey L/C. I would have thought probably something in the garden as that is exactly what Sam did the other week. Never did find out what caused it. I hope the rest of the day isn't quite so stressful for you.

GR what a shame about poor Blaize


----------



## L/C

Maria - how long will you have had Chevy by the time this comes around? How does she normally react in busy places and crowds?


----------



## Kicksforkills

Maria_1986 said:


> Opinions please...
> 
> Do you think we would blow Chevy's brain if we went along to this Newbury Dog Show, All about dogs, Newbury show ground I quite fancy it and I would love to be able to enter her in gorgeous golden oldie but mostly I just want to go to shop and find her a new harness as the clip on the trixie one we currently had is stuck and although I can still use it its more of a hassle to get on and off.
> 
> If we do go and she comes with us, what would I be expected to do for a fun dog show class - does she need to know walking to heel or any tricks?
> 
> I think she would be very excited at first but then settle nicely as thats what she has done so far in every new situation but I don't want to overwhelm her and I'm worried that its too soon to be looking at doing something like this.


I'm going there 

Well, I think so.

Was planning to enter Scruffts. Not thought about it with the pupp though. I'll ask my mum if we can still go (going to a club show the day after so she might not want to).


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> I can't like your post L/C or yours FRM .
> 
> L/C - mad as it sounds I saw my first puny wasp the other day (maybe from that spell of warm weather before the freeze.....) - maybe, just maybe he got stung? Who knows; hope the sore heals soon too. He's certainly putting you through it :frown2:.
> 
> Dimwit - I wonder if I should try every type of choc and biscuit variety to see which box is best? :idea:.


That's what I thought but there was no yelp or anything. Hmm.

Just a thought - are those silver peacock collars definitely too small for the boys? I'm looking for a new one for Ely and if you wanted to get rid of one I could buy it off you so it wouldn't be a total loss for you? If the measurements were right?



Beth17 said:


> Blimey L/C. I would have thought probably something in the garden as that is exactly what Sam did the other week. Never did find out what caused it. I hope the rest of the day isn't quite so stressful for you.
> 
> GR what a shame about poor Blaize


Yes it's been an exciting day so far! And to think I always thought it would be Gypsy that would cost the moist in health related issues!


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Dimwit - I wonder if I should try every type of choc and biscuit variety to see which box is best? :idea:.


I think you should and, in the interests of science, I will do the same so that we have a better sample size :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Ooh L/C shall I take Ginge to the Suffolk version this weekend :biggrin: obviously thats a :frown2: for this year anyway! Sorry to hear about poor Ely, he does give you a run for your money doesn't he!

Maria - If she is as steady as you say she is then you could try it, if could you put her back in the car for a bit if she gets overwhelmed or take her to the outskirts.

Dogless - liking your plan :biggrin:


----------



## Maria_1986

L/C said:


> Maria - how long will you have had Chevy by the time this comes around? How does she normally react in busy places and crowds?


Just over two months. She gets excited when there are lots of people or dogs around although its quite not so bad since starting training classes. We have been doing trips to pet shops, pubs, busy dog walking areas to get her used to being around different people and dogs and she is normally ok (tail wagging, ears and eyes relaxed). We have not been anywhere as busy as I expect this event to be yet though.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> That's what I thought but there was no yelp or anything. Hmm.
> 
> Just a thought - are those silver peacock collars definitely too small for the boys? I'm looking for a new one for Ely and if you wanted to get rid of one I could buy it off you so it wouldn't be a total loss for you? If the measurements were right?
> 
> Yes it's been an exciting day so far! And to think I always thought it would be Gypsy that would cost the moist in health related issues!


Yes; way too small - they are off the shelf ones so can send them back - just awaiting a confirmation email. Sorry.

The Ann Rees ones came and....the boys look as smart as bloody carrots in them . Until they get muddy I'm sure .


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Opinions please...
> 
> Do you think we would blow Chevy's brain if we went along to this Newbury Dog Show, All about dogs, Newbury show ground I quite fancy it and I would love to be able to enter her in gorgeous golden oldie but mostly I just want to go to shop and find her a new harness as the clip on the trixie one we currently had is stuck and although I can still use it its more of a hassle to get on and off.
> 
> If we do go and she comes with us, what would I be expected to do for a fun dog show class - does she need to know walking to heel or any tricks?
> 
> I think she would be very excited at first but then settle nicely as thats what she has done so far in every new situation but I don't want to overwhelm her and I'm worried that its too soon to be looking at doing something like this.


If you don't live too far you could go, hang about on the outskirts until she's relaxed, then gradually go to the busier parts? If she doesn't relax then you can always cut your losses and go home?


----------



## Dogless

Rudi has discovered over excited humping. Of Kilo and of my leg. The joys  .


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Yes; way too small - they are off the shelf ones so can send them back - just awaiting a confirmation email. Sorry.
> 
> The Ann Rees ones came and....the boys look as smart as bloody carrots in them . Until they get muddy I'm sure .


Oh no problem, didn't realise they were off the shelf so I pictured you stuck with 2 collars you had no use for! And where are the pics of the boys? 

Ginge - 

Maria - Is it possible for you to go and introduce her slowly?


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> Oh no problem, didn't realise they were off the shelf so I pictured you stuck with 2 collars you had no use for! And where are the pics of the boys?
> 
> Ginge -
> 
> Maria - Is it possible for you to go and introduce her slowly?


I tried but the light was rubbish and Rudi was off on one and kept getting the zoomies so I'll try another time!! I admitted defeat!!


----------



## Maria_1986

Thats a good idea about the car/hanging around the outskirts GR (why did my lonely little brain cell not think of that option!) Think I might go with the plan of going early before the main crowds turn up (hopefully) and getting a harness for her then coming home - if she copes fine then we will stay if not we come home as planned.

I do think she will cope fine, she's dealt with every situation thats been thrown at her so far, she loves people, is not bothered by loud or unusual noise (she slept through next door having new doors put in yesterday and grew up on an air base) I'm just worried that I'm pushing her into things too fast.

Infact in the process of writing this I've decided that I will go, but will only plan on being there a short time, stick to the outskirts and she how she does. If she does get stressed we will come home, if she is happy and relaxed we will stay and watch the fun dog show but not enter as that might all be too much for her but it will give us an idea of what would be involved for next year as if she does settle we will probably go again next year.

Thank you all for your help


----------



## Sarah1983

Maria, we took Spen to a fun dog show last year. He was ridiculously excited at first but he did soon settle down and was able to lie down and watch what was going on without being loopy. He did get excited when other dogs approached him but was able to be in the ring with other dogs without going loopy. 

We'd planned to go, have a look, see how he reacted and if it was too much take him home. There's no doubt it was a tiring day for him, when we got home he went straight to his crate and had a good long sleep, but he seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Rasco loves all the dogs at dog shows -I guess it's a new or once a year place so he feels no need to be territorial


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> Maria, we took Spen to a fun dog show last year. He was ridiculously excited at first but he did soon settle down and was able to lie down and watch what was going on without being loopy. He did get excited when other dogs approached him but was able to be in the ring with other dogs without going loopy.
> 
> We'd planned to go, have a look, see how he reacted and if it was too much take him home. There's no doubt it was a tiring day for him, when we got home he went straight to his crate and had a good long sleep, but he seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself.


That's reassuring. We're planning to take Molly to one near us which is held in August. Our trainer takes hers so we're going to pitch up with hers as they're very calm. When she's kicked off before, the three of them look at her as if to say WTF? So I shall see what happens. It's her big moment as I know that last year there was no way I could have taken her.

I think that sometimes there are just too many things to be loopy at, when she's in a crowd of dogs then she's better than with one or two mostly.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Anyone can come and meet my...three... At the Newbury show if we do go


----------



## Symone

Dogless : That made me laugh! Sorry.  It's one of the reasons I didn't get a male dog, lol!(I didn't think females would hump at this point)

Well, I've discovered why Shamaya pulls more when we leave and not so when we walk back. It seems to just be due to energy.
I will get a long lead and play fetch behind our flat before each walk and will see if that will sort it! Long lead for it's not secure and I don't want to risk her legging it to the beach! 
We went to a park literally 2 mins away from here and let her have a run and 2 mins of running did the trick. 
I think this may be a hit that she needs longer walks!

Going to go for a read back and liking spree, now! Just felt like I should share that. I feel happy, lol.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I can't like your post L/C or yours FRM .
> 
> *L/C - mad as it sounds I saw my first puny wasp the other day (maybe from that spell of warm weather before the freeze.....) - maybe, just maybe he got stung? Who knows; hope the sore heals soon too. He's certainly putting you through it* :frown2:.
> 
> I agree with Dogless and I've seen a few bees wandering about on the ground lately. They don't know what to make of this awful weather so he could easily have been stung.


----------



## Freddie and frank

hello. 
how are you all doing?

all ok here....had loads of snow and dogs have loved it....me too cause we don't get to meet many others out in it and running through knee deep snow drifts is good for my bum glad it's going now though cause i don't have a roof on my kitchen or utility atm.....building work....dust....microwave meals...take aways...dogs sleeping in hall....could be worse...could have torrential rain.....

freddie has all of a sudden started to be a bit grumpy when passing other dogs on lead, and sometimes when off lead.not like him at all. not sure what's up with him. he's normally a very sociable easy going fella. 

bella is back to normal after her op and has taken to eating poo  caught her today hovering round frank in the garden ready to strike, yuk. next set of training classes start for her in april so looking forward to that.

frank is still doing ok on his long line,brought him a lunge line and me some warm horse riding gloves, so all sorted .

popped on yesterday just to see malteser cake recipie post and been thinking about it since,thanks izzysmummy. so may try it out at weekend cause i've still got a fridge, next to the patio table with the microwave and slow cooker on........in my dining room, 

would love to catch up with everyone once my house is back to normal.
take care WAYWO folk.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Thats a good idea about the car/hanging around the outskirts GR (why did my lonely little brain cell not think of that option!) Think I might go with the plan of going early before the main crowds turn up (hopefully) and getting a harness for her then coming home - if she copes fine then we will stay if not we come home as planned.
> 
> I do think she will cope fine, she's dealt with every situation thats been thrown at her so far, she loves people, is not bothered by loud or unusual noise (she slept through next door having new doors put in yesterday and grew up on an air base) I'm just worried that I'm pushing her into things too fast.
> 
> Infact in the process of writing this I've decided that I will go, but will only plan on being there a short time, stick to the outskirts and she how she does. If she does get stressed we will come home, if she is happy and relaxed we will stay and watch the fun dog show but not enter as that might all be too much for her but it will give us an idea of what would be involved for next year as if she does settle we will probably go again next year.
> 
> Thank you all for your help


Newbury Showground is huge. I've been to obedience shows there in the past, so you could keep her on the perimeter and see how she copes.
Fun Dog Shows are enter on the day therefore you could see how she was reacting before entering any of the classes.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> hello.
> how are you all doing?
> 
> all ok here....had loads of snow and dogs have loved it....me too cause we don't get to meet many others out in it and running through knee deep snow drifts is good for my bum glad it's going now though cause i don't have a roof on my kitchen or utility atm.....building work....dust....microwave meals...take aways...dogs sleeping in hall....could be worse...could have torrential rain.....
> 
> freddie has all of a sudden started to be a bit grumpy when passing other dogs on lead, and sometimes when off lead.not like him at all. not sure what's up with him. he's normally a very sociable easy going fella.
> 
> *bella is back to normal after her op and has taken to eating poo*  caught her today hovering round frank in the garden ready to strike, yuk. next set of training classes start for her in april so looking forward to that.
> 
> frank is still doing ok on his long line,brought him a lunge line and me some warm horse riding gloves, so all sorted .
> 
> popped on yesterday just to see malteser cake recipie post and been thinking about it since,thanks izzysmummy. so may try it out at weekend cause i've still got a fridge, next to the patio table with the microwave and slow cooker on........in my dining room,
> 
> would love to catch up with everyone once my house is back to normal.
> take care WAYWO folk.


Yes tell me about it...!! Holly was violently sick several times on Sunday afternoon and we almost had a trip to the emergency vet. All self inflicted through poo eating.

I'm making Moonviolet's lemonade scones after dinner.... I expect husband will scoff them all whilst watch the England football match.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Yes tell me about it...!! Holly was violently sick several times on Sunday afternoon and we almost had a trip to the emergency vet. All self inflicted through poo eating.
> 
> I'm making Moonviolet's lemonade scones after dinner.... I expect husband will scoff them all whilst watch the England football match.


I'm lucky that Shamaya hasn't taken to eating poo! However lately she has became obsessed with sniffing where other dogs have weed. Her nose went in a puddle of it the other day.

Would love to know how the scones turn out, I might make some this weekend.


----------



## MollySmith

A girl I work with has a dog that sniffs crotches and humps. I actually dread going over there and never ever wear a skirt. She wonders why so few visit but the dog literally us up 'there', has a sniff and goes to hump the poor cat. hmy:

Worked with, I am still not using present tense about my employment situation...


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> A girl I work with has a dog that sniffs crotches and humps. I actually dread going over there and never ever wear a skirt. She wonders why so few visit but the dog literally us up 'there', has a sniff and goes to hump the poor cat. hmy:
> 
> Worked with, I am still not using present tense about my employment situation...


My old boss' dog was a devil for crotch sniffing and humped the men, not women!! Rudi's is just play getting too exciting type stuff. Touch wood it will stay that way :biggrin:.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Symone said:



I'm lucky that Shamaya hasn't taken to eating poo! However lately she has became obsessed with sniffing where other dogs have weed. Her nose went in a puddle of it the other day.

Click to expand...

*


Symone said:


> Keep your fingers crossed she doesn't start..!! Holly was taught to do it by my sister's two youngsters last September.
> 
> *Would love to know how the scones turn out, I might make some this weekend. *




I'll let you know later....


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Yes tell me about it...!! Holly was violently sick several times on Sunday afternoon and we almost had a trip to the emergency vet. All self inflicted through poo eating.
> 
> *I'm making Moonviolet's lemonade scones after dinner.... I expect husband will scoff them all whilst watch the England football match*.


I hope you like them, I'm out training tonight not hiding honest


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> My old boss' *dog *was a devil for crotch sniffing and humped the men, not women!! Rudi's is just play getting too exciting type stuff. Touch wood it will stay that way :biggrin:.


I am sure it will, he has a responsible caring owner. I can't say that my former work colleague was. Well not cruel but a bit 'meh' about the dog.

Glad you said 'dog', I've known a boss like that too.


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello F&F (&B) how are you, waves  hope the house is put back together soon 

Sorry for liking Rudis over excited humping but it made me giggle, I need giggles although we just got back from the heath bit we went to the other day, took her on her long line, she had a great big run about which she hasn't has for ages, I think because the more immediate places where its safe to use are like the beach where other dogs are, and as we have been steering clear since the course poor thing has been a bit restricted. It was lovely seeing her zoom about after pheasants and rabbit smells, she recalled away from the sheep too so a very good girl.

Not so good was the source of the smelly bum - an explosion all over her fluffy trousers  think we might steer clear of mutton for now .

Oh ETA we pulled into the little car park bit and there is another chap there, in a 4x4, you can see he has a car full of labs but I didn't know if he had gone or just was about to set off for his walk. I start gettign the ninja out and unraveling the longline. He gets out so I shove her back in her tent and shut the boot and the man says is that a dog on a long lead, yes we say, oh he says mine are boisterous, and lets his 3 out, I wasn't quite sure what to make of his observations really  but I waited a bit and let the ninja out and she only gave a little grumble at them in the distance :thumbup1:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Mum agrees with not doing two classes a night too so will wait until the 23rd 18:00 one.

Seeing as the 4th isn't full and still open to booking I guess I can just book it a week before.

Wonder if I could phone up tomorrow and see if I could pay then and there but book a place.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Not so good was the source of the smelly bum - an explosion all over her fluffy trousers  think we might steer clear of mutton for now .


Karma for laughing at the humping :frown2: .

HI F&F!!!! .


----------



## Dogless

K4K - slow down...you give me a headache with your racing thoughts :001_huh: . I'd just see how Dexter is and judge when he's ready to go if I were you. He may well be a little overwhelmed at his whole life turning upside down. Or may not. Point is you don't know . Slowly, slowly catchee monkey and all that jazz :thumbup1:.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> K4K - slow down...you give me a headache with your racing thought :001_huh: . I'd just see how Dexter is and judge when he's ready to go if I were you. He may well be a little overwhelmed at his whole life turning upside down. Or may not. Point is you don't know . Slowly, slowly catchee monkey and all that jazz :thumbup1:.


Yeah my mum pretty much JUST said the same thing to me lol


----------



## Guest

I DIDN'T GET UPSET GUYS!!

She was wonderful wonderful wonderful. Is even letting us borrow her dobes thundershirt and we may use her dog as a stooge for the excitableness. 

I have so much to do though. She is sending it me in an email cause I will forget half of it by now. She was here for over four hours!!!

Lots of looking at the scary thing, then back to me, treating. Retreat if anxious/excited/people won't take no for a damn answer.

And Cat training too. Zand's okay with them but makes the cat tense by being proper boisterous. 

He barked and hackled at the fake dog. Then when we walked he freaked out at the behaviourist. 

She said that the excitableness and anxiousness could be due to lack of socialisation. Also the charging at other dogs may be very very hard to break as he was praticising that for twelve months. 

But still!! :thumbup1::thumbup1::thumbup1: 

I am poor now though. Over a weeks wages gone and I haven't even paid this weeks rent yet. I am working everyday this week bar sunday!!


----------



## kat&molly

L/C- Hope you're feeling better. Poor pointy boy, Moll got stung by a Bee on Saturday, she didn't squeal but she has a lot more fur than Ely.!!

Ginge- sorry to hear about Blaize- poor boy, sounds like his time was up.
Well done to the Ninja though- except for the exploding bum bit. I think its Karma as well because you made my mouth water yesterday talking of your roast dinner- I had to do one and we only had chicken  I shant mention my gravy which was really lumpy and thick. We couldn't stir it and had to have slices.:frown2:

Hi F+F- sounds chaotic with you. Hope it goes smoothly.

MV- Yay for dogs being on lead.

I cheated a bit more on the box game and ripped all the corners so it was flat, then hid treats under a couple of the edges thinking Scruff would have to tread on the box to find them - but no.:001_huh: I did gee her up first as well.


----------



## Dogless

LO - WONDERFUL!!!! Not heard you sounding so upbeat in aggggeeessss :thumbup1::thumbup1:.


----------



## kat&molly

LO- Brilliant- sorry you're a poor person but it will all be worth it. 4 hours wow.:thumbup1: :thumbup1:


----------



## Beth17

LO so pleased that it went well. It sounds like she really knows what she's talking about and can get you and Zand sorted


----------



## Kicksforkills

Just recieved the rough contract for Dexter from his breeder. Read through it. Seems fine.


EDIT; Getting a bit more "real" now as I'm the only one listed as Purchaser.

Never had my name on a contract for a dog before.


----------



## Twiggy

*LO - *Delighted the visit went well and although you're now 'poor' I'm sure it will be worth it.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> K4K - slow down...you give me a headache with your racing thoughts :001_huh: . I'd just see how Dexter is and judge when he's ready to go if I were you. He may well be a little overwhelmed at his whole life turning upside down. Or may not. Point is you don't know . Slowly, slowly catchee monkey and all that jazz :thumbup1:.


I agree.

*K4K *I admire your sheer enthusiasm and it's great to have plans for your puppy but be careful you are not setting yourself and Dexter up for disappointment.

With dogs I'm afraid things don't always go to plan.

Take Holly, for instance. I expected to be entering her for shows this year but it simply won't happen because she's nowhere near ready. I was full of enthusiasm about training her this time last year but I had to back right off and we proceed very slowly at her pace.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I agree.
> 
> *K4K *I admire your sheer enthusiasm and it's great to have plans for your puppy but *be careful you are not setting yourself and Dexter up for disappointment.*
> 
> With dogs I'm afraid things don't always go to plan.
> 
> Take Holly, for instance. I expected to be entering her for shows this year but it simply won't happen because she's nowhere near ready. I was full of enthusiasm about training her this time last year but I had to back right off and we proceed very slowly at her pace.


That is what I was driving at, but didn't explain well at all.


----------



## MollySmith

Yes agree with the girls K4K, I think see how Dexter is and how he responds  I say this from experience with Molly. I did push her harder than I should and thank goodness she's a forgiving dog. Just see how he settles and what you both need before you plan too far ahead. I thought just a training class and ended up with a behavourist. 

You'll be a great at caring for him I have no doubt but patience in spades is worth so much with our pets isn't it?


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thanks all, I won't be pushing him far. Just two play sessions with a little agilit twice a month and ringcraft once a week and even if he doesn't do well at the club show on the 14th at least it'll be good for him as he'll see his brother and breeders again, and they'll see him again! 

His breeder said yesterday that she was already getting sad that he would be leaving -and that it was only Monday!

I think I shall need to have tissues ready for them on Monday when they leave him with us 

Plus it'll be a good experience for him 

Then depending how well he's doing I'll decided closer to the 23rd wether to do the puppy Obiedence with him.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I made Moonviolet's scones and true to her instructions the mixture is indeed very sticky. Not good when I had 4 telephone calls whilst I was in the process. Still I've got most of the goo off the phone now...


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Thanks all, I won't be pushing him far. Just ringcraft once a week and even if he doesn't do well at the club show on the 14th at least it'll be good for him as he'll see his brother and breeders again, and they'll see him again!
> 
> His breeder said yesterday that she was already getting sad that he would be leaving -and that it was only Monday!
> 
> I think I shall need to have tissues ready for them on Monday when they leave him with us
> 
> Plus it'll be a good experience for him
> 
> Then depending how well he's doing I'll decided closer to the 23rd wether to do the puppy Obiedence with him.


Even look at the club show as something to attend and not necessarily participate in if he's uncomfortable perhaps. I know he's used to ringcraft, but he will obviously be with you and all will be different for him. Then if you do participate and do well it's a bonus. I hate sounding negative, but if you don't have any expectations in particular you can only go upwards from there!

I think that many breeders feel sad when parting with a pup - both Kilo and Rudi have had big cuddles and a kiss goodbye from their breeder and they are always over the moon to see them again when we go to visit (well, have only been with the BW so far, they saw a fair bit of him before we moved).


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I made Moonviolet's scones and true to her instructions the mixture is indeed very sticky. Not good when I had 4 telephone calls whilst I was in the process. Still I've got most of the goo off the phone now...


If it was this house and the goo wasn't gone without trace I'd have a ringing dog within about 5 minutes :shocked:.


----------



## Canine K9

Feeling very proud- yesterday on our walk passed a lad with a Rottie and JRT and Bailey growled as they approached but calmed down once they passed. Today walked past a little Shih tzu and Bailey stood up very alert watching it then relaxed a little growling but no lunging or going mental, it was across the road but he usually goes mental anyway. I fussed over him, was so proud


----------



## MollySmith

*K4K* - I hope I've not offended you, I saw you where getting a bit of a hard time elsewhere - PF eh? I was thinking over again and I suggest getting Dexter settled and then going to the class alone to see if it suits him, maybe with your mum for a second opinion. Worse thing is to handover money and it's rubbish (again I speak from experience!) My mantra with Molly is to set her up for success.

*LO* -Yay!!! Whoop whoop and lots of cheering. I am so pleased for you. Purely from the time she has spent, the list and her willingness to use her dogs as stooges sounds like you are going to be poor but very wise!

*Ginger* - it does sound like you are making good progress with the ninja. A distance grumble is a massive breakthrough. And a recall from sheep! We need to learn this ☺

*F&F* - I wonder if it's just a brief phase with Freddie? I hope he passes out of it quickly. I admire your baking in a non-kitchen. When we moved into this house I had a bookcase, a sink on bricks and the top of the washing machine for a year - it's hell!

*Twiggy* - Give a Dog a Phone! They'll lick it clean 

I think my dog must have been in one of those moods yesterday which is why I got the list of complaints and had to do the lead walk yesterday afternoon to focus her. She's been so good today. OH and her met her friend Billy who had run several fields from his worried owner to greet Molly. They stood with Billy for a good 30 minutes keeping him in one place for the owner to arrive. She then walked with Little Charlie (as opposed to Big Charlie) who waddles as his legs are so tiny.

Oh and I made a cake for the neighbour whose garden Molly invaded last night. She can't do any damage, if anything she probably did it good flattening it but I felt bad, I don't think it was her cat Molly chased...!

An interesting thing *Dogless* - she passed a dog in the car park before her walk when she's usually very reactive with no reaction and on the way back with Charlie, again no sounds at all. She managed it yesterday with a beagle with me but no dogs this afternoon unfortunately. I wonder if the type of lead arrangement does mean something like you said. I swear that harness set her off anyway.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> An interesting thing *Dogless* - she passed a dog in the car park before her walk when she's usually very reactive with no reaction and on the way back with Charlie, again no sounds at all. She managed it yesterday with a beagle with me but no dogs this afternoon unfortunately. I wonder if the type of lead arrangement does mean something like you said. I swear that harness set her off anyway.


Perhaps the feel of a certain piece of equipment or lead arrangement does trigger behaviour as we've unwittingly made it so? I am truly beginning to believe that. Makes sense - Kilo knows harness on = running, so why wouldn't they make other associations such as Molly thinking lead attached to front clip of harness = anticipating 'trouble' for example?


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Perhaps the feel of a certain piece of equipment or lead arrangement does trigger behaviour as we've unwittingly made it so? I am truly beginning to believe that. Makes sense - Kilo knows harness on = running, so why wouldn't they make other associations such as Molly thinking lead attached to front clip of harness = anticipating 'trouble' for example?


Yes I think so. The harness did us well for stopping her pulling so it has a purpose but perhaps it irritated her skin (she has virtually no fur under her 'armpits') and also we did less training with her then on it. The trainer has never walked her on it at all - she prefers collar and lead or, if she has one of her dogs with her, then halti and lead, so perhaps there is an association there. Either way I think it has more foundation than the thread on the board about getting another dog to cure lead reactivity - my fear is that until we've got Molly settled it could go the other way and we end up with dog number 2 learning from Molly it's okay to be a loon on the lead.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> Even look at the club show as something to attend and not necessarily participate in if he's uncomfortable perhaps. I know he's used to ringcraft, but he will obviously be with you and all will be different for him. Then if you do participate and do well it's a bonus. I hate sounding negative, but if you don't have any expectations in particular you can only go upwards from there!
> 
> I think that many breeders feel sad when parting with a pup - both Kilo and Rudi have had big cuddles and a kiss goodbye from their breeder and they are always over the moon to see them again when we go to visit (well, have only been with the BW so far, they saw a fair bit of him before we moved).


Already entered on Sunday. Just one class. It's going to be more of an experience and socialisation thing 

EDIT; Molly- People are more opinionated than I am and I try to avoid conflict for various reasons I should see a psychiatrist about lol


----------



## sharloid

We just took the dogs to PAH, another pet shop and to stand outside Morrison's with the OH whilst I did a little shopping. They did really well in both pet shops, until it got to the counter. Kindra was fine and Broder was sat there wagging his tail... staring at the check out assistant in both shops expecting a treat! He jumped up on the counters a few times, but sat when asked.

Success!


----------



## Maria_1986

L/O - I'm so happy that it went well and that you are sounding so positive 

Sarah & Twiggy - thank you for your replies. We have decided that we will go and stay around the edge of things and see how we go from there, if both me and OH go then someone can be with her at all times, but I will still be able to buy a few bits without having to drag her into the middle of things. Will take lots of chicken, cheese and sausage with me to reward when she is calm. I was hoping to be able to find a smaller show to go and watch first but I can't seem to find any local ones 

Training was actually really good. We played musical sit and musical down (moving between little bits of rubber on a loose lead and then getting a sit/down when the music stops while touching the bit of rubber on the floor) and... we won musical down  Down stay on the other hand is a disaster but I'm sure I would be bored if I didn't have a list a mile long of things to improve! Our wait and recall was much improved this week and the trainer was really impressed that I had been able to double the distance/time that she would wait for this week. Very proud of my little sausage so to celebrate we stopped for a pub dinner on the way home and as we were finishing a 3 month old Mal came in, lovely boy, very friendly and Chev said hello nicely but did want to play however I asked for her attention and I got it - even with the Mal sticking his nose in her ear :shocked:


----------



## GingerRogers

Just a quick one to say;
Lurcherowner:thumbup1: :thumbup1:


----------



## sharloid

LurcherOwner said:


> I DIDN'T GET UPSET GUYS!!
> 
> She was wonderful wonderful wonderful. Is even letting us borrow her dobes thundershirt and we may use her dog as a stooge for the excitableness.
> 
> I have so much to do though. She is sending it me in an email cause I will forget half of it by now. She was here for over four hours!!!
> 
> Lots of looking at the scary thing, then back to me, treating. Retreat if anxious/excited/people won't take no for a damn answer.
> 
> And Cat training too. Zand's okay with them but makes the cat tense by being proper boisterous.
> 
> He barked and hackled at the fake dog. Then when we walked he freaked out at the behaviourist.
> 
> She said that the excitableness and anxiousness could be due to lack of socialisation. Also the charging at other dogs may be very very hard to break as he was praticising that for twelve months.
> 
> But still!! :thumbup1::thumbup1::thumbup1:
> 
> I am poor now though. Over a weeks wages gone and I haven't even paid this weeks rent yet. I am working everyday this week bar sunday!!


It sounds like it went well!

I think Zander has similar issues to Broder (?) and I was really disappointed when we forked out for a behaviorist. He basically just told us use the head collar and drag him away when he looks too long at another dog and that we'll get nowhere without the headcollar.

Not very helpful for £40. 

I'd be interested to know what advice she gave!


----------



## Guest

sharloid said:


> It sounds like it went well!
> 
> I think Zander has similar issues to Broder (?) and I was really disappointed when we forked out for a behaviorist. He basically just told us use the head collar and drag him away when he looks too long at another dog and that we'll get nowhere without the headcollar.
> 
> Not very helpful for £40.


Ah well see, mine was hundred and seventy something so...

When we see another dog and he looks at it calmly he gets a treat. Looking at me after looking at the dog also gets a treat. CALM = SAUSAGEY STUFF from PAH. Uncalm= Moving away. 
Same thing with people except moving when he gets anxious really.

She said that if I was happy to use a headcollar as a physical safety net then it didn't matter because it's what works best for me and zand.

And she said that we were good for spotting signs early and not when he gets to the aggressive stage.

I need to find stooge people though. :thumbup1:


----------



## sharloid

LurcherOwner said:


> Ah well see, mine was hundred and seventy something so...
> 
> When we see another dog and he looks at it calmly he gets a treat. Looking at me after looking at the dog also gets a treat. CALM = SAUSAGEY STUFF from PAH. Uncalm= Moving away.
> Same thing with people except moving when he gets anxious really.
> 
> She said that if I was happy to use a headcollar as a physical safety net then it didn't matter because it's what works best for me and zand.
> 
> And she said that we were good for spotting signs early and not when he gets to the aggressive stage.
> 
> *I need to find stooge people though.* :thumbup1:


I agree! Now I'm trying to find dogs to practice on we hardly ever see any.


----------



## Dogless

Well, 3 1/2 weeks into the Suprelorin and I've noticed:
- The bitching, teeth chattering, drooling have stopped I _think._ I say that as not many dogs have been walked at all with the weather having been bad so can't be sure that Kilo's just not come across something very interesting. 
- He is squatting to wee now and again whereas he never, ever did before.
- His plums are definitely shrinking.
- He is posturing and fixating less in return to males who posture at him. He has had relaxed greetings with a few males who have run up to him whilst he's been on lead rather than the stiff, tense ones that were normal.
- He seems a little calmer out and about.

I haven't seen an increase in aggressive behaviours that I had been warned about with the initial testosterone surge over the first few weeks BUT have avoided long meets with unknown dogs really since he's had it although he's had a few short ones - one in order to let things 'settle' hormonally and two because I'm trying to keep him from being stressed or having any negative experiences before we see Angela. That's next week .


----------



## BessieDog

I've found out why Bess was so quiet and good yesterday. And why she will be today. She IS a teenager. 

I give her milk biscuits at about 11 o'clock when we go to bed, and she goes and settles in her crate. Well, my son is home from Uni, and Monday night he came in after we'd gone up and watched TV for a couple of hours. And Bess got up and went in with him. So she didn't actually get to bed until 2.30, and this girl needs her beauty sleep. Last night son was in, but was staying up late again. Went through normal bedtime routine with Bess. She conned me she was settled in her crate, but I know she snuck in the lounge as soon as we got upstairs. 

So she's just a tired girlie with all these late nights.  she's fast asleep on my lap as I type. 

Still cold, but wind has dropped. Might try the sea wall walk today. High tide is at 12.30 so the timings perfect. Bess hasn't had an off lead run since her season!


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> Well, 3 1/2 weeks into the Suprelorin and I've noticed:
> - The bitching, teeth chattering, drooling have stopped I _think._ I say that as not many dogs have been walked at all with the weather having been bad so can't be sure that Kilo's just not come across something very interesting.
> - He is squatting to wee now and again whereas he never, ever did before.
> - His plums are definitely shrinking.
> - He is posturing and fixating less in return to males who posture at him. He has had relaxed greetings with a few males who have run up to him whilst he's been on lead rather than the stiff, tense ones that were normal.
> - He seems a little calmer out and about.
> 
> I haven't seen an increase in aggressive behaviours that I had been warned about with the initial testosterone surge over the first few weeks BUT have avoided long meets with unknown dogs really since he's had it although he's had a few short ones - one in order to let things 'settle' hormonally and two because I'm trying to keep him from being stressed or having any negative experiences before we see Angela. That's next week .


Sounds like its working! :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> I've found out why Bess was so quiet and good yesterday. And why she will be today. She IS a teenager.
> 
> I give her milk biscuits at about 11 o'clock when we go to bed, and she goes and settles in her crate. Well, my son is home from Uni, and Monday night he came in after we'd gone up and watched TV for a couple of hours. And Bess got up and went in with him. So she didn't actually get to bed until 2.30, and this girl needs her beauty sleep. Last night son was in, but was staying up late again. Went through normal bedtime routine with Bess. She conned me she was settled in her crate, but I know she snuck in the lounge as soon as we got upstairs.
> 
> So she's just a tired girlie with all these late nights.  she's fast asleep on my lap as I type.
> 
> Still cold, but wind has dropped. Might try the sea wall walk today. High tide is at 12.30 so the timings perfect. Bess hasn't had an off lead run since her season!


Brilliant!!! :lol::lol:. Is she slamming the door and flouncing off too? Wearing too much makeup?

Good luck for the sea wall and enjoy it......she'll be crackers . I'd say photos, but she'll be a fast zooming speck....video maybe? .


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> Brilliant!!! :lol::lol:. Is she slamming the door and flouncing off too? Wearing too much makeup?
> 
> Good luck for the sea wall and enjoy it......she'll be crackers . I'd say photos, but she'll be a fast zooming speck....video maybe? .


I don't know what you mean! After all these weeks of being on lead she'll stick close to my side. (I'm thinking positively as you can tell!!)


----------



## kat&molly

That's great that the implant seems to be working Dogless, it must help you feel a bit more relaxed too.

Bessiedog- My Evie was quiet once, it turned out she was ill  I said next time I'll just go straight to the vets.
Enjoy your walk.


Scruff has gone to work with OH today- that's it now, she wont really want to know me later and he will be the new Superhero.:frown2:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> Well, 3 1/2 weeks into the Suprelorin and I've noticed:
> - The bitching, teeth chattering, drooling have stopped I _think._ I say that as not many dogs have been walked at all with the weather having been bad so can't be sure that Kilo's just not come across something very interesting.
> - *He is squatting to wee now* and again whereas he never, ever did before.
> -* His plums are definitely shrinking*.
> - He is posturing and fixating less in return to males who posture at him. He has had relaxed greetings with a few males who have run up to him whilst he's been on lead rather than the stiff, tense ones that were normal.
> - He seems a little calmer out and about.
> 
> I haven't seen an increase in aggressive behaviours that I had been warned about with the initial testosterone surge over the first few weeks BUT have avoided long meets with unknown dogs really since he's had it although he's had a few short ones - one in order to let things 'settle' hormonally and two because I'm trying to keep him from being stressed or having any negative experiences before we see Angela. That's next week .


  Kilo is turning into a girl!!  

Sorry, seriously though I'm really pleased that it seems to be working, hopefully a calmer and more relaxed Kilo (and you) in the future


----------



## BessieDog

kat&molly said:


> That's great that the implant seems to be working Dogless, it must help you feel a bit more relaxed too.
> 
> Bessiedog- My Evie was quiet once, it turned out she was ill  I said next time I'll just go straight to the vets.
> Enjoy your walk.
> 
> Scruff has gone to work with OH today- that's it now, she wont really want to know me later and he will be the new Superhero.:frown2:


I'm keeping a careful eye on her - especially as she's just finished a season and I don't know what to expect. But it makes sense that she's tired. She's happy to go for a walk and active on it.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Walking the Boxer this morning in about an hour


----------



## MollySmith

Morning 

FRM, that made me laugh, poor Kilo, you can dress him up in a pink tutu now Dogless  It's good that it's working though 

Bessie - my teenager is a touch older than yours I think at 21 months (sob, she's getting older) but we have left over kongs in the house like a slob leaving old plates everywhere. Molly actually huffs when she's irritated and then progresses to a moaning whine that she tries to make into a yawn. Her Miss Piggy moment. She's still asleep. Snoring, legs wide apart


----------



## kat&molly

Today I'm working on not getting the stapler out [joking ] Evie has a terrible habit when the sun's shining of sitting on the back step and yap, yap yapping.
So I'm going out and clicking her when she's quiet.


----------



## Dimwit

LO - I need to find stooge people as well and it is really difficult - far harder then finding stooge dogs 

Dogless - Glad the suprelorin seems to be working!

I wish the dimwit's teenage phase had involved sleeping lots, though he does do the huffing thing (usually when I have done someting evil like cleanout his ears or given him a bath). More often though he sits and stares at me and then sings for attention 

He was a bit of a nightmare last night - he was in hyper-vigilant mode, really unsettled and kept leaping off the sofa, hackles up at any noise. I think it is because the people next-door-but-one have a new dog (which he has never met but hates as it stands in their garden and barks every time he goes into my garden), and according my neighbour this dog also howls whenever the owners are out which I don't hear but I wonder if the dimwit does???


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless i'm glad the suprelorin seems to be having positive effects on Kilo. I shan't be so mean as to make pink tutu comments.... gender identity is a sliding scale after all. He might become considerate, open doors for you, pull out the chair for you before you sit  

Bessiedog I'm glad the mystery is solved.

LO woohoo sounds like it went great, lovely to see such a positive post.

A new round of games class last night and it's a fab group we are full to capacity, all 6 workspaces filled 3 springers, a staffie, the 3 collies rom the video(on one workspace) and us. So you can imagine the excitement level was high and Tink was great, other than a little sniff of her mat scamps mat... while he popped over to push her bottle over, her focus was brilliant. She has come so far, with her confidence and focus  

While i am typing this we are playing with the ringtoss..... she started bringing them too me one by one when i had them all I asked her to put them all back at this time i'm wearing a very fetching set of frisbee bangles :lol:

hope everyone is having a good day.

Sarah I hope you are feeling better today.
L/C hope Ely has a better day, that boy'll be giving you grey hairs!!


----------



## Beth17

Morning everyone hope you all have a good day and the weather is easing up for you.

Dogless so glad that Kilo seems more relaxed.

mv Tink is just lovely. Your games class sounds absolutely brilliant. 

BD So Bess has been up partying. That explains the quiet mornings 

Off to take the delinquents out for some LLW and general manners training.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy said:


> Well I made Moonviolet's scones and true to her instructions the mixture is indeed very sticky. Not good when I had 4 telephone calls whilst I was in the process. Still I've got most of the goo off the phone now...


I attempted these too but mine ended up more like a scone crossed with a crumpet and tasted very crumpety! Hmmm, not sure where I went wrong !

LO - sounds like all went very well with the behaviourist! :thumbup1: Although it may be expensive it'll be money well spent if it helps you and Zander relax!

Dogless - Glad the implant seems to be working, fingers crossed it helps you both have more relaxed and enjoyable walks and makes being not able to leave NI quite yet that bit more bareable!

Bessiedog - hope the walk goes well today, Im sure she'll love having some zoomies by the sea!

Not much to report from us. Izzy was at creche yesterday and had been a good girl! Apparently she wants to be a little dog and likes to be in with the small and old dogs! She was funny when I arrived to pick her up as she had jumped up on a bench next to the door and was peeking through the glass into the reception, spotted me and immediately went into wiggle mode! 

We're off to school tonight so that will be fun!


----------



## moonviolet

Izzysmummy said:


> *I attempted these too but mine ended up more like a scone crossed with a crumpet and tasted very crumpety! Hmmm, not sure where I went wrong !*Hmmmm did i type the recipe wrong or miss a crucial step.... I'll have a look later off out now


----------



## GingerRogers

sharloid said:


> It sounds like it went well!
> 
> I think Zander has similar issues to Broder (?) and I was really disappointed when we forked out for a behaviorist. He basically just told us use the head collar and drag him away when he looks too long at another dog and that we'll get nowhere without the headcollar.
> 
> Not very helpful for £40.
> 
> I'd be interested to know what advice she gave!


Are Broders issues fear/nerve based. We aren't entirely sure what goes on in the ninjas head but think it started with over excitement but assume now its got some element of 'Oooh not sure I like this!' as she gets stressed so easily and a turn away is working very well for us.

What your behaviourist said is sort of essentially it, but agree not very helpfully put . I will tell you what we have learnt, the most helpful bit.

You need to be able to spot the signs and act before they go over threshold (barking lunging etc if that happens you are too late) Ginge will freeze more often than not and then focus on something, I stop and let her look, I relax the lead (they call it 'melting'  I know you are probably thinking if I relax the lead Broder will take more, the more I give the more he takes, but in that few seconds for us anyway there is a window for this to work) we watch for any teeny sign that she is disengaging it might be just a little ear flick or tiny turn of the head, even if its her just switching to focus on something else (we practice it with lots of stuff, leaves, rubbish and everything, rabbits even sheep  things that get her attention but not necessarily send her over like dogs and random people do )

At that point of disengagement, when her attention is less tuned to whatever it is she is focused on, we say 'lets go' and turn to go in the other direction, this is using a harness with front and back attachment so you have two points of contact and a steering point from the front, no force should be necessary if you get the timing right, she gets a treat for turning and is actually doing it automatically 90% of the time, its less smooth when dogs are about, but its better than it was, and as she is happy to move away from the trigger I figure there is some fear/nerves there. We are supposed to 'treat at our feet' as a way of getting them back next to you and focusing on you, but I find throwing the treat ahead of her, gets her attention if I can't and in the turn it moves her further away and they haven't corrected me yet.

So essentially what your person said but 

There should be no dragging involved, that tells him nasty things happen when he looks at a dog. All the stuff LO said is also in our arsenal, treat for calm, any looking a triggers and no or little reaction gets treats and praise (not that I remember, most of the time I am standing there astonished, gob open ).

That 'lets go' method actually works for the ninja without treats as she is pleased to move away, in some environments we can take her to a hedge or something for sniffing instead, whatever floats his boat, I think from what you have said you think it wont work for him as its over excitement and wanting to get to the dog, thats exactly how it started with Ginge though, I would have thought there must be some negative feeling going on there for his reaction to be so extreme, and eventually he will get it, hope that might help.


----------



## Sarah1983

Feeling better today. Not 100% but a hell of a lot better than I have the last few days. I looked on the nhs website and apparently tonsillitis will usually clear up by itself so why the hell have I always been stuffed full of antibiotics for it?? Ah well, I'm actually able to get off the sofa today so will do the much needed washing up at least. Want to take Spen out too, poor sod has only been as far as the closest molehill since Sunday and with Khan coming tomorrow it'll only be a short walk then. Don't think todays will be a particularly long one but we'll go somewhere. I keep getting a face peering around my laptop screen, he's bored and I can't say I blame him having done literally nothing for 2 and a half days.

Dogless, glad the Suprelorin seems to be having a positive effect. I'm sure you'll be able to tell for sure when you finally get a break in the weather and the fair weather walkers hit the streets in great numbers.

LO, sounds like the behaviourist visit went well.

Bessiedog, hope todays walk is a good one. And lol at your teenager staying up watching tv all night.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless- really glad the implant appears to be having positive effects :thumbup1: like Izzysmummy says hopefully it will make walks relaxed and having to stay in NI more bearable.

Izzysmummy - bless wigglebum

K&M - don't staple Evie , if you lived here you would be pleased you have sunshine yapping or no 

Ginge is much happier now after her explosions of yesterday bless her  

I had a 'face palm/doh/can't believe I haven't figured that out yet' moment this morning. Everything you read even on basic obedience commands like sit and down say you need to up the distraction levels indoors before you try to take them out.

I have been trying to move into the garden with stuff without even going through this and wondering why I have had little success. :frown2: I have tried to get her to do stuff on walks with zero success frankly :frown2:

This morning hubby was up and getting ready (next chiro appt, fingers crossed please everyone) and eating breakfast as I went through our training so I had to really work to get her attention (especially with the buttery toast smells ) I said to him about using distractions as he kept apologising and being quiet.

he said 'what does it say in your books'
'well that I have to work with distractions'
'so why haven't you done it'
'well you haven't exactly been co-operative up till now have you!' 

I am finding it hard letting go and letting him do stuff and help out though, even though I have been desperate for it at times, I keep thinking about making him read a book but she is my project not his :cryin:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

kat&molly said:


> Today I'm working on not getting the stapler out [joking ] Evie has a terrible habit when the sun's shining of sitting on the back step and yap, yap yapping.
> *So I'm going out and clicking her when she's quiet*.


I read that as "I'm going out and KICKING her"  Bit harsh I thought :lol:

I made MV's scones the other day too! Mine turned out ok but didn't rise much, but's that's probably because I wasn't as light handed as I should be with the dough, they taste good though  In fact I might just perhaps be eating one right now while I type this :drool:

Hope hubby's Chiro appt goes well today GR :thumbup1:

Just ended our morning walk with a very brisk walk (not wanting to run and antagonise the situation) away from a fast approaching herd of young bullocks! I had been very careful to take a wide berth around them but when they spotted us heading for the gate I think they thought we were going to feed them or something because they very excitedly headed in our direction  I'm quite cattle savvy as I used to work on a dairy farm but I have to confess it got my heart racing a bit, I'm pleased to say the Pickles were fab, they seemed to sense the urgency but didn't get wound up or barky. I would have let them go but the gate leads straight on to a main road so I had to keep hold of them. We dived through the kissing gate, and turned to see the lead Bullock shoving his head over the top!!

and breathe....


----------



## sharloid

GingerRogers said:


> Are Broders issues fear/nerve based. We aren't entirely sure what goes on in the ninjas head but think it started with over excitement but assume now its got some element of 'Oooh not sure I like this!' as she gets stressed so easily and a turn away is working very well for us.
> 
> What your behaviourist said is sort of essentially it, but agree not very helpfully put . I will tell you what we have learnt, the most helpful bit.
> 
> You need to be able to spot the signs and act before they go over threshold (barking lunging etc if that happens you are too late) Ginge will freeze more often than not and then focus on something, I stop and let her look, I relax the lead (they call it 'melting'  I know you are probably thinking if I relax the lead Broder will take more, the more I give the more he takes, but in that few seconds for us anyway there is a window for this to work) we watch for any teeny sign that she is disengaging it might be just a little ear flick or tiny turn of the head, even if its her just switching to focus on something else (we practice it with lots of stuff, leaves, rubbish and everything, rabbits even sheep  things that get her attention but not necessarily send her over like dogs and random people do )
> 
> At that point of disengagement, when her attention is less tuned to whatever it is she is focused on, we say 'lets go' and turn to go in the other direction, this is using a harness with front and back attachment so you have two points of contact and a steering point from the front, no force should be necessary if you get the timing right, she gets a treat for turning and is actually doing it automatically 90% of the time, its less smooth when dogs are about, but its better than it was, and as she is happy to move away from the trigger I figure there is some fear/nerves there. We are supposed to 'treat at our feet' as a way of getting them back next to you and focusing on you, but I find throwing the treat ahead of her, gets her attention if I can't and in the turn it moves her further away and they haven't corrected me yet.
> 
> So essentially what your person said but
> 
> There should be no dragging involved, that tells him nasty things happen when he looks at a dog. All the stuff LO said is also in our arsenal, treat for calm, any looking a triggers and no or little reaction gets treats and praise (not that I remember, most of the time I am standing there astonished, gob open ).
> 
> That 'lets go' method actually works for the ninja without treats as she is pleased to move away, in some environments we can take her to a hedge or something for sniffing instead, whatever floats his boat, I think from what you have said you think it wont work for him as its over excitement and wanting to get to the dog, thats exactly how it started with Ginge though, I would have thought there must be some negative feeling going on there for his reaction to be so extreme, and eventually he will get it, hope that might help.


Thank you for your reply!

I don't think it's fear based, he doesn't seem to be scared of anything. The trainer actually said he was over confident? As soon as he spots a dog, he'll ignore us. He'll pull to the end of the lead and if the dog is approaching and close enough, he'll lay down and stare at it. Once it's passing he'll jump up and try to say hello!

Now, that used to happen every single time we saw a dog. But these last few weeks there have been little break throughs such as ignoring the two westies at a distance when we were practicing stays or looking but not reacting to a dog on the other side of the road.

The thing is that if he starts, he won't pay attention until he's said hello (which obviously I try to avoid if he's not behaving) or until the dog is out of sight. Sadly, this means at times I literally have had to drag him along the floor to avoid a confrontation.

As we don't see many dogs on our usual walk I'm going to see if OH can drive us somewhere a bit more dog populated. Not to stick him right in the middle, but so we can sit on a bench out of the way and practice at a distance.

It's been a week since Kindra went to the vets with a limp and it's now worse. We haven't been able to take her for a walk and have tried really hard to keep her settled and still. Unfortunately the few times she's managed to run or try and play with Broder she's been on her back screaming. We're off back to the vets at 12. 

Do I need to report it to her insurance company even though I'm not going to be claiming?


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear poor Kindra , good luck for the vets.

Yes if they have gone over then there isn't much you can do with the ninja either, I think my training is as much about teaching me how to react quicker than anything else, still don't manage it very often in real situations, but it obviously a lot easier for me to move on with a 7 kg dog. I guess it depends where you are, if there is plenty of space can you just explain to the other people and then its their call to either walk round or let them meet, if he is lying down then he is more polite than our little head jumper  Trying to drag him off is unlikely to make him feel any happier though I agree. Try the method I outlined, if it becomes a game then it might work.

FRM - bullocks  I know the feeling, obviously with hubbies job I am sort of used to them but they still give the heeby jeebies, I can go and help on the farm but if I come across a field on my own I avoid  theres a big difference between dairy and beef cows as well :


----------



## Izzysmummy

foxyrockmeister said:


> I read that as "I'm going out and KICKING her"  Bit harsh I thought :lol:
> 
> I made MV's scones the other day too! Mine turned out ok but didn't rise much, but's that's probably because I wasn't as light handed as I should be with the dough, they taste good though  In fact I might just perhaps be eating one right now while I type this :drool:
> 
> Hope hubby's Chiro appt goes well today GR :thumbup1:
> 
> Just ended our morning walk with a very brisk walk (not wanting to run and antagonise the situation) away from a fast approaching herd of young bullocks! I had been very careful to take a wide berth around them but when they spotted us heading for the gate I think they thought we were going to feed them or something because they very excitedly headed in our direction  I'm quite cattle savvy as I used to work on a dairy farm but I have to confess it got my heart racing a bit, I'm pleased to say the Pickles were fab, they seemed to sense the urgency but didn't get wound up or barky. I would have let them go but the gate leads straight on to a main road so I had to keep hold of them. We dived through the kissing gate, and turned to see the lead Bullock shoving his head over the top!!
> 
> and breathe....


Hmmm, sounds like I went wrong somewhere then! 

Very scary about the cows!  Im not a big fan of cows! On our holiday we had to cross a field which had 2 horses in munching on some hay, half way across said field I realised that one of the horses was in fact a bull at which point we sped up to get across the field before it noticed us!  Phew!! It got my heart racing a bit!


----------



## Dogless

Sharloid - hope all goes well with the vet.

FRM - your walks sounds bullocks....see what I did there  .

GR - ref letting go and letting OHs do stuff....if you manage it please share!! I can't :frown2:.

Fabulous walk this morning. Went to the park, pretty quiet because of the temperature I guess; had a few comments about the boys behaving nciely :thumbup1:. But...Kilo's focus around other dogs is 100% better, he didn't feel the need to posture at all although remains anxious. Far easier to redirect though. We didn't walk past one rottie who was bounding about (playfully), sat off to the side and sat off to the side for three JRTs running rings around everyone. They were sat on lovely loose leads until one that kept running up to Rudi and running off again to invite a chase became too much temptation and he tried to bolt after it, almost ripping my arm from it's socket . The woman with the JRTs burst out laughing and came out with the old chestnut "They're a handful aren't they?" . Kilo thankfully stayed sitting :thumbup1: or I would have been on my face . Then part of the park was shut and we had to walk alongside a really busy road to get back to the car; wasn't sure how Rudi would be, but they were both little troopers...my best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## moonviolet

i'm working on ... keeping my mad arse recipes to myself :blushing:


----------



## Izzysmummy

moonviolet said:


> i'm working on ... keeping my mad arse recipes to myself :blushing:


No please dont! I may have used some artistic license and used buttermilk instead of cream  (I have another scone recipe with buttermilk in so thought Id try that!) Seems I should have stuck to the cream so definitely a problem at my end !

I like baking and am always happy to try new recipes so Im used to the odd disaster!


----------



## Werehorse

:lol: mv - i think I'm going to have to go get myself some lemonade and try the scones. I become more intrigued with each report of attempts.  You clearly have The Skill required to make it work.

Today is turning into an unwinding on the sofa day rather than the active getting stuff done day I was hoping for. i need to vacuum though it is getting desperate - we're almost ankle deep ! And the boys need a walk - the duvet cover "exploded" again this morning while I was out dropping OH off at work and sorting the horses. :lol:

On of my tutee's mums told me she'd seen me on the front page of the local rag - some report on my place of work - and I had no idea!! :lol: Fame and I didn't know about it.  But I can't find the report on the newspaper website.  Which is annoying me!

Dogless - glad the implant is working in your favour currently (I always want to call it Super-loin, but it is kind of opposite of that isn't it, what with the shrinking plums? :lol


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello werehorse [waving] I feel I keep missing you as you run about in your mad work/life business.

A slouchy day might be just what you need, to protect the duvet of course , you have sounded quite :crazy: busy recently and far too energetic on your days off.


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> i'm working on ... keeping my mad arse recipes to myself :blushing:


No, don't do that! I really want to try this lemonade scone recipe, it sounds yummy. Anything I make for humans normally turns out not quite right. Anything I make for the dog turns out fantastic


----------



## moonviolet

Izzysmummy said:


> No please dont! I may have used some artistic license and used buttermilk instead of cream  (I have another scone recipe with buttermilk in so thought Id try that!) Seems I should have stuck to the cream so definitely a problem at my end !
> 
> I like baking and am always happy to try new recipes so Im used to the odd disaster!


Ahhh 

I love this recipe because I have it ready for the oven in under a minute  i'm so lazy 

I catered my sisters (2nd) wedding (afternoon tea) a few years back and speed of prep was a definite bonus.

We had a lovely walk only saw a couple of people in the distance. Her ladyship is relaxing on walks so nicely these days and is so much less vigliant. Spotting our car still brings on a lets get in a quick stride but not the blind panic it used to be. Time will only tell what happens if the weather improves, I expect a step back as the sunny day walkers appear. I do my best to prevent mobbing, but not a lot you can do to prevent someone pulling up as you apporach you car, their dogs flying out the window before the car has even stopped.


----------



## Dogless

I have just bought lemonade and cream . Had to .

Werehorse, enjoy your unwinding day :thumbup1:.


----------



## Werehorse

GingerRogers said:


> Hello werehorse [waving] I feel I keep missing you as you run about in your mad work/life business.
> 
> A slouchy day might be just what you need, to protect the duvet of course , you have sounded quite :crazy: busy recently and far too energetic on your days off.


*waves* I'm feeling really bad because I'm flicking through the thread and not responding to everybody. 

I'm forcing myself to be energetic on my days off because Fear of 100km in 2 Months' Time is driving me forwards. :lol:

Oscar says that I am protecting him and Hugo from the exploding duvet by staying in... When I came back Oscar did a very innocent face "duvet, what duvet? Oh that old thing, yeah it just does that, nothing to do with us" while Hugo totally gave the game away by pogo-jumping at my face "oh mummy, mummy you're home! omg that's so exciting, I thought you were never coming back, the duvet! the duvet! the duvet! We're so, so, so, so, so, sorry about the duvet! IT was all our fault but we're sorry and we love you so it's ok right? Isn't it? Isn't that right Oscar we're sorry?!" Oscar: *facepalm* :frown2:


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> *waves* I'm feeling really bad because I'm flicking through the thread and not responding to everybody.
> 
> I'm forcing myself to be energetic on my days off because Fear of 100km in 2 Months' Time is driving me forwards. :lol:
> 
> Oscar says that I am protecting him and Hugo from the exploding duvet by staying in... When I came back Oscar did a very innocent face "duvet, what duvet? Oh that old thing, yeah it just does that, nothing to do with us" while Hugo totally gave the game away by pogo-jumping at my face "oh mummy, mummy you're home! omg that's so exciting, I thought you were never coming back, the duvet! the duvet! the duvet! We're so, so, so, so, so, sorry about the duvet! IT was all our fault but we're sorry and we love you so it's ok right? Isn't it? Isn't that right Oscar we're sorry?!" Oscar: *facepalm* :frown2:


:lol: :lol: I can so totally picture that scene :biggrin:


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse said:


> *waves* I'm feeling really bad because I'm flicking through the thread and not responding to everybody.
> 
> I'm forcing myself to be energetic on my days off because Fear of 100km in 2 Months' Time is driving me forwards. :lol:
> 
> Oscar says that I am protecting him and Hugo from the exploding duvet by staying in... When I came back Oscar did a very innocent face "duvet, what duvet? Oh that old thing, yeah it just does that, nothing to do with us" while Hugo totally gave the game away by pogo-jumping at my face "oh mummy, mummy you're home! omg that's so exciting, I thought you were never coming back, the duvet! the duvet! the duvet! We're so, so, so, so, so, sorry about the duvet! IT was all our fault but we're sorry and we love you so it's ok right? Isn't it? Isn't that right Oscar we're sorry?!" Oscar: *facepalm* :frown2:


Werehorse- *waves and asks where are our pics?
:lol: your boys have active imaginations don't they.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Werehorse said:


> *waves* I'm feeling really bad because I'm flicking through the thread and not responding to everybody.
> 
> I'm forcing myself to be energetic on my days off because Fear of 100km in 2 Months' Time is driving me forwards. :lol:
> 
> Oscar says that I am protecting him and Hugo from the exploding duvet by staying in... When I came back Oscar did a very innocent face "duvet, what duvet? Oh that old thing, yeah it just does that, nothing to do with us" while Hugo totally gave the game away by pogo-jumping at my face "oh mummy, mummy you're home! omg that's so exciting, I thought you were never coming back, the duvet! the duvet! the duvet! We're so, so, so, so, so, sorry about the duvet! IT was all our fault but we're sorry and we love you so it's ok right? Isn't it? Isn't that right Oscar we're sorry?!" Oscar: *facepalm* :frown2:


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm sure Hugo and Branston must be related somehow


----------



## Sarah1983

We've done some impulse control work outside. Getting him all revved up tugging with a toy then asking him to wait while I threw it. Had him on leash so if he did fail he didn't get rewarded for it but only had one minor failure, he started after the toy but caught himself. And that was my fault really, I'd been tossing it about a foot and that time I threw it harder. 

Also did a bit of calling him to me in a bit of a panicky voice, playing with him and letting him go again. I've noticed him stopping and scanning the environment if I call him because I've seen something so figure we'll work on that. I know I'm not going to keep that note of panic out of my voice so I think teaching him that it doesn't actually mean anything is the best thing to do


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> *waves* I'm feeling really bad because I'm flicking through the thread and not responding to everybody.
> 
> I'm forcing myself to be energetic on my days off because Fear of 100km in 2 Months' Time is driving me forwards. :lol:
> 
> Oscar says that I am protecting him and Hugo from the exploding duvet by staying in... When I came back Oscar did a very innocent face "duvet, what duvet? Oh that old thing, yeah it just does that, nothing to do with us" while Hugo totally gave the game away by pogo-jumping at my face "oh mummy, mummy you're home! omg that's so exciting, I thought you were never coming back, the duvet! the duvet! the duvet! We're so, so, so, so, so, sorry about the duvet! IT was all our fault but we're sorry and we love you so it's ok right? Isn't it? Isn't that right Oscar we're sorry?!" Oscar: *facepalm* :frown2:


Oh that is a cartoon just waiting for illustrations!!!!! bless the lovely MCC 

I feel we almost need a pic thread for the scones :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dimwit

Werehorse said:


> Oscar says that I am protecting him and Hugo from the exploding duvet by staying in... When I came back Oscar did a very innocent face "duvet, what duvet? Oh that old thing, yeah it just does that, nothing to do with us" while Hugo totally gave the game away by pogo-jumping at my face "oh mummy, mummy you're home! omg that's so exciting, I thought you were never coming back, the duvet! the duvet! the duvet! We're so, so, so, so, so, sorry about the duvet! IT was all our fault but we're sorry and we love you so it's ok right? Isn't it? Isn't that right Oscar we're sorry?!" Oscar: *facepalm* :frown2:


Brilliant! I once got home from work and Sprocket had managed to dig out several rolls of wrapping paper and shred them across the living room floor - I walked in and he was lying in the middle of the carnage with a bit of paper hanging out of his mouth, tail wagging and looking so pleased with himself...


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> i'm working on ... keeping my mad arse recipes to myself :blushing:


MV- with my track record, I promise NOT to insult you by making your scones.:laugh:


----------



## Beth17

Werehorse enjoy your duvet day 

Dogless what good boys you had today.

Sarah glad you're feeling better and Spen has been good for you.

mv glad you had a good walk. I do hope you don't get too set back when the fair weather walkers re-emerge.

The boys behaved really well today and only pulled when going up through the woods after a scent. Just as well they were good really as was getting quite a few funny looks; to be expected though.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Izzysmummy said:
> 
> 
> 
> *I attempted these too but mine ended up more like a scone crossed with a crumpet and tasted very crumpety! Hmmm, not sure where I went wrong !*Hmmmm did i type the recipe wrong or miss a crucial step.... I'll have a look later off out now
> 
> 
> 
> Well husbands eaten most of the ones I made last night so they must taste OK.
Click to expand...


----------



## sharloid

Sarah1983 said:


> We've done some impulse control work outside. Getting him all revved up tugging with a toy then asking him to wait while I threw it. Had him on leash so if he did fail he didn't get rewarded for it but only had one minor failure, he started after the toy but caught himself. And that was my fault really, I'd been tossing it about a foot and that time I threw it harder.
> 
> Also did a bit of calling him to me in a bit of a panicky voice, playing with him and letting him go again. I've noticed him stopping and scanning the environment if I call him because I've seen something so figure we'll work on that. I know I'm not going to keep that note of panic out of my voice so I think teaching him that it doesn't actually mean anything is the best thing to do


Well done to Spen for doing well . Broder scans to see what I've called him back for too!

Kindra's been given another week of anti-inflammatories (Rimadyl) and we have to go back in a week. If it hasn't improved then the vet wants to get her x-rayed. Poor little sickly child! Not being able to be walked isn't going to help her socialisation.


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> Well done to Spen for doing well . Broder scans to see what I've called him back for too!
> 
> Kindra's been given another week of anti-inflammatories (Rimadyl) and we have to go back in a week. If it hasn't improved then the vet wants to get her x-rayed. Poor little sickly child! Not being able to be walked isn't going to help her socialisation.


Hmmm if Kindra has pulled or torn something it's not going to show on x-rays and generally speaking a bad tear can take longer to heal than a break or fracture.

Let's hope the Rimadyl does the trick and try very, very hard not to let her charge about. I know it's easier said than done.


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> Werehorse enjoy your duvet day
> 
> Dogless what good boys you had today.
> 
> Sarah glad you're feeling better and Spen has been good for you.
> 
> mv glad you had a good walk. I do hope you don't get too set back when the fair weather walkers re-emerge.
> 
> The boys behaved really well today and only pulled when going up through the woods after a scent. Just as well they were good really as was getting quite a few funny looks; *to be expected though*.


Have I missed something


----------



## Dogless

Scones look good and feel very light :thumbup1::thumbup1:. Won't be long 'til the taste test . 

Hubby has gone to bed (has a cough and cold). "Sorry I'm no use today my darling".....so many possible answers :.


----------



## Beth17

GingerRogers said:


> Have I missed something


Just that poor girl. Sam at first glance does look very ambull like and people seemed much warier and ignored me when I said good morning.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Scones look good and feel very light :thumbup1::thumbup1:. Won't be long 'til the taste test .
> 
> Hubby has gone to bed (has a cough and cold). *"Sorry I'm no use today my darling".....so many possible answers :.*




Oh indeed there are.....:biggrin:


----------



## Symone

Sharloid : Fingers crossed that she will be better, soon. Poor girl. 

Dogless : I'm glad that the suprelorin is having a positive effect, yay! 

Sarah : Glad that you're feeling better  

Twiggy : Did you enjoy the scones?  

.. I need to take notes, again. I forgot the other responses that I was going to reply with. Oops..


Well, had a game of fetch before our walk, and she did still pull but not as bad as normal, so it seems to have helped a bit. I think I also need to give her some more mental stimulation, anyone got any ideas for what I can teach her?  (She seems to gasp tricks quickly and toys like the puzzle feeder thingie was too easy for her.) 
had a nice walk around town, had a bit of pulling when she realised we were going to the beach, though.  
Her lead came off a little sooner than normal and she was stuck to the OHs side! I think it's because he can throw balls really far and she was hinting he should hurry. 
Was only there for about 15 mins for it was a little chilly! Taking her to a new park later, today.
On the way home we walked back through the town, and this little girl (Must have been around 2 years old) ran up to Shamaya and went to kick her. Her (assumed) dad yelled at her straight away, then told her to be gentle. The thing that annoyed me the most was they didn't even ask if she could pet Shamaya, I needed the loo and was in a hurry, lol. The child tried to chase her and kick her again when I said I was in a hurry and went to walk off home. I was fuming, but it was quite easy to tell that her dad also wasn't pleased with her. I'm hoping that he will give her a strict talking to about not running up and trying to kick dogs! Luckily none of her 2 kicks hit Shamaya. (To be honest, had I not been desperate for a wee I would have had a stern talking to that child myself.)
If I would have had a dog that was reactive she could had got a bitten leg or something! (Although If I did have a dog like that I would keep it muzzled to be on the safe side.)
She is probably going through the "terrible 2's" stage, though. She looked like she needed a lead more than Shamaya! 

Luckily Shamaya didn't care at all, and she continued to walk nicely after. She's now having a snooze on the rug! (I should had just bought rugs instead of beds.)

Apart from that child, it has been a lovely day with her, today.  I half feel sad that she's getting the hang of everything. She's growing up too fast. :crying:

On that note, her breeder told me that their other bitch. (Shamayas mums half sister I think it was) is confirmed pregnant! The second he said that I was so tempted to say I wanted one, lol! I would rather wait until Shamaya is past teenagehood, though.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Just that poor girl. Sam at first glance does look very ambull like and people seemed much warier and ignored me when I said good morning.


A woman in the park today asked whether my pair were the breed that had killed the girl when I had put them in the car . I think the owners of large , short haired dogs will be very much under scrutiny at present.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> On that note, her breeder told me that their other bitch. (Shamayas mums half sister I think it was) is confirmed pregnant! The second he said that I was so tempted to say I wanted one, lol! I would rather wait until Shamaya is past teenagehood, though.


Very sensible to wait . Tempting though!! Things like the lead walking are good to sort first - when Rudi's being a pain Kilo will wait patiently or just walk along nicely whilst I concentrate on Rudi. With the exception of if a cat is spotted. All bets are off then :frown2:.

Shame about the small child, I suspect Kilo might have ended up barking at her and giving her a fright .


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> A woman in the park today asked whether my pair were the breed that had killed the girl when I had put them in the car . I think the owners of large , short haired dogs will be very much under scrutiny at present.


I can't like that post Dogless  You're right and just more reason to make sure we do our best to get ours to be breed ambassadors. It does make me concerned for the future though.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> I can't like that post Dogless  You're right and just more reason to make sure we do our best to get ours to be breed ambassadors. It does make me concerned for the future though.


I didn't mind really, she wasn't being all hysterical about things, just worried I think. Pleased Kilo had seen her before he got into the car though as if she'd walked up that close to the boot when he hadn't he'd have made a racket .


----------



## Twiggy

Right gotta go as my Wednesday class is arriving. Holly's nemesis isn't coming this afternoon so hopefully she perform a bit better.


----------



## BessieDog

Someone's stolen Bess and replaced her with another dog! 

Although the wind got up again I put my thermals on and headed up to the sea wall. The plan was to walk round to the 'safe' area and let her off there for the first time in over six weeks. But as we were walking up the path we met another dog - sort of looked like a skinny RR. Apparently she hadn't been off lead for six months! The chap said he'd watch out for Bess, if I watched out for his dog! 

Then they headed away from us as I got stopped by a man with a lovely Red and White Irish Setter - we'd met the dog before, but not the man, but apparently his daughter had told him all about Bess and he recognised her (not many IS's round here!). We discussed how they could easily get lost which didn't help my confidence. He's dog was 2 years old, and still as bad.

Then we got to the top of the path, and because the people with the other dog were a little way ahead now, I thought if I let Bess off and the worst happened they'd probably help me get her (or catch her if she tore past). So before I could have second thoughts I slipped the lead off....

And she started running up and down the banks and having a good old time, and coming back to me for treats when I called. I put her back on the lead as we passed the 2 danger spots where she can get into the fields, and even when she was on the flexi she behaved perfectly. No pulling at all, just running and stopping, sniffing, and then running on again. 

We got to the place which is safe, and I let her off again. Now she must have got it into her head that this is where she runs, because she was off like a bullet from a gun, soon out of sight. But I wasn't too worried as I know she's got about a quarter to half a mile locked in between two dog stiles. She did come back though eventually, and sat nicely for a treat.

I didn't let her off again on the return trip as I needed to get home for a phone call and couldn't risk spending the rest of the afternoon tracking her down. But again, she didn't pull. 

She'd found an old hat on the way out that she had a fine old game with, tossing it up and down the bank, and on the way back she found it again. But this time she tossed it into the sea. Despite her pleading looks I did not go and get it for her!

So we're home, cold but safe. She was such a happy dog on the walk - you can tell it's her favourite place to walk.

Now I don't know how the dog swop happened, but I hope whoever took the old Bess doesn't bring her back!


----------



## sharloid

Beth17 said:


> Just that poor girl. Sam at first glance does look very ambull like and people seemed much warier and ignored me when I said good morning.





Dogless said:


> A woman in the park today asked whether my pair were the breed that had killed the girl when I had put them in the car . I think the owners of large , short haired dogs will be very much under scrutiny at present.





Beth17 said:


> I can't like that post Dogless  You're right and just more reason to make sure we do our best to get ours to be breed ambassadors. It does make me concerned for the future though.


How sad . Hopefully they'll be able to see how well behaved your dogs are and learn that most short haired, athletic dogs are not monsters!


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> Very sensible to wait . Tempting though!! Things like the lead walking are good to sort first - when Rudi's being a pain Kilo will wait patiently or just walk along nicely whilst I concentrate on Rudi. With the exception of if a cat is spotted. All bets are off then :frown2:.
> 
> Shame about the small child, I suspect Kilo might have ended up barking at her and giving her a fright .


Can Shamaya come live with you for a bit, and learn from Kilo? She's so quiet it's scary. I would have loved for her to bark, she needs to learn how to say no to things that she may not like. (Although she probably liked the attention.)
She has however taken to barking once when people knock on the door, though! The first time she did it I thought she coughed. 

And the lead walking is going well.. Maybe it will be perfected by time the pups are ready to leave mum..!!! Nah, I should still wait.  After all I'm probably still going to make more mistakes, and it would be harder to correct with two than one I guess. 
Also our bed isn't big enough for two dogs! (Unless I kick the OH out.)
I have to say, that I half wish that I didn't take her into the bedroom when she cried. She has been there since. However I am happy for I would worry otherwise.


----------



## Beth17

BD What great morning walk for you and Bess :thumbup1:

Symone I understand the temptation. There are a few Boxer pups around at the moment that are calling to me but must work on the terror first


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Can Shamaya come live with you for a bit, and learn from Kilo? She's so quiet it's scary. *Careful what you wish for!!*I would have loved for her to bark, she needs to learn how to say no to things that she may not like. (Although she probably liked the attention.) *I prefer Kilo to step back behind me or avoid rather than do a noise and slobber display - it tends to get an awful lot of tutters a-tutting .*
> She has however taken to barking once when people knock on the door, though! The first time she did it I thought she coughed.
> 
> And the lead walking is going well.. Maybe it will be perfected by time the pups are ready to leave mum..!!! Nah, I should still wait.  After all I'm probably still going to make more mistakes, and it would be harder to correct with two than one I guess.  *I make loads of mistakes and am sure I always will. The thing with two dogs is that you need to do everything separately then together. I have all sorts of stuff to iron out with Kilo (you can tell from my posts here!!!!) and so much training left to do with Rudi, but have the time at present for three or four walks per day.*
> Also our bed isn't big enough for two dogs! (Unless I kick the OH out.)
> I have to say, that I half wish that I didn't take her into the bedroom when she cried. She has been there since. However I am happy for I would worry otherwise.


The CHs would also teach Shamaya how to counter surf, bark as if she wants to eat anyone that knocks at the door and how to perform demolition work using nothing but the skull she was born with  .


----------



## Symone

Beth17 said:


> BD What great morning walk for you and Bess :thumbup1:
> 
> Symone I understand the temptation. There are a few Boxer pups around at the moment that are calling to me but must work on the terror first


Hehe, it must be hard seeing their lovely cute boxer faces.. I want a boxer, too. They are so beautiful. :001_wub:


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> The CHs would also teach Shamaya how to counter surf, bark as if she wants to eat anyone that knocks at the door and how to perform demolition work using nothing but the skull she was born with  .


I wouldn't mind tuts, lol. 
And shamaya sort of just stands there, doing nothing.. She's a weird pup.

With doing everything separately, I wonder how some people can cope with 6+ dogs! I do have the time right now for separate walks.. I may need to get a dog sooner or later than planned, with the whole moving to Switzerland bit. Not sure when we will move now, though.

Shamaya says she would love to be a pupil for the CHs  She says it sounds like stuff that she would gladly learn.
She has the skull one under her sleeve, though. She is rather good at the art of headbutting.


----------



## kat&molly

BD- sounds a lovely walk- I always love the sound of Bess' character.

Managed to get this , needs a bit of polish but I am so chuffed.:thumbup1:


----------



## Beth17

I have just had a trawl back through the posts but can't find it. Is the 'fired up, frantic...' book similar to control unleashed in that it deals with mat work, impulse control etc. As control unleashed is quite pricey if this one is similar I will buy it as I think some of the exercises in there will do the boys some good.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> I wouldn't mind tuts, lol.
> And shamaya sort of just stands there, doing nothing.. She's a weird pup.
> 
> With doing everything separately, I wonder how some people can cope with 6+ dogs! I do have the time right now for separate walks.. I may need to get a dog sooner or later than planned, with the whole moving to Switzerland bit. Not sure when we will move now, though.
> 
> Shamaya says she would love to be a pupil for the CHs  She says it sounds like stuff that she would gladly learn.
> She has the skull one under her sleeve, though. She is rather good at the art of headbutting.


Quite seriously if you think she's uncomfortable but is just standing there, intervene and stop the interaction for her. Kilo used to stand there or shy away and I didn't always protect him as I should have done (unwittingly), thinking that he'd improve with more 'socialisation'. I know I bang on about it a lot, but really quality over quantity is now my mantra. I'm not sure Kilo would resort to barking if I'd done a better job in the first place. Or maybe he would as he's highly strung  . Trust me, you would mind the tutting and some of the comments .

I'm not sure how folk cope with 6 dogs - they are certainly far more skilled than I am. Not hard TBH, I'm a plank, but learning!!


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> BD- sounds a lovely walk- I always love the sound of Bess' character.
> 
> Managed to get this , needs a bit of polish but I am so chuffed.:thumbup1:


Fantastic :thumbup1::thumbup1:.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> The CHs would also teach Shamaya how to counter surf, bark as if she wants to eat anyone that knocks at the door and how to perform demolition work using nothing but the skull she was born with  .


With the exception of counter surfing the dimwit can do all of those (perhaps he is better trained than I though ). He is also very good at alerting me to the presence of hedgehogs in the garden - he doesn't bother with any other species of animal but has an irrational hatred of hedgehogs!

The failure at counter surfing is not through lack of effort though - more that my kitchen work surface is too high for his stumpy legs :lol:


----------



## Beth17

Brilliant vid K&M well done


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> Just that poor girl. Sam at first glance does look very ambull like and people seemed much warier and ignored me when I said good morning.


Ah sorry, dense head again, I thought perhaps you had taken to wearing a buster collar or clown suit or something 



Dogless said:


> A woman in the park today asked whether my pair were the breed that had killed the girl when I had put them in the car . I think the owners of large , short haired dogs will be very much under scrutiny at present.


It isn't a nice thought,  we had someone tell us Rory was a pit bull when we first had him, he did look rather different then he was so underweight but it even freaked me seen as we didn't actually know what he was then.



Symone said:


> Can Shamaya come live with you for a bit, and learn from Kilo? She's so quiet it's scary. I would have loved for her to bark, she needs to learn how to say no to things that she may not like. (Although she probably liked the attention.)
> She has however taken to barking once when people knock on the door, though! The first time she did it I thought she coughed.
> 
> And the lead walking is going well.. Maybe it will be perfected by time the pups are ready to leave mum..!!! Nah, I should still wait.  After all I'm probably still going to make more mistakes, and it would be harder to correct with two than one I guess.
> Also our bed isn't big enough for two dogs! (Unless I kick the OH out.)
> I have to say, that I half wish that I didn't take her into the bedroom when she cried. She has been there since. However I am happy for I would worry otherwise.


I am with Dogless be careful what you wish for  and tutting isn't fun :frown2:
When we first had Ginge she 'coughed' at the door, and that was the only noise she made, now look 

From a post that MV made about bottles this lunchtime we haev been working on knocking a bottle over, on the floor, then on her box, which was fun to start with, but she gets too distracted by the ruddy tv for even that to hold her attention for long 

I did realise she is reluctant to stand on the box again because its too slippy though so need to think of something to solve that.


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> I have just had a trawl back through the posts but can't find it. Is the 'fired up, frantic...' book similar to control unleashed in that it deals with mat work, impulse control etc. As control unleashed is quite pricey if this one is similar I will buy it as I think some of the exercises in there will do the boys some good.


Yes and I am finding it easier for my poor brain to grasp!


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> BD- sounds a lovely walk- I always love the sound of Bess' character.
> 
> Managed to get this , needs a bit of polish but I am so chuffed.:thumbup1:


Brilliant also loving the shout of glee at the end


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> Quite seriously if you think she's uncomfortable but is just standing there, intervene and stop the interaction for her. Kilo used to stand there or shy away and I didn't always protect him as I should have done (unwittingly), thinking that he'd improve with more 'socialisation'. I know I bang on about it a lot, but really quality over quantity is now my mantra. I'm not sure Kilo would resort to barking if I'd done a better job in the first place. Or maybe he would as he's highly strung  . Trust me, you would mind the tutting and some of the comments .
> 
> I'm not sure how folk cope with 6 dogs - they are certainly far more skilled than I am. Not hard TBH, I'm a plank, but learning!!


I'll do that from now on, then. Thanks. 

And you're far more skilled than I am


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Brilliant also loving the shout of glee at the end


  Bugger, bugger, bugger- it was meant to be on mute.


----------



## Beth17

GingerRogers said:


> Yes and I am finding it easier for my poor brain to grasp!


Lovely thank you. Now do I get it through the post or be impatient and get it on kindle


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> Lovely thank you. Now do I get it through the post or be impatient and get it on kindle


Well it depends, will you have time to read it tonight or can you wait for next day delivery  (I am too impatient but kindle books are also invisible from OH's ) I actually would like this in hard copy too TBH


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> I'll do that from now on, then. Thanks.
> 
> And you're far more skilled than I am


I wouldn't bet on it....just made loads of mistakes :frown2: .


----------



## Beth17

I am afraid impulse has won out again  My excuse is that I am a poor student and every penny saved counts


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> I have just had a trawl back through the posts but can't find it. Is the 'fired up, frantic...' book similar to control unleashed in that it deals with mat work, impulse control etc. As control unleashed is quite pricey if this one is similar I will buy it as I think some of the exercises in there will do the boys some good.


It's similar but doesn't have all the stuff in it that CU does. It's a much easier and quicker read but I still think CU is the better book personally.

Me and Spen have just been playing outside. Some heel work, throw his toy and play tug. Some recalls with toy and tug as a reward. Then another dog appeared and he lost all interest in me so I sat on one of the benches until he remembered I existed and then we played 101 things to do with a bench at his request. Ended with him lying on it. Trying to mix up the rewards a bit and keep him guessing. Problem is that one day he'll find one toy highly rewarding and another day it'll be a completely different toy that's the big deal. Tug is always something he enjoys though so I'm hoping ball on rope will stay exciting.


----------



## sharloid

Beth17 said:


> I have just had a trawl back through the posts but can't find it. Is the 'fired up, frantic...' book similar to control unleashed in that it deals with mat work, impulse control etc. As control unleashed is quite pricey if this one is similar I will buy it as I think some of the exercises in there will do the boys some good.


Oh no, I hadn't even heard of that book. I'm wondering whether to order it now...

I'm hoping the books I've got to read through at the moment will have ideas of things we can do outside. Broder loses interest if we do more than a few reps of sit/stay/heel etc and I wanted to make it a bit more exciting for him.


----------



## moonviolet

K&M i love the video :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1:

She looks so focussed


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> K&M i love the video :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1:
> 
> She looks so focussed


Awww thanks. I didn't make it easy for her did I - the size of the pole and width of the ring, even the way I taught it was drawn out 

But we got there.

Beth- fired up- very easy on the brain.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Have a booking for a week to feed cats, rabbits and a tortoise.

Have another to walk a dog for three days while owners want a break. See the dog daily but never walked her.

Busy busy bee is me!


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- how did the Chiro go today?


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Bugger, bugger, bugger- it was meant to be on mute.


Well you're safe with me K&M - it wouldn't work on my old computer..!!


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> Oh no, I hadn't even heard of that book. I'm wondering whether to order it now...
> 
> I'm hoping the books I've got to read through at the moment will have *ideas of things we can do outside. Broder loses interest if we do more than a few reps of sit/stay/heel etc and I wanted to make it a bit more exciting for him.*




Oh believe me sit/stay/heel etc. can be extremely exciting if taught using motivational methods..... That's why Tremor spent most of the afternoon dancing on the spot and drooling all over the ball I'd given her and 15 other dogs all wanted to be out on the floor at the same time...LOL

The handler that trains her JRT bitch with me has now got a JRT dog puppy. He's adorable and looks super strutting his stuff doing heelwork.

I have to smile: One of the handlers asked me this afternoon if it was having Tremor in class that had made such a big difference to Holly today.... It just shows how observant they all are....:mad2:


----------



## sharloid

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Oh believe me sit/stay/heel etc. can be extremely exciting if taught using motivational methods..... That's why Tremor spent most of the afternoon dancing on the spot and drooling all over the ball I'd given her and 15 other dogs all wanted to be out on the floor at the same time...LOL
> 
> The handler that trains her JRT bitch with me has now got a JRT dog puppy. He's adorable and looks super strutting his stuff doing heelwork.
> 
> I have to smile: One of the handlers asked me this afternoon if it was having Tremor in class that had made such a big difference to Holly today.... It just shows how observant they all are....:mad2:


What are these motivational methods you speak of?


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Well you're safe with me K&M - it wouldn't work on my old computer..!!


I had problems with playing it on my pc, too. I could only hear it!
Worked on the OHs though. My PC isn't even old.


----------



## Izzysmummy

We have just got back from a quick game of fetch in the park to get the crazies out before school tonight !

She had a good run around a couple of brilliant, very enthusiastic recalls before she went on the long line when the ball came out. Mid-game I noticed a young girl of about 12/13 approaching us very directly so I held Izzy's collar as I know this kind of approach can cause her to be a bit barky. The poor girl was very tearful and asked me if I'd seen a white phone as she'd lost it, by this point Izzy hadn't reacted so I figured it would be safe to let her wander about while I took the girls Mums mobile number to ring in case I found it. And what did the little monkey do once I let her go.........





She went straight up to the girl and dropped her ball at her feet!  It brought a much needed smile to this girls face and she threw the ball for Izzy a few more times before continuing on her search :thumbup1:

I'll let Tarnus know to keep an eye out on his morning walk tomorrow. I hope she finds it 

K+M - love the video!


----------



## moonviolet

IM well done Clever sweet Izzy, it's wonderful when they surprise you in such a lovely way.

Did you try calling the girls' mobile? to see if you could hear it ringing?


----------



## sharloid

Izzysmummy said:


> We have just got back from a quick game of fetch in the park to get the crazies out before school tonight !
> 
> She had a good run around a couple of brilliant, very enthusiastic recalls before she went on the long line when the ball came out. Mid-game I noticed a young girl of about 12/13 approaching us very directly so I held Izzy's collar as I know this kind of approach can cause her to be a bit barky. The poor girl was very tearful and asked me if I'd seen a white phone as she'd lost it, by this point Izzy hadn't reacted so I figured it would be safe to let her wander about while I took the girls Mums mobile number to ring in case I found it. And what did the little monkey do once I let her go.........
> 
> She went straight up to the girl and dropped her ball at her feet!  It brought a much needed smile to this girls face and she threw the ball for Izzy a few more times before continuing on her search :thumbup1:
> 
> I'll let Tarnus know to keep an eye out on his morning walk tomorrow. I hope she finds it
> 
> K+M - love the video!


... your Izzy is also Tarnus' Izzy? Wow, I'm slow. 

Well done to her for behaving well and cheering the lass up.


----------



## Izzysmummy

I think she'd tried that but couldn't remember if it was on silent. 

She seemed to be searching quite a big area so don't think she knew exactly where she'd dropped it :frown2:

Was very proud of my monkey for cheering her up even if it was just for a minute!


----------



## moonviolet

Izzysmummy said:


> I think she'd tried that but couldn't remember if it was on silent.
> 
> She seemed to be searching quite a big area so don't think she knew exactly where she'd dropped it :frown2:
> 
> Was very proud of my monkey for cheering her up even if it was just for a minute!


I thik it was lovley and even more so as it iwas a big thing for Izzy to do. sending her aa little rep , but it's for you too as the support you are giving her is helping 

GR i've jsut remembered somethign from earlier, you said GInge got bored with the bottle, I only repeat things a few times with Tink, before going onto soemthign new or takign a break and going something she knows and enjoys, like hand touches before returning to the actictiy another couple of times. Being that Ginge didn't have a history of training her attention span will take time to build.

_I would try to correct all the errors in this post but frankly it would take too long, forgive me :lol:_


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> What are these motivational methods you speak of?


Much too complicated to explain. You would need to be shown I'm afraid.


----------



## Werehorse

Hugo just managed to fall down the back of the sofa.  He's just not right is he? :lol:


----------



## Dogless

I want a Hugo and an Evie....a Donkey Boy and a little HB....a Miss Tinks.....hmmm....maybe all of them!!

mv - those scones are *delicious*!!!!! Really light. Yum Yum!!

Separate training walks with the CHs this afternoon. Both were very good boys. The weather managed to save a separate heavy snow shower for each dog...all's fair then at least :skep:.


----------



## Guest

Well its seems be now knowing what to do has stopped me being QUITE so nervy, which is good. 

We walked past this gate and not one but TWO large dogs rushed towards us snarling and barking. Zander got lots of sausage then because he just looked and didn't even take a step towards them! 

Managed to also calmley get him past a cat that was crouching on the pavement and doing the "Eff you I'm a cat. Not moving." thing.

Mum seems to be having difficulty with training. "You don't need to give him treats just for coming back into the kitchen when you ask!" 
And 
"Zander!! COME IN! ZANDER. ZANDER. Oh sod you then." 

(Zander's recall words are "Here.") 

I've also being doing some attention work. Holding a treat to the side. Calling his name then when he looks, BITS OF SAUSAGE!!! (I have three packs of them cocktail sausages in the fridge!)) 

And we went to the vet to pick up tablets ("oh theres nothing on the system are you sure you ordered them???") after mum went in and DEMANDED to know why there were no tablets, the tablets will be send via post when they arrive in the surgery. Zander whined in the vets so I stood outside. THEN A MAN APPEARED IN A VAN. Lots of treats then. 

Have yet to get to the actually moving towards the scary thing, but just treating for calm at a distance will do for now!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Werehorse said:


> Hugo just managed to fall down the back of the sofa.  He's just not right is he? :lol:


Definitely related to Branston!!

Branston was doing so well on focusing on me on his pavement walk this afternoon he walked into a lamppost :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Hugo just managed to fall down the back of the sofa.  He's just not right is he? :lol:


Whilst I remember - I had a look through my notes/course literature on the canine sports massage course I attended last November and unfortunately there isn't anything on the actual technique of massaging which would be relevant to send to you. There is a diagram on the stretching but not the massage. Sorry.


----------



## Twiggy

foxyrockmeister said:


> Definitely related to Branston!!
> 
> Branston was doing so well on focusing on me on his pavement walk this afternoon he walked into a lamppost :lol:


It's the collie in him - they do things like that.....


----------



## Guest

*WELL, you know how I just described Zander being an awesome thing?*

*WELL, the stealing pilfering cat that we have knocked over his bag of coachie treats and GUESS WHO WOLFED THEM DOWN? :skep:*

No, it wasn't the cat.

SOMEONE SHAN'T BE HAVING A BEDDYBYE TREAT TONIGHT.

Grotbags the lot of them. :frown2:


----------



## Guest

foxyrockmeister said:


> Definitely related to Branston!!
> 
> Branston was doing so well on focusing on me on his pavement walk this afternoon he walked into a lamppost :lol:


Zander has done this! And a wall. HE MAY BE A COLLIE CROSS AFTER ALL!!! :


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I want a Hugo and an Evie....a Donkey Boy and a little HB....a Miss Tinks.....hmmm....maybe all of them!!
> 
> mv - those scones are *delicious*!!!!! Really light. Yum Yum!!
> Separate training walks with the CHs this afternoon. Both were very good boys. The weather managed to save a separate heavy snow shower for each dog...all's fair then at least :skep:.


So glad you like them. :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> So glad you like them. :thumbup1:


I shall be telling my Mum. Much lighter than normal scones and love the subtle taste the lemonade brings. AND only take minimal effort to make.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> I thik it was lovley and even more so as it iwas a big thing for Izzy to do. sending her aa little rep , but it's for you too as the support you are giving her is helping
> 
> GR i've jsut remembered somethign from earlier, you said GInge got bored with the bottle, I only repeat things a few times with Tink, before going onto soemthign new or takign a break and going something she knows and enjoys, like hand touches before returning to the actictiy another couple of times. Being that Ginge didn't have a history of training her attention span will take time to build.


 Not bored as such she was getting distracted by Australian soaps  and after realising I needed to work around distractions too, I didnt quite mean that  but good point I do ask for a bit too much, of everything I think 



kat&molly said:


> Ginge- how did the Chiro go today?


Well thank you for asking, he came back feeling even more positive, she was pleased that he has managed to relax so the not working thing seems to be having an effect just need to get him lookign for work nice and gently 



Dogless said:


> I want a Hugo and an Evie....a Donkey Boy and a little HB....a Miss Tinks......


You not want a Ginger Ninja 

I want a hugo and an evie and a scruff and oh ok all of them too 

We just had another long line run around the heathy bit she didn't recall from sheep today, oh well I figured it was a fluke, she does think they are play things as she used to live with orphan ones.

Our telly just blew up, only had it since Christmas 

Glad you are feeling positive LO :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Not bored as such she was getting distracted by Australian soaps  and after realising I needed to work around distractions too, I didnt quite mean that  but good point I do ask for a bit too much, of everything I think
> 
> Well thank you for asking, he came back feeling even more positive, she was pleased that he has managed to relax so the not working thing seems to be having an effect just need to get him lookign for work nice and gently
> 
> You not want a Ginger Ninja
> 
> I want a hugo and an evie and a scruff and oh ok all of them too
> 
> We just had another long line run around the heathy bit she didn't recall from sheep today, oh well I figured it was a fluke, she does think they are play things as she used to live with orphan ones.
> 
> Our telly just blew up, only had it since Christmas
> 
> Glad you are feeling positive LO :thumbup1:


Excuse me......don't chop out the bit about maybe wanting them all :001_tt2::nono:.

Crap about your telly. Bad news . Hope it's still under guarantee?


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Excuse me......don't chop out the bit about maybe wanting them all :001_tt2::nono:.
> 
> Crap about your telly. Bad news . Hope it's still under guarantee?


Tee Hee, sorry couldn't resist  dont blame you though .

It is crap about the telly , it was from argos so I am hopeful, I cant remember the ins and outs but I had a similar problem with a pc monitor that went caput 1 yr and 1 mth after I bought it and even though it was out of guarantee it wasnt 'fit for purpose' as you would reasonably expect it to last longer, I got a bigger one as a replacement and £10 cash back as the new one was cheaper .

Hubby has found the instruction booklet which says it has a year guarantee any way just don't know where the receipt is but I think they have to sort it out and the easiest way is for them to change it fingers crossed, just the sort of job I love , hubby doesn't do phone calls.


----------



## Sarah1983

GingerRogers said:


> Our telly just blew up, only had it since Christmas


Bit of a drastic measure to stop her reacting to it isn't it? If you've only had it 3 months is it still under guarantee?


----------



## GingerRogers

Sarah1983 said:


> Bit of a drastic measure to stop her reacting to it isn't it? If you've only had it 3 months is it still under guarantee?


Lol, good point, perhaps she stared at it too long :biggrin:


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, good point, perhaps she stared at it too long :biggrin:


Gave it the ninja stare :lol:

Glad its' under guarantee


----------



## kat&molly

Me thinks the Ninja no like Australian soaps- so she's 'fixed' the problem.

Scruff has apparently been an 'angel' today - no barking at all, friendly to the other chaps and.... didn't even try to take chase with a Phezzie in the fields.

I managed to get Evie's 2 front feet on the box today, I know I've flattened it but it still feels like progress. I think.


Well done Izzy Monkey, its lovely when they surprise us and hopefully that's a nice positive experience for her to remember.

LO- I've seen my cat flick things on the floor for my girls.

Dogless- are you not fed up of the snow now.


----------



## Beth17

LO sounds as if you and Zand did brilliantly today :thumbup1:

IM bless Izzy for cheering the girl up, even for a minute.

Werehorse I had to laugh at Hugo 

Ginge that's rubbish about the telly. 3 months isn't long at all :frown2:

I am slowly typing this with one hand as Sam has designated me hoof-holder.
We had a good evening and had a session of learning hand touches. Sam picked it up very fast after he stopped trying to give paw. It took Oscar a bit longer to grasp what I wanted but started to get it at the end.

The book is good so far, nice and easy to understand. If we do well with it I may get control unleashed anyway.


----------



## sharloid

I'm going to go and bake something too. I got a big bag of bananas reduced to 15p.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Whilst I remember - I had a look through my notes/course literature on the canine sports massage course I attended last November and unfortunately there isn't anything on the actual technique of massaging which would be relevant to send to you. There is a diagram on the stretching but not the massage. Sorry.


Oh thanks for looking - my collinder brain had forgotten!  Can you send me the stretching diagram anyway?? Sounds interesting and I sometimes wonder if Oscar gets grumpy when his muscles are sore from all his bonkers running around and whether getting him to stretch out would help him feel better... I'll PM my email address now, right this second, before I get distracted and forget!


----------



## Skandi

Since moving Jess has gotten very whiney and doesn't settle to sleep 20hours a day like she used to.. so started her on more training, (pug shut out of the room) I'm trying for playdead, when I tought her rollover she was small enough for me to roll over easily, can't push her about so easily now so it's very slow going, and haf the time she does just roll right over.. ARGHS! 
*beg* and *spin* took her all of 8 or 9 attempts, this one is going to be harder I think.


----------



## moonviolet

Bliddy hell was like Picadilly Circus out there tonight, not really no huge illuminated advertising signs and no Eros statue which isn't really Eros.

however it was unusually busy, Her ladyship was very good, but i feel like exhausted, runners, joggers, people walking with particular unusual gait, being followed by a wheelie suitcase ( there was a person dragging it it wasn't possessed or anything), unavoidable dogs. garden barkers. More traffic than i've ever seen of an evening.


----------



## moonviolet

Skandi said:


> Since moving Jess has gotten very whiney and doesn't settle to sleep 20hours a day like she used to.. so started her on more training, (pug shut out of the room) I'm trying for playdead, when I tought her rollover she was small enough for me to roll over easily, can't push her about so easily now so it's very slow going, and haf the time she does just roll right over.. ARGHS!
> *beg* and *spin* took her all of 8 or 9 attempts, this one is going to be harder I think.


 i guess she doesn't understand what you want and thinks you'll push her if she doesn't roll.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Bliddy hell was like Picadilly Circus out there tonight, not really no huge illuminated advertising signs and no Eros statue which isn't really Eros.
> 
> however it was unusually busy, Her ladyship was very good, but i feel like exhausted, runners, joggers, people walking with particular unusual gait, being followed by a wheelie suitcase ( there was a person dragging it it wasn't possessed or anything), unavoidable dogs. garden barkers. More traffic than i've ever seen of an evening.


The image of a rogue wheelie suitcase running amok has just made me smile . Well done to Miss Tinks :thumbup1:.


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## GingerRogers

I forgot to say how lovely of Izzy to make the girl smile  but rampant wheelie suitcases are funny too :biggrin:

Just come back to puter to look for roasted cod recipes


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Oh thanks for looking - my collinder brain had forgotten!  Can you send me the stretching diagram anyway?? Sounds interesting and I sometimes wonder if Oscar gets grumpy when his muscles are sore from all his bonkers running around and whether getting him to stretch out would help him feel better... I'll PM my email address now, right this second, before I get distracted and forget!


OK I'll fish it out again and send it tomorrow.


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## Kicksforkills

Good luck Dexter and Josh tomorrow getting your microchips!


----------



## MollySmith

Ooooh I need stretching diagrams and stuff - for me, not Molly! I've done something well nasty to my back, no idea what. I've got the early stages of osteoarthritis thanks to years of IVF treatment and bits seem to twang in a bad way. I walked down the stairs and it hurt so I've been laid low today.

I am meant to be going to London tomorrow for a training course booked and paid for as part of my redundancy so I really have to try to get there. I have hot water bottle and nurofen.

LO I am pleased you and Zand had a good day

Werehorse and Izzys Mum - the world is a nicer place for Hugo and Izzy, they are lovely dogs 

Ginger, I am appalled at the telly. I had a Mac to that to me, I carted it down to the sales room and dumped it on the counter whilst the sales man was in mid sell  I hope you get one that is ninja proof!

Beth, I hope you get your hand back! It's my mum's favourite thing that Molly does, paw giving. When she comes around I just give her the clicker and some treats and they're content for ages. 

Poor Molly had a short walk today, half a circuit of the downs as the OH was late, I had a last minute conference call for a job and our day went tits up really. And gosh you can tell the difference. She was really lively this evening. I did some drop it stuff sitting on the sofa and gave her two kongs and then she had big zommies outside. At least she does do them outside now and not in the house but she gets way over hyped - barking and growling at us, although it's with a playbow but it can seem a bit violent :frown2:, I know dogs do get zoomies but Molly seems to be hyper. I tend to use the training discs to get her to think a second, or take a squeaky ball or some treats in my pocket but OH forgot and she cornered him. She can be a bit nippy when she does this so I had to rescue him. To her credit she calmed down quicker than she did last summer. I think I am going to film her next time and see what you all think, I could be overreacting and the dogs I've grown up with were just not like that or I've forgotten that they were.


----------



## BessieDog

Ok. I've REALLY got a changeling! Ringcraft tonight went really well only one hiccup when she wouldn't stand for a moment but a treat sorted that. Must have worn her out on the walk today as instead of hi jinks and running on two legs I was moving faster thank she was! 

Pezance was there and was amazed at how good Bess was. :thumbup1: (Bess and Henry had a lovely bit of setter boxing though!). 

Not counting my chickens too soon - we've a breed show on Saturday. But I think my plans coming together. Everyone gives me advice which I've been following as I'm new to showing. But now I've just said sod this. I'm new to showing, but not to my dog! So instead of being firm with her (which stresses her out) or ignoring her (which stresses her out) I'm being gentle with her and treating her - even when she misbehaves. This can stop a tantrum before it develops. Ok, so her sitting on my knee might not go down well at crufts, but it might help get us there. 

But perhaps she's just growing up


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## GingerRogers

Be good tomorrow dexter and josh. Luck won't come into it i am afraid.
Mollysmith i like your style and depending how the phone calls go i may have to try that tactic.
Bessie well done. You know you have to do what your girl.likes. Sod the rest of them you know her bessiest


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## Kicksforkills

Turns out the breeder is going on her own, so only Dexter will be microchipped.


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> Ok. I've REALLY got a changeling! Ringcraft tonight went really well only one hiccup when she wouldn't stand for a moment but a treat sorted that. Must have worn her out on the walk today as instead of hi jinks and running on two legs I was moving faster thank she was!
> 
> Pezance was there and was amazed at how good Bess was. :thumbup1: (Bess and Henry had a lovely bit of setter boxing though!).
> 
> Not counting my chickens too soon - we've a breed show on Saturday. But I think my plans coming together. Everyone gives me advice which I've been following as I'm new to showing. But now I've just said sod this. I'm new to showing, but not to my dog! So instead of being firm with her (which stresses her out) or ignoring her (which stresses her out) I'm being gentle with her and treating her - even when she misbehaves. This can stop a tantrum before it develops. Ok, so her sitting on my knee might not go down well at crufts, but it might help get us there.
> 
> But perhaps she's just growing up


The 3 obedience shows in the Midlands scheduled to start tomorrow have been cancelled as the venue was still under a lot of snow on Monday, when the committees made the decision.

Whilst I feel extremely sorry for them after so much preparation and hard work, from a personal point of view the thought of standing in an exposed field for about 7 hours judging on Sunday, in these temperatures and a biting wind, wasn't exactly going to be enjoyable..!!


----------



## Maria_1986

I'm feeling like the worse dog owner in the world today. We met the pet sitter/doggy day care lady today and her resident dogs. Chevy went in the garden to meet them and then they played in the garden for a bit, she was so happy, her eyes lit up when she realised she was allowed to play with them and they had great fun. I feel so awful that she rarely gets to play with other dogs and she was just so relaxed and happy today. I really wish I had taken my camera as I would have loved to have gotten photo's. Being an idiot I stood on the patio and tried hard not to cry because there is something that she loves doing that I keep her from, she so obviously loves the company of other dogs but I don't have the time, money or space for a second dog for her to have a friend.


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## GingerRogers

Bit quiet this morning aren't you!!

Got up early to go to the RSPB reserve again this morning, had a little bit of twitching then took the munchkin for a ramble while hubby went and joined some more nerdy birders in another hide 

Was going to use it as a chance to do a bit of LLW on the road bit but we had a face off with a muntjac :yikes: it was only about 6 ' away and just stared at us for about 30 secs, luckily the strange one didn't spot it until it turned and mooched off, but she saw it then and then spotted it running away across the heath so decided that any kind of sensible training was out the window 

However although she was right on her toes for the rest of the walk we did see two couples, one walking towards us the other standing with binoculars and although she pulled towards them on the approach there was no lunging or barking or growling or posturing at all as we passed :thumbup:

Then just before we left the heath and got back to the car I turned around and saw a horse trotting along the ridge line behind us, (looked amazing, would be a stunning place for a ride, was a lovely bright crisp morning, a great big hunter with what looked like a very competent rider floating along with one of those racing rugs in yellow and red and stripes ) the ginger ninja also saw it, it was a long way away but nothing 

ETA Maria, don't be a silly billy, of course dogs like to play with other dogs (well friendly ones do) that doesn't mean you are a bad owner because you don't have another dog at home as a playmate. You haven't had her long and I am sure you will find some doggy friends for her in time. And because you haven't had her long you are still finding her little character out, now you know she is a friendly dog then perhaps you can be less cautious when greeting dogs on walks . I am not belittling your feelings I feel the same to some degree, the ninja loves to have a play about but she just isn't polite enough for most dogs or owners and with her reactivity she doesn't get the chance most of the time but there are a couple of dogs which we can mix with. I love not working but people keep keeping me from that!


----------



## Denise90

Currently working on quite a lot with Luna, being that she is only 3 months old.
She's pretty much housetrained with me but when my OH comes home from work it all goes out the window so perhaps I need to work on him too 

Tricks are simple with her, she can do almost 10 

The crate is another issue, she has gotten a million times better but she still whimpers the odd night and will never choose to go into it, unless it's to get a toy and run back out with it.. She seems to have separation issues but then of course she would, I'm with her all day.. have to start on that :blushing:


----------



## Sarah1983

We're in the same boat Maria, Spen loves to play with other dogs but most of the time can't and we simply can't afford a second dog at the moment. I don't think it makes either of us bad owners! Chances are over time you'll find dogs Chevy can have a play with now and then. We go to the sled dog meet up on a Sunday to let Spen have some canine interaction.

Spencer is being a pain in the ass this morning. I think 3 days of no real walks and not that much mental stimulation is taking its toll. No idea what time they're bringing Khan though so can't really go out anywhere. So training sessions in the flat it is. We have snow again and it's bloody freezing outside. I really can't wait for the warm weather now. This time last year I was out without a coat, this year I'm bundled up and still turning blue with cold :nonod:


----------



## Dimwit

Maria - don't worry, I am another worst dog owner in the world. I know how you felt when you saw Chevy playing with other dogs as I was exactly the same the first time I went to collect the dimwit from kennels and he was in their doggy play area with lots of other dogs and having a great time.
This is one of the reasons I have worked so hard on his reactiveness as I know that, apart from the initial fear, he is actually a very sociable little dog, he just didn't really know how to play with other dogs. Why not see if there is a local dog-walking group you could join or, if you go to lessons, see if anyone else would like to join you for a social walk... I know that joining my local dog walking group has made a massive difference to the dimwit and I no longer feel so guilty as he has regular interaction with other dogs


----------



## Canine K9

This mornings walk was incredibly sudden.. more than I would of liked.
Walked through a park and a Lhapso Apso comes running through the gates and bounds up to Bailey. He panics at first then starts trying to play with the other dog going into play bows and chasing. When the Apso gets a bit too OTT I give the owner my excuses and we go on our way. I fuss over him incredibly he did so well not to react and I made sure I didn`t push him too far


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## Guest

Lots of standing in a car park this morning. Lots of of going "good" when he looked at a person calmely. There was also alot of us walking away as he'd get really anxious for no apparent reason. 

And a westie walked by without the threat of being flattened! Took ALLL of Zander's might not to do it though. :L


----------



## Maria_1986

Thank you. I am so scared of her playing with little dogs as she can be quite heavy handed (well pawed) and most of the people I know with dogs have little ones. One friend does have a welsh springer and an irish setter who Chev has met but didn't really seem interested in playing with - maybe now she is more settled she will play more if she meets them again?

Dimwit thats a great idea to ask people at training if they fancied a walk as we all seem to have bigger dogs that a lot of people are not keen on letting their dogs interact with (1 GSD, 1 Rottie cross and my SBT with an Am bull and a SBT x lab due to join the group in a few weeks time) 

How did you all find dog walking groups? I know that we don't have anything like that advertised at work and I can't find much online


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## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Thank you. I am so scared of her playing with little dogs as she can be quite heavy handed (well pawed) and most of the people I know with dogs have little ones. One friend does have a welsh springer and an irish setter who Chev has met but didn't really seem interested in playing with - maybe now she is more settled she will play more if she meets them again?
> 
> Dimwit thats a great idea to ask people at training if they fancied a walk as we all seem to have bigger dogs that a lot of people are not keen on letting their dogs interact with (1 GSD, 1 Rottie cross and my SBT with an Am bull and a SBT x lab due to join the group in a few weeks time)
> 
> How did you all find dog walking groups? I know that we don't have anything like that advertised at work and I can't find much online


I would LOVE to find a dog walking group but have been unable to. Thought about starting one but things can be a bit 'different' here!! I have the opposite drama with training - the vast majority of the dogs round here are small. Kilo gets called "the big lad" by the trainer or "Come on big man....settle down" etc etc.

LO - well done to you and Donkey Boy.

GR - sounds as if your walk went very well despite the Muntjac....my nightmare .

OK morning here - very good walk with the CHs they behaved really well for me. Training was OK with Rudi. The fat labradoodle did his normal run off and tour the place jumping on everyone and doing laps. Today it started all the dogs barking and Rudi lunged and snapped at him on his second pass. He wasn't playing I'm pretty certain. No contact but owner understandably pissed off.

It was all a bit chaotic in general today. The snow's still deep (piled much higher than the car on the road in) and I'm wondering if most of the dogs have been walked less than usual or something and they have lots of pent up energy.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I would LOVE to find a dog walking group but have been unable to. Thought about starting one but things can be a bit 'different' here!! I have the opposite drama with training - the vast majority of the dogs round here are small. Kilo gets called "the big lad" by the trainer or "Come on big man....settle down" etc etc.
> 
> LO - well done to you and Donkey Boy.
> 
> GR - sounds as if your walk went very well despite the Muntjac....my nightmare .
> 
> OK morning here - very good walk with the CHs they behaved really well for me. Training was OK with Rudi. The fat labradoodle did his normal run off and tour the place jumping on everyone and doing laps. Today it started all the dogs barking and Rudi lunged and snapped at him on his second pass. He wasn't playing I'm pretty certain. *No contact but owner understandably pissed off.*
> 
> It was all a bit chaotic in general today. The snow's still deep (piled much higher than the car on the road in) and I'm wondering if most of the dogs have been walked less than usual or something and they have lots of pent up energy.


Why understandable , if it was their dog running a lap and jumping on people 

The muntjac was a bit  when I got to the hide to get hubby, the nerdy birdy old boys who had arrived went tut tut 'they'll attack you know, especially with a small dog'  I hadn't actually asked it to stare at us


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## moonviolet

Just got back from a couple of hours pavement/ woods walk. Nothing really training related to report other than she was on the whole very good with very little direction.

We bumped into her friend the oversized working cocker he's a beautiful boy with a gorgeous coat the colour of a conker but he's closer to the size of a labrador! they had a lovely run together as we walked and talked. Tink followed him into a puddle with the look of a girl who doesn't want to get her swimsuit wet.... only for him to circle round and splash her. She gave him a look of utter distain and stalked out of the puddle.

Then our route diverged, so that was nice. I love a little bit of social time, but value quiet time with my girl too.

On the pavement walk home other than a policewoman who took a bit of a shine to her, Tink was whole unimpressed and ignored her:001_tt2: 

on a quiet residential street a learner driver was attempting a 3 point turn 9 we have a test centre locally so learners very common, a tesco's home delivery van mounted the pavement just in front of us to get passed!! what a poor piece of driving from one who drives for a living :nonod:

Out for 2 hours and Tink has come home and gone flop :thumbsup:



Chevy you have nothing to feel bad about, and don't assume that because she was having fun this mornign she would liek to live with another dog full time.

Sarah hope the weather clears upi adn kahn comes soon so you dont' have to wait around. I detest waiting.

GR sounds like you had a good moring excluding the muntjac.

Dogless i'd be having a word about the touring labradoodle with the trainer. I dont' think it's fair on you or Rud( or anyone else) if their dog is regularly interfering with other dogs.


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Why understandable , if it was their dog running a lap and jumping on people
> 
> The muntjac was a bit  when I got to the hide to get hubby, the nerdy birdy old boys who had arrived went tut tut 'they'll attack you know, especially with a small dog'  I hadn't actually asked it to stare at us


Because it was aggressive I think, they said he was a 'nasty dog' . I am struggling not to over think things here and fighting a loosing battle. I had been desperately trying to maintain his focus on me but just failed.

Muntjacs are feisty buggers.....but I reckon the Ninja is feistier  .

Oooh we had a good moment this morning. We were just nearly home from our walk, went through the shop car park before our estate which was crowded with kids, people, buggies....everyone getting stuff before the mass Easter leave exodus (Bliss for me!!). A terrier that always makes a noise at us started - I hadn't seen him - and.....the boys just walked past . Kilo skipped a bit but didn't reply thank goodness as I know who would get stared and tutted at the most...and not the cute little doggie "thinking he's a big doggie " :cursing:. So far (touch wood!) I've avoided any negative reactions whilst I've had Rudi with us too thank goodness as I don't want him to learn to react as well.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> *Because it was aggressive *I think, they said he was a 'nasty dog' . I am struggling not to over think things here and fighting a loosing battle. I had been desperately trying to maintain his focus on me but just failed.
> 
> Muntjacs are feisty buggers.....but I reckon the Ninja is feistier  .
> 
> Oooh we had a good moment this morning. We were just nearly home from our walk, went through the shop car park before our estate which was crowded with kids, people, buggies....everyone getting stuff before the mass Easter leave exodus (Bliss for me!!). A terrier that always makes a noise at us started - I hadn't seen him - and.....the boys just walked past . Kilo skipped a bit but didn't reply thank goodness as I know who would get stared and tutted at the most...and not the cute little doggie "thinking he's a big doggie " :cursing:. So far (touch wood!) I've avoided any negative reactions whilst I've had Rudi with us too thank goodness as I don't want him to learn to react as well.


More a case of 'get away from me you annoying fat git' surely, Rudi hasn't shown any signs of aggression has he, and what is aggression anyway, surely its unprovoked, that doesn't sound unprovoked from a dog point of view.

Well done on the car park


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless it really isn't fair, Tink has only ever told one dog off with any real oomph and that was in class when an adolescent JRT kept on coming and pushing in front of her on her mat , as the trainer was talking. 

I asked the owners to come get him. as Tink was getting upset, lip curl. but eachtime we broke between exercises he was back again. the 3rd Just as i said " please"... Tink's lip curl turned into an air snap... well their blooming faces were a picture. It simply wasn't fair their lack of management put Tink and myself in that position and nor is it fair that the labradoodle's owner is putting you in that position. Eventually Rudi will probably be able to ignore that level of distraction but that is phD level stuff!!!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> More a case of 'get away from me you annoying fat git' surely, Rudi hasn't shown any signs of aggression has he, and what is aggression anyway, surely its unprovoked, that doesn't sound unprovoked from a dog point of view.
> 
> Well done on the car park


I hope so. No; Rudi's always been friendly and sociable with people and dogs. He often greets with a rumbling growl though which is definitely play. The only aggression he's shown has been when he flew at Kilo over the pizzle and ribs but his rapid exit into the garden seems to have stopped that (touch wood again!!).


----------



## GingerRogers

Woohoo
After much head scratching nut job groaning searching high and low, TBF head office have been very helpful trying to get confirmation from the store (we paid cash as well as it was bought with chrissy money) we found the TV receipt :001_tt2:


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Because it was aggressive I think, they said he was a 'nasty dog' . I am struggling not to over think things here and fighting a loosing battle. I had been desperately trying to maintain his focus on me but just failed.


All my dogs must have been nasty dogs then. Well, Rupert was but even Shadow, Wolf and Spen have all snapped at dogs charging around and jumping on them. Perhaps the labradoodle should be kept under control rather than being given the opportunity to behave that way and annoy other dogs and owners. If Spen behaves like an ass and gets snaps at I'm not p*ssed off at the other dog or owner. I might be pissed off at him though. Or myself for not intervening before it reached that point.


----------



## Dimwit

Maria_1986 said:


> How did you all find dog walking groups? I know that we don't have anything like that advertised at work and I can't find much online


I found out about this group from my behaviourist - It is a group that started in Cambridgeshire and they now have several round the region.
If you don't have anything local them I am sure people would be interested if you suggested starting something. The dimwit is only little but he is happy to play with any size dog - as long as he has an escape route


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> *Because it was aggressive I think, they said he was a 'nasty dog' . I am struggling not to over think things here and fighting a loosing battle. I had been desperately trying to maintain his focus on me but just failed.*
> 
> Muntjacs are feisty buggers.....but I reckon the Ninja is feistier  .
> 
> Oooh we had a good moment this morning. We were just nearly home from our walk, went through the shop car park before our estate which was crowded with kids, people, buggies....everyone getting stuff before the mass Easter leave exodus (Bliss for me!!). A terrier that always makes a noise at us started - I hadn't seen him - and.....the boys just walked past . Kilo skipped a bit but didn't reply thank goodness as I know who would get stared and tutted at the most...and not the cute little doggie "thinking he's a big doggie " :cursing:. So far (touch wood!) I've avoided any negative reactions whilst I've had Rudi with us too thank goodness as I don't want him to learn to react as well.


Don't overthink it - just tell them to piss off and focus on their own dog, you know - the one who is causing the problem? If I was in the training class and had Ely then it would be entirely possible that he would attempt to take a chunk out of the dog. And if he did I would be sending them a bill for my behaviourist visit - not paying their vets bill. As GR has said - not aggressive in the slightest, a reasonable response to a rude dog (from Rudi - not hypothetical Ely meltdown!).

Well done Kilo for not reacting.



GingerRogers said:


> Why understandable , if it was their dog running a lap and jumping on people
> 
> The muntjac was a bit  when I got to the hide to get hubby, the nerdy birdy old boys who had arrived went tut tut 'they'll attack you know, especially with a small dog'  I hadn't actually asked it to stare at us


What an odd response! 

Brilliant walk with the pointies the last two mornings, cold but glorious sunshine and all the mud is frozen :thumbup:. Gypsy is just my perfect girl. :001_wub: She's suddenly twigged that if she offers sits then she gets rewarded (I've never tried to teach her because of her leg) and now every time we stop to let Ely have a sniff and a potter she starts offering downs and sits to get me to interact with her. When I get her mat out she starts to try and sit on it before I've even managed to put it on the ground properly and her impulse control is very, very good. This morning they *both* held a down stay and focus on me as a little westie first walked past on a lead and then (when he was let off 10m away from us) when he came back and jumped all over them. My best pointies.


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## Sarah1983

Maria, I found the few people I walk with and the sled dog meets on Facebook. Have you thought about asking on here whether there's anyone in your area with suitable dogs who'd like to meet up? Quite a few people off here seem to meet up so well worth an ask.


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## Dogless

mv - sounds like a good morning, van on pavement aside! Love the thought of Miss Tinks being too precious to get her bathing suit wet .

L/C - what wonderful pointies; maybe some photos would be in order?  .


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## Maria_1986

thats a great idea, thank you Sarah. Off to start a thread now 

Thank you all for your help, I'm feeling more positive about ways to let her play with doggy friends now.


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## moonviolet

LO hope the carpark lurking works  sounds liek ti was good this morning.

GR woohoo on the found receipt 

L/C what good pointies


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## GingerRogers

Still fighting for a replacement not a repair , I cant have my little pup with out a tv over easter can I?


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Still fighting for a replacement not a repair , I cant have my little pup with out a tv over easter can I?


what on earth would she have to bark at with_out_ some Aussie soaps :lol:


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## Twiggy

*GR - *Bit quiet this morning aren't you!!

Well as it's Good Friday tomorrow, Tescos was packed this morning and took twice as long to get round..!!

*Maria* - Don't feel like a bad owner. Holly lives with three other dogs and Tremor is always up for a game with her, but she did just the same as Chevvy yesterday. I sat in a different place instructing so Holly had 'access' to two young male dogs and she certainly made the most of it.....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Why understandable , if it was their dog running a lap and jumping on people
> 
> *The muntjac was a bit  when I got to the hide to get hubby, the nerdy birdy old boys who had arrived went tut tut 'they'll attack you know, especially with a small dog'  I hadn't actually asked it to stare at us *




I'm pretty paranoid about the horrid little things, especially since one gored the side out of a friend's agility collie.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I hope so. No; Rudi's always been friendly and sociable with people and dogs. He often greets with a rumbling growl *though which is definitely play. The only aggression he's shown has been when he flew at Kilo over the pizzle and ribs but his rapid exit into the garden seems to have stopped that* (touch wood again!!).


One short sharp shock treatment usually does the trick...


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> I'm pretty paranoid about the horrid little things, especially since one gored the side out of a friend's agility collie.


 Poor thing but quite which is why I had got in the hide and said 'phew I just had a face off with a muntjac' not 'oh how sweet I just saw a dinky deer'  which was why I thought their admonishment a bit unnecessary.

When we first got Rory we lost him in a forest at dusk and you could hear the randy little buggers barking in the background, I was convinced we were going to find him with a hole gored out his side


----------



## BessieDog

Twiggy said:


> *GR - *Bit quiet this morning aren't you!!
> 
> Well as it's Good Friday tomorrow, Tescos was packed this morning and took twice as long to get round..!!
> 
> *Maria* - Don't feel like a bad owner. Holly lives with three other dogs and Tremor is always up for a game with her, but she did just the same as Chevvy yesterday. I sat in a different place instructing so Holly had 'access' to two young male dogs and she certainly made the most of it.....LOL


Is Tescos shut tomorrow the? Hope not. I'm one of the ones NOT going there today.


----------



## Twiggy

Brilliant walk with the pointies the last two mornings, cold but glorious sunshine and all the mud is frozen :thumbup:. Gypsy is just my perfect girl. :001_wub: She's suddenly twigged that if she offers sits then she gets rewarded (I've never tried to teach her because of her leg) and now every time we stop to let Ely have a sniff and a potter she starts offering downs and sits to get me to interact with her. When I get her mat out she starts to try and sit on it before I've even managed to put it on the ground properly and her impulse control is very, very good. This morning they *both* held a down stay and focus on me as a little westie first walked past on a lead and then (when he was let off 10m away from us) when he came back and jumped all over them. My best pointies.[/QUOTE]

Lovely that it is when they offer behaviour just watch it doesn't get out of hand, otherwise you'll need a coat with very large pockets for 100s of tit-bits...LOL

Twiggy in particular was a pain in the backside, although to be fair she found walks boring and would rather be 'doing', but she was always putting herself into the heel position and if I told her to go and play/sniff/do what dogs do she would then weave backwards and forwards behind my legs continuously.

Leafy currently is an expert in the art of extracting tit-bits from me by offering sit/paw/twist etc.


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> Is Tescos shut tomorrow the? Hope not. I'm one of the ones NOT going there today.


No I expect they are open tomorrow but you know what people are like at Bank Holiday time - they feel the need to stock up for six months...!!


----------



## Maria_1986

Does anyone have recommendations for good dog training/behaviour books available on kindle? Just realised its pay day today cos of the holidays


----------



## GingerRogers

I just sent hubby to go pick up our replacement telly and I didn't even have to get angry 



Twiggy said:


> Lovely that it is when they offer behaviour just watch it doesn't get out of hand, otherwise you'll need a coat with very large pockets for 100s of tit-bits...LOL
> 
> Twiggy in particular was a pain in the backside, although to be fair she found walks boring and would rather be 'doing', but she was always putting herself into the heel position and if I told her to go and play/sniff/do what dogs do she would then weave backwards and forwards behind my legs continuously.
> 
> Leafy currently is an expert in the art of extracting tit-bits from me by offering sit/paw/twist etc.


That must be another collie thing, our friends Rosie dog does a kind of backward heel, as she hasn't ever had anything like the training/employment she needs (probably why she is such a spiky old thing with such an intense stare, *even *for a collie) she doesn't know heel only pull to the end of my flexi but off lead she will bounce along very nicely in front of you but going backwards, drives her owner up the wall, so he puts ehr back on her lead  I tell you Twiggy if you had got hold of this dog who knows 



Twiggy said:


> No I expect they are open tomorrow but you know what people are like at Bank Holiday time - they feel the need to stock up for six months...!!


 Round here the two little supermarkets will be out of bread and milk by 6pm tonight, why the grockles can't stock up before they come I don't know.



Maria_1986 said:


> Does anyone have recommendations for good dog training/behaviour books available on kindle? Just realised its pay day today cos of the holidays


As recommended here 

I am enjoying Fired up and Frantic  although I am sure there is stuff of interest to anyone.

Control Unleashed is VERY interesting and you can actually get a pdf of that off tinternet free, not sure its legal but...........

For basic dog training http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Positive-Training-Lifestyle-Paperback/dp/1615640665/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364482217&sr=1-1

and I know others will come up with this as well, its a good read but I think I would get the paperback version as it pricey for a kindle http://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Pigs-Fly-Training-Impossible/dp/1929242441/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364482250&sr=1-1

I will let others come up with more


----------



## Maria_1986

Thanks GR - have ordered the two cheaper kindle ones and will sort out ordering the paperback one after easter. Gives me something good to read this weekend though


----------



## Sarah1983

2nd most of GRs suggestions, haven't read the complete idiots guide but have heard good things about it. I really liked The Dog Vinci Code too but more coz it made me think than anything. When Pigs Fly and Control Unleashed are the two I like best. The Puppy Plan CU seems to go into more detail on how to go about teaching the games and stuff in CU than the original book but both are good. 

Have to say I'm glad my brother thought to get in touch with me earlier coz I've just logged into Facebook and seen several pictures of my 3 year old nephew in a hospital bed on oxygen and hooked up to a drip. No explanation or anything so you can imagine I'd be panicking a bit if nobody had bothered letting me know what was going on. Poor little sod has pneumonia and a chest infection :crying: Really annoys me that people just put stuff like that on FB without thinking about whether they'll worry others. I know my mum was fuming because my dads incident had been put on there before she'd even had chance to let us know.

Spen is still being a royal pain in the arse. He's currently making snarly faces at hubby trying to get him to play. He looks proper nasty with it lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear Sarah , hope he is ok, I must admit its one of the things I hate most about Facebook, the inappropriate sharing of inappropriate information, I quite often see people posting stuff and think 'WTF, really!'

I take you are feeling a lot better today or at least less like death 

ETA anyone had a look at this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canine-Body-Language-Photographic-Interpreting/dp/1929242352/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=159NMFK4KODIF&coliid=I1A2TM9PP9VLNT or can recommend something similar I have Turid 'whats her names' which is good but would like something more detailed and you would hope this might be for the price!


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Sarah best wishes to your little nephew for a speedy recovery. I am so glad I dont' have a facebook account. I think it would be enough to send me to an early grave.

Send Spendog here, the beagle's still wiped out from earlier but i'd be for a game with gorgeous chops


----------



## Symone

Sarah : I hope that your nephew will have a speedy recovery.  


So, I was just really in the mood for some roast beef, no idea why, just wanted some. 
Decided to buy a nice slab of beef, put it in the oven, then had some for lunch. OH and shamaya had some too and there was plenty left!
Decided I might as well pre-make a proper roast for tonight, beef in the fridge and I put the stove on with the dish over it to use up the juices for a nice gravy. Stupid me wasn't thinking and it was a china dish. Guess what went bang! The gravy gushed all over the kitchen floor and Shamaya ran, scared.
Got OH to make sure she was all right and I set to cleaning the kitchen for I was kind of stuck in the middle of a gravy island... Hurrayyy 

Other than that we have had a great day!  Shamaya walked so nicely and I felt so pleased.. I even filmed it but stupid me had it aimed at my legs.. Will do it again later if I remember. Just to show you guys how much she has improved. 

Going to take her to the beach in a mo. She's having two longish (well long for her) walks now, and two short pavement ones for wees and poos. Definitely have seen an improvement with her pulling with two long walks. (and the odd game of fetch to use up some energy first.) However if she is really excited she pulls like mad. (I really shouldn't say "where's ***" if we're meeting someone, lol.)

Hope that everyone else is having a good, floor free of gravy, day. 

Edit : Actually it's probably playing fetch first that helps her with her pulling. She hasn't properly had two long walks a day for long.. And it has only been every other day. I guess I only just made it "official" today.. I'm getting over my head, lol.


----------



## Dogless

Best wishes for your nephew Sarah.

Symone - glad all OK after your gravy fail!

OK walk with the CHs just now, they walked beautifully, even past the stare - y collie on the other side of the road. Then passed a large group of people, said afternoon, felt over the moon at their nice walking. Carried on past a roundabout thing with hedges on to see a woman with black clothes, hat etc (police had been practising crowd control on the disused estate I think) running at me full pelt yelling "excuse me! excuse me! we were admiring your dogs, are they alright with people?". I said "They are if you don't run at us shouting" so she said sorry and slowed down but Rudi wasn't sure at all, huffing away so I remained where I was rather than getting closer. Bless the woman, she then said "Maybe it's the hat?" and took it off rapidly whilst stepping forwards - which set Kilo off with two huge warning barks and Rudi getting all excited. So we abandoned ship and the woman said sorry, she had a dog that could be nervous of strangers too but that they were beautiful.

I can just imagine the conversation when she got back to the group "Friendly then, eh?" because they must have heard the barking!!

I thing today's theme should be "Onwards and upwards" :idea: .


----------



## Twiggy

*Sarah -* Hope your little nephew recovers quickly. Poor little boy.

*GR - *Pleased you got the TV sorted. Yes that sounds like my sort of collie - I like the loony, manic type.

*Shamaya - *Snap on the roast beef. I bought a joint in Tescos this morning (well I hope it's beef...!!).


----------



## Dimwit

Well, I think the full moon must be bringing out all the nutters 
I am so glad I took chuckit ball out with me - luckily the dimwit is so ball obsessed that he doesn't notice what is going on around which was helpful when a little terrier type came charging over to him growling/snarling/barking while the owner stood, laughed and said "Oh, he does that to every dog he sees" 
Then we saw the ONLY dog I know that I actually hate - nasty and very aggressive dog, that is supposed to be on lead and muzzled at all times (as it has attacked several dogs and even bitten children) wandering off lead and unmuzzled through the children's play area. 

So, we cut our walk short and his lordship is now lying across the back of the sofa subtly (through the medium of whinge) telling me that he would like his dinner now


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Sarah -* Hope your little nephew recovers quickly. Poor little boy.
> 
> *GR - *Pleased you got the TV sorted. Yes that sounds like my sort of collie - I like the loony, manic type.
> 
> *Shamaya - *Snap on the roast beef. I bought a joint in Tescos this morning (well I hope it's beef...!!).


You neighver know Twiggy  .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> You neighver know Twiggy  .


I always wonder with Tesco's ... how low will they go.... Today they blocked the entrance to a Sainsbury's depot with a lorry advertising vacancies at their new depot and had to be moved on by police ... now that is just rude.

I really did knacker her ladyship today she's only just surfaced...hungry of course.


----------



## Twiggy

Yes mine are also waiting for their dinner but the second walk was a bit late so they'll have to hang on for a few more minutes.

Holly was a good girl in the barn again today and seems to have an aptitude for learning HTM moves and offering them.

I meant to say I was very naughty yesterday afternoon in class:
Because several were missing I sat in the row of seats where I could tie Holly to one of the rings in the wall and next to us was a male handler and his young collie. Like most men he's a bit of a control freak and the dog is there to 'work'..!! Holly loves the boys, dog or human, and I knew what she would do and sure enough she was initiating play with the collie and slopping all over the handler. He didn't like it and for the first hour kept removing her and I obligingly moved the dustbin next to his chair in an effort to stop her, knowing full well it wouldn't. I spent all afternoon chuckling to myself as for the next hour and a half Holly was his side of the dustbin playing with his dog. They had a lovely time....
I did say at the end of class "never mind next week I'll be back on my chair over the other side so Holly won't be able to pester you."


----------



## moonviolet

hmy:hmy:Naughty Grannie


----------



## kat&molly

Fingers crossed for a swift recovery for your nephew Sarah.


Seems you've all had a nice day.

A busy one for me, Scruff went to work with OH again today- off she trotted with her little packed lunch.
When they got home OH said how good she'd been , and how much she enjoys having a bit of tea with the men at break times  but it gets worse, apparently 'she's really clever because she knows exactly which cup is hers'.:lol:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Just got an email about how Dexter's microchip went...

"Just to let you know that everything went ok today, he was so trusting I felt really mean. He just cried once but there was no bleeding, everything was ok with his health check, he seems to travel quite well even on his own. Joshua sniffed his back when he got home and knew something had happened!"


----------



## Thorne

Maria -You are certainly not the worst dog owner in the world, not by miles! You've given Chevy a new start, security, love and training, and I'm sure she's a happy girl. Scooter loves playing with other dogs but I think he'd rather be an only dog, sadly he tolerates Breeze instead of enjoying her company. Good luck with finding some walking buddies.

GR -Big well dones to you and Ginge, sounds like a lovely walk this morning.

Denise -Have you tried feeding her or giving her chews/kongs in the crate? Good work with the training so far and best wishes for the crate training!

Sarah -Hope all goes well with Khan, him being around will certainly occupy Spen's mind somewhat! Wishing your poor nephew a speedy recovery.

K9 -Glad that Bailey relaxed and had a little play, all good experience for him 

LO -Keep up the good work, you and Zand will get there with the anxiety. Give him a pat from me for not squishing the Westie!

Dogless -Shame about that rude Labradoodle (is it just me that's only met rude or very nervous ones?) and nutty woman in black but pleased the boys have been good for you. Onwards and upwards indeed!

MV -You've perfected the art of tiring out a Beagle, something I'm sure many people struggle with :thumbup: Love the idea of her sulking about the puddle.

L/C -Lovely to read about your walk with the pointies today, Breeze was the same as Gypsy once she'd got the hang of sitting and it's still the first trick in her book. Brilliant that they held a down stay so beautifully too!

Twiggy -A short sharp shock as you describe put a rapid stop to B flying at S when she first arrived, a few grumbles were ok in my books but when she launched herself at him she was put outside immediately... in several inches of snow  Fortunately she's grown to adore him! Naughty you 

Symone -Hope that Shamaya wasn't too traumatised by the gravy incident! Well done both of you for her lovely walk earlier. With dear Paddy we always gave him a good fetch and tug session in the garden before a walk, he didn't pull but was more reactive or bouncy if not worn out first.

Dimwit -Nutters indeed! Glad that the chuckit ball saved the day for you.

Kat -I'd love to be able to take B to work with me  I'm guilty of giving the dregs of my tea to Scooter, Breeze only likes decaf so tends to miss out!

KFK -Good boy Dexter, I don't blame him for squeaking.

Got my Blue Cross polo shirts yesterday, was given some shifts next month and went to my first animal meeting where the residents' progress is discussed. Diverged into a BAT programme/motivation discussion, wonderful to be surrounded by such dog savvy people! My name badge is on order :thumbsup:

Disappointing walk with B, combined it with taking my sister to the orthodontist so was a brand new walk for her. Got out of the car and someone started hammering, then heard shooting (isn't it closed season now?), then a birdscarer. So she was frightened poor girl, but traveled beautifully in the car and had a non-scary toilet walk later on.

Mixed feelings about Scooter's walk too; LLW and perfect recall until we got to a farm where some very manic Springers live, just as said Springers were heading out on a walk. Called him and he ummed and ahhed about which way to go, but 2 gambolling spanners were too much for him and he trotted off to see them so off I ran to get the sod back. One spanner was frightened of him  and the other stepped in to see him off so he stalked off to wait for me. Apologised fairly frantically to the owner who wasn't remotely concerned and said his have selected hearing too. Disappointing but at least he's not the sort to retaliate to a telling off, and I know to be more vigilant there in the future.
Perfect behaviour for the rest of the walk so I forgave his blip!

Have a lovely easter weekend everyone.


----------



## Sarah1983

Thanks all. Leos temperature has come down but they're keeping him in again tonight to keep an eye on his oxygen levels. Apparently he was really upset and said "I don't want to live here forever".

It's like a cross between Wrestlemania and a porn movie here at the moment. Khan has arrived and there is much humping of heads, licking of willies and wrestling going on. Had them out front with Khan on the long line and Spen off leash to get the worst of it out of their system and they're on enforced chill out time now so they can have dinner in a bit. Last time things settled after the first 24 hours so I imagine they will this time too.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks all. Leos temperature has come down but they're keeping him in again tonight to keep an eye on his oxygen levels. Apparently he was really upset and said "I don't want to live here forever".
> 
> It's like a cross between Wrestlemania and a porn movie here at the moment. Khan has arrived and there is much humping of heads, licking of willies and wrestling going on. Had them out front with Khan on the long line and Spen off leash to get the worst of it out of their system and they're on enforced chill out time now so they can have dinner in a bit. Last time things settled after the first 24 hours so I imagine they will this time too.


Pleased to hear your young nephew is a little better and love your graphic description of Spen and Khan playing...


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Maria -You are certainly not the worst dog
> 
> *Got my Blue Cross polo shirts yesterday, was given some shifts next month and went to my first animal meeting where the residents' progress is discussed. Diverged into a BAT programme/motivation discussion, wonderful to be surrounded by such dog savvy people! My name badge is on order :thumbsup:*
> 
> Have a lovely easter weekend everyone.


All good....:thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Thorne - how lovely to hear that work's going well and your name badge is on the way .

Sarah - good news about the nephew....hope the porn wrestling has calmed down .

Training was OK, a little boring tonight but Kilo was very good for me indeed. A new bitch took a great liking to him (why not, he's a handsome devil ) and....no preoccupation, no drooling etc from the BW. What a star .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thorne - how lovely to hear that work's going well and your name badge is on the way .
> 
> Sarah - good news about the nephew....hope the porn wrestling has calmed down .
> 
> Training was OK, a little boring tonight but Kilo was very good for me indeed. A new bitch took a great liking to him (why not, he's a handsome devil ) and....no preoccupation, no drooling etc from the BW. What a star .


I expect Holly would love him. She's a terrible flirt.

Pleased Kilo was a good boy but why was training boring?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I expect Holly would love him. She's a terrible flirt.
> 
> Pleased Kilo was a good boy but why was training boring?


Lots and lots of walking in circles, doing the gate exercise, a sit stay, a down stay. We did do sending to bed which was good. Kilo was very eager as he did little excited 'squueeeaaas' when his tug toy came out a few times and was practically throwing himself into sits / downs etc for it which was nice. Nothing awful, but just not feeling it tonight at all and had to maintain my focus as a bored ridgie is a switched off one. Taken by the man that did the Rally-O taster with us so I was hoping for a bit of interest / fun but everyone was really distracted tonight I think; trainer and lots of other folk there but talking at the end of the hall- must be a show coming up I think.


----------



## Sarah1983

Porn wrestling has stopped for the time being. Both dogs have eaten and are crashed out asleep. No doubt they'll attempt to start up again when we move to go to bed.


----------



## Werehorse

Sarah - I hope your nephew continues to improve. Poor little chap.

BREAKING NEWS: Hugo was tired. For a few minutes. 









I nearly shouted at people twice today but didn't and just cried instead.  Ah, the tourists must be back in the lakes.  Actually only one of the upset-causers was a tourist. An over-weight one with a JRT on a wally-lead. He let it come right up to Hugo who was tied to the picnic table I was eating my lunch at and it then proceded to growl and snap at Hugo who had literally just sat still as it approached.  I was about to kick off when the guy saw my face (  ) and realed the JRT in.

The other thing was the cafe where I had stopped isn't dog friendly (but is in a very doggy spot) so I tied the boys in sight of the door and went in to order - leaving the door open behind me thinking that I'd just be a minute as there wasn't a queue. The cafe lady not only faffed and took forever to take my order she kept saying "can you just push the door to as the people in here will get cold" I explained that I was keeping an eye on my dogs which she just ignored and said the thing about the door again as if that might change anything and even reached over the counter to try and grab the door but couldn't reach and I'm sorry but I wasn't shutting the door. It was also boiling hot inside the cafe and there were only two lots of people in and they were at the back furthest from the door. She faffed some more and finally took my order but then before asking me to pay asked me to shut the door again - I just repeated that I was keeping an eye on my dogs - at which point a man was approaching the table I had tied them to with an elderly golden retriever and allowing them to greet, what a numpty, I didn't do anything because my boys were being polite to the Goldie and it was relaxed and fine with them (good job my boys are polite though!) - at which point the cafe lady said "they're fine, that gentleman is with them"  At which point I said "can you just take my money now so I can go back out to them?" What I should have said was "f you and the ship you sailed in on; I'll shut the door on my way out, don't bother about the food" but I was too hungry. 

It might sound like I was being a bit stubborn but honestly I was actually being really polite and she was being really stroppy and rude! Her tone was dreadful. Honest to goodness if she'd just hurried up and taken my order and my money the door would have been shut before the cafe temperature dropped even a tiny bit. 

The guy with the goldie was so oblivious that he left his dog tied up outside next to my two and just walked in and shut the damn door behind him.  Fortunately just as cafe-woman had finally taken my blimmin money.

The whole thing just really upset me - I don't leave my dogs tied up outside places, I'm insanely paranoid about it. I only just managed to persuade myself that it'd be ok to get food at the cafe because I could order right next to the door and keep and eye on them so having that kind of lifeline threatened really shook me up.   I think I would have argued back a bit better but I just couldn't trust myself not to get agressive to be honest... my protective instinct was going totally insane and I would probably have been really rude if I'd even tried to be a bit more assertive about it. I should have just left and gone hungry. 

Gosh sorry that was a massive rant and I haven't even explained the incident very well so I probably sound like I was rude and am a complete nutjob. ut:


----------



## Thorne

Dogless -Liking for Kilo's keenness, not for the boring class! I'm sure Breeze would love to flirt with the BCH, she goes all silly over big male dogs


----------



## Dogless

Thorne said:


> Dogless -Liking for Kilo's keenness, not for the boring class! I'm sure Breeze would love to flirt with the BCH, she goes all silly over big male dogs


Until a week or so ago flirting would have meant that the BW literally poured drool from his mouth, teeth chattered and maybe tried to hump. His concentration would also be shot totally. That _seems _ to have changed .

Werehorse - what a day . Wine needed I feel .


----------



## moonviolet

W/H i didn't like your post for the buckets of steaming ostrich dung you had to endure today but that pic of Hugo is just scrumptious.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse i liked cos you actually explained it so well. Sorry you met so many numpties. Tourist season is indeedy here unfortunately.


----------



## Werehorse

Thanks lovely people. I feel better having vented here (already vented to OH and my friend who I went on the 2nd walk of the day with!). Unfortunately no wine in, but am off to bed anyway. OH is off tomorrow and we are planning walking/running of epic proportions! So need to sleeps. I'm not sure we'll actually get done what we have planned but it'd be nice if we did.

Here's another picture (as a treat for being nice and listening to my ranting. ) - today wasn't all bad, not by a long way.  It's not quite a flying face lick one, sorry Ginge.










Night. x


----------



## MollySmith

A quick hello from here. I've only got in a while ago as I met my brother for dinner before I left London. No Molly news as I've barely seen her today but I got the welcome of welcomes  I love my dog so much 

Catch up tomorrow with everyones posts


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Thanks lovely people. I feel better having vented here (already vented to OH and my friend who I went on the 2nd walk of the day with!). Unfortunately no wine in, but am off to bed anyway. OH is off tomorrow and we are planning walking/running of epic proportions! So need to sleeps. I'm not sure we'll actually get done what we have planned but it'd be nice if we did.
> 
> Here's another picture (as a treat for being nice and listening to my ranting. ) - today wasn't all bad, not by a long way.  It's not quite a flying face lick one, sorry Ginge.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Night. x


Love that photo!! Hope you get your epic walk / run done - sounds very exciting and I am jealous in advance .


----------



## Beth17

What a gorgeous photo Werehorse. Shame about the numpties you met  I hope you are able to have a nice epic walk today.

Dogless BCH sounds like he really enjoyed working for the tugtoy last night. 

Pleased everyone else seemed to have a good day yesterday. Sorry about lack of individual replies but internet is playing up and going really slow :thumbdown:

Really pleased with how fast Sam has picked up hand targeting, makes me feel bad for not trying it before  Definitely going to look into getting him into a class as I think he'd love it. Oscar on the other hand hasn't quite got it yet and just keeps offering a very nice sit and paw  I don't think he's used to using his brain to work out what I want.


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely pic WH. 

Well done to Sam Beth- I've been doing 'Touch' with the girls- its great fun. Need to work on Scruff though, I've obviously clicked 'lick' with her somewhere.

Have a good day everyone its cold and persisting down here.


----------



## kat&molly

Does anyone have any ideas on stopping the lick -Scruff's like this :001_tt2: I don't say anything but it drives me mad!!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Lots and lots of walking in circles, doing the gate exercise, a sit stay, a down stay. We did do sending to bed which was good. Kilo was very eager as he did little excited 'squueeeaaas' when his tug toy came out a few times and was practically throwing himself into sits / downs etc for it which was nice. Nothing awful, but just not feeling it tonight at all and had to maintain my focus as a bored ridgie is a switched off one. Taken by the man that did the Rally-O taster with us so I was hoping for a bit of interest / fun but everyone was really distracted tonight I think; trainer and lots of other folk there but talking at the end of the hall- must be a show coming up I think.


I know it's the best class you've found over there but IMO it sounds ghastly, although a lot of clubs over here do similar ie classes are split into ability levels which I think is boring for the dogs and boring for the handlers. The argument seems to be that beginner handlers would be intimidated by the championship C dogs and handlers which to my mind is nonsense.

I've always mixed them all up and all dogs and handlers do every exercise albeit to very different degrees of accuracy. So, for instance, they do a sit stay which is not exactly exciting but it might be followed by a recall to heel with either me holding the dog's collars or the handlers throwing a tit-bit behind them and running off so it's fast, furious and *fun!!*

Walking round in every decreasing circles would kill even the most enthusiastic dog stone dead quite frankly.


----------



## Beth17

kat&molly said:


> Does anyone have any ideas on stopping the lick -Scruff's like this :001_tt2: I don't say anything but it drives me mad!!!


Probably a daft idea but would something like bitter apple spray on your hand stop it?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Does anyone have any ideas on stopping the lick -Scruff's like this :001_tt2: I don't say anything but it drives me mad!!!


Is it you she's licking, when i was a kid we had a lickety lickety dog , my Gran absolutely hated to be licked and inthe first instance would cover exposed skin ( usually just her hands) and turn her head. If thtat didn't get her to stop she'd just get up and ignore. Not sure if that's any help.


----------



## Twiggy

It's snowing...!! I haven't got one daffodil out yet - don't blame them.

I was going to thoroughly wash the rubber floor in the barn today as it's got pretty muddy this winter but it's too cold.


----------



## Guest

My dog just threw himself at a woman we know! Sniffed her crotch (he's jsut the right height ) Leant on her, jumped up and licked her chin. His tail was underneath him for a bit but she was very very gentle with him. 

I was stood there like O-O. 

Oh and he's become fearful of the field that did have sheep in. He freaked out a quarter away across so we went the very muddy and slippy way home.


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## BessieDog

Twiggy said:


> It's snowing...!! I haven't got one daffodil out yet - don't blame them.
> 
> I was going to thoroughly wash the rubber floor in the barn today as it's got pretty muddy this winter but it's too cold.


Where are you? Just interested in where the snow is. My daffs had started flowering but are now looking very sorry for themselves, and any flowers are dropping on the ground.

I'm getting back on the show carousel tomorrow - first show in 6 weeks and its a breed championship show. I wonder whether Bess will have the same reaction as at the last breed show when she couldn't believe the place was full of IS's and felt she should be allowed to play with them all.  it would be great if she just behaved.


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## Sarah1983

I don't believe it, just getting over whatever illness it was I had at the beginning of the week and now I've pulled my back :crying: I've no idea what happened, I just straightened from taking Khans leash off and felt it go. Poor Spencer got yet another hobble to the nearest molehill. I can barely bloody stand let alone walk!


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I know it's the best class you've found over there but IMO it sounds ghastly, although a lot of clubs over here do similar ie classes are split into ability levels which I think is boring for the dogs and boring for the handlers. The argument seems to be that beginner handlers would be intimidated by the championship C dogs and handlers which to my mind is nonsense.
> 
> I've always mixed them all up and all dogs and handlers do every exercise albeit to very different degrees of accuracy. So, for instance, they do a sit stay which is not exactly exciting but it might be followed by a recall to heel with either me holding the dog's collars or the handlers throwing a tit-bit behind them and running off so it's fast, furious and *fun!!*
> 
> Walking round in every decreasing circles would kill even the most enthusiastic dog stone dead quite frankly.


Thing is it CAN be fun....sometimes only me and two much more advanced dogs and handlers than me turn up and we do some brilliant stuff - exactly what you said sit / wait then recall to heel, lots of the impulse control stuff, sending to bed etc etc. Depending upon the dogs and handlers there it can be fabulous or quite boring - and ridgies are a little notorious for not being good at repetition. Last night however there were some very loud and frenetic recalls and not a peep again out of Kilo. Never thought we'd achieve that .

I yearn for classes like mv's or Rally-O or somewhere that does agility for fun.....



Sarah1983 said:


> I don't believe it, just getting over whatever illness it was I had at the beginning of the week and now I've pulled my back :crying: I've no idea what happened, I just straightened from taking Khans leash off and felt it go. Poor Spencer got yet another hobble to the nearest molehill. I can barely bloody stand let alone walk!


Oh no . You're a disaster zone at present .

Beth - Sam's a bright boy .

k&m - not tried them but do you have those anti - lick strips there? Or maybe Vicks on your hand or something to break the habit?

We have had a very busy and very good morning at Concrete Central. Took Rudi to the park for some socialisation. It was a fail in that respect as we only saw one runner and someone walking in the distance in the first 45 minutes. On our way back to the car I saw some people with friendly dogs offlead who always come to greet Kilo onlead (he doesn't mind them - they are polite, greet, move on). I let Rudi off as I knew they'd come over anyway and he had a nice polite meeting, some fusses from the owners and then moved on with me when told, very good boy . He asked the elderly black dog to play, the black dog just turned and wandered off and he didn't push his luck which was good. We had a lovely walk together even if we didn't see what I had wanted to .

Came home for a coffee break and the boys wrestled and had zoomies around the garden and then took the BW out. He was relaxed and happy. We went to the small field, spent 15 minutes doing impulse control stuff, then had a meander round the streets where the only rules were loose lead / no eating rubbish / not bothering anyone. Then we spent 5 minutes on a patch of grass doing impulse control stuff and continued our meander. On our way back we went back into the small field and did another 15 minutes' training - I had let him off to sniff about but he wanted to work for his toy so that's what we did. We were out for ages!!

As if that wasn't enough an electrician came to fix our light whilst we were out. Hubby had Rudi the other side of a pet gate, said he was totally relaxed and wagging. The workman wanted to meet him so hubby let him out and he just had a sniff and some fusses apparently and just pottered - then was put behind the gate again so he wasn't in the way. Such a different character to Kilo.

So.....if you read all that...well done. Definitely my very best boys this morning :001_wub::001_wub:.


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## Canine K9

Thinking of getting a basket style muzzle for Bailey- He is constantly picking things up off the floor on walks and eating it  He hasn`t got a reliable drop it yet but we are working on it, so for the time being I think it may be an option.


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## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Thinking of getting a basket style muzzle for Bailey- He is constantly picking things up off the floor on walks and eating it  He hasn`t got a reliable drop it yet but we are working on it, so for the time being I think it may be an option.


I found with Kilo the master scavenger that treats on me at all times to swap for whatever he had did the trick swiftly. It also meant he picked things up on purpose to spit out pointedly for a treat but I encouraged that until he did it pretty much automatically and then faded the treats. He'll still do it with stuff he thinks will get a reaction a fair bit but I don't mind and still randomly treat it now and again. Rudi is beginning to do the same  .


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> I found with Kilo the master scavenger that treats on me at all times to swap for whatever he had did the trick swiftly. It also meant he picked things up on purpose to spit out pointedly for a treat but I encouraged that until he did it pretty much automatically and then faded the treats. He'll still do it with stuff he thinks will get a reaction a fair bit but I don't mind and still randomly treat it now and again. Rudi is beginning to do the same  .


How do you initiate a swap? Whenever I show Zand what I have he always always will turn his head away when he has something he shouldn't in his gob.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> How do you initiate a swap? Whenever I show Zand what I have he always always will turn his head away when he has something he shouldn't in his gob.


Assuming it wasn't dangerous I made it a game - said "what have you got?" in a fun way so he brought it to me, held a treat out or toy out and gave it to him when he'd dropped the item for it. If it was something like a plastic bottle I let him have it again and swapped again etc - a fun game. If it was something that he really prized and didn't want to give up I used to throw treats on the ground all around and he'd eventually want the treats so much he'd drop whatever he had to eat them and I'd have it. Any panic in my voice and he'd try and swallow whatever he had. He just started to bring things to me drop them and look at me very pointedly - even pick them up and drop them repeatedly so that I'd notice!!

Now I can ask him to drop it and I'll take it. If very valuable to him I'll ask him to drop, back off, sit and wait whilst I pick it up. Items like that I'll treat him for once I have it and provided he's not made a move to try and get it back.


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## kat&molly

Thanks for the ideas on Scruffs licking- I'm not against it at all but she is obsessive. I think some of it may be appeasement  I'll try a glove first I think.

Sarah hope you're backs a bit better soon, sympathies, mine isn't good at the minute.


Going to have a moan. Just had a Collie cross in for grooming, she only has a wash, dry and tidy up - but the poor girl REALLY hates coming, she's so stressed. The first time was pretty scary, the slightest wrong move and she would have had me. Now, she's better but not easy.
What bugs me is the owners of dogs like this. I've said countless times that it would be better if they stayed- but no, they're too busy.
I've even said bring the dog in between for a little brush, just 10 minutes- no charge but it would help.
Not one of them has ever taken me up on it- its as if its a case of 'you're the groomer- your problem'.
I'd never leave my girls anywhere if they were that upset, apart from an operation obviously . I get so annoyed.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks for the ideas on Scruffs licking- I'm not against it at all but she is obsessive. I think some of it may be appeasement  I'll try a glove first I think.
> 
> Sarah hope you're backs a bit better soon, sympathies, mine isn't good at the minute.
> 
> Going to have a moan. Just had a Collie cross in for grooming, she only has a wash, dry and tidy up - but the poor girl REALLY hates coming, she's so stressed. The first time was pretty scary, the slightest wrong move and she would have had me. Now, she's better but not easy.
> What bugs me is the owners of dogs like this. I've said countless times that it would be better if they stayed- but no, they're too busy.
> I've even said bring the dog in between for a little brush, just 10 minutes- no charge but it would help.
> Not one of them has ever taken me up on it- its as if its a case of 'you're the groomer- your problem'.
> I'd never leave my girls anywhere if they were that upset, apart from an operation obviously . I get so annoyed.


k&m - poor dog and daft owners; they have everything to gain for their dog's feelings about being handled by taking you up on your offer :cursing:.


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## Beth17

What a lovely morning Dogless :thumbsup:

K&M that poor dog. I couldn't imagine not wanting to make my dog feel happier 

Oh Sarah that's the last thing you need. I hope it sorts itself out soon.

LO I followed the same advice that Dogless gave and it worked for Sam. He still picks things up but will usually swap them now.

Ok walk this morning. Walked down to the fields nicely and was able to have a good run offlead. However Sam started to get a bit silly and ended up grabbing for his toy and took a chunk out of my finger. Cue blood pouring down my hand and me tying a poo bag around my finger to stem the bleeding.

Then when trying to leave the field he kept rolling and crawling along the grass. Much like trying to get a two year having a paddy in a shop to move  Eventually got him moving and had a fairly uneventful walk home.


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## GingerRogers

Werehorse - I LOVE THAT PICTURE Hugo is positively Zebedee like, I love it! 

Dogless - what good boys they are, I can tell just how amazed you are at how different Rudis character is to Kilo, its great to have two that compliment each other so but Kilo seems to be relaxing both from having Rudi about and the implant??

K&M - ever time you mention Scruffs lickety licking I giggle, I don't really know why  Poor collie dog, don't blame for being annoyed, you try your best and people just can't give an inch can they.

Beth - I am loving touch training too, we get her to touch different things very day now, she likes it ad will randomly nudge things just in case .

LO - well done Zander for the enthusiasm over the friend, not so well done for making you detour through the muddy bits, he is a sensitive soul isn't he!

Bess- good luck for the show (remember to relax and that its just for fun )

Sarah -  oh dear not good, how long have you got Khan for or was it just a night? Hope you feel better soon.

Ginge has been a bit 'phlugh' on and off the last few days, we have just put it down to her season but last night we were starting to get a bit worried as she slept all day long and could barely move off the chair, I didn't even get a wag when I came down from work , then she didn't want tea which luckily was going to be a bit of cod left over from hubbys tea the night before so I lightly cooked it (I didn't realise microwaves didn't like fish, they pop a lot) and we gave her that and potato. She did the head turn 'nah, not eating it' for a few minutes then wolfed it down as soon as I walked away 

However its safe to say she is feeling great today :001_tt2:

My rant time - We got up early again for another trip to the reserve (photo thread coming, stunning morning here, despite getting up at 6.30 to a snow flurry )) we took the two friends, he of the disparaging dog comments, but it was actually hubby who really p****d me off today. The friend asked if we wanted to catch up for a beer and then go round for tea Sunday, I said could Ginge come and sit in his conservatory (he has allowed this before with peoples dogs) and he was all why, nicely, just questioning it as he thought she was ok with being left, which she is, I was just explaining that I didn't want to leave her for too long if it could be helped as I didn't want to end up with a dog like Rory who developed really bad SA, I think from us leaving him for too long too often. So if she could come that would be good, I didn't see he problem I wasn't asking for a place to be set at the table, hubby suddenly pipes up with 'oh god boring' inferring you are doing dog talk again  he was being flippant and I should have ignored him but I was already thinking about getting back as Ginge had been in the car a while, well I nearly threw my binoculars at him  and stormed off with 'well I have had to have bird talk all morning' it really annoyed me and I am ashamed to say I had a little cry, I just feel like I need some appreciation/support like I am giving him :cursing: especially when he is the biggest sap, spoils her rotten and talks about her more than me, I talk dog a lot but he talks baby :cursing: Stupid as I let it ruin what had been a glorious morning.

ETA Beth - Sam sounds very cute, annoying but cute!!


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## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> Where are you? Just interested in where the snow is. My daffs had started flowering but are now looking very sorry for themselves, and any flowers are dropping on the ground.
> 
> I'm getting back on the show carousel tomorrow - first show in 6 weeks and its a breed championship show. I wonder whether Bess will have the same reaction as at the last breed show when she couldn't believe the place was full of IS's and felt she should be allowed to play with them all.  it would be great if she just behaved.


The snow here hasn't settled thank goodness. I'm Cambs/Lincs border.


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> The snow here hasn't settled thank goodness. I'm Cambs/Lincs border.


That must have been the flurry which came over her first thing, very bizarre I wasn't expecting it! For some reason I thought you were a looong way away from here, down south south or something


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> That must have been the flurry which came over her first thing, very bizarre I wasn't expecting it! For some reason I thought you were a looong way away from here, down south south or something


My sister lives right down south about 15 miles from Eastbourne.

Sorry you had a gutty time with helpful husband. Mine usually does similar where dogs/non-doggy friends are concerned. It's almost like they're embarrassed to stick up for a mere dog.


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## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> What a lovely morning Dogless :thumbsup:
> 
> K&M that poor dog. I couldn't imagine not wanting to make my dog feel happier
> 
> Oh Sarah that's the last thing you need. I hope it sorts itself out soon.
> 
> LO I followed the same advice that Dogless gave and it worked for Sam. He still picks things up but will usually swap them now.
> 
> Ok walk this morning. Walked down to the fields nicely and was able to have a good run offlead. However Sam started to get a bit silly and ended up grabbing for his toy and took a chunk out of my finger. Cue blood pouring down my hand and me tying a poo bag around my finger to stem the bleeding.
> 
> Then when trying to leave the field he kept rolling and crawling along the grass. Much like trying to get a two year having a paddy in a shop to move  Eventually got him moving and had a fairly uneventful walk home.


Holly says Sam can join her club for dogs that take chunks out of their handlers....


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## kat&molly

Ginge- Men . If we get invitied anywhere and it'll be too long my OH knows now - he just says 'Oh she wont leave the dogs that long so we cant come.'

If you think Scruff's licking is funny I can send you her tongue.:001_tt2: :001_tt2: :001_tt2: :smilewinkgrin:


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Thanks for the ideas on Scruffs licking- I'm not against it at all but she is obsessive. I think some of it may be appeasement  I'll try a glove first I think.
> 
> Sarah hope you're backs a bit better soon, sympathies, mine isn't good at the minute.
> 
> Going to have a moan. Just had a Collie cross in for grooming, she only has a wash, dry and tidy up - but the poor girl REALLY hates coming, she's so stressed. The first time was pretty scary, the slightest wrong move and she would have had me. Now, she's better but not easy.
> What bugs me is the owners of dogs like this. I've said countless times that it would be better if they stayed- but no, they're too busy.
> I've even said bring the dog in between for a little brush, just 10 minutes- no charge but it would help.
> Not one of them has ever taken me up on it- its as if its a case of 'you're the groomer- your problem'.
> I'd never leave my girls anywhere if they were that upset, apart from an operation obviously . I get so annoyed.


Many collie bitches get stressed at the best of times. Poor girl. There's nothing queerer than folk - as they say...


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I don't believe it, just getting over whatever illness it was I had at the beginning of the week and now I've pulled my back :crying: I've no idea what happened, I just straightened from taking Khans leash off and felt it go. Poor Spencer got yet another hobble to the nearest molehill. I can barely bloody stand let alone walk!


Oh no Sarah that all you need. Try and be careful with two big dogs to deal with at the moment.


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## moonviolet

GR I think it's a testicle thing. They behave differently when other testicles are present, possibly testosterone has a cumulative effect?:lol:  Hope he redeems himself soon. Mine has been a pain today, in the midst of a discussion i described him is being like a rubbish truck making an awful racket and leaving a mess behind him, I did say he smelt a bit better than one though.  peace has been declared now.


Sarah hope your back is feeling better soon , you have having quite a time of it


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## Sarah1983

Ginge, perhaps you should invest in a shock collar for your OH, I think they may be impossible to train by any other means. And we have Khan until some time next Saturday. It's gonna be a fun 10 days with a bad back! As for the touch training, Spencer takes it to a new level. He'll touch something with his nose, if that doesn't work he'll put one side of his face against it. If that doesn't work he tries the other side. Nope? How about a chin target? He cracks me up with it. Unfortunately he has a thing about my boobs and they're subjected to all sorts of targeting behaviour ut:

Beth, I laughed at Sams rolling and crawling in the grass. Sorry about your finger though.

LO, I did/do much the same as Dogless with Spen and his picking things up. It's made his stealing slightly worse but at least now he just brings it to me so there's no chasing around to get anything off him. It's not ideal but we can live with it 

Bessiedog, hope your show goes well.

K&M, poor collie 

Going to try to make lemonade scones later. The naafi was selling cream that goes out of date tomorrow so gotta do it today lol. We've had lots of porn wrestling here today. 6am this morning both dogs were up and as Khan has apparently been having accidents in his home lately (he's not a youngster and it seems his bladder control isn't what it was) I figured I'd get up and take them both for a pee. They sent the water bowl flying as I was getting ready :nonod:

Khan is constantly trying to lick at Spens willy and Spen's getting annoyed with it. He's also not as into playing as he was last time. He'll play for a bit but then tries to lie down and chill out and Khan won't let him, either licking at him or humping him. So we're having to enforce it a bit. Spen just looks at us as if to say "oh for gods sake, here we go again, will you get him off me?". If we left it he'd tell him to sod off but I'd rather it not get to that point.


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## Twiggy

Right I'm going to be a big brave girl and go outside and set up some sendaways for Tremor. I think the last one she did was back in October because of the awful weather. It's freezing cold with a nasty biting easterly wind but the sun is shining so what the hell....


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Sorry you had a gutty time with helpful husband. Mine usually does similar where dogs/non-doggy friends are concerned. It's almost like they're embarrassed to stick up for a mere dog.


 I think you might be right, I mean seriously if he could marry her I reckon he would, he adores her, its ironic as this friend now seems to have learnt not to wind me up  I didn't get very annoyed and refuse to speak to him one night, honest, so tiny brain took over for him!!!!!!!!



kat&molly said:


> Ginge- Men . If we get invitied anywhere and it'll be too long my OH knows now - he just says 'Oh she wont leave the dogs that long so we cant come.'
> 
> If you think Scruff's licking is funny I can send you her tongue.:001_tt2: :001_tt2: :001_tt2: :smilewinkgrin:


I was amazed as normally tiny brain refuses to go anywhere thats not the pub so I don't haev to make excuses but he had already said 'yes please' 

You be careful , stapling Evie  and threatening to cut out Scruffs tongue  we will have to come en masse and rescue them :smilewinkgrin:



moonviolet said:


> GR I think it's a testicle thing. They behave differently when other testicles are present, possibly testosterone has a cumulative effect?:lol:  Hope he redeems himself soon. Mine has been a pain today, in the midst of a discussion i described him is being like a rubbish truck making an awful racket and leaving a mess behind him, I did say he smelt a bit better than one though.  peace has been declared now.


Lol, you are possibly right, testosterone party  he hasn't managed it yet, he made lunch but I asked him to while I escaped in the shower, hence why I am cocooned in my office venting at you lot, a little apology would be nice, even if I did over react, he caused it 

I love your descriptions of your 'discussions' with your OH 



Sarah1983 said:


> Ginge, perhaps you should invest in a shock collar for your OH, I think they may be impossible to train by any other means. And we have Khan until some time next Saturday. It's gonna be a fun 10 days with a bad back! As for the touch training, Spencer takes it to a new level. He'll touch something with his nose, if that doesn't work he'll put one side of his face against it. If that doesn't work he tries the other side. Nope? How about a chin target? He cracks me up with it. Unfortunately he has a thing about my boobs and they're subjected to all sorts of targeting behaviour ut:


Shock collars are they ok to mention in human form  where do I get one, I would love it, save the binoculars from being lobbed wouldn't it 

Spen is brilliant, the mental images of him targeting your boobs  they should probably be resigned to the dark part of this thread even though it tickles me!!

Actually :idea: could I train Ginge to target the testicles of tiny brain :001_tt2:


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## Sarah1983

I'm sure Spen thinks they're supposed to squeak Ginge. He prods them with his nose like he does his squeaky toys then stares at them lol.


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## kat&molly

I quite liked MV's idea the other day of castration- but I'm still milking the 'oh I thought your birthday was in May one' so I'm saving that for the future.

The targeting sounds fun though.


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## Maria_1986

W/H - hope you have a great walk today

Beth - Well done to Sam for the hand targeting, I am working on touch with Chevy at the moment, its nice to have something we can do in the evenings in the ad breaks! Hope your finger is ok.

Sarah - hope your back is feeling better soon

Dogless - sounds like your boys have been little angels today

Canine K9 - I have been having the same thought today about a muzzle as Chevy spent most of our walk today eating poo and our leave is still a work in progress.

GR - sorry your hubby was being an idiot today - seems to be a bit of an epidemic at the moment.

The sun is trying hard to be out here so I thought it would be a nice day for a longer dog walk and as OH is off work today I thought it would be nice for us to do it together, after a bit of moaning as its was cold/early blah blah blah I told him we could walk via the pub and I would buy him a pint - suddenly it was no longer too cold or early or any of the other excuses he had found not to come  Turns out that actually he enjoyed the walk and admitted that I had found a nice longer walk that we should do again (nothing to do with the lunch and beer that we broke the walk up with I'm sure!)

We saw a lady with a dog (whippet x fox hound) that I have seen before a few times and they always want to play with each other but until today I had not let Chevy play. We walked together for a bit then talked about letting them off to play. They were both so happy and had a great time, it was quite amusing watching my little sausage trying to keep up with a 2 yr old - they both are quite noisey in play and the other dogs owner and I were talking about how nice it was for both dogs to have a friend to play with as many people don't want let their dogs get to know hers as she is noisey in play and they think she is aggressive. She tends to go out a little earlier than I do normally so I am planning on moving our walk time in the hopes of bumping into them again and asking if maybe we could meet up to walk together a few times a week so Chevy can get her play quota and I will feel less guilty. I forgot my camera so no photo's unfortunately.

We do have to work on leave though as she is turning into a bit of a poo eater - both horse (which I'm ok with if she has to) and other dogs. She is being fed a complete food so I don't think she should be missing anything from her diet but I will be talking to the vet at work tomorrow to see if I should be more worried about it.


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## BessieDog

kat&molly said:


> Thanks for the ideas on Scruffs licking- I'm not against it at all but she is obsessive. I think some of it may be appeasement  I'll try a glove first I think.
> 
> Sarah hope you're backs a bit better soon, sympathies, mine isn't good at the minute.
> 
> Going to have a moan. Just had a Collie cross in for grooming, she only has a wash, dry and tidy up - but the poor girl REALLY hates coming, she's so stressed. The first time was pretty scary, the slightest wrong move and she would have had me. Now, she's better but not easy.
> What bugs me is the owners of dogs like this. I've said countless times that it would be better if they stayed- but no, they're too busy.
> I've even said bring the dog in between for a little brush, just 10 minutes- no charge but it would help.
> Not one of them has ever taken me up on it- its as if its a case of 'you're the groomer- your problem'.
> I'd never leave my girls anywhere if they were that upset, apart from an operation obviously . I get so annoyed.


I find my groomer scary  but Bess loves going there. First time she went she got an IS that she owns, but who doesn't live with her to be there so Bess could have a play with him. He was a handsome 4 year old and six month Bess was quite smitten. She hasn't had him since, but lets Bess play with her Welsh sprinters. She asks me to leave Bess all morning so she gets used to it there.

It obviously works! I can't even hold Bess's paws, but she trims, clips and dreamers them and Bess still has to be dragged away.

If Bess wasn't so good I'd happily stay if it was suggested, so I can't understand your owners.


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## BessieDog

Flipping iPad! Just read the last poster again - I meant springers of course. Don't know what picture the iPads word conjures up!


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## Sarah1983

Well my lemonade scones are in the oven. Hoping they won't be a disaster.

Rupert used to be really good at the groomers. He went for a bath regularly due to a crappy coat and my parents not letting him in the bath at home lol. Didn't like the dryer the first time but once used to it he was fine. Will never forget the first time we went though, groomer say hi to him, let him have a sniff then grabbed his balls  Said if she could handle those then she could handle anywhere. Told her it was his ears he was worried about due to lots of ear infections.


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## Dogless

GR - your OH was obviously being all 'tough' and trampling all over your feelings on the process :cursing:. Why they do it is beyond me....../

mv - bin lorry .

Maria - Kilo is a poo eater. He has grown out of it having to be all poo, but still likes some now and again. Especially human when we come across any in the wilderness :incazzato:. Like the fact that you're practising reward based training on your OH, very good 

Sarah - hope your scones turn out well. I bought more cream yesterday to make some more!! .


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## moonviolet

Sarah hope the scones turn out well  :blushing: 

Tink has never seen a groomer for grooming but we have a local one who is a T-Touch practitioner and we went for a session together.
BD probably better that the groomer scares you and Bessie lvoes them rather than teh other way around 

We're having a baking day today, as we are off easter visiting tomorrow.

Easter biscuits and Macaroons for gifts, is that allowed these days with Easter being the festival of chocolate?


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## Sarah1983

The scones are out of the oven and they look lovely. Just hope they're cooked on the inside lol. They're just cooling now and then we'll be trying them. I got two cartons of cream so if we like them I'll be making more  And if we don't...well cream never goes to waste here.

MV, I'd rather have easter biscuits than chocolate. I don't think I've had a macaroon but if it's cakey or biscuitey then it would be appreciated here lol. I'm not a big fan of chocolate. My downfall at easter is the hot cross buns. I may have to make some of those. If I can find the ingredients.


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## Dogless

mv - macaroons.....mmmmm; they'd be welcome here any time .


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## Sarah1983

Hubby didn't like lemonade scones. Oh well, more for me  I liked them lots. Will make him some "proper" ones later.


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## Twiggy

*Actually :idea: could I train Ginge to target the testicles of tiny brain* :001_tt2:[/QUOTE]

Stop it - I nearly fell off the chair.....:smilewinkgrin:

Mine's just come out with a gem..!!

I trained the dogs outside for about 20 minutes and my hubby (another tiny brain) who was outside busying himself doing nothing as usual, comes up to the fence as I was doing heelwork with Holly Bolly and says "Oh I didn't know you were training her. Are you going to work her?":mad2:

I felt like saying "No I've taken her into the barn virtually every afternoon right through the winter to have a sleep".

He did say he was impressed though....


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Hubby didn't like lemonade scones. Oh well, more for me  I liked them lots. Will make him some "proper" ones later.


Mine did. I only got one...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Actually :idea: could I train Ginge to target the testicles of tiny brain* :001_tt2:


Stop it - I nearly fell off the chair.....:smilewinkgrin:

Mine's just come out with a gem..!!

I trained the dogs outside for about 20 minutes and my hubby (another tiny brain) who was outside busying himself doing nothing as usual, comes up to the fence as I was doing heelwork with Holly Bolly and says "Oh I didn't know you were training her. Are you going to work her?":mad2:

I felt like saying "No I've taken her into the barn virtually every afternoon right through the winter to have a sleep".

He did say he was impressed though....[/QUOTE]

:lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## L/C

Men. 

I will read, reply and update properly later but had an epic walk today (5 hours for Gypsy and 2 and a half for Ely) and we're off to Epping forest tomorrow (15 mille walk). Off out to the theatre in half an hour so no time - but congratulations and commiserations to those appropriate.

Sarah - hope your back is better soon!


----------



## GingerRogers

[/QUOTE]

Stop it - I nearly fell off the chair.....:smilewinkgrin:

Mine's just come out with a gem..!!

I trained the dogs outside for about 20 minutes and my hubby (another tiny brain) who was outside busying himself doing nothing as usual, comes up to the fence as I was doing heelwork with Holly Bolly and says "Oh I didn't know you were training her. Are you going to work her?":mad2:

I felt like saying "No I've taken her into the barn virtually every afternoon right through the winter to have a sleep".

He did say he was impressed though....[/QUOTE]

hmy: They really are.............well I just don't know.

I have just got ridiculously excited as I realised the clocks change tomorrow night, whohoo  more daylight, be nice if its actually sunlight though


----------



## BessieDog

GingerRogers said:


> I have just got ridiculously excited as I realised the clocks change tomorrow night, whohoo  more daylight, be nice if its actually sunlight though


You've only just realised? I've been counting down the weeks since Christmas! HATE dark nights!! Love being able to have lovely light evening walks. :thumbup1:


----------



## moonviolet

Went out to teh heath for an evening walk it was loverly can't wait to be doing it at the same time an hour later :lol:

There were couple of mini schnauzers in the distance giving a springer a gobful after charging over to them, while their owners looked on with that hapless clueless look we;ve all seen, making no effort to recall or collect. Poor springer looked petrified.

Tink glanced over but was happy that we were going a different way. Saw a swadlled Staffie who's owner returned an evening as we passed on a cross road of paths. managed to contain my madness to a little down hill running with a bit of giggling. Was tempted to do the full house on the prairie rolling thing but wimped out


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Went out to teh heath for an evening walk it was loverly can't wait to be doing it at the same time an hour later :lol:
> 
> There were couple of mini schnauzers in the distance giving a springer a gobful after charging over to them, while their owners looked on with that hapless clueless look we;ve all seen, making no effort to recall or collect. Poor springer looked petrified.
> 
> Tink glanced over but was happy that we were going a different way. Saw a swadlled Staffie who's owner returned an evening as we passed on a cross road of paths. managed to contain my madness to a little down hill running with a bit of giggling. Was tempted to do the full house on the prairie rolling thing but wimped out


Well I'm glad you contained yourself. It's a long way for us all to visit you in the local asylum....


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm glad you contained yourself. It's a long way for us all to visit you in the local asylum....


Why do you think i'm practising a bit of running... they won't catch me in their butterfly nets


----------



## kat&molly

BD- Lovely to hear that Bess likes going to the groomers- a few people do stay here, sadly it never seems to be the owners of the dogs that really need them- I think theres a link there. 
I would have loved a T-Touch session MV- there is an English practitioner here but she's too far away.Twiggy the Collies do get the most stressed- except for the last 2, they pinched every one of my girls toys out the garden and filled the parlour up.

Lovely afternoon walk with the girls, famous last words but Evie is being so good.hmy: She comes and checks in with me such a lot now- not even just for treats, mostly a little fuss.hmy: T'is lovely.:blushing:


I tried a glove with Scruff...... she licked it.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer just mistook my hand for his dinner  Thankfully he realised before he bit down and took the half pigs head instead. Khan seems very unimpressed about his own meals compared to Spencers. He seemed unimpressed last time too. Added a bit of hot water to his food and that seemed to make it a bit better but he still looked at me as if to say "well that's not fair!"  He's currently lying at a respectful distance watching Spencer eat his pigs head. Spen's in his crate so no danger of any fighting.

My back is bloody killing me. I really feel for anyone with chronic back pain. Think we may be giving the sled dog meet a miss this weekend. They say things come in threes, I'm worried I may get up from the sofa and my neck snap or my arm fall off or something at this rate!

MV, glad you had a nice walk  Hope your epic walk was good L/C.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I'm glad you contained yourself. It's a long way for us all to visit you in the local asylum....


But worth it......

k&m - hope Evie's not lulling you into a false sense of security being so good hmy:.

Sarah - back pain is vile but you get used to it - hopefully you won't have to and it will go back from whence it came .

I would have updated earlier, but had a pile of sleeping ridgies on me :001_wub:. Took both boys out with Dizzy and human for ages tonight; really, really proud of their behaviour - they both listened and behaved beautifully, my very best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> BD- Lovely to hear that Bess likes going to the groomers- a few people do stay here, sadly it never seems to be the owners of the dogs that really need them- I think theres a link there.
> *I would have loved a T-Touch session MV*- there is an English practitioner here but she's too far away.Twiggy the Collies do get the most stressed- except for the last 2, they pinched every one of my girls toys out the garden and filled the parlour up.
> 
> I'm trying to remember what the therapist said when I did that massage course last November.
> 
> Basically you get the dogs to lie down on their sides on a mat or piece of Vetbed and kneel or sit beside them and starting at the head, work downwards using both hands in a crossover fashion. Firm long strokes.
> There was more to it than that obviously but that was a simple massage. I took Leafy who didn't exactly play ball because she thought she was there to do exciting things like retrieve.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - I have / had notes from the T Touch workshop I did somewhere. Say 'had' as I have a horrid feeling they were part of that awful 'mix up' whereby most of my treasured possessions ended up at the tip :cryin:. Men 'eh? I'll have a look for you tomorrow. If I don't say anything please remind me .


----------



## Guest

What was the point of me paying out for a behaviourist, the point of me giving a damn about my dogs wellbeing when the other person in my household refuses to do anything! 

AND IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO USE THAT ONE RECALL WORD WE HAVE? IS IT REALLY? 

AND STOP FEEDING HIM BLOODY PORK SCRATCHINGS AND WHEN I ASK PLEASE DON'T GIVE HIM DINNER SO I CAN GET BETTER ATTENTION FOR TRAINING, DON'T SAY "OH BUT CAN'T STARVE HIM, YOU'RE HORRID." THEN GIVE HIM A HUGE AMOUNT OF FOOD. 

Okay dokay, with that off my chest I can say the following:

Sarah, I hope your back feels better soon and I hope you're nephew's okay and I hope you don't hurt yourself with two big cheerful dogs.

KatMoll, When I used to help with grooming I think the most stressed dog I'd ever had to groom was a Collie. Not that her owner gave a damn, as long as the dog didn't come home smelling 'doggie'. Used to be perfectley fine with me but had several noisy and toothy displays at colleagues.

I wish you all lived nearer to me. (I am in the south.) 

Working in a shop when its easter is interesting. People seem to think we're shutting for a month with the amount they're buying.

Ooh and I found a person who initially wanted to stroke my dog but I managed to turn into a training situation when I explained the fears and the hands being a threat etc etc.
Don't look at him, I said. Don't look at him, talk to him or go to touch even if he sniffs you okay? Be a tree. Meditate or something. I repeated this four times. 
It was going AWESOME until he sniffed them and OH THEY COULDN'T RESIST COULD THEY? They went to stroke and Z shot backwards towards me and I coulda shoved the lead up the mans arse I really could of. 

Oh god that was a rant sorry! 

Loved your walk Ginge and loved the pics of your flying dog W/H.


----------



## Dogless

LO - I prescribe some of the horrid flavoured cider that you love. Initially one bottle, repeat as necessary until a state of wellbeing is reached. Ensure you stop before total oblivion is inevitable. 

I'm sorry that you're having dramas with Zand's training - seems that it's not just OHs that sabotage every effort .


----------



## Beth17

LO I'm in the south. Although I'm not sure that's much consolation


----------



## Sarah1983

I feel for you LO, I know how hard it is to get people to completely ignore a dog for whatever reason. Most just can't resist when it comes down to it. If I were near you I'd offer to be a stooge person. 

My dad was a pain in the ass with Rupert and training. Used all the wrong words and when he did use the right word he did it when there wasn't a hope in hell of Rupe responding  The pork scratchings were another thing he did. Rupert would sit there next to him and it would be one for dad, one for Rupe, one for dad, one for Rupe.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> LO - I prescribe some of the horrid flavoured cider that you love. Initially one bottle, repeat as necessary until a state of wellbeing is reached. Ensure you stop before total oblivion is inevitable.
> 
> I'm sorry that you're having dramas with Zand's training - seems that it's not just OHs that sabotage every effort .





Beth17 said:


> LO I'm in the south. Although I'm not sure that's much consolation


Nope its seems mothers and random people are out to get me. Oddly enough mum never gets any of the comments I do when she goes out with the dog? Is it cos I'm young you reckon?

Mind you a lady from work has two shitzu's and she's happy to let me come over and do lots of walking towards them and things on sundays.

Woo, Beth I think you're the nearest person to me on PF! You're only one county away. :lol: 
When people have their little meet ups', I kinda get a bit jell then I think about me having to hold onto zand while there are lots of dogs. :lol:

I have a wonderful early shift and the late shift tommorow. But I do get sunday off, which will be nice. (People seems to think that we SHOULD be open though. )


----------



## Twiggy

*LO - *I agree with Dogless. Right now you need enough of your lovely cider until all thoughts of dogs, relatives, behaviourist, etc. etc. are but a distant memory...


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> I feel for you LO, I know how hard it is to get people to completely ignore a dog for whatever reason. Most just can't resist when it comes down to it. If I were near you I'd offer to be a stooge person.
> 
> My dad was a pain in the ass with Rupert and training. Used all the wrong words and when he did use the right word he did it when there wasn't a hope in hell of Rupe responding  The pork scratchings were another thing he did. Rupert would sit there next to him and it would be one for dad, one for Rupe, one for dad, one for Rupe.


I'm finding a fair few stooge ladies actually. Men seem to be impossible and that is of course the gender Zand is much much worse with. 
Of course people always seem to think that THEY are gonna be that one special person that will win over my dog.

And yep. One for mum, One for Zand. 
Mind you she's getting clever with it :lol: 
"Ooh buts he's ignoring the cat!" Is the most frequent.


----------



## Guest

OOh and I recieved the behaviour report today!

22 pages!! We have alot to do, it seems. :lol:

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I'm finding a fair few stooge ladies actually. Men seem to be impossible and that is of course the gender Zand is much much worse with.
> *Of course people always seem to think that THEY are gonna be that one special person that will win over my dog. *
> 
> And yep. One for mum, One for Zand.
> Mind you she's getting clever with it :lol:
> "Ooh buts he's ignoring the cat!" Is the most frequent.


This in spades with Kilo. In bloody spades .


----------



## Thorne

Very sleepy but thought I'd share this video because it made me think of MV and kat&molly  Border Collie Zoe - new trick - YouTube

This pretty girl popped up on the BC website today, think I'm in love! Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
She sounds like a sweetheart, if only... :001_wub: Looks older than 6 bless her.

ETA thought of you when I saw this little girl, "typical collie" indeed! http://www.bluecross.org.uk/2566-112848/2/dora.html?


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

I'm working on Barney's stays, as he's just discovered that he can brake them

And he's just discovered water, this is his first time
Pond Dip - YouTube


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> I'm finding a fair few stooge ladies actually. Men seem to be impossible and that is of course the gender Zand is much much worse with.
> Of course people always seem to think that THEY are gonna be that one special person that will win over my dog.


Usually the case  I'd volunteer my hubby for a stooge male, he's pretty good at completely ignoring a dog if asked to. He managed it with Rupert who hid behind me growling the first time he met him.

Currently have Wrestlemania going on around me again. Complete with snarly faces from the pair of them and snarly noises from Khan.


----------



## MollySmith

I am sorry Ive been a really crap friend this week. Like you Sarah my back is playing up, its taken me all day to recover from the trip to London with the dullest, smuggest pregnant lady in the universe, and Ive had arguments with the Open University today. Molly escaped from the garden _again_, second time this week, so I've spent all afternoon overtired and p*ssed off in the garden with OH putting up a willow fence.

Anyway, Ive read as much as I can reasonably do so

*Sarah*, I hope you fee better very soon. I have every empathy, its miserable and youve really been through it recently.

*MV*  made me laugh, I would have been tempted to run too!

*K&M*  I do a lot of t-touch with Molly, mostly gleaned from You Tube. I am a trained (lapsed) human massage therapist so Ive vaguely applied the same principles to Molly. She loves having her ears and neck area massaged. It calms her down a lot and I can get her to snooze sometimes. So nice to hear that Elvie is being attentive.

*Dogless*  nice to hear you had a good walk.

*LO* Its so annoying when people undermind the work youve done. I put posters on our kitchen cabinets and did a demo of each lesson to the OH. I cant say it works all the time but sometimes a word sinks in. Blimey 22 pages! I could write 22 pages on Molly but Id challenge anyone else to!


----------



## Dogless

WWSD - that's a very cute video, loving the zoomies .

MS - hope your back gets better and you recover from smugness overload soon hmy:. Also hope the new fence does the trick!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- that would be lovely if your notes haven't gone to the tip. Well done to the boys for behaving with Dizzy  We may be off to see Molls family tomorrow, the girls will enjoy that , me not so much and I'll have headache tablets at the ready.

LO- Normal service has resumed with your posts. Your Mum sounds like our OH's. Scruff was sat scrounging yesterday from the table. She never ever does that-now I know what she got away with going to work with him.

Moonviolet- your butterfly net had me giggling.:smilewinkgrin:

Sarah- hope your back's better today and what a shame to have to miss the meet this week.

M Smith- hope your backs better too.

Thorne- Loved that Collie doing ring toss -I hadn't seen that one. And Dora is gorgeous, hope she finds a home soon. Have you got your name badge yet.

WWSD- I loved Barneys zoomies.

Have a nice day everyone-wain, wain,wain here again.


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy & Dogless - as you've done TTouch stuff before do you think it helps? I was thinking of finding a local workshop and going as it was mentioned to me at training class as something to help Chevy if she is stiff.

L/O - sorry your mum is undermining all the work you are doing with Zand. Where in the south are you I'm happy to be a stooge if I'm close and I'm sure I can drug the OH and get him to stand still for a while too  What horrid flavour cider do you like? I'm currently a fan of the Rekorderlig strawberry and lime one.

WWSD - good luck with Barneys stays

M/S - hope your back is feeling better soon, hope that you can have a nice relaxing weekend


----------



## Dimwit

LurcherOwner said:


> Of course people always seem to think that THEY are gonna be that one special person that will win over my dog.


I get this too and it is so annoying - particularly the people who just say "oh, I love dogs" and then bend down to stroke the dimwit 
*Sarah and MS* Hope the bad backs recover soon

*K&M* and anybody else interested, I did a canine massage day recently so I can see if I can find the notes. I went because the dimwit REALLY doesn't like being handled very much (even by me) so I though it might help him.

Well, the dimwit had a brilliant day yesterday. My parents and sister came to visit him. I made lemonade scones which were very nice, and everyone loved them (including dimwit who did his best "she-doesn't-love-me-and-she-never-feeds-me" sad eyes and managed a pretty high success rate of getting bits of scone from various family members).

We were supposed to be flyballing today but the venue has changed to an indoor place where he got mega stressed last time he went there so I decided to give it a miss and instead I think we will try a brand new walk that I've been told is very good


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Very sleepy but thought I'd share this video because it made me think of MV and kat&molly  Border Collie Zoe - new trick - YouTube
> 
> This pretty girl popped up on the BC website today, think I'm in love! Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre
> She sounds like a sweetheart, if only... :001_wub: Looks older than 6 bless her.
> 
> ETA thought of you when I saw this little girl, "typical collie" indeed! Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre


Thorne you really shouldn't show me collies in rescue, especially young collie bitches with pricked ears....!!


----------



## Twiggy

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I'm working on Barney's stays, as he's just discovered that he can brake them
> 
> And he's just discovered water, this is his first time
> Pond Dip - YouTube


Gosh hasn't he grown? Loved the video of him having a mad five minutes.


----------



## kat&molly

Sad news, I went to let the chucks out this morning and Little Jenny [send-away chicken] has died. 
I noticed yesterday her comb and wattles were too red, she'd recently come back in to lay after winter and at her age, nearly 7 years old it was just too much. You'd think nature would let an old bird 'retire' wouldn't you. I hope she goes on to get all the worms and wheel barrow rides that she loved.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Twiggy & Dogless - as you've done TTouch stuff before do you think it helps? I was thinking of finding a local workshop and going as it was mentioned to me at training class as something to help Chevy if she is stiff.
> 
> L/O - sorry your mum is undermining all the work you are doing with Zand. Where in the south are you I'm happy to be a stooge if I'm close and I'm sure I can drug the OH and get him to stand still for a while too  What horrid flavour cider do you like? I'm currently a fan of the Rekorderlig strawberry and lime one.
> 
> WWSD - good luck with Barneys stays
> 
> M/S - hope your back is feeling better soon, hope that you can have a nice relaxing weekend


Yes massage definitely helps, both with stiffness and to relax them.

Have a look on the web for Canine Sports Massage Therapists or Tellington Touch workshops in your area.

My sister did a course with Julia Robertson, Galen Therapy Centre, and she has also treated several of my sister's dogs. I think they are based in Surrey.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Sad news, I went to let the chucks out this morning and Little Jenny [send-away chicken] has died.
> I noticed yesterday her comb and wattles were too red, she'd recently come back in to lay after winter and at her age, nearly 7 years old it was just too much. You'd think nature would let an old bird 'retire' wouldn't you. I hope she goes on to get all the worms and wheel barrow rides that she loved.


Aww that's sad.


----------



## Twiggy

Tremor was lame again last night, undoubtedly after doing sendaways, so the pull or tear obviously hasn't totally healed yet. So much for my vet saying it was my imagination last week - I knew something wasn't quite right.

We got up to a slight covering of snow this morning although it's gone now. Looks as if it might start again in a minute.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Aww that's sad.


It is, she was my favourite, but she got to a good age, and hopefully had a good life.

Off out in to the rain now.


----------



## MollySmith

So sorry to hear that k&m.

Twiggy, how frustrating re the vet, poor Tremor. We've got a tiny bit of snow here, yippee for British Summertime..

Molly is meant to be going for a walk now, we've got a bit of a busy day. OH will take her on walks as I'm baking hot cross, have a call with my tutor (dreading it ) and taking my doggy out visiting this afternoon. I've also got to pick up a Manners Minder. A friend has one and I thought about getting one to train and occupy Molly with a settle, I can see a value but they are expensive I want to be sure. Friend has offered to lend me hers whilst she's away next week. I think it would be useful for next week when my god daughters visit.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> So sorry to hear that k&m.
> 
> Twiggy, how frustrating re the vet, poor Tremor. We've got a tiny bit of snow here, yippee for British Summertime..
> 
> Molly is meant to be going for a walk now, we've got a bit of a busy day. OH will take her on walks as I'm baking hot cross, have a call with my tutor (dreading it ) and taking my doggy out visiting this afternoon. I've also got to pick up a Manners Minder. A friend has one and I thought about getting one to train and occupy Molly with a settle, I can see a value but they are expensive I want to be sure. Friend has offered to lend me hers whilst she's away next week. I think it would be useful for next week when my god daughters visit.


My vet is such a know it all and arrogant git. I've probably had dogs and horses since before he was born and I know when something isn't quite right, which is why I spend a fortune on chiropractors and massage therapists.

What exactly is a Manners Minder..?


----------



## Thorne

Twiggy said:


> Thorne you really shouldn't show me collies in rescue, especially young collie bitches with pricked ears....!!


Sorry  they're a weakness of mine and my dad's too! Ideally a BC will be my next dog but we'll see. 
Hope Tremor's lameness doesn't last long.

LO -Sorry that your mum is being a pain, grit your teeth and keep up the good work!
Sarah -Sening healing vibes for your back, glad the boys are occupying themselves with wrestlemania.
MollyS -Hope today treats you better than yesterday and that your back feels better soon too.
Kat -Sorry to hear about little Jenny  Will let you know when I get my badge!
Dimwit -Enjoy the new walk, shame about flyball but better than him getting stressed out.

Had a fairly unremarkable day with the dogs yesterday, walked them down to the meadow for zoomies and both were on best behaviour. Didn't see a soul, just the way I like it! The sofa bed was out for a friend of my sister's and after she'd gone S&B decided to try it out, they definitely approve 

Snowing here now and the hounds are having their mid-morning nap.


----------



## Dogless

Maria - I really enjoyed the T Touch workshop and it has been of some use. I took Kilo when he was about 6 - 7 months old I think and found the "Groundwork" really interesting and useful for the big gangly fella!

Twiggy - hope the lameness resolves soon.

k&m - sorry about sendaway chook .

Sarah - hope your back's a bit better, mine's shot today too :cursing:.

MS - Keep on keeping on xx.

Dimwit - hope the new walk's good.

Good separate walks with the boys this morning. Basics still with Rudi and building in more impulse control stuff. We saw the only other RR here who dislikes Kilo; turns out he dislikes Rudi too! Lots of impulse control stuff for Kilo , he managed well near the end with a black lab tearing around on the sports pitch. Ate some poo though :cursing:. It was Cat City too this morning .

Poo eating aside, they have been my best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Maria - I really enjoyed the T Touch workshop and it has been of some use. I took Kilo when he was about 6 - 7 months old I think and found the "Groundwork" really interesting and useful for the big gangly fella!
> 
> *Twiggy - hope the lameness resolved soon.*
> 
> k&m - sorry about sendaway chook .
> 
> Sarah - hope your back's a bit better, mine's shot today too :cursing:.
> 
> MS - Keep on keeping on xx.
> 
> Dimwit - hope the new walk's good.
> 
> Good separate walks with the boys this morning. Basics still with Rudi and building in more impulse control stuff. We saw the only other RR here who dislikes Kilo; turns out he dislikes Rudi too! Lots of impulse control stuff for Kilo , he managed well near the end with a black lab tearing around on the sports pitch. Ate some poo though :cursing:. It was Cat City too this morning .
> 
> Poo eating aside, they have been my best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.


What's really annoying me is that I probably wouldn't have worked Tremor outside yesterday and I shouldn't have doubted my gut instincts but she saw the vet a week yesterday (who tested her cruciates and told me I had an over active imagination) and last Monday she went to my chiropractor again, who also said she was sound.

I've worked and trained horses and dogs since before either of them were born and although they are both qualified in their respected fields, and I have no qualifications whatsoever, years and years of experience tell me when something isn't right.


----------



## MollySmith

It's this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Manners-Minder-Remote-Reward-System/dp/B0010B8CHG

You can see why I'm trialling and not buying!

I think it might help target Molly better and work with me since OH is less bothered about this. I need to focus her back to quiet and self centered work and I think this might be an interesting way to do it. She loves 'find it' games and my friend had great success putting this in another room and having her dog seek it out. Plus it might liven up our training sessions and I can use it in the garden too which is where my over excited beast goes a bit bonkers sometimes. I shall see and report back.


----------



## Sarah1983

At that price I think I'll just stick with my clicker!

Back is worse this morning  Managed to get both dogs out for a pee before hubby got up but the rest is going to be up to him. I feel awful coz it's me who does all the dog stuff usually and he really doesn't enjoy it but there's not much I can do, I can barely move. He said he'll take Spencer into work with him next week if it's still as painful so at least I'll only have one dog to sort out. 

Dogless, hope your back is better soon.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> It's this
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Manners-Minder-Remote-Reward-System/dp/B0010B8CHG
> 
> You can see why I'm trialling and not buying!
> 
> I think it might help target Molly better and work with me since OH is less bothered about this. I need to focus her back to quiet and self centered work and I think this might be an interesting way to do it. She loves 'find it' games and my friend had great success putting this in another room and having her dog seek it out. Plus it might liven up our training sessions and I can use it in the garden too which is where my over excited beast goes a bit bonkers sometimes. I shall see and report back.


Well I've just watched the video that comes with this product and to be honest all the 'games' can be taught just as well/if not better without the Manners Minder IMO.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Well I've just watched the video that comes with this product and to be honest all the 'games' can be taught just as well/if not better without the Manners Minder IMO.


I was thinking that from the description. Just seems like a hugely expensive clicker to me. Or am I missing something?


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I was thinking that from the description. Just seems like a hugely expensive clicker to me. Or am I missing something?


It's a food dispenser that purports to be able to teach your dog competitive obedience, agility and HTM.....Yer right.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless and Sarah hope your backs ease up again.

Twiggy poor Tremor 

K&M sorry to hear about Jenny.

MS hope you have a good day.

Thorne sounds a lovely quiet walk yesterday. Hope the hounds enjoy their mid-morning nap 

Good separate walks in the sunshine this morning with the boys. Out for around an hour and half with each one. Oscar didn't put a foot wrong he walked nicely, greeted other dogs well and then moved on. He was really focussed and all in all a joy to walk. Only had one issue when he was having a drink and a Staffie came over with its owners calling it repeatedly. It postured a bit and then kicked off so had a slight handbags situation as Oscar defended himself but it gave up after a few seconds. Think it realised it wouldn't win against Oscar. Turns out this boy doesn't like boxers  Oscar shook it off well though and we carried on.

Then took Sam for a long trek around the woods as it was quite warm by this point. He loved it and got to greet quite a few dogs and have a bounce around on his longer lead. Couldn't risk letting him off there though. He got to have a run when we got back into the open field so was happy. Now I have two tired content dogs


----------



## Dogless

Well done to your boys Beth .

Just taken Rudi to a packed PAH; he loved all the fuss from the staff and a few customers - every child in there was hurried away or picked up though which is a shame as he loves meeting them. Possibly the fallout from the Jade Anderson case or possibly the fact that Rudi's now big and not so obviously a puppy . He behaved very well, bless him. Weighed 35.4kg.


----------



## Beth17

Poor little guy  Hopefully in a couple of weeks people will start to relax a bit again. I'm glad to see Rudi has slowed down his weight gain slightly


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Poor little guy  Hopefully in a couple of weeks people will start to relax a bit again. I'm glad to see Rudi has slowed down his weight gain slightly


It was 1/2kg / week, but back to 1kg per week - he's had a growth spurt though so that might explain the little increase ... better than the 2.5kg / week he was managing initially  .


----------



## BessieDog

Hope you've all had as good a day as I have! :thumbsup:

Went to the Irish Setter Show. There were 18 in her first class so she didn't get placed - then all the placed dogs were in her next classes so she didn't have a chance of being placed above them so no rosette. BUT she was sooooo well behaved! The best she's ever been. I was so pleased and proud of her. 

Met someone else who said their bitch calmed down tremendously after their first season too so that must be it. 

I'm so chuffed. 

It was a 150 mile drive to get there so we stopped at a services on the way back and all (including Bess) had a burger.


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog I am CHUFFED for you .


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> BessieDog I am CHUFFED for you .


Just goes to show that you shouldn't give up, doesn't it? Never thought this day would come. Even if she slips back next time I now know we can do it.


----------



## GingerRogers

Just a quick pop in, had a good day here little miss has been very vocal bless her in a play with me kind of way so not sure what she is going to think of us going out later  with out her  we had to go get a new kong today as hers is still missing so now doubt I will go downstairs and find the old one straightaway !

Sorry about sendaway chook Kat 

Bigg Well done Bess  you must be relieved!

Twiggy the trainers gave me permission to give up on mat massage as Ginge just doesn't get the relaxing part either. I have to trick her at other times 

Hope all the backs and legs get better


----------



## Sarah1983

Bessiedog, so glad your show went well and Bess behaved herself. From previous threads I've seen it seems you've been tearing your hair out about it.

Canine Wrestlemania keeps on happening here. Spencer is less interested in playing than he was last time but we still get 5-10 minutes of wrestling every so often. I was in tears laughing at them earlier, Khan discovered the safe stix and had been running around with it and mooing at it. When he'd finished Spen of course went and go the stick and tried getting Khan to play with him with it. It resulted in Khan trying to get Spen to wrestle while Spen beat Khan up with the stick. 

This whole business of having hubby take them out is driving me nuts though. I can manage to leash one dog and get him out the door with no shouting, no loss of temper and minimal stress. With hubby though it's another matter. I simply leash the dog I'm taking and go out, ignoring the other dog. Hubby can't seem to do that though, he has to keep sending one to his bed which results in Khan going to his bed and Spen going to his crate, then he calls the one he wants which results in both dogs running to him and we start all over again. Hubby and both dogs get so frustrated. Other than that he's been really good about it though so can't complain really.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- I missed that this morning, sorry Tremor is lame now. Your girls are having a run of yuck lately.

Ginge- I'm glad you had a good day. Enjoy your night out.

Dogless- What a shame Rudi never got to say hello to the little people  Great that he was a good boy though.

Bessie dog- That's FAB :thumbup1: What a good girl, she's nearly all growed up , sounds like she earned that burger.

Dimwit- I'd be glad of the notes thankyou- I bet Dogless hasn't been to the tip today to look for them.

Sarah- hope things are a bit calmer there and your back is a bit easier.

Beth- separate walks are lovely aren't they. I don't get enough in but I do prefer them.

My good news- Hal has a new home  he hasn't gone yet, transport is being sorted. A couple who always have Cockers and they've just lost one. Recently retired , no cats. Doesn't get more perfect than that does it [hopefully]. I'm so pleased for him, he drove me mad but really got under my skin that one. I wish it were closer so I could see him but you cant have it all.

2 wet muddy walks today and now 1 filthy car.

I sometimes wonder who trains who in this house.hmy: Moll can be obsessive over retrieve so sometimes I let her carry a toy but I wont throw it- she knows this, so, she will drop the toy do a bit of sniffing then comes running up to me, and waits for me to instruct her- I tell her to go Find the
toy. This happens EVERY time- its as if she's getting her own retrieves.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Bessiedog, so glad your show went well and Bess behaved herself. From previous threads I've seen it seems you've been tearing your hair out about it.
> 
> Canine Wrestlemania keeps on happening here. Spencer is less interested in playing than he was last time but we still get 5-10 minutes of wrestling every so often. I was in tears laughing at them earlier, Khan discovered the safe stix and had been running around with it and mooing at it. When he'd finished Spen of course went and go the stick and tried getting Khan to play with him with it. It resulted in Khan trying to get Spen to wrestle while Spen beat Khan up with the stick.
> 
> This whole business of having hubby take them out is driving me nuts though. I can manage to leash one dog and get him out the door with no shouting, no loss of temper and minimal stress. With hubby though it's another matter. I simply leash the dog I'm taking and go out, ignoring the other dog. *Hubby can't seem to do that though,* he has to keep sending one to his bed which results in Khan going to his bed and Spen going to his crate, then he calls the one he wants which results in both dogs running to him and we start all over again. Hubby and both dogs get so frustrated. Other than that he's been really good about it though so can't complain really.


Oh poor you Sarah. This is why my sister gets so frustrated. She's very ill and although grateful husband walks her dogs, like most men he's absolutely useless. Why, on these occasions can't they just do as they're told....


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Twiggy- I missed that this morning, sorry Tremor is lame now. Your girls are having a run of yuck lately.
> 
> Ginge- I'm glad you had a good day. Enjoy your night out.
> 
> Dogless- What a shame Rudi never got to say hello to the little people  Great that he was a good boy though.
> 
> Bessie dog- That's FAB :thumbup1: What a good girl, she's nearly all growed up , sounds like she earned that burger.
> 
> Dimwit- I'd be glad of the notes thankyou- I bet Dogless hasn't been to the tip today to look for them.
> 
> Sarah- hope things are a bit calmer there and your back is a bit easier.
> 
> Beth- separate walks are lovely aren't they. I don't get enough in but I do prefer them.
> 
> My good news- Hal has a new home  he hasn't gone yet, transport is being sorted. A couple who always have Cockers and they've just lost one. Recently retired , no cats. Doesn't get more perfect than that does it [hopefully]. I'm so pleased for him, he drove me mad but really got under my skin that one. I wish it were closer so I could see him but you cant have it all.
> 
> 2 wet muddy walks today and now 1 filthy car.
> 
> *I sometimes wonder who trains who in this house.hmy: Moll can be obsessive over retrieve so sometimes I let her carry a toy but I wont throw it- she knows this, so, she will drop the toy do a bit of sniffing then comes running up to me, and waits for me to instruct her- I tell her to go Find the*
> *toy. This happens EVERY time- its as if she's getting her own retrieves.*




Yes I wonder the same sometimes. The clever dogs are very manipulative...


----------



## L/C

Well we ended up doing 17 miles today and I think I've broken both the pointies and the OH.  All three are currently crashed out in the living room. I have pictures and will make a thread when I get them uploaded from the camera.


----------



## kat&molly

L/C said:


> Well we ended up doing 17 miles today and I think I've broken both the pointies and the OH.  All three are currently crashed out in the living room. I have pictures and will make a thread when I get them uploaded from the camera.


Woo, woo, well done- at least Gypsy will give you some peace tonight.

Sarah- that sounds quite stressful.


----------



## Sarah1983

I don't know Twiggy, I really don't. There's no stress or hassle my way so why on earth not do it? Why insist on confusing both dogs and getting everyone frustrated? Hoping I'll be up to taking them myself tomorrow but we'll see. 

K&M, Spencer sets up recalls. I often wonder who's training who too lol.


----------



## Thorne

Scooter has toothache, poor man  

He's seemed a bit low over the past week which we've been putting down to high winds (they spook him) but tonight he's been dribbling from one side of his mouth, looks like he's got a broken and ulcerated or infected tooth  feel terrible for not realising sooner! Breeze is the one with bad teeth so hers get more attention and I've been lapse with poor old Scooter. Being a typical Lab he's not shown any loss of appetite though, greedy boy. Had a good chew on a cardboard tube and a dentastix earlier without fuss.

He's a bit miserable but was ok until he ate his kibble and got poked and prodded by us, should he be seeing a vet tomorrow or can it wait until monday? Not had a dog break a tooth before. He hasn't got any facial swelling and the area around the tooth is only slightly red so we won't be dragging him out tonight. Thought we'd give him soaked breakfast tomorrow and see if he eats it without problems.

He's marked as having to wear a muzzle at the vets so I'm sure they'll be pleased about looking into the back of his mouth! 

ETA Think we'll be taking him tomorrow, not fair to make him wait until this damn 4 day weekend is over. Certain people aren't happy about the out of hours fee...


----------



## Dogless

Thorne - hope Scooter's vet visit goes OK, poor boy.

Sarah - oh dear . Not having the best day with hubby today either by a long stretch. Rudi and Kilo both set up recalls too!

k&m - clever dogs are much better trainers than any human I swear!!

Great walk with the CHs earlier - did a lead walk with the emphasis on manners. We only saw the odd bike and person which was ideal. They did a fantastic impression of very well behaved dogs. Love them :001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

Thorne said:


> Scooter has toothache, poor man
> 
> He's seemed a bit low in mood over the past week which we've been putting down to high winds and a change in mum's work days but tonight he's been dribbling from one side of his mouth, looks like he's got a broken and either ulcerated or infected tooth  feel terrible for not realising sooner! Breeze is the one with bad teeth so hers get more attention and I've been lapse with poor old Scooter Being a typical Lab he's not shown any loss of appetite though, greedy boy. Had a good chew on a cardboard tube and a dentastix earlier without fuss.
> 
> He's a bit miserable but was ok until he ate his kibble and got poked and prodded by us, should he be seeing a vet tomorrow or can it wait until monday? Not had a dog break a tooth before. He hasn't got any facial swelling and the area around the tooth is only slightly red so we won't be dragging him out tonight. Thought we'd give him soaked breakfast tomorrow and see if he eats it without problems.
> 
> He's marked as having to wear a muzzle at the vets so I'm sure they'll be pleased about looking into the back of his mouth!
> 
> ETA Think we'll be taking him tomorrow, not fair to make him wait until this damn 4 day weekend is over. Certain people aren't happy about the out of hours fee...


Oh no poor Scooter. Dental work isn't covered by insurance either and is also pretty expensive. Perhaps the emergency vet will prescribe pain killers until you see your own vet on Tuesday.


----------



## Thorne

He's settled now, must've been the kibble that made it flare up. Gave him a peanut butter kong which he cleaned out then rolled all over and threw around so he can't be feeling too grim!

Thanks for the advice Twiggy, will speak to a vet tomorrow and see what they say.

Hope everyone has had good days!


----------



## moonviolet

K&M clever Molls  Sorry to hear of hte loss of Jenny Hen a very special chicky.Sounds like Hal is about to land on his paws. 

Sarah hope your back recovers soon. Before Your Oh undoes all yoru hard work. their hearts are in the right place... shame about their heads 

Twiggy with your experience it's shame your concerns we'ren't hear  hope Tremor is sound soon.

BD great news  Sounds like you and your girl are finding your rhythm 

L/C I bet those pointies are sleeping soundly.

Sorry to everyone i've not mentioned, frankly i'm rubbish :001_tt2:

I'm knackered my brain is a little fried, family gatherings are a little busy for me. Tink had a lovely time with my Mum's dogs, OH spent the day with my Dad they get on so well, talk about bromance, they popped out to Scats to pick up something my Dad needed for his chooks, Tink ended up with a new bed and 2 new toys I can't drag the man shopping..... Should i be worried???


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy and Sarah - I think it would be good to borrow the Manners Minder and see how it works. Right now Id give anything for a extra pair of hands in my life but I dont expect miracles at any price.

Not much to say here, Molly walked through 10 dogs really well on the halti but got all her clicker training wrong thanks to my dad spoiling her but she was generally well behaved. Just a generally rather pants day. You know the sort when something small becomes huge. The oven thermostat appears to be broken. I spent the morning making hot cross buns and they and the dinner were burnt to cinder. The cupboard door fell off and the drawer broke. My husband thinks I have to decide if I should have a new kitchen or IVF. ut: Life feels rather overwhelming. Again.:cursing:

Sorry another selfish post, Ill catch when/if I get the bl**dy essay done.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry you're having a crappy time MS, hope things get better soon. I know what you mean about the little things becoming huge.

Let us know how the Manners Minder works. To me it just seems like a hugely expensive clicker that also distributes the food but perhaps I'm missing something. And at that price I wouldn't be buying one to try it either lol. If I knew someone I could borrow one off I would.

Thorne, hope Scooters feeling better soon.


----------



## MollySmith

I will, promise  It does seem terribly expensive for what it does but my friend with a hyper spaniel raves about it. But the dog is mental even our trainer said that as she has worked with them both hence my caution at ever buying one.


----------



## moonviolet

MS  Sorry you had a rotten one. Sounds like Molly did well walking through all those Dogs. I hope everything feels more manageable in the morning.

Thorne glad Scooter seems more comfortable.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Today, havin a few relatives round for dinner. Only about 5 hours though so not too bad.

Tomorrow is Dexter Day!


EDIT; we got the crate out of the garage and it wouldn't fit under the stairs, so we put it in the kitchen. It's about Lab size!


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I will, promise  It does seem terribly expensive for what it does but my friend with a hyper spaniel raves about it. But the dog is mental even our trainer said that as she has worked with them both hence my caution at ever buying one.


Really sorry you're having a crap time at the moment and things appear overwhelming.

By all means try the Manners Minder but for heavens sake don't buy one. You'd be better off getting your cooker repaired..!!

I would love a deep and meaningful conversation with the Chinese woman who invented this nice little earner...


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Really sorry you're having a crap time at the moment and things appear overwhelming.
> 
> By all means try the Manners Minder but for heavens sake don't buy one. You'd be better off getting your cooker repaired..!!
> 
> I would love a deep and meaningful conversation with the Chinese woman who invented this nice little earner...


My brother is an engineer and is here tomorrow. He is interested in seeing how it works since it only takes kibble. Molly is fine with kibble - she rarely eats from a bowl as we either scatter feed in the garden in good weather or use a buster ball in the house. I think my issue will be training brother not to dismantle it in order to find a away to reinvent it to hold cheese and hot dog sausages. I think brother might sit for a burnt bit of hot cross bun.

I'm going to try to make chocolate and custard tarts today. Husband has been investigating the cooker and thinks it's fixed so we'll see. I've been up since 5 with my OU thing - a radio play script. Once that goes I'll feel a bit better - I've been doing this degree for 6 years, I usually take a summer off but I didn't last year which means I've been continually studying since October 2011 without a break. I think on reflection, no wonder I'm feeling jaded


----------



## Dogless

MS - you sound like you need a break; even a few days xx.

Great walk with the CHs this morning up to the top fields, good play and home. Then zoomies in the garden - as much as they can zoom in there...


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> My brother is an engineer and is here tomorrow. He is interested in seeing how it works since it only takes kibble. Molly is fine with kibble - she rarely eats from a bowl as we either scatter feed in the garden in good weather or use a buster ball in the house. I think my issue will be training brother not to dismantle it in order to find a away to reinvent it to hold cheese and hot dog sausages. I think brother might sit for a burnt bit of hot cross bun.
> 
> I've got a food dispenser somewhere. My sister bought it for my girls one Christmas about 20 years ago and that (in theory) only takes kibble, although it would also take dried liver, etc. They have to push the lever with their paws to dispense the food. As with most of these contraptions, it takes longer to load than for the dogs to empty it.


----------



## Twiggy

Oh wonderful...!! I've just looked out of the window, having let the girls out to toilet, and seen Holly and her big chum come roaring from the exercise paddock then around the lawn and back. Tremor will be hopping lame now.

Little monkeys. I shall have to let them out separately for the foreseeable future.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh wonderful...!! I've just looked out of the window, having let the girls out to toilet, and seen Holly and her big chum come roaring from the exercise paddock then around the lawn and back. Tremor will be hopping lame now.
> 
> Little monkeys. I shall have to let them out separately for the foreseeable future.


Why is it that little HB is always about when there's trouble?  .


----------



## Kicksforkills

I got a chocolate bunny yesterday from a dog I walked.


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> I got a chocolate bunny yesterday from a dog I walked.


Clever dog going to the shop!


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> Clever dog going to the shop!


I was more surprised she didn't eat it


----------



## Guest

Just quickly posting. 

Took zand out for two hours this morn, met every dog in town, including offlead ones. :skep:
Then did half an hour training with walking towards my friend shi-zhu. Then we walked behind them around the car park. Then we walked parrallel. Never done that before. 

We are now both utterly knackered.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Why is it that little HB is always about when there's trouble?  .


To be fair to Holly Bolly it was probably the big bruiser, Tremor, who started it...LOL

Touching wood Tremor doesn't seem any worse, although she was firmly kept on the lead this morning for their walk.

I've just had my daughter and grandson for a light lunch and he was very impressed by little Holly's 'tricks'...

My husband excelled himself this morning and produced a whacking great big Easter Egg. So much for my non-existent diet.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Just quickly posting.
> 
> Took zand out for two hours this morn, met every dog in town, including offlead ones. :skep:
> Then did half an hour training with walking towards my friend shi-zhu. Then we walked behind them around the car park. Then we walked parrallel. Never done that before.
> 
> We are now both utterly knackered.


That's my girl (and Zand of course), you'll get there. Luv Grannie


----------



## Sarah1983

Hubby has decided to make creme eggs and has just gone to the shop for ingredients. This should be interesting.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Hubby has decided to make creme eggs and has just gone to the shop for ingredients. This should be interesting.


It should indeed....have you got life and home contents insurance? .

Mine has asked for more lemonade scones to be made .


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Hubby has decided to make creme eggs and has just gone to the shop for ingredients. This should be interesting.


OMG Sarah it that wise?

Mine creates an awful mess just making himself a sandwich.

I hope, and especially with your bad back, you won't be spending the rest of the day cleaning sticky goo off the worktops, the walls, ceiling and floor...

I'm debating whether to take the steam cleaner over to the barn this afternoon. I'm not sure whether it will melt the rubber and or adhesive. I suppose I could try a small area where it doesn't matter too much but it's a bit of a *** dragging the cleaner over there if it's all to no avail.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well the wonderful Naafi didn't have half the ingredients he needs so he's having to postpone making creme eggs. There's actually no cooking involved except for the melting of chocolate so hopefully not too much mess when he does do them.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Well the wonderful Naafi didn't have half the ingredients he needs so he's having to postpone making creme eggs. There's actually no cooking involved except for the melting of chocolate so hopefully not too much mess when he does do them.


You live to fight another day :thumbup1:.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> OMG Sarah it that wise?
> 
> *Mine creates an awful mess just making himself a sandwich.
> *
> I hope, and especially with your bad back, you won't be spending the rest of the day cleaning sticky goo off the worktops, the walls, ceiling and floor...
> 
> I'm debating whether to take the steam cleaner over to the barn this afternoon. I'm not sure whether it will melt the rubber and or adhesive. I suppose I could try a small area where it doesn't matter too much but it's a bit of a *** dragging the cleaner over there if it's all to no avail.


Don't they just? On the rare occasion hubby makes anything for himself it's a nightmare. I can get home and every possible knife, board, plate etc has been used, all piled up for Mr Nobody to wash up. It looks as if a banquet has been made...."So, what did you make yourself for lunch darling?" "Oh, just a couple of slices of toast with peanut butter" :.


----------



## GingerRogers

Well done LO :thumbup1: you have managed better than me, straight in with the training.
Good luck tomorrow Kicks, pictures please!

Ginger was very well behaved last night as friend said she could come after all, I was very proud of her  I am off out with her now but haev just finished the decorating :thumbup1:


----------



## MollySmith

My husband was giving me a lecture on the beauty of our kitchen last night when he drifts in to make a sandwich now and then. Livid I was. He does tidy up though but then there's not loads to tidy up. It's barely 4ft wide and 10ft long with two cupboards in it and barely any worksurface. I should be grateful, it's one step up from the picnic table, washing machine top and sink on bricks combo we used to have.

Molly has been very good on her walk. I skived the study and took her myself. So proud of her. I genuinely believe the halti works in a mind over matter way now. I've got a gentle leader - is that the best one? I wondered if I ought to look at the dogmatic since I think we'll be walking her for sometime like this.

So now I've got to make my two ladies on a train in a railway carriage do something interesting in my OU radio drama. I'm thinking wine may help with a solution to this problem - it's too early isn't it?

Well done LO and Zand and Ginger and the ninja


----------



## simplysardonic

I took Rogue with me to watch a friend run in an agility competition as it's a good opportunity to socialise her & get her used to that environment for when we start doing proper agility (she went to puppy agility but that was only a 7 week course).

She's been a little bit iffy with some dogs when on lead lately, especially if they have very hairy faces (maybe she finds it difficult to read them?), but today she was really pretty good, meeting & greeting politely & there were no incidences of her barking at strange men or getting over excited & jumping up. 

Offlead in the secure area she was OK, recall was a bit hit & miss, but the last recall before we went back to the car she was amazing, she trotted back to me & stood for me to put her lead back on. 

It's only the once so far but I was so pleased with her I made a super big deal about it so she knows how pleased I was 

Now we need to build up some consistency, which is hard as outside she has literally no interest in any of the treats I've so far tried (cheese, dried chicken liver, F4D, Pet Munchies chicken chips) 

Fetch has currently gone to pot, I have to get the ball myself about 50% of the time & the other 50% she brings it back but won't 'leave'


----------



## kat&molly

Hope everyones had a good day.

OH dragged me to a car boot today, I don't really like them  but I picked up a Mountain bike for 25 euros - bargain. Little re-spray and it'll look as good as new.
Took the 3 out separately to see how they were- just up the track a bit- Moll was scared of it- really strange as she's seen lots but apparently seeing me on one is different. I think a few more little sessions and she'll be ok , I hope.

Scruff loved it, no problem. She ran in front a couple of times but they know 'Beep Beep 'from getting under my feet in doors- she soon moved.

Evie was erm.... dangerous.:frown2:


----------



## Werehorse

OH is currently in the kitchen cooking roast dinner...  We are so the wrong way round in this house!

Very busy at work today, feel like a zombie now, but one of our visitors did show me how to get further than casting on with me dishcloth knitting! :lol:

The dogs have hardly moved from the sofa since Friday - got something less hilly and snowy but a bit further and faster planned for tomorrow.

Next weekend I'm leaving the boys in the care of my friend for a night and a day, while we head of darn sarth for a 40 mile walking event (prep for trailtrekker - not sure if we'll make it, I'll be very happy if we get past 30 miles!). I am going apsolutely insane with worry about leaving the boys already even though I trust my friend completely and she knows the boys and they know her... :frown2: I'm coming up with all kinds of scenarios especially as there is clearly a bitch in season being walked in the village at the moment.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Well the wonderful Naafi didn't have half the ingredients he needs so he's having to postpone making creme eggs. There's actually no cooking involved except for the melting of chocolate so hopefully not too much mess when he does do them.


Mmmm if you say so.....!!


----------



## Twiggy

*K&M* - I get the picture with Evie and it made me giggle. I used to bike Twiggy and Jessie when they were doing agility.

*Werehorse* - I'm quite sure the boys will be fine with your friend, although I know what you mean as I hate leaving mine.

Your husband cooking roast dinner - lucky you..!!


----------



## Twiggy

simplysardonic said:


> I took Rogue with me to watch a friend run in an agility competition as it's a good opportunity to socialise her & get her used to that environment for when we start doing proper agility (she went to puppy agility but that was only a 7 week course).
> 
> She's been a little bit iffy with some dogs when on lead lately, especially if they have very hairy faces (maybe she finds it difficult to read them?), but today she was really pretty good, meeting & greeting politely & there were no incidences of her barking at strange men or getting over excited & jumping up.
> 
> Offlead in the secure area she was OK, recall was a bit hit & miss, but the last recall before we went back to the car she was amazing, she trotted back to me & stood for me to put her lead back on.
> 
> It's only the once so far but I was so pleased with her I made a super big deal about it so she knows how pleased I was
> 
> Now we need to build up some consistency, which is hard as outside she has literally no interest in any of the treats I've so far tried (cheese, dried chicken liver, F4D, Pet Munchies chicken chips)
> 
> *Fetch has currently gone to pot, I have to get the ball myself about 50% of the time & the other 50% she brings it back but won't 'leave' *




How did you teach her retrieve and 'leave'..?


----------



## Canine K9

Nice walk today. We desperatly need to do more "Location training" though! Recall is hit and miss but we are going to improve that. Biting is a lot less.


----------



## Beth17

Glad you have all had good days. Pretty normal and boring here today. Had to keep away from all grass this morning when walking along pavements etc as Sam has taken the rolling habit that bit further. Every bit of grass he walks on now has to be rolled and crawled on 

They are having a time out at the moment as they got a bit silly wrestling and ended up hurting each other.

Canine K9 I'm gonna sound a bit thick but what do you mean by 'location' training?


----------



## Canine K9

Beth17 said:


> Glad you have all had good days. Pretty normal and boring here today. Had to keep away from all grass this morning when walking along pavements etc as Sam has taken the rolling habit that bit further. Every bit of grass he walks on now has to be rolled and crawled on
> 
> They are having a time out at the moment as they got a bit silly wrestling and ended up hurting each other.
> 
> Canine K9 I'm gonna sound a bit thick but what do you mean by 'location' training?


Training in all sorts of different places rather than just one place  So he gets used to obeying anywhere and with different distractions


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Glad you have all had good days. Pretty normal and boring here today. Had to keep away from all grass this morning when walking along pavements etc as Sam has taken the rolling habit that bit further. Every bit of grass he walks on now has to be rolled and crawled on
> 
> Do you know why Sam rolls? The reason I ask is that Leafy does it a lot but with her it's the food intolerance/allergy. Mercifully I haven't had skin issues with her although she does get a bit flaky skin sometimes.


----------



## kat&molly

Beth- I have the same rolling problem here- used to think it was the harness. She even does a sort of gambol, these were last week.


----------



## Beth17

Canine K9 said:


> Training in all sorts of different places rather than just one place  So he gets used to obeying anywhere and with different distractions


Of course. I was having a daft moment then


----------



## Beth17

Twiggy I think he just likes it. He started a few weeks back when it was warmer and had a rest and I think he liked the cool grass. It's now steadily increased in frequency and he has this daft grin on his face as he basically surfs along on his back. I haven't noticed anything but will keep an eye out for any skin issues.

K&M love her :001_tt1: It could be the harness I'll have to do an experiment.


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Of course. I was having a daft moment then


If it makes you feel any better I had no idea either .

Werehorse - mmm roast dinner. You must share your OH training tips, I have just cooked our dinner after cleaning the house which put me in a foul mood with my back being crap ATM and walking the CHs whilst he watched TV :frown2:.

k&m - I hadn't imagined that Evie would be anything but dangerous:skep: and those photos are :001_wub:.

Good walk with the CHs this evening - short walk onlead together as they spent a lot of the day playing in the garden as we had some of that 'sun' that I have heard of in legendary tales of old. They have been very well behaved all day :thumbup1::001_wub:..


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Twiggy I think he just likes it. He started a few weeks back when it was warmer and had a rest and I think he liked the cool grass. It's now steadily increased in frequency and he has this daft grin on his face as he basically surfs along on his back. I haven't noticed anything but will keep an eye out for any skin issues.
> 
> K&M love her :001_tt1: It could be the harness I'll have to do an experiment.


That's fair enough some dogs do. Actually Quiver's not adverse and can still roll right over as she approaches her 15th birthday..


----------



## Dogless

Blimey Charlie . They have just been playing in the garden _yet again _ and now zonked on the sofa...the sun's sent 'em bonkers!! And in 8 hours or so it all begins again :crazy:.


----------



## Guest

Zander has never really rolled. Having a dog that I'd have to peel smelly stuff off of would irk my mum a bit I think. 

He's done nothing but sleep all day bless him and the lady who owns the ****-zhu says I can come back again on thursday! And she gave me a pigs ear for my one. Very nice person. 

Bah, I wish the post would come tommorow, we're onto the last tablet and the vets said that our tablets would be sent in the post. OH JOY ITS A BANK HOLIDAY!  And I want my friends b-day prezzie to arrive and the martingale headcollar too so I can get the dogmatic adjusted a bit and the poor lady can take as long as she needs this time.}

Also I've narrowed down the next dog I want. A whippet.
I met six today including a mini zand. :lol: The owner was like "oooh you have that greyhound don't you? He's a bit...spirited isn't he?" :lol: 


Well done to the Ginger Ninjas!

ETA: AHAHAHAHAHAH THE SHI-SHU's BEEN STARRED. Naughty breed. Or my horrid spelling.


----------



## Werehorse

LO - my parents are getting a whippet puppy. It is going home to them on Tuesday, I'll post any photos my mum sends me just to tempt you.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> LO - my parents are getting a whippet puppy. It is going home to them on Tuesday, I'll post any photos my mum sends me just to tempt you.


I LOVE whippets too...those little whippety runs they do when playing are just so brilliant :001_wub:.


----------



## Beth17

Whippets are gorgeous little things but I never really get to say hello as I'm terrified the fatties will career into them and break something :thumbdown:


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> LO - my parents are getting a whippet puppy. It is going home to them on Tuesday, I'll post any photos my mum sends me just to tempt you.


Pffft no need I am tempting myself via google. :lol:
(PLEASE POST PHOTO'S THOUGH) 
What colour is it?










LOOK A MINI-ZAND!! Gonna get myself a matching set. :lol: (Not really.)


----------



## Guest

Beth17 said:


> Whippets are gorgeous little things but I never really get to say hello as I'm terrified the fatties will career into them and break something :thumbdown:


Fatties??? :lol:

I'm like that when we come across little toy dogs or something. I always think OMG ZAND WILL BREAK A BONE. *scuttles away*


----------



## Werehorse

I don't think we know what colour yet - they've gone to a proper srs bsns breeder so they haven't been told/chosen which pup yet.  I think they'll turn up on Tuesday an be told which pup... I made them go to a proper breeder, unlike me who didn't follow my own advice just picked up scraggy farm mutts.  Got the pick of the litter both times though.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Right then, Adaptil plugged in, in bed, pjs on. The last episode of Heroes on my TV via HDMI cable from my laptop. I think I will sleep better, and longer, if I get to the point where you are actually tired and almost can't keep eyes open. Regardless, I'll go to sleep when Heroes finishes.

Breeders will be here with Dexter at 11-12 tomorrow morning. They will stay an hour or two. Then we will be going to Pets At Home with him to buy all his supplies. Harness, lead, collar, show lead if they have any good ones. Bed, toys, stuff for crate. As its a big crate, if they have a little house you put inside a crate (like hamsters have), may get him one, Depending on how much I have left and how much I feel he will need one.

Appointment Tuesday morning so will get a taxi back and be home before 11. Will let Dexter settle in for a few days before I walk him for the first time (may walk on Thursday before/after Agility as he has ringcraft in the evening).


----------



## MollySmith

I have decided that the longer we all spend on this thread the more we share the same illnesses. There are three of us with bad backs. I am pleased to report that mine has eased with hot water bottle and new pillow so I shall now cast the spell of WAYWO and hope it reaches *Sarah* and *Dogless*.

*LO*  I love whippets. Mollys friend is a whippet called Kevin, well Kev and hes brown and white and a gorgeous, friendly fella. Outruns Molly every single time.

*K&M*  I hope the biking plants go okay, it sounds like you might get somewhere with Scruff. I think Molly would be like Evie. Around Cambridge it would be other cyclists Id hate.

*Werehorse*  good luck next weekend. I am sure theyll all be fine and youll have a lovely doggy welcome to look forward to. First time to leave them is the hardest.

I need to place a massive order for tempting toys for walks. Like *Simply Sardonic*, our fetch has gone to pieces so I need to make us more interesting than theft and eating of other dogs balls. The safestix works well but its not the easiest thing to lug around on the walks.

MM was dropped off today. One interesting thing it's helping with is the cat at the window barking thing. It's been taking two of us to reward Molly for looking and not reacting to the cats. One little sh*t sits beneath the window and I have to crane my neck to see it and by that time Molly is barking, it seems to involve too many functions and I worry I'm clicking her too late. I seem to multitask like a man sometimes. Today I was able to look for the cat and reward Molly for quiet reactions allowing Himself to carry on doing the housework. I like this scenario if only because it meant I did not have to wash the floors


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I have decided that the longer we all spend on this thread the more we share the same illnesses. There are three of us with bad backs. I am pleased to report that mine has eased with hot water bottle and new pillow so I shall now cast the spell of WAYWO and hope it reaches *Sarah* and *Dogless*.
> 
> *LO*  I love whippets. Mollys friend is a whippet called Kevin, well Kev and hes brown and white and a gorgeous, friendly fella. Outruns Molly every single time.
> 
> *K&M*  I hope the biking plants go okay, it sounds like you might get somewhere with Scruff. I think Molly would be like Evie. Around Cambridge it would be other cyclists Id hate.
> 
> *Werehorse*  good luck next weekend. I am sure theyll all be fine and youll have a lovely doggy welcome to look forward to. First time to leave them is the hardest.
> 
> I need to place a massive order for tempting toys for walks. Like *Simply Sardonic*, our fetch has gone to pieces so I need to make us more interesting than theft and eating of other dogs balls. The safestix works well but its not the easiest thing to lug around on the walks.
> 
> MM was dropped off today. One interesting thing it's helping with is the cat at the window barking thing. It's been taking two of us to reward Molly for looking and not reacting to the cats. One little sh*t sits beneath the window and I have to crane my neck to see it and by that time Molly is barking, it seems to involve too many functions and I worry I'm clicking her too late. I seem to multitask like a man sometimes. Today I was able to look for the cat and reward Molly for quiet reactions allowing Himself to carry on doing the housework. I like this scenario if only because it meant I did not have to wash the floors


These have been a hit here: Chuckit Duo Tug | Tug Toys For Dogs

Chuckit Ultra Tug | Dog Tug Toys

If Moll likes balls Chuckit whistler ones are fab and Kilo has had an Aqua Kong as a fetch / tug toy for at least a year - really durable.


----------



## Kicksforkills

An hour more than usual.

Didn't watch all the Heroes episode last night , so I'll do that while having breakfast then go feed the cat rabbits and tortoise that I'm looking after.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Whippets are gorgeous little things but I never really get to say hello as I'm terrified the fatties will career into them and break something :thumbdown:


And crossed with a collie they make fabulous obedience/agility/htm/flyball dogs....

A friend had two to die for...!!


----------



## Dimwit

Well I think I have found the magic cure to stop dimwit barking in the house when he hears other dogs/ neighbours sneezing/imagined burglars...
Liver paste! I have the Arden grange stuff that comes in tubes and as soon as he runs to the back door huffing or hears a noise I just have to say "what's that" and he diverts to the book shelf and waits to get some liver. It stinks to high heaven and livery kisses are far worse than fishy kisses but I don't care!
I hope everybody had a good Easter. Today I shall be mainly eating my own body weight in chocolate and I think dimwit will get a nice long walk to ease my conscience


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Well I think I have found the magic cure to stop dimwit barking in the house when he hears other dogs/ neighbours sneezing/imagined burglars...
> Liver paste! I have the Arden grange stuff that comes in tubes and as soon as he runs to the back door huffing or hears a noise I just have to say "what's that" and he diverts to the book shelf and waits to get some liver. It stinks to high heaven and livery kisses are far worse than fishy kisses but I don't care!
> I hope everybody had a good Easter. Today I shall be mainly eating my own body weight in chocolate and I think dimwit will get a nice long walk to ease my conscience


Where there's a will there's always a way....

I'm gearing myself up to have another go at the barn floor as I only managed about an 8th of it after an hour on my knees scrubbing away yesterday.. On the other hand I could go to the new M&S outlet with about £50 of vouchers I got at Christmas and buy myself something nice....hmmm?


----------



## Guest

I vote for M and S shopping twig!! 

I have to go to work in a bit but we had a good albiet short walk just now. 
We past two cavaliers and a westie across the road from us and Zand didn't even get a little bit excited! :thumbup:

And we let a man pass us and Zand looked but didn't get too worried and the man even said Thank you! *ahhhhhhhhhhh manners!!*

It was frigging cold though, I went numb within minutes!

Ohh, but there was no calm behaviour around a cat even though I turn away about nine times. Then I thought we did have calm behaviour and then it ran infront of us and I nearly went ar$e over tit. :lol: 

Muzzle training it going slow but still. I am mainly just flipping treats at him whenever I bring it out so that he'll slowly associate it with a good thing hopefully. I'm still getting massive amounts of ears back, wide eyed "Ooooooooohhhhhh its a thiing." reactions though. Hey ho.

My neighbour offered to mum yesterday about being a male stooge there and then but mum said no, that it'd be better if I did it. 
I never ever see my neighbour so I've told mum that next time she must say yes. She knows what to do. On-lead walking towards, calmness = treats. Uncalmness = Walking away. 
Hey ho.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Just waiting for them to get here now. Any minute!


----------



## MollySmith

Thank you Dogless. I hope it works. It's very annoying having to keep handing out balls, at least that's what the OH does and he can see that if Molly's toys are the same old toys then it's not surprising she wants everyone else's!

I've done a swap with Cali for a tug toy on the freecycle thread so I'll stuff that into a bag with me or her safestix and see how we do with some tuggies. The problem is OH goes towards Molly to save the ball and she runs away of course with the other dog's ball. He's taken her today but I'm off on the walk tomorrow so I'll see how she does with me and tugs. 

Dimwit, good idea with the liverpaste, primula cheese is good too.

Twiggy - M&S, 'because it's not just any Monday it's Easter Monday'. Go shopping now!

K4K - calm down


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> And crossed with a collie they make fabulous obedience/agility/htm/flyball dogs....
> 
> A friend had two to die for...!!


Brains and speed ..... .

Twiggy - I'm sure M&S wins, hope you find something nice to buy .

LO - Hope your Mum does get your neighbour on board as a stooge!

Very mixed morning at Concrete Central. Separate walks.

Took Rudi to the dog walking fields. On the way the woman with two sibes that Rudi plays with sometimes got towed over by them. Rudi hackled up like a puffer fish, tail went down and he threatened to take their faces off like with the labradoodle at class . All I can think is that their approach scared him. I really try to avoid meetings onlead with both boys if I can and wished I'd walked away or something, but it was hard when the lovely woman had started talking to me. Big fail on my part :cursing:. I am really trying not to worry about this, sure it's just telling dogs to get out of his face and I couldn't have tried any harder with socialising him. It is around the time for the second fear imprint period so perhaps that's what is happening.

Then took Kilo. Saw the DA beagle straight off the bat - beagle went batshit, Kilo replied in kind . First reaction in ages . I got him to lie down as they walked off and he did and just made lots of squealing, frustrated noises. After that all good, met Dizzy and human and they played for 10 minutes or so then we did lots of training. Oh, whenever he was released to run about he ate bloody poo :mad2::incazzato::incazzato:, thought he would as it was windy; perfect for hunting. On the way back we passed a dog at close quarters no dramas so he seems to be shaking off things far better than he used to.

Other than that..they played before breakfast, before walks and after walks .

I had waited ages until hubby was up and had a coffee (half past bloody nine ) rather than walk the dogs at about 0730 like usual as he'd done his "I must stop being lazy and walk with you" speech yesterday yet again. This morning's reply to an invitation to join us...."Not today"  :rolleyes5:.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well, Dexter's home now. Been for a walk with the JRT's, explored the lounge and is now resting in his crate while we eat lunch and then we'll go shopping!

http://i.imgur.com/H0qGNzj.jpg


----------



## Dogless

Kicksforkills said:


> Well, Dexter's home now. Been for a walk with the JRT's, explored the lounge and is now resting in his crate while we eat lunch and then we'll go shopping!
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/H0qGNzj.jpg


Perhaps you might be better waiting to take him shopping? Maybe tomorrow or the next day so that he has a little time to adjust to his new home and new owners? He does look lovely .


----------



## Beth17

Dogless sorry you had a bit of a mixed bag this morning.Hopefully this afternoon goes better.

kfk Dexter is lovely glad he got to you safely. Just don't overwhelm the poor pup 

Good walk this morning although it was freezing so didn't see anyone. Tried Sam without his harness so he was doing a good sled dog impression. He still rolled so obviously just enjoys it


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dogless said:


> Perhaps you might be better waiting to take him shopping? Maybe tomorrow or the next day so that he has a little time to adjust to his new home and new owners? He does look lovely .


Honestly I think if he seemed unsettled at all I would wait but I think he's totally fine and to make the first car ride with us a positive one, rather than the vet.

He will be home (on short walks too, of course), for the next few days so will have plenty of bonding time.

Just in the car then in Pets At Home then car back home. He's already been in the garden and really enjoyed sprinting around and has peed twice in the same spot outside in the garden so he already seems quite settled.

We are wih the JRT's in the lounge eating lunch and he is in his crate in the kitchen with not one sound.


----------



## moonviolet

We had an interesting dumped out of the car walk this morning, had to go back at one point to drop off tag along dog as much as i'd like to , I thought i'd better not bring her home. Tink was good didn't bother anyone and wasn't bothered by any dogs that came over. The pavement walk was really good not bothred by anything.

Booked a 2 hour session with my trainer next weekend to kick start our little routine


----------



## kat&molly

Dexter is lovely KFK- just slow down a bit, he'll be like this :crazy:

LO- its all going well isn't it.

Dogless- the boys are making the most of the sunshine aren't they.

Dimwit- Liver pate goes down well here- wish I could get it in a tube or the squezzy cheese. Just doing an order for Asda to be brought over so I shall stick some on now.

Hope you opted for a break Twiggy.

Beth- Sam sounds as bad as Evie- I did teach her that it wasn't allowed on a short lead but I let it slip as she doesn't do it over a wet winter. It makes me laugh but drives me mad as well.

Another bloomin car boot today- that's my whack for the year now hopefully- did get a new bum bag for walks though.Everything I buy is dog related.

Took Moll out with the bike again- she still isn't keen but I kept stopping and giving her treats, she was trotting about 10 feet behind me but at the end did take a treat from my hands.
I would like to have gone further but its been a few years since I rode a bike and lets just say I need one of those saddle covers in gel?hmy:


----------



## Symone

Well, I've hardly been online for the past few days, been quite busy!

I decided to tackle the spring cleaning the other day (Windows and all.) And Shamaya gave me a hand. She licked the balcony door after I used a bit of vinegar to clean it. 

OHs parents came to visit, again. Shamaya had lots of fun trying to jump on the OHs mum and getting the OHs dad to play with her. She even had a lay down while they were here so she is slowly getting better with having guests here. (She always gets excited, lol.)

Was ill most of yesterday.. I think it was because I ate gone off cheese. 

Nothing else to say, really! Hope that everyone else is doing well.


----------



## Dimwit

Well, I had a lovely walk with the dimwit this afternoon, the ground has dried up a bit so we went up the hill to the water tower and then had a play in the woods.
He didn't pull once  and he walked past several dogs and people (including a little bichon that started growling and barking at him) so very pleased with my little doglet :001_wub:

and just because I love his ears in this photo...


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Well, I had a lovely walk with the dimwit this afternoon, the ground has dried up a bit so we went up the hill to the water tower and then had a play in the woods.
> He didn't pull once  and he walked past several dogs and people (including a little bichon that started growling and barking at him) so very pleased with my little doglet :001_wub:
> 
> and just because I love his ears in this photo...


His ears are bigger than the log!


----------



## L/C

Well the pointies and I did another 10 miles today in 4 hours. Duracell pointy could have carried on but poor old Mr Ely was flagging towards the end. Both are curled up asleep now but I think will spring back to life when I get up to get their dinner.

I think tomorrow's walk before work might be slightly disappointing!


----------



## Twiggy

Well the retail therapy won the day but didn't go to M&S. Instead went with a non-doggy friend 35 miles north to a different outlet. We had a great afternoon and a good laugh and both bought a nice top.

I now feel guilty and I'm going over to the barn to have another half an hour scrubbing the floor.


----------



## Guest

Well I planned to do some training when I got in from work instead of a walk cause I have a painful tum atm.
Got home and he curled up next to me and went to sleep. Now he's chewing a marrowbone. I think I shall just hide treats tonight. 

Also I love Dimwit. He's actually like a mini lab. I want one. :lol:


----------



## Werehorse

We were supposed to be doing a big massive run-walk today but bottled it and went and ate cake in Keswick instead... Keswick was HEAVING! Definitely the start of the season.  The boys behaved themselves very well though and OH was impressed with their improved lead walking again. 

There was a complete idiot of a woman stood outside the petshop with a dog wearing a canvas muzzle (the kind where they can't actually open their mouths at all!). I stopped a good distance away from her (far enough I thought, given that she was stood in the middle of a crowded pavement) while OH went to see how busy the petshop was, just as he came out again this dog launched itself at the boys - the woman was paying no attention, had the lead loose and was pulled off balance and the dog made contact with Hugo.  :cursing: Hugo just squeeked and spooked and both mine back to a distance where it couldn't get them then just stood and looked at it, then me as if to say "WTF was that about mum?" OH scooched us all to a safe distance before I gave the woman a mouthful! She was laughing FFS! I may have actually said something quite sweary quite loudly though. We walked back to the car and went back to the pet shop a bit later else one or both of us would have ended up giving the woman quite a piece of our minds.

I think I'm going to give the boys a bath now. Hugo is massively scurfy which is down to the food I'm sure. I've decided to move them onto Arden Grange and see how they go on that - they were both on it as pups and I only took them off it because it was difficult to get but a shop in our most local town has started stocking it so hopefully they'll get on with it again.


----------



## Dimwit

*LO* Sadly he's a one-off but if you send me your address I'll pop him in the post :lol: 
He's currently sulking because I gave him a bath after our walk and removed all of the fox poo

*werehorse* I really don't understand why people leave all common sense at home when they go in holiday. Luckily the tourists round here tend to stick to the town centre which I generally avoid anyway...


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> His ears are bigger than the log!


He says it was a very small log


----------



## Kicksforkills

Phew, busy day!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse - Cake in Keswick sounds lovely.....that stupid woman does not :cursing:. Hope Hugo is OK.

Just had a lovely lead walk; the CHs were perfect :001_tt1::001_tt1:. Currently stood in the kitchen watching them going bonkers in the garden again; had to tell my neighbour at the back that they aren't fighting as they make some very vicious noises . Rudi has developed an obsession with trying to hump Kilo over the last 24 hours or so. Kilo gets him off or he stops when I say "leave" at present so not too bad.

Oh, I was picking up poo tonight with my back to the boys at the side of a road and had asked them to 'wait'. Leads were loose so assumed they were....turned around and Kilo was stood there with Rudi having a hump...suppose passing drivers would have been entertained .


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Werehorse - Cake in Keswick sounds lovely.....that stupid woman does not :cursing:. Hope Hugo is OK.
> 
> Just had a lovely lead walk; the CHs were perfect :001_tt1::001_tt1:. Currently stood in the kitchen watching them going bonkers in the garden again; had to tell my neighbour at the back that they aren't fighting as they make some very vicious noises . Rudi has developed an obsession with trying to hump Kilo over the last 24 hours or so. Kilo gets him off or he stops when I say "leave" at present so not too bad.
> 
> Oh, I was picking up poo tonight with my back to the boys at the side of a road and had asked them to 'wait'. Leads were loose so assumed they were....turned around and Kilo was stood there with Rudi having a hump...suppose passing drivers would have been entertained .


Hugo is fine I think, the dog was muzzled so I think it just made Hugo jump more than anything - he went a bit jumpy mad and pully for a bit afterwards but calmed down quite quickly. I've given them both a bath and couldn't see any broken skin other then where Oscar has charged straight through brambles  but that is normal.

:lol: at Rudi humping Kilo in public!


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> Hugo is fine I think, the dog was muzzled so I think it just made Hugo jump more than anything - he went a bit jumpy mad and pully for a bit afterwards but calmed down quite quickly. I've given them both a bath and couldn't see any broken skin other then where Oscar has charged straight through brambles  but that is normal.
> 
> :lol: at Rudi humping Kilo in public!


It was the way that the leads were loose, no sound was made (Kilo hadn't yet roared) and I was just innocently poo picking whilst that went on behind me :blush2:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit gorgeous pic i'm getting quite a soft spot for sprocket.:001_wub:

Twiggy glad you had a lovely afternoon go easy with the scrubbing.

L/C lucky pointies 

WH sounds like you boys were good under extreme provocation. Silly woman.

LO Sounds like Zander is going to be happy with a game at home tonight.

We headed out to the woods again this evening were having a lovely walk. Right at the end was saw 3 ponies and their young riders, We haven't seen any for ages so I just crouched down and played " look at that" TInk was brilliant, we continued on our way when suddenly we heard intense barking... looked behind us to see a dobe barking and lunging at the ponies ( who stood still and calm, their young rides looked nervous but all stayed aboard until the dog was put onlead..... a string flexi  It was at this point i recognised the human dog combo..... the ones i encountered last summer who think it's fine that their dog chases runners and cyclists :cursing: Haven't seen them in months I guess they'll all be coming out again now.

Tink was tense and wanted to get back to the car as soon as.... so thats weeks of work set back.... while they go without consequence


----------



## Werehorse

Why are people so stupid sometimes? Very glad all the ponies were good and calm - could have been very messy otherwise by the sounds of it. I hope Tink bounces back ok - I'm sure she will.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> We were supposed to be doing a big massive run-walk today but bottled it and went and ate cake in Keswick instead... Keswick was HEAVING! Definitely the start of the season.  The boys behaved themselves very well though and OH was impressed with their improved lead walking again.
> 
> There was a complete idiot of a woman stood outside the petshop with a dog wearing a canvas muzzle (the kind where they can't actually open their mouths at all!). I stopped a good distance away from her (far enough I thought, given that she was stood in the middle of a crowded pavement) while OH went to see how busy the petshop was, just as he came out again this dog launched itself at the boys - the woman was paying no attention, had the lead loose and was pulled off balance and the dog made contact with Hugo.  :cursing: Hugo just squeeked and spooked and both mine back to a distance where it couldn't get them then just stood and looked at it, then me as if to say "WTF was that about mum?" OH scooched us all to a safe distance before I gave the woman a mouthful! She was laughing FFS! I may have actually said something quite sweary quite loudly though. We walked back to the car and went back to the pet shop a bit later else one or both of us would have ended up giving the woman quite a piece of our minds.
> 
> *I think I'm going to give the boys a bath now. Hugo is massively scurfy which is down to the food I'm sure. I've decided to move them onto Arden Grange and see how they go on that - they were both on it as pups and I only took them off it because it was difficult to get but a shop in our most local town has started stocking it so hopefully they'll get on with it again.*




Why on earth don't you buy Arden Grange online?

Berriewoods - Feedem Pet Supplies - Swellpets are all extremely reliable and are also much cheaper than buying locally.

I'm in trouble with Leafy and her wretched food intolerance again...!!
She's got diarrheoa whilst I was out this afternoon and I urgently now need to change her food.

I emailed The Working Dog Food company on 20 March and he was going to send me a sample of their Allergy X food but I still haven't received it, so I've ordered a 15 kg bag tonight and hope it arrives within the next 48 hours.

She's an absolutel nightmare and if I take her to the vets he's going to push the Purina HA muck which he sells.


----------



## Thorne

Just popping in to say that Scooter hasn't been in any more apparent distress as a result of the tooth since saturday night. He's had soaked, mashed-up kibble since then and no access to chews which has seemed to keep him comfortable. The vet said that if he had another flare-up to bring him in either yesterday or today but he's seemed quite comfortable - will be seeing the vet as early as possible tomorrow.
Judging by the change in his mood and what little I could see of the tooth, I think he had food lodged in or beside it and that was what was upsetting him.

Mum and my sisters walked S&B today while I was at Blue Cross, so nothing to report on that front! 

Had my nan and her Cocker Gemma over for easter yesterday and took her out with S&B. She's a sweet, usually docile little dog and while she was impeccable in the house and walked beautifully on the lead we found out that her "reliable" recall is exclusive to my nan (fortunately in a safe area!). She has a strong streak of spanner independence under her outward charms! The last time she was here Scooter was a pain and wouldn't leave her alone but he and Breeze were on best behaviour yesterday and all three got on well 

Cattery at Blue Cross today but did take Rags out on a 2hr round walk to the seafront. Lovely girl, she's grown on me now that I've worked out what makes her tick.

Hope everyone has had a lovely easter weekend!


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## Beth17

Oh Rudi :lol:

Thorne glad Scooter seems to be feeling more comfortable and hopefully there isn't anything too wrong with his teeth.

mv sorry your walk ended on a sour note. Poor Tink 

Werehorse sorry you met a silly woman as well.

Twiggy I hope you can get Leafy sorted again.

I am currently browsing looking for the breeder of my next pup. Not that I can add another for the forseeable future but I figure there's no harm in looking :crazy:


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## Nicki85

Hi all

I've had a little read of the threads so far!

DL- amused at Rudi humping Kilo- boys hey?! Shae has humped Rusty a couple of times when she has got over excited... Hopefully Rudi will calm down or do you think it is something to do with Kilo's hormonal changes?

MV- Grr at people like that! Glad Tinks was well behaved. Rusty is scared of horses...

Werehorse- sorry to hear about your boys scare- hopefully no permanent damage done to him.

Twiggy- Sorry to hear about Leafy  hope you manage to get the food sorted... she sounds like a sensitive soul.

My two are good... Rusty is puppy sitter number 1! He has been ace with her... playing and wearing her out when required and jsut generally showing her the ropes. Shae is doing really well- she is 9weeks now  She's weeing on command now and just about sleeping through the night... She is learning lots of new things and her favourite trick at the moment is hand touch! She also does sits, downs and in and out of her crate and just started on contact pads. Lead walking is also going well... So far she is not bitey in the slightest but obviously that might change... I wonder if Rusty is helping with this as he stops play if she bites to hard. 
She still sleeps next to me in her bed but I hope to get her in the crate end of next week and then gradually move her out of my room... doing lots of work on getting her used to it and making it a good place. 

She had a puppy playgroup session and she proved to be confident and wanted to listen and ineract with me instead of talking to other puppies... She was even relaxed enough to play tug which was nice. She starts proper classes next Friday- scary! Second jabs are next week as well... lucky pup  

Rusty has some sessions booked with Dave Munnings for agility... bit scared! Wonder what he will make of me and Super Rusty? He is booked into his second UKA show as well in a couple of weeks. Last show was in torrential rain and he jumped out both times (first time distracted by hedge- but he did come back, second time cause he thought it was part of the course...) but he was a good lad really!


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## Dogless

mv - I can't like your post . Pleased that the riders managed to stay aboard though.

Twiggy - poor Leafy, hope the food arrives quickly.

Thorne - pleased that Scooter's tooth has settled.

Beth - another Boxer?



Nicki85 said:


> DL- amused at Rudi humping Kilo- boys hey?! Shae has humped Rusty a couple of times when she has got over excited... Hopefully Rudi will calm down or do you think it is something to do with Kilo's hormonal changes?


Both Rudi and Kilo are having hormonal changes right now, so who knows? So far it's easily stopped and Kilo doesn't seem distressed by it at all so I'm not too worried, they're rarely unsupervised and always within earshot if they are so pretty easy to police.

Nicki - lucky you having a non - bitey pup....both the CHs were HORRENDOUS :cursing: buggers!! And Super Rusty? Does have a certain ring .


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Beth - another Boxer?


Yes although lots of other breeds I want in the future, at the moment I have my heart set on a red, probably a girl and possibly to have a dabble in showing. But who knows I still need the white one to grow up a bit first and the boys weren't exactly planned


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## Twiggy

*Nicki *Your pup sounds super and pleased Rusty taken to her. A lesson with Dave Munnings no less....!!

*Thorne *Pleased Scooter's tooth hasn't caused any more problems over the week-end and hope all goes well at the vets tomorrow.

*Moonviolet* So sorry you had an awful walk and dear little Tink got upset.

*Dogless *What can I say except naughty Rudi - how embarrassing..!!

*Beth *What puppies are you looking at?


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## moonviolet

On the bright side, she was fine when we got to the car had a big shake and was happy to take treats and have a bit a of cuddle before she settled into her crate. It'll just be back to giddy cantering to the car. 

After tea and a short nap she came and gave me beagle eyes for a training session. So we did a variety of old and new. She was my little star and now making happy sleepy noises spread out on the sofa in a most unladylike fashion.

Beth No harm in planning  

Nicki glad pup and Ruty are getting on well. Hope the agility sessions and your next show goes well.

Dogless I can't help smiling at Rudi's public display

Twiggy hope you get te food quickly and it suits Leafy

Thorne glad Scooter isn't too bothered and S+B got on well with your doggie visitor.


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## Beth17

Twiggy restraining myself from actually looking at litters of Boxers and just looking at various breeders at the moment 

ETA I forgot to mention how the boys kept trying to kill me today by having a shake just as we were crossing the roads.


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## Kicksforkills

Beth; three dogs? You must be mad!

Tomorrow's agenda is walking on the lead and not just sitting/laying down waiting to be picked up as happened today when he didn't like the environment... If that goes well then recall. I think that's enough as two of my friends may be coming over to see him.

/yawn


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## Dogless

K4K slow down :crazy::crazy:. It may be that Dexter's overwhelmed if he just sat or lay down rather than wanting to walk. Why not just work on quietly and steadily building his confidence until he finds his feet? Poor little fella's probably feeling like a fish out of water right now.


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## MollySmith

Agree with Dogless, poor chap really really does need to settle down. Put yourself in his paws and think about all the advice in the books on settling dogs in. He needs time to get to know where he lives not instant training. You have plenty of time for that in the future.

Honestly - P&H today and then the agenda tomorrow includes friends too, you know you need to go at his pace don't you?


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## Sarah1983

K4K, advice I was given was to allow a week to settle in before starting anything more than basic house rules and manners. Give the poor pup time to find his feet and figure out what's going on before overwhelming him with training, visitors and what not.

MV, sorry you had a bad experience  Hope Tink shakes it off and it doesn't knock her confidence too much.

Dogless, had to laugh at Rudi humping Kilo while you obliviously picked up poo. I'm not sure why but it struck me as hilarious.

Not much to report here. The porn side of things has more or less died off although I did come out of the bathroom this morning to find Spencer lay on the floor with Khan humping his head  Except for the humping Khan really is a sweetheart. He's figured out he can get on the bed with us all for a cuddle at bedtime, it's a bit of a squeeze with 2 humans, a Labrador and a Rottweiler on there but we can't leave him out can we? Him and Spencer get on well and are fairly well matched when it comes to wrestling. Poor Khan just can't keep up outside though  Had him on the long line and Spen off leash earlier and he didn't have a hope in hell. He's at least 8 or 9 years old, overweight and has bad back legs (bit of a vicious circle there I think). So he gave up trying to chase and just pottered around while Calvin threw Spens ball. 

Bit pissed off with the couple who live above us. We're all supposed to share the job of cleaning the block which is fair enough. Apparently she's been the only one doing it though. Guess the fairies must have come and cleared all the snow from the path every time it snowed, it wasn't really me and hubby. And I guess I must have imagined all those times I mopped the entrance and lower stairs coz me and Spen have come in looking like mud monsters. And the times I've seen next door sweeping those same stairs and helping us clear snow.


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## Twiggy

Well Leafy spent the night on my bed and didn't ask to go out thank goodness, although I didn't get much sleep as she was hogging most of the bed.

Fingers crossed this new food comes quickly as she's living on rice at the moment. Once she becomes intolerant to a food that's it and it's no good trying to reintroduce it, she just gets raging diarrheoa. Sods law I've got an unopened bag of her current food and it's certainly not cheap.


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## Nicki85

Twiggy- glad leafy appears to be improving- hope the food arrives soon though.

Sarah- couple above you sound like a delight?! Rising above it would seem like a good action plan in this situation.

Well Rusty has had his first walk- was a good boy round the forest  Then came back and let Shae in the garden... Rusty wanted his breakfast and didn't want to play so fed him and did 10mins of clicker training with Shae. She is a bright spark! 
Then it was out in the garden for 30-45mins of romping around 
Then back in for a ducks neck... Shae has hers in her crate and she went in willingly after a few secs... she is now fast asleep in the crate! YAY! 

I suspect I have around an hour now to do some work before the fun starts again!


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## GingerRogers

Dimwit, I love that photo, I do like photos that involve funny ears. Rory used to get huge ears when the wind caught them, Ginges don't really do anything , about the only disappointing bit of her though 

LO it is very nice to see you having some positivity.

Twiggy Glad you had a nice trip out, sometimes its needed isn't it.

Evie has really made me appreciate short legged long dogs , theres an elderly on like her around here, I may have mentioned her before, her owners keep dying  but I think the latest set (the 4th) are in good health.

KFK - writing that it makes me think of fried chicken  glad Dexter has arrived safe and sound, be really careful no to overwhelm him, that was the mistake we made with Ginge, big big mistake and now I am having to undo all the damage.

Dogless - the humping Rudi  there is a chap round here with two CKC and they just randomly hump each other behind his back .

Sarah the humping khan 

Nikki so pleased Shae is settling in and proving to be the clever doggy you were after, you will have a bright pair won't you 

We have had an altogether quiet weekend on the dog front as its Easter I have been hiding from the crowds and the twice a year walked dogs and walking in out the way country places, discovered a few new places and one very nice field which I 'might' be tempted to let the long line trail in  TBH I am a bit scared about walking her, I feel we need to get back to places where dogs 'may' be encountered on occasion but I don't like it :cryin: Its the last week on the course on Saturday and its like a comfort blanket being removed plus I will have nothing to report, I don't know if anything we are doing is helping. We do have a much calmer dog but thats cos we are hiding away from the world.

Had a very near miss with horses this morning, I dropped some plans off across the river and took her down through the woods and reed beds and thought I would walk back up the road, a very, very quiet lane. Suddenly two horses appeared ahead, thankfully they were being walked, not sure what they were up to, although they didn't look the calmest of horses so think they were trying to calm them. I suspect the muck clearer on the pig fields had spooked one of them, so a face to face meeting might not have been the best of ideas. We were able to divert back into the woods and she didn't see them but if they had been riding them it would have been a :scared: moment.


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## Dogless

Nikki - you'll have two Super Dogs at this rate .

GR - you sound as if you're doing well with Ginge; if you've achieved calm by using avoidance then the Ninja will probably be in a much less stressed state to being to encounter dogs again.

Twiggy - hope Leafy's food arrives soon. Can a food never ever be introduced again? Must be very hard to manage .

Took the CHs to the park this morning, they were very good indeed for me :001_wub:. We got a few compliments and some "Thank Yous" from folk with kids when we sat to let them past....didn't say it was mainly so Rudi didn't launch himself at them in a frenzy of face licking and tail wagging . Lots of squirrels and birds around so that was hard work, Rudi had one jumping, biting moment when he got a bit overwhelmed and wanted to zoom. It stopped very quickly but Twiggy you'll be pleased to know he caught my knuckle and drew blood  . No humping behind my back this morning 

Other than that, I've been getting ready for our trip; easy to pack a small bag for me, loads of stuff needed for the dogs  . We're walking with Dizzy this evening so that and the park will mean they're nice and tired for the journey. A lot of it will be done overnight when they're normally asleep anyway.


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## GingerRogers

Oooh yes your course, how very exciting . Bet you are nervous though too?


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oooh yes your course, how very exciting . Bet you are nervous though too?


Extremely nervous and excited too; she said I'll enjoy the work and it's designed to be stress - free.......not sure I've been stress - free since sometime in the 80s  .


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## Canine K9

Its so tricky finding dogs for Bailey to properly socalise with! Most dogs round here are either too OTT or don`t like other dogs. He needs calm dogs to socalise with seeing as he`s quite timid with other dogs to try and improve it. It appears they are obviously in very short supply


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## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Its so tricky finding dogs for Bailey to properly socalise with! Most dogs round here are either too OTT or don`t like other dogs. He needs calm dogs to socalise with seeing as he`s quite timid with other dogs to try and improve it. It appears they are obviously in very short supply


They are. How about finding some training classes or even just sitting and watching dogs and treating him - doesn't have to meet any at all initially, just get comfortable being amongst them?


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## Symone

Twiggy : I hope that the food arrives, soon.

Dogless : Sounds like a lovely walk!  


Well, I just had a nice walk with the little lady. OH got another job again. (He works in construction so he is in and out all of the time. His current contract is only 4 days long.  )So it was the first walk without him in about a week or two. 
Shamaya decided that she would pull, again. I stopped and waited for her to get to my side and I think it clicked in her head that I won't let her get away with it.  She's cheeky for trying it when he wasn't here!

Had a lovely walk around town, pet shop was VERY packed and noisy, and I think it was a great training time for Shamaya. I got her to sit by my side. (was only a short amount of time, but better than nothing.  ) But then she decided to hug everyone's legs! I think it's so she's higher so she can be petted easier, but I'm not sure. 
Left the shop and she started to squeal and cry, tail wagging like a helicopter and nearly pulled me over. She wanted to go to the beach. She wouldn't budge so I picked her up and walked like 5 steps away and down she went, and then walked nicely. I know I shouldn't have picked her up, but I was in a rush to get home. 
Went to the ATM on the way. She was sitting nicely with a slack lead. However a man walked past and cue leg hugging again. Luckily he didn't seem to mind and said "She can probably smell mine on me."
She was good for the rest of the walk home, no more leg hugging. No pulling at all on the way home.. I was very proud.  

I think that I may need to work on her hugging everyone's leg, though. There's bound to be someone who doesn't like it one day. However 95% of the time I make her wait before the person approaches her to say hello. The other 5% of the time is when I have my back turned (Like at the ATM) so don't see them before it's too late..  She gets a lot of attention.

She has a thing for dirty clothes baskets. I may have to get a wooden one.. She tries to rip them up all of the time. And she has only gone for them when we're out of the room, so I think she knows she shouldn't do it. I've had to replace another, today. I think I'm on the 5th or so. No idea why she doesn't like them.


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> They are. How about finding some training classes or even just sitting and watching dogs and treating him - doesn't have to meet any at all initially, just get comfortable being amongst them?


I second this and would add I would avoid all onlead greetings, If they are completely unavoidable then 2 seconds and move along. Extended onlead greetings all to often lead to snapping Or wanting to play neither are desirable when you are walking your dog onlead.

In the long run it'll be better if Bailey can focus on you around other dogs

Symone sounds like you needs a safe instead of a laundry basket!

Dogless so exciting

GR no rush, when you are BOTH ready you can begin to walk places where you might see a dog.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Nikki - you'll have two Super Dogs at this rate .
> 
> GR - you sound as if you're doing well with Ginge; if you've achieved calm by using avoidance then the Ninja will probably be in a much less stressed state to being to encounter dogs again.
> 
> *Twiggy - hope Leafy's food arrives soon. Can a food never ever be introduced again? Must be very hard to manage* .
> 
> Took the CHs to the park this morning, they were very good indeed for me :001_wub:. We got a few compliments and some "Thank Yous" from folk with kids when we sat to let them past....didn't say it was mainly so Rudi didn't launch himself at them in a frenzy of face licking and tail wagging . Lots of squirrels and birds around so that was hard work, Rudi had one jumping, biting moment when he got a bit overwhelmed and wanted to zoom. It stopped very quickly but Twiggy you'll be pleased to know he caught my knuckle and drew blood  . No humping behind my back this morning
> 
> *Other than that, I've been getting ready for our trip; easy to pack a small bag for me, loads of stuff needed for the dogs  . We're walking with Dizzy this evening so that and the park will mean they're nice and tired for the journey. A lot of it will be done overnight when they're normally asleep anyway.*




I honestly don't know. I've never tried but was debating this morning on whether to get a small bag of AG Sensitive. Trouble is it means changing her twice and it is such a big deal I'm afraid. When she gets these awful bouts of diarrheoa it's a nightmare and hugely expensive as well. I get almost frightened to give her any food at all in case it starts her off.

How exciting - how long is your course and are you working both of them?


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## Beth17

Dogless I forgot about the course. How exciting and glad you had a good walk this morning 

Ginge pleased she didn't see the horses  and avoiding dogs to keep her calm until you are both ready is nothing to worry about 

Symone well done for the LLW :thumbup1:

Really good sunny walk with the boys today and Oscar really did himself proud. Walked to the field with only a small bit of pulling just as we got there and then had the place to ourselves for a while. Lots of play ensued and then a young black lab cam through the gate. Popped Sam back onlead and as it came over Oscar went and greeted it and then had a play; Sam was then able to say hello still onlead or else he would have followed them 

Carried on with some more play when a border terrier started stalking Oscar. Sam went back onlead and Oscar had another greet and play and then the terrier came and had a quick play with Sam without any problems.

Then we carried on up the field and saw the lady with 2 chocolate labs we haven't seen for ages. Oscar was again able to greet first and then let Sam off to say hello and they all played happily together and mixed for a good 15 mins. We then started the trek home which went without a hitch as they were both knackered  

We did have one moment where Oscar had a grumble at his arch enemy, a male choc lab who had wandered over to the group, which was my fault for not being on the ball and calling him away in time. However once the lab quickly moved out of his space he ignored it. I did give myself a slap on the wrist for that one though.

Overall though I'm really pleased with how chilled out he was around other dogs when Sam was there :thumbup:


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## MollySmith

Can I hide here and have a grumble please? I am so cross and upset and tempted to drive back to the walk to give the idiots I met today seconds. 

The place we walk - Dimwit knows it - has a big field at the end, enclosed and marked for dogs. It's called the Off Lead Dog Field on the map and signs and from the main car park it's signposted as this. 

Today we walked through with Molly off lead because it's off lead and there was a teenager playing with a football. Molly went straight for the football but did drop it. The teenage boy picked it up, I recalled Molly, we played tuggy together as it looked like he was leaving (in fact I think the rest of the family were coming back into the field to play with him so they would have seen the sign on the gate saying it's a off lead dog area, it's huge!) but the boy dropped the ball again. Molly ran off, got it and played with it. I called her over to me but each time she got close, she ran off.  The family did have a dog, I saw it but they must have put it in the car - maybe it chases balls? I don't know. 

Now I realise that as soon as I had Molly back playing tuggies I should have put her on the lead but the boy had picked up his ball and looked like he was leaving. Next thing I know there were three yummy mummies telling me that my dog was badly behaved (she sat at my feet doing look at me's during their tirade) refusing to answer my question about why they weren't playing on the other 50 acres of land where dogs are on lead and then claiming they had no idea the field was off lead (my suggestion that if I had children I would be looking carefully at the map to ensure I didn't get lost or let my dog off in the wrong place didn't go down very well). 

Anyway I agree that Molly could have done better around the football. We ended up begging to differ and I apologised for Molly wrecking the ball. They vaguely apologised for saying it was lucky I wasn't a parent when I told them why... in short a very heated and terribly upsetting event.

So... what is a good way to train a dog to recall when it's the most amazing thing ever. I refuse to put Molly on a lead in a field that's dedicated to off lead play for dogs in front of idiots like this so I need to find an alternative. In anycase, we'll probably encounter footballs in other places so it's clearly a problem I must deal with.

Any tips? Do you think I should get her a football of her own and we can practice coming back? Tuggies works really well but the football was too much.


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## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> ........and avoiding dogs to keep her calm until you are both ready is nothing to worry about





moonviolet said:


> GR no rush, when you are BOTH ready you can begin to walk places where you might see a dog.





Dogless said:


> GR - you sound as if you're doing well with Ginge; if you've achieved calm by using avoidance then the Ninja will probably be in a much less stressed state to being to encounter dogs again.


Thanks peeps, part of me just feels we should be able to cope, I have no idea if she could, but I dont think I can yet so away from people we will stay, it helps with hubby not working in some ways as I have the car 

Mollysmith, don't really know what to say, it wasn't really a scenario you could have foreseen I suppose, sometimes we just have to hold our heads up high and do the things we would rather not. I know you didn't want Molly on lead in the off lead area but if confronted with the situation myself I think thats exactly what I would have done and cleared off till later, it doesn't sound like it was worth getting yourself in a situation that so upset you . Have a cup of tea and some deep breaths


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## Dogless

MollySmith - not sure; it's a hard one. We have one designated offlead dog walking area here (although I use fields on the abandoned estates too!) and kids have been playing hide and seek on it in the holidays and after school and football occasionally. I JUST got Rudi onlead in time before they leapt out roaring at us the other day, so I had a word about scaring dogs etc. I just keep the boys on the lead TBH if I think the kids are hiding and playing and if they have a football. Shouldn't have to like you shouldn't as there's a huge red sign saying what the area is .



Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> I honestly don't know. I've never tried but was debating this morning on whether to get a small bag of AG Sensitive. Trouble is it means changing her twice and it is such a big deal I'm afraid. When she gets these awful bouts of diarrheoa it's a nightmare and hugely expensive as well. I get almost frightened to give her any food at all in case it starts her off.
> 
> How exciting - how long is your course and are you working both of them?


It a real dilemma, poor Leafy. I'm guessing you've tried slippery elm? A friend swears by it for her dog that is prone to colitis.

I am taking both, but am going for Kilo. It's not a course as such - three days that I have arranged. Two days' work and the third day a Communication Class. I'm steeling myself for some home truths about my handling and management as lots of Kilo's 'quirks' disappear entirely when we walk with another person and their dog / dogs as long as their dogs are confident.


----------



## MollySmith

I think you're right Ginger Rogers, I should have heard the ball, it's my own fault for not when we were close to the field. I've just remembered I have Total Recall in my massive dog library, I shall get a cuppa and have a look. I long for the hols to finish and see our regular dog walking friends instead of the fairweathers.

Okay, *and breathes*.

I think you are quite right to take the looking at dogs slowly Ginge, I really do. It is very hard to find dogs on lead. The dog walking place that we got to, the car park is meant to be on lead but there are always less than perfect owners with dogs off lead there who think it's fine for their dogs to wander up. We stopped doing lead work there completely. We have a [email protected] near us in a retail park so we can walk around there, that might be a good location or opposite a vets maybe? Either way when you are ready, as you'll be nervous and that does travel down the lead. It might be easier with a friend? Our trainer took Molly with me as she was relaxed, it's not her dog, whereas I was gripping the lead like a lunatic waiting for it to end in tears. I sing to myself now and deep breath a lot 

Beth - so pleased you and Oscar had a good walk, only a minor week hiccup so he's coming along really well isn't he?

Dogless, gosh it's come around so fast, I hope you all have a great time, I want to hear all about it. It's bound to be nerve wracking but I find the more I dread it, the more I do actually enjoy things and I am sure she's met all sorts of owners and dogs.

Twiggy, I had no idea Leafy was so sensitive to food, I can't imagine how hard that must be. I'm glad you got to go shopping yesterday, it's nice to get away from it all for few hours if only for the doggy welcome when you get back.

Symone - My grandmother's dog used to hug legs! You could walk along with her hugging you, crazy thing. The clothes basket is odd, I guess the smell of clothes reminds her of you. I wondered if a wooden one might mean she chews it more and gets splinters? Could you get one of those pop up containers and hang it up? Like this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Solid-Laund...YW72/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1364910859&sr=8-3


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> MollySmith - not sure; it's a hard one. We have one designated offlead dog walking area here (although I use fields on the abandoned estates too!) and kids have been playing hide and seek on it in the holidays and after school and football occasionally. I JUST got Rudi onlead in time before they leapt out roaring at us the other day, so I had a word about scaring dogs etc. I just keep the boys on the lead TBH if I think the kids are hiding and playing and if they have a football. Shouldn't have to like you shouldn't as there's a huge red sign saying what the area is .


It all seemed to be 50/50 but I think it was just them - yummy mummies in their posh gear that got my back up even before I spoke to them. The kids were fine, it's the parents. It just got me that there are 50+ acres of land and they pick the one that says it's a Dog Exercise area.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> It all seemed to be 50/50 but I think it was just them - yummy mummies in their posh gear that got my back up even before I spoke to them. The kids were fine, it's the parents. It just got me that there are 50+ acres of land and they pick the one that says it's a Dog Exercise area.


I understand completely - wasn't having a go  - it's what happens here every time there is a bit of OK weather. Drives me crackers :frown5:.


----------



## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> I long for the hols to finish and see our regular dog walking friends instead of the fairweathers.


Oh me too  even if I'm not walking the ninja amongst them, it makes my heart race just driving about. It really is dog after dog after dog after more dogs. I have no idea where they all come from.

are we ready for the holiday kids

yes mummy we have packed our bags

have you packed toothbrush, hair brush, pj's and got the holiday dog out of the airing cupboard 

The finding places we can expose her to dogs with distance is hard but actually the beach (after this week) used to be quite good. The common should be good as its huge but its useless, or rather the owners are, I actually had a conversation with someone the other day who was telling me their dog is known for being the friendliest on the common, he runs up and says hello to everyone (his dog is a completely nutty large hairy lurcher ) - okay, I will remember not go up there if I see you then - tis the trouble the larger the area the more people feel its ok to let their dogs run riot!


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I understand completely - wasn't having a go  - it's what happens here every time there is a bit of OK weather. Drives me crackers :frown5:.


Yes I know  I'd never considering fair weather walkers as a problem area before ut:


----------



## Maria_1986

What a weekend! Lovely walk on friday with OH(via the pub ) which was lovely and calm and stress free (well stress light I can't do stress free!) then working on Saturday where people suddenly realise their dog/cat/hamster has not eaten/drank/pooped since 5 weeks ago and because its easter its now an emergency and if I don't give them the appointment that they want its my fault if their dog/cat/hamster dies. Even though we have a nurse in on a Saturday I still ended up holding for drips, cleaning abscesses etc - poor Chev was left home with OH who managed just about to drag himself away from his computer for half an hour then moaned that she was hyper when I got back. Visiting family on Sunday and Monday then back at work this morning. Our quick lunchtime walk today was awful due to an idiot with a dog and child, neither of which she had control of and she crossed the road and walked past me - could have taken 10 more steps and been on the other side of the road as I went past but nope - her dog was yappy and trying to jump on Chev her child ran up to Chev and whacked her on the head and as I continued to walk up the road the dog was following us on its flexi and the child followed us too. Its a good job she is so calm because it could have been a disaster. People make me so angry sometimes.

Anyway, I'm now back off to work but I will try to catch up when I get home.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> MollySmith - not sure; it's a hard one. We have one designated offlead dog walking area here (although I use fields on the abandoned estates too!) and kids have been playing hide and seek on it in the holidays and after school and football occasionally. I JUST got Rudi onlead in time before they leapt out roaring at us the other day, so I had a word about scaring dogs etc. I just keep the boys on the lead TBH if I think the kids are hiding and playing and if they have a football. Shouldn't have to like you shouldn't as there's a huge red sign saying what the area is .
> 
> *It a real dilemma, poor Leafy. I'm guessing you've tried slippery elm? A friend swears by it for her dog that is prone to colitis.*
> 
> Yes I've always got a tub of Dorwest Tree Bark Powder, which is the same thing.
> 
> *I am taking both, but am going for Kilo. It's not a course as such - three days that I have arranged. Two days' work and the third day a Communication Class. I'm steeling myself for some home truths about my handling and management as lots of Kilo's 'quirks' disappear entirely when we walk with another person and their dog / dogs as long as their dogs are confident.*




I honestly don't think you'll hear a 'lot of home truths' about your handling and management. You do a good job by the sounds of it.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Can I hide here and have a grumble please? I am so cross and upset and tempted to drive back to the walk to give the idiots I met today seconds.
> 
> The place we walk - Dimwit knows it - has a big field at the end, enclosed and marked for dogs. It's called the Off Lead Dog Field on the map and signs and from the main car park it's signposted as this.
> 
> Today we walked through with Molly off lead because it's off lead and there was a teenager playing with a football. Molly went straight for the football but did drop it. The teenage boy picked it up, I recalled Molly, we played tuggy together as it looked like he was leaving (in fact I think the rest of the family were coming back into the field to play with him so they would have seen the sign on the gate saying it's a off lead dog area, it's huge!) but the boy dropped the ball again. Molly ran off, got it and played with it. I called her over to me but each time she got close, she ran off.  The family did have a dog, I saw it but they must have put it in the car - maybe it chases balls? I don't know.
> 
> Now I realise that as soon as I had Molly back playing tuggies I should have put her on the lead but the boy had picked up his ball and looked like he was leaving. Next thing I know there were three yummy mummies telling me that my dog was badly behaved (she sat at my feet doing look at me's during their tirade) refusing to answer my question about why they weren't playing on the other 50 acres of land where dogs are on lead and then claiming they had no idea the field was off lead (my suggestion that if I had children I would be looking carefully at the map to ensure I didn't get lost or let my dog off in the wrong place didn't go down very well).
> 
> Anyway I agree that Molly could have done better around the football. We ended up begging to differ and I apologised for Molly wrecking the ball. They vaguely apologised for saying it was lucky I wasn't a parent when I told them why... in short a very heated and terribly upsetting event.
> 
> So... what is a good way to train a dog to recall when it's the most amazing thing ever. I refuse to put Molly on a lead in a field that's dedicated to off lead play for dogs in front of idiots like this so I need to find an alternative. In anycase, we'll probably encounter footballs in other places so it's clearly a problem I must deal with.
> 
> *Any tips? Do you think I should get her a football of her own and we can practice coming back? Tuggies works really well but the football was too much.*




Have you tried a Spacehopper Lob It? Holly has the medium size 8-9" and is now totally obsessed. I'm pretty sure she'd now ignore most things if I produced it.

I can't believe yummie mummies deciding the best place to let their children play was the dog off-lead field - how bluddy stupid......


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> I honestly don't think you'll hear a 'lot of home truths' about your handling and management. You do a good job by the sounds of it.


I try, but when I make a hash of it....I really make a hash of it!!!!!  .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I try, but when I make a hash of it....I really make a hash of it!!!!!  .


Yes but we all do including, I expect, Angela Stockdale....

She'll have seen it all before I promise you....


----------



## Nicki85

Well, it has been a sleepy afternoon here! I think the dogs have been awake for a short time indeed today. I tried to take Shae into the garden for some 1-2-1 playtime but she just seemed a bit sleepy so wasn't particularly productive! 

I am worried that as she is playing so much with Rusty that I will be missing out on that part of our relationship if that makes sense... I'll be doing individual play sessions as well as training sessions I think in the morning and evening when she usually plays with Rusty... I guess 5 mins with each of them then they can play with each other?

I train them individually and together and she responds really well to that- I'm just not as exciting as Rusty when it comes to playing I guess!!


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Have you tried a Spacehopper Lob It? Holly has the medium size 8-9" and is now totally obsessed. I'm pretty sure she'd now ignore most things if I produced it.
> 
> I can't believe yummie mummies deciding the best place to let their children play was the dog off-lead field - how bluddy stupid......


I have seen these, she went off with the trainers one the other week :001_rolleyes: We did get it back. I think I need to stash one in the bag for emergencies, she does love them.

Dogless - after today my OH said to me (after making tea!) that it was silly because at least we do train our dog more than these women seemed to train their children. Anyway I'll say what he said to you, which is at least we do train and make that effort, it shows willing even if it doesn't always work. We know we're doing it. Like Twiggy says, Angela will have seen it all before


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Have you tried a Spacehopper Lob It? Holly has the medium size 8-9" and is now totally obsessed. I'm pretty sure she'd now ignore most things if I produced it.
> 
> *I can't believe yummie mummies deciding the best place to let their children play was the dog off-lead field - how bluddy stupid.....*.


I agree with Twiggy! Dont feel bad about Molly wrecking their ball! Maybe they'll think and read the signs next time!

Some people really annoy me, they're almost deliberately ignorant! They would rather be all self-righteous after something has happened than take measures to prevent it happening in the first place! :mad5:

Just a quick hello! I think most of you saw our thread about Izzy's nail, bless her! Shes now at home with Tarnus, he managed to arrange to work. Hopefully she'll be a bit brighter when I get home, she must have been feeling pretty rubbish as she wee'd in her bed and she's never ever done that, even as a pup! 

Pretty eventful start to the morning so needless to say Im shattered now and already ready for my bed. Would normally have school tomorrow but think she'll have to sit out, I may take her along to watch though if she's ok walking on it by then. We're supposed to be heading up to Cumbria on Thurday night for a wedding on Friday but a bit worried about the inevitable zoomies she'll have when she sees Millie ! Nurse said agility might be ok on Sunday but to see how she is and let her take it pretty easy. So 5 days of shortish walks, Abs and metacam ahead!


----------



## moonviolet

Poor Izzy i hope she's feeling better soon, now it's off it'll probably harden up quite quickly.

MS, you are preaching to the choir on the fair weathers. here we have them in the form of dog walkers, rambling groups, mountain bikers, horse riders none of whom stick the area's set out in the byelaws, all of whom seem to think they take precidence over each other group. throw in a dash of army personnel playing an advanced version of laser quest, with smoke grenades and flash bangs makes for interesting times. 

Random question of the day, when proceeding down a BOAT ( byway open to all traffic) who has priority the 2 ton vehicle on the byway or the mountain bikers who's trail crosses the byway.  according to teh mountain biker's its' their right of way. jsut as well i stopped they are a b*gger to pick out of the wheel arches


----------



## GingerRogers

two tonne vehicles get right of way wherever you are its common sense   sadly it is illegal to run people over who don't appreciate that 

Can anyone point me to somewhere I can find a good reliable way to teach a fetch, I don't think I need a proper retrieve, we will run after some things and bring them nearly back  but only things that we can then lie down with, just out of reach, and munch on, like squeaky egg and tuggy rope. If we don't throw them very far then we are not interested, with balls we will run after them as they look fun when they move but we don't bother picking them up, stupid!!

Also now the weather is, well looking better even if it still feels like a freezer and with lighter evenings, I want to try and do stuff outside, I like the idea of trying to teach her to run round something and come back to me, yes I am sure there is a proper agility term for it


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> two tonne vehicles get right of way wherever you are its common sense   sadly it is illegal to run people over who don't appreciate that
> 
> Can anyone point me to somewhere I can find a good reliable way to teach a fetch, I don't think I need a proper retrieve, *we will run after some things and bring them nearly back*  but only things that we can then lie down with, just out of reach, and munch on, like squeaky egg and tuggy rope. If we don't throw them very far then we are not interested, with balls we will run after them as they look fun when they move but we don't bother picking them up, stupid!!
> 
> Also now the weather is, well looking better even if it still feels like a freezer and with lighter evenings, I want to try and do stuff outside, I like the idea of trying to teach her to run round something and come back to me, yes I am sure there is a proper agility term for it


Oh me and Molly thought that was good... she thinks it helps me move my fat [email protected]

Thanks girls, you've made me feel heaps better, I think her accusation of being an awful owner and attempting to pin parenting onto it upset me so much and I knew if I'd posted a proper thread 'out there' I might be flamed. xxx


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> two tonne vehicles get right of way wherever you are its common sense   *sadly it is illegal to run people over who don't appreciate that *Can anyone point me to somewhere I can find a good reliable way to teach a fetch, I don't think I need a proper retrieve, we will run after some things and bring them nearly back  but only things that we can then lie down with, just out of reach, and munch on, like squeaky egg and tuggy rope. If we don't throw them very far then we are not interested, with balls we will run after them as they look fun when they move but we don't bother picking them up, stupid!!
> 
> Also now the weather is, well looking better even if it still feels like a freezer and with lighter evenings, I want to try and do stuff outside, I like the idea of trying to teach her to run round something and come back to me, yes I am sure there is a proper agility term for it


So I can't go all Judge Dredd on them then * huffs*. Their "trail" is already a repeated infringement of the byelaws. Oh well i guess i'll have keep on taking the high ground and looking down my nose  :lol:

This Kiko pup video is for "unusual" items but it has retireving to hand or to dropping into something in there too

Teach Your Dog to Fetch Anything! clicker dog training tricks - YouTube


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Oh me and Molly thought that was good... she thinks it helps me move my fat [email protected]
> 
> Thanks girls, you've made me feel heaps better, I think her accusation of being an awful owner and attempting to pin parenting onto it upset me so much and I knew if I'd posted a proper thread 'out there' I might be flamed. xxx


I like it in here....even if we disagree that's all it is....no torches lit and stakes erected .


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I like it in here....even if we disagree that's all it is....no torches lit and stakes erected .


Yes, I get helpful advice not a lecture which is nice. I know I get it wrong because I'm human (but often right cos I'm a woman )

MV - thank you for the link, I have digressed to her leave it video and we're going outside to practice that, I think that would be useful. What's so silly about the bring it back is that Molly's 'touch' is really good (she likes to add in a lick so she's sure she's done it!) so it's a natural progression. I watched that and had a lightbulb moment.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Yes, I get helpful advice not a lecture which is nice. I know I get it wrong because I'm human (but often right cos I'm a woman )
> 
> MV - thank you for the link, I have digressed to her leave it video and we're going outside to practice that, I think that would be useful. What's so silly about the bring it back is that Molly's 'touch' is really good (she likes to add in a lick so she's sure she's done it!) so it's a natural progression. *I watched that and had a lightbulb moment*.


Did you? I'm afraid I didn't and would have much preferred to see the first dog's progression, rather than swapping to a clever (and trained collie) for the difficult bits.

I know the girl's videos are very popular but cynical old me would rather these people explain in more depth when things don't go according to plan or when the dog decides not to play ball...!!


----------



## Symone

MollySmith said:


> Symone - My grandmother's dog used to hug legs! You could walk along with her hugging you, crazy thing. The clothes basket is odd, I guess the smell of clothes reminds her of you. I wondered if a wooden one might mean she chews it more and gets splinters? Could you get one of those pop up containers and hang it up? Like this?
> 
> Solid Pop Up Laundry Bin Raspberry 44 x 55cm Approx: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home


That looks very similar to the ones she tends to destroy! And they have some metally wire thing in which can be dangerous. 
Maybe there's a metal bin or something that I can use? I'll go to wilko tomorrow and have a good nosey. If I can't find something I could just buy a kitchen bin and use that as a clothes basket.


----------



## Dimwit

moonviolet said:


> Dimwit gorgeous pic i'm getting quite a soft spot for sprocket.:001_wub:


Thank you. Don't tell him, but I am quite fond of the little hooligan 

*Twiggy* I hope the food arrives soon and is suitable - it must be a nightmare. Sprocket has quite a sensitive digestive system and was very ill when he was a puppy but *touch wood* I have found a food that suits him and is not extortionately expensive

*GR* As others have said there is nothing wrong with avoiding dogs etc. I built it up really slowly with Sprocket (and still am with people) and even now I always err on the side of caution - he may miss out on a few opportunities to interact with nice (but unknown) dogs but I would rather that than him have another negative experience

*MS* Grr to stupid people, it's not as if it is difficult to miss the offlead signs I have one of the small spacehopper toys which the dimwit loves, the only trouble is that it gets very slimy very quickly

*Dogless* Enjoy your trip - I am sure you are doing a great job with your boys. As others have said, nobody is perfect and at least you are making the effort to train your dogs.

Can't really help with the teaching dogs to fetch, mine is brilliant at fetch (to the point of being a nuisance) and I have to hide all of his toys away otherwise he is constantly pestering me to throw them.
What I struggle with is teaching him to bring things back to me for a proper retrieve as he has a tendency to just abandon them somewhere in the vicinity of me and then wait for me to throw them again


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I know the girl's videos are very popular but cynical old me would rather these people explain in more depth when things don't go according to plan or when the dog decides not to play ball...!!


You're not the only one coz most of the time things certainly don't go to plan here lol. Can't help with the retrieve issues, Spencer is a natural and teaching him to retrieve to hand was as easy as simply refusing to throw a toy dropped on the ground. It's not a formal retrieve but it's good enough for us.

Still nothing to report here, still in a lot of pain but have manage to get both dogs around the block today. Poor Spen, over a week without a proper walk now and he's starting to climb the walls :nonod: Also took Khan out for a play on his own and took Spen out for a play but ended up just doing 101 things to do with a bench again. Apparently he likes that game. Didn't get a video of Spen's training session but I did get one of Khan having a play.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> even if we disagree that's all it is....no torches lit and stakes erected .


What, none at all? How disappointing


----------



## Guest

My dog has managed to get under a 6 inch gap in the fence.

Managed to lasso him thank god or he'd have never come back. 

*sweary face*


----------



## moonviolet

LurcherOwner said:


> My dog has managed to get under a 6 inch gap in the fence.
> 
> Managed to lasso him thank god or he'd have never come back.
> 
> *sweary face*


Have you considered joining the circus?


----------



## Sarah1983

LurcherOwner said:


> My dog has managed to get under a 6 inch gap in the fence.
> 
> Managed to lasso him thank god or he'd have never come back.
> 
> *sweary face*


How the hell do they do it? Rupert managed to get through several gaps that I would have sworn a Yorkie would have struggled to squeeze through.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Thank you. Don't tell him, but I am quite fond of the little hooligan
> 
> *Twiggy* I hope the food arrives soon and is suitable - it must be a nightmare. Sprocket has quite a sensitive digestive system and was very ill when he was a puppy but *touch wood* I have found a food that suits him and is not extortionately expensive
> 
> *GR* As others have said there is nothing wrong with avoiding dogs etc. I built it up really slowly with Sprocket (and still am with people) and even now I always err on the side of caution - he may miss out on a few opportunities to interact with nice (but unknown) dogs but I would rather that than him have another negative experience
> 
> *MS* Grr to stupid people, it's not as if it is difficult to miss the offlead signs I have one of the small spacehopper toys which the dimwit loves, the only trouble is that it gets very slimy very quickly
> 
> *Dogless* Enjoy your trip - I am sure you are doing a great job with your boys. As others have said, nobody is perfect and at least you are making the effort to train your dogs.
> 
> Can't really help with the teaching dogs to fetch, mine is brilliant at fetch (to the point of being a nuisance) and I have to hide all of his toys away otherwise he is constantly pestering me to throw them.
> *What I struggle with is teaching him to bring things back to me for a proper retrieve as he has a tendency to just abandon them somewhere in the vicinity of me and then wait for me to throw them again*




When you think about it why would they bother to present to hand when just dropping articles/toys somewhere in the vicinity of the handler produces the desired effect ie handler bending down, picking it up and throwing again....

It's best to back chain it - get the present before the throw.

I've had several collies with sensitive stomachs over the years but nothing like poor little Leafy's problem and I don't think the 'experts' understand it either.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> My dog has managed to get under a 6 inch gap in the fence.
> 
> Managed to lasso him thank god or he'd have never come back.
> 
> *sweary face*


He's a one off that dog of yours..!!


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> When you think about it why would they bother to present to hand when just dropping articles/toys somewhere in the vicinity of the handler produces the desired effect ie handler bending down, picking it up and throwing again....
> 
> It's best to back chain it - get the present before the throw.


Oh I know, it's completely my fault (clearly dimwit is a very appropriate username), I never insisted on him returning the ball to my hand before throwing it again. I am working on the back chaining, with a completely new object, and he will now hold it for a nano second... 
Still, it gives me something to work on and hopefully by the time we have mastered the present we will have his impulse control to a point where he will wait while I throw


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> What, none at all? How disappointing


If you want you very own burning at the stake debacle just post something along the lines of "This thread is dogsh!t...you little ladies just need to run along with your positive methods and leave the training to those who know how to be the boss of dogs. A choke chain and shock collar are all you need and your dog will never disobey you again".....:skep:.

Just had a good walk with Dizzy and the boys, safe to say they're zonked now for the night so should just sleep the ferry and first part of the journey away - touch wood!! . Went past a big black dog who postured and stared at Kilo, I remembered to breathe and feel happy and give slack on the lead and...he looked at the dog and....looked back to me and trotted on . Same score with a JRT that had a go. I am SO pleased with him at present . Extra pleased that he didn't react as I had Rudi with me and so far we've managed to avoid that. In fact his only reaction for about a month (or more????) was to the beagle the other day .


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Did you? I'm afraid I didn't and would have much preferred to see the first dog's progression, rather than swapping to a clever (and trained collie) for the difficult bits.
> 
> I know the girl's videos are very popular but cynical old me would rather these people explain in more depth when things don't go according to plan or when the dog decides not to play ball...!!


Yup, that too it was incorporating touch which Molly knows that made me think oh yes. But having decided to do some training outside something nasty under the woodshed caught Molly's attention so yes, a bit more real life would be useful as we progressed nowhere this afternoon


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> If you want you very own burning at the stake debacle just post something along the lines of "This thread is dogsh!t...you little ladies just need to run along with your positive methods and leave the training to those who know how to be the boss of dogs. A choke chain and shock collar are all you need and your dog will never disobey you again".....:skep:.
> 
> Just had a good walk with Dizzy and the boys, safe to say they're zonked now for the night so should just sleep the ferry and first part of the journey away - touch wood!! . Went past a big black dog who postured and stared at Kilo, I remembered to breathe and feel happy and give slack on the lead and...he looked at the dog and....looked back to me and trotted on . Same score with a JRT that had a go. I am SO pleased with him at present . Extra pleased that he didn't react as I had Rudi with me and so far we've managed to avoid that. In fact his only reaction for about a month (or more????) was to the beagle the other day .


Oh good, I was busy putting out my torch in the shrine to Cesar Millan, such a fan you know :biggrin5: I will light it again by scratching it on his stubble.

I hope the journey goes well


----------



## Werehorse

Day in cafe - so, very, knackered.

Parents have whippet... 









Well jel and puppy broody again. 

Monochrome boys v bouncy and full of themselves this evening.

Oscar's resource guarding takes on comedy value when he is desperate to play fetch with his chewy bone but also does growlies as he hands it to me - he fetched it to hand and let go himself, no force from me, but he growled as he let go. :skep: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse.....that puppy :001_wub::001_wub:...name yet??? Oscar makes me laugh, at least he handed it over


----------



## Guest

OMG ITS A MINI ZANDER NEARLY. AHHH.

Its so frigging cute!

OKAY MAYBE ITS DOESNT LOOK ALL THAT ZANDY IT BUT STILL ITS A WHIPPET PUPPY.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> Werehorse.....that puppy :001_wub::001_wub:...name yet??? Oscar makes me laugh, at least he handed it over


Wilf.  Apparently he is settling in well.


----------



## Dogless

Wilf whippet...couldn't be cuter!! .


----------



## kat&molly

Phew- caught up.
Twiggy- what a nightmare with Leafy and her tum. Hope you get some food sorted soon.

Moonviolet- Hope Tinks been ok after yesterday- stupid people- why do they never see the upset it causes.

Ginge- I'm gutted its your last week on the course- I've enjoyed the reports- and the new calmer Ninja-you'll both get there.

Dogless- enjoy the workshop with the boys, a great opportunity. Cant wait to hear all about it. Have a safe trip.

Beth- that was a good walk- Oscar is doing so well now.

MSmith- sorry your walk wasn't very good.

Have been a bit busy here not much time to post- but something amazing happened today. 
Evie , came and offered to do some heelwork today.   
Even more shocking was that we were on a walk in some fields with all those sniffs and digs to do, and she came to me. :huh: :thumbup:
I did tell OH my exciting news but he was slightly underwhelmed.:001_rolleyes:

Crate Games arrived and I had decided rather than a mat I would actually use a crate- because you never know when its needed. At the very beginning stages.
Scruff only went in one for some training over night when she first came and she's been in the plastic one in the car a couple of times lately but she's not happy to go in the metal one indoors yet so we're just going slow, I threw treats at the back and waited , but no go.See how she is tomorrow.

Hope everyones ok.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> When you think about it why would they bother to present to hand when just dropping articles/toys somewhere in the vicinity of the handler produces the desired effect ie handler bending down, picking it up and throwing again....
> 
> It's best to back chain it - *get the present before the throw*.
> 
> I've had several collies with sensitive stomachs over the years but nothing like poor little Leafy's problem and I don't think the 'experts' understand it either.


By this do you mean the bit like what werehorse posted in videos - get the dog to take the item out your hand first. I think I might struggle with that, its her manners again , any further tips please??? 

Tonight though I am going to teach her to be friends with Bessie my Grans bulldog (ornament) just because I find it funny.

Then praps start the Kiko method if I don't get anything better from grannie 

Wilf is so cute and a brilliant name, look forward to him joining your crew werehorse and learning some funnies from Hugo.

LO  Zander bad boy, not to get you all riled but I just took some rubbish out and realised there is actually a Ginger sized hole behind the bins but she has never attempted to escape.

Nearly lost her to another bliddy deer tonight, I never saw it it burst out a covert 

Oven is beeping at me must go as OH is in bed with another head 

ETA Good luck Dogless, really look forward to hearing all about it, enjoy, she wont be judging


----------



## kat&molly

Werehorse- Wilf is gorgeous and I love the name.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> If you want you very own burning at the stake debacle just post something along the lines of "This thread is dogsh!t...you little ladies just need to run along with your positive methods and leave the training to those who know how to be the boss of dogs. A choke chain and shock collar are all you need and your dog will never disobey you again".....:skep:.


Fun though that sounds, I would rather not be the one who gets burnt

Werehorse - that puppy is just the cutest


----------



## Beth17

Werehorse the name suits him perfectly :001_wub:

Dogless hope you and the boys have a quiet uneventful journey 

K&M yay Evie  

The boys spent most of the day after their walk wandering around and gardening  They didn't actually go to sleep until after their dinner so this evening has been very quiet.

Sam is a natural at retrieving and brings the toy back to hand almost everytime. Maybe he's part labrador as well?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Evening WAYWO folk 

Sorry I've not been on much, we went away for part of the weekend and have been manically busy with all sorts over the past week.

I'm ashamed to say I haven't read through all the pages since I was last on but hope that you are all doing ok.

We're all fine here, got a few more new issues with Branston (just as I felt we were getting on top of everything) but I haven't got the energy to go into it all this evening, but I will be back when in a more positive frame of mind to get some more advice from all you lovely peeps


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Oh I know, it's completely my fault (clearly dimwit is a very appropriate username), I never insisted on him returning the ball to my hand before throwing it again. I am working on the back chaining, with a completely new object, and he will now hold it for a nano second...
> Still, it gives me something to work on and hopefully by the time we have mastered the present we will have his impulse control to a point where he will wait while I throw


Don't worry I'll show you how to do it.....


----------



## Twiggy

*Werehorse -* Wilf is gorgeous

*Dogless - *Safe journey and hope you enjoy the training

*K&M -* Well done Evie. I know how you feel and can remember my excitement last year when Holly Bolly left my other dogs and came and played with me instead - it's a great feeling!!


----------



## Twiggy

*


GingerRogers said:



By this do you mean the bit like what werehorse posted in videos - get the dog to take the item out your hand first. I think I might struggle with that, its her manners again , any further tips please???

Click to expand...

*


GingerRogers said:


> Tonight though I am going to teach her to be friends with Bessie my Grans bulldog (ornament) just because I find it funny.
> 
> Then praps start the Kiko method if I don't get anything better from grannie
> 
> Wilf is so cute and a brilliant name, look forward to him joining your crew werehorse and learning some funnies from Hugo.
> 
> LO  Zander bad boy, not to get you all riled but I just took some rubbish out and realised there is actually a Ginger sized hole behind the bins but she has never attempted to escape.
> 
> Nearly lost her to another bliddy deer tonight, I never saw it it burst out a covert
> 
> Oven is beeping at me must go as OH is in bed with another head
> 
> ETA Good luck Dogless, really look forward to hearing all about it, enjoy, she wont be judging


Can you explain exactly what it is you want the Ninja to do with regards to retrieve?


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well, Dexter has settled in wonderfully. Just need to sort out his food schedule situation and then take them to the vets tomorrow. 

He's met some big dogs already -including a boxer, a GSD and a Lab also called Dexter.

Vets tomorrow evening then ringcraft Thursday night.

We've all been for a few walks together too -about three so far. 

He hasn't whined at night or had a wee or poo in the house at all. We have all three in the lounge with us in the evening.


----------



## moonviolet

WH Wilf is gorgeous and what a perfect name 

GR I don't know about there, but the deer population seems to be increasing hugely here. 

FRM Offload when you are ready we are here with tea and sympathy any time 

Just got in from games class, Had a fab time her ladyship just delights me, if you overlook the howl to announce her arrival  fab games lovely enthusiasm and we took up a challenge..... 2 wobble cushions and the girl did good  so pleased with the way she just loves throw herself into things. After class some people ( related to the bar that shares the car park) were hanging around talking loudly, a low gruff but no barking 

Beagle gone flop

ETA safe journey Dogless and CH's

Kat wooohooo Evie !!!


----------



## Werehorse

moonviolet said:


> WH Wilf is gorgeous and what a perfect name
> 
> GR I don't know about there, but the deer population seems to be increasing hugely here.
> 
> FRM Offload when you are ready we are here with tea and sympathy any time
> 
> Just got in from games class, Had a fab time her ladyship just delights me, if you overlook the howl to announce her arrival  fab games lovely enthusiasm and we took up a challenge..... 2 wobble cushions and the girl did good  so pleased with the way she just loves throw herself into things. After class some people ( related to the bar that shares the car park) were hanging around talking loudly, a low gruff but no barking
> 
> *Beagle gone flop*


:lol: :lol: :lol:

Your games clas just sounds like so much fun!


----------



## Guest

Better a round up of today.

Woke up feeling like a terrible thing.We had a good walk, he didn't jump on the cavaliers head and he didn't bark at that one postman.
I went to the vet to get more tablets. Forty pounds for 28 days worth. After this lot I am going onto dorwest stuff due to me having not all that much money. I mean its worth a try.

And Gingey, go at your own pace and use ninja as your indicator.

Wilf is wondiferous!!


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> :lol: :lol: :lol:
> 
> Your games clas just sounds like so much fun!


They really are fun and the laid back atmosphere helps the dogs relax and enjoy too.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Can you explain exactly what it is you want the Ninja to do with regards to retrieve?*


*

Just a communal garden ' fetch that thing and bring it back here please'. She can drop it at my feet as well if she likes but not necessary. I did get some mouthng. Been using a blue rubber dumbell thing which she has shown no interest in apart from occasional gnawing as she will always want all the other toys.

Tink did well tonight. I can here the.joy in your post Mv.

Kicks i really hope you haven't been overdone the little guy and he is as resilient as you think.

Kat well.done evie*


----------



## Werehorse

Argh! I think I've fallen in love with a cottage. I should be going to bed but I'm google-stalking a house.  It is for rent - I'm not just being mad. I don't think either of us really want the hassle of moving but there are a number of downsides to where we are... Hmmmm, how can I persuade OH round to my point of view - he has a tendancy to get a little cross when I get a bee in my bonnet about houses... 

Right. Bed. Tomorrow the job is looking to get even more surreal. Something to do with rugby players. :skep:


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, safe journey and I hope you and the boys enjoy yourselves! Also hope you're prepared to go into lots of detail when you get back  Those of us who can't actually be there have to live it vicariously through you after all.

FRM, I'm sure things will work out. It always seems that just as you get one issue sorted another crops up but you do get to the end of them with time 

MV, you always seem so enthusiastic about what you and Tink are doing. Your games classes sound a lot of fun and it sounds like you both really enjoy them.

I got video of Spencer and Khan playing tug earlier. Lots of growling from Khan. And a fair bit from Spencer too! Silent Bob is finding his voice. 

I really want to go for a decent walk tomorrow but not sure about leaving Khan for long. I can't take him and Spencer at the same time, partly because there's no way I'd have control over them both and partly because I really don't think he'd manage it. Not without being in pain afterwards anyway. Perhaps I'll just take them both to the nearby field, won't give them much in the way of physical exercise since it's leash law season but it's a change of scenery. And not too far to hobble with my bad back.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> Argh! I think I've fallen in love with a cottage. I should be going to bed but I'm google-stalking a house.  It is for rent - I'm not just being mad. I don't think either of us really want the hassle of moving but there are a number of downsides to where we are... Hmmmm, how can I persuade OH round to my point of view - he has a tendancy to get a little cross when I get a bee in my bonnet about houses...


If it makes you feel any better my mum and I have been house stalking a property for a good 6 months now, house with substantial annexe and outuildings, tennis court and.... cricket pitch?! be rather grand for dog training.... it might be just a smidge over budget :lol:

Sarah Don't push yourself too hard, the doggies will cope with what you give them and there's no point risking making it worse.


----------



## Beth17

I think spring may have finally arrived :skep: It was too quiet so went to investigate and found them like this in the sun









Hope you have a good day everyone


----------



## moonviolet

Beth17 said:


> I think spring may have finally arrived :skep: It was too quiet so went to investigate and found them like this in the sun
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hope you have a good day everyone


Aww Beth that is adorable


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely pic Beth- dogs aren't daft are they, always manage to find that bit of sun.

Moonviolet- games class sounded good [again] we are all jealous. Love the fact that Tink Howled her arrival.

Hope your back is a bit easier Sarah.

I'm going to pressure wash the back patio today- should be 'fun' , I manage to cover everything else in mud.:001_rolleyes:


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Lovely pic Beth- dogs aren't daft are they, always manage to find that bit of sun.
> 
> Moonviolet- games class sounded good [again] we are all jealous. Love the fact that Tink Howled her arrival.
> 
> Hope your back is a bit easier Sarah.
> 
> *I'm going to pressure wash the back patio today- should be 'fun' , I manage to cover everything else in mud.:001_rolleyes:*




That sounds nearly as much fun as washing the mud from the barn floor...


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Just a communal garden ' fetch that thing and bring it back here please'. She can drop it at my feet as well if she likes but not necessary. I did get some mouthng. Been using a blue rubber dumbell thing which she has shown no interest in apart from occasional gnawing as she will always want all the other toys.
> 
> Hmm sounds as if you need to teach her a formal retrieve.
> 
> How far have you got with the blue dumbell?


----------



## GingerRogers

Good morning everyone 

That photo is adorable Beth, will have to show hubby later, we have been playing around with the should we get another dog thing, to the point he dreamt last night we had 3  don't panic it really isn't imminent, not till we have Ginge on a better keel. He would love a boxer but it can only be a smallish dog, no bigger than Rory really our house is tiny, I did work for a chap who had a miniature boxer, she was the size of a small staff, her parents were full size Florence was just shrunk , she was adorable.

Ginge will find the sunny spot even if it means perching on top of pillows and washing and stuff. Not today though , dull and very windy, the cold bite is back, turned the radiator back up, knew it was being optimistic 

Well last night she made friends with Bessie, it actually looks like she is kissing her :001_wub:, we got some relaxation on the mat, think my mum might have been a little bit right , the clicker was exciting her for that purpose, it suggested that might be an issue in Fired up and to just use a marker word instead and that seemed to have an effect. And the work on the fetchy thing seemed to work as this morning she took it in her mouth straight off, dropped it straight off too but we can wait.

But the reason for my unusual good mood is that I took her 'outside the house' for the first time in 3 weeks. I was so worried that all my good work on LLW would haev gone out the window as we have been going to exciting fields and woods and stuff so haven't really practiced it, the only time I have tried the bliddy deer have ruined it (yes MV they do seem to be increasing, I think the statistic on how many need culling nationwide was 700,000 ) but she remembered the routine straight away, I obviously just need to take it on the road a bit more, like when we get out the car as well as out the front door, and the cold biting wind kept the people away.

Despite this venture into the world of urban estateness ( I wouldn't have tried it but the neighbours van was gone so I had a clear view of the world for once ) I have been taking all your comments on board and its very re-assuring to know that you all feel the more avoidance I practice the more confidence we should both be getting. 

She is much much calmer, even with cars she barely notices them, before, even when she didn't bark and lunge she still sort of cowered when they came past, but today we only got one yelpy bark and a little lunge when a rattly pluming supplies truck came past, cars, not a blink  the diverting at the telly seems to be working too.

Also on doing some reading of Fired up & Culture Clash I wondered whether her 'random' barking at people is actually elderly people, that is something she hasn't had much exposure to and looking back most of the incidences have been oldies, the shuffly, hunched type, with shopping bags, (except the chef but he shuffles and hunches, very odd young chap) or other random things like push chairs and joggers which are understandable. She is fine with my parents but she has only ever met them in the house and they dont tend to hang around hunched up with shopping bags there 

K&M I am gutted its the last week too, enjoy getting mud everywhere .

Sarah take it easy


----------



## Beth17

Ginge is doing really well! Oh and we get some lovely smaller boxers through the rescue


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just a communal garden ' fetch that thing and bring it back here please'. She can drop it at my feet as well if she likes but not necessary. I did get some mouthng. Been using a blue rubber dumbell thing which she has shown no interest in apart from occasional gnawing as she will always want all the other toys.
> 
> Hmm sounds as if you need to teach her a formal retrieve.
> 
> How far have you got with the blue dumbell?
> 
> 
> 
> I started with kikopups efforts to get her interested, wafting it about and making squeaky noises, clicking for any interest, (she just alternated staring at me and the dumbell for a while like I was right numpty ) then she got the hang and started cat pouncing, she sometimes takes it in her mouth which I can encourage, I click this, but as soon as I let go she drops it.
> 
> I don't know if I was right using the dumbell, I bought it when we first got her before we knew what she liked and apart from occasionally doing a bit of gnawing till she makes squeaky blackboard noises with her teeth  she really hasn't been interested which was why I chose it. Which makes sense in my head as all the other toys she has associated playing techniques which involve generally not quite fetching.
> 
> The thing she will do is if we are on the sofa, and throw one of her toys she will run and get it and bring it back to the sofa but its not for us not yet, its for her to have a chew on or we can play tuggy but we don't get it unless we ask (firmly) or wait for her to finish chewing, then we get gurgled at till we throw it again so she sort of understands and sort of enjoys it but on her own terms, hence the new game with the boring dumbell. Thank you!
Click to expand...


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> Ginge is doing really well! Oh and we get some lovely smaller boxers through the rescue


And we would have to travel to Devon to pick one up 

Hubby has the idea that she is used to living with dogs and must miss their company, (I am not convinced that tormenting Zak and Lad was something that she should be allowed to continue to practice ) and that its easier with two  really who will find it easier. I have always said never to a boxer but I would have had Florence :001_wub: and at least they should cope with her over the top play


----------



## Kicksforkills

After having fun in the garden, all three dogs are having quiet time for an hour before walkies. I am having chocolate time in the lounge.


----------



## Guest

The martingale headcollar has arrived!!! I plonked it on him the second I got it outta the wrapper and he didn't even try to paw it off. Looks comfy and guess what? HE CAN ACTUALLY OPEN HIS GOB FULLY. *angelic music*
Honest to god that has been the main problem in alot of headcollars as well as the rubbing, they fit nice but he can't pant!
Took him out on it and he as very good apart from when he lauched at an elderly man. I apologized lots and lots though. And then we met a westie at less than half a metre range and it went well there was no OOOH LETS JUMP ON IT.
The dogmatic has gone to the tailors to be adjusted again and she can take as long as she needs this time as when I looked into her work room good god there was hundreds of stuff. Mr. Tailor says I can bring Zand in whenever I like and use him as a male stooge! *thumbsup*
We did have moment when a lady was behind us and Zand was getting worried and then she was like "ooh I think I'm frightening your dog." Then came really close and extended her hand. I was about to jump into bodyblock mode but ZAND LICKED HER HAND AND HIS BODY LANGUAGE WAS FINE!!
Still a bit cross she just kept coming though.
We also went into a charity shop and the lady behind the counter gave him a treat and he sat nicely.
Then we stood outside my shop and I got him into a down and then I just kept flicking sausage at him when men passed at close range.
Then a workmate spoke to me and Zand tried to run away. Even though she didn't even look or adknowledge him at all. Bit strange.
Awww look at them boxers, beth!


----------



## Beth17

LO didn't Zand do well :thumbup:


----------



## Maria_1986

Beth - thats a lovely photo

L/O - sounds like Zand is doing really well as are you 

GR - Sounds like Ginge is doing really well too. Can't say I blame her for having a bark at the loud rattly van though, they make me jump at times too.

K&M - have fun spreading mud about!


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> The martingale headcollar has arrived!!! I plonked it on him the second I got it outta the wrapper and he didn't even try to paw it off. Looks comfy and guess what? HE CAN ACTUALLY OPEN HIS GOB FULLY. *angelic music*
> Honest to god that has been the main problem in alot of headcollars as well as the rubbing, they fit nice but he can't pant!


Really hope you might have found something he is comfortable in :thumbup1: perhaps the head collars have been contributing to his behavior while out if he has been uncomfortable and I would have thought not being able to pant would be nasty if I was a dog, I know people swear by the dogmatics but different things work with different dogs. Panting is one thing they will do if they are stressed so the more stressed the more uncomfortable he would haev become.

Although to start with the gentle leader seemed to help Ginge it definitely added to her reactivity, she got so mad :mad5: with the actual head collar, if she saw a dog and tried to get to it, I think trying to bark wasn't a nice feeling for her but rather than stop she just got madder. 
Made her walk like an angel and if she could get to dogs and say hello/ignore as she wished she was fine if not she attacked the head collar .


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Really hope you might have found something he is comfortable in :thumbup1: perhaps the head collars have been contributing to his behavior while out if he has been uncomfortable and I would have thought not being able to pant would be nasty if I was a dog, I know people swear by the dogmatics but different things work with different dogs. Panting is one thing they will do if they are stressed so the more stressed the more uncomfortable he would haev become.
> 
> Although to start with the gentle leader seemed to help Ginge it definitely added to her reactivity, she got so mad :mad5: with the actual head collar, if she saw a dog and tried to get to it, I think trying to bark wasn't a nice feeling for her but rather than stop she just got madder.
> Made her walk like an angel and if she could get to dogs and say hello/ignore as she wished she was fine if not she attacked the head collar .


I had a bad time with gentle leader too recently actually. I tried it once more before I gave it to the doberman lurchers owner and when it rubbed his face I nearly was on the recieving end of a tantrum. I do not like tantrums thank you, they hurt.

Also the matingale one (Its exactly like the indi-dog one) is fleecy. I was just there stroking the material going "ooooh its all soft." :lol:


----------



## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> I know people swear by the dogmatics but different things work with different dogs.


So true, it's just a shame that you often have to spend quite a bit of money trying these things out. Sprocket walks quite well in the gentle leader (bar the occasional tantrum when he tries to pull it off) but that is the only one he will tolerate at all.
He is between sizes in the halti and dogmatic (I know a lot of people rave about the dogmatic but he hated it - maybe they work better on dogs with bigger heads?). I also tried the martingale ones but the fleecy ones are too bulky for him and made him panic.
I definintely think they can make a huge difference to how reactive a dog is though, and while the dimwit walks very nicely in the gentle leader I tend to only keep it in my pocket for emergencies as he does seem more reactive when he wears it (or rather, he reacts more strongly but I suspect this partly because he hates having his head restrained).


----------



## Guest

Dimwit said:


> So true, it's just a shame that you often have to spend quite a bit of money trying these things out. Sprocket walks quite well in the gentle leader (bar the occasional tantrum when he tries to pull it off) but that is the only one he will tolerate at all.
> He is between sizes in the halti and dogmatic (I know a lot of people rave about the dogmatic but he hated it - maybe they work better on dogs with bigger heads?). I also tried the martingale ones but the fleecy ones are too bulky for him and made him panic.
> I definintely think they can make a huge difference to how reactive a dog is though, and while the dimwit walks very nicely in the gentle leader I tend to only keep it in my pocket for emergencies as he does seem more reactive when he wears it (or rather, he reacts more strongly but I suspect this partly because he hates having his head restrained).


See I think mines between sizes on the dogmatic as well. He's a lurcher obvs but he has a snipey nose but wide when the muzzle meets the eyes. (Errr I can't think of the right word but YKWIM) 
Hence it being adjusted.
I walk him on headcollar as a physical safety net. He's a strong lad and I am not a strong lady. :lol:

ALSO we NEED photos of sprocket. Because of reasons.

ETA: Muzzle training also went well. HE ATE SOME FOOD OUT OF IT!!! *woo*

Another good thing for me about the martingale headcollar is I can plop the muzzle on when the time comes. (One day we WILL go on a grey/lurch walk, WE WILL!)


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> I started with kikopups efforts to get her interested, wafting it about and making squeaky noises, clicking for any interest, (she just alternated staring at me and the dumbell for a while like I was right numpty ) then she got the hang and started cat pouncing, she sometimes takes it in her mouth which I can encourage, I click this, but as soon as I let go she drops it.
> 
> I don't know if I was right using the dumbell, I bought it when we first got her before we knew what she liked and apart from occasionally doing a bit of gnawing till she makes squeaky blackboard noises with her teeth  she really hasn't been interested which was why I chose it. Which makes sense in my head as all the other toys she has associated playing techniques which involve generally not quite fetching.
> 
> The thing she will do is if we are on the sofa, and throw one of her toys she will run and get it and bring it back to the sofa but its not for us not yet, its for her to have a chew on or we can play tuggy but we don't get it unless we ask (firmly) or wait for her to finish chewing, then we get gurgled at till we throw it again so she sort of understands and sort of enjoys it but on her own terms, hence the new game with the boring dumbell. Thank you!
> 
> 
> 
> OK. I've got my class arriving now but will attempt to explain a different method later.
Click to expand...


----------



## Sarah1983

So pleased with the Spendog today. We must have encountered a good 20 reactive dogs on our walk and he just whined a bit and pranced along without any real silliness.


----------



## MollySmith

See my dog is unique and strange  She doesn't like the gentle leader very much (any opportunity to rub her nose on the floor to remove it isn't missed) but she walks well on it. I've never tried a martingdale collar on her but the harness is a big no no, she's like a banshee on it.

We've had a local walk this morning which went well, one cat seen, plastic bags in the road which were very interesting but no dogs anywhere. She did well though. Then we were in the garden doing some fetch and drop it - absolute star although she was easily distracted. I've noticed her recall isn't great in the garden to voice command or the whistle and it was 90% there so I'm going to work on that tomorrow. OH walks around the park but I think I will take her once or twice a week on my own with some warm chicken or liver cake for recall work in the field.

Right back to this blummin assignment.


----------



## kat&molly

Woo woo, well done to the Ninja, Donkey Boy and Spendog.
Everyone's doing well- except me.
After a lovely walk with Evie yesterday she needed to make sure I didn't become complacent so today I was just the Taxi driver and mobile treat dispenser.:001_rolleyes:


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> Woo woo, well done to the Ninja, Donkey Boy and Spendog.
> Everyone's doing well- except me.
> After a lovely walk with Evie yesterday she needed to make sure I didn't become complacent so today I was just the Taxi driver and mobile treat dispenser.:001_rolleyes:


Oooh deary me  I think thats pretty much the pattern here too. Yesterday I was thinking I just might have let the long line trail as she had been so attentive the day before but suffice to say it didn't happen 

Well done Spencer, and you Sarah, all that time and effort and trying to find dogs to socialise with, seems to be paying off :biggrin5:


----------



## Sarah1983

K&M, that often happens here too. One day I'll have a fantastic walk with an attentive and willing companion, the next I'm just the transport to Disneyland.

Ginge, finding dogs he can play with regularly really has helped with him not going loopy at the mere sight of one. He still wants to go and say hello and play if they're willing but we don't have a tantrum about not being able to.


----------



## Sarah1983

Hubby nearly ran over the dogs who live upstairs today. On flexi leads, straight out in front of the car :nonod:


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> Hubby nearly ran over the dogs who live upstairs today. On flexi leads, straight out in front of the car :nonod:


Poor hubby it's horrible feeling i hope he didn't chuck himself around too much stopping. I've had similar here a few times both times with Tink in the car, both times, as you can imagine, i was apoplectic wondering why my dog should be thrown around ( in her crate) to safe guard theirs. Hope it woke the people upstairs up and they will take more care in future.

Lovely main walk today. wall to wall grey adn a wind that could chill the sun meant we only saw the dedicated dog walking types. Tink invited an adolescent lab to play  we've met them before and she has her responsible owners pulling out their hair at the usuals recall , jumping up etc. 
She's made huge leaps forward and didn't jump up at all today  I did a WAYWO style look how far you've come etc etc we parted our ways with her smiling which was really nice  then we didn't see another soul, chilly bliss 

Many silly games were played, then we did a little groundwork on and off lead with some fallen trees Tink loves it her balance and body awareness is pretty awesome ( in comparison to my own) We had a successful approach to the car today, i was leaping around like a loon getting her to do hand touches right until the last moment. when we trotted to the car


----------



## MollySmith

Well poor Molly didn't have much off lead today as there were too many footballs in parks but we did a very long hour walk around parks and streets near our house with the trainer and she didn't react once! Well with one cat but who cares about that! I lost count of dogs (over the street, nose to nose) So so happy I can't tell you. :thumbup: I feel that the work we're doing - OH included now he understand the clicker works, plus lead walks with me and the fortnightly lesson with the trainer are getting somewhere. Plus we did some fetch work again in the garden so she's had a run about and we've done okay too. Lots of throwing of balls and whistles. Mind you since last week and the cat chase she's obsessed with scaling the 6ft fence...

I hope that doesn't sound like a boast  I know that lots of us have reactive dogs in one form or another. Molly really was a nightmare when we got her and honestly I felt like giving up so many times - the two weeks I took unpaid last year were not for OH being ill but more that he couldn't cope with Molly so it did get very tough and we had several big conversations. We are two days from her gotcha day and it's the tiny things I notice. Like I play on the floor with her because I know that she has self control - there was not an ounce of it when we got her - and we can play tuggies really well, she's terribly passionate about that but she will drop nicely and wait. Today has been good, we've done lots of bits of training to make up for the lack of off lead walk and I think it's okay. Don't lose hope girls, we can do this 

Not much Molly time tomorrow, OH is in charge as I'm going shopping and taking my god daughters around Cambridge. Rather appallingly I've had to look up a tour and remember where the colleges are. Living in the midst of the spires doesn't mean automatic education but total complacency I think.

And uhm the Manners Machine, unused, ahem. Mostly cos the batteries ran out but not terribly fussed although Molly has engaged with it well. Her and OH played with it for a while yesterday and seemed to engage with it. So far we've used to to stop her barking at the cat that visits next door and it's involved OH who seems to think that training ends when she gets back into the car so that's a result of sorts but not worth the money. Leave it I can teach with a clicker and a boot up the a*se for my OH is completely free


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Well poor Molly didn't have much off lead today as there were too many footballs in parks but we did a very long hour walk around parks and streets near our house with the trainer and she didn't react once! Well with one cat but who cares about that! I lost count of dogs (over the street, nose to nose) So so happy I can't tell you. :thumbup: I feel that the work we're doing - OH included now he understand the clicker works, plus lead walks with me and the fortnightly lesson with the trainer are getting somewhere. Plus we did some fetch work again in the garden so she's had a run about and we've done okay too. Lots of throwing of balls and whistles. Mind you since last week and the cat chase she's obsessed with scaling the 6ft fence...
> 
> *I hope that doesn't sound like a boast*


I think, after all your hard work you are perfectly entitled to boast


----------



## Sarah1983

MS, boast away. I boast about my little achievements with Spencer and I think you're entitled to boast about how far you've come with Molly, you've put in a lot of hard work after all!

MV, sounds like a fantastic walk. If I could have a Beagle like Tink I'd have one in a heartbeat, she sounds such an awesome dog. I know Beagles aren't right for me though and if I'm struggling to achieve the sort of things you do with Tink with a Labrador I'd be tearing my hair out with a Beagle lol. I bet you made that Lab owners day :thumbup:

Hubby's more angry than anything about the dogs upstairs. He'd seen them in plenty of time to slow down before they even ran out in front of him. He was already p*ssed off at the owners for the comments about us not doing block jobs, the banging of doors at 4am and various other things so I think this is just another gripe about them to be honest.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> MS, boast away. I boast about my little achievements with Spencer and I think you're entitled to boast about how far you've come with Molly, you've put in a lot of hard work after all!
> 
> MV, sounds like a fantastic walk. If I could have a Beagle like Tink I'd have one in a heartbeat, she sounds such an awesome dog. I know Beagles aren't right for me though and if I'm struggling to achieve the sort of things you do with Tink with a Labrador I'd be tearing my hair out with a Beagle lol. I bet you made that Lab owners day :thumbup:
> 
> Hubby's more angry than anything about the dogs upstairs. He'd seen them in plenty of time to slow down before they even ran out in front of him. He was already p*ssed off at the owners for the comments about us not doing block jobs, the banging of doors at 4am and various other things so I think this is just another gripe about them to be honest.


I honestly think labs are harder because they are so friendly and think the whole world is friendly and want to meet the whole world and tell everyone and everythign how wonderful it all is and they want to be friends with everyone and everythings etc etc etc...

Beagles... sing song voice, mental stimulation, a clicker and a pocketful of treats and you're laughing.


----------



## MollySmith

Thank you  Oh for an easy dog though.

I agree Sarah, I think Molly's lab side (I swear it's her father) makes her so full of life and OMG it's soooooo fun attitude, it's knackering. But thank goodness the lurcher part makes her extremely lazy. For almost 2 (in June we guess) she's asleep more than awake but it's too extremes. Sleeping and snoring or chaos on four legs.


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## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I honestly think labs are harder because they are so friendly and think the whole world is friendly and want to meet the whole world and tell everyone and everythign how wonderful it all is and they want to be friends with everyone and everythings etc etc etc...
> 
> Beagles... sing song voice, mental stimulation, a clicker and a pocketful of treats and you're laughing.


Yeah, Spencers friendliness and desire to meet and greet everyone and everything is definitely our biggest problem. If he weren't quite so sociable we'd probably be laughing. But meeting and greeting, especially other dogs, is about the most rewarding thing there is for him.

MS, Spencer appears to be lacking in the lazy side. I keep meeting people who tell me all about how easy going and laid back Labradors are and I look at him and think "what went wrong?" :lol: I suppose he's easy going and laid back in that he just accepts whatever's going on but he's into everything, does everything at 100 miles an hour and simply can't bear not to have something to do. Todays "work" consisted of carrying a mop and a broom handle from the car to the flat. He attempted to carry a cardboard box full of cleaning supplies but considering it was bigger and probably heavier than himself he had to grudgingly admit defeat on that one. I love his attitude but I know many who'd hate it.


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## MollySmith

Spencer is so lucky to have you. I'm told they get lazier as they get older - here's hoping he slows down a little  He really does look so happy in all his photos.


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## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> Spencer is so lucky to have you. I'm told they get lazier as they get older - here's hoping he slows down a little  He really does look so happy in all his photos.


Thanks  I hope he doesn't slow down too much to be honest, I love his enthusiasm and desire to work. One of the things that put me off Labs was the fact so many are dull and ploddy and don't do anything. I've often wondered how much of that is natural to them and how much is just because they don't really get to do anything though. I can't imagine Spencer being dull and ploddy somehow.

To be fair, he's gone 10 days without a proper walk and only a few games of fetch out front with hubby and has been great about it. He was starting to climb the walls yesterday but I can't really blame him. I don't think he'd cope with that little exercise long term though. And yeah, he seems to live in a state of almost permanent happiness lol. Almost always has a grin on his face and a cheerful attitude. He's one of lifes eternal optimists I think while Rupert was a bit like Eeyore :lol:


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## kat&molly

Moonviolet- that sounds a great walk- how refreshing to be able to say well done to someone.

Sarah- Spen reminds me a lot of my Moll with his work ethics  except she is aloof with people and dogs she doesn't know.

A good walk again this afternoon- no heelwork offered today but it seems to be this 1 place in particular that Evie gives me extra attention.
She runs back every couple of minutes and wants fuss- I give her a nice little massage down her sides and hindquarters[ as suggested by MV ].She isn't uneasy there and gets excited when we pull up in the car- I'm not moaning  just wish I knew why- or how to get it like that everywhere.

Scruff still isn't happy to go in the crate and get the treats, I could put her in and she'd accept it but I think it needs to be her decision doesn't it.

Well done to Molly MS.

Patio cleaned. Fence, windows, shutters, covered in mud. Split in pipe- handler soaked.:001_rolleyes:


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## Guest

My dog has just put his head into his muzzle!! On his own!! Still can't do it up or whatever and he still only does it for a second but he properly puts his head right in!! :thumbup: 

How long did it take to clean yourself up Kat? :lol:


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## moonviolet

Kat, Hope you've dried out now. I'd be lethal with a pressure washer :lol: Evie remains an enigma  with Scruff and the crate it definitelyl needs to be her decision, for now i'd reduce the goal, so maybe start with the treat closer to teh door and the goal to be to put her head in the crate to take the treat, once she's happily doing that aim for a head and a paw, then head and both front paws. This could take minutes or days one session or many.

If she won't even put her head in, i'd start just by placing treats right in front of it. Back track the goal until she is in a place of comfort so you can move forward together. 

Woohoo LO  You and Donkey boy are on a roll. 

Sarah, is spendog's next trick to learn how to use a mop? that would be most handy 

We've just had a training pavement walk. with spins. twists. hand touches and foot taps. followed by a session at home ring toss, cinnamon sniffer dog and some balance work on a gymball which is excellent exercis for my inner thighs too. I jsut have to remember to wear thicker trousers, jsut given myself soem fetchign and rather sore friction burns :lol:


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I honestly think labs are harder because they are so friendly and think the whole world is friendly and want to meet the whole world and tell everyone and everythign how wonderful it all is and they want to be friends with everyone and everythings etc etc etc...
> 
> Beagles... sing song voice, mental stimulation, a clicker and a pocketful of treats and you're laughing.


Perhaps Holly's part lab then. I sat somewhere different in the barn today and she was flirting with a male JRT one side and a male Sheltie t'other...LOL Then at the end she got five minutes with her collie boyfriend..!!


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## Dimwit

*Sarah* Spen sounds a bit like Sprocket - except that Sprocket is missing the work ethic 

*LO* Sounds like good progress with the muzzle

*K&M* Sounds like a very good walk - the dimwit does occasionally come running over to me and offers heelwork but more usually he just runs over and launches himself at me for a treat

*MS* I would love an easy dog as well, or at least one who would pretend to be easy occasionally. Still, I keep telling myself that I am learning a lot from him (mostly how NOT to train a dog) and he does seem to be calming down ever so slightly...

He was a bit of a brat tonight - I think the marginally nicer weather has brought out the interesting smells, and it has certainly brought out the fair-weather dog walkers so we mainly just tried to work on using the tennis ball as a reward for basic obedience. 
Then, as we got home, we bumped into my neighbour, who looked at him and said "Oh, he's so well trained isn't he" :lol::lol::lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Sarah, is spendog's next trick to learn how to use a mop? that would be most handy
> 
> We've just had a training pavement walk. with spins. twists. hand touches and foot taps. followed by a session at home ring toss, cinnamon sniffer dog and some balance work on a gymball which is excellent exercis for my inner thighs too. I jsut have to remember to wear thicker trousers, jsut given myself soem fetchign and rather sore friction burns :lol:


Lol, it could be. Perhaps he could do our block jobs for us then.

I really need to get over my self consciousness while out with Spen I think. Caught someone laughing at me today and got all embarrassed and scurried away with a red face lol. MV, I shall aspire to be more like you in the future


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## Izzysmummy

moonviolet said:


> I honestly think labs are harder because they are so friendly and think the whole world is friendly and want to meet the whole world and tell everyone and everythign how wonderful it all is and they want to be friends with everyone and everythings etc etc ....


Hehe! I think someone needs to tell Izzy this!  my little anti-social monkey! 

MS - well done with Molly, you have done amazingly and feel free to boast away!  also well done on being patient on that other thread, you gave very balanced and polite responses!

LO - sounds like the muzzle training is going well!

K+M - bless Evie! She's such a character! Hope you didn't get too wet!

Mv - sounds like a lovely walk, I'm sure you made that Labrador owners day! 

Sarah - well done hubby on emergency stopping for the silly neighbours dogs!

We've just got back from training. Izzy is completely back to her normal self, wanting to be into everything and whinging to play! So I decided to take her along to training to use her brain and tire her out while she can't have her morning runs! She's walking fine on it and not showing any discomfort when I check it so thought walking round the training hall would be fine.

Class went great. She had a little gruff at a little person in the waiting room but then settled down. Spooked at a lady we bumped into (she came out as we came in) and the woman instantly went into "fuss the doggy" mode so Izzy went into bark as loud as I can mode! 

She settled down though and was off lead for the whole class. She did brilliantly! Very focussed and did a good recall even with the little person watching the class. We've been moved up a class as of next week which is good! That's us up to the 4th class within 9months so not bad going.


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Lol, it could be. Perhaps he could do our block jobs for us then.
> 
> I really need to get over my self consciousness while out with Spen I think. Caught someone laughing at me today and got all embarrassed and scurried away with a red face lol. MV, I shall aspire to be more like you in the future


I had to tell two handlers this afternoon to be more exciting. It is self consciousness that stops them from letting themselves go..

Leafy's new food arrived this afternoon. It will take at least 10 days to change her over onto it totally but at least we've made a start. Fingers crossed it's going to suit her.


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## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> I had to tell two handlers this afternoon to be more exciting. It is self consciousness that stops them from letting themselves go..
> 
> Leafy's new food arrived this afternoon. It will take at least 10 days to change her over onto it totally but at least we've made a start. Fingers crossed it's going to suit her.


I'm fine when I'm alone, I can be silly and motivating and fun and not care. But when I've got an audience it's another matter lol. I really do need to stop caring about it though. I'm not even sure when it started, I never used to give a sh*t who thought what about me.

Fingers crossed for Leafy!


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm fine when I'm alone, I can be silly and motivating and fun and not care. But when I've got an audience it's another matter lol. I really do need to stop caring about it though. I'm not even sure when it started, I never used to give a sh*t who thought what about me.
> 
> Fingers crossed for Leafy!


Exactly. It is when other handlers/people are watching.

Btw I had a man make a pass at me today - that's the first for at least 20 years. Only thing was, it was a young male collie who was trying desperately to hump me....


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## Kicksforkills

Day three and...


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## Twiggy

*GingerRogers (or anyone else wanting to backchain fetch/retrieve)*

This is one of the ways we do it:

Sit on the edge of a hard dining/kitchen type chair with your legs outstretched in front of you to make a channel (just wide enough for your dog to get into the present) and feet flat on the floor.

Have a pocketful of yummy tit-bits, get your dogs attention with one, waving it about and saying something like "what's this" in an exciting voice. Once the dog is looking at your hand, throw the tit-bit about 2/3 ft in front of you and say something like "get it", then as the dog is eating the tit-bit wave another one and say "I've got this one" and draw the dog between your outstretched legs with it and into the present (it doesn't matter if they don't sit to start with) and reward with the tit-bit from your hand. Repeat several times until the dog is going out and coming back with enthusiasm.

Once the dog is enjoying the game up the anti by placing your hands together (with tit-bit in your fingers) roughly somewhere between your knees and body, depending on the size of dog, and as the dog goes to take the tit-bit say "touch" and then reward with the tit-bit. If you can slightly raise your hands up and towards the dog to engineer the sit so much the better. Repeat over several sessions until the dog is reliably touching your hands. It should be a good game where the dog is flying out to get the thrown tit-bit and racing back to touch your fingers.

Providing the dog is enjoying the game and is targetting your fingers every time then produce the retrieve article. Make sure it's something easy to pick up; we tend to use a cardboard tube (the middle of a tinfoil roll is ideal, cut up into about 6" lengths)

There are a couple of ways of proceeding:

1. Throw the tit-bit out as before and as the dog is eating it, wave the tube about and quickly put it on the floor between your feet and see if the dog will pick it up and if he does say "touch" and then immediately take it and give the tit-bit.

2. Have the dog sitting between your knees (again with your legs outstretched as before) say "touch" and tit-bit a couple of times then produce the tube, wave it in front of his nose excitedly saying "what's this" and as he takes it say "touch" then take the article immediately and tit-bit. You have to be very quick as timing is everything.

Werehorse put a video on this thread ages ago of Hugo doing it brilliantly and it's much easier to understand if you actually see a dog and handler performing it. You would have to trawl back a long way to find it though.

That's basically the first stage and by far the hardest bit to achieve.


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## MollySmith

Izzysmummy said:


> Hehe! I think someone needs to tell Izzy this!  my little anti-social monkey!
> 
> MS - well done with Molly, you have done amazingly and feel free to boast away!  *also well done on being patient on that other thread, you gave very balanced and polite responses!*
> 
> LO - sounds like the muzzle training is going well!
> 
> K+M - bless Evie! She's such a character! Hope you didn't get too wet!
> 
> Mv - sounds like a lovely walk, I'm sure you made that Labrador owners day!
> 
> Sarah - well done hubby on emergency stopping for the silly neighbours dogs!
> 
> We've just got back from training. Izzy is completely back to her normal self, wanting to be into everything and whinging to play! So I decided to take her along to training to use her brain and tire her out while she can't have her morning runs! She's walking fine on it and not showing any discomfort when I check it so thought walking round the training hall would be fine.
> 
> Class went great. She had a little gruff at a little person in the waiting room but then settled down. Spooked at a lady we bumped into (she came out as we came in) and the woman instantly went into "fuss the doggy" mode so Izzy went into bark as loud as I can mode!
> 
> She settled down though and was off lead for the whole class. She did brilliantly! Very focussed and did a good recall even with the little person watching the class. We've been moved up a class as of next week which is good! That's us up to the 4th class within 9months so not bad going.


 I did my best, crazy woman and her weird friend although I didn't see the weird friend responses as she's on my ignore list.

Yay for Izzy going up a grade, well done that's brilliant 

I was thinking about ringing up a chap in Cambridge who does 1-2-1 gun dog training, Tony Brazier to maybe channel some of Molly's energy. I'd love to try agility too but apart from Twiggy's contact I can't find anyone close by to do one to one which despite Molly's success I am certain she needs first, at least to grasp what it all means. I can see chaos otherwise. But I thought gun dog for pets might be useful and a bit of fun for us. In 42 days I hand in my last OU assignment and with all paws cross I graduate so I'll have some more free time to dedicate to my dog. The classes you do, esp. MV sound so much fun and interactive, I am inspired.

*Twiggy* have you heard of him? I need to ask our trainer what she thinks about it too really.
Cambridgeshire Gundog Trainer


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## Werehorse

If you type "youtube hugo retrieve" into google the videos of my Hugo should come at the top of the list... followed by a weimy called Hugo. 

ETA - or here it is!


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## kat&molly

Thanks MV. Scruff will put her head just inside the crate, so I wont push for any further. It doesn't help that its a noisy clanky one- not old , it'll take a while I think.
I've given up with the licking. I felt guilty not rewarding when she was trying so hard.

Love the gymball idea- but not the friction burns.

Twiggy- I've got my fingers crossed for Leafy. Holly sounds like Scruff- she's such a floozy with the boys.

IM- congats on moving up a class again!! That's fab.

LO- You and Donkey are making brilliant progress, you must be feeling much more positive now.

The pressure washer  I am lethal with one, and have stripped some paint off the shutters - all I end up doing is causing myself more work.
OH looked at the pipe and it looks like a mouse has been in the shed and nibbled it, so he went to get me another one. He ended up having to buy another pressure washer, a cheap brand- 35 euros , because a new pipe was 55 euros.:crazy:

Have a good day everyone,


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## Twiggy

*Twiggy* have you heard of him? I need to ask our trainer what she thinks about it too really.
Cambridgeshire Gundog Trainer[/QUOTE]

I've vaguely heard of him. Sorry not much help.


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## Twiggy

It's snowing yet again and very windy. Lovely, especiallty as I'm instructing from 2pm until about 7.30pm this evening...!!

Fingers and toes firmly crossed but Leafy hasn't shown any signs of rejecting her new food as yet. Paranoid bum inspections every time she comes in from the garden...LOL


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## GingerRogers

Thanks Twiggy and Werehorse I have cut and pasted and saved the link. Will have a go and come back for more advice no doubt, cant see her being as adorably keen as Hugo somehow.


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## Sarah1983

:lol: I've just had a couple of little cocktail sausages. Spencers face was a picture. It was all "oh my god, those are MY treats!" Poor sod looked absolutely horrified that I was eating them rather than giving them to him.


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## Guest

We have just had not one but TWO male stooge pratices while out. They went well. The man in the tailor just sat at his sewing machine and Zand licked his hand when the man extended it without looking at Zand. Then we met a HUGE massive group of oldies who ALL cooed and extented their hands to Zand. There was absolutely nowhere to run and my bodyblocking and repeated DON'T TRY AND STROKE HIM were ignored, Zand got really stressed to we jogged away. And a little lady said I was very rude and I told her that I didn't ask for her opninion and she said "I know where you work, I shall complain." I told her to go ahead.
THEN when we got home there were THREE council men mowing the green both sides of the bungalow meaning there was no away to avoid them to get into my house. I actually had to sprint then. Poor lad. The headcollars doing well though, feels a bit weird leading from the back though and a lady said I was cruel and I said she was cruel for having such a big gob. I am not popular now :lol: 
In about half an hour me and Zand are going out again to see my workmate with her awesome shi-zhu's!!
So mixed bag really. :lol:


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

dog refusal to come indoors...new...occasional recently...

sigh

one of my 2 dogs is what i would call more willful than the other i preceed by saying...

both dogs are outdoor dogs most of the time...prefer outdoors to indoors.

sigh

but just now and the past few days while i have not been outside as much with them as we usually are the 1 dog the more willfull one has become negative about coming indoors...

so i am working on it...sigh lol !!!! 

funny ? yes well trying the NICE VOICE stuff to say EATIES TIME even which of course is an indoors activity...sigh that is not a good temptation to a dog that does not react much to treats as motivation for actions i add she does things if she likes them ! which means generally no prob except of course right now ? COMING INDOORS is NOT what she lkes ! 

she SITS DOWN ! she LIES DOWN even ! i can give little tugs on the lead or FULL BLOWN LEAD TIGHT pulls for a few seconds...no she does not wear a CHOKE collar of course not...does not strangle her ! but !

as the song goes...WE SHALL NOT ! WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED ! comes to mind with this latest play acting of hers !

hiliaorus as other people pass by seeing me talk COODGEY COO words to this dog probably thinking...dog owners...NUTTERS !



it has happened yesterday and just now this morning again....ok the walks play outside were SHORTER than normal yes...

I SEE THAT AS THE MAIN REASON actually ...the HABIT is broken, changed so she is COMMUNICATING her DISAPPROVAL of it to me !

i do tell her we will go out again soon ! and she knows that is true but hey i dont pretend in saying that dogs understand such long sentences !  i just happen to RAMBLE a lot to my dogs yes ! so they do pick up on things sometimes...

oh one good eg is when i lose my camera or mobile outside !!! i suddenly think and say out loud... I hAVE LOST MY MOBILE and turn around a bit paniced to go look for it in the grass etc where we were....my bitch has a GREAT ability without any orders from me of FINDING IT ! jaja ! stands by it looking at me...

back to the problem...it is not FASHIONALE apparently to call ANYTHING A PROBLEM anymore ! so CALL ME OLD FASHIONED i say to that ! i call a spade a spade and a PROBLEM a PROBLEM not the new modern word for it which is a CHALLENGE meaning INTERESTING AND FUN !

although it is a bit fun i must admit it makes me laugh...as shown here...

I MUST SORT THIS OUT !

easy solution ? GO OUT LONGER ! best solution as that is what I LIKE most of all i add ! i dont like being indooors much either !

next solution ? CHANGE THE DOGS ATTITUDE !

next solution ? CHANGE THE DOGS BEHAVIOUR !



so ? i tried talking FOOD ! no go...i tried saying WE ARE GOING TO THE GARAGE ! that worked yes ! but then ? how to get BACK from the garage into somewhere else in the building ?

i got another SIT DOWN ! oooh lovely hey except nothing to do with obeying order for that hey ! i got another LIE DOWN ! amazing this DOG LANGUAGE hey ! 

i GET THE MESSAGE DOGGIE YES !

so LET ME GIVE YOU DOGGIE ONE HEY ! 

how ??? 

yelling ? no i not annoyed...i not in a termper...should i PRETEND to be ? no the dog is darned smart...knows i am pretending if i do that ! amazing hey ! DOGS READ MY MIND for that !

so i will think about it...solution numero 1 seems the best...Get back into the HABIT or create a new habit ! like that we will get back to normal !

if anyone else has thoughts welcome ! i share to amuse i add and am sure others have this issue sometimes ! 



ps and oh yes, the 2nd dog is about to start COPYING this behaviour i add ! i know that for sure from experience ! he saw it as FUN even and tried it slightly ! laughing ! yes i think dogs laugh...he is much more OBEDIENT COMPLIANT by nature i add ! but COPY CAT using not a dog expression is yes an issue if any bad behaviour happens with dogs generally well my dogs !

ppss i am trying to be ? DEMOCRATIC ??? AAAARRGH !!!! we are having a...DISCUSSION ? AARRRRGH !!! mock horror implied ! 

sorry i am finding this obviously TOO AMUSING ! no wonder i am not getting results fast ? LOL !


----------



## GingerRogers

LurcherOwner said:


> We have just had not one but TWO male stooge pratices while out. They went well. The man in the tailor just sat at his sewing machine and Zand licked his hand when the man extended it without looking at Zand. Then we met a HUGE massive group of oldies who ALL cooed and extented their hands to Zand. There was absolutely nowhere to run and my bodyblocking and repeated DON'T TRY AND STROKE HIM were ignored, Zand got really stressed to we jogged away. And a little lady said I was very rude and I told her that I didn't ask for her opninion and she said "I know where you work, I shall complain." I told her to go ahead.
> THEN when we got home there were THREE council men mowing the green both sides of the bungalow meaning there was no away to avoid them to get into my house. I actually had to sprint then. Poor lad. The headcollars doing well though, feels a bit weird leading from the back though and a lady said I was cruel and I said she was cruel for having such a big gob. I am not popular now :lol:
> In about half an hour me and Zand are going out again to see my workmate with her awesome shi-zhu's!!
> So mixed bag really. :lol:


I think a lot of little old people can be very rude. Its one thing expecting respect but surely it goes both ways, if you have said please don't touch him and they ignore you, thats rude. I think you live in a place with lots of rude people :. I have had lots of tutting but its normally the tourists who don't count, most of the locals can see for themselves what I am trying to do or they just laugh and say 'typical terrier' . You keep up the good work and protect your boy.

Sarah I did that the other day , I was hungry on a walk, bet yours didn't have liver cake crumbs on it though  Ginger didn't seem to mind all that much she just thought it was a picnic.


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## FEJA JUODAS

GingerRogers said:


> I think a lot of little old people can be very rude. Its one thing expecting respect but surely it goes both ways, if you have said please don't touch him and they ignore you, thats rude. I think you live in a place with lots of rude people :. I have had lots of tutting but its normally the tourists who don't count, most of the locals can see for themselves what I am trying to do or they just laugh and say 'typical terrier' . You keep up the good work and protect your boy.
> 
> Sarah I did that the other day , I was hungry on a walk, bet yours didn't have liver cake crumbs on it though  Ginger didn't seem to mind all that much she just thought it was a picnic.


sigh i didnt say anything at first here not wanting to be negative about people generally....but...yes i am about to agree and be so...

I WISH people would STOP thinking they can stroke any dog they see out there without the owners permission ! and yes OLD PEOPLE can think due to thinking ok AGE deserves greater RESPECT from younger people that they have special priviliges that exempt them from this general principle !

so there you have it...i agree...the DOG OWNER is not the problem it is OTHER PEOPLE ! STRANGERS ! who DO NOT ACCEPT the DOG OWNERS POLITE REQUESTS made to LEAVE THE DOG ALONE !

then we wonder why people get bitten ? yes dogs blamed ! put down even in extreme cases saying you should have SOCIALISED the dog better it is THE OWNERS FAULT ! well grit my teeth as i say IF ANOTHER HUMAN CANNOT ACCEPT A POLITELY PUT REQUEST TO NOT PHYISCALLY COME IN CONTACT with ME MY DOG or whatever of MINE then it is NOT MY FAULT as much as their fault if anything unpleasant happens !

I do not think grabbing hold of someone you dont know just because they dont answer you acceptable ! yes that can happen ! people do things like that ! ...

try not to let it GET TO YOU too much is all i can suggest lurcher...and just keep asking politely until one day your FUSE BLOWS and you snap unpleasantly at an old person ...just dont call them decrepid old fools i suggest to add fuel to the fire...sigh...i sympathise...


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## GingerRogers

Feja have you tried any touch targeting work or other such games, distracting the dog (I use touch to get Ginge to do things like get back in the car after a walk, a similar protest to your dog I think ) or just ignore it, try and get the other dog in by enticing in with food or play and the other one may well soon decide she wants to find out whats so fun indoors. 

I don't think tugging harder on the lead is going to work, it doesn't get a little ginger dog to move so pretty sure it wont work with a big black one .

Or as you say change the dogs attitude so make the coming in and out a random game you do at all times of day not just to symbolise the end of play.


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## Thorne

Hello all, sorry for the absence 

Scooter saw the vet on tuesday and it almost wasn't worth going! The tooth is chipped but not badly damaged, and his distress was due to some kibble that had really jammed hard between a couple of teeth and got stuck  I did the same with a surprisingly crunchy roast spud a while ago and can see why he was so upset! 
The area was sore and inflamed but we think the foreign body has worked its way out, no more complaints since. Glad it was nothing serious!
Fairly standard but pleasant walks with my numpties so far this week, got snow and wind here today so am waiting for it to subside before dragging B out.

Got my first staff day at BC on saturday, so have been learning the ropes with a few more responsibilities and different duties this week. So far so good!
Had a baptism of fire doing an initial examination on a sex-changing cat who put up a fight about being wormed, been doing lots of work with Lola and Rags too. 
Here's our new girl: Blue Cross Dogs | Rehome a dog, puppies | Rescue centre

Twiggy -Fingers crossed for Leafy and the new food.
Sarah -Poor Spen!  I get the same look when a block of cheese is used for something other than training treats.
LO -Shame about the bus-stop twits and workmen, but great to hear that Zand was good with the tailor. 
GR -Agreed regarding the frequency of rude older people, so many of them seem to have a remarkably strong sense of entitlement and a knack for tutting! Lots of pensioners near Blue Cross compared to home though.
Feja -Not sure what to advise apart from making indoors a really fun experience for your stubborn, outdoorsy dog when they do decide to come in. Playtime and puzzle feeders might encourage them in!


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## Guest

I feel a bit like a tool posting on here and not participating as much, but wanted to share some exciting (to me) news! 

Bates has been asked to be in the play "Oliver" as Bill Sikes' dog. He doesn't exactly look like a bull terrier LOL, but they just wanted a "mean" looking dog who would work well with children (it's an all children cast). 

So now what I will be working on is the final scene where he has to lead the cast across the stage. Should be interesting!

They also want him to bark for one part, and believe it or not, of all the things Bates knows how to do, I've never taught him to bark on cue! So that's on the agenda as well.


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## Guest

Well the meeting with the Shi-Zhus went well. 
There was a cat though as I was adjusting the headcollar so he lunged and cos it as loose it twisted his face poor sod. 
He barked and barked and squealed at this cat. 

Ah well, we've been out for nearly three hours today so I think that'll do pig, that'll do. :lol: 

Ooooh Bates is gonna be a STAR!!:biggrin5: When can we have autographs?


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## moonviolet

Thorne glad Scooter was ok sometimes the vet's visit is worth it for the reassurance alone, and the positive experience of goign adn nothign unpleasant happening. 

Sarah, you mean lady I never do the same to Tink :yesnod: :yesnod:

LO i know it was a bit of a mixed day but what struck me is you took charge and handleed things in defence of Zanyboy for that you get :thumbup1: :thumbup1: :thumbup1:

Twiggy glad the food signs are good so far. 

Feja Juodas I'm really sorry i'm completely unable to comprehend your posts. Completely my issue not yours as I have dispraxia. So i wanted to apologise for ignoring you but it's nothing personal  

Ouesi how exciting, Bet your boy is going to do you proud.... there will be video, won't there? won't there?

Just got in from 2 hours on the heath and in the the blowing snow it's worht the weather for the peace


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## Guest

moonviolet said:


> Ouesi how exciting, Bet your boy is going to do you proud.... there will be video, won't there? won't there?
> 
> Just got in from 2 hours on the heath and in the the blowing snow it's worht the weather for the peace


The play won't be until mid May, but yes, I'm planning on videoing for sure!

Blowing snow?!  Isn't it April?! I'm such a weather wuss living here in the south! Was running around in shorts and a t-shirt yesterday, today I'm annoyed that I had to put a sweater on this morning!


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## kat&molly

LO- well done to you, that sounds a very challenging walk with the Donkey.

Thorne-Good to hear Scooter doesn't need the tooth removed.

Ouesi- how nice to be asked, I 2nd the wanting to see a vid of Bates in action.The dog was named Bullseye wasn't it? And didn't he have a coloured patch over his eye.

MV- snow for you and Twiggy - the weather is crazy at the moment. Not good here either today.

Had to go in to the big city this morning so the girls got their walk on the way back. A lovely big lake to walk around- but I was mean and didn't let Moll in as it's too cold- she took that to mean the little stream was ok :001_rolleyes: she came out covered in thick black mud :yikes: so I had to let her in the lake. We came home with her wrapped up in my fleece.


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## moonviolet

ouesi said:


> The play won't be until mid May, but yes, I'm planning on videoing for sure!
> 
> Blowing snow?!  Isn't it April?! I'm such a weather wuss living here in the south! Was running around in shorts and a t-shirt yesterday, today I'm annoyed that I had to put a sweater on this morning!


I think it's a cosmic conspiracy to keep me in long trousers


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## FEJA JUODAS

GingerRogers said:


> Feja have you tried any touch targeting work or other such games, distracting the dog (I use touch to get Ginge to do things like get back in the car after a walk, a similar protest to your dog I think ) or just ignore it, try and get the other dog in by enticing in with food or play and the other one may well soon decide she wants to find out whats so fun indoors.
> 
> I don't think tugging harder on the lead is going to work, it doesn't get a little ginger dog to move so pretty sure it wont work with a big black one .
> 
> Or as you say change the dogs attitude so make the coming in and out a random game you do at all times of day not just to symbolise the end of play.


yes...tugging on lead for madaabme Feja is guaranteed to make her resisit it more...she would CHOKE to death even maybe just to defy that !

but WHAT IS TOUCH TARGETING ? dont understand that term !

i WISH I thought INDOORS was as much fun as OUTSIDE i add ! so i EMPATHISE with my dogs !!!! 

if i spent less time on INTERNET i might amuse them better for sure !!! 

thank you i will continue the goodgey coo talk nicely to her and try AMUSING her !


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## Sarah1983

Well not such a good walk today. Yesterday I had a willing and attentive companion, today I had bog off dog. We spent about half an hour just sitting on the park and me clicking and treating him for even acknowledging my existence  He did become more attentive over time though so not a complete disaster.

I got some pics of him today. Apparently our oldest nephew has been enjoying seeing his pics and has complained coz I've not put any new ones on Facebook for a bit lol. Pics are here for anyone who wants to see them. http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/300422-some-spencer-pics.html#post1062832709

Ouesi, can't wait to see Bates playing Bullseye! Bark on command is something I'd love to teach Spencer but Silent Bob is not playing ball with that one lol.


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy - fingers crossed Leafy remains stable on the new food.

Thorne - glad Scooter was ok in the end, that is very painful I have done it myself, I have ridiculously large gaps between my teeth which means everything gets stuck .

Feja - here are a couple of links which explain the process better than I can but basically by teaching your dog to 'touch' your hand or other object with their nose or paw you can move them about very easily, most dogs get the hang of it really easily, Ginger will headbutt random things in an attempt to get me to start some play or training, so when she refuses to get in the car I hold my hand in the boot and cue her to touch, up she jumps willingly and with no force involved .
Target Training | Karen Pryor Clicker Training
Dog Obedience Training through Targeting - Whole Dog Journal Article

Ouesi - how exciting for you, I was going to say for Bates but who knows he might not be a natural actor, the greasepaint might disagree with him or he might get stagefright or something 

I bought somenail clippers at lunch time so this evening, while waiting for *OUR *oxtail stew to, well, stew, we will attempt to reduce little madams deadly talons. ENver done it before so decided I will hold her and himself will do the deed as we could only get the guillotine type and he is used to doing sheeps 'bits and pieces', I think it needs a quick hand and I managed to get a poor lambs testicles trapped half in half out when I had a go :frown5: Its our wedding anniversary today so we will do this before the wine gets cracked open


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## Maria_1986

Thorne - glad its nothing serious with Scooters tooth

Twiggy - good luck witht he new food

Ouesi - congratulations to Bates, can't wait to see the video

L/O - glad the shih tuz meeting went well

Sarah - Chev does the same thing with cheese, all cheese everywhere must belong to chev and anyone else who dares it it will get glared at

GR - good luck with the nail trimming

After the other weeks panic of Chev not having enough doggy friends I decided to bit the bullet and kill two birds with one stone - I needed a doggy stooge to practice getting her to walk past other dogs calmly when out on grass (find at training, fine on pavement but put her on grass and she gets all hyper) and I also thought that if it was a nice solid dog, like another staffy then they could also, if they got on well, have a little play so I asked one of the people at work if they would mind helping me with dog training which went very well. They had a bit of a play and Chevy was coming back from play when called, I'm very proud of my little sausage  we met a few other dogs when out too and she recalled nicely to go back on the lead to walk past and then walked past calmly before being let off again to play a bit more. Seeing two happy smiling staffies coming charging back to us when called made up for the snow, wind and being unable to feel my face.

Training on Tuesday was ok - she was a little distracted and not really concentrating as much as normal but it was ok, I'm having issues with down stay and the trainer suggested clicker training so that I can get the reward in quick before she moves as I can't bend down fast enough to give the treat before she breaks it. So I was given homework to buy a clicker and do some reading before going to our next class. Have brought a clicker and have added more reading to my to do list. 

Hope everyone else is having a good day and its not too cold and snowy where you are.


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## Guest

Maria_1986 said:


> Seeing two happy smiling staffies coming charging back to us when called made up for the snow, wind and being unable to feel my face.


This made me smile  I'll smile doubly for you since you probably couldn't anyway! Gotta love those moment eh?


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## Dogless

Haven't read anyone's posts yet, so will go back in a minute .

I have had one of the worst days I've ever had; truly devastating .

Didn't spend much time training Kilo today; instead we spent hours talking over coffee. We didn't even get around to addressing his reaction to dogs - only spent 5 minutes in the training field.

As you know, Kilo always pays attention to lone people without dogs appearing in fields or the forest. I always recall him and put him on the lead or divert with a toy, get him to sit by my side etc etc. Ange asked what would happen if I didn't manage it and Kilo made his own decision. I said I didn't know as I had never, ever not managed it from the day he started to exhibit the behaviour. She came in, and stood a few metres in front of us.

What he does without me managing his actions is approach with absolute confidence and bite. Hard and repeatedly until he is called away by me. I can barely believe that I have just written that, I just can't stop crying when I'm on my own.

I can't believe what I saw my lovely BW do although I knew he was nervous and on edge and unsettled by everything. Ange had put loads of coats on as she suspected from the way he looked at her that he might she said. She is uninjured thank goodness but I am utterly, utterly, totally devastated.

Long story short she wonders if there is something neurological going on, says there's something absolutely 'not right' about him that you can tell immediately. I need to get his eyes checked, thyroid panel etc.

The only good bit is I have hired a secure field for the boys to run in every day that we're here. They ran in it today (booked after the incident for me) and played as usual whilst I walked around crying my eyes out.

We are working tomorrow and the next day as planned.

It goes without saying that the BW will now not be walked offlead without being muzzled. I'm just looking at him snoozing and snoring away now and just cannot believe what happened. I had never dreamt for one second that he was dangerous. Just yesterday he was running around playing on a busy common full of people and dogs in the snow with Rudi and we were chatting to folk and all that jazz as usual. I had no bloody clue what I had on the end of the lead. What an idiot  .


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## cravensmum

Oh Dogless what a day,I'm so sorry.

It's always shocking when they do something totally unexpected.

Big hugs to you.


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## Dogless

cravensmum said:


> Oh Dogless what a day,I'm so sorry.
> 
> It's always shocking when they do something totally unexpected.
> 
> Big hugs to you.


You've met him and walked with us and seen him pass folk with hardly a glance - mind you he doesn't get concerned when he's with other dogs. Perhaps as they 'decision make' for him? She did say he was very well trained and obedient from what she'd seen. That's all very well  .


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> Haven't read anyone's posts yet, so will go back in a minute .
> 
> I have had one of the worst days I've ever had; truly devastating .
> 
> Didn't spend much time training Kilo today; instead we spent hours talking over coffee. We didn't even get around to addressing his reaction to dogs - only spent 5 minutes in the training field.
> 
> As you know, Kilo always pays attention to lone people without dogs appearing in fields or the forest. I always recall him and put him on the lead or divert with a toy, get him to sit by my side etc etc. Ange asked what would happen if I didn't manage it and Kilo made his own decision. I said I didn't know as I had never, ever not managed it from the day he started to exhibit the behaviour. She came in, and stood a few metres in front of us.
> 
> What he does without me managing his actions is approach with absolute confidence and bite. Hard and repeatedly until he is called away by me. I can barely believe that I have just written that, I just can't stop crying when I'm on my own.
> 
> I can't believe what I saw my lovely BW do although I knew he was nervous and on edge and unsettled by everything. Ange had put loads of coats on as she suspected from the way he looked at her that he might she said. She is uninjured thank goodness but I am utterly, utterly, totally devastated.
> 
> Long story short she wonders if there is something neurological going on, says there's something absolutely 'not right' about him that you can tell immediately. I need to get his eyes checked, thyroid panel etc.
> 
> The only good bit is I have hired a secure field for the boys to run in every day that we're here. They ran in it today (booked after the incident for me) and played as usual whilst I walked around crying my eyes out.
> 
> We are working tomorrow and the next day as planned.
> 
> It goes without saying that the BW will now not be walked offlead without being muzzled. I'm just looking at him snoozing and snoring away now and just cannot believe what happened. I had never dreamt for one second that he was dangerous. Just yesterday he was running around playing on a busy common full of people and dogs in the snow with Rudi and we were chatting to folk and all that jazz as usual. I had no bloody clue what I had on the end of the lead. What an idiot  .


Oh honey hugs hugs hugs!!!

Okay, now breathe... 
Ange had loads of coats on yes, but you and I both know than an adult ridgie intent on doing harm could easily have done so. So, yes, he bit, and no I'm not minimizing that, but he did exercise some control about it. AND he stopped when you recalled him. 
There ARE some positives in what happened. This sound like I'm plucking at straws here, but TBH it's sometimes a really good thing when a dog bites. NOW you know. You know what his triggers are, you know his threshold, you know how hard he will bite... You have a ton of valuable information about your dog that many people will never have until it's too late.

I do agree with it might be something neurological too. This is not that uncommon in ridgies as I'm sure you already know.

Get him a muzzle, get him used to it, and get those appointments set up, and in the meantime, ENJOY your dog. This is just ONE small part of who he is as a whole. And there is no reason why it can't be a very manageable part either.

And more hugs....


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## moonviolet

Dogless first things first huge hugs. it must have been a terribly upsetting sight and one i'm sure you won't forget, but you are not an idiot. You are a sensible responsible owner doing the best by your dog and the public.

While i'm not trying to downplay what happened today, Kilo has had a big journey and is in unfamiliar surroundings and is likely feeling incredibly insecure on top of this you cannot be fully sure array of the suprelorin's effect.

More hugs. I'm glad of one thing that the first suggestion was to look for a medical reason for his reaction. I hope a medical answer with a simple treatment is found.


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## Tarnus

I don't really think you can blame yourself Dogless. You've known he fixates on lone people so you've done brilliantly to be able to train him to the point where you can call him away, as I imagine a lot of owners with dogs that locked on to something they don't like will find it nearly impossible to call them away; I know we used to struggle to call Izzy away once she set off barking at strangers in the park. 

You never knew what Kilo would do because you never gave him the chance, which is a credit to you and your training. And you have to remember the positives about the whole situation - this is the best possible way to find out (better this than him going up and biting some stranger in the woods), and it was with someone whose response was to look for medical reasons, not go straight for the "it's his breed, in his nature, he's a nasty dog etc" which I imagine a lot would have done. At least you know now and can look for solutions, and if it is medical then he can get treatment which he may never have gotten without you seeing this.


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## L/C

Oh Dogless - big hugs. I can't add anything to sensible posts of Ouesi and MV but I just wanted to reassure you. I've been there with Ely - the first time he attacked another dog, the time he went after the goat, the day he decided that he wanted to go home on his own....etc.

It's devastating. BUT it can be managed if needs be and hopefully it will have a simple explanation that is treatable or you can put a b-mod strategy in place. You know that Ely's behaviour is a combination of brain damage and psychological issues - we manage with it and have so far been able to stop it deteriorating any futher, I'm sure you can do the same with Kilo. You've got the foundation in place, you have a great bond with him AND you've been managing it so far.

It's a shitty situation but you are not an idiot. No way.


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## Guest

Dogless, just to add... 
Rhodesian Ridgebacks were bred to NOT back down from a threat. He may have decided, for whatever reason, that certain people are a threat. It could be body posture, it could be a stare, it could be something even more subtle that you or I can't even perceive. Remember, dogs are masters of subtlety when it comes to noticing body language. 
This doesn't make him a "bad" dog or even a dangerous dog. It simply means you have to teach him an alternate response.


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## foxyrockmeister

Just a flying visit as I have a patient sitting in the waiting room but just had to pop on quickly and give Dogless a massive (((((HUG)))))

I will post later properly but just wanted to let you know that I know EXACTLY how you are feeling right now. It is so so upsetting to see the other side to your loving boy and realise that you can't trust him like you thought you could. It broke my heart with Branston so I know wht you're feeling right now.

Sorry for not adding more, I'll be back later


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## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Oh honey hugs hugs hugs!!!
> 
> Okay, now breathe...
> Ange had loads of coats on yes, but you and I both know than an adult ridgie intent on doing harm could easily have done so. So, yes, he bit, and no I'm not minimizing that, but he did exercise some control about it. AND he stopped when you recalled him.
> There ARE some positives in what happened. This sound like I'm plucking at straws here, but TBH it's sometimes a really good thing when a dog bites. NOW you know. You know what his triggers are, you know his threshold, you know how hard he will bite... You have a ton of valuable information about your dog that many people will never have until it's too late.
> 
> I do agree with it might be something neurological too. This is not that uncommon in ridgies as I'm sure you already know.
> 
> Get him a muzzle, get him used to it, and get those appointments set up, and in the meantime, ENJOY your dog. This is just ONE small part of who he is as a whole. And there is no reason why it can't be a very manageable part either.
> 
> And more hugs....


He's used to a muzzle, I muzzle trained him in case he ever needed one if hurt or for the vet. Thanks for being so nice; I even asked if I was the right owner but at least she said she was pretty sure it wasn't my fault. There are some 'odd' things about him, but I have never suspected a neurological issue, just thought they were his quirks. He's still stressed and unsure now, love him, probably because I'm being such an idiot.


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## cravensmum

Dogless said:


> You've met him and walked with us and seen him pass folk with hardly a glance - mind you he doesn't get concerned when he's with other dogs. Perhaps as they 'decision make' for him? She did say he was very well trained and obedient from what she'd seen. That's all very well  .


Yes he was fine on our walk,not nervous or anxious at all.

I really hope you do find a medical reason and if not I can't think of anyone better to manage the situation.


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## Dogless

Thanks to all. I have a shitty internet connection here, so each time I disappear I'm not being rude.


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## Dimwit

More hugs from me Dogless - I am sure the more experienced people than me will be able to give you advice, but I just want to say I have some idea of how you are feeling. I have no doubt that Sprocket would bite (especially in the situation you describe) if he wasn't muzzled and I also know that there is no way I would have been able to call him away.
Be proud of the fact that you have trained Kilo so well, and that you have managed him so well that, until today he has never had the opportunity to bite.

I know you are devastated but at least now you know what he will do in the worst case and you can start to work on it.


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## FEJA JUODAS

Dogless said:


> Haven't read anyone's posts yet, so will go back in a minute .
> 
> I have had one of the worst days I've ever had; truly devastating .
> 
> Didn't spend much time training Kilo today; instead we spent hours talking over coffee. We didn't even get around to addressing his reaction to dogs - only spent 5 minutes in the training field.
> 
> As you know, Kilo always pays attention to lone people without dogs appearing in fields or the forest. I always recall him and put him on the lead or divert with a toy, get him to sit by my side etc etc. Ange asked what would happen if I didn't manage it and Kilo made his own decision. I said I didn't know as I had never, ever not managed it from the day he started to exhibit the behaviour. She came in, and stood a few metres in front of us.
> 
> What he does without me managing his actions is approach with absolute confidence and bite. Hard and repeatedly until he is called away by me. I can barely believe that I have just written that, I just can't stop crying when I'm on my own.
> 
> I can't believe what I saw my lovely BW do although I knew he was nervous and on edge and unsettled by everything. Ange had put loads of coats on as she suspected from the way he looked at her that he might she said. She is uninjured thank goodness but I am utterly, utterly, totally devastated.
> 
> Long story short she wonders if there is something neurological going on, says there's something absolutely 'not right' about him that you can tell immediately. I need to get his eyes checked, thyroid panel etc.
> 
> The only good bit is I have hired a secure field for the boys to run in every day that we're here. They ran in it today (booked after the incident for me) and played as usual whilst I walked around crying my eyes out.
> 
> We are working tomorrow and the next day as planned.
> 
> It goes without saying that the BW will now not be walked offlead without being muzzled. I'm just looking at him snoozing and snoring away now and just cannot believe what happened. I had never dreamt for one second that he was dangerous. Just yesterday he was running around playing on a busy common full of people and dogs in the snow with Rudi and we were chatting to folk and all that jazz as usual. I had no bloody clue what I had on the end of the lead. What an idiot  .


well browsing as you said you were going to other posts here should cheer you up a bit hey ! 

as i recall in the great film ummm cant remember the name ...oh yes WALLSTREET ! an old boy said to in despair chap....one looks into the abyss...

ja here it is...

<<Man looks into the Abyss, and there's nothin' staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character, and that's what keeps him out of the Abyss>> 

this came to mind reading your post...and also IT IS ALWAYS DARKEST BEFORE THE DAWN ! and TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY ! from the film ummm GONE WITH THE WIND !

dunno the history of your dog issue...but...THIS COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE !

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO ALL OF US ! 

you had a bad day. shocking yes. the dog is happy with you generally i read !

calm ! just had a bad turn...and you dont know why

no one got hurt

that is the main thing hey ! not all bad !  

ok you are in sorrow mode...well there we go...crying is good therapy...wash away the pain....darn it...i cant see a CRYING icon picture ! ...move on...am not good at these round blobs....

*now what ? you have ideas...and sounds a bit like you may be on the right track with them to me !*

you didnt say if you communicated your displeasure to the dog...not asking you to say that if you say anything it could be seized on and said to be the cause of it even ! lol ! 

well if he has some neurowhatever word prob then that means medicines to fix it...

or if not it means he has to be onlead muzzled probably forever more if not fixable with medicines...

but that is the first preferred option if i read into what you would like it to be due to ! and certainly it will be good to know.

if not that...well dunno as i said the history but he seems to have a thing about long humans wandering or running...massive attraction to him...sets him off...and the biting is horrific but he didnt harm so at least forewarned is forearmed ! see it that way hey ? !

im trying to think out of the box...reading what you described about you distracting him other times...trying to get into the mind of this dog slightly...i wonder...if he did not SEE the lone joggers before due to you distracting him...maybe it is not a good test ? he may need to see them and restrain himself to not run after them rather than not see them by being distracted ? but you say recall has worked before ok !
so i dont understand that implies he has SEEN a lone walker or whatever and come back to you when off lead before...but just not this time...and went into frenzy biting...

i tried looking for previous posts in your profile on this as you say as you know..

but ... from your reaction you think it is just the dog blowing a fuse suddenly...something in his head sets him off when he sees something...

very odd behaviour for sure so a total surprise and shock to you. mind you, once a dog gets into frenzy biting human or other dog they are in a world of their own...all dogs...best never to put a hand or foot near them even if your own dog people generally know about even their own dogs...that man a few years back in the news in the UK just tried intervening between his dog and the dog of neighbours known to the dog being kept for holiday when the dogs got into a fight and then when the owner intervened both dogs bit him so often he bled to death ! so all dogs can suddenly go mad when they get into real attacking !

tomorrow is another day...things can only get better ! the shock means you are probably never going to experience that again hey ! once was enough ! you tried, it failed and now you pursue investigations to correct it !

things could have been worse ! oh dear ...ok THINGS WILL GET BETTER !


----------



## Dogless

FEJA JUODAS said:


> well browsing as you said you were going to other posts here should cheer you up a bit hey !
> 
> as i recall in the great film ummm cant remember the name ...oh yes WALLSTREET ! an old boy said to in despair chap....one looks into the abyss...
> 
> ja here it is...
> 
> <<Man looks into the Abyss, and there's nothin' staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character, and that's what keeps him out of the Abyss>>
> 
> *Very apt .*
> 
> this came to mind reading your post...and also IT IS ALWAYS DARKEST BEFORE THE DAWN ! and TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY ! from the film ummm GONE WITH THE WIND !
> 
> dunno the history of your dog issue...but...THIS COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE !
> 
> THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO ALL OF US !
> 
> you had a bad day. shocking yes. the dog is happy with you generally i read !
> 
> calm ! just had a bad turn...and you dont know why
> 
> no one got hurt
> 
> that is the main thing hey ! not all bad !
> 
> ok you are in sorrow mode...well there we go...crying is good therapy...wash away the pain....darn it...i cant see a CRYING icon picture ! ...move on...am not good at these round blobs....
> 
> *now what ? you have ideas...and sounds a bit like you may be on the right track with them to me !*
> 
> you didnt say if you communicated your displeasure to the dog...not asking you to say that if you say anything it could be seized on and said to be the cause of it even ! lol !
> 
> *No; he was stressed out to the max - he was recalled and put into a sit / stay.*
> 
> well if he has some neurowhatever word prob then that means medicines to fix it...
> 
> or if not it means he has to be onlead muzzled probably forever more if not fixable with medicines...
> 
> but that is the first preferred option if i read into what you would like it to be due to ! and certainly it will be good to know.
> 
> if not that...well dunno as i said the history but he seems to have a thing about long humans wandering or running...massive attraction to him...sets him off...and the biting is horrific but he didnt harm so at least forewarned is forearmed ! see it that way hey ? !
> 
> im trying to think out of the box...reading what you described about you distracting him other times...trying to get into the mind of this dog slightly...i wonder...if he did not SEE the lone joggers before due to you distracting him...maybe it is not a good test ? he may need to see them and restrain himself to not run after them rather than not see them by being distracted ? but you say recall has worked before ok !
> so i dont understand that implies he has SEEN a lone walker or whatever and come back to you when off lead before...but just not this time...and went into frenzy biting...
> 
> *He has seen them and been recalled successfully on lots of occasions or not reacted to them.*
> 
> i tried looking for previous posts in your profile on this as you say as you know..
> 
> but ... from your reaction you think it is just the dog blowing a fuse suddenly...something in his head sets him off when he sees something...
> 
> very odd behaviour for sure so a total surprise and shock to you. mind you, once a dog gets into frenzy biting human or other dog they are in a world of their own...all dogs...best never to put a hand or foot near them even if your own dog people generally know about even their own dogs...that man a few years back in the news in the UK just tried intervening between his dog and the dog of neighbours known to the dog being kept for holiday when the dogs got into a fight and then when the owner intervened both dogs bit him so often he bled to death ! so all dogs can suddenly go mad when they get into real attacking !
> 
> tomorrow is another day...things can only get better ! the shock means you are probably never going to experience that again hey ! once was enough ! you tried, it failed and now you pursue investigations to correct it !
> 
> things could have been worse ! oh dear ...ok THINGS WILL GET BETTER !


Thank you for you kind words and ideas .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, I'm so sorry  I'm actually in tears for you here! But at least now you know worst case scenario and can take even more measures to ensure he never gets the chance to do this in a real life situation. You've done a fantastic job with training him, especially if he will call off mid attack. And it's not like he's randomly attacking everyone he sees, it's a specific situation and you're aware of that. It is nothing you've done or not done that's made Kilo how he is so please, please don't be beating yourself up about that. It's just one of those things. Yes, it's sh*t, really, really sh*t, but you can move on from this. And remember, ANY dog will bite if put in the right circumstances.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Oh Dogless, first let me send a huge ((((((HUG))))))! Wipe those tears and get a nice cup of tea and a few biscuits then sit and have a cuddle with your 2 boys!

As horrible as today was at least now you know and can do something about it. I can only echo what others have said and fingers crossed something comes up on his blood panel or neurological tests that can be easily treated and managed. At least this happened in a controlled situation with someone experienced and prepared for what might happen and no real harm was done. I know that might not feel like much of a consolation right now though 

Don't be too hard on yourself, you've worked very hard with Kilo and it's a true testament to your training that he did come away when called. Give yourself time to be sad, it's completely natural and understandable and know we are all here with support and virtual hugs whenever you need it!


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## kat&molly

Dogless- some big hugs from me too- that's lots now you'll be all loved up.
I'm really sorry you've had such an awful day, I cant add anything to what the others have said, but we are all here for you.

A kiss for Kilo.x


----------



## Guest

Oh heck, dogless, massive hugs. 

I cannot add anything of use advice wise but DON'T YOU DARE BLAME YOURSELF!
At least it is a small consolation that it happened in a controlled environment, and that you have been fantastic at training him so far. If it IS a medical problem or even if it isn't and its something else you WILL be able to manage it.

Don't you lose hope. 

x


----------



## GingerRogers

Just a quick message from me too, Dogless but a massive, massive hug . I am in tears too because I know how I felt after Ginges incident, I know she is tiny compared to your boy, but still I couldn't stop crying and blaming myself, and how could my dog do such a thing BUT thats it they are dogs and we can only *try *to understand what goes through their brains, its hard not to but you cant put human feelings onto them, he was acting either because of some medical reason or instinct and thats what man has brought him to do. Not you but breeding. Difference being I held the blame there, here you don't like everyone said it was a controlled experiment and no-one has been hurt now or in the past as you do know how to manage him, and you will continue to do so.

Gosh I wish we could all come and hug you properly but then you'd probably cry even more. Only thing I can say is you do get to the point where you don't anticipate bites at every turn any more, I really hope you can get to the bottom of it with a medical reason as at least it gives you somewhere to work from.

Lastly you are far from an idiot, you knew he had 'reaction' in this situation so you managed it, the only way you could know for sure what he would do was to be careless and let him do what he did to a stranger.


----------



## Beth17

Oh Dogless I am gutted for you and can't imagine what you're going through  Please don't blame yourself, you are in no way an idiot just look at what you have achieved with Kilo. I am in no doubt you are the right person to help him through this x


----------



## Dogless

You are all wonderful . I had a shower, washed my hair, walked my beautiful boys, incident - free but nerves a - jangling. Bloody daft as Kilo was on a head collar, don't think I need to muzzle onlead as long as he has a headcollar on...or do I??? 

Tears have stopped. For now. Still, tomorrow is another day.


----------



## Maria_1986

Huge hugs Dogless. I'm so sorry that you've had an awful day. Nothing useful to add but please don't blame yourself, you have managed to avoid such a situation before due to your wonderful management and training.


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> You are all wonderful . I had a shower, washed my hair, walked my beautiful boys, incident - free but nerves a - jangling. Bloody daft as Kilo was on a head collar, don't think I need to muzzle onlead as long as he has a headcollar on...or do I???
> 
> Tears have stopped. For now. Still, tomorrow is another day.


Dogless- you've not thought he was a threat on lead before , if you had , Kilo would have worn a muzzle. I hope you're feeling a bit better.

Will the work you went to do continue now - I hope it will.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- you've not thought he was a threat on lead before , if you had , Kilo would have worn a muzzle. I hope you're feeling a bit better.
> 
> Will the work you went to do continue now - I hope it will.


Ange said that she thinks Kilo would have bitten a dog in the same situation which surprised me hugely - I've never thought he was a threat to dogs before. She thinks he would have bitten anything at that point. She said we might work Rudi to show me what to do in case Kilo was too stressed by everything as he's never worn a muzzle out and about before. I've put it on him tonight in the house and he was fine, but have never tried it outside with him so I don't know. She doesn't want herself or her dogs around him without one, which I understand, but what a shock . She is hugely upbeat and understanding so I think we'll get good work done still.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- you've not thought he was a threat on lead before , if you had , Kilo would have worn a muzzle. I hope you're feeling a bit better.
> 
> Will the work you went to do continue now - I hope it will.


I'd not thought he was a threat offlead before in terms of biting someone. Thought he might perhaps bark or something but bite, no.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, while I would certainly muzzle off leash as a precaution if he were mine I seriously doubt I'd be muzzling him on leash. You know the situation he reacts in and even then you have great control over him. You need to not look for trouble though, he'll feed off your tension as you know, and if a muzzle would stop you from being on edge then muzzle him.

What's Angela said about what happened? Anything? Or did she just advise you to get tests done? If it's too sore a subject to really talk about at the moment then I understand completely.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Ange said that she thinks Kilo would have bitten a dog in the same situation which surprised me hugely - I've never thought he was a threat to dogs before. She thinks he would have bitten anything at that point. She said we might work Rudi to show me what to do in case Kilo was too stressed by everything as he's never worn a muzzle out and about before. I've put it on him tonight in the house and he was fine, but have never tried it outside with him so I don't know. She doesn't want herself or her dogs around him without one, which I understand, but what a shock . *She is hugely upbeat and understanding so I think we'll get good work done still*.


This is the bit i liked your post for.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, while I would certainly muzzle off leash as a precaution if he were mine I seriously doubt I'd be muzzling him on leash. You know the situation he reacts in and even then you have great control over him. *You need to not look for trouble though, he'll feed off your tension as you know*, and if a muzzle would stop you from being on edge then muzzle him.
> 
> What's Angela said about what happened? Anything? Or did she just advise you to get tests done? If it's too sore a subject to really talk about at the moment then I understand completely.


The bit in bold is the BW alright!

We talked for hours, a lot has been said - all very helpful indeed and we were both very frank with each other, which I like. She has said that she wonders about his vision or perhaps neuro issues as he was sort of 'zoned out' almost rather than anything - different to lots of dogs she sees. Almost a non - specific aggression. Reckons he has some issues coping with life in a way (he does, you know how much I have to work with him) and copes far worse in new (yep) and open (yep) spaces. That with the big journey and new house too probably became too much. What she was certain of, and I agree, was that there was no fear at all today at the moment of going up to her and biting. He was stressed for the rest of the day though - very tail tucked and rigid body, but relaxed a lot in the field this afternoon.

We talked a huge amount about diet (approves of raw), homeopathy etc and got me thinking about doing some study in order to support Kilo and Rudi in living with him. All sorts really.

They are curled up together in a ridgie - shaped heap in front of the log burner right now, snoring away :001_wub:. Took a photo on my phone but can't send it to my computer via bluetooth or email right now - no O2 network til I drive about 5 - 10 miles from here either so never mind


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## Beth17

Agree with MV. Ange sounds like a lovely understanding lady and I really hope you can get back out there tomorrow and get the most out of it


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## Sarah1983

I know that's you and the Boy Wonder lol, you'll stress and he'll stress about you stressing and you'll stress about that and you'll end up in the same vicious circle me and Rupert did. But you've done a hell of a lot better with him than I did with Rupert. You can deal with this  

Without making light of the situation it really does sound like this may actually be a sort of blessing in disguise. Awful as it is that you've seen what could happen it's happened in the right place with the right person who is able to give you some help and support. She sounds like a fantastic person and I so, so wish I could have gotten Rupert to her. Even more so after hearing how great she's being with you and Kilo. I'm absolutely gutted for you though. If that makes any sense. Relieved it wasn't a random stranger and nobody was hurt but gutted it's happened even if it was purposely set up to see what would happen. 

Poor you and poor Kilo, it doesn't sound like he was a particularly happy boy the rest of the day. I hope he's feeling better now.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I know that's you and the Boy Wonder lol, you'll stress and he'll stress about you stressing and you'll stress about that and you'll end up in the same vicious circle me and Rupert did. But you've done a hell of a lot better with him than I did with Rupert. You can deal with this
> 
> Without making light of the situation it really does sound like this may actually be a sort of blessing in disguise. Awful as it is that you've seen what could happen it's happened in the right place with the right person who is able to give you some help and support. She sounds like a fantastic person and I so, so wish I could have gotten Rupert to her. Even more so after hearing how great she's being with you and Kilo. I'm absolutely gutted for you though. If that makes any sense. Relieved it wasn't a random stranger and nobody was hurt but gutted it's happened even if it was purposely set up to see what would happen.
> 
> Poor you and poor Kilo, it doesn't sound like he was a particularly happy boy the rest of the day. I hope he's feeling better now.


I actually said to her that in a way I was pleased because I now know what would happen when he's pushed too far in terms of stress (not that she pushed him on purpose - I think everything just combined as I said). She said she thinks he's a 'special needs' type dog and he is, love him. I bravely asked if she thought I was the right home - today was our first meeting, but she's been offering support via email for quite some time) - and she said that she thought he'd be like this regardless of owner, thank goodness.

Kilo's curled up with Rudi now loving the log burner in the cottage and I haven't cried again - hopefully got it all out now!! It was more the thought that he was tearing about yesterday with loads of folk about and what would happen to him had he decided that he had had enough then. Mind you, he shows no interest in people when there are lots about. It's just this lone person thing. Agh, confuzzled. Not that he'll be unmuzzled offlead unless it's a secure area, don't worry!! Even 'our' forest where I have never seen a soul I think he'll have to be.


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## foxyrockmeister

I don't really have anything more to add to what everyone else has already said, none of this is your fault, you are a wonderful, hard working, dedicated owner to Kilo, it's like you said - Kilo is special needs - but you are 100% the right person to meet those special needs.

He is so similar to Branston in so many ways, the way you described him 'zoned out' is exactly what Branston is like too. The issue that I didn't get round to posting about the other day is that Branston has started growling at lone people, he growled at my nan in my mum and dads house at the weekend  

I love my boy dearly and I feel like we have a really strong bond and that I know him inside out, but I also have had to accept that I cannot trust him in the same way I can trust Lily or have trusted my previous dogs. Simply because he just cannot cope with certain situations. 
I don't label him as an aggressive dog but I know that there are situations when the switch will flick in his brain and there is nothing anyone can do, my job is to avoid these situations and interrupt his thought process before he zones out and the switch flicks - Something that you have clearly been doing with Kilo from day 1, which is why he has never reached this stage before.


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## Sarah1983

It's funny how their minds work sometimes. Shadow was perfectly fine and non reactive when there were loads of people around, just completely ignored them. A lone person with no dog on the other hand was rushed up to and barked and lunged at. It wasn't that he was shut down with lots of people around either, he was relaxed and happy. And it was only ever adults on their own he barked at, a child alone was perfectly fine, two adults were fine, an adult with a child, a dog or a horse was fine.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It's funny how their minds work sometimes. Shadow was perfectly fine and non reactive when there were loads of people around, just completely ignored them. A lone person with no dog on the other hand was rushed up to and barked and lunged at. It wasn't that he was shut down with lots of people around either, he was relaxed and happy. And it was only ever adults on their own he barked at, a child alone was perfectly fine, two adults were fine, an adult with a child, a dog or a horse was fine.


This is Kilo exactly. Dog fun days, charity dog walks, groups of walkers, walkers with dogs.....all OK. Lone adults, something to be suspicious of.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> It's funny how their minds work sometimes. Shadow was perfectly fine and non reactive when there were loads of people around, just completely ignored them. A lone person with no dog on the other hand was rushed up to and barked and lunged at. It wasn't that he was shut down with lots of people around either, he was relaxed and happy. And it was only ever adults on their own he barked at, a child alone was perfectly fine, two adults were fine, an adult with a child, a dog or a horse was fine.


This is Kilo exactly. Dog fun days, charity dog walks, groups of walkers, walkers with dogs.....all OK. Lone adults, something to be suspicious of. Unless they are running or biking alone. They are OK.


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## MollySmith

Dogless, more hugs (you can use these ones tomorrow if you like ) and to say that I think you are exceptionally brave and honest. It must have been a massive shock to you and that's bound to make you feel wobbly. But I can see from coming to this a bit late and reading through your updates that you're analysing and working it all out too.

Angela sounds really helpful but at the same time it sounds like Kilo wasn't set up so good for success given the journey and everything else so maybe keep that in mind too? I don't mean to misunderstand and heaven knows I'm not an expert but I know that I've had Molly misunderstood by a dog trainer in the past.

Keep the faith and you've done so well this far, that you can call him back is a great thing x


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> This is Kilo exactly. Dog fun days, charity dog walks, groups of walkers, walkers with dogs.....all OK. Lone adults, something to be suspicious of. Unless they are running or biking alone. They are OK.


Strange isn't it? It's not like Shadow was only ever used to seeing groups of people or people with dogs either so I have no idea why he found lone adults so suspicious.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> This is Kilo exactly. Dog fun days, charity dog walks, groups of walkers, walkers with dogs.....all OK. Lone adults, something to be suspicious of. Unless they are running or biking alone. They are OK.


Dogless I'm really sorry, both for you and Kilo.

I'm too tired tonight and need to re-read all your posts tomorrow before commenting. There are some aspects of this I find rather strange.


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## Werehorse

Dogless - ((((((HUGS)))))) I can only echo what everyone else has said. What a nasty shock for you though.  It is an absolute credit to your training and management that it took a controlled investigation into what would happen to find out. And now you know, your training and management can only improve. Kilo is a very lucky boy to have you if you ask me.


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## Nicki85

DL- just hugs here. Kilo is so very lucky to have you to help him through his issues. xx


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## Thorne

I'm devastated on your behalf Dogless, having been in a similar situation with Scooter before  
Sometimes I wonder if he "needs" a muzzle then I remember the day he bit someone on a walk, and how little warning he gave, and wonder why I ever started questioning the muzzle. He is the sweetest boy with us and people he's introduced to sensibly, but I can't help but wonder where we went wrong, and am now wondering if maybe there is something "off" in his neurology now that you've mentioned it regarding Kilo. Wouldn't begin to know what that could be, but could explain a lot. Sometimes he doesn't seem quite the full ticket and has been like that all his life, we've just thought of him as being on the simple side but now I'm not too sure.

It's a bit hypocritical coming from my self-criticising self, but don't blame yourself - you've worked hard with both of your boys and at the end of the day all dogs have minds of their own, and nature can and will overcome nurture sometimes.

If you haven't already got one, thumbs up here for the baskerville ultra muzzle.

Sending you many, many hugs, and hoping some medical tests will give you some answers 

Speaking of Scooter, he's thrown up what looks to be a sandwich bag tonight, we're somewhat mystified as to where it's come from/what was in it/how long it was in his stomach!  Thank god he threw it up instead of it causing him any problems further along the line!


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

Dogless said:


> Thank you for you kind words and ideas .


 to you too ! respinding in kind ! copying you even ! 

and being lazy in some things i dont start another post to joke about my LATEST WORKED ON ISSUE this morning !!!

*to make you smile !!! i hope !

HUMAN TRAINING WORK !*

the scene is..

human known to dog but partial stranger, non dog owner, non dog liker, male, friend of mine, stays the night...OOOOH ! not i am not married and so i am not having an AFFAIRE a la FRANCAISE lol ! JUST A FRIEND ! an ex...

to the point now !
i
and any explanations other than mine welcome from in particular ummm what is the name ? ummm RED AVATAR crying chap with bad experience being replied to here by me....your views from my perception of you as someone with experience of handling dogs welcome ...DOGLESSS !! yes that is the name...

my EDUCATION of him in matters he was not really interested in but finds them DOGGIE PEOPLE NUTTER IDEAS !

my dogs lie in passages...particularly FALCON ! doorways is his favorite...40 kilos of black hard to see in the dark dog can get STEPPED on yes !

what happens ? FEJA my bitch gets STEPPED on being by my bed as man passes !!!! ooooh ! giving away some details that might suggest my other activities ? DONT ASSUME TOO MUCH i reply to that !

FEJA retaliates by snarling when stepped on and bites lightly mans ankle...i say word ACCIDENT to feja...she understands that word for when i sometimes step on her or hurt her by accident...man strokes dog she tail wags no more issue.

FALCON lying in doorways gets STEPPED on...he is an incredible hulk...does NOT snarl he ROLLS ON HIS BACK wanting a pet ! lol !

man says to me...WHY DO THOSE DOGS ALWAYS PUT THEMSELVES IN DOORWAYS PASSAGES ? i dont see them being BLACK in the dark ! bound to get STEPPED on so WHY DONT THEY LEARN to go lie somewhere else or MOVE out of my way watching out for it ?

here comes the funny parts...

i answer..DEFENDING MY DOGS of course first point...secondly using TECHIE DOGGIE WORLD explanations NOT understood well by non dog owners !

i say...MY DOGS ARE BLOCKING PASSAGES AT NIGHT AS I SLEEP as it is some kindda instinct of PRTECTION of ME to them i think...

THEY ARE SHEEPDOGS ! sheepdogs nip ankles bottoms sometimes yes if people in running mode or just generally as a kindda punishment or warning...or sheepdog instincts that involve nipping sheep bottoms or just play or wolf predator inscints (i add here not said to him ALL dogs i think use light bites to each other and humans as punishment or warning sometimes...not just sheepdogs...they do NOT intend to HARM by STRONG bite but it depends on what their learnt idea of strong bite is...and sometimes they bite each other in PLAY but not hard and sometimes they SHOW TEETH to each other in warnings and play)

now FALCON additionally i add is TRYING TO BE DOMINENT ! apparently dogs do that to assert their position ! dominence it is called !

........;

now the reaction of the man to these explanations ?

EEEEEEFFFFFFFFFGGGGGG (word including those letters) DOGS !!!! 

and YOU DOG OWNERS ARE NUTS !

.


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## IrishEyes

Do you have room here for two more? I'm only small but Horace is a big lump 

He has come such a long way since we brought him home at the end of May last year but he is now starting to develop some onlead reactivity when he sees another dog. Sometimes he is grand (I always cross over or tuck into a driveway just to give him space and to be polite) but when he does react it doesn't sound very good.. a bit of growling and lunging.. he's big and very strong. I haven't yet worked out what makes the difference between him reacting and not reacting hence why I avoid meeting onlead. 

I say onlead reactivity but it doesn't happen when he is onlead in a group of dogs. Only when in passing.

He is such an affectionate friendly dog but I don't want this reactivity to develop further so I need to nip it in the bud asap but I'm unsure how to do this as I don't know what is causing it.

When I first got him he was hard work out in terms of pulling etc and he was barked at everyday by other dogs, he reacted to that by getting excitied, nose to the ground, heading for a post or wall to mark and maybe twirling around a bit. I was told that that behaviour was wrong and to work on it so I did and it stopped. We had a good few weeks of him more or less ignoring dogs when onlead but now he is reacting in this way. Perhaps that advice was wrong and has caused this issue now or perhaps it was something that would have happened anyway?

Sorry for ranting on but if you have had any experience of this I'd love to hear your thoughts. I haven't looked through this thread before but I will scroll back a bit and try to have some input.

Many thanks in advance.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- Hope you and the Big Fella are ok this morning.

Hello Irisheyes. The others are better at giving advice than me -but have you read Grisha Stewart Behaviour and Training book, its very helpful as many of us have the same problem.!!


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## IrishEyes

kat&molly said:


> Hello Irisheyes. The others are better at giving advice than me -but have you read Grisha Stewart Behaviour and Training book, its very helpful as many of us have the same problem.!!


Hello and thank you  I will have a look for that book thanks kat.

Dogless, there isn't anything I can say that hasn't already been said.. from the little that I know of you and Kilo, you absolutely are not an idiot but a responsible, sensible dog owner. I think that Kilo recalling away from her spoke volumes about how well trained he is. I hope that you are feeling a little better today and I have no doubt that you will continue to do your very best for Kilo.


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## Beth17

Dogless really hope you and the boys have a good day today and that things seem brighter 

IrishEyes the more the merrier  The BAT book is good although I still haven't read it all cause I get distracted easily  I wonder if Horace is reacting through frustration at not greeting?


----------



## IrishEyes

Beth17 said:


> IrishEyes the more the merrier  The BAT book is good although I still haven't read it all cause I get distracted easily  I wonder if Horace is reacting through frustration at not greeting?


Ah come on now, that's not an excuse! 

Thank you Beth. I have wondered if that is the case as he has always been so eager to greet but often when he has been allowed to greet he gets excitied and wants to play so I get pulled about  Because of his size, some owners understandably don't want him to interact with their smaller dogs. He has a few teeny tiny buddies and no issues there but with new dogs he can get excitied.


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## moonviolet

hi and welcome aboard IE and Horace ( I will get that yacht one day)

Another good book to read is Sue Sternberg's " Out and about with your dog: DOG TO DOG INTERACTIONS ON THE STREET, ON THE TRAILS, AND IN THE DOG PARK"

It makes very enlightening reading 

Got to go OH nagging :lol:


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## Maria_1986

Dogless - hope you have a better day today.

Irish Eyes - welcome to WAYWO, I also have a dog who gets excited on lead when we pass other dogs, she is not too bad but it was something I wanted to work on as I would like to be able to go to events and fun dog shows. We have been going to training classes and practising gaining her attention (I know lots of people use watch, however we worked out that her name will get eye contact 70% of the time so we are using that and working on getting it to 100%). I don't know if its the right way to do it, but I have also been going and skirting round the edge of popular dog walking areas and working on keeping her attention on me. Yesterday we met up with someone with a dog to use as a practice dog and managed to walk right past a few times with her attention on me the whole time (well me and the roast turkey!)  We also managed to sit on a bench with off lead dogs playing around us and she kept her attention on me yesterday. Don't know if its the right way to do it but that way worked for us


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

IrishEyes said:


> Do you have room here for two more? I'm only small but Horace is a big lump
> 
> He has come such a long way since we brought him home at the end of May last year but he is now starting to develop some onlead reactivity when he sees another dog. Sometimes he is grand (I always cross over or tuck into a driveway just to give him space and to be polite) but when he does react it doesn't sound very good.. a bit of growling and lunging.. he's big and very strong. I haven't yet worked out what makes the difference between him reacting and not reacting hence why I avoid meeting onlead.
> 
> I say onlead reactivity but it doesn't happen when he is onlead in a group of dogs. Only when in passing.
> 
> He is such an affectionate friendly dog but I don't want this reactivity to develop further so I need to nip it in the bud asap but I'm unsure how to do this as I don't know what is causing it.
> 
> When I first got him he was hard work out in terms of pulling etc and he was barked at everyday by other dogs, he reacted to that by getting excitied, nose to the ground, heading for a post or wall to mark and maybe twirling around a bit. I was told that that behaviour was wrong and to work on it so I did and it stopped. We had a good few weeks of him more or less ignoring dogs when onlead but now he is reacting in this way. Perhaps that advice was wrong and has caused this issue now or perhaps it was something that would have happened anyway?
> 
> Sorry for ranting on but if you have had any experience of this I'd love to hear your thoughts. I haven't looked through this thread before but I will scroll back a bit and try to have some input.
> 
> Many thanks in advance.


*books have been suggested...

irrelavent to this thread but please helpful to another one where a lady asks how to tell her friend that friends bites other kids not of owner so needs dealing with...ay BOOKS dealing directly on this issue out there anyone ?? it is urgent ! kids involved !*

sounds like adolescent period to me

male dog issue to me

castration does not i read and know reduce this behaviour if dog is adult and has learnt it and hormones not just in private parts cut off but in head remain
some dogs it does some it doesnt i read

drastic action in addition as suggestion but some do suggest that as an attempt so i qualified it with my view that it doesnt change things no

on leads dogs are more likely to aggress other dogs i think due to feeling restrained less room to manoeuvre to have a doggie discussion with other dogs circling from afar

close up seems yes to me more risky for such events

let him off lead and get taught a lesson by another dog ? dangerous for harm bites done if adult i say to that...Easier when a pup

some told me they leant that at pup schools...let other dogs teach the dogs bite control and behaviour generally with dogs...the natural way...and i agree with that !

but adult dogs who have like mine and maybe yours MISSED OUT on that learning way ?

CERTAINLY make it VERY CLEAR you DISAPPROVE of his behaviour !

IN THE WAY YOUR DOG Understands you ! that is between you and the dog

dogs want to PLEASE us generally...do NOT like it if we communicate they DISPLEASE us !

NO ! STOP !!! ENOUGH !! orders he can learn...by using VERY STRONG VOICE !!!

stroke other dog ? oooh lalala...dunno...i am uncertain about that to advise it...if your dog is JEALOUS or PROTECTIVE towards you faced with a strange dog it COULD MAKE THINGS WORSE !

i only stroke saw STONE COWS to reassure my dogs they are not dangerous...stone cows etc do not smell so dogs are confused about them and can bark at them...so i approach and stroke and get my dogs to come closer...

but another Live animal like another dog around ? i dont know. i dont try that no. i speak calmly first saying SAY HELLO an order they understand for humans or dogs i add...SAY HELLO ! meaning yes go up and play sniff etc

but if already in LUNGING mode letting dogs off lead adults to get lesson from other dogs to not be so aggressive is risking again i think vet visits...A bit late for that training method when adult...

so you resort to alternative methods...as maybe explained in these books i dont know about but am interested in posters have put here

and ORDER the dog to STOP ! STOP ! or else ? well depends if you can HANG ON IN there on the lead with a big dog hey !!! lol ! i dont like being pulled over onto the ground by my dog so if i see that possible I ORDER IT TO STOP IT ! darn it...make me fall ? i could ? LOSE MY TEMPER ! that other dog is the LAST thing my dog will be interested in if he sees me fall about to rant ! his attention will be for sure ON ME ! lol !!! 

good luck...i have the same issue i add ! so sympathise ! MALES hey !

HOLD ME BACK !! HOLD ME BACK ! the teenager rant with fists in front ! hoping no one takes them up on it hey ! HOLD ME BACK ! lol ! excuse me i find males funny for that. dogs or humans ! 

NB ! IMPORTANT NB NOTA BENE !!! I EDIT THIS POST THE NEXT DAY TO SAY THE BOOKS ABOUT KIDS AND DOGS QUESTION HERE HAS BEEN ANSWERED IN ANOTHER THREAD IN CHAT ! THanks again to the sugestions i passed on..


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## MollySmith

Welcome Irish Eyes and Horace 

Molly is lead reactive and like Horace much better in a group of dogs but the odd one seems to be too difficult. We've spent about 10 months of the (almost) year since we've had her trying to find a way to release the fixation. What I mean by that is when she saw a dog on a lead she went immediately over threshold and it was trying to get her to a calm state so she would at least listen to us to give her an instruction or hear a clicker was the biggest challenge. I think a combination of terrible teens, being adopted by us who had no idea she was so lead reactive as the rescue didn't mention or notice, taking her to a group class and then being rolled on lead by an off lead dog in a car park all brought this on. Poor lovely.

We found that finding a safe distance helped. We used my trainers calm dogs to click and treat her when she didn't react. When she did, I found a 'turn' command helped. A lots of practice with different dogs at safe distances outside the [email protected] and vets where I knew they'd be on lead. Lots of socialisation at a dedicated dog field and the briefly popping her lead on in the park, doing a 'watch me' and rewarding her with warm chicken then letting her off to play helped hugely. We have finally made a break through these past weeks since I was made redundant and working at home as I've upped the training. She has a walk with OH off lead in the morning so I can work then in the afternoon after a rest we do a walk locally or I take her to a new village for walks so she gets used to new places. When she sees a dog now we do a 'look at that' click and treat so she's rewarded for seeing a dog and being a good girl. So far it's going fine.

Like others have said BAT is great and I guess we're using that principle really. Agree with MV, Sue Sternberg is great too, it makes me feel that we're not alone


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## FEJA JUODAS

GingerRogers said:


> Feja have you tried any touch targeting work or other such games, distracting the dog (I use touch to get Ginge to do things like get back in the car after a walk, a similar protest to your dog I think ) or just ignore it, try and get the other dog in by enticing in with food or play and the other one may well soon decide she wants to find out whats so fun indoors.
> 
> I don't think tugging harder on the lead is going to work, it doesn't get a little ginger dog to move so pretty sure it wont work with a big black one .
> 
> Or as you say change the dogs attitude so make the coming in and out a random game you do at all times of day not just to symbolise the end of play.


update !!!

seems toys work yes !

FALCON my other dog did it for me this morning !

details !

in field i put lead on her before reaching end of field where i normally put it on to walk on road of course...

i got a SIT DOWN refusal to advance...

i took lead off her walked on and she followed... i ran a little also that is always going to get her interest to chase me...

got to road...where i normally put lead on...no issue she walked with us ok

got to near building ? LIE DOWN ! lol ! before the door even this time !

ok we go walk different direction no prob she gets up follows...leads are long i add to allow this i dont pull leads to give directions no...use voice...

i head to building again ? another sit and lie down by dog done refusal message to me...she see the car...heads to the car and demands to get in it...ok i put her in car and walk off with my other dog and the toys we had used in field...falcon the other dog sees her toy in my hand and asks for it takes it...he leaves it alone if she is around i add...

she SEES that watching from the car window and BARKS once ! i go back put her lead on and out she comes trots all the way to building inside no issues !

a bit of a long way to do it hey !!! 

update weekend a few days after this prob...

IT IS THE LEAD !!! IT IS THE LEAD !

i know my dogs are ANTI LEADS yes like most dogs...but...due to peole around here being maybe getting more SENSITIVE about dogs off leads...an anonymous note put again recently in my mail...underlining the rule DOGS ON LEADS of the complex...twice is enough it added...FINAL REMINDER ! without saying what next if i didnt obey !!! lol !!

so I WAS OBEYING ! and this was a CHANGE IN BEHAVIOUR to madame Feja especially that SHE DOES NOT LIKE ! so not ONLY does she object i thought correctly still to COMING INDOORS AT ALL ANYTIME ! but the LEAD is an ADDITIONAL PROB !

so ? STRESSED i add...yes STRESSED so NOT GOOG i let her JUMP out of the car WITHOUT LEAD and put my hand near her collar to come indoors in case anyone saw her OFF LEAD !

no probs! FEJA follows me without orders generally when walking around...so coming in FREELY OFF LEAD made it SIMPLE PEASY WEASY ! or words like that to me EASY !!!

sigh but that does not sort the PROBLEM of ? the PEOPLE who make the RULES ! and there is NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT THAT !

unless i LEAVE again as i intend to of course...i cant live like this...constrained by rules i dont need...my dog doesnt need ! she is DOG FRIENDLY ! she is PEOPLE FRIENDLY ! not as much as my other dog ! but there is NO NEED for this rule for her and it makes my life ? SXXX ! yes SXXX !!! i repeat emphasising my DESPAIR YES ! but thinking...there is the FUTURE ! one day WE WILL BE FREE !! one day WE WILL BE FREE ! with NO LEADS due to RULES with SPACE to BARK WHEN WE WANT ! and SEE THE SUN AND THE TREES AND OUR ANIMALS FREE ALSO !

so that is encouraging...does not sort my prob...it is a GENERAL prob...but i can DREAM ! continue to dream...and BE CAREFUL ! smiling now...but it is so STRESSFUL and that is not good for my dogs...they can SENSE my stress i am sure. affects them. sigh.


----------



## Dimwit

Hello Irish Eyes
I can sympathise as I have a lead reactive dog (well, he was starting to get reactive even off the lead as well), but my boy's reactiveness is due to anxiety so all the work I have been doing is based on trying to build up positive associations with other dogs/people etc.


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## Sarah1983

Welcome Irish Eyes. I've had problems with Spencer lunging, barking, screeching and spinning when he sees another dog. His is all down to frustration, he so desperately wants to go and play and when he can't he basically has a tantrum about it  I've got probably every book on reactivity that's been written (I have issues lol) and have pretty much treated it the same way I treated Ruperts aggression. Plenty of distance, big rewards for not reacting stupidly, working on making me more interesting than the other dogs and all that. For Spencer though the thing that's been most helpful with our progress was finding dogs he can be off leash with and interacting with regularly. He still whines and prances at other dogs but that's a hell of a lot better than what we used to get.

BAT seems very good but if you're going to get it order the actual tree book. I have it on Kindle and it's very difficult to see some of the diagrams.

Control Unleashed is my favourite book for reactive dogs so far. But it's rather heavy going. An easier to read alternative is Fired Up, Frantic and Freaked Out. Doesn't have quite so much info in it but much, much easier to read.

Click to Calm is another good, relatively easy to follow book. If I remember rightly it relies very heavily on teaching a solid "watch me" though.


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## Kicksforkills

Dexter actually ate his food yesterday but this morning even though my mum grated cheese on it he didn't eat it. I just thought if he just likes food when I give him it?

Bless him, he didn't like being in a strange environment at his first Ringcraft last night. He did very well considering.

He's six months old today and finally having his vet check this afternoon. Poppy is going too for her bum.

Haven't done much recall training really. He's good when I do call him though. He doesn't like being on his lead when at the field

He goes out in the garden offlead and is very good about coming 

He had his only accident this morning on a blanket in his crate. Maybe because I slept until 7.15 rather than 6.30? I don't think this is to do with housetraining as I'm sure if P&R needed the loo and we didn't get to them in time they would pee/poo in their room. They have done before.


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## kat&molly

Moll has hurt her right back leg. She's holding it quite high up- but I'm not sure if its really hurting her as she isn't wearing her pained face.
I've got a client and 2 dogs in a bit- I cant get hold of him to change the appt. So now it will have to wait until tomorrow morning to go the vets.
She's bright and bouncy in herself but sulking a bit because I wont take her for her walk. No idea whats happened there.


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## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> Moll has hurt her right back leg. She's holding it quite high up- but I'm not sure if its really hurting her as she isn't wearing her pained face.
> I've got a client and 2 dogs in a bit- I cant get hold of him to change the appt. So now it will have to wait until tomorrow morning to go the vets.
> She's bright and bouncy in herself but sulking a bit because I wont take her for her walk. No idea whats happened there.


Poor girl, Hope a quiet afternoon sorts it out.


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## L/C

Dogless - did Angela explain why she wanted to test Kilo after he'd been through several quite stressful events for him? I've been thinking about this all night and it's been niggling at me. I've done some work with Anne McBride and Sarah Fisher on temperment testing and assessment (it was follow up stuff after the seminar I went to) and the thing they both stress is that you don't ever want to push the dog so far that they feel compelled to bite.

Did she ask you for a list of his triggers and a full history before she tested him?

Ignore me if you don't want to talk about it.


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## MollySmith

kat&molly said:


> Moll has hurt her right back leg. She's holding it quite high up- but I'm not sure if its really hurting her as she isn't wearing her pained face.
> I've got a client and 2 dogs in a bit- I cant get hold of him to change the appt. So now it will have to wait until tomorrow morning to go the vets.
> She's bright and bouncy in herself but sulking a bit because I wont take her for her walk. No idea whats happened there.


Oh poor Molly, I hope a rest might resolve it.


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## Nicki85

Gah it is one of those days!

Rusty had to go to the vets for a mystery lump on his spine below his shoulder blades... antibiotics for 5 days and then we will see!

Came home to a screaming Shae ( I thought we had overcome the crate issue!) Luckily not too distressed so I pop her out for a wee and then bring her back to the crate and she goes in willingly and settles down with a ducks neck to munch on. 

Let her out just before she finishes it to prevent any screaming... then the postman comes, Rusty barks and scares Shae who is asleep and she runs at the chair, tumbles over it and ends up behind the sofa. She comes out holding her foot up  Squeaking with each step  So, give her a fish jerky treat to caml her down/occupy her. She has just finished that and is now weight bearing with no squeaking (phew!). 

I think we are all OK now! Dogs hey, who would have them.

Shae has her first puppy class tonight.

Hope Molly is better soon too.


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## Babbo

Working on getting my three to sit and wait on a matt when visitors come to the door....a slow slow working process but it will be worth it in the long run. They currently jump up and get over excited.


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## moonviolet

L/C said:


> Dogless - *did Angela explain why she wanted to test Kilo after he'd been through several quite stressful events for him? I've been thinking about this all night and it's been niggling at me.* I've done some work with Anne McBride and Sarah Fisher on temperment testing and assessment (it was follow up stuff after the seminar I went to) and the thing they both stress is that you don't ever want to push the dog so far that they feel compelled to bite.
> 
> Did she ask you for a list of his triggers and a full history before she tested him?
> 
> Ignore me if you don't want to talk about it.


I've been having the same niggle.

Dogless i hope you are having a better day today.


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> This is Kilo exactly. Dog fun days, charity dog walks, groups of walkers, walkers with dogs.....all OK. Lone adults, something to be suspicious of. Unless they are running or biking alone. They are OK.


For all my stupid comments I'm gutted for you. You can tell the BW he made a bloke cry. Granted not a full-on blub but a small tear all the same. Still.. I know you'll work through it with him.. so looking forward to more Wrestlemania.


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## Beth17

Oh K&M I hope poor Molly is all right and rest will sort it.

Nicki blimey sounds a hectic morning. Hope the Rusty is ok and that puppy class for Shae goes well tonight.

K4K Is he teething? as that can put them off their food. You could try tough love with Dexter and the 15min rule. I expect he is still just settling in so just give him time and remember to not overwhelm him.

Very nearly throttled my two when out this morning. It's my own fault though for thinking that they were being very well behaved when walking down to the onlead park  First Sam's grass rolling addiction has grown and is pulling to any bit of grass just to have a roll so we ended up having a major battle of wills there. Then they decided to play fight onlead. I got Oscar to stop and then Sam would launch at him and grab hold of his backend which resulted in Oscar getting rather hacked off. Oscar then danced around with his lead which I had to drop taunting Sam and winding him up. Then got hold of his lead again and they proceeded to wind each other up even more. :cursing:

Suffice to say I shan't be returning there for a while I was so embarrassed.

Off to [email protected] in a bit to get some wet food etc. so will take Sam and remind him how to behave when out in public.


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## GingerRogers

Welcome Irish Eyes and Horace, plenty of room for all here!

I am struggling through Gingers reactivity, I am pretty certain a lot of hers started with frustration at dogs passing and not saying hello, it certainly seemed like a 'oy you! get back here and say hello' kind of thing, she had never had that kind of structure before and was allowed to do what ever she liked. But it escalated and I think various things I did wrong and the whole change in circumstances pushed it into more of a stress reaction. I think it possibly was wrong advice you had initially, the whole sniffing thing is a calming/displacement activity which shows they are worried about something and so do something to take their minds of it, almost, if that makes any sense. The books mentioned are all very good but if you can manage it I have found actual practical experience with the right behaviorist/trainer is very helpful, it gives me the confidence that all all the 'hooky' ideas in the books (thats tongue in cheek its just a lot of the advice seems counter intuitive sometimes and you need the support as none are quick fixes) are the right way to go and will work, lol.


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## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> I've been having the same niggle.


So have I. It does seem odd to push a dog so over threshold that it reacts that way. Perhaps she thought it best to find out what the "worst case scenario" could be and what exactly she was dealing with?


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## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> I've been having the same niggle.
> 
> Dogless i hope you are having a better day today.


Me too. I hope you're all okay Dogless


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## GingerRogers

Poor Moll 
Poor Rusty 
Poor poor Shae,  she has to get the most sympathy, she's only a baby 

Hope they are all ok.

Hope Leafy is holding up too!

We just attempted nail clipping round two, only got 2 done last night, didn't want to push it, got 3 more front ones done and hubby started on the back and slipped and cut half the foot off  bleeding bleed don't they all over my clean jeans (ok so she kicked out and its only half the nail )

They both came to work with me this morning, I roped hubby in to help with a survey and she was very good, last time she was scared of the tape measure but this time she wasn't too bothered. Its only slightly difficult measuring the outside with a dog attached to your waist, she didn't dig toooo many holes either  I can only really do that when the houses are empty though. We stopped off at a random footpath sign on the way home and had a lovely if windy walk across some proper Suffolk fields (Suffolk = flat and open ) we saw hoppy hares today, she looked at them and sort of leapt forward then stopped and then looked at me :thumbup: We had a bit of a drive about on the way back, there is hundreds of footpaths all interlinking, its a great as its just fields really and with all the stunning scenery round here not many people walk round fields apart from the proper rambly people and they don't often have dogs. As its all so 'Suffolk' you can see trouble ahead, bookmarked that for when I have some exploring time .

Last day of my course tomorrow  so off to Mums tonight, I am a little scared as it feels like a big safety net  but hubby said I can still go and see her as top ups, thanks dear, so generous of you


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## Sarah1983

Caught the daft pair like this first thing this morning and then again this afternoon. Currently Khan is asleep on Spens bed and Spen is on Khans having rumpled Khans nice blanket up to make a comfy pillow.










My neighbours asked for advice on teaching a good recall last night so have given them Total Recall and When Pigs Fly (Rupert looks like a Griffon Vendeen mix of some sort and is definitely a Pigs Fly dog lol) to read and told them if they want a hand to give me a shout.

Hope Molly, Shae, Leafy and Rusty are all feeling better soon. K&M, could she have pulled a muscle? I know when Wolf did it he acted like he was dying but he wasn't exactly a stoic dog lol.


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## moonviolet

Ginge about the nail cutting. There is another way.... as usual with me, it's slow and gentle but it makes it a one person job, and no/low stress for you dog. 
( I'm going to assume you are right handed for this, just to aid the description)

I like frequent micro sessions rather than moving too quickly.

Getting them used to having their paws lifted (I dont' hold because if they pull you invariably lose where you have lined up the clippers and get the quick.... if you dont' hold they remove their foot no harm done.) so sessions of paw touching and lifting lots of treats are a pre-requisite dont' treat until the paw is back on the floor!!!

Then just have the clipper on the floor while you do the above.

Then hold the clippers in your other hand while you lift and support the floor then paw to the floor and treat.

Next step is to support the paw and touch the clippers to the claws each in turn. Then paw to the floor and treat.

Next step is the above but now putting the clippers in place but not clipping.

Once happy with the above repeat it and cut one claw...lavish with praise and treats ( once paw is on the floor) and leave it there until the next session.

You may complete the above over a day a week, It depends the Ninja. 
ETA:
_From then it's jsut a case of slowly increasing the number you do at a time, bear in mind it's not essential to ever do them all at once if it's not something they ever come to enjoy, During the getting used to it phase it's probably better to do do a couple at a time but doing that regularly by taking just tiny bits off the tip.
Timing can work in your favour too, before a training session, before a meal so that it's followed by something they enjoy_

Do make sure you keep you clippers sharp or it becomes uncomfortable as you clip. making a sausage of kitchen foil and using your clipper to cut it into tiny pieces will sharpen them ( if you can do it after each use)

It's not fast it's not glamorous but it means clipping nails is an easy one person job in the long run.

( The emphasis for treating once the paw is on the floor is because I foolishly treated Tink after the the click of the clippers and now have a wiggle fit between each nail :lol

Gorgeous Pic Sarah.
How nice to have your neighbours ask your advice  maybe you could consider becoming the trainer you seek


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## Nicki85

I hate nail cutting! Luckily the Spaniel seems to wear his down himself... see how Shae gets on with hers- but they are black so harder to see. 

Shae appears fine- she is a drama queen! I did think at one point I would be back at the vets with another broken dog. Took Rusty out just 5mins round the common and carried Shae which she seemed to enjoy. She is heavy though and I don't have DL's stamina for carrying pups around! Some some people on bikes and a dog barking over the fence (one of Rusty's friends so he went up and said hi which I think helped.).


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## Werehorse

Thanks for that claw clipping description MV. I now have a notebook file called "lemonade scones" that also includes claw clipping instructions.  I very much need to start doing Hugo's... Oscars just wear down by themselves but Hugo's don't. It must be the way they move.


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## GingerRogers

Thats brilliant MV thank you, I trusted the man as he was used to doing things like that for sheep  and I didn't trust myself  but think we will have to try something else now, as I don't think she is going to be keen on having them finished off anytime soon.

Nicky we haven't had to worry before with Rory or Ginge but the reduced walking has had an effect  a sharp one.

Thats very flattering of your neighbours, see they can see you are doing well Sarah :thumbup:

ETA good idea werehorse as who knows where that post will be when I get back tomorrow , I have a file for WAYWO recipes but have added that to retrieve


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Moll has hurt her right back leg. She's holding it quite high up- but I'm not sure if its really hurting her as she isn't wearing her pained face.
> I've got a client and 2 dogs in a bit- I cant get hold of him to change the appt. So now it will have to wait until tomorrow morning to go the vets.
> She's bright and bouncy in herself but sulking a bit because I wont take her for her walk. No idea whats happened there.


How is Molly now? Trouble is it could be so many things - pull - tear - trapped nerve. Can you feel any heat?

It's Tremor's right back leg that isn't right as well.


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## purpleskyes

It's been awhile since I have popped in here, hope everyone is well

Dogless so sorry to hear about the incident with kilo. I hope things improve and you get to the bottom of it. 

Me and Hudson are off to the Kennel Club good citizen dog training scheme on the 11th. I cannot wait, really hope we can sort his dog reactiveness more than anything else.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Gah it is one of those days!
> 
> Rusty had to go to the vets for a mystery lump on his spine below his shoulder blades... antibiotics for 5 days and then we will see!
> 
> Came home to a screaming Shae ( I thought we had overcome the crate issue!) Luckily not too distressed so I pop her out for a wee and then bring her back to the crate and she goes in willingly and settles down with a ducks neck to munch on.
> 
> Let her out just before she finishes it to prevent any screaming... then the postman comes, Rusty barks and scares Shae who is asleep and she runs at the chair, tumbles over it and ends up behind the sofa. She comes out holding her foot up  Squeaking with each step  So, give her a fish jerky treat to caml her down/occupy her. She has just finished that and is now weight bearing with no squeaking (phew!).
> 
> I think we are all OK now! Dogs hey, who would have them.
> 
> Shae has her first puppy class tonight.
> 
> Hope Molly is better soon too.


Rusty's lump isn't a follicle/sebaceous cyst is it? Tremor had one about in the same place and now has one virtually on the base of her spine - both places where the grease glands are.

Poor puppy. Hope she's OK for her class tonight.


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## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Thats brilliant MV thank you, I trusted the man as he was used to doing things like that for sheep  and I didn't trust myself  but think we will have to try something else now, as I don't think she is going to be keen on having them finished off anytime soon.


Well, you sure as heck couldn't do it my way with a flock of sheep :lol: :lol:

random thought when you do trainign or play sessions ( fun stuff) for the next week i'd get the clippers out and put them on the floor and not touch them agian until you finish training/play when you pick them up and put them away the same time as your treats go.  It might help build a more positive association.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Ginge about the nail cutting. There is another way.... as usual with me, it's slow and gentle but it makes it a one person job, and no/low stress for you dog.
> ( I'm going to assume you are right handed for this, just to aid the description)
> 
> I like frequent micro sessions rather than moving too quickly.
> 
> Getting them used to having their paws lifted (I dont' hold because if they pull you invariably lose where you have lined up the clippers and get the quick.... if you dont' hold they remove their foot no harm done.) so sessions of paw touching and lifting lots of treats are a pre-requisite dont' treat until the paw is back on the floor!!!
> 
> Then just have the clipper on the floor while you do the above.
> 
> Then hold the clippers in your other hand while you lift and support the floor then paw to the floor and treat.
> 
> Next step is to support the paw and touch the clippers to the claws each in turn. Then paw to the floor and treat.
> 
> Next step is the above but now putting the clippers in place but not clipping.
> 
> Once happy with the above repeat it and cut one claw...lavish with praise and treats ( once paw is on the floor) and leave it there until the next session.
> 
> You may complete the above over a day a week, It depends the Ninja.
> ETA:
> _From then it's jsut a case of slowly increasing the number you do at a time, bear in mind it's not essential to ever do them all at once if it's not something they ever come to enjoy, During the getting used to it phase it's probably better to do do a couple at a time but doing that regularly by taking just tiny bits off the tip._
> _Timing can work in your favour too, before a training session, before a meal so that it's followed by something they enjoy_
> 
> Do make sure you keep you clippers sharp or it becomes uncomfortable as you clip. making a sausage of kitchen foil and using your clipper to cut it into tiny pieces will sharpen them ( if you can do it after each use)
> 
> It's not fast it's not glamorous but it means clipping nails is an easy one person job in the long run.
> 
> ( The emphasis for treating once the paw is on the floor is because I foolishly treated Tink after the the click of the clippers and now have a wiggle fit between each nail :lol
> 
> Gorgeous Pic Sarah.
> How nice to have your neighbours ask your advice  maybe you could consider becoming the trainer you seek


That's a great tip Moonviolet (clipping tinfoil) - many thanks....:thumbup1:


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> That's a great tip Moonviolet (clipping tinfoil) - many thanks....:thumbup1:


Works on scissors too


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Well, you sure as heck couldn't do it my way with a flock of sheep :lol: :lol: *Mmmm no for a start I think his boss who keel over at the suggestion of doing things positively *
> 
> random thought when you do trainign or play sessions ( fun stuff) for the next week i'd get the clippers out and put them on the floor and not touch them agian until you finish training/play when you pick them up and put them away the same time as your treats go.  It might help build a more positive association.


Will do, she didn't mind them after but that wasn't in use. We had been wafting them about and air clipping I think I just hadn't emphasized the quick stuff to him enough , entirely my fault  Out of interest do you use pliers or guillotine types?


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Will do, she didn't mind them after but that wasn't in use. We had been wafting them about and air clipping I think I just hadn't emphasized the quick stuff to him enough , entirely my fault  Out of interest do you use pliers or guillotine types?


I use the plier type but i don't think there's much in it if they are kept sharp ( my parents have always used guillotine)


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> I use the plier type but i don't think there's much in it if they are kept sharp ( my parents have always used guillotine)


I've got both sorts... and a pair of very strong glasses - oh and the magnifying glass...!!


----------



## Sarah1983

moonviolet said:


> Gorgeous Pic Sarah.
> How nice to have your neighbours ask your advice  maybe you could consider becoming the trainer you seek


I've actually considered trying to get classes set up but all the hassle of trying to get insurance, finding somewhere to hold the classes etc puts me off. That and the attitude of people I've spoken to who think CM is the messiah and ridicule my methods.

My neighbours see me out with Spen off leash a lot and know I've been working with him. Nice that they've asked  Rupert is lovely but very much a Pigs Fly dog, if it's his idea to do something then he's very quick to do it but if he doesn't see why he should do something good luck convincing him lol. He learned to stay out of the kitchen while we looked after him but if he thought I hadn't noticed him deliberately staying out of the kitchen he'd bark at me, take a couple of steps into the kitchen and then go back out and sit :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

I'm not working on anything anymore. My dog training is now complete. Today a cat ran on to the bridlepath about 10 metres in front of us and in response to my "leave it" command my high prey drive demi-malamute left it. Tomorrow's walk will be on the motorway hard shoulder with no lead whilst juggling chainsaws.


----------



## Sarah1983

diefenbaker said:


> I'm not working on anything anymore. My dog training is now complete. Today a cat ran on to the bridlepath about 10 metres in front of us and in response to my "leave it" command my high prey drive demi-malamute left it. Tomorrow's walk will be on the motorway hard shoulder with no lead whilst juggling chainsaws.


Make sure you get someone to video it won't you?


----------



## diefenbaker

Sarah1983 said:


> Make sure you get someone to video it won't you?


Here's me having a practice for this moment a few years ago. I still have those pants.

[youtube_browser]VXVr564u1aw[/youtube_browser]


----------



## Dogless

Much better day today, very long and just home - will reply to everyone when I muster the energy, selfish me . Thought I should post something though to let everyone know we're OK!

Did some work today - we were also asked to demonstrate 'hide' to another client (Kilo and I) and he worked well for me, love him. Odd to go from working offlead in a busy training class to being separated from humans at all times unless behind a gate or fence or muzzled. Total culture shock.



L/C said:


> Dogless - did Angela explain why she wanted to test Kilo after he'd been through several quite stressful events for him? I've been thinking about this all night and it's been niggling at me. I've done some work with Anne McBride and Sarah Fisher on temperment testing and assessment (it was follow up stuff after the seminar I went to) and the thing they both stress is that you don't ever want to push the dog so far that they feel compelled to bite.
> 
> Did she ask you for a list of his triggers and a full history before she tested him?
> 
> Ignore me if you don't want to talk about it.


I filled in a very detailed questionnaire before going - wrote an essay pretty much!! She said that she knew he'd bite as she got to the gate to come in (he lunged at it and barked - not usual) but came in and stood a short way from us and said we'd see what he'd do. She was right - he bit .



diefenbaker said:


> For all my stupid comments I'm gutted for you. You can tell the BW he made a bloke cry. Granted not a full-on blub but a small tear all the same. Still.. I know you'll work through it with him.. so looking forward to more Wrestlemania.


You've made me blub again now . Thank you - means a great deal. To put so much work into a dog to then let him down so badly is unreal.



Sarah1983 said:


> So have I. It does seem odd to push a dog so over threshold that it reacts that way. Perhaps she thought it best to find out what the "worst case scenario" could be and what exactly she was dealing with?


This I think.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> How is Molly now? Trouble is it could be so many things - pull - tear - trapped nerve. Can you feel any heat?
> 
> It's Tremor's right back leg that isn't right as well.


Thanks.I cant feel any heat, she let me check all over. I think its coming from her hip  but she is putting more weight on it tonight. She seems to think she's ok  and multiple kongs for dinner helped, see how it is in the morning.

Nikki- I hope Rusty's lump goes down with the meds- and enjoy training with Shae tonight.

Ginge- Enjoy the last day tomorrow- and a full report for us after.

MV- wish I could do that with clients dogs- but only coming a handful of times a year its not enough. Great tip for sharpening scissors - I have to send them away for that.

Beth- Naughty boys.:devil:

Lovely pic Sarah.

Dief- look forward to the video- Not sure pink's your colour though.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- great to hear you're ok. 
Are YOU happy at the way it was handled? I just think under the circumstances any of our dogs could have done the same.


----------



## Sarah1983

Glad you're okay Dogless. And don't be calling yourself selfish woman!

I bet it's a culture shock. It seems really strange that he's gone from being fine in situations like training classes to being considered such a danger that he has to be behind a gate or muzzled at all times  

Khan has just met the Lab from the next block. Opened the front door to take him out and there he was lol. Poor old guy couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to go charging around with the Lab. He does enough of it with Spen and ends up limping if we don't limit it.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- great to hear you're ok.
> Are YOU happy at the way it was handled? I just think under the circumstances any of our dogs could have done the same.


Any dog could, but Kilo did . Thank goodness I've never been one of the "there are no bad dogs, just bad owners" folk - not that Kilo's bad, but you know what I mean. I am happy with how things are going. I suppose I needed to know what would happen should a similar thing happen 'in real life'. I am acutely aware that he would most likely need PTS should he have done it to a random stranger.


----------



## MollySmith

Nice to hear from you Dogless


----------



## WeedySeaDragon

Can I come and join in? I'm afraid my first post here is likely to be something of an essay....

I think, as of today, Fitz's quirk has been upgraded to an issue that needs actively working on :001_unsure:

He's always been super playful with other dogs but as he's grown up we've had to restrict his interactions with other dogs as many don't appreciate his play style and there's a real risk of small dogs getting inadvertently hurt.

He's a true sighthound, playing involves barking, growling, chasing and coursing. Although dogs never react badly to his play barks/growls plenty of owners do which further limits his opportunities :sad: We never let him off lead with anything smaller than himself or anything that isn't obviously active, boisterous and up for playing.

If a dog wanders past calmly while Fitz is on lead he doesn't care but he gets so wound up by seeing other dogs running and playing if he can't join in. He'll whinge, bark and grumble away to himself which a lot of people are starting to interpret as aggression (it's absolutely not, he's just noisy!!) and so they lead their dogs and take them away from us.

We're stuck in a bit of a cycle where we don't want to risk him belting off towards another dog (the downside of sighthounds, they'll spot fun things from miles away) so we put him on lead so people lead their dogs and avoid us. Most of the time we'd be able to call him away before he set off running and we've also got a more than 50% of getting him back once he's running but we can't risk it because if he doesn't come back it's not fair on the other dogs or their owners.

So, the incident today.....

We were sitting on a bench off a path with Lyssa, Fitz and Wybie mooching about off lead. We spotted some people coming with a big group of dogs, some of which were on lead, so we leashed our lot and they went past. Fitz just had a little whine to himself. Then we ended up with them stuck on lead as every time someone got past there was another group with dogs in sight behind them.

Fitz got more wound up each time and finally a little terrier trailing miles behind it's owners barrelled right into the midst of our lot and Fitz had a go at him. It was just handbags, air snapping and growling but it was still shocking, he's never done anything like that before. Even worse, when the terrier moved just out of range Fitz turned and air snapped at Wybie. It was only for a second and Wybie barely even noticed but it's really brought him home that we should have been actively working to sort Fitz out long before now :sad:

So, I've formulated a plan of action:

1) Get toys out sooner - normally we let the dogs mooch as they wish for the first half of the walk then get the ball out on the second half. I think if we get them running and playing earlier it'll help get some of the tickle out of Fitz's feet. It's also possible to keep his attention with the ball as he just loves chasing it and a ball close by is better than a dog miles away.

2) Leash him less - rather than bung him on lead as soon as we know someone is coming I think we'd be better off trying to keep his attention with treats or toys. To be honest I think we've become a bit lazy :blushing: It's easier just to reach for the lead than be really active in keeping his attention. If we have doubts as to how successful distraction would be we should make the effort and actively avoid people, going a different way or getting some kind of barrier like trees or a wall between us.

3) Be less reliant on the lead - on the occasions where we have to use the lead (passing on narrow paths etc.) the main focus should still be keeping his attention otherwise engaged. The lead should just be clipped on so it's there in case the distraction fails rather than being used to hold him away from whatever is interesting.

I'm hoping that doing the above will really help. He's such a lovely boy and I've buggered up and done him a disservice by not addressing this sooner and letting it get to this point.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sounds like a good plan of action WSD (sorry, most names get shortened here lol). Hope all goes well for you! I need to work on the same sort of thing really, actively keeping Spens attention rather than relying on the leash alone.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Any dog could, but Kilo did . Thank goodness I've never been one of the "there are no bad dogs, just bad owners" folk - not that Kilo's bad, but you know what I mean. I am happy with how things are going. I suppose I needed to know what would happen should a similar thing happen 'in real life'. I am acutely aware that he would most likely need PTS should he have done it to a random stranger.


Dogless I'm not there haven't seen it, haven't been privvy to the conversations you have had, so not able to comment.

Just be careful of becoming fully immersed in being there, remember to step back and do your own evaluation of what is being said and how things are being done.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Glad you're okay Dogless. And don't be calling yourself selfish woman!
> 
> I bet it's a culture shock. It seems really strange that he's gone from being fine in situations like training classes to being considered such a danger that he has to be behind a gate or muzzled at all times
> 
> Khan has just met the Lab from the next block. Opened the front door to take him out and there he was lol. Poor old guy couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to go charging around with the Lab. He does enough of it with Spen and ends up limping if we don't limit it.


Huge shock. Huge. Massively upsetting that my 'take pretty much anywhere' dog now isn't. He means the world to me. My parents will push me to PTS if I tell them and I will have to as we're meeting later this month. Mum is scared of him due to her neighbour telling her RR horror stories. Unjustifiably up until now.


----------



## missnaomi

Dogless said:


> Huge shock. Huge. Massively upsetting that my 'take pretty much anywhere' dog now isn't. He means the world to me. My parents will push me to PTS if I tell them and I will have to as we're meeting later this month. Mum is scared of him due to her neighbour telling her RR horror stories. Unjustifiably up until now.


I know it's heartbreaking, but he still is your Kilo. Exactly the same Kilo as he was before. He's the same dog that made friends with a little boy who wanted to show him his new glasses.

You don't need to tell your parents anything you don't want to - if you wanted you could tell her he's muzzled around her because she's nervous and it will put her at ease.

When you've had time to think about it, you will responsibly and carefully manage Kilo as you always have, so that he will be happy and safe. When something traumatic happens it's hard to think long term so give yourself a break whilst everything sinks in - then think of a plan and we'll all support you.

xxxx


----------



## purpleskyes

moonviolet said:


> Dogless I'm not there haven't seen it, haven't been privvy to the conversations you have had, so not able to comment.
> 
> Just be careful of becoming fully immersed in being there, remember to step back and do your own evaluation of what is being said and how things are being done.


Where has dogless gone then? Some kind of dog training camp?


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Huge shock. Huge. Massively upsetting that my 'take pretty much anywhere' dog now isn't. He means the world to me. My parents will push me to PTS if I tell them and I will have to as we're meeting later this month. Mum is scared of him due to her neighbour telling her RR horror stories. Unjustifiably up until now.


Ouch  I imagine that's going to be difficult.

I really don't know what to say about him no longer being a "take anywhere" sort of dog. If it's just one specific situation he reacts in then why should he not be able to do the things you've always done with him? He's still the same dog at the end of the day. Obviously as MV says we're not there, haven't had the benefit of seeing or hearing what you have but it all seems very drastic to me


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless I'm not there haven't seen it, haven't been privvy to the conversations you have had, so not able to comment.
> 
> Just be careful of becoming fully immersed in being there, remember to step back and do your own evaluation of what is being said and how things are being done.


Wise words indeed. I don't believe the strict segregation from people is needed. I do now believe that I can't let him offlead unmuzzled having seen that he will bite in the 'right' circumstances.



missnaomi said:


> I know it's heartbreaking, but he still is your Kilo. Exactly the same Kilo as he was before.* He's the same dog that made friends with a little boy who wanted to show him his new glasses.
> *
> You don't need to tell your parents anything you don't want to - if you wanted you could tell her he's muzzled around her because she's nervous and it will put her at ease.
> 
> When you've had time to think about it, you will responsibly and carefully manage Kilo as you always have, so that he will be happy and safe. When something traumatic happens it's hard to think long term so give yourself a break whilst everything sinks in - then think of a plan and we'll all support you.
> 
> xxxx


That made me cry .



purpleskyes said:


> Where has dogless gone then? Some kind of dog training camp?


Dogless has gone to see a dog trainer to try and polish off the last of Kilo's dog reactivity issues on lead. Which were almost resolved. Not gone to plan .


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Ouch  I imagine that's going to be difficult.
> 
> I really don't know what to say about him no longer being a "take anywhere" sort of dog. If it's just one specific situation he reacts in then why should he not be able to do the things you've always done with him? He's still the same dog at the end of the day. Obviously as MV says we're not there, haven't had the benefit of seeing or hearing what you have but it all seems very drastic to me


I am sure I'll rationalise a lot better given a few days. The shock of seeing him bite hasn't quite left me .


----------



## MollySmith

Agree, keep your own judgement Dogless lovely. He is still Kilo, you know what he has done if forced and you appear to have had a good way to handle him which is what it always was - a credit to you. I realise like MV and Sarah have said, we aren't there so it's hard to be critical but at the same time they (more than I as a relative newcomer) have read lots of your posts in the part and shared your joy at Kilo. You are an exceptionally amazing lady with two fab dogs who works hard, you were last week and you will be next week. Have faith, trust your instincts and understand that what you know about Kilo at home is worth so much. I nearly send Molly back to rescue because of a trainer I trusted -admittedly not as well known as Angela but nevertheless a trainer. He is your dog, not your Mum's and as long as you find a way to cope, do you have to tell her?


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I am sure I'll rationalise a lot better given a few days. The shock of seeing him bite hasn't quite left me .


I'm sure you will. And you know Kilo better than anybody else. It's a huge, huge shock to know your beloved dog really would harm another living creature but it does ease with time.


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## Werehorse

Dogless - You will continue to be the responsible and caring owner you always have been and Kilo will continue to be your wonderful Best Boy. You have new information about what happens when you do something you have never previously done and never will do again... i.e. let him decide for himself what to do. Many, many people would have let him get into a situation where he did this in an every-day with the general public kind of context because they simply would not have been paying attention to their dogs. This hasn't happened to Kilo because he has you as his owner, which makes him a very lucky boy.

I am 100% confident that you will continue to observe, train and manage him so that he never presents a danger (or even an inconveniance!) to anyone and you will continue to be able to take him pretty much anywhere - albeit perhaps muzzled in some circumstance for peace of mind.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Yeah he is teething.

He was very good at the vets. Picture of perfect health the vet said, apart from two teeth which we fear may be retained. He's going back in a month to make sure everything's fine. We'll see his breeder on the 14th at the show so she'll probably see then.

Dexter doesn't chew toys or play tug so I was thinking they will have to be extracted but today he has really started to chew his toys -especially his bone which is made for that specific purpose that he hasn't so much as licked until now;


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> I am sure I'll rationalise a lot better given a few days. The shock of seeing him bite hasn't quite left me .


I'm sure you will, probably when you are all back home.
He is still the same dog and you have done far more for him than most people would. If the worst that happens is him having to wear a muzzle in certain situations then he will still have a great life with you.


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> I'm sure you will, probably when you are all back home.
> He is still the same dog and you have done far more for him than most people would. If the worst that happens is him having to wear a muzzle in certain situations then he will still have a great life with you.


I know he'll still have a great life. Rationally I know that not much has to change bar a muzzle in some circumstances and longline perhaps in others to be totally safe. No biggie I guess and I'll carry on managing as I always have done. If I wasn't on my own here I'd not be so bloody upset I'm sure.

I've not forgotten Rudi BTW - he's fine, good little fella that he is. They are still both my best boys :001_wub:.


----------



## missnaomi

Dogless said:


> I know he'll still have a great life. Rationally I know that not much has to change bar a muzzle in some circumstances and longline perhaps in others to be totally safe. No biggie I guess and I'll carry on managing as I always have done. *If I wasn't on my own here I'd not be so bloody upset I'm sure. *
> 
> I've not forgotten Rudi BTW - he's fine, good little fella that he is. They are still both my best boys :001_wub:.


Move back to God's Own County and we could be Yorkshire buddies


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh Dogless, hadn't realised you were completely alone there, I thought hubby may have been with you  Well at least you've got us lot on here for what that's worth.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Oh Dogless I feel so sad for you but it is all still very raw at the moment. I agree with the others that it seems a bit drastic that he has gone from being your 'take anywhere dog' happy in group classes to now being muzzled and segregated 

I don't know anything about the lady that you are seeing (excuse my ignorance) but I know a lot of you think very highly of her, but I too find it a little bit strange that she would allow him to reach that level just to prove what he would do 

When I called the trainer for Branston I was already aware of what he could do (I have the scars to prove it) but it was never said that he would need to be muzzled all the time just because he had shown that he was capable of biting. All dogs are capable of biting, it's about identifying their triggers and preventing them from reaching that zone of no return.
Correct me if I'm wrong but is that not what you have successfully been doing for the past 2 and half years with Kilo? Had you been allowed to behave in your normal manner (ie spotting his body language, interrupting his focus and redirecting him onto something else) that he would NOT have bitten her yesterday?

Don't you dare suggest that you have let Kilo down in any way whatsoever :hand: 
He is still the same dog that he was 3 days ago and you have been managing his issues fantastically, believe me there have been many occasions when I have wished I could be more like you when trying to work with Branston


----------



## Kicksforkills

Tried teaching Dexter "Sit", "Off" and "Down"

Honestly he is just too happy and hyper.

Maybe I'll leave it to the Obedience class when it starts. Focus on the puppyness and ringcraft right now.


----------



## kat&molly

I will be PM'ing a Mod to ask for the thread to be 'unstickied'.
I'm too tired to Pm everyone explaining why- if you want to know just ask. Hope no-one minds.


----------



## Beth17

kat&molly said:


> I will be PM'ing a Mod to ask for the thread to be 'unstickied'.
> I'm too tired to Pm everyone explaining why- if you want to know just ask. Hope no-one minds.


I'm sure you have a good reason so no need to explain yourself


----------



## MollySmith

Yes agree Beth1, no bother with that at all katandmolly


----------



## Sarah1983

Doesn't bother me whether we're a sticky or not to be honest. Got me curious as to why but don't worry about PMing, sure you have a good reason


----------



## L/C

kat&molly said:


> I will be PM'ing a Mod to ask for the thread to be 'unstickied'.
> I'm too tired to Pm everyone explaining why- if you want to know just ask. Hope no-one minds.


Hope everything is OK? Curious but no need to pm and be a pain.


----------



## Guest

Dogless we are all here for you if you need us. x

And I shall be buying a cheap buckle collar as Zanders collar would not come off without a hell of a fight. At least with a cheapy it'll break if caught on something. Eurgh. His collars so damn nice though but not worth it. 
He has a HUGE muscley neck for a lurch too.


----------



## Werehorse

Fine by me re: stickyness - would only be interested to know why as am a nosey cow, feel free NOT to indulge if you don't wish. 

I have a Hugo issue. Will post again when I'm not typing one-handed.


----------



## Nicki85

MS- that's fine (I found it easier to follow when it was unsticked!)

DS- all dogs can bite it is knowing their triggers- which are well aware of  It's going to take a while to process what you have seen but the others are right- he is still your Kilo.

KforK- keep it simple, one thing at a time  Get to know your new baby and what works best for him.

Just got in from training with Shae she was fab  Great concentration and the class was quite "edgy" as in they talked about shaping and the 123 game  Not the generic sit, down etc etc. She did fab on recalls, even with distractions of other puppies... would have done her hand touches all day if I had let her lol! She wouldn't touch her toys which I was a bit  about but the instructors which are also agility instructors said not to get worked up about it. Every time I go to agility I always get told to get her playing and tugging so I am putting pressure on my self and Shae really to get the tugging up to scratch. Silly, she is only 9.5weeks and plays with me at home lol. So it was nice to have some reassurance and to be told just to enjoy her and that the play will come as she gets more confident in these situations.

I've also started to back train the tug as well which I think might work in situations like this... 

Rusty is still lumpy lol.


----------



## Sarah1983

Werehorse said:


> Fine by me re: stickyness - *would only be interested to know why as am a nosey cow*, feel free NOT to indulge if you don't wish.
> 
> I have a Hugo issue. Will post again when I'm not typing one-handed.


Lol, glad I'm not the only one.

Hope your Hugo issue isn't too big a one


----------



## moonviolet

Does that mean i can get my kong extremes back out now :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh Dogless, hadn't realised you were completely alone there, I thought hubby may have been with you  Well at least you've got us lot on here for what that's worth.


It's worth a lot . Mobile network not available without quite a drive so no phone and just this dodgy t'internet connection!



foxyrockmeister said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but is that not what you have successfully been doing for the past 2 and half years with Kilo? Had you been allowed to behave in your normal manner (ie spotting his body language, interrupting his focus and redirecting him onto something else) that he would NOT have bitten her yesterday?


It is; but the point is what about an occasion where that failed? It's a fair one.



moonviolet said:


> Does that mean i can get my kong extremes back out now :lol: :lol: :lol:


Now, weirdly, that cheered me up  .

Just took the CHs for their last quick walk - my best boys.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Now, weirdly, that cheered me up  .


Glad it made you smile.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> Does that mean i can get my kong extremes back out now :lol: :lol: :lol:


Yes, but I think Tink's 'pole' needs never to be shared on here again :yikes:



Dogless said:


> It is; but the point is what about an occasion where that failed? It's a fair one.


I know but in your heart of hearts, knowing Kilo better than anyone, how big a risk do YOU believe that to be? Based on the past 2 and a half years as well as yesterdays incident?

Don't get my wrong, I think it is our responsibility to make sure that it never happens, and there are certain occasions when I would agree for your own peace of mind that you would be better off muzzling him, but I would have thought these situations were in the minority rather than the majority? New or stressful environments, when you know there are going to be triggers for him. 
We are contemplating taking the Pickles to the local ploughing match on Sunday (yes, we are that rock and roll on the IOW!) and if we do I will be muzzling Branston as it is going to be a high stimulus situation for him, but he doesn't wear a muzzle on our everyday walks as I really don't believe he is a danger unless in certain situations.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but you know Kilo better than anyone and we all know that you will do the right and responsible thing for both of you 

Do you have a bottle of wine in that little cottage of yours? xx


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Yes, but I think Tink's 'pole' needs never to be shared on here again :yikes:
> 
> I know but in your heart of hearts, knowing Kilo better than anyone, how big a risk do YOU believe that to be? Based on the past 2 and a half years as well as yesterdays incident?
> 
> Don't get my wrong, I think it is our responsibility to make sure that it never happens, and there are certain occasions when I would agree for your own peace of mind that you would be better off muzzling him, but I would have thought these situations were in the minority rather than the majority? New or stressful environments, when you know there are going to be triggers for him.
> We are contemplating taking the Pickles to the local ploughing match on Sunday (yes, we are that rock and roll on the IOW!) and if we do I will be muzzling Branston as it is going to be a high stimulus situation for him, but he doesn't wear a muzzle on our everyday walks as I really don't believe he is a danger unless in certain situations.
> 
> I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but you know Kilo better than anyone and we all know that you will do the right and responsible thing for both of you
> 
> Do you have a bottle of wine in that little cottage of yours? xx


I do have wine, not eaten for a while so going easy!!  . I am not going to muzzle onlead that I anticipate nor when I have a very good view of my surroundings, nor in a secure area. Not when we walk with confident dogs in all likelihood as the behaviour is absent then. Not sure yet; I just need to think rationally once home. I am letting them off in a secure field whilst here so nothing to worry about, thank goodness .


----------



## Werehorse

The Hugo issue is quite minor but it has been getting worse and I just need some idea for tackling it. Well I have some ideas, what I need is motivation and some time. Time being the thing I'm lacking a little right now. 

It's the car. He's always been fine and very obedient about hopping in to the crate in the boot - a bit reluctant at times but always showing come enthusiasm when there was a biscuit involved. But over the course of about a week/2 weeks he;s gone from getting in looking a bit "meh - do I have to?" to point blank refusing to get in even with a biscuit waved under his nose. Biscuit refusal is pretty major in this house. Today he sat on the pavement and was actually shaking. 

I _have_ to put them in the car to give them a decent walk and I haven't helped this week because I have been working all week but needed to get them a decent walk everyday as we are away this weekend and my friend is looking after them but I don't want her to take them on an off-lead walk but I also need them to be as calm as possible for her.  And because I've been needing to get to work I'm affraid I have just picked him up and put him in the car a couple of times. 

I can't figure out what has changed. We always go exciting, happy places in the car and he whistles with excitement when he realises where we're going (woods, training class etc). He was marginally happier to get into the car when we held Oscar out and let Hugo get in first on Monday... but that is v. difficult to do when I'm on my own, although I could take Hugo out to the car first rather than taking them together but after a walk obviously I have both of them - tie Oscar to a tree? :001_unsure: Whatever is upsetting him I think is still in there as it is getting worse and not better or staying the same and he's been chucked around by sudden braking/cornering before and not seemed affected. It's possible it is the noise of the crate rattle changing/getting worse as the crate gets older and looser and I think a bigger, quieter crate could be the answer in the long term. And I think they would prefer one with seperate compartments for each of them too. I do wonder if Oscar has got abit more assertive over space and Hugo doesn't like it. But I've not heard any growling or barking or anything.

Short term I think I might have them on the back seat. Fastened with their harnesses. And see if he is as reluctant then.

And I need to make time to work through the get in the car procedure with a clicker and softly, slowly approach as I think a reluctant refusal to get in might have got into a bit of ingrained behaviour now.  Balls.

Weirdly he is less worried getting in the car to come home then he is getting in the car at home to go elsewhere.

I think I know what to do, but would appreciate any input/kicks up the backside. But could we save any proper backside kicking until after this weekend?


----------



## moonviolet

foxyrockmeister said:


> Yes, but I think Tink's 'pole' needs never to be shared on here again :yikes:


You mean sharing scone recipes doesn't balance out phallic dog toys? damn. :lol:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> I do have wine, *not eaten for a while* so going easy!!  . I am not going to muzzle onlead that I anticipate nor when I have a very good view of my surroundings, nor in a secure area. Not when we walk with confident dogs in all likelihood as the behaviour is absent then. Not sure yet; I just need to think rationally once home. I am letting them off in a secure field whilst here so nothing to worry about, thank goodness .


Erm why?

Don't make me nag you - food girl.... FOOD! :hand:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

moonviolet said:


> You mean sharing scone recipes doesn't balance out phallic dog toys? damn. :lol:


Funny you should say that... I am just tucking into a lemonade scone (second batch a huge success) with raspberry jam and whipped cream as I type.... some may say it's a tad late to be eating such things but hey ho I'm living life on the edge!!
So yes, you are forgiven


----------



## Beth17

FRM it is never too late to eat cakes and other nice things. I have just polished off a bag of fizzy haribo  

mv hold fire on the kong extremes we've not been demoted yet.


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> The Hugo issue is quite minor but it has been getting worse and I just need some idea for tackling it. Well I have some ideas, what I need is motivation and some time. Time being the thing I'm lacking a little right now.
> 
> It's the car. He's always been fine and very obedient about hopping in to the crate in the boot - a bit reluctant at times but always showing come enthusiasm when there was a biscuit involved. But over the course of about a week/2 weeks he;s gone from getting in looking a bit "meh - do I have to?" to point blank refusing to get in even with a biscuit waved under his nose. Biscuit refusal is pretty major in this house. Today he sat on the pavement and was actually shaking.
> 
> I _have_ to put them in the car to give them a decent walk and I haven't helped this week because I have been working all week but needed to get them a decent walk everyday as we are away this weekend and my friend is looking after them but I don't want her to take them on an off-lead walk but I also need them to be as calm as possible for her.  And because I've been needing to get to work I'm affraid I have just picked him up and put him in the car a couple of times.
> 
> I can't figure out what has changed. We always go exciting, happy places in the car and he whistles with excitement when he realises where we're going (woods, training class etc). He was marginally happier to get into the car when we held Oscar out and let Hugo get in first on Monday... but that is v. difficult to do when I'm on my own, although I could take Hugo out to the car first rather than taking them together but after a walk obviously I have both of them - tie Oscar to a tree? :001_unsure: Whatever is upsetting him I think is still in there as it is getting worse and not better or staying the same and he's been chucked around by sudden braking/cornering before and not seemed affected. It's possible it is the noise of the crate rattle changing/getting worse as the crate gets older and looser and I think a bigger, quieter crate could be the answer in the long term. And I think they would prefer one with seperate compartments for each of them too. I do wonder if Oscar has got abit more assertive over space and Hugo doesn't like it. But I've not heard any growling or barking or anything.
> 
> Short term I think I might have them on the back seat. Fastened with their harnesses. And see if he is as reluctant then.
> 
> And I need to make time to work through the get in the car procedure with a clicker and softly, slowly approach as I think a reluctant refusal to get in might have got into a bit of ingrained behaviour now.  Balls.
> 
> Weirdly he is less worried getting in the car to come home then he is getting in the car at home to go elsewhere.
> 
> I think I know what to do, but would appreciate any input/kicks up the backside. But could we save any proper backside kicking until after this weekend?


No butt kicking to do. You've identified the issue andyou are looking at an array of solutions and after this weekend you *WILL* working on them.

Only things you didn't mention, i think, was one on the back seat one int he back.

Could the rattles be minimised with tightening the jointy bits (technical term) or tucking a bit of bedding into the gaps?


----------



## Sarah1983

Could well be a space issue Werehorse. There wouldn't necessarily need to be any barking or growling, just a look or a posture could have Hugo intimidated by Oscar. I'd definitely try separating them in the car if possible and see whether that helps. And it could well be that Oscar is too tired to bother about doing it so much on the way home 

Course it could be a completely different reason but that seems the easiest to rule out since it doesn't really require any time or effort to have one in the crate and one on the back seat.


----------



## Werehorse

I know that given the choice (they once ended up loose in the car because the crate wasn't in it and the woods isn't far away and I was having a stoopid "sod it" kind of day.  ) Oscar sits on the back seat behind me looking out of the window and Hugo sits on the passenger seat sideways on, leaning his head on the back of the seat and watching me.  So perhaps being a bit squashed in the crate in the back is making them both a bit grumpy. it would be quite uncharacteristic for Oscar to be assertive with Hugo and for Hugo to actually pay that much attention but it isn't out of the question, Oscar can be resource guardy and Hugo can be sensitive to that. i have noticed that Oscar is the one laying down in the crate more often now - it always used to be Hugo and Oscar sat up looking grumpy. They are quite happy to cuddle up on the sofa or when they both end up in the crate at home for some reason (being filthy usually  ) but perhaps the car adds an extra stress on that relationship.


----------



## diefenbaker

WeedySeaDragon said:


> Can I come and join in? I'm afraid my first post here is likely to be something of an essay....


Admission of a problem is the first step. I'm not a dog behaviourist I'm a pet owner and a first time dog owner. It's a lifetime project of learning and adjusting. Despite my chainsaw juggling antics Dief isn't perfect so I analyse and solution on a daily basis. Maybe I'll never get it one hundred percent right but I think we do the best we can for each other. And I think we're still moving in the right direction. I never know whether or not it's just because he's getting older or if it's my training efforts but in the end it doesn't matter as long as we're both happy. Good luck to you.


----------



## Werehorse

Because I've had a glass of wine I have ordered a weird tube kennel thing for the back seat of the car. :lol: It's all Hugo's fault. Right. Bed. I haven't packed yet so will have to get up and do it in the morning.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah1983 said:


> I've actually considered trying to get classes set up but all the hassle of trying to get insurance, finding somewhere to hold the classes etc puts me off. That and the attitude of people I've spoken to who think CM is the messiah and ridicule my methods.
> 
> My neighbours see me out with Spen off leash a lot and know I've been working with him. Nice that they've asked  Rupert is lovely but very much a Pigs Fly dog, if it's his idea to do something then he's very quick to do it but if he doesn't see why he should do something good luck convincing him lol. He learned to stay out of the kitchen while we looked after him but if he thought I hadn't noticed him deliberately staying out of the kitchen he'd bark at me, take a couple of steps into the kitchen and then go back out and sit :lol:


I love love love a bright cheeky dog. 

Well don't write it off totally it might be a word of mouth slower thing, but it just seems like a natural path for you to travel.


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning everyone,

Gosh this thread moves fast!

Thank you for the welcome and the replies/suggestions. I will have a look at which book to make a start with.

Horace will be 2 at the end of May and has been neutered. We are working on the watch me command but it is more successful indoors than outdoors but I haven't given up! He will sit on command if we run into a dog around a blind bend but he has absolutely no interest in me or tasty food at that point. Only the other dog.

I take him most days to the park (after our main walk) so that we can walk around and he is fairly good at ignoring the other dogs unless they get close, if his buddies are there he gets to say hi and have a run around offlead with them.

I really believe that he had very little if anything in the way of socialisation when he came to us and I thought perhaps he would never be able to be offlead due to how hyper he was so he has done so well overall but as he is so strong I'm very aware that I really need to get this sorted and not allow it to intensify.

On the times that he doesn't kick off at passing dogs he is rewarded both verbally and with food. Yesterday we headed to the moss and have to pass by a small holding. He is getting much much better at passing the animals without needing to stop and stare, most of the time he ignores them but I'm not sure it would be the same if he were offlead! 
Anyhow as we reached it, a wee jack russell came flying out of nowhere, charging up to us and barking... Horace was a star and surprised me by not reacting back in the way that I thought he would, instead he went straight for the grass and had a sniff. I praised him and we walked on although he pulled a bit but I can't complain about that.

Same dog charged at us on the way back, Horace nearly broke his neck to have a look but didn't react nor feel the need to go sniff the grass. I was so proud and pleased! Much easier that way! If I can work on getting him like that I'd be happy as Larry!


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

IrishEyes said:


> Good morning everyone,
> 
> Gosh this thread moves fast!
> 
> Thank you for the welcome and the replies/suggestions. I will have a look at which book to make a start with.
> 
> Horace will be 2 at the end of May and has been neutered. We are working on the watch me command but it is more successful indoors than outdoors but I haven't given up! He will sit on command if we run into a dog around a blind bend but he has absolutely no interest in me or tasty food at that point. Only the other dog.
> 
> I take him most days to the park (after our main walk) so that we can walk around and he is fairly good at ignoring the other dogs unless they get close, if his buddies are there he gets to say hi and have a run around offlead with them.
> 
> I really believe that he had very little if anything in the way of socialisation when he came to us and I thought perhaps he would never be able to be offlead due to how hyper he was so he has done so well overall but as he is so strong I'm very aware that I really need to get this sorted and not allow it to intensify.
> 
> On the times that he doesn't kick off at passing dogs he is rewarded both verbally and with food. Yesterday we headed to the moss and have to pass by a small holding. He is getting much much better at passing the animals without needing to stop and stare, most of the time he ignores them but I'm not sure it would be the same if he were offlead!
> Anyhow as we reached it, a wee jack russell came flying out of nowhere, charging up to us and barking... Horace was a star and surprised me by not reacting back in the way that I thought he would, instead he went straight for the grass and had a sniff. I praised him and we walked on although he pulled a bit but I can't complain about that.
> 
> Same dog charged at us on the way back, Horace nearly broke his neck to have a look but didn't react nor feel the need to go sniff the grass. I was so proud and pleased! Much easier that way! If I can work on getting him like that I'd be happy as Larry!


hi yes it IRRITATES me i havent read ALL the posts on aLL the forum ! I WANT IT ALL !!! lol  and we only see recent last posts due to going there first and miss things ! there is SO MUCH TO READ ! useful stuff !

SHUT UP FEJA people havent got TIME to read your thinking aloud all the time !

CASTRATION ! i picked on that point in your post ! and without background detail i add CASTRATION does NOT as generally often assumed DEAL WITH STOP INTERDOG AGGRESSIONS ! apparently hormones are still produced that TESTOSTERON thing ? in the HEAD of dogs ! and ALSO the fact castration is done LATER when ADULT means BEHAVIOUR LEARNT is not undone easily ! castration doesnt change it most of all for those cases !

male dog hey ! oooh i sympathise ! i have a THING about MALES human or DOGS with tostesterone a norwegian once told me at work in an office being responsible for aggressive macho behaviour ! but that doesnt explain why FEMALES of all species can be aggressive too of course ! other hormones ? sigh get off this feja owner

OFF LEAD ! yes that is the best way to do it i add about to rush out so not all your points answered ! TAKE IT NATURALLY ! be there in case they ENGAGE in a dogfight but DONT INTERVENE if they do just um SHOUT ? no dont SHOUT too much if close by but dont put your hand in there !

let the dogs teach each other ! and just HOPE to hell if adults they dont end up at the vets with anything too serious !

JACK RUSSELS !!!! IF I HAD A BREED I ADMIRE AND DISLIKE THE MOST IN TERMS OF INTERDOG AGGRESSION I WOULD HAVE TO SAY THOSE DARNED FEARLESS DOGGIES ARE A PEST IT WOULD BE THAT ONE ! I HAD THE SAME ISSUE WITH THEM !!! and like your dog my dog didnt bite them ! it would have been CURTAINS for them if he had !


----------



## sharloid

I've almost finished reading The Culture Clash. Whilst it's been an interesting read it hasn't really been helpful. I like the step by step instructions of how to teach your dog basic cues but she assumes that your dog will work for treats and doesn't seem to offer any help if they don't.

I started reading 'When Pigs Fly!' last night and it seems good so far. I've never tried free shaping and didn't stick with the clicker for long. I'm actually excited to give the exercises in it a go. I'm going to start 'loading up' the clicker in a minute. I can't wait to see how it goes.


----------



## MollySmith

Werehorse - my grandparents dogs had a problem with this, one of their dogs resource guarded the car, rooms, food - lots of things. I can't recall the outcome of it but it must have lessened over the years. I know they had to put her into any space last when possible to avoid so I think you're on the right lines. Space too. I'd love to know how you get on with the new tunnel, we almost ordered one and went with a crate on our back seat mostly because our car has a lip on the boot that Molly can't negotiate and I can't lift her up because of a bad back. Good luck Hugo, I love your walk pictures so much and hope you have a great weekend.

Kat&molly - I hope your Molly is better this morning, it's vet today isnt' it?

FRM - you naughty girl  I had some icecream last night, it was lush. I forgot it was in the freezer and I'm doing a shop local scheme so 9pm last night when I wanted something sweet there was no shops open apart from non-local ones. I could've wept over the Ben and Jerrys.

MV - if you're bringing back kong extremes then I wish to talk about safestix and innuendos

Twiggy - hope you're okay? 

This thread is moving way way too fast for me to do much more catch up now. It's Molly's Gotcha Day  so we're celebrating with my first home made batch of liver cake, a family walk with my parents and then around theirs for tea as it was my dad's birthday yesterday. Molly went to the shops and bought him a BlackAdded DVD so I imagine they are going to curl up on the sofa together. She's exhausted after demonstrating her prowess at clicker training to my goddaughters who went home last night


----------



## Kicksforkills

FEJA JUODAS said:


> hi yes it IRRITATES me i havent read ALL the posts on aLL the forum ! I WANT IT ALL !!! lol  and we only see recent last posts due to going there first and miss things ! there is SO MUCH TO READ ! useful stuff !
> 
> SHUT UP FEJA people havent got TIME to read your thinking aloud all the time !
> 
> CASTRATION ! i picked on that point in your post ! and without background detail i add CASTRATION does NOT as generally often assumed DEAL WITH STOP INTERDOG AGGRESSIONS ! apparently hormones are still produced that TESTOSTERON thing ? in the HEAD of dogs ! and ALSO the fact castration is done LATER when ADULT means BEHAVIOUR LEARNT is not undone easily ! castration doesnt change it most of all for those cases !
> 
> male dog hey ! oooh i sympathise ! i have a THING about MALES human or DOGS with tostesterone a norwegian once told me at work in an office being responsible for aggressive macho behaviour ! but that doesnt explain why FEMALES of all species can be aggressive too of course ! other hormones ? sigh get off this feja owner
> 
> OFF LEAD ! yes that is the best way to do it i add about to rush out so not all your points answered ! TAKE IT NATURALLY ! be there in case they ENGAGE in a dogfight but DONT INTERVENE if they do just um SHOUT ? no dont SHOUT too much if close by but dont put your hand in there !
> 
> let the dogs teach each other ! and just HOPE to hell if adults they dont end up at the vets with anything too serious !
> 
> JACK RUSSELS !!!! IF I HAD A BREED I ADMIRE AND DISLIKE THE MOST IN TERMS OF INTERDOG AGGRESSION I WOULD HAVE TO SAY THOSE DARNED FEARLESS DOGGIES ARE A PEST IT WOULD BE THAT ONE ! I HAD THE SAME ISSUE WITH THEM !!! and like your dog my dog didnt bite them ! it would have been CURTAINS for them if he had !


Fearless? Haha. Tell Poppy that.

You try Dexter. He isn't afraid of anything.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> The Hugo issue is quite minor but it has been getting worse and I just need some idea for tackling it. Well I have some ideas, what I need is motivation and some time. Time being the thing I'm lacking a little right now.
> 
> It's the car. He's always been fine and very obedient about hopping in to the crate in the boot - a bit reluctant at times but always showing come enthusiasm when there was a biscuit involved. But over the course of about a week/2 weeks he;s gone from getting in looking a bit "meh - do I have to?" to point blank refusing to get in even with a biscuit waved under his nose. Biscuit refusal is pretty major in this house. Today he sat on the pavement and was actually shaking.
> 
> I _have_ to put them in the car to give them a decent walk and I haven't helped this week because I have been working all week but needed to get them a decent walk everyday as we are away this weekend and my friend is looking after them but I don't want her to take them on an off-lead walk but I also need them to be as calm as possible for her.  And because I've been needing to get to work I'm affraid I have just picked him up and put him in the car a couple of times.
> 
> I can't figure out what has changed. We always go exciting, happy places in the car and he whistles with excitement when he realises where we're going (woods, training class etc). He was marginally happier to get into the car when we held Oscar out and let Hugo get in first on Monday... but that is v. difficult to do when I'm on my own, although I could take Hugo out to the car first rather than taking them together but after a walk obviously I have both of them - tie Oscar to a tree? :001_unsure: Whatever is upsetting him I think is still in there as it is getting worse and not better or staying the same and he's been chucked around by sudden braking/cornering before and not seemed affected. It's possible it is the noise of the crate rattle changing/getting worse as the crate gets older and looser and I think a bigger, quieter crate could be the answer in the long term. And I think they would prefer one with seperate compartments for each of them too. I do wonder if Oscar has got abit more assertive over space and Hugo doesn't like it. But I've not heard any growling or barking or anything.
> 
> Short term I think I might have them on the back seat. Fastened with their harnesses. And see if he is as reluctant then.
> 
> And I need to make time to work through the get in the car procedure with a clicker and softly, slowly approach as I think a reluctant refusal to get in might have got into a bit of ingrained behaviour now.  Balls.
> 
> Weirdly he is less worried getting in the car to come home then he is getting in the car at home to go elsewhere.
> 
> I think I know what to do, but would appreciate any input/kicks up the backside. But could we save any proper backside kicking until after this weekend?


Oh no..!! Hugo is about the same age that Tremor started her car issues and , like you, I've absolutely no idea why.

Three years on it's still a big issue. She doesn't tremble and drool now but still pants and is very reluctant to get in the car.

I think I tried every product on the market and spent a good six months throwing balls into the car, driving her round the paddock then getting her out and playing, then driving her round the paddock again, etc. etc.
I tried someone sitting in the back with her. different vehicles, etc. etc. all sadly made no difference whatsoever.

For a time I was convinced it was because her feet weren't on terra firma, particularly as she was also terrible in the hydrotherapy pool.

There are a lot of knowledgeable people around the shows, vets, behaviourists, trainers, etc. but nobody could come up with a solution.

Up to a point I now think it's the collie brain "I'm in the car so I need to be frightened" syndrome because just occasionally she forgets and will relax.

I hope Hugo doesn't prove to be as difficult as Tremor.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> FRM it is never too late to eat cakes and other nice things. I have just polished off a bag of fizzy haribo
> 
> mv hold fire on the kong extremes we've not been demoted yet.


We were out with friends last night for a meal and I still feel 'stuffed' this morning. I'm getting too old to manage three huge courses, although I gave it my best shot...LOL


----------



## Twiggy

FEJA JUODAS said:


> hi yes it IRRITATES me i havent read ALL the posts on aLL the forum ! I WANT IT ALL !!! lol  and we only see recent last posts due to going there first and miss things ! there is SO MUCH TO READ ! useful stuff !
> 
> SHUT UP FEJA people havent got TIME to read your thinking aloud all the time !
> 
> CASTRATION ! i picked on that point in your post ! and without background detail i add CASTRATION does NOT as generally often assumed DEAL WITH STOP INTERDOG AGGRESSIONS ! apparently hormones are still produced that TESTOSTERON thing ? in the HEAD of dogs ! and ALSO the fact castration is done LATER when ADULT means BEHAVIOUR LEARNT is not undone easily ! castration doesnt change it most of all for those cases !
> 
> male dog hey ! oooh i sympathise ! i have a THING about MALES human or DOGS with tostesterone a norwegian once told me at work in an office being responsible for aggressive macho behaviour ! but that doesnt explain why FEMALES of all species can be aggressive too of course ! other hormones ? sigh get off this feja owner
> 
> OFF LEAD ! yes that is the best way to do it i add about to rush out so not all your points answered ! TAKE IT NATURALLY ! be there in case they ENGAGE in a dogfight but DONT INTERVENE if they do just um SHOUT ? no dont SHOUT too much if close by but dont put your hand in there !
> 
> let the dogs teach each other ! and just HOPE to hell if adults they dont end up at the vets with anything too serious !
> 
> *JACK RUSSELS !!!! IF I HAD A BREED I ADMIRE AND DISLIKE THE MOST IN TERMS OF INTERDOG AGGRESSION I WOULD HAVE TO SAY THOSE DARNED FEARLESS DOGGIES ARE A PEST IT WOULD BE THAT ONE ! I HAD THE SAME ISSUE WITH THEM !!! and like your dog my dog didnt bite them ! it would have been CURTAINS for them if he had !*




Don't tar them all with the same brush..LOL As in many cases it's the owners not the dogs that are at fault. I have two that train here and they are little superstars...


----------



## Werehorse

Hugo doesn't like swimming either - I wonder if it is a bit of collie control-freak thing as my chidlhood collie was the same - actually much worse, she was travel sick from the off and never grew out of it or got any better.

I shall try and nip it in the bud by making all travel for Hugo on the seats which he has always seemed to like and hopefully break down the association. it wouldn't supprise me if being able to watch us driving makes him feel happier - he is so tuned in to body language I wonder if watching makes it easier for him to predict the movement of the vehicle - far fetched and unlikely perhaps, but it really wouldn't supprise me with Hugo. :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> I've almost finished reading The Culture Clash. Whilst it's been an interesting read it hasn't really been helpful. I like the step by step instructions of how to teach your dog basic cues but she assumes that your dog will work for treats and doesn't seem to offer any help if they don't.
> 
> I started reading 'When Pigs Fly!' last night and it seems good so far. I've never tried free shaping and didn't stick with the clicker for long. I'm actually excited to give the exercises in it a go. I'm going to start 'loading up' the clicker in a minute. I can't wait to see how it goes.


Just don't get too hung up on click = treat. Think more along the lines of click = reward. I mostly use food coz Spen will work for it but sometimes I can reward him better by giving him permission to go sniff, go greet another dog, throwing his squeaky pig or playing tug with him. Click doesn't necessarily mean food here and although some seem to think that would be horribly confusing it hasn't confused either Rupert or Spencer. The click still marks the behaviour as earning a reward, it's just that the reward might not be food.

I was hung up on the click having to be followed by a food reward for a long time and it just didn't work with Rupert. Then someone pointed out that I should just use whatever it was he DID want as a reward.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Hugo doesn't like swimming either - I wonder if it is a bit of collie control-freak thing as my chidlhood collie was the same - actually much worse, she was travel sick from the off and never grew out of it or got any better.
> 
> I shall try and nip it in the bud by making all travel for Hugo on the seats which he has always seemed to like and hopefully break down the association. it wouldn't supprise me if being able to watch us driving makes him feel happier - he is so tuned in to body language I wonder if watching makes it easier for him to predict the movement of the vehicle - far fetched and unlikely perhaps, but it really wouldn't supprise me with Hugo. :lol:


Tremor was one of a very few of my collies that wasn't initially car sick and was fine travelling for the first 18 months or so. Sadly with her it makes no difference where she is in the car and I tried a crate, covered crate, front passenger seat footwell all to no avail. She is also no different on her own or if my other girls are in with her, and they all love travelling...!! I was hoping her little chum Holly would help but no....


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

i will come back just forgot my KEY to get out of the electronic gates and cant find it...my dogs understand LOST KEY so dont get annoyed...and i saw post of WEREHOUSE of car tremors and must reply to that ZYKLENE thread...

FAST BEFORE I GO LOOK FOR THE ELECTRONIC KEY TO GET OUT AGAIN !

IT IS THE LEAD !!! IT IS THE LEAD !! my prob recently with my dog refusing to COME INDOORS ! 

update posted there ...

IT IS THE LEAD !!! IT IS THE LEAD ! 

i know my dogs are ANTI LEADS yes like most dogs...but...due to people around here being maybe getting more SENSITIVE about dogs off leads...an anonymous note put again recently in my mail...underlining the rule DOGS ON LEADS of the complex...twice is enough it added...FINAL REMINDER ! without saying what next if i didnt obey !!! lol !!

so I WAS OBEYING ! and this was a CHANGE IN BEHAVIOUR to madame Feja especially that SHE DOES NOT LIKE ! so not ONLY does she object i thought correctly still to COMING INDOORS AT ALL ANYTIME ! but the LEAD is an ADDITIONAL PROB !

so ? STRESSED i add...yes STRESSED so NOT GOOD THAT i let her JUMP out of the car WITHOUT LEAD and put my hand near her collar to come indoors in case anyone saw her OFF LEAD !

no probs! FEJA follows me without orders generally when walking around...so coming in FREELY OFF LEAD made it SIMPLE PEASY WEASY ! or words like that to me EASY !!!

sigh but that does not sort the PROBLEM of ? the PEOPLE who make the RULES ! and there is NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT THAT !

unless i LEAVE again as i intend to of course...i cant live like this...constrained by rules i dont need...my dog doesnt need ! she is DOG FRIENDLY ! she is PEOPLE FRIENDLY ! not as much as my other dog ! but there is NO NEED for this rule for her and it makes my life ? SXXX ! yes SXXX !!! i repeat emphasising my DESPAIR YES ! but thinking...there is the FUTURE ! one day WE WILL BE FREE !! one day WE WILL BE FREE ! with NO LEADS due to RULES with SPACE to BARK WHEN WE WANT ! and SEE THE SUN AND THE TREES AND OUR ANIMALS FREE ALSO !

so that is encouraging...does not sort my prob...it is a GENERAL prob...but i can DREAM ! continue to dream...and BE CAREFUL ! smiling now...but it is so STRESSFUL and that is not good for my dogs...they can SENSE my stress i am sure. affects them. sigh.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Tremor was one of a very few of my collies that wasn't initially car sick and was fine travelling for the first 18 months or so. Sadly with her it makes no difference where she is in the car and I tried a crate, covered crate, front passenger seat footwell all to no avail. She is also no different on her own or if my other girls are in with her, and they all love travelling...!! I was hoping her little chum Holly would help but no....


Hmmmm, not good.  I hope Hugo isn't heading the same way. Unfortunately round here he'll just have to put up with car travel pretty much everyday even if he does take a massive objection to it. 

Nearly packed and ready to go for the weekend. I'm less worried about leaving the boys then I was - I just hope they behave themselves and don't get ill.


----------



## sharloid

Sarah1983 said:


> Just don't get too hung up on click = treat. Think more along the lines of click = reward. I mostly use food coz Spen will work for it but sometimes I can reward him better by giving him permission to go sniff, go greet another dog, throwing his squeaky pig or playing tug with him. Click doesn't necessarily mean food here and although some seem to think that would be horribly confusing it hasn't confused either Rupert or Spencer. The click still marks the behaviour as earning a reward, it's just that the reward might not be food.
> 
> I was hung up on the click having to be followed by a food reward for a long time and it just didn't work with Rupert. Then someone pointed out that I should just use whatever it was he DID want as a reward.


I've just done a few repetitions of click = treat for both of them to try and understand what the clicker means. When they know that the clicker is a marker I think it'd be a good idea to introduce some non-food rewards too, thanks. I think I'll have to carry on with click = treat to make sure they understand the association though?


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> I've just done a few repetitions of click = treat for both of them to try and understand what the clicker means. When they know that the clicker is a marker I think it'd be a good idea to introduce some non-food rewards too, thanks. I think I'll have to carry on with click = treat to make sure they understand the association though?


Yeah, you'll still need to get them associating the click with a reward and treats are probably the easiest thing to do that with coz you can get lots of reps in a short time and because it's very obvious to the dog that the click is followed by something nice. That's the problem with non food rewards, they're nowhere near as quick and convenient and, in the case of something like sniffing, you can't always guarantee it's that rewarding.

Just thought I'd mention non food rewards coz lots of people seem to think that if your dog isn't that bothered about food you can't clicker train but you can  You just have to get a bit more creative sometimes lol.


----------



## sharloid

Sarah1983 said:


> Yeah, you'll still need to get them associating the click with a reward and treats are probably the easiest thing to do that with coz you can get lots of reps in a short time and because it's very obvious to the dog that the click is followed by something nice. That's the problem with non food rewards, they're nowhere near as quick and convenient and, in the case of something like sniffing, you can't always guarantee it's that rewarding.
> 
> Just thought I'd mention non food rewards coz lots of people seem to think that if your dog isn't that bothered about food you can't clicker train but you can  You just have to get a bit more creative sometimes lol.


It will be good to try non-food rewards in future, though I'm not sure how Broder will respond. He's already learnt to sit if he wants to go and sniff a lamp post etc so I'm not sure how I'd incorporate a clicker? At what point would I click?

Oh how could this thread isn't at the top any more?


----------



## Beth17

I logged on and couldn't find the thread 

Sharloid I agree with Sarah, find out what makes your guys tick. Sam outside would rather have his toy than treats most of the time so I can use that to my advantage with recall etc 

Werehorse I hope you can get Hugo sorted. Have a good weekend and I'm sure the boys will be fine 

We have had a fabulous morning and it's a gorgeous day. Took them separately to the field, Oscar first and then Sam. Oscar was brilliant recalling and paying attention as well as actually playing with a couple of dogs we know.

The took Sam and we had some offlead time ignoring other dogs whilst playing with his toy. Then saw a friend and he had a play with her newfie whilst ignoring the little ones she has and not splatting them like he used to do. We walked up with her and met someone else with a couple of collies who he had a quick run with before I popped him back onlead as they wanted to fetch their ball.

He walked nicely onlead mingling with the others before we said goodbye and turned back the way we came. He was then able to play with a lovely choc lab before going back onlead to go home. Before we could leave the field 3 shar-pei came over and said hello followed by their owners who had children. Sam then got to have lots of fuss from both the adults and children and was in his element.

It was one of those walks where I could see just how well he is doing for his age. I was so pleased with him and how far we've come :thumbup:


----------



## cinnamontoast

Why is this no longer a sticky yet there are other things stickies that are pretty irrelevant?


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## WeedySeaDragon

cinammontoast said:


> Why is this no longer a sticky yet there are other things stickies that are pretty irrelevant?


I believe the OP asked for this to no longer be a sticky.


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> It will be good to try non-food rewards in future, though I'm not sure how Broder will respond. He's already learnt to sit if he wants to go and sniff a lamp post etc so I'm not sure how I'd incorporate a clicker? At what point would I click?


If he's already learned it and is reliable then I wouldn't use the clicker for it personally. But if I were teaching it I'd click when he sat and release him to go sniff.


----------



## Nicki85

Just back from agility...Rusty was a very good boy as usual  They had put the tunnel next to the dog walk though and that resulted in me having to physically put him into the tunnel... he does love his contacts!

Shae came and did a bit of target training with the class after, just sitting in the corner and asking for concentration. She worked very well considering there was a very barky collie in there too. Took her outside and did some playing and she did play with me  Bit of pouncing and tugging on Rustys sock toy so very happy. She met and greeted lots of people as well nicely. Saw a big horse too but don't think she noticed!!


----------



## Sarah1983

My Khan has gone home :crying: He was so pleased to see his owner when he came and picked him up though. They'd been worried about him being a pain but compared to Spencer he's such an easy dog. Give him his meals, a walk and some fusses and he's happy to just chill.


----------



## cinnamontoast

WeedySeaDragon said:


> I believe the OP asked for this to no longer be a sticky.


Why?! It's lots more useful than some other stickies!


----------



## Symone

I really need to pop in more.. Started going on a liking spree last night and lost my spot. 

Dogless : many hugs to you. I hope that you're feeling better now. I'm sure now that you know with how far Kilo will go how you can prevent it.. Fingers crossed it will be something easy. (I'm sure I read about a possibility of it being a medical reason?)
More hugs. xx

Twiggy : Did the food agree with Holly? I sure hope so. Fingers crossed it will work for a long time.  

Well.. I feel really sad today! Shamaya's growing up even more.. She's 6 months old today! :crying: It's too fast!

She has been really good, lately.. She did start to act up a bit today, but it's the first day in a short while (well, 4 days) where the OH has been here, so she needed his attention, lol!
She has been very mouthy today, as well. I had a look in her mouth and she has two teeth coming in at the back and one in the front. I feel sorry for her! 

Going to take her to the beach in a moment.. She hasn't been for the past few days so I assume that she will be really excited. 

She got some fish jerky treats from F4D so she's happy. Hardly any in the bag, though! It's a right rip off. I could probably get the skins for free from the fishmongers and dry them out in the oven! It was like £3.50 for 8... I assumed that there would be more!

Will go through a liking spree when I'm back from the beach. Hope that everyone is having a nice day.


----------



## MollySmith

cinammontoast said:


> Why?! It's lots more useful than some other stickies!


It was getting busy as a sticky and hard to keep up with what everyone was working in my humble opinion. I don't know if that's the reason or not but it's very hard to keep up when it wasn't a sticky


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> I really need to pop in more.. Started going on a liking spree last night and lost my spot.
> 
> Dogless : many hugs to you. I hope that you're feeling better now. I'm sure now that you know with how far Kilo will go how you can prevent it.. Fingers crossed it will be something easy. (I'm sure I read about a possibility of it being a medical reason?)
> More hugs. xx
> 
> *Twiggy : Did the food agree with Holly? I sure hope so. Fingers crossed it will work for a long time.  *
> 
> *Well.. I feel really sad today! Shamaya's growing up even more.. She's 6 months old today! :crying: It's too fast!*
> 
> She has been really good, lately.. She did start to act up a bit today, but it's the first day in a short while (well, 4 days) where the OH has been here, so she needed his attention, lol!
> She has been very mouthy today, as well. I had a look in her mouth and she has two teeth coming in at the back and one in the front. I feel sorry for her!
> 
> Going to take her to the beach in a moment.. She hasn't been for the past few days so I assume that she will be really excited.
> 
> She got some fish jerky treats from F4D so she's happy. Hardly any in the bag, though! It's a right rip off. I could probably get the skins for free from the fishmongers and dry them out in the oven! It was like £3.50 for 8... I assumed that there would be more!
> 
> Will go through a liking spree when I'm back from the beach. Hope that everyone is having a nice day.


Thanks for asking. It's so far so good but I've been here many, many times before with Leafy and her food intolerance.

Sadly they do grow up and age much too quickly. I can't believe Quiver is now heading for 15 yrs old. How time flies.


----------



## Guest

Werehorse I'm here with you with car issue.

Zand used to LURVVVVVVVVVVVE the car. Now he pant's and shakes when in it and whinges. He's fine going up to it and he jumps in and out when I say but actually in the car seems to be no longer enjoyable for my chap.

Also he new cheapy collar is horrible but it will do.


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## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Don't tar them all with the same brush..LOL As in many cases it's the owners not the dogs that are at fault. I have two that train here and they are little superstars...


Hello Twiggy  Yes I agree, one of my tarty little madam's best mates is a JRT called Clive and he's a fab dog, I often wonder if his owners would let me take him home. It is so much to do with owners I think, I don't think there is any dog I don't like as a breed. The bull terrier in our local pub, Ted is better behaved than Molly.

Gotcha day is going well, we've had a 3 hour jaunt around the downs outside Cambridge, we didn't intend to, my parents got lost. Eventually found them and we had a lovely time. I am now borrowing my mum's range cooker to make chocolate custard tarts. I have no idea how to operate it and she's left me alone. Either that or I brave the dodgy cooker at home with the wonky thermostat. 'I want my mummy!' 

OOooooh and most importantly I took the lead, and got my Molly past 5 dogs on lead and two that were off lead in an on lead place (grrrr) but anyway no reactions, good as gold me and her


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dexter made a new friend down the field today. A Chi who apparently is frightened of everything yet was playing with Dexter fine.


----------



## moonviolet

MS Happy Gotcha Day Molly. glad it's going well chocolate custard tarts sound yummy 

What a wonderful morning, we didn't so much walk as floated today. enjoying the sun and the cool breeze. We bumped into Tink's favourite cocker coloured working cocker BF and his owner and floated around with them for a while none of us were in a rush to get anywhere and it was so lovely before i knew it we'd be out for over 2 hours. Tink was a brave girl even when an aussie shepherd tried to hump her. she was too busy keeping an eye on gsd companion, they had made a beeline to say hello. big shake after the aussie had been retrieved by his apologetic owner. I think possibly my death stare may have prompted the apology :lol: :lol: Tink just shook it off   with no hyper vigilance after 

oh my god i'm trying not to laugh BIL has just come around and OH is showing off getting Tink to do tricks (boys ) I think I'd better go distract them with coffee and cake :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Tis an beautiful sunny day here too!

We have had an awesome mornings work 

On the first day we worked at the far end of a massive field with a windbreak to hide behind if it got too much for her. She couldn't get within 80m of another dog with out stressing out.

When I tried to take her in the building for the relaxation session after, even a little ante room away from the other dogs where she couldn't see them (normally safe) she kicked off big style.

Today (only 3 sessions) we were working in the middle of the field in a labyrinth with our partner dog working not 20m away on cones and the spaniel that seemed to be causing most of the reactions from the other dogs over the course not 20m away in another labyrinth  when I stood back at the top of the field and looked at where we had been I was gob smacked  

She was a little bit reactive to start with but that was at the two spaniels who are always very jumpy and barky as soon as they get out the car and quick movement has always pushed her over quicker than still slow things, but she soon settled, the dog we partnered is another terrier but quite calm (her owner reckoned she had enjoyed today too!) Ginge coped with everything I asked of her, she was very attentive, while we were waiting about I had her volunteering sits outside, let alone in the presence of other dogs , (I pushed for some uppy tricks and some downs as well ), we worked on ever 'increasing' spirals as well as parallel cones and some head to head work. 

Every so often I let her off to go sniff and she did eventually start trying to bury herself n the holes so I know she was finding it hard but she was my little super star 

We got to the relaxation stage and started off in the car again, kept checking out our room and going back to the car, and eventually got her lying down in there, door shut, didn't push things too far, then I got her to touch target the door she could hear the dogs and people and not a peep. i was going to open the door but it was a bit sticky and would have made a noise that would have disturbed everyone else but.......

I am feeling very proud right now   .


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Thanks for asking. It's so far so good but I've been here many, many times before with Leafy and her food intolerance.
> 
> Sadly they do grow up and age much too quickly. I can't believe Quiver is now heading for 15 yrs old. How time flies.


Oops sorry, I got her name wrong, lol. 
I'm glad that she's doing well with it so far  Fingers crossed that it will continue to do well with her.

I don't like how time flies, sometimes! 
It is lovely seeing them grow, though..  I think that I may have to post a before and now pic with Shamaya! In fact, I shall upload 2 now. 

Okay, I lied. I'll do 3. I found one of her mid-scratch which shows how tiny she was!

First morning that she was here.. So cute. (Not biased at all!) 









2nd night with us, already making herself at home.









Taken today.. I still can't believe that she is 6 months old.


----------



## moonviolet

GR I am bouncing up and down I am so pleased for you and that wee ninja of yours !!! 


Oh Symone they grow up so quickly. she was a really cute pup.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thank you I am too, the more I think of when I stood back to see how far she had moved on I am astounded. My home work is to start working in a car park, start off in the car, clicking and treating for dog sightings, then move out the car, then use a plant pot or something as a target, gradually moving further away from safety, literally for 5- 10mins only.


----------



## sharloid

MollySmith said:


> It was getting busy as a sticky and hard to keep up with what everyone was working in my humble opinion. I don't know if that's the reason or not but it's very hard to keep up when it wasn't a sticky


I think that might be cause there's a lot of chatting going on. 

I don't know if a separate chat thread would be appropriate?


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> GR I am bouncing up and down I am so pleased for you and that wee ninja of yours !!!
> 
> Funnily enough so am I....:thumbup:


----------



## GingerRogers

sharloid said:


> I think that might be cause there's a lot of chatting going on.
> 
> I don't know if a separate chat thread would be appropriate?


 Dont point out the chatting or we will get moderated, we love the chatting, plus it keeps all the important stuff hidden so we have to work for it 

Thanks Twiggy too! I can't stop grinning and then crying, I have to as we have decided to walk into town early and get a couple of pints in the sunshine and pick up a curry on the way home to celebrate (plus we won £40 on the GN ). I don't think a certain tired girly will even notice us going out the door.


----------



## purpleskyes

Hudson was a very well behaved boy today, we got him one of those long lines and took a new ball out with us. He came everytime he was called, was more interested in his ball than other dogs. At one point there were 2 Labs 50 yards away running and he didn't even notice. Normally he would be gone in seconds.

Very happy dog owners today.


----------



## moonviolet

sharloid said:


> I think that might be cause there's a lot of chatting going on.
> 
> I don't know if a separate chat thread would be appropriate?


There has always been a lot of chat on this thread being sticky restrained it for a little while as we all felt a little goldfish bowlish. 

After all there is a whole section of the forum for training and behaviour.


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## MollySmith

:thumbup: GR Wooooooooooooo!!! Go Ninja, we are very happy over here. 

Glad you had a nice walk MV, brave wee Tinks

Symone - she is growing up!


----------



## Dimwit

GR - so pleased for you
I hope everyone is having a nice sunny day. We had a lovely time at big walkies this morning. Then, this afternoon I took the dimwit out an did a little bit of training using a ball as a reward - it certainly keeps his attention on me and his down stay is very impressive! Just trying to work on keeping him calm and walking next to me rather than running slightly in front ( waiting for me to throw the ball). Also been following *Twiggy's* retrieve instructions and so far so good. He is great at the hand touch and is now holding the object for long enough for me to take it (as long as I am lightening-quick)

Sadly though he was rubbish at picking a GN winner for me so I am glad I saved my money!


----------



## kat&molly

sharloid said:


> I think that might be cause there's a lot of chatting going on.
> 
> I don't know if a separate chat thread would be appropriate?


 Its the chatting that's kept this thread going- we all try to support each other. Anyone's free to start their own thread.

My brains a bit mushed after reading all that 

Ginge- A huge Woo woo to you and the Ninja, just brilliant. You sound just a bit chuffed too.

Happy Gotcha Day to Molly. Hope you've been a good girl.

My Moll is about 90% better today, so we didn't need the vets. Hopefully tomorrow she'll be 'normal'[for Moll anyway]

Going to award my Evie a Gold star  for finally working out if you put a paw on the kong you don't have to get ratty and chase it all over the kitchen.:lol: I'm gutted really it was quite entertaining.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> GR - so pleased for you
> I hope everyone is having a nice sunny day. We had a lovely time at big walkies this morning. Then, this afternoon I took the dimwit out an did a little bit of training using a ball as a reward - it certainly keeps his attention on me and his down stay is very impressive! Just trying to work on keeping him calm and walking next to me rather than running slightly in front ( waiting for me to throw the ball). Also been following *Twiggy's* retrieve instructions and so far so good. He is great at the hand touch and is now holding the object for long enough for me to take it (as long as I am lightening-quick)
> 
> Sadly though he was rubbish at picking a GN winner for me so I am glad I saved my money!


Oh well done you and Dimwit.....:thumbup: Most dogs really enjoy it, if applied correctly.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Its the chatting that's kept this thread going- we all try to support each other. Anyone's free to start their own thread.
> 
> My brains a bit mushed after reading all that
> 
> Ginge- A huge Woo woo to you and the Ninja, just brilliant. You sound just a bit chuffed too.
> 
> Happy Gotcha Day to Molly. Hope you've been a good girl.
> 
> *My Moll is about 90% better today, so we didn't need the vets. Hopefully tomorrow she'll be 'normal'[for Moll anyway]*
> 
> Going to award my Evie a Gold star  for finally working out if you put a paw on the kong you don't have to get ratty and chase it all over the kitchen.:lol: I'm gutted really it was quite entertaining.


I'm pleased Moll seems better but would have been very interested in what your vet said. Tremor's problem is in exactly the same place and it's been ongoing (on and off) for two months now. She's seen two vets and my chiropractor twice but I'm sure she's not 100%. The senior vet at my practice said it was my vivid imagination...!!

It's a nuisance as I hardly dare work her and she's entered tomorrow at a show. I shall go anyway, as it's reasonably local, if only to socialise Holly.


----------



## Dogless

Go Ginger Ninja and GR!!!!! .

MS - Happy Gotcha Day to Molly.

Pleased everyone has had a good day today .



Symone said:


> Dogless : many hugs to you. I hope that you're feeling better now. I'm sure now that you know with how far Kilo will go how you can prevent it.. Fingers crossed it will be something easy. (I'm sure I read about a possibility of it being a medical reason?)
> More hugs. xx


I will carry on as I have always managed him - that is why I didn't know what would happen without my direction in that kind of situation. With the addition of a muzzle.

Good day today. I had the secure field all morning this morning and the boys just played, pottered and then snoozed in the sun. Just what we needed. Got it booked early tomorrow before our long drive too.

After that I worked Kilo and Rudi and then Kilo with the trainer with others watching (opposite sides of a fence of course!) then Rudi did the communication classes that I had originally brought Kilo over here to do - he had to stay in the car.

When Kilo saw the other dogs on the other side of the fence yesterday and today he just wanted to play - was bouncing at them, bless him. He didn't bother with the people apart from a few he'd seen yesterday and he wagged and went to the fence for them too, almost broke my heart when a woman said "Oh, it must be your other dog that must be the naughty one, he's lovely" . When I took Kilo to the car onlead to bring Rudi out there were two people stood out where I was parked and they were ushered inside a fenced area. Really upsetting somehow .

The classes with Rudi went well, he waggled like mad to meet all the people and it went well with the dogs too.

All in all a good, but very long, day. My beautiful CHs are exhausted.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> I'm pleased Moll seems better but would have been very interested in what your vet said. Tremor's problem is in exactly the same place and it's been ongoing (on and off) for two months now. She's seen two vets and my chiropractor twice but I'm sure she's not 100%. The senior vet at my practice said it was my vivid imagination...!!
> 
> It's a nuisance as I hardly dare work her and she's entered tomorrow at a show. I shall go anyway, as it's reasonably local, if only to socialise Holly.


Dogless- that does sound upsetting- I bet you'll be glad to get home to sort it out in your head. Have a safe trip back tomorrow.x

Twiggy-Moll had her weight on it today- unless you knew there was a problem yesterday you wouldn't have known- but if its not 100% Monday we will be going to the vets-if its not right completely tomorrow- I was going to say I'd film it but you wouldn't be able to see it would you? 
Hoping this is a one off. What a worry with Tremor  I hate it when Vets don't listen- it took years to get a diagnosis with Jay and her Arthritis.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- that does sound upsetting- I bet you'll be glad to get home to sort it out in your head. Have a safe trip back tomorrow.x


Thank you . Never thought I'd say it but am looking forward to getting back . Not sure why it upset me really, but it really did - I'm starting to sort it in my head already. I don't feel that he's a risk to dogs (apart from being aware of predatory drift) still; people not unless that specific trigger presents itself BUT it always could so I will assume that it will and play safe. I always have TBH so have been told to just continue management exactly as I always have done.


----------



## Beth17

GR what fabulous progress. So pleased for you and Ginge :thumbup:

mv sounds like a lovely walk. Glad Tink shook off the rude humper.

purpleskyes well done to Hudson 

K&M glad Moll's leg is feeling better and you didn't have to do a vet trip.

Dogless I'm sorry people reacted like that I would feel upset as well  The CHs are just lovely, I hope you and the boys have a good walk tomorrow morning and a safe trip back 

I love how the sun seems to have made everybody's day go well.

My two have just finished a mammoth wrestling session in the garden and hopefully they'll go sleep now as they haven't stopped all day


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- that does sound upsetting- I bet you'll be glad to get home to sort it out in your head. Have a safe trip back tomorrow.x
> 
> Twiggy-Moll had her weight on it today- unless you knew there was a problem yesterday you wouldn't have known- but if its not 100% Monday we will be going to the vets-if its not right completely tomorrow- I was going to say I'd film it but you wouldn't be able to see it would you?
> Hoping this is a one off. What a worry with Tremor  I hate it when Vets don't listen- it took years to get a diagnosis with Jay and her Arthritis.


With Tremor it's undoubtedly soft tissue and most of the time she's sound (due to careful management) but just occasionally when she's been resting she is lifting her hip a bit. Unless I deliberately let her go mad, thus making her lame I don't think my vet would be able to tell but my chiropractor should have seen it IMO.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> When I took Kilo to the car onlead to bring Rudi out there were two people stood out where I was parked and they were ushered inside a fenced area. Really upsetting somehow .


I'm sorry Dogless, I know I'm just your average dog owner and you're there with a respected trainer but I find this attitude really f*cking sucks if you'll pardon my language. Why? Why was him being taken to the car ON LEASH so dangerous that people had to be quickly ushered into a fenced area away from him??? And if he's that bloody dangerous why have you just been told to carry on as you always have done? Sorry, I'm not meaning to have a go or confuse you or anything but something just doesn't sit right :001_unsure:

But it sounds like your sensible head is coming through from what you say. You realise there is a risk and are going to take precautions without going OTT and keeping him from ever going anywhere or doing anything.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Thank you . Never thought I'd say it but am looking forward to getting back . Not sure why it upset me really, but it really did - I'm starting to sort it in my head already. I don't feel that he's a risk to dogs (apart from being aware of predatory drift) still; people not unless that specific trigger presents itself BUT it always could so I will assume that it will and play safe. I always have TBH so have been told to just continue management exactly as I always have done.


I think I'd have to watch Predatory Drift with Evie- if a Yorky came along to play 

Are you glad you went?


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm sorry Dogless, I know I'm just your average dog owner and you're there with a respected trainer but I find this attitude really f*cking sucks if you'll pardon my language. Why? Why was him being taken to the car ON LEASH so dangerous that people had to be quickly ushered into a fenced area away from him??? And if he's that bloody dangerous why have you just been told to carry on as you always have done? Sorry, I'm not meaning to have a go or confuse you or anything but something just doesn't sit right :001_unsure:
> 
> But it sounds like your sensible head is coming through from what you say. You realise there is a risk and are going to take precautions without going OTT and keeping him from ever going anywhere or doing anything.


I don't agree with the ushering away bit really, but I guess you have to keep your clients safe - just in case. No one bar me had any contact with him after the first day! I'm sure I'm being over sensitive TBH as I find it hard not to just think of him as my big, soft lump .

I'm going to do what I have always done - headcollar in busy / exciting areas, recall and onlead when lone walker seen in distance / comes into a field / anything else is fixated on. A muzzle won't really affect his walks apart from the fact that I can't divert him onto a toy and he can't play tuggy in the fields with Rudi. I am beginning to get my head around it.



kat&molly said:


> I think I'd have to watch Predatory Drift with Evie- if a Yorky came along to play
> 
> Are you glad you went?


I am pleased actually. I know I'm devastated but I now know what will happen at maximum stress levels when Kilo is pushed without input from me.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I don't agree with the ushering away bit really, but I guess you have to keep your clients safe - just in case. No one bar me had any contact with him after the first day! I'm sure I'm being over sensitive TBH as I find it hard not to just think of him as my big, soft lump .
> 
> I'm going to do what I have always done - headcollar in busy / exciting areas, recall and onlead when lone walker seen in distance / comes into a field / anything else is fixated on. A muzzle won't really affect his walks apart from the fact that I can't divert him onto a toy and he can't play tuggy in the fields with Rudi. I am beginning to get my head around it.


There's a big difference between nobody having any contact with him and people being ushered away like he's about to tear them limb from limb. It just makes me angry for you I guess 

Shame the muzzle will stop him playing with a toy but better safe than sorry I guess. Perhaps you could use a long line when you want to play with a toy with him? Or find a toy he can pick up wearing his muzzle. I know a lurcher who steals tennis balls despite being muzzled. God knows how he does it though


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> There's a big difference between nobody having any contact with him and people being ushered away like he's about to tear them limb from limb. It just makes me angry for you I guess
> 
> Shame the muzzle will stop him playing with a toy but better safe than sorry I guess. Perhaps you could use a long line when you want to play with a toy with him? Or find a toy he can pick up wearing his muzzle. I know a lurcher who steals tennis balls despite being muzzled. God knows how he does it though


He wouldn't react to people in that situation, but I can understand too. She said he had no bite inhibition, but his first bite was just to her jacket, then he delivered a harder bite and two more progressively harder bites (frustration???) when she didn't move away - it was as if he was panicking. He certainly ran back to me like he was. The trainer has some minor bruising. Not good AT ALL but I am sure he could have done much worse - or may have continued to had he not been called away. Thought makes me shudder.

Yes, I'll pop him on his harness and longline when appropriate too (like when we do some training as I use his tuggy)....I have it all worked out but somehow it still makes me cry. Goodness knows why .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thank you . Never thought I'd say it but am looking forward to getting back . Not sure why it upset me really, but it really did - I'm starting to sort it in my head already. I don't feel that he's a risk to dogs (apart from being aware of predatory drift) still; people not unless that specific trigger presents itself BUT it always could so I will assume that it will and play safe. I always have TBH so have been told to just continue management exactly as I always have done.


Dogless you're tired now and have a long drive tomorrow, plus it's been an upsetting three days. but when you're home and refreshed there are a few questions relating to Kilo that I would like to ask.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless you're tired now and have a long drive tomorrow, plus it's been an upsetting three days. but when you're home and refreshed there are a few questions relating to Kilo that I would like to ask.


You can ask now if you like Twiggy, if I can't answer immediately then at least I can think things over on the drive! I have a feeling I'm in for some bashing .


----------



## Thorne

Werehorse -Hope Hugo grows back out of his car worries, Scooter doesn't travel too well so will keep my eyes peeled for any tips or what you find works with him.

Symone -Shamaya is growing up into a beautiful young lady. 

GR -Big gold star for you and the ninja, absolutely brilliant work!

purpleskyes and Dimwit -Well done you and your ball-crazy boys, lovely to hear how focused they were for you today.

Kat -Congrats to Evie, took Breeze a while to learn the same thing. Daft girls.

Dogless -Pleased that you and the boys had a lovely morning, hope tomorrow's drive home goes well.

Sorry to those I've missed x

Well, today was my first staff day at BC, and another heartbreaking one. Lola was put to sleep. We gave her lots of cuddles, hot dogs and playtime this morning and had a good cry. I've been assured she went peacefully.
Run free beautiful girl, hope you're reunited with our friend Paddy at the bridge. :crying:

I probably make it sound like they put down dogs left right and centre  They really don't, I just seem to get attached to the "difficult" ones. There's been a handful euthanised since I started and the staff have worked hard with each and every one of them with either specialist training or veterinary treatment.

On a happy note I had a glorious walk with Jem the new resident Labrador. She's an absolute doll and managed to put a smile back on my face. Dogs really are the best therapists.

S&B had lovely long walks yesterday and a boring short one today but don't seem too bothered. Currently changing Breeze onto Skinners' Duck & Rice so fingers crossed it agrees with her. At the moment she's licking her lips too much for comfort, hope she's not feeling sick...


----------



## Canine K9

Had a good day today other than the mouthing AGAIN. Have to get that better again! In the field today he said hello to a HUGE Lab, now I`m only small but it came up to my chest  Bailey didn`t seem phased, but it looked like one swing of the paw could send him flying, cos he`s only 6kg! The Lab was very friendly though and Bailey behvaed well with it round


----------



## Labrador Laura

I need help with Zab and Mylo,

When we first brought Zab home (11weeks ago) Mylo couldn't get enough of him but Zab just ignored him and just wanted to be with us. Over the first couple of days they said hello and had smalls plays then Mylo went for Zab when OH's mum turned up one night and then it happened again when a friend turned up but this time Mylo caught him bad and I had to rush home from work to deal with it as OH couldn't. So now we keep them apart when people come around .... but now they just ignore each other completely unless Mylo is coming in from the garden Zab gets abit excited but I control that. 

Now on walks it's a different matter and Zab just wants to box him, jump off him and do what ever he can to get him to play but Mylo just shows his teeth and goes for him. But when Mylo wants to play he comes over and invites Zab so I then let him off and they run off together but within minutes Mylo turns around and goes for Zab even though Zab is nowhere near him. This has been happening for the past 4days now and each day I let them play as I want them to bond but I have to keep saying 'nicely' but Mylo still ends up going for Zab even though their just running, chase me game ! But when we are walking back Mylo wants to be next to Zab and kisses his ears the whole way home.... whats going on !? 

I don't want Mylo to go for Zab as he isn't gentle about it, but I want them to bond and just be able to walk together now whilst Zab is still young. I'm worried i'm going to have problems when Zab is older and able to have a go back and it turns into a fight! 

Sorry it's all pushed into one post but I need help! I love my boys, but I don't want to dislike Mylo when he tells Zab off.


----------



## Beth17

Canine k9 it sounds like Bailey is making good progress. Well done and don't worry I'm sure the mouthing will ease off again.

Thorne so sorry to hear about Lola  I'm pleased Jem was able to put a smile back on your face though


----------



## Izzysmummy

Labrador Laura said:


> I need help with Zab and Mylo,
> 
> When we first brought Zab home (11weeks ago) Mylo couldn't get enough of him but Zab just ignored him and just wanted to be with us. Over the first couple of days they said hello and had smalls plays then Mylo went for Zab when OH's mum turned up one night and then it happened again when a friend turned up but this time Mylo caught him bad and I had to rush home from work to deal with it as OH couldn't. So now we keep them apart when people come around .... but now they just ignore each other completely unless Mylo is coming in from the garden Zab gets abit excited but I control that.
> 
> Now on walks it's a different matter and Zab just wants to box him, jump off him and do what ever he can to get him to play but Mylo just shows his teeth and goes for him. But when Mylo wants to play he comes over and invites Zab so I then let him off and they run off together but within minutes Mylo turns around and goes for Zab even though Zab is nowhere near him. This has been happening for the past 4days now and each day I let them play as I want them to bond but I have to keep saying 'nicely' but Mylo still ends up going for Zab even though their just running, chase me game ! But when we are walking back Mylo wants to be next to Zab and kisses his ears the whole way home.... whats going on !?
> 
> I don't want Mylo to go for Zab as he isn't gentle about it, but I want them to bond and just be able to walk together now whilst Zab is still young. I'm worried i'm going to have problems when Zab is older and able to have a go back and it turns into a fight!
> 
> Sorry it's all pushed into one post but I need help! I love my boys, but I don't want to dislike Mylo when he tells Zab off.


LL - welcome to WAYWO! I was just wondering if Mylo is going for Zab in an aggressive way or is it more rough play. Millie and Izzy play fight and it looks really vicious, teeth clashing, wrestling, noise, pushing each other over. It was quite scary the first time but it is just play and if either of them accidentally hurt the other it calms right down, they make sure they're both ok then they'll instigate the play again.

I'm wondering if it's re-directed excitement that causes Mylo to go for Zab when someone comes in the house, Izzy can do this to Millie if she gets over-excited about something, she will literally launch herself at Millie (not in a vicious way, just very rough play but its all one-sided). For example, me rolling on the floor playing with Izzy, it will all suddenly get too exciting and she will launch herself at Millie and push her to the ground and sometimes try to hump her. If this happens we just separate them until they are both calm. Now if we notice Izzy getting too excited we will try and calm her down before it reaches that level. It sounds like you are doing the right thing separating them when someone comes to the house, maybe allow them to greet the guest individually then once they are both calm allow them out and maybe give them a bone or kong to chew for a while?

Dogless - I hope the drive back goes OK. I too feel upset on your behalf that Kilo has been made out to be "nasty"! I don't feel it's fair to generalise that one incident but I suspect it probably something to do with insurance/liability/silly paperwork than anything else. Seems very OTT though! 

We just got back from a visit up North to see family. It was lovely to see them and Izzy had a great time with Millie. I met my parents next door neighbours Great Dane puppy who was so cute and bouncy.

Izzy even spent time in the same house as a little person, it went OK. I was rather annoyed as my little cousin was being dropped off literally as I parked the car at my parents house, I had no idea he would be there and would have set off later had I known! So I had a very excited dog in the back wanting to get in to see everyone and a 5yr old who's nervous of dogs stood on the doorstep 

Instant action stations- little person in the living room with my dad and Izzy and Millie had their usual crazy greeting in the back garden. Then once it had calmed down a bit I let Izzy in the living room on the lead, little person was busy playing a video game so Izzy was pretty good with him as he was ignoring her, there was an initial "Mum, theres a little person in the house" bark then she just pottered about saying hi to my sister, Mum and Dad. The trouble came when he finished playing his game, he's nervous so stares a lot wanting to know where the dogs are and what they're doing all the time which obviously freaked Izzy out a bit! They both started getting a bit stressed and Izzy was starting to get a bit barky so I took her up to my room until he went home. I got a bit upset, my parents said she'd be fine downstairs and that they'd HAVE to get used to each other but I said it wasn't fair on either of them. I'm annoyed now, I was feeling so pleased with Izzy's progress with kids and now I'm just feeling blah.....


----------



## Sarah1983

We're going back to the UK for a visit at some point. We're driving. It's something like a 10 hour journey. I get horribly car sick in journeys less than an hour long and for some reason when I'm in the car my bladder shrinks to the size of a pea (no pun intended) and we end up stopping at almost every services. I'm going to die. I'm absolutely dreading it already and we haven't even set a date yet. I feel sick just thinking about it. 

I'd much rather him go alone and me stay here but his parents haven't seen me since our wedding day so I really need to make an effort. I really don't mind going visiting them, I have nothing against them and would like to see them again. But that drive :crying: If I set off now how long do you reckon it would take me to walk it from here to Poole?

Spen will be staying here in kennels. Khans owners offered to have him but I don't think they'd cope with his activity level and I don't think he'd cope with what would be expected of him there. Khan spends lots of time sleeping, Spencer spends lots of time looking for something to do and getting into mischief.


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## Symone

Sarah1983 said:


> We're going back to the UK for a visit at some point. We're driving. It's something like a 10 hour journey. I get horribly car sick in journeys less than an hour long and for some reason when I'm in the car my bladder shrinks to the size of a pea (no pun intended) and we end up stopping at almost every services. I'm going to die. I'm absolutely dreading it already and we haven't even set a date yet. I feel sick just thinking about it.
> 
> I'd much rather him go alone and me stay here but his parents haven't seen me since our wedding day so I really need to make an effort. I really don't mind going visiting them, I have nothing against them and would like to see them again. But that drive :crying: If I set off now how long do you reckon it would take me to walk it from here to Poole?
> 
> Spen will be staying here in kennels. Khans owners offered to have him but I don't think they'd cope with his activity level and I don't think he'd cope with what would be expected of him there. Khan spends lots of time sleeping, Spencer spends lots of time looking for something to do and getting into mischief.


Are you expected to drive at all?
If not have a glass or 5 of a nice wine and sleep the whole drive. 
It's what I do when driving to Switzerland (9-14 hours depending on traffic.) and it helps.. Well, minus too much wine. 
Why not get some travel sickness pills?

If for some strange reason the kennels end up being a no go - you can drop Spen off at mine. I'm right near dover so it'll be on the way.  (Assuming you're going BF - Callis - Dover ofc. )


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## MollySmith

Oh Sarah, that's tough. I hate being a passenger and mostly drive. I had to get over it before my shoulder op as I knew it would be weeks of being chauffeured. I did some hypnotherapy combined with nlp which is how I managed to go from needle phobic to being able to do injections. I wouldn't say it completely cured me but made me feel reasonably comfortable. Do you think that might work along with a few short trips gradually building up or can you get the plane over to an airport like Bristol or Southampton?

I also take prescription travel sickness pills for any flight or trip I won't drive and ask for anything to make me go to sleep


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## Sarah1983

No, I won't be expected to drive. I have epilepsy so can't hold a license. I've tried anti sickness pills before and felt even worse than when not taking them so don't really want to go that route, don't fancy spending the next 3 days with my head down my mother in laws toilet. I have no idea whether hypnotherapy would work and no idea how to go about finding out out here. If I had one glass of wine my pea sized bladder would shrink to the size of a pin head and we'd be stopping literally every 2 minutes lol.

Normally I'd fly across but we just can't afford it. Us driving works out at half the price flying would. Now if he still had the motorbike I'd be absolutely fine. No travel sickness on the bike and as it will be around summer time when we go I wouldn't turn blue from cold.


----------



## ItsonlyChris

We're working on getting Blue used to cars that go past.

In all fairness to her, she's doing really well.

She's teething at the moment we think, she's going through a chewing phase rrr:


----------



## Symone

Sarah1983 said:


> No, I won't be expected to drive. I have epilepsy so can't hold a license. I've tried anti sickness pills before and felt even worse than when not taking them so don't really want to go that route, don't fancy spending the next 3 days with my head down my mother in laws toilet. I have no idea whether hypnotherapy would work and no idea how to go about finding out out here. If I had one glass of wine my pea sized bladder would shrink to the size of a pin head and we'd be stopping literally every 2 minutes lol.
> 
> Normally I'd fly across but we just can't afford it. Us driving works out at half the price flying would. Now if he still had the motorbike I'd be absolutely fine. No travel sickness on the bike and as it will be around summer time when we go I wouldn't turn blue from cold.


Ahhh seems rather bad for you, then. 
I hope that the trip will go well. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you x


----------



## IrishEyes

Morning all,

Yesterday we arranged to meet up with our dog walker for some socialisation for Horace. On our way Horace walked past (other side of road) another dog and didn't make a sound... same for the jack russell that again came charging at us! Perhaps it was the sunshine!

The dog's all had a ball, Horace is just so happy to be with other dogs. They get on well and all enjoyed charging about after the ball. Halfway through we were on a tight path and saw two ladies and another dog approaching onlead. I put Horace onlead and saw that the other dog was turned and walked back. The lady explained that her friend's dog was very anxious and reactive so she would tuck in out of the way. Horace and I went first but as it turns out the lady didn't actually tuck in very much at all and her dog reacted to us so then my big lump reacted back and dragged me about two feet.. they made a bit of noise at each other but nothing more than that.

Towards the end of the walk we saw a sheepdog running alongside a farmer in his tactor ploughing the field.. Horace saw the dog but totally ignore it, same for the other two dogs at the end of the walk. If it had of been just Horace and I, he would have made a beeline for them if he spotted them before I... 

It's incredible the difference a canine friend or two makes  I posted a few pictures in general if anyone is interested!


----------



## Labrador Laura

Izzysmummy said:


> LL - welcome to WAYWO! I was just wondering if Mylo is going for Zab in an aggressive way or is it more rough play. Millie and Izzy play fight and it looks really vicious, teeth clashing, wrestling, noise, pushing each other over. It was quite scary the first time but it is just play and if either of them accidentally hurt the other it calms right down, they make sure they're both ok then they'll instigate the play again.
> 
> I'm wondering if it's re-directed excitement that causes Mylo to go for Zab when someone comes in the house, Izzy can do this to Millie if she gets over-excited about something, she will literally launch herself at Millie (not in a vicious way, just very rough play but its all one-sided). For example, me rolling on the floor playing with Izzy, it will all suddenly get too exciting and she will launch herself at Millie and push her to the ground and sometimes try to hump her. If this happens we just separate them until they are both calm. Now if we notice Izzy getting too excited we will try and calm her down before it reaches that level. It sounds like you are doing the right thing separating them when someone comes to the house, maybe allow them to greet the guest individually then once they are both calm allow them out and maybe give them a bone or kong to chew for a while?


I've just seen what page number it's on  don't think i'll be reading through all them. I've never really had any problems until now  .

Now Mylo has never been aggressive towards any dog, it's always dogs telling him off for acting all 'tough' but then chickens out once he's been told off. I think part of my problem is fear of Mylo hurting Zab, other dogs have told Zab off but Mylo makes him bleed everytime and Zab my little baby 

What is confusing me is one minute Mylo invites him to play, then tells him off then he's all over him kissing his ears?! Zab must be getting confused too!

For the guest part we allow them both to greet who ever it is in turns and then Mylo is put in a different room. Its trying to get guests to keep it calm too, people get abit excited when their greeted by a cute puppy


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> With Tremor it's undoubtedly soft tissue and most of the time she's sound (due to careful management) but just occasionally when she's been resting she is lifting her hip a bit. Unless I deliberately let her go mad, thus making her lame I don't think my vet would be able to tell but my chiropractor should have seen it IMO.


It's still not 'right' today- so I guess we'll be going tomorrow. My worry is the vet saying its just a sprain/pull and we get anti- inflammatories, and its something more. I've got no chance of a Chiropractor here, we haven't even got hydro.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Labrador Laura said:


> I've just seen what page number it's on  don't think i'll be reading through all them. I've never really had any problems until now  .
> 
> Now Mylo has never been aggressive towards any dog, it's always dogs telling him off for acting all 'tough' but then chickens out once he's been told off. I think part of my problem is fear of Mylo hurting Zab, other dogs have told Zab off but Mylo makes him bleed everytime and Zab my little baby
> 
> What is confusing me is one minute Mylo invites him to play, then tells him off then he's all over him kissing his ears?! Zab must be getting confused too!
> 
> For the guest part we allow them both to greet who ever it is in turns and then Mylo is put in a different room. Its trying to get guests to keep it calm too, people get abit excited when their greeted by a cute puppy


Hmm, if Mylo's drawing blood then it sounds like he's being too rough! Does Zab yelp and back off when Mylo draws blood? Sorry for all the questions, just trying to get a picture of whats happening in my head .

I would probably just suggest separating them when the play gets too rough, making sure all play is supervised and intervening if it starts getting too exciting or one-sided. Keep an eye on Mylo and try and anticipate any reaction from him and step in before he feels the need to tell Zab off? Sorry I'm not sure if this will be of any help if Mylo seems to change his mind so quickly? Hopefully some other people will have some suggestions!


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## moonviolet

Sarah your up coming journey sounds miserable  I wish i could suggest somethign helpful but ginger to settle your tum is the best i think of. I really do thing we should have teleporters a la Star Trek by now 

Laura Welcome to WAYWO. Sorry you are having problems It sounds like you are already managing the visitors to the house situation. 
I agree with IM about play I'd be watching it carefully for a ramping up for intensity or changes in body language and distract them for a breather.

IE sounds like an eventful walk the pics were lovely. I hope this is goign to come out right. Are you using the time with the dog walker to practise recalling from other dogs , getting his focus on you around other dogs or jsut walking together?

Just got in from a 2 hour freestyle class, not a popular class around here I had a 1 to 1 again. We covered lots of things and chatted a fair bit too  the hound is sound asleep already and I wouldn't say no to a nap 


K&M sorry Molls limp isn't better


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> It's still not 'right' today- so I guess we'll be going tomorrow. My worry is the vet saying its just a sprain/pull and we get anti- inflammatories, and its something more. I've got no chance of a Chiropractor here, we haven't even got hydro.


Yes that is probably what your vet will say and he may well be correct.

Soft tissue injuries are a nightmare and can take longer to heal than a break.

I don't know what to do about Tremor either - she's been seen by two vets and my chiropractor twice. There is a newly qualified McTimoney chiropractor in the area (daughter of a friend) who used to work collies in obedience and I'm thinking of letting her have a look.


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## GingerRogers

K&M sorry molls not any better, it must be very frustrating for you when things like this happen, our friends in Brittany have similar problems when it comes to both pet and human health issues even though when they get to the bottom of things they seem to happen much faster, no 6 year waiting lists for minor ops etc

Laura sorry I don't really have any suggestions just wanted to offer support, I can only second the keeping an good eye on them, if it is just over exuberance he should soon learn to calm it down, if not then I guess Zab will soon be big enough to put him straight but I guess thats not necessarily a good thing, no you need to nip it now I think but how???

I actually got hubby out for a walk today   , we did my favourite local walk round by the reeds beds and through the avenue of oak trees, he has never been before. We actually drove and parked at the church which obviates the need to go through the housing estate and round the nearest and busier field which seemed really pointless and a bit lazy but its actually not as we found out.

Halfway round a beautiful fluffy GSD type appeared, I ducked into a field gate luckily and walked Ginge off while we waited for them to pass, I could hear hubby explaining what the nutty lady was up to, then he stopped for a chat  they were great, apparently they had gone to lead their dogs up (GSDxhusky??? I think and JRT), and they called the dogs back every time they looked like they were going to come over, we were about as far off them as we had been for the first class so a good distance but Ginge was really good, we kept moving and sniffing and she was taking some treats, my heart was going full speed but we managed it, 5 mins later just as she was a bout to go over I think as she started ignoring the treats, they walked off.

I was really impressed, hubby had thought she hadn't seen them as she didn't react but she was well aware they were there, thats the first time pretty much (apart from the strange encounter with the softie GR  still think she must have thought it was a toy) that she has seen a strange dog and not barked 

However, she was up on her toes for a lot of the rest of the walk, she was picking up on cars on the road just as we got back across the last field to the churchyard and car, then a dog ran across its back garden, ping, up she went again but still no barking, click treat, as we came through the churchyard she spotted a couple doing some grave maintenance, ping, we stopped and clicked and treated for a bit, and they got into their car, as we walked past she kicked off (little sh!t has to let herself down ) with proper get off my land barking not just gruffaloing  not a full on frenzy either though TBF 

So was it the fact that she had seen the dogs and not reacted, in the way she had been taught, which is really really great that its sinking in, but she then has some pent up frustration to let out, hence the car interest and then the people. I have noticed that sort of behaviour from her before.

Or was it my new theory that she really doesn't like old people, how does that one go.

Dog barks at random neighbour (theres lots of oldies round here)
'Oh sorry she just isn't used to old people' 
I'm not that old thinks the lady, no but you look it, well, you shuffle like one, well,  any way she doesn't like you


----------



## Canine K9

I forgot how embarrasing it is when your dog starts barking and growling at someone because he decides he doesn`t like their hat  Poor man looked shocked when he started barking and growling. I had to say "I`m very sorry but I think its your hat he doesn`t like" He looked at me as if I had a crocodile on the end of the lead!


----------



## Twiggy

I've just got back from the show. There was also a classic car show, gardening show and a GSD breed show on at the venue so there really wasn't a lot of free space....!!

I put Tremor in the ring just for a training round but really she was too high. I did my best to stop her twisting on retrieve and sendaway by throwing the article and then walking by it so that she didn't have to turn, and putting her tuggy ball at the back marker sendaway and telling her to "get it" rather than turning and dropping into the down.

Holly thinks shows are for meet and greet and have nothing whatsoever to do with paying attention to your handler or attempting any obedience exercises. I did manage to get about half a circle heelwork in a quiet corner after about 4 hours....LOL Still she had a lovely time saying hello to as many dogs and handlers as she could manage. She certainly isn't fazed, as I left her with friends she doesn't really know whilst I worked Tremor and when I returned she was playing with a young retriever..!!


----------



## LinznMilly

Wow! 1402 pages!  There are forums quieter than this thread  :thumbup:

I'm a WAYWO newbie, so don't really know the flow of convo but atm I'm working on Max's barking (or not) at every. slightest. little. thing. 

To be fair, he doesn't bark constantly, unlike a dog I had to listen to this morning :bored: but he does bark every time he hears a noise from outside/if I start talking to myself (if I make/receive a phone call)/Milly jumps off the bed and comes to see what I'm up to/walkies time/food time/someone at the door - and for a small-medium sized dog, he's got a sharp bark that's somewhere between a big dog's tone, and a small dog's yap. 

So far, I've tried treating for being quiet, along with the verbal cue, Quiet (works, but not for long), ignoring him (doesn't seem to be working at all atm), and putting him in Time Out . Once he's outside, he hardly barks at all, except when Milly's let offlead, and then it's play time, or when another dog barks at him.

I'm also working on getting him to Close the Door - just a light-hearted fun thing to get him to do, rather than just commands. He loves this, but his enthusiasm at training gets in the way of his actual learning the trick I'm aiming for  :lol:

With Milly, getting her to do a down-stay is a bit tricky :lol: She can do the Down part no problem, but once her tummy touches the lino/carpet, she sits back up expecting the treat :lol: Stay is just _not _happening so after watching Kikopup on Youtube, I've introduced a mat and am working on getting her to go to the mat and will work on getting her to Stay that way.

Not yet, but also with Milly I plan on doing some more socialisation training, as once she has a few impulses under control I think she could be a good PAT dog.


----------



## L/C

Haven't caught up as it's been an active day at chez pointy today. Hour and a half walk this morning, then half running with the bikes, then pointies settled fast asleep while OH and I biked down to Hackney to meet some friends for a drink.

We're all very tired now!

Small brag - they both recalled from chasing a fox and Gypsy recalled from chasing via cat! Since cat gate she has really had it in for the poor local moggies and there's one that insists on coming onto the field!


----------



## Dimwit

Very pleased with the little dimwit today. We went to a scent work class this morning and he did very well (apart from when he decided to have a poo in the middle of the hall) and it was even warm nod dry enough to do some outdoor searches 
I'm not feeling very well today so we missed flyball training and I have been asleep for most of the afternoon, apart from a very short walk with chuckit ball - there are times when I am very pleased to have a ball obsessed dog...


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dexter was offlead when the chickens were in the garden today for the first time. He behaved very well.


----------



## MollySmith

Okay without wishing to be rude to everyone, I am going to catch up on a few people, not everyone, simply impossible!

*Dimwit*  I hope you feel better soon. Scentwork  in our clumsy way as we dont do lessons  exhausts Molly so I hope little Dimwit let you relax whilst he snores away.

*L/C* - Well done Gypsy, thats amazing ☺

*LinznMilly * could you utilise the talking to yourself or recordings of noises and click/treat whilst he is quiet? When youre on the phone what about a kong and popping him into another room?

*Twiggy*  what a busy afternoon youve all had. It sounds like you did your best in the circumstances and its great to hear how unphased Holly is.

*Irish Eyes*  I tend to uhmm blame those reactions on other dogs, probably shouldnt but Molly would be the same as Horace despite her recent successes. It is great that he is learning from others. Molly can learn from stooge dogs and walking away and to them but not off them in a group walking. Take heart from that and also that he didnt stay over threshold as some dogs often do.

*Kat&Molly * hope it goes okay at the vet tomorrow. Ditton Tremor  Twiggy 

*Labrador Laura*  Ive never experienced this with two dogs and we now only have one so sorry, no advice Im afraid.

*MV*  how strange that its not that popular but great for you 

*GR*  I do hope ninjas hasnt acquired a thing about old people! I think it could be a build up as you think maybe? Molly used to be vigilant about one thing and Id be phew and walk on only for her to react to a leaf or something stupid. And I hate those sorts of people who have to enquire and nose about when youre doing the best you can. Its almost always when were on our own. I have an ancient cycle vest and Ive written neatly on it that we are Dog Training In Progress and I turn my back on people so they can see it. I look so attractive

*Dogless*  hope you get home safe lovely and have time to think over and collect your thoughts. Were all here for you x

Well weve been working on not looping around the garden in lunatic way. Previously on Zoom Watch, Miss Molly's zoomies where mental and result in one or both of us being nipped and sometimes rather badly. Today we aimed towards an odd zoomie that I could bring under control before the teeth come out. The result is that the garden looks nicer as we made ourselves prune lots of things  . Molly did her zoomies but she knew I had a treat bag and the clicker so I let her do her thing for a moment and when I could see her going over threshold I called her over. To my amazement she did and took her treat nicely too. We did a wait so she could collect herself and then did some ball fetching.

On the down side Molly's crush on Spen has increased, she was most interested in the video of 101 with a box


----------



## L/C

MS - well done Molly!

Dimwit - scentwork sounds great, is it the Pam McKinnon course? Hope you feel better soon.

Well Duracell pointy is the dog that just won't quit. We've done a half hour lead walk, focussing on heeling, ignoring distractions and general lead manners. And now she's Mithering me for a training session. :lol: I love her really. :001_wub:


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> MS - well done Molly!
> 
> Dimwit - scentwork sounds great, is it the Pam McKinnon course? Hope you feel better soon.
> 
> Well Duracell pointy is the dog that just won't quit. We've done a half hour lead walk, focussing on heeling, ignoring distractions and general lead manners. And now she's Mithering me for a training session. :lol: I love her really. :001_wub:


That was the other bit of news yesterday. I forgot. I got the last place (spectator only dont panic) on a Pam scentwork day at my trainers. Not till September but still very much looking forward to it. It will be our/my gotcha day treat.

Well done pointies


----------



## Beth17

L/C who said pointies were lazy 

MS well done on zoom watch 

Twiggy sounds like a hectic afternoon. Bless Holly mingling.

K&M I hope Moll hasn't done anything too major 

Ginge well done for getting hubby out for a walk and to the ginger one for not barking at the dog. Hopefully the old person issue is a brief one. Oscar gets funny when he sees lone people in the field. I have to watch him as he postures and tries to make himself look bigger 

Sam has decided he doesn't like the light fixtures again  I gave him his first ever bath earlier which he wasn't too impressed with. He smells lovely now though.


----------



## purpleskyes

Another successful walk with the long line and tennis ball. Although a little Tibetan spaniel went to attack Hudson I don't know why but it always seem to be little dogs that go at him. All I can say is they are very lucky he has no interest in being aggressive back.


----------



## Labrador Laura

Izzysmummy said:


> Hmm, if Mylo's drawing blood then it sounds like he's being too rough! Does Zab yelp and back off when Mylo draws blood? Sorry for all the questions, just trying to get a picture of whats happening in my head .
> 
> I would probably just suggest separating them when the play gets too rough, making sure all play is supervised and intervening if it starts getting too exciting or one-sided. Keep an eye on Mylo and try and anticipate any reaction from him and step in before he feels the need to tell Zab off? Sorry I'm not sure if this will be of any help if Mylo seems to change his mind so quickly? Hopefully some other people will have some suggestions!


The only time they play is out on walks and it's when Mylo gets excited over something and it's the only time he wants to be with Zab. Mylo loves being chased and will play growl as he's running but after a few minutes he turns on Zab.... he so confusing. Mylo is easy to read but his behaviour is odd at times. Like I said he's never attacked another dog but he'll push and push a dog until they attack him, of course he's kept on the lead at all times and meetings with other dogs is controlled but once he's met a dog and got over the hello, he's like a puppy and wants to play/chase but he's never gone for another dog whilst playing other than Zab.



moonviolet said:


> Sarah your up coming journey sounds miserable  I wish i could suggest somethign helpful but ginger to settle your tum is the best i think of. I really do thing we should have teleporters a la Star Trek by now
> 
> Laura Welcome to WAYWO. Sorry you are having problems It sounds like you are already managing the visitors to the house situation.
> I agree with IM about play I'd be watching it carefully for a ramping up for intensity or changes in body language and distract them for a breather.


I was videoing them the other day as wanted to show OH, Zab is chasing Mylo which Mylo started and this went on for a few minutes and everything was fine but I noticed a look that Mylo gave Zab before going for him so I need to watch out for that. I don't want to stop this play as this is the only time they interact and Mylo ALWAYS comes to Zab, I never let Zab off to bother Mylo. It's all on Mylo terms 



GingerRogers said:


> Laura sorry I don't really have any suggestions just wanted to offer support, I can only second the keeping an good eye on them, if it is just over exuberance he should soon learn to calm it down, if not then I guess Zab will soon be big enough to put him straight but I guess thats not necessarily a good thing, no you need to nip it now I think but how???


That's something I don't want, Zab putting Mylo in his place as I know it will start a fight! Mylo is intact and sadly he's not fully mine so I can't take him to the vets and get him done, but Zab will be done once he's hit the right age.


----------



## moonviolet

purpleskyes said:


> Although a little Tibetan spaniel went to attack Hudson I don't know why but it always seem to be little dogs that go at him. All I can say is they are very lucky he has no interest in being aggressive back.


AKita's can look a little like they are posturing when they aren't due to their natural stance and comformation, if you aren't already you can help him diffuse things by encouraging and rewarding calming signals breaking eye contact. lip licking etc.


----------



## Dimwit

*MS* Thanks, am feeling a bit better now, dimwit is actually very good when I am ill so he has just spent most of the day cuddled up on the sofa with me. Sounds like Molly is doing very well now

*LC* It wasn't a Pam Mackinnon course today, though we are working through them (doing scent 2 the week after next). But the classes are run by someone who has done all of the TD courses so run in much the same way. It's great for me because I have to practise on my own at home so it's nice to have someone else hiding the objects so me and dimwit have to work together. Plus he loves it 

*GR* I am sure you will enjoy spectating - it's really interesting to watch how different dogs search!


----------



## Sarah1983

Mylo sounds like a dog I've walked Spen with a couple of times. He did the same sort of thing to Spencer a couple of times before either of us could intervene. Spen decided to stand up for himself and tell the other dog to knock it off and they were fine after that. He was just a bully, pure and simple. He does it to other dogs too and if they tell him off he's fine, if they don't he escalates it. I know he's really frightened and even injured some dogs.

I wasn't aware of this behaviour before we met by the way, it's not something I'd have knowingly subjected Spen to. It doesn't matter how often his owner intervenes either, unless it's the other dog telling him off it makes no difference.

Sorry, I know that's not much help to you


----------



## Thorne

LabradorLaura -Not sure I can offer you any advice  but welcome to the mammoth thread of WAYWO, hope someone can be a bit more helpful than I am!

Sarah -Good luck with the journey to the UK when it comes

ItsonlyChris -Glad that it's going well getting Blue used to cars, my Breeze used to be petrified of traffic but months of hard work and patience have paid off, she seldom worries these days 

IrishEyes -Would love to see photos! Great to hear that you both had a positive walk.

Kat -How is Molly's leg tonight? Hope it's a little better, poor girl.

MV -Being nosey here, what did you get up to in your freestyle class? Sounds like it went well!

GR -Pleased for you that Ginge didn't react to the GSD, shame about the couple but 1 out of 2 isn't bad!

K9 -I wonder what it is about hats? They seem to be a common worry among lots of dogs I've worked with!  Woe betide anyone who puts a crash helmet on near Scooter, even I get barked at when I put mine on 

Twiggy -Glad you all had a good time at the show, especially cheeky Holly.

LinznMilly -Welcome! I can sympathise regarding excitement trumping achievement, good luck!

L/C Well done pointies, brilliant recalls  

Dimwit -Our Collie used to pee at training class every week without fail  Hope you're feeling better, I'm sure the dimwit didn't mind skipping flyball today. 

KFK -Good boy Dexter!

MollyS -Sounds like good progress with zoomy Molly, hope you're going to monitor her internet usage now she's decided she fancies Spen though, next thing you know she'll be booking flights to Germany!

Beth -I have a lovely image of Sam sulking away in the bath.

Purpleskyes -Shame about the spaniel, but pleased to hear Hudson wasn't bothered. 

Had a lovely walk with my lumpy numpty Labs - lumpy because Scooter has developed a small hard lump on his nose, think it's probably a sebaceous cyst - Breeze was unusually enthusiastic! She lagged a bit to start with but I didn't see any lip-licking at all, and she had a lovely time sniffing and sprinting around. Good focus from Scooter too, he was keen to be out but not excited beyond the point of sanity. My little superstars today.
They've been outside "helping" with gardening most of today, and Scooter's been in and out of his toy box for things to show off when he wanted a bit of attention, bless. 

Not looking forward to work tomorrow knowing Lola (another hat-hater now I think of it!) won't be there. Hopefully the litter of 3 week old kittens will have come in as planned for us all to coo over.


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## purpleskyes

moonviolet said:


> AKita's can look a little like they are posturing when they aren't due to their natural stance and comformation, if you aren't already you can help him diffuse things by encouraging and rewarding calming signals breaking eye contact. lip licking etc.


He didnt even look at this dog it ran at him from the side :/


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## moonviolet

purpleskyes said:


> He didnt even look at this dog it ran at him from the side :/


Well the best you can do then is body block and direct it back to it's owners i guess. What was Hudson doing at the time ( just interested) Some dogs dont' need any provocation but it's worth making a note of what your dog was doing too as you may see pattern.

Another thing that can help dropping a few treats so he ground sniffs can also break tension.


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## sharloid

Quick question:

I'm just starting to use the clicker and I'm training that click = treat. How will I know when they're making the connection and I can move on to the next step?


----------



## Labrador Laura

Sarah1983 said:


> Mylo sounds like a dog I've walked Spen with a couple of times. He did the same sort of thing to Spencer a couple of times before either of us could intervene. Spen decided to stand up for himself and tell the other dog to knock it off and they were fine after that. He was just a bully, pure and simple. He does it to other dogs too and if they tell him off he's fine, if they don't he escalates it. I know he's really frightened and even injured some dogs.
> 
> I wasn't aware of this behaviour before we met by the way, it's not something I'd have knowingly subjected Spen to. It doesn't matter how often his owner intervenes either, unless it's the other dog telling him off it makes no difference.
> 
> Sorry, I know that's not much help to you


I wouldn't say Mylo is a bully, he's just rude. But I can see how he sound like one with Zab but other dogs he isn't like this. But if Mylo does push it with another dog and they have a go Mylo doesn't fight back he freezes and backs off. But this may be different with Zab as they live together, but if Mylo was being aggressive towards Zab things would be far worse. He doesn't attack for no reason, it when their over excited.

My grandma has 3 dogs and 2 of them ignore each other and never interact with each other, which I find really sad and don't want my boys to be like that.


----------



## purpleskyes

moonviolet said:


> Well the best you can do then is body block and direct it back to it's owners i guess. What was Hudson doing at the time ( just interested) Some dogs dont' need any provocation but it's worth making a note of what your dog was doing too as you may see pattern.
> 
> Another thing that can help dropping a few treats so he ground sniffs can also break tension.


He was just walking along beside us on the lead? The owner of the little dog ran straight over, said sorry and put it on the lead.

Hudson is usually quite good with greeting other dogs he will either go into a play how or lay down until they approach him.

The treat thing is a good idea.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dimwit said:


> *GR* I am sure you will enjoy spectating - it's really interesting to watch how different dogs search!


Glad you are feeling better. I am sure it is interesting Ginge is a ground sniffer and even though she knows things can be up high it takes her ages to work it out sometimes. I would hope the course might help focus and direct it without pointing. Hey there stylee



sharloid said:


> Quick question:
> 
> I'm just starting to use the clicker and I'm training that click = treat. How will I know when they're making the connection and I can move on to the next step?


you should just know. Ginge doesn't often turn for the treat. Often praise is all she gets, not through my choice but i still know she has clocked it. Watch them they should spun round and go hey here treat please but even if not you should see a sign they heard and can yes use touch or voice.


----------



## LinznMilly

MollySmith said:


> *LinznMilly * could you utilise the talking to yourself or recordings of noises and click/treat whilst he is quiet? When youre on the phone what about a kong and popping him into another room?


Good ideas and a couple of things I hadn't thought of. Sadly he's not fooled by recordings - he knows the difference between someone passing outside, and someone talking on the TV. Likewise when I have my mobile on loudspeaker, he knows the person's not really here.

I could try using the kong when making a phone call (that's what I meant by talking to myself, although I probably am in the habit of verbally running through a list of things to do/threatening to throw the computer out of the window etc) but it's more when I answer the phone.

To be fair to Max, he hasn't been too bad today. a group of people walked past the window this morning and I've made/received a couple of phone calls for various reasons and he hasn't barked at any of them. Maybe ignoring him is beginning to work, after all.



Thorne said:


> LinznMilly -Welcome! I can sympathise regarding excitement trumping achievement, good luck!


Thanks. I took a step back and went back to holding the treat against the door, and saying Close The Door whilst he pushed the door shut with his paws, focussed on the treat. That's working for him atm. Maybe I pushed him on too soon.


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne my class today.

We started warming up with a bit of offlead heelwork both sides, various speeds gentle turns tight turns etc then started adding in spins/twists leg weaves foot taps etc stringing a few moves together without stopping seeing what feels natural. 

we also talked about the music i'm using and the special lyric related things i could include and I have come home with a bit of a challenge with a complex retrieve... then we digressed for a while and had a general doggie chat and a bit of gossip :lol:

We got back on track with a tightening up of jumping through arms, over legs, through legs with one bent knee ( that challenged my poor balance a bit ).. then another little break as we talked about tailoring your routine for your dog and not all things being suitable for all dogs. For instance Tink doesn't feel comfortable rolling over in public, so i'd never push her. She's not a dog that naturally spends a lot of time on her back legs and being rather chest heavy it would put a lot of strain on her back end etc.

We finished with walking backwards through legs from distance then plays cuddles and tidying up


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> Quick question:
> 
> I'm just starting to use the clicker and I'm training that click = treat. How will I know when they're making the connection and I can move on to the next step?


They should look expectant when they hear the click.


----------



## LinznMilly

L/C said:


> Haven't caught up as it's been an active day at chez pointy today. Hour and a half walk this morning, then half running with the bikes, then pointies settled fast asleep while OH and I biked down to Hackney to meet some friends for a drink.
> 
> We're all very tired now!
> 
> Small brag - they both recalled from chasing a fox and Gypsy recalled from chasing via cat! Since cat gate she has really had it in for the poor local moggies and there's one that insists on coming onto the field!


Sounds like a very good day was had by all. Well done on getting them to recall from a fox. Re cats: I sympathise. Both of mine hate cats - Milly moreso than Max, but you'd be forgiven for thinking WW3 had started if you heard my 2.  Well done on getting Gypsie to recall from one.



Dimwit said:


> Very pleased with the little dimwit today. We went to a scent work class this morning and he did very well (apart from when he decided to have a poo in the middle of the hall) and it was even warm nod dry enough to do some outdoor searches
> I'm not feeling very well today so we missed flyball training and I have been asleep for most of the afternoon, apart from a very short walk with chuckit ball - there are times when I am very pleased to have a ball obsessed dog...





Kicksforkills said:


> Dexter was offlead when the chickens were in the garden today for the first time. He behaved very well.


Just catching up with this thread. Well done Dex and KFK. :thumbup:



L/C said:


> MS - well done Molly!
> 
> Dimwit - scentwork sounds great, is it the Pam McKinnon course? Hope you feel better soon.
> 
> *Well Duracell pointy is the dog that just won't quit. We've done a half hour lead walk, focussing on heeling, ignoring distractions and general lead manners. And now she's Mithering me for a training session. :lol: I love her really*. :001_wub:


Sounds like Milly :lol: I don't know what your dog does to get your attention/mithering you for what she wants, but Milly's perfected the art of boring a hole through my head with her eyes, which I just cannot ignore.


----------



## sharloid

Sarah1983 said:


> They should look expectant when they hear the click.


But they know I've got treats, they look expectant any way!


----------



## Sarah1983

LinznMilly said:


> I don't know what your dog does to get your attention/mithering you for what she wants, but Milly's perfected the art of boring a hole through my head with her eyes, which I just cannot ignore.


Spencer does this. He'll start out about 6ft away and if I pretend not to notice him he'll move closer and closer, still staring. If I insist on not noticing I end up with him in my lap. He can be very persistent when he wants his training sessions. :001_unsure: That tends to be the only thing he mithers me for though so I suppose I shouldn't complain really.


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> But they know I've got treats, they look expectant any way!


Try clicking when they're not expecting it (not when they're engrossed in something but just lying quietly or something) and see what response you get. Obviously give them a treat no matter what the response but if they look up expectantly you're ready to move on


----------



## GingerRogers

Try not to let them think they are theirs. Keep them in a pocket or such. Hand staying away.ie dont keep the hand in the pocket/hovering over the treat bag. J liked the thing i read recently about clicking being a four beat thing click; pause; get treat; give; the pause being the bit where they have the time ti work out why. Move onto only giving treats if they do something. You might find they start offering behaviors straight off.


----------



## sharloid

Sarah1983 said:


> Try clicking when they're not expecting it (not when they're engrossed in something but just lying quietly or something) and see what response you get. Obviously give them a treat no matter what the response but if they look up expectantly you're ready to move on





GingerRogers said:


> Try not to let them think they are theirs. Keep them in a pocket or such. Hand staying away.ie dont keep the hand in the pocket/hovering over the treat bag. J liked the thing i read recently about clicking being a four beat thing click; pause; get treat; give; the pause being the bit where they have the time ti work out why. Move onto only giving treats if they do something. You might find they start offering behaviors straight off.


Ah but 'When Pigs Fly' states that one this exercise I have to give the treat within half a second of clicking! 

I could click whilst Broder is resting on the setee but I doubt he'd get up if all he is expecting is a treat. We'll see.


----------



## Sarah1983

sharloid said:


> Ah but 'When Pigs Fly' states that one this exercise I have to give the treat within half a second of clicking!
> 
> I could click whilst Broder is resting on the setee but I doubt he'd get up if all he is expecting is a treat. We'll see.


Bloody hell, I'm not sure my dog has ever had a treat within half a second of me clicking lol. Seriously, it won't undo everything if it takes you a couple of seconds to get a treat to them when you try clicking when they're not expecting it  He doesn't need to get up, just show a bit of interest.


----------



## moonviolet

Sharloid what happens if you prolong the time between clicking?


----------



## Dogless

Back at 0330, up 0630. Hungry ridgies. Now snoozing ridgies . Nice to have life back to normal . Erm, to keep it work relevant and not just chat today we'll not be working on anything bar recovering I don't think .

Sarah - having just done a drive of that length then I don't envy you if you don't travel well, awful .

Twiggy - I love HB the socialite - can picture her greeting everyone!!


----------



## Dogless

The irony of the past week struck me yesterday - saw loads of dogs on our various stops....Kilo couldn't have cared less. Went with a small drama really to check I was on the right track and gain tools for finally getting there (which we did work through) and left with a different drama .


----------



## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> Glad you are feeling better. I am sure it is interesting Ginge is a ground sniffer and even though she knows things can be up high it takes her ages to work it out sometimes. I would hope the course might help focus and direct it without pointing. Hey there stylee


Sprocket is too - and he is so close to the ground it is easy for him to just wander along with his nose on the ground  He is starting to realise now that things may be higher up but he still occasionally needs to be reminded...


----------



## IrishEyes

Thorne, I'll post them here as they have been buried very quickly. I hope that everyone has a good day!


----------



## kat&molly

MV- sounds like class was good fun yesterday, how nice to have all the lesson for you and Tink.

Take it easy today Dogless- I'm sure the boys will.That was some journey.

Ginge- A scent day as well now, not jealous again. You should all speak to these instructors and tell them to spread their wings a bit-in my direction.
I've always found anything health related for people to be brilliant. I had a little lump come up under a small mole on my face not long ago- it was dealt with quickly. Only thing was they sent me to a clinic for Sexually Transmitted Diseases to have it removed. I went in with a limp.:lol:
There are some decent vets as well- its just finding them.


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

Dogless said:


> Back at 0330, up 0630. Hungry ridgies. Now snoozing ridgies . Nice to have life back to normal . Erm, to keep it work relevant and not just chat today we'll not be working on anything bar recovering I don't think .
> 
> Sarah - having just done a drive of that length then I don't envy you if you don't travel well, awful .
> 
> Twiggy - I love HB the socialite - can picture her greeting everyone!!


you wrote...I DONT THINK...refering to you dont think you are working on anything !!!

WELL I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU ! 
excuse me using capitals i am trying to STRESS things and UNDER STRESS generally myself i add but there are 2 explanations to using capitals even 3 i learnt yesterday it is SHOUTING well that is 1 of 3 actual possibilities i say..

just when we DONT think we wre working on anything is exactly when we ARE working !!

jaja !!! i will give example in a minute but...it is the UNCONSCIOUS working in our daily just ordinary lives every minute we are THINKING and doing things our dogs pick up on !!

so we are WORKING ! they are LEARNING ! We are learning !!

and yesterday weekend i went out...in fields of COURSE but also due to Sunday got dressed up in my Sunday best meaning i put a nice colourful jacket on and went to a local bar, village square and a few shops open on sundays like cake shops and farmer chcken mobile van sellers...

and i realised ! just how many orders my dogs know ! i am lazy i let my dogs wander in front on long leads to comply with the local laws here but i hvae to TELL them where to turn etc obviously as they are in front of me ! so they do it and even at the end when i was getting a REFUSAL to head back home from my stubborn dog by her sitting down again...ok next to the farmer chcken smelling nice van who had sold out i add ...so i said the words MOO MOO COWS meaning the farm where they are and SHE GOT UP AND WALKED OFF at once in that direction no probs ! of course i add to her cows are her responsibility so that MOTIVATES her she may think oh dear we have been away a while time to go see what is going on there...

and you have a RIDGE ? the ridgbacks ? i see word ridge in your post well we WORKED on RIDGES yesterday ja too ! now just now another WORKED on this morning with a SHAR PEI ! oh ja my MALE dog has a THING with BIG MALES he is a BIG MALE himself...the little yorkie in its usual FURY lunging to attack him as we were in the building i add was no prob...nor the little chichi loose off lead yesterday as we came back on the road in the field...but the RIDGE and SHARPEI ???? ooh lala !

my dog was ON LEAD...relevant...That makes him more likely to be dog aggressive like most dogs i add

the SHAR PEI and RIDGE were OFF LEADS !!! sCCCHHHH ! illegal i know but...

the RIDGE wanted to be friendly...came TOO CLOSE up to my dogs face ! owner did tell it to come back but it decided to take its time and didnt obey at once i add it rolled on its back happily to its owner afterwards and i called out dont tell him off its all ok ..i was busy telling MY dog off i add for his LUNGING at the ridge of course ...the Sharpei this morning off lead with its owner did not try and investigate my dog so my dog calmed down faster with another reprimand verbally from me and my hand raised meaning WATCH OUT ! i am getting IRRITATED ! shut up even ! barks!!! my1 of 2 dogs is more a barker by nature more than attack outright of course like all dogs mostly i think...

anyway just to say !!! YOU ARE REALLY WORKING ! you just arent doing it consciously !!!!

oh i DO ramble hey ! but IF you find time to read then share the points i am making ! you are working on things yes ! without doing it formally !

that goes for all of us

i add this thinking to myself if my BITCH the STUBBORN dog thinks or sees me about to do any FORMAL TRAINING of her ? it is CURTAINS ! if i just give her orders as we wander around not making a big thing of it ? no problem !

just like some humans for that hey ? lol


----------



## kat&molly

Labrador Laura said:


> I wouldn't say Mylo is a bully, he's just rude. But I can see how he sound like one with Zab but other dogs he isn't like this. But if Mylo does push it with another dog and they have a go Mylo doesn't fight back he freezes and backs off. But this may be different with Zab as they live together, but if Mylo was being aggressive towards Zab things would be far worse. He doesn't attack for no reason, it when their over excited.
> 
> My grandma has 3 dogs and 2 of them ignore each other and never interact with each other, which I find really sad and don't want my boys to be like that.


L Laura- Sorry I havn't read everything but that last bit;you cant force a bond with the boys. 2 of my girls don't interact[Jay and Scruff] but that's fine by me as it doesn't cause any problems. I prefer harmony and anything above that is a huge bonus.

Irish Eyes- I love Horace he always looks so happy and goofy.


----------



## Dogless

Love the Horace photos .


----------



## IrishEyes

kat&molly said:


> L Laura- Sorry I havn't read everything but that last bit;you cant force a bond with the boys. 2 of my girls don't interact[Jay and Scruff] but that's fine by me as it doesn't cause any problems. I prefer harmony and anything above that is a huge bonus.
> 
> Irish Eyes- I love Horace he always looks so happy and *goofy*.


I shan't tell him you said that! 

I agree with Kat, you can't force a bond between them, it will either happen or it won't.. perhaps over time it will happen naturally.


----------



## Kicksforkills

We were thinking Dexter would be good at Flyball when he's older since he brings his little tennis balls back to us for ages. 

Taught him sit.

Can't wait til Obiedence starts on the 23rd so that I can teach him stay and then afterwards think about letting him offlead. I don't want to teach him sit at these classes so will ask if I can use stand instead as he is already not standing after a sit so have stopped getting him to sit now and practicing stand down the field, when he's distracted, etc. Would like to have a very reliable 'here' when he's off lead and running over to a dog in case I know it plays too rough with him or I don't know it.

Ordered him a show lead and a collar the same as the one he's using now which is borrowed from his breeder.

Also looking forward to his puppy pre-agility on the 15th. Going to do all the sessions, twice a month, for as long as he can, which is ten months, when they stop doing it.I have to take his innoculation certificate from his puppy pack when I go.

Down the field he is good at 'here' and 'this way' though he does run with the other dogs then get a bit disappointed when he comes to the end of his Flexi.

Thinking about taking them all to Virginia Water on Saturday morning and then bathing etc ready for the show on Sunday. This'll give him a big positive experience and I just mean a short walk.

Agility with Rasco today in a few hours.


----------



## Labrador Laura

kat&molly said:


> L Laura- Sorry I havn't read everything but that last bit;you cant force a bond with the boys. 2 of my girls don't interact[Jay and Scruff] but that's fine by me as it doesn't cause any problems. I prefer harmony and anything above that is a huge bonus.


I know it can't be forced and they will never to forced to interact, it's just hard to watch at times  They both love being with other dogs and I know Mylo does want to play with Zab it's like he can't drop the 'tough guy' act infront of Zab so he just plays it cool.

I don't mind if they never interact aslong as it peaceful and no fights !


----------



## Beth17

Sharloid when the boys focus on the treats in my pocket I simply keep my hand away and wait for eye contact and then they get the treat. It does sink in eventually. I also do the 4 beats thing from the 'fired up, frantic' book and hasn't affected their enthusiasm or confused them.

Dogless hope you and the CHs have a nice relaxing day 

mv your classes sounds so much fun!

Lab Laura unfortunately sometimes the bond just isn't there. Give it time though and maybe stick to onlead potters with them both to keep excitement down and build the bond.

K&M and Twiggy hope the girls legs are better today.

Sam is really good at touch now and will jump up to hit my hand with his nose. Oscar just sits there and stretches his neck if he can be bothered. I think he's a bit stuck in his ways


----------



## MollySmith

Irish Eyes - love Horace's photos too, he's such a lovely fella.

Dogless - glad to here you're back safe and sound, a quiet day sound like a great idea.

Blimey, what's next Dexter for world domination? 

Off to meet Pommy at the downs today, he's the ridge/greyhound X. And Ralph the staffy lab x too. We have a vaguely informal 'date' on a Monday as it's usually quiet and they get to tear up the field. I'll try to get some photos as Pommy is a gorgeous chap.

Oh and the return of the kong air balls and the lobber seem to have stopped the ball theft. Squeaking things tempt her away as her other balls were boring.


----------



## Beth17

Lab Laura just a thought; I wonder if it's worth treating Mylo for any nice/appropriate behaviour you see when he's around Zab just to try and build up positive interactions?


----------



## IrishEyes

MollySmith said:


> Irish Eyes - love Horace's photos too, he's such a lovely fella.
> 
> Oh and the return of the kong air balls and the lobber seem to have stopped the ball theft. Squeaking things tempt her away as her other balls were boring.


Thanks Molly.

I keep meaning to buy some kong balls as Horace is really getting into balls now and I just know that if it squeaked as it flew through the end, that would be so much more fun for him!


----------



## Labrador Laura

Beth17 said:


> Lab Laura just a thought; I wonder if it's worth treating Mylo for any nice/appropriate behaviour you see when he's around Zab just to try and build up positive interactions?


We are already doing this, even if he sniff him and wags his tail we praise him.
And if he allows Zab to sniff back we again praise him, we have gotten far in that case as before he would show his teeth every time Zab would sniff him now he just gives me a 'help' look but no teeth showing 

And I really praise Mylo when we are walking back home as this is when Mylo is really interested in Zab and kisses him the whole way home.


----------



## Dogless

IrishEyes said:


> Thanks Molly.
> 
> I keep meaning to buy some kong balls as Horace is really getting into balls now and I just know that if it squeaked as it flew through the end, that would be so much more fun for him!


He'd love Chuckit Whistler balls then...they're fab!!


----------



## IrishEyes

Dogless said:


> He'd love Chuckit Whistler balls then...they're fab!!


£9 for a pack of two  That's expensive! He probably would love them though.. I shall save them onto my things to buy for dog list... he'd better not loose them though!


----------



## MollySmith

IrishEyes said:


> £9 for a pack of two  That's expensive! He probably would love them though.. I shall save them onto my things to buy for dog list... he'd better not loose them though!


Molly is a bit 'meh' about hers, I was surprised, I thought she'd like them more. The only problem with kong air is that the furry coating gets pulled off, once there is a loose thread then Molly can't resist.

Love the Zoomies in snow pics Dogless


----------



## IrishEyes

MollySmith said:


> Love the Zoomies in snow pics Dogless


Have I missed these?


----------



## Kicksforkills

MollySmith said:


> Irish Eyes - love Horace's photos too, he's such a lovely fella.
> 
> Dogless - glad to here you're back safe and sound, a quiet day sound like a great idea.
> 
> Blimey, what's next Dexter for world domination?
> 
> Off to meet Pommy at the downs today, he's the ridge/greyhound X. And Ralph the staffy lab x too. We have a vaguely informal 'date' on a Monday as it's usually quiet and they get to tear up the field. I'll try to get some photos as Pommy is a gorgeous chap.
> 
> Oh and the return of the kong air balls and the lobber seem to have stopped the ball theft. Squeaking things tempt her away as her other balls were boring.


Depends.

Do you know any World Domination for Dogs classes in or around Surrey? What are the costs?


----------



## Dogless

IrishEyes said:


> Have I missed these?


Just posted them, MS was quick off the mark!! .


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Love the Zoomies in snow pics Dogless


That was the day before things got complicated  .


----------



## MollySmith

Kicksforkills said:


> Depends.
> 
> Do you know any World Domination for Dogs classes in or around Surrey? What are the costs?


Sadly not!  I reckon this thread should make a bid for starting one!


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> That was the day before things got complicated  .


I being a bit quick off the mark, I'm about to get a coffee and done some work for a client... or maybe look at that thread again 

How are you feeling today Dogless? I bet your head must be swimming with stuff about the last few days. Does it feel like it's making any sense today now you're home?


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I being a bit quick off the mark, I'm about to get a coffee and done some work for a client... or maybe look at that thread again
> 
> How are you feeling today Dogless? I bet your head must be swimming with stuff about the last few days. Does it feel like it's making any sense today now you're home?


I'm mostly knackered, on 2 1/2 hours' sleep but my head is swimming still. Things make sense and in the next second don't if you know what I'm driving at? !! The boys are absolutely fast asleep and poor Kilo is making his relaxed sleepy noises again, love him. He must have been so stressed . Think for the first time in their lives (apart from when Kilo has been ill) I'll not take them out today. They have had so much walking, exercise, work, travel over the past few days that it's really taken it out of them. I'm enjoying snuggles.

Hubby will try and nip out of work to see us....that will create chaos out of calm  .


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I'm mostly knackered, on 2 1/2 hours' sleep but my head is swimming still. Things make sense and in the next second don't if you know what I'm driving at? !! The boys are absolutely fast asleep and poor Kilo is making his relaxed sleepy noises again, love him. He must have been so stressed . Think for the first time in their lives (apart from when Kilo has been ill) I'll not take them out today. They have had so much walking, exercise, work, travel over the past few days that it's really taken it out of them. I'm enjoying snuggles.
> 
> Hubby will try and nip out of work to see us....that will create chaos out of calm  .


Totally, I wish I could give you a huge hug  You've been through so much.

I can't equate my experiences with Molly to you but I recall when the first trainer came to our house as Molly was driving us mad and we were utterly out of our depth so we thought and felt it was a massive mistake. It's heart rending and we placed so much faith in this person. I think my OH was at the end of his patience and I was devastated, I can't tell you how close we came to taking her back to rescue - there's massive range of emotions to hard to articulate isn't there? In the end we refused to even though this trainer had said that was the best thing.

It took another two months before we found solutions with Cath, our trainer we have now. It's not on the level that you have with Kilo, it must have been a huge shock but what I have learnt is trust your instinct. I had a notion that we could work with Molly and an instinct that this trainer wasn't right for us. Cath was better and made us see that we weren't daft.

I don't think that Angela was wrong, I have no opinion I wasn't there but don't forget all that _you_ know. It's worth an awful lot. I'm not a dog trainer and muddle on through as best as I can but I place an awful lot of faith on love and the good times that Molly gives us even when we were in despair. It got us through x


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Totally, I wish I could give you a huge hug  You've been through so much.
> 
> I can't equate my experiences with Molly to you but I recall when the first trainer came to our house as Molly was driving us mad and we were utterly out of our depth so we thought and felt it was a massive mistake. It's heart rending and we placed so much faith in this person. I think my OH was at the end of his patience and I was devastated, I can't tell you how close we came to taking her back to rescue - there's massive range of emotions to hard to articulate isn't there? In the end we refused to even though this trainer had said that was the best thing.
> 
> It took another two months before we found solutions with Cath, our trainer we have now. It's not on the level that you have with Kilo, it must have been a huge shock but what I have learnt is trust your instinct. I had a notion that we could work with Molly and an instinct that this trainer wasn't right for us. Cath was better and made us see that we weren't daft.
> 
> I don't think that Angela was wrong, I have no opinion I wasn't there but don't forget all that _you_ know. It's worth an awful lot. I'm not a dog trainer and muddle on through as best as I can but I place an awful lot of faith on love and the good times that Molly gives us even when we were in despair. It got us through x


Sounds as if you understand perfectly. I now realise I catastrophised as ever . I think Angela did an awful lot with us that made perfect sense and she did understand most aspects of Kilo and Rudi.


----------



## LinznMilly

No training for Milly today as she's got a really bad upset tummy. I've wormed her in case it's that, as it is a week or so overdue, but she's not interested in treats atm anyway 

Max has been good RE not barking at phone calls so far today, but he did still bark as I came in and all throughout Milly's worming treatment .

ETA: And at passers by.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless - Bet you cant wait to see him? I know I would be wanting a great big enormous hug if I were you! Hope he makes it even for a quick visit. Enjoy today and don't fret, I will say the same again, I really don't think anything has changed, you will continue to manage the boys in the same way you always have, brilliantly 

Oh and I love Rudi's collar the collar looks fab!  ETA 'colour' the colour looks fab! 

These balls you are all talking about, do they actually whistle as they go through the air?? I had a little google but couldn't find a definitive answer. I see they do come in different sizes though are the small smaller than a normal tennis ball as I think they are a little big for Ginge, I know Buffer manages them, in fact Buffer dies if he doesn't have one nearby  but she looks like she struggles getting her little mouth around a standard size. 

We had a nice little training walk outside the house today. There was a lady asking to be barked at but missy managed to control her urges, she was older but she wasn't shuffling, she just kept stopping and staring around her, and walking of in the other direction and then coming back again  not sure what she was up to, but 'someone' thought it was no good , then a man came past but he didn't shuffle either and kept his hands in his pockets so no bags or sticks, so all good.

Then she spotted a family walking along the next road. With a dog  she looked at it/them so we clicked and treated some then she darted off to try and sniff the tree, I watched some more but it was clear they were coming our way so we called it a day. She went straight out the back and dug a big hole.

So sniffing and digging are her go to displacement behaviors methinks. Its good progress though, as she is learning to do other things than bark, but its also a bit sad that stuff clearly upsets her in some way .

But the dog :001_wub:, I took a look out the front window as it passed, it was the little beagle pup she barked at on our very first vet visit, he isn't so little any more but now a very handsome devil, I think Tink might like :yesnod:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - Bet you cant wait to see him? I know I would be wanting a great big enormous hug if I were you! Hope he makes it even for a quick visit. Enjoy today and don't fret, I will say the same again, I really don't think anything has changed, you will continue to manage the boys in the same way you always have, brilliantly
> 
> Oh and I love Rudi's collar the collar looks fab!  ETA 'colour' the colour looks fab!
> 
> These balls you are all talking about, do they actually whistle as they go through the air?? I had a little google but couldn't find a definitive answer. I see they do come in different sizes though are the small smaller than a normal tennis ball as I think they are a little big for Ginge, I know Buffer manages them, in fact Buffer dies if he doesn't have one nearby  but she looks like she struggles getting her little mouth around a standard size.
> 
> We had a nice little training walk outside the house today. There was a lady asking to be barked at but missy managed to control her urges, she was older but she wasn't shuffling, she just kept stopping and staring around her, and walking of in the other direction and then coming back again  not sure what she was up to, but 'someone' thought it was no good , then a man came past but he didn't shuffle either and kept his hands in his pockets so no bags or sticks, so all good.
> 
> Then she spotted a family walking along the next road. With a dog  she looked at it/them so we clicked and treated some then she darted off to try and sniff the tree, I watched some more but it was clear they were coming our way so we called it a day. She went straight out the back and dug a big hole.
> 
> So sniffing and digging are her go to displacement behaviors methinks. Its good progress though, as she is learning to do other things than bark, but its also a bit sad that stuff clearly upsets her in some way .
> 
> But the dog :001_wub:, I took a look out the front window as it passed, it was the little beagle pup she barked at on our very first vet visit, he isn't so little any more but now a very handsome devil, I think Tink might like :yesnod:


Not sure what size the small balls are, mediums are about the size of a normal tennis ball. They make a great noise and bounce, plus withstand a good chew....

You and the Ninja really are on a roll, really making progress now.


----------



## FEJA JUODAS

i am working on...phoning the few people i know in france in dogworld sent smses after hearing from chap i bought eggs fro m that does not sell them since months he told me that his 2 hunting dogs who were in garden were recently killed by adolescent boys who at 1am in the morning threw poison bombs or something into the garden...dogs died next day in spite of vet visit done then

parents paid money to chap who bought new young hunting dog i was petting very nervous dog barking at me she was from the rescue had been badly beaten by previous owners who abandoned her

sigh

the warning is ? is that dogs in gardens even are not safe from terrorists like this i said to man the kids needed a whipping one day whebn older they may attack an old lady or man out in the streets alone at night they are cruel sadistic adolescents who know in secret they can torture kill defenseless animals unable to defend themselves against such vile behaviour and attitudes

sigh

have a few calls to make

no eggs sold anymore anyway i learnt so to shops...prefer farm eggs myself...must have been stopped due to laws about selling sigh...such redtape for such simple things hey...no wonder we pay more for eggs from shops if so many handle them before you get them !

people, kids can be cruel...to animals...and they need SUPERVISION ! what were they doint out at 1am ? BAN them from going out ! why are kids adolescents not in BED at that time of night ? told they should NOT go out but sleep ? strewth i have no kids but the lack of DISCIPLINE means 2 dogs got killed in a bad way and it makes my blood boil. Take care. in gardens no dogs are safe even in good areas. in case anyone thinks it matters which type of area it is socially...gardens without DOMES over them near any other houses are no longer safe even ?...sarcasm... ! people are despicable...those kids picked on weak animals...for no good reason....just pure pleasure of being in control ...of something weaker than themselves.

it could happen anywhere...there is fear for dogs in gardens in the uk i read in response here on forum also seen of chap with dog peeing in house issue...i replied why not in garden ? afraid to ...stealing dogs fear...well that is there too hey...


----------



## Werehorse

Hello! I'm back. 40 miles is friggin long way to walk and I'm knackered. I think I might teach Hugo to fetch his safestix properly today so I can stand still in a field and say it is a dog walk.  They were both very good for their Auntie A, she kept sending texts saying so anyway - I showed her the Brain Games book before we left and got a text saying she had taught Hugo to fetch his food bowl at one point. :lol: And they are both settled and happy today rather than freaked and clingy. Well no more clingy than usual. 

We may have decided not to take them on the big Oxfam walk... I was in a bit of a mental mess in the last 7 miles of yesterday and I'm not sure it is sensible to have a spangle to deal with in that situation. Plus it would be one extra complication for the support crew and it'll probaby be complicated enough. Makes me a bit sad but the dogs' safety has to be my priority and if I'm not on the ball mentally then I can't look after them properly.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless- Glad to hear you're home safe and sound, I think a relaxing day is definitely on the cards for today, you and your boys have a had a pretty full on few days.

Werehorse - 40 miles  how are your muscles today?

We had a really nice weekend, Saturday I took Branston out first thing for a training walk, we had one minor spin and nip (first one we've had in a long tim  ) but I persevered and we carried on, made it to the park so he had an offlead zoomie and then walked home beautifully.

Then I took Lily out in the car to meet the family (hubby was at home so thought it would be an ideal opportunity to have some girlie time without worrying about leaving Branston on his own at home) we had a lovely time - Lily licked a piglet 

They both really love their one to one walks, obviously they love going out together too but I realise what they (and I) have been missing out on 

Then we went for a nice long walk in the afternoon together - had to tire them out before leaving them on their own in the evening as we were going over to my parents house as my brother and his family were staying. Pickles weren't invited because poor Nell dog had surgery on Tuesday so not a good idea to be bouncing around with those two :lol:

Then yesterday we went for a lovely resolution walk (http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/284613-our-new-years-resolution-15.html) which was really nice (no arguing between me and hubby :thumbup and then on to meet the family at the ploughing match... Branston's first public outing in his muzzle and he was such a star  Can't tell you how proud I was of him  When I said to my mum that we were bringing the dogs she was very unsure of whether that was a good idea but I said I didn't want to avoid everything for ever and she was SO IMPRESSED at how good he was, she admitted that she couldn't get the images of his 'incident' out of her mind, but now I think she realises that he is not a write off!!

Sorry, bit of a rambling self indulgent post but just so pleased with my Pickles this weekend


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> We may have decided not to take them on the big Oxfam walk... I was in a bit of a mental mess in the last 7 miles of yesterday and I'm not sure it is sensible to have a spangle to deal with in that situation. Plus it would be one extra complication for the support crew and it'll probaby be complicated enough. Makes me a bit sad but the dogs' safety has to be my priority and if I'm not on the ball mentally then I can't look after them properly.


This makes sense - I have done a few endurance things where you really just look inwards towards the end. A shame, but probably a wise decision.

The CHs are STILL asleep .


----------



## Dogless

FRM - I love one to one walks too; they are just different to those that are together aren't they? You're the centre of the universe . Sounds as if Mr B did outstandingly well - did folk ask about his muzzle or just generally ignore it?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Dogless said:


> FRM - I love one to one walks too; they are just different to those that are together aren't they? You're the centre of the universe . Sounds as if Mr B did outstandingly well - did folk ask about his muzzle or just generally ignore it?


Nobody asked about his muzzle, although I didn't actually speak to anyone other than the family anyway! A few people kind of looked at him a bit strange but then that might just be me reading too much into it as the Pickles always seem to attract a lot of stares anyway!!

I did make a point of when we were sat having tea and cake of making a real fuss of him as did the rest of my family, he was so happy, tail wagging, that I think everybody could see that he wasn't a nasty dog, especially seeing as we had my young niece and nephew with us too.

I did feel a little bit self consious of him wearing it though, I felt like people would be judging me for having an aggressive dog  It didn't help when my brother kept calling him Hannibal


----------



## GingerRogers

FRM :thumbup: well done you for getting out there with Mr B, glad your Mum has got over the incident somewhat, it cant have been nice for her, I can still see Hubbys face when he first witnessed the ninjas frenzies, god knows what my Mum would make of it, I have told her but she doesn't really get it I don't think.

Lily licking a piglet :001_wub:

Werehorse I think you should take a chair into that field, even standing up should be banned today I reckon


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> Nobody asked about his muzzle, although I didn't actually speak to anyone other than the family anyway! A few people kind of looked at him a bit strange but then that might just be me reading too much into it as the Pickles always seem to attract a lot of stares anyway!!
> 
> I did make a point of when we were sat having tea and cake of making a real fuss of him as did the rest of my family, he was so happy, tail wagging, that I think everybody could see that he wasn't a nasty dog, especially seeing as we had my young niece and nephew with us too.
> 
> I did feel a little bit self consious of him wearing it though, I felt like people would be judging me for having an aggressive dog  It didn't help when my brother kept calling him Hannibal


I am thinking of telling people that Kilo's is because he scavenges or something like that .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I am thinking of telling people that Kilo's is because he scavenges or something like that .


But then you will have to explain 'what' he scavenges and I am not sure which is worse


----------



## MollySmith

foxyrockmeister said:


> Nobody asked about his muzzle, although I didn't actually speak to anyone other than the family anyway! A few people kind of looked at him a bit strange but then that might just be me reading too much into it as the Pickles always seem to attract a lot of stares anyway!!
> 
> I did make a point of when we were sat having tea and cake of making a real fuss of him as did the rest of my family, he was so happy, tail wagging, that I think everybody could see that he wasn't a nasty dog, especially seeing as we had my young niece and nephew with us too.
> 
> I did feel a little bit self consious of him wearing it though, I felt like people would be judging me for having an aggressive dog  It didn't help when my brother kept calling him Hannibal


It will take time I'm sure and I am almost certain that people not used to dogs think that head collars are the same as a muzzle (has any other WAYWO's had that mix up?). Like Kilo, Branston hasn't actually changed at all, still the same dog - you're both being very wise. Prevention is better than cure  You sound like you're having lots of fun with the Pickles FRM and it's all down to lots of hard work.

Werehorse - 40 miles EEK and OMG! I can't even think how far that is - it's like going to my parents house 4 times or something or walking to where I used to work. And I moaned about that in the car. How are you finding the energy to type?

Ginger - I think young missy is on a mission to teach the world to walk correctly  The Chuckit Whistler that I have do not appear to whistle but that's probably because I throw like a wuss (and blame my shoulder even the good one!). They might do - OH needs to test them with the ball thrower in the field.


----------



## Werehorse

Muscles are supprisingly ok, a bit stiff but not massively painful. And no blisters at all. I think if I'd got my fueling right I would have been in a lot better shape at the end because I think on the whole my muscles, joints and ligamenty bits are up to it. I didn't eat enough after about 8 hours though - sorry for TMI but I just couldn't brave an al fresco toilet stop and too many of the checkpoints didn't have a loo so I just stopped being hungry. 

I nearly dropped out at the last checkpoint which was 2.7 miles from the finish! But there were some lovely people whose house the checkpoint was outside who let me use their loo and made me a cup of tea. OH was in a bit of a mess as his feet blistered all along the bottom of them and I think he was hoping I would decided to pull out.  But I cheered up and told him we were going to finish. :lol:

Dogless - I'm used to the inwards looking thing at shorter events when pushing hard but it was an interesting kettle of fish when it went of for several hours rather than minutes! I've not done over marathon distance before as an adult (did the lyke wake walk - 42 miles - as a child but I don't think it counts cos children are weird physiologically and psychologically) and being out on your feet for nearly 14 hours is a different experience to walk-running a marathon in 5 hours as well.

I'm going to have to write a blog entry about it all - so many things whizzing through the head about it.


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> But then you will have to explain 'what' he scavenges and I am not sure which is worse


He scavenges nosey people


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless - hope your hubby gets to leave work to see you for a bit today.

FRM - glad you had good walks and that the Pickles behaved.

GR - sounds like Ginge is making good progress 


Clicker training is going well I think, we have been working on pairing the clicker with food and she is now looking to me for a treat when she hears she clicker as long as we are in the flat. We have yet to take it for a trial run out side but we did a bit in the car over the weekend as we spent far too much time driving this weekend and she was doing it in there too so today we are going to sit on the doorstep and do a bit with the clicker later. Been reading fired up, frantic and freaked out and I am really enjoying it, we have also signed up for the next block of training classes.

Have been continuing to work on LLW and she is doing so well at the moment with it we can now manage about 10-15 mins of LLW before she loses concentration (unless we see a cat or squirrel). Wait is also improving and we can now get about 4-5 mins of wait as long as she can see me, me leaving the room and her holding it is hit and miss so we are working on that too.


----------



## L/C

LinznMilly said:


> Sounds like a very good day was had by all. Well done on getting them to recall from a fox. Re cats: I sympathise. Both of mine hate cats - Milly moreso than Max, but you'd be forgiven for thinking WW3 had started if you heard my 2.  Well done on getting Gypsie to recall from one.


She was terrible with cats when we first adopted her - up on her hind legs and screaming at them, refusing to move from the place that she last saw them (we stood on a corner for 10 minutes once) and really, really keen to get them. She's a finisher as well (RIP various squirrels and rats) so I've been very pro-active with trying to desensitize her to them.

We were doing really well until a few weeks ago when a cat attacked us. It jumped out of a garden onto Ely's head and inflicted some quite nasty scratches on him (required vet treatment) and Gypsy managed to get hold of it at the same time - cat was ok but it really set us back.

I've worked hard since then and we're back to being able to heel past cats if they aren't moving and automatically looking to me for a treat when one runs in front of us (as happened this morning ).



LinznMilly said:


> Sounds like Milly :lol: I don't know what your dog does to get your attention/mithering you for what she wants, but Milly's perfected the art of boring a hole through my head with her eyes, which I just cannot ignore.





Sarah1983 said:


> Spencer does this. He'll start out about 6ft away and if I pretend not to notice him he'll move closer and closer, still staring. If I insist on not noticing I end up with him in my lap. He can be very persistent when he wants his training sessions. :001_unsure: That tends to be the only thing he mithers me for though so I suppose I shouldn't complain really.


I wish that was all horrible madam did. It starts off with staring, then escalates to her displaying all of her tricks (her most painful one is to scratch things - we did this in 101 things to do with a box and she loves it ), if that doesn't work then the high pitched whining starts and if that doesn't work then it escalates to barking. She's my little princess really...

Dogless - glad you're home and feeling a bit more positive. Hope Hubby can come home to support you.

Werehorse - I'm sure it's the right decision for the boys. Hope you can play with the safestix in a non-pornographic manner! 

L&M - hope Millie is better soon!

FRM - sounds like you had a lovely day. Branston is being a little star for you - you've worked so hard for it. :thumbup:

GR - the ninja goes from strength to strength!


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> It will take time I'm sure and I am almost certain that people not used to dogs think that head collars are the same as a muzzle (has any other WAYWO's had that mix up?). Like Kilo, Branston hasn't actually changed at all, still the same dog - you're both being very wise. Prevention is better than cure  You sound like you're having lots of fun with the Pickles FRM and it's all down to lots of hard work.


Yes; Kilo has been called a 'nasty' and 'vicious' dog before now and I have been told he shouldn't be walked in the park by folk who have though the headcollar is a muzzle. In a way it does us a favour when kids are told to stay away from the 'nasty dog' as I don't have to try and repel the little blighters myself .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, if it helps not many people commented on Rupert being muzzled and he was muzzled for years. We got a few snide comments over the years, a few people whisking their children up into the air to avoid him but overall most people just seemed to ignore it. When people did ask they were more curious than judgemental and I just explained that he was very nervous in general and that he was terrified of other dogs and if one rushed up to him he lashed out in fear. And 99% of the time it got a sympathetic reaction rather than a judgemental one. I didn't tell any lies but I think emphasising the fact he was frightened rather than just "oh he doesn't like other dogs" made a big difference to how people saw him. 

As for those who didn't ask and just judged us, well rrr: to them


----------



## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> He scavenges nosey people


Lol, yes  but I was thinking more of his unsavoury tastes in human waste  eewww!


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, yes  but I was thinking more of his unsavoury tastes in human waste  eewww!


Sounds like the same thing  Ooooh I'm a right old meanie today!


----------



## Symone

GR : Sounds like ginge is on a roll!  

Werehorse : Blimey, I couldn't walk that far! My legs had a mini shudder then, lol. 

Dogless : A relaxing day sounds good.  Are they still sleeping? 
Also, I loved your pics! 


Lol.. When I'm lazy and want a walk without training Shamaya's on a headcollar. It's weird, I have found myself explaining that it's not a muzzle to people that have dogs, too... 

Shamaya is having on and off days with pulling, it seems. We unintentionally have made every path going away from where we live lead to an exciting place (parks, beaches, vets, etc.) 
However once those places are passed she's fine.. Although a little disappointed. 
Playing fetch before going on proper walks really does help. And with more walks she is also pulling less. 

I got a huge coke bottle the other day and punctured holes in and put a handfull of dry food in it. Shamaya is loving working out how to get it out!
I would rather use raw food but I have no idea of what raw food she would try to get out. She's not interested in her food at all, and the only reason she goes for the dry is she thinks it's treats.

I ordered a sample from MilliesWolfheart for things like so, however looked at the prices today and I can't afford it!  However she loved the samples! I will certainly use it as treats when we have more money coming in.. She went wild for it.

I'm trying to think of more things to teach Shamaya.. Tempted to do the 101 things with a box with her after seeing Sarahs thread. Spen looks like he had a lot of fun. 

I was wondering, how religiously do people worm? Do you stop after a certain age? I've been doing Shamaya on the dot but I see some people don't?


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> GR : Sounds like ginge is on a roll!
> 
> Werehorse : Blimey, I couldn't walk that far! My legs had a mini shudder then, lol.
> 
> Dogless : A relaxing day sounds good.  Are they still sleeping?
> Also, I loved your pics!
> 
> Lol.. When I'm lazy and want a walk without training Shamaya's on a headcollar. It's weird, I have found myself explaining that it's not a muzzle to people that have dogs, too...
> 
> Shamaya is having on and off days with pulling, it seems. We unintentionally have made every path going away from where we live lead to an exciting place (parks, beaches, vets, etc.)
> However once those places are passed she's fine.. Although a little disappointed.
> Playing fetch before going on proper walks really does help. And with more walks she is also pulling less.
> 
> I got a huge coke bottle the other day and punctured holes in and put a handfull of dry food in it. Shamaya is loving working out how to get it out!
> I would rather use raw food but I have no idea of what raw food she would try to get out. She's not interested in her food at all, and the only reason she goes for the dry is she thinks it's treats.
> 
> I ordered a sample from MilliesWolfheart for things like so, however looked at the prices today and I can't afford it!  However she loved the samples! I will certainly use it as treats when we have more money coming in.. She went wild for it.
> 
> I'm trying to think of more things to teach Shamaya.. Tempted to do the 101 things with a box with her after seeing Sarahs thread. Spen looks like he had a lot of fun.
> 
> I was wondering, how religiously do people worm? Do you stop after a certain age? I've been doing Shamaya on the dot but I see some people don't?


They have just woken up. Did some muzzle training with Kilo - put it on (I already got him used to it in case of an emergency so not starting from scratch) and just took them in the garden to play football. then remembered I'm no longer supposed to play any games involving chasing . That will be hard. They're wrestling in the garden now.

I worm every three months after 6 months of age religiously because of raw feeding and because Kilo likes to scavenge poo :sosp:.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> They have just woken up. Did some muzzle training with Kilo - put it on (I already got him used to it in case of an emergency so not starting from scratch) and just took them in the garden to play football. then remembered I'm no longer supposed to play any games involving chasing . That will be hard. They're wrestling in the garden now.
> 
> I worm every three months after 6 months of age religiously because of raw feeding and because Kilo likes to scavenge poo :sosp:.


That will be hard to get used to.. I play like that with Shamaya and it would be weird suddenly stopping. 
It's nice that they're having a nice play in the garden! 

I really don't understand why some dogs like poo! Shamaya has started to get an interest in sniffing poo. A small call, "look at me" or a little tug on the lead gets her interest back in me, though.. I really hope that she doesn't start to eat it!

I need to book an appointment with my vet for more worming stuff, so I will ask her then about how often I should worm her now (I'm assuming that it too will be every 3 months now since she is 6 months old)
Reminds me that I need more food for her.. Her breeder gave me some mince for their supplier didn't have the norm, and shamaya hates it. Takes a mouth full and spits it out, lol. However she's fine with the raw chicken mince from the pet shop.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> That will be hard to get used to.. I play like that with Shamaya and it would be weird suddenly stopping.
> It's nice that they're having a nice play in the garden!
> 
> I really don't understand why some dogs like poo! Shamaya has started to get an interest in sniffing poo. A small call, "look at me" or a little tug on the lead gets her interest back in me, though.. I really hope that she doesn't start to eat it!
> 
> I need to book an appointment with my vet for more worming stuff, so I will ask her then about how often I should worm her now (I'm assuming that it too will be every 3 months now since she is 6 months old)
> Reminds me that I need more food for her.. Her breeder gave me some mince for their supplier didn't have the norm, and shamaya hates it. Takes a mouth full and spits it out, lol. However she's fine with the raw chicken mince from the pet shop.


It will be hard to get used to indeed; I need to decide what is realistic. Don't need to do it just yet as they're sparked out again now - utterly exhausted today, love them. So am I!!

I am guessing you wormed every month until 6 months? My vet advocates worming every 4 months but I do every 3 on the advice of my other, very pro - raw vet in Yorkshire who I really respected.


----------



## Nicki85

Well, i've got a bug of some sort so taking it easy today... luckily the dogs also seem to be happy having a quiet day!! 

Yesterday we went to an agility show... I went wrong in the first run and messed up the course, the second run I stood in the wrong place and Rusty decided to ad-hoc. I was really pleased though because I had 100% concentration and he was playing tug like one of those crazy collies  Once I get my arse in gear I think we *might* be in with a chance of winning something! He really is a super dog. I'd love to be on the ball enough to actually reward in the ring with his toy but it's not happening at the moment. I also hold my breath all the way round.... But any how yesterday was one of those "I am super happy with my puppy" days!!! 

Shae also came along, carried her for the most part but put her down here and there... She chose anew fleecy tug toy which Rusty promptly stole!! 

Tomorrow I am looking after my 6yr old nephew (help!!) so hoping this bug will have done one. I haven't been ill in ages so a bit frustrated lol.

I am keeping an eye on this thread and you all seem to be doing well... I can't offer any advice on pulling as Super Rusty is one of those dogs that if you stop walking when he pulls he soon gets the message. I pretended to fall over once when he pulled... he didn't like that either! Shae I'm just getting used to the lead- she is all over the place at the moment. I guess as we don't actually do all that much lead work it isn't that much of a problem... 

I'm also useless at worming but with the pup I am being careful and worming more regularly. They both eat raw so it is important.... one thing I need to check is tapeworm though.

In terms of chasing I remember the gun dog trainer telling me that I shouldn't play ball etc with him to prevent him chasing wildlife. IMO playing chase on your terms can be a really rewarding tool for them.... more rewarding than chasing the wrong thing in some circumstances. i am no expert though!


----------



## Sarah1983

Just back from a pleasant 45 minute potter around the streets. Decided to take a new turning today so it ended up being a shorter walk than I anticipated coz it led us straight back to the main road but that's okay. New walk, new smells, it's all good in Spencers book. He did need a few reminders not to pull, mostly when we first set out and along the new bit of the walk, but the rest of the time he walked reasonably nicely. 

I think tomorrow I may take him up through the woods and have some long line time on the fields. It's been a while since we wandered around those fields and after a few days of road walks I think he deserves a less restricted walk.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I am thinking of telling people that Kilo's is because he scavenges or something like that .


That's actually a good idea. My sister's Barley wears one on walks through the woods to stop her eating things she shouldn't and my sister isn't remotely interested in what other people perceive.


----------



## GingerRogers

Another good potter about the outside. Saw a young girl on her phone, very little interest, an older man on a bike, very little interest, big orange noisy thing digging holes on the building site across the road, quite a bit of interest, probably jealousy .

Got a big 'ahh how cute' grin from a lady in a car :001_wub: she can be a sweetie when she wants.


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> That's actually a good idea. My sister's Barley wears one on walks through the woods to stop her eating things she shouldn't and my sister isn't remotely interested in what other people perceive.


How about it's because he suffers from hayfever ?


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> How about it's because he suffers from hayfever ?


Nice to have you back .


----------



## Dogless

Poor boys must have been really stressed out and knackered - they are STILL snoring; we're normally two walks and a play session or training session or two down by now. I'm just letting them do as they like today, love them.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Poor boys must have been really stressed out and knackered - they are STILL snoring; we're normally two walks and a play session or training session or two down by now. I'm just letting them do as they like today, love them.


Apart from anything else long journeys really tire them.

Some competitors think nothing of driving up to Scotland one day, then possibly Wales the next chasing tickets but I've never done it with my dogs. I don't think it's fair.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Apart from anything else long journeys really tire them.
> 
> Some competitors think nothing of driving up to Scotland one day, then possibly Wales the next chasing tickets but I've never done it with my dogs. I don't think it's fair.


No, as much as the boys love the car and as much as I find quiet walks along the way for them they are exhausted. At least Kilo's making his noises again, I missed them.

Alien for me to have done nothing with them all day but they really needed it. It's given me a chance to recharge and think too.


----------



## Werehorse

I think they all appreciate a day off occasionally, especially after a full-on few days!  Oscar and Hugo have had to make do with the safestix being thrown in the field for 20 minutes each today, even though they haven't had an off-lead walk this weekend.  mind you, because it's not something we usually do, they were both pretty knackered from the sprinting effort that that involves.

Hugo played fetch really nicely for a bit and then started just running around with it and not coming back... so I just left. :lol: No idea if it'll help but I just picked up his lead and walked out of the field into the farm yard and back towards the road. I was out of sight for 5 seconds then there was madly running feet on tarmac and a full speed Hugo appeared. I gave him a couple of biscuits and put him on-lead, then walked him back to the field, still onlead, found the safestix and did a few more on-lead retrieves with rewards. Then we came home.

As I say, no idea if it'll make a difference - but hopefully he got the "don't play properly and the fun stops" message. Don't know.  But the idea popped into my head so I did it.


----------



## sharloid

I have a picture to share from today's walk. It was taken at a place we'd never been before.










Have a guess what I'm happy about.


----------



## Dogless

sharloid said:


> I have a picture to share from today's walk. It was taken at a place we'd never been before.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have a guess what I'm happy about.


That's great - long may the lead remain a trip hazard .


----------



## sharloid

Dogless said:


> That's great - long may the lead remain a trip hazard .


No treats and no head collar either! I've had an absolutely fantastic day. I think we all have.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

YAY lovely LLW, I'd be over the moon with that too!


----------



## sharloid

foxyrockmeister said:


> YAY lovely LLW, I'd be over the moon with that too!


The icing on the cake was him LLWing past several other dogs. Never in a million years did I think that would happen!


----------



## kat&molly

Back from the vets- he gave poor Moll a good pull about and concluded it must be muscle. She's been weight bearing for 2 days now and today I thought it looked ok but then after thought her hip was funny but I don't know if its me.
She's had an AB jab in case it was a thorn or something trying to cause infection and some Anti-inflammatories [Previcox]- I'm not sure whether to give these or not because wont it mask if something is going on?

She must have 2 weeks lead walks only.:yikes: That's all she's had for a couple of days anyway but....

Will go play catch up now.


----------



## GingerRogers

That's awesome sharloid. Well done you and well.done broder.

Poor moll  i am with you on the anti inflammatoris dont really like any kind of pain killers for injured dogs as they just make them feel fine and leap about. Its different if its arthritis.or something but....

Just a short lead walk through the woods tonight. Had planned on a Romp across the heath but the sheep were against us.


----------



## Guest

Good god theres like ten pages I have missed! I've been away at a friends so I haven't seen Zand since saturday and now I'm back I am the cats pyjama's and he will not leave me alone.

Well done Sharloid and Broder! 

Hope you're feeling a bit better dogless.


----------



## Dogless

LO - I can only imagine a Zander style welcome . I am feeling much better thank you.

k&m - hope Moll improves soon, what a worry.

The CHs are still asleep - woke for their cows' ears then off snoring again. Rudi's even taken himself to his crate and their eyes are still bright red, bless them.


----------



## Symone

Sharloid : Congratulations!  I'm really pleased for you  

GR : Shame about the sheep!

K&M : Hope that Moll will feel better, soon.

LO : Yay for Zand cuddles? Lol. 


So, we had an.. Erm.. Interesting walk at the park.
In our normal fetch area there was a lovely white boxer and a staffy. They were both happy to say hello!
Shamaya had fun playing fetch, and we also did some recalling that went well. 
The white boxer stole her ball at one point, and it took about 5 mins to get it off her. She was happy running around like a loony white the staffy chased her. Shamaya was just next to the OH with a face like "Dad, why has she stolen my ball?" 
The staffys owner got embarrassed.. He tried to hump the white boxers head!  I was thankful that he didn't go for Shamaya in that way. 

We also met a cocker that was very interested in Shamaya. She however just wanted her ball. 
There was also a lovely Akita that wanted to play, but the owner was in a hurry. We stopped playing fetch until it was out of the park for he clearly wanted the ball and also looked very strong. 

Overall was a lovely walk. She seems to enjoy the park more than the beach which is good for she won't be going there for 3 months as of may! Darn people actually wanting to go to the beach in the summer, lol


----------



## Sarah1983

Took Spencer out for a pee earlier and ran into our neighbour coming back from a walk with Rupert. So the dogs had a play. Sneaky Spencer waited until I was distracted untangling his leash from Ruperts (damn leash law!) to hump him. Had both me and Jen in stitches at how quickly he moved for the hump. And how quickly he stopped when he realised he'd been caught :lol: They played nicely except for that though, even had a game of tug with the giant tennis ball.


----------



## moonviolet

Thats wonderful Sharloid.

Well we've made a little start on our tricky retrieve. it's retrieving an article from a drawer that can be pushed open from the back. At the moment the easy bit retrieving hte item from the open drawer.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Thats wonderful Sharloid.
> 
> Well we've made a little start on our tricky retrieve. it's retrieving an article from a drawer that can be pushed open from the back. At the moment the easy bit retrieving hte item from the open drawer.


That sounds interesting!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> That sounds interesting!


Sounds difficult.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Sounds difficult.


Sure does but no job too difficult for Tink the Talented .


----------



## Dimwit

moonviolet said:


> Well we've made a little start on our tricky retrieve. it's retrieving an article from a drawer that can be pushed open from the back.


And there was me thinking that the dimwit was doing really well as he has nearly mastered the first part of a basic retrieve :lol:
Other than channeling his inner gun dog we had another session using a ball as a reward - I think this is probably going to be more reliable than using food rewards for obedience, I just need to work on calming him down slightly as he gets very excited about balls (and I suspect that dancing around and singing is not an acceptable substitute for walking to heel )


----------



## moonviolet

it's only a littel set of plastic storage drawers the sort you'd have on a table with craft supplies in... and it's well a little lightweight for my little bruiser. I've had to weight it top and bottom or it kind of dismantles " itself" :lol: :lol: I may require heavier duty equipment.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Moonviolet that sounds really interesting! Good luck! 

I've been lurking but not had chance to post for a while and now far too much to comment on individually! Lots of s and s!

We had our agility lesson yesterday which went really well, with hols, bad weather and Easter agility shows we've not been to agility training for 5weeks! Izzy was so excited to get there and very hyper at the start with lots of bouncing around nearly tripping me up. Her friend Molly was there so while we were waiting our turn the 2 of them were busy wrestling and playing bitey face so by the last run they were both shattered and could barely muster up the energy to go over the jumps! There were some pretty complicated handling bits which we managed pretty well so overall a good session. She was so sleepy afterwards and we barely heard a peep from her all afternoon! 

You may have read Tarnus' thread about his morning walk with our little drama queen but tonight's went well! Walked along a busier street, past some men in hi-vis jackets laying a drive, followed some noisy kids with toy pushchairs. Narrowly avoided a teen who ran across the road right at us looking very interested in Izzy so I went round a corner which she followed so I whipped out the death glare (whilst saying all sing-songy to Izzy, come on lets go this way) which got rid of her ! Went past another kid on a scooter no problem and got an admiring smile (Izzy, not me) from a gentleman on his way home from work !

Tonight, hmm, well she's not called monkey dog for nothing! I'd grated some cheese for my lasagne, most of it went in the cheese sauce but some I left to sprinkle over for the last 10mins in the oven......but........when I went back the cheese had mysteriously disappeared :sosp: and a certain little lady was curled up on the sofa looking very happy with herself! :devil:


----------



## Werehorse

Hugo is very perplexed this evening. His perfectly reasonable attempts to take the nylabone Oscar is chewing off him is being met by barky growls. Well, it is first met by a more subtle "eff off" behaviours but for some reason continuing to stare at and approach the nylabone is then meeting further resistance.  Hugo think his collie-mind waves have stopped working and he is very upset that he can no longer bend the world t his will by simply staring at it...

I'm letting them get on with it. Hugo has basically given up and is laying next to me sulking. There's another nylabone and 2 kongs he could be chewing instead...


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Back from the vets- he gave poor Moll a good pull about and concluded it must be muscle. She's been weight bearing for 2 days now and today I thought it looked ok but then after thought her hip was funny but I don't know if its me.
> She's had an AB jab in case it was a thorn or something trying to cause infection and some Anti-inflammatories [Previcox]- I'm not sure whether to give these or not because wont it mask if something is going on?
> 
> She must have 2 weeks lead walks only.:yikes: That's all she's had for a couple of days anyway but....
> 
> Will go play catch up now.


So pretty much the same as Tremor then?

No it's not you. If you thought her hip looked funny then it did. We know our dogs and I wished I hadn't doubted myself last week.

At least your vet said muscle, unlike mine who said it was my imagination..!!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> That's awesome sharloid. Well done you and well.done broder.
> 
> Poor moll  i am with you on the anti inflammatoris dont really like any kind of pain killers for injured dogs as they just make them feel fine and leap about. Its different if its arthritis.or something but....
> 
> Just a short lead walk through the woods tonight. Had planned on a Romp across the heath but the sheep were against us.


My old vet wouldn't administer anti-inflams for exactly the reason you've just said.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Thats wonderful Sharloid.
> 
> Well we've made a little start on our tricky retrieve. it's retrieving an article from a drawer that can be pushed open from the back. At the moment the easy bit retrieving hte item from the open drawer.


Don't tell me Tinks is going to produce a pair of Brigit Jones type knickers from said drawer...


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> And there was me thinking that the dimwit was doing really well as he has nearly mastered the first part of a basic retrieve :lol:
> Other than channeling his inner gun dog we had another session using a ball as a reward - I think this is probably going to be more reliable than using food rewards for obedience, I just need to work on calming him down slightly as he gets very excited about balls (and I suspect that dancing around and singing is not an acceptable substitute for walking to heel )


No you've got it all wrong... You want them ball obsessed and off their trollies for competitive obedience...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Don't tell me Tinks is going to produce a pair of Brigit Jones type knickers from said drawer...


Don't encourage her . She'll then teach her to put them on no doubt.....


----------



## Twiggy

My wretched computer has been playing up all evening. Hopefully it's behaving itself again now.


----------



## Thorne

Oh this thread! Hope you've all had good days with your hounds.

Scooter presented us with _another _drama and vet trip today - after lots of rolling in the meadow yesterday he woke up with a very sore eye and a sad face. as usual the vet couldn't find much wrong with the eye (good but perplexing!), something's either irritated it or poked it in the field. He's had the dramatic green ointment and seems happier. 
He's turning into a high maintenance boy!

Mum and I took both dogs out this evening, kept Scooter onlead and let Breeze off for zoomies. Lovely focus from both dogs, Breeze still being brave, all good! We did wake up a group of 7 roosting peacocks as we passed, cue much screeching!  Looks like the escaped white peahen has rejoined her group, glad she didn't meet her end on the road (or to a keen dog...).

Good day at work today despite dreading it, have met Paddy mark 2! A 7-ish month old Lurcher pup named Maxwell  A bit nibbly but unlike the original he has some bite inhibition and is slightly less feral! Very similar mental but sweet mindset, think he'll be good fun.
Accidentally ended up trespassing on Felixstowe port's land with Rags this morning, won't try that route again!

I think I saw a puppy being viewed on a _sliproad_ verge today :nonod: Man with van showing a lady a small dog, looked a bit too calm and collected to be a loose dog retrieval but hopefully it was that instead of a sale. Didn't get registration numbers but will keep eyes and ears peeled.
Either way, it looked suspicious.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> No you've got it all wrong... You want them ball obsessed and off their trollies for competitive obedience...!!


In that case mini dimwit would like a new handler please. Preferably one who is competent and can help him achieve world domination (he is assuming that the prize for world domination is an endless supply of gravy bones and staff who will feed him/play with him whenever he wants) :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Happy 1st Birthday WAYWO, best wishes to all who sail in her


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Happy 1st Birthday WAYWO, best wishes to all who sail in her


A year? . We've been at this for a year???? Happy Birthday WAYWO .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> A year? . We've been at this for a year???? Happy Birthday WAYWO .


Make of it what you will.... i joined on page 3  :lol: :lol:


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Make of it what you will.... i joined on page 3  :lol: :lol:


You would .

My pair are still asleep....we'd usually be walking by now, love them. Trying to plan what to do with them; hard when I thought I was doing fine before!!


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning everyone!

I'm struggling to follow this thread! Apologises if I leave anyone out!

Sharloid - Congratulations and well done to Broder, long may it continue.

Kat&Molly - aww I hope Molly feels some ease soon. I hate having to keep Horace onlead for a few days as his nice walking takes a few steps back because of his built up energy.

Symone - Sounds like you had a great time at the park!

MoonViolet - Good luck!

Izzy - Sounds like a fun agility session was had! Horace and I often get admiring glances when we are out, I say we but I actually mean Horace!

Dogless - I hope that you are the boys are well rested now and ready to take the world on!

Thorne - aww poor Scooter, I have a phobia about things going into eyes  I hope he feels better soon.

We had a very nice onlead walk yesterday (I don't want him charging about on his sore leg). He walked past two dogs (other side of sreet) without reacting but did try to have a good look. Further on a big bull type dog came charging out of it's garden and across the street and up to us... I braced myself  but they had a nice chat and sniff until the owners came running up. At least they came for him, usually they either ignore or stand there screaming blue murder!

Two seperate incidents where dogs charged at their gates and snarled as we walked past, Horace barked and then sniffed the ground.
I was pleased with his behaviour, 3 days in a row now he hasn't reacted when passing other dogs.

A few people stopped us to say hello and make a fuss of him. I had him so that if he wants to say hi he has to sit, but for some reason recently he seems to have forgotten his manners a bit and stands or pulls. Not a big issue though and we can get that sorted.


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne GLad scooter is doing ok poor boy is having a rough ride at the mo. i'm glad you had a good day at work.

IE sounds like Horace is going very well  and thank you for the luck, i fear we are going to need it... the aim was for a push with the nose, not what i was offered this morning.... a genteel nose push followed at lightning speed with a shove with a gurt big badger paw that sent the drawer sailing across the room :lol: :lol: :lol:

Twiggy Hat not Bridget Jones knickers 



Dogless said:


> You would .
> 
> My pair are still asleep....we'd usually be walking by now, love them. Trying to plan what to do with them; hard when I thought I was doing fine before!!


You were doing fine and are now going to make a few adjustments.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> In that case mini dimwit would like a new handler please. Preferably one who is competent and can help him achieve world domination (he is assuming that the prize for world domination is an endless supply of gravy bones and staff who will feed him/play with him whenever he wants) :lol:


Yup that's about it..

When Quiver won the obedience championships at Crufts she could have had anything she desired. In fact all she wanted was to go home...!!

The next day she was treated with best fillet steak - with husband hanging his nose over her bowl.


----------



## MollySmith

Good morning and belated birthday wishes to WAYO 

I hope you all have a nice day. Molly is channelling Tink's usefulness with drawers but aimed for other underwear. Today she is wearing a bra on her head. I shall be confusing walkers on the only two mountains in Cambridge with an unsupported chest.


----------



## GingerRogers

Happy Birthday WAYWO 

We had another great little potter this morning, had to be a potter as my heel has solidified into one big crusty blister that doesn't want to bend  Sorry if thats TMI

We got around the hotel corner without any pulling :smile5: we actually reached the bench at the end of the road which is as much an achievement for me as her as I feel a bit exposed with two extra directions for dogs to approach from and she has historically got very over excited/nervous as we pass that point. I think the great dane in the small car is very fresh in her mind still 

We came back up the other side, past the building site with the big orange digging things, all the way up to the triangle of interesting smells where we had a sniff (and as per usual I nearly took my eye out on the low hanging branch ) 

Now I had spotted, and so had she , some men working on a bungalow, which piqued some interest , on getting a bit closer I realised it was the husband and wife maintenance team that we know quiet well so I decided, rather rashly , to cross over and see what she made of the mans head poking out a hole in a wall above head height. He said hello to her in a sort of encourage you to bark kind of way, so she did give a little gruff, he apologised (why did you do it then ) then she was quiet , so we treated and she just ignored him :thumbup1: while I explained to him that strange things was good and you didn't get much stranger than a Colin hanging out of a hole in a wall :ihih:

We then went back, a little over excitement as we passed the house with the invisible cat, after the thread the other day I tried really hard to work on not letting her stray onto peoples front lawns, which was reasonably successful  then I saw the ultimate (to my mind) 'old couple'. So we waited outside our front door. They are both shufflers and he always carries one of those square nylon shopping bags with zips and a short handle, its always appears to be empty and he walks like lurch  she looked but I kept up the clicking and treating and even got some sits out of her. Then another lady came past, still nothing, so perhaps my theory is wrong or her ultimate 'old' is not mine, it just seemed a logical thing as she wouldn't have any contact with elderly at her old home 

Have also been working on the fetch techniques and MVs nail trimming programme. The former I am not sure I am doing everything in the right order need to watch werehorse vids again I think. With the latter she has got the idea of laying her paw on my hand only the front right though and it now happens whenever I have the treats nearby, like for a whole hour as I was trying to watch TV. Paw, Paw, very gently, it was like she was stroking me  try for the other one and she just rolls over 

Heres hoping the birthday vibes send everyone into good days.


----------



## Werehorse

Happy Birthday WAYWO!

Good progress Ginge. 

MY legs work again! But am not taking boys out yet as my mad back seat tunnel is due to arrive before 1pm and I actually don't want to put Hugo in the car again until we have it. I might take him out and do some training with just the car - no crate - actually.

I think I might brush their teeth and try some mv claw training. I could tidy the house, plan tutoring, learn another talk for work and generally be useful but I'd rather p*ss around with the dogs.


----------



## Sarah1983

Happy birthday WAYWO! Can't believe we've been at this a year.

This morning Spencer was able to walk past the two GSDs who live above us without any fuss at all. I was especially pleased with him as the bloke who owns them is a real miserable git and seems to think he's so superior to use mere mortals.


----------



## Dogless

Glad everyone's having a good day. I had good separate walks with my boys today. That was the only rule I kept to, just about broke all the rest. Agh. So confused. I am torn between what I see and what someone with more expertise than me sees.

Everyone away as it's Easter so walked here - nearest forests would have been packed with people / dogs / bikes. 'Our' forest is still in the white stuff and I didn't want to put the boys in the car for the time it takes to get there as their epic journey only ended about 36 hours ago so wanted car free days for them.

Crap! Really struggling!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Glad everyone's having a good day. I had good separate walks with my boys today. That was the only rule I kept to, just about broke all the rest. Agh. So confused. I am torn between what I see and what someone with more expertise than me sees.
> 
> Everyone away as it's Easter so walked here - nearest forests would have been packed with people / dogs / bikes. 'Our' forest is still in the white stuff and I didn't want to put the boys in the car for the time it takes to get there as their epic journey only ended about 36 hours ago so wanted car free days for them.
> 
> Crap! Really struggling!


Think of it this way, they aren't rules, sergeant major isn't going to come and kick butt if you don't follow them, they are guide lines only *and *the opinion of one person who doesn't know your dogs the way you do, you know more, not just about them, but about the breed I would have thought, there is never a one fits all solution. Try out one thing for now and see if you think it has an effect. Separate walking in confrontational places till Rudi is older sounds like it might be a good idea. If you don't have time then take them somewhere else where there is less stuff likely to be going on.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Glad everyone's having a good day. I had good separate walks with my boys today. That was the only rule I kept to, just about broke all the rest. Agh. So confused. I am torn between what I see and what someone with more expertise than me sees.
> 
> Everyone away as it's Easter so walked here - nearest forests would have been packed with people / dogs / bikes. 'Our' forest is still in the white stuff and I didn't want to put the boys in the car for the time it takes to get there as their epic journey only ended about 36 hours ago so wanted car free days for them.
> 
> Crap! Really struggling!


I would bear in mind you went there and she didn't come to you to see how they are when they haven't been uprooted and had epic journey etc etc. Just that fact alone makes nothing normal about it.


----------



## Dimwit

I agree with GR and MV. You know your dogs and you know the places you walk them and how they are likely to react etc 
When the trainer saw Kilo's behaviour he was stressed, in a totally new place, after a long journey, and with a strange person who - however experienced has only seen him in that situation. I am not downplaying what he did but I think you need to put it into context. You know that how you have managed him so far has worked and there is no reason why it won't continue to - and you now know when you have to be extra vigilant...


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Think of it this way, they aren't rules, sergeant major isn't going to come and kick butt if you don't follow them, they are guide lines only *and *the opinion of one person who doesn't know your dogs the way you do, you know more, not just about them, but about the breed I would have thought, there is never a one fits all solution. Try out one thing for now and see if you think it has an effect. *Separate walking in confrontational places till Rudi is older sounds like it might be a good idea.* If you don't have time then take them somewhere else where there is less stuff likely to be going on.


I have been doing that all along so that Rudi can develop as the confident little fella he is. So far I have avoided Kilo reacting at all whilst we have been with Rudi. Rudi keeps him more confident anyway. I'm worried about our holiday later this month, had all sorts of nice walks etc planned.


----------



## Beth17

WAYWO happy birthday!

MS what a great image of Molly with a bra on her head. Sam has a bra fetish 

Sarah well done to Spen for behaving nicely around the GSDs.

Ginge big thumbs up :thumbup:

Dogless glad you had good walks with the boys. All I can say is go with your gut feeling 

Werehorse messing around with the dogs is much more fun than any kind of work  I am attempting to write an essay on foot and mouth disease, sheep keds and liver fluke. It's not going very well 

Nice quiet walk with the boys as it's damp and horrible today. Nicely ignored a few dogs we passed; had one major bout of pulling from Sam to get to the area where they usually have a mess about, so instead I turned the other way and avoided it. I feel a bit mean now.


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth that essay sounds (not) fun rrr:

Dogless - relax and enjoy you holiday that you aren't even on, you can have the muzzle if you are worried, but remember no-one will know you so who cares if they judge you. It will be ultra quite at that time of year ayway, its great, I am not jealous. And at least you can still take them on holiday, we cant take Ginge and I daren't leave her at Mums for more than a night where she can manage without a walk. Cause of much annoyance in our house.

I think you may have calmed down a bit by then though and be on less of a roundabout


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Beth that essay sounds (not) fun rrr:
> 
> Dogless - relax and enjoy you holiday that you aren't even on, you can have the muzzle if you are worried, but remember no-one will know you so who cares if they judge you. It will be ultra quite at that time of year ayway, its great, I am not jealous. And at least you can still take them on holiday, we cant take Ginge and I daren't leave her at Mums for more than a night where she can manage without a walk. Cause of much annoyance in our house.
> 
> I think you may have calmed down a bit by then though and be on less of a roundabout


Yes; I am a bit bonkers at present :crazy::scared::yikes:.


----------



## ballybee

Not much to report here at the moment

Dan - Dans doing good, he seems to have settled and calmed down a fair bit in the last few weeks...but he has started humping dogs!!! It doesn't matter about size/gender/age, he'll hump it  so having to keep a close eye on him at the moment, the plus side is that his brother is much worse, he sits outside and howls, goes off his food etc and thats only if a bitch walks past...doesn't even have to be entire!!!

Tummel - Tummel has also been pretty good, apart from his SA coming back with avengance and him ripping the curtains and curtain pole off the wall!!! His recall has been a bit patchier than usual but he was a lot better today.

Deeks - Deeks is doing well, he still shows no interest in cats at all, he isn't reacting as much but he does get pretty whingy and lungy, as he's tiny i can easily keep him out of the way  He's giving up much faster as well!!! We've started crating him at night in the living room as his new home won't have him in the bedroom and he's doing well, he goes to sleep as soon as it goes dark and wakes up at about 7-7:30am.

So pretty quiet here in the world of ballybee


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> I would bear in mind you went there and she didn't come to you to see how they are when they haven't been uprooted and had epic journey etc etc. Just that fact alone makes nothing normal about it.


Absolutely agree with this and what Ginger said. Relax Dogless if you can xx


----------



## sharloid

I'm struggling with clicker training/games from the 'When Pigs Fly!' book. I've introduced an object and I'm clicking every time he goes near it. He's gone over and nudged it a few times which he got clicked and treated for, but he's now just led on the floor... not the behaviour I wanted! What do I do? :S


----------



## Beth17

Sharloid the others are probably best to answer this but I'd stop for now, take the object away and then reintroduce it in a while and see if it sparks his interest again.


----------



## GingerRogers

I do this too sharloid, and often find the behaviour increases in intensity or will change when it comes back out. EG something she seems a bit meh about she will leap on and ravish with attention when it comes back. I think they need time to process the information sometimes ie what got the reward. We are still having trouble getting much more out of a box than sniffing, nudging and then moving on to sitting in or on it though 

A mixed lunchtime potter. She walked very very nicely and we got down the road and round another corner, she crossed the roads nicely as well  which is always an issue as I don't like to click and treat halfway across . Then she started to get a bit antsy, she could hear squealy children in the hotel garden then barked at a little boy running past. Understandable but not desirable :nono: so we came home, our neighbours had just got back, she looked at them and then at me :thumbup1:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dexter was quiet for 30 minutes in his crate...just silence...

Then I go upstairs and he's back to whining.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sharloid, you want to stop before he loses interest. Lots of very short sessions are probably going to work better than one long one. Don't leave the object out all the time, get it out, click him for anything he does with it then put it away before he's had chance to get bored. If you only click twice before it goes away then so be it, chances are he'll become more interested as time goes on and he really gets the idea. Shaping is hard work for the dog, a 15 minute shaping session tires Spen out as much as a good walk and he's clicker savvy, in the beginning I was keeping sessions to a couple of minutes long and that was enough for him.

Dogless, can only agree with what the others have said really.

Spencer has definitely had his well behaved head on today. As well as ignoring the GSDs this morning he managed to hold a sit while a Bernese passed on a narrow path this afternoon. Okay, he whined and his tail wagged at about a million miles an hour but he held that sit. Then on the way home he pretty much ignored 3 separate dogs. All on the other side of the road but he still didn't bother with them.


----------



## sharloid

We've just shaped our first behaviour with the clicker. No idea if I did it right but it seemed to work. I feel really excited and proud. 

[youtube_browser]p11_DryMT3c[/youtube_browser]


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## Dogless

T'is OK all; Grannie has given common sense advice and opinion .


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> I'm struggling with clicker training/games from the 'When Pigs Fly!' book. I've introduced an object and I'm clicking every time he goes near it. He's gone over and nudged it a few times which he got clicked and treated for, but he's now just led on the floor... not the behaviour I wanted! What do I do? :S


Unfortunately dogs are not able to read 'When Pigs Fly' or any other training book or manual and therefore don't always play by the rules...LOL

This time last year Holly's training consisted of me taking every toy and tuggy that's been invented, plus cheese, hotdog, liver cake, chicken, etc. out into the paddock, only for her to express much more interest in sniffing bushes....!!


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> Unfortunately dogs are not able to read 'When Pigs Fly' or any other training book or manual and therefore don't always play by the rules...LOL


I really wish they could - would make life much easier. Although as a puppy dimwit showed he has scant regard for books ( and perhaps a sense of irony) when he ate a copy of "how to train the perfect puppy" :lol:

Anyway, my psychotic little dog has been very good tonight. Walk was cut short due to the arrival of evil dog, but we did manage to do some work on sendaways. He is loving the retrieve now (albeit only in my living room and with no distractions so far) but he actually holds on now until I take the object


----------



## GingerRogers

Dimwit said:


> I really wish they could - would make life much easier. Although as a puppy dimwit showed he has scant regard for books ( and perhaps a sense of irony) *when he ate a copy of "how to train the perfect puppy" :lol:*
> 
> Anyway, my psychotic little dog has been very good tonight. Walk was cut short due to the arrival of evil dog, but we did manage to do some work on sendaways. He is loving the retrieve now (albeit only in my living room and with no distractions so far) but he actually holds on now until I take the object


Lol, my friends dog ate the section on aggressive dogs in her dog training manual  then I lent her a novel about dogs and their behavior, he ate that too, but then him and his sister had expensive tastes as they ate 1K in cash that her son had hidden under the mattress when they were puppies (I dont know why it wasn't in the bank, well I can make a good guess)


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Lol, my friends dog ate the section on aggressive dogs in her dog training manual  then I lent her a novel about dogs and their behavior, he ate that too, but then him and his sister had expensive tastes as *they ate 1K in cash that her son had hidden under the mattress when they were puppies* (I dont know why it wasn't in the bank, well I can make a good guess)


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


>


Yes  

I think there was about £200 still intact/useable and they got £300 back from the bank as they still had the serial numbers, the rest was papiermache or puppy food but that was an expensive way to avoid paying the bills!

They were naughty monkeys


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Yes
> 
> I think there was about £200 still intact/useable and they got £300 back from the bank as they still had the serial numbers, the rest was papiermache or puppy food but that was an expensive way to avoid paying the bills!
> 
> They were naughty monkeys


Sounds like karma at work to me.......


----------



## moonviolet

ohh a step toward success...a nose push without a paw shove ...

At the moment it's 2 seperate exercises i'll get each solid before i try to marry them.

Oh ended up talkign about dogs with a contact from another company and he told a very sad story of what happened to his young bulldog earlier this year 

Puppy dies minutes into Swindon store grooming (From Swindon Advertiser)


----------



## GingerRogers

I liked that for tinks progress but I had to unlike it for the poor dog 

Successful walk tonight, we tried recalling away from rabbits  not exactly a recall but she stopped chasing them , I know, I know shes was on a long line but still 

On the way back through the woody bit she looked up at me, we were in a wood, she has never taken any notice of me in a wood not unless I fall over :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Oh mv, how sad .

GR - how lovely to exist in a wood .

Well, I have just had absolutely brilliant separate walks with the CHs.

Took Rudi to the dog walking fields, he walked on a lovely loose lead. Dizzy and human had just got there and there was a couple with two springers we've met before, very nice dogs. The one springer only wanted his ball and to muck about in the stream but the other was a perfect match for Rudi play - wise and they had a ball chasing about. He was a young entire male and was perfect at putting Rudi in his place when he got a bit too big for his boots; fascinating - just looks and subtle body language. To top it all, Rudi broke off from play and came with us when Dizzy's human and I walked on. Then the springer appeared again being naughty and ignoring recall so we walked back down the fields to reunite springer with owner and....Rudi just came with me again. Then walked back on a lovely loose lead again. I'd say that tonight was probably the most positive hour or so of doggy interaction he's ever had. I am so, so pleased and proud of my LCH :001_wub:.

Took Kilo out, walked beautifully even past a dog that wanted to greet - I think all this worry about other stuff has meant I've lost focus on the onlead dog issue and he's fine OR the Suprelorin has very much helped plus ditching the half checks. It's certainly cut out the posturing in the main. Then we pottered. Took him to the offlead field and put his muzzle on briefly - he was happy to push his muzzle into it and happy until about half way round so I took it off and put his lead back on. Then he walked beautifully home - I even got him focussed around a cat. So - proud of my BCH too :001_wub:. He kept looking up at me tonight and his eyes were saying "It's all going to be OK you know" I swear :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> I really wish they could - would make life much easier. Although as a puppy dimwit showed he has scant regard for books ( and perhaps a sense of irony) when he ate a copy of "how to train the perfect puppy" :lol:
> 
> Anyway, my psychotic little dog has been very good tonight. Walk was cut short due to the arrival of evil dog, but we did manage to do some work on sendaways. He is loving the retrieve now (albeit only in my living room and with no distractions so far) but he actually holds on now until I take the object


You're a good girl - luv Grannie...


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I liked that for tinks progress but I had to unlike it for the poor dog
> 
> Successful walk tonight, we tried recalling away from rabbits  not exactly a recall but she stopped chasing them , I know, I know shes was on a long line but still
> 
> *On the way back through the woody bit she looked up at me, we were in a wood, she has never taken any notice of me in a wood not unless I fall over :001_wub:*



:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:


----------



## Canine K9

Bailey has been really good today and is starting to settle down a lot. He will obey basic commands and we are working on recall since if there is distractions they are farrrrrrrr better than me!  Ordered a long lead so we can let him offlead but not at the same time  Recall is basically what I`m trying to master. Biting is loads better again and he is a very licky dog. Can honestly say that the descion to get Bailey was the best descion I`ve ever made in my life :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Bailey has been really good today and is starting to settle down a lot. He will obey basic commands and we are working on recall since if there is distractions they are farrrrrrrr better than me!  Ordered a long lead so we can let him offlead but not at the same time  Recall is basically what I`m trying to master. Biting is loads better again and he is a very licky dog. *Can honestly say that the descion to get Bailey was the best descion I`ve ever made in my life* :001_wub:


Lovely. Nothing like a canine companion :001_wub:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Oh mv, how sad .
> 
> GR - how lovely to exist in a wood .
> 
> Well, I have just had absolutely brilliant separate walks with the CHs.
> 
> Took Rudi to the dog walking fields, he walked on a lovely loose lead. Dizzy and human had just got there and there was a couple with two springers we've met before, very nice dogs. The one springer only wanted his ball and to muck about in the stream but the other was a perfect match for Rudi play - wise and they had a ball chasing about. He was a young entire male and was perfect at putting Rudi in his place when he got a bit too big for his boots; fascinating - just looks and subtle body language. To top it all, Rudi broke off from play and came with us when Dizzy's human and I walked on. Then the springer appeared again being naughty and ignoring recall so we walked back down the fields to reunite springer with owner and....Rudi just came with me again. Then walked back on a lovely loose lead again. I'd say that tonight was probably the most positive hour or so of doggy interaction he's ever had. I am so, so pleased and proud of my LCH :001_wub:.
> 
> Took Kilo out, walked beautifully even past a dog that wanted to greet - I think all this worry about other stuff has meant I've lost focus on the onlead dog issue and he's fine OR the Suprelorin has very much helped plus ditching the half checks. It's certainly cut out the posturing in the main. Then we pottered. Took him to the offlead field and put his muzzle on briefly - he was happy to push his muzzle into it and happy until about half way round so I took it off and put his lead back on. Then he walked beautifully home - I even got him focussed around a cat. So - proud of my BCH too :001_wub:. He kept looking up at me tonight and his eyes were saying "It's all going to be OK you know" I swear :001_wub::001_wub:.


Sounds like a great nights walks. Rudi done good and kilo made me blub love him.

I dont know about existing in a wood though. It wood be nice but i dont am afraid.

Glad you are getting there k9.


----------



## fogy

Posted a couple of hundred pages back when we were working on NOT pulling on the lead. It's been one heck of a jounrey but i think we've cracked it! She still goes in circles when we get ready to go, but once out she's as good as gold.

I've learnt ANYTHING is possible


----------



## Dogless

fogy said:


> Posted a couple of hundred pages back when we were working on NOT pulling on the lead. It's been one heck of a jounrey but i think we've cracked it! She still goes in circles when we get ready to go, but once out she's as good as gold.
> 
> I've learnt ANYTHING is possible


Well done!!!! .


----------



## Thorne

I remember when this thread started up, and I sat on the sidelines for months wondering what you were all nattering about as it grew and grew... :crazy:

Dogless -Glad you've had lovely walks this evening. 

IrishEyes -Hope Horace's leg gets better soon, I'd be pleased with his reaction to the barkers too. You're doing well!

MollyS -There are mountains in Cambridgeshire? 

GR -Great progress, can't blame her for a little wuff at the man. Whereabout is MV's nail clipping programme? Ought to try making it more positive for Breeze, currently I just hold her so she can't get away and do it quickly!

Sarah -Good boy Spen, bless his enthusiasm.

Beth -Don't feel mean, feel triumphant about nipping his pulling in the bud today 

Ballybee -Sorry to hear about your curtains! Very pleased that Deeks is still doing well, he's certainly a good sleeper by the sounds of it.

KFK -

Sharloid -Lovely work with Broder and the stool! I agree with what has been said before, if the dogs (or you!) lose interest with an object, have a break and try again  Scooter was clueless the first couple of times we tried shaping with a box, then suddenly had a lightbulb moment. Breeze is still clueless 

Dimwit -Scooter tore up a library copy of a puppy training book when he was a little'un too, they know more than they let on I swear...

WELL DONE FOGY!

Scooter's eye is looking much better (touch wood) and he's been a good boy for his ointment.
Off to London for my sister's birthday tomorrow so the dogs are going into kennels. Dad could't see why we couldn't leave them in their kennel at home for anything up to 10hrs rrr: Their bag is packed, mine isn't!

What a tragic accident regarding the Bulldog pup  Must say it had never occurred to me to send a dog to the groomer's for tooth brushing and ear cleaning...


----------



## MollySmith

They are small. My boobs are bigger  Anyway found appropriate undies so all was well. I do wish I had a camera, she just sat there with a bra on her head in her little bed.

A reasonable day. We've been working on settling today. I've been feeling a bit off today, I've been making some big decisions and saying a few goodbyes to 'stuff'. I hope I'll be a bit more like me tomorrow.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thorne said:


> KFK -


Ah hah, so the butler did indeed do it!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless, that last sentence made my lip tremble, but it's absolutely right.

Thorne so glad scooter's eye is improving. I've never thought of using a goormer for such basics I don't knwo if it was nail clipping too i know quite a few people that won't even attempt it. What is rather more disturbing is that apparently people are grooming at pets at home with a single day's training.
Have fun celebrating your sisters birthday

Fogy well done 

Sharloid cute video, looking forward to seeing more. Broder looks so damn chuffed with himself 

Dimwit Got to love a dog with a sense of irony 

MS hope you are feeling more yourself today.

We had class last night and a full house and 3 spectators and just by the shape of the hall they were sat at the end of my training mats. So i had to work harder at keeping Tink's focus, but at least she didn't howl at them :lol: 
She was actually really good our drawer retrieve progressed quite nicely.

Her bottle bowling was good and kept her focus when the little collies got barky (I love it when they do that in class it helps with counter conditioning, that other dogs barking excitedly does not mean you will be attacked shortly) , did some work on balance cushions oh and a little work on sit waits because it's handy when you are setting up games if they will wait.


----------



## Kicksforkills

MV -well done, though I read the last bit as "OH sits and waits".

Well, Dexter is eating properly now, which is good. He doesn't whine in his crate when he knows I'm downstairs but when I go upstairs he whines. Which is why my mum wants me to stay downstairs until she goes to bed, but I get so tired recently I'm normally asleep by half ten!

Trouble is that once he sees me in the morning if I leave him in his crate he whines. So much for crate training. I might go back to basics.

Then when he is near me like now, he whines because he wants to play/go for a walk/other. He's good in the lounge so maybe it's that he wants to go in there.

Just eating breakfast then I will put him in his crate so I can get dressed. If my mum wasn't here I'd let him on my bed while i get dressed to save the whining.

Dentists in about an hour (so I better hurry up!), then I'll come back and walk them, then lounge time, then I will go walk another dog and bring Dexter or Poppy along, then quiet time, then walk all again, then lots of lounge time. Hopefully I can fit lunch in there too (been having it at 4).


----------



## IrishEyes

So many positive threads yesterday!

Horace was grand out, we saw a friend of his in the park (Horace was onlead) but I only know the woman and this time it was her Husband so I didn't want to just go up and say "hi, our dogs know each other!" so we walked on. The other dog came bounding over though and Horace went straight into a sit as he knows that he has to sit before I take his lead off. I asked if I could, and they had a lovely game of fetch together.

On the walk back home he reacted (by pulling) to a small dog who was bouncing around and barking at us.. 

Then come evening time, the lovely silence was shattered by a deep rumble of thunder emitting from Horace.. then a full on ear splitting growl and alert barking. I knew that we had an intruder in our garden.
I went out to check but couldn't see anyone and was confused as Horace was still upset..
Turns out, a black bin bag had entered our garden and got tangled in the buddleia.. His Lordship had spotted said intruder and had promptly alerted me to the danger.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless what a lovely post about your best boys 

mv another great class. Well done to Tink for not howling! Poor bulldog 

Ginge the ninja is doing so, so well.

Fogy well done on the LLW

Canine K9 sounds like Bailey is doing well. You'll get there with the recall.

Thorne glad Scooter's eye is better. Have a good day today 

MS hope you are feeling more you today.

The sun has come out a little bit again today. Typical as I'll be doing assignments for most of it


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Oh mv, how sad .
> 
> GR - how lovely to exist in a wood .
> 
> Well, I have just had absolutely brilliant separate walks with the CHs.
> 
> Took Rudi to the dog walking fields, he walked on a lovely loose lead. Dizzy and human had just got there and there was a couple with two springers we've met before, very nice dogs. The one springer only wanted his ball and to muck about in the stream but the other was a perfect match for Rudi play - wise and they had a ball chasing about. He was a young entire male and was perfect at putting Rudi in his place when he got a bit too big for his boots; fascinating - just looks and subtle body language. To top it all, Rudi broke off from play and came with us when Dizzy's human and I walked on. Then the springer appeared again being naughty and ignoring recall so we walked back down the fields to reunite springer with owner and....Rudi just came with me again. Then walked back on a lovely loose lead again. I'd say that tonight was probably the most positive hour or so of doggy interaction he's ever had. I am so, so pleased and proud of my LCH :001_wub:.
> 
> Took Kilo out, walked beautifully even past a dog that wanted to greet - I think all this worry about other stuff has meant I've lost focus on the onlead dog issue and he's fine OR the Suprelorin has very much helped plus ditching the half checks. It's certainly cut out the posturing in the main. Then we pottered. Took him to the offlead field and put his muzzle on briefly - he was happy to push his muzzle into it and happy until about half way round so I took it off and put his lead back on. Then he walked beautifully home - I even got him focussed around a cat. So - proud of my BCH too :001_wub:. He kept looking up at me tonight and his eyes were saying "It's all going to be OK you know" I swear :001_wub::001_wub:.


There needs to be a LOVE button, not just a like 

I need to just hide out on this thread, and avoid the rest of PF LOL! 
Lovely positive posts!


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> There needs to be a LOVE button, not just a like
> 
> I need to just hide out on this thread, and avoid the rest of PF LOL!
> Lovely positive posts!


I agree.

We are all here to support one another - cajole - sympathise - advise - laugh - etc and look how much the dogs have improved over the last year..


----------



## Dimwit

*Dogless* You should be proud of your wonderful dogs - and I am sure that it will all be OK

*MV* Your classes sound like so much fun - I am very jealous!

*MS* I hope you are feeling better today - and I hope that Molly doesn't develop an expensive underwear habit

*IrishEyes* How clever of Horace to protect you from the evil binbag!

Well, I think I have now found not one, but two training classes to go to! The first is a rally class which seems really good - classes are fun and pretty informal, class sizes are small and mixed ability so everyone works to their own level (which is very good for me as I felt constantly pressured at the previous classes I went to as I kept being told "all the other dogs can do x/y/z so you should be able to").
But, the trainer/behaviourist who has been helping me with dimwit's issues is starting classes for older dogs (she only does puppy classes over the winter) in 6 week courses focussing on basic obedience and also fun stuff, teaching tricks etc.
Hopefully the dimwit won't feel overloaded having to go to school twice a week, but I don't think it will hurt him to go back to basics and it should do him good to work alongside different dogs in different places (he has always been particularly bad at generalising).


----------



## Dogless

Perfect morning again. The weather was gorgeous but forecast rain from tonight until Monday so we made the most of it.

Walked them together (I know...the rules) up to the top fields, put Kilo on his harness and longline and just let them play and potter. They walked there beautifully on the way there and back* and I just let Kilo's line trail. Didn't see the need to hold it as he has never (touch wood!!) failed a recall or a 'wait' when someone has appeared so I'd be able to step on it. He only goes far enough away for me to not tread on it at any time anyway when chasing his toy (I know....rules down the pan) and when he has his toy or is after it he isn't interested in anything else appearing. Rudi ignored the longline which surprised me (in a very good way!).

I feel that I do know Kilo's triggers well enough to manage them together without having a negative impact on Rudi during his fear period. We passed someone with a dog today without Kilo reacting at all yet again (now it's not my topmost worry ) and Rudi bounced at it but in a puppy manner. 

Realistically Kilo has never (touch wood again!) gone up to someone without me letting him in the 2 1/2 years I have had him so there is no reason for his life not to carry on as normal with extra precautions in place. He hadn't had a good run since Sunday and he does love his walks, he really is a happy boy not a stressed and agoraphobic one I am certain.

Suprelorin wise - week 5 and his plums are much smaller, the posturing at dogs has really reduced, as has the constant marking when out and lunging at scents to teeth chatter and drool over. He seems much more settled, but he's had such a week that I'll see how he still is in a few days' time.

*On the way back we were walking along and Rudi flew at Kilo (handbags, no contact). I stopped walking and Rudi stopped. Started walking and Rudi did it again . I spent 5 minutes stuck  and couldn't see anything on the ground. a cat, anything . In the end I took Rudi's collar and we marched past the spot. All was fine about 2m past that particular place. Very odd indeed .


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit - those classes sound great .


----------



## kazters

Hello New to the thread. 

what am i currently working on with my 2. well With willow (2 year old Lab) its letting her let me clean her ears without her running away!.

Pippin (1 year old, just yesterday, Springer Spaniel) its oh so many things. fiannly starting to walk on her lead, so improving on that. working on her not being so suddenly scred of people she dosnt know, especialy when she is standing still or is in a room like the vets waiting room. and trying very hard to stop her scratching the floor as soon as she hears us get up in the morning (this used to be at night untill she started sleeping with willow)

should point out because pippins people fobia is only beein the last couple of weeks (since we got loud new nebgibours in a house that has been empty since before we got her) im taking her to the behaviour nurse at my vets next week to see if anything i can try as i caught her growling at people!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> *On the way back we were walking along and Rudi flew at Kilo (handbags, no contact). I stopped walking and Rudi stopped. Started walking and Rudi did it again . I spent 5 minutes stuck  and couldn't see anything on the ground. a cat, anything . In the end I took Rudi's collar and we marched past the spot. All was fine about 2m past that particular place. Very odd indeed .


Sometimes adolescent puppies just have idiot moments. Their brain wiring get crossed or who knows what, and we had to do exactly that - take them by the collar and move on. (Same with teenagers of the human variety!)

I love and hate spring walks. I walk at the butt crack of dawn when it's still dark out. All the critters have started coming out too. I hate those moments where the dogs alert to something up ahead on the path, but I can't see it what they're alerting to. I really need to carry a flashlight instead of depending on the moon LOL!


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Sometimes adolescent puppies just have idiot moments. Their brain wiring get crossed or who knows what, and we had to do exactly that - take them by the collar and move on. (Same with teenagers of the human variety!)
> 
> I love and hate spring walks. I walk at the butt crack of dawn when it's still dark out. All the critters have started coming out too. * I hate those moments where the dogs alert to something up ahead on the path, but I can't see it what they're alerting to. * I really need to carry a flashlight instead of depending on the moon LOL!


When I walk very early in the forest I hate that too! Chances are Kilo would want to chase it, so I call him back before he gets himself in trouble!!


----------



## Sarah1983

ouesi said:


> I hate those moments where the dogs alert to something up ahead on the path, but I can't see it what they're alerting to. I really need to carry a flashlight instead of depending on the moon LOL!


Spencer does this going through the woods in broad daylight only it's in a tail down, not happy way. I end up really freaked out about it and hurrying through. It's every single time we walk there so there's obviously something he's uncomfortable with at that spot but damned if I can see what it is.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless your post last night had me in tears, bless those lovely dogs. I wish I could meet them, they sound and look such a lovely pair.

I've been out with a friend on a social walk which was lovely. Sun is out and we had 5 dogs including Molly who was so silly. We got out of our car and she promptly leapt into the friend's van to see her friends with lots of licks and wags. I do think she's trying to tell me that she wants a few friends in her life. I was talking to an owner of a ridgeback greyhound X as she was fostering him and decided to keep him  I might look at fostering. I said I'd only do it when I had Molly's lead issues worked out as I didn't want her habits being picked up by someone else. I need to work on OH and perhaps take Molly on some scent work classes to get her used to more interactions with new dogs in other places. 

Feeling a bit better. We have decided not to go ahead with IVF again after a rather sad meeting with the hospital. I am feeling a bit mangled emotionally


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Feeling a bit better. We have decided not to go ahead with IVF again after a rather sad meeting with the hospital. I am feeling a bit mangled emotionally


That is a great shame, but if it's for the best then I suppose at least a decision has been made .


----------



## Sarah1983

I'm sorry MS


----------



## GingerRogers

MV glad you had a good class, well done on the focus Tink, the bottle bowling, what exactly do you do, throw Tink like a bowling ball, no? Sorry, we have been trying it as you know, yesterday I had a bottle of pop but no room on my desk for it so I put it on the floor, when it got time for walkies Ginge came upstairs, knocked it down then stared at me ever so hard waiting for her treat, lol.

Great vid sharloid, Broders getting the hang of it it seems 

Beth glad scooters eye is on the mend and enjoy your sisters birthday trip. 

Mollysmoth sorry to hear your decision, you have been a bit up and down and round and round so perhaps it is best to just have a definite decision no matter how hard and sad that makes you feel. 

Irish Eyes, thank goodness for horace, what would you have done if he wasn't there 

Excellent news on the classes dimwit!



We had a bit of a longer potter, I was very brave, all those corners where dogs could jump out 

We didn't see any but there was a bit of background barking going on which had her up on her toes. We walked past a very elderly lady feeding her fishpond, not a blink but TBF she did look a bit like a garden gnome  

I am very conscious of peeing on peoples front lawns/bushes now since the thread the other day and realising I wouldn't much like it especially if I didn't have a dog, but I don't know how to stop it 

She was not so good on the lead but we were veering into territory not trod on for a long time, but she was absolutely brilliant :001_wub: on the last stretch back home, would have looked like Broder the other day had I had a camera and extra long stretchy arms, such a sweetie, it is sooooooooo nice to have a little trotty dog bedside you.

Then we got some sits and even had her in a down outside the house, claps please, she was very settled, more claps please


----------



## Dogless

GR - giant round of applause from me  I can't believe the speed you're progressing now, it's fabulous to see you enjoying Ginge more and having such positive walks .


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> *Dogless* You should be proud of your wonderful dogs - and I am sure that it will all be OK
> 
> *MV* Your classes sound like so much fun - I am very jealous!
> 
> *MS* I hope you are feeling better today - and I hope that Molly doesn't develop an expensive underwear habit
> 
> *IrishEyes* How clever of Horace to protect you from the evil binbag!
> 
> Well, I think I have now found not one, but two training classes to go to! The first is a rally class which seems really good - classes are fun and pretty informal, class sizes are small and mixed ability so everyone works to their own level (which is very good for me as I felt constantly pressured at the previous classes I went to as I kept being told "all the other dogs can do x/y/z so you should be able to").
> But, the trainer/behaviourist who has been helping me with dimwit's issues is starting classes for older dogs (she only does puppy classes over the winter) in 6 week courses focussing on basic obedience and also fun stuff, teaching tricks etc.
> Hopefully the dimwit won't feel overloaded having to go to school twice a week, but I don't think it will hurt him to go back to basics and it should do him good to work alongside different dogs in different places (he has always been particularly bad at generalising).


Who is the trainer at the rally class if you don't mind me asking?


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - giant round of applause from me  I can't believe the speed you're progressing now, it's fabulous to see you enjoying Ginge more and having such positive walks .


Thank you! It is nice, I loved her from the start but I cant say outside was much fun , as long as we take things slow and stick to what we know for now its getting there even if I am on hyper alert , I think it might be all ok!


----------



## Izzysmummy

MS I'm so sorry! Sending a big hug your way!


----------



## IrishEyes

Hello all,

What a beautiful day! Ginger - I really don't know what I would have done had the big beast not been there to save the day! 
Aww sounds like Ginger was a good girl today, it is a nice feeling when your dog trotts along nicely by your side 

Molly - I'm very sorry to hear that, I never know what to say in these type of situations but my thoughts are with you.

Dogless - I can only sit back and admire how well you are doing with your two, if I can achieve half of what you have I'd be a very happy owner 

We had a lovely walk today, round the estate and up into the fields. A nice farmer stopped his work to come and say hello to us so Horace loved all the extra attention! I was sorry that I didn't bring my camera today as there where quite a few BOP close by and I could have easily got a shot or two...

The field next to the one that we walk through had some cows appear so I put Horace onlead as he hasn't met such creatures before and I didn't want to take any chances. He certainly saw them but didn't pay much heed. Whether he would be the same offlead I don't know.

We met a nice lady and her lovely lab, the dogs got on well and had a nice game of fetch together. She commented on how well behaved Horace was so that made me .

Four dogs passed us (other side of the street) on the way home, Horace went straight into sniffing mode.. it's not ideal but it's so much better than what he was doing before. It feels as though we are making progress!!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you! It is nice, I loved her from the start but I cant say outside was much fun , as long as we take things slow and stick to what we know for now its getting there even if I am on hyper alert , *I think it might be all ok!*


I'm sure it will be, for all of us .


----------



## Twiggy

GR - And a giant round of applause from me as well....

Dogless - So pleased you've had a wonderful morning walking the boys and even more pleased to hear Kilo has had some freedom and allowed to enjoy himself.

MS - I'm so sorry. It must be a heartbreaking decision.


----------



## Dogless

IrishEyes said:


> Hello all,
> 
> What a beautiful day! Ginger - I really don't know what I would have done had the big beast not been there to save the day!
> Aww sounds like Ginger was a good girl today, it is a nice feeling when your dog trotts along nicely by your side
> 
> Molly - I'm very sorry to hear that, I never know what to say in these type of situations but my thoughts are with you.
> 
> *Dogless - I can only sit back and admire how well you are doing with your two, if I can achieve half of what you have I'd be a very happy owner
> *
> We had a lovely walk today, round the estate and up into the fields. A nice farmer stopped his work to come and say hello to us so Horace loved all the extra attention! I was sorry that I didn't bring my camera today as there where quite a few BOP close by and I could have easily got a shot or two...
> 
> The field next to the one that we walk through had some cows appear so I put Horace onlead as he hasn't met such creatures before and I didn't want to take any chances. He certainly saw them but didn't pay much heed. Whether he would be the same offlead I don't know.
> 
> We met a nice lady and her lovely lab, the dogs got on well and had a nice game of fetch together. She commented on how well behaved Horace was so that made me .
> 
> Four dogs passed us (other side of the street) on the way home, Horace went straight into sniffing mode.. it's not ideal but it's so much better than what he was doing before. It feels as though we are making progress!!


Horace really is a star, love him!

The bit in bold....do you actually read my posts?  . Chaos!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> GR - And a giant round of applause from me as well....
> 
> Dogless - So pleased you've had a wonderful morning walking the boys and even more pleased to hear Kilo has had some freedom and allowed to enjoy himself.
> 
> MS - I'm so sorry. It must be a heartbreaking decision.


So am I Twiggy; he's never given me a reason to curtail his freedom before. I have always been sensible about it before so no reason why I shouldn't carry on, it's your wise words which have helped me to see that. He enjoys chasing and chasing is my mechanism of control really too as I said and loves playing with Rudi.

Rudi has way, way less prey drive than Kilo I think, way less, so the chasing for him isn't as important - he lets Kilo run for the toy then ambushes him on the way back. Clever dog!


----------



## Twiggy

kazters said:


> Hello New to the thread.
> 
> what am i currently working on with my 2. well With willow (2 year old Lab) its letting her let me clean her ears without her running away!.
> 
> Pippin (1 year old, just yesterday, Springer Spaniel) its oh so many things. fiannly starting to walk on her lead, so improving on that. working on her not being so suddenly scred of people she dosnt know, especialy when she is standing still or is in a room like the vets waiting room. and trying very hard to stop her scratching the floor as soon as she hears us get up in the morning (this used to be at night untill she started sleeping with willow)
> 
> should point out because pippins people fobia is only beein the last couple of weeks (since we got loud new nebgibours in a house that has been empty since before we got her) im taking her to the behaviour nurse at my vets next week to see if anything i can try as i caught her growling at people!


Well at least you know the cause of Pippin's phobia. Try very hard to be matter of fact and don't react otherwise you will compound her fear.


----------



## IrishEyes

Dogless said:


> Horace really is a star, love him!
> 
> The bit in bold....do you actually read my posts?  . Chaos!!


Haha yes I do!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> So am I Twiggy; he's never given me a reason to curtail his freedom before. I have always been sensible about it before so no reason why I shouldn't carry on, it's your wise words which have helped me to see that. He enjoys chasing and chasing is my mechanism of control really too as I said and loves playing with Rudi.
> 
> Rudi has way, way less prey drive than Kilo I think, way less, so the chasing for him isn't as important - he lets Kilo run for the toy then ambushes him on the way back. Clever dog!


And the best bit of your recent post is that you sound so much happier and positive now.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> And the best bit of your recent post is that you sound so much happier and positive now.....


Thanks to the WAYWO ladies, with particular credit to you Granny - and Dizzy's human in 'real life' I am. I cannot say how thankful I am. Funny how all common sense can go out of the window and put your life in a spin sometimes.

Well, not funny at all really .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless, I'm so glad Grannie and Dizzy's human sorted you out.

Dimwit your new classes sound fun.

MS i'm sorry you've had to make such a heartbreaking decision.

IE sounds liek Horace is on a roll 

GR woohooo what a lovely post I'm so glad you and the ninja are coming along together. bottle bowling.... well yes in a non physical sense.... Tink isn't thrown or rolled toward the bottles but she is sent with a hand gesture not entirely dissimilar, we've built up from a single bottle to 6 more than that and they begin to knock one another over. each pushed over with the nose, not paw.

Sorry can't remember anythign else because i'm frankly a bit rubbish.

Nothing to report here today yet.


----------



## Maria_1986

MS - I'm sorry that you have had to make such a tough decision ((hugs))

Dogless - glad your sounding more positive now

GR - lots of claps for you and Ginge

IE - sounds like Horace deserves a gold star today

kazters - welcome to WAYWO, good luck with Pippin, I hope the nurse can help

Been feeling a bit run down recently and its showing in the work Chevy is doing and the way we are interacting as we seem to be going backwards with stuff she has been doing reliably in the past.

Had a major panic thinking she was trying to kill a guinea pig but then worked out that I'd put her kong on top of the cage, she couldn't have cared less about the guineas but a frozen beef stew filled kong was worth climbing all over the sofa and scrabbling at the guinea cage for. Don't remember putting the kong up there and don't know why I would have done but I have next week off work so I am hoping that some down time will help engage my braincell again.

Still working my way through fired up, frantic and freaked out which is stupid as I can normally get through a book in 2 days but I just seem to have no concentration at the moment. Not doing the trip tot he dog show this weekend with her as its not fair on her if I'm really distracted but I have a couple of dates for local ones to try in the summer.

Hope everyone is having a good day.


----------



## Dogless

Hope you feel better soon Maria; thank goodness Chevy was only after her Kong!


----------



## GingerRogers

Poor you maria, hope a few days off can get you back on track, sometimes we just need a rest.

Can you all take your claps back  Lunch time potter not so good. Should have turned back as soon as I saw the beagle up ahead. But we avoided that, oh actually as I am typing I am thinking things through......

Start again, I saw the beagle pup and waited a bit but I bet she knew he was there and its humans were visible up ahead which peaked some interest, then another little grey thing came up the road so I dived in behind our house to our communal garage bit, about 20-30m off the pavement. Kept distracting her and trying to watch out for the dog to go past (why do they always take ages). My thinking was that if she kicked off I could just move further round out of sight, but she did but I didn't  unfortunately she twirled and lunged so the lead was round her neck which didn't help I dont think, the dog passed very quickly but she was still yipping about, TBH it sounded more excited frustrated which after knowing the beagle was about would make sense, she kept kind of almost turning back to me though which shows something is sinking in adn in less than 30 secs probably she was back facing me. AAs ewe moved off she lunged out in an excited way but we did get a nice shake very soon and she calmed down. We did some more sits and downs outside the house again.

So *she *can keep the claps thank you , I will have to do detention for a) pushing her to quick/hard b) not moving back like I thought I should. 

Sort of good news/bad news - we have a bit of a reprieve from the neighbours barking sheltie as sadly the lady owner has been diagnosed with angina so they wont be coming down till she has her meds stabilised for that


----------



## Kicksforkills

It is now sleepy time in the KFK household, Dexter was offlead for ALL three of his walks in the field today. He even found a slightly broken ball and enjoyed chasing it. Ran around in circles for ages with a stick in his mouth.

Was really good at coming back. I'd brought some ham just in case 


EDIT; Also got a new client. Walking for a puppy she just got.


----------



## kazters

Twiggy said:


> Well at least you know the cause of Pippin's phobia. Try very hard to be matter of fact and don't react otherwise you will compound her fear.


hello

how can you not react when she growls? i have just being if we are out and she is on her lead a tug of her lead and she stops. in house with barking i have been distracting her with a toy.

with the neighbor children if she is barking at them when she is in the garden, i have asked them all to give her a doggy biscuit (in the hope she associates people with treats and not big scary monsters... whats annoying with her, is she will be playing at the fence with them and barking at the at the same time! scamp that she is.


----------



## moonviolet

kazters said:


> hello
> 
> how can you not react when she growls? i have just being if we are out and she is on her lead a tug of her lead and she stops. in house with barking i have been distracting her with a toy.
> 
> with the neighbor children if she is barking at them when she is in the garden, i have asked them all to give her a doggy biscuit (in the hope she associates people with treats and not big scary monsters... whats annoying with her, is she will be playing at the fence with them and barking at the at the same time! scamp that she is.


Hi Kazters

First things first a growl is a comminucation, it's nto aggessive, it's jsut a " hey i'm not happy with this" If she is scared... she is trying to tell you that by tugging you ae punishing he for feeling that way, it might stop the growling but i don't think it will make her feel any less scared. If it's possible ty to put moe space between her and whatever is scaring her, then when she relaxes let her watch it and treat her for being calm as she watches.

As for in the garden I wouldn't encourage the neighbour children to be playing with her over the fence. it can lead to all sorts of problems.


----------



## kazters

the dogs are never in the garden on there own. 

its very hard with her, we were out last week and i had stopped to speak to someone and a toddler came running up from nowhere and she growled she was scared. i stepped in between her and the child (whos parent was nowhere to be seen and it was next to a main road) and when the parent did arrive started telling me off for having a dangerous dog. it isnt loud growling and its usually only a couple of times, its only been the past couple of weeks. she is usually a very friendly and happy girl.


----------



## Izzysmummy

kazters said:


> the dogs are never in the garden on there own.
> 
> its very hard with her, we were out last week and i had stopped to speak to someone and a toddler came running up from nowhere and she growled she was scared. i stepped in between her and the child (whos parent was nowhere to be seen and it was next to a main road) and when the parent did arrive started telling me off for having a dangerous dog. it isnt loud growling and its usually only a couple of times, its only been the past couple of weeks. she is usually a very friendly and happy girl.


Do you keep her on a lead/longline in the garden? This way you can have more control over her interactions and if shes feeling nervous you can lead her away and give her more space.

With the kids thing, Izzy is also very nervous of kids and will bark if they approach in a very direct/fast manner so I try to pre-empt any reaction from Izzy and step-in before she feels the need to react. This has involved telling the kids off which parents dont like but Id rather they think that Im nasty than my dog! 

If shes going through a nervous stage then try and make sure you have lots of positive experiences, keep things short and sweet and dont put too much pressure on her and fingers crossed she'll bounce back to her normal happy self!


----------



## kazters

im sure she will, its also certain people (the know who they like and who they dont)

she isnt on a lead in the garden, she is very good at coming when called (unless we have been playing with bubbles).


----------



## Twiggy

kazters said:


> hello
> 
> how can you not react when she growls? i have just being if we are out and she is on her lead a tug of her lead and she stops. in house with barking i have been distracting her with a toy.
> 
> with the neighbor children if she is barking at them when she is in the garden, i have asked them all to give her a doggy biscuit (in the hope she associates people with treats and not big scary monsters... whats annoying with her, is she will be playing at the fence with them and barking at the at the same time! scamp that she is.


Ah but you see unfortunately I'm not a mind-reader and in your post this morning there was no mention of barking or problems in the garden.
All you said was that Pippin was scared because new neighbours had moved into an empty house two weeks ago....

You've now had some very good advice from both Moonviolet and Izzysmummy which I hope will help you.


----------



## Nicki85

Hello all...

Going well here  Shae is doing really well, house training coming on nicely- couple of accidents yesterday which were my fault but she is going to the back door now. We have been accident free for a while before that! I think you start to let your guard down and forget they have such tiny (and unpredictable!) bladders when they are pups.

I'm playing with them both individually 10-15 mins x3 a day which they both seem to enjoy and then a couple of short clicker sessions on top. Working on Shae's "get it" command for her toy at the moment using both the clicker and general play... first time i've tried to train tug/ toy retrieve using a clicker but Shae is much more flexible about treats and toys than Rusty is. If you get a clicker out for Rusty he won't put anything in his mouth... clicker= food!!!!

We are supposed to have agility tonight but I am full of a cold so I don't think it will do me any good. We have our first private lesson with Dave next week so been doing lots of tug work. Looking forward to it after our show last weekend! We also have another show this weekend and I may actually compete in this one instead of entering NFC... 

I haven't walked Rusty in two days now :0 but Mum has been covering thank fully!! I'd venture out though if I needed to- hate the idea of Rusty being housebound... he lives for his walks.

MS- sounds like a horrible decision  Hugs for you.

IE- Horace sounds like he is doing really well!

GR- it sounds like you are making huge steps with your pup... a small set back is always expected here and there (although your last post sounded positive really!!)

Maria- glad to hear it was the kong not the piggy!!! No way could I have small furies in a room with Rusty...


----------



## Dogless

Get well soon Nicki!! Sounds as if your two are doing really well. You put me to shame .


----------



## Nicki85

DL- I think not!!! Different issues, different problems  I still can't trust Rusty in busy park situations... he is mental on walks so I need space really to let him off. Strange cause I can get concentration at a busy agility show but take him to a park with lots of other dogs/ people these things get difficult.

I remember letting him off on a beach once and it was a bit busy... he ran around like a loon, tried to climb a 6ft wall, got confused where I was and started chasing some screaming children. That was not a good day!!!

At the moment I am going with the no pressure approach... lots of "empty" places to walk here that avoid the park situation. I have done a bit but not as much as I should- mainly because I don't enjoy walking him in busy places....


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> DL- I think not!!! Different issues, different problems  I still can't trust Rusty in busy park situations... he is mental on walks so I need space really to let him off. Strange cause I can get concentration at a busy agility show but take him to a park with lots of other dogs/ people these things get difficult.
> 
> I remember letting him off on a beach once and it was a bit busy... he ran around like a loon, tried to climb a 6ft wall, got confused where I was and started chasing some screaming children. That was not a good day!!!
> 
> At the moment I am going with the no pressure approach... lots of "empty" places to walk here that avoid the park situation. I have done a bit but not as much as I should- mainly because I don't enjoy walking him in busy places....


Same here Nick. I'm really naughty and know I should take Holly to the local parks but it's all so time consuming and much easier to take all of them through the paddock gate..!!

I might (and I say might) be joining a small local agility group next Tuesday as a means to socialise Holly. The thought of 'running' - hmmmm..


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Same here Nick. I'm really naughty and know I should take Holly to the local parks but it's all so time consuming and much easier to take all of them through the paddock gate..!!
> 
> I might (and I say might) be joining a small local agility group next Tuesday as a means to socialise Holly. The thought of 'running' - hmmmm..


I take the CHs to the park because I feel that I should. I much prefer splendid isolation!


----------



## Sarah1983

I'm forcing myself to take Spen to busier places as the weather gets nicer. It's so much nicer just to go somewhere you know you don't have to sort of micro manage them but he really does need to get used to walking through town coz god only knows where we'll end up in 12 months or so. Not that "town" here is busy compared to where I used to live lol.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm forcing myself to take Spen to busier places as the weather gets nicer. It's so much nicer just to go somewhere you know you don't have to sort of micro manage them but he really does need to get used to walking through town coz god only knows where we'll end up in 12 months or so. Not that "town" here is busy compared to where I used to live lol.


If it's here our hubbies can house share here and we'll get a place on the mainland!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> If it's here our hubbies can house share here and we'll get a place on the mainland!!


Sounds like a plan!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> If it's here our hubbies can house share here and we'll get a place on the mainland!!


That sounds like a brilliant plan... They could join you for holidays....


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> That sounds like a brilliant plan... They could join you for holidays....


But then how would mine "just pop into work for 10 minutes" when he's on leave?


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> Who is the trainer at the rally class if you don't mind me asking?


Sorry, only just seen this. It is Sally Talbot (Happy Hounds training), and she also runs the scentwork classes we have been going to.
We have just got back from a class where we had the unusual (and slightly unnerving) experience of being the most sensible and most advanced dog there. To be fair though it was just him and 2 puppies :lol: (usually the puppy class is separate but there was only one class tonight). I thought it would be a good chance to test the magic ball and he did very well. His heelwork was still a bit hit and miss, and he got a bit confused when he was asked to jump through a hula hoop but apart from that he was very well-behaved (though he does have a tendency to just hover slightly above the ground when he is supposed to be lying down) 

*MS* I am so sorry about the IVF, what a horrible decision to have to make - I hope you are OK.

*GR* I think the odd blip is acceptable (at least, that's what I tell myself) but it sounds like you are doing really well

I also have to make myself take the dimwit to busier places - that's why I like our morning walks, there is very rarely anyone else around


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Sorry, only just seen this. It is Sally Talbot (Happy Hounds training), and she also runs the scentwork classes we have been going to.
> 
> OK that's fine. It's just that alarm bells were starting to ring over Rally trainers roughly in your area.


----------



## Dogless

Fabulous separate walks with the CHs tonight.

Took Rudi to the dog walking area. Funny how it's been busy for the last three nights now it's vaguely spring - like when I last saw anyone on there in the evening was when Kilo was attacked so around 6 months ago . Anyway, went in, two dogs were harassing one who just wanted to be left alone whilst the owners called and called and the other owner struggled. Stayed well away from them and Rudi stayed with me offlead, no dramas love him . Walked through quick smart though in case Rudi either joined in the bullying or their attentions turned to him. Then met another dog as we walked through the gap onto the next field and...Rudi just greeted politely and walked on with me. Couldn't be prouder of the LCH, yet again. I'm always boasting about him and hope that karma doesn't deal me an horrendous adolescence with him .

Then took Kilo on a lead walk, saw a few dogs, no dramas. Other than that just mucked about with him on the sports pitches really and enjoyed his company. 

My beautiful best boys :001_wub::001_wub:


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Happy Hounds is who Cath recommended Dimwit. She said that Pam who is the famed UK trainer is good but she took Lola (have you met Lola her Gordon Setter?) and in one day they only did 3 searches so lots of bored dogs. She said she might take Lola to some of the Happy Hound ones instead. A mutual friend said they were good too, she takes her spaniel Lucy along (she's called Jackie, you might have met her). 

Thank you for the kind wishes, it means a lot. I had a nice Molly day of walks, games and hugs which makes me see there is a little more too life.

Ginge - well done lovely, it sounds like you are making so much progress. And you too Dimwit. You've overcome so much with your dogs. You do get blips, I might blip out with Molly on Happy Hounds but it's worth a push to see sometimes. Just because it might all work out. 

We also have to tackle bigger places. I'm being a wuss and walking around villages but need to try.My aim is to walk her around Saffron Walden which is a small market town. Cambridge centre is too busy and full of idiot cyclists who care very little for dogs.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> OK that's fine. It's just that alarm bells were starting to ring over Rally trainers roughly in your area.



I was (reasonably) sensible after my previous experience and made sure that I thought the classes would be suitable (not that I really know enough to judge). I'm not sure, to be honest, that we will ever get to a reasonable standard to actually go to a rally but the classes are fun, which is the main thing. The dimwit is so enthusiastic about training at home and it was really nice to see him enjoying himself at a class


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Oh Happy Hounds is who Cath recommended Dimwit. She said that Pam who is the famed UK trainer is good but she took Lola (have you met Lola her Gordon Setter?) and in one day they only did 3 searches so lots of bored dogs. She said she might take Lola to some of the Happy Hound ones instead. A mutual friend said they were good too, she takes her spaniel Lucy along (she's called Jackie, you might have met her).


Oh really? Yes, I have met Lola (so lovely). I am not sure if I have met the Spaniel or not, we have only been twice but both times were very good - the little dimwit clearly remembered it when we went on Sunday and he was very keen!


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> I was (reasonably) sensible after my previous experience and made sure that I thought the classes would be suitable (not that I really know enough to judge). I'm not sure, to be honest, that we will ever get to a reasonable standard to actually go to a rally but the classes are fun, which is the main thing. The dimwit is so enthusiastic about training at home and it was really nice to see him enjoying himself at a class


I have emailed her 

I love Lola, I didn't see her today but we saw Red which was just as nice.


----------



## moonviolet

Just had to share this :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:

drawerpush retrieve - YouTube


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Just had to share this :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:
> 
> drawerpush retrieve - YouTube


Wow mv!!! I just LOVE Miss Tinks - see what you meant about needing more stable props though!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Wow mv!!! I just LOVE Miss Tinks - see what you meant about needing more stable props though!!


I'm thinking something solid oak might be more robust :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Miss Tink is awesome :thumbup:


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Brilliant!! Tinks is amazing (clearly you have no input at all MV :lol: )

and I was impressed when Branston and Lily learned 'touch'

We have much to learn my little ones..........


----------



## Beth17

That is fabulous mv!


----------



## moonviolet

Aww thanks She's a bit of a star, to me anyway


----------



## Nicki85

MV- that is awesome!! Welldone you and Tinks x


----------



## Dimwit

Wow mv, that is great


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Aww thanks She's a bit of a star, to me anyway


She is a star. I have never met her (obviously ) but she has totally changed Beagles from a breed that I just didn't like to one that I now admire and am intrigued by.


----------



## MollySmith

Well done MV and Tinks, Awh love her, she looks very happy!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> She is a star. I have never met her (obviously ) but she has totally changed Beagles from a breed that I just didn't like to one that I now admire and am intrigued by.


little mines of untapped potential


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> little mines of untapped potential


Not sure I'd be woman enough for one!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Not sure I'd be woman enough for one!!!


You could handle one no trouble at all. There's nothing like having a household imp


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> You could handle one no trouble at all. There's nothing like having a household imp


I've got one imp and one sofa dweller!


----------



## Dogless

Think I might miss school tomorrow for the boys; they are only just OK and I'm wondering if it might be too much? Plus I have another reason that I don't want to publicise...not personal, don't worry!! Hmmmm...but then I'll feel guilty if I don't go....


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Think I might miss school tomorrow for the boys; they are only just OK and I'm wondering if it might be too much? Plus I have another reason that I don't want to publicise...not personal, don't worry!! Hmmmm...but then I'll feel guilty if I don't go....


I think you'd be perfectly jusitified having a week off you've had such a busy time lately.


----------



## Sarah1983

Me and the Spendog have had a fairly good day. Took a walk to the park in town today. He was rather pully but nowhere near the nightmare he used to be. He went to jump up at a random bloke which he hasn't done in months though! I prevented it and apologised. We had a wander around the park which was practically empty as it was drizzling. I stood in some dog crap someone hadn't bothered to pick up. On the way home Spen offered some loose leash walking until we saw another dog, then he got a bit bouncy. We turned off and went and did a lap of the park with big rocks then headed home. He did about 5 minutes of the most fantastic walking to heel ever. The sort that I'm always sooooo jealous of when I see someone elses dog doing it on a walk. His nose was level with my knee. He was on my right rather than on my left but I can live with that if it's where he prefers to be. Could have just been coz the grass was on my right though lol. Then we saw another dog and all thoughts of heelwork went out of his head  But over all a very good walk.

he's currently lying in front of me with the tv remote in his mouth trying to get me to feed him.


----------



## Izzysmummy

moonviolet said:


> Just had to share this :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:
> 
> drawerpush retrieve - YouTube


Wow! She's picked that up so quickly! She's such a little star! :001_wub:



Dogless said:


> Think I might miss school tomorrow for the boys; they are only just OK and I'm wondering if it might be too much? Plus I have another reason that I don't want to publicise...not personal, don't worry!! Hmmmm...but then I'll feel guilty if I don't go....


You've all had a busy week, don't feel guilty for giving you all a little break to recover! I'm sure the boys will be just as happy to curl up on the sofa with you instead! 

Just got back from training. Went really well although at one point I ended up with someone else's dog ! We were doing some off-lead heel work when A's dog, Chance, decided I had better treats and came to do heel work with me, at which point we were just walking past the end of the hall where Tarnus was sat so Izzy went to go see her Dad. I didn't notice at all as I had a little black dog (Chance) walking to heel next to me until I heard lots of laughing at the back and realised I had the wrong dog. Izzy then went up to the instructor and sat in front of her giving her paw then Chance's Dad patted his leg for Chance to go back to him so Izzy went too and A was walking round the hall with 2 dogs !

Izzy did pretty well though, we just need to focus on her distance control and positions on the move this week.


----------



## ItsonlyChris

I'm not sure if we are working on anything with Blue right now, she's going outside a lot now and she's only been slipping up these last two days or so.

She can do paw, sit and come now and once she's had her jab we can take her for walks and she's going to puppy class near the end of April.

Just watching her grow up now really.

I did find out that if she's biting me, if I put a finger in the gap where her teeth haven't grown yet, she gets bored.


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Just had to share this :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:
> 
> drawerpush retrieve - YouTube


That is brilliant, she's learnt that so quick, clever girl.
Hope everyones ok , I've been a bit busy here will catch up later.


----------



## Maria_1986

moonviolet said:


> Just had to share this :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:
> 
> drawerpush retrieve - YouTube


Thats amazing! I am totally in awe of what people here can get their dogs to do. I got ridiculously excited when Chevy got touch, there is no way I could train her to get stuff out a drawer!


----------



## Kicksforkills

Brilliant MV!

Dexter would be the perfect puppy if it wasn't for his constant barking at around 7AM each morning. Not sure if its just when he wakes up and needs to go or if its seperation anxiety? 

Wondering wether to crate train properly? Or if its just because he can't hold it. I would ignore him until he's quiet but my mum, brother and neighbours probably wouldn't appreciate hat.

Apart from that, he only barks if one of the JRT's bark and he can't see them, if someone gets too excited (kept barking whenever my brothers girlfriend stood up because she had jumped up yelling in excitement before), or to alert us someone's coming downstairs/is in the hall when he hasn't said hello to them.

Our JRT's bark more than him but they don't bark at 7am.

Also thinking about moving his crate, although it doesn't quite fit, to under the stairs so he can see our other dogs and they can see him.


----------



## moonviolet

Maria_1986 said:


> Thats amazing! I am totally in awe of what people here can get their dogs to do. I got ridiculously excited when Chevy got touch, there is no way I could train her to get stuff out a drawer!


You absolutely could. it really wasn't hard.

All it is a combination of 2 things;
1 Pushing the drawer open 
2 Retrieving the toy

I shaped the first one because shaping works well with Tink but... you could guide it quite easily from your "touch" by sticking a post-it to the palm of your hand and doing your hand targets, shape really strong touches, so they becomes pushes. Then, pretty much the world, is your oyster about where you stick post its for her push. In the case of the drawer when she pushed the drawer open I very obviously dropped the treat into the drawer so she had to walk around to get it.

Seperately we practised retrieving the toy from the open drawer. when she was confident with both I combined them or should i say she combined them


----------



## Beth17

K4K if Dexter is up at 7am barking he probably needs to go out as he's still young and has a small bladder. Sam is much bigger than Dexter and still needs to go out around 7 before going back to bed for a bit.


----------



## Beth17

MV excellent I had been wondering how to get Sam to transition from touching my hand to other things. Thank you


----------



## Maria_1986

Thanks for the vote of confidence MV  I might put opening things on my list of things to try once I'm better with the clicker, started working on stand with the clicker on Tuesday - its amazing how fast she is picking it up with the clicker.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Beth17 said:


> K4K if Dexter is up at 7am barking he probably needs to go out as he's still young and has a small bladder. Sam is much bigger than Dexter and still needs to go out around 7 before going back to bed for a bit.


Ah thanks.

Any idea if it will ever stop? When he's 2 maybe?


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Just had to share this :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:
> 
> drawerpush retrieve - YouTube


Brilliant...!! Can't wait to see the whole routine...


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Aww thanks She's a bit of a star, to me anyway


Yes Tinks is a star to all of us but I'd also say the handler isn't bad either....:thumbup:


----------



## Sarah1983

Maria_1986 said:


> Thats amazing! I am totally in awe of what people here can get their dogs to do. I got ridiculously excited when Chevy got touch, there is no way I could train her to get stuff out a drawer!


I'm not sure I dare teach Spencer to get something out of a drawer, he brings me quite enough things as it is without learning to open drawers lol.

I don't use post it notes coz both mine have been far less interested in touching them than in peeling them off and shredding them. To teach them to touch objects I start with something small and hold it out to them, soon as they go to investigate, click and treat. It quickly becomes a sort of default thing to try with new objects. I know people who have had success with the post it note, it just hasn't worked for mine.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> That is brilliant, she's learnt that so quick, clever girl.
> Hope everyones ok , I've been a bit busy here will catch up later.


How is Molly? Touch wood I think Tremor is more or less sound, although I'm being very, very careful.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Thats amazing! I am totally in awe of what people here can get their dogs to do. I got ridiculously excited when Chevy got touch, there is no way I could train her to get stuff out a drawer!


Oh yes you could...LOL You can virtually teach dogs to do anything *but*
it requires patience, dedication and lots of hard work.


----------



## Beth17

Kicksforkills said:


> Ah thanks.
> 
> Any idea if it will ever stop? When he's 2 maybe?


Your guess is as good as mine. When their bladders are strong enough and when the training sinks in properly I suppose.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Beth17 said:


> Your guess is as good as mine. When their bladders are strong enough and when the training sinks in properly I suppose.


Thanks Beth.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm not sure I dare teach Spencer to get something out of a drawer, he brings me quite enough things as it is without learning to open drawers lol.
> 
> I don't use post it notes coz both mine have been far less interested in touching them than in peeling them off and shredding them. To teach them to touch objects I start with something small and hold it out to them, soon as they go to investigate, click and treat. It quickly becomes a sort of default thing to try with new objects. I know people who have had success with the post it note, it just hasn't worked for mine.


No probably not a good idea with Spen, he'd be a nightmare...LOL


----------



## Maria_1986

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm not sure I dare teach Spencer to get something out of a drawer, he brings me quite enough things as it is without learning to open drawers lol.
> 
> I don't use post it notes coz both mine have been far less interested in touching them than in peeling them off and shredding them. To teach them to touch objects I start with something small and hold it out to them, soon as they go to investigate, click and treat. It quickly becomes a sort of default thing to try with new objects. I know people who have had success with the post it note, it just hasn't worked for mine.


OH's parents lab is the same, teaching her how to open a drawer would lead to chaos and everything in a draw spread across the house!

I don't think Chevy would bring me something out a drawer as she doesn't pick stuff up or play with toys, on the few occasions I have got her to hold a toy she drops it as soon as I let go. Can you teach dogs how to play with toys?


----------



## Sarah1983

I think sometimes needing out at a certain time gets to be a habit. I can go to bed at 5am and take Spen out just before I do and he still wakes me up to go out sometime between 7am and 8am. Just coz he's used to going out at that time. If I know he's not long been I just tell him to go and lie down but usually I get up, take him for a pee and go back to bed. Wouldn't recommend just ignoring a pup or adult dog who's held it all night and is waking you to go out though. Spen is very much a creature of habit and even though I don't really have a routine he does 

I taught Rupert to hold a toy while playing. And to do an informal retrieve. But I never managed to teach him to play with a toy for the fun of playing with a toy if that makes sense. You can certainly shape a dog to pick something up though. I start out by clicking and treating the touch for a while, then I hold off and usually you get at least a harder jab with the nose to the item, I reward that for a bit then hold off again. Usually ends up with the dog mouthing the item or at least opening its mouth which I reward. I carry on like that with little steps until they're picking the item up. I dunno whether that's the best way to do it but it's worked for me. 

Oddly enough I've actually had to shape Spencer to pick things up in a training session, for all he does it naturally outside of one it's never been one of his offered behaviours in training lol. Jabbing, pawing, rolling on, play bowing to, resting his chin on all get offered but not picking the item up unless I specifically shape it.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thanks Sarah, I suppose it is good for him to hold it 9 hours from 10pm to 7am.

I'll just hope that it settles down as he gets older.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> OH's parents lab is the same, teaching her how to open a drawer would lead to chaos and everything in a draw spread across the house!
> 
> I don't think Chevy would bring me something out a drawer as she doesn't pick stuff up or play with toys, on the few occasions I have got her to hold a toy she drops it as soon as I let go. Can you teach dogs how to play with toys?


Yes you can. I have lots of dogs that come here who won't initially play.
In the instances I'm talking about it's because their handlers haven't put sufficient effort in when they are puppies and instead go for the easy option ie tit-bits.

There are many methods but one of the easiest is to make a slit in an old tennis ball and insert a very smelly high value tit-bit. Have the dog sitting in front of you (or at the side) and say something like "what's this?" with the ball just above their nose, so they are looking up and interested, and then squeeze the tit-bit out almost into their mouths. Repeat lots of times until the dog is really enjoying the experience and then move the goalposts ie roll the ball (obviously loaded with a tit-bit) just a little way in front of you and as the dog investigates, pick the ball up and again say "what's this?" and squeeze the tit-bit out. Quite soon the dog is happy to chase the ball.

I've used this method quite a bit (well it was my idea!!) on dogs that are not toy orientated.


----------



## Dimwit

Maria_1986 said:


> on the few occasions I have got her to hold a toy she drops it as soon as I let go. Can you teach dogs how to play with toys?


You can, and I have gradually been teaching the dimwit how to play tuggy etc (There are people on here who know far more than me who can probably tell you how to do it properly). My dog also tends to bring toys to me and then just drop them, and he would never even hold a toy if I was holding it at the same time as he would be waiting for me to throw it but he is slowly getting there.

AND he did a whole retrieve this morning in the park  Sat next to me while I threw the dumbbell, then when I told him to he ran over, picked it up and brought it back to me and then held on to it until I took it off him  OK, it was very unpolished, and I only threw it a couple of feet away, and he has a tendency to drop it if he tries to sit (not good at multi-tasking) but I am so peased with him (and he was SOOO proud of himself)

He also walked beautifully past a very enthusiastic spaniel who was leaping around at the tend of his lead and trying desperately to get to us and the dimwit just looked at him and then looked up at me and trotted along next to me (and I didn't even have food in my hand) :001_wub:


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## Maria_1986

Twiggy said:


> Oh yes you could...LOL You can virtually teach dogs to do anything *but*
> it requires patience, dedication and lots of hard work.


So perhaps my day dream of Chevy finding the keys I am forever losing could end up being a reality... Guess that one would be to break it down into what keys are(shaping the touch then holding the keys), finding keys (starting with them on the floor, then further away, then under a blanket etc), then bringing them back to me?

Would she be able to track down the keys as they are or would they need something smelly on them for her to be able to find them? (I do realise that I need to get the basics down first and that this is a long term dream)


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> You can, and I have gradually been teaching the dimwit how to play tuggy etc (There are people on here who know far more than me who can probably tell you how to do it properly). My dog also tends to bring toys to me and then just drop them, and he would never even hold a toy if I was holding it at the same time as he would be waiting for me to throw it but he is slowly getting there.
> 
> AND he did a whole retrieve this morning in the park  Sat next to me while I threw the dumbbell, then when I told him to he ran over, picked it up and brought it back to me and then held on to it until I took it off him * OK, it was very unpolished, and I only threw it a couple of feet away, and he has a tendency to drop it if he tries to sit (not good at multi-tasking)* but I am so peased with him (and he was SOOO proud of himself)
> 
> He also walked beautifully past a very enthusiastic spaniel who was leaping around at the tend of his lead and trying desperately to get to us and the dimwit just looked at him and then looked up at me and trotted along next to me (and I didn't even have food in my hand) :001_wub:


Oh well done to both of you. It isn't that the Dimwit isn't good at multi-tasking though, it's because he doesn't understand and the exercise needs more work. When dogs do these sort of things it's always our fault because we haven't trained/explained the exercise sufficiently...


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## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> So perhaps my day dream of Chevy finding the keys I am forever losing could end up being a reality... Guess that one would be to break it down into what keys are(shaping the touch then holding the keys), finding keys (starting with them on the floor, then further away, then under a blanket etc), then bringing them back to me?
> 
> Would she be able to track down the keys as they are or would they need something smelly on them for her to be able to find them? (I do realise that I need to get the basics down first and that this is a long term dream)


Anything is possible honestly..

Using the slit tennis ball method I've taught dogs and handlers to become very reliable at retrieve . In competition once they get into Class B, the retrieve article can be anything from keys, plastic, wood, cloth, rubber, etc. etc.


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## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> When dogs do these sort of things it's always our fault because we haven't trained/explained the exercise sufficiently...


I know  I am the dimwit, and he is the clever one!


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## Guest

LOVE Tink's drawer retrieve!! She is so cute!!

Had to LOL @ Spencer and not teaching him to open drawers  A friend of mine taught her dane to turn lights on and off with her nose and regretted it ever since. Coming home to lights on everywhere, having lights shut off in the middle of doing something. It cracked me up. Technically once you have stimulus control this shouldn't happen, but in the "look what I can do" phase I imagine it's a pain!
I've not taught any of mine to open drawers or cabinets for the same reason. They already raid the plastics recycling bin far too much as it is!

Maria, there are some great posts on teaching a dog to like toys on Susan Garrett's website. Here's one, but there are others if you browse around:
How to Create a Motivating Toy

Play around with different toys too. My dane girl LOVES things that crinkle like plastic water bottles, she's meh about squeaky things. My dane boy hates for things to squeak, and the mutt boy thinks squeaking is the bee's knees. So just mess around and see what they seem to like.


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## Sarah1983

Just be aware that a lot of dogs don't like to pick up metal items so that can need extra training or you can just put something non metal on the keys for the dog to pick them up with


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## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> So perhaps my day dream of Chevy finding the keys I am forever losing could end up being a reality... Guess that one would be to break it down into what keys are(shaping the touch then holding the keys), finding keys (starting with them on the floor, then further away, then under a blanket etc), then bringing them back to me?
> 
> Would she be able to track down the keys as they are or would they need something smelly on them for her to be able to find them? (I do realise that I need to get the basics down first and that this is a long term dream)


Your post has just reminded me of the day my sister and I took the dogs down to the coast and she managed to lose the car keys.

We'd walked for about two hours and on returning to her car - no keys..!!

Just as well we had six trained collies with us who were all experienced retrieve and scent dogs...

I can't remember which one found the keys in the sand dunes, but they were very well rewarded.

Yet again an example of a practical application for teaching the exercises.


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## Beth17

Kicksforkills said:


> Thanks Sarah, I suppose it is good for him to hold it 9 hours from 10pm to 7am.
> 
> I'll just hope that it settles down as he gets older.


9 hours is a good time to hold it. To be honest unless there was a good reason or they really didn't want to go out I wouldn't make mine hold it longer than that anyway


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## Sarah1983

ouesi said:


> LOVE Tink's drawer retrieve!! She is so cute!!
> 
> Had to LOL @ Spencer and not teaching him to open drawers  A friend of mine taught her dane to turn lights on and off with her nose and regretted it ever since. Coming home to lights on everywhere, having lights shut off in the middle of doing something. It cracked me up. Technically once you have stimulus control this shouldn't happen, but in the "look what I can do" phase I imagine it's a pain!
> I've not taught any of mine to open drawers or cabinets for the same reason. They already raid the plastics recycling bin far too much as it is![


Lol, I debated about teaching Spencer to turn the lights on and off. I decided against it. I'd probably end up sitting in the dark each evening if I did. He's been taught to close drawers and doors but not to open them, that would just be stupid I think. In a way it's great having a dog who picks things up extremely fast. In other ways...well let's just say I'm careful what I teach him.


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## Maria_1986

Wow Twiggy thats amazing - I bet your sister was relieved!

Thanks for all the wonderful advice  I have a teddy on my keys already, so I could teach her to hold them by that as its already a bit old, grubby and looking sorry for its self. This training thing is addictive!

Just had a :001_wub::thumbup: love my doggy moment. Went out the front into the communal garden to do our 5 mins of outside training for this hour (5 mins each hour outside is about right for Chevy at the moment much more than that and she becomes a bit distracted by the cat poop in the flower bed). Sit wait at the door, opened the door, I stepped out and a tiny JRT jumped in! Chevy held the sit/wait!! I scooped up the JRT as its collar was tiny and none of the leads I have would have gone through the ring, shut the door and went in search of an owner. No ID tag on the collar but after a min or two I heard someone shouting. Turns out its not their dog, they are just looking after it and she had no lead with her so I went to hand back the dog and she flinched and said she was scared of dogs so I carried it back to the house for her and put it inside (they only live the next bit over from us) got back to find Chevy in the same place as I asked her to sit and wait before opening the door - she got a few bits of cheese and sausage for that one!!


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## Nicki85

Rusty won't do a sit to hand retrieve either. I'm pretty sure he got a big telling off before I got him for carrying something around that he shouldn't have been. He used to be very wary of taking any toy off me, playing and would drop it the minute I looked at him. We've got a bring command now which means bring to hand but it is less than enthusiastic but does work. I might start tightening it up... I really need to work on it with Shae but might back train it. At the moment she runs to the toy and lays down with it  Going to be fun with agility! But at least i've got something to use for a "go on" command.

Just been to vets for second vaccinations and microchip- happy, friendly puppy till the microchip lol. Two weeks wait and then she can go out and about  Rusty wasn't sure of her smell where she had had the microchip bless him!


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## Izzysmummy

Maria_1986 said:


> OH's parents lab is the same, teaching her how to open a drawer would lead to chaos and everything in a draw spread across the house!
> 
> I don't think Chevy would bring me something out a drawer as she doesn't pick stuff up or play with toys, on the few occasions I have got her to hold a toy she drops it as soon as I let go. *Can you teach dogs how to play with toys?*


Izzy's always been quite a natural at fetch and LOVES her ball! We keep them at the bottom of the stairs which she cant get to but if the babygate gets left open by accident she will go and pinch herself a ball and either just lie with it in her bed or if she wants to play she'll drop it on your knee.

Ive recently tried to get her interested in playing tug as I thought it might be useful for agility. I started just wriggling a chain link type toy around to get her interested and as soon as she went towards it gave lots of praise (we dont clicker train but I guess it would be easy to shape with a clicker), then we just built up from there with lots of praise when she picked up the toy and lots of encouragement with her first tentative attempts at tugging and now she will bring her rings to us when she wants to play tug and will really go for it, I make it more fun for her by letting her tug me off the sofa and lie of the floor letting her tug me around, then running around with her hanging on and just being silly really. Now we need to transfer this out into the garden then onto other tuggy toys that are a bit smaller and easier to carry round with me.

All the staffys Ive met have loved playing tug and get really excited "growly", Im sure Chevy will soon learn to love playing with her toys!


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## Dogless

Twiggy - so pleased that Tremor seems to be sound.

Sarah - the vision of you having taught Spen to open drawers made me laugh!! It would look like you'd been burgled permanently at yours!!



Twiggy said:


> Your post has just reminded me of the day my sister and I took the dogs down to the coast and she managed to lose the car keys.
> 
> We'd walked for about two hours and on returning to her car - no keys..!!
> 
> Just as well we had six trained collies with us who were all experienced retrieve and scent dogs...
> 
> I can't remember which one found the keys in the sand dunes, but they were very well rewarded.
> 
> Yet again an example of a practical application for teaching the exercises.


Kilo lost his collar on a walk once - expensive leather one. I started looking for it, but no chance of getting into the thick trees like Kilo had. Every morning I say "Come and have your collar on" and hold it out or just "collar". He also knows "find it" and also he brings items that he knows to me if I say "Where's your....?". I took a punt and said "Kilo, where's your collar? Find it!" and.....he searched really intently and DID find it. I was amazed!!!! So proud of him!!!

Well we had a superb walk this morning; took the boys out together. We went on a walk round the sports pitches, through what's left of the top dog walking area and some other random places - all areas where people can appear suddenly from behind buildings etc so I always train with Kilo when we walk there to keep him close and engaged or constantly call him back and put him on lead etc. Today I just completely relaxed as he was on his longline and because I was relaxed he was too, WAY less vigilant. A lorry even pulled up just behind us, people got out and they dumped a load of sand and it was totally ignored whereas before I'd be putting him on lead whilst he stared and distracting him. I would never have taken him there with Rudi before as I didn't want Rudi learning to be hypervigilant too...but now we can go together and relax . Perfect morning - apart from getting soaked in the rain!! .


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - the vision of you having taught Spen to open drawers made me laugh!! It would look like you'd been burgled permanently at yours!!


There are days when it looks like that anyway  I've given up trying to keep the place tidy with a husband who seems to think the floor and the sofa are where everything belongs and a dog who brings me a million and one things each day  I keep tidying it up and within 24 hours it's back to being a mess again.

Glad you had a nice walk with both boys.


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## GingerRogers

Nikki - nice to hear from you glad your pup is coming along well, I would probably just sit about all day and coo at her and snuggle into her fluffiness, lol. Loved your description of Rusty on the beach, I could just picture the spaniel confusion, bless him, I am sure it wasn't funny really though 

Dogless - sounds like Rudi did well last night. And Kilo did brill this morning, glad you are relaxing 

Moonviolet - Tink is amazing, so clever  Is this part of your HWTM routine though or am I confused? Dogless says she has turned her on to beagles, I have always loved them but never thought to have one as they do seem to live up to their reputation  of the ones I know anyway, although their owners are all of a type so that might be it. 

Sarah - another good day, apart from the poo, Spen is on a roll! I wouldn't advise encouraging the opening of drawers with him either, lol. Would be hilarious at other peoples houses though, perhaps he could just target their knicker drawers we all know thats where the secret things are hidden. How odd that he doesn't pick things up in training though 

IM - dog confusion, how funny!

KFK - It could be he needs to go out or it could be habit if that was when his breeder got up.

Twiggy - glad Tremor seems fixed, lets hope it stays that way! I like your idea of the tennis ball toy......... Excellent retrieve work on the keys  glad you had all 6 of them with you though or it could haev taken even longer.

Dimwit - well done on the retrieve and the calm walk past!

MAria - bless Chevy and her waiting  (why is someone scared of dogs looking after one and why didn't they have a lead  ) 

I don't get this whole bladder and the size of the dog thing unless I am missing something, obviously the age has something to do with it but I don't see why size would. Ginge can hold for ages, sometimes 12 hrs as she refuses to go when she gets up sometimes, she is strange. Sure great danes drink more than her, but dont they all have the same bladder proportions 

Well last nights walk was a bit stressful. I tend to take her a out for a couple of potters round the estate then one 'nice' walk. We went to 'happy field' (she runs about on her long line looking very happy there ) you have to walk through a little bit of wood to get there and we were investigating off to the side when chap and his GR appeared at the end and growled at us. I dived off the path into the trees she came reasonably happily and we stood off a fair distance, happily taking treats :thumbup: even though she was posturing up. Then I realised who it was, an old client of mine whose house backs onto the field, the old gundogs gone deaf so we had to wait for ages for him to 'call' it back with a hand signal . She had a bit of a bark but again an excited sort of thing, not too much and for much of it came and stood behind me so I tried out a flat hand signal as in its ok you dont need to do this sort of thing which seemed to have an affect :thumbup:. We said our thank yous and carried on. Then she went nuts on the field,  presumably after the old boys scent, so not much training went on. On the way back to the car the dogs on the farm opposite started barking and she came and walked nicely next to me again :thumbup:

This mornings potter in the mizzle went ok too. We saw the 'Colin' again, him and his wife were walking up to the bungalow all dressed in red boiler suits so I wondered what she would do again (I am bad using them as stooges ) she had a few wuffs at him again, not a proper full on aggressive thing but not particularly playful friendly either, he commented on her not liking him  his wife laughed and said he had wound her up the other day but its odd, there isn't anything I pin point about him, but she has done it a few times, he is quite tall and skinny and has a deep voice but 

The rest of the walk she was a bit up on her toes but very good and walked past several other people, normally I would be nervous of this but she barely blinked. What a good girl she is becoming.


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## Izzysmummy

GR - Ginge is doing amazingly well! Its nice when your hard work starts to pay off!


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## Dogless

GR - you're on such a roll with Ginge, real progress every day - well done .


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## GingerRogers

I was very interested in the standing behind/beside me thing kind of indicates she is starting to trust me as I have been working on a behind me command but not taken it on the road so she has no idea that was exactly what I was after. Thinking about it she never had anyone fighting her corner really, not in a mean way, he just let her do her own thing which meant sorting stuff out herself.


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## kazters

Had a lovely moment with Pippin last night. we were in the garden playing with bubbles (her favourite thing at the moment) and a wee boy who lives at the end of my row, who she had quite the barking fest last week with came up the path (my house is next to a field) pippin barked once and ran over to speak to him and was trying to give him her toy and wagging her tail. He stood at the fence and i said to him, she barked as she was scared. and he told her his name and did she remember he was her friend (he is only 6)

he asked if he could come in to speak to her and willow and i said yes, both dogs were playing lovely with him. Willow trying to give him her belly to rub. ;-) 

made me realise pippin is a properly lovely girl when she isnt afraid of other peopel and is just as loving to them as she is to us her family.


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## Maria_1986

GingerRogers said:


> MAria - bless Chevy and her waiting  (why is someone scared of dogs looking after one and why didn't they have a lead  )


I had the same thought, it makes me wonder what the owner was thinking leaving their dog with someone who is so obviously scared of it. Poor little dog was very lucky he ran in the direction of my flat, the other way is the road. Supposedly its her sisters dog, she is getting over the phobia of dogs so her sister left the dog with her overnight. The postman left the gate open so the dog got out and it ignored her calling it back. I don't think she had even thought about a lead from the blank look I got when I said do you have a lead but then she had also left her small kid (maybe 3/4yrs old) stood on the doorstep with the gate open when we got back to their flat so she is also lucky the kid stayed put rather than wandering off. Giving her the benefit of the doubt I hope she just panicked rather than just being short a few functioning braincells. Tommy the dog was a little sweetie though and luckily was very friendly and happy to be picked up by a total stranger.

More claps for you and Ginge


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> How is Molly? Touch wood I think Tremor is more or less sound, although I'm being very, very careful.


Thanks for asking, and I'm pleased to hear that Tremor is doing well- hope it continues.

Moll is ok, walking normal, can scratch her head, jump up all fine, I haven't noticed anything untoward today or yesterday but I could easily miss something. 
We're only doing lead walks and I'm being really careful but it is worrying.
If this is the same as Tremor how long did she take to get over it please Twiggy?

Sorry everyone- theres too much to comment on but it sounds like everyone is doing really well. Hope to keep up now.

MS- I was sorry to hear your news.


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Thanks for asking, and I'm pleased to hear that Tremor is doing well- hope it continues.
> 
> *Moll is ok, walking normal, can scratch her head, jump up all fine, I haven't noticed anything untoward today or yesterday but I could easily miss something. *
> *We're only doing lead walks and I'm being really careful but it is worrying.*
> *If this is the same as Tremor how long did she take to get over it please Twiggy?*
> 
> I hate to tell you but she initially went lame about the beginning of February. She came sound but unfortunately husband mistook my instructions (or didn't listen properly as is the case with most men) and let her belt about with Holly so we were then back to square one. Then she seemed to be doing OK until just before Easter when she went lame again.
> 
> That's the trouble with soft tissue injuries and if you're not very careful they can drag on and on.


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## Twiggy

Just got back from taking our daughter and grandchildren out for lunch. I feel absolutely stuffed now and could do with a snooze...LOL


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## Kicksforkills

Everyone is making such progress!

Ringcraft again tonight. Tomorrow I just have to walk a dog I walk daily and walk mine. 

Dexter was good up the field offlead again as he was following a dog who decided to run out of the gate and he didn't follow her. He stood still while I put his lead on. (The dog was found a few minutes later)

Weekend will be busy. Saturday is bathing/packing/washing/grooming/putting crate in car for Dexter. Early rise on Sunday -leave about 6.30 for a two hour drive to the breed club show. It's indoors. Set up and get ready -see his breeder and a couple of people we met at Crufts. 

By the time we set up and I get dressed it'll be time for his class -he's only in one and its the first class. There's 17 entries in his class -including Dexter and his brother.

EDIT; Monday is busy too- 11am agility with Rasco then time to walk home and back wih Dexter for his first puppy agility class. Then on the way home I'll have to walk the dog I walk daily.

Yep.


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## MollySmith

Page 3 girls, well I never did! 

I don't look at page 3 so I missed us


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## Dogless

Had a very good, very cold, very wet walk with the boys this evening - took them together as I couldn't face separate in this . I also knew that we wouldn't see any dogs out apart from the one or two that don't melt in the rain and we walk with them so all would be fine. As it happens we saw no dogs and just lots of folk going into the cinema. One lady had one of those huge, domed umbrellas and Rudi gave a little huff puff but that was it. I strangely feel so much more relaxed now - at least recent events have really made me evaluate everything.

On a separate note Rudi has had a growth spurt and his fleece no longer fits. Tried Kilo's from last year bought when he was 14 months old and it only just fits - comes up a bit short if anything and not much room in the chest. He really is Megapuppy .


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## Beth17

Good walk with the boys today nothing too exciting. Then went up to my dads for the afternoon with them so they are shattered after mixing with his dogs. I've had a lovely quite evening


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## moonviolet

Glad you had nice walks Beth and Dogless.

:lolmegapuppy.

Nothing much happening here today walked with a new doggie friend today and Tink was shattered had a little play/training earlier but she's out for the count again.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Glad you had nice walks Beth and Dogless.
> 
> :lolmegapuppy.
> 
> Nothing much happening here today walked with a new doggie friend today and Tink was shattered had a little play/training earlier but she's out for the count again.


I keep expecting him to burst out like the Incredible Hulk!!


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## Twiggy

I took Holly and Tremor over to the barn after I got back from lunch. although I'd have much preferred to lay on the sofa all afternoon after all that food...LOL

I didn't do very much with Tremor but had a pretty good session with Holly, who actually managed quite a bit of heelwork including all the turns.

For a nasty moment I thought Tremor was bleeding, as she had quite a patch of blood above her nose, until I realised it was coming from the quick on my little finger - wonder who caused that...


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## Sarah1983

We've had a quiet day today. I think Spens pulling must have jarred my back again yesterday coz I'm in pain with it again. So figured we'd rest today and see how it is tomorrow. We did do some loose leash walking practise outside the flat though and had a little potter around the estate, just not a proper walk.


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## moonviolet

Spoke too soon ... her ladyship came adn stay at my feet and gave me her best train me face on and i just can't resist


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Spoke too soon ... her ladyship came adn stay at my feet and gave me her best train me face on and i just can't resist


She's a very good trainer herself .


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## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> She's a very good trainer herself .


too blooming true


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Spoke too soon ... her ladyship came adn stay at my feet and gave me her best train me face on and i just can't resist


But isn't it a great feeling when they come and ask to be trained?

That's when most of mine get highly animated; the moment I pick up their training bag. Even little Holly Bolly starts leaping about and barking....


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## Nicki85

Well my throat is currently feeling like I am trying to swallow nails which is lovely so another quiet day here. Luckily the dogs are in agreement and are both curled up on the sofa with me. Infact Rusty was not going to let me settle until I'd sat on the sofa with the blanket so that he could come and sit on me. 

I'll venture out for Shae's puppy class later but getting fed up of this bug now! Anyone got any remedies for a sore throat apart from complaining?!

In other news I had a great dream about taking a load of huskies across the Arctic to see the Northern Lights...


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> But isn't it a great feeling when they come and ask to be trained?


Dimwit does this - though I can never work out if he wants to do some training, or if he just wants food and has realised that this is the best way to get lots of yummy treats :lol:


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## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> Dimwit does this - though I can never work out if he wants to do some training, or if he just wants food and has realised that this is the best way to get lots of yummy treats :lol:


I often leave the treat bag on the floor in the middle of a session and Tink doesn't even notice  I'm not saying it doesn't motivate the asking for the training, but she truly seems to enjoy the earning of the reward.


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## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Dimwit does this - though I can never work out if he wants to do some training, or if he just wants food and has realised that this is the best way to get lots of yummy treats :lol:


IMO it doesn't matter why they want to train as long as they enjoy it.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> IMO it doesn't matter why they want to train as long as they enjoy it.


True, and I think he does genuinely enjoy training - he gets far more excited when he sees me pick up the training bag than he does when I just have a handful of treats.


----------



## kat&molly

A lot of the time Moll wont take the treats- she just wants to 'work'- other times she's mad for a reward.

Touching wood I think she's doing ok- we're going careful though. This morning I let her off in a small field to do a bit of training, she was so bloomin bouncy on lead. 

The girls have a raw chucky egg cracked in a bowl for them never having the shell but yesterday I handed them all a Quail egg and none of them knew what to do at first  Moll kept carrying it round in her mouth until I gave in and poured the pathetic contents in to a dish and the others eventually cracked their open to eat them-leaving the shell. It was great to watch.

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> A lot of the time Moll wont take the treats- she just wants to 'work'- other times she's mad for a reward.
> 
> Touching wood I think she's doing ok- we're going careful though. This morning I let her off in a small field to do a bit of training, she was so bloomin bouncy on lead.
> 
> The girls have a raw chucky egg cracked in a bowl for them never having the shell but yesterday I handed them all a Quail egg and none of them knew what to do at first  Moll kept carrying it round in her mouth until I gave in and poured the pathetic contents in to a dish and the others eventually cracked their open to eat them-leaving the shell. It was great to watch.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Very pleased to hear the lovely Molly seems better. You get paranoid don't you? I'm always staring at Tremor when she moves..


----------



## GingerRogers

Today I am working on................................nothing  I have no dog hubby has taken her out of the way of the carpets fitters, I am bereft!

Glad Molls on the mend Kat!


----------



## Izzysmummy

kat&molly said:


> A lot of the time Moll wont take the treats- she just wants to 'work'- other times she's mad for a reward.
> 
> Touching wood I think she's doing ok- we're going careful though. This morning I let her off in a small field to do a bit of training, she was so bloomin bouncy on lead.
> 
> The girls have a raw chucky egg cracked in a bowl for them never having the shell but yesterday I handed them all a Quail egg and none of them knew what to do at first  Moll kept carrying it round in her mouth until I gave in and poured the pathetic contents in to a dish and the others eventually cracked their open to eat them-leaving the shell. It was great to watch.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Im surprised the girls left the shell ! Izzy always eats it and will sit begging for the shells if Im busy baking! 

Glad Molly is doing better, fingers crossed she'll soon be back to normal!

GR - Are you sitting at home being paranoid about what hubby and Ginge are up to? At least you'll have a nice new carpet to enjoy tonight, nothing better than sinking your toes into a lovely new carpet!

All quiet at our house, had a lovely walk last night, passed someone unpacking their shopping, we were overtaken by somone pulling a suitcase and also passed a guy walking on crutches with no problems, my little monkey has come so far in the last year. I was able to just enjoy our walk and admire people's gardens (Im nosy and like to get ideas for nice plants for our garden), Im sure people think Im crazy when I stop and point out a plant or flower for Izzy to sniff ! This time last year I had to be on alert all the time but now I know she'll be fine in 99% of situations and I only need to change direction if theres some naughty looking kids up ahead 

So a lovely walk but the little madam was full of beans last night and just kept whinging and wanting to play canstantly :devil:! She eventually settled down to chew her stag bar but apparently its better if Mummy holds the stag bar while she chews on it ! We eventually tired her out with some hiding under the bedcovers "help me Izzy!" type games where she goes crazy digging us out from under the covers !


----------



## Dogless

IM - lovely to hear how far the monkey dog's come, really lovely.

K&M - pleased to hear that Moll seems better, even if she left her egg shell!

Great couple of hours out with the CHs, good boys that they are. Diverted on the way back as it was nursery pick up time and there were streams of mums pushing buggies heading up the streets of the estate - like some sort of zombie apocalypse. Went the back way instead!

Ordered a biothane long line now I know it's going to get a lot of use as a heavy, wet, line is yuck.


----------



## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> A lot of the time Moll wont take the treats- she just wants to 'work'- other times she's mad for a reward.
> 
> Touching wood I think she's doing ok- we're going careful though. This morning I let her off in a small field to do a bit of training, she was so bloomin bouncy on lead.
> 
> The girls have a raw chucky egg cracked in a bowl for them never having the shell but yesterday I handed them all a Quail egg and none of them knew what to do at first  Moll kept carrying it round in her mouth until I gave in and poured the pathetic contents in to a dish and the others eventually cracked their open to eat them-leaving the shell. It was great to watch.
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


First time I gave Spencer a whole egg was hilarious. He'd had them cracked in his bowl with the shell put in as well but a whole one was another matter. He carried it around, tried to get me to play with it with him and all sorts. He did eventually crack it and eat it though. Now he knows exactly what to do and all entertainment value has been lost  Sometimes he leaves the shell, sometimes he eats it.

Rupert definitely worked for the sake of working rather than the reward when in the house. He'd often ignore all the treats he earned and just carry on. Spencer couldn't ignore a treat if he tried. I think he does genuinely enjoy working, he must do with how often he asks and how hard he tries, but he likes the treats too.

Glad Moll seems to be okay now.


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## Beth17

Glad Moll seems to be on the mend K&M

Nicki hope you are feeling better soon. Enjoy puppy class.

IM Izzy has come a long way. What a good girl.

GR I hope Ginge gets home soon 

Dogless sounds a great walk, even with the zombie mums 

We had a great walk. It was overcast so not many people out and we headed down into the woods. Once there Oscar started zooming and Sam was desperate to follow so I bravely (or should that be stupidly?) let him off. He was a star and stayed in sight and close with Oscar. he had great fun charging through the streams and up the banks. Had a couple of moments when he went a bit far ahead and out of sight but soon came running back after Oscar.

So pleased he could have that experience and depending on circumstances he may be able to go offlead in the woods again.


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## Maria_1986

Nicki - hope your feeling better soon, my standard cold remedy is hot water, lemon, honey and dark rum or brandy, if you put in the alcohol in large enough quantites you forget you feel ill 

K&M - so pleased Molly is doing better

Dogless - Glad the CH's were good boys, I try to avoid schools/nurseries like the plauge, Chev loves kids, me not so much!

Beth - Sounds likeSam is making great progress

Had a lovely walk today, went out looking for a longer walk as Chevy can cope with more now and I'm getting bored of our normal ones and wandered off down a path I found, ended up walking around lots of fields but to make it a circular walk would have been too much for Chevy's hip so we turned round and came home again. Managed LLW on the pavement bit of the walk home. Have brought myself an OS map now too so that I can start planning some more interesting walks for us. Saw nobody on our walk which was lovely, probably because it was cold, windy and raining but I'm not complaining. As there were hoof prints in the ground on the new bits of the walk Chevy stayed on her flexi for incase we came across any horse riders. We did some recall work on the flexi though and she was very good even though she was somewhere new and exciting. We also got the chance to practice leave with some horse poo and although she was reluctant to leave it she did listen to me. She is now fast asleep, snoring in her bed so I think we are taking the rest of the day off from any training today.


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## Beth17

Maria what a great walk. Chevy really sounds lovely


----------



## Dogless

Well Maria, Chevy has really fallen on her paws with you - what a lovely bond you seem to have already.


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## Maria_1986

Thank you both. I think I am the lucky one as somebody in her past has obviously put in a lot of work training her which makes it easier for me to remind her of what she already knows and then build on it. Most of what we manage is based on bribery - horse poo was only left as I had roast turkey and I'm pretty sure the recalls today were for the same reason as other times when we go out and I use less interesting treats her listening to me is still hit and miss, we will keep working on it though and hopefully one day we will get there.


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Thank you both. I think I am the lucky one as somebody in her past has obviously put in a lot of work training her which makes it easier for me to remind her of what she already knows and then build on it. Most of what we manage is based on bribery - horse poo was only left as I had roast turkey and I'm pretty sure the recalls today were for the same reason as other times when we go out and I use less interesting treats her listening to me is still hit and miss, we will keep working on it though and hopefully one day we will get there.


Not bribes - wages for working hard for you .


----------



## GingerRogers

What dogless said, lucky Chevy!

Beth its a credit to you that Sam can do so much, we know a couple with a little deaf staffy but he isn't let off lead. 

Glad Izzy is doing so well, I cant really say how far she has come as I dont know your history well enough  but I can tell you are pleased :thumbup1:

Ginge is back, the new/old sofa is in and Ginge has already claimed it as hers, oh well I will get the armchair back 

Didn't need to worry about Ginge as hubby just drove her to my mums and back again  he let her in the house but not in her garden which is a shame as she loves zooming about on their lawn, we don't have grass. Oh but fair play it was wet and mums house proud . So she hasn't had a walk or any training or anything today but seems happy that the house is being put back together again.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> What dogless said, lucky Chevy!
> 
> Beth its a credit to you that Sam can do so much, we know a couple with a little deaf staffy but he isn't let off lead.
> 
> Glad Izzy is doing so well, I cant really say how far she has come as I dont know your history well enough  but I can tell you are pleased :thumbup1:
> 
> Ginge is back, the new/old sofa is in and Ginge has already claimed it as hers, oh well I will get the armchair back
> 
> Didn't need to worry about Ginge as hubby just drove her to my mums and back again  he let her in the house but not in her garden which is a shame as she loves zooming about on their lawn, we don't have grass. Oh but fair play it was wet and mums house proud . So she hasn't had a walk or any training or anything today but seems happy that the house is being put back together again.


Just breathe when it comes to hubby I think....:sosp:.


----------



## moonviolet

Maria_1986 said:


> Thank you both. I think I am the lucky one as somebody in her past has obviously put in a lot of work training her which makes it easier for me to remind her of what she already knows and then build on it. Most of what we manage is based on bribery - horse poo was only left as I had roast turkey and I'm pretty sure the recalls today were for the same reason as other times when we go out and I use less interesting treats her listening to me is still hit and miss, we will keep working on it though and hopefully one day we will get there.


Have you tried having a mixed bag of treats some low value some high, so it's a bit of a gamble whether she gets a high or low value one as a reward?

I had an intersting morning, after clearping you the huge pile of orange poo someone and their dog left in the middle of my front gate this mornign I wasn't feeling entirely unicorns and rainbows.

Our walk was started wet but good, until my hood and my wet steamed up specs meant i missed the rapidly incoming approach of 2 dogs until ti was too late to avoid, culminating in a double mugging me by a lab and Tink by a GSD, she ran a little but then stopped and very stiffly allowed him to sniff, tial down but not fully tucked, I was watchign as i was trying to intervene but kept getting scuppered by the insistent upjumping lab. After a few moments GSD gave up trying to lift her tail, it was at this point their owner appeared On the upside Tink shook so hard i thoguth her ears would fly off then with lashings of praise she was bouncing about proud of herself :001_wub:

She did so well considering the fast approach.


----------



## Izzysmummy

GingerRogers said:


> What dogless said, lucky Chevy!
> 
> Beth its a credit to you that Sam can do so much, we know a couple with a little deaf staffy but he isn't let off lead.
> 
> *Glad Izzy is doing so well, I cant really say how far she has come as I dont know your history well enough  but I can tell you are pleased :thumbup1:*
> Ginge is back, the new/old sofa is in and Ginge has already claimed it as hers, oh well I will get the armchair back
> 
> Didn't need to worry about Ginge as hubby just drove her to my mums and back again  he let her in the house but not in her garden which is a shame as she loves zooming about on their lawn, we don't have grass. Oh but fair play it was wet and mums house proud . So she hasn't had a walk or any training or anything today but seems happy that the house is being put back together again.


Just briefly, Izzy has always been fearful, even as a young pup but once she hit adolescence it was heightened by all her hormones. At one point she would bark at every child in sight, sometimes at people on the pavement, people with walking sticks, cyclists, Mums with push chairs, people with an umbrella or a hood up. Anything vaguely unusual ! There was an occasion at the park where she spooked at a family with little kids on bikes and took off barking at them, another time she got so hyped up she just ran around the park barking at anything and everything and it took half an hour and a friend appearing with their dog to calm her down enough for us to be able to get her back . For a couple of months we barely had a walk without her barking at something .

So now to be able to enjoy our walks and not have to be on alert all the time is so lovely. We are very careful about where we let her off lead, she only goes off in places where we can see whats coming and anywhere else she stays on her lead/flexi. My goal is to one day be able to take her to a beer garden or outdoor cafe and her just be able to sit and relax. Im not sure if we'll ever get there but we're a lot closer than we were a year ago and if this is as good as it gets then Im more than happy with how far my little monkey has come!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Just breathe when it comes to hubby I think....:sosp:.


Yes I'll second that. I'm hopefully going to see my sister tomorrow and therefore leaving my 4 in hubby's not so capable hands....


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Just briefly, Izzy has always been fearful, even as a young pup but once she hit adolescence it was heightened by all her hormones. At one point she would bark at every child in sight, sometimes at people on the pavement, people with walking sticks, cyclists, Mums with push chairs, people with an umbrella or a hood up. Anything vaguely unusual ! There was an occasion at the park where she spooked at a family with little kids on bikes and took off barking at them, another time she got so hyped up she just ran around the park barking at anything and everything and it took half an hour and a friend appearing with their dog to calm her down enough for us to be able to get her back . For a couple of months we barely had a walk without her barking at something .
> 
> So now to be able to enjoy our walks and not have to be on alert all the time is so lovely. We are very careful about where we let her off lead, she only goes off in places where we can see whats coming and anywhere else she stays on her lead/flexi. My goal is to one day be able to take her to a beer garden or outdoor cafe and her just be able to sit and relax. Im not sure if we'll ever get there but we're a lot closer than we were a year ago and if this is as good as it gets then Im more than happy with how far my little monkey has come!


You will get there - I can virtually promise.

When Leafy was a little pup she was diagnosed with OCD at about 4/5 months old and was operated on at 8 months. She wasn't allowed off lead until she was about a year old and because of circumstances beyond my control she simply wasn't socialised.

The first show I took her to the following year she was absolutely terrified, wouldn't get out of the car and I had to come home. This went on for several shows and I was almost at the point of leaving her at home with my husband as it simply wasn't fair, she was just so scared.

Anyway I persevered (helped by using the Doreen Paige 'Insecurity' remedy) and she got a bit better.

It took another two years before she was confident enough to actually go in a ring and work and even then she still had her moments. A friend and I always used to take her up to the rings when we were working our senior dogs, one of us working and the other holding Leafy, which also made a big difference because she would get very animated especially if we were doing jolly training rounds.

By the time I retired her at about 8 yrs old, due to her iffy shoulder, her favourite place was dog shows.....!!


----------



## Dogless

Hope you get to see your sister Twiggy.

Took Megapuppy to the vet's for some social and a weight - 37kg so still 0.5kg / week now. The crappy scales tipped unfortunately and scared him, but being Rudi he just thought "Oh well" and got back on for me. Took me over a year to get the BW to just walk onto scales for me .

Then the pet shop. He was good apart from shoplifting a horrid purple rawhide thing which he gave me back straight away so I bought it and gave it to a woman in there with a little dog who apparently loves them. Loads of fuss from people and schoolkids in there. The not good at all bit is he gave a real snarl at a JRT that came to sniff the same food as him - he'd met the JRT outside fine - he really is pretty aggro with other dogs when it comes to food but would hand over anything to a human. The woman said "oh, it's because there's food there, mine does the same".

ETA: he has also discovered how easy it is for him to hop over the baby gate :devil:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Izzysmummy said:


> Just briefly, Izzy has always been fearful, even as a young pup but once she hit adolescence it was heightened by all her hormones. At one point she would bark at every child in sight, sometimes at people on the pavement, people with walking sticks, cyclists, Mums with push chairs, people with an umbrella or a hood up. Anything vaguely unusual ! There was an occasion at the park where she spooked at a family with little kids on bikes and took off barking at them, another time she got so hyped up she just ran around the park barking at anything and everything and it took half an hour and a friend appearing with their dog to calm her down enough for us to be able to get her back . For a couple of months we barely had a walk without her barking at something .
> 
> So now to be able to enjoy our walks and not have to be on alert all the time is so lovely. We are very careful about where we let her off lead, she only goes off in places where we can see whats coming and anywhere else she stays on her lead/flexi. My goal is to one day be able to take her to a beer garden or outdoor cafe and her just be able to sit and relax. Im not sure if we'll ever get there but we're a lot closer than we were a year ago and if this is as good as it gets then Im more than happy with how far my little monkey has come!


Bless her, well done, I am following you in the beer garden hopes, buildings seem to make Ginge even worse, she never really mixed with dogs indoors before so I am not sure that will ever be a goer unless she knows the dogs but we will get there I am sure!!

As far as hubby goes, if he doesn't do anything with her I don't need to worry at least!!


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy said:


> You will get there - I can virtually promise.
> 
> When Leafy was a little pup she was diagnosed with OCD at about 4/5 months old and was operated on at 8 months. She wasn't allowed off lead until she was about a year old and because of circumstances beyond my control she simply wasn't socialised.
> 
> The first show I took her to the following year she was absolutely terrified, wouldn't get out of the car and I had to come home. This went on for several shows and I was almost at the point of leaving her at home with my husband as it simply wasn't fair, she was just so scared.
> 
> Anyway I persevered (helped by using the *Doreen Paige 'Insecurity' remedy*) and she got a bit better.
> 
> It took another two years before she was confident enough to actually go in a ring and work and even then she still had her moments. A friend and I always used to take her up to the rings when we were working our senior dogs, one of us working and the other holding Leafy, which also made a big difference because she would get very animated especially if we were doing jolly training rounds.
> 
> By the time I retired her at about 8 yrs old, due to her iffy shoulder, her favourite place was dog shows.....!!


I've not heard of that remedy before, I may buy some to try!

This is so good to hear! We have been taking her along to agility training which she really enjoys but I don't know if she'll ever be confident enough to ever be able to compete. But reading how Leafy progressed gives me hope. I'd like to take her along to a few shows that a few people from our club will be attending this year so she can just go along and watch, see some people she knows and get used to that sort of environment. 

Well done to you and Leafy, what a little star she is!


----------



## Nicki85

DL- Rusty is the same with food... any food really have to watch him with other animals. People he will wag his tail and let you take it.

Well I went out and walked Rusty this afternoon  Go me! I thought it might kick start my lungs into working a bit better... 
Guess it is still the Easter holidays- a whole family out with a fat Bulldog and Lab wearing very unpractical shoes... it's been raining, it's a forest- you will need wellies!! They even commented that I was dressed for the job. Rusty was a fairly good boy- he went deaf a couple of times... 

Puppy class at 7 so they've had an early dinner and are now sleeping. Shae can get on the arm chair all by herself now- very sweet!


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> I've not heard of that remedy before, I may buy some to try!
> 
> This is so good to hear! We have been taking her along to agility training which she really enjoys but I don't know if she'll ever be confident enough to ever be able to compete. But reading how Leafy progressed gives me hope. I'd like to take her along to a few shows that a few people from our club will be attending this year so she can just go along and watch, see some people she knows and get used to that sort of environment.
> 
> Well done to you and Leafy, what a little star she is!


I saw the Doreen Paige remedies on a stall at Crufts, had a word with them and bought the 'Insecurity'. I was extremely sceptical and shall never forget taking Leafy to Grimsby Championship Show after she'd been on it for about 2 months. The difference was amazing; we even went into the novice ring and did a tiny bit of heelwork...!!

After that I just used to give her the drops night and morning for three days before a show.

We've since used several of their remedies for noise sensitivity, travel sickness/fear, etc. on a variety of breeds with huge success in many cases.

I have to say although the lady at Doreen Paige tried her damnest, and we had several telephone conversations, nothing worked with Tremor's fear of the car, but then neither did anything else apart from Valium.


----------



## Dimwit

*IM* sound like you have made great progress. I hope I am starting to get there with the dimwit but it is very very slow progress.

*Twiggy* The remedies sound very interesting - I may have to look into them as I am currently trying to decide whether or not we will have to give up flyball as he can't cope at competitions

We had a good, if slightly damp walk tonight but we did meet the husky who lives two doors away and who he usually reacts very strongly to. But he was very good tonight, one little bark but no lunging and he wasn't looking stressed, I wonder if it's partly because I have been doing lots of rewarding him with liver paste for not reacting when he hears dogs barking in their gardens?

Nice, fun day planned tomorrow and then he is going into kennels for a few days


----------



## sharloid

Twiggy said:


> I saw the Doreen Paige remedies on a stall at Crufts, had a word with them and bought the 'Insecurity'. I was extremely sceptical and shall never forget taking Leafy to Grimsby Championship Show after she'd been on it for about 2 months. The difference was amazing; we even went into the novice ring and did a tiny bit of heelwork...!!


I've just been looking at those the website doesn't tell you what's in the remedies! I'm wondering if it would be worth trying some with the new dog.


----------



## Dogless

Only took the BW with Dizzy just now - when I said "shall we go and see Dizzy?" They both got excited and shot to the door, but Rudi lay down then walked off to his crate when I got his collar to put on, so I let him go back to bed as he'd had a busy afternoon!

It was nice to see Dizzy and his human again with Kilo .


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> I've just been looking at those the website doesn't tell you what's in the remedies! I'm wondering if it would be worth trying some with the new dog.


You would be better off ringing them and see what, if any, they suggest.


----------



## Symone

I need to pop in more often.. Will go through the posts after I've had my tea. 

Been quite busy lately.  Shamaya has had more walks and she's showing quite a few signs of improvement. 
We have got a slight problem, though.. She is turning her nose up at her food.
I offered her some dry that I use for treats and mental stimulation and she scoffed it down.. 
Thing is she doesn't get the same food every day so she isn't bored.. And she has turned her nose up at quite a few raw meals now.. No idea why. 

I had a moment of pride, earlier. We were playing fetch in the park earlier, and white boxer woman was there. Her bouncy boxer was running around having a blast, and Shamaya was ignoring her for her ball. She said how it's amazing how Shamaya is so well behaved, coming back each time, and sitting nicely and waiting until we throw the ball each time. I have to say I thought it was normal until she bought it up, but now I feel really proud. 
She suggested that we get Shamaya into mountain rescues because of how well behaved she is and how she loves finding stuff.. Might actually be an idea for her. I mentioned how I want to do agility and flyball with her, but only after she's a year old. I might however buy that agility kit from zooplus and work on small things which won't be bad for her. 

Pulling is getting better and better. Only times she's bad now is if we're nearing the park/beach. It is loose leash most of the time, however it's more of slightly infront instead of beside, for she kept getting too close by the side and I kept nearly tripping over her.. oops. 

We're also looking for a smaller class, now. I don't like how I can't talk with the instructor at the big one, and Jimmy there is too distracting for her. She's fine with any other dog, but he gets her excited, lol.  
When she is more used to distractions I may go back there, but I am also thinking of Jimmy at the moment. I don't want to hold him back at all. 
I suppose I could also just hold her back until jimmy proceeds to the next class, then go there again. That way it would probably be easier for the two of them.. I'll have a good think about it.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> I need to pop in more often.. Will go through the posts after I've had my tea.
> 
> Been quite busy lately.  Shamaya has had more walks and she's showing quite a few signs of improvement.
> We have got a slight problem, though.. She is turning her nose up at her food.
> I offered her some dry that I use for treats and mental stimulation and she scoffed it down..
> Thing is she doesn't get the same food every day so she isn't bored.. And she has turned her nose up at quite a few raw meals now.. No idea why.
> 
> I had a moment of pride, earlier. We were playing fetch in the park earlier, and white boxer woman was there. Her bouncy boxer was running around having a blast, and Shamaya was ignoring her for her ball. She said how it's amazing how Shamaya is so well behaved, coming back each time, and sitting nicely and waiting until we throw the ball each time. I have to say I thought it was normal until she bought it up, but now I feel really proud.
> She suggested that we get Shamaya into mountain rescues because of how well behaved she is and how she loves finding stuff.. Might actually be an idea for her. I mentioned how I want to do agility and flyball with her, but only after she's a year old. I might however buy that agility kit from zooplus and work on small things which won't be bad for her.
> 
> Pulling is getting better and better. Only times she's bad now is if we're nearing the park/beach. It is loose leash most of the time, however it's more of slightly infront instead of beside, for she kept getting too close by the side and I kept nearly tripping over her.. oops.
> 
> We're also looking for a smaller class, now. I don't like how I can't talk with the instructor at the big one, and Jimmy there is too distracting for her. She's fine with any other dog, but he gets her excited, lol.
> When she is more used to distractions I may go back there, but I am also thinking of Jimmy at the moment. I don't want to hold him back at all.
> I suppose I could also just hold her back until jimmy proceeds to the next class, then go there again. That way it would probably be easier for the two of them.. I'll have a good think about it.


A friend of mine in Berkshire owns and works two collies in the Lowland Search and Rescue Team - obviously there are no mountains in Berkshire!!

She won the Hero Dog of the Year at Crufts 3 or 4 years ago.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> A friend of mine in Berkshire owns and works two collies in the Lowland Search and Rescue Team - obviously there are no mountains in Berkshire!!
> 
> She won the Hero Dog of the Year at Crufts 3 or 4 years ago.


Oh wow.  
Sounds really good.

I'm going to google now, how they train and stuff. What I've read so far sounds like something that Shamaya would quite enjoy!

Also, it could help for the OH and I want to go hiking up mountains with her. (When I'm more fit ofc.. At the moment I would probably keel over!)


----------



## moonviolet

Super cute moment.... OH is playing hoopla with hound dog :001_wub::001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Oh wow.
> Sounds really good.
> 
> I'm going to google now, how they train and stuff. What I've read so far sounds like something that Shamaya would quite enjoy!
> 
> Also, it could help for the OH and I want to go hiking up mountains with her. (When I'm more fit ofc.. At the moment I would probably keel over!)


You need to be a very strong character to do it.

My friend is on call out 24/7 including the middle of the night, searching for dementia patients, drug overdose victims, etc. and frequently finds bodies floating in the Thames or in dense woodland.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You need to be a very strong character to do it.
> 
> My friend is on call out 24/7 including the middle of the night, searching for dementia patients, drug overdose victims, etc. and frequently finds bodies floating in the Thames or in dense woodland.


Very. Not done that (obviously!) but have been involved in a fair few S&R ops as med support - hurricane relief ops, med evac ops....I'm not 'special' but you do need physical and mental robustness. Bags of it for that kind of thing.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Very. Not done that (obviously!) but have been involved in a fair few S&R ops as med support - hurricane relief ops, med evac ops....I'm not 'special' but you do need physical and mental robustness. Bags of it for that kind of thing.


Yes of course you would know.

My friend is only a tiny slip of a thing and now has a young daughter. To look at her you'd think she'd be the last person involved in S&R.

When she gets a call and produces the dog's jackets they go absolutely mental.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes of course you would know.
> 
> My friend is only a tiny slip of a thing and now has a young daughter. To look at her you'd think she'd be the last person involved in S&R.
> 
> When she gets a call and produces the dog's jackets they go absolutely mental.


Sorry, didn't mean to come across as all "been there, done that, I'm great" . I'll bet the dogs do go mad!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Sorry, didn't mean to come across as all "been there, done that, I'm great" . I'll bet the dogs do go mad!


Don't apologise I just meant that being involved with nursing on military duties you would have experience in that field.

My friend's dogs are very keen anyway and she works them in obedience but at the very sight of their jackets the excitement is ratched up to an unbelievable level.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Don't apologise I just meant that being involved with nursing on military duties you would have experience in that field.
> 
> My friend's dogs are very keen anyway and she works them in obedience but at the very sight of their jackets the excitement is ratched up to an unbelievable level.


Yes, I used to be the idiot on the wire hanging out of the back of a helicopter. Or hopping out as it landed. Must have been mad...loved it!


----------



## Nicki85

Back from puppy class  Shae was a good girly, we did some shaping with a paper bag and wobble board thing. We got to laying down on paper bag and nose touch/head but + paw on wobble board. Played the start of the 123 game with treats, did some loose lead walking which at first was horrendous... second time round much better.
Recalls away from others really good at the moment 

Worked a bit on her play and she did show some interest so feeling a bit more confident about that. 

But that pup learns things sooo quickly- not a chance I am going to keep up with her! We started off with spins and she pretty much had her left turn figured within 5 go's. 

Symone- if you want to do agility with your pup there is loads of things you can be doing with out the equipment. Are there any pre-agility sessions near you?


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Back from puppy class  Shae was a good girly, we did some shaping with a paper bag and wobble board thing. We got to laying down on paper bag and nose touch/head but + paw on wobble board. Played the start of the 123 game with treats, did some loose lead walking which at first was horrendous... second time round much better.
> Recalls away from others really good at the moment
> 
> Worked a bit on her play and she did show some interest so feeling a bit more confident about that.
> 
> But that pup learns things sooo quickly- not a chance I am going to keep up with her! We started off with spins and she pretty much had her left turn figured within 5 go's.
> 
> Symone- if you want to do agility with your pup there is loads of things you can be doing with out the equipment. Are there any pre-agility sessions near you?


I am so jealous. If only we had classes like that here. It sounds wonderful.


----------



## Werehorse

I'd love to do S&R - reckon Hugo's littermates (inc Hugo but particular one of his sisters - she was a blimmin bright spark!) would have been good candidates. I'm not sure I'd be robust enough mentally though.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> You need to be a very strong character to do it.
> 
> My friend is on call out 24/7 including the middle of the night, searching for dementia patients, drug overdose victims, etc. and frequently finds bodies floating in the Thames or in dense woodland.


Ah.. That's a shame, then. 
Unless I can get the OH to do it with her, instead.
I can be strong when actually dealing with things, but I break down after so it might not be for me, then.

I'll just do more finding activities with her. I'm sure she will enjoy that.


----------



## Sarah1983

I think I've just done something stupid. I shaped Spencer to remove my sock from my foot. Why did I not think of the potential consequences? I'll most likely never be able to wear socks again.

Not sure I could do search and rescue. I always hear stories of dog walkers finding bodies and it worries me.


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Sarah I think you may be regretting that soon


----------



## Symone

Nicki85 said:


> Back from puppy class  Shae was a good girly, we did some shaping with a paper bag and wobble board thing. We got to laying down on paper bag and nose touch/head but + paw on wobble board. Played the start of the 123 game with treats, did some loose lead walking which at first was horrendous... second time round much better.
> Recalls away from others really good at the moment
> 
> Worked a bit on her play and she did show some interest so feeling a bit more confident about that.
> 
> But that pup learns things sooo quickly- not a chance I am going to keep up with her! We started off with spins and she pretty much had her left turn figured within 5 go's.
> 
> Symone- if you want to do agility with your pup there is loads of things you can be doing with out the equipment. Are there any pre-agility sessions near you?


Wow sounds like a great training class! Can I move in with you and join? lol. 

And there is one, but bad thing is - I don't drive. It would take about 2 hours to get there and I think Shamaya would be tired by the time we arrive. (Funnily it's like a 20 min drive) 
Unfortunately I live in England's dump yard. Literally nothing is here. 
If the move to Switzerland doesn't happen soon we will have a temp. stop in west Sussex (more jobs, and looks like a great area for Shamaya.)


----------



## Symone

Sarah1983 said:


> I think I've just done something stupid. I shaped Spencer to remove my sock from my foot. Why did I not think of the potential consequences? I'll most likely never be able to wear socks again.
> 
> Not sure I could do search and rescue. I always hear stories of dog walkers finding bodies and it worries me.


Lol, I've been (trying) to teach Shamaya to do that.. I think I may stop, now!

She also takes the lid off every bottle of drink we now have. I put a nice bit of smelly roast chicken in a bottle and she had to work out how to get it out.. Probably not one of my best ideas.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Very pleased to hear the lovely Molly seems better. You get paranoid don't you? I'm always staring at Tremor when she moves..


It certainly does make you paranoid, I've been a drama queen all week. imagining all sorts.Fingers crossed our girls stay sound now.
Enjoy your weekend away and hope your sister is doing well.

I have noticed this week though she has been more focused on training, because she hasn't had any retrieves or even been allowed to carry a toy.

Sarah- I think you're going to regret teaching Spen to take your socks off.:devil:

Nikki- your classes sound lovely, the little one's doing really well. Hope you're feeling better.

Have a good day everyone, dull here, rain later.


----------



## Dogless

Lovely couple of hours just now, Rudi's getting fast enough to give the BW a run for his money. Had a longline round ankle, Kilo accelerating after Rudi, me on floor within a nanosecond and hugely painful ankle incident, got momentarily furious with having to use it .

Also, spoke to the man who empties the poo bins and he was taking then down this morning - he's been told to take down every poo bin (never seen a place with so many!) on camp. The place is already the worst I've ever seen for poo everywhere, it'll be even worse now .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless Ouchie ankle. Hope you aren't horrible injured, It does sound liek the boys had a lovely time 

Kat, Glad molls is sound and dearly hope it was a one off incident. How interesting that her training focus increased without retrieves, i guess finding alternative forms of amusement in a power cut.

Sarah I can picture you having trouble keeping your socks on long enough to get yoru shoes/trainers/boots on :lol: 

Twiggy/dogless/Symone search and rescue really does sound like it isn't for the fainted hearted but wonder tha the dogs love it so much.

Nicki your puppy class sound fantastic.

Lambkin is having another sleep after she was subjected to an early quick trot to the post box this morning. I'm sure she'll be up for a proper walk... soon


----------



## Sarah1983

Not a great walk this morning. Had a route all planned out but took a wrong turn and ended up lost. Nothing unusual there though :lol: What was strange was Spencer going ballistic at some bloke we passed. He just shot backwards, almost knocked me over and then cowered between my legs barking and growling. I couldn't see any reason for it at all but it's not like him. It's not the first time he's gone off like that but it's the first time it's been so unexpected, other times it's been dark skinned people who are staring. This was a white bloke minding his own business. He ignored everyone else we encountered on the walk so there must have been something about this guy. We'd also passed some sheep in a shed not long before which had upset him. He doesn't mind _seeing_ sheep, _hearing_ them on the other hand frightens him 

We did eventually find our way to the park in town and I put him on his flexi since it was empty. He did zoomies in a ditch full of muddy water, we did a little training and we played some ball before coming home. He's now crashed out on his bed.

Dogless, glad you had a good walk. Hope your ankle isn't too sore!


----------



## Werehorse

Glad Moll is sound today, Kat!

Dogless - No poo bins!! Madness! Hope your ankle isn't totally mashed.

Sarah - Oscar once completely freaked at someone like that, not barking but very scared and wouldn't go near him - this is the world's friendliest dog! We think he had drugs on him.

I feel quite ill this morning still. But the boys are in desperate need of a good run around so I'll have to drag myself up and at em.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless hope the ankle isn't too bad. Removing poo bins? Why on earth would they do that 

Sarah glad you didn't get too lost. I wonder why Spen didn't like him?

Werehorse hope you're feeling better. It's no fun being ill and having to still do stuff.

MV hope Tink can rouse herself for another walk later 

Our walk this morning consisted of rain, plodding along and Sam being completely incapable of sticking to the pavements. So not too bad really.


----------



## Nonnie

My training is soooo boring due to old age, deafness, limited ability and poor eyesight. Not to mention lack of enthusiasm on my part.

With Alfie im working on, reteaching him all the stuff he knew before his hearing loss, with mixed results. He used to be spot on with his 'little speaks' but all i can get our of him at the moment is a winge which i dont want to reward as he is a whiny bastard already. 

Oscar is very limited to what he can do. He can give me his stump, and tries to do his old sits up like the pro he once was, but i dont like him firstly, pre-empting me, nor sitting for too long, or doing anything with his back end thats of detriment, so today i taught him to merely lick my palm once whilst he was in a comfy down, which he nailed within about a minute, so then we worked on little licks rather than a full on, whole tongue slobber fest.


----------



## moonviolet

Awww Nonnie I bet your boys really enjoy their training times with you, I think it's wonderful how you are adapting the things you are working on for them to achieve and succeed.


----------



## Nonnie

moonviolet said:


> Awww Nonnie I bet your boys really enjoy their training times with you, I think it's wonderful how you are adapting the things you are working on for them to achieve and succeed.


Thanks Moonviolet.

It can be hard when the mind is primed, but the bodies broken, so i do try to think of ways to provide entertainment and stimulation thats possible and worthwhile. Its hard with Oz as he finds things like Kongs and treat dispensers very difficult to use.

If i could now just teach him not to scrump up all the covers on the sofa whilst panting lustily at Alfie....


----------



## Symone

Dogless : Hope your ankle will be better, soon. Why remove the poo bins? Seems ridiculous to me. 

Werehorse : Hope that you feel better soon 

MV : Did tink get herself up for another walk? lol

Nonnie : Hope that they enjoy the training! 

Beth : I hate rainy walks! Shamaya ends up brown after them, lol.

So, I think that I may have found a good class for Shamaya! 

Enve Canine Services Home Page

What do you guys think?
It has came highly recommended, and I will be phoning them up Monday morning.
I will have to get the train there, but it's only like a 5 odd min walk (Although probably 15 first time for Shamaya will want to sniff the new area and I will most probably get lost )

It's 60 quid for 6 sessions, I will ask if they will let me pay a tenner each session for I don't really have 60 quid laying about... 

Today Shamaya has been both good and bad. Good outside, a little toe rag inside.
She has developed this rotten habit of Biting the OH for attention (Rarely going for me - Maybe because I don't put up with it? 
When she bites it's normally because she's too hyped and wanting attention, so we crate her and normally she sleeps, but if she doesn't sleep she comes out when she has calmed down.
She did bite me twice today, though. First time was a chomp on my thumb (that still hurts) 
Second time was.. er.. I can't think of what it's called! where the arm bends, but on the inside. It was a pinch just in the worse area, lol!
no blood at all, but it's annoying that she is being a little smelly bum.

Other than the nipping/biting everything has gone well, today. 
I ordered some Fishmongers dry as a backup dry food for she refuses to eat her raw and I'm nearly out of her dry food that's used for her mental stimulation trainings (Like hunting, finding, etc. ) 
I really wonder why she won't eat her raw.. I have no idea and she use to love it so much. She just leaves it and won't eat it, even if I take it away and feed later, and same if I feed no treats at all.
OH thinks that she just really likes dry food. It could be that. It has confused me, though. 

At least I can afford a high quality kibble like fishmongers.. I would rather feed raw, though.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Bought a pet carrier and put the travel crate in the car for tomorrow.

Dexter got wet and muddy yesterday so he had a mini bath.



















Still need to have a bath, wash my hair and bath Dexter. Then get all the stuff together for tomorrow. Get up about 5.30. Leave about 6-6.30.


----------



## Nicki85

Well we have had an interesting day! Started off with me walking Rusty down to the allotment to meet my parents to plant potatoes- they brought Shae down in the car. Both dogs had a bit of fun playing in the mud 

Then it was time to go home and get Rusty to agility... BUT they had managed to park my car in the mud at it was well and truly stuck. Queue lots of digging and trying to get the car out... in the end I had to walk home, collect Mums car and a tow rope... got it out eventually!!! But missed agility 

Went to my favourite pet shop (sad- I know!) and picked up some raw minces, some Ziwi-peak kibbley stuff that is for Shae's supper as she is fussy with raw on occasion. Also got them some toys and a chew root thing... Only bought one root as didn't think it would be a hit but they both loved it and Rusty started resource guarding it from Shae so it's in the cupboard now.(think they are called Anco roots- i'd recommend them so far- Anco Roots Medium - from Pet Shopper )

Symone- strongly recommend you go along and watch a class or two  Website looks fine but you never know until you attend a class. 
Nonnie- well done for thinking outside the box for your guys- they just love to learn don't they?
Werehorse- hope you feel better soon

Hope everyone has had a good day.


----------



## GingerRogers

Good luck tomorrow KFK

Dogless why remove the bins that makes no sense although I'm amazed you saw someone emptying them, they do get done regularly round here but I have never seen it happen  they removed the one on the road up to the primary school a couple of years back I thought that was a bit mad but........hope the ankles ok, that hurts doesn't it.

Nikki sorry to hear of your mud problems, how utterly frustrating.

How did it go werehorse, hope you are feeling better soon. there's some odd/horrid bugs going round isn't there.

Nonnie love the idea of adapting your training, and whats that phrase about old dogs and all that  little licks :001_wub:

Well we had a little breakthrough today. Went for a little random footpath exploration, a really lovely walk through a sort of reed bed wood which led to a field with horses , I could see there was a busy road ahead so it was going to be a back the way we came job and suggested turning then, hubby said no just see what she does.

She did nothing , she looked and she got a bit closer and looked again, we stood for a bit and I rewarded her several times then turned around and walked back the way we had come . She didn't even strain to get closer, even hubby was totally impressed :thumbup: kept saying so all the way back. She stopped for a drink from the stream so I think she had stressed but had controlled herself.

She was a bit of a numpty and nearly fell off the bridge, there was a gap between the concrete and wooden bits and her back legs slipped in and she nearly toppled off, fair enough, but she did exactly the same on the opposite side on the way back .

We bought her a new bed on the way home as we have been having a sort out and move around. Just a cheap flat cushion one as she never really took to the sided one and we didn't want to waste more money and she is happily curled up on it not attempted to get on the sofa or chair. 

We now have rain!


----------



## Werehorse

More progress, Ginge. 

Nicki - oh no! I get well annoyed if I miss stuff, glad you got the car out eventually though and the dogs had a play in the mud - therefore happy dogs. 

KfK - cute wet dog. :lol:

Symone - go watch a class and make a judgement. It's hard to tell from a website what an actual class woud be like. Anything that makes you uncomfortable, walk away.

Nonnie - sounds like you are doing a wonderful job of thinking through what your dogs are capable off physically in order to exercise them mentally. I reckon many folk would just give up.

We seem to have cracked Hugo's car issue with a DIY dog guard. He was much, much happier to get into the car and much less frantic about getting out of the car. I think the crate was squashed and too rattley for him. Hopefully he'll get gradually more happy with it as he realises the crate is gone. Oh, the back seat tunnel was a massive no go. He went in it fine in the house and seemed happy enough shut in it in the house. As soon as he was shut in in the car - epic panic attack and he came out through the velcro "window" in the roof of it!  Ooops. But hopefull dog guard and all the boot space will sort him. Just need to find a proper dog guard that we can actually afford and if close enough to us to collect.

DIY dog guard!


----------



## GingerRogers

I cant believe that dog guard was less rattly  very ingenious.


----------



## Werehorse

OH is crafty with knots. 

ETA - it didn;t rattle at all once it was tied to the sunroof handle turny thing.


----------



## GingerRogers

Ooh err!


----------



## Dimwit

*Dogless* Ouch about the ankle, and I'm sure they have one highly logical reason for removing the poo bins:sosp:

*GR* Good progress, it's always such a good feeling when you have a bit of a breakthrough 

*Symone* I would echo the advice to go along and check out the class first, even if they do come highly recommended it is always good to go along and see for yourself if you think they will suit you (speaking from past experience). I'm sure the raw feeders will have some ideas about why she is suddenly not eating, the dimwit got very anxious when I tried him on raw and refused to eat most things so I moved him back to kibble with the occasional bone or chicken foot which he is happy with

*werehorse* I love the improvised dog guard, dimwit has to travel loose in the boot as he gets very stressed in a crate, too rattle and he used to slide around too much

Had quite a good day today, big walkies this morning was fun, and the dimwit even had a little swim. Then we went to a scentwork class this afternoon and now he is going to prison (kennels) for a few days 
I will spend the whole time feeling guilty and missing him and he will forget who I am within the first 20 minutes and have a great time


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse said:


> OH is crafty with knots.





GingerRogers said:


> Ooh err!


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

KFK good luck tomorrow

Symone I second going along to watch there is nothing quite liek seeing a class in action to know whether it's one you want to go to or not.

Ginge sounds like you have a fabulous walk she's comign along leaps and bounds, she really is huge huge huge well dones.

In a change of plan we went for a training walk an hour of pavements, petrol station forecourts carparks etc Interspersed with spins, twists, toe taps 

One bark at a dog across the road that was stiff and staring, easily distracted and we continued on our way.

I dog poo fairy'd today and made 6 trips to the bin, not once was the bag's contents Tink's ... most annoying.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thanks Ginge, MV and Were.

He he is after his proper bath and brushing;


----------



## Beth17

KFK Doesn't he look lovely and white. Hope you can keep him that way  Good luck tomorrow.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Evening all, sorry not been on for a while. Have had a quick skim read through, sounds like all is pretty good in the world of WAYWO :thumbup: apart from Dogless' ankle, Werehorse's lurgy, Sarah getting lost and Spen having a hissy fit (I wonder what it was about the guy he didn't like  )

All is well here, we had a very wet walk in the forest this morning, Branston had a blast but Lily less so because there was some shooting happening not far away 

We've been doing some training this afternoon, I'm so chuffed now that I can have one of them 'settled' on the mat while I play games with the other one. Lily's brilliant at 'settling' she just chills out half heartedly watching what we're doing and gratefully taking the occasional sausage reward for her 'settle'! Where as Branston is very good, he isn't exactly 'settled' he is really fighting an inner battle because he knows what he's meant to be doing and he knows he'll get a reward for staying put, but he REALLY, REALLY wants to get up and join in!!!!
Especially if Lily get's something wrong, it's like he wants to leap in and say "NO YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, LOOOOOOK IT'S LIKE THIS!!!!" 
Love him.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Thanks Beth


----------



## Twiggy

Got back from Sussex at 7.40pm and I'm off to bed shortly.

The journey back was awful - heavy rain and spray on the motorways all the way home.


----------



## Beth17

Crikey Twiggy that sounds awful. Pleased you got back ok.


----------



## Werehorse

I'm going to have to work on getting the settle while the other works thing going on with my pair,FRM. I'm impressed, I have to say! Did you follow a paticular method?

Glad you got home safe and sound, Twiggy. Was it a visit to you sister? How is she doing?


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Werehorse said:


> I'm going to have to work on getting the settle while the other works thing going on with my pair,FRM. I'm impressed, I have to say! Did you follow a paticular method?
> 
> Glad you got home safe and sound, Twiggy. Was it a visit to you sister? How is she doing?


This video was really helpful

How to train more than one dog- clicker dog training - YouTube

Basically you are training them both at the same time, one of them with whatever commands you are doing, and the other one to settle on the mat. So the one that's settling gets rewarded for doing just that.

So for example Lily's on the Mat, she must be laying down. With Branston I am playing 'touch' and getting him to do various commands. He is obviously getting rewards for his work but Lily is also getting rewards for basically doing nothing. She soon learns that if she gets off the mat and tries to join in, she gets nothing other than being directed back to the mat. But if she just lays there doing nothing she gets sausage!!

They both picked it up really well and they seem to understand that it's not 'their turn' if they're on the mat :thumbup:

Hope that makes sense, I'm not very good at explaining stuff


----------



## kat&molly

foxyrockmeister said:


> This video was really helpful
> 
> How to train more than one dog- clicker dog training - YouTube
> 
> Basically you are training them both at the same time, one of them with whatever commands you are doing, and the other one to settle on the mat. So the one that's settling gets rewarded for doing just that.
> 
> So for example Lily's on the Mat, she must be laying down. With Branston I am playing 'touch' and getting him to do various commands. He is obviously getting rewards for his work but Lily is also getting rewards for basically doing nothing. She soon learns that if she gets off the mat and tries to join in, she gets nothing other than being directed back to the mat. But if she just lays there doing nothing she gets sausage!!
> 
> They both picked it up really well and they seem to understand that it's not 'their turn' if they're on the mat :thumbup:
> 
> Hope that makes sense, I'm not very good at explaining stuff


That's the one I followed , mine got it easy as well.


----------



## Werehorse

thanks Foxy, will give it a go. I suspect Oscar will find it easier than Hugo.


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Werehorse said:


> thanks Foxy, will give it a go. I suspect Oscar will find it easier than Hugo.


Ha! Lily finds it easier than Branston


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - pleased you got to see your sister even if the journey sounds awful.

Tonight's walk - gales, rain, neither man nor beast seen. Lazy me took both together.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy glad you are home safe adn sound after the terrible drive. Hope you found your sister in good spirits and improving health.

Had a brilliant training session tonight I think we did a bit of everything she was so focussed and looking for more and now the wee angel is absolutely sound


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Got back from Sussex at 7.40pm and I'm off to bed shortly.
> 
> The journey back was awful - heavy rain and spray on the motorways all the way home.


but at least you got there,hope all was ok x


----------



## Dogless

foxyrockmeister said:


> This video was really helpful
> 
> How to train more than one dog- clicker dog training - YouTube
> 
> Basically you are training them both at the same time, one of them with whatever commands you are doing, and the other one to settle on the mat. So the one that's settling gets rewarded for doing just that.
> 
> So for example Lily's on the Mat, she must be laying down. With Branston I am playing 'touch' and getting him to do various commands. He is obviously getting rewards for his work but Lily is also getting rewards for basically doing nothing. She soon learns that if she gets off the mat and tries to join in, she gets nothing other than being directed back to the mat. But if she just lays there doing nothing she gets sausage!!
> 
> They both picked it up really well and they seem to understand that it's not 'their turn' if they're on the mat :thumbup:
> 
> Hope that makes sense, I'm not very good at explaining stuff


Love that!! Going to give it a try.


----------



## Maria_1986

Dogless - hope your ankle is isn't too bad today

W/H - Hope your feeling better today, I'm glad the DIY dog gaurd has helped Hugo

Symone - I hope that you can sort out Shamaya's biting habit quickly

KFK - I hope today went well/goes well (I guess you will have left by now!)

Niki - sorry you missed Agility, that root chew looks interesting though

G/R - sounds like Ginge was a little star yesterday 

M/V - Thank you for being the dog poo fairy - I am sick of dodging other peoples dogs offerings, Chevy does try to be helpful and eat them on occasion but I would rather they were just picked up by the owners.

FRM - So pleased that The Pickles are enjoying their training, getting two dogs doing what you want at the same time is amazing!

Twiggy - glad you got home safely

Back to on lead walks for us for a while. Took Chevy out yesterday, OH came so we did some 'pub training' (aka we stop for a pint) then walked home going via this small wooded area she loves. Normally she is on lead there but she was being really good and attentive so I decided to let her off as its all securely fenced with no way out. We walked around half the path and did some recalls which were all fine, then we walked past a little pond which she dived into but recalled out of so I was happy - a few mins later I heard a faint dog bark and she took off, ignoring me and OH  Trying to spot a brown dog through trees in the pouring of rain is pretty difficult so OH stayed where he was while I went to look for her, eventually I heard OH shout to say he had her but that she had come back from the direction of the pond. I got back to them to find her looking pleased with herself and very happy. Did some recalls after on the long line and she was perfect, really quick to react, focused on me and behaving like a little angel rather than the little devil she had just proven herself to be!


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Twiggy glad you are home safe adn sound after the terrible drive. Hope you found your sister in good spirits and improving health.
> 
> Thanks girls.
> 
> I'm afraid my sister is very poorly at the moment.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> moonviolet said:
> 
> 
> 
> Twiggy glad you are home safe adn sound after the terrible drive. Hope you found your sister in good spirits and improving health.
> 
> Thanks girls.
> 
> I'm afraid my sister is very poorly at the moment.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm so sorry to hear that. Sending healing thoughts and very best wishes.
Click to expand...


----------



## GingerRogers

Very sorry to hear that Twiggy. Sending goodhealth vibes your way.


----------



## Nicki85

Sorry to hear about your sister Twiggy  I hope she starts to improve soon.


----------



## Werehorse

Sorry to hear that Twiggy.  Sending many get well wishes her way and lots and lots of *tea* and *hugs* your way. x


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - I am sorry. I will keep you and your sister in my thoughts xx.


----------



## VickiGS

We're working on trying to get Baxter to STOP eating me!!! 
Constantly bites, nips and scratches me. He even tries to dig holes through my stomach! Obviously he's not going to get anywhere lol.

He doesn't do any of this to my OH, just me. So I'm trying to lay down the law a bit but he is proving to be stubborn.


----------



## Dogless

Maria - pub training - love it!! .

Absolutely cracking morning here, boys got an hour each of separate walking. Went out much later than usual hoping that we would see more 'stuff'.

Took Rudi to the dog walking area, he walked there really nicely, great focus. Met the two sibes there that we know and he had an absolute ball playing chasing, growly games. Then mucking about in the filthy stream with them . Then he recalled away from them and walked very nicely home, ignoring people and dogs. Brilliant LCH :001_wub:. I was sad for a bit that Kilo wasn't with us as he would have loved to play but he hasn't been muzzled in an exciting situation yet and the longline would have been dangerous - plus it is still blowing a gale so probably wouldn't have been off there anyway.

Took Kilo on a road walk dancing like a dressage horse because the wind was blowing leaves and rubbish everywhere and to the sports pitches, played lots of tug and impulse control stuff. He saw lots of dogs, including the terrier that hates him....and....walked on nicely for me or diverted to play tug. So pleased with him. Then to top it all we were almost home and a spaniel that's often loose came and jumped on him, he skittered, whirled about frightened, sat down and then....relaxed...had a proper greet and wanted to play. Not great that he wanted to play onlead but at least it was a positive reaction. Took spaniel home, as per. My very best BCH :001_wub:.

Ditching the half checks has made such an enormous change, I'm so pleased.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy : I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that your sister will get better, soon. x

Dogless : Sounds like a great walk with each of them! 


Nothing to say, here.. Shamaya has slept pretty much all morning. She seems to be a lazy bugger on grey days!
Waiting for her to wake up so we can take her to the park.


----------



## moonviolet

VickiGS said:


> We're working on trying to get Baxter to STOP eating me!!!
> Constantly bites, nips and scratches me. He even tries to dig holes through my stomach! Obviously he's not going to get anywhere lol.
> 
> He doesn't do any of this to my OH, just me. So I'm trying to lay down the law a bit but he is proving to be stubborn.


Have you tried teaching him what you want him to do instead?

Forgot my bit 

Just done an hour or mroe training walk and it was fab, it's sunny everyone is out and about. we encountered 9 dogs and I avoided all onlead meets which suits me as Tink really doesn't look for them, she will react to dog dragging toward her or an across the road starer. Think i'm getting better at this malarky I really shouldn't have neglected it but was so busy on the other stuff and she would have been dangerously scared on our narrow pavements if we encountered a gsd.

There was a meerkat moment when jsut as he passed us a man stuffed his hand in his pockey and there was a scruncy food wrapper noise....I apologsed adn he took responsibility , sweet man. So thats on my to work on list.

She gets a gold star for not leg sniffing... she loves a man in shorts.
She was good but I need a lie down that was intense :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

The CaniX training has started... it's all a bit stop/start at the moment... I'm in no condition to run 5K.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> The CaniX training has started... it's all a bit stop/start at the moment... I'm in no condition to run 5K.


Won't take long til you're addicted! A tip if I may? Trees make marvellous brakes when an over excited dog takes off with you .


----------



## sharloid

We just got back from a lovely walk with all three dogs. OH had Broder and Kindra and I had Diesel. 

Our two were on harnesses so were allowed to pull and Diesel just plodded along. We're having to keep them all separate in the house but when out he just ignores them which is good. Every dog owner we came across put theirs on lead as we stepped to the side to let them pass which was really nice of them and I'm super proud of Broder because each time he sat and didn't lunge at the other dog passing!


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Twiggy : I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that your sister will get better, soon. x
> 
> Dogless : Sounds like a great walk with each of them!
> 
> Nothing to say, here.. Shamaya has slept pretty much all morning. She seems to be a lazy bugger on grey days!
> Waiting for her to wake up so we can take her to the park.


*Symone - *I had a very quick flick through your link regarding dog training classes. Hmmm slight concern reading the testimonials about assertive methods. As others have said go and watch before commiting yourself.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Won't take long til you're addicted! A tip if I may? Trees make marvellous brakes when an over excited dog takes off with you .


Do you think I might have the same trouble with Holly at agility on Tuesday?.....

That would be good although I shall probably wish I'd started a diet two months ago.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Do you think I might have the same trouble with Holly at agility on Tuesday?.....
> 
> That would be good although I shall probably wish I'd started a diet two months ago.


Maybe :devil:. I'm sure little HB will behave perfectly :ihih:.

Kilo drew some blood on my knuckle today Grannie, hope you're satisfied!


----------



## L/C

I have been laid low with lurgy and work so it has been literally days if not weeks since I've logged on - no chance of catching up so I hope everyone is well.

Just one photo from our walk today to demonstrate how far Ely's impulse control has come:



He didn't break has stay to get his ball until I told him he could. My best boy. :001_wub: He also interacted perfectly calmly with a 5 month dalmatian pup, a lovely beagle who had recently recovered from viral meningitis and an adorable soggy springer.

Gypsy continues to be my best girl - we're working on attention heeling currently.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> *Symone - *I had a very quick flick through your link regarding dog training classes. Hmmm slight concern reading the testimonials about assertive methods. As others have said go and watch before commiting yourself.


Yeah I will definitely go and watch, first. 

Fingers crossed that it will be good, though! This seems to be the only other training class that is within reasonable travelling distance. I may just have to look for one when I move. :001_unsure:
She is doing well with me training her, and she gets socialised a lot.. It would just be nice to attend a class, too. 
Shamaya is going to the vet Monday so I will ask them if they know of any good ones.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh L/C I love that pic 

Twiggy i'm sure you and HollyBolly will have a great time on tues I'd love to be there watching 


Sharloid sounds like a successful walk , Any sign of things improving in the house?

Dief i'm sure you'll be flying along in no time, whether your feet are touching the ground is another matter


----------



## sharloid

moonviolet said:


> Oh L/C I love that pic
> 
> Twiggy i'm sure you and HollyBolly will have a great time on tues I'd love to be there watching
> 
> *Sharloid sounds like a successful walk , Any sign of things improving in the house?*
> 
> Dief i'm sure you'll be flying along in no time, whether your feet are touching the ground is another matter


Not at all, he growls and lunges even if they stand at the door way so they're in separate rooms for now! Not sure how to progress really.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry to hear about your sister Twiggy. Will keep everything crossed for her.

We've had a good day so far. Went to the husky meet this afternoon. Not many turned up but Spencers girlfriend was there so he was happy. After we'd been there a while the GSD who comes turned up. Spen saw him coming across the field and while he wouldn't even turn to look at me let alone recall but when I asked him to wait he sat and waited for me to get to him. I got hold of him, gave him a treat and then released him to go say hello as the GSD was off leash and heading our way by that point. He was also very good at coming checking in while running around with the other dogs. Also had two people comment about how much calmer he's seeming now. I think my thuggish adolescent may be turning into a proper gentleman.

Had a rather sweet moment when he went and sat on the bench with the little boy who comes along to the meets. Little lad (he's only about 3) was sitting on the picnic bench and Spen just wandered over, climbed up there and sat with him :001_wub: He also brought him something to throw later on which delighted the little boy.


----------



## Dogless

Spen is adorable Sarah - the thought of him with that little boy is lovely.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



Maybe :devil:. I'm sure little HB will behave perfectly

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> :ihih:.
> 
> Kilo drew some blood on my knuckle today Grannie, hope you're satisfied!


And I'm quite sure she won't...!! I don't suppose for one minute that she'll be remotely interested apart from saying hello to all the other dogs.

I hope she's not tooooo difficult especially as I taught the instructor both obedience and agility a few years ago....

I've always said that Kilo's a good boy..


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> And I'm quite sure she won't...!! I don't suppose for one minute that she'll be remotely interested apart from saying hello to all the other dogs.
> 
> I hope she's not tooooo difficult especially as I taught the instructor both obedience and agility a few years ago....
> 
> I've always said that Kilo's a good boy..*


*

Well, she has a wicked sense of humour  :devil:.

Kilo is a good boy in the main, really good boy.*


----------



## Dogless

If you have time Twiggy do you recall our conversation about the sachet that a friend of your uses on her dog's collar who is afraid of flies? You were going to ask where it was from i think? Saw a fly the other day and was reminded that we'd talked about it for Kilo's extreme reaction to them. Not like him to get over the top stressed by something I know . Good job I love him.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Spen is adorable Sarah - the thought of him with that little boy is lovely.


Thanks, I wish I'd got a pic. He can be very sweet when he wants to be. We saw him with his previous owners toddler and 6 month old and he was so gentle and sweet with them. He seems to be one of those dogs who genuinely likes children, he absolutely lights up when a small child approaches him. Just have to watch him for leaning on them


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy - Sorry to hear your sisters so poorly. I really hope she get better soon. Sending lots of thoughts your way.

L/C - Little wave! What great impulse control from Ely, theres no way Izzy would have been able to resist that!

Sarah - Spen is so sweet! Making friends with that little boy! :001_wub:

We took Izzy into Cheshire yesterday to explore a new walk which was lovely, not as long as we originally planned as someone  (maybe me) didnt eat any lunch and started to feel really funny part way round !

Izzy did great with all the horses, cyclists and families we came across. She was on her flexi but we recalled her whenever we came across a cyclist and she walked to heal while they passed then we would release her to explore. The cyclists seemed really appreciative and we got thanked by every group of them we came across which was nice. Heres a thread with some pictures; http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/302105-wet-weekend-stroll-pics.html

This morning we were at agility, she's doing brilliantly, got lots of compliments on how well she's doing, just trying to encourage her to work ahead of me a bit. Practised on a jumping course set at medium with some tricky handling then swapped to the agility course to practise her contacts and jumped her on full height for that, not as tricky in terms of handling. We just need to work on the see-saw some more, she's still not confident tipping it herself, and the drop tunnel as she can sometimes be a bit unsure about going into it.

She's now crashed out on the bed while I catch up on PF and keep out of the way of the boys on their football marathon downstairs!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> If you have time Twiggy do you recall our conversation about the sachet that a friend of your uses on her dog's collar who is afraid of flies? You were going to ask where it was from i think? Saw a fly the other day and was reminded that we'd talked about it for Kilo's extreme reaction to them. Not like him to get over the top stressed by something I know . Good job I love him.


She got it from the local pet shop but it didn't have a brand name on it.

It must be something like a citronella spray collar I suppose.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> She got it from the local pet shop but it didn't have a brand name on it.
> 
> It must be something like a citronella spray collar I suppose.


Must be citronella yes or similar - will do some research, thanks .


----------



## MollySmith

Hello, I am sorry Ive been neglecting this thread, Ive had a mad few days volunteering at a literary festival in Cambridge organising the great unwashed public and escorting mad authors whilst trying not to be too star struck. I got myself overtired so Im trying to rest a bit today.

Molly was full of beans yesterday afternoon whilst I literally could have slept standing up. OH was at football so we played fetch with Lobbers and bed. The latter needs lots of practice but she was trying so hard, it made me rather tearful, I love it when you see dog thinking it over. The Lobber game was great as she got herself madly excited and I was able to get her to wait and do a few look at me to calm down and she did so very fast, unheard of 6 months ago.

I will be booking the scentwork class tomorrow.

*Twiggy*  I am so sorry to hear that your sister is suffering again.

*Sarah*  Spen has a girlfriend  Oh dear, my dog is broken hearted but will doubtless find solace with Nelson, Ty, Ralph or another..! How sweet of him to be so kind to the little boy. And I love the socks  Molly removes mine all the time and I suggest bed is a good place to look. She has a problem in the winter as I wear very long socks and she gets bored and tries to take off OHs slippers.

*Dogless*  its lovely to read your posts, you sound like youve worked out how to manage it and thats nice to hear even if it means separate walks. Good for Kilo and poo to the spaniels owner. Hope your ankle is better.

*VickiGS*  have to tried to teach an off command? And also screech? I used to make a horrible squeal when Molly did this and she soon realised it wasnt a good thing. Takes a while but shes good now apart from when shes overexcited and then I get her to wait.

*MV*  thank you poo fairy, I am really wussy about picking up other dogs poo but Im very forward in telling bad people that their dog has dropped something.

*Maria*  I love pub training  We may do this ourselves now that the schools are back and pub gardens are quiet. Sorry to hear about Chevys wanderings, woodland is Mollys weak spot, we just lose her so we dont walk near them anymore.

*FRM*  it sounds like you are doing so well over there. Well done ☺
Symone  I hope the course is okay and you are able to take a look before you agree, just in case. Hopefully its all fine and youll like it.

*K4K*  oh Dexter! What a wee thing he is!

*Ginge*  well done, wow! I am so impressed with the horses, thats a massive breakthrough.

*Werehorse*  your OH would make a scout proud! I am glad youve found a way to get past Hugos problems.


----------



## MollySmith

Oh and I forgot, it's a hopeless quality. Mum took it, dad printed it (still doesn't know how to attach photos to email). Between them it's on the lowest possible setting on the camera and printed on the worst paper and when I scanned it in my Mac had a sulk and Photoshop was insulted but nevertheless it's the only pic I have of me and Molly, taken on Christmas Day, I'm using her to prop up my shoulder after the op!


----------



## purpleskyes

Even though some people will think us mad for continuing to try and recall train an Akita we are carrying on. Since getting the long line and discovering something he just cannot resist (BBQ chicken) we have been having great success witn re call and he is even starting to come back even after he has spotted a dog!

We discovered one downside to the long line today though! A rope obessed English bull terrier grabbed it, went running with it, slipped his harness and then tried to attack Hudson as he was attached to the line!


----------



## Symone

purpleskyes : It's good that Hudson is doing so well with the recall!  Shame about the English bull terrier, though!


Well, I have a bit of a problem. We took Shamaya out and it was clear that it's far too hot for her. I don't know what I should do.
Should I use the furminator on her to try thin out her coat a bit?
We take water with us on all walks so she's hydrated, but she was panting like mad and we took her home only after a short while.
She enjoyed getting wet with cool water on the balcony, though. I made sure to do it in small bits to not cool her down too quickly.  

OH said we should stick to only a few small walks during the day, and walk her at 6am and after 6pm, but if the summer coming it will soon be hot until 9pm and later. 

I remember TM had this cooling collar/bandana possibly being made.. I'll message her and ask about it.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> purpleskyes : It's good that Hudson is doing so well with the recall!  Shame about the English bull terrier, though!
> 
> Well, I have a bit of a problem. We took Shamaya out and it was clear that it's far too hot for her. I don't know what I should do.
> Should I use the furminator on her to try thin out her coat a bit?
> We take water with us on all walks so she's hydrated, but she was panting like mad and we took her home only after a short while.
> She enjoyed getting wet with cool water on the balcony, though. I made sure to do it in small bits to not cool her down too quickly.
> 
> OH said we should stick to only a few small walks during the day, and walk her at 6am and after 6pm, but if the summer coming it will soon be hot until 9pm and later.
> 
> I remember TM had this cooling collar/bandana possibly being made.. I'll message her and ask about it.


As a general rule of thumb the young and old feel the heat more, which is why mine won't be walked until later this evening.

Remember it's been very cold until today and therefore dogs will feel it more.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> As a general rule of thumb the young and old feel the heat more, which is why mine won't be walked until later this evening.
> 
> Remember it's been very cold until today and therefore dogs will feel it more.


Guessing you don't have the screaming gales and rain that we do then??


----------



## Twiggy

Thought you might like to see these pics of Holly taken this afternoon:

Holly chomping on my arm as I wind her up to do heelwork (yes I have got a big bum):










Holly doing heelwork:










Holly doing 'beg' - look at her tongue out in concentration:


----------



## Dogless

Can't see 'beg' but the arm chomping bit looks familiar to me - difference is you want it!!! She is a very pretty little dog and the heelwork looks as if she's concentrating very hard indeed.

Should have more photos from you Grannie!


----------



## moonviolet

What lovely pics of Hollybolly in action.
Such focus and fabulous feathers!
Grannie it's not a big bum it's a comfortable seat  At least thats how i describe mine


----------



## Symone

I love the photos! 

Yeah, I think i'll stick to later walks. 
I just put a huge bucket (well, plastic storage box) of water on the balcony and pretty much dunked shamayas bum in it. She's now confused and going back and forth and licking the bucket. 

Dogless : It's bright and sunny, here! I'll take a photo. Lol.


----------



## Maria_1986

Will catch up in a bit but was so excited that I wanted to share - we decided to go to the dog thing today after all as I was feeling more awake and Chevy was full of energy. She was a little angel - excitable at first and really pulling to so say hi to all the other dogs, she wasn't perfect by the end of the day but she was better. Wandered round for a bit and decided that she was being really good and that going in the ring to train with distractions but not quite as many as there were wandering around would do her good. We got paw, down, a short sit stay and touches in the ring during the oldies class, rescue class we got the same and I was so busy paying attention to her,and clicking and treating that I missed it when they called us into the middle of the ring to take 1st place!! Chevy now has a pretty red rosette and a very happy smiling mummy!


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Will catch up in a bit but was so excited that I wanted to share - we decided to go to the dog thing today after all as I was feeling more awake and Chevy was full of energy. She was a little angel - excitable at first and really pulling to so say hi to all the other dogs, she wasn't perfect by the end of the day but she was better. Wandered round for a bit and decided that she was being really good and that going in the ring to train with distractions but not quite as many as there were wandering around would do her good. We got paw, down, a short sit stay and touches in the ring during the oldies class, rescue class we got the same and I was so busy paying attention to her,and clicking and treating that I missed it when they called us into the middle of the ring to take 1st place!! Chevy now has a pretty red rosette and a very happy smiling mummy!


That's wonderful - congratulationss to you both....:thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Symone

dogless :
Forgot i took some pics in the park earlier! here's one with the blue sky. 










sky from balcony (taken like 5 min ago)










curious of the water!










I don't like it being this hot. I feel far too hot with the sun shining on me, lol.

I have some feeling that shamaya will get a long walk at 8ish instead.. I don't see the sun going down by 6pm. 

edit : Sending weather vibes to you! lol.


----------



## moonviolet

Maria_1986 said:


> Will catch up in a bit but was so excited that I wanted to share - we decided to go to the dog thing today after all as I was feeling more awake and Chevy was full of energy. She was a little angel - excitable at first and really pulling to so say hi to all the other dogs, she wasn't perfect by the end of the day but she was better. Wandered round for a bit and decided that she was being really good and that going in the ring to train with distractions but not quite as many as there were wandering around would do her good. We got paw, down, a short sit stay and touches in the ring during the oldies class, rescue class we got the same and I was so busy paying attention to her,and clicking and treating that I missed it when they called us into the middle of the ring to take 1st place!! Chevy now has a pretty red rosette and a very happy smiling mummy!


Awww congratulations that is so lovely   

So pleased for you, I love it when WAYWO dogs and their humans do well.

(will we be treated to a pic?)


----------



## BessieDog

Sunny and fairly warm here - but blowing a gale as you can see by my hair in the pic! 

Funny walk today - Bess was pull, pull, pulling. Think it might partly have been to do with the wind and partly because she'd picked up on my mood. Son has gone back to Uni and I was waiting for the text to say he'd got there safe. Hate him driving. Also feeling pretty down as I miss him. It will be back to normal tomorrow though. Funny as she never pulls so much when I walk her on my own. We take three steps back when OH is with us.


----------



## BessieDog

Forgot pic!


----------



## Nicki85

Maria- welldone you and Chevy!

Twiggy- love the photos of you and Holly 

Symone- I think you can buy a swamp jacket from Ruffwear that a lot of the agility folk use if they have dogs that don't like the heat...

Today Rusty and I had a lovely walk in the forest- in the sun! very nice it was too  Saw a butterfly and everything...

Took him to the field with the view of playing tuggy this afternoon, not a chance  Shame as he played so so nicely at the agility show last weekend... guess it's down to levels of excitement and what else is on offer.... He played fetch nicely but really wouldn't engage in a game of tug with me.

Took Shae into the garden and did some play with her  She is such a cutie! She is starting to get the "go get it!" command which I use for well, going and getting the toy  so I've started to do some restrained "get its" as well. Unlike Rusty who gets anxious if I do too much get it's and winding up she loves it. She is also responding to "get it" to play tug as well now when I am holding the toy which is also really nice. 

But, I have one problem... how do I get her to bring it to me?! I've never had this problem having had gundogs with the innate need to carry their toys around... Shae runs after the toy and then lays down with it to chew/play with it... if I call her she leaves the toy and comes back to me. She is happy for me to go up and get the toy and instigate a game of tug or to throw it again or take it away. 

Also did some work on spins which she has now mastered after the third session.... I'm also trying to shape the tug work just to reinforce it with the clicker which is working really nicely. She is now mouthing the toy and i'm asking for more mouthing now.


----------



## Maria_1986

Thank you all 

Twiggy - sorry to hear about your sister, I hope she starts to improve soon. I love the beg photo though

Dogless - sounds like you had two great walks

L/C - hope your feeling better now - thats a fantastic photo

Sarah - The thought of Spencer and the little boy made me smile - having a dog chose to come sit with me would have made my day when I was little (well it would still make my day now!)

I/M - Izzy sounds like a little star, glad you had a good walk

M/S - thats a lovely photo of you and Molly

Purpleskyes - glad Hudson is doing well with his recall, shame about the EBT though.

M/V - so far the only photo's have my ugly mug in them and Chev is now snoring, but I will get a few photo's of her with her rosette a bit later


----------



## kat&molly

Will try to remember as much as I can- there was a lot.

Twiggy -I am really sorry to hear you sister is still poorly, hope things start to look up for her soon.
I love the photos, HB has certainly grown in to a pretty lady- she's looking really keen now and I love the concentration tongue sticky out beg one.

MV- well done to Miss Tink for resisting the mens legs.

Maria-congratulations to you and Chevy , that's fantastic.

Bessiedog- a lot of us complain about the dogs pulling more when OH's join us- I think they just get more excited to have all their humans together.

Sarah- Spendog and the little boy, how sweet is that

Dogless- sounds like the boys done you proud today.

Symone- lovely pics of Shamaya.

Really hot here today, the other girls had a walk whilst Molls was for training- it was lovely , no retrieves. She has been working so well that somehow I need to strike a better balance, I already thought I was but obviously not 
We all went to the river this afternoon, Scruff and Jay had a paddle, Evie had a swim, shes such a natural in the water its lovely to watch her.
I let Moll have some water retrieves and she was delighted 

Nikki- could you start Shae on the Hold bit first.


----------



## Dogless

Maria - how lovely; so pleased for you and Chevy .

Symone - Gorgeous weather; hope it comes our way soon - thanks for the photos!

K&m - it sounds really nice at the river.

purpleskyes - well done with Hudson.

Nicki - sounds as if Shae is doing amazingly well as ever!!

Took both boys out together in the gales - thought it might be a bad idea as they get so excitable in the wind (Kilo mainly!!) but they were good as gold apart from a little 'play getting too heated' moment but that's no biggie. On the way back, we passed a very excitable black lab jumping and bouncing with both dogs behaving well and the sibes pulling and excited too without any dramas. So proud. Passing the sibes was treat - assisted but I never thought I'd get to this stage with Kilo in terms of relaxation after the rottie thing. I watch him even more carefully before deciding whether to proceed when I'm with Rudi but he did me proud, love him. They're good boys.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dexter did very well in the ring today. Walked very well. Didn't get a rosette but that wasn't the objective.


----------



## Beth17

Twiggy sorry to hear about your sister. I hope she is feeling brighter when you next visit. Love the pics of Holly, what a lovely girl.

Glad you had a good walk this evening Dogless.

K&M sounds like you had a lovely day. Envious of the sun though.

Maria well done to you and Chevy!

Symone and L/C lovely pictures


----------



## ballybee

Well Deeks, is away, he was a star in the car, then a star on walks, and apparently a star on the ferry and in his new home. He's had a sniff at the cats but otherwise doesn't give a hoot!!!

Took Dan to an agility charity day today, i thought he needed the socilialisation more than Tummel. Dan was pretty well behaved, he met a lot of dogs, and only tried to hump 2. He got a fair amount of fuss as well which he enjoyed but didn't flip out...i think he might just be tired though 

Tummel has been amazing, he was as close to perfect as he coud get yesterday, interacted with my aunts lab bitch perfectly, listened to me etc...he was brilliant!!! Today he's still been pretty good, he's finally clicked onto rolling over on command and he's hilarious, he does it really slowly  The only issue i had with Tummel today was a gorgeous 10MO male lab came flying at us today then greeted the boys with his belly showing, fair enough Tummel only likes calm, proper greetings but he did react which wasn't nice. I do hope we see them again though as i feel the lab would definately benefit from a playdate with my 2. Dan gave a very nice greeting and even lay down to be at the same level 

So...my goals are

Dan - STOP humping other dogs, and get more people feeling him up

Tummel - SA....and i am setting a long term goal of being able to have Tummel offlead around other dogs and ignoring them, this is a long shot but i'm willing to try as he's dog neutral onlead 99% of the time now!


----------



## Symone

I'm glad that Deeks had a good trip! Hope that he likes his new home. 

So, I met up with my breeder. He said with the Raw jsut put it out and leave it, and she will eventually eat it, so that's what I will do. 
Shamayas aunt had her litter. Unfortunately 3 pups died.  1 was still born, the last to die wouldn't eat anything and there was nothing they could do. The middle one they're clueless about, it's probably something like mum sat on it.
The rest of the pups are doing really well, and there are high hopes for them.
Pup that needed an op (from shamayas litter, ate something he shouldn't.) is completely better now and has put on the weight he lost, so that's good!

Shamaya had a lovely run around and was really happy to see her breeder. She recognises his car now and tried to pull us to it when he arrived, lol! She also did her typical wet herself out of excitement.

I also asked him about her weight and he had a good poke around on her and said that she is completely fine. I mentioned her weighing more than Kates Nala (she's a few weeks older and weighs 10.5kg I think it is.) and he told me about how his collies are heavily boned, he think that's from years of them being fed raw, dating to the great grandparents and them having stronger bones, but he isn't completely sure. So, that's a huge relief.


----------



## Labrador Laura

I'm still working on the Mylo & Zab walking together, we had a really bad walk on thursday ... but it was all Zab he was just too over excited and wouldn't stop jumping on Mylo and being a pain really. Mylo did growl at him and I feel if he was offlead he would of given him a good telling off  So I've left it at that and not walked them together since then but going to try again tomorrow.

But I've just had Mylo out for a extra walk, I let him have a run around and a swim before working on his recall. I feel as Mylo is getting older he's becoming for stubborn, he knows I'm calling and will stop whatever he's doing but he'll then start marking and come in his own time  To start off he was a pain and did his normal 'yes I heard you woman, but i'm peeing first' but after a few goes he came back each time straight away.

Then on the last field I started doing some offlead heal work, sits, down, stays and waits. I don't give Mylo enough credit... but he's amazing! He did everything I asked and straight away, I recalled him from a fair distance and stop him half way with a sit ... I've never done this before with him and he did it first time !! I think i'm going to start taking him dog training once Zab gets onto the next class as I can do both dogs different classes. It's nice having a dog that listens out on a walk. I've tried training Zab on a walk but he won't listen he'd rather chase a leaf, eat a daisy ... or just stare into space  

So i'm going to start taking Mylo out for a extra walk most nights and do this training with him, he really enjoyed it


----------



## Guest

Well... we have been working on this:

Dogs Whisper Too - YouTube

It's long, but we really had a blast making it! There are bloopers and outtakes at the end


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> Well... we have been working on this:
> 
> Dogs Whisper Too - YouTube
> 
> It's long, but we really had a blast making it! There are bloopers and outtakes at the end


It's brilliant and I hope you get lots of lovely feedback..


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> It's brilliant and I hope you get lots of lovely feedback..


Thank you so much! :blush2:


----------



## Sarah1983

ouesi said:


> Well... we have been working on this:
> 
> Dogs Whisper Too - YouTube
> 
> It's long, but we really had a blast making it! There are bloopers and outtakes at the end


That's awesome


----------



## moonviolet

Ouesi I love it, Bates and Kioni are total stars. I love the DO try this at home! and the bloopers show how much fun you guys had making it


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## Dogless

Love it - the bloopers made me laugh too!! There need to be more resources like that out there.


----------



## Werehorse

Totally in love with Bates. :001_wub::001_wub:


----------



## AdMed

ouesi said:


> Well... we have been working on this:
> 
> Dogs Whisper Too - YouTube
> 
> It's long, but we really had a blast making it! There are bloopers and outtakes at the end


That's brilliant! I'll have to sneakily show to anyone who needs pointing in the positive training direction 

It reminded me of nearly being in tears trying to get Barney to walk a la Mr Milan when he was a pup. Correction every time he looked like he might actually be enjoying himself. Consequently stressed owner, sad pup


----------



## Guest

Thank you ladies! We really should not be let out together, no matter what we do, we have fun  

I sort of what to post it on dog chat, but don't really have the energy for a CM debate LOL!


----------



## AdMed

ouesi said:


> Thank you ladies! We really should not be let out together, no matter what we do, we have fun
> 
> I sort of what to post it on dog chat, but don't really have the energy for a CM debate LOL!


Totally understand that, tempting though :devil:


----------



## moonviolet

I often wonder what it would be like if the yank and shout crowd had their own WAYWO thread  nothing to stop them


----------



## AdMed

I should make a video of what happens when DH makes "the claw" at B, it's their private sign of a human / dog version of snappy face and wrestling


----------



## Izzysmummy

Ouesi - that's fab! Looks like you all (people and dogs) had great fun making it!


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning all,

There's no chance I can read and catch up/comment on all the pages that I've missed so I just read the last few  my bad. 
Horace and I have had a good few days as we have had no reactive incidents from His Lordship. We even almost walked straight into another dog that we couldn't see approaching until he was right there in front of us... Horace sat and watched as other dog trotted past. I sensed that Horace wasn't sure whether to react or not but chose not to so was treated for that. He's been doing well!


----------



## kat&molly

Ouesi- I really loved the video. Looks like it was great fun to make. 


Well done Horace.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Horace, what a good boy .


----------



## IrishEyes

Dogless said:


> Well done Horace, what a good boy .


I'm going back home for a visit (yeah lovely Ireland!) on fri, so His Lordship and my OH will be on their own... I've never left Horace for more than a few hours before so I hope that he will be ok and be as good as he usually is at home! I leave on Fri morn and come back on mon eve.. it will be hard leaving him and I'll worry but at least he will be at home and have OH with him.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Rasco agility an hour earlier a 11 today so that I have time to walk back, pick up Dexter and walk back for 1:15. That finishes an hour later. Then got to walk a dog. So I get home about half three-four. Lovely


----------



## Symone

Well done, Horace.  

KFK - Sounds like a busy day! I hope that you have fun. We need some pics of your lot at agility! 


Well, I need a rant.
Background - "Friend" is unemployed, mum unemployed, she's nearly 30 still lives with her mum. (I have nothing against this - it's just so you can see why I'm peeved off) I believe she also has a fiancée that visits a lot.
I found out (after like 3 years of knowing her) that she has dogs, a cross and a staffy. Naturally I asked about them half thinking we could have a few walks together..
Cue pic of the Mutt. It's fat. Too fat. It looks like that even with trying you wouldn't be able to feel his ribs.  Luckily the staffy only looks a little big.. It would be easy to get the weight off him.
I asked how often they get walked, and she said they're lucky if they get once every 2 days. This annoyed me. 
The reasons? It's raining, don't have time, they're "unmanageable" and pull, she doesn't want sore ankles or legs or wrists.   
If I was one of her dogs I would pull like mad on walks, with getting them so little! 
There's 3 people that could walk them.. 2 if you only count the ones living there. This has just annoyed me a lot! They shouldn't even own dogs if they can't supply for their basic needs.


----------



## Dogless

IrishEyes said:


> I'm going back home for a visit (yeah lovely Ireland!) on fri, so His Lordship and my OH will be on their own... I've never left Horace for more than a few hours before so I hope that he will be ok and be as good as he usually is at home! I leave on Fri morn and come back on mon eve.. it will be hard leaving him and I'll worry but at least he will be at home and have OH with him.


I've never left mine with hubby for more than half a day either; sure it will be fine but still feels odd doesn't it? Hope the weather improves for your visit .

Symone - your friend's dogs are all too common a story unfortunately. Maybe by remaining friendly and suggesting walks and activities together you can improve their lot a little bit.

Well, it's pouring down here. Separate walks for the boys.

Went out with Kilo intending to do some impulse control stuff but I couldn't fire him up (or myself!!) in the heavy rain so we just pottered . Passed a few dogs fine, no dramas but he barked at the sibes as they came out of an alley. Two token barks really, nothing like he used to be and the owner and I said "Hi" and we carried on. At least we know those dogs and owner and they play well offlead - I explained he might bark onlead at our first meet and she said that most dogs bark at her pair. Funnily enough they are the only dogs Rudi's barked at. At least LCH wasn't with us as so far we've avoided Kilo reacting when we've been together.

Rudi got a potter too really although I came back home via the busiest road as car tyres in the wet still make him a bit too interested and we did some focus work. He was a little star.

Two hours or so in the rain = one very wet human and two damp ginger dogs.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Sarah bless Spencer and the little boy, I missed that somehow yesterday! Sort of 'alright mate, hows things, bit boring here innit? Hey why dont ya come and play?'

Twiggy - I hope HollyBolly doesnt show you up too much in front of your former pupil  Have fun even with the running! Loving the pictures, proper focused as far as I can see. Love the concentration tongue.

Dogless - Kilo is scared of flies  thats not good  but it sounds like they have been bestest boys for you again 

IM - sounds like Izzy did brilliantly on your walk, I dont really understand the agility stuff but you sound pleased, lol!

PS - well done for persevering!

Symone - Ginge struggled yesterday as well, she drank an awful lot too which is very unlike her and was proper panting. Thinning her coat cant be a bad thing if its needed. OH used to lob the old sheepdog in the ***** as he just wouldn't stop and would over heat, so we do have to keep an eye for them  I normal bandana soaked in water would help I am sure, some people soak t shirts as well.

MAria - very very very well done , I am thrilled for you, glad you are feeling better too! Well done to both of you!

KFK - glad you were pleased with your day.

BAllybee - so glad deeks got off ok, time to concentrate on your two now, not sure how dan will feel about the 'get more people feeling him up' lol 

Laura - _he'd rather chase a leaf, eat a daisy ... or just stare into space 
_ sounds familiar 

Will check out the video later Ouesi very intrigued now 

MV sort of love the idea of a yank and shout thread, can someone start it up and see how it rolls!

IE - good boy Horace, glad he is coming to it!  @ your weekend away, I cant bear it if OH has Ginge for a day, he's fine but I'm just not used to it.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - Kilo is scared of flies  thats not good  but it sounds like they have been bestest boys for you again


Yes, he gets obsessed - I have to catch any in the house and some walks are abandoned because of them. Have to think very carefully where to go. Think it's after disturbing a wasp nest as a pup and getting badly stung.

Did you never see this vid? Pretty bad! He gets so stressed and nothing will distract him.



And these photos...







They were all taken from a walk I'd driven about an hour and a half to reach but had to be abandoned, we weren't having any fun at all really.


----------



## Symone

Poor Kilo.  Hopefully he will be able to get over his fear one day. He looks scared. 
At least he has you killing them for him. 

GR : Good idea with the t-shirt and bandanna! I'll deffo give it a go if she seems far too hot again. 


Just had a lovely walk around town. I popped into a charity shop and bought a baby changing bag thingie (well, nappy bag) for Shamayas stuff. It's got a holder which keeps the temp the same in it (for baby bottles I assume) so water will stay cold which is good! 
Also has a changing mat in that keeps cool so she can lay on that, too. 
Will also keep an umbrella in for shade if it's needed.
It will also store a collection of outdoor toys and some treats.

We use to keep everything in pockets, but with the heat we're wearing less, lol! OH has this really nifty ski jacket with lots of pockets. He's like my walking handbag in the winter haha. 

Well, our walk was really nice. Shamaya walked lovely around the town, only pulling when we were near home and I think that was because she wanted to cool down. It was mostly a casual stroll and she didn't get too hot which is good, but she's still getting used to the sudden temp change.
We met a yappy little chap, and a lovely goldie.  Nice walk, really!


----------



## GingerRogers

Cripes dogless, he looks the proper scarey dog in them, poor lad must make it a nightmare, is it just proper flies or any flying thing, shame as it looks like all your irish rain made that a proper lush place to walk! 

Yesterday we had a lovely walk around the heath and through the woods, narrowly avoided a dog on arrival and depart, thats good management  warm though and missy struggled a bit was very panty and drank a fair bit of puddle juice. Then a good potter in the evening, we went to the new village green and she was watching a couple of dogs and giving focus. I say village green but no-one uses it yet and actually realised it would be good for training as the dogs are a fair distance away and unlikely to come close.

I have also found her favoured box, a wicker job, its stable, she will climb in happily, and stand on it as its strong and not slippy, not sure we will get much nose shoving but............

Then this morning I had the bestest training walk :001_wub:. Wasn't looking forward to it as I didnt sleep well and was feeling a bit on the grumpy side so not sure why I decided to break my duck and walk the whole way round the estate, its not far but the further I get from home the more nervous I get (longer /farther out = increased likelihood of dogs) and I haven't done it for over two months.

Didn't start off great but realised this was because she wanted a poo. Which she did on the edge of someones garden,  I had just bagged it up and saw her milk was still on the step so was wondering if she was ok when she popped out to get it ! Ningey was a star, for sure I thought she was going to kick off so I tried to move her on before she barked at the poor lady but she just wanted to say hello . Then we passed a young lady, not even a little pull to say hello or any interest really . 

Realised she doesn't take any notice at all of cars any more, at all , just the odd big thing that rattles. 

There were various dogs barking from gardens which unnerved her a little, one in particular, he is a fence stalker and springs his head out a little hole , and she tried to pull across a road, rather go nearer to the sound (we weren't going to go past him and were on the opposite side of his road very wide) its so pleasing to be able to spot these things and understand them. To many it would just make her look disobedient.

As soon as we got round the corner and she realised she didnt have to go near him I got the bestest looselead walking ever all the way home. Even when a lady and two small girls appeared in front. Then we did some tricks on the grass outside, sits, downs and some rollovers. I love her today so much  !


----------



## GingerRogers

That bag sounds a good idea Symone , I need a new bag for the same reason, no more pockets (ETA as in having to wear a coat) I hope.


----------



## Symone

GingerRogers said:


> That bag sounds a good idea Symone , I need a new bag for the same reason, no more pockets I hope.


Well, they have tons of pockets and stuff so they are quite good. Mine was only a fiver from the charity shop 
I did want to buy one off this person from a buy sell swap group, but she didn't turn up.. Oh well 

Your walk sounds really great!  I bet that you're pleased.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless I don't blame you and Kilo for not quite having the motivation today. Sometimes getting wet and cold gets a tad wearing 

GR Ginge is doing so, so well. Well done!

Symone well done with the LLW. What a shame about your friends dogs.

Good walk up to the field with the boys today with no pulling and lots of focus. Had to loiter for a bit so the field could clear enough for Sam to go off but had a great time. They were cheeky and went to say hello to a couple of beagles we know but came straight back.

Had a silly moment at the beginning as there was a dog going crazy in a parked car with tinted windows. Sam freaked out and pulled to get away and banged into Oscar and a bus stop. The bus stop the rattled and scared Oscar who tried to take off and they were both dancing around on their leads like loonies. Daft boys recovered quickly though


----------



## Dogless

GR - Can't believe the change in Ginge!! It's brilliant .

Beth - the boys sound like they were very good this morning; the bit about the bumping into the bus stop made me smile - I could picture it well!!

What is this heat you all speak of  .

I just went out for 10 minutes to get some stuff from the shop and left Rudi out of his crate with Kilo. All OK when I got back .

Ginge - any flying insect at all.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- I remember that walk with all the flies- poor Kilo, he really hates them doesn't he.

Ginge- you and wee Ninja are doing fab now, you sound really chuffed with how its all going.

Took the girls to the fields this morning. Done lots of training with Moll, heelwork , recalls, Touch, she has learnt to weave through one leg, no idea if I've taught it correctly but its fun and a crawl. 
Scruff and Evie popped back a few times to do bits,then bog off for a sniff. Evie done some lovely heelwork, all prancy, was cute.


----------



## Dogless

So ladies I have some stuff going if anyone would like it before I put a separate thread up:

3 Peaks XXL Coat - v good condition, Rudi has outgrown it

Julius K9 Harness (orange) Size 3 - not used for 16 months or so, mark where metal ring is attached.

Half check collar, Hem and Boo - 1 x 3/4" x 14-20" This one: Hem & Boo Stars Training Dog Collar | Training Dog Collar | Half Check Dog Collar

Half check collars - Red Union Jack, Christmas Print on Red, African Fabric - 1" and 17" checked, 21" relaxed with a few inches either way (Tillymint ones)

Indi-Dog orange stars martingale collar


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- I remember that walk with all the flies- poor Kilo, he really hates them doesn't he.
> 
> Ginge- you and wee Ninja are doing fab now, you sound really chuffed with how its all going.
> 
> Took the girls to the fields this morning. Done lots of training with Moll, heelwork , recalls, Touch, she has learnt to weave through one leg, no idea if I've taught it correctly but its fun and a crawl.
> Scruff and Evie popped back a few times to do bits,then bog off for a sniff. Evie done some lovely heelwork, all prancy, was cute.


Yep, sniffed the ground and saw his first one yesterday, whirled about in a panic .

Moll sounds like she was really into it this morning and I'd love to see prancy Evie...so cute!!


----------



## Symone

Dogless, is the Julius K9 harness any good?
I'm half toying with the idea of getting shamaya one. Shame she would probably be tripping over a size 3 one, lol.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Dogless, is the Julius K9 harness any good?
> I'm half toying with the idea of getting shamaya one. Shame she would probably be tripping over a size 3 one, lol.


I only got it to help Kilo over obstacles like stiles TBH so he didn't wear it massively often - I try to avoid stiles, they're our nemesis over which many a tear has been shed :sosp:. It was great for that and for holding him close if needed.

Size 3 would be huge for Shamaya.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> I only got it to help Kilo over obstacles like stiles TBH so he didn't wear it massively often - I try to avoid stiles, they're our nemesis over which many a tear has been shed :sosp:. It was great for that and for holding him close if needed.
> 
> Size 3 would be huge for Shamaya.


Ahh, fair enough  
I suppose it could be good for holding her close when children are screaming and such. She doesn't much like screaming.. And children will be about more with the sunshine.

I would guess she would be a size 0 or 1.. 3 would be like a skipping rope for her, lol.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Ahh, fair enough
> I suppose it could be good for holding her close when children are screaming and such. She doesn't much like screaming.. And children will be about more with the sunshine.
> 
> I would guess she would be a size 0 or 1.. 3 would be like a skipping rope for her, lol.


For me there wouldn't be enough control for busy places because of the lead attachment point. I'd maybe look at a harness with a front attachment too for that. The Mekuti one is good.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> I only got it to help Kilo over obstacles like stiles TBH so he didn't wear it massively often - I try to avoid stiles, they're our nemesis over which many a tear has been shed :sosp:. It was great for that and for holding him close if needed.
> 
> Size 3 would be huge for Shamaya.


Stiles.. sheesh.. when we go away to a cottage I have to make sure there are no open stairs.. Dief will not go up and I end up downstairs on the sofa with him.. so a stile is a complete no no. Last time we ended up physically lifting him over but he was probably a little lighter then. I think it would be impossible now.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> For me there wouldn't be enough control for busy places because of the lead attachment point. I'd maybe look at a harness with a front attachment too for that. The Mekuti one is good.


I've been looking for a front attachment one for ages. 
Thanks for the recommendation.  I'll go look it up, now.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Stiles.. sheesh.. when we go away to a cottage I have to make sure there are no open stairs.. Dief will not go up and I end up downstairs on the sofa with him.. so a stile is a complete no no. Last time we ended up physically lifting him over but he was probably a little lighter then. I think it would be impossible now.


It is possible, believe me, but wrecks me for the rest of the week!! Ladder stiles are OK, it's the others.

The tears comment was recalling a particular walk last year where we'd done about 10 miles up and down a mountain - so not far, but hard going. We were about 2 miles from the car and came across this stile that the BW WOULD NOT contemplate getting over. It was really high and narrow and had barbed wire either side and after 45 minutes I was just close to tears and just concluding that we'd have to go all the way back the way we'd come...when I spotted a hole under a fence into the next field, small, but we both managed to slip through it. Me on belly in cow sh!t. Walked through that field, through next and finally found a gate that wasn't chained.....all the while dreading the cows and / or an irate farmer with shotgun spotting us .


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> I've been looking for a front attachment one for ages.
> Thanks for the recommendation.  I'll go look it up, now.


The lead passes through the front ring on the Mekuti and attaches further back at the side (interchangeable).


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> It is possible, believe me, but wrecks me for the rest of the week!! Ladder stiles are OK, it's the others.
> 
> The tears comment was recalling a particular walk last year where we'd done about 10 miles up and down a mountain - so not far, but hard going. We were about 2 miles from the car and came across this stile that the BW WOULD NOT contemplate getting over. It was really high and narrow and had barbed wire either side and after 45 minutes I was just close to tears and just concluding that we'd have to go all the way back the way we'd come...when I spotted a hole under a fence into the next field, small, but we both managed to slip through it. Me on belly in cow sh!t. Walked through that field, through next and finally found a gate that wasn't chained.....all the while dreading the cows and / or an irate farmer with shotgun spotting us .


I have a mental image of this Dogless! But can't have been much fun at the time!


----------



## moonviolet

Met up with a friend and her GR this morning had a lvoely walk putting the world to rights as the dogs happily pottered doing their own thing and cooling off in the muddiest of puddles. The sort of walk where you think... yup this is what dog ownership is all about.


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Met up with a friend and her GR this morning had a lvoely walk putting the world to rights as the dogs happily pottered doing their own thing and cooling off in the muddiest of puddles. The sort of walk where you think... yup this is what dog ownership is all about.


How utterly lovely for you and Miss Tink, the light at the end, I hope all your walks are as such!


----------



## BessieDog

moonviolet said:


> Met up with a friend and her GR this morning had a lvoely walk putting the world to rights as the dogs happily pottered doing their own thing and cooling off in the muddiest of puddles. The sort of walk where you think... yup this is what dog ownership is all about.


Don't want to harp on and make Dogless jealous, but we too had a good walk today. I just had a t-shirt on all the times (and jeans! ). Can't remember when it's been so nice. Still windy but that's not so bad without the cold.

Bess was a bit of a pain after she discovered 3 pheasants in a ditch. At one point she nearly pulled me into said ditch! Luckily I had her on a shortish lead so had enough control to stop. The farmer was in the field so I walked the rest of the way across it trying to look like I was the one in control. Don't think it worked though.  after 10 mins she forgot the pheasants, and the rest of the walk was uneventful.


----------



## Izzysmummy

diefenbaker said:


> Stiles.. sheesh.. when we go away to a cottage I have to make sure there are no open stairs.. Dief will not go up and I end up downstairs on the sofa with him.. so a stile is a complete no no. Last time we ended up physically lifting him over but he was probably a little lighter then. I think it would be impossible now.


We dread coming across stiles! We either have to encourage Izzy to squeeze though the tiny terrier holes or we have to lift her over!  On our most recent holiday we actually sent her around the fence through the stream running next to it! I try to use bridleways on the presumption that there will be no stiles but it also means knee deep muddy paths to contend with that have been churned up by the horses! rrr:

P.S. Lovely sunny day here too! Sorry Dogless!


----------



## GingerRogers

The bonus of a tiny dog! I did have a moments panic once as we were the wrong side of a fence and tired and muddy and then i remembered she wasnt Rory!


----------



## Nicki85

My dogs are lazy!! 

Took Rusty out this morning then they both slept... woke them up at 11.30 for lunch... then a little bit of training and back to sleep. Took Rusty out again at 3pm and then gave him a bath as he stank from going through the mud.... He always goes through the mud but where it is starting to dry it stinks. They then played for about 5mins before going back to sleep again.

So no play training with either of 'em but they obviously need their sleep. I'm going to wake them up again in a minute- it's dinner time!

Bessiedog- feel your pain re pheasants... If you want a laugh play a clip of a pheasant call on youtube- sends my Springer crazy looking for the pheasant!!

DL- bless Kilo and his worries! Rusty will try and fly catch but would never muster that much energy up lol. 

MV- sounds like you have had a fab day!

Tomorrow i've got my first agility session with Dave Munnings- bricking it slightly.... Not sure what he is going to make of my laid-back sensitive spaniel!!


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> The bonus of a tiny dog! I did have a moments panic once as we were the wrong side of a fence and tired and muddy and then i remembered she wasnt Rory!


Cattle grids is the other one. Wobbling across with 50kg of Dief in my arms. One of the locals said they were useless anyway because the sheep had learnt to roll across them.


----------



## GingerRogers

It has been known, I have seen a lamb just take a flying run jump leapy thing at one and get across when it decided the quad bike I was on was mummy!


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Cattle grids is the other one. Wobbling across with 50kg of Dief in my arms. One of the locals said they were useless anyway because the sheep had learnt to roll across them.


Yup! The narrower ones are OK as Kilo understands that he needs to take a big flying leap over them. If they have even the teeniest strip of concrete down one side he'll balance like the finest gymnast...If they are both very wide AND no solid ground :incazzato:.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - I have tired dogs today too!! Enjoy your first session with Dave (said like I know him ) .


----------



## Nicki85

I'm just hoping Rusty can muster up some energy lol.

It's strange when they are quiet- I feel like I should be making the most of it but in reality I just want them to wake up so we can do stuff!!


----------



## Symone

Yay for everyone having lovely walks!  

I just took Shamaya to the vets - She's 13.5kg now. Lost a little bit of weight with her fussyness it seems.
A stop by the park on the way back was a must, played some fetch, had to take my coat off for I was too hot... And I met the 3 loveliest dogs ever!
There was a lovely lab male. He started barking at his owner for he saw shamayas ball and he was like "Oi you forgot my ball, I want a ball now." There was a terrier (The owners daughters dog)
They had a lovely sniff around which made me happy. Shamaya normally ignores other dogs, lol. 
Then came along the most beautiful Akita that I have ever seen in person. She was purely white and a 40-50kg ball of fluff.  And she's only 16 months old.. 
The two boys were showing a lot of interest in her - she just came out of a season.. But even the lab wouldn't have been able to get up on her, she was massive!
Her owner asked me about Shamaya, saying that she has a lovely coat and all. I said that I feed her raw meat and I told him the basics. I think I may have converted him, lol.  
The akita in next to no time sniffed out the treats in my bag and her owner was alright for her to have some so I did some tricks with her. I am completely smitten. Her high five was so cute!  
Apparently she has no prey drive at all, he always redirected her attention when she showed any signs of it. She was off lead and really well behaved.. A lovely little lady. 

OH said he now wants an Akita in the future. I would just happily have that lovely girly, lol! 

Edit : forgot to mention shamaya has shown interest in her carcass, today! Or interest enough to hide it, lol.


----------



## kat&molly

A good day everyone then.

A good afternoon walk with them all, this past few weeks we've been seeing a few people on the track- they're off to tend to veg patches so not actually walking our way but crossing paths. Evies doing well, one woman today just the other side of some stock fencing, she was fine I just threw treats for them all to find. A bit further on 2 women were heading towards us, a bit more 'threatening' to her but we were able to get off the track on to a piece of land, we stood about 5 metres back finding treats. She was on the flexi so moved back , then came back for treats as they were passing. Really brave.

This is really good,especially as we don't dare walk through this village.


----------



## Dogless

Very good walk just now; both boys, loads of running - they were crazy tonight but well behaved .

A really random thought here - do any of you carry something like a pet corrector or bottle of water in case your dogs start a scrap between each other? The CHs were fine, don't worry - just my brain off on a tangent!!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Very good walk just now; both boys, loads of running - they were crazy tonight but well behaved .
> 
> A really random thought here - do any of you carry something like a pet corrector or bottle of water in case your dogs start a scrap between each other? The CHs were fine, don't worry - just my brain off on a tangent!!


I have thought about it , for other dogs as well, in case something was serious, I don't know what though.


----------



## cravensmum

Dogless said:


> Very good walk just now; both boys, loads of running - they were crazy tonight but well behaved .
> 
> A really random thought here - do any of you carry something like a pet corrector or bottle of water in case your dogs start a scrap between each other? The CHs were fine, don't worry - just my brain off on a tangent!!


I don't as mine are not likely to scrap between themselves unless there is high value food around.

Neither are scavengers.

The only time there could be an issue is when Flint finds something,usually a stick and Craven has to have it  Flint at the moment just lets him have it,it could be a problem if Flint decides that he wants to keep it.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I have thought about it , for other dogs as well, in case something was serious, I don't know what though.


No - maybe a Pet Corrector. I often have water on me too. I think about it randomly now and again.


----------



## Dogless

cravensmum said:


> I don't as mine are not likely to scrap between themselves unless there is high value food around.
> 
> Neither are scavengers.
> 
> The only time there could be an issue is when Flint finds something,usually a stick and Craven has to have it  Flint at the moment just lets him have it,it could be a problem if Flint decides that he wants to keep it.


Not sure mine would but you never know - Rudi is a bit food aggro at present if something's high value but Kilo gives him food if Rudi is near and wants it or he's asked to leave it. I worry that he'd like to keep it one day and he is a scavenger so it has occurred to me.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> No - maybe a Pet Corrector. I often have water on me too. I think about it randomly now and again.


Wouldn't we need a lot of water though to stop something-if it was bad. Is a corrector the screechy thing?
Mine get on well, but you just never know do you.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Wouldn't we need a lot of water though to stop something-if it was bad. Is a corrector the screechy thing?
> Mine get on well, but you just never know do you.


The air thing. Sort of hisses loudly. Horrid lady at ringcraft used to use it on her dog every time it barked.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> The air thing. Sort of hisses loudly. Horrid lady at ringcraft used to use it on her dog every time it barked.


Charming.
Maybe I will get one then, the big brown dog incident , the other week , could have been much worse.


----------



## Thorne

Had my first experience of a flexi lead walk with Scooter tonight. Last week he completely switched off and ran off after a scent (fortunately he wasn't out of sight for many minutes!) while offlead and it's reminded me that despite our hard work he can't be trusted. Mum struggles with the longline so we're borrowing a flexi to try out and so far so good! He was pretty sensible on it and the flexi wasn't as fiddly as I remembered them. Fingers crossed!

Saw a numpty and his family about to leave their house on a dogwalk. No lead so they waited for us to pass, then let the dog run across the road after us while yelling it's name. This happened a few times, with Scooter and I ignoring the dog who was too wimpy to get close. The boy and I passed a reactive JRT with no problems but major handbags ensued between offlead fluffy dog and said JRT. No point me taking scooter over and making it worse so we changed routes and carried on. Might avoid that route at that time in the future 

Had a lovely dusk walk with Breeze around a birdscarer dense area that she's become worried about, was lovely to give her a low stress, bang-free walk around there as she used to love that walk! She was unsure at first but quickly relaxed, bless.

Terrier races at BC today  There are 3 almost identical JRTs in at the moment and we had them all out in the garden for mad chasing games this afternoon! I'm slowly being converted to terriers, never used to be a big fan but I'm growing to love their feisty ways!


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Very good walk just now; both boys, loads of running - they were crazy tonight but well behaved .
> 
> A really random thought here - do any of you carry something like a pet corrector or bottle of water in case your dogs start a scrap between each other? The CHs were fine, don't worry - just my brain off on a tangent!!


Yay for well behaved CHs 

I don't carry anything for my guys... My dogs, I can break up. You would think though, with the loose dogs we encounter without owners, that I would wise up to carrying something. IDK what I would carry though...


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Yay for well behaved CHs
> 
> I don't carry anything for my guys... My dogs, I can break up. You would think though, with the loose dogs we encounter without owners, that I would wise up to carrying something. IDK what I would carry though...


Yes, that's part of my thinking - we meet an awful lot of loose dogs.


----------



## diefenbaker

I've got a pump action water gun. Dief just chomps at it and drinks it. Straight from the hose too. I don't think a fire-engine could put him off with water.


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning all,

Dogless - yes it will feel very strange walking out the door and knowing that I won't see him for a few days... I will miss the big lump terribly.
How does Kilo manage to get any peace during the summer months with all the flies about?

Ginger - Glad to hear that you had your bestest ever training walk!

Moon violet - those ideal walks are a delight aren't they!

Bessie - we have quite a few pheasants around here. They always give His Lordship a fright as they take off when he accidently disturbs them! 

Yesterday a dog ran up to Horace ignoring his owner's calls, they had a greeting and seemed to be happy enough so I asked if I could let Horace offlead. They had a nice 5 minutes or so.. horace's tail going into overdrive as he's always so thrilled to have the chance to play. Then something changed and Horace took a dislike to him and started barking at him. The other dog didn't seem to take the hint and Horace wasn't going to back down (it was all noise and body language)so we put them both back on lead. Horace seemed upset but what about I don't know. 
If I could figure out what upset him then I could take measures to prevent it from happening again. I know sometimes these things happen but I'd rather they didn't.


----------



## Dogless

IrishEyes said:


> Good morning all,
> 
> Dogless - yes it will feel very strange walking out the door and knowing that I won't see him for a few days... I will miss the big lump terribly.
> How does Kilo manage to get any peace during the summer months with all the flies about?
> 
> Ginger - Glad to hear that you had your bestest ever training walk!
> 
> Moon violet - those ideal walks are a delight aren't they!
> 
> Bessie - we have quite a few pheasants around here. They always give His Lordship a fright as they take off when he accidently disturbs them!
> 
> Yesterday a dog ran up to Horace ignoring his owner's calls, they had a greeting and seemed to be happy enough so I asked if I could let Horace offlead. They had a nice 5 minutes or so.. horace's tail going into overdrive as he's always so thrilled to have the chance to play. Then something changed and Horace took a dislike to him and started barking at him. The other dog didn't seem to take the hint and Horace wasn't going to back down (it was all noise and body language)so we put them both back on lead. Horace seemed upset but what about I don't know.
> If I could figure out what upset him then I could take measures to prevent it from happening again. I know sometimes these things happen but I'd rather they didn't.


Not many flies in forests so we tend to go there or the beach when very windy etc. PLUS when it's raining it's OK - and that's an awful lot of the time here!! I have to catch any fly he spots inside the house or he just becomes obsessed with it.

The handbags yesterday sounds unpleasant; when Kilo has had them after playing happily it seems to be when play becomes too one sided - if he is trying to calm things and the other dog won't read his signals and keeps pushing or if the other dog tries to wrestle - paws up around his neck is something he hates. Bizarrely he wrestles with Rudi constantly but not with any other dog at all. He only plays chases. He's had handbags about 3 times I think offlead and it does seem to be when another dog is too pushy.


----------



## IrishEyes

Dogless said:


> Not many flies in forests so we tend to go there or the beach when very windy etc. PLUS when it's raining it's OK - and that's an awful lot of the time here!! I have to catch any fly he spots inside the house or he just becomes obsessed with it.
> 
> The handbags yesterday sounds unpleasant; when Kilo has had them after playing happily it seems to be when play becomes too one sided - if he is trying to calm things and the other dog won't read his signals and keeps pushing or if the other dog tries to wrestle - paws up around his neck is something he hates. Bizarrely he wrestles with Rudi constantly but not with any other dog at all. He only plays chases. He's had handbags about 3 times I think offlead and it does seem to be when another dog is too pushy.


Yes the seemingly constant rain would help!

They seemed to be playing grand, no one sided pushing that I could see. I did see that dog be told off by another dog a few times though before he approached Horace so perhaps that should have been a warning to me.


----------



## moonviolet

Thorne glad you and Breeze had a nice bird scarer free walk  and that you didn't find the flexi as fiddly as you remember. 

IE Hope your time away is enjoyable and OH and Horace behave themselves.

Dogless One of my concerns with things like a pet corrector for loose dogs is if the owner reacts agressively.

Thought i'd bore you with 2 little videos of tink

The first how her hoopla had progessed 
hoopla3 - YouTube

Doing hand touches on the Siwssball
swissball - YouTube

Hope everyone has a good day today


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Very good walk just now; both boys, loads of running - they were crazy tonight but well behaved .
> 
> A really random thought here - do any of you carry something like a pet corrector or bottle of water in case your dogs start a scrap between each other? The CHs were fine, don't worry - just my brain off on a tangent!!


No never had to use anything like that. Surely it's respect for the owner/handler? If mine ever had a bundle (which is unlikely) I would hope one word of reprimand from me would stop them.

Having said that I haven't got two entire bludy great big Ridgebacks....

My sister always takes a walking stick with her through the woods though just as a precaution as her girls have been attacked on occasions over the years.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The air thing. Sort of hisses loudly. Horrid lady at ringcraft used to use it on her dog every time it barked.


Last week I went with hubby into town to book his car in for a service and there was this awful rattle, seemingly coming from either the glove compartment or front of the car. I spent about 10 minutes prodding and moving things about but it got louder. All of a sudden there was an ear-piercing racket coming from my handbag - rape alarm...!! I couldn't turn it off and by the time we turned into the garage forecourt it was very, very loud. Husband broke it trying to stop it...


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Thorne glad you and Breeze had a nice bird scarer free walk  and that you didn't find the flexi as fiddly as you remember.
> 
> IE Hope your time away is enjoyable and OH and Horace behave themselves.
> 
> Dogless One of my concerns with things like a pet corrector for loose dogs is if the owner reacts agressively.
> 
> Thought i'd bore you with 2 little videos of tink
> 
> The first how her hoopla had progessed
> hoopla3 - YouTube
> 
> Doing hand touches on the Siwssball
> swissball - YouTube
> 
> Hope everyone has a good day today


Aww little Tinks is such a poppet - super videos.


----------



## kat&molly

MV- brilliant videos, Miss Tink really is a star, but I'm amazed at the swissball balance- was it difficult to teach?


----------



## moonviolet

kat&molly said:


> MV- brilliant videos, Miss Tink really is a star, but I'm amazed at the swissball balance- was it difficult to teach?


Tink is a bit of a nutjob and will jump on anything. So it wasn't hard to get her up there with it very firmly supported, a wide area clear round it and building up the time slowly it's a pretty intense work out. (for your inner thighs too  )

If their brakes or balance aren't too good or they arent' as bold you could get them on a firm kitchen or dining chair and shape or lure them putting a paw on then two, 3 4. just make sure you hold it tight and dont' go to fast for them.

She's beginning to master a spin and twist on the ball at the moment.


----------



## BessieDog

Morning everyone! 

Please spare a thought for me today. OH at home with man flu.

Dogless - ashamed to admit it but I tried a pet corrector when Bess was going through her worst nipping stage. She thought it was a great game and it wound her up even more. Quickly went in the bin. Must admit I'd worry it might make things worse?

Thorne: I find using a flexi is about thinking ahead and being aware of what's happening. If there's a pheasant about I keep it short so she can't lunge, and if I see a dog/ person coming I reel her back in so the flexi doesn't get tangled round legs. As long as I'm not daydreaming I never have probs with the flexi.


----------



## Nicki85

Bit more energy today from my guys 

GOod walk with Rusty this am, recalled nicely from two dogs that he spotted first which was good 

Then came back and did some work with Shae, she has now got mouthing toy= treat so next step will be holding toy= treat as well... i'll put a different command to that though. They are now doing some all important playing 

MV- I am very impressed with Miss Tinks! I'd love to teach Rusty to put his toys away but he is totally in-flexible about toys and food.... if there is food around then toys aren't interesting. He just doesn't get the holding the toy.... I should really try harder.

BD- poor you  Hope your OH recovers soon though!


----------



## Izzysmummy

BessieDog said:


> Morning everyone!
> 
> Please spare a thought for me today. OH at home with man flu.
> 
> Dogless - ashamed to admit it but I tried a pet corrector when Bess was going through her worst nipping stage. She thought it was a great game and it wound her up even more. Quickly went in the bin. Must admit I'd worry it might make things worse?
> 
> *Thorne: I find using a flexi is about thinking ahead and being aware of what's happening. If there's a pheasant about I keep it short so she can't lunge, and if I see a dog/ person coming I reel her back in so the flexi doesn't get tangled round legs. As long as I'm not daydreaming I never have probs with the flexi*


Totally agree with this. We use the flexi a lot when we go for walks that arent on a main road. You have to pay attention and Izzy has got the hang of "this way" meaning come back to me the way you went so that she doesnt get knotted around trees. I always recall her and lock the flexi so shes close to us if we see any people, dogs, horses etc coming, then release once we're past them. 

MV- Tinks so clever! Am amazed at how well she balances on that ball and her little face as she looks at the hoopla pole, I just want to smoosh her!! :001_wub:

Have a nice holiday IE.

Hope everyone else has good days!

Izzy isnt at creche today as shes got a bit of an eye infection, we've got drops so its fun and games trying to get them in her eye!  Im wondering if its been caused by her course of anti-biotics last week just upsetting the balance of things. Nothing serious though, already much better this morning!


----------



## moonviolet

Nicki85 said:


> Bit more energy today from my guys
> 
> GOod walk with Rusty this am, recalled nicely from two dogs that he spotted first which was good
> 
> Then came back and did some work with Shae, she has now got mouthing toy= treat so next step will be holding toy= treat as well... i'll put a different command to that though. They are now doing some all important playing
> 
> MV- I am very impressed with Miss Tinks! I'd love to teach Rusty to put his toys away but he is totally in-flexible about toys and food....* if there is food around then toys aren't interesting. He just doesn't get the holding the toy.... I should really try harder.*
> BD- poor you  Hope your OH recovers soon though!


My friends Springer was the same, she found using a pencil case/predummy with treats zipped up inside was the thing that cracked it for him


----------



## Nicki85

I have a treat bag tug toy thing actually... maybe I should give that a go  Thanks


----------



## kazters

just letting you all know took pippin to the behaviour specialist yesterday, and she said she had improved a lot from 2 weeks ago and was really happy with her, recormened puppy classes and they gave us a card for one that in town (only one and we dont drive) but i contacte him last night and he has no spaces untill at least august so we will have to just keep doing all the things we are doing and hope he has space for us in august
wanted to thank you all for your advice its much appraciated by me and pippin


----------



## Dogless

IM - Hope Izzy's eye clears up soon.

MV - Miss Tinks is a Wonder Dog, I love seeing her in action.

Nicki - Glad your two are full of energy today!!



moonviolet said:


> Dogless One of my concerns with things like a pet corrector for loose dogs is if the owner reacts agressively.


Yes, that has been a concern of mine too - I'd feel a twonk walking round with a stick unless in forests / fields etc and like the thought of something that fits in a bag. Not sure if it would have worked with the rottie - or would it have made things worse?



Twiggy said:


> No never had to use anything like that. Surely it's respect for the owner/handler? If mine ever had a bundle (which is unlikely) I would hope one word of reprimand from me would stop them.
> 
> Having said that I haven't got two entire bludy great big Ridgebacks....


I would hope that I could stop mine too Twiggy - I haven't got concerns about them at present. When Kilo's hormones really peaked an awful lot of male dogs took a disliking to him and that's when we went through that horrid phase of dogs running up to start handbags or even physically attack. My concern really is the same happening with Rudi when I have both dogs with me.....would it turn into a horrid scrap? And they are big dogs. Mind you, despite what has been suggested I still think it would take a fair bit for Kilo to scrap. Touch wood!!

Great walk with both boys today. Out for a few hours, really, really strong winds so lots of dodging flying bins etc. Both boys walked really well, played well and listened when we did some training - not much, hard in the wind!

The lady that owns the DA pug and is terrified of all other dogs (the one that snatches her dog up, shouts "stand still! stand still!" at her kids) is......dog walking  . She approached me today when I walked to the shop with a puppy (small breed) and asked me how I got my boys to walk so nicely together as she can't walk the pup with her own dog and it generally walks really badly on lead...I had noticed her with the puppy for the last few mornings and assumed she'd got another as it is still reassured, scooped etc as her own is. I gave my best advice (poor woman!)......but even as she was stood there it was jumping, eating stuff etc and it was all "oh no darling, don't eat that" etc. Not someone I'd choose to walk my dog that's for sure :sosp:.


----------



## BessieDog

Izzysmummy said:


> Izzy has got the hang of "this way" meaning come back to me the way you went so that she doesnt get knotted around trees.


Bess does this too! Probably as we've used the flexi since she was a pup. Sometimes you can see her trying to figure out which way we mean, but she usually gets it right.

None of my other dogs ever got the hang of it, and we'd end up in an impasse with me one side of the tree, and them the other!


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer and I got scared half to death by the dogs upstairs first thing this morning. I'd got up, half asleep, to take him for a pee and as I'm standing there waiting for him to find the perfect spot  I suddenly hear all this barking and two GSDs fly past me to Spen. That woke me up! Thankfully they are just all noise but both me and Spen jumped a mile and he did this half cowering sort of overwhelmed greeting with tail tucked and hackles up then got stress zoomies. All this happened so quickly that if they hadn't been friendly I wouldn't have stood a chance of getting there before they laid into Spen.

On a good note though once he'd gotten rid of his stress he politely said hello then walked off and ignored them. Beginning to wonder whether someone has switched dogs on me!


----------



## Maria_1986

Sarah - what a scary way to be woken up this morning! Glad you and Spencer are alright

MV - Tinks is amazing - I hope that one day I am half as good a dog trainer you are

IE - hope you have a good holiday

BD - I hope your OH is feeling better soon and doesn't drive you too crazy while he is ill

IM - hope Izzy's eye is better soon

Been to hydro this morning and Chev is now snoring, was her first time in the pool as she has been using the treadmill so far - she wasn't too happy and was a bit unsure to start with but soon settled down. On the drive home I drove past what looked like a nice enclosed field, empty of anyone else so went searching for the entrance. Had a wander around the field, its not completely secure as there is a small gate leading off down a foot path but the footpath is also fenced so there is nowhere for her to go. Gonna take OH down there to practice recalls as she ignores him when they are outside - I can block off the gate when they progress to off lead work but for now there is nothing to get the long line caught on. Met a guy walking his collie and had a nice chat about dog breeds, misconceptions about breeds and how people view them - he had a german shepherd back when they were the evil dog of the moment and so was very aware of the way that some breeds get a bad name.T he collie showed no interest in Chevy and she came away nicely after a polite greeting, no whining no trying to get the other dog to play. Looks like our little trip this weekend cemented that walking past other dogs, not playing, whining or generally getting wound up is possible and does result in treats and praise and as she was good the guy was happy for her to go off lead with his dog - they ignored each other and did their own thing, I tried to hold back tears of joy because when we first got her I could never have let her off around another dog without her bothering them.


----------



## kazters

ohh change of plan posted on the highland dogblog facebook page and have found a puppy class in town for pippin ;-) hopefully they think they might be able to fit her itno there current classes, if not early may


----------



## Dogless

Maria - well done to Chevy again!! That field sounds like a good find too .



kazters said:


> ohh change of plan posted on the highland dogblog facebook page and have found a puppy class in town for pippin ;-) hopefully they think they might be able to fit her itno there current classes, if not early may


Pop along without Pippin first if you can to see what they're like.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I've got the IPO GSD coming in about half an hour and all I really want to do is lay in a darkened room....!!

It's getting on for 20 years since I ran a dog in agility and it feels like it right now.

Holly wasn't too bad, although playing with a red setter and smooth collie probably had more appeal than the agility course....LOL Actually she was probably a bad influence as the smooth collie ran back to her several times.

Tremor, on the other hand, thought it was all very exciting but it would kill me. running her.


----------



## moonviolet

Aww Twiggy sounds like you need a shot of the strong stuff. Glad HB wasn't too bad.. thats pretty impressive for her first time


----------



## Dogless

Break out the brandy Grannie .


----------



## L/C

Oh dear Grannie - hope you recover soon! Sounds like Holly Bolly was (mostly) a little star.

Maria - field sounds promising.

Dogless - that's not comforting! What a strange person to pick as a dog walker.

Sarah - glad Spen coped ok with the GSDs, seems like he's growing up a bit.

My new trail shoes arrived today so I'll be off for a run with Miss Gypsy later. Had a day off yesterday so the pointies and I had an epic walk of 3 and a bit hours and a five mile bike ride in the afternoon. Both were good and Ely coped admirably when we were first ambushed from behind by a puppy (owner was out of sight and round the corner ) and just shot forward and then hid behind me. It was a dog we know so better then a stranger and he recovered quiet quickly and then was happy to have a sniff and a potter.

Later on we were mobbed by two people with a group of 5 dogs all completely out of control. I had to ward off the GSDx that kept trying to run Gypsy off and the french bulldog that kept trying to mount Ely (by hurling it's self at his back end). Quite stressful and it took him longer to recover from that one but he was ok once we got past the awful tea hut bit (where all the useless owners congregate - I saw one handbags and one genuine fight) and bumped into a friend of mine who has a lurcher and a greyhound. I popped his muzzle on and they all had a great run about.

So mixed bag - I really need to stop going to Wansted Park on a weekday, daytime! I hadn't intended to do any training but Gypsy had other ideas and was offering attention heeling and positions on the move to make me. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

New trainers...LOVE new trainers!!! Enjoy them!!

The teahut sounds an awful place...but didn't Ely do so well in the midst of all that chaos? Fantastic.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> New trainers...LOVE new trainers!!! Enjoy them!!
> 
> The teahut sounds an awful place...but didn't Ely do so well in the midst of all that chaos? Fantastic.


Yes - I'm very excited. They are only a cheapy pair but if they make a big difference then I'll invest in the super dooper ones I've been lusting over.

I normally avoid it like the plague but I had to go to the bin and it's the only one in the whole park!


----------



## Twiggy

*


L/C said:



Yes - I'm very excited. They are only a cheapy pair but if they make a big difference then I'll invest in the super dooper ones I've been lusting over.

Click to expand...

*


L/C said:


> Perhaps I should invest in a pair.....
> 
> I have to say I was impressed by dear old Joan this morning - she's 85 yrs old tomorrow and made a better effort than me...and she ran two dogs.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I have to say I was impressed by dear old Joan this morning - she's 85 yrs old tomorrow and made a better effort than me...and she ran two dogs.


Joan sounds amazing!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Joan sounds amazing!!


She is. She said she had an advantage because she had three legs (third one being her walking stick)....


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I have to say I was impressed by dear old Joan this morning - she's 85 yrs old tomorrow and made a better effort than me...and she ran two dogs.


Go Joan!!!

.... I'll have some of what she's having


----------



## Nicki85

Just back from our session with Dave Munnings... fairly positive, feeling a little hmmm about it all!

Started off with Rusty and well he was very laid back... new arena with new smells, it being 2.30 (sleepy time) and just having been to the service stations with a friend to have coffee first meant that he did not want to play! He really didn't give me anything to work with until the last 5mins lol. He'd chase his food ball half heartedly but that was it.... He also left the arena and required some very strong (vocal!) correction that that wasn't allowed. It worked though, he didn't do it again. He did all the runs nicely though so that was good.... Just needed a bit more get up and go. 

Brought Shae out for the last 10mins and she was also very laid back! Did not want to play... she did some nice recalls to me though  

I was told to crate Shae more during the day (she isn't really crated at all at the moment) and bring her out for several sessions to work- either training or play... but straight back in crate after. I'm feeling a bit mixed about this- I know I need to build her drive to work but she works really nice at home and plays really well too. Also not allowed to let them play for too long- again making it more valuable to play with me. 

I think he thought my dogs have far to cushty life and that they never really had to work for anything- which is true I guess!! So, plan of action...

Shae- Build the crate more into out daily routine, restrict play between them both for only am and evening sessions. More play work with me.

Rusty- build his drive for his food bag, 50%+ food to come from there. Carry on working on his toy drive...

So yes, mixed session... my dogs are just very laid back!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Just back from our session with Dave Munnings... fairly positive, feeling a little hmmm about it all!
> 
> Started off with Rusty and well he was very laid back... new arena with new smells, it being 2.30 (sleepy time) and just having been to the service stations with a friend to have coffee first meant that he did not want to play! He really didn't give me anything to work with until the last 5mins lol. He'd chase his food ball half heartedly but that was it.... He also left the arena and required some very strong (vocal!) correction that that wasn't allowed. It worked though, he didn't do it again. He did all the runs nicely though so that was good.... Just needed a bit more get up and go.
> 
> Brought Shae out for the last 10mins and she was also very laid back! Did not want to play... she did some nice recalls to me though
> 
> I was told to crate Shae more during the day (she isn't really crated at all at the moment) and bring her out for several sessions to work- either training or play... but straight back in crate after. I'm feeling a bit mixed about this- I know I need to build her drive to work but she works really nice at home and plays really well too. Also not allowed to let them play for too long- again making it more valuable to play with me.
> 
> I think he thought my dogs have far to cushty life and that they never really had to work for anything- which is true I guess!! So, plan of action...
> 
> Shae- Build the crate more into out daily routine, restrict play between them both for only am and evening sessions. More play work with me.
> 
> Rusty- build his drive for his food bag, 50%+ food to come from there. Carry on working on his toy drive...
> 
> So yes, mixed session... my dogs are just very laid back!


Interesting Nicki.

You see this is the debate regardless of what activity you decide to do with your dogs. It's a well known fact that most top handlers crate their dogs (certainly as puppies, until they have a strong bond with them) and in a lot of cases the only exercise they get is working.

Personally I've never done it, or would want to do it, because mine are pets first.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Interesting Nicki.
> 
> You see this is the debate regardless of what activity you decide to do with your dogs. It's a well known fact that most top handlers crate their dogs (certainly as puppies, until they have a strong bond with them) and in a lot of cases the only exercise they get is working.
> 
> Personally I've never done it, or would want to do it, because mine are pets first.


Doesn't sit well with me and is what we are advised to do at puppy class - and mine are 'only' pet dogs.


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## moonviolet

Nicki, it possibly is the easiest and most efficient way of building drive to work, but it's not something i could do.:001_unsure:


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## Nicki85

Well you see this was my immediate reaction... i'm not a pro, I want to compete but my dogs are pets first. I make sure that they both have time just with me but certainly don't restrict their access to each other or the amount that they play together.

I'm also struggling to see the difference between her being asleep next to me or in the crate... surely if i'm amusing her when she is awake (for at least part of the time) she is bonding with me and learning that she has to work? She doesn't like the crate even though i've done the work on making it a nice place, she wants to sleep on my feet. 

Gah, I don't know what to do- I want them to be happy dogs that will run round an agility course with me... I want them to be more driven to work with their toys but if it has to be a food toy then so be it.


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## moonviolet

Nicki I think i probably wouldn't have taken them for more than a toilet walk prior to the session and maybe restricted their play this morning so they had energy for the session especially if it was at a time when your dogs normally sleep, but i don't see the need on a day to day basis


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Nicki I think i probably wouldn't have taken them for more than a toilet walk prior to the session and maybe restricted their play this morning so they had energy for the session especially if it was at a time when your dogs normally sleep, but i don't see the need on a day to day basis


Sensible advice and I totally agree.


----------



## Sarah1983

I wouldn't have my dog in a crate whenever I wasn't working him to be honest. They should be pets first and foremost in my opinion. 

Nice walk with Spen today. We were out a couple of hours and while we didn't find our destination it was still a lovely walk. He was distracted, pully and not at all inclined to listen to me for the most part. He did offer me some very nice loose leash walking on my right hand side again from time to time though. Especially pleased as this was a new walk. He also almost dragged me into the little stream as he tried to do zoomies on his flexi.

I think I wore him out. 2 hours after getting home he's still crashed out. I'm gonna enjoy the peace while it lasts lol.


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## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Well you see this was my immediate reaction... i'm not a pro, I want to compete but my dogs are pets first. I make sure that they both have time just with me but certainly don't restrict their access to each other or the amount that they play together.
> 
> I'm also struggling to see the difference between her being asleep next to me or in the crate... surely if i'm amusing her when she is awake (for at least part of the time) she is bonding with me and learning that she has to work? She doesn't like the crate even though i've done the work on making it a nice place, she wants to sleep on my feet.
> 
> Gah, I don't know what to do- I want them to be happy dogs that will run round an agility course with me... I want them to be more driven to work with their toys but if it has to be a food toy then so be it.


Nicki I was told I was 'barking' allowing Holly to play with my other dogs, especially as she wasn't exactly keen to work anyway. Several handlers said stick her in a crate.

As far as I'm concerned with my dogs they are pets first and foremost and walks are more important than training, etc. etc.

If the dogs have got the aptitude they will work anyway. Most of mine have had a huge amount of drive, very keen workers and highly motivated.


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## Nicki85

I think you are all right... I will try introducing the crate a bit more into her every day routine though for days that i do have training and don't want them playing. I'm certainly going to be doing individual walks with them as well...

It was hot today as well which didn't help any of us! Next time no walks or play before a session but apart from that i'll keep on as I am... individual play and training sessions for each of them but certainly not restricting them as much as what has been suggested.

Edited to add... she clearly loves to work for me and do her tricks for treats and she would do them again and again. It's that she doesn't want to do anything for a toy yet. But I think that will develop over time...


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## Dimwit

Hello 
Not been on much over the last few days, I've been at a conference and dimwit was in kennels, so I hope you are all well and that those who have had lovely weather have enjoyed it.
My brain is a bit fried after 3 days of science but I have now got my little black dog back so I'm happy.
He did his usual "OMG, I've missed you so much, yay you came back, I've weed on your shoes" greeting followed by "oh, I don't want to come to the car with you, I'll just go back with the nice lady who gives me treats" 

As he's already been out this afternoon we just had a short walk with a bit of a reminder about LLW and now he's trying to convince me that he's starving and hasn't been fed since I left him :lol:


----------



## sharloid

Just got back from a lovely walk with all three dogs.
I'm so pleased with Broder and Kindra, they're pulling next to each other really well. No playing, face nomming and lots of driving forwards.


----------



## Dogless

Good walk just now with Dizzy and human, boys behaved themselves. Lucky little beggars have had loads of play today!

Kilo is on his 6th week of the Suprelorin. His plums are now more like grapes; Rudi's are possibly bigger . He is marking much, much less on walks, and the bitching is pretty much gone. He is posturing less when dogs posture at him. Hard to know about many other aspects of behaviour as we have had such a stressful time over the last fortnight, I'll just continue to monitor things.


----------



## LinznMilly

Well, after a week off from training because of Milly's tummy upset (and Max subsequently getting it, but not as bad), we started again yesterday.

Max gets far too excited at Close The Door and just jumps around like his butt was on fire,   so I've switched my attention to Spin, as it tends to keep him calmer. He's coming along nicely with it, and at least it keeps all his paws on the floor 

He's also coming along with his barking (or not) "reactivity" when outside. It's suddenly dawned on me that he's gone 2 days without barking at other dogs when he's been on the lead. In fact, this afternoon, we encountered a dog defending her garden (I know it's a she because it has the same name as Milly  ). This dog starts her bark fest the moment she knows we're in the street, and we cross over to give her/her owner more space. Previously, Max and/or Milly will bark back at her, but I've noticed (certainly today) that they both looked at me and remained calm until we'd passed and the other Millie had calmed down  They got a treat for it, of course 

Milly's mastered Paw (finally) and I'm working on Spin with her, too, but she's ...a little slower than Max 

Yesterday I had a training session (the first since Milly became ill) with them, just working on the commands/tricks they did know, but mixing them up. Milly's got Down spot on now, so I've started delaying the time between the command/action, and the click/reward, hoping that it will eventually lead to a Down-Stay.


----------



## IrishEyes

Dimwit- are you sure that he wasn't actually starved whilst you were away? I mean it's not like he'd try to trick you or anything.... 

Dogless- sounds like the suprelorin is really helping to settle Kilo, that's great!

Liznmilly- sounds like a very productive day!

I won't be walking Horace until this evening as I have so much that needs done today.. have a great day everyone.


----------



## Dimwit

IrishEyes said:


> Dimwit- are you sure that he wasn't actually starved whilst you were away? I mean it's not like he'd try to trick you or anything....


That is a possibility - although the first thing they said to me when I went to collect him was "he does like his treats, doesn't he, and he was so hungry we had to increase his feeds"


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## MollySmith

Hello everyone, just saying morning and apologising for my absence. I've been in hospital after collapsing on Sunday evening. I was home Monday night and feeling a bit better - all post ivf complications, a long story but now I've got a stinky cold and lost my voice. 

Molly is well, doing good on her walks although The Hedgehog Family have arrived to tease her.


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## Dogless

Hope you feel better soon MS


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## Beth17

Oh dear MS that's not good. Take it easy and feel better soon


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## moonviolet

MS sorry to hear of your collapse, i hope you are recovering now. 

Dimwit, Poor lad, starved in yoru absence donr' believe what those people told you it's lies all lies 

Sharloid glad you had a good walk with all 3, any hope at home? Well done Broder and Kindra pulling nicely together.

Dogless GLad you had a lovely walk with Dizzy and the boys had a nice play.

Linz I'm glad max an milly are better now sounds like yoau re having fun with their training 

We had a good day yesterday walked with Tink's friend Steve in the morning and had a great class in the evening.

Sorry for everything I forgot. I hope everyone has a good day.


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## Dimwit

Hope you're OK MS - take care of yourself.


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## Twiggy

Oh no MS. Hope you're feeling better soon.


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## sharloid

moonviolet said:


> Sharloid glad you had a good walk with all 3, any hope at home? Well done Broder and Kindra pulling nicely together.


That sounds a little odd to see, we need them to work together pulling in harness as they'll both be working on the scooter when Kindra is old enough! 

No hope so far. OH and I are having to live in separate rooms to keep them apart. The vets don't want to neuter him yet as he's nervous though I don't know if that will help anyway.


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## Kicksforkills

My mother honestly has been thinking that I just sit and play wih the puppy/watch TV all day.

She doesn't understand that training etc is important and takes time from the day.

For example, yesterday I had a few dogwalking jobs, I got home after walking everyone at four pm, when I then had lunch. Today she says/screams at me that she wishes that she could sit watching TV/playing with the puppy all day.

I suppose it'll be like with the chickens when I used to sit with them all day but now I don't.

But I've never sat with Dexter all day. I've done housework too and left him in his crate as much as I leave Poppy and Rasco.

He's now used to his crate after he cries for a few minutes.

Next dog show on the 5th of May, then London Pet Show for Scruffts on 11-12th. Then one for all three which has a conformation show on the 25th. Then Windsor whenever that is. Then none until August.


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## Nicki85

So far taken Rusty on his morning walk (and only walk today as he has agility this eve), played with Shae beforehand and after alone and had a short training session as well  Then allowed them to have a short play session.... although I probably need to harness Rusty's post walk energy with a game with him and then let them play!

I've now put Shae in her crate and both are fast asleep....

Still over thinking things a bit after yesterdays training session.... but just going to continue as I am with short play and training sessions individually 2-3 times a day. But their general happiness is most important so not going to follow the advice of crating her whenever i'm not interacting with her. 

MS- hope you are feeling better soon xx

Sounds like everyone had good days yesterday- hope its the same today


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## LinznMilly

Just doing a bit of catch up, now you're all up to date with M&M 

Sharloid: Glad Broder and Kindra are pulling together nicely 

Get Well Soon MS 

Dogless: Seems I've missed something with Kilo  (probably, saying as I haven't read all the replies on this thread  :crazy, but glad you had a nice walk with Dizzy and the boys had a good play yesterday 

Irish Eyes: It was a very good day yesterday. 

Moonviolet: Thank you,  and yes, I am enjoying their training.  I'll go and update my thread RE Milly's health - don't want to take this one O/T.


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## MollySmith

Thank you everyone, just nice to be in my own bed. Thank goodness for my OH, he's been brilliant. He is outside with Molly seeing if he can put in a temporary fence arrangement so we don't have to take her out for wees on lead at night, away from the trees. So funny, he's chatting to her about it and she's listening to him. Silly pair 

Nicki - I need to go through the thread and update myself, but what you said about crates makes sense. Molly has one and we let her come and go from it, the only time we do crate her is when she's been silly about cats as she leaps over the furniture and that won't do.

K4K - maybe see what your mum needs doing in the house so she can see you've been constructive? We have a timetable here of what jobs on what day so we keep on top of the housework.

Catch later, I hope you all have a good day with your doggies  x


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## Izzysmummy

MS - So sorry to hear you've been in hospital, I really hope you are feeling better soon.

Dogless - so glad to hear the implant seems to be helping Kilo, I know what a difficult decision it was for you so it must be a big relief to see him happier. Tarnus was saying Izzy started drooling while she was engrossed sniffing a scent yesterday....my little girly already cocks her leg we dont need her starting with anymore boy habits 

Sharloid - seems so odd to read people saying they're glad their dog pulls  glad all is going well on that front though and I hope things settle down in the house soon. I think I missed Diesels history? Is he a recent addition? 

Nicki - Try not to overthink the session you had yesterday. I personally wouldnt like to have to crate Izzy and only let her out for training/working, to me that seems a bit too extreme. I would want her drive to build more naturally and it not be so forced so it would feel more like her choice. I understand controlling the play so they understand that sometimes they need to be calm and not just play all the time (we struggle with this when Izzy and Millie are together because they dont live together so its hard to be consistent) but it sounds like you were already doing that anyways.

Sorry to those Ive missed. Izzy's eye's are much better now thankfully, we had a good walk last night, past a man pumping up a tyre with a noisy device whilst crouched on the floor, a little boy walked past and asked me if she was a boy or a girl whilst looking at her saying "awww..", a noisy motorbike and a double decker bus, and she handled them all brilliantly. She makes me laugh as she lets me know what she thinks she deserves a treat for- with the double decker she watched it go past walking calmly next to me and when it had gone past she nudged my hand like she was saying "didnt I do well...treat please!". 

We also had a lady approach us as we arrived in the park which I honestly thought she would react to as it ticked most of her triggers list; excitement levels high, toiletting at the time, direct approach and verbal interaction with me by the lady, the lady acting "suspiciously" (looking lost), but she was brilliant and just had a little sniff whilst I pointed out where the lady was on her map then we went on our way.

School tonight, got to remember to take my socks with me in case we do any scent work as I forgot last week! 

Hope everyone had a nice day!


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## Kicksforkills

Molly , thanks for the suggestion. My mum has always had a very short temper and if she has a bad day at work etc she'll bring it home with her and I'll get the brunt.

I think it's just a case of do what I can (it doesn't take all day to clean the house) and hope to ride it out.

She's better than she used to be though. Happened since I was 12 so I'm pretty used to it. I guess it's just flared up again as its a new stress .


Anyway, walked the dogs this morning and on the way back some girls on their way to school said "aw what a cute chihuahuwall" honestly I mean ok if you get the breed wrong fair enough but she honestly pronounced it like that. I said "he's not a chihuahua" and she said "he looks like one" and then we went the opposite way.

I'm used to people thinking he's a chi now and people thinking he's a girl, since its hard to see wih the coat and not many people know Papillons.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> So far taken Rusty on his morning walk (and only walk today as he has agility this eve), played with Shae beforehand and after alone and had a short training session as well  Then allowed them to have a short play session.... although I probably need to harness Rusty's post walk energy with a game with him and then let them play!
> 
> I've now put Shae in her crate and both are fast asleep....
> 
> *Still over thinking things a bit after yesterdays training session.... but just going to continue as I am with short play and training sessions individually 2-3 times a day. But their general happiness is most important so not going to follow the advice of crating her whenever i'm not interacting with her. *
> 
> MS- hope you are feeling better soon xx
> 
> Sounds like everyone had good days yesterday- hope its the same today


I think you have to decide exactly what you want from your dogs.

Remember a lot of these top trainers look at a new puppy in terms of winning classes and not as a family pet. I'm not saying all but many also re-home if the pup doesn't make the grade.

Don't lose heart Nicki. Winning classes can still be achieved without going to extreme measures.


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## GingerRogers

Well nice to be able to catch up, yesterday PF was running frustratingly slow for me.

Hope you are back on your feet soon MS.

Love your description of your welcome Dimwit, weeing on shoes, hubby got weed on on monday evening by a little staffy girl we know but haven't seen for ages 

Twiggy sounds like you enjoyed your session even if it nearly broke you!

Sharloid I thought it read funny even though I knew what you meant, lol.

Nikki - I think it was 'Terences mum' who said the crating thing worked for her to just get some focus from the dog, don't think it was particularly for agility or anything just that he was pretty wilful. But I would have thought that if you already have good bonds with them and know how to work up that drive, its finding their triggers like Dogless did with Kilo, then there's no need to shut them up all day, doesn't sound like fun to me and you still want to haev fun with them surely.

IM glad Izzys eye is better, do you have extra smelly feet then for the scent work, lol. 

KFK I agree with MS get a list of stuff that needs doing and tick the jobs off then there's visible evidence, if you just do the hoovering its not necessarily that obvious especially to someone who might be used to doing herself all the time, dont know if that is the case.

Dogless, really pleased for you about the effect the implant is having (I always start to spell its name then go with what I know ) coupled with the half check banishment he seems so much calmer nowadays.

MV nice to ehar you are having some good walks and as always jealous of your classes.

We had a little play session this morning as our potter did not go too well, beagles about and all that  try again later, cant expect perfection everytime, she barked at the beagle but we were still on our territory so not really surprising, I got her back indoors (with a struggle felt a bit of a plank as it took me by surprise, the lady is quite short so its not easy to see her coming round the hedge) and said to hubby that will set her off for the day I probably shouldnt go out again, but I did, and she did it again 100 yards up the road to a lady with a pushchair and GR.

So high jump and skittles, mazes and tunnels indoors this morning.

She has been really good, so good that I was bullied into letting her off lead yesterday , in a safe(ish) place for a very short time, she was very good the first time and came back every time she was called . We put her back on lead just in time as a big dog fox bounded across the field  then tried again on the way back, this time she picked up a scent and legged it  but soon looked round and saw how far away we were and came back, which is what she does bless her, she isn't bad just likes her holes an awful lot. Still mulling that little experiment over. It was lovely to see the little blunderpuss running about though  she isnt the most graceful runner in the world bless.


----------



## sharloid

Izzysmummy said:


> Sharloid - seems so odd to read people saying they're glad their dog pulls  glad all is going well on that front though and I hope things settle down in the house soon. I think I missed Diesels history? Is he a recent addition?


http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/301695-i-looking-rescue-dogs-earlier.html


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## Nicki85

At the moment I am the weak link- not the dogs  I can't remember a course- once I do we *may* be in with a chance of winning something! Rusty is laid back, that's just him and I love him for it! I always say that the reason he does agility is because he wants to please me- he wouldn't run for anyone else. Yes he'll play with the toy and tug when he is excited enough but that's at shows really where it is very exciting! 

I'm starting to feel happier and more confident in what I am doing now.... I think I lost sight of the fact yesterday that my dogs are pets primarily and that agility is something we ENJOY doing- it's not the be all and end all  

I'm stopping over thinking now- i've just spent 5mins rolling around on the floor with them-love them- I'm going to enjoy them and that is all!!!!

Oh and some very exciting news- my hatchbag and Barjo tail gaurd gate thingy arrived today!!!!


----------



## MollySmith

Nicki85 said:


> *At the moment I am the weak link*- not the dogs  I can't remember a course- once I do we *may* be in with a chance of winning something! Rusty is laid back, that's just him and I love him for it! I always say that the reason he does agility is because he wants to please me- he wouldn't run for anyone else. Yes he'll play with the toy and tug when he is excited enough but that's at shows really where it is very exciting!
> 
> I'm starting to feel happier and more confident in what I am doing now.... I think I lost sight of the fact yesterday that my dogs are pets primarily and that agility is something we ENJOY doing- it's not the be all and end all
> 
> I'm stopping over thinking now- i've just spent 5mins rolling around on the floor with them-love them- I'm going to enjoy them and that is all!!!!
> 
> Oh and some very exciting news- my hatchbag and Barjo tail gaurd gate thingy arrived today!!!!


I am absolutely sure that's not true  I imagine it's easy to get struck with the competitive spirit and it's proof that you're not a weak link at all by recognising that they are pets and having fun too. Sounds to me like you have a good balance


----------



## Izzysmummy

sharloid said:


> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/301695-i-looking-rescue-dogs-earlier.html


Well done for taking him in. He looks a lovely boy!

Fingers crossed things settle down in the house soon and if not you've done so well by him getting the rescue back up there if needed. His future is now much brighter thanks to you!


----------



## Nicki85

MollySmith said:


> I am absolutely sure that's not true  I imagine it's easy to get struck with the competitive spirit and it's proof that you're not a weak link at all by recognising that they are pets and having fun too. Sounds to me like you have a good balance


No, seriously I am the weak link... But I am always so so delighted with Rusty after running him- it doesn't matter  And I guess I do it because I love the buzz of running a course with him.


----------



## Dimwit

Nicki85 said:


> I'm starting to feel happier and more confident in what I am doing now.... I think I lost sight of the fact yesterday that my dogs are pets primarily and that agility is something we ENJOY doing- it's not the be all and end all


I know this feeling completely - I have spent a lot of time being stressed because my dog gets anxious at competitions and won't run. But then I have to remind myself that I only started because he enjoyed it.

It is very easy to get sucked in and I see so many people whose lives revolve around flyball but unfortunately mine doesn't. It is not, and never will be, the only thing I do with my dog and, while I want to work on his issues because I know how much he loves the training, I am not going to let it take over my life.


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## Dogless

GR - onwards and upwards from the beagle thing...it's just a blip as you've been progressing so fast and so well 

IM - pleased Izzy's eyes are better but I hope we won't be calling her Igor soon with all the boy habits .

Nicki - you make me laugh! I got excited about my Hatchbag and tailgate guard too!! .

The CHs say that training in the pouring rain is marvellous . Took them both out this morning in the pouring rain. Did lots of lead walking, random speeds, changes of direction etc with them both; they walk so nicely for me bless 'em but just thought we'd keep the training up! Bit of offlead then for some recalls, waits and a short play - not much enthusiasm in this weather!! - and home. They worked hard, behaved well and ignored lots of workmen about chopping trees, banging fence posts in and all that jazz for me! No dogs seen, as if anyone would be daft enough to take them out in this weather .


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## Beth17

Sounds like an absolutely fabulous walk Dogless. The boys did great!

GR your play session sounds nice after the stressful potter. High jump sounds fun 

IM Glad Izzy's eye is better.

Nicki it is so hard to know what is right to do when everyone has such different opinions. I think what you are doing already sounds like it is working well.

Had a really lovely walk this morning and had loose leads all the way down to the woods. They were then both able to go off as there was no one else around and they behaved perfectly. Ran about in the water and up and down the banks. Sam kept in sight and stuck with Oscar.

He did however get a bit excited and ran before I took his lead off straight into the stream. I then had to carry around a very soggy lead for the next hour or so  We then had a sedate walk home and they are now curled up fast asleep.


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## Kicksforkills

Ginge thanks for the suggestion. I do it all the time. My brother goes out socialising much more than me therefore he does nothing to help.


----------



## Nicki85

Fitted the hatchbag! Very confusing.... i've got a skoda yeti and most of the time have the rear seats folded up so there is more room for the dogs. Ordered an extension to cover this bit but gosh it is all sooooo fidley to fit! I'll have to take a pic. Not going to attempt the tailgate as apparently you need to drill it in or something... scary stuff. Both dogs waiting patiently for me and are now fast asleep- strange animals, why didn't they sleep when I was fitting it?!

DL- I am so impressed with your approach to training your boys! In the morning I am useless, no training on walks at all apart from the oh bugger he's chasing something better work on the recall!! Afternoon walk is for training.... 
Beth- glad you had a lovely walk this morning


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Fitted the hatchbag! Very confusing.... i've got a skoda yeti and most of the time have the rear seats folded up so there is more room for the dogs. Ordered an extension to cover this bit but gosh it is all sooooo fidley to fit! I'll have to take a pic. Not going to attempt the tailgate as apparently you need to drill it in or something... scary stuff. Both dogs waiting patiently for me and are now fast asleep- strange animals, why didn't they sleep when I was fitting it?!
> 
> DL- I am so impressed with your approach to training your boys! In the morning I am useless, no training on walks at all apart from the oh bugger he's chasing something better work on the recall!! Afternoon walk is for training....
> Beth- glad you had a lovely walk this morning


Yes, but you're so way more advanced that me that you probably don't need to even think about half the stuff that I do .

The Volvo dealership fitted my tailgate guard for free when I asked nicely - maybe ask at a Skoda garage. Took them all of a few minutes and very neat job!


----------



## GingerRogers

Beth17 said:


> Sounds like an absolutely fabulous walk Dogless. The boys did great!
> 
> GR your play session sounds nice after the stressful potter. *High jump sounds fun *
> 
> IM Glad Izzy's eye is better.
> 
> Nicki it is so hard to know what is right to do when everyone has such different opinions. I think what you are doing already sounds like it is working well.
> 
> Had a really lovely walk this morning and had loose leads all the way down to the woods. They were then both able to go off as there was no one else around and they behaved perfectly. Ran about in the water and up and down the banks. Sam kept in sight and stuck with Oscar.
> 
> He did however get a bit excited and ran before I took his lead off straight into the stream. I then had to carry around a very soggy lead for the next hour or so  We then had a sedate walk home and they are now curled up fast asleep.


It was so I thought I would show hubby what we had been up to at lunch time, he just thinks its all circus tricks still 

But she just pushed the stick off the boxes , and looked atme expectantly hubby said 'well you have taught her to nudge things'

True but not like that little bugger, made me laugh though!


----------



## Jazmine

Nicki85 said:


> Well you see this was my immediate reaction... i'm not a pro, I want to compete but my dogs are pets first. I make sure that they both have time just with me but certainly don't restrict their access to each other or the amount that they play together.
> 
> I'm also struggling to see the difference between her being asleep next to me or in the crate... surely if i'm amusing her when she is awake (for at least part of the time) she is bonding with me and learning that she has to work? She doesn't like the crate even though i've done the work on making it a nice place, she wants to sleep on my feet.
> 
> Gah, I don't know what to do- I want them to be happy dogs that will run round an agility course with me... I want them to be more driven to work with their toys but if it has to be a food toy then so be it.


Haven't posted in here before, (but lurked!), this has compelled me to post though!

I have just started competing both my collies in agility, I can't say I'm very good at it, but slowly seeing improvements. I have issues with Scout and his drive, but through focussed play sessions I have managed to build him up from virtually no drive to where he is now in a couple of months. Still got a long, long way to go, but happy with his progress.

Must say it has never occurred to me to keep them crated when not working. I started agility as something fun to do with the dogs, alongside all the other fun things I do with them, like trick training, frisbee and hiking etc. Yes, I do want them to see agility as "work", but I don't want it to be the only fun they get.

Maybe I'm just being a bit soft, but don't feel pressured to follow the advice to crate more than you're comfortable with, your dogs may well have a "cushty" life, but there's nothing wrong with that!


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

Difficult to keep up with this thread but I've recently joined a new training club and I'm trying to get Barney ready for the Good Citizen Awards on the 28th April.


----------



## GingerRogers

Good luck!


----------



## diefenbaker

@moonviolet or anyone else who knows.. what is open shop/closed shop treating ?


----------



## Symone

Gosh seems like everyone has been busy busy!

MS : I'm sorry to hear about you being in the hospital. I hope that you will recover quickly x

Dogless : Yay for the implant doing its job! I have to say it did make me giggle when you said that Rudi's are nearly the same size or bigger, though..  

GR : Yay for knocking things off? Would have also made me giggle  

Beth : I'm happy that you had such a good walk!  And soggy leads are good for keeping hands cool?  lol

KFK : Interesting pronunciation, made me giggle. OH thought I was weird for saying it out loud, though.

Jazmine : Fancy taking Shamaya with you? I'm glad to hear that the Agility is going well.  

WWSD : Good luck! 


Sorry if I've missed any one.. 

Had a few nice pavement walks today  Shamaya is confused at the change of longer walks in the morning/at night though. She tried to pull us to the park midday and seemed upset when we didn't go there. 
Had a lot of LLW apart from when she thought we were going to the park, so I'm a happy bunny. 
With only lead walks during the day she isn't coming back panting like mad trying to find the coolest spot, so that's good. 

I've started going out without her at times which she isn't used to. She's normally with me 24/7. I'm building it up in small bits because I don't want her to get SA, but I just realised that I've kind of been lucky to not find a job, yet.. When we move there's a chance I'll be working almost instantly so it's best to get her used to it. And so far it's going well. Neighbours haven't heard any barking apart from when people knock on doors so my guess is she sleeps. 

She was cheeky last night.. It was windy so all doors were open (they bang in the frames otherwise) and we woke up in the morning to find about 8 tea bags torn up everywhere. I have no idea how we didn't hear her. 
I still need to buy a new bin... Oops. I'll put it on as a reminder for tomo morning lol. 

Going to take her out in about an hour or so for a nice play of fetch at the park. It's still sunny and hot then, but starting to cool so she should be all right.  

Hope that everyone is having a lovely day.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> @moonviolet or anyone else who knows.. what is open shop/closed shop treating ?


Same as open bar / closed bar? Not being facetious, genuinely don't know, but I assume so!

If so it means that whilst whatever trigger your dog reacts to is in sight it gets belt fed treats. As soon as it is out of sight it does not.


----------



## MollySmith

Been and sat on the park bench watching Molly and OH with the trainer, what a great girl we have  She did so well, plenty of off lead rewards for being a good girl on her lead around other dogs. I think 9 that I saw and only one reaction to a dog who did bark at her first. 

Completely done me in though, I'm back in bed resting and so is Molly. Best news is that trainer is sure we can take her around towns now with little problem  so next week all being well I'll get her to Saffron Walden and take some pictures for you all, it's lovely there. It was only in September that I had to ask our trainer to take her whilst we went away to Devon as I thought it would be too much but now I'm looking forward to our break in June on the Norfolk coast.

I've moved the Happy Hounds scent work class from this weekend to 18th May. We'll go for an hour to see how Molly gets on. Sally said we could do the companion class on a Mon but I think we'll do one lesson first and see how it goes before committing to too much in case Madam Molly doesn't like it.


----------



## Twiggy

Beth17 said:


> Sounds like an absolutely fabulous walk Dogless. The boys did great!
> 
> GR your play session sounds nice after the stressful potter. High jump sounds fun
> 
> IM Glad Izzy's eye is better.
> 
> Nicki it is so hard to know what is right to do when everyone has such different opinions. I think what you are doing already sounds like it is working well.
> 
> Had a really lovely walk this morning and had loose leads all the way down to the woods. They were then both able to go off as there was no one else around and they behaved perfectly. Ran about in the water and up and down the banks. Sam kept in sight and stuck with Oscar.
> 
> *He did however get a bit excited and ran before I took his lead off straight into the stream. I then had to carry around a very soggy lead for the next hour or so  We then had a sedate walk home and they are now curled up fast asleep.*




That's what Leafy did at the hydrotherapy pool. Leafy was invited by the owner Sarah to swim whilst Quiver was on rest periods and I got through the gate, Sarah stood at the door to the pool patting her leg and saying "hello Leafy nice to see you" so I let the lead go. Leafy shot straight by her, ignored the ramp and jumped in over the side, collar, lead and all...
Sarah said "shall we take it you're having the first go then Leafy...!!"

They actually used Leafy to promote that type of pool in the States 11 years ago. We did a photo and video shoot.

She was a bit of a celebrity - all the staff from the grooming parlour used to come and watch her dive.


----------



## Dogless

Oooh famous Leafy!! Sounds as if she's quite the canine aquathlete!!

Great walk this evening, got soaking wet. Obviously, what else would the weather be doing? .

On lead again as they had two long, offlead plays yesterday and are still a bit 'charged' today. Had a few blissful stretches where it felt as if there weren't any dogs on the leads (there were, I checked!!) and all the rest was pretty good. Nothing seen as the weather was horrendous!


----------



## diefenbaker

So ever since you lot got me fired as an airline pilot... which by the way nobody has apologised for.. I've been looking for a new business idea. And today I think I've found it in my new range of pornographic dog treats. I call this one the 'Koob'. Dief licking away at the end has already made one of my friends feel uncomfortable at the dinner table.



Watch out for me on Dragon's Den.. this could be the start of something big.


----------



## Dogless

See Diefenbaker, if you hadn't lost your job you wouldn't be erm "broadening your horizons" as you are. The Koob is.........verging on the obscene :sosp:.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> See Diefenbaker, if you hadn't lost your job you wouldn't be erm "broadening your horizons" as you are. The Koob is.........verging on the obscene :sosp:.


In my defence it was actually the wife who started it


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> In my defence it was actually the wife who started it


It was worse to me than that after which it is named :sosp:. I'll not elaborate, t'is a family forum .


----------



## Kicksforkills

Someone invent a ball thrower for small balls!


----------



## diefenbaker

Kicksforkills said:


> Someone invent a ball thrower for small balls!


I've got a little white plastic medicine spoon you can have. That should do the trick.


----------



## Dimwit

*MS* so glad you had a good session with Molly - I saw what trainer wrote on her fb page, you must be so happy to see all your hard work paying off

*Dogless* sounds like a very good day, apart from the rain.

Just got back from school with dimwit, he was pretty good. I used the ball again and he was much more focused on me, he had a few lapses when there was something interesting to sniff and again towards the end but I think an hour is quite a long time for him to concentrate for. But he was still quite worried by some of the other dogs, he didn't react but he did start to get anxious which is a bit sad still, it's probably my fault for congratulating myself on how well he was doing, so then he decides to show me that we haven't really made much progress at all


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> *MS* so glad you had a good session with Molly - I saw what trainer wrote on her fb page, you must be so happy to see all your hard work paying off
> 
> *Dogless* sounds like a very good day, apart from the rain.
> 
> Just got back from school with dimwit, he was pretty good. I used the ball again and he was much more focused on me, he had a few lapses when there was something interesting to sniff and again towards the end but I think an hour is quite a long time for him to concentrate for. But he was still quite worried by some of the other dogs, he didn't react but he did *start to get anxious which is a bit sad still, it's probably my fault for congratulating myself on how well he was doing, so then he decides to show me that we haven't really made much progress at all*


Holly reminds me on a daily basis that we haven't made much progress at all.

Three times I threw the dumbbell this afternoon in class and three times Holly picked it up by the end - bless her..:mad2:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Here's Dexter doing his very first agility lesson (he wasn't very good);


----------



## Nicki85

Back from agility  

Rusty had his game face on and we had a lot of fun  Got a bit of tugging out of him and he wanted his toy so I was happy  Good boy!

Took Shae in for 15mins did some hand touches and the things she has been working on. All very good  Even did her clicker "get its" to the toy. In the car park she played with a pine cone and was very amused with me throwing it for her- so sweet!!

Asked about the 24/7 in crate and was reassured that everyone thought it was a silly idea. Said carry on like I am and enjoy them  Common sense prevails!!!!

Dimwit- baby steps- it sounds like you are doing really well, set backs happen... it's the common trend of UP that you should be pleased with! Would it be an idea to only do 45 mins or how ever much he can handle and then build it up?
DL- sounds like your boys did good on their walks


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



Oooh famous Leafy!! Sounds as if she's quite the canine aquathlete!!

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> Great walk this evening, got soaking wet. Obviously, what else would the weather be doing? .
> 
> On lead again as they had two long, offlead plays yesterday and are still a bit 'charged' today. Had a few blissful stretches where it felt as if there weren't any dogs on the leads (there were, I checked!!) and all the rest was pretty good. Nothing seen as the weather was horrendous!


She was and it was her favourite pastime. On several occasions when she'd been showered and dried we'd turn our back for a nano-second, looking in the diary or whatever, and she'd be back in the middle of the pool.

Even recently, when she swam at the Greyhound hydro pool up the road, she went in over the side if Mark wasn't quick enough to grab her. They also used Leafy to promote that pool in all the local papers....


----------



## Dimwit

He does get lots of breaks, it just get harder to get his focus back towards the end, but he is getting better (just has a short attention span). I'm hoping that we will make proper progress eventually, just feeling a bit sad today because I wish I could help him. Poor dog really does deserve someone who knows what they are doing. Or at least someone who doesn't make him worse like I do.


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> He does get lots of breaks, it just get harder to get his focus back towards the end, but he is getting better (just has a short attention span). I'm hoping that we will make proper progress eventually, just feeling a bit sad today because I wish I could help him. Poor dog really does deserve someone who knows what they are doing. Or at least someone who doesn't make him worse like I do.


I've told Nicki off today for underestimating her talents and same to and little Dimwit too  I've heard nothing but good from our mutual friend and you've done so well. Think about it - you do the Big Walkies which is a major big thing for little one to cope with and you too as it can be so scary as the human on the lead. Then there's these classes too. You've done well. Tomorrow is another day and my mantra is 'soon this will be over'. It will pass as you are giving him a great foundation and lots of love. Chin up missus, hopefully we can do some scent work or walking up the Gogs very soon 

Oh crap, the hedgehog dog is back, whimpering and gazing at me Spencer style. I fear from grumblings and cross OH voice that the twenty minute pee visit was not a success.


----------



## Maria_1986

MS hope you are feeling better soon

Yesterday I drove for 4 hours, had planned a careful introduction to my Dad's new dog on the beach, all went well, a little grumbling by Dad's dog but they then walked nicely together. Got back to the the house and went into the garden, on lead all fine, ears forward, mouths and eyes relaxed, One dog off lead - all fine, both dogs off lead and Dad's dog, growled, raised hackles and launched herself at Chevy, mounted her and grabbed the scruff of her neck and started shaking - luckily we managed to get them separated pretty quickly, although Chevy has a small bite mark on her neck and she had managed to turn slightly and had caught Sasha's ear so I turned around and drove the 4 hours back home again. Chevy is alright, a bit sore over her bad hip this morning and a bit bruised on her neck but I feel awful for putting her in that situation and not spotting the signs of what was going to happen. I can't stop crying, not helped by the 10 hours driving I did yesterday making me shattered as I got caught in rush hour traffic on the M25 on the way home, didn't sleep well last night either. Please feel free to beat me over the head for being so stupid cos I've been doing it most of the night.


----------



## moonviolet

Maria_1986 said:


> MS hope you are feeling better soon
> 
> Yesterday I drove for 4 hours, had planned a careful introduction to my Dad's new dog on the beach, all went well, a little grumbling by Dad's dog but they then walked nicely together. Got back to the the house and went into the garden, on lead all fine, ears forward, mouths and eyes relaxed, One dog off lead - all fine, both dogs off lead and Dad's dog, growled, raised hackles and launched herself at Chevy, mounted her and grabbed the scruff of her neck and started shaking - luckily we managed to get them separated pretty quickly, although Chevy has a small bite mark on her neck and she had managed to turn slightly and had caught Sasha's ear so I turned around and drove the 4 hours back home again. Chevy is alright, a bit sore over her bad hip this morning and a bit bruised on her neck but I feel awful for putting her in that situation and not spotting the signs of what was going to happen. I can't stop crying, not helped by the 10 hours driving I did yesterday making me shattered as I got caught in rush hour traffic on the M25 on the way home, didn't sleep well last night either. Please feel free to beat me over the head for being so stupid cos I've been doing it most of the night.


You'll get no beating from me, sounds like you are already being incredibly harsh on yourself. Chevy won't be blaming you. Sometimes, even when you take care these things happen.


----------



## kat&molly

Maria, these things happen, don't beat yourself up and you're doing a grand job with Chevy. Hope her hip is better quickly.


MS- hope you're feeling better.


----------



## GingerRogers

What Mv said. You can't predict what some dogs might do. Its just not in your control.

I am putting off introducing Ginge to my brothers pup which has caused few upsets but they potentially have toget on for the next 10 years. I am scared so you were brave to even get there.

Hope chevy is ok.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> MS hope you are feeling better soon
> 
> Yesterday I drove for 4 hours, had planned a careful introduction to my Dad's new dog on the beach, all went well, a little grumbling by Dad's dog but they then walked nicely together. Got back to the the house and went into the garden, on lead all fine, ears forward, mouths and eyes relaxed, One dog off lead - all fine, both dogs off lead and Dad's dog, growled, raised hackles and launched herself at Chevy, mounted her and grabbed the scruff of her neck and started shaking - luckily we managed to get them separated pretty quickly, although Chevy has a small bite mark on her neck and she had managed to turn slightly and had caught Sasha's ear so I turned around and drove the 4 hours back home again. Chevy is alright, a bit sore over her bad hip this morning and a bit bruised on her neck but I feel awful for putting her in that situation and not spotting the signs of what was going to happen. I can't stop crying, not helped by the 10 hours driving I did yesterday making me shattered as I got caught in rush hour traffic on the M25 on the way home, didn't sleep well last night either. Please feel free to beat me over the head for being so stupid cos I've been doing it most of the night.


Oh I'm so sorry.

I know the feeling of long drives around the M25 and how mind blowing it is.

Please don't beat yourself up. Sometimes it is very hard to predict trouble brewing and it can happen so quickly.

My sister had a bitch several years ago that managed to get all my girls on various occasions. We knew what she was like and were always careful but...


----------



## Dogless

Maria - as others have said, don't beat yourself up....easier said than done, I should know! .

OK walk this morning. Went to top fields, 10 minutes had offlead (kilo on longline!) until security dog and handler appeared to check perimeter so I recalled the boys and vamoosed to let them work. Too far for Rudi and not enough time to go to bottom fields so we had an onlead sniff and potter. Off to school now with Rudi.


----------



## Maria_1986

Thank you.


----------



## moonviolet

DW please dont' be hard on yourself. It sounds like you are very committed to your boy and do lots of activities with him. Dont' forget to help him learn to chill out too, on a purely chemical level excitement and stress are very similar. bringing a mat for him to lay on between activities can help in class as they have a comfortable place that is theirs.

We had a bit of a wobble yesterday, thanks to a staring stalking collie, owner either unaware or one the "That's what collies do" crowd sadly it was enough to put Tink on edge for the rest of the offlead portion of the walk.

Thankfully back on the pavement she was just super trotting along like she owned the world and after a lovely nap her little mate came around for an hour of sniffing and games and a tiny little bit of training, just things that are house rules here sitting for doors to be opened etc She's a little livewire.

Hope everyone has a good day today.


----------



## Nicki85

Hello!

Good walk with Rusty this am, he was very fired up so had to do a bit of work on keeping him close... he had a good swim in the lake and we had a conversation about bringing the toy to the shore and then back to my hand.... not just leaving it somewhere random for me to find 

Couple of play sessions with Miss. Shae, good pup! Started to put a command (so, hand touch) and then allowing her to get the toy which she seems to be enjoying. Also had a short training session and we now have a really good get it command  Next step is to ask for a longer hold on the toy before dropping it... eventually working up to her returning with the toy. 

I've been doing individual play sessions with one in the crate and then swapping them over... this seems to be working really well for their drive for the toy so going to carry on with this. Same with training sessions. 

They have had fish heads for lunch which went down very very well and are now both snoozing on the sofa with me (well Shae is watching TV...)

DW- your lad is lucky to have you to work through his issues with him. Not all owners would!
MV- collies are one of our "problem" breeds that tend to go for Rusty... Sounds like Tinks brushed it off well though 
Maria- these things unfortunately do happen, how ever hard you try. Chevy will be fine i'm sure- just make sure to get him out meeting and greeting.
Twiggy- Holly sounds like such a character! Especially with the dumb bell  I can't imagine what Rusty would think about doing a proper retrieve... he'd spit it out every few steps and i'd have to recommand him to hold.... The other day he barked at me when I asked him to bring me his toy silly sausage!!
DL- hope Rudi is a star at school.
KforK- Dexter looks like he is having fun!! Did he enjoy it?


----------



## Dogless

School was pretty good; especially hard work today though - Rudi seems to be getting a bit more 'teen' now :skep: but we did OK. Got him to lie down on the hard floor (huge achievement for a RR - took me this long with the BW ) but no way was a down / stay happening. He also wasn't sitting still whilst the trainer came and I had to take his collar off and hand it over, no way, he's scared of the trainer still. He did well at everything else for me. There was a new dog in the class - a very excited one - so that added another dimension. Also remained focussed on me for the loose, lolloping, labradoodle's antics . Pleased with him in the main, he did work hard for me .

On the way out a woman had three loose small dogs in the car park. They were crowded round the step where we all come out of the building. She said "Oooh there's a big one coming out now". I asked for some space but she said her daughter had a Hungarian Vizsla too so they were used to moving and would do just that. Only one of them went for him and put a little nick in his face :mad5::mad5:. He didn't just cower away like Kilo does, he did a full "look at my teeth".


----------



## Dogless

The CHs make me laugh; they are so different. 

Someone just came to take off our broken door on a kitchen cupboard. Kilo was shut in lounge plus the tell pet gate shut, just in case. He is GGGrrrrrring and barking and "GO AWAY!!! THIS IS MY HOUSE!!!!!!" :mad5::mad5:.

Rudi is behind the tall pet gate waggling away quietly saying "ooh hello, come in, welcome, you must be my new best friend!!!!"


----------



## GingerRogers

They really are different aren't they, what a stupid woman. Bet she wasn't laughing then!! I know you don't want you boys to act like that but sometimes..........


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *He also wasn't sitting still whilst the trainer came and I had to take his collar off and hand it over, no way, he's scared of the trainer still *
> 
> Run that by me again - you had to do what?......
> 
> And what did to say when the dear little doggy nicked Rudi's face?


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> They really are different aren't they, what a stupid woman. Bet she wasn't laughing then!! I know you don't want you boys to act like that but sometimes..........


She did that offended "Ooooh" with eyebrow lift as she tried to shoo her dog from the area.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> *He also wasn't sitting still whilst the trainer came and I had to take his collar off and hand it over, no way, he's scared of the trainer still *
> 
> Run that by me again - you had to do what?......
> 
> And what did to say when the dear little doggy nicked Rudi's face?
> 
> 
> 
> We have to get the dogs in a sit, put lead round our neck, take collar off dog, hand collar to trainer and then reverse the process. Rudi backs off from him.
> 
> He was determined to grab Rudi's collar today and also didn't like the suggestion of someone he was happy with holding him for the recall.
> 
> Nothing. It's pretty much par for the course here. Just took him away as the lady was looking shocked and offended at Rudi's teeth display.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hello!
> 
> *Couple of play sessions with Miss. Shae, good pup! Started to put a command (so, hand touch) and then allowing her to get the toy which she seems to be enjoying. Also had a short training session and we now have a really good get it command  Next step is to ask for a longer hold on the toy before dropping it... eventually working up to her returning with the toy. *
> 
> Nicki can a little old lady that's been training dogs for most of her life offer a bit of advice?
> 
> Shae is only a little puppy and personally I wouldn't be asking her to hold the toy at all.
> 
> As far as I'm concerned with my dogs, and the hundreds and hundreds of other people's dogs I've trained over the years, a toy is a toy and the dogs can do what they like with it. A retrieve article, on the other hand, is just that ie to be retrieved and held. When handlers start mixing the two up in the early stages of training that is when the 'poison' starts to creep in and the dogs start to lose interest in playing.
> 
> Yes my dogs do hold their toys and bring them back to me *but *they've all been taught a formal retrieve at some point.
> 
> With a puppy of Shae's age, if you want drive and commitment, for the time being just play with her like a mad thing - throwing toys/balls, having a good tug with her, etc. etc.
> 
> Just my opinion of course and it's not meant to be offensive...


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> We have to get the dogs in a sit, put lead round our neck, take collar off dog, hand collar to trainer and then reverse the process. Rudi backs off from him.
> 
> He was determined to grab Rudi's collar today and also didn't like the suggestion of someone he was happy with holding him for the recall.
> 
> Nothing. It's pretty much par for the course here. Just took him away as the lady was looking shocked and offended at Rudi's teeth display.
> 
> 
> 
> Big sigh - well I can only sympathise on both counts.
> 
> The instructor is clearly an idiot who can't read dogs at all and as for the rest of the dog owning population I'm afraid words fail me.
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Big sigh - well I can only sympathise on both counts.
> 
> The instructor is clearly an idiot who can't read dogs at all and as for the rest of the dog owning population I'm afraid words fail me.
> 
> 
> 
> Think it's worse. He can read dogs but won't let them 'get their own way' type thing....as in he will take a dog's collar if that's what he wants because he's the human and the dog needs to accept that. No wonder it's not uncommon for him to get a nip.
> 
> Workman just been back - wanted to meet Rudi so let him. Rudi wandered in for a sniff then went back to the dining room (carpet to lie on!), lay down for me to rub his belly then watched for a bit before falling asleep! Kilo was settled on the sofa but I wasn't going to let him out!
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Think it's worse. He can read dogs but won't let them 'get their own way' type thing....as in he will take a dog's collar if that's what he wants because he's the human and the dog needs to accept that. No wonder it's not uncommon for him to get a nip.
> 
> Workman just been back - wanted to meet Rudi so let him. Rudi wandered in for a sniff then went back to the dining room (carpet to lie on!), lay down for me to rub his belly then watched for a bit before falling asleep! Kilo was settled on the sofa but I wasn't going to let him out!
> 
> 
> 
> Yes and that's the difference!! I've been instructing for over 35 years and can name on one hand the amount of times I've been bitten with intent (not counting when I'm winding my own and other dogs up of course...).
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes and that's the difference!! I've been instructing for over 35 years and can name on one hand the amount of times I've been bitten with intent (not counting when I'm winding my own and other dogs up of course...).
> 
> 
> 
> Sad, really. Not that you haven't been bitten much :skep:.
Click to expand...


----------



## Sarah1983

Really enjoyed my walk with Spencer today. We didn't do anything special training wise and he wasn't amazingly well behaved or anything, it was just a lovely, relaxing walk with no stress and no real expectations. I took lots of pics (they have their own thread) and just generally enjoyed being out with my dog. We did practise recalls but that's something we do every walk, I don't want him thinking I only recall him when there's someone/something around or it's time to go home.

He offered to walk with me many, many times throughout the walk despite us being in the woods and on fields so we've certainly made progress with that and I'm not finding it tedious or stressful to simply click and treat when he's walking with me and just leave him to it when he's out in front as long as he's not pulling my arm out of its socket.

Dogless, sorry about your trainer and the idiot with the little dogs. How the hell can someone be offended by your dog showing his teeth after he's been bitten by their dog??? The mind boggles, it really does.

Nicki, just be careful that what you want from Shae eventually doesn't get in the way of you enjoying who she is right now. Don't focus so much on the training that you miss out on her just being her  I'm guilty of focusing so much on training Spen that I can forget to just enjoy him. Fish heads always go down well here. With Spencer anyway, I don't like the way they stare at me every time I go into the kitchen while they're defrosting.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Really enjoyed my walk with Spencer today. We didn't do anything special training wise and he wasn't amazingly well behaved or anything, it was just a lovely, relaxing walk with no stress and no real expectations. I took lots of pics (they have their own thread) and just generally enjoyed being out with my dog. We did practise recalls but that's something we do every walk, I don't want him thinking I only recall him when there's someone/something around or it's time to go home.
> 
> He offered to walk with me many, many times throughout the walk despite us being in the woods and on fields so we've certainly made progress with that and I'm not finding it tedious or stressful to simply click and treat when he's walking with me and just leave him to it when he's out in front as long as he's not pulling my arm out of its socket.
> 
> Dogless, sorry about your trainer and the idiot with the little dogs. How the hell can someone be offended by your dog showing his teeth after he's been bitten by their dog??? The mind boggles, it really does.
> 
> Nicki, just be careful that what you want from Shae eventually doesn't get in the way of you enjoying who she is right now. Don't focus so much on the training that you miss out on her just being her  I'm guilty of focusing so much on training Spen that I can forget to just enjoy him. Fish heads always go down well here. With Spencer anyway, I don't like the way they stare at me every time I go into the kitchen while they're defrosting.


I'm used to the trainer - we get an awful lot more good things than bad from classes so continue to go. I work quietly in my own way when I need to rather than forcing anything. He's a nice man actually, the thinking can just be a little rigid over here still.

I think the offence comes from the rule that _some_ owners of small dogs employ...that aggression from a little dog is 'feistiness / bravery / cheekiness' etc etc and that aggression from a big dog is...aggression.

Wise words ref enjoying your dog, very wise indeed.

And I love your picture thread, really enjoyed looking at them .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Sad, really. Not that you haven't been bitten much :skep:.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Right Leafy and I are going to hoover the barn (her second favourite activity). I feel a bit sorry for her really. She desperately wants to come out and join in when I'm training Holly and Tremor but that means leaving Quiver on her own. Quiver would also like to come out training but she's simply too old and frail now and would fall over.
> 
> I had to smile yesterday morning when we were all out for a walk; I was winding Holly up and doing a few strides of heelwork and Quiver came belting back down the field asking if she could do it. Bless her, the mind and heart is very willing but sadly the body isn't.
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Right Leafy and I are going to hoover the barn (her second favourite activity). I feel a bit sorry for her really. She desperately wants to come out and join in when I'm training Holly and Tremor but that means leaving Quiver on her own. Quiver would also like to come out training but she's simply too old and frail now and would fall over.
> 
> I had to smile yesterday morning when we were all out for a walk; I was winding Holly up and doing a few strides of heelwork and Quiver came belting back down the field asking if she could do it. Bless her, the mind and heart is very willing but sadly the body isn't.
> 
> 
> 
> The more I meet and read about some competitive obedience and dog sport folk, the more I realise how forward - thinking you are (and always have been based upon your posts) and how lucky your girls are to be in your home.
Click to expand...


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## GingerRogers

Dogless your trainer sounds so egotistic its unreal, go to Twiggys class instead, is my advice :skep:

Your walk looks lovely Sarah, jealous of your sunshine.

Nikki did the conversation with Rusty work, lol! I know nothing but I would take Grannies advice!

MV - collies should be blinkered I think unless their owners are properly trained

Hubby took the ninja out today and she was apparently really good.They stuck to farm tracks but had to go around someones garden with a dog in. She growled and gruffed quite a bit but as soon as she started barking he told her to 'come on' and she did.

To see her making her own decisions is amazing  3 months ago she wouldn't even have heard him let alone listened and decided to do it.

He decided as she had been so good he would let her off for a bit in a big field.  didn't go well apparently  so I had to have the recall chat, how just because she does come back, eventually isn't good enough.

So today I will be working on finding a recall training method that works for hubby and me to be working on!!!!


----------



## Dogless

Think hubby needs some remedial work Ginge!!

Don't they all???????? Apart from Werehorse's; he's a rare 'un.


----------



## Barcode

Scrabble's on-lead barking at other dogs has massively calmed down. Sometimes, she'll have a grumble, but we've learned to read the signs and reign her in. What I have noticed though, is that the problem seems to pop up easily when she walks with Matilda (as do other bad behaviors), so OH and I are only walking them together when we are both there as it's just hard to control two dogs that both have different training needs.

With Matilda, we now have to work on stopping her nomming her poo   Unfortunately, I haven't helped matters by screeching like a banshee at her when I noticed her doing it in the garden the other day - it seemed to result in her wolfing it down like I was trying to steal her prized possession! It now seems to be a process of accompanying her in the garden, distracting, and picking up later - she can be good sometimes, but just when you think you've cracked it ...


----------



## Nicki85

Nope- opinions appreciated!! Most of what I do with her at the moment is play and we spend time running around the garden with lobster or sheep tug.

I just thought it might be useful as when I throw the toy she lays down with it where the toy stops (if you see what I mean)... I then have two options to continue the game- go and get the toy or recall her in and she comes without toy. She also likes being chased with the toy  I've only had gundogs before and they have it in their genes to retrieve the toy so haven't been to sure how to approach this ... thinking logically I thought it would be easier to train the hold separately in training. 

I'm not concerned about the lack of holding and bringing back the toy- just thought it would make playing a bit easier lol. What do you reckon? Should I just play the game she wants to play (being chased with toy) for now? She likes tugging it as well so we do that too.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Nicki; yes he did. He decided to do the first excercise -coming to owner over four jumps on the ground- perfectly and then decided to do zoomies the rest of his turns.

Hoping Puppy Obiedence which starts on Tuesday helps.


----------



## Guest

Well I haven't been on here for a while have I? *waves*
Zander is doing well, muzzle training is going well as are other things.
He has escaped a ridiculous amount of times though so he is now attached in the garden via harness on longline. 
He's been asleep for alot of today, really. 
Have realised that he is quite skittish without a coat on so am borrowing a thundershirt.

Well done to all of you. :biggrin5:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> The more I meet and read about some competitive obedience and dog sport folk, the more I realise how forward - thinking you are (and always have been based upon your posts) and how lucky your girls are to be in your home.
> 
> 
> 
> The trouble is there are still way too many that think like your trainer I'm afraid, although things have improved over the last few years.
> 
> I've said before that I decided years ago that if we were going to do obedience competitions then we were *all* going to enjoy it - not just me but my dogs as well.
Click to expand...


----------



## MollySmith

Hello LO, nice to hear from you 

I love the pics of Spen on Facebook Sarah, he's so gorgeous.

Molly appears exhausted after her walk with OH today. She pottered with little Charlie the terrier and played with Billy, a choc lab. They're much older than she is and she seems to moderate her play. OH reported that a Volvo was leaping up and down with barking dogs in the car park and Molly gave a woof at it. He got her to sit and she did before walking on with no backward glance. Very pleased. 

I've been sick over night again, getting very very bored with it and would like to go out but the sunlight is hurting my eyes. It maybe garden play and tuggies with OH this afternoon who is being a star. Still working though but this morning doing some map illustrations for a holiday cottage place that are totally dog friendly so it's a nice job. I've dimmed the screen down though!


----------



## moonviolet

WOohoooo!!! remembered to open a duplicate tab!!!

Dogless shame about yoru trainers attitude and the awful little dog lady, Poor Rudi roo, hopefully they will have learned their lesson and won't let their  vicious little dog behave so poorly again.

Nicki and KFK dont' forget to have fun and get their life skills in place as a good foundation for anythign else you want to do. I would have loved to do agility with Tink ... she on the other hand had other ideas and prefers to tricks games and faffing about to music. Build your bond everything else will follow 

Sarah I'm so glad you had a fun walk today the pics are glorious Spendog has a huge spot in my heart I love that cheeky boy.!!!

Twiggy it's so sad when the mind is willing but the body is weak. One of Tinks very best friends is an elderly lurcher, he has good days and bad days. Yesterday he fell over, today he was dancing about like a youngster while his owner was saying calm down old boy. 

GR woohoo little Ninja she really is coming along leaps and bounds. if you get anywhere training OH please share your secret!! Mine has now proclaimed he is quite happy that his only role is cuddles :lol: I'm quite happy about that too 

Barcode glad you are making progress with Scrabble  as for young Matilda...it soudns like you are going the right way now but isnt' it hard not to be a banshee when you see your sweet doggie eating poo.

LO glad you have donkeyboy contained he's a proper Houdini hound. Thundershirt sounds a good idea if you are noticing a huge difference withour a coat.

MS Glad Molly and Oh are doing well. I'm sorry that you however aren't. Hope you are at least improving adn on the road to recovery.

We had a lovely walk today. great on pavement, only saw 5 dogs 3 were doggie friends Jasper Hetty and Steve. The others 2 were tiny jackxchi's on leads so we gave them space adn carried on our way. Tink was very happy in the sunshine and treated me to the rare sight of a full on, rollover, belly on display in the warm sand. This simply would not have happened without her mate monty standing guard in the past.


----------



## Dimwit

Thank you everyone who was nice to me yesterday. You'll be pleased to hear that after my self-pitying ramblings I have pulled myself together and had a very good day with dimwit

*MS* I really hope you start to feel better soon, but at least Molly is doing so well. I am doing the scentwork class on the 18th as well, so may see you there

*Maria* I hope Chevy is ok today, and you are as well.

*Nicki* It sounds like your pup is doing very well. Now that I have started doing proper retrieves with the dimwit he can very easily distinguish between retrieve article and toy

Well, today mini dimwit and I have been to the scent 2 workshop and had a brilliant time. He was very good and really enjoyed himself, and Pam even noticed that he was much less worried around the other dogs than last time which was nice.
He did whinge a bit while he was waiting but his searches were very good and he did his first ever blank search 
He is now curled up on the sofa and hasn't even asked for his dinner so I guess he is pretty tired :lol:

*MV* Funny you should mention mat work as I have just finished making this: 








so now I am going to do some work on trying to get him to relax on there (not a great photo as we had just got in) which will hopefully help him.

I have a day off tomorrow as well so we are going to go to the seaside


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Nope- opinions appreciated!! Most of what I do with her at the moment is play and we spend time running around the garden with lobster or sheep tug.
> 
> I just thought it might be useful as when I throw the toy she lays down with it where the toy stops (if you see what I mean)... I then have two options to continue the game- go and get the toy or recall her in and she comes without toy. She also likes being chased with the toy  I've only had gundogs before and they have it in their genes to retrieve the toy so haven't been to sure how to approach this ... thinking logically I thought it would be easier to train the hold separately in training.
> 
> I'm not concerned about the lack of holding and bringing back the toy- just thought it would make playing a bit easier lol. What do you reckon? Should I just play the game she wants to play (being chased with toy) for now? She likes tugging it as well so we do that too.


There's nothing wrong with doing a bit of hand touching, baby sits, etc. but as Moonviolet has already said 'build the bond'. You need to be the centre of each other's universe if you intend to compete with her.
I very often make myself the 'toy' - singing, dancing, jumping about and generally playing silly devils (not a pretty sight I must admit but the dogs love it).


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Hello LO, nice to hear from you
> 
> I love the pics of Spen on Facebook Sarah, he's so gorgeous.
> 
> Molly appears exhausted after her walk with OH today. She pottered with little Charlie the terrier and played with Billy, a choc lab. They're much older than she is and she seems to moderate her play. OH reported that a Volvo was leaping up and down with barking dogs in the car park and Molly gave a woof at it. He got her to sit and she did before walking on with no backward glance. Very pleased.
> 
> I've been sick over night again, getting very very bored with it and would like to go out but the sunlight is hurting my eyes. It maybe garden play and tuggies with OH this afternoon who is being a star. Still working though but this morning doing some map illustrations for a holiday cottage place that are totally dog friendly so it's a nice job. I've dimmed the screen down though!


Hope you soon start to feel better. Don't work too hard. You sound as if you should be tucked up in bed.


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## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> *MV* Funny you should mention mat work as I have just finished making this:


Oh my word how gorgeous is that mat and how lovely is Sprocket. please send both to me !!!!


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## Dimwit

moonviolet said:


> Oh my word how gorgeous is that mat and how lovely is Sprocket. please send both to me !!!!


Well it was my first attempt at quilting and so close-up it doesn't look quite so good. If you send me your address I'll pop the dimwit in the post (though I bet you would send him back pretty quickly) :lol:


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> Well it was my first attempt at quilting and so close-up it doesn't look quite so good. If you send me your address I'll pop the dimwit in the post (though I bet you would send him back pretty quickly) :lol:


I wouldn't bet on it


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## Nicki85

Just in from Rusty's second walk- it was sunny! He went right through the bog again though... part of me thinks a normal human would call him out but he looks like he is having so much fun so I leave him to it. He gets hosed off when we get home 

They have both had a major play session and are now snoozing, well Shae is chewing on an antler.

I have to share this pic from this afternoon- took me ages to get one of them both kind of looking at me!!










Thanks for the advice  I will take it on board. We do lots of silly time as well... as I work from home they get a lot of attention each and I am very silly with them all. Shae's favourite game is if I sing her a song sitting on the floor- she thinks it is soooo funny! Oh and making "baaaa" noises ... Rusty on the other hand gives me the "stupid human" look. I suspect I over talk the training I do on this thread as it's nice to talk to people who understand about training and get advice back on what I am doing. In reality it's a small part of our daily routine


----------



## Dogless

DW - that mat is gorgeous!! So is the little DW of course too .

Nicki - cute photo too. Rusty's looking *very * happy!

Just had an hour's offlead walk in the pouring rain. Boys behaved really well for me. I am in a BAD MOOD. It's only been 6 days since they removed all the dog poo bins and there is sh!t everywhere :mad5:. There was before, but now it's unreal. The BW managed a few good mouthfuls. Then, to top it all, a drain had overflown on one of the fields (has done before). My fault, I forgot it did when it rained and Rudi ate who knows what before I called him away - thought he was just sniffing something at first til I twigged. Let's just say toilet paper is one of the more pleasant items found there. Ugh :incazzato::incazzato:.

Boys smell of wet dog. And worse.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Well it was my first attempt at quilting and so close-up it doesn't look quite so good. If you send me your address I'll pop the dimwit in the post (though I bet you would send him back pretty quickly) :lol:


You'd make a very good mate for Dogless....!! She's also very good at self criticism and putting herself down....

You both need Grannie to kick you up the backside.


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## Twiggy

*Dogless -* Hope the boys don't suffer later. Ugh it sounds disgusting.

*Nicki -* That's one fabulous pic.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless -* Hope the boys don't suffer later. Ugh it sounds disgusting.
> 
> *Nicki -* That's one fabulous pic.


I live in a cesspit :mad5:. The boys are revolting creatures too :skep: .


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I live in a cesspit :mad5:. The boys are revolting creatures too :skep: .


Holly would love to join your boys, she's a revolting little sheepdog....


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Holly would love to join your boys, she's a revolting little sheepdog....


Funny that the boys have just spent ages cleaning themselves post walk, both are fastidiously clean and fussy...yet...ugh.


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## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> You'd make a very good mate for Dogless....!! She's also very good at self criticism and putting herself down....
> 
> You both need Grannie to kick you up the backside.


You tell them 

Thank you, yes I went to bed about 5.

And I'm so sorry everybody but wee Sprocket only needs to be walked to my house *evil laugh* Must go, hiding Molly in case Dimwit turns up.

Ooooh and YAAAAY see you on the 18th Dimwit, how exciting


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## MollySmith

*Dimwit* I won't see you! We're going on 19th, Sally got the date wrong on her email so we're 11.30 on Sunday


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## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> *Dimwit* I won't see you! We're going on 19th, Sally got the date wrong on her email so we're 11.30 on Sunday


I'm going on the Sunday as well


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## Kicksforkills

There were a LOT I dogs at Ringcraft tonight, we were informed it was because next week is a match night.

Dexter was perfect, everyone was amazed at the transformation from last week when he wouldn't walk a step. He walked, he stood, he socialised.

Edit; which show do you mean? I'm guessing it is a show. Sorry if I'm behind, I tend to be on WAYWO instead of everything else.


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## Dogless

Oooh, on the plus side Rudi has slept for two nights in his 'house' alongside Kilo's in the hall so freedom rather than crated. He has been really good, not bothered the BW and they have slept a little later . Good boy Rudi. Trial runs being left roaming in the day for 10 - 15 minutes whilst I go out OK too.


----------



## Maria_1986

Hello L/O *waves* Glad Zander is doing well 

Sarah - glad you had a good walk, the photo's on your other thread are great, Spen looks like such a happy chap

Dimwit - Your mat is beautiful -can I place an order for a mat in green please? 

MS - Hope you are feeling better today

Nicki - thats a lovely photo - I'm also not normal and didn't recall Chevy from the recently muck spread field as she looked so happy, I just couldn't bring myself to spoil her fun!

Dogless - just ewww!

Thank you all for your kind replies yesterday, I'm very sorry that it was not training related but I have had such good advice from the people here that my first instinct was to come in here to post. Chevy was a bit stiff on her bad hip yesterday but is fine today. I still feel very guilty about putting her in that situation but we have sunshine at the moment so I am planning on doing some outside training today in the garden then we can sit in the sun and she can doze and I can read a book and gossip with the neighbours and we can both relax a bit. Taking it easy on the walks still after the battering her hip got on Wednesday so we are doing little and often wanders around the block and working on LLW on grass as I've realised its ok on pavement but as soon as her feet hit grass she is off.


----------



## Nicki85

Just took Shae out for her first little walk- went round the forest for 10mins after taking Rusty out for his usual. She was very good, stuck close to my feet. So much so I almost fell over her quite a few times lol. every time I stopped she would go into a sit and whine at me... guess a combination of excitement and being a bit unsure. Put her on the lead to walk past another dog- no meeting and greeting as the other dog was on a lead and looked a bit excitable. 

Maria- sorry to hear Chevy was feeling a bit stiff- glad she is feeling better today. Hopefully some warm sum will do Chevy the world of good  

DL- glad to hear Rudi was a good boy out of the crate. It was always my intention to have Shae in a crate downstairs but she ended up on my bed instead....

KforK- glad Dexter was a good boy at ringcraft.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless - Ewwww! Dirty boys! Sounds like they had fun at the all you can eat poo buffet :arf:! One of the agility trainers dogs started tucking into a poo on Sunday then proceeded to give me a kiss when I bent down to pick up Izzy's lead! Yuck!!!

Maria - I hope Chevy is OK soon. Im sorry the meeting with your Dads dog didnt go as well as you'd hoped, fingers crossed things will improve in the future. We are so lucky that my parents dog is such a softy, when we introduced Izzy to her she just had a sniff and would let Izzy pup launch at her and get away with everything! Now they are best friends but it could have been a big issue if they hadnt got on.

MS and dimwit - exciting news about the scent workshop! 

Nicki- Your pictures are too cute! You are so naughty making me all puppy broody! 

School on Wednesday had gone OK, the class was much busier than normal which made Izzy a bit nervous which then impacted on her down-stay and sit-stay as she kept trying to creep towards me for reassurance. All in all not too bad though, she just needs to get used to the new class (all new people and dogs) and build up a bit more confidence again.

She was at creche yesterday so was really tired last night, I went up to the loo at one point and Ive never seen her move so quick, the baby gate didnt shut properly behind me and by the time Id closed the bathroom door she was sprawled on our bed making herself comfy ! 

Little wave to LO, L/C, FRM and werehorse! Not seen much of you all recently, hope you and doggles are all well!


----------



## Maria_1986

Picking up the clicker and treat bag now results in this face


----------



## Dogless

Maria - enjoy relaxing with Chevy today .

Good morning this morning - was sunny and warm . Clouded over now...t'is Norn Iron after all .

Separate training walks for the boys of an hour each as I'm off to the hairdresser soon and they get left about 3 hours for that.

Rudi didn't put a paw wrong, walked beautifully, had loads of fusses off people waiting at the bus stop, ignored a dog stood with a woman that I was chatting to when asked - just a fantastic LCH today . Some of the women asked me how I got him walking so nicely so I said toys, treats, praise etc. Got the old "Oh, bribery. I want my dog to do it because he respects me" . To me it's mutual respect - respect the dog and give him what he wants when he gives me what I want...but never mind! They also said there was a big RR that walked nicely so it must be a breed thing . Guess they meant Kilo.

Then took the BW, he was really skittery and nervy in the street - think he knows sun = little sh!ts more likely to be out so we played tug pretty much until off the estate, then just walked on the sports pitches and did some impulse control stuff. Flies were out so had a bit of a 'freeze' moment, love him . He was my best boy too this morning.

Gold stars for both CHs :001_wub:.


----------



## L/C

*Waves back at Izzy's Mum*

Hellooo - I'm still hanging around even if I'm a bit of a silent partner currently!

Now, Ely had a spat with a dog on our walk last night - I don't think it was a massive over reaction but I don't know if that's just because it was Ely and I'm used to him really freaking out.

We were pottering about and staff came barrelling over I didn't have time to put him back on lead so I got him to sit and focus on me. It was all fine and calm but staff would not recall. Owner 100m away calling uselessly.
Staff was getting increasingly excited but I was body blocking and Ely was still calm, until the staff nipped the back of my calf. Ely then ran the staff off, rolled it and pinned. He stopped when the dog yelped and backed off and came back to me.

Now this is amazing for Ely - he stopped, he didn't use his teeth and he was calm until the other dog escalated. But I don't know if I'm looking at it the right way and for another dog it's actually pretty bad. What do you all think?

(Some of you will already have had me moaning about this in PM - feel free to ignore me and thank you for your sensibleness!)


----------



## BessieDog

L/C said:


> *Waves back at Izzy's Mum*
> 
> Hellooo - I'm still hanging around even if I'm a bit of a silent partner currently!
> 
> Now, Ely had a spat with a dog on our walk last night - I don't think it was a massive over reaction but I don't know if that's just because it was Ely and I'm used to him really freaking out.
> 
> We were pottering about and staff came barrelling over I didn't have time to put him back on lead so I got him to sit and focus on me. It was all fine and calm but staff would not recall. Owner 100m away calling uselessly.
> Staff was getting increasingly excited but I was body blocking and Ely was still calm, until the staff nipped the back of my calf. Ely then ran the staff off, rolled it and pinned. He stopped when the dog yelped and backed off and came back to me.
> 
> Now this is amazing for Ely - he stopped, he didn't use his teeth and he was calm until the other dog escalated. But I don't know if I'm looking at it the right way and for another dog it's actually pretty bad. What do you all think?
> 
> (Some of you will already have had me moaning about this in PM - feel free to ignore me and thank you for your sensibleness!)


If the other dog nipped you, then surely Ely was protecting you, and in the circumstances I think he was exceptionally well behaved! He didn't cause damage, but prevented the other dog hurting you. Did you complain to the other owner that you'd been nipped?

I don't know Ely's background, but can only think he was a good boy.


----------



## L/C

BessieDog said:


> If the other dog nipped you, then surely Ely was protecting you, and in the circumstances I think he was exceptionally well behaved! He didn't cause damage, but prevented the other dog hurting you. Did you complain to the other owner that you'd been nipped?
> 
> I don't know Ely's background, but can only think he was a good boy.


The other owner never came any closer to me and was also half behind a bush. I don't think she had any idea what was going on!

He is/was a very under socialised and nervous dog. He's come a long way since we first adopted him (couldn't leave the house, would wet himself at sudden noises, was terrified of all other dogs) but he started resource guarding me and Gypsy about 8/9 months ago after a few traumatic interactions (being knocked down and chased by an aggressive GSD and being flattened by an over exuberant rottie) - this combined with his impulse control issues and his inability to communicate with other dogs well meant that he would over react to the smallest perceived threat. He was quick to use his teeth but seemed to have relatively good bite inhibition (didn't break the skin) but was not able to stop when the other dog made it clear they were frightened.

We've worked with a behaviourist and combing impulse control with TTouch and calm interactions with steady dogs has really helped him. The one thing I do have to be very aware of is that we identified that he has brain damage (most likely from a blow to the head). Because of the improvement it doesn't necessarily mean that it contributes to his behaviour but it does make him more unpredictable.

So TL: DR version - he's come a long way in just under 3 years.


----------



## Izzysmummy

L/C - Given Ely's background I think he did extremely well in that situation. He didnt step in until you were nipped by the other dog and even then he used reasonable force to control the situation then backed off when the other dog yelped. 

I think this only goes to show how far he has come and how well your training has paid off.

It sounds like the other dog has enough confidence to not be overly affected by the incident, its just a shame you didnt get to speak to the owner, maybe she would take more care in future if she knew her dog nips strangers!


----------



## foxyrockmeister

Izzysmummy said:


> Little wave to LO, L/C, FRM and werehorse! Not seen much of you all recently, hope you and doggles are all well!


Aww hello! Thank you for missing us!

To be honest I've not been very active on PF at all lately, I have to admit I'm getting a bit bored of all the narkiness on here (not on the WAYWO thread of course  )

But, I will try to make more of an effort on here  I have been reading just not posting much 

All is well here, Branston is coming on leaps and bounds, he's doing so well with his lead training, he's still hyper alert and vigilant all the time, but I don't think he's ever going to be one of these dogs who just mooches along peacefully!

Anyway, I'm at work at the mo so better get back to it but hope you're all keeping well


----------



## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> L/C - Given Ely's background I think he did extremely well in that situation. He didnt step in until you were nipped by the other dog and even then he used reasonable force to control the situation then backed off when the other dog yelped.
> 
> I think this only goes to show how far he has come and how well your training has paid off.
> 
> It sounds like the other dog has enough confidence to not be overly affected by the incident, its just a shame you didnt get to speak to the owner, maybe she would take more care in future if she knew her dog nips strangers!


Totally agree. I also think Ely did really well and it's a pity you didn't have the opportunity to speak to the owner.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless you dogs are revolting as are your neighbours  but well done Rudi, crates have their uses I definitely agree with them now but its so much easier and nicer if you can leave them free roaming I think.

Nikki - lovely picture, well done on getting both, one is hard enough to get to pose.

Dimwit, I love your mat as well as the shiney black thing lying on it  always wanted a go at quilting but just know I would get bored halfway through, if that, however that might just be do-able.

KFK - good boy Dexter, see he just needed to settle with you!

L/C - I think setting Ely's history aside, any dog would have done well to behave as restrained as he did in that situation, I guess you only have to hope he sees it as a one off and not 'whats going to happen now' I agree its a shame the owner didn't have the guts to come and see you so you could explain, it might be a child it nips next time .

Izzysmummy - I am sure she will settle quickly in the new class, but well done on spotting her opportunity, we nearly had a visitor as well for similar reasons. I got up a 4.30 for the loo but she wasnt quite quick enough, 2 hrs later she was still there, and seemed rather tired, I just hope she hadnt been sitting there wagging ever since.

Maria - I thought we all told you not to feel bad, these things happen, things you cannot predict. Glad she is not too stiff though and hope the sun stayed out for you.

Hope you have all been mentioned, well done good luck and all that if you haven't, I typed all that out once and then deleted it 

So I have been rather busy recently so not really been working on much at all. TBH its been all I can manage to just try and enjoy some peaceful walks with the little lady. She had to wait till lunch time today, hubby has been off exploring over the last weeks so we took some new to us footpaths 'a la FRM' very nice through a lovely wood, past asparagus fields, behind an odd 1970's council estate in the middle of nowhere (never get away with building it there now) up a very quiet lane across a fiedl and back to the car via another nice quiet lane, only car we saw was as we got back to ours, hubby pointed out the dog in the back and that they were parking opposite us 

Cue me running, hubby desperately trying to click the car unlocked, I get to the boot, I fumble opening it, the other dog barks, ninja barks, we both throw the boot open, I lift a snarling bundle of ginger fur and shove her into her travel crate with a handful of treats, we both zip it shut and slam the boot down, turning to the grinning lady in the car to give her the thumbs up. 'both as bad as each other ' she says laughing as they get out, both dogs silent now they cant see each other. :w00t::crazy::scared:

You would think butter wouldn't melt.................

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/bedSmall_zps04990204.jpg.html]


----------



## Maria_1986

GingerRogers said:


> Maria - I thought we all told you not to feel bad, these things happen, things you cannot predict. Glad she is not too stiff though and hope the sun stayed out for you.


You did, but I still feel a little guilty about it :blushing:. I tend to worry and over think things, although I do try hard not to and am working on training myself to be more rational and not so hard on myself. Chevy seems to have no lasting ill effects but I have arranged a few walks with friends with dogs to make sure that she gets lots of calm interactions to avoid her getting nervous around other dogs now - not that she seems to be when we have seen other dogs out today but I just want to be sure.

I'm very sorry but I did have to giggle at the picture in my mind of your rush to get Ginge back in the car


----------



## GingerRogers

Maria_1986 said:


> You did, but I still feel a little guilty about it :blushing:. I tend to worry and over think things, although I do try hard not to and am working on training myself to be more rational and not so hard on myself. Chevy seems to have no lasting ill effects but I have arranged a few walks with friends with dogs to make sure that she gets lots of calm interactions to avoid her getting nervous around other dogs now - not that she seems to be when we have seen other dogs out today but I just want to be sure.
> 
> *I'm very sorry but I did have to giggle at the picture in my mind of your rush to get Ginge back in the car *


Ha ha don't worry so did we, which shows just how far I have come


----------



## Dimwit

*Maria* I think I need a bit more practise before I start making them for other people 

*L/C* As others have said, I think you both did pretty well in the circumstances

*Dogless* Both your dogs are doing so well - I think you all deserve gold stars

After the scentworking excitement yesterday we have had another fun day. My sister and I took the dimwit to the seaside, a bit of a trek but very worth it. He had a great time and behaved brilliantly all day - didn't react to any of the other dogs we saw and was even reasonably civilised when we stopped at a cafe on the way back (apart from trying to mug me for my ice cream). I put some photos on a separate thread so I didn't bore you all


----------



## Twiggy

I've just had an 'incident' with sweet little Holly Bolly....!!

I was peacefully having a cup of tea with husband and looking through the post, including a sample of a new food I'm thinking of trying. The girls were very interested and all sat round me as I undid the outer packaging, which fell on the floor. Leafy and Holly went to sniff it at the same time and Holly flew at Leafy.....
What a good job she was well within arm's reach and I was able to have a little word in her ear.
That's the first time she's ever shown any signs of that sort of behaviour and it will be the last.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear 

I am sure she wont mess with Grannie though


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just had an 'incident' with sweet little Holly Bolly....!!
> 
> I was peacefully having a cup of tea with husband and looking through the post, including a sample of a new food I'm thinking of trying. The girls were very interested and all sat round me as I undid the outer packaging, which fell on the floor. Leafy and Holly went to sniff it at the same time and Holly flew at Leafy.....
> What a good job she was well within arm's reach and I was able to have a little word in her ear.
> That's the first time she's ever shown any signs of that sort of behaviour and it will be the last.


Sounds like our 'lamb bones' incident Grannie - sure Holly's suitably aware of her manners again now hmy:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Sounds like our 'lamb bones' incident Grannie - sure Holly's suitably aware of her manners again now hmy:.


Yes she certainly is...LOL

They might think they're quick and clever sheepdogs but I was much faster and smarter on this occasion....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes she certainly is...LOL
> 
> They might think they're quick and clever sheepdogs but I was much faster and smarter on this occasion....


Can't outwit Grannie .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Can't outwit Grannie .


I thought Holly might go right into one; she looked a bit shocked but recovered her demeanour pretty quickly and everyone (including me) is best friends again.


----------



## GingerRogers

I cant believe how well my little ninja is doing,  she still kicks off royally when I am least prepared but its more to a level of normal territorial/terrier barking.

This morning I need to do some work so but the weather was so nice I, really stupidly, decided to take her round the block. Stupid as its Saturday and sunny, cue all the airing cupboard dogs, potentially.

Any way she was being really good, had a little high pitch woof at a man carrying a hoover to a car but he laughed (it was a bit squeaky and pathetic ) then one of the local cairns came round the corner, its lady owner looking rather determined and fast. We did an quick about turn and marched back the way we had come, ninja turned twice to look at it with not a peep, not a start, not a growl, not nothing, we detoured down a side road so they could pass and watched from a distance, ditto. So, so pleased, at the very least I would have expected a gruff or growl or at least one little yip even out of excitement especially as the little westiepoo was, as per normal, barking its head off in its back garden nearby which had had her up on her toes, when the cairn appeared I was actually in the process of trying to calm her down. :001_tt1: my doggie


----------



## Dogless

The Ninja and you are doing amazingly well GR .

Good walk this morning bar a muzzle fail because of Rudi trying to hang off it mostly :cursing:. Back to longline trailing for Kilo. Nice few hours out, boys behaved well apart from the muzzle thing. Longline trailed through dogsh!t as it would considering I live in an open sewer pretty much  and a harness strap came dislodged, dangled down and Kilo managed to pee all over it. And breathe .


----------



## Symone

GR : ninja sounds like she's doing really well  I'm happy for you. 

Dogless : Sounds like one of those mornings  Fingers crossed that your later walks will go better  


Well, I made a little mistake. I accidentally clicked "Unsubscribe".. I thought that the tread somehow died until just now, lol.  Easy mistake.. I need to go do some catching up!

Shamaya has been a little angel (At most times) the past few days.. I feel happy. 
We've started having morning and right before bed games of fetch behind our flat.. Before I was quickly taking her there before walks but I think she likes this more. Before at those times it was normally just a pavement walk for wees and poos. 
It is only short, like 10 min each session, but she's pooped out each time!

I'm also proud of her. She seems to be finally learning "paw". Until now she has had no idea what to do. (I hold her paw and then say paw and treat) however yesterday she held it up! I was very happy and proud.  

LLW is going really well apart from when she can see the park. (I've mostly stopped going to the beach to get her used to it since we can't go there as of may) I find it funny, yesterday it was slightly gray outside and I didn't spot another dog walker.. Roll back to when it was sunny like mad (It's sunny again today, though.. lol.) there were tons of people with their dogs. I just hope that the dogs still get walks on days that aren't as nice.

Hope everyone's day will be good.


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## Dogless

Grannie - do you know a lot about muzzle fitting?


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Grannie - do you know a lot about muzzle fitting?


No absolutely nothing I'm afraid. What's the problem?


----------



## reddd123

I've taught Alfie to bow, it was pretty easy once he got up from sleeping and went in to the bow position , when he was stretching, I just used the clicker. He's got it now. I'm going to make him 'stretch' aswell.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> No absolutely nothing I'm afraid. What's the problem?


I was just wondering how much gap should be at the bottom of the Ultra Muzzle that's all. I was convinced Kilo's fitted, then wasn't, then was........There's a gap sufficient for fingers to go into which I thought might be too much, but then he needs to pant and yawn and it does fit like this http://www.petvetcare.co.uk/acatalog/baskervilleultra.pdf Think it's just a bulky looking muzzle. Got a friendly - looking greyhoundy type one but not sufficient room in it I don't think. I was sort of looking for a friendlier - looking one but then wondered why as I don't want him playing with dogs etc without talking to the owner first as always and he doesn't like being fussed by people really so that bit doesn't matter.....I'm just a bit hung up on the fact that he's never (touch wood!!!) been in a fight or even instigated handbags (has responded though) yet looks very 'dog unsafe' somehow. If that makes any sense at all?!! I'm just going to say he's a scavenger I think.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I was just wondering how much gap should be at the bottom of the Ultra Muzzle that's all. I was convinced Kilo's fitted, then wasn't, then was........There's a gap sufficient for fingers to go into which I thought might be too much, but then he needs to pant and yawn and it does fit like this http://www.petvetcare.co.uk/acatalog/baskervilleultra.pdf Think it's just a bulky looking muzzle. Got a friendly - looking greyhoundy type one but not sufficient room in it I don't think. I was sort of looking for a friendlier - looking one but then wondered why as I don't want him playing with dogs etc without talking to the owner first as always and he doesn't like being fussed by people really so that bit doesn't matter.....I'm just a bit hung up on the fact that he's never (touch wood!!!) been in a fight or even instigated handbags (has responded though) yet looks very 'dog unsafe' somehow. If that makes any sense at all?!! I'm just going to say he's a scavenger I think.


The Ultra muzzle sounds OK if you feel you need to use it.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> The Ultra muzzle sounds OK if you feel you need to use it.


Just until I get my confidence back Twiggy from the other week I think. Please PM or whatever if you feel I'm wrong. Don't want to make even more of a hash than usual!


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## Beth17

Symone Shamaya sounds like she's doing really well!

Dogless longline through poo doesn't sound nice. Glad the boys were good for you 

GR The ninja is doing fantastically :thumbup:

Lovely separate walks with my two today. The weather is lovely and popped Sam down to the vets for a weigh and to pick up Oscars' meds and then up to the field for a run. Had lots of space to run and practice recall. He then went on lead as it got a bit busier and we strolled down through the woods. No pulling and greeting other dogs nice and calmly. I think my little man is starting to grow up :crying:

Then walked Oscar down into the woods and had the place mainly to ourselves. He was good and just stood and ignored a group of little dogs that ran across a bridge to bark in his face. We also met an 11 week old collie pup who was splashing in the stream. She jumped up and came straight over to say hello and he was incredibly gentle and also instigated a little play session. So proud of him for giving the pup a nice encounter


----------



## reddd123




----------



## Symone

Beth : I'm glad that you had a lovely walk with each of your boys! How much does Sam weigh now?
And yay for Oscar and the play session!
Your boys sound so lovely 

Well, I just had the most AMAZING walk!  
I was looking around on google maps and noticed that there's a park like 15 mins away walking down the other side of the pier so I decided to take Shamaya there.
After the first road crossing there was a really wide straight path there so I packed the flexi, some water, balls and off we went! (Also took her normal lead for I don't trust the flexi by a road)
Shamaya was having a lovely sniff on the path, recalled every time while on the flexi.. A perfect little angel 
We got to the park and it is HUGE! I took tons of pics and will be posting a piccy thread soon.. 
We met lots of dogs.. 3 collies, two wolf dogs, an aussie shepherd, two of the loveliest Chow chows, a parsons russel, a japenese spitz (I thought it was a Chi lol ) and many more.
The Chow chow ladies said that shamaya was scarily well behaved for a pup that isn't even 7 months old yet, and I was nearly bursting with pride. Then Shamaya decided to run up and steal their water, lol.  
It really was lovely and I am making it into a daily walk. It was so nice and Shamaya loved it so much.

Feel so happy right now!

Only bad thing is Shamaya is a rubbish poser so I didn't really get any nice scenery pics with her in, lol 

Here's one of the pics in one of the fields at the park. Staring Shamaya and the OH 










She is now pooped out, and I just have a stupid grin on my face.. Lol 
Time to upload the pics I think!


----------



## Beth17

Symone Sam is 32.5kg now with a little bit of filling out to do over the next year. He shouldn't get much heavier though


----------



## Dogless

Good lead walk with them both tonight. Nothing to report. Sometimes that's best .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Good lead walk with them both tonight. Nothing to report. Sometimes that's best .


Good is always better than bad...

I don't know what was wrong with Holly Bolly this afternoon. It almost felt as if I had an 'obedience' dog next to me doing heelwork....LOL

She picked the dumbell up by the end but other than that she was very jolly.


----------



## Twiggy

Leafy had diarrheoa again this morning. I'm hoping it's a blip and not the new food which she's only been on for two weeks. I shall soon have more bags of very expensive food than your average pet shop. She can't help it bless her but she's certainly a nightmare.


----------



## moonviolet

TInk had an extended front garden session this morning, was very good watching teh world go by . Did bark at the guys delivery my zooplus order. but stayed on her mat when the postie came and didn't even stop chewing when a leaflet dropper came. My good girl. 

Did a little training and grooming session int he afternoon. good grief she's shedding at the moment. So glad i remembered to go out in the garden this time 

This evening we had a lovely walk with a couple of blips. me falling over (twice) having to avoid a whole territorial army jamboree and then the tag along dog was out and about with it's part time sidekick bolshy and rude terrier mate. Avoidance was successful but not before Tink got a little tense but she shook it off nicely and met a lovely terrier called Paddy which meant we finished the walk on a good note.


----------



## Dogless

Humph mv where's MY Zooplus order, hope you asked!! :huh:. Sounds like you had an eventful day - but pleased all OK in the end!

Twiggy - oh no . Hope Leafy's diarrhoea isn't food related.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy : Hopefully it isn't food related.  I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.


----------



## Dogless

Hope Leafy's been OK overnight Twiggy.


----------



## Maria_1986

Symone - thats a lovely photo, the park sounds like a good find.

Twiggy - I hope Leafy is better today

MV - hope you didn't do yourself any damage when you fell

Good day yesterday, took OH to the field I found last week to work on recalls, he is harder to train than the dog, not quite too sure which part of hold her collar when she comes back is so hard to understand  I think its because she now comes, sits and waits for me to tell her she can go and he was expecting her to do the same for him without him putting the work in to get there. Anyway thats my moaning over!

Great day otherwise, took Chevy and one of my cinnamon trust dogs for a walk together they were both good, although Chevy stank by the end of it after rolling in everything nasty she could find and disappeared through a whole in a fence at one point then couldn't work out how to get back.

Still working on LLW on grass and building up the distractions for other things, have decided that I need to perfect our current working on list before adding anything new for a while as we have enough to work on now to be able to do lots of little different sessions each day


----------



## LinznMilly

Twiggy: Sorry to hear Leafy's been ill. Hope she's been OK overnight. Hope it's not the new food.

Symone: Yay for Shamaya, behaving so well in the new park. I've just taught Milly to give her paw. I did it by first holding a treat in my hand and C&T for her putting her paw on my closed hand, then for actually putting her paw in my hand. Now, when she gets excited, she'll give her paw for anything because it's her new trick  :crazy:. Holding her paw and saying Paw never worked for me  She just looked at me as if thinking I'm ----> ut:

Dogless: Glad last night's walk was uneventful with nothing to report after the long line incident 

Moonviolet: Glad to hear that Tink stayed on her mat in the garden, and shook off the tense moment on her walk.

Hope I haven't left anyone out, but apologies if I have 

We also went on a Google Maps walk yesterday - I've done a picture thread about it but ended up duplicating it, so unless a Mod has removed the duplicate, please forgive me if you read it and get a feeling of deja vu 

Both dogs were well behaved all day yesterday :thumbup: First that little hour's walk along the riverside, then yesterday afternoon I took them on the field, where I normally take them. Despite the weather, we didn't see any dogs on the field, but 2 men out with a baby passed us as I sat on a bench with my 2 on their leads. Baby was crying, Milly looked over at him, but then straight back to me. 

Then, last night, on their toilet break walk, there was a dog out in its garden, barking as we went past. Max completely ignored it - there and back. So proud of my boy for that. He did gruff a bit in anticipation for going out, but not too loudly, and not for long, and that was before we stepped foot out of our front door.

So, all in all, we had a good day. :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> TInk had an extended front garden session this morning, was very good watching teh world go by . Did bark at the guys delivery my zooplus order. but stayed on her mat when the postie came and didn't even stop chewing when a leaflet dropper came. My good girl.
> 
> Did a little training and grooming session int he afternoon. good grief she's shedding at the moment. So glad i remembered to go out in the garden this time
> 
> *This evening we had a lovely walk with a couple of blips. me falling over (twice)* having to avoid a whole territorial army jamboree and then the tag along dog was out and about with it's part time sidekick bolshy and rude terrier mate. Avoidance was successful but not before Tink got a little tense but she shook it off nicely and met a lovely terrier called Paddy which meant we finished the walk on a good note.


I keep telling you to take more water with it...

Did the British Army help you back onto your feet?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hope Leafy's been OK overnight Twiggy.


Fingers crossed - Leafy was OK overnight.

The next few days will tell whether it's the new food or not.

I'm going to a Dog Law seminar this afternoon. It should be interesting and useful hopefully.

There's a 'self control' workshop in October fairly locally that also looks interesting.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Symone - thats a lovely photo, the park sounds like a good find.
> 
> Twiggy - I hope Leafy is better today
> 
> MV - hope you didn't do yourself any damage when you fell
> 
> Good day yesterday, took OH to the field I found last week to work on recalls, he is harder to train than the dog, not quite too sure which part of hold her collar when she comes back is so hard to understand  I think its because she now comes, sits and waits for me to tell her she can go and he was expecting her to do the same for him without him putting the work in to get there. Anyway thats my moaning over!
> 
> Great day otherwise, took Chevy and one of my cinnamon trust dogs for a walk together they were both good, although Chevy stank by the end of it after rolling in everything nasty she could find and disappeared through a whole in a fence at one point then couldn't work out how to get back.
> 
> Still working on LLW on grass and building up the distractions for other things, have decided that I need to perfect our current working on list before adding anything new for a while as we have enough to work on now to be able to do lots of little different sessions each day


I have absolutely no tips on training husbands. Well apart from a great big hammer to knock it in..!!


----------



## MollySmith

hello, sorry I'm still on the mend, still being sick, headaches and coughing all night, I'm off to the doctors tomorrow. I will catch up when it better but the screen is hurting my eyes.

I took Molly out yesterday as I thought I'd be okay and felt grim when I got back, I just wanted to give OH a break as he's walked her everyday for two weeks. Got all the weekend walkers including a group of four rather large ladies in the field smoking, dropping *** ends on the grass and allowing their dogs to bully the others. One lady was really rude, although they all had an attitude, Molly went into the field and wanted to have a run around and I was asked if I could control my dog. I called Molly over and she came back straight away and sat down (I don't think she liked these dogs either). Her dogs were still hurtling around so I asked I'd she like to have a go. I was sworn at . Lots of other dogs arrived at this point and she got cross, her friends seemed to be completed at her mercey, very odd, then she started to complain that there were too many dogs to which I replied 'and only one bitch' and walked off with Molly. I was cross but then thought how nice it was to walk with a lovely dog like Molly and be a responsible owner.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> hello, sorry I'm still on the mend, still being sick, headaches and coughing all night, I'm off to the doctors tomorrow. I will catch up when it better but the screen is hurting my eyes.
> 
> I took Molly out yesterday as I thought I'd be okay and felt grim when I got back, I just wanted to give OH a break as he's walked her everyday for two weeks. Got all the weekend walkers including a group of four rather large ladies in the field smoking, dropping *** ends on the grass and allowing their dogs to bully the others. One lady was really rude, although they all had an attitude, Molly went into the field and wanted to have a run around and I was asked if I could control my dog. I called Molly over and she came back straight away and sat down (I don't think she liked these dogs either). Her dogs were still hurtling around so I asked I'd she like to have a go. I was sworn at . Lots of other dogs arrived at this point and she got cross, her friends seemed to be completed at her mercey, very odd, then she started to complain that there were too many dogs to which I replied 'and only one bitch' and walked off with Molly. I was cross but then thought how nice it was to walk with a lovely dog like Molly and be a responsible owner.


Really sorry you're still far from well.

Those women sounded awful - poor you.


----------



## GingerRogers

Morning, Symone and Linz, took ages for OH to teach paw, well it didn't work, she just stared at him, then we finally got it when I just held a treat in my hand but it was rather violent to begin with and a bit kitten like.

We are being quiet to day, had a a bit of bile thrown up over night, on the new carpet  and then again on our bed this morning, well I managed to catch it in a towel and she tried to bury it bless her. Think it was some twigs she was chewing in the garden yesterday, stupid dog. We had a panic on Friday as hubby thought she had dislodged a tooth  could have been one of 'my bones' she was sneering on her left side, something was up, he was convinced he could hear a tooth scraping on tooth, anyway I think that was a bit of trapped jowl or something then yesterday he says her breath stinks and when she yawned it looked like her back tooth was black  anyway that was just something stuck as its gone now and her teeth are back to pearly white. Dogs!! Husbands!!

Glad leafy seems ok, touch wood.

Sorry you are still poorly MS any hope on the horizon, & stupid, awful women.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - hope the seminar is good and pleased to hear that Leafy was OK last night.

MS - hope the doc can help tomorrow.

GR - bile on the new carpet . Typical!

LiznMilly - pleased you had a good day yesterday .

Good morning at Concrete Central today. Separate walks. Kilo's was cheese 'n muzzle themed - first time he's had a walk in it. About 40 minutes of the hour was muzzled and he was fine. We did lots of work on the basics to keep him occupied and keep the cheese flowing and he was great. Only tried to get it off once - when he wanted to scavenge a yoghurt pot lid .

Rudi's walk was lots of work on the basics too and he was a good boy. He had a little bit of offlead too - would have had more on the sports pitches but there were two men there with some very, very expensive looking radio controlled cars. Thought it was a risk to allow Megapuppy offlead near to them :yikes:.


----------



## GingerRogers

There you go Kilo was just proving your point he is a manky scavenger and muzzled for his own safety


----------



## Symone

MS : I hope that you will be feeling better, soon.

GR : I tried the whole holding it in my hand thing, but she just rubs her nose all over my hand. Even if I hold it really low it's what she does, lol. 
Shame about the new carpet.  Is she feeling better? 

Linzn : your walk looks really lovely!  I bet that your lot had a great time  

Twiggy : Still keeping my fingers crossed that it's not the food. 

Dogless : Yay for a good morning! 
I'm happy that Kilo had a good walk with the muzzle on.  
I bet that Rudi would have had a blast with those cars, lol  I remember my mums cat, she loved anything like so. My brother use to have scelectrics when we were little and he use to play with it just to annoy her.. lol 


Nothing to report here. It's quite hot today and little miss Lazy has decided to sleep in bed all morning. We'll be taking her to the new park when she's awake.  I'm half tempted to go wake her up so we can go! I loved it there, lol.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> MS : I hope that you will be feeling better, soon.
> 
> GR : I tried the whole holding it in my hand thing, but she just rubs her nose all over my hand. Even if I hold it really low it's what she does, lol.
> Shame about the new carpet.  Is she feeling better?
> 
> Linzn : your walk looks really lovely!  I bet that your lot had a great time
> 
> Twiggy : Still keeping my fingers crossed that it's not the food.
> 
> Dogless : Yay for a good morning!
> I'm happy that Kilo had a good walk with the muzzle on.
> I bet that Rudi would have had a blast with those cars, lol  I remember my mums cat, she loved anything like so. My brother use to have scelectrics when we were little and he use to play with it just to annoy her.. lol
> 
> Nothing to report here. It's quite hot today and little miss Lazy has decided to sleep in bed all morning. We'll be taking her to the new park when she's awake.  I'm half tempted to go wake her up so we can go! I loved it there, lol.


I could just imagine the full weight of Megapuppy barrelling towards them at top speed and crashing into them - he isn't gentle .


----------



## Sarah1983

MS, sorry you're not feeling too good 

Dogless, glad Kilo was fine with his muzzle on. Once it starts to signify off leash/fun/walks or whatever you'll most likely find he's even less bothered. Rupert literally used to dance whenever I picked his up.

Maria, dog training is much, MUCH easier than OH training.

We had our sled dog meet today. Wish I'd taken my camera as the field we use had the circus on there so we went on a walk instead. Spencer and his girlfriend Willow found a ditch with water in to play in so both spent the rest of the walk dirty and stinking. The GSDs ball rolled to the opposite side of an electric fence, he touched the fence trying to get it and yelled about it for the next 5 minutes. Then did it again. I had no idea the fence was electric as Spen has sniffed along there god knows how many times and never appeared to have been shocked. Nor did he get shocked in his attempt to get the ball today  Obviously once I realised I called him away! Ball was eventually retrieved with the use of a ball thrower.

We saw 4 deer. I'd got Spen on leash as soon as I spotted them but he wasn't really interested. Just looked at them for a minute then wanted to go off sniffing again. Just as we were finishing the off leash part of the walk a horse came up the path behind us. Spen ignored it, just sat there. He was supposedly brought up with horses but after the other lies his previous owners told I've never been sure whether he really was. And just as we were nearly home an off leash Lab came up to him. He greeted fairly politely considering he was on leash. Still very enthusiastic but didn't actually jump all over the dog. Other dogs owner asked how old Spen was and said he still looks like a puppy. And here's me thinking he's looking more mature now lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

Just got back from a lovely walk on our 'happy' field the sun was shining and the birds were singing and I was brave enough to let the long line trail  with only minor panics. We did a proper training walk in a beautiful spot some down and sit stays as well as recall. 

My odd dog LOVES stays for some reason, we do use them when we feed her, she has to stay by the back door if I am hiding her food in the house or garden so maybe its association but she always has, she sits there very focused wagging her tail then when you call her she belts up to you, if she is on her mat it flies across the floor, she gets up with such force. Who would have thought it was so much fun 

Then we came back through the woods and a horse was on the road, she just looked and tried to go in the other direction, even though it was wearing a big yellow sheet and was being ridden. All the things I thought she didn't like.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Just got back from a lovely walk on our 'happy' field the sun was shining and the birds were singing and I was brave enough to let the long line trail  with only minor panics. We did a proper training walk in a beautiful spot some down and sit stays as well as recall.
> 
> My odd dog LOVES stays for some reason, we do use them when we feed her, she has to stay by the back door if I am hiding her food in the house or garden so maybe its association but she always has, she sits there very focused wagging her tail then when you call her she belts up to you, if she is on her mat it flies across the floor, she gets up with such force. Who would have thought it was so much fun
> 
> Then we came back through the woods and a horse was on the road, she just looked and tried to go in the other direction, even though it was wearing a big yellow sheet and was being ridden. All the things I thought she didn't like.


The Ninja is brilliant . Does she want to teach Rudi that stay isn't some torture designed to stop you from engaging in anything but...staying? .


----------



## GingerRogers

I dont know how long she would do it for, I haven't tested her past a minute or so as I get pretty bored too!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I dont know how long she would do it for, I haven't tested her past a minute or so as I get pretty bored too!


Kilo's good at them as he does just want to please...Rudi starts to whine and fidget as soon as you ask him to stay!


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

I've been working on stay over the past week, trying to get Barney ready for the Good Citizen Awards so I made a video of him with a few distractions

Stay with Distractions - YouTube


----------



## Sarah1983

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> I've been working on stay over the past week, trying to get Barney ready for the Good Citizen Awards so I made a video of him with a few distractions
> 
> Stay with Distractions - YouTube


I don't mean to offend or upset you but perhaps he'd be more comfortable with the toys being thrown over or past him? He does absolutely brilliant to stay but he looks a little uncomfortable at having them land on him.

He's doing really well with his training overall though. Have you found a class you like now?


----------



## Dogless

Great walk with Dizzy and human tonight - the boys got an hour and a half of running about like loons so are sparked out now.

Just as we got near to our houses (D lives behind us!) down an alley we heard lots of running and squealing and panting dogs. Saw two little girls being towed rapidly along by dogs very keen to meet our dogs. They couldn't slow down when told and thought it was funny. Said to D's human that I was offski and sped up and JUST made it out and towards our house before they got to us. Unfortunately they were towed over to Dizzy who had a good bark at them.

What a recipe for disaster that was - running up to three dogs, confined in an alley, with lots of noise and excitement. I'll see if Dizzy is OK in a bit, he gets very nervous so may take him a few days to recover.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - hope the seminar is good and pleased to hear that Leafy was OK last night.
> 
> Sadly Leafy isn't OK now...
> 
> I was just about to go to the seminar and noticed her 'skirts' were covered in the unmentionable so had to wash her off. When I got home she'd obviously been again and it had dried onto the skirts and she smelt awful - husband was watching the Grand Prix oblivious...!!
> 
> I've had to wash her off twice more this evening and the poor little dog isn't feeling 100% and it distresses her.
> 
> I'm about to order a bag of Purina HA veterinary. Its an awful food and very expensive but at least if I have to take her to the vets he can't throw that one at me, as he sells it and is always pushing it.
> 
> I fear it's going to be another long night.
> 
> The seminar was very interesting and he was an entertaining speaker.


----------



## Nicki85

Good weekend here 

Agility yesterday was great- Rusty was on top form and even barked at me when I kept getting it wrong which is a first!! We were doing a snake and I just couldn't handle it correctly... I need to practice.... Rusty of course was fab  

Today they had separate am walks (which makes sense as Shae only gets 5-10mins and Rusty needs an 1hr!)- all very good. Shae got to meet a couple of dogs and people and was nice and confident. 
This afternoon took them both to the park with my Mum, brother and nephew which was interesting  Rusty had some fun with his Safestix and then got distracted by two people playing cricket... he almost stole their ball!! (twice...) anyhow, he recalled away at the last moment so no harm done but not ideal. I wouldn't mind but he doesn't even really like to play with balls... And then he saw his Bernese Mountain Dog friend and got distracted on a retrieve (well, fetching his safestix...) and shot off to play with her. But again recalled away. Work to be done me thinks! I haven't done much park work in a while and it showed today. 

With Shae I did a few recalls and a little training and was all very good  She got to see all the kids at the park and was very good with the ones that said hi. 

I def. need to keep walks separate for now- Shae is very dependant on Rusty and although will recall back from him she is very attached to following and trying to play with him. Rusty on the other hand couldn't be bothered with playing on a walk... I need her more dependant on me before taking them out together. I have been playing and training them both separately but walks also need to be done individually. 

Other thing... When leaving the house with both of them Shae barked at an old lady coming the other way. Proper "scary person approaching" barks. This set Rusty off who started quietly woofing. Rusty isn't fond of strangers but ignores them- no barking usually. I had a chat to the lady while mum walked on with Rusty and Shae said hello and was all happy waggy tail puppy. I obviously need to get her out on the streets meeting people... she is very friendly once they say hi, it's just the initial approach. Hm, more food for thought! I'm not fussed if she doesn't want to meet and greet everyone but def. do not need barking at strangers in the street.

Edited to add that sorry to hear Leafy isn't well Twiggy


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Twiggy, I am so, so sorry that Leafy's bad again. How awful . As for hubby - I'm not surprised he was oblivious...they usually are aren't they? To most things .


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh no Twiggy  Hope you can get something sorted for poor Leafy.

Who was your seminar with? I must have missed it if you've said already.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh no Twiggy, I am so, so sorry that Leafy's bad again. How awful . As for hubby - I'm not surprised he was oblivious...they usually are aren't they? To most things .


Thanks.

As for husband..:mad2::mad2::mad2:


----------



## Lovehatetragedy

Currently we're working on Embers basic training and toilet training. She currently has learnt Come, Sit and Paw and is nearly there with Down, next its Stay, Leave etc.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh no Twiggy  Hope you can get something sorted for poor Leafy.
> 
> Who was your seminar with? I must have missed it if you've said already.


Thanks.

The seminar was Dog Law with Nik Starmer Smith of Coopers.

If any of you get the chance to go on one it's well worth it, not least because he's hilarious.


----------



## Twiggy

Lovehatetragedy said:


> Currently we're working on Embers basic training and toilet training. She currently has learnt Come, Sit and Paw and is nearly there with Down, next its Stay, Leave etc.


Sounds as if Ember is doing well.

Personally I wouldn't be in a rush to teach a stay yet. Young puppies have the attention span of a gnat.


----------



## Werehorse

I hope you can get Leafy sorted soon, Twiggy. Poor girl.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Twiggy poor Leafy sorry to hear she's bad again.

Glad you had a good weekend Nicki

GR Ginge really is comign on leaps and bounds you are doing so well with her 

Sarah Lucky Spendog or he's impervious to electric current

We had our little visitor for a while again today. Once she'd gone home had a lovely training session in the back garden. Brought the drawers outside and Tink was great even with the sound of lawn mowers, birds , voices in the lane.

Lovely walk this evening Hubs dropped us off on the way to his brothers and was walked home via the woods. Tink is so bouyant at the moment it's so nice seeing her bouncing and cantering.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Good weekend here
> 
> Agility yesterday was great- Rusty was on top form and even barked at me when I kept getting it wrong which is a first!! We were doing a snake and I just couldn't handle it correctly... I need to practice.... Rusty of course was fab
> 
> Today they had separate am walks (which makes sense as Shae only gets 5-10mins and Rusty needs an 1hr!)- all very good. Shae got to meet a couple of dogs and people and was nice and confident.
> This afternoon took them both to the park with my Mum, brother and nephew which was interesting  Rusty had some fun with his Safestix and then got distracted by two people playing cricket... he almost stole their ball!! (twice...) anyhow, he recalled away at the last moment so no harm done but not ideal. I wouldn't mind but he doesn't even really like to play with balls... And then he saw his Bernese Mountain Dog friend and got distracted on a retrieve (well, fetching his safestix...) and shot off to play with her. But again recalled away. Work to be done me thinks! I haven't done much park work in a while and it showed today.
> 
> With Shae I did a few recalls and a little training and was all very good  She got to see all the kids at the park and was very good with the ones that said hi.
> 
> I def. need to keep walks separate for now- Shae is very dependant on Rusty and although will recall back from him she is very attached to following and trying to play with him. Rusty on the other hand couldn't be bothered with playing on a walk... I need her more dependant on me before taking them out together. I have been playing and training them both separately but walks also need to be done individually.
> 
> Other thing... When leaving the house with both of them Shae barked at an old lady coming the other way. Proper "scary person approaching" barks. This set Rusty off who started quietly woofing. Rusty isn't fond of strangers but ignores them- no barking usually. I had a chat to the lady while mum walked on with Rusty and Shae said hello and was all happy waggy tail puppy. I obviously need to get her out on the streets meeting people... she is very friendly once they say hi, it's just the initial approach. Hm, more food for thought! I'm not fussed if she doesn't want to meet and greet everyone but def. do not need barking at strangers in the street.
> 
> Edited to add that sorry to hear Leafy isn't well Twiggy


Don't over think Shae's dependance on Rusty when you walk them together.

Holly wasn't remotely interested in me for the first 9 months and just wanted to play with Leafy and Tremor. Yet here we are at 18 months and she doesn't want to know them; she just wants to play with me and the Spacehopper...

btw Anyone know where I can buy a job lot? She's on Spacehopper No. 4 since Christmas.


----------



## Maria_1986

Hope you can get something sorted so that Leafy is better soon Twiggy.

Dogless - What idiots, hope that your boys and Dizzy are all ok


----------



## Dogless

Maria_1986 said:


> Hope you can get something sorted so that Leafy is better soon Twiggy.
> 
> Dogless - What idiots, hope that your boys and Dizzy are all ok


We're fine, got out just in time. Poor little Dizz Dog was shaken. He hasn't got scared and barked in ages. Silly kids were totally oblivious. Things like that can just go so badly wrong. If they'd have managed to catch us all you have nervous, reactive Dizzy, a tense wound up Kilo (but small dogs so not the worst!) and a very excited Rudi. Kilo tends to try and jump in and back Dizzy up, Rudi would most likely just join in. Maybe the kids' dogs would have reacted to all the chaos....and we would all have been in a confined space...

So many scenarios yet I know which door the girls' parents would be knocking on should Kilo have given the kids a fright with a noise and slobber display. They jumped back when Dizzy had one, so Kilo's would have scared them daft.

I feel for Dizz but selfishly am pleased that the boys didn't react or get involved in any way.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> I hope you can get Leafy sorted soon, Twiggy. Poor girl.


Thanks. She's a nightmare. She's been to Cambridge Vet College, I've talked to loads of 'experts' and nobody really has an answer.

Maybe raw feeding would have worked, and it was strongly advised by several friends, but it would only work if I was here all the time. Husband isn't even very good at providing fresh water and never in a million years would he cope with raw feeding in my absence.


----------



## Lovehatetragedy

Twiggy said:


> Sounds as if Ember is doing well.
> 
> Personally I wouldn't be in a rush to teach a stay yet. Young puppies have the attention span of a gnat.


Yes that is true, mainly i'm just trying to get her into the pattern of listening at the moment i'm not expecting her to grasp it straight away


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> We're fine, got out just in time. Poor little Dizz Dog was shaken. He hasn't got scared and barked in ages. Silly kids were totally oblivious. Things like that can just go so badly wrong. If they'd have managed to catch us all you have nervous, reactive Dizzy, a tense wound up Kilo (but small dogs so not the worst!) and a very excited Rudi. Kilo tends to try and jump in and back Dizzy up, Rudi would most likely just join in. Maybe the kids' dogs would have reacted to all the chaos....and we would all have been in a confined space...
> 
> So many scenarios yet I know which door the girls' parents would be knocking on should Kilo have given the kids a fright with a noise and slobber display. They jumped back when Dizzy had one, so Kilo's would have scared them daft.
> 
> I feel for Dizz but selfishly am pleased that the boys didn't react or get involved in any way.


Strangely that solicitor this afternoon didn't want to discuss dog law covering NI - I wonder why?


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy said:


> Don't over think Shae's dependance on Rusty when you walk them together.
> 
> Holly wasn't remotely interested in me for the first 9 months and just wanted to play with Leafy and Tremor. Yet here we are at 18 months and she doesn't want to know them; she just wants to play with me and the Spacehopper...
> 
> btw Anyone know where I can buy a job lot? She's on Spacehopper No. 4 since Christmas.


Thanks Twiggy- thats good to hear  I can't blame her- he is running around all over the shot having a whale of a time, i'd run around after him if I could keep up too!!!

Rust is very clingy at the moment though :001_unsure: he broke out the garden to come find me when I was walking Shae (forest backs on to garden so he wasn't in danger....) I was only out 5 mins poor lad and mum was with him.

Oh those spacehoppers- favourite here too! Shae's baby teeth go straight through them though :/ Rusty is so gentle with his toys i've had a reason to buy more since getting Shae


----------



## Beth17

Hello all not been very good at keeping up with this thread the past couple of days.

Twiggy I really hope you can get Leafy feeling better soon. Poor girl 

Dogless poor Dizzy but glad the boys didn't get dragged into it.

MV sounds a really lovely walk 

GR I love the ninja!

Nicki Sam always used to follow Oscar around and want to play on walks even if he didn't want to. I just used this to my advantage with recall and as he got older the independence came naturally. Separate walks are a good idea though.

The boys had a nice early street walk and didn't see a soul. I then left them at home with my mum for a few hours as went to the zoo to do some research. Got back and had another good walk although Sam has discovered lead biting and when he is not allowed to do that Oscar and my hand got the brunt of his frustration. Bless him Oscar did that at his age so it will soon be nipped in the bud with lots of stop starts and distraction.

I think it was because I didn't bother with his harness and he walked absolutely lovely on just a flat collar but the lead is then in his eye line  Minor issue though.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Strangely that solicitor this afternoon didn't want to discuss dog law covering NI - I wonder why?


Seems to be an absolute minefield here Twiggy. Different councils have very different stances.


----------



## BessieDog

Sympathy needed. I had 10 days of having to be sympathtetic to son before he went back to Uni. He did have dreadful flu and a terrible hacking cough. (To be honest he's pretty good, and doesn't like to be mothered!). 

When he went back OH came down with it, so I've spent the last week with a husband with flu and a hacking cough! He came to the show today, but couldn't drive. 

I've come home and have got a sore throat and throbbing head. OH says 'at least it won't be so bad for you -you're a woman!!' I'm sort of hoping I get the cough to pay him back for the sleepless nights I've had! 

Seriously, I'm hoping that I'm not coming down with something as, after our success today, its spurred me onto doing more (short bursts of) running with Bess to improve her movement, and trying to get her to stand consistently when asked instead of leaping up and tearing my number out of the ring clip. Hopefully it will be a woman's case of mind over matter and I'll be fine tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

Hope you're not too bad this morning Bessiedog.

Twiggy - hope you haven't had too bad a night with Leafy.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy - I hope Leafy is better soon
BessieDog - I hope you feel better this morning
I'll try to catch up with everything else later.

Well, after our scentwork and day at the beach last week the we have had a very busy weekend flyballing. Little dimiwt was very good and seems to be much happier running outdoors. Though he still had a few moments he was much, much better than last time he ran.
I am now very tired, achey, slightly sunburned and with a few mysterious bruises and dimwit is no doubt enjoying a well-earned day of sleeping on the sofa


----------



## moonviolet

Hope you're doing ok this morning. Bessiedog. 

Twiggy Hope leafy is much improved today the seminar sounds interesting.

Dogless hope Dizzy is ok. It really could have been a nasty incident and these things are never the responsibility of the blissfully ignorant are they 

Beth I hope Sam's lead munching is a short lived phase.

I did forget to mention the 2 vaguely interesting things that happened on our evening walk....I scraped my hand on some bracken and boy did that bleed... so ended up walking through the woods with my hand in the air looking like a over keen student waiting for teacher to pick me. :lol: 

The other was on the pavemnt walk. Walking the very narrow pavement past the traffic lights that control a single file bridge, a car pulls up to a halt beside us. Sudden there's an explosion of high pitched barking as 2 unrestrained small yorkies begin launching themself at the nearest window, Tink looked and then just kept on walking. So proud of my girl


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> * Twiggy Hope leafy is much improved today the seminar sounds interesting.*
> 
> Thanks. Leafy didn't ask to go out during the night but managed to hog most of the bed so I feel as stiff as a board this morning.
> 
> The new dog laws being rushed through parliament after the 'Jade' case are pretty alarming. From what what said yesterday Efra (not Defra) sit on Wednesday and the new laws will then be passed.
> 
> One of which is you will be responsible if your dog bites (or shows intention to bite) anyone on your property.
> 
> It will mean that if your dogs are locked in the house when you are out and an intruder breaks in and gets bitten, you are liable...


----------



## moonviolet

Seems like they are trying to bring in sledgehammer laws, where a more strategic approach would be more effective.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Seems like they are trying to bring in sledgehammer laws, where a more strategic approach would be more effective.


Typical isn't it?

The Government rush these things through without proper consultation so they appear to be doing something.

As yet there are absolutely no guidance notes with regard to compulsory micro chipping which comes into force in 2016 either.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> moonviolet said:
> 
> 
> 
> * Twiggy Hope leafy is much improved today the seminar sounds interesting.*
> 
> Thanks. Leafy didn't ask to go out during the night but managed to hog most of the bed so I feel as stiff as a board this morning.
> 
> The new dog laws being rushed through parliament after the 'Jade' case are pretty alarming. From what what said yesterday Efra (not Defra) sit on Wednesday and the new laws will then be passed.
> 
> One of which is you will be responsible if your dog bites (or shows intention to bite) anyone on your property.
> 
> *It will mean that if your dogs are locked in the house when you are out and an intruder breaks in and gets bitten, you are liable*...
> 
> 
> 
> When I looked wasn't there some convoluted clause about what constitutes trespassing with intent to do harm or not or some such jazz? Meaning that the onus was on you to prove that the intruder intended to burgle / cause harm rather than they had just decided to come along and do something else e.g., just wandered into you garden etc? Can't recall the wording but what I do know is that any criminal with a decent lawyer will be able to 'prove' that they were the injured party so to speak. Frightening really, very frightening.
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Lead walk with the CHs this morning; we survived...Rudi was "challenging" when he had one of his full blown tantrums as we passed a small field I take them into to train / play sometimes. Before and after the tantrum both behaved very well!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> When I looked wasn't there some convoluted clause about what constitutes trespassing with intent to do harm or not or some such jazz? Meaning that the onus was on you to prove that the intruder intended to burgle / cause harm rather than they had just decided to come along and do something else e.g., just wandered into you garden etc? Can't recall the wording but what I do know is that any criminal with a decent lawyer will be able to 'prove' that they were the injured party so to speak. Frightening really, very frightening.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes you're on the right lines. Apparently there was an article in the Sunday Times about this yesterday.
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes you're on the right lines. Apparently there was an article in the Sunday Times about this yesterday.
> 
> 
> 
> Didn't see that. Someone posted about it on here - Snoring Bear maybe? All very frightening really.
Click to expand...


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Didn't see that. Someone posted about it on here - Snoring Bear maybe? All very frightening really.


That's awful - I had thought they had explicitly said it wouldn't be a burglars charter. Really worrying.

Currently my two are useless guard dogs anyway - they were quite happy for our neighbour to hop our fence and let me in when I locked myself out going to the bin on Sat.  But if my plan to add a mali goes ahead then that would be something I would really have to think about.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> That's awful - I had thought they had explicitly said it wouldn't be a burglars charter. Really worrying.
> 
> Currently my two are useless guard dogs anyway - they were quite happy for our neighbour to hop our fence and let me in when I locked myself out going to the bin on Sat.  But if my plan to add a mali goes ahead then that would be something I would really have to think about.


Good luck to anyone who tries to hop our fence :huh:.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> Good luck to anyone who tries to hop our fence :huh:.


Ely was just ridiculously happy to see a new friend. Gypsy didn't get up off the sofa. They will not protect me.


----------



## GingerRogers

I suspect the ninja would be rubbish as well but the thing is you just dont know, Are we expected to muzzle the dogs or crate them if they are home alone 

Our neighbouring hotel has said we can use their beer garden for training in. Complete numpties that we are we hadn't thought of it before but a friend said they used it for their lurcher. Had a check last night and it seemed secure. Went along this morning with the little ginger one and just let her have a potter about, her patrol of the perimeter confirmed there are no ninja sized holes .

I was just intending to let her have a sniff about and get used to the smells but we did a bit of training, some stays etc and some heel work, lol, not done any of that for ages offlead. Its so funny to see the little eager face looking up at you . 

Was all going well until she found a spot that she really would have liked to dig a hole in, I told her not to and surprisingly she listened  but lay down and stared at her spot and refused to do anything else 

ETA on the way home there was a terrier up ahead, we stopped and watched and treated and had one little gruff


----------



## BessieDog

Bess would only bark anyway. And that's only if someone delivers something to our house. She doesn't even look up as the dust man take stuff away. I can see her just standing and helpfully pointing out to a burglar what they might like to take!! 

This government never think things through. Like the bedroom tax and nationwide benefit cap. I used to work in housing in London and it is going to cause hardship. They're trying to make themselves popular with knee jerk reaction policies. 

I'm not feeling too bad this morning. Have a banging headache and sore throat but hopefully that's all it is. Was planning a marathon walk for Bess today by walking down to the seawall and then carrying walking, but didn't feel like going too far, so drove down there instead. We still were out for an hour and a half, and a lot of that was off lead so she had a good run. Started off as a lovely walk. She met a retriever that was playing in the sea - it decided to play with her and she got as wet as if she'd been in herself. She recalled nicely away, but then after we'd gone 100 yds I heard shouting and the retriever was tearing up to her with the owner screaming after it. Then followed a bit of dog tennis as the two went careering from owner to owner, but we got the right dog back eventually! . The owner called out that her dog needed more training, and I replied mine did too. But I was secretly pleased she had to put hers on the lead to stop him following us, whereas when Bess realised play was up she just carried on with me. 

Then we met the red and white setter we sometimes see. Lovely chat with the owner. The dog had been recently neutered and was still on onlead only walks. Bess had been enjoying getting attention from the other owner as we chatted, but then got bored and asked the other setter to play. Which he was more than willing to do, but obviously not advisable for him, so we parted company. I called Bess and she came away from him no problem. :thumbup1:

Bit further on I put her on the lead past the field of temptation (birds). Then let her off again in the part where she goes crazy and disappears at full gallop. But that's fine as there's nowhere for her to go so I let her run herself out. She was recalling fairly well even here - coming back at her own pace with a few detours, but coming in the right direction! 

Then!!!! For the first time in her life she rolled in fox poo. And rolled. And rolled. At the bottom of a steep bank where I couldn't get to her. 

When she eventually had enough and came back it she had to go on the lead. We turned back and I couldn't let her off again. We didn't actually see anyone else, but I was worried if we had. Foo poo doesn't show on her coat, and people do like to stroke here .......

So, instead of collapsing when we got home I had to try and get it off her. Didn't want the fuss of a full bath so just scrubbed, scrubbed and scrubbed. Won't know how successful I've been until it dries! 

I did tell her Kilo wouldn't approve!!


----------



## Dogless

Euuurrrggggh Bess!! I haven't told Kilo, he's sleeping....


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## MollySmith

Our house has a right of access path around it that we're meant to keep clear. We've been able to gate it all. We can't lock it though even if our neighbours have the key as it's against the terms of the residents group/deeds . Luckily our street is so well hidden that we've got one of the lowest crime rates in Cambridge but we have had someone get into our shed where my husband keeps his motorbikes so we've not discouraged Molly from barking at anyway although she adores our neighbours when she goes out to see them but we're one of three houses that have access. It's a terrace of 6, each set of 3 have access and the third house in our row lives an elderly couple who are moving. 

This Government p*ss me off anyway and I've emailed our local MP who an idiotic waste of space Lib Dem and EFRA too to protest about the law change. So many dog groups - Dogs Today and Dogs Trust are fuming and have been largely left out of the consultation which I find utterly gormless.

Finally I've been to the doctors. I have a virus and a sinus infection so I am on antibiotics. I got a reasonable night of sleep, next I need to start eating a bit, I've been on about 500 calories a day for the past week which isn't too bad, I need to lose weight.


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## Nicki85

Hello 

All good here... nice walks this morning. Had to ask two owners walking together to recall their dogs as they must have had 7 dogs between them and I had Shae- they all came over and she was clearly scared. Anyhow, they couldn't recall them so had to come and collect them. No harm done I don't think, they were all friendly- just overwhelming for Shae. I am sure they thought I was one of those overprotective owners... but the last thing I need is Shae getting a fright from strange dogs. 

Had lots of play this morning (altogether and individual!) making use of the crate as well- one goes in the crate while the other plays and then swaps. 

I've got a workshop with Shae with Dave M this Friday which I am really not sure about... I suspect that there is going to be a lot of focus on tugging work and although she is playing great at home she's not confident out and about yet to really play with me. Anyhow I'm sure it will give us some good pointers on what other excercises I could be doing with her  I'll not put too much pressure on me or her and just do what we are comfortable with... 

Trying out a different agility class with Rusty on Thursday evening as well as the Saturday ones are a bit frustrating. Bit further to travel but hopefully worth it.


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## Twiggy

L/C said:


> That's awful - I had thought they had explicitly said it wouldn't be a burglars charter. Really worrying.
> 
> Currently my two are useless guard dogs anyway - they were quite happy for our neighbour to hop our fence and let me in when I locked myself out going to the bin on Sat.  But if my plan to add a mali goes ahead then that would be something I would really have to think about.


My understanding is that if you are in the house and your dog bites a burglar you're OK because the dog was protecting you but if you're in your garden your liable - stupid isn't it?

If this goes through then farmers will need to worry....!!


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> My understanding is that if you are in the house and your dog bites a burglar you're OK because the dog was protecting you but if you're in your garden your liable - stupid isn't it?
> 
> If this goes through then farmers will need to worry....!!


They really will!! The amount of times collies have shot out of the yard and seen me off out running or had a nip :w00t:.


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## Dogless

I've just had excellent separate walks with the boys.

Kilo was muzzled for some of his to continue getting used to it and he's doing well. Went onto the sports pitches with longline and harness on and no muzzle to do impulse control stuff - he was brilliant for me . There were loads of runners, some with dogs, and I'd usually have put him back onlead with that amount as I would have been stressed but I just stopped training for a bit and held the end of the longline. Because I was relaxed he was and each time he took a few steps towards a runner that caught his eye in the distance he just automatically came back to me like he'd been taught so got rewarded heavily . One dog with some runners kept running almost up to us and away again to try and get Kilo to chase, he gave two "Oi!! Come here!! I want to play!!!" barks, which was fine by me, his body language was friendly and relaxed.

Rudi walked like a dream, he is getting more independent offlead and ranging further, but he's still checking in with me all the time and is still easy to control. Wonder how long that's going to stay like that? :huh:. He was having the zoomies just as an "easy jet" aircraft started it's take off run (they were using the runway parallel to the pitches) and decided to race it. The plane won .

So, both my best boys :001_wub::001_wub:.

Oh a joke: "What do you call a muzzle worn by a dog who likes to eat sh!t?"
"A schmuzzle" :nonod::w00t:

Dog sh!t covered muzzle isn't the best to try and give treats through :frown2::cryin::arf:


----------



## Beth17

BD hope you are feeling a bit better. SO glad my two don't roll in anything, Sam just chooses clean grass at the moment.

Dogless love the image of Rudi racing the plane 

MS hope the antibiotics kick in soon.

I don't think Oscar would take too kindly to an intruder so that's a bit worrying. Sam I expect would want to make friends.

We had a lovely walk this morning and spent a good hour in the woods splashing about in streams with Sam performing death defying leaps down banks. I am slightly grey now I think  He had a tantrum on the way home trying to chew the lead and when that didn't work my coat bore the brunt of his frustrations.

Fairly sedate potter this afternoon with not much to report.


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## Dogless

Sam and Rudi always seem to tantrum on the same days....I'm going to confiscate Rudi's mobile I reckon they're texting each other :w00t: :nonod:.


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## Dimwit

MS - hope you start to feel better soon
Dogless - sounds like both your boys are doing so well 
Nicki - hope you enjoy the new agility class
Beth17 - sounds like a great walk apart from the tantrum 

Dimwit is having a quiet day after his mega busy long weekend so we just had a little potter round the field this evening and then he made himself comfy on the sofa while I ploughed through the 100s of photos I took this weekend.
Also, just seen the video of him at the scentwork workshop from Thursday - bless him, he is so good and his tail never stopped wagging :001_wub:


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Sam and Rudi always seem to tantrum on the same days....I'm going to confiscate Rudi's mobile I reckon they're texting each other :w00t: :nonod:.


Naughty teenagers in cahoots. If they were human they'd be smoking behind the bike sheds :hand:

Dimwit sounds like he enjoyed himself at the scent workshop. Hope he enjoys a good sleep to recover.


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## Nicki85

Afternoon walks were good.... Took Rusty to one of his favourite haunts and watched him do what he does best- run around like a loon (I say watch- he's out of sight most of the time!). He was a good lad though and recalled nicely and ignored a deer.

Shae had a 10min onlead walk (all onlead!!- a first for me  ) around the village. Met an old lady and her granddaughter who both said hi and commented how lovely Shae was not to jump on them. She was a bit put out by the traffic so need to go and sit on a bench for a bit and watch the world go by... She also barked at the old lady so meet and greets need to continue. We sat in the field for a bit and she played with her lead and started to play with her ball. At the moment she is very needy- lots of whining while we are out and jumping on me for reassurance when we stop. All of which is fine and i'm absolutely sure she will grow in confidence the more she gets out and about. 

Dogless and Beth- your to boys sound like proper teenagers with their tantrums! I never had it with Rusty but wonder if I will with Shae... 
Dogless- I do not envy a poo covered muzzle....


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## Dimwit

I won't bore you all with lots of photos from the weekend (and I clearly post too many judging by the rate at which my last photo thread disappeared :lol

But - here is one that made me laugh, can you spot the deliberate mistake


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## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> I won't bore you all with lots of photos from the weekend (and I clearly post too many judging by the rate at which my last photo thread disappeared :lol
> 
> But - here is one that made me laugh, can you spot the deliberate mistake


Nothing a bit of photoshop can't fix 

Otherwise it's a super pic 

(did i miss a photo thread?)

All's well and trundling along nicely at Tinker towers


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## GingerRogers

Dimwit said:


> I won't bore you all with lots of photos from the weekend (and I clearly post too many judging by the rate at which my last photo thread disappeared :lol
> 
> But - here is one that made me laugh, can you spot the deliberate mistake


I can jump this far mum honest! 

Assuming thats the mistake 

We just had another awesome superstar walk round the block. I got halfway round and saw a chap I know, he clearly wanted to say hello so we went over and as I passed his neighbours garden I saw the two recently arrived cairns (had wondered where they lived)  roaming in their garden. She spotted them and she did a bit of straining but no noise no real bother at all. She did keep trying to dive into the chaps box hedge so I know she was stressed by their proximity but she made the choice not to kick off.

Then we carried on and we passed a couple of set back garages and an old boy was just leaning there  he made *me *jump when he said hello but again barely even a glance from my little treasure .

Then she walked beautifully all the way home. I say all the way its only about 15 mins at a fast trot all the way round, but you would think she had been on a 10 mile hike, she rushed to the back garden and had a big drink from manky bucket (yes she has nice clean water inside) a sure sign she was stressing, came in and sat down looking like she'd been out all night bless and is now snoozing in the sun.

I was very proud today. I just hope it isnt all going to go to pot.

Also had a very good chat with hubby on our walk last night about her offlead time. He has agreed to work with me on recall training, really not sure we will ever get there with Miss Independent, but he told me I could order Total Recall  and we would work through it together. It took a bit of buttering up 'You are so good at the training when you put your mind to it, better than me, (he is tbh ) and I would really appreciate your help on this one thing.'  Flattery 

Qurestion - I was going to start 'car park' training today where we go and sit in the boot of the car (car=safe place)and watch any dogs, just for 5-10 mins, and then gradually build it up to moving further and further from the car, but as she has already been a superstar and got herself a bit worked up should I leave it for another day or should she be ok later?


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## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> I can jump this far mum honest!
> 
> Assuming thats the mistake


No, he always takes off way before the jump. The ball on the ground is supposed to be in his mouth 

Yay for superstar Ginge - she clearly deserved her drink of manky water. I don't know about the car park training - I guess it depends on whether you think she will have "recovered" later. With the dimwit I would err on the side of caution as I would rather think "I whish I had gone and done the training" than "I wish I hadn't done that"


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## GingerRogers

Dimwit said:


> No, he always takes off way before the jump. The ball on the ground is supposed to be in his mouth
> 
> Yay for superstar Ginge - she clearly deserved her drink of manky water. I don't know about the car park training - I guess it depends on whether you think she will have "recovered" later. With the dimwit I would err on the side of caution as I would rather think "I whish I had gone and done the training" than "I wish I hadn't done that"


Ohhh bless him , is it a bird, is it a plane, no its superdog!!

Yes you are probably right, I've just been putting it off for a while and feel I should get started but no point if it backfires as its supposed to be a re-inforcing thing.


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## MollySmith

Oh Dimwit that's a lovely photo, he is such a lovely little bean.

Dogless and Beth - you made me smile  I hope it's a trantrum free day!

Ginge, you are doing so well with the ninja, that's amazing to pass the cairns with very little reaction. I agree, it's the way forward with most men, I flatter OH a lot and it seems to work. TBH I shouldn't complain, he's done all the walks since I have been ill. But I think it's important to involve if only so that it's consistent. 

I finally ventured out yesterday afternoon for a long awaited lead walk to the postbox on the river for a change. No dogs or cats unfortunately but it was nice to get outside for a while and it's so lovely to walk her around. Molly was only spooked by an electric generator and a person with a bike trailer that alarmed me a bit too. We saw some swans and she looked but no response. Overall very happy as we do have to cross a rather busy main road to get to the river which I though might worry her but she's remarkably calm around traffic. 

OH isn't feeling too great with arthritis so I've asked our trainer to take Molly out for a long run with her three tomorrow. I'm still off food and had a very rough night and very lightheaded so I don't think it's a good idea to go far myself. I have been doing some retrieve work with one of those fire hose toys so we'll do more of that in the garden this afternoon. We can do 5 out of 5 before she gets distracted and wanders off to check on the squirrels


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## Dogless

Dimwit what a brilliant photo .

GR - what can I say? You're even managing to train a man, slowly but surely. You have my utmost respect .

MS - Pleased that you managed to get out.

Twiggy - how's Leafy?

Took the CHs to 'our' forest for the morning; not a soul seen as per usual. Kilo only remembered that he had his muzzle on a few times which was brilliant considering it's the first time he's had it on offlead on a normal walk. The CHs just got on with the business of hunting, zooming and running round like lunatics. I just relaxed. Hadn't realised quite how stressed I've become so it was just what we all needed .


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## L/C

Afternoon Ladies.

Beth and Dogless - hope the devilish boys decide to give you a day off tantrums!

Dimwit - that's a great photo - who needs the ball? 

MS - glad you managed to venture out and had a nice walk with Molly.

Twiggy - sorry Leafy is bad again. Hope she's feeling better now.

We've had a lovely few days here at chez pointy. We had two very long walks at the weekend (3-4 hours each) in the glorious sunshine and explored a part of the park we hadn't been in before. Ely is being my very best boy - lots of pottering along and ignoring other dogs and he shook off being barked and lunged at very well. No tail down or scuttling. I'm so proud of him. :001_wub:

Got some stretches to help loosen Gypsy's leg as it's been giving out under her recently (think how it feels when your ankle goes out from under you) and an appointment at the vet for this weekend to see if there's anything else we can do (also potentially to ask for a referral to a physio). The stretching - although I've only been doing it for a few days - seems to be helping already.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dexter's first Puppy Obiedence tonight.

A female JRT tried to hump him and grabbed onto his hips before her owner got her off. He made a little yelp.

Was a little worried but he seems fine.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Dimwit what a brilliant photo .
> 
> GR - what can I say? You're even managing to train a man, slowly but surely. You have my utmost respect .
> 
> MS - Pleased that you managed to get out.
> 
> *Twiggy - how's Leafy?*
> 
> Took the CHs to 'our' forest for the morning; not a soul seen as per usual. Kilo only remembered that he had his muzzle on a few times which was brilliant considering it's the first time he's had it on offlead on a normal walk. The CHs just got on with the business of hunting, zooming and running round like lunatics. I just relaxed. Hadn't realised quite how stressed I've become so it was just what we all needed .


I hardly dare say but she seems fine back on the Arden Grange Sensitive. She'd had antibiotics though since Sunday (last one tonight because I only had three days worth) so we'll see over the next 2/3 days.

The dilemma is then do I leave her on the AG, which means buying yet another bag of dog food, or put her on the awful Purina HA which sould arrive today or tomorrow.

My inclination is to leave her on the AG and use the Purina as back up if I need to. That does mean food for Leafy has cost well over £200 in the last three weeks...


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I hardly dare say but she seems fine back on the Arden Grange Sensitive. She'd had antibiotics though since Sunday (last one tonight because I only had three days worth) so we'll see over the next 2/3 days.
> 
> The dilemma is then do I leave her on the AG, which means buying yet another bag of dog food, or put her on the awful Purina HA which sould arrive today or tomorrow.
> 
> My inclination is to leave her on the AG and use the Purina as back up if I need to. That does mean food for Leafy has cost well over £200 in the last three weeks...


If she were mine I'd leave her on AG I think and then you have the Purina to hand should she react badly at a later time. I think with a gut as delicate as Leafy's then you're right to leave things as they are when she's OK. Ouch at the cost though .


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## BessieDog

DL -glad the two boys were good this morning

KfK - enjoy your training tonight

Dimwit- great pic! I, too, thought take off looked a bit early

Hope everyone else is ok. 

I'm mad and dogs are useless. After 17 years I've decided to redecorate the lounge. It's taken about 5 years to get agreement on paper. 

Woke up this morning with terrible throat and swollen glands, so decided to drive the 20 miles to collect said paper in case I didn't feel up to it later. Then came back and took Bess out for 2hours - shouting to her when she ran off didn't do my throat much good! Sort of on autopilot and thinking if I sit down I won't get up, I've started moving everything movable out of the lounge into the dining room. So much clutter to move!

Bess was a great help! She thought I might forget the way to the dining room (I suppose at my age its possible) so I had an escort for every trip. Sometimes she must have thought I needed a rest half way, as she stopped in the doorway and I nearly tripped over her a few times.  I suggested she could help by carrying something, but she preferred to supervise. 

Oh, and then she had to inspect all the piles of DVDs, books etc just in case I've put them in the wrong place!

My neck hurts now so I'm finished for the day! Bess looks as tired as I am!


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## Dimwit

Twiggy - fingers crossed the AG continues to work, it must be a nightmare for you to find suitable foods.

BessieDog - good work on the moving stuff, and very good of Bess to supervise.

The dimwit does take off very early, but he rarely hits a jump, at least he has a long body to compensate for the stumpy legs


----------



## Dogless

Rollercoaster of a walk tonight. Took the CHs together for a short lead walk given what they had this morning.

Just as we were leaving the estate the couple that like to drink and walk their collie cross (must be - he's huge!!) at the same time came down the road to the side of us. The drama is that this dog pulls and whines and yips and stares and crouches and aaaallllll the stuff that might set Kilo off to try and get to us which they laugh their heads off at. So, I saw them and made sure that we just kept ahead of them so Kilo could stay relaxed (crucial for Rudi!) and he did, good boy .

So busy was I keeping track of what the couple were doing I didn't see the greasy meat and cheese pastry thingy that had been dropped and squashed onto the pavement just across from the shop. The boys did - Kilo bent to sniff it and Rudi flew at him - no contact - noise and slobber. Had short handbags, big audience as loads of people were in the shop car park as it was about to shut . Really annoyed I never saw it first.

Rest of the walk was very good, the boys ignored two springers running around chasing their balls a kids' footie match (hard for Rudi!) and we passed lots of people with me feeling all proud of their nice walking.

We must have looked really odd - Rudi making a racket, all teeth out, to moving about 1/2 metere from the food and continuing to walk on nicely .

They're sleeping together on the sofa now, not a care in the world!


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## Kicksforkills

Dexter was pretty good at everything except sit and settle. I'd rather not have him encourages to sit but apparently (according to my mother), I should keep my mouth shut about that because the trainers know better than me and Dexter should use his smarts to know the differences between sit, stand and settle.


----------



## moonviolet

Kicksforkills said:


> Dexter was pretty good at everything except sit and settle. I'd rather not have him encourages to sit but apparently (according to my mother), I should keep my mouth shut about that because the trainers know better than me and Dexter should use his smarts to know the differences between sit, stand and settle.


I dont' think it so important what you do in a weekly class, it's what you encourage to in between that will dictate what his default behaviour will be.

Dogless, how many situations could be avoided if people would put things it the blooming bin. ohter than the pasty moment it sounds like they did very well indeed.

Twiggy glad leafy is settled back on the AG. ouch at the food cost.

BD Bessie sounds like a very dedicated supervisor.

L/C glad the pointies have been doing well. Ely is a superstar. Great that the stretches are helping Gypsy and hope the vet's consult it productive.

MS so glad you are feeling well enough to venture out. Hope you and your Oh are feeling better soon. Well done Molly.

We had games class last night, good fun. it's such a a lovely class filled with happy voices and laughter. Have a rallyO taster on Friday  we are going to be hopeless, all our formal stuff has become somewhat casual, but we'll have fun


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Dogless, how many situations could be avoided if people would put things it the blooming bin. ohter than the pasty moment it sounds like they did very well indeed.
> 
> We had games class last night, good fun. it's such a a lovely class filled with happy voices and laughter. Have a rallyO taster on Friday  we are going to be hopeless, all our formal stuff has become somewhat casual, but we'll have fun


I know mv, the kids here go and buy packs of cakes, biscuits etc and throw them at each other  so there's food all over round the estate and by the shop. Awful come summer. With Kilo it's always just been stopping him scavenging but now I have Billy Big Balls chancing his arm. He has improved a lot so I'll keep on training....apart from that, the CHs are very good indeed for me at the moment (touch wood!). We'll see how we survive the Kevins!!

Your classes always sound so fantastic compared to the formal atmosphere of ours! I loved our Rally-O taster too, hope you have fun!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I know mv, *the kids here go and buy packs of cakes, biscuits etc and throw them at each other*  so there's food all over round the estate and by the shop. Awful come summer. With Kilo it's always just been stopping him scavenging but now I have Billy Big Balls chancing his arm. He has improved a lot so I'll keep on training....apart from that, the CHs are very good indeed for me at the moment (touch wood!). We'll see how we survive the Kevins!!
> 
> Your classes always sound so fantastic compared to the formal atmosphere of ours! I loved our Rally-O taster too, hope you have fun!


....So this is why food prices are kept unnaturally low.... :nonod::nonod::nonod:


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## BessieDog

Kicksforkills said:


> Dexter was pretty good at everything except sit and settle. I'd rather not have him encourages to sit but apparently (according to my mother), I should keep my mouth shut about that because the trainers know better than me and Dexter should use his smarts to know the differences between sit, stand and settle.


I find 'sit' useful. If Bess is playing up, or getting bored in the ring I tell her to sit, give me her paw etc to distract her. Some dogs are so chilled in the ring that they lie down! There's a lot of waiting around, especially if its a big class. The important thing is that he knows the stand, and will do it properly.

Dogs don't get muddled with 'sit' and 'down', so shouldn't with stand

In my view sit is an important command in daily life - showring is a tiny part of your life with a dog, so its more important to train him for everyday life.

-------

Although I'm feeling a bit spaced out, I decided the decorating wont wait and decided to do a little bit then have a sit down. So I started pulling the wallpaper off the wall. I expected to have to put Bess out of the room - but no! She watched curiously, and then went and lay down. She didn't move when bits of paper were dropping on her, and didn't even go near the bag I'm putting the old paper in. Can't believe how much she's grown up in the last couple of months!

Mind you, she didn't help either - if when I offered her the end of a piece of paper to pull!

The room now looks disgusting! And I've still got the hard bits to do - I.e. the bits I can't pull off!

--------

No food thrown about here DL - but sometimes Bess tries to snack on long dead road kill.


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## Dogless

Well it's safe to say Billy Big Balls (BBB) is here. Nice walk up to the top fields, very good boys - avoided the pavement where Pastry Wars happened. Let them off for play, mostly good but I noticed that Rudi was going in *hard* today, really pushing so we did lots of recalls, sits, waits etc to calm stuff and then took the toy away and we just walked and the boys sniffed. No big deal, just need to watch Rudi and stop things when they get too intense. Kilo, love him, just avoids conflict.

Then they walked beautifully on the way back until we passed some cat poo that they both wanted . I told them "on by" and they were very good and did just walk past, but Rudi decided to redirect his frustration about not getting what he wanted onto Kilo and flew at him again. I caught him fast this time and he sat faster than he's ever sat in his life and asked Kilo to sit too. Just held Rudi's collar gently until he chilled out and stopped whining then we walked on beautifully again. Happened near shop car park again, crammed as it was NAAFI break time and right outside the Police station  . Oh well - have to stop caring what folk think. Methinks Rudi's impulse control training needs stepping right up, he's doing the same as Kilo used to do with me really.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless we have the cake throwing here as well , what is that all about, If I was allowed the money to buy cakes at that age I would have eaten them. I remember one day when we hadn't had Ginge long walking down the high street past the old bus shelter which is now just a place for kids to hide in  They had been scattering, wotsits, peanuts and white chocolate buttons, for some reason it didnt occur to us to pick the dog up or cross the road though  I understand the odd food fight is fun but it seems purposeful 

We had a absolute nutjob on a walk last night, absolute selective hearing, dashed off into the marsh, on her long line, and got stuck, guess who had to go get her, tried to get some focus with some exercises but got her to stay, called her and she set off running, in the opposite direction , little bugger. At least it got the point through to the OH that you *really *have to read her mood, I knew she was a feeling independent but let him make the call :

This mornings potter was interesting too, a JRT popped out in front of us unexpectedly, she had a growl and and tried to 'get at it' :nonod: but eventually came with and no real barking frenzy. She saved that for later, we saw my friend with the Wolfhound and little Rudi, this is the first time she has 'met' a dog for a good while and she did scamper up to them, no squeaks though, and stood nicely for sniffs and greets then decided play was in order :, on lead :nonod: and had a hissy when I didnt let it happen, so they went their way we went ours and she was perfectly happy with that, so what was all the fuss about


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## Dogless

GR - persist with the OH training, you're getting much further than many of us. 
Mine is due home on leave any time from now . It's so true what you say about needing to read mood first - took me a while to learn that with Kilo. Not with recall - with flaming poo hunting!!!

No idea what all the food throwing is about; I would have stuffed my chops not splattered it all over and then thrown the boxes and wrappers too  :blink:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear Dogless, bad big balls, yes the caring what people think is going to have to go out the window. The thing is I get embarrassed that I am not pinning my dog to the floor and stuff, I feel like people think I am being too soft, and I will never get that dog under control by feeding it  its ridiculous


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh dear Dogless, bad big balls, yes the caring what people think is going to have to go out the window. The thing is I get embarrassed that I am not pinning my dog to the floor and stuff, I feel like people think I am being too soft, and I will never get that dog under control by feeding it  its ridiculous


TBH I think people probably forget pretty much straight away anyway; it's just me that thinks "Oh crap". It was under control very quickly today and is all noise. Just a lot of noise!! The cute little puppy's currently asleep on the sofa with Kilo...


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Oh dear Dogless, bad big balls, yes the caring what people think is going to have to go out the window. The thing is I get embarrassed that I am not pinning my dog to the floor and stuff, I feel like *people think I am being too soft*, and I will never get that dog under control by feeding it  its ridiculous


Oh yes me too, I feel a bit daft with this silly clicker. But hey, my dog like yours and yours too Dogless, are happy.

I don't get the food throwing either. Not much here but I can walk through a retail park which is good practice for Molly and people leave the oddest things, shopping bags full of bread. And one mystery I can never understand, one shoe or one sock. How does that happen? Do people walk out of Asda and thing 'goodness I forgot it's one sock Monday' and abandon the article in the road? Molly likes to collect up the socks anyway.

K4K - agree with Bess, I think sit is hugely important. We don't do shows of course but just in terms of an easy to remember command that Molly can follow it's so helpful. We use it outside on walks at crossing too.

Bess - I am sorry you're not well too. Don't overdo it.

Not much to report here apart from on ongoing annoyance at my friend as reported elsewhere. I'm taking on board Molly's 'wait' to keep my temper at bay. OH is not good, he'll be fine he just has to wait for the seriously good meds to kick in to alleviate the joint pain and he'll probably be okay tomorrow. I hope, if I manage to eat a proper meal today that I can start walking Molly myself so he gets some rest. I have looked up some new walks and I really want to take a much longed for trip to the coast.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> I don't get the food throwing either. Not much here but I can walk through a retail park which is good practice for Molly and people leave the oddest things, shopping bags full of bread. *And one mystery I can never understand, one shoe or one sock. How does that happen? Do people walk out of Asda and thing 'goodness I forgot it's one sock Monday' and abandon the article in the road*? Molly likes to collect up the socks anyway.
> .


Well of course, doesn't everyone Hope you and OH are soon back to full fitness (and if you discover any nice walks please let me know - after our trip to the seaside last week I really need to make a concerted effort to find some nice, new walks for dimwit)

I can also sympathise with the food issue - I am working of dimwit's impulse control but it is very hard for him when the local kids seem to just abandon their packed lunches as they are walking along. It always gets worse in the summer as well, so much so that one walker I meet has one of his dogs muzzled as she scavenges so much

Was very proud of little dimwit this morning - firstly he managed not to wake me at at 5:30 by woofing at hedgehogs (which he did yesterday) and then he was very good on our walk and even managed to only have a little grumble at the black lab that came charging up to him in the park (he always reacts very strongly to black or chocolate labs but is not too bad with yellow or red).


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless- I know I've told you before how my old dogs didnt get on, but strangely there were never any altercations on walks, but all the fighting (albeit one sided) happened at home. Sounds like Rudi might just be getting over excited and overwhelmed by everything outside. Strangely when Bess gets stressed she takes it out on me. Getting less and less now. The other day on a walk when she recalled nicely away from a dog she'd been playing with she suddenly leapt up at me nipping like a pup. Only lasted a second, but I don't know what got into her. I reckon it will all settle as he gets older. 

Was pleased with Bess on the walk today. We met an old dear and her daughter who had a 15 mth JRT with them, and some kind of yorkie. The mum had had an Irish Setter in the past, and so wanted to make a fuss of Bess. Bess had been off lead as they came into sight, but she politely laid down as they approached, so it was them running up to her. They wanted to play and I was a bit worried having seen Bess box Henry, but she lay down again and played from there. The little JRT was try to box her, and she was really gentle putting her paw on the smaller dog! They played a bit of chase, but each time they stopped she'd lie down to play again. And she recalled nicely away. It was lovely seeing her be so gentle with the smaller dogs, and getting down to their level. She's done it once before at training, but I had thought that a fluke. 

Then we met a 7mth beagle that lives in the village. He was on a lead and VERY boisterous, so while I chatted to the owner Bess did her own thing, and wandered up the sea wall. When I thought she'd gone a bit far I called her back. She turned and came back like a rocket. The chap said to his dog 'now that's what a recall us'.  :thumbup:

Made me laugh as after I left them I had to put Bess on the lead as we passed the areas of temptation. He wouldn't have been so impressed to see her disappearing into the distance. 

Oh, and the best thing about the walk was that I went out wearing shorts and t-shirt. And it was lovely. I don't think it's because I've got a temperature.....


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> Dogless- I know I've told you before how my old dogs didnt get on, but strangely there were never any altercations on walks, but all the fighting (albeit one sided) happened at home. Sounds like Rudi might just be getting over excited and overwhelmed by everything outside. Strangely when Bess gets stressed she takes it out on me. Getting less and less now. The other day on a walk when she recalled nicely away from a dog she'd been playing with she suddenly leapt up at me nipping like a pup. Only lasted a second, but I don't know what got into her. I reckon it will all settle as he gets older.
> 
> Was pleased with Bess on the walk today. We met an old dear and her daughter who had a 15 mth JRT with them, and some kind of yorkie. The mum had had an Irish Setter in the past, and so wanted to make a fuss of Bess. Bess had been off lead as they came into sight, but she politely laid down as they approached, so it was them running up to her. They wanted to play and I was a bit worried having seen Bess box Henry, but she lay down again and played from there. The little JRT was try to box her, and she was really gentle putting her paw on the smaller dog! They played a bit of chase, but each time they stopped she'd lie down to play again. And she recalled nicely away. It was lovely seeing her be so gentle with the smaller dogs, and getting down to their level. She's done it once before at training, but I had thought that a fluke.
> 
> Then we met a 7mth beagle that lives in the village. He was on a lead and VERY boisterous, so while I chatted to the owner Bess did her own thing, and wandered up the sea wall. When I thought she'd gone a bit far I called her back. She turned and came back like a rocket. The chap said to his dog 'now that's what a recall us'.  :thumbup:
> 
> Made me laugh as after I left them I had to put Bess on the lead as we passed the areas of temptation. He wouldn't have been so impressed to see her disappearing into the distance.
> 
> Oh, and the best thing about the walk was that I went out wearing shorts and t-shirt. And it was lovely. I don't think it's because I've got a temperature.....


Yes; they actually get on very well (touch wood!!). Rudi is just doing what Kilo used to do to me - redirecting his frustration. Only Rudi is redirecting onto Kilo. Kilo used to jump up at me and bite repeatedly when overwhelmed and stressed, Rudi has a go at Kilo. I'll just put plenty of training in. Rudi is a much 'sharper / harder' character than Kilo, but way, way less highly strung.

Well done to Bess with her recalls and nice play...no binos needed today :w00t:. And shorts and T Shirt? Cold and rainy here today!!


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> Yes; they actually get on very well (touch wood!!). Rudi is just doing what Kilo used to do to me - redirecting his frustration. Only Rudi is redirecting onto Kilo. Kilo used to jump up at me and bite repeatedly when overwhelmed and stressed, Rudi has a go at Kilo. I'll just put plenty of training in. Rudi is a much 'sharper / harder' character than Kilo, but way, way less highly strung.
> 
> Well done to Bess with her recalls and nice play...no binos needed today :w00t:. And shorts and T Shirt? Cold and rainy here today!!


I wasn't feeling up to running across fields so didn't give her the chance!!

You're getting the worst of all the weather over there, aren't you?


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> I wasn't feeling up to running across fields so didn't give her the chance!!
> 
> You're getting the worst of all the weather over there, aren't you?


It's rain all the way into the weekend on the forecast so far. No change! I quite like it almost as it keeps the kids at bay!!


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Dogless sounds like the hormones are well and truly kicking in  It makes me laugh when they try it on. Sam knocked Oscar flying a month or so ago by getting a bit big for his boots :hand:

BS sounds a lovely walk. Well done to Bess for being so good.

Dimwit thumbs up for a lie in :thumbup1::thumbup1:

MS hope you and the OH are feeling better soon and you can get Molly out to the coast.

We had a lovely walk down to the fields today and then had a good run around and play. Met a lady who has a 7 month old Ridgeback pup but I hadn't got to meet him yet. He was lovely and huge, Sam was a bit overwhelmed. He soon came round though and had a nice play. Oscar was very good and didn't really bother with them and pottered with her other dog.

The best thing was had perfect LLW :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Beth17 said:


> Oh dear Dogless sounds like the hormones are well and truly kicking in  It makes me laugh when they try it on. Sam knocked Oscar flying a month or so ago by getting a bit big for his boots :hand:
> 
> BS sounds a lovely walk. Well done to Bess for being so good.
> 
> Dimwit thumbs up for a lie in :thumbup1::thumbup1:
> 
> MS hope you and the OH are feeling better soon and you can get Molly out to the coast.
> 
> We had a lovely walk down to the fields today and then had a good run around and play. Met a lady who has a 7 month old Ridgeback pup but I hadn't got to meet him yet. He was lovely and huge, Sam was a bit overwhelmed. He soon came round though and had a nice play. Oscar was very good and didn't really bother with them and pottered with her other dog.
> 
> The best thing was had perfect LLW :thumbup:


Rudi's that age and one of his litter went your way...you never know....


----------



## Maria_1986

I'm very sorry if I forget anyone - far too much for my tiny little brain to remember.

Bess - Hope your feeling better soon, I love painting but have never tried wallpapering, is it difficult? Glad Bess was good on the walk.

Dogless - There are places here where people seem to throw half portions of chips on the floor for no good reason, I really don't get why people buy food only to chuck half of it on the floor. Congrats on the 'on by' with the cat poo can one of them come and show Chevy how thats done please?

Twiggy - So pleased that Leafy is doing better, will keep my fingers crossed that it lasts.

GR - sounds like you are making progress with your OH and Ginge too of course!

MS - hope you and your OH are feeling better soon

We have been working on not much - after our lovely trip out on Saturday on Sunday morning Chevy refused breakfast which is totally out of character for her. Tried her on a little wet food instead of the dry (she has her wet food in her kong normally) and she then vomited it straight back up again and went back to bed and was really lethargic Sunday and Monday. She is back to normal now but I think that it may have been triggered by eating some type of poo on Saturdays walk. So 'leave' has now jumped to the top of our 'working on' list.


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## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Rudi's that age and one of his litter went your way...you never know....


Wouldn't that be a small world. He was called Hugo and lives with a Weim. I'll have to have a nosey next time I see her.


----------



## Nicki85

Laid back day here today! Good walks this morning  Shae met a person which was very exciting... should have put her back on lead in hindsight... we were doing sits and a person appeared, Shae was watching but still sitting so I stupidly thought she would stay sitting there! Anyhow, she ran up to the person with little woofs. The lady didn't mind and made a fuss of her and said how cute she was  Have to remember she isn't anti-social Rusty!!

Having a break from training today so lots of fun in the sun... Rusty has agility later  He has been doing some really nice tug work so will be interesting to see if it's paid off later. 

Shae is already telling Rusty off when he comes near her food and he is already giving up toys to her- pretty clear who is going to be boss. I have to make sure to seperate them over food.... 

Beth- your boys sound like they had fun!
Maria- sorry to hear Chevy was poorly, glad she is better now though  I'm glad I don't have a scavenger! 
Bessiedog- Bess sounds like such a character! I know the feeling with fields and pheasants.... I remember Rusty got into a hedge just after the young birds had been released- I had no idea about his prey drive until that walk. I've never heard such a noise coming from a hedge! I make sure he's on a lead now on farmland.... He didn't catch any but still not good.


----------



## purpleskyes

Hudson is improving with his re call and focusing around other dogs. Today I had him do a sit and stay with an off lead retriever only 5 feet away! 

Met another not too friendly dog today, male ridgeback. He was off lead spotted Hudson who I had on lead, this dogs body language was off from the start. I put Hudson next to me as the dog started coming towards the owner called him, he blanked her and then started running at us. That was abit scary when he got to us he got in Hudson's face and started growling. I put Hudson the other side and started walking backwards. 

The owner got him at that point after screaming her head off the whole time. I really wish people with dogs like that would keep them on a lead.


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## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Well of course, doesn't everyone Hope you and OH are soon back to full fitness (and if you discover any nice walks please let me know - after our trip to the seaside last week I really need to make a concerted effort to find some nice, new walks for dimwit)
> 
> I can also sympathise with the food issue - I am working of dimwit's impulse control but it is very hard for him when the local kids seem to just abandon their packed lunches as they are walking along. It always gets worse in the summer as well, so much so that one walker I meet has one of his dogs muzzled as she scavenges so much
> 
> Was very proud of little dimwit this morning - firstly he managed not to wake me at at 5:30 by woofing at hedgehogs (which he did yesterday) and then he was very good on our walk and even managed to only have a little grumble at the black lab that came charging up to him in the park (he always reacts very strongly to black or chocolate labs but is not too bad with yellow or red).


Babraham is a nice walk, park by the church or on the village road and walk towards the church but follow the path along and the walk goes alongside the Granta (if mini dimwit likes water then pop him on a lead until you are past the steep weir), there is only the private road to the horrible Institute to worry about and then lots of open fields.

Malcolm used to have lots of bits on his website here but he has updated it so they might be hidden in the blog. He had some pics of Babraham.

Dog walks in Bedfordshire | malcolmthedog.co.uk


----------



## BessieDog

Maria - I'm lazy so I love wallpapering as its faster to put up. I never let my OH do it as I'm quite particular. If a bit goes up wrong I tear it down and start again. OH does the painting! This paper will be interesting - it's 'paste the wall' so in theory should be easy. In theory. Will let you know how I get on! 

Nicki - forgot that when I was talking to the Beagle owner this morning two older people were coming along the path towards us. One with a walking stick. Bess started bounding up towards them. I was about to call her back, but thought I'd see what she'd do - thinking I've got to start finding out and not just automatically put her on the lead. Well, as the old folks made no signs of wanting anything to do with her she swerved off, circled down the bank and back to m. Which made them laugh. So perhaps I can stop worrying about her jumping up at everyone. Sometimes you have to just go for it. 

Purple skies -that would have unnerved me too! 

Beth -well done on the LLW. Mine seems to come and go 

Might have to give training a miss tonight. I've been asleep all afternoon!


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## MollySmith

You sound like me BessieDog! I rung my dad up once to tell him I had pattern matched around a fire place and we shared a proud father daughter moment  Paste the wall isn't too bad, be very generous with the paste, more than regular is my advice, I have used it twice but since painted the walls (I am very sad and use my designers Pantone book to colour match:blush.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It's rain all the way into the weekend on the forecast so far. No change! I quite like it almost as it keeps the kids at bay!!


We sat out in deckchairs this afternoon at training and I even had my sunglasses on...

Holly was a good girl today and got almost animated when the other dogs were doing sendaway. She didn't even go into one when I had a little word when she thought about leaving me and the tennis ball to beatle off and say hello to a youngster...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> We sat out in deckchairs this afternoon at training and I even had my sunglasses on...
> 
> Holly was a good girl today and got almost animated when the other dogs were doing sendaway. She didn't even go into one when I had a little word when she thought about leaving me and the tennis ball to beatle off and say hello to a youngster...!!


As if little HB would beetle off being all sociable Grannie :w00t:.

Rudi and I have had a few little words over the last couple of days. Devil in a fur coat .

Deckchairs? Sunnies? My kind of training!


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## BessieDog

I'm a bit worried about how it's going to turn out. I've got some big patterned paper for a feature wall, and plain RED for the rest. Normally I go with safe neutral colours with a small pattern. It's either going to look great -or a total disaster!


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> I'm a bit worried about how it's going to turn out. I've got some big patterned paper for a feature wall, and plain RED for the rest. Normally I go with safe neutral colours with a small pattern. It's either going to look great -or a total disaster!


Been there and done that on quite a number of occasions.

Our kitchen is huge and after two days of applying emulsion it looked a Chinese brothel..!!

It took me to the next week-end to pluck up the courage to tell husband that we would have to re-do it and as it was a much lighter shade it took loads and loads of coats.


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## GingerRogers

That why we have white walls, it took 6 years and then I just couldn't choose a colour in case it went wrong


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## BessieDog

At least paper is easy to strip off again!


----------



## Barcode

Scrabble is still a bit grumbly (though nothing like it was) and she's been diagnosed with campylobactor, so I wonder if that is a factor as if I know I can be a right cow when I'm ill too! She was vomming everywhere the day before last and I haven't walked her since reasoning that if she is grumbly anyway, taking her out when she is ill is not likely to help matters. We're off to Liverpool tomorrow though and she's going to spend most of the day on Formby beach, so we'll see.

With Matilda, it's HARD WORK getting her to play. Don't get me wrong, she's ever such an affectionate dog and we have a good bond, but she doesn't bring toys to us like Scrabble (tennis balls shoved into face at all times!) and doesn't seem to like chasing/retrieving things. Yesterday on her walk she picked up a stick and did a few proper terrier shakes, so perhaps it's not all bad.

OH has been working on her retrieving things each morning, with sausages in a tube - she goes up to the tube, sniffs, returns. Is this going to be a matter of perseverance, or don't some dogs like to play? 

I've started putting biscuits into toys and that seems to sort of work, but ...

What have others done in this situation?


----------



## Guest

Gah, I keep forgetting to post here! Sorry! *waves again* 

Zander has actually started to go up to people now, which is nice, and has cuddled up to two different people!
Had a bit of an incident this morn with an offlead snappy dog and my dog being called vicious and an owner refusing to collect their dog.

We have found a way to keep Zand in the garden now. 

Longline + Harness attached via metal bar to the wall. :w00t:

Keep up the good work guys!


----------



## Beth17

Barcode said:


> Scrabble is still a bit grumbly (though nothing like it was) and she's been diagnosed with campylobactor, so I wonder if that is a factor as if I know I can be a right cow when I'm ill too! She was vomming everywhere the day before last and I haven't walked her since reasoning that if she is grumbly anyway, taking her out when she is ill is not likely to help matters. We're off to Liverpool tomorrow though and she's going to spend most of the day on Formby beach, so we'll see.
> 
> With Matilda, it's HARD WORK getting her to play. Don't get me wrong, she's ever such an affectionate dog and we have a good bond, but she doesn't bring toys to us like Scrabble (tennis balls shoved into face at all times!) and doesn't seem to like chasing/retrieving things. Yesterday on her walk she picked up a stick and did a few proper terrier shakes, so perhaps it's not all bad.
> 
> OH has been working on her retrieving things each morning, with sausages in a tube - she goes up to the tube, sniffs, returns. Is this going to be a matter of perseverance, or don't some dogs like to play?
> 
> I've started putting biscuits into toys and that seems to sort of work, but ...
> 
> What have others done in this situation?


Do you need her to retrieve? If not then I'd find something else she enjoys. Oscar isn't a natural retriever although will chase. He much prefers to play tug so we do do that and just have some ground rules in place. Not all dogs like to play but I think it's finding what clicks for them.


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## moonviolet

Busy day at TInker towers. 2 hour walk this morning including a half hour stretch with 3 goldies. I've spoken to the lady who owns them in passing a few times and observed them form a lurking spot on many occasions prior to that. Tink was a little unsure to start with but got into her stride as we walked and was getting in the dirty puddles with the best of 'em by the time we parted ways. The pavement walk at the end was good. Didn't try to pull me a sugar daddy today or howl at the dog that was by our front gate.

This afternoon we had our little visitor, they are so good together. This evening I challenged my co-ordination trying a reverse weave.....that is going to take some time:blush:

BD hope you are pleased with the paper once you've finished. will there be pics ?

Twiggy Grannie running a chinese brothel whatever next


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Busy day at TInker towers. 2 hour walk this morning including a half hour stretch with 3 goldies. I've spoken to the lady who owns them in passing a few times and observed them form a lurking spot on many occasions prior to that. Tink was a little unsure to start with but got into her stride as we walked and was getting in the dirty puddles with the best of 'em by the time we parted ways. The pavement walk at the end was good. Didn't try to pull me a sugar daddy today or howl at the dog that was by our front gate.
> 
> *This afternoon we had our little visitor, they are so good together. This evening I challenged my co-ordination trying a reverse weave.....that is going to take some time*:blush:
> 
> BD hope you are pleased with the paper once you've finished. will there be pics ?
> 
> *Twiggy Grannie running a chinese brothel whatever next*


You need eyes in the back of your head for that move....LOL

Pay attention - I told you some time ago. Pole dancing in old people's homes...


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> You need eyes in the back of your head for that move....LOL
> 
> Pay attention - I told you some time ago. Pole dancing in old people's homes...


I'll sign you up for a course at " mind, body and pole" 

You'r not joking about eyes in the back of your head... i'm trying to use the patio doors as dance mirrors, suffice to say the sight it far from elegant.


----------



## ItsonlyChris

Bluebell is crying like heck tonight, we've put her to bed in the kitchen and now she's crying because she misses us I think...

This Tuesday coming though, we're getting another Basset puppy so Blue has some company and we wanted another dog.

So Blue and Bliss will be sleeping together this time next week (with a bit of luck)!


----------



## Sarah1983

ItsonlyChris said:


> Bluebell is crying like heck tonight, we've put her to bed in the kitchen and now she's crying because she misses us I think...
> 
> This Tuesday coming though, we're getting another Basset puppy so Blue has some company and we wanted another dog.
> 
> So Blue and Bliss will be sleeping together this time next week (with a bit of luck)!


Isn't Bluebell still very young? 2 puppies together really isn't the best idea for a number of reasons.

Twiggy...a chinese brothel??? 

MV, glad you had a good walk.

Not really done much here today. Pottered around done some training, played some games.


----------



## Dogless

mv - reverse weaves? Sound dangerous!!

Good separate walks tonight; both boys ignored all they were asked to - dogs, cyclists, runners, people. Kilo sat and pushed his muzzle into his....muzzle for me for a short amount offlead. The devil in a fur coat became and angel in a fur coat and Kilo was my best boy as ever :001_wub:

Hubby asked why the poo bins had all been removed - cost of taking away the poo. The normal bins are overflowing with poo bags - they are now not being emptied as there is apparently too much poo in them so the 'normal' contractors won't empty them. There are also poo bags just piling up where bins used to be and other folk have abandoned picking up, so what was a fairly disgusting place has now become a cesspit :mad5::mad5:.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Isn't Bluebell still very young? 2 puppies together really isn't the best idea for a number of reasons.


Really have to agree with Sarah.


----------



## BessieDog

Talking about pole dancing (which I'm sure someone did), you might be interested in this. If you don't want to read the blurb scroll to the video at the end. When I got this email to the site you can imagine how close I was to pressing the delete key before reading on! 

Pole Dancing on Ben Nevis


----------



## Nicki85

Morning all!

Rusty and I had such a good time at agility last night... I was useless but we had a lot of fun... All the work we have been doing on playing tug seems to have paid off as I couldn't get him to release the toy. Super pleased with him. Someone even commented on his weaves and that he had a good style lol. 

BUT problem.... he crashed and ate dirt big time last night  twice... This isn't the first time either.... The surface is very loose (indoor riding school with dirt underneath loose carpet stuff) and I just don't think he gets the grip to jump properly. Last night he crashed through a jump, lost his front feet and ended up with a mouthful of dirt poor lad. So, I really need to think about whether we I can continue to work him here... it's a great club and the people are lovely but I have to think about Rusty first. I've already dropped him down a height so he isn't having to jump as high but it hasn't helped. Luckily it hasn't knocked his confidence but I am worried it might only be a matter of time + the possibility of injuries is high if that keeps happening.

We had a crazy walk this morning... went down to the water meadow and Rusty got there first and then I hear barking. I've never seen anyone down at the water meadow but assume someone else is down there so call Rusty back. Nope, he ain't coming... and the barking continues. In the end I go in the direction of the barking and there is a poorly (old?) deer just stood there looking very poorly... Rusty has turned to come back to me at this point. Not much I could do really so popped Rusty on the lead and left the poor thing to it. I think he was alerting me to it as it certainly wasn't a "I want to chase you" bark rather an alert bark. He then tried to jump over some sheep fencing with two strands of barbed wire on top- heart in mouth moment as I thought he was going to catch an eyball on the barbed wire. So, stressful walk!

Shae had 10mins round the estate- no dramas!


----------



## Symone

Sorry for not posting lately, but I've been really nervous and found it hard to concentrate on stuff, lol!
Reason being is a Job interview.. That I just had today. Literally just got home, lol. 
The interview went really well, and I'm hoping that I make it to the next stage.. Keeping my figners crossed. 
Ofc this means that if the OH also gets a job (If I get this one) I will need to find some doggy day care for Shamaya during the day. No way will I want her being alone for like 9 hours.  

So, everything is going well here, Shamaya has been really good. Going to take her to the Big Park (the new one) soon  I may pop to town first and get out a tenner for ice cream though, lol! 

Happy happy happy, here. :biggrin:
I'll read back through previous posts in a moment. ^_^;


----------



## BessieDog

Symone said:


> Sorry for not posting lately, but I've been really nervous and found it hard to concentrate on stuff, lol!
> Reason being is a Job interview.. That I just had today. Literally just got home, lol.
> The interview went really well, and I'm hoping that I make it to the next stage.. Keeping my figners crossed.
> Ofc this means that if the OH also gets a job (If I get this one) I will need to find some doggy day care for Shamaya during the day. No way will I want her being alone for like 9 hours.
> 
> So, everything is going well here, Shamaya has been really good. Going to take her to the Big Park (the new one) soon  I may pop to town first and get out a tenner for ice cream though, lol!
> 
> Happy happy happy, here. :biggrin:
> I'll read back through previous posts in a moment. ^_^;


Hope you get the job!


----------



## Kicksforkills

Ok, to be fair I'm practicing down, sit and stand in a sequence now and as long as he stands from sit then I'll continue doing sit too.

Just had a nice bubble bath -probably the first one since we got Dexter. 

Just going to wash my hair then in a few hours I'll wash Dexter for our first match night at Ringcraft tonight.


----------



## MollySmith

Good luck with the interview Symone 

Finally went out with Molly and OH this morning after a sleepless night, I just cough and weeze so I'm going back to the GP later as my inhalers aren't really working. I dropped them off and then went to the butchers and met them half way around the walk. It was so hot!

Anyway got back and I'm having a wee rant. Our neighbours next door seem to think they are hedgehog rescue and as you might recall we've been walking the hound on her lead in the garden after nightfall as we've seem them about. So we're sitting down with a coffee and this handwritten note comes through the door telling us that we must make sure Molly is under control as they have a nest and they are feeding them. Fair enough. But then he goes on to tell me (who told his g/f that she shouldn't give them milk last year) that they are an endangered species and we must keep space under our fences for them. I've just put the note through his door with the reply that we're aware of them, we only have Molly on a lead or in a separate area in the garden at night and we check for them first and that we won't leave a gap under the fence until he cuts back the weeds in his garden as they come through it all the time. :mad5: I hate notes like this, we are in for FFS, just knock on the door and stop the holier than thou lectures.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - sounds eventful this morning!! Poor Rusty too, crashing at agility.

MS - hate the 'notes' thing too about stuff like that, hope it all gets resolved amicably.

Symone - hope you get the job!

Both a very good and bad morning at Concrete Central.

The good - both boys walked beautifully to the top fields, walked and played very nicely and walked beautifully home. Had Rudi back rather than BBB which was nice . Then Rudi was a little star at class, really excellent focus, worked very well, happy and waggy. An elderly lady came to pick her food up from the trainer (he sells it) and wanted to meet Rudi, turned out she's always had RRs and so we had a lovely chat and Rudi had spasms of delight as she bent her face down to be thoroughly washed and fussed him like mad.

The bad - the trainer hit Rudi. Funnily enough after that he didn't want to work and nor did I. Then a GR managed to escape the hall and run up and down the main road before being caught. When he walked her back in she got a telling off and hit too. I'm not taking the BW tonight and am going to look at the only other positive classes I can find when we get back from our holiday. Not heard the best about them but will go and see a class anyway. Ugh.


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Dogless, what an arse that trainer is. I am so sorry, how is Rudi? I hope the other class is okay


----------



## GingerRogers

BArcode - glad Scrabble is calming sorry to hear she is poorly though that might well be contributing to her temper. Matilda might well prefer a game of tug to a retrieve, not heard of staffys being natural getter but they sure are natural tuggers. Ginge just nearly dislocated my shoulder when I lost concentration though so you'll haev to build up the muscles for her .

LO - so good to hear Zander is getting over things he feared. Just gotta keep him in now 

MV - be carefully I cant walk backwards at the best of times let alone while trying to concentrate on something else.

BD - pole dancing scares the be-jesus outta me, how the hell can people actually do things like that with their bodies  hope you are feeling ok today.

Nikki - are you actually socializing Shae with EVERYTHING, just one of your comments the other day about meeting a person & it being a bit scary, as I understood socialisation isn't just about dogs. Sorry if I have it all wrong. Poor Rusty, if that had been Rory he would have skulked off to a corner.

Symone - good luck & I am sure you will do the best for Shamaya if you need to.

KFK - good luck for tonight, not that I can pretend to have any idea what a match night is but it must be important if your washing your hair 

Mollysmith - I understand you feelings, our neighbour comes round and says 'Hi dear, I'm not being funny but................' Yes 'dear' you are being funny/annoying, just come out and say it cos I know its going to be telling us off for something, like the rats are back in 'their' garden, well it must be our fault, or the fence has fell down, thats cos they let the roses grow through it.  Hope you are fighting fit again soon.

Didnt have much to report yesterday as hubby took madam out, she had a hissy fit with him which I was almost pleased about as he needs reminding to keep up the vigilance and take my training seriously.

This morning woke up and let the dog out only for her to start mowing down every bit of grass she could find.  then she buried her breakfast, though that could have been a protest as it had just started raining  took her for a quiet walk in the woods, was lovely, saw a couple with two long haired daxies but diverted in time, didnt let her off today as she was determined to dive into the the murky waters at the estuary edge  

Got home and she ran straight out the back and dug up her breakfast and ate it :skep: dirty, dirty, mutt!

ETa my god dogless thats appalling, i know you knew he wasnt the most positive but you cant go round hitting other peoples dogs, especially in that sort of environment, especially as he knows your views, especially as it wasnt Rudis fault


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Oh Dogless, what an arse that trainer is. I am so sorry, how is Rudi? I hope the other class is okay


Rudi is fine; he's a robust little fella, met a woman in the car park on the way out with no signs of nervousness. If that had been Kilo he would have crumbled.


----------



## Nicki85

GingerRogers said:


> BArcode -
> Nikki - are you actually socializing Shae with EVERYTHING, just one of your comments the other day about meeting a person & it being a bit scary, as I understood socialisation isn't just about dogs. Sorry if I have it all wrong. Poor Rusty, if that had been Rory he would have skulked off to a corner.


Not sure I know what you mean but yes socialisation with everything not just dogs. She is fine with other dogs and meeting them it is people that she tends to woof at whilst running up to them for fuss. But she is a very vocal little thing so not that surprising- more of "it's very exciting to see you here!" woofs rather than anything else. Sat at the bus stop today as the kids and buggies were going into nursery so she could watch it all and do a bit of focusing on me.

DL- crazy, I would have been absolutley seething. Not suprised you aren't going back... hope Rudi is OK and it hasn't dented his confidence.

MS- can't believe your neighbour- and bloomin hedgehogs!!!


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> BD - pole dancing scares the be-jesus outta me, how the hell can people actually do things like that with their bodies  hope you are feeling ok today.


I must be feeling a bit off because I can't actually be bothered to go back and see what the pole-dancing is about. Had a good walk today which I needed because on Tuesday he had a pop at another dog for no reason I could see. Not a big pop but something I wouldn't like him doing all the same.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I must be feeling a bit off because I can't actually be bothered to go back and see what the pole-dancing is about. Had a good walk today which I needed because on Tuesday he had a pop at another dog for no reason I could see. Not a big pop but something I wouldn't like him doing all the same.


I can guarantee it's not what you're hoping it is . Pleased things are better today - maybe he was just having an 'off' day on Tue?


----------



## GingerRogers

Nicki85 said:


> Not sure I know what you mean but yes socialisation with everything not just dogs.


No sorry my misunderstanding , you said something yesterday which, to me, made it sound like she had only just met a person for the first time.......I will shut up now!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> I can guarantee it's not what you're hoping it is . Pleased things are better today - maybe he was just having an 'off' day on Tue?


I hope so, the other dog did have a ball in it's mouth, and Dief can be a bit toy posessive when out since everyone just nicks them.

There's one local chap who "claims" he came across a porn shoot in the thicket. I've been going back to the same spot but no luck.


----------



## Nicki85

GingerRogers said:


> No sorry my misunderstanding , you said something yesterday which, to me, made it sound like she had only just met a person for the first time.......I will shut up now!


He he no thats OK- no she has met a lot of people, through agility and puppy classes and now on walks. The barking at them is a new thing though where she is getting more confident I think. It's all very new to me as Rusty won't say hello to any one he doesn't know- he just ignores them.


----------



## Kicksforkills

What an idiot that "trainer" is.

Ginge -It's basically a practice show but you don't have to get dressed up.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I hope so, the other dog did have a ball in it's mouth, and Dief can be a bit toy posessive when out since everyone just nicks them.
> 
> There's one local chap who "claims" he came across a porn shoot in the thicket. I've been going back to the same spot but no luck.


Good Lord!! Your penultimate sentence has all sorts of meanings, shocking this being a family forum and all...I'm sure he did  .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Good Lord!! Your penultimate sentence has all sorts of meanings, shocking this being a family forum and all...I'm sure he did  .


:lol::lol::lol:

You have been hanging round MV too long Dogless! Mind as dirty as my dog .


----------



## sharloid

I had a quick walk with Broder this afternoon, just a collar and lead. No head collar/harness/walking belt. He walked loose lead most of the time, only getting to the end to sniff but he sat and waited for me to give the command. We saw a couple of dogs, all on the other side of the road and he glanced at them but carried on walking with a loose lead. I'm so proud! 

I have put off walking him on just a collar for so long. Walking have either been with the head collar or in harness/walking belt and letting him pull. 

I took Kindra on a collar and lead walk afterwards and she did well too. She was a bit more distracted and took a few seconds to return to my side but she did it. There was a huge, off lead spaniel walking behind us barking and she did turn round a few times but kept walking and said a polite hello to a little collie.


----------



## Symone

Dogless : Liked for "the good" bit.  
It's a shame about the trainer.  Is Rudi okay? 
Fingers crossed that the other class will be good. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you 

Thanks for the good lucks in regards to the job.  

It's so hot, here! My arm has become sunburnt with sitting inside, lol!
Shamaya again isn't liking the heat  Am waiting for it to cool down so she can actually make it to the park. Poor girly. The sun has been setting later and later lately, though.. Chance is it will still be up at 8pm :/ 

My interview clothes that I am still wearing now look gray.. Shamaya has been in a cuddly mood all day and has "rubbed off" on me, haha! I swear I have more fur than she does, now.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Dogless : Liked for "the good" bit.
> It's a shame about the trainer.  Is Rudi okay?
> Fingers crossed that the other class will be good. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you
> 
> Thanks for the good lucks in regards to the job.
> 
> It's so hot, here! My arm has become sunburnt with sitting inside, lol!
> Shamaya again isn't liking the heat  Am waiting for it to cool down so she can actually make it to the park. Poor girly. The sun has been setting later and later lately, though.. Chance is it will still be up at 8pm :/
> 
> My interview clothes that I am still wearing now look gray.. Shamaya has been in a cuddly mood all day and has "rubbed off" on me, haha! I swear I have more fur than she does, now.


Heat??? I wish . Rudi is fine thanks I think, we'll see what we see with the other classes. Other than that we're out of options!


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> Heat??? I wish . Rudi is fine thanks I think, we'll see what we see with the other classes. Other than that we're out of options!


Well, sending you good weather vibes, lol! Has Rudi seen any form of "summer" yet? (Not sure if you've had any hot days  )
It's good that Rudi seems fine  
If this class doesn't seem good what will you do?


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> Well, sending you good weather vibes, lol! Has Rudi seen any form of "summer" yet? (Not sure if you've had any hot days  )
> It's good that Rudi seems fine
> If this class doesn't seem good what will you do?


Summer was about 4 days long last year and came in April...holding out for one this year .

If the other class is no good I'll take all the good things we've learnt and carry on practising and progressing hopefully. If I move to the mainland by myself which is looking increasingly likely I'll find classes asap.


----------



## Symone

Dogless said:


> Summer was about 4 days long last year and came in April...holding out for one this year .
> 
> If the other class is no good I'll take all the good things we've learnt and carry on practising and progressing hopefully. If I move to the mainland by myself which is looking increasingly likely I'll find classes asap.


Fingers crossed that you will have a longer summer this year 

I'm sure that you will continue to do well either way


----------



## Dimwit

MS - glad you made it out for walk but not good about your neighbours, I hate it when people do things like that.

Dogless - why on earth did the trainer feel it was acceptable/appropriate to hit your dog glad he is ok though

Symone - have you considered getting a cool coat for Shamaya? It may help if she feels the heat. I have one for dimwit as he gets hot very quickly and it does seem to make a difference.

I forgot to say last night how brilliant my clever little dimwit was at school, he tried really hard and managed to focus on me for most of the time. 

I'm not very well today so came home from work at lunchtime. The plus side to that is that I managed to walk dimwit during school time so there was nobody about so I just let him potter around and have fun and then we did a bit of scentwork in the garden.


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> MS - glad you made it out for walk but not good about your neighbours, I hate it when people do things like that.
> 
> Dogless - why on earth did the trainer feel it was acceptable/appropriate to hit your dog glad he is ok though
> 
> Symone - have you considered getting a cool coat for Shamaya? It may help if she feels the heat. I have one for dimwit as he gets hot very quickly and it does seem to make a difference.
> 
> I forgot to say last night how brilliant my clever little dimwit was at school, he tried really hard and managed to focus on me for most of the time.
> 
> I'm not very well today so came home from work at lunchtime. The plus side to that is that I managed to walk dimwit during school time so there was nobody about so I just let him potter around and have fun and then we did a bit of scentwork in the garden.


Oh no, hope you feel better soon.

A dog was loose and running at him and jumping at him, on his head, running past, weeing everywhere - totally over excited. The owner was saying sorry a lot to me but couldn't get her and he was restrained by his lead. Rudi got hacked off, growled and showed pearly whites. Trainer leant to grab the loose dog (or so I thought) but grabbed Rudi and hit him round the head for growling. That was it; tail clamped to belly, didn't want to do a thing and I didn't try and get him to.


----------



## Dimwit

Well I'm no expert but I think Rudi was perfectly justified both in telling off the other dog and then for not wanting to do any more work.


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> Well I'm no expert but I think Rudi was perfectly justified both in telling off the other dog and then for not wanting to do any more work.


So do I! I was then told that he was "taking the piss" out of me when he switched off. He wasn't - he DOES try it on, but he wasn't at that moment. He was worried.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> So do I! I was then told that he was "taking the piss" out of me when he switched off. He wasn't - he DOES try it on, but he wasn't at that moment. He was worried.


I used to get told that dimwit was taking the piss when he switched off in the classes I used to go to, and then accused of lying/making excuses when I explained it was just because he was worried. I hope you can find another class, although I am sure you can do a great job in your own.


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> I used to get told that dimwit was taking the piss when he switched off in the classes I used to go to, and then accused of lying/making excuses when I explained it was just because he was worried. I hope you can find another class, although I am sure you can do a great job in your own.


I enjoy classes and so do the dogs (seem to anyway) so I am hoping these other classes look OK.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless so sorry to hear about the plank of a trainer  Glad Rudi is alright poor lad.

We had a lovely walk this morning with 3 of my dads dogs at one of their regular walks. Went over some fields, down lanes and through some woods onto the beach and then did a loop back to the car. Oscar was really good and got on well with everyone and Sam was offlead for almost all of it and stayed close with the group, going off ahead and then running back. They had a fab time and I am really pleased with the boys :thumbup1:


----------



## moonviolet

Oh dear Dogless any one of would have assumed the trainer was collecting the out of control dog.  sounds horrible. 

I hope the other class looks better. 

A quieter day today, it was so warm to we went to the windy side of the hill and walked puddle to puddle to let her ladyship cool her paws. 

Had a little heelwork session definitely all a bit casual, my fault for letting it all slip, but she did some cracking turns so all the body awareness stuff has its' uses .


----------



## blossom21

Well it makes a nice change for me to make a 2nd positive post.Again today at the park I let the long line drop to the ground and kept throwing the ball,and every time Bramble brought it back to me.Unlike last summer when it was grab the ball and bog off into the bushes :mad5: so I feel we are making progress,much better eye contact,loads of OTT praise and there were other people and loose dogs around and it was actually someone elses dog tried to get our ball  So maybe at last I have got my boy to focus on something he enjoys or Im more interesting than the undergrowth. :biggrin:


----------



## MollySmith

I'd actually be really offended that someone said my dog was taking the piss out of me, there's a way of phrasing it and then to hit my dog. I'd be knocking them into the middle of next week to be honest. I agree I think Rudi knew best and the trainer panicked.

I have an evil beast. We've had a lovely afternoon in the garden and I've been planting bits and saying to the OH that it's nice that Molly can wander around and not go silly or start to 'help' me dig holes for plants... famous last words. Bl*ody animal has just bought in the remains of a euphobia that I've just planted out.


----------



## moonviolet

MollySmith said:


> I'd actually be really offended that someone said my dog was taking the piss out of me, there's a way of phrasing it and then to hit my dog. I'd be knocking them into the middle of next week to be honest. I agree I think Rudi knew best and the trainer panicked.
> 
> I have an evil beast. We've had a lovely afternoon in the garden and I've been planting bits and saying to the OH that it's nice that Molly can wander around and not go silly or start to 'help' me dig holes for plants... famous last words. Bl*ody animal has just bought in the remains of a *euphobia* that I've just planted out.


Take care she hasn't got any of the milky sap on her, it can cause nasty reactions particularly in sunlight.


----------



## purpleskyes

We were meant to go to training class tonight which was at 6:30pm and the OH came home at 7pm.... I did throw a mood at him as we discussed this last night twice and this morning yet he somehow forgot and went and played golf after work. His defence was well you could have gone without me, I was like yeah I could have if you ever charged your phone and I could have got through to you!

He is now in a mood and has taken the dog for a walk on his own.


----------



## Dogless

Purpleskyes - OHs  :mad5:.

Blossom - well done.

mv - pleased you enjoyed your puddle diving!!

MS - I wasn't offended he said Rudi was taking the piss as I knew he wasn't. Molly sounds like quite the gardener .

Took Kilo out with Dizzy for an hour a half or so tonight; he had a great time - took his new toy (Kong Bounzer) which he LOVED and had to carry all the way home .

Then took Rudi out for a quick walk, he was perfectly behaved again, love him. BBB stayed at home again .


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> Take care she hasn't got any of the milky sap on her, it can cause nasty reactions particularly in sunlight.


Thank you MV, I didn't know that. I've given her a wash with an old t-shirt because she also chewed up her bath sponge as well


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Nicki - sounds eventful this morning!! Poor Rusty too, crashing at agility.
> 
> The bad - the trainer hit Rudi. Funnily enough after that he didn't want to work and nor did I. Then a GR managed to escape the hall and run up and down the main road before being caught. When he walked her back in she got a telling off and hit too. I'm not taking the BW tonight and am going to look at the only other positive classes I can find when we get back from our holiday. Not heard the best about them but will go and see a class anyway. Ugh.


Judging by what you've said previously about your trainer, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened I'm afraid.

There must be some positive training classes over there somewhere.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> There's one local chap who "claims" he came across a porn shoot in the thicket. I've been going back to the same spot but no luck.


Take up horse riding...LOL It's surprising the sights you see deep in the countryside from the back of a horse....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Judging by what you've said previously about your trainer, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened I'm afraid.
> 
> There must be some positive training classes over there somewhere.


There are some fairly new ones started up; I am going to go and see a class. I'd really like to keep on with them as we've gained an awful lot this year too - the positive aspects of going have far outweighed the negatives but I just can't go again now. I do feel like Rudi's growl was justified, I felt like growling myself.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> There are some fairly new ones started up; I am going to go and see a class. I'd really like to keep on with them as we've gained an awful lot this year too - the positive aspects of going have far outweighed the negatives but I just can't go again now. I do feel like Rudi's growl was justified, I felt like growling myself.


It's a shame Tripod (Ann) doesn't seem to be a member of this forum anymore. She was a very forward thinking behaviourist based in NI and could probably have recommended somewhere.


----------



## Twiggy

I've been instructing from 2.00 this afternoon until 7.30pm and then walked my girls so my poor old brain is frazzled and I'm tired....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It's a shame Tripod (Ann) doesn't seem to be a member of this forum anymore. She was a very forward thinking behaviourist based in NI and could probably have recommended somewhere.


Yes, I thought of her. There is a class up to the North but it's just too far to go really.

There was a prof of dog behaviour from Queens on the news last night as they were discussing the very strict Dog Control orders proposed. I Googled and Googled her to see if she did classes as she was discussing being a trainer but couldn't find her bar being the author of some papers.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, I thought of her. There is a class up to the North but it's just too far to go really.
> 
> There was a prof of dog behaviour from Queens on the news last night as they were discussing the very strict Dog Control orders proposed. I Googled and Googled her to see if she did classes as she was discussing being a trainer but couldn't find her bar being the author of some papers.


Have you looked on the APDT website to see if there are any members in your area? Even if they don't run classes they may be able to recommend somewhere.


----------



## ballybee

Not much to update on at the moment 

Tummel - well after me being an eejit and leaving the dogmatic in Inverness i've been forced to get the message through on LLW ad thankfully Tummel has been mostly good, this wouldn't have been an issue a few months back but Tummel decided he has to go and add even more muscle to his body and is now 33kg instead of 30....and is now capable of pulling me completely  But he has been doing well so not all bad. He's taken a big step back with his reactivity though, having to redo all my hard work on him ignoring other dogs while onlead which is driving me mad!! I also need to find someone around here with a calm, normal dog that he can interact with, it's been about 2 months now since Tummel got to be offlead around a strange dog!! SA has also taken a backstep, Tummel ripped our curtains and curtain pole off the wall...again. We have made the decision to change the room he's left in and it does seem to have improved him, he was left for about 4 hours and wasn't destructive at all 

Dan - doesn't seem so intent on humping all dogs anymore, he's had a lot of mental work this week (been out shooting twice so far) so is knackered a lot of the time  There's not a lot to work on with Dan, just keep going with the basics really

I'm getting my bike back tomorrow, should be up and running by Tuesday (when i'm next off work) so shall be trying the boys out, individually to begin with of course...our shortest and easiest track is about 1.5 miles so might start with that, it's mostly farm tracks, with a tiny amount of road involved so should be great for beginning


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well, Dexter was very good. Won his round in Puppy and was in the final against a Sheltie. Unfortunatly, before our second up-and-down in the final, the mat got kicked and frightened Dexter so he didn't want to go back on it and laid down for a few seconds.

Plus apparently the Sheltie's owner is a right sore loser. 

Plus her dog was very lovely.


----------



## Izzysmummy

Dogless said:


> Yes, I thought of her. There is a class up to the North but it's just too far to go really.
> 
> There was a prof of dog behaviour from Queens on the news last night as they were discussing the very strict Dog Control orders proposed. I Googled and Googled her to see if she did classes as she was discussing being a trainer but couldn't find her bar being the author of some papers.


Could you look her up on the Uni website and send her an email?

DL - Poor Rudi, glad he's not too bothered but cant believe he hit someone's dog . You pay to go to these classes, you do not give him money to bully your dog! Izzy gets very "vague" in class if she gets a bit anxious, we've moved up to a new class with all new dogs that she doesnt know so if we're doing anything where I move away from her she can go a bit "vague" but its definitely not taking the piss and the trainer understands and will remind me not to leave her too far and to go back to her early if I feel she needs it when doing her stays rather than pushing her too hard, just until she builds up her confidence again. 
Also I saw a job yesterday and thought of you, in the North West (no ulterior motive in the slightest ) possibly not at all suitable but happy to PM you the details if you were interested !

Symone - Fingers crossed for the job!

Twiggy - Glad Leafy's tum has settled again 

Everyone else *waves*

Apologies for being a bit AWOL recently, having a bit of a down week had my "end of contract process" meeting ! All very real that I could be unemployed in 6 months . I'll be fine, just got to get out of this "blah" mood and give myself a kick up the backside to find a job !

Took Izzy to school last night and although she was a bit barky before we went in she did very well once we got in there, good focus, great recall and distance control and was good as gold in the chaos that ensued when one of the dogs who has worked out how to open the fire escape made a break for freedom, one minute perfect heelwork, the next he saw his opportunity and was off for a run on the field :ciappa:!

Nothing much to report here, she's been a bit barky this last week at just random things in the house (fine on walks though) and apparently had spooked a couple of times at creche too, not quite sure what's got into her but just keeping consistent and hoping she'll settle again soon.


----------



## MollySmith

Just hugs Izzys Mum, I know from recent events with me that it's a hugely disconcerting time. Go easy on yourself  Oh my goodness, I can't believe a dog managed to escape  I hope gorgeous Izzy settles down very soon.

ballybee - did Tummel's lead reactivity all kick in after the dogmatic went awol? I just wondered as I forgot Molly's halti a week or so back and had to walk her on the lead. I got the OH to get us in the car as she was so hyper and I felt she'd react. The halti seems to have made her rethink her behaviour, without it I think she would still be a pain although I didn't wait for it to happen just in case, and I just wondered if that's the same for him?


----------



## Dogless

Izzysmummy said:


> Could you look her up on the Uni website and send her an email?
> 
> DL - Poor Rudi, glad he's not too bothered but cant believe he hit someone's dog . You pay to go to these classes, you do not give him money to bully your dog! Izzy gets very "vague" in class if she gets a bit anxious, we've moved up to a new class with all new dogs that she doesnt know so if we're doing anything where I move away from her she can go a bit "vague" but its definitely not taking the piss and the trainer understands and will remind me not to leave her too far and to go back to her early if I feel she needs it when doing her stays rather than pushing her too hard, just until she builds up her confidence again.
> Also I saw a job yesterday and thought of you, in the North West (no ulterior motive in the slightest ) possibly not at all suitable but happy to PM you the details if you were interested !
> 
> Symone - Fingers crossed for the job!
> 
> Twiggy - Glad Leafy's tum has settled again
> 
> Everyone else *waves*
> 
> Apologies for being a bit AWOL recently, having a bit of a down week had my "end of contract process" meeting ! All very real that I could be unemployed in 6 months . I'll be fine, just got to get out of this "blah" mood and give myself a kick up the backside to find a job !
> 
> Took Izzy to school last night and although she was a bit barky before we went in she did very well once we got in there, good focus, great recall and distance control and was good as gold in the chaos that ensued when one of the dogs who has worked out how to open the fire escape made a break for freedom, one minute perfect heelwork, the next he saw his opportunity and was off for a run on the field :ciappa:!
> 
> Nothing much to report here, she's been a bit barky this last week at just random things in the house (fine on walks though) and apparently had spooked a couple of times at creche too, not quite sure what's got into her but just keeping consistent and hoping she'll settle again soon.


PM away; open to any ideas!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Have you looked on the APDT website to see if there are any members in your area? Even if they don't run classes they may be able to recommend somewhere.


Yes; two in the whole of Norn Iron. One is the one I have been going to. The other is who takes the classes that I will go and see.


----------



## ballybee

MollySmith said:


> Just hugs Izzys Mum, I know from recent events with me that it's a hugely disconcerting time. Go easy on yourself  Oh my goodness, I can't believe a dog managed to escape  I hope gorgeous Izzy settles down very soon.
> 
> ballybee - did Tummel's lead reactivity all kick in after the dogmatic went awol? I just wondered as I forgot Molly's halti a week or so back and had to walk her on the lead. I got the OH to get us in the car as she was so hyper and I felt she'd react. The halti seems to have made her rethink her behaviour, without it I think she would still be a pain although I didn't wait for it to happen just in case, and I just wondered if that's the same for him?


no, i think it was having Deeks about made me slightly lax with our training  It's just harder to control him without the headcollar!!! He is usually better behaved on it as he knows he has no chance of being able to act up and get what he wants...just have to reteach him that he can behave well without it too


----------



## Kicksforkills

Before Ringcraft;










After Ringcraft;


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning all, 

There is absolutely no chance I'm scrolling back to catch up where I left so I'll just start here! 

Horace has been good as gold in terms of reacting this week. He makes a dive for the nearest wall/fence/hedge now and has a good sniff.. I must look like a right eejit being yanked like that but it's better than the alternative!

I had a bit of a freaky moment yesterday... We followed a public footpath through some farmers fields but I spotted cows in the distance so put His Lordship back on lead. On we went, getting closer to said cows but still at a respectable distance. They spotted us and their eyes followed us as we marched on. Suddenly one began to walk towards us, then another, then another until the whole herd were making their merry way over to us  Now I'm not scared of cows, I grew up finding them in our garden more times than not but I didn't fancy much for finding myself in amongst them!
I kept going, aiming for our usual spot on the barbed wire fence but it soon became apparent that the cows would get there before we did so I had to aim for a spot closer. It was touch and go there who would make it first but we managed to and as luck would have it, my top got caught on the barbed wire... I managed to unhook myself just in the nick of time, I pulled my legs through just as the herd of cows reached us... 

When I stood up in the safety of the other side of the fence I realised my heart was beating a bit fast!! Horace was good as gold though, stood watching them, very interested but not reacting at all so I rewarded him. The cows were beautiful, I think they probably were just expecting food.

Shame I didn't have my camera on me that day, could have got some nice upclose pictures!


----------



## Dogless

Absolutely freezing cold this morning, walked in the wind, rain, sleet and hail. Separate walks, not much seen as no one else was really daft enough to be out in it. Mixture of on and off lead. Still warming up :blink:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Absolutely freezing cold this morning, walked in the wind, rain, sleet and hail. Separate walks, not much seen as no one else was really daft enough to be out in it. Mixture of on and off lead. Still warming up :blink:.


Yet another of the joys of living in the green and pleasant NI...

It's much cooler here today and I just managed to get back with the dogs before it threw it down.


----------



## Maria_1986

Warning - if you are eating you may want to skip this.
Will go back and catch up in a bit, but just wanted to have a moan and felt that you would understand. Why can't people pick up their dog poop and put it in a bin. Chevy is a poo eater - yes I need to work on her leave when it comes to poo but if people would bag and bin their dog mess I would may not just had to scrub diarrhoea off the walls of my spare room. 

Gotta collect a 3day pooled sample to be sure but we think that Chevy has Giardia - there has been a lot of it around here recently and it can be spread by dogs eating/coming in contact with contaminated faeces. She was fine for a few days but the diarrhoea has now started so I took her in for a check over, gums are a little pale and tacky so she is a little dehydrated so we have something for that but temperature and everything else are normal. So we have the fun of a bland diet, prokolin and collecting poo for the next few days.


----------



## GingerRogers

Not sure there's anything to like there Dogless, were the CH's good?

Well done Horace, its great when you realise how to let them deal with stuff 

KFK - take it ringcraft went well then judging by the little ones cheeky face adoringly staring at you 

Had a nice dash last night, I was on my own but braved letting her off for a bit, I didn't dare just let her potter though, we did sit stays and runs to mummies 

We had a bit of a pants walk this morning but I have found the plus side . 

First it was wet 
She started launching at big vehicles  doesn't mind the bin lorry though , she was getting better at that or maybe it was just that there were a lot, delivery stuff and buses.
We saw our friend with Tamzin & Rudi but then around the corner came her sister with her chi, she does nothing to stop him barking, well I suppose it looks like I don't either , my friend is worried he will get eaten one day , Ginge kicked off big style and latched onto my ankle again while the chi's owner laughed at me : I was wearing ankle boots 
Then we went to our secure beer garden and I got ceremoniously mostly ignored while breakfasting guests watched through the window 

But the positive, she only kicked off once the chi had started and when we turned to go she was more than happy to come with me rather than stand barking after it till it was out of sight  In the beer garden she suddenly became interested once I started ignoring her, .


Ok Maria you can have the rosette for worst day poor you and poor Chevy and urgh at the disgusting monsters who leave their poo lying about. Hope she is better soon.


----------



## Dogless

Maria - poor Chevy, hope she's on the road to recovery too. Owning a poo eater myself (Sir Kilo) I know how frustrating it can be.



GingerRogers said:


> Not sure there's anything to like there Dogless, were the CH's good?
> 
> Well done Horace, its great when you realise how to let them deal with stuff
> 
> KFK - take it ringcraft went well then judging by the little ones cheeky face adoringly staring at you
> 
> Had a nice dash last night, I was on my own but braved letting her off for a bit, I didn't dare just let her potter though, we did sit stays and runs to mummies
> 
> We had a bit of a pants walk this morning but I have found the plus side .
> 
> First it was wet
> She started launching at big vehicles  doesn't mind the bin lorry though , she was getting better at that or maybe it was just that there were a lot, delivery stuff and buses.
> We saw our friend with Tamzin & Rudi but then around the corner came her sister with her chi, she does nothing to stop him barking, well I suppose it looks like I don't either , my friend is worried he will get eaten one day , Ginge kicked off big style and latched onto my ankle again while the chi's owner laughed at me : I was wearing ankle boots
> Then we went to our secure beer garden and I got ceremoniously mostly ignored while breakfasting guests watched through the window
> 
> But the positive, she only kicked off once the chi had started and when we turned to go she was more than happy to come with me rather than stand barking after it till it was out of sight  In the beer garden she suddenly became interested once I started ignoring her, .
> 
> Ok Maria you can have the rosette for worst day poor you and poor Chevy and urgh at the disgusting monsters who leave their poo lying about. Hope she is better soon.


Yes, the CHs were very good indeed . Rudi and I were caught without shelter in a very heavy and long hail shower. Poor boy was cowering from it, swiping his face etc.

Sorry you had such a rubbish time, hope it was just a blip. Kilo's vehicle lunging used to be much worse in the wet - noise of the tyres I think. Perhaps that was a factor today?


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Maria - poor Chevy, hope she's on the road to recovery too. Owning a poo eater myself (Sir Kilo) I know how frustrating it can be.
> 
> Yes, the CHs were very good indeed . Rudi and I were caught without shelter ina very heavy and long hail shower. *Poor boy was cowering from it, swiping his face etc.*
> 
> Sorry you had such a rubbish time, hope it was just a blip. Kilo's vehicle lunging used to be much worse in the wet - noise of the tyres I think. Perhaps that was a factor today?


Oh bless him , I remember when we got stuck in a hail storm and the ninja didnt know what to do with herself.

I think it must have been the wet, though the water wasn't slooshing about, but it must have made a difference to her


----------



## blossom21

It makes you feel good when you can post positive things about your dogs.Day 3 of long line dragging and another good day at the park.Brambles really into the ball game now,and having his eye on me instead of everywhere but. Still got a long way to go,but I feel much more confident we are achieving things.Also I take his breakfast out with me and he earns it when he brings the ball back,or I scatter it and we play "find it". Im amazed how far I can throw a ball, but each time he's come back,maybe now and again he feels the need to circle before coming back but not often. Onwards and upwards. And yes I so agree about people not picking up their dogs mess,drives me mad when I dont spot it and the long line trails through it yuk!!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh bless him , I remember when we got stuck in a hail storm and the ninja didnt know what to do with herself.
> 
> I think it must have been the wet, though the water wasn't slooshing about, but it must have made a difference to her


The wind was driving it in so it was stinging like mad! :cryin:


----------



## GingerRogers

Thats horrid is isn't it, it hurts us enough god knows what it feels like to them, reminds me of the time we 'found the body' on the dunes, that was only rain, but it hurt, I still wonder how long the poor 'body' had to lay there before they found her.


----------



## Dogless

I've contacted the other dog trainer, explained we're going away so email contact was preferred if possible but would be interested in coming to see a class on my return. Need a fresh start.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Thats horrid is isn't it, it hurts us enough god knows what it feels like to them, reminds me of the time we 'found the body' on the dunes, that was only rain, but it hurt, I still wonder how long the poor 'body' had to lay there before they found her.


Yes. I've been out running in an awful hailstorm once and come back covered in bruises all over my legs, it can be evil!!


----------



## Nicki85

Love my puppies 

Yesterday I took Rusty to the new agility class- no one told me there was a DUCK POND at the end of the arena and geese flying/ sitting on the field... cue Rusty's eyes on stalks and me trying not to panic...
But, he was fine! Well, he didn't leave the arena and did all the exercises really nicely. Had to use a lot of food to keep attention but he started to play with his ball/sock toy thing towards then end. When I saw the pond and birds I had one aim to keep him in the arena- anything else would on top of that.

Today I took Shae to the Dave puppies foundation workshop for agility and she was fab. He was really impressed at how much her play had come on considering the last time he saw her she wouldn't entertain the idea of playing at all. But she chased it and tugged on it so very happy. We also did some shaping exercises- go round a pole, back feet on a board and standing on a puppy see-saw. Lots of recall work too- all of which she was fab with! She got very tired towards the end (2hrs for a 12.5week pup is a lot...) but settled in a crate that Dave let me borrow in-between exercises. She was the youngest in the class as well.

Blossom- sounds like you are making progress  It takes a long time but it is always worth it.
GR- grr at lorry lunging, not something i've ever had to deal with- hope you find the reasoning/ solution... Positive bits sound good though 
DL- your weather sounds foul... have a bit of sun at the mo so I will send it your way!
Maria- just yuk!
Irisheyes- I really don't like walking through fields of cows... especially young, curious bullocks. We have Dexter cattle on the forest but those I can cope with.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Warning - if you are eating you may want to skip this.
> Will go back and catch up in a bit, but just wanted to have a moan and felt that you would understand. Why can't people pick up their dog poop and put it in a bin. Chevy is a poo eater - yes I need to work on her leave when it comes to poo but if people would bag and bin their dog mess I would may not just had to scrub diarrhoea off the walls of my spare room.
> 
> Gotta collect a 3day pooled sample to be sure but we think that Chevy has Giardia - there has been a lot of it around here recently and it can be spread by dogs eating/coming in contact with contaminated faeces. She was fine for a few days but the diarrhoea has now started so I took her in for a check over, gums are a little pale and tacky so she is a little dehydrated so we have something for that but temperature and everything else are normal. So we have the fun of a bland diet, prokolin and collecting poo for the next few days.


Oh dear poor you and poor Chevy.

Giardia isn't nice and it's also the hassle involved.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I've contacted the other dog trainer, explained we're going away so email contact was preferred if possible but would be interested in coming to see a class on my return. Need a fresh start.


Yes you do and preferably a fresh country...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes you do and preferably a fresh country...!!


Don't even go there Twiggy!!!!

It is so frustrating wanting to train my dogs, do fun agility or fun classes like mv's and not being able to. Plus a billion other reasons, well, almost.


----------



## Twiggy

I've just trained Tremor and Holly Bolly and they were super, which is more than Holly was yesterday when she had an audience.....!!

Yesterday she did her tricks and one brief circuit of heelwork and then decided I was much too boring and wanted to flirt with all the young dogs. She'll get over it - eventually I suppose.


----------



## Symone

Maria : I hope that Chevy will be feeling better, soon. 

Dogless : It's a shame about not finding shelter from the rain.

GR : Hopefully the launching was only because of the wet. 


Rubbish day, here.  
Got a phone call pretty much first thing in the morning saying that I didn't get the job. They want someone with more experience. It's nice of them to phone me I suppose.
Then it started to chuck it down and Shamaya refused to go out, so I had a hyper misbehaving puppy indoors. She must be approaching teenagehood for she ignored me when I tried to do some training with her, too..  
Sun came out so I put on a thin hoodie (It was really hot!) and took her out. Started pouring down on the way back and we both got drenched. 
And we witnessed a dog fight on the way home. A staffy went for a westie. Luckily the Westie was fine. The staffy however got a choke on the choke chain 
And to top it off Shamaya has discovered the delight in eating poo. Annoyingly I couldn't get to her in time and she scoffed down a small bit. What was left was a small part of a bright orange poo so I'm assuming bakers. I hope that it won't make her ill.
Overall a pretty horrible day. 

However, Shamaya has been an angel since we've been back. She was happy to do some training, and then she decided to be an over sized lap dog and give me cuddles.  (And she also decided to stick her tongue up my nose.)


----------



## BessieDog

Sorry guys. No chance to catch up with everything. 

Could someone tell me why I thought it was a good idea to decorate?  started with the steamer at 8.30 and apart from walking Bess haven't stopped until just now. Now I've stopped I can't move! 

Had a good sea wall walk again - completely to ourselves. It got very black as we reached our halfway mark and I knew we were going to get wet. And then I remembered that thunderstorms were forecast, and that perhaps it wasn't the brightest idea to be the highest thing for miles around. Luckily it was only rain.


----------



## Dogless

Symone - sorry you've had a rubbish day .

Took the CHs out together tonight. We got soaked, frozen and blown about. It's so cold I have a fleece back on under my jacket :blink:. They were very good .


----------



## MollySmith

Hello everyone. Tired me and Molly today. She had six hoomans in her walk today, me and OH plus my parents, my uncle and his partner who are visiting from Germany. We just beat the rain and Molly was so happy to have everyone there I think she walked each bit twice. We pottered in the garden between showers, I needed to get the raised beds cleared and we've had cuddles and naps. Still feel rubbish, still need to sleep.


----------



## IrishEyes

Morning all,

Dogless- that sounds like some pretty intense weather your having there at the moment, I hope it eases soon for you all.

Bessie- I'm the same, once I start I don't want to stop.. then when I do stop, I don't want to start again!

Symone - overgrown lapdogs are the best 

We went out for our walk at 6 this morning but had to turn back after 20mins as Horace seems to have a limp, he doesn't seem to mind if we head back early, I think he just likes to get out no matter the length!

Have a nice day everyone.


----------



## Twiggy

I felt really sorry for Tremor this morning. She brought half the contents of the toy box into the bedroom trying to entice Holly Bolly to play with her, sadly all to no avail.

I know the feeling well......LOL


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> I felt really sorry for Tremor this morning. She brought half the contents of the toy box into the bedroom trying to entice Holly Bolly to play with her, sadly all to no avail.
> 
> I know the feeling well......LOL


 Awh poor Tremor


----------



## moonviolet

Sorry got a bit distracted lately.

We went to a RallyO taster last night and had a great time. I was a pile of steaming poop. I swear one day Tink will stomp off with a flick of her ears mumbling about finding a handler who is of an appropriate calibre to work with her.

In order to get my limbs about me, the very sweet trainer was my stand-in dog as we ran through a few stations at a time. After a while I started to get the hang of things and could focus on Tink again and we started to make some headway.

It was interesting hearing about the differences between Talking dogs and (what is now) KC rally. KC understandable is more formal, Talking dogs is more relaxed with swooping turns etc. 

Had a lovely time. deifnitely something i'd liek to have another got at. 

Hope everyone and their dogs have a wonderful weekend.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Sorry got a bit distracted lately.
> 
> We went to a RallyO taster last night and had a great time. I was a pile of steaming poop. I swear one day Tink will stomp off with a flick of her ears mumbling about finding a handler who is of an appropriate calibre to work with her.
> 
> In order to get my limbs about me, the very sweet trainer was my stand-in dog as we ran through a few stations at a time. After a while I started to get the hang of things and could focus on Tink again and we started to make some headway.
> 
> It was interesting hearing about the differences between Talking dogs and (what is now) KC rally. KC understandable is more formal, Talking dogs is more relaxed with swooping turns etc.
> 
> Had a lovely time. deifnitely something i'd liek to have another got at.
> 
> Hope everyone and their dogs have a wonderful weekend.


RallyO gradually seems to be gaining momentum. I did think initially it would take off faster than it appears to be doing and the KC were pretty quick to swoop it under their umbrella.


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear poor Tremor 

MV the Rally-O sounds really interesting.I expect I'll be doing some research into that later.

Lovely sunny day here with a nice breeze so not too hot for the boys. Had a lovely walk through the woods with Oscar and he was perfect. Then took Sam down and had nice lead work and no tantrums today. He was able to go off lead again and kept close to me and kept checking in as well as recalling from playing with another dog. Such good boys


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> RallyO gradually seems to be gaining momentum. I did think initially it would take off faster than it appears to be doing and the KC were pretty quick to swoop it under their umbrella.


It's probably not as cool as agility or as fast as flyball so doesn't have the glamour of either of those. So possibly unless you are a bit of a dog nerd is less entertaining for spectators. What it lacks in spectator appeal it makes up for when you have a go.

Tink definitely enjoyed it, so it's something i'd pursue.


----------



## LinznMilly

Afternoon all.

Dogless; Glad to hear that the boys were both good on their walk, but it's a shame about the weather. We were out in the rain last night and typically, an hour later, the sun was shining, so I know how you feel  

Twiggy: Poor Tremor.  

MV: I had to Google RallyO.  Glad you enjoyed it. It's something I could think about with (ironically) Max but Milly's ... got a long, long road to go before I even think about it with her :lol:

Been having a bit of a lazy week, and while I have been doing some training with M&M, it's been in the house/fun training. Max now understands what I want to do when I move my arm in a circle around him and follows the treat to complete a Spin, but doesn't yet associate the command with the action. Milly ...half the time she just sits back and tries to get the treat that way :lol: Other times though, she can complete a spin nicely, but again, doesn't associate the action with the command.

She has mastered Paw though - finally   and now that they're both willingly giving Paw on command (Max has been doing this for years), I'm thinking Team *enter surname here* high5 :smilewinkgrin:

I've also noticed that recently, Max has been friendlier to offlead dogs when we've been out on our walks :w00t: There was a boisterous collie/shepard kind of dog this morning, running after a stick its owner had thrown for it. I called Max to me and put him on the lead, but it wasn't needed - the other dog left us in peace and Max was calm.

Then we met an offlead terrier. I was about to call Max to me again, but he was happy with a pee and sniff competition with the other dog, so I just let him socialise. :tongue_smilie: He did have a little bark at the dog's owner though, but I was close enough to grab him, and the man didn't seem to be too bothered


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> It's probably not as cool as agility or as fast as flyball so doesn't have the glamour of either of those. So possibly unless you are a bit of a dog nerd is less entertaining for spectators. What it lacks in spectator appeal it makes up for when you have a go.
> 
> Tink definitely enjoyed it, so it's something i'd pursue.


Yes it's certainly not a spectator sports (except for the addicts), pretty much the same as obedience.

I was asked to read through the proposed rules when the KC took it on board as I did with HTM.


----------



## Dimwit

moonviolet said:


> It's probably not as cool as agility or as fast as flyball so doesn't have the glamour of either of those. So possibly unless you are a bit of a dog nerd is less entertaining for spectators.


So the doggy equivalent of dressage then
I'm glad you enjoyed the rally though, the classes I have started taking dimwit to are rally (talking dogs) and are great fun. Usually they are "just" obedience- type lessons but the other week we were doing a small course which was great, even if we were rubbish. I think it will be a long time (if ever) before we could compete but we enjoy it which is the main thing.

Dimwit has had a quiet few days as I was off work again yesterday with my lurgy, so we went to big walkies this morning which he enjoyed as much as ever, despite the lower turnout due to the rubbish weather


----------



## MollySmith

Hope you feel better soon Dimwit. I meant to come to BW but I'd be coughing at you all so we had a quiet walk at the Gogs and I've hung onto my voice. I saw that Sally does Rally, I need to find out more as I like to give it a go too providing all goes well on 19th.

We met a few dogs and the weekend walkers with not much idea. A lady with two hairy little crosses one off lead in the off lead area who charged at Molly who was off lead. The other dog was on lead and barked at Molly so both had issues I think but it was all apparently my fault even though this lady showed no positive training methods and it was her off lead dog who barged at Molly when we were doing 'watch me'. She kicked out but didn't catch Molly and picked up the lead reactive dog. When accused I said I wasn't even going to entertain a conversation with someone who showed such mindless stupidity around dogs and walked away. If both dogs were on lead fine, Molly would be too but to have two dogs as bad as each other in a very popular walking area that's off lead makes me worry for these dogs. There were lots of dogs around this morning so I expect she was a very angry lady at the end of the walk.

More gardening this afternoon, I've also cleared the shed and declare that my OH is the hoarder next door. Lots of bags of paper and card board boxes are in the bin (why keep them) along with a collection of foil (?) and old paintbrushes. Now I have to tackle the issue of a motorbike that's not been used in 20 years... This is all because he has said there isn't enough room to sort out space for my stained glass table. I beg to differ! I found our late cat's feeding bowls and had a sad moment, cats bowls are so tiny!


----------



## blossom21

Hubs walked the big lad today as I was working.I took the new boy for one whirl around the park,keeping to the path.He has to start his injections, as a stray they dont know if he has or has not been inoculated.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Hope you feel better soon Dimwit. I meant to come to BW but I'd be coughing at you all so we had a quiet walk at the Gogs and I've hung onto my voice. I saw that Sally does Rally, I need to find out more as I like to give it a go too providing all goes well


I can't breathe very well at the moment so the advantage of BW is that it is flat and fairly sedate  the classes are fun, with no pressure and I like that they are mixed ability so I never have to worry about holding the others back!


----------



## Symone

Today is going so much better than yesterday 

Had lovely walks with a lovely girly, who behaved really well!
She did start pulling on her flexi when we turned the last bit towards the new big park. I think that may have been because there was a hyper puppy bouncing that she wanted to meet, lol.

The "travellers" that I saw in the park yesterday are gone today. Since I only recently started going there I assumed they were allowed there. Turns out not! They completely trashed a field which is a shame.  
The council however seem to have done their job for the first time in years and cleaned up after them. However there are tire tracks all over the field now. 
Shamaya however had fun running where the tracks were, though. Only leaving the track to get her ball 

Did some training while there, she recalled very well from two over excited schnauzers. One was yapping chasing her when we threw her ball. She loved it though, her tail was wagging so much! and the other was jumping up my leg asking for strokes. Both very lovely.  
There was also a third but it was kept on lead so Shamaya didn't get to meet that one. I wasn't sure if it was DA or had bad recall or what.

Had one mishap when walking home, we came across an entire lab that was very big. It seems Shamaya is still scared of big males for she screeched and tried to run away and hide.  Poor girly.

She however was very happy to say hello to a female Akita shortly after. 

So, mostly a good day! Need to work on her fear of male dogs, though.

Here's a pic of the little lady that I took today.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Hope you feel better soon Dimwit. I meant to come to BW but I'd be coughing at you all so we had a quiet walk at the Gogs and I've hung onto my voice. I saw that Sally does Rally, I need to find out more as I like to give it a go too providing all goes well on 19th.
> 
> We met a few dogs and the weekend walkers with not much idea. A lady with two hairy little crosses one off lead in the off lead area who charged at Molly who was off lead. The other dog was on lead and barked at Molly so both had issues I think but it was all apparently my fault even though this lady showed no positive training methods and it was her off lead dog who barged at Molly when we were doing 'watch me'. She kicked out but didn't catch Molly and picked up the lead reactive dog. When accused I said I wasn't even going to entertain a conversation with someone who showed such mindless stupidity around dogs and walked away. If both dogs were on lead fine, Molly would be too but to have two dogs as bad as each other in a very popular walking area that's off lead makes me worry for these dogs. There were lots of dogs around this morning so I expect she was a very angry lady at the end of the walk.
> 
> More gardening this afternoon, I've also cleared the shed and declare that my OH is the hoarder next door. Lots of bags of paper and card board boxes are in the bin (why keep them) along with a collection of foil (?) and old paintbrushes. Now I have to tackle the issue of a motorbike that's not been used in 20 years... This is all because he has said there isn't enough room to sort out space for my stained glass table. I beg to differ! *I found our late cat's feeding bowls and had a sad moment, cats bowls are so tiny!*




Aww.... I came across Twiggy's green ladybird toy in a drawer the other day so I know what you mean. It's the only toy she liked and I can't bear to part with it. She's been gone over 12 years now.


----------



## Sarah1983

I have Shadows favourite rock from his rock collection sitting on my bedroom windowsill  I keep thinking I should throw it out but I can't bear to. It's just a bloody rock! I found Ruperts collar a couple of months ago and just burst into tears 

Been a fairly quiet week here. No exciting walks, no nice pics taken, no real achievements made in training. Working again on stopping Spencer from jumping up at me. I don't know why he's suddenly got the idea he's allowed because it's a behaviour that has been discouraged from the day he came home  We're working on crawl at the moment. Had a dream the other night that I taught him to crawl to the cue "activate stealth mode"....it has to be done really doesn't it? lol

I was at the docs on Friday and am there for a blood test on Tuesday, apparently the blood test I had 2 years ago was NOT fine and the doc I saw Friday is concerned I may be diabetic. They're also testing my thyroid. I went coz I've been trying so hard to lose weight and in the last 4 months have lost just 3lbs.


----------



## MollySmith

*pullllllllllllls us back from page 3 *

I've still got the cat's ashes in a box and I can't bear to bury them although I truly can't recall life with him now, it's been 6 years since he was here. Molly has taken over. They're not in the way so they are staying.

Sarah - I hope you're okay. I have an underactive thyroid and it does make weight loss a bit harder I'm afraid to say.

Major calamities today at Smith central. I have forgotten to sort out the MOT which expired last week so I've been running the car around illegally. I've got it booked in tomorrow but could do without the OH telling me that I need to be more organised... This from the man who needs my help to sort out the SORN on his motorbikes. My parents said they'd pick us up tomorrow to do walkies. However my illegal journey to take Molly for her walk this morning before I realised I wasn't allowed to drive, was lovely. Just me and my little girl and we had lots of fun, did ball throwing, remote sits which she's doing well on.

One lead incident though  Not sure what happened. The dog was on one side of the road and it was a bit fiesty but not sure if Molly barked first or it did. She wasn't too mad, but still enough for me to be concerned. We followed them for a tiny distance to recover what we could from the scene of the crime. The first two dogs she was fine with so maybe it's just that dog? I do wonder if it's me sometimes as I am sure I get too tense.


----------



## Dimwit

MS - you have just reminded me that my car tax is due for renewal
Glad you had a nice walk, shame about the lead incident but at least it was just one dog.

Something slightly different for the dimwits today, we went to the second part of a massage course for canine athletes. A very interesting day, with lots to think about (mainly how dimwit's shape and conformation are far from ideal for dog sports ). 
He was very well behaved though, although he still couldn't relax at all with lots of other dogs and people in the room so we didn't bother with the swapping dogs and letting someone else work on him. It's quite sad though, seeing how much all the other dogs love being massaged and little dimwit still gets very worried by it - even when it is me handling him


----------



## Izzysmummy

MollySmith said:


> *pullllllllllllls us back from page 3 *
> 
> I've still got the cat's ashes in a box and I can't bear to bury them although I truly can't recall life with him now, it's been 6 years since he was here. Molly has taken over. They're not in the way so they are staying.
> 
> Sarah - I hope you're okay. I have an underactive thyroid and it does make weight loss a bit harder I'm afraid to say.
> 
> Major calamities today at Smith central. I have forgotten to sort out the MOT which expired last week so I've been running the car around illegally. I've got it booked in tomorrow but could do without the OH telling me that I need to be more organised... This from the man who needs my help to sort out the SORN on his motorbikes. My parents said they'd pick us up tomorrow to do walkies. However my illegal journey to take Molly for her walk this morning before I realised I wasn't allowed to drive, was lovely. Just me and my little girl and we had lots of fun, did ball throwing, remote sits which she's doing well on.
> 
> One lead incident though  Not sure what happened. The dog was on one side of the road and it was a bit fiesty but not sure if Molly barked first or it did. She wasn't too mad, but still enough for me to be concerned. We followed them for a tiny distance to recover what we could from the scene of the crime. The first two dogs she was fine with so maybe it's just that dog? I do wonder if it's me sometimes as *I am sure I get too tense.*


Wow! Everyone must have been busy bees today and too busy to post!

MS - I definitely think Izzy picks up on any of my tension which in turn makes her tense and more likely to react. But the better Molly gets the more you will relax which will also help her relax and you'll get that upward spiral.

We've had a pretty quiet weekend, took Izzy for a wander by the river yesterday where she had a little swim and said hello to a little beagle puppy who was a real cuddle monster! Then Tarnus and I went to see the Iron Man 3! It was great!

This morning was our agility class! It went well, it was our first class where Izzy jumped full height for the whole lesson. She's still unsure of the see-saw despite us doing some work on it this week but it'll just take time with my little nervous nelly. A guy came along to watch the class with his little collie, she was a fairly timid little thing but Izzy greeted nicely with a few sniffs then I got her to sit next to me to give the little girly some space and she came to get some fusses off me while her Dad gave Izzy some fusses, Izzy got lots of compliments off him about how soft her coat is and she tried to give him some kisses.  She's been shattered for the rest of the day and has spent most of her time moving between the sofa and her bed so I've spent the afternoon making a blueberry cheesecake! :thumbsup:


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> MS - you have just reminded me that my car tax is due for renewal
> Glad you had a nice walk, shame about the lead incident but at least it was just one dog.
> 
> Something slightly different for the dimwits today, we went to the second part of a massage course for canine athletes. A very interesting day, with lots to think about (mainly how dimwit's shape and conformation are far from ideal for dog sports ).
> He was very well behaved though, although he still couldn't relax at all with lots of other dogs and people in the room so we didn't bother with the swapping dogs and letting someone else work on him. It's quite sad though, seeing how much all the other dogs love being massaged and little dimwit still gets very worried by it - even when it is me handling him


I did one last November and took Leafy. She didn't relax at all and was convinced she should be doing retrieve or heelwork. The agility collies next to us were also convinced they were there to do jumps so consequently they were all winding each other up....LOL


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## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> MS - you have just reminded me that my car tax is due for renewal
> Glad you had a nice walk, shame about the lead incident but at least it was just one dog.
> 
> Something slightly different for the dimwits today, we went to the second part of a massage course for canine athletes. A very interesting day, with lots to think about (mainly how dimwit's shape and conformation are far from ideal for dog sports ).
> He was very well behaved though, although he still couldn't relax at all with lots of other dogs and people in the room so we didn't bother with the swapping dogs and letting someone else work on him. It's quite sad though, seeing how much all the other dogs love being massaged and little dimwit still gets very worried by it - even when it is me handling him


Hopefully in time he will get there. It is great you can take him at all and concentrate on all you've done. Well done, he sounds much better behaved than the snoring thing on my lap


----------



## BessieDog

My beloved cat died 26 years ago. I still have her collar and tag. And all the collars of all my dogs! It so human to want to keep a physical memory. 

Good dog show today - my groomer turned up and when Bess played me up took over from me in the ring. So Bess got 3rd out of 5th in the junior class. Well, she's too intelligent to play up the scary groomer. (Well she scares me!). Said groomer then took her own dog in and ended up as Best of Breed! 

It was good for Bess to not be allowed to play up, and for me to see how she behaves with someone who knows what they are doing. 

We the stopped off at the stables on the way home and saw the horses (including mine) being put out for the summer. Came home and Bess was too tired to eat! 

Hope everyone else's weekends were good!


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## GingerRogers

Hello everyone. Having trouble with internet at mo. But good dogs days. Found lovely new walk today. Really nice ninja being goodish. Not much help with the gardening though annoyingly. Need ti train her to dig int ye right places argh as you can see having troubles. With phone access. Hope you all ok.

eta dimwit the relaxation was throne bit of the course we couldnt get. They just said to take it where you got it. For ninja its first thing. She comes up to bed and slugs methods when i use the techniques. She barely notices.


----------



## Alice Childress

I can finally join in of this thread  I've been waiting a year since it started to be able to 

So what are we working on? Well, everything really  Specifically though, this week my goals are to "tidy up" her down, get her comfortable with her harness, work on her not biting her leash, teach 'drop it', and actively start leaving her a lone (while she's awake) for short bursts (she's fine alone when she's sleepy but if she's wide awake she'll bark). Oh! That reminds me, and ignoring her very loud barking attempts at getting my attention. 

I feel quite tired looking at it all written down. 

She's having her second lot of vaccinations today - only one week left until she can go on the ground! My arms cannot wait.


----------



## GingerRogers

Goodness me, did I kill this 

Today my internet seems to be back to normal service, not sure what was wrong but I suspect some windows update 

Not much news, was my birthday Saturday so we had a lovely walk in a new place.

Sunday I also found a newish walk, I have been there before but not for a while, its the perfect place to build up my confidence off lead as its surrounded by reed beds and open farm land.

Yesterday we braved a walk to town to pick up the car, not done this for a long time. I was very nervous from the off which ninja picked up on and walked like a little trotting pony. We saw a few dogs and had to divert a fair way. She was good but finally lost her temper on the common about 5 mins from the end, thankfully the GR she decided shouldn't be running 100 yards away from her ignored her completely 

In hindsight we probably weren't ready for it, she was clearly stressed out and slept for the rest of the day, but it was good experience in some ways too. I realised she was very stressy on this walk, its one we have done a few times in the past but never without incident, at all these points she was unsurprisingly quiet worried but coped. 

She doesn't like blind areas, which I knew but hadn't quite processed through my brain, I know the corners she wants to pull around in the estate, but she is much happier in open spaces, where she can see stuff coming, BUT then she can see stuff coming 

On other walks where we have had no incidents she is not bothered at all, there are a few places I know she is happy in and thats why I think, she has nothing to worry about yet.

Hope everybody is ok!


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## GingerRogers

Oh hello I didnt kill it, great minds and all that, I have no puppy advice at all, I feel tired thinking about them, I wouldn't mind a squish though she is adorable.


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## Alice Childress

GingerRogers said:


> Oh hello I didnt kill it, great minds and all that, I have no puppy advice at all, I feel tired thinking about them, I wouldn't mind a squish though she is adorable.


It's an _adult_ rescue for me next time  (Shhh don't tell Maggie)


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## GingerRogers

Secrets safe with me, of course this is you first dog, let alone puppy isnt it, TBH it sounds as though you are doing great , we still get the barking for attention (or more often gurgles) its so hard to ignore it I just want to laugh 

If you can get that sorted it might help with the leaving her bit, she learns she gets you back when she is quiet.


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## MollySmith

Hello Alice and welcome at last  Take it easy, if you're tired thinking about it, so will she 

Ginger - no, I'm still here *waves*. Belated Happy Birthday 

It's an awkward situation isn't it? I prefer open spaces too but like you say that can ramp up the behaviour, I hope that you'll find as you continue, that she'll be able to do that 'look at that!' click reward for open spaces enough to enjoy. We've only just began new walks in different places on lead. I am going to take her to a market day next week. I don't anticipate lots of dogs but I hope enough things for her to practice with including corners. 

You are doing so well and it sounds like she's learning to pace herself in terms of temper? Molly was constantly ramped up, saw one dog and we just had to forget the rest of the walk and she's finally reigned herself in and can go to calm very fast. We've found that in the garden - last year she was actually very scary with her zoomies, getting very growlie and barking but now I can stand in the garden, have her go around me and get her to do an emergency down or make her stop and watch me for a treat. Sufficient to get her onto a lead if we had guests.

Not much to report here, Molly went out with our friend yesterday owning to the MOT problem...which is now resolved. She must have cut her tongue or something, I can't see, as her ball had blood on it but she seems okay, ate well. She's gone out with OH this morning so I'm sat here alone. It's very weird and I don't think I'll ever get used to being in an empty house anymore. 

I have an interview on Thursday and I have to prepare a ten minute design presentation :yikes: so that's why I'm here. This on top of OU work, I'm busier that I was when I was working in an office. 

Hope everyone is well


----------



## Symone

*MS *: Good luck with your interview! 

*GR *: Happy belated birthday. <3
OH was reading over my shoulder and he said if you continue to have internet problems buying a new router should sort it out since the free ones they give you when you originally sign up are rubbish. 
Also yay for finding a new walking area! 

*Alice *: Typical puppy Maggie is.  With the harness I would suggest letting her sniff it then treat her, then build it up to putting it over her head (If it's one of those ones) then treat, and then build it up to treating when you clip it together. She should associate the harness as a good thing. 
With the lead I would say same thing, let her sniff it then treat her. If she bites it put it away straight away (I'm sure I read somewhere that she thinks of the lead as a game of tug? sorry if it wasn't you.  ) 
If she's not that into treats you could get a tug and reward her by playing with the correct toy if she doesn't bite the lead? 
With "Drop it" I found it easy.. Shamaya loves me throwing her toy for her. When she bought it to me I said "Drop" and when she eventually dropped it I said "well done!" or "good girl", then threw it for her. She realised what I wanted after the 4th time of saying the command.. For her it was a good thing because it meant more play, lol.  
When you leave Maggie alone, leave her with a Kong, puzzle feeder, kong wobbler.. Or something similar like so which she has to work at to get her food out of. It will hopefully distract her from barking while awake.  
No idea what to advise with the barking to get your attention.. Shamaya is weirdly silent and only recently started to bark, and that's when someone is at the door.. 
I bet that you're eagerly awaiting being able to take her out on walks. 

~
Well, nothing much to report here... 
Shamaya hurt her leg Saturday so had a day of rest on Sunday. Luckily yesterday it was all right and she had a few on lead walks.
Met up with her breeder and he had a good grope of Shamayas tummy and back legs to see if she would twitch or something. No reactions at all and he said she seems fine.  He's also really pleased with how she's progressing and becoming more and more well behaved. (She hardly jumps up now and stuff.) Seems she's growing up and calming down. :sad:
Going to take her to the big park late this afternoon - when it's less sunny. She is getting more used to the heat which is a good thing. 

We're also working on a "leave it" for bottles are now her favourite thing. This morning she was quiet and I thought she was asleep. She instead chewed the lid off the ketchup bottle and she was tonguing out the top!  I have no idea how she was so quiet... 

I am starting to worry about her becoming a teen, with her growing up.. I fear the day that she might not answer to recall or something.  No signs of naughtyness yet, though.

Hope that everyone is having a lovely day.


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## Alice Childress

GingerRogers said:


> Secrets safe with me, of course this is you first dog, let alone puppy isnt it, TBH it sounds as though you are doing great , we still get the barking for attention (or more often gurgles) its so hard to ignore it I just want to laugh
> 
> If you can get that sorted it might help with the leaving her bit, she learns she gets you back when she is quiet.


Thank you GingerRogers  I'm trying to be "good enough" (and not let any perfectionism in).

It is very hard to ignore! Especially as I always prepared for it, so half the time I jump out of my skin! I think you are right though that if the barking itself is sorted, leaving her will be easier. I often leave her when she is settling down to go to sleep, and she's fine with that, likewise at nighttime she is left in her crate and does not cry at all anymore. However, if she's wide awake, she'll sit at the baby gate and starts barking after a few minutes (but at least it's not immediately).

Oh darn. Talk of the devil. She was outside with my mother, and then suddenly two of our cats charged in, with her following :thumbdown: She has been so good with them, barely noticed them at first, but as time has gone on she's started to want to play with them... They do not want to play with her. Obviously I don't want her chasing the cats for anybodies sake.


----------



## Alice Childress

Symone said:


> *Alice *: Typical puppy Maggie is.  With the harness I would suggest letting her sniff it then treat her, then build it up to putting it over her head (If it's one of those ones) then treat, and then build it up to treating when you clip it together. She should associate the harness as a good thing.
> With the lead I would say same thing, let her sniff it then treat her. If she bites it put it away straight away (I'm sure I read somewhere that she thinks of the lead as a game of tug? sorry if it wasn't you.  )
> If she's not that into treats you could get a tug and reward her by playing with the correct toy if she doesn't bite the lead?
> With "Drop it" I found it easy.. Shamaya loves me throwing her toy for her. When she bought it to me I said "Drop" and when she eventually dropped it I said "well done!" or "good girl", then threw it for her. She realised what I wanted after the 4th time of saying the command.. For her it was a good thing because it meant more play, lol.
> When you leave Maggie alone, leave her with a Kong, puzzle feeder, kong wobbler.. Or something similar like so which she has to work at to get her food out of. It will hopefully distract her from barking while awake.
> No idea what to advise with the barking to get your attention.. Shamaya is weirdly silent and only recently started to bark, and that's when someone is at the door..
> I bet that you're eagerly awaiting being able to take her out on walks.


Missed you post while I was posting (and grabbing puppies to stop them chasing cats  ). Thank you Symone, that is very helpful advise. It was me that said she thinks her lead is a tug toy yes. She's not _massively_ into toys, at least, she has to be in the right mood for them. Treats on the other hand, she is always up for.

I'm sorry Shamaya hurt her leg  Glad she's feeling better though.


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## Twiggy

*Symone* - Pleased to hear Shamaya is now sound again. Just take it easy with her for a few days.

Just got back from Holly's second agility lesson, if you can call it that...!!

We did manage to get her through the tunnel after dismantling it and squishing it up.

I'm not sure I'll be taking Tremor with us next week, although the car journey is good for her fear of travelling. She was just beside herself and it won't be long before she's screaming her head off and I certainly don't want that for competitive obedience.


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## Sarah1983

Dunno whether we have a bitch in season here again. Spencer is whiny, pacing, staring at the balcony door if it's closed or out over the wall if it's open and alternates between air scenting and having his nose glued to the floor while out :nonod: He is still fairly responsive and we can have training sessions outside without him being all disengaged and wanting to leg it but he's definitely distracted. He even abandoned his friend Rupert to stand at the end of his 10m leash and sniff the air today. He doesn't want to play tug with me either. All very out of character. Thankfully it's not constant whining and pacing, he's fairly chilled but every so often gets up to whine, pace, sit and stare at the balcony for 10 minutes and then goes back to his bed.

There's also a new puppy on our row which may not be helping. He's certainly very interested in the spot the pup is being taken to to toilet. Poor thing has been crying for hours, am going to try speaking to the owners and hope they don't take it the wrong way. It's not the noise bothering me, it's the fact the pup is in distress for so long.


----------



## BessieDog

Hi all! 

Symone - glad Shamaya's getting better. 

Alice - the puppy days take you be surprise even when you've been there before a number of times. 

I'm up to my neck in decorating still. I've got one and a half walls finished now. Bess has been in the garden sunning herself - when I go out for a breather she brings me her ball to throw! 

Only just sat down since breakfast. Now I've got to get up and get dinner on. Will catch up properly when I get more time.


----------



## Dimwit

Alice - good luck with the puppy training, she looks gorgeous!

MS - good luck with the interview. The dimwit often catches his tongue when playing with his ball but it never seems to bother him (no sense, no feeling )

GR - belated happy birthday, and very dedicated of you to keep posting despite Internet trouble!

This week the dimwits are mostly brushing up on loose lead walking and recall. His walking always deteriorates when he has been in kennels and because I was I'll last week I got a bit lazy and just kept him on his gentle leader
Recall also is not as good as it should be because he gets too distracted by sniffing/eating all the new spring grass.

Apart from that though he is very good, we did some more scentwork this evening and I used a new scent article which I though would confuse him but no! He was just as happy to find and play with a bit of old flannel as he is to play with his scent toy - love my little dog


----------



## Beth17

Really good walks with the boys the past couple of days which has made up for Sundays naughtiness. Wandered down to the fields which was nice and quiet and was out for nearly an hour and a half all together. Both boys played well and walked fairly nicely on lead. Oscar wasn't even bothered when a little collie x came over and started playing with Sam. He had a look and carried on sniffing :thumbup1:

Have just got back from [email protected] and Sam hasn't destroyed anything they'd just been asleep! I think he's finally getting there 

Enjoy the sun everyone.


----------



## L/C

Well I'm sure the majority of you have seen my other post which explains what has happened to us over the last few days. So now we are working on careful and slow introductions again and building up his socialisation. He is definitely more nervous around strange dogs and after a rather bad encounter with a toy breed last night I'm keen to get some positive ones under our belt. A very kind forum member has offered to walk with us so we're going to meet them on Saturday and hopefully that will perk him up a bit.

With Gypsy we're still working on attention heeling - I'm going to see if OH will come out and video us at the weekend so Granny can give us some tips.


----------



## MollySmith

L/C said:


> Well I'm sure the majority of you have seen my other post which explains what has happened to us over the last few days. So now we are working on careful and slow introductions again and building up his socialisation. He is definitely more nervous around strange dogs and after a rather bad encounter with a toy breed last night I'm keen to get some positive ones under our belt. A very kind forum member has offered to walk with us so we're going to meet them on Saturday and hopefully that will perk him up a bit.
> 
> With Gypsy we're still working on attention heeling - I'm going to see if OH will come out and video us at the weekend so Granny can give us some tips.


We're a bit of way from you but if you did feel like venturing up here, then Molly is very good off lead. We've a number of poorly regular dogs on our walk who potter, she seems to adjust to their speed so if you fancy a walk then we'd happily meet half way.

I am gutted for you and Ely, poor soul.

In our news, we're going to the park later this evening for lead practice, there's usually a few dogs around about 7ish. OH is not using the clicker on the on lead part to reward Molly which is driving me :mad5: am I wrong to be so sensitive about this? I feel the click makes a huge difference but all he does is treat and say good girl. Apparently she has been a bit reactive, but he hasn't said when and now he can't remember...


----------



## Dimwit

MS - I think the clicker helps a lot with the dimwit. I notice that he is much calmer when I click and treat him around other dogs than when I just give him treats and praise.
I suspect it is to do with the neuronal circuits involved - and the fact that he has such a solid association between click and reward.


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> MS - I think the clicker helps a lot with the dimwit. I notice that he is much calmer when I click and treat him around other dogs than when I just give him treats and praise.
> I suspect it is to do with the neuronal circuits involved - and the fact that he has such a solid association between click and reward.


True however that association could be built with any novel sound.

waves to everyone ... been a bit busy will update this evening.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Well I'm sure the majority of you have seen my other post which explains what has happened to us over the last few days. So now we are working on careful and slow introductions again and building up his socialisation. He is definitely more nervous around strange dogs and after a rather bad encounter with a toy breed last night I'm keen to get some positive ones under our belt. A very kind forum member has offered to walk with us so we're going to meet them on Saturday and hopefully that will perk him up a bit.
> 
> With Gypsy we're still working on attention heeling - I'm going to see if OH will come out and video us at the weekend so Granny can give us some tips.


How is poor Ely today?

I'd be delighted to offer tips on heelwork...


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> We're a bit of way from you but if you did feel like venturing up here, then Molly is very good off lead. We've a number of poorly regular dogs on our walk who potter, she seems to adjust to their speed so if you fancy a walk then we'd happily meet half way.
> 
> I am gutted for you and Ely, poor soul.
> 
> In our news, we're going to the park later this evening for lead practice, there's usually a few dogs around about 7ish. OH is not using the clicker on the on lead part to reward Molly which is driving me :mad5: am I wrong to be so sensitive about this? I feel the click makes a huge difference but all he does is treat and say good girl. Apparently she has been a bit reactive,* but he hasn't said when and now he can't remember...*




Yup that sounds about right coming from a man...!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Spendog is still being an utter tit. Apparently everything he ever learned about loose leash walking has gone out of his head and he is still very interested in some scent that I can't smell. Thankfully he's chilled in the house today but out of it...ugh.

MS, if you OH can't get to grips with the clicker just replace it with a sound or word he can make himself, it's not quite as effective as a clicker but it's the same idea and will work the same way.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Yup that sounds about right coming from a man...!!


 He is driving me mad!

I've asked him for a word, apparently 'I'll never remember it' *deep breath*


----------



## Symone

Bit of a long shot, but does anyone know of any Malamute rescues? (In the UK)

I may be fostering a lovely boy, soon. I've noticed him being advertised quite a few times over the past few months and I've put my foot down with his third (assumed not more homes) home that are selling him.
Luckily they seem like a lovely family and it's just they can't cope with a mal.
I'm in the process of emailing all local rescues to try to find him a spot. The sooner the better for it means he will find his forever home and soon. 
Just thought I would ask here if anyone knows of any that have any spots! 

I know it's not ideal timing, but I can't just sit here and watch him be rehomed god knows how many more times.  
I'm meeting him tomorrow, and he will be staying with me if Shamaya likes him. If not he will stay with his current owners until I find a rescue spot. I fear that he might get sold if he continues to stay there, though. :/ 

He's also only 13 months old...  Poor little guy. 

Thought I would attach a photo of him. 

Will go through posts as soon as soon as I've finished emailing all rescues that I can find


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## GingerRogers

Ah well done you for stepping in! 
I know of nothing but good luck.


----------



## Sarah1983

He doesn't look like a Mal to me, more like a GSD mix of some sort. Definitely not full Mal whatever he is imo. 

But good on you for stepping in. Adolescent males are...fun...lol.


----------



## Symone

GingerRogers said:


> Ah well done you for stepping in!
> I know of nothing but good luck.


Thank you. 
I just hope that I can find him a lovely place, soon.


----------



## Symone

Sarah1983 said:


> He doesn't look like a Mal to me, more like a GSD mix of some sort. Definitely not full Mal whatever he is imo.
> 
> But good on you for stepping in. Adolescent males are...fun...lol.


My thoughts exactly! I'm half assuming the Adolescence is one of the rehoming reasons. 

And I too thought that he isn't a full mal. He definitely is the size and has the coat of a mal, though. (Assumed through a malting pic I saw, lol.) I agree that the colouring is of a GSD, though.

I may also email GSD rescues, it won't hurt.


----------



## moonviolet

Symone, hope it all works out. Poor dog being passed around like a box of soaps in a village raffle.

MS have you tried positive reinforcement training with OH ... its' worth a shot 

We've been bumbling along much the same as usual, had a lovely walk on sunday with my trainer and her best friend Tink didn't do anythign horrifying although she did have a grassy dangleberry which was a delight 

yesterday's main walk was ok with teh exception of the 2 different people wlaking multipple dogs who both thought it was ok to let them charge over and bounce all over Tink who i'd put on lead (at her request, sit lift paw) they did retrieve their dogs after the fact but i simply didn't have sufficient limb quantity to deflect 4 on each occasion. Tink shook off the first with a stress zoom and the second with a couple intense body shakes. I guess this is the beginning of the warmer weather challenges

Last night was another games night. Tink was on form and had a lovely time. 
Another rally night on friday so we're popping along again.


----------



## WhatWouldSidDo

Just started working on training Barney to put things into the bin
On his first day things are looking promising.


----------



## Symone

WhatWouldSidDo said:


> Just started working on training Barney to put things into the bin
> On his first day things are looking promising.


Can you teach Shamaya to not take things out of the bin? lol


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Spendog is still being an utter tit. Apparently everything he ever learned about loose leash walking has gone out of his head and he is still very interested in some scent that I can't smell. Thankfully he's chilled in the house today but out of it...ugh.
> 
> *There's got to be a bitch in season in the vicinity surely? Spen has been so much better lately hasn't he?*
> 
> MS, if you OH can't get to grips with the clicker just replace it with a sound or word he can make himself, it's not quite as effective as a clicker but it's the same idea and will work the same way.


*Sarah remember we're talking OH here. MS should count herself lucky if he remembers to take Molly, her lead and tit-bits...LOL*


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> *Sarah remember we're talking OH here. MS should count herself lucky if he remembers to take Molly, her lead and tit-bits...LOL*


Lol, very true. Mine won't take treats out even if I try to hand them to him.

I think there must be a bitch in season. He's been fantastic lately then a few days ago started whining, pacing and sniffing the air while in the house and being hellishly interested in something he could smell while out. I can't think of anything else that would affect him like that. He even wandered away while playing with his Great Dane friend today. He did respond to recall and it was a safe area if he hadn't but it's just so unlike him.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> *Sarah remember we're talking OH here. MS should count herself lucky if he remembers to take Molly, her lead and tit-bits...LOL*


Ooh careful, I'm feeling like I'm being mean :biggrin:

I've been out with Molly on lead walk practice, met up with the trainer and passed 9 dogs no fails. I say passed but we do have a road width of road or grass in between but it's a huge improvement  I do like our trainer loads, she's really good fun so we had a good chat and I had a grumble and she thinks that OH is Molly's biggest fan and greatest defender which is so true now I think of it. I think I've been so used to OH being a bit grumpy because of the accident over Molly - his patient, sunny self was affected by the blow to his head - that I've forgotten how much he does dote on the madam. Anyway, we're searching for a word and he's under instructions to be honest! My dog and the OH, partners in crime - I'd never had thought it.

Oh and I've been to the local library and got some great books on teaching basic tricks in amongst the rubbish CM and Jan Fennell cr*p. I am tempted to borrow them and damage them and offer positive training books as a replacement.

MV - I love your phrases 'grassy dangleberry'  I agree the warmer weather does bring out the irresponsible walkers.

Symone - good luck with it all, poor dog, he's gorgeous whatever breed.


----------



## Dimwit

Symone - good luck with finding the poor dog a proper home

MV - I hate having to fend off multiple "friendly" dogs, it's the worst thing about nice weather.

MS - clever Molly, she is doing so well

No school tonight so, as well as general obedience, the dimwit has been working on his retrieve. He is now getting very good in the house and is getting much better outside. I managed to get a very bad video of him tonight but have no idea how to post it on here so you'll just have to take my word for it


----------



## Maria_1986

Should not have left it so long to come in and catch up, my brain is mush now! Hope everyone is doing ok.

Not much to report here, Chevy is back to her normal self and seems to be pushing the boundaries. LLW has turned into a shambles again, wait seems to be taken to mean 'ignore and do my own thing' and we have a struggle to get her in out of the sunshine and back into the flat as she has taken to laying down outside the door and refusing to move. Apart from that its all good! Dogy baking day today, peanut butter and banana biscuits as cooling, cheese and marmite ones are in the oven, and I'm gonna have a go at tuna cake rather than tuna biscuits next.


----------



## Symone

*Dimwit *: You could upload it to photobucket or youtube and give us the link? 

*Sarah *: I hope that Spen will be back to his normal self, soon. 

*MV *: I hope that you will have fun with the rally on friday night. 

Well, Shamaya has been a little Angel this morning.
I ordered some chuckit balls monday afternoon and they were sent first class, so should be here today. Unfortunately the postman hasn't came yet so she hasn't had a proper walk! Bought the ultra and whistle balls so I bet that she will have a blast when we do go out.. If they come today. 

Did some training with some leftover cheese this morning.. She must love it, did everything perfectly. 

Paw is coming along well - She moves it forwards which is a good start.  
And she will leave things when I say leave it! Rather shocked that she learned it so quickly. 

She also has a perfect beg and stand.. She pretty much did those by herself. She kept doing it so I thought that I would say the command and it seems she just loves doing it, lol! I have a weird dog. 

Going to see Shadow after the school run. (Current owner has 4 kids and she's busy before then.) Just hope that he and Shamaya get on so I can take him home and find him a rescue! 

Going to phone my most local one, now. I hope that they will have a spot. I emailed them but haven't had a reply. Same with the others I emailed, but they're probably busy.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> *Dimwit *: You could upload it to photobucket or youtube and give us the link?
> 
> *Paw is coming along well - She moves it forwards which is a good start.  *
> *And she will leave things when I say leave it! Rather shocked that she learned it so quickly.  *
> 
> *She also has a perfect beg and stand.. She pretty much did those by herself. She kept doing it so I thought that I would say the command and it seems she just loves doing it, lol! I have a weird dog. *
> 
> No you don't have a weird dog - you have a collie..!!
> 
> Why do you think the top competitive obedience, agility, flyball and heelwork to music dogs are mostly collies, never mind the thousands of pounds they make being sold all over the World for sheep herding.


----------



## Twiggy

I got a bit of a surprise first thing this morning.

I let the girls out at 7.00am and Tremor was barking her head off. When I looked out of the kitchen window I could see her standing on her hind legs staring at something (the other 3 were at the back door), then I saw something pretty big move along the far hedge - it was a peacock...!!

There is an exotic pet refuge about a mile away and I can only assume it came from there. By the time I got dressed it had gone.

Our neighbour, at our previous address, had quite a number of them and they were pains. Apart from the noise (particularly the females) they did considerable damage, scratching the paintwork on cars and on one occasion smashed the glass in another neighbour's greenhouse.


----------



## Sarah1983

Ugh, was going to say hope you don't have peacocks hanging around. My exes mum had them hanging around her house and they were a nightmare. No idea who they belonged to, if anyone, they just seemed to live wild.


----------



## Dimwit

Hopefully here is a link to dimwit's retrieve. Not a great video as taken on my phone and I am not very coordinated at juggling phone and dumbell and controlling dog. I put the "jump" in because he was getting so good at it Not perfect but not bad for a dog who a few weeks ago wouldn't even pick pick the dumbell up - and thanks to Twiggy for the advice on how to teach it!
IMG_0451 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


----------



## moonviolet

I hope the peacock visit was a one off.

Glorious weather today. we had a great training session this morning warmed up with some chase me handtargets, a few rally stations ( the only ones we know :lol and general heelwork, then breaking out to try to string a few moves together htm wise I'm still struggling finished with legweaves and figure eights and a nice grooming session.

After a little nap her not me unfortunately. we had a wonderful walk despite an offlead gsd charging over and shoving it's face into the car as it's owner jsut walked on. Thankfully it's body language was curious a little rude but not hteatening and tink didn't retreat into her crate ( she was stood in the back next to it, as i got myself organised.

Still the rest of the walk was glorious shame this pic is horribly overexposed for once she isn't standing like a pudding.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh my word how proud does Sprocket look love video Dimwit


----------



## Symone

Shadow is with me, now. He's currently sleeping on the balcony.

He's a really good boy, no food aggression at all. He is however really skinny. :/

No problems between him and Shamaya. They seem happy to play with each other.
He also has good recall once you show him treats. (been on the long line)

I've fed him fishmongers salmon and potato and he seems fine on it, so my assumption is that his food intolerance is deffo to wheat. 

Shamaya keeps trying to wake him up, though.  had to keep her beside me to stop her!

Here's a photo of him and his new best friend, my OH.


----------



## MollySmith

Awh Sprocket, he is gorgeous fella and doing so well. Bless him 

MV - I love the photo, what a glorious walk.

Twiggy - I have a complete phobia over peacocks. I went to Brownsea Island in Dorset with no idea it was peacock central. :yikes: I had to walk miles to get a cup of tea as I refused to go across a small green past them. I can drive my OH as mad as he drives me 

Symone - so pleased Shadow is doing well so far. What a star.

Molly is in the garden with me, it's very warm here in Cambridge, barking at lots of imaginary things, lying in the sun baking and waiting for OH to get home from voting. I think she's helping me with my essay... Interview done and sorted, I think it went well. Now comes the waiting!


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Hopefully here is a link to dimwit's retrieve. Not a great video as taken on my phone and I am not very coordinated at juggling phone and dumbell and controlling dog. I put the "jump" in because he was getting so good at it Not perfect but not bad for a dog who a few weeks ago wouldn't even pick pick the dumbell up - and thanks to Twiggy for the advice on how to teach it!
> IMG_0451 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


Sadly your video won't play on my antiquated computer...


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Awh Sprocket, he is gorgeous fella and doing so well. Bless him
> 
> MV - I love the photo, what a glorious walk.
> 
> *Twiggy - I have a complete phobia over peacocks. I went to Brownsea Island in Dorset with no idea it was peacock central. :yikes: I had to walk miles to get a cup of tea as I refused to go across a small green past them. I can drive my OH as mad as he drives me*
> 
> Symone - so pleased Shadow is doing well so far. What a star.
> 
> Molly is in the garden with me, it's very warm here in Cambridge, barking at lots of imaginary things, lying in the sun baking and waiting for OH to get home from voting. I think she's helping me with my essay... Interview done and sorted, I think it went well. Now comes the waiting!


Once they've sat on your roof making a hell of a din at 4 in the morning several days on the trot you would get over your fear and just want to kill them....!!

The times I went out in my dressing gown and turned the hosepipe on them, etc.

When we were having an extension done they got in and made a lovely mess of the concrete base. Wretched things.


----------



## Symone

Found out what "food aggression" means.
It means he will happily steal a loaf of bread from your hand, lol!


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Found out what "food aggression" means.
> It means he will happily steal a loaf of bread from your hand, lol!


Just be very, very careful what you give Shadow, at least for a few days.

He's obviously mostly GSD and they are notorious for food allergies/intolerance.

Chewy, the IPO GSD, that sometimes comes here for training is a case in point. He's cost a small fortune in vets bills/allergy testing and he's only 4 yrs old.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Just be very, very careful what you give Shadow, at least for a few days.
> 
> He's obviously mostly GSD and they are notorious for food allergies/intolerance.
> 
> Chewy, the IPO GSD, that sometimes comes here for training is a case in point. He's cost a small fortune in vets bills/allergy testing and he's only 4 yrs old.


I didn't let him keep it. 
He will be fully on raw soon, so i can monitor everything that he eats.

Did they ever find out what Chewy is allergic to?


----------



## GingerRogers

Second that Symone, you did say you thought he had a wheat intolerance. Whats bread made of???

Really pleased you got him safe though good luck finding somewhere for him, I am sure Shamaya will like having a friend for a while, he looks besotted with your other half, or at least whatever he has in his hand, lol.

Hope Spens being as good as he can be!

Tink looks so focused bless her, on something or just enjoying the sunshine, well done her for putting up with the intruder.

Dimwit thats a great little video, he has done really well, we arent quite getting the hang of it 

We are mostly working on (apart from convincing miss to retrieve with gusto) still convincing OH that letting the dog off for her own fun and letting her disappear from sight is not good or clever, I think the traipse to the top of the hill only to see her a few hundred yards away on another footpath might have gone someway but we still have a lot of work to do.

Other than that we are still plodding away, avoidance where possible, management where not. She is fast asleep now after her adventure today, it was lovely to see her running but............

Peacocks, they are rather yummy to eat Twiggy.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> Sadly your video won't play on my antiquated computer...


Ahh  it's not that exciting, just dimwit jumping over my ironing board (collapsed and on its side), picking up the dumbbell and jumping back without dropping it and then bringing it to me.

He was very pleased with himself though, I think it makes him feel like he is a proper gundog


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> Just be very, very careful what you give Shadow, at least for a few days.
> 
> He's obviously mostly GSD and they are notorious for food allergies/intolerance.


I would agree with this. I would also be a bit wary about switching him to raw unless you are planning in keeping him. I know this may be an unpopular opinion but if he does go to a rescue centre they may not want to keep feeding raw and switching foods so often may exacerbate his intolerances.


----------



## Symone

Dimwit said:


> I would agree with this. I would also be a bit wary about switching him to raw unless you are planning in keeping him. I know this may be an unpopular opinion but if he does go to a rescue centre they may not want to keep feeding raw and switching foods so often may exacerbate his intolerances.


That didn't cross my mind. I will keep him on fishmongers, then. 

Shadow has had quite a bit of interest shown in him by OHs sisters friend. They have lots of farm land and want to offer him a home. However they want him to have the snip first so I'm looking into that.

Nothing will go forwards without a home check and quizzing them on Mals and GSDs.

Also had a message back from a GSD rescue. They said that they have 4 dogs on their waiting list, however they will let me know as soon as a spot pops up for Shadow. They sounded really nice which is good!


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> I didn't let him keep it.
> He will be fully on raw soon, so i can monitor everything that he eats.
> 
> Did they ever find out what Chewy is allergic to?


Yes virtually everything...!!


----------



## Symone

Twiggy said:


> Yes virtually everything...!!


Aww, poor guy!


----------



## BessieDog

I've finished the decorating!! :thumbsup:

Ill be back to catch up soon. Thanks to whoever it was that told me to use lots of paste with 'paste the wall' wallpaper! 

Bess amused me today - as I wanted to get on I left her outside in the sun, and was a couple of hours late for our walk. She let me know by standing at the patio doors, sitting on the patio or just pacing about. A canine equivalent of tapping a watch I think. . 

Hope everyone's ok. Haven't had time to read through.


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning everyone,

I haven't been around much lately as my concentration is somewhat covered by fibro fog so i'm struggling a bit to keep up 

Horace seems to be reacting less onlead so we are still working on that, I imagine it will be a long process but it is working so we shall stick with it.

Took him out at 6am yesterday for a walk with 7 other dogs, one a new dog. They got on well, then another dog that Horace has never met before joined us, all getting on well. All were offlead, a few other dogs came and went (other side of the park) and Horace didn't seem bothered, I assumed because he was with some play mates so as we were doing so well I kept him offlead as a few more came and went also. 

Then he suddenly decides to go say hello to two offlead dogs who aren't far away... I recalled him but he went deaf. The lady saw Horace approach and put one of her dogs onlead. The 3 dogs said hello, I apologised and the lady said it was ok. Then her dog on the lead lunged at Horace, growling, snarling and baring his teeth, Horace growled back and the lady said that her dog was nervous of other dogs. They had handbags and it took me 20 secs or so to get Horace back on lead but by that time the lady had tripped over her lead  I felt absolutely terrible, it was my fault for thinking that Horace was at that stage where he wouldn't run over. 

I realised my mistake straight away and have most certainly learned from it. As soon as I see another dog now, he goes on lead rather than risk the chance that he runs over. He'd been doing so well now, ignoring other dogs when with his buddies, for weeks but obviously still has a way to go.
Feel very bad about what happened.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Ahh  it's not that exciting, just dimwit jumping over my ironing board (collapsed and on its side), picking up the dumbbell and jumping back without dropping it and then bringing it to me.
> 
> He was very pleased with himself though, I think it makes him feel like he is a proper gundog


After much fiddling with my wretched computer I did manage to see your video. Well done to you both...


----------



## Jazmine

Symone said:


> That didn't cross my mind. I will keep him on fishmongers, then.
> 
> Shadow has had quite a bit of interest shown in him by OHs sisters friend. They have lots of farm land and want to offer him a home. However they want him to have the snip first so I'm looking into that.
> 
> Nothing will go forwards without a home check and quizzing them on Mals and GSDs.
> 
> Also had a message back from a GSD rescue. They said that they have 4 dogs on their waiting list, however they will let me know as soon as a spot pops up for Shadow. They sounded really nice which is good!


Has Shamaya had her first season yet? If not, she could be due at any time over the coming weeks/months really, and with Shadow being entire, you will want to keep an eye on that!


----------



## Twiggy

IrishEyes said:


> Good morning everyone,
> 
> I haven't been around much lately as my concentration is somewhat covered by fibro fog so i'm struggling a bit to keep up
> 
> Horace seems to be reacting less onlead so we are still working on that, I imagine it will be a long process but it is working so we shall stick with it.
> 
> Took him out at 6am yesterday for a walk with 7 other dogs, one a new dog. They got on well, then another dog that Horace has never met before joined us, all getting on well. All were offlead, a few other dogs came and went (other side of the park) and Horace didn't seem bothered, I assumed because he was with some play mates so as we were doing so well I kept him offlead as a few more came and went also.
> 
> Then he suddenly decides to go say hello to two offlead dogs who aren't far away... I recalled him but he went deaf. The lady saw Horace approach and put one of her dogs onlead. The 3 dogs said hello, I apologised and the lady said it was ok. Then her dog on the lead lunged at Horace, growling, snarling and baring his teeth, Horace growled back and the lady said that her dog was nervous of other dogs. They had handbags and it took me 20 secs or so to get Horace back on lead but by that time the lady had tripped over her lead  I felt absolutely terrible, it was my fault for thinking that Horace was at that stage where he wouldn't run over.
> 
> I realised my mistake straight away and have most certainly learned from it. As soon as I see another dog now, he goes on lead rather than risk the chance that he runs over. He'd been doing so well now, ignoring other dogs when with his buddies, for weeks but obviously still has a way to go.
> Feel very bad about what happened.


Don't beat yourelf up too much, these things happen to us all from time to time.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> After much fiddling with my wretched computer I did manage to see your video. Well done to you both...


Thank you  Bless him, he was so pleased with himself..


----------



## Symone

Jazmine said:


> Has Shamaya had her first season yet? If not, she could be due at any time over the coming weeks/months really, and with Shadow being entire, you will want to keep an eye on that!


OHs sister mentioned being able to take him for that time.. 
If anything happens for him to not be able to stay there, I have a few other places lined up which will be able to keep him with them.
Shamayas breeder mentioned he's happy for her to be there if needs be, too.

--

GSD rescue just popped over. Filled out all the paper work for Shad and it looks like he will be online on their page by monday.
He's going to the vet for a check up later, just to make sure he's fine and dandy.

GSD person said he's a lovely dog, and he thinks that he will be grabbed up very quickly. 
He's very happy with how he eats, how he interacts with Shamaya, how he is with us. He said that he's a big friendly giant. 
He thinks that it won't be long until he is grabbed up, so that will be good. 

I'll keep emailing them updates about things that I find out about him. Like if he meets a cat and is fine with it..  
He's a lovely guy and I would keep him if we had a bigger place.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spen was a pully nightmare on his walk today. Also lost his mind at the sight and/or sound of another dog. It's like the teenage months all over again 

He did however have a nice swim in a bit of the river we found. We turned off too early looking at google maps and if we'd taken the next left instead we'd have been able to walk along the river. But now I know for next time


----------



## MollySmith

Sorry to hear about your walks Irish Eyes and Sarah, one of those days? I hope it passes.

I have poorly Molly today. She was up most of the night with runny poos and had a few accidents in the house despite our best efforts to get her outside. Broke my heart as she was so upset about it even though she'd diligently gone on the newspaper OH had left out bless her. I've rung the vets but she's fine in herself, full of beans, not being sick so I've fasted her overnight, given her chicken and rice with probiotic for breakfast (6am there I was cooking this lovely feast!) and I'll keep her on that. The vet was fine with that and said any change in herself take her tomorrow morning.

Problem is she's pooing in part of the garden that's hard to get too so I was on walkies poo watch but no movements . We've done a short walk and had a play with her friend Ralph and I'm hoping she'll sleep later on.


----------



## Canine K9

Hope you all had a better walk today than what we did. 
First of all walking down the road he refused to move, then starting chewing and tugging his lead then attacked his Julius K9 harness and now it has a tiny hole in it. 
Got to the fields and put him on the long lead and he ran about barking and tugging the long lead, then ate some dog $hite he found, then when I got his collar to let someone pass with their dog he bit me on the hand quite hard. 
So I was almost in tears by this point and put him back on the lead and took him home he started growling and tugging the short lead and lunging. Then he refused to move. I was on the verge of tears once I got home. 
How can a puppy be so well behaved in the house but so awful when out? 
I had to put him in the spare room so I can calm down otherwise I would get angry but I feel really bad we were only out for about 20 minutes and now he is in the spare room. *sigh*


----------



## sianrees1979

took daniel & dai to the field on tuesday, was so proud of my little turd, dai was off lead (he won't go too far from me) and daniel was on the long line, we seen a man walking a black lab, called my boys to me and gave a treat and daniel never started screaming, then as we were ready to go home a idiot arrived with a whippet type dog, the dog ran straight up to my boys and frightened them  daniel started shaking & screaming and dai tried hiding behind me the bloke called his dog five or six times before the thing went to him, he walked off laughing like it was funny    daniel was so good before that happened, don't think we'll go to the field anytime soon  just stick with quiet street walks and the dachshund meets (if they are local)


----------



## Symone

Canine : Have you done puppy classes with him? maybe all he needs is a bit of socialization if he acts like so when dogs are near? :/ I dunno what else to suggest. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will be alone, soon.

Sianrees : Oh no.  I sure hope that Daniel will be feeling happier, soon. I hate bad interactions with other dogs. 

--

Well, I think I've found Shadows breeder! 
She's a lovely woman that isn't too far from us, and will pop down and visit us today or tomorrow depending on what her hubby prefers (I assume that he's the driver.) 
She sounds really lovely and worried about him. She has also offered to help me find him a home even if he isn't one of her babies. She really is a nice person. 

I have a photo of Mum (And dad but he looks nothing like dad if it is his dad) 
Do you think that they look alike?

Mum : 









Shadow : (please excuse the horrid floors that the council won't let me get rid of.)


----------



## Canine K9

Synome: Thanks, I don`t think it could be though because there was only one dog there today. And I think Shadow`s (pos!) Mum looks a lot like Shadow

Just had a stressful training session with him, trying to teach recall in the garden on the long lead and he just growling and tugging the lead then barking


----------



## moonviolet

Canine K9 said:


> Hope you all had a better walk today than what we did.
> First of all walking down the road he refused to move, then starting chewing and tugging his lead then attacked his Julius K9 harness and now it has a tiny hole in it.
> Got to the fields and put him on the long lead and he ran about barking and tugging the long lead, then ate some dog $hite he found, then when I got his collar to let someone pass with their dog he bit me on the hand quite hard.
> So I was almost in tears by this point and put him back on the lead and took him home he started growling and tugging the short lead and lunging. Then he refused to move. I was on the verge of tears once I got home.
> How can a puppy be so well behaved in the house but so awful when out?
> I had to put him in the spare room so I can calm down otherwise I would get angry but I feel really bad we were only out for about 20 minutes and now he is in the spare room. *sigh*


It sounds like Bailey is a bit overwhelmed by the outside world at the moment, which when you pause to think about it is quite understandable. the sights sounds smells tastes ( eww pooo :lol the feel of different surfaces under his paws. Sensory overload!! then on top of this he's only yay high and everything else look so big and scary.

If you'd like a suggestion or two mine would be to slow right down and let him watch the world go by on the front doorstep/ in the front garden. on a bench set away from the busiest places. A bus stop on a quiet street. Better to have a few succesful 5 minute walks and let him chill in between than the overloading over stimulating type. there is no shame in crossing the road or doing an about turn to avoid a close encounter he's not ready for yet.

Big hugs You will get through this


----------



## Dimwit

MS - poor Molly, I hope she feels better soon. I have done the cooking chicken and potato (dimwit refuses to eat rice) first thing in the morning many times.

Symone - sounds promising, and I hope you get something sorted out for shadow soon.

Canine - I can only agree with the others, may e go back a few steps with the walks until he is calmer and find a good puppy class with an instructor who can help you. Also, if you are struggling with the training in the garden try indoors in a quiet room. I do loads of training with dimwit in the living room where he can't get distracted.

Well, dimwit is feeling very neglected and unloved as we have run out of gravy bones  and so,for the last few days he has had to make do with an inferior bedtime treat. Then, to add insult to injury, I have just cleaned out his ears and clipped his claws - he is now sulking and considering finding a new home


----------



## Beth17

Canine I expect as MV has already said that Bailey was overwhelmed and simply reacting to frustration etc, I expect he bit you as he redirected frustration onto you. I am going through this with Sam. He has the past week or so started to play tug on the lead or my clothes and jump on Oscar trying to wrestle which has nearly caused a few handbag fights; I then usually end up having to keep them separate at arms length as Oscar then thinks it's good fun to join in  
It always happens when he gets too aroused such as not being able to greet another dog or just after they have been playing.

It's a pain but he will get there Oscar was also the same at around a year old. What worked and is working for us is lots of treats and basic obedience to calm them down as well as avoiding/anticipating triggers. Also as soon as they tug on the lead I stop dead and they don't find it quite so fun, I usually end up repeating this a few times until the red mist disappears. Chin-up he's just growing up and testing everything and will get through the other side sooner than you think 

Symone that sounds really promising about Shadow. The mum does look similar 

MS hope Molly is feeling better soon.

Sarah Sorry Kevin was back today, I hope it was a one off 

Sian what a shame your walk was upset by the whippet 

Dimwit poor thing having no gravy bones  Call the RSPCA!

We had a lovely early walk this morning and both boys were good. Had a small amount of lead biting from Sam but nothing major and no real pulling today. They then went to my dads for the afternoon whilst I was at uni and Sam decided to mark on a filing cabinet and generally be a nuisance  Oh dear :hand:


----------



## Twiggy

MS - I hope Molly is feeling better in the morning. poor girl.

Symone - Yes I think there is a similarity between Shadow and his mother. Did you ask the breeder what he's crossed with?

I rang my vets this morning for another laser treatment on Leafy's shoulder and Quiver's shoulder and hips expecting it to be next week, especially as there's no urgency, only to be offered an appointment at 5.15pm today. Only trouble was the senior vet was running late and coming home the traffic was awful so the girls had their evening walk virtually in the dark.

My vet is an arrogant so and so but I felt a bit sorry for him tonight. He's just completed a dental course in the USA only to find his customers don't want root canal fillings for their dogs costing an awful lot of money, much the same as keyhole spaying or laser treatment which are also expensive. He's not exactly in the best area to offer advanced veterinary treatment and he's now found out that a vet chain are about to open a surgery just up the road.


----------



## Symone

Twiggy : Aww, I feel sorry for your vet, too. Poor guy.
Yay for their treatment being today.  A walk in the dark isn't always fun, though.. I hate them.

And yeah, it is as everyone thought. He's crossed with a GSD. 
Stupidly over the phone I said husky! I was in the sun and my head was mush, lol!
She laughed when I corrected myself, though. 

So, I feel really sad, now. Shadows "first" owner didn't get him as a puppy. She got him from some woman who said "he has already had a few homes"
A few homes I'm guessing is more than 2.. Maybe more.
If I say in my head that it is 2 then it equals 7 altogether.. That's less than 2 months per home..... I nearly cried reading it.  

Met up with his last owner today, he was happy to see her and jumped up to greet her. She also had her GSD puppy who loved playing with Shamaya. 
He did cry when she left, though. My heart pretty much broke, then. 

Shamaya has been a good girly. She doesn't seem to like Shadow being home with us, but is fine with him on walks. She gets in a hump when he gets fed and she doesn't (He's on 5 small meals a day due to being so under weight) so we've been giving shamaya a chew when he gets fed and she doesn't.. Fussy girl. 

She is also making it known that this is her home and she is the boss. If he plays with a toy she takes it off him and he moans for us to give it to him.. No idea how I can get her to share. :/


----------



## Nicki85

Jumping back in...

We have been having fun here! 

With Rust bucket I am... trying to figure out his attitude/ nervousness at agility and the reasoning behind it. I've started to link his switching off to stress so we are doing things that he wants to do for rewards he wants (food toy being thrown!) I think it is down to people and "angry" voices. This links into him not being able to cope with angry voices at home... I forget how sensitive he is. Especially at the Sat class where there are louder voices (and dogs) it is the only place he won't stay by himself.... He is happy once he gets going but not 100% with the angry voices. I need to make sure I am 100% happy and positive as he is very sensitive to my mood.

Shae... well where do i start?! She is being really good, had puppy class tonight and she was fab, fab, fab. Figured out that I have taught her the 1,2,3 game but actually do the ready, steady, go instead! She had a play last sat in the beginner agility class- just took her up the other end running around with her toy. Then did a bit of touch pad work before taking her out. Really nice concentration and playing with the black rat (sheepskin tug on the end of a tug rope- looks like a black rat!). She is playing nice on walks now too.

My aims this week are to get crate games started for both of them and to shape Shae to go round a cone/ stick and to continue shaping back feet on a wooden board front feet off 

I will have a look through comments in a min and see if I can add anything!


----------



## IrishEyes

Morning,

How's Molly today? A little better I hope.

Sian, sorry to hear about your negative experience, I hope that it won't have any long lasting effect on your boy.

Symone, I've obviously missed how shadow came to you, but what a beautiful big dog!

K9, don't give up.. I think they like to test us sometimes!

Dimwit, I hope your boy has forgiven your harsh and uncaring actions and now has a plentiful stock of gravy bones 

We had our first walk at 6 this morning, lovely to be out and about in nature just as everything is waking up! I have noticed lately that Horace's habit of pulling for the first 5/10mins of a walk is becoming much less frequent... very pleased about that.

I hope everyone has a lovely day.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Jumping back in...
> 
> We have been having fun here!
> 
> *With Rust bucket I am... trying to figure out his attitude/ nervousness at agility and the reasoning behind it. I've started to link his switching off to stress so we are doing things that he wants to do for rewards he wants (food toy being thrown!) I think it is down to people and "angry" voices. This links into him not being able to cope with angry voices at home... I forget how sensitive he is. Especially at the Sat class where there are louder voices (and dogs) it is the only place he won't stay by himself.... He is happy once he gets going but not 100% with the angry voices. I need to make sure I am 100% happy and positive as he is very sensitive to my mood.*
> 
> Shae... well where do i start?! She is being really good, had puppy class tonight and she was fab, fab, fab. Figured out that I have taught her the 1,2,3 game but actually do the ready, steady, go instead! She had a play last sat in the beginner agility class- just took her up the other end running around with her toy. Then did a bit of touch pad work before taking her out. Really nice concentration and playing with the black rat (sheepskin tug on the end of a tug rope- looks like a black rat!). She is playing nice on walks now too.
> 
> My aims this week are to get crate games started for both of them and to shape Shae to go round a cone/ stick and to continue shaping back feet on a wooden board front feet off
> 
> I will have a look through comments in a min and see if I can add anything!


It's almost certainly stress and the switching off is displacement behaviour. I know exactly what you mean as Quiver is horrendous. Throughout her career I hardly dare breathe in case it upset her and she was never ever corrected when she made mistakes. If somebody else shouted at their dog she was likely to bolt. Even as she approaches her 15th birthday she's still a stress bucket. Yesterday afternoon she worked herself up into a right state having laser treatment to the point I almost asked the vet to stop.

Rusty may improve with age but you just have to manage it I'm afraid.


----------



## Symone

Breeder has been. She's taking him back tomorrow or monday. (It's her mums 85th birthday today hence why not today.) 
She was very sad when she found out how much he has been mistreated, and how many homes he has had. And she hugged me and thanked me for saving her babies life. I nearly cried. 
He most probably will not be rehomed once he is with her. The only reason he will be is if he needs to be a single dog. (She has 5 dogs)

His name was George when he left her and he was the runt of the litter. The only one as black as him. 

So, it's a happy ending for my little boy. I will be sad to see him go, but she said I can visit him whenever I want.


----------



## moonviolet

Symone said:


> Breeder has been. She's taking him back tomorrow or monday. (It's her mums 85th birthday today hence why not today.)
> She was very sad when she found out how much he has been mistreated, and how many homes he has had. And she hugged me and thanked me for saving her babies life. I nearly cried.
> He most probably will not be rehomed once he is with her. The only reason he will be is if he needs to be a single dog. (She has 5 dogs)
> 
> His name was George when he left her and he was the runt of the litter. The only one as black as him.
> 
> So, it's a happy ending for my little boy. I will be sad to see him go, but she said I can visit him whenever I want.


I'm so glad he has a happy ending. I'll be honest I was more than a little concerned you were being a bit hasty and hadn't thought things through. Well done for proving cynical old me wrong


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy said:


> It's almost certainly stress and the switching off is displacement behaviour. I know exactly what you mean as Quiver is horrendous. Throughout her career I hardly dare breathe in case it upset her and she was never ever corrected when she made mistakes. If somebody else shouted at their dog she was likely to bolt. Even as she approaches her 15th birthday she's still a stress bucket. Yesterday afternoon she worked herself up into a right state having laser treatment to the point I almost asked the vet to stop.
> 
> Rusty may improve with age but you just have to manage it I'm afraid.


I've bought a soft crate that I hope to eventually start taking to classes with me as a place for him to feel safe. He is using at home at the moment but i want to do some crate games first to reinforce crate= safe place.

On Wednesday he was doing the weaves and stopped to sniff mid weave (no idea what the smell was- even the greyhound next picked it up and stopped!) so I gave him a na-ah corrective noise... well lets just say he wouldn't weave again until the end of the lesson. I should have just ignored the behaviour and done the rest of the course. It wasn't even a harsh voice but enough to put him off.

It's funny cause people see him and think that he looks like a confident dog... and he is in himself. He just can't cope with "angriness". Who knows maybe it was followed up with a beating before I got him? Or maybe he is just very sensitive to human emotion.

Off to agility in a mo so will see how he goes


----------



## GingerRogers

what with dodgy internetness and busy workness I have fell behind, must try harder. 

We have been having slow and small improvements. Went out last night and got back to find a Ginger dog hiding in my office, there was a spider in the living room. She plucked up the courage to torture and kill it once I got back. then i let her out in the garden only to find we had a hedgepig visitor, a huuuge one, so had to take her out the front for bedtime wees. I suspect she thinks its still out there as she keeps brings undergrowth into the house much to hoovering hubbies disgust.

Well done Symone 

Well done Bessie took less time than us 

Sorry you had a bad day K9, I second third and fourth what every one else says, thats classic redirected frustration, Ginger does it to me all the time when she gets overwhelmed with stuff. Its why I wear thick leather ankle boots, dont know what I will do in the summer. He sounds like he is just finding it all a bit too exciting, too scary who know but just too much.

My mission for the weekend is to do as MV suggests for K9. I was talking to my neighbour the other day when a dog came past and although Ginger kicked off it was an interesting mix of excitement and frustration which soon cooled so we will see. So many of MVs suggestions work K9 

Dimwit, what can I say, you bad bad dog owner :nonod::001_tongue:

Beth sorry you are getting the biting too!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> I've bought a soft crate that I hope to eventually start taking to classes with me as a place for him to feel safe. He is using at home at the moment but i want to do some crate games first to reinforce crate= safe place.
> 
> On Wednesday he was doing the weaves and stopped to sniff mid weave (no idea what the smell was- even the greyhound next picked it up and stopped!) so I gave him a na-ah corrective noise... well lets just say he wouldn't weave again until the end of the lesson. I should have just ignored the behaviour and done the rest of the course. It wasn't even a harsh voice but enough to put him off.
> 
> It's funny cause people see him and think that he looks like a confident dog... and he is in himself. He just can't cope with "angriness". Who knows maybe it was followed up with a beating before I got him? Or maybe he is just very sensitive to human emotion.
> 
> Off to agility in a mo so will see how he goes


Oh believe you me I know exactly what you mean...!!

Quiver had a spate of missing positions in distance control when she first got into the ticket class. It was very disappointing if she'd done super heelwork, sendaway and retrieve but I daren't even let my shoulders drop and always had to try and think "oh jolly good" because otherwise she wouldn't have attempted the exercises for months.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> what with dodgy internetness and busy workness I have fell behind, must try harder.
> 
> We have been having slow and small improvements. Went out last night and got back to find a Ginger dog hiding in my office, there was a spider in the living room. She plucked up the courage to torture and kill it once I got back. then i let her out in the garden only to find we had a hedgepig visitor, a huuuge one, so had to take her out the front for bedtime wees. I suspect she thinks its still out there as she keeps brings undergrowth into the house much to hoovering hubbies disgust.
> 
> Well done Symone
> 
> Well done Bessie took less time than us
> 
> Sorry you had a bad day K9, I second third and fourth what every one else says, thats classic redirected frustration, Ginger does it to me all the time when she gets overwhelmed with stuff. Its why I wear thick leather ankle boots, dont know what I will do in the summer. He sounds like he is just finding it all a bit too exciting, too scary who know but just too much.
> 
> My mission for the weekend is to do as MV suggests for K9. I was talking to my neighbour the other day when a dog came past and although Ginger kicked off it was an interesting mix of excitement and frustration which soon cooled so we will see. So many of MVs suggestions work K9
> 
> Dimwit, what can I say, you bad bad dog owner :nonod::001_tongue:
> 
> Beth sorry you are getting the biting too!


Would the little ginger person like to come and live here? I've always wanted a spider killer (husband's eyes are not what they were and he moans too much when I ask him).


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Breeder has been. She's taking him back tomorrow or monday. (It's her mums 85th birthday today hence why not today.)
> She was very sad when she found out how much he has been mistreated, and how many homes he has had. And she hugged me and thanked me for saving her babies life. I nearly cried.
> He most probably will not be rehomed once he is with her. The only reason he will be is if he needs to be a single dog. (She has 5 dogs)
> 
> His name was George when he left her and he was the runt of the litter. The only one as black as him.
> 
> So, it's a happy ending for my little boy. I will be sad to see him go, but she said I can visit him whenever I want.


Well done Symone. I'm pleased there seems to be a happy ending for the poor boy.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Would the little ginger person like to come and live here? I've always wanted a spider killer (husband's eyes are not what they were and he moans too much when I ask him).


Sorry I need her here I am afraid. Although she does need to learn to just kill them, not give them the chance to escape and hide under the bed/sofa/other place, in waiting for me.

Cant you train one of yours to help out?


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## MollySmith

Molly runs away from spiders, we have loads as we've got open fireplaces so they wander down. I don't mind picking them up - it's peacocks, moths, birds and butterflies I have issues with 

Quiet day here, Molly went to bed yesterday about 6 and slept like the dead. I think her upset tummy has really taken it out of her. The runs are not chronic like Thursday night so we've had no accidents but no poos on walks to check. She's tired but her gums are all pink and pretty again so I think we're over the worst. I think she's been extra busy, as it's been nice weather we've had the back door open so she's been trotting about the garden in the afternoon when she's otherwise be asleep. Maybe she's over done it.

Working now for a few hours now and will be baking a chocolate cake later.


----------



## GingerRogers

You get peacocks down your chimneys


----------



## Dimwit

Symone - glad that Shadow will get his happy ending!

MS - hope Molly is back to normal soon.

Well, you can call off the RSPCA - dimwit now has more gravy bones then you can shake a stick at! He also went to big walkies today and had a great time, though he I'd get a bit silly at one point as a few people were throwing balls so he got overexcited and had to go back on his lead. AND he had been to scentwork class so I think I am forgiven


----------



## Canine K9

This mornings walk was good was out for about an hour, he is still biting the long line and tugging it but better than yesterday.

This afternoon`s walk wasn`t very good- Firstly we got to the field and a Collie or Collie X came running up to us and throwing itself about and growling; I`m sure it was only playing but It was BIG and OTT and I don`t think Bailey was ready for it, so I said to the owner "Can you get your dog please?" and he did and said "He won`t bite" Felt a bit embarrassed but it was for the better I think. Got out of the field and was going to take him for a quiet walk down the streets but he lay down and refused to move so instead of getting all stressed and angry, I turned back and went home.


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## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> You get peacocks down your chimneys


And Father Christmas 

Awh glad Dimwit had a nice time - does the walkies go near where kids play football at Milton Park? I daren't let Molly off anywhere near them, they are more fun than squirrels, my gran's visiting pheasant Bert and lobbers.


----------



## Dogless

Hello all, just back from our holidays, not yet caught up so this is all about ME  .

We had a lovely relaxing time in the main. Had one day of Rudi barking and backing away from any person or dog in front of him - wondered whether it was related to his clock around the head or just a blip, but we abandoned the day out in favour of relaxing in the garden and the next morning I sat outside a supermarket people watching, went to the pet shop etc and he was back to his usual sociable self and has remained so .

The boys actually didn't put a paw wrong, bless them :aureola:, all holiday and hubby noticed  and was impressed :w00t: by Kilo's behaviour around sheep after all my work . He took Kilo's lead for two walks and got hugely frustrated with him at times; had to bite my tongue - he hasn't been on a walk with us since around Christmas and hasn't taken Kilo's lead for around two years so of course he wanted to be with me and of course he didn't respond to words he doesn't understand Singing: :blink: .

It was so, so refreshing to be somewhere that we saw a lot of dogs and people yet not have one 'incident' until we were in Scotland on the way back. There were loads of narrow paths on the Dartmoor walks at lower levels, every person we saw moved off to the side of the path, or we did, or at least one of us moved to the side so that all dogs could pass without stress. It was wonderful - just a quick "Morning" or exchange about the weather or dogs and on we all went. Beautiful .

The BW was a totally different dog, the stress visibly drained from him. Because of this and a few other reasons I'm now looking to rent somewhere on the mainland whilst searching for a property to buy, most likely from September although I wish it was from tomorrow!!!

Bedraggled, fat and windswept (me, not the dogs ), but happy....


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning all,

Took Horace to the park this morning for socialisation, had a lovely quiet calm walk. Saw a new dog come in so put Horace back on lead rather than risk him going up to greet. New dog came down, they greeted and had a wee run around offlead for a bit, they all got on grand. Nice walk shame about the rain, I was enjoying the sun we have had lately.

Dimwit, very pleased to hear that you've replenished the gravy bone stock 

K9, I wouldn't feel embarrased.. I think you handled the situation well. I remember when Horace ran up to a dog to say hello, the lady threatened to hit him with her stick! 

Dogless, I hadn't realised that you were on holidays, glad to hear that you had a nice time and that the boys were on their very best behaviour  Good luck in your search for a new home.

That's a beautiful picture of you, Kilo and Rudi... you look lovely and very happy, tis one for framing I think!


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> does the walkies go near where kids play football at Milton Park? I daren't let Molly off anywhere near them, they are more fun than squirrels, my gran's visiting pheasant Bert and lobbers.


Yes it does, at the end. We have occasionally lost a couple of dogs to the football games but hey haven't been playing for the last couple of weeks

Dogless - lovely photo and I'm so glad you all had a nice holiday, and that the boys were so well behaved 

IE - dimwit is also very pleased about the gravy bones Sounds like a good walk, I love it when you can meet a new dog like that and not have any incidents!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hello all, just back from our holidays, not yet caught up so this is all about ME  .
> 
> We had a lovely relaxing time in the main. Had one day of Rudi barking and backing away from any person or dog in front of him - wondered whether it was related to his clock around the head or just a blip, but we abandoned the day out in favour of relaxing in the garden and the next morning I sat outside a supermarket people watching, went to the pet shop etc and he was back to his usual sociable self and has remained so .
> 
> The boys actually didn't put a paw wrong, bless them :aureola:, all holiday and hubby noticed  and was impressed :w00t: by Kilo's behaviour around sheep after all my work . He took Kilo's lead for two walks and got hugely frustrated with him at times; had to bite my tongue - he hasn't been on a walk with us since around Christmas and hasn't taken Kilo's lead for around two years so of course he wanted to be with me and of course he didn't respond to words he doesn't understand Singing: :blink: .
> 
> It was so, so refreshing to be somewhere that we saw a lot of dogs and people yet not have one 'incident' until we were in Scotland on the way back. There were loads of narrow paths on the Dartmoor walks at lower levels, every person we saw moved off to the side of the path, or we did, or at least one of us moved to the side so that all dogs could pass without stress. It was wonderful - just a quick "Morning" or exchange about the weather or dogs and on we all went. Beautiful .
> 
> The BW was a totally different dog, the stress visibly drained from him. Because of this and a few other reasons I'm now looking to rent somewhere on the mainland whilst searching for a property to buy, most likely from September although I wish it was from tomorrow!!!
> 
> Bedraggled, fat and windswept (me, not the dogs ), but happy....


That's a wonderful pic, although I can't see any fat on you...!!

Really pleased you had a good holiday and if nothing else it proves how well behaved your boys are over here in the 'real' World...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's a wonderful pic, although I can't see any fat on you...!!
> 
> Really pleased you had a good holiday and if nothing else it proves how well behaved your boys are over here in the 'real' World...


I was so, so proud of them Twiggy . Also discovered that Rudi really isn't too interested in sheep and horses which is fantastic. Kilo was horrendous at Rudi's age and still will never, ever be steady around livestock I don't think. The 'real world' of considerate walkers was absolutely brilliant.

Rudi no longer has a 'stay'. I think because he was in a sit / stay when that nonsense happened at training. I may have to start again using a different word I think - is that what you would do?


----------



## GingerRogers

That is great photo. You all look relaxed. Kilo looks a different dog. How were the harnesses? They look good.


----------



## BessieDog

Welcome back Dogless! Sounds like you had a good time! 

You made me smile about you're OH and lead walking. Bess is doing very well with me at the moment. When she charges past me on the flexi I say 'don't pull' and she slows and stops at the end of the lead (which she judges very well), waits for me to go past and then the cycle repeats. 

When OH holds the lead she runs ahead and starts pulling like a steam train. He starts shouting 'will you stop pulling' and a lot of other variations - it does nothing. I try and tell him the words I use, but he carries on talking to her as if she understands English! 

What is it about men?


----------



## Symone

Dogless : Sounds like an amazing holiday! The boys sound so perfect.
I agree, that picture is for framing. Looks so nice.  

--

Well, lovely morning, here  Had Shadow wake us at 8am for wees and poos and stuff, then ask to be taken out again at 8:30 for another poo  I swear I've lost weight with him being here! 
Shamaya has been a little angel, but she's not used to waking up early. She has moved from the bedroom to her bed in the living room.
Both had breakfast. Both enjoyed it. Both now sleeping. Nice and quiet.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> That is great photo. You all look relaxed. Kilo looks a different dog. How were the harnesses? They look good.


He didn't frown so much at all, no tension in his body language when he saw dogs or people either once he realised he wasn't going to be jumped on when on lead . I really rate those harnesses; not particularly nice looking but loads of points of adjustment for a good fit, padding on the straps that go under the belly, all joints free to move, they don't slip round etc. Handle helps. They have the extra clips on top as they're the Palisades packs ones.


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> Welcome back Dogless! Sounds like you had a good time!
> 
> You made me smile about you're OH and lead walking. Bess is doing very well with me at the moment. When she charges past me on the flexi I say 'don't pull' and she slows and stops at the end of the lead (which she judges very well), waits for me to go past and then the cycle repeats.
> 
> When OH holds the lead she runs ahead and starts pulling like a steam train. He starts shouting 'will you stop pulling' and a lot of other variations - it does nothing. I try and tell him the words I use, but he carries on talking to her as if she understands English!
> 
> *What is it about men?*


Well I could write a massive tome on mine....LOL


----------



## MollySmith

Welcome back Dogless, missed you  It sounds like you had a great time and I love the photo, I can't see an ounce of fat on you, you all look very happy and relaxed. It must be a huge confidence boost.

I'd love to know where you stayed and how Dartmoor suits dogs, we're always looking for new places. 

Love the comment about the OH. I don't get that but I do have the 'go away and leave me alone' when Molly wanders near him if he's eating a sandwich. The word is 'off' which is so much more simple...


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Welcome back Dogless, missed you  It sounds like you had a great time and I love the photo, I can't see an ounce of fat on you, you all look very happy and relaxed. It must be a huge confidence boost.
> 
> I'd love to know where you stayed and how Dartmoor suits dogs, we're always looking for new places.
> 
> Love the comment about the OH. I don't get that but I do have the 'go away and leave me alone' when Molly wanders near him if he's eating a sandwich. The word is 'off' which is so much more simple...


Going to post about the house / walks on the holiday cottages thread. Whole area very, very dog friendly.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I was so, so proud of them Twiggy . Also discovered that Rudi really isn't too interested in sheep and horses which is fantastic. Kilo was horrendous at Rudi's age and still will never, ever be steady around livestock I don't think. The 'real world' of considerate walkers was absolutely brilliant.
> 
> *Rudi no longer has a 'stay'. I think because he was in a sit / stay when that nonsense happened at training. I may have to start again using a different word I think - is that what you would do?*




Yes I'd use a different word and teach it differently as well. There are several different methods.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Yes I'd use a different word and teach it differently as well. There are several different methods.


Yes, his stay was OK for his age I think but now he just breaks it and runs to me instantly. I'll look at teaching it differently too. The rest of his training is going OK so think it must be linked to what happened at training; he's not having teenage "I can't hear you" in other areas (touch wood).


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, his stay was OK for his age I think but now he just breaks it and runs to me instantly. I'll look at teaching it differently too. The rest of his training is going OK so think it must be linked to what happened at training; he's not having teenage "I can't hear you" in other areas (touch wood).


The method I normally use is having them on the lead more or less sitting in the heel position, saying the command in a light voice "sit" and moving about 6" away from them to the right for a few seconds, returning and praising and playing. I then build it up from there. Even little Holly didn't take offence...LOL I never threaten or reprimand them if they move, I simply pop them back and repeat.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> The method I normally use is having them on the lead more or less sitting in the heel position, saying the command in a light voice "sit" and moving about 6" away from them to the right for a few seconds, returning and praising and playing. I then build it up from there. Even little Holly didn't take offence...LOL I never threaten or reprimand them if they move, I simply pop them back and repeat.


That is how I did it in the first place, what would you do as an alternative? I haven't reprimanded at all, don't want to make the whole thing a source of anxiety.


----------



## Beth17

Welcome back Dogless! I like the look of the harnesses. So pleased you were all able to have an enjoyable and relaxing week down here. That is a really lovely photo of you and your boys, you look so happy  

We had a lovely early hour and half walk through the woods this morning before it got too warm. Didn't see many people about and the boys were on their best behaviour :thumbup: They are now snoozing in the sun whilst I get on with essays :thumbdown:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> That is how I did it in the first place, what would you do as an alternative? I haven't reprimanded at all, don't want to make the whole thing a source of anxiety.


You could clicker train and shape it, although of course it will take longer.

In other words when you see him sitting, click (or use "yes") and reward initially. Then build it up by using the command (sit - wait - stay - or whatever you are going to use) and walking a circle round him etc.


----------



## Symone

So, I'm quite angry right now.
Had a lovely time with Shadows breeder, she gave us some flowers and choco as a thank you.
OH left it in the main flat entrance and someone bloody came along and stole it!


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> So, I'm quite angry right now.
> Had a lovely time with Shadows breeder, she gave us some flowers and choco as a thank you.
> OH left it in the main flat entrance and someone bloody came along and stole it!


Oh no .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You could clicker train and shape it, although of course it will take longer.
> 
> In other words when you see him sitting, click (or use "yes") and reward initially. Then build it up by using the command (sit - wait - stay - or whatever you are going to use) and walking a circle round him etc.


He has a good 'wait'. Maybe I'll just develop that so it becomes a stay.


----------



## Symone

Oh well.. Had best focus on the good.
OH posted up a notice so hopefully the thief feels guilty and returns it..


Well, met Shadows breeder, we had a nice long chat and she was telling me how she waited until she retired to breed for she wanted to have all the time with them and stuff. 
Shadow will be a stable boy because of how much he loves the out doors. He will be with a few other dogs and I think he will love it. 
Other than managing the stables he will have a normal doggy life. Lots of walks, play... Everything he could want, really.  
He really is lucky to have found his breeder.

His breeder also mentioned that she wants to start her own kind of "rescue" where she will help poor dogs in the same situation as shadow. She was on the phone with the guy from the GSD rescue that Shadow would have otherwise went to and they were talking about it a lot.  

So yeah, life is looking up for the little guy who hasn't had a proper home for his life.  
I feel really sad that he isn't here any more, though.


----------



## Ninedogs

Hi everyone
I have been working on recall, very difficult as I take four dogs out at the same time. I know you will all be saying oh!No!, but time is very short. Doing ok, except today big problems running in totally different direction. Walked back to car and started it, no time at all the dogs came hurtling up the track. Now the weather is better hopefully will be able to do some individual training, especially with the ring leader Charlie.

I have also managed to stop the incessant barking of two of the dogs in car, luckily I have an old Nissan Patrol, all dogs in back, I took a bottle of water and threw the water full in the faces of the two culprits, and now all I have to do if I see an approaching, car, person, cyclist, dog or cat is show the bottle and say QUIET. Been really good stopped the barking 95% of the time.


----------



## GingerRogers

Awe Symone thats not nice, meanies. 

Couple of good days, nice little walk last night. One we did the other day, it is circular but halfway round theres a house with dogs that were barking and looked like they could escape so rather than spoil that walk with an incident we turned back which was fine by the ninja as she got to stay off lead. Really getting my confidence back even after the last two walks, see later, just have to judge her mood very very carefully.

Theres a couple of bits where its safer to put her back on as footpaths converge and on the way I had just put her on when I spotted a huge (fox?) hole in the hawthorn hedge. I made a mental note to tell hubby to be aware of this. We came back after the dogs and what did my stupid unorientated brain do, I let her off a bit early, cant recognise things backwards 

Sure enough in she dived, but was pretty cautious which is why I think it was fox, she always approaches with care, so I used my best stern I mean business voice and she came out, thankfully, I didn't fancy wading through that. Only to race off towards the horizon like a banshee, the little minx. She does that, as though she has to work it out of herself, she doesn't like to go out of sight though and sure enough just before she went over the hilltop she came haring back again.

Today I had possibly the best walk I have ever had with my little ginger dog 

Its beautiful, warm, sunny, still. We headed up to our new favourite place and walked a bit further, mostly all off lead, she was very attentive and it was so nice to be able to escape the horrific crowds that have come to the seaside today  at the point of our turnaround I could see the beach but they couldn't get to me, ha ha!

We had a couple of near misses. I took my eye off her for a millisecond and she disappeared  the undergrowth is just about ginger height . I stood at the point of last sighting and called and saw the leaves move, so I parted them and found a tail, then a bum firmly poking up in the air, and head firmly wedged down a hole. Luckily I could reach down and grab her harness and haul her ass outta there 

Nearer the end, I was just thinking perhaps I should put her back on so we don't ruin whats been a lovely day by somedog being naughty  as I processed the thought we heard a rustle and a splash, thankfully I caught hold of her harness in that split second of freeze before they take off. I think it must have been a muntjac escaping into the reed beds. Needless to say my initial thought was followed up on and she stayed on lead for the rest.

The only other drama was a scary horrid leaf that had some how attached itself to her undercarriage and she couldn't possibly move or stand any more.


----------



## Dimwit

Symone - that's awful, hopefully you will shame the culprit into returning your goodies.

GR - sounds like a pretty perfect walk

Well, we have just go back from our first class with behaviourist/trainer and dimwit was brilliant
It was all fairly basic stuff, but some of which he has never managed to master so I thought it would do him good to go back to basics. It was also a new place with new people and dogs so I thought he might be a bit worried but he was a little star.
He was the most relaxed he has ever been meeting trainer and was pretty good at focussing on me. The only wobbles he had was when I had to leave him and then recall him which I knew he wouldn't like as he gets quite worried when I leave him. Then, at the end we were starting to teach the dogs to walk backwards so I stood him next to a row of chairs but he saw chairs, thought we were doing scentwork, so jumped up an ran along them sniffing :lol:

He is now snoozing next to me on the sofa :001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> He has a good 'wait'. Maybe I'll just develop that so it becomes a stay.


Yup perfect - work with the tools you have in place.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> So, I'm quite angry right now.
> Had a lovely time with Shadows breeder, she gave us some flowers and choco as a thank you.
> OH left it in the main flat entrance and someone bloody came along and stole it!


Charming...!! That's awful.


----------



## Guest

Heellloooo!

We are on the hunt for a front harness as oddly enough Zander has grown in the 6 0r 7 month since I got it. He's about 27 inches to the shoulder! 

He has suddenly become absolutely petrified of the nail clippers. And we were doing so well with nail training.  He squeals and runs if you pick them up.

People training is going well. He drags me to see the haberdashery man now lol
Dog training still on the same page as alwasy lol


----------



## Symone

I know it's awful. Apparently is was a plant she dug up, too! So it's not even like a shop bought one.. Some people steal anything that isn't nailed down!

GR : Sounds like a perfect walk.  

Dimwit : Looks like you had a good day.  It sure is nice when they have a snooze, isn't it?  

--

Well, I had a good old cry over Shadow being gone.  I have no idea how, but I completely fell for him in the few days he was here. My sob started when I looked at one of my online albums and saw pics of him :crying:
I got to see baby pics of him and he looks pretty much the same, now! Only bigger, haha.  He deffo was the darkest of the litter, though. 

Shamaya seems to have forgotten all training, now! Since he left she has been a right old cheeky clogs! She's trying to play with us how she did him, and doesn't understand the difference with the play.. Or, I think she does, but she just prefers how she played with him. 
I have to admit because of this I am very tempted to look into getting a second dog sooner than I originally planned. She seemed to do so well with Shadow being here and it looks like she misses him!
I have had the thought that I could always foster again (Not a dog so big, though.. Lol! The first time he jumped up was scary.) but I would have to make sure that if I do it's either a bitch or a dog that has had the snip. I would rather not have to plan around like I did before in case she came into season with him here. A lesson learned, though. 
The only bad thing about fostering is getting attached, though. I sure miss the little guy a lot.  

Silly me has been asking the OH if we can buy a pup from our breeder. I'm only asking because I know he will say no, though. :hand:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Got six rosettes out of seven classes today.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Heellloooo!
> 
> We are on the hunt for a front harness as oddly enough Zander has grown in the 6 0r 7 month since I got it. He's about 27 inches to the shoulder!
> 
> He has suddenly become absolutely petrified of the nail clippers. And we were doing so well with nail training.  He squeals and runs if you pick them up.
> 
> People training is going well. He drags me to see the haberdashery man now lol
> Dog training still on the same page as alwasy lol


And *H E L L O* to you too....

If it's any comfort mine all hate the nail clippers as well...!!


----------



## Nicki85

Hello all!

Sounds like everyone has had a good Sunny Sunday (and holidays!)!

I was going to go to an agility show today but decided last minute to go to a country food festival instead.

Went with my parents and my brother and nephew- good day out  Rusty wouldn't behave for anyone else but me but not surprising as no one else trains him. Shae loved all of the attention- she was at the bottom of a pile of hands touching her at one point. Not phased in the slightest and I let her make up her own mind if she wanted to say hi or not. Rusty chose to mainly sit beside me whilst she got fuss. He accepts strokes but doesn't really react either way.

Not much else to add except I have two very very tired puppies!


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* - What's the best method of teach a down stay because my methods don't work?...:nonod:

I've spent most of the day spraying and pulling up weeds in the paddocks but decided to do scent with Tremor and Holly this afternoon.

I got husband to scent two cloths up and did Tremor first. I then scented a fresh cloth for Holly and asked Tremor to lie down.....

I used the same pattern with Holly (a V today) and she was doing well; smelt the cloths nicely without grabbing any until she came to the right one, picked it up and was coming back to me when this 'thing' appeared dancing about in front of me and totally put poor Holly off her stride...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless* - What's the best method of teach a down stay because my methods don't work?...:nonod:
> 
> I've spent most of the day spraying and pulling up weeds in the paddocks but decided to do scent with Tremor and Holly this afternoon.
> 
> I got husband to scent two cloths up and did Tremor first. I then scented a fresh cloth for Holly and asked Tremor to lie down.....
> 
> I used the same pattern with Holly (a V today) and she was doing well; smelt the cloths nicely without grabbing any until she came to the right one, picked it up and was coming back to me when this 'thing' appeared dancing about in front of me and totally put poor Holly off her stride...


Oh dear - the picture of it did make me laugh a bit . Think Tremor must have been overcome by the Spring air!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh dear - the picture of it did make me laugh a bit . Think Tremor must have been overcome by the Spring air!


And it true dog trainer fashion I tied dear Tremor to a tree whilst Holly had another go....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> And it true dog trainer fashion I tied dear Tremor to a tree whilst Holly had another go....


Rudi gets tethered whilst I do stuff with Kilo a fair bit, bless him. One day he'll have impulse control.

Took the boys for separate walks this evening, they were good but being back here is such a let down!!


----------



## bearcub

Would it be ok if I joined in this thread for a while? I need a bit of doggy orientated support but don't really want to broadcast all my moaning across the forum


----------



## Dogless

Welcome bearcub - no moan too big or too small the WAYWO ladies have heard 'em all. From Grannie to mv, L/C, k&m and the rest for training related highs and lows this thread's the best.

Sorry, I am in a silly mood.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> And *H E L L O* to you too....
> 
> If it's any comfort mine all hate the nail clippers as well...!!


So what do you do to clip their nails?


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy said:


> I used the same pattern with Holly (a V today) and she was doing well; smelt the cloths nicely without grabbing any until she came to the right one, picked it up and was coming back to me when this 'thing' appeared dancing about in front of me and totally put poor Holly off her stride...


And this is where my crate games is going to come in handy!! Rusty can't help himself when I am training Shae. Shae has no understanding that I don't want her involved when I am training Rusty... But instead of trying to join in she just tries to get him to play instead which Rusty won't do as he is to focused on me :hand:


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> So what do you do to clip their nails?


Do you really want to know? OK here goes:

The sun has to be shining through the patio doors in the lounge, then I get my extra strong reading glasses, after having downed two glasses of sherry to settle my nerves, call husband for back up, have a cigarette (sometimes more than one), reach for the magnifying glass and get both pairs of clippers.

By now all the dogs have fled to the far corners of the house and I tentatively call Leafy (who's the easiest).

Do you want me to go on? - it goes downhill from here.....


----------



## Twiggy

bearcub said:


> Would it be ok if I joined in this thread for a while? I need a bit of doggy orientated support but don't really want to broadcast all my moaning across the forum


Welcome Bearcub. We like a good moan on here...


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Do you really want to know? OK here goes:
> 
> The sun has to be shining through the patio doors in the lounge, then I get my extra strong reading glasses, after having downed two glasses of sherry to settle my nerves, call husband for back up, have a cigarette (sometimes more than one), reach for the magnifying glass and get both pairs of clippers.
> 
> By now all the dogs have fled to the far corners of the house and I tentatively call Leafy (who's the easiest).
> 
> Do you want me to go on? - it goes downhill from here.....


I wish to know the end of the tale!! :w00t:


----------



## BessieDog

Twiggy said:


> Do you really want to know? OK here goes:
> 
> The sun has to be shining through the patio doors in the lounge, then I get my extra strong reading glasses, after having downed two glasses of sherry to settle my nerves, call husband for back up, have a cigarette (sometimes more than one), reach for the magnifying glass and get both pairs of clippers.
> 
> By now all the dogs have fled to the far corners of the house and I tentatively call Leafy (who's the easiest).
> 
> Do you want me to go on? - it goes downhill from here.....


I have found the answer - a dremel!! Because I know I won't be shaving much off so won't be going near the quick I'm 100% more confident about it. Previously Bess sensed I was nervous and was impossible to get her nails done. Must admit I tie her up, and she pulls as far away as she can, but I tell her 'no' and she begrudgingly lets me do all her nails. I don't know if its this raw food, but I can't believe the rate her nails grow!! I'm just lucky I've found some way of keeping on top of them.

PS. A ciggie first still helps!


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> I wish to know the end of the tale!! :w00t:


She can't remember the end....too many sherries :w00t:, but wakes up in the morning with an awful headache and the dogs have short nails .


----------



## bearcub

Dogless said:


> Welcome bearcub - no moan too big or too small the WAYWO ladies have heard 'em all. From Grannie to mv, L/C, k&m and the rest for training related highs and lows this thread's the best.
> 
> Sorry, I am in a silly mood.





Twiggy said:


> Welcome Bearcub. We like a good moan on here...


Well thank you for making me feel so welcome and Dogless, your rhyming (or is it a rap :lol has certainly cheered me right up 

Anyway where to start... firstly a big culture shock for me moving down to a busy town in Kent from a sleepy village in North Yorkshire. We were lucky if we met another dog up there but down here there are dogs... everywhere :blink: Florence and Freya have met some new buddies but unfortunately also some very rude dogs... the sort of nightmare dogs who feature on people's 'terrible walk' threads.

Florence has been set upon four times in the last month  every single time by an off lead dog when she's been on lead. And although she seems to brush it off, Freya has starting growling when approached on lead by any dog. She doesn't like meeting dogs particularly at all but I'm so anxious for her indifference to other dogs does not turn into aggression. I feel I should be doing more to prevent it but don't know what!

I suppose the other thing that's making it difficult for me to work out where to go from here with them is my general stress levels at the moment... between moving house, OH's work messing him about with pay, my brother getting divorced and my dad having a stroke, I desperately need our walks to destress :crazy:

....... and breathe 

Good news is I've lost nearly a stone just from the amount of walks I've ended up doing to destress and I am VERY happy about that


----------



## Dogless

bearcub said:


> Well thank you for making me feel so welcome and Dogless, your rhyming (or is it a rap :lol has certainly cheered me right up
> 
> Anyway where to start... firstly a big culture shock for me moving down to a busy town in Kent from a sleepy village in North Yorkshire. We were lucky if we met another dog up there but down here there are dogs... everywhere :blink: Florence and Freya have met some new buddies but unfortunately also some very rude dogs... the sort of nightmare dogs who feature on people's 'terrible walk' threads.
> 
> Florence has been set upon four times in the last month  every single time by an off lead dog when she's been on lead. And although she seems to brush it off, Freya has starting growling when approached on lead by any dog. She doesn't like meeting dogs particularly at all but I'm so anxious for her indifference to other dogs does not turn into aggression. I feel I should be doing more to prevent it but don't know what!
> 
> I suppose the other thing that's making it difficult for me to work out where to go from here with them is my general stress levels at the moment... between moving house, OH's work messing him about with pay, my brother getting divorced and my dad having a stroke, I desperately need our walks to destress :crazy:
> 
> ....... and breathe
> 
> Good news is I've lost nearly a stone just from the amount of walks I've ended up doing to destress and I am VERY happy about that


Well done on the weight loss :thumbup:.

I know how you feel after our move over here, plus similar other unfortunate life events. Kilo in particular has had some horrible experiences. I actually tend to avoid where possible. Where not possible I have taught a 'hide' to Kilo (will to Rudi too, in time) where he steps behind me and I 'deal with' things. If Freya is 'foodie' could you feed when she sees other dogs? Or play a game of tuggie perhaps? I'd do a fair amount of separate walks I think. Other than that I am afraid I am woefully inadequate when it comes to help and advice but others on here know a lot more than me!!.

ETA: I drive to find quiet walks a lot. For my sanity and the dogs'.


----------



## Maria_1986

Feelings like the worst member of the WAYWO group at the moment for contributing and keeping up with whats going on at the moment, have just been so busy I'm not getting much internetting time at the moment.

I wanted to stop in though and thank you all for your support and help with Chevy, I have taken on board all that has been said and have proven that your methods are award winning 









Hope everyone is having a great bank holiday weekend and is enjoying the sunshine


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> I wish to know the end of the tale!! :w00t:


OK like Dogless I was in a silly mood last night.

Because my dogs do very little roadwork I have to trim their nails about every two weeks.

As puppies they sit on my husbands knee whilst I trim them so in theory by about a year old they should be used to it.

Once I tackle them on my own I get them laying on their side, tell them "stay down" and trim away.

The big problem now is Quiver because of her advanced age and arthritis. She's never liked having her nails cut (neither has Tremor and they are closely related) but these days she panics and tries to pull away when you even touch her feet. My husband has to sit the other side of her and hold her still and I try and get it over with as quickly as possible with as much reassurance as I can muster.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> She can't remember the end....too many sherries :w00t:, but wakes up in the morning with an awful headache and the dogs have short nails .


*Dogless* - How did you guess?

*Bessiedog - *I've thought about investing in a Dremmel for a while now although I've heard good and bad reports.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done on the weight loss :thumbup:.
> 
> I know how you feel after our move over here, plus similar other unfortunate life events. Kilo in particular has had some horrible experiences. I actually tend to avoid where possible. Where not possible I have taught a 'hide' to Kilo (will to Rudi too, in time) where he steps behind me and I 'deal with' things. If Freya is 'foodie' could you feed when she sees other dogs? Or play a game of tuggie perhaps? I'd do a fair *amount of separate walks I think. Other than that I am afraid I am woefully inadequate when it comes to help and advice but others on here know a lot more than me!!.*
> 
> ETA: I drive to find quiet walks a lot. For my sanity and the dogs'.


I'd have said your the WAYWO expert when it comes to ignorant owners and their totally out of control dogs and therefore the best one to offer advice.


----------



## moonviolet

Oh Maria thas wonderful. That brought a tear to my eye. Chevy is really shining in your loving care.

Welcome bearcub sorry you are having a rotten time although she is exceptionally modest Dogless' advice is very very good!!! Avoidance where possible really is the best strategy where dogs are allowed to charge over with no doggie decorum. Just be aware of your own dogs body language too and break any prolonged stare by stepping in front if needs be.

I'm feeling a bit lucky nail clipper only requires a little time and cheese here. No ciggies(for 50 weeks) no sherry.

Well done KFK, 6 rosettes and no pics?

Symone what a shame your thank you gift was stolen Saying goodbye to Shadow must have been so hard. As Shamaya's training has ggone awry a little might be better to wait until her training has been proofed a little mroe before fostering again.

Nicki sounds like you had a nice day something a bit different for your dogs.

We had a busy old day yesterday 2 hours of freestyle/ tricks then was invited by my trainer to join them for a walk on the busy green. It's a good place to do a bit of counter conditining with TInk because it's surrounded by roads and people let their dogs offlead in the middle but dont' let them stray too close to the road.... so we sat on a bench near the road ( our dogs onlead) and watched without being bothered. Tink is definitely still a little bothered by large dogs running offlead , but this is a great place to work on it. So i'll definitely be making the most of it.

It was quite interesting sitting back and watching the interactions. A poor onlead lampshade wearing dog was charged at 4 times by excited offlead dogs. Then we saw a very overweight CKCS and their owners heading towards and we were somewhat accosted and asked a range of unusual questions. 

A busy but lovely day and one happy tired hound.


----------



## Twiggy

Maria_1986 said:


> Feelings like the worst member of the WAYWO group at the moment for contributing and keeping up with whats going on at the moment, have just been so busy I'm not getting much internetting time at the moment.
> 
> I wanted to stop in though and thank you all for your support and help with Chevy, I have taken on board all that has been said and have proven that your methods are award winning
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hope everyone is having a great bank holiday weekend and is enjoying the sunshine


Mega well done to you both....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Oh Maria thas wonderful. That brought a tear to my eye. Chevy is really shining in your loving care.
> 
> Welcome bearcub sorry you are having a rotten time although she is exceptionally modest Dogless' advice is very very good!!! Avoidance where possible really is the best strategy where dogs are allowed to charge over with no doggie decorum. Just be aware of your own dogs body language too and break any prolonged stare by stepping in front if needs be.
> 
> I'm feeling a bit lucky nail clipper only requires a little time and cheese here. No ciggies(for 50 weeks) no sherry.
> 
> Well done KFK, 6 rosettes and no pics?
> 
> Symone what a shame your thank you gift was stolen Saying goodbye to Shadow must have been so hard. As Shamaya's training has ggone awry a little might be better to wait until her training has been proofed a little mroe before fostering again.
> 
> Nicki sounds like you had a nice day something a bit different for your dogs.
> 
> We had a busy old day yesterday 2 hours of freestyle/ tricks then was invited by my trainer to join them for a walk on the busy green. It's a good place to do a bit of counter conditining with TInk because it's surrounded by roads and people let their dogs offlead in the middle but dont' let them stray too close to the road.... so we sat on a bench near the road ( our dogs onlead) and watched without being bothered. Tink is definitely still a little bothered by large dogs running offlead , but this is a great place to work on it. So i'll definitely be making the most of it.
> 
> It was quite interesting sitting back and watching the interactions. A poor onlead lampshade wearing dog was charged at 4 times by excited offlead dogs. Then we saw a very overweight CKCS and their owners heading towards and we were somewhat accosted and asked a range of unusual questions.
> 
> A busy but lovely day and one happy tired hound.


How the routine coming along? It's extremely difficult stringing a routine together isn't it?


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> How the routine coming along? It's extremely difficult stringing a routine together isn't it?


It is so blooming hard... my challenge is to have soemthing to show for myself next time.
I can't just do leg weaves, no? I have to say they are somewhat improved, I'm almost proud of them.

Atleast with this good weather i can get outside with my earphones in and start randoming putting things together on the hoof and note them down, thats the plan anyway.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> It is so blooming hard... my challenge is to have soemthing to show for myself next time.
> I can't just do leg weaves, no? I have to say they are somewhat improved, I'm almost proud of them.
> 
> Atleast with this good weather i can get outside with my earphones in and start randoming putting things together on the hoof and note them down, thats the plan anyway.


I used to play the chosen track constantly in the car - on the way to work, etc. and also go through it loads and loads of times without the dog as well. It's OK knowing you are going to do such and such a move at a certain point in the track but it's the bits in between so that it all flows seamlessly. Even when you have the whole routine up to scratch it's also about having Plan B in place, in case the dear little doggies miss a move and the timing goes awry oh and dropping most of the cues so that you are upright and elegant....

One of the other problems is the dogs anticipating the moves (a bit like horses doing the same in dressage tests). I hardly ever went through the whole routine with the dog for that reason, which is partly why I'd perform it on my own. Don't do it in a packed park though - they'll lock you up...!!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I used to play the chosen track constantly in the car - on the way to work, etc. and also go through it loads and loads of times without the dog as well. It's OK knowing you are going to do such and such a move at a certain point in the track but it's the bits in between so that it all flows seamlessly. Even when you have the whole routine up to scratch it's also about having Plan B in place, in case the dear little doggies miss a move and the timing goes awry oh and dropping most of the cues so that you are upright and elegant....
> 
> One of the other problems is the dogs anticipating the moves (a bit like horses doing the same in dressage tests). I hardly ever went through the whole routine with the dog for that reason, which is partly why I'd perform it on my own. Don't do it in a packed park though - they'll lock you up...!!


Madame did a bit of anticpating yesterday, i thought i might get away without that being too much of an issue, but no seems, the "untrainable" is channelling her inner border collie. I love the enthusiasm 

Thanks for the park tip


----------



## Maria_1986

Twiggy said:


> I'd have said your the WAYWO expert when it comes to ignorant owners and their totally out of control dogs and therefore the best one to offer advice.


Very much agree dogless - reading posts on how you have dealt with things has been invaluable in helping me to deal with situations when out and about.


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## Guest

Today seems to be a particularly 'scary' day.
Cannot even pick up the nail clippers without scared running off. I just put the nail clippers on the floor and put some treats next to it to see if he'd go near it. No dice. 
The new bird feeders in the garden are not be gone near either, nor is the broom. Lots of hunching down and pulling away.
Also a can of 'boost' energy drink seems to be jump worthy whenever I pick it up. May have to up the dorwest dosage (We're on them now.) 
Walked him on his harness today though and was very good and didn't flatten a JRT.
He used to be alright with his nails being done twig cause we used to just plonk him next to use and do it fine, but as of christmas everything seems to have gone to sh*t. Have been desentising for a good few weeks and it was going well, then yesterday mum was doing nail training while I was at work. She picked up the clippers and he freaked out. :thumbdown:
The muzzle training is sticking though. I plopped it on him today with peanut butter smeared in the bottom. 
Am off to work in about half an hour and mum says she'll come on a nice stroll with us later. 

Hope you are all well and awesome as usual! (Especially Chevy, Chevy has a certificate of awesomeness now YAAY! :001_wub


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## Dogless

WELL DONE CHEVY!!!!! and of course you Maria. What a testament to your hard work and the relationship you've built with Chevy.

MV - Can't wait to see your routine!

Well, I could cry today, with happiness for once. Such a good morning . I walked the dogs separately as everything on holiday was done together and I wanted to have some fun with each dog on their own.

I took Rudi first, we met Dizzy and human and they had fun chasing their toys and running about. He did everything I asked of him and behaved like a little star . Then I just dropped him in the house and left him uncrated which I've only done for 10 - 15 minutes before now. Got back after an hour with Kilo and Rudi had clearly just slept so I am very pleased with him :001_wub:.

The walk that almost had me in tears.....I took Kilo to a field and was just about to put his harness and longline on when a man came along with a springer and an entire male, black lab (Kilo's 'worst' dog'). The lab and him had met briefly before and had really iffy body language, both growled, postured etc so we've always avoided since. BUT today when they saw each other there was none of that at all, Kilo was eager to greet too so the man asked whether I'd like to introduce them. I felt confident that all was fine so let him off and the dogs spent an hour or so playing and chasing toys - all relaxed and happy. I was so, so pleased it's unreal . He wasn't on his longline or muzzled but I know him and KNOW that he would have ignored anyone appearing as he was with confident dogs, same as he always does. What a good CH :001_wub:.

What a fantastic morning at Concrete Central. And we got home just before it started to rain again .

I really think that the Suprelorin has made a positive difference.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Today seems to be a particularly 'scary' day.
> Cannot even pick up the nail clippers without scared running off. I just put the nail clippers on the floor and put some treats next to it to see if he'd go near it. No dice.
> The new bird feeders in the garden are not be gone near either, nor is the broom. Lots of hunching down and pulling away.
> Also a can of 'boost' energy drink seems to be jump worthy whenever I pick it up. May have to up the dorwest dosage (We're on them now.)
> Walked him on his harness today though and was very good and didn't flatten a JRT.
> He used to be alright with his nails being done twig cause we used to just plonk him next to use and do it fine, but as of christmas everything seems to have gone to sh*t. Have been desentising for a good few weeks and it was going well, then yesterday mum was doing nail training while I was at work. She picked up the clippers and he freaked out. :thumbdown:
> 
> I'm afraid with mine, whether they like it or not, it has to be done. Tremor has split a nail on several occasions, resulting in a trip to the vets.


----------



## Twiggy

The walk that almost had me in tears.....I took Kilo to a field and was just about to put his harness and longline on when a man came along with a springer and an entire male, black lab (Kilo's 'worst' dog'). The lab and him had met briefly before and had really iffy body language, both growled, postured etc so we've always avoided since. BUT today when they saw each other there was none of that at all, Kilo was eager to greet too so the man asked whether I'd like to introduce them. I felt confident that all was fine so let him off and the dogs spent an hour or so playing and chasing toys - all relaxed and happy. I was so, so pleased it's unreal . He wasn't on his longline or muzzled but I know him and KNOW that he would have ignored anyone appearing as he was with confident dogs, same as he always does. What a good CH :001_wub:.

What a fantastic morning at Concrete Central. And we got home just before it started to rain again .

I really think that the Suprelorin has made a positive difference.[/QUOTE]

Yes I'm sure it has but combined with your training, diligence, careful management and a much more positive attitude for the past few weeks...


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes I'm sure it has but combined with your training, diligence, careful management and a much more positive attitude for the past few weeks...


I think by reducing the testosterone - driven stuff Twiggy it has really helped with focus outside too. And the holiday....that helped no end.


----------



## Beth17

MV sounds like a really lovely if tiring day yesterday 

Maria and Chevy what can I say but well done you deserve it :thumbup:

LO I hope Zand realises that the nail clippers aren't out to get him soon.

Dogless sounds as if you had a brilliant morning. Well done to you and the CHs 

We had separate walks today as they have had a few days being walked together. Sam didn't get offlead but we worked on his focus and pulling at the exciting grassy area and even got him doing some really quick sits and downs to work his brain. We then had a quick look at some sheep as they were far enough away not to see us before having a wander back home. He is definitely starting to grow up.

Oscar was good as gold and we spent his walk playing frisbee and pottering around which he thoroughly enjoyed


----------



## Dogless

Beth - I don't believe Sam will ever properly grow up - in the nicest possible way . He always looks and sounds as if he's full of mischief :laugh:.


----------



## Beth17

Dogless said:


> Beth - I don't believe Sam will ever properly grow up - in the nicest possible way . He always looks and sounds as if he's full of mischief :laugh:.


Well maybe not :001_tt2:


----------



## Canine K9

Had a FANTASTIC walk this afternoon. Didn`t reliase how hot it was! 70 degrees! So we were only out for about thirty minutes. Field was empty. He was so well behaved, and we relaxed in the sun for most of the walk. Only problem now is I`m now sunburnt!


----------



## diefenbaker

Just got back from a 4 hour jaunt right in the heat... Stansted House was half way so we stopped for a drink and a piece of cake and the kids went round the maze. I kept him cool with the water gun. He drinks right from the barrel and I know where the tap is at Stansted House to refill the ammunition.


----------



## Maria_1986

Thank you all. I could not believe it when she actually did what I told her. It was a nice simple sit, wait and recall for the most obedient class but with all the distractions (kids, food, people, dogs etc) I was not 100% sure she was going to hold the wait until I recalled - not only did she hold it she kept eye contact :001_wub:


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well done Maria and Chevy!

Here you go then;


----------



## Nicki85

Well done Maria!! Fantastic   

Sounds like everyone has had another lovely sunny day with their lovely dogs 

We've done a bit of contact work (asking them to reverse on to a wooden board so they have back feet on and front feet off...) Rusty has almost got it and Shae had a really good attempt. Also worked on going round a post with Shae- she's almost there!

Having a few issues when I walk both together at the moment (posted on it separately but in short...) Shae wants to play with Rusty who is just not interested and ignores her. So se jumps up, nipping his side and ears/ mouth. He ignores this and runs off and she looses him so comes back to trot near me. Then when Rusty comes back she runs out to nip him again. It's all play and Rusty just ignores it but I don't know if I should step in (or how) to stop this behaviour. In the house/ garden/ onlead no issues- play fine. Think it is a bit of over excitement...

Most of the walks are separate but i'd like to do the afternoon walk together ideally!


----------



## BessieDog

Bess got 2nd and 1st today (out of classes of two and one respectively ). I didn't though - gill took over again as Bess started playing me up like crazy in the ring! She behaved perfectly for her! 

At the end the ring was free so lots of the other IS owners were pushing into the ring so I could practice - and one of them pretended to be the judge! These are my competitors, so when you hear there's a lot of bitchiness in the dog show world it's nice to see the supportive side. 

What I did learn is that we're fine up to the point where I stand her for the judge. In the practice session after she was fine, but in the real thing this is where she flipped. I was asked what was different, and the simple answer was that i wasnt nervous then! Now it's obviously my nerves upsetting Bess, and its now made worse as I'm expecting her to turn into a whirling dervish as soon as I ask her to stand, and she doesn't disappoint. :yikes:

So, apart from a double brandy first, any ideas how I can work on this


----------



## Kicksforkills

Well done Bessie!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Well done Maria!! Fantastic
> 
> Sounds like everyone has had another lovely sunny day with their lovely dogs
> 
> We've done a bit of contact work (asking them to reverse on to a wooden board so they have back feet on and front feet off...) Rusty has almost got it and Shae had a really good attempt. Also worked on going round a post with Shae- she's almost there!
> 
> Having a few issues when I walk both together at the moment (posted on it separately but in short...) Shae wants to play with Rusty who is just not interested and ignores her. So se jumps up, nipping his side and ears/ mouth. He ignores this and runs off and she looses him so comes back to trot near me. Then when Rusty comes back she runs out to nip him again. It's all play and Rusty just ignores it but I don't know if I should step in (or how) to stop this behaviour. In the house/ garden/ onlead no issues- play fine. Think it is a bit of over excitement...
> 
> You could teach Shae "leave" and that includes leaving Rusty alone.
> 
> That's the first thing Holly learnt when she arrived as I couldn't have her jumping on. nipping or taking toys off Quiver at her advanced age.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Bess . On a roll now .

Separate walks this evening as it was warm and sunny and all I could hear was screaming kids, a few barking dogs and a few drunk adults. Good job I did as 4 small kids ran screaming past us almost as soon as we were out of the house with Rudi - he was fine with it, but Kilo would have been jumpy as they practically stood on us. Apart from that we had a fabulous walk, practised recalls, waits etc. 

Took Kilo's beloved fleece tuggy out and we did loads of impulse control 'ready steady' stuff. We hadn't done any whilst we were away so he was really excited and really enthusiastic to work which was brilliant. On the way back we ran the gauntlet of the foul mouthed teens but that was it.

So, platinum star day for the CHs :001_wub::001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> Bess got 2nd and 1st today (out of classes of two and one respectively ). I didn't though - gill took over again as Bess started playing me up like crazy in the ring! She behaved perfectly for her!
> 
> At the end the ring was free so lots of the other IS owners were pushing into the ring so I could practice - and one of them pretended to be the judge! These are my competitors, so when you hear there's a lot of bitchiness in the dog show world it's nice to see the supportive side.
> 
> What I did learn is that we're fine up to the point where I stand her for the judge. In the practice session after she was fine, but in the real thing this is where she flipped. I was asked what was different, and the simple answer was that i wasnt nervous then! Now it's obviously my nerves upsetting Bess, and its now made worse as I'm expecting her to turn into a whirling dervish as soon as I ask her to stand, and she doesn't disappoint. :yikes:
> 
> So, apart from a double brandy first, any ideas how I can work on this


Ring nerves (in any discipline) is a difficult one and of course the dogs immediately pick up on it and either go right into one or take the mickey.

I always tell my pupils to stand in the ring entrance and say to themselves "right I've got a good dog and we're going to win this class"...!!

In all honesty though it's something you just have to work through and it does get better the more shows you do and you gain experience.

Under certain judges and in certain circumstances I can still get a nasty bout of ring nerves even after all these years.


----------



## Nicki85

Hmm that's a good idea, we mastered leave the cow poo on the common today so no reason not to expand it to leaving Rusty pup alone. I guess like anything practice in the house and garden first and then work it up to more "exciting" situations where we have the problem.

It really is a case that he is just too "busy" for her when we are out... and that's fine- I just need Shae to understand that he isn't interested  My only concern is that Rusty is so sensitive to me it means that using the words "leave it" may worry him. Maybe I could use a different word for Shae?


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hmm that's a good idea, we mastered leave the cow poo on the common today so no reason not to expand it to leaving Rusty pup alone. I guess like anything practice in the house and garden first and then work it up to more "exciting" situations where we have the problem.
> 
> It really is a case that he is just too "busy" for her when we are out... and that's fine- I just need Shae to understand that he isn't interested  My only concern is that Rusty is so sensitive to me it means that using the words "leave it" may worry him. Maybe I could use a different word for Shae?


Yes you could use another word although "leave it" doesn't have to sound unpleasant and you could offer her an alternative like a toy of some sort or playing with you instead.

It was very easy with Holly because she had Leafy and Tremor to jump all over....LOL


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## diefenbaker

Nicki85 said:


> Hmm that's a good idea, we mastered leave the cow poo on the common today so no reason not to expand it to leaving Rusty pup alone.


I remember this with Dief walking through a field full of cow pats.

Sniff

"Leave it"

What about this one ?

"Leave it"

Surely this one ?

"Leave it"

What's wrong with this one ?

"Leave it"

For the love of god.. this one ?

"Leave it"

If I look at this one I can make you say "leave it"

"Leave it"

He still has the odd lick unless I prompt him.


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## Nicki85

I'll try taking the toy out that we play with when it's just the two of us as well so provide her with an outlet for her playfulness  

It's funny as they get on with each other so well in the house... But walks are just different- I guess she just can't understand why her bestest playmate won't play!


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## Twiggy

Holly had another 'turn' training this afternoon...!!

Quiver was asleep in the lounge so I took the other three out into the paddock (Leafy was delighted).

Unfortunately husband was the other side of the hedge clearing the ditch and I daren't tell him to stop so consequently when I was attempting to do heelwork with Holly she went into one big time. I threw her ball which she ignored and went shooting off into the conservatory. I simply took the lead, clipped it on, brought her back out and tied her up with Quiver and worked Leafy instead. Neither of the other two took the slightest notice of husband and worked well.

Anyway Holly got over it after being tied up for about 15 minutes, especially when I did retrieve with Leafy using her dumbell.

She is the strangest little dog and I do wonder exactly what went on the first 12 weeks of her life. It's almost like she has a fear attack for no good reason. She's been here fifteen months now and nothing horrible has ever happened to her.

Still on the plus side these 'turns' are getting less and less and it's ages since she had the last one. Upsetting though.


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## Dogless

Oh dear Twiggy, it does sound upsetting. You'll most likely never identify exactly what causes them but thank goodness they're reducing.


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## Nicki85

Poor Holly  I'm glad the incidents are reducing in number though... and that she managed to overcome it fairly quickly- I guess having your other dogs around helped.


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## MollySmith

Gosh, I go off for a day and look what happens! Well done Maria and Chevy, Dogless, K4K and Bessie...

Twiggy - the advice to Nicki is something I must take in mind, I'm always so negative about Molly failing that I swear the reason she does is me as I get nervous! Vicious circle which I must break. 

Sorry to hear about Holly, I suppose you'll never know but it must be good to see that she's cooling off quicker?

We've had parents, neighbours and people around for tea in the garden so I've been baking loads - rhubarb and almond cake, welsh goats cheese and onion tart, a raspberry pavlova and scones with clotted cream and jam (I broke my life long promise to never eat clotted cream unless in Devon or Cornwall - it's a weightloss guidance otherwise I'd be an elephant). 

Molly was good throughout apart from zoomies which I swear is when she's overtired as opposed too little exercise (we were out for two hours this morning on a long walk and she was pottering all afternoon) and attention seeking as we had guests but she did endear herself to everyone, sitting on feet and giving out her toy collection to everyone . However good news is that we know how to manage her zoomies now. I picked up her tug toy and she was there very quickly ready to play. I did a few minutes and then put her indoors to sleep it off. Plus on her walk she meet her friends Ralph and Nelson (a gorgeous boxer white with a patch on his eye so the best name ever!) who are much worse with lead reactivity and all three were fine. 

So a reasonable day I think.


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## Dogless

Bit worried about the BW this morning, it's a lovely day so was going to take the CHs out somewhere nice but am going to stay at home.

Last night he was wrestling with Rudi and suddenly let out a big yelp and then shot over to me shaking and crying for about 30 seconds. I was watching them and Rudi didn't land a hard bite or jump on him hard so I suspect that Kilo twisted awkwardly. After that he was absolutely fine so I thought no more of it.

This morning he put his feet a few stairs up to see me when I came downstairs and again the yelping and shaking and coming to me and then yet again when Rudi barged him.

I can't find any sore or excessively warm spots, he is walking fine, jumping on and off the sofa, eating fine, gums fine, pulse fine etc and is now curled up asleep.

Rather than take him to the vet just now I plan on a gentle lead walk on his own to see how he goes and to get Rudi to leave him be. The problem with going to the vet is that he freezes and shakes whenever a vet touches him so is very difficult to examine. I'll of course take him today if it continues or I notice anything else but my thought really is that it's muscular - back??? - from wrestling. Any other thoughts from the WAYWO clan?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh dear Twiggy, it does sound upsetting. You'll most likely never identify exactly what causes them but thank goodness they're reducing.


I'm convinced Holly is related to my sister's Barley who is very similar.

It's like she suddenly takes offence for no good reason.

I could have let her back into the house yesterday but in a way it would have been agreeing with her that there was something to be scared of when in fact there wasn't.

Difficult sometimes to know exactly how to play it with her.

Still at the end of the day she can't help being what she is.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Bit worried about the BW this morning, it's a lovely day so was going to take the CHs out somewhere nice but am going to stay at home.
> 
> Last night he was wrestling with Rudi and suddenly let out a big yelp and then shot over to me shaking and crying for about 30 seconds. I was watching them and Rudi didn't land a hard bite or jump on him hard so I suspect that Kilo twisted awkwardly. After that he was absolutely fine so I thought no more of it.
> 
> This morning he put his feet a few stairs up to see me when I came downstairs and again the yelping and shaking and coming to me and then yet again when Rudi barged him.
> 
> I can't find any sore or excessively warm spots, he is walking fine, jumping on and off the sofa, eating fine, gums fine, pulse fine etc and is now curled up asleep.
> 
> Rather than take him to the vet just now I plan on a gentle lead walk on his own to see how he goes and to get Rudi to leave him be. The problem with going to the vet is that he freezes and shakes whenever a vet touches him so is very difficult to examine. I'll of course take him today if it continues or I notice anything else but my thought really is that it's muscular - back??? - from wrestling. Any other thoughts from the WAYWO clan?


My guess would be muscular.

I agree with you - keep him relatively quiet for two or three days and see how he goes.

Soft tissue injuries are a nightmare. Tremor was holding her left hip up slightly Friday evening after she'd been resting. It's gone on now for over three months. I was discussing it with my vet when I took the old girls on Friday afternoon but to be honest I don't think he's got a clue and was talking about x-rays. I'm 99% certain nothing would show and he had a good flex of both cruciates the last time I took her. She's been seen by two vets and also my chiropractor on three occasions. To be fair most of the time she's sound and like Kilo she freezes at the vets so it's not easy. I'm sure it's a pulled muscle that has still not healed totally and pulls and tears can actually take much longer than a break to right themselves.


----------



## Guest

Got work in a mo but just wanted to morning, hope both the BW and holly is alright. Zander snarled at a man on our walk today, the postman, so I kept walking up and down the same road for ten minutes and treating him for calm. Managed to get him past him in the end only with a small huff. Then Zand had a meltdown when Thatchers accidentally dropped some of the hay/straw/plant near us. Proper attempts to sprint away, run in circles.Then at the end we met the face clamping JRT. 
So it wasn't the most stress free walk ever


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Got work in a mo but just wanted to morning, hope both the BW and holly is alright. Zander snarled at a man on our walk today, the postman, so I kept walking up and down the same road for ten minutes and treating him for calm. Managed to get him past him in the end only with a small huff. Then Zand had a meltdown when Thatchers accidentally dropped some of the hay/straw/plant near us. Proper attempts to sprint away, run in circles.Then at the end we met the face clamping JRT.
> So it wasn't the most stress free walk ever


Oh dear. Zand really is a nightmare at times.


----------



## MollySmith

Good morning

Poor Rudi, what a shame. I completely agree that you're doing the right think by keeping a gentle eye on him, much better to avoid the vet if there is a strong chance that he'll heal himself.

Molly often pulls her front left leg, there's nothing wrong with it according to the vet and her advice was to keep her rested and a small dose of Metacalm.



We're off to the vets later for booster vacs and probably playing high five with the vet and a check up on her tummy. She's dragging her bum again so I think it's anal glands time ewwwh!


----------



## MollySmith

LurcherOwner said:


> Got work in a mo but just wanted to morning, hope both the BW and holly is alright. Zander snarled at a man on our walk today, the postman, so I kept walking up and down the same road for ten minutes and treating him for calm. Managed to get him past him in the end only with a small huff. Then Zand had a meltdown when Thatchers accidentally dropped some of the hay/straw/plant near us. Proper attempts to sprint away, run in circles.Then at the end we met the face clamping JRT.
> So it wasn't the most stress free walk ever


Oh heck! Poor you, take heart that you managed to get him past with a small huff, that's a small step


----------



## Nicki85

Good separate walks this morning... Took Rusty out for an hour and a half in the forest- he was slow!! I could see him for almost all of the walk lol. Nothing wrong with him as we had a good game of "go round trees" and getting his kong safestix. Managed to stop him from rushing over and seeing the narky collie he knows from agility so good walk 

Shae played with her lobster a little, getting the hang of when I throw it she can go get it. We then play chase... Had a recall fail though (first one!)... when we met two 5 month old Cockers. She recalled away really nice the first time and then decided to go back and carry on the game. Had to go back a little way so she could see me then recalled away again- she got a lot of treats for coming back! 

And i've decided to pull Rusty from Saturday agility for now... want to give him a break and this is the class that he struggles (concentration/ nerves etc etc) most. Also means we will have our Saturdays back for long walks!! We will still train on Weds and Thurs as long as he is happy  

DL- plan of action for Kilo sounds like a good one... 
LO- that sounds stressful!!


----------



## Dogless

Kilo is really not happy. Will take him to the afternoon surgery if he doesn't perk up a bit. He didn't even move when I got Rudi's collar and lead out to go for a walk, just sat on the sofa with a hoover face. Wagged his tail when I got back but still didn't move, no reaction to offering him a walk. Got up for a post - walk snack but is moving pretty stiffly through his back end I think and now just sat on the floor at my side in some sun looking miserable again - wants to lie down I think as he keeps resting his chin on the windowsill and shifting but think it might hurt him to. He does seem to be in pain. I want to mow the lawn which always makes him sit inside with his hoover face anyway .

ETA: He just lay down but did so really awkwardly. Will take him in I think later even just to get some analgesia for him.


----------



## Nicki85

Poor Kilo  You know your dog best and it does sound like he is sore. Hope the vet visit goes well.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Poor Kilo  You know your dog best and it does sound like he is sore. Hope the vet visit goes well.


Poor boy is a real drama queen at the best of times but I can tell he hurts.


----------



## Dimwit

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend. It's a bit of a sad day for the dimwits as I have made the decision to give up flyball :crying:
I think it is the best thing to do for dimwit's sake but am still very sad about it


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> Hope everyone had a nice long weekend. It's a bit of a sad day for the dimwits as I have made the decision to give up flyball :crying:
> I think it is the best thing to do for dimwit's sake but am still very sad about it


What a shame, why is it best if you don't mind me asking? Please ignore if I'm too nosy!


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> What a shame, why is it best if you don't mind me asking? Please ignore if I'm too nosy!


I don't mind at all. He absoluteltely loves it in training but he just can't cope at competitions. He gets so worried by all of the other dogs barking and people that he just gets really stressed and won't run.
Competiton days also tend to be very long and full-on and it's not fair to keep taking him when I know he will just be stressed for the whole day (or longer if it is one of the comps we would have to camp at).

Maybe one day we could try again if I ever manage to get him to a point where he could cope with it but I think I have to work on that separately without the added stress of worrying about letting the team down


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> I don't mind at all. He absoluteltely loves it in training but he just can't cope at competitions. He gets so worried by all of the other dogs barking and people that he just gets really stressed and won't run.
> Competiton days also tend to be very long and full-on and it's not fair to keep taking him when I know he will just be stressed for the whole day (or longer if it is one of the comps we would have to camp at).
> 
> Maybe one day we could try again if I ever manage to get him to a point where he could cope with it but I think I have to work on that separately without the added stress of worrying about letting the team down


Poor little Dimwit. Maybe you could go to training but not compete?


----------



## Dimwit

I did consider that but we only have limited time for training and it's not fair on the teams if we take up some of the time that would be better spent training those who actually compete (trying out different running orders, tightening up crossovers etc etc)


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Dimwit sorry to hear about the flyball. I hope you're able to try it again in the future 

LO That sounds a very stressful walk. Hope Zand is de-stressing ok.

Dogless poor BCH. Fingers crossed it's just a pulled muscle.

Nicki sounds like good walks with your two this morning 

We had a lovely walk today with some pavement walking and then offlead thrown in. Both boys behaved perfectly, although I do have a small puncture wound between my thumb and first finger where Sam clamped down grabbing his toy :eek6: He let go quick enough and I'm just grateful it was only his little teeth and not the canines


----------



## moonviolet

KFK Pretty rosettes and certificates are you going to display them?

MS sounds liek a busy weeked well done on the zoomie thing.

Twiggy sorry Holly had a bit of a meltdown.

LO Sounds like you made a great improvement with the postie. Have you looked at BAT training i think you might find it helpful using it in a number of situations, Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) | Official site for BAT: dog-friendly training for reactivity (aggression, fear, frustration) by Grisha Stewart, MA

Dogless wishing Kilo better, hope you get on OK at the vet's.

Bessiedog Hope you can conquer your nerves. Nothign useful to add i'm afraid.

Nicki hope you are able to find an alternative activity for Shae rahter than disrupting important spanial business 

Dimwit It must be upsetting giving up an activity you enjoy, but in the long run i think it's the right decision with the competition atmosphere not suiting Sprocket and the conformation issues you mentioned before. On the bright side Sprocket and you do lots of fun things together he's a very very lucky dog.

Beth Sounds like a great walk except the ouchie.

WE are having an interesting day it started at 3am with foxes in the lane fighting over a food waste bin, I did manage another 1.5 hours sleep after... bringing me to a total of 3.5 hours. OH's lunch was ready by 5am. I swept and mopped and then took a bleary eyed beagle out at 7am.

Slightly tortured... can't have a nap, can't go out in the garden, because i'm waiting for a courier

I hope i dont' fall asleep in class tonight.

On a slightly strange note i've finally found a grooming tool the hound likes.... a cheap plastic human fine tooth comb.


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> I don't mind at all. He absoluteltely loves it in training but he just can't cope at competitions. He gets so worried by all of the other dogs barking and people that he just gets really stressed and won't run.
> Competiton days also tend to be very long and full-on and it's not fair to keep taking him when I know he will just be stressed for the whole day (or longer if it is one of the comps we would have to camp at).
> 
> Maybe one day we could try again if I ever manage to get him to a point where he could cope with it but I think I have to work on that separately without the added stress of worrying about letting the team down


I think do what you feel happiest together  It sounds a bit stressful for you if he is too and maybe it's something for the future. Take it step by step, he sounds a gorgeous chap and you've done so well. I can wait to meet him!

Just back from our walk. OH got told off treating someone else's dog  I have said before that he mustn't. My gran's late dogs were diabetic and it's an expensive vet involved nightmare if someone did that. As it was the dog he treated isn't but the owner prefers not to. She was suitably annoyed but apologetic that she spoke in that tone which I think was right, so she should.

Met a lovely lab x who has the grumpiest of owners, the man never speaks apart from to yell at his dog and put him on a choke chain. He's not the sort of man to involved with I feel but I feel so sad for the dog.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> I don't mind at all. He absoluteltely loves it in training but he just can't cope at competitions. He gets so worried by all of the other dogs barking and people that he just gets really stressed and won't run.
> Competiton days also tend to be very long and full-on and it's not fair to keep taking him when I know he will just be stressed for the whole day (or longer if it is one of the comps we would have to camp at).
> 
> Maybe one day we could try again if I ever manage to get him to a point where he could cope with it but I think I have to work on that separately without the added stress of worrying about letting the team down


Aww sorry to hear that. Flyball is extremely noisy and if he can't cope then you've probably made the right decision (at least for now).


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless - *Hope your trip to the vets goes OK and he can give you an answer.

*Moonviolet -* Matchsticks are good for keeping eyes open...LOL Wretched foxes make more noise than peacocks.

I was in two minds whether to take Holly to agility this morning after her 'turn' yesterday afternoon but she was fine. She really is a strange little dog - the things you'd expect her to be frightened of she isn't, like the horse sticking it's head over the fence when she tackled the dog walk for the first time - they were virtually touching noses....!! Dog walk - no problem, horse - no problem, husband yesterday - very scary.

Considering this morning was only her third lesson she was pretty much doing quite a bit of the course including straight through the tunnel several times, three jumps and the tyre, turn and more jumps and weave. She certainly doesn't lack intelligence or stamina - pity about the 'want'.


----------



## Dogless

Pleased little HB was on form for you this morning Twiggy, she can join Kilo in the 'strange dog' category.

The BW is now asleep but screamed when Rudi knocked his back end when he came into the garden for some sun (gently, not being obnoxious) and scuttled between my legs. Must admit I'm fairly worried now.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Pleased little HB was on form for you this morning Twiggy, she can join Kilo in the 'strange dog' category.
> 
> The BW is now asleep but screamed when Rudi knocked his back end when he came into the garden for some sun (gently, not being obnoxious) and scuttled between my legs. Must admit I'm fairly worried now.


Oh dear. Try and keep calm until you've been to the vets.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. Try and keep calm until you've been to the vets.


I will. He's asleep and so is Rudi and most likely will be until it's time to go. Would be so good to be able to ask them what was wrong wouldn't it?


----------



## Dimwit

Beth - sounds like a good walk apart from the teeth!

MV - I think vast quantities of caffeine are in order.

Twiggy - Sorry about Holly's meltdown, but glad she was back on form today

Dogless - Hope it goes well at the vets, and Kilo recovers quickly.

MS - Thanks, I can't wait to meet Molly Poor lab, I hate that kind of dog owner

Thanks for all the nice comments about flyball - it is a real shame as when he is on form he is pretty good (never going to be a real star but he was a handy little hight dog).
As Twiggy says though, flyball is VERY noisy and that, combined with all of the dogs and then people around him in the ring was just too much.

I may try and do some agility with him which he also enjoys, and would help keep his fitness up (and keep his brain working). Not sure I would ever want to compete but at least if we did it is individual so I could be as precious as I like about where and when he competes etc.

In the meantime, we will just keep plugging away at the obedience training (which he is still not great at, but he is at least really starting to enjoy classes), and we have more scentwork lined up which he loves and has endless enthusiasm for


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I will. He's asleep and so is Rudi and most likely will be until it's time to go. Would be so good to be able to ask them what was wrong wouldn't it?


I've just been looking for Canine Sports Therapists and McTimoney Chiropractors near Belfast but sadly, although not unexpected, there isn't really any.

This is the best I could come up with:

www.avalon*chiropractic*.co.uk/

It's worth having a back up plan if your vet doesn't know and simply suggests resting him and Metacam.

My next port of call with Tremor will be a sports massage therapist because they are experts in muscles.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just been looking for Canine Sports Therapists and McTimoney Chiropractors near Belfast but sadly, although not unexpected, there isn't really any.
> 
> This is the best I could come up with:
> 
> www.avalon*chiropractic*.co.uk/
> 
> It's worth having a back up plan if your vet doesn't know and simply suggests resting him and Metacam.
> 
> My next port of call with Tremor will be a sports massage therapist because they are experts in muscles.


Thanks Twiggy; I looked for McTimoney too knowing how much you rate them....as if there'd be any here :yikes:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thanks Twiggy; I looked for McTimoney too knowing how much you rate them....as if there'd be any here :yikes:.


I don't know how good your vet is but if he starts scratching his head it might be worth asking if he knows of a good animal chiropractor or sports massage therapist (preferably Galen technique). You would need a referral in any case.


----------



## tiatortilla

Hey, I know I haven't posted in here for a while but I'm kind of worried about posting this somewhere else because I'm feeling really shitty and everyone who posts in this thread is really nice and I don't want judgemental replies which I feel like I might get elsewhere  Sorry for sounding so pathetic!
Some of you might have seen my post about recall in the training section.. well, it's really getting to me, I know it's only been a few days but it's so stressful.. I went for another practice today and she's now worked out that if she ignores me, I go to put the lead on her, and with that she gets massive zoomies and starts being silly, I basically had to rugby tackle her today to catch her. Idk if I should have waited until she was over it but I can't stand the idea of not having proper control.. But anyway, I'm sure a few of you know I have anxiety problems and I'm just sort of freaking out over letting her off lead now, we've literally never had a problem with recall before and tbh, it's just scary.
I'm going to keep working at it, I'm not giving up or anything. I'm not quite sure what the point of me posting this is, I suppose I'm just upset and needed to vent. I'm sorry for not replying to anyone else and stuff too, I feel bad for returning suddenly and dumping all this here.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I don't know how good your vet is but if he starts scratching his head it might be worth asking if he knows of a good animal chiropractor or sports massage therapist (preferably Galen technique). You would need a referral in any case.


Apart from one young vet the vets seem very knowledgeable and willing to listen to me. The older one disagrees with raw feeding but we had a reasoned, intelligent conversation about it and he agreed that the boys were the healthiest dogs he'd seen in a long time so it must suit them. I suspect they're not massively clued up on sports massage etc as they are mainly a large animal outfit but I'm certain they'd research for me or take heed of any research I did. I know he isn't a 'sports' dog but he is very active so I would like the same treatment.


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Hey, I know I haven't posted in here for a while but I'm kind of worried about posting this somewhere else because I'm feeling really shitty and everyone who posts in this thread is really nice and I don't want judgemental replies which I feel like I might get elsewhere  Sorry for sounding so pathetic!
> Some of you might have seen my post about recall in the training section.. well, it's really getting to me, I know it's only been a few days but it's so stressful.. I went for another practice today and she's now worked out that if she ignores me, I go to put the lead on her, and with that she gets massive zoomies and starts being silly, I basically had to rugby tackle her today to catch her. Idk if I should have waited until she was over it but I can't stand the idea of not having proper control.. But anyway, I'm sure a few of you know I have anxiety problems and I'm just sort of freaking out over letting her off lead now, we've literally never had a problem with recall before and tbh, it's just scary.
> I'm going to keep working at it, I'm not giving up or anything. I'm not quite sure what the point of me posting this is, I suppose I'm just upset and needed to vent. I'm sorry for not replying to anyone else and stuff too, I feel bad for returning suddenly and dumping all this here.


Why don't you try a harness and long line until your anxiety subsides? She can then get a run and a zoom and a play but not dodge you. You can then properly tackle the situation when you're feeling better.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Apart from one young vet the vets seem very knowledgeable and willing to listen to me. The older one disagrees with raw feeding but we had a reasoned, intelligent conversation about it and he agreed that the boys were the healthiest dogs he'd seen in a long time so it must suit them. I suspect they're not massively clued up on sports massage etc as they are mainly a large animal outfit but I'm certain they'd research for me or take heed of any research I did. I know he isn't a 'sports' dog but he is very active so I would like the same treatment.


I've just found this:

*Dr Helen Worthington BSc (Hons) Chiro, PgCert, MLL, LCC (Animal)







*

Bangor, Northern Ireland; T: 00353 2891859990; e: [email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it _

I graduated from the Welsh Institute of Chiropractic at the University of Glamorgan in 2004 and currently own and operate from my multidisciplinary human practice at North Down Chiropractic in the seaside town of Bangor in N. Ireland. I completed my IAVC and IVCA exams in August 2012 and currently have a mobile practice for equine all over the province and I also work from a local veterinary practice for small animals. I have also treated a variety of other animals including Alpacas, cows and pygmy goats. I am also a member of the College of Chiropractors animal and human faculty. _


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - you're a gem; she's only about an hour away from me. Will see how this afternoon goes and take it from there but that is at least a good back up plan!!


----------



## Dimwit

tiatortilla said:


> Some of you might have seen my post about recall in the training section.. well, it's really getting to me, I know it's only been a few days but it's so stressful.. I went for another practice today and she's now worked out that if she ignores me, I go to put the lead on her, and with that she gets massive zoomies and starts being silly, I basically had to rugby tackle her today to catch her. Idk if I should have waited until she was over it but I can't stand the idea of not having proper control.. But anyway, I'm sure a few of you know I have anxiety problems and I'm just sort of freaking out over letting her off lead now, we've literally never had a problem with recall before and tbh, it's just scary.


You don't sound pathetic at all. I second the suggestion of using a harness and long line. I used to have the same problem with my dog when I, or anyone else in the vicinity, had a tennis ball. He knew that if I put the lead on it meant the fun was over and used to dance around me just out of reach (in fact, one day I had to walk home with him still loose - luckily not near any roads). 
There are a lot of people who can advise on the best way to teach a solid recall but until you are at that point just eliminate the stress by using a longline. I used to just let mine traiol along the ground as I knew I would always be able to get close enough to grab it and it let me work on his recall while still being in control.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Why don't you try a harness and long line until your anxiety subsides? She can then get a run and a zoom and a play but not dodge you. You can then properly tackle the situation when you're feeling better.


You'd be surprised how much freedom they can have on the long line... especially if you're prepared to let your hands get dirty. Maybe also practise leading up when there's no need. Just at random lead up... game/treat.. lead off.. carry on.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Why don't you try a harness and long line until your anxiety subsides? She can then get a run and a zoom and a play but not dodge you. You can then properly tackle the situation when you're feeling better.





Dimwit said:


> You don't sound pathetic at all. I second the suggestion of using a harness and long line. I used to have the same problem with my dog when I, or anyone else in the vicinity, had a tennis ball. He knew that if I put the lead on it meant the fun was over and used to dance around me just out of reach (in fact, one day I had to walk home with him still loose - luckily not near any roads).
> There are a lot of people who can advise on the best way to teach a solid recall but until you are at that point just eliminate the stress by using a longline. I used to just let mine traiol along the ground as I knew I would always be able to get close enough to grab it and it let me work on his recall while still being in control.





diefenbaker said:


> You'd be surprised how much freedom they can have on the long line... especially if you're prepared to let your hands get dirty. Maybe also practise leading up when there's no need. Just at random lead up... game/treat.. lead off.. carry on.


Thankyou everyone, I think you're right, I'll just have to hope she isn't reactive on the longline because last time I used it she didn't do the barking at other dogs thing, but I'll try to stick to middle-of-nowhere type walks while we're using it just in case.
Just so I'm not being totally negative, her reactivity and focus on me on lead has improved loads, we walked past a staffy, two daschunds and another fluffy dog yesterday with no barking and a labrador today, and she's got really good as loose lead walking lately so it's not all doom and gloom


----------



## Guest

Thanks Mv, the advice the behaviourist gave is similar to BAT.
We have had another stressful walk I am afraid even though Zander stood and watched a terrier without trying to jump on it, and only jumped towards a cavalier as it had gone by, and was really good for several men and children. 
We walked past a small wire fence and one staffie and a mastiff flew at us from the other side, barking, growling, then the owner starts yelling at them, Zander froze I couldn't get him to move, I was starting to get terribly panicked myself.
I literally had to hold the back of Zander's harness and sorta shove him along. He did a huge shake off after that. 
We then went and sat in the haberdashery and we were both given malt biscuits lol. 
Go with the harness and longline tia, but I'd wear gloves incase you hold it and beware of any sprinting.


----------



## Nicki85

Just been out for an hour or so with both of them to the country park  Obviously didn't walk to far with (not so) little legs Shae so just sat down by the lake and let them have fun in the water. Rusty must have spent the whole hour swimming- my arm is going to hurt tomorrow from throwing his toy! Shae was good on the whole, quickly learnt not to pounce on Rusty coming out of the water. 

Trigger point for her leaping on Rusty are release to go play/sniff (OK command...) so need to work on separate release commands- the leaping and biting that usually happens from this is at a distance as well so difficult to distract to a toy. Managed it a couple of times though so just need to work on it. I think it's a combination of her breed and trying to "control"/ herd him as well as being over excited. Rusty is still ignoring her and doesn't appear bothered. 

It was quite a stressful walk though as it was busy there! I had to watch Shae as she will go up to people for fuss and there were some elderlys on their afternoon stroll dressed in shirts and proper trousers... all good though  She still has a habit of "bouncing" upto people accompanied with woofs when we are on a walk and there arn't many people around. 

All in all a nice afternoon  Both dogs have had something to munch on and now Rusty wants to do something... 

Dimwit- sounds like you've made the right decision for your lad. You never know he maybe able to cope one day in the future... could you keep going to comps and just watch from a distance?
Tia- longline is an excellant idea- you'll get there!
LO- sorry to hear it was another stressful walk- couple of positives in there though?
DL- how was the vets?
Twiggy- sounds like Holly is doing well at agility... maybe she'll get more into it as you go along?!


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Thanks Mv, the advice the behaviourist gave is similar to BAT.
> We have had another stressful walk I am afraid even though Zander stood and watched a terrier without trying to jump on it, and only jumped towards a cavalier as it had gone by, and was really good for several men and children.
> *We walked past a small wire fence and one staffie and a mastiff flew at us from the other side, barking, growling, then the owner starts yelling at them, Zander froze I couldn't get him to move, I was starting to get terribly panicked myself.*
> I literally had to hold the back of Zander's harness and sorta shove him along. He did a huge shake off after that.
> We then went and sat in the haberdashery and we were both given malt biscuits lol.
> Go with the harness and longline tia, but I'd wear gloves incase you hold it and beware of any sprinting.


I know I'm always making excuses for Zand but to be fair most dogs would have reacted in that situation (and owners for that matter - I'd have needed several ****!!).


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Just been out for an hour or so with both of them to the country park  Obviously didn't walk to far with (not so) little legs Shae so just sat down by the lake and let them have fun in the water. Rusty must have spent the whole hour swimming- my arm is going to hurt tomorrow from throwing his toy! Shae was good on the whole, quickly learnt not to pounce on Rusty coming out of the water.
> 
> Trigger point for her leaping on Rusty are release to go play/sniff (OK command...) so need to work on separate release commands- the leaping and biting that usually happens from this is at a distance as well so difficult to distract to a toy. Managed it a couple of times though so just *need to work on it. I think it's a combination of her breed and trying to "control"/ herd him* as well as being over excited. Rusty is still ignoring her and doesn't appear bothered.
> 
> It was quite a stressful walk though as it was busy there! I had to watch Shae as she will go up to people for fuss and there were some elderlys on their afternoon stroll dressed in shirts and proper trousers... all good though  She still has a habit of "bouncing" upto people accompanied with woofs when we are on a walk and there arn't many people around.
> 
> All in all a nice afternoon  Both dogs have had something to munch on and now Rusty wants to do something...
> 
> Dimwit- sounds like you've made the right decision for your lad. You never know he maybe able to cope one day in the future... could you keep going to comps and just watch from a distance?
> Tia- longline is an excellant idea- you'll get there!
> LO- sorry to hear it was another stressful walk- couple of positives in there though?
> DL- how was the vets?
> *Twiggy- sounds like Holly is doing well at agility... maybe she'll get more into it as you go along?!*


When my sister and I are together there's 8 sheepdogs stacking up behind the strongest character waiting for her to move....LOL

There's one major flaw with Holly and agility - I can move faster than her and I'm very old...!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Tia - I third or fourth or fifth the long line suggestion. Just to build up your confidence. I have a problem with little miss independent being used to doing exactly what little miss wants to do which includes hurtling off at 50 miles an hour and diving down rabbit holes when ever she feels like it. I had her on lead or long line only walks for about 4 months and have only just had the confidence to let her off again. She still does the haring off at top speed and hole diving but I am more in tune and aware of her mood, some days she has monkeys in her brain and she stays on lead. Other days she is brilliant. I try to never let her too far away from me, call her back in and treat with tasty stuff and lead up little and often. hubby isn't quite so dedicated to keeping her safe  but as always he is a work in progress!

Sarah has been working through it, I have it but haven't started training yet , and lots of other people say its very useful is this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Total-Recall-Pippa-Mattinson/dp/1846891493

We had quiet day yesterday, we blew up our canoe for some acclimatisation training. I am not sure she liked it 

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/2013-05-06144510Small_zps771f2698.jpg.html]

The most expensive dog bed in the world, she kept going back to it!
[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/2013-05-06144935Small_zps45127093.jpg.html]

Then we did some gardening, I videoed it for you 

[URL=http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd114/tulippy/video-2013-05-06-16-01-21_zpse8a85563.mp4]

Note the positions of the roots, the fence post and weeds etc

I left her for 10 mins while I changed and put walking shoes on, to come back to this :yikes:
[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/2013-05-06200307Small_zpsae066eaa.jpg.html]

Think she had a good day :thumbsup:
[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/2013-05-06161400Small_zpse5c7cdf9.jpg.html]


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## Guest

Twiggy said:


> I know I'm always making excuses for Zand but to be fair most dogs would have reacted in that situation (and owners for that matter - I'd have needed several ****!!).


Hell don't make excuses, if you think I'm being a trollop with the way me or my dog behaves, then please let me know!!!
Sometimes it must be really nice for the average joe public owner who is so oblivious to things, they never seem to worry about anything.


----------



## tiatortilla

LurcherOwner said:


> Go with the harness and longline tia, but I'd wear gloves incase you hold it and *beware of any sprinting.*


Oh God, I know, she pulled me over once when she was younger :laugh: She was a bit better towards the end of us using it though so fingers crossed!
Sorry you had a crap walk today, hope it's better tomorrow!



Nicki85 said:


> Tia- longline is an excellant idea- you'll get there!


Thanks 



GingerRogers said:


> Tia - I third or fourth or fifth the long line suggestion. Just to build up your confidence. I have a problem with little miss independent being used to doing exactly what little miss wants to do which includes hurtling off at 50 miles an hour and diving down rabbit holes when ever she feels like it. I had her on lead or long line only walks for about 4 months and have only just had the confidence to let her off again. She still does the haring off at top speed and hole diving but I am more in tune and aware of her mood, *some days she has monkeys in her brain* and she stays on lead. Other days she is brilliant. I try to never let her too far away from me, call her back in and treat with tasty stuff and lead up little and often. hubby isn't quite so dedicated to keeping her safe  but as always he is a work in progress!


Haha oh dear, the monkeys in her brain thing made me giggle  At least Tia doesn't fit down rabbit holes! Sounds like you've had good progress though so that's reassuring!
Love the pictures and video of her gardening, brilliant


----------



## GingerRogers

LO - sorry you had another stressy walk but I am with Twiggy. I cant find it unusual for them reacting extremely in circumstances like that. Ideally you would not want it but it will happen, that he shook it off so well after speaks volumes though. Its one of the things I notice with ninja now.

Twiggy - Holly is a funny one isn't she , another where we just wish they could talk. Glad she was good at agility.

Dogless- hope big CH is ok and its nothing serious.

Dimwit - if Sprocket the pocket rocket was stressing that much then you must have made the right decision :thumbsup:

In other news I have some new stripping knives to try out on my 'way beyond needing a haircut' ginger dog. Kat has assured me if I cock it up it will grow back though so.......here goes :yikes:


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## Dogless

Vet fairly convinced Kilo has Steroid Responsive Meningitis. No lumbar puncture as yet but high dose broad spectrum A/Bs, high dose of steroids and back in 24 hours. Says if it is there is often a fairly dramatic improvement.


----------



## Nicki85

Blimey DL- healing vibes to Kilo. Just goes to show how well you know your boys... Hope he responds well to the steroids and AB... huge amount of vibes coming your way. xx


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Vet fairly convinced Kilo has Steroid Responsive Meningitis. No lumbar puncture as yet but high dose broad spectrum A/Bs, high dose of steroids and back in 24 hours. Says if it is there is often a fairly dramatic improvement.


I have no idea what any of that means, but big hugs to you and Kilo and I hope it works and he gets better. x


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - fingers crossed that the diagnosis is right and the drugs kick in soon.

GR - that is some fairly impressive gardening. Dimwit is very jealous, he loves digging but for some reason he is not allowed in the garden unsupervised

Dimwit was very clever tonight, after our retrieve success last week I decided to venture into the big wide world and try there. I have gone right back to the beginning and am just asking me to come to me, sit and "touch" which he did brilliantly. 
He is such a good boy really, and he tries so hard for me. I just feel sad that I have let him down.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Vet fairly convinced Kilo has Steroid Responsive Meningitis. No lumbar puncture as yet but high dose broad spectrum A/Bs, high dose of steroids and back in 24 hours. Says if it is there is often a fairly dramatic improvement.


Doesn't sound nice for the lad. Hope the vet is right.. you don't need it dragging on.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Doesn't sound nice for the lad. Hope the vet is right.. you don't need it dragging on.


No; I'm pretty worried and Kilo's feeling pretty rotten I think. Rudi thank goodness seems to know and has left him alone today.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Vet fairly convinced Kilo has Steroid Responsive Meningitis. No lumbar puncture as yet but high dose broad spectrum A/Bs, high dose of steroids and back in 24 hours. Says if it is there is often a fairly dramatic improvement.


OMG poor Kilo. I hope it doesn't come to a lumbar puncture and that there is a dramatic improvement very soon.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Dogless - fingers crossed that the diagnosis is right and the drugs kick in soon.
> 
> GR - that is some fairly impressive gardening. Dimwit is very jealous, he loves digging but for some reason he is not allowed in the garden unsupervised
> 
> Dimwit was very clever tonight, after our retrieve success last week I decided to venture into the big wide world and try there. I have gone right back to the beginning and am just asking me to come to me, sit and "touch" which he did brilliantly.
> He is such a good boy really, and he tries so hard for me. I just feel sad that I have let him down.


It's a very good method and usually once they've got it, it sticks.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> OMG poor Kilo. I hope it doesn't come to a lumbar puncture and that there is a dramatic improvement very soon.


Yes, I hope so. I even took a photo of the posture he kept standing motionless in, I am such a geek. Poor Kilo is just out of it.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Yes, I hope so. I even took a photo of the posture he kept standing motionless in, I am such a geek. Poor Kilo is just out of it.


Oh poor Kilo  Poor you, you must be so worried.

Been and gone to the vets, glands emptied, boosters done etc - she really does have issue with them. Otherwise all fine which is good but she reacted badly to a Yorkshire terrier. I'm trying to remain sensible about it (it was Arbury Road, Dimwit). There was one beautiful ridgeback in there whilst we were waiting to go in (Molly was in the car) and the owner took him outside and across the car park out of sight as his dog was reactive too which was so kind of him but the owner of the Yorkie confessed her dog was reactive too yet sat in full view of everything barking and said I had to try harder with Molly. I gave her a run down of what we've done for the last 12 months whilst OH was putting her in the car and asked if she had any advice... surprisingly she had nothing 

Ah well, it's not the best place to meet a dog at the best of times. I could've done without being judged.


----------



## Guest

Yikes Dogless! Poor Kilo, poor you! Hope the meds kick in soon 

I've been trying to follow everyone, thought I don't post often here...
Thought I'd pop in and update on Bates' acting debut 

He's in the stage version of Oliver Twist, "Oliver" and the main thing he has to do is just be on stage with the kid who plays Bill Sikes. Yesterday we tried him out on stage with everyone jumping around as if they were dancing and singing, and he did awesome. 
Then at the end of the play, he has to be "chased" by the orphans out of the theatre. For this he has to do a down-stay at the bottom of the theatre isle until the spotlight hits him, then a kid says "There's Bill's dog" and Bates has to run up the isle with a mob of kids chasing him. Then they leave the theatre, go back in, and run down the other isle with Bates in tow. He totally rocked it, and it's going to look really good. 
Here's hoping that on actual show nights he a) can see me cue him to come, and b) he doesn't decide to say hello to all the patrons as he comes up the isle!


----------



## Dogless

Wow - well done Bates!! .

I have remembered I have two dogs today . Just returned from taking Rudi for his second walk - he was a little star as he was this morning too :001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Hell don't make excuses, if you think I'm being a trollop with the way me or my dog behaves, then please let me know!!!
> *Sometimes it must be really nice for the average joe public owner who is so oblivious to things, they never seem to worry about anything.*




Yes very true..


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, I hope so. I even took a photo of the posture he kept standing motionless in, I am such a geek. Poor Kilo is just out of it.


If it's any comfort I believe this type of meningitis is fairly common in medium/large dogs and responds well to treatment.

It's not like bacterial meningitis which can be awful.

How is Kilo tonight?


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Tia - I third or fourth or fifth the long line suggestion. Just to build up your confidence. I have a problem with little miss independent being used to doing exactly what little miss wants to do which includes hurtling off at 50 miles an hour and diving down rabbit holes when ever she feels like it. I had her on lead or long line only walks for about 4 months and have only just had the confidence to let her off again. She still does the haring off at top speed and hole diving but I am more in tune and aware of her mood, some days she has monkeys in her brain and she stays on lead. Other days she is brilliant. I try to never let her too far away from me, call her back in and treat with tasty stuff and lead up little and often. hubby isn't quite so dedicated to keeping her safe  but as always he is a work in progress!
> 
> Sarah has been working through it, I have it but haven't started training yet , and lots of other people say its very useful is this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Total-Recall-Pippa-Mattinson/dp/1846891493
> 
> We had quiet day yesterday, we blew up our canoe for some acclimatisation training. I am not sure she liked it
> 
> http://[URL=http://s224.photobucket...-05-06144510Small_zps771f2698.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
> 
> Oh she looks so sweet - butter wouldn't melt..
> 
> [URL="http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/2013-05-06161400Small_zpse5c7cdf9.jpg.html"]


----------



## Twiggy

Well Holly decided this afternoon that my husband mowing grass down the end of the paddock wasn't in the slightest bit scary, unlike him clearing the **** yesterday....!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> If it's any comfort I believe this type of meningitis is fairly common in medium/large dogs and responds well to treatment.
> 
> It's not like bacterial meningitis which can be awful.
> 
> How is Kilo tonight?


He has just slept solidly since we got back - apart from a break for his dinner of course. He is moving very stiffly and slowly bless him. He may not be up to doing anything else, but he'll eat :laugh:. Rudi is still leaving well alone, good boy.


----------



## diefenbaker

ouesi said:


> Here's hoping that on actual show nights he a) can see me cue him to come, and b) he doesn't decide to say hello to all the patrons as he comes up the isle!


Video please. You do know once he realises he's a "luvvie" he will become unbearable to your other dogs.


----------



## diefenbaker

diefenbaker said:


> Video please. You do know once he realises he's a "luvvie" he will become unbearable to your other dogs.


I've worked with all the greats darlings. Lassie, Beethoven, Digby... even Diefenbaker. When I read the script I just knew I had to take the part. I brought the character to life and made the role my own. God I'm talented. See you on Broadway darlings.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> He has just slept solidly since we got back - apart from a break for his dinner of course. He is moving very stiffly and slowly bless him. He may not be up to doing anything else, but he'll eat :laugh:. Rudi is still leaving well alone, good boy.


Thank God you were on the ball and realised something was very wrong quickly.

Let's hope once the ABs and steroids kick in he'll feel better.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Thank God you were on the ball and realised something was very wrong quickly.
> 
> Let's hope once the ABs and steroids kick in he'll feel better.


Hopefully, he's so fit and healthy normally that I'm hoping it will stand him in good stead. Lovely boy tolerated being pulled about, run up and down and prodded like a trooper, love him.

I don't mind him sleeping. A million miles better than his scream or motionless standing.


----------



## BessieDog

Oh Dogless. Healing vibes being sent from me and Bess. Hope kilo is back to his normal self soon.

Not much time today - after finishing decorating I've got new curtains which are too long. Plugged in my almost 40 year old sewing machine (the last present my mum bought me), started sewing and BANG!! Smoke poured out and I had to rush it outside to dump it in the garden. Quite impressive. But curtains still need hemming!


----------



## moonviolet

Lots of healing thoughts and vibes for Kilo, Hope he responds swiftly and it's a one off.

Woohoo Bates really sounds a natural, can't wait to see the star in action.

We went to class early today and spent half an hour on the green before and Tink was a star. 

In class we had 2 new collies and a new springer. TInk was really good despite being a little uncomfortable when one of the collies was watching her a little too intently for her comfort. Our trainer was on the ball and stepped into distract. All in all a good day despite the sleep deprivation.

I do hope the foxes will give me a break tonight and go foraging to feed their babies a little further for my house tonight.

GInge.... I keep picturing the ninja doing a titanic on the prow.


----------



## Dogless

Yet again mv I am suffering from trainer envy. Not your footwear either .


----------



## Guest

diefenbaker said:


> Video please. You do know once he realises he's a "luvvie" he will become unbearable to your other dogs.


I'm definitely going to try for video, but I'm not holding my breath that the camera will catch a black dog in a dark theatre 

Will catch him on stage for sure though 

Not much chance of him becoming a diva... He lives with two big dogs and two kids who are completely unimpressed with his accomplishments


----------



## Dogless

Well Kilo has woken up to move round. He is clearly feeling dreadful and made awful whining noises to sit up and move and is now just sat with his head hung . I'm off to bed so the BW can have peace and quiet without the noise of the TV. He sleeps at the bottom of the stairs and my bedroom's first at the top so I can hear him easily if I need to.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Yet again mv I am suffering from trainer envy. Not your *footwear* either .


I'm quite pleased with my new barefoot trainers seem to have sorted my grumpy knee.

Seriously though my trainer is an absolute star.

ETA cross posted, hope you all have a settled night


----------



## BessieDog

Hope you all have a good night, Dogless. Thinking of you.


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning everyone,

It would seem that Brother Sun has disappeared again 

Dogless- I'm very sorry to hear about Kilo, I hope that he feels better soon. I googled it and it does'nt sound very nice at all.. poor Kilo. Rudi is being very good by the sounds of it and allowing Kilo to have some space and rest.

MV- Tinks always a star, you do so well with her.

Bessie- Oh No! I shouldn't laugh 

Have a good day all.


----------



## Dogless

IrishEyes said:


> Good morning everyone,
> 
> It would seem that Brother Sun has disappeared again
> 
> Dogless- I'm very sorry to hear about Kilo, I hope that he feels better soon. I googled it and it does'nt sound very nice at all.. poor Kilo. Rudi is being very good by the sounds of it and allowing Kilo to have some space and rest.
> 
> MV- Tinks always a star, you do so well with her.
> 
> Bessie- Oh No! I shouldn't laugh
> 
> Have a good day all.


Thanks . Rudi still isn't going near him or trying to play.

Brother Sun appeared for one day here. One day  and now it's raining again. No wonder it's such a green and beautiful place!!!


----------



## Dogless

Took Rudi out and walked to the dog walking area this morning. We did some training - staying close offlead until released, waits, recalls and some play and some pottering. Got totally soaked but LCH was a really good boy :001_wub:. Met some workmen on the way who asked loads of questions ("Oh cool, did you shave that in?" - his ridge) and Rudi got some fusses which was good as he has always been a bit unsure of high vis / roadwork type stuff. Funny how yesterday it was Dog City in the sun yet today I saw one dog and walker.

Also met the 'dog walker' on the way back who had taken my tips on board and her charge was walking better for her .

Kilo got up when we came home as they always get a small snack after walks and managed a wag. Ate his snack and went straight back to lying on the sofa. He's still very unhappy .


----------



## Guest

Oh just read about poor Kilo! Hope he's feeling better soon Dogless.

I'm popping in here because I have a little problem with fluff-for-brains, and am trying to get as many opinions and ideas on how to solve it as I can! It's a little long-winded so please bear with me....

McKenzie's been doing agility for just over a year, and competing for about 10 months now. She's always done really well - not super-star stuff, but well enough.

Recently, she's been quite unwilling and uninterested at training. She's still great at competitions and really seems to enjoy doing agility there, but at training she's very reluctant. 

For example, last night we were doing a full course. She started snail-speed, did about 3 jumps, stopped to sniff, carried on at snail speed, sped up a little out of the tunnel for a few jumps, slowed down again and came to a complete stop beside a jump. My attempts to get her to come back a bit so we could get over the jump were fruitless, she just looked at me with disdain. So I gave up and we just carried on. She did the rest of the course, but again at snail speed and very unwillingly. This sort of behaviour has become more and more frequent with her lately - but only during training!

I've had lots of ideas from other people about possible reasons and solutions, but just thought I'd pick all you people's brains too.

Possible reasons for the behaviour:
- physical cause (going to the vets to have her checked over tomorrow)
- dislikes the dark/cold at training (although the reaction is a little extreme for just that I think)
- something's scared or worried her at training
- she just needs a break (although we did have a good 5-6 weeks off over Christmas)
- She's just not enjoying training
- She's lost her confidence at training
- I think I'm encouraging her, she thinks I'm nagging her
- She's never liked being stopped and made to do something again if she didn't do it right. At shows I now keep running no matter what happens, but I do correct her at training, so maybe this has contributed to a confidence lack. (I never tell her off for doing things wrong!)

Possible solutions:
- Have a break
- Train more infrequently
- Forget about training
- Go to training but only do short, fun stuff with her
- Try training at a different club
- Go back a class to do easier stuff (although she is capable of doing what we do at class)
- Try staying quiet when running her so as not to nag

If it wasn't for the fact that she's great at shows, I'd assume she doesn't enjoy it anymore and quit, but while she's enjoying competitions I'd really like to keep going.

Sooooooooo if anyone (Twiggy?) has some great ideas on how I can sort out this little hitch, I'd love to hear them


----------



## Maria_1986

Poor Kilo- I hope he is feeling better soon


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Took Rudi out and walked to the dog walking area this morning. We did some training - staying close offlead until released, waits, recalls and some play and some pottering. Got totally soaked but LCH was a really good boy :001_wub:. Met some workmen on the way who asked loads of questions ("Oh cool, did you shave that in?" - his ridge) and Rudi got some fusses which was good as he has always been a bit unsure of high vis / roadwork type stuff. Funny how yesterday it was Dog City in the sun yet today I saw one dog and walker.
> 
> Also met the 'dog walker' on the way back who had taken my tips on board and her charge was walking better for her .
> 
> Kilo got up when we came home as they always get a small snack after walks and managed a wag. Ate his snack and went straight back to lying on the sofa. He's still very unhappy .


Bless him. Try and think that while he's sleeping and resting he's healing. Hard I know.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Bless him. Try and think that while he's sleeping and resting he's healing. Hard I know.


I know, trying my best Grannie. He's still sleeping, wakes up with a sudden sharp bark now and again but that's it. Apart from food he isn't showing a flicker of interest in anything.


----------



## Twiggy

McKenzie said:


> Oh just read about poor Kilo! Hope he's feeling better soon Dogless.
> 
> I'm popping in here because I have a little problem with fluff-for-brains, and am trying to get as many opinions and ideas on how to solve it as I can! It's a little long-winded so please bear with me....
> 
> McKenzie's been doing agility for just over a year, and competing for about 10 months now. She's always done really well - not super-star stuff, but well enough.
> 
> Recently, she's been quite unwilling and uninterested at training. She's still great at competitions and really seems to enjoy doing agility there, but at training she's very reluctant.
> 
> For example, last night we were doing a full course. She started snail-speed, did about 3 jumps, stopped to sniff, carried on at snail speed, sped up a little out of the tunnel for a few jumps, slowed down again and came to a complete stop beside a jump. My attempts to get her to come back a bit so we could get over the jump were fruitless, she just looked at me with disdain. So I gave up and we just carried on. She did the rest of the course, but again at snail speed and very unwillingly. This sort of behaviour has become more and more frequent with her lately - but only during training!
> 
> I've had lots of ideas from other people about possible reasons and solutions, but just thought I'd pick all you people's brains too.
> 
> Possible reasons for the behaviour:
> - physical cause (going to the vets to have her checked over tomorrow)
> - dislikes the dark/cold at training (although the reaction is a little extreme for just that I think)
> - something's scared or worried her at training
> - she just needs a break (although we did have a good 5-6 weeks off over Christmas)
> - She's just not enjoying training
> - She's lost her confidence at training
> - I think I'm encouraging her, she thinks I'm nagging her
> - She's never liked being stopped and made to do something again if she didn't do it right. At shows I now keep running no matter what happens, but I do correct her at training, so maybe this has contributed to a confidence lack. (I never tell her off for doing things wrong!)
> 
> Possible solutions:
> - Have a break
> - Train more infrequently
> - Forget about training
> - Go to training but only do short, fun stuff with her
> - Try training at a different club
> - Go back a class to do easier stuff (although she is capable of doing what we do at class)
> - Try staying quiet when running her so as not to nag
> 
> If it wasn't for the fact that she's great at shows, I'd assume she doesn't enjoy it anymore and quit, but while she's enjoying competitions I'd really like to keep going.
> 
> Sooooooooo if anyone (Twiggy?) has some great ideas on how I can sort out this little hitch, I'd love to hear them


Hmmm well as you rightly say the first thing is to get her checked over by your vet, although if she's still fine when competing I doubt it's anything physical.

It could be any combination of the other possibilities but having trained sensitive dogs that simply won't take even the mildest form of nagging, that is probably the reason.

I used to teach agility and most handlers, especially if there was a show coming up, wanted to run full courses at full height all the time. To my mind that is testing not training. The same applies to HTM and competitive obedience.

The next time you go to training why don't you try doing tiny little bits - two jumps and play/tit-bit, etc. and try and read the signs when she's had enough?

Years ago, when agility was in it's infancy in the UK, I remember going on a day's course with one of the 'leading light' instructors. By early afternoon all the dogs, except my Twiggy and another equally mad collie, had thrown in the towel and I found it painful to watch dogs struggling and being nagged. In some respects I had sympathy for the instructor because people had paid and wanted their money's worth regardless of their dog's feelings.

Just my opinion of course....


----------



## moonviolet

Poor Kilo I hope he's showing signs of improvement soon.

Kenzie have you videoed yourselves when training? Sometimes it's easier to spot things when you can step back and see with objective eyes.


----------



## Nicki85

McKenzie....
My Springer gets put off if he has to do lots of twisty stuff- he likes nothing better than to run at full pelt round the outside of the arena doing the contacts (food!), tunnels and jumps. 
Some ideas....

Just try running bits that she enjoys doing- even if it means only three obstacles. Is it a case of the lessons have got harder and she is finding the pressure all to much?

Do the waits at the start worry her? Mine doesn't like them... you could try getting someone to hold her or start her from one side of you... Rusty went through a phase of not releasing from his wait so we stopped them for a while...

Could you increase the reward?... So for my Springer that's a sock stuffed with cheese  He gets to chew it inbetween runs and so he'll tug on it to get more cheese etc... 

How much fun are YOU having? Do you like training after work, in the dark etc. etc. Is your attitude rubbing off on her?

Just some ideas... my Springer is a sensitive lad who will sniff in between runs or when I call him over. He gets worried by start line waits (often shakes before/ after...) so I tend to just run him now saving waits for special occasions  He is normally 100% once we are off but if I am struggling with the course he will often loose excitement.


----------



## Dogless

The good - took Rudi on a little extra walk before taking Kilo to the vet as he hasn't had any play or training from me in the house today to keep things quiet for Kilo. Timed it to clash with kids coming home from school and he did very well indeed, then went past a noisy footie match and again not a paw wrong :001_wub:

The brilliant - the vet saw a huge improvement in Kilo on examination (and so did I). His temperature is back to normal, his muscles weren't in spasm any more, he allowed his neck and front legs to be manipulated without screaming and didn't show evidence of the awful back pain he seemed to have - no more standing hunched . So, the conclusion is that it is likely to be SRMA. He was given another large dose of steroids and A/Bs, then goes onto oral steroids and A/Bs tomorrow. No need to see him for 10 days (when A/Bs stop) unless I am worried.

He has even brightened up, become more alert and interested and even rolled over for fusses :001_wub:.

I experienced an enormous amount of ridiculousness in the waiting room as I muzzled him as a precaution (he has never bitten or even growled at a vet).


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* - Phew, that's excellent news. I'm so pleased and relieved for you and Kilo.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless* - Phew, that's excellent news. I'm so pleased and relieved for you and Kilo.


Me too Twiggy, he's sleeping again now but not so..flatly...if that makes any sense?


----------



## cravensmum

Dogless,I have just seen this,I'm glad Kilo is a bit better.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Me too Twiggy, he's sleeping again now but not so..flatly...if that makes any sense?


Glad he seems better. How will this affect his career in the WWF ? You can't let all that spandex go to waste.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Glad he seems better. How will this affect his career in the WWF ? You can't let all that spandex go to waste.


The WRWF have given him a sabbatical, won't affect his career long term. Rudi is training hard in his absence.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - I am so glad that kilo is on the mend, and gold star to Rudi as well


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> Dogless - I am so glad that kilo is on the mend, and gold star to Rudi as well


Rudi has been a total star, been very calm and quiet, left the BW well alone and not even squeaked his toys.


----------



## Dogless

Sounds minor, but the BW has rolled onto his back to relax and sleep. First time since he first yelped. Chuffed .


----------



## Nicki85

So pleased to hear that the medication has kicked in- it will take him a while to get back to 100% but sounds like he is going in the right direction


----------



## Dogless

Kilo greeted me with some play bows and skipping about this morning and his eyes are bright again . He's asleep again but I'm guessing that's to be expected.

ETA: Sorry if this is too much chat - I know it's not a training issue but the WAYWO ladies (and gents - well, Diefenbaker ) have been such a great source of support.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Kilo greeted me with some play bows and skipping about this morning and his eyes are bright again . He's asleep again but I'm guessing that's to be expected.


Aww that must have been such a wonderful sight.

Tinker had a challenging day walk to the park. was overcast asn threatening rain so it wasn't very busy, there was a group of 6 dogs with 2 ladies and seperately a springer and a lab. we found a quiet watching spot and Tink was sat on my lap taking it all in when 2 men with 3 GSD's and a lab arrived. We watched for a little while, playing " look at that" Tink did exceptionally well. No trembling, after a shortwhile we made our exit before any interaction.

Walked along the canal, received a dirty look from a woman with a dog who was staring and stalking when I leaded up Tink asked her to walk behind me. we then headed to the woods for some offlead chilling out, before pavement walking home.

In the afternoon our little visitor came over for a couple of hours. She remembered our little hand targetting game  she's a sweetie and a bit of a keenie. There was plenty of time for play and some beagle smack down too


----------



## Dogless

Tink's progress has just been amazing mv. Not a hugely long time ago you couldn't have contemplated tackling a walk like that. Really makes me smile .

Sounds like the little interloper has plenty of untapped potential too.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Tink's progress has just been amazing mv. Not a hugely long time ago you couldn't have contemplated tackling a walk like that. Really makes me smile .
> 
> Sounds like the little interloper has plenty of untapped potential too.


I honestly think i would have ended up with a wet lap with 3 GSD's playing at that distance a while back.

The wee one is a bright keen thing.


----------



## GingerRogers

Even when I joined you were still 'hovering' MV, Tink is a superstar

As is the true boy wonder, so pleased to hear more progress 

We had a lovely walk last night, she was off lead a lot and very attentive again gold stars for that.

Shame I had to take one away this morning. We had a very antsy little girl, barking at scary vans and trucks and then a husky came to prowl our streets, we watched it for a bit, then barked at a lady in her drive, so we called it a day.


----------



## Guest

Zander lunged and growled at every friggin dog this morning.


----------



## Nicki85

Sorry to hear GR and LO that your pups were not playing ball this morning... there is always tomorrow though.

MV- pleased to hear your superstar is doing so well!

Had agility last night with Rusty- he was fab  We did some short excercises focusing on proofing our crosses, he was really keen! Had a lot of broken waits (which is fine as makes me smile that he is enjoying it and WANTS to do it...) lots of extra jumps put in by him as well...Came out of the session very happy  Reward used was a ball stuffed with mince in a sock... he was allowed to chew through the sock at the end to get to the mince.

Today I took Rusty out for 2hrs round the forest- lovely walk and lovely boy  Didn't meet a soul.... Then picked She up and took her out with Rusty and she was better. Managing her excitement better, still can't cope if we start playing with a toy. Need to work on this in the garden and teach them how to take turns  They met a man and two labs all nice and friendly and called away well after the meet and greets. No barking from Shae either.

I'm off to York for the night in preparation for a meeting tomorrow but not all bad as staying in a National Trust hotel with spa... quite looking forward to it!!

I've decided that its our last Sat training this time round. Rusty was focused for the whole hour last night yet on Sat I struggle to get him excited after the first couple of runs...

I've also decided to investigate competitive obedience training with Shae as i've never done it before and some of her relatives are doing it... thought why not! We are going to join the Basingstoke Dog Training Club and have a chat to their obedience instructor Deb Steadman *(Twiggy- do you know her?) *


----------



## Dogless

I'm sorry your walks were rubbish Ginge and LO . Just blips I hope, you've both come so far.

Nicki - yours sound as if they have been fabulous, as always. Enjoy your spa stay .

Took Rudi out in the pouring rain to the dog walking area, worked on impulse control - introduced some of the "Reeaadddyyyy Steeaaddyyy" stuff I do with Kilo and he was an absolute little star :001_wub:. Just mucked about and played too. We met a woman that lives on our street as we walked back who wanted to greet him which is good BUT he jumped up to head height and washed her face, like he did with Dizzy's human. She didn't mind (her dogs do the same) and just laughed and he got loads of fusses whilst wagging like a loon but I'm working hard on stopping it. It's a nicer problem to have by far than Kilo's suspicion and wariness of people that he's always had.

The BW greeted me all waggy and bright eyed which was lovely. He's back asleep now though. Shows no interest in going out still when I get Rudi's collar and lead out. Mind you I don't blame him in this freezing, rainy weather.


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm well as you rightly say the first thing is to get her checked over by your vet, although if she's still fine when competing I doubt it's anything physical. Yes the vet said she was in perfect health, which is good. I'm glad I'm not inadvertently causing her pain.
> 
> It could be any combination of the other possibilities but having trained sensitive dogs that simply won't take even the mildest form of nagging, that is probably the reason. I'm going to try to cut out the 'encouraging' and see what happens. I think it's probably a factor, although I can't help feel there's something more going on.
> 
> I used to teach agility and most handlers, especially if there was a show coming up, wanted to run full courses at full height all the time. To my mind that is testing not training. The same applies to HTM and competitive obedience. That's a really good point actually.
> 
> The next time you go to training why don't you try doing tiny little bits - two jumps and play/tit-bit, etc. and try and read the signs when she's had enough? I emailed a lady at my club yesterday and said I wasn't going to come to training for a while. I'm still going to go along (to use their equipment!) but will do my own short stuff like you say. I'm also going to pop into the elementary class now and again, as they do nice flowing little short courses.
> 
> Years ago, when agility was in it's infancy in the UK, I remember going on a day's course with one of the 'leading light' instructors. By early afternoon all the dogs, except my Twiggy and another equally mad collie, had thrown in the towel and I found it painful to watch dogs struggling and being nagged. In some respects I had sympathy for the instructor because people had paid and wanted their money's worth regardless of their dog's feelings.
> 
> Just my opinion of course....
> 
> I totally agree. If it wasn't for the fact that Kenzie does well at competitions, I would assume she doesn't like it anymore and quit, but I know that _sometimes_ she loves it, so I just need to figure out how to get that spark back.





moonviolet said:


> Kenzie have you videoed yourselves when training? Sometimes it's easier to spot things when you can step back and see with objective eyes.


I have, but not recently. Might do this, thanks 



Nicki85 said:


> McKenzie....
> Just try running bits that she enjoys doing- even if it means only three obstacles. Is it a case of the lessons have got harder and she is finding the pressure all to much? The lessons have gotten harder, although still well within her capabilities. The sequences have definitely gotten longer. I wouldn't say I'm stressed at training, but I have to focus a lot more than when we were in our easier class.
> 
> Do the waits at the start worry her? Mine doesn't like them... you could try getting someone to hold her or start her from one side of you... Rusty went through a phase of not releasing from his wait so we stopped them for a while... Unless it's vital for the course, I don't make her wait, I drop and run. I also don't do anything much with her right before a run (I warm her up earlier) as I found doing exercises right before running her actually made her anxious.
> 
> Could you increase the reward?... So for my Springer that's a sock stuffed with cheese  He gets to chew it inbetween runs and so he'll tug on it to get more cheese etc... For comps I use raw mince, which is about as high value as it gets for her. I don't use it at training because I don't want to devalue it, but I still use good treats - cheese, chicken, liver etc.
> 
> How much fun are YOU having? Do you like training after work, in the dark etc. etc. Is your attitude rubbing off on her? As I said up a bit, I'm more focused at training. I was actually more unhappy last year with a different trainer whom I didn't really see eye-to-eye with.
> [/COLOR]


Thanks for those ideas, gives me lots more to think about


----------



## astara

today was working with having on the field he did sit stay sit stay with distration give paw spin sit stay with distance come down(not so good with that 1) working progress. leave it was excellent follow me and watch me  so proud of him had him on flexi lead wen we reach the field then the training then just massive play time with is ball just felt like sharing


----------



## diefenbaker

I've got two in the house today. Dief's friend Honey is round for the day. She's currently lying at my feet. I'd have another permanently in the house like a shot once the cats have gone.. I just love watching them play. Need to work on the OH though.. she's not so keen. I have this dream about finding one abandoned in the woods.. so she can't say no.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - Yay for bright-eyed Kilo

GR and LO - sorry you had bad walks, it's always a bit disheartening but hopefully they are just one-offs.

MV - I don't know about Tink's history but she seems to be doing amazingly well 

Mini dimwit was star pupil at school last night (admittedly there were only 3 other dogs), he is so much more relaxed now and actually enjoys himself. He's still not very happy when we do recall work and I have to put him in a sit and then walk away but the rest of it was great, he even managed to walk past a food bowl with a treat in it 
Love my little dog :001_wub: and I think, as we now have a free evening tonight, I might take scentmouse into the woods so he can have some fun


----------



## Twiggy

I've also decided to investigate competitive obedience training with Shae as i've never done it before and some of her relatives are doing it... thought why not! We are going to join the Basingstoke Dog Training Club and have a chat to their obedience instructor Deb Steadman *(Twiggy- do you know her?) *[/QUOTE]

Yes


----------



## BessieDog

Had some lovely loose lead walking with Bess today! Been to the sea wall the last couple of days where she's off lead or on the extended flexi all the time, so nice to find she hadn't forgotten road walking today. I think we're slowly getting there! :thumbup1:


----------



## moonviolet

Ginge and LO hope the next walks are better.

Nicki gold stars on their way to your two 

Astara sounds lie you are doing well with yrou training 

Good luck Mckenzie hope you are both enjoying your training agian soon.

Dief you dont' think OH'll go for the "they followed me home" line?

Dogless soudns lie you and rudi had frin despite the weather.
Glad the BW is improving fingers crossed and healing thoughts.

DW Sprocket sounds like he's doing well.


Dimwit said:


> MV - I don't know about Tink's history but she seems to be doing amazingly well


Tink was attacked by a GSD in predatory drift attack at 13 months of age. it left more than a large physical scar.

this is a pic from when the Vets had patched her up.
http://www.petforums.co.uk/members/...er-course-antibiotics-just-medical-damage.jpg

Aimed for a quiet walk after 2 busy days. Sun, rain, gusty winds and dodging a GSD group walk made it slightly different from the walk we planned but not as bad as it could have been


----------



## BessieDog

OMG MV! Poor Tink! I didn't know about that.


----------



## Dimwit

moonviolet said:


> Tink was attacked by a GSD in predatory drift attack at 13 months of age. it left more than a large physical scar.
> 
> this is a pic from when the Vets had patched her up.
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/members/...er-course-antibiotics-just-medical-damage.jpg


Oh Goodness, that's awful! In that case she has definitely done amazingly well - what a brave little dog.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless - I am so pleased to hear from you - good for Kilo, bless him. It's only when you see them bright eyed you realise how far down they were.

LO and GR - tomorrow brings another walk and hopefully a better one.

MV - I didn't see that photo before, goodness me, you are both stars for getting over that. 

Dimwit - I am pleased you did well  



Molly and I did a new walk yesterday with our friend and her three dogs plus another she was dog sitting. It was a lovely walk by the river Cam along the start of the Fens. The end of it brings you to the grounds of a National Trust house called Angelsey Abbey but dogs are not allowed in there on or off lead. But we walked about 5 miles I think and had a great time. Molly got herself utterly confused by the river and chased a duck with her friend Lola.

It was like something from a cartoon, both were going at full pelt along the path, saw the duck, went off towards the river both assuming they could walk on water... I think I got the better job since Lola is a Gordon Setter and Molly is vastly easier to wash. Well I say that... she hates water so we decide to hose her down in the end and she wasn't too awful, just loopy zoomies which I encouraged to dry her off and she finally forgave me at tea time.

Today I have my grannie with me, she drove over in her 4x4 which needed fixing at a garage nearby so I'm just off to walk Molly to the garage and pick it up. Apparently the men at the garage all came out to see this 90 year old reverse the car over the pit  naturally she did it first time. It's lovely as she's been talking about how much she missed her late dog Jodie and how similar Molly is.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Molly and I did a new walk yesterday with our friend and her three dogs plus another she was dog sitting. It was a lovely walk by the river Cam along the start of the Fens. The end of it brings you to the grounds of a National Trust house called Angelsey Abbey but dogs are not allowed in there on or off lead.


I have been round there a few times - it's a nice walk
Poor Molly getting an unexpected swin though, a friend's lurcher did something similar at Milton Park once as she didn't realise that the little jetty ended and was most surprised to find herself swimming


----------



## Izzysmummy

Hello WAYWO ladies (and men)! *waves*

Sorry Ive not been around, Ive been lurking but not much time to post!

Dogless - So glad to hear Kilo's starting to perk up. That glimpse of them getting a bit better is so reassuring (especially for worry warts like me!)! Sounds like Rudi's being a little star!

MV - Tink is a little angel, you've both come so far :thumbup:

LO and GR - Fingers crossed for better walks this afternoon.

Thorne - , I really hope Scooter's OK. Sitting here worrying about him 

L/C -  hows Ely doing? Any luck finding the owner of the dog who attacked him?

K&M -  How are you and the girls doing?

McKenzie - Fingers crossed you get to the bottom of the agility training issues. Maybe you could give her a little break for a couple of weeks and see if that helps get her excited about training again? I know Izzy's always raring to go if we've had a week off training?

Nicky - I think we need some more pictures of Shae and Rusty. Not seen any for a while, I bet Shae's grown loads!

Twiggy -  Hope all is well with you and the girls? How's your sister doing? Better I hope!



Dimwit said:


> Mini dimwit was star pupil at school last night (admittedly there were only 3 other dogs), he is so much more relaxed now and actually enjoys himself. He's still not very happy when we do recall work and I have to put him in a sit and then walk away but the rest of it was great, he even managed to walk past a food bowl with a treat in it


Dimwit - sounds very like Izzy, she's brilliant in class and very focussed but struggles with any excercises where I have to walk away from her.

All is well here! Izzy had a lovely weekend with lots of swimming in the river and at the waterpark. We had friends to stay on the Saturday night, 1 she knows and loves (not really mutual but she doesnt care and loves him anyways), 1 she has met a few times and another friend who she's never met before. I was a bit worried about the new (to her) person as he was staying overnight but after the initial barking when he came in we left her to chill out in the kitchen for 20mins or so then let her through to the living room for a little game with her ball, she went up and had a little sniff but was more bothered about her ball then after that she was absolutely fine, quite happy to get a fuss off him and had major zoomies when he came down on Sunday morning then we lost her on Monday night and found her buried in the bed where he had slept so I think she has made a new friend !

She was at creche on Tuesday and then requested her paddling pool out when she got home (its kept behind the shed and she just went and stared at it until I got it out ) so had a nice dig in the water to cool off after a warm day.

Last night we were at school and she did really well. She gets a bit fidgetty during her sit-stay and wants to lie down then tried to creep forward during her down-stays but I think it's due to her getting a bit nervous when shes not right next to me, I think it'll settle down as she gets more used to this new class. Tarnus came last night and her focus on me has really improved, she no longer feels the need to be watching him all the time and doesnt try to wander off towards him. Her recalls and front presents are now really good and much more enthusiastic than they used to be thanks to Twiggy's advice a few months back :thumbsup:! She made me laugh at the end of the class because she got up on a bench and sat next to a lady in our class and gave her a kiss on the cheek (naughty I know but Im always happy when she takes the initiative to befriend someone rather than treat them with suspicion! )


----------



## Izzysmummy

Also looking for some ideas on how to deal with a slight issue we're having. Izzy's always been bad for scent marking since she had her first season but it seems to have progressed lately and she gets really engrossed in sniffing certain scents. She used to have a quick sniff/mark then move on but the time she spends sniffing is slowly increasing and yesterday she must have fixed on a certain spot for a good minute or so. She goes completely deaf and I can't call her away ! 

Any ideas to help us reduce her scent obsession?


----------



## Dimwit

Izzysmummy said:


> Any ideas to help us reduce her scent obsession?


Izzy does sound a lot like dimwit. Have you tried doing some scentwork with her to channel her obsession? 
Also, what has started to work for dimwit is rewarding him for sniffing using the clicker. So as soon a his nose goes down I click and treat, usually he looks up when he hears the clicker and that is enough to break his focus. Otherwise I throw down a nice smelly treat and ask him to find it.
He got the hang of this very quickly and now, more often than not will have a quick sniff and then look to me. I can now also use "go sniff" as a reward in classes or I he has been good on walks.


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit - it might be too much for little one but we're going to try to go to the Caldecot dog show on 28th July. If you are on FB the link is here
https://www.facebook.com/events/595...id=595703170449655&notif_t=event_mall_comment

If not then it's Sunday 28th July 10 - 4, Cath is going with hers and I might sponsor a class if I'm still freelancing then. The classes are £1.50 to enter.

Izzy - I am so pleased that you have got the focus with her, I remember you were worried about that. Bless her lovely heart, she's such a gorgeous dog.


----------



## Dimwit

Thanks MS, we'll give it a try (though he was most upset at the little show we went to last year as he only came 3rd in handsomest male ). Seriously though, that's just the kind of thing I want to take him to to get him more used to lots of other dogs but where if it gets too much for him we can just go off somewhere quiet.


----------



## purpleskyes

Hudson had his first and rather long ( 1 hour and 20mins) bumpy ride on a bus this afternoon. He whined a little bit for 10 mins but then settled and spent the rest of the journey sitting or sleeping by me. Some man just stared at him for the entire 30mins he was on the bus. :/ 

The bit I was dreading happened when an older gentleman sat next to me and hudson was wonderful actually! I thought he would be jumping over everyone but he just said hello and then lay back down.

Randomly though on the walk home from the bus stop he barked at a teenager? He has only ever barked at one other person and that was a guy who being hauled off by the police outside my house.

I mean the bus was full of people coming and going and it didn't bother him at all not even the man just staring at him. I don't understand why he barked at the teenager? I told him no and distracted his attention, I didn't want him freaking the guy out.


----------



## Guest

Well, turns out that when you shine a spotlight on a dog in a dark theatre, the dog can not see the handler at the other end, and thus does not know when to run up the isle. 

Can't use a verbal cue even if he could hear me over the orchestra.

We re-cued the whole thing with me thumping the floor with my hand with the idea that he can feel the vibrations in the wooden floor. If that doesn't work, the next step is to use a flashlight. 

Thank goodness it's a cue he likes (come) and he's so quick to pick things up!


----------



## diefenbaker

I need to work on staying out of the rest of the forum. There's another public hanging going on.


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> Well, turns out that when you shine a spotlight on a dog in a dark theatre, the dog can not see the handler at the other end, and thus does not know when to run up the isle.
> 
> Can't use a verbal cue even if he could hear me over the orchestra.
> 
> We re-cued the whole thing with me thumping the floor with my hand with the idea that he can feel the vibrations in the wooden floor. If that doesn't work, the next step is to use a flashlight.
> 
> Thank goodness it's a cue he likes (come) and he's so quick to pick things up!


Ingenious Ouesi!! Kilo likes "Here" - think it amuses him to sprint at me and leave me wondering whether he'll mow me down and flatten me or spare me. Rudi is shaping up to be the same :yikes:.



diefenbaker said:


> I need to work on staying out of the rest of the forum. There's another public hanging going on.


Not yet seen, not sure I want to.

Purpleskyes - I found that Kilo and now Rudi when adolescents went through all kinds of random spooky phases and barked at strange things one day and not the next.

Well, what a wonderful evening.

Firstly I 'cheated' on Kilo by taking Rudi for a walk with his best buddy Dizzy without him. I can't tell you all how proud I was of Rudi. He recalled from Dizzy every time he was asked to and we did spells of walking to heel offlead and sitting / playing tug etc whilst Dizzy ran about with his ball. The very, very best thing? He was sitting and waiting whilst I kicked Dizzy's ball and then coming into heel when released rather than trying to chase and play. I am over the moon, that is a HUGE stride forward for us in terms of impulse control.

KILO GAVE ME A 'KILO' GREETING WHEN I CAME BACK . He is also showing interest in going out - stuck his head out of the curtains when I left for the first time. Asleep again now. I may take him out onlead for some very gentle and short sniff abouts tomorrow for a change of scene. He's sort of unsteady so I'll see.

The steroids are making him drink and wee a lot which is to be expected and very hungry I think. For the first time since probably the first week I have had him he broke his 'wait' and snatched his food from his bowl before he was released. He is normally the type of dog who will wait, drowning in drool if I forget to release him rather than do that. Think I'll add some veg to his meals to bulk them out a bit.


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> Well, turns out that when you shine a spotlight on a dog in a dark theatre, the dog can not see the handler at the other end, and thus does not know when to run up the isle.
> 
> Can't use a verbal cue even if he could hear me over the orchestra.
> 
> We re-cued the whole thing with me thumping the floor with my hand with the idea that he can feel the vibrations in the wooden floor. If that doesn't work, the next step is to use a flashlight.
> 
> Thank goodness it's a cue he likes (come) and he's so quick to pick things up!


A couple of friends do film and TV work with their dogs including West End, London shows.

I remember them tearing their hair out when they had to train multiple dogs to run down walkways for (I think) Starlight Express...


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Ingenious Ouesi!! Kilo likes "Here" - think it amuses him to sprint at me and leave me wondering whether he'll mow me down and flatten me or spare me. Rudi is shaping up to be the same :yikes:.
> 
> Not yet seen, not sure I want to.
> 
> Purpleskyes - I found that Kilo and now Rudi when adolescents went through all kinds of random spooky phases and barked at strange things one day and not the next.
> 
> Well, what a wonderful evening.
> 
> Firstly I 'cheated' on Kilo by taking Rudi for a walk with his best buddy Dizzy without him. I can't tell you all how proud I was of Rudi. He recalled from Dizzy every time he was asked to and we did spells of walking to heel offlead and sitting / playing tug etc whilst Dizzy ran about with his ball. The very, very best thing? He was sitting and waiting whilst I kicked Dizzy's ball and then coming into heel when released rather than trying to chase and play. I am over the moon, that is a HUGE stride forward for us in terms of impulse control.
> 
> KILO GAVE ME A 'KILO' GREETING WHEN I CAME BACK . He is also showing interest in going out - stuck his head out of the curtains when I left for the first time. Asleep again now. I may take him out onlead for some very gentle and short sniff abouts tomorrow for a change of scene. He's sort of unsteady so I'll see.
> 
> The steroids are making him drink and wee a lot which is to be expected and very hungry I think. For the first time since probably the first week I have had him he broke his 'wait' and snatched his food from his bowl before he was released. He is normally the type of dog who will wait, drowning in drool if I forget to release him rather than do that. Think I'll add some veg to his meals to bulk them out a bit.


Oh bless him he's beginning to feel a bit better. He will be starving hungry if he's on steroids though.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh bless him he's beginning to feel a bit better. He will be starving hungry if he's on steroids though.


He is, hence me not reprimanding breaking his wait - he snatched and bolted his dinner. I will add veg I think so he feels more satisfied. Worth a try.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> He is, hence me not reprimanding breaking his wait - he snatched and bolted his dinner. I will add veg I think so he feels more satisfied. Worth a try.


I have to be on steriods for my IVF, I feel Kilo's hunger  I'd have eaten the dog if we had her at the time, I was blumming ravenous. Nothing was safe.


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Thanks MS, we'll give it a try (though he was most upset at the little show we went to last year as he only came 3rd in handsomest male ). Seriously though, that's just the kind of thing I want to take him to to get him more used to lots of other dogs but where if it gets too much for him we can just go off somewhere quiet.


That's exactly what I thought with Molly. Cath said that she felt Molly is better with crowds of dogs than the odd one that pops up around a corner so we've said we are going now. She's also vouched with the organisers who are friends of hers (Poochie Parlour) that Molly is safe around dogs. No pressure :yikes:


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> A couple of friends do film and TV work with their dogs including West End, London shows.
> 
> I remember them tearing their hair out when they had to train multiple dogs to run down walkways for (I think) Starlight Express...


I'm really becoming fascinated with the whole thing. My trainer has done some TV commercials and one film years ago, but I was never really interested. She was the one who suggested Bates for this job, and I was like "whatever". Now I'm realizing the unique challenges that come with this kind of work and it's kind of fun to figure out solutions. Things I've never thought about, like how to cue a dog under a spotlight who can't see or hear you. Or a dog learning to take cues from an actor in character - the cues have to match the character... that kind of thing. It's fun!


----------



## Twiggy

ouesi said:


> I'm really becoming fascinated with the whole thing. My trainer has done some TV commercials and one film years ago, but I was never really interested. She was the one who suggested Bates for this job, and I was like "whatever". Now I'm realizing the unique challenges that come with this kind of work and it's kind of fun to figure out solutions. Things I've never thought about, like how to cue a dog under a spotlight who can't see or hear you. Or a dog learning to take cues from an actor in character - the cues have to match the character... that kind of thing. It's fun!


My sister's JRT was used in a TV sitcom years ago and had to bark on cue and do a trick if I remember correctly.

One of her collies took over from a friend's resident dog in a children's TV series to do agility in one episode.

My sister was offered a lot of work which she turned down as it was too much hassle being available and prepared to travel at the drop of a hat.

She quite enjoyed the experience though.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> She's also vouched with the organisers who are friends of hers (Poochie Parlour) that Molly is safe around dogs. No pressure :yikes:


I'm sure she will be brilliant, and she is so pretty she is bound to win something
The dimwit is (I hope) pretty safe around other dogs...


----------



## GingerRogers

I can see the puzzle solving required for acting could be interesting! 

Molly sounds like lovely walk, you are sounding more relaxed recently.

So glad Kilo is perking up hope you get him out for a potter today.

Also hope for some good news from Thorne 

Despite our odd mood here yesterday and the gale force winds, we had an almost perfect angel on our walk. Still trying to drum the theory of training into the hubby though. 

She did run off after a scent at one point but she didn't go far, just bonkers running in circles and came back after about a minute or less, so I put her back on her lead at his request, and gave her some sausage, 'well I wouldn't have done that' referring to the sausage, I calmly said that I wanted her to think coming back to me was a good thing, and she did come back, she could have pegged it.


----------



## L/C

Been MIA as I have ramped up the training for me (entered a half marathon in July!) and have been focussing on Ely. I had to remove his stitches myself this morning (with blessing from my vet) as he managed to get under his coat and through a dressing to have a go at them! All is fine now and what's a minor veterinary procedure before breakfast? 

Gypsy taught me a really important lesson this morning about training though - left Ely at home after taking his stitches out and thought we'd have a training walk.

She was doing what I asked her but not really engaging that much, just going through the motions. So we stopped and had a potter, then got somewhere quieter and I put the mat out again. She lay down on it and then I ran in the other direction and encouraged her to chase me. So we played chase, find games and some other scentwork. Then I asked her to go back to her mat again - she bounded back. We carried on with that for a while and every time I asked her to return to her mat she was really enthusiastic - it's the fastest that's she's ever done it.

I needed to make the training about what she wanted to do rather then what I wanted to do.


----------



## Dogless

L/C - love the story about Gypsy's training; so true that it needs to stay fun and the human adaptable. Pleased Ely's sutures are out now too.

GR - well done to the Angel Ninja.

Good morning here.

Walked Rudi, he behaved really well for me, so pleased with him. He is so different to the BW - we passed a huge all - terrain cherry - picker type thing. Really noisy, beeping loudly, lowering two men shouting to each other and wearing hi vis from the sky to the floor. He gave a small huff, looked at me and then thought no more of it . ALso walked alongside a busy road as it's peeing down and he now appears fine with tyres in the wet .

Kilo was really sleepy again this morning and I was feeling really down about it, but when I came back with Rudi the BW bounded to the door with an annoying squeaky ball in his mouth and kept pushing it against my leg. So I took him for a short and gentle lead walk. He was happy to be out and enjoyed it, but tired quite quickly so I called it a day as soon as he did. 

A man walked up whilst I had Kilo and told me that he'd seen me with the dogs quite a bit and always thought how good my dogs were. How lovely .

I also thought that when Kilo feels like himself again but is still on steroids I could probably get some great training done as he certainly wants food even more than usual on them :devil::ihih::lol:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I also thought that when Kilo feels like himself again but is still on steroids I could probably get some great training done as he certainly wants food even more than usual on them :devil::ihih::lol:.


Ha ha making the best of a bad situation, awesome. 

Really glad to hear he is feeling up to squeaking!


----------



## BessieDog

Izzysmummy said:


> Also looking for some ideas on how to deal with a slight issue we're having. Izzy's always been bad for scent marking since she had her first season but it seems to have progressed lately and she gets really engrossed in sniffing certain scents. She used to have a quick sniff/mark then move on but the time she spends sniffing is slowly increasing and yesterday she must have fixed on a certain spot for a good minute or so. She goes completely deaf and I can't call her away !
> 
> Any ideas to help us reduce her scent obsession?


That's funny, as Bess is doing the same thing. Her season finished about two months ago. To be honest I don't mind - it stops her looking for birds to chase. I don't let her stop when we're walking along the road, but if she's off lead or on the flexi I just wait for her.


----------



## Guest

Izzysmummy said:


> Also looking for some ideas on how to deal with a slight issue we're having. Izzy's always been bad for scent marking since she had her first season but it seems to have progressed lately and she gets really engrossed in sniffing certain scents. She used to have a quick sniff/mark then move on but the time she spends sniffing is slowly increasing and yesterday she must have fixed on a certain spot for a good minute or so. She goes completely deaf and I can't call her away !
> 
> Any ideas to help us reduce her scent obsession?


You're going to think I'm nuts, but here's something I have done with dogs before and it seems to work well. However, you need another dog who's also a sniffer 
Say dog A is the "problem" sniffer. Watch the dogs. Wait until dog A has a smell and dog B has a different smell. Call dog A over to sniff dog B's smell. You're basically pairing the recall with "come check out *this* smell!" So you're rewarding listening to your recall with what the dog wants most - a good smell  It's kind of crazy, but it's also really powerful. I do it with puppies a lot, but again, you have to have other dogs for it to work, 'cause I sure don't have a nose that can tell which clump of grass is awesome!


----------



## Dogless

ouesi said:


> You're going to think I'm nuts, but here's something I have done with dogs before and it seems to work well. However, you need another dog who's also a sniffer
> Say dog A is the "problem" sniffer. Watch the dogs. Wait until dog A has a smell and dog B has a different smell. Call dog A over to sniff dog B's smell. You're basically pairing the recall with "come check out *this* smell!" So you're rewarding listening to your recall with what the dog wants most - a good smell  It's kind of crazy, but it's also really powerful. I do it with puppies a lot, but again, you have to have other dogs for it to work, 'cause I sure don't have a nose that can tell which clump of grass is awesome!


You could go out before you go with the dog and 'plant' some smells I guess if you didn't have another dog to work with? A bit like Clarissa Von Reinhardt's "sausage tree" for foodie dogs. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just a bit bonkers.


----------



## L/C

Dogless said:


> You could go out before you go with the dog and 'plant' some smells I guess if you didn't have another dog to work with? A bit like Clarissa Von Reinhardt's "sausage tree" for foodie dogs. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just a bit bonkers.


That's good - you could also try putting sniffing on cue and use it as a reward. That's worked for the pointies.


----------



## Dogless

L/C said:


> That's good - you could also try putting sniffing on cue and use it as a reward. That's worked for the pointies.


I have that for the boys too or we'd never get anywhere!


----------



## MollySmith

A complete digression but I've just sent in my very last assignment for the Open University ever. That's it. Done. 6 years and all paws crossed I pass please.

Sorry, as you were! I am here alone and had to 'tell' someone


----------



## GingerRogers

Well done :thumbup1:that must be a huge relief, what was it for, I dont think I know?

How do you cue sniffing, just keep saying the cue and clicking when they are doing it 

I do tell Ginge to 'go sniff', but TBH its just so I dont feel a muppet if anyone within earshot when she drags me over to a patch of dying daffodils.


----------



## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> How do you cue sniffing, just keep saying the cue and clicking when they are doing it


Pretty much. I just clicked whenever his nose went down and then added in the cue. As it is something he does so often it was pretty easy to teach him to "go sniff"

MS - well done! fingers, paws and ears crossed for you (though I am sure you won't need it)


----------



## Dogless

Good Luck MS .


----------



## MollySmith

English Literature degree GR. I'll be back later when the shock has passed with coherent and dog related stuff


----------



## Izzysmummy

MollySmith said:


> A complete digression but I've just sent in my very last assignment for the Open University ever. That's it. Done. 6 years and all paws crossed I pass please.
> 
> Sorry, as you were! I am here alone and had to 'tell' someone


Well done! That's fab! :thumbsup:


----------



## MollySmith

Okay back now and feeling more human.

L/C  youre brave, not sure I could do that. Needles yes, stitches hmm. How is Ely in general now? And good for Gypsy for being so clever!

GR  well done Ninja, boo to the sausage comment, you were totally right.

Dogless  good for Rudi, he really is doing so well with distractions now. Poor Kilo, its nice though that he got up and did a little bit and its lovely to get a compliment  much deserved I am sure.

LC, IzzysMum and Dogless  we did a thing called the Tresure Tree (yes I know but bear with me!) It was in Dogs Today or something and its in a old tree root we have. We often put treats in the gaps for Molly to get out. I also bury her kongs in her play pit  mostly to stop her getting at the things she shouldnt in the garden. I do like the idea of sniff on cue and will try to introduce that before our scent workshop.

Dimwit  do you walk little DM before the workshop, Im not sure if I with Molly, shes usually full of beans so perhaps a run around the field would burn off some energy. There is cake at the show btw, so if it all goes horribly wrong we can buy lots of it to cheer ourselves up! 

Not much to report on Molly other than a nice walk this morning with OH and this afternoon she has helped me move some sticks. I ended up giving her a kong as I was worried shed do damage.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> There is cake at the show btw, so if it all goes horribly wrong we can buy lots of it to cheer ourselves up!


Now that sounds like a great plan

Yes, I usually take the little monster for a walk before scentwork classes, just to burn off some of his energy and because he always feels cheated if he hasn't been out

Had a fairly entertaining walk tonight, I have been working on getting dimwit to weave between my legs so thought I'd practise it outside where we have more space. He is getting the hang of it really well (though he does try to weave at 100mph so chances of him tripping me up are quite high), but I didn't realise that we had an audience at the time

We also met a dog that we haven't seen for ages and he started to run over, recalled away and then met him nicely on lead so we let both dogs off to have a bit of a play


----------



## Canine K9

We are still having issues with play biting. He has started refusing to walk on a lead again, which is a nightmare because we have to walk on lead through the streets to get to the field  It is embarrassing him lying down and if I try to move him off barking at me. On the plus side recall is coming along nicely.


----------



## BessieDog

An odd day today. OH came on a walk and Bess was a different dog - pulling like a steam train. I couldn't hold her so gave lead to OH. He just lets her pull,pull, pull without correction until he suddenly yells - will you bloody stop pulling!! I try and point out what he should be saying, but ..... Men! I love my walks on my own. 

Not dog related but amusing. Went to B&Q to buy a sink and tap - after 20 years the house is looking a little sad. Had to spend a certain amount to get 20% off. Thought we had, went to the till with our already reduced sink to find it rang up £40 cheaper. To save a further £20 that meant we had to spend £40 more - but only in the kitchen dept! Not as easy as it sounds. We picked up a bin that we could use in the bathroom but it didn't have a price ticket on it. Took it to a sales assistant who said he'd check the price -£17. He then noticed a tiny dent in it and said he'd give us money off! We said we don't want money off - we're trying to spend money!!  took the money off and got a few other 'free' bits too. Came home and found the sink selling elsewhere for the total price we paid for sink, tap, and all the extras. Doesn't often happen like that. :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> We are still having issues with play biting. He has started refusing to walk on a lead again, which is a nightmare because we have to walk on lead through the streets to get to the field  It is embarrassing him lying down and if I try to move him off barking at me. On the plus side recall is coming along nicely.


Any way you can dispense with lead walking for a day or two even, take the pressure off?


----------



## Dogless

Great afternoon / evening.

Took Rudi for his walk, met Diz and human as they started theirs so had a nice pleasant time and he behaved well.

Kilo picked up some toys for the first time since Monday and had a play . AND wanted to go out again so we went for another short, onlead change of scene type potter. Kilo would have done more, he was full of it, but I'm going steady with him. Got caught in a monster hailstorm but never mind!! He's not ready to have Rudi play with him as I think he's still quite sensitive to touch from the way he's moving and acting BUT at least he's being himself a lot more - still sleeping the vast majority if the time, but I really feel like we're heading in the right direction .


----------



## Nicki85

Home now!

It's lovely having a "dog free" day from time to time and the best bit is the greeting when I come home   

Two very bouncy and happy dogs  Played a little in the garden when I got back and i'm feeling all enthused after watching crate games on the train on the way up. Going to start them both off on Monday. Really looking forward to it... think they will both pick it up really well... I need to rewatch though and make some notes! 

Hope everyone has had good days with their dogs  

(sorry it's so full of smiles- it's the only smiley thing i've mastered so far!!)


----------



## Guest

Canine K9 said:


> We are still having issues with play biting. He has started refusing to walk on a lead again, which is a nightmare because we have to walk on lead through the streets to get to the field  It is embarrassing him lying down and if I try to move him off barking at me. On the plus side recall is coming along nicely.


Agree with dogless, maybe have a day of less walks and more indoor training/mind games/playing tug/sniffy games or whatever. Have a day where there is little stress. I find that if I get stressed or nervy or panicky or anxious (which is ALOOOOOOT of the time) it goes BING right down the lead and I get a dog who starts to get all squiffy in the world. 
So sometimes this can mean we only have one short walk but lots and lots of kong play or something at home. 
And sometimes if something goes wrong, cutting the walk short and going home helps sometimes. For example, Me walking Zand, we see a group of 12 dogs, Zand reacts at a distance via lunging growling squealing, we turn around and go home. Don't set yourself up for an upset.

We had a nice thundershirt wearing walk this morn, saw one dog in the distance which Zand intent stared at and we let lots of people by nicely (without a single thanks grumpy peoples! lol)

Hope you are all fab as usual. :thumbup1:


----------



## Nicki85

Dogless said:


> Great afternoon / evening.
> 
> Took Rudi for his walk, met Diz and human as they started theirs so had a nice pleasant time and he behaved well.
> 
> Kilo picked up some toys for the first time since Monday and had a play . AND wanted to go out again so we went for another short, onlead change of scene type potter. Kilo would have done more, he was full of it, but I'm going steady with him. Got caught in a monster hailstorm but never mind!! He's not ready to have Rudi play with him as I think he's still quite sensitive to touch from the way he's moving and acting BUT at least he's being himself a lot more - still sleeping the vast majority if the time, but I really feel like we're heading in the right direction .


Yay Kilo  We like improvements!!!


----------



## Beth17

Glad people have had good days.

Dogless so, so pleased to hear that Kilo is feeling better


----------



## Dogless

I'm working on grinning from ear to ear. A normal BW greeted me this morning (normal for Kilo anyway!!) . Poor fella is teeth chattering and singing and whining whilst I get their food ready and is drinking a lot....I'll take that over listless Kilo though, any day.


----------



## BessieDog

Great news, Dogless!!


----------



## Guest

So happy to hear that Dogless


----------



## Dogless

Great walks this morning.

Waited until later (and for a break in the horrid weather!) to take Rudi out. Passed lots of dogs really nicely, some needed me to make myself interesting  and do 'touch' and stuff like that (the ones that wanted to greet) but he was really good. One dog that always goes crazy at Kilo went crazy at Rudi too and we managed to get past - noticed Rudi starting to posture in return over the past week or so when a dog offers him a challenge so keeping a very close eye and working hard. Went to the dog walking area, one dog came in but that dog and human never want to interact which was ideal as it meant I could practise keeping Rudi engaged with me and not seeing every dog that comes in as a play opportunity. Met a man who gave Rudi some fusses and told me what lovely condition he was in .

Took Kilo out on his lead, successfully avoided everyone and everything.

Hubby has come home today as weather too bad for him to work. Said how skinny Kilo was looking. He is. I know that. He's been (and still is) bloody ill  :cursing:. He's gone to do some shopping for me though actually as I hadn't had the chance really this week - didn't want to leave Kilo too long.


----------



## Beth17

Really pleased BW is feeling so much better today and that you had good walks with both boys 

I had two lovely walks with the boys today. First took Sam down to the woods and he had a good run around, although did bog off up a hill for a minute :hand: But other than that he was a good boy. Then took Oscar down and he was also a good boy greeting other dogs nicely etc. Was really gentle with a 6 month old Dally pup although did have a grumble when it wouldn't leave us or my treat pocket alone. 

Hope everyone else has a good day


----------



## Twiggy

I had a rather dramatic change of plan this morning...!!

I should have been going to a dog show 2 hours drive away with Tremor and Holly and got the car all packed last night. Then Tremor came for a cuddle on the bed about 10.00pm and I noticed blood all round her vulva.

Consequently this morning it was an emergency trip to the vets instead.

I tried to get a urine sample, and failed, before we left but fortunately he's got a contraption that does the job. There was no blood in the sample so he's pretty sure it's a vulva infection and she's got a two week course of antibiotics and a shampoo/wash that has to be applied every three days.

She's absolutely fine in herself - thank goodness.


----------



## Dogless

Poor Tremor; we're all having a run of bad luck with the WAYWO dogs . I do hope that she recovers soon - lovely to hear that she is fine in herself though.


----------



## Beth17

Oh dear Twiggy hope the meds clear it up quickly. Glad Tremor's not feeling ill with it though


----------



## BessieDog

Hopefully you caught it quick Twiggy, and the AB's will work fast.


----------



## Guest

Poor Tremor! Glad she's not acting sick though 

As my friend says, just because you paid entry fees doesn't mean you're going in the ring...


----------



## Pezant

Pretty good days with Henry yesterday and today, which was nice! He was beautifully behaved at the show all day yesterday and seemed a bit surprised to have a bench to sit on (kept diving off it at first) but soon got used to it. He was a dream in the car and just slept the whole time both ways, which was three hours up and four hours back. Unsurprisingly he was quiet the rest of the night after that!

Full of mischief this morning running up and down the stairs to steal a teddy he's now fixated on, but an hour and a half walk on the beach seems to have sorted it out.  He was on and off the lead the whole time and recalling well when he was by himself. As soon as other dogs show up he's a different story so I've just been clipping him back on the lead when I see one heading towards us, let them have a play and then let him off again. 

He's been picky over his food the last couple of weeks and lost some weight because of it, so we're trying to make dinner more enticing right now. He's also moulting like no one's business, so right now we have a skinnier dog with a skinny coat going around - hopefully wherever he's lost his coat he'll find it again before too long!


----------



## diefenbaker

With all the money that I made from the 'koob' I've bought myself a gadget. I don't take enough video when out on a walk.. it's such a drag having to remember the camera and then holding it and making sure it's shooting something other than the floor... so now I have a pair of sunglasses with a video camera built into the bridge. I'm not expecting quality to be brilliant.. they were only 20 quid.. so watch out for some Diefy video over the next couple of weeks. If you see me wander off path behind a tree shut your eyes.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> With all the money that I made from the 'koob' I've bought myself a gadget. I don't take enough video when out on a walk.. it's such a drag having to remember the camera and then holding it and making sure it's shooting something other than the floor... so now I have a pair of sunglasses with a video camera built into the bridge. I'm not expecting quality to be brilliant.. they were only 20 quid.. so watch out for some Diefy video over the next couple of weeks. If you see me wander off path behind a tree shut your eyes.


:yikes::lol::lol::thumbup:


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## BessieDog

Ok, so you may have just been being polite, but when I was decorating the lounge you asked for pics. 

It is dog related, as the reason I started decorating was because we've ordered a new suite - Bess coloured! Can't wait to get rid of the old one and the horrible cover we keep on it. Got a new sewing machine and managed to take up the curtains at last (was quite pleased to find some which matched!)

The room's turned out a bit red!  Bit more drastic than I'd usually decorate, but I'm pleased with it.


----------



## diefenbaker

BessieDog said:


> Ok, so you may have just been being polite, but when I was decorating the lounge you asked for pics.


I don't mean to frighten you but that pair of matching wooden ducks on the coffee table... one of them has come to life... just as it's time for Dr Who.


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy- hope Tremor recovers quickly poor love!

Bessie- very smart!! Your decorating skills are MUCH better than mine 

Penzant- Henry sounds like he is being a good boy! Both of mine are also moulting at the moment....

Had a good morning here  Agility am- Rusty was focused once the meat stuffed ball came out! Shae did a few restrained recalls to her toy and she was very good. Almost had a case of puppy zoomies but she controlled herself to roll around in the sand instead and then came back to her toy.

Pm walk not so good. Took them both out together and it was stressful. Looking back on it neither were "bad" but I'm still struggling with Shae attempting to herd/ nip Rusty when he is coming back in to me/ playing fetch and when they are released. I'm praising good interactions and stopping ones where she gets growly/ nippy. (getting inbetween them/ asking Shae to leave and then praising both) 

You see I think I should be ignoring it TBH... Rusty is not fussed by her, he is only fussed because he knows that I interrupt the growling/nipping so will stop and wait for me to come up to them when she starts growling (he is helpful!). Shae is playing- play bows etc. but her play style on walks is typical of a herding breed- which i'm not used to... If she gets too much Rusty grabs her (gently) and will squeak if she bites to hard and then she will stop.

So, I think I am complicating matters by getting involved. It's the one thing I am stressing over with the two of them... in the house/ garden they are fine 100% of the time and rarely need me to step in.

I need to work on them taking turns with toys etc. but needs to be in the garden first! At the moment Rust perfectly waits for Shae to get the toy but Shae is leaping all over the place on the end of a lead... no impulse control yet lol.


----------



## Dogless

Bessiedog - very smart! The one duck looks very realistic indeed!!

Nicki - if Rusty isn't being hurt in play, isn't getting worried / distressed and is telling Shae when enough is enough is there any need to manage so much? I might just be completely misunderstanding however .

Just walked Rudi; he was good as gold, got the zoomies through some huge flooded areas on the grass up at the top fields which was entertaining but nothing to report - which is not a bad thing . I think he misses his big buddy to play with too though as we'd never been up there by ourselves before the other day - it's where i tend to take the CHs together.

Haven't taken Kilo out this evening, he's been wiped out today after his potter this morning and wasn't interested.


----------



## Nicki85

Dogless said:


> Bessiedog - very smart! The one duck looks very realistic indeed!!
> 
> Nicki - if Rusty isn't being hurt in play, isn't getting worried / distressed and is telling Shae when enough is enough is there any need to manage so much? I might just be completely misunderstanding however .
> 
> Just walked Rudi; he was good as gold, got the zoomies through some huge flooded areas on the grass up at the top fields which was entertaining but nothing to report - which is not a bad thing . I think he misses his big buddy to play with too though as we'd never been up there by ourselves before the other day - it's where i tend to take the CHs together.
> 
> Haven't taken Kilo out this evening, he's been wiped out today after his potter this morning and wasn't interested.


I think I am being a bit of a control freak TBH.... I think I am stressing out about a non-existant problem!!! Sanity check required ut:

Glad you had a good walk with Rudi- hope Kilo continues to improve tomorrow


----------



## BessieDog

Thanks all for your comments! Hopefully it won't need decorating again for another 17 years! 

Nicki - I think if they are sorting it out between themselves let them carry on. When I had a similar problem I was worried because the big dog didnt retaliate, even when the littl'un drew blood. So I was forced to step in. Ridiculous as it may seem I had a Great Dane being bullied by a cocker spaniel. 

Dogless - I bet both you and Rudi will be pleased when Kilo's back to his old self again.


----------



## diefenbaker

So I've been looking for a new bed for Dief.. he's outgrown the old one.. and finally I think I may have found one big enough and sexy enough for the Love Doctor...

Fortisline Rugen Chequered Dog Beds 4 Sizes Various Colours Top German Quality | eBay


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> So I've been looking for a new bed for Dief.. he's outgrown the old one.. and finally I think I may have found one big enough and sexy enough for the Love Doctor...
> 
> Fortisline Rugen Chequered Dog Beds 4 Sizes Various Colours Top German Quality | eBay


Oh Christ. Silk sheets, smoking jacket, cigarillos....


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> I think I am being a bit of a control freak TBH.... I think I am stressing out about a non-existant problem!!! Sanity check required ut:
> 
> If possible I always try and let my lot sort themselves out.
> 
> Obviously when there's a puppy and a very old dog involved it's a different matter and Holly had to learn quickly that under no circumstances was she allowed to leap on Quiver or take her toys. Even with Leafy the play had to be moderate.
> 
> They tend to grow out of it pretty quickly in any case, especially if we play with them a lot. Holly isn't interested in playing with any of them out on a walk now - she just wants me to continually throw or kick her spacehopper..LOL
> 
> Tremor and Holly still have mad play sessions but it's mostly instigated by Tremor.


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> Ok, so you may have just been being polite, but when I was decorating the lounge you asked for pics.
> 
> It is dog related, as the reason I started decorating was because we've ordered a new suite - Bess coloured! Can't wait to get rid of the old one and the horrible cover we keep on it. Got a new sewing machine and managed to take up the curtains at last (was quite pleased to find some which matched!)
> 
> The room's turned out a bit red!  Bit more drastic than I'd usually decorate, but I'm pleased with it.
> 
> http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/trishhaill/media/Lounge/image_zpsaa125077.jpg.html
> 
> http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/trishhaill/media/Lounge/image_zps7958f4ef.jpg.html
> 
> http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/trishhaill/media/Lounge/image_zps3064fc7f.jpg.html
> 
> http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/trishhaill/media/Lounge/image_zpscb6e81ca.jpg.html


I think you've done a terrific job and it looks super. It all tones beautifully and doesn't look 'too red' to me.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Bessiedog - very smart! The one duck looks very realistic indeed!!
> 
> Nicki - if Rusty isn't being hurt in play, isn't getting worried / distressed and is telling Shae when enough is enough is there any need to manage so much? I might just be completely misunderstanding however .
> 
> Just walked Rudi; he was good as gold, got the zoomies through some huge flooded areas on the grass up at the top fields which was entertaining but nothing to report - which is not a bad thing . I think he misses his big buddy to play with too though as we'd never been up there by ourselves before the other day - it's where i tend to take the CHs together.
> 
> Haven't taken Kilo out this evening, he's been wiped out today after his potter this morning and wasn't interested.


It's very early days with Kilo and it's going to take time I'm afraid, but at least it's all going in the right direction...


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> So I've been looking for a new bed for Dief.. he's outgrown the old one.. and finally I think I may have found one big enough and sexy enough for the Love Doctor...
> 
> Fortisline Rugen Chequered Dog Beds 4 Sizes Various Colours Top German Quality | eBay


Have you looked at the Kumfipet beds on Ebay? Mine love them and I have the doughnut type and the sofa ones. They are pretty good quality for the price and easily cleaned.


----------



## Dogless

Had a mostly good walk with Rudi. Soaking wet, freezing cold NI weather - did some recalls and 'touches' and otherwise just let him zoom and zoom through all the flooded areas of the fields. Right at the end the dog that races over to dogs, pins them and leaves them needing stitches appeared. Now finally muzzled, thank goodness. He came over barking his head off. Kilo would have cowered, gone between my knees and then resorted to retaliating with noise and slobber if I hadn't managed to see the dog off. Rudi looked at him, stood his ground, tail up high but no hackles and just waited him out. Very odd. I am pleased that Rudi is more confident and pleased that he didn't react but am wondering if that's also a sign of a dog that isn't going to back down which is what RRs are renowned for. Need to teach him to hide too I think. Let him do it today and actually it just took the wind out of the other dog's sails whereas Kilo's type of reaction exacerbates things.

Kilo is just sleepy. No interest in going out at all. He's slept since his little potter yesterday.


----------



## Pezant

Glad the walk went well! Sometimes I wonder whether it's better to know that your dog will stand their ground or that they'll hide when a trickier dog faces them off. Rudi certainly sounds like a very confident young man! You always have said he's much bossier than Kilo though haven't you?


----------



## Dogless

Pezant said:


> Glad the walk went well! Sometimes I wonder whether it's better to know that your dog will stand their ground or that they'll hide when a trickier dog faces them off. Rudi certainly sounds like a very confident young man! You always have said he's much bossier than Kilo though haven't you?


He is the polar opposite of Kilo in many, many ways. I prefer Kilo to hide behind me and remain calm. Once he's cowering and frightened I know I have only a short amount of time to get things under control until he resorts to noise and slobber which never exactly helps to calm things and certainly doesn't help him.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Had a mostly good walk with Rudi. Soaking wet, freezing cold NI weather - did some recalls and 'touches' and otherwise just let him zoom and zoom through all the flooded areas of the fields. Right at the end the dog that races over to dogs, pins them and leaves them needing stitches appeared. Now finally muzzled, thank goodness. He came over barking his head off. Kilo would have cowered, gone between my knees and then resorted to retaliating with noise and slobber if I hadn't managed to see the dog off. Rudi looked at him, stood his ground, tail up high but no hackles and just waited him out. Very odd. I am pleased that Rudi is more confident and pleased that he didn't react but am wondering if that's also a sign of a dog that isn't going to back down which is what RRs are renowned for. Need to teach him to hide too I think. Let him do it today and actually it just took the wind out of the other dog's sails whereas Kilo's type of reaction exacerbates things.
> 
> Kilo is just sleepy. No interest in going out at all. He's slept since his little potter yesterday.


You've sent the NI weather over here. It's 10 degrees and starting to rain although it was fairly sunny this morning. Actually we do need some rain here; the ground is like concrete.

I might take Holly over to the barn shortly. She was very put out because we didn't do any training yesterday. She is a peculiar little girl.
Wednesday in class she wouldn't fetch the dumbell or her ball and started sniffing the ground and then ran back to Tremor. Yet the following day she was pretty keen and retrieve was no problem. We were in exactly the same part of the paddock. I just can't fathom her. She doesn't appear frightened of the other dogs or handlers but it's certainly some sort of displacement behaviour. Dunno....


----------



## diefenbaker

Here's the first go with the sunglasses camera. It's not bad quality but I feel it could be improved by a neck brace. This is me and Dief interval training over the thicket. I say interval training but the intervals are forced because I'm cream crackered. I'm also a little spooked that we seem to be being followed by an asthmatic ant. But for 20 notes it ain't bad.

[youtube_browser]N7KWls73NLM[/youtube_browser]


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## GingerRogers

Pretty good for 20 nicker dief, cant confess to watching the whole lot though, lots of staring at the floor while you caught your breath, but good effort, lol.

I just popped in to ask why the hell anyone convinced me to let my dog off the lead. When I had control of her she couldn't roll in the stinky stuff 

Twiggy, I have no doubt you will get to the bottom of it, hows Tremor doing?


----------



## Kicksforkills

When my mum and I went outside for a few minutes to get the washing in when I suddenly started raining, Dexter cocked his leg and pee'd on the kitchen door. 

Anyone who can help with this? Was it just because he was upset we were outside and he wasn't? He's been perfect and hadn't pee'd indoors in about a week. We let him outside when the others go out. It was only for the fact that it was raining that I didn't let him out.

If he plays for too long, whines, or any other signal to go out then we let him out. 

My mum shouted at him even though we didn't notice until ten minutes after. I tried to explain to her there's no point as he doesn't understand why he's being told off, but she told me to stop making excuses for him? Then, I hope, she joked about rubbing his nose in it.

Any help would be great. Thanks.


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## Nicki85

Twiggy- your Holly is an odd one isn't she? Bless her...
GR- I am soooo glad I don't have a roller!!
DB- Great vid 
K4K- sorry to hear about Dexter weeing on the floor... no real advice except make sure you take him out regularly and disinfect any where he goes in the house.

Sunny morning walk with Rusty- hour and a bit wandering the forest and then did some play with his safestix and running around trees. Very keen!

My nephew was staying the night so mum walked Shae down to the park with him- apparently she was a good girl!

This afternoon took them out together and it wasn't bad at all! Def. not as stressful as yesterday... I went out with mum and I think that helped. Couple of times I asked Shae to leave Rusty when he looked like he wanted to get away from her which she listened to  Lots of praise when he comes back and she greets him nicely. It's very sad watching her little face when he disappears into the forest or completely ignores her though! And she looks so expectant when I call him! 

Shae has been on my lap for cuddles and is now having cuddles with Rusty lol. Very cute!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Pretty good for 20 nicker dief, cant confess to watching the whole lot though, lots of staring at the floor while you caught your breath, but good effort, lol.
> 
> I just popped in to ask why the hell anyone convinced me to let my dog off the lead. When I had control of her she couldn't roll in the stinky stuff
> 
> Twiggy, I have no doubt you will get to the bottom of it, hows Tremor doing?


Tremor is fine in herself and did a bit of training this afternoon.

I haven't inspected her nether regions yet today but did the shampooing yesterday afternoon.

Thanks for asking.


----------



## Dogless

Glad Tremor's OK in herself Twiggy.

Pleased your walk was better today too Nicki.

Just walked Rudi (in the rain again) with Dizzy and human. Kilo got off the sofa earlier to bring me his Holey Moley for a 5 minute game. Impeccable timing, I was in tears about him at the time .


----------



## Guest

Today in a nutshell? Super stressy walk, Zander lunging and growling at things, offlead dogs, shreiking woman reporting me to dog warden, and I don't know what to do really apart from what we are currently doing.

I would like some of them sunglasses Deif! I don't think I have EVER taken a photo of Zand on a walk lol


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Today in a nutshell? Super stressy walk, Zander lunging and growling at things, offlead dogs, shreiking woman reporting me to dog warden, and I don't know what to do really apart from what we are currently doing.
> 
> I would like some of them sunglasses Deif! I don't think I have EVER taken a photo of Zand on a walk lol


Did you email your behaviourist LO? Hope that will provide some ideas.

Tomorrow's another day xx.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Did you email your behaviourist LO? Hope that will provide some ideas.
> 
> Tomorrow's another day xx.


I have yep!


----------



## BessieDog

How's the big fella today, Dogless?


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> How's the big fella today, Dogless?


The same. I have been getting up in the night to take him out for a wee too, feel guilty as he's so sleepy. I have been putting updates in the Health & Nutrition section so I don't clog up the training thread . Thank you so much, I'm really touched that people care about him.


----------



## diefenbaker

LurcherOwner said:


> I would like some of them sunglasses Deif! I don't think I have EVER taken a photo of Zand on a walk lol


It's this one here...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009X5YKI6/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There's a lot of them around.. but most of the ones at that price-point are not 720p although it comes sans memory card. I had an old 2GB memory card lying around which was good for about 15 minutes. Get the popcorn in WAYWO people because the 32GB memory card has just turned up


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Tremor is fine in herself and did a bit of training this afternoon.
> 
> I haven't inspected her nether regions yet today but did the shampooing yesterday afternoon.
> 
> Thanks for asking.


Just realised when I said you would get to the bottom of it I meant Hollys tantrums and *not *Tremors nether regions hmy: just clarifying . The second bit made that a bit confusing lol.

Glad Kilos pull the heartstring timing has not suffered Dogless  bless him, poor lad, hope this week brings some positive improvement.

Lurcher Owner, really sorry you had a bad walk, we have stress head at the moment too, I hope the behaviorist can give you some pointers, even just to boost your confidence that you are doing the right things.

We have had an on off weekend, managed to get to our wood on Sat morning which did something to boost my mood at the thought of working all day, its been busy recently due to bluebells, but we drove past and the car park was empty  but just as we were leaving a couple appeared a bit out of the 'blue' and she barked at them, a bit disheartening as I thought we had got past people barking, at least in this scenario. So back to watching out again. TBH though we have never seen anyone there before, I did get a bit of a shock as it was probably the only point they can creep up on you, so she possibly did too and they were standing still, its moving dogs that are her biggest trigger but shuffling or still people are quite high on the list too. Which makes sense as its a bit suspicious to stand about in certain circumstances.

I think I had sausage grease on the camera lens, I know I keep having to polish the phones screen a lot, so they are a bit hazy but you can see how bloody lush it was up there, its been ankle deep in water all winter hence why we never see anyone.

The Green
[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/stinky%20and%20bluebells/2013-05-11100508Small_zps87341048.jpg.html]

The Blue
[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/stinky%20and%20bluebells/2013-05-11100708Small_zps29f1cda0.jpg.html]

And to bring it back to dog chat.

The Dog
[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/stinky%20and%20bluebells/2013-05-11100518Small_zps54d6d059.jpg.html]

Then yesterday we got up to the 'flat place' its great as you can see any one approach from miles off she was very good apart from the stinky incident, I had just let her off for the first time so she had rushed off and was quite a way from me so I couldn't haul her off, just kept seeing a little head appear above the grass every time I yelled and then more wiggling legs, little ****, she had a few mad zoomy moments when she picked up a scent which really arent a problem, I love to see it and I know she doesn't actually go far, but my heart just isn't quite up to the trust thing yet.

She had a bath after so I can give you cuteness overload, ha ha. The rapt attention is not love, its quavers 

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/stinky%20and%20bluebells/2013-05-12153354Small_zps69468f9c.jpg.html]

This morning we had a quiet potter around the estate but the monkeys have got in her in her brains again, she thought a small child being walked on reins needed barking at, and every other person, things, leaf etc was very suspicious, the LLW walking was a struggle at times. Hey ho on we go!

ETA after the flat place walk I finally plucked up the courage to try the training that was suggested on my course.

To park up somewhere quite busy but where we can be out the way, and let her watch from the safety of her crate. People, cars, and of course dogs. With the aim of gradually being able to move further from the car knowing that she can always get back to safety.

So we went to the harbour car park, and there was lots of stuff, dogs very much at a distance (saw some sad things, a young lab on a long line when it got closer I realised it was attached to its head collar, and another GR that was walking very nicely, till they let it off the lead its promptly started scooting its head on the floor to get its head collar off, so clearly not comfortable with it) it was all going well, we are only supposed to do 5-10 mins, then a dog with a look very much of MS Molly, so a lab cross of some kind, came bounding down the harbour road, off lead, its elderly owner, not quite in control, they crossed the road and bounded into the car park and then wove in and out of the cars all the while coming in our direction, not directly to us but to move past, that didn't go down well , I think I need to assess things better, its dogs approaching which really pee her off and in the crate she cant do anything about it can she.

Any one got any other ideas, I need to get her working around dogs somehow, wish I could go back to classes but of all I have learned a village hall is exactly not the environment thats going to help.


----------



## Dogless

Lovely photos GR - sausage grease or not . I wonder whether with all the 'dog fun days' and things like that and fairs over the summer you could go, but sit / stand right out on the peripheries and just watch? Not sure - getting in and out would be a drama too.

Good walk with Rudi this morning, got very cold and wet but what's new? Sleet in mid May . 

Then, Kilo bounced to the door with a toy and there was a little break in the weather so took him out for some sniffs and pottering, short and gentle, still pleased though .


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - I'm glad that Rudi is still being such a star, and that Kilo is improving. It's so horrible when they're ill.

Twiggy - Hope Tremor is better soon as well

LO - hopefully your behavioourist can help and that this is just a temporary blip

GR - Brilliant photos - lookes like a lovely walk and I love the post-bath pic. 


Little dimwit continues to be unnaturally good and he was a star at school yesterday. I am amazed at how relaxed and well behaved he is considering classes are in a marquee with dogs he doesn't know, but he has lots of space there and he knows and trusts the instructor. He did some very nice stays (and even managed not to break his sit stay when I dropped sausage on the floor) and I think we are finally making progress with teaching him stand without him just walking towards me.
Plus, he got to go outside and play with a ball under the guise of practising distance commands which he thought was brilliant.

I am sure he is just lulling me into a false sense of security, and he has to go to the vets this month for his KC booster so no doubt it will all go horribly wrong there


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Lovely photos GR - sausage grease or not . I wonder whether with all the 'dog fun days' and things like that and fairs over the summer you could go, but sit / stand right out on the peripheries and just watch? Not sure - getting in and out would be a drama too.
> 
> Good walk with Rudi this morning, got very cold and wet but what's new? Sleet in mid May .
> 
> Then, Kilo bounced to the door with a toy and there was a little break in the weather so took him out for some sniffs and pottering, short and gentle, still pleased though .


I 'think' that would be way too much for her but a possibility, the dogs are more likely to be on lead after all. So glad she didn't spot the young lab in the headcollar/long line combo, that was leaping about all over the place, stupid people, I really wanted to go and say something.

SOOOOO glad Kilo is feeling a bit brighter. 

Sleet, in May


----------



## GingerRogers

Dimwit said:


> Little dimwit continues to be unnaturally good and he was a star at school yesterday. I am amazed at how relaxed and well behaved he is considering classes are in a marquee with dogs he doesn't know, but *he has lots of space there and he knows and trusts the instructor. *He did some very nice stays (and even managed not to break his sit stay when I dropped sausage on the floor) and I think we are finally making progress with teaching him stand without him just walking towards me.
> Plus, he got to go outside and play with a ball under the guise of practising distance commands which he thought was brilliant.
> 
> I am sure he is just lulling me into a false sense of security, and he has to go to the vets this month for his KC booster so no doubt it will all go horribly wrong there


Thats the key, thats why I wouldn't go back where I was as I dont trust them to let me keep her out of harms way, they were very positive in the way they trained but a bit, dogs is dogs, let them get on with it, or perhaps thats where I am going wrong, hubby thinks so .

He has made great strides in just the time I have been on here, one day we will be up there with you, keep it up you encourage me .


----------



## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> He has made great strides in just the time I have been on here, one day we will be up there with you, keep it up you encourage me .


Aww, thank you
Finding a good behaviourist and ditching the classes I used to go to have made all the difference. The previous classes used mainly positive rewards and they did acknowledge that he had some issues but beyond that they just didn't seem to bother much with us (probably because it was plainly obvious that we were never going to progress beyond bronze GCDS).
Now he is much more relaxed at classes because he is given the space he needs and there is no pressure on him and he is loving it

He is still not perfect (and probably never will be) but he tries really hard for me and I am very proud of him.


----------



## Twiggy

Tremor's problems continue....

She was on three legs last night and this intermittent lameness has been ongoing for about 4 months now.

She's been seen by two vets and my chiropractor three times who all said she was sound - really?

I'm pretty sure it's a soft tissue problem but she's booked in for x-rays tomorrow morning at my vet's insistence. Considering the last time he saw her he said the lameness was my overactive imagination, I haven't got a lot of faith..!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Tremor's problems continue....
> 
> She was on three legs last night and this intermittent lameness has been ongoing for about 4 months now.
> 
> She's been seen by two vets and my chiropractor three times who all said she was sound - really?
> 
> I'm pretty sure it's a soft tissue problem but she's booked in for x-rays tomorrow morning at my vet's insistence. Considering the last time he saw her he said the lameness was my overactive imagination, I haven't got a lot of faith..!!


Poor Tremor. Hard weighing up the cost and stress to a dog of different diagnostics too. An MRI would show soft tissue damage but would probably be stressful for Tremor. Also relies on skilled interpretation - and would it actually alter the treatment pathway? What a shame you can't find a vet that you have faith in.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Poor Tremor. Hard weighing up the cost and stress to a dog of different diagnostics too. An MRI would show soft tissue damage but would probably be stressful for Tremor. Also relies on skilled interpretation - and would it actually alter the treatment pathway? What a shame you can't find a vet that you have faith in.


The one thing I have faith in is that the bill tomorrow will be huge...!!

He did say when I spoke to him at lunchtime "I take it you'll be staying with her?" - Too right I will.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> The one thing I have faith in is that the bill tomorrow will be huge...!!
> 
> He did say when I spoke to him at lunchtime "I take it you'll be staying with her?" - Too right I will.


You can always rely on that .


----------



## Dogless

Miserable walk with Rudi this evening. He was as good as gold, but we got caught in a very nasty shower that lasted for the whole walk - started about 5 minutes in and was just finishing as the walk ended - typical . I didn't have gloves with me so my blue, painful hands are just warming up. Rudi did make me smile by having lots of zoomies though and we played his favourite game of the moment called "Are you recalling me, or what?" - he sprints off into the distance, stops, turns and stares until I recall him and then comes back full pelt. 

Kilo bounced to greet us again . He wanted to go out for a second time but has pottered for a lot of this afternoon as well as going out this morning so I didn't take him - don't want to set him back. They have had a cow's ear each instead .


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning all,

Ginger - sounds like Ginger is making real progress, she looks soo adorable in that last picture! Cute overload indeed!
Horace used to be scared of lots of things, especially traffic, bins, stray bags etc so I did as Dogless has suggested, standing right out on the peripheries and just watch.. then build up the time, then gradually move closer. It worked a treat with Horace. 

Dogless - I'm so very pleased to hear that Kilo is improving although i'm very behind on all the threads so I haven't been following everything. I hope it's not too much longer before he's up and running full steam again. Sounds like Rudi is being a real gent with him, you must be very proud.

Dimwit - Congratulatins on your progress and good luck with the vets!

Twiggy - Sory to hear about Tremor, I hope that you get some results soon.

Have a nice day everyone!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - hope all goes well with Tremor today.

Lovely morning at Concrete Central. Rudi just wanted to work on his walk, just wanted to play "Are you going to recall me or what?" and kept offering walking to heel, sits etc. I got him too worked up over his toy so got some extra ventilation in my jacket and a bleeding finger but that'll teach me! Got told by a man that loves to offer advice that he was "bossing" me for things and "controlling the walk". I don't care if he wants to earn praise and play and the odd titbit. Why would I? It's nice to have a dog who wants to interact I think.

Kilo is the same as yesterday. Took him for a little lead walk. His drive to scavenge is immense and trumps everything bar food in my hand which is understandable. I was going to let him off for a potter but think I'm going to muzzle him whilst he's on steroids and immunocompromised. All I'd need is for him to get a serious infection due to the dirty folk who don't pick up their rubbish or dog poo.


----------



## IrishEyes

Glad to hear that you had a nice walk Dogless. I think I'd rather have a dog that interacts as Rudi does over one who shows no interest in me and wants to go off doing his own thing!


----------



## LinznMilly

Hi all. Not been keeping up-to-date with this thread, although I have gone back a couple of pages.

Dogless, glad to hear you had a good walk with Rudi. I'd rather have a dog that wanted to interact with me, as opposed to one that was much more interested in everything else. How else are you supposed to work on recall? ut: Silly know-it-all man 

Twiggy, I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with Tremor. 

Max and Milly are getting close to mastering Spin. Both now know what I expect of them and start the command once the treat's over their heads . . . Now I've upped the anti and introduced "Other Way". :devil:  I can't believe how fast they've both picked it up, and surprisingly, it's Milly who got it first  Normally it's Max.  Max also Shuts The Door with a verbal cue, rather jumping up for a treat conveniently held against the door.

Meanwhile Milly's working on Other Paw, and seems to have picked it up quite quickly after watching Max (who's been doing it for years).

Took them to the Riverside for the second time yesterday. We went a different way this time, less directly "riverside" and more park/woodland. Didn't think of taking the camera, but I definitely will next time. Anyway, both were actually well behaved on the walk, they had a bit of a zoomies session, a bit of a play, but both recalled nicely (surprising, as I only had 1 or 2 different types of treats on me ) and did perfect Sit-Waits. All was well until we got home and I was in the process of letting Max out of the car (Milly already waiting at home at this point), when a passing boy made some comment about the dog being cute - Max decided he needed telling off and started barking at him.  Luckily the boy didn't seem to be put off and just carried on walking while I held Max's collar until he'd gone.


----------



## Pezant

LinznMilly - Sounds like they really do pick things up quickly! Henry will happily follow the treat round for a 'circle' but is quite stubborn about doing it by himself! Did you teach the movement first or the command?

Dogless - So glad Kilo is starting to look like his old self again! Is Rudi still keeping his distance from him or starting to play again more? 

Henry's being a fussy teenage blighter at the moment - he's absolutely obsessed with stealing gloves, cable bits or bubble packaging at the moment and is so determined to get what he wants! He stole Dad's wallet and destroyed my copy of Your Dog this morning, so he really is full of naughtiness right now. Oh well - at least we know he knows the 'off' command well and is getting LOADS of practice with 'give' too. 

Took him out for a walk on his halti last night and he kept having temper tantrums and trying to roll it off, so we're mostly working on getting him more used to that. We also need to put in time working with him on greeting guests as he's still almost guaranteed to jump up at them at some point. He's very good about just sitting by an open door and not going out, but when someone comes through that door, all bets are off.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I was at the vets for over three hours as I insist on staying with my dogs...!!

He took six or seven x-rays (the knees, hips, etc.) The right hip joint isn't quite as good as the left but certainly not sufficient to cause problems. We jointly came to the conclusion that sometime after Christmas she's banged into something and there is a slight fracture to the very top of the right butterfly shaped bone that sits on top of the pelvis. Probably at the same time she tore or pulled the big muscle that runs alongside it.

My vet has an orthopeadic specialist there on Sunday and he's going to show him the plates for a second opinion. 

Whilst Tremor was out the vet nurse shaved more fur from around her vulva and applied the second shampoo which was due today. They also gave her the first of six laser treatments on the damaged hip/muscle and she goes again on Friday for the second treatment. She also ran the laser over her vulva to speed healing.

She's now on two weeks strict rest which she will absolutely hate but it's for her own good.

The treatment and x-rays were very expensive - thank God I'm insured. I don't normally claim but...LOL

I have to say I was pretty impressed today and he does bend over backwards to accommodate me, even if we do have strong words with each other quite a lot of the time. He is very forward thinking and has all the latest state of the art equipment. The x-ray monitor was something else and the K-laser is a Godsend. 

I hadn't the heart to remind him that six weeks ago he said Tremor's lameness was my over-active imagination..

Tremor's now asleep in her bed which I've put just behind the computer and little Holly is lying right next to her with an offering of several toys should she feel like playing...!!


----------



## cheesecake

Saw dog trainer yesterday for the 1st time. 

She came in and slowly made friends with jessie which was good.

Then we went on a walk together and i showed her where jessie freezes etc. 

I was basiclly told to give her smelly treats on the walk, the trainer also hid behind the corner so jessie could walk with me alone which was amazing ,we walked all the way down the trafficy road which shes never done with me before.

She also showed me how to take her harness off without her growling. She gave jessie a treat while taking the harness off which worked.


Anyway Today - TOTAL FAILURE 

On my own- The pissing rain didn't help either 

Opened the front door, jessie saw it raining and didnt want to step outside.
I tried encouraging her with treats ( cheese and meat) she didnt wanna know.
WTF
So went back inside.
Waited 5 mins and tried again.
Threw down treats for her (while raining) she followed me slowly,i kept praising her.
We only got 1 /5th of the way but its a start i guess.

As for taking her harness off,NIGHTMARE.
I tried doing what the trainer did yesterday but it didnt work!!!!! 
I had treats ,i was on the floor with her,but she just snarled and growled and visciously yapped I FEEL LIKE A FAILURE 



i know it gonna take time but still feels rubbish 

Trainer also said i should buy a different type of harness for her


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - so pleased that you know the cause of Tremor's lameness now and what you need to do about it. Not sure how impressed she'll be with the resting bit!!



LinznMilly said:


> Hi all. Not been keeping up-to-date with this thread, although I have gone back a couple of pages.
> 
> Dogless, glad to hear you had a good walk with Rudi. I'd rather have a dog that wanted to interact with me, as opposed to one that was much more interested in everything else. How else are you supposed to work on recall? ut: Silly know-it-all man


Think his point was that I control what we do when. He was a fan of 'mastering the walk' so I guessing that he watches a lot of the Dog Botherer.

Sounds as if your two are doing really well - clever dogs .



Pezant said:


> Dogless - So glad Kilo is starting to look like his old self again! Is Rudi still keeping his distance from him or starting to play again more?


Rudi has tried to play twice - each time in the garden. Told "no" most emphatically by a grumpy BW and respected that, so all good so far.

Sounds as if Henry's a real clown, Kilo had a real thievery spell too!!


----------



## Dogless

cheesecake - Don't feel rubbish, everything will take time and you only have to read this thread to see there are ups and downs (some big ones!!! ). With the harness are you confident or nervy? I only ask because Kilo gets the heebie jeebies if I or anyone else is nervous about handling him.

ETA: What sort of harness have you got / are you after?


----------



## GingerRogers

Cheesecake Hello!

What sort of harness do you have. What is it she doesnt like? Is it the going over her head or having to step in it or the buckles??

I have a mekuti harness which you have to slip over the head but the rest of the straps basically slip around and clip up, but, they do do the same one but with an extra buckle on the neck piece so you dont have to push/pull *any *bit of the body through. If its the click of the clips its densitisation, lots of treats while she is nice and relaxed as you undo and do them up away from her and gradually get closer. All things I have gone through at one time or another.

As for the rain lots of dogs dont like the rain, I dont know her history but she sounds pretty fearful so I wouldnt worry too much, it is soooo easy to do stuff with the trainer there encouraging you and it goes to pot on your own.

Dont expect too much of yourself or her, little baby steps is all thats necessary.

Glad you have got somewhere with the vet Twiggy, poor Tremor not having much fun is she.

Thanks Irish Eyes, we do feel, well I do  like we have reached a bit of a plateau though, a lot of her nervous nelliness has come back outside, whilst we are are walking, just round our estate, on country footpaths on our own she is fine, its the pavement stuff thats gone a bit backwards, but there lots of associations going on there TBF, oddly though if we stop and stand she is much more relaxed than she used to be, often sits for a treat rather than just scanning constantly, so I guess we are still on the right track.

We haven't worked on much else but did accidentally capture high 5 or rather high 10 or is it 8


----------



## diefenbaker

cheesecake said:


> As for taking her harness off,


You may have said before. Why does she not like the harness coming off ? Is it because at some point it goes over her head ?


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> You may have said before. Why does she not like the harness coming off ? Is it because at some point it goes over her head ?


Ginge doesn't really like it still, not to the snapping point, but sort of squeezes her eyes shut and pushes against me so of course it takes a bit longer, but Rory used to hate having his feet fed through the step in type, quite happy with his head being pulled about.


----------



## Werehorse

Hello, not been in here for a while.  Sooooo very busy with things! Still working on stuff with the boys but mostly just day to day behave yourself stuff rather than anything specific.

However I am mulling over the idea of aiming to do some obediance competition with Hugo - more to give us something to focus on than anything else. But I have no idea where to begin.  I had a look at what he needs to do and it is mostly the send-away that troubles me.

He is now awesome at being sent to his mat - still working on building distance but he has really got the idea after freaking about it at first. But I don't know what a competition sendaway looks like or how to go about teaching it. My trainer seems a little reluctant to engage about competitive obedience at all so I don't want to push it with her and think I'm going to be going this one alone. Twiggy if only you were closer!!!

I have "clicker training for obediance" but it is American and they don't appear to do sendaways... unless that is what the jumping stuff is about...

Confused.  :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Eventful second walk with Rudi, break in the weather, not sure I've seen as many dogs out since last summer. Went past them all or ignored them on the fields with no worries. Met four, not by choice . Trigger clip on lead failed as I put it back on. Walked him home, including past dogs, on the slip lead I always have in my pocket for emergencies. Not one pull, Good Boy Rudi .

Kilo was desperate to go out again so I took him for another short, gentle potter, went a very random way calculated to try and avoid him being jumped on by dogs. We didn't see any at all which is good. Then I gave him a nice brush (one of his favourite things) as the steroids are making him moult like mad and he seemed a bit itchy with it earlier. Good Boy Kilo .


----------



## Dogless

WH - I think you and Hugo would enjoy working for competitions .


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Hello, not been in here for a while.  Sooooo very busy with things! Still working on stuff with the boys but mostly just day to day behave yourself stuff rather than anything specific.
> 
> However I am mulling over the idea of aiming to do some obediance competition with Hugo - more to give us something to focus on than anything else. But I have no idea where to begin.  I had a look at what he needs to do and it is mostly the send-away that troubles me.
> 
> He is now awesome at being sent to his mat - still working on building distance but he has really got the idea after freaking about it at first. But I don't know what a competition sendaway looks like or how to go about teaching it. My trainer seems a little reluctant to engage about competitive obedience at all so I don't want to push it with her and think I'm going to be going this one alone. Twiggy if only you were closer!!!
> 
> I have "clicker training for obediance" but it is American and they don't appear to do sendaways... unless that is what the jumping stuff is about...
> 
> Confused.  :lol:


Go and see Pam Hannah at Wigton Dog Training Club. She will put you right.

You would start in the Pre-Beginners class which consists of:

Heel on lead - starting and finishing in the sit.

Heel free - again starting and finishing in the sit.

Recall to front and finish.

1 minute sit stay - 2 minutes down stay (together with the other competitors in a separate stay ring).

THAT'S IT!!

The next class up is Beginners which is just the same with the addition of retrieve any article and finish.

The next is Novice which again is the same except it's retrieve a dumbell.

You don't actually have to do a sendaway until you get up to Test B.


----------



## Lovehatetragedy

With Ember we're currently working on her toilet training 

With Merlin its his recall and "leave it" :3


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Go and see Pam Hannah at Wigton Dog Training Club. She will put you right.
> 
> You would start in the Pre-Beginners class which consists of:
> 
> Heel on lead - starting and finishing in the sit.
> 
> Heel free - again starting and finishing in the sit.
> 
> Recall to front and finish.
> 
> 1 minute sit stay - 2 minutes down stay (together with the other competitors in a separate stay ring).
> 
> THAT'S IT!!
> 
> The next class up is Beginners which is just the same with the addition of retrieve any article and finish.
> 
> The next is Novice which again is the same except it's retrieve a dumbell.
> 
> You don't actually have to do a sendaway until you get up to Test B.


Thanks Twiggy! That's brilliant actually cos I only need to work on a finish (which he'll kind of do but I think to the wrong side) and making sure he'll do it all without food (which he will I think) and then I could have a go. I'll check out Wigton too. Thank you.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> Thanks Twiggy! That's brilliant actually cos I only need to work on a finish (which he'll kind of do but I think to the wrong side) and making sure he'll do it all without food (which he will I think) and then I could have a go. I'll check out Wigton too. Thank you.


Everything, including a finish, is to your left leg.


----------



## Werehorse

Twiggy said:


> Everything, including a finish, is to your left leg.


He already heels on the left if I ask (always done both sides as I need him on the right when walking on country lanes). Just need to sort a finish to that side, cos I only have one to the right that developed from using "into heel" when running on the road.  I use "heel" for the right side and will probably use "finish" for the left side and "close" to mean ProperHeelWorkNowChap.

He doesn't do the Spanish walking thing that other dogs seem to do, even other dogs in my training classes just do it naturally. Hugo just walks/trots normally in heel.


----------



## LinznMilly

Pezant said:


> LinznMilly - Sounds like they really do pick things up quickly! Henry will happily follow the treat round for a 'circle' but is quite stubborn about doing it by himself!* Did you teach the movement first or the command*?.


I got the idea for Spin from a training guide which I got free with a new clicker. I taught the movement first, with a treat held in my closed hand just out of reach until they completed spin - C&T, then added in the command. Now I'm in the process of fazing out the treat, holding it in one hand while drawing a circle above them with the other.



Dogless said:


> Sounds as if your two are doing really well - clever dogs .


Thanks. Milly's amazed me at how well she's picked things up today.  Normally she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but today she was on the ball.



> Sounds as if Henry's a real clown, *Kilo had a real thievery spell too*!!


And Max  Milly's still well and truly in her thievery stage too


----------



## IrishEyes

Morning all,

LizMilly - Your training seems to be coming along nicely, sounds like you had a great day yesterday!

Henry - aww at least you can see the funny side! Horace has never chewed anything but perhaps he got all that out of his system before we got him. He does get very excitied though if we have a visitor, which is very rare so I don't really have much chance to work on it. Maybe over time he will naturally settle and maybe your boy will too.
Horace is much better now with the postman so yes I'm sticking with the whole time thing!

Cheesecake - how long have you being using the harness? Horace took a few weeks before learning to sit calmly before putting it on and taking it off.

Twiggy - Hopefully Tremor will feel much better having two weeks of rest, I know hoe hyper Horace can get after a few days rest so you are in my thoughts!

Werehorse - Good luck with the obedience competition if you do go for it.

Dogless - sounds like Kilo is making an improvement every day 

Horace has been so very good for over a week now, no reacting but unfortunately he did yesterday. I'm not too upset though as I don't expect a miracle so knew we'd have instances where he would react. I still feel that we are making progress.
I've been taking him down past some horses to get him used to them as he's still hit and miss with them. Yesterday we managed to get close enough so that I could stroke one. Horace was sat there watching them, tail going mad, I was praising him but didn't want to push my luck so made to leave.. he then suddenly tries to get into the field with them  He didn't get in and luckily didn't scare them either.


----------



## Dogless

Sounds as if Horace is making great progress overall IE, as you say you'll have setbacks but you're definitely moving steadily forwards.


----------



## Twiggy

Werehorse said:


> He already heels on the left if I ask (always done both sides as I need him on the right when walking on country lanes). Just need to sort a finish to that side, cos I only have one to the right that developed from using "into heel" when running on the road.  I use "heel" for the right side and will probably use "finish" for the left side and "close" to mean ProperHeelWorkNowChap.
> 
> He doesn't do the Spanish walking thing that other dogs seem to do, even other dogs in my training classes just do it naturally. Hugo just walks/trots normally in heel.


Why don't you just use "close" for heelwork on the left and for the finish? Why complicate it with extra words - the less commands you use the better quite honestly.

Although the 'Spanish walking' - stylish heelwork is nice to watch it doesn't gain you extra points in competition. It all about accuracy and the dog maintaining position on the straight and through various turns...


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Although the 'Spanish walking' - stylish heelwork


What is this Spanish Walking ? Does it involve bright fluffy shirts and maracas ?


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> What is this Spanish Walking ? Does it involve bright fluffy shirts and maracas ?


Sadly not.... It's when a dog is high stepping, much like a Spanish dressage horse.


----------



## Dimwit

Haven't been on much for a few days so I hope everyone is well (and that the ill/injured dogs are recovering).

Dimwit is continuing to be surprisingly well-behaved though he did react the other day, there is someone near me who has 2 lab puppies and so usually walks them separately and he reacted to the chocolate lab but not the yellow one. He really doesn't seem to like chocolate or black labs though - probably because there are a fair few of them round us so he has had several bad experiences with them

Other than that he did his first ever out-on-a-walk scentwork the other day and was brilliant although he did find the scent mouse and then leg it into the river so I had to rescue poor, waterlogged mouse from a watery grave...

Then the little hooligan managed to roll in fox poo this morning so I had to give him a bath before I went to work


----------



## LinznMilly

Morning all.

IE: Thanks. We did have a great training day yesterday  I pushed them a little, too - 2 new commands in one session (Other Way and Other Paw for Milly, Other Way and Place/Mat for Max). I wouldn't introduce more than 2 new tricks in one session but they impressed me so much by not getting confused.   I finished the session with both dogs taking turns with the Dog Brick and Dog Spinney as an extra treat ... Somehow the dogs are tired today ... I have no idea why  :aureola::smilewinkgrin:

LHT: How's the house-training/recall/Leave It coming on?

Dogless: How's the BW this morning? And his little [not-so-little-anymore] sidekick (I think BW is Kilo :blushing

Another thing I'm working on, which isn't _quite _ training the dogs and more about training me - is leaving Milly out of her crate while I go to work. Atm, I'm only doing so between 1 and 2:30, because I know I will be going out at 1:00, and that I'll definitely be back by 2:30, so it's more consistent than leaving her for the odd 15 minutes here and there. I've left her for up to 2 hours before, so I know she should - in theory - be fine, but it's breaking the habit of putting her in her crate. 

SA's got a lot to answer for (mine - not hers) :blushing:


----------



## Dogless

Morning all. The BW is slowly becoming my BW again . He's a little brighter still but still pretty lethargic and sleepy. And grumpy!

He really wanted to come out this morning when I was taking Rudi, it was sunny so decided to take them to the top fields so Rudi could zoom and play and Kilo did a bit of pottering and then lay and sunbathed and watched and had some fusses from me. 

It was challenging . Rudi was excited because Kilo was with us I think and it's so, so windy so we had a few false starts where he tried to use my arm as a tuggy :nono:. Once we had established that walking nicely was by far the better option we were then followed by a woman pushing a buggy who was clearly in a hurry and moving faster than us. Rather than go round she practically started clipping our heels, so I hurried up to the next junction so I could step to the side and get the boys sitting nicely. I said "Morning" and rather than being polite she chose to tut and shake her head at us :frown2::mad5:. We then made it to the fields without a drama. I muzzled Kilo as all he wants to do is scavenge and I don't want him to get an infection with his immune system compromised. That was OK apart from he kept trying to eat poo and just ended up with huge lumps of poo stuck to the end of his muzzle :incazzato::incazzato:. I kept having to pop him on lead and tether him, remove and clean muzzle, replace muzzle :mad2:. If I'd not have tethered him he would have shot back over to the poo to try and eat it hmy:. I tried my very best to contain my irrational anger :cursing:.

Anyhow, I think they actually both enjoyed the walk, Kilo had a lovely lie in the sun whilst I fussed him and Rudi zoomed.

They walked back like :aureola::aureola:.

ETA: We did get barked and lunged at by a dog and just went past quietly, no excitement. Good boys.


----------



## Pezant

Dogless said:


> I muzzled Kilo as all he wants to do is scavenge and I don't want him to get an infection with his immune system compromised. That was OK apart from he kept trying to eat poo and just ended up with huge lumps of poo stuck to the end of his muzzle :incazzato::incazzato:.


Ahahahahahaha awww Kilo! Sorry Dogless, but I did laugh at that.  Sounds like he's definitely becoming more like himself again!

LinznMilly: You have such productive training sessions! Sometimes just a good bit of time getting them to wear their brains out is just as good as a long walk isn't it? 

Henry is living up to all of the expectations of Setter Thief Supreme right now - this morning it was my dad's slippers which got a nice chunk taken out of the bottom of one, and heaven help you if there's a piece of cardboard somewhere nearby. His 'give' is getting better and better, but I'm not quite sure how to train 'don't steal everything' in the first place! 

Took him for a run over a field near us with a friend and her two elderly dogs last night and Henry had a _brilliant_ time. He doesn't normally spend a whole walk offlead so this was a little bit of heaven for him. He did disappear through a hedge and along a ditch at one point to chase the others and I lost sight of him for a bit, but we called and he popped back to come and find us for a treat, so he was very good! It was nice just seeing him run and run for a bit.


----------



## Dogless

Pezant that sounds like a lovely walk, Henry running free for so long. Sounds as if he behaved really well for you too .


----------



## Pezant

He's definitely getting there! For a stubborn, blockheaded 11 month old teenager he's very well behaved.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Morning all. The BW is slowly becoming my BW again . He's a little brighter still but still pretty lethargic and sleepy. And grumpy!
> 
> He really wanted to come out this morning when I was taking Rudi, it was sunny so decided to take them to the top fields so Rudi could zoom and play and Kilo did a bit of pottering and then lay and sunbathed and watched and had some fusses from me.
> 
> *It was challenging* . Rudi was excited because Kilo was with us I think and it's so, so windy so we had a few false starts where he tried to use my arm as a tuggy :nono:. Once we had established that walking nicely was by far the better option we were then followed by a woman pushing a buggy who was clearly in a hurry and moving faster than us. Rather than go round she practically started clipping our heels, so I hurried up to the next junction so I could step to the side and get the boys sitting nicely. I said "Morning" and rather than being polite she chose to tut and shake her head at us :frown2::mad5:. We then made it to the fields without a drama. I muzzled Kilo as all he wants to do is scavenge and I don't want him to get an infection with his immune system compromised. That was OK apart from he kept trying to eat poo and just ended up with huge lumps of poo stuck to the end of his muzzle :incazzato::incazzato:. I kept having to pop him on lead and tether him, remove and clean muzzle, replace muzzle :mad2:. If I'd not have tethered him he would have shot back over to the poo to try and eat it hmy:. I tried my very best to contain my irrational anger :cursing:.
> 
> Anyhow, I think they actually both enjoyed the walk, Kilo had a lovely lie in the sun whilst I fussed him and Rudi zoomed.
> 
> They walked back like :aureola::aureola:.
> 
> ETA: We did get barked and lunged at by a dog and just went past quietly, no excitement. Good boys.


I know the feeling as it wasn't easy walking 4 this morning with Tremor on the lead..!!

Holly constantly wants me to kick or throw her spacehopper and Quiver expects me to throw her toy; trouble is I have to hold her collar and throw it about 2 ft otherwise she'd fall over and hurt herself. Normally no problem but when I've got Tremor on the lead.....


----------



## LinznMilly

Dogless: I sympathise with the poo-eating (or wanting to eat it) because Milly does the same and half the time I feel like ------> :cursing: . Can't blame you for getting annoyed at having to keep taking the muzzle off, cleaning it, and replacing it.

Pezant: Glad Henry enjoyed his walk yesterday. Love the name Setter Thief Supreme too :thumbup: Max, in his younger days, has been known to nick off with mine/my mum's underwear and take it in the garden, drop them, and then sit there guarding them, normally with a bl00dy big, self-satisfied grin on his chops. Luckily he's well past that stage.



Pezant said:


> LinznMilly: *You have such productive training sessions! Sometimes just a good bit of time getting them to wear their brains out is just as good as a long walk isn't it? *


Thanks.  I'm not saying they're angels - they're not, and at times they drive me up the wall, especially Max's barking (which now seems to be rubbing off on Milly, rather than improving :frown2: ) and Milly's poo eating/counter surfing, so it's nice that all 3 of us enjoy the trick-training sessions. And it's nice to tire them out mentally as well as physically.

Besides, blame Kikopup from Youtube. Watching her vids are what got me into trick-training in the first place.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dimwit - well done little one but poor drowned mousey  

I cant wait for the scentwork class , its not till September. Ninja did very well finding her tea last night, sometimes its just random running round in circles till she happens upon the right spot but yesterday you could really see her sniffing it out.

Linz and Milly - lovely that they are both enjoying themselves (and tiring themselves out ) hope your separation anxiety gets better  sorry if i missed it or am being really dim but whats dog spinney and dog brick 

Dogless - how lovely that the BW was able to come out with you both , how not nice that he is so hungry he eats shite , and you think poo rolling is bad 

WH - sounds like you would have fun at competitive obedience, you sound enthusiastic enough, I often need the competition to motivate me to improve.

IE - its good that you dont get defeated, you can see how much improvement he has made even in a few weeks. We are not sure about horses either unless they dont move, then they are fine, or pigs, sheep and cows are sometimes alright 

Pezant - Henry is a very lovely, soft looking lad, I bet he looks all flowy and wonderful when he can run free!

Twiggy sounds like you are going to have your hands full for a few weeks, literally.


Can I have a drum roll of awesomeness, Ninja recalled away from a dog this morning 














Ok so it was in the living room :001_tt2: and it was only on the telly  but it was a big dog :smilewinkgrin:. Hubby was on the sofa watching TV, I was sat at the table eating brekky, she started going nuts, I called her to me and she came running, she was now behind the sofa so now out of sight of the telly and the big dog. She got a soggy honey nut cornflake for her obedience and seemed pretty god damn pleased with herself.

She did bark at a lady on our walk, hmy: I apologised profusely and thankfully the lady was not put out in the slightest, she told me its absolutely fine, its not really I thought but thanks anyway!!! But she didn't bark at the westie we saw moving away from us up the road. Considering how incredibly windy it is here today I was pretty pleased with our walk, she did some pulling like a train but some lovely LLW too!


----------



## Twiggy

Drum roll for the Ninja:

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Well Done the Ninja!!!   .


----------



## Twiggy

A certain little lady is going to be very upset in a minute when she can't join the class this afternoon...

I can't wait to hear what the orthopaedic specialist says on Sunday when he's looked at the plates.

I don't want this dragging on too much longer. Tremor lives to work and she's already depressed.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> A certain little lady is going to be very upset in a minute when she can't join the class this afternoon...
> 
> I can't wait to hear what the orthopaedic specialist says on Sunday when he's looked at the plates.
> 
> I don't want this dragging on too much longer. Tremor lives to work and she's already depressed.


Oh poor Tremor, I really feel for you Twiggy and for her. I hope that you have a solid plan following the specialist's input.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh poor Tremor, I really feel for you Twiggy and for her. I hope that you have a solid plan following the specialist's input.


The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that the jagged edge of the tiny fracture is occasionally pressing on a nerve, ligament or muscle. Considering the amount she was pulled about yesterday she is perfectly sound this morning and she shouldn't be if you see what I mean.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that the jagged edge of the tiny fracture is occasionally pressing on a nerve, ligament or muscle. Considering the amount she was pulled about yesterday she is perfectly sound this morning and she shouldn't be if you see what I mean.


That does make sense. Has a tiny fragment broken off maybe too if it's jagged? I have a tiny fragment floating around in my ankle. Occasionally it 'jams' which is really painful but it shifts again and I'm back to normal.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> That does make sense. Has a tiny fragment broken off maybe too if it's jagged? I have a tiny fragment floating around in my ankle. Occasionally it 'jams' which is really painful but it shifts again and I'm back to normal.


Who knows? I suppose it would take an MRI scan to show something like that.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Who knows? I suppose it would take an MRI scan to show something like that.


It's visible on x-ray but tricky to see and depends on positioning. Maybe the ortho will recommend an MRI anyway to check for soft tissue damage - look at the ligaments to see any tears etc too? I really do hope that it's sorted soon though.


----------



## LinznMilly

Twiggy: Oh, poor Tremor! Hope she isn't too disappointed at not joining the class. Hopefully the specialist will be able to give you some answers on Sunday. 

Well, _my _training is going ... not too badly, but could definitely be better. :blush2: I nearly gave in and put Milly in her crate before going out to work over lunch time, but I resisted temptation, promising myself that I could pop back in between - which I didn't get round to doing anyway. The house was as I'd left it, just as it was yesterday, and it means Milly will be out of her crate from 11:50-5:50 today :w00t:


----------



## Dogless

The CHs are getting back in business . Just did a good training session with the boys as Kilo was pestering a bit, had a quick play but don't want to walk him again, this morning was enough for today I think. Worked on one dog waiting whilst the other works; Kilo is very good at it, Rudi not so good but we are making progress. It's exhausted Kilo who has melted into a heap on the dining room floor. Rudi is Looking For Trouble but will settle so I'll take him for a quick walk in a bit.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The CHs are getting back in business . Just did a good training session with the boys as Kilo was pestering a bit, had a quick play but don't want to walk him again, this morning was enough for today I think. Worked on one dog waiting whilst the other works; Kilo is very good at it, Rudi not so good but we are making progress. It's exhausted Kilo who has melted into a heap on the dining room floor. Rudi is Looking For Trouble but will settle so I'll take him for a quick walk in a bit.


That's really good news. So pleased Kilo is now making good progress.

More trouble here - Leafy has diarrheoa again... She's been on the AG Sensitive for 3.1/2 weeks and here we go again!!

I've just boiled some rice and she'll get a desertspoonful for her breakfast and then I'll gradually start introducing the wretched Purina HA. Awful stuff but I don't have a choice and if it stops the diarrheoa I'm past caring.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Leafy. Twiggy I am so sorry. Never rains but it pours . I am sure you've tried everything, but have you tried pre and probitoics as well as different foods? What a difficult condition to manage, almost impossible.


----------



## MollySmith

Hello everyone and sorry for not being around much. We've had a few non-Molly problems at this end and my grannie is very poorly so lots to contend with. A long story I won't bore you all with! We've had a bit of a change around with Molly's scent work this weekend. I have asked the trainer if I can delay it as there is simply too much for me to cope with right now and I need to tackle it in small stages.

However we had another lead lesson with our trainer and Molly was great in what turned out to be a bonkers hour. Off lead dogs all over the place with no recall whatsoever, football training and a dog that was running around the park so much we thought it lost it's owner. There are several gates and a busy road at one end plus no collar. I have a spare slip lead in the car so Cath has Molly and I am striding off to the car and hoping we can save this dog without upsetting my dog! Anyway before we could two (rightly) furious mums were telling off a lady who was the owner as the dog was in the children's play area where it's not allowed. Turns out she was an older lady nodding off over a book, sat on a park bench away from the main park where her dog was running around ut: I wonder how one manages to collect poo without actually knowing where ones dog is? Anyway, Molly was grand, a few up on the tip toes but because of the off lead dog and not anything she had done and she seems to be progressing with calming herself down quickly. In March we had to put her back in the car and call it quits after she couldn't contain herself so she's getting there.

Dimwit - I heard nothing but praise about you and Sprocket  I am going to be meeting you I think a week on Sunday at the end of Cath's Sunday class. We won't be at the class but just at the end to see how Molly gets on inside with other dogs. It's more for my confidence I think since "the church hall at Arbury Road with two other reactive dogs" has scarred me and Molly wasn't the worst! We're going to be in the car park at the end and we'll pop in, Cath said she'll ask a few people to stay but not everyone and probably walk Molly with Red and whoever else is about just to get some practice in. Honestly I am such a pathetic owner sometimes.

Twiggy - I am so sorry to hear about Tremor, poor love and it must be exhausting for you, a bored dog is not easy. 

Dogless - it's so nice to keep hearing good news from you.

Sorry, still catching up with everyone. Has anyone heard from Sarah1983? She's been quiet on FB and I've not heard from her and Spen, was she on holiday?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh no Leafy. Twiggy I am so sorry. Never rains but it pours . I am sure you've tried everything, but have you tried pre and probitoics as well as different foods? What a difficult condition to manage, almost impossible.


Yes several different ones. One I haven't tried is Pooch and Mutt Bionic Biotics so I may give that a go. Not holding out much hope though to be honest.


----------



## Dogless

MS - Sarah had to go away at short notice, don't know details but hopefully back soon.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Yes several different ones. One I haven't tried is Pooch and Mutt Bionic Biotics so I may give that a go. Not holding out much hope though to be honest.


Molly has this daily as she gets problems with her anal glands despite all our efforts to keep her diet suitable. It seems to make a difference but of course her problems aren't the same as Tremor's.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> MS - Sarah had to go away at short notice, don't know details but hopefully back soon.


Ah okay, was worried about her but hopefully she's back soon. Thank you.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes several different ones. One I haven't tried is Pooch and Mutt Bionic Biotics so I may give that a go. Not holding out much hope though to be honest.


I have Kilo on Yumpro at present as he's on broad spectrum A/Bs to try and prevent infection as his immune system is suppressed. He's not had a problem (touch wood!) so can't say if they're good but they came highly recommended by SixStar.


----------



## sharloid

Had a bit of a crap night at ringcraft. 

Kindra was absolutely fine, she did brilliant. However, the OH was just stood at the edge of the field with Broder watching. He was doing sits/down/touch etc to try and keep him calm and kept walking him around. Every time a dog ran he was lunging and whining and started jumping up and biting the lead. It was awful to watch, we've been working so hard on his excitement reactivity towards other dogs at a distance and haven't seen him get worked up like this for many, many months.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I have Kilo on Yumpro at present as he's on broad spectrum A/Bs to try and prevent infection as his immune system is suppressed. He's not had a problem (touch wood!) so can't say if they're good but they came highly recommended by SixStar.


I've just ordered Bionic Biotics. It won't do any harm if it doesn't do any good.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just ordered Bionic Biotics. It won't do any harm if it doesn't do any good.


I really hope that it does.


----------



## Guest

Hellooooo, hope Leafy and Kilo feel perkier soon and hope you are all alright. 

xtradog harness arrived, I don't like it cause Zand can get out of it so I shall send it back and it bunches around his chest even though it's a tight medium.

We have had a good calm walk and a bad walk where we didn't get any further than about 30ft from our front door before Zand had a complete meltdown. At the same time we met a revving car, a man who wanted to stroke zand, a cat and a excitable chi pup. All together on the corner near our cars. 

We just went home and did some nail training, I can put two fingers on his foot now without freaking. Still frightened of the nail clippers.


----------



## Dogless

Sharloid, hopefully it was just a temporary setback. Frustrating though all the same. It took me so long to stop Kilo going totally batshit when other dogs recalled at training .


----------



## ballybee

Just a quick update 

Dan is doing perfectly well, no issues really at the moment, i do need to work more on getting him calmer when people want to see us but wth the bad weather there's not been much opportunity.

Tummel is ok, we've figured out that if he's left in the living room he doesn't get as stressed and takes much longer to become stressed. He still can't greet dogs onlead at all and we're working hard on getting him ignoring them again. Offlead he's not too bad but he hates really long greetings. Recall isn't terrible at the moment though. Been working hard on LLW without the dogmatic which was going well but it would seem someone has been walking an at peak mating point in season bitch about and this morning was spent with me being dragged, then having to drag him away. So very unimpressed with him.


----------



## LinznMilly

Sharloid: Oh no  Hopefully it's just a temporary setback, but I know how I feel in those situations - feels like all your hard work was for nothing. 

LO: Your Zand sounds a lot like my Max.  He's fine with the fuss, but not if it's given to Milly. Neither of them like cats, some idiot revved the car just as we were walking past - twice - so now he has a fear of them, too, and he can get annoyed by excitable dogs (not sure about pups, though) 

Glad you're progressing with the nail trimming. :thumbup:

We had a couple of rubbish walks yesterday. First, just as we were heading out for the tea time walk, we ran into Milly's arch-nemesis - a Westie with the same name as her. (Max doesn't like her v. much either) in her garden. Cue a lot of running back and forth along the inside of the garden wall from the Westie, barking her head off at my 2, and Milly lunging and barking back at her. Max joined in too, backing my Milly up. My fault, really - I'd let my guard slip and the 3 of us were taken by surprise. Normally I'm on the ball and cross the road.

Then, last night, just as we'd stepped foot out of our gate, Milly must have seen a cat, and lunged. I couldn't see anything, so after pausing for a moment, I carried on. Milly obviously knew were it was, and as soon as we neared a neighbours gate, started her bunny-hopping routine, trying to find where it was before I told her to get down - again :bored: . Luckily no wailing like a banshee this time, though.

Urgh. Needless to say, I was glad to get in and relax last night 

Oh! And for the 2nd night running, Milly's slept outside of her crate.  No problems (although the only one I expect now is a certain smelly or wet mess on the carpet). I'm probably about to jinx it here, and I'm still taking things one night/day at a time, but if this keeps up it means Milly will only be in her crate for a few hours each day :w00t:


----------



## Twiggy

sharloid said:


> Had a bit of a crap night at ringcraft.
> 
> Kindra was absolutely fine, she did brilliant. However, the OH was just stood at the edge of the field with Broder watching. He was doing sits/down/touch etc to try and keep him calm and kept walking him around. Every time a dog ran he was lunging and whining and started jumping up and biting the lead. It was awful to watch, we've been working so hard on his excitement reactivity towards other dogs at a distance and haven't seen him get worked up like this for many, many months.


It's pure frustration and lack of impulse control. Just keep plugging away and he will improve.

If you went and watched the dogs lining up to compete as your average agility show you would see it's a very common problem. The difference is the handlers don't mind (providing the dog performs a good run)...


----------



## Twiggy

Well Leafy was clean overnight and her 'skirts' are also clean this morning.

Trouble is I don't know what to do now. Whether to keep her on the AG sensitive or change her to Purina. Hmmm.....


----------



## Dimwit

MS - Sorry to hear about your grannie, and it is a shame we won't see you at scentwork. Still, hopefully we will meet you after class then (and I am happy to help if we can).

Twiggy - I really hope you manage to get some sense out of the specialist.

Dogless - so nice to hear positive updates about Kilo

Dimwit was reasonably good at rally last night though he got a bit scared as we had a ridgeback and a beagle in the class, and both were quite vocal so I did struggle to keep his focus on me
We did a short rally course which was very entertaining, and when the dimwit works nicely he is great, I just need to get him more consistent.

Vets tonight which will, no doubt, show how little progress we have actually made...


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> It's pure frustration and lack of impulse control. Just keep plugging away and he will improve.
> 
> If you went and watched the dogs lining up to compete as your average agility show you would see it's a very common problem. The difference is the handlers don't mind (providing the dog performs a good run)...


Or go to a flyball competition where this is actively encouraged


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> MS - Sorry to hear about your grannie, and it is a shame we won't see you at scentwork. Still, hopefully we will meet you after class then (and I am happy to help if we can).
> 
> *Twiggy - I really hope you manage to get some sense out of the specialist.*
> 
> Dogless - so nice to hear positive updates about Kilo
> 
> Dimwit was reasonably good at rally last night though he got a bit scared as we had a ridgeback and a beagle in the class, and both were quite vocal so I did struggle to keep his focus on me
> We did a short rally course which was very entertaining, and when the dimwit works nicely he is great, I just need to get him more consistent.
> 
> Vets tonight which will, no doubt, show how little progress we have actually made...


So do I. It's extremely frustrating and in some respects we are no further forward and there are too many ifs and buts.

It's all very well my vet saying two weeks strict rest but he has no idea on the management of a really powerful, high drive collie.

I can't even give them stuffed kongs and that sort of thing to keep Tremor amused because of Leafy and her intolerance issues.

Flipping nightmare.


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all 

Good few days here with one slight ummmm moment!

The um moment was caused by Rusty kicking off at another dog. Now this is something I never thought i'd write!!!
A husky attached to a bike was coming through the forest, I recalled Rusty and he came back and I moved him to the side of the path so they could come past but I didn't leash him as if I tell him to wait, he waits (usually). The husky wanted to stop so it stopped (how does this work... surely it means cycling is reallly hard if your dog is distracted easily?!) Rusty went forward as the husky had stopped next to him and then they kicked off. Nothing but grrrr and slobber but still. Both entire males, husky owner was fine- both of our faults really. 

I know this has been caused by other males always coming up to Rusty and having "a go" at him. I've tried my best to "shelter" him from them but it's not always easy with offlead dogs coming up to yours and having a grumble! We have also had a couple of incidents of another entire dog coming over and really having a go... He's never retaliated before but it seems that he is growing into his balls and if another entire male kicks off he will respond... 

I'm not overly worried at the moment, it was my fault for not blocking the meeting- he recalled away first time and I should of had proper control over the situation. And I suspect I didn't read the huskies body language very well. We have agility later with a DA entire male so will see how he reacts... Obviously they won't meet but I can gauge his reaction at least. Something to watch and be aware of. Boys hey?!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Sharloid, hopefully it was just a temporary setback. Frustrating though all the same. It took me so long to stop Kilo going totally batshit when other dogs recalled at training .


I have this problem too.. especially with specific dogs. At training last couple of weeks we've started doing a recall where multiple dogs are going in oppsosite directions. He doesn't like that at all. It makes me wonder how he might get on at a CaniX event. Any tips other than get his focus/eye contact ?


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> I have Kilo on Yumpro at present as he's on broad spectrum A/Bs to try and prevent infection as his immune system is suppressed. He's not had a problem (touch wood!) so can't say if they're good but they came highly recommended by SixStar.


I give Dief Yumpro too.. it does seem to have improved things.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I have this problem too.. especially with specific dogs. At training last couple of weeks we've started doing a recall where multiple dogs are going in oppsosite directions. He doesn't like that at all. It makes me wonder how he might get on at a CaniX event. Any tips other than get his focus/eye contact ?


I did loads of getting his focus and loads and loads of impulse control exercises. Took a long time. The slow, pottering recallers he improved with rapidly, the fast, wound up ones were our sticking point.

You might be surprised. When I did the one CaniX event before we moved here Kilo was just focussed on running.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I give Dief Yumpro too.. it does seem to have improved things.


The BW has always had the constitiution of an ox, luckily, given some of the horrible substances he considers to be food . Put him on it just to go alongside these A/Bs but nice to hear that a dog with 'issues' has been helped by it.


----------



## Dogless

OK morning here.

Took Rudi for his walk, he was very good, we seem to be making headway with his impulse control. Slowly but surely . He got me playing his recall game, again  .

Kilo's walk has left me in tears, stupid really. He just plods along panting on lead (steroids) and just looks so small and thin and the muscle wastage in 10 days is just unbelievable. His collar is now on it's smallest hole and the huge muscles on his shoulders, back legs, neck, all along his body are gone. He looks frail somehow. Hubby drove past on his way back to work from the dentist and said he looked like a 7 year old dog .

I let him off (muzzled for scavenging) and we played with his Kong Bounzer in a small flat field as he can make it bounce all over the place when he catches it by pouncing and pushing with his nose. Then we went onto the dog walking area, I just couldn't engage him in there as scavenging just took over everything as the place is a cesspit. I just got so frustrated, I just kept having to clean big lumps of poo off his muzzle. I did some training, just heelwork, waits etc but when you feed titbits you get poo on your hand. If he catches your legs you get poo on your legs. It's just horrible :cursing:. He has no spark, poor dog, he is just driven to find anything he can to eat.

Maybe longline and some "ready steady" next time.

I am really worried that there is something sinister going on with him. His weight loss and muscle mass loss just within 10 days is really extreme . We're back off to the vet tomorrow anyway, so I'll ask.


----------



## diefenbaker

A minor achievement on this morning's walk. We get to the woods in 2 minutes from the house.. so there's a group of people we know and dogs we see often.. but there are also nemesis dogs. Dief seems to have a very good memory.. It's like once he's met a dog a few times.. he knows it's character.. and behaves accordingly. The good thing is if you've been nasty or otherwise unfriendly to him in the past he will just avoid you. A bigger problem is the submissive but overly excitable dogs who come running up and then go belly up and thrash about like they've been tasered under his nose. Buddy is one of those but made worse by the fact that when Dief was a puppy he would always turn up in tandem with Benjy who was the same but would jump up and barge. Now we hadn't seen Buddy for a while but came across him around the stream. Dief gave him one woof but then left him alone.. preferring instead to place his snout at the end of my belt feeder. This is one of the advantages of being a big dog. Even when he's sitting down his head is still significantly higher than everyone else's so he tends not to mind other heads around while I treat him. After a while the belt feeder powered down and they had a proper sniff and we walked on.


----------



## Dogless

Pleased about Leafy, Twiggy. I'd be tempted to leave her on the AG I think if it's all calmed down again. Very difficult call.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Maybe longline and some "ready steady" next time.
> 
> I am really worried that there is something sinister going on with him. His weight loss and muscle mass loss just within 10 days is really extreme . We're back off to the vet tomorrow anyway, so I'll ask.


Feeling bad for you. Must be difficult to see him like that. Here's hoping you can get some quality time back with him soon.


----------



## Milliepoochie

Dogless said:


> OK morning here.
> 
> Took Rudi for his walk, he was very good, we seem to be making headway with his impulse control. Slowly but surely . He got me playing his recall game, again  .
> 
> Kilo's walk has left me in tears, stupid really. He just plods along panting on lead (steroids) and just looks so small and thin and the muscle wastage in 10 days is just unbelievable. His collar is now on it's smallest hole and the huge muscles on his shoulders, back legs, neck, all along his body are gone. He looks frail somehow. Hubby drove past on his way back to work from the dentist and said he looked like a 7 year old dog .
> 
> I let him off (muzzled for scavenging) and we played with his Kong Bounzer in a small flat field as he can make it bounce all over the place when he catches it by pouncing and pushing with his nose. Then we went onto the dog walking area, I just couldn't engage him in there as scavenging just took over everything as the place is a cesspit. I just got so frustrated, I just kept having to clean big lumps of poo off his muzzle. I did some training, just heelwork, waits etc but when you feed titbits you get poo on your hand. If he catches your legs you get poo on your legs. It's just horrible :cursing:. He has no spark, poor dog, he is just driven to find anything he can to eat.
> 
> Maybe longline and some "ready steady" next time.
> 
> I am really worried that there is something sinister going on with him. His weight loss and muscle mass loss just within 10 days is really extreme . We're back off to the vet tomorrow anyway, so I'll ask.


Oh Dogless - Im so sorry.

I cant even imagine what your going through at the moment.

Fingers crossed its all the effects of the steroids 

Best of luck at the vets tomorrow - I will be watching for an update x x


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh no poor you Twiggy, on the bright side, you surely deserve some good news from the specialist 

So pleased to hear Kilo is still improving. ETA took so long writing that I missed your post, I hope it is just the effects of the illness, rest and steroids.

LO shame about the harness, the short walk abortion sounds like the best plan, what a nightmare.

MS - hope your Grannie feels better soon and good luck with training yourself!!! I know exactly how you feel, I would love to try training classes again but my heart leaps at just typing it.

Sharloid I am sure the work you have put in will come good, these setbacks are very frustrating and upsetting I know.

L&M - heres hoping Millie continues to behave outside the crate, sorry you had frustrating walks too, sometimes it is best to just admit defeat and give up.

Dimwit hope the vets went ...... well as well as could be expected 

Nikki - I was going to say I am sure it was a one off but it probably wont be , these things will happen with even the seemingly best behaved, placid dogs, keeping an eye on him and other dogs body language is all we can do unless you want to avoid all meetings, or leash up if on lead dogs approach.

Dief no advice for you I am afraid although I think Dogless methods of more and more and more impulse control exercises is the solution, I suspect, 

I didnt do last nights walk but hubby thinks she is improving all the time, she was very good for him, they encountered two GSD, a long way off but she didnt even posture at them just kept an eye out and carried on sniffing.

This mornings pavement walk was ok, we saw a collie which she knew was about before I did, but no barking from her, we heard the cairns barking in the garden which got her up on her toes but then a grey appeared round the corner, she did have a bit of a grump but moved on happily, we saw it again and the same happened just a mild grrr and all more a build up from the others I think.

Then a motorbike came past, very fast  and I realised she hasn't been exposed to them enough!!!! She then decided she had to bark at every vehicle so we stood on the grass verge until she realised she was being a pillock and normal service was resumed and she settled very nicely.

The last week or so she really has changed, in some ways she is being brilliant in others she is more antsy. 

Pavement walks are odd, boring for me in a way, I would much rather be out in the fields, as I suspect would she, but on the other hand they are full of sights and smells as well, they can be frustrating or satisfying for me but I do feel fulfilled in away I never did with Rory mostly due to the interaction, the observation and the pleasure when all the training comes together.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I do feel fulfilled in away I never did with Rory mostly due to the interaction, the observation and the pleasure when all the training comes together.


That is lovely, makes me feel all misty eyed .


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless -* I hope you're wrong. Try not to overthink it until you've seen your vet tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless -* I hope you're wrong. Try not to overthink it until you've seen your vet tomorrow.


Yes, I hope I'm just being stupid. May go this afternoon - they are all drop in clinics so not a problem, he did say earlier if I was worried.


----------



## moonviolet

Forgive my absence.

Here's potted catch up 

A visit from my parents broke the beagles wag for a few days so we had to cancel our first planned " best trick" class at a local show  but I think it was for the best as her buddy Arnie was going and they greet each other with a wag off.

There was a minor relapse after class on Tuesday, which itself went well. 

Yesterday our wee visitor came over.... for an hour which became 2 and a half.... each week it gets longer... it's a bit of a liberty so thats a pain.

This morning fab pavement/ park/ bridleway/ canal walk.

Best wishes to everyone.

Ginge i love that you are enjoying your relationship with the ninja


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Dogless I am so sorry to hear your update, poor Kilo. Whatever you decide to do re the vets, I'm thinking of you both. My grandmother's dogs were diabetic and it's a huge shock to see the rapid change in their appearance and it's hard enough on steroids as a human but for a dog it must be tough. Maybe make a few notes on what you want to know before you go, I tend to walk into the surgery and get struck with brain fog.


----------



## Pezant

Oh Dogless that must be so stressful for you  How awful to see him looking so old like that. MollySmith's idea of notes before you go in might be good, just so you know you've told the vet everything that might help. I really hope it's nothing serious. Poor Kilo.


----------



## Sarah1983

Apologies for my absence and for not even attempting to catch up with this thread. I've spent the last 10 days in hospital after being diagnosed with diabetes. Apparently it's standard procedure out here to send you to hospital and get blood sugar stabilised but it's not been a fun 10 days. I've got about a million holes poked in me and have been woken up through the night to have more holes poked in me. But I'm home now and everything is under control. Kind of. Bit of trial and error at first getting the insulin level right along with my activity coz of course in hospital I'm more or less sat around all day while here I have Spen to walk and the housework to do and stuff.

Poor Spencer has coped okay but he's started to get a bit stir crazy the last couple of days apparently. Poor buggers spent all morning in his crate while hubby worked, was let out for an hour at lunch, back in the crate for 4 hours while hubby came to see me then out in the evening. Obviously if it had been long term we'd have had to look into a dog walker or something but I'm home now so things can get back to normal. He was overjoyed to see me and now I can't move without him leaping up to follow me wherever I'm going.

Hope all sick dogs are feeling better very soon, congratulations to all those who deserve them and commiserations and hugs to those who need them.


----------



## Dogless

Welcome back to the WAYWO fold Sarah - hope that you remain well controlled. Bet Spendog's over the moon that you've reappeared .


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## GingerRogers

Welcome back Sarah. We were worried about you, glad they are sorting things out. Normal service resumes for Spen then  bet he is relieved.


----------



## moonviolet

Welcome back Sarah. Hope your feelign of well being improves as you get the conidition under control and we are lavished with many new Sarah and spendog adventures  You were both missed.


----------



## Sarah1983

Thanks ladies. Would have been nice to be told it was standard procedure when the doctor rushed me off to hospital, had me thinking all sorts of awful things!


----------



## Dimwit

Welcome back Sarah, hope the diabetes stays under control.

Dogless - hopefully it is just an effect of the steroids, rather than anything more serious.

Just got back from the vets which went as well as could be expected. He did seem a bit better in the waiting room (probably because we were the only people in there). He then refused point blank to go with the vet so I had to take him into the consulting room and then leave him, but at least he didn't growl/bark at her so maybe a hint of progress? 
I really need to work on his fear of people and being handled but it's so difficult as I don't know anyone who would volunteer to help

He also has a lump on his leg which is either an insect bite or histiocytoma, so I have to keep an eye on it and hope we don't need another vet visit (I think the vet is probably praying that it doesn't come to that either).


----------



## Twiggy

Welcome back Sarah. We've all missed you. So sorry you've been hospitalised but hope everything is under control now.


----------



## Dogless

Vets not good, back there in the morning. 

Took Rudi for a walk, met Dizzy and human, she cried because she'd had a bad day, I cried because I had. Thank goodness we didn't see anyone - we must have looked a right pair!! Rudi was very well behaved, good boy .


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Welcome back Sarah, hope the diabetes stays under control.
> 
> Dogless - hopefully it is just an effect of the steroids, rather than anything more serious.
> 
> Just got back from the vets which went as well as could be expected. He did seem a bit better in the waiting room (probably because we were the only people in there). He then refused point blank to go with the vet so I had to take him into the consulting room and then leave him, but at least he didn't growl/bark at her so maybe a hint of progress?
> I really need to work on his fear of people and being handled but it's so difficult as I don't know anyone who would volunteer to help
> 
> He also has a lump on his leg which is either an insect bite or histiocytoma, so I have to keep an eye on it and hope we don't need another vet visit (I think the vet is probably praying that it doesn't come to that either).


Why did he need to go to the vets?

I might have missed some posts what with vets most of Tuesday, instructing yesterday and from 2.00 until 7.30pm today.


----------



## Nicki85

Dogless said:


> Vets not good, back there in the morning.
> 
> Took Rudi for a walk, met Dizzy and human, she cried because she'd had a bad day, I cried because I had. Thank goodness we didn't see anyone - we must have looked a right pair!! Rudi was very well behaved, good boy .


Sorry to hear that Dogless, I hope he is OK  Poor boy and poor you too  Sending thoughts and vibes your way.


----------



## Dimwit

Nothing serious, just his KC vaccine.

Dogless - so sorry you have to go back tomorrow, it must be so worrying for you. Fingers crossed and sending lots of get well soon wishes to your lovely boy.


----------



## Nicki85

Gah, my brain is in overdrive after learning all about blind crosses... Luckily I have a very willing Rusty that is very patient and understands exactly what i'm after even if i'm waving my arms around like a crazy person. All the crosses I have done before (front and rear) means that you can keep your eye on where your dog is. Blind crosses are well, blind! So strange, you really have to trust that your dog will be where you expect them to be.

Anyhow, between goose watching (and duck watching) we managed to do pretty well  I was pleased! And pleased with myself which is unusual...


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Vets not good, back there in the morning.
> 
> Took Rudi for a walk, met Dizzy and human, she cried because she'd had a bad day, I cried because I had. Thank goodness we didn't see anyone - we must have looked a right pair!! Rudi was very well behaved, good boy .


Oh no Dogless. I'm so sorry for you both.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh no Dogless. I'm so sorry for you both.


This is how it went http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-heal...-responsive-meningitis-25.html#post1062931739

If anything rings any bells, please say. I'm hoping I'll look like a prat for making a fuss and something really simple is wrong like a chicken allergy.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> This is how it went http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-heal...-responsive-meningitis-25.html#post1062931739
> 
> If anything rings any bells, please say. I'm hoping I'll look like a prat for making a fuss and something really simple is wrong like a chicken allergy.


No I'm sorry nothing is ringing any bells and I would be frantically asking Sled Dog Hotel, who I see is already on the case.

Oh Dogless I wish there was something I could do or say that would help you right now.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> No I'm sorry nothing is ringing any bells and I would be frantically asking Sled Dog Hotel, who I see is already on the case.
> 
> Oh Dogless I wish there was something I could do or say that would help you right now.


Yes, SDH has been fabulous as ever. I'm reading around all that she's mentioned. Will print some stuff off and take with me.


----------



## IrishEyes

How is Kilo this morning Dogless?

Glad to hear that you are home and reunited with Spencer Sarah! My OH was diagnosed with Diabetes type 2 after visiting hospital for an eye appointment. He says he didn't have it before his appointment so naturally he blames the hospital for giving it to him 

Horace and I went for a walk yesterday afternoon but I have this habit of being drawn to go explore unknown paths especially if they look a little wild and unkept, we ended up lost... perhaps lost is the wrong word, I just wasn't sure where we were! I did eventually find my way home and it was actually a nice walk, and the sun came out for us which is always a bonus!


----------



## Dogless

IE - "geographically embarrassed" .

Kilo is OK, His first blood results (biochem) are normal and he is a very healthy fella in that respect it seems. Getting rung with haematology results later. Vet is exploring the possibility of an interaction between Suprelorin and the prednisolone. Cocker spaniel screaming to meet all dogs with excitement and being taken round all dogs to greet them was given the big feck off treatment - I was sat in the corner with Kilo facing me and had told them to keep him away but they couldn't hold him. Spaniel then kept barking and they were sent to wait outside. Then a working dog handler came in and we had a refreshing conversation about onlead meets being awful and not all dogs wanting to be friends.

I helped restrain him to have his blood taken. He was not happy with it at all. The vet said he was a "very angry boy" today :yikes:. He was fine with the needle initially but then the vet couldn't get blood so got the clippers out, he hated the clippers but calmed down again once the needle was in. Must have been the noise.

Took Rudi for a walk first, he was a little angel. We didn't do much I'm ashamed to say, we just walked around the fields.


----------



## diefenbaker

Steady yourselves ladies of WAYWO... and make sure you are sitting down in case you faint.. it has arrived..


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Steady yourselves ladies of WAYWO... and make sure you are sitting down in case you faint.. it has arrived..


Heff himself will be quaking in his boots :laugh:.


----------



## IrishEyes

Dogless said:


> IE - "geographically embarrassed" .
> 
> Kilo is OK, His first blood results (biochem) are normal and he is a very healthy fella in that respect it seems. Getting rung with haematology results later. Vet is exploring the possibility of an interaction between Suprelorin and the prednisolone. Cocker spaniel screaming to meet all dogs with excitement and being taken round all dogs to greet them was given the big feck off treatment - I was sat in the corner with Kilo facing me and had told them to keep him away but they couldn't hold him. Spaniel then kept barking and they were sent to wait outside. Then a working dog handler came in and we had a refreshing conversation about onlead meets being awful and not all dogs wanting to be friends.
> 
> I helped restrain him to have his blood taken. He was not happy with it at all. The vet said he was a "very angry boy" today :yikes:. He was fine with the needle initially but then the vet couldn't get blood so got the clippers out, he hated the clippers but calmed down again once the needle was in. Must have been the noise.
> 
> Took Rudi for a walk first, he was a little angel. We didn't do much I'm ashamed to say, we just walked around the fields.


Lol yes, I like your description!

At least now your first test results have come back as normal so in that respect it must be reassuring. I'm sorry to hear that the cocker spaniel upset Kilo but your description of Kilo's reaction had me laughing! How could they not hold a cocker spaniel back?!
I imagine it was the noise of the clippers that upset Kilo.

Sometimes just a walk is exactly what the doctor ordered Dogless.


----------



## IrishEyes

diefenbaker said:


> Steady yourselves ladies of WAYWO... and make sure you are sitting down in case you faint.. it has arrived..


Diefenbaker, what a stunning looking dog! I've only ever seen your avatar picture..


----------



## purpleskyes

Hudson had training class last night which this week included having all the dogs in a circle and then each person in turn has to take their dog and weave through all the others dogs without getting distracted.

One of the other exercises was having all dogs and owners lined up along the side of the hall. The trainer then took the dog while the owner walked to the other end called the dog and the trainer let him off the lead and they had to go to the owner without being distracted by the dogs on the side including a very bouncy poodle puppy.

Beyond pleased to say Hudson did both perfectly! I think the test date for the bronze is towards the end of next month. At this rate he should hopefully pass first time and then it's on to the sliver.


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> Steady yourselves ladies of WAYWO... and make sure you are sitting down in case you faint.. it has arrived..


Loving the scatter cushions  stud!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy, how is Leafy?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> IE - "geographically embarrassed" .
> 
> Kilo is OK, His first blood results (biochem) are normal and he is a very healthy fella in that respect it seems. Getting rung with haematology results later. Vet is exploring the possibility of an interaction between Suprelorin and the prednisolone. Cocker spaniel screaming to meet all dogs with excitement and being taken round all dogs to greet them was given the big feck off treatment - I was sat in the corner with Kilo facing me and had told them to keep him away but they couldn't hold him. Spaniel then kept barking and they were sent to wait outside. Then a working dog handler came in and we had a refreshing conversation about onlead meets being awful and not all dogs wanting to be friends.
> 
> I helped restrain him to have his blood taken. He was not happy with it at all. The vet said he was a "very angry boy" today :yikes:. He was fine with the needle initially but then the vet couldn't get blood so got the clippers out, he hated the clippers but calmed down again once the needle was in. Must have been the noise.
> 
> Took Rudi for a walk first, he was a little angel. We didn't do much I'm ashamed to say, we just walked around the fields.


It sounds as if your vet is on the ball and at least that's good news on the biochem blood results. Fingers crossed for the haematology later today.

I expect Kilo was an 'angry' boy today, as was Tremor in the vets this morning and was threatening anyone to touch her. You can't blame them given the circumstances.

Her plates have apparently been sent off to the orthopaedic specialist so I'm not quite sure now when I'll get the results. She's back there on Monday for more laser treatment in any case.

We all here for you Dogless. You know that.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It sounds as if your vet is on the ball and at least that's good news on the biochem blood results. Fingers crossed for the haematology later today.
> 
> I expect Kilo was an 'angry' boy today, as was Tremor in the vets this morning and was threatening anyone to touch her. You can't blame them given the circumstances.
> 
> Her plates have apparently been sent off to the orthopaedic specialist so I'm not quite sure now when I'll get the results. She's back there on Monday for more laser treatment in any case.
> 
> We all here for you Dogless. You know that.


Yes, he didn't like his head touched again and hated the clippers! He doesn't want anyone near him really, dog or person. Or at least not to be touched. Got to love the receptionist though!

Glad the plates have been sent off, we are here for you too Grannie.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, he didn't like his head touched again and hated the clippers! He doesn't want anyone near him really, dog or person. Or at least not to be touched. Got to love the receptionist though!
> 
> Glad the plates have been sent off, we are here for you too Grannie.


The massive difference is I sort of know what the problem is with Tremor and it certainly isn't life threatening whereas, at the moment, with Kilo it's the unknown that is so scary and worrying.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> The massive difference is I sort of know what the problem is with Tremor and it certainly isn't life threatening whereas, at the moment, with Kilo it's the unknown that is so scary and worrying.


Sounds odd, but the shaved patch has just made me realise quite how short his coat is!! Hope it is just an abnormal steroid reaction or interaction. At least that can be sorted hopefully. This vet's nowhere near as 'doom and gloom' as yesterday's. Felt like I was about to lose the big ginger fella!


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Sounds odd, but the shaved patch has just made me realise quite how short his coat is!! Hope it is just an abnormal steroid reaction or interaction. At least that can be sorted hopefully. *This vet's nowhere near as 'doom and gloom' as yesterday's*. Felt like I was about to lose the big ginger fella!


Thank goodness for that! It's good that his biochemistry has come back clear, and fingers crossed for the haematology.
I am not surprised that he wasn't happy at the vets either - sounds like there was a lot going on especially when he is not feeling well anyway.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Sounds odd, but the shaved patch has just made me realise quite how short his coat is!! Hope it is just an abnormal steroid reaction or interaction. At least that can be sorted hopefully. This vet's nowhere near as 'doom and gloom' as yesterday's. Felt like I was about to lose the big ginger fella!


Try and stay positive. Most vets like to tell you the worst case scenario and frighten the life out of you.

It's only a couple of years ago that my vet was convinced Leafy had the worse case scenario mange when I took her in with a burnt and seeping mass on her foot. I did tell him husband had been using weed killer the previous day and has no dog sense..!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Try and stay positive. Most vets like to tell you the worst case scenario and frighten the life out of you.
> 
> It's only a couple of years ago that my vet was convinced Leafy had the worse case scenario mange when I took her in with a burnt and seeping mass on her foot. I did tell him husband had been using weed killer the previous day and has no dog sense..!!


Seems so, I really got myself upset last night .

Oh, a boast Grannie as this is a training thread....the vets last night and today said "Well, he's very well trained". Only because he stood and then waited when told . And people in the waiting room with mental dogs always tell me how good he is too . Well, apart from the spaniel owners today - they said "Jesus!!" when he barked. It was only one growl, foliowed by a high pitched bark. I felt like saying "That was nothing" :devil:.


----------



## Dogless

Lazy copy / paste from other thread...


Well....BLOODS ALL NORMAL!!!! Vet rang the companies who manufacture Suprelorin and prednisolone and spoke to them at length, a Suprelorin interaction can be ruled out. The pred manufacturer said that they had had reports of a few dogs with an extremely sensitive response to them which fit Kilo's symptoms. So...we have made the call to wean them down and stop sooner rather than later and see what happens. Go back next week.

Sod's Law says that he's been brighter and pottering about more anyway .

What a roller coaster, I'm done in!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Well....BLOODS ALL NORMAL!!!!


Good boy Kilo :thumbsup:


----------



## cheesecake

With the harness, she just doesnt like it coming off ,i think its everything she doesnt like. I must admit ,it does seem a bit tight on her now. Its one where a bit goes through her head and another bit she has to step her leg into as it only has one buckle.
Trainer said to get one which has 2 buckles each side ,so she doesnt have to step into it.
I ordered a fleece one off e bay ,tried it one bit the design didnt sit on her well so im sending it back. Hopefully will go to 'pets at home' and actually fit one on her there.

Training- well yesterday was amazing!! I had cheese and meat treats, it was sunny and i did a full loop with her! ( down the main road which is busy with traffic then past the park and back thro a quieter road 

Today -not so good. We got half way down the busy road ,i think a passing car with a barking dog in it spooked her and she panicked and she scrambled to go back home  Also i found out that my brother took her on thebeach today ,trainer said for him not to,so not pleased with him.


----------



## GingerRogers

Cheesecake - dont panic, sounds like you are doing well, you will have set backs, lots of them probably, we do!

My little one was terribly spooked by a dog in a car. It was a great dane in a tiny micra. I was spooked too TBF the whole car moved and barked. I honestly think that contributed a lot to her nervousness of stuff, it was just the straw that broke

Yeay for Dogless & Kilo so pleased, again, I did say on your other thread but thought it would look weird if I just ignored you here!!!


----------



## Dogless

cheesecake said:


> With the harness, she just doesnt like it coming off ,i think its everything she doesnt like. I must admit ,it does seem a bit tight on her now. Its one where a bit goes through her head and another bit she has to step her leg into as it only has one buckle.
> Trainer said to get one which has 2 buckles each side ,so she doesnt have to step into it.
> I ordered a fleece one off e bay ,tried it one bit the design didnt sit on her well so im sending it back. Hopefully will go to 'pets at home' and actually fit one on her there.
> 
> Training- well yesterday was amazing!! I had cheese and meat treats, it was sunny and i did a full loop with her! ( down the main road which is busy with traffic then past the park and back thro a quieter road
> 
> Today -not so good. We got half way down the busy road ,i think a passing car with a barking dog in it spooked her and she panicked and she scrambled to go back home  *Also i found out that my brother took her on thebeach today ,trainer said for him not to,so not pleased with him.*


It's always the men that seem to bugger things up* on here - common theme :frown2:.

Don't worry about a small set back, as long as overall progress is moving along.

*Sorry Diefenbaker and Werehorse's OH .


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> It's always the men that seem to bugger things up* on here - common theme :frown2:.
> 
> *Sorry Diefenbaker and Werehorse's OH .


I have never even met Werehorse's OH let alone.... oh... my mistake... I see what you mean now.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I have never even met Werehorse's OH let alone.... oh... my mistake... I see what you mean now.


Skeletons...closets....:yikes:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Lazy copy / paste from other thread...
> 
> Well....BLOODS ALL NORMAL!!!! Vet rang the companies who manufacture Suprelorin and prednisolone and spoke to them at length, a Suprelorin interaction can be ruled out. The pred manufacturer said that they had had reports of a few dogs with an extremely sensitive response to them which fit Kilo's symptoms. So...we have made the call to wean them down and stop sooner rather than later and see what happens. Go back next week.
> 
> Sod's Law says that he's been brighter and pottering about more anyway .
> 
> What a roller coaster, I'm done in!


Phew...!!

Bl....y hell Dogless go and get youself a bottle of something extremely alcoholic tonight....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Phew...!!
> 
> Bl....y hell Dogless go and get youself a bottle of something extremely alcoholic tonight....


Been. It's in the fridge!!! I'll be asleep after one glass because I certainly didn't get any last night!! Thank you Grannie for such good support.

ETA: No more prednisolone for Kilo after all this!!


----------



## BessieDog

If anyone deserves a drink, you do, Dogless! 

Bess has been a nightmare today - on the go all day. Trying to 'help' OH put together a cupboard this morning (until I took her out - the air was too blue for someone of her tender age). Had a longer walk than normal, came back and she was crazy. She's only just stopped throwing tennis balls at me and crashed. I think whatever it was making her off colour has worked its way through now. I'm nervous about using Stronghold again - she basically hasn't eaten more than 100g a day since I used that a week ago. Could be coincidence 

We've got two shows this weekend, and no groomer to rescue us so I'm just going to have to be firmer with her. Or if that doesn't work tomorrow have a double gin before I go in the ring on Sunday! 

Have a good weekend all - and hope any sick, hurt, misbehaving doggies do better soon.


----------



## Dogless

Good luck Bessiedog this weekend .

Just been for a walk with Rudi, beautiful evening. He knows I feel better because he swaggered down the street like he was on a Milan catwalk, showcasing the latest in ginger suits and over sized ears . Had a lovely walk and play, he was really zoomy and happy, bless him. There were loads of screaming kids out, someone one street down having a BBQ at the front of their house - why???  - with lots of music, drunk folk etc and Rudi just trotted on through with his tail wagging away.

Kilo brighter so considered taking him out for a potter later when at least some of the kids have gone in, but I'm leaving it to see how he is tomorrow. They've had their snack and the BW's snoozing away now anyway.


----------



## Dimwit

Good luck this weekend BessieDog, though gin is always a good idea

Dogless, that sounds like a great walk, and good to hear that Kilo is doing better as well.

The dimwit was also a very good boy on our walk tonight, we did lots of LLW practise round the streets, not very interesting for him but his arch nemesis was in the recreation ground we usually go to so we didn't hang around.
But I think it did him good, and he met lots of scary people and children and pushchairs and just kept trotting along, and then someone complimented me on how well behaved he was

Either I am going to have to stop calling him dimwit or he really is planning something :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> If anyone deserves a drink, you do, Dogless!
> 
> Bess has been a nightmare today - on the go all day. Trying to 'help' OH put together a cupboard this morning (until I took her out - the air was too blue for someone of her tender age). Had a longer walk than normal, came back and she was crazy. She's only just stopped throwing tennis balls at me and crashed. I think whatever it was making her off colour has worked its way through now. I'm nervous about using Stronghold again - she basically hasn't eaten more than 100g a day since I used that a week ago. Could be coincidence
> 
> We've got two shows this weekend, and no groomer to rescue us so I'm just going to have to be firmer with her. Or if that doesn't work tomorrow have a double gin before I go in the ring on Sunday!
> 
> Have a good weekend all - and hope any sick, hurt, misbehaving doggies do better soon.


I only use a natural spray on Quiver. She has had a reaction to Stronghold, etc.


----------



## moonviolet

Good luck BD
Hope you had a good evening Dogless and Kilo is improving

Well done DW what a little star with all those scary things on his pavement walk.

Hang in there Cheesecake, it's often 2 steps forward one step back.

IE i like the sound of your unplpanned adventure routes 

Dief that bed looks fabulous.

We had a bit of an incident on our wlak yesterday evening. I spotted the guy who's 4 dogs ( 1 gsd 2 bc and a jrt) tend to charge over barkign their heads off. I slipped Tink's lead on and turned to avoid only for them to spot us adn charge. Tink took her position between my feet and did a " don't kill me " pee. when the GSD lunged at us giving it large ( all bluster but still unpleasant) he shouts at the dogs they began to return but they dont' make it back to him before the GSD and the JRT are back in full lunging voice. This time he shouts and tell me to kick the GSD??!! I tell him i'm not kicking his dog but he might like to try controlling it. He stomps off.

Now the the good bit after a series of very intense shake offs. Tink was completely fine  

I had purposely gone there 2 hours after the lastest time i'd seen him there and he had a second GSD on lead. I do hope i dont' encounter them again anytime soon.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Been. It's in the fridge!!! I'll be asleep after one glass because I certainly didn't get any last night!! Thank you Grannie for such good support.
> 
> ETA: No more *prednisolone* for Kilo after all this!!


I am so pleased to hear about Kilo, that's wonderful news. Not sure how alarmed I am, that's the same drug I took for ivf...! :yikes: In which case even more sympathies to him. Honestly, know that name anywhere as it took me ages to learn how to spell it!

Not much news here - didn't get the job I applied for and my mum is driving me mad about something. Gran is much better thank goodness, I'm going sneak into her house today to clean up and do some shopping as she's gone over to my parents (such is her independence we cannot hoover for her or tidy if she's there!).

Molly's recall is going downhill again. Same story as last summer when the OH got more bothered by lost balls than the lost dog, I cannot believe we're having this conversation again. Having a quick read through Total Recall and we've decided to avoid the area of the walk where she chases birds, play a recall game with the tennis balls in the enclosed field and start to bring out the whistle again - back to basics! I don't want her to be belting off after sea gulls in Norfolk next month.

I'm also thinking about contacting the gun dog trainer I heard about and doing a couple of one to one's with him, so we can control and direct her instincts.

Sorry not to catch up properly, I will attempt to later


----------



## Dogless

mv - I can't 'like' your post because of what happened, but I am really impressed with Tink for her swift recovery.

MS - don't be alarmed about prednisolone, it's a very, very common drug indeed prescribed for all sorts of things. Hope Molly's recall work is successful!

Kilo is already much better on the much lower dose of prednisolone, pretty bright this morning. He wanted a walk so I took him. He was as wound tight as I have ever seen him for the first two minutes  - alternated between pretty much scuttling along on his belly and being up on his toes looking wildly around . Did lots of 'touch' and 'hide' and just got off the estate and across the car park ASAP and he settled nicely. We then plodded the rest of the walk, but I think he enjoyed it, had some sniffs, lunged for poo :thumbdown: and walked back home very slowly and very nicely indeed.

Rudi's walk was nice, we played lots of games, he walked well, ignored dogs, cats, people, very good again :thumbsup:. It's amazing quite how different these two dogs are, poles apart.

As Kilo and I went across the car park, a load of people got out of a minibus so
I gave them a really massive wide berth. A man still made a really fast approach saying "Excuse me, is that a Ridgeback?" - so I hurried on and smiled and said "Yes, it is" which was rude but I wasn't stopping even when he carried on talking . Quite honestly though if you see a dog up on his toes, prancing about with a handler working her socks off to keep the dog engaged with her and not focussing on anything to react to, making a detour to avoid people WHY approach them? .


----------



## Twiggy

MV - Sorry the idiot owner spoilt your walk but good little Tink for recovery so quickly.

MS - Sorry you didn't get the job and are back to basics on the recall with Molly.

Dogless - Really pleased Kilo seems brighter.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> MV - Sorry the idiot owner spoilt your walk but good little Tink for recovery so quickly.
> 
> MS - Sorry you didn't get the job and are back to basics on the recall with Molly.
> 
> Dogless - Really pleased Kilo seems brighter.


Is Leafy still OK? Did you stick to the AG?


----------



## BessieDog

MV - sounds like Tink coped well in the circumstances!

Twiggy - sorry about the job. I can sympathise over the bird chasing. Please let me know the answer when you have it. 

Dogless - strange how you pr boys have such different characters! Glad it seems another step forward for Kilo! :thumbsup:

Bess was good at the show. We got there too early so I'm in OH's bad books as lots of hanging around. There were big grassy areas though where I played our game with Bess - she runs to the end of the flexi at full gallop, but before she gets there I turn and run in the other direction calling 'this way'. Really gives her (and me) a good run so it tired her out a little. 

She was 90% good - just a couple of disagreements with me in the ring but I managed to get her back on track. We came first in junior, but were the only dog.  and fifth (last) in graduate. Now if she starts behaving more I can concentrate on showing her at her best - to date I've just concentrated on getting her to run on four legs! 

The change today was I still got ringside advice, but this time on how to stand her better, and not on how I need to be firmer with her. Also got a couple of comments from people about how she was so improved (they'd seen me at other shows) so that made me chuffed. 

We'll have to see whether it was a fluke at tomorrow's show!


----------



## Pezant

Fantastic update BessieDog! So glad she's improving in the ring for you. Was it an open or a champ you were at today?


----------



## BessieDog

Pezant said:


> Fantastic update BessieDog! So glad she's improving in the ring for you. Was it an open or a champ you were at today?


Open - and thank you!

I'd love to have got a first at a championship show!


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> MV - Sorry the idiot owner spoilt your walk but good little Tink for recovery so quickly.
> 
> MS - Sorry you didn't get the job and are back to basics on the recall with Molly.
> 
> Dogless - Really pleased Kilo seems brighter.


Thank you - how are is Tremor and Leafy? I've ordered some more Pooch and Mutt Biotics for Molly has she's had an upset tum (we ran out) and thought of you and yours.

Bessie - well done

MV- what an idiot person, you think telling them once would be enough but well done Tinks.

Dogless - they are so different aren't they, I hope some of Rudi's laid back attitude will rub off onto Kilo, I imagine his first big walk for a while was a huge source of excitement.

We've been on a new walk today. I had every intention of taking her to the big field on the Gog Magog downs and do some ball work to improve the recall - at least get her back to doing distant downs - but it's rammed full of people preparing for a fun run tomorrow. They didn't say go away but they were not very good at shutting the gates so we went to this new walk by a lode. It's got water one side and a fenced off field so when Molly chased a duck there was no way she could get anywhere unless she jumped into the water. Since she hates it, not a chance. I can see the OH's concern about recall so we've emailed a gun dog trainer in Cambridge for 1-2-1 advice but is a nice walk and we'll go tomorrow. She was very good passing a GSD that hates other dogs and was swimming and we did some lead work past horses and ducks in the pond - she was A*.

I'll post some pics later


----------



## Pezant

Not a huge amount going on with Henry today - mum took him for a loooong walk earlier which pretty much broke him p) and said he was very good on recall when alone, but as soon as another puppy turned up, he turned deaf! Really must work on that...

He's now having great fun wandering round the garden investigating everything (and I know I'm biased, but he just trots _so_ nicely with all his feathering). Irritatingly, the brat who lives behind us has taken to passive-aggressively echoing all of the commands I give him and then laughing when I'm trying to make Henry sit and stay in the garden, which is vastly off putting. Very tempted to fling some poo over the fence in retaliation, but I'm a nicer person than that. Just.


----------



## BessieDog

Pezant said:


> Not a huge amount going on with Henry today - mum took him for a loooong walk earlier which pretty much broke him p) and said he was very good on recall when alone, but as soon as another puppy turned up, he turned deaf! Really must work on that...
> 
> He's now having great fun wandering round the garden investigating everything (and I know I'm biased, but he just trots _so_ nicely with all his feathering). Irritatingly, the brat who lives behind us has taken to passive-aggressively echoing all of the commands I give him and then laughing when I'm trying to make Henry sit and stay in the garden, which is vastly off putting. Very tempted to fling some poo over the fence in retaliation, but I'm a nicer person than that. Just.


Don't you just wish they could trot in a show ring like they do round the garden?


----------



## Pezant

BessieDog said:


> Don't you just wish they could trot in a show ring like they do round the garden?


Hahahaha, all the time!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Is Leafy still OK? Did you stick to the AG?


Ssssh - Touching wood as I type yes Leafy is OK at the moment and yes she's back on AG Sensitive....

Tremor is as sound as a bell at the moment and is getting increasingly bored and frustrated, with another 9 days to go of lead walking only, no playing with Holly and no training. We've got to see it through though.

Holly had a great training session for about 20 minutes this afternoon. Whether it's because she only has me to play with?.......


----------



## Dogless

So pleased you've had a better day Twiggy .

Had a good walk with Rudi tonight, he zoomed through all the deep flooded bits on one of the fields. Much chaos! 

Kilo wanted to come out but I didn't take him as he went this morning, need to just let him recover a little more I think. He is brighter still this evening .


----------



## sharloid

We went to a fun dog show today and after Broder's outburst at ring craft on Wednesday I was dreading it. He had his head collar on at first but he was doing so well that we took it off and even entered him into a couple of classes. 

He got placed in 'most lovable rogue'! I can't believe he was paying attention to the OH who was handling him even when there were lots of other dogs less than a meter away. I was grinning like an idiot and he has a lovely orange rosette. 

Not to forgot Kindra, she was a little star too and won two rosettes. One for the 'pedigree puppy' class where we had to stand and present/run properly and one for the fun class 'cutest puppy'.

I'm so proud of my two little angels. Broder only started to get bored and try to run off after we had been there standing around for 5 hours.


----------



## cheesecake

yesterday was good again.

My brother didnt take her out.

I came home from work and took her straight out, armed with cheese and meat treats. We walk the same route ,as trainer told us to. 

Jessie was fine but sort of half way thro when we go thro the quieter street she becomes quite edgy and even loses interest in treats i throw down for her . 

If she sees people up ahead she will hesitate ,tail goes down and she will hurry along,also someone shutting their car door makes her jumpy too. 

but overall slowly getting there.

getting her a new harness today


----------



## Dogless

cheesecake - Sounds as if you're doing well, glad your brother's behaving himself :lol:. Your username makes me hungry BTW :lol:.

Today I am bloody ecstatic, I took the *real* Kilo for a walk today. A thin, tired version, but still Kilo . Had a brainwave :idea: that I should have had yesterday. It occurred to me that with his neck having been so sore and mucked about with and manipulated by the vet so much that the reason he might have been so unhappy yesterday was his lead attached to his collar, even though he wasn't pulling. The lead is a fairly heavy one too.

I put his Mekuti harness on today that we use for running and he was really happy :thumbsup:. Went to the top fields and let him offlead. He was hell bent on scavenging so I got a toy out and we did some training. Some "ready steady" (just a bit) and just obedience and some playing tuggy. Then we walked home at the slowest pace in the world, bless him. Even passed two bulldogs he's wary of in a relaxed manner as one of them was the one who always runs up and bothers him. The bulldog, by some miracle, was on a lead .

Took Rudi out and he was a really good boy again. He made me play "Are you recalling me or what????" as ever .


----------



## BessieDog

Such good news about Kilo. Good idea to try the harness! 

Not quite such a good show today - came last in both classes (2nd and 3rd), but the ISs were on first so Bess didn't have time to calm down first. She stood ok, but I knew she was banana shaped, but as she was still didn't want to mess about with her to much. She was then good up until the final stand when she flipped. The judge came over to tell her to behave but quickly walked away when she saw the state she was in. When Bess flips - she flips!! 

Good news was I calmed her down fairly quickly, but the damage had been done. Now panicking about the champ show on the 31st. Lots of practicing needed between now and then!


----------



## Dogless

Well, this evening I took Rudi out with Diz for an hour and a half or so, he behaved well :thumbsup:.

Then took Kilo for a slow potter - he does plod on steroids love him - and he was MUCH happier in his harness again so it must be the lead on his collar that makes him unhappy at present. I am thinking of switching both boys to harnesses for walking, in my illogical mind that makes it feel like a step backwards somehow, think because Kilo was walked in a harness when he had his awful traffic lunging stage and it felt like a huge step to conquer that and have him walking really nicely on a collar and lead .

I HATE living here for all the poo everywhere. Kilo got 3 mouthfuls in different places tonight just when I stopped to let him sniff, even when I had had a quick scan first :mad5::incazzato:.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- Great news about Kilo 

BessieDog- I`m sure Bess will be fine at the champ show, just keep practicing 

Did some recall practice in the park today, very good other than when I shout him he comes flying towards me- then dodges right past me so I can`t grab him  I don`t know why I`ve only ever called him to reward him and 9/10 he is rewarded then released again. Otherwise I usually go and get him. But we are getting there! Biting is still happening but is slowly improving. 
Had to make a decision about Roger Rabbit today as well


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Dogless- Great news about Kilo
> 
> BessieDog- I`m sure Bess will be fine at the champ show, just keep practicing
> 
> Did some recall practice in the park today, very good other than when I shout him he comes flying towards me- then dodges right past me so I can`t grab him  I don`t know why I`ve only ever called him to reward him and 9/10 he is rewarded then released again. Otherwise I usually go and get him. But we are getting there! Biting is still happening but is slowly improving.
> Had to make a decision about Roger Rabbit today as well


I'm sorry you had a hard decision to make . Could you try perhaps running from him excitedly with a toy Bailey loves so that he chases you rather than dodges you - have a game of tuggy or whatever he likes perhpas, take his collar and let him go again? Something like that? Randomly put his lead on and off, just one big, fun game?

You'll look like a loon :scared:.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> I'm sorry you had a hard decision to make . Could you try perhaps running from him excitedly with a toy Bailey loves so that he chases you rather than dodges you - have a game of tuggy or whatever he likes perhpas, take his collar and let him go again? Something like that? Randomly put his lead on and off, just one big, fun game?
> 
> You'll look like a loon :scared:.


I already lost my dignity this afternoon jumping up and down screaming bailey look what I found! BAILEY!


----------



## simplysardonic

Well, we're playing a waiting game right now......... waiting for my new Acme training whistles to arrive so I can get back to basics with Rogue & her recall as it's terrible at the moment  so I've bought the book 'Total Recall' & as soon as the whistles get here we are starting from scratch.


----------



## MollySmith

I wonder if the arrival of Spring has brought out the lunatic running away in the WAYWO dogs? That's three of us on recall practice.

We went back to our walk of yesterday and went further up the bank towards a wood. Can I ask you all what you think of this?

The wood I think has a wire fence on one side, I could make something out. But as far as I'm concerned, if I can't get into the wood easily myself I don't like Molly in there alone. OH thinks I'm being a Mother Hen and 'we'll never walk her anywhere if you worry so much'. Molly went into the woods, flushed out two pheasants and we lost sight of her at least twice, once she came out further up the walk than us and it was another dog owner who saw her. So she does come back to us but it's the out of sight of us in a wood that makes me scared. I don't know if I'm overreacting or not. I suspect I probably am. 

I will talk to our trainer as she took hers there last week with Molly and didn't report any problems. 

Anyway bit of an argumentative walk and grumpy afternoon but I can report that she did well going past ducks again on lead although off lead she was obsessed with chasing them!


----------



## BessieDog

MollySmith said:


> I wonder if the arrival of Spring has brought out the lunatic running away in the WAYWO dogs? That's three of us on recall practice.
> 
> We went back to our walk of yesterday and went further up the bank towards a wood. Can I ask you all what you think of this?
> 
> The wood I think has a wire fence on one side, I could make something out. But as far as I'm concerned, if I can't get into the wood easily myself I don't like Molly in there alone. OH thinks I'm being a Mother Hen and 'we'll never walk her anywhere if you worry so much'. Molly went into the woods, flushed out two pheasants and we lost sight of her at least twice, once she came out further up the walk than us and it was another dog owner who saw her. So she does come back to us but it's the out of sight of us in a wood that makes me scared. I don't know if I'm overreacting or not. I suspect I probably am.
> 
> I will talk to our trainer as she took hers there last week with Molly and didn't report any problems.
> 
> Anyway bit of an argumentative walk and grumpy afternoon but I can report that she did well going past ducks again on lead although off lead she was obsessed with chasing them!


I don't think you're over-reacting. On the couple of occasions Bess has been off lead and has got away from me she has come back in her own time. But each time she's gone across the track she should have taken and ended up in a different field. She then panics as she can hear me calling, but not get to me.

That I think is the danger point. If you can't see where your dog is and she can't see you she might panic and go the wrong way. Well, that's how I feel anyway. I won't let Bess off in any wood or where I can't keep my eyes on her.

If you're a mother hen, so am I!!


----------



## BessieDog

Off to the vets this morning. Bess had a tiny rash low down on her tummy on Saturday, but it had disappeared yesterday. She wasn't licking at it and it didn't seem to be bothering her. This morning though she's licking her privates like nobody's business. Unfortunately they are very private, and she won't let me have a look at what's going on. Tried to get my OH to look whilst I held her, but she struggled, threatened to bite and wriggled away. 

She's stopped licking now, but I think there's something wrong. Obviously at this stage in her season all sorts of serious probs go through my mind. Hopefully it's an allergy rash (she's no hair on her lower tum so could have brushed against something she's allergic too). Just hope its not her vulva she's been licking.


----------



## Emilyyu

BessieDog said:


> Off to the vets this morning. Bess had a tiny rash low down on her tummy on Saturday, but it had disappeared yesterday. She wasn't licking at it and it didn't seem to be bothering her. This morning though she's licking her privates like nobody's business. Unfortunately they are very private, and she won't let me have a look at what's going on. Tried to get my OH to look whilst I held her, but she struggled, threatened to bite and wriggled away.
> 
> She's stopped licking now, but I think there's something wrong. Obviously at this stage in her season all sorts of serious probs go through my mind. Hopefully it's an allergy rash (she's no hair on her lower tum so could have brushed against something she's allergic too). Just hope its not her vulva she's been licking.


I think it is a very familiar scene to see dogs licking themselves, maybe she is cleaning her privates, so take it easy


----------



## BessieDog

Emilyyu said:


> I think it is a very familiar scene to see dogs licking themselves, maybe she is cleaning her privates, so take it easy


It's unusual for her. Last time she did this she had vaginitis. I managed to fool her into having a tummy rub and got a good look - there is definitely a small rash there. Hopefully it's something localised, and not vaginitis again (or worse). First bitch I've had so I do worry! 

Now trying to get a urine sample to take to vet. Problem is she doesn't wee in the mornings (most unusual, but she's always been that way ). She's been out twice now with me following her round with a sterilised pot but nothing!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well, this evening I took Rudi out with Diz for an hour and a half or so, he behaved well :thumbsup:.
> 
> Then took Kilo for a slow potter - he does plod on steroids love him - and he was MUCH happier in his harness again so it must be the lead on his collar that makes him unhappy at present. I am thinking of switching both boys to harnesses for walking, in my illogical mind that makes it feel like a step backwards somehow, think because Kilo was walked in a harness when he had his awful traffic lunging stage and it felt like a huge step to conquer that and have him walking really nicely on a collar and lead .
> 
> I HATE living here for all the poo everywhere. Kilo got 3 mouthfuls in different places tonight just when I stopped to let him sniff, even when I had had a quick scan first :mad5::incazzato:.


Pleased the boys had good walks but it does sound awful having to be on alert for poo everywhere - ugh!!


----------



## Twiggy

BessieDog said:


> Off to the vets this morning. Bess had a tiny rash low down on her tummy on Saturday, but it had disappeared yesterday. She wasn't licking at it and it didn't seem to be bothering her. This morning though she's licking her privates like nobody's business. Unfortunately they are very private, and she won't let me have a look at what's going on. Tried to get my OH to look whilst I held her, but she struggled, threatened to bite and wriggled away.
> 
> She's stopped licking now, but I think there's something wrong. Obviously at this stage in her season all sorts of serious probs go through my mind. Hopefully it's an allergy rash (she's no hair on her lower tum so could have brushed against something she's allergic too). Just hope its not her vulva she's been licking.


So do I. Tremor's isn't totally better yet and it's nine days now. It's such a performance applying shampoo and cream, especially when she's not exactly being helpful and husband isn't around to help. Funny that?


----------



## Twiggy

I've just had one of my pupils on the phone - she won her last Class A yesterday with her crossbreed and my little star JRT won Class B, which is one hell of an achievement. I'm delighted for them both....


----------



## Twiggy

I've just had another handler report in. His young collie won their first Novice.

Sadly teacher was stuck at home again this week-end with a very talented dog on total rest...


----------



## MollySmith

BessieDog said:


> I don't think you're over-reacting. On the couple of occasions Bess has been off lead and has got away from me she has come back in her own time. But each time she's gone across the track she should have taken and ended up in a different field. She then panics as she can hear me calling, but not get to me.
> 
> That I think is the danger point. If you can't see where your dog is and she can't see you she might panic and go the wrong way. Well, that's how I feel anyway. I won't let Bess off in any wood or where I can't keep my eyes on her.
> 
> If you're a mother hen, so am I!!


Thank you  I feel better knowing I'm not the only mother hen! I expect she might have been better with the trainer's dogs as one of hers rarel goes away and seems to act as a compass for Molly so she sticks with him and keeps close. With us the impossible dog goes too far for my liking. I've ordered a Sarah Whitehead DVD - OH rarely reads a book without falling asleep so we'll try this!

No walks for me today, there is a beer festival in Cambridge this week so we're coordinating around that (I know my priorities!). I'll be doing a long walk and train every day apart from today, looking forward to it 

Well done your shows and I hope the vets is okay. We have bum dragging so I think we'll be off there later too but the Bionic Biotic arrived this morning.

Twiggy - what great news on your past students  So pleased for you.


----------



## BessieDog

Back from vets! I spoke to soon about thinking we'd avoided a phantom pregnancy. It's a little late, but that seems to be the issue. Her boobies are swollen and rubbing together between her legs which has caused a rash which looks a little infected so she's got antibiotics for that. I've just dropped off a urine sample to be on the safe side, but she thinks the problem will resolve itself within a couple of weeks - if not she might need a hormone jab.

The trouble's been I've never had a bitch before, so didn't know that the enlargement of her boobs was normal or not - I knew they got bigger after a season, but didn't realise they were too big! Her feathers hide it all. 

I also didn't realise that it was a possible phantom as I was watching for the behavioural symptoms, and she's not been nesting, picking up soft toys or acting very differently apart from being off her food. The vet thinks that loss of appetite is all connected.

So, hopefully nothing serious, but I've come back £60 lighter in the pocket! 

Now I know it's friction sores I'm a bit worried about taking her out, but I thought I'd put some sudacream (sp) on just before we leave - she won't have time to lick it off, but hopefully it will stop the soreness getting worse.

If she stays swollen I could always think about buying a bra!! :yikes


----------



## Pezant

BessieDog said:


> If she stays swollen I could always think about buying a bra!! :yikes:


Ahahaha oh dear Bess! I love the image of in-season bitches wandering around in matching Victoria's Secret bra and undies  We've always owned dogs too, so I'd probably be as panicking as much as you when the first season rocks up!

Henry was a little mischief monster this weekend, even after a hike with mum on Saturday and another hike with me on the sea wall on Sunday where he ran about like a loon and tried to dive in all the muddy marshes. We thought he'd be quiet for the rest of the day after that, but no chance.  Someone remind me - Setters _do_ calm down at some point, don't they?


----------



## BessieDog

Pezant said:


> Ahahaha oh dear Bess! I love the image of in-season bitches wandering around in matching Victoria's Secret bra and undies  We've always owned dogs too, so I'd probably be as panicking as much as you when the first season rocks up!
> 
> Henry was a little mischief monster this weekend, even after a hike with mum on Saturday and another hike with me on the sea wall on Sunday where he ran about like a loon and tried to dive in all the muddy marshes. We thought he'd be quiet for the rest of the day after that, but no chance.  Someone remind me - Setters _do_ calm down at some point, don't they?


Er.... My English Setter was a loon until he died (age 10)! Although he got better trained, was a delight in the house etc. people still thought he was a pup when he was out until the end.


----------



## Dogless

Bessiedog - pleased you know what's wrong with Bess now and hope she's back to normal soon .

Twiggy - what wonderful news from your pupils :thumbsup: . As for hubby not being around to help apply creams etc....I wouldn't expect anything less  :scared:.

MS - I don't think you're being a mother hen either and hope the beer festival doesn't get too messy :scared:.

Good walks this morning, Rudi's coming on nicely. Still obsessed with his recall game he makes me play .

Took Kilo out and played some "Ready Steady" to try and stop him scavenging. He still ate about 4 piles of poo . Black lab came flying around corner, Kilo got up on his toes but then came back to me when asked. Black lab repelled by me, had to then be kept on lead to stop her coming over but woman owner very understanding so I only played for a few more minutes so that the woman could have the grass area to play with her dog. Walked very nicely past them with no interest at all to leave. Woman's small child came belting towards us and it took about 3 goes to get her to stop, woman was explaining to her how my dog was poorly and a bit cross right now as I left :thumbsup:. He walked well, lovely and relaxed even though everywhere was really busy .


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - any news on Tremor?


----------



## Pezant

Dogless - What's your recall game with Rudi?  So glad Kilo's feeling more like himself now! Is he still going out with the muzzle on to deflect the poo?


----------



## Dogless

Pezant said:


> Dogless - What's your recall game with Rudi?  So glad Kilo's feeling more like himself now! Is he still going out with the muzzle on to deflect the poo?


Didn't muzzle Kilo today as I wanted to play impulse control games with him. He ate poo  .

Rudi made his own game up - he zooms aways from me at top speed, then turns and stands staring at me and hopping with excitement until I recall him and he comes back at top speed. It's because he wants a game, a toy, praise, a treat - I vary things - but I don't mind at all, if he thinks that coming back's fun then that can only be good I reckon .


----------



## BessieDog

Just taken Bess out for a walk. The cream must have worked as she was moving well. Out for just under an hour - came home and she's a lunatic!  had to put her out in the utility room like I used to when she was younger so she'd calm down after a walk. Something or someone was going to get broken otherwise. 

I've heard phantom pregnancies make them maternal - but didn't know they reverted to puppyhood!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - any news on Tremor?


I've just got back from the vets with Tremor after her 3rd laser treatment.

It was the young vet and I also asked her to examine her vulva which is looking much better, although still not 100%

No news from the orthopaedic 'expert' yet. My vet said he would ring me when he got his opinion.

I can tell them both what the problem is and without it costing £570..!!

Tremor's behaviour this morning was pretty awful. She was frightened and was warning everyone to stay away from her. She even started barking when we went into reception.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just got back from the vets with Tremor after her 3rd laser treatment.
> 
> It was the young vet and I also asked her to examine her vulva which is looking much better, although still not 100%
> 
> No news from the orthopaedic 'expert' yet. My vet said he would ring me when he got his opinion.
> 
> I can tell them both what the problem is and without it costing £570..!!
> 
> Tremor's behaviour this morning was pretty awful. She was frightened and was warning everyone to stay away from her. She even started barking when we went into reception.


Poor Tremor, sounds as if she's getting pretty fed up . Hope the ortho doesn't take too long either - I'm sure you'll feel better with some sort of a plan. I have to take Kilo back the day after tomorrow, I'm sure he'll sit nicely in the waiting room or stand like he always does but then warn any dog approaching away which will start all the "oh dearers" and "tutters" off .


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - So glad that Kilo is feeling better. 

Twiggy - how good for your clients!

BD - I hope Bessie is back to normal soon

MS - I don't think you are over-reacting either, especially given how hard you have worked on recall. The dimwit is pretty good as he doesn't really like going out of sight of me but when he does he tends to panic a bit.
Have fun at the beer festival - I am supposed to be going one evening after work...

A fairly quiet weekend for the dimwits - we went to big walkies on saturday which was actually very little walkies, just dimwit and one other dog. Luckily a dog he likes so they had fun running around together Then we had scentwork class in the sunshine yesterday which was good.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Rudi made his own game up - he zooms aways from me at top speed, then turns and stands staring at me and hopping with excitement until I recall him and he comes back at top speed.


Dimwit does something similar - runs a short way away then turns and looks at me and as soon as I open my mouth to call/whistle him he comes pelting back to me, generally using my legs to show off his flyball box turns
Now I just have to work on getting it that good all the time, and not just when he wants to play the game


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Poor Tremor, sounds as if she's getting pretty fed up . Hope the ortho doesn't take too long either - I'm sure you'll feel better with some sort of a plan. I have to take Kilo back the day after tomorrow, I'm sure he'll sit nicely in the waiting room or stand like he always does but then warn any dog approaching away which will start all the "oh dearers" and "tutters" off .


Kilo sounds about the same as Tremor. That's exactly what she was doing - sitting nicely, providing everyone kept away from her.

I doubt there will be a plan and quite honestly, having seen the plates, the ortho will in all probability say the same as me ie it's a soft tissue problem.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Kilo sounds about the same as Tremor. That's exactly what she was doing - sitting nicely, providing everyone kept away from her.
> 
> I doubt there will be a plan and quite honestly, having seen the plates, the ortho will in all probability say the same as me ie it's a soft tissue problem.


The receptionist the last time we went was my heroine. Someone's spaniel was going crackers making a noise and scrabbling trying to meet all the dogs and the owners didn't / couldn't hold him despite me saying several times that he needed to be kept away from Kilo and he bounced up to him anyway. Kilo did some growling and one sharp bark......they said "Jesus!!!" all indignantly and...they were asked to wait outside, not me . I said sorry as everyone in the waiting room looked at me and the receptionist told me not to worry, it wasn't my fault :thumbsup:.


----------



## Dogless

Just negotiated the Belfast traffic going to two PAH stores trying to get some tripe and a bowl (smashed one ). Managed the bowl, not the tripe . BUT Rudi paraded around both stores, showing off, tail wagging, perfect loose lead, soliciting fusses from everyone he could and getting filled with the sort of treats I never, ever buy as they are full of junk :scared: :lol:. So, I was immensely proud of Rudi :thumbsup: but peed off with PAH .


----------



## tiatortilla

I'm back again.. Sorry I keep disappearing from this thread, I might as well be honest, I sort of thought a few people (not everyone!) didn't want me posting in here... this honestly isn't me fishing for people to tell me they did, I just thought I'd explain. And I do realise that it's more likely me being paranoid than anyone actively not wanting me here :blushing: Sorry I'm an idiot, and I'm also sorry for only posting when I have a big problem but I hope that kind of explains why.

But on to the actual point, I don't know if I'm getting anywhere with Tia's reactiveness. I think it's got a bit better but it's still really bad with big dogs. The "watch me" command seems to have gone down the drain, she recognises that as "There's going to be a dog in a minute" and starts looking around for it as soon as I say it, so I'm currently replacing that with a squeaker in my pocket, but only using it when there aren't any dogs around. Idk if this is a good idea or not but it's all I can think of.

The other problem is that basically, I'm too stupid to understand most of what I read online. I can't afford a trainer and I promise I'm not just saying that, there is £0 in my bank account and my OH is currently supporting both of us, so it's just not an option.. But with not understanding all the technical terms and not being able to afford outside help, it's just going on for longer and becoming more ingrained and I'm worried that I'm letting her down. I just feel like a really sh*t owner and I'm not good enough for her.
I feel really, really bad saying this but I never expected owning a dog to be this hard.. Don't worry, she's not going anywhere or anything, I love her more than anything in the world, no matter how difficult things get but I'm just not coping with this very well.
So, I have a massive request. Would anyone be willing to to help me with this over PM or something? Explain some techniques in layman's terms and explain to me in detail what I should be doing? I just really need some help, I feel like such a failure.


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> I'm back again.. Sorry I keep disappearing from this thread, I might as well be honest, I sort of thought a few people (not everyone!) didn't want me posting in here... this honestly isn't me fishing for people to tell me they did, I just thought I'd explain. And I do realise that it's more likely me being paranoid than anyone actively not wanting me here :blushing: Sorry I'm an idiot, and I'm also sorry for only posting when I have a big problem but I hope that kind of explains why.
> 
> But on to the actual point, I don't know if I'm getting anywhere with Tia's reactiveness. I think it's got a bit better but it's still really bad with big dogs. The "watch me" command seems to have gone down the drain, she recognises that as "There's going to be a dog in a minute" and starts looking around for it as soon as I say it, so I'm currently replacing that with a squeaker in my pocket, but only using it when there aren't any dogs around. Idk if this is a good idea or not but it's all I can think of.
> 
> The other problem is that basically, I'm too stupid to understand most of what I read online. I can't afford a trainer and I promise I'm not just saying that, there is £0 in my bank account and my OH is currently supporting both of us, so it's just not an option.. But with not understanding all the technical terms and not being able to afford outside help, it's just going on for longer and becoming more ingrained and I'm worried that I'm letting her down. I just feel like a really sh*t owner and I'm not good enough for her.
> I feel really, really bad saying this but I never expected owning a dog to be this hard.. Don't worry, she's not going anywhere or anything, I love her more than anything in the world, no matter how difficult things get but I'm just not coping with this very well.
> So, I have a massive request. Would anyone be willing to to help me with this over PM or something? Explain some techniques in layman's terms and explain to me in detail what I should be doing? I just really need some help, I feel like such a failure.


  If I am one of those folk, I apologise  .

I found with Kilo that he anticipated something to react to (cats usually!) when I crossed the road quickly, so I started to cross the road randomly, change direction, stop etc etc. It worked fairly fast, the expectation faded, so you're probably along the right lines with the squeaker.

If 'watch me' isn't working - it doesn't for me AT ALL, it makes things much worse as Kilo gets worked up if he cannot see what is worrying him - then perhaps change tack? I click or say "Yes!" when I see a cat / dog who is staring at him for example at the stage where he is interested but not about to go over threshold, in time he has started to tell me that there's something by looking to me automatically. If I KNOW that he will react / he has already started to bounce I do a swift turn and go in the opposite direction to get some distance.

The key for me is reducing stress levels - if Kilo has had a reaction I know that he will be far more reactive for the rest of that walk and even for a few more days so I then do my very best to avoid all busy places or triggers to bring those levels down. Nupafeed Stress-Less has been helpful to me too.

You can PM me if you like and I'd be more than happy to help as much as I can, but I don't know as much as many folk on here. Why not leave things on the thread though as you can look back over your progress and your work may help others too?


----------



## Dimwit

tiatortilla said:


> But on to the actual point, I don't know if I'm getting anywhere with Tia's reactiveness. I think it's got a bit better but it's still really bad with big dogs. The "watch me" command seems to have gone down the drain, she recognises that as "There's going to be a dog in a minute" and starts looking around for it as soon as I say it, so I'm currently replacing that with a squeaker in my pocket, but only using it when there aren't any dogs around. Idk if this is a good idea or not but it's all I can think of.


Please don't think you are stupid, it can be really confusing reading around about how to help reactive dogs. With my dog, when I started working on his problems, I didn't use the watch command for the same reasons as you - instead I used the bar open/bar closed method. Basically, you keep far enough away from other dogs that yours won't react and then as soon as your dog sees another dog you start feeding yummy treats (I used primula in this case) and keep feeding till the dog has passed. I don't know if your dogs is reactive due to fear but this works well for fear/anxiety based reactions and helps build up a positive association with other dogs. After a very short time my dog would see another dog and then automatically look to me for his treat.

There are lots of very nice, helpful people on here, who know how lonely and frustrating it can be having a reactive dog, and I have been given lots of great advice and support.


----------



## GingerRogers

Tia you are always welcome on here  everyone is (I think ) but particularly you I am sure!!!

Like dogless said, coming on here and whinging everyday helped me record what was or wasnt happening and got me the help I needed if only to keep my/her stress levels down, later or tomorrow I will send you a pm with some of what I have learnt/been taught from the lovely ladies of WAYWO and on the reactive dog course I went on, Sorry  I cant do it now as I am being frantic with work, and distracting myself is very very very bad


----------



## BessieDog

tiatortilla said:


> But on to the actual point, I don't know if I'm getting anywhere with Tia's reactiveness. I think it's got a bit better but it's still really bad with big dogs. The "watch me" command seems to have gone down the drain, she recognises that as "There's going to be a dog in a minute" and starts looking around for it as soon as I say it, so I'm currently replacing that with a squeaker in my pocket, but only using it when there aren't any dogs around. Idk if this is a good idea or not but it's all I can think of.
> .


I think our dogs are too clever for us. Whenever I try to get Bess's attention with a variety of commands -this way (change direction), wait (stop where you are so I can come to you or here, she looks around to see what interesting thing I must have seen. Some dogs seem easier to condition so they unquestionly obey every command (or so it seems reading the posts on here)  but Bess certainly isn't like that.

I certainly haven't got any answers, but wanted to you to know its not just you with these problems.


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> I think our dogs are too clever for us. Whenever I try to get Bess's attention with a variety of commands -this way (change direction), wait (stop where you are so I can come to you or here, she looks around to see what interesting thing I must have seen. Some dogs seem easier to condition so they unquestionly obey every command (or so it seems reading the posts on here)  but Bess certainly isn't like that.
> 
> I certainly haven't got any answers, but wanted to you to know its not just you with these problems.


I think the trick is to do these things randomly all the time - I have failed massively in terms of what you describe but getting there slowly!! 'Wait' used to mean "look around for something interesting" as that was when I used it. So I use 'wait' lots randomly now and it has lost it's significance.


----------



## moonviolet

Tia lovely to see you back I'm posting her a bit less in general but drop in when i can. I always love here how you were progressing to commiserate ont he bad days and congratulate on the good ones.

_I_ think there is a misconception with the "watch me" cue to me it's an emergency distracting cue but it doesn't help with desensitising, in some dogs in fact it causes greater stress as they know there is a scary thing creeping up on them.

If she's a foodie dropping a few treats when a dog appears in the distance can help. Tia thinks I see dog and treats rain from the sky, as they land ont he floor she has to sniff around to get them this help prevent her from making unbroken eye contact with the other dog which could be interpreted by them as a challenge.

If she's more toy motivated you can replace the treats with a game of tug throwing her favourite ball.

if the encounters are on the pavement cross if she's fine walking past on the opposite side of the road crossover, rewarding her when she looks at the other dog without reacting , if that isnt' possible about turns, side streets and parked cars are your friends.

Working out the distance, duration or distraction level before she begins to tense will really help. By those I mean distance obviously how far, duration how long can she be around the trigger before she begisn to become uncomfortable. and the level of distraction You may find she can handle a calm dog on lead close than and excited on chasing a ball.

Hang in there and please do post 

We've had a good day no charging barking pack of dogs since friday. Onlead walks in the main over the weekend as the spring walkers are out in force.

On 3 occasions Tink got told she was a good dog as we made way for various people on narrow pavements and a bouncy swing bridge. It's nice when people say nice things like that but i'm rubbish at taking compliments and usually say that she's quite naughty sometimes.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> If I am one of those folk, I apologise  .
> 
> I found with Kilo that he anticipated something to react to (cats usually!) when I crossed the road quickly, so I started to cross the road randomly, change direction, stop etc etc. It worked fairly fast, the expectation faded, so you're probably along the right lines with the squeaker.
> 
> If 'watch me' isn't working - it doesn't for me AT ALL, it makes things much worse as Kilo gets worked up if he cannot see what is worrying him - then perhaps change tack? I click or say "Yes!" when I see a cat / dog who is staring at him for example at the stage where he is interested but not about to go over threshold, in time he has started to tell me that there's something by looking to me automatically. If I KNOW that he will react / he has already started to bounce I do a swift turn and go in the opposite direction to get some distance.
> 
> The key for me is reducing stress levels - if Kilo has had a reaction I know that he will be far more reactive for the rest of that walk and even for a few more days so I then do my very best to avoid all busy places or triggers to bring those levels down. Nupafeed Stress-Less has been helpful to me too.
> 
> You can PM me if you like and I'd be more than happy to help as much as I can, but I don't know as much as many folk on here. Why not leave things on the thread though as you can look back over your progress and your work may help others too?


Thankyou, no you're not, don't worry. Even if you were I doubt an apology is needed, probs just me being silly.
That's all really good advice.. I think the thing is I get so overwhelmed by all of it that I don't do anything properly? Not sure, but I don't think the "watch me" was ever solid enough even before it started becoming a trigger for her to look for another dog.
I do the avoiding busy places and stuff, but it makes it so hard to get a decent variation in walks, a lot of the good places to walk around here there's no other choice but to walk through town and I feel guilty that I'm avoiding going to a lot of good places because I can't handle walking her through town in case there's a dog.
I can leave things on the thread, I just didn't want to take up too much space so that's only why I suggested PM. Thankyou.



Dimwit said:


> Please don't think you are stupid, it can be really confusing reading around about how to help reactive dogs. With my dog, when I started working on his problems, I didn't use the watch command for the same reasons as you - instead I used the bar open/bar closed method. Basically, you keep far enough away from other dogs that yours won't react and then as soon as your dog sees another dog you start feeding yummy treats (I used primula in this case) and keep feeding till the dog has passed. I don't know if your dogs is reactive due to fear but this works well for fear/anxiety based reactions and helps build up a positive association with other dogs. After a very short time my dog would see another dog and then automatically look to me for his treat.
> 
> There are lots of very nice, helpful people on here, who know how lonely and frustrating it can be having a reactive dog, and I have been given lots of great advice and support.


Yes it is a fear based reaction, she's not very confident around other dogs and she barks on lead to make them go away, after she was jumped on and it turned into a small fight, though she was never confident even before that because of other things. She's just been unlucky with other dogs, unfortunately.
I've done the threshold stuff, she's fine from a certain distance (hey, I'm also a useless judge of distance apparently it's "time to make myself look silly on PF day!) but it's a big distance. If I spot the other dog before her then I start treating her, but if it's too close (which isn't very close at all) she'll lose focus on me and start barking. So atm, I feel like I've given up on it and if I spot another dog I just walk away/hide and while it's managing it and not allowing her to practice the behaviour, it's not actually fixing anything either.
Thankyou 



GingerRogers said:


> Tia you are always welcome on here  everyone is (I think ) but particularly you I am sure!!!
> 
> Like dogless said, coming on here and whinging everyday helped me record what was or wasnt happening and got me the help I needed if only to keep my/her stress levels down, later or tomorrow I will send you a pm with some of what I have learnt/been taught from the lovely ladies of WAYWO and on the reactive dog course I went on, Sorry  I cant do it now as I am being frantic with work, and distracting myself is very very very bad


Sorry, as I said I'm sure it's just me being silly, I'm just like that. Thankyou so much, that would be really useful. Don't worry about how soon it is, there's no hurry 



BessieDog said:


> I think our dogs are too clever for us. Whenever I try to get Bess's attention with a variety of commands -this way (change direction), wait (stop where you are so I can come to you or here, she looks around to see what interesting thing I must have seen. Some dogs seem easier to condition so they unquestionly obey every command (or so it seems reading the posts on here)  but Bess certainly isn't like that.
> 
> I certainly haven't got any answers, but wanted to you to know its not just you with these problems.


Thankyou  I do feel like she's always one step ahead of me with things like this, the little sod.

**

Thankyou so much everyone, I will start posting in here again and stop being silly!


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Tia lovely to see you back I'm posting her a bit less in general but drop in when i can. I always love here how you were progressing to commiserate ont he bad days and congratulate on the good ones.
> 
> _I_ think there is a misconception with the "watch me" cue to me it's an emergency distracting cue but it doesn't help with desensitising, in some dogs in fact it causes greater stress as they know there is a scary thing creeping up on them.
> 
> If she's a foodie dropping a few treats when a dog appears in the distance can help. Tia thinks I see dog and treats rain from the sky, as they land ont he floor she has to sniff around to get them this help prevent her from making unbroken eye contact with the other dog which could be interpreted by them as a challenge.
> 
> If she's more toy motivated you can replace the treats with a game of tug throwing her favourite ball.
> 
> if the encounters are on the pavement cross if she's fine walking past on the opposite side of the road crossover, rewarding her when she looks at the other dog without reacting , if that isnt' possible about turns, side streets and parked cars are your friends.
> 
> Working out the distance, duration or distraction level before she begins to tense will really help. By those I mean distance obviously how far, duration how long can she be around the trigger before she begisn to become uncomfortable. and the level of distraction You may find she can handle a calm dog on lead close than and excited on chasing a ball.
> 
> Hang in there and please do post
> 
> We've had a good day no charging barking pack of dogs since friday. Onlead walks in the main over the weekend as the spring walkers are out in force.
> 
> On 3 occasions Tink got told she was a good dog as we made way for various people on narrow pavements and a bouncy swing bridge. *It's nice when people say nice things like that but i'm rubbish at taking compliments and usually say that she's quite naughty sometimes.*


I do that!!! It's so nice to get compliments but I always say something like "You've caught us on a good day" . I reckon yours were well deserved mv :thumbsup: .

Better than those that say "oh, you're so lucky that yours doesn't pull" .


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> Tia lovely to see you back I'm posting her a bit less in general but drop in when i can. I always love here how you were progressing to commiserate ont he bad days and congratulate on the good ones.
> 
> _I_ think there is a misconception with the "watch me" cue to me it's an emergency distracting cue but it doesn't help with desensitising, in some dogs in fact it causes greater stress as they know there is a scary thing creeping up on them.
> 
> If she's a foodie dropping a few treats when a dog appears in the distance can help. Tia thinks I see dog and treats rain from the sky, as they land ont he floor she has to sniff around to get them this help prevent her from making unbroken eye contact with the other dog which could be interpreted by them as a challenge.
> 
> If she's more toy motivated you can replace the treats with a game of tug throwing her favourite ball.
> 
> if the encounters are on the pavement cross if she's fine walking past on the opposite side of the road crossover, rewarding her when she looks at the other dog without reacting , if that isnt' possible about turns, side streets and parked cars are your friends.
> 
> Working out the distance, duration or distraction level before she begins to tense will really help. By those I mean distance obviously how far, duration how long can she be around the trigger before she begisn to become uncomfortable. and the level of distraction You may find she can handle a calm dog on lead close than and excited on chasing a ball.
> 
> Hang in there and please do post


Thankyou 

I agree that "watch me" has not helped desensitize her at all, all it's done is turn into a cue for "there's a dog" so I think I'll probably stop using it for this.

Yes she is very food motivated, but unfortunately she doesn't seem to be as motivated by food as much as she wants to bark at the other dog.. other side of the road isn't far enough away either so I currently just run off with her or hide.
The problem with turning round/running off or whatever seems to be that she's getting what she wants (to be away from the other dog) and even if she's spotted the other dog, if she realises we're not going to walk past it so then she doesn't react.. so I'm not sure if this is good or not!
But yeah, the distance is the biggest problem I think, a dog has to be sooo far away for it not to bother her.
Also, if an off lead dog approaches her, she's far less likely to go nuts than if an on lead one is on the other side of the road  I assume this is because she's nervous and when it comes down to it she realises that barking in another dogs face isn't going to do her any favours but she gets away with it if the dog is on lead and not so close.
I hope that explains some things... it's all so complex! Thankyou again.


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer has associated recall with there being another dog or something around  Never mind that I recall him randomly and most of the time there ISN'T anything, he still has to have a good look around as he's coming to me.

We met up with someone with a barky lungey Lab today. Knew he had issues before meeting and kept a close eye on both his and Spencers body language. Spen had a "oooh, a dog, let's play!" moment but when he realised Cooper didn't want to play he decided to just ignore him and do his usual sniffing and peeing. Apparently this completely non threatening behaviour was just the right thing and it wasn't long at all before they were walking together, sniffing the same spots and even licking each others faces. There was no play, Cooper got barky again if Spen tried to get him to play, but for the majority of the hour long walk they just trotted along together. He's a gorgeous looking dog.


Not really done any training, just been enjoying being home and having cuddles and playtime with him. We went to the husky meet yesterday, first good walk he's had in 2 weeks, and he had a blast there.


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Thankyou
> 
> I agree that "watch me" has not helped desensitize her at all, all it's done is turn into a cue for "there's a dog" so I think I'll probably stop using it for this.
> 
> Yes she is very food motivated, but unfortunately she doesn't seem to be as motivated by food as much as she wants to bark at the other dog.. other side of the road isn't far enough away either so I currently just run off with her or hide.
> The problem with turning round/running off or whatever seems to be that *she's getting what she wants (to be away from the other dog) and even if she's spotted the other dog, if she realises we're not going to walk past it so then she doesn't react.. so I'm not sure if this is good or not!*
> But yeah, the distance is the biggest problem I think, a dog has to be sooo far away for it not to bother her.
> Also, if an off lead dog approaches her, she's far less likely to go nuts than if an on lead one is on the other side of the road  I assume this is because she's nervous and when it comes down to it she realises that barking in another dogs face isn't going to do her any favours but she gets away with it if the dog is on lead and not so close.
> I hope that explains some things... it's all so complex! Thankyou again.


That is good - her reward for not barking is to get the distance she wants. Gradually you should be able to decrease the distance from dogs that she needs because she knows that you will take her away if she can't handle it. If that makes any sense? Sometimes for Kilo it's actually not about proximity but eyeballing. If I can break eye contact by turning around I can the turn the full 360 so that I'm facing the other dog again and walk past.


----------



## MollySmith

tiatortilla said:


> I'm back again.. Sorry I keep disappearing from this thread, I might as well be honest, I sort of thought a few people (not everyone!) didn't want me posting in here... this honestly isn't me fishing for people to tell me they did, I just thought I'd explain. And I do realise that it's more likely me being paranoid than anyone actively not wanting me here :blushing: Sorry I'm an idiot, and I'm also sorry for only posting when I have a big problem but I hope that kind of explains why.
> 
> But on to the actual point, I don't know if I'm getting anywhere with Tia's reactiveness. I think it's got a bit better but it's still really bad with big dogs. The "watch me" command seems to have gone down the drain, she recognises that as "There's going to be a dog in a minute" and starts looking around for it as soon as I say it, so I'm currently replacing that with a squeaker in my pocket, but only using it when there aren't any dogs around. Idk if this is a good idea or not but it's all I can think of.
> 
> The other problem is that basically, I'm too stupid to understand most of what I read online. I can't afford a trainer and I promise I'm not just saying that, there is £0 in my bank account and my OH is currently supporting both of us, so it's just not an option.. But with not understanding all the technical terms and not being able to afford outside help, it's just going on for longer and becoming more ingrained and I'm worried that I'm letting her down. I just feel like a really sh*t owner and I'm not good enough for her.
> I feel really, really bad saying this but I never expected owning a dog to be this hard.. Don't worry, she's not going anywhere or anything, I love her more than anything in the world, no matter how difficult things get but I'm just not coping with this very well.
> So, I have a massive request. Would anyone be willing to to help me with this over PM or something? Explain some techniques in layman's terms and explain to me in detail what I should be doing? I just really need some help, I feel like such a failure.


Likewise if it was me, apologies  

I will try to think of any useful websites as I was going to suggest the amazing BAT book which is almost what we've done with Molly who has been a nightmare on the lead, it's so miserable and utterly overwhelming isn't it?

We began with a stooge dog. I do have a trainer but hopefully you might see a few stooges on walks. Maybe ask on the chat area if anyone can help you? I also found another stooge dog on another dog website I don't use much now - dog pages I think it was.

We began by walking slowly towards the dog - you have to judge how far this would be by trial and error but I suggest overestimating a lot. As soon as your dog looks at the dog but does not react, click and treat (I'm assuming you do clicker work here ). Progress very slowly closer - but do watch your body language. I was wound up and it does go down the lead so my OH was better as he gives less of a toss than me! If your dog reacts then take her back to her safe place and begin again. It will take ages any many sessions. I found that Molly would go over the edge and it was pointless to continue. You might find your dog prefers play reward to food (I would let her off lead with the stooge as she loves being off lead and is so friendly but the downside was that she lost her worry over him being on lead so we had to find another stooge!!) but the idea is that they can look at a dog without reacting. You may have to be miles away. In the BAT book Grisha says that she has used a giant stuffed dog for training!

We've also walked her in a great place near our house which is safe off lead for dogs so she can understand off lead manners too. It's basic lack of socialisation I think plus some incidents we know about. On this walk I hang around the car park for a few minutes and click treat when we see dogs. I do have to walk past very calmly and with a distance of a road way between us and have a large handful of treats and constantly click her but it's worth the coordination nightmare! I also found a halti to work really well too as I am certain Molly associated her harness with play and lunge time. We only used the halti for training so now we put it on and she thinks it's training time.

This link might be helpful. I see that there are some free download PDF files too
BAT Steps for Reactivity | Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT)

I really found it useful to write down our progress to help in the low points, either here or on my blog so I knew we'd progressed somewhere. If it helps, on Christmas Eve my dog was called violent for her lead reactivity by an idiot non-dog owning bitch at our walk because their dog was off lead and ran over and of course Molly reacted. Today she was drinking her water after her walk in the same car park whilst a group of dogs off and on lead had an argument involving lots of barks and growls and shouting humans. I was prepared for the worse but my dog finished her drink, sat down and looked at them very calmly and then at me as if to say 'the world has gone mad'.

You will get there, first step is knowing the problem.

Does that help?


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> That is good - her reward for not barking is to get the distance she wants. Gradually you should be able to decrease the distance from dogs that she needs because she knows that you will take her away if she can't handle it. If that makes any sense? Sometimes for Kilo it's actually not about proximity but eyeballing. If I can break eye contact by turning around I can the turn the full 360 so that I'm facing the other dog again and walk past.


Yeah I think that makes sense  The distance does seem to vary though, idk if that will affect things. Like, some days we'll be able to walk past a small dog on the other side of the road and she'll lunge a bit but not actually bark (which at this point, is good enough for me tbh!) but a bigger dog will get barked at, or maybe on a different day that same dog she didn't bark at before, even at the same distance she will bark at. So there's no real continuity in her behaviour which makes things confusing. I'm sure there are reasons for it, just not ones I can see!


----------



## MollySmith

Oh and I also do scene of the crime. If she reacts now when she really can do it, then I take her back. We will follow the dog that upset her from a safe distance so she can correct herself.

I also have also made her watch me before e_very single treat or mea_l in the house, even when we start tuggies and when she's off lead on walks and wants a treat, esp. when there is another dog around (mostly to prove to other owners how fab my dog is as she sits there and undermine the idiots who call her violent...!). It's now automatic. I've probably done that more than I should as it was so important for her reactivity but she's now probably Olympic standard and I swear her eye balls will pop one day she glares so hard!


----------



## tiatortilla

MollySmith said:


> Likewise if it was me, apologies
> 
> I will try to think of any useful websites as I was going to suggest the amazing BAT book which is almost what we've done with Molly who has been a nightmare on the lead, it's so miserable and utterly overwhelming isn't it?
> 
> We began with a stooge dog. I do have a trainer but hopefully you might see a few stooges on walks. Maybe ask on the chat area if anyone can help you? I also found another stooge dog on another dog website I don't use much now - dog pages I think it was.
> 
> We began by walking slowly towards the dog - you have to judge how far this would be by trial and error but I suggest overestimating a lot. As soon as your dog looks at the dog but does not react, click and treat (I'm assuming you do clicker work here ). Progress very slowly closer - but do watch your body language. I was wound up and it does go down the lead so my OH was better as he gives less of a toss than me! If your dog reacts then take her back to her safe place and begin again. It will take ages any many sessions. I found that Molly would go over the edge and it was pointless to continue. You might find your dog prefers play reward to food (I would let her off lead with the stooge as she loves being off lead and is so friendly but the downside was that she lost her worry over him being on lead so we had to find another stooge!!) but the idea is that they can look at a dog without reacting. You may have to be miles away. In the BAT book Grisha says that she has used a giant stuffed dog for training!
> 
> We've also walked her in a great place near our house which is safe off lead for dogs so she can understand off lead manners too. It's basic lack of socialisation I think plus some incidents we know about. On this walk I hang around the car park for a few minutes and click treat when we see dogs. I do have to walk past very calmly and with a distance of a road way between us and have a large handful of treats and constantly click her but it's worth the coordination nightmare! I also found a halti to work really well too as I am certain Molly associated her harness with play and lunge time. We only used the halti for training so now we put it on and she thinks it's training time.
> 
> This link might be helpful. I see that there are some free download PDF files too
> BAT Steps for Reactivity | Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT)
> 
> I really found it useful to write down our progress to help in the low points, either here or on my blog so I knew we'd progressed somewhere. If it helps, on Christmas Eve my dog was called violent for her lead reactivity by an idiot non-dog owning bitch at our walk because their dog was off lead and ran over and of course Molly reacted. Today she was drinking her water after her walk in the same car park whilst a group of dogs off and on lead had an argument involving lots of barks and growls and shouting humans. I was prepared for the worse but my dog finished her drink, sat down and looked at them very calmly and then at me as if to say 'the world has gone mad'.
> 
> You will get there, first step is knowing the problem.
> 
> Does that help?


Thankyou, that is really helpful 

I can't really afford books either, I know that probably sounds ridiculous but we really have no money at all. I'm also not sure if that might be the kind of thing I need someone more intelligent to re-phrase and explain to me? Not sure! Will have a look at the website you have posted though and I'll ask in here if there's anything I don't understand.

I really wanted to use a stooge dog at one point, I asked about putting up an advert for one on here and had a real mix of reactions, some were really supportive of the idea but tbh the majority was that I was an awful, irresponsible person that was going to ruin somebody else's dog with my selfish need to fix my own dog's problems if I remember correctly.. so yeah, I never did it because of those reactions but I still think it's the best way so I think I'll look into it again, especially if it's been helpful for you. I think it seems like the best way because atm if we ever run into another dog while she's on lead, I end up avoiding it or trying to distract her and failing which I don't feel like will ever fix the problem, but actually having another dog to regularly work with then she might remember. Although I live in a small town, don't drive and have no money so again, unfortunately this might be quite difficult to organise but I'll try my best.
Thankyou 

ETA: Just had a look at the thread where I asked about stooge dogs again, and it wasn't the majority that thought it was a bad idea actually, just a few but this was before she was even properly reactive, she just did the occasional growl then whereas now she is properly lungey and barky.


----------



## moonviolet

Tia another thing that could help is making a diary you may be able to spot patterns. nothing how she reacted,what the dog looked like ( big small pricked ears floppy ones etc) how far away the dog was, what they were doing lookign at Tia, playing with a ball, calming sniffing the hedge etc. Try not to get into the mind set where you have to beat her at this and think of yourselves as both sharing the experiences.

The tricky ones are often the most rewarding


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> Tia another thing that could help is making a diary you may be able to spot patterns. nothing how she reacted,what the dog looked like ( big small pricked ears floppy ones etc) how far away the dog was, what they were doing lookign at Tia, playing with a ball, calming sniffing the hedge etc. Try not to get into the mind set where you have to beat her at this and think of yourselves as both sharing the experiences.
> 
> The tricky ones are often the most rewarding


That's a good idea, I have a vague idea of which situations she reacts worse in that others, but keeping note of it could be more helpful, thankyou!
At the moment I know she's worse the bigger the dog is, also if it's a husky/GSD type looking dog (fluffy with pointy ears) then it's worse again. I also know if a dog ignores her then she'll shut up quicker and she's worse on pavements than in fields/countryside, but I will do as you suggested and then I'll be able to see if there's anything else I'm missing.


----------



## Sarah1983

Best advice I was given with Rupert was to keep a diary. Not just of when and how he reacted and in what situations but also when he didn't react or reacted in a positive way. Sometimes the improvements can be so small that you don't actually notice them until you read back over a few weeks or months and see just how far you've come.


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> Tia another thing that could help is making a diary you may be able to spot patterns.


Started a blog  Tia's Reactivity Diary I'll put the link in my signature once I've got a few more posts but for now I'll just share it in here.

Thankyou so much for being so nice and helpful everyone, I won't disappear again


----------



## Dogless

I am working on keeping what's left of my sanity :crazy:. Was having a lovely walk with Rudi until he swallowed the space lobber toy we were doing impulse control stuff with. One expensive emergency vet trip later and he's fine, if not as sick as a dog  :scared:.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> I am working on keeping what's left of my sanity :crazy:. Was having a lovely walk with Rudi until he swallowed the space lobber toy we were doing impulse control stuff with. One expensive emergency vet trip later and he's fine, if not as sick as a dog  :scared:.


Your boys are going to turn you grey. Glad he's OK maybe he was jealous of Kilo's vet visits.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Your boys are going to turn you grey. Glad he's OK maybe he was jealous of Kilo's vet visits.


He's the opposite to Kilo - goes in wagging and was still trying to wag even when he was being really sick and shaking, bless him.


----------



## IrishEyes

Hi all,

We had a beautiful fun walk today, lots of games and Horace was exceptionally well behaved which made me  He also hasn't reacted at all since our last update. We walked past 3 separate dogs today (other side of the road), he saw them and done some sniffing of grass instead. I praised him and treated him and we walked on. The wee rascal of a Jack Russell came out all guns blaring.. Horace was just waiting to see him.. JR barking and running around us so Horace just plops himself down and sits watching the show  I think he's getting used to the wee terror now.

Bess- has your little whirlwind calmed down now?!

Molly- I don't think your over reacting, I too don't like it when Horace goes out of sight, it seldoms happens but when it does I get anxious, I think many of us do.

Twiggy- I do hope you have some luck soon and that Tremor gets some ease.

Dogless- very happy to hear that Kilo is feeling brighter and enjoyed his wee dander. Rudi seems to be a wee star in the making!

Tia- You're not alone, I know it can be hard work and disheartening but your perserverance will pay off. I had some bad advice regarding Horace's excitment at seeing another dog which left him with on lead reactivity. We have been using the methods that others here have suggested and it's really starting to make a difference. Stick with it, there will be good days and bad days but we are all here if you want to report on your progress. 

MV- well done Tink  accept the praise for what it is, I find that people don't tend to compliment a dog's behaviour just to be polite, it's because they can see something good going on there!


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> I am working on keeping what's left of my sanity :crazy:. Was having a lovely walk with Rudi until he swallowed the space lobber toy we were doing impulse control stuff with. One expensive emergency vet trip later and he's fine, if not as sick as a dog  :scared:.


Omg how scary! Glad he's okay.


----------



## IrishEyes

Dogless said:


> I am working on keeping what's left of my sanity :crazy:. Was having a lovely walk with Rudi until he swallowed the space lobber toy we were doing impulse control stuff with. One expensive emergency vet trip later and he's fine, if not as sick as a dog  :scared:.


Blooming eck! Rudi you naughty naughty boy, you're going to give your mum a heart attack! 
I always worry with Horace about the size of toys that he has as he has a great big gob on him and I do worry that he may swallow something... that must have been scary for your Dogless.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I am working on keeping what's left of my sanity :crazy:. Was having a lovely walk with Rudi until he swallowed the space lobber toy we were doing impulse control stuff with. One expensive emergency vet trip later and he's fine, if not as sick as a dog  :scared:.


Ye Gods Dogless..!! I think both you and I have offended the elves and fairies. You may have to join me on the pole dancing sprees in OAP homes to fund the huge vets bills...

I'm just about to collect the* small *spacehopper I ordered in the pet shop for Holly, which I thought I'd use for training as she likes them so much. She has the medium sized out on walks. Maybe not such a good idea after all.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Ye Gods Dogless..!! I think both you and I have offended the elves and fairies. You may have to join me on the pole dancing sprees in OAP homes to fund the huge vets bills...
> 
> I'm just about to collect the* small *spacehopper I ordered in the pet shop for Holly, which I thought I'd use for training as she likes them so much. She has the medium sized out on walks. Maybe not such a good idea after all.


Haven't we??? I'd best get practising :lol:.

He swallowed a medium one :scared:. It was a toy he LOVED hence using it for the impulse control stuff. Think it was just how soft they are, squash down so easily. Still not sure how he did it - maybe he was sort of chewing as he ran back? Inhaled and then gulped?? Didn't look like a deliberate swallow and he hasn't ever been into swallowing stuff :scared:.

He'll only be getting LARGE squishy toys from now on. I'll give his other space lobber to Dizzy - he's a small dog .


----------



## MollySmith

Oh crikey Dogless, I missed this before bedtime last night - WAYWO, we have to start getting Twiggy and Dogless some bookings 

Oh goodness, how is Rudi this morning? 

How is Tremor? 

(hugs) and keep your sanity, you must both be due a vet free week by now.


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> Haven't we??? I'd best get practising :lol:.
> 
> He swallowed a medium one :scared:. It was a toy he LOVED hence using it for the impulse control stuff. Think it was just how soft they are, squash down so easily. Still not sure how he did it - maybe he was sort of chewing as he ran back? Inhaled and then gulped?? Didn't look like a deliberate swallow and he hasn't ever been into swallowing stuff :scared:.
> 
> He'll only be getting LARGE squishy toys from now on. I'll give his other space lobber to Dizzy - he's a small dog .


Hope you don't tell Dizzy where it's been!

I hope everyone has a quieter day today. Bess is still not eating at all - anorexia is apparently a symptom of a phantom pregnancy but whilst I know the cause it's a bit worrying. She was carrying a chicken leg round most of yesterday. I kept putting it back in the fridge, then when I got it out she'd take it into the lounge, drop it on her rug, lick it, then ignore it! Hope the darn thing gets eaten today, but I don't hold out much hope.

Dogless: Don't forget to stock up on wine today! You deserve a nice relaxing evening tonight.

IrishEyes: Hope you have another good walk today

Twiggy: Sounds like you need to stock up on the wine too! 

Tia: Hang on in there.

MV: I always get complimented on Bess's coat, and I really don't know what to say. Mind you, when a chap walked past the other day and said 'lovely coat' I was tempted to reply 'Thanks, I got it online'!


----------



## MollySmith

Oh poor Bess, bless her. I hope she improves today


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Dogless - So glad that Kilo is feeling better.
> 
> Twiggy - how good for your clients!
> 
> BD - I hope Bessie is back to normal soon
> 
> MS - I don't think you are over-reacting either, especially given how hard you have worked on recall. The dimwit is pretty good as he doesn't really like going out of sight of me but when he does he tends to panic a bit.
> *Have fun at the beer festival - I am supposed to be going one evening after work...
> *
> A fairly quiet weekend for the dimwits - we went to big walkies on saturday which was actually very little walkies, just dimwit and one other dog. Luckily a dog he likes so they had fun running around together Then we had scentwork class in the sunshine yesterday which was good.


Glad scentwork went well, I did think of you and little D. I'll nudge Cath when I see her tomorrow about Sunday. So sad about BW being a poor turnout. It's a bit of a difficult time for us as I usually try to see my gran then and it ends up being a mad dash.

I hope to go tomorrow lunchtime but depends on work here. I might wander down one evening instead, shout if you want some company - not that we've met yet but y'know, feel I know you already


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless, BessieDog and Twiggy - I hope all of your dogs are a bit better today.
Dimwit has one of those space hoppers which he loves but they do get quite slimey when wet...

MS - I don't mind BW when it is quieter, it is never so busy when the weather isn't great and a few of the hearing dog puppies have gone off now *sniff*. Hopefully we'll finally get to meet you on sunday

Dimwit was an absolute monster last night. I think he was bored despite having been for a nice walk, then we did some scentwork, and then we did some training in the house. He was alternating between sitting in the kitchen crying at the biscuit tin, sitting in the living and singing at me to try and make me play with him and doing zoomies round the house
I think we need to do a bit more work on rewarding him for being calm and civilised in the house...
On the plus side, he has almost mastered walking backwards and is getting better at not trying to kill me when weaving through my legs :lol:


----------



## Emilyyu

BessieDog said:


> It's unusual for her. Last time she did this she had vaginitis. I managed to fool her into having a tummy rub and got a good look - there is definitely a small rash there. Hopefully it's something localised, and not vaginitis again (or worse). First bitch I've had so I do worry!
> 
> Now trying to get a urine sample to take to vet. Problem is she doesn't wee in the mornings (most unusual, but she's always been that way ). She's been out twice now with me following her round with a sterilised pot but nothing!


From your description, I can see that you really worried about your dog's health situation. Let the vet take a look at her. Hope your lovely dog will be well soon under you good care.


----------



## tiatortilla

Hello again!
I have read all your posts, I have nothing of value to say but I hope you're all doing well today 
Tia's still on the longline at the moment so I thought I'd take the plunge and take her in to the park with it today, where there'd be other dogs. It was good and bad.
The good being that she didn't react on the longline, we saw this big lurcher that she's slightly in love with (I have no idea why, he doesn't like other dogs much, including Tia and she doesn't like big dogs so I'm quite bemused by this crush of hers!), a spaniel and a little dalmation, all from a distance, but no reactions from Tia at all  And also some good recalls, and also a couple of not so good ones but the majority were successful!
The bad bit however, was really bad. She growled at a puppy :confused1: It was really tiny, and came bounding over so I thought I'd unclip the lead and sod the recall for a minute because I didn't want her to bark at it, but I suppose I didn't get the lead off quick enough or something? They had a sniff and a small run around for a couple of seconds and then Tia sort of stood over it and growled. But it's just really unlike her to have a problem with a dog so small, especially a puppy - she usually adores little dogs. I apologised profusely obviously and the owner of the pup was fine about it fortunately but I'm now really worried in case it happens again, I don't know for sure that she was being mean as such, or just overly boisterous but either way I can't really have her doing that. Just so stressed out with everything at the moment!


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla - maybe she was just telling the puppy he was a little too boisterous? I can understand why you are upset. But the good part of your walk was very good, so try to hang onto that thought for your next one .

Bessiedog - hope Bess starts to eat soon, what a worry! I haven't got the space lobber he swallowed to give Dizzy...it's another one :lol:.

Dimwit - hope Dimwit's better today and not such a monster :scared:.

Good walks here. Rudi was absolutely full of zoomies and invented a great new game . There's a stinking, deep pool of mud and water in the dog walking area. He plunged into it once, got stinking and soaking, decided it was good and kept doing circles of zoomies followed by plunging into this thing. Oh well, he had fun .

Took Kilo up to the top fields, was doing impulse control stuff but threw his toy over the perimeter fence :incazzato: :incazzato: so he stood there and cried for a bit until I managed to entice him away. Then we just pottered. Still, he had a nice walk. As you all know stiles are a nemesis and he won't jump them for love nor money....well today there was a hole in a fence that would just about fit a dog through it about 3ft up in the air. His toy landed on the other side and, rather than go round, he just leapt perfectly through the hole and then back through again to me...he is always doing stuff like that, but not stiles :mad2:.

I might give up trying to teach any impulse control. Seems to be where it all goes wrong :scared: :lol:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> tiatortilla - maybe she was just telling the puppy he was a little too boisterous? I can understand why you are upset. But the good part of your walk was very good, so try to hang onto that thought for your next one .


Thanks  I will definitely be remembering the good bit, I'm very pleased with her. The puppy really didn't seem boisterous at all, for a start he was the size of Tia's head but he also rolled over and was very submissive so I'm really not sure why she did it.



> As you all know stiles are a nemesis and he won't jump them for love nor money....well today there was a hole in a fence that would just about fit a dog through it about 3ft up in the air. His toy landed on the other side and, rather than go round, he just leapt perfectly through the hole and then back through again to me...he is always doing stuff like that, but not stiles :mad2:.


Tia has an issue with stiles too, she'll crawl underneath or through the middle of them but it takes a lot of convincing - she'll spend about five minutes faffing around and not really wanting to go through, and she absolutely will not go over the top 
Kilo's jump sounds very impressive though!


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Thanks  I will definitely be remembering the good bit, I'm very pleased with her. The puppy really didn't seem boisterous at all, for a start he was the size of Tia's head but he also rolled over and was very submissive so I'm really not sure why she did it.
> 
> Tia has an issue with stiles too, she'll crawl underneath or through the middle of them but it takes a lot of convincing - she'll spend about five minutes faffing around and not really wanting to go through, and she absolutely will not go over the top
> Kilo's jump sounds very impressive though!


Some dogs get annoyed at very submissive, 'licky' dogs. Kilo gets annoyed with dogs that lick and lick at his mouth. He is OK for a bit, then turns his head away. If they persist he'll growl at them.

It was a very impressive jump indeed. Shame he won't save them for stiles, would be much better for my back :lol:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Why did this thread get un-stickied btw, if anyone knows?


----------



## Twiggy

I need an hour lying down in a darkened room now after agility this morning..!!

There was only four dogs, including Holly, which of course meant we had lots of turns. I also ran a friend's collie a couple of times as well and it nearly killed me.

Holly was really good this morning in her own little way and is starting to look down a line of jumps instead of at me which means I have to run...

She's also decided the tunnels are not scary and is going through them much too fast for my liking, which also means I have to run...

Considering it was only her 4th lesson this morning she did really well and didn't pay any attention to the other dogs either.

I used the newly acquired space lobber so maybe that's what engaged her, although I watch her very carefully after Rudi swallowing his last night.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Oh crikey Dogless, I missed this before bedtime last night - WAYWO, we have to start getting Twiggy and Dogless some bookings
> 
> Oh goodness, how is Rudi this morning?
> 
> *How is Tremor? *
> 
> (hugs) and keep your sanity, you must both be due a vet free week by now.


Thanks for asking. Tremor is sound and very, very bored with another week to go of restricted exercise. She appears sound as a bell but then she has been most of the time for the last four months. It's if I start training her, particularly fast sendaways.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Thanks for asking. Tremor is sound and very, very bored with another week to go of restricted exercise. She appears sound as a bell but then she has been most of the time for the last four months. It's if I start training her, particularly fast sendaways.


Molly would be a nightmare if she was restricted, three nights with a bucket on head drove us all mad. Almost there Tremor, one more week


----------



## BessieDog

Well that darn chicken leg has been in and out of the lounge again today. She sort of wants to eat it, but when it comes to it can't bring herself too. Ill try her with some heart later.


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Bessiedog .

Had a great walk with Rudi, passed a fair few dogs on a beautifully loose lead, no toys swallowed :thumbsup: .

Took Kilo out with Dizzy, he seemed to really perk up and had the odd burst of running about and playing, bless him. He barked at a dog on the other side of the road, then a man who dared to smile at us who was mowing his lawn and then a child who scootered at us. Not good, he was a very, very nervy boy - not seen him like it since last summer when all the kids were making our lives hell. I'm hoping it was a bad day / the 'steroid effect' and he went past dogs, people etc fine this morning, in fact very happily. Perhaps the excitement at seeing Dizzy tipped the stress balance? . Anyway I'm not going to worry at one bad episode. Not like me I know .


----------



## Guest

Hello! Hope you are all well! 

The lurch is doing well in some areas and not so much in other areas. :thumbsup:


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear Bessiedog - hope you can get her eating soon.

Dogless - Considering how poorly Kilo has been, treat the walk today as a one off.

LurcherOwner - Well done on the good bits, sorry about the not so good.

My back and legs are aching tonight - I wonder why. LOL

I did all my pots with summer bedding this afternoon which really helped my aching limbs. I've removed the protective plastic netting from the ones next to the bungalow so fingers crossed Leafy doesn't decide she's not happy with my arrangement and interferes with them.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - take it Leafy's a bit of a gardener? :lol:. Apt name.


----------



## BessieDog

I wouldn't worry Dogless - Kilo probably doesn't know whether he's coming or going at the moment. He's still not feeling 100% and his tolerance levels will be low. 

Twiggy - I'm impressed. Just thinking whether I dare plant flowers in the garden this year. Last year Bess dug them all up and bit of all the flower heads of anything that managed to bloom. This year she seems to be ignoring the few that have survived. Dare I buy more? 

Despite her bringing the chicken leg back in every time I take it out she still hasn't eaten it. So I cut up a lambs heart and gave her that (too much effort for madam to eat them whole ). That disappeared quickly, so its off to Morrisons in the morning to buy some more. She's very lively tonight as she's renewing acquaintances with all her old balls which were under the settee. Hopefully she'll crash soon.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - take it Leafy's a bit of a gardener? :lol:. Apt name.


You obviously haven't heard of Leafy's Landscaping Services Limited?

Very unique designs. She's very upset she hasn't been invited to do a show garden at Chelsea Flower Show this year.


----------



## Dimwit

Dimwit is pretty good at landscaping as well. I am told that this is a patterdale trait...

He has been a horror again this evening, and has gone back to being hyper vigilant and unsettled I am wondering if it is because I have just started a new bag of food which has a higher protein content than his last bag? I can't think of anything else that has changed over the last couple of days...


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> Dimwit is pretty good at landscaping as well. I am told that this is a patterdale trait...
> 
> He has been a horror again this evening, and has gone back to being hyper vigilant and unsettled I am wondering if it is because I have just started a new bag of food which has a higher protein content than his last bag? I can't think of anything else that has changed over the last couple of days...


Maybe it is the food Dimwit, he is usually really sensitive to food in that way?


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> You obviously haven't heard of Leafy's Landscaping Services Limited?
> 
> Very unique designs. She's very upset she hasn't been invited to do a show garden at Chelsea Flower Show this year.


 Molly does tree surgery very well, maybe we can pimp our dogs out and make them earn for their vet fees!


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit - what a pain, I wonder if it's food? I've had Molly back on James Wellbeloved, she was on Applaws but didn't like the kibble at all and found that a place near Fulbourn called Alan's Ark does good discounts on Wellbeloved. I hope he settles down soon.

Dogless - I agree with the others although it must be frustrating and I empathise with that. Hopefully he'll pick up where he left off before he was ill. 

Bessie - so pleased you got some grub inside her at last!


Not much to report here, we had our girlie walk and I realised that I talk to my dog all the time. Constant babble it is. I risked a trip to the top of the field of bird chasing and my babbling must work, that and her chuckit ball as she didn't race off at all. Then we walked back and met one of her friends Nelson. They played nicely although Molly did tire quicker than him, I'm just starting to notice that. She's been a good girl, saw a dog in the car park before me and looked at me as if to say 'where is my treat dammit'! And then did it again so I'm delighted with her. 

Tomorrow might be fun, I'm walking with a friend at 3 so I'm swapping her times around so she'll have a lead walk first and then off lead much later. It could be chaos. Then I'll be leaving her alone for the first time in weeks, months really as we're going to sneak off to beer fest in the evening. I think she'll be fine, 2 hours off lead, tea and a kip without her annoying humans huggling her!


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Maybe it is the food Dimwit, he is usually really sensitive to food in that way?


He is quite food sensitive and he is intolerant to a lot of grains so I have to be quite careful about what I feed him, but most grain-free foods are very high protein.
He was on natural dog food company kibble, which he loves and was fine with but he has started to lose weight which is generally a sign that he needs a change 

MS - glad Molly was a good girl yesterday, and I'm sure she'll have a great time home alone this evening


----------



## moonviolet

Tink's offering her services to Leafy's landscape services too, large holes for tree planting her speciality, would be happy to take on the challenge of a pond or pool :lol: Sending health filled thoughts to your girls. I hope your sister is doing well too.

MS hope Molly enjoys her quiet time this evening and you don't come in too noisily from the beer festival and disturb her beauty sleep. 

DW hope you are able to sort out your food woes and Sprocket settles adn stops losing weight.

BD glad Bess is eatign again.

We've been adding more park visits and they've been goign well. We've also been making use of the "trim trail" as i've never seen a human using it i can't see the harm in a little hound using it 
Class was great last night I went early adn we took a wander a round the green first. It's definitely dogs in full chase that make Tink unsure (hardly surprising) But watching from a distance and not being harrassed was good.

In class her focus and enthusiasm were fantastic she is such a joy. :001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> He is quite food sensitive and he is intolerant to a lot of grains so I have to be quite careful about what I feed him, but most grain-free foods are very high protein.
> *He was on natural dog food company kibble, which he loves and was fine with but he has started to lose weight which is generally a sign that he needs a change*
> 
> MS - glad Molly was a good girl yesterday, and I'm sure she'll have a great time home alone this evening


I noticed my two oldies lost weight when I changed them to The Natural Dog Food Company Senior and Sensitive.

It's very low in fat so I assumed that's why.

Leafy, after becoming intolerant to both the Senior and Sensitive, is now back on AG Fish and Potato so I've cut the quantity down a bit. It's about 22% protein; pretty much the same level as The Natural Dog Food.


----------



## Twiggy

*


moonviolet said:



Tink's offering her services to Leafy's landscape services too, large holes for tree planting her speciality, would be happy to take on the challenge of a pond or pool

Click to expand...

*


moonviolet said:


> :lol: Sending health filled thoughts to your girls. I hope your sister is doing well too.
> 
> MS hope Molly enjoys her quiet time this evening and you don't come in too noisily from the beer festival and disturb her beauty sleep.
> 
> DW hope you are able to sort out your food woes and Sprocket settles adn stops losing weight.
> 
> BD glad Bess is eatign again.
> 
> We've been adding more park visits and they've been goign well. We've also been making use of the "trim trail" as i've never seen a human using it i can't see the harm in a little hound using it
> Class was great last night I went early adn we took a wander a round the green first. It's definitely dogs in full chase that make Tink unsure (hardly surprising) But watching from a distance and not being harrassed was good.
> 
> In class her focus and enthusiasm were fantastic she is such a joy. :001_wub:


So Tink, Molly and Leafy could offer the complete gardening package then. Leafy's speciality is container planting, Tink could do the ponds and hard landscaping and Molly tree surgery...LOL


----------



## BessieDog

I had a mad dog. Always known it, but she proved it today. She's on ABs - a tablet and a half twice a day. So I've been hiding it in food. Today I gave her a cream biscuit. I separated the two halves, and pushed the tablets into the cream. She loves these biscuits normally and only gets them as a special treat.

Well, she picked out the tablets and ate them - and then left the whole biscuit, and the cream! At least I got the tablets down her, but cannot understand why she didn't want the biscuit?


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> I noticed my two oldies lost weight when I changed them to The Natural Dog Food Company Senior and Sensitive.
> 
> It's very low in fat so I assumed that's why.
> 
> Leafy, after becoming intolerant to both the Senior and Sensitive, is now back on AG Fish and Potato so I've cut the quantity down a bit. It's about 22% protein; pretty much the same level as The Natural Dog Food.


I'll check out the Arden Grange, thanks. He has been on the NDF for a while now and been fine until the last couple of weeks when I have noticed him getting quite skinny. He is quite difficult to keep weight on anyway - I wish I had his metabolism


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> I'll check out the Arden Grange, thanks. He has been on the NDF for a while now and been fine until the last couple of weeks when I have noticed him getting quite skinny. He is quite difficult to keep weight on anyway - I wish I had his metabolism


Arden Grange is my food of choice and in the main my dogs have done very well on it over the years.

You could contact Ness Bird, AGs vet and nutritionist, who will send you samples and/or offer you advice. She was extremely helpful with Leafy and is totally honest.


----------



## Dogless

Took the boys to 'our' forest today to explore a brand new part of it. I think that Kilo's barking last night at lots of things and increased barking at noises outside in the house has been due to frustration and boredom perhaps now that he is recovering, so I decided that we'd go to the forest and see how he goes. We spent all morning there pretty much - no great distance covered, just let the boys do 'dog' stuff.

Well....I watched Kilo come back to life . He still isn't playing with Rudi but enjoyed the forest very much. They both recalled perfectly every time they were asked to and....*Kilo recalled from chasing a rabbit :thumbsup:  *. Rudi came too, but he hadn't seen the rabbit, just ran off to see what Kilo was up to :lol:.

So...all perfect you think? Not quite, Rudi learnt how to roll in fox poo, did a very thorough job indeed . He met Mr Hosepipe when we got hope. Can't say he was exactly thrilled about it :lol: :scared:.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy - I have contacted AG so shall see what they say.

Dogless - great news about Kilo, and clever Rudi for learning a new skill, though dimwit says that the real skill is learning to simultaneously roll in it and eat it


One thing I meant to ask before I got sidetracked with all the food stuff is if anyone can recommend any good games/exercises to improve impulse control? It is something I need to work on with dimwit but I am a bit lacking in inspriation...


----------



## Twiggy

I would say that's just what the doctor ordered for Kilo....

When the dogs are ill and/or being restricted it most certainly affects them in so many ways - anger - frustration - bewilderment - fear - etc.

I'm really looking forward to Tremor's next vet visit Friday morning. She'll probably start barking when we pull up in the car-park and want to have a go at every dog and human..!! She's growling quite a bit at my other three, which is so unlike her and almost reverting back to how she was at around 6 months old. Not her fault, she's basically going off her head with boredom and frustration and obviously doesn't understand why she can't 'do' anything.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I would say that's just what the doctor ordered for Kilo....
> 
> When the dogs are ill and/or being restricted it most certainly affects them in so many ways - anger - frustration - bewilderment - fear - etc.
> 
> I'm really looking forward to Tremor's next vet visit Friday morning. She'll probably start barking when we pull up in the car-park and want to have a go at every dog and human..!! She's growling quite a bit at my other three, which is so unlike her and almost reverting back to how she was at around 6 months old. Not her fault, she's basically going off her head with boredom and frustration and obviously doesn't understand why she can't 'do' anything.


It was Twiggy .

I have the vet this afternoon with Kilo, can't say he'll be thrilled about it I don't think!!! He's still growling at Rudi when he tries to wrestle with him - but he's fine in close quarters like the car and running and sniffing about with him and sleeping so it's just the physical play he doesn't want at present. Sure he will in time.

Poor Tremor - suspect Kilo was going off his with boredom and frustration too. He's definitely asleep through being tired rather than just lethargy right now.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> So Tink, Molly and Leafy could offer the complete gardening package then. Leafy's speciality is container planting, Tink could do the ponds and hard landscaping and Molly tree surgery...LOL*


*

Molly is also excellent at removals, she can help Leafy move things.








*


----------



## BessieDog

Can I offer up Bess? She's exceptionally good at hard pruning - and also pulling up the grass that grow in the cracks on the patio. Which is actually quite useful - until she moves on to the lawn! 

Glad Kilo's brighter - it will probably be a long, slow haul, but he'll get there. :thumbsup:


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry I have been MIA for a few days, very, very, busy, pressured and overwhelmed at work.

Just wanted to offer up the gobshites services (theres a lot of barks in her head waiting to come out today ), trenches a specialty remember!

Funnily enough dimwit we have been working on impulse control the last couple of days, I had her on her mat last night while I was eating tea, hubby rose from his sick bed to bring his plate down, walked right past her and into the kitchen without her moving a jot 

Then after we did popcorn resistance, one bit for ninja, stays on my knee till I have finished my handful .

At lunch today I thought I would demonstrate to hubby so we were lobbing bits of food on the floor and making her wait, eventually she just did ait until released, I had forgotten how good she is as that sort of thing :thumbsup:.

I must work on it more as a way to resist chasing hares that dare to sit on the footpath in front of us instead of staying in their nice wheat field .

Bessie your dog does sound a bit mad , she has been starving herself all week and decides to eat tablets and not biscuits


----------



## Dimwit

I may have to try the popcorn resistance, although I suspect that this means I will have to eat lots of popcorm myself? *sigh* the sacrifices I make for my dog :lol:

I need to work on it as a way of getting dimwit to realise that not every bit of food/toy/random object that is in my hand or on the floor is for him, and that even if it is he does occasionally have to wait for more than a nanosecond before grabbing for it...


----------



## tiatortilla

GR your popcorn resistance sounds brilliant 
Dogless I'm glad kilo is feeling better 


Could anybody recommend anything to read online about clicker training please? I think I understand it but I'd like something recommended by people that know what to do better than I do so I know it's right 
I was looking at the stuff MollySmith (great photo btw  ) posted for reactivity training and I think I'm going to need to do clicker training first, I'm really uncoordinated so I haven't done it before  I think that might be why a lot of her training isn't as reliable and ingrained as it should be? It is possible to learn how to do it without a trainer isn't it?


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> I may have to try the popcorn resistance, although I suspect that this means I will have to eat lots of popcorm myself? *sigh* the sacrifices I make for my dog :lol:
> 
> I need to work on it as a way of getting dimwit to realise that not every bit of food/toy/random object that is in my hand or on the floor is for him, and that even if it is he does occasionally have to wait for more than a nanosecond before grabbing for it...


My favorite impulse control exercises : Kate Senisi Pet Solutions

This link is helpful for Impulse control exercises


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> My favorite impulse control exercises : Kate Senisi Pet Solutions
> 
> This link is helpful for Impulse control exercises


I'll be having a go at some of those too, thankyou


----------



## moonviolet

tiatortilla said:


> GR your popcorn resistance sounds brilliant
> Dogless I'm glad kilo is feeling better
> 
> Could anybody recommend anything to read online about clicker training please? I think I understand it but I'd like something recommended by people that know what to do better than I do so I know it's right
> I was looking at the stuff MollySmith (great photo btw  ) posted for reactivity training and I think I'm going to need to do clicker training first, I'm really uncoordinated so I haven't done it before  I think that might be why a lot of her training isn't as reliable and ingrained as it should be? It is possible to learn how to do it without a trainer isn't it?


Yes it is possible to learn how to clicker train without a trainer
Can't really beat Karen Pryor's clicker training website

Clicker Training Basics | Karen Pryor Clicker Training


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> Yes it is possible to learn how to clicker train without a trainer
> Can't really beat Karen Pryor's clicker training website
> 
> Clicker Training Basics | Karen Pryor Clicker Training


Thankyou!
Think I'm going to be quite busy for a while


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Molly is also excellent at removals, she can help Leafy move things.


 They would make a brilliant team then...!!


----------



## Sarah1983

tiatortilla said:


> GR your popcorn resistance sounds brilliant
> Dogless I'm glad kilo is feeling better
> 
> Could anybody recommend anything to read online about clicker training please? I think I understand it but I'd like something recommended by people that know what to do better than I do so I know it's right
> I was looking at the stuff MollySmith (great photo btw  ) posted for reactivity training and I think I'm going to need to do clicker training first, I'm really uncoordinated so I haven't done it before  I think that might be why a lot of her training isn't as reliable and ingrained as it should be? It is possible to learn how to do it without a trainer isn't it?


Just about to head out but I found this site extremely helpful when I first started clicker training ClickerSolutions Home Found it a bit more user friendly than Karen Pryors personally. It's not updated any more as far as I can tell but the info is still there  I learned without a trainer so it's certainly doable but I think it would be easier with someone to show you what to do.

Then of course there's Karen Pryors site and Kikopup on YouTube


----------



## Dogless

Kilo behaved very well at the vet's for me, I told a man off who stroked him when I expressly told him not to . He has lost a further 0.5kg which I know isn't much but I am disappointed and slightly worried as I have been trying to get weight on as you know. He's got 6kg to regain now . Other than that, steroids are reduced again from tomorrow and then again in a week's time, then finished thank goodness. Just hope the meningitis doesn't flare up aagin with only having 5 weeks' worth. Fingers crossed.


----------



## tiatortilla

Sarah1983 said:


> Just about to head out but I found this site extremely helpful when I first started clicker training ClickerSolutions Home Found it a bit more user friendly than Karen Pryors personally. It's not updated any more as far as I can tell but the info is still there  I learned without a trainer so it's certainly doable but I think it would be easier with someone to show you what to do.
> 
> Then of course there's Karen Pryors site and Kikopup on YouTube


Thankyou, anything that'll make it seem easier is very welcomed :laugh:


----------



## Canine K9

I had a lovely encounter with an Irish Setter girlie today. Since one of the two dogs that tried to attack Bailey a while ago was an IS I have always been a bit wary of them when out walking my lad. But today a Lovely IS girlie called the very original name of Ruby came and said hello to Bailey. She was gorgeous and so friendly and played very gently with Bailey :001_wub: 
I have warmed to them quite a bit now!


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> I had a lovely encounter with an Irish Setter girlie today. Since one of the two dogs that tried to attack Bailey a while ago was an IS I have always been a bit wary of them when out walking my lad. But today a Lovely IS girlie called the very original name of Ruby came and said hello to Bailey. She was gorgeous and so friendly and played very gently with Bailey :001_wub:
> I have warmed to them quite a bit now!


Holly's friend at agility is an Irish Setter bitch. She's also a real sweetie.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Kilo behaved very well at the vet's for me, I told a man off who stroked him when I expressly told him not to . He has lost a further 0.5kg which I know isn't much but I am disappointed and slightly worried as I have been trying to get weight on as you know. He's got 6kg to regain now . Other than that, steroids are reduced again from tomorrow and then again in a week's time, then finished thank goodness. Just hope the meningitis doesn't flare up aagin with only having 5 weeks' worth. Fingers crossed.


I shall most certainly keep my fingers crossed for Kilo. Disappointing that he's lost weight but it is only a tiny bit and not like the original rapid weight loss.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I shall most certainly keep my fingers crossed for Kilo. Disappointing that he's lost weight but it is only a tiny bit and not like the original rapid weight loss.


No Twiggy and he's 100% brighter - loved his walk today and even wanted to play with his beloved football in the garden with me tonight for the first time in 2 weeks . The next step would be looking at neurological problems but it does very much seem to be steroid related. He won't complain at a bowl of Lactol with raw egg and manuka honey before bed I'm sure .


----------



## IrishEyes

Dogless- So pleased to hear that Kilo's much improved, fingers crossed for him and I'm sure that he will put the weight back on in time.

K9- It's great that you met a nice friendly IS, it's easy to let the fear from one bad experience hold you back from moving on.


----------



## Dogless

Took the boys to 'our' forest for the morning again. Worked on....just being. Same as yesterday - as long as my recalls and 'this ways' were heeded that was all that I wanted - and they were .

Kilo is doing great and Rudi managed not to roll in anything horrid too .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Took the boys to 'our' forest for the morning again. Worked on....just being. Same as yesterday - as long as my recalls and 'this ways' were heeded that was all that I wanted - and they were .
> 
> Kilo is doing great and Rudi managed not to roll in anything horrid too .


That all sounds good.

I might do a tiny bit of heelwork with Tremor in a minute to try and ease her boredom. She can come out with Holly and do a bit. Trouble is she gets so excited and doesn't do anything sedately.

Husband took me out to lunch and I then trailed him round a shopping outlet, looking for a birthday present for my sister. As you'd expect he really enjoyed it.....:001_rolleyes:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That all sounds good.
> 
> I might do a tiny bit of heelwork with Tremor in a minute to try and ease her boredom. She can come out with Holly and do a bit. Trouble is she gets so excited and doesn't do anything sedately.
> 
> Husband took me out to lunch and I then trailed him round a shopping outlet, looking for a birthday present for my sister. As you'd expect he really enjoyed it.....:001_rolleyes:


Yes, I'm sure hubby was delighted to accompany you . Hope you found a gift that you liked.

Bless Tremor - I always imagine a dog sort of vibrating with energy from her name. Hope she enjoys her heel work.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, I'm sure hubby was delighted to accompany you . Hope you found a gift that you liked.
> 
> Bless Tremor - I always imagine a dog sort of vibrating with energy from her name. Hope she enjoys her heel work.


Well he flipping wanted to come and suggested lunch. He wanted to look at jackets in M&S, which took him all of thirty seconds, and he was then bored.

I got my sister a nice zip through jacket/sweatshirt from Gap. She's lost so much weight and all her clothes are much too big at the moment.

Actually that sums up Tremor pretty well - vibrating with energy...LOL


----------



## tiatortilla

Canine k9 - Glad you met a nice IS to change your views  I think they're lovely dogs.
Dogless - Sounds like Kilo is doing much better and like you've had a good walk today 
Twiggy - Has Tremor been unwell? I must have missed that. I hope she starts doing better soon.

--

Uneventful but nice walk today, we had the park to ourselves 
We tried the impulse control exercises that moonviolet posted yesterday too. Tia was very good at them, until we got to the one where the treat is on the floor and not covered by your hand but the dog has to look away from the treat.. she does get rather fixated and no amount of silly noises from me was taking her eyes off it for longer than a millisecond


----------



## MollySmith

I hope Tremor is okay and enjoyed her heelwork.

So pleased that Kilo is out and about and Rudi managed to avoid rolling. I think Molly did that for him yesterday.

We had a walk with 5 dogs yesterday by the river where we went at the weekend. With me and OH she goes into the woods for pheasants. With me and our friend and four dogs she's happy as you like with us and stays close (yes another massive hint that she wants some friends...:001_rolleyes but got herself so excited that she forgot the river and went straight in. Slid right in and then panic swum. You really would have thought she'd sorted that out.

Anyway OH was chomping at the bit to go to the beer fest and I was dry shampooing dog. She was fine with her upside down day and being left alone for 2 hours although we did lead reactions on some distance swans as there were no dogs on our morning walk. And beer fest was great. I had my fill of stouts, some yummy chips and cycled home on the towpath without falling into the river like my dog. it's the first time since Sept last year that me and OH have been out without Molly. That's awful isn't it?


----------



## Dogless

MS - I'm sure the beer fest trip with OH did you some good - as long as it doesn't give you a sore head .

Just took the CHs out on lead for a pavement walk together for the first time in ages. They were perfect for me - my best boys :001_wub:. It sounds so boastful but it was one of those walks where you wish people could see you .


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - so glad you have had a good day with the boys 

MS - poor Molly having another unscheduled swim, and glad you enjoyed the beer festival.

I have changed the dimwit to a lower protein food so fingers crossed it helps. We tried the popcorn resistance this evening (is it just me or does popcorn resistance sound like the title of a really bad war/spy film). Anyway, apparently popcorn is the best thing ever so we were not working so much on leaving a piece on my knee but on keeping all 4 paws on the ground and not lunging for the bowl


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Canine k9 - Glad you met a nice IS to change your views  I think they're lovely dogs.
> Dogless - Sounds like Kilo is doing much better and like you've had a good walk today
> *Twiggy - Has Tremor been unwell? I must have missed that. I hope she starts doing better soon.*
> 
> --
> 
> Yes almost £800 worth of being unwell in the past two weeks...!!
> 
> She had a vaginal infection which happily has more or less cleared up now but she's also been intermittently lame for nearly four months. She had a GA and x-rays a week last Tuesday and I'm waiting a report from the orthopaedic 'expert'. My vet started her on a 6 course laser treatment - she has her 4th in the morning and she's on restricted exercise for at least two weeks. Understandably she's getting more and more fractious as she's a young and fit collie.


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy said:


> Yes almost £800 worth of being unwell in the past two weeks...!!
> 
> She had a vaginal infection which happily has more or less cleared up now but she's also been intermittently lame for nearly four months. She had a GA and x-rays a week last Tuesday and I'm waiting a report from the orthopaedic 'expert'. My vet started her on a 6 course laser treatment - she has her 4th in the morning and she's on restricted exercise for at least two weeks. Understandably she's getting more and more fractious as she's a young and fit collie.


Oh gosh poor thing! I hope the laser treatment goes well, I can imagine she's very bored.


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Oh gosh poor thing! I hope the laser treatment goes well, I can imagine she's very bored.


Thanks. Shall we say I have more faith in the laser than I do the vet. Had he actually listened to me Tremor would have started treatment 3 months ago...


----------



## BessieDog

Twiggy - men and shopping do not mix! 

Dogless - glad the boys are behaving. 

Well, after Bess ate fairly well yesterday (about half the amount she should do) she has eaten zilch today. I fried up her favourite - liver - and she wouldn't even take it from me if hand fed. Hopefully she'll pick up tomorrow. Had a lovely walk though. Just wish she'd get back to eating. She wouldn't even eat a treat!


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear Bessiedog that's not good.

I'm off to the vets in a minute. I expect Tremor will resemble a tiger rather than a collie...!!


----------



## Guest

Just thought I'd do an update on Kenzie's refusal to train at agility. We went along to a different club to train tonight - much smaller, less dogs/people and a great trainer.

Kenzie did really, really well - she was so enthusiastic and actually FAST! For the first time ever she actually took a flying leap off the A-frame and missed the contact, which obviously isn't a good thing, but she's never gone so fast before that she's done that!

We had actually had 2 weeks off training before tonight, so I can't attribute all of the success to the new club as some of it might have been the fact that she was 'fresh'. But either way it was fabulous to see her raring to go and actually enjoying herself.


----------



## Twiggy

McKenzie said:


> Just thought I'd do an update on Kenzie's refusal to train at agility. We went along to a different club to train tonight - much smaller, less dogs/people and a great trainer.
> 
> Kenzie did really, really well - she was so enthusiastic and actually FAST! For the first time ever she actually took a flying leap off the A-frame and missed the contact, which obviously isn't a good thing, but she's never gone so fast before that she's done that!
> 
> We had actually had 2 weeks off training before tonight, so I can't attribute all of the success to the new club as some of it might have been the fact that she was 'fresh'. But either way it was fabulous to see her raring to go and actually enjoying herself.


That's great news.

A different class and trainer can make a huge difference. The dogs pick up on the atmosphere good or bad.


----------



## Dogless

McKenzie - :thumbup1:.

Twiggy - hope the vet's was OK with Tremor and she wasn't too tiger - like!

Bessiedog - hope Bess has eaten something for you, what a worry!

We went to the Mournes today - not up a mountain obviously but for a walk at the foot of them. The CHs were very good for me . It was lovely to be back there.


----------



## MollySmith

McKenzie that's fab news! Love to see some pics 

Bessie I hope the little one eats soon 

Twiggy - how is Tremor? 

Dogless - I am going to go green eyed at your photos in a mo, glad you had a lovely walk  

Missing Molly, I went out at 11 and they must have just gone out just before I came back at 2 so the house is spooky quiet and I get a bit unsettled with them out so late in the day. I am sure they are fine and just stuck in traffic but time and thoughts drag to dark places when I am alone. Hope they are back soon. My sensible head knows the traffic will be hell in Cambridge as it always is in rain.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> McKenzie - :thumbup1:.
> 
> Twiggy - hope the vet's was OK with Tremor and she wasn't too tiger - like!
> 
> Bessiedog - hope Bess has eaten something for you, what a worry!
> 
> We went to the Mournes today - not up a mountain obviously but for a walk at the foot of them. The CHs were very good for me . It was lovely to be back there.


We survived the vet trip and actually Tremor wasn't too bad. It helped that there was hardly anyone there apart from the two female vets and two receptionists...!! He's in the wrong area for high tech equipment and fancy prices.

Apparently the orthopaedic specialist will be there on Tuesday but Tremor's appointment is early morning, which is rather a nuisance as I would have liked to hear his report straight from the horses mouth so to speak and fired pertinent questions at him.

Dogless - I saw the Mourne Mountains on the way back to the airport when I was judging near Belfast. They looked beautiful.


----------



## tiatortilla

I've got a quick question... is there any particular clicker that's recommended or are any of them fine? Just thought I'd check before ordering one!


----------



## moonviolet

tiatortilla said:


> I've got a quick question... is there any particular clicker that's recommended or are any of them fine? Just thought I'd check before ordering one!


there are various it's a lot of personal preference but if you can't wait the security pop on a jam jar lid works just fine :laugh:


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> there are various it's a lot of personal preference but if you can't wait the security pop on a jam jar lid works just fine :laugh:


Haha I don't think we've got any of those at the moment, typically!


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## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Haha I don't think we've got any of those at the moment, typically!


Or a biro with a 'push in' end.


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy said:


> Or a biro with a 'push in' end.


Ooh now I'm sure there's one of those somewhere.. I'll have a look


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## MollySmith

What nuisance you'll miss the surgeon Twiggy but I am glad that Tremor got on okay otherise. Do you think you'll be able to do more exercise next week or do you have to wait for the surgeon to say so first?

Molly and OH are finally back, I was getting a bit worried. I hope you get home okay Dimwit, it's a car park on the ring road. Molly is very low today, bit odd. She was struggling to poop on her walk but her appetite is okay. Maybe the weather perhaps but OH said they went late because she was sleepy. She's snoring away again.


----------



## LinznMilly

Hi all. Been hellish busy this week, so haven't really had a chance to update/catch up since my last posting.

Looks like Milly's crate will be staying for the foreseeable future.  She did go on a wrecking spree when I left her out for an hour from 1:30 til 2:30 last week, because I hadn't had time to take them for a decent walk, or do much in the way of fun training before going out to work, but it was nothing that I'd miss - mainly a paper bag, a few odds-and-ends knocked off the table, and papers tossed on the floor. I just ignored her for that. 

No. The reason the crate will be staying is ... she bloody well still sleeps in it   I give them a treat before bed, lights off, go to bed - and when I get up the next morning, 9 times out of 10, Milly's asleep in her crate, even when I leave the crate door wide open. :bored: Oh well! As long as she's comfy, I suppose.

Fun training. . . Well, I had to give up on it yesterday. They were just super excited and weren't really concentrating.  Walking back for a spin, Max jumping up on me instead of closing the door :crazy:, lying down when I'd asked them to sit  :bored: I ended up splitting them up, tossing Milly a stuffed kong whilst concentrating on Find It with Max (which he LOVES), incorporating Nina Ottosen's Dog Spinny into the game, then playing with the Dog Brick/Dog Spinny with Milly, so our "training session" ended up on a good note, despite aborting the training session. :laugh:

Hope you and your doggies are all doing well


----------



## BessieDog

Lynznmillie - Bess still has her crate as she won't sleep anywhere else. And like your's, it's never closed. 

Bit annoyed. We're having new work tops in our kitchen - ordered them, they were delivered this week, but the kitchen fitter has led us a merry dance and won't be able to fit them for 4 weeks.

Anyway, go out with OH this morning - only a couple of hours, and come back to find Bess has chewed the ends of the two worktops! Not badly, but enough to worry us! 

She hasn't chewed anything like that EVER! 

She'll now be locked in the utility room when we go out which won't make her happy, rather than having the run of the hall where she can see out through the door and see what's going on.

But whereas can we store 2 3600mm worktops for 4 weeks? Not happy! 

On the good side she's eaten a bit today. Maybe the worktop gave her an appetite!


----------



## Dimwit

Tiatortilla - whichever clicker you decide on I would get 2-3 of them. I am terrible for forgetting where I have put mine

MS - hope Molly is ok, though I don't blame her for wanting to sleep in this weather. The traffic was pretty bad tonight - even round by me. Luckily I left work early to go to the hairdressers 

Twiggy - glad you survived the vets though its a shame you won't get to talk to the specialist

BessieDog - glad Bess is eating again, though not so good that she is eating the work tops.

Dimwit is a bit calmer now thankfully - we had a nice walk in the rain tonight and we saw his friend (well, one of the few dogs in the village he doesn't react to) so he had a bit of a runaround. 
Just been reading through the impulse control thread - poor little dimwit's not going to know what's hit him :lol:


----------



## Canine K9

Recall was good today, as my pics will show from my thread today he was on a dropped long lead so had zoomies and ran through the undergrowth  He doesn`t always come so if I don`t trust him to come, I go and get him. Running away from him doesn`t work but hiding does 
Also have just started putting him onto Natural Instinct raw and am very pleased with it, Bailey loves it and already I`ve seen an improvement in stools which is why I switched  I will have to start adding liver and kidney in about 2 or so weeks though, as well as some raw meaty bones for teeth.
Also on a website I saw "small dogs can get all exercise they need from living in a small apartment" Makes me laugh, if I tried to do that with Bailey he would go mental 
Hope everyone had a good day will read through posts now


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> What nuisance you'll miss the surgeon Twiggy but I am glad that Tremor got on okay otherise. Do you think you'll be able to do more exercise next week or do you have to wait for the surgeon to say so first?
> 
> Molly and OH are finally back, I was getting a bit worried. I hope you get home okay Dimwit, it's a car park on the ring road. Molly is very low today, bit odd. She was struggling to poop on her walk but her appetite is okay. Maybe the weather perhaps but OH said they went late because she was sleepy. She's snoring away again.


I'm sorry to hear Molly seems a bit 'off'. Hope she's back to normal tomorrow.

Tremor is still on restricted exercise until I've heard from my vet/ ortho specialist on Tuesday I'm afraid.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> I'm sorry to hear Molly seems a bit 'off'. Hope she's back to normal tomorrow.
> 
> Tremor is still on restricted exercise until I've heard from my vet/ ortho specialist on Tuesday I'm afraid.


Thank you, I hope so. If the OH is worried then I am keeping a close eye.

Poor Tremor, and poor you, you have more patience than I. Paws crossed for good news on Tuesday.


----------



## Twiggy

LinznMilly - I always have to wean mine off their crates at about 18 months old.

Bessiedog - Sorry about your worktops. They obviously taste better than proper food..!!

Dimwit - The weather has been awful here as well. My girls didn't get their morning walk until after 2.00pm and the oldies had their coats on. Wished I'd remembered my gloves; my hands were frozen.

Canine K9 - Pleased the recall is improving.


----------



## BessieDog

Must just tell you this. After trying since Monday to hide Bess's ABs in cheeses, biscuits etc I got a bill from the vets today which says 'palatable tablets'! So she had them tonight sans the cheese. Ate them better than anything else today!!


----------



## Dogless

Bessiedog - hope Bess is eating today. Not just her tablets!!

CanineK9 - you're doing well .

MS - hope Molly's back to herself today.

Good morning at Concrete Central . Fantastic weather so we were up and out early before all the dogs that only have a walk once or twice a year appear .

Kilo is a little under the weather it seems, hopefully just tired. Walked to the nearest field (5 mins) and he had a little play with me and a sniff about, a lie in the sun, then had some diarrhoea twice  and we walked back home. He really plodded home and stopped a few times. Now he's lying on the dining room floor in the only patch of sun, snoring his head off. Hope he's just recovering from his outings during the week.

Had a fantastic walk with Rudi; he makes me so proud . Met a couple with two dogs that we know and he walked up on a loose lead and sat nicely whilst we talked whilst their dogs strained to meet, then went past a dog that always goes batshit at us with no fuss. Then he had an hour's playing and sniffing and doing some recalls with me in the field and we were about to go home when Dizzy and human came in. He recalled and sat and waited until I told him he could go and meet, then he got an extra half an hour's play.

Gold stars for both boys :001_wub:.


----------



## GingerRogers

MS hope Molly perks up.

BD hope Bess eats something other than the kitchen units today.

Dogless, hope Kilo perks up.

Twiggy Just hope your lot are fighting fit all at the same time for once, at some point in the near future, I should think a week would be good, hows the little one going?

We have an odd dog today, not sure if somethings up or not, one minute she is being strange the next more than fine,  was a little bit off yesterday as well so will keep an eye on her, teach her for rolling in dead snakes on thurs evening perhaps.

Was hubbys birthday yesterday, he was not impressed by the weather, persistent it was, his birthdays are always lovely :laugh:. We still went for a nice if wet walk, along the harbour bank, he saw birds ??, heard cuckoo, and ninja got to do some proper terrier barking at some geese with goslings having a scrap with a swan  

This was actually quite a big thing for me as it meant parking in the harbour and walking up the harbour and risking confrontations with dogs, with the weather we should have been fairly safe but sure enough just as we were about to cross the footbridge 2 offleaders come running along, I took us off into the rough grass and thankfully they stayed away and bar a little staring and posturing form both sides we handled it with barely a grimble :yesnod: So I think upping the stressless doses again have helped.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless - It could be all the medication that's given Kilo diarrheoa. I didn't even start the Metacam with Tremor as I think the antibiotics for her vaginal infection have made her loose. She had the last one yesterday evening so we shall see.

GR - Well Tremor's sound but on restricted exercise until at least next Tuesday. Touching wood, Leafy seems to have settled on the AG Sensitive again, thank goodness. Holly is fine and is 'going' much the same although there was an improvement at agility on Tuesday. Both she and Tremor are pretty fed up not being allowed outside to play though. The weather here was foul yesterday. Both the oldies had their rain jackets on and I was frozen walking them as it was blowing a gale as well as persistent rain. It's my birthday next week - husband is buying me a new ironing board...!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Dogless - It could be all the medication that's given Kilo diarrheoa. I didn't even start the Metacam with Tremor as I think the antibiotics for her vaginal infection have made her loose. She had the last one yesterday evening so we shall see.
> 
> GR - Well Tremor's sound but on restricted exercise until at least next Tuesday. Touching wood, Leafy seems to have settled on the AG Sensitive again, thank goodness. Holly is fine and is 'going' much the same although there was an improvement at agility on Tuesday. Both she and Tremor are pretty fed up not being allowed outside to play though. The weather here was foul yesterday. Both the oldies had their rain jackets on and I was frozen walking them as it was blowing a gale as well as persistent rain. It's my birthday next week - *husband is buying me a new ironing board*...!!


:yikes: not good!! hope you get something a bit more,  less practical!!

Glad the girls seem to be settled and the little madams improving  was lovely to hear of your pupils success last week I bet .

It was horrid yesterday wasn't it, we wished we had put ninjas coat on her, and our gloves on us. But we were talking earlier and its not actually that unusual despite what we think, its the village fete on Monday and the amount of times they have cancelled it just in the 10 years we have been here because of torrential rain.

They have a fun dog show but I dont think we will be entering this year


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> :yikes: not good!! hope you get something a bit more,  less practical!!
> 
> Glad the girls seem to be settled and the little madams improving  was lovely to hear of your pupils success last week I bet .
> 
> It was horrid yesterday wasn't it, we wished we had put ninjas coat on her, and our gloves on us. But we were talking earlier and its not actually that unusual despite what we think, its the village fete on Monday and the amount of times they have cancelled it just in the 10 years we have been here because of torrential rain.
> 
> They have a fun dog show but I dont think we will be entering this year


Hubby is taking me out for a nice meal as well as buying the ironing board and then the following evening we are going out celebrating with friends.

Actually I've had two 'incidents' with dear little Holly over the past week which I've chalked down to her beginning to feel her feet. She stole a toy off Leafy, jumped on the sofa with it next to me and when Leafy tried to take it back Holly flew at her. Then later in the week husband was eating a scone, Holly went up to him and was sniffing the scone in his hand so he sniffed back at her. She missed his face by inches...!! I dealt with both issues extremely quickly and she's been OK since as we don't have that sort of behaviour in this house. Everyone lives in perfect harmony - or else!! To be fair Holly is a bit bored as well as Tremor as they usually spend quite a lot of time playing every day.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless - It could be all the medication that's given Kilo diarrheoa. I didn't even start the Metacam with Tremor as I think the antibiotics for her vaginal infection have made her loose. She had the last one yesterday evening so we shall see.


Yes, I wondered but he finished his antibiotics last week; I had been giving Yumpro with them. I suspect it's more likely the mouthfuls of assorted poo he managed to grab yesterday :angry: and with his lowered immune system his usual cast iron constitution hasn't managed to counter it. He's OK in himself so not too worried. Just keep an eye on him.


----------



## MollySmith

GR - well done you  It's so hard to face new places sometimes isn't it? I often feel I need to go and check it out without Molly in case of incidents.

Twiggy - A meal sounds so much more fun than an ironing board but I have to say that my birthday present is a shed. I'm sadly excited about this. I hope Holly gets her playmate back soon, sounds like she needs Tremor 

Dogless - poor Kilo but it sounds like you had a great morning despite the runnies. 

Dimwit - I hope you had a few more people at BW this morning and they were nice

Bess - oh dear for the worktops. Maybe she's after lots of fibre?!

Molly really isn't her usual self, not vet bad but my sixth sense says not 100%. She's not had a poo again on her walk, yesterday she was straining so she's had some Biotic Bionics for breakfast and I'll give her rice for tea tonight - she might have gone in the wood and we didn't see but that's rare. It might be the worming tablet on Thursday or the river water maybe. She's had a lovely walk and met her friend Ralph for play but did react to a dog on lead so I think she's a bit off. OH dropped the treats and the clicker but I don't think we would have succeeded as the dog did appear around a corner.  I hate corners!

I have to get her nails clipped at the vets - I daren't, she's several black ones - so I'll ask them to check her out. Her anal glands are a bit niffy I think or she's rolled in fish. 

Making chocolate cake and almond biscuits now and clearing more bl**dy wood from the garden, I swear there's a massive black hole. My shed is on offer for two weeks so I'm cracking the whip. As best as I can, slept in our bed again and my back and shoulder are sore so it's back to the spare room until I can get to physio on Wed.


----------



## Dimwit

GR - sounds like you are making good progress

Dogless - I hope Kilo is feeling better now.

MS - I hope Molly is ok too, and that your shoulder isn't too bad. 

We've had a nice day today, big walkies this morning and dimwit was very good, he even managed to find a tennis ball so was very happy. Did some scentwork this afternoon and then some impulse control using leftover poppadom from my takeaway dinner


----------



## Twiggy

MS - Sorry Molly still isn't herself, although if her anal glands are blocked that could be the reason.

A shed....!! That's even more novel than an ironing board as a birthday present.


----------



## MollySmith

I have a suspicion it's blocked anal glands but we've not had any bottom sliding on the carpet (sorry to be graphic!). It would be over the bank holiday when the vet is shut.

Dimwit - not sure who Cath is going to ask to stay after class tomorrow so we might see you tomorrow. She has high hopes for Molly so I'm hoping I'll feel some of that positivity tomorrow too 

Yes, a shed...! I do have one but it's been taken over by gardening things where they've been evicted from the garage as my OH rebuilds another motorbike... we will be 'three sheds Smiths'. I desperately want my own space for making my stained glass and fused glass, I have a list of craft fairs I want to show at but it has to be separate, I can't have little paws near it. But I will be putting in a little fenced off area with a bed for her 

I'm hoping we have enough money for this
https://dunsterhouse.co.uk/log-cabins/35m-x-25m-carsaresup-sup-250


----------



## BessieDog

MollySmith said:


> I have a suspicion it's blocked anal glands but we've not had any bottom sliding on the carpet (sorry to be graphic!). It would be over the bank holiday when the vet is shut.
> 
> Dimwit - not sure who Cath is going to ask to stay after class tomorrow so we might see you tomorrow. She has high hopes for Molly so I'm hoping I'll feel some of that positivity tomorrow too
> 
> Yes, a shed...! I do have one but it's been taken over by gardening things where they've been evicted from the garage as my OH rebuilds another motorbike... we will be 'three sheds Smiths'. I desperately want my own space for making my stained glass and fused glass, I have a list of craft fairs I want to show at but it has to be separate, I can't have little paws near it. But I will be putting in a little fenced off area with a bed for her
> 
> I'm hoping we have enough money for this
> https://dunsterhouse.co.uk/log-cabins/35m-x-25m-carsaresup-sup-250


Wow!! That's not a shed! That's a house! 

Took Bess on the sea wall again today with the OH. Little bugger escaped into the fields and OH was cr*pping himself. I calmly told him she wouldn't go too far, and left him to stand on the sea wall so he could keep a eye on her whilst I went down to catch her. Took half an hour - tens of phone calls between u (she's on your right, left, back the way you came etc) but we got her back. She only actually runs between two fields, but he really gets scared.

Stupid dog got close to me a few times but couldn't see over the crop - but she saw my OH on the sea wall, but couldn't get to him as she couldn't cross the ditch. He was a bag of nerves. A real shame, she'd been recalling beautifully until the point when she decided just to go for it. Quite tired tonight though.


----------



## Dogless

Bessiedog - :yikes: I would have been a bunch of nerves too!!

Good walks this morning. Walked separately, Kilo is better but still the Fun Police and he managed to eat a few piles of poo so hope it lasts!! Both walked very nicely, had a play with me, we met Diz again with Rudi and then we came home. Two very unremarkable but lovely walks. Sometimes unremarkable is best I think


----------



## moonviolet

Out at 8 this morning for an hour and a half... seems everyone has a lie in here. Even the ducks were napping along the tow path. We took a little pause for Tink to gather herself then walked past them without disturbing them  ( onlead just as insurance) Nodded to the Canada Geese and their goslings as they swam past. the rest of the walk was so relaxing only saw a couple of people who were very pleasant and had control of their dogs. bridlepath and woods. Tink sat nicely was we were passed on both sides by a group of cyclists. So nice to have such a quiet relaxing walk 

Only smudge on it was havign a discussion with an on pavement cyclist.


----------



## tiatortilla

MS - I hope Molly feels better soon! And that is a very impressive shed 
BD - That sounds scary, I'd have been a wreck too! Glad you managed to get her back though 
Dogless - I agree, unremarkable walks are often the best!
moonviolet - Sounds like a lovely walk, sorry about the on-pavement cyclist!

-

Tia's still on lead at the moment, I feel really bad about it but I just don't trust her recall anymore.. we've been doing lots of practice but it's so bloody inconsistent I just can't make myself let her off... She seems happy enough though, I don't think she's really noticed that she's not doing quite as much running about as usual.
Passed two dogs today, a jack russell and a ridgeback... Tia ignored the rigeback beautifully and barked at the jack russell , she is confusing sometimes!


----------



## moonviolet

tiatortilla said:


> Tia's still on lead at the moment, I feel really bad about it but I just don't trust her recall anymore.. we've been doing lots of practice but it's so bloody inconsistent I just can't make myself let her off... She seems happy enough though, I don't think she's really noticed that she's not doing quite as much running about as usual.
> Passed two dogs today, a jack russell and a ridgeback... Tia ignored the rigeback beautifully and barked at the jack russell , she is confusing sometimes!


Don't feel bad about her being onlead, it's better than her being lost or hurt.  During this time if you are interacting with her and making it fun, it can help an awful lot if you do find a secure area to let her off again.

Was there a difference in what the two dogs were doing? It's not always the one thats doing the barking that is cause of the noise


----------



## MollySmith

:001_wub: Dimwit and Human Dimwit are lovely. He is the honestly more gorgeous and cute than his photos ever can do justice 

I am soooooooooooo proud of my Molly! First good thing - she pooped so all seems better 'down there'. I think she felt a lot better for it too, I do think her reaction yesterday was down to feeling pants as much as anything. Second good thing, she passed a dog on a path coming off our walk perfectly and passed one in the car park with no worries at all. And finally.....drum roll please..... we went to the end of the class that Dimwit goes to which is run by the trainer we've been working with too. Molly has never been in an enclosed space with walls around a dog since the training class we went to where she got herself and us in a total mess. We did the pub once and it was a disaster so I think that must be a good nine months. Anyway trainer took her in and she was so good. I mean proper good, not even a vague grumble and I have to say that Dimwit and friends were wonderful too. 

I even walked up and down and OH said she was concentrating on me. She even showed off with some paws and watch me. What a swot! :thumbup:

The great news is that we're going to practice again next Sunday and I've asked trainer if we can go to the classes end of June. 

I had a little cry when we got home too


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> Don't feel bad about her being onlead, it's better than her being lost or hurt.  During this time if you are interacting with her and making it fun, it can help an awful lot if you do find a secure area to let her off again.
> 
> Was there a difference in what the two dogs were doing? It's not always the one thats doing the barking that is cause of the noise


Thankyou  Yeah it is much better than losing her. I do feel a bit worried that she isn't interacting with any other dogs at the moment due to her being on lead, I think I'll arrange a meet up with boyfriend's dad's dog just so she can have a play.

The JRT barked back at her, but wasn't really doing anything before she barked and she'd usually be okay with that, and actually the RR was looking at her which usually makes her bark - especially with such a big dog... perhaps it's "opposite day"


----------



## Canine K9

Nice day today... Weather was great took him for an hour long walk then mucked about in the paddling pool.. He had zoomies and kept jumping in and out of the pool  Biting is still quite bad but I had a completely off lead walk today and he was fine came back when I called him and I kept his attention with a game of fetch. Hes fast asleep now


----------



## sianrees1979

took daniel & dai to pets @ home yesterday, don't know if he was excited or scared but as soon as i opened the taxi door daniel was screaming, when i was getting the minced rabbit from the freezer i had a lady ask if he was injured because the noise he made was like he was hurt, i explained what he does and why he does it and she understood, he then took a dislike to a jack russell so had to turn back and go down a separate isle to dodge the lady with the jack russell, think we are slowly getting there though  

dai was the perfect well behaved boy he usually is except when his lead slipped out of my hand as we got out of the taxi and he was going into pets @ home on his own wagging his tail :aureola: he came straight back when i called him (as he usually does):thumbup:


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> :001_wub: Dimwit and Human Dimwit are lovely. He is the honestly more gorgeous and cute than his photos ever can do justice


Appearances can be deceptive in fact, after the day I've had with him I was quite tempted to drive off without him...

WELL DONE to you and Molly, she did so well and you should be so proud of her. She was so calm and didn't even look at the other dogs. She is also very beautiful

Well, not the best day ever for dimwit. It started badly when we had an incident with an offlead black lab that came charging over to him several times on our morning walk (why is it always black labs, and why, if your dog has no recall, is it a good idea to not only walk it off lead but also to not even have a lead with you).

Then he was quite naughty in class - the little sausage thief clearly needs more work on his impulse control, and he reacted to someone who came in towards the end to talk to one of the other people in the class. I don't know if it was because she was wearing bright pink wellies, or because it was just a strange person, but he was barking and lunging at her which he hasn't done for a while, and especially not to someone who wasn't even looking at him or approaching him


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Appearances can be deceptive in fact, after the day I've had with him I was quite tempted to drive off without him...
> 
> WELL DONE to you and Molly, she did so well and you should be so proud of her. She was so calm and didn't even look at the other dogs. She is also very beautiful
> 
> Well, not the best day ever for dimwit. It started badly when we had an incident with an offlead black lab that came charging over to him several times on our morning walk (why is it always black labs, and why, if your dog has no recall, is it a good idea to not only walk it off lead but also to not even have a lead with you).
> 
> Then he was quite naughty in class - the little sausage thief clearly needs more work on his impulse control, and he reacted to someone who came in towards the end to talk to one of the other people in the class. I don't know if it was because she was wearing bright pink wellies, or because it was just a strange person, but he was barking and lunging at her which he hasn't done for a while, and especially not to someone who wasn't even looking at him or approaching him


It was a black lab and his owner who upset Molly on our second lesson with Cath in Coleridge Park, blumming idiot. I don't think we saw pinky wellie lady but perhaps it was too quick for him or something? It might just be strange to him that someone came it at the end of the class if he was by the door? Either way, take a massive cheer from me and Molls for him being a calm wee thing when we arrived, he really was so good and utterly focused on you. It wasn't all bad  And I do think you are so brilliant - I'm hopeless at pushing Molly forward at things where as you are so great with Dimwit at just seeing what he can do, I'm sure that you'll get to your goals quicker than we will.

Thank you, we think she's a gorgeous girl. Absolutely so proud of her - she's wiped out now, her and Red had a play after you all left. He can cope with her as she doesn't lick his man bits


----------



## purpleskyes

Oh dear we were the bad guys today....

Where we walk Hudson there is a sand pit with a pool of water and this is where owners let their dogs off lead to have a play together and cool off in the water. We got to the beach so dropped Hudson's long line and he went off but then ran up to a dog that was on lead which we did not see otherwise we wouldn't have dropped the long line. 

The OH darted straight after him and had him in less than 60 seconds the dog on the lead was very dog reactive and was barking and snarling like mad. OH apologized and the woman went mental called him a bad owner etc. Now I did feel bad and know that we shouldn't have let him get near an onlead dog which is not something we usually do as most dogs are on lead for a reason and we don't want him having negative interactions or upsetting other dogs so would never dream of dropping the line and letting him approach onlead dogs.

However equally I don't think she is the greatest of dog owners who takes their highly dog reactive dog to the one of the most popular dog walking places in the area where most of the dogs are walked off lead?

In other news he wasn't as good at dog training class this week as last week. He decided cheese was not something he wanted to work for so we tried out a new toy instead which worked. The trainer finds him very stubborn indeed and it was the first time she had seen a dog turn down liver. 

We shall continue working on loose lead walking and re call training for the moment. Dogs are just like people in some ways sometimes they have good days and sometimes they have bad days.


----------



## Dogless

These things happen purpleskyes and you apologised. The woman may have been trying to do some work with her dog and realised she'd gone in over her head, you might have been the 10th person that day who had done that etc etc. I had a massive go at a woman once who's dog chased Kilo and I out running, I only had to stop for her to get her dog back but went mad, way beyond what was called for. The people that I was really furious at were the man with the lab who had chased me at the start of the run, jumping up at me and knocking me over, plus causing Kilo to react and the man who's little dog had chased us nipping at Kilo - again, he reacted. Sometimes you're the straw that breaks the camel's back.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> It might just be strange to him that someone came it at the end of the class if he was by the door? Either way, take a massive cheer from me and Molls for him being a calm wee thing when we arrived, *he really was so good and utterly focused on you. *It wasn't all bad


It probably was just a strange person, just a shame as he hasn't done that for so long.
He was more focused on the sausage in my hand to be fair, but I am glad he was good when you came in

ETS: he did redeem himself slightly by lying on his mat the whole time I was eating my dinner


----------



## BessieDog

Dogless said:


> Bessiedog - :yikes: I would have been a bunch of nerves too!!
> D


I used to be when Bess ran off, but where we were she doesn't go that far, and seems to do (very) big circles around. So I was more calm we'd get her eventually. OH hasn't had the experiences I have!

Oh, and when she came back I told her what a good girl she was (whilst mentally saying something very different). 

She's been a lunatic today - but no off lead runs.


----------



## tiatortilla

I was just looking at the clickers on medicanimal because I need to buy some worming tablets anyway and the postage is free so that works out well :thumbup:
Thinking of this one - Clix Whizz Click, and it's a whistle too so I thought I could re-teach her recall with a whistle seeing as it's not too good right now. Good idea or not? Any opinions very welcome!


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> I was just looking at the clickers on medicanimal because I need to buy some worming tablets anyway and the postage is free so that works out well :thumbup:
> Thinking of this one - Clix Whizz Click, and it's a whistle too so I thought I could re-teach her recall with a whistle seeing as it's not too good right now. Good idea or not? Any opinions very welcome!


Looks alright to me . I'm enjoying your blog btw - you are sounding so much more positive, even when things don't go to plan :thumbup:.


----------



## Twiggy

I had a nice day with my sister yesterday and it was good to see her actually eating properly...!!

The drive down there and back is a killer although I had a good run back last night, including straight through the Dartford Tunnel without queuing and no hold ups on the M25 or M11.

My girls all appear to be fine (left in husband's not so capable hands) and were delighted to see me. Holly even had mad zoomies around the house!!

As it's a lovely day I think I might shampoo the kitchen carpet and wash all their beds and covers.


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## GingerRogers

Very glad to hear some positive news about your sister Twiggy. Haven't liked to ask but have been thinking of you both.


----------



## Dogless

Exceptionally pleased about your sister Twiggy. Small steps . Glad all the dogs survived intact with your husband too .

Shocking weather here this morning. Got absolutely soaked through and freezing cold twice - just over an hour per dog . The bonus was that each walk was made as fun as I could make it for the boys to keep us all running about and entertained. Kilo and I did lots of "Ready Steady" which he loved judging by his keenness this morning and lots of tug. Rudi and I did some impulse control stuff, some "find it" and some chasing each other about for a toy. So...a good morning at Concrete Central despite the purple hands . Only saw one person and dog just as I was on the way back with Rudi; everyone else had been sensible and stayed indoors!!

I am reading a great book at present by Brenda Aloff "Aggression In Dogs".


----------



## Canine K9

Got a flexi as a gift today and put him on it and another dog came out of nowhere and he went towards it and I burned my hands grabbing him on it  Let him off in the field and he ran over to 2 poodles and tried nicking their toy. I apologized and put him back on, I think I took it too far with other dogs


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Got a flexi as a gift today and put him on it and another dog came out of nowhere and he went towards it and I burned my hands grabbing him on it  Let him off in the field and he ran over to 2 poodles and tried nicking their toy. I apologized and put him back on, I think I took it too far with other dogs


Oh dear . Tomorrow is another day - perhaps back to the longline or flexi around other dogs until you're sure you have Bailey's attention then let him off to play if the other owners agree? It's happened to us all - I vividly remember Kilo not wanting to give back a lab's toy that he nicked once, luckily the owner thought it was hilarious. Me not so much .


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## Twiggy

This is what I mean about men:

Husband went off at 10.00am this morning to help a friend of ours clear her flat as she has moved. I told him I was walking the dogs and then I'd be shampooing the kitchen carpet, washing the kitchen floor and all the dogs bedding, hoovering, etc. etc.

11.30am, When I up to my armpits in shampoo, dog hair etc and the kitchen carpet is very wet (the dogs shut in the lounge/hall) he rolls up with said friend for coffee.....:mad2:

They don't listen to a word you say to them and I wasn't very pleased when he traipsed all over the kitchen making coffee which they had to drink outside...!!


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Looks alright to me . I'm enjoying your blog btw - you are sounding so much more positive, even when things don't go to plan :thumbup:.


Thankyou :biggrin: I think writing it all down is helping me to acknowledge the positive bits aswell, it's too easy to get hung up on the negative!


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> This is what I mean about men:
> 
> Husband went off at 10.00am this morning to help a friend of ours clear her flat as she has moved. I told him I was walking the dogs and then I'd be shampooing the kitchen carpet, washing the kitchen floor and all the dogs bedding, hoovering, etc. etc.
> 
> 11.30am, When I up to my armpits in shampoo, dog hair etc and the kitchen carpet is very wet (the dogs shut in the lounge/hall) he rolls up with said friend for coffee.....:mad2:
> 
> They don't listen to a word you say to them and I wasn't very pleased when he traipsed all over the kitchen making coffee which they had to drink outside...!!


Please to hear about your sister but yes men... well :mad2:

My OH has walked Molly and uhmmmmmmm.... wandered about a bit thinking about clearing the garden... wandered about a bit.. then some more wandering...

I meanwhile have cleaned the kitchen, changed and washed bed linen, set three chapters of a book, proofed three press releases and made a cake.

I do wonder what lurks between their ears?


----------



## MollySmith

Canine K9 said:


> Got a flexi as a gift today and put him on it and another dog came out of nowhere and he went towards it and I burned my hands grabbing him on it  Let him off in the field and he ran over to 2 poodles and tried nicking their toy. I apologized and put him back on, I think I took it too far with other dogs


Molly is a thief too, I have found that the only way I can stop her is to interchange her favourite ball, a chuckit with a loober or a Kong Squeez (although I was really peed off with two I bought this week, two or three squeaks and they stopped). I don't know if that's foolproof. I'm hoping to watch some of Sarah Whitehead's DVD on recall so I'll let you know if I have any gems to share. It's very embarrassing.


----------



## MollySmith

It's blummin boiling here so Molly has been let off her lead walk and is chomping on a kong. She had no energy on her walk this morning, just went from one bit of shade to the other. I hate to tell her that this isn't really summer yet.

OH mighty fed up with fair weather walkers, once more the dog field was taken over with little kids and footballs. He met Molly's best mate, Nelson in the car park and his owner said the parents had been really rude to them when Nelson tried to play. Apparently this family felt Nelson's recall should have been so much better in the face of three footballs and a picnic... on a sheet in the middle of a dog field. :mad2: I think I would have taken Molly in and walked up and helped myself just for the sheer hell of it


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Please to hear about your sister but yes men... well :mad2:
> 
> My OH has walked Molly and uhmmmmmmm.... wandered about a bit thinking about clearing the garden... wandered about a bit.. then some more wandering...
> 
> I meanwhile have cleaned the kitchen, changed and washed bed linen, set three chapters of a book, proofed three press releases and made a cake.
> 
> *I do wonder what lurks between their ears?[/*QUOTE]
> 
> Not a lot IMO....


----------



## BessieDog

CK9 - flexi's take a bit of getting used to. You need to be one step ahead all the time. 

Twiggy - what can one say about men? They are a different species IMO! 

Dogless - glad the weather didnt get you down too much. Sounds like Kilo's heaps better. Is the weight going ack on yet?

I spent 4 straight hours cleaning the patio with a pressure washer. It wasn't done last year so was quite a job. Had grass growing up through the cracks -some I couldn't pull out. So Bess wandered over to see what I was doing and pulled the hard bits out for me. Would have been great if she'd have stopped there, but then she decided to pull the grass out if the middle of the lawn. 

I really don't know what's the matter with her - another mad day. OH says she's slipped back about six months in behaviour. She's chewing again, and being completely hyper. I can only think her hormones have gone back to pre season level. If that's the case it's a very good reason for not spaying!


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> CK9 - flexi's take a bit of getting used to. You need to be one step ahead all the time.
> 
> Twiggy - what can one say about men? They are a different species IMO!
> 
> Dogless - glad the weather didnt get you down too much. Sounds like Kilo's heaps better. Is the weight going ack on yet?
> 
> I spent 4 straight hours cleaning the patio with a pressure washer. It wasn't done last year so was quite a job. Had grass growing up through the cracks -some I couldn't pull out. So Bess wandered over to see what I was doing and pulled the hard bits out for me. Would have been great if she'd have stopped there, but then she decided to pull the grass out if the middle of the lawn.
> 
> I really don't know what's the matter with her - another mad day. OH says she's slipped back about six months in behaviour. She's chewing again, and being completely hyper. I can only think her hormones have gone back to pre season level. If that's the case it's a very good reason for not spaying!


Kevin stage? Keviness?  .

Yes, Kilo's loads better. Some weight has gone back on; he's a collar hole bigger again and he is looking healthier . Watching him like a hawk though! SixStar's weight gain formula has done the trick.


----------



## purpleskyes

We did some re call and wait training while out walking this afternoon. 

Then we bought some chicken breast and taught him twist not very useful but not something he knew before. Then again practised some basics like waiting by an open door before being released to go.


----------



## diefenbaker

Had a lovely walk at Stansted House on Saturday. We always stop at the cafe for a drink halfway and I had a shandy. Should have gone before we left... and forgot to switch off the sunglasses camera. Adult only content.

[youtube_browser]9__FtAaL3Gc[/youtube_browser]


----------



## Dogless

Diefenbaker - you crack me up with your sunglasses camera .

Just walked the CHs separately again, they got a thunderstorm each in the interests of fairness. Both walked very nicely.

Kilo was really playful with me today and even played tug with Rudi for 10 seconds or so before remembering he was grumpy, growling and walking off . Still progress :thumbup:.

I'll be glad when I can walk them together again a lot more. I've spent about 5 hours in total on separate walks today.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Diefenbaker - you crack me up with your sunglasses camera .
> 
> Just walked the CHs separately again, they got a thunderstorm each in the interests of fairness. Both walked very nicely.
> 
> Kilo was really playful with me today and even played tug with Rudi for 10 seconds or so before remembering he was grumpy, growling and walking off . Still progress :thumbup:.
> 
> *I'll be glad when I can walk them together again a lot more. I've spent about 5 hours in total on separate walks today.[/*QUOTE]
> 
> That's dedication.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Diefenbaker - you crack me up with your sunglasses camera .
> 
> Just walked the CHs separately again, they got a thunderstorm each in the interests of fairness. Both walked very nicely.
> 
> Kilo was really playful with me today and even played tug with Rudi for 10 seconds or so before remembering he was grumpy, growling and walking off . Still progress :thumbup:.
> 
> *I'll be glad when I can walk them together again a lot more. I've spent about 5 hours in total on separate walks today.[/*QUOTE]
> 
> That's dedication.....
> 
> 
> 
> Or madness Twiggy. Possibly madness. Added to that playing "101 things to do with a box" twice with Rudi and once with Kilo and chasing them round the dining table for a bit (a game they love!) :scared:.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Or madness Twiggy. Possibly madness. Added to that playing "101 things to do with a box" twice with Rudi and once with Kilo and chasing them round the dining table for a bit (a game they love!) :scared:.
> 
> 
> 
> That all sounds perfectly normal to me....
> 
> I think we're going to get your vile weather over here tomorrow. Heavy rain starting in the early hours and continuing all day and the following night - lovely!! Agility will be cancelled I expect.
Click to expand...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> That all sounds perfectly normal to me....
> 
> I think we're going to get your vile weather over here tomorrow. Heavy rain starting in the early hours and continuing all day and the following night - lovely!! Agility will be cancelled I expect.
> 
> 
> 
> Today's weather has been truly horrid. Hope you don't get it as badly.
Click to expand...


----------



## diefenbaker

Rainy walk today... does anyone else do this ? I take a lot of treats for Dief on a walk.. today a piece of cheese fell in a puddle.. so I picked it up and threw it into the woods and got a clean piece out of my pocket. Given my use of the long line.. dirty hands.. and all the other crap he picks up on a walk.. this would seem an absolutely barking thing to do.


----------



## BessieDog

GingerRogers said:


> Bessiedog - good girl you seem to be getting there.
> .


I spoke too soon! Today's walk was horrendous. Ended up putting the headcollar on which I haven't done for weeks. Either that or be pulled flat on my face!

Dogs! Who'd have'em? :cryin:


----------



## GingerRogers

BessieDog said:


> I spoke too soon! Today's walk was horrendous. Ended up putting the headcollar on which I haven't done for weeks. Either that or be pulled flat on my face!
> 
> Dogs! Who'd have'em? :cryin:


Oh dear  we should learn to keep schtumm really shouldn't we. I had to hand her over to OH last night to give my shoulder a rest but of course theres a bit more of Bessie than Ginge its the speed with which she darts about with her.


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Bessiedog . Hopefully just a blip!


----------



## Pezant

Oh dear Bess  Weeks of good walks will make you feel like everything's improving and one bad one can bring you crashing back down again! Maybe it's the weather?


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Twiggy, what a pain in the wotsits, maybe threatening to leave the vets might give them a kick up the bottom? Poor Tremor, it's not much to ask.

Bessie - goodness me, what is with Bess? Molly and my gran's dog Jodie both calmed down after being spayed but I guess each dog is very individual...

I've had a frustrating morning, haircut which was great except they forgot to apply a colour to it which I can't say I was fussed about. It's so horrible sitting in front of the mirrors for hours staring at myself. I have decided that that's it, I'm a lardy cow and I have to lose weight in a serious fashion. It didn't help that hairdresser is teeny tiny lady. 

I went home and showed off my new hair to the dog since there is nobody else here and we did a long lead walk so she's had two very good walks today and she's fast asleep. All dogs we saw (not many) were passed perfectly and I 'm pleased to report that I didn't see one until Molly decided to sit down and do her own look at me for a treat as if to say 'I've seen it now may I have some cheese'!


----------



## MollySmith

Not sure if your screens are wide enough for this but this is me and Molly on the beach at Waxham in Norfolk on New Year's Day. Honestly a really happy day, the sun was out a bit and it was us three and for the first time since we started trying for children and realised it wasn't working, I felt that I had all I wanted.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Not sure if your screens are wide enough for this but this is me and Molly on the beach at Waxham in Norfolk on New Year's Day. Honestly a really happy day, the sun was out a bit and it was us three and for the first time since we started trying for children and realised it wasn't working, I felt that I had all I wanted.


Yes you look really fat in this photo - NOT!! What do you mean you seriously need to lose some weight? I'm seriously over-weight - not you..!!


----------



## Twiggy

Well I haven't heard a word from the vets, so I'm quietly seething away until Friday morning when Tremor has her last laser treatment......

Just to top it all Holly was awful in class this afternoon.. We were in the barn because of the persistent rain and she was clearly upset. I did very little with her but halfway through the afternoon I looked down at her and she was trembling so I took her back into the house.

I don't know what to make of her; she's been in the class for the best part of 18 months indoors and outdoors and knows all the dogs and handlers. Someone brought their 8 weeks old collie pup in so whether it was that, although the pup was no trouble and sat on handler's knees most of the afternoon.


----------



## Guest

Sorry the vets are mucking you about twig and I hope all your dogs are alright. 

Hope the rest of you and your hounds are doing well in whatever you are working on too.

We have had good moments such as not lunging at a boxer that REALLY wanted to say HI, to not so good moments such as barking and snarling at a postman that walked very quickly up behind us. Nail clipping is still terrifying to Zand.

Here's a pic of him. He is a lurch a swear lol








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----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Yes you look really fat in this photo - NOT!! What do you mean you seriously need to lose some weight? I'm seriously over-weight - not you..!!


You're too kind, I had my lucky thin jeans on that now won't do up 

Sorry to hear Holly was worried in class, what a week you're having.


----------



## Dogless

MS - that's a nice photo .

Twiggy - I'm sorry to hear about little HB this afternoon and the vet. Hope tomorrow brings improvement.

LO - Love Zand, he's got such a lovely little face!

Two fabulous walks with the CHs tonight - separate training ones. They walked like dreams, love them. Kilo passed noisy teens, kids, drunk folk, a dog....not a skip. Rudi was just Rudi who just struts on past, not a care!! .


----------



## Dimwit

MS - that's great about being able to join group lessons! I'm sure it will do Molly good to work around other dogs in such a calm environment.
Also, you do not need to seriously lose weight, and I have seen you in real life. If you want to feel better then just stand next to me and I guarantee you'll feel nice and slim!

Dogless - sounds like Kilo is nicely on the mend, must be such a relief for you.

Twiggy, I really hope you hear something from the vets soon, it's ridiculous to keep you waiting this long 

BessieDog - hopefully it's just a blip after Bess was a bit under the weather last week.

Rally class this evening with dimwit, and we did the hardest exercise he has EVER done, only 2 other dogs so we and instructor stood making a pyramid and then we had to put the dogs in a sit and keep them there while we threw a ball to each other  I think it is the first time in dimwit's life that he has ever remained sitting while the ball left my hand. He did break the sit but he didn't actually chase the ball so I think he did pretty well.
Then we did a practise rally course (off lead ) which was entertaining. Stupidly I had left his ball in my car so at first he just turned his nose up at my hotdog sausage and reverted back to trundling along with his nose on the ground, then instructor lent me a ball and he was perfect and even managed to walk around the food bowls without even looking at them 
So, lesson learnt: I will never forget his ball again...
I think he is also getting a bit used to other dogs. There was a new dog tonight and while he was a bit worried (would not stay in a down while I walked round him) he coped much better than he usually does and even managed to take some chicken off new dog's owner


----------



## diefenbaker

LurcherOwner said:


> Here's a pic of him. He is a lurch a swear lol


Get this in the "Close Ups" photo competition. My entry is in. And before anyone asks... no... it wasn't taken with the sunglasses camera.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- That sounds fantastic 

LurcherOwner- That photo is just lush

MollySmith- Gorgeous photo of you and Molly

BessieDog- Oh dear 

Twiggy- Doesn`t sound too good, hope everything improves soon

Today was okay for us, had an eight year old lad around today he was fantastic with Bailey and bailey loved him although Bailey barked at them at first because they came in through the garden  Went for a long walk and Bailey met a Boston terrier and Labrador, although we did meet an out of control dog that had ZERO recall and was running about harassing other dogs.  I`m quite angry as well because in our woodland all the regulars like us pick up after our dogs and put it in the bins provided but fair weather walkers come and leave their dogs $hit there.  Annoying if you have a poo eating dog. Bailey was nice and calm tonight I think its because I`m doing more mental stimulation.
He is much better behaved lately so feeling much happier  He helped a little dog today who is quite nervous by when the dog reacted to him and barked at him didn`t react back and didn`t try to play with the other dog unless the other dog tried and was very calm and gentle, which helped the other dog gain confidence


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## diefenbaker

Now I've really gone and done it. I've placed an order with Sid.


----------



## Dogless

Fabulous walk this morning in the main - the CHs went past bin men, screaming kids, dogs, all in the one street with not a flicker - good boys. I hadn't seen Kilo alerting as I was watching the bin men and he did a silent and powerful lunge into a hedge. Heard a hiss and saw a set of claws swiping from the hedge which missed him, lucky boy .

Went to the top fields had a play and potter, then same on sports pitches. Was going to give them a whole morning out but Kilo went lame on a back leg . Pretty certain it's muscular, he's holding it a little stiffly when he walks and it's 'given way' a little twice. I'll keep him to short lead walks and rest and see how he goes. Considering since owning the CHs I've only been to the vet for routine vaccs and they've been fighting fit they're doing 'well' this month :blink: :cryin:.


----------



## Dimwit

Poor Kilo, maybe he has just decided that he likes going to the vets...

They both looked very smart in the pictures you posted of them in their new harnesses - I'd be interested to hear how they get on being walked in them. Now that the dimwit's lead walking is so much better I have, counter-intuitively, started walking him in a harness much more (mainly because his reactiveness is also much better so I don't feel I need such close control of him).
He does walk very nicely in a harness and when he does pull, he seems to pull less and come back to me better in a harness than he does with collar and lead, if that makes sense...


----------



## tiatortilla

LO & MS - Lovely photos :001_wub:
Twiggy - Hope you hear back soon, sounds like they're really messing you around 
Dimwit - Sounds great! Well done 
Dogless - Glad the boys are being so good, sorry about Kilo's leg though 
k9 - Bailey sounds lovely, how sweet of him to be gentle with a nervous dog!

---

Could be better here, but it's me not Tia.. I took her out earlier than normal this morning because I was still up from the night before (yay insomnia) and honestly saw more dogs in 20 minutes than we usually see in a day  Once she realised that there was about 7 other dogs in the park she sat down and refused to go in.. okay, so I thought we'd go to a different place instead but then ended up having to go ages out of the way to avoid a couple more dogs, so I decided we'd just have a nice pavement walk instead, only marginally spoiled by some absolute tit who walks his dog off lead by the roads and it's not even well trained.. I picked Tia up  (I know, I don't make a habit of it) The guy probably thinks I'm ridiculous picking up a staffy like a handbag dog but I won't risk her kicking off and then the other dog coming over because he has so little control over it, I can just see that ending badly.
Anyway, after that little vent, Tia was actually really good.. Didn't bark at any of the dogs in the park even if she did refuse to go in but I got her to sit and watch them while having treats for a bit, and she didn't bark at any of the dogs on the pavement either because I managed to run off quick enough (or picked her up in the case of that one dog ) Sorry for the essay!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Fabulous walk this morning in the main - the CHs went past bin men, screaming kids, dogs, all in the one street with not a flicker - good boys. I hadn't seen Kilo alerting as I was watching the bin men and he did a silent and powerful lunge into a hedge. Heard a hiss and saw a set of claws swiping from the hedge which missed him, lucky boy .
> 
> Went to the top fields had a play and potter, then same on sports pitches. Was going to give them a whole morning out but Kilo went lame on a back leg . Pretty certain it's muscular, he's holding it a little stiffly when he walks and it's 'given way' a little twice. I'll keep him to short lead walks and rest and see how he goes. Considering since owning the CHs I've only been to the vet for routine vaccs and they've been fighting fit they're doing 'well' this month :blink: :cryin:.


Oh no!! Hopefully with rest for two or three days Kilo will come sound.

I hope to goodness you don't end up in the same boat as me (who still hasn't heard from my vets and the seething is getting to boiling pitch now).


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> LO & MS - Lovely photos :001_wub:
> Twiggy - Hope you hear back soon, sounds like they're really messing you around
> Dimwit - Sounds great! Well done
> Dogless - Glad the boys are being so good, sorry about Kilo's leg though
> k9 - Bailey sounds lovely, how sweet of him to be gentle with a nervous dog!
> 
> ---
> 
> Could be better here, but it's me not Tia.. I took her out earlier than normal this morning because I was still up from the night before (yay insomnia) and honestly saw more dogs in 20 minutes than we usually see in a day  Once she realised that there was about 7 other dogs in the park she sat down and refused to go in.. okay, so I thought we'd go to a different place instead but then ended up having to go ages out of the way to avoid a couple more dogs, so I decided we'd just have a nice pavement walk instead, only marginally spoiled by some absolute tit who walks his dog off lead by the roads and it's not even well trained.. I picked Tia up  (I know, I don't make a habit of it) The guy probably thinks I'm ridiculous picking up a staffy like a handbag dog but I won't risk her kicking off and then the other dog coming over because he has so little control over it, I can just see that ending badly.
> Anyway, after that little vent, Tia was actually really good.. Didn't bark at any of the dogs in the park even if she did refuse to go in but I got her to sit and watch them while having treats for a bit, and she didn't bark at any of the dogs on the pavement either because I managed to run off quick enough (or picked her up in the case of that one dog ) Sorry for the essay!


Don't apologise I'm interested and I do wonder if both Tia and my Holly are going through a secondary fear period (they are about the same age).

Holly was so bad yesterday afternoon that I thought she may have eaten something nasty and was feeling ill but she scoffed her dinner and was playing mad games with Leafy, so it was obviously fear.


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all 
Been a bit manic here so not been doing all that much training! But back from work trip in Brussels now so getting back in to it.

As I've been away i've booked the dogs in for some "special" sessions at the weekend... Shae is going on a "be social" walk which is organised by a local training club that I really rate (lots of BAT stuff and all very positive) where we will be going out with around 7 other young dogs to practice recalls, play etc. all with the help of a couple of trainers. Really looking forward to it. 

Rusty is booked on an afternoon scent workshop on the Sunday- the first scent stuff that we have done. I'm sure he will love it... 

Also got some agility shows coming up too  

Shae is teething at the moment poor girl but apart from that is all good! She is just getting to grips with chasing a ball (done lots of chase the fluffy tug toy but not balls!). Rusty doesn't do balls so I have to make sure I actually get one out and play with it! Just about to order her next space lobber thingy as the first one is well and truly destroyed.... 

Rusty has recently become aware of his balls(!) and has started to eyeball other males if they eyeball him so keeping an eye on that. Not really an issue but I can see that things are changing... He is 2 in September so I guess he is reaching final hormone levels and all that... coupled with meeting an in-season bitch I think he is just starting to grow up!

I hope everyone is doing well with their dogs


----------



## Canine K9

Met the gorgeous Ruby Irish Setter again today she is a sweetie, I`m in love :001_wub: Pretty good offlead walk he`s asleep now hope everyone has had a good day with their dogs.


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy said:


> Don't apologise I'm interested and I do wonder if both Tia and my Holly are going through a secondary fear period (they are about the same age).
> 
> Holly was so bad yesterday afternoon that I thought she may have eaten something nasty and was feeling ill but she scoffed her dinner and was playing mad games with Leafy, so it was obviously fear.


Aw thanks, I didn't realise you were having similar problems. Sled dog hotel suggested the second fear period to me a few months back.. so if it is then I think Tia's coming out the other side of it, or should be anyway. She was quite fearful of dogs off lead too for a while but seems to have "grown out" of that (apart from the really big'uns but that's a whooole different story) and even though I do get in a flap about it, I'm pretty sure she's not as reactive as she was a little while ago. The sitting down and refusing to go in the park definitely seemed like a fear/overwhelmed thing.
Is it other dogs with Holly or something else?


----------



## BessieDog

Exciting 24 hours ahead! 

We're going to our first champ show tomorrow - no chance of getting placed as 190 Irish Setters entered, but will be a good (if scary) experience. As it involves a trip round the M25and along the M4 OH didn't fancy taking the risk on the early morning traffic, so we driving up tonight. We're staying in a dog friendly pub - looks ok as the home page of the website is written by the pub dog!! 

I'm just worried about Bess behaving. We're taking her soft crate that she uses as her bed, but she's chewed the zips off. So I ordered a new one - I knew it would be slightly smaller, but when it arrived it was tiny and she didn't want to go in it. So it's the old zip less one we'll have to take! 

Oh, and I'm quite proud of myself. I found out you have to be a bit smarter at champ shows, but all my suits are far too big as I've lost a stone since I wore them. The trousers I thought of wearing literally dropped down. So I got out my new sewing machine and took them in. They look ok! Saved £100 on a new suit!! :thumbup1:

Ill catch up with you all tomorrow if I survive the experience!


----------



## tiatortilla

Good luck BessieDog, hope you have fun


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## GingerRogers

Good luck BessieDog and enjoy the night away.

Remember to relax, remember you arent going to come anywhere and its all just for fun , keep telling yourself that and you just never know 

I had a late potter round the block today with an angel on the lead, ok we saw nothing but her LLW was pretty acceptable, not perfect but who cares 

Had an odd event this afternoon, clients come to visit, she is brilliant, whole butter wouldn't melt routine, as they leave an ad comes on the telly, one she doesn't like (its fish again today and hubby is insisting on watching the fishing month on sky ), I didn't see this but apparently she bristled up straight away but didn't kick off until the door closed after them??? Any insight anyone?


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Aw thanks, I didn't realise you were having similar problems. Sled dog hotel suggested the second fear period to me a few months back.. so if it is then I think Tia's coming out the other side of it, or should be anyway. She was quite fearful of dogs off lead too for a while but seems to have "grown out" of that (apart from the really big'uns but that's a whooole different story) and even though I do get in a flap about it, I'm pretty sure she's not as reactive as she was a little while ago. The sitting down and refusing to go in the park definitely seemed like a fear/overwhelmed thing.
> *Is it other dogs with Holly or something else?[/*QUOTE]
> 
> Goodness knows. She was about 12 weeks old when I got her from a rescue centre and in terrible condition, so I simply don't know why she has these 'episodes'. She's always squirmed up to older dogs and submitted so maybe she was attacked as a young pup. She was most certainly roughly handled, because it took a very long time before she stopped rolling onto her back and wetting herself when I approached her. The whole litter obviously had parainfluenza and the farmer/BYB was going to shoot them because he couldn't sell them, which is why they ended up in rescue. When I first had her she infected my two old girls and they were very poorly for about two weeks.
> 
> The trouble is, living where we do, my dogs aren't generally socialised enough. It usually isn't a problem because they go to shows most week-ends from April until October but because I hardly did any shows last year, due to my sister's illness and spending a lot of time with her, Holly has suffered in that respect.
> 
> I trained her for about 25 minutes this afternoon and she was full of fun but, of course, there were no other dogs or handlers present.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh no!! Hopefully with rest for two or three days Kilo will come sound.
> 
> I hope to goodness you don't end up in the same boat as me (who still hasn't heard from my vets and the seething is getting to boiling pitch now).


I hope so too. At the back of my mind is the meningitis as it can cause rear end muscular problems and eventually paralysis BUT he was being a bit of a loon with some very sharp turns this morning so hoping it's that. Really hoping. Think I've had my fair share of worries about this pair recently .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I hope so too. At the back of my mind is the meningitis as it can cause rear end muscular problems and eventually paralysis BUT he was being a bit of a loon with some very sharp turns this morning so hoping it's that. Really hoping. *Think I've had my fair share of worries about this pair recently :eek*:.


Agree with that one!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I hope so too. At the back of my mind is the meningitis as it can cause rear end muscular problems and eventually paralysis BUT he was being a bit of a loon with some very sharp turns this morning so hoping it's that. Really hoping. Think I've had my fair share of worries about this pair recently .


Yes you certainly have...!!

Lo and behold whilst I was outside for 25 minutes training Holly this afternoon the vets rang  What perfect timing.

And surprise, surprise the orthopaedic specialist can't see anything on the plates that would cause her lameness - well blow me neither could I..:mad2:
Of course, should she go lame again, he would be quite happy to examine her. No doubt costing several more hundred pounds and the answer would be the same - unknown soft tissue/nerve damage.

Talk about how to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs. It's so annoying; I've probably been dealing with soft tissue injuries in collies before most of them were born.

I've book an appointment with a canine sports massage therapist the week after next, so we'll see what she thinks. She'll certainly have more idea than vets and was spot on with Leafy's shoulder a couple of years ago.

It's my birthday today and the house looks like a florist shop.... Hubby was taking me out for a meal tonight but my daughter and grandchildren have only just left and I've got the dogs to walk so we'll go next week sometime. Don't ask how old I am.....:biggrin5:


----------



## Dogless

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANNIE!!!!! Sincerely I'm pleased that you've obviously been treated to some lovely flowers and had what sounds like a lovely day - bar the vet. Hope your sister liked her pressie and had a good day too.


----------



## Twiggy

Oh btw Holly hid under my bed the whole time my daughter and grandchildren were here.


----------



## moonviolet

Happy Birthday Grannie  and Grannie's sister.

Hope your birthday wishes are granted


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Happy Birthday Grannie  and Grannie's sister.
> 
> Hope your birthday wishes are granted


Thank you. Well I got the ironing board. The Porsche hasn't arrived though..


----------



## Guest

OOh its your birthday twig? HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 
Did you have nice day? Did the husband treat you in the awesome manner that you should be aquainted to?


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> OOh its your birthday twig? HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
> Did you have nice day? Did the husband treat you in the awesome manner that you should be aquainted to?


Thank you. Well husband insisted on getting up this morning, letting the dogs out and making tea so I had a lie in.....

Leafy was hilarious this morning when I was opening presents. She was convinced it was Christmas and got very animated, poking bags and presents to see if they contained squeaky toys. Someone bought me a large ceramic Border Collie, which she tried to pick up by it's ears and when that failed she ran round the lounge with a handbag sized umbrella in her mouth trying to make it squeak.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Thank you. Well husband insisted on getting up this morning, letting the dogs out and making tea so I had a lie in.....


I do hope he's OK Twiggy; please persuade him to see the GP if this type of behaviour continues.


----------



## Nicki85

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

DL- hope your no.1 (or should that be =no. 1?!) boy is feeling better...

Well, had agility with Rusty this evening and he was a funny lad! He was going really nice actually driving to the tug in my hand (WOW) and having a fab time... then he spotted that the other class were doing contacts (food) and that was it. I had to go and get the ball stuffed with mince stuffed in a sock back out! Bloomin Springers.... Anyhow we were getting some really tight turns and I managed snakes this time  We also remembered how to do blind crosses! I think I must be the most incapable handler though... The instructor was like, "you say his name a lot... do you have any commands?!" (as in left, right, in, out...) . Which I responded "yes, but I'm bound to say the wrong thing so I just say his name instead!". I'm getting there.... i'm very lucky to have such a patient Rusty! Driving arms... commands... timing... footwork.... gah.

We then went to a new area, Twesaldown race course where there is a large area of heathland and forest... haven't been there before and Rust was crazy. Shae was good, tried to keep up here and there but started to engage with me instead. Looking forward to carrying on exploring there... only worry was the sign that said high speed test track for the MOD..... Need to find a safe route round


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I do hope he's OK Twiggy; please persuade him to see the GP if this type of behaviour continues.


Perhaps I'd better book him an appointment with the orthopaedic specialist.....:devil:


----------



## Werehorse

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TWIGGY! Hugo sends his Auntie Granny special birthday face licks.


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## GingerRogers

Happy birthday to you and your sister grannie Twiggy
I just got in in time


----------



## Dogless

Good morning at Concrete Central. Took Rudi out in the pouring rain, nothing seen, he walked well and we did some impulse control stuff and recalls.

Took Kilo for a gentle lead walk in slightly lighter rain, he's holding his leg very slightly stiffly but it didn't "give" at all today and we just pottered around a spot where there were good sniffs.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Good morning at Concrete Central. Took Rudi out in the pouring rain, nothing seen, he walked well and we did some impulse control stuff and recalls.
> 
> Took Kilo for a gentle lead walk in slightly lighter rain, he's holding his leg very slightly stiffly but it didn't "give" at all today and we just pottered around a spot where there were good sniffs.


That's good news and glad you posted as I was about to ask how Kilo was this morning.

Well Tremor's had her final laser treatment and I shall ease her gently back into training and then we'll see. Fingers crossed the magic laser beam has healed whatever soft tissue problem there is.


----------



## Lovehatetragedy

I'm hopefully taking Ember to her first Ring Show Training on Tuesday


----------



## MollySmith

Happy Birthday Twiggy 

Lots of love me and Molly


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## tiatortilla

Twiggy said:


> Goodness knows. She was about 12 weeks old when I got her from a rescue centre and in terrible condition, so I simply don't know why she has these 'episodes'. She's always squirmed up to older dogs and submitted so maybe she was attacked as a young pup. She was most certainly roughly handled, because it took a very long time before she stopped rolling onto her back and wetting herself when I approached her. The whole litter obviously had parainfluenza and the farmer/BYB was going to shoot them because he couldn't sell them, which is why they ended up in rescue. When I first had her she infected my two old girls and they were very poorly for about two weeks.


Poor girl, it sounds like she really went through a lot in her first few weeks. Makes my Tia look like a right little fusspot, which she is really if I'm honest but it's just the way she is !

Happy birthday


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy - belated happy birthday and fingers and paws crossed that the laser has worked it's magic

Dogless - hope Kilo is better soon.

Nicki - that sounds like an exhausting evening. I would love to do some agility with the dimwit but suspect I am far too incompetent!

Today has been one of the days when I realise what a fabulous little dog the dimwit is.
He had an incident this morning with a "friendly" dog who came up to him, but only came 2-3 steps at a time which really worried him but he didn't react at all 
This evening we took magic ball and did some obedience practice and he was fab, his heel work is really improving (when I have a ball he has a tendency to try to rush ahead of me in the hope I will throw it). Then we did some stays and some sendaways - helpfully they have roped off the batting area of the cricket pitch so we have lots of poles to practice on he is still not keen on going away from me so we are doing very small distances but he us getting much more confident.

Did a bit of scentwork when we got home and he was a star, I'm having to work much harder to think of places to hide things.
Love my little dog :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

lovehatetragedy - hope all goes well on Tuesday.

Twiggy - everything crossed for a sound Tremor.

Dimwit - little Dimwit can have a coveted platinum star .

Good walks with the CHs this evening; Kilo still the same thank goodness.

Quick quiz......

1. Which dog ate poo on their walk tonight?
2. Which dog launched themselves into the ditch / stream at the bottom of the sports pitches filled with thick, black mud and needed a wash in the paddling pool when we got home?

No prizes....just for fun  .


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Dimwit - little Dimwit can have a coveted platinum star .


He'll probably eat it 

As for your quiz, hmmm, I couldn't possibly guess...


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Twiggy - belated happy birthday and fingers and paws crossed that the laser has worked it's magic
> 
> Dogless - hope Kilo is better soon.
> 
> Nicki - that sounds like an exhausting evening. I would love to do some agility with the dimwit but suspect I am far too incompetent!
> 
> Today has been one of the days when I realise what a fabulous little dog the dimwit is.
> He had an incident this morning with a "friendly" dog who came up to him, but only came 2-3 steps at a time which really worried him but he didn't react at all
> *This evening we took magic ball and did some obedience practice and he was fab, his heel work is really improving (when I have a ball he has a tendency to try to rush ahead of me in the hope I will throw it). Then we did some stays and some sendaways - helpfully they have roped off the batting area of the cricket pitch so we have lots of poles to practice on he is still not keen on going away from me so we are doing very small distances but he us getting much more confident.*
> 
> Did a bit of scentwork when we got home and he was a star, I'm having to work much harder to think of places to hide things.
> Love my little dog :001_wub:


We really must sort out a time you you to come over. The forward working in heelwork isn't a problem if you know how to 'use' the ball and I have a much easier way of teaching sendaways if he likes his ball.

I would prefer Tremor to be sound, so that I can use her to demonstrate.


----------



## Twiggy

We had a brilliant evening out with friends last night. Super pub (right next to a castle) and the meal was excellent...

*Dogless - *How is Kilo this morning?


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> We really must sort out a time you you to come over. The forward working in heelwork isn't a problem if you know how to 'use' the ball and I have a much easier way of teaching sendaways if he likes his ball.
> 
> I would prefer Tremor to be sound, so that I can use her to demonstrate.


That would be great  I'm sure I am not using the ball "properly" but at least it holds his attention better than food


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - Kilo seems fine thank you very much. I'm sticking to lead walks again today. He has turned back into my playful boy since last night - picking up toys and instigating play with Rudi; they even had a brief wrestle this morning .

Two great walks this morning. Played lots of Rudi's favourite recall game and impulse control games. Lead walked Kilo and did lots of 'find its' and bits and pieces. Kilo stood nicely whilst a little boy rushed at us shouting "Doggie!!". Mother retrieved him and told me he was lovely .


----------



## diefenbaker

Just got back from the beach. Summer's here  I bought a 3/4 wetsuit over the winter... it might have to make an appearance.. so I can go swimming with the bear.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Just got back from the beach. Summer's here  I bought a 3/4 wetsuit over the winter... it might have to make an appearance.. so I can go swimming with the bear.


I love OW swimming...t'is fabulous.


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## MollySmith

Hello, sorry not to have been about much. 

Glad you had a nice evening out Twiggy and I hope Tremor is feeling better today.

Dogless - your quiz is far too easy  So pleased Kilo was wrestling 

diefenbaker - so jealous you have sea near you


Had a long walk with Molly today, she met her bestie Ralph and she's exhausted. 

I am very bothered about the barking in the crate in the car, we now have growling at her humans so I have to work on that. I might borrow back the Manners Minder from friend if the tips I got on the chat area don't work. It's driving me (excuse pun) a bit potty.

Back at class tomorrow (maybe see you Dimwit?) and no dog incidents to speak of. We were at my grannies these last two days helping her to pack for her holiday (she should be in Cornwall with my parents and aunt anytime now, lucky devils, wish it was me!). I am so tempted to blow a vast amount of money on Helsbury Park but it would have too much to live up to I fear.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Hello, sorry not to have been about much.
> 
> Glad you had a nice evening out Twiggy and I hope Tremor is feeling better today.
> 
> Dogless - your quiz is far too easy  So pleased Kilo was wrestling
> 
> diefenbaker - so jealous you have sea near you
> 
> Had a long walk with Molly today, she met her bestie Ralph and she's exhausted.
> 
> *I am very bothered about the barking in the crate in the car, we now have growling at her humans so I have to work on that. I might borrow back the Manners Minder from friend if the tips I got on the chat area don't work. It's driving me (excuse pun) a bit potty.*
> 
> Back at class tomorrow (maybe see you Dimwit?) and no dog incidents to speak of. We were at my grannies these last two days helping her to pack for her holiday (she should be in Cornwall with my parents and aunt anytime now, lucky devils, wish it was me!). I am so tempted to blow a vast amount of money on Helsbury Park but it would have too much to live up to I fear.


Tell me more. Is it excitement, fear, etc. etc., what you have tried and why she's in a crate in the first place?


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## tiatortilla

Our proper walk was really nice today. All on lead, it's over to the other side of town, round a graveyard, through a sort of grassy area with a path for a while and then a more woody area and back home through some residential streets. Her loose lead walking was great and we saw a spaniel and a collie off lead in a more open grassy bit and Tia didn't react at all. She was only on a 6ft lead and they were fairly close so I'm really pleased! :thumbup:


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## diefenbaker

I bought a treadmill off eBay to help with the CaniX training. It was kept a secret from OH until me and eldest daughter went to pick it up a few minutes ago. If I don't post again today I may be in the garden... and down a bit.


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## Dogless

Good walk this evening; both together and onlead, they behaved very well so I was proud of them :001_wub:. I like the fact that my posts on here are getting shorter.....I still have loads to work on though  .


----------



## Dimwit

MS - yes, you will probably see us at class tomorrow. Sorry you are having problems with Molly in the car, luckily dimwit is pretty quiet.

Tia - it's so good when a walk goes well, isn't it? Well one to both of you.

Not having a very good day today, spent most of the day waiting in for a delivery which didn't come
Now my neighbours have some friends round for a barbecue, and they have bought their very vocal dog so poor dimwit is going demented. I've resorted to shutting the kitchen door so he can't get to the back door but the poor boy is still really unsettled


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> MS - yes, you will probably see us at class tomorrow. Sorry you are having problems with Molly in the car, luckily dimwit is pretty quiet.
> 
> Tia - it's so good when a walk goes well, isn't it? Well one to both of you.
> 
> Not having a very good day today, spent most of the day waiting in for a delivery which didn't come
> Now my neighbours have some friends round for a barbecue, and they have bought their very vocal dog so poor dimwit is going demented. I've resorted to shutting the kitchen door so he can't get to the back door but the poor boy is still really unsettled


That's horrible; we had a few days when we were in the same situation last summer; the dog that was round at our neighbours' for BBQs pretty often would fly at the fence barking when Kilo was in the garden - we had to stay indoors as the dog's behaviour plus shouting from the owners wasn't relaxing at all for either of us . I think the guests were family so hope that they leave their dog behind this year!!


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## tiatortilla

Dimwit said:


> MS - yes, you will probably see us at class tomorrow. Sorry you are having problems with Molly in the car, luckily dimwit is pretty quiet.
> 
> Tia - it's so good when a walk goes well, isn't it? Well one to both of you.
> 
> Not having a very good day today, spent most of the day waiting in for a delivery which didn't come
> Now my neighbours have some friends round for a barbecue, and they have bought their very vocal dog so poor dimwit is going demented. I've resorted to shutting the kitchen door so he can't get to the back door but the poor boy is still really unsettled


"Liked" for our well done, not because you're having a horrible day! Poor Dimwit. Our neighbours occasionally have a dog round and then go out, I think and the poor thing barks continuously, it's horrible isn't it!


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## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> MS - yes, you will probably see us at class tomorrow. Sorry you are having problems with Molly in the car, luckily dimwit is pretty quiet.
> 
> Tia - it's so good when a walk goes well, isn't it? Well one to both of you.
> 
> Not having a very good day today, spent most of the day waiting in for a delivery which didn't come
> *Now my neighbours have some friends round for a barbecue, and they have bought their very vocal dog so poor dimwit is going demented. I've resorted to shutting the kitchen door so he can't get to the back door but the poor boy is still really unsettled*


I know the feeling. We had new neighbours move in almost two years ago now and within 6 months they 'acquired' goodness knows how many Miniature Schnauzers, who spent most of last summer shut in a small paddock howling, barking and screaming from dawn to dusk.
Eventually I exploded and they have kept them mainly quiet so far this year. Awful people and although the dogs get on my nerves I feel really sorry for them, as they are little breeding machine and kept for one purpose only - making money. Puppy farmers in other words.


----------



## ballybee

bleurgh, feeling pretty bad today

Tummel had to be left for 3 hours today (i was working and OH went shooting with Dan), he'd had 2 hours of exercise, and had been lazing about all day as it was very hot here, OH left him a kong and filled bone with peanut butter, a pizzle stick, a smoked cows ear and a handful of food scattered....left the tv on so he could hear it....and yet i come home, my drawers were knocked over, the door is very badly scratched and Tummels chewed up the carpet around the door.

I'm just really fed up, i have literally tried everything over the last 3 years and he just can't cope with being left, last year for about 4 months he actually decided he was fine being left and then for no reason we could see went right back to destroying everything, he's ripped curtains from the wall (poles and all), ripped up carpets, doors etc. I literally have no idea what else i can do, OH is going into the army very soon so i need to be able to go to work and know Tummel is ok, we don't have any daycare around here and even if we did i can't afford to send 2 dogs, my mum has offered to help but she doesn't listen to me and i know she'll muck up all the training and effort i put in with them!!!

Dan is also doing my nut in, he's going through the kevins which right now means ignoring me calling him and generally being a right sod!!

ok, rant over.....blergh


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Tell me more. Is it excitement, fear, etc. etc., what you have tried and why she's in a crate in the first place?


I think it's excitement. She is in the crate for two reasons, first is that we couldn't find a seat cover that was very sturdy and although we had her secured with a seat belt fastener I wasn't happy it was secure enough. Plus she barked at passing dogs all the time and then it escalated to cyclists, walkers... So as she was okay with the crate at home, we put the crate on the back seat, it's a soft crate. We've got a metal one for the boot but as I often have photography stuff in the boot when we are out, so I prefer the soft crate on the back seat. Plus Molly doesn't seem very comfortable jumping into the boot of our car which is high.

When we first had this arrangement before Xmas she was fine, settled down and not a murmur. Then I suspect the OH forgot to cover the crate with the sheet, she saw a cat and barked. She only barks for first few minutes but she is very very persistent and if we get out to check on her she growls which is not typical Molly at all. It's starts as soon as I zip it up.

I have taken to stopping the car and only moving when she's quiet. I can do this on our road as its usually very quiet. But OH and I are being inconsistent  He will tell her to be quiet but I think that's giving her attention and he forgets the sheet but she barks either way. If she barks whilst we move (rare but happens) I can't stop safely usually. Any words or tones do not work, even my telling off firmly voice.

this afternoon after her walk, I put her in the car and clicked and treated as I slowly zipped it up with a small gap, started up the car and did the same. she didn't bark. I am cautious of sitting next to the crate as we travel along and clicking but perhaps that's the answer.

I am wondering whether to get her another soft crate in the house and re training the crate but I don't know if that's the problem, I'm baffled!


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> I think it's excitement. She is in the crate for two reasons, first is that we couldn't find a seat cover that was very sturdy and although we had her secured with a seat belt fastener I wasn't happy it was secure enough. Plus she barked at passing dogs all the time and then it escalated to cyclists, walkers... So as she was okay with the crate at home, we put the crate on the back seat, it's a soft crate. We've got a metal one for the boot but as I often have photography stuff in the boot when we are out, so I prefer the soft crate on the back seat. Plus Molly doesn't seem very comfortable jumping into the boot of our car which is high.
> 
> When we first had this arrangement before Xmas she was fine, settled down and not a murmur. Then I suspect the OH forgot to cover the crate with the sheet, she saw a cat and barked. She only barks for first few minutes but she is very very persistent and if we get out to check on her she growls which is not typical Molly at all. It's starts as soon as I zip it up.
> 
> I have taken to stopping the car and only moving when she's quiet. I can do this on our road as its usually very quiet. But OH and I are being inconsistent  He will tell her to be quiet but I think that's giving her attention and he forgets the sheet but she barks either way. If she barks whilst we move (rare but happens) I can't stop safely usually. Any words or tones do not work, even my telling off firmly voice.
> 
> this afternoon after her walk, I put her in the car and clicked and treated as I slowly zipped it up with a small gap, started up the car and did the same. she didn't bark. I am cautious of sitting next to the crate as we travel along and clicking but perhaps that's the answer.
> 
> I am wondering whether to get her another soft crate in the house and re training the crate but I don't know if that's the problem, I'm baffled!


Hmmm I agree it sounds like excitement.

I don't think using another soft crate in the house will help as it's the car and travelling which is causing the excitement.

Putting her in the car with the engine running, zipping the crate and clicking and treating sounds a good plan although it's very time consuming and obviously you and OH need to be consistent.

Does she bark lying down? The reason I ask is that most dogs that kick off in the car are bouncing around looking out of the window and simply teaching a solid down stay solves the problem in many cases.


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## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm I agree it sounds like excitement.
> 
> I don't think using another soft crate in the house will help as it's the car and travelling which is causing the excitement.
> 
> Putting her in the car with the engine running, zipping the crate and clicking and treating sounds a good plan although it's very time consuming and obviously you and OH need to be consistent.
> 
> Does she bark lying down? The reason I ask is that most dogs that kick off in the car are bouncing around looking out of the window and simply teaching a solid down stay solves the problem in many cases.


Both unfortunately. The growling at us when we zip up the crate is lying down. I am going to get us ready for our walk earlier today so we can spent a few minutes doing more clicks and treats and another session later on.

I've noticed that she gets a bit possessive over water when we're are out for walks. Her best mate Ralph and her met yesterday and Ralph's human had a water bottle for her dog but Molly pushed him out of the way and actually barked at him for trying to get his own water - I am trying not to link this to her crate behaviour but it's bugging me a bit.

Thank you - I'll report back


----------



## MollySmith

ballybee said:


> bleurgh, feeling pretty bad today
> 
> Tummel had to be left for 3 hours today (i was working and OH went shooting with Dan), he'd had 2 hours of exercise, and had been lazing about all day as it was very hot here, OH left him a kong and filled bone with peanut butter, a pizzle stick, a smoked cows ear and a handful of food scattered....left the tv on so he could hear it....and yet i come home, my drawers were knocked over, the door is very badly scratched and Tummels chewed up the carpet around the door.
> 
> I'm just really fed up, i have literally tried everything over the last 3 years and he just can't cope with being left, last year for about 4 months he actually decided he was fine being left and then for no reason we could see went right back to destroying everything, he's ripped curtains from the wall (poles and all), ripped up carpets, doors etc. I literally have no idea what else i can do, OH is going into the army very soon so i need to be able to go to work and know Tummel is ok, we don't have any daycare around here and even if we did i can't afford to send 2 dogs, my mum has offered to help but she doesn't listen to me and i know she'll muck up all the training and effort i put in with them!!!
> 
> Dan is also doing my nut in, he's going through the kevins which right now means ignoring me calling him and generally being a right sod!!
> 
> ok, rant over.....blergh


Oh dear, I recall the Kevin's with Molly and we do have days like that still.

Can you crate Tummel? I had a really good book from the Dogwise series on crate training that helped me to get Molly used to one.


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> MS - yes, you will probably see us at class tomorrow. Sorry you are having problems with Molly in the car, luckily dimwit is pretty quiet.
> 
> Tia - it's so good when a walk goes well, isn't it? Well one to both of you.
> 
> Not having a very good day today, spent most of the day waiting in for a delivery which didn't come
> Now my neighbours have some friends round for a barbecue, and they have bought their very vocal dog so poor dimwit is going demented. I've resorted to shutting the kitchen door so he can't get to the back door but the poor boy is still really unsettled


Oh horrible, we've had barbecues and an evening of someone cutting down a tree :cursing: and Molly spends her time glued to the fence looking for the source of the voices. Poor Dimwit, I hope the friends had a horrid time and don't come back.


----------



## ballybee

MollySmith said:


> Oh dear, I recall the Kevin's with Molly and we do have days like that still.
> 
> Can you crate Tummel? I had a really good book from the Dogwise series on crate training that helped me to get Molly used to one.


Dans nowhere near as bad as Tummel was but it's still frustrating 

nope can't use a crate, Tummel has a mental breakdown, breaks out of the crate and destroys a lot more than he does if he's left out. We've tried crate training so many times, tried feeding him in there, treating, playing etc but he just can't cope, i know his first owners used to keep him in the crate for 12+ hours a day so that could be why.

I have left him in other rooms for short periods and he was ok but i don't know if i want to risk him trashing the whole flat, but he seriously freaks out about being left in the bedroom, i have a week before OH goes away for an insight week, then he goes off for his final selection (2 days) and it could be as little as 10 days after that that he goes into training for 6 months so i need to really work with them.

My plan is to do a 1 1/2 hour to 2 hour walk every morning, then use most of their breakfasts to mentally stimulate them, and i won't let them nap so hopefully by the time i have to go to work they'll be ready for a few hours of sleep. My mum will be able to come in and walk them after her work and hopefully take them to hers a few evenings each week.


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## MollySmith

A slight inconsistent approach with rules from your mum is much more preferable to a destroyed house. Poor Tummel, I didn't know he had such a rotten background, no wonder he hates the crate but what a worry for you. One thing I've thought of is if there is an exchange of skills scheme near you. We've got one in Cambridge I used to belong to but left because I didn't have the time to offer much. There used to be lots of people offering dog walks and sitting - obviously it's not insured but it could be useful?


----------



## ballybee

MollySmith said:


> A slight inconsistent approach with rules from your mum is much more preferable to a destroyed house. Poor Tummel, I didn't know he had such a rotten background, no wonder he hates the crate but what a worry for you. One thing I've thought of is if there is an exchange of skills scheme near you. We've got one in Cambridge I used to belong to but left because I didn't have the time to offer much. There used to be lots of people offering dog walks and sitting - obviously it's not insured but it could be useful?


lol it's not slight...they have no rules with my mum, she doesn't believe dogs need disipline. I will have to think about it though, and see how Tummel does with more space. He's being left again today, but with Dan and the crate in front of the door so he can't rip it apart again, it'll only be a couple of hours at most and he seems pretty shattered today so we'll see how it goes.

Tummel had a horrible first home, he went to his first owners at 6 weeks old, was left in a crate all day, then smacked or sprayed in the face with water for toiletting inside. When we got him he couldn't cope with the sound of water, and would wet himself in fear, we had to soak his food as he couldn't drink, he was ok being crated at night but during the day would flip out completely. Thankfully we've gotten him through most of it but the SA is still here and i think always will be 

I plan on getting a walker involved, depending on how useful mum turns out to be. I usually work in the evenings so daycare or a sitter wouldn't be much use to me.


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## Twiggy

ballybee said:


> lol it's not slight...they have no rules with my mum, she doesn't believe dogs need disipline. I will have to think about it though, and see how Tummel does with more space. He's being left again today, but with Dan and the crate in front of the door so he can't rip it apart again, it'll only be a couple of hours at most and he seems pretty shattered today so we'll see how it goes.
> 
> Tummel had a horrible first home, he went to his first owners at 6 weeks old, was left in a crate all day, then smacked or sprayed in the face with water for toiletting inside. When we got him he couldn't cope with the sound of water, and would wet himself in fear, we had to soak his food as he couldn't drink, he was ok being crated at night but during the day would flip out completely. Thankfully we've gotten him through most of it but the SA is still here and i think always will be
> 
> Just another thought. Have you tried any natural calmers/sedatives when you leave him?
> 
> Have a look at the Doreen Paige Remedies then give them a ring and explain your problems with Tummel. They are very helpful and the remedies work extremely well with many dogs (including my own). The 'Insecurity' was almost miraculous with Leafy 10 years ago and believe me I was extremely sceptical.
> 
> www.*doreenpaige*.com/groups/1.*Remedies*


----------



## ballybee

Twiggy said:


> Just another thought. Have you tried any natural calmers/sedatives when you leave him?
> 
> Have a look at the Doreen Paige Remedies then give them a ring and explain your problems with Tummel. They are very helpful and the remedies work extremely well with many dogs (including my own). The 'Insecurity' was almost miraculous with Leafy 10 years ago and believe me I was extremely sceptical.
> 
> www.*doreenpaige*.com/groups/1.*Remedies*


i haven't yet, was going to buy some rescue remedy for Tummel but was wondering about more specific tonics  I'll have a look, thanks x


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## diefenbaker

Another great day at the beach today. If anyone is within driving distance of Hayling Island it's well worth a visit but the fun is x10 if you go when the tide is out. The sandbanks go out for miles and there's little lagoons to traverse. Dog part of the beach is the west end. I did wear the wetsuit but didn't go more than waist deep. Note to self.. when shorts are waterlogged they fall down.


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## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> Have a look at the Doreen Paige Remedies then give them a ring and explain your problems with Tummel. They are very helpful and the remedies work extremely well with many dogs (including my own). The 'Insecurity' was almost miraculous with Leafy 10 years ago and believe me I was extremely sceptical.
> 
> www.*doreenpaige*.com/groups/1.*Remedies*


I would second this - they are very helpful on the phone, dimwit has only been on their remedy for a couple of weeks so too early really to see much of a difference but I am remaining open-minded and optimistic.

Dimwit was a very good boy at school this afternoon, he is so happy and relaxed there, I am amazed!
We also saw MollySmith and the gorgeous Molly again (who was so calm that you would never guess that she is a reactive dog).

Apart from that, dimwit has had a very busy day doing his neighbourhood watch:










and he is now attacking his kong wobbler and seriously endangering my ankles in the process...


----------



## Twiggy

Good boy Dimwit.

I wish Holly was better around other people and dogs; she seems to be getting worse.

There was a smallish agricultural show on locally which I wish I'd taken her to but forgot it was on until too late.

I've just trained Tremor, Holly and Leafy. Quiver has been asleep the last two days so I've sneaked Leafy out with the other two. Today she was awake so I left Leafy with her, only to hear sobbing coming from the kitchen....!!


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## MollySmith

ballybee - I hope Tummel was alright when you came back and Dan the Man is behaving himself today.

Twiggy - it must be great to have three of them out for training. Poor Quiver having a cry, bless her 

diefenbaker - flashing on the beach?   

Awh lovely Dimwit, he's a good boy! 

As Dimwit says, we had another great visit to class, I'm so proud of her. She spent all afternoon playing in the garden and I skived off work so that means that I shall be glued to my desk all day. 

We had a poorly baby blackbird in the garden yesterday evening, I think it was learning to fly and didn't get very far. Poor Molly, popped her indoors so we could leave it out with some mealworms and hope mum and dad got it. Neighbours came around to investigate and to Molly's credit she didn't bark at them. No sign of the bird this morning so I'm hopeful that it's got back to the nest but no idea how. I'm not thinking about the alternatives.


----------



## GingerRogers

Poor leafy but how nice to have the three of them fit. 

dief 

we had a busy weekend with pretend birthdays . A very successful new friend has arrived in the form of 'foxy' Ginge quivers with excitement and constantly presents him for play. Think i need to harvest this enthusiasm.


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## MollySmith

Babybird died  Luckily Molly didn't find it before me.


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## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> Babybird died  Luckily Molly didn't find it before me.


 poor baby bird!


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## Guest

[/URL][/IMG]

Ta-daaahhh! He'll only tolerate for a minute but we're getting there!

Good boy dimwit and poor babybird!

Glad you got all three out for training twig!!

ETA: Bugger me thats a HUGE pic!! Um sorry bout that!!


----------



## MollySmith

Oh bless him, he'll get there in time 

I'm in a bad mood and I apologise in advance to those who disagree with me, I'm venting not creating an argument hence venting here not *out there*. I've walked Molly with me to the river as it's a nice day and I had a letter to post. So we did a bit of lead work keeping a nice distance from the ASBO swans and all was well. I decided we'd head home as it was rather hot so I popped her halti on and some random woman shouted at me and said I was cruel.

I'm f**king furious. I realise it's not ideal and I felt incapable of arguing with her for fear of upsetting my dog (that's how bad an owner I am). Anyway I saw her go into a shop so I scooted off home, left Molly with the OH and went back on my bike and found her for a show down. I told that I understood she might object to the halti but at least it wasn't a prong that someone else had offered me. That I have a back injury and had surgery on my shoulder so the halti was the best way for me to manage her and if she'd been barely a minute earlier she would have seen me working with just the lead and seen we were in training.

I wish I had some video of Molly as she was so I could show everyone how hard she's worked to get over this fear. It wasn't something I wanted to keep hold of. 

Anyway she threatened to report me to the RSCPA and told me my dog was better in a shelter. I offered to take her back to my house to tell my husband that's what she was going to do. She refused and walked off without taking any details. 

I've never ever had anyone do that with me before over the halti. I am really concerned about going out now but I am not going to push Molly over the edge and back to her lead problems of the (hopefully) past to satisfy opinionated idiots like this. I cannot risk it. I expect she's probably a worst case scenario but are people really this divided over them? I honestly had no idea until last week on PF with a certain thread. If they are, I need anger management lessons too.


----------



## tiatortilla

MollySmith said:


> ...


Wow, that's really horrible. I'm so sorry that happened to you! I know opinions are very divided on headcollars, I personally don't like them that much but obviously I can see that depending on the dog and situation they can be totally fine, but I don't think anyone sensible thinks a dog would be better off in a shelter than occasionally wearing a headcollar. xx


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## GingerRogers

Woah MS, I know its not nice having these sort of comments, unfortunately there are idiots everywhere, I think you might have saved yourself some anger if you had taken a deep breath and walked away.

I had a post from a friend on FB the other day, whose husband has just left a very demanding job. Went something like this:

Tried to have a conversation today with a really stupid man. It made me cross but John says being cross won't make him less stupid. Great to have John home.

She is my best friends twin and that is exactly the twins mentality, makes me look like a nutjob when I kick off at things but its true, save your self the heartache and walk away next time!


----------



## moonviolet

Apologies for my absence been a busy bee. In our doggie related news hav signed up for a handler place on a rallyO workshop in June with Kim Hunt. 
Had another 2hour mad fun freestyle session yesterday. Did some fun variations on things we know. So in a fit of inspiration i've put together a middle chunk for our little routine, however I am yet to add the hound but as i'm the weak link better to work on myself first. :lol: :lol:

Walks have been very good on the whole, although we had a bit of a challenge of the prideful nature today. on the last leg of our walk a 15 minutes pavement walk we were followed by a lady who caught up with as we crossed a road. She very sweetly commented on what a well behaved dog Tinker was, I thanked her and as we reached hte other side of the road my heart sank a little as I realised bin day and the pavement ahead was littered with recently emptied food waste bins all at perfect beagle nose height. I took up the challenged and with a variety tactics kept Tink's focus and no food bin was intereferd with by her nasal attentions. In the lady's eyes Tink is probably still a well behaved dog... but her owner...bats int eh belfry that one:blushing:hmy:

Sorry not commenting on everyone haven't caught up properly yet.


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Woah MS, I know its not nice having these sort of comments, unfortunately there are idiots everywhere, I think you might have saved yourself some anger if you had taken a deep breath and walked away.
> 
> I had a post from a friend on FB the other day, whose husband has just left a very demanding job. Went something like this:
> 
> Tried to have a conversation today with a really stupid man. It made me cross but John says being cross won't make him less stupid. Great to have John home.
> 
> She is my best friends twin and that is exactly the twins mentality, makes me look like a nutjob when I kick off at things but its true, save your self the heartache and walk away next time!


I don't know how to do multiple quotes but yes probably right, I would have been better to walk away, wise words, and thank you *tiatortilla* for seeing it from a balance point of view 

I think I'm just so very aware of how much we've accomplished, well Molly really, that I find it appalling that strangers can be so rude. She was already threatening me when I had Molly - I can't believe I've been accused of being cruel but I'm so anxious now that everyone will be like that. I guess I have to laugh at the irony of spending 12 months worrying about Molly's reactions to dogs, now she's going to have to train me to be calm around humans :wink5:

My OH has calmed me down. He said that it's not as if we're always going to keep Molly on a lead, it's why we've joined the classes and sensibly we have to tackle one problem at a time when it comes to Molly, leads and dogs.


----------



## Guest

Ms You found the lady again for a showdown!?!? Good lord you might of gotten punched!!


----------



## moonviolet

MollySmith said:


> I've never ever had anyone do that with me before over the halti. I am really concerned about going out now but I am not going to push Molly over the edge and back to her lead problems of the (hopefully) past to satisfy opinionated idiots like this. I cannot risk it. I expect she's probably a worst case scenario but are people really this divided over them? I honestly had no idea until last week on PF with a certain thread. If they are, I need anger management lessons too.


Lots of people dont like them, I see many poorly fitted ones and people using them to control their dogs when pushing thim into situations that send them way over threshold. The worst of these cases was a GSD in a head collar taken to a busy park repeatedly lunging. The headcollar rubbed with every lunge and the dog ended up with a huge blister.

I'm genuinely sorry you encountered this person they sounds thoroughly unpleasant. The problem with people who do that sort of thing is that you aren't going to change their mind, but in the process of trying you'll most likely not be showing your best side to the world either.

Don't worry about the opinions of those whose opinion you neither solicit or respect.

Maybe find a little time for relaxtion in your routine. Hope you are feeling better now.


----------



## Labdog

Having trouble keeping pup going up stairs he can't get in any rooms up their but just want him to keep down, don't want to put safety gate up, any suggestions?


----------



## Dogless

Labdog said:


> Having trouble keeping pup going up stairs he can't get in any rooms up their but just want him to keep down, don't want to put safety gate up, any suggestions?


Not much you can do bar safety gate if he's already got used to going up I don't think bar watching him like a hawk.


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> Lots of people dont like them, I see many poorly fitted ones and people using them to control their dogs when pushing thim into situations that send them way over threshold. The worst of these cases was a GSD in a head collar taken to a busy park repeatedly lunging. The headcollar rubbed with every lunge and the dog ended up with a huge blister.
> 
> I'm genuinely sorry you encountered this person they sounds thoroughly unpleasant. The problem with people who do that sort of thing is that you aren't going to change their mind, but in the process of trying you'll most likely not be showing your best side to the world either.
> 
> Don't worry about the opinions of those whose opinion you neither solicit or respect.
> 
> Maybe find a little time for relaxtion in your routine. Hope you are feeling better now.


Thank you lovely, yes I'm fine now  I don't lose my temper often but she just hit a nerve.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Thank you lovely, yes I'm fine now  I don't lose my temper often but she just hit a nerve.


She was obviously deranged.

Girls you must really adopt my techniques when you meet these loonies - I'd have smiled broadly at her and said "Oh please do ring the RSPCA".


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> She was obviously deranged.
> 
> Girls you must really adopt my techniques when you meet these loonies - I'd have smiled broadly at her and said "Oh please do ring the RSPCA".


Knowing my luck Kilo would give them his "I haven't been fed or walked for at least a month" face and ears .


----------



## MollySmith

Thank you for making me laugh Twiggy and Dogless!

Molly thankfully didn't do her pathetic paw lift which always secures a biscuit


----------



## ballybee

Well of course after i've moaned about Tummel being a right sod, today we had to go to Dundee shopping....we were gone from 11:30-4ish, Tummel was in the crate with a pizzle, filled bone and a smoked cows ear, OH used fly line to tie the doors but we came in and he was asleep :blushing: hadn't even touched the ear or filled bone, just ate the pizzle 

what a butthole!!! so got some chicken wings and legs from the co-op for them tomorrow!!!


----------



## MollySmith

ballybee said:


> Well of course after i've moaned about Tummel being a right sod, today we had to go to Dundee shopping....we were gone from 11:30-4ish, Tummel was in the crate with a pizzle, filled bone and a smoked cows ear, OH used fly line to tie the doors but we came in and he was asleep :blushing: hadn't even touched the ear or filled bone, just ate the pizzle
> 
> what a butthole!!! so got some chicken wings and legs from the co-op for them tomorrow!!!


Yaaaaayyyyy, good for Tummel


----------



## ballybee

MollySmith said:


> Yaaaaayyyyy, good for Tummel


I know, so chuffed  Ordered a 48" crate tonight so he'll have a bit more room....if we can keep this going i'll be so happy, OH is away all next week, then back for the weekend, then away again for 2 days, so i need to know i can leave Tummel and he'll cope...he didn't even seem to have been noisey (he's usually panting like mad if he's been barking).

My theory at present is that because Dan was there and wasn't stressed Tummel didn't feel like he was being abandoned  Couldn't be anything to do with all this glorious sun and the long walks/training sessions  Got an XL kong coming too which should also help :001_tt2:


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Knowing my luck Kilo would give them his "I haven't been fed or walked for at least a month" face and ears .


Dimwit would definitely do his "don't beat me" act - complete with sad eyes, cowering and shaking. He usually does it when there is a crowd around for maximum effect 

MS - I am sorry about the rude woman, I have seen how nicely Molly walks on the halti so I wouldn't worry too much. There are many nutters in Cambridge, like the woman who threatened to report my friend to the RSPCA for "making" her dog run alongside her bike - apparently it's cruel to make little dogs run as they only have short legs 

Discovered this morning that the dimwit appears to be deer-proof. We were walking along, minding our own business when I heard a lot of splashing in the river next to us and then a muntjac came crashing up the bank, ran in front of us, and disappeared off into the distance - and little dimwit did nothing


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> Discovered this morning that the dimwit appears to be deer-proof. We were walking along, minding our own business when I heard a lot of splashing in the river next to us and then a muntjac came crashing up the bank, ran in front of us, and disappeared off into the distance - and little dimwit did nothing


That's the stuff my dreams are made of  . Lucky you and Good Dog Little Dimwit!!


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> That's the stuff my dreams are made of  . Lucky you and Good Dog Little Dimwit!!


I think it may have been beginners luck, and he was just too surprised to react. I was very glad I had a ball with me though, and that dimwit doesn't really have a huge prey drive (rubbish spaniel )


----------



## moonviolet

ballybee said:


> Got an XL kong coming too which should also help :001_tt2:


Is that a Kong extreme pray tell?    

Well done Little Dimwit!!!!


----------



## IrishEyes

Good morning everyone,

I haven't been around much lately, not been feeling too good, fibro has flared up but my energy seems to be returning slowly..

Sorry to hear about your encounter with that woman MS, easier said than done but try not to dwell on it, she has no idea about you or your dog and is obviously just a moody old sod! She very well might think twice about approaching anyone in the same way after you went back to give her a piece of your mind!  

Dogles- how is Kilo these days? 

Nothing to report here. Have a good day all!


----------



## BessieDog

MollySmith said:


> Oh bless him, he'll get there in time
> 
> I'm in a bad mood and I apologise in advance to those who disagree with me, I'm venting not creating an argument hence venting here not *out there*. I've walked Molly with me to the river as it's a nice day and I had a letter to post. So we did a bit of lead work keeping a nice distance from the ASBO swans and all was well. I decided we'd head home as it was rather hot so I popped her halti on and some random woman shouted at me and said I was cruel.
> 
> I'm f**king furious. I realise it's not ideal and I felt incapable of arguing with her for fear of upsetting my dog (that's how bad an owner I am). Anyway I saw her go into a shop so I scooted off home, left Molly with the OH and went back on my bike and found her for a show down. I told that I understood she might object to the halti but at least it wasn't a prong that someone else had offered me. That I have a back injury and had surgery on my shoulder so the halti was the best way for me to manage her and if she'd been barely a minute earlier she would have seen me working with just the lead and seen we were in training.
> 
> I wish I had some video of Molly as she was so I could show everyone how hard she's worked to get over this fear. It wasn't something I wanted to keep hold of.
> 
> Anyway she threatened to report me to the RSCPA and told me my dog was better in a shelter. I offered to take her back to my house to tell my husband that's what she was going to do. She refused and walked off without taking any details.
> 
> I've never ever had anyone do that with me before over the halti. I am really concerned about going out now but I am not going to push Molly over the edge and back to her lead problems of the (hopefully) past to satisfy opinionated idiots like this. I cannot risk it. I expect she's probably a worst case scenario but are people really this divided over them? I honestly had no idea until last week on PF with a certain thread. If they are, I need anger management lessons too.


I used to use the dogmatic a lot, and should have had it with me yesterday as Bess seems to have flipped and reverted to pulling like a steam train. She almost pulled me out in front of a car! 

Sometimes we have to take measures to ensure our own, and our dog's safety. Headcollars are not cruel if used properly. The only reason I don't use the dogmatic at the moment is that it rubbed Bess's fur off her nose, but yesterday I realised that I'll have to get a new headcollar for when we go away and my son walks her - he will never hold her on collar or harness as he won't be vigilant for the triggers that make her pull.

It's not up to anyone else what you use on your dog!

Why not a headcollar, anyway? We use them on horses and other animals. Could actually be thought dragging them round by the neck is cruel!


----------



## moonviolet

BessieDog said:


> Why not a headcollar, anyway? We use them on horses and other animals. Could actually be thought dragging them round by the neck is cruel!


Please don't open that can of worms on here.  :frown2:


----------



## Dogless

Irish Eyes - sorry that you weren't good, but I'm pleased to hear you're feeling better.

Kilo is great thank you; pretty much himself again, still weaning off the steroids :thumbup1:.


----------



## ballybee

moonviolet said:


> Is that a Kong extreme pray tell?
> 
> Well done Little Dimwit!!!!


It certainly is, i have it in large which is fine for things like spreading peanut butter/sandwich pastes in but for freezing meals it's crap, only holds 40g kibble


----------



## GingerRogers

Irish Eyes glad you are feeling a bit better, sorry you were feeling low in the first place.

Glad Tummel coped better Ballybee, hope you have cracked it!

A very well done to little Dimwit, theres not many dogs who wouldnt have a little lurch after a deer.

We had an near miss on Sunday, I went up through the reedbeds to the flat fields of brilliant vision , there's a massive swathe of set aside surrounding the (very sad looking ) crop at the start but its a bit of a hill, the only bit where you cant see for miles. So I normally walk to the top check there's nothing/no-one about, then let her off. You know how we have little childhood memories, sights, sounds or smells that bring a grin to our faces, I swear thats what running in long grass does to ninja as she was always walked off lead in a hay field behind her house, you can almost see the joy in her little face :001_wub: any way, shes hurtling about then stops and starts to circle in one small spot, out the corner of my eye about 10m off I see a roe deer break the cover of the long grass and leg it across the flat, open, dusty, crop field. I start flapping and squealing and running about, anything to distract her from looking up and over the grass in its direction until its out of sight.

Thank dog for long grass and small dogs, she doesnt normally run off too far, she has a sort of horizon limit, where little legs cant see us any more and comes hurtling back again but I think that would have been a step too far.

A bit further on I see a hare and again I distract her until its out of sight, but this time she picks up its scent and she is off again into a little pine screen and I have lost her, luckily I remember hares *dont *live down holes so panic subsides a bit, finally she reappears way down the field in about her horizon distance and come legging it back again little fickle ficker!!

But today we just had a great wee potter on the pavement, even sat on the bench at the end of the road for a minute, something I have been gearing up to for a long time. Its nerve wracking as theres 4 directions to check in


----------



## IrishEyes

Thank you dogless, you must be so happy to have your bw back again, i look forward to more outdoor pictures from now on! 

Thanks Ginger, it's just my fibro, it flares up from time to time and knocks me back a bit.

Like Ginger, Horace loves to play in long grass, it's lovely to watch isn't it! Would you believe, I never knew that hares don't live in holes in the ground!


----------



## Twiggy

I've been to the vets with Leafy this morning, having been up with her most of the night. Raging diarrheoa again...!!

Poor little girl really isn't feeling very well.


----------



## GingerRogers

oh no, just as you got them all right  hope you sort it soon poor you & poor her


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> oh no, just as you got them all right  hope you sort it soon poor you & poor her


I can never relax my guard as far as Leafy's food intolerance goes I'm afraid. I've opened the awful bag of Purina Veterinary but I have a nasty feeling Leafy is going to turn her nose up at it. It doesn't look or smell very nice. Quite what I feed her if she won't eat the Purina I really don't know.

Tremor still isn't right either. I saw her slightly raise her right hip last night so the £800 at the vets was a total waste of time, as I suspected it would be. I'll just have to see what the canine sports massage therapist says next week.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Twiggy, poor Leafy , poor you and poor Tremor . Hope Leafy doesn't turn her nose up at the new food.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dief and his current girlfriend on this morning's walk. The black lab is one of his nemesis dogs. Chunky thing and likes to barrel. Dief growls at him at one point... but actually that's the best they've been. I suspect because he was too busy flirting.

[youtube_browser]tDtV2yO0ePQ[/youtube_browser]


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Twiggy, what a pain in the wotsits. C'mon Leafy, eat your tea.. 

diefenbaker hehe, love the videos, I suspect that Molly would appreciate the flirting too!

We've had a lovely day in Cambridge, I put my worries about errant author who haven't written on schedule and thus delay my design and the subsequent invoice to one side  and took Molly out. We did hide and seek in the woods to help her recall - I think I might have broken the dog  - she got that worried where I was that she refused to turn a corner without me. Then we did some lead practise and had a picnic. OH did some hoovering at home 

Hope everyone else is having a lovely day 

Crikey - smiley overload and I don't even like them...


----------



## moonviolet

Ballybee :ihih: you shock me :lol: :lol: :lol: (for those you who haven't followed the thread from the start I apologise for a reference to a conversation from 1000 or so pages back.)

IE Hope you are feeling better and you don't suffer another flare up .. well ever  Glad Horace is ok.

GR I'm sorry, I'm trying not grin thinking of you flapping your arms and really really trying not to turn you into a mad lady doing a seagull impression 
Congrats on reaching the bench 

MS sounds like your doggie day was great even if other your other activities were more challenging.

Dief will watch your video in moment.

Twiggy i'm sorry to hear about poor Leafy's intolerance flaring up again and Tremor's treatment failing to be successful.

We had a lovely walk this morning, pavement walked to meet up with a friend and a romp on the ranges walked them back to their car after an hour, We took scenic route home via the towpath and the local park , a brave thing to do on a sunny day.

However, it couldn't have gone better, we bumped into a couple of Tink's best buddies. Leaving them to their picnic we found a lovely quite spot and as Tink was relaxed we ran through some of her HTM moves She did really well such an improvement on the hypervigilant little hound she once was. We did get disturbed by a springer who was rather intrusive in his sniffing but he's owner was most apologetic for disturbing our training. It was at this point I noticed a couple of buggies heading our way... we are not ready for and audience we headed home spinning as twisting as we went. 
School tonight


----------



## diefenbaker

New CaniX Rosettes....










If there's only 3 people in my class I'm in. I once came 2nd in a shot putt competition because there were only 2 entrants.


----------



## Twiggy

Thanks girls. Leafy perked up a bit from mid afternoon and the diarrheoa began to subside which I suppose was the AB injection kicking in.

I hmmed and ahhed about giving her a small meal of the tinned Purina muck but she ate it, so at least she's had something. Poor little girl.

I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open but I think Leafy will be spending the night with me again. Fingers crossed I don't have to go out to the hosepipe in the middle of the night again.

I've got a mobile groomer coming at 9.00am in the morning to turn Quiver from a Border Collie into a Smooth Collie. Hopefully it will make her more comfortable. She doesn't like the heat and she has a huge coat.


----------



## Dogless

Fingers crossed Twiggy that you and Leafy have a much better night. I'm pleased she ate a little.


----------



## diefenbaker

Just got back from training. Got him to recall past a treat on the second attempt which is something he's never tried before. His real achilles heel is a dual recall with another dog going the other way.... he just feels the need to head them off.


----------



## GingerRogers

Here's hoping for a good night Twiggy.
Hope the groomer brings her glasses you dont want a specsavers quiver. 

Well.done miss Tink 

and dief

after having deer and hares tonight we went down to the marsh reed beds for some peace. Only to end up herding escaped sheep. Hubby went into shepherd mode and a poor terrier was expected to act like a collie. Apart from the initial screams she did quite well but i think my arm might ache tomorrow :001_unsure:


----------



## Dogless

Hope you had a better night with Leafy Twiggy .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hope you had a better night with Leafy Twiggy .


Thanks. I had Leafy with me overnight and she didn't stir....

Fingers crossed that her stomach is settling and she continues to eat the lovely Purina.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Here's hoping for a good night Twiggy.
> Hope the groomer brings her glasses you dont want a specsavers quiver.
> 
> Well.done miss Tink
> 
> and dief
> 
> *after having deer and hares tonight we went down to the marsh reed beds for some peace. Only to end up herding escaped sheep. Hubby went into shepherd mode and a poor terrier was expected to act like a collie. Apart from the initial screams she did quite well but i think my arm might ache tomorrow* :001_unsure:


I'd loved to have seen that - the Ninja working sheep...!!


----------



## Dogless

That's good Twiggy, hopefully that's this episode over with.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy I cant say she makes the best collie dog  glad your fluffy monster has stabilised.

Where she used to live they would have the orphan lambs running round the back garden so she thinks sheep are playthings, unfortunately they don't see her the same way :frown2:

This morning we have an 'odd' dog, refused all food  even treats and cocktail sausages. But managed to slip a little bit of hubbys peanut butter toast down just as we were about to really worry . lots of grass being eaten but she does that all the time, she likes it 

She has been a bit fussy for a few days but ate tea last night ok. I am not sure if its the neighbours rowing rather loudly thats put her off eating outside, then me making a bit of a fuss thats put her off eating anything anywhere - or - if she is going through a bit of a phantom , the timings right and she has been collecting toys at night, hiding behind the armchair and other places (just to totally freak us out), has taken a particular liking to a long orange squeaky dog (looks like a ahem sex toy) she is normally a bit scared of, is carrying it about and snuggling up with it, but its intermittent enough for us to be uncertain. no swollen nipples belly or anything as yet, just keep an eye I guess.

Took her for an on lead walk to our favourite wood, (bluebells nearly over so every other buggers stopped invading it now ) on lead walk planned mainly so I could ensure I could inspect any offerings, and she managed to wriggle herself under a very low hanging tree  but all good, no blockage which is my worry with the littleun, sorry if thats TMI and she is full of beans generally.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> That's good Twiggy, hopefully that's this episode over with.


Yes until the next time which could be next week, next months or next year...!!

Quiver had her groom this morning and looks much better for it. Sadly she was really frightened, particularly in the bath and was whining and barking, although I stayed with her all the time. According to the groomer most dogs are much worse but I don't think I shall have her done again. I thought she was going to have a heart attack and she's a very old lady.

My other three were kicking off in the kitchen, hearing Quiver so distressed.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes until the next time which could be next week, next months or next year...!!
> 
> Quiver had her groom this morning and looks much better for it. Sadly she was really frightened, particularly in the bath and was whining and barking, although I stayed with her all the time. According to the groomer most dogs are much worse but I don't think I shall have her done again. I thought she was going to have a heart attack and she's a very old lady.
> 
> My other three were kicking off in the kitchen, hearing Quiver so distressed.


Oh no Twiggy, poor Quiver .


----------



## diefenbaker

Well the Drontal seems to have stayed down.. which is a surprise. Normally makes him sick.


----------



## cheesecake

Looks like back to square one

Tried taking Jessie for walk twice today ,took cheese and meat treats.

Got 2 doors down and that was it,she froze

Was such a disapointment cos the other day she did so well. I just don't understand this flippin dog ,its so frustrating.

she'll go ANYWHERE with my bro.

I really do just feel like giving up ,I want to take her for walk so bad but it isn't gonna happen


----------



## moonviolet

cheesecake said:


> Looks like back to square one
> 
> Tried taking Jessie for walk twice today ,took cheese and meat treats.
> 
> Got 2 doors down and that was it,she froze
> 
> Was such a disapointment cos the other day she did so well. I just don't understand this flippin dog ,its so frustrating.
> 
> she'll go ANYWHERE with my bro.
> 
> I really do just feel like giving up ,I want to take her for walk so bad but it isn't gonna happen


What was going on in the street when she froze? a big truck . loud children, a weird smell ? Please don't be cross with her she clearly has a reason, getting angry will just make her more fearful 

Just wondering, are you there when your brother walks her? if you aren't are you sure he isn't just dragging her on is she freezes. If you do go and she doesn't freeze take a look at how her walk her. How he does things differently. Or maybe he goes at a different time of day from the times you try to walk her and whatever it is that's upsetting her isn't present.


----------



## cheesecake

I've been going the same route with her, there was someone drilling in their garden BUT when my bro came with us later on ,the drilling was still there and she walked straight on - I just don't get it ! Whats so special about my bro ? :frown2: 

Ive been trying to make a bigger bond with my dog but looks like it not working. And I don't get a look in when my bro is about. 

Its so hard trying to train a dog when other ppl in the family just ignore the training and disagree with what the trainer has told me


----------



## moonviolet

cheesecake said:


> I've been going the same route with her, there was someone drilling in their garden BUT when my bro came with us later on ,the drilling was still there and she walked straight on - I just don't get it ! Whats so special about my bro ? :frown2:
> 
> Ive been trying to make a bigger bond with my dog but looks like it not working. And I don't get a look in when my bro is about.
> 
> Its so hard trying to train a dog when other ppl in the family just ignore the training and disagree with what the trainer has told me


ahhhh, but wait a moment.... she experienced the drilling on the first walk with you and was scared but nothing bad happened. So when she experienced a second time it wasn't a problem as the drill didn't get her last time. So well done you. 

I think in a family household I'm afraid you have to go with the flow a little bit or you'll just get upset and stressed and your dog will sense that.


----------



## Sarah1983

Perhaps you should stop trying so hard Cheesecake. You can't force a dog to want to spend time with you and if you're basically forcing your attentions on her you'll only drive her further away. Sometimes playing a little hard to get is better than trying to worm your way into their affections.

My last dog would have very little to do with one of my brothers because he was always available, always willing to fawn over him, play with him, give him a treat etc. Yet my mum and other brother, who didn't smother him with attention or try to get him to go to them or do stuff with them, he was far, far more interested in when they wanted to make a fuss of him.

Unfortunately you can't choose who a dogs favourite person is. Rupert was my dog through and through and nobody came close to me in his eyes. Spencer I think actually prefers my husband in many respects despite it being me who feeds, walks, trains and plays with him 99% of the time. If hubby wants to play with him then I don't get a look in. Just one of those things.


----------



## cheesecake

That's strange cos my bro is the one who makes a fuss of her, talks to her like a baby etc....
I am more 'firm' so to speak. 

I dunno ,strange dog


----------



## lovemylittlebeagle

Hi everyone ! I am very keen to teach my 1 year old beagle tricks he is a very clever little dog and picks tricks up easy peasy! Here is a little trick I taught him YouTube very cute! What tricks has everyone taught their dogs ?


----------



## Sarah1983

cheesecake said:


> That's strange cos my bro is the one who makes a fuss of her, talks to her like a baby etc....
> I am more 'firm' so to speak.
> 
> I dunno ,strange dog


But the way he does it could well be very different to you. I was always fussing Rupert and talking to him but not in the same way my brother did.



> Hi everyone ! I am very keen to teach my 1 year old beagle tricks he is a very clever little dog and picks tricks up easy peasy! Here is a little trick I taught him YouTube very cute! What tricks has everyone taught their dogs ?


Lol, that is awesome. I couldn't do that here as we live near the ranges, Spen would be playing dead 12 hours a day sometimes!


----------



## MollySmith

I agree with MV and Sarah, cheesecake, you can't guide your dog to 'love' someone more than another, they just do these things.

Molly adores my husband, if we both asked her to play, she'd go to him always. If our trainer is around, Molly completely ignores us both and the same with my dad and my brother when they visit. She just has people she interacts with differently - I don't call it love, that's a human emotion that we try to place on dogs. If you are disagreeing on walks with your brother and not working together this might travel down the lead. If you're tense in any way and cross with her then that's not going to help and I wonder if subconsciously that comes from a little bit of sibling rivalry? I hope that's not out of turn? My brother still irritates me at my age but when he visits and Molly plays with him, I'm happy she's having fun and enjoying his company. 

Do any of your family come to training or do you think you can get a one to one at home with the trainer so that they can learn a few things and hear why consistency is better from the trainer. We all know why, but I found that in the case of my husband, I could tell him until I was spitting feathers but he had to hear it from the trainer for it to be drilled in


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy - oh poor Quiver. One of my gran's dogs got really angsty about the groomer when she was older, like you say sometimes not going is the lesser of the evils. I hope Leafy had a good night and you've managed to get some rest too.

Ginger Rogers - did the Ninja eat anything? Jodie used to get like this before a season. 

Hope everyone is okay and well. We're all fine, nothing much to report apart from Molly had an accident last night of the number 2 sort in the dining room. Bless him, OH came to the rescue and cleaned it up. He said we had three hedgehogs in our garden last night and as soon as Molly saw them despite being on her lead she simply wouldn't settle enough to wee or poop. He tried taking her out later but she was hyped up. I think that's the reason why. Love hedgehogs but heavens they are a pain using our garden as the queue for next doors prickly cafe.

i've also seen the most gorgeous lurcher on Dogs Trust at Snetterton's website. Five to seven years, would love a home with a female dog... called Max. Must. Stop. Looking.


----------



## Dimwit

cheesecake said:


> I really do just feel like giving up ,I want to take her for walk so bad but it isn't gonna happen


Why not forget about taking her for walks for a while, if she already gets taken out by your brother, and just do stuff with her in the house/garden like teaching her silly tricks/scentwork/games. Just have fun with her without the stress of taking her for walks.


----------



## Dimwit

GR - I hope the Ninja has eaten something, sometimes I am very glad I have a boy dog!

Twiggy - such a shame about Quiver, it is awful seeing your dog so stressed 

MS - STOP looking at dogs, but he does sound very nice  Poor Molly, dimwit gets very wound up by hedgehogs as well.

We had rally class last night which was as entertaining as usual, though there must have been some especially exciting smells in the barn as he was very distracted
We have a fun competition day next month (rally, obedience and scentwork) so I think we have a lot of work to do. Either that, or I accept the inevitable (that dimwit will show me up in public) and take on the bet with one of the other people in my class to see which of us can lose the most points :lol:


----------



## BessieDog

Does anyone want a 15 month old PUPPY? 

I don't know what's got into Bess - she's reverted to right teenage stroppiness. Gone is the chilled LLW setter I had for the past month. She pulls on the lead so much I've had to start taking the dogmatic out with me even though I hate to use it. I put it on and make her walk to heel for a few minutes, then try it off again. In the house she's started chewing things, and in the garden she's destroying all the flowerpots she can find like she did when I first got her. 

She can get loopy as well, and start jumping up, grabbing clothing etc. 

I don't know whether it has something to do with the fact that over the past 4 weeks we've been constantly moving furniture around for decorating, for the new suite and then for the new carpet (luckily everything's sorted now) which might have got her stressed out. Or perhaps it's something to do with the phantom pregnancy? 

I just wish this hyper-activity would stop. The vet thinks that the hormone levels have returned to pre season levels, and that she's feeling on top of the world. If that's so, looks like I'm back to square one with training again.


----------



## diefenbaker

cheesecake said:


> ..
> I am more 'firm' so to speak.


Forget 'firm'... it doesn't work... at least not for me... Dief just pushes back. Sometimes it's difficult not to when both of you are frustrated and I always feel bad afterwards. I try to replace 'firm' with 'consistent and persistent'.


----------



## Guest

Oooh OOOH I'll have bess!! :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

The Good: Got Dief to recall past some steak on the floor. He was fairly relaxed with 2 of his nemesis dogs on the field.

The Bad: I think he's started resource guarding his best friend.

The Ugly: I'm worried about my cats. They're getting on a bit.


----------



## GingerRogers

Cheesecake I am with the others, I feel your pain but sometimes your frustrations transfer to the dog. Try relaxing in the house with her, playing and training and the bond will come. My little velcro (in the house) ninja has transferred her favours to my OH at the moment as he is off work and has lots of free time for snuggles 

Diefs impulse control is coming along :thumbup1:

Bessiedog I think we are going through the same, a minor phantom, if thats possible , not that she is loopy but she is being strange. 

And Dimwit she had tea but has refused breakfast again, at least she will take treats today though so I now know she is being fussy. Just because I got a bargain huge turkey leg she is turning her nose up at turkey  Your show sounds good fun !

I had a meltdown on our morning potter , we encountered an unavoidable titsy tiny yorkie and she went nut job on it. Cue lots of glaring and tutting from the owner. Sadly I had just been complimented on how much she has improved  mmmm yeah


----------



## cheesecake

Dimwit said:


> Why not forget about taking her for walks for a while, if she already gets taken out by your brother, and just do stuff with her in the house/garden like teaching her silly tricks/scentwork/games. Just have fun with her without the stress of taking her for walks.


I know that would seem the obvious thing to do  but I love dog walking,esp on a hot day like today I just wanna take her out for walks =/


----------



## cheesecake

I'm pretty sure its got something to do with her being anxious of other dogs. Today I tried something . 
Drove her out in the car (2 mins) to a isolated grassy spot ,walked her about,she LOVED it. Rolled around in the grass....:thumbup1:

When I tried walking her over to the park ,she froze ,maybe cos she could sense other dogs there?

The dog trainer said to me ,its not a good idea to train her to get used to other dogs cos shes so timid,but I think it would prob be the only solution to this. 

I dunno, I have been told by my family im trying to hard.

I can't help it though. 

Silly but I wish Victoria stilwell could help me ,she seems to sort out a lot of problems :001_unsure:


----------



## Sarah1983

Bessiedog, if it's any consolation Spencer was at his absolute worst from 15 months to about 18 months. Then he started getting better. 

Ginge, it always seems that when you're on a high from something they've done or not done they have to bring you back down to earth with a jolt lol.

Dief, sounds like you're doing well. Hope the cats are okay.

Been quite lazy with Spen when it comes to training lately I'm afraid. Not really done a lot at all. Have just been reading Bonding With Your Dog and am trying a couple of things suggested in there when out and about with Spen though. 

We had a nice session of eye contact earlier just stood on the street. I've found if I'm just standing he tends to completely stop paying attention to me. We were there for about 20 minutes and went from him glancing accidentally in my direction maybe once in 5 minutes to him barely looking away and offering me other behaviours too. Need to do more work on this. We also did some loose leash walking to get home.


----------



## Dogless

cheesecake said:


> I know that would seem the obvious thing to do  but I love dog walking,esp on a hot day like today I just wanna take her out for walks =/


You need to think about what the dog wants or needs though, not the human .


----------



## MollySmith

cheesecake said:


> I'm pretty sure its got something to do with her being anxious of other dogs. Today I tried something .
> Drove her out in the car (2 mins) to a isolated grassy spot ,walked her about,she LOVED it. Rolled around in the grass....:thumbup1:
> 
> When I tried walking her over to the park ,she froze ,maybe cos she could sense other dogs there?
> 
> The dog trainer said to me ,its not a good idea to train her to get used to other dogs cos shes so timid,but I think it would prob be the only solution to this.
> 
> I dunno, I have been told by my family im trying to hard.
> 
> I can't help it though.
> 
> Silly but I wish Victoria stilwell could help me ,she seems to sort out a lot of problems :001_unsure:


It's taken us a year to get Molly to a place she feels fine with dogs. I suspect Dimwit can tell a few tales too  In fact many of us can here, but like Dogless says you have to take it at the dog's pace. Like any pet, but I think more so with a dog than anything else, you can't do life like it was really.

Don't push her too hard either, the BAT book by Grisha Stewart is fantastic, it's been my bible through these last few difficult months. It maybe that you're being too firm perhaps? BAT recommends clicking and being encouraging of progress around things that worry the dog. If you're being too firm she might see this as being ticked off by you and feel less compelled to walk. After it's you that wants to get to where 'there' is not her.

One thing you could maybe do is ask your brother to film her and you walking see if anyone on the forum can give you any pointers? There's a few good people out there and lots of experience with such things but do keep working with the trainer and taking it slow. It's clearly a big problem for your dog and it might take time to sort out. HAving got Molly through her fears (paws crossed), you will be so pleased when you do. I was, I'm still so proud of her walking into a hall of dogs last weekend.

She's not 'weird' or daft, she's scared


----------



## cheesecake

thanks mollysmith 

I will check out that book

i'll give it another week or so then tell the dog trainer that she is going back to sq one.

ive just thought......when she did walk out with me last week I had just come home from work so she was all excited for seeing me. This week I have been off work so she didn't have the excitement of me coming home,maybe that's something to do with it =/


----------



## moonviolet

cheesecake said:


> thanks mollysmith
> 
> I will check out that book
> 
> i'll give it another week or so then tell the dog trainer that she is going back to sq one.
> 
> ive just thought......when she did walk out with me last week I had just come home from work so she was all excited for seeing me. This week I have been off work so she didn't have the excitement of me coming home,maybe that's something to do with it =/


Are you always going to want to walk her when you finish work? I certainly wouldn't have wanted to.

I think until you can build up relationship and her trust in you will have this problem recurring. When you say you are firm with her? how firm are you being raised voices and physical corrections can be very detrimental to your relationship, if a dog is scared or simply doesn't understand what you want them to do. Timid dogs tend to take it hardest of all.

Random as it sounds learning some fun tricks and games can do wonders for a dog's confidence and are a lovely relationship builder.


----------



## Dogless

cheesecake said:


> thanks mollysmith
> 
> I will check out that book
> 
> i'll give it another week or so then tell the dog trainer that she is going back to sq one.
> 
> ive just thought......when she did walk out with me last week I had just come home from work so she was all excited for seeing me. This week I have been off work so she didn't have the excitement of me coming home,maybe that's something to do with it =/


She doesn't need to be excited and hyped to go out, it sounds as if she just needs to feel safe. I am guessing that your trainer said it wasn't a good idea to get her used to other dogs now for a reason; yet you say you think it is the only solution. You really need to chat with your trainer too. Perhaps you feel as if you are at square one as you're pushing too hard.

Take the focus off you and the human emotions out of your thinking if you can (hard, I know!) and just concentrate on what your dog needs.

I know how it feels to have a sensitive soul of a dog and they do take an immense amount of consideration and work. The first thing is to accept what you have (a sensitive dog) and what that means (dreams of walking in busy areas, going to pub beer gardens etc may need to be shelved, certainly for a good while, even going for a simple walk with a relaxed dog may take a long time).

I promise you that you will build that bond naturally once you appreciate your dog for the character she is, not what you want her to be, and work with her.


----------



## cheesecake

thanks for the advice

im not firm 'mean' to her. just when she does something 'naughty' like bark too much at the door or something I tell her in a firm voice NO 

yes I have to accept that I have a timid dog (but then again shes not timid with my bro) 

this eve me ,mum and dad walked down to the beach with her. I took the Frisbees and she couldn't wait to get there. I threw Frisbees for her and she had fun.

we had a slow walk back along the road she was a little unsure but mostly was ok. I made sure the lead was loose on her (not pulling her) 

I have taught her lots of tricks ,stay, spin, lie down, roll over so that's something I guess


----------



## Dogless

cheesecake said:


> thanks for the advice
> 
> im not firm 'mean' to her. just when she does something 'naughty' like bark too much at the door or something I tell her in a firm voice NO *You could teach what you do want rather than what you don't. For example doorbell going means that she goes to her bed. Makes all the difference with my highly - strung boy knowing what he needs to do. Gives him structure and he can please me which he really wants to do rather than meet with my disapproval for doing something natural.*
> 
> yes I have to accept that I have a timid dog (but then again shes not timid with my bro) *It can be hard, very hard in a way to accept what your dog is. NOT in a bad way - but you can move forwards from that point of acceptance and it can be liberating in a way. These kinds of dogs can teach us so, so much. But they aren't easy at all, they can be heartbreaking and amazing all at once.*
> 
> this eve me ,mum and dad walked down to the beach with her. I took the Frisbees and she couldn't wait to get there. I threw Frisbees for her and she had fun.
> 
> we had a slow walk back along the road she was a little unsure but mostly was ok. I made sure the lead was loose on her (not pulling her)
> 
> I have taught her lots of tricks ,stay, spin, lie down, roll over so that's something I guess


The trick teaching sounds great. She may just have a different kind of bond and relationship with you than your brother - my dogs have a different relationship with hubby and I.

No one on here is trying to be harsh with you BTW, just honest. There are loads of knowledgeable folk on this thread who have helped me immensely.


----------



## Twiggy

cheesecake said:


> thanks for the advice
> 
> *im not firm 'mean' to her. just when she does something 'naughty' like bark too much at the door or something I tell her in a firm voice NO *
> 
> yes I have to accept that I have a timid dog (but then again shes not timid with my bro)
> 
> this eve me ,mum and dad walked down to the beach with her. I took the Frisbees and she couldn't wait to get there. I threw Frisbees for her and she had fun.
> 
> we had a slow walk back along the road she was a little unsure but mostly was ok. I made sure the lead was loose on her (not pulling her)
> 
> I have taught her lots of tricks ,stay, spin, lie down, roll over so that's something I guess


But that is being harsh with a timid dog. A firm no would cause several of mine to have a nervous breakdown. Far better to ignore the barking and say something like "good quiet" when she is. Timid dogs simply can't take being told off, even very mildly.


----------



## MollySmith

cheesecake said:


> thanks for the advice
> 
> im not firm 'mean' to her. just when she does something 'naughty' like bark too much at the door or something I tell her in a firm voice NO Agree with Dogless here, try putting her into a sit or stay - give her something positive to do or a toy to play with. Thinking about setting her up for success each time. There are lots of resources on how to stop your dog barking and you can rope in the family to help by having them come to to the door and you click and treat her when she manages to be quiet for example - so you're avoiding a firm no, if that makes sense?
> 
> yes I have to accept that I have a timid dog (but then again shes not timid with my bro) Like I said before, try not to judge your dog because you are jealous of your brother, don't you think it's good she can be different with people.
> 
> this eve me ,mum and dad walked down to the beach with her. I took the Frisbees and she couldn't wait to get there. I threw Frisbees for her and she had fun. That's great, games like this and tuggies are great ways to interact with the dog and encourage a bond. And it's good exercise, maybe this is better than lots of walks.
> 
> we had a slow walk back along the road she was a little unsure but mostly was ok. I made sure the lead was loose on her (not pulling her)
> 
> I have taught her lots of tricks ,stay, spin, lie down, roll over so that's something I guessYes it is and encouraging some fun games and giving her lots of jackpot rewards and hugs are good too.


Dogless and Twiggy put it so much better than I did. Molly would cower if we told her off despite being confident and the best lesson I had from our behaviourist/trainer was to set up the dog for success. For example despite Molly now being able to walk past most dogs without lunging and creating hell, we saw her friend Nelson in the car park yesterday with another dog we know to be a problem on a lead and chose to walk Molly a different way as there wasn't much passing space. We could've tested her out but I think it would have been too much - that's what I mean about setting her up for success. We got a good walk with Molly and instead of passing dogs we did loose lead practice. Dogs learn very fast what gets them the treats and affection they so crave - from everyone including you 

You are doing well but I think the sooner you discard the worries over your brother being most liked then the more you can concentrate on your dog and you. If it helps, when I got home from a long meeting last night my dog merely lifted up an ear and went back to sleep. Three hours my husband went to the post office for barely five minutes and got a full on Molly welcomathon with licks and everything. Dog eh


----------



## BessieDog

Twiggy said:


> But that is being harsh with a timid dog. A firm no would cause several of mine to have a nervous breakdown. Far better to ignore the barking and say something like "good quiet" when she is. Timid dogs simply can't take being told off, even very mildly.


Bess is the same - tell her off and she loses it and goes mental. It did take me a long time to realise I couldn't treat her the same way as my other dogs who all responded to a firm 'no' or 'go to your bed'. Keeping everything calm is the way to do things with Bess.


----------



## moonviolet

cheesecake said:


> I have taught her lots of tricks ,stay, spin, lie down, roll over so that's something I guess


That's great, if you need any more ideas the Kikopup video's on youtube are good.

if you clicker train a free shaping session with a box or other prop, where you click and treat all interactions from looking, sniffing. tapping, pushing, standing on, getting in. whatever their idea whatever they offer is clicked and treated. Can be a huge boost to a dog's self confidence.

If you don't clicker train it is very useful as it's quick and clear, the sound of a clicker is not changed by mood or energy level. ( it doesn't have to be a shop bought clicker the security click on a jam jar or similar lid, a click top pen etc can be used instead)

Please try to enjoy your dog. I would have quite liked to do agility with mine, but tried a class with her and she did ok, but there was no joy in it for her. I tried a tricks/ freestyle class she lit up the room. the funny part is as awkward and clumsy as i felt in those first classes I stuck with it to see her bloom ( she too was fearful on walks following a nasty attack and injuries)

Now, a couple of years on she enjoys walks more and I enjoy the classes. Her confidence has improved and so has my co-ordination.


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Diefs impulse control is coming along :thumbup1:


Today Diefy did sit while Daddy throws ball. Then release to go find it. I thought he might not be that interested because the thrill would be in the chase. His favourite is throw one way then throw the other way. He really picks up speed and drives in for the second one. And I like the thunder of the hooves as he speeds past


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> Today Diefy did sit while Daddy throws ball. Then release to go find it. I thought he might not be that interested because the thrill would be in the chase. His favourite is throw one way then throw the other way. He really picks up speed and drives in for the second one. And I like the thunder of the hooves as he speeds past


We have a thunder of hooves today as my little pony gallops about trying to catch a ruddy great fly, its hilarious to watch but I do worry when it gets near my head 

Panic over everybody she ate breakfast with out a murmur :thumbup1:.

I do believe Mr Foxy is the reason, I think coupled with the phantom symptoms she needs to make sure Mr Foxy is ok before she will eat,

.............watch out! Duuuuck!! The flys back upstairs................

give her a good play and she will happily eat away. I dont really know how to handle this. I was trying to keep Mr Foxy as a training toy but thats not going to work if she is so obsessed she refuses to eat if he is not by her side 

I do wonder if Mr Foxy should go to the toy box in the sky permanently as she is more than a little obsessed, reminds me of a collie with a ball . Got in from our walk this morning, instead of saying hello to hubby she went to make sure Mr Foxy was where she had left him :huh:

But she luffs him I cant do it to her!!


----------



## Dogless

Go DIEFY :thumbsup:  . 

GR - Your post made me laugh a little; trying to picture the lovely Ninja's adoration for Mr Foxy . Very pleased to hear she's eating again.

Twiggy - hope Leafy's OK now and Tremor's sound?


----------



## cheesecake

Heres Jessie stalling,this was right outside the house. As you can see its a very quiet road.

DSCN0109 - YouTube

I dunno

I think im gonna give up and stop obsessing over it.


----------



## Dogless

cheesecake said:


> Heres Jessie stalling,this was right outside the house. As you can see its a very quiet road.
> 
> DSCN0109 - YouTube
> 
> I dunno
> 
> I think im gonna give up and stop obsessing over it.


Rather than give up, maybe use that video as a benchmark - your starting point? You could perhaps walk with her more, interact in a positive way, reward any forward progress with letting her have a good sniff, a treat etc? Maybe rather than walk away from her when she gets worried, and stalls and looks to you for guidance step back so that you are beside her so that your presence is reassuring? The sighing and huffing that you will be picked up on too.

I know it's hard, but sometimes you have to look like a complete lunatic to engage them!


----------



## Sarah1983

She actually starts to stall after you "encourage" her to keep moving. She's sniffing in the beginning and lagging behind but then she trots to catch up, you say "come on" and she gets a worried look and slows down again. Then you say it again and she stops dead.

What happens if you just take walks at her pace? Let her sniff and mooch and don't say anything, just smile at her when she catches you up.


----------



## Werehorse

Cheesecake - have you tried not really saying anything to her and not letting yourself get ahead of her?

She seems to be uncertain and sniffy but only really started slowing and stalling as you got a bit ahead and said "come on". I wonder if she is picking up on your frustration and it worries her more? Then once you are ahead looking back at her you are almost blocking forward movement because it means walking towards the slightly cross human.  I understand your frustration but it doesn't help and working on keeping calm is quite important with a sensitive dog. If I even get a tiny bit frustrated with Hugo he starts bouncing around all over the place.  So I have to keep a close check on my own emotions while working with him.


----------



## diefenbaker

cheesecake said:


> Heres Jessie stalling,this was right outside the house. As you can see its a very quiet road.
> 
> DSCN0109 - YouTube
> 
> I dunno
> 
> I think im gonna give up and stop obsessing over it.


What do you do when on your walks other than walk ? I NEVER play ball with Dief in the house. That's something special for walks but then it's 2 minutes for me to several good ball playing fields. Our garden is a little small for football too. And on walks there's lots of training and lots of treats. When I remember I take the clicker on walks. I used to wonder if people would think it weird but now I don't care.


----------



## MollySmith

There's a good book on calming signals for dogs... I think it's Dogwise and that's full of useful gems.

She starts off being so engaged that you have so many opportunities to click and treat her when she looks at you. But I agree with others, she seems to be anticipating your frustration. What about doing what Sarah said but in a completely new location?

So pleased for you Def - that's a skills that we've yet to master here.

GR - You made me laugh too, I've never thought of dogs being obsessed by toys. I wish Molly's brain would slow down enough for her to even be remotely interested in one thing for a few minutes.

Twiggy - how are your dogs today?


----------



## L/C

Ladies (and dief)! I have been too long absent from the loving embrace of WAYWO. Half marathon looms and both the pointies have been back and forth to the vet so I have been very busy and not much training has been going on.

In a nutshell - Ely has had bacterial colitis, all better now (touch wood) and a lot of the skin around where his stitches were has died so he has an open wound around his injury site. No treatment, we're just keeping it clean and covered and it's healing slowly. He's also lost a significant amount of weight and we're slowly feeding him up again. Gypsy has had a physio appointment about her duff leg and it looks like her achilles tendon snapped when she originally injured it - not fixable without significant surgery which probably isn't worth it atm. 

Cheesecake - you've had lots of good advice from the others on here and not much I can add. I've been there with a dog who is afraid to leave the house - my Ely is a very nervous dog and came to us with a host of issues and it took months for him to be able to walk down the street in the daytime (honestly months). 

Let Jessie set the pace and the direction - if she's happy to wander about the path outside your house for 10 minutes just sniffing then do that with her. If she wants to go left but you'd rather go right then let her go left. Walks need to be positive and not a battle between the two of you - she isn't being stubborn or willful, she's frightened and looking at that video, part of what she is frightened of is your reaction. 

In order to change that you need to show her that you will listen when she tells you she is uncomfortable and that she can trust you. So if she turns around and wants to go home then let her go home. If you spend a week just walking to the end of the road and then back but every walk is positive then that is invaluable.

Don't try to tempt her on with food - she may go out of her comfort zone to get it and then it will not be a positive experience. You need to work within what she is happy to do - it might not be what you want to do but at the moment you need to worry more about how comfortable she is then your disappointment at not being able to take her for a walk.

I spent 6 months teaching Ely to be comfortable outside and I made a lot of mistakes along the way and took a lot of bad advice at first. I tried to be firm and make him walk and that made him 100% worse and damaged our relationship, I walked him when I was frustrated with him and he could tell and that that damaged our relationship - I can't tell you the amount of times I cried and tried to drag him when he refused to walk down a street he'd walked down a dozen times before. Ultimately the only thing that worked was listening to him about what he was comfortable doing and respecting that - if that meant that some days he only went as far as the nearest tree for a pee then that's what we did, if it meant that some days we had to carry him out and round the corner so he could go for a pee then that's what we did (no garden).

I hope that helps.


----------



## Dimwit

Cheesecake - you have been given some good advice by people on here so nothing I can really add, apart from to say don't give up but do stop obsessing over it. If you stop thinking about how she acts with your brother and the rest of your family and just focus on her relationship with you it will be so much better for you.

L/C - Glad Ely is on the mend, but a shame about Gypsy

Dimwit is being a very good boy and hasn't run and barked at the back door for 4 days  (Well, apart from when next door's cat invaded our garden but I am not counting that). A tribute to the magic powers of liver paste - now, when he hears the dog a couple of doors down barking he just has a little grumble and then runs to me for his liver paste!

As he has been so good lately I decided to give him a break from training on our walk last night and took space lobber down to the river for a play:

rubbish photo but I love his leap out of the water:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Go DIEFY :thumbsup:  .
> 
> GR - Your post made me laugh a little; trying to picture the lovely Ninja's adoration for Mr Foxy . Very pleased to hear she's eating again.
> 
> *Twiggy - hope Leafy's OK now and Tremor's sound?[/*QUOTE]
> 
> Thanks for asking.
> 
> Leafy is on a six day course of antibiotics so is OK at the moment and the jury is out on Tremor. I've worked her a little bit but haven't attempted a proper retrieve or done any sendaways.
> 
> Husband caught her and Holly roaring round their exercise paddock playing mad games this morning and Tremor still appears sound so fingers crossed.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> We have a thunder of hooves today as my little pony gallops about trying to catch a ruddy great fly, its hilarious to watch but I do worry when it gets near my head
> 
> Panic over everybody she ate breakfast with out a murmur :thumbup1:.
> 
> I do believe Mr Foxy is the reason, I think coupled with the phantom symptoms she needs to make sure Mr Foxy is ok before she will eat,
> 
> .............watch out! Duuuuck!! The flys back upstairs................
> 
> give her a good play and she will happily eat away. I dont really know how to handle this. I was trying to keep Mr Foxy as a training toy but thats not going to work if she is so obsessed she refuses to eat if he is not by her side
> 
> I do wonder if Mr Foxy should go to the toy box in the sky permanently as she is more than a little obsessed, reminds me of a collie with a ball . Got in from our walk this morning, instead of saying hello to hubby she went to make sure Mr Foxy was where she had left him :huh:
> 
> But she luffs him I cant do it to her!!


I think I told you about my star JRT who was so obsessed with one of my dog's squeaky toys she wouldn't go home. Her owner then bought the exact same one for her but she was totally obsessed and when it was finally put in the shed out of the way, the poor little dog lay by the shed door for something like 8 hours.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I think I told you about my star JRT who was so obsessed with one of my dog's squeaky toys she wouldn't go home. Her owner then bought the exact same one for her but she was totally obsessed and when it was finally put in the shed out of the way, the poor little dog lay by the shed door for something like 8 hours.


8 hours!! Poor little thing .


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> I think I told you about my star JRT who was so obsessed with one of my dog's squeaky toys she wouldn't go home. Her owner then bought the exact same one for her but she was totally obsessed and when it was finally put in the shed out of the way, the poor little dog lay by the shed door for something like 8 hours.


So what is the lesson to learn, Twiggy I just dont know the right thing to do?


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> So what is the lesson to learn, Twiggy I just dont know the right thing to do?


Her owner threw the toy away and when she comes here I'm very careful not to use that particular toy with my own dogs, otherwise there is a JRT staring at my training bag for 2.1/2 hours and she won't work.

If the Ninja is really obsessed I think you might have to do the same.


----------



## Twiggy

*LC *Really sorry both Gypsy and Ely have been in the wars.

I wonder if the K-laser would help Gypsy? Noel Fitzpatrick and at least two London vets have them. Might be worth asking.


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> *LC *Really sorry both Gypsy and Ely have been in the wars.
> 
> I wonder if the K-laser would help Gypsy? Noel Fitzpatrick and at least two London vets have them. Might be worth asking.


From what I've read I don't think it would. Her limp it turns out isn't pain related at all - it's mechanical. There's a bit of her hock gone and the tendon is snapped. That's why one of her hips has dropped. So the only way to affect it would be surgery to repair the snap. Apparently it doesn't cause much pain and with suitable supplements is unlikely to cause arthritis either.

This explains it a bit better:

http://www.greyhound-data.com/dir/394/Hock_Fractures.pdf

While it sounds awful it's actually not terrible news - it means that when she limps badly it's more likely to be tiredness rather then pain and it's a more positive prognosis for the future then degenerative arthritis.

But thank you for thinking of her.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> From what I've read I don't think it would. Her limp it turns out isn't pain related at all - it's mechanical. There's a bit of her hock gone and the tendon is snapped. That's why one of her hips has dropped. So the only way to affect it would be surgery to repair the snap. Apparently it doesn't cause much pain and with suitable supplements is unlikely to cause arthritis either.
> 
> This explains it a bit better:
> 
> http://www.greyhound-data.com/dir/394/Hock_Fractures.pdf
> 
> While it sounds awful it's actually not terrible news - it means that when she limps badly it's more likely to be tiredness rather then pain and it's a more positive prognosis for the future then degenerative arthritis.
> 
> But thank you for thinking of her.


Well as you and the article suggests in the big wide scheme of things it's not the end of the World. Poor Gypsy none the less.


----------



## Canine K9

Will read through everyones posts in a minute 
Bailey has been fine, his first agility class tomorrow! So nervous am positive he`ll show me up  
Took him to the woodlands today although it was only for 20 mins because some random bug bit me and my ankle swelled up a bit, but all is okay now.
Biting is a lot better


----------



## BessieDog

Hi all! I promise I will catch up with everyone else, but son is home from Uni for a flying visit so busy. He should be home for 3 months in a couple of weeks but has just announced he hates Essex (who can blame him?) and wants to stay in Brighton for the summer. Bit of a bombshell to his mum, but I'm probably worrying about nothing. He's got no money ....

Anyway, the good news. Vet put Bess on Galastop - a hormone to stop milk production - yesterday, and although I read a few nightmares on the Internet about it causing vomiting and anorexia, she seems to have started getting her appetite back today. She's still a mental cow when we try to come in from the garden as she wants us to stay and play, so leaps and tugs any part of clothing she can get hold off, but in the house seems calmer. Perhaps it was her hormones playing her up - if so, I can sympathise!!


----------



## Dogless

Good Luck K9 .

Bessiedog - good that Bess is regaining her appetite, that must be a relief! Don't worry about your son, I'm sure he's just enjoying the uni lifestyle and maybe others are staying and working during their holidays or something like that so he wants to too!

Not much to report here. Summer stress begins as 'the lab' has been allowed to run our fenceline back and forth whilst Kilo goes mad for three days in a row . I know what time they walk roughly so am trying to go in at those times. It's not a quick run along, it's repeatedly back and forth. It leaves Kilo so stressed that he will then bark at all sorts of noises he's normally fine with - yesterday I abandoned the garden in that lovely weather and we spent the afternoon inside .

So....trying to avoid times that the lab walks, starting the Stress-Less on a daily basis again (was going to do that for school hols anyway and they're horrifyingly close) rather than as needed and getting to the forest as often as possible as we can relax totally there.


----------



## moonviolet

This morning I will be knocking on my next doors neighbours door and asking if I can have my Frisbee back please :blushing:..... Daisy cutter throws when playing hoopla in the garden from now on :laugh:

Tink is really coming around to the idea that the park is a new training venue. There's usually a quiet area we can practise a few things and be no bother to anyone else. yesterday however it was raining and I knew it would be harder to get focus so we just played offlead run walk stop in the meadow area and a couple of waits and recalls. I did slip in a couple of "jump through arms" and "jump over legs" as they are particular favourites. I do wish people wouldn't feed the canada geese on the canal, they are now beginning to get stroppy with anyone that doesn't feed them 


Dogless sorry to hear about the lab, sounds like the owner is deriving some twisted pleasure from the stress and harassment they are causing hope karma has something suitable in store for them ( if karma is stuck for ideas I have a few suggestions  )

BD poor Bess Hope she feels better when she stops producing milk. Just wondering do you do any work on impulse control it can be very helpful.
I'm sure you'll miss your son terribly but it's good that he's happy there and there should be some summer work available or he'll soon be on the home no doubt  

CK9 Glad the biting is improving  hope you enjoy your class, remember it's about you having fun with your dog. Don't worry about how anyone else is doing, better or worse.

L/C I'm glad it's not as bad as it sounds and it's not causing Gypsy a lot of pain, what a rough time the poor girl must have had before she came to you. 

Twiggy best wishes for all your girls they certainly keep you on your toes.

GR poor little Ninja, is she still gathering her "toy puppies" I do wonder if the foxy obsession is related and is another symptom. Glad she eat breakfast yesterday without fuss, I hope she does the same again today.


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless - *You do suffer so with wretched owners and their dogs. It must be awful to dread the summer months because of other people. I'm sorry.

*Bessiedog -* Fingers crossed the Galastop works and she starts eating properly again.

*Moonviolet -* Pleased to hear Tink is happy in her new training venue and sounds as if your 'moves' are coming along nicely.


----------



## cheesecake

I'm amazed! Jessie actually went for walk with me!!:eek6:
BUT this time I didn't use her harness, just collar and lead, she loved it!

I was playing with her first in the garden then just popped on her lead and went. We went down the busy road too.

I hope this continues


----------



## Canine K9

We went to agility today and LOVED it  He was doing the same jumps as the Labradors were, was a bit scared of the tunnels but quickly got the hang of it. The rings he was fine at aswell and the dog walk he didnt like the way it clicked when he walked on it but did it anyway and the weaves he was a bit confused at but did it. He refused treats and just did it so thats good  He came third in the last round at the end where he had to complete the full course out of ten dogs  
We both loved it and he worked fantastically, he is fast asleep now so result :thumbsup:


----------



## MollySmith

Hey well done cheesecake and Canine.

I'll catch up later. Off to train with Molly, we've had a bit of rubbish two days here - personal baby related stuff, not dogs and a death in the family. Molly has been her usually lovely self though


----------



## Dimwit

Canine K9 said:


> We went to agility today and LOVED it  He was doing the same jumps as the Labradors were, was a bit scared of the tunnels but quickly got the hang of it. The rings he was fine at aswell and the dog walk he didnt like the way it clicked when he walked on it but did it anyway and the weaves he was a bit confused at but did it. He refused treats and just did it so thats good  He came third in the last round at the end where he had to complete the full course out of ten dogs


I'm glad you both enjoyed it but I am very surprised that they would let such a young puppy do big jumps and then do a full course


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry you are feeling low again MS i am sure molly has some extra cuddles and licks in store for you.

Well done cheesecake! See a little positivity goes a long way.

K9 I am really glad that Bailey enjoyed the agility  and I dont want to rain on your parade  but I didn't think young dogs should be doing jumps or weaves etc and definitely not small dogs doing Labrador sized ones 

MV I love Miss Tink and her new training venue sounds great, hope you got the hoop back.

Me and my pooch have been out for nearly 2 hours to day, that might not sound like much to some but I haven't been able to manage much more than 40-60 mins recently with my achilles problems, but the orthotic innersoles o poor old me) are working wonders.

Not that we had intend to be out that long  I went to a lovely small wood that has a network of wonderful paths, its one of the first Woodland trust woods, its not big, but sadly I am not clever  and all the footpath junctions look a bit like this,

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/POUNDLAND/2013-06-08132841Small_zps3e929dfc.jpg.html]
eventually hubby phoned to say he had finished work and was able to direct me over the phone, directionally challenged I am , there wasn't even any sun to use as a marker.

I even let the ninja off at an appropriate moment for a bit of training, cooome oooonnnn

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/POUNDLAND/2013-06-08131009Small_zps2ba5a459.jpg.html]


----------



## Dimwit

BD - fingers crossed the gala stop works

MV - the new training venue sounds good!

MS - sorry you've had a bad few days, but glad Molly is still being a good girl.

GR - looks like a fabulous walk, I am also very directionally challenged (I once had to phone my sister to ask her how to get out of Debenhams)

We have had a nice morning here, went to big walkies, though it turns out hat it was the last Saturday walk for a while as we re having to move to a weekday evening over the summer. Apparently they have had a few complaints that we are disturbing the fishermen on a Saturday morning and a could of people have complained that their children have been intimidated by all the dogs (fair enough, though most weeks there are only 5 or so dogs, most of them puppies). Still, it will be nice in a way to go when it's quieter, and hopefully it will appease the fishermen 

Dimwit has also just got his new holiday accommodation (soft crate) thanks to BessieDog. So far he has shown no signs of wanting to chew it, and seems to like it :thumbsup:


----------



## GingerRogers

Dimwit said:


> BD - fingers crossed the gala stop works
> 
> MV - the new training venue sounds good!
> 
> MS - sorry you've had a bad few days, but glad Molly is still being a good girl.
> 
> GR - looks like a fabulous walk, I am also very directionally challenged (*I once had to phone my sister to ask her how to get out of Debenhams)*
> 
> We have had a nice morning here, went to big walkies, though it turns out hat it was the last Saturday walk for a while as we re having to move to a weekday evening over the summer. Apparently they have had a few complaints that we are disturbing the fishermen on a Saturday morning and a could of people have complained that their children have been intimidated by all the dogs (fair enough, though most weeks there are only 5 or so dogs, most of them puppies). Still, it will be nice in a way to go when it's quieter, and hopefully it will appease the fishermen
> 
> Dimwit has also just got his new holiday accommodation (soft crate) thanks to BessieDog. So far he has shown no signs of wanting to chew it, and seems to like it :thumbsup:


:laugh: oh dear Dimwit, you lived up to your name there then , Sorry 

last time we went to Norwich we came out of the Castle Mall and neither of us had a clue which direction to go in, we used to practically live in that city in our youths but it had been so long, we felt quite old!


----------



## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> :laugh: oh dear Dimwit, you lived up to your name there then , Sorry


In my defence it was a very big shop and I hate big department stores so generally avoid them. But yes, I am a dimwit


----------



## Canine K9

The jumps weren't very big, and the weaves were very scaled down. I meant he could do the jumps that the big dogs were doing that's all. And the course was small just a few jumps and weaves and tunnel.


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> The jumps weren't very big, and the weaves were very scaled down. I meant he could do the jumps that the big dogs were doing that's all. And the course was small just a few jumps and weaves and tunnel.


How do you mean the weaves were scaled down?

Normally instructors won't let puppies under a year old do the weaves at all.

I'm not being unkind but your instructor should have taken your pup's age into consideration and the weaving poles are probably the worse piece of equipment to attempt with a youngster - too much pressure on a developing spine.

The chiropractor I initially used with my dogs did her thesis on lameness and injuries in the agility dog and when my sister saw Gary Clayton Jones (the eminent orthopaedic consultant) with one of her dogs that competed, he went into a rage about weaving poles, that in his opinion should be banned.

Please don't take offence and I'm really pleased you both enjoyed the class but personally I would tell your instructor that you would rather leave the weave until your dog is a bit more mature.


----------



## Dogless

MS - sorry things haven't been good; hope they improve soon.

K9 - glad Bailey was good but can only echo being careful at his age .

GR - love the photos, looks like a nice place to walk and glad the Ninja was a good girl for you when offlead for training :thumbsup:.

MV - the idea of you knocking on to ask for your toy back is brilliant!!! .

Dimwit - pleased you had a god day too, even if you're not the Fishermens' Friends . See what I did there?  .

Exhausted. Took the CHs out for an hour and a half early this morning. Started with a quick handbags over the takeaway cartons that had been abandoned in our hedge that I had failed to spot; presumably by the drunk folk who woke the street up shouting at 0230 . All good after that, met Dizzy and human which was nice, saw 'the' lab but managed a swift avoidance and no dramas :thumbsup::thumbsup:.

Started Kilo back on regular Stress - Less again. "The" lab has run our fence twice today and Kilo reacted BUT recovered fast and hasn't really reacted to anything else outside all day - combo of the Stress - Less and me getting in fast with a bit of training when he alerts to anything I think.

Other than that garden finished, house cleaned top to bottom, admin all done etc etc.

And rest .

ETA: "THE" LAB IS LEAVING IN A MONTH OR SO'S TIME :thumbsup:  :laugh:. There will be loads of folk happy with that :thumbsup:.


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> Hey well done cheesecake and Canine.
> 
> I'll catch up later. Off to train with Molly, we've had a bit of rubbish two days here - personal baby related stuff, not dogs and a death in the family. Molly has been her usually lovely self though


I'm sorry to hear that but pleased you have the lovely Molly to cheer you up a bit.


----------



## Twiggy

Well I trained the girls this afternoon and did a sendaway with Tremor but called her to me to prevent her turning and slamming into the down. She was then racing round the paddock with her little chum so if she's sound tonight (*IF*) I might put her in the ring at the show tomorrow. Fingers very firmly crossed.

The show is very local and I shall go in any case to socialise Holly but it would be really good to get Tremor in the ring. What with one thing and another it's been almost two years since I worked her and she is a talented dog.

I had to smile at Holly this afternoon; Leafy joined us and I used Holly's dumbbell to do a retrieve with Leafy. Holly actually objected and got quite animated....


----------



## Canine K9

Twiggy said:


> How do you mean the weaves were scaled down?
> 
> Normally instructors won't let puppies under a year old do the weaves at all.
> 
> I'm not being unkind but your instructor should have taken your pup's age into consideration and the weaving poles are probably the worse piece of equipment to attempt with a youngster - too much pressure on a developing spine.
> 
> The chiropractor I initially used with my dogs did her thesis on lameness and injuries in the agility dog and when my sister saw Gary Clayton Jones (the eminent orthopaedic consultant) with one of her dogs that competed, he went into a rage about weaving poles, that in his opinion should be banned.
> 
> Please don't take offence and I'm really pleased you both enjoyed the class but personally I would tell your instructor that you would rather leave the weave until your dog is a bit more mature.


No offence taken

They were more the height of sticks stuck in the ground, and were very close together. 
But I will do that thanks


----------



## Milliepoochie

Canine K9 said:


> We went to agility today and LOVED it  He was doing the same jumps as the Labradors were, was a bit scared of the tunnels but quickly got the hang of it. The rings he was fine at aswell and the dog walk he didnt like the way it clicked when he walked on it but did it anyway and the weaves he was a bit confused at but did it. He refused treats and just did it so thats good  He came third in the last round at the end where he had to complete the full course out of ten dogs
> We both loved it and he worked fantastically, he is fast asleep now so result :thumbsup:


I am shocked they let a 7 month pup do jumps / weaves / tyre (rings?) 

Especially weaves - Google some photos of dogs weaving - youl be shocked how they bend their bodies.

I would be very very careful with such a young pup.

At our class there's no dogs under 12 months. Even the 'fun' class I used to go to was no dogs under 12 months.

Not trying to cause offense but I would definitely talk to your instructor about whether Bailey should really be weaving.


----------



## GingerRogers

Canine K9 said:


> No offence taken
> 
> They were more the height of sticks stuck in the ground, and were very close together.
> But I will do that thanks


Surely the closer together the worse as the tighter the bend for the dog


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I trained the girls this afternoon and did a sendaway with Tremor but *called her to me to prevent her turning and slamming into the down*. She was then racing round the paddock with her little chum so if she's sound tonight (*IF*) I might put her in the ring at the show tomorrow. Fingers very firmly crossed.
> 
> The show is very local and I shall go in any case to socialise Holly but it would be really good to get Tremor in the ring. What with one thing and another it's been almost two years since I worked her and she is a talented dog.
> 
> I had to smile at Holly this afternoon; Leafy joined us and I used Holly's dumbbell to do a retrieve with Leafy. Holly actually objected and got quite animated....


Fingers very much crossed for Tremor going into the ring Twiggy. The bold part made me smile - I just picture total collie focus!

Sounds like you have had a nice day; about time .


----------



## Canine K9

Well okay, I will wait until he is 12 months then.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless :lol: though honestly, if you are a fisherman who doesnt like dogs then why on earth go fishing on a saturday morning, slap bang in the middle of an off lead dog walking area AND take a picnic! Sounds like you have had a very productive day, and good news that the lab is leaving!

Twiggy - fingers crossed for Tremor. At the canine sports massage seminar I went on recently we were shown photos and videos of the stresses on dogs legs doing weaves and jumps - scary! Made me very glad that I didn't even start flyball training with dimwit till he was well over a year old.


----------



## Twiggy

Milliepoochie said:


> I am shocked they let a 7 month pup do jumps / weaves / tyre (rings?)
> 
> Especially weaves - Google some photos of dogs weaving - youl be shocked how they bend their bodies.
> 
> I would be very very careful with such a young pup.
> 
> At our class there's no dogs under 12 months. Even the 'fun' class I used to go to was no dogs under 12 months.
> 
> Not trying to cause offense but I would definitely talk to your instructor about whether Bailey should really be weaving.


The trouble is fun agility is very popular therefore many pet instructors are jumping on the bandwagon with no understanding of what's involved.

My vets asked me to recommend such a class recently and there's an APDT instructor close by that runs fun agility classes who I was about to suggest until I talked to the lass where I take Holly for agility.

Apparently this APDT trainer went to her for lessons about two years ago for a short while. He hadn't got a clue, his dog continually ran off and even worse he had no idea of the safety aspect.

When my chiropractor did her thesis, and we're talking 15 yrs ago at least now, her summary was that it's not the top dogs and handlers where the problems lie, because they spend many hours getting themselves and their dogs fit, it's pet dogs just doing it for 'fun'. Basically because the owners are not told, or don't understand, the level of fitness required for their dogs to be able to do it safely.

When I used to compete and run classes several years ago I wouldn't allow handlers to run their dogs into the ground. If the ground was hard the jumps were kept very low and if it was wet the see-saw and dog walk weren't used. I also used to lecture about fitness until I was blue in the face.

It is after all quite a dangerous sport for the dogs and they can oh so easily end up injured.

Please don't think I'm getting at you Canine K9 but your instructor doesn't sound very experienced IMO and I don't want you to end up with a lame puppy.


----------



## Milliepoochie

Canine K9 said:


> Well whatever, I will wait until he is 12 months then.


Charming - I was only trying to be helpful as I would feel guilty if were on here in 3 weeks time saying Bailey was injured and I knew I hadn't said anything.

Wont bother wasting my time typing next time.


----------



## Canine K9

Milliepoochie said:


> Charming - I was only trying to be helpful as I would feel guilty if were on here in 3 weeks time saying Bailey was injured and I knew I hadn't said anything.
> 
> Wont bother wasting my time typing next time.


Sorry, I hadn`t read your post before posting that and I didn`t mean it in a nasty way. Just like Okay, I will wait until he is twelve months. It wasn`t the best way to put it so I will edit it, I apologise if I have caused offence.


----------



## Milliepoochie

Twiggy said:


> The trouble is fun agility is very popular therefore many pet instructors are jumping on the bandwagon with no understanding of what's involved.
> 
> My vets asked me to recommend such a class recently and there's an APDT instructor close by that runs fun agility classes who I was about to suggest until I talked to the lass where I take Holly for agility.
> 
> Apparently this APDT trainer went to her for lessons about two years ago for a short while. He hadn't got a clue, his dog continually ran off and even worse he had no idea of the safety aspect.
> 
> When my chiropractor did her thesis, and we're talking 15 yrs ago at least now, her summary was that it's not the top dogs and handlers where the problems lie, because they spend many hours getting themselves and their dogs fit, it's pet dogs just doing it for 'fun'. Basically because the owners are not told, or don't understand, the level of fitness required for their dogs to be able to do it safely.
> 
> When I used to compete and run classes several years ago I wouldn't allow handlers to run their dogs into the ground. If the ground was hard the jumps were kept very low and if it was wet the see-saw and dog walk weren't used. I also used to lecture about fitness until I was blue in the face.
> 
> It is after all quite a dangerous sport for the dogs and they can oh so easily end up injured.
> 
> Please don't think I'm getting at you Canine K9 but your instructor doesn't sound very experienced IMO and I don't want you to end up with a lame puppy.


The sport has grown hugely in popularity to.

There are so many 'fun' clubs near me, with 10-14 people a class and well I wouldn't go to them from what I have seen from walking past.

Its so important its done safely as you say the equipment is dangerous if not handled correctly.

We always warm up before hand - start with some simple jumping then build to more strenuous stuff.

We have worked and worked on 'lefts' 'rights' 'steady' etc so I have control when Millie is running and really instilled contact work so entry / exit to dog walk / see saw / A frame etc is as controlled / safe as possible.

I wasn't trying to be 'mean' but the idea of a 7 month pup doing weaves made me cringe. Just doesn't sit right with me.


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> Well okay, I will wait until he is 12 months then.


I'm really sorry if I've upset you and I certainly didn't mean to spoil your fun.

Are there any other classes in your area?

A good class would start a puppy off doing 'groundwork' etc. in preparation for when they are old enough to use the equipment.


----------



## Canine K9

Twiggy said:


> I'm really sorry if I've upset you and I certainly didn't mean to spoil your fun.
> 
> Are there any other classes in your area?
> 
> A good class would start a puppy off doing 'groundwork' etc. in preparation for when they are old enough to use the equipment.


No you didn`t its fine. And no chance I`ll be allowed to go to another agility club now, guess we`ll have to stop going.


----------



## moonviolet

Canine K9 said:


> No you didn`t its fine. And no chance I`ll be allowed to go to another agility club now, guess we`ll have to stop going.


That's really sad and must be very disappointing right now but the damaged it could do might not even show up right way and the one I think we can all tell form your posts is that you wouldn't want to Bailey any harm.

DW fisherman with open bait boxes can be quite a challenge especially when they've pitched up in the bushes. At least an evening walk in the summer will be cooler for the dogs.

Twiggy hope everything goes to plan and you have a wonderful time 

Dogless sounds like the stressless and training combo are working for ASBO lab. I bet you'll be relieved when they go.

MS Glad Molly is being a comfort sorry you are experiencing a time of sadness.

we had a lovely morning, I took the park/tow path/bridlepath/ woods route and the OH met us at the canal centre for coffee on the lawn. Tink is on a bit of a roll at the moment, I hope the momentum continues.

The park was understandably busier, but too early to be rammed and we still got our favourite spot largely to ourselves just let her watch and listen to the business around us today before heading to the towpath. we were serenaded along the canal by an elderly gentleman on a bench playing the oboe. I was quite relieved Tink didn't join in but she seemed to enjoy it and was happy to cool her paws as we had a chat, sadly his neighbours in the retirement complex don't appreciate him playing  A real shame because he was rather good.

When we arrived at the the picnic benches were all in the sun so we found a lovely spot under a tree in the daisies. Here's Tink watching Oh going to get the coffees and hoping he brings her back something tasty.


She is on her mat she really does find it a happy place to be where ever we go. There was a large loud group of people and their under control dogs and she barely glanced in their direction until the GSP howled when it spied her, then she just looked and looked away quite unphased.

the only blip in the whole thing was the corgi that playbowed at her across the road as we set out so she barked at them, on balance I'd say that was pretty minor and she was easily distracted.


----------



## Twiggy

Moonviolet - that seems an idyllic spot and Tink looks a pretty little miss amongst the daisies.


----------



## Dogless

mv - did OH bring Tink back anything tasty? .


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Moonviolet - that seems an idyllic spot and Tink looks a pretty little miss amongst the daisies.


It was lovely in the shade there



Dogless said:


> mv - did OH bring Tink back anything tasty? .


:lol: nope poor little dog, he's made up for it tonight throwing her hoops where she can get them


----------



## Dogless

Fantastic morning so far at Concrete Central. Up and at 'em early (0420). Went for a lovely walk for an hour and a half or so, the dogs played and played like loonies this morning; thought we ought to incorporate some training too so we played some impulse control and recall type games which they did well at :aureola:. Walked home with two steaming dogs...they had been in the long wet grass that's taller than them just before we set off  .

Hubby isn't stirring yet and I've put out the washing, done some tidying, walked the dogs...he's back to work this morning so that's it for 3 weeks. All the walks he was going to do with us somehow didn't materialise...huge surprise  :aureola:.

Beautiful, beautiful weather yet again :thumbup1: .

*Twiggy* - hope Tremor's sound enough for a turn in the ring today. Have a lovely time.


----------



## Twiggy

Sadly Tremor isn't sound this morning. Back to square one again.

Very disappointing.

I shall go to the show shortly to socialise Holly and see various people.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Sadly Tremor isn't sound this morning. Back to square one again.
> 
> Very disappointing.
> 
> I shall go to the show shortly to socialise Holly and see various people.


Oh no, I am so sorry Twiggy, how disappointing . I hope you can enjoy the day a little anyway and that little HB behaves herself!!


----------



## moonviolet

Glad it's a good morning there Dogless you deserve some good ones with all the shockers you've had.

Twiggy what a shame about Tremor Hope Holly Bolly enjoys the experience.

The foxes have kindly left the remains of a pigeon strewn across my front lawn such a thoughtful gift


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Glad it's a good morning there Dogless you deserve some good ones with all the shockers you've had.
> 
> Twiggy what a shame about Tremor Hope Holly Bolly enjoys the experience.
> 
> The foxes have kindly left the remains of a pigeon strewn across my front lawn such a thoughtful gift


At least it's more 'natural' than the takeaway boxes in mine yesterday :mad2:. Hope Miss Tinks neither rolled or dined on it!


----------



## cheesecake

A bit disappointed.

Took Jessie out again with just lead and collar, she was excited to go out,we got half way down the busy road then she stalled .

She always seems to stall in the same spot  so maybe I should just cross over before we get to _that spot_ ?

Ive noticed too that before she stalls ,she sniffs the ground a lot .

Don't know if this is a good thing to do,but I stopped there with her, she was pulling to go back but I stayed there ,hoping she would come along,well about 10 mins later I felt a right lemon ,cars passing by so I gave in and we went back ,tried to go down some quieter streets but she wanted home.

A shame cos she did amazingly yesterday. I don't think I will ever understand it....


----------



## moonviolet

cheesecake said:


> A bit disappointed.
> 
> Took Jessie out again with just lead and collar, she was excited to go out,we got half way down the busy road then she stalled .
> 
> She always seems to stall in the same spot  so maybe I should just cross over before we get to _that spot_ ?
> 
> Ive noticed too that before she stalls ,she sniffs the ground a lot .
> 
> Don't know if this is a good thing to do,but I stopped there with her, she was pulling to go back but I stayed there ,hoping she would come along,well about 10 mins later I felt a right lemon ,cars passing by so I gave in and we went back ,tried to go down some quieter streets but she wanted home.
> 
> A shame cos she did amazingly yesterday. I don't think I will ever understand it....


 What was different from yesterday?
To your knowledge has anything bad happened there from her point of view?
will she walk past this spot with other members of your family, if she will it's possible that something happened at that point with you not necessarily your fault?
Yes, crossing the road before this spot may work if it was something bad happening there.

I don't want to cause offence, but on your video you did sigh and huff a bit she will pick up on your mood. Sometimes for our dogs we have to channel our inner Disney.

She's not doing this to get at you or upset you, She has a genuine reason sometimes we cannot see, hear or smell their reason and they can't tell us. We just have to respect that they do.


----------



## Milliepoochie

Twiggy said:


> I'm really sorry if I've upset you and I certainly didn't mean to spoil your fun.
> 
> Are there any other classes in your area?
> 
> A good class would start a puppy off doing 'groundwork' etc. in preparation for when they are old enough to use the equipment.


Excellent Advice :thumbup1:



Canine K9 said:


> No you didn`t its fine. And no chance I`ll be allowed to go to another agility club now, guess we`ll have to stop going.


Why can you not go to an alternative club when Bailey is old enough? 

Seems a shame to just give up forever more  

I am sorry if I came across as a mean old spoil sport but it was only out of concern.

There is a reason why knowledgeable agility classes will not let dogs start doing agility until 12 months. - It puts a huge strain on them.

I would be very very concerned about a 'fun' class which is willing to do this for the reasons set out by Twiggy earlier.

If I were you I would look for a proper agility class - check out agilitynet

A - Z Clubs

Contact some classes near you and ask to come along to a training session without Bailey to see what its all about - how their classes are run etc They will be able to guide / advise you on things you can teach him in advance of attending training to :thumbup1:

I can understand your disappointed right now and of course its up to you and your family if you want to continue to go to the classes you go to. Bailey is your dog its your call.

But just bear in mind what people have said because sadly to me it sounds like your trainer is more interested in ££££ signs and keeping the owners happy than what truely best for the puppies. No 7 month puppy should be weaving.


----------



## Twiggy

cheesecake said:


> A bit disappointed.
> 
> Took Jessie out again with just lead and collar, she was excited to go out,we got half way down the busy road then she stalled .
> 
> *She always seems to stall in the same spot  so maybe I should just cross over before we get to that spot ? *
> 
> Ive noticed too that before she stalls ,she sniffs the ground a lot .
> 
> Don't know if this is a good thing to do,but I stopped there with her, she was pulling to go back but I stayed there ,hoping she would come along,well about 10 mins later I felt a right lemon ,cars passing by so I gave in and we went back ,tried to go down some quieter streets but she wanted home.
> 
> A shame cos she did amazingly yesterday. I don't think I will ever understand it....


That would definitely be worth a try and do so in a bright and jolly manner.

Sniffing the ground is displacement behaviour in that situation and when they do so they are trying to tell us they are not happy bunnies.


----------



## Twiggy

Well Holly had a brilliant time at the show and made lots of new friends, both human and canine...LOL

She did actually do a little bit of heelwork and played ball with me on two occasions in between being so busy socialising (she was at it for most of the five hours)....!!

Tremor wasn't so thrilled when she realised she wasn't going in any rings however.

She's been totally sound all day although of course she wasn't charging about. I don't know what the problem is and hope the therapist may be able to tell me on Tuesday.


----------



## Dimwit

We had a bit of a disaster this morning 
Went to scentwork class and had to leave after 1/2 and hour and come home as dimwit just couldn't cope.
There was one other dog there, who he has seen before and is always a bit wary of but this dog came in past us while we were waiting in the entrance for instructor to hide a scent toy for us and Sprocket just barked and barked. Then the other dog (who is fairly vocal and boisterous) went inside so there was a bit of noise when he saw the other dogs.
Went in with Sprocket and he was just scared. I have never seen him too worried to do scentwork before, but he just couldn't do anything. Eventually went back to our seat where he just wanted to be on my lap, and when I asked him to get down he hid behind a table shaking 
I took him out for a while to see if he would calm down away from the other dogs and then tried to do an outdoor search with him (while all the other dogs were inside) but he still couldn't and then he planted himself and refused to walk back into the hall so I called it a day and took him home. I am absolutely gutted - scentwork is the thing he loves most and he usually really enjoys classes so I don't know what went wrong today but it was just horrible seeing him so scared. I really wish I knew how to help him


----------



## Canine K9

Had a rubbish day today, seriously so fed up with everything. Mostly non dog related. Dog related, been put down to a budget of £10 a month max for dog food (for reasons which I don`t wish to mention) when the NI is gone which I`m not sure is even enough for raw feeding since I can`t buy in bulk 
Have no money to get him a new collar, since his one is getting a bit tight.
The agility doesn`t really matter anyway since I don`t think I can afford it now 
Feeling really rubbish, I wish I could do more but I can`t do much to earn money and paper rounds pay pittance  
His biting has got out of control again, he jumped up at me and bit me very hard today and I have a nasty cut now 
Feeling like I`ve failed my dog in every single way, I can`t even find him a decent agility class without risking injuring him 
Only good thing was a nice walk in the forest today if a little warm.
Hope everyone has had a much better day.


----------



## Dogless

Oh Dimwit, sounds like a combination of factors. Hope the next class Little DW is back to normal.



Canine K9 said:


> Had a rubbish day today, seriously so fed up with everything. Mostly non dog related. Dog related, been put down to a budget of £10 a month max for dog food (for reasons which I don`t wish to mention) when the NI is gone which I`m not sure is even enough for raw feeding since I can`t buy in bulk  Can you ask local butchers about freebies, carcasses etc
> Have no money to get him a new collar, since his one is getting a bit tight. What sort does he wear? Flat, half check? What size neck does Bailey have? May have the odd one hanging about if second hand will do until you can buy one that fits. Do you violently object to any particular colour?
> The agility doesn`t really matter anyway since I don`t think I can afford it now  Hopefully the right class will come along once you can afford it.
> Feeling really rubbish, I wish I could do more but I can`t do much to earn money and paper rounds pay pittance
> His biting has got out of control again, he jumped up at me and bit me very hard today and I have a nasty cut now  Perhaps he's clocking onto your mood? Mine do. Hard I know but almost better not to train / walk when not 'into' it within reason.
> Feeling like I`ve failed my dog in every single way, I can`t even find him a decent agility class without risking injuring him  Of course you haven't failed. Bailey is loved, trained and cared for. I think we have all felt like this at some point, sometimes it is awful BUT honestly it will pass.
> Only good thing was a nice walk in the forest today if a little warm.
> Hope everyone has had a much better day.


Just some ideas above but not much I can do (wish there was) to lift your mood. Go easy on yourself, think you're just being a human.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Oh Dimwit, sounds like a combination of factors. Hope the next class Little DW is back to normal.
> 
> Just some ideas above but not much I can do (wish there was) to lift your mood. Go easy on yourself, think you're just being a human.


1) I will ask Butchers thank you
2) Flat and it will be about 14" now. Color ect I really don`t care about; that is so lovely 

Thanks I hope I can afford agility when he is old enough; hopefully


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> 1) I will ask Butchers thank you
> 2) Flat and it will be about 14" now. Color ect I really don`t care about; that is so lovely
> 
> Thanks I hope I can afford agility when he is old enough; hopefully


If you trust me, can you PM me your address; I've sent a fair few bits to other members if you want any to vouch for me being 'OK'!!


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> If you trust me, can you PM me your address; I've sent a fair few bits to other members if you want any to vouch for me being 'OK'!!


I trust you Dogless  Thanks that is lovely, I`m crying now


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> I trust you Dogless  Thanks that is lovely, I`m crying now


Don't cry, things have a way of coming back together buddy.

How much raw does Bailey eat per day? Just wondering what sort of things you could ask your butcher for or maybe you could manage a diet from Morrison's if you have one nearby?


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Don't cry, things have a way of coming back together buddy.
> 
> How much raw does Bailey eat per day? Just wondering what sort of things you could ask your butcher for or maybe you could manage a diet from Morrison's if you have one nearby?


About 150g a day usually.


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> About 150g a day usually.


So...4.65kg / month.

That is doable on that budget, it's sourcing stuff. Do you know if your butcher does pet mince? If you have a butcher than bones out his own carcasses you should be able to get lots of freebies like lamb bones etc too.

Even 2kg of freeflow tripe from PAH is 4.69, so that could do half of your allowance pretty much.

So something like tripe for break and then whatever you can get from Morrison's or the butcher's for dinner?

Each of mine costs a tenner or so a month to feed as my butcher is fab so I hope you can find one as helpful.


----------



## Gemmaa

Perhaps try Iceland and other shops like that, you could get a bag of chicken bits which would probably last him ages.
I'm guessing Bailey is a similar weight to my terriers, you'd be surprised how little they need to eat. Freddie and Danny often have just a spoonful of mince, Freddie is at his perfect weight, and Danny could probably eat less! Even Bradley doesn't eat much.

A 2kg bag from [email protected] would last one small dog a very long time, I think Natures Menu frozen nuggets are pretty cheap and would last a little guy quite nicely.
Also, I've noticed that Tesco are better for chicken wings - more in a pack than Morrisons do (unless that's just around here) and a bit cheaper.
Asda do biiiiiiig turkey legs for under £2, you could probably scrape the meat off and get a few meals out of it.

It's definitely doable .


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> So...4.65kg / month.
> 
> That is doable on that budget, it's sourcing stuff. Do you know if your butcher does pet mince? If you have a butcher than bones out his own carcasses you should be able to get lots of freebies like lamb bones etc too.
> 
> Even 2kg of freeflow tripe from PAH is 4.69, so that could do half of your allowance pretty much.
> 
> So something like tripe for break and then whatever you can get from Morrison's or the butcher's for dinner?
> 
> Each of mine costs a tenner or so a month to feed as my butcher is fab so I hope you can find one as helpful.


I don`t know any good butchers, but will look around  That sounds good we do have a morrisons so should work out once NI is gone.


----------



## Canine K9

Gemmaa said:


> Perhaps try Iceland and other shops like that, you could get a bag of chicken bits which would probably last him ages.
> I'm guessing Bailey is a similar weight to my terriers, you'd be surprised how little they need to eat. Freddie and Danny often have just a spoonful of mince, Freddie is at his perfect weight, and Danny could probably eat less! Even Bradley doesn't eat much.
> 
> A 2kg bag from [email protected] would last one small dog a very long time, I think Natures Menu frozen nuggets are pretty cheap and would last a little guy quite nicely.
> Also, I've noticed that Tesco are better for chicken wings - more in a pack than Morrisons do (unless that's just around here) and a bit cheaper.
> Asda do biiiiiiig turkey legs for under £2, you could probably scrape the meat off and get a few meals out of it.
> 
> It's definitely doable .


Thanks that sounds great will check it out :thumbup1:


----------



## Sarah1983

Is it £10 per month or can you buy say a more expensive food that would last several months? He's only a small dog so a 15kg bag of something half decent would last him quite a while. You can get those storage containers to keep it fresh. I used to supplement Rupes dry food with raw on a regular basis when I couldn't feed it full time. It may not be raw but if you could buy a big bag of something decent it's not that bad and could well fit the £10 a month budget 

Sorry you're going through a tough time, things will work out in the end though. Chin up :thumbup1:

Spendog has cold tail again. More rest (ha! he doesn't know that word!) and hopefully he'll have his wag back soon. Poor bugger. I assume the zoomies through the ditch of water is what triggered it this time. 

Twiggy, sorry to hear you're having problems with Tremor, hope you can get to the bottom of it. Glad Holly enjoyed herself though.


----------



## Canine K9

Sarah1983 said:


> Is it £10 per month or can you buy say a more expensive food that would last several months? He's only a small dog so a 15kg bag of something half decent would last him quite a while. You can get those storage containers to keep it fresh. I used to supplement Rupes dry food with raw on a regular basis when I couldn't feed it full time. It may not be raw but if you could buy a big bag of something decent it's not that bad and could well fit the £10 a month budget
> 
> Sorry you're going through a tough time, things will work out in the end though. Chin up :thumbup1:
> 
> Spendog has cold tail again. More rest (ha! he doesn't know that word!) and hopefully he'll have his wag back soon. Poor bugger. I assume the zoomies through the ditch of water is what triggered it this time.
> 
> Twiggy, sorry to hear you're having problems with Tremor, hope you can get to the bottom of it. Glad Holly enjoyed herself though.


Thanks I was looking at Skinners £20 on amazon subscribe and save 15kg so that would be fine as long as it lasts longer than one month which I presumed it would, I just worry if I do switch back everything with his skin etc will go downhill again


----------



## MyMillie

Just some ideas above but not much I can do (wish there was) to lift your mood. Go easy on yourself said:


> Aaaw Dogless, just wanted to come on here and say I just love you for your compassion and understanding, not just now but in many many posts I read of yours....just wanted to show my appreciation to ya!
> 
> Canine, bless you!, just wanted to say nothing stays the same, the wheels of life are always turning, just view this as a blip and things will soon turn back in your favor and you will again be able to do all things you plan with your lovely Bailey


----------



## Sarah1983

Canine K9 said:


> Thanks I was looking at Skinners £20 on amazon subscribe and save 15kg so that would be fine as long as it lasts longer than one month which I presumed it would, I just worry if I do switch back everything with his skin etc will go downhill again


I've never fed Skinners but when I fed Spencer kibble a 12kg bag lasted me 5 or 6 weeks. He ate 300g a day. It can be tough finding a kibble within budget when you've got a dog with intolerances. CSJ and Simpsons may be worth looking at too if you have to go the kibble route.

As Dogless says though, you may well be able to feed raw for a tenner a month. It costs me around 40 euros a month here but that's with no nice butcher and the suppliers out here are more expensive than they seem to be in the UK. Plus Spencer is a much bigger dog than Bailey and eats around 800-900g of raw a day


----------



## tiatortilla

Sorry I haven't posted much recently again, I've been keeping up and reading all the posts though - I just rarely have anything really useful to say and I don't want to sit here repeating what everyone else has already written! 

Sooo proud of Tia today, we were walking along a footpath and a couple with a Springer Spaniel were walking towards us, I asked if they could keep their dog with them please (they put him on lead as soon as I asked, yay lovely people!) Tia was on the longline but I had most of it coiled up and as they passed us probably about 6ft away, Tia was totally quiet  She did lunge towards him just as they'd gone past but it was very obviously in a "I want to play with you"-way and she wasn't nervous at all.
She was less good with a couple of collies on the way home when she was on her short lead again, but she did only growl and not bark so I feel like that's sort of progress


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla - well done for today; I'm enjoying reading your blog too :thumbup1:.



MyMillie said:


> Aaaw Dogless, just wanted to come on here and say I just love you for your compassion and understanding, not just now but in many many posts I read of yours....just wanted to show my appreciation to ya!


Thanks, very nice that you think that .

Superb evening walks with the CHs .

Took Rudi first as I thought it might be busier - no one seen bar some drunk people outside the families' club.

Then I took Kilo and Sod's Law said it was really busy. I met Mr "I keep telling you to walk them together" and someone who I served with a few years ago - nice to see them and the BW was relaxed when he stopped to chat which was good. Then saw a little JRT; heard his owner talking to him before we came upon them.....I almost fainted. He was.....training him  positively  . On the way back the dodgy dal who takes a chunk or two out of dogs started to trot over (by the road) and I avoided, avoided, avoided as I heard his claws pattering closer to us. Thankfully he gave up and went with his owner once we'd gone far enough. BUT Kilo was totally relaxed with the JRT when we passed it in close proximity and only a little up on his toes and nervy with his back to the dal. Then, finally, we passed running drunk men. I am really proud of the BW this evening .

Gold stars for the CHs today :thumbup1: :aureola:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> We had a bit of a disaster this morning
> Went to scentwork class and had to leave after 1/2 and hour and come home as dimwit just couldn't cope.
> There was one other dog there, who he has seen before and is always a bit wary of but this dog came in past us while we were waiting in the entrance for instructor to hide a scent toy for us and Sprocket just barked and barked. Then the other dog (who is fairly vocal and boisterous) went inside so there was a bit of noise when he saw the other dogs.
> Went in with Sprocket and he was just scared. I have never seen him too worried to do scentwork before, but he just couldn't do anything. Eventually went back to our seat where he just wanted to be on my lap, and when I asked him to get down he hid behind a table shaking
> I took him out for a while to see if he would calm down away from the other dogs and then tried to do an outdoor search with him (while all the other dogs were inside) but he still couldn't and then he planted himself and refused to walk back into the hall so I called it a day and took him home. I am absolutely gutted - scentwork is the thing he loves most and he usually really enjoys classes so I don't know what went wrong today but it was just horrible seeing him so scared. *I really wish I knew how to* *help him*


I'm really sorry. I don't think you can, other than doing what you did - take him out of the situation. That's exactly what Holly did in the barn two weeks ago in class when I took her back into the house.

Sadly they can't help being the way they are and if they can't cope that's it really.

How old is he now?


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> 1) I will ask Butchers thank you
> 2) Flat and it will be about 14" now. Color ect I really don`t care about; that is so lovely
> 
> Thanks I hope I can afford agility when he is old enough; hopefully


I'm sure I've got one or two flat collars somewhere if Dogless can't provide one and I'm quite happy to send you one.


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> Thanks I was looking at Skinners £20 on amazon subscribe and save 15kg so that would be fine as long as it lasts longer than one month which I presumed it would, I just worry if I do switch back everything with his skin etc will go downhill again


It's a crying shame it would cost to much to post a big bag of dog food as I have an almost full 15kg bag of Working Dog Hydrolised fish, The Natural Dog Food Company salmon and rice sensitive and half a bag of AG fish and potato sensitive, any of which you could have had courtesy of Leafy.


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> I'm really sorry. I don't think you can, other than doing what you did - take him out of the situation. That's exactly what Holly did in the barn two weeks ago in class when I took her back into the house.
> 
> Sadly they can't help being the way they are and if they can't cope that's it really.
> 
> How old is he now?


I know it's just how he is, I just feel so bad for him when he gets like that. 
He is nearly 3.


----------



## moonviolet

DW sorry little sprocket reacted that way you seem to have been on such an upswing lately I hope it's just a minor blip. I'm sure you are well aware, that he might be a bit more reactive for a few days as it's takes dogs between 2 and 6 days to metabolise stress hormones so if you can have a few more chilled out days it should help. 

CK9 I can't really add to the help and advice you've been give only to say hang in there, lots of people here are rooting for you and Bailey.

Twiggy sounds like HB did you proud 

Tia sounds like progress, what lovely people with the springer. the times I've asked if someone if they could please keep their dog back I've got "he just wants to say hi" or " she's friendly" 

Dogless woohoo your gold star boys 

Sarah Hope Spendog's tail is better soon.

Our morning walk was numpty central one of those least said soonest mended situations. Tink had a few stressful moment but shook them off nicely. So tonight instead of a risking compounding the numpty encounters we did a lovely training session in the garden a big variety of things including balance, body awareness, some offlead heelwork. some scentwork a little hoopla and the beginning to splicing her drawer retrieve with her tidy toys into a basket and retrieve. Understandably there is a little beagle spark out next to me. :001_wub:


----------



## Dimwit

moonviolet said:


> DW sorry little sprocket reacted that way you seem to have been on such an upswing lately I hope it's just a minor blip. I'm sure you are well aware, that he might be a bit more reactive for a few days as it's takes dogs between 2 and 6 days to metabolise stress hormones so if you can have a few more chilled out days it should help.


Thanks. We went to a training class this afternoon, which I think did him good. He knows the other dogs and today there were only three of us there instead of the usual six so he had loads of space. Planning nice quiet walks for the next few days though.


----------



## Canine K9

Thanks everyone you are all wonderful!


----------



## Dogless

CanineK9 - some good bargains to be had:

Banham Poultry Chicken Livers 225G - Groceries - Tesco Groceries

Tesco Everyday Value Chicken Portions 2Kg - Groceries - Tesco Groceries


----------



## Beth17

K9 sorry things are a bit rubbish at the moment. Keep plugging away and the tide will turn soon.

Everyone else yay to the good and boo to the not so good I hope things get better.
I've not been on in ages as have been busy with uni and moving. They boys have taken to it well after a couple of weeks settling in and are loving the new walks. Sam has however hit the terrible teens bless him, however all minor niggles really and he'll grow out of it soon enough.


----------



## MollySmith

*MV* - Tinks looks so serene in that photo, thank you for sharing. I empathise with the pigeon, we had one in the dog field yesterday and I had to put Molly on the lead until I could trust she'd forgotten!

*Dogless* - my god that's early! It sounds like it was worth it though.

*Twiggy* - Oh poo about Tremor, poor lovely. But yay for Holly, that's great news.

*Canine* - I am sorry you feel disappointed and had a horrible day. I think Dogless is spot on, me and my OH had several cross words yesterday and Molly had hyper zoomies and bites, I'm sure they know. You're doing so well, it's the small steps that made the difference and those can be so exhausting.

Whilst it's a shame about agility it's great that Twiggy saw this, she really knows her stuff and be pleased that this was picked up on so Bailey remains healthy. You were not to know, I wouldn't have either. That's the great thing about PF and WAYWO, we learn stuff. Don't be too hard on yourself. 

As for food, I had an email from Zoo Plus with offers on and the trial packs are well priced. 
Dog Food Trial Packs and Dog Food Samples| Free P&P on orders £25+

Molly is much bigger than Bailey so whilst I have a collar I could send it's miles too big. 

*Dimwit* - oh dear. I think you did the right thing in taking him home and it does sound like this other dog was just someone he didn't like. Even lovely Red has dogs that he hates on the rec at Coleridge so it gets to them all. Big hugs. It's great that he did so well at training class which hopefully means no really harm done if he got on okay there. And there is a lovely picture of him and his doggy friends doing a sit and stay on Wuff's FB page and lots of admiration. I said I'd tell you it was there. I hope that makes you smile 

And thank you for all your kind words, you're all so very lovely. I feel very lucky to have found this thread.


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> What was different from yesterday?
> To your knowledge has anything bad happened there from her point of view?
> will she walk past this spot with other members of your family, if she will it's possible that something happened at that point with you not necessarily your fault?
> Yes, crossing the road before this spot may work if it was something bad happening there.
> 
> I don't want to cause offence, but on your video you did sigh and huff a bit she will pick up on your mood. Sometimes for our dogs we have to *channel our inner Disney*.
> 
> She's not doing this to get at you or upset you, She has a genuine reason sometimes we cannot see, hear or smell their reason and they can't tell us. We just have to respect that they do.


*cheesecake* I'm going to fess up something hugely embarrassing but when Molly was at her most lead reactive and I was stressed out over walking her, I used to sing Happy Birthday. Or Twinkle Little Star  You think I'm nuts now. I probably am, well I _know_ I am but it kept me relaxed. Sing anything under your breath that calms you down and breath deeply. I think MV is right, you sound very fraught in the video and I appreciate that, you're just waiting for her to stop aren't you?

 Inner Disney, love it!


----------



## Twiggy

MollySmith said:


> *cheesecake* I'm going to fess up something hugely embarrassing but when Molly was at her most lead reactive and I was stressed out over walking her, I used to sing Happy Birthday. Or Twinkle Little Star  You think I'm nuts now. I probably am, well I _know_ I am but it kept me relaxed. Sing anything under your breath that calms you down and breath deeply. I think MV is right, you sound very fraught in the video and I appreciate that, you're just waiting for her to stop aren't you?
> 
> Inner Disney, love it!


And it most definitely works....!!

I tell nervous handlers to sing 'The Grand Old Duke of York' to themselves under their breathe if they get ring nerves, to stop their stress transferring to their dogs.

Several years ago a 'ticket' handler was having huge problems with her nervous dog. He had actually bolted at gunfire and went missing for about three days. After that she had dreadful trouble with him at shows.
When I suggested the above, she looked at me as if I was deranged but at the next show she came running to find me waving a red rosette....


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> And it most definitely works....!!
> 
> I tell nervous handlers to sing 'The Grand Old Duke of York' to themselves under their breathe if they get ring nerves, to stop their stress transferring to their dogs.


I used to wander along singing "Mr Sprocket, Mr Sprocket, your ears are mighty long"


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> *Dimwit*  oh dear. I think you did the right thing in taking him home and it does sound like this other dog was just someone he didnt like. Even lovely Red has dogs that he hates on the rec at Coleridge so it gets to them all. Big hugs. Its great that he did so well at training class which hopefully means no really harm done if he got on okay there. And there is a lovely picture of him and his doggy friends doing a sit and stay on Wuff's FB page and lots of admiration. I said I'd tell you it was there. I hope that makes you smile


Thanks, I was very pleased with how well he bounced back from the morning, but I think it helps that he knows he is "safe" at the classes and so could relax a bit. I did see the photo on FB, and the nice comments 
He was still a bit on edge last night so I very selflessly made some popcorn (which he loves) and we did some silly training and some "popcorn resistance"


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Thanks, I was very pleased with how well he bounced back from the morning, but I think it helps that he knows he is "safe" at the classes and so could relax a bit. I did see the photo on FB, and the nice comments
> He was still a bit on edge last night so I very selflessly made some popcorn (which he loves) and we did some silly training and some "popcorn resistance"


He is growing up to be very brave, I think it's a huge step forward when they can calm down so quickly. Glad you saw the photo 

:001_smile: I'm amazed that I thought of something that you all do too. I am not alone in my madness, phew!


----------



## moonviolet

MollySmith said:


> :001_smile: I'm amazed that I thought of something that you all do too. I am not alone in my madness, phew!


Another mad one here. " we went to the animal fair...." Singing:


----------



## egroeg

moonviolet said:


> Another mad one here. " we went to the animal fair...." Singing:


And another one, "Teddybear's Picnic" for me, LOL


----------



## GingerRogers

I never sing 'ginger bells, ginger bells, ginger all the way, oh what fun it is be a ginger dog at play' never i say


----------



## Pezant

Love all the ideas about singing in stressful times! Will definitely have to remember that in the ring next time!

Think Henry has been somewhat poorly this weekend - came down to a big squashy brown present at 6am yesterday morning which is totally out of character for him, and he's barely moved except to go from one place to sleep to another this morning. By all accounts that could well be because he spent all of yesterday running around the garden chasing butterflies as well as being walked, but I'm keeping an eye on him just in case. He's back onto just plain biscuit to settle his tum as well. Poor baby!


----------



## Dimwit

GingerRogers said:


> I never sing 'ginger bells, ginger bells, ginger all the way, oh what fun it is be a ginger dog at play' never i say


That's brilliant!


----------



## MollySmith

I often sing whatever was last on the radio these days. The other day I didn't get out of the car until I found something reasonable as the last song was something awful by Status Quo. My walking earworm could have been Baby Got Back so I gave up, I wasn't going to tell my dog that I like big butts and I can't lie. So we went back to Twinkle Twinkle..


----------



## MollySmith

If we're going to fess up our songs... what's your inner Disney?


----------



## Canine K9

Well for today.. Bailey has a bad habit. He barks constantly. When I leave him alone he barks for about 15 minutes even with things to do. Any tips for improving that? 
He usually barks in the house when I`m not giving him attention but I am currently clicking him and treating him for being quiet and calm which has worked. 
Feeling more positive today


----------



## Dogless

Twinklw Twinkle and Happy Birthday here....going to try Grand Old Duke of York now . I can't look any more bonkers than I do at present, suddenly saying "Hello, morning" etc and waving to imaginary folk as I realised they were a cue for Kilo to get up on his toes. Seems to be working and he's beginning to disregard it but I feel like a loony. Even by my standards :crazy:.

Pezant - hope Henry is OK.

K9 -pleased you're feeling a little better. Not sure on the barking or whether it's SA or just for your attention....hope someone who can help you replies soon!


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> Well for today.. Bailey has a bad habit. He barks constantly. When I leave him alone he barks for about 15 minutes even with things to do. Any tips for improving that?
> He usually barks in the house when I`m not giving him attention but I am currently clicking him and treating him for being quiet and calm which has worked.
> Feeling more positive today


Really pleased you are feeling brighter today.

Sounds as if Bailey is attention seeking and you're doing the right thing. He will learn barking gets him nowhere and being quiet gets rewards.


----------



## diefenbaker

I've gone away for a week with work. I've had to leave Dief with a woman who lives in the same road. I say she lives in the same road. Thinking about it she lives in the same house. I say she lives in the same house. Thinking about it she sleeps in the same bed. Could be the wife ? Do you all think a woman can cope ? ( I've checked with my lawyer. I'm allowed one in return. )


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I've gone away for a week with work. I've had to leave Dief with a woman who lives in the same road. I say she lives in the same road. Thinking about it she lives in the same house. I say she lives in the same house. Thinking about it she sleeps in the same bed. Could be the wife ? Do you all think a woman can cope ? ( I've checked with my lawyer. I'm allowed one in return. )


This will offend you deeply Dief but to the WAYWO ladies I suspect that you are an honorary 'wife' yourself :crazy:. Lawyer wouldn't happen to be a man would he? .


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> This will offend you deeply Dief but to the WAYWO ladies I suspect that you are an honorary 'wife' yourself :crazy:. Lawyer wouldn't happen to be a man would he? .


It'll take a lot more than that to offend me ( do NOT take that as a challenge ). I'm off to the hotel gym now to continue my CaniX training. If I shut my eyes I can almost feel Dief running ahead of me. Although I did get some strange looks when I shouted "don't crap now keep going".


----------



## Dogless

Today I'm working on accepting that, although summer was nice, it is now over and it's time to get the rain gear back on. That is all :cryin:.


----------



## BessieDog

Not my 'inner Disney' but heard a weird song in the car. It was by Joe Walsh called 'Ordinary Average Guy'. I couldn't believe it when I heard the list of things the guy was going to do that day, and the lyrics included 'pick up the dog doo, hope that its hard'. 

Not what you expect to here in a song, but at least there's a responsible dog owner!!


----------



## Canine K9

Rain today! Where is summer :blink:


----------



## MollySmith

We've got a tiny tiny bit of sunshine but I think we are owed, it was cold yesterday. 

As reported on my lead thread, Molly and I did lead walking, no halti and met a dog and she was fine. And it was before her walk which usually means she's very hyped up. She dropped into a sit at one point to watch the dog go past, I am so pleased with her that I can forgive her lapse with barking in the car.

Then we went off to see a client of mine who adores dogs. She fosters for Cinnamon but hasn't a dog right now due to ill health so Molly was welcomed with biscuits and hugs. She was very well behaved. Dog and client.

Today I've got life drawing class and work to do before hols next week so OH is walking her but hopefully I'll get some lead practice in later.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I've gone away for a week with work. I've had to leave Dief with a woman who lives in the same road. I say she lives in the same road. Thinking about it she lives in the same house. I say she lives in the same house. Thinking about it she sleeps in the same bed. Could be the wife ? Do you all think a woman can cope ? ( I've checked with my lawyer. I'm allowed one in return. )


I could answer that but I won't.....:nono::nono::nono:


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> Rain today! Where is summer :blink:


Well send it all to me. We certainly need some here, the ground is like concrete.


----------



## MollySmith

diefenbaker said:


> I've gone away for a week with work. I've had to leave Dief with a woman who lives in the same road. I say she lives in the same road. Thinking about it she lives in the same house. I say she lives in the same house. Thinking about it she sleeps in the same bed. Could be the wife ? Do you all think a woman can cope ? ( I've checked with my lawyer. I'm allowed one in return. )


If I said that women should only stay at home with fluffy kittens that takes us to a whole other place. So I shall post this and be mindful of not overdoing it. 

Harry Enfield - Women know your limits - YouTube


----------



## Dogless

Hard work walk this morning. The CHs plodded in the rain, then brightened up massively and were their normal selves when we got to the field and they went offlead to play and for some training. *I got a down at a distance from Rudi * which is probably not noteworthy to lots of you but represents good progress to me . They then plodded back sooooo slowly it was unreal and it would have been exhausting to constantly be silly to gee them up so I went along with them, lazy, lazy owner . I think it is a combo of pouring rain after 11 days of beautiful weather dampening their spirirts (literally ) and the fact that they've been way more active than usual in the sun and are tired.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> *I got a down at a distance from Rudi *


Gold star for Rudi 

Speaking of progress, the dimwit lay on his mat last night the whole time I was eating my dinner (instead of his favoured position of sitting with his nose about 1cm from my plate and drooling on my leg). He is doing pretty well with the mat work, I just have to chuck a bit of kibble towards him every now and then :lol:


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Hard work walk this morning. The CHs plodded in the rain, then brightened up massively and were their normal selves when we got to the field and they went offlead to play and for some training. *I got a down at a distance from Rudi * *which is probably not noteworthy to lots of you but represents good progress to m*e . They then plodded back sooooo slowly it was unreal and it would have been exhausting to constantly be silly to gee them up so I went along with them, lazy, lazy owner . I think it is a combo of pouring rain after 11 days of beautiful weather dampening their spirirts (literally ) and the fact that they've been way more active than usual in the sun and are tired.


I am impressed. It would be progress for me, Molly will do it for trainer, not for me little monkey. Dimwit - well done too


----------



## L/C

Well done Rudi, Sprocket and Molly!

K9 - glad you're more positive and sounds like you're doing the right thing with Bailey and his barking. Have you tried settle sessions with him as well? Gypsy has a terrible habit of barking for attention and following advice from Granny I've started settle sessions with her. It's been really, really helpful in keeping her calmer and giving her an off switch.

Well Ely has injured himself again (just to add to all of his woes). I allowed OH to walk them yesterday morning as I had to be at work early and he thought it would be a good idea to go and stand with the dog walking group rather then ignore them when they waved him over. Predictably Ely was uncomfortable and lunged at a husky who was running about. He must have twisted and now has a large lump on his side where he's inflamed a muscle - so he's on metacam and bed rest. AGH!


----------



## Dogless

Wishing Ely a swift recovery (again...poor boy) and your OH too if he was mine as he'd have a lump on his head to match .


----------



## MollySmith

Oh poor Ely  He really is into self inflicted pain at the moment


----------



## MyMillie

Dogless said:


> Wishing Ely a swift recovery (again...poor boy) and your OH too if he was mine as he'd have a lump on his head to match .


I agree! I too wish Ely swift recovery, bless him...... but I couldnt help but chuckle on the last part of your post as my OH would have matching lump too!! :ihih:..... maybe good job I dont have one anymore eh!...makes my life simpler...and theirs safer


----------



## cheesecake

MollySmith said:


> *cheesecake* I'm going to fess up something hugely embarrassing but when Molly was at her most lead reactive and I was stressed out over walking her, I used to sing Happy Birthday. Or Twinkle Little Star  You think I'm nuts now. I probably am, well I _know_ I am but it kept me relaxed. Sing anything under your breath that calms you down and breath deeply. I think MV is right, you sound very fraught in the video and I appreciate that, you're just waiting for her to stop aren't you?
> 
> Inner Disney, love it!


I appreciate your advice,yes I admit that if I sigh and stuff its gonna make her anxious but ive gone out a few times and have been aware of not to do it,so I was completely silent but she still stalled

today me and dad walked into town with her, she was excited at first but half way there she froze with both of us. Pulling to go home. So dad carried on to town I tried taking her home. On the way home,(with just me) she froze again, as if to say 'hang on ,wheres dad?' I tried walking her back to town and she went as if looking for dad. Then she froze again and we had to go back in home direction , honestly we were back and forth ,back and forth......

I don't understand, if im silent = im giving her the cold treatment and it makes her anxious?
if I say to her nicely' come on jess' is it making me impatient so its making her anxious?

what does she want from me?! Isn't 'come on jess' (said nicely) encouraging her? or not?

sorry for sounding thick or frustrated lol


----------



## Dogless

Just had a very wet hour and a half out with Dizzy. He was attacked and shaken by the scruff by a rottie yesterday but didn't sustain any physical injuries luckily. Poor Diz dog . He was fine with the CHs which was good, hope he's still OK with strange large dogs - he has come on in leaps and bounds with his fear reactivity so fingers crossed this doesn't set him back. The CHs were very good for me, which was great.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Just had a very wet hour and a half out with Dizzy. He was attacked and shaken by the scruff by a rottie yesterday but didn't sustain any physical injuries luckily. Poor Diz dog . He was fine with the CHs which was good, hope he's still OK with strange large dogs - he has come on in leaps and bounds with his fear reactivity so fingers crossed this doesn't set him back. The CHs were very good for me, which was great.


Oh great - poor Dizzy that's all he needed.


----------



## Twiggy

*LC - *Oh no poor Ely yet again. Why do men do such strange things when they walk the dogs?


----------



## Dogless

cheesecake said:


> I appreciate your advice,yes I admit that if I sigh and stuff its gonna make her anxious but ive gone out a few times and have been aware of not to do it,so I was completely silent but she still stalled
> 
> today me and dad walked into town with her, she was excited at first but half way there she froze with both of us. Pulling to go home. So dad carried on to town I tried taking her home. On the way home,(with just me) she froze again, as if to say 'hang on ,wheres dad?' I tried walking her back to town and she went as if looking for dad. Then she froze again and we had to go back in home direction , honestly we were back and forth ,back and forth......
> 
> I don't understand, if im silent = im giving her the cold treatment and it makes her anxious?
> if I say to her nicely' come on jess' is it making me impatient so its making her anxious?
> 
> what does she want from me?! Isn't 'come on jess' (said nicely) encouraging her? or not?
> 
> sorry for sounding thick or frustrated lol


My take on it is that I think you have just got to go back to absolute basics. No walking into busy town, no agenda for walking anywhere at all. If you only go 10m in a walk then so be it. I wouldn't even go out when you are feeling frustrated or I think you'll just end up with a vicious circle and an erosion of your relationship with her.

For me silence isn't a 'cold shoulder' - it can be companionable - and preferable to me than nagging at the dog (even meant nicely). She sounds confused and conflicted and after reassurance and leadership and I'd just work on spending time together and bonding - even going out onto the street and doing some tricks, commands, having a quick game and back indoors.

Other folk know far more than me so I am sure will give better advice.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh great - poor Dizzy that's all he needed.


I know. Plus Diz's human's daughter was crying her eyes out that Diz was being attacked and was afraid her Mum would be bitten too.



Twiggy said:


> *LC - *Oh no poor Ely yet again. Why do men do such strange things when they walk the dogs?


If any of us knew the answer to that we would be typing from our mansion whilst the butler prepared us a delicious snack!


----------



## Twiggy

Well Tremor was seen by the canine sports massage therapist but in some respects it threw up more questions than answers.

Like me, she isn't totally convinced it not cruciate but there does appear to be a problem in her right hip and Tremor wasn't happy about her manipulating that area.
She was also markedly stiffer on the right after the therapist flexed the right hind leg, followed immediately by me trotting her up.

She suggested I get her thermal image scanned and I've contacted a thermographer tonight. From my very limited understanding the scan will show any areas of heat, thus pin-pointing where the pain is.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well Tremor was seen by the canine sports massage therapist but in some respects it threw up more questions than answers.
> 
> Like me, she isn't totally convinced it not cruciate but there does appear to be a problem in her right hip and Tremor wasn't happy about her manipulating that area.
> She was also markedly stiffer on the right after the therapist flexed the right hind leg, followed immediately by me trotting her up.
> 
> She suggested I get her thermal image scanned and I've contacted a thermographer tonight. From my very limited understanding the scan will show any areas of heat, thus pin-pointing where the pain is.


I do hope that you start to make some headway with Tremor soon Twiggy; such a frustrating situation for you both.


----------



## moonviolet

Class last night was great Tink was a little rocket, enthusiastic and properly "up for it." My best girl  Whilst afloat on this happiness, myself and one other handler were asked if we'd like to be involved in 2 displays in July and giddily said yes it sounded like fun. which it will be right up until the minute we have to enter the ring and do the display then I shall feel an enormous desire to vomit!!:blushing::001_unsure:

Lovely walk this morning overcast and threatening rain no one on the towpath and only a sprinkling of people in the park so we did a lovely bit of offlead heelwork and followed it with a some waits and recalls and running in the meadow. I did not fall over, I was just field testing my bone density.


----------



## Dogless

Oooh mv a display . How fantastic, well done!! Least said about your gravitational mishap the better .


----------



## Dogless

Fabulous day so far at Concrete Central. Took them out together for some lead work this morning and just a quick offlead 10 minutes to relax and zoom and they did very well .

Then this afternoon took Rudi to the very busy park in a break in the rain. He was a little superstar - we saw loads of dogs and met none (onlead so that's what I wanted) and he just ignored them and focussed on me, he ignored people unless they asked to fuss him and he did a reasonable job of being polite when they did - washed the faces of anyone that bent over him but I did warn them!! - and even saw a wedding party and a Police search. I couldn't have been prouder of him.

Tipping down again now so Kilo and I will get wet later when I take him out for his walk no doubt .


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Twiggy, so sad to read your update on Tremor. It's one step forward and one delicate one back for Tremor at the moment. Did you get any response from the thermographer?

MV - yay well done, that's so nice to be asked and I'm sure well deserved.

Dogless - Rudi is a star, I hope Kilo does as well and you don't get too wet. 

Good news from the Smiths here. Molly has had her last lead lesson (is there a praying smilie?) I hope so anyway. I've got tactics for our holiday next week which is not to push her too fast on this lead thing, don't go into places or pubs where there are off lead dogs if she can't be let off lead too and take it slowly. I've found out that our house is next to the village pub so OH is happy and I'll stay in with Molly in exchange for some beer over the garden fence. I just hope the garden of the pub isn't too close or too noisy.

Oh and she did well on her lesson too. Very proud of this week after her close encounter with the hard of hearing owners and their dog and this afternoon the only time she reacted was when a fluffy little dog (sorry rubbish on breeds) growled at her first. I can deal with dogs who growl first and she recovered super quick which is great.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Class last night was great Tink was a little rocket, enthusiastic and properly "up for it." My best girl  Whilst afloat on this happiness, myself and one other handler were asked if we'd like to be involved in 2 displays in July and giddily said yes it sounded like fun. which it will be right up until the minute we have to enter the ring and do the display then I shall feel an enormous desire to vomit!!:blushing::001_unsure:
> 
> Lovely walk this morning overcast and threatening rain no one on the towpath and only a sprinkling of people in the park so we did a lovely bit of offlead heelwork and followed it with a some waits and recalls and running in the meadow. I did not fall over, I was just field testing my bone density.


Once you get over vomiting you'll enjoy it...!!


----------



## BessieDog

Twiggy said:


> Once you get over vomiting you'll enjoy it...!!


Well, it would make an interesting start to the display! 

How great to be asked! :thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I do hope that you start to make some headway with Tremor soon Twiggy; such a frustrating situation for you both.


This was the response from my very forward thinking vet who embraces advances in veterinary medicine at lunchtime:

Me: What do you know about veterinary thermal imaging?

Vet: Not much although I was told about it in America.

Me: Well I know it's used more for horses but is beginning to be used by small animal practices in the UK now. I've been in touch with a thermographer with a view to having Tremor's hips/hind legs scanned, prior to her seeing your ortho specialist.

Vet: Hmm it's not scientifically proven......

Me: Well I want her done and you will of course refer me if needed won't you? :devil::devil::devil:


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> This was the response from my very forward thinking vet who embraces advances in veterinary medicine at lunchtime:
> 
> Me: What do you know about veterinary thermal imaging?
> 
> Vet: Not much although I was told about it in America.
> 
> Me: Well I know it's used more for horses but is beginning to be used by small animal practices in the UK now. I've been in touch with a thermographer with a view to having Tremor's hips/hind legs scanned, prior to her seeing your ortho specialist.
> 
> Vet: Hmm it's not scientifically proven......
> 
> Me: Well I want her done and you will of course refer me if needed won't you? :devil::devil::devil:


Grannie, you are a legend


----------



## Dogless

I'd expect nothing less of you Twiggy .

Great walk with Kilo just now even though we got soaked, he worked hard. Both boys have been so good for me today :001_wub:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I'd expect nothing less of you Twiggy .
> 
> Great walk with Kilo just now even though we got soaked, he worked hard. Both boys have been so good for me today :001_wub:.


But at the end of the day they are our dogs and we pay the huge bills.

Remember he was 'very surprised and disappointed in me' for not embracing advances in veterinary medicine when he wanted to spay Holly keyhole.

Well viz versa applies.

Glad your lovely boys have been good today.

Holly was actually pretty good this afternoon in class too...


----------



## tiatortilla

This thread's looking very positive atm, so nice to read everyone's happy posts 

Tia is improving all the time at the moment. All I've done so far is scrap "watch me" and give lots of treats and praise for whenever she does notice another dog without barking and the distance at which she can see another dog and not react has probably halved. I can see how "watch me" is kind of useless with a dog who's nervous now.. If I was terrified of something jumping on me, the last thing I'd want is to not be able to check where that something was!

So we're at a point now where if it's a small/medium dog and not too close then she'll lunge but without barking or growling. And if it's a big dog, or too close then she'll lunge and growl but she hasn't really barked at another dog for maybe a week, which is great! (Just feel the need to add that "lunging" in this context doesn't mean that she's in reach of another dog, ever)
I don't want to get my hopes up too quickly because I know we still need to do a lot of work, but she seems much happier.


----------



## MollySmith

Twiggy said:


> *But at the end of the day they are our dogs and we pay the huge bills.*
> 
> Remember he was 'very surprised and disappointed in me' for not embracing advances in veterinary medicine when he wanted to spay Holly keyhole.
> 
> Well viz versa applies.
> 
> Glad your lovely boys have been good today.
> 
> Holly was actually pretty good this afternoon in class too...


Yup so true. That conversation reminds me of many I've had with my own GP...

Great news about Holly


----------



## MollySmith

tiatortilla said:


> This thread's looking very positive atm, so nice to read everyone's happy posts
> 
> Tia is improving all the time at the moment. All I've done so far is scrap "watch me" and give lots of treats and praise for whenever she does notice another dog without barking and the distance at which she can see another dog and not react has probably halved. I can see how "watch me" is kind of useless with a dog who's nervous now.. If I was terrified of something jumping on me, the last thing I'd want is to not be able to check where that something was!
> 
> So we're at a point now where if it's a small/medium dog and not too close then she'll lunge but without barking or growling. And if it's a big dog, or too close then she'll lunge and growl but she hasn't really barked at another dog for maybe a week, which is great! (Just feel the need to add that "lunging" in this context doesn't mean that she's in reach of another dog, ever)
> I don't want to get my hopes up too quickly because I know we still need to do a lot of work, but she seems much happier.


I found watch me useful to get Molly's attention on me around dogs, although her motivation wasn't fear but excitement overdrive but I can understand your reasoning. So great to hear that it's going well, well done _both_ of you


----------



## speug

moonviolet said:


> Class last night was great Tink was a little rocket, enthusiastic and properly "up for it." My best girl  Whilst afloat on this happiness, myself and one other handler were asked if we'd like to be involved in 2 displays in July and giddily said yes it sounded like fun. which it will be right up until the minute we have to enter the ring and do the display then I shall feel an enormous desire to vomit!!:blushing::001_unsure:


We've done a couple of little displays, all I'll say about the 1st last year is that our aim for the 2nd one a couple of weeks ago was to finish without me leaving a trail of blood on the way back to the car (we did, in fact apart from some overexcited sillyness getting in the way of weaving he did really well despite not training at all for the 6 weeks before hand as I tore a muscle and am only just beginning to attempt to run on it)

Actually the permanent reminder of our 1st display (interestingly scarred finger) was a happy open mouthed collision with my badly timed hand signal - in case anyone gets the wrong idea. I didn't even notice till I got back to the car and realised it was dripping everywhere, cleaned it up sort of with the remains of his bottle of water and drove home thinking I should really buy some antiseptic and plasters for in the car, and keep them somewhere I'd be able to find them in a hurry, like under the passenger seat beside the 1st aid kit - oh yeah 1st aid kit, that contains sterile solutions and dressings and such like and I'd completely forgotten I'd put it there so it would be easy to find if needed.

We're kind of working on building confidence at working away from me at agility but not much as I'm working away from home too much just now and we only have 3 days a week to fit in all the good walks and games and reminders of basic manners so anything else is getting squeezed out just now (and still limping a lot and struggling to run doesn't help).


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I found watch me useful to get Molly's attention on me around dogs, although her motivation wasn't fear but excitement overdrive but I can understand your reasoning. So great to hear that it's going well, well done _both_ of you


"Watch Me" isn't good for Kilo either in the context of a 'trigger' approaching - it really worries him - but is fine for Rudi and fine for Kilo in other contexts. We do an "Identify, Acknowledge, Ignore" type thing. I am also reading a big and very interesting book by Brenda Aloff with protocols in it to follow - reading them first then will come up with a plan for working more with Kilo and doing them with Rudi too preventatively. Anyhow....there is a lot in there about controlling approaches, cease and desist (leave it), moving with leash pressure etc etc. Seems very interesting indeed. I am only about half way through so it will be a while until I start!!


----------



## Dimwit

We had scared Sprocket again tonight at rally class the same dog that freaked him out on Sunday was there tonight and Sprocket was VERY worried. Spent much of the lesson sitting with him (he refused to move) and treating him when he saw the other dogs, and then took him into a corner so we could join in at a distance. Bless him, he was really not happy, didn't even want to play with his ball. Even when he was working it was like he was just going through the motions - usually he loves the classes but tonight he just had no spark 
I feel so bad for him, and I just don't know what to do of the best


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> "Watch Me" isn't good for Kilo either in the context of a 'trigger' approaching - it really worries him - but is fine for Rudi and fine for Kilo in other contexts. We do an "Identify, Acknowledge, Ignore" type thing. I am also reading a big and very interesting book by Brenda Aloff with protocols in it to follow - reading them first then will come up with a plan for working more with Kilo and doing them with Rudi too preventatively. Anyhow....there is a lot in there about controlling approaches, cease and desist (leave it), moving with leash pressure etc etc. Seems very interesting indeed. I am only about half way through so it will be a while until I start!!


I am so interested in how you get on. It intrigues me how many different actions can be applied to lead work and fear.

It's been such a trial and error with Molly. Our trainer admits she had the worst case of lead upset she had seen. I think it's been 9 months to get her to Identify without going mad, actually it feels like a lifetime


----------



## Dimwit

tiatortilla said:


> Tia is improving all the time at the moment. All I've done so far is scrap "watch me" and give lots of treats and praise for whenever she does notice another dog without barking and the distance at which she can see another dog and not react has probably halved. I can see how "watch me" is kind of useless with a dog who's nervous now.. If I was terrified of something jumping on me, the last thing I'd want is to not be able to check where that something was!


This is what I did with Sprocket. Watch me is great for getting his attention on me but, as you said, it really did not help with his fear response. I did the constant feeding whenever he could see another dog and then soon he would see a dog and look to me for his food. He is still not great but he is so much better than he used to be (on walks obviously, classes are, apparently, more of a problem)


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> We had scared Sprocket again tonight at rally class the same dog that freaked him out on Sunday was there tonight and Sprocket was VERY worried. Spent much of the lesson sitting with him (he refused to move) and treating him when he saw the other dogs, and then took him into a corner so we could join in at a distance. Bless him, he was really not happy, didn't even want to play with his ball. Even when he was working it was like he was just going through the motions - usually he loves the classes but tonight he just had no spark
> I feel so bad for him, and I just don't know what to do of the best


Ooooooooh little Sprocket, poor chap. Molly wasn't keen on a red lab in the park today. Dogs are strange, it just might be that dog - a smell or something that you're never understand maybe? It's so hard but try to focus on the small successes - on Sunday he picked himself up in time for Cath's class and this evening he was able to take treats. What did Sally say? Do you think you can change to another class or they can? I hope she can help you. Poor little chap, big cuddles from us


----------



## Dimwit

Can't change class sadly as the only other one is during the day while I am at work, and it's not fair to want the other dog to move as he hasn't actually done anything wrong. 
I guess I'll just have to see how he goes over the next few weeks. 
Oh well, serves me right for posting about how well he was doing...


----------



## Twiggy

speug said:


> We've done a couple of little displays, all I'll say about the 1st last year is that our aim for the 2nd one a couple of weeks ago was to finish without me leaving a trail of blood on the way back to the car (we did, in fact apart from some overexcited sillyness getting in the way of weaving he did really well despite not training at all for the 6 weeks before hand as I tore a muscle and am only just beginning to attempt to run on it)
> 
> Actually the permanent reminder of our 1st display (interestingly scarred finger) was a happy open mouthed collision with my badly timed hand signal - in case anyone gets the wrong idea. I didn't even notice till I got back to the car and realised it was dripping everywhere, cleaned it up sort of with the remains of his bottle of water and drove home thinking I should really buy some antiseptic and plasters for in the car, and keep them somewhere I'd be able to find them in a hurry, like under the passenger seat beside the 1st aid kit - oh yeah 1st aid kit, that contains sterile solutions and dressings and such like and I'd completely forgotten I'd put it there so it would be easy to find if needed.
> 
> We're kind of working on building confidence at working away from me at agility but not much as I'm working away from home too much just now and we only have 3 days a week to fit in all the good walks and games and reminders of basic manners so anything else is getting squeezed out just now (and still limping a lot and struggling to run doesn't help).


Oh we're all very used to lots of blood and gore training our dogs on this thread....LOL My hands and arms are permanently scarred.


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> Can't change class sadly as the only other one is during the day while I am at work, and it's not fair to want the other dog to move as he hasn't actually done anything wrong.
> I guess I'll just have to see how he goes over the next few weeks.
> Oh well, serves me right for posting about how well he was doing...


That's a shame.

I think you're wise though; just see if he overcomes his fear over the following few weeks.

Holly's nemisis was at class today and the stupid owner will insist on taking him up to her when she's tied up whilst I'm instructing. I didn't expect to get anything out of her but she was actually quite good.

Holly was frightened yesterday at agility. Of what I have no idea. She starts sniffing the ground as a sort of displacement behaviour. It could have been the horses in the adjacent field - who knows. Then suddenly halfway through the class, she decided she was fine and went quite well (by Holly's standards).


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> Holly was frightened yesterday at agility. Of what I have no idea. She starts sniffing the ground as a sort of displacement behaviour.


That's his usual displacement behaviour but Sunday and tonight he was too worried even to sniff, he just wanted to be as close to me as possible.


----------



## ballybee

well feeling like i could kill both my boys tonight 

I started work at 4pm today, we did a 45 min walk this morning, then an hour long walk before i left, inbetween we did loads of training, playing with the food toys etc. I made Tummel a fun box (it had biscuits, a filled bone with peanut butter, a wonky chew and a filled kong (biscuits, peanut butter and chicken sandwich spread) as well as him having his stagbar in his smashing 48" crate, tied up the doors etc, left Dans kong and stagbar out in the room, i left them at 3:45, Tummel was whinging but nothing huge, got home at 9....Tummel was still in the crate but he's gone and torn a huge hole in the door, literally pulled it apart (i've checked his mouth and he's fine) and Dan has chewed up my wooden clothes horse which has sat in my room literally for a year and never been touched   

Dan has been a total twit today too, he completely destroyed a brand new (not even an hour old) frisbee i bought for them, he's generally behaving really badly inside and out etc etc, thankfully Tummel has been really good recently in every way apart from this SA.

My plan for tomorrow is to leave the crate open, but put the smaller crate in front of my door so he can't get to it to scratch it, hopefully he'll manage to keep fairly calm, this makes my life harder though as then i don't know whos eaten what, the kongs are 2 different sizes so now they can't have those unless there's only spread or peanut butter in them, and i have to be careful what chews i give too as if Dan takes too long Tummel will eat them instead


----------



## Twiggy

Dimwit said:


> That's his usual displacement behaviour but Sunday and tonight he was too worried even to sniff, he just wanted to be as close to me as possible.


We really must arrange a visit. I'm quite sure Dimwit and Holly will get on famously....!!

We can have a cup of tea whilst they're both sniffing the floor....LOL


----------



## tiatortilla

MollySmith said:


> I found watch me useful to get Molly's attention on me around dogs, although her motivation wasn't fear but excitement overdrive but I can understand your reasoning. So great to hear that it's going well, well done _both_ of you


Thankyou  I just went with the first thing that was suggested to me by doing watch me  I can see how it'd work with an excited dog, it totally makes sense why it doesn't work with Tia though now I've thought about it, if anything I imagine not being "allowed" to watch the trigger is much scarier for her.



Dimwit said:


> This is what I did with Sprocket. Watch me is great for getting his attention on me but, as you said, it really did not help with his fear response. I did the constant feeding whenever he could see another dog and then soon he would see a dog and look to me for his food. He is still not great but he is so much better than he used to be (on walks obviously, classes are, apparently, more of a problem)


That's great to hear, I'm glad you've had good results from this. Sorry to hear about your class though, I hope things improve over the next few weeks.


----------



## Twiggy

ballybee said:


> well feeling like i could kill both my boys tonight
> 
> I started work at 4pm today, we did a 45 min walk this morning, then an hour long walk before i left, inbetween we did loads of training, playing with the food toys etc. I made Tummel a fun box (it had biscuits, a filled bone with peanut butter, a wonky chew and a filled kong (biscuits, peanut butter and chicken sandwich spread) as well as him having his stagbar in his smashing 48" crate, tied up the doors etc, left Dans kong and stagbar out in the room, i left them at 3:45, Tummel was whinging but nothing huge, got home at 9....Tummel was still in the crate but he's gone and torn a huge hole in the door, literally pulled it apart (i've checked his mouth and he's fine) and Dan has chewed up my wooden clothes horse which has sat in my room literally for a year and never been touched
> 
> Dan has been a total twit today too, he completely destroyed a brand new (not even an hour old) frisbee i bought for them, he's generally behaving really badly inside and out etc etc, thankfully Tummel has been really good recently in every way apart from this SA.
> 
> My plan for tomorrow is to leave the crate open, but put the smaller crate in front of my door so he can't get to it to scratch it, hopefully he'll manage to keep fairly calm, this makes my life harder though as then i don't know whos eaten what, the kongs are 2 different sizes so now they can't have those unless there's only spread or peanut butter in them, and i have to be careful what chews i give too as if Dan takes too long Tummel will eat them instead


I'm sorry to read this. You've had a really bad day. How old is Tummel now?


----------



## Dimwit

Twiggy said:


> We really must arrange a visit. I'm quite sure Dimwit and Holly will get on famously....!!
> 
> We can have a cup of tea whilst they're both sniffing the floor....LOL


Sounds like a great plan!


----------



## ballybee

Twiggy said:


> I'm sorry to read this. You've had a really bad day. How old is Tummel now?


he's 3, and has always suffered from SA but it's getting beyond a joke now  I've only had this crate a week and now it's ruined


----------



## BessieDog

Bess got the all clear from the vet today. He's happy with her and doesn't need to see her again so the hormone treatment worked. 

Trouble is she's regressed in behaviour to early Feb this year - before her season! As Pezant will attest she was back to her old self at ringcraft tonight!  doesn't bode well for our next show on Sunday. Her breeder should be coming to see her at the show. If she misbehaves do you think I could ask for my money back?


----------



## Dogless

I wanted to take the boys to the forest today as the road up there is closed tomorrow for repairs and then we probably won't get out until the G8 is over. Anyway, I couldn't as they have messed with my medication and added yet another drug which has made me feel very unsafe to drive today .

So..took them to the closest field for an hour and a half or so. Lots of training and play and fun, it was lovely . There was even a break in the rain for us . Thought it might be a disaster as, just as we left home, a van decided to drive straight over the pavement at speed to get to the next road rather than driving road the estate. I had to dodge out of the way fast and then the driver wound the window down, stuck out his arm, stared at us and started to make those "kissy" noises which Kilo HATES. I asked him to stop as the dogs didn't like it but he carried on, so Kilo barked and I apologised and we moved on. Went around the next corner and there was a cat - no big reaction but it got Kilo up on his toes....anyway...nothing else seen so Kilo had a shake off and we carried on . Gold stars again for the CHs .


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I wanted to take the boys to the forest today as the road up there is closed tomorrow for repairs and then we probably won't get out until the G8 is over. Anyway, I couldn't as they have messed with my medication and added yet another drug which has made me feel very unsafe to drive today .
> 
> So..took them to the closest field for an hour and a half or so. Lots of training and play and fun, it was lovely . There was even a break in the rain for us . Thought it might be a disaster as, just as we left home, a van decided to drive straight over the pavement at speed to get to the next road rather than driving road the estate. I had to dodge out of the way fast and then the driver wound the window down, stuck out his arm, stared at us and started to make those "kissy" noises which Kilo HATES. I asked him to stop as the dogs didn't like it but he carried on, so Kilo barked and I apologised and we moved on. Went around the next corner and there was a cat - no big reaction but it got Kilo up on his toes....anyway...nothing else seen so Kilo had a shake off and we carried on . Gold stars again for the CHs .


Oh dear - poor you, can you change the medication or do you have to let it settle down a bit?

Honestly that bl**dy van driver, but that's so nice that Kilo was able to calm again 

ballybee - I hope Dan the man and Tummel have a better day today. I don't know much at all about SA but you have my sympathies, it must be really hard to deal with.

Dimwit - how is the little man today? How are you lovely lady?

Bessie - so pleased to hear that Bess has the all clear. I hope she has a sudden lightbulb moment before Sunday, paws crossed. Is it a common thing?

Twiggy - I hope all is well with you?

We're good at this end, took Molly out for a long walk very early and just got back from a funeral. She's been good but itching to explore the garden - I think Derek the resident pigeon was teasing her. Off for lunch with friends in a moment.... basically yeah, I'm skiving. I'll probably pay for it tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Oh dear - poor you, can you change the medication or do you have to let it settle down a bit?
> 
> Honestly that bl**dy van driver, but that's so nice that Kilo was able to calm again
> 
> ballybee - I hope Dan the man and Tummel have a better day today. I don't know much at all about SA but you have my sympathies, it must be really hard to deal with.
> 
> Dimwit - how is the little man today? How are you lovely lady?
> 
> Bessie - so pleased to hear that Bess has the all clear. I hope she has a sudden lightbulb moment before Sunday, paws crossed. Is it a common thing?
> 
> Twiggy - I hope all is well with you?
> 
> We're good at this end, took Molly out for a long walk very early and just got back from a funeral. She's been good but itching to explore the garden - I think Derek the resident pigeon was teasing her. Off for lunch with friends in a moment.... basically yeah, I'm skiving. I'll probably pay for it tomorrow.


The increase in one of them that I'm already on will settle as I've had side effects for a week or so each time we increase it. The new one will hopefully settle as I don't like it...but did sleep from about 2300 until 0415 so that's good .

Sorry you had to attend a funeral. Derek sounds funny!


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Dimwit - how is the little man today? How are you lovely lady?


We're both ok, had a lovely (wet and windy) walk after work, we went up the hill and then played in the woods - certainly blew away the cobwebs! Dimwit also had much fun rolling in something revolting so he smelt like something has died with overtones of fox poo. Much to his disgust he has now had a bath so smells like shampoo/dead thing/fox poo  on the plus side we didn't see anyone else till right at the end, and he walked very nicely on his harness


----------



## Dogless

Great separate afternoon / evening walks. 6 out of about the 12 dogs here that the boys play with were on the dog walking area with the dog walker / petsitter so Rudi had the time of his life tearing about!! He behaved really nicely, walked to heel offlead and sat until released to play and came back from the dogs whenever I asked him to so I am absolutely chuffed to bits with him again .

Took Kilo to the top fields and played some "Ready Steady" and then he carried his toy all the way back, prancing like a puppy.

Needless to say we got soaked!! .


----------



## ballybee

MollySmith said:


> ballybee - I hope Dan the man and Tummel have a better day today. I don't know much at all about SA but you have my sympathies, it must be really hard to deal with.


it's really hard to cope with, he gets so stressed. Today went really well, we went on a 3 hour walk, boys had tons of fun, they were left with a variety of things to eat from 11:30 to 5:20, I blocked the door using my wee crate and they both seemed to be asleep when I came in.  I can't be doing such long walks everyday though, i'm exhausted!


----------



## Dimwit

Ballybee - It must be so hard for you. Glad it went well yesterday though, could you try gradually reducing the amount of exercise? 

Dimwit has requested that someone ring the RSPCA on his behalf - he has been very cruelly treated. Last night he had not one, but TWO baths, and he was attacked with tomato ketchup. All his good work at making himself smell gorgeous on his walk last night has been ruined, and I even washed the remaining poo/slime off his collar 

Poor little drama queen refused to lie on the sofa with me and sulked all evening - well, apart from when he forgot that he was sulking and "asked" to do some training. He can now lie on the mat and not move when I drop a bit of kibble which is amazing progress for him


----------



## GingerRogers

ballybee said:


> it's really hard to cope with, he gets so stressed. Today went really well, we went on a 3 hour walk, boys had tons of fun, they were left with a variety of things to eat from 11:30 to 5:20, I blocked the door using my *wee crate *and they both seemed to be asleep when I came in.  I can't be doing such long walks everyday though, i'm exhausted!


You have a crate for weeing in  lol soz I know your all small up there 

Sorry you are having problems I know what its like , its a full time job arranging things, Rory was awful and the neighbour even worse , we ended up just taking him everywhere we could, luckily I worked from home but visiting clients etc was a rigamarole, if it wasn't too warm he would come in the car, absolutely fine left in the car as long as it wasn't on our drive, sometimes I would just drive it round the corner just to leave him in it  if it was warm or it was a long meeting I had to take him to Mums 45 mins away.

Being lazy and will catch up later, Ninja still suffering with her phantom/sickness (think they are linked) but has eaten a bit of scrambled egg last night and this morning which appear to be staying in as well as a bit of yoghurt. Hooray 

Took the poor little thing to the common last night, was very brave we normally steer clear, but it was very windy and I wanted somewhere tree free, she is still full of it so don't think there's much wrong. We spotted a spaniel running mentally spanner free as they do  so were even braver and turned and walked round the outskirts of town back to the car, it was a 50/50 choice, I could have followed the spanner at distance but people either go around the common or across it, I decided they were going around it, wrong choice  they were going across which meant we crossed paths as I got back to the car, there was a staffie coming from the other direction with 2 young girls in charge so I took the lesser of two evils (the evil being the young girls not the staff) and went towards the spaniel his owner kept it nice and close thankfully, but Ginger just came 'this way' and was the best girly with no fuss at all, in some situations she really finds moving away from the threat a reward in itself 

Her recall is improving, the long grass helps, she panics when she cant see you 

Oh and flirt pole is a big success .


----------



## ballybee

Dimwit said:


> Ballybee - It must be so hard for you. Glad it went well yesterday though, could you try gradually reducing the amount of exercise?


i'm going to have to, i'm on my feet at work too so can't be doing that much!



GingerRogers said:


> You have a crate for weeing in  lol soz I know your all small up there
> 
> Sorry you are having problems I know what its like , its a full time job arranging things, Rory was awful and the neighbour even worse , we ended up just taking him everywhere we could, luckily I worked from home but visiting clients etc was a rigamarole, if it wasn't too warm he would come in the car, absolutely fine left in the car as long as it wasn't on our drive, sometimes I would just drive it round the corner just to leave him in it  if it was warm or it was a long meeting I had to take him to Mums 45 mins away.


ha ha ha....small crate! my neighbours have been lovely, going to buy them steaks or something! it's horrendous, I no longer have the option of taking him everywhere so he now has to learn to settle 

Tummel was great this morning, he met a lab, a 4 mo sausage pup, a mutt and....a ridge! I think he's in love, she's 10 mo and called Kiara  she's a rescue and lives here so lots of playdates I hope  his recalls been good too!

Dan is being awful, I can't let him off around other dogs, he constantly tries to hump them, and goes totally deaf  his recall has been pretty shoddy and he's generally being a sod ut: seriously thinking about neutering him but he's so nervous with them as it is!


----------



## Twiggy

You've got to laugh.......

Phone goes an hour ago which husband answers and it's apparently the vet for me.

(Just remember he snapped my head of at the suggestion of veterinary thermal imaging Wednesday lunchtime.)

Vet "I need a favour"

Me "What's it this time?"

Vet "I need an agility demonstration on 20 July. Who do you know?"

I made several suggestions and then told him Tremor was being photoed/scanned on Monday afternoon. I also pointed out that the thermographer is not an idiot but a BSc no less.

I also suggested we have a bet as I'm pretty certain her right hip will show up bright red. He declined because he said he'd lose....!!

I think that's at least two up to me.....


----------



## tiatortilla

Another good walk today  She was on the longline but all except one of her recalls were perfect so I don't think she'll have to stay on for too much longer.

We saw a miniature Daschund (omg they're so cute, if I wanted a tiny dog...) who was off lead, quite close and it had a couple of little barks at Tia and she didn't care. I think Tia wanted to play tbh but I'm not letting her get to close to any other dogs with the longline on in case she starts doing 'handbags' or anything, but she got lots of treats and praise for being so relaxed 
She was also relaxed around the JRT puppy that she was a bit funny with before, and a bit further in the distance, a GSD (I think... it's yellow/blonde and that confuses me) which I'm really happy about because y'know, all big, fluffy, pointy eared dogs are her nemesis.
She did growl at one dog on the way home, the narrow road outside our house is a bit of a problem with any dog that isn't tiny. OH took her out earlier while I was at an appointment and said that there were two little dogs and she didn't even growl though. So 1 out of 6 is pretty good really :biggrin:

ETA: I forgot to say, when we saw the JRT puppy, she was quite a way away from me and I watched her notice the puppy, then she came straight to me and sat down in front of me to get her treat  Clever girly!


----------



## Dogless

Just popping in as busy day been had. This place is absolutely packed with people temporarily so we were out for a few hours this morning. Went to top fields - busy and sports pitches are out of bounds, but went to our small field and it was free luckily. On the way through we were stopped by quite a few people who wanted to talk about the CHs. They handled it really well - I sit Kilo and let Rudi greet which seems to work in these situations. I found it very stressful and they found it a little stressful too as Kilo jumped up at me as we left the last group and their first 5 minutes of play they went in very hard indeed - but they handled things well so I am pleased .

It's raining hard and blowing a gale so I don't expect there to be crowds out when we meet Diz shortly. Please!

Went to the Titanic exhibition and for lunch today too - hubby managed to get from about 1100 off work for my birthday .


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Just popping in as busy day been had. This place is absolutely packed with people temporarily so we were out for a few hours this morning. Went to top fields - busy and sports pitches are out of bounds, but went to our small field and it was free luckily. On the way through we were stopped by quite a few people who wanted to talk about the CHs. They handled it really well - I sit Kilo and let Rudi greet which seems to work in these situations. I found it very stressful and they found it a little stressful too as Kilo jumped up at me as we left the last group and their first 5 minutes of play they went in very hard indeed - but they handled things well so I am pleased .
> 
> It's raining hard and blowing a gale so I don't expect there to be crowds out when we meet Diz shortly. Please!
> 
> Went to the Titanic exhibition and for lunch today too - hubby managed to get from about 1100 off work for my birthday .


HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 

Not much to report today, other than his skin is still flaming up!


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
> 
> Not much to report today, other than his skin is still flaming up!


Forgot to say your collar should be with you soon .


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Forgot to say your collar should be with you soon .


Aw Thanks very much


----------



## Canine K9

I`m seriously fed up of this dog.. Sorry for all the negative posts.
When I put my feet on the floor they end up full of sores from being bitten.
If I pet him, I get bit, If I ignore him I get bit, If I tell him off I get Bit. If I try to train him I get bit  
I`m constantly full of cuts off him because he "Kills" the hand/foot
He barks in my face, when on his own, when told off etc.
His recall is gone all together, even though I worked hard on it.


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> I`m seriously fed up of this dog.. Sorry for all the negative posts.
> When I put my feet on the floor they end up full of sores from being bitten.
> If I pet him, I get bit, If I ignore him I get bit, If I tell him off I get Bit. If I try to train him I get bit
> I`m constantly full of cuts off him because he "Kills" the hand/foot
> He barks in my face, when on his own, when told off etc.
> His recall is gone all together, even though I worked hard on it.


Oh no . Please try not to be too fed up, you will get there, I promise.

What do you do? Redirect to a tuggy etc etc? What is his impulse control like - do you do a lot of work on it and controlling it with toys etc?

His recall will return if you carry on. If he's in teen mode just think about it as having to go back to basics.

If you tell us some more specifics then I am sure we can all chip in and help with suggestions a lot more .


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Oh no . Please try not to be too fed up, you will get there, I promise.
> 
> What do you do? Redirect to a tuggy etc etc? What is his impulse control like - do you do a lot of work on it and controlling it with toys etc?
> 
> His recall will return if you carry on. If he's in teen mode just think about it as having to go back to basics.
> 
> If you tell us some more specifics then I am sure we can all chip in and help with suggestions a lot more .


Just say No and redirect to a chew toy which is ignored. Don`t really do lots of impulse control tbh  Thanks


----------



## tiatortilla

Canine K9 said:


> Just say No and redirect to a chew toy which is ignored. Don`t really do lots of impulse control tbh  Thanks


It was when she was a lot younger, but when Tia went into crazy bitey puppy mode I literally just ignored her and left the room. I'd come back in to play, and then if she bit me - I'd leave again. Have you tried that?


----------



## Canine K9

tiatortilla said:


> It was when she was a lot younger, but when Tia went into crazy bitey puppy mode I literally just ignored her and left the room. I'd come back in to play, and then if she bit me - I'd leave again. Have you tried that?


No but I`ll try it thanks


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Just say No and redirect to a chew toy which is ignored. Don`t really do lots of impulse control tbh  Thanks


It does sound as if impulse control might be at the root of your problems - does Bailey have to work for everything? Wait for his food, for his toy to be thrown etc?


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> It does sound as if impulse control might be at the root of your problems - does Bailey have to work for everything? Wait for his food, for his toy to be thrown etc?


I`ve started to feed his mince through a kong only to let him view being alone as a good thing to prevent barking when alone but toys etc I just throw no waiting involved usually


----------



## Dimwit

Canine K9 said:


> Just say No and redirect to a chew toy which is ignored. Don`t really do lots of impulse control tbh  Thanks


If he ignores the chew toy then I would try to find something else - does he have a favourite toy or treat you could use instead? 
I would also highly recommend some impulse control games, Sprocket loves doing mat work and it is great for calming him down when he is starting to get too wound up.

One other thing is, if his skin is bothering him, it may be making him a bit more on edge. Have you asked a vet about this? I know that Westies can be prone to skin conditions so it may be worth getting the vets opinion.


----------



## Canine K9

Dimwit said:


> If he ignores the chew toy then I would try to find something else - does he have a favourite toy or treat you could use instead?
> I would also highly recommend some impulse control games, Sprocket loves doing mat work and it is great for calming him down when he is starting to get too wound up.
> 
> One other thing is, if his skin is bothering him, it may be making him a bit more on edge. Have you asked a vet about this? I know that Westies can be prone to skin conditions so it may be worth getting the vets opinion.


Yes he does thanks  Yes he is probably going to the vets ASAP


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> I`ve started to feed his mince through a kong only to let him view being alone as a good thing to prevent barking when alone but toys etc I just throw no waiting involved usually


I'd make him wait for everything until released. No fuss etc until he's calm and sat nicely, no collar and lead on until same, no walk until he's calm, Kong placed on floor and he sits and waits until he is told he can get it, gradually building the time he does so etc etc. Get really good control over a tug game or throwing so he waits for your command to play and eventually waits whilst you throw a toy until released to chase it and gradually just build it up until he is in far better control of himself and you are in far better control of him - doing those types of exercises on walks are fun and will hopefully build your bond and his focus on you too so will help with recall as well.


----------



## Dogless

Things any better today CanineK9?
Cheesecake?


----------



## moonviolet

Thought I'd share the silly pavement walking game Tink and I played on the last leg of our walk this morning. 

As cars passed we have to do an action, so our game was like this:

Red= sit
White= down
Blue=hand target
Silver= few paces of running
Black= a few steps back

we both had fun and had lovely focus, she ignored all the Friday night detritus .

I'll probably add or vary things but it stopped me falling into being predictable.

Hope everyone is having a good day.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Things any better today CanineK9?
> Cheesecake?


Yes things a lot better thank you 
He has a habit of jumping up at people in the streets so went on a (very boring!) pavement walk. He did well.
Mouthing was a lot less so far today!
Got his first dog show tomorrow


----------



## BessieDog

moonviolet said:


> Thought I'd share the silly pavement walking game Tink and I played on the last leg of our walk this morning.
> 
> As cars passed we have to do an action, so our game was like this:
> 
> Red= sit
> White= down
> Blue=hand target
> Silver= few paces of running
> Black= a few steps back
> 
> we both had fun and had lovely focus, she ignored all the Friday night detritus .
> 
> I'll probably add or vary things but it stopped me falling into being predictable.
> 
> Hope everyone is having a good day.


Love this! Great idea. 

But it might be an idea to vary the actions and colours. I can just imagine the conversation in a black car 'do you see that daft woman with her dog? Every time we pass her she walks backwards!'


----------



## moonviolet

BessieDog said:


> Love this! Great idea.
> 
> But it might be an idea to vary the actions and colours. I can just imagine the conversation in a black car 'do you see that daft woman with her dog? Every time we pass her she walks backwards!'


a funeral procession could be a challenge too!

I'm thinking 2 repeats if the third car is the same colour it's wild card time, spin/twist or even an about turn. All makes it a bit less about getting from point A to point B and more about interacting


----------



## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> I'm thinking 2 repeats if the third car is the same colour it's wild card time, spin/twist or even an about turn. All makes it a bit less about getting from point A to point B and more about interacting












What now clever clogs ?


----------



## diefenbaker

Back at home with the boy. Equilibrium in the cosmos is restored. Went to QE Country Park for a walk. He was on his bestest behaviour especially when we came across the Doodlemania BBQ. It's probably his favourite breed.


----------



## moonviolet

diefenbaker said:


> What now clever clogs ?


close my eyes " didn't see it didn't see it " that or a tap dance!


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all! thought I would pop in and say hi... wanted to post about my two but not really worthy of a post on it's own! 

So Rusty is currently lame  Out on a walk Friday afternoon with the two of them and he came back after disappearing behind a hedge hopping a bit. Checked his feet and no thorns or anything. Carried on the walk as already half way round. Anyhow, still sore today and I can't finger point where the soreness is. One of his pads on the sore leg is very cracked but he isn't worried about me poking it. Needless to say he is on one short lead walk and house rest and vets on Monday if still limping. I'm hoping it is the pad... We are booked for four agility runs next Sunday which looks like a really nice show- not sure that is going to happen now  Shame as he has been going great guns at agility and even managed to do a short course at full height on Thursday (and yes, it's crossed my mind that the lameness on Fri is related...) 

Shae- well, she has been a star recently  Just a lovely little being to be around, very cuddly, listening well and generally being a good girl. One small hiccup this morning when she managed to get to an onlead dog round a windy forest path up ahead but she recalled immediately so disaster averted, I apologised to the lady as the dog was obviously quite worked up. 

Today she went to a local fete and won best puppy  We also discovered her half brother (same dad and mums are sisters) lives in the village next to us! We will be meeting up hopefully to walk them together soon. He was absolutely gorgeous... Shae was sooo excited to meet him!


----------



## Canine K9

So proud of my boy tonight, he lay down for 3 hours without a murmur no biting when petted or anything  Dog show tomorrow, very nervous but I`m afraid you all might have a few photos


----------



## BessieDog

Good luck CK9. Relax, enjoy and have fun. If you start to feel nervous just remember ill be elsewhere showing Bess and she'll be making me feel like a real idiot! 

Bess's breeder might be coming to tomorrow's show - which will ensure Bess makes me look stupid. . 

I do love her though when she all bathed and brushed ready for a show!


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> So proud of my boy tonight, he lay down for 3 hours without a murmur no biting when petted or anything  Dog show tomorrow, very nervous but I`m afraid you all might have a few photos


That is great . All I'll say about the dog show is to maybe hang out on the outskirts and edge slowly into the 'action' - any bonkers behaviour I'd retreat again to try and keep Bailey as calm as you can.

Very best of luck .


----------



## Dogless

Sorry that Rusty's lame Nicki - I hope that rest and short lead walks does the trick. Always worrying isn't it?


----------



## Nicki85

Yup, very worried... the amount he gets up to and he has never been lame before  If the vets was open today he would have been there now TBH. Even though he isn't limping that bad and I know most would wait a few days- I just hate seeing him limp. I keep going over and poking him but the most reaction I've got out of him so far is to send him to sleep!

I even had a dream last night that he was jumping from the top of a two storey house  Argh.

K9- have a good time at the show, remember to relax and that you are there for fun!!!


----------



## Nicki85

Bessiedog- good luck at your show tomorrow!


----------



## Canine K9

Well he is bathed and brushed now all ready but whenever I brush his fur right the little minx keeps shaking himself= undoing all work


----------



## GingerRogers

Good luck k9 remember to keep a good eye on Bailey and take a break if he shows sign over getting overwhelmed.
Good luck bess too hope she doesn't show you up in front of her breeder.


----------



## Dogless

Very stressful early morning walk this morning, policemen everywhere. Usually we don't see a soul bar Dizzy and "the" lab going past the field, but we had three almost meetings with "the" lab running off from his owner and a policeman who kept appearing and staring at a gap in the hedge and then disappearing; just watching the dogs I think but unnerving all the same. The CHs were good but I was worn out from staying calm and controlled and watching our surroundings like a hawk. Long line day for Kilo for sure :yesnod:. Roll on Tuesday afternoon :yesnod: .

Anyhow, the boys enjoyed their walk and that's what matters .


----------



## Dogless

Good Luck Bessiedog .


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless, glad you had an incident-free walk, though not so good hat it was stressful for you.

Good luck today Bess - hope Bess behaves herself!

Nicki - sorry that Rusty is lame, fingers crossed its nothing serious

Canine - good luck today as well, hope Bailey behaves as well and doesn't get overexcited.

The dimwit managed to pull on his brave pants yesterday at scentwork after his trauma last week. He was fine at first and then as we were waiting for the instructor to hide his scent mouse for the second search he lost the plot a bit and got scared again
We managed to get him searching for cheese (he wasn't at all interested in his usual catnip-scented toys) and by he end he was much more like his usual self, tail wagging and very keen
I'm very glad I had booked onto the class yesterday and that he managed to have a positive experience!


----------



## Tyton

Been reading with interest for some time but had to post today. With 2 15 week old newfoundland puppies and a 3 yr old with a big fear-aggression problem there's no end to what we're working on!!

All three surpassed themselves this afternoon though. The pups managed their first foray down the beach for coffee totally off-lead and other than a brief foray into the beach shop en route from Beau, they were near perfect 

Tyton was brilliant. He was calm meeting a rather bouncy boxer, gave one little cough at the chef whom he is scared of and did a very good 'watch me' when the scary door-in-the-fence opened on the cafe terrace. He had a little woof when there were 4 or 5 'yachties' crowding him to see his webbed feet and kept sticking camera phones in his face, but calmed again almost instantly when we distracted them with puppy cuddles!

I know it was only one walk, but it is nice when things go well for a change


----------



## tiatortilla

Good luck BessieDog and k9 in your respective shows 
Dimwit - Great to hear he's getting back to normal!

--

Tia got some off lead time at last today  It's been rainy and it's Sunday so I thought there probably wouldn't be anyone else around if we went to the park (no distractions!) and I was right.
Her recalls were all good too so I'm feeling more relaxed about that now, not going to get too cocky though  There were a few moments when I knew she wouldn't come back if I called her because she was so engrossed in smells, but I'll build up to calling her away from good sniffs!
I'd like to use her incessant need to find smells at some point, I think she'd be quite good at scent-followy things and she does seem to think she's a spaniel  It'll have to wait until we're not doing a million and one other things though!


----------



## Dimwit

tiatortilla said:


> Dimwit - Great to hear he's getting back to normal!


Well, normal for dimwit anyway :lol:
I can sympathise with the recall, Sprocket tends to ignore me when he is sniffing as well. He is getting better though, and he does at least listen to me when we are actually doing scentwork.

We had the last of our 6-week group of lessons with behaviourist/trainer today an dimwit had a whale of a time as we were mainly playing with toys. He has done so well there, though - only quite basic stuff but he settled so quickly with the other dogs and people. Very proud of my little doglet :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Did separate walks tonight due to all the activity here. Good job I did as there was so much going on but both CHs were stars, bless them . I was as stressed as a stressed thing. Headache isn't the word :incazzato:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Did separate walks tonight due to all the activity here. Good job I did as there was so much going on but both CHs were stars, bless them . I was as stressed as a stressed thing. Headache isn't the word :incazzato:.


'Liked' for your good boys, not your headache! Hope it goes away soon


----------



## Nicki85

DL- hope things become Stress free soon!! I'm guessing there is something going on around you? (Sorry if I missed it!)
Dimwit- Glad you managed to get a positive out of the class... it's fustrating when you know they enjoy it but they are worried... 

Well, Rusty is still sore... But that might be my fault as yesterday he seemed good so I let him off for 10mins. I could have kicked myself after as he went absolutely crazy was hoping by the afternoon.... Today he has had a very short lead walk and I'm stuffing him with a frozen kong to keep him amused. I'm undecided about vets- it seems to be improving and I'm pretty sure its a paw issue now. He's stretching the leg out fine so I don't think there is anything going on further up. He is weight bearing so I think its a bruised sole... As long as things continue to improve then I won't go to the vets. 

It's very hard to keep a Spaniel that is used to three hours + exercise and fun stuff quiet!!


----------



## Dogless

Sorry that Rusty's still lame Nicki, just sounds like he needs more rest as you say.



Nicki85 said:


> DL- hope things become Stress free soon!! I'm guessing there is something going on around you? (Sorry if I missed it!)


The G8 summit - just a small meeting .

Two good walks today; very limited as to where we can go so small field for some training and play this morning and up to the top with Dizzy this afternoon. The stress continues but the boys have been good . I have cabin fever and am pretty stressed .


----------



## moonviolet

Nicki85 said:


> It's very hard to keep a Spaniel that is used to three hours + exercise and fun stuff quiet!!


I don't know if there is anything useful in this. I'll confess I saved the link for later and later hasn't come yet. :blushing: Crate Rest Activities for Dogs after Back, Hip, Leg Injuries, ACL or TPLO, Heartworm treatmentetc - YouTube

I'm afraid by inner hag had a bit of an outing today, I didn't so much as raise my voice but I think i got my point across. :devil:

We were having a lovely walk we've brushed aside a few numpties and TInk had been been very brave when 3 collies charged us from behind. 
I decided to take the through the park route home. hoping the meadow would be empty with it being overcast and it was there was just a person on a bench reading on the far side
So we did a bit of heelwork and a bit of running around like loons then sudden a very excited staffie charges the length of the field at us.
i wonder where the owner is by now chunky staffie is dodging me and trying to hump Tink top, tail and sideways
He's clearly very excited to have a playmate who can blame him he's been brought here and ignored. He's splatting Tink now. He's not at all aggressive just very very over excited so I gently take his collar, with that the woman on the bench gets up does a half hearted call, when that doesn't work she wanders over, like she's sauntering along a beach in a floaty dress.
I'd dropped Tinks lead but she wanted to stay close to me and humpy is all thrusty.

my hackles begin to rise.
" no hurry!" i call out
she doesn't speed up or reply. 
no "sorry" when she finally does arrive. I suggest if she can't recall maybe she should have him on lead if she wants to sit and read, he doesn't *like* being on a lead apparently
I suggest that i don't* like *having to deal with her out of control dog she tells me he is very well trained ACTUALLY! 
I say yes I can see that, he came first time you called and isn't a bother to anyone. 
she then get a bit angsty and aggressive I offer to let her have a lead if she needs one. 
she tells me where to shove it. 
I say thank you for the suggestion and i have enjoyed our exchange so much i'm going to go and tell the park keeper all about it and walk off . she returns to her bench 
Staffie is put on lead with that i see one of the park staff I have spoken to before he likes Tink so I asked him if he could do me a favour 
Tell him the situation and ask if he could nod when I point the appear to use his radio. He very kindly does so . I thank him and leave him to get on with his work by the time i look up again the woman and her dog have disappeared.
:ihih:


----------



## Dogless

MV you are an evil genius :devil:.


----------



## Nicki85

MV- I am not surprised you reacted the way you did... Blimey it's the least I can do to apologise if one of mine gets up to an onlead dog, I can never understand why others don't think the same?! 
Doesn't sound like TInks was to worried by it all though?

Thank you for the link as well, we will have a look at that tomorrow- it is useful to have these things to hand when you need them! 

DL- Lol, I see now... yup... just a small meeting...

Well Rusty is looking less peg leg like now, he came to Shae's pre-agility class (more about that in a sec...) and got to watch it all from the boot behind the Barjo tailgate which I think he liked. He would have preffered to be running around the field like a loon though! More rest tomorrow and we will see where we are... I'm prepared to take him to the vets if it looks worse or not improving at a decent rate.

So Shae had her very first pre-agility session (don't worry not a jump or weave pole in sight!!) in a great big field with horses next door (Ek!). We did a bit of play work, touch pads, going through the tunnel to a toy, wobble boards.... She did it all fine and loved every minute (especially when the instructor held her- Shae gave her some lovely kisses...). We were completely on the toy for the first half but interest waned for the alst 30-20 mins which is fair enough. Need to take more toys and cycle them to keep interest I think. She is very excitable at the moment but manageable when I've got a bit of sausage in my hand  Just very very keen- it is nice to see!! I was pleased with her.. but she is going to be so fast... she is super confident about everything and does it all at warp speed. Need to get my running shoes on...


----------



## diefenbaker

I've worked out a way to accelerate the CaniX training. I changed the units on the treadmill from miles to kilometres. And bingo overnight I'm the new Mo Farah. Well I'm a slaphead anyway.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I've worked out a way to accelerate the CaniX training. I changed the units on the treadmill from miles to kilometres. And bingo overnight I'm the new Mo Farah. Well I'm a slaphead anyway.


I use km rather than miles....so much better for the ego .

Spent a few hours out this morning - Sir K has decided that all the extra folk and activity are now 'normal' and was totally relaxed about it all. I was so proud of both dogs, they walked so nicely through everything again until we got to the fields and dealt with much larger and noisier helicopters than they were used to landing and taking off just over the road, sirens, motorbike convoys.....that kind of thing :blink:. We were stopped a few times or drivers called out "beautiful dogs" and they just carried on :001_wub:.

The BW definitely wasn't shut down he was listening to what I was asking him to do, alert, relaxed open mouth, relaxed body - I am chuffed with him and chuffed with Rudi taking it all in his stride at his age .

Anyhow, after we'd navigated everything we pottered, played, sat and chilled and did some training for a few hours and then came home.

Please forgive the horrible boastful nature of this post; I have to tell at least some people who will understand how much it means to me :thumbup:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Glad Kilo has decided the extra people are no threat, perhaps you can loan him out at security check 

He is doing very well.

MV - Awesome i would love to have been there,sounds like Tink took the episode in her stride which is a huge....... err......... stride 

Nikki - hope Rustys leg is better soon, better rest than do more damage though, but he wont appreciate it I am sure 

I haven't been working on much as the ninja has still been struggling but after two days on scrambled egg appears to be on the mend, her appetites definitely back any way .


----------



## BessieDog

MV - priceless! What a great way to deal with the situation. Will make her think twice next time! 

DL - we get big twin rotor (can't think what they're called at the mo) helicopters coming low over the house sometimes, and Bess has to go watch them fly over. But if one came in to land near her I think she'd freak! I think your boys behaved exceptionally well! 

Nikki - always a nuisance having to keep them quiet and amused isn't it? Hope his legs better soon. 

GR - glad things are on the up! 

Well the samples of Taste of the Wild arrived. Opened a pack and put some in her bowl. When I hand fed it to her she ate one piece. I then put some in her kong wobbler and she proceeded to play a game of knocking them all out, but not eating any. So I get out the dustpan and brush and start sweeping them up. She the comes and eats them out of the dustpan! 

Although I want her to eat something, it does seem a backwards step giving her kibble. On the other hand if I can get her to eat this it will be easier for Michael to get food into her when we go on holiday (one week tomorrow!!). I just don't want to go through the dustpan routine at every mealtime!!

Oh - I've got a job interview on Thursday. I've been headhunted (which is flattering) and its for a really good job on silly money! I do not want to work full time, I do not want to start commuting to London again, but the money is so good I don't see how I could turn it down. So please don't wish me luck - I'd rather they didn't want me!


----------



## GingerRogers

BessieDog said:


> MV - priceless! What a great way to deal with the situation. Will make her think twice next time!
> 
> DL - we get big twin rotor (can't think what they're called at the mo) helicopters coming low over the house sometimes, and Bess has to go watch them fly over. But if one came in to land near her I think she'd freak! I think your boys behaved exceptionally well!
> 
> Nikki - always a nuisance having to keep them quiet and amused isn't it? Hope his legs better soon.
> 
> GR - glad things are on the up!
> 
> Well the samples of Taste of the Wild arrived. Opened a pack and put some in her bowl. When I hand fed it to her she ate one piece. I then put some in her kong wobbler and she proceeded to play a game of knocking them all out, but not eating any. *So I get out the dustpan and brush and start sweeping them up. She the comes and eats them out of the dustpan! *
> 
> Although I want her to eat something, it does seem a backwards step giving her kibble. On the other hand if I can get her to eat this it will be easier for Michael to get food into her when we go on holiday (one week tomorrow!!). I just don't want to go through the dustpan routine at every mealtime!!
> 
> Oh - I've got a job interview on Thursday. I've been headhunted (which is flattering) and its for a really good job on silly money! I do not want to work full time, I do not want to start commuting to London again, but the money is so good I don't see how I could turn it down. So please don't wish me luck - I'd rather they didn't want me!


She really doesn't want to be a poshed up show dog does she, she'd rather be a manky stray scavenging out the bins lol

I know the feeling but if ninja doesnt take back to the raw, peculiar little bugger that she is, then its better she eats something than nothing i cant keep on eggs I dont think.

Very bad luck with the job


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> DL - we get big twin rotor (can't think what they're called at the mo) helicopters coming low over the house sometimes, and Bess has to go watch them fly over. But if one came in to land near her I think she'd freak! I think your boys behaved exceptionally well!
> 
> Oh - I've got a job interview on Thursday. I've been headhunted (which is flattering) and its for a really good job on silly money! I do not want to work full time, I do not want to start commuting to London again, but the money is so good I don't see how I could turn it down. So please don't wish me luck - I'd rather they didn't want me!


Chinooks  They're used to helis!

Very good luck with the job...or not :blink:.


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* - You boast away - and rightly so.

*Bessiedog* - Wishing you terrible luck with the job interview

*GR *- Pleased the ninja is back on the mend.

Little Holly Bolly was excellent at agility this morning (well in a Holly way). I didn't feel like going but glad I made the effort.

She was awful for the first five minutes, didn't like the horse, sniffing the grass, etc. and then suddenly she sprang to life and went like a good 'un. She's more or less caught up with the other dogs in the class now, except I still hold her collar on the dog walk and A frame and we haven't tackled the see-saw yet. Not bad considering she's only been five times.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless* - You boast away - and rightly so.
> 
> *Bessiedog* - Wishing you terrible luck with the job interview
> 
> *GR *- *Pleased the ninja is back on the mend*.
> 
> Little Holly Bolly was excellent at agility this morning (well in a Holly way). I didn't feel like going but glad I made the effort.
> 
> She was awful for the first five minutes, didn't like the horse, sniffing the grass, etc. and then suddenly she sprang to life and went like a good 'un. She's more or less caught up with the other dogs in the class now, except I still hold her collar on the dog walk and A frame and we haven't tackled the see-saw yet. Not bad considering she's only been five times.


So Am I! Thank you.

Glad that Little Holly Bolly is turning out good too! Bet she will beat the best before long with your care and guidance


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> So Am I! Thank you.
> 
> Glad that Little Holly Bolly is turning out good too! Bet she will beat the best before long with your care and guidance


Now let's not get carried away....LOL She might beat a snail on a very good day...!!


----------



## ballybee

just a quick post, we've had 3 successes so far with this new routine of leaving them...just away to head to work for 6 hours of fun  did a 2.5 hour walk today on a new route so hoping attempt no4 is a success too 

i'll write a better post when I get back x


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Now let's not get carried away....LOL She might beat a snail on a very good day...!!


I see a training challenge like one you've never done before :devil:


----------



## Nicki85

GOod day here  Rust is looking better still, if we are out you can't tell he is limping but at home he is still favouring it slightly. Lead walks for another day (ARGH!)
I almost went flying today when he spotted a Squizzel heading for a tree... He also thought a stone on the other side of the road was a cat.... 

Had a mishap this morning when Shae decided to do one of those "wall bounces" off a person in the forest. Very embarrassing... kind of died there and then... Back on lead for going past people me thinks. Second walk better, did a bit of toy play over the fields and she managed to ignore the kids playing and said hello nicely to the other dog and his humans so that was better. She is being more reactive at the moment and reacting to things which she hasn't done before and i'm wondering if she is going through her second fear period. 

Ballybee- sounds exhausting but glad they are behaving.
Doggless- hope your boys continued to be fab for you!
Twiggy- Holly sounds like she might just have been having a little bit of fun?!
BD- sounds so much like my Shae, you need another dog... gets Shae eating everytime if I ask Rusty to come in and tell him that he can eat it!


----------



## BessieDog

Nicki85 said:


> GOod day here  Rust is looking better still, if we are out you can't tell he is limping but at home he is still favouring it slightly. Lead walks for another day (ARGH!)
> I almost went flying today when he spotted a Squizzel heading for a tree... He also thought a stone on the other side of the road was a cat....
> 
> BD- sounds so much like my Shae, you need another dog... gets Shae eating everytime if I ask Rusty to come in and tell him that he can eat it!


The amount of times Bess thinks a clump of grass is a pheasant or something crouching in the field.... Of course it used to catch me off guard as I knew what it was, and would suddenly be launched across the field towards it. Now I'm better at spotting any hazard - even the inanimate ones! 

Hmm, let me think. Another dog. Well seeing as Bess is occupying our only dog house today having almost totally destroyed what I had left of a garden (in the 10 minutes I took my eye off her) this afternoon I don't think I could cope with another just now. She's lucky she got any dinner to refuse tonight!


----------



## tiatortilla

GR, glad the ninja is on the mend 
Twiggy, great to hear that Holly is doing well too.
BD, Bess eating out the dustpan made me laugh  Uhh.. hope you don't do too well in your interview? Haha.
Ballybee, really pleased for you that you're leaving them is going better, long may it continue!
Nicki85, good to hear that Rusty's limp is getting better 
Dogless, a post of a boastful nature is always good to see! I've got one coming up too 

--

I'm so happy :thumbup: Tia's getting less reactive every day at the moment, we've seen so many dogs over the last few days and she's growled a couple of times and done no barking at all, even at dogs who have barked at her! It's so relaxing knowing that if I see another dog I don't have to find somewhere to hide, and also knowing that she's relaxed (ish) too.
The other day there was a dog exactly like MS's Molly and nowhere to hide and Tia was so great! Before a big black dog would have resulted in Tia turning into an absolute hellbeast but she just sat down nicely and watched "Molly". She's mostly lunging after the other dog has gone past, any tips on that?


----------



## ballybee

well they did it, was away for 5.5 hours, came home and they've obviously been sleeping and relaxed. My new routine is to make up what they're getting (kongs, filled bones, chews etc) in front of them, and go hide it around my bedroom about half an hour before they're due to go, so they see i've taken tasty stuff upstairs. I then spend the 30 minutes doing training/play with them, then we go upstairs. I use my small crate to block the door which means Tummel can't scratch away and have added an extra water bowl which seems to have helped immensly 

Today was ok, we've had 3 different incidents with offlead dogs bothering us (by us i mean me and Tum, Dan gets far too overexcited), one of which i know is really bad with other dogs so was really annoyed at the owner allowing her to come and harass us  the other 2 were annoying, one was a male lab who was being quite aggressive posture wise at Dan and the other was a collie X whos owner just had to come over and try to chat about Dan while i was trying to restrain 70+ kilos of dogs :nono: she also cycled over Tummels foot which caused him to yelp and snap, earning US dirty looks!!!!

Otherwise things have been going quite well, Tummels recall wasn't amazing today but hey, he's getting over his SA (i can say that once i've managed leaving them 4 times and come home to the same result right  ) and he's generally more positive about dogs after his meeting the ridgeback 

Dan is being horrendous, he will literally hump ANY dog that comes our way, so he's alway onlead around other dogs ATM as he doesn't seem to recognise when he's being told off by other dogs (we tell him off too but i do think this is something that the humpee needs to object to as well for him to really get the message). He's going "deaf" quite a lot now too...blooming teenagers!!!


----------



## Dimwit

BD - hope the interview goes really badly  and that you manage to get Bess eating again soon.

Dogless - gold stars all round, clever little (well, ginormous) CHs

Twiggy - great that Holly is doing so well

Ballybee - like for the "home alone" progress but shame about the humping.

Tia - I can't advise on the lunging but I am so glad that she is doing so well with the reactiveness.

Had a hideous few days of work but dimwit is being very good. We had our first Tuesday evening big walkies yesterday (changed from Saturday mornings to appease the fishermen) which he loved - he has now discovered the joys of leaping into water at every possible opportunity (before he would paddle but was too much of a wuss to jump in) so he did lots of swimming. Bless him, he is not very elegant when he launches himself into the water but he is very entertaining!

Rally class tonight so will see how he does this week after being a bit of a wimp last week (traumatised by a beagle). He was very good at scentwork on saturday so hopefully he will also be better tonight. I am going armed with freshly cooked sausage and his favourite ball. I have also just invested in one of those tennis ball clips so I no longer have to carry soggy, manky balls or try to squash them into my pockets


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## Izzysmummy

Hi all,

Its all been very busy here recently so I havent posted in ages! Ive been trying to keep track of the WAYWO ladies (and men) and have a little catch up now and again.

Tarnus and I decided to go to Portugal for a few days at the start of this month so that was lovely to get away. Then I had 4 days back before heading over to Dublin for a hen weekend last weekend and this weekend coming we're at a wedding so Izzys back at the boarders and is being taken to the beach for the day on Saturday which she'll love!

We didnt go to agility last week as we'd just got back off hols so we went last night, through the summer its moved to Tuesdays/Thursdays. Ive been put in a class with all the advanced beginners who are competing so I was a bit worried at first that Id be out of my depth but its going OK. Occasionally I'll start a run and realise Ive got myself and Izzy into a tricky situation but because everyone else competes it means they give me loads of help and advice on how to tackle those bits next time (there are trainers there too of course but that extra support is really helping me progress!). Izzy loves it and can be a bit hyper at first like yesterday there was a tricky tunnel entrance coming from 2 jumps and she was going so fast she was past the tunnel entrance so just jumped over the tunnel instead! She's also finally got the hang of the see saw! We made one in the garden and its really helped, now she realises she can control the tipping shes quite happy to go over it :thumbup1: We got lots of compliments from other members of the club and a couple of the trainers, they are impressed at how well she's doing, so that was really nice to hear !

I hope you and all your pooches are well! Twiggy I hope your sister is OK and that Leafy's tum is staying nice and settled! Dogless I hope Kilo is back to his normal self again!


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## Dogless

Dimwit - hope class goes well tonight and the beagle doesn't scare little DW again.

IM - sounds as if you've had a hectic time and as if you're doing really well at agility. Kilo is almost back to normal thank you .

Ballybee - progress :thumbup1:.

Great morning this morning. The place is hectic again and we got stopped quite a few times by people who wanted to talk about the CHs - Kilo was a total star, as was Rudi, but he likes folk so don't worry too much about him. This stressful, busy week (for me) seems to have really done the BW the power of good in terms of training and realising that folk approaching is fine again :thumbup1:. We had a few hours out in the sun - I must confess I was lazy this morning and it was just playing and pottering but it was lovely.

A man pulled over in his car to tell me that he'd had two RRs and one had died a few weeks ago and he was still mourning. He got all tearful, I really felt for him . We talked about his dogs for a while and then he drove off again. Poor man.


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## BessieDog

Ooohh! I've been even lazier than you today, DG! I laid out in the sun for an hour and a half. Well I call it working as I'm trying to get the basis of a tan for the holiday next week so I don't looked quite so tourist white!  First time this year - oh, and last year cos Bess just kept jumping all over me. Today she was content just to destroy the garden and keep away from me. There was quite a mess behind the shed when I went to find out what she'd been up to, but it kept her amused.

Taste of the Wild isn't going down so well (haven't tried the dustpan again), but the trial pack of Purizon arrived. I put some in her kong wobbler and she ate every bit! Might have just been the novelty, so I'm not jumping for joy just yet. 

Expecting Bess to crash shortly - we went for an hour and a half walk (before the sun came out), then she's been playing in the garden every since. 

Now I have come up to the computer to check on some stuff for my interview tomorrow so I suppose I better go do that. Though I don't want the job I don't want to appear an idiot! (or not too much of one)


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## tiatortilla

Lovely walk again today  Recall has gone back to normal, as long as I've got good enough treats  there were a few people sat on the ground today which is always difficult because Tia assumes they must be down there because they want to be closer to her  (she hasn't ever got to anyone before but she's got very close!) but she was good today anyway. Only saw one little dog while she was on lead and she had a wee lunge but no noise 
She did have some handbags at dawn with a collie, there's a guy who has two and they do kind of bombard Tia a bit. The female one is older and lovely but the male one is a bit of a bully with dogs the same age as him.. but it was all over in seconds anyway, and the guy who owns them is really nice, we stood around and had a chat afterwards and both dogs were fine with each other afterwards so it worked out as well as it could have done!


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## Twiggy

Izzysmummy said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Its all been very busy here recently so I havent posted in ages! Ive been trying to keep track of the WAYWO ladies (and men) and have a little catch up now and again.
> 
> Tarnus and I decided to go to Portugal for a few days at the start of this month so that was lovely to get away. Then I had 4 days back before heading over to Dublin for a hen weekend last weekend and this weekend coming we're at a wedding so Izzys back at the boarders and is being taken to the beach for the day on Saturday which she'll love!
> 
> We didnt go to agility last week as we'd just got back off hols so we went last night, through the summer its moved to Tuesdays/Thursdays. Ive been put in a class with all the advanced beginners who are competing so I was a bit worried at first that Id be out of my depth but its going OK. Occasionally I'll start a run and realise Ive got myself and Izzy into a tricky situation but because everyone else competes it means they give me loads of help and advice on how to tackle those bits next time (there are trainers there too of course but that extra support is really helping me progress!). Izzy loves it and can be a bit hyper at first like yesterday there was a tricky tunnel entrance coming from 2 jumps and she was going so fast she was past the tunnel entrance so just jumped over the tunnel instead! She's also finally got the hang of the see saw! We made one in the garden and its really helped, now she realises she can control the tipping shes quite happy to go over it :thumbup1: We got lots of compliments from other members of the club and a couple of the trainers, they are impressed at how well she's doing, so that was really nice to hear !
> 
> I hope you and all your pooches are well! *Twiggy I hope your sister is OK and that Leafy's tum is staying nice and settled! Dogless I hope Kilo is back to his normal self again! *


Thanks you but I'm afraid my sister is very poorly at the moment.

Leafy's tum isn't doing well either I'm afraid.

I spoke to my vet at length this morning regarding both Tremor's intermittent lameness and Leafy's food intolerance/SIBO/whatever.

We decided with Leafy, given her age and the fact this has gone on for about 9 yrs, there isn't really much point in doing a biopsy and running the full bloods and have jointly decided to keep her on the Purina total exclusion diet and antibiotics as and when needed. It may mean she will have to have ABs every day. We did discuss novel single protein sources but we'll see how she goes.

Both he and I have the results of the thermal imaging of Tremor's hindquarters and there appears to be soft tissue problems in both hips. He's put the ball in my court as to whether to go to Cambridge Vet College for MRI/CAT scans and further investigation or, as soft tissue injuries are normally inoperable, whether to just manage her exercise and put her on anti-inflams, in the hope she will eventually come right. I'm thinking about it for a couple of days.

Oh Hum....!!


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## Dogless

I can't "like" your post Twiggy. Sounds as if things are tough right now. Can't say anything adequate either - but I am really, truly sending you my best wishes. Really wish I could do something to help.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I can't "like" your post Twiggy. Sounds as if things are tough right now. Can't say anything adequate either - but I am really, truly sending you my best wishes. Really wish I could do something to help.


Just that ^^^ Twiggy very sorry you are having such a rubbish time.


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## Canine K9

Firstly many thanks to the lovely Dogless and Tillymint for the lovely collar (and very unexpected!) toy bone. Bailey and I love them both, thanks so much  x
Secondly biting is improving as well as since making Bailey wait for toys, food etc and heel properly on a walk he has been much better behaved and more obedient. 
Thirdly I has a secret which is ten months or so away but I is very excitied 
Finally I have applied for another job so I can afford my dog better and have worked out how to get raw for eight fifty or so a month :thumbup1:


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## Twiggy

*Dogless and GR -* Thank you ladies.


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## moonviolet

Twiggy I'm so sorry to hear your sister is very unwell , very best wishes and thoughts of strength and healing.


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## tiatortilla

I'm sorry you're having such a rubbish time of it Twiggy, my thoughts are with you x


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## Canine K9

Sorry about everything thats happening Twiggy x


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## Izzysmummy

Twiggy I'm so sorry to hear this! Sending lots of hugs to you and healing wishes to your sister and your girls.


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## Dogless

Separate walks with the boys tonight.

Met Diz as we left the front door with Rudi. Every man, child and his dog pretty much was out. I offended all of them as they all wanted onlead meetings and I said "No". Am feeling pretty bad :frown2:. One of the mens' little girls ran fast at Rudi and he barked at her so the man was even more offended. On the plus side Roo did as I asked him to do, interacted well with Diz and didn't approach any dogs or people when he was offlead :thumbup1:. 

Had a nice walk with Kilo; took his tuggy and did lots of impulse control work on and off. Had an epic cat fail at the beginning - full on barking and lunging and leaping up at me which we've not had for ages - but walked nicely past a cat at the end.

So, good walks really but I am feeling bad about them .

Forest tomorrow I really, really hope but have had to double one of my meds tonight so will see what I'm like in the morning!


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## Twiggy

Thanks to you all.

I've spent the last hour going through all the orthopaedic/soft tissue specialists at AHT, Cambridge, Dick White Referrals, Davis Clinic and Potters Bar. Hmmm


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Separate walks with the boys tonight.
> 
> Met Diz as we left the front door with Rudi. Every man, child and his dog pretty much was out. I offended all of them as they all wanted onlead meetings and I said "No". Am feeling pretty bad :frown2:. One of the mens' little girls ran fast at Rudi and he barked at her so the man was even more offended. On the plus side Roo did as I asked him to do, interacted well with Diz and didn't approach any dogs or people when he was offlead :thumbup1:.
> 
> Had a nice walk with Kilo; took his tuggy and did lots of impulse control work on and off. Had an epic cat fail at the beginning - full on barking and lunging and leaping up at me which we've not had for ages - but walked nicely past a cat at the end.
> 
> So, good walks really but I am feeling bad about them .
> 
> Forest tomorrow I really, really hope but have had to double one of my meds tonight so will see what I'm like in the morning!


Hope you make the forest tomorrow - fingers crossed.


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## GingerRogers

I too hope you make the forest Dogless with out wobbling! Sorry you feel bad about your walks but cat fails are really beyond your control and there is absolutely nothing wrong with saying no to meetings on lead off lead or otherwise. Your dogs are your priority and responsibility and you not other people get to say what you should be happy with. Stick to your guns.

I also hope you can at least find a decent treatment place Twiggy.

K9 really glad things are improving with Bailey, not very impressed with having secrets and not sharing with us, we wont tell the rest of PF honest, but I am sorry to say I think you forgot something (photo of bailey in his new collar )

We are feeling much more positive in Ginger Grange today :thumbup1:

Ninja actually snatched the chicken wing she had for tea from my hand, not normally allowed but such interest in food brought a big grin to my face 

We had a lovely evening walk even getting hubby along, she had a good run about up and down the tram lines of a wheat field, its great to see how well the crops have recovered.

I feel irrationally less panicked about letting her off when he is there as I feel I can blame him if it all goes wrong , but she really isn't as bad as I make out, she comes eventually and as long as the place is safe and away from roads I am more than happy to see her running about with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth like a proper happy dog.

This morning was another success with our normal morning pavement potter, out and about on our estate, although I cant believe it takes half an hour to walk round the block which is only half a mile lol. But we stop to take stuff in, today the ginger ninja did very well indeedy, there was lots and lots of loud barking from both ends of the estate. In particular the little terrier whose house she sometimes barks at randomly even when he isn't about, and lots of work men doing various stuff, we had a bit of a kick about at the grass, a bit of posturing at invisible things and a bit of a grrr, out of just wanting to be certain I think as she couldnt see anything, but we stopped on a bit of grass and had a listen, her head cocked as she took in all the sounds and sights then she (eventually) turned to look at me :thumbup1:


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## Dogless

GR - so pleased the Ninja's interested in food again :thumbup1: :thumbup1:. Sounds like she did superbly on your walk this morning and yesterday evening...I wonder if not having anyone to blame if the CHs are naughty is the reason I sometimes wish hubby was interested in walking with us  .

Great day today - been out all day pretty much in the forest. Chilly and damp, lots of animals and birds seen but not another human soul. Perfect . My new camera is in my possession too.....can't wait to learn how to use it . Today the only 'work' we've done is a few random recalls and saying "Hello" to Mr Nobody again a few times!!!


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## tiatortilla

Glad Ginge is back on her food GR 
Looking forward to lots of photos then Dogless!

--

Tia's been a little star again today, well mostly anyway. We went to the park and met a lady who has the biggest soppiest black lab I've ever met, Tia has the occasional bark at him but he really couldn't care less, he's one of two dogs that helped Tia get over the black lab fear :thumbup1: He's great for Tia because he just ignores her so she gets to spend time around a big dog that's totally uninterested in her. I'm not sure what she means when she barks at him, I'm not sure she even knows what she means but she'll recall away when she does so I'm guessing it's not much of a big deal? Any insight into this would be great, I think it's a sort of "I want you to play with me but I'm a bit scared" kind of bark because she often play bows while doing it.

There's someone with a young GSD that I'm a bit worried about tbh, I think it's a dad and his daughter than own him/her and black lab's owner said the GSD tried to attack him (the lab) the other day... the girl walks it on lead so not too bad but the man doesn't and doesn't seem to have good control so there's a little niggle there because the last thing I need is Tia being more scared... I popped her on lead while they passed us today anyway and she was good apart from one little growl.

Other than that we did lots of sit/stays, recalls and walking to heel off lead and she was wonderful, lots of people sat on the floor and people playing with a tennis ball and she ignored all of them 
God this is a long post haha, I just have one question.. she ate what I think was some chewing gum, will that pass through or...?


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## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Glad Ginge is back on her food GR
> Looking forward to lots of photos then Dogless!
> 
> --
> 
> Tia's been a little star again today, well mostly anyway. We went to the park and met a lady who has the biggest soppiest black lab I've ever met, Tia has the occasional bark at him but he really couldn't care less, he's one of two dogs that helped Tia get over the black lab fear :thumbup1: He's great for Tia because he just ignores her so she gets to spend time around a big dog that's totally uninterested in her. *I'm not sure what she means when she barks at him, I'm not sure she even knows what she means but she'll recall away when she does so I'm guessing it's not much of a big deal? Any insight into this would be great, I think it's a sort of "I want you to play with me but I'm a bit scared" kind of bark because she often play bows while doing it.*
> 
> There's someone with a young GSD that I'm a bit worried about tbh, I think it's a dad and his daughter than own him/her and black lab's owner said the GSD tried to attack him (the lab) the other day... the girl walks it on lead so not too bad but the man doesn't and doesn't seem to have good control so there's a little niggle there because the last thing I need is Tia being more scared... I popped her on lead while they passed us today anyway and she was good apart from one little growl.
> 
> Other than that we did lots of sit/stays, recalls and walking to heel off lead and she was wonderful, lots of people sat on the floor and people playing with a tennis ball and she ignored all of them
> God this is a long post haha, I just have one question.. she ate what I think was some chewing gum, will that pass through or...?


Sounds like what the dog we walk with a few times a week does - a sort of demanding "Play with me" bark as he play bows....

Rudi growls and rumbles whilst play bowing too as a play invitation...means lots of folk take their dogs away pronto but his body language is very relaxed and playful and the other dogs always reciprocate with play so see it as such.

Kilo used to eat chewing gum off the pavement if I couldn't catch him in time. Whilst it's poisonous straight out of the packet he never had any ill effects from it.


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## Canine K9

Dogless- Sounds a great day 

Will post pics when Sir Bailey has awoken  
I am dying to tell my secret but am determined to keep it a secret until at least August (doubt I can )


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## BessieDog

Wet, wet and more wet! 

Went to the interview - they'll let me know if they are going to the next stage next week. They now only want someone for two years which would suit me down to the ground. Rather not be working full time in London again, but at least it wouldn't be a life sentence. 

Got back to Witham where I'd left the car at OH's work preferring a half hour walk to a £7 parking fee. As the train drew in the heavens opened. I did have an umbrella, but was only wearing sandals. Don't think they are going to ever be the same again. Got home, changed, and Bess would hardly let me have a cuppa before I gave into the made beast and took her for a walk. It had just about stopped raining, and I thought walking through waist high grass would be a good idea after all that rain for some silly reason. The water soaked right into my jeans - even my knickers were wet! Was daft turning back so carried on the whole walk very uncomfortable. Got home and had the second complete change of clothing today. 

Bess has refused to eat Purizon today, refused a fresh sardine (will have to accept she doesn't like fish) but did eat a heart and two kidneys. Better than nothing. Can't seem to get her to eat anything with bone at present. I think it's too much like hard work. 

Will catch up properly later - hope everyone's day was good and drier than mine!!


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## GingerRogers

Ginge does exactly the same given the chance, goes into a bow and does a very sharp repetitive bark whilst snapping her head to the side, we know now its an invitation to play as she does it to us (more and more )

Trouble is other dogs often don't seem to realise  as dogless says its very demanding 

In fact I am pretty sure thats how she got herself into a scrape on Sunday by doing it to an unforgiving grumpy collie  not trying to alarm you but just be aware of the other dogs reactions. At the time I was mortified when my dog was discovered hanging off the collies neck seemingly unprovoked and unreacted to, but I know this collie very well , better than I know ninja TBH, I have since discovered a few little nicks on Ginge I was unaware of at the time so I know the collie got her own words in. I by no means blame her but still think Ginge was just trying to get a play reaction.


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## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Sounds like what the dog we walk with a few times a week does - a sort of demanding "Play with me" bark as he play bows....
> 
> Rudi growls and rumbles whilst play bowing too as a play invitation...means lots of folk take their dogs away pronto but his body language is very relaxed and playful and the other dogs always reciprocate with play so see it as such.
> 
> Kilo used to eat chewing gum off the pavement if I couldn't catch him in time. Whilst it's poisonous straight out of the packet he never had any ill effects from it.


That's reassuring  She's not totally relaxed but she isn't really tense either. She's funny with how she entices other dogs to play, she'll often try to get another dog to chase her but she'll have her tail between her legs and look quite worried but it was her who initiated it in the first place!

I didn't know chewing gum was poisonous  She's had it off the pavement a few times but she'll let me open her mouth and remove it but off lead if you try that she just gets silly and runs off, it was definitely pre-chewed though so hopefully she'll be fine


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## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> Ginge does exactly the same given the chance, goes into a bow and does a very sharp repetitive bark whilst snapping her head to the side, we know now its an invitation to play as she does it to us (more and more )
> 
> Trouble is other dogs often don't seem to realise  as dogless says its very demanding
> 
> In fact Ia am pretty sure thats how she got herself into a scrape on Sunday by doing it to an unforgiving grumpy collie  not trying to alarm you but just be aware of the other dogs reactions.


Fortunately she doesn't do it to any other dogs... I think she would do it with other big dogs but I keep her away from big ones that we don't know, I know this lab would literally put up with anything (not meaning I let her get away with anything, I always recall her when she barks because it's not really fair on him!) so it's not much of a worry with him. I will be careful if she does it to any other dogs though, thankyou


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## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> That's reassuring  She's not totally relaxed but she isn't really tense either. She's funny with how she entices other dogs to play, she'll often try to get another dog to chase her but she'll have her tail between her legs and look quite worried but it was her who initiated it in the first place!
> 
> I didn't know chewing gum was poisonous  She's had it off the pavement a few times but she'll let me open her mouth and remove it but off lead if you try that she just gets silly and runs off, it was definitely pre-chewed though so hopefully she'll be fine


I wouldn't worry about pre chewed. It's the sweetener in it but i'm sure one piece that someone's chewed is fine. Dread to think how much Kilo had at one point.

As GR said, be aware of other dogs' reactions to the barks - Rudi isn't a fan of them and Kilo ignores and also the scuttling behaviour in case it incites prey drive.


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## diefenbaker

Some of you have 2 dogs so break things into 2 sections. I don't have 2 dogs but am very jealous of this writing style so have come up with a solution.

Dief - mostly being a good boy. Things to work on. Don't get possessive when other dogs are playing with Dolly. Ignore Oscar at training. Stop stalking.

Dief's Dad - 4KM on the treadmill yesterday. Good boy Daddy. Start practising the Diefbot WAYWO people it's gonna be the next craze.


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## Nicki85

Rust just been to the vet... He had been improving to almost sound yesterday (trotted him up at agility and no one could see any lameness) so let him have a 15min short jaunt off lead today. He is now very sore again  SO went down to the vets- they haven't a clue really. No obvious pain response anywhere down the leg/ shoulder/ back/ foot. Vet instructed proper rest (2x10min short lead walks only) for a week along with Metacam. If he is still lame next Thursday then it will be xrays.

Feeling all abit rubbish about it and hoping it really is something minor like a sprain but no idea. I'm just hoping it is nothing serious that will stop us doing agility and long walks


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## Dogless

Hope the rest helps Rusty Nicki.


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## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> Fortunately she doesn't do it to any other dogs... I think she would do it with other big dogs but I keep her away from big ones that we don't know, I know this lab would literally put up with anything (not meaning I let her get away with anything, I always recall her when she barks because it's not really fair on him!) so it's not much of a worry with him. I will be careful if she does it to any other dogs though, thankyou


Oh you you quoted me before I corrected my extra a's 

I dont want you to think I let ninja do it to the collie either, the incident happened under a picnic bench, I suspect staring had been done by one and darting barking by the other


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> My new camera is in my possession too.....can't wait to learn how to use it .


Wot camera do you have ? I'm mulling over getting one of those bridgey things to get some better quality shots of the boy.


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## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> I wouldn't worry about pre chewed. It's the sweetener in it but i'm sure one piece that someone's chewed is fine. Dread to think how much Kilo had at one point.
> 
> As GR said, be aware of other dogs' reactions to the barks - Rudi isn't a fan of them and Kilo ignores and *also the scuttling behaviour in case it incites prey drive.*


Yeah that definitely is worrying, I have thought of that. Not really sure what to do about it though.  Most of the dogs she plays with are labradors or spaniels or small dogs so it's less worrying than it could be if she was around dogs that have a big prey drive anyway and I've always got a close eye on her.

She's just chewed up a book while I've been typing  I'm in shock, she hasn't touched anything that wasn't hers since she was tiny and that pile of books has been on the floor for months... very odd!


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## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> Oh you you quoted me before I corrected my extra a's
> 
> I dont want you to think I let ninja do it to the collie either, the incident happened under a picnic bench, I suspect staring had been done by one and darting barking by the other


Sorry! Oh no I didn't mean that you let her do it at all, sorry if it came across like that!


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Wot camera do you have ? I'm mulling over getting one of those bridgey things to get some better quality shots of the boy.


Canon 600D and three lenses.....just need to learn how to use the blummin thing now.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Canon 600D and three lenses.....just need to learn how to use the blummin thing now.


Oooo.. that's the full DSLR experience. I think that would be a step too far for me. My sister came down the other weekend and got some good ones of Dief with a Canon DSLR by shooting pictures in quick succession. That's the problem with the compact.. by the time it takes the picture the moment's gone.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Oooo.. that's the full DSLR experience. I think that would be a step too far for me. My sister came down the other weekend and got some good ones of Dief with a Canon DSLR by shooting pictures in quick succession. That's the problem with the compact.. by the time it takes the picture the moment's gone.


Yes; I've wanted one for a very long time. Really looking forward to getting to grips with it...or at least learning where the 'on' button is !! Where are the good pics of Dief??? Not even one for us?


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## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Yes; I've wanted one for a very long time. Really looking forward to getting to grips with it...or at least learning where the 'on' button is !! Where are the good pics of Dief??? Not even one for us?


Oh yes I want pictures of him too please, he's gorgeous!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Where are the good pics of Dief??? Not even one for us?


I think my sister's got the same problem as you. Can't work out how to upload them !!


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## tiatortilla

Deleted


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## Dogless

Oh no tia . Don't want to comment further in case you have deleted or come back to do it!

Mr R Roo...



Didn't get one of Sir K as he was afraid of the new camera at first. Has now accepted it won't eat him but didn't want to keep following hi about with it. Rudi was unphased!


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Oh no tia . Don't want to comment further in case you have deleted or come back to do it!


It's alright I can talk about it without going into too much detail, just thought I might delete the initial post that has rather a lot of identifying information in it later on! I'm a wee bit paranoid and I don't have that much to do with them so I don't want them to hate me 

That's a lovely picture of Rudi


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Rust just been to the vet... He had been improving to almost sound yesterday (trotted him up at agility and no one could see any lameness) so let him have a 15min short jaunt off lead today. He is now very sore again  SO went down to the vets- they haven't a clue really. No obvious pain response anywhere down the leg/ shoulder/ back/ foot. Vet instructed proper rest (2x10min short lead walks only) for a week along with Metacam. If he is still lame next Thursday then it will be xrays.
> 
> Feeling all abit rubbish about it and hoping it really is something minor like a sprain but no idea. I'm just hoping it is nothing serious that will stop us doing agility and long walks


I'm really sorry Nicki and know the feeling well, especially at the moment.

Don't get paranoid as this is the usual scenario with soft tissue injuries - they appear sound, you let them off the lead for a bit and then you're back to square one.

Rest and anti-inflams is the norm, frustrating that it is.


----------



## Twiggy

Well Leafy had a 'top up' of lazer treatment on her dodgy shoulder again this morning and I picked up her ABs. Not quite sure whether to start her on them straight away or wait for the next bout of diarrheoa; I think I'll wait and hope she's settled on the awful Purina.

I'm warming to the young vet who treated Leafy this morning. She very open minded about alternative treatments and was fascinated by the thermal imaging of Tremor's hindquarters.

I briefly saw the senior vet this morning and he asked whether I'd made up my mind about a referral to Cambridge with Tremor. When I said that in many ways I'd rather see Gary Clayton Jones down in Kent he actually agreed with me. I nearly fell over as we certainly don't agree on much..!!


----------



## MollySmith

Helllloooooooo  We're back from deepest Norfolk and I'm so pleased to say that Molly was amazing. I think every single photo I have is of her so I'll edit and bore you all later. I hope that everyone is well.

The only rubbish point was that we knew the house didn't let dogs on the furniture but when we go there the house folder said they had to be kept in the kitchen only. I've checked the info we got before we went and it wasn't there. Bit peeved as I'd not have booked the house if this was the case but by the time you've arrived it's too late. Dogs tolerated than welcome and I'll let the agency know.


----------



## diefenbaker

MollySmith said:


> Bit peeved as I'd not have booked the house if this was the case but by the time you've arrived it's too late. Dogs tolerated than welcome and I'll let the agency know.


That's pants. Not on the furniture is fair enough.. but as for the rest of it if the owner's not there who's to know.. and what would they do ?


----------



## diefenbaker

The deed is done. The CaniX membership has been purchased and Sid says the gear will be in the post tomorrow. It's the last chance saloon for the old man. I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.


----------



## MollySmith

diefenbaker said:


> That's pants. Not on the furniture is fair enough.. but as for the rest of it if the owner's not there who's to know.. and what would they do ?


You think like me . Molly will sleep in her own bed but always on the landing so we thought sod it. It's a huge contrast to the agency we usually stay with who are 100% dog friendly.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - welcome to the world of SLRs, I also have Canon and LOVE it. Looking forward to seeing lots more photos of the CHs

Twiggy - Sounds like progress with the vets, and I hope you manage to get some answers soon.

Molly - Glad you had a good holiday, though rubbish about the "dog-friendly" house. Can't wait to see lots of photos of the lovely Molly.

I took the day off work yesterday (after a truly hideous week) and went to the seaside with the dimwit and my friend (who bred him) with his mummy and sister. A very good time was had by all, and he was very good at the end when we all went and had fish and chips at the pub!

Little clown









and with his mum and sister









Unfortunately he is not very well today. he was a bit out of sorts this morning at rally class (only a short practice session) and now he has an upset stomach so not sure whether he is still tired from yesterday, or if was the excitement, or if he managed to scavenge something at the beach. So I think an afternoon of snuggling on the sofa watching trashy tv is in order!


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit - hope little DW gets better soon.

Shitty day here really although Rudi was good in PAH this afternoon, very good :aureola:. I'll not go into the rest - nothing earth - shatteringly bad has happened just setbacks and frustrations.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless, sorry to hear you've had a horrible day, huge hugs to you lovely. Rudi is such a handsome boy, we do love that photo very much.

Twiggy - sounds like a lot has happened with you, I'll read over the last week and catch up with you but hope all is well.

tiatortilla - how is it going with you? 

Dimwit - I hope that the little one is feeling better soon. 

Molly has been out of sorts since we got back and has been sleeping constantly. I think sea water often gets to them - Molly will be responsible for a drought in Norfolk if I take her back this side of August. We had to walk her on the soft sand to stop her doing her bite and drink the water routine followed by being sick... I think she's very happy to be home even if her homans are less so.

I've got to wrestle with a dilemma about an interview, no idea what to do. I'm procrastinating.


----------



## MollySmith

diefenbaker said:


> Oooo.. that's the full DSLR experience. I think that would be a step too far for me. My sister came down the other weekend and got some good ones of Dief with a Canon DSLR by shooting pictures in quick succession. That's the problem with the compact.. by the time it takes the picture the moment's gone.


We've been looking at the Samsung NX1000. My husband has an old Canon but the image quality isn't great, I know which are his but as a designer and photoshop tutor I am very critical. However the digital SLR that I have (Nikon, not Canon) is so huge, I didn't really use it much last week. A long story involving a distracted photo mad husband with a rubbish camera and me being lumbered with the lead, balls etc and no free hands, love him :mad2: Anyway, I might save up and get one of these as a half way point.

The Sony NEX-5RK looks good, I'm tempted as it has a flip out LCD and I love that feature on the Nikon as I like odd angles for photos. My old Canon SLR stopped working as I got too much sand in it, trying to take photos of waves on beaches 

If whatever you choose has something like rapid burst or sports mode then that's usually the one that takes the frames fast, 10 frames per second is good like the Sony


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> I'll not go into the rest - nothing earth - shatteringly bad has happened just setbacks and frustrations.


I've just had my worst moment for a long time, Shouldn't have gone walking this late I suppose. In the woods I see a smallish offlead dog trotting towards us down the path. No hang on.. FOX !!!! Trailing long-line disappears before I can grab it. Lost him for about 2 minutes.. and that's more than long enough.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I've just had my worst moment for a long time, Shouldn't have gone walking this late I suppose. In the woods I see a smallish offlead dog trotting towards us down the path. No hang on.. FOX !!!! Trailing long-line disappears before I can grab it. Lost him for about 2 minutes.. and that's more than long enough.


Oh dear, 2 minutes can be a lifetime can't it? .


----------



## tiatortilla

Lovely pictures Dimwit, hope he's feeling better soon!
Sorry you're having a bad day Dogless 
diefenbaker  How scary, I'm glad you got him back!



MollySmith said:


> tiatortilla - how is it going with you?


Tia's doing great, thankyou for asking  We saw a Molly lookalike while you were away and we had nothing to hide behind and Tia was all quiet! She's still lunging quite a lot but she's doing it without all the noise so definitely an improvement


----------



## Canine K9

This morning we were out in the woods for an hour as well as walking we did hide and seek, go back and retrieve a toy, impulse control and scentwork. He had a zoomies session too typical 
But we got home and as always I unleashed him in the back garden and he ran over to a patch near our tree and I hear like squeaking so I thought it was a toy eventually got him away and saw it was a baby blue tit but it seemed fine and ran off, about an hour later we saw Mum and they both flew off. But I went outside again and there was a dead baby blue tit which had some rather graphic injures (don`t want to write exactly for fear of upsetting people since it is rather graphic!) and I think Bailey killed it  Since he was over there and I think one got away and he killed the other one and possibly ate some of it. I do not know 100% that it was him but its pretty likely. My parents have said its that raw you feed him on and my friend thinks he should be put down  
Took him for a pavement plod for half hour just then doing moonviolets training game with car colours hope you dont mind


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> This morning we were out in the woods for an hour as well as walking we did hide and seek, go back and retrieve a toy, impulse control and scentwork. He had a zoomies session too typical
> But we got home and as always I unleashed him in the back garden and he ran over to a patch near our tree and I hear like squeaking so I thought it was a toy eventually got him away and saw it was a baby blue tit but it seemed fine and ran off, about an hour later we saw Mum and they both flew off. But I went outside again and there was a dead baby blue tit which had some rather graphic injures (don`t want to write exactly for fear of upsetting people since it is rather graphic!) and I think Bailey killed it  Since he was over there and I think one got away and he killed the other one and possibly ate some of it. I do not know 100% that it was him but its pretty likely. My parents have said its that raw you feed him on and my friend thinks he should be put down
> Took him for a pavement plod for half hour just then doing moonviolets training game with car colours hope you dont mind


Bailey's just acting out of instinct; it's what dogs do. It's nothing to do with raw and he certainly doesn't need PTS for it - you could suggest to your friend that she researches a little about dogs. Don't listen to them, these things happen. Kilo has killed a large grouse and I am certain he'd kill a cat or other creatures given the chance, doesn't mean he's 'bad'. Hope your mum and friend calm down soon.

Pleased your walk and training went well though .


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Bailey's just acting out of instinct; it's what dogs do. It's nothing to do with raw and he certainly doesn't need PTS for it - you could suggest to your friend that she researches a little about dogs. Don't listen to them, these things happen. Kilo has killed a large grouse and I am certain he'd kill a cat or other creatures given the chance, doesn't mean he's 'bad'. Hope your mum and friend calm down soon.
> 
> Pleased your walk and training went well though .


Thats good thanks  Will the bird harm him though since he partially ate it?


----------



## speug

Don't get too upset about it - Dogs hunt and kill small things, it's hard-wired into their brains to do that. Now you know he's into catching small birds, you know to check the coast's clear.
Angus kills on average 1 small furry every year, it would have been 2 this year but the mouse was still alive when he picked it up and wriggled and squeaked so he got such a fright he dropped it and they both ran away.
I don't encourage Angus to hunt small furries but if he happens to get one then I reckon it wouldn't have survived much longer anyway (given that his method of hunting relies more on enthusiasm than skill and involves lots of 4 footed jumping through long grass then carefully lifting each foot in turn to see if he landed on anything).
What a dog's fed on does not influence his desire to hunt - especially when your dog is a terrier x - hunting is bred into him. And your friend sounds like a total numpty who doesn't understand that dogs are animals and act on instinct at times.


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Thats good thanks  Will the bird harm him though since he partially ate it?


No, it's the same as a raw meal I guess! The only time I'd be concerned is if you thought something may have been poisoned like a rat.


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## moonviolet

CK9 Of course you can use my car game  hope you find it fun and useful 

Please don't be upset about the bird nature isn't much like Disney, no one would have been so surprised if Bailey was a cat! If anyone is being silly about it direct them to Nat Geo Wild where they can see plenty of hunting, feeding, fighting and fornicating!!


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## diefenbaker

@Dogless & Mollysmith. I've just gone and brought a new camera and it's all your fault. Pixel envy at it's worst. The wife is not happy. Although I did bag a bargain if I do say so myself.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Taught Dexter how to weave offlead today in the garden on our five spaced out poles!

First time he's really listened to me.


----------



## speug

Angus's recall and general manners are going through a less than perfect stage just now. I'm suspecting it's mainly due to him staying with my mum for up to 4 days a week while I'm working and he's a bit unsettled by it all.
We're having to go back to basics and spend a lot more time on lead just now which is frustrating as we don't have enough time together just now and I'd prefer to spend it doing more exciting things.


----------



## MollySmith

Canine K9 said:


> This morning we were out in the woods for an hour as well as walking we did hide and seek, go back and retrieve a toy, impulse control and scentwork. He had a zoomies session too typical
> But we got home and as always I unleashed him in the back garden and he ran over to a patch near our tree and I hear like squeaking so I thought it was a toy eventually got him away and saw it was a baby blue tit but it seemed fine and ran off, about an hour later we saw Mum and they both flew off. But I went outside again and there was a dead baby blue tit which had some rather graphic injures (don`t want to write exactly for fear of upsetting people since it is rather graphic!) and I think Bailey killed it  Since he was over there and I think one got away and he killed the other one and possibly ate some of it. I do not know 100% that it was him but its pretty likely. My parents have said its that raw you feed him on and my friend thinks he should be put down
> Took him for a pavement plod for half hour just then doing moonviolets training game with car colours hope you dont mind


Some friend... Bailey is being a dog, your friend is being stupid. it's not nice but it's natural.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> @Dogless & Mollysmith. I've just gone and brought a new camera and it's all your fault. Pixel envy at it's worst. The wife is not happy. Although I did bag a bargain if I do say so myself.


What did you get?


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> What did you get?


and where from def, I like a bargain


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> What did you get?


Well Dogless I'm so glad you asked  I was unable to reach the dizzy heights of an SLR so I stuck to my guns and got a bridge camera.

FinePix S8200 Bridge digital camera | Fujifilm United Kingdom

This is miles ahead of my current camera ( which I now can't find ! ) and I think will be plenty good enough to get some decent action shots of Dief. I managed to pick it up for £165 delivered including a 32GB memory card. Argos is selling for £220 bare. Thrift is my middle name


----------



## Dimwit

I used to have a fuji finepix - was a great camera, and certainly easier to lug about than my SLR is now.

After sleeping for most of saturday, the dimwit is now back to normal (for him) and once again being an attention-seeking little monster. Was planning to take it easy again yesterday but after doing lots of secentwork in the house he was still being obnoxious so we went to the recreation ground and ended up having a very good training session in the wind and rain

All in all a good weekend, and it is always nice for him to spend time with his mum and sister and I DEFINITELY have the best dog out of the three (in my, not at all biased, opinion )


----------



## GingerRogers

Nice camera Dief, I have a much much older version of the same, bought as I was impressed with a friends even older version, following my purchase my Dad, got himself one which he has now upgraded to one with even more pixelly bits he was so impressed. So they come with recommendations from us  Look forward to the shots. Shame about the fox, that few seconds/minutes that seem like hours !!

Mollysmith glad you had a nice time in not so sunny Norfolk, shame about the cottage but sounds like you found a workaround  not found your holiday picture thread yet though 

K9 - please do not worry about the bird, while upsetting its is 100% natural and completely normal especially given his terrier bloodlines - I am afraid your friend and Mum are just being completely daft and as someone pointed put, thinking like a disney film. Sounds like the walk was great though.

Speug - sometimes you have to let things slide to keep having fun with your dog, especially if things are a bit up in the air for him at the moment, I am sure normal practice will be resumed as things settle. Its work calling you away if I remember rightly, will this be for a while or??

Dimwit sounds like a lovely and much needed day off.

Hope Sprocket and Molly recover from beach assisted poorliness soon

Dogless sorry you had a less than good day 

but  sorry to rub it in, we have had a couple of great days 

Saturday I had to baby sit for my SIL so for complicated reasoning Ninja stayed with my mum for a few hours, I am not quite ready for Dad to walk her (dont trust him to be alert to triggers and keep them safe frankly  he has been known to come home from a walk without a dog as he drifts off into lala land) There was a chance she might have to stay the night with them so I planned a walk where she normally goes nuts through the wheat fields to wear her out but she was good as gold, every time she jumped into a different tram line I called her and she came right back, we did see some people in the distance so I changed our route slightly and went down to the reed beds where I never have her off, I just have a feeling about this spot , but she lulled me, sure enough off she darted into the undergrowth, I shouldn't have normally been that alarmed apart from I was under a time constraint  but apart from that little blip she was great and she did come back all pleased with herself. Anyway she had great fun pottering about the garden with Dad and was shattered when I picked her up, she normally sleeps the day away.

We stopped for another little run at a new spot on the way home, there were some old rotting bales on the route which must have been rat heaven, she did keep investigating them but always came away when called rather than getting herself stuck in amongst them 

Sunday I actually got hubby out for a stroll, we manage to dodge all the showers by some miracle and had a lovely walk through some quiet lanes with a couple of footpaths thrown in for off lead time. Right at the start we a had a bit of a fright, there was a dead rat carcass on the path :frown5: then a few steps further something darted out of a drainage channel, then darted back in I think all three of us got a bit  in out it went, eventually we realised it was a squirrel not one of its less fluffy tailed cousins  poor thing was as freaked out as us I think, thankfully ninja was still on the lead or it might have ended up like your blue tit K9 

This mornings little pavement potter ritual was broken up by me going a slightly different route  we are going to stretch our nerves (mine ) each day this week I have decided, she has been so good, I am probably going to push it too far.

We also started on using the temporary neighbours noisy sheltie as a non volunteer stooge dog this morning, trouble was it wasn't in its normal spot  by the glass front door, but Ninja thought it might have been , at least it might have got a bit of a message through to the owners that its a pain in the rear to have to through a military exercise just to get a stress free exit from the house :skep:


----------



## tiatortilla

I have camera envy. Thanks you lot!  

GR sounds like the ninja is doing really well 
k9 as everyone else has said, your mum and friend are being silly. Most dogs kill small animals, it's just nature. Just ignore them 

--

Proud of my girly again. We found a dog yesterday.. poor thing was ancient and just stood at the end of the pavement looking really confused. So I gave my boyfriend a handful of treats to win her affections while I stood at a non-reacting distance with Tia. I phoned the number on her tag and her owner isn't even from this town, a friend was supposed to be looking after the dog (who was eighteen!)  It was really bad actually, when the owner said her friend was looking after her I just replied without thinking "Not very well!"  She was so grateful that we phoned her though so that was nice. Anyway she was able to give the address of where the dog was staying, it was the same road fortunately, she'd only got to the end of the street! The person looking after her didn't even notice she was missing  but I digress... Tia was very good throughout all of this, a few little barks but she was quiet when I told her to be 
Went to the park afterwards, Tia got bombarded by a different pair of collies and they had a little play. Her recalls were all perfect too, I'm so glad that little phase is over with!
And one last little boast, we went for a pavement walk this morning and she did the kind of LLW where the lead doesn't even need to be there for the whole walk. I love it when that happens


----------



## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> I have camera envy. Thanks you lot!
> 
> GR sounds like the ninja is doing really well
> k9 as everyone else has said, your mum and friend are being silly. Most dogs kill small animals, it's just nature. Just ignore them
> 
> --
> 
> Proud of my girly again. We found a dog yesterday.. poor thing was ancient and just stood at the end of the pavement looking really confused. So I gave my boyfriend a handful of treats to win her affections while I stood at a non-reacting distance with Tia. I phoned the number on her tag and her owner isn't even from this town, a friend was supposed to be looking after the dog (who was eighteen!)  It was really bad actually, when the owner said her friend was looking after her I just replied without thinking "Not very well!"  She was so grateful that we phoned her though so that was nice. Anyway she was able to give the address of where the dog was staying, it was the same road fortunately, she'd only got to the end of the street! The person looking after her didn't even notice she was missing  but I digress... Tia was very good throughout all of this, a few little barks but she was quiet when I told her to be
> Went to the park afterwards, Tia got bombarded by a different pair of collies and they had a little play. Her recalls were all perfect too, I'm so glad that little phase is over with!
> And one last little boast, we went for a pavement walk this morning and *she did the kind of LLW where the lead doesn't even need to be there for the whole walk*. I love it when that happens


Sounds like you have done really really well with her :thumbup1: that bolded is lovely isn't it, I had forgot what walking a calm dog was like


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> Sounds like you have done really really well with her :thumbup1: that bolded is lovely isn't it, I had forgot what walking a calm dog was like


Thankyou  It really is, it's just so _satisfying_ for some reason!


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Well Dogless I'm so glad you asked  I was unable to reach the dizzy heights of an SLR so I stuck to my guns and got a bridge camera.
> 
> FinePix S8200 Bridge digital camera | Fujifilm United Kingdom
> 
> This is miles ahead of my current camera ( which I now can't find ! ) and I think will be plenty good enough to get some decent action shots of Dief. I managed to pick it up for £165 delivered including a 32GB memory card. Argos is selling for £220 bare. Thrift is my middle name


Looks good. So no excuses whatsoever now for depriving us of photos of the dashing Dief! Sunglasses cam is marvellous and all that jazz but some lovely action shots of the boy would be great .

I have written the weekend off. Nothing drastic occurred really, just blips but least said the better .

Great morning this morning. Walked Kilo first and did lots of whistle recalls, heel work etc. Muzzled him for the whole walk as I realised he'd only had it on for the vet and nail clipping recently. Does no harm seeing as he has narrowly missed grabbing a cat from under a hedge multiple times recently.

Took Rudi to the park. There was loads going on - especially workmen gardening. He was freaked by the wheelbarrow and big rakes but they were dog friendly and liked him so we stood at a 'calm' distance and watched and chatted for a bit. Passed lots of dogs and people no worries, stood and talked to the odd person who asked about him and he got his fusses. There were canoes on the water, a school trip, all sorts and he just took it all in his stride.

I witnessed a massive act of hypocrisy too. A pom ran up to Rudi (onlead - it's an onlead only park, supposedly ) barking and snarling. I got Rudi to sit and repelled the pom so owner could put a lead on - Rudi held his sit, love him, even though his hackles raised and he was dying to get up I think. All OK, then as we were walking away a young lab came charging round the corner and made a beeline for the pom (still on lead after leaving us). The pom reacted really badly, lab owner got lab, smacked it round the head as is usual here and apologised. Pom owner gave the lab's owner an angry row for allowing his dog to behave in that way . I was desperate to say something to him but held my tongue and walked on .

I am still worried about the BW. Rudi has jumped on him a few times recently and he's screamed - the other day he cried and lay down after it. I am going in to talk to the vet about things without him. I think we will surgically castrate so think I'd like his hips x rayed and bloods taken for hypothyroidism as RRs are prone. He's due his check up as it's a month after steroids but if things can be done together why not? His temperament is still how it was when on steroids - I'm wondering if the steroids were blamed when there's something else going on as well.


----------



## tiatortilla

Oh dogless I'm sorry to hear about Kilo still  Hope the vet can give you some answers. As for the massive act of hypocrisy, how annoying!

I was "that" owner today  After my very positive post earlier, we just went to the park at the end of the road for a quick run around and Tia bloody approached an on lead dog! Spoke too soon about the recall, it seems! I have no idea why she chose that one, there were 4 or 5 off lead dogs  They greeted nicely and then had a bit of a squeak at each other, you couldn't even call it handbags, it was just... silly lol, I apologised lots but the other owner said it was her dog that was like that and also didn't mind at all fortunately. I'm a teensy bit worried because it happened with that collie the other day too, I don't think Tia's doing anything to cause it (well apart from running up to an on lead dog in this case) because both times the other owner has said their dog is like that with other dogs often and Tia isn't, but it's still something to be aware of I think.


----------



## MollySmith

tiatortilla said:


> Oh dogless I'm sorry to hear about Kilo still  Hope the vet can give you some answers. As for the massive act of hypocrisy, how annoying!
> 
> I was "that" owner today  After my very positive post earlier, we just went to the park at the end of the road for a quick run around and Tia bloody approached an on lead dog! Spoke too soon about the recall, it seems! I have no idea why she chose that one, there were 4 or 5 off lead dogs  They greeted nicely and then had a bit of a squeak at each other, you couldn't even call it handbags, it was just... silly lol, I apologised lots but the other owner said it was her dog that was like that and also didn't mind at all fortunately. I'm a teensy bit worried because it happened with that collie the other day too, I don't think Tia's doing anything to cause it (well apart from running up to an on lead dog in this case) because both times the other owner has said their dog is like that with other dogs often and Tia isn't, but it's still something to be aware of I think.


I've found that keeping my hand full of liver cake (bleurrgghhhhh!) works with Molly or the clean hand option is hiding a space lobber in my bag so she's captivated by that but all wafted at her before goes off to play. Basically bribery and corruption  Take heart from the good things, you're both doing so well, I've been reading the diary.

Dogless - so sorry to bear BW isn't up to full strength, hopefully the vet can give you answers and it sounds better to group it all together in one appointment. Honestly can't believe the episode in the park, I think sometimes it's the best thing to walk away.

GingerRogers - well done you two (and three - wowsers!) That's amazing progress and sometimes you have to push a little don't you? I was terrible until I joining this thread at not pushing Molly but now I try to be brave. I spent last Sunday walking around the village in Norfolk seeking out different dogs and hanging around driveways practicing - the things we do  Be brave, I've even been doing scene of the crime and going back to see other dogs.

Def - a great camera! I've not had a fujifinepix but I've heard lots of great things about them.

Dimwit - so pleased he's better. I suspect he and Molly were both in the same stages as she's back to wallowing on the floor with her legs apart like a total tart and barking at cats today. Good luck 

I have a wee issue with Molls today. She's been getting very barky at other dogs when she wants their ball and I'm not sure what to do. This morning we walked with a pair of lovely black labs - one was elderly and he told Molly off with a growl and got his ball back from her. The younger bouncy one also had a ball that Molly wanted and her technique was to really bark at him big style until he skittered away in fear and she stole it. I realise dogs don't have possessions but it was still theft! Their owner wasn't fussed at all but I think it's appalling manners from Molly especially as the youngster didn't tell her off so it's almost as if she's being rewarded by his submissiveness. I'm taking heart that the older one told her off but it's still not great. In the end both these pair of dogs walked ahead and Molly stayed with me and their owner and the stolen ball. Not sure if I should be concerned about this? It's far from the first time.


----------



## MollySmith

Holiday pic thread

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/312597-mollys-norfolk-adventure.html


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## tiatortilla

MollySmith said:


> I've found that keeping my hand full of liver cake (bleurrgghhhhh!) works with Molly or the clean hand option is hiding a space lobber in my bag so she's captivated by that but all wafted at her before goes off to play. Basically bribery and corruption  Take heart from the good things, you're both doing so well, I've been reading the diary.


Thankyou  I've been a bit lazy with updating it the last few days, we haven't been seeing that many dogs so there's not much to write!
Tia's an easy dog to bribe too, she's food obsessed! Just have to make sure I change the treats often enough so they're still exciting. Her recall has been solid since she was... 8, 9 months old, maybe younger (I have a truly shocking memory but it's around then..) so it's all come as a bit of a shock tbh :lol: I thought I'd escaped the teenage stage but it turns out she's just a late developer!

No advice on Molly's thievery but good luck with it


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## Velcro

We've been learning sit, down and today we have started on stay. Which I have found surprisingly easy! I did try 'come' as she's been ignoring me lol, but when it came to do it she just kept following me about so thought stay might be a better place it start lol


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I have a wee issue with Molls today. She's been getting very barky at other dogs when she wants their ball and I'm not sure what to do. This morning we walked with a pair of lovely black labs - one was elderly and he told Molly off with a growl and got his ball back from her. The younger bouncy one also had a ball that Molly wanted and her technique was to really bark at him big style until he skittered away in fear and she stole it. I realise dogs don't have possessions but it was still theft! Their owner wasn't fussed at all but I think it's appalling manners from Molly especially as the youngster didn't tell her off so it's almost as if she's being rewarded by his submissiveness. I'm taking heart that the older one told her off but it's still not great. In the end both these pair of dogs walked ahead and Molly stayed with me and their owner and the stolen ball. Not sure if I should be concerned about this? It's far from the first time.


I'd try and address it simply in case Molly gets hurt. When Kilo was a pup he was playing in a group of dogs and a cocker with ball in mouth entered the group - ran over. Kilo went to try and get the ball playfully and got bitten on the side by the cocker and retreated squealing his head off. Cocker's owner said he really liked his ball. Clearly he did!


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I'd try and address it simply in case Molly gets hurt. When Kilo was a pup he was playing in a group of dogs and a cocker with ball in mouth entered the group - ran over. Kilo went to try and get the ball playfully and got bitten on the side by the cocker and retreated squealing his head off. Cocker's owner said he really liked his ball. Clearly he did!


That's my worry. Usually I'd walk Molly away but this owner was happy to let it carry on (she's an older lady who walks on her own and I got the impression she liked our company - mad fruit). Molly seems reasonable at judging dogs in that she only barks at ones she can boss about  but that's not to say she'll get it right all the time. I think my best option is to hide something on me that will lure her away, the lobber works best.

We've got gun dog training tomorrow - I forgot about that. It's a one to one, not sure what to expect, I just wanted to get some advice on working with Molly's instincts and harnessing her recall a bit better. That said, she was loads better on holiday on beaches. Hopefully he'll recommend moving to the seaside


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> That's my worry. Usually I'd walk Molly away but this owner was happy to let it carry on (she's an older lady who walks on her own and I got the impression she liked our company - mad fruit). Molly seems reasonable at judging dogs in that she only barks at ones she can boss about  but that's not to say she'll get it right all the time. I think my best option is to hide something on me that will lure her away, the lobber works best.
> 
> We've got gun dog training tomorrow - I forgot about that. It's a one to one, not sure what to expect, I just wanted to get some advice on working with Molly's instincts and harnessing her recall a bit better. That said, she was loads better on holiday on beaches. Hopefully he'll recommend moving to the seaside


Yes; Dizzy barks at Kilo and Rudi in a really demanding way and they give up their toys but his owner and my worry is that he will go off barking at the wrong dog so we are working together to stop it. It's not worth hoping that Molly will just pick the right dogs as you say.

Enjoy training tomorrow!


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## Dimwit

Dogless - sorry you had a bad weekend, and hat the BW is still worrying you. Hopefully the vet will have some answers, it is horrible when you know your dog is not quite themself.

MS - that is a difficult one, I would also go with luring her away and not letting her "win" the ball. Sprocket was quite naughty as a puppy at running up to dogs with balls and trying to pinch them until the error of his ways was pointed out to him in no uncertain terms by a cocker spaniel (who is now one of the few dogs he is happy with). Now he is very good at not pestering other dogs with balls but I tend to recall him as soon as I see one and either distract him with his own ball or walk away if I don't have one.

Hope th gun dog training goes well, it's something I'd love to do with the dimwit 

We had a very civilised walk tonight, lots of chucking his ball into the bushes and sending him to find it. I did see a fairly nasty example of what happens when an overexcited spaniel tries to join a game of frisbee with a collie - a fairly painful looking collision and badly limping collie he seemed ok after a few steps but if he was my dog I would have had a few words to say to the spaniel owner


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## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Dogless - sorry you had a bad weekend, and hat the BW is still worrying you. Hopefully the vet will have some answers, it is horrible when you know your dog is not quite themself.
> 
> MS - that is a difficult one, I would also go with luring her away and not letting her "win" the ball. Sprocket was quite naughty as a puppy at running up to dogs with balls and trying to pinch them until the error of his ways was pointed out to him in no uncertain terms by a cocker spaniel (who is now one of the few dogs he is happy with). Now he is very good at not pestering other dogs with balls but I tend to recall him as soon as I see one and either distract him with his own ball or walk away if I don't have one.
> 
> Hope th gun dog training goes well, it's something I'd love to do with the dimwit
> 
> We had a very civilised walk tonight, lots of chucking his ball into the bushes and sending him to find it. I did see a fairly nasty example of what happens when an overexcited spaniel tries to join a game of frisbee with a collie - a fairly painful looking collision and badly limping collie he seemed ok after a few steps but if he was my dog I would have had a few words to say to the spaniel owner


Lizzie did sort Molly out with this bad behaviour much like the cocker did with Sprocket.

I am not sure what to expect tomorrow - bit nervous as we're not huntin' shootin' fishin' types but I guess he's heard everything...

Gosh, poor Collie, frisbie games can be rather painful we've found too. Is Sprocket still troubled by the beagle at scent work and are you going on Sunday to Cath's?


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## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Is Sprocket still troubled by the beagle at scent work and are you going on Sunday to Cath's?


He wasn't at the last scent class we went to, so after a shaky start we manage to get sprocket sniffing again. He is till very unsure in rally classes (every now and then he plants himself, and he is even too worried to be interested in his ball) just taking it slowly with him and doing what he is happy with, but it is worrying seeing him so anxious and unsure I'm also doing lot of "fun" training with him on walks to try and help him (and getting some strange looks in the process as I am playing chase with him and going very overboard with the praise )
I can't do this next set of classes with Cath as I have some busy Sundays coming up so will probably do the set after, in September.

Fingers and paws crossed that you enjoy the gun dog training, I am always nervous before trying new stuff with dimwit but if you enjoy it, then that's the main thing. I know a few people who do gundog training but have no intention of working their dogs


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## GingerRogers

Well I deserve the crown for my skills at husband training  (sorry dief but this is too good to pass up)

This morning my BAT book arrived, I left it on the sofa next to hubby and he has been reading it ever since.

We both took ninja out tonight, she got quite worked up right from the get go as there were dogs barking in the distance, not really knowing what was going on we put her back on lead even though we were in the middle of a wheat field and could see for a ways. It soon became apparent that it was a couple out on their horses which had kicked these dogs off, the horse riders passing their house with their black lab off lead running beside them.

We passed across the road and up onto the other wheat fields where the footpath runs along the hedge row, and a chap pulled up in his car and got out with a black lab off lead and proceeded to follow us up the field edge, never see anyone here normally, thats why its such a safe place, but the last 3 times I have been we have had to divert. 

Then the farmer is out in his tractor rearranging his irrigators (yes I did say that with all the rain) which she got quite annoyed about, so I was able to demonstrate some of the stress signals and 'U turn' actions to a very receptive hubby.

A bit further on and she is still way too stressy and we realise (pooppoopdedoop) that horses (possibly not the ones we saw earlier, but possibly was as they had the dog with them)had been that way recently. She couldn't calm down even back on the road away from interesting smells so Hubby suggested turning and walking back just to re-focus her which we did only to see the riders plus dog coming round the corner.

Cue quick march from me back down the road to the next footpath we can cut into, luckily she does seem to be able to ignore things now if putting distance in.

Just as we get over this one I see a lady coming across the next field the only reason people are up here is dog walking so I dive through the hedge to forbidden lands, hubby explains to the lady what we are up to and why they might hear barking so what does the woman do peer through the bloody hedge, cos that wont set her off in itself will it.


But she was brilliant  a little gruffaloing but considering how totally stressed out she has been all walk I was expecting full on frenzy with an attack of my ankles thrown in.

So she drags me back into the allowed field via a route under a low hanging oak tree . I tried to explain our height difference but she could hear hubby. 

Then hubby says shall we let her off to let the steam out. 
Off like a ruddy bullet, oh dear he says, gulp I think, but sure enough as soon as she passed out of sight she comes bombing back round to us bless her little cotton ones.

Sooo I think the bogging off is a stress reliever just like the digging. 

Then he says, do you know when we first got her I think we did too much too soon. No **** sherlock, dont think I have ever said that myself. 

Then he says there was a bit in the book about the 5-10 weeks old pups development and how important those weeks are with the mum and litter mates. See above phrase involving a detective applied to our little one bought at 5 weeks old.

Then he says theres a bit in there about headcollars and harnesses but i didnt read that as I am happy walking her in the harness we have :thumbsup: 

Am I good or am I good. 

Now just need to work on the dog training


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## Tyton

Well done GR on the husband training  we sometimes have differing views in our house about how to go about training the dogs -especially on trying to get over Tyton's anxiety and over excitedness. 

I can't fault him on the hard work he's done with the puppies though, he's done the lion's share of the basic training and this evening waded through the long grass to lie down and 'hide' to practice the wee ones' recall -artificial leg and all 

Still work to be done on the dog training here though as well. I think they used up this week's behavior quota at the dog show yesterday! Today we've had chewing the hot tub steps, Beau running off to join some teenagers in the park with a very reluctant and delayed recall, Tyton deciding the best way to retrieve any toy from the littlies is to chew their head til they drop it, and Tyton getting so excited he even tried to jump on me and 10 stone of newfy NEEDS to keep all four feet on the ground around people 

At least they're all sound asleep now and tomorrow is another day :mellow:


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## Dogless

Very good evening too. Every dog in the world was out (give or take a few ) as it was lovely weather. Met Diz with Rudi, he behaved well, didn't approach anyone or any dog he shouldn't, walked past them nicely, recalled well. Good boy . Played tug and "Ready Steady" for pretty much the whole hour or so of Kilo's walk to keep him happy and focussed. Exhausting .

Meeting Diz with Sir K tomorrow evening .


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## MollySmith

Well done GR, you're all doing so well  There are so many challenges on your walks which makes it all the more amazing.

Dogless - Rudi is so lovely, I hope BW has fun with Diz this evening.

I've come back from training feeling like a sh*t owner. I've talked it over with the OH who wasn't able to come along and I shall probably now randomly off load my thoughts in no order.

First thing was I got told off for giving him the wrong number...I let that go even though it occured to me I know my phone number, maybe he wrote it down wrong. Then he argued that I called Molly 'darling'. I don't use the word darling in my vocabulary and said I treated her like a child. He asked if I had children and I said that had no relevance. He put two and two together and made 5, apparently Molly is my surrogate baby....:cursing: So not a great start on a personal level.

It seems to me that the website for the training class which said helping pet dog owners with recall and retrieving is inaccurate since this trainer told me to forget all I've learned so far. There is to be no treats, no tuggies, Molly kept in a crate and lots of stuff on me being the alpha male. Oh and remove all of Molly's toys apart from special gun dog toys.

I place great value on clicker training, it's got us past lots of problems but even our trainer has issues with her gordon setter and tracking after a scent. So the promise of being able to have Molly going out for 20 yards and back to me sounds great but I feel it's to the detriment of what we've done this far. And what we've done so far is good, I think. Molly is a pet not a working dog and she was stressed in the field - apparently most dogs do get worried he said. That doesn't seem great to me.

Two useful points - my tone of voice is too light and the slip lead stopped her pulling (but still not sure these are any better than haltis etc). 

I think what I feel is that this isn't for us. I'm going on too far ahead and the trainer clearly has no idea of lead reactivity or taken into account anything I explained on the website. I have no idea what the exercises are as he just talked at me but didn't write them down. Molly's hurdle was the lead reactivity, her next issue is being in an enclosed space with other dogs indoors which we're working on this weekend with our Saintly Trainer. Then we'll look at recall but in another way... no idea what that is. And it's not really recall but harnessing her lurcher instinct.

I still feel like a crap owner though


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## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> I still feel like a crap owner though


Right, first of all you are *NOT* a crap owner, if you were you would have given up on Molly ages ago. Instead you have worked incredibly hard and now have a dog who will walk calmly into a strange place with other dogs and not so much as look at them. Our trainer can't praise you enough for all of your hard work and dedication so you should be very proud of yourself.
The no toys/tuggy/keeping her in a crate is rubbish. Yes, if you have a working dog this is probably beneficial as they are not pet dogs and need the down-time to rest. But Molly is a pet dog and, as it is unlikely that you would ever want to work her in the field all day, having acces to toys and human interaction is not going to cause her any problems.

I think you are right in that this is probably not for you, but that is no reflection on you as an owner or Molly as a dog. Maybe when she is more established in group lessons (and Cath's classes are a great way to get her used to this) you could try scentwork or similar? It is a good way of getting her working "away" from you, but also listening to you and I am sure is something she would enjoy (and there are a couple of sighthounds that come to classes and do very well).

I would chalk this one up to experience and try not to dwell on it too much - it sounds like this was a very "old-school" type of trainer who has failed to adapt their methods to different types of dog.


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## tiatortilla

MollySmith, I'm sorry he made you feel like that. Sounds like a horrible and presumptuous man! As Dimwit said, you're not a bad owner! I really admire you for what you've done with Molly and have been attempting to follow in your footsteps! I wouldn't be doing that unless you were a good owner


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## Guest

Hello hello hello!
Had good days and bad days here, today I faceplanted cause some twit let their spaniel come shooting up to Zand. 
Gonna try some longline training at some point.

MollySmith, that trainer sounds like a knobber they really do but I do have a teeny bone to pick with you. Molly on a sliplead. Molly on a lead that tightens around the neck. :nono: There have been threads on this haven't there? It is not good for any dogs neck


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## BessieDog

Amazing husband training GR! Want to come and train mine? Actually had a fair walk with Bess today as I WAS ON MY OWN.  every time she pulled on the flexi I stopped dead (at times it took me a few steps) and waited until she turned to see what was up and came back to me. I'm hoping eventually that she'll get to the end of the lead and turn back of her own accord. OH just lets her get her shoulders down and pull! 

DL - sorry about you're crap weekend and hope things are picking up. 

MS - what an awful trainer. I really wouldn't go back! 

Well, I'm sort of packed apart from the things I've forgotten, Bess's food all bagged up and son given instructions. Bess ate free flow tripe mince again today. Wish I'd found that earlier but I've stayed away from Prize Choice. She likes if frozen. Well,she might not tomorrow of course. But I'm now a bit more hopeful she'll eat while we're away. 

Starting to look forward to going now!


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## GingerRogers

Ouch LO hope you are OK??? 

Mollysmith, why on earth do you feel like a crap owner, not because a numpty outdated trainer told you so surely? You know enough about positive dog training to see past that dominance rubbish, working gundog or not 

I will give it to you though you are clearly crap at picking gundog trainers 

But I am with LO you also know enough to know that slip leads are just a choke chain made of rope, a lot of dogs will walk nicely on them because they fear being choked to death, who knows what Molly has experienced in the past 

I wouldn't have said you are going to far ahead just that those methods arent for you, stick with the trainer you have and what works for you.


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## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Right, first of all you are *NOT* a crap owner, if you were you would have given up on Molly ages ago. Instead you have worked incredibly hard and now have a dog who will walk calmly into a strange place with other dogs and not so much as look at them. Our trainer can't praise you enough for all of your hard work and dedication so you should be very proud of yourself.
> The no toys/tuggy/keeping her in a crate is rubbish. Yes, if you have a working dog this is probably beneficial as they are not pet dogs and need the down-time to rest. But Molly is a pet dog and, as it is unlikely that you would ever want to work her in the field all day, having acces to toys and human interaction is not going to cause her any problems.
> 
> I think you are right in that this is probably not for you, but that is no reflection on you as an owner or Molly as a dog. Maybe when she is more established in group lessons (and Cath's classes are a great way to get her used to this) you could try scentwork or similar? It is a good way of getting her working "away" from you, but also listening to you and I am sure is something she would enjoy (and there are a couple of sighthounds that come to classes and do very well).
> 
> I would chalk this one up to experience and try not to dwell on it too much - it sounds like this was a very "old-school" type of trainer who has failed to adapt their methods to different types of dog.





tiatortilla said:


> MollySmith, I'm sorry he made you feel like that. Sounds like a horrible and presumptuous man! As Dimwit said, you're not a bad owner! I really admire you for what you've done with Molly and have been attempting to follow in your footsteps! I wouldn't be doing that unless you were a good owner


Thank you both, I've stopped the pathetic tears. It's so silly to be reduced to that at my age but honestly I was so concerned. I'm now cross that they didn't even read my email about what I wanted to achieve and what training we had done so far and how, that came across clearly.

Yes Dimwit, I shall see how we get on with Cath and then get in touch with Sally after that. I'll also look at other recall classes or seminars that work with clicker training.

This morning was a mistake and I just need to forget it.



LurcherOwner said:


> MollySmith, that trainer sounds like a knobber they really do but I do have a teeny bone to pick with you. Molly on a sliplead. Molly on a lead that tightens around the neck. :nono: There have been threads on this haven't there? It is not good for any dogs neck


My issue with the teeny bone is that lots of those threads seem to digress into they said/we said arguments and the entire point is lost and nobody knows what's right or wrong, I steer very clear of them for that reason. So whilst I realize there were threads on this, I doubt I read them. This knobber D) trainer used the slip lead in the field, I used her regular lead to walk her there. It's one of _many_ things I'm unsure of with him. I asked him not to smack my dog so believe me, he was told and it was exhausting. Halti's come under that whole who is right and wrong, I'm honest about using one as that's what our regular trainer has said and showed us how.

But yes I understand your point. 

Anyway just to make today an even more pants affair, my iBook is dead when I really do not need to spend the money and Molly has managed to pull down a pile of heavy logs, thankfully not on herself but it was close. OH is now in the garden clearing up - having told me that I should have backed up the iBook (I did a few weeks ago but have since loaded more things to it). He is a total technophobe - he doesn't have a computer and barely uses a mobile - so he's best outside I feel, for his own wellbeing. I'm peeved as I think I've lost most of my OU course work if the hard drive can't be revived.


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## Dogless

Oh dear MS . Nothing to add to what others have said about that trainer and him not being for you. What a disappointment though .

Went and had my chat with the vet. It was one of the two I really like / rate. Kilo will be castrated, lower spine and hip x rays done and bloods for T4. They had a cancellation on Thursday. I took it - very soon but best to get it over and done with I think.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Oh dear MS . Nothing to add to what others have said about that trainer and him not being for you. What a disappointment though .
> 
> Went and had my chat with the vet. It was one of the two I really like / rate. Kilo will be castrated, lower spine and hip x rays done and bloods for T4. They had a cancellation on Thursday. I took it - very soon but best to get it over and done with I think.


Like because it is best to get it done as knowing you you will be fret fret fretting 

Sorry about your iBook MS please say you had sent the coursework in 
I am sure you have as you said you were done.

Bessie have a lovely holiday and try not to worry too much about bess eating kentucky and sauce on the new sofa with your son


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Like because it is best to get it done as knowing you you will be fret fret fretting
> 
> Sorry about your iBook MS please say you had sent the coursework in
> I am sure you have as you said you were done.
> 
> Bessie have a lovely holiday and try not to worry too much about bess eating kentucky and sauce on the new sofa with your son


I don't know what you mean   . It wouldn't be like me to catastrophise  . I am as nervous as anything .


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## tiatortilla

Do you wish people luck for vet appointments? Sod it, you do now - good luck on Thursday Dogless!


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## MollySmith

I think you're right Dogless best to get it over with.

GR I fear I'm far less knowledgeable than I ought to be, slip leads included, I found the trainer through the gun dog association and did a search, past client recommend him highly. I am now very curious, is this the norm for this training. All the OU work has been sent and this years course is on Dropbox. I think it's hardware not software.

Molly did her first sit and wait whilst I threw a ball, something she learned this morning... But she completely missed the mouse in our garden. Not a great
Omen.


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## moonviolet

Re gundog trainers, like any area of training there are different schools of thought and care has to be taken finding a trainer who's ethos matches your own. Gundog training has, rightly or wrongly, gained a reputation of being a little behind other areas. Certainly the gundog trainer I've had the misfortune to come across on my walks a few times uses methods best left in the last century. Including picking the dog up by grabbing each side of their neck and yelling in their face. I'm sure he gets results but at what cost? more shut down dogs I have rarely seen.


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## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> Re gundog trainers, like any area of training there are different schools of thought and care has to be taken finding a trainer who's ethos matches your own. Gundog training has, rightly or wrongly, gained a reputation of being a little behind other areas. Certainly the gundog trainer I've had the misfortune to come across on my walks a few times uses methods best left in the last century. Including picking the dog up by grabbing each side of their neck and yelling in their face. I'm sure he gets results but at what cost? more shut down dogs I have rarely seen.


My auntie and her fiance have a working cocker spaniel who was scared of the gun and they're sure he was trained harshly, he's a very nervous boy and it's really sad  He's only scared of women too which suggests he was trained by a woman as he's not nervous around all people (although he did quite like me but that's because I mainly ignored him and allowed him to come to me, it's when women approach him that he gets scared). Luckily he has a wonderful home with two very patient people and he's gradually coming out of his shell.
I'm sure not all gun dog trainers use harsh methods but there's definitely dogs that suggest a lot of them do.


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## moonviolet

in the interest of balance... Phillipa Williams and her displays at crufts are fabulous!

Gundog Display - Philippa Williams - Levenghyl Gundogs - Crufts 2012 - YouTube


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## MollySmith

I was told to try the Gun Dog Trust and I took it from there. I did as much research as is possible without camping outside his house and spoke to a lady at the club to check over the methods used as well as the intro email - I don't know what else I could have done. Nothing I think so I'm leaving it as it's upsetting me enough already. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Edited - MV, that's who he cited as a great trainer...


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## tiatortilla

MollySmith said:


> I was told to try the Gun Dog Trust and I took it from there. I did as much research as is possible without camping outside his house and spoke to a lady at the club to check over the methods used as well as the intro email - I don't know what else I could have done. Nothing I think so I'm leaving it as it's upsetting me enough already.


Oh dear I hope it was nothing I said? I was just joining in the conversation with my own experience, I thought we'd moved on from your particular trainer.. I didn't mean to suggest you didn't do enough to find a good trainer or anything, I'm really sorry if anything I said came across like that!

ETA, Just noticed you 'liked' my post so I'm guessing I didn't.. I just hate the thought of accidentally upsetting someone! Ignore me


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## MollySmith

Oh goodness no, nobody on here, sorry that's the last thing I want anyone to think. Just this idiot man and the OH and the laptop... all a bit of a fretful day. You know the sort when you think 'I'm a grown woman, I don't have to take this' but by the time you've said it, it's too late


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## Guest

MS, just chalk it up to experience. 

I think all of us have visited shitty trainers at some point. When I first got Zand I was 18, starry eyed and went along with the trainer I worked with. She was very into dominance etc etc etc. So not the best start for us, but hey, we learned from it and although I have yet to find a trainer here that's good for us, we are steadyly progressing on our own 

Its important that you pop along and watch before you book any lessons.
Most gundog trainers here are old fashioned but there is one who's positive based, dunno if she still does it though.


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## Dimwit

MS - that's rubbish about you mac, I think after the day you've had you deserve a stiff drink! Well done on the sit while you throw a ball though, that's our holy grail and filed in the "things we will never be able to do, but it's good to dream" place 

Dogless - fingers crossed for Thursday, at least you don't have too long to wait so less time to keep imagining the worst case scenario.

Bessie - have a wonderful holiday, I am sure your son, dog, new sofa and carpet will all survive unscathed...

I am a bit fed up tonight, just got back from big walkies which was neither big nor walky as nobody else turned up I waited round like a Billy no mates for a while and then took dimwit for a short walk, just so our journey wasn't wasted.


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## diefenbaker

Just on the way out to dog training.. but attached should be some "action shots" for your delectation.


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## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> MS - that's rubbish about you mac, I think after the day you've had you deserve a stiff drink! Well done on the sit while you throw a ball though, that's our holy grail and filed in the "things we will never be able to do, but it's good to dream" place
> 
> Dogless - fingers crossed for Thursday, at least you don't have too long to wait so less time to keep imagining the worst case scenario.
> 
> Bessie - have a wonderful holiday, I am sure your son, dog, new sofa and carpet will all survive unscathed...
> 
> I am a bit fed up tonight, just got back from big walkies which was neither big nor walky as nobody else turned up I waited round like a Billy no mates for a while and then took dimwit for a short walk, just so our journey wasn't wasted.


I HATE it when folk don't turn up :cursing:.


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## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> I HATE it when folk don't turn up :cursing:.


Me too. Mainly because I AM a Billy no mates and this is pretty much the only chance dimwit gets to interact with other dogs on walks and the only time I get to speak to actual humans (apart from when I get to politely ask people on our usual walks to call their "friendly" dog away from mine)


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## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> Me too. Mainly because I AM a Billy no mates and this is pretty much the only chance dimwit gets to interact with other dogs on walks and the only time I get to speak to actual humans (apart from when I get to politely ask people on our usual walks to call their "friendly" dog away from mine)


You and me both .


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Just on the way out to dog training.. but attached should be some "action shots" for your delectation.


The boy's looking handsome .


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> MS - that's rubbish about you mac, I think after the day you've had you deserve a stiff drink! Well done on the sit while you throw a ball though, that's our holy grail and filed in the "things we will never be able to do, but it's good to dream" place
> 
> Dogless - fingers crossed for Thursday, at least you don't have too long to wait so less time to keep imagining the worst case scenario.
> 
> Bessie - have a wonderful holiday, I am sure your son, dog, new sofa and carpet will all survive unscathed...
> 
> I am a bit fed up tonight, just got back from big walkies which was neither big nor walky as nobody else turned up I waited round like a Billy no mates for a while and then took dimwit for a short walk, just so our journey wasn't wasted.


Oh 'words I'm banned from using' I forgot to come along :cursing:hmy: I said I would but what with today's events it completely slipped my mind. So crap nobody else did, a nudge on their FB page might help people to remember the change.

Bess have a wonderful holiday


----------



## Canine K9

Set off for a walk this afternoon but down the street he kept barking at people and I got to the woods and there was an out of control Husky so I turned back.
I did half hour of training with him which went well.
But he won`t stop biting  He has started snarling and growling at me if I approach him when he has something like a toy. He has drew blood several times tonight. He is so vocal and goes mental at everything. Unless I have treats he doesn`t give one about anything I`m saying he will jump up to bite me. I`m worrying he will seriously hurt someone one day.


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Set off for a walk this afternoon but down the street he kept barking at people and I got to the woods and there was an out of control Husky so I turned back.
> I did half hour of training with him which went well.
> But he won`t stop biting  He has started snarling and growling at me if I approach him when he has something like a toy. He has drew blood several times tonight. He is so vocal and goes mental at everything. Unless I have treats he doesn`t give one about anything I`m saying he will jump up to bite me. I`m worrying he will seriously hurt someone one day.


Have you read the Resource Guarding sticky? It's in T&B. Sounds as if Bailey is starting to RG things that he likes / wants. Swapping items for something better is a great way to get around things as he'll learn that giving up things is good. Also, I make a game out of one of mine having something that they shouldn't so that they now come to me rather than run off as they'll get a game out of it or a swap.

How's the impulse control work coming along too? I ask as it should help Bailey control any frustration he is feeling and also because it might help in an emergency if he has something dangerous. If Kilo has something I want but he also wants rather than rush in and take it straight from him I can ask him to drop it, sit and wait then pick up the item and praise him / play with him for being good and sitting if that makes sense? I say Kilo as Roo is happy for you to fish about in his mouth for things til the cows come home, but Kilo would rather you didn't.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Have you read the Resource Guarding sticky? It's in T&B. Sounds as if Bailey is starting to RG things that he likes / wants. Swapping items for something better is a great way to get around things as he'll learn that giving up things is good. Also, I make a game out of one of mine having something that they shouldn't so that they now come to me rather than run off as they'll get a game out of it or a swap.
> 
> How's the impulse control work coming along too? I ask as it should help Bailey control any frustration he is feeling and also because it might help in an emergency if he has something dangerous. If Kilo has something I want but he also wants rather than rush in and take it straight from him I can ask him to drop it, sit and wait then pick up the item and praise him / play with him for being good and sitting if that makes sense? I say Kilo as Roo is happy for you to fish about in his mouth for things til the cows come home, but Kilo would rather you didn't.


Thanks will do now  Its coming along okay if I drop a treat on the floor he will ignore it until I say "Ok"


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Thanks will do now  Its coming along okay if I drop a treat on the floor he will ignore it until I say "Ok"


That's good . Do you do controlled play / tug yet? Might be worth doing that sooner rather than later - so you can get Bailey all fired up then learn to control him in that state and, more importantly, how to get him to stop play and out of that state again. That really helps my two to learn how to control themselves - especially the BW again as he's a bit "hair trigger" !! Also means you can direct all his built up frustration onto something and it will build your bond hugely.

You'll get there, I'm sure.


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Oh 'words I'm banned from using' I forgot to come along :cursing:hmy: I said I would but what with today's events it completely slipped my mind.


Well that's understandable. Hopefully it will pick up soon


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> That's good . Do you do controlled play / tug yet? Might be worth doing that sooner rather than later - so you can get Bailey all fired up then learn to control him in that state and, more importantly, how to get him to stop play and out of that state again. That really helps my two to learn how to control themselves - especially the BW again as he's a bit "hair trigger" !! Also means you can direct all his built up frustration onto something and it will build your bond hugely.
> 
> You'll get there, I'm sure.


No not really something to do though


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> No not really something to do though


I'd make it your priority. Reckon it would really help in so many ways. If you're not sure how, give us all a shout on here .


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> I'd make it your priority. Reckon it would really help in so many ways. If you're not sure how, give us all a shout on here .


Agree, it's helped Molly loads just like you said Dogless


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Well that's understandable. Hopefully it will pick up soon


It's a bit crap of me and I know Molly would've loved it. It's tattooed on my eye lids


----------



## tiatortilla

Nice sunny walk today  Just doing the usual sit/stay/recall stuff and walking to heel off lead. Tia's crashed out in the middle of the floor now bless her.
Dogless you were right about the demanding "play with me!" barking. She was playing chase with a little fluffy dog today and she had a few little yaps when he stopped chasing her, it's definitely an attention thing. I just called her away, do you think that will teach her that when she does it the play will stop, or do I need to do anything else?

She found some leftover watermelon too  Why people insist on leaving food on the floor in a place where loads of people walk their dogs I don't know.. I got her to leave it and lured her away by getting her to walk to heel away from it but she ran back and got it as soon as I sent her off lolol so I had to go and take it off her and put it in the bin! Anyway other than that she was really good, she's stopped trying to go over to people sat on the floor now too 

I have noticed that now we're doing off lead walkies again she's become more growly on lead again. She's not gone back to full on crazy reactive but she has been a bit more noisy, so I suppose I'll have to keep doing on lead walks at least a few times a week which is a shame because obviously off lead is more enjoyable for both of us but I don't want it to be at the expense of her progress on lead.

Hope everyone's having a good day!


----------



## tiatortilla

There was something else I meant to say..
That little rant I had about OH's step brother a few days ago.. Turns out it was mixed communications and they hadn't actually bought the puppy yet thankfully! So my OH's dad (the step brother's step dad) phoned up the breeders and told them not to sell them a puppy :thumbup: Ofc it won't stop the puppy possibly ending up with different irresponsible owners but I can't afford to be worrying about that really, and at least it means we won't have to take on another dog in a few months time because I could see that happening tbh! Just have to hope they don't go and get a different dog instead..


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Dogless you were right about the demanding "play with me!" barking. She was playing chase with a little fluffy dog today and she had a few little yaps when he stopped chasing her, it's definitely an attention thing. I just called her away, do you think that will teach her that when she does it the play will stop, or do I need to do anything else?


With the dog we play with we tend to call him away and distract him - for instance he stood and barked in Kilo's face today as Kilo had a toy he wanted. He was called away and rewarded with a different toy. Seems to work.

Great walks all round today. Kilo had an onlead training walk this morning and was really good and i took Rudi to the park - he was brilliant for me too. We then went from the park to PAH and then Jolleys trying to find a comfy collar instead of the cone Kilo will have tomorrow - no way will he manage to negotiate round the small house we live in :crazy:. Anyway they both used to sell them but now don't. Have ordered one online as I'd always meant to have one for "just in case" anyway. No idea how many people Rudi met or how many treats he consumed...a lot and he was very good. Two offlead dogs in the shops ran over to us but all OK.

This evening I took Kilo out with Diz. We haven't seen "the" lab and I have managed to have Kilo inside when he's been running our fence since the weekend. Because he hasn't reacted for a few days he was totally relaxed and we saw dogs, kids whizzing by on scooters, running from us....the lot. Just shows how elevated stress levels affect a dog. Anyway he had a lovely time running about for an hour and a half or so.

Took Rudi just for a quick ish offlead run about, a few dogs seen. Very overweight basset ran at us growling but the joy of a dog like that is his owners could catch him up and get him.

Perfect day. Dreading tomorrow - not least breakfast time when the BW can't have any .


----------



## BessieDog

Just checking in quickly from a nice warm Greece. Can't say sunny yet as its dark, but the hotel bar is lovely!

I just wanted to send my good wishes for Kilo tomorrow - hope all goes well. I'm sure it will

I've been given strict instructions not to text for updates on Bess more than twice a day.


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> Just checking in quickly from a nice warm Greece. Can't say sunny yet as its dark, but the hotel bar is lovely!
> 
> I just wanted to send my good wishes for Kilo tomorrow - hope all goes well. I'm sure it will
> 
> I've been given strict instructions not to text for updates on Bess more than twice a day.


Thank you, enjoy your holiday and heed your instructions!! .


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## MollySmith

Dogless just wanted to give you and BW massive cuddles for tomorrow. I am a total worry wart but it's a regular, minor procedure for the vet and they'll know you'll be worried. He's in safe hands and won't know anything about it, and he'll be home before you know it xxx

Bess - okay so I'm jealous 

Tiatortilla - I use a space lobber to get Molly back to me. It's my emergency recall really (knobber trainer was horrified )

Not much to report, took Molly on a long walk today and we've got class details for Sunday with lovely Saint Trainer so pleased about that. Hopefully we will be fine and laptop appears to be fixed by repair people in a way I've never heard of before, I didn't question it, I'm just grateful.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - hope all goes well today.

Tia - can you do a mixture of on and offlead on the same walks? I tend to do this with dimwit just so that he doesn't always anticipate being let off lead. 

MS - glad your computer is now fixed  and enjoy class on sunday - I wish I was coming.

Had rally class last night and dimwit is still really not happy at training place. He is fine everywhere else but as soon as we get there he just shuts down. I even had to lift him out of the car
He did have moments though when he was working nicely, but then it's like he suddenly remember he's scared and sits down shaking. Instructor and the other people in the class are being great though, we just do what he can and they all keep coming over and giving him treats so I'm hoping, with time, that he'll forget what scared him and realise that he is safe there and that he can have fun. It is horrible seeing him so unsure and anxious though, I just really wish I could do something to help him - why do dogs not understand English


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> Dogless - hope all goes well today.
> 
> Tia - can you do a mixture of on and offlead on the same walks? I tend to do this with dimwit just so that he doesn't always anticipate being let off lead.
> 
> MS - glad your computer is now fixed  and enjoy class on sunday - I wish I was coming.
> 
> Had rally class last night and dimwit is still really not happy at training place. He is fine everywhere else but as soon as we get there he just shuts down. I even had to lift him out of the car
> He did have moments though when he was working nicely, but then it's like he suddenly remember he's scared and sits down shaking. Instructor and the other people in the class are being great though, we just do what he can and they all keep coming over and giving him treats so I'm hoping, with time, that he'll forget what scared him and realise that he is safe there and that he can have fun. It is horrible seeing him so unsure and anxious though, I just really wish I could do something to help him - *why do dogs not understand English*


I know this is going to sound harsh but I wonder if Sprocket was wondering why you don't understand "dog"

I think (my personal opinion)the moment you lifted him out of the car you set yourself up to fail. He was telling you he wasn't comfortable and that act showed him you weren't going to take any notice.

Just letting everyone else get on with class and while you stand with relaxed body language dropping a few nice smelly treats and waiting until Sprocket felt ready to get out of the car would have been taking a long term view of your relationship, rather than lifting him and forcing him into a situation he where he was clearly expressing he wasn't comfortable.


----------



## Dimwit

Not harsh at all. You're right, I should have let him stay in the car until he was happy to come out


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> Not harsh at all. You're right, I should have let him stay in the car until he was happy to come out


We all make mistakes and these dogs of ours are always teaching us something new.


----------



## Sarah1983

Agree with MV 100%. I did a lot of it with Rupert and classes at first. Sitting where he was comfortable, rewarding him for being there and gradually moving closer at his pace until we were actually in the hall where everyone was working. When it came to joining in ourselves we started off outside the hall. A few weeks later we were in an out of the way corner doing stationary stuff. We occasionally went back to that if there were lots of new dogs or he was showing signs of stress about something.

Then we moved to a new building for classes and there was air conditioning. Well the air conditioning terrified him and he refused to set foot in the building so we started all over again, same sort of thing. It took a good while but he did become 100% comfortable with the air con and it's better to take that time than to keep forcing the issue and ending up with a shut down dog who doesn't trust you imo.

Do you know what it is that's scared Sprocket?


----------



## cheesecake

Had a good walk yesterday.

Im changing route. Instead of walking down the main road towards town ,we're gonna walk the opposite direction through some quieter streets then onto the beach. I know this might confuse her a bit but once she gets used to it will be so much nicer walk. =/

Still using cheese n sausage treats,which are still kinda working. 

So we walked down the road ( I had treats and the Frisbee's ) then down a side road then onto track leading to beach . She stalled once on the track. Not sure why. There was a man up ahead so maybe she was nervous of him. 
I let her stand there a bit ,then she pulled for the opposite direction. I didn't move. 
Tried to stay patient.
Encouraged her with the Frisbee's and she came along 

We had a good long play and run on beach (about an hour!) 

I'll do the same today as I have another day off work. 
I hope it goes ok

oh yeah......Ive been walking her just collar and lead ,I seem to get better results without her harness on. I paid £30 for that harness too =/


----------



## Dogless

Took Kilo for a walk in the pouring rain this morning, he was really good and really relaxed again, really chuffed for him . Then dropped him at the vet - he drooled as soon as we got in there and was massively nervous. I can pick him up from 1630 - 1730. 

Walked Rudi in the pouring rain too - not much seen, most people aren't daft enough to be out in this weather . I'll walk him again and feed him before I get the BW as I won't be able to go out later.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Took Kilo for a walk in the pouring rain this morning, he was really good and really relaxed again, really chuffed for him . Then dropped him at the vet - he drooled as soon as we got in there and was massively nervous. I can pick him up from 1630 - 1730.
> 
> Walked Rudi in the pouring rain too - not much seen, most people aren't daft enough to be out in this weather . I'll walk him again and feed him before I get the BW as I won't be able to go out later.


Awh what good boys you have. Thinking of you all lots today


----------



## Dimwit

Sarah1983 said:


> Do you know what it is that's scared Sprocket?


Yes - he got scared by another dog a few weeks ago at a different class (run by the same instructor but in a different location). Then, a few days later we went to rally class and the same dog was there. As we were walking in Sprocket heard the other dog bark and just lost the plot.
The other dog hasn't been to rally class since (not related to this, I don't think) but I think Sprocket is just now remembering that this is a "scary" place.

For the last couple of weeks I have just been sitting quietly with him and treating him, and then just doing what he is happy with at a distance from the other dogs. I am also doing lots of training with him on walks (where he is totally happy) and making it all into a game.

He is slowly getting a bit better and I know it will probably be a long process to get him over this (everything else with him has been a long, slow process), but I think I owe it to him to try. The alternative is giving up or finding another class which I don't want to do as I know how much he enjoyed these classes.

The wishing he could understand english was more meaning that I wish I could just tell him he has nothing to worry about, or have some sort of "magic wand" and could go back to the way he was. I am perfectly prepared to work through this (if we can) and I have spent months building up his trust in me and "listening" to what he is telling me and trying not to put him in situations where he is unhappy (which is why we gave up flyball) so I am doing my best - it just usually isn't quite good enough


----------



## diefenbaker

I've got a nifty little case for the camera now. £10 off fleaBay. I'm starting to worry I might be Scottish.


----------



## diefenbaker

Good luck today Kilo. Only a man can understand.


----------



## GingerRogers

Good luck Kilo lots of thoughts for you Dogless! Sure he will come through today just fine, just hope the tests come back clear too!

DW its good to hear you are helping Sprocket through his fears, it is hard with these 'special' dogs, its very easy to push them too far. ETA if you are doing your best Dimwit its all we all can do, and its the only best and better than the alternative for the little pooches who loves us.

We did something different for us last night. I normally chuck the ninja in the car to go somewhere for after work walkies as the stress of walking round here with all the other after work walkers is too much.

Last night we had tea early and both took her down to the marshes, we used to walk here all the time, its the one place I feel completely safe having her off lead and she loves running about in the grass. Trouble is you run the gauntlet to get there but I figured after 8pm in the rain the majority of work walkers would be done by then.

Poor ninja didn't realise this though and was quite stressed, even though its a route we take every morning, evening time with the two of us was odd, she knew something was up and as soon as we got on the narrow path to the marshes she was on high alert in anticipation of encounters (I excuse this in that it gave her a good memory for the bank as she didn't see anything scary in actual fact) once we got past the traumatic bits and on to the marshes she had one big stress releasing zoom and then ran round and round chasing the grass , hubby said shall we keep going down to the old quay :sosp: so we walked along the river wall and she got to wallow in estuary mud as well, luckily the wet grass cleaned her up so baths were not needed.

Sadly there were some VERY frisky young heifers adjacent to the path and we had to put her back on lead and they still had a few arguments , I was very glad their fence was in good nick 

Then we walked back up the 'lane' to the main road with possibly the entire population of bunnies and a fox taking flight in front of us  cue bunny brains!!

All in all a lovely 4 mile walk but I still managed to get home in a grump with the completely irrational feeling she had purposefully showed me up in front of hubby  terrible I know.

Next part big boasty part 

This morning I thought I would give her a double dose of Stressless and extend our pavement potter along some of the same route to get her back used to it (in line with my resolution to push me/her/us a little bit each day) 

She was awesome (she was showing me up last night I swear ) she didn't lunge at the fat cat waiting for us, she didn't lunge at the lorries driving past on the main road, she didn't lunge at any of the 'houses which hold dogs' not even the one with the lundhunds who bark at the kitchen door, we got some hand targets and everything and even some reasonable walking  Not sure the man who got barked at for trying to hand his mower plug into his wife would agree with me but.........:rolleyes5: I dont care...........

We got home and I decided to do some sheltie (temporary next door neighbours let it bark at the front door at everything that passes making coming and going a military mission) desensitisation which didn't go so well as they've got a little hint that it irritates the bazookas off me (parking backwards, using the back gate etc ) so keep calling her away from the door only to let her pop back up again  but it did end well as the other neighbour spotted/heard us and offered a bonio which she settled down to eat with wagging tail on their front lawn :thumbsup: I led her around adn with some firm leave its we got back indoors.

Loving my little girly today :001_wub:even if she did show me up last night, lol


----------



## Dogless

Go the Ginger Ninja :thumbup: . She's come such a long way, well done to both of you .


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> Yes - he got scared by another dog a few weeks ago at a different class (run by the same instructor but in a different location). Then, a few days later we went to rally class and the same dog was there. As we were walking in Sprocket heard the other dog bark and just lost the plot.
> The other dog hasn't been to rally class since (not related to this, I don't think) but I think Sprocket is just now remembering that this is a "scary" place.
> 
> For the last couple of weeks I have just been sitting quietly with him and treating him, and then just doing what he is happy with at a distance from the other dogs. I am also doing lots of training with him on walks (where he is totally happy) and making it all into a game.
> 
> He is slowly getting a bit better and I know it will probably be a long process to get him over this (everything else with him has been a long, slow process), but I think I owe it to him to try. The alternative is giving up or finding another class which I don't want to do as I know how much he enjoyed these classes.
> 
> The wishing he could understand english was more meaning that I wish I could just tell him he has nothing to worry about, or have some sort of "magic wand" and could go back to the way he was. I am perfectly prepared to work through this (if we can) and I have spent months building up his trust in me and "listening" to what he is telling me and trying not to put him in situations where he is unhappy (which is why we gave up flyball) so I am doing my best - it just usually isn't quite good enough


I think you might find this blog interesting and relevant,

Chronic Stress in Dogs | Paws Abilities

The graphs included show why it is very important to allow your dog time for the stress hormones produced (by both Eustress happy excitement and Distress negative arousal) to normalise or it can become a nigh on impossible task for you dog to be calm enough to learn new ways to approach a situation.

ETA here's another very visual link to describe what happens with stress http://reactivechampion.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-stress-bathtub.html


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> I think you might find this blog interesting and relevant,
> 
> Chronic Stress in Dogs | Paws Abilities
> 
> The graphs included show why it is very important to allow your dog time for the stress hormones produced (by both Eustress happy excitement and Distress negative arousal) to normalise or it can become a nigh on impossible task for you dog to be calm enough to learn new ways to approach a situation.


It was you lot stressing this effect (scuse the pun  or dont) to me that finally got me to understand poor ninja. It really cant be underestimated in her case. I had to keep her calm for a good fortnight to bring her back to a level where she could work with me. I am only just gearing myself up to do more now, just little steps though and I watch her every step.

Last nights walk was a clear example of what we were completely ignoring when we first had her, her panting, scampering excitement was stress , I felt bad putting her through it last night but it had a good outcome and I understood what I was seeing, I think that contributed to my feeling of mehness when I should have really enjoyed the walk, what stresses her stresses me, I had no idea she was going to react like that purely on memory though, we haven't been that way in months.


----------



## cheesecake

From our walk this morning, down a street shes never been down before,she was great

I took the advice off someone on here (can't remember who) who said to kinda sing along lol. Well it did work .

Walkies - YouTube


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Yes - he got scared by another dog a few weeks ago at a different class (run by the same instructor but in a different location). Then, a few days later we went to rally class and the same dog was there. As we were walking in Sprocket heard the other dog bark and just lost the plot.
> The other dog hasn't been to rally class since (not related to this, I don't think) but I think Sprocket is just now remembering that this is a "scary" place.
> 
> For the last couple of weeks I have just been sitting quietly with him and treating him, and then just doing what he is happy with at a distance from the other dogs. I am also doing lots of training with him on walks (where he is totally happy) and making it all into a game.
> 
> He is slowly getting a bit better and I know it will probably be a long process to get him over this (everything else with him has been a long, slow process), but I think I owe it to him to try. The alternative is giving up or finding another class which I don't want to do as I know how much he enjoyed these classes.
> 
> The wishing he could understand english was more meaning that I wish I could just tell him he has nothing to worry about, or have some sort of "magic wand" and could go back to the way he was. I am perfectly prepared to work through this (if we can) and I have spent months building up his trust in me and "listening" to what he is telling me and trying not to put him in situations where he is unhappy (which is why we gave up flyball) so I am doing my best - *it just usually isn't quite good enough*


You said to me on Tuesday that our trainer praised me and Molly highly, well she does the same about you and Sprocket too, so enough of that or I'll make you throw the soggy balls for Molly on Tuesday 

From what I know of you both and what Cath has said, it's terribly unpredictable with Sprocket and that must be very hard. You said he was okay at some parts and not others. At least with Molly it was only lead reactivity, with Sprocket I can imagine it's much more problematic to understand and unravel. You have to try some things out, like flyball, to see what he can cope with and like you said, step back if it's too much. From the pictures I've seen of him at Cath's class and from meeting you and seeing him in action, he does remarkably well at calming himself down again with your help and there is a trust and a bond there which is lovely to see. Don't forget that the dog which upset him at rally could have written off his entire day (any incident with Molly was like that) but he was fine at Cath's class later.

You're doing great, I've seen the evidence and heard it from a lady with lots of experience. It's one brief hiccup and you'll get there, I know it.


----------



## diefenbaker

We've been doing the "weaves" in the garden. I don't do agility persay but sometimes they get jumps and tunnel and weaves out at obedience class for a change. 

He's always been good at tunnel because we've had one from when he was a pup. The jumps he does if I jump over first. I've never bothered that much with the weaves but after a couple of days in the garden I think he's starting to get it.


----------



## L/C

moonviolet said:


> I think you might find this blog interesting and relevant,
> 
> Chronic Stress in Dogs | Paws Abilities
> 
> The graphs included show why it is very important to allow your dog time for the stress hormones produced (by both Eustress happy excitement and Distress negative arousal) to normalise or it can become a nigh on impossible task for you dog to be calm enough to learn new ways to approach a situation.
> 
> ETA here's another very visual link to describe what happens with stress Reactive Champion: The Stress Bathtub


Ely lives with chronic stress and I know it is affecting his health and his well being but I do what I can to mitigate it. Day to day we do TTouch, he gets days off walks and I ration exciting play but due to where we live there is a limit to what I can do. I have worked on his noise phobia as much as I can and his anxiety about other dogs (although this has taken a step back since his attack) and while he is much improved he will probably never be 'normal' as he is also coping with brain damage (from a blow to the head before we adopted him), limited socialisation until he was 4 years old, physical abuse and a poor diet (cheap food padded out with newspaper).

It's quite probable he was marinating in stress hormones for the first four years of his life and although I have no proof of it I have it on good authority that the man who owned Ely while he raced, dopes his dogs with cocaine.

The very best thing that I can do for Ely is to listen to him and allow him to set the boundaries and it's what I urge everyone with a nervous dog to do. For example yesterday I came home early from work so I thought I would take the dogs for a nice long walk - we were barely 5 minutes out the door when Ely stopped and didn't want to walk any further. I offered him the opportunity to cross the road rather then go forwards but he was stuck. He would walk a few steps forward for a cuddle but after a few minutes of seeing if he would relax enough to carry on it was clear that it wasn't going to happen - so we turned around and went home.

During it all he was calm and not panicking but was clear that he wasn't going forward. He trusted me enough to know that I wouldn't force him and just laid his head in my hands and waited for me to take him home. I probably could have forced him to carry on and we may have even had a nice walk but all I would have taught him was that I couldn't be trusted to understand and look after him. Next time something spooked him he may have reacted by spinning and trying to run, or wetting himself or re-directing onto Gypsy or he may have simply refused to leave the house - all strategies he has employed before when he is overwhelmed.

Instead we had a relaxed afternoon of play and training in the house and then a trip to the pub. As a result he was happy as larry to go for a walk this morning and pottered along with dogs he knew, no lunging, no tensing up when they were running about and he even managed 20 minutes off lead with some of the older and calmer ones.


----------



## Dogless

The BW is home and asleep on the sofa; all went well, he was very good so I was told. He has dissolvable sutures and no cone. His bloods were normal and nothing abnormal on x - ray either so it confirms that he is indeed a wuss...in the nicest possible sense :001_wub:.

He stalled in the kitchen, stared at his bowl and whined so I gave him a little Nature Diet that I'd bought as it's easy on the digestion.


----------



## tiatortilla

So glad it went well Dogless  Poor boy looks a bit out of it, doesn't he!


----------



## GingerRogers

Awe Kilo how undignified of your human to post that 

Glad he is all A OK :thumbsup:


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> The BW is home and asleep on the sofa; all went well, he was very good so I was told. He has dissolvable sutures and no cone. His bloods were normal and nothing abnormal on x - ray either so it confirms that he is indeed a wuss...in the nicest possible sense :001_wub:.
> 
> He stalled in the kitchen, stared at his bowl and whined so I gave him a little Nature Diet that I'd bought as it's easy on the digestion.


Glad the big lug is home safely and all his tests had good results.

I don't think he'll be drinking in the daytime for a while.


----------



## Dimwit

The article on stress is interesting and is something I am very aware of. It is pretty easy for me to tell when sprocket is stressed, and when he is getting close to his threshold. It may not seem like it but I do actually take note and, apart from lifting him out of the car yesterday I never force him into situations where he is unhappy (unless it is unavoidable, such as at the vets). The problem at the moment is that his anxiety is localised to one particular place, and the rest of the time he is actually getting much better. He bounces back much more quickly than he ever used to and his reactiveness is getting much less. As MS said, it is not always easy to predict what will worry him and his reaction in this case has shocked me as it seemed totally out of proportion to the trigger. Luckily my instructor and the other owners t class are being very supportive and are happy to do anything to help him, whether that is ignoring him totally and just giving him space, or throwing treats at him from a safe distance.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> The BW is home and asleep on the sofa; all went well, he was very good so I was told. He has dissolvable sutures and no cone. His bloods were normal and nothing abnormal on x - ray either so it confirms that he is indeed a wuss...in the nicest possible sense :001_wub:.


I am so glad that it went well, and that the tests were clear. That photo is just crying out for a caption competition though


----------



## Kirstyx

Currently trying to paper train three 6 and a half week old puppies, and to try teach my Pomeranian not to bark and squeal every time he sees someone, he just always wants to say hello to EVERYONE but I'm just worried he comes across aggressive


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> I am so glad that it went well, and that the tests were clear. That photo is just crying out for a caption competition though


Oh isn't it just! '******' is my caption...

Dogless - hope you're okay too, big glass of wine I think 

Dimwit - Sally was really kind in my worries over Molly so I am sure she's great with you and Sprocket too.

Well I have the most insane dog. She was licking the radiator in the dining room. I have to say that I do not drop food down radiators so I don't even want to think about what it was and I thought I was a better cleaner than that but evidently not.... apologies for sideways, stupid iPad photo.


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> The article on stress is interesting and is something I am very aware of. It is pretty easy for me to tell when sprocket is stressed, and when he is getting close to his threshold. It may not seem like it but I do actually take note and, apart from lifting him out of the car yesterday I never force him into situations where he is unhappy (unless it is unavoidable, such as at the vets). The problem at the moment is that his anxiety is localised to one particular place, and the rest of the time he is actually getting much better. He bounces back much more quickly than he ever used to and his reactiveness is getting much less. As MS said, it is not always easy to predict what will worry him and his reaction *in this case has shocked me as it seemed totally out of proportion to the trigger*. Luckily my instructor and the other owners t class are being very supportive and are happy to do anything to help him, whether that is ignoring him totally and just giving him space, or throwing treats at him from a safe distance.


That would be an indicator that his stress hormones are high and a week of avoiding potentially stressful situations would help bring they down to a less reactive level. If I remember rightly you went to a class the day after the incident the other day.

We can only comment on what you post here and some of the things you describe are contrary. It's all meant to be helpful as WAYWO historically, was all about helping and supporting one another.


----------



## Dimwit

Sorry, that's me not making myself clear. The out of proportion comment referred to the original incident that started the whole thing. After this first incident I did go to a class with he behaviourist who was been working with Sprocket because I know that he likes and trusts her and was completely relaxed in her classes, and he was absolutely fine. He then had several very quiet, calm days before rally class when he, again got scared. We only go to those once a week and he has been fine in-between although I have been taking care to keep walks etc as stress-free as possible. 
I really do appreciate all of the help and support I have had on this thread and I'm sorry if it doesn't come across like that


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> Sorry, that's me not making myself clear. The out of proportion comment referred to the original incident that started the whole thing. After this first incident I did go to a class with he behaviourist who was been working with Sprocket because I know that he likes and trusts her and was completely relaxed in her classes, and he was absolutely fine. He then had several very quiet, calm days before rally class when he, again got scared. We only go to those once a week and he has been fine in-between although I have been taking care to keep walks etc as stress-free as possible.
> I really do appreciate all of the help and support I have had on this thread and I'm sorry if it doesn't come across like that


Are you also avoiding positive excitement too? chase games with friends, even playing fetch and having a great exciting happy time produces to the same hormones.

Thinking in terms of a doggie yoga retreat for a few days really helps.

I've recently On Dogless and GR's recommendation started Tink on stressless a magnesium supplement and am having positive results, it's not a calmative and does not dope the dog up. Just helps restore the calcium /magnesium balance. It's another thing to consider


----------



## Dogless

Kirstyx said:


> Currently trying to paper train three 6 and a half week old puppies, and to try teach my Pomeranian not to bark and squeal every time he sees someone, he just always wants to say hello to EVERYONE but I'm just worried he comes across aggressive


Sounds as if you have your hands full; good luck! .


----------



## Milliepoochie

Dogless said:


> The BW is home and asleep on the sofa; all went well, he was very good so I was told. He has dissolvable sutures and no cone. His bloods were normal and nothing abnormal on x - ray either so it confirms that he is indeed a wuss...in the nicest possible sense :001_wub:.
> 
> He stalled in the kitchen, stared at his bowl and whined so I gave him a little Nature Diet that I'd bought as it's easy on the digestion.


So glad Kilo is home and safe x x


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Sorry, that's me not making myself clear. The out of proportion comment referred to the original incident that started the whole thing. After this first incident I did go to a class with he behaviourist who was been working with Sprocket because I know that he likes and trusts her and was completely relaxed in her classes, and he was absolutely fine. He then had several very quiet, calm days before rally class when he, again got scared. We only go to those once a week and he has been fine in-between although I have been taking care to keep walks etc as stress-free as possible.
> I really do appreciate all of the help and support I have had on this thread and I'm sorry if it doesn't come across like that


I think it's easy to pick up on perhaps things that sound contrary in threads, like the slip lead in my thread on Tuesday ( I have since discovered that this is common practice for gun dogs). And there is nothing like seeing a dog in situ working with their owner and behaviourist. I know for certain (because I was at the class!) that Sprocket was very calm and that he enjoys working with the behaviourist.


----------



## moonviolet

And is Molly a steady gundog that doesn't pull or lunge?


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> And is Molly a steady gundog that doesn't pull or lunge?


If that trainer had their way, yes. I'm not going to go through Tuesday's events again. I have the knobber trying to persuade us otherwise.

We all make mistakes


----------



## L/C

MollySmith said:


> I think it's easy to pick up on perhaps things that sound contrary in threads, like the slip lead in my thread on Tuesday ( I have since discovered that this is common practice for gun dogs). And there is nothing like seeing a dog in situ working with their owner and behaviourist. I know for certain (because I was at the class!) that Sprocket was very calm and that he enjoys working with the behaviourist.


People are posting in reaction to the situation that Dimwit described and suggesting ways to help Sprocket and her. In my, and others, opinion the best way is to give him a break and help him chill out. Some of us have been dealing with chronically stressed dogs for a long time and we just want to help. And slip leads may be common for gun dogs but they are common because they are a quick and efficient way to get as dog that doesn't wear a collar back on the lead. If you use them on a dog that pulls you are just throttling your dog.

T-touch is very good for relaxing DW and the ear and jaw work is one of the best things for Ely when he is tense. If you get another situation where sprocket doesn't want to get out of the car is there anyway that you can sit in the back with him and try some simple touches to relax him. Once he is chilled I would then take him home so he has the two fold reward. That will help strengthen your bond via the t.touch and because he knows you will listen to him.

I would also just cut right back on anything exciting and have some calm safe walks for about a week. So no ball games, minimum chasing and lots of scentwork. T touch in the evenings while you hang out together and food that is rich in B12 as it has been shown to reduce stress in dogs. Liver, mackerel, lamb and beef as well as brown rice are all good.

You can pm me or email me if you want any help.


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## MollySmith

L/C said:


> People are posting in reaction to the situation that Dimwit described and suggesting ways to help Sprocket and her. In my, and others, opinion the best way is to give him a break and help him chill out. Some of us have been dealing with chronically stressed dogs for a long time and we just want to help. And slip leads may be common for gun dogs but they are common because they are a quick and efficient way to get as dog that doesn't wear a collar back on the lead. If you use them on a dog that pulls you are just throttling your dog.


Oh absolutely agree. I just wanted to say how I saw it having been there and that I train with the same behavourist and Molly has been stressed out too, I have not been to the other class but have spoken to that trainer too, it's good to hear other stories and share experiences 

If was a gun dog trainer and a gun dog lesson, that would be why he used one. I didn't know that before I went. Now I do. Molly was not corrected on the lead as she didn't pull on this occasion as we've been working on llw extensively in recent weeks and she was walked on our collar and lead with me at all times to and from the field. I know if a dog is being throttled. I hope that nobody has assumed I feel that's acceptable?

Just to be clear, I was on my own, in a field, holding my temper, rather upset and deciding what to do next having been lectured on my tone, words, toys, the space lobber, having fun, clickers, treats and got cross with him about parental attitudes. Do I walk away or stay? Maybe I should have walked away sooner. Is Molly okay was first and foremost in my mine. From the rather angry phone call this evening, I think his issues are with me not my dog! Maybe others would have handled it differently, I did the best I could as I saw and felt at the time. I should have got more answers on PF perhaps. Trust me I've beaten myself up about it sufficiently already.


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> The BW is home and asleep on the sofa;


I'm feeling for you big man. Apparently I looked very similar  And I wouldn't wear a cone either.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I'm feeling for you big man. Apparently I looked very similar  And I wouldn't wear a cone either.


But did a couple of trays of Nature Diet sort you out?

And I hope you didn't lick your stitches  .


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> And I hope you didn't lick your stitches  .


I lost the flexibility to do that in my teens... errrr... not that I ever did. Desperately trying to change the subject... if you're lacking motivation to get fit... try this...

https://www.zombiesrungame.com/


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I lost the flexibility to do that in my teens... errrr... not that I ever did. Desperately trying to change the subject... if you're lacking motivation to get fit... try this...
> 
> https://www.zombiesrungame.com/


Prince allegedly could / can . I worry about you sometimes. Some of the links you post are....out there .


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Prince allegedly could / can . I worry about you sometimes. Some of the links you post are....out there .


I don't understand. "Get Fit. Escape Zombies. Become a Hero." The ladies of WAYWO are very hard to please. What more do you want ?


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I don't understand. "Get Fit. Escape Zombies. Become a Hero." The ladies of WAYWO are very hard to please. What more do you want ?


It's not for this forum to know  .


----------



## Guest

diefenbaker said:


> I don't understand. "Get Fit. Escape Zombies. Become a Hero." The ladies of WAYWO are very hard to please. What more do you want ?


Very cool link. Might actually motivate me a bit lol


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## moonviolet

diefenbaker said:


> I don't understand. "Get Fit. Escape Zombies. Become a Hero." The ladies of WAYWO are very hard to please. What more do you want ?


You really should NOT ask that question :devil: :ihih:


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## GingerRogers

Surely dief does not want access to the tower


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## MollySmith

How is Kilo this morning, Dogless?


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> How is Kilo this morning, Dogless?


He's fine thank you, still snoozing but eating, peeing, pooing all fine, no vomiting. Up at 3 crying but was wandering about a bit so think it was a bit of post anaesthesia confusion or something.


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> He's fine thank you, still snoozing but eating, peeing, pooing all fine, no vomiting. Up at 3 crying but was wandering about a bit so think it was a bit of post anaesthesia confusion or something.


Could well be. I can't speak for Molly but our cat was always a bit bemused by it all when he'd been under. And me too as I recall 

I hope you all have a good day


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## GingerRogers

We have nut job back so yesterdays wonderful behaviour was just a blip, :crying: lol! 

She was very vocal this morning in a come play with meeee way, so of course I played with her and Mr Foxy. Then I took her out for a walk, outdoors she just went nuts at anything and everything :nonod:. 

It was a very good example of how elevated arousal can affect a dog and how easy it is to overlook simple things.

This week I made the resolution to go a bit further than our 'safe' morning training walk of round the block. So we tried to take a route we haven't done for a while but 'Rose the devil dog' (not collie one) sensed us from three big gardens away, I couldn't work out why ninja was flipping out to start with (retained memory ??) but the more one barked, the more the other did. 

So I cut up a side street but I couldn't carry on as the local 'character'  family were in their front garden with flea pit penny, so we had to turn round.

I decided to call it quits and try later, but meanwhile she had had a poo, and while I was picking it up she kicked off at a man with a bag of shopping  which of course started the devil dog off again but she sort of ignored her that time, I knew she was stressing though as she tried to hide herself under the hedge.

Then we saw the 'westie who also has treats shovelled in' so had to divert down another road, where there was a cat in the garden, why do cats lie down and stare at us, why cant they calmly just walk away.

Next obstacle was the nutter from round the corner walking along with two big shopping bags and his noisy walking stick with his coat draped over it like a big scary bat thing , he proceeded to stop right in our path and scratch his back on the lamp post!!!! She wasnt very impressed with that so I had to divert back down the cat road, luckily I remembered the cat, unluckily so did she but every time I tried to turn round I couldnt go back as he just stood there, in the end I let her bark at him a few times and eventually he went away. And we finally made it home.

The stress was building from the moment I stepped out the door and this was on top of elevated arousal from the play (so angry with myself :incazzato. 

The different route, exciting and scary new smells and unknown things on top of memories of 'devil dog' I never planned to go past her house but had no idea of the distance they would react to each other. This raised her adrenalin up to the point where she just kicked off at things she would normally just watch carefully (shopping bag man) cats , we have been working on them and an unmoving lying down cat SHOULD have been relatively easy to steer her past, BUT she wanted to bark at the westie in the other street, mostly because I wouldn't let her bark at devil dog and shopping bag man, so the cat got it instead, when I moved her quickly past this the barks (stress) were building and building so the poor nutter from round the corner who had just been minding his own business, all be it in his own nutty way got both barrels. We got home and she went straight in the garden and dug a new hole .

I am off to do this to myself :mad2: and write out 100 times I am so stupid 

ETA glad Kilo survived the night, hubby says you are very, very mean posting that picture of the big man


----------



## Dogless

GR - I can't "like" your post, what an horrendously stressful morning. Don't look upon the wonderful behaviour as a blip, it just shows you what the Ninja is capable of when she is relaxed and the odds are stacked in her favour. Certainly shows you what a build up of stress can do as you said. I hope your next walk's better.

You can reassure hubby that Kilo didn't see it .

Took Kilo for a slow 10 minute lead walk around the block this morning, all fine. He was unimpressed as he tried to come out with Rudi and I as well! He doesn't seem bothered by his wound at all, hopefully it will stay that way. Still very sleepy which is good!

Took Rudi out for an hour. Must confess I'm exhausted so i wasn't too enthusiastic but he had a run, a play, rolled in poo and cut his ear....normal Rudi behaviour :rolleyes5:. It poured with rain and the poo was mainly on his harness so a good towel dry and harness in the washing machine sorted things. I look forward to the day washing machines have a "dog" programme .


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh I dont really think of the good as a blip, that was tongue in cheek  

I just wanted to post how totally aware I was that today was a complete cock up of management, mostly my fault, somewhat circumstance and retained memory, I should have had some calm time before taking her out (realised we did some grooming before hand too which she gets stressed about :incazzato


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh I dont really think of the good as a blip, that was tongue in cheek
> 
> I just wanted to post how totally aware I was that today was a complete cock up of management, mostly my fault, somewhat circumstance and retained memory, I should have had some calm time before taking her out (realised we did some grooming before hand too which she gets stressed about :incazzato


It's just another lesson learnt I guess. You're not the only one who cocks up royally at times :incazzato:.


----------



## Canine K9

Am so pleased with my boy recently. Its like he`s suddenly matured. He is much more obedient, can control himself better when playing, walks perfectly to heel, biting has pretty much stopped (he still does it when he gets a bit over silly but when I say No he stops), he appears to "love" me a lot more and today I haven`t been feeling too well and the weather is bad too so he hasn`t been for a walk and yet he is currently lying on the floor calm and quiet chewing on his stagbar like he has been all day. If he does anything "Bad" I say No and if he carries on he goes for a time out which always gets the message across. I am so happy does this mean everything has paid off?


----------



## Dogless

So pleased you're having a better time with Bailey - I'd still keep up all the impulse control stuff but your work does seem to be paying off . Hope you feel better soon.

Took Kilo for another 10 minute round the block potter. Amazing how not seeing that one dog makes such a difference, it seems that the stress of an operation isn't as great as seeing the lab . Kids on scooters whizzed past us, someone who I used to work with's wife stopped to chat with her daughter and a cat walked across in front of us and he stayed relaxed (left cat when told). If only the owner knew or cared what an impact his dog's behaviour had on other people and their dogs. Well, he knows, I've told him nicely, so that leaves "cared" .

Walking Roo with Dizzy later.

The BW still isn't interested in his wound; really hope it stays that way.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> The BW still isn't interested in his wound; really hope it stays that way.


Dief was never interested much. I think there was 2 stitches in each. We just kept an eye on him to make sure he didn't start pulling at them. They weren't dissolvers but he never even noticed when the nurse took them out.


----------



## GingerRogers

Well after this mornings debacle. We went to the beach. Its raining which i thought might mean no people.  nutters swimming kids dogs running all at a distance. She was awesome. Bit gruffly but compared to this morning !!! And she looks ever so comfy  in her comfy collar ordered for her post op recovery after her spay week tuesday.


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Well after this mornings debacle. We went to the beach. Its raining which i thought might mean no people.  nutters swimming kids dogs running all at a distance. She was awesome. Bit gruffly but compared to this morning !!! And she looks ever so comfy  in her comfy collar ordered for her post op recovery after her spay week tuesday.


Beach for Dief tomorrow morning.. tide's out.. wet-suit for me I think.. and following weekend could be a corker if the BBC weather forecast is correct.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Beach for Dief tomorrow morning.. tide's out.. wet-suit for me I think.. and following weekend could be a corker if the BBC weather forecast is correct.


Wet suit??? Grow a pair man and get in there on your shorts .


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Wet suit??? Grow a pair man and get in there on your shorts .


I am in my shorts... over my wet-suit. You won't find me in the Serpentine on Christmas day.... brrrrrrrrrr... Diefy likes to weave for the beef from some beef chow-mein.


----------



## tiatortilla

Not much to report today. Met a couple of labradors 'at large' in the park today... Tia wasn't too keen on the first one, a chocolate lab but she quite liked the second which was a black lab and much bigger than the first.

I was trying to look at their body language to help me understand why Tia was better with the second one. The only thing I noticed was that the black lab was much more confident. The chocolate one ran over, but when it arrived, stopped a little way off and went all 'sideways' (I hope you get what I mean by that lol) and the black one came over slower but came all the way up to Tia for a sniff.

So it seems that the second one was more 'sure' in what the purpose of approaching Tia was and that seemed to make her more comfortable, and the first one seemed a little unsure which made Tia unsure.. am I anywhere near right with that?


----------



## MollySmith

diefenbaker said:


> I am in my shorts... over my wet-suit. You won't find me in the Serpentine on Christmas day.... brrrrrrrrrr... Diefy likes to weave for the beef from some beef chow-mein.


There used to be a swim on Christmas Day in Cornwall on the beach near our shop. I did it one year - wetsuits were banned. I don't think I've ever been so cold..brrrrrrrrrr plus a shiver of my timbers too


----------



## ballybee

Haven't been on this thread for a while 

Things are going pretty well here, Dan isn't as interested in humping every dog now and has actually been able to be offlead and playing with other dogs without harassing them  He's also finally starting to adapt to the lesser exercise (unlike Tummel Dan does get stuck in routines and had decided he wasn't going to eat breakfast if we were out less than 2 hours). I've been doing 1-1.5 hours in the morning and then 45-60 mins in the evening, much more managable for me 

Tummel is almost like a different dog, since being able to interact with Kiara and Sherry he's much more sociable, he had a go at a teenage lab at the start of the week but today met 2 dogs onlead and was great. Having to retrain him being calm and ignoring dogs when onlead again as he has his newfound want to meet but this is going well too. Our new routine for leaving them is still going well, we've even managed to decrease the amoutn of edible stuffs we give them, they now get a filled kong/bone and 1 biscuit or chew each  I say he's almost different as his recalls gotten a bit wobbly again but i can live with that if he's able to socialise and be left!!!

Dan is still far too excitable when he see's other dogs...he wookies (proper term for spinone noises apparently lol) and just acts like a right prat, food and toys don't distract him at all, neither do corretions so i think i'm just going to stop all onlead greetings for him until he can control himself.

Other than that everythings going really well


----------



## diefenbaker

Followed through on my threat to go to the beach. Needn't have bothered with the wet-suit as the tide was right out so the lagoon wasn't very deep. He grumbled at Bryn who seems to be some kind of Staffie-cross at the start.. but Bryn is a bit of a pest. At one point a golden retriever came bounding up. That's not Ruby I say ( a friend from his daily walk ). Wrong . Eventually the owner catches up. It was Ruby. Also met a lovely Malamute called Nanook. Super-chilled and excellent recall.. much more so than Dief. No pictures I'm afraid. My nice new shiney camera might get sand on it.


----------



## MollySmith

Nice to hear from you ballybee, it sounds like it's going well for you and Canine K9 too.

Nothing much to say here, had an email from the trainer in follow up to the call, I feel he must be short of clients which is good  so I shall reply to that today. OH has taken Molly out today for a long walk as I'm off to help a friend at her pub in a mo at a street party/beer festival. I have no doubt it will be chaos and I'm always appalled at how many people try to squeeze dogs into the pub when it's so busy. 

Tomorrow we're going to the same classes that Dimwit was going to, the ones we went to at the end to see how Molly coped being indoors with dogs. We've signed up for the course, I know from our behaviourist that Molly can do pretty much all the work in the class but it's whether she can do it around other dogs. I'm trying not to be too cocky about it but I am looking forward to going. It will be a long day for her, an hour lesson and I shall take her for a short off lead walk first.

I hope everyone is well, has some sunshine and Kilo is continuing to make good progress Dogless.


----------



## cheesecake

Not a good walk today- if you can call it that

She was giving me the look asking to go for walkies ,she was very excited to go out ,she sniffed the grass round the corner then BAM, froze.

She was pulling to go home, tried using sausage but she wasn't interested. 

:rolleyes5:


----------



## moonviolet

cheesecake said:


> Not a good walk today- if you can call it that
> 
> She was giving me the look asking to go for walkies ,she was very excited to go out ,she sniffed the grass round the corner then BAM, froze.
> 
> She was pulling to go home, tried using sausage but she wasn't interested.
> 
> :rolleyes5:


You've only been posting about your walks, are you still continuing the training and games at home to build your relationship?


----------



## cheesecake

hmmmmm^ I admit I should be playing more with her. But I do throw ball with her just maybe not enough then =/


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## moonviolet

cheesecake said:


> hmmmmm^ I admit I should be playing more with her. But I do throw ball with her just maybe not enough then =/


Any reward based training with you will be more productive in building your relationship than just lobbing a ball.


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## ballybee

Did individual walks today, just short ones in the town for socialising, Dan for people, Tummel for dogs (not intentional).

Took Dan out first as it was really busy, we met a fair amount of people, maybe about 14?? Plenty of variety in size, age, shape etc and Dan was very friendly, very happy to meet and greet and happy to stay calm while i was talking, got loads of comments on how good he was and plenty of chances to inform people about spinones, i even met a family who were on holiday from America who have 2 spinones so we had a nice chat and Dan got loads of fusses from their 3 kids 

Just back from Tummels walk, i didn't intend on seeing loads of dogs as it looked pretty quiet but we met a lab, 2 boxers, 2 springers, a colliex, a shih tzu, a yorkie and another mutt....and Tummel was excellent, we had meetings ranging from a quick few seconds and moving on to a good couple of minutes and he just wasn't bothered, he was friendly, polite and generally disninterested after a good sniff, he even performed a perfect sit/stay while the shih tzu came over to see us  All onlead too which makes it even more special...he must know we have the game fair soon so he needs to brush up on his manners  Met 2 of the people from my work too and he was very friendly towards them. Had a few comments on how striking he looks too which was nice as usually i get told he looks dangerous  Must be all the new ginger fur thats popped up!!!


----------



## MollySmith

So pleased you had two great walks ballybee 

I am pleased to report that Molly did really well in group class apart from eating the bread (*Dimwit*, you know that one?!)

We gave her a short walk off lead before we went so she wasn't too over excited when we went in but to be honest I think it was so warm she wasn't that fussed. The worse bit was getting her from the car park to the off lead area for her walk without encountered weekend walkers. I had a word with one family whose golden retriever was off lead in the car park, wandering where it wanted to (as were the children). They claimed, as ever, that the dog had a great recall and attempted to call it from a hedgerow and it ignored them. I wished them good luck with that and next time we saw then it was on lead.

The whole class was held in a marquee so it was a huge test for her but she did fine inside, very watchful and I think we went through more treats that most to reward her for looking but that's fine. We had one incident where a younger, lively flat coat which pulled on her lead came over too close so Molly did growl and pull but not at all to the degree she ever used to. Her loose lead walking was grand (amazingly great, our best bit I think!) but we did take a break during the recall work as she was getting a little bit hot, tired and too distracted by her friend Red and that's not fair on him. We've been invited on the after class walk next week so I think we'll do a run off lead before class in the dog field, go to class and then have a nice long walk with our friends afterwards.

So proud of her, and pleased that I coped with it all too as I confess I was nervous. We're going to practice the off command a bit more as she's not so great on that and recall between us both in the garden. Everything else she knows already, it's just great to get her working on them in an enclosed space and seeing how she manages and I'm getting much better at knowing when to remove her if she's stressed and using my calming signals to help her.

Dog and owner very, very tired.


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## Tjones

Working on saving my Binky. For past three weeks my Chihuahua would yelp when he ate so I guessed he had a tooth ache. I took him to the dentist and had his teeth scaled and polish and one tooth extracted. Still not eating, so Saturday night I took him to an emergency hospital to do blood work get fluids and pain killers. After a week he is still in pain and I have to force him to eat. I have depleted all of my monies and need to find a vet that can administer x-rays and maybe set up a payment plan. I can't watch him in this state for another two weeks until I get paid again. The shelters only offer service to their housed animals and my last alternative is to take him to a give him to a shelter just so he can get the medical care he needs. I love him dearly and cant imagine parting with him but if this is what I have to do to save him I must. Some one please offer some guidance or services on how to save my baby. I rescued him and cant see myself putting him back in the system. 202 439-7237


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## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> I'm getting much better at knowing when to remove her if she's stressed and using my calming signals to help her.


Glad you had a good class and it's great that you're getting better at reading her and knowing when she needs to be removed but you've got me intrigued about the calming signals. Can you explain them at all?

Me and Spen have been really lazy lately and not done much in the way of training. He's been having fun playing with a cocker, springer and a munsterlander puppy out front. And we had Khan to stay overnight not long ago. Still been going for walks and doing the basics like recall, not pulling my arms out of my sockets etc but I really should step up the tricks and stuff again.

Spencer is getting more picky about who he really wants to play with these days. Certain dogs he wants to play with but most he just wants to meet and greet and move on. My silly Spendog is growing up it seems.


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## Canine K9

Hope everyone is doing well. 
ballybee- sounds good 
cheesecake- I agree with moonviolet that bonding with her more might make her more willing to walk with you
Mollysmith- Glad you and Molly had a good time and Molly did so well
TJones- I think getting money ASAP to help your dog would be best. I do not know if you are in UK but if you are on benefits PDSA can help. Can you not take out a loan or something at least? I hope you get something sorted and have pet insurance for next time

Decent day with Bailey, I taught him his 13th command properly today, play dead. Recall is really coming along nicely he was on flexi and I went Bailey here! and he come running over. Of course the hotdog pieces I had helped 
Nipping has gone down wonderful. I`m hardly bitten now.
I am so happy, he`s coming along nicely. And I`m mental enough to want another puppy 
Oh and out of intrest does anyone know how long cooked hotdog will last? Can I freeze it?


----------



## Dimwit

Ballybee - sounds like a busy, but productive day!

MS - Huge well done to you and Molly, I knew she would be fine but I also know what a big step this is for you both. Was the eating bread supposed to be a "leave it" exercise? If so, we did it with sausage and the dimwit failed miserably After class walk sounds nice, always nice for dogs to have a walk with their canine friends (not that dimwit has any).

CanineK9 - Glad to hear that Bailey is doing better

Had a quiet few days here, one of my sisters has been visiting so I took advantage of having a helper this morning and did some scentwork by the little river in my village, dimwit loved it and we went early enough to avoid seeing any other dogs (well, we did see his nemesis dog but from a distance so just casually changed our route to avoid him). 

Other than that, we have mainly been trying to keep cool (luckily dimwit LOVES ice cubes)...


----------



## MollySmith

Sarah1983 said:


> Glad you had a good class and it's great that you're getting better at reading her and knowing when she needs to be removed but you've got me intrigued about the calming signals. Can you explain them at all?
> 
> Me and Spen have been really lazy lately and not done much in the way of training. He's been having fun playing with a cocker, springer and a munsterlander puppy out front. And we had Khan to stay overnight not long ago. Still been going for walks and doing the basics like recall, not pulling my arms out of my sockets etc but I really should step up the tricks and stuff again.
> 
> Spencer is getting more picky about who he really wants to play with these days. Certain dogs he wants to play with but most he just wants to meet and greet and move on. My silly Spendog is growing up it seems.


Thank you for the good wishes, I've been reading Turid Rugaas's books and using a lot of what's in those. So things like turning to the side to engage her, bending my knees than bend over, right hand turns and lots of parallel walking, curving away. It's probably stuff I am sure you know with your knowledge of dogs but I've been very fortunate to grow up and later own dogs that have had very little problems so it's all different for me. If there is any positive to being made redundant, it's spending more time with Molly and learning about her behaviour. I could see that about twenty minutes in, she was getting very distracted and it was far better to remove her for a break and go back so she was able to succeed.

I was so interested in what you said about Spencer being selective with who he plays with. Molly is doing the same, she often just walks past dogs on our off lead walks and has no interest at all. I think we realised how she has grown up on the beach the other week. Last June in Cornwall she raced off to see a dog and was barely a spec - terrified me - and this year in Norfolk she only said hello to dogs off lead that were near us and a combination of high value treats kept her away from on lead dogs.

Dimwit - yes it was! I've taught her to 'leave it' so she waits for me to tell her it's 'okay' to get a treat but of course not applied it to something she should never have. Luckily we had the chance to practice with OH's slippers this afternoon. I do hope Molly gets to be Sprocket's friend, lovely chap.

I loved the photos on Facebook  It's been terribly hot, too hot for Molly. I've kept her inside as our living room is very cool.

Canine K9 - thanks too  I don't know about cooked hotdog, do you mean a frankfurter tinned or a ordinary sausage, I don't think you can freeze them but I'd say about 1-2 days in a fridge.


----------



## Dogless

K9 - Wonderful to hear that Bailey's turned the corner with the nipping and he's doing so well! I'd keep the cooked hotdog 2-3 days in the fridge. You may be able to freeze it but think it would go mushy when defrosted - not sure it's a good one.

MS - sounds as if you had an interesting time and Molly did well.

Good day at Concrete Central. Two onlead walks for Kilo - he behaved well, was very chilled, not bothered by anything; that was _almost_ ruined last night as when I opened the door for their last toilet visit I heard "the lab's" owner's constant whistling and shouting and shut the door again fast before Kilo heard it . One mostly offlead and one mostly onlead walk for Rudi today, he's been a good boy too .


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Dimwit - yes it was! I've taught her to 'leave it' so she waits for me to tell her it's 'okay' to get a treat but of course not applied it to something she should never have. Luckily we had the chance to practice with OH's slippers this afternoon. I do hope Molly gets to be Sprocket's friend, lovely chap.
> 
> I loved the photos on Facebook  It's been terribly hot, too hot for Molly. I've kept her inside as our living room is very cool.


That was his naughtiest moment at class - he not only ate all of "his" sausage but also managed to get a couple of the piles for other dogs his leave isn't usually too bad but I think a nice pile of yummy sausage was just too tempting.

Dimwit has spent most of the day indoors as well, I went to my sisters for lunch so he was home alone (dimwit plus 9-month old nephew is probably asking for trouble) but my house is nice and cool so I think I did him good just to have a quiet afternoon.


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> That was his naughtiest moment at class - he not only ate all of "his" sausage but also managed to get a couple of the piles for other dogs his leave isn't usually too bad but I think a nice pile of yummy sausage was just too tempting.
> 
> Dimwit has spent most of the day indoors as well, I went to my sisters for lunch so he was home alone (dimwit plus 9-month old nephew is probably asking for trouble) but my house is nice and cool so I think I did him good just to have a quiet afternoon.


Hehehe  Molly got all but a corner of the bread and two bits of sausage and she was meant to be 'advanced', oh the shame


----------



## Denise90

Luna saw a bunny for the first time today in our usual field. 

Recall training has to start all over


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## Dogless

Denise90 said:


> Luna saw a bunny for the first time today in our usual field.
> 
> Recall training has to start all over


Chase recall.....my holy grail!!


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## diefenbaker

WAYWO on page 5 ? Has the world stopped revolving on it's axis ?

More impulse control. The game has advanced. I get him to sit... throw the football.. then on 'go' we both race like loons to see who gets the ball first. Unsurprisingly I haven't won yet. I might need to tie his line to a tree.


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## MollySmith

deleted post.


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I think perhaps it has def  I've been looking at another thread (well said GR on your recent post there). I find it all very emotive and difficult to work out. Anyway....
> 
> *I'd like to hear a bit more about impulse control exercises that people do.* Molly has been fine but she's started to go back to her old ways of ending her zoomies with barking and leaping at the OH to bite him. Always him, not me . We've used training discs which do work but I recognise that some general impulse control beyond baby gates might be good for her.
> 
> I'm sadly confined to rest. I was meant to be at Big Walkies with Dimwit and Sprocket this evening but I've had pain in my foot for a few weeks and it's got much worse in recent days. Apparently I have plantar fasciitis and tendonitis so rest and unfortunately the osteoarthiritis is getting worse according to the hospital so feeling a bit fed up. I'm going to a foot/gait analysis place to see if I can get some better walking shoes as that might be contributing.
> 
> I hope everyone else is okay?


This may help: http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/308312-your-favourite-impulse-control-exercises.html


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## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> This may help: http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/308312-your-favourite-impulse-control-exercises.html


Thank you, I always forget we can search the forums :crazy:


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## L/C

MollySmith said:


> I think perhaps it has def  I've been looking at another thread (well said GR on your recent post there). I find it all very emotive and difficult to work out. Anyway....
> 
> I'd like to hear a bit more about impulse control exercises that people do. Molly has been fine but she's started to go back to her old ways of ending her zoomies with barking and leaping at the OH to bite him. Always him, not me . We've used training discs which do work but I recognise that some general impulse control beyond baby gates might be good for her.
> 
> I'm sadly confined to rest. I was meant to be at Big Walkies with Dimwit and Sprocket this evening but I've had pain in my foot for a few weeks and it's got much worse in recent days. Apparently I have plantar fasciitis and tendonitis so rest and unfortunately the osteoarthiritis is getting worse according to the hospital so feeling a bit fed up. I'm going to a foot/gait analysis place to see if I can get some better walking shoes as that might be contributing.
> 
> I hope everyone else is okay?


Are you still using the training discs? Ethics aside they are going to become less and less useful as she develops a punishment callous and learns to ignore them. Unless you are prepared to seriously escalate then sound aversives are generally useless unless you have a very sound sensitive dog.


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## MollySmith

L/C said:


> Are you still using the training discs? Ethics aside they are going to become less and less useful as she develops a punishment callous and learns to ignore them. Unless you are prepared to seriously escalate then sound aversives are generally useless unless you have a very sound sensitive dog.


On the advice of our COAPE behaviorist. And not for months, this year now. Hence my query about the impulse control. I'll leave the thread, I suspect that with the mention of a halti and the discs (both being phased out as I've said numerous times before) plus the mistake made last week I fear I'm a suspected lunatic when really I am doing my best. I do trust the person I work with, with all respect to PF she did meet Molly at her most hyper and uncontrollable, and I do mean that about our dog.

Thanks for the link Dogless, I have enjoyed reading the updates from everyone I really truly have but I have no wish to cause upset or be the subject of discussion via pm or elsewhere.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> WAYWO on page 5 ? Has the world stopped revolving on it's axis ?
> 
> More impulse control. The game has advanced. I get him to sit... throw the football.. then on 'go' we both race like loons to see who gets the ball first. Unsurprisingly I haven't won yet. I might need to tie his line to a tree.


I haven't beaten Kilo yet either when we do "Ready..Steady...". Might try hobbling him  .


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> On the advice of our COAPE behaviorist. And not for months, this year now. Hence my query about the impulse control. I'll leave the thread, I suspect that with the mention of a halti and the discs (both being phased out as I've said numerous times before) plus the mistake made last week I fear I'm a suspected lunatic when really I am doing my best. I do trust the person I work with, with all respect to PF she did meet Molly at her most hyper and uncontrollable, and I do mean that about our dog.
> 
> Thanks for the link Dogless, I have enjoyed reading the updates from everyone I really truly have but I have no wish to cause upset or be the subject of discussion via pm or elsewhere.


I am sorry that you feel that way. At least you are only a suspected lunatic. I am a confirmed one. Apparently. Although the doc tells me that it isn't the word they like to use anymore .


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## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> On the advice of our COAPE behaviorist. And not for months, this year now. Hence my query about the impulse control. I'll leave the thread, I suspect that with the mention of a halti and the discs (both being phased out as I've said numerous times before) plus the mistake made last week I fear I'm a suspected lunatic when really I am doing my best. I do trust the person I work with, with all respect to PF she did meet Molly at her most hyper and uncontrollable, and I do mean that about our dog.
> 
> Thanks for the link Dogless, I have enjoyed reading the updates from everyone I really truly have but I have no wish to cause upset or be the subject of discussion via pm or elsewhere.


Sorry you feel that way.

Me and Spen have been working on crawling the last few days. First with a food lure, then an empty hand lure. Last night he offered a very tentative crawl with no lure whatsoever so it looks like it's sinking in :thumbup: I had a dream where I put it on the cue of "activate stealth mode" so it simply has to be done. Right?

Spen has a cut on his tail that isn't healing well  It's been there almost 2 weeks and he's constantly at it. I don't feel I can leave a cone on him in his crate and with how he's getting hooked up on everything with it am not comfortable leaving him loose wearing it either and as luck would have it I've had numerous appointments I can't cancel. I think from tonight it's going to be a few nights of sleeping on the sofa and not leaving the house unless one of us can stay with him. It's right on the point where his tail was broken which worries me too. They've already mentioned amputation if there are any problems with it and lately we've had nothing but tail problems


----------



## Dogless

Anyway.....good walks for the past couple of days until yesterday - Kilo onlead, Rudi a mixture of on and off and going to the park to walk past folk nicely etc etc.

Yesterday was day 6 (including day of op, so 5 post op) of Kilo being on onlead only walks. I have been mixing them up, going to places for good sniffs, training, varying pace etc etc. But, crucially no impulse control and chase games. Yesterday morning Kilo resurrected a behaviour that I had last seen when he was 6 - 7 months old. Over 2 years on he lunged at a van and a lorry. Almost got us killed and gave me a heart attack . Walked with Diz last night, let Kilo off, played chase and impulse control games so hopefully his need to chase has been redirected onto acceptable things once again.

I have managed to get Rudi to look to me when he sees birds and wants to chase when onlead which is brilliant, he's really come on .


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Sorry you feel that way.
> 
> Me and Spen have been working on crawling the last few days. First with a food lure, then an empty hand lure. Last night he offered a very tentative crawl with no lure whatsoever so it looks like it's sinking in :thumbup: I had a dream where I put it on the cue of "activate stealth mode" so it simply has to be done. Right?
> 
> Spen has a cut on his tail that isn't healing well  It's been there almost 2 weeks and he's constantly at it. I don't feel I can leave a cone on him in his crate and with how he's getting hooked up on everything with it am not comfortable leaving him loose wearing it either and as luck would have it I've had numerous appointments I can't cancel. I think from tonight it's going to be a few nights of sleeping on the sofa and not leaving the house unless one of us can stay with him. It's right on the point where his tail was broken which worries me too. They've already mentioned amputation if there are any problems with it and lately we've had nothing but tail problems


"Liked" for the crawl and "activate stealth mode" - must be done .

Poor tail though. Your plan of 24 / 7 supervision sounds like a good one. A bind, but a good one I think.


----------



## Sarah1983

Already shared on Facebook but thought this was an interesting read about the use of punishment in training
A Surprising Look at Balanced Training (The Smart Dog Blog)

I'm not sure it's possible to go through life without encountering some punishment but it is something I try to avoid using. Am human and have slipped up from time to time though.


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## GingerRogers

MollySmith I think we are all lunatics thats why we are here :crazy: so not sure why you feel you should 'leave' the thread. 

It has been available to all, and invaluable to me, for positive encouragement, gentle admonishment  and great advice.

I think you need to take any criticism as the constructive thing it is and given with the best interests of your dog at heart rather than as a personal affront.

Brilliant work on the crawl Sarah, I tried that a while ago by luring under my legs but Ninja preferred jumping over so I gave up, try and teach her to jump and she will probably crawl. 

Really clear article as well. It make perfect sense and is something we all need reminding about in our general lives. A bit of praise will go a long, long way but is so often neglected!

Dogless  at Kilo. I know what its like when ninja launches herself at traffic let alone alone a dog what 8/10x her size, glad you managed to resist the pull of the lorry. Hopefully the impulse control games will bring him back to the gentle walker you know and love.

Dief love the image of your impulse control games, might have to try something a bit smaller than that with ninja.

Ninja has a torn carpal pad so no great off lead runs or impulse control exercises here, I swear apart from his bad guts Rory was trouble free  It seems better today she is no longer a bothered by it. Too much running about in the beer garden with her pals Rudi & Tamzin I suspect (listening to a wolfhound joining in some terrier play growls is pretty spine tingling )

She is in a funny mood, being a bit bipolar frankly, veering from really stressed out behaviour, snarling and lunging at bikes, people and vehicles, to being the bestest behaved little ginger nutjob we have ever seen  we have started her on valerian and skullcap tablets just to see and I wonder whether we just need to let them settle down bit. The good behaviour is really promising, the bad is a little worrying.

However we had THE best non-walk last night  decided to try the beach as it was dull and grey and little wet. There were fishermen , hoodies with cans , there were dogs playing on the shoreline , another dog walking up the dunes , all dogs with humans of course, we can normally escape to one side or the other but were a bit trapped. She didn't react to any of these things, admittedly most were at a good distance but barely even a pricked ear. 

So we just spent a good half hour slowly skulking around in the dunes and bonding  re-orientation training etc. Till another man appeared with his collie from off the campsite, decided that was one step too far, too close and decided to leave but not with out a good cautious exploration of the rabbit warren and a stand and stare at a rabbit before looking back at me :crazy:. Who had kidnapped the nut job? So proud of her gave me a warm fuzzy feeling :001_wub:


ETA How many smilies can one person use!!!


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## diefenbaker

I've kind of mentioned this before. Dief has 2 friends. Ruby and Dolly. Ruby was his first love. But now they mainly ignore each other... happy to bimble. Dolly is his current mistress. They do all the roll-around play together. He is fine with them individually.. and together.. until they start playing. Ruby is quite submissive.. and tends to play dead. Dolly is more pouncey-pinny and when they are doing this Dief will wade in and bark.. mainly at Ruby.. in a way I am not comfortable with. So today I put him back on his line and left him chewing his tennis ball in a down while they played... telling him to leave it and praising and treating. Seemed to work quite well. I'm hoping if I do it enough it will become his default behaviour around excitable dogs.. which is a bit of problem.


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Dief love the image of your impulse control games, might have to try something a bit smaller than that with ninja.


I will try and video it for you. I did worry that getting him to wait until the ball had stopped would take the thrill out of it for him. But he really drives off when I say go and start running. To be honest I'm not sure which of us enjoys it the most.


----------



## Dogless

The beach non - walk sounds great GR; hope that the carpal pad is fully healed soon.

Good walks here this morning. Kilo wasn't bothered by traffic at all, thank goodness and he just had lots of offlead. I don't quite want to walk them together again yet as they can play at bit rough - leave it another day or two.

Rudi was very good as well, although his Parfum du Jour is decomposing mouse :crazy:.

Had an incident on the way back which made me panic, but all was OK. Offlead spanner and two screaming kids in hot pursuit making a beeline for us (by a road). I turned around and headed in the other direction as fast as I could, but it was no use. So I went up the driveway of an empty house (tried the porch door, but it was locked!!). Spanner hit us like a brick, slacked Kilo's lead and they had an OK greeting. Spanner wouldn't stop jumping on us, so Kilo did what he does to Roo when he's too much - squashed dog with a paw, held muzzle gently then let go. Spanner then saw a cat to chase (luckily!) so ran off. Which left me with rapidly advancing kids wanting to stroke the doggie ignoring my very firm requests not to come any closer. Mum caught up luckily just in time to tell them to "leave the lady alone". 

She apologised to me, we had a quick chat about why I had gone up the driveway and why an offlead dog jumping all over an onlead dog and owner was a bad idea. She seemed to get it, she was very nice.


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> I've kind of mentioned this before. Dief has 2 friends. Ruby and Dolly. Ruby was his first love. But now they mainly ignore each other... happy to bimble. Dolly is his current mistress. They do all the roll-around play together. He is fine with them individually.. and together.. until they start playing. Ruby is quite submissive.. and tends to play dead. Dolly is more pouncey-pinny and when they are doing this Dief will wade in and bark.. mainly at Ruby.. in a way I am not comfortable with. So today I put him back on his line and left him chewing his tennis ball in a down while they played... telling him to leave it and praising and treating. Seemed to work quite well. *I'm hoping if I do it enough it will become his default behaviour around excitable dogs.. which is a bit of problem.*


That sounds a very good plan, I wish other owners could be so thoughtful (Rosie dogs Dad I am shouting at you!!)

I look forward to the video . Ginge isn't really interested in balls, I have decided its because the fun stops when they do :glare: but I guess adding in the chase/race keeps it interesting. MMmmm food for thought.............

Wow Dogless, well done Kilo for being so restrained, I giggled I am afraid at the paw squash that was Rorys default for pestering dogs.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> So I went up the driveway of an empty house (tried the porch door, but it was locked!!).


This is why you should always carry a credit card. Push it in the gap a little wiggle ( the card not you ) and you're in.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> This is why you should always carry a credit card. Push it in the gap a little wiggle ( the card not you ) and you're in.


Until alarm sounds, police arrive "My huge dog and I were trying to escape from a small friendly spaniel officer" .


----------



## tiatortilla

I love 'activate steath mode' Sarah  Sorry to hear about Spen's tail though, sounds horrible 

Hope Kilo is recovering well Dogless  Scary lungey moment but all sounds good apart from that!

GR your non-walk sounds lovely, well done Ginge 

MS Sorry to hear you're leaving the thread. I guess I'm being oblivious again because I have no idea what's going on but I'll miss reading your updates on Molly!

-

Saw the brown labrador we saw the other day again.. owner walks round pushing a pram, talking on her phone and completely ignoring the dog  he ran over today, while sort of whine-growling at Tia, then did the 'sideways' thing again, she barked at him once and he buggered off fortunately but it's annoying that the owner just couldn't care less what he's doing. I don't really mind her barking in that situation either, he is quite a strange-acting dog (doubt he gets out much...) and I think she's not quite sure what to make of him which is fair enough tbh.
Then Tia ignored my first few recalls (again! Every time I think she's improved..) so we went off somewhere else and did an on lead walk instead. So our walk today started off a bit crap but we turned it around and she did lovely LLW for me instead 

Good walk last night too, we ended up following a yellow lab for a bit on the pavement and she was nice and quiet, got barked at by a few dogs in peoples' gardens and she ignored those too.

And the day before that a little maltese was allowed to bark at Tia continuously (both off lead) and Tia was quite chilled out about it really which I'm really impressed with her for. Met a nice labrador on that day too, they had a greeting sniff then both went about their business 

We have another little success too. Tia used to sit on the floor in front of us when we ate dinner but a little while ago she started getting wound up and acting frustrated during mealtimes so we started sending her to her bed while we were eating instead. For the last few days she's managed to sit in her bed for the whole meal without us having to remind her to stay there, and last night when my boyfriend brought the plates out she went straight to her bed and stayed there until we finished 

..Think that's everything, I'll shut up now


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Until alarm sounds, police arrive "My huge dog and I were trying to escape from a small friendly spaniel officer" .


I actually had this. A friend of ours had gone to a funeral and I had to pop in to feed and walk the dog. It's something I'd done before so was happy to do it. But.. this time.. probably the stress of the situation.. he'd gone into autopilot and put the alarm on. So alarm's going off.. I'm trying to phone him on my mobile with all the noise.. and his phone is ringing which is the alarm monitoring company. Eventually I get through to him and he gives me the code to switch off the alarm. But then the police turn up and I have no ID and no evidence I'm meant to be there  You'll never take me alive copper :crazy: To top it all off I'm nervously looking at the clock because I have to pick the kids up from school too.


----------



## MollySmith

This has been a very useful and helpful thread. With the utmost respect to everyone, all the decisions about Mollys training are taken very seriously and with much discussion based on one-to-one sessions in our home and our walking environments with a person who is vet referred and comes with not just qualifications but a lot of recommendations. I do not wish to hide what we have done as I was asked to do yesterday. I value constructive critique but one that encompasses posts in full context. I feel at my age, having been brought up with eight dogs, helped to raise 12 puppies from birth and owned two with my ex, I have endured nips and bruises and made mistakes along the way. I have learned a lot and think very hard about how I look after my dog.

I work exceptionally hard as we all do, on training but I refuse to be seen as punishing my dog because of a specific training device. I find that terribly upsetting. It did feel personal and believe me, the Open University forums are a meat market of online egos and deconstructive arguments, six years of that and I have a skin like rhino (with the lunatic brain Im painting a graphically pretty picture...) I am absolutely honest about where we have come from  a dog with no training, no boundaries whatsoever and we were told by a (clicker based) trainer to return her to rescue. As weve all said on that awfully traumatic other thread, to save a dog you have to consult the experts and commit for life. We have done that. I _always_ have my gorgeous dogs interests at heart and do a lot of research first, its why shes still with us and wasnt returned to the rescue. All dogs are unique and require different methods but none should be violent. I wanted to leave the thread as I did not want it to go the way of so many others on PF when everyone has worked very hard to keep it going for so long. If anyone wants to discuss maybe PM is the best way to do that so this space remains positive and supportive. If, in posting on here, I have upset anyone then I apologise most sincerely. Ill say no more of it.


----------



## kat&molly

MollySmith said:


> This has been a very useful and helpful thread. With the utmost respect to everyone, all the decisions about Mollys training are taken very seriously and with much discussion based on one-to-one sessions in our home and our walking environments with a person who is vet referred and comes with not just qualifications but a lot of recommendations. I do not wish to hide what we have done as I was asked to do yesterday. I value constructive critique but one that encompasses posts in full context. I feel at my age, having been brought up with eight dogs, helped to raise 12 puppies from birth and owned two with my ex, I have endured nips and bruises and made mistakes along the way. I have learned a lot and think very hard about how I look after my dog.
> 
> I work exceptionally hard as we all do, on training but I refuse to be seen as punishing my dog because of a specific training device. I find that terribly upsetting. It did feel personal and believe me, the Open University forums are a meat market of online egos and deconstructive arguments, six years of that and I have a skin like rhino (with the lunatic brain Im painting a graphically pretty picture...) I am absolutely honest about where we have come from  a dog with no training, no boundaries whatsoever and we were told by a (clicker based) trainer to return her to rescue. As weve all said on that awfully traumatic other thread, to save a dog you have to consult the experts and commit for life. We have done that. I _always_ have my gorgeous dogs interests at heart and do a lot of research first, its why shes still with us and wasnt returned to the rescue. All dogs are unique and require different methods but none should be violent. I wanted to leave the thread as I did not want it to go the way of so many others on PF when everyone has worked very hard to keep it going for so long. If anyone wants to discuss maybe PM is the best way to do that so this space remains positive and supportive. If, in posting on here, I have upset anyone then I apologise most sincerely. Ill say no more of it.


I PM'd you yesterday to ask that Training Discs not be mentioned on the thread, it isn't about 'hiding' anything, its about keeping all methods 'positive'.
There are a lot of lurkers on here, I would hate for someone else to read and copy something they've seen used here.


----------



## L/C

I'm responding to this for any lurkers that may be reading and the other posters on WAYWO.

Aversives - be they sound, physical or any other are subject to a process called a "punishment callous". This means that the punishment will become less and less effective as time goes on. This means you almost certainly will have to escalate to continue suppressing a behaviour. This is something that any owner should be aware of if they decide to use positive punishment in their training. It also doesn't effect permanent change in most cases - when the punishment stops then the behaviour can return.

It isn't effective training and it isn't likely to solve problems or improve your bond with your dog.


----------



## Sarah1983

MollySmith said:


> I work exceptionally hard as we all do, on training but I refuse to be seen as punishing my dog because of a specific training device.


But with all due respect that is exactly what the training discs are, they're an aversive. And with some dogs an extremely scary one. I could likely drop them around Spen and he'd simply rush to pick them up yet they will affect other dogs horribly and cause all sorts of issues.

I had a nice surprise this afternoon, came back from a trip to the doctors to find my husband outside the flat with Spencer who was playing with 4 other dogs. Hubby takes him out about once in a blue moon and I don't think I've ever seen him stand around and let him play. He was making him practise self control too, having him sit or lie down then releasing him to go back to play. Who is he and where is my husband :001_unsure:


----------



## Beth17

Today we worked on having lots of fun. Walked the boys down to the beach and had lovely loose leads for most of it. We had our own little 'private' beach which was fab and the boys had a great time splashing around and wrestling in the water; although Oscar did attempt to drown Sam 

A really lovely walk though and shows that the work does pay off 

Sarah has hubby been replaced by a robot?  Lovely to hear him having some bonding time with Spen though


----------



## Sarah1983

Beth17 said:


> Today we worked on having lots of fun. Walked the boys down to the beach and had lovely loose leads for most of it. We had our own little 'private' beach which was fab and the boys had a great time splashing around and wrestling in the water; although Oscar did attempt to drown Sam
> 
> A really lovely walk though and shows that the work does pay off
> 
> Sarah has hubby been replaced by a robot?  Lovely to hear him having some bonding time with Spen though


Lol, I did wonder! He said he's very proud of all the work I've put in with Spen to get him to where he is and that he's a credit to me too. I'm getting worried now lol.

Oscar, attempting to drown your brother is not nice! Spen is jealous of the private beach though. He has to make do with a shallow stream and some ditches.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah, hope your hubby's OK - very odd behaviour :crazy:.

Beth - sounds like a lovely walk.

Took Rudi to the park this afternoon, it was packed. Bad start when first three people we passed scooped their kids up or told them to stay away from that dog or he'll have your face off . Got better after that - lots of people commented on how nicely behaved he was :aureola: and he got some fusses. He's actually turning into a dog who ignores folk unless they show interest in him which is ideal I think - hope it stays that way. We saw lots of other dogs; had a little JRT attach it's nose to Rudi's backside and follow us so far that we went out of sight of it's owners strolling along. So I stopped and then went back to find them...

"Oh, she must be due in season love, silly to bring her with all these dogs about"
"I can't definitely say that's not the problem"
"Why?"
"The testicles"

Apart from that it was pleasantly uneventful until Roo caught and swallowed a bumble bee - apparently without getting stung . I have searched his extensive chops, tongue and mouth and can't see a stinger or any swellings and his swallowing, breathing etc is all fine. Lucky boy .

Went past various small dogs going batshit with the owners to a fault saying loudly "There, there, that horrid big dog is going now, it's OK". With Kilo I'd have to work hard at times for him not to react in turn, but Roo just strolled on past, bless him.

They couldn't be more opposite I don't think :crazy:.

The BW will get his walk later, he's not forgotten .


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Apart from that it was pleasantly uneventful until Roo caught and swallowed a bumble bee - apparently without getting stung .


That is my worst nightmare. Sometimes when I'm running and gasping for air something goes in. Then it's wretching for the next 5 minutes.


----------



## GingerRogers

I had a dragonfly hit me in the eye once while riding a quad bike at 40 mph, that hurt 

Glad Rudi seems ok, I worried with ninja's penchant for flies but it seems only a blue bottle has the annoying buzz that triggers her prey drive


----------



## tiatortilla

Note to self... Don't take Tia for a walk immediately after playing 'find it' because she carries on trying to find everything outside...


----------



## Velcro

since my last post, we are doing remarkably well on stay. sit is pretty consistent, down seems to be a bit hit and miss so might have to work a bit more on that one.

we started recall today as well. not sure how that ones going yet as i think she was getting tunnel vision over the treats and just enjoying bounding over at me full pelt lol. glad we went with stay first as she kept trying to follow me about while i was wanting to make her wait so i could get her to come to me lol


----------



## Dogless

Velcro said:


> since my last post, we are doing remarkably well on stay. sit is pretty consistent, down seems to be a bit hit and miss so might have to work a bit more on that one.
> 
> we started recall today as well. not sure how that ones going yet as i think she was getting tunnel vision over the treats and just enjoying bounding over at me full pelt lol. glad we went with stay first as she kept trying to follow me about while i was wanting to make her wait so i could get her to come to me lol


There's no harm at all in using your recall word and praising as pup comes towards you in any way at all I don't think. I start even from day one in the house. It's great that she's bounding over full pelt - really good. Rudi still does and he makes a game of it by sprinting off then standing still until he's recalled. I don't care - I want him to see coming back as the best game ever!


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> There's no harm at all in using your recall word and praising as pup comes towards you in any way at all I don't think. I start even from day one in the house. It's great that she's bounding over full pelt - really good. Rudi still does and he makes a game of it by sprinting off then standing still until he's recalled. I don't care - I want him to see coming back as the best game ever!


Totally agree with this!

We're doing ok, lots on, at the moment with class and displays looming ever closer.

Adding to our tricks with retrieval of a pocket pack of tissues from a handbag on the Achoo cue.

On the walking front Tink is doing really well, shaking off stressful moments well. She's been on the Stressless for just about 2 weeks now and the improvement is noticeable. Other than being bothered by a pair of rough collies at the weekend on the towpath as their owners walked on chatting oblivious things we haven't really had more than a momentary tail tuck and shake off.


----------



## Dogless

mv - "Achoo" sounds cute!! Are we going to get a video of your tricks soon? .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> mv - "Achoo" sounds cute!! Are we going to get a video of your tricks soon? .


I'll see what I can do


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'll see what I can do


It's always nice to see her happy in her work. Tissues sound far less risky for the greenhouse too .


----------



## diefenbaker

The WAYWO Corporation Presents....

Chariots Of Fire

Starring Diefenbaker

and introducing The Masked Loon.

Start whistling the themetune and press play.

[youtube_browser]InNvZLsf8Yw[/youtube_browser]


----------



## Dogless

Love it Dief!!! Not sure if you were making any comedy noises though....I had the sound off .


----------



## MollySmith

diefenbaker said:


> The WAYWO Corporation Presents....
> 
> Chariots Of Fire
> 
> Starring Diefenbaker
> 
> and introducing The Masked Loon.
> 
> Start whistling the themetune and press play.
> 
> [youtube_browser]InNvZLsf8Yw[/youtube_browser]


Well impressed by your disguise there Bruce Wayne and the powers of control of Robin, sorry Diefenbaker.

I've been back to hospital as my ankle gave way, in A&E for a few hours and now back with supportive bandage. We forgot to feed Molly too *disclaimer, this is not a recommended training exercise to reward positive behaviour.


----------



## moonviolet

diefenbaker said:


> The WAYWO Corporation Presents....
> 
> Chariots Of Fire
> 
> Starring Diefenbaker
> 
> and introducing The Masked Loon.
> 
> Start whistling the themetune and press play.
> 
> [youtube_browser]InNvZLsf8Yw[/youtube_browser]


great video It was a close run thing. I have to confess I was humming the Digby Chicken Caesar music ( devils gallop) from that Mitchell and Webb Look.


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear MS, sure a rest and some good walks and it will be fine again. That's what I tell myself every time a new bit falls out or off anyway  :crazy:.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Oh dear MS, sure a rest and some good walks and it will be fine again. That's what I tell myself every time a new bit falls out or off anyway  :crazy:.


Thank you, it's a small tear to the ligament so nothing too serious. Yes I do appear to be having lots of bits falling off me these days.


----------



## Velcro

Dogless said:


> There's no harm at all in using your recall word and praising as pup comes towards you in any way at all I don't think. I start even from day one in the house. It's great that she's bounding over full pelt - really good. Rudi still does and he makes a game of it by sprinting off then standing still until he's recalled. I don't care - I want him to see coming back as the best game ever!


Oh wow!!! that is such a good idea and so obvious too - why i never thought of that lol!!

thanks for the tip, will definitely be using that!


----------



## tiatortilla

moonviolet said:


> great video It was a close run thing. I have to confess I was humming the Digby Chicken Caesar music ( devils gallop) from that Mitchell and Webb Look.


I absolutely love you for that! Didn't know you were a Mitchell and Webb fan


----------



## moonviolet

tiatortilla said:


> I absolutely love you for that! Didn't know you were a Mitchell and Webb fan


The surprising adventures of Digby Chicken Caesar has to be my favourite I knew a few people not entirely dissimilar.


----------



## Canine K9

Bit of a bad day today 
Overslept this morning so no walk, This afternoon on the walk I got nettled which killed, tonight he kept barking and leaping up to bite people and I got so stressed I put him away early.
Possibly due to lack of mental stim?


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> There's no harm at all in using your recall word and praising as pup comes towards you in any way at all I don't think. I start even from day one in the house. It's great that she's bounding over full pelt - really good. Rudi still does and he makes a game of it by sprinting off then standing still until he's recalled. I don't care - I want him to see coming back as the best game ever!


This! A million times this! The more recalls you can practise successfully, even if it's ridiculously easy for her, the more ingrained it will become.

Spencer plays the same game as Rudi, it makes me laugh to see him standing there staring at me just waiting for me to call so he can sprint back to me as fast as his legs will go. Sometimes I make it even more fun and run away from him 

Dief, I'm afraid I'm having trouble with videos so can't watch :crying:


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Bit of a bad day today
> Overslept this morning so no walk, This afternoon on the walk I got nettled which killed, tonight he kept barking and leaping up to bite people and I got so stressed I put him away early.
> Possibly due to lack of mental stim?


Oh dear. Maybe he was a little bored - perhaps give him a frozen Kong or something if he misses a walk so his brain's doing something?


----------



## Dogless

The walk with the BW started off fabulously tonight; went up to the top fields and he was really working hard for me. Then I threw his toy into a really huge dense patch of undergrowth. I battled through the brambles and nettles and branches for 10 minutes (Sir K wouldn't follow me into that ) trying to reach where I thought it was, listening to his pitiful cries all the time . I had to admit defeat but I have enough scratches and stings to show that I gave it a good go :crazy:. Luckily it was the end of the walk anyway but he was very reluctant to leave the area, we walked away with him still crying . I get annoyed at losing expensive toys   but at least I have a spare.

Oh well, he walked home nicely too, so still gets a gold star .


----------



## Guest

Hullo Hullo Hullo Glad people are all okay. 

MS, the behaviourist I am in contact with says that witholding brekkie and using it as recall rewards/attention rewards can be positive as most healthy dog are alright missing a meal.
Sorry you had to go to hospital for your ankle.

I sadly, have not been living in the same residence as my dear donkey, cause I have been left in charge of another residence and their pets. But I have now returned and Zand is very pleased. 

I have however still been walking le hound every day (he got all silly and bouncy and then dejected when I left) he has been good, we are still using the dogmatic until I can sell my medium Xtradog harness and Mekuti harnesses and then get a proper perfect fit one. 
He has put on a bit of weight, but still has a waist.


----------



## speug

We've been working on rediscovering Angus's recall as it seems to have been a casualty of the long hours I've been working and the days he's been staying with my mum. We've had a few blips mainly with coming away without going over to talk to GSDs (his current favourite other breed) but we've had some progress and today he was running all the way back to me - not quite directly back to me but a wide arc past the dogs he wanted to go and see, but he wasn't stopping to talk to them so definitely getting back to where he used to be (he's still remembering that he's not allowed to go up to on-lead dogs and the GSDs we've been training near are the ones who live on the site and I know are ok and the owners know Angus and know we're working on recapturing his lost manners).


----------



## ballybee

well they did 6 hours alone with no issue today, they're both very sleepy today which is weird 

it's quite strange, Tummels now 3 and we've finally gotten to the stage where i'm happy with him, the SA and reactivity are almost non existant, his recall i'm working on but it's not bad....it's nice 

some pics of him from yesterdays rainy walk, I love this boy so much! :crazy:


----------



## MollySmith

He is gorgeous ballybee, you've got two very beautiful boys, can you spoil us with some Dan the Man photos too?


----------



## ballybee

MollySmith said:


> He is gorgeous ballybee, you've got two very beautiful boys, can you spoil us with some Dan the Man photos too?


Lol will do, I'm at my mums today with Tummel but ill get some pics of Dan soon


----------



## Dogless

Great walk this morning; not walked the CHs together for a week but did today. They walked really well for me, we went to the top fields and did some training and play. The estate was full of kids / dogs / scooters etc so we just walked off it rapidly saying "Morning" to everyone but not stopping for anything :crazy:. They were both relaxed and fine, I was a bit anxious to get off the street and into a wider space .

Anyhow, all good apart from Roo rollling and rolling on the wet mown grass in various places. He managed to work in something unidentified and stinking (poo that has been through the mower I suspect ) so got scrubbed and the dry shampoo stuff applied so he smells like a girl again  .


----------



## moonviolet

Fabulous walk today 2.5 hours of fantasticness and good news.

Tink sailed past various snarking dogs on the other side of me without so much as a glance in their direction . I do fail to understand if you dog doesn't like being passed then why walk along the towpath when there are open park fields and army ranges within ball lobbing distance, ours not reason why I suppose. Sailed past the sunbathing ducks, without huff or lunge, ignored the hissing Canada goose.

Trotted along the road and bridleway with a spring in her paws then encountered travelling in the opposite direction a series of doggie and human friends. Brief exchanges and short plays where appropriate. the we saw a group we would have historically avoided en masse but Tink was happy to approach I was so happy because poor Jasper Tink's very special friend has been very sick and his owner was with the group with only his other dog with him. Jasper has had an op and is no home and recovering as 16 yr old lurcher it's no mean feat! I'm so pleased not only that Jazzie is doing so well but Tink approached a group politely but without nervousness They were all known dogs but we dont' normally see them all together. The group included 5 bc's 1 gsdx and a couple of terriers. 

On the way home we have hobsons choice regarding the pavement. digging it up on one side to replace the electricitiy supply and the on the other for services for the building site. Drilling, hammering, shouting, men in a hole the smell of hot tar, you name she sailed past it. 

One shake after removal of her harness, a light snack and straight to sleep!!


----------



## speug

We had our 1st agility class in months today. Angus was brilliant - everyone remarked on how calm and well behaved he was. Didn't try to hump the lab he has a thing for, stayed away from the 2 other dogs who don't love him, played quietly and enthusiastically with his tuggy when it wasn't his turn instead of winding himself up into a barking frenzy. And did really well when it was his turn - we did so well that I even got told I was better than usual (rare occurence).
He's now going to spend the rest of the day upside down on the sofa recovering.


----------



## GingerRogers

Speug - praise for you as well, that has to be good if doggy people notice the owners, glad it went well, always nerve wracking after a few months I should think but sounds like the break did you all good.

Dief - thats is brilliant more so as Dief actually doesn't look that bothered, sits there staring at his feet, lulls you into a false sense of possible victory  then springs into action  like the disguise as well.

MV - thats sounds like an absolutely awesome walk , well done Tink, a well earned rest indeed.

Dogless - stinky Roo, I am not sniggering at all, no I am absolutely not.

Ballybee - Tummel has an almost human intelligent look about him, very similar to my friends patterdale, inquisitve. 

I owe him an apology, I told him I had no treats last time I saw him, after discovering him rifling through my bag (he had been talking to Tink I think as he had pulled out my packet of pocket tissues, atishoo ) he was convinced I did, even jumping on my lap (v unusual as he tends to steer clear of humans unless belly takes over) to air lick at my face, then this morning I discovered he was right, there are a few lumps of dried liver cake at the bottom of my bag, I should have listened to him 


What have we been working on, well I upped muzzle training again, the non-walk on the beach reminded me of why I started it. The idea of random offlead dogs running up to her her terrifies me more than anything. I can only work on her reactivity if we actually go places with dogs but round here that means off lead. I worry that her barking might draw them in  At least if she is muzzled thats one less worry. She loves it coming out, she happily shoves her nose in for a treat but as soon as the strap goes round her neck she shuts down, hangs her head and makes it virtually impossible to treat her properly, so we need to take it very slowly, I fear that as soon as she actually barks in it she will feel the same restriction she felt from the head collar and it will make her even more reactive.

This mornings walk started well ended badly.

The start, amongst other things she actually didn't bark at a a man in a pick up who even dared to say hello  she really isn't keen on people in vehicles let alone big noisy rattly ones ( he looked surprised at me praising her so I explained and he declared 'she must know I dont mean her any harm'). So gold star for that. 

She was walking really nicely, not perfect but nice is good enough for me . Lovely attention on me. 

Then an Argos delivery lorry turned up, we almost managed that without too much stress, but it started the poorly GSD  in the house opposite barking. We got round the corner and I tried to relax her by settling on some grass but she was very hyper alert, I put it down to the lorry and just gave her some time, but it was a sneaky old boy shuffling round the corner with his 2 yorkies :crazy: the way home was a write off. 

She even barked at the man in the pick up  she is really stressed even now and has come to pass wind under my desk as its her safe place, do you think she loves me :001_wub:

Now I dont think I handled the yorkie thing correctly, well I know I didn't. I did exactly what I know works in most situations. I gave her the functional reward of moving away from the trigger. The mistake being that this only works when she is below threshold, as I didn't listen to her signals she went right over into snarl mode. Moving nicely away isn't going to happen, all that happens is I panic, I still try to turn and move away, I look like a cruel, and frankly crappy owner, trying to pull my dog in the opposite direction AND I dont even tell her off  then she eats the lead (at least its moved on from my ankles)

What I THINK might work better if we are caught out like that is to just stand there and let her get on with it and bear the brunt of the annoyed glares. As I fear she will get dog = being dragged away and getting frustrated, but standing there letting her bark = gets dog to go away.

Obviously the solution is to not get in that situation but the old men will sneak up on you 

Anyone have any thoughts?

ETA Apart from 'Stop writing such long waffling posts and get out and train your dog properly'


----------



## moonviolet

Ballybee Glad things are going well Tummel is looking great

Dogless Rudi really is a stinky little horror, I guess he has to make up for how good he is in other ways.

Speug Sounds like Angus and you were a brilliant team in class today, are you spending the remainder of the day recovering on the sofa too?

GR sorry to read what started out so positively went downhill, the timing for the yorkie shuffler couldn't have been worse. Honestly there may not be a perfect answer in a situation like that just try to get through it while minimising the stress, try a few things see what works best for you and the ninja.


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Dief - thats is brilliant more so as Dief actually doesn't look that bothered, sits there staring at his feet, lulls you into a false sense of possible victory  then springs into action  like the disguise as well.


I can assure you he's wound like a spring at that point. You can see him make a false start at the beginning because he's paying too much attention to my daughter who is filming and thinks he's had the go signal.


----------



## ballybee

as requested, some pics of Dan 









eye can seee you!!!!


----------



## diefenbaker

ballybee said:


> as requested, some pics of Dan


Dan has a very cool goatee


----------



## GingerRogers

Love that last one, but thats quite a dashing beard he is sporting 

MV you may be right some things are unavoidable, I think she might be finally chilling out.


----------



## moonviolet

Ballybee Great pics Dan has great eyebrows!



GingerRogers said:


> MV you may be right some things are unavoidable, I think she might be finally chilling out.


Glad she's chilling out now, I do think there are times when all you can do is get through it as quickly and painlessly as possible. We can only control so much of the world around and do our best to deal with the random stuff.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dexter is working on his sleepies before Ringcraft.


----------



## Dogless

GR - agree with mv; I think just getting through things as best and quickly as we can is sometimes all that we can do and do a regain later. Good idea to up the muzzle training.

mv - very well done for sailing Miss Tink; quite some morning really but all handled really well .

Ballybee and KFK - nice photos .

Speug - sounds as if the break was exactly what was needed. I hope that agility continues as successfully.


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Cute photos of gorgeous dogs x

I'm working on trying to stop 7yr old Pepper from barking at every noise from the front or back gardens and 

MORE IMPORTANTLY AND SERIOUSLY

Trying to stop Paddy, the 18 month border collie from jumping on everyone who comes near him (in a friendly but vigorous way)

He's also being very stubborn on sit/waits. I know he can do it but takes forever to ease himself into a sit, almost in slow motion then WILL NOT stay there.... is it a stubborn adolescence thing or is he just not ever gonna learn!!


----------



## Dogless

hahgiwoofa said:


> Cute photos of gorgeous dogs x
> 
> I'm working on trying to stop 7yr old Pepper from barking at every noise from the front or back gardens and
> 
> MORE IMPORTANTLY AND SERIOUSLY
> 
> Trying to stop Paddy, the 18 month border collie from jumping on everyone who comes near him (in a friendly but vigorous way)
> 
> He's also being very stubborn on sit/waits. *I know he can do it but takes forever to ease himself into a sit, almost in slow motion then WILL NOT stay there.... is it a stubborn adolescence thing or is he just not ever gonna learn!!*


Is he unsure of anything? The environment? Not quite sure what you are after - ambiguous or conflicting body language with the command? My eldest dog does vveerryyy slow sits when he isn't 100% happy / relaxed / certain of what I am asking.


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless said:


> Is he unsure of anything? The environment? Not quite sure what you are after - ambiguous or conflicting body language with the command? *My eldest dog does vveerryyy slow sits when he isn't 100% happy / relaxed / certain of what I am asking.*


Same with Molly, or if she's got herself to worked up in training so we take a break.

GR - sorry to hear about your walk challenge

Ballybee - Dan is so funny! He reminds me of Sprocket in Fraggle Rock.

Quiet day here, did some training in the garden on 'off' but Molly has been very quiet. I was out when she got back from her walk and she might have been unnerved which is also a sad reflection on my life. But I got offered a place on an MA when I was out so we had celebratory curry for tea and Molly got a new squeaky ball. Prob her last in a while, it's baked beans on toast for a year for the humans.


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Hmmm! Not sure. I always try to use as much consistency as possible. The places he does it r regular places we visit, even home. It seems to be when he knows what's coming next eg. I always make them sit while I put on/remove leads before during & after walks, before i open doors etc. it is painfully slow & he seems to not want u to look at him as he sits?! 

It feels like he's seeing what he can get away with, I have a 13 yr old son & they r quite similar at times!!


----------



## GingerRogers

MollySmith said:


> Same with Molly, or if she's got herself to worked up in training so we take a break.
> 
> GR - sorry to hear about your walk challenge
> 
> Ballybee - Dan is so funny! He reminds me of Sprocket in Fraggle Rock.
> 
> Quiet day here, did some training in the garden on 'off' but Molly has been very quiet. I was out when she got back from her walk and she might have been unnerved which is also a sad reflection on my life. But I got offered a place on an MA when I was out so we had celebratory curry for tea and Molly got a new squeaky ball. Prob her last in a while, it's baked beans on toast for a year for the humans.


Sprocket fraggle rock. Thank you for reminding me. That was the dog i wanted for so long. I remember him as a scruffier beast though


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Sprocket fraggle rock. Thank you for reminding me. That was the dog i wanted for so long. I remember him as a scruffier beast though


You're welcome  I was just watching Mock the Week and they said exactly what me and my OH thought about Keith Richards at Glastonbury, he looked like a character of the Dark Crystal (another Jim Henson creation)!


----------



## Pupcakes

Thought I'd be a nosy neighbour and stick my big conk (yes I said CONK) back on this thread! I got my little training thread but also dont wanna be left out on this one either 

Does anyone have any interesting articles on exercise/adrenaline and how it effects stress levels in dogs? I am very interested in this since speaking to my DT. 

And what happened to this thread being a sticky? Was it getting too rude? :frown2: Shame on you lot :nono:

xxx


----------



## moonviolet

Pupcakes said:


> Thought I'd be a nosy neighbour and stick my big conk (yes I said CONK) back on this thread! I got my little training thread but also dont wanna be left out on this one either
> 
> Does anyone have any interesting articles on exercise/adrenaline and how it effects stress levels in dogs? I am very interested in this since speaking to my DT.
> 
> And what happened to this thread being a sticky? Was it getting too rude? :frown2: Shame on you lot :nono:
> 
> xxx


This one makes quite an interesting read.
Chronic Stress in Dogs | Paws Abilities

And this

http://paws4udogs.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/what-stresses-your-dog/

this has some good pics of stress signs

http://www.4pawsu.com/stresssigns.html

one more 
http://www.agilitynet.co.uk/training/stressedout_aileenclarke.HTML

ETA forgot this one about " too much fetch"
http://www.4pawsu.com/fetch.htm


----------



## Sarah1983

Spencer is currently working on catching up on all the sleep he's unable to get at night because I keep putting the cone of shame on him. I do wonder sometimes about his choice of sleeping places though


The grey spotty thing is his bed. Apparently sleeping on top of the things he's piled up behind the curtain is preferable to sleeping on a nice, comfortable bed though.


----------



## GingerRogers

Poor tired spen dog


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## Dogless

Spen looks like he's protecting his stash from being taken .

Great walk for a few hours this morning with both CHs. The BW was so relaxed that he just watched all the workmen sorting out the hedge and garden of an empty house opposite whereas when he is stressed he'd be working himself into a barking frenzy. They were sorting all the verges etc all the way up to the top fields so mowers, strimmers, blowers and I had two calm dogs . Did some training, some play and some pottering. Walked home calmly and saw mad spaniel tied up outside the shop on a long lead attached to headcollar . 

Then went shopping, came home and played "I get you" for half an hour so we are all knackered.

Looks like "the" lab has gone away for the weekend too - amazing how much no contact with him has altered Kilo's stress state .


----------



## Pupcakes

moonviolet said:


> This one makes quite an interesting read.
> Chronic Stress in Dogs | Paws Abilities
> 
> And this
> 
> What Stresses Your Dog? | Paws Abilities
> 
> this has some good pics of stress signs
> 
> Stress Signs in Dogs
> 
> one more
> Stressed Out
> 
> ETA forgot this one about " too much fetch"
> 4 Paws University Sacramento Dog Obedience Training


Thank you so much MV!xxx


----------



## moonviolet

Pupcakes said:


> Thank you so much MV!xxx


 You are very welcome, hope there's something in that lot that's helpful.


----------



## Dogless

OK walks with the boys tonight; sun's out so reactive dogs with Rudi who coped fine and drunk people with Kilo who coped but was on his toes a fair bit. But...we survived .


----------



## Pupcakes

Dogless said:


> OK walks with the boys tonight; sun's out so reactive dogs with Rudi who coped fine and drunk people with Kilo who coped but was on his toes a fair bit. *But...we survived* .


Aaaaah, my favorite part of the walk, *surviving *:thumbsup:


----------



## diefenbaker

Both of us had good training sessions yesterday... I am actually reasonably pleased with the progress I have mad running.. a little more confident that in a few months time I will be able to run 5K with him.

I've been doing more weaves practice with Dief.. he's getting faster.. and yesterday actually seemed to get quite excited about it. It's handy having them in the garden because we can just do 2 minutes and break.


----------



## Dogless

Nice to hear things are going well Dief .

Good walk this morning, not much seen bar workmen doing stuff just across from the area I let the boys off on, but Kilo was fine as they were already there when we arrived! Lots off offlead playing and training and a quiet walk there and back.

There are flies in the house which they are both snapping at like mad. Hubby is going to the bike shop to organise louder, slimmer exhausts for his new bike so I have set him a challenge to find those sticky paper things which hang from the ceiling...no idea if they even make them any more!!


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## Guest

Hi everyone! 
Haven't been here in a while, but wanted to share with you that we're on our way to a seminar today.
The presenter is Hannah Branigan, a Karen Pryor Academy faculty member. She does obedience, rally, agility, and some bite sports, so I'm excited for me and Bates to learn new stuff!
I'm also super excited to go with two dear friends, we're all going to pack in to the same car and chit chat the 2 hours there and the 2 hours back.


----------



## cainsian

Hello, new to this thread but have been lurking a while and was starting to feel like a stalker  so thought I'd be brave and jump in.

When I started reading we had a Velcro puppy with a slip lead. Now have a 45 kg teenager that now goes out with more stuff than I needed when my children were small  We now have harness, long line, short ezydog lead with extension, whistle (well that's for the others I am unladylike enough to be able to use my fingers!) high value treats and toys. 

We live in an area where training methods are not always positive and quite a few walkers in our local area think I am mad, when OH suggested following what they said a few swift and threatening words were had and now it's positive all the way. Without this thread giving me lots of ideas of how to do this, I would have really struggled.

We are currently working on greeting others calmly on a lead and recall when he spots another dog. The tips on here have been great and don't want to embarrass anyone but dogless I have found your posts really helpful and have used many of the things you have suggested in earlier posts.


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> louder, slimmer exhausts for his new bike


Oh yes. More updates like this please.


----------



## Dogless

Ouesi - have a fabulous day .



cainsian said:


> Hello, new to this thread but have been lurking a while and was starting to feel like a stalker  so thought I'd be brave and jump in.
> 
> When I started reading we had a Velcro puppy with a slip lead. Now have a 45 kg teenager that now goes out with more stuff than I needed when my children were small  We now have harness, long line, short ezydog lead with extension, whistle (well that's for the others I am unladylike enough to be able to use my fingers!) high value treats and toys.
> 
> *We live in an area where training methods are not always positive and quite a few walkers in our local area think I am mad*, when OH suggested following what they said a few swift and threatening words were had and now it's positive all the way. Without this thread giving me lots of ideas of how to do this, I would have really struggled.
> 
> We are currently working on greeting others calmly on a lead and recall when he spots another dog. The tips on here have been great and don't want to embarrass anyone but dogless I have found your posts really helpful and have used many of the things you have suggested in earlier posts.


Welcome to my world!!!!

And welcome to the thread - glad it's helped you so far!



diefenbaker said:


> Oh yes. More updates like this please.


Synopsis. He has an Aprilia Millie RSV, loves it. Started hankering after a Tuono, saw a brand new unregistered 3 year old one, bought it. Went to mainland to collect it. Finishing running in (guess where he is in the lovely weather with NI's roads and the road racing culture here ) and off to talk to the mechanic he trusts to arrange delivery of the exhausts he wants and fitting them. Our garage now quite a squeeze to move around in with two bikes.


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## Sarah1983

Today Spencer managed to make his puppyhood dream of being a tree come true. In running through a load of undergrowth he managed to pick up loads of it in his harness lol. 

Rather warm here today. We had a nice walk with our friends Rottie Khan as they asked if we could walk him today, hubby came with me so no need to go for two separate walks. We definitely need to work on Spens leash walking skills and focus on me when walking with another dog but we don't walk with other dogs often enough to really get a lot of work in on it so bit stumped there.

Ouesi, hope you have a great day

Cainsian, welcome to waywo


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## MollySmith

I hope you have a productive time at the seminar ouesi

Welcome Cainsian

Dogless - B&Q and ebay have fly paper for sale, I have an industrial strength paper for the vegetable patch. It's rather gruesomely satisfying. I hope your OH got the parts for his bike. Mine has gone off in his bike to the coast and I have received a text of them at Lowestoft in their leathers with ice creams looking very silly and very hot.

I took Molly out early this morning to test out my new insole things, so far so good but we only hobbled around the short walk and threw some balls. Too hot to do much more. The house is cool so we're indoors. I do wish Molly liked water. I've found a cheap paddling pool on Amazon and I've ordered that to see if she might change her mind so we can be outside. 

Class is at the moment, cancelled tomorrow unless the weather cools down.


----------



## Guest

OMG so much info! 
My brain is mush, but I wrote copious notes and will share in the morning.

Lots of dealing with the dog's emotional state - she's a science nerd, and we talked a good bit about how we thing classical and operant conditioning are totally separate entities, but they're not. In terms of behavior, with every behavior you teach, you are also conditioning an emotional response. 

Also lots of work with arousal and ping pong-ing back and forth between arousal and control. She really encouraged us to get to that point of over-arousal so we know where it is and what it looks like. I have the chewed up arms and scratched legs to prove it too LOL!

Will go through notes in the am


----------



## Dogless

Ouesi your day sounds as if it was really interesting; I'll look forward to hearing more about it.

Went for a nice walk early this morning, no one seen as it's the weekend, dogs and I had a lovely time; bar Kilo's fly obsession hitting him now and again . Lots of dogs out now, struggling along...but as long as the owners got their lie in 'eh?

That spaniel who we had the encounter with the other day has just been running around all the front gardens and ran our fence line to pop head under gate. Owners calling name constantly. Kilo was inside thank goodness so didn't get stressed. I CANNOT have another dog replacing "the lab" when he leaves now Kilo is so, so chilled out having managed to avoid them for a fortnight. The lady was really nice so I'll maybe have another word next time I see them.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Lots of dogs out now, struggling along...but as long as the owners got their lie in 'eh?


We're fairly lucky. 2 minutes from the front door and we're in the woods in the shade. Cooler there than in the house or garden. Beach later I think.. tides out at 5... straight in the lagoon... then maybe Ferry Boat Inn for some nommy-nommy.


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> We're fairly lucky. 2 minutes from the front door and we're in the woods in the shade. Cooler there than in the house or garden. Beach later I think.. tides out at 5... straight in the lagoon... then maybe Ferry Boat Inn for some nommy-nommy.


Sounds like perfection. Woods for us too today and i am going to see if its dry enough to pass the impassable marsh. Ninja is dying to know what is on the other side. Then a bit of beer garden later i think for a play with her mate rudi


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## MollySmith

We were back by 11, we went to a nice walk with a river and were out for few hours but would Molly have a paddle? She really does hate water. I have ordered a pool though, even if she doesn't use it I can paddle my feet in 

Didn't see anyone but I noticed that our regular walking spot was getting busy as we came back. It's too hot and too dry there today.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> We're fairly lucky. 2 minutes from the front door and we're in the woods in the shade. Cooler there than in the house or garden. Beach later I think.. tides out at 5... straight in the lagoon... then maybe Ferry Boat Inn for some nommy-nommy.


That sounds like a perfect day!



GingerRogers said:


> Sounds like perfection. Woods for us too today and *i am going to see if its dry enough to pass the impassable marsh. *Ninja is dying to know what is on the other side. Then a bit of beer garden later i think for a play with her mate rudi


Sounds like something from folklore....for those who dare to try and pass the impassable marsh lies ahead a journey of toil, struggle and battle with creatures and spirits most dire...


----------



## speug

just going to be another short wander round the field this afternoon. If it gets cooler towards dusk we'll go for something better later. We've been doing our main walk of the day after 9pm lately to avoid the worst of the heat and the hordes of children everywhere, we've even got loads of children round our way just now staying with grandparents as it's school holidays.
We did manage a good encounter this morning though, there was a small child out running round the field who decided to come and talk to Angus cos he's like her granny's dog. Luckily given a choice between small girls and another collie, Angus sat quietly and let the girl talk to him on the promise that he could see Rabbie afterwards. We did have a few instances of taking a roundabout route back to me when called so he could keep an eye on where Rabbie and the wee girl were but he was remembering not to stop running till he got back so I was happy enough with that. 

The next thing we need to sort out is not chewing his lead - it happens mainly when he gets too excited about things or is unsure. I don't like telling him off all the time as at least to some extent it's displacement behaviour when he's not confident but it's also not safe to have partially chewed leads that could break. I did try a chilli impregnated lead to see if that would put him off enough that we could focus on positive ways to channel his excitement but it turns out he loves the taste and chewed it even more.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> That sounds like a perfect day!
> 
> Sounds like something from folklore....for those who dare to try and pass the impassable marsh lies ahead a journey of toil, struggle and battle with creatures and spirits most dire...


[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/Hot%20Day%20across%20the%20impassable%20marsh/20130707_135609_zps26c71374.jpg.html]

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/Hot%20Day%20across%20the%20impassable%20marsh/20130707_135341_zps49bbb0dd.jpg.html]

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/Hot%20Day%20across%20the%20impassable%20marsh/20130707_135445_zps97b19a10.jpg.html]

Well that was what we found on the other side of the almost passable impassable marsh , my sandals and feet may have needed a rinse off but its better than the last time I tried when the mud nearly came over one welly while pulling the other off  There is actually an old burial mound type thingy there.

Was worth it though for this was the other side of the head high ferns

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/Hot%20Day%20across%20the%20impassable%20marsh/20130707_135804_zps5fd45828.jpg.html]

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/Hot%20Day%20across%20the%20impassable%20marsh/20130707_140238_zpsab8d30a8.jpg.html]

As for struggles and battles with creatures and spirits most dire there was only horses which got not a second look (I think it must be horses with riders that are the problem) and a dried up dead rabbit

I think there may have been living ones down here though

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/Hot%20Day%20across%20the%20impassable%20marsh/20130707_135526_zps29c4e2c8.jpg.html]

We have had a great day so far, my little super star actually figured something out for herself and didnt bark at the neighbours dog


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## Guest

Okay... Hannah Branigan seminar:
Bear with me it's gonna be longish, and my notes are a mess. I'm going to hit on the main stuff that jumped out at me. Apologies in advance for any nerdiness 

- Emotional states - lots about emotional states.
If you train a behavior while the dog is nervous, the dog will learn that behavior is a nervous one. 

She used a meditation metaphor - the more you mediate, the easier it is to get in to that state, that chill place. Same for dogs, the more we teach them to chill and relax, the easier it is for them to get there (she does a lot of mat work for this). On the other side of the coin, the more your dog gets nervous or anxious, the easier it will be for him to get there.

This one is one we all know, but bears repeating. In order to control arousal, you have to LET the dog get aroused.

- Distractions 
She showed several videos of dogs getting "distracted" but it wasn't really a distraction. One had a sheep dog who has worked sheep and also loves his ball. The owner threw the ball, dog loved it. Then she threw the ball over closer to where there was a pen of sheep, and the dog ran to the ball, noticed the sheep, then all of a sudden just *had* to go check out something else off camera. It was a case of conflicting reinforcers. Too much conflict and all of a sudden that clump of grass over there becomes *really* interesting. It's a displacement behavior. You can proof every clump of grass in the field and it's not going to help because the dog is conflicted, not distracted.

We then talked about how to tell if it's a true distraction or a displacement behavior, and that was long and very specific, but basically it involves a lot of knowing your dog and knowing their body language and motivators, triggers etc.
You can also put that behavior on cue - like "go sniff". Generally if the dog goes to sniff and is done, it was a true distraction, not displacement. But there was a lot more to that whole discussion.

Criteria & the triangle of difficulty. Distance from dog to handler adds difficulty, proximity to distraction adds difficulty, distance of handler from distraction adds difficulty. Lowering criteria has to bear this in mind.
If the dog makes two mistakes in a row, time to drastically reduce criteria.
One gal kept asking her what should she do when the dog ___ (basically when the dog fails) and she kept coming back to reducing criteria and backing off to where the dog is successful. If you can't get a dog to relax on a mat in the living room, you have no business taking that dog to a dog show and expecting any of your mat work to be at all helpful. 
This one was the one we talked about a lot on the way home. Nobody wants to hear "take a step back" (or five or six or a dozen steps back), we're so goal oriented, but it really is the right answer.

Oh, also had a good discussion about the difference between lowering criteria and training the dog not to perform. Like dog doesn't sit without a cookie so you offer a cookie - that's not lowering criteria, that's training the dog that the cue for sit is you having a cookie. There was more to it than that, but you get the idea.

Building drive to reinforcers - you will never get more energy for the behavior than you do for it's reinforcer. So building drive for the reinforcer makes good sense.

There was a lot of hands on work more specific to drive and keeping the dog in the right frame of mind. I got beat up by my dog  but it was good fun. She was impressed with his impulse control, but I need to work on getting him aroused more. It's that balance thing all over again, I've worked too much on getting him "down" and now I need to balance by working on the "up" part more. 

Okay, I know this is long and a mish mash of info, but I'm still digesting a lot of it myself!


----------



## Dogless

Thanks for taking the time to post that Ouesi, plenty to get my slow brain working!


----------



## Guest

Very good post Ouesi. 

Today has been what has been dubbed a "Stressyknicker" day. We got trapped between advancing canines today.


----------



## terencesmum

Ouesi, I don't post on here, just loiter and read, but thanks for that post. Certainly, a lot of this can be used for Terence. 
Keep posting.


----------



## Guest

LurcherOwner said:


> Very good post Ouesi.
> 
> Today has been what has been dubbed a "Stressyknicker" day. We got trapped between advancing canines today.


Oh we talked about that! How do you get your dog to the ring in a good frame of mind when you're crated *here* and the ring gate is way over *there* and in between is the gauntlet of snarky dogs?
Treat magnet! Basically you get a really good treat between your palm and your thumb and let the dog shove his nose in to your cupped hand while he licks and goes for the treat. Then you walk the dog through the gauntlet with his nose glued to your hand like that. She did joke about potential blood blisters on your palm 

Actually I do use a strong touch cue sometimes for this sort of thing. It helps give the dog something else to focus on, and my hand in front of the dog's face acts like a blinder of sorts.


----------



## terencesmum

ouesi said:


> Oh we talked about that! How do you get your dog to the ring in a good frame of mind when you're crated *here* and the ring gate is way over *there* and in between is the gauntlet of snarky dogs?
> Treat magnet! Basically you get a really good treat between your palm and your thumb and let the dog shove his nose in to your cupped hand while he licks and goes for the treat. Then you walk the dog through the gauntlet with his nose glued to your hand like that. She did joke about potential blood blisters on your palm
> 
> Actually I do use a strong touch cue sometimes for this sort of thing. It helps give the dog something else to focus on, and my hand in front of the dog's face acts like a blinder of sorts.


There is an interesting section in When Pigs Fly about this, where she basically says the same thing about teaching attention. Shove treats in as soon as you get somewhere exciting. (She obviously said in a less clumsy manner  )


----------



## Guest

ouesi said:


> Oh we talked about that! How do you get your dog to the ring in a good frame of mind when you're crated *here* and the ring gate is way over *there* and in between is the gauntlet of snarky dogs?
> Treat magnet! Basically you get a really good treat between your palm and your thumb and let the dog shove his nose in to your cupped hand while he licks and goes for the treat. Then you walk the dog through the gauntlet with his nose glued to your hand like that. She did joke about potential blood blisters on your palm
> 
> Actually I do use a strong touch cue sometimes for this sort of thing. It helps give the dog something else to focus on, and my hand in front of the dog's face acts like a blinder of sorts.


How early do you do it? What if your dog completley focuses on the other dogs and not treats? Would I just build up to it? We know touch but we can work on him holding it for longer. 
Sorry for the questions Ouesi, DB is my first dog and theres so so soooo much info out there!


----------



## Guest

Yay! Glad my jumbled post was helpful LOL! Just holler if you have any specific questions or clarifications. 

It was really fun, I'm a total behavior nerd, and she is too and I was just eating up all of her vast knowledge and insight. 

Bates was a good boy and loved getting to hang out with two of his favorite humans, and I certainly loved the company too - went with two gals who are also good friends. Two hour drive there and back gave us plenty of social time


----------



## terencesmum

ouesi said:


> Yay! Glad my jumbled post was helpful LOL! Just holler if you have any specific questions or clarifications.
> 
> It was really fun, I'm a total behavior nerd, and she is too and I was just eating up all of her vast knowledge and insight.
> 
> Bates was a good boy and loved getting to hang out with two of his favorite humans, and I certainly loved the company too - went with two gals who are also good friends. Two hour drive there and back gave us plenty of social time


Would love to attend workshops, we need plenty of help. 
Any recommendations in the UK?


----------



## Guest

LurcherOwner said:


> How early do you do it? What if your dog completley focuses on the other dogs and not treats? Would I just build up to it? We know touch but we can work on him holding it for longer.
> Sorry for the questions Ouesi, DB is my first dog and theres so so soooo much info out there!


Well, actually, the beginning is getting the dog out of the crate. If you can't get the dog out of the crate without losing the dog, then you go back to that point. (This would be at a dog show of course, not out in the fields walking your dog )

We did an exercise where you let the dog out of the crate, don't say anything, and as soon as the dog focuses on you, you click and reward, then put him BACK in the crate. IOW, saying to the dog, ALL I'm asking you is to pay attention to me when you come out of the crate, that's it. (Obviously the crate has to be a place the dog wants to be, otherwise this wouldn't work.)
From there you could do something like crate to mat. Can you get out of the crate, focus on me, then chill on a mat? Yes, cool, okay, we can move on now.

So it's really teeny, tiny little baby steps.

Now, in a situation like yours, it's more management than training. I'd literally shove a super awesome smelly treat right in his face and move him through the dogs that way. I wouldn't ask for touch or watch me or any behavior that I'm going to use later, because if he's anxious walking through those dogs, he's going to start thinking that touch or watch me are anxious behaviors.


----------



## Guest

ouesi said:


> Well, actually, the beginning is getting the dog out of the crate. If you can't get the dog out of the crate without losing the dog, then you go back to that point. (This would be at a dog show of course, not out in the fields walking your dog )
> 
> We did an exercise where you let the dog out of the crate, don't say anything, and as soon as the dog focuses on you, you click and reward, then put him BACK in the crate. IOW, saying to the dog, ALL I'm asking you is to pay attention to me when you come out of the crate, that's it. (Obviously the crate has to be a place the dog wants to be, otherwise this wouldn't work.)
> From there you could do something like crate to mat. Can you get out of the crate, focus on me, then chill on a mat? Yes, cool, okay, we can move on now.
> 
> So it's really teeny, tiny little baby steps.
> 
> Now, in a situation like yours, it's more management than training. I'd literally shove a super awesome smelly treat right in his face and move him through the dogs that way.


Ahhh thanks for that. We shall work on the attention thing at home. Normally I'd move away from the situ but we got trapped in an alleyway :001_unsure:

Lots of things are teeny weeny baby steps here, I picked up the nail clippers without a freakout, LIVER FOR ZANDER! 

I'd love to go to seminars like that, I wonder if theres some over here in the SouthWest?


----------



## Guest

terencesmum said:


> Would love to attend workshops, we need plenty of help.
> Any recommendations in the UK?


Gosh, no... I couldn't begin to know where to go in the UK...

Though one of my friends who went is obsessed with Kay Laurence, from seeing her at several Clicker Expos, and she is in the UK. Quick google revealed this:
Workshops at Wagmore Barn in the Cotswolds
And seminars too.
Dont' know if this is at all helpful?


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## diefenbaker

Fantastic time at the beach. It was buzzing with people and dogs. In and out the sea chasing his air kong stick on a rope keeps him busy and less interested in other dogs. Then stopped at the Barley Mow for a carvery. Who'd have thought they served hedgehog :devil: ?


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## Beth17

LurcherOwner said:


> Ahhh thanks for that. We shall work on the attention thing at home. Normally I'd move away from the situ but we got trapped in an alleyway :001_unsure:
> 
> Lots of things are teeny weeny baby steps here, I picked up the nail clippers without a freakout, LIVER FOR ZANDER!
> 
> I'd love to go to seminars like that, I wonder if theres some over here in the SouthWest?


I think they do do seminars around the area. I'd love to go to them. We should be seminar buddies


----------



## moonviolet

diefenbaker said:


> Fantastic time at the beach. It was buzzing with people and dogs. In and out the sea chasing his air kong stick on a rope keeps him busy and less interested in other dogs. Then stopped at the Barley Mow for a carvery. Who'd have thought they served hedgehog :devil: ?


no flamed beagle on the menu then?


----------



## Beth17

We had a great time at the boxer rescue fun dog show. The boys took turns to go up and as such were not overheating or uncomfortable. Oscar was an absolute star won a few things and tolerated everything brilliantly. He was happy for children to stroke him, random dogs shoving their noses up his bum or getting in his face in the ring. He met and greeted everyone and was just a joy to handle.

Sam was also good, if a little overwhelmed at first so will start getting him used to bigger crowds again. He soon came around though and was happy. Tomorrow I think we'll just have a stressfree fun walk with no real training


----------



## Guest

And here I'm on this thread trying to avoid the other one!


----------



## L/C

terencesmum said:


> Would love to attend workshops, we need plenty of help.
> Any recommendations in the UK?


There's plenty of stuff in the UK. What are you interested in?


----------



## diefenbaker

ouesi said:


> And here I'm on this thread trying to avoid the other one!


WAYWO is the calm at the centre ( or for our traitorous American cousins center ) of the storm. Let's call the whole thing off.


----------



## tiatortilla

I know I mentioned it on my picture thread if anyone's seen that, but we saw four dogs today while Tia was on lead and she didn't bark at any of them, they were all quite close too  I think she can't be arsed in hot weather tbh 
Her recall has been fine again too, did a park walk last night and there were loads of people around and she didn't try to make friends with any of them. All fine this evening too.
Not much else to say really, everything's going rather well


----------



## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> I know I mentioned it on my picture thread if anyone's seen that, but we saw four dogs today while Tia was on lead and she didn't bark at any of them, they were all quite close too  I think she can't be arsed in hot weather tbh
> Her recall has been fine again too, did a park walk last night and there were loads of people around and she didn't try to make friends with any of them. All fine this evening too.
> Not much else to say really, everything's going rather well


Don't knock yourself. As i saw today sometimes it just sinks in.


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> Don't knock yourself. As i saw today sometimes it just sinks in.


Ah I know I've worked hard on it really, being self-deprecating is my best skill 
In all seriousness though, we've had a couple of very noisy days this week so I wasn't expecting a nice quiet girly today, I do honestly think the heat makes a difference!


----------



## Werehorse

I think I need to start working on CALMNESS in public places.  And walking on the lead without actually trying to bounce off the sky at the same time.


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> I think I need to start working on CALMNESS in public places.  And walking on the lead without actually trying to bounce off the sky at the same time.


Oooh cool! You have a kanga-dog too?


----------



## Werehorse

ouesi said:


> Oooh cool! You have a kanga-dog too?


I have a Hugo. 

I felt like I'd made a lot of progress on the LLW front. The I took them somewhere exciting for the first time in ages (cos I've been working on the LLW in low distraction places) and it was like they have completely forgotten about exciting places and they went a bit bonkers. Worse than previous to LLW training commencing with gusto.


----------



## kat&molly

Hi there. I haven't felt like posting lately as there have been a number of health problems with the girls and I didn't want to be a whingebag on here.
I have kept up though and most of you are doing really well, Ginge I loved your post yesterday , so nice to get a breakthrough.

I have an extra worry with my Evie at the minute and her getting stressed, with life and people in general.
We were making slow steady progress but this week has been one thing after another and we're back to square one  one of these things was a vet visit and I'm praying she doesn't need any treatment because at the moment it will be really difficult for her. After reading how well the Stressless is doing some of the other WAYWO dogs I'll be ordering some today and we'll start again. So wish I had a nice positive trainer to help at times.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry you have been having a bad time Kat  I really do see a difference in Ginge with the stressless, so I really hope it helps, less so with the valerian tablets but we have only been on them a week. I did email Dorwest and they said that its worth trying them for a month so we will see.

I hope that you can manage without treatment.

True to my predication I have a gobshite dog today  but I suspect the excitement of having a playmate affects her, so quiet walk tonight and tomorrow morning as she is going to be spayed


----------



## Guest

Werehorse said:


> I have a Hugo.
> 
> I felt like I'd made a lot of progress on the LLW front. The I took them somewhere exciting for the first time in ages (cos I've been working on the LLW in low distraction places) and it was like they have completely forgotten about exciting places and they went a bit bonkers. Worse than previous to LLW training commencing with gusto.


Sorry to keep harping back on to the seminar, but we talked about this too 
We get this idea that "okay, I've trained this, now I'm done" but it never works like that, you're never done training anything, it's a constant thing. 
Kind of like how I feel about cleaning the house  "Okay, I've cleaned the house, I'm done now, I shouldn't have to clean it again." Yet lo and behold, it never stays clean!


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry you have been having a bad time Kat  I really do see a difference in Ginge with the stressless, so I really hope it helps, less so with the valerian tablets but we have only been on them a week. I did email Dorwest and they said that its worth trying them for a month so we will see.
> 
> I hope that you can manage without treatment.
> 
> True to my predication I have a gobshite dog today  but I suspect the excitement of having a playmate affects her, so quiet walk tonight and tomorrow morning as she is going to be spayed


Evie has been having Valerian, maybe I could try the 2 together then. Just gutted as we were doing well.
Sorry you have a gobshite today, they never let us get complacent do they.

Ouesi- that's so true of the LLW [and the housework], mine are much better than they were but some days and new places and it all goes to pot.


----------



## Dogless

I should receive a commission from Nupafeed I reckon .

Kat I hope that it helps Evie; it's so horrible having to watch your dog under stress and not being able to sort it for them.


----------



## MollySmith

So sorry to hear about Evie, I hope the tablets will work for her. It must be very upsetting.

Thank you for the notes ouesi, I was interested in the targeted treat in the hand as a technique. OH is feeling chuffed as he's being doing that for a while as his answer to lots of dogs everywhere scenario. I've been told that Molly's lead reactivity is a 'for life' management as she'll always have it there too, I guess that's another constant thing? I shall read through the notes later in more detail.

We have over excited dog dog who appears to have forgotten her manners. It's wee bit cooler here so maybe that's why. She lost her favourite ball on the walk, no other ball would do apparently. We have not changed walk venue for a while which seems to refocus her, does anyone else find that with their dogs?

In other news, got a letter of apology from gun dog UK.


----------



## GingerRogers

Bonus on the apology, is that like a national organisation or what the company you went with are called, if the former perhaps they are feeling the backlash from the bloke on the vid on the other thread 

We are walking later tonight as the ninja is being spayed tomorrow, she has just had her last meal  I promise not to post pictures of drunk doggy. 

I am not at all nervous :crying:


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Bonus on the apology, is that like a national organisation or what the company you went with are called, if the former perhaps they are feeling the backlash from the bloke on the vid on the other thread
> 
> We are walking later tonight as the ninja is being spayed tomorrow, she has just had her last meal  I promise not to post pictures of drunk doggy.
> 
> I am not at all nervous :crying:


Oh lovely, I hope tomorrow goes well for you both, it's little comfort but it's such a straightforward procedure and she's in the best place. Molly got over her spay very quickly xx

It's a national group yes, who have accredited courses apparently. OH has been doing some investigating over that video, he can't see any link between them and we complained to them last week before it went viral (at least it's been on my Facebook feed from the weekend) but it could very well be protecting their own. Just glad to be rid of them, we also got our lesson money back as well. I bought Molly a space lobber and a tuggy toy with it as a final act of rebellion.


----------



## Dimwit

Glad you got an apology and your money back MS.

GR - hope all goes well tomorrow, I'm sure I will all be fine but it's still nerve wracking.

Not been doing much lately, just trying to keep dimwit cool and calm, which is a bit of a challenge! Been doing lots of training and scentwork around the house as we haven't been doing much on walks, partly to keep cool but also because my lungs are not loving the weather/pollen count right now.

I have also just realised that some people have given me rep (which I don't really understand) but I can't remember who as I have no idea how I found the page. So if you think I'm really rude and ungrateful, then I apologise


----------



## Canine K9

Not done a lot really today, went for a walk at 6am and another at 7pm. Bailey apparently has been relaxing in the garden for most of the day. Done some impulse control stuff today.


----------



## Dogless

GR - all the very, very best from Concrete Central for the Ninja and you tomorrow. Kilo says you are a far better human that I am for promising Ninja you won't post photos of her drunk .

Good walks, not much to report. Kids and drunk people coped with admirably. Do - gooder coped with not so admirably by me. "The lab" is back, caravan being unloaded as I went out with the BW this evening.


----------



## Werehorse

I've not done much with the boys today - I spent most of the day asleep; which is either early mornings now the horses are at a different yard catching up with me or I'm not feeling too well. I still feel a little out of sorts so I suspect a mixture of the two.

Oscar and Hugo have enjoyed the sleepy day on the bed though.  I was going to take them to the beach again this evening but have spent so long faffing over my horse's poorly face that there isn't time now.  Will be up early to get them out before work tomorrow then!

Fingers crossed for little Ninja's spay, Ginger. Hope it goes well. xx


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> We are walking later tonight as the ninja is being spayed tomorrow, she has just had her last meal  I promise not to post pictures of drunk doggy.
> 
> I am not at all nervous :crying:


Good luck, I'm sure she'll be fine  x


----------



## kat&molly

Hope it goes well for Ninja today Ginge, and that the day doesn't drag on too long until you can bring her home .

Took the girls to the river last night ,Moll thought it a good idea to take her kong. She lies down and releases the toy so that it floats away and then has to retrieve it  Being kong shaped it sunk ,her whole body goes in to work mode and stirs all the bottom of the river up making it impossible to find. One upset Springer.


----------



## moonviolet

Ginge thinking of you and the ninja today. can't wait to hear she is home safe and sound, if a little drunk.

K&M Poor Molly and she was so clever setting up her own retrieves. Hope Evie is as successful with the stressless as Tink. 

WH Sounds like the boys enjoyed a lazy day too.

Dogless shame the lab is back hope you are successful in dodging them until they go.

CK9 well done doing some impulse control it's amazing how it translates into other situations. Hope you are reaping the benefits soon 

DW Hope you are feeling better soon the heat/pollen combo seems to be pretty intense this year. videos of sprocket doing some scentwork always welcome. I love seeing dogs using their noses never fails to impress me.

MS glad you got apology/refund. Will they still be recommending them? Have you spoken to your behaviourist about the re-emerging aroused behaviours? Might be worth talking about techniques to help her relax at home or training some alternatives.


We had a 2 hour workshop on Sunday ( in a cooler than my house hall) lots of fun, lots of feedback. " trust your dog to do her job and concentrate on doing you own!" being the one that has stuck in my head.


----------



## MollySmith

Good morning MV - apparently they are 'looking into the trainer's methods' and were at pains to point out that it wasn't representative of everyone. 

Yes we are looking at other ways to manage her arousal. When she got overexcited on her zoommies yesterday and cornered the OH in the garden, I called her back as we've been practicing sendaways, recalls, watch me and some of the impulse control exercises whilst my foot has been sore and she came immediately to me despite being overexcited and we did some clicker work on settling down. That is a huge breakthrough as it did very much feel we were out of control last summer. When we first had her it was impossible to escape her zoomies without her leaping and biting despite teaching her off and I was worried when my god daughters visit that she'd do that to them. She has drawn blood in the past and had a huge ankle biting obsession which has thankfully ceased. The change in Molly is so dramatic. My diary is full of drawings of her lying down these days (I draw my diary rather than blog it, like a sketchbook). I think training and engaging her in a practical thing is better for her, she'd rather do 'look at me's' than play with a wobbler which is more exhausting for her humans!

Glad your workshop went ahead and you had fun 

GR - I am so thinking of you today, take care Ninja.

K9 - I loved your photos on the other thread, Bailey has a beautiful smile 

Dimwit - hope you feel better soon, it's so dry outside.

Off to walk Molly as OH is at the hospital this morning and I've got a tour of the university this afternoon - stupidly a bit nervous.


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> We are walking later tonight as the ninja is being spayed tomorrow, she has just had her last meal  I promise not to post pictures of drunk doggy.
> 
> I am not at all nervous :crying:


Serial worrier like me. It should be their bread and butter and she's back home in no-time. One of Dief's friends has just been done. She's back to nutcase after two weeks. Do you have a plan other than cone ?

Dumbass question for dog runners.. I've just got all my stuff from Sid.. which way round would you put the gangline ? It seems to make sense to have the release clip at the dog end ? But then would it bang on his backside ?


----------



## GingerRogers

All dropped off  thank you for all your good thoughts  I know she shouldn't need them, but they are appreciated by me! 

I have the double anticipation to see if it affects her behaviour in any way which is also bothering me theres 60% chance of positive results or no difference than negative results so I am clinging on to that.

Arent 'big vet' waiting rooms scary places, dog after dog came in and all kicked off at one another, my 'small vet' was there to meet me and was surprised to see that ninja was not with me considering the noise , she waited in the car while I filled in forms and blubbed  then she went in the side door. All the staff had been told to be nice to ninja and keep her quiet but it made me wonder why they shouldn't do that to all of those in this morning. 

Dief, I know nothing about running with dogs, apart from away from other ones  nor do I know what the set up looks like, but the other suggestion could be the release clip should be nearer to hand , for emergency use, not that there will be any stumbles or anything I am sure 

Dogless I hope you manage to continue to avoid the lab for the next few weeks, sounds like its made a big difference to Kilo.

Kat - poor Molly and her drowned kong, silly spaniel :laugh:


----------



## Beth17

Ginger good luck to the Ninja. Hope she is home safe and sound soon.

Dogless boo to the lab. Hope they don't cause too much problem before they go.

mv the workshop sounds great!

K&M clever Molly 

Dief no clue about running or ganglines I am afraid.

MS Hope Molly calms down again soon and sounds like the impulse control is starting to work.

We had a lovely morning in the woods meeting and playing with other dogs. Oscar was a star again and instigated play and just mooched around with Sam and the others so he is progressing well. Going to get Sam signed up for an agility taster session as I think he'll love it.


----------



## [email protected]

I can now walk my BC through a field of sheep/cows/livestock confidently knowing that she will not give chase without having to wave a ball around to grab her attention. She is now listening to me rather than me having to use props to get her attention and then listen to me. Its taken some time on a long training lead but we are there!! She is loving the praise! I'm so proud of her.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Serial worrier like me. It should be their bread and butter and she's back home in no-time. One of Dief's friends has just been done. She's back to nutcase after two weeks. Do you have a plan other than cone ?
> 
> Dumbass question for dog runners.. I've just got all my stuff from Sid.. which way round would you put the gangline ? It seems to make sense to have the release clip at the dog end ? But then would it bang on his backside ?


I have the clip at dog end on mine and it doesn't bang as long as you take the tension up - but I have a Non-Stop harness and different line.

These if it helps:

Non-Stop Freemotion Harness

https://www.canix.co.uk/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=21


----------



## Dimwit

moonviolet said:


> DW Hope you are feeling better soon the heat/pollen combo seems to be pretty intense this year. *videos of sprocket doing some scentwork always welcome*. I love seeing dogs using their noses never fails to impress me.


You may live to regret saying that!
Here is (hopefully) a link to a video from last weekend of his first ever water search
MVI_0876 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> You may live to regret saying that!
> Here is (hopefully) a link to a video from last weekend of his first ever water search
> MVI_0876 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


Look at his tail! love it! more more !


----------



## Dimwit

These are the only other ones I have on my computer:

MVI_0892 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

MVI_0895 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

His tail is very entertaining, and I love seeing how much he loves doing this - which is why I recommend it to everyone.

Less fun, of course, if you are the scentmouse...









I also discovered tonight that the river, as well as being great for scenting, is also home to some very vicious horseflies


----------



## MollySmith

Oops poo about the horseflies Dimwit but love seeing him in action. He really is the loveliest, most gorgeous dog 

Ginger - are you and the Ninja are okay?


----------



## GingerRogers

Thank you Ms. We are ok I think. I am emotionally drained with one thing and another and my poor little ninja is physically. She is very dopey and has slept pretty much since I got her home I don't suppose she rested at the vets with all the commotion. No amount of sedation would keep her down I don't think. We did just have an ear flicker at a dog barking outside so perhaps she will be fine


----------



## MollySmith

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you Ms. We are ok I think. I am emotionally drained with one thing and another and my poor little ninja is physically. She is very dopey and has slept pretty much since I got her home I don't suppose she rested at the vets with all the commotion. No amount of sedation would keep her down I don't think. We did just have an ear flicker at a dog barking outside so perhaps she will be fine


Oh bless her little heart, she will be exhausted and you too I'm sure. I hope you both get some well earned sleep tonight.

Dimwit, may I ask where the stream? Promise I'm not walk-stalking you but that looks like the sort of water depth Molly might paddle in to keep her cool, Babraham and the Granta is way too deep, she panics too much and the Gogs is too dry.


----------



## Dogless

Not much to report. Garden lunacy, paddling pools, flies - including a dust up over going for the same one  - good walks with productive training, offlead dog running up to Rudi by the road , good day at Concrete Central. They only got one walk each today as I have some dizziness / balance drama going on, inner ear I suspect, but no big deal.

I think the CHs are solar powered.

Pleased to hear the Ninja's OK GR.


----------



## Werehorse

Hope the Ninja recovers quickly, Ginge.

Sprocket is just beautiful. Really need to do more scentwork with my boys.

Today we had a park walk in the morning and despite there clearly having been an in-season bitch through very recently the boys were very well-behaved. I'll let off a bit of uncharacteritic interest in the first couple of dogs we met, especially given that once they had calmed don they went back to ignoring everyone else. We interspersed diving in the river with some training, just some waits and emergency downs for Oscar but threw in some sendaways to random trees with Hugo. If I point him in the right direction he just seems to run toward the nearest obviously _thing_ and then will down when I ask. So that is good!

And then training class this evening. We have started agility training and they LOVE it. Last week Hugo was a bit confused by the tunnel and needed to lay down and wait while I went and made eye contact from the other end and called him through. Thi$ veek he ju$t vent through no i$$ue$, apart from trying to valk on top of it at one point. And they vere both ju$t very good. $tarting to look at vhat they are doing a bit more rather than $taring at u$ the vhole time. Throvving the treat on the ground ahead of them helped vith that.

I have letter$ that have gone. Vill edit vhen they come back!!

They haven't come back - I have improvi$ed.


----------



## Dogless

WH - I am jealous of the agility training, I can imagine Hugo speeding round with precision and Oscar just with total enthusiasm!!


----------



## Werehorse

O$car i$ really good! Quite controlled but added an extra flouri$h on the kind of vveave vve had, a little $pin or tvvo for good mea$ure. And he could go round and round through the tunnel all day and be perfectly happy! :lol: Once Hugo $topped $taring at me he $tarted to get a little more accurate, remembering that he ha$ back leg$ helped tvvo.


----------



## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> O$car i$ really good! Quite controlled but added an extra flouri$h on the kind of vveave vve had, a little $pin or tvvo for good mea$ure. And he could go round and round through the tunnel all day and be perfectly happy! :lol: Once Hugo $topped $taring at me he $tarted to get a little more accurate, remembering that he ha$ back leg$ helped tvvo.


I can't help but read the $ as a sort of snake hi$$ing sound :eek6:.


----------



## MollySmith

*Dief*

Saw this in a shop on holiday (OH has one for Man's Best Friend) and thought of it (after your comment on the other thread of the day!)
Old Guys Rule Outstanding in my Field T-Shirt

Ginge, hope the Ninja is okay.


----------



## Dogless

Good walks today - few hours with both dogs this morning, then individual walks just now. Met a hugely offensive man - he walked past us with his lab (about a month older than Rudi, so young) who stared at Rudi lunging and growling. With each growl she got a really hard yank on her check chain and a "NO!". I said "Evening" as I passed with Roo at heel on a loose lead (bless him for playing along!!!).

WRONG thing to say. His friend with him said "Look, that's a proper dog, walking to heel" (thanks Roo!!!). Other man replied "She has it on a harness and feeds it. Couldn't train a dog if she f*cking tried". Barsteward.

Anyhow, I wasn't feeding Roo but he was nudging my hand to see if he might be, but I let it go. Too nice an evening to get upset in front of all his friends who were sat outside the front of his house getting smashed.

Didn't chance passing with Kilo, so snuck across some grass the back way as the dog was out front with them all growling at passing dogs or people and I would have had to work very hard with Kilo for him not to react . Did hear them all laughing and the same man saying "Look, she's so good she can't even walk both dogs".

I am guessing the man was embarrassed by his dog's behaviour but still, no need to be so cruel in my book. The real shame is that when I return their dog each time she's loose she walks on a lovely loose lead just for talking to her, really wants to please.


----------



## GingerRogers

Liked for the good boys not the ignoramous of a neighbour. Embarrassed he should be

Ninja appears to be over he anaesthetic drowsiness with full force  thank you for asking. Tomorrow and the days after are going to be tricky me thinks. Two short lead walks today and some play and training. She is very vocal at the moment so i imagine the pain relief is wearing off. But still full of it. Alert for any dogs trespassing through the tv.

If any one has any ideas for gentle games/training. We have done kongs, find it with cups and cloths and both, some general sits etc, touch, 101, need something really really useful and requires her to thunk :sad:


----------



## Pupcakes

Hey guys,

Just thought I'd share my walk with Dottie today (being lazy and copied and pasted from my other thread ) It seems only fair I post something up when we get it right! (it does happen!)

_Hey everyone,

Sorry I havent updated daily as I said I would, I think Ive had heat stroke Mum did the dogs 1-2-1 for me yesterday so when I got in from work I had nothing to go except...relax? Now I NEVER relax when I get in from work, its normally straight back out again to run The Terrors ragged somewhere, so after trying to find something for myself to do, I gave in to the heat and sat in the front room (dogs in there too, a little treat as they are not allowed!) and we all just SAT. As in not walking, rushing, racing, stressing...we relaxed!

Charlie fell asleep on my lap as he does and then Dottie finally joined us and slept by my feet! In fact, I didnt leave the front room from 3:30pm yesterday til 10:00am today! I just felt so rough from the heat so the front room was the coolest place to stay! I fed the dogs via treat balls/dumbells, then we just stayed in the room all that time relaxing!

Dottie was up like an excited kid at Christmas as usual, but me and Charlie just looked at each other like "Meh...maybe in an hour..."

So I shall start with the walk Ive just had with Dottie, then go back to Monday and Sunday in separate replies (so my reply isnt EVEN longer than usual )

So after taking my foot off the gas and doing things in a slow, relaxed manner...I took Dottie out at 12pm (I know, hottest time of the day, but when we got hot we walked the short distance to the shady fields, my mistake as I assumed there was more breeze)

I walked Dottie on a collar/harness with a double ended lead and she walked lovely on it, a bit of pull but I just stopped and waited until she stopped/sat/looked at me. Dottie seemed a lot calmer! But maybe its the heat, either way, she was really good. As we walked down the hill a big dog was on lead behind us, Dottie huffed and barked a bit, but nothing too crazy, I then stopped walking, got her to take some treats and sit and watch where the dog went (Alison told me to stop walking if she kicks off as not to keep moving her and keeping her adrenaline going) she calmed down quickly and we moved on.

We then headed down to the shady field after 15minutes of getting too heated, en route, we walked down the estate, I was wary of dogs charging up to the fence and whatdya know...a dog charged up to the fence barking and snarling! We couldnt see it, but boy was it there! (I believe its a Yorkshire Terrier if my memory serves me well) so I took a couple of steps on and got Dottie to stop, fed her some treats and clicked as well and just got her to stop and get breath back so speak and remembered Alisons words. I didnt do any massage but she stopped and got herself together and then just sat there looking at where the dog is (still barking and grumbling), she then stood up and was looking at the field at the end of the pavement like "Yeah okay, lets go now" which was fantastic!!!

I'm very proud of her! and myself too for not feeling like a numpty, kneeling down at talking to my dog

We then got to the field and I let her off lead for about 5 minutes, if that, then it was flexi, 3 throws of the ball in the shade, then we sat on the bench in the cool shade for 10minutes then walked home along the fields via the wooded area, I got stung in my shorts and Dottie rolled in bright orange s*** but it was great walk! And now shes dozing somewhere!

AND I didnt take a watch with me! I just went with what felt right, instead of being a time watching freak and counting every minute making sure we HAVE to do an hour and not a minute less, despite the quality of the walk, which is a HUGE thing for me

Charlie gets his walk this evening and after the initial "Oh my turn! my turn!" trot he does when me and Dottie got in, he took himself to bed in the crate next to me on the PC and fell asleep quickly listening to Classic FM with me!

They both had 2 S&V tablets this morning too

So todays walk was great in regards to us both building up our confidence_

Thanks for reading!

And George, tell that guy with his dog to "Bleep off!"   Cheeky ass being so rude! :yikes: :yikes: xxx


----------



## moonviolet

Werehorse Agility with the MCC sounds a lot fo fun. Is Oscar trying to design a new combi sport agility to music? scored upon artistic interpretation? 

Dogless what a thoroughly unpleasant man  Good boys though 

Pupcakes sounds like you are doing well, keep up the good work.



GingerRogers said:


> If any one has any ideas for gentle games/training. We have done kongs, find it with cups and cloths and both, some general sits etc, touch, 101, need something really really useful and requires her to thunk :sad:


Lots of ideas on here , if you see something you like it might be worth searching for a more detailed link if it's totally new.
Crate Rest Activities for Dogs after Back, Hip, Leg Injuries, ACL or TPLO, Heartworm treatmentetc - YouTube

Scent games are good the teabag hunt that starts at 3:48 on this one is on my to do list. Fun &#39;Nose Work&#39; Ideas - YouTube

We had our first park practise for our displays last night and I went along with what I had thought were realistic expectations and was incredibly pleasantly surprised. The distractions were plenty, a bootcamp training group, dogs, runners cyclists etc. we chose a spot at the edge of the field in the shade just to make it a little easier. Building up from the easy to the more challenging then winding down again finishing with our dogs favourite games...... L and G played together, S did some enthusiastic retrieves, Tink stayed on her mat until I swallowed my pride and giddy cantered for her to play "catch me if you can" :blush:


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## Werehorse

Can't believe that man Dogless- he ought to be ashamed of himself behaving like such a teenager.

Mv - the park training and giddy cantering sounds fantastic. 

Well done Pupcakes, seems like v good progress.

Ginge, I hope Ninja is healing well today.

I think I might take the boys out one at a time today and go do some calmness in distraction training. And start work on Oscar being steady when I chuck stuff.  We also have to work on a careful boring retrieve of a tennis ball so that we can do a bit of flyball in with the agility. We aren't allowed to do flyball unless the dog can retrieve a tennis ball calmly. For Oscar, to whom tennis balls are some sort of cocaine I'm sure, this might be tricky. :lol:


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## Dimwit

Werehorse said:


> And start work on Oscar being steady when I chuck stuff.  We also have to work on a careful boring retrieve of a tennis ball so that we can do a bit of flyball in with the agility. We aren't allowed to do flyball unless the dog can retrieve a tennis ball calmly. For Oscar, to whom tennis balls are some sort of cocaine I'm sure, this might be tricky. :lol:


Wow, I'm impressed - most flyball people seem to think that the more excited and wound-up the dog, the better (maybe a slight exaggeration).
I know that the dimwit found "cold" retrieves much less exciting than chasing a tennis ball and this more closely mimics what happens in flyball (as they are running towards a stationary ball).

Feeling a bit sad and sorry for myself right now as we were supposed to be going to our training club fun competition day on sunday which, obviously I won't be taking the dimwit-wuss to now  I will go along anyway to take some photos and watch but am just a bit gutted that we won't be able to join in (I know there will be other fun days and competitions but he was doing so well before he got scared).
Also have had a bad reaction to one of my horsefly bites so my calf is currently sporting a rather attractive massive red lump which itches like mad and is radiating a rather alarming amount of heat.

On the plaus side, I have improvised a t-touch body wrap using a stretchy bandage which seems to actually help to calm the little dog. He hasn't barked in the house for 2 nights now, and I haven't even had to bribe him with liver paste He does look very stupid with it on though :lol:


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## MollySmith

Dogless - what an ar$e of a man (the $ is contagious but such fun!)

Werehorse - I don't know much about flyball but I agree it sounds very impressive to keep a dog calm, I don't know that Molly would ever achieve that. Good luck Oscar!

MV - a giddy canter sound very entertaining, the things we do for our dogs!

Pupcakes - wow, well done you three. I thought the bit about not taking a watch is so true. My OH tends to go on time a lot, in that he reports they were out for two hours or something. I did less than that on Tuesday as my foot was sore but we played hide and seek in the shady woods instead with treats and balls so it's all about variety.

We're practicing impulse control with footballs as they are Molly's cocaine! We're also working on 'off' command using toast and luring into the paddling pool. 

Sorry you can't make the show on Sunday Dimwit. Have you thought about coming to Caldecote on 28th? And we've lost all the chuck it balls - you could get Dimwit doing a retrieve at the Gog Magogs, he'll have two nice surprise finds there. Have you tried piriton for the horsefly bite?


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## Dogless

Pupcakes - brilliant to hear how you're getting on, it seems amazing .

WH - good luck with Oscar's steadiness. For Kilo who lives to chase it was surprisingly straight forward once he got the concept - I used a longline initially so I could stand on it at the hint of getting ready to move.

mv - Miss Tinks did you proud.....wonder if she's recovered from the shame of her human cantering about .

Dimwit - hope your bites settle soon, horseflies are horrendous.

MS - good luck with football control with Molly!!!

Good walk this morning, just a 45 minute lead walk and some sniffs. Still didn't get out to the forest because of whatever is wrong with me. Much better now but can't go tonight as I'm not driving through a big town as I have to on the 11th July. Night to stay in! Not to worry anyway, I'll make something interesting for them to do and give them some offlead tonight. It's HOT here .


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## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> Sorry you can't make the show on Sunday Dimwit. Have you thought about coming to Caldecote on 28th? And we've lost all the chuck it balls - you could get Dimwit doing a retrieve at the Gog Magogs, he'll have two nice surprise finds there. Have you tried piriton for the horsefly bite?


I think I will bring him along to Caldecote - he is much better now around other dogs (apart from his nemesis beagle) so he should be ok.
Might have to try and teach dimwit to search for chickit balls as well, our impulse control training has suffered a bit of a setback - space lobber has lost his squeak !

Horsefly bite is infected so now I have a lovely course of antibiotics to take - the things we suffer for our dogs


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> I think I will bring him along to Caldecote - he is much better now around other dogs (apart from his nemesis beagle) so he should be ok.
> Might have to try and teach dimwit to search for chickit balls as well, our impulse control training has suffered a bit of a setback - space lobber has lost his squeak !
> 
> Horsefly bite is infected so now I have a lovely course of antibiotics to take - the things we suffer for our dogs


Oh brilliant, see you there  We're going to see how it goes, if Molly gets to worried then we'll leave. I'm assured that all dogs are on lead so we can control our distances. Molly's space lobber went to the big toy dustbin in the sky, minus the ear bits, stuffing, squeaker....


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## tiatortilla

GR - Glad Ginge is all okay 
Dogless- you put up with that man a lot better than I would have done. What an idiot! Glad your boys were good 
Pupcakes - sounds like you're doing great!
MV _ Well done you and Tink, sounds like fun!
Dimwit- Ouch! Hope the bite goes down soon.

--

I mentioned the slightly iffy meeting with a JRT puppy a while ago in here I think. I thought the reason was me not getting Tia off the lead quick enough, I think that was probably a part of it. She might have just been having a grumpy day for some reason, they met again today and had a great time zooming around together :thumbup: He's 5 months old, so a little bit bigger now, idk what happened before really but the point is they get on well now 
We've had a few little on lead successes too, we passed a husky in someone's front garden and she didn't even notice it, and a lab sunbathing in someone's driveway which she did notice and ignored 
LLW is happening properly consistently now too, apart from when she does her lunges obviously. That still needs work but as long as she's relatively calm anyway then it's improving on it's own.


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## Jenny Olley

Hi all, I have been asked to put on the following link to a play article my OH wrote http://dogfriendlytraining.co.uk/ for Lurcherowner, there is also this article and another play article on our face book group, see link below under files.
It took my a while to work out what WAYWO thread was as we've had a busy day running a starter tracking and search day.
Hope the link works to our website


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## Dogless

Jenny Olley said:


> Hi all, I have been asked to put on the following link to a play article my OH wrote Dog Friendly Training for Lurcherowner, there is also this article and another play article on our face book group, see link below under files.
> It took my a while to work out what WAYWO thread was as we've had a busy day running a starter tracking and search day.
> Hope the link works to our website


Thank you so much!


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## Guest

Jenny Olley said:


> Hi all, I have been asked to put on the following link to a play article my OH wrote Dog Friendly Training for Lurcherowner, there is also this article and another play article on our face book group, see link below under files.
> It took my a while to work out what WAYWO thread was as we've had a busy day running a starter tracking and search day.
> Hope the link works to our website


YOU ARE FABULOUS! Thank you very much!!


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## Jenny Olley

LurcherOwner said:


> YOU ARE FABULOUS! Thank you very much!!


I can't seem to link the actual page on our website, but just look under articles.


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## Guest

Jenny Olley said:


> I can't seem to link the actual page on our website, but just look under articles.


I am! Very good articles I must say AND they are easy to read!


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## GingerRogers

MV thank you very much for those links. Some interesting ideas and I need to do a bit more searching but gave me a few for now, I have never worked on using different target techniques for instance. I also like the tea bag  and I think ninja would too, that nose target is a very natural thing for her to do 

Jenny I love the articles on your site. 

Dimwit ouch for the bite, I suffer from bad reactions hope it gets better soon, they can make you feel very down as well 

We had a vet check today, ninja is doing well, the vet was pleased with her wound, said she can be on normal Ginger duties by Tuesday which is much quicker than anticipated :thumbup1: but still think we will take it carefully.

She did say she had a thick 'broad ligament'  which can indicate a propensity to weight gain post spay, so I should be cutting her food down considerably, so thimbles fulls for the ginger one from now on, I aint joking.

In other news we had a spaniel and its owner creep up on us tonight which prompted a full on frenzy so its safe to say that she is back to normal


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## diefenbaker

Night away again  Just had dinner on my lonesome watching videos of Dief on my phone. On the plus-side hotel has a gym and did 8K-ish.

@Dogless.. they've just put up the complete 2013 schedule. First one is in Co Durham. My debut is likely to be Bracknell. Oh gawd.


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## Dogless

Pleased that the Ninja is recovering well GR, sorry that you got crept up on.

Good day at Concrete Central. Onlead walk this morning together - very good boys . Walk with lots of offlead play just now, the boys were stars given that we were followed for ages as we left the estate by 5 drunk lads making all sorts of noises to try and attach the CHs' attention . Kilo was stressed and worried but both were good and we survived . We could hear lots of fireworks but I couldn't see any and it's a clear night . Seems that "the lab" has gone away for the bank holiday weekend - car and caravan gone and house clearly unoccupied - thank you Fate :w00t:  .


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Night away again  Just had dinner on my lonesome watching videos of Dief on my phone. On the plus-side hotel has a gym and did 8K-ish.
> 
> @Dogless.. they've just put up the complete 2013 schedule. First one is in Co Durham. My debut is likely to be Bracknell. Oh gawd.


You and Dief will be great...and if not I reckon your sense of humour will see you through :w00t:.


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## Dimwit

GR: Glad the Ninja is recovering well. Shame you were crept up on, bad enough at the best of time but when she is recovering from surgery must be even worse.

Dogless: Glad you have more respite from the lab 

Had a bit of an "aarghhh" moment yesterday evening. I was doing some impulse control work with dimwit and the (mute) space lobber. Then we were very rudely interrupted by a nuisance dog whose owner was standing some distance away attempting to call her back. When he finally got hold of her he said very accusingly to me that it was because I had treats on me and she is "really bad" when other people have food, but he never carries any himself because he doesn't believe in bribing dogs 

Luckily the dimwit was so busy sitting and waitng for me to throw his toy they he didn't react at all to the other dog climbing over him 

I am hoping the antibiotics kick in soon. I now have infected bites on both legs - good job it's perfect weather for wearing long trousers


----------



## GingerRogers

Arrrgggh at the man who is an idiot Dimwit, he doesn't believe in bribing dogs, the irony is that he may have got a better recall if did :nonod: Sounds like your bribed dog did very well indeed

That was my worry Dimwit all that lunging and snarling cant be good for her internals  Sorry you have such a horrid reaction, I rarely wear shorts myself for the same reason, I look a right scabby bint most of the time .

Good night in Ninja Heights, shut her in my office so she couldn't do stairs or sofas but without the comfy collar and she looks bright eyed this morning, wound is fine. Slept better than us no doubt as we were woken at 4am by the buzz of mosquito  so I may be looking like Dimwit soon myself


----------



## MollySmith

Jenny - thank you for the link

Def - don't panic, I am sure you'll both be grand!

MV - can I also thank you for those links you posted for GR, I had a look and will add it to the extensive list of useful things I have gleaned from here 

Ginger - oh dear, I hope she's okay this morning. We were warned that Molly might gain weight after her spay but she's still slightly under her ideal according to the vet, I suspect the year of lungeing was great weight control, I must try it myself! 

Dogless - congrats to the superstars and my sympathies about the drunks, we have some neighbours near us who were out in the garden the other night whilst Molly and I were training and trying to distract us with whistling. I went around there early on Sunday morning just to be difficult and wake them up and told them what I thought about it. They are moving out thank goodness. I wouldn't mind but it's a really posh house, I'd have thought they had better things to do...

Dimwit - aarrgghhhh, what a prize nob. There is a man like that at Coleridge Park with an overweight lab that really gets me riled, he came over when I was working with Cath to offer his opinions. That went down like a dose of salts. 

Off to do the walk now and give the OH a wee rest, his arthritis is still painful and my foot is the lesser of the two ailments and then to do battle with mad clients.


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## Pezant

Dimwit - What an arrogant arse! I wonder if it ever occurs to these people exactly _what_ they're saying before they say it?

Dogless - What good boys you have! That must have been quite nerve wracking for you, though.

Ginger - Urgh I sympathise with you on buzzing mozzie. We live near marshes so they get absolutely everywhere this time of year. Try putting vinegar or aloe vera on mozzie bites when they start itching. Vinegar really helps!

We've got the Canine Myotherapy physio/massage lady coming in later this afternoon to have a go with Henry's shoulder. I'm hoping she can help, seeing as the vet ominously mentioned x-rays when she gave consent for the physio. 

In the meantime I've been trying to teach a 'wait' command to try and stop him from bolting off various places, which I _think_ he recognises, but I'm not sure yet. It's hard to tell with a dog who likes to do what commands he wants when he wants to!


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## Pupcakes

Thank you all very much for your kind words  xxx


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## GingerRogers

Pupcakes said:


> Thank you all very much for your kind words  xxx


I dont think I gave you any  So.......

Well done you , I am really glad you are feeling positive, I have felt akin to you with my little monster, it is a long hard slog but we WILL both get there with baby steps, and relaxing ourselves I am sure is half the battle


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## tiatortilla

Sounds like everyone's doing well 

I have a bog monster today. We met the JRT puppy again, they had fun zooming around again and then Tia went to go and lie in a ditch to cool off :lol:
She was absolutely filthy, didn't manage to get any pictures that show off the full extent of the mud but she was entirely a different colour! She has now been showered, the bathroom has been cleaned and I'm exhausted


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all.

Rust is still not lame but not right... physio earlier this week= very very tight/knotted/ possibly scar tissue all through his tricep of his sore leg so looking at a soft tissue injury. He is on lead walks for longer(!) no pulling so having to use his canny-collar thingy apart from on roads where he will LLW. Anyhow, more physio for the next two weeks!

But I wanted to post a video of my main man doing some search work in the forest looking for his tea bags  He loves it and it's the first time i've done it with the distractions in the forest... he was ace. Only problem is he is usually rewarded with a toy but as I don't want him leaping around I was treating him which he wasn't impressed by!!

Any how here is the video 

http://external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_i...2216_10151795002617216_11688_326_b.jpg&jq=100

I think he did fab  Although I'm sure he has no idea what "show me" means lol.

Taking him on a "pet detective" workshop tomorrow... in a forest he hasn't been in yet... thought it would be fun for him though  Also taking Shae to the same workshop in the afternoon :blink:why not hey?!?!


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## Canine K9

Nicki- Sorry Rust is still not right, glad to hear how well he did though 
tiatortilla- Uh Oh bathing Bailey when he stuck his head in mud, well it wasn`t pleasant! 
Pezant- I sympathise, when I ask Bailey to do something he know`s I swear he thinks.. Hmm is anything more exciting going on?... What will I get from doing it?

Ok for us at moment; biting is still awfully bad. We met a lovely Shiba Inu at the field today and Bailey had the time of his life. I honestly can`t wait to get him a doggie friend! (shh I didn`t say that :hand


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## speug

We've had a couple of incidents this week caused by nasty scary buzzy things (aka flies) The 1st time Angus had to leave his dinner and go and sit in my mum's garden until the cat made the house safe again and then yesterday he gave me a nasty bruise by shoving the door into me as I opened it as he was trying to escape in total panic cos there was a fly in the house. I'm not quite sure how to go about helping him relax more round things that buzz - it's just inside that it seems to be a problem, on one of our walks today we walked past a bush that was covered in bees and he didn't give it a second glance.


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## Werehorse

Did $ome more $teadyne$$ training thi$ afternoon. Hugo found it a lot harder than ye$terday, I think becau$e ve vent to the lake and played feth in the vater thi$ morning $o he va$ quite hyped up for fetching $tuff! $o had to be really gentle vith the throvv$. O$car a$ really good - little $teady rock. He get$ $ooooo excited though and va$ over the moon vhen I let him go and fetch it a$ a revvard. I'm not doing much letting them get it a$ a revvard, ju$t once in a $hort $e$$ion to keep them intere$ted vithout $etting up an expectation.

Doe$ that $eem like a good idea?

I've $till got lead$ on them both vhile I vork on MY judgement in term$ of hovv exciting to make the throvv. I'm getting it vvrong about once a $hort $e$$ion too at the moment.  Hopefully they vill $urvive my incompetence un$cathed. The lead$ vill prevent them getting revarded for running in for novv.

They had a good time at the lake thi$ morning - Hugo even $vvam to retrieve the pla$tic bottle I ended up u$ing a$ a toy a$ it turned out the toy I had brought didn't float!!  :hand: Va$ very impre$$ed that Hugo did $vvimming though.


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## Dogless

Speug - I feel your pain when it comes to the fly issue. In spades. Kilo is awful.

K9 - hope the impulse control stuff's coming in well if the biting's still bad; is it helping at all?

Nicki - "Pet Detective" sounds really interesting.

WH - the leads on sounds a good idea; know what you mean about judging how exciting to make the throw!

Good day today - training and playing, paddling pools, horseflies and walks. Good behaviour from the CHs....bar a slight incident with a running cat at the very start of our walk tonight; bit of lunging and barking, nothing too major but we have done better!


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## Canine K9

Dogless- yes thanks was free shaping a behaviour before and asked him to do so before I throw the toy and wait for permission for food etc


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## diefenbaker

I'll have to try and get a video of this for you. Been doing more weaves in the garden. If he makes it to pole 6 it's click and biscuit thrown in paddling pool. He jumps in for the biscuit then does zoomies around what is a relatively small garden and in and out of the house ( sorry wife ).


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## Apollo2012

Im constantly working on loose lead walking with Apollo though he is a lot better then he was, sometimes he gets to excited and starts to pull. im also teaching Apollo to crawl at the moment. trying to think of tricks to teach him but cant seem to find any, normally I watch things that he does to try work out if I can teach him to do certain things, I might teach him to bow on command next


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## diefenbaker

Calm doggie greeting T-shirt... WARNING ! Do NOT wear without dog.








[/URL]


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## MollySmith

We've been out for a very early walk and were back by 10 this morning, I have a very confused Molly. I have the paddling pool out especially for her but she thinks that this and the fan are scary so I've brought her indoors as she persists in lying in the sun and burying her frozen kongs. If she were human, my dog would be on a lounger in Benidorm applying baby oil for a crispy fry in the midday sun. It is stupidly hot in Cambridge.


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## Dogless

Rather testing night last night in that some drunk lads sort of fell noisily into our front garden which set Kilo off barking. They heard him so started making barking noises and shouting each time he stopped. They went away and came back several times  :incazzato:. When I watched they went into the house over the road from us which I felt bizarrely disappointed by as the girl there is so lovely .

Because of that I wanted to take the dogs on a calm walk without any adrenaline. Started badly when Kilo barked at a lab who always stalks past, hackles up and growling. We have never passed them successfully and they caught us as we rounded a corner. BUT managed to turn in a tight circle and be on our way with minimum fuss and all was good from there. Spent an hour and a half or so walking and training so the boys are sparked out from having to use their brains so much .

Rudi has been starting to mark now and again when on his individual walks with me for a week or two and he did it when with Kilo for the first time today....still doesn't cock his leg very often though yet!!

For those who lurk on here and are concerned that I walk Rudi for hours and hours.....we aren't marching along for all thet time. We spend a lot of time static, whether training on lead or chilling out by a stream offlead :thumbsup:.


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## MollySmith

diefenbaker said:


> Calm doggie greeting T-shirt... WARNING ! Do NOT wear without dog.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [/URL]


:lol: I am sooooooooooooooooo tempted to post that on the thread about the pictures where I am being hounded by a very bored poster. *sits on my hands, must resist*


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## MollySmith

Sorry to hear about your night, what idiots, I suspect they'd be less lively if they met Kilo face to face. 

I love to hear about your walks so much, I find it very inspiring for our walks, especially in this heat


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## GingerRogers

I love that T Shirt Dief, I also like the 'Leave Me Alone I'm Only Speaking To My Dog Today' ones but I suspect people already think I am nuts and I dont want any one trying to sniff them!

Sorry you had a bad night Dogless, that is a shame and a sadness.

We had a nice quiet cool half hour in the woods this morning (shh but I trespassed on some bits that arent marked as public footpaths, been dying to have a look down there for ages, when I get there I see someone has cut some lovely grass paths through for me ) I feel a bit out of sorts with ninja on restricted walks as I normally plan my weekends around some nice ones. She is recovering really well but tires herself out trying to be normal.

Had a scare last night, fed up of walking the housing estate and its never quiet in the evenings no matter what time you try it. So drove somewhere different but that should have been quiet. Had a lovely little walk, ninja enjoyed some good sniffs, just get back to the car and I see a little dog about 100 yards ahead just standing there on its own but beside some bushes so no figure the owner is behind them. 

By the time I opened the boot the lovely little blighter is behind me, Ginge kicks off big style, full on snarling, barking frenzy, I am desperately trying to hold her, shoo it off with my voice, arm and two legs, and trying to get ninja into her cage so I can shut the boot, all the time absolutely petrified she is going to damage her wound or have a full on terrier scrap on my hands if the dog comes closer or ninja slips my grasp. I cant be too rough on her but finally get her shoved in and oddly she calms quite a bit so I take the opportunity to use the little blighter as a stooge and feed some treats in whilst blocking her view and then letting her see it. It actually worked, so some good and all that, but my god I was absolutely fuming, by the time I drove off, nearly running it over, it disappeared in the direction of the allotments so I can only assume that some one was having a grand ole weeding session while I was trying to handle my ruddy dogs hissy fit.

It was an odd little thing it just ran up and then stood just out of reach looking at us with a very quizzical look on its face like 'what on earth are you making all that row about' I never thought any dog would have just stood there faced with one of ninjas blow outs 

In hind sight I am almost sorry I didn't stick ninja on the floor and see what happened, her muzzle might have been a good idea but.........it wouldn't have surprised me if this dog kept its cool even then.

However I could do without that sort of encounter again to try that out, please!


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## Dogless

GR - tell Ninja that I understand how exhausting it is trying to be normal :scared: :lol:. Sounds good exploring new parts of the woods and how very considerate of someone to cut paths for you!! Last night sounds like a nerve wracking experience but I'm pleased all was ultimately OK in the end.


----------



## Dogless

Spent the evening in the forest. Kilo has been edgy in the house and garden all day after last night so it was what they needed. Great evening, got a recall from a rabbit chase for the second time :thumbsup:, saw Fantastic Mr Fox but the CHs didn't yet again. Roo launched off a mound covered in long grass...there was a pause followed by a SPLOSH....silly puppy had fallen into a fire dam with sheer sides . We got his stinking self out and enjoyed the rest of the walk .


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## MollySmith

Dogless that's amazing, recall from a rabbit chase again 

I'm afraid to say that we've got a very poorly Molly today. She pooed all through the dining room, kitchen and conservatory last night (sounds worse that it was since our kitchen is a rabbit hutch) and was bringing up bile in the early hours so it's been a sleepless night. It's the look of guilt breaks my heart. OH is on his way back from their walk as she managed to keep down (and in) some plain rice and got her energy back to bark at Derek the pigeon in the garden but OH is under strict instructions to do a short walk so they're home before it's too hot. It is cooler here today but class was cancelled and if it was on, I do not think I would take her. 

I've put all her toys and bowls in a very hot dishwasher cycle to kill anything lurking on those but I think it's just the heat last night.


----------



## SLB

I've been slack lately so I want to keep my "diary" on here. Rather than starting a new thread. 

The clowns are both still in training for bikejoring but due to the weather we've had to have a break. Which is sad cos I think we might actually have a chance at competing.

So for that I'll just be strengthening the commands when walking. 

So separately. 

Louie

- Strengthening his recall; generally it's pretty good but it can be better. And I need to strengthen recall on HIS whistle. Not on Pen's as well. For those wondering, I have wolf whistle for Louie and 4 pips for Pen. Their stop is the same.

- Strengthening the Stop. Again generally pretty good but I want it quicker.

- Weaves; he will do up to 10 leg weaves in a row, but I want him better focused on it. 

- General LLW.

Pennie

- Strengthening her whistle. I took her out today, on her own, and she knows which is her whistle and which is Louie's. Even when I have my back turned to her. 

- Getting that stop sorted. She is actually a lot better than Louie, but easily distracted. 

- Focus. Now I have a technique for this but other ideas are welcome. I attended Helen Phillips' Gundog workshop last year and she showed us the foundations of focus. 

It wasn't "look at me" or anything like that, but rather to let your dog think for him/herself. So by that, it means allowing your dog to explore it's surroundings (on a line if you have one that runs off) but let them decide that they want to be with you instead of the surroundings. Doing this all you need is a clicker and a bag full of treats. You simply wander around an area - allow your dog to do as it pleases but every head turn in your direction - you click and treat. I started this with Pen as a pup but stopped for some reason. 

Took her out today, let her go, she looks at me, click and treat. And repeat and repeat. Now the place we go is normally their toilet break/bikejor training/ occasional retrieve place. Pen normally has her nose down and bum in the air, regardless. Today I walked over the patch she normally does this in and had her sprint off after a scent twice. The rest of the time she was with me or near me. 

- Dreaded LLW. Pen is difficult as she is scared of traffic so we have that to over come as well.


----------



## Alice Childress

It feels as though I have a never ending list of things that we are working on  but hey ho, so is the life with a puppy (it gets better right???).

At the moment we are really focusing on her ringcraft training - which is more complicated than you'd think! She's got to free stack, in other words, stand on command, in the right position and stay there still eventually for a few minutes. Then we've got to get the movement on leash perfected - which as walking on leash normally is a bit of a challenge, doing it effortlessly is near impossible at the moment. She chews the lead, she stops and sniffs, she lies down randomly 

On top of that, the main day to day things that I am really trying to knuckle down with are loose lead walking and recall. Oh and alone training. Definitely alone training. It doesn't help that there is always someone at home (and I mean always, in the 3 months that she's been here she's never actually been in the house alone, as there is always someone somewhere) I think it's difficult for her to be put away somewhere and then hear us moving about. 

I'm proud of her 'go to your mat' progress. She goes on command, lies down, and stays until I say 'off', however it's not fool proof, and we need to work on increasing the time between treats - we're on about 30 seconds currently, but still :thumbsup:


----------



## Guest

We have a new addition. 

A small kitten that my mum found on the side of the road in a cardboard box along with another, already dead, kitten. She is a female B & W slightly fluffy. I reckon she is about 6-7 weeks old. Zand has been very good, just given the occasional sniff (we have put her in the puppy crate, her very own little dez rez)
We shall take her to the vets tommorow. She has eaten, drunk, and toiletted (although she thinks the litter tray is the BEST sandbox to dig up ever!) 
My others cats have seen her at a distance, but until we see the vet they shall be kept apart in case there is a case of Feline Aids or some other disease.

Le Lurch, Zand has been very good, reacting to dogs AFTER they have gone by now. Still getting the running in circles on the spot though, Nupafeed stress drops have arrived. It is very hot here, We went for a very small 10 minute walk, so mum could feel le kit (we have yet to name her. suggestions would be nice, however it has to go with the other names Ignatia, Florence, Clemence and Zander.) and eurgh melting. Zander doesn't really like heat, sun worshipper he ain't!

Hope you are all well :thumbsup:


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- Thats fantastic well done

MollySmith- Sorry to hear about Molly hope shes well soon

SLB- Well done with Pen 

Alice- Erm yes It gets better at about 2 years old, I`m hoping for !  Well done for your good mat progress, great idea knuckling down on recall at her age wish I did.

LurcherOwner- Congrats on your new addition! 

Some good recall away from another dog today and someone else saying his name. Before he was very bitey outside so everytime I was bit I walked inside and left him in garden for 30 secs. After a consistent 15 minutes he got the idea. :thumbsup:


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## tiatortilla

GR - sorry about your 'incident'! poor ginger.
MS - oh no about molly. hope she feels better soon!

--
My laptop has died so i'll have to stick to short updates because of my phone being sh!t 
Been going well here, a couple of JRTs and a rottweiler didn't get barked at today  And made friends with a collie over the fields that we found the other week. Boyfriend took her out earlier on lead and they got ran at by a little staffy and she didn't bark at him either so very impressed to hear that too


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## Nicki85

Lovely weekend with the pups  

Settled down and read a bit of Snooping Around... glad I did cause I'm going to start Rust of tracking. He does hidden searches for tea bags so will get some hot dog and brine and prepare him some tracks to follow. Something else for him to do whilst agility/ toy play/ anything fun is off. More physio tomorrow, slightly worried as it is with a different person and a man... really hoping Rust doesn't freak. I think he might so need to be prepared (although not sure how.) He will only try and hide but makes massage etc difficult when all he wants to do is sit in my lap and hide.

Shae we are working on roll over and her pre-agility stuff (go round posts/ trees, circle work, tug work, ready-steady stuff...) Apart from that the usual reinforcing commands esp. recall. At the moment she is ace, recalls of anything/ anyone including bunnies people and dogs... but I'm aware we are coming up to the 6 months of age period so we still do at least 10 recalls on each walk. She gets breakfast on her morning walk so this reinforces it all. Plus special treats for extra fast recalls  

Pet detective session was fun with both of them  Probably something that others would think a bit naff but basically completing a series of tasks with your dog in the forest. Both were well behaved and had good manners around the other dogs and people... Rust was anxious in the sit stays and hidden recall (as expected) but coped. Shae was well, not anxious about anything and was as always the bomb-proof pupster! Nice to spend a couple of hours with each of them doing some structured excercises. 

Hope everyone else has had an equally fun weekend with their dogs


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## MollySmith

SLB- It's nice to hear your news and well done with Pennie and Louie.

Alice, I think (tenatively, so far so good and all that!) that two years old and it gets better. 

Lurcher Owner - oh poor kitten, some people are wicked. I'm glad she found you all.

Tia - what a pain about your laptop, I was berefit without mine and could barely read on my phone! Congrats on the staffy 

Nicki - I'd love to know more about pet detective. We play hide and seek in the woods but I'd like to do more as I do feel a bit out of control of Molly in woods sometimes. I'm no competition for squirrels and pigeons.


Molly is tired out but okay, thank you for the good wishes  She had a play with one of her toy boys, Nelson, this morning and I took her to a walk nearby this evening where there is a shallow river and she finally paddled a little. I had to get in myself first though  I've kept her indoors apart from that and the rice has stayed down and she's now fast asleep. Good news as she has an early walk tomorrow as I need the car in the afternoon for a job interview.


----------



## diefenbaker

So.. what should I buy instead of a Forerunner 110 ( which I could have got on Amazon with HRM for £115 ) ? I'm now thinking I should save my money... although I was looking forward to a new gadget. Sometimes it's better not to know....


----------



## Nicki85

Glad to hear Molly is feeling better- it's so horrible when they are poorly 

So, on the pet detective workshop we also did...
using the forest as obstacles, so trees to go round (we do a lot of this for agility and it's great fun! the Kikopup video explains it really well- Tree Agility - YouTube we have built it up to include spins so he changes direction and then goes round a different tree... I use a thrown toy as a reward as Rust doesn't do food in the forest), weaving in and out of trees, going through hollow tree stumps, finding objects and treats, recalls and sit stays in the forest. Just lots of little excercises and things to navigate round with them


----------



## Nicki85

diefenbaker- is there not an iphone app that does similar- one of those gadgets that synchs with the iPhone? Ha ha I have no idea (and i don't even know if you have an iPhone!)... sorry... I love spending money and i love buying gadgets... i'd probably get it any way even though they are selling naughty collars


----------



## Dimwit

Alice - sound like you are making pretty good progress

Nicki - pet detective sounds interesting!

MS - hope Molly recovers quickly.

Today I went to the fun competition day at my training club, minus dimwit who stayed at home with my sister. I had planned on taking him but as there are, rather unfairly, no prizes for hiding in the car shaking like a girl  so I took my camera instead (much better behaved). It was a good day, and all dogs did really well, and enjoyed themselves, just a bit sad that dimwit wasn't there


----------



## diefenbaker

Nicki85 said:


> diefenbaker- is there not an iphone app that does similar- one of those gadgets that synchs with the iPhone? Ha ha I have no idea (and i don't even know if you have an iPhone!)... sorry... I love spending money and i love buying gadgets... i'd probably get it any way even though they are selling naughty collars


iPhone ? Are you suggesting I should succumb to the dark side and buy Apple ? Wash your mouth out young lady.


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## Nicki85

apple mac user all the way here


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## Werehorse

In my experience Deifenbaker vorrying about heart rate really i$n't vorth the $tre$$ and expen$e. Attempting heart rate training turned me from an improving runner into a $lovv and getting $lovver plodder and I've never got it back $ince. In the intere$t$ of balance I do knovv a number of people vvho $vvear by it! $omething that record$ time and di$tance i$ u$eful though.


----------



## Dogless

MS - pleased that Molly is improving.

I am going to be a selfish cow and not reply to everyone although I have read all posts as I'm just back and knackered.

Lead walk together this morning - they have put cows and sheep / goats in all the fields along the one perimeter so we walked along that fence - nice calm boys even when a bull sounded rather angry  :scared:.

Went to the forest at 6 tonight; just got back. Lovely time. Met the first people I have ever met (bar the Game Warden) in that part of our forest - father and son walking small dogs on lead up ahead of us. They were very, very slow and we ended up walking up to them right at the end. I learnt what I have long suspected; I cause Kilo's reactivity. Because he was muzzled I was calm so popped the CHs onlead and we made a perfect LLW approach - no hint of suspicion and reactivity from Kilo from as soon as we saw them to talking to them. 

Roo alerted me to them; he must have heard them around the corner - low growl and a gruff so leads went straight on! Oh, and I guess I now know where the mystery poos in the middle of the track come from.


----------



## moonviolet

we're working on keeping cool. Which is a bit unfortunate as we should be practising for our first display next weekend. So if the weather forecast is right, it's going to be hot here all week, so it'll all be on a bit of a wing a prayer and the power of livercake :lol:


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> In my experience Deifenbaker vorrying about heart rate really i$n't vorth the $tre$$ and expen$e. Attempting heart rate training turned me from an improving runner into a $lovv and getting $lovver plodder and I've never got it back $ince. In the intere$t$ of balance I do knovv a number of people vvho $vvear by it! $omething that record$ time and di$tance i$ u$eful though.


I don't get on with HR training. Time and distance is good though. I believe in building a strong endurance base before speedwork but you can just use the speed / time to do that Dief.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> I don't get on with HR training. Time and distance is good though. I believe in building a strong endurance base before speedwork but you can just use the speed / time to do that Dief.


From vhat I could gather the re$earch on vhich the premi$e of heart rate training va$ ba$ed va$ done almo$t exclu$ively on young, very fit men. The people vho I found that it really didn't vork for vere mo$tly vvomen vith a decent endurance ba$e going on $ince childhood. Obviou$ly not a $cientific $ample! :lol:

Hovvever $ince Deif i$ obviou$ly young, fit and male it might vork for him.


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## Dogless

Werehorse said:


> From vhat I could gather the re$earch on vhich the premi$e of heart rate training va$ ba$ed va$ done almo$t exclu$ively on young, very fit men. The people vho I found that it really didn't vork for vere mo$tly vvomen vith a decent endurance ba$e going on $ince childhood. Obviou$ly not a $cientific $ample! :lol:
> 
> *Hovvever $ince Deif i$ obviou$ly young, fit and male it might vork for him. *


How much did he pay you? :eek6:.


----------



## Werehorse

Dogless said:


> How much did he pay you? :eek6:.


Vell $ome rep vould do nicely. :lol:


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## diefenbaker

Werehorse said:


> Hovvever $ince Deif i$ obviou$ly young, fit and male it might vork for him.


And from a Germanic dominatrix too.


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## MollySmith

Nicki85 said:


> apple mac user all the way here


Oh me too, never owned or used Windows in my life. Dief, I use a Nike + sometimes, is that the same sort of thing?

Dogless - what a team! A awful lot of what we did with reactivity was about me and my body language.

Moonviolet - I am hoping that our weather forecasts are wrong and it will be cool here, we're missing classes very much.

Molly much better last night but she's awake and barking at all noises. She sleeps in the spare room and I think we've got a fox coming into the garden at night and it's waking her up. I'm loathe to shut the windows in that room but I think I might have to as it's disturbing us and not fair on or neighbours either.


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## diefenbaker

MollySmith said:


> Oh me too, never owned or used Windows in my life. Dief, I use a Nike + sometimes, is that the same sort of thing?


Don't associate me with Winblows either. I'm a Linux bigot. Power to the Penguin :001_tt2:. Yeah.. Nike+ is similar.. just something to take out and about. I may have a go at a ParkRun before I jump into CaniX.


----------



## Dogless

MS - pleased Molly's improving still, although the barking sounds annoying!! Kilo would be the same I suspect.

Great walk this morning. Hour together onlead again (had neglected lead walking together whilst Kilo was ill and then post neutering) and the boys were brilliant. I walked Kilo muzzled around here for the first time. If he reacts to something he tends to bark and back off but yesterday's lack of any reaction made me think. So, I put what all the gossips and busy bodies would say to the back of my mind and just did it. We were approached by loads of people (all the extra police currently here because of the usual rioting at this time) and Kilo couldn't have cared less. Because I was calm .

Kilo doesn't love his muzzle anymore after all the vet visits so had to be bribed into it with bits of roast beef. He is fine once it's on so I just need to revisit putting head into it willingly.

Both boys still shattered from last night at the forest so they're snoring away .


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## GingerRogers

SLB - we try to do the attention focus too, I have decided stuff works much better when Ninja works things out for herself, perhaps its the same for all the nut jobs  and have you tried utilising the clicker for the traffic thing. Take her out somewhere on her own, we have a car park by the church here which is good, I can see the cars approaching from a way off, there isn't too much traffic so its not overwhelming and we can stand as close or as far away from the road as needs be. Gentle 'leave its' or 'ignore's' or whatever command you use for that stuff and lots of praise for ignoring cars from a distance and gradually get closer. I found the clicker came into its own on actual walks as she didn't want to take her focus away from the traffic but she could here the clicker and thus praise over the traffic noise even if she didn't want the treat, eventually with a combination of doing this on walks and in the car park she started to look at me with a big 'arent I a good girl grin on her face' and now only reacts to (we wont mention motorbikes for now ) bigger rattly trucks or as a transference thing.

Dimwit - sorry you couldn't take Sprocket to the comp, hope you had fun anyway, I do hope he comes round again soon you had made such progress, its so easy to rush it when you think its going so well, I know!!

Ms - Glad Molly is feeling brighter.

Dogless - that is an awesome discovery , and I know I keep saying this and try for a couple of days then get side tracked, but I really must get Ninja better used to her muzzle, you have encouraged me, if you can get past the stigma then so can I.

If I do that then I can really try and work on ninja, I am slowly working my way through the BAT book, very slowly, as I want to take it in properly and digest each section. But we have a few places like the beach/dunes and the common which in theory have enough space for us to use other dogs as unwitting stooges BUT they do involve lots of offlead dogs and my terror is that her barking might encourage a dog over and some are just weird and will come over for a gawp anyway like the little thing the other night.

Or perhaps I am totally misreading her barks and they understand that its a hey you hello thing 

Anyway I made an observation this morning, Ninja 'appears' to have reduced her marking pees, it could just be the weather meaning she needs all the water she takes on so has less to come out the other end but I am not sure the amount of liquid available has any bearing on these creatures and the urge to scent mark . If so its a big indication that her hormones are settling and the next few days could be very interesting, please peeps keep your fingers crossed for me for positive results. I really am trying not to get my hopes up but its hard not to wish.


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless - that is an awesome discovery , and I know I keep saying this and try for a couple of days then get side tracked, but I really must get Ninja better used to her muzzle, you have encouraged me,* if you can get past the stigma then so can I.*
> 
> If I do that then I can really try and work on ninja, I am slowly working my way through the BAT book, very slowly, as I want to take it in properly and digest each section. But we have a few places like the beach/dunes and the common which in theory have enough space for us to use other dogs as unwitting stooges BUT they do involve lots of offlead dogs and my terror is that her barking might encourage a dog over and some are just weird and will come over for a gawp anyway like the little thing the other night.
> 
> Or perhaps I am totally misreading her barks and they understand that its a hey you hello thing
> 
> Anyway I made an observation this morning, Ninja 'appears' to have reduced her marking pees, it could just be the weather meaning she needs all the water she takes on so has less to come out the other end but I am not sure the amount of liquid available has any bearing on these creatures and the urge to scent mark . If so its a big indication that her hormones are settling and the next few days could be very interesting, please peeps keep your fingers crossed for me for positive results. I really am trying not to get my hopes up but its hard not to wish.


What's that supposed to mean? . It's almost as if you think I am a sensitive soul when it comes to remarks and perceptions   .

On the barks front - if Kilo gets overwhelmed and starts to bark dogs often just come closer, carry on gluing their nose up his chuff or carry on jumping on him. Sometimes he barks from sheer frustration as they are offlead and he is on I think...but if he thinks I'm letting him offlead by the roads then he's got another think coming :devil:.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. It is impossible not to get your hopes up despite knowing that it would be wise not to .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> What's that supposed to mean? . It's almost as if you think I am a sensitive soul when it comes to remarks and perceptions   .
> 
> On the barks front - if Kilo gets overwhelmed and starts to bark d*ogs often just come closer*, carry on gluing their nose up his chuff or carry on jumping on him. Sometimes he barks from sheer frustration as they are offlead and he is on I think...but if he thinks I'm letting him offlead by the roads then he's got another think coming :devil:.
> 
> I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. It is impossible not to get your hopes up despite knowing that it would be wise not to .


 Seems counter intuitive to me, if someone is shouting I would rather get the hell out the way even if its not at me, but if it is then..........

It is hard, at least with Kilo you had an idea it should work as you had the opportunity to try out the implant, (bit back to front in the dog world isnt it, for humans its us that get to fill ourselves with chemicals) I was actually really very uncertain of this , there is an all be it small chance it could affect her negatively, it still might, all today proves is that her hormones could be settling who knows what the outcome will be.


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Seems counter intuitive to me, if someone is shouting I would rather get the hell out the way even if its not at me, but if it is then..........
> 
> It is hard, at least with Kilo you had an idea it should work as you had the opportunity to try out the implant, (bit back to front in the dog world isnt it, for humans its us that get to fill ourselves with chemicals) I was actually really very uncertain of this , there is an all be it small chance it could affect her negatively, it still might, all today proves is that her hormones could be settling who knows what the outcome will be.


Yes GR, I was nervous about Suprelorin too but at least that would wear off. I understand the highs and lows of hope and dread - really am hoping for you as well. I know how much work you do.


----------



## Nicki85

Session with the physio... they don't have a clue what's wrong with Rust- not sure if it is soft tissue or bone or indeed which leg it is. Clearly some trauma to the left tricep but not enough to cause this sort of lameness.

He's more lame in walk (slight head nod) than in trot and not willing to put any weight on his left front using the balance balls. Both of these indicate bone/joint rather than soft tissue. He is also slightly wonky when sitting (which I haven't noticed before but don't do many formal sits!) and was holding his tail very stiff to one side on the treadmill.

Next step is gait analysis to hopefully figure out which leg is the problem and then x-rays. As it came on so sudden with no history of lameness or stiffness we could be looking at a hairline fracture of similar... but really it's all guess work 

Feeling a bit gutted and miserable about it all at the moment. Just want to be able to let him off and have fun, play fetch and stuff. No swimming either as not sure what the problem is. I've bought some hotdogs in brine so will start teaching him to track later this week.


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## Dogless

Poor Rusty. Hope you get to the bottom of it soon.


----------



## Pezant

Nicki85: how frustrating for you not to know the source  How long has the lameness been going on for?

Dogless: Oooh it sounds like you're making real progress with Kilo! Well done you for figuring out his trigger. Are the protests affecting you very much right now?

GingerRogers: Fingers crossed it's all settling down for you.

The massage therapist session with Henry was quite interesting - we reckon it does stem back from when he had that door accident, as apparently he's been constantly favouring that shoulder and has hardly any muscle on it. We've been advised only to do walking pace on walks, not trotting and not running so he's forced to properly use it. She also mentioned putting down poles in the garden so he has to lift his feet over them.

Dad and I both think he's walking more easily today after being worse over the weekend, but I don't know whether that's us _wanting_ to see him walk more normally or whether he actually _is_. Either way, pretty sure we'll be skipping the show this weekend, which is a shame.


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## Nicki85

He has been lame for four weeks now... a week of me resting him, then a vets visit and metacam for a week and another week of rest, then referral to a physio.

He is a mystery!

Sorry to hear your boy is having lameness problems to- so tricky keeping them at a slow pace... Hope he is better soon.


----------



## Dogless

Pezant said:


> Nicki85: how frustrating for you not to know the source  How long has the lameness been going on for?
> 
> Dogless: Oooh it sounds like you're making real progress with Kilo! Well done you for figuring out his trigger. Are the protests affecting you very much right now?
> 
> GingerRogers: Fingers crossed it's all settling down for you.
> 
> The massage therapist session with Henry was quite interesting - we reckon it does stem back from when he had that door accident, as apparently he's been constantly favouring that shoulder and has hardly any muscle on it. We've been advised only to do walking pace on walks, not trotting and not running so he's forced to properly use it. *She also mentioned putting down poles in the garden so he has to lift his feet over them. *
> 
> Dad and I both think he's walking more easily today after being worse over the weekend, but I don't know whether that's us _wanting_ to see him walk more normally or whether he actually _is_. Either way, pretty sure we'll be skipping the show this weekend, which is a shame.


I've known his triggers for ages....it's dealing with his response that's the hard one  . Oh and dealing with my response - way more than his. I'm bluddy useless at times .

T Touch Groundwork is worth a look.


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## Dogless

The poor CHs are broken after hours in the forest for two nights in a row and all the lead training. Just done some clicker training - name recognition stuff with them together, then back to basics with loving putting his face in his muzzle for Kilo and pushing a football round the garden with his nose for Rudi. Zonked again.

I want to get Rudi running alongside a bike as I reckon he'd enjoy it, so have ordered a Walky Dog thing to get him used to it so he's hopefully OK with the bike and kit by the time he's old enough to do it properly. I'd love to do it with the BW but I suspect he's too reactive if a cat pops out in front of us / dogs chase us etc.


----------



## Dogless

Hope everyone's OK.

Great walk in the forest this morning. Good walk until the last 10 minutes with the boys tonight.

Then got surrounded by three offlead dogs when mine were on leads (near to roads); one of whom fixed a stare and growled, one who just sniffed and one who did jumping on. By some miracle Kilo kept calm, but Roo almost pulled me over and barked and lunged like mad. Wanted to play - high pitched frustration and whining. Happened twice. I am chuffed about Kilo but really, really upset about Roo. He CAN'T become reactive, just can't.

I was too angry to speak to the owners who had kept their distance and just kept recalling. Irrationally angry and jut walked off fast; the one dog belongs to a woman who always tells me it's a good job mine aren't girls anyway as she'll "start a scrap" . They all hid behind a bush as I walked off anyway...cowards. Hope they were entertained at the sight of me almost getting pulled flat on my face.

On the way back we saw stare - y BC but Kilo did a little huff and that was it and Roo nothing, so that was good.


----------



## BessieDog

Sorry haven't caught up with this in a while. Son had minor op on very personal part of his anatomy last week which I'm not allowed to talk about (or , to be honest, completely understand) so it's all been a bit traumatic here. I've been working on trying to keep Bess from jumping on him. Suffice to say a sensitive part is even more sensitive than normal. Bess seems to treat it as target practice so lots of screaming involved. 

Been trying to keep Bess from going loopy, but she gets crazy if she doesn't have her mid morning walk. Went today as I thought it was cooler - it was until the sun burnt the cloud off and we had 45 mins in full sun! Bess kept to the shade by the hedges where she could, and I hosed her off as soon as we got home. I swear I could see her steaming. 

Pezant - hope Henry's shoulder gets better soon. 

Nicki - hope you find out Rusty's problem.


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## Nicki85

hi all 

Well last night Shae had pre-agility and she was ace. Linked tunnel to go-around-the-cone with a front cross too and she was brill. Considering I haven't handled for a month and Shae is brand new to it she was so good. Also did some back end awareness exercises and grid work. Grid work is obviously poles on the floor in case anyone is worrying i'm putting her over jumps already! But she was really driving to her toy with a grrrrr.

Put the paddling pool up for them this eve and they've both been in. Tried to start tracking with Rust but he wanted to track the rabbits instead... I need somewhere with fewer distractrions but not prepared to start rubbing hot dog all over the house... I've been doing some balance excercises with him and its odd as he isn't favouring that leg as he was at physio?! Also watching him sit as chap thought he sat splayed... I think that's only when you look down on him. Lastly holding is tail fixed (as he did on the treadmill) think he does that when he is nervous or anxious as he did the same in the paddling pool when I put him in it for the first time.

So yes, lots of fun here  Shae also destroyed two toys and Rust learned that the paddling pool was not something to be scared of. More tracking tomorrow and separate walks.

DL- I don't think Rudi was "being reactive" in the sense you were worried about with Kilo... It's a lot to ask of a young dog to sit quietly and let others jump/bark/run all over them. I know Shae would go bonkers... Rusty would probably start growling. I know with mine they react so differently- don't compare them! I have had words with a number of owners for letting their dogs come up to Rust or and Shae and intimidate them onlead. It makes me irrationally angry too.... 

We met two very large rotties today and had the famous "she should be alright" as he quickly grabbed the male. He had no control... the dogs must have been twice his weight. Luckily Rust was in a relaxed mood and was easy to navigate around them.

Thanks BessieDog me too.... i've got elderly grandparents visiting soon so we will also be working on the don't jump up!!!


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## Dogless

Shae's really a little superstar Nicki . In terms of Rusty I can't offer any help, I would say try not to drive yourself too mad with obsessively seeing or not seeing things, I am awful for that!!

I didn't mean aggressive when I said "reactive" last night, I meant "reactive" as in sees dog and barks and yips with frustration trying to get to them and not being allowed to interact. TBH I think that's only a small step away from an aggressive display anyway as excitement levels are high. I know he couldn't help last night and his response was reasonable, we have just had a long run over the past week or two of offlead dogs running up to us (the weather ) when mine are onlead and very few positive interactions. He has successfully ignored all onlead dogs though which is good. I just don't want onlead + offlead dog in vicinity = wildy exciting and frustrating / bad.


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## Nicki85

i get yah  I don't have any advice to offer really, it would be ideal if you could get people to walk past with dogs in a controlled manner so you can reinforce the behaviour you want from him. But it's never that easy is it? Hope you get some good interactions soon... 

Been on serpate walks this morning, Shae with her squeaky ball (that no longer squeaks...) and did some tree wraps and directions. Not much as very hot for her but she gave it 100%. We are having issues getting through the gate at the moment. We sit and wait for gate to be opened (all offlead as straight onto forest) and the release command- all fine. But once through the gate she's leaping, barking etc etc. I can sort this by directing the excitement on to a tug toy but would ideally like her to walk through the gate in a relaxed manner. Once we move off she is fine.

Drove Rust over to a new forest for new sniffs and had a wander around for 45mins  All good, no training for him. And I tried not to watch/ judge his every move!!!

They are now settled with a rack of lamb ribs for Shae and a stuffed, frozen kong for Rust 

Hope everyone has a good day.


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## Dimwit

Well, wish me luck - I am going to attempt to take dimwit back to class tonight. We are (rather embarrassingly) going to join the puppy class in the hope that I can get him happier at the venue but without any of the dogs he usually sees, in case he is associating them with his nemesis dog. I will be taking a toy and some cheese so if he is being a wuss I can just take him into a quiet corner and play/do some sniffing :001_unsure:


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## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Well, wish me luck - I am going to attempt to take dimwit back to class tonight. We are (rather embarrassingly) going to join the puppy class in the hope that I can get him happier at the venue but without any of the dogs he usually sees, in case he is associating them with his nemesis dog. I will be taking a toy and some cheese so if he is being a wuss I can just take him into a quiet corner and play/do some sniffing :001_unsure:


Molly is ancient in her class on a Sunday, the 'mature student' just like I'll be in September I suppose  It's the well intended thoughts that matter which I absolutely empathise with. I hope it goes well.

I need luck too, off to fill up the paddling pool to see if water wuss Molly might stick in a paw, I'm having problems keeping her cool.


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## Dogless

DW - very best of luck for tonight.

Nicki - sounds like you had a nice morning. Kilo used to do all that leaping and barking. I used to put his lead back on and go back through the barrier into the woods and "start again" so to speak. Not sure if that would help?

Good morning on balance this morning.

Both dogs are pretty jittery - after last night I think. Nevertheless they did well and behaved in the face of loads of people, kids, bikes, scooters etc. We mostly sat in the shade under a tree and watched lots of comings and goings and clicking for nice calm behaviour or turning to me when alerting (Kilo). It was very hot and very busy so they did well. The muzzle really does help me in that in moments like the little girl who came whizzing round the corner on her bike this morning and almost hitting the back of us I know that Kilo couldn't bite her (not that he even lunged).


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## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> I need luck too, off to fill up the paddling pool to see if water wuss Molly might stick in a paw, I'm having problems keeping her cool.


Good luck - you have probably thought of this apready but have you tried clicker training her to get in it, or chucking her favourite toys in?
I know Sprocket was very scared of paddling pools, but he had to get used to them pretty quickly as I needed to cool him down at flyball competitions. (I started by lifing him in and then once he realised that they werent going to kill him he jumped in very happily - though it helps that he likes water anyway).
Does she have a cool coat? I am sceptical about how well they work on very hairy dogs but for smooth coated (and black) dogs like dimwit and Molly they are very good. If nothing else they will at least reflect some of the light.


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## Nicki85

Rust doesn't like the paddling pool- very suspicious of it. Shae was in and out straight away. I've lifted Rust in but he is worried about the floor of the pool so just stands there looking worried! Putting treats in for him to go fishing for has worked quite well. I don't know if I can get something with grip to put on the floor... although Shae isn't having trouble.

Thanks DL- I think I do need to go back in through the gate when she kicks off. 

Dimwit- good luck tonight I hope you can at least get him comfortable playing with his toy even if you can't engage in the activities yet. Baby steps and all that...


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## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Rust doesn't like the paddling pool- very suspicious of it. Shae was in and out straight away. I've lifted Rust in but he is worried about the floor of the pool so just stands there looking worried! Putting treats in for him to go fishing for has worked quite well. I don't know if I can get something with grip to put on the floor... although Shae isn't having trouble.
> 
> Thanks DL- I think I do need to go back in through the gate when she kicks off.
> 
> Dimwit- good luck tonight I hope you can at least get him comfortable playing with his toy even if you can't engage in the activities yet. Baby steps and all that...


It takes a royal amount of patience I'll warn you!! Kilo's tantrums intensified until he realised that he wasn't going to 'win' that one.


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## MollySmith

I suppose that's a bit like us doing scene of the crime when Molly gets lead reactive? We follow at a discrete non stalky distance behind the dog she reacted to, not if she frightened the bejesus out them of course. 

I forgot to say that we have had two sleep filled nights with windows open and Classic FM so happy weird neighbours and rested humans. I now have wet feet, we all do. Hurrah! Daffy dog followed us in but leaped out when we left her!


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## GingerRogers

Dimwit - hope your tactic pays off tonight, softly softly and all that. Good luck.

Nikki - I second the repeated return to the other side fun it works, eventually, but it generally sticks in with only minor reminders 



Dogless said:


> It takes a royal amount of patience


But that is true ^^^

Do we really need to worry so much about dogs and paddling pools , IME they generally have enough common sense to monitor their own temperature even if they seem over hot to us. Rory certainly did and I often thought he would roast himself, but ninja is the opposite and I swear she can smell out the shady spots but theres no way I could get her in a paddling pool.

I was brave this morning, a few things and other threads have made me determined to get on top of the muzzle thing. I worked on it last night, bearing in mind we have been at this for over 6 months on and off, indoors if its on for more than 30 secs she hangs her head in shame even though she gets very excited at the sight of it, so I decided to try her outdoors, for her and to get me over the hurdle of the stigma.

I dipped it in dairylea and on it went and out we went. We strutted down the road in fine style, then a westie appeared so I had to detour just as I was going to remove it (baby steps again you see) then remembered I had no poo bags so we had to do a big circle back home 

Yesterday I discovered a good strut (I was running late) also gives me so much more confidence. We sailed past her nemesis doors because we just didnt have time.

People have been on about this confidence thing for months but how do you actually really get to convince yourself?

Well now I know being late and muzzle training .

Seriously though the muzzle is so we can move up to slightly busier areas without fear of off lead dogs, the idea terrifies me as the owners are unlikely to be in range to help IF god forbid a fight breaks out.

Oh and she can bark in it without going mental


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## MollySmith

I wish Molly did seek out shady spots, she will on walks but at home it's straight to the hottest part of the garden and she doesn't seem to regulate herself very well to the point she ends up with a bad tummy. We have lots of trees and shade here and a lawn albeit crispy so its beyond me  A bit of gentle fun with the pool might help, if not it's no bother. Back indoors with the big scary fan.

Well done with the muzzle  I've been doing a faster walk too (as much as one can in 29 degrees) and it does seem to help, Molly is all 'what is this, you mean you can run?!'


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## Nicki85

Paddling pool is more for my amusement TBH... They are both sat in the garden with me at the moment, in the shade!!

Really looking forward to starting the gate "battle" now lol. I know it's the way forward... just to much like hard work 

GR- welldone on the muzzle training


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## MollySmith

Well a cool and wet afternoon in the end 

I thought some sausage or liver cake would tempt her in for a paddle but no chance. We started to pack it away but she started to drop her toys in. I think the sides put her off but she was happy to have a little splash if they were down. I did a bit of video, excuse my feet and chipped nail polish  but you get to have a nose at the house too 

http://s1307.photobucket.com/user/Mollysmith27/media/MOV05067_zpsb941422b.mp4.html


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## Dogless

MS - Nice little video - funny that the sides down was enough for her to get in (ish!)

Walked with Diz tonight. Not the best. Enough said, chalk it up to one of those days .


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## Dimwit

Some success at class tonight. The dimwit did manage to get out of the car at least. Only one other dog in the class and so he did eventually relax and we even had a waggy tail at one point. He was still too worried to lie down though and wasn't happy to do a sit stay with me walking away. It was still very hot so we didn't do much but I was very proud of my little wimp


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## GingerRogers

Well another busy busy day culminating in the pub for a friends anniversary/holiday drinks.
not one to say no normally but today.......could have done without.

They had horses in the beer garden. 

Ninja went for her first proper off lead walk tonight. She had a little run on the beach last night. But tonight she seemed to enjoy immensely. Then i looked at her and thought oh she's doing that thing she does before she ...... Oh she has bogged off after a rabbit. Wouldn't have minded but it went into the horse field. Ninja doesn't do horses. Luckily it was out again. But i swear she collected all the sticky buds in the county. Still a few in her eyebrows. We do the removal at least 3 times a day but today .....


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## Nicki85

Hm one of those so-so walks this morning. Took them both out together, first mistake is that adding Rusty to the gate game is like raising the stakes far to high far to quickly lol. So we got through the kitchen door (one returning her to the kitchen for a bark) and then moved on to the gate to the forest. Not too bad but then I didn't check the path and there were two dogs coming down. Shae started to her grrr and barking so I put her back on lead and started a "find it" game that actually work and refocused her. Unfortunately the other dogs came up (was hoping owner would put them on lead) but she greeted them nicely enough. Although a bit excitedly. 

Met another two dogs both offlead, one that Shae saw first and ran up to but recalled when asked so can't complain. No barking or grrring 

Then met Rusty's nemesis that I had to have words with a while back as their dog kept coming up and having a pop at Rust. Anyhow the owner took my advice and saw a good behaviourist that identified that he was very stressed. So stopped and chatted to them, my two got to play "find it" again. Rust did a bit of growling under his breath but didn't try and approach. Her dog was doing well though until two offlead cockers came up that he tried to pin  He was onlead and under control... why can't others put theirs onlead when they see an onlead dog!!

Home now, training sessions later  Roll-over for Shae and picking up objects  Rust, what ever he wants to do... 

DL- hope you have a better walk/day with your boys
GR- Rust also collects "ornaments" on his walks...
Dimwit- Glad you had some success at your lesson, baby steps!


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## GingerRogers

Pleased you managed to get him out of the car and it was a 'small' class so he could relax, again and again, baby steps.

We had a joyous moment today.

I WAS MORE INTERESTING THAN SNIFFS 

For some reason i decided to got to happy field this morning and picked up the ball on a rope, no idea why, she has never played with that out side, never plays with anything apart from Mr Foxy and the flirt pole.

But not only was she interested , she fetched it  AND brought it right back to my feet  we had a tug and 4/5 more throws and then I put it away to keep her keen 

Really really chuffed with that, I call it progress.

I call the woman who dared to appear on our footpath back through the woods with her pointy dog just plain annoying :rolleyes5:


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## Dogless

WELL DONE GR!!!!!!! More interesting than sniffs is progress  .

Nicki - your walk sounds mixed!Hope the training sessions go well.

OK morning here, walk around home for Kilo this morning, park for Rudi. Rudi had a fabulous time meeting people and ignoring all dogs and people unless allowed to greet, had his photo taken a few times by folk. He is a little star. Even went swimming in the lough and people appeared out of the trees onto the little beach, runners went past, reactive dogs were strangled and choked past and he just ignored them. We had a lovely time but that made me sad about Kilo in a way; he wouldn't have enjoyed himself at all.

However, all good really just me over thinking yet again :incazzato: .


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## Dogless

Great evening in the forest....thank goodness .


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## Nicki85

We had a lovely walk to but round a lake  Met loads of people and dogs- both were perfect  

Physio tomorrow... Rust has to have his stride assessed on the treadmill. V. nervous... + I didn't manage to write down the time so will need to ring first thing!


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## GingerRogers

Good luck for Rusty


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Good luck for Rusty


This ^^^^.

Hope all goes well today.


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## Nicki85

Thanks... appointment is at 12.30. I've promised Rusty some special doggy ice-cream if he is a good boy! 

Separate walks this morning... Did a bit of impulse control stuff with Shae and some tug work. Reacted a little when someone came onto the field but easily distracted with a treat or a toy  Then moved off to carry on our walk, met quite a few people, said hi to one and had a play with her dog. All good, didn't react to anyone. Just seems to be if we are by our selves and someone walks towards us that she will start to react. More of a frustration I want to say hi... But we are down to one noise and then will look for treats so I think we are progressing!


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## Nicki85

Thanks... appointment is at 12.30. I've promised Rusty some special doggy ice-cream if he is a good boy! 

Separate walks this morning... Did a bit of impulse control stuff with Shae and some tug work. Reacted a little when someone came onto the field but easily distracted with a treat or a toy  Then moved off to carry on our walk, met quite a few people, said hi to one and had a play with her dog. All good, didn't react to anyone. Just seems to be if we are by our selves and someone walks towards us that she will start to react. More of a frustration I want to say hi... But we are down to one noise and then will look for treats so I think we are progressing!


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## Dogless

Nicki - I'd probably end up eating the doggie ice cream....so tasty you posted it twice  . Sounds as if you're really making progress with little Shae too. Any chance of a photo? Not seen one for ages it feels like and she must be growing fast .

Great morning. Took Rudi to the park and round the Lough shore again. He had a whale of a time in the water. Completely ignored a black lab and owner who came onto the beach 5m from us. I knew the owner so she let the lab off. Rudi was being a bit of a bully so I was going to stop him but then another two women I know with a black lab and a GR appeared (Roo ignored them again ). The GR is older (6) and entire and very, very subtly took Roo down a peg or two and they all played well together, swimming and chasing about in the water. The labs had a ball but Rudi was easily distracted so he didn't try to take it - the once he went for it the GR was nearby and Roo didn't dare grab it. I love watching the dynamics in situations like that!!

Then they left and we played for a bit longer. Rudi ignored everything going past on the busy path about 7m behind us so I am very, very pleased with him indeed :001_wub:. Then we went to dry out on a sunny bench and he got a few fusses .

A little spaniel ran up to us when Roo was on lead, bellowing owner caught up, hung him by his slip lead and then threw him onto the tarmac floor .

Did a short clicker session with Kilo but he just wants to loll about today, he didn't have much interest so I'm letting him just chill and have a break from training. He's bright in himself and instigating play with Rudi so think I've just tired him out bit, love him.

Crap phone pics...


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## Nicki85

Sounds like a fab walk!! I'm so jealous of people who live near beaches... especially ones where you can take dogs on. Once i've got Rusty figured lameness wise I want to take a long weekend and head North or to Wales and just be beach bums for a bit. Maybe early Sept after the kids go back.

Nasty Spaniel owner though 

Is Kilo OK?

And I will always post pics 
Couple of randoms! 



























and after their bath yesterday...
Shae looks really odd in this one!


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## Dogless

What lovely photos Nicki - thank you, brightened up my morning .

Kilo is fine, just had a stressful time recently coupled with me hammering the training and I think he just wants a break from walking from home. He was ploddy and hard to motivate yesterday when we walked from home and has been jumped on on almost every walk for a fortnight whilst he's been on lead so think that is why he was reluctant. He was his normal self in the house and at the forest. I'll probably take them to the forest tonight for a few hours and he can blow off steam like last night.


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## Freddie and frank

hello WAYWO guys. 

i'll just be popping in to say hi once in a while.

we had a visit from a behaviourist for bella on tuesday. she's become bossy with the boys and very vocal lately. it may have been all the upheaval of the building work, i don't know.

anyway, bella was well behaved...typical  but she did play up just enough for the lady to observe her.

she said that what we are doing with bella was spot on, as regards to diet, excersise, training,play, etc. so we just have a hyperactive dog!!! infact, she would have suggested things that we already do with her.

we have to exclude her when she starts to bark, behind the dog gate, and let her in when she stops, praising her.
i do hide treats in the garden and she finds them, is that like scent work?? she said set aside a time each day to do this so she gets to know that something interesting is coming up and it'll happen without her barking if that makes sense???? 
we have to get in a proper routine with her too  which is a huge fault of mine. i've never ever had a routine with anything. not good i know. 

she suggested giving her a bedtime snack so she doesn't wake up hungry cause soon as bella hears me upstairs, she wines and then it turns into a full on bark fest. so, i'm splitting all of their meals into two main ones and one small bedtime one. 

she's sending me a plan of action through the post to follow so hopefully next week we can start to get somewhere.

whilst i've been off PF, i slipped back into a huge depression, so went back to my councellor for a 6 week refresh and back on the AD's, different ones that suit me better, i'm back to normal and better to live with :yesnod:

ooh, and i'm in the process of sorting out photo's to send to dallybanjo for a lead hanger for my new utility wall. i'm very excited. 

how are you all doing?


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## Freddie and frank

nicki, dogless, what lovely photo's 

my parents are moving up north yorkshire end of august and will be able to visit beaches with my three when we go up to visit. can't wait, they've never been to the beach. my sister nips up to redcar beach which is great for dogs. really can't wait to get them on the beach.


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## Nicki85

Hello again everybody...

Back from physio... guess what... inconclusive! Couldn't get enough data really to provide any real understanding of what foot he is lame on. Sometimes the right hind came back dodgy, then the left hind... fronts where OK. Looks like he is loading weight onto his shoulders though in general. So, data is being sent off to the states for them to look at, next appointment is Wednesday so see where we are then. Difficult as so many external factors- he didn't like the clips on the harness rattling, he was worried about the belt and hesitant to go into trot. I'm tempted to just get all of him x-rayed lol. Again, he doesn't look obviously lame... but something ain't right!

DL- didn't see your photos before, they are lovely... Rudi is gorgeous and looks very happy! Poor Kilo, sounds like he needs a break- hope he enjoys the forest later. 

F&F- glad to hear the behaviourist appointment went well.. I always like plans and structure lol!


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## Dogless

How disappointing Nicki, hard to know where to go now in a way isn't it? Maybe he has injured something pretty insignificant but niggly enough to make him change his gait if that makes sense? For instance when my back is bad I get hip or knee problems when I run as my gait changes to compensate and protect the sore area.


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## Freddie and frank

sorry guys...3 posts in a row.

just had an update on Dennis, my sisters lab.
specialist reckons he has about 3-4 weeks at most.

he doesn't seem to be in pain, just exhausted most of the time.
he's going to be kept comfy and relaxed and they're just taking each day as it comes. 

it really is heartbraking  
she has decided that the day that his tail doesn't wag and he doesn't get up to greet them is perhaps the time to think about calling the vet. he has agreed to come to her house when needed so less stress for him. 

i'm seeing him this weekend so we just have to make him as happy and comfy as possible.
she's been turning her tears into a laugh cause he is very in tune to anyone getting upset, bless him so i'm sure there will be plenty of 'laughing' this weekend.


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## Nicki85

Yup... part of me thinks if he was a normal dog and just ambled around all would be fine. But he insists on running, leaping and doing things dogs shouldn't really do! Plus i'd like to get him back to agility if I can...

I'm thinking that too, he's injured something somewhere and it's affecting it all. He has incredibly flexible back legs and they are always splayed out behind him when laying down. He can even sit with them splayed out behind him... 

I'm going to ring them up and ask him if he wants me to exercise him normally to see if I can make him lame so what ever it is shows up clearer. Hopefully that makes sense!


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## MollySmith

Dimwit - glad you both got on well at class 

Nicki - how frustrating for you. I do hope you get something on Wednesday but I can imagine that the strange environment must subdue him. I was going to say the same as Dogless, my back back is the cause of my tendonitis and foot thing - it's all linked anyway so perhaps a pull elsewhere is causing him to compensate, I hope you get some answers, it's hard to know what to do for the best.

Dogless - love the photos so much. Rudi is so handsome. Bless Kilo, he has been a dog magnet recently. I hope he has lots of fun in the forest. 

F&F - I am sorry to hear that you suffered with depression whilst you were away. It is lovely to have you back and catch up on your news. I highly recommend baby gates and to know you're heading on the right lines is such a positive thing isn't it? It's so sad about Dennis, it's hard to go through but your sister sounds so right in her approach and the vet coming to the house makes it less upsetting. Lots of cuddles at the weekend 


Molly is still paddling in her pool and fell asleep during a settle in training yesterday. She's really such a character now and it's a wonderful change from last years madness. We visited my poorly grannie this morning and she was so well behaved. So gentle and just good. The impulse training is helping a lot. My gran said that she felt Molly had given us a new purpose in life. And we've booked a doggy friendly holiday in Norfolk to celebrate end of degree and our wedding anniversary of 'so many years I'm embarrassed to say as it makes me seem ancient'. Can't really afford it but it's going to be close to beaches so Molly will have a great time.


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## Dogless

MS - Molly sounds like a very well behaved dog .

Good walk tonight in the forest. Can't believe how hot it is for Norn Iron; it was 32c at 6.30pm when we set off and 25c still at 9pm when we were on our way back . There's water all around the walks we do though, a good breeze up the top and plenty of shade .

Kilo and Rudi kept swimming in even the smallest of fire dams :lol:. Here's Sir Kilo demonstrating his "round and round" technique  (Click to play!!).


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## Dogless

Another terrible phone photo but I reckon I tired them out .


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## Nicki85

Fab pics! Poor worn out boys...

Glad Molly is being a star   

Had a phonecall from the physio, he had chatted to my vet and they now want me to let him off-lead Monday and Tuesday and then re-assess Wednesday. I guess try and aggravate whatever/wherever so they can try and make a diagnoses. I still think the treadmill made him look wonkier than usual cause he was scared of it all...

Off to the Responsible Dog Ownership Show in Fleet tomorrow, probs with just Rust as having two to manage by myself might be tricky... esp. as it's to hot to leave them in the car and probably too hot for Shae anyhow...
Hopefully we will bump in to Miss Tinks herself!!


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## Canine K9

Dogless- Gorgeous photos

Hope everyone is well. Recall is good for us he recalled away from a toy being thrown, children playing. At puppy agility I let him off lead and he did well! He wandered off a bit at first but came back and I managed to get his concentration and complete our "course". I shouted Baileyyy and he came to me. Recall is improving.

Bit confused about his biting lark though, if I`m chilling with him outside he never bites, inside he bites like a terror.

Got our dog show tomorrow


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## Nicki85

Fun day today...

Did the fastest recall with them both (separately!) Shae won...
Did a bit of play work with Shae monster and she was fab, a month ago I wouldn't have had any focus on the toy   so really pleased with that. Buzzy little thing! She met lots of people and dogs- A* for Shae! She also got-










Rusty was another kettle of fish... distracted comes to mind  But he did a little play work with a stick toy and then find it. Bit of treat work as well... he was concerned about a shouty monster dog but all good. He did a good job avoiding all hands coming in his direction to stroke him... I had one wanting to chat and one wanting to move on!

They were doing agility tasters.. so tempted to do a recall with Shae through the jump wings but she had been so good that decided against it.

So, good day had by all and dogs are now knackered! Didn't see MV or any demos unfortunately but as is the way with these things sometimes. Easier than I imagined to handle them both together (as long as Rust had a headcollar on) but it got a bit tricky when I wanted to do an activity with one of them. Put one of them in the car with the boot open (Barjo tailgate with padlock!) was fine.

How's everyone elses days been?


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## tiatortilla

Hello sorry not been around in this thread much, I'll catch up in a minute 

Everything's been fairly uneventful here, we had a little dog run out of someone's garden as we were passing yesterday, I held Tia behind me and blocked the little dog from getting to her, she didn't growl or anything  I have a tendency to panic a bit when a dog comes over when she's on lead, I forget that she makes a big song and dance but it's all noise and when the dog's actually within reaching distance she loses her 'confidence' and shuts up  Then just up the road from where that happened there's a pair of very springy and barky JRTs but she ignored them pretty much too, I am kind of concerned that they'd easily be able to jump the fence though it's not happened yet!
She had a wee growl at some kind of staffy x pup earlier but other than that she's been very quiet


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## moonviolet

Sorry we didn't see you Nicki  we were there helping to set up early. So by early afternoon we were exhausted and went home to have an afternoon nap. What lightweights!

The demo went well with a few out-takes including me tripping over the same dang hole repeatedly :lol:

We had a go at fastest recall too Tink did quite well winning her hour slot and we got a nice certificate and Tink got a bag of treats.

Still sorting through pics from today not sure if I'll bore every one with a picture thread, but here's one of my favourites.


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## Nicki85

Flying Tinks- love it! And yes to a photo thread!!


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## GingerRogers

Definitely a picture thread please. Lovely ears


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## Dogless

K9 - Enjoy your show today .

Nicki - Bless little Shae, she's doing so well! I know what you mean about having two dogs being tricky when you want to do something :huh: . 

mv - Wonderful photo of the amazing Miss Tinks and you and she sounds as if she did brilliantly too. Bet it unsettled some "beagles can't be trained" folk when she did fastest recall .

TiaT - Pleased things have been uneventful for you. Sometimes that's best!!!


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## Dimwit

MS - glad Molly is being a good girl, and that she has got a bit more used to the paddling pool!

Dogless - love the swimming photos and video, such gorgeous dogs!

MV - what a great photo, glad the display went well

Not really been doing much here, the dimwit is limping quite a bit, I think with his LP he struggles a bit when the ground is so hard so I have been trying to do lots of pavement walks when it is cool.
I am also quite glad that we don't do flyball any more as I would NOT be happy running him on ground like this.

His impulse control is coming along, I did lots of dropping treats while we sat on a bench in the recreation ground for a while yesterday and he did very well at ignoring them. He also did quite well at eating treats and ignoring people who walked past


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## Dogless

Poor little dimwit struggling . Sounds as if he did really well at the impulse control stuff though .

Forest for half a day again this morning. Not a soul seen. Perfect . We haven't worked on anything today which is bad!


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## Nicki85

Manic day here... joint walk this morning and a long one at that as we had relatives round for a bBQ so wanted quiet dogs  Rusty had 10-15 mins off... turns out i've lost any sort or recall I had before lead rest   He is a complete liability. I'm hoping that he will remember all about it once he gets over the excitement. The problem is that his recall reward is a toy which we can't do due to his lameness! On the plus side he is still looking sound...
Shae was good although had over-excited zoomies when meeting someone and got her and Rust completly tangled up in the walking belt... gah.

Dogs were perfect with the family Shae especially played ball very gently with my 2yr old cousin. 

One last negative, Rusts lymph nodes (neck) are v. swollen... he has wierd lymph nodes that go up and down anyway. He has also had a couple of blood tests for it that have come back negative. I've never seen his neck glands so swollen tho! He is fine in himself...


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## MollySmith

MV, what a lovely photo of you both, she looks so happy 

Nicki - you must be so pleased with them at the BBQ, bless Shae and your cousin  I am sorry to hear that Rusty's lymph nodes are swollen, might it be the heat?

Well done all of you at the show and I'd love to see some more photos too

Tia - ssssshhhhh enjoy the peace  Uneventful is great.

Dimwit, sorry about the little man, it's been so hot I saw that a road in Cambridge melted so it must be awful for dogs.

Equally uneventful here really. Class has been delayed until Sept as we've only done one in three weeks it's been so warm. Very relieved because our Off the peanut butter sandwich isn't the best 

We're just going to practice with other dogs this week as we've got a fun dog show next Sunday. I'm a bit nervous as the first trainers we had who were nice but inexperienced in lead reactivity are there so it could be socially awkward. I've got to judge best veteran as I sponsored it under my business (any advice, help) and I think we'll aim for best crossbreed, best rescue or dog the judge would like to take home but go early if Molly gets too stressed of course. It feel like a massive deal as I can remember last year and wishing we could be there and knowing we could not.


----------



## diefenbaker

Off to France at the end of the week... Dief is coming... I hope France is ready for him. Should have lots of pictures on my return... I've got the lingo down pat...

Qu'est-ce que vous travaillez sur


----------



## Dogless

Working on getting a grip . 

Had a fabulous walk this morning, both dogs onlead and round home, Kilo happier as we'd given it a rest for a while and gone out for all walks. Saw quite a few dogs, Kilo happy and relaxed. I was on the corner before home thinking how well we were doing when I heard a bark, Kilo turned to look and a staffie came out of his open garden gate and attacked Kilo. Much horrific screaming and trying to get away and curl up in a ball from Kilo. Much growling and grabbing from staffie. Owner came eventually and got dog off by lifting his rear legs. Kilo has quite a few bites to his neck and shoulders although his thick leather collar took some of them and his harness some. He is currently in theatre at the vet's being sutured and a drain put into one very deep one to his neck. I can call at 2pm to see how he is and when I can collect him. 

So...I predict I will be working on an awful lot with him soon .


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## MollySmith

Oh my goodness me.... I'm speechless, poor Kilo and poor you. I hope you can collect him soon and that your prediction is wrong but I fear not. Bloody owners. 

Is Rudi okay?


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## cravensmum

Flaming hell Dogless.

Wishing Kilo well,and sending you both best wishes for the next few months hard work.


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> Oh my goodness me.... I'm speechless, poor Kilo and poor you. I hope you can collect him soon and that your prediction is wrong but I fear not. Bloody owners.
> 
> Is Rudi okay?


Rudi is unhurt - the staff wasn't interested in him, just Kilo. He's unsettled and has only just gone to sleep. Hope he's OK mentally.



cravensmum said:


> Flaming hell Dogless.
> 
> Wishing Kilo well,and sending you both best wishes for the next few months hard work.


Thank you very much.


----------



## Dimwit

Oh Dogless, how terrible - poor Kilo and poor you.
I hope all is going well at the vets and his bites heal quickly - I guess only time will tell how much this will have affected him and it must be so heartbreaking for you given how well he has been doing recently.


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## Nicki85

Oh Dogless... so   to hear that. I hope Kilo's injuries are not too bad I hope that his confidence is not too badly damaged


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## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> Oh Dogless, how terrible - poor Kilo and poor you.
> I hope all is going well at the vets and his bites heal quickly - I guess only time will tell how much this will have affected him and it must be so heartbreaking for you given how well he has been doing recently.


Thank you. He is recovering they said when I just rang. I can collect him between 4.30 and 5.30pm.

I am heartbroken, totally, TBH. Can't believe it.


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## Tyton

So sorry to hear that Dogless, as has been said, especially when things were starting to go so much better for Kilo after all he (and you!) has been through recently. 

I do hope he makes a quick recovery and this doesn't set him back too much!


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## diefenbaker

Feeling bad for you and the lad. I'm lucky this hasn't happened to us yet. Hope the boy is at home soon and feeling better. What can you do ? You have to walk your dog and can't control other people and their dogs.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Feeling bad for you and the lad. I'm lucky this hasn't happened to us yet. Hope the boy is at home soon and feeling better. What can you do ? You have to walk your dog and can't control other people and their dogs.


He's home Dief, dopey but safe . Can't do anything but continue to do what I already do as you say - pot luck in a way. I hope it never happens to your boy.


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## diefenbaker

Just seen your other thread. Obviously the other owner should pay.. and he sounds reasonable enough but the bill hasn't arrived yet. Most importantly do whatever you need to do ( or not do ) in order to stay safe in your own home.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Just seen your other thread. Obviously the other owner should pay.. and he sounds reasonable enough but the bill hasn't arrived yet. Most importantly do whatever you need to do ( or not do ) in order to stay safe in your own home.


I have dug half the moat so far and am currently bidding on a drawbridge on ebay. Boiling tar is on the hob and Rudi is hard at work on stag at present; I relieve him at 2000 hrs sharp.


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## Canine K9

Dogless- Sorry about Kilo, idiot owners!

Was training him in the field today and we had some very good attention skills and recall and some idiot let their yorkie run over and Bailey got OTT and we couldn`t carry on training cos he was too excitied! He was ignoring the dog fantastically until then as well :cursing:


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## Canine K9

Also when Bailey is offlead he spends about an hour sniffing every blade of grass. Any ideas on how to encourage him to walk at a decent pace?


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## Dimwit

Canine K9 said:


> Also when Bailey is offlead he spends about an hour sniffing every blade of grass. Any ideas on how to encourage him to walk at a decent pace?


Put sniffing on cue so that you can use it as a reward. When dimwit is too busy sniffing I just walk off. Eventually he looks up, realises I have gone and runs after me. Making yourself unpredictable also helps, do some heel work with lots of changes of pace and direction which will encourage him to keep an eye on what you are doing.


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## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Dogless- Sorry about Kilo, idiot owners!
> 
> Was training him in the field today and we had some very good attention skills and recall and some idiot let their yorkie run over and Bailey got OTT and we couldn`t carry on training cos he was too excitied! He was ignoring the dog fantastically until then as well :cursing:


I "liked" your post for the first bit.

Sorry about the second bit, it's so frustrating :cursing:.


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## Sarah1983

Not been here for a while coz I've not actually been working on anything. Bad person that I am! Well, nothing except the ongoing recall and loose leash walking anyway. I shall aim to do better.

Spen and I had a lovely walk through the woods this evening. Wasn't a long walk as it was still really warm but enough to give him a run around and some mental stimulation other than training. I think he was happy 



And at weekend hubby and the lovely Khan came with us. He's a pleasure to walk and if I could manage him and Spen together on my own would love to walk him more.


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## Dogless

Took Rudi to the lough this morning. He rolled in something disgusting straight off the bat, solved by a good swim in the lough and a play on the little beach bit and a lead walk in the park to dry off (mostly!). We saw quite a few dogs and he was up on his toes and anxious but defaulted to looking at me for reassurance so I praised him for doing this and kept the walk upbeat and positive from start to finish. Not nice to see Rudi anxious but hopefully lots of positivity and good experiences will settle him.

Suspect it might be a long haul with the BW . Kilo was really pestering for his walk, so I thought just 3 - 4 minutes, to the end of the street and back if he really wants one. Got out of the front door and froze, tail tucked and too worried to take treats. Wouldn't go a step in any direction at all for several minutes so I ended up pretty much carrying him back into the porch . He unfroze as soon as he was in the house.


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## Nicki85

DL- sorry to hear Kilo is feeling  Can you drive him somewhere new/ good experience only to build his confidence up? Even if it's just to sit on a bench and feed him treats/ breakfast for 15mins... Maybe with Rudi if he gets confidence off him?

We have more physio tomorrow, Rusty is lame when he gets up (he's been offlead for the past few days to "break him" so we can see where the issue is) but is walking it off after 5-6 steps... he has had a heavy couple of days exercising too. Oh and here is Shae doing a baby grid at pre-agility last night... she was a bit hot and not as drivey as she can be but still worked well  
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151817256817216


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## Dogless

I can't understand to know what a baby grid really means....but Shae looks good .

Good walk with Roo tonight. I made myself as popular as could be  with three folk but not worth telling the sorry tales on here!


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## Guest

Just thought I'd pop on here and share this shot from the other day. It's not worth it's own thread, but it does make me smile  Bates and his girliefriend the rhodie


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## MollySmith

I am so sorry to hear about Kilo's walk today, perhaps see if he fancies a trip to the woods with Rudi? 

We did a bit of training, some impulse work and we did a lovely llw around the close until a cat passed us. I can forgive her that, she had a crap night with the storms, we all did and she's spent most the day licking my face where I've been upset. I am errr....well washed


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## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> I am so sorry to hear about Kilo's walk today, perhaps see if he fancies a trip to the woods with Rudi? Would a toy be better than treats? Molly was motivated by toys around the pool than treats.
> 
> We did a bit of training, some impulse work and we did a lovely llw around the close until a cat passed us. I can forgive her that, she had a crap night with the storms, we all did and she's spent most the day licking my face where I've been upset. I am errr....well washed


I need his wounds to heal a little first before I want him tearing about in the woods, plus he's pretty sore. Treats are best for him in this kind of situation. I know unfortunately.

Pleased Molly's LLW was good. They are all excused cat related blips!!


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## Nicki85

A grid is a set of jumps with set distances so they have a stride or two strides or no strides between them... helps them understand where their feet are and how to get the distances right over the jumps. She is just doing poles on the floor at the moment (hence the "baby" grid reference...) as she is to young to jump. She is very gangly at the moment so struggling a little! But she likes her toy so it's all good 

Sorry you are having a rough time at the moment- hang in there.

MS- you to, glad Miss Molly is there to catch the tears though!


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## Nicki85

Just thought i'd update on the physio appointment today...

Rusty's scapula on the left side is coming to far away from his ribcage as his muscles holding it have been damaged. You can literally pull his scapula off the ribcage it's really very odd. Thinks he has run into something really hard and has got nerve damage or ruptured one of the muscles. No lumps or tears he can feel but as they are under the shoulder it's really very hard to tell! Muslce loss on one side of his neck too.

So lots of balance work and swimming- loads of swimming... he reckons Rust will come sound again and be able to do agility so good news   

Right now he is very grumpy and taking every toy off Shae that she shows interest in!!


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless - how is Kilo doing? I hope you have bad a better day

Nicki - Good news about the physio and well done to Shea.

This week I am mostly working on not killing/being very rude to people I meet on walks. Dimwit is still limping a bit so have been resting him and doing short lead walks (not that he is in any way grateful as he still wants to run around like a lunatic) and so far I have been told that I am cruel for keeping him on a lead, that I have to let him meet other dogs or he will never get used to the (from the man who let his spaniel come charging up to us) and had another run-in with Mr "I can't control my dog but I refuse to carry treats as I don't agree with bribing dogs" 
On the plus side his leg isn't bothering him and he does seem to be getting better, at least the ground is a bit softer after the rain. Keeping him away from class tonight just to rest him as well.


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## Dogless

Good news Nicki that Rusty will be fit again with some patience and hard work .

Dimwit - pleased little DW's leg is getting better. Sorry about the idiot's you're meeting though.

Progress with Kilo. He likes the car so I backed it up and opened the boot then took him out for a walk. He froze briefly outside the house but wanted to get in the boot so managed the few steps there and got in. Went to the abandoned estate, he came out cautiously in his own time, we had a sniff about (well, he did!!) and short walk and then home. I make it sound quick and simple but it all took rather a long time!!

50% of Rudi's walk was fabulous - swimming in the lough and playing on the little beach - the other half was rubbish, walking in the *onlead only* park to dry. I had quiet, calm (so as not to alarm him) words with the owner of a man who's lab sprinted at us from about 25m away. Between me grabbing him by the scruff to repel him constantly (no collar) the man managed "Don't worry he'll not touch you", "He's not aggressive", "He just wants to play"....a few recalls on his whistle..."Dogs need to socialise", "If your dog is going to bite him, let him", "He needs teaching a lesson"....when he finally got to us (slowly, very) Rudi had a growl at him and he said "That's it! Go on son he deserves it!". I said "Just. Get. Him. Away" ... "They need to meet other dogs love"....."NOW. Thank you". And he finally put him on a slip lead and took him away, looking embarrassed and rather offended. Then we were jumped on by a GR (owner said sorry), then a mini schnauzer ran up growling and snapping (owners laughed at me). I almost said something very loud and dramatic about how lucky they were that Rudi wasn't like the dog that had tried to rip my other dog's throat out on Monday but didn't as I want to keep all happy and smiley for Roo. So I went home in a rotten mood partly as it was a small bit my own fault - I went to the park too late as Kilo's walk had taken a long time.

The bill is with the staffie's owners for Kilo who are going to pay me on pay day.


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## tiatortilla

Nicki85 - Glad Rusty is going to be okay 

Dimwit - Sorry about the idiot! I didn't realise little one was hurt, hope he gets better soon!

Dogless - Yay to the good half of your walk, sorry you met an idiot too! How's Kilo doing?

--


Just come back from a walk with Tia, she was a bit of a nightmare.. not sure why, Idk if she's just doing the teenager thing really late or something, it does seem like it!
We did recalls straight away, she kept nearly not coming back but then doing it, so a half success. She's got a bit over confident the last couple of times she's been off lead and wants to be really far away the whole time, and that combined with not always perfect recall means she is spending more time on lead at the moment. I have been keeping up the practise with recall so hopefully it is getting there again!
After running too close to some children (not that close tbh but closer than I feel is okay really) I put her on the lead, but she was just sniffing everything and really preoccupied with a couple of spaniels. She didn't bark at any dogs though so that's one good thing! Anyway so paying attention to me while we're out obviously needs stepping up a gear so that's something to add to the never ending list of things to be more consistent with


----------



## Dimwit

tiatortilla said:


> Dimwit - Sorry about the idiot! I didn't realise little one was hurt, hope he gets better soon!


He's ok, I think. He has luxating patella and I think because the ground is so hard at the moment that it is making it more difficult for him. It's not causing him any pain, and he is happy for me to have a feel but I'm not sure if he has tweaked something or not. I think I'll give the vet a ring tomorrow and see what they suggest (not sure whether to take him in as he gets so tense there that they won't be able to examine his leg much).

Tia sounds like she is being a little monkey, dimwit used to do the stopping just before he got to me. Do you anywhere reasonably quiet where you can go to practise? I put dimwit on a long line but left it trailing. It meant I could always get close enough to him to grab the lead in an emergency and could wait him out till he came right up to me, where he got loads of treats and praise.
One other thing that worked was throwing his treats or toy behind me a little way as soon as he started recalling so he got the idea that he actually had to come right up to me.

You'll get there, but I know what you mean about having a never-ending list of things to work on!


----------



## tiatortilla

Dimwit said:


> He's ok, I think. He has luxating patella and I think because the ground is so hard at the moment that it is making it more difficult for him. It's not causing him any pain, and he is happy for me to have a feel but I'm not sure if he has tweaked something or not. I think I'll give the vet a ring tomorrow and see what they suggest (not sure whether to take him in as he gets so tense there that they won't be able to examine his leg much).
> 
> Tia sounds like she is being a little monkey, dimwit used to do the stopping just before he got to me. Do you anywhere reasonably quiet where you can go to practise? I put dimwit on a long line but left it trailing. It meant I could always get close enough to him to grab the lead in an emergency and could wait him out till he came right up to me, where he got loads of treats and praise.
> One other thing that worked was throwing his treats or toy behind me a little way as soon as he started recalling so he got the idea that he actually had to come right up to me.
> 
> You'll get there, but I know what you mean about having a never-ending list of things to work on!


Glad he's alright 

Yeah she is being a monkey lol, she's never really been naughty since she was a tiny puppy but it's all happening now!
She always comes right up to me because that's the only way she gets a treat, it's before she does the recall that she's stalling. It's difficult practising on a longline because she's still a bit tense around other dogs with it on but it's not impossible to find quiet places to do some practise with it  Just need to make sure it's every day I think, she always gets recalled every day obviously but the actual structured practise of it I'm not as good with 
I think the difference in distractions in our walks complicates it a bit too.. there seems to be either places with no distractions, which she's pretty well behaved in anyway, or places with loads.. with nothing in between!

--

ETA: Unrelated thing that I forgot.. Tia barking at dogs out the window is getting worse too. I call her away and get her to do something else like sit then praise her for that, I'm consistent with it too because I'm here all the time but it doesn't seem to be working, she calls away quite easily most of the time but it doesn't stop her from going to do it in the first place. Does anyone have any ideas for what else might help?


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla - some people use opaque film over the bottoms of their windows I think or otherwise you could prevent access? Not sure TBH

OK evening. Did same again with Kilo as this morning. Took little sample bag of kibble and did some "find its" and basic stuff. Saw a dog far away - 200m? - only just visible as being a dog - and Kilo tensed and looked worried but was able to be distracted for food. So....it's a starter for ten in that he wasn't totally relaxed but was able to take food. 

Rudi had a quiet walk around here apart from the end where the daughter of a woman I know was showing off to her friends and ran at us screeching to meet Rudi despite me asking again and again that they not run. He barked like mad but barked at them the last time the exact same group did the same thing and hasn't had a great few days, so I'm not unduly concerned.


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## Nicki85

Glad Kilo is relaxed enough to eat... as you say you have something to hang your hat on and move forward with. 

Bloomin' kids 

One last idea re. Kilo.. have you tried a calmer like zylkene to take some of the anxiety off? Might help you through the early stages... sure you have thought of it before but thought i'd mention it. I know some people (one especially with an anxious dog) that have used it to great success.


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## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Glad Kilo is relaxed enough to eat... as you say you have something to hang your hat on and move forward with.
> 
> Bloomin' kids
> 
> One last idea re. Kilo.. have you tried a calmer like zylkene to take some of the anxiety off? Might help you through the early stages... sure you have thought of it before but thought i'd mention it. I know some people (one especially with an anxious dog) that have used it to great success.


Thanks Nicki, I have doubled his dose of Stress Less so hoping that will work but have been reading about Zylkene and wondering whether to give it a shot.


----------



## Canine K9

Recall and attention work is coming along nicely but my dog thinks he's a rabbit and went into the old hutch himself its a good indicator of size though the hutch is 4ft and he is 7kg


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## tiatortilla

Canine k9 - That's such a cute picture  Pleased to hear recall is going well!

Dogless - I think paddyjulie on here uses Zylkene for Chester doesn't she? Might be worth speaking to her about it 

--

About the opaque film.. That'd only work if it was the sight of other dogs setting her off, wouldn't it? She'll go over to the window from the other side of the room when a dog walks past so I think she's hearing them, or even smelling them if the window's open (if that's possible? I don't really know!).

We've been working on it today and it's been going a bit better so I'll just keep persevering with distracting her for now I think. She's been quite alert anyway the last couple of days and she seems a bit calmer today so it might not be as bad as I thought it was when I wrote my last post, everything's either fantastic or terrible in my head


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## Dogless

Tia - yes the film only works if she is triggered visually by dogs!

Alright day here so far walks - wise. Kilo's was OK; went to a patch of grass which is what's left of the top dog walking area. He just lay down initially so I sat with him until he settled a bit. Then we did some gentle "ready steady" and I brought out a new Kong squeaky ball on rope so he was engaged. Then he decided to try and scratch his various wounds on the ground so we did some heelwork. Right at the very end woman and 4 kids came past. Girl of about 8 or 9 ran "barking" at us while her mum kept ineffectually telling her not to. Kilo did one bark which was OK but I was bloody fuming.

Roo's was good. I was going to do some impulse control stuff but he kept on nudging my hands and stopping to lean as hard as he could on my legs for fusses. Yawning a lot too so not quite as carefree as I had hoped. Didn't want to send him off after a toy if that makes sense? Not sure if that's the right thing?

Not yet done second walks; going to try much later than usual. I got a HUGE headache walking this morning which was tension I guess as I very, very rarely get them and it disappeared after a few hours. So, working on getting a grip of myself too .


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Tia - yes the film only works if she is triggered visually by dogs!
> 
> Alright day here so far walks - wise. Kilo's was OK; went to a patch of grass which is what's left of the top dog walking area. He just lay down initially so I sat with him until he settled a bit. Then we did some gentle "ready steady" and I brought out a new Kong squeaky ball on rope so he was engaged. Then he decided to try and scratch his various wounds on the ground so we did some heelwork. Right at the very end woman and 4 kids came past. Girl of about 8 or 9 ran "barking" at us while her mum kept ineffectually telling her not to. Kilo did one bark which was OK but I was bloody fuming.
> 
> Roo's was good. I was going to do some impulse control stuff but he kept on nudging my hands and stopping to lean as hard as he could on my legs for fusses. Yawning a lot too so not quite as carefree as I had hoped. Didn't want to send him off after a toy if that makes sense? Not sure if that's the right thing?
> 
> Not yet done second walks; going to try much later than usual. I got a HUGE headache walking this morning which was tension I guess as I very, very rarely get them and it disappeared after a few hours. So, working on getting a grip of myself too .


Good boys Kilo and Rudi, sorry about the kid honestly who on earth lets a child do that? I had some kids about 6 do that the other day not barking but running to him and then past him quick whilst screaming "DOGGGIEEEEEE" this made a very excitied Bailey who tried to nip the kids running past. These kids were on their own though. I bet if Kilo bit the kid (not saying he would) then that mother would be telling you that you have a dangerous dog  Mind you my brother is eight and I know he would never do that so the kid should of known better too.


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Good boys Kilo and Rudi, sorry about the kid honestly who on earth lets a child do that? I had some kids about 6 do that the other day not barking but running to him and then past him quick whilst screaming "DOGGGIEEEEEE" this made a very excitied Bailey who tried to nip the kids running past. These kids were on their own though. I bet if Kilo bit the kid (not saying he would) then that mother would be telling you that you have a dangerous dog  Mind you my brother is eight and I know he would never do that so the kid should of known better too.


It's common enough unfortunately. I am extremely careful around here, I cannot afford not to be.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> I need his wounds to heal a little first before I want him tearing about in the woods, plus he's pretty sore. Treats are best for him in this kind of situation. I know unfortunately.


Been busy at work lately so not been on here much. Till 5AM yesterday... but did manage to get down the beach with Dief for a break. And need to get stuff done before holiday tomorrow off at 8AM to the land of garlic and onions. Want you to know I'm thinking of the lad. I think we have WiFi where I'm going so may be able to post some pics. I hope you will all be able to understand my French posts.


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## Dogless

OK walks this morning.

Took Rudi to the dog walking fields and he just stuck close to me still - not willing to go far. He did manage to get a good roll in fox poo in :incazzato: though. Then met a lady smitten with him on the way back and had to stop her from stroking him due to his covering . Had a nice chat and she said it was a long time since she'd seen such a well bred weimaraner :eek6: .

Took Kilo to the very top of the estate where there is a long road with cul-de-sacs and little alleyways etc coming off it so offers good visibility and escape options! Saw the lady who lives on our road with her huskies right at the end of the road (150m away?) and they did their usual fixate and dragging her to greet even at that distance. Kilo froze and crouched lip licking and ears back. We did a swift u turn but I had to pull Kilo a bit to get him moving which I don't like doing. 

Then a GSD barked from behind it's gate and Kilo froze again, crouched so I had to pull him again a tiny bit to get him moving then I did lots of throwing food in the direction I wanted to move.

After that went to the sports pitches (good visibility!) and let him off on his longline to see if he wanted a run or sniff about but he just stuck close to me like Rudi did.


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## GingerRogers

Liked dogless because YOU are doing so well trying to carry on as normal, they will get their, we all have every faith in you :thumbsup:

We had an interesting walk this morning I wont bore again with it as I added to my encouragement thread 

http://www.petforums.co.uk/1063078002-post31.html

I have been slack in keeping up here. So will just start again.

Enjoy the smelly holiday Dief :laugh:

K9 that is a funny pic, and he thinks so too, he is a lovely little chap. He must be similar size to ninja 

Hope Rusty comes good soon Nikki


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## moonviolet

oh Dogless it's early days but it does sound like you are make progress all be it slower than you would like. I have an idea how it feels and the emotional battle you are having as well but for each of it's different. Hang in there you will get through this together.

Well done Ginge  sounds like a successful walk.

CK9 Bailey gets cuter by the day

Dief have a great hols lots of pics please

Nicki glad there's been good news hope Rusty is sound soon. Sae sounds like she is doing well.

We have been taking it easy this week mini training sessions and easy walks as we have another display tomorrow weather permitting.


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## Dogless

That's great mv; I love the idea of getting the message out there that training your dog can be fun and that "difficult" breeds like Beagles can be trained to a high standard. When I move back to the mainland I would love to get involved in some of the activities that you do; I am always so jealous!!!


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## Dogless

Went to chat to the vet this afternoon. We decided on Diazepam to help Kilo a little. He has left it up to me as to the dose so I have started on 5mg BD and see how we go. Vet said try 10mg if no effect once or twice per day. The medical literature the vet showed me said from 0.5mg - 2mg / kg so 24mg BD as a low dose :yikes:. I am not going beyond 10mg BD.

He also said that, having anaesthetised Kilo twice recently, he remembers that it didn't take very much at all to "take him off his legs". Seems my boy's a lightweight .


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## Dimwit

Dogless - hope the diazepam does the job. Kilo is very lucky to have you as an owner!

MV - have fun at the display, looked like you had a lot if fun at the last one.

Dimwit seems to be on the mend, he's been on anti inflammatories for a couple of days and isn't limping as much (the vet gave me a weeks worth without seeing him on the proviso that I bring him in if he gets worse, or is no better by next week).
Hopefully he will be ok to strut his stuff at a fun dog show on Sunday, it will only be small so if he's not right we will just sit quietly an use it as a dog and people watching training session.

We've also been doing a bit of work on his stays this week. He tends to worry when I leave him, so I am building distance up very slowly. It's a bit tricky as I can't use throwing a ball as his reward but he is doing pretty well


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## MollySmith

MV - have a great time tomorrow, I hope the weather holds up, it looks grim for the afternoon here.

Dogless - I hope the diazepam works with Kilo, I agree with Dimwit he's so lucky to have you and I have no doubt you'll get through this.

GR - It's nice to hear you had a good walk. I've got to catch up on your thread in a moment

Dief - did you escape work, I hope so, have a great time. 

Nicki - Paws crossed for Rusty! 

Dimwit - your FB pic of little one in the bath is way to cute, love him!

We're going to walk early tomorrow morning to avoid the hoards of kids. So pleased with Molly and I will use them as training bate. Did a little lead walk today and she was fine. I feel a bit more confident about the show. Hopefully we can bring good news on Sunday.


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## Dogless

MS - hope you enjoyed your early walk!

mv - hope the display goes well again; I'm sure Miss Tinks will be a little star as usual .

Pretty good morning at Concrete Central. Walked Kilo up to the top fields - he walked from the house :thumbsup:. He was very tense walking with his head down sory of "snaking" and skulking along as close to any fences as possible. We saw and heard a dog in the distance barking for something his owner was holding up and Kilo had a little panic but I managed to get him moving and did a little heelwork and he took food which was great. 

Then we did lots of "Ready Steady" which he loved and ran like a loon for the toy. We have never seen a dog up there apart from Diz and he has never had a negative experience up there so he can relax a little. After that we walked home. Got chased by a lab that came charging out of a garage barking  . The man shouted he didn't bite and would stop at the lamppost and Kilo just about had a total meltdown . Then we carried on home with no more incidents. Heard "the lab" coming just as we reached the front door so ran in quick :yikes:. I am wondering whether to increase his diazepam dose just a tiny, tiny bit.

Today was the day that I decided I'd get Roo used to the bike. I have bought a Walky Dog. Started off walking Roo alongside the bike with him attached and me in between him and the bike; he wasn't sure for a minute - not scared but getting used to the idea he was attached and couldn't go far. Then he decided it was fine . We walked to the top field and saw the dog that had attacked Kilo on the way; the dog barked at Rudi and Rudi just went into total panic - head and tail down and desperately trying to get out of his harness and away .

When we got to the field I let Rudi off and then rode the bike around for a minute or two so he could get used to the idea of me on there. Then I reattached him and we cycled for a minute - he was fine. Had a play and did some impulse control training then cycled home slowly with Rudi attached and looking perfectly happy :thumbsup:. We passed a flock of birds that flew away at our approach which had him bouncing around a bit but the spring in the attachment meant the bike didn't wibble much, passed other bikes going the opposite way, a cat and some policemen who said he was lovely and he was fine, just carried on with me .


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## Nicki85

I am working on mostly sleeping today...

Late night last night seeing Derren Brown up in London- amazing... he is a genius! And I had Shae speyed yesterday as well. So, took over care duties from my mum when I got home.... she's fine, sleeping now (Shae, not my mum!). Quite whingy as to be expected but already trying to play with Rusty. She was pretty awful last night though- needed alot of comforting so had her in my room.

In an ideal world i'd have waited till after her first season but as Rusty is entire and not the most confident of dogs (so therefore not an ideal candidate for neutering!) I wasn't sure I could cope with them both when she came into season. 

Rust is good... we have a trick training workshop later... i'm hoping he can do most of the work and I can snooze!! I have an airbed to do some balance work with him and hope to swim him later. He was full of it this morning and nearly had me over little b*gger.


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## MollySmith

Early was a killer - I am suffering today with a wee hangover from celebrations so I had to drag OH with me as I won't drive the morning after.

Oh brave Kilo, what a boy  I am cursing the labrador owner with you, people just do not think beyond the end of their nose. I am so interested in the bike attachment, I have seen a few people with similar things on the tow path. Our problem is the ASBO swans and it's great that Rudi caught on so quickly.


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## Labrador Laura

Right I need to stick with this thread daily, I always forget about it. 
I can't read through 1660 page but i'll keep up to date from now.. hopefully. 

As of now I need to start focusing more on Mylo, Yesterday we had an incident which was sort of my fault as I wasn't looking. We was heading back home after walking through farmers fields behind the house, I've never met another dog until yesterday.I was giving the dogs a drink and out a nowhere a woman turned up and shouted 'hello'. And before I could grab Mylo he ran up to this dog and didn't listen to me at all  but straight away Mylo goes over to this male dog all puffed up, hackles up and put his head straight on this dogs shoulders pushing into him which then turned into handbags between both dogs. The woman apologised but I told her it was my fault.

Why does he need to do this ! It really frustrates me, I wish they understood English. He would have a happier life if he wasn't so rude ! 

I just don't know what to do with Mylo next, I've tried everything and he still acts this way when meeting other dogs. He totally blocks me out when a dog is in view whether he's off or on. If he's offlead and he see's a dog I have to really shout at him, I sound so evil but using a soft tone with Mylo is pointless he's more or less telling you to f* off if I speak to him softly.
When he's onlead he just nags and has to make eye contact with what ever dog is passing. 

If someone else is handling him he's even worse ! But he's not aggressive and never goes it to attack a dog. If you leave him long enough with whatever dog he's then start play bowing and wants to play?! 
And I also don't want Zab to pick up on this behaviour.

But Zab is doing well, i just need to get more enthusiasm out of him when training he soon gets bored of it and a blade of grass is more entertaining 

We start new training clases mid august with a new trainer so i'll have to see what they say about him.

And yes he's intact and no i can't get him down OH wont allow it sadly, I've tried many times.


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## JenKyzer

Labrador Laura said:


> Right I need to stick with this thread daily, I always forget about it.
> I can't read through 1660 page but i'll keep up to date from now.. hopefully.


Snap!

I find this thread so interesting and will probably pick up useful hints and tips along the way.

Plus it might help with posting about Willows walks and her run in's with other dogs.. progress has been made but i don't want it to stop  plus it saves starting a new thread everytime we have a good/bad walk 

Nicki85 - we saw Derren in march, the 'Infamous' ? If so, amazing :thumbsup:

Dogless - Glad Kilo got out and about then had a bit of fun.. Sorry to hear about the lab :thumbdown: soo not the point that he 'doesnt bite' ! Clearly doesn't matter that your dog is scared....  Poor guy 
Rudi and the bike sounds great! Well done to him 

LabradorLaura - no advice from me for Mylo.. but i look forward seeing how you get on as i have a similar problem with Willow and her greeting  But the shouting bit sounds like me :laugh: that's the only way my voice sounds stern! With recall.. OH, no problem.. listens to him straight away!.. Me.. oh mums just playing! .. err no mum isn't playing now come back!! .. so we don't do offlead with just me () if i know we're in a doggy area (even if its 6am and i know we rarely see dogs at that time.. i still can't do it, just incase *worrier*).. but i'd like to one day  work in progress!

Sorry if this is too long for my first post in this thread


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## Dogless

LL - perhaps you could keep Mylo on a longline if he goes up to other dogs rudely? Not sure if you've tried that?

JenSteWillow - welcome to WAYWO!


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## Labrador Laura

JenSteWillow said:


> LabradorLaura - no advice from me for Mylo.. but i look forward seeing how you get on as i have a similar problem with Willow and her greeting  But the shouting bit sounds like me :laugh: that's the only way my voice sounds stern! With recall.. OH, no problem.. listens to him straight away!.. Me.. oh mums just playing! .. err no mum isn't playing now come back!! .. so we don't do offlead with just me () if i know we're in a doggy area (even if its 6am and i know we rarely see dogs at that time.. i still can't do it, just incase *worrier*).. but i'd like to one day  work in progress!


I hate shouting at him in a stern voice as i'm a quiet person anyway but I have to with him. Zab the Boxer you have to use a soft tone and be sweet and gentle with him as he's very sensitive. So I go from sweet to evil om our walks, OH always laughs at me for doing it and says i'm horrible to Mylo which makes me feel like cr*p 



Dogless said:


> LL - perhaps you could keep Mylo on a longline if he goes up to other dogs rudely? Not sure if you've tried that?


I've tried the longline and its resulted in him being attacked, as I've pulled him away it's triggered the other dog to attack him. Or if I pull him back before reaching the other dog he gets all tense and blocks me out even more. Plus the longline isn't very supporting when you have a strong dog at the end of it.

I have better control over Mylo when he's not on his lead. He's got a lovely offlead heal but as soon as I reach another dogs he just breaks it and off he goes.


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## Dogless

Labrador Laura said:


> I've tried the longline and its resulted in him being attacked, as I've pulled him away it's triggered the other dog to attack him. Or if I pull him back before reaching the other dog he gets all tense and blocks me out even more. Plus the longline isn't very supporting when you have a strong dog at the end of it.
> 
> I have better control over Mylo when he's not on his lead. He's got a lovely offlead heal but as soon as I reach another dogs he just breaks it and off he goes.


How about training with the longline so he has a solid "wait" that stops him before he meets another dog - can be done using a longline and toy to chase to train it. And train so that he learns a little pressure on the line stops him or brings him back to you? I find a longline good with Kilo I must admit and he's pretty powerful. It doesn't seem fair on the other dog and their owner that the bullying is allowed to happen. But if leads and longlines aren't an option I'm not sure what to do.


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## Sarah1983

Labrador Laura said:


> I have better control over Mylo when he's not on his lead. He's got a lovely offlead heal but as soon as I reach another dogs he just breaks it and off he goes.


I'm sorry but that makes zero sense. He can't just go off if he's on leash like he does when off leash so you'd have MORE control on leash. If you can't stop him approaching other dogs and using bully boy tactics then he needs to be on a leash or long line. And yes, long lines are perfectly suitable for larger dogs.

Instead of pulling him away from the other dog have you tried pushing him away? That seems to work far better in diffusing a situation without triggering one or both dogs to escalate. Basically body blocking really.

Been far too hot for me and Spendog to really work on much. We've been walking around 9pm at night and just having a bit of a potter through the woods. Last night we went out front with Jessie the Munsterlander puppy and the two of them had a good old game of chase. He doesn't have quite the "oh my god puppies are icky!" attitude with her now he's found out she'll play his favourite game of chase lol.

We have done some work on impulse control but only easy stuff as it's too hot to do anything involving much movement lol. He copes with it better than me but won't stop unless forced to so I have to be careful of him overheating.


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## Labrador Laura

Dogless said:


> How about training with the longline so he has a solid "wait" that stops him before he meets another dog - can be done using a longline and toy to chase to train it. And train so that he learns a little pressure on the line stops him or brings him back to you? I find a longline good with Kilo I must admit and he's pretty powerful. It doesn't seem fair on the other dog and their owner that the bullying is allowed to happen. But if leads and longlines aren't an option I'm not sure what to do.


I can try this out in the garden tonight and see what he's like and continue with that before testing it around other dogs.
It's very unfair on other dogs and owners as they always feel it's their dog but I have to explain it's Mylo who triggers it.
99.9% Mylo is onlead then passing other dogs but like yesterday this woman turned up from a private field and as soon as she spoke Mylo was gone. 
When turning corners that I can't see around I call him over and get him to heal close until I know it's clear and he's fansatic with his recall and heal work then but it's after.

I guess I'm scared to try out somethings as I don't want to risk letting Mylo meet dogs but at the same time I'm sick of him playing up. It's a real shame as theres no aggression in him and once he's over that meeting he just wants to play and it's very rare these days I allow that freedom.


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## JenKyzer

Labrador Laura said:


> I hate shouting at him in a stern voice as i'm a quiet person anyway but I have to with him. Zab the Boxer you have to use a soft tone and be sweet and gentle with him as he's very sensitive. So I go from sweet to evil om our walks, OH always laughs at me for doing it and says i'm horrible to Mylo which makes me feel like cr*p


Lol well your not on your own with looking like a split personality  .. i am not a loud person at all.. maybe thats why she listens more when i do shout  i also try to copy OH's voice (seems as she listens to him!) :laugh: he finds it hilarious... I can only do this when no ones around though which defeats the point.. think i'd get laughed at if i burst out with a manly deep voice infront of other dog walkers


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## Dogless

Labrador Laura said:


> *I can try this out in the garden tonight and see what he's like and continue with that before testing it around other dogs.*
> It's very unfair on other dogs and owners as they always feel it's their dog but I have to explain it's Mylo who triggers it.
> 99.9% Mylo is onlead then passing other dogs but like yesterday this woman turned up from a private field and as soon as she spoke Mylo was gone.
> When turning corners that I can't see around I call him over and get him to heal close until I know it's clear and he's fansatic with his recall and heal work then but it's after.
> 
> I guess I'm scared to try out somethings as I don't want to risk letting Mylo meet dogs but at the same time I'm sick of him playing up. It's a real shame as theres no aggression in him and once he's over that meeting he just wants to play and it's very rare these days I allow that freedom.


It takes some doing getting a stop as they are chasing to get a toy flat out, but I have managed it with the BW so if I can do something I suspect everyone else will be more than capable .

The danger of course is that the behaviour gets Mylo in trouble. If he did that with Rudi he'd be really unamused, even at 10 months old. Kilo would just crumble and panic at the moment.


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## GingerRogers

Welcome back LL I really think a long line would be appropriate until you have him under better control, you cant let him keep practicing the behaviour its not fair on other dogs, especially if his hearing gets selective , if not then you will just have to be more alert and leash him up even if he is a pain on lead its better than scraps, handbags or otherwise or scaring other dogs and owners. One offs are one thing but if you know he is liable to do it then you have to take responsibility really sorry if thats not what you want to hear. 

ETA sorry I took a month to type this up and in the meantime the convo moved on. Ninja needs a stern voice to really stop her, she always responds better to a deep tone as well, previous owner was a bloke so....but I stand by the doing things you might not like, I dont like muzzling ninja, I only really do it it for fear of dogs rushing up like Mylo TBH, I know I can keep her and other dogs safe IF I can keep her away from them but when things like that happens I still feel I am in the wrong, I dont know, smug me!!!

Welcome JSW as I believe you will be now known as  this is a wonderful supportive thread and has meant the world to me and the ninja 

Nikki hope the trick training goes well and you manage to stay awake lol.

MV looking forward to hearing how YOUR trick training is paid off we want more outtakes though!

Well done Dogless, the bike sounds great fun I am sure you and Rudestar will enjoy it  Kilo will get there, I know 

Well surprisingly we still have a good dog here, a few brief 'missing moments'  this morning but the place we were at I dont worry, theres a big swathe of really long grass and its surrounded by reeds and crop fields, the deer like to nestle in the grass (only in the sun of which we had none today dont worry) and there's tons of rabbits and hares and game birds so lots of tempting smells. But once she had that out her system and heard the serious 'get here now' voice she was a super star but I lost squeaky ball , I have been using that as a call, not exactly recall but just so she can hear where I am without hearing the ever present panic (or anger and frustration ). 

I had to keep her muzzled all the time as although normally you can see for miles, the sea mist (which is now burning off) kept visibility restricted to slightly dodgy limits. Sound traveled a bit too well for my inner fishwife 

She is definitely getting used to it :thumbsup:


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## Dogless

GR - well done, I was thinking reading that about how far the Ninja has come. Brilliant to read .


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## Labrador Laura

Sarah1983 said:


> I'm sorry but that makes zero sense. He can't just go off if he's on leash like he does when off leash so you'd have MORE control on leash.


Sorry I should of explained that part more, hard to fit everything in on one post.
What I meant was in general I have better control over Mylo when he's offlead but that's without another dog being around, If I had him in a offlead heal with a dog approaching he would forget about me and go off.

I was just trying to say I do have control over him but it when a dog enters the picture he acts up. I never have him offlead around another until he's met them under my control and both him and the other dog accept each other which 90% of the time it does. But like you says he's a bully, which he is i'll put my hands up and say that because it's true but i never do the Labrador owner thing i let him go up to every dog. Unless I've been caught unaware like yesterday he's always under control at my side but then he acts up.

His dogmatic helps me out alot but he acts up as soon as i put that on as he knows it goes on when passing a dog. 
Harness is no good.
Longline i'll try again.
Treats and toys he doesn't want to know about on his walks.
Sit/Lie down at the side again I've tried but he gets up every time and doesn't listen and he makes eye contact with the dog which isn't good.


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## GingerRogers

Have you thought of any BAT type work, desensitization & impulse control stuff.

He sounds like he is over threshold for whatever reason when dogs appear, the not listening and refusing treats, toys etc you need to teach him that only calm behaviour means he gets to greet. 

That will mean leashing him up and repeating yourself a lot from what I have read


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## Dogless

Labrador Laura said:


> Sorry I should of explained that part more, hard to fit everything in on one post.
> What I meant was in general I have better control over Mylo when he's offlead but that's without another dog being around, If I had him in a offlead heal with a dog approaching he would forget about me and go off.
> 
> I was just trying to say I do have control over him but it when a dog enters the picture he acts up. I never have him offlead around another until he's met them under my control and both him and the other dog accept each other which 90% of the time it does. But like you says he's a bully, which he is i'll put my hands up and say that because it's true but i never do the Labrador owner thing i let him go up to every dog. Unless I've been caught unaware like yesterday he's always under control at my side but then he acts up.
> 
> His dogmatic helps me out alot but he acts up as soon as i put that on as he knows it goes on when passing a dog.
> Harness is no good.
> Longline i'll try again.
> Treats and toys he doesn't want to know about on his walks.
> Sit/Lie down at the side again I've tried but he gets up every time and doesn't listen and he makes eye contact with the dog which isn't good.


How about getting a special toy that is for Mylo only and only for walks and training? Get him so that the toy is the best thing on the planet, use it for all your impulse control training (needed to get the emergency stop) and always stop whilst he still wants the toy and before he gets bored.

Or using his daily food allowance out on walks for training so he only gets fed when he's paying attention to you? (If he's on kibble).

Teach a "Hide" where he steps in behind your legs?

Playing lots of find it type games when other dogs come into view with his food? Dropping it in between his front paws as he's lying down to let a dog pass?

Clicking and rewarding calming signals?


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## MollySmith

Labrador Laura said:


> Sorry I should of explained that part more, hard to fit everything in on one post.
> What I meant was in general *I have better control over Mylo when he's offlead but that's without another dog being around,* If I had him in a offlead heal with a dog approaching he would forget about me and go off.
> 
> I was just trying to say I do have control over him but it when a dog enters the picture he acts up. I never have him offlead around another until he's met them under my control and both him and the other dog accept each other which 90% of the time it does. But like you says he's a bully, which he is i'll put my hands up and say that because it's true but i never do the Labrador owner thing i let him go up to every dog. Unless I've been caught unaware like yesterday he's always under control at my side but then he acts up.
> 
> *His dogmatic helps me out alot but he acts up as soon as i put that on as he knows it goes on when passing a dog.*
> Harness is no good.
> Longline i'll try again.
> Treats and toys he doesn't want to know about on his walks.
> Sit/Lie down at the side again I've tried but he gets up every time and doesn't listen and he makes eye contact with the dog which isn't good.


I think most have better control until another distraction be it a dog, cat or in Molly's case a butterfly, around. Currently butterfly shadows are cooler than dogs 

I might have misunderstood but why does the dogmatic only go on when another dog appears? Can you use it or the longline and harness more often so it's an accepted and tolerated tool on your walks? If you just use it as soon as a dog appears I'd imagine it's part of a general build up to being overexcited.

If he makes eye contact with the dog and remains calm can you click and reward then? Something really tasty - like a warm piece of chicken that he'll love. Molly's recall toy is a space lobber, she doesn't get it anywhere else but walks and I've also starved her before doing her lead reactivity training so the treats have even more value.

BAT as Ginger Rogers says, saved us, we generally don't greet at all, I don't see a need for it because we're going from A to B but if we do then it's a sniff and as soon as Molly breaks from her greeting, I click, treat and say 'okay' in a cheery tone and we walk away at a gentle trot. I have always trained her with a gentle leader and have been phasing this out so it's now part of her lead walking.


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## Pet Potrait

I cant agree with this im all for constructive breeding and in all honesty their are way to many dogs in this world as it stands that get pts every day through no fault of there own. I think ur idea has heart but is not a sensible business idea


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## JenKyzer

GingerRogers said:


> Welcome JSW as I believe you will be now known as  this is a wonderful supportive thread and has meant the world to me and the ninja


Thanks! I'll have to remember that's actually me  Sounds great, i hope it has the same effect for me and Willow 
I'll have to try and catch up on your story of Ninja, Glad shes been a superstar for you though! 



Labrador Laura said:


> His dogmatic helps me out alot but he acts up as soon as i put that on as he knows it goes on when passing a dog.
> Harness is no good.
> Longline i'll try again.
> Treats and toys he doesn't want to know about on his walks.
> Sit/Lie down at the side again I've tried but he gets up every time and doesn't listen and he makes eye contact with the dog which isn't good.


I really feel for you.. this sounds soo familiar  
First muzzle went down like a led balloon (our fault cos she only associated this with 'other dogs' so we got swapped it for another and tried again) .. 2nd one is good cos we put it on indoors and she gets lots of treats and praise, then walked her with it on alot.. same with head collar.. she hated that at first.. now it means treatss!! so easily lead on :laugh: ..
& the toy thing.. exact same.. doesnt want to know.. even the squeaky ball she go bananas for indoors.. nope! .. Treats were also ignored.. untill the stinky fish ones .. the smellier the better and it worked for us to get her attention .. & the same with sit/lie..  buggers aren't they when they wanna be! But your not alone  I think long line may be our next step.. just not yet.. I'm sure we can battle this together :thumbsup:


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## Dogless

Nurse Roo has just done a fabulous job of debriding Kilo's neck wounds. Beautiful job:


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## moonviolet

Welcome JSW
Welcome back LL

DW and Nicki hope your boys are recovering


MollySmith said:


> *If he makes eye contact with the dog and remains calm *can you click and reward then? Something really tasty - like a warm piece of chicken that he'll love. Molly's recall toy is a space lobber, she doesn't get it anywhere else but walks and I've also starved her before doing her lead reactivity training so the treats have even more value.
> .


I'm sure this is a subtle wording error but it could cause a huge difference. In the other dogs reaction...

Click and treat for looking calmly at another dogs yes.....
Clicking and treat for eye contact with the other dog could encourage your dog to stare.... staring can be construed as threatening.

Our display today was a bit on the hot side, Tink went into slow motion but did everything she was asked an da a few little flourishes. She certainly built support in the audience and got some nice cheers when she accomplished things :v Total little diva :001_wub:


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## Dogless

mv - I am just saddened that we don't have any slow motion footage to smile about . Pleased you and the Diva enjoyed yourselves though .


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> I'm sure this is a subtle wording error but it could cause a huge difference. In the other dogs reaction...
> 
> Click and treat for looking calmly at another dogs yes.....
> Clicking and treat for eye contact with the other dog could encourage your dog to stare.... staring can be construed as threatening.


Exactly this ^^^^


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## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> Welcome JSW
> Welcome back LL
> 
> DW and Nicki hope your boys are recovering
> 
> I'm sure this is a subtle wording error but it could cause a huge difference. In the other dogs reaction...
> 
> Click and treat for looking calmly at another dogs yes.....
> Clicking and treat for eye contact with the other dog could encourage your dog to stare.... staring can be construed as threatening.
> 
> Our display today was a bit on the hot side, Tink went into slow motion but did everything she was asked an da a few little flourishes. She certainly built support in the audience and got some nice cheers when she accomplished things :v Total little diva :001_wub:


Yes it was. Looks at dog and remains calm.


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## JenKyzer

Thankyou Moonviolet  & Hello. 

Heres how our afternoon panned out..

We went up into the woods with the families across the rd and their kids.. we took willow so i had myself set for not a great walk as we knew there would be plenty of dogs.. but i thought it would be manageable to a certain degree.. and plus Willow would love a swim (OH friend took her by the lead and into the water.. he got wet but he seemed to enjoy as much as her ) We didn't have her offlead once as we knew we had to be careful.

I have never met so many ignorant dog walkers in the space of a few hours 

We had a guy let his dog stand and stare at Willow (the dog arrived before he did).. whilst i had her set to one side and i was sat next to her holding her harness for them to pass so she didn't lunge either, she barked at this one  First bark at a dog in a while.. but the staring must of got to her! I tried turning her round but she wasn't up for it as it had already begun, stupid me didn't think the guy wouldn't see me tryna hide my dog out of the way and would let his dog stare like that!..

Then a couple of ladies with their dogs.. i was in the same spot.. it was just after the lab.. her dog came up close.. willow barked again .. she didn't say anything.. the dog ran off but then the other charged up as if to say 'why are you barking at my mate!'.. all the other girl said was 'oh you'll get taught a lesson aswell..' no recall involved on their part.  Again they could clearly see i was keeping her out of the way.. but oh well.. :angry: 

We had a little dog following her at one point.. no owner in sight  willow pulling to get to it but we did a good carry on and on we went.

Narrow part of the path.. We stopped to let a guy lead up his dog.. we said Willow wasn't too friendly.. he laughed.. we put Willow on the far side of us to body block.. he kept his dog on the inside of him so as close as it could of been.. Lots of pulling from Willow but kept moving forward without a sound.

On the way out.. lady saw us.. let her dog offlead anyway.. it came running up and barking! .. good recall though and it returned to her.. what did she do.. kept it off the lead!! Willow didn't bark back as we body blocked and put her behind us.. She walked passed but the dog still stopped and stared to wind willow up that little bit more! and again, on the inside of the lady so as close as it could of got.. then she recalled to break the stare and off they went! Lots of pulling and trying to lunge involved from Willow.

They're the bad ones.. we had some good ones too though infact, more good than bad to be honest (a fair few leading up their dogs to help us, some just really ignored us, some looked but Willow was good) ! Sitting and treating to let them pass.. lots of stroking to distract her.. walking in opposite directions when she'd spotted them but then distracting her.. a lady with an 8month staff let them greet nice and slow, both of them had wagging tails  .. Some she just looked and ignored as we were being more interesting  

Mixed bag really. But i had to rant :laugh: overall i would describe it as 'ok' i knew it wasn't going to be great but didn't expect the ignorance of some people, the ones that i thought were 'bad' for us were the ones with ignorant owners.. i will think twice next time about a day time walk in the woods! Serves me right i guess as i should of known better..  *Rant over* Phew!


----------



## Dogless

All I'll say JSW is don't set Willow up to fail in these early stages - if you are worried that she may be put into a situation where she won't cope, don't take her. That's my view on it anyway . There are so many folk with "Friendly" dogs around that can set training back so far .


----------



## MollySmith

Yup agree, our behaviourist said 'set up for success' if you know the walk wasn't going to be good then best not to go.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> All I'll say JSW is don't set Willow up to fail in these early stages - if you are worried that she may be put into a situation where she won't cope, don't take her. That's my view on it anyway . There are so many folk with "Friendly" dogs around that can set training back so far .


So i learnt today  We haven't seen these kind of people in the woods until today.. the nice ones we meet early in the morning / later in evening are always ready to lead up their dogs / recall and Willow does great with them. Must be a daytime thing as its the first time we've been during the day too, normally its just a round the block to avoid contact during the day! Lesson well and truely learnt anyway!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> So i learnt today  We haven't seen these kind of people in the woods until today.. the nice ones we meet early in the morning / later in evening are always ready to lead up their dogs / recall and Willow does great with them. Must be a daytime thing as its the first time we've been during the day too, normally its just a round the block to avoid contact during the day! Lesson well and truely learnt anyway!


It's a sunny weather phenomenon - kids walking dogs that they can't hold, all the rude MDIFs out, folk grabbing at your dog.....etc etc :eek6:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> It's a sunny weather phenomenon - kids walking dogs that they can't hold, all the rude MDIFs out, folk grabbing at your dog.....etc etc :eek6:.


Another 'newbie owner' lesson for me then  .. Does it get better in Winter :laugh: ?


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Another 'newbie owner' lesson for me then  .. Does it get better in Winter :laugh: ?


Yup! Massively so. Wind and rain are your friends!!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Yup! Massively so. Wind and rain are your friends!!


Is it sad that i'm already excited for wellies and waterproofs ?? I see Gore-Tex being my best buddy aswel 

Although, one question.. when out in the rain etc.. how do you stop that wet dog smell when coming back into the house? This sounds silly.. but its been on my mind for a while ! I've seen the 'freshen up' spritz sprays in [email protected] up until now we've just towel dried her.. but in winter after days of non stop rain i can imagine this won't be enough? And obv bathing her all the time is not the answer! or am i just over thinking.. :laugh: proper newbie Question, Sorry!!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Is it sad that i'm already excited for wellies and waterproofs ?? I see Gore-Tex being my best buddy aswel
> 
> Although, one question.. when out in the rain etc.. how do you stop that wet dog smell when coming back into the house? This sounds silly.. but its been on my mind for a while ! I've seen the 'freshen up' spritz sprays in [email protected] up until now we've just towel dried her.. but in winter after days of non stop rain i can imagine this won't be enough? And obv bathing her all the time is not the answer! or am i just over thinking.. :laugh: proper newbie Question, Sorry!!


Mine don't really get too much of a wet dog smell TBH as they have such short coats. For when Rudi rolls and a hosepipe dowsing isn't needed I scrub the affected areas with a cloth and water and use http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dogs-Foaming-Shampoo-Alcohol-Eliminates/dp/B004HWANFO which smells nice and does seem to do the trick!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Mine don't really get too much of a wet dog smell TBH as they have such short coats. For when Rudi rolls and a hosepipe dowsing isn't needed I scrub the affected areas with a cloth and water and use Dogs & Co Foaming Mousse Dry Dog Shampoo. No Alcohol, No Salt. Eliminates Fox & Badger.: Amazon.co.uk: Pet Supplies which smells nice and does seem to do the trick!


Thanks  Sorry i took things slightly off topic from things we're working on!


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## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Thanks  Sorry i took things slightly off topic from things we're working on!


It's allowed, WAYWO meanders all over the place, meant to be a relaxed thread that we can all enjoy .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> It's allowed, WAYWO meanders all over the place, meant to be a relaxed thread that we can all enjoy .


Really nice to know! I always worry i'm going to post something and someone jump down my throat with a 'don't be so stupid' attitude :laugh: i love reading everyones stories and threads though.. its addictive, but i love learning new dog stuff.. i find it all so interesting.  from breed types, to behaviours, to tricks etc.. Everyone who i've spoken to/had help from has always been really nice though :thumbsup: I hope one day i can take my newbie hat off and be the one helping others  but untill then.. i'll keep reading and asking


----------



## Canine K9

First of all Bailey is doing fine. He`s going on holiday to his Nan and Grandads tomorrow :thumbsup: Recall is better around other dogs he recalled from one today and am working on getting him to keep up on walks.
He can hold his stay for one minute.
So now we are working on 99% reliable recall and to settle down when asked.

Oh and contacted my breeder of Manchester Terriers, going to book a date to visit them and their pack and talk about Manchesters and puppies next year 

Non dog related but just attached another run to Rogers hutch and other run. Its lovely to see him binkying and loving the space. After 2.5 years or so with little space he deserves it


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Really nice to know! I always worry i'm going to post something and someone jump down my throat with a 'don't be so stupid' attitude :laugh: i love reading everyones stories and threads though.. its addictive, but i love learning new dog stuff.. i find it all so interesting.  from breed types, to behaviours, to tricks etc.. Everyone who i've spoken to/had help from has always been really nice though :thumbsup: I hope one day i can take my newbie hat off and be the one helping others  but untill then.. i'll keep reading and asking


You are helping others already by posting about any dramas you're having and the methods that you are using to overcome them. There are some really knowledgeable people on this thread who have helped me no end. PF as a whole has really supported me in a lot of ways .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> You are helping others already by posting about any dramas you're having and the methods that you are using to overcome them. There are some really knowledgeable people on this thread who have helped me no end. PF as a whole has really supported me in a lot of ways .


I guess so.. LL seems to be getting some good advice too which i've found helpful even if its for the future when we're at a long line stage.

I've seen the BAT stuff early on (edited to say i'd forgot about it!). and we've done bits on the 'getting her to do stuff when her energy levels are high' which is fun! But her 'stay' is really good now.. or so i think  and her 'sit' which we did mid-run the other day happened immediately was good! Keeps her on her paws :laugh: .. toys don't work outside for us.. so we now have an 'outside only' toy.. plastic empty 2ltr milk bottle :laugh: works great as a frisbee and for tugging with the handle.. so she loves playing in the yard now and working on bits of stuff with me secretly training ! Even getting treats out of the bottle.. simple stuff, keeps her entertained! Until the cat next door comes on the wall to watch :yikes: then hell breaks loose! 
All ideas from PF though  don't know what id of done without it so far!

Although, one thing i see from this thread.. i need a clicker??!!  they sound like the holy grail !


----------



## Dimwit

JenSteWillow said:


> Although, one thing i see from this thread.. i need a clicker??!!  they sound like the holy grail !


Not quite, but they are pretty useful. Lots of people don't bother, or just use a marker word. I like the clicker because it is definite, and also emotion neutral.

We had a fairly "entertaining" walk tonight, all the idiots were out, and we had several offlead dogs charging up to us. Dimwit was pretty good, on the whole, though he did have a grumble at the cocker spaniel the THIRD time it came running over (complete with laughing owners telling me "oh, he always does that").


----------



## JenKyzer

Dimwit said:


> Not quite, but they are pretty useful. Lots of people don't bother, or just use a marker word. I like the clicker because it is definite, and also emotion neutral.
> 
> We had a fairly "entertaining" walk tonight, all the idiots were out, and we had several offlead dogs charging up to us. Dimwit was pretty good, on the whole, though he did have a grumble at the cocker spaniel the THIRD time it came running over (complete with laughing owners telling me "oh, he always does that").


I think i might invest.. need to read up on how to use properly first.

Your walk sounds.. er.. fun..  Glad Dimwit was good for you though


----------



## Sarah1983

JenSteWillow said:


> Although, one thing i see from this thread.. i need a clicker??!!  they sound like the holy grail !


I love clicker training, really, really cool way of training a dog imo. Finding a good clicker trainer to get you started is the best way but I learned online and from books coz nobody wanted to bother with my previous dog. Don't think it's updated any more but this was my go to site when I first started. 
ClickerSolutions Home
Loads of good videos on it on Youtube (Kikopup is one to look for but there are others) and Karen Pryors site has free vids and articles too. I find I get far better results with a clicker than a marker word because it ALWAYS means the same no matter how you feel and it's only ever used as a marker while your voice isn't.

Dimwit, sounds like he's doing well despite the loose dogs 

We're off to our husky meet tomorrow. They've changed the times due to the heat so will have to drag myself out of bed early to get there on time. Seem to have a lot of new people interested too, bet they don't keep coming when it's pouring with rain or there's snow on the ground and a wind chill of -15  During the winter there were 3 of us turning up regularly lol.

And just coz I can, another pic of the Spendog. (I have a new camera, I have to show it off right?)


----------



## Dogless

DW - Well done the little DW, sounds as if he coped admirably .

Sarah - hope it's not too painful getting up for the meet and I love the photo of Spendog :001_wub:. Hope you're taking your camera tomorrow!


----------



## JenKyzer

Sarah1983 said:


> I love clicker training, really, really cool way of training a dog imo. Finding a good clicker trainer to get you started is the best way but I learned online and from books coz nobody wanted to bother with my previous dog. Don't think it's updated any more but this was my go to site when I first started.
> ClickerSolutions Home
> Loads of good videos on it on Youtube (Kikopup is one to look for but there are others) and Karen Pryors site has free vids and articles too. I find I get far better results with a clicker than a marker word because it ALWAYS means the same no matter how you feel and it's only ever used as a marker while your voice isn't.
> 
> Dimwit, sounds like he's doing well despite the loose dogs
> 
> We're off to our husky meet tomorrow. They've changed the times due to the heat so will have to drag myself out of bed early to get there on time. Seem to have a lot of new people interested too, bet they don't keep coming when it's pouring with rain or there's snow on the ground and a wind chill of -15  During the winter there were 3 of us turning up regularly lol.
> 
> And just coz I can, another pic of the Spendog. (I have a new camera, I have to show it off right?)


Thanks! I'll be up all night now... 

I too hope for pics from tomorrows meet! As for Spendog - what a beaut!


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh the camera will definitely be coming tomorrow. My new 32gb memory card (well, 2 of them, was cheaper to buy two 32gb ones than one 64gb one  ) arrived this morning too so plenty of room for photos and video  My little 1gb one only held about 5 minutes of video.


----------



## Dogless

OK morning here at Concrete Central.

*Kilo:* Doubled his Diazepam dose this morning to try and knock his anxiety down to a more manageable level. Had a good walk in the main. We were out early so only one dog seen (more later!) and no people. He wouldn't walk past the spot that the lab chased him from yesterday, so we went a different way. He had a good run around on the top field and we played "Ready Steady". Then, coming home I went a convoluted way to avoid the spot the lab chased and the gate where the GSD barks. Almost home when I saw some very fresh dog poo on the pavement :incazzato: so I looked around for a dog and Kilo scanned nervously. I couldn't see one, so we carried on, then out from behind a bush stepped a mini schnauzer. The dogs had a proper pistols at dawn stare down, but I managed to get Kilo's attention and get him moving. We were followed at close quarters for a couple of streets. Kilo hates turning his back on something he's afraid of so he turned around now and again with a horrible growl but I was mostly able to keep his attention. He wasn't happy though, he was just on the edge of panic  and neither was I :mad2:. The dog had no collar, no tags and I usually go and get these dogs and find their owners. But today I just couldn't be arsed. I am just fed up to the back teeth of loose dogs. Selfish I know but I am almost past caring about them .

*Rudi:* We cycled up to the top fields (his normal pace that we walk at), had a lovely play and came back. On the way there we saw "the lab" side on who started his run up so I sped up a bit and we just dodged him in time. The man only got out the "My Dog's" part of "My Dog's Friendly" but did say something I didn't catch - didn't sound very nice, whatever it was!!!! On the way back we passed runners, kids on scooters, cats, a dog, little kids screaming and running past us.....and we went past everything fine. Good boy Roo!!!!

*A disclaimer for anyone lurking and reading:* Due to Rudi's age I do not do any more distance on the bike than I do walking Rudi and at no greater pace. I am simply riding gently to the fields rather than walking to get him used to the bike.


----------



## LittleSherlock

Poor Kilo  I really hope his confidence gets better soon. Poor thing.. Just want to give him a big cuddle.

I thought I might subscribe to this thread as I've upped Sherlock's training these past few weeks.

We started Agility on Thursday so most of our training will be on obedience that will benefit that, so we are going to be focusing on 'wait' and commands at a distance.

I also need to work on his name recognition so that when I say his name he looks at me straight away. I know he can hear me, but sometimes he has 'selective' hearing which is a breed trait unfortunately!!!!!


----------



## Dogless

LittleSherlock said:


> Poor Kilo  I really hope his confidence gets better soon. Poor thing.. Just want to give him a big cuddle.
> 
> I thought I might subscribe to this thread as I've upped Sherlock's training these past few weeks.
> 
> We started Agility on Thursday so most of our training will be on obedience that will benefit that, so we are going to be focusing on 'wait' and commands at a distance.
> 
> I also need to work on his name recognition so that when I say his name he looks at me straight away. I know he can hear me, but sometimes he has 'selective' hearing which is a breed trait unfortunately!!!!!


terencesmum's thread on her Control Unleashed workshop has some interesting stuff on name recognition.


----------



## Sarah1983

It's not selfish of you Dogless, it's selfish of the loose dogs owners not to give a sh*t about them. You need to worry about your boys, not about all the other dogs in that hell hole that people just let wander around annoying whoever they please.

We went to our sled dog meet. 2 and a half hours we were there  Spen was mostly good. Told off a husky who was rather in your face and rude and who at one point actually hurdled him but was very tolerant of a rather shy but very sweet puppy from Cyprus who only actually came out after everyone else had left. Was all a bit overwhelming for her with a load of big dogs running around and playing and loads of people, she mostly lay under a table and watched from where she felt safe. When she came out though she was typical bouncy puppy lol. I might have fallen in love with her   He was perfectly fine with the other two new dogs, a spaniel and a collie, who both had good manners. How quickly they forget their own youthful obnoxiousness and insist on good manners from others :nonod: Will make a photo thread when they've uploaded to Photobucket.


----------



## Labrador Laura

Small update - I took Mylo into the garden last night with the longline and worked with him. I took out his fav toy and played around for abit then started working on the ' wait & stay' command after sending him after it, he soon picked up on what I was asking and happily worked for me. 

Today we've been down to the canal, straight path where I can see ahead at all times Mylo was on his longline, which isn't the best idea with a Boxer pup  but Zab soon lost interest in chasing it. 
I started working on his recall with the whistle and didn't use my voice until he came back to me and I used a positive tone with alot of reward, then once I knew I had his full attention I used the send away command and told him to 'wait' and 'stay' and it's work so well. Thank you Dogless! 

Of course this was without dog being around but i'm going to continue this everyday on our walks and use the longline again. 

We did pass two GR and after telling Mylo to leave he took no notice of them, he did look back at them once we passed but I told him to leave again and he did. Very pleased with him ! But the GR's were calmly sat at the side watching theirs owners so I know it will be different with another dog.

I also got a comment of a couple saying how impressed they were when I called the dogs back on the whistle.


----------



## Dogless

Sounds like amazing progress LL. I have to admit to being really jealous that you have achieved an emergency stop when a dog is in full "drive" chasing a toy in one session. Took me ages  :yikes:. Glad you did though and it's worked for you so far .


----------



## Freddie and frank

I'm working on franks and bella's recall. 
Back to basics for us. 

I'm so bloody stupid, honestly.

I've been going to this place where they have all been off lead, frank spent ages on his long line before I felt confident in letting him off. For about two months now, they've been great. Totally focused on me and their ball. It's been heaven. 
Their recalls have been spot on, even bella away from bikes 
He goes on his longline anywhere else. 

Last night, I fancied taking them out in the rain for a little tootle. No one about and all that. They'd been very good, as usuall but on our way back to the car, franks ears pricked up and he just bolted, bella followed and they were out of site. I go to this place cause I can see if anyone else is around and it's like our own bit of Cannock chase. I can steer clear of deer too. 
I just had a horrible gut feeling, so I called my husband to come down. 
I just headed in the direction of where they went...towards a road. 

I park so so far away from the road and wouldn't let them off if I didn't feel confident. After five minutes, frank came back looking knackered and I could see a woman walking on the road. I shouted to her and she had bella. 
She had parked up eating chips and saw the two of them run across the road.:yikes: I was so thankful to the lady.
I put them on leads and made my way back to the car. Very shaken and feeling sick. 

I can't believe how stupid I was and what could have happened 

So back to square one with frank and me :mad


----------



## Dogless

Oh no F&F, I can't "like" that. You weren't stupid; Frank hadn't given you cause to think his recall was anything but reliable for months . Thank goodness they're both OK .


----------



## Labrador Laura

Dogless said:


> Sounds like amazing progress LL. I have to admit to being really jealous that you have achieved an emergency stop when a dog is in full "drive" chasing a toy in one session. Took me ages  :yikes:. Glad you did though and it's worked for you so far .


I wouldn't say he's very driven with a toy, it's more of a 'if I have to' so that's why it's easier to tell him to wait & stay. I think i'll get better and more realistic results with food as he's very food driven. If I put his dinner at the end of the garden it would be ALOT harder to stop him !


----------



## MollySmith

Dogless - I absolutely agree with Sarah, you can't be responsible for others dogs, it's not selfish in the least particularly with recent weeks.

LL - well done, it's so nice to get a compliment too.

F&F - oh goodness me, you must be so shaken but you are not stupid so no more of that! You have to try them out sometimes.

Sarah - I can't wait to see your photos and pleased you had a good meet.

MV - delighted that your show went well yesterday.

We're back from the fun dog show. Saw Dimwit who I am sure will be on later to update. He is a gorgeous boy and he was sooooooo good. He did a lovely sit and I treated him. I was very impressed 

Molly did okay for her first time in such a space. We didn't enter any classes as I felt the little area for showing with the fence was a bit too enclosed and not all the owners there were as considerate. Unfortunately a little dog (no idea what breed sorry!) came much too close not long after we arrived which caused a reaction, the owner was busy texting and not aware. I think we had a few glares from them until our trainer came over to say how well Molly was doing and she greeted two of her dogs perfectly on lead.

Luckily they brought the class I judged forward so we were able to go earlier as I felt that much longer and she would have been over threshold. Gawds that was hard, they were all lovely. 

So no rosettes but she's my A* for just being there. She is absolutely zonked out!


----------



## diefenbaker

Bonjour Madamoiselles de WAYWO. Je suis en Normandie avec le chien Diefy et le chien Pepper. Il pleut.


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## Dogless

Bonjour Monsieur Dief. Il est ensoleille´ ici :laugh:.


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Bonjour Monsieur Dief. Il est ensoleille´ ici :laugh:.


Merde. Envoyez-vous le soleil ici immediatement.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Merde. Envoyez-vous le soleil ici immediatement.


Il pleut maintenant :incazzato:


----------



## Dimwit

MollySmith said:


> We're back from the fun dog show. Saw Dimwit who I am sure will be on later to update. He is a gorgeous boy and he was sooooooo good. He did a lovely sit and I treated him. I was very impressed
> 
> Molly did okay for her first time in such a space. We didn't enter any classes as I felt the little area for showing with the fence was a bit too enclosed and not all the owners there were as considerate.


Molly was very good - given that she is not used to being in that kind of environment she did very well and is such a beautiful girl, I'm sure she will be in the rosettes next year!

Dimwit was a little star today, he was a bit unsure at first but by the end of the day he was much more settled, and he did so well.
He came 5th in best crossbreed, 4th in handsomest dog and waggiest tail (he was not particularly waggy as he was still a bit worried) and then 1st in most appealing eyes 

He could possibly have done better if I had been able to let the judges pet him, but they were all very good about giving him his space and I was so proud of him, considering that this time last year he would not even have coped with being looked at like that by strangers, plus lots of people told me that he was adorable :001_wub:

Here is the little boy with his rosettes


----------



## Dogless

Well done to gorgeous little DW; I can see why he won "most appealing eyes".


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> Well done to gorgeous little DW; I can see why he won "most appealing eyes".


If he hadn't I was ready to have a full-on tantrum  :lol:


----------



## MollySmith

Dimwit said:


> Molly was very good - given that she is not used to being in that kind of environment she did very well and is such a beautiful girl, I'm sure she will be in the rosettes next year!
> 
> Dimwit was a little star today, he was a bit unsure at first but by the end of the day he was much more settled, and he did so well.
> He came 5th in best crossbreed, 4th in handsomest dog and waggiest tail (he was not particularly waggy as he was still a bit worried) and then 1st in most appealing eyes
> 
> He could possibly have done better if I had been able to let the judges pet him, but they were all very good about giving him his space and I was so proud of him, considering that this time last year he would not even have coped with being looked at like that by strangers, plus lots of people told me that he was adorable :001_wub:
> 
> Here is the little boy with his rosettes


So so delighted for you, it's a massive achievement for you both and I was so pleased to here that Lizzie won reserve best in show so I think we all did well.

Thank you, she got lots of compliments. If climbing over my husband or chasing butterfly shadows were classes, she would've had a good chance of winning!


----------



## Canine K9

MS and Dimwit- Well done the pair of you 

Bailey is home now and is currently chewing his nylabone. He had a lovely long walk, playtime and cuddles today so is very happy.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well done MS and Dimwit :thumbsup:

Had visitors round tonight which is rare for us. Including two toddlers. We were having a bbq but the heavens decided to open an hour before and it's still raining now so we ended up just cooking burgers and sausages and stuff in the kitchen lol. Spen behaved really well. Crated him while we ate because while he's usually very good I think toddlers on the floor with food may well have been a bit too much. He showed off his tidying up skills when the girls knocked over my makeshift computer table (two cardboard boxes ) by picking up and bringing me everything that fell off lol.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Sounds like all are doing well 

Dogless, I hope kilo can start to relax again soon, poor fella. 

Ms and dw...well done, and what a cutie with all those rosettes.  

God knows what the French is, all I can manage is mange tout and horses doofers.....Hors d'oeuvres 

Well, I took frank back to the scene of last nights episode, on his harness and longline this time. We did some recall practise and he did very well. 
It'll be a long time again though before he's allowed to go off lead, but I'd rather have him safe. 

Hubby was looking after bella and she just loves the ball being kicked. She drops it just infront of you, then runs a few yards infront, crouches down and stalks it waiting for you to kick it. She did however manage to find a small leg bone and a larger leg bone complete with hoof  looked like a small deer bone.she wasn't amused when she was told to leave them.

Freddie was just being Freddie, bless him. Never any bother.  we did some recalls,some lie downs, waits, and a bit of fetching with him. 

Then they all had a play with a lovely crossbreed on the way back to the car. And frank didn't manage to get tangled up. 

I've just finished cutting a cows heart up into pieces for my dehydrator. YUK. And sometime tonight, I'm going to try and read through the report we had from the behaviourist that came to see bella.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless - Goshh your area sounds like fun with all these off lead-ers ! Poor kilo  I can see why now you've been saying its going to be a long haul with him.. no thanks to your concrete central residents  ! I too just feel like givin him a big cuddle like LittleSherlock said :sad: poor thing. And on another note.. big well dones to Rudi  Glad to hear he's liking the biking :thumbsup: 

LabradorLaura - Your little session with mylo sounds fab! From your previous pics in other threads your garden looks nice and big to be able to do stuff like that.. very jealous! Well done to him out on the walk too  

Feddie&Frank - I'm so sorry to hear what happened to your two  

MollySmith - Sounds like you had fun! I'd lovee to go to something like this! Even just to watch!

Dimwit - Also sounds like you had a fun day! That pic is gorgeous :001_wub: sounds like you've made lots of good progress since last year! 

Sarah - Spendogs tidying up skills sound a treat! Bless him! Looking forward to seeing your pics from today 

Sounds like everyones had a good day!

No proper update from us - (just thought i'd come and have a nosey to see what everyone else has been up to) - as the OH has had her all day whilst i've been working and sundays are his only proper day off  they've been out and about, no horror stories reported back though  so they must of had a nice walk but back to normal routine tomorrow.. Sunday is like Willows 'chill' day  currently led over my legs snoring away. I'm sure i'll soon be copying her too !


----------



## Dogless

Good walk this afternoon with Roo. He was a good boy, love him .

Just had two hours out with Diz; Diz's human couldn't believe how nervy Kilo looked . Then he relaxed when we got to the top field and they ran around as usual :thumbsup:. Then on the way home, crossing a main road a dog flew out from the road the staffie lives on and jumped all over us. I embarrassingly felt like I was going to have a heart attack and Kilo melted into a full blown panic attack, pretty much curling into a ball on the lead. Diz barked. Lab was retrieved and put on lead. The two women walking him gave us filthy looks and dark mutterings .

I am still shaking, pathetic I know. It just gave me a start.

Learnt that the staffie is still being walked around the streets offlead and unmuzzled. Came around a corner before it's owner yesterday and ran over to Diz for a sniff. Diz hates dogs around his back end so he was sat quickly and toy put in his mouth to hold to stop him reacting. What if he had told the dog off, would it have taken exception?

Agh, so much to think about.





K9 - pleased you had a good day!
F&F - pleased your day was good too and Frank behaved himself
Well done Spendog again!!


----------



## Beth17

MS and DW sounds a lovely day at the show, well done to you all!

Sarah Isn't Spen a star. Shame it started to rain.

F&F Don't blame yourself these things sometimes catch us out completely. I'm sure he'll get there.

Canine sounds as if Bailey has had a lovely day.

Jenstewillow it's nice to have a quiet relaxing day with no real drama.

Dogless what can I say but I wish all the idiots would leave you alone. I'm glad Rudi is enjoying the biking though.

Today we had a lovely walk working as always on Sam's recall. Both were absolute stars today and we had a paddle on the beach before running around like loons on the headland. Sam has finally started to twig that snatching at his toy isn't allowed and is actually sitting and waiting now, so pleased with him.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Oh dear god Dogless, I pray that things will get better soon for you and kilo.
Nice to hear that he had a good run around though.

Wished we could make it all better.

Beth, well done to Sam


----------



## MollySmith

Oh Dogless I am so sorry, like F&F says, I wish we could fix it for you and I don't know what to suggest. Just hugs to you and Kilo. It honestly isn't at all pathetic that you were shaking, not at all. I used to be physically sick taking Molly out at her most reactive so you have my every sympathy.


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Dogless - Goshh your area sounds like fun with all these off lead-ers ! Poor kilo  I can see why now you've been saying its going to be a long haul with him.. *no thanks to your concrete central residents * ! I too just feel like givin him a big cuddle like LittleSherlock said :sad: poor thing. And on another note.. big well dones to Rudi  Glad to hear he's liking the biking :thumbsup:


I'll forgive you as you aren't used to the way I seem to call everything something else :yikes:. Concrete Central is my house .

Sooo....

BW = Boy Wonder = Kilo
CHs = Concrete Heads = the boys. It is a FACT that RRs have concrete heads. Kilo ran into a lamppost chasing his toy tonight and didn't notice. Sounded awful!!
LCH = Little Concrete Head = Rudi
BCH = Big Concrete Head = Kilo
BBB = Billy Big Balls = Rudi when he is strutting about being cocky
Sir Kilo = Kilo

THINK that's it for now :eek6:. Clear as mud I bet .


----------



## moonviolet

MollySmith said:


> Oh Dogless I am so sorry, like F&F says, I wish we could fix it for you and I don't know what to suggest. Just hugs to you and Kilo. It honestly isn't at all pathetic that you were shaking, not at all. I used to be physically sick taking Molly out at her most reactive so you have my every sympathy.


With all due respect, watching your dog ripped to shreds in front of you is rather more traumatic. I hope you never experience to enable you to fully appreciate the difference.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, words can't express how happy I was to bloody leave that place. I really, really hope you get out of there soon for your sake and the boys  For anyone thinking it's not as bad as she makes out...well let's just say I didn't dare leave the house with Rupert during daylight hours. And then it was only if my hubby came with me to fend off any loose dogs whose owners had happened to brave the darkness.

JSW (sorry, nearly everyone gets abbreviated here lol), if my photos will ever upload to photobucket I will make the photo thread lol.

Beth, glad Sam is learning that he has to wait for his toy.

F&F, sorry Frank and Bella gave you such a scare. It's awful when they take off like that.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, words can't express how happy I was to bloody leave that place. I really, really hope you get out of there soon for your sake and the boys  For anyone thinking it's not as bad as she makes out...well let's just say I didn't dare leave the house with Rupert during daylight hours. And then it was only if my hubby came with me to fend off any loose dogs whose owners had happened to brave the darkness.
> 
> JSW (sorry, nearly everyone gets abbreviated here lol), if my photos will ever upload to photobucket I will make the photo thread lol.
> 
> Beth, glad Sam is learning that he has to wait for his toy.
> 
> F&F, sorry Frank and Bella gave you such a scare. It's awful when they take off like that.


I am pleased that you know that I am not exaggerating at all. You really couldn't make this place up could you? . I am sorry you had to experience it to know though .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> I'll forgive you as you aren't used to the way I seem to call everything something else :yikes:. Concrete Central is my house .
> 
> Sooo....
> 
> BW = Boy Wonder = Kilo
> CHs = Concrete Heads = the boys. It is a FACT that RRs have concrete heads. Kilo ran into a lamppost chasing his toy tonight and didn't notice. Sounded awful!!
> LCH = Little Concrete Head = Rudi
> BCH = Big Concrete Head = Kilo
> BBB = Billy Big Balls = Rudi when he is strutting about being cocky
> Sir Kilo = Kilo
> 
> THINK that's it for now :eek6:. Clear as mud I bet .


Haha.. oh dear  Apologies! I thought it meant your house was in concrete central.. as in, no vast grassy area very close by.. :laugh: .. just houses and more houses and even more walls! - like a city!

Fyi - this is me putting my foot in it.. i do this alot :rolleyes5:

I will use this post for future references :thumbsup:


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Haha.. oh dear  Apologies! I thought it meant your house was in concrete central.. as in, no vast grassy area very close by.. :laugh: .. just houses and more houses and even more walls! - like a city!
> 
> Fyi - this is me putting my foot in it.. i do this alot :rolleyes5:
> 
> I will use this post for future references :thumbsup:


Of course you haven't put your foot in it . How on earth were you to know the weird twistings and turnings of my brain? :laugh:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I am pleased that you know that I am not exaggerating at all. You really couldn't make this place up could you? . I am sorry you had to experience it to know though .


You really couldn't  It's a horrible, horrible place and not just when it comes to out of control dogs. I am never going back there. Ever.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Of course you haven't put your foot in it . How on earth were you to know the weird twistings and turnings of my brain? :laugh:.


:laugh: true.. although.. it is quite funny.. so i'll try and keep up with them  BBB made me chuckle


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> :laugh: true.. although.. it is quite funny.. so i'll try and keep up with them  BBB made me chuckle


He struts around like cock o' the walk when Roo is being BBB .


----------



## GingerRogers

F&F sorry the dogs played up. Sure you will get there . We all say they will behave well till a point when they think ah need to keep them humans on their toes.

Jsw or Jew if my phone has its way. Apologies now if you ever get called that. Hope you continue to join in a nice breathe of fresh air in waywo you are. Chatting even. 

Dogless what can i say. Nothing polite. I hate hate hate that you have to go through that. I cannot imagine how you feel. Having a reactive dog like ninja is bad enough to rip nerves to shreds but that is nothing to having a beaten badly scared and scarred terrified dog. I want to rampage for you. 

Today has been a good day at ninja nook (sorry dg) the little munchkin really seems to have turned a corner. Time and experience will tell.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> He struts around like cock o' the walk when Roo is being BBB .


So he should do.. he's bloody gorgeousss! 



GingerRogers said:


> Jsw or Jew if my phone has its way. Apologies now if you ever get called that. Hope you continue to join in a nice breathe of fresh air in waywo you are. Chatting even.


:laugh: thanks for the pre-warning.. it just means now i will also respond to Jew!  .. & Thanks  i enjoy reading it all .. it does take me a while to compose a reply with a few names in.. lots of tabs open and refering back to posts  but i'll try my best to keep up! Even if i don't post for a day or two.. i'll be back to read and catch up! 

Edited to say.. i hope you stay round that corner! Sounds great


----------



## Nicki85

Busy weekend here 

Shae has been very good, she's back to her bouncy self after her op and not bothering her wound (dissolvable stitches...) and I'm pleased with how it is looking. She has a buster collar on at night which funnily she isn't phased about... It's almost like an extra challenge to work out how to get the toy/ treat etc etc in her mouth! 

Rusty had a trick workshop yesterday. He was very good, he was next to the dog that had previously come over and attacked him (just bruises no blood or puncture wounds) Rust was onlead, other dog had come over. I had words with owners and they had gone to behaviourist... Anyhow, Rust has come into maturity now and before he'd hide/curl up but now he would retaliate if faced with the same situation. He was a good lad though and ignored the other dog apart from an initial grumble. He wouldn't let the trainer take him up to the other end of the hall without me though... and then kept poking me for reassurance once we'd gone up there together. We learnt to discriminate between different coloured post it notes, shaped them to sit in a hoop and did some tricks with paper  (amongst others) We also played a little tug and tickle toes... (don't ask) pleased as a year ago he wouldn't have played in a situation like that.

I've been running Rust cani-x style and swimming him for 15-20 mins as physio work... 

One negative is that Rust hates the buster collar and runs away from Shae....

MS and DW- welldone on your show visit- both sounds like you achieved a lot! 

DL- I feel so frustrated for you and angry!!!

GR- pleased things are going well 

Naughty labs chasing a deer!! Scary stuff  Hate hate it when Rust disappears although he is a different kettle of fish- not interested in deer, just birds in hedges which tend not to run so far....

I think I need to start teaching Shae an emergency down as I haven't done any wrk with that. She is sensitive though so will have to be careful not to put her off... Do any of you teach the emergency stop with the hand coming up as if you are going to throw something towards them?


----------



## MollySmith

moonviolet said:


> With all due respect, watching your dog ripped to shreds in front of you is rather more traumatic. I hope you never experience to enable you to fully appreciate the difference.


With all due respect I was expressing my empathy and sadness and wishing that there was something I could do to help. I have only witnessed a dog I grew up with being attacked once. It was enough.


----------



## moonviolet

MollySmith said:


> With all due respect I was expressing my empathy and sadness and wishing that there was something I could do to help. I have only witnessed a dog I grew up with being attacked once. It was enough.


comparing taking out your reactive dog was insensitive that is a situation that can be predicted and managed, If you did indeed witness your dog attacked you should understand how offensive your post was.


----------



## MollySmith

My sincere apologies if I offended you Dogless. It wasn't my intention at all.


----------



## moonviolet

As I said to Dogless when I thanked her for the rep, i'm sure you meant well.


----------



## Dogless

MollySmith said:


> My sincere apologies if I offended you Dogless. It wasn't my intention at all.


Thank you .


----------



## Nicki85

Today Rusty and I got chased by a pig... in the forest... a bloomin wild pig. 

I didn't see it but I could certainly hear it angrily squealing and making it's way through the undergrowth. It was very scary!!! But then again i'm a bit of a wus. 

You're not supposed to come across wild piggies in the forest round here!


----------



## moonviolet

Nicki85 said:


> Today Rusty and I got chased by a pig... in the forest... a bloomin wild pig.
> 
> I didn't see it but I could certainly hear it angrily squealing and making it's way through the undergrowth. It was very scary!!! But then again i'm a bit of a wus.
> 
> You're not supposed to come across wild piggies in the forest round here!


Oh no is rusty ok? hope hes' not too spooked is able to shake it off and it hasn't exacerbated his injury.


----------



## Nicki85

He looked puzzled and a bit excited... he was on lead so I just ran the other way (as fast as I could puff anyhow!) I thought he'd react a bit more but who knows maybe he's come across them over there on his offlead walks before. I found it more scary I think!


----------



## Freddie and frank

my god, a wild pig  too scary for me i'm afraid.  

sorry guys, it's a long rambly one. 

i've not long got back from bella's first gundog class. it was a one to one just so the instructor could asess us and see what bella can do. 

i was nervous but looking forward to it and i'm not sure what to think really.  i havent come back full of enthusiasm which is a bit disappointing really.

she asked me how bella was with certain things then watched me throw a ball for her to see if she bought it back, which she did a couple of times. she told me bella was in control of the game as she doesn't always bring it to me, which i kind of knew anyway.  so she told me what to do to control that.

we had a walk around the feild, off lead, and bella stayed with us and recalled fine, which i knew she would. she then threw a ball into the undergrowth for bella to find and bring it to me. she found it but didn't bring it, but she doesn't know that one so that's something we need to train her to do.

she told me i was a good handler as i praise her in all the right places and that bella will do well in time. bella barked at me for the ball, which i normally ignore, but she told me to tug at her lead and say 'no'. it's all praise reward training and a quick tug of the lead is as far as they go as regards to 'telling them off '...can't remember correct words??? i was slightly uncomfortable with this.

i enjoyed it but i'm not 100% with it. i know it's the first time and bella isn't going to know what to do straight away, neither am i. it's going to take a lot of training, i don't mind that, but it didn't get me as excited as much as i hoped it would.

now, the clicker training that we have been going to has finished for a while and the trainer there reccommended someone who does clicker gundog training. i can't get in for a while so this is why i found someone else. perhaps i should have waited?

i'm really confused as to what to do. i want to do gundog training with her but don't know if i've made the right descision of where. today was 1hour travelling, 45mins lesson, 1hour back. the other place is prob slightly closer.
i don't want to confuse bella either, as she took to the clicker training really well   

what would you guys do? i really don't mind putting in the hard work and effort cause i know we have to start from scratch really


----------



## Nicki85

I took Rust to a gundog lesson once and it wasn't for us. He has a lot of drive to search for things but isn't very steady (at all) around game. Anyhow, I also found it hard work getting him to quarter properly and TBH we were just both getting frustrated... so now we just do toy searches on our walks  We also do agility as well which suits us both a lot more.

I guess you have to ask yourself what you want to get out of gundog training. Do you want to go on shoots? Do the gun dog level certificate things?


----------



## GingerRogers

I think if it were me F&F I would wait for the clicker classes, Nikki has some valid points, what do you want to get out of it, if its just for fun it doesn't sound like you found this morning fun?? More worrying and a tad dull!


----------



## Freddie and frank

thanks nicki and gr.

i want to do it for fun, not bothered about going out on shoots so perhaps this one wasn't for us. 
i didn't find it fun today and i think that's why i came back a bit deflated.

i've emailed the lady who did the clicker training classes that me and bella used to go to for another opinion too.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - hope you have recovered from being chased by the pig .

F&F - your post sort of seems to answer your own question; if I were you I'd wait for the clicker training - as you said, Bella took to it and enjoyed it.

Good morning, bad morning here. I have done a few very proactive things; that's all I am saying but I have high hopes .

Separate lead walks for the boys; we were going to go to the forest later but hubby has looked at the detailed met and as it's on high ground miles from anywhere and there are big storms rolling in which will break over the high ground I am going to give it a miss .

Good walk with Roo - did some heelwork on and off but otherwise just walked together in peaceful companionship, he's a good boy.

Got just about round the block with Kilo, he kept freezing. Poor boy. He has been really anxious since we got back too - was too worried to eat his lunchtime snack initially with his tail tucked so far the tip was touching his belly. I suspect that the lab really shook him more than I realised last night as food is generally snapped up pronto in this house.

They both seem exhausted and are flat out so I'm just letting them get the rest they clearly need.


----------



## Freddie and frank

dogless, ooh high hopes eh. intriguing. 
good boy to rudi and hugs to kilo, poor boy. 

shame about the forest, we have storms brewing here too.

well, i flippin booked in for next week when i left the class this morning.  i'm such a coward, i'll have to email her.


----------



## Dogless

MS - not sure if you are reading this but I do read your blog and am sorry that you felt hounded from PF by a "collective" of "do-gooders" which I will assume relates to this thread amongst others and includes myself.

I was offended by your comment yesterday and did indeed talk to, and rep, moonviolet for hers. I have been talking to her daily this week as she has been offering me help and support with Kilo due to unfortunately having had to see Tink through similar. I have thanked you for your apology sincerely.

I wish you and Molly well for the future.


----------



## Dimwit

Dogless said:


> MS - not sure if you are reading this but I do read your blog and am sorry that you felt hounded from PF by a "collective" of "do-gooders" which I will assume relates to this thread amongst others and includes myself.
> 
> *I was offended by your comment yesterday* and did indeed talk to, and rep, moonviolet for hers. I have been talking to her daily this week as she has been offering me help and support with Kilo due to unfortunately having had to see Tink through similar. I have thanked you for your apology sincerely.
> 
> I wish you and Molly well for the future.


What a shame that you didn't bother to contact MS and explain how you felt, rather than bitching about her behind her back, and encouraging others to post offensive comments to her...


----------



## SLB

Sorry I haven't read everyones but well done on your successes guys, you'll get there with the difficult bits too. 

Dogless - I especially wish you all the luck I can muster for Kilo, the poor lad doesn't deserve whats happened to him, but he'll bounce back stronger than ever with you for his rock 

Right. 

I've been working with Pen tonight. 

First up we did dummy work. So holding the dummy and sitting at the same time. I've worked on this by teaching her to chin touch my hand first. Then added the dummy in and tried to match my click with touching her chin whilst she was still holding the dummy. But now we're at the point that she'll keep hold of the dummy until I touch her chin - regardless of how long I leave it. But if I asked her to sit with it, the dummy was dropped. So rather than verbalise it, I've been using our "sit/wait" command hand signal. So my hand up in the air. She picked this up rather quickly and now sits and waits until my hand touches her chin. 

Secondly we went out up the farm track and worked on several things. 

- focus work around smells. 

I think I've written about this somewhere before. Basically it is a technique I learned at a workshop. Take the dog out, let them do as they please within reason and click and treat any look/movement towards you. Pen does this well and once she knows the game has started then she is hard to get rid of. Today we went over some smelly ground and it had been made harder still because I scared a cat off where we were going. She did well, she didn't run off to follow any scents, simply stayed with me or wandered a little then looked at me, click and treat (C/T) and that continued until she decided she got more treats staying closer to me.

We also did another game. I dropped all my gear and grabbed a handful of treats and my clicker. I ran in all directions and clicked whenever she caught up with me, dropped a few treats on the floor where we were then ran again and repeated until I got stitch 5 minutes later and decided to have a rest. I set Pen off looking for some treats I had thrown. 

- Stops and Retrieves. 

Whilst walking over the exciting ground, I purposely let Pen stray a bit too far, blew the stop whistle, told her to wait (as she sometimes forgets) then went over and C/T. After a few goes of this, I let her do it again, blew the whistle, told her to wait, then threw the dummy over her head, then released her to get it and ran the other way when she had picked it up. When she got to me I stopped, knelt down and asked her to "wait" with the hand cue, she sat and held the dummy!!! 

We did this a few more times then we were disrupted by a man walking his Lurcher who decided that after I had whistled Pen in a sit, he (the man) would go over and fuss her. Now I know dogs are meant to sit and wait regardless but I dislike anyone messing with my dogs when they are training - be a distraction from afar but don't get into my dogs space and disrupt us! 

So we had a little break after that. 

Then we went back to retrieves. 

I threw the dummy into a load of long grass - her favourite for mucking about in. Well she did me proud and brought it back. 

Then we had another break so I let her go and explore the bushes. However I kept stop whistling her and recalling her - which she did well with, then her reward as well as a treat was to go back and hunt. 

Then one last game before we left. I put her out in front of me, threw a dummy behind me, recalled her and C/T when she got to me then sent her off to the dummy, then ran back to where she was originally sat. C/T again. 

So that was tonights training session.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dimwit said:


> What a shame that you didn't bother to contact MS and explain how you felt, rather than bitching about her behind her back, and encouraging others to post offensive comments to her...


Wow, talk about putting words into Doglesses mouth! So she repped Moonviolet for a post and has been talking to her after what happened to Kilo (which is hardly surprising since MV has been there herself) but nowhere did she say she encouraged ANYONE to make offensive comments. And from what I've seen of Dogless on here that simply is NOT her style. Perhaps it could be asked whether MS put you up to posting this since the two of you are clearly friendly. Or perhaps you just posted it off your own back, which is more than likely the case with anyone who has made offensive comments to MS.

Me and Spen have done some leave it/take it training tonight. He's doing fantastic with it even if he does drool heavily. He can leave treats tossed all over the place, perform behaviours I ask for and take treats directed to while leaving others. Not bad at all for a stomach on legs is it?


----------



## L/C

Dimwit said:


> What a shame that you didn't bother to contact MS and explain how you felt, rather than bitching about her behind her back, and encouraging others to post offensive comments to her...


That is out of order and really unfair to Dogless who is under going a very stressful time at the moment. I haven't been around as I'm very busy atm (starting back masters in clinical animal behaviour) but reading back no one has posted anything offensive. I think you owe Dogless an apology and MV as well. Asking someone to show some sensitivity about a traumatic event is not cause for a strop and a bitchy post on their blog.


----------



## Dimwit

Sarah1983 said:


> Wow, talk about putting words into Doglesses mouth! So she repped Moonviolet for a post and has been talking to her after what happened to Kilo (which is hardly surprising since MV has been there herself) but nowhere did she say she encouraged ANYONE to make offensive comments. And from what I've seen of Dogless on here that simply is NOT her style. Perhaps it could be asked whether MS put you up to posting this since the two of you are clearly friendly. Or perhaps you just posted it off your own back, which is more than likely the case with anyone who has made offensive comments to MS.


Nope, nobody put me up to it, I'm just not a fan of playground tactics. I am not saying that anyone put MV up to her post, but giving rep for it is definitely encouragement (positive reinforcement, and all that)...


----------



## Canine K9

Dimwit said:


> Nope, nobody put me up to it, I'm just not a fan of playground tactics. I am not saying that anyone put MV up to her post, but giving rep for it is definitely encouragement (positive reinforcement, and all that)...


But that is unfair to Dogless and MV. Dogless has been talking to MV because sadly of similar events that have occured, and Dogless did not encourage anyone to be offensive. From what I have gathered that just isn`t Dogless`s style. I highly doubt Dogless or MV are here to be bitchy.

For us we did some scent work and he has been offlead today. Very pleased. Scent work has been useful in getting his attention around other dogs.


----------



## moonviolet

Dimwit said:


> Nope, nobody put me up to it, I'm just not a fan of playground tactics. I am not saying that anyone put MV up to her post, but giving rep for it is definitely encouragement (positive reinforcement, and all that)...


I stand by my post I still think MS was ridiculously egocentric comparing taking her reactive dog out to the utter distress you face when both you and your dog have been through a traumatic attack. If she is offended i'm afraid that is her issue. If she feels any posts have been out of order she is free to contact the moderation team with the little report button in the top right.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dimwit said:


> Nope, nobody put me up to it, I'm just not a fan of playground tactics. I am not saying that anyone put MV up to her post, but giving rep for it is definitely encouragement (positive reinforcement, and all that)...


Playground tactics? MV pointed out that having a reactive dog and watching your dog seriously attacked, screaming in terror and pain are two very, very different things. I saw nothing bullying or offensive in that personally. I liked the post, it's a very valid point in my opinion.


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> What a shame that you didn't bother to contact MS and explain how you felt, rather than bitching about her behind her back, and encouraging others to post offensive comments to her...


*Wait a fecking second. *I haven't encouraged anybody to post offensive comments nor bitched behind MS' back. I have been talking to mv yes; said I was offended, yes. I did not know what mv was going to post as she has her own brain funnily enough although I did agree with it. As far as I was concerned MS' sincere apology and my acceptance was the end of it. I do look at her blog and was surprised and angered. If I am then not meant to read her blog WHY is it in her PF signature and WHY were we encouraged to follow? I also wished her well for the future, politely and sincerely.

Anyone would think you had been talking to MS and mentioning this thread which is pot and kettle. *What a shame you didn't bother to contact me and explain how you felt, rather than bitching about me behind my back. Oh, wait, that isn't "allowed" is it?.*


----------



## Dogless

Dimwit said:


> Nope, nobody put me up to it, I'm just not a fan of playground tactics. I am not saying that anyone put MV up to her post, but giving rep for it is definitely encouragement (positive reinforcement, and all that)...


Rep isn't playground tactics is it? Of course you can rep something you agree with as far as I am aware. I give a lot of rep to a lot of people. Giving rep isn't some battle cry.

Anyhow, what am I working on? Not blowing my top. I can speak for myself, MS can speak for herself as can you. I do NOT expect to come back from playing with my dogs to see a discussion about me with all sorts of incorrect presumptions on your part. Offended by MS? Not any more - an apology, an acceptance all done. Offended by you? Enormously.


----------



## Guest

Who the feck has been going round knotting up people's knickers hey? 

You don't like the opinions of people? Hey ho thats fine (Hah I get into online scraps all the time, because people are blinded from their head being so far up their butts sometimes :lol

Soo state your case and if you STILL don't like it, you can press that wee red X in the corner of your screen. Or go make a cup of tea and then huff and then MASH YOUR KEYBOARD LIKE SOME FEARSOME WARRIOR. Which is also fine too if it is not insulting or whatever...

but but but but but I do draw a line to slagging of this forum off on a public blog, seems a teeeennnnnnsssssssyyyy bit, well, brattish really.


----------



## Dogless

SLB said:


> Right.
> 
> I've been working with Pen tonight.
> 
> First up we did dummy work. So holding the dummy and sitting at the same time. I've worked on this by teaching her to chin touch my hand first. Then added the dummy in and tried to match my click with touching her chin whilst she was still holding the dummy. But now we're at the point that she'll keep hold of the dummy until I touch her chin - regardless of how long I leave it. But if I asked her to sit with it, the dummy was dropped. So rather than verbalise it, I've been using our "sit/wait" command hand signal. So my hand up in the air. She picked this up rather quickly and now sits and waits until my hand touches her chin.
> 
> Secondly we went out up the farm track and worked on several things.
> 
> - focus work around smells.
> 
> I think I've written about this somewhere before. Basically it is a technique I learned at a workshop. Take the dog out, let them do as they please within reason and click and treat any look/movement towards you. Pen does this well and once she knows the game has started then she is hard to get rid of. Today we went over some smelly ground and it had been made harder still because I scared a cat off where we were going. She did well, she didn't run off to follow any scents, simply stayed with me or wandered a little then looked at me, click and treat (C/T) and that continued until she decided she got more treats staying closer to me.
> 
> We also did another game. I dropped all my gear and grabbed a handful of treats and my clicker. I ran in all directions and clicked whenever she caught up with me, dropped a few treats on the floor where we were then ran again and repeated until I got stitch 5 minutes later and decided to have a rest. I set Pen off looking for some treats I had thrown.
> 
> - Stops and Retrieves.
> 
> Whilst walking over the exciting ground, I purposely let Pen stray a bit too far, blew the stop whistle, told her to wait (as she sometimes forgets) then went over and C/T. After a few goes of this, I let her do it again, blew the whistle, told her to wait, then threw the dummy over her head, then released her to get it and ran the other way when she had picked it up. When she got to me I stopped, knelt down and asked her to "wait" with the hand cue, she sat and held the dummy!!!
> 
> We did this a few more times then we were disrupted by a man walking his Lurcher who decided that after I had whistled Pen in a sit, he (the man) would go over and fuss her. Now I know dogs are meant to sit and wait regardless but I dislike anyone messing with my dogs when they are training - be a distraction from afar but don't get into my dogs space and disrupt us!
> 
> So we had a little break after that.
> 
> Then we went back to retrieves.
> 
> I threw the dummy into a load of long grass - her favourite for mucking about in. Well she did me proud and brought it back.
> 
> Then we had another break so I let her go and explore the bushes. However I kept stop whistling her and recalling her - which she did well with, then her reward as well as a treat was to go back and hunt.
> 
> Then one last game before we left. I put her out in front of me, threw a dummy behind me, recalled her and C/T when she got to me then sent her off to the dummy, then ran back to where she was originally sat. C/T again.
> 
> So that was tonights training session.


That all sounds really productive; I'm really interested in the focus work around smells. That would be useful for me too, something I should explore more I think .

Thanks for your kind words about Kilo too.



Sarah1983 said:


> Me and Spen have done some leave it/take it training tonight. He's doing fantastic with it even if he does drool heavily. He can leave treats tossed all over the place, perform behaviours I ask for and take treats directed to while leaving others. Not bad at all for a stomach on legs is it?


WELL DONE Spendog!!!!! .



Canine K9 said:


> For us we did some scent work and he has been offlead today. Very pleased. Scent work has been useful in getting his attention around other dogs.


K9 - sounds as if Bailey's really coming on now. Hope the nipping's improved more too .


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- It has thanks, I basically just tell him "No" and ignore him then redirect him to a toy


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Dogless- It has thanks, I basically just tell him "No" and ignore him then redirect him to a toy


Well done :thumbsup:.


----------



## SLB

Dogless said:


> That all sounds really productive; I'm really interested in the focus work around smells. That would be useful for me too, something I should explore more I think .
> 
> Thanks for your kind words about Kilo too.


Basically - it is as I have said, the dog chooses which is more rewarding the more you go along. What she had everyone do at the workshop (Ask Cleo38 - her notes are probably more extensive than mine) was have the dogs on long lines, let them snuffle about, then wait for them to look at you, C/T. Then move a littler and repeat. It's worked wonders with Pen, rather than racing up the track like she used to do she will stay close by me. And rather than running straight off to quarter the field, she'll snuffle about at my feet until I let her go.

There's more in her book, which I have yet to get but a lot of the workshop made sense to me.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clicker-Gundog-Level-Learning-about/dp/1890948306


----------



## Guest

DB UPDATE! 

He and the eldest cat have started to stay in the same room together with no annoying the living poop out of each other which is cool.
The kitten is now nine weeks and keeps trying to claw DB's nose.

He is still frightened of:

The awning of the butchers
Nailclippers
I dropped and smashed a plate today which send him scurrying. 

He also still gets very nervy in general, he spends about 70 percent of his time liplicking, ears back, tail tucked.

He seems no longer frightened of men, as I got dragged to a little old man cause he spoke to Zander, whoops, need to work on bracing myself :lol:


----------



## Dogless

SLB said:


> Basically - it is as I have said, the dog chooses which is more rewarding the more you go along. What she had everyone do at the workshop (Ask Cleo38 - her notes are probably more extensive than mine) was have the dogs on long lines, let them snuffle about, then wait for them to look at you, C/T. Then move a littler and repeat. It's worked wonders with Pen, rather than racing up the track like she used to do she will stay close by me. And rather than running straight off to quarter the field, she'll snuffle about at my feet until I let her go.
> 
> There's more in her book, which I have yet to get but a lot of the workshop made sense to me.
> 
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clicker-Gundog-Level-Learning-about/dp/1890948306


That is common sense, yet genius at the same time!


----------



## Sarah1983

SLB said:


> Basically - it is as I have said, the dog chooses which is more rewarding the more you go along. What she had everyone do at the workshop (Ask Cleo38 - her notes are probably more extensive than mine) was have the dogs on long lines, let them snuffle about, then wait for them to look at you, C/T. Then move a littler and repeat. It's worked wonders with Pen, rather than racing up the track like she used to do she will stay close by me. And rather than running straight off to quarter the field, she'll snuffle about at my feet until I let her go.
> 
> There's more in her book, which I have yet to get but a lot of the workshop made sense to me.
> 
> Clicker Gundog, Level 3 (Learning about Dogs): Amazon.co.uk: Helen Phillips: Books


This sounds very similar to what I did to teach Spen to check in regularly. I'd have him on a long line and every time he looked at me or came close to me I'd C/T. Only I tended to do it while walking rather than just standing still. Does it get more involved later on? Assuming this is the early stage.

I keep looking at that book but it's not available on Kindle and it can take bloody ages for anything to get to me here.


----------



## SLB

Dogless - often the best methods are the simplest but we make things complicated.



Sarah1983 said:


> This sounds very similar to what I did to teach Spen to check in regularly. I'd have him on a long line and every time he looked at me or came close to me I'd C/T. Only I tended to do it while walking rather than just standing still. Does it get more involved later on? Assuming this is the early stage.
> 
> I keep looking at that book but it's not available on Kindle and it can take bloody ages for anything to get to me here.


I'm not sure, I assume it does, but we had one weekend to cover a variety of things.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Well done to spen. :thumbup: that's pretty amazing. 

SLB, Sarah, I've been doing similar with frank tonight. I took him out on his long line just me and him and each time he looked at me, I clicked and treated. Did it randomly and it seemed to work. Each time I called his name, he looked and I did the same. 

Whilst out with frank, I met an old fella with a black lab identical to Dennis.younger but it was his double.  also met a young king Charles spaniel, I think. Frank was very good and just had fun with it. No bother at all. Thank goodness. 

Took Freddie along the canal, he rolled in poo  plopped in the canal for a rinse off, he doesn't chase ducks  but he did redeem himself by recalling away from a field full of cows, with a Freddie sized hole in the fence.  

Not taken bella out again, she's pooped, but she'll be first in the morning. 

Well I've spoken to my clicker trainer and she's like 'go with your gut feeling' amongst other suggestions so don't think I'll go back to the same place. I've got a couple of options, start clicker gundog classes in August every Saturday or go to a weekend workshop with a lady a few miles away from my sisters house up north in September. Going to have a couple of days to think about it.


----------



## Canine K9

Just then I have thought what the hell is the point of trying to teach this dog to come back? I let him off today and he ran away ignoring my shouts and I found him heading towards a main road. When I shout him he just ignores me
As for his attention around other dogs I am so sick of other people ruining it for us. 
My Mum said if he destroys one more thing in the house he won`t be allowed in the living room. He keeps lunging at and destroying items.
Today he bit me hard and caused me to bleed. AGAIN.
He has been amazing these past few weeks... where has my lovely well trained puppy gone?


----------



## Sarah1983

Canine K9 said:


> Just then I have thought what the hell is the point of trying to teach this dog to come back? I let him off today and he ran away ignoring my shouts and I found him heading towards a main road. When I shout him he just ignores me
> As for his attention around other dogs I am so sick of other people ruining it for us.
> My Mum said if he destroys one more thing in the house he won`t be allowed in the living room. He keeps lunging at and destroying items.
> Today he bit me hard and caused me to bleed. AGAIN.
> He has been amazing these past few weeks... where has my lovely well trained puppy gone?


Your lovely well trained puppy has become an adolescent. It's not a fun time. It's frustrating, annoying and often makes you want to cry. But, it's a phase. It passes. Just keep on with the training, go back to very basics on things like recall if necessary and you will get through it. I was up and down like a yo-yo when Spen went through it. One day he'd be brilliant, the next I could just picture him stomping around, arms swinging going "it's so unfair! I hate you!" :lol:

Does he have plenty of his own things he can chew on? If he likes shredding things give him empty boxes to shred, stuff toilet roll tubes with treats and fold the ends down. He's not chewing things to be awkward, they NEED to chew.

Not sure what to suggest about the biting, what sort of situations does he bite you in? Is it just normal mouthing or aggressive biting?

Attention around other dogs is something I'm still working on. We're getting there, slowly. I just give Spen his release cue when I see a dog charging towards us clearly intent on saying hello. That way I've released him to do so rather than him taking it upon himself to break his sit or whatever to do it. It's not ideal but it has worked to some extent for us. Maturity has helped a lot with it too.


----------



## Canine K9

Sarah1983 said:


> Your lovely well trained puppy has become an adolescent. It's not a fun time. It's frustrating, annoying and often makes you want to cry. But, it's a phase. It passes. Just keep on with the training, go back to very basics on things like recall if necessary and you will get through it. I was up and down like a yo-yo when Spen went through it. One day he'd be brilliant, the next I could just picture him stomping around, arms swinging going "it's so unfair! I hate you!" :lol:
> 
> Does he have plenty of his own things he can chew on? If he likes shredding things give him empty boxes to shred, stuff toilet roll tubes with treats and fold the ends down. He's not chewing things to be awkward, they NEED to chew.
> 
> Not sure what to suggest about the biting, what sort of situations does he bite you in? Is it just normal mouthing or aggressive biting?
> 
> Attention around other dogs is something I'm still working on. We're getting there, slowly. I just give Spen his release cue when I see a dog charging towards us clearly intent on saying hello. That way I've released him to do so rather than him taking it upon himself to break his sit or whatever to do it. It's not ideal but it has worked to some extent for us. Maturity has helped a lot with it too.


Well he bites if say he is tormenting the rabbit and I say "No" he`ll yap at me and then jump up and bite. Basically if I don`t let him do something he bites.


----------



## Sarah1983

Canine K9 said:


> Well he bites if say he is tormenting the rabbit and I say "No" he`ll yap at me and then jump up and bite. Basically if I don`t let him do something he bites.


What happens if you don't say no, just remove him and give him something appropriate to do? Perhaps have him trail a house line so you can do that more easily without him biting at you. Or get in there and distract him before he starts doing something he shouldn't be doing. Easier said than done sometimes but stopping the behaviour from even starting in the first place is often the best bet.


----------



## L/C

Canine K9 said:


> Well he bites if say he is tormenting the rabbit and I say "No" he`ll yap at me and then jump up and bite. Basically if I don`t let him do something he bites.


What do you mean by tormenting the rabbit? Is he running the cage? TBH it sounds like massive frustration on his part and prob not good for the bunny either - Bailey's a terrier x isn't he? That means his instinct is going to be to kill small furries. I think the best response to this would be to prevent him from getting to the rabbit in the first place.

Can you keep them seperate or is the house/garden not laid out for that


----------



## Canine K9

Sarah1983 said:


> What happens if you don't say no, just remove him and give him something appropriate to do? Perhaps have him trail a house line so you can do that more easily without him biting at you. Or get in there and distract him before he starts doing something he shouldn't be doing. Easier said than done sometimes but stopping the behaviour from even starting in the first place is often the best bet.


He will growl and bite then try to run off a house line seems a good bet I`m trying to get him ball motivated so I have something to distract him with in the fields.


----------



## Canine K9

L/C said:


> What do you mean by tormenting the rabbit? Is he running the cage? TBH it sounds like massive frustration on his part and prob not good for the bunny either - Bailey's a terrier x isn't he? That means his instinct is going to be to kill small furries. I think the best response to this would be to prevent him from getting to the rabbit in the first place.
> 
> Can you keep them seperate or is the house/garden not laid out for that


Roger has a hutch and run in the garden, he play bows and runs the rabbit run yes. Yes he is a terrier x and I try to supervise him outside 100%


----------



## Beth17

Canine they definitely have good days and bad as Sarah has said. The past few days Sam has been really good waiting for his toy, walking nicely on lead and being a pleasure to be around. Today however he was jumping up, grabbing and catching me with his teeth, picking on Oscar and being a general arse; all in front of other bemused owners 

He'll get there though and the good days are slowly outweighing the bad so keep going as frustrating as it is and Bailey will get there.


----------



## LittleSherlock

Beth17 said:


> Canine they definitely have good days and bad as Sarah has said. The past few days Sam has been really good waiting for his toy, walking nicely on lead and being a pleasure to be around. Today however he was jumping up, grabbing and catching me with his teeth, picking on Oscar and being a general arse; all in front of other bemused owners
> 
> He'll get there though and the good days are slowly outweighing the bad so keep going as frustrating as it is and Bailey will get there.


This is so true. For the past 4 months Sherlock has sat nicely for me when I put on his lead but for some unknown reason today he tried to nip my hand every time I bent down to clip the lead on. He used to do that when he was little but hasn't done it in months. I just tried not to get frustrated and every time he did it I walked away, put the lead away and sat down. After about 5 attempts he got the message and let me put the lead on as normal and then nicely sat by the door while I walked out until I released him to come outside.

He is just a little devil sometimes but he gets the message eventually and so will Bailey. You just have to keep at it and not lose your cool.


----------



## L/C

Canine K9 said:


> Roger has a hutch and run in the garden, he play bows and runs the rabbit run yes. Yes he is a terrier x and I try to supervise him outside 100%


I think that I would try not letting him have access to the rabbit at all if possible (even visually). While it may be teenage tantrums - this behaviour in particular sounds to me like it could be redirected aggression. In simple terms - he can't bite the one he wants (poor Roger) so he bites the one he is with (you). The more he does it, the more he will do it so I would want to nip it in the bud as soon as possible.


----------



## SLB

CK9 - 

Try having the run out but covered to start, no rabbit. 
Then work on some focus exercises with Bailey around the run. 
Then take up part of the cover so Bailey can see there is nothing in there but continue on with the focus exercises. 
Then gradually get to the point where Bailey can see the entire run, then start again from the beginning with the rabbit in there. 
If at any time Bailey breaks focus and starts his usual tricks - cover the run leash him up and take him away and come back and start from the beginning again. 

Socks (my rabbit) has access to his run 24/7 so he has become part of the garden for the dogs. They don't bother too much, however if I move him into a temp run - they get excited, so I take the time to do a few retrieves and focus exercises with them when he's in that run - it makes for a great distraction and Socks always does his part by binkying around and making himself extra inviting.. ut: 

If you teach him to ignore - that is better than teaching him to safely interact.


----------



## Canine K9

Thanks all, am sat inside with him and he (offlead) ran over to a shoe so I grabbed his collar to gently move him off the shoe and put the shoe away and he bit me again


----------



## Nicki85

Canine K9 said:


> Thanks all, am sat inside with him and he (offlead) ran over to a shoe so I grabbed his collar to gently move him off the shoe and put the shoe away and he bit me again


If that was Shae I'd have given her something else to chew like a hoof and taken away the shoe once she was interested in the hoof. She's never been mouthy or bitey but I can imagine she would be frustrated if I took away something she wanted without replacing it for something else if you see what I mean!

Oh and please be careful with the run and rabbit... a friend's rabbit broke it's back jumping in the run and twisting as it got panicked by a dog trying to get at it


----------



## Canine K9

Thanks I don`t have to be doing anything just sat there and I get bitten


----------



## Nicki85

I don't have much advice to offer for stopping the biting  Shae has never mouthed or bitten really... not sure why I guess she learnt bite inhibition when she was with her litter and from playing with Rusty. The only time she catches me is when we are playing tug and she misses her grab for the toy!

But I do think trying not to let him get into situations where he is going to be frustrated is a good way forward as that mind set is going to make him more likely to bite. So earlier he was frustrated that you took the shoe away so he bit you. With the rabbit he can't get to it so he bites you instead. If you have something acceptable to swap for the shoe (bit more difficult for the rabbit!) then hopefully he won't be so frustrated about it. I'd combine this with teaching more self control (crate games is good...) and hopefully he'll get the message


----------



## Scabbers

Jumping on people when they come in the house. Working on getting him to sit when people arrive. But that lasts about 30 secs and he is off again


----------



## Huskybob

SLB said:


> CK9 -
> 
> Try having the run out but covered to start, no rabbit.
> Then work on some focus exercises with Bailey around the run.
> Then take up part of the cover so Bailey can see there is nothing in there but continue on with the focus exercises.
> Then gradually get to the point where Bailey can see the entire run, then start again from the beginning with the rabbit in there.
> If at any time Bailey breaks focus and starts his usual tricks - cover the run leash him up and take him away and come back and start from the beginning again.
> 
> Socks (my rabbit) has access to his run 24/7 so he has become part of the garden for the dogs. They don't bother too much, however if I move him into a temp run - they get excited, so I take the time to do a few retrieves and focus exercises with them when he's in that run - it makes for a great distraction and Socks always does his part by binkying around and making himself extra inviting.. ut:
> 
> If you teach him to ignore - that is better than teaching him to safely interact.


Maybe we should try that with Broder...


----------



## Dogless

Huskybob said:


> Maybe we should try that with Broder...


Or Sir K .


----------



## GingerRogers

Huskybob said:


> Maybe we should try that with Broder...


Or the ninja 

K9 I think you would probably be better off limiting interaction between Roger and Bailey, although paps are described as being capable of introductions with other pets he does seem to be very terrier like in temperament, and they are generally not good with small furries (or featheredies ) the behaviour you describe does seem like frustration.

I think need to stop trying to prevent him doing what you dont want him to do and rather work out how to direct him to do something else you are happy with, as nikki says, give him an exchange, a shoe for a chew, terrorizing Roger for chase or tuggy with you. The light line attached at all times of possible over stimulation enables you to remove him without having to get too close.

I cant tell you it will get better and its only adolescence I have no idea about puppies but I am sure the others are right , you are doing really well with him


----------



## diefenbaker

J'ai essaye la longue ligne C/T dans le jardin de l'abbaye de Saint Martin de Boscheville. Regardez l'Anglais. I'll est fou.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Or Sir K .


How are Sir K's wounds and mindset ? I haven't seen a recent update.


----------



## Sarah1983

I would agree with management around the rabbit K9. I did manage to get Rupert to coexist peacefully with my rats but it took a hell of a lot of work over many months and even after that a lot of management to ensure he never got the opportunity to kill them. And I never fully trusted him, had the rats ever gotten loose around him I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he would have killed them. He wasn't left alone with them and when I had them out of the cage there were two locked doors between him and them. It's just not worth the risk with some dogs.

The biting does sound like frustration and possibly redirected aggression. I think you need to think outside the box. Instead of just taking something away from him figure out how to get him interested in something else. Whether a game, a walk, a chew or whatever else he likes. Whatever it is though NEVER lie to him with it, if you offer a walk then you MUST follow through, even if it's only to the top of the street and back.


----------



## SLB

Huskybob said:


> Maybe we should try that with Broder...





Dogless said:


> Or Sir K .


Dogless - I've had to put wooden boards over the top of my rabbits run so Broder can sit and watch him without breaking the wire into the run.. it's quite cute to watch him try and lick Socks through the wire but not so cute when the paws come into action.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> How are Sir K's wounds and mindset ? I haven't seen a recent update.


His wounds are healing well; thank you for asking. His mindset is awful, he's very stressed indeed apart from at 'our' forest.


----------



## Beth17

Well this evening we worked on agility. It was Sam's first ever go and he seemed to have a great time. He did really well although needs to gain control of his legs  So we are going to be continuing lessons and hopefully will get better. We are therefore working on lots of stuff to help with his agility. 

I'd best get started


----------



## Nicki85

Didn't do all that much with mine today. Morning run with Rust he got a bit hot to handle when he saw a squirrel but all in all OK! Shae went round the Roman wall bit and she was ace, no woofing at anyone- she must have got up on the right side of bed for a change! She is healing well too although i'm not letting them play yet.
Then took Rusty for a swim as per physio instructions... we had an aylesbury duck follow us round which was a tad annoying as Rusty wanted to eat it. Reckon it was a released pet or something... so Rust did 15mins of swimming which he loved.

Tomorrow going to run Rust round the roman wall and some very exciting fields (to Rust anyhow) and he needs another swim session. Shae I'm planning on taking to the local supermarket to watch the world pass by... although if it's raining i'll do that on THursday instead.

Rust is also doing balance work on an air mattress, need to do that three times a day really....

token pic of the lake we went today... ain't be there before but we will be back!









and cause I can't not post a pic of Shae...


----------



## JenKyzer

Good evening 

Beth17 - Glad Sam liked the agility for his first go, good luck with this  i did laugh at your post about him being an arse.. least u had a few good days before that though! I think they like to remind us now and again what things could end up being like if we didnt pay them all the attention we do 

Dogless - Glad to hear Kilos wounds are healing.. Sorry to hear he's still stressed  Least he enjoys the forest though hopefully his confidence will build through going there, fingers crossed.

K9 - I'm really sorry to hear about the biting.. I have no advice unfortunately but it sounds rather frustrating for you  Least you've got lots of fab advice to follow! I hope you see improvements soon 

Freddie&Frank - I feel abit gutted for you that your first gundog class wasn't what you expected and it didn't excite you! I hope your gut gives you the right feeling and you end up having a whale of a time in what you choose  

SLB - your training session sounds great! i can't wait to get into clicker training even more now  been reading on the website that was advised on a few pages back.. most likely will look into classes too.. wondering if its do-able without classes? As if theres other dogs there it won't go down too well with Willow :001_unsure:

Nicki85 - A pig  sounds scary! I'd of re-acted like you did  Hope you havent seen it again since!

& i think thats it... Sorry if i've missed anyone.. i've read and liked as i went along though 

Not much going on here.. I'm off tomorrow so will have more to report!
Not seen any other dogs either.. which can only be a good thing!
We did some re-call work.. randomly stopping, using Stay.. holding it for 10-20secs.. then clicking my fingers and pointing at my feet for her to come.. she did really well  only needed the verbal 'come' a couple of times! 
We did some 'stop and sit' whilst in mid run too. Then also popping some treats onto the floor and getting her to 'sit&stay' for 1min then she was allowed them. All simple but good stuff  Hopefully this can build up to me walking her off lead in the non-doggy areas!


----------



## SLB

JenSteWillow said:


> SLB - your training session sounds great! i can't wait to get into clicker training even more now  been reading on the website that was advised on a few pages back.. most likely will look into classes too.. wondering if its do-able without classes? As if theres other dogs there it won't go down too well with Willow :001_unsure:


Pen's been to one class, in general she will ignore other dogs when out, for the most part anyway. But I couldn't afford to keep going. I only went with Louie so that he learnt to ignore other dogs. But now we just go up a quiet farm track or around the lakes or a field in the woods and just have 5 -10 minutes. You will often find if you're doing something with the clicker, your dog will choose to ignore the other dogs.

Not the best picture - but this is Lou, my social butterfly on his 2nd birthday at class - ignoring all the dogs around him. In the corner is a dog he hates though, the collie, then there is Alfie - the dog I spent every class trying to stop Louie going over to play with him and then his GF, Patch. If we had to do recalls past her, the dogs would stop in the middle to lick each others noses.










But it is all do-able without having to go to class.

Top tips from my trainer - understanding how to use the clicker. Just for extra reading.
CaDeLac - Clicker training article

Good Luck and I'm sure Willow will love it.


----------



## moonviolet

JSW the one thing I would say is yes you can do an awful lot without classes however than can be invaluable for training your dogs to focus on your around other dogs in close quarters 

Nicki what a fab pic of Rusty in the lake, there's something slightly warped about the horizon that keeps my poor mind fascinated :lol: Hope his recovery is continuing well. Shae looks like a bit of a clown in that pic.

Beth glad you and Sam had a fun start to agility I'm looking forward to hearing how you get on 

Dief whatever you are doing in the garden of the St martins Abbey I do hope it's wholesome.... my grasp of French is very poor :lol:

We had class last night Tink had a really good night, really focussed, enthusiastic worked thr whole time. So much so I began to worry as she was totally silent in the car not moving to resettle or doing her usual get upi and shake as I reverse into the drive. I can't tell you how relieved I was to find her bleary eyed when I opened the back. :lol:


Today a dog swam across the canal to say hi to everyone on the towpath shaking and charging up and down sniffing every person every dog. I've met the owner a few times over the years here's what they called out...

" he's never done that before, I blame Tinker."

A dog he barely sniffed didn't run to first and hasn't seen since May last year, yes that must be it . 
After running around for 10 mins he swam back and they proceceded to throw more sticks him I shrugged and walked off. 

Anyone else want to blame me or my dog for their shortcomings please write it on a postcard and send it to someone who gives a fig! :lol:


----------



## Canine K9

Hope everyone has had a good day.

We were OK today. A bit bitey AM but I treated him for being calm. Took him out for a quick walk.


----------



## Nicki85

That photo... i'm not very good at using the panoramic setting on my iphone so it all looks a bit wonky! Rusty is a naughty clown, he loves swimming and fetching things out of the water.... he'd prefer it if it was a duck though! He seems OK at the moment, no obvious lameness at any point of the day but I do catch him favouring his bad leg here and there when standing.

Well, plans for trip to supermarket were put on hold as friend phoned and was in the area with her two collies so we met up with them and went for a walk. She has a collie Shae's age as well  Mine were on lead due to the spay and Rusts leg but were both well behaved. Friends collie was naughty at the end and wouldn't come back to go in the car  I had to grab her whilst she was playing with Shae which isn't something I really like doing... but she'd tried the usual running away etc etc. Shae in the meantime had a little lay down and rest lol. I'm still waiting for her to start testing me in the recall department!

Glad Tinks had a good time at class and that she was so focused  It's lovely when they actually want to work with you isn't it? We may look at joining one depending on how Rusty's leg pans out... He kind of enjoyed the trick workshop we did (as in he liked working for me but wasn't convinced by everyone else- lots of lip licking and yawning... )but it's a possibility for him 
I hate canals for that reason... other dogs running up to everyone! Love that he used Tinks as an excuse... not that he can't control his dog then?!


----------



## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> Dief whatever you are doing in the garden of the St martins Abbey I do hope it's wholesome.... my grasp of French is very poor :lol:


I caused several monks to break their vow of silence and my passport has been confiscated. I have also been told that our friend's dog follows me around because I act like an idiot. Can you believe it ? Moi ?


----------



## Canine K9

Most awful walk ever- Bailey was attacked. The amount of force I thought it wOuld kill him. He was screaming out and I tried to separate them but it didn't work the owner came and pulled it off. He has a few nicks so nothing too bad physical but I worry about the mental damage. I can't stop crying could i have protected him some way.


----------



## Sarah1983

Canine K9 said:


> Most awful walk ever- Bailey was attacked. The amount of force I thought it wOuld kill him. He was screaming out and I tried to separate them but it didn't work the owner came and pulled it off. He has a few nicks so nothing too bad physical but I worry about the mental damage. I can't stop crying could i have protected him some way.


Oh no  I hope you and Bailey are both okay.


----------



## Guest

Canine K9 said:


> Most awful walk ever- Bailey was attacked. The amount of force I thought it wOuld kill him. He was screaming out and I tried to separate them but it didn't work the owner came and pulled it off. He has a few nicks so nothing too bad physical but I worry about the mental damage. I can't stop crying could i have protected him some way.


Oh mate 

I hope you and bailey both recover well from this. What did the other owner do or say? Were you on your own? Were your parents with you?

Massive hugs from me and zander. xx


----------



## Labdog

Hi need a good dog guard for my vauxhall astra any one with any suggestions


----------



## Canine K9

LurcherOwner said:


> Oh mate
> 
> I hope you and bailey both recover well from this. What did the other owner do or say? Were you on your own? Were your parents with you?
> 
> Massive hugs from me and zander. xx


They say their dog was bad and grabbed its collar and put it on lead and told me to check him over. I was on my own


----------



## Guest

Canine K9 said:


> They say their dog was bad and grabbed its collar and put it on lead and told me to check him over. I was on my own


Well then the stupid pillocks oughta keep in on-lead and maybe muzzled! 

I am actually really cross for you. I mean what the hell that must of been terrifying and they didn't even friggin apologise? What if you needed vet bills paying for? (I am glad that he doesn't need the vet, but keep an eye on it in case for swelling) Stupid fecking people. :thumbdown:


----------



## Beth17

Oh Canine I'm really sorry to hear this. I hope you and Bailey are as ok as you can be and please don't blame yourself there seem to be a lot of idiots out there unfortunately. It may be worth asking your parents to report it to the dog warden.


----------



## Canine K9

He keeps whimpering so off to the vets we go


----------



## L/C

Oh sweetheart I'm so sorry for you and Bailey. That must have been terrifying.  I hope everything goes OK at the vets we're all here if you need to chat.


----------



## moonviolet

So Sorry to read this CK9 hope both you and Bailey are ok.


----------



## GingerRogers

poor both of you, how awful, just read your other thread, what an awful person to just leave you and let you go, really hope you are both ok. As L/C says come and rant/cry on our shoulder if you need to.

Can someone come out with you on your next walk (mum/dad?) just to give you some confidence.


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## Dogless

K9 - not yet looked at your other thread but I do hope that the vet goes well and that you and Bailey recover from this quickly. All the idiots seem to be out at present .


----------



## JenKyzer

(Edited to put this at the top of the post.. as this is more important right now than all my other ramblings below! )
K9 - I am so sorry to hear whats happened to Bailey  My thoughts are with you and i hope you are as ok as can be right now. These run ins are getting too common now  Poor Bailey and poor you for having to go through this.. Just like with Dogless i can't imagine how you all are feeling. Hope all goes well at the vets.. Good luck 



SLB said:


> Pen's been to one class, in general she will ignore other dogs when out, for the most part anyway. But I couldn't afford to keep going. I only went with Louie so that he learnt to ignore other dogs. But now we just go up a quiet farm track or around the lakes or a field in the woods and just have 5 -10 minutes. You will often find if you're doing something with the clicker, your dog will choose to ignore the other dogs.
> 
> Not the best picture - but this is Lou, my social butterfly on his 2nd birthday at class - ignoring all the dogs around him. In the corner is a dog he hates though, the collie, then there is Alfie - the dog I spent every class trying to stop Louie going over to play with him and then his GF, Patch. If we had to do recalls past her, the dogs would stop in the middle to lick each others noses.
> But it is all do-able without having to go to class.
> 
> Top tips from my trainer - understanding how to use the clicker. Just for extra reading.
> CaDeLac - Clicker training article
> 
> Good Luck and I'm sure Willow will love it.


This sounds great  The gf & licking noses is so cute :001_wub: bless them!
I think i'm going to look for some classes near us.. I've seen from posts on here there might be some to stay clear of :001_unsure: ? I think the classes would be good seems as my aim is to get Willow comfortable around others (& i agree with MV post below) .. Although i'd be so scared for class one and taking her as she is now with how she is with other dogs  .. but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it  & thanks for the link! I haven't had chance to look yet but have taken note :thumbup:



moonviolet said:


> JSW the one thing I would say is yes you can do an awful lot without classes however than can be invaluable for training your dogs to focus on your around other dogs in close quarters


Thanks for opening my eyes!.. It's funny how i can't see stuff that's staring me in the face.. :yikes: .. my ultimate aim is to get Willow comfortable with other dogs.. so obviously it makes sense to attend some classes (i feel stupid for not thinking how helpful this could be :mad2.. As said above, i am going to start looking for some and doing a bit of research before jumping into it. 
Nice to hear you had a good class with Tink and it sounds like it tired her out!  .. oh and maybe you should think about keeping her out of sight when passing other dogs on the other side of the canal to them though.. quite clearly this is outrageous and how dare you walk her when others are offlead on the other side..  idiots!!! As if they blamed Tink! :laugh:

Nicki85 - what nice photos you posted  Shae's such a cutie!

[ no proper updates from us.. haven't seen another dog this week yet! .. so just doing the simple stuff with her whilst out and keeping it fun  although at 6am she just wants to go back home to sleep :laugh: ! ]

Hope everyone else is having a good week


----------



## Dogless

Not working on a lot right now; been to the forest every day just to let us all relax. Kilo is still on Valium but I really need to think about getting him off it very soon.

His wounds are healing nicely, but it's going to be a long haul with him psychologically I think. K9 do not get disheartened by this; Kilo has always been a very sensitive dog and has been attacked by several labs, a few small dogs, a rottie and now the staffie since moving here. He was pretty much there until the rottie attack last winter and then almost there post rottie attack when this most recent and most serious one occurred so the poor boy hasn't really had much "normality".


----------



## Sarah1983

JSW, I've trained Spencer completely without classes. There are none anywhere near me that don't use punishment based methods so I haven't gone to any. It is definitely doable but there's no denying that classes are useful for teaching a dog to focus around other dogs. But at the same time it only really teaches them to focus in that specific environment. A lot of people at the class I took my previous dogs to had dogs who were absolutely perfect in class but if you bumped into them in the woods or on the park it was another matter entirely. The work still needs putting in in a real life environment to avoid that. Classes are an easier place to start though because it's a reasonably controlled environment.

Also, if Willow is reactive around other dogs you'll need to pick classes carefully. You may even need one to one lessons with a trainer with good stooge dogs before she's actually ready to be put in a class environment.


----------



## JenKyzer

Sarah1983 said:


> JSW, I've trained Spencer completely without classes. There are none anywhere near me that don't use punishment based methods so I haven't gone to any. It is definitely doable but there's no denying that classes are useful for teaching a dog to focus around other dogs. But at the same time it only really teaches them to focus in that specific environment. A lot of people at the class I took my previous dogs to had dogs who were absolutely perfect in class but if you bumped into them in the woods or on the park it was another matter entirely. The work still needs putting in in a real life environment to avoid that. Classes are an easier place to start though because it's a reasonably controlled environment.
> 
> Also, if Willow is reactive around other dogs you'll need to pick classes carefully. You may even need one to one lessons with a trainer with good stooge dogs before she's actually ready to be put in a class environment.


Hi Sarah  Thanks for the advice and it's most welcome! Was Spencer wary/reactive to others before you starting clicker training yourself? (Just wondering then i can weigh up my options of starting alone or checking with a class/trainer first to boost my confidence)

Hmm yeah i thought i would have to ring and explain our story to them before booking and turning up.. then see what they suggest.. if they suggested straight into it.. i'd probably think again about that class.. as i'd be so worried&nervey and that wouldn't be good for Willows confidence either!
(I looked at the website you used and it had some good pointers on there, although haven't managed to read a whole lot of it yet!)

How did you know they were punishment based? - Did you have to turn up and find out, or was it obvious on their website/details ?


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Hi Sarah  Thanks for the advice and it's most welcome! Was Spencer wary/reactive to others before you starting clicker training yourself? (Just wondering then i can weigh up my options of starting alone or checking with a class/trainer first to boost my confidence)
> 
> Hmm yeah i thought i would have to ring and explain our story to them before booking and turning up.. then see what they suggest.. if they suggested straight into it.. i'd probably think again about that class.. as i'd be so worried&nervey and that wouldn't be good for Willows confidence either!
> (I looked at the website you used and it had some good pointers on there, although haven't managed to read a whole lot of it yet!)
> 
> How did you know they were punishment based? - Did you have to turn up and find out, or was it obvious on their website/details ?


I'm not Sarah and hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but it's best to go and watch a class first before taking Willow, especially as she can be reactive. You can be sure of their methods then, talk about your worries, see if Willow would do well in that environment etc etc.

With Kilo (and Rudi) the clicker is powerful as it cuts through his "fog" if he's becoming worried and has the bonus of not conveying emotion like your voice does. Same with a whistle for recall.


----------



## Sarah1983

JenSteWillow said:


> Hi Sarah  Thanks for the advice and it's most welcome! Was Spencer wary/reactive to others before you starting clicker training yourself? (Just wondering then i can weigh up my options of starting alone or checking with a class/trainer first to boost my confidence)
> 
> Hmm yeah i thought i would have to ring and explain our story to them before booking and turning up.. then see what they suggest.. if they suggested straight into it.. i'd probably think again about that class.. as i'd be so worried&nervey and that wouldn't be good for Willows confidence either!
> (I looked at the website you used and it had some good pointers on there, although haven't managed to read a whole lot of it yet!)
> 
> How did you know they were punishment based? - Did you have to turn up and find out, or was it obvious on their website/details ?


Spencer loves other dogs for the most part, my problem with him was that he would lunge and bark and screech and spin out of frustration at not being able to say hello to every dog he saw. But yeah, we've stopped that without going to classes.

My previous dog, Rupert, on the other hand was dangerously aggressive towards other dogs. I did take him to classes, the first class we tried was extremely stressful for him and we didn't keep going long. The second class was a much better environment for him though. We started just standing outside where we could see in through the door and just watched for a few weeks. Then we did some sits, downs etc in the same place. Once he was comfortably doing that we moved to an out of the way corner inside and just watched for a few weeks. Then progressed to doing sits, downs etc in the corner. Then we sat out the heel work and joined in with the sit/down stays and other static stuff. Eventually we progressed to working with him off leash (muzzled) with the other dogs. He never, ever did the group recall for safety reasons though.

Class made zero difference to Ruperts reactivity to other dogs outside of class. Although he was fairly relaxed at class he could be thrown off big time by a new dog joining and we'd go back to just doing the static stuff while he got used to them being there. Outside of class he was as bad as ever though and we never managed to get him to relax. However, Rupe wasn't a very stable dog. He was at least 12 months old when I got him and he lived under my bed for months too frightened to come out. He was neurotic, stressy and the slightest change in his environment was cause for panic. Any bad experiences hit him hard and stayed with him. We also lived in a crappy area and got accosted by out of control dogs on an almost daily basis which didn't help.

I would advise going along to any class you find and watching before making the decision to join with Willow. If the instructor refuses to let you do that then walk away. The websites of the classes I've found here have made it clear what methods they use, lots of talk about being the alpha or the pack leader, pics of dogs with chokes or prongs on etc so I've not even bothered going to look.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> I'm not Sarah and hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but it's best to go and watch a class first before taking Willow, especially as she can be reactive. You can be sure of their methods then, talk about your worries, see if Willow would do well in that environment etc etc.
> 
> With Kilo (and Rudi) the clicker is powerful as it cuts through his "fog" if he's becoming worried and has the bonus of not conveying emotion like your voice does. Same with a whistle for recall.


Oh so you can go and watch classes? I didn't know this  i feel my newbie badge coming out again  .. 
This sounds like a really good idea  Thanks!

Glad it works for you and your boys  i hope it could be useful when she stops to look across at the dog.. like a click for acknowledging but lets move on now.. kind of thing? as then maybe she'd learn to see the dog then look at me for the click & treat? as if to say 'look at me, i've seen it' ..  That's my interpretation of it so far.. but i've got lots of reading and researching to do!!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Oh so you can go and watch classes? I didn't know this  i feel my newbie badge coming out again  ..
> This sounds like a really good idea  Thanks!
> 
> Glad it works for you and your boys  i hope it could be useful when she stops to look across at the dog.. like a click for acknowledging but lets move on now.. kind of thing? as then maybe she'd learn to see the dog then look at me for the click & treat? as if to say 'look at me, i've seen it' ..  That's my interpretation of it so far.. but i've got lots of reading and researching to do!!


Yes, we do an "Acknowledge, Accept, Ignore" type thing - so Kilo shows me a cat, dog, monster etc, shows that he is OK with it and then moves on. Ideally .


----------



## JenKyzer

Sarah1983 said:


> Spencer loves other dogs for the most part, my problem with him was that he would lunge and bark and screech and spin out of frustration at not being able to say hello to every dog he saw. But yeah, we've stopped that without going to classes.
> 
> My previous dog, Rupert, on the other hand was dangerously aggressive towards other dogs. I did take him to classes, the first class we tried was extremely stressful for him and we didn't keep going long. The second class was a much better environment for him though. We started just standing outside where we could see in through the door and just watched for a few weeks. Then we did some sits, downs etc in the same place. Once he was comfortably doing that we moved to an out of the way corner inside and just watched for a few weeks. Then progressed to doing sits, downs etc in the corner. Then we sat out the heel work and joined in with the sit/down stays and other static stuff. Eventually we progressed to working with him off leash (muzzled) with the other dogs. He never, ever did the group recall for safety reasons though.
> 
> Class made zero difference to Ruperts reactivity to other dogs outside of class. Although he was fairly relaxed at class he could be thrown off big time by a new dog joining and we'd go back to just doing the static stuff while he got used to them being there. Outside of class he was as bad as ever though and we never managed to get him to relax. However, Rupe wasn't a very stable dog. He was at least 12 months old when I got him and he lived under my bed for months too frightened to come out. He was neurotic, stressy and the slightest change in his environment was cause for panic. Any bad experiences hit him hard and stayed with him. We also lived in a crappy area and got accosted by out of control dogs on an almost daily basis which didn't help.
> 
> I would advise going along to any class you find and watching before making the decision to join with Willow. If the instructor refuses to let you do that then walk away. The websites of the classes I've found here have made it clear what methods they use, lots of talk about being the alpha or the pack leader, pics of dogs with chokes or prongs on etc so I've not even bothered going to look.


As i've just posted above to Dogless, i didn't realise you could go and watch! What a fab idea 

Aww well done to Spen and you for stopping his original method! 

Such a shame the classes didn't make a different to Rupert away from the classes  bless him. That's quite a sad story about him 

Ah ok, well at least i have an idea what to look out for but i'm glad i can go and watch first.. that's put my mind right at ease!

I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into this! I might purchase a clicker tomorrow and do some simple stuff around the house to get her used to it and see how she responds.. then outside when i know other dogs will be a rare sighting.. i don't want to do it wrong and her end up associating the clicker with a dog and it being a Q for her to re-act!
Or maybe i'm over thinking...  *Worrier!*


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Yes, we do an "Acknowledge, Accept, Ignore" type thing - so Kilo shows me a cat, dog, monster etc, shows that he is OK with it and then moves on. Ideally .


Ah so i'm on the right track then  oh gosh.. cats.. that's going to be another challenge altogether :yikes: we can't even say the C word with out her going looking/sniffing for them.. even in the house!! Then looks confused as to why we've said it and there isn't one there!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Ah so i'm on the right track then  oh gosh.. cats.. that's going to be another challenge altogether :yikes: we can't even say the C word with out her going looking/sniffing for them.. even in the house!! Then looks confused as to why we've said it and there isn't one there!


Kilo used to scream like a human when he even saw one that was still and desperately try to get at it. Now we can go past one quietly if it is still or walking but if one spooks and runs from us - game over .


----------



## LittleSherlock

Our lesson for tomorrow (if a harness comes in the post as hoped) is for both of us to get across the main road without freaking out.

Sherlock got hit by a car yesterday evening as we were crossing a pedestrian crossing. He was on a tight lead, maybe half his body length in front of me - we were almost across and a car just didn''t stop. Hit him right in the head - he got thrown and landed on his bum!

Luckily it seems we got lucky - no signs of any broken bones or neurological damage - he's just badly bruised on the left side of his head/neck/shoulders and his tail area is also very tender.

He's on some painkillers to help him through but the vet recommeded light exercise to stop him from stiffening up, but said I should avoid a collar so a friend has sent me a harness and if it arrives tomorrow we'll try that out and see how we go....

I've never had anything like this happen to me before so I'm not sure how I'm going to react at the crossing, or how he is going to react, but I feel its important to go straight back to the scene of the crime and face it.


----------



## Dogless

LittleSherlock said:


> Our lesson for tomorrow (if a harness comes in the post as hoped) is for both of us to get across the main road without freaking out.
> 
> Sherlock got hit by a car yesterday evening as we were crossing a pedestrian crossing. He was on a tight lead, maybe half his body length in front of me - we were almost across and a car just didn''t stop. Hit him right in the head - he got thrown and landed on his bum!
> 
> Luckily it seems we got lucky - no signs of any broken bones or neurological damage - he's just badly bruised on the left side of his head/neck/shoulders and his tail area is also very tender.
> 
> He's on some painkillers to help him through but the vet recommeded light exercise to stop him from stiffening up, but said I should avoid a collar so a friend has sent me a harness and if it arrives tomorrow we'll try that out and see how we go....
> 
> I've never had anything like this happen to me before so I'm not sure how I'm going to react at the crossing, or how he is going to react, but I feel its important to go straight back to the scene of the crime and face it.


Oh my word, what a fright!! Pleased that there's been no serious damage to Sherlock. I would go with the mindset that everything's going to be fine if you can. If I were you though I'd get Sherlock used to the harness in "positive" places tomorrow so that it isn't new walking kit + place that potentially worries him.


----------



## moonviolet

Poor Little Sherlock, i'm glad it's just bruising but what a horrible experience. Hope he's ok when you take him out tomorrow.


----------



## LittleSherlock

Dogless said:


> Oh my word, what a fright!! Pleased that there's been no serious damage to Sherlock. I would go with the mindset that everything's going to be fine if you can. If I were you though I'd get Sherlock used to the harness in "positive" places tomorrow so that it isn't new walking kit + place that potentially worries him.


Thanks Dogless - thats a good idea - though is his favourite place is right on the other side of the crossing, so maybe I might drive him there instead of walking and get him used to the harness.


----------



## Dogless

LittleSherlock said:


> Thanks Dogless - thats a good idea - though is his favourite place is right on the other side of the crossing, so maybe I might drive him there instead of walking and get him used to the harness.


I am probably being over cautious thinking about what I would do with Kilo - he was so suspicious of his running harness that it took goodness knows how much chicken and how many clicker sessions over 5 days to even get it on him. But then he is "special" . Rudi just accepts things and I am sure being a normal, confident little pup that Sherlock will too .


----------



## JenKyzer

Poor sherlock!  Hope he feels better soon and fingers crossed he doesn't think about it too much and you can carry on as normal xx


----------



## JenKyzer

Right.. I've been on the Welcome to APDT - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK website.. 
These are the ones 'in my area' so to speak.. Local Dog Trainers in Lancashire UK .. 
I've had a look at the closer-ish ones and they all seem to be clicking for tricks and musicy stuff.. Is this normal for clicker training?  I'm not really into tricks and walking to music etc.. I see those as perks once i'm happy with everything else.. plus some say the dog has to be socialized and doesn't really mention 1to1's .. I haven't looked at ALL as some are too far .. specially the ones without a BB postcode..

The closest seems to be .. Which sounds the best out of a few of them really..
deborahs dog training, dog training preston

If anyone gets a few bored moments and wants to have a look and tell me their thoughts it'd be really appreciated  
_I know i'm asking alot, as alot of you guys have more important things to worry/think about, i do apologize and please steer me into the training forum section if my silly questions are getting a bit much, i won't be offended  _

She also does behavior stuff too.. if this would help Willow? But says about home visits and seeing us at home etc.. but we have no problems in the house at all its just out on walks and seeing another dog.. so would this be pointless to look into?


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Right.. I've been on the Welcome to APDT - Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK website..
> These are the ones 'in my area' so to speak.. Local Dog Trainers in Lancashire UK ..
> I've had a look at the closer-ish ones and they all seem to be clicking for tricks and musicy stuff.. Is this normal for clicker training?  I'm not really into tricks and walking to music etc.. I see those as perks once i'm happy with everything else.. plus some say the dog has to be socialized and doesn't really mention 1to1's .. I haven't looked at ALL as some are too far .. specially the ones without a BB postcode..
> 
> The closest seems to be .. Which sounds the best out of a few of them really..
> deborahs dog training, dog training preston
> 
> If anyone gets a few bored moments and wants to have a look and tell me their thoughts it'd be really appreciated
> _I know i'm asking alot, as alot of you guys have more important things to worry/think about, i do apologize and please steer me into the training forum section if my silly questions are getting a bit much, i won't be offended  _
> 
> She also does behavior stuff too.. if this would help Willow? But says about home visits and seeing us at home etc.. but we have no problems in the house at all its just out on walks and seeing another dog.. so would this be pointless to look into?


At first glance, that last one that's closest to you looks good - the behavioural visit may be to visit you at home so that she can meet Willow and talk about everything and then to go on a walk with you to see her "in action" so to speak.

Still watch classes though; a few who say that they are strictly positive turn out to be anything but .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> At first glance, that last one that's closest to you looks good - the behavioural visit may be to visit you at home so that she can meet Willow and talk about everything and then to go on a walk with you to see her "in action" so to speak.
> 
> Still watch classes though; a few who say that they are strictly positive turn out to be anything but .


Thanks  I may get in touch with this one just to 'dip my toe into the water' kinda thing via email and maybe arrange to watch. Then go from there.

The link SLB gave is great.. we may have a clicker by tomorrow night ready for my day off on Saturday  Then see how she gets on with it.


----------



## Nicki85

So so day here. Two joint walks with both of 'em on lead. Shae was a bit of a nightmare with wanting to get to two other dogs. It's very much I want to go see I want to go see coupled with being more excited than usual as she is out with Rusty. She's been really good recently so a bit concerned/frustrated that we seem to have taken a step back. It is something that i've been working on since I got her and it seems to be an ES thing... or at least in her lines... 

Anyhow, got a few things to work on... plan of action...

1. teach a lets go command so I can change direction if things escalate to barking
2. teach her to give into pressure on the lead
3. teach look, accept, move on... 

All obvious stuff that I know you guys do! But not something i've had to do before... I need to work harder with Shae as she is a lot more reactive than any dog I've had previously and when she gets excited she barks! Not a good look  The problem will be getting the situation just right so she is not over threshold but is still being challenged... If I take her somewhere busy she will be absolutely fine. If I take her somewhere quiet and a person appears then we are usually over threshold. So I'll work in busy areas first where I know we will see dogs/people and then hopefully that will help in the situations we have problems with. 

Does all that sound like a good plan? 

Also had Rust at physico today... lots of balance stuff, physio chap pretty convinced that Rust has never had the muscle he is missing... blooming dog! So loads of balance stuff (3x10mins a day) plus swimming x4 a week for 15-20 mins. 

Feeling a bit whacked at the moment with them both requiring such different exercise and training!

DL- hope Kilo is starting to feel more settled
JSW- sounds like you have had loads of good advice  Enjoy the training process!
LS- so sorry to hear about Sherlock  Worst nightmare.. .but very pleased to hear nothing broken. Hope he is OK about the crossing when you return.


----------



## SLB

CK9 - sorry to hear about Bailey. Tomorrow take him out to his favourite place, have a good game with him and try and forget today.



JenSteWillow said:


> This sounds great  The gf & licking noses is so cute :001_wub: bless them!
> I think i'm going to look for some classes near us.. I've seen from posts on here there might be some to stay clear of :001_unsure: ? I think the classes would be good seems as my aim is to get Willow comfortable around others (& i agree with MV post below) .. Although i'd be so scared for class one and taking her as she is now with how she is with other dogs  .. but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it  & thanks for the link! I haven't had chance to look yet but have taken note :thumbup:


No, I agree, classes are invaluable but then there is no point trying to get a dog to entertain the thought of learning when they are too focussed on something else. I taught Lou the clicker first, at home, in the fields etc. Then took him to class. Ok he didn't focus well at all the first time, but I clicked any good thing, like sitting or coming into heel position - then he clicked on that actually he's not getting to say hello to these dogs but listening and doing means clicks and treats.

So if she doesn't already know the clicker - I wouldn't try classes until she does. 
However if she knows the clicker, then you could always ask your training class if you could have some space or sit in the corner and just click and treat her for sitting and ignoring - to start off with then work your way - at her pace - into a comfortable spot within the group. 

Good luck.


----------



## JenKyzer

SLB said:


> CK9 - sorry to hear about Bailey. Tomorrow take him out to his favourite place, have a good game with him and try and forget today.
> No, I agree, classes are invaluable but then there is no point trying to get a dog to entertain the thought of learning when they are too focussed on something else. I taught Lou the clicker first, at home, in the fields etc. Then took him to class. Ok he didn't focus well at all the first time, but I clicked any good thing, like sitting or coming into heel position - then he clicked on that actually he's not getting to say hello to these dogs but listening and doing means clicks and treats.
> 
> So if she doesn't already know the clicker - I wouldn't try classes until she does.
> However if she knows the clicker, then you could always ask your training class if you could have some space or sit in the corner and just click and treat her for sitting and ignoring - to start off with then work your way - at her pace - into a comfortable spot within the group.
> 
> Good luck.


Thanks  . My little plan of action is to buy a clicker tomorrow to introduce on Saturday and get her used to it first and get her into the idea that a click means a treat.. then baby steps from there 
Found a trainer - mentioned a few posts above - that i may go and see her classes. Will see how Willow catches on first though


----------



## Jezavix

A friend has asked me to do some one to one training with her dog after seeing how I work with my girls.
It was our first session today and lots of fun and good experience since I'd like to become a trainer.
Managed to stop her lunging at toys when you go to pick them up which her owner has apparently been struggling with for months so she was very happy about that. Still needs lots of practice in various situations but she's a clever little dog and is picking it up very quickly. 
She's doing well with loose lead walking too. Still far from perfect but a lot better then constantly strangling herself at the end of a lead like she was.

We've arranged regular sessions now and in return she's helping me pay for some courses to help further my dog training knowledge and skills. So this combined with me helping out at my local training class is some nice hands on experience.

Was pretty exhausted by the end (she's a very high energy 6 month old working cocker) but dog, owner and myself all had a lot of fun and came away happy.


----------



## sharloid

Hello, I haven't been on this thread for a while. 

I've been very proud of both dogs, but Broder especially. We've being going to fun dog shows every weekend (with his dogmatic on) and he's been doing brilliantly. He's even calmed down enough to be able to take the head collar off and enter him in to a few classes. I never thought he'd be able to stand so close to other dogs and have all 4 feet on the floor. He'll go in the ring and literally just keep all his attention on the OH who takes him in.

Kindra has been entered in to the fun shows too and she's done well, but I expected nothing less. She's a good girl.

We've started back up with clicker training too. Kindra is a bit slow and too eager to get the food but tonight she managed to learn to sit in the wash basket.

Here's a video of the OH trying to teach Broder to retrieve a toy. He's also learning toy names so hopefully we'll be able to use it to teach him to put toys away in the toy box.

(click, sorry it's sideways)


----------



## Dogless

Well done Jezavix and Sharloid .

JSW - your enthusiasm is infectious!! .

K9 - Get out there with as much enthusiasm and confidence as you can muster; maybe it would be better if one of your parents took Bailey's lead just until you feel OK on walks again so that Baliey doesn't pick up on any nerves you may be feeling? Good Luck .


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## LinznMilly

Sorry all. Haven't posted on here for ages now 

Still working on the trick training, but also have reintroduced the Quiet command with Max, with the clicker. He's coming along nicely and knows the principle of the command, but little s0d waits until he gets the treat, then starts barking again.  I'm trying to increase the length of time between command and click, and it's coming along slowly when he barks in anticipation of a walk, but when visitors arrive, I'm getting nowhere fast. :mad2:

Milly's learning the Crawl command. I was going to start teaching her to Play Dead, but on a whim, after asking Max to crawl, I tried asking Milly - and she did it :w00t: . Not once, either, but twice! :w00t: :001_wub: Must call her a slow learner more often and then maybe she learns super-fast


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## Barcode

[Sigh]

Possibly back to working on Scrabble around other dogs. This morning, we went out for a long-ish walk. She was playing nicely in the park with a red setter, then one of the lady's other dogs interrupted, and in the blink of an eye, Scrabble was pinned down, with the usual reactive growling noises. The owner said:

"I don't know what happened there"

To be fair, neither did I - these things can happen very quickly. Then, on the way home, another Border barked/lunged at her causing her to retaliate. I'm beginning to worry that she may go from a dog who reacts (fair enough) to one that _starts_ this stuff as I've become aware she gets hyped up for a day or two when something like this happens.

My strategy:

- Treat for going nicely past other dogs.
- Do not let her play unless it's obvious the other dog is friendly, and there is not more than one (for all I know, there was some dog-jealousy going on earlier).
- Use stooge dogs - the neighbor's dogs come in our garden occasionally, and she likes them - so I may ask them a little more frequently.
- Only when she is back to plodding nicely past other dogs most all the time will I think about allowing her to approach others to play (I've a feeling she also gets massively excited and perhaps inadvertently sends off the wrong signals, so could do with learning more control).

Now, we had made progress as she had similar issues before. But I've noticed that, when out of her comfort zone, the barking-jumping-lunging behavior reappears. I know this is quite a common issue. Have other's here successfully resolved it?


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## GingerRogers

Barcode said:


> [Sigh]
> 
> Possibly back to working on Scrabble around other dogs. This morning, we went out for a long-ish walk. She was playing nicely in the park with a red setter, then one of the lady's other dogs interrupted, and in the blink of an eye, Scrabble was pinned down, with the usual reactive growling noises. The owner said:
> 
> "I don't know what happened there"
> 
> To be fair, neither did I - these things can happen very quickly. Then, on the way home, another Border barked/lunged at her causing her to retaliate. I'm beginning to worry that she may go from a dog who reacts (fair enough) to one that _starts_ this stuff as *I've become aware she gets hyped up for a day or two when something like this happens.
> *
> My strategy:
> 
> - Treat for going nicely past other dogs.
> - Do not let her play unless it's obvious the other dog is friendly, and there is not more than one (for all I know, there was some dog-jealousy going on earlier).
> - Use stooge dogs - the neighbor's dogs come in our garden occasionally, and she likes them - so I may ask them a little more frequently.
> - Only when she is back to plodding nicely past other dogs most all the time will I think about allowing her to approach others to play (I've a feeling she also gets massively excited and perhaps inadvertently sends off the wrong signals, so could do with learning more control).
> 
> Now, we had made progress as she had similar issues before. But I've noticed that, when out of her comfort zone, the barking-jumping-lunging behavior reappears. I know this is quite a common issue. Have other's here successfully resolved it?


She will be she needs time for her stress hormones to settle, and being more hyped she is more likely to react and keep the cycle going - see
Reactive Champion: The Stress Bathtub

I am not sure its something you will ever 'resolve' you can hopefully (please dog) get to a stage where you can manage it well enough that it isn't an issue, observation and understanding your dogs body language being key to stop a small issue like Scrabbles turn into a huge issue like ninjas.


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## Dogless

LiznMilly - I'm sure you'll get there with Max; sounds pretty frustrating right now though!

Barcode - your plan sounds like a good one. I'd stay within Scrabble's comfort zone until she has good focus on you and then slowly work on expanding that in new places until she is able to cope in a variety of places and situations. Sure others will have better advice though.

OK morning here. Decided to walk from home. Took Rudi up to the top fields on the bike; he gets so excited about it it's brilliant, bless him. We did lots of impulse control type games and came home. Uneventful, just how I like it. Cycled past man with dog that started to amble after us. I could hear him calling and saying "It's OK, he's good with other dogs" then recalling a bit more frantically but I just kept on going. A really crappy thing to do I know but I am just fed up with making allowances for everyone at the expense of my own dogs .

It is really windy, really strong gusts which always make Kilo far more alert than usual. Took us a while to get off the estate - dogs one way, cats another, kids another riding bikes round in circles and squealing - as Kilo was finding it hard to focus and was dancing about like a dressage horse. The wind kept bringing the scent of dogs when we passed houses where I know dogs live I think as he kept wheeling about desperately looking for them. So, managed that and got to the small field to play some impulse control games but I lost my nerve really in case any dogs came in and ran up to us. So we then went to the onlead field for sniffs and then did some heel work and stuff on the way back. Went via the part of the abandoned estate where they were mowing, strimming etc as Kilo is fine with all that and lots of other dogs aren't so thought it would be quiet!!! I was desperate to get home and we managed it without incident but I have a banging head and Kilo is snoring away exhausted. I feel so pathetic :incazzato: .


----------



## SLB

This afternoon it has been far too hot to take the dogs out, so we did a clicker training session instead.

Jack is learning what the clicker means and is picking it up surprisingly well. Infact he's even mastering the sit to a whistle. But he's a video of him learning.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152364738013912&set=o.653597701321806&type=3&theater

With the clowns I just got out a washing basket, inspired by Sharloid. And taught them to stand in it, then sit in it. Louie even went back to something we haven't done since before Pen arrived (thats 15 months or so ago) and hid his face in the basket. Jack picked it up quite quickly too.


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## moonviolet

Nice to see the rejoins are really picking up on the clicker training now, Nice to see you showing off your dogs!! 

Barcode, Hope you make progress it hang in there your plan looks like a good one but as GR says sometimes it's about balancing the b-mod and the management. 

Dogless I think you are kilo are doing great, It must be incredibly hard to be out there when it happened so close to home. Huge respect to you both.

CK9 thinking of you and Bailey today and sending courageous vibes.

we're working on adding the next step on the build a better mousetrap retrieve. The cue is learns just a case of adding it on to the rest of it.


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## SLB

moonviolet said:


> Nice to see the rejoins are really picking up on the clicker training now, Nice to see you showing off your dogs!!


You get lost in the pages! Bet no one thought it would be this popular.


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## moonviolet

SLB said:


> You get lost in the pages! Bet no one thought it would be this popular.


I think the hardcore and the off topic chat kept it alive with other posters playing cameo on topic roles :lol: :lol:


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## GingerRogers

Sharloid, bless him was it a hot day, there's not much speed there is there!

SLB - ninja loves her basket too , I must get some video of her, I use it for a multitude of things including toy box and ball pool every time I get it out she just goes and climbs in looking expectant, sadly I cant see your video 

MV - what on earth is build a better mousetrap retrieve, she doesnt have to retrieve a mousetrap does she :yikes:

Dogless - I liked you leaving the hapless owner sprinting after their dog, might teach them a lesson if you stop being nice and returning the strays  It sounds like you are making teeny weeny steps with Kilo, better than the early days  bless Rudi you can have some fun on the bike it seems 

We have been working on a variation of the shell game using coffee tins with holes punched in the lids, an idea gleaned from a scent video MV posted a while back. i have been drinking lots of coffee since and now have 3 tins. 

The idea was that ninja doesnt have much finesse with simple plastic cups, bish, bash, bosh, like an angry kitten  and shows no inclination to scent out the treat. I thought with the lids on she has to indicate the right one to get me to produce the treat  the first time I tried I thought perhaps there was too much essence of coffee still as she went very hyper active, this was around 11.30pm :angry:

Then I washed them again and she did the same. I realised I went too fast and she was just getting confused and frustrated. MV very kindly gave me some pointers and we have more control now, starting slowly with just one pot. Till I got carried away and brought out another and it went back to angry kitten


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## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> MV - what on earth is build a better mousetrap retrieve, she doesnt have to retrieve a mousetrap does she :yikes:


Well seeing as you asked and all :lol: :lol:

It's the nickname a friend gave the toy retrieve that keeps growing,

This is it so far.


The next step is to add is for there to be a hoop in the basket that needs placing on a peg prior to the drawer push.


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## Dogless

mv - love the video and the way Miss Tinks is so happy in her work . Very impressive indeed! Thanks for saying we're doing well; I'm trying my best for my BW and Roo .

GR - pleased that the coffee cans stand up to the Ninja better than plastic cups!!

SLB - like the washing basket idea - I've only used a box to do stuff with but nothing specific - the 101 things...game. Maybe I need to get a party trick as well (if I can manage one :laugh.

Hmmm......I'll have to think about it.....nothing too complicated for the CHs and I.


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## Canine K9

Today I walked him around the streets which went well. We have Agility tomorrow I`m nervous about his reactions; but I`m not going to put it off.
Did some training, going to get a whistle for recall training and he can now weave through legs then roll over when I stand over him then crawl and bow  Did some stays and attention skills he`s dozing now in the garden.


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Today I walked him around the streets which went well. We have Agility tomorrow I`m nervous about his reactions; but I`m not going to put it off.
> Did some training, going to get a whistle for recall training and he can now weave through legs then roll over when I stand over him then crawl and bow


Well done. He may very well just waltz in exactly the same as he ever was K9; assume he will if you can and go in there with as much confidence as you can muster .


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Well seeing as you asked and all :lol: :lol:
> 
> It's the nickname a friend gave the toy retrieve that keeps growing,
> 
> This is it so far.
> 
> 
> The next step is to add is for there to be a hoop in the basket that needs placing on a peg prior to the drawer push.


Ahh like the game, can the hoop need removing from something to allow the drawer to open ???


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## kat&molly

Hi all.  Hope you are well. 

Dogless- I hope Kilo's stress levels are coming down, he's had a lot to contend with hasn't he.

Canine- Pleased your walk went well today, after yesterday. Good luck for agility tomorrow.

Ginge- would love to see a vid of Ninja when you've mastered the coffee tins. 

MV- thanks for posting that, will confess another one here who has stolen another of your tricks. Moll learns really quick but gets very over enthusiastic, or am I having the same problem as Ginge and its frustration.  So I'm just proofing a nose push on the drawer before anything else.
She'll never look as polished as Miss Tink but we enjoy it anyway.

JSW- welcome to WAYWO, your enthusiasm is really infectious. 


Evie is doing well on the Stress-Less, Dogless do you want one of her old bones as commission  
Only thing is every time we move forward something happens to push us back again, her fear of humans is severe so I go careful as I dont want to flood her. Back at square one again after an incident the other day. Hey ho.


----------



## diefenbaker

SLB said:


> Bet no one thought it would be this popular.


I did. Apparently some of the major film studios have been sniffing around. It's only a working title but 'WAYWO A New Hope' is scheduled for release in 2015. In actual fact this is part four of the saga. Parts one to three have been delayed because Spielberg mislaid the clicker. My part is to be played by rubber-faced lunatic Jim Carey. He is taking over my account for 6 weeks so he can live the part.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I did. Apparently some of the major film studios have been sniffing around. It's only a working title but 'WAYWO A New Hope' is scheduled for release in 2015. In actual fact this is part four of the saga. Parts one to three have been delayed because Spielberg mislaid the clicker. My part is to be played by rubber-faced lunatic Jim Carey. He is taking over my account for 6 weeks so he can live the part.


I have to admit that I have had a hand in it's delay too. Angelina is insisting on playing me, says that we're practically dopplegangers, but she's busy working on other projects at present.


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## Nicki85

Just took Shae over the park for first lesson in operation ++Don't React++!

It's opposite a pub so lots of crowd noise and people sitting outside with a dog as well. She coped really well... I click treated when ever she looked over at them working up to being a few metres away. I thought she might loose it when the other dog whined at her but nope she looked, I clicked and treated and then she sat looking for more treats so we made our way home 

Also did a bit of "this way" which she knows already but want to reinforce it...

And the tight leash= come towards me which she was getting  But it was difficult getting her to pull again then to practice! 

Oh and we had a little play session with ball on a rope too.

I've been in London all day so that's all of done... tomorrow i'll run with Rust and then take Shae out to a fairly open forest area where I expect to meet people.


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## Canine K9

Wondering if anyone can help me. Bailey was lying down in living room and my brother was sat on the chair opposite him and Bailey stood up growling, lunging, tail up, barking. I think if he wasn`t onlead he may of bitten him. 
*sigh* something else now


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Wondering if anyone can help me. Bailey was lying down in living room and my brother was sat on the chair opposite him and Bailey stood up growling, lunging, tail up, barking. I think if he wasn`t onlead he may of bitten him.
> *sigh* something else now


Was your brother teasing Bailey or staring directly at him or anything like that? Hope your parents are there, you sound so stressed and upset .


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Was your brother teasing Bailey or staring directly at him or anything like that? Hope your parents are there, you sound so stressed and upset .


No not as far I could see anyway, he`s done it twice now he did it earlier today too. Yeah they are, just can`t believe how awful these few weeks have been


----------



## Milliepoochie

Canine K9 said:


> No not as far I could see anyway, he`s done it twice now he did it earlier today too. Yeah they are, just can`t believe how awful these few weeks have been


It could be stress after yesterday.

It can take quite a while for stress / adrenaline levels to return to normal.

I would pop him away some where quiet for a few hours.

Most importantly don't worry.


----------



## Dogless

Agree with MP. Do you have somewhere safe for Bailey to relax away from everyone for a while to destress?


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## Canine K9

Thanks both, we will do that.


----------



## Dogless

Perhaps ask for advice from your agility instructor tomorrow; someone who can see Bailey.


----------



## SLB

moonviolet said:


> Well seeing as you asked and all :lol: :lol:
> 
> It's the nickname a friend gave the toy retrieve that keeps growing,
> 
> The next step is to add is for there to be a hoop in the basket that needs placing on a peg prior to the drawer push.


Wow - that is amazing! I think I may have to try that!



Dogless said:


> SLB - like the washing basket idea - I've only used a box to do stuff with but nothing specific - the 101 things...game. Maybe I need to get a party trick as well (if I can manage one :laugh.


Wasn't my idea - Sharloid said she'd been doing it with Kindra so I thought I'd entertain mine with it. Going to get a bigger one for Lou and attach a cover to it so he can well and truly hide in it, he already knows how to roll over and cover himself up with a blanket so it shouldn't be too hard.



diefenbaker said:


> I did. Apparently some of the major film studios have been sniffing around. It's only a working title but 'WAYWO A New Hope' is scheduled for release in 2015. In actual fact this is part four of the saga. Parts one to three have been delayed because Spielberg mislaid the clicker. My part is to be played by rubber-faced lunatic Jim Carey. He is taking over my account for 6 weeks so he can live the part.


I love Jim Carey!


----------



## Canine K9

Eeek I've got a new boy Max is a 7 mo chocolate Labrador. Okay so he isn't 100% mine he lives at my Nanas but she really can't cope with his training. So I'm going down frequently to do some training and help my nan walk him and once some basic training in place to introduce him to light agility. Can't wait for him to be better mannered and go on nice walks with Bailey. So anyone any ideas on getting him to walk nicely he pulls like a stream train  he's very gentle with other dogs so will be great for baileys confidence too  going seeing him on Wednesday so lots of pics then


----------



## JenKyzer

Right here goes working my way through posts from Thursday  
Sorry if i miss anyone :blushing:

Jezavix - Do you fancy a trip up north for more hands on experience with a shar-pei who will repay you with lots of slobbery fish-treat breathe kisses  Good luck with your dog training courses etc - what your doing sounds great 

Sharloid - Love the vid .. Good luck with the names of toys & him tidying up! I seem to be lucky enough that Willow takes everything to bed with her anyway! Even her Kong she wobbles to the side of her bed  Well done for being able to go to dog shows too.. i don't know the full story of Border and the 'before' bit but i bet its a good feeling being able to do something you thought you wouldnt be able to do (I hope thats us one day ) You should be proud!

Dogless - *MY* enthusiasm is infectious ?? Its *YOU* guys on here that power me on to want to do more and *right now* :w00t: !! 
Sounds great that Rudi's excited about the bike  The uneventful walks are always the best  
Sounds like a little progress with Kilo too  glad his walk was also incident free  you should be proud of yourself and how hard you work for them! Not feel crappy/pathetic.. you need to keep on putting them first.. not listen to other people tryna talk about their 'friendly' dogs  maybe he wanted a gold star and a well done for his 'friendly' dog ignoring the recall tryna get to yours 

Linznmilly - Good luck with your trick training - I'm sure you'll get there  Least Millys showing him how its done though eh 

Barcode - Good luck with Scrabble  & i'm no expert at all but your strategy sounds good i hope you can manage this eventually so your both not worried too much about other doggies near by .. They dont half keep us on our toes do they 

Moonviotlet -  Your video is amazing! So clever  & Its so obvious shes loving it, her tail wagging away!

SLB - I can't see your vid  it sounds good though!!

GingerRogers - I agree we need to see videos of Ninja  Your coffee tin game sounds fab .. i hope the angry kitten gets used to it and does you proud 

K9 - Hope baileys coping after the other day  & enjoys his agility! Ohh and good luck with Max  We need pictures 

Kat&molly - Thankyou  but as said above to Dogless, its you guys on here!  . Sad to hear your back to sq1 

Nicki - Sounds like the 1st lesson in 'Dont React' went well  !

I think thats everyone 

Ok so out came the clicker this morning! Instead of feeding in her bowl, i used the clicker. (We have some sample goodie bag packs from fish4dogs so used a pack of salmon kibble, some little star treats and a couple of fish jerky things) Just randomly walking around the house and clicking when she was being good like sitting/lie-ing down . She was a little startled at first but after a good sniff of it she got the jist. Shes spent the whole morning by my side :laugh: so i did a couple of 'sit' then click, good girl & treat.. same with give paw.. didn't over-do it as i want her used to the clicker and expecting a treat. Even me holding up a treat she started looking at the clicker and waiting for the click.. or thats what it looked like anyway! So i thought it went well 

Oh and we have an unwelcome visitor too  The cat from next door seems to have taken a shine to my window sills and back yard!! Last night it was sat on the upstairs bathroom window.. its eyes shining in.. Willow was not impressed! Even when i shut the bathroom door Willow just stood next to it and pawing it.. grr. Then this morning it was on the kitchen window sill then came me-owing at the back door  then led around in the yard.. so i haven't been able to let Willow out back yet .. and nextdoor aren't in to come round and get it! 
I've always wondered what would happen if i opened the door for Willow and she got hold of it.. i always check the yard first now since its started visiting more frequently.. but i didn't used to.. Would it be our fault and we'd have to pay vet bills etc if it come down to it?  I don't want it to get hurt but i want my dog to relax in her own home without a cat me-owing at every window winding her up 

I think that update makes up for lack of anything exciting all week  Sorry!

Hope everyone has a good day


----------



## Dogless

K9 - very best of luck; you have an awful lot on your plate right now, I hope you're receiving plenty of support .

JSW - what a great update; you're coming on in leaps and bounds it seems :thumbsup:.

Good walk with Kilo. I drove up to the top fields as he had been so skittish in the estate yesterday. Cop out really as I couldn't quite face the stress again . We were playing with the new ball Dizs' human got him when one of his main "triggers" appeared - a lone person suddenly appearing where we don't usually see anyone which was a guard checking the perimeter. I recalled Kilo (on his longline anyway, don't worry!) and got him to sit as she was coming across to approach us. Kilo sat nicely and I asked the guard to stop before she quite reached us and explained why. She was brilliant; had dogs herself and understood, chatted to me for ages and ignored Kilo and within a minute or two he lay down and then even rolled over for a tummy rub . I was so, so pleased with him . Then we carried on playing with the ball and doing some impulse control.

Took Roo on the bike up to the same place - he absolutely loves it, I can't wait until we can go further and faster - then did some impulse control, heelwork and recall and some games.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> K9 - very best of luck; you have an awful lot on your plate right now, I hope you're receiving plenty of support .
> 
> JSW - what a great update; you're coming on in leaps and bounds it seems :thumbsup:.
> 
> Good walk with Kilo. I drove up to the top fields as he had been so skittish in the estate yesterday. Cop out really as I couldn't quite face the stress again . We were playing with the new ball Dizs' human got him when one of his main "triggers" appeared - a lone person suddenly appearing where we don't usually see anyone which was a guard checking the perimeter. I recalled Kilo (on his longline anyway, don't worry!) and got him to sit as she was coming across to approach us. Kilo sat nicely and I asked the guard to stop before she quite reached us and explained why. She was brilliant; had dogs herself and understood, chatted to me for ages and ignored Kilo and within a minute or two he lay down and then even rolled over for a tummy rub . I was so, so pleased with him . Then we carried on playing with the ball and doing some impulse control.
> 
> Took Roo on the bike up to the same place - he absolutely loves it, I can't wait until we can go further and faster - then did some impulse control, heelwork and recall and some games.


Yay go Kilo  This is great news :biggrin: Sounds like he had a fun stress free time! As did you  Very nice to hear.


----------



## SLB

Dogless said:


> K9 - very best of luck; you have an awful lot on your plate right now, I hope you're receiving plenty of support .
> 
> JSW - what a great update; you're coming on in leaps and bounds it seems :thumbsup:.
> 
> Good walk with Kilo. I drove up to the top fields as he had been so skittish in the estate yesterday. Cop out really as I couldn't quite face the stress again . We were playing with the new ball Dizs' human got him when one of his main "triggers" appeared - a lone person suddenly appearing where we don't usually see anyone which was a guard checking the perimeter. I recalled Kilo (on his longline anyway, don't worry!) and got him to sit as she was coming across to approach us. Kilo sat nicely and I asked the guard to stop before she quite reached us and explained why. She was brilliant; had dogs herself and understood, chatted to me for ages and ignored Kilo and within a minute or two he lay down and then even rolled over for a tummy rub . I was so, so pleased with him . Then we carried on playing with the ball and doing some impulse control.
> 
> Took Roo on the bike up to the same place - he absolutely loves it, I can't wait until we can go further and faster - then did some impulse control, heelwork and recall and some games.


I do feel for Kilo. All that getting used to new things to be gone in moments. Hopefully in a few months time he'll be back to how he was. Sensitive souls are often the stronger ones


----------



## Canine K9

Agility went amazingly well, said hello to a Staffie and even a Tibetan Terrier (same dog breed who attacked him) sooo proud of my boy 
Bailey met Max too since we went for a quick visit and they loooove each other : Max lies down on the floor to play with Bailey bless him


----------



## SLB

Canine K9 said:


> Agility went amazingly well, said hello to a Staffie and even a Tibetan Terrier (same dog breed who attacked him) sooo proud of my boy
> Bailey met Max too since we went for a quick visit and they loooove each other : Max lies down on the floor to play with Bailey bless him


Louie was attacked by a Patterdale when he was 6 months. I found he didn't really hold a grudge at all, but I was very apprehensive around them for a while after. I still try to avoid them with Louie now but it's not because of him, it's me. Fix your thinking first and your dog will come right behind you  Good that Bailey has a friend now. 

Today I thought I would take the chance to do group recall.

It's havoc but hilarious! Basically it's just running about.

But with my lot I take food and I lay down. So I picked a shady bit on the farm fields (grass not crops) and just ran around and whenever one caught up with me, I fell on the floor (purposely) and threw treats about. Then whilst they were busy, I'd run off and do it all over again. Pennie loves this game and can get a bit excited and jump up at me. But it keeps her focus and even Jack's learning it's a game - he used to just stand there and potter over when I fell. Now he's actively chasing me and nudging me. I have to say I quite like this game a lot too. I used to do it with my sister. We'd put the dogs in the middle and then stand on opposite ends and one of us would run, the dogs would catch up, fall on the floor then have some treats then the other one of us would run..


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## Dogless

SLB said:


> I do feel for Kilo. All that getting used to new things to be gone in moments. Hopefully in a few months time he'll be back to how he was. Sensitive souls are often the stronger ones


I'm not sure I understand the getting used to new things bit, he's pretty good with new places and new things and we've been here for 20, tortuous, months? He's in bits about dogs rather than anything else which is pretty upsetting to see, but we'll get there slowly again; I am sure patience (and a move!!) will win the race :w00t:. And yes, sensitive souls can be surprisingly resilient. Karma has a habit of setting things right in the end .


----------



## SLB

Dogless said:


> I'm not sure I understand the getting used to new things bit, he's pretty good with new places and new things and we've been here for 20, tortuous, months? He's in bits about dogs rather than anything else which is pretty upsetting to see, but we'll get there slowly again; I am sure patience (and a move!!) will win the race :w00t:. And yes, sensitive souls can be surprisingly resilient. Karma has a habit of setting things right in the end .


No I don't understand why I put new either now. Multi tasking whilst typing has never been a strong point of mine.


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## Dogless

SLB said:


> No I don't understand why I put new either now. Multi tasking whilst typing has never been a strong point of mine.


No, sometimes it leads to some puzzling mistakes :blink:.


----------



## moonviolet

Bit of an emotional day today. Tink's very best friend jasper the now 16 yr old lurcher ( belonging to Wheeliebinman) is increasingly having the occasional great day and followed by a number of rest days. Today was a great day his appetite has returned and I was mugged in the gentlest way for treats and he even indulged in some skippy joyful zoomies with Tink. 

Both myself and his owner get a little wibbly lipped as we wonder if this will be the last game they play. Tink being the only dog he plays with. He was the first dog Tink played with following her attack he's such a gentle nurturing soul, every day, every moment of joy is so precious.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Bit of an emotional day today. Tink's very best friend jasper the now 16 yr old lurcher ( belonging to Wheeliebinman) is increasingly having the occasional great day and followed by a number of rest days. Today was a great day his appetite has returned and I was mugged in the gentlest way for treats and he even indulged in some skippy joyful zoomies with Tink.
> 
> Both myself and his owner get a little wibbly lipped as we wonder if this will be the last game they play. Tink being the only dog he plays with. He was the first dog Tink played with following her attack he's such a gentle nurturing soul, every day, every moment of joy is so precious.


I am not "liking" the sadness in your post but the thought of Jasper and Tink's relationship. Something really special.


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## Sarah1983

Right now Spencer has taken it upon himself to work on not barking at the people having a bbq outside the next block of flats. Apparently this involves running to me and telling me he needs a treat every time there's a particularly loud noise from them. Better than him running out and barking at them though I guess.

Feel a bit guilty as he didn't get a walk at all yesterday and probably won't get one today. Took him out front last night about half 9 and he just lay down on the grass after a few minutes. Was 37C yesterday apparently and still too hot at 10pm so no walk. Had torrential rain this morning and really wishing now that I'd walked Spen then since the temp now is above 30C again apparently  

MV, I hope Tink and Jasper have many more gentle play sessions together to look forwards to.

Dogless, sounds like a fantastic encounter with a trigger for Kilo.

JSW, sounds like a good start. I always start with something new for starting clicker training though, something I can get the dog to offer rather than something they know a cue for. Touching a hand or target stick with their nose is usually a pretty good one since if you hold a hand or object out to most dogs their natural inclination is to go to sniff it and you can then click the instant they go to do so. Find starting out that way helps them learn to offer behaviours rather than simply wait around to be told what to do. But I suppose it depends whether you want a dog who offers behaviours lol, it can be a bit of a double edged sword but I love shaping and watching my dog figure stuff out.

K9, glad agility went well and good luck with the Lab. Very different kettle of fish to a terrier but food is usually the key


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> K9 - very best of luck; you have an awful lot on your plate right now, I hope you're receiving plenty of support .
> 
> JSW - what a great update; you're coming on in leaps and bounds it seems :thumbsup:.
> 
> Good walk with Kilo. I drove up to the top fields as he had been so skittish in the estate yesterday. Cop out really as I couldn't quite face the stress again . We were playing with the new ball Dizs' human got him when one of his main "triggers" appeared - a lone person suddenly appearing where we don't usually see anyone which was a guard checking the perimeter. I recalled Kilo (on his longline anyway, don't worry!) and got him to sit as she was coming across to approach us. Kilo sat nicely and I asked the guard to stop before she quite reached us and explained why. She was brilliant; had dogs herself and understood, chatted to me for ages and ignored Kilo and within a minute or two he lay down and then even rolled over for a tummy rub . I was so, so pleased with him . Then we carried on playing with the ball and doing some impulse control.
> 
> Took Roo on the bike up to the same place - he absolutely loves it, I can't wait until we can go further and faster - then did some impulse control, heelwork and recall and some games.


That is amazing Dogless, well done the big boy.

K9 well done to you and Bailey too, bet you are pleased.

MV how lovely the story of Tink and Jaspers friendship, I hope it continues for many more plays 

JSW - I dont know if I agree with Sarah or not, dont really have the experience to say but I do know I started our clicker training in earnest with a target stick, Ginge cottoned on pretty quick 

We had a bit of an alarming start to the day, Ninjas spay wound has healed up amazingly well but this morning there was an angry red 'pea' I was however delighted that the local vets were open this morning and they fitted her in at 9.45, I was even more delighted when i was able to park almost outside and then to find no other dogs/animals in the waiting room.

The vet had a poke of the lump while the vet nurse held her still and I am afraid the vet got a faceful of pus  I am even more afraid that both the vet nurse and I couldn't stop laughing :hand: anyway she has 5 days AB's, just the internal sutures causing a bit of havoc. I was then pleased yet again as they only charged me for the Ab's @ £18.60, the joys of a small dog.

I do hope that hasn't used up all my good luck  as the cars having its injectors looked at on Thursday, but I did create more good karma this afternoon by helping to save Indian slum children at a friends fete. I will be very nice to everyone until then


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## Dogless

Gunge - made me laugh...I can picture the vet's face :w00t:. Reckon your Karma balance is in the black having saved kids today too .

Sarah - clever Spendog as ever!! I am sure he's been kept entertained if he hasn't been walked with doing the housework, knocking out a novel or two and doing a bit of juggling. Or something like that :w00t:.


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## JenKyzer

MV - What a sad day for you  It sounds like they have such a lovely relationship i hope this isn't the last they play but may your memories keep a smile on your face

Sarah - Clever spen.. alot better than barking though eh lets hope you dont run out of treats  oops, well i'm following the website SLB recommended which says the first bit is just getting used to the clicker and getting her to realise a click means a treat. We've only done it to 'sit' and 'paw' a couple of times (my fault.. i just wanted to see how she reacted ) But my next step was going to be a 'touch' (been on youtube looking into stuff to do) to see how it works with learning something new. Was going to do that in a few days, after we've got used to the clicker indoors and introduced it outside tomorrow/monday, then she knows its my new toy that comes everywhere :w00t: after an afternoon session of this she seems to get the idea and keeps looking at the clicker for it to click  .. not quite sure i understand the 'a dog that offers behaviours' bit... if you'd like to give an example/comparison my brain might work properly and understand 

GR - You'll see my reply to S regarding the Clicker stuff  Glad the vet trip wasn't too serious.. and i had a giggle at the pus bit  I'm sure if you carry on with good karma your good luck will carry on 

Just got back from our walk round the Res - i love it up there.. perfect for offlead as you can see all around and no-one can pop up unexpected as its all leveled out and a nice knee level wall around the dip into the water. 
Willow passed a JR no problemo.. bodyblocked as did the lady telling hers 'dont bark.. dont bark..' as we passed i said he was good for doing as he was told.. she laughed.. we passed on abit more.. then i heard a good ammount of barking :laugh: oops! But willow didn't look back.

Then...  ... We saw a lady with a dog waay in the distance so i leaded Willow up and took her down the hill out the way.. a nice run! Its about a 25ft slope down so i thought we'd be well out the way to carry on playing.. but then i heard this woman screaming and shouting.. a lil fluffy dog charging towards us.. so i sat willow inbetween my knees as the OH bodyblocked.. the dog was dancing around us! I was so pleased that Willow stay sat and just kept hold of her ball just watching.. OH got hold of the dog while the woman .. walked towards us down the hill - not at fast pace or anything  .. she was all a huff saying sorry etc then leaded him up.. but let him get closer! Willow huffed and started to pull clearly getting fed up seems as her dad had been holding this strange dog instead of her  .. The woman asked us if Willow was a bull mastiff  (at this point i decided i wasnt going to speak to her as more sh*te fell out of her mouth) 'Oh charlie just wants to say hello.. he needs to learn he cant greet others all the time and they all done want to play' 'theres a lady on here who walks a rottie who always has him leaded up and shes done more damage by doing this, he hates other dogs' .. !!!!!! ... 'my dad has a (wait for it Dogless....) .. RR cross pit...  and cos he's always offlead he loves other dogs' .. i was staring at this woman :nonod: .. She then let 'Charlie' get TOO close and willow nipped his ear - this happened quite fast, even caught me offguard and i was right next to it on the ground with them! and sent him packing.. which i was gutted about as i had willow still by my legs and held of her collar.. she was trying to pull but sat down.. the woman was like 'see thats what you get charlie' the dog then started yapping away! Willow didnt bark. Stopped pulling. Just sat and looked..  .. so whilst she was calmer we set off running and didnt look back til OH caught us up. I was fuming this woman hadnt leaded her dog up as she saw us.. maybe she wasnt paying attention.. but admitted her dog always runs up to others 'wanting to play'  'hes only 1 and the springer in him just makes him shoot off..' really ??! Grr. - rant over -

Oh we played soo nice b4 and after the incident.. Willow had a swim.. We got her a new squeaky kong tennis ball.. we threw it.. she went to it and picked it up.. we recalled her back with it.. she left it.. sat.. and repeat  I even got a few good recalls in.. finally!! 

We passed two huuuuge.. fluffy white.. big dogs.. im unsure on the breed? kinda like newfies  .. well i say passed.. i saw the lady and guy struggling ish as they were pulling.. so we sat Willow in the long grass and lots of strokes.. they passed by with no fuss  although the lady said 'is she not friendly.. my dog likes to sniff..' so i politely said 'id rather he didnt as were unsure and just had a little run in with an over keen dog' she replied 'well, i'll try to pass then but he might not like it' .. didnt quite know what to think of that  Willow did well anyway  as did hers really.. i think it was the size of them and their weight and tryna get them to keep going..

Passed two more.. a little pull as the spaniel come charging offlead  but then ignored the yorkie that was onlead with them with our 'carry on'

Thats us for the day i think anyway  *Sorry its long*.. i needed to rant about Charlie and his owner.. it gets me soo cross!! She let her dog right into willows space even though we said shes uncomfy with it and she was inbetween my legs! Grr. I should of just walked off instead of being polite and listening to her fumbling apologies even though her dog was on lead i thought that would of been better for the situation.. obviously not.

I hope everyone else is having a good evening 

(Edited to say.. the unknown breeds were .. or what looked verrry similar to - Great Pyranees Mountain Dog - they were gorgeous!!)


----------



## Dogless

JSW - what a horrible incident with Charlie; it sounds as if you and your OH coped brilliantly working as a team. Unfortunately there are loads of people just like that "don't worry if your dog bites, it'll teach him a lesson" etc etc etc. I am progressively learning to be firmer and to be ruder (which I don't like to be) to protect my dogs. I think that you did the best that you could under difficult circumstances. I now carry a slip lead - maybe you or you OH could, then he could have caught and held Charlie more easily maybe; but the woman may well have let him go again once he'd been returned or just get too close onlead like she did. I hope that it didn't spoil your walk too much as it sounds as if the rest was successful .

RR x Staffy is a popular cross at present (here at least) as it often produces dogs "of type" which folk like to own. No idea why, I'd be worried, but there you go :blink:.


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## diefenbaker

On to the second week of the Tour de France and a new location. This place has free roaming hens. With a demi-malamute this is a recipe for... well to quite frank it's a recipe for chicken casserole. Guess what my two favourite words are.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> On to the second week of the Tour de France and a new location. This place has free roaming hens. With a demi-malamute this is a recipe for... well to quite frank it's a recipe for chicken casserole. Guess what my two favourite words are.


Leave It :w00t: :w00t:


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Leave It :w00t: :w00t:


Winner. Congratulations. Your prize is a weekend getaway for two in the luxurious surroundings of your own home. Prize is not transferrable and has no monetary value. Terms and conditions apply.


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## Sarah1983

JSW, people like that really annoy me. It's not up to me and my dog to teach others that they can't say hello to every dog they see. 

What do I mean by offering behaviours...hmmm...let's see if I can explain it without making it as clear as mud  Basically I don't want my dog to stand there waiting to be told or shown exactly what to do in a training session, I want him to figure it out. I train a lot of behaviours by shaping, which is basically breaking down the behaviour into small steps and reinforcing each progressive step until you get the end behaviour. So, say I want to teach my dog to get in a box and lie down. Instead of luring him into the box and into a down and then clicking and treating I'd start with the box right next to me and me clicking and treating if he so much as glanced in the direction of the box. Then when he's doing that (which with a clicker savvy dog and good timing takes one or two clicks) I'd hold out for any movement towards the box, whether a single paw movement towards it, stretching the neck towards it or something bigger like moving to touch it. Once he's moving towards it and touching it I'd hold out and only click for paw touches, then for a single paw in the box, then both front paws, then 3 paws, 4 paws, a sit and eventually a down. Well, that's the theory, me being me I'd likely end up shaping something completely different simply coz I found it funny and/or cute lol. 

I find behaviours taught that way seem to sink in better than the lure, reward method personally and I find it a lot more fun for me and my dog to train that way. Spen clearly enjoys it as he often initiates games of 101 things to do with a box (only with random objects, not just boxes lol).


We have just had a bit of an incident with another dog. Nothing major really, don't think anyone was to blame and no physical harm done as far as I can tell but now have visions of Spen becoming Rupert. Think the two just clash as Spen gets on with all the other dogs round here and the other one is fine with most of them. We've got the sled dog meet tomorrow morning so he'll be out and about with friendly or neutral dogs then. Just hope it goes okay. I think he'll be fine as he's generally an easy going dog who bounces back from scares quite well. It's me who doesn't!


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Winner. Congratulations. Your prize is a weekend getaway for two in the luxurious surroundings of your own home. Prize is not transferrable and has no monetary value. Terms and conditions apply.


Wow!! Fantastic I never win a thing!!! I will take it soon as I can, I could really do with a break after the sh*tty time I've been having.

Oh..it's for two...I'll have a weekend with OH in September I hope...maybe...actually the "for two" part may be a drama. Bugger. I'll just carry on living in sh*tsville then dreaming of escape, lottery wins and looking at my less than luxurious surroundings.

Oh well, the initial adrenaline rush of a win was good. I suppose it will add depth to the film plot anyway; Angelina really would be expected to act her socks off** to try and represent this place as luxurious.

** It is not advisable to wear socks on the luxurious issue carpet without rubber soled footwear ensconcing one's feet. MOD does not accept liability for any accidents that may occur as a result of ignoring this advice.


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## Dogless

Sarah - I "liked" your post for all but the incident Spen had tonight; he does sound like a dog who is robust and bounce-able and I very much hope the husky meet tomorrow does him good. As for you; I really do hope that you aren't too badly shaken and that the meet helps restore your confidence too.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - I "liked" your post for all but the incident Spen had tonight; he does sound like a dog who is robust and bounce-able and I very much hope the husky meet tomorrow does him good. As for you; I really do hope that you aren't too badly shaken and that the meet helps restore your confidence too.


He generally is pretty stable and has good bounce back, he's had arguments with other dogs before but the one between him and this dog seemed a bit more than just an argument. I think it would have escalated had we not separated them. He's reacted to the dog before and the dog reacts to him on leash but considering they've met off leash a couple of times before and been fine we didn't expect a huge problem. I foresee him being more reactive to the dog in future so that might be something I'll have to work on, until this he's been happy to ignore him when we've seen them.

I've checked and the sled dog meet is on and his best friend will be there along with a few others who he's neutral about.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> He generally is pretty stable and has good bounce back, he's had arguments with other dogs before but the one between him and this dog seemed a bit more than just an argument. I think it would have escalated had we not separated them. He's reacted to the dog before and the dog reacts to him on leash but considering they've met off leash a couple of times before and been fine we didn't expect a huge problem. I foresee him being more reactive to the dog in future so that might be something I'll have to work on, until this he's been happy to ignore him when we've seen them.
> 
> I've checked and the sled dog meet is on and his best friend will be there along with a few others who he's neutral about.


I hope you don't think I was belittling it Sarah, sorry if it came across that way. Probably my ham fisted attempt at reassurance. At least you are acutely aware of any problems that may occur and are on the ball when it comes to working things out. Good news about the meet.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I hope you don't think I was belittling it Sarah, sorry if it came across that way. Probably my ham fisted attempt at reassurance. At least you are acutely aware of any problems that may occur and are on the ball when it comes to working things out. Good news about the meet.


No, I didn't think you were belittling it at all  I know it's nothing compared to the attacks some dogs have suffered, it was noise and slobber and bully boy stuff really, and actually feel a bit silly worrying about it but having been there before it's difficult not to.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> No, I didn't think you were belittling it at all  I know it's nothing compared to the attacks some dogs have suffered, it was noise and slobber and bully boy stuff really, and actually feel a bit silly worrying about it but having been there before it's difficult not to.


No Sarah, it is perfectly natural to worry. Especially as you have unfortunately experienced the severe ends of the spectrum .


----------



## Barcode

The stress bath thing was _very_ helpful, and made it easier to conceptualize what is likely going on in Scrabble's head - I also didn't think of the physiological aspect either, so I understand a little better now. THANKYOU.

OH's neices are staying right now, so we all went out for a long walk yesterday. Scrabble was fine, and even sat nicely on lead without a sound when two large dogs approached her (I would rather they didn't uninvited, but that's another thread ...). My BIL was saying that he uses a large stick on walks to block other dogs approaching his uninvited - not to hit them or do anything aggressive (!), but to put a barrier between them. It's not that his dogs are unfriendly, but it's about manners.

Today, we're taking Matilda to a fun dog show and leaving Scrabble at home. Not to be mean. But because she'll be happy to snooze the afternoon away and go for a nice walk later. The noise/other dogs would be a bit too much. I've gone from thinking she should learn to get used to these situations to realizing that it's her personality and to make sure she's put in a comfortable environment as much as possible.

After all, if I hate too many people around me and noises after a while and get stressed, why on earth am I going to put my dog, who obviously feels the same, through it?


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## SLB

I decided to do more with the box (washing basket) today. 

Pen has learnt a few other tricks too. 
First it was just remembering that all 4 feet need to be in the box. Then I thought, hang on, this provides some back support. So I continued on with our "beg" training, I've gotten her to the point that she can do it with my arm there, but I wanted her to do it without, yet if I backed her up against a wall, she would do something else and really wasn't getting it. But put her in the box and she started to understand what I wanted her to do 

Then we went for some hiding in the box, now Pen can fit in it properly so at the moment I'm just asking her to lie down in it and wait a few seconds. But she's doing well. I'm also teaching her to put her arm around someone - but I'm calling it "comfort" basically it's where I touch her shoulder and she puts her paw over my arm. It's quite cute and as she is rather pawsy anyway she's picked it up surprisingly quick. 

Lou, I decided to get back to teaching him to put his toys away, since my pedal bin where I keep the toys is broken I used the box instead and he loved it. In fact he wasn't waiting for me to tell him to put them away, I'd get one out of the box, go to grab another and he'd have already put the other toy back in.. :lol: pleb dog! 

It looks like it's going to throw it down so if it does and the temp is a lot lower than now, we'll be having a short bikejor. If not, we'll just go for a mooch around the lakes.


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## GingerRogers

Barcode said:


> The stress bath thing was _very_ helpful, and made it easier to conceptualize what is likely going on in Scrabble's head - I also didn't think of the physiological aspect either, so I understand a little better now. THANKYOU.
> 
> OH's neices are staying right now, so we all went out for a long walk yesterday. Scrabble was fine, and even sat nicely on lead without a sound when two large dogs approached her (I would rather they didn't uninvited, but that's another thread ...). My BIL was saying that he uses a large stick on walks to block other dogs approaching his uninvited - not to hit them or do anything aggressive (!), but to put a barrier between them. It's not that his dogs are unfriendly, but it's about manners.
> 
> Today, we're taking Matilda to a fun dog show and leaving Scrabble at home. Not to be mean. But because she'll be happy to snooze the afternoon away and go for a nice walk later. The noise/other dogs would be a bit too much. I've gone from thinking she should learn to get used to these situations to realizing that it's her personality and to make sure she's put in a comfortable environment as much as possible.
> 
> After all, if I hate too many people around me and noises after a while and get stressed, why on earth am I going to put my dog, who obviously feels the same, through it?


Its a good way of demonstrating it isn't it. I am pleased. Its a hard leap to make. The recognition that your dog might not be able to cope with all situations. They each have their strengths. Just like us.

Enjoy having fun with Matilda the social butterfly (gorgeous gorgeous little thing she is ) at the show and then have a lovely peaceful walk with scrabble later. Then sit back and relax while they tell each other about their days.


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## Sarah1983

Well the sled dog meet went fine. There was a new dog there, a chocolate Lab, who Spen greeted in a polite and friendly manner. The dog he kept telling off for rude behaviour last week was his playmate this week. We had a dog rush a fence barking on the way there and he just whined as usual and carried on walking. So my fears were for nothing in that respect it seems. He has however hackled up and growled at hearing the other dog bark so it seems we may have a slight problem there. But I can deal with him having a problem with one dog far better than I can him having a problem with all dogs.

I'm generally not one to panic over handbags, they happen and are usually over and done with and forgotten about in seconds, but this seemed way more intense than your normal handbags type scuffle. Spencers reaction was completely different too. He normally tries to diffuse situations and once a scuffle is over will either avoid the other dog or act like it never happened, not keep going. Nor has he had issues with any of the dogs afterwards. But hey, they can't get on with everyone can they?

Also met a jogger on the way to the meet. Took the longer route to the meet coz I can let him off leash to have a sniff around, a bit of a run and a poo before we get there. Saw her coming so called him and had him sit so she could pass. But she wanted to meet him so I let him go. He didn't jump all over her, just leaned on her and wagged his whole body, recalled several times as we stood chatting (didn't want him going round the corner as horse riders use the path and there's a field that sometimes has horses in) and just generally behaved himself lol. At one point the jogger would have been flattened by 31kgs of excited Labrador and then he'd have disappeared around the corner and ignored me calling him. So we've seen a huge improvement there :thumbup1:


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## Nicki85

Hmmm interesting walk this morning!

Took the dogs down to the Thames at Pangbourne, not been there before. Anyhow, it was busy but that was fine- kind of expected.

Firstly Shae decided that she didn't want an offlead GR to talk to us so chased it off which is something she has never done before. We were playing in the water when it came over... She recalled immediately though...

Then carried on, met lots of people and other dogs all OK, couple of woofs with Shae here and there and I was careful to bring her to one side of the path and distract her with treats and then let her say hi if the other dogs came up rather than let her charge up to them or the other dog charge up to her to avoid a repeat of the GR meeting. 

All was going fine until we got to a nice field so I let Rust off as nothing for him to leap on and damage his shoulder. He went into the river after a duck and that was it... I was shouting, running away... would he come out?! NO! 10 mins or so later after swimming upstream (amongst boats) he decided that he had had enough and came over to me. I then had to haul him out as it was a 4ft drop but he had a boat to brace him self off of. Needless to say he won't be offlead there again. I honestly thought i'd be jumping in and swimming over to get him. 

We carried on, both very excited, met some more people and Shae played (yup played) chase with another dog nicely. Rusty was so excited he had zoomies on the end of the lead which resulted in Shae and him bundling on this field and me looking like I had no control over the two of them  

Shae then played with a cocker spaniel and had a chat to the owner. Walked back past loads of people with boats and kayaks and all good, no more noise with Shae.

I'll be taking Shae back there for training around offlead dogs, she was good that she didn't chase off after anyone and recalled immediately when asked. She does need to learn greet other dogs in a calmer manner though- not run up to them really fast and think they want to play the same game as her. Bit of a blip with th GR that we met first but I am putting that down to over-excitement and that she was engaged in a game with me and Rusty. Certainly no excuse of course. 

Rusty... he was still full of adrenaline when I got him home so had to play tug in the garden and he has finally chilled. No idea what to do with him lol .


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - I am really pleased that you as much as Spen were fine today. I was wondering how it was going when I was on our walk this morning. 

Nicki - the picture of Rusty refusing to leave the water made me laugh (I am certain I wouldn't have done at the time if I had been you though ).

Barcode - hope you have fun with lovely Matilda.

Nice walk in the forest today. Hubby leaves tonight and then comes back pretty much as I leave next Sunday so I made him come on our walk to see where we go and what we do as I am dreading leaving the dogs with him - I can give them a good walk the day I go and the one I come back which just leaves two in between. I will sort and label all their food as if they are going into kennels and their daily "routine" as much as they have one.....as he doesn't really know what they eat and when or indeed what we do all day .

ETA: I forgot the best bit....Kilo whistle recalled from accelerating into full speed chase mode after an unidentified critter. Easy for some I am sure, achievement for me.


----------



## SLB

Before we headed off out to the lakes we went over the fields. 

First up we did what I will call "recall alley". Basically I use some tracks over a grass field that the farmers tracker made when he's put sh*t up on his manure pile. Plenty of smells and temptations all around so they did well. Also re-enforces their whistles (both of mine have separate whistles). 

So I set them up, Pen at the back, Lou in the middle and Jack up front. About 10 footsteps between one another. 

Then I call whoever is at the back up to the front, ask them to wait, walk 10 paces, then call whoever is now at the back and repeat until I have called them all once. 

Then call them all in to me, give them treats and let them go about their dog stuff. We still need some work as Lou moves on Pen's whistle every now and then. And Pen comes to Jack's name (Jack doesn't have a whistle). But I was very pleased with their work today.

Then we went on and played a stupid recall game. Basically - I run about like a loon, when a dog catches up with me, I fall on the ground (purposely) and throw treats out. Then whilst they're looking for treats, I run off and it's a circle repeated. 

Then I made them use their noses; tell them ready, then throw the food towards them along the ground. Louie likes to see if I'll just toss him a cheeky one rather than do the work and look for them!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> JSW - what a horrible incident with Charlie; it sounds as if you and your OH coped brilliantly working as a team. Unfortunately there are loads of people just like that "don't worry if your dog bites, it'll teach him a lesson" etc etc etc. I am progressively learning to be firmer and to be ruder (which I don't like to be) to protect my dogs. I think that you did the best that you could under difficult circumstances. I now carry a slip lead - maybe you or you OH could, then he could have caught and held Charlie more easily maybe; but the woman may well have let him go again once he'd been returned or just get too close onlead like she did. I hope that it didn't spoil your walk too much as it sounds as if the rest was successful .
> 
> RR x Staffy is a popular cross at present (here at least) as it often produces dogs "of type" which folk like to own. No idea why, I'd be worried, but there you go :blink:.


Thanks dogless  Yeah i think i may start taking the spare lead with me.. as this could of come in handy a few times now. & here's to being firm dog owners for the sake of our dogs :thumbup1: 
Oh i didn't know that.. Haven't seen any, haven't even had the pleasure to meet an RR yet! But yeah i'd be worried too .. each to their own i suppose 

Ohh.. well done on the whistle recall ::biggrin::thumbup1: Very pleased for you!! & well done to Kilo of course 



Sarah1983 said:


> JSW, people like that really annoy me. It's not up to me and my dog to teach others that they can't say hello to every dog they see.
> What do I mean by offering behaviours...hmmm...let's see if I can explain it without making it as clear as mud  Basically I don't want my dog to stand there waiting to be told or shown exactly what to do in a training session, I want him to figure it out. I train a lot of behaviours by shaping, which is basically breaking down the behaviour into small steps and reinforcing each progressive step until you get the end behaviour. So, say I want to teach my dog to get in a box and lie down. Instead of luring him into the box and into a down and then clicking and treating I'd start with the box right next to me and me clicking and treating if he so much as glanced in the direction of the box. Then when he's doing that (which with a clicker savvy dog and good timing takes one or two clicks) I'd hold out for any movement towards the box, whether a single paw movement towards it, stretching the neck towards it or something bigger like moving to touch it. Once he's moving towards it and touching it I'd hold out and only click for paw touches, then for a single paw in the box, then both front paws, then 3 paws, 4 paws, a sit and eventually a down. Well, that's the theory, me being me I'd likely end up shaping something completely different simply coz I found it funny and/or cute lol.
> I find behaviours taught that way seem to sink in better than the lure, reward method personally and I find it a lot more fun for me and my dog to train that way. Spen clearly enjoys it as he often initiates games of 101 things to do with a box (only with random objects, not just boxes lol).


Ahh, i see. So then once he's got the jist and into the box/led in it.. would you link it to a command? or get the box out and expect him to get into it? I'm very verbal though  it'd be me getting carried away and over excited! With the scenario you described i'd just probably get her used to the box and the word 'box' then pop treats into it for her to get in it then link that to commands. But i am definitely no expert and have only just got the basics going properly.. all of which involved treats to train and me showing her.. but i'm quite happy she does them on command (when shes in the mood for some ) Your post has had me thinking all day anyway (i read it v late last night), was great food for thought as to how i can use/apply it to give it a go in the future  thankyou.

I'm sorry to hear about Spens incident with another dog  But glad to hear your dog meet went well and nice to read about jogger improvements  you must be proud :thumbup1:



Barcode said:


> I've gone from thinking she should learn to get used to these situations to realizing that it's her personality and to make sure she's put in a comfortable environment as much as possible.
> After all, if I hate too many people around me and noises after a while and get stressed, why on earth am I going to put my dog, who obviously feels the same, through it?


I love this way of thinking 



GingerRogers said:


> Then sit back and relax while they tell each other about their days.


I also love your answer to this way of thinking 

SLB - your tricks with Pen sounds so cute! 'comfort' .. makes me go 'aww'  I've been reading your bikejor thread too.. very interesting! Haven't got the whole way through it (youtube videos of bikejor-ing distracted me.. the chipmunk one !) but from this post i see its a 'done' thing now.. it looks soo much fun! Then again, a walk round the lakes sounds just as nice! Recall alley also sounds like lots of fun.. I love your posts and reading bits of tricks/training you do 

Nicki - Sounds like you've had a fun filled day even with the chasing  
_______

No big update from us - as sundays are her chill day with the OH - silly me forgot to ask him to use the clicker a bit today!! So i did some when i got home.. still not using words.. after a few random clicks and treats i started something unintentionally really.. i had treat in 1 hand, clicker in another and spread my arms out.. she got a click and a treat when she sat infront of my hand with the treat.. then swapped hands.. so she had to move to the next hand and sit to get the treat.. after a little shaking of my hand with the treat she got the idea in 2 go's.. we did this a good few times then i put it away  i may introduce 'touch' this way, so she has to touch my hand to get the treat seems as she did this anyway as if to say 'i know theres a treat there hurry up and click!'.. i don't know whos having more fun with the clicker, me or her!


----------



## moonviolet

Internet connection is up and down like a lady of the night's under garments, so i'll make it quick.

Monthly tricks and freestyle workshop a great group today, new faces and new pooches Lots of fun and laughter and great work from the dogs. Exhausted beagle, knackered human!


----------



## Beth17

mv sounds good fun!

Dogless sounds a good walk, well done Kilo for the recall!

Sarah glad Spen is ok and the sled dog meet went well 

Nicki sounds a hectic walk but well done to your two 

JenSteWillow I keep meaning to try Sam with a clicker but using a torch as he can't hear. He loves hand touches though, it sounds like you are doing really well!

We are working on the usual stuff. Sam's recall and concentration is doing really well. Most of the time he ignores other dogs in favour of playing with me or Oscar, today we stood and watched a jogger go past and he didn't move a muscle. We also did some little body awareness things for his agility such as walking with all 4 feet on a plank. 
Going to be interesting teaching him to go around a course when he can't always see me for cues but we'll manage it somehow 

Oscar had a nice quiet chillout walk this morning as he was a stroppy bugger yesterday.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- Great you had a good walk 

SLB- That sounds mental....  But great fun!

moonviolet- Glad you had a good time

Beth- Great about your achievements, sounds good

Well for us
Bailey- Scents  He will not recall off scents not for food, not for toys, not when I`m running around like a div, not when I fall to the ground nothing. We`ll be doing lots of work on that. 

Max- Lead walking and basic recall.


----------



## SLB

Canine K9 said:


> SLB- That sounds mental....  But great fun!
> 
> Well for us
> Bailey- Scents  He will not recall off scents not for food, not for toys, not when I`m running around like a div, not when I fall to the ground nothing. We`ll be doing lots of work on that.
> 
> Max- Lead walking and basic recall.


Thats what my trainer taught me to make my lessons. To teach a good stay she'd make us have a race, only the dog had to sit at the starting line and we - the owners, had to run round cones, through hoops and jumping jacks... and the dog had to sit there. So my sessions come in part from her. :lol:

Go back a few pages and try my focus exercise with Bailey.

Have him on a line, take him somewhere quiet, have lots of treats and a clicker. Let him go, wait for him to look at you, click and treat. It'll take time but he'll come around and think - oh actually that person is more exciting than this smell. I'll see if I can do a video with Pen of it tomorrow and show you how it works.


----------



## Sarah1983

JenSteWillow said:


> Ahh, i see. So then once he's got the jist and into the box/led in it.. would you link it to a command? or get the box out and expect him to get into it? I'm very verbal though  it'd be me getting carried away and over excited! With the scenario you described i'd just probably get her used to the box and the word 'box' then pop treats into it for her to get in it then link that to commands. But i am definitely no expert and have only just got the basics going properly.. all of which involved treats to train and me showing her.. but i'm quite happy she does them on command (when shes in the mood for some ) Your post has had me thinking all day anyway (i read it v late last night), was great food for thought as to how i can use/apply it to give it a go in the future  thankyou.
> 
> I'm sorry to hear about Spens incident with another dog  But glad to hear your dog meet went well and nice to read about jogger improvements  you must be proud :thumbup1:


I get the dog offering the behaviour I want reliably before naming it. Once they're reliably offering it I start saying the cue when they do offer it and they associate the right behaviour with the cue that way. After all, if you tell the dog to sit and it has no clue what sit means what association does that build? 

Shaping isn't for everyone and there's absolutely nothing wrong with luring a dog to show it what you want but I really, really enjoy it and get better results than I do with the lure, mark, reward method. I'm fascinated by how my dog figures stuff out, how he thinks and some of the conclusions he comes to about what exactly I'm looking for are pretty damn hilarious. Like I must obviously be looking for 3 paws on a box, the 4th on the bed and him nose targeting my left boob just because I'm sitting on the bed trying to teach him to stand on a box I've placed next to the bed.

I did have to leash Spen as the jogger jogged off, otherwise he'd quite likely have gone with her, loyalty is not his speciality lol. But yup, really pleased with how much he's improved over the last 6 months or so.

MV, sounds like fun. I sooooo wish we had classes like yours here. I'll just have to steal ideas from you to work on with Spen :biggrin:

Beth, I'm sure doing agility with a deaf dog will have it's challenges but as long as you're both having fun that's the main thing.

K9, have you ever read When Pigs Fly by Jane Killion? Fantastic book for those with the less human oriented dogs like terriers.

Nicki, I can see myself having the swimming problem with Spen if I ever manage to find the river. We're supposedly off to the nearby lake on Wednesday so I might be here that night posting that I had to leave Spen still swimming around


----------



## diefenbaker

A chicken has gone missing  I know it wasn't' Dief. He's never out of my sight. The owner suspects Professor of Cunning Monsieur Reynard.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> A chicken has gone missing  I know it wasn't' Dief. He's never out of my sight. The owner suspects Professor of Cunning Monsieur Reynard.


How cool....a murder mystery day thrown in - what a good value holiday .

K9 - I second Sarah's book recommendation, it's an easy read and really makes you think. Although I do believe that dogs are dogs to many extents, working with breed and type traits really does open up the potential of your dog enormously and you no longer battle with training half as much.

Beth - Sam is really coming on, you've achieved a lot with him.

mv - your workshop sounds, as always, great .


----------



## lostbear

DoggieBag said:


> To boil the kettle and make me a nice cup of tea. He is not doing too good at present, he keeps dropping the cup.
> 
> Curse this sorry lack of opposable thumbs!
> 
> 
> Currently working on recall. He has picked up getting to the end of his long line and coming back when called (even with distractions). Ordered a whistle a few days ago, so now plan on increasing that distance as and when I can.


Slug detection. She's really good at it and is totally self-taught.

I go round the garden collecting those huge horrible slugs with the ginger frill (they're the size of my fist, some of them). Sophie seeks them out and stands and barks when she finds one and I go and get it to ki- er, no, no, not to kill it, that would be cruel - no, I send it to - er, a _farm_. That's right, they all go to live on a lovely farm where they can eat lettuce all day and play with the other slugs. They love it there. No. Really. They do.


----------



## moonviolet

Canine K9 said:


> Well for us
> Bailey- Scents  He will not recall off scents not for food, not for toys, not when I`m running around like a div, not when I fall to the ground nothing. We`ll be doing lots of work on that.


Try not to be frustrated with Bailey recall from scents is high level stuff and sniffing such an important part of being a dog while that might be a stinky old dry dead frog to us, the nuances of aroma a dog can smell could make it one of natures masterpieces, up there with sunsets and rainbows!

With the more independently working breeds training a reliable recall is more of a way of life than a formal training session here and there  Here's a list of things I've found useful

Reinforce your recall cue anytime your dog is coming to you.
Play recall games at home, in the garden and on walks.
Recall and clip your lead on and unleash again a number of times through each walk ( so lead on doesn't spell the end of fun)
Recall frequently for games and interaction 
Identify a distance that your dog recalls reliably at and recall before they get beyond it, take into account this will shrink with increased distractions.
Never use your recall cue when you don't think it will work!
Never use your recall cue to call your dog to you for something unpleasant or to punish them for a delayed or slow recall.

Be aware of your surroundings if you can see a rabbit warren in the bank over there or you've walked this way before and had an issue in this spot get them onlead and have a fun interaction. Losing a terrier down a hole can be as real a hazard as busy road.
Playing scent games at home and creating things like sausage trees out and about can help satisfy the need to sniff.

Hope there are a few helpful things in there for you


----------



## Dogless

lostbear said:


> Slug detection. She's really good at it and is totally self-taught.
> 
> I go round the garden collecting those huge horrible slugs with the ginger frill (they're the size of my fist, some of them). Sophie seeks them out and stands and barks when she finds one and I go and get it to ki- er, no, no, not to kill it, that would be cruel - no, I send it to - er, a _farm_. That's right, they all go to live on a lovely farm where they can eat lettuce all day and play with the other slugs. They love it there. No. Really. They do.


There might be money to be made.....you can tout for business from proud gardeners everywhere "THE UK'S FIRST TRAINED SLUG DETECTION DOG".


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## lostbear

Dogless said:


> There might be money to be made.....you can tout for business from proud gardeners everywhere "THE UK'S FIRST TRAINED SLUG DETECTION DOG".


Mmmm - that's a thought.

Do you think people with guilty consciences would be prepared to pay to have their slugs sent to a 'farm' as well? I could charge for 'taking care' of them . . .


----------



## Nicki85

Hello all..

I've just about got over the trauma of Rust almost (well, I may be slightly exagharating) swimming the length of the Thames! I'm going to get him a light weight longline that floats- if any one knows of any.... Little tyke.

Anyhow, took Shae out for 20min training session yesterday afternoon over the field and she was ace. There were small children running around (one was dragging a tiny yorkshire terrier around and tried to carry it up a kids climbing wall... like seriously... was gonig to have a word with the owner/ parent but common sense previaled and they climbed down with it), horses, little dogs, cricket game, a kite... well she was ace so I started adding a cue word to "look" at that person/dog/noisy thing and click treating when she did  Had a bit of a play session with ball too. CHap came over and said I must have a lot of patience so I explained what I was doing and then he greeted Shae when she was calm 

Rust I took to the forest with my nephew and brother, found a geo-cache and did some tea bag hunts.

I'm in London today so day off (from dogs- not work)! need to do some physio stuff with Rust when I get home though  

Hope everyone has a good day


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Try not to be frustrated with Bailey recall from scents is high level stuff and sniffing such an important part of being a dog while that might be a stinky old dry dead frog to us, the nuances of aroma a dog can smell could make it one of natures masterpieces, up there with sunsets and rainbows!
> 
> With the more independently working breeds training a reliable recall is more of a way of life than a formal training session here and there  Here's a list of things I've found useful
> 
> Reinforce your recall cue anytime your dog is coming to you.
> Play recall games at home, in the garden and on walks.
> Recall and clip your lead on and unleash again a number of times through each walk ( so lead on doesn't spell the end of fun)
> Recall frequently for games and interaction
> Identify a distance that your dog recalls reliably at and recall before they get beyond it, take into account this will shrink with increased distractions.
> Never use your recall cue when you don't think it will work!
> Never use your recall cue to call your dog to you for something unpleasant or to punish them for a delayed or slow recall.
> 
> Be aware of your surroundings if you can see a rabbit warren in the bank over there or you've walked this way before and had an issue in this spot get them onlead and have a fun interaction. Losing a terrier down a hole can be as real a hazard as busy road.
> Playing scent games at home and creating things like sausage trees out and about can help satisfy the need to sniff.
> 
> Hope there are a few helpful things in there for you


Excellent advice. For me its really being aware of both dog and our environment and trying not to fall asleep myself. Her terrier brain works so much faster than ours. I often find my self slowly thinking oh look ninja is doing that thing she she does just before she ... Oh **** ..... Before brain has time to intervene. Being young your brain should be able to work much* faster than mine 

I have learnt to spot those signs that she has picked up a scent. The point. One leg up. Nose in air. Nose to ground, I am probably too late. If she goes I try not to panic and just call her ( not a recall if you have a precious word )this ways or whistles or her name or a squeaky toy.

I do have to be very firm when I spot a sign to call her off. I have found a strong 'get' as in get here right now but happens to sound like 'git' when said with meaning :-D


----------



## JenKyzer

Beth - Thanks  . The torch sounds a good idea for him - i hope he cottons on well for you & good luck with going round the the course - I'm sure he'll do brilliantly 

Sarah - Didn't you know that's the trick of all tricks , 3 paws on, 1 off, nose on boob! ..  bless him :laugh:! Ahh i understand now.. i thought you didn't use words at all .. i was like WOW  .. but that's just me bein a bit ditzy  (in my head i was wondering how you recalled at its best.. did you just stop still and he came running??! :rolleyes5: silly me..  )

Lostbear - Can we be your first custom  .. we don't have a nice garden.. but they end up in my kitchen :incazzato: i had to pluck one away from the kitchen unit just the other night.. he over stepped the mark of staying on the floor .. rude lil bugger. (How the break an entry.. i have no idea.. i have sealed every nook and cranny..) I'm sure they'll enjoy this.. farm.. alot more 

Nice rainy walk this morning.. Willow is now sulking in her bed as she really doesn't like the torrential stuff aperantly.. although enjoyed poking her nose under the broken drain pipes and licking the water as it ran down 
Also rain means that when i recall her (on lead).. she can stop half way before she gets to me to expect me to carry on.. so she thinks!! Lazy arse. I think we stood still for a good 2 mins before she realised she wasn't going anywhere fast and was getting more wet :laugh:

Hope everyone has a nice day


----------



## Canine K9

Thanks all hes got bitey again and I'm full of fresh scars again


----------



## GingerRogers

Ok heres a lesson in accumulated stress, local baby machine out with half her kids (that makes 4 ) on scooters and bikes etc, set the ninja off on a stress fest of proportions we haven't had for a while.

Then a westie, then a little girl with a pup clearly on a socialisation mission, successful with the westie but I didn't hang about to see what ninja made of puppies  even though she was actually not unhappy with either dog in the distance.

So we u-turned and came back past our house, I should have gone in and called it quits really, just as we go round a corner, a JRT with as much noise and slobber as the ninja, luckily we are beside an alley that leads to the quiet lane so we dive up there, get to the end of the alley to hear the beagle kicking off at a lab, back we go and hover for a minute till the noisy one has gone, all done quite calmly even sitting for a treat. Walk through the estate just as we think we are clear the lab pops out again, but still quite calm until we started to pass its peemail then stress head comes out. 

A pully scampering wreck we continue down the lane, pass the lundhunds house quite calmly still, well without noise, the traffic at the end is a bit mental but still let a lorry and a bus past , that would have been unheard of a few weeks ago. We think we are nearly home and 2 black labs come to cross the road, luckily they go down what is locally known as dog sh1t alley. Surely that is it, no  one more yellow lab to toddle off into the distance before we can get safely home, but again still managed a little focused sit and down on the grass, I didn't push it further than that  poor thing has her stress whiskers billowed out and is trying to chill under the coffee table 

But actually on typing all that out apart from the children to start and the JRT she didn't actually bark at anything else, Admittedly I u-turned etc and managed it all brilliantly  but she caught sight of them all so a little gold star for the ninja today I think, poor lamb.

Actually not poor lamb I forgot the dead hedgepig I found on the doorstep this morning


----------



## kat&molly

moonviolet said:


> Try not to be frustrated with Bailey recall from scents is high level stuff and sniffing such an important part of being a dog while that might be a stinky old dry dead frog to us, the nuances of aroma a dog can smell could make it one of natures masterpieces, up there with sunsets and rainbows!
> 
> With the more independently working breeds training a reliable recall is more of a way of life than a formal training session here and there  Here's a list of things I've found useful
> 
> Reinforce your recall cue anytime your dog is coming to you.
> Play recall games at home, in the garden and on walks.
> Recall and clip your lead on and unleash again a number of times through each walk ( so lead on doesn't spell the end of fun)
> Recall frequently for games and interaction
> Identify a distance that your dog recalls reliably at and recall before they get beyond it, take into account this will shrink with increased distractions.
> Never use your recall cue when you don't think it will work!
> Never use your recall cue to call your dog to you for something unpleasant or to punish them for a delayed or slow recall.
> 
> Be aware of your surroundings if you can see a rabbit warren in the bank over there or you've walked this way before and had an issue in this spot get them onlead and have a fun interaction. Losing a terrier down a hole can be as real a hazard as busy road.
> Playing scent games at home and creating things like sausage trees out and about can help satisfy the need to sniff.
> 
> Hope there are a few helpful things in there for you


Great post MV. For me with a Gundog breed, 2 Terriers and a Hound, I can really tell a difference between the breeds. Moll is a really easy dog in that she sees me as a source of all her fun, and always wants to know what we're doing next, even something like a hand touch is really exciting. 
The others dont need me at all for their fun and trying to engage them is harder, we've made huge improvements but its on going.

I have set a goal to get Evie round a section of the village that I dont often use, I can take the others but not short stuff, it takes about 20 minutes in all , we started yesterday and didnt get as far as 20 metres. Just following and stopping , letting her take everything in , she was worried but did well really and she did take treats which is a good indictor of hows she's coping. Will see what today brings and I've doubled the Stress Less dose for now.


----------



## Dogless

GR - good post; demonstrates how things build up. Sorry that you had to experience the stress but you and the Ninja did well .

k&m - hope that Evie and you conquer the difficult part of the village; sure you will with patience. The differences in breeds is a very valid point - it's about recognising them and working with them I think. 

JSW - sorry you got a soaking and well done for your patience. I have waited in the rain many a time with a recalcitrant ridgie :incazzato: .

Nice walk this morning. Went to the forest for the whole morning. I have to get away from all the stresses, strains and general shite of life to somewhere Kilo, Rudi and I can relax. They were very good, we just did some recalls, downs and emergency stops (Kilo - Roo not there yet) at a distance and just mucked about really, nothing complicated. Just enjoyed ourselves. Good job I relaxed as I got home to have a knife lodged firmly in my spine but that seems par for the course these days :incazzato:. Still hopefully things are about to change for the better with secret plans afoot .

Did see a hare right in the middle of the track as we walked back to the car with the boys on lead as we were close to the road. I thought it was a small dog at first and was waiting to see an owner in the distance ready to tell me it was friendly  but looked again, it looked at us and bolted. I braced myself, my shoulders stayed in (just!!) and I delayed for ages doing hand touches and simple stuff until the CHs had calmed down enough to go on  .


----------



## Nicki85

Knowing how hard Rust can pull to get to a rabbit he's seen on the track i'm amazed you can hold two ridgies- you must be superwoman!

Glad you had a good walk and secret plans sound positive


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Knowing how hard Rust can pull to get to a rabbit he's seen on the track i'm amazed you can hold two ridgies- you must be superwoman!
> 
> Glad you had a good walk and secret plans sound positive


It's all in the stance I reckon . If it had been a pure surprise I wouldn't have stood an earthly chance I don't think but that second where critter looked at us and us at it before moving gave me the time to brace . I often think of the surgeon who has twice repaired my shoulder and silently thank him for a good job .


----------



## Dogless

Love this. *When we assume that another dog will be ok if we allow our loose dog to chase after them or we let our leashed dog pull us over to say hi, were making a judgment call without all the facts. And in doing so we are taking away that other persons right to choose whats best for their dogs.* Be Polite. It Could Save an Epileptic Dog's Life. | notes from a dog walker


----------



## BessieDog

Will catch up with what's been going on later, but Dogless's post about the hare reminded me I've got a big problem - and no idea how to work on it. 

We had a lovely walk on Dartmoor. Steep hill going up so I had hold of Bess. (For once I didn't mind if she pulled a bit). 

Luckily going down OH had her. 

Suddenly two sheep appeared. They looked at Bess, she looked at them. If they hadn't have moved it might have been different, but they turned tail and ran, leaping over a stone wall. Took OH by surprise and it took him a few metres to stop Bess as she went into full chase mode. For a moment I thought he was going over the wall as well. 

But now I know - Bess would not be able to be trusted around sheep! 

She's never met any before, so didnt know what they were. 

So how can I get her not to chase them? It wasn't pleasant for any of us as she took ages to calm down.


----------



## L/C

BessieDog said:


> Will catch up with what's been going on later, but Dogless's post about the hare reminded me I've got a big problem - and no idea how to work on it.
> 
> We had a lovely walk on Dartmoor. Steep hill going up so I had hold of Bess. (For once I didn't mind if she pulled a bit).
> 
> Luckily going down OH had her.
> 
> Suddenly two sheep appeared. They looked at Bess, she looked at them. If they hadn't have moved it might have been different, but they turned tail and ran, leaping over a stone wall. Took OH by surprise and it took him a few metres to stop Bess as she went into full chase mode. For a moment I thought he was going over the wall as well.
> 
> But now I know - Bess would not be able to be trusted around sheep!
> 
> She's never met any before, so didnt know what they were.
> 
> So how can I get her not to chase them? It wasn't pleasant for any of us as she took ages to calm down.


It depends why she chased. If it was true predatory instinct (in that she would have tried to bring them down) it's hard but there are ways to manage prey drive.

If it was they ran so it was fun to try to chase then you can work on her reactivity to movement or you can try to find someone with confident sheep! Most dogs when faced with a belligerent sheep that won't run suddenly aren't as interested in chasing. He doesn't do it any more but my trainer used to run workshops with his own sheep and use them as stooge sheep - it worked very well.

The majority of dogs won't bring down a large animal like a sheep - normally the chase instinct kicks in but it isn't actually going to lead to anything beyond a chase. I think the best thing to work on with Bessie would be being able to de-escalate her when she is wound up, focus around triggers and recall, recall, recall!

If it is predatory behaviour is she very interested in toys? Or is she more food motivated? There are different strategies for each type of dog.


----------



## SLB

BessieDog said:


> Will catch up with what's been going on later, but Dogless's post about the hare reminded me I've got a big problem - and no idea how to work on it.
> 
> We had a lovely walk on Dartmoor. Steep hill going up so I had hold of Bess. (For once I didn't mind if she pulled a bit).
> 
> Luckily going down OH had her.
> 
> Suddenly two sheep appeared. They looked at Bess, she looked at them. If they hadn't have moved it might have been different, but they turned tail and ran, leaping over a stone wall. Took OH by surprise and it took him a few metres to stop Bess as she went into full chase mode. For a moment I thought he was going over the wall as well.
> 
> But now I know - Bess would not be able to be trusted around sheep!
> 
> She's never met any before, so didnt know what they were.
> 
> So how can I get her not to chase them? It wasn't pleasant for any of us as she took ages to calm down.


I would seriously think about some gundog lessons with her. I had no idea how to stop Louie and his chase instinct, but training him up to do as he was bred has helped curb it somewhat and it means that it's still there but I can manage it appropriately.

Or take her around them more, make them part of the scenery - perhaps ring a local (or any) sheep farmer and see if you can train by some of his sheep..

PM Moobli - she has started helping a woman with 2 GSD's and their prey drive towards sheep I believe. Being a shepherds wife I'm sure she'll be able to give you some tips 

Right - here are the fruits of our Labour. Pennie's Beg. 
Pennie - Beg - YouTube

CK9 - I said I would get you videos of me doing the focus exercise but Pen has decided it's finally clicked on so when I took her out this morning - she barely took her eyes off me! I shall try again tomorrow but take Jack out to add to her distraction.


----------



## Dogless

BessieDog said:


> Will catch up with what's been going on later, but Dogless's post about the hare reminded me I've got a big problem - and no idea how to work on it.
> 
> We had a lovely walk on Dartmoor. Steep hill going up so I had hold of Bess. (For once I didn't mind if she pulled a bit).
> 
> Luckily going down OH had her.
> 
> Suddenly two sheep appeared. They looked at Bess, she looked at them. If they hadn't have moved it might have been different, but they turned tail and ran, leaping over a stone wall. Took OH by surprise and it took him a few metres to stop Bess as she went into full chase mode. For a moment I thought he was going over the wall as well.
> 
> But now I know - Bess would not be able to be trusted around sheep!
> 
> She's never met any before, so didnt know what they were.
> 
> So how can I get her not to chase them? It wasn't pleasant for any of us as she took ages to calm down.


In areas like Dartmoor when I know that there will be loose sheep and ponies I keep mine on a waist belt and long leads. It's not worth the risk of coming across them suddenly and chasing to me.

I have achieved some chase recalls recently from rabbits, a deer and I am not sure what (in the woods) with Kilo. Rudi I can quite easily (touch wood!!) because he chases for fun but Kilo chases with total intent.

I worked on rewarding not chasing with a chase of something more appropriate initially with Kilo - so redirection onto a special toy with me sprinting the other way with it, yelling and being a loon. I had to couple that with loads and loads and loads of impulse control work every day for goodness knows how long; I still do it!!! The last few times has been a voice recall and yesterday I was sure enough to risk using my whistle. It has taken a long time and I will never, ever, ever trust him around livestock as he is very predatory but I will carry on working on it for those awful, sudden surprise moments!!!


----------



## BessieDog

Thanks Dogless, SLB and L/C - all good ideas for starters. I'm certain she saw the sheep running and thought that looked a good game. It's how she plays with dogs. Probably would have thought it great if they turned and chased her.

Problem is dogs chasing with no ill will towards the sheep can still do lots of damage, so I'd like to try to manage it.

I'd keep her on a lead where I know there's sheep - today on the sea wall there was a sign that sheep were grazing the path in the next section. The section that I'm usually safe to let Bess off in. I thought how lucky it was that the sign hadn't been blown away, as I've never in my life known sheep there. 

We turned tail and went back the way we'd come. But maybe I should see it as a good opportunity to practice.


----------



## SLB

BessieDog said:


> Thanks Dogless, SLB and L/C - all good ideas for starters. I'm certain she saw the sheep running and thought that looked a good game. It's how she plays with dogs. Probably would have thought it great if they turned and chased her.
> 
> Problem is dogs chasing with no ill will towards the sheep can still do lots of damage, so I'd like to try to manage it.
> 
> I'd keep her on a lead where I know there's sheep - today on the sea wall there was a sign that sheep were grazing the path in the next section. The section that I'm usually safe to let Bess off in. I thought how lucky it was that the sign hadn't been blown away, as I've never in my life known sheep there.
> 
> We turned tail and went back the way we'd come. But maybe I should see it as a good opportunity to practice.


If we go somewhere new, I always check if there are likely to be livestock. Mine are curious and probably wouldn't do anything other than sniff and try and get them to play (except horses - they're used to them) but livestock are unpredictable at the best of times I find and it only takes a funny noise or a quick movement to get the dogs going.

I have asked Moobli to take a look at this thread so she can give you some pointers - so expect her shortly


----------



## Moobli

Thanks for drawing my attention to this SLB 

Firstly, it matters not whether your dog is chasing with intent to harm, or just to have a play - farmers won't differentiate between the two, and dogs are sadly shot regularly for chasing sheep. So clearly this is a problem that needs addressing.

There are a couple of options.

The most viable training option is to take your dog to a trainer specialising in livestock aversion. There are trainers up and down the country who run courses to help pet dog owners to train their dogs to ignore sheep. If you let me know whereabouts in the UK you are, I can try and point you in the direction of one. 

Old fashioned methods are still used by some today - ie putting a sheep chasing dog in a pen with either a ewe and her lamb or a tup. I would not advise this route, as the dog can end up seriously injured. Or using an electric collar - and I personally wouldn't advise this either, although have known some people have good results with this.

The easiest option, and one that should be employed unless and until you train your dog not to chase, is to keep your dog on a lead when walking in the countryside and in areas where there are likely to be sheep or other livestock.


----------



## BessieDog

Moobli said:


> Thanks for drawing my attention to this SLB
> 
> Firstly, it matters not whether your dog is chasing with intent to harm, or just to have a play - farmers won't differentiate between the two, and dogs are sadly shot regularly for chasing sheep. So clearly this is a problem that needs addressing.
> 
> There are a couple of options.
> 
> The most viable training option is to take your dog to a trainer specialising in livestock aversion. There are trainers up and down the country who run courses to help pet dog owners to train their dogs to ignore sheep. If you let me know whereabouts in the UK you are, I can try and point you in the direction of one.
> 
> Old fashioned methods are still used by some today - ie putting a sheep chasing dog in a pen with either a ewe and her lamb or a tup. I would not advise this route, as the dog can end up seriously injured. Or using an electric collar - and I personally wouldn't advise this either, although have known some people have good results with this.
> 
> The easiest option, and one that should be employed unless and until you train your dog not to chase, is to keep your dog on a lead when walking in the countryside and in areas where there are likely to be sheep or other livestock.


I'm in Essex - near Colchester.

Thank you!

It was lucky I found out at the weekend how she reacted to sheep! When she was firmly on the lead!!


----------



## Moobli

Cumbria

http://ingrid-grayling.com/livestock-chasing

http://www.cumbria-dog-training.com/Sheep_Chasing_and_Livestock_Worrying.htm

Malvern/Wales

http://www.educating-rover.co.uk/dog_training.html

Milton Keynes

http://www.lynnedavies.co.uk/index.php?page=sheep-and-livestock-chasing

Scotland

http://petergregorydogtraining.com/sheep training.htm

Somerset

http://www.dogpartnership.co.uk/livestock.htm

http://www.diamond-dog-training.co.uk/stock_chasing_36.html

Surrey

http://www.companyofanimals.co.uk/d...and-extra-dog-training-classes/chase-workshop


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- sorry I did giggle a bit at the thought of 'Friendly Hares', thats all we need. Lucky that yours werent unleashed . It would have been very exciting for Evie!!

Ginge- didnt the Ninja cope well with all that today, such a far cry from a few months ago.  

Good luck finding a Livestock trainer.

A walk together for the girls this morning but seperate this afternoon. Evie wanted to go back to the same spot as yesterday, she stops and takes everything in, didnt want to move on any further though , I was a bit disappointed but she did take treats calmer today and watched a young lad playing without panicking- so that was good.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- sorry I did giggle a bit at the thought of 'Friendly Hares', thats all we need. Lucky that yours werent unleashed. It would have been very exciting for Evie!!
> 
> Ginge- didnt the Ninja cope well with all that today, such a far cry from a few months ago.
> 
> Good luck finding a Livestock trainer.
> 
> A walk together for the girls this morning but seperate this afternoon. Evie wanted to go back to the same spot as yesterday, she stops and takes everything in, didnt want to move on any further though , I was a bit disappointed but she did take treats calmer today and watched a young lad playing without panicking- so that was good.


Sounds as if Evie's doing well though if she was happy enough to return to the same place and was a little calmer. Teckel sized baby steps but still in the right direction . I am at the same stage with Kilo and walking through the estate TBH - in fact behind you as I haven't yet managed a calm Kilo. Just don't tell Evie that the BW is behind her or she might worry :sosp: .


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## Sarah1983

kat&molly said:


> A walk together for the girls this morning but seperate this afternoon. Evie wanted to go back to the same spot as yesterday, she stops and takes everything in, didnt want to move on any further though , I was a bit disappointed but she did take treats calmer today and watched a young lad playing without panicking- so that was good.


The fact she wanted to go back there to sit and watch the world go by is great  Shows she felt comfortable doing that. I know it's hard not to be disappointed but if she seemed calmer and was able to watch someone play without panicking that's a big deal 

Spen and I have had another fantastic walk tonight. Been too hot to go out during the day and the other night I went to take him out at around 9pm and he just lay down and made it clear he didn't want to. Tonight was a bit cooler though. We went up through the woods since I can let him off there without worrying about the farmers crops. We had a selectively deaf moment when I was being boring and taking photos of him, he decided he'd go off on his own walk so I had to go and get him  My own fault really, I know what he's like if I just stand around for too long. But other than that he was really good. We saw a young couple sitting on a tree stump and although he saw them first and was standing staring and thinking about barking at the unusual sight he waited when asked to and we walked past without more than a good long look. Then he chose to play the Walk To Heel game most of the way home. Seems to be becoming one of his favourite off leash games. Shame it doesn't carry over to on leash lol. We're getting there but his heelwork is far better off leash than it is on leash.

I don't think he's a huge fan of being in the woods as it's getting dark though. He's fine on the way there as it's still light but coming back at around 9:30 it's pretty dark and he can be quite jumpy. He still ran on ahead to play in the stream though. And, very weirdly since he NEVER jumps, he tried to jump straight up onto the bridge from in the water  He didn't make it coz it's quite a jump and this is the dog who can't jump a mop balanced on a couple of crates of beer and then got the zoomies through the water.

He fell over while mooching around on a field. And I just happened to get a pic of it happening. It's not a very good pic but here it is anyway


And then he seemed to get all embarrassed about having done so coz seconds later I got this pic


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## Dogless

Glad you and Spen had a nice walk Sarah - even if you showed his embarrassing fall and shame to the world . Love his choosing to walk to heel.


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Glad you and Spen had a nice walk Sarah - even if you showed his embarrassing fall and shame to the world . Love his choosing to walk to heel.


Well you know he'd do the same to me if he could  His choosing to walk to heel makes me laugh. This is the dog who 18 months ago was dislocating shoulders and breaking fingers with his pulling. Now he's actually walking with his nose at my right knee (for some reason he prefers the right to the left) when he could be off sniffing and exploring.


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Well you know he'd do the same to me if he could  His choosing to walk to heel makes me laugh. This is the dog who 18 months ago was dislocating shoulders and breaking fingers with his pulling. Now he's actually walking with his nose at my right knee (for some reason he prefers the right to the left) when he could be off sniffing and exploring.


That is fantastic .


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## Guest

I could do with some advice - I'm sure this is a pretty common issue but I haven't had to deal with it before.

Kenzie's started barking at other dogs, a LOT. I guess it's been building for a while - it used to be only occasional, but now it's nearly every dog she sees. They don't even need to be approaching her, she'll bark when she sees them. Once she's close enough, she's quite happy to sniff and maybe play.

I've been turning around and walking the other way when she does it (she's offlead but she'll turn around with me if I tell her to) and then going back again and rewarding when she doesn't bark, but it doesn't really seem to be having any effect, and it doesn't stop her barking in the first place. She knows 'watch' and will do it in the presence of other dogs, but as soon as I 'release' her, she'll bark again.

Any other ideas for how to stop her doing this? I'm not quite the cause of it, but I don't want to be the lady with the yappy terrier!


----------



## Dogless

McKenzie said:


> I could do with some advice - I'm sure this is a pretty common issue but I haven't had to deal with it before.
> 
> Kenzie's started barking at other dogs, a LOT. I guess it's been building for a while - it used to be only occasional, but now it's nearly every dog she sees. They don't even need to be approaching her, she'll bark when she sees them. Once she's close enough, she's quite happy to sniff and maybe play.
> 
> I've been turning around and walking the other way when she does it (she's offlead but she'll turn around with me if I tell her to) and then going back again and rewarding when she doesn't bark, but it doesn't really seem to be having any effect, and it doesn't stop her barking in the first place. She knows 'watch' and will do it in the presence of other dogs, but as soon as I 'release' her, she'll bark again.
> 
> Any other ideas for how to stop her doing this? I'm not quite the cause of it, but I don't want to be the lady with the yappy terrier!


I'd find a place where you'll see lots of dogs and find the distance at which Kenzie is interested but not barking. I'd teach her to "Acknowledge, Accept, Ignore" dogs which shouldn't be too bad as she's used to clicker training. So - you need her 'telling' you that she has seen a dog but is heavily reinforced for remaining calm and not barking. You can do this static at first on a bench or something until Kenzie has the hang of it and then walking somewhere you can do big wide arcs around dogs to gain the distance needed. Obviously the happier with it Kenzie gets, the closer you can move.

I have only had one coffee this morning so am not sure if that makes sense, seems like a really poor explanation to me. If it is just nonsense to you please say and I'll give it another whirl .

ETA: A good "leave" also helps if you're too close and you can see Kenzie focussing on a dog - enough to at least get her looking to you and gaining the space you need.


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## GingerRogers

Sarah poor spen embarrassing him. He would do the same, I don't know what you mean. 

Kenzie That sounds like eminently sensible advice from dogless take it slowly and don't push too hard or fast or you might make it even worse. You can't think back to when other started. No incident that might have made her start this behaviour. Bad or good. It sounds like overexcitement or at least only mild uncertainty if she is able to calmly greet.


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## Guest

Thanks Dogless, that does sound like it makes sense. There's no shortage of heavily populated dog areas around here - the challenge will be to get far enough away from a dog!



GingerRogers said:


> Kenzie That sounds like eminently sensible advice from dogless take it slowly and don't push too hard or fast or you might make it even worse. You can't think back to when other started. No incident that might have made her start this behaviour. Bad or good. It sounds like overexcitement or at least only mild uncertainty if she is able to calmly greet.


No I really can't think of anything. As soon as she's within 10 meters of the dog she's all happy and calm.


----------



## Dogless

McKenzie said:


> Thanks Dogless, that does sound like it makes sense. There's no shortage of heavily populated dog areas around here - the challenge will be to get far enough away from a dog!
> 
> No I really can't think of anything. As soon as she's within 10 meters of the dog she's all happy and calm.


Even with her still in the car with the boot open if loose dogs are a real problem. It is a challenge here due to dogs that owners let wander from them all over the place "stopping to say hello" before wandering back to them and then repeating. Ruined many a good training session and even set us back at times :incazzato:.


----------



## Guest

Dogless said:


> Even with her still in the car with the boot open if loose dogs are a real problem. It is a challenge here due to dogs that owners let wander from them all over the place "stopping to say hello" before wandering back to them and then repeating. Ruined many a good training session and even set us back at times :incazzato:.


Yes that happens here too - got covered in mud today as a 'friendly' GR wandered up to us, thrust its head into my leg and covered me with drool and proceeded to jump up on me with muddy paws. Owner didn't even bother to apologise :incazzato:


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## Nicki85

Morning all!

Took Rust out for a run this morning, nothing to report...

Took Shae to the local dog park to expose her to some badly behaved canines and owners. Chap was there when I pulled up and said to his dog "oh maybe that's someone for you to play with? lets say hello!" I tried to explain that she can be vocal especially when getting out the car but he wasn't to be deterred. So got Shae out and she was actually very good. Bit scitty but said hello to chaps Shitzu and he moved on (phew!). 

Did 15-20 mins of ball play and training as fields were empty then mooched round the common for 15mins. Met another dog on the lead and she wanted to start up so started CT for calm look then turned the other way when she looked like I'd got over threshold. Then played find it till the other dog was near enough for her to say hi. Worked well. (Kenzie, this is similar to what DL was saying... yes there is a dog , CT, get closer, CT etc etc... if she starts shouting then i've pushed her to far so i'll turn her the other way and walk off and then CT again for looking but not reacting etc etc- sounds like a faff but we got past the dog without barking and she really wanted to we've only just started doing this and she is getting better- looking for her treat rather than focusing on the dog approaching.).
Went back through the fields and there were loads of dogs... little pups, older small dogs, lurchers... about 6 of them. Gave Shae her release command and she played nicely with all of them  She didn't like a "buggy fit" class but we did look, CT, accept again 

We are meeting up with Dandogman later so Rust can be a stooge for his Molly. Shae will come to and i'll get her out as long as she is calm- she met a tiny poodle x today that was very young and was fab with it. Rusty will ignore Molly I suspect and he will pretend Dan isn't there lol.


----------



## Freddie and frank

hello 

just dropping in for a bit of advice.

took bella a walk this morning around to the local shops. just had to pop a prescription through the doctors letter box.
quite a few people about, couple of dogs, all fine, walked really good.

on our way back, there was a mini schnauzer tied up outside a shop  poor thing was barking like mad. we were on the opposite side of the road and bella went very scatty. sorry, noy sure what to call it. 

her ears went right back, like ive never seen them before, she was all over the place, very jumpy, almost like she wasn't sure which way to go 

i stayed calm cause i know she can't pull me about and treated her when she focused on me. we walked on and she eventually calmed down. 

now, back at home i started thinking, i've not really taken her to a town or any busy places. don't think she had any outings in her previous home. she's been socialised with other dogs and all has been ok. this dog barking seemed to really spook her. i've not had to deal much with this sort of thing. 
we did do a couple of 'watch me'.

what can you guys suggest?

thanks, hope you're all ok.


----------



## SLB

Freddie and frank said:


> hello
> 
> just dropping in for a bit of advice.
> 
> took bella a walk this morning around to the local shops. just had to pop a prescription through the doctors letter box.
> quite a few people about, couple of dogs, all fine, walked really good.
> 
> on our way back, there was a mini schnauzer tied up outside a shop  poor thing was barking like mad. we were on the opposite side of the road and bella went very scatty. sorry, noy sure what to call it.
> 
> her ears went right back, like ive never seen them before, she was all over the place, very jumpy, almost like she wasn't sure which way to go
> 
> i stayed calm cause i know she can't pull me about and treated her when she focused on me. we walked on and she eventually calmed down.
> 
> now, back at home i started thinking, i've not really taken her to a town or any busy places. don't think she had any outings in her previous home. she's been socialised with other dogs and all has been ok. this dog barking seemed to really spook her. i've not had to deal much with this sort of thing.
> we did do a couple of 'watch me'.
> 
> what can you guys suggest?
> 
> thanks, hope you're all ok.


Perhaps the dogs bark was panicked so in turn she was panicked? Or like you said - it could be that she's not used to town.

I'd suggest 1:1's around the town, take a magazine and sit on a bench just watching the world go by. She'll soon see there is nothing to be afraid of.


----------



## moonviolet

Not much to report here things are going well don't want to jinx it :lol:

F+f+B

I would imagine the mini schnauzer was nervous being tied up outside the shop all alone and was barking a very strong keep away message and by Bella's reaction they were using some pretty colourful language. Shame the owner thought it was ok to leave their dog at such a level of distress.

Honestly I think in that situation all you can do is manage the best you can and get away to a distanced Bella could shake it off. It's unfair to use a clearly incredibly stressed dog as a training stooge.

If she handled everything else well I wouldn't be overly concerned.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - hope the meet with dandogman goes well. Sounds as if you had good walks / run too.

Great morning here.

Cycled with Rudi up to the top fields, worked on recalls, stays, heel work and had a mooch and a play. His stay is really coming on nicely and he was good as gold for me.

Drove Kilo up to the top fields rather than walk him through the streets. He was on fire this morning (not literally - he really has had a crappy year so far, but not that crappy ). He really, really wanted to work so we did emergency stops and downs going away from me, running beside me and running towards me and he was spot on and really fired up full of drive. We did some steadiness whilst I threw his toys all around, ran etc. We did 4 sessions with rest and mooching in between so he's exhausted. 

Saw people with dogs about 150m away and the BW went very alert and tense but I threw a treat to hit his paws (he was lying down) the first time and then he remembered to look at the dogs then me so that was good. I am a bit daunted by the distance at which he becomes stressed / alert but I have a lot of patience so I will give him as long as it takes.


----------



## SLB

Just had a very lovely walk - albeit by one thing - which is going to be a separate post. 

I decided to do a mainly onlead walk in the woods. They have to be onlead due to the cattle and horses anyway in some parts but I wasn't doing the entire full walk today. 

I'll let the kid slide who said I must have my hands full because looking back he did seem to want to engage the dogs, but on a narrow street and a dog that is weary of kids, I kinda just moved them past as quickly as possible. 

A couple of ladies with 2 Cavs and a staffie appeared around one of the corners so I pulled mine to one side and got them to focus on me. It's paying off! They said how lovely and well behaved they were as they wandered past. Although I don't understand why you would have a dog onlead, but then let the lead extend so the dog can virtually go up to someone anyway.. flexi's - the mind boggles. 
Anyway walked around the top field grassy bit, let them off for a run about as they were being good. Pen's focus was iffy - but then we've only worked on tarmac and short grass before - so I will be taking her out to long grassy areas and working on the focus exercise there. 
We played a bit of find it, where I threw treats under their legs and they had a good 10 minutes of that. 
Got to the top of a hill where the cattle fencing is not as brilliant as around the top area. So they had to go onlead and I had to make the precarious walk down this steep, rocky hill with two dogs that had it in their heads they had to get down it as quickly as possible. Anyway we got down, no injuries and not a lot of pulling in the end. 

Got to the bottom and some riders were coming, only they were young ones and had the ponies on lead ropes and a lady teaching them how to ride. So instead of stepping to one side I took the bench and got the dogs to do little tricks whilst the horses were going by. Mine aren't ones for bothering horses, but Lou does like to go over and sniff if they have a rider on. All 3 did well. Didn't get a thank you though - that was a bit of a let down. I suppose it's cos I sat down.. 

Continued on and came across the two women again - who must've taken their time.. and I stopped the dogs again and did the same. The stopped and asked me how old the clowns were, said they looked in fabulous condition and said it's rare for Labs to be like that, I agreed and then said that they were cross Springer.. 

And then we had a lovely mooch back home along the pavements. I can honestly say I have never had a relaxing walk like that in a while.


----------



## SLB

Dogless said:


> Nicki - hope the meet with dandogman goes well. Sounds as if you had good walks / run too.
> 
> Great morning here.
> 
> Cycled with Rudi up to the top fields, worked on recalls, stays, heel work and had a mooch and a play. His stay is really coming on nicely and he was good as gold for me.
> 
> Drove Kilo up to the top fields rather than walk him through the streets. He was on fire this morning (not literally - he really has had a crappy year so far, but not that crappy ). He really, really wanted to work so we did emergency stops and downs going away from me, running beside me and running towards me and he was spot on and really fired up full of drive. We did some steadiness whilst I threw his toys all around, ran etc. We did 4 sessions with rest and mooching in between so he's exhausted.
> 
> Saw people with dogs about 150m away and the BW went very alert and tense but I threw a treat to hit his paws (he was lying down) the first time and then he remembered to look at the dogs then me so that was good. I am a bit daunted by the distance at which he becomes stressed / alert but I have a lot of patience so I will give him as long as it takes.


See it might not take as long as everyone thought. It's glad that he's coming round enough to want to work with you


----------



## Dogless

SLB said:


> See it might not take as long as everyone thought. It's glad that he's coming round enough to want to work with you


He has always worked with me . The only time it is a no go is walking through the streets which I currently don't do as it stresses him beyond belief. Me too if I am honest around here.


----------



## L/C

Freddie and frank said:


> hello
> 
> just dropping in for a bit of advice.
> 
> took bella a walk this morning around to the local shops. just had to pop a prescription through the doctors letter box.
> quite a few people about, couple of dogs, all fine, walked really good.
> 
> on our way back, there was a mini schnauzer tied up outside a shop  poor thing was barking like mad. we were on the opposite side of the road and bella went very scatty. sorry, noy sure what to call it.
> 
> her ears went right back, like ive never seen them before, she was all over the place, very jumpy, almost like she wasn't sure which way to go
> 
> i stayed calm cause i know she can't pull me about and treated her when she focused on me. we walked on and she eventually calmed down.
> 
> now, back at home i started thinking, i've not really taken her to a town or any busy places. don't think she had any outings in her previous home. she's been socialised with other dogs and all has been ok. this dog barking seemed to really spook her. i've not had to deal much with this sort of thing.
> we did do a couple of 'watch me'.
> 
> what can you guys suggest?
> 
> thanks, hope you're all ok.


How was she before the dog barking? From your post it sounds like all was fine so it would seem to me to be more about the reaction of the other dog and not the environment. If she was on edge beforehand however it may have made her reaction to the barking dog more extreme.

What was her body language like when walking around the town? Was she tense? Scanning and hyper vigilant? How were her ears and tail positioned - normally or not? Was her mouth tense or relaxed?

If she is genuinely worried about the environment then I would build her up to spending time in town slowly. Find out where she is comfortable being (by watching her body language) and work from there. I wouldn't force her into spending a prolonged amount of time somewhere that she is uncomfortable. It might work in the short term but in the long term you are likely to see a deterioration in her behaviour when she is under stress.


----------



## SLB

Dogless said:


> He has always worked with me . The only time it is a no go is walking through the streets which I currently don't do as it stresses him beyond belief. Me too if I am honest around here.


I didn't mean it as in he never wanted to work with you. I don't see where you got that idea  Just that he showed enthusiasm for it and is remembering what to do when he sees other dogs.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless said:


> Saw people with dogs about 150m away and the BW went very alert and tense but I threw a treat to hit his paws (he was lying down) the first time and then he remembered to look at the dogs then me so that was good. I am a bit daunted by the distance at which he becomes stressed / alert but I have a lot of patience so I will give him as long as it takes.


Sounds like you are doing great. Tink was just the same she would turn watch a dog on the horizon weight on her haunches ready to turn and run. Sometimes I'd be squinting to see them.

I know you guys will come through it  You have such a great bond already which is a huge head start.


----------



## Freddie and frank

thanks guys. 

it was a shame for the dog, being left and upset. the owner shouted at the dog when he came out too. 

L/C, we weren't in town, just a row of local shops. she was absolutely fine, totally ignored dogs that had walked past us and was relaxed. 
it was down to the other dogs barking i think, she was doing a lot of puffing, a lot of dancing around, think her tail was normal, ears right back, mouth closed.
we didn't stop, just carried on walking so not to escalate the situation, and did lots of getting her focus on me.


----------



## moonviolet

SLB while I remember couldn't watch Pen's beg video the day you posted it, have seen it now, It's good and pen is trying hard but it appears that she is lacking strength/control in her back muscles so is lacking stability and is using her front legs in an attempt to gain balance , unless you are aiming for the leg waving thing.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless, sounds like you and Kilo are doing well. At least he CAN look away and look back to you even if he does need a reminder at the moment. Just sorry you're having to now work with him on a a worry about other dogs 

F&F, Spencer normally ignores barking dogs except for a whine coz he'd like to meet and greet. But there was one used to live near us who he reacted really, really badly to whenever it barked. They'd never met let alone had an incident yet he only had to hear this dog going past the flat and he'd be up on his toes huffing and on high alert. If we ran into them when out he was the same. He reacts the same way to another dog too but they have had a scuffle now although they were fine at first. And in both cases I think it's the barking triggers Spen to react badly, perhaps there's something in the tone of it? Both have been pretty frenzied and non stop. If Bella only reacted to this one particular dog I wouldn't be overly concerned to be honest.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Dogless, sounds like you and Kilo are doing well. At least he CAN look away and look back to you even if he does need a reminder at the moment. Just sorry you're having to now work with him on a a worry about other dogs
> 
> F&F, Spencer normally ignores barking dogs except for a whine coz he'd like to meet and greet. But there was one used to live near us who he reacted really, really badly to whenever it barked. They'd never met let alone had an incident yet he only had to hear this dog going past the flat and he'd be up on his toes huffing and on high alert. If we ran into them when out he was the same. He reacts the same way to another dog too but they have had a scuffle now although they were fine at first. And in both cases I think it's the barking triggers Spen to react badly, perhaps there's something in the tone of it? Both have been pretty frenzied and non stop. If Bella only reacted to this one particular dog I wouldn't be overly concerned to be honest.


Yes, the distance is huge at present - if he even sees what is vaguely discernible as a dog on the horizon or hears or smells one he becomes very alert. It is a real shame but hopefully we'll wear the distance down bit by bit by bit.

I agree F&F with Sarah about not worrying too much. Rudi ignores most dogs, even barking ones, but the odd ones that are tied up or fighting to get to him to "Say hello" will spark a reaction in him. If he hears the dog that attacked Kilo bark he panics and fights to try and slip his harness but is fine with many others.


----------



## Nicki85

DL- I think you and Kilo have made huge improvements already, especially considering he is a nervy dog (is that the right way of describing him?). I guess, if you can get a metre closer each day without a reaction then that would be fab... and doable to? You have the tools you need (patience and a great bond with him) so you will get there. 

Just done abit of work in the garden with Rust- walking backwards on to a step and then drawing his head round each side to strengthen muscles. He was a good lad- almost had a shut down before he realised how easy the task was really. I need to do some really simple exercises and praise praise praise I think, he's ever so concerned that he's going to get it wrong at the moment. I try to keep upbeat but it's not enough.


----------



## Canine K9

Not much to report here.

Bailey- The yapping :bored: Whenever he goes in the garden he yaps, yaps, yaps. I can`t take him outside because he`ll bark. He`ll bark inside too. The biting too slight improvements however.

Max- Just general obedience really. Oh and the pulling on lead and jumping up.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> DL- I think you and Kilo have made huge improvements already, especially considering he is a nervy dog (is that the right way of describing him?). I guess, if you can get a metre closer each day without a reaction then that would be fab... and doable to? You have the tools you need (patience and a great bond with him) so you will get there.
> 
> Just done abit of work in the garden with Rust- walking backwards on to a step and then drawing his head round each side to strengthen muscles. He was a good lad- almost had a shut down before he realised how easy the task was really. I need to do some really simple exercises and praise praise praise I think, he's ever so concerned that he's going to get it wrong at the moment. I try to keep upbeat but it's not enough.


Yes Nicki he is highly strung! I suppose he is walking down the drive to get into the car now so that's an improvement. The streets just worry him immensely,so not walking on them at present. I have avoided rather than improved if truth be known .

Bless Rust - Kilo worries about getting things right too, I'm glad he's getting the hang of his exercises. Can you see any improvement at all yet?


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Not much to report here.
> 
> Bailey- The yapping :bored: Whenever he goes in the garden he yaps, yaps, yaps. I can`t take him outside because he`ll bark. He`ll bark inside too. The biting too slight improvements however.
> 
> Max- Just general obedience really. Oh and the pulling on lead and jumping up.


Can you leave Bailey's longline on him and bring him in as soon as he barks, let him out, rinse and repeat?

Hope someone's helping you with Max too - it's a lot of work for you to do with Bailey being the age he is.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Can you leave Bailey's longline on him and bring him in as soon as he barks, let him out, rinse and repeat?
> 
> Hope someone's helping you with Max too - it's a lot of work for you to do with Bailey being the age he is.


Yeah thats a good idea, will try it. Yeah they are


----------



## Nicki85

Dogless said:


> Yes Nicki he is highly strung! I suppose he is walking down the drive to get into the car now so that's an improvement. The streets just worry him immensely,so not walking on them at present. I have avoided rather than improved if truth be known .
> 
> Bless Rust - Kilo worries about getting things right too, I'm glad he's getting the hang of his exercises. Can you see any improvement at all yet?


Well, it's better to avoid the situation than to overface him I would think, until you are both ready. Small improvements- all a step in the right direction 

I also spend more time with him sat on my lap having "congratulations cuddles" when he gets something right... he gets CT or just T but then he wants strokes, cuddles and to sit on me. I assume for reassurance but I think I need to tame it down a bit to a quick stroke and move on to next exercise. 
It's really hard to judge his leg... the physio was starting to think that the muscle has always been missing. He looks fine as long as he is on controlled exercise and at home he doesn't favour the leg on the balance exercises but at physio he does a bit... I let him off after the chasing duck incident in the local forest in the afternoon for 10mins to blow some steam and he was sound in the evening (well, certainly not really stiff) so I think he is slowly improving.


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Yeah thats a good idea, will try it. Yeah they are


Pleased you have some help, don't want you exploding from all the training!!!


----------



## SLB

moonviolet said:


> SLB while I remember couldn't watch Pen's beg video the day you posted it, have seen it now, It's good and pen is trying hard but it appears that she is lacking strength/control in her back muscles so is lacking stability and is using her front legs in an attempt to gain balance , unless you are aiming for the leg waving thing.


No I don't want the leg wavy thing - but this is just her getting it, before she was in the basket so had support, but in the video we have her doing it without the basket so she's learning to do it without the support - but she's not quite there yet. I've been doing some with her this morning and she's been steadier. 

The going up on her hind legs is from a previous trick I taught - or started to teach her btw. Forgot to mention that when I posted the video.



Canine K9 said:


> Not much to report here.
> 
> Bailey- The yapping :bored: Whenever he goes in the garden he yaps, yaps, yaps. I can`t take him outside because he`ll bark. He`ll bark inside too. The biting too slight improvements however.
> 
> Max- Just general obedience really. Oh and the pulling on lead and jumping up.


For Bailey I would put that bark on a command. Benjie barked at everything until I put it on a command - OH thought I was mad for doing it and said that it would make him bark more. But after getting him to bark on command, I simply taught him that shutting up afterwards meant treats too! Every time he barks, click and treat until he's doing it purposely for the treat. Then put a Cue word to it. You could aim for possibly 3 barks before you click and treat. Then if he has to bark - hopefully he remembers to do it just 3 times.

Then teach him the opposite: So Bark bark bark - cue word "Quiet".. wait for a second or a pause, click and treat. Then gradually increase the amount of time between pause and click. It's annoying as they don't get the quiet as quickly as they got the speak - but it works.

As for Max - he's a pup still, he'll get there. Luckily there is enough information on this thread for you to go back and read


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Well, it's better to avoid the situation than to overface him I would think, until you are both ready. Small improvements- all a step in the right direction
> 
> I also spend more time with him sat on my lap having "congratulations cuddles" when he gets something right... he gets CT or just T but then he wants strokes, cuddles and to sit on me. I assume for reassurance but I think I need to tame it down a bit to a quick stroke and move on to next exercise.
> It's really hard to judge his leg... the physio was starting to think that the muscle has always been missing. He looks fine as long as he is on controlled exercise and at home he doesn't favour the leg on the balance exercises but at physio he does a bit... I let him off after the chasing duck incident in the local forest in the afternoon for 10mins to blow some steam and he was sound in the evening (well, certainly not really stiff) so I think he is slowly improving.


Yes, your thinking is the same as mine. He would have a meltdown if overfaced I think.

Nice that you think there has been some improvement already - he is sound after activities that would previously have left him lame isn't he? Think you are in the tiny steps game the same as me, albeit for a different reason!!


----------



## Nicki85

Yup he was literally stiff as a stiff sore thing after off lead exercise- just one offlead walk would leave him very sore 
On sunday he coped with swimming the Thames, scrabbling up a 4ft bank and a bit offlead in the afternoon without looking terrible  Small improvements.... patience.... patience... Difficult as it is so tempting to let him off as he looks OK!


----------



## L/C

Glad to hear Kilo is improving Dogless. It's hard but all the work you've put into him up to now will provide a good foundation to help him recover. Thinking of both of you (and Rudi Roo of course!).

I have been MIA for ages as it has been a very, very busy few months for me. After a long apprenticeship with my trainer I have struck out on my own and I am offering 1-2-1 training on a part time basis. So far I'm relatively busy and have had lots of repeat appointments so I must be doing something right! I'm also preparing for an MA in Clinical Animal Behaviour to start next term so it's all go at chez pointy!

We also had a brief house guest last week - Bailey the 3 month old lab/staffy/rotty cross - she was adorable, very friendly and clever but drove the poor pointies to distraction so it has made me re-think adding a pup. Not ruling it out but poor Gypsy was a wreck and much more snappy with Ely even for a couple of days after Bailey had gone so it's something I need to consider closely. Ely was very good with her but it stressed him too and long term stress obviously isn't good for him and has the potential to make him ill and cause real behavioural deterioration. So a lot to think about - while I would love to have a pup to use for working trials and ring sports I can't be selfish and I will not risk the health of my current dogs.

Training wise Gypsy is now following a track of a specific scent and can identify identical objects which are scented with it. She can also follow a track that has been laid 15 minutes before out of sight and is now finding objects for me. Ely is going from strength to strength and has been very, very good with other dogs recently including meetings with strange dogs. He has been able to mingle off lead and has even ignored Gypsy playing with them.

Phew that was long - sorry!


----------



## Dogless

L/C - I suppose that in a way the visiting pup was helpful in identifying how the pointies would cope with one, even if it means that you have to delay your plans for a while for their sakes. I really hope that the training career takes off and wish you lots of luck for your Masters - it should be very interesting indeed.

And....well done Ely - huge progress on the behaviour around other dogs front .


----------



## GingerRogers

L/C that sounds really interesting, the training work and the masters, kept that a bit quiet didn't you. 

What a shame the pointies reacted badly to the pup, I did see your posts about her she looked lovely. 

So pleased to hear Ely is doing well and is healthy 

Gypsy's scentwork sounds good too, I have a scent course in September, looking forward to it immensely 

Not much to report here, stressy morning walk again, but again despite being completely over stressed she only really reacted to two barking dogs behind a gate (a DA GSD and his westie friend, they often wind us up) and that was only minor TBH sadly she took it all out on a poor beagle who happened round the corner at the wrong time.

I suspect the next 4-5 weeks are going to be tricky, and I may have to abandon our training potters which I will hate but then maybe I need to take the bull by the horns and actually get out there properly BAT training, perhaps every other day or every three days as she is getting much better with dogs at a distance as long as they dont approach, but I panic as I dont want her over stressed .

But tonight we have new kong squeaky balls on a rope to play with so we will be off to happy field :yesnod:


----------



## Dogless

A game of footie in the garden this afternoon and a turn at 101 Things To Do With A Box each just now. Kilo ended up getting his front half in the box and head between paws...odd dog...and Rudi ended up pushing it all around the paved areas.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah- Fancy taking a pic of poor Spendog falling down  Strange that he chooses to walk to heel off the leash, Moll does exactly the same, she walks much better on leash now but has to be that little bit in front. Funny dogs.

Nikki- Hope you continue to see an improvement in Rusty.  I hate leg problems.

Dogless- Rudi is enjoying this cycling isnt he. Sorry that Kilo was so alert from such a distance, I have avoided a lot of streets here, sometimes its just not worth the stress is it.

LC- good luck for the Masters, and woo woo for training, dont fancy a holiday over here do you 

Ginge- have fun with new sqeaky balls.

Nice longish walk with the girls, a bit of a race back though as the thunder got louder, the dogs werent phased so that was good.

Took Evie back out alone, off she headed again to her little spot, again didnt want to go any further. She watched the farmer across the road, quite calmly, did wuff twice as his wife came from no-where and passed us quite closely. She did take a lot of treats today. 
Bumped in to OH and a neighbour coming back, Evie knows this chap quite well so isnt really alarmed by him, but isnt interested in having any fuss . I was saying how she's been with us nearly 2 years now , and really isnt much better than she was, the things I'm still doing are really basic. OH thinks she isnt going to really improve.  I needed to be told that. Not.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - OHs can be so helpful sometimes can't they? :cryin:. To me it does sound as if you are making slow but sure progress each day you have taken Evie out.


----------



## Canine K9

I just tried playing 101 things to do with a box and bailey didnt want treats he just wanted to destroy the box so I ended up doing it with a football :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> I just tried playing 101 things to do with a box and bailey didnt want treats he just wanted to destroy the box so I ended up doing it with a football :lol:


What did he do?


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m - OHs can be so helpful sometimes can't they? :cryin:. To me it does sound as if you are making slow but sure progress each day you have taken Evie out.


I think I have made a bit of headway each day too, just feels as if we always end up back at square one each time, I know I shouldn't moan , you're coming back from there as well. 

Canine- sounds like Bailey enjoyed that.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> What did he do?


With the box he torn it to pieces and the football he ran around the garden nudging it he bit it he put his front paws on then finally all 4 paws


----------



## Nicki85

Alright, someone explain 100 things to do with a box.... please?

Shae loved meeting Molly, Dandogman's JR,played very gently with her and brought her round from being a little bit cautious to playing  Bit vocal when I opened the boot though... any ideas how to work on that? Shut the boot if she starts up?

Rusty as predicted wasn't interested in Molly lol.

TOok them both down to the River Test for a paddle afterwards which he enjoyed more I think lol.


----------



## Canine K9

Nicki85 said:


> Alright, someone explain 100 things to do with a box.... please?
> 
> Shae loved meeting Molly, Dandogman's JR,played very gently with her and brought her round from being a little bit cautious to playing  Bit vocal when I opened the boot though... any ideas how to work on that? Shut the boot if she starts up?
> 
> Rusty as predicted wasn't interested in Molly lol.
> 
> TOok them both down to the River Test for a paddle afterwards which he enjoyed more I think lol.


Basically have an empty box or basically anything lol. Click and treat for looking at object or working past even by accident. Then wait to see what other behaviour the dog offers with the object click and treat. Basically its shaping to see what your dog can think of to do with the object and a brain drain. This explains it better 101 Things to Do with a Box | Karen Pryor Clicker Training


----------



## Nicki85

Oh I see! That's Rust's idea of a nightmare lol but Shae might enjoy it


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## Dogless

No ducks on the river then Nicki? :w00t:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Well I think my silly Spendog deserves a gold star today. Although I'm sure he'd much prefer a big meaty bone lol. I managed to persuade hubby to take us to Fluggenhofsee, which is a lake with a dog beach about half an hours drive from here. He's not a big fan of dog walks so it took a fair bit of persuading. Might have to see whether I can get the train there actually and whether dogs are allowed on the train :idea:

Anyway, Spencer was fantastic. Absolutely brilliant. His leash walking was terrible but I expected that since the excitement of a car ride, a new place AND hubby being there was going to be too much for him to focus on walking nicely. But other than that I can't fault him at all. We mostly had the beach to ourselves which was quite nice. Spen got soooo excited at first and ran all over sniffing. Then into the water where he decided he'd try and swim across the lake :yikes: Thankfully we managed to get him to turn around and come back! 

He met an intact male French Bulldog (his balls were bigger than his head I swear!) with no problems. Was a bit worried as the Frenchie was very grunty and growly, not aggressively, just while breathing. But all was fine, both he and Spen were very polite with each other. The Frenchie didn't want to play so after a mutual sniff Spencer went and found his tennis ball again and resumed playing fetch with hubby. Completely ignored the other Frenchie who was clearly frightened of him. A little while later a little cross breed bitch came along. I managed to let the owner know that Spen was friendly (my German sucks) and they had a 5 minute play. He didn't even try to follow either dog when they and their owners moved on. As we were leaving we saw a dog on leash so we leashed Spen until we'd passed. He whined a bit but lost interest once we'd passed so let him back off leash. No attempt to go back to say hi to the dog :thumbsup: As I said to hubby, it's things like that that make me realise just how far we've come with his training and his obsession with other dogs.

Spendog is now sparked out on the floor next to me. He did insist on coming helping me with the laundry though so he's not that knackered


----------



## SLB

Long road ahead with Louie. 

My friends who had Jake, now have a new dog Hugo. Hugo is a 14 month old GWP who is entire (albeit not for long - they're having both done at the same time so he should be about 18 months when they do). Anyway, Pen, Jack and I went out for a walk with them this morning and apart from Pen telling him off, they all got on great and Elsa didn't do her "bully Pen time" thing. 

Anyway. Got back and I didn't take Louie because I knew he'd be a pain in the car. So I asked my friend to get Hugo out and see if Lou doesn't mind him as we made some headway with another taller than him, young, entire male not so long back. Nope. Didn't want anything to do with him other than growl. Didn't even bother to sniff him. Just decided to growl. Now Hugo was tired so just stood there, didn't bounce about or anything. And Lou is generally fine with other dogs coming into his house/garden. 

I'm thinking about taking the plunge and getting him on the superlorin as it is becoming an issue. I would go the whole hog, but don't want him to have an Op if it's not going to help things. 

I have been working on his issues, meeting larger females, larger but neutered males and smaller entire and neutered males. I jinxed myself on another thread by saying I haven't come on for a while so I wonder if my hormones have put him in over drive?

Other than waiting and seeing about the hormones and researching more into the superlorin - is there any other suggestions?


----------



## Dogless

Well done Spendog :thumbsup: that's fantastic behaviour.

Didn't work on anything today - just went to the forest. Apart from some recalls and policing Roo trying to pester Kilo into playing when Kilo was more interested in scents we did nothing. I had a "noisy thoughts" day where I had a lot to think about - the boys were happy with the walk though which is what counts :thumbsup:.

SLB - I know you recommend Suprelorin so it may be worth a go. The only thing that would make me cautious is that Louie is OK with small entire males but not large. I am not sure whether if it was a testosterone - driven behaviour the size of the dog would make a difference? I would have thought it would just be the fact that a dog was entire that was the problem with hormonally driven reactions but really don't know.

ETA: Is Louie showing any other behaviours which make you suspect Suprelorin will help? It might make it easier to decide if he is showing others that you suspect to be testosterone driven.


----------



## Guest

Um, yeah not sure about your menstrual cycle causing anything with him but if you thinking lopping off the balls will help, then do that. 

Here we have had stresshead days and fecking opinionated bradwursts encountered on our walks. 

I would like a big neon sign above my head saying "I AM TRYING. FECK OFF."


----------



## Nicki85

Ha ha no, no ducks on the River Test lol... never again...

Shae had a good morning walk, few grumbles at a couple daring to walk their two dogs in fairly close proximity to her. Treats and "look" shut her up  Jogger running past us was allowed though.
Rust swam for 20mins in the lake... after a toy this time!

This afternoon I took them both to a flat and fairly well fenced field and let them both off for a run together. I haven't done that in soooo long! As expected Shae chased after an extremely fast Rusty, yelping/ grrring/ grabbing his ears... not that he cares. I had a couple of toys to see what would happen. Rust wanted to play as did Shae but Rust won't fetch the toy if Shae wants it and then when she sees he doesn't want it she doesn't either! (understand?!) I have no idea how to manage her wanting to play with him/control him apart from stepping in and correcting her. I don't think Rusty cares all that much but he just wants to sniff- not play.

Anyhow, gave up on the toy play and did some shouting "down" to see what happened- guess what? they both laid down! Well done pups.

Couple of dogs came up to us, the first one Shae got very defence with so I waited till she was calm and then released her to play. That dog came back again and all was good. Also a beautiful IS that Rusty wanted to have his wicked way with (it was another entire male?!) and flirted outrageously with. Shae was perfect, no noise just a nice greeting. Same with a lab as well, lovely greeting and then move on- no noise 

So I guess 3 out of 4 ain't bad + the other dogs/people that we saw she was very good. I just can't figure out why she reacts to some and not others? I think it's linked to excitement and how early on in the walk it is. 

Will be interesting to see how Rusty's leg holds up to 10-15mins on the field. 

SLB- sounds like the superloin is a good idea for Louie... boys eh? 
DL- sounds like a lovely walk 
Sarah- sounds like a good walk  Nice to go somewhere different isn't it?


----------



## SLB

Dogless said:


> SLB - I know you recommend Suprelorin so it may be worth a go. The only thing that would make me cautious is that Louie is OK with small entire males but not large. I am not sure whether if it was a testosterone - driven behaviour the size of the dog would make a difference? I would have thought it would just be the fact that a dog was entire that was the problem with hormonally driven reactions but really don't know.


The dog that Lou had an incident with was taller than him and we have been working our way up through bigger females first, then bigger neutered males. And as I said, we had a success with an entire male GSD this year.

I'm not entirely sure what sets him off so we're going to see if it is hormone based or not then work out a plan of action from there.

I've done everything I can think of in terms of BAT and working my way so he feels comfortable around other dogs. I mean - I was surprised he was tolerant, no tolerant is the wrong word, he loved Broder (Sharloid's) I know he's neutered though so that makes me believe it is a testosterone related thing. But I guess I won't know for sure. But I'm not willing to put him through an Op that might not work or isn't the root cause of his issues. If that makes sense.

Rang the vet - they do it so I need to ring back later for a quote as the vets were busy. Then hopefully in the next month, get him on it.

Will the implant help with other issues I'm having too? Louie gets very stressed with the OH being away. Especially when he comes back for a short period of time then leaves again. He's ok with seeing him at weekends though - but this tour has took it's toll on Lou.

I guess that though is another of those "You'll never know until you try it" things.


----------



## Dogless

SLB said:


> *The dog that Lou had an incident with was taller than him *and we have been working our way up through bigger females first, then bigger neutered males. And as I said, we had a success with an entire male GSD this year.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure what sets him off so we're going to see if it is hormone based or not then work out a plan of action from there.
> 
> I've done everything I can think of in terms of BAT and working my way so he feels comfortable around other dogs. I mean - I was surprised he was tolerant, no tolerant is the wrong word, he loved Broder (Sharloid's) I know he's neutered though so that makes me believe it is a testosterone related thing. But I guess I won't know for sure. But I'm not willing to put him through an Op that might not work or *isn't the root cause of his issues.* If that makes sense. Makes perfect sense - that is why I went for it first.
> 
> Rang the vet - they do it so I need to ring back later for a quote as the vets were busy. Then hopefully in the next month, get him on it.
> 
> Will the implant help with other issues I'm having too? Louie gets very stressed with the OH being away. Especially when he comes back for a short period of time then leaves again. He's ok with seeing him at weekends though - but this tour has took it's toll on Lou.
> 
> I guess that though is another of those "You'll never know until you try it" things.


I wouldn't see how Suprelorin would help with the stress of your OH coming and going TBH thinking of it's mechanism of action. The reasons I went for it (just to give you food for thought) were the amount of in season bitches we encountered and the amount of bitching Kilo did in the main. That and he was fast to return any posturing that other males dogs offered him, especially those who were entire. It has calmed him in that he doesn't bitch and mark everywhere outside any more and he is less stressed with the presence of in season bitches in close proximity.

I am wondering whether the incident that I have bolded is the root cause as that is when Louie's behaviour changed rather than hormones? It's hard to know what to do for the best isn't it? Took me ages to decide!!


----------



## Guest

For the stress thing, have you tried Valerian, Zyklene, or Nupafeed?


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## L/C

SLB - what was the incident that Louie had? What was the outcome, how long ago did it happen and what was the immediate effect on his behaviour?

TBh if this was the catalyst for his issue with entire males then I wouldn't think that his reaction is hormone based and I can't see that implant or neutering would do much good. It may even be detrimental if it affects his confidence. You have to weigh up how much of his issue you think is caused by hormones and how much you think is caused by fear. If it is a bad fear reaction then it could be a long road - repairing damage once they are adults can take months if not years.


----------



## Canine K9

Sooo for today

Bailey- Took him for a long run on the fields, recall depends on wether the tree is more exciting or not  BUT we had a great time and he met a Pointer so did well :thumbsup:

Max- Took him for a street walk sat at the kerbs :thumbsup: Jumping up has ceased to exist (almost!) No biting and has picked up cues very well indeed.

Super proud of both my boys today


----------



## SLB

Dogless said:


> I wouldn't see how Suprelorin would help with the stress of your OH coming and going TBH thinking of it's mechanism of action. The reasons I went for it (just to give you food for thought) were the amount of in season bitches we encountered and the amount of bitching Kilo did in the main. That and he was fast to return any posturing that other males dogs offered him, especially those who were entire. It has calmed him in that he doesn't bitch and mark everywhere outside any more and he is less stressed with the presence of in season bitches in close proximity.
> 
> I am wondering whether the incident that I have bolded is the root cause as that is when Louie's behaviour changed rather than hormones? It's hard to know what to do for the best isn't it? Took me ages to decide!!


It's hard to know if the incident was the root because he was just turning 2 - hormones were all over the place. But before then he was a generally well adjusted dog (ugh sound like CM!). He'd be fine with all dogs, big, small, entire or not and of course different genders. But then I don't know if he has decided he just doesn't like other dogs bigger than him or if I gave off a vibe in the early days after that about him around other dogs bigger than him, I probably did as it shook me too - it was more serious than handbags but wasn't a full on fight - but still not a nice thing to witness. But then I think back and realise that there was a Collie, very bouncy and I believe entire that put him off too, way before the incident. In fact if we were at class (where the collie was) he would grumble if the dog was in the room, but it settled and he got to the point he was Ok as long as the Collie was no where near him. I actually have a picture of where he put himself on a chair behind me to avoid looking at the dog.

He got on well with Jake who was entire - just as long as they weren't in the same room or shut in the boot together. But out and about they were completely fine - they'd walk next to each other, hunt about etc. So I think he'll get used to Hugo - thats not a problem but I just wish he'd no go on the defensive straight away. I would've took him out today but with Hugo only being 14 months - I knew he'd be bouncy and push his luck and I didn't want Lou to do anything that would affect him. If that makes sense, plus first time of me meeting him so I wanted to see what the good ones made of him. Jack didn't give him the time of day which means he's alright and Pen thinks he's a bit OTT when he plays but other than that - they gave me a good impression of him. And he wasn't too bad for an over grown pup.

Of course I can't assume other entire dogs will ignore him when he gets defensive - like the GSD - he just walked in the opposite direction. Which was good. And Lou realised he wasn't anything interesting - did give a few grumbles and harsh looks when he bumped into him though.. poor thing didn't know how to work his way around all the dogs on the walk :lol:

I've rambled but I have talked to other owners who have had the implant and one who had a similar problem said that it made her dog calmer around other males but as it was an established behaviour, it hasn't fixed the problem. So perhaps if the implant works for calming the situation - I can then BAT the other issues. Then see how it is without the implant OR just have him neutered.



LurcherOwner said:


> For the stress thing, have you tried Valerian, Zyklene, or Nupafeed?


I have tablets on their way - but they are lost I reckon. Poor boy has LG on 3 feet and the vets can't suggest anything that has already been suggested. 
He's only just started to put the weight back on that he lost. No change in food or feeding times, and less exercise cos of the weather but he still dropped a lot. But seemingly having more time with me just playing with him is working. So I make an extra half an hour just to play with him now.


----------



## SLB

L/C said:


> SLB - what was the incident that Louie had? What was the outcome, how long ago did it happen and what was the immediate effect on his behaviour?
> 
> TBh if this was the catalyst for his issue with entire males then I wouldn't think that his reaction is hormone based and I can't see that implant or neutering would do much good. It may even be detrimental if it affects his confidence. You have to weigh up how much of his issue you think is caused by hormones and how much you think is caused by fear. If it is a bad fear reaction then it could be a long road - repairing damage once they are adults can take months if not years.


Last May. A dog stood on his shoulders, Lou grumbled at the dog as a warning, the dog then grabbed hold of him and shook him on the ground. He came out of it Ok, just a cut on his ear.

He's confident, almost cocky, but like you say - that could be a cover up. He's generally not scared of other males - as he is fine with dogs the same size or smaller (or bigger females) and has proven that he can get on with males bigger than him - as I have said in my post above.

But as I have also said - I want to know what is causing it and if it is hormone based then I can take that out of the way - if it is a bit of both then I can work on BAT as well as neutering him.


----------



## L/C

SLB said:


> Last May. A dog stood on his shoulders, Lou grumbled at the dog as a warning, the dog then grabbed hold of him and shook him on the ground. He came out of it Ok, just a cut on his ear.
> 
> He's confident, almost cocky, but like you say - that could be a cover up. He's generally not scared of other males - as he is fine with dogs the same size or smaller (or bigger females) and has proven that he can get on with males bigger than him - as I have said in my post above.
> 
> But as I have also said - I want to know what is causing it and if it is hormone based then I can take that out of the way - if it is a bit of both then I can work on BAT as well as neutering him.


By cocky do you mean by how he approaches other dogs? Something that I have seen with insecure dogs is that they will often approach in a rather obnoxious manner - up on their toes, chest puffed out, ears and tail up - as a pre-emptive strike to get the other dog to back down.

My worry with the superlorin is that if it did make him more fearful he could be more likely to have a bad experience or react badly and then you could end up with a worse problem on your hands. I would have expected you to have seen hormonally driven bad behaviour before 2 years old (usually commencing at around 9 or 10 months old with the onset of sexual maturity) if it was caused by hormones.

ETA:

A nice little read on the effect of neutering on aggressive behaviour. Brief but good.

http://www.associationofanimalbehaviorprofessionals.com/effects_of_neutering.html


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## kat&molly

Sarah- well done to Spendog, he's really matured into a lovely boy. 

Dogless- Pleased you had a stressless walk in the forest with the boys. 

LO- dont let others opinions get to you, we all can only try our best.

I walked all the girls together this morning then did seperate this afternoon. Evie was a little trooper today  she aimed straight for her little spot but the farmer, his wife and brother were really close by doing strimming work, so I had to hope she would move a bit further on, rather than back.
I was getting a bit worried as they have been in the area every day, and must wonder why I'm just hanging around talking to the dog!! The farmer might start think I've got the hots for him 
Madam was ok to walk on, she was nervous and kept stopping to look around , tail down but not tucked , we managed around an extra 60 metres :thumbup1: where there is a little field so we went in there. She went to the other end of the field and just sat there, looked a bit worried but we managed a bit of training and she was focused and took loads of treats, got back ok even offering some lovely heelwork. So pleased with her today. 

Another little miracle, Evie again, we had a breakthrough with the clicker today, its taken forever, wouldnt be much to most people and maybe I was part of the problem but when she sits there in front of me not moving a muscle I got a bit stuck and just ended our sessions  

A really good day.


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## Dogless

k&m -pleased you had such a good day and well done Evie :thumbup1:. Wonder if the farmer is worried that he has a stalker now .


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> k&m -pleased you had such a good day and well done Evie :thumbup1:. Wonder if the farmer is worried that he has a stalker now .


I know  his wife isn't the friendliest of people either.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I know  his wife isn't the friendliest of people either.


Watch out for meat cleavers being carried and watch your back :. Brave Evie would alert you anyway!


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Watch out for meat cleavers being carried and watch your back :. Brave Evie would alert you anyway!


I will  as for 'brave Evie' mmmm


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## moonviolet

well done Little Evie  so glad you are seeing improvement, she's been a bit of a challenge :lol: :lol: ( do I get a prize for understatement?)

Games class last night, such a fun class and keeps us out of mischief one night a week! more challenging for me this week as Tink was so much quicker with the evening being cooler than it has been of late  Thought of you Nicki when sending Tink backwards onto her podium we've started adding distance not wholly successful ( handler error) when she goose stepped backwards past it :lol: 

Lovely walks today did see man nor beast this morning, Bliss. Park this evening some training and giddy cantering.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> well done Little Evie  so glad you are seeing improvement, she's been a bit of a challenge :lol: :lol: ( do I get a prize for understatement?)
> 
> Games class last night, such a fun class and keeps us out of mischief one night a week! more challenging for me this week as Tink was so much quicker with the evening being cooler than it has been of late  Thought of you Nicki when sending Tink backwards onto her podium we've started adding distance not wholly successful ( handler error) *when she goose stepped backwards past it *:lol:
> 
> Lovely walks today did see man nor beast this morning, Bliss. Park this evening some training and giddy cantering.


That made me laugh; I can just imagine :biggrin:.


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## kat&molly

Games class always sounds such good fun MV, I am really jealous. 



Feeling stupidly nervous for today, yesterday was sooo good.

Moll has a new self taught trick. Every morning as OH is getting up she runs off with his slippers, one at a time and dumps them somewhere, knowing that she'll be sent to find them.


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## Nicki85

Had a good walk this morning, took the dogs up Kingsclere to the ridge  Longest walk Shae has done to date... we were out for 1.5/2hrs but only cover 3 miles lol. Lots of rests and drink stops to make sure she was OK. She was ace, not a soul to be seen once we got out of the village. Got very over excited by a lady talking to us on the way back... tiredness I suspect and probably not helped by Rusty wanting to chase a cat that he spotted a mile of down the path. Rusty was chaotic on his flexi- i'm going to have to ditch it I think and go back the belt and line.... I like my shoulders where they are! Anyhow, lovely walk and the dogs are now sleeping  
Three pics-
On our way









Enjoying the view









Ready to go home!









MV- I would not stand a chance on a getting Rusty to back up on to a podium! He can just about figure it out on a very wide step that he has no option BUT to back up on to it lol. Glad you had a good morning walk.
KM- hope Evie did you proud today... she looks like such a sweety...


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## SLB

Well despite the grumbling yesterday - we (his owner and I) decided to take the plunge and just get them out there. I'm dogsitting at the end of the month so we need them to get on best they can since they will have to pass each other (even when separated) in my house to go out to the loo. And as I am on my own this time around (OH was here when I looked after Jake and Elsa) it's a little more difficult.

Anyway - apart from a few grumbles - no where near as extensive as yesterday.. they got on fine.










Hugo, for a 14 month old entire male, didn't retaliate or anything, just walked away or ignored Louie when he grumbled at him. So all in all - a good walk


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## Canine K9

Lovely photos SLB and Nicki


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## Guest

I am not sure everything is quite right with Donkey boy today. 
He has yet to defecate, after having quite sludgy offerings the past few days, didn't seem excited to go on a walk and barked, growled and lunged at every dog we saw! This is the dog who thinks all dogs are long lost friends! 

He seems generally miserable, no enthusiasm at all today.


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## Dogless

LO - hope DB is OK.

SLB & Nicki - lovely photos.

k&m - bet hubby isn't as amused by Moll's new game as you are  .

OK walks today.

On bike to top fields with Rudi, some stays and recalls and then just playing. He was a little star.

Took Kilo to the sports pitches. He was very anxious, kept nudging me for reassurance and was lip licking and looking around a lot. I wanted to distract him but not ask very much of him so we just did lots of simple things he knew like heel work, sits, downs and kept moving. I was going to do some impulse control stuff but thought he could do without the adrenaline and being asked to work hard.


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## kat&molly

Nikki- lovely photos, look at Shae  she's so tall. How is Rusty going to fit that tongue back in his mouth I wonder. 

Dogless- I hope Kilo has de stressed a little since this morning,  

Hope Donkey Boy is ok.

Thanks all on the kind words of encouragement with Evie, she did brilliant again today. We really do need to see some strangers though and be able to cope with them before we move any further I think, thats the hardest bit.
Its lovely how responsive she's being, in that field this morning instead of sniffing she wanted to train :001_huh: I dont know whats different this time but something is. I haven't had the clicker out yet, too scared in case yesterday was a fluke :laugh:

The other girls were brilliant on their walks as well, except the bit where Moll reacted to a cat  I wonder why they dont generalise with cats? She lives with 2 but every new cat is a 'new' cat. She's brilliant with the chucks at home, we passed some when out today and she didnt bat an eyelid , never does. 
Scruff was good, she huffed a couple of times but didnt wuff  Jay doesn't do mornings, she'll come out now though. 

OH is really tolerant of Molls new slipper game, its the dirty wet Wubba dropped on his head he objects to.


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## Sarah1983

LO, hope Zander is okay.

Kat, sounds like Evie is doing really, really well! Have you had the clicker out today yet? 

Dogless, hope you have a better walk tonight and Kilo relaxes again.

Spencer always reacts to cats but when he's been up close with one he just wanted to play. I don't think it helps we very rarely see them here and when we do it's often late at night and pitch black. He reacts to the hedgehog until he realises what it is too, then ignores it.

Didn't have a good walk today. I somehow managed to get covered in sh*t  All over Spencers leash and all over me. I have no idea how it happened but thankfully we weren't far from the stream so I could wash it off. Had to put Spen back on leash at one point going through the woods because I don't know what he'd caught scent of but he had a breed change and went from Labrador to Beagle in the blink of an eye and I know from experience that that body language signals him going deaf. Bit later my blood sugar plummeted. I'm a good 40 minute walk from home at this point so thought okay, phone hubby and get him to pick me up. No credit on my phone. Nobody at all around, not even any cars parked by the cemetery. I had Dextro on me which brought my blood sugar back up but the walk home was awful. Spen was fantastic bless him, chose to walk next to me almost the whole way home.


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## kat&molly

Sarah- sounds a bit of a scary walk with your blood sugar dropping like that, pleased you got back ok though eventually and Spendog was a good boy. 

The clicker, erm no I haven't used it with Evie today  Really dont think I could have faced the disappointment if she went back in to statue mode. Pathetic I know.


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## missRV

Been a while since we've been on here.

Rosie has just come home from puppy school, and done so well. Wouldn't have thought she was ever timid, she can socialise with any of the puppies at that place, even the naughty ones lol. She met a GSD pup who was very nervous and she was fantastic with her! There's a baby cocker spaniel there who's only about 12 weeks old and he seems to have a crush on her! Our trainer has introduced the pups to agility equipment and Rosie loves it, I'd love to carry it on with her. 

We're dropping her off at my aunt's house in Liverpool soon for 2 weeks while we go on holiday. I'm dreading it! I keep looking at her packed bags and crying... saying that she has more stuff packed than I do for 2 weeks in Cuba! She loves my aunt and uncle to bits and they love her so I know she'll be fine, but it's still so hard!  Ok, I'm sounding like a crazy dog lady here now!


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## Dogless

Forest tonight, just back. Boys had fun, Roo was totally crackers for some reason, Kilo was fine as he always is there. Rain came just as forecast so we got soaked but what's new in Norn Iron? .


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## moonviolet

DOgless I guess the rain had to return you did have a couple of dry days :lol:

Sarah it sounds like a bit of a scary one glad you got home largely unscathed, please take care.

Lo Hope Zander is feeling better tomorrow.

K&M so glad Evie did well again today  and Molls game sounds so funny.

SLB and Nicki great pics  

MissRV glad you have seen such an great improvement.

Took Tink on a walk we haven't been on for a while this morning, she was a joy. Didn't see a soul until we got back to the car, just as a dog walkers van pulled up, managed to get Tink in super fast before a surprisingly large number of dogs burst out of the van. I've encountered them before and lets just say narrow escape!

This evening we trained and played games until it began to get dark and I have one tired little hound. Her mental stamina and hunger for games is excellent we covered lots of things low number of reps when we got a good one, improved one or a great one we moved on. It really is the way that suits her best.


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## kat&molly

Dogless- so pleased Kilo got a chance to chill.  what a surprise you all getting soaked 

Moonviolet- a narrow escape indeed from the dog walker. 

MissRV- I think Rosie is going to be spoiled , enjoy your holiday.

Big girl pants on for me this morning, I did a little session with Evie , it went really well, at least she's offering me something now. Phew 


Have a good day everyone.


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## Guest

An update on the barking at other dogs:

Thanks to the advice on here we've been making definite progress. I've found the general distance at which she won't bark, and I can recognise the signs that she's about to bark too now. Also, I've found how close she needs to be to not bark - she needs to either be far away or close, but not in between! 

I've been getting her to either sit and wait with her attention on me while the dog approaches, and then treating and releasing when the dog is close enough or past (depending on the approaching dog - if it makes its way over to greet her I make sure I treat and release in enough time for her to be prepared for the greeting - if the dog is just wandering past then I wait until it's gone), or doing off-lead heelwork with her so again her attention is on me until we're close enough/past. It's the same method I use if there's a puppy approaching (Kenzie doesn't 'do' puppies!).

How would you guys move from doing this, to being able to walk normally again without her barking?


----------



## moonviolet

McKenzie said:


> An update on the barking at other dogs:
> 
> Thanks to the advice on here we've been making definite progress. I've found the general distance at which she won't bark, and I can recognise the signs that she's about to bark too now. Also, I've found how close she needs to be to not bark - she needs to either be far away or close, but not in between!
> 
> I've been getting her to either sit and wait with her attention on me while the dog approaches, and then treating and releasing when the dog is close enough or past (depending on the approaching dog - if it makes its way over to greet her I make sure I treat and release in enough time for her to be prepared for the greeting - if the dog is just wandering past then I wait until it's gone), or doing off-lead heelwork with her so again her attention is on me until we're close enough/past. It's the same method I use if there's a puppy approaching (Kenzie doesn't 'do' puppies!).
> 
> How would you guys move from doing this, to being able to walk normally again without her barking?


Fantastic you've made great progress! Certainly for Tink it's just a case for keeping it up until seeing the trigger cements in her head as a cue to come to me for positive attention. The time will vary for each dog, on how consistent you are, how much they enjoy the distraction method etc.

If it's any sort of indication it takes a human approximately 6 weeks of practising a new way of doing things for it to become a behaviour.


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## Guest

We have had a very very productive day and its only quarter to 11 in the morning! 

We had a nice calm walk (I did use the Dogmatic though) and everytime we saw a dog I gave him a treat for looking at it sorta calmly then we hightailed it away from the other dogs. Ended up going up and down the same street about 7 times :lol: I did not want to give him a chance to react badly.

Then when we got home, I handled his feet and I brushed him ( he seems very itchy and moulting alot and his fur seems very dry) and I looked at his teeth and his ears and whatnot! :thumbup1:

Dogless = Glad that Kilo could finally chill!
Mckenzie = Hurrah for the progress!
Kat and Moll = Them Big girl pants are very comfy aren't they? :lol: I was wearing mine with pride this morning cause I was even able to tell a man with a spaniel that could they not follow on behind us so close as we were 'training'. :lol: Well done with Evie!!


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## Nicki85

Good morning here...
Rusty and I went running first, tried to find a footpath but couldn't... so gave up on that! He's looking really good at the moment so I'm pleased. He is having 5-10 mins off lead and he is looking good 

Took Shae out to the field and played ball/ agility exercises then went round a bit of the wall. Short walk but she was hard work! Wanted to lay down all the time... suspect she was tired from yesterday. If I engaged her with a game she was fine but walking is boring. 

They have had their favourite breakfast... fish... and are now snoozing. Swimming later for Rust, might take Shae depending on how tired she is! 

Mckenzie- glad to hear you are making progress! I am still working with Shae... English Shepherds are known as a bit of a gobby breed and Shae is no exception lol.
LO- pleased that you had a good morning  Gland your lad has cheered up too.


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## Dogless

LO - sounds like a fab morning .
k&m - big girl pants are pretty awesome once you get them on I reckon .
Nicki - sorry you didn't find the footpath but all sounds good otherwise, hope the swimming goes well.

Good morning here. Lead walk for Rudi going past livestock, through construction work, past dogs, past kids, past dogs with kids, squealing kids, lorries.... :crazy:. He was, as ever, a little star :thumbup1:.

Lead walk for the BW on the abandoned estate, still anxious and really jittery but I just let him potter, did some "find it" with treats and a few simple things. Saw one woman with small child and buggy and small dog. Small child did the usual "doogggggiiieeee" and I braced myself to repel small space invader BUT the woman said "No, that doggie has a special jacket on can you see? It says that the doggie needs space. That means that we might frighten him if we go up to him". Small child said "A special doggie Mummy!". Bless the woman, first sensible encounter I've had in ages :thumbup1:


----------



## Canine K9

Bailey- Nipping has gone down loads, recall is fair takes him a while to respond usually but he usually does so going to find higher value treats
Max- Very good, pulling and jumping up gone down 

Both boys progressing well :thumbup1:


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## SLB

We had our small potter around the farmers fields ruined today. I did plan to go around all of them using the tractor paths but I saw a BoP circling and as I have Missy Shih Tzu with me - I didn't fancy my chances, even with the other 4 around and me. 

But thats another story. On our mooch, a young, neutered Weim came running to the group - I panicked, I know I shouldn't have done. But I couldn't see his owner and not a lot of the Weims around here are known for being good with other dogs. Lou broke his sit/stay - I wanted to get him on lead before the dog ran up so I left the others to distract as they are all pretty good when they know a dog isn't too good and generally leave them after a sniff. But Lou ran up anyway, licked the dogs bits and then ran off over the field after Pen who had spotted a pigeon. :skep: As soon as I tell you guys he's terrible with dogs who are entire or bigger than him he just decides to do the opposite. 

Maybe I'm worrying too much about it all..


----------



## Canine K9

Oh a little tip for those with bitey pups- Try feeding meals through a kong. It mentally tires Bailey out and gives them something else to chew rather than people :thumbup1:


----------



## sharloid

The OH took Broder and Kindra on a harness/walking belt (pulling) walk and he reported that they did really well. The first dog they saw was off lead and came running up to them so they were a bit excited but that wasn't their fault. After that apparently Broder ignored other dogs and Kindra just glanced at them.

Brilliant, it seems like head collar walks and going to dog shows is helping.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless well done to both your boys and what a great lady, there are some decent people in NI :biggrin:

K9 sounds like you are getting there slowly but surely with Bailey, her really does sound so much more terrier than toy bless you. Lets hope its like weight loss the slower you take it the more it stays off or in this instance sticks in their heads. I have a feeling you will find Max a very different kettle of fish and hopefully with his breed a little easier to train, plus you will have learnt so much from the naughty tyke that is Bailey 

Nikki really glad Rusty is coming to it, make sure you dont push it too far, not criticising just saying as I know what I would be like, too eager to get back to it 

LO- glad the DB has cheered up, the walk up and down and round and round and up and down sounds familiar but they work :thumbup1:

McK - well done thats quick progress, keep it up, she may always need a bit a bit of management or she may one day go oh I get it you DONT want me barking , well why didnt you just say 

Kat - biggest :thumbup1: :thumbup1: to you and EVie, patience really does pay off, you have found her switch. Well done both of you :biggrin:

MV - tink is coming on leaps and bounds these last couple of months, you can hear yourself relaxing in your posts

SLB - only just realised what you name means  SLBPJ  

What BoP was it I very much doubt a buzzard or kite, not sure what else you would have up there they would attempt to take a small dog, especially not with your others about, their are some reports of attempts on pups and teeny dogs but they are always just attempts and often unattended at the time or just panic reports. 
We regularly see marsh harriers and buzzards all the time, never concerned me, they wouldn't come that close to a person TBH, although a friend did wonder once about an owl they saw at dusk but she said she wasnt sure who was after who, Elsie the dog after the owl or VV  typical man showing you up and making you look daft, but glad its in a good way this time 





We had an alarming walk when rushed by a loose greyhound, I was torn between getting the snarling ninja away, shooing it off, or trying to catch it. 

Its owner was shuffling up the road waving an unbuckled leather hound collar saying 'she slipped it and I can never catch her'

I chose 'shoo' when it growled back at us and it promptly lolloped into a nearby house though their open front door I yelled at the woman it was safe and pointed where it had gone and we legged it round the corner, just in time to hear her apologise to the house owner. Then ninja got all jumpy again and sure enough the thing was still loose  and followed us round the corner, a bit of pee mail distracted it and we left the daft mare to it. I would have worried more but it was in our housing estate and the traffic is pretty sparse and slow and frankly I was more worried about calming ninja down by then.

It had another collar on with tags so why she didnt have it on a double ender or harness or something if its prone to doing that I dont know.

The most alarming thing was I had had a bit of a morning (thanks husband for forgetting your work gear ) and was rushing about and nearly walked her un-muzzled, I actually got out the door  then thought no, I better at least take it, then I thought no I better put it on, even though I had only thought last night why muzzle her in the estate, we dont see loose dogs round here :frown2: So thank goodness for sensible head seeing through.

Under stress she proceeded to bark at a bunch of walkers so I got glared at when I apologised, dont suppose they would have understood had I tried to explain.


----------



## Dogless

I'm not "liking" your post GR as it sounds like a horrible morning. Thank goodness you had muzzled the Ninja as you say - even if she wouldn't have bitten it at least removes an added source of worry when you're doing your best to deal with a hairy situation. I hope your next few walks are lovely and peaceful to give the Ninja a chance to recover - and you of course.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I'm not "liking" your post GR as it sounds like a horrible morning. Thank goodness you had muzzled the Ninja as you say - even if she wouldn't have bitten it at least removes an added source of worry when you're doing your best to deal with a hairy situation. I hope your next few walks are lovely and peaceful to give the Ninja a chance to recover - and you of course.


Gave me jelly legs for a bit I can say , just makes you realise how terrible it must feel if god forbid something worse happens like with you and your two, this was nothing really and it shook me up for a good while.


----------



## SLB

GingerRogers said:


> SLB - only just realised what you name means  SLBPJ
> 
> What BoP was it I very much doubt a buzzard or kite, not sure what else you would have up there they would attempt to take a small dog, especially not with your others about, their are some reports of attempts on pups and teeny dogs but they are always just attempts and often unattended at the time or just panic reports.
> We regularly see marsh harriers and buzzards all the time, never concerned me, they wouldn't come that close to a person TBH, although a friend did wonder once about an owl they saw at dusk but she said she wasnt sure who was after who, Elsie the dog after the owl or VV  typical man showing you up and making you look daft, but glad its in a good way this time


Yeah, I joined before I had the P and J. 

Sounded like a Buzzard. I daren't take any chances with her not being my dog and not having the best recall - she just follows the others so I just let her off anyway.

She's been had by a greyhound before, she was bounding about in long grass and the dog just went for her - the owner who had just rescued her a few short weeks before said that she was fine without a muzzle - yet I look through past pictures and the greyhound is fixated on her. Luckily she only caught her fur and no damage was done. But I don't like taking chances with dogs that aren't mine.

Your next walk will be a good one - we all have our good days and bad days. Sorry that today was a bad one.


----------



## GingerRogers

SLB said:


> Yeah, I joined before I had the P and J.
> 
> *Sounded like a Buzzard*. I daren't take any chances with her not being my dog and not having the best recall - she just follows the others so I just let her off anyway.
> 
> She's been had by a greyhound before, she was bounding about in long grass and the dog just went for her - the owner who had just rescued her a few short weeks before said that she was fine without a muzzle - yet I look through past pictures and the greyhound is fixated on her. Luckily she only caught her fur and no damage was done. But I don't like taking chances with dogs that aren't mine.
> 
> Your next walk will be a good one - we all have our good days and bad days. Sorry that today was a bad one.


Pathetic then  I always think they sound really wimpy for such powerful birds.

We got the car back this morning (and parted with several hundred ££'s ) so I sincerely hope our next walk will be somewhat more peaceful.

She is staying with my Mum overnight on Saturday so I think after todays events a no walking policy will be in order, I dont want my Dad embarrassed by her behaviour  as it will take her a few days to come down from that, something a lot of dogs could just shrug off, actually a couple of days running about in mum and dads garden might be just the relaxation she needs , and I might just enjoy the night off if I can manage to not worry about her. Just hope Dads new fence is up to it . The first time I took her there they swore the garden was secure only for it to go rather quiet and I saw these little legs running up and done on the other side of the hedge  oh well she will be a good tester anyway. Save my brothers vizsla pup escaping next time she comes to stay!


----------



## Nicki85

Back from swimming  

Took them both in the end as I wasn't planning on walking that far- just to a good bit of the river and then swim Rusty. 

They were both well behaved and Shae went swimming too! She is starting to get the hang of Rusty has one toy, and she has another- and that she doesn't have to steal Rusty's  Makes my life a lot easier! I kept Rusty on a flexi- floating long line ordered... I wish I could let him off but there is more risk of him getting into trouble chasing ducks than getting tangled in the line...

Didn't see any other dogs apart from one that barked from a boat... mine ignored it. Shae did a really nice recall off a person she wanted to say hi to. 

GR- not my idea of a fun walk   I really hate the idea of dogs being offlead round roads 
And yes, taking it very easy with Rusty... he's only off lead in places he knows as he goes crazy otherwise exploring and only for 5-10 mins a time. It is sooo hard as he is full of running and energy.

We are watching "wonder dogs" on H&C at the moment- tis funny!! Shae really likes the presenter and keeps wagging her tail at him lol.

BOP- I remember Rusty being chased by a Kite once across a field. Wasn't too worried as it wasn't swopping really low but if Rust had been smaller I would have been.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Back from swimming
> 
> Took them both in the end as I wasn't planning on walking that far- just to a good bit of the river and then swim Rusty.
> 
> They were both well behaved and Shae went swimming too! *She is starting to get the hang of Rusty has one toy, and she has another- and that she doesn't have to steal Rusty's  * Makes my life a lot easier! I kept Rusty on a flexi- floating long line ordered... I wish I could let him off but there is more risk of him getting into trouble chasing ducks than getting tangled in the line...
> 
> Didn't see any other dogs apart from one that barked from a boat... mine ignored it. Shae did a really nice recall off a person she wanted to say hi to.
> 
> GR- not my idea of a fun walk   I really hate the idea of dogs being offlead round roads
> And yes, taking it very easy with Rusty... he's only off lead in places he knows as he goes crazy otherwise exploring and only for 5-10 mins a time. It is sooo hard as he is full of running and energy.


That took Rudi quite some time . Pleased Rusty didn't repeat his duck adventure, although it made me chuckle I wouldn't have been had I been in your shoes  .


----------



## Nicki85

Everyone I told laughed lol. I can just about chuckle about it now.... seriously though, I thought he was either going to come ashore with a duck in his mouth or i'd have to go in and bring him back!! Meanwhile people are pointing from their boats at this spaniel... 

I should add that Shae has only figured this out with toys in water. And it helps that she won't go in as far as Rusty so I can throw Rusts one way then Shae's the other in the meantime Rusty has come back so collect his toy and then Shae returns... you get the picture!! On land we aren't quite (at all) there yet...


----------



## kat&molly

Nice that most of you have had good days, Ginge yours sounds awful, Ninjas little weekend break has come just at the right time. 

Evie did really really well today , she sniffed more in the field so I took that to be her relaxing a bit more, she was still happy to work for me as well. 
She does a crawl naturally on the grass, its part of her gambol, roll routine 
I've been trying to put the crawl on cue for a while now, it might be sinking in as she did it for half a length of the field today , she is a nutter. 
The bad bit- getting back on to the road a woman comes down that Evie spotted first, about 20 metres away, that was it , everything went to pot. I ran in to a little field opposite, the woman turned back the way she came but it was no good , I got dragged all the way home .  ¨Poor little bugger.
Probably back at square one again now. Really hope she can get over all this stuff eventually, I hate seeing her like this.

The other girls were good as gold.


----------



## Dogless

Poor Evie, Kat. I think we'll all get there in the end bit by tiny bit...you have to think that don't you?  Hopefully with the good experiences she's been having she may just recover that little bit faster from this.

Sounds like she did so well otherwise - I'd love to see her crawling, gambolling routine.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh no poor you and Evie 

Poor little mite she is and you care so much it must be awful seeing her like that.

Glad you had a good days swim Nikki and no naughty Rusty


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks both, what would you do tomorrow now? Avoid that way for a bit or get straight back out there, obviously if she isnt happy I'd turn around, but is it even wise to try?


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks both, what would you do tomorrow now? Avoid that way for a bit or get straight back out there, obviously if she isnt happy I'd turn around, but is it even wise to try?


If it was Kilo I wouldn't try as he remembers encounters and is all hyped up even if nothing is there - not sure if Evie does that? I'd give it a rest for a few days and concentrate on doing stuff that Evie can do to build confidence and then try again.


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> If it was Kilo I wouldn't try as he remembers encounters and is all hyped up even if nothing is there - not sure if Evie does that? I'd give it a rest for a few days and concentrate on doing stuff that Evie can do to build confidence and then try again.


Thanks , you're right and she doesn't forget a thing. I'll leave her a bit.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks , you're right and she doesn't forget a thing. I'll leave her a bit.


When Kilo gets all jittery and anxious and keeps seeking reassurance I even just go back to basic heelwork, sits, downs, easy stuff he knows and make sure he knows he's got it right. Seems to increase his confidence - it's like an anchor. I don't ask anything difficult of him at all until he seems ready. Does that make any sense? Awful explanation I know but works for us.


----------



## GingerRogers

I agree with dogless 

This morning we HAD to come back past the spot with the loose hound but were saved only by the fact that the visiting beagle was coming down the road walked by the two young boys  I know where they are staying so made a little detour down the cul de sac which diverted her somewhat as it was unexpected. Otherwise she would have been skitting and gruffaloing, it had to happen outside the invisible cats house where she has been so bad (when it wasn't there) till recently when she has been so good (when it has been out sunbathing )

Sorry ranting again 

But no definitely avoid that spot for a bit, ninja knows exactly where all her encounters have been.


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks both. 
The Nupafeed has been really helping, but is it going to be enough , I dont really want to use anything else but maybe she will need it.


----------



## GingerRogers

Give her time, she has spent so long on high alert, its instinct no matter how the nupafeed is helping, in time she will hopefully get used to her more balanced state. 

Saying that i resisted for ages using anything remotely sedating but I think we are seeing some results from the valerian but I am not quite sure, theres alot of things came together at once.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks both.
> The Nupafeed has been really helping, but is it going to be enough , I dont really want to use anything else but maybe she will need it.


Problem is then you move to things like valium; I have weaned Kilo off it as I didn't see it as a viable long term solution. Tricky one.

Thundershirt? TTouch?


----------



## kat&molly

Thanks, we'll muddle on, it is early days (again) isn't it. 
A Thundershirt might be an idea when its cooler and I'm hoping to get some help with TTouch soon, she does like the little butt rub MV told me about a while ago- she didn't give me chance to use it today though.

She's obviously ok at the minute, she's thinking about beating Scruff up.


----------



## moonviolet

GR Sorry about the loose greyhound what a nightmare.  hope she bounces back well.

Kat Evie has been doing so well, hope the scary lady is just a blip for her but I agree a couple of days to calm down is often best so you don't get compound stress.

Nicki glad you had a good walk/swim sounds like you have the toy juggling sussed 

Nice walk this morning, lovely dewy grass I got nice wet feet very refreshing.
Another training/play session tonight. She's really in the zone at the moment.

A little video of her reversing onto her podium, blink and you'll miss it :lol:

[youtube_browser]blee8g0UbV4[/youtube_browser]


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## JenKyzer

Haven't been on here hardly all week.. I'll have to have a good catch up read tomorrow  Hope everyone is doing well.

Quiet week here.. Started using clicker outside.. she seems to have cottoned on to the fact click=treat so i am going to try teach her 'touch' whilst i'm off tomorrow (nose touches hand to get a treat) we also have a nice box to maybe give the '101 things..' a go now that i know what it means!! & see how we get on just out of curiosity 

Had nice walks up at the Res each evening.

Tonight she met my OH friends american bull dog (unintentionally, OH bumped into them whilst out).. she led down infront of him straight away  and let him sniff   he let her sniff.. they both led down.. then.. PLAYED :yikes: .. Oh rang me straight away to tell me :laugh: said she was so good that he couldn't believe his eyes and his friend didn't believe him that usually she isn't keen on dog company lol so very proud of her tonight :thumbup1:

Nights like this keep me hopeful that we're still making progress and she is learning (slowly) that another dog doesn't mean be on red alert! 

No grumbles this week so far at anyone else.. but i'm getting the hang of getting out the way instead of having to pass right by them and i feel more confident now which Willow might be picking up on.. so i think the distance is helping.. if we have had to pass we've got her to sit and look at us  She's having a good week.. i'm sure she'll put us back in our place over the weekend/next week  but this week definitely feels strangely 'different' but in a good way 

Ramble over, this is what happens when i don't come on here properly! 

I hope everyone else is having a productive week and i'll have a good read soon


----------



## Beth17

MV I never get tired of watching Tink doing her stuff. Brilliant


----------



## Dogless

mv - I love the way Miss Tinks is always so happy to train . Lovely little video.

JSW - Sounds as if you're coming on in leaps and bounds with Willow. Really pleased to hear how well she's doing :thumbup1: and how your confidence is improving .

Kilo in his vest:


----------



## missRV

OMG MV what a clever dog!

And Dogless: how gorgeous is Kilo looking! Hope the vest works


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely clip MV, Miss Tink is a clever girl. 

Dogless- hope the vest helps .


----------



## SLB

Has anyone used the 300 peck method for LLW? I'm taking Pen out later to have a go up and down the road (the bit with pavement). But just wondering if anyone has had any success with it. I've done a variation of it with Lou and that worked well but Pen never picked it up. But I'm hoping with this one she does.


----------



## moonviolet

SLB Too much counting and too prescriptive for me, A combination of silky leash (retaught this for harness after initially training for a flat collar), pre-emptive distraction in the from of turns, sits, downs spins/twists etc and never taking a step when being pulled were the most successful for us. 

All the work you were talking about focus the other day really should help. You want to be walking with your dog(s) not just being the human taxi.

Keeping it fun and interesting and stop if you begin to get frustrated.

Working in terms of time rather than distance. So for instance not thinking... we are going to walk to the vets and back, We are going to spend 15 mins working on LLW.


----------



## GingerRogers

JSW - brilliant it sounds like Willow is doing so well, our confidence is a really big part of it, not just in ourselves and our dogs but in our ability to take control.

Dogless, the vest looks really good actually, I was a bit sceptical but the writing is very clear even from a distance, I might think about one, at the very least it might stop the withering looks like I got when she barked at the walking group yesterday.

MV - the first time I watched the video clip it went at warp speed  I thought christ you do miss it if you blink, but its still very impressive even in normal mode. She doesnt even check where it is, so clever. :001_smile:

We had deaf dog and naughty running off in the fields last night I let her get on with it. It might have been encouraged by me being a bit loopy too, but we did a bit of tug and play with squeaky ball on a rope (need a shorter name for that  squeaby??) which was good progress though so :thumbsup: I may have caught MV's giddy cantering , stress zoomies all round. And noisy pestering up until I went to bed 

Nervous about leaving her at M&D's but I am sure she will be fine, mum has told dad he is not to walk her at all, feel for him he loves a dog walk as we all do. But he can potter in the garden with a friendly shadow instead


----------



## GingerRogers

I knew there was something else, SLB's post about LLW made me think of it. I realised last night that what I had down as very bad lead walking, ie she was 'just' a puller was actually a very nervous dog, when something stresses her she reverts back to scampering rabbit and when she is like that I feel I cant really refresh her training, she is stressed so she will probably get confused, so I let her pull but that in itself is stressful.

i think thats why she always walks beautifully when we turn around because we are going back over ground that she has already scanned for dangers today.

Just thought that observation might help some people who think their dogs just arent getting it or being stubborn. I dont why I hadn't realised it till yesterday, the thought was sort of half formed  like lots that float about in here .

EDIT I also dont have a solution lol so its not much help after all


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> I knew there was something else, SLB's post about LLW made me think of it. I realised last night that what I had down as very bad lead walking, ie she was 'just' a puller was actually a very nervous dog, when something stresses her she reverts back to scampering rabbit and when she is like that I feel I cant really refresh her training, she is stressed so she will probably get confused, so I let her pull but that in itself is stressful.
> 
> i think thats why she always walks beautifully when we turn around because we are going back over ground that she has already scanned for dangers today.
> 
> Just thought that observation might help some people who think their dogs just arent getting it or being stubborn. I dont why I hadn't realised it till yesterday, the thought was sort of half formed  like lots that float about in here .
> 
> EDIT I also dont have a solution lol so its not much help after all


Both agree and disagree.... I too have a dog who's LLW goes out the window in moments of stress, the "bogey barriers" were a case in point. Where owners had allowed their " woohoooo we're going for a walk yippee yippee!" dogs bounce all over my "I've been for a walk i'm tired fancy a snack and nap." dog

The approach I took was to run with her, It wasn't pretty but it was over faster


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> I knew there was something else, SLB's post about LLW made me think of it. I realised last night that what I had down as very bad lead walking, ie she was 'just' a puller was actually a very nervous dog, when something stresses her she reverts back to scampering rabbit and when she is like that I feel I cant really refresh her training, she is stressed so she will probably get confused, so I let her pull but that in itself is stressful.
> 
> i think thats why she always walks beautifully when we turn around because we are going back over ground that she has already scanned for dangers today.
> 
> Just thought that observation might help some people who think their dogs just arent getting it or being stubborn. I dont why I hadn't realised it till yesterday, the thought was sort of half formed  like lots that float about in here .
> 
> EDIT I also dont have a solution lol so its not much help after all


Good point Ginge. Moll was a big puller, it was harder for me to tell if she was worried by something or just pulling. 
Evie has always been easy to see, as she walks well anyway but gets rabbity and pully if something bothers her.


----------



## SLB

See she's nervous around roads and normally I just let her pull cos we're not too far away from somewhere she can be offlead - but as I put elsewhere I will be doing night walks and staying to the village and wandering around. 

I have ran with her and that does help - but I want her to walk nicely. 

Training has changed today -we're going for a bikejor and having a puppy play date instead  

I will update you on her progress as we will be doing some tomorrow or maybe later on before I go to work.


----------



## Nicki85

We had a lovely morning up at the river Thames  Spent a couple of hours mooching along the river bank and watching the dogs splashing in the river. Same place Rusty went after the duck so had him on a flexi... and bungee/walking belt for actual walking. 

Both dogs well behaved  was really pleased with them... Shae had a recall fail at the very end when she went to say hi to some non-doggy people but didn't jump and came straight back on second recall. Other than that lots of talking to other dogs and playing and watching boats, cyclists and runners... really ideal place to take them for distraction training!

LLW.... Rust doesn't unless I remind him every five seconds. Shae is brilliant as she has never been allowed to pull. Usually just stop if she pulls and bring her back to close position and carry on  Both are walked in harnesses as well so they are probably slightly further ahead than if they were collar walked if that makes sense...


----------



## Dogless

Working on desperately trying not to watch the athletics as I need to clean the house .

Spent many hours in the forest this morning; didn't do much apart from some recalls. Got a fly past from the Red Arrows on the way to display somewhere .

GR - Kilo will try and pull me about when stressed when usually he walks really nicely.


----------



## diefenbaker

Le Diefy is back in Blighty. I think he's enjoyed 2 weeks of living outside in the derriere of nowhere but now normal service is resumed. I'll try and post some pics later. The Gites we had were fantastic. I've a lot of reading of this thread to do too.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Le Diefy is back in Blighty. I think he's enjoyed 2 weeks of living outside in the derriere of nowhere but now normal service is resumed. I'll try and post some pics later. The Gites we had were fantastic. I've a lot of reading of this thread to do too.


'Allo Monsieur Dief .


----------



## JenKyzer

I still haven't had chance to catch up  Hope everyone is having a good weekend so far..

My day plan of clicker training and playing with a box got side-tracked.. 
instead we met up with Willows friend from yesterday and had a really good day!

I took some pics too  and made a lil thread to show off how proud i am of her
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...finally-has-one-pic-heavy.html#post1063113253

Plus then i don't end up rambling off on one on here 

Edited to say - before the meet we did some re-call work offlead, we worked on 'bring'.. and we had a good offlead walk in some woods  aswell as a good play around


----------



## Dogless

JSW - love your other thread :thumbup:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Thanks Dogless  it's amazing how something some dogs do on a daily basis actually means so much to us  

Sounds like you had a nice morning in the forest  'not doing much' is always fun and relaxing! .. I hope the vest is coming in handy too btw  fingers crossed we see an improvement on other owners manners near you guys now


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Thanks Dogless  it's amazing how something some dogs do on a daily basis actually means so much to us
> 
> Sounds like you had a nice morning in the forest  'not doing much' is always fun and relaxing! .. I hope the vest is coming in handy too btw  fingers crossed we see an improvement on other owners manners near you guys now


With dogs I unfortunately doubt it as they can do as they like as they're all "friendly"  but I can hope and hope that it makes a point as they're giving me filthy looks for having my dog curled up crying .

Anyhow.....right now they're asleep and I am covered in ridgie :001_wub:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> With dogs I unfortunately doubt it as they can do as they like as they're all "friendly"  but I can hope and hope that it makes a point as they're giving me filthy looks for having my dog curled up crying .
> 
> Anyhow.....right now they're asleep and I am covered in ridgie :001_wub:.


Aw its such a shame for him  poor guy. The other owners should be soo ashamed of themselves if they ignore the vest : . Even with the picture with the vest on, i must say, i could look at him all day.. his size, colour, build.. just oozes gorgeousness  Definitely have a soft spot for your boys.


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Aw its such a shame for him  poor guy. The other owners should be soo ashamed of themselves if they ignore the vest : . Even with the picture with the vest on, i must say, i could look at him all day.. his size, colour, build.. just oozes gorgeousness  Definitely have a soft spot for your boys.


They don't believe in leads by roads and if they are within sight of their dogs either don't recall or try half heartedly knowing it won't work .

Thank you for your lovely compliment. Sir K doesn't always look quite as dashing as you think....


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> They don't believe in leads by roads and if they are within sight of their dogs either don't recall or try half heartedly knowing it won't work .
> 
> Thank you for your lovely compliment. Sir K doesn't always look quite as dashing as you think....


: arseholes !! And thats a polite word for them ... !!

Haha i actually laughed out loud at that pic.. i bet he still gives a good cuddle even with a face like that


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## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> : arseholes !! And thats a polite word for them ... !!
> 
> Haha i actually laughed out loud at that pic.. i bet he still gives a good cuddle even with a face like that


My pair always give good cuddles :001_wub:. Kilo puts just his head and paws on you and if he's already there Rudi does the same from the other side. If Roo gets there first he has to get as much on you as possible :crazy:.


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## tiatortilla

Sorry everyone I've been away from this thread for some time, I still don't have a computer and it's really hard to keep up with this one on my phone! I've nicked the OH's computer for now though and should have a borrowed laptop next week so I'll try and be better 

Uhh what were we working on..

- Staying in her bed while we eat dinner - that's all sorted, don't even need to ask now - she just goes over to her bed when we bring the plates in because she's wonderful.
- Not barking at other dogs out the window is going better.. not perfect but it's definitely improving. She calls away pretty easily now and I get her to do a 'sit' or something until the dog's gone past which is working 
- Recall is perfect in places without any distractions, but is still pretty hit and miss when she's got a friend. Needs more work but it's good overall.
- Lead reactivity is.. I don't even know. Some days are very good and there's been a few terrible days too.. at least we get the good days now though!

Think that's everything. Oh, she did do the obnoxious barking thing to one of her friends yesterday. He's also a staffy, Tia was being a bit of a nutter in general yesterday and barked at him when he didn't chase her. I don't think that's an actual problem because she's only done it twice, and it's been to dogs she knows well and both very chilled out, tolerant dogs but it's still something I'm aware of just in case she does start thinking that's an appropriate way of getting dogs to play with her. :crazy:

I'll be better on replies next time, I've got far too many pages to catch up on!


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## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> My pair always give good cuddles :001_wub:. Kilo puts just his head and paws on you and if he's already there Rudi does the same from the other side. If Roo gets there first he has to get as much on you as possible :crazy:.


Sounds perfect  Willow is a great cuddler.. except when she has us both to chose from.. i always get the cute head and paws on me.. OH gets bum in face :laugh:


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## kat&molly

Dogless you are a meany putting that photo up of Kilo, he has an image to uphold you know 

Great to hear Tia is having a lot of good days now, they help us cope with the bad ones. Hopefully as time goes on you'll have less of those!!

JSW- I loved your other thread, lovely that Willow has made a friend!

Not the best day for us again yesterday, I took them all out together, it was meant to help Evie's stress levels drop and just give her some fun. As I suspected she didnt give me much focus with the others being around and the probable smell of wabbits  towards the end she improved though and did bits of training 
Just leaving the fields she has started to put the brakes on, I stupidly believed she was being a madam before, she isn't and I should have listened  for some reason theres now a problem having to walk past 2 scary , fence running Setters. We used to play Find It going past, yesterday we just ran. Another bit to avoid for the minute !!
Things can only get better, they have to.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Just being a bit nosey on a Sunday morning. 

SLB I used the 300 thing with frank. Got on ok with it but with bella I did similar to what MV did. We don't move a step if the lead goes tight. She can still get to where she wants to go, just not by pulling me. 

MV lovely vid of miss tinks. Little star. Love seeing pics and videos of her. 

Dogless hope kilos vest does the trick. And love the pic of him snoozing. Wishing him well. 

Hello to everyone else. 

Think I need to change one of my walking routes. 
'My' bit of Cannock chase is great. It's open, not very busy, easily divert if I see bikes or other people so its very handy and relaxing. 
Thing is its also renound for a certain , shall we say, 'activity' after dark. 
Well, last Sunday me, hubby and all three dogs pulled up, reversed car and were finishing off our conversation and some old bloke got out of his car and walked around ours, very close to it, looking in. 
We quickly got out and made it clear we were dog walking and saw the old fella drive off. It was 5 o'clock on a Sunday evening. My god. 

Friday, I took F &F out later and saw same bloke walking around someone else's car. 

I know it goes on but I'm a bit shocked and stunned, with a bit of humour rolled in. 
So I think perhaps its best to steer clear for a while.


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## sharloid

Today I am teaching puppy how to sit.


----------



## Dogless

Good separate walks for the boys this morning. 

Mostly working on not being nervous about leaving them with hubby until Wednesday :crazy:.


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## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Good separate walks for the boys this morning.
> 
> Mostly working on not being nervous about leaving them with hubby until Wednesday :crazy:.


I'm sure they will be fine  a bit of bonding time for them all.

F+F+B- Think I'd be a freaked out by that as well 

Took the girls out in the car this morning, found some empty fields. I wanted to just let them all run and sniff without asking anything of them at all , was lovely.


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## moonviolet

K&M glad your girls had a relaxing walk sounds like just the thing you all needed.

Dogless I bet they will have have fun breaking all the rules as for the kilo pic.... cruel cruel owner 

F+F+B I'm trying not to giggle but is a trifle awkward and what a shame if you are made to feel you can't use a lovely walking spot because of peoples proclivities. I disturbed a couple once " picking primroses" but that was a one off and not an organised group activity 

JSW +Tia well done sounds like you are both doing so well.

Sharloid hope the training gets off to a good start.

We had a good walk this morning took her back to the park where she was charged last night by a GSD when I had left her in a down wait, Though she shook it off well at the time I just wanted to be gauge whether it was going to be an issue. Gladly it wasn't, she returned to the park with joy and much grass rolling. PHEW!!!


----------



## Canine K9

I`m very pleased with both boys in particular Bailey. 

Bailey- I still get nipped a bit but if you give a firm "Off" he gets off and gives you kisses instead. He has stopped reacting at bikes now, and is very relaxed in the house. He didn`t get a walk yesterday he didn`t get one this morning either and he had his breakfast, a little potter outside without barking then I had a mad ball session with him then he slept until I nipped out and when I got back he had a kong and he relaxed and had a potter outside then an hours walk OFFLEAD!!!  We got a recall from the other side of the park (about 400m) 
Hes fast asleep again and it will be his tea soon which will be fed through his kong. He has been like this for a few days.

Max- He knows about 7 commands now perfect, walks much better on lead. We just need to get the mouthing sorted (he doesn`t bite just grabs your arm but it still hurts) but he doesn`t do it much now only when my Dad rough houses with him  Jumping up is a bit better. He is a very chilled out boy in the house


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## JenKyzer

Well i was looking forward to some clicker stuff tonight.. but Willow and OH have been out all day.. she came in and just wanted to cuddle and sleep! Bless her. No doubt we shall be up early tomorrow so we can do some then 

CK9 - Sounds like both are doing great  well done.

MV - Thankyou  Glad there was no issues this morning and the grass was more interesting 

K&M - Those 'do nothing' walks when they relax are fab aren't they 

Dogless - I'm sure they'll be fine.. some good old male bonding! Although as the saying goes 'When the cats away...' I'm sure they'll have fun 

Sharloid - Hope the 'sits' went well 

F&F -  I'd be so shocked  .. i wouldn't even know where to look :laugh: 5pm on a sunday too.. oh my! Rather keen aren't they.. ! Think i'd be put off that walking route too :001_rolleyes:


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## SLB

Haven't had chance to read through since my last post. Will read when I am feeling less shattered. 3 hour walk with Missy and Jack, then scent games with Sadie and Lou. So Pen and I went LLW training. 

I did the 300 peck method, which went out of the window a bit whenever a car passed so I made a variation. 300 peck + LAT. 

All in all - we had a fantastically boring walk once we got sorted.


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## kat&molly

MV- Thats amazing how Tink shook the GSD incident off  Just shows how far you've both come.

K9- Both boys are doing really well, Bailey especially. 

I took Evie out on her own yesterday afternoon, she aimed for her little look out post and then was happy to go further, I didn't want to go too far, we did about 20 metres when I spotted 2 lads in the distance :yikes: so I turned around quickly. She is definately a different dog lately, I can only put it down to the Nupafeed. Maybe it's taking the edge off her stress allowing her to focus a little bit  Theres a lot to do still, but its a great start. 

The other girls went out together, Moll chased a deer  I think she and the poor deer got a bit of a shock. Didn't go far before she recalled though.

Going to take them out to some lakes today.

Hope everyone has a good day.


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## diefenbaker

Do you WAYWOers realize that after a 2 week holiday there is 43 pages of WAYWO to catchup on ? Next time please all arrange your holidays at the same time as me to avoid this situation. Thanks.


----------



## diefenbaker

Labrador Laura said:


> I've tried the longline and its resulted in him being attacked, as I've pulled him away it's triggered the other dog to attack him. Or if I pull him back before reaching the other dog he gets all tense and blocks me out even more. Plus the longline isn't very supporting when you have a strong dog at the end of it.


I'll try to gather up all my longline experiences.. I use it with Dief a lot.. and if nothing else this will remind me what I should be doing...

1. Go in the garden and wipe your hands in the dirt. Get used to it.. this will happen a lot.

2. Get a line with no end loop ( this removes the temptation to hold the end at all times ) and remove all knots.

3. It's not a long-line.. it's a variable length line. 2 winds around your hand at any point and it's locked.. even from a 50kg+ ball of fluff.

4. Practice the same greeting ritual with known dogs/unknown dogs/invisible dogs.

5. Drop the line if he goes off-piste as long as you can see ahead. Pickup again when back on-piste. As long as he does not walk in circles round same tree it won't catch ( see 2 ).

6. When walking be continually feeding/coiling the line to prevent any jolt if he takes off.

7. When dog is distracted and line is taught.. release tension in line.. you may find he just stays static and doesn't take it up again. Click and treat any orientation back to you.

8. Replace regularly. The stitching rots. Avoids soiling trousers.

9. Become a better horizon scanner than your dog. No texting on your mobile.


----------



## kat&molly

Dief- I am really sorry all the others have been talking too much meaning that you fall behind. It isn't anything to do with me , honest. 

Took the girls off to a river this morning instead of the lakes. Jay doesn't come with us, her health and fitness isn't good like the others, its too much worry for me with the other 3 as well.The sad thing is , she isn't bothered.

I chose to go there because its attracts tourists and Evie is exposed to quite a few people and dogs in a way that she mostly copes with really well- think its because everyone is there for picnics, so they arent walking about too much.
We were only bothered once whilst they were all on lead, a rude Rough Collie charged over, Scruff grumbled at him . That stopped him in his tracks and he didn't try anything else.
Evie did well, got a bit bothered a couple of times but shook things off, she ran to me once for reassurance  not the first time , but its rare. I dread to think how many water retrieves Moll had, she was a bit gutted that her new super duper floating frisby sunk on the first throw  we traipsed all the way back to the car for Wubba. We need a Spendog to come rescue all our toys. 
I was really , really proud of them all today, they behaved brilliantly and never bothered anyone at all. A real pleasure to take out.


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## GingerRogers

K&M well done for the girls today :thumbsup: Evie is coming on well at last, give her time and take it slow. I have had those lightbulbs moments loads of times, it seems so obvious once you haev realised.

Dief - welcome back, you have been missed but not so much that we stopped talking in morning for you 
I think point number 9 on your long line is the most important, scan scan scan, although it does mean a simple walk through town without the dog can raise your blood pressure to alarming stupid levels.
Point Number 7 is called melting the lead , you can also stroke it to try and bring them back to you instead of pulling. I just remembered this it saves the urgent shortening of the lead and passing of tension, actually works.

SLB - do you think you might have a bit better chance of teaching pen to walk nicely without the distraction of the traffic, and vice versa, just concentrate on one thing at a time. It was a big relief when i was given permission to do just that by my trainer.

K9 - well done you are doing well, could your Dad stop rough housing Max just for a bit so her gets out of the habit, personally though I dont see a problem with a mouthy dog as long as it is done appropriately, and if thats the only time he does it then I dont see it a problem.

MV - well done super Tink, how much improvement has she made , a brave lady now :thumbsup:

Tia - welcome back too, you have made lots of progress, well done, we need to work on the obnoxious barking thing too, ninja doing it to a wolfhound was not appropriate or clever  think its a boredom thing with her, she does it to us which unfortunately makes us laugh which is kind of a response .

Dogless - hope the boys are ALL behaving themsleves 

Well, we have had a weekend. Me and the OH had arranged to meet up with some friends we hadn't seen in while, they are over from France staying with his mum, so Ninja went on a sleep over at my mums house, the report was she was very good and calm, they didn't walk her, but she had great fun running about their garden, annoying Dad and digging up new bits of earth.

We however indulged too much and caught up with more old friends than intended, including hangover from hell 

However ninja was very pleased to see us. She traveled all the way to and from Mum & Dads in the footwell (cos I is sad and wanted her near me for pats ) 6 months ago she would have been bouncing around the car. progress point No. 1

Last night took her for a pavement potter, she got wound up at something unknown and barked at a couple, then and old lady appeared she was a bit jumpy so I u-turned just to re-focus her only to be confronted with the DA GSD  decided old lady was the better bet so we turned again, she came calmly and with out a peep at the GSD or the old lady :thumbsup: progress point No. 2

This morning we had more good wanders, saw a GR from a distance, I let her look at that for a bit, I was just thinking if we can see a dog a day and not get a reaction then thats good, then a fluffy thing came round the corner but we just u-turned without any fuss at all.
Then bumped into a neighbour so we stopped for a chat, ninja was very good she stood calmly, wagging at the people opposite coming and going, a car drove down that she took offence to for some unknown reason, then the post man came past, we had already seen him fine earlier but this time she barked as he went down the path of the chap I was talking to but wagged at him on the way back up, so who knows what goes through her brain. Then we walked past the real 'invisible cat' that was visible, with barely a glance, all in all a very good walk with just a couple of oddities. Progress point No. 3

Really feel that she is finally getting somewhere, well I suppose she has been getting somewhere all the time in that she has been adapting and learning and calming, but finally is controlled enough to actually change her behaviours herself.

So very, very, proud of the little monster munchkin. There is no hesitancy or stress indicators at the point of the loose Greyhound either, although I heard a grey dog was run over on the main road not far from here this morning, I do hope it wasn't that grey dog although it was sadly an accident waiting to happen .

Oh also had a meeting with a little JRT  husbands door control is rubbish, he let her out at mums to go to the car, TBF its a quiet end of cul de sac and there are no dogs living there. But yesterday there was a visiting JRT :yikes: he goes out with her off lead and then just yells there's a dog, so *I*  had to rush over and get her, she was being very polite if a little stiff in her greeting, the JRT had just begun to growl when I got there and called her off.


----------



## SLB

GingerRogers said:


> SLB - do you think you might have a bit better chance of teaching pen to walk nicely without the distraction of the traffic, and vice versa, just concentrate on one thing at a time. It was a big relief when i was given permission to do just that by my trainer.
> 
> Well, we have had a weekend. Me and the OH had arranged to meet up with some friends we hadn't seen in while, they are over from France staying with his mum, so Ninja went on a sleep over at my mums house, the report was she was very good and calm, they didn't walk her, but she had great fun running about their garden, annoying Dad and digging up new bits of earth.
> 
> We however indulged too much and caught up with more old friends than intended, including hangover from hell
> 
> However ninja was very pleased to see us. She traveled all the way to and from Mum & Dads in the footwell (cos I is sad and wanted her near me for pats ) 6 months ago she would have been bouncing around the car. progress point No. 1
> 
> Last night took her for a pavement potter, she got wound up at something unknown and barked at a couple, then and old lady appeared she was a bit jumpy so I u-turned just to re-focus her only to be confronted with the DA GSD  decided old lady was the better bet so we turned again, she came calmly and with out a peep at the GSD or the old lady :thumbsup: progress point No. 2
> 
> This morning we had more good wanders, saw a GR from a distance, I let her look at that for a bit, I was just thinking if we can see a dog a day and not get a reaction then thats good, then a fluffy thing came round the corner but we just u-turned without any fuss at all.
> Then bumped into a neighbour so we stopped for a chat, ninja was very good she stood calmly, wagging at the people opposite coming and going, a car drove down that she took offence to for some unknown reason, then the post man came past, we had already seen him fine earlier but this time she barked as he went down the path of the chap I was talking to but wagged at him on the way back up, so who knows what goes through her brain. Then we walked past the real 'invisible cat' that was visible, with barely a glance, all in all a very good walk with just a couple of oddities. Progress point No. 3
> 
> Really feel that she is finally getting somewhere, well I suppose she has been getting somewhere all the time in that she has been adapting and learning and calming, but finally is controlled enough to actually change her behaviours herself.
> 
> So very, very, proud of the little monster munchkin. There is no hesitancy or stress indicators at the point of the loose Greyhound either, although I heard a grey dog was run over on the main road not far from here this morning, I do hope it wasn't that grey dog although it was sadly an accident waiting to happen .
> 
> Oh also had a meeting with a little JRT  husbands door control is rubbish, he let her out at mums to go to the car, TBF its a quiet end of cul de sac and there are no dogs living there. But yesterday there was a visiting JRT :yikes: he goes out with her off lead and then just yells there's a dog, so *I*  had to rush over and get her, she was being very polite if a little stiff in her greeting, the JRT had just begun to growl when I got there and called her off.


Not really. However I took Lou out with us today and she was marginally better. Lou does seem to be her comfort blanket so I think I will work with her on her own during the quieter times and then take them both out during the busier times until she's better on her own.

Apart from Lou pulling me to have a poo (he has to go up something - cannot squat like normal dogs) and a little dog issue (dog in front tied up and dog walking across the street) both of them focused and both of them listened and both of them LLW'd for an entire hour around the village today.  So happy!

Well done with Ninja! (What is her real name btw? Or is it really Ninja?)


----------



## diefenbaker

Whilst in France we did some work on ignoring livestock... I think he did rather well...


----------



## GingerRogers

SLB said:


> *Not really*. However I took Lou out with us today and she was marginally better. Lou does seem to be her comfort blanket so I think I will work with her on her own during the quieter times and then take them both out during the busier times until she's better on her own.
> 
> Apart from Lou pulling me to have a poo (he has to go up something - cannot squat like normal dogs) and a little dog issue (dog in front tied up and dog walking across the street) both of them focused and both of them listened and both of them LLW'd for an entire hour around the village today.  So happy!
> 
> Well done with Ninja! (What is her real name btw? Or is it really Ninja?)


Oh well just a suggestion, I find it impossible to properly instill anything if the dog is over threshold or reacting to other stimuli and I am trying to juggle too many different things.

Her real name is 'L'il Ginge' her previous owners distinct lack of imagination  she was little and ginger, used to travel in the ashtray of the tractor and disappeared down a friends cleavage kind of little. I call her ninja though most of the time as she is a stealth attacker.

Although it seems we are sussing her moves out :laugh:


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## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> Whilst in France we did some work on ignoring livestock... I think he did rather well...


Brilliant , need a 'love it' button, how long did he sit there without mooving


----------



## SLB

GingerRogers said:


> Oh well just a suggestion, I find it impossible to properly instill anything if the dog is over threshold or reacting to other stimuli and I am trying to juggle too many different things.
> 
> Her real name is 'L'il Ginge' her previous owners distinct lack of imagination  she was little and ginger, used to travel in the ashtray of the tractor and disappeared down a friends cleavage kind of little. I call her ninja though most of the time as she is a stealth attacker.
> 
> Although it seems we are sussing her moves out :laugh:


It was a good suggestion but due to where I live - it is near on impossible to carry out. Otherwise I'd already be doing that. Plus if we sit down anywhere - she is fine. It's only when walking does her issue arise. She's a strange one.

I think Ninja is a better name :lol:


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## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> how long did he sit there without mooving


A long time. He was in the exact same position when we passed by the same spot a few days later. To be honest now I'm starting to think it wasn't a real cow but I'm not sure how to tell without milking it.


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## GingerRogers

Now you are just churning out bad puns


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## L/C

SLB said:


> It was a good suggestion but due to where I live - it is near on impossible to carry out. Otherwise I'd already be doing that. Plus if we sit down anywhere - she is fine. It's only when walking does her issue arise. She's a strange one.
> 
> I think Ninja is a better name :lol:


I know it's hard with a dog afraid of traffic when you live in a busy area (when Ely was at his worst we lived on a main road in zone 2 london - it was a thoroughfare between Holloway and Hackney so almost constant traffic and lorries) but the more you flood her the worse she will get. She might appear to be getting better but when she's under stress it will all deteriorate as she has no coping skills.

What we did for Ely (and he was very bad) was start with baby steps. So sitting with the door open so he could hear and see what was going on but we sat as close as he could get before he started to shut down. So we sat and clicked and treated for calm behaviour and for the first few sessions that was all he did. When he was calm close to the door I implemented a different technique - we would walk towards the door, I would ask for a sit, he'd get his treat and then we would walk away again.

The sit was the indicator of how comfortable he was - fast and tight meant he was fine as he could still think and concentrate, slower, more sloppy or refusing to sit at all meant I was pushing him too far and we needed to go back a step. We slowly progressed to outside the door at quieter times of the day and repeated it all. I'm sure the neighbours thought that I was insane but it has built up a strong coping mechanism for him and while he still gets uncomfortable around rubbish lorries or buses he can control himself and walk past without panicking - all this from a dog who was noise phobic and who would spin, foam and wet himself at loud noises.

I hope some of this is helpful because it was awful and so difficult when we were going through it with Ely - we didn't have a garden so he had to go out to toilet every day. It was very stressful for all of us.


----------



## SLB

L/C said:


> I know it's hard with a dog afraid of traffic when you live in a busy area (when Ely was at his worst we lived on a main road in zone 2 london - it was a thoroughfare between Holloway and Hackney so almost constant traffic and lorries) but the more you flood her the worse she will get. She might appear to be getting better but when she's under stress it will all deteriorate as she has no coping skills.
> 
> What we did for Ely (and he was very bad) was start with baby steps. So sitting with the door open so he could hear and see what was going on but we sat as close as he could get before he started to shut down. So we sat and clicked and treated for calm behaviour and for the first few sessions that was all he did. When he was calm close to the door I implemented a different technique - we would walk towards the door, I would ask for a sit, he'd get his treat and then we would walk away again.
> 
> The sit was the indicator of how comfortable he was - fast and tight meant he was fine as he could still think and concentrate, slower, more sloppy or refusing to sit at all meant I was pushing him too far and we needed to go back a step. We slowly progressed to outside the door at quieter times of the day and repeated it all. I'm sure the neighbours thought that I was insane but it has built up a strong coping mechanism for him and while he still gets uncomfortable around rubbish lorries or buses he can control himself and walk past without panicking - all this from a dog who was noise phobic and who would spin, foam and wet himself at loud noises.
> 
> I hope some of this is helpful because it was awful and so difficult when we were going through it with Ely - we didn't have a garden so he had to go out to toilet every day. It was very stressful for all of us.


We live on the road so she is used to the sound of it all. The garden runs parallel with the road. I know her stress indicators. But because we did a lot of work sitting on the roads and by noisy traffic - she isn't bothered by it when we're sat. It's only when we're walking. I think it's the cars going over the speed bumps that do it and bigger things. But she did well with Lou tonight.

Thank you for your help, both of you . We'll get there in the end - she picks things up quickly and she copes pretty well once I know how to get her to. If it means she always has to go out on lead walks with another dog then thats fine by me. I think I'll take Jack next time though - he doesn't get the clicker so I won't have to focus on two dogs. But I class tonight as a success.


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## diefenbaker

Here he is in the garden to the Gites... not a bad lookin fella is he ?


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## L/C

SLB said:


> We live on the road so she is used to the sound of it all. The garden runs parallel with the road. I know her stress indicators. But because we did a lot of work sitting on the roads and by noisy traffic - she isn't bothered by it when we're sat. It's only when we're walking. I think it's the cars going over the speed bumps that do it and bigger things. But she did well with Lou tonight.
> 
> Thank you for your help, both of you . We'll get there in the end - she picks things up quickly and she copes pretty well once I know how to get her to. If it means she always has to go out on lead walks with another dog then thats fine by me. I think I'll take Jack next time though - he doesn't get the clicker so I won't have to focus on two dogs. But I class tonight as a success.


The reason she's not reacting when you're sat is because that is all she has to focus on. When you move you up the criteria so she has something else to focus on rather then just coping with the scary thing. That's why her behaviour deteriorates because you've added a new source of stress and she no longer has the ability to deal with the thing she is scared of. It's like teaching a behaviour - when you change the location you are teaching it or add in a new variable like time or distance you have to go back to basics and make sure all other criteria are lower. So when you add in walking you need to go back to basics and work up slowly.

I would also caution against over dependence on another dog - this is something that will work until it doesn't. It may work forever or you may find that the stress builds up over time or a scary event happens and you are back to square one or worse because her coping strategy has failed and now she doesn't know how to manage.

I'm not trying to get at you or suggest you don't know her or how to manage her but just give you another perspective and an idea of how to work with her rather then just managing the situation. Plus I've been there and come out the other side eventually but not without a lot of stress from bad advice which was just utterly unnecessary.


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## Guest

Another thing to try is to make sure that the walk and even before the walk, that your dogs are calm. Going towards a scary when you're halfway towards the threshold already is no good.
It can be hard living with a dog that is fearful. I know when Zander has his first spectacular meltdown at Christmas and then suddenly EVERYTHING was terrifying. Even things he used to love, such as car rides, and people, became sources of shakes, tucked up tail and lots of lying down NUH UH's! 
Through very careful and slow introductions with people, with them pretending to be statues, he has now started to swing the other way and think everybodies privates are free to sniff! 

You HAVE to take things slow and steady, trying to force them or flood them may f*ck up all that hard work. Yes SOME dogs may appear to be accepting of a train when they are dragged onto it via their harness, but to me, most of them are just shut down. 

Sorry if I sound like a nag. 

I think my dogs hair is falling out again.


----------



## diefenbaker

JenSteWillow said:


> I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into this! I might purchase a clicker tomorrow and do some simple stuff around the house to get her used to it and see how she responds.. then outside when i know other dogs will be a rare sighting.. i don't want to do it wrong and her end up associating the clicker with a dog and it being a Q for her to re-act!
> Or maybe i'm over thinking...  *Worrier!*


Bear in mind I'm still catching up on the thread ( I'm mentally exhausted already ) so this may have already been addressed. And even if it has then it will be good so see if my understanding of clicker training is correct. I wish I'd done clicker earlier and more.

Don't use the clicker as a distracter. First off the dog needs to associate the click with a treat. You start off by just being inside with the dog and C/T for nothing. Just so the dog gets the idea that when the click happens the treat IS coming. At some point the dog should become intrigued at what causes the click and start offering behaviours. When he stumbles across the correct one by accident C/T. When the behaviour is strong add the cue word.

The way I use it when outside for recall or ignore is click the instant Dief orients to me ( even with his directional ears ) not when the distraction appears.


----------



## diefenbaker

BessieDog said:


> So how can I get her not to chase them? It wasn't pleasant for any of us as she took ages to calm down.


I think it's all in desensitization. If you're a townie like me and you see loose sheep once or twice a year ( and for me one of these times is next week when we go camping in Dorset  ) then you're pretty buggered. There's no opportunity for proofing on a regular basis.

Last week we were living with free roaming chickens. Every day ( sometimes more than once a day ) I would put Dief's long line on and go on a chicken walk. We would walk around where the chickens were sometimes just close enough to make them trot off and I would C/T for leaving them. Consequently when a couple of suicidal chickens jumped into our garden he wasn't that interested. The goldendoodle we were with went bezerk but that's another story. But I'm sure that in 6 months time when we haven't seen another chicken we'll be back to square one.


----------



## Canine K9

Max went offlead and came back when called! Bailey has perfected his emergency stop! Very happy with the boys


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely photo of Dief. Well done on the livestock training  

K9- you're on a roll, long may it last.

Took the 3 of mine out to some lakes today, its one big one, then up a hill, across a small road and on to a long track with woods either side and 3 lakes. The girls love it here, Evie was an angel  there's so much she could go and explore but she stuck close by and checked in loads.
We headed back to the big lake and I needed my pop out of the car, Evie was still on her flexi from crossing the road, anyway she heard some little kids playing in the distance and got worried, I made to change direction and walk round the other way, it made no difference really , we would have to pass about 20 metres from where the kids were but... in relief she went in to one of her rolls and the flexi unclipped from her harness, she made straight up for the road  shouting, chasing or blowing the whistle wouldn't have worked , I had to run on whilst sh*tting bricks in case a car came, and luckily she followed .

She still didnt want to go forward. I had to sit on the grass, and wait for her to come to me, click, treat or fuss her and then move on another 5 metres which was the length of her lead . Took about 30/40 minutes to go a couple of hundred metres.  Poor bugger a big melt down today , the kids had long since moved but it didn't matter to her. A big step back I think, but we did work through it together , which I am pleased about.


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## GingerRogers

poor Evie, bless her little cottons, I liked it because you worked through it together, positively, I am sure she will trust you much more than if you had just forced her though her fear. But how scary :yikes:

Well done k9 - see you will get there.

Dief is a lovely hairy lump of cuddliness but I am sure he would rather be told how big and scary he looks lol!

We haven't worked on much, our walk was cut short last night as they were combining in our fields  so I had a very annoying ginger whinger last night, she would not shut up and let me relax, gurgle burble grimble, arooooo, constantly all evening, all I wanted was to chill after the excesses of the weekend  but no she was having none of it. So I went to bed and left her with hubby, she shut up instantly and went sleep on his lap  she either thinks I am a sucker or I am just more fun :laugh:

We stretched our walk out a bit this morning and went down past the marshes, I dont know why I get these ideas to push her sometimes, normally regret it , but today we saw no dogs but she was still very stressy, scampery and jumpy presumably as she remembers past encounters, I just hope if we can do it enough and avoid the dogs she will start to relax


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## GingerRogers

Thanks a lot dief but there's really no need to like my post twice. How odd. Didn't think you could do that.


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## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Thanks a lot dief but there's really no need to like my post twice. How odd. Didn't think you could do that.


It seems to be some kind of glitch... it shows up weird on my screen... that's not to say your post didn't deserve liking twice...


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## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Dief is a lovely hairy lump of cuddliness but I am sure he would rather be told how big and scary he looks lol!


You mean like this ? Oooo Grandma what big teeth you have....



Fortunately the anti-rabies jab kicked in just in time....


----------



## JenKyzer

diefenbaker said:


> Bear in mind I'm still catching up on the thread ( I'm mentally exhausted already ) so this may have already been addressed. And even if it has then it will be good so see if my understanding of clicker training is correct. I wish I'd done clicker earlier and more.
> 
> Don't use the clicker as a distracter. First off the dog needs to associate the click with a treat. You start off by just being inside with the dog and C/T for nothing. Just so the dog gets the idea that when the click happens the treat IS coming. At some point the dog should become intrigued at what causes the click and start offering behaviours. When he stumbles across the correct one by accident C/T. When the behaviour is strong add the cue word.
> 
> The way I use it when outside for recall or ignore is click the instant Dief orients to me ( even with his directional ears ) not when the distraction appears.


Hello  & welcome back, i believe? I'm the newbie .. 'JSW' as it has become  i hope you had a nice holiday and i must say, Dief is stunning!

My understanding of clicker-ing must be on the mark, as what you have described is how i understand it  i'm taking it slow, still havent used it outside yet but all the time indoors.. We're going to the beach on thursday  so i may use this fun day out as a time to use it outdoors to see what happens .. Indoors we certainly have a dog that loves a click!!  I have been rather lazy with our new 'touch' command & haven't tried this out yet .. 

----

Nothing new here guys. Her recall with me alone is getting so much better, randomly stopping onlead to call her back & every time she reached the lead at full length we didnt set off again until she came back  this has been out focus this week, simple as ive been unwell. My box for '101..' Is still sat there screaming to be used! 
Oh, we've also learnt to balance a treat on nose & stay still until she can have it  very unintentional.. But something new.. Strange? But new..  
Can't wait to be 100% & learn new things with the clicker.
(Haven't seen any other dogs since her Friend on saturday.. So no news on that part of our journey  )

Hope all is well with everyone & your having a good week.

GR - i enjoyed your post about the lady & GSD .. Well done ninja.. I love reading your progress, its very motivating 

As for everyone else, i will catch up & read longer posts when back on the laptop, im not being rude intentionally.. PF on a phone is hard work! Sorry


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> It seems to be some kind of glitch... it shows up weird on my screen... that's not to say your post didn't deserve liking twice...


Odd because this post shows up weird on my phone. You have two different lots of likes. Glitches. They didn't like the bad puns perhaps.

Jsw its nice to know I can be inspirational. This thread has helped me so much. So its nice to be able to give a bit back. Thank you for that and for being so enthusiastic yourself.

Edit grrr dief you are so scary


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## Guest

Omg dief you are coming to my county!! It is nice around here but there is alot of livestock about so be careful bout where you let Dief roam! 

Also your dog is lovely to look at, I DEMAND MORE PHOTOS!

We have had awful walks and I am setting up another session with the behaviourist.


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## GingerRogers

whose ARG4UNDEFINED


----------



## Canine K9

Both boys fine today got a lovely walk booked in later. 

On a side note does anyone know where dogless is?


----------



## L/C

Dief - good to see you again and lovely to see the handsome boy's livestock training is going so well! 

Ginge - the ninja is going from strength to strength, well done you and her.

k9 - glad the boys are doing well for you. Dogless said she was away until Wednesday so maybe we'll hear from her today or tomorrow.

JSW - glad the clicker training and recall are going well. I've only been hovering for a while - what breed is your girl and what's her name?

We had an exciting trip to the flats this morning - in our 5 minute walk there we saw a rat, two squirrels and two cats. Gypsy managed to ignore and walk nicely past the them all but the last cat was just too much for her and we had a massive meltdown - barking, growling, spinning, lunging and screaming. Not had such a bad episode for probably close to a year but it was after a massive build up of triggers and she's a finisher I can forgive her.

The walk itself was nice - had a lovely compliment from another dog walker when I was training them (putting them both in a down stay then sending them individually to different spots) and a nice leisurely walk in the sunshine with some other calm dogs (Max the GSD who stays with us when his owner is away and Tia the diva shih tzu). Ely continues to be a star with his dog interaction.


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## GingerRogers

Dogless did mention going away K9. http://www.petforums.co.uk/1063114356-post17019.html

The nice walk later sounds exciting, enjoy it, are you taking both of them?

We had a lovely long sunny walk through the temple of doom and beyond today, obstacles to over come were:

People on bicycles (I had to stop to chat with one lady within ear shot of soggy teddy dog, I had to try and convince her that water spray and beep collars were not the way to go with her wee terrier who is just like ninja )

Strimming workmen (I said strimming not stripping  )

Random chickens on the rugby pitch 

I think she did quite well today, she relaxed eventually so thats something.

Edit thank you L/C sounds like your two did very well today, there comes a point in every girls life when you have to let rip though.


----------



## Dogless

Hello all...not yet read through the huge amount of posts  but will do later. Trip away but just back to catch up and rescue hubby from the first time he has EVER looked after the dogs by himself :yikes:. They all survived; that is all that needs to be said on the matter :laugh:.

I got HUGE ridgie greetings. Thankfully I survived those too and will live to see another day .


----------



## kat&molly

Good to see you back Dogless, the fact they all survived is a bonus, yes. 

Sorry , not ignoring the rest of you, just fried brain today.

After the upset of yesterday ,this mornings walk was meant to be a quiet uneventful one. That didn't quite happen as Evie was upset again. 
With some help I made a plan to give her just seperate walks and keep her very close to home, literally within about 20/30 metres until she starts feeling more confident. Everything has been building up - and I've been missing the signs  

That plan didn't work this afternoon when she dragged me to a field nearby, she was okish once inside but it took an hour to get out of there, 30 minutes of that in the last 10 metres, we both just lay down on the grass until she was ready to move, then she dragged me back home. She is exhausted and has been spark out since her dinner.

Sorry , thats a bit doom and gloom from us.


----------



## SLB

Not a good report today. Took Pen out with Leanne and Flynn to work on some retrieves. Pen decided she'd watch and act like she wanted to go for them - but then would run off and hunt about instead. 

Tried stopping her, throwing a retrieve out - but that didn't work, she'd run in it's direction and keep going. She knows what she's supposed to be doing but she had no interest in it. So we gave up. 

The only good point is that she LLW'd to the field without needing to be told. And she wasn't so bothered by the party popper - just wish she had collected the retrieve that went out after it  

Disappointed tonight.


----------



## diefenbaker

LurcherOwner said:


> Omg dief you are coming to my county!! It is nice around here but there is alot of livestock about so be careful bout where you let Dief roam!
> 
> Also your dog is lovely to look at, I DEMAND MORE PHOTOS!


I might have a few visits to your county between now and Christmas. Are you anywhere near Moors Valley ?

Just for you.... Kong Froggie style


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## Dogless

k&m - I "liked" your welcome back, not the rest of your post. Your plan does sound like a good one. Think you'll have to chalk today up to experience and keep on with the plan. I am sorry .


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all 

Been away at relatives with dogs for past couple of days. Both behaved well and had a blast! I have some issues to work on with them both off lead.... Shae is VERY controlling over Rusty, growling at him, grabbing him to prevent him running away from us. Kind of helps at the moment as I want him close rather that racing around but she is very determined that he ain't running anywhere. I will try and get a vid up. i suspect its worse as Rust has been on lead for so long... even now it is literally 5mins per walk. Its not a major problem as in they are walked separately once day so have time to run and the second walk I can lead walk one etc etc rather than let them run loose if Shae is going to be such a madam about it.

KM- sorry to hear you and little Evie had a rubbish walk  Your plan sounds like a good one
SLB- party popper? Was that a new addition to the training? Could that have put her off?
DL- glad the boys (and you Hubbie!) survived... and that you survived the ridgie greeting!!


----------



## SLB

Nicki85 said:


> Hi all
> SLB- party popper? Was that a new addition to the training? Could that have put her off?


She wasn't doing too well before then. I should've given up before then if I'm honest. Taking her out with some game over the weekend, she should be better then.

Just need to work on more focus and obedience over scented ground. It would be easier if I had a boring play area I could take her on, but all the ones around here that are fenced are children only.


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## Nicki85

Rusty loves to hunt as well... strangely he works best in a forest environment and will do fab work looking for hidden toys there. Take him to a local playing field with hedges and i don't stand a hope.... 

We don't do "proper" gundog work but i'll do toy searches and retrieves with him. The hardest thing I found about gundog training when we had a couple of private sessions was that I could not reward him with what he thought fit- which was the toy/object being thrown again for him to chase. As he has such a high chase drive i'd redirected it onto a toy- so deer crosses path Rust goes to chase I call and throw suitable thing to chase. Works well... but this obviously doesn't help with gundog work as he expected the object to be thrown again so he could have his chase if you see what I mean.

Anyhow, i've gone off on a tangent! Sounds like you didn't stop early enough- put it down to experience and may be hold of the party poppers till her retrieve is enthusiastic again!


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## moonviolet

Nicki it sounds like Shae is herding Rusty no sure how you go about dealing with it .

Hope everyone who had poop days has better ones tomorrow and those who had good ones long may they continue ( brain tired today after a bit of a personal drama yesterday)
We had a good varied walk with new and different sights... a funfair setting up on her rolling field, a 20 mins counter conditioning session watching a group of 4 GSD's playing in the canal. Tink was super but the opportunity was too good to miss after being charged while in a down wait last week some positive in the bank can't be a bad thing.

High point was her doing her jumping stones beautifully


----------



## SLB

Nicki85 said:


> Rusty loves to hunt as well... strangely he works best in a forest environment and will do fab work looking for hidden toys there. Take him to a local playing field with hedges and i don't stand a hope....
> 
> We don't do "proper" gundog work but i'll do toy searches and retrieves with him. The hardest thing I found about gundog training when we had a couple of private sessions was that I could not reward him with what he thought fit- which was the toy/object being thrown again for him to chase. As he has such a high chase drive i'd redirected it onto a toy- so deer crosses path Rust goes to chase I call and throw suitable thing to chase. Works well... but this obviously doesn't help with gundog work as he expected the object to be thrown again so he could have his chase if you see what I mean.
> 
> Anyhow, i've gone off on a tangent! Sounds like you didn't stop early enough- put it down to experience and may be hold of the party poppers till her retrieve is enthusiastic again!


I just feel like I'm getting no where, I keep holding off on the steadiness and just let her run in on it but even that doesn't work.

I've been told to stop her hunting. But she does this on a walk anyway. I can't re-direct her onto a toy because even though I've took toys out since she was old enough to go out - she's not bothered. Neither has Lou. And she hadn't been fed when I got in to take her out so she was hungry and even that counted for nothing.

Just a bad day and she'll be better next time..


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## Guest

Not really near there Dief I am northern of the county but I hope you have a nice time!!


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## Nicki85

Yup most def. herding behaviour and typical bossiness with it... typical ES behaviour I think. Will ask on their forum... 

Maybe I should buy her some sheep lol.


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## moonviolet

Nicki85 said:


> Yup most def. herding behaviour and typical bossiness with it... typical ES behaviour I think. Will ask on their forum...
> 
> Maybe I should buy her some sheep lol.


Sounds like she would love Triebball, would give her a lovely outlet for her natural drive.


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## GingerRogers

Lemmsy was talking about sheep balls the other day. Will try and find the post or it might have been on their blog. Think its different and more portable than trieball


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## GingerRogers

Welcome back dogless 

Miss tink is a superstar


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## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> High point was her doing her jumping stones beautifully


Nice picture.. although to be fair you'd have a hard time keeping me off those.


----------



## Nicki85

Back from physio with Rusty buckets... all very good  She didn't think she could see a limp at all and I explained that he was having a fair load of exercise on lead. Got to carry on as I am with his exercises and upping the offlead exercise v. slowly. 

What I was really pleased with though is that Rusty was so so happy to do his exercises there... all involves balancing on various objects and he was just perfect. Minute a wobble board came out he was on it trying his hardest! She was poking the ball to make wobble more and him and he tried really hard 

Shae is tired today so only had 15mins playing tug and a few self control games. Not sure what i will do later... it will be a quiet day I think. Need to think of a plan and some places to go to tackle Shae herding Rusty. Got some ideas now... need to up the self control exercises, put Rust on a flexi so he can run a little but I can control the situation easier and if Shae tries to herd bring her in for a game of tug. Eventually allowing Rusty off... Also, with Rust off having her on a longline so I can again control the situation. I think I need to redirect onto a tug toy ultimately but obviously need to build up to this. Till then i'm aware that she can't get used to controlling Rusty on walks! We will also explore other outlets for her herding... maybe trieball


----------



## Dogless

Nicki I am chuffed for you that Rust seems to be progressing - and brilliant that he actually enjoys his exercises .

Took the boys to the forest early this morning. They were full of it zooming around but I did a few practice recalls and waits and they were spot on, bless them. And then *Kilo recalled from chasing after Monsieur or Madame Reynard AND from chasing a mystery something in the dense, dark part that I can't get into!! Goat I think as it was crashing about :thumbup1: *. Rudi recalled too but he chases for fun not with serious intent....so I am proud of the pair of them really :thumbup1: .


----------



## Guest

We went to the woods today and I only nearly fell over once and that was cause of a lab who ran into my legs then disappeared amongst the trees!

I forgot to say that, that pic of Dief is lovely!

And look a rare photo! Not a very good one but I am starting to think there MAY be some GSD in him. He is certainly highly strung! :aureola:








[/URL][/IMG]


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## Dogless

How lovely Zand is LO - can't beat those ears :001_wub:.


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> *Kilo recalled from chasing after Monsieur or Madame Reynard AND from chasing a mystery something in the dense, dark part that I can't get into!! Goat I think as it was crashing about :thumbup1: *. Rudi recalled too but he chases for fun not with serious intent....so I am proud of the pair of them really :thumbup1: .


Very cool. I'm not sure whether Dief chases with serious intent. He's never actually caught anything. I'd like to think not but that may be a little wishful.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Very cool. I'm not sure whether Dief chases with serious intent. He's never actually caught anything. I'd like to think not but that may be a little wishful.


VERY cool for us indeed. Kilo has recalled from all chases he's been on for the last couple of months. I don't want to tempt fate but really am pleased, it's something that we work really, really hard on. Kilo chases with absolute intent, Rudi sort of gambols along, ears flapping and is perfectly happy to come back (so far - he's only 10 1/2 months old!!!) .


----------



## SLB

Pen's redeemed herself. I take back all the horrible thoughts and words I said about her yesterday. Same land, Same dummies, better results


----------



## GingerRogers

Nikki - it is in Lemmsys blog the mention of sheepballs, you may have to do some more diggin but look under the entries for jan One girl and her dogs (and other random trivia): I hope they wont mind me posting it here its all public after all  pleased Rusty is improving so well though 
Edit there was also some really interesting stuff here http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/308072-car-chasing.html well I thought so, it might give you some leads of how to manage her natural instincts

LO - donkey boys ears , donkey boys face , he is a handsome boy 

Kat - how was Evie today? 
I meant to say, you dont need to excuse your gloom on WAYWO after all you invented it  If you cant doom all over us here where can you.

Dogless - glad the boys were good for you on your first day back well done on the 'un-chasing'

Slb - that was easily sorted then!!

I had naughty monkey on walks last night, she has got into a habit of pegging it at one particular point, its at a crossroads and one way leads to the farm, she has always been really good much to my surprise as lots of pheasants like to sit up there, but the last 2 nights she has done one down there and the night before that it was in the vicinity so leading up it will be until she forgets 

I spent a lovely hour or so with a client this morning who had two lovely dogs, a lab and her daughters spanner, he has ishoos, she was delighted that I didnt think her very odd for asking me to go through a ritual involving chews and balls before I went in the gate. Spanner ended up falling asleep on my foot after lots of woeful staring. It was very nice to talk to someone who didnt think you were a complete sap for taking stress and behavior issues into account when trying to rehabilitate a dog.

After I went on the walk we did on tuesday, she was much less stressy, she didnt bark at the teenagers hiding in the bushes, smoking, lol! Then at a t junction a lady came round the corner with a lead in her hand  thankfully she spotted us quickly too and went back to grab her collie, I legged it past the junction (I wanted to go down her way) accompanied by some fairly minor barking (minor for her) and yelled a thank you, we watched them retreat with clicks and treats. She shook it off very quickly and although she was nervous up the alley, I am too , it was quite positive.


----------



## kat&molly

Nikki- really pleased to hear Rusty is still improving, I hope it continues.

Dogless- woo, well done to Kilo  very impressive indeed.

Lovely pic of Miss Tink MV, and LO- Donkey has just the best ears ever.

We had our holiday neighbours arrive over night, they live really close to us, lovely French family but their timing couldn't have been worse as far as Evie was concerned, we never even got off the path and she wanted to come back indoors , we plucked up the courage to prop the door open and do a bit of training outside the front door.
Strange really, when she's really stressed she wont take treats, but lately I'm getting just the best focus from her. Dont understand but I'm not going to complain.
I am really upset that she wont even leave the house, its horrible seeing her so upset . I just have to be patient.

Another full of the joys of spring post from me. :001_huh:


----------



## Dogless

GR and k&m - I think patience really is going to have to be the name of the game as you both say, hoping that you get some good walks under your belts soon.


----------



## kat&molly

GingerRogers said:


> Nikki - it is in Lemmsys blog the mention of sheepballs, you may have to do some more diggin but look under the entries for jan One girl and her dogs (and other random trivia): I hope they wont mind me posting it here its all public after all  pleased Rusty is improving so well though
> Edit there was also some really interesting stuff here http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-training-behaviour/308072-car-chasing.html well I thought so, it might give you some leads of how to manage her natural instincts
> 
> LO - donkey boys ears , donkey boys face , he is a handsome boy
> 
> Kat - how was Evie today?
> I meant to say, you dont need to excuse your gloom on WAYWO after all you invented it  If you cant doom all over us here where can you.
> 
> Dogless - glad the boys were good for you on your first day back well done on the 'un-chasing'
> 
> Slb - that was easily sorted then!!
> 
> I had naughty monkey on walks last night, she has got into a habit of pegging it at one particular point, its at a crossroads and one way leads to the farm, she has always been really good much to my surprise as lots of pheasants like to sit up there, but the last 2 nights she has done one down there and the night before that it was in the vicinity so leading up it will be until she forgets
> 
> I spent a lovely hour or so with a client this morning who had two lovely dogs, a lab and her daughters spanner, he has ishoos, she was delighted that I didnt think her very odd for asking me to go through a ritual involving chews and balls before I went in the gate. Spanner ended up falling asleep on my foot after lots of woeful staring. It was very nice to talk to someone who didnt think you were a complete sap for taking stress and behavior issues into account when trying to rehabilitate a dog.
> 
> After I went on the walk we did on tuesday, she was much less stressy, she didnt bark at the teenagers hiding in the bushes, smoking, lol! Then at a t junction a lady came round the corner with a lead in her hand  thankfully she spotted us quickly too and went back to grab her collie, I legged it past the junction (I wanted to go down her way) accompanied by some fairly minor barking (minor for her) and yelled a thank you, we watched them retreat with clicks and treats. She shook it off very quickly and although she was nervous up the alley, I am too , it was quite positive.


I missed this  you have got so fast on your feet now for changing direction , you are both doing really well, Scruff wasnt half as difficult as the Ninja has been for you, thats not a brag , she was bad enough !!!
How refreshing to meet someone like minded, the 'complete sap' bit made me laugh. Are we proper Fluffies now do you think


----------



## GingerRogers

kat&molly said:


> I missed this  *you have got so fast on your feet now for changing direction *, you are both doing really well, Scruff wasnt half as difficult as the Ninja has been for you, thats not a brag , she was bad enough !!!
> How refreshing to meet someone like minded, the 'complete sap' bit made me laugh. Are we proper Fluffies now do you think


It really is my secret weapon, if I can manage she doesn't react at all any more which I am sure is helping overall, this was one of those awkward moments, I probably could have, no, should have  u turned but the lady had ducked back to get her dog and so I felt rude running away 

If we are fluffy rather than forceful who cares , it was lovely to see meet someone who tries to put her dogs needs before her own and her disney image of what they should be.

Well done with Evie, I know it doesn't seem much but little teeny steps and all that. She IS taking treats and you ARE listening to what she feels she needs to do. It might be that after all the stress she has been holding on to she is finally stopping to really see the world and just needs to adjust herself a bit before she embraces it. :thumbup1:


----------



## sharloid

I'm really struggling with Broder and freeshaping at the moment. I'm trying to get him to pick up a toy and put it in the toy box so that eventually we can transfer it to getting things out the washing machine and putting them in the washing basket...

I can't even get him to hold/pick up a toy!


----------



## moonviolet

GR how lovely to meet someone who gets it. It can be such a good feeling when I talk to a person face to face who understands where you are coming from. I really value my chats with D that way. Your walks sound challenging but you seem to both be handling them really well.

Kat I'm sure it's saddening to see Evie so stressed but the fact she is focusing on you more is a great leap forward and that now instead of handling her fear alone she's looking to you as she trusts you to support her in situations she finds challenging. hang in there !!! 

Nicki so glad "Rusty buckets" :lol: is improving must be a relief.  Glad you have a plan for Shae it's total natural instinct for her but must be a bit unpleasant for Rusty.

SLB glad you had a better day, we all have off ones even our dogs.

LO DB's ears 

Dogless woohoo at the recalls!!!! fantastic!

Dief i'm trying really hard to resist making a comment about jumping my _stones_
On a more wholesome note that pic is lovely

We went out for a quiet walk saw 2 lost recruits looking desperately at their maps and the lady with many dogs, nice polite greetings after a moment of being unsure at the number Tink shook off and was politely reciprocating. then we headed to some wild agility spots and did some running jumping balancing etc.

Silly little tree trunk dogwalk.

[youtube_browser]9rNbiOEwyoE[/youtube_browser]

Bit of balance



And a 2 stump pose


----------



## Dogless

I love the happiness of Miss Tinks skipping along the tree trunk . And the very serious business of balancing and posing on the trunks :thumbup1:.


----------



## Nicki85

Tinks- that looks like somewhere similar to where I used to walk Rust when I worked in Blackwater... Love the pics, she looks like one happy pup.

I've spent some time clipping Rusty's toes out much to his disgust  He collects grass seeds in them so I clip out the fur to see what is going on. and his ears... they smell so he's had drops for those too.

Still a sleepy pair after the trip down to southend so not doing much. Will do some scent work in the forest with Rust later and a short training session with Shae. 

In a way i'm glad the herding instinct is only channelled on Rusty, could be a lot worse. She ignores all cyclists, runners etc. 

LO- Zander is gorgeous! I can see a bit of GS in him too...
KM and GR- your pups are so so lucky to have you, patience in infinite amounts.


----------



## Canine K9

I've had to make an awful descion. Bailey and max keep fighting  they have to be leashed around each other  And Max could do a lot of damage we've tried everything removed toys and stuff gradual introductions again ect so We have decided its not worth the risk because both are happier without each other so Max is going to live with my cousin. I can't believe max Wont be coming to live with us  they are fine onlead together but offlead and all hell breaks lose. So we are goona try and get them ok with each other but my parents say its not worth the risk Max coming live with us


----------



## Nicki85

Sorry to hear that k9. Any triggers? Same on home and neutral turf? They are both young, entire males aren't they?


----------



## Canine K9

Nicki85 said:


> Sorry to hear that k9. Any triggers? Same on home and neutral turf? They are both young, entire males aren't they?


Max seems more protective on his turf; same with Bailey on neutral they are OK with each other but stay well away. (onlead that is)


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry to hear that K9 after all your work, at least he has somewhere to go I suppose, I have nothing more helpful to say I am afraid 

Love Miss Tinker :001_wub:

Nikki- thank you, but I can assure you the patience does wear thin 

Sharloid - I have no help for you either  apart from to say, some dogs just dont get stuff straight away, I wanted ninja to stand on a book the other day but she wanted to nudge it along the floor, so I stood on it, that got her interested, luring I suppose but in a different way  but I thought he was retrieving the other day? Perhaps you could try replicating what you want him to do ?


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> I've had to make an awful descion. Bailey and max keep fighting  they have to be leashed around each other  And Max could do a lot of damage we've tried everything removed toys and stuff gradual introductions again ect so We have decided its not worth the risk because both are happier without each other so Max is going to live with my cousin. I can't believe max Wont be coming to live with us  they are fine onlead together but offlead and all hell breaks lose. So we are goona try and get them ok with each other but my parents say its not worth the risk Max coming live with us


I think it's difficult with two adolescent entire males. If they are fine on walks but just bad on Max's own turf have you tried them at your house? Maybe Max is a resource guarder who doesn't warn too much, just flies off the handle? I am sorry anyway but it is better Max lives at your cousin's rather than yours and then needs to go elsewhere as it's more stability for him.


----------



## Milliepoochie

Canine K9 said:


> I've had to make an awful descion. Bailey and max keep fighting  they have to be leashed around each other  And Max could do a lot of damage we've tried everything removed toys and stuff gradual introductions again ect so We have decided its not worth the risk because both are happier without each other so Max is going to live with my cousin. I can't believe max Wont be coming to live with us  they are fine onlead together but offlead and all hell breaks lose. So we are goona try and get them ok with each other but my parents say its not worth the risk Max coming live with us


Gosh that came on quickly :-(

Its very very early days though - Dogs can take months to settle into routines together - Even adult dogs - surely as you'd only had Max a week or so?

There both still puppies so its early days in that respect to.

You have to do what is best for your dogs - I don't want to be accused of being a bully and hope this is taken in the light that its meant but what I will say is just slow down. You seem in such a hurry for number two but just enjoy Bailey - He is still a puppy!

Enjoy Bailey for what he is and don't spend your time wishing for more.

Work on his recall - Get his really focusing on you and put all your energy into making him the best trained dog he can be.

It wont be long then you can go to agility classes :thumbup1: Maybe you could try flyball or something like that?

It also sounds like you have your hands full sorting out his skin / tummy troubles.

Wishing Max the best of luck in his new home bless him - He deserves some stability.


----------



## Canine K9

Milliepoochie- Thank you I do think I rushed into dog 2


----------



## moonviolet

Milliepoochie said:


> Gosh that came on quickly :-(
> 
> Its very very early days though - Dogs can take months to settle into routines together - Even adult dogs - surely as you'd only had Max a week or so?
> 
> There both still puppies so its early days in that respect to.
> 
> You have to do what is best for your dogs - I don't want to be accused of being a bully and hope this is taken in the light that its meant but what I will say is just slow down. You seem in such a hurry for number two but just enjoy Bailey - He is still a puppy!
> 
> Enjoy Bailey for what he is and don't spend your time wishing for more.
> 
> Work on his recall - Get his really focusing on you and put all your energy into making him the best trained dog he can be.
> 
> It wont be long then you can go to agility classes :thumbup1: Maybe you could try flyball or something like that?
> 
> It also sounds like you have your hands full sorting out his skin / tummy troubles.
> 
> Wishing Max the best of luck in his new home bless him - He deserves some stability.


*waves*

Hello MP not often we see you around here....

Only one rule of "WAYWO club" you have to spill what you are working on !!! :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## tiatortilla

k9 - sorry to hear about that, I hope you're feeling okay.

--
Sorry I'm on my phone again so I can't fit any more replies in but I have been reading everyone's posts, hi everyone else! 

--
Just a little update on the "PLAY WITH ME!" barking - she was with her staffy friend again today and she did it for a bit at the beginning when she was excited but she calmed down and stopped when he just ignored her. He's a good influence on her :lol:.


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## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> *waves*
> 
> Hello MP not often we see you around here....
> 
> Only one rule of "WAYWO club" you have to spill what you are working on !!! :lol: :lol: :lol:


1st RULE: You do not talk about WAYWO CLUB. 
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about WAYWO CLUB. 
3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the training session is over. 
4th RULE: Only two guys to a debate. 
5th RULE: One debate at a time. 
6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes. 
7th RULE: Debates will go on as long as they have to. 
8th RULE: If this is your first night at WAYWO CLUB, you HAVE to work.

Sorry...just reminded me of Fight Club Rules  .


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> 1st RULE: You do not talk about WAYWO CLUB.
> 2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about WAYWO CLUB.
> 3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the training session is over.
> 4th RULE: Only two guys to a debate.
> 5th RULE: One debate at a time.
> 6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.
> 7th RULE: Debates will go on as long as they have to.
> 8th RULE: If this is your first night at WAYWO CLUB, you HAVE to work.
> 
> Sorry...just reminded me of Fight Club Rules  .


Are you sure about the 6th Rule ? I can't imagine the ladies of WAYWO with no shoes


----------



## Milliepoochie

moonviolet said:


> *waves*
> 
> Hello MP not often we see you around here....
> 
> Only one rule of "WAYWO club" you have to spill what you are working on !!! :lol: :lol: :lol:


Wasn't aware there was rules 

I always read the thread but havnt really ever felt I could contribute regularly enough to be a very interesting poster lol 

Although as you asked. 

We are currently working on our right handed weaving (As in me walking down the left hand of the weaves - Millie on my right). We made the rookie mistake of learning left handed and now we are pants the other way. :mad2:

Currently got 4 weaves set up in the garden :thumbup1: 7 days til our next lesson so doing 10 minutes a night training :thumbup1:

Have our first KC agility comp in September  So need to get it sorted.

Any advice mucho appreciated :thumbup1:


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## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> Only one rule of "WAYWO club" you have to spill what you are working on !!! :lol: :lol: :lol:


Oh yeah.. I forgot that bit. I'm working on "focus". Doing more "obedience" type work outside incorporated into our games. I'm also getting closer in our races. Field one is overlooked by houses. They probably think I've escaped from somewhere.


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## kat&molly

K9- I'm really sorry, I hope you are ok  I'm sure your parents have decided whats best for everyone, him staying in the family is lovely.

MV- Loved the pics of Miss Tink, I couldn't see the 'cat' bit in the vid though 

Ginge- I tried showing Scruff how to spin , but it just made me dizzy :frown2:

Dogless- suppose I'm the only one that hasn't seen Fight Club 

Well done to Tia, and her calm friend. 

A few little sessions on the front path, outside the front door with Evie. She was really brave as she could hear a couple of the neighbours voices, bits of heelwork and Find it , she really engaged again. We progressed to 2 steps outside our gate , she wasn't confident but I think she trusted me. Didn't want to push anymore than that.


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## Dogless

MP - no advice whatsoever on weaves but it all sounds most impressive .



diefenbaker said:


> Oh yeah.. I forgot that bit. I'm working on "focus". Doing more "obedience" type work outside incorporated into our games. I'm also getting closer in our races. Field one is overlooked by houses. *They probably think I've escaped from somewhere*.


You mean you haven't? I have only been interacting in a bid to save myself from a hit list that I assumed you must be writing on the dried, stretched skin of your first victim using blood as ink :shocked:.


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## GingerRogers

I have just been working on picking a zillion stickybuds out of ninjas coat whilst showering her.

Made the mistake of asking hubby to walk her while I worked.

He took the lazy option and went up to a field she goes nuts in, beside the reed beds  and lost her for 15 mins.

I am now working on making him feel so guilty he learns an important lesson, *stop trusting the bluddy dog*!!! She is a terrier not a Rory!! :frown2:

And then will start working on getting him to finally help out with her recall training


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I have just been working on picking a zillion stickybuds out of ninjas coat whilst showering her.
> 
> Made the mistake of asking hubby to walk her while I worked.
> 
> He took the lazy option and went up to a field she goes nuts in, beside the reed beds  and lost her for 15 mins.
> 
> I am now working on making him feel so guilty he learns an important lesson, *stop trusting the bluddy dog*!!! She is a terrier not a Rory!! :frown2:
> 
> *And then will start working on getting him to finally help out with her recall training*


Hoping that will be the silver lining to the sorry episode for you all :thumbup1:.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> You mean you haven't? I have only been interacting in a bid to save myself from a hit list that I assumed you must be writing on the dried, stretched skin of your first victim using blood as ink :shocked:.


This is the other thing I've been working on..... beefing up the entertainment in the home gym...



Hang on.. what's that on the TV.. it couldn't be could it ?



I scream at WAYWO while I run. Moooohooooohaaaaaahaaaaaaaa


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## Guest

Dief you are a nutter :thumbup1:

Sorry your hubby temporarily lost dog Ginge! I would have been really cross!

Nice to see you pop up suddenly MP. 

Hope everything works out K9, you can't please everyone and you need to do what is best for both dogs. 

We are working on karate kitten training, Db is a bit nervous of her and she has scratched the inside of his ear. :O


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## Dogless

Dief - you scare me and make me laugh in equal measure :yikes: with the balance tipping towards "scare" tonight .


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## Milliepoochie

LurcherOwner said:


> Dief you are a nutter :thumbup1:
> 
> Sorry your hubby temporarily lost dog Ginge! I would have been really cross!
> 
> Nice to see you pop up suddenly MP.
> 
> Hope everything works out K9, you can't please everyone and you need to do what is best for both dogs.
> 
> We are working on karate kitten training, Db is a bit nervous of her and she has scratched the inside of his ear. :O


Sorry is it invitation only? Or am I missing something here?


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## Canine K9

MP- Everyone`s welcome on WAYWO but beware once you enter you never leave again!


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## Dogless

Milliepoochie said:


> Sorry is it invitation only? Or am I missing something here?


I was joking with the Fight Club stuff....sorry if it offended!


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## moonviolet

Nicki it could well be the same place it's certainly not too far from Blackwater. 

MP, Agility is not Tink's thing but I can see how easily the one sided weave thing could happen, going form obedience to HTM was like a bit like starting over when we have do everything on both sides and sometimes between the legs :lol: Your 10 mins a day sounds like a good plan, hope you do well in your first competition.

Dief :devil::nono: You can't picture the WAYWO ladies without shoes ... but implied you can without shirts. :nono: Glad i'm not the only one that gains a bemused audience.

CK9 Nice that Max will be staying in the family, I think one adolescent dog is quite enough for most households  

GR husband training is so much more challenging than dog training I wish you luck!

LO Good luck with DB and Karate Kitten that feline sounds dangerous!

Short trot and silly games in the garden this evening. podium, bottle bowling, shell game and a big round of hoopla, no Frisbees in the neighbours garden tonight :thumbup1:


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## Nicki85

Just did a quick training session with the two of 'em (separately!).

Rusty was super pleased with... I have NEVER managed to get him to bring something to me in return for a treat. Well today I thought i'd shape the retrieve so got a toy out. First it was a lot of paws on toy, lay on toy, roll on toy etc etc so I raised the bar pretty quickly for any mouth contact on toy. And hey presto three mouth on toy clicks he was picking it up and bringing it to me for a treat!! He knows "bring" but only in play, not training....
Anyhows this opens up a whole new realm of tricks to teach him 
I'm also trying to teach him to hide his face behind his paw... using a piece of tape between his eyes to get the behaviour  Getting the idea!

Shae managed to get the back cue to voice only with no hand signal  She was a bit all over the place though... wanted a retrieve as well but she tends to pick the toy up, squeak it, drag it around, drop it... shorter distance with her till she gets it. She seemed frustrated today so kept it simple. I might get the kong wobbler out for her in a min actually.


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## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> Dief :devil::nono: You can't picture the WAYWO ladies without shoes ... but implied you can without shirts. :nono: Glad i'm not the only one that gains a bemused audience.


At least someone appreciates the effort I put into these things. Sometimes what you don't say is funnier than what you do say.


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## Guest

Just thought I'd give you a little update on gobby here.

She's doing much better not barking at other dogs  I can usually distract her before she goes for the manic bark, although sometimes she'll give one bark before giving me her attention - it's actually quite funny  If the other dog is ignoring her then we can usually just take a wide-ish berth and it's fine, but if the other dog actually starts to approach her it's harder to keep her attention on me. Maybe I need better treats.

Thanks for all your help


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## Werehorse

Hellooooo, time for a monochrome chaos update!

We've been working on various things. Started agility at dog class, which is awesome. The boys love it. Oscar especially loves the tunnel. Neither have quite got their heads round the weave yet but it is coming. The amount of obediance stuff we've done prior to starting agility really helps I think.

We're battling away with our LLW and I think I can say (if I knock madly on wood whilst saying it) that it is getting there. I took both of them up and down the main street in town today and they didn't pull - they dived at sniffs, which is slightly different, still needs working on mind - but there was no flat out pulling. This process involved a lot of biscuits but I'm starting to make them work a bit harder for each biscuit... we'll get to No Biscuit LLW eventually. :lol:

Both of them now retrieve a toy outside - I mean Oscar always did really but Hugo had no clue at all! Hugo still has occasional "maybe I'll just run round with it instead" moments but it is a fleeting thought rather than something he actually does now. Oscar is a superstar - although he might want to work on using his nose to find it rather than just the Run and Hope method.  I have done work on steadiness and they have both been superstars in the back garden, and even did some work together in the park. I'm leaving the retrieve for a little while with Hugo now though - I can see a touch of obsession creeping in, plus I need to sure up the steadiness again. So I'll do steadiness training without allowing a retrieve for a while. With Oscar I might start doing some more challenging retrievies, in undergrowth and over jumps that kind of thing. 

We also have a bit of a problem with Hugo - I'm hoping it is minor and we've caught it early. A touch of the seperation anxiety has crept up to being a bit more than a touch of the seperation anxiety.   Current tactics are management tactics, radio on and crating him or Oscar (so they can't set each other off with destroying anything). I can't tackle the issue full on yet cos I have to leave him when I go to work but if we can manage it for a couple more months my work contract finishes and I'll be in a position to really sort out the underlying issue. I've also started totally ignoring him when I come in and have upped the mental stimulation and walks as far as possible. Keeping fingers crossed.

I think that is mostly it for the moment.


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## kat&molly

Well , we couldn't get past the front door again this morning, so I left Evie in a covered crate while I took the others, they only got a very quick walk as I was worried she'd be upset- think she was fine though.
I shall have to go and ask the vets for something more, I dont mind how long it takes her to feel confident with people but some family arrive next week, they aren't staying with us but will be here for much of the time, she'll never cope. 

Hope everyone has a good day


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## Guest

Tis raining here and DB did not lunge at a lab! 

Glad Evie was okay in her crate.


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## sharloid

I'm starting agility classes with Kindra on Tuesday! I'm sharing a 1 to 1 with another person who has a collie. I'm really nervous and no idea how she'll do. We've been given the names of a few clicker trainers on youtube to watch as homework. 

They called the venue a secure field... but sadly it's not my idea of secure! If it was then I would've loved to have taken Broder on a different day but it's only got a small wall.


----------



## Nicki85

nice run with Rusty this morning, new footpaths= happy rusty. Lots and lots of sheep .... Anyhow, I don't think we are doing to bad. I tend to run some and walk then run and walk. We did really well the first part but then hit a horrible gravel track through the forest and I really hate running on gravel. We did 9km at a speed of about 7km/h  We passed one very excited Spaniel on lead and a black lab came over (owner calling Huntteerrrr on repeat!) that came and growled at Rust on the lead. He shook it off just fine. No apology from owner- lovely!

Shae was out for about 40mins mooching with ball round common. She went on high alert when she heard the jingly collar of another dog so we did treats and look and then I released her to say hi once we got close enough- worked well  Did the same for a lab that we met and she was fab. Apart from that we played ball!

Swimming later I think. 

KM- glad to hear little Evie was OK in her crate, what is her story? I suspect I missed it when you originally posted...
LO- yay for no lunging!
Sharloid- enjoy agility, rubbish that the field isn't secure  I'm sure she will be fine- just don't expect to much... in my experience the dogs are fine it is the handler that needs the most training!!!!


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## Guest

I'm hopelessly out of touch here, but willing to try and wade back in  (Of course I'm going to post, be gone all day, and have several pages to catch up on when I get home!)

Anyway... What we're working on.
Decided it's high time Breez learns to be a civilized dog. She's really very good, she has lovely leash manners, knows her obedience cues and complies happily (sometimes a little TOO happily, like down can often be more of a leap in to a play bow flop bum down type thing), but she can definitely pass for a "trained" dog. 

Except... She has developed this thing... What she does is this sort of half-hearted lunge (or sometimes play bow), sometimes with a slight boof or play growl at dogs who appear apprehensive of her, or dogs who are acting any way she deems uncivilized (like pulling on their leash or excessive barking), though if the uncivilized behavior is really OTT, she ignores it. Go figure... 

At first I thought it was reactivity - she doesn't have the best temperament for her breed and she can be on the fearful side, and the lunge sort of looks like a give me space move, and the play bow can be an appeasement thing.
But after having two of my trainer friends watch her as well as some other dog savvy sources, I really don't think it's fear. I think she is simply being a total brat and creating her own entertainment - because she's such a big dog, she often gets a pretty good reaction, either out of me, or the dog she targets, or dogs she didn't target but saw her reaction, or other humans around... She also gets a sort of smug look about her when she gets a good reaction. I know it sounds like I'm totally anthropomorphizing here, but really, I'm not the only one who's noticed her demeanor - she's not upset at all, she's entertaining herself. Plus she has no problem stopping. I say her name, she whips back around to me happily with a "yes mom? you called?" angelic look about her. 

And the thing is, she does this *very* rarely. 95% of the time she's FINE, so I'll let my guard down, start chit chatting with someone, and it seems like it's only when I'm not "ready" for her that she does it. If the dog doesn't react, or tells her appropriately to knock it off, she quits trying her shenanigans with that dog, but all other new dogs are fair game.

Obviously the easy solution is to have her in "work" mode at all times around other dogs - which she's happy to do. But I'd like for her to just flat not do this at all. Like last night she came to class with Bates, she did beautifully, and then at the end as I was talking to the trainer and everyone else was packing up, she boof-bowed at my friend's little dog who as far as I could tell was doing absolutely nothing but waiting to go home. It looked like a play invite, but was very OTT and the dog was completely NOT giving off any play vibes either. It was more like she said "boo!" to the dog, then "ha ha! Made you jump!"

I think I may just have to start beating her


----------



## GingerRogers

Sharloid - try to relax, I know easier said than done but it will be much more fun if you do, everyone's a beginner at some point 

Kat - glad Evie was ok in her crate, try not to worry about her overly, again easier said than done , she will sense it and it might be what she is feeding off.

Nikki - sounds like your two are coming along just grand, enjoy their swimming, its nice weather for ducks here 

McK - glad you are getting there with the gobby one.

WH - helloooo welcome back, glad the boys are enjoying agility sorry to hear about Hugos problem, as long as you can manage it until you can find the time to work on so it doesnt get practiced, is the key I think.

Ouesi - welcome back too, Breez sounds a little cheeky , I have to be careful with ninja, she gets bored very easily, and will do exactly that, make her own entertainment, she especially likes chasing birds for the pure fun of it, just like a naughty kid in the park, theres little drive behind it, she will flush a bird out and watch it fly up, it can land again very close but she is no longer interested she has already boo'd it, is it often when you are hanging about, you mention chatting and at the end of class. Can you give her something else to do even as simple as a chew/toy?

Dief - I am very glad you can only picture us without shoes  you will have to go to the tower if you keep that up adn who knows what MV will put you up to there 

We have been working on following a tall lady in a long black coat with an enormous black umbrella  not sure ninja has seen such an ensemble before, slightly freaked, nice steady walking but with a hunch back almost as if she wanted to get it but wanted to hide behind me as well. And then she lunged at a car, it is wet but not that wet so I think umbrellas of that dimension are scary


----------



## Canine K9

Well well well I hope everyone has a fantastic day!
Today we are getting the Julius K9 fixed- I hope! 

Bailey has been very very good. He is picking up things very well, and has made best friends with our post lady and window cleaner 
He has become a very sweet boy and although he HATES being on your lap he loves lying next to you  Weirdo dog :frown2: 
He is so much better behaved. Me is very proud. :thumbup1: His only "Teenage" behavior is tugging on clothing (usually pant legs when he lulls you into a false sense of security by being really sweet before he does it!) which he hasn`t done since a very young pup but its easily resolved :thumbup1: He`s very relaxed indoors now


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## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Dief - I am very glad you can only picture us without shoes  you will have to go to the tower if you keep that up adn who knows what MV will put you up to there


I don't know what the tower is and I'm too frightened to ask ( although I seem to remember I've been threatened with it before ).

Todays walk was wet. I tried the game of throwing treats on the floor then running away and recall and repeat. Seemed to work. Something else to do while out to keep him engaged.


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## kat&molly

Ginge- your wet walk doesn't sound like it was much fun, hope it dries up so you can both relax a bit more later.

Ouesi- welcome back. Could I borrow Breez for help with the LLW here please !!

LO- well done to Donkey.

Hello to everyone else, tired brain and aching back after grooming an 84 kilo St. Bernard.

Nikki, shaping that with Rust is brilliant, I love shaping but I'm not very good at it . I find it easier with Moll who offers me lots but get stuck with the others .
As for Evie, I dont know really, she's been with us for 2 years now. Maybe she's been mistreated or has had a lack of any interaction with humans at all before she came  Her breed aren't really kept as pets here, just used for hunting. She was doing well but a build up of things have pushed her right back.

I am going to move the car and load Evie and the others in, we'll go up to the loop, rather than walk around it just have a run and train in one of the fields. We shouldn't see anyone at all, no idea if its the best thing to do but I want to try, short stuff is showing stress indoors again now, staring at the front door etc .


----------



## Dogless

Sharloid - enjoy agility; shame the place isn't fully secure.

k&m - hope the vet is able to help Evie a little. I know you'll get there with her in the long term but occasionally I do think some extra support in the short term is necessary.

WH - sorry about Hugo's SA worsening; I am sure you'll manage it very well until you can work on it.

Dief - pleased you've found a new game!!

Ouesi - nice to see you back. Beating sounds like the only solution :shocked: .

McKenzie - pleased that your walks are less noisy now!!

K9 - Pleased all is going so well for you at present.

Nicki - hope the swimming is enjoyed this afternoon .

I am sorry if I have missed anyone...not intentional if I have .

We have spent most of the day in the forest. We practised some recalls, "on by"s, directions etc etc and generally pottered and mucked about. I was mostly working on ensuring all the fun the CHs were having hunting didn't turn into getting carried away and buggering off at speed :thumbup1:.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Ginge- your wet walk doesn't sound like it was much fun, hope it dries up so you can both relax a bit more later.
> 
> Ouesi- welcome back. Could I borrow Breez for help with the LLW here please !!
> 
> LO- well done to Donkey.
> 
> Hello to everyone else, tired brain and aching back after grooming an 84 kilo St. Bernard.
> 
> Nikki, shaping that with Rust is brilliant, I love shaping but I'm not very good at it . I find it easier with Moll who offers me lots but get stuck with the others .
> As for Evie, I dont know really, she's been with us for 2 years now. Maybe she's been mistreated or has had a lack of any interaction with humans at all before she came  Her breed aren't really kept as pets here, just used for hunting. She was doing well but a build up of things have pushed her right back.
> 
> * I am going to move the car and load Evie and the others in, we'll go up to the loop, rather than walk around it just have a run and train in one of the fields. We shouldn't see anyone at all, no idea if its the best thing to do but I want to try, short stuff is showing stress indoors again now, staring at the front door etc *.


Driving up to the top fields has been working well for Kilo Kat, hope it works for Evie too.


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Driving up to the top fields has been working well for Kilo Kat, hope it works for Evie too.


Thanks Dogless, pleased you and the boys enjoyed the forest.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks Dogless, pleased you and the boys enjoyed the forest.


Always do, it's real life that's the problem :shocked: .


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## GingerRogers

I drive 5 minutes walk up the road to avoid other dogs, I hate it, it feels so pointless and wasteful and the sort of thing I have criticized people for but it gives us peace, we arent doing it because we are lazy


----------



## Sarah1983

Ouesi, I probably shouldn't laugh but how you describe Breez behaving reminds me so much of what Shadow used to do to people he knew were apprehensive of him. His tactics varied from person to person though. He used to "smile" at a friend who was nervous of dogs. He seemed to really like her but whenever he went and sat next to her he'd show her his impressive teeth and scare her half to death. My uncle on the other hand used to get nervous about crotch sniffing. So of course Shadow took any opportunity he could to do it to him. And yup, he'd get that smug look at the reaction he'd caused.

Kat, hope things get better with Evie soon, sounds like driving to somewhere she doesn't find stressful may be a plan for a bit.

We went back to the dog beach yesterday. Wasn't quite so successful this time round but still enjoyable. The other Lab from the husky meet was there which was fine, the two said hello then ignored each other in favour of playing fetch. But there was an adolescent GSD there who was typical bolshy adolescent. Full of "I'm gonna shove you around and what are you gonna do about it?" attitude. Which didn't go down too well with Spen who apparently told him in no uncertain terms exactly what he'd do if he didn't knock it off (I was off in search of the loo when they arrived so just going by what hubby said). Then GSD decided he wanted Spens toy. Which Spen was fine with when the GSD got there first, what he wasn't fine with was the other dog trying to bully him into giving it up when he got it. Didn't take long for the GSD to realise Spen and us would not be pushed around though and he went off to bully the other Lab who tends to just put up with rude behaviour.

Once they'd gone we had a really nice time though. Did think we were going to have to swim out and retrieve our retriever though 
This is the lake. Spen was about half way to the other beach that you can see when we managed to get him to turn back.


He'd gone out after the other dogs ball not realising his hadn't been thrown and was frantically searching for it. As we were leaving we had another blip though. Didn't spot a woman and her dog cutting through the trees until we were right on top of them. Course by that point the dog is within the distance where Spen HAS to go and say hello. I felt awful, the dog had a big shaved patch in her side and a load of stitches. Thankfully they just had a quick, calm sniff before I managed to grab Spen so no harm done and the other owner was very nice even though we could barely understand each other  Still felt terrible though.

And a couple of pics of Spendog while he was behaving himself. Didn't get enough to be worth a photo thread coz the GSD was launching himself at everyone trying to grab whatever they had in their hands so I didn't dare get the camera out till he'd gone




Oh, and then last night as we were out with Spen for his last pee before bed we had the GSDs from upstairs charge at us, one barking ferociously. I know the dogs and they're not aggressive but at 1am when it's pitch black outside and you just see two large dogs hurtling towards yours with one barking its head off it's a bit bloody heart stopping. No apology, no a kiss my arse or anything from the bloke, just walked past and went inside.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I drive 5 minutes walk up the road to avoid other dogs, I hate it, it feels so pointless and wasteful and the sort of thing I have criticized people for but it gives us peace, we arent doing it because we are lazy


Same here exactly .

Sarah - love the photos and the idea of retrieving your retriever. Sorry you didn't have much luck with GSDs that day either .


----------



## tiatortilla

Sarah - sorry about all the GSDs! Lovely pictures, Spen looks really cute.

GR - Don't feel bad about driving to your walks, it's much better for her not to get stressed out by anything on the way .

Dogless - Sounds like a nice walk, quietly productive .

k&m - Hope your walk goes well, good luck!

Sharloid - Hope you and Kindra have a great time at agility.

LO- Well done to Zand for not lunging .

Hello and sorry to anyone I've missed!

--

I forgot to mention something else yesterday! When we were out yesterday and Tia was with Ralph who is her little staffy friend, I tried having her on lead around him while he was pottering about just for short periods of time and she couldn't have been more relaxed about it . Normally when she's on lead around most other dogs, her whole body language changes and she gets quite tense. Not necessarily reactive, especially if she knows them already and we've been walking together for a while, but there were no changes at all yesterday, she was just as happy on lead as off around him. Anyway, just thought that was nice! As you can tell I'm a little bit in love with him haha, he's got the most lovely temperament and seeing two little staffies zooming around together is just the best .

On our walk today there were big dogs everywhere lol, there was a GSD in one corner, a Rottie in the other corner, a wolfhound-y type dog and something else huge over the other side so we hung around in the middle and did some recall training and practicing "staying". Tia met a couple of collies too so they weren't all too big for her . Her attention was a bit all over the place because the grass had just been cut and that's her favourite  but the "stays" were good for keeping her focus on me and not on killing/eating all the bits of loose grass .


----------



## Nicki85

Dear me... not a brilliant swim!

It was OK, got told by a fisher person not to swim them in the lake (its on a public footpath and there were no fisher people there at the time! he was just driving through very fast on his quad...) So moved them down to the canal. 

Walking back up met a lady jogging so called them both in (Rust on lead anyhow) asked them to sit, lots of treats. Then lady says thanks, I acknowledge and then Shae decides that she must be a friend as I'd talked to her and gets out of my grasp to say hello. She's doing her squiggly puppy routine but its clear the lady is scared of dogs and shrieks :-O So, I grab Shae (she is literally 1m away...) and apologise like crazy... as does the lady...
Felt sooo bad about it, I guess Shae can be intimidating if you don't know doggy body language being big and black and tan. Any how, guess what we practiced all the way back to the car down the canal tow path.... I didn't let it happen again!!!


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Nicki!!! Not the best afternoon despite lots of effort from you. Accidents happen and at least no harm was done. Have a glass of wine .


----------



## diefenbaker

Saw Harley who Dief doesn't really get on with on our second walk. Dief woofs him off. I don't encourage it but Harley is always off lead and always comes over.


----------



## kat&molly

Nikki- I think thats happened to all of us at one time, typically its someone who's frightened of dogs making us feel worse. 

Lovely pics of Spendog, that lake looks fab. 

Took the girls out, had to park up and walk about 40 metres of track before we got to the field. Evie had a big shake off about a minute after she got out the car, then rolled a lot of the way to the fields. 
Once there she didn't do her usual nose on legs, this is normally a very good sniffing place, instead moved about a bit , sitting behind haystacks , with more rolling. Really hard to engage her in any training, just lots of C+T for any attention from her. When it was time to leave , she stopped and refused to move again, 3 times all in including once on the track going back, less than 10 minutes in all though.

Really not sure whether it was a good or bad experience.
Will go and see the vet tomorrow.


----------



## diefenbaker

Just returned from the Bat and Ball in Hambledon... the ancestral home of cricket. I know how much the ladies of WAYWO like cricket. The glorious sound of leather on willow. Dief can confirm that the crispy roast pork belly and the pan fried liver are scrumptious. He wasn't much interested in the wife's mushroom wellington and salad tho.


----------



## moonviolet

diefenbaker said:


> Just returned from the Bat and Ball in Hambledon... the ancestral home of cricket. I know how much the ladies of WAYWO like cricket. The glorious sound of leather on willow. Dief can confirm that the crispy roast pork belly and the pan fried liver are scrumptious. He wasn't much interested in the wife's mushroom wellington and salad tho.


I have use for both willow and leather in the tower, but it's definitely not cricket :lol: :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> I have use for both willow and leather in the tower, but it's definitely not cricket :lol: :lol:


Pass the baton DL. It's my turn to be scared tonight.


----------



## GingerRogers

:shocked: You want to be very scared!!!


Talking of scared I think my dog may have scared herself yesterday with he escaping tricks, she certainly tired herself out, dead to the world all day, she did peg it on our walk this evening but 5 seconds later I found her stopped in her tracks twisting backwards to see where I was and she didn't peg it into the pheasant cover like she normally does, either that or shes ill!!


----------



## Canine K9

Was leaving the park before and a Yorkie comes in Bailey was so busy watching the Yorkie he walked right into the gate


----------



## GingerRogers

Canine K9 said:


> Was leaving the park before and a Yorkie comes in Bailey was so busy watching the Yorkie he walked right into the gate


Nooo epic fail Bailey 

Ginge has done that but only to a hedge. Oh and the sofa which has been in the same place for, well ages. She was chasing after Mr foxy and all of sudden it was in the way. Its cruel to laugh at their misfortune but very funny.

I hope he is ok


----------



## Canine K9

Yes he's fine silly dog


----------



## Dogless

The BW has run head on and fast into a lamp post before now chasing his toy K9 and done the same walking into one onlead watching something.....he really does have a concrete head!! :scared:. Hope Bailey's OK this morning!!!


----------



## Dogless

We have had two good walks this morning. Thought we would as the weather is so wet and windy that not many folk would want to venture out .

*Rudi*: Cycled up to the top fields and played some impulse control games, did some heelwork and general obedience stuff. His stay's really coming on nicely and so is his emergency stop. He did well as we came back as a man threw a ball just past us for his dog (on the pavement by a road) so the dog sped past us to get the ball and again back to his owner. Rudi had a bounce but then carried on nicely. It's lovely to see him gain more and more self control .

*Kilo*: Drove  up to the top fields. He was really nervy and vigilant when he got out and any time I wasn't totally engaging him - so I had an exhausting time!! We did loads of impulse control games with lots of distance commands and he was absolutely spot on every time, really, really engaged and fired up. Then we did lots of tug and his favourite sprinting game which absolutely kills me :scared: but he loves it. Finally some find it stuff with titbits.

A security man stopped and watched us for a while so I am sure he now thinks I'm bonkers but never mind :scared:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Hi guys 

Hope all is well with everyone

I need to catch up from around page 1706  so bear with me 

All quiet here.. We had a fab day out on thursday at Carnforth beach  (I do have pics.. i may upload later) ..

We worked on offlead re-call with me.. (it has got better on lead so whilst we had such a vast open people&dog-less space i thought i'd give it a go)
First i tried it with the ball-on-a-rope and she brought it back to me every time.. even to my mum who hasnt been on a walk like this with us before! So she loved that game and it got her used to coming back.. I also tried to get her to stay and only go on my say so after i'd thrown it (as we're doing well with this with food and other toys indoors) but outside in the open was too much and she was too excited so it didnt happen as planned.. but i managed a sit&stay until the ball landed on the floor.. but then she was off ! So thats one to keep working on  
Then we put the ball away and let her have a potter around and try normal recall .. still no joy  the mud and sand and big holes of water are so much more fun than me  my extremely firm voice worked once but she thought she was in trouble bless her.. it was meant to be a fun day so i stopped with that (a long line is going to be my next step i think!) and worked on her 'stays' .. she's getting on really well with staying until i get to her and then i say 'go' and off she goes again.. so we did this quite a few times  i just want the recall then she comes to me instead of her waiting for me to catch up to her.. the OH gets a good recall almost immediately with her :confused1: and i'm the one with the treats!! :sad: 
On dog watch.. she had such a good day! Walked by other dog walkers on the beach.. sat and let others walk by us when we were on the caravan park.. 2 jack russels came round grumbling at her - she sat and just watched.. no noise or grumble back! and the owner turned his dogs around and walked away anyway thumbsup: nice to see another owner removing their dogs from a situation! ) We only had one grumble.. as the guy walked his dog soo close to us! Even though we were sat out of the way having icecream and Willow was more interested in my nanas melting icecream dripping on the floor  But then he just came too close and Willow clearly didn't like it and his dog didn't either.. When he had gone, a couple walked by with their dog and kept more distance.. Willow clocked them but just ignored :thumbsup:
This morning she met a staffie from around the corner.. another motorbike lover so OH and him were chatting bike stuff and we got Willow out to introduce them.. both grumbled at first as they both wanted first sniff but wasn't sure about each other.. so other guy held his dog (Ossy) so Willow could sniff.. then OH held Willow so Ossy sniffed.. then they were fine back on loose leads (rather than short at our feet) and led down together whilst more bike talk commenced with lots of tail wagging. Hopefully another friendship in the making!
Really pleased with her and other dogs recently 
Also done some clicker stuff this morning. Indoors still  The clicker did come to the beach.. but didn't make an appearance.. my fault. I really need to up my game with this if i want it to work to my advantage! I'm still not 100% so 'new things' have really gone on the back burner  hauled up in bed today whilst OH and willow have gone out.. not fun at all when i could be doing nice things and trying new things with her!

Hope everyone has a good weekend and I'll do my best to catch up on posts


----------



## JenKyzer

L/C said:


> JSW - glad the clicker training and recall are going well. I've only been hovering for a while - what breed is your girl and what's her name?


Hello  Willow is a Shar-Pei .. Here's a little link to some pics if you'd like to see her properly
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-photo-galleries/313136-willow-shar-pei-cross-her-photo-shoot.html

Sorry for the delay.. i have quite a few pages to read through  I look forward to reading your posts though


----------



## Dogless

Hi JSW, lovely to see you :thumbsup:. Hope you are back up and running and feeling 100% soon.

You could try to train a whistle recall - the whistle doesn't betray the underlying emotion that you are feeling so can be very effective. For example, when I voice recall Kilo in some circumstances my voice says "I want you here now as I have spotted a fox just behind you and am nervous that you'll chase it" which means he looks around to see why I am recalling and why I am nervous. The whistle just says "Here". If that makes any sense at all?? :scared:.


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## JenKyzer

Milliepoochie said:


> Sorry is it invitation only? Or am I missing something here?


I hope not.. as me and Willow fell in here and haven't climbed back out since :laugh: It was very nice seeing you here as i have been playing catch up on posts .. interesting to hear about weaving and the comp your doing soon too.. Keep us updated :thumbsup: - with *lots* of pics!! I just love Millie :001_wub:

[I'm still on catch up mode so apologies if i've missed something thats posted after this post you posted - whilst doing lots of posting?? :laugh: sorry for over 'post' wording, brain is dead today]


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Hi JSW, lovely to see you :thumbsup:. Hope you are back up and running and feeling 100% soon.
> 
> You could try to train a whistle recall - the whistle doesn't betray the underlying emotion that you are feeling so can be very effective. For example, when I voice recall Kilo in some circumstances my voice says "I want you here now as I have spotted a fox just behind you and am nervous that you'll chase it" which means he looks around to see why I am recalling and why I am nervous. The whistle just says "Here". If that makes any sense at all?? :scared:.


Hi dogless, Hope you had a lovely trip - glad to see the men survived  Also loved reading about the great recalls you have achieved this week  well done guys!! (I'm still mid catch up though)
I have pondered about the whistle.. (since the clicker i bought is also a whistle :idea so i may try this with the onlead recalls to get her used to it.. as onlead recall is really getting better.. plus then i can use the clicker when she does come to me  .. 2 birds with 1 stone... So if i say use 'stay' then 'come here' then a whistle.. would that be right :confused1: ? Then eventually remove the 'come here' and just whistle ? Or just get rid of the command from the start?


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Hi dogless, Hope you had a lovely trip - glad to see the men survived  Also loved reading about the great recalls you have achieved this week  well done guys!! (I'm still mid catch up though)
> I have pondered about the whistle.. (since the clicker i bought is also a whistle :idea so i may try this with the onlead recalls to get her used to it.. as onlead recall is really getting better.. plus then i can use the clicker when she does come to me  .. 2 birds with 1 stone... So if i say use 'stay' then 'come here' then a whistle.. would that be right :confused1: ? Then eventually remove the 'come here' and just whistle ? Or just get rid of the command from the start?


What I did with the whistle is to blow it whenever I put down the food bowls or gave any "snacks" for a week or so (two "peeps" for us, but whatever you want!!!). I then started to have games of randomly blowing it when I was around the house or garden and treating as soon as the dogs came (still blowing when food bowls go down too). Then I took it outside on walks, blowing when there were no distractions and rewarding and then gradually started to use it in places with better sights / smells etc. I will also blow it when the dogs are coming back towards me anyway. I up the distraction level gradually and the key for me is *to never use it when I am not sure that the dogs will come back*. Never set the dog up to fail.

I still use voice recall as well but actually decided to whistle train when I lost my voice the Christmas before last and couldn't go on the walks I had planned as I had no recall!!!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> What I did with the whistle is to blow it whenever I put down the food bowls or gave any "snacks" for a week or so (two "peeps" for us, but whatever you want!!!). I then started to have games of randomly blowing it when I was around the house or garden and treating as soon as the dogs came (still blowing when food bowls go down too). Then I took it outside on walks, blowing when there were no distractions and rewarding and then gradually started to use it in places with better sights / smells etc. I will also blow it when the dogs are coming back towards me anyway. I up the distraction level gradually and the key for me is *to never use it when I am not sure that the dogs will come back*. Never set the dog up to fail.
> 
> I still use voice recall as well but actually decided to whistle train when I lost my voice the Christmas before last and couldn't go on the walks I had planned as I had no recall!!!


Ah, thankyou :thumbsup: I would of never of thought to use feeding time to engage the whistle! We shall give this a go 

Ooh we should be starting raw feed very verrry soon as theres on a day or two left in her kibble bag  been looking forward to this for too long now!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Ah, thankyou :thumbsup: I would of never of thought to use feeding time to engage the whistle! We shall give this a go
> 
> Ooh we should be starting raw feed very verrry soon as theres on a day or two left in her kibble bag  been looking forward to this for too long now!


Be very careful :scared: . Buying "just another freezer" can become a habit :scared:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Be very careful :scared: . Buying "just another freezer" can become a habit :scared:.


:laugh: .. My list also consists of a dehydrator to match  All to benefit Willow of course.. Nothing to do with me wanting a new toy.. Nope.. All for Willow..


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> :laugh: .. My list also consists of a dehydrator to match  All to benefit Willow of course.. Nothing to do with me wanting a new toy.. Nope.. All for Willow..


Yup, dehydrator here too :thumbsup:.


----------



## Labrador Laura

Again I've lost track of this thread I must sit down one night and give it a good read through.

Just a little update on the boys :

I'm still working with Mylo on his recall, he's had a really had ear infection this pass week whilst has resulting in him losing his hear :arf: ... he hasn't really but he's been playing on it. He ran off the other morning after catching the scent of two dogs, I could see them at a far distance and wasn't worried but Mylo just went and wouldn't listen to me. Thankfully he turned around and came back to me before reaching them ! I know he should of been on his long lead but the walk we was doing it's always been quiet but I was wrong. Also I've had no car for 2weeks so they've had no social walks but i'm back on the road today and tomorrow we're off to start a new training class.. both of them 
Just to let you know Mylo's hearing is just fine when it comes to his meals  His infection is still bad and sore, back to vets Monday If it's not improved.

Zab is starting to play up abit at the moment, first being he steals EVERYTHING !! but I can't help but laugh when I go to tell him off as half the time he's stolen something stupid like my underwear ! He stole my OH's new white trainers and then pee'd on them ! he wasn't happy at all. OH can go out and tell him leave and he does but if I do it he ignores me and runs off with it. 
And his second is barking at night time, the pass 3 nights he just none stopped barked ! I have to ask OH to go down as me going down makes him worse, but he soon stops once he's been told but i'm worried if he's doing it whilst im out. 
Now he hasn't been getting as much exercise as normal due to my car problem so fingers crossed he may be okay tonight as we're going down the canal in a hour or so for a good walk. 

I'm going to read back a few pages now and catch up with everyone.


----------



## Canine K9

Labrador Laura-

Ahh Poor Mylo do let us know how training goes :thumbsup:

And surely not Zab!! I`ve met that boy and he`s wayy too innocent looking 
No advice but hope everything goes well


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Yup, dehydrator here too :thumbsup:.


I want a dehydrator badly :scared: I keep thinking of all the tasty stuff I could make with it then think about how I could explain to my Mum Yes I want a dehydrator for Christmas :lol:


----------



## Labrador Laura

Canine K9 said:


> Labrador Laura-
> 
> Ahh Poor Mylo do let us know how training goes :thumbsup:
> 
> And surely not Zab!! I`ve met that boy and he`s wayy too innocent looking
> No advice but hope everything goes well


I will do, it will be Mylo first training class... ever! I'm going with him just for the control around other dogs. I've been wanting to go classes with him for awhile but it means leaving Zab in the car on his own for an hour which I cant do but my sister is coming along each week and hopefully she can handle Mylo once he's got over the excitement of it all.

Oh yes, Zab is a nightmare at the moment ! I'm hoping the increase in exercise will stop the barking.. stealing wise i'll have to work on that one.


----------



## Dogless

Just did some 101 Things To Do With A Box with each dog. All was going very well until Kilo built upon jumping in with his front paws to jumping in with all paws and sitting. The box wasn't that big. It is now flat packed :lol:.


----------



## Nicki85

Hello all! 
We had a very nice walk this morning... Took them both over to Greenham Common which is a lovely big open space, lots of others there = cows, dogs, horses, bikes and loads of people running!

Anyhow, I let them off together and the first 5-10mins was a bit grrrr from Shae herding Rusty but she soon settled down to following him around so I was pleased. Also got some independent recalls and they were both very good  I think with them not being off together for a while they (Shae especially) needs to get used to it again. 

I've just been to pets at home to stock up on some trays of wet food as we are off to Wales for a week next weekend. Couldn't imagine the hassle of taking raw with me so it's wet instead! Both are very resilient to changes in diet so should be OK  

Not sure what to do with them now... might have a training session each I think


----------



## Canine K9

Bailey`s just had a haircut :eek6: :thumbsup:
He is looking fantastic and seems a lot more comfy although it was only a light trim since he hated being groomed.


----------



## Nicki85

Pics???


----------



## Canine K9

Okay...  Not very good pics sorry


----------



## Labrador Laura

Dogless - Just googled 101 things to do with a box and sounds interesting may try it with Zab as I often leave him with a box when I leave for work. I come home to a mess but he loves search for the treats and making the mess of course ! 

Niki - Zab does the same thing with Mylo, though he's not herding him he does seem to bully him at the start of walk where as Mylo just wants to sniff and do his own thing. 
My grandma had some training discs with her and she gave them a quick shake every time Zab jumped on Mylo or pushed him around and it seemed to work.

Hope you have a nice holiday  Fingers cross the weather stays nice for you 

K9 - Picture is needed


----------



## JenKyzer

Ohno. I've done it again on looked of Pets4Homes website 

Just curious, is this website as bad as Gumtree? As i've seen pics of a PF members dog for sale on there.. i hope they know what they're doing.. or am i worrying for nothing? 

[Off topic i know but its not worth starting a thread over..]


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Ohno. I've done it again on looked of Pets4Homes website
> 
> Just curious, is this website as bad as Gumtree? As i've seen pics of a PF members dog for sale on there.. i hope they know what they're doing.. or am i worrying for nothing?
> 
> [Off topic i know but its not worth starting a thread over..]


I would imagine a thread might spark WW3 but can't really comment as I have no idea of the circumstances :scared:. It's not the best option out there......


----------



## Indiandpuppy

Did you do him yourself K9 or go to the groomer? 

Marnie was microchipped today and freaked!


----------



## moonviolet

LL I have to say training discs or other sound aversives would not be the sort of thing I would use. 

They often become less effective over time, If the dog is fearful it can make them more so, the dog can associate them with you and become nervous of you, If your timing isn't great they can become associated with a different behaviour and in some cases they can cause aggression and they only tell a dog what you dont' want them to do nto what you want them to do, if you want them to go and settle how about training that and getting it on cue so you can use it when Zab is getting rambunctious.


----------



## Canine K9

Indiandpuppy said:


> Did you do him yourself K9 or go to the groomer?
> 
> Marnie was microchipped today and freaked!


I did it myself  Aww bless her my Mum went to the vet to get Bailey chipped because I couldn`t bear to watch


----------



## Canine K9

Right... I had Bailey offlead at puppy agility today and he did great ignored the other dogs, listened to what I was saying and did many good recalls also he didn`t stray far. Of course the tuna cake helped  So should I take the plunge and let him off on walks?


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Right... I had Bailey offlead at puppy agility today and he did great ignored the other dogs, listened to what I was saying and did many good recalls also he didn`t stray far. Of course the tuna cake helped  So should I take the plunge and let him off on walks?


Have you anywhere secure you could try as a first step?


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> Have you anywhere secure you could try as a first step?


Hmm the park is pretty secure


----------



## GingerRogers

Just a quick one, on my phone so CBA to reply to everyone.

Bailey is adorable, well done on doing it yourself. Ninja hates me grooming her but doesn't mind me trimming her face up odd dog.

Laura - I have to agree with moonviolet on the training discs, aversives arent really a great idea, I only say this for your own good, (short term fix possibly leading to worse behaviours surfacing but especially if he is sound sensitive) and others who may just be lurking.

Poor ninja had to wait ages and ages for her walk today, when we finally got out we had a strange lady walking on OUR footpaths  then our training field was taken over by militant gamekeepers demanding we move on, ok I suppose I shouldn't have been there  but their manner left a little to be desired as I wasnt doing anything wrong and as they pointed out the invisible 'wild' birds they are rearing are just that, wild, so come shooting season and they are released I might not be as vigilant as i might have been at stopping ninja flushing 

Any way i came home form a walk I was all buoyed up about feeling a bit meh, then i realised that ninja had stopped and waited when the lady appeared, I was able to lead her up, sure she went mental as we passed but the wait was GOOD :thumbsup:


----------



## Canine K9

GR- It did involve several sea jerky treats, and some tuna cake. After a long 45 minute battle he lay down for me to trim his face and chest and I got him to stand up to trim his body. I wasn`t sure how he`d turn out because he`s a cross I didn`t have a photo aim. 
And well done you and lil Ninja


----------



## Labrador Laura

moonviolet said:


> LL I have to say training discs or other sound aversives would not be the sort of thing I would use.
> 
> They often become less effective over time, If the dog is fearful it can make them more so, the dog can associate them with you and become nervous of you, If your timing isn't great they can become associated with a different behaviour and in some cases they can cause aggression and they only tell a dog what you dont' want them to do nto what you want them to do, if you want them to go and settle how about training that and getting it on cue so you can use it when Zab is getting rambunctious.


It's okay I've not got them myself, and it was used correctly at the time and it's only a soft sound nothing OTT. It just snapped him out of it at the time. She didn't throw them at him or anything like that... which I've seen people do.
And yeah I can see it becoming less effective over time like my voice has at the moment so I guess i'll have to try something else in time.
But I can see your point


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## Canine K9

Just had the dog show he didn`t win anything but never mind  We had fun and the socalisation was great.
But we entered (6 prizes per class)
Most Handsome dog 20 dogs no place
Best X Breed 7 dogs no place
Best trick 11 dogs no place
Young Handler 9 dogs no place

But he got a little rosette at the puppy agility ring


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## Dogless

A good day so far at Concrete Central for the CHs, not so much for their human .

My back was horrendous this morning, I sat about feeling sorry for myself for a bit then had a quick word with myself about getting a grip, took some lovely pharmaceuticals on top of my normal lot :crazy: and tackled getting dressed making sure that I put my Big Girl Pants on :w00t:. We managed a good 5 hours or so out in the forest, the boys had a fabulous time and I am ashamed all we did was some recalls and "this ways" as they zoomed about.

When we came back I had to sit in my car on the drive for a while psyching myself up for the horror that can be getting out and pretending to be texting when my neighbour came out  but I made it, the CHs made it and all was well .

I suspect they won't be going out later - they're sparked and I am.....broken :yikes: :laugh:.







Sorry - crappy phone pictures!!


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## GingerRogers

Lovely dogless sorry about your back though 

Funny enough we worked on recall and this ways. This ways at a distance on her long line.

And i got another wait while i leashed her as a couple of walkers approached. I am impressed with this as we make such a point of being away from the hoards I hardly ever had to do it before yesterday.

And she didn't bark at cyclists today either. The combine wasn't so lucky but fair play.


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## kat&molly

Ouch to your back Dogless, hope you haven't made it worse being out so long. Great pics of the boys, Rudi is looking all growed up in the last one.

Ooh good girl Ninja, the Wait is impressive, I'm saying that because its taken me this long to get one with Evie.:w00t:

Cant catch up proper, pooter problems here. Never should ask OH to do something techy for me. 

A couple of really good days with Evie, she offered to come on a walk with the others yesterday morning, she was tense but did really well. On the afternoon she came in the car to the fields, a little worried to come back out the fields, but better.
This morning, she wouldn't leave again, I didn't push it and did some training on the path. 
Came in the car tonight, same fields and she did really really well. So pleased.
We have some Zylkene from the vets as well.


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## Dogless

GR - Ninja did really well again, chuffed for you .

k&m - Can't make the back too much worse TBH and if I have, I have :w00t:. I'm pleased that Evie's done so well over the last couple of days and hopefully the Zylkene will give her some extra support.


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## Guest

Really glad for Evie and the Ninja! 

Hope your back starts to ease gog. 

We went to the woods today and got jumped on by 5 or so different dog! All offlead while mine was onlead. When the man first grabbed his spaniel and said sorry I thought it wasn't too bad but then he said he then had to go find the other two! 

The other two were both terriers and charged at us! 

Zand athough chasey and playful for the spanner was getting a bit overloaded. 
Then we got charged at by a mongrelly crossbreed that growled (as did Zand)
The last one was a really pretty Tan black and white RC and I thought "Ooh it's lovely" then I realised it wasn't onlead and it ran at us, by this point Zand had clearly had enough and jumped on it and growled. Of course the owner got funny because her darling precious was friendly. 

But I did recieve some good news, an indoor riding school near me are going to let me use their secure facilities for my dog to run offlead in!


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## Dogless

LO - not a great walk but....YIPPPEEEEEE for the space for Zand to zoom!!!


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## JenKyzer

Dogless - What a treat! - Coming on here to pics of your boys :blush: gorgeous as always, i am also sorry to hear about your back  Hope it feels better soon.

K&M - Glad you've had a good couple of days with Evie.. I haven't commented much recently but have been reading your posts 

GR - Nice to hear about Ninjas wait  Glad it worked when it was needed 

LO - Sorry to hear about your dog frenzied walk  we all hate those don't we!! The secure facilities sounds good though.. I can imagine we shall receive some nice pics when this begins :wink: ?

--

Ok so i have actually done some clicker stuff tonight .. finally! & introduced the whistle (Thanks for recommending it Dogless  ).. which received such a cute cocked head when she first heard it :blush:
She brought her raggy toy to me as i got in from work so she wanted to play.. little did she know we were working on stuff too :001_tongue: i got her all fired up first and excited with a good rag about first then commenced  ..
We worked on 'leave' .. as whilst we're out with balls i realised i didn't have a strong command for her to drop them for me to throw again.. took a few very stern 'leaves' but she got the idea 
Did some 'stays' .. easy for her but nice to reinforce me walking away and the distance getting longer (we also did stays whilst throwing the toy across the room.. click&treat for stay.. then 'bring it' for her to get it and bring to me for another click&treat).
With this i introduced the whistle :w00t: and pipped 2 times then a 'come here' .. she came running.. click & treat! We did this lots of times.. i even hid for her to find me  (We both got a bit giddy  ) 
I then introduced 'touch' .. held a treat in my hand and waited for her nose to touch.. click&treat.. and one point she must of thought i said 'jump on me and nuzzle my face with your wet nose and slobby chops for a treat' .. i see how the two can be confused :huh: !! :laugh: We mixed touch in with sit, paw, lie down.. all with clicks&treats .
A very fun night for us both.. going to try do this little session each night to get more out of the clicker and whistle  

Hope everyone's had a nice fun weekend and has a relaxing sunday evening


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## Dogless

Well done JSW!! Sounds like you've had brilliant fun with Willow .


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## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Well done JSW!! Sounds like you've had brilliant fun with Willow .


Same goes for you and your 5hour walk with the boys


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## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Same goes for you and your 5hour walk with the boys


Some of that was driving there and back . They were out for around 4 ish I think...until my meds started to wear off :w00t:.


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## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Some of that was driving there and back . They were out for around 4 ish I think...until my meds started to wear off :w00t:.


Ohno :nonod: it sounds like a nice bath should be on the cards for you! .. Or maybe a RR special paw massage :w00t:


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## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Ohno :nonod: it sounds like a nice bath should be on the cards for you! .. Or maybe a RR special paw massage :w00t:


T'is no worries I'm used to it :w00t:. It's prob the rambunctious little beggars' dream job trampling all over me .


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## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> T'is no worries I'm used to it :w00t:. It's prob the rambunctious little beggars' dream job trampling all over me .


Those ever so innocent looking boys.. trampling all over their mum and loving it.. ?! Surely not.. !! :001_tongue: ..
I bet you joined in the wrestling last night really and it got out of hand.. they floored you.. now your paying for getting involved.. :w00t: ..

I'm of course joking, i do hope you feel better soon though


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## ballybee

Well it's been a while...not a lot to report recently but today's post is going to be all about Tummel (in a mostly good way too lol).

Today I decided on my days off the boys will be walked separately, so this morning I went out with Tum, we were out for 2 hours (see my thread for pics  ) we met 12 dogs, Tummel was fantastic, they were all brief meetings and he was great, the biggest dog we met he was a bit defensive but not reactive at all  he was offlead and recall was good, he was really responsive!!!

Now, this morning I had noticed he seemed quite driven, he was even more wound up by the smell of rabbits(usually he likes the smell but he's ne'er done more than give a quick chase if he sees one, today he was really tracking and moving) and he tried to chase a rat on the pier, but gave it no notice. I'm just in from our evening walk...where Tummel has caught and killed a rabbit  literally didn't have time to react, I'd taken him so
Where secure where I'd never seen rabbits before, let him off and next thing I know he's bringing me a rabbit!!! I'm not overly bothered, he loves raw rabbit so I have taken it home but slightly concerned that this may have kicked a previously non driven dog into a raging rabbit hunting lunatic!!!

Anyway, it's Dans turn tomorrow, so will probably post something up about him then


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## diefenbaker

Not such a good day today. We were up in London staying at my Mum's. Went for a walk and picnic but there were some gunshot-type bangs in the distance and Dief got stressed... it's not the first time.

We did meet a couple of RRs tho. Dief greeted them nicely. The woman with them did bear some resemblance to Angelina Jolie... and strangely also Angelina Ballerina. I don't think it was DL because she was texting on her drive at the time. Maybe it's like Fringe and a doppleganger has popped over from a parallel universe.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Not such a good day today. We were up in London staying at my Mum's. Went for a walk and picnic but there were some gunshot-type bangs in the distance and Dief got stressed... it's not the first time.
> 
> We did meet a couple of RRs tho. Dief greeted them nicely. The woman with them did bear some resemblance to Angelina Jolie... and strangely also Angelina Ballerina. I don't think it was DL because she was texting on her drive at the time. Maybe it's like Fringe and a doppleganger has popped over from a parallel universe.


Poor Dief, not good.

If she looked like Angelina Jolie then it must have been me if the dogs were well behaved otherwise I shall deny it!!. Hubby flew us over to my second home in London briefly.


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## JenKyzer

Mornin guys.. Pre-warning.. this may be a long one.. :crying:

Thought i'd take Willow up to the woods this morning as i haven't really took her out all weekend, OH has and we just did that lil session last night. 
I thought it'd be a nice start to our day.. goshh i was *wrong*!

I took the clicker to introduce it outside.. glad i did!

Our walk started off with a GSD infront of us.. the guy was throwing the frisbee towards us for it to fetch.. Willow just looked on nicely.. i let them get some distance but then realised a dog was appearing behind us too.. Willow again didn't bother.. we carried on so nicely and she was just enjoying being in the woods 
We then came almost face to face with an Akita with a couple and a young child.. luckily i could go right and change direction.. a swift 'this way' and point got Willow out of the way.. again she took no interest in the dog and was more than happy to carry on.
We then sat by the big pool bit and did some simple stuff with click and treats but she then spat the treat out :laugh: and just wanted to sniff the grass.. so we carried on backwards to go home. Another couple appeared with a dog, they changed direction as they saw me sit Willow down ready for them to pass.. Nice of them 
A man appeared just on his own.. then a lady.. so we carried on.. then a dog came bounding out of the bushes  took both me and Willow by surprise.. the lady didn't even have a lead in her hand so i didn't assume for 1min she was dog walking (stupid me!) it was what i know as a 'sheep dog'  the dog was right up in Willows face even though i managed to move to the side and sit willow down, i told the lady she needed to move her dog away.. they we're having a nice sniff but i knew Willow was uncomfy as she was really tence.. 'Oh my dogs at that stage where he wants to make friends with everyone..' to i replied 'ok my dog might not like it though..' so she was calling 'Rafiki..' 'come here' 'come for a biscuit Rafiki' .. The dog was not listening at all and it couldn't move as i had Willow by the harness inbetween my legs.. this woman kept calling her dog.. and said something like 'Rafiki stop bullying that dog, come here, it doesnt want to be in your clan' .. WTF??  *what does that even mean*?? Then Rafiki.. well. lunged teeth out at Willow neck  Willow then tried pulling toward it and retaliating but i had both hands on her harness so she didn't touch him.. but Rafiki managed to get hold of her!!  This woman was hysterical dancing behind me shouting for it to come away.. no lead appeared though!!!??? She got hold of it.. smacked it :huh: and said 'what have i told you, i told you to come away, your not the boss, i am the boss' :nonod: (i've briefly seen PF members saying avoid classes that talk about being the boss, is this why)
Willow was still pulling and growling all guns blazing..  so i had to really shout 'Willow, carry on now' for her to stop and carry on.. which she did. But i was so embarrassed as my voice echoed all around us  but it was the only way to get her to refocus on me  The lady just walked off.. her dog still offlead !!! No sorry.. no kiss my ass.. no nothing!! (Some very strong verbal abuse is whirring round in my head right now)
So we carried on.. a guy walked past with a look as if to say 'i heard all the commotion..' 
Another guy with an Irish Setter was further down the path.. i stopped and sat Willow out of the way as i knew she was worked up.. he wanted to speak! 'Oh was that you making all that noise..' i had to stop him there. Explained that the other dog was offlead and out of control.. she shuck is head and tutted at the owner.. he kept his dog at a distance and stroked Willow  I apologised if he heard my shouting on his walk and we carried on.
I was in tears now.. silly i know.. but i was so over whelmed. We stopped and sat.. i clicked and treated willow a few times to calm her down.. then we carried on and her tail was back wagging now 
Then my heart stopped as a Lab appeared.. no owner.. nothing.. we got out the way and sat willow. Willow just looked on at it but i knew if it come closer she wouldnt be happy. The other dog just started barking and leaping around.. so i shouted 'away' .. to hopefully keep it away.. then an old lady appeared with her walking stick (Bless her!) apologised and her and her dog carried on 
Then we passed a little terrier on the way out.. again, willow sat and watched really nicely.

We were then out of the woods and i took a deep breathe and relaxed. 

Sorry it's so long.. i don't expect anyone to read.. but i had to get it off my chest 

Hope everyone has a really nice day - work for me soon


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## Sarah1983

Awww, I'm sorry JSW  All it takes is one ******* to ruin a whole walk. Sounds like Willow was really, really good though! Can't really blame her for reacting to the Rafiki dog. Cant blame you for the verbal abuse whirring around your head either. Sadly if it had been me it wouldn't have stayed inside my head, the woman would have had it all unleashed on her 

Spen had one on him yesterday. Half hour walk to the husky meet, 2 hours running around with other dogs at the meet, 15 minutes playing with next doors dog, an introduction to the tunnel we bought him and multiple training sessions and he was still giving me his "I'm bored, lets do something!" stare. We did make progress on walking backwards though. Hubby was sweeping and mopping the communal stairs (we all take it in turns to do them) and I had Spen out on the landing and getting him to walk backwards. Think perhaps the change of surface between stairs and our flat helped as we've been a bit stuck at two tiny steps but last night I had him going back a couple of feet. 

I have also been informed that I am clicker training all wrong. But this is coming from someone who uses dominance methods and uses the click itself as a reward so I shall take that with a pinch of salt. I suppose if the click simply means you're not going to be punished then it does become kind of rewarding but it's not exactly clicker training is it?


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## Dogless

JSW - of course we will all read your posts; that is what this thread is for....listening and getting stuff off our chests.

Firstly, I'd say there are a huge number of positives to take from your morning - Willow did well to disregard every single dog apart from the one that got in her face; she even ignored a dog running for a frisbee which I think is outstanding - I had to work very hard with Kilo on that kind of distraction and certainly didn't achieve it nearly as fast as you have  . 

Secondly, Willow listened to you every single time she was asked to and came away / changed direction / sat whenever asked .

I am very sorry you had to encounter the idiotic woman with her out of control dog - things like that really do spoil your walk - but again I think you did well to keep Willow (and yourself!!) under control as much as you did AND recognise that she would still be wound up and stressed afterwards and explained to the other owner what had gone on plus managed to keep the lab away.

I know when one event spoils your entire walk it's awful and very hard to see the positives - but as an impartial reader I think there were way more positives than negatives and your bond with Willow and understanding of her and management is really going very well indeed .


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## Nicki85

JSW- completely echo DL, you should be mega proud of Willow for doing so well. One thing i've learnt is that there are some real useless owners out there... 

Well this morning we visited the country park with lakes in it. Mega exciting for Rusty as it backs on to open farmland which he loves (and where temporary deafness sets in). So they had 15mins off lead together, Shae was very herdy again to start with (say first 5mins?) but soon calmed down and gave up trying to follow hurricane Rusty. She just stood on the path looking very forlorn bless her. Any how, got to swimming spot and Rust swam and swam and... swam. Amazingly i've had to let his collar out due to the extra muscle he has put on his neck. Certainly not put on weight (think ribs!) but his neck has muscled up more... which is good and all part of the physio  He is doing good at the moment... it's just waiting to see how much the other muscles can compensate for the muscle that suffered nerve damage... 

And then we popped to the petshop and guess what they had??? Pigs tails and pig tongue!! so picked some of that up as well as some other raw goodies. 

Shae has pre-agility later and Rust will need to do some physio


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## Dogless

Nicki - amazing the improvement in Rusty, especially the gaining of muscle; let's hope the physio is pleased too .


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## Nicki85

We saw the physio last week and she was pleased with his progress- he had no difficulty doing the exercises she tested him with... I guess it's been 11 weeks of restricted exercise and 4 weeks of lots of swimming and physio now. I haven't seen him look sore for the past week or so but then I haven't let him have "normal" offlead exercise yet. Still taking it very slowly... would hate to set him back


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## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> We saw the physio last week and she was pleased with his progress- he had no difficulty doing the exercises she tested him with... I guess it's been 11 weeks of restricted exercise and 4 weeks of lots of swimming and physio now. I haven't seen him look sore for the past week or so but then I haven't let him have "normal" offlead exercise yet. Still taking it very slowly... would hate to set him back


I think you're being very sensible taking it slowly and cautiously.


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## GingerRogers

JSW - I also echo what dogless said, there is so much more positive in there than negative, in fact the only negative is the ruddy owner, what fecking planet was that woman on , you have come on leaps and bounds with Willow in such a short space of time, making me feel positively useless in comparison 

Being able to let it all out and the mutual support of the ladies and gentlemen (not sure you are one though Dief ) has been my lifesaver.

On that note BLOODY BOG DOGS  

We had a lovely walk, we passed the invisible cat, which was visible, with lots of scampering but not a murmur.

We followed a westie with not a murmur. 

We had a brief bark at the lundhunds from a distance as they had a visitor and barked so we barked back, but we actually passed their house quietly.

Then we went down the track and a lady came up with a GSD and a yorkie, I almost managed to hide behind a hedge but she sensed them at the last moment. Bark bark bark.

Now whenever she has a barkfest she likes a drink, thirst or stress, or both probably, so she is trying to dive into the verge as there's a ditch so I am thinking I need to remember water on every walk dont I  

We pass the marshes which are clear and free, how nice that would be, I think, for her to have a nice run in the fresh cool grass. I am a bit wary after her bog off the other day with hubby so I just drop the lead rather than unleash her, thinking it gives me something to grab should I feel the need. 

Zoom, straight over to the edge, into the reeds, feck I think, shes after a drink still isn't she, seconds later out appears a half black bog dog, throwing herself in the grass to remove the sticky tar, its all over the lead, I have not even a tissue so by the time we get home I am covered too  oh well, good practice for winters coming 

Get home give her another shower and she goes straight out in the garden and has a dust bath  she is now sulking, showers and not allowed in the garden is not fair apparently.


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## kat&molly

JSW- Phew, that sounds like some walk, but agree with the others, you and Willow did amazing the way you both coped with that. 

Nikki-It seems as though Rusty is doing well still. Moll has lost a lot of weight recently, am sure its due to the swimming, I'm trying to get some back on her.

We went off to the Loop this morning, instead of heading to the same fields we walked a bit of the track and took in some different fields. Short stuff stopped and lay behind a few haystacks again, I think she's working herself up to leave the field, but once I gave her a few minutes each time she was fine with a 'Lets go'  no stopping and sitting near to exits at all. She did stop once on the track looking a bit unsure so I cut back again and left it.


Indoors , I've been trying to desensitise Scruff and Moll to me using the hairdryer , they would both scarper as soon as I got it out.
Hoping I can phase out the treats soon as its going a bit too well now  Moll has gotten really brave and comes out from under the bed now for treats. Scruff stalks me as soon as my hairs wet, following me around and licking my legs !!!!


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## Dogless

GR - bog dog made me laugh, I can just picture the scene!! .

k&m - Evie did brilliantly this morning.....and the hair dryer training mad eme smile...clever Scruff .


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## GingerRogers

I meant to say Nikki you have done really well building Rusty up, well done!

And Kat thats real progress, all your patience is paying off well done for listening to her :thumbsup: brave Evie


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## kat&molly

Thanks both, I really do think she got as low as you could go. We can only go up from here. 

Sorry for laughing at the bog dog Ginge  funny what you say about needing to drink and the different ways they show stress. Some of this rolling of Evie's is I am sure her feeling 'Phew, its safe for me to do this now'.
This past week, the rolling reached crazy levels, but its gotten a lot less already.


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## diefenbaker

JenSteWillow said:


> So we carried on.. a guy walked past with a look as if to say 'i heard all the commotion..'


Isn't this always the chuffin way. It's the person that is bothering to control their dog that gets the blame. I had this the other week at the beach. Small dog syndrome. There's some people sitting on the beach with 2 Chi looking dogs who are letting them run and yap at every dog which walks past. "Oh look at our cute dogs Tarquin bothering those bigger dogs but not doing any harm". Dief was nicely focussed on his kong on a rope and ignoring them but then he stopped and looked at them and they started running off squealing like he was ragging them. If I ever meet Tarquin again I'll be flushing his head down the school toilet. I don't know he was called Tarquin but it seemed to fit. Apologies if anyone is called Tarquin ( or Tarquina ).


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## diefenbaker

We had a better day today. No other dogs about apart from Bruce the Doberman. It's hilarious to see Dief play-bow him and do "chase me".


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## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Being able to let it all out and the mutual support of the ladies and gentlemen (not sure you are one though Dief ) has been my lifesaver.


Objection your honour. It was MV who started the smuttfest with the "jumping on her stones" comment.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Objection your honour. It was MV who started the smuttfest with the "jumping on her stones" comment.


Over ruled. Unfortunately the majority verdict is that you, sir, are guilty as charged.


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## Guest

Have I missed a Smuttfest? Again!? :lol: 

We had a nice walk today but Zand has not be golden entirely, with attempts to eat several things he should not.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Have I missed a Smuttfest? Again!? :lol:
> 
> We had a nice walk today but Zand has not be golden entirely, with attempts to eat several things he should not.


Don't worry I'm sure Dief will step out of line again .


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## Labrador Laura

Yesterday I went to dog training with both dogs, I took my sister along with me so she could help me out standing with one the dogs whilst I trained the other as I didn't want to leave them in the car as they still heat up in this bad weather.

Zab went in first and he was a total nightmare, he just wanted to play with all the dogs and wouldn't do anything for me  Once I settled him he was perfect and did some of the best heel work I've seen him do and he did a 2min sit stay and a 2min down stay  I was shocked. He did 'woof' and 'woo' at me at one stage but he didn't break his stay  After he a small play with a few other pups then I handed him to my sister whilst I took in Mylo, He did everything I asked and soon settled once he knew he couldn't say hello to anyone but he did trigger a few dogs to lunge/bark as we walked pass but he just carried on without taking notice. I've spoken to the trainer about Mylo and told him about my problems with him and he's going to watch him throughout our next lesson and then have a one to one with me. I'm going training again tomorrow !

Today on our walk - making thread with pictures later.
Mylo had to stay on his longline with me holding it as he just kept running off like he was on a scent, it was a new walk so I didn't know what was ahead and there was a lot of blind bends so sadly Mylo had to stay with me, plus I've lost my dog whistle ! But because he was so well behaved and friendly with no 'i'm boss' moves he was let off to play with two RR and then a Labrador puppy same age as Zab. 
Zab was perfect he was offlead the whole way around and recalled back everytime I called him. I worked on his 'wait' which I use on blind bends so I can see around them before the dogs. He recalled away from the Labrador puppy after his play which I was really pleased about as he was really having fun with him  Zab loved his walk today and i'm very happy with him.


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## Sarah1983

Oi, no smutfests in WAYWO please! This is a respectable establishment. However, please feel free to use the gutter just outside, I wouldn't want to miss out on the fun after all 

We've had a good day here. Spencer was almost everything I could wish for on our walk today. He pulled like a steam train on the brief on leash parts but the rest of his behaviour was fantastic. He explored, he sniffed, he ran, he snorkelled in puddles, he removed leaves and twigs from puddles yet whenever I called him he responded. He also met 2 other off leash dogs, a black lab and a big lurchery type (he looks like a deerhound but much too small). Spen greeted them, had a sniff with them, didn't show any OTT behaviour and was happy to move on with me when we went our separate ways. We met the same lurcher last year and Spen had a real tantrum because it went a different way to us so huge improvement there. 

He was a bit gutted that nobody was on the polo pitch, he went running to the gate and looked most bemused when I carried on past, we usually only go that way for the sled dog meet. He barked ferociously at a poo bag on a tree branch, had a big shake off when I convinced him it wasn't a Spencer Eating Monster and then ate a butterfly 

Done some more work on walking backwards using leftover peas as the reward lol. Think our walk today wore him out though coz he's mostly slept since we got home.


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## tiatortilla

JSW- Sorry about your horrible walk, I've cried at similar things so you're not alone in having the odd overreaction. Sounds like Willow coped really well with all the other dogs though so that's good .

Nicki- Glad Rusty is slowly improving.

k&m - Great to hear that Evie is feeling more confident, sounds like you're doing really well .

Yay to everyone else who has good news, and to those who don't, I hope things are better tomorrow!

--

Right I have a question.. I've been using a little park to do recall practice in with Tia. It's got a fenced off children's play area bit with no dogs allowed, and they're supposed to be on lead in the other bit. I get her to sit/stay, walk over to the other side then recall her. I don't actually let her off lead, I leave it trailing so it can be picked up easily and obviously would not continue if anyone came in with children or an on lead dog, and you can see the entrance clearly because it's only a tiny park. So with all of that, no one else in there, lead still attached, focus on me and not just zooming about.. would you say this is okay? I kind of feel like it is because I'd just pick the lead up if anyone else came in but I feel bad about ignoring the sign lol.

What else do I have to report, not much really.
Had another nice walk at the weir on Sunday, she's still not quite grasped swimming. A really big and over friendly Golden Retriever did appear out of nowhere at one point, Tia had a bark because we were in a small area so nowhere to run to and I think he made her jump too but she settled down once we got him to stop trying to sniff her and waited for his owner to turn up! She ignored a few dogs on the way home though .
And today we had a lead walk and a bit of recall practice in the park I mentioned above. Had a bit of a barky moment with another dog, they both reacted to each other but just one of those things.. Her recalls and decent length stays made up for it . She's just been crashed out for most of today, last week seemed to be quite busy and I think it's caught up with her .


----------



## Dogless

Sounds OK to me Tia - you're not impacting upon anyones' use of the park.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Sounds OK to me Tia - you're not impacting upon anyones' use of the park.


Thanks that was my reasoning, it's just good to hear it from someone else too .


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Thanks that was my reasoning, it's just good to hear it from someone else too .


I can just see it now "But Officer, someone on an internet forum told me to" :w00t:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> I can just see it now "But Officer, someone on an internet forum told me to" :w00t:.


Oh yeah definitely, you're getting the blame if I get told off now :lol:


----------



## Nicki85

Good session at pre-agility today.

Haven't been for about three weeks so wasn't expecting much  Shae was very pleased to be there and dragged me over to the contact equipment and had a hissy fit when I wouldn't let her on it  (stroppy teenager....)

We did a bit of cone work going round cones and coming in for her toy or having it thrown... she was very into playing tug but lacked a bit of umph.... 

Then moved onto our longest sequence yet... a jump (poles on floor!!) tunnel, jump jump... and then finished on a wrap (about turn basically!) to repeat the sequence the other way round. Shae loved this, not doing many waits with her at the moment to keep enthusiasm up so instructor held and I ran... she was spot on to the tunnel but needs a "go on" command to get her moving on and looking ahead without looking up at me. But seeing as it was the first time doing proper obstacles I was very pleased. Very pleased with her drive to the toy as well. She needs to "grow up" a bit and mature- you can really see the difference between a typical Border Collie and an English Shepherd... Shae is very slow to mature... but that's fine  We have lots of time 

So, we are working on... "go on" (throw toy with a go command, then say go command and throw toy... build up the delay from go and toy being thrown... need to be accurate with throwing though... ekk!)
Contacts- understanding two back paws on and front off. She's going to a touch pad at the moment but I will shape the two back paws on .

Just generally need to keep it all very short and sharp at the moment to keep her enthusiasm up.

Then... as it is an enclosed field I got Rust out.... he went crazy, proper zoomies with Shae running behind squeaking. Bless 'em. Rust was very keen so ran him through the tunnel and over the poles on floor and had a game of tug. And it felt sooooo good... it's strange but it felt like we were running "as one" whereas with Shae i'm not there yet at all. I know we will get there in time but I miss running Rusty  Anyhow, didn't do any more with Rust for obvious reasons. 

In the mean time Shae was being held by the instructor and turned herself inside out trying to get loose to get to Rusty. I need to crate train her I think fpr when Rusty is running around- and it will help with her self control. She's done crate games inside so need to do garden and then fields and then agility training... It's just Rust running that triggers it.


----------



## kat&molly

We had a really good day overall yesterday. Was going to wait for the neighbours to leave before taking Evie out the front door but decided to risk it last night. We only went to the nearest field and she did brilliant, my mood must be lighter because I had 4 silly , well focused girls. 
Evie likes to be lifted up on top of the haystacks to look for treats , like 'sausage trees', Scruff has learnt how to get herself up there now, not very graceful- more like a scrabble. :lol:
She did well getting back out the field, no sitting at all but some stopping and working herself up to actually do it. The only thing that spoilt it was a gate slamming as she walked past. 

Some very successful clicker training indoors. The best I've managed with Scruff :thumbsup:, growly noises from Jay,  , had to end one of Molls though for getting too daft and barking at me.


----------



## kat&molly

This is the most relaxed I've seen her for a while, not far from the front door either.


----------



## Sarah1983

Awww love the pic Kat :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

I'm pleased you had a great day k&m but all I can say now is that I want an Evie :001_wub:. Not certain I could cope with a Teckel though :eek6:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Hi guys 

Thankyou for your kind words regarding our walk yesterday, i will 'like' , reply properly & catch up later tonight (hopefully!) . Just wanted to let you know i'm not being ignorant  . They do mean alot  . 

Ps. Today is first day of raw feeding  :scared: fingers crossed all goes well ! 

Hope everyone has a nice day


----------



## GingerRogers

Nikki - Sounds like a fun session at agility 

Kat - how chilled out does Evie look, fabulous :thumbsup:

JSW - good luck with the feeding I am sure Willow will love it, tips, dont get too obsessed, dont buy too many bargains, especially not kidney (ox kidneys are huge and 3 lasts several months with a small dog ) 

I am actually really happy with the way I feed now, ninja gets raw in the morning and sometimes a boney snack in the day, then she normally gets the rest from kibble either in her treat bottle, scatter fed or through training. 

We just had an almost normal walk, you know, the kind you dream of 

I did the extended loop I have been doing the last week or so, stretching us out of the comfort zone of the estate. She has been a pretty stressy and scampery, I have assumed its due to stored memories so have been plugging on in the hope that she can store up good memories. I always go the same way, through the back of the estate, up the lane, across the main road, down past the marshes, back up DS alley adn through the front of the estate.

Today I went through the front of the estate which stressed her big style, I couldn't quite work out why, she was leaping forwards, I couldn't see anything but put it down to the proximity of a house with a fence running PRT, we have to come past on the normal route but the other way obviously and I take the path furthest from its house, note its actually hardly ever out, she just really really doesn't like it and therefore doesn't like going past the house, its the most extreme reaction she has to any local dog. 

We got to the bottom of the road and I saw Daisy the westie at the bus stop, but a quick 'this way' and off we trotted, down DS, now this alley is the bit that makes me most nervous, its about 10 mins long, single file and a bit bendy so you cant see ahead in parts but there are a few little bits you can cut up into the school fields should anything surprise us.

But she relaxed as soon as we got in there, walking the opposite direction to normal  I say to normal, I mean recently, this is a route we used to take all the time, nearly every morning we would walk down to the marshes and back up again so both directions are very familiar and I cant think that one way has ever been more treacherous than the other.

We carried on round and I had a relaxed, happy, bird chasing doggy on the end of the lead


----------



## kat&molly

That sounds a good walk Ginge, how strange that she was more relaxed for walking the other way though. 
Dont think I'd be brave enough for DS Alley somehow :lol:

Good luck with the raw feeding JSW, it's exciting and scary to start with. You'll soon get used to it. I used to worry at first, and would only feed the girls during vet opening hours  

Thanks for the nice comments on Evie. 

Our walk today didn't go so well when it was time to leave the field, it took about 10 minutes. Stop, start, hiding behind haystacks. It wont all be plain sailing I suppose.
It surprised me because she was fab inside the field, wanting to be put up on all the haystacks to play find the treat, do you ever wish you hadn't started something :lol:
Soooooo boring just sticking to these 2 walks, for the best at the moment though.


----------



## Dogless

JSW - Good luck with the raw!

GR - sounds like a good walk overall .

k&m - sorry you didn't have such a good one but at least not a total disaster.

The boys and I didn't get back long ago from spending the whole day in "our" forest, they did an awful lot of high speed chasing of each other through the trees - amazing that they manage to avoid them all at that speed! It was lovely; perfect .


----------



## tiatortilla

kat&molly said:


> This is the most relaxed I've seen her for a while, not far from the front door either.


Oh wow, she's so adorable!

--

I really don't have anything to report today. Took Tia for a run around, no real training apart from recalls, didn't really see anyone and no other dogs.. just quiet and uneventful (in a nice way!)


----------



## Huskybob

Kindra and I had our first agility lesson today. We shared a 1 to 1 with a lady with a collie so it was cheaper but not as daunting as a full class. 

She totally exceeded my expectations. Sure, the moment I first let her off lead she ran around and went near the other dog, but she recalled! We tried her with a toy we brought but sadly she wasn't at all motivated but was for food so that worked. 

We worked on clicker training her to touch a lid and then touch it from a distance, worked on calling her so she had to go over a small jump and then introduced her to the tunnel. 

Our homework is to clicker train touching the lid and we have to work on getting her excited. That's going to be hard as she's so calm! 



Oops, it's Sharloid here but I forgot to log in as me.


----------



## JenKyzer

Sarah1983 said:


> Awww, I'm sorry JSW  All it takes is one ******* to ruin a whole walk. Sounds like Willow was really, really good though! Can't really blame her for reacting to the Rafiki dog. Cant blame you for the verbal abuse whirring around your head either. Sadly if it had been me it wouldn't have stayed inside my head, the woman would have had it all unleashed on her


Thankyou  It would of been such a good walk too, if Rafiki has moved on when asked by his owner then the sniff would of been great and Willow would of walked on happily and it would of been a good result. Nevermind  Hm yeah i was quite surprised yet annoyed at myself for not unloading on her!! But at the time i wanted to keep as quiet and still (still being having her inbetween my legs and both hands round her harness) as possible (neutral) so not to worry Willow even more and this have an even bigger effect - Didn't want to give out bad vibes! Whether i was right to do so is probably another story  
Strange to hear about the clicker training and how 'wrong' your are.. :confused1: Glad to hear you had a good walk yesterday!! Well done spencer  i had a giggle at the poo bag on a branch bit.. bless him!



Dogless said:


> JSW - of course we will all read your posts; that is what this thread is for....listening and getting stuff off our chests.
> Firstly, I'd say there are a huge number of positives to take from your morning - Willow did well to disregard every single dog apart from the one that got in her face; she even ignored a dog running for a frisbee which I think is outstanding - I had to work very hard with Kilo on that kind of distraction and certainly didn't achieve it nearly as fast as you have  . Secondly, Willow listened to you every single time she was asked to and came away / changed direction / sat whenever asked . I am very sorry you had to encounter the idiotic woman with her out of control dog - things like that really do spoil your walk - but again I think you did well to keep Willow (and yourself!!) under control as much as you did AND recognise that she would still be wound up and stressed afterwards and explained to the other owner what had gone on plus managed to keep the lab away.I know when one event spoils your entire walk it's awful and very hard to see the positives - but as an impartial reader I think there were way more positives than negatives and your bond with Willow and understanding of her and management is really going very well indeed .


Thankyou for your very kind words  :blushing:
She is doing really well, bless her and i was proud of her for ignoring other dogs and doing as she was told (Especially after the incident, i was expecting her to see all the other dogs as fair game and go for them too - Aka, revert back to her old ways! So she did pleasantly surprise me). As for the frisbee.. shes probably never seen one before .. if it has been a tennis ball; well.. that might of been a different story 



Nicki85 said:


> JSW- completely echo DL, you should be mega proud of Willow for doing so well. One thing i've learnt is that there are some real useless owners out there...


Thankyou v much  
Rusty's muscle gain sounds great btw and glad to hear the physio was pleased too, you must be proud! Pre-agility sounds fab too, wow-zers 



GingerRogers said:


> JSW - I also echo what dogless said, there is so much more positive in there than negative, in fact the only negative is the ruddy owner, what fecking planet was that woman on , you have come on leaps and bounds with Willow in such a short space of time, making me feel positively useless in comparison


:blush: Thankyou! .. Oh noo, far from useless! As i've said before, your posts spur me on.. very inspiring to hear of all the success you've had so far :thumbsup: long may it continue for you! They just like keeping us on our toes i think - a comment supported by the Tar fest she had  the little scamp! The start of your walk sounded brill though 



kat&molly said:


> JSW- Phew, that sounds like some walk, but agree with the others, you and Willow did amazing the way you both coped with that.


Thankyou 
I had to laugh at your hairdryer story :laugh: We're the opposite here, she loves it and i have to put the setting on cold and blow her tummy every morning  Your walk and clicker stuff sounds great yesterday too  & that pic is sooo cutee :001_wub:



diefenbaker said:


> Isn't this always the chuffin way. It's the person that is bothering to control their dog that gets the blame. I had this the other week at the beach.... I don't know he was called Tarquin but it seemed to fit. Apologies if anyone is called Tarquin ( or Tarquina ).


:laugh: this made me laugh  But how dare Dief look at those poor poor lil doggies and insult them sooo badly :scared: ... :001_rolleyes: silly dogs.



tiatortilla said:


> JSW- Sorry about your horrible walk, I've cried at similar things so you're not alone in having the odd overreaction. Sounds like Willow coped really well with all the other dogs though so that's good


Thankyou  Tia sounds like she did well on your walk at the weir.. Well done for the recalls ! We have yet to nail that one..  & your question about the park.. sounds ok to me and at least you've thought about what to do if and when other people do turn up.. make use of it whilst its not being used  (And good use too might i add!)

---- Think thats everyone .. phew! 

Nothing to report here really.. She ate all her raw chicken this morning.. spat some on the floor at first then gobbled it all up! We put some down tonight and she wouldn't touch it  She saw me bringin in her fish4dogs packages though so she may be holding out for some fishy stuff the lil monkey!! So i took it out of her bowl and put it back in the fridge. Will try again shortly.. I was going to do some clicker stuff but with her not eating i don't want to fill her up on treats .. i'd rather her eat properly  .


----------



## Nicki85

JSW- I am soooo impressed with your multi-quoting skills :eek6::eek6:

I can't even do a single quote! :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> JSW- I am soooo impressed with your multi-quoting skills :eek6::eek6:
> 
> I can't even do a single quote! :lol:


Today Nicki will mostly be working on her multi - quoting skills.......


----------



## JenKyzer

Nicki85 said:


> JSW- I am soooo impressed with your multi-quoting skills :eek6::eek6:
> 
> I can't even do a single quote! :lol:


Haha :laugh: it took 3 open 'tabs' and lots of copy&paste .. I feel slighty geeky now!! :001_rolleyes:

----

Willow is still refusing to eat raw this morning  (Hasnt eaten since 830am yesterday!) i've left it out for her so hopefully when OH goes home at dinner she might of touched it .. Slightly worried but i'm not giving in & feeding her something else if thats what shes hoping for :frown5:

Hope everyone has a nice day


----------



## diefenbaker

Went to the beach yesterday... misjudged the tide while out on the sandbanks.. OH wouldn't go the long way round.. so we all ended up chest high in the sea... on the plus side Dief got to do lots of swimming :biggrin5:


----------



## Nicki85

DB- that sounds fun!!! Although I hope you are in a warm part of the world... and hope there were no strong currents- that could have been scary!

No multi-quoting, looks difficult!!!

Well...
Went run/walking with Rust this morning. Few comments of "who's taking who for a run?" Well obviously me, otherwise we'd be in that gorse bush looking for rabbits... I wasn't in a patient mood this morning! Rust was a good lad, had some off-lead time and only went into his super Spring mode a couple of times.
Shae, started the "go" game... she loved that as she got to play with her ball and she doesn't do much of that due to young joints etc. Also did some impulse control with ball. Met the dog walker (well, she's been walked three times by her) and she went into super excited crazy puppy routine so we had to do some sit and wait to be greeted... Met a chap and a dog and let her off to soon afterwards (heaven only knows why... she was still watching the other dog!) so she went off to play with them. She came back soon enough. My mistake for not re-focusing her. Need to either let her go up and greet or move her along with out greeting, not let her decide.

Swimming in the river later and want to work on shaping Shae two feet on, two off...


----------



## Dogless

Up early this morning for separate walks. 

Cycled to the top fields with Rudi and just did some play, waits, recalls. A couple of men walked in and he just came into heel on the first ask and we carried on, really pleased with him .

Drove Kilo to a field near the building site to do some impulse control stuff. I like the field as lone people often appear yet it's large enough to get space if needed (he was on his longline too). As soon as he saw the tuggy we use for "Ready Steady" he started to shake and "Eeeeeeee" so we had a very fast paced and very, very good session. Lots of very fast and precise emergency stops, downs at a distance etc. The BW was fantastic for me .

And then....I went for a flight in a helicopter....as you do .


----------



## Nicki85

Good Kilo and Rudi  

And a helicopter ride?! Why, how, when?!


----------



## Canine K9

Just been told bailey is barking when we go out


----------



## kat&molly

JSW- I have seen it suggested on here to lightly cook the food, and just reduce the cooking time each feed, probably just her getting used to the change, smell and texture. Not a problem I had with multi dogs, they daren't leave food.

That sounds good fun , Dief will expect you both to go in every time now 

Nikki- A single one's easy, just hit the quote button at the bottom, here endeth my skills though. 

Tia- uneventful walks are the best aren't they!!

Yesterdays afternoon walk with Evie didnt go well, a bad day all round for her really.
Did a long lead walk with Moll and Scruff , was impressed with them as they're often competitive when together.

This morning a Loop walk, just in a couple of fields and a bit more of the track, Evie definately isnt up to going round the whole lot yet.


It wasnt my best idea to go and fetch the frozen raw food with the grils in the car, I thought it'd be ok there wasnt far to go but Evie managed to break open some packaging and bite a huge chunk off one of the carcases :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

Dief retrieving his air kong stick on a rope yesterday.. we've always called it a "wanger"... now the kids are telling us this means something else 

[youtube_browser]JU8_ckSvo4E[/youtube_browser]


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Good Kilo and Rudi
> 
> And a helicopter ride?! Why, how, when?!


Hubby flies them, a perk of being married to him, this morning .



Canine K9 said:


> Just been told bailey is barking when we go out


Oh no K9. Have a good read of the SA sticky - lots of ideas in there I think.



kat&molly said:


> It wasnt my best idea to go and fetch the frozen raw food with the grils in the car, I thought it'd be ok there wasnt far to go but Evie managed to break open some packaging and bite a huge chunk off one of the carcases :lol:


Oh Evie, how did I guess it would be Evie? :aureola::001_wub:.


----------



## kat&molly

Lovely Dogless, lucky you. 

K9- has a neighbour complained ?


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Dief retrieving his air kong stick on a rope yesterday.. we've always called it a "wanger"... now the kids are telling us this means something else
> 
> [youtube_browser]JU8_ckSvo4E[/youtube_browser]


Love it!! We have one of those, erm, wangers  too. Best listen to the kids, might save you being arrested should you shout it too loudly on the beach :skep: .


----------



## Canine K9

kat&molly said:


> Lovely Dogless, lucky you.
> 
> K9- has a neighbour complained ?


Not complained as such just said You do know your dog is barking when you go out


----------



## kat&molly

Canine K9 said:


> Not complained as such just said You do know your dog is barking when you go out


Oh dear, there is a lot of good stuff in the sticky as Dogless said.


----------



## diefenbaker

The long suffering Mrs Dief up to her neck in it. Funnily we have a dog walker friend who is in the Boat Police and he sometimes patrols this area. So in order to win 100 WAYWO points can you guess what RTFTT is an acronym for ?


----------



## Dogless

Read The Fudging Tide Tables?


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Read The Fudging Tide Tables?


WINNER !!!!!! ( even though toned down for the daytime audience ). What will you be buying with your 100 WAYWO points ? Or will you be saving them all up for another helicopter ride ?


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> WINNER !!!!!! ( even though toned down for the daytime audience ). What will you be buying with your 100 WAYWO points ? Or will you be saving them all up for another helicopter ride ?


I am going to put my points towards my teleporter actually. Helicopters are great fun and all that but so last year.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dief that sounds a little scary, love the video, I would love to do stuff like that with ninja but she may bring the wanger back, she may just run after it and past it and go chase the seagull instead, hence why we dont ften play fetch games on walks 



JenSteWillow said:


> Willow is still refusing to eat raw this morning  (Hasnt eaten since 830am yesterday!) i've left it out for her so hopefully when OH goes home at dinner she might of touched it .. Slightly worried but i'm not giving in & feeding her something else if thats what shes hoping for :frown5:


Just showing off today I am  I can do it too.

What are you feeding her, I find I have to peel bits of chicken if its skin on, she needs to see the meat, but the light cooking thing works as well, ninja wolfs down lightly fried kidneys even though it makes the house smell of wee and old ladies :frown5:



Nicki85 said:


> No multi-quoting, looks difficult!!!


It simple  you just hits the button next to the quote button, the " with the +, as many times as you want.



Dogless said:


> he started to shake and "Eeeeeeee" so we had a very fast paced and very, very good session. Lots of very fast and precise emergency stops, downs at a distance etc. The BW was fantastic for me .
> 
> And then....I went for a flight in a helicopter....as you do .


Wow, thats an exciting start to the day. For you and Kilo, I love the image I have in my head when you describe his excitement.



Canine K9 said:


> Just been told bailey is barking when we go out


Can you find out how much, how long etc, film him or something, Rory had bad SA but he didnt bark all the time no matter what the neighbour said 



kat&molly said:


> It wasnt my best idea to go and fetch the frozen raw food with the grils in the car, I thought it'd be ok there wasnt far to go but Evie managed to break open some packaging and bite a huge chunk off one of the carcases :lol:


:biggrin: :001_rolleyes: Evie
Hope she has a better day today.



diefenbaker said:


> So in order to win 100 WAYWO points can you guess what RTFTT is an acronym for ?





Dogless said:


> Read The Fudging Tide Tables?


I dont think its 'fudging' :tongue:

We had a fab walk this morning, my little ninja is a conundrum.

When she is being really good with her reactivity she is really bad in other areas  she absolutely bombed off last night down the path without giving any warning signals and I have no idea where she went for 3/4 mins. I do hope she didn't discover the huge pea field which has been cleared and is now covered with pigeons and pheasants and seagulls eating their fill :frown5:. Its like she has to let the bugs out somewhere. She knackered herself though, came back and heeled the rest of the way back to the car 

To this morning she was noisy  and barking at people and nothings  straight out the door, but we saw a westie and about turned, brilliant :biggrin5: face up to the GR that was lolling on its drive (the one that she really doesn't seem to even notice ), so turned again, brilliant :biggrin5: and went up another road, thank goodness we were on a 3 way junction , she caught another glimpse of the westie and did bark then but came with me very nicely, pretty good considering what she has been like :biggrin5:

This mornings route took us down the main road which was busy with lorries but after a few lunges she settled really well.

We soon left the road and had a lovely peaceful walk round the back of the school, must get some picture of it its one of my favourites, sadly mostly spent jumping over the dog poo that littered it today, it wasn't there the other day, although as a lot was fresh I figured we had just missed all the mornings walkers.

Came back round to the road, she was walking like a dream, well my dream, probably not others  She didn't react to a few motorbikes, they normally cause an automatic whip round, then a lab came down its drive, a ways ahead its true, but I whipped round and then got a sit for a treat :biggrin5: :biggrin5: :biggrin5: my dog 'watched me' :biggrin5:

Back into the estate and she did the oddest thing, Kat, might be of interest or you might be able to shed some light.

She stopped on the grass outside the fence runners house, at exactly the spot she went a bit nutso yesterday, she didnt want to move, she wasnt refusing as such, I could have got her to but thought I would just wait and see what she did.

She lay down and had a roll  she has never done this before, I asked for a couple of tricks, as she was lying and rolling, I thought a roll over was appropriate. She got a bit confused and did a lying down spin, not something I have ever trained :001_rolleyes: never mind its all turns. After a few minutes she was happy to just carry on!

So so pleased with the little monkey, she is still a reactive nightmare but it is so much more 'controlled'


----------



## GingerRogers

wow thats a bit epic, sorry folks


----------



## Dogless

GR - maybe when Ninja is good reactivity - wise the bombing off is a stress release from managing to stay so controlled? Kilo will get the zoomies sometimes if he's managed to be "good" through something stressful. Your walk this morning sounds great - trying to picture a lying spin, sounds funny!!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - maybe when Ninja is good reactivity - wise the bombing off is a stress release from managing to stay so controlled? Kilo will get the zoomies sometimes if he's managed to be "good" through something stressful. Your walk this morning sounds great - trying to picture a lying spin, sounds funny!!!


I think thats exactly it :biggrin:, its just frustrating, when she has been so good, you want to reward her with what she likes doing and which seems to help her but then she scares me 

It was a bit odd, she looked so confused when she ended facing away from me 'this is not how it normally works mum' :tongue:


----------



## diefenbaker

Move over. Let me have a go at this multi-quoting lark...



GingerRogers said:


> Dief that sounds a little scary, love the video, I would love to do stuff like that with ninja but she may bring the wanger back, she may just run after it and past it and go chase the seagull instead, hence why we dont ften play fetch games on walks


I did do one where I made him wait for the go. Had I known we were going to get so wet on the way back I would have raced him for it. That will have to be a video for another day.



Dogless said:


> I am going to put my points towards my teleporter actually. Helicopters are great fun and all that but so last year.


Have you seen "The Fly". What would happen if a CH hair got in 



Nicki85 said:


> Swimming in the river later and want to work on shaping Shae two feet on, two off...


It's mandatory for you to get wet too. And don't forget the camera.


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> Move over. Let me have a go at this multi-quoting lark...
> 
> I did do one where I made him wait for the go. Had I known we were going to get so wet on the way back I would have raced him for it. That will have to be a video for another day.
> 
> *Have you seen "The Fly". What would happen if a CH hair got in *
> 
> It's mandatory for you to get wet too. And don't forget the camera.


Bold 

Red - see I said you weren't a gentleman :frown2:


----------



## kat&molly

All this multi quoting , I'm not going to attempt it 

How strange that she rolled , Evie doesn't roll in the spot thats worrying her , a shake off always comes first then its as if she feels safe enough to do them. I can seem to tell now how stressful she's found something by how much she's rolled. 
Does sound like a stress thing for Ninja though doesn't it? Plus the stopping and waiting bit - really good that she did a lying down spin  I cant get anything its like she's in a trance. 

Ninja did good. 


Loved the vid Dief, bet you were popular getting thoses times wrong


----------



## diefenbaker

Some video footage has emerged of DL's helicopter ride. The offlead Lab get's it at 2:31. Sound up whether you're squeamish or not.

[youtube_browser]Gz3Cc7wlfkI[/youtube_browser]


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Some video footage has emerged of DL's helicopter ride. The offlead Lab get's it at 2:31. Sound up whether you're squeamish or not.
> 
> [youtube_browser]Gz3Cc7wlfkI[/youtube_browser]


Now, pull up a sandbag I'm going to swing the lamp a little.....in Belize the helis we worked out of were Bells (212s though) and some of that film was shot there.

I can confirm that you categorically cannot hold a normal conversation in the back, play a mouth organ so that everyone can hear it or whisper in someone's ear. Unless the British Army saved money by not buying the aircraft with Stealth Mode as standard.

There will be a test to ensure that you were all listening and no one dozed off at the end of the lecture .


----------



## Labrador Laura

Dief - Lovely video, the sea looks so inviting ! Zab would love it there, it's nice and shallow for him to play in.

Dogless - Glad both boys we're well behaved and your impulse control training is coming along well.
I've started doing a fectch with wait with Zab and he's now staying at my side after i've thrown it. Took him awhile as he loves his Kong ball but yesterday we cracked it 

K9 - Hope Bailey isn't barking everyday and isn't for long periods. Zab was barking at night time all last week but after doing more exercise thing week he's really settled. But i have questioned myself and wondered if he's barking whilst i'm out ?! I do always walk them before i leave for an number of hours and he's left with a frozen kong and a cardboard box to k*ll.

GR - Good to hear Ninja was well behaved with westie. Even though she still reacts atleast your getting somewhere and like you said it's more controlled 

-------

Yesterday i took them both to dog training again - Zab was hyper at the start and kept spinning around on his collar wanting to play with EVERYONE ! but soon settled and carried on with it. The trainer said he's coming along really well on his heel work  Only problem i have with Zab is he gets bored very easily sort of a 'been there done that' ! 
Mylo was again unsettled at the start and wouldn't stop crying when dogs passed but he too did settled and he did everything i asked. Half way through i took off his dogmatic and handled him by the collar and he was just fine. We did a lot of 2min stays sit, down and stand and i dropped the lead and stood a distance from him and he didn't move  We even did heel work with the lead over his back  no problem at all ! 


But today my luck changed .... Mylo went missing for 30mins !!! 
We went on a group walk today, both dogs were well behaved and i worked on recall, waits, heelwork offlead and on, wait and fetch and watch me. All done perfectly and both well behaved, and just as we was heading back to the car 2mins away Mylo suddenly ran off and didn't come back i called and whistled and nothing what so ever. I couldn't see or hear him ! After standing and calling him for a few mins i left my grandma with the dogs whilst i went back the way we came and again nothing, i then heard barking from the foxhound kennels was pass so i ran all the way down the road forwards the farm thinking he's picked up a bitch in season so i asked someone there and they hadn't seen him so i left the farm back down the road and over a gate, i followed the fence line of the kennels and nothing. So back into the forest towards my grandma and no luck with her, so i went back to the car to see if he was there but nothing, ask people there if they had seen a black lab nope ! So back to the forest again, ran around for another 10mins and calling him, by this point i was thinking all sorts and started crying  i couldn't even call his name i was that bad. I then asked another walker if she had seen him and again no luck but she said she'll keep her eye open for him. Another 5mins pass and i hear my grandma shouting they had found him, i ran back to her and she pointed me in the direction of this woman calling and there he was on her dogs lead !! He was out of breaths as much as i was, i just broke down when i saw him and hugged him  I said thank you multiple times to this lady, she said he was just sat in the middle of the path looking lost  I think he just lost track of us,couldn't hear me calling and got confused. I've noticed Zab reacting to my voice but not Mylo so whether he's going deaf abit or just plain stubborn i don't know but all i know is i'm ever so grateful to that woman. And i have my boy back !! 

I've never lost a dog before and he's never ran off like that ! It's horrible and i never want to experience it again. He's staying on the lead in that area next time.
Down the canal tomorrow i think, i can see him at all times !


----------



## Dogless

LL - Sounds like you had a real fright . Pleased all ended well though. And well done to Zab on his "wait" .


----------



## GingerRogers

Laura I liked for your comments and them being good at class not for missing Mylo  how horrid that is, ninja does bog off an awful lot but never for long and mostly we can hear her zooming about in the undergrowth, but even that is worrying sometimes. 

Half an hour, I would have been crying too, I did when Rory did it to us 

If you really think there might be something up with his hearing you should get it checked out, have a google see if there are any simple tests you can try at home. As Rory got older his hearing went, but he would hear things wrong directionally, so if you called him, he ran off in the other direction, the louder you called the faster he would trot, it could be something like that especially amongst the trees, although him pegging it in the first place is obviously not good and will need working on.

Don't ask how though if I knew I wouldn't spend half my evenings standing around on footpaths being bitten to buggery while I wait for ninja to come back from her latest adventure .


----------



## Labrador Laura

GingerRogers said:


> Laura I liked for your comments and them being good at class not for missing Mylo  how horrid that is, ninja does bog off an awful lot but never for long and mostly we can hear her zooming about in the undergrowth, but even that is worrying sometimes.
> 
> Half an hour, I would have been crying too, I did when Rory did it to us
> 
> If you really think there might be something up with his hearing you should get it checked out, have a google see if there are any simple tests you can try at home. As Rory got older his hearing went, but he would hear things wrong directionally, so if you called him, he ran off in the other direction, the louder you called the faster he would trot, it could be something like that especially amongst the trees, although him pegging it in the first place is obviously not good and will need working on.
> 
> Don't ask how though if I knew I wouldn't spend half my evenings standing around on footpaths being bitten to buggery while I wait for ninja to come back from her latest adventure .


He's had a bad ear infection about 2weeks ago and was at the vets with that. It was very sore and badly inflamed but it's nicely cleared up now so i'm wondering if it's left some damage. He's booked in at 3pm tomorrow with the vets just incase theres still something wrong.

He's never gone missing before so it was a real shock when he didn't return ! So I don't want to go through that again.
My dad's old terrier use to bugger off when she wanted and she would always be right behind a bush or fence running around a rabbit hole


----------



## Nicki85

LL- so glad he was found quickly. Rusty is another explorer and although he is only out of sight (not hearing... think crashing through undergrowth!) I do hate it  I suspect he had as much of a shock as you.

We had a good swim, well I stood on the bank and Shae carefully got out each time with her toy and shook behind me so i was pretty damn soaked by the end of the session! Nice spot there as there is a bit of a current so I can throw Rust's toy upstream to make him work extra hard! Shae kind of jumps around and swims a little bit after her toy.

But, I was really pleased with madam today... Rusty wanted to carry his toy which is difficult as Shae wants to take it off him but, I asked her not to and provided her with treats for leaving him be. It worked! Rust soon dropped the toy but that was his choice, not Shae being a madam


----------



## diefenbaker

Tomorrow we will be off on our yearly camping pilgrimage to Chideock. This is a challenge because:

a) Dief always has me up at the crack of dawn
b) There are free roaming sheep
c) There's no free WiFI !!!

Try and keep the posting volume down while I'm gone.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Tomorrow we will be off on our yearly camping pilgrimage to Chideock. This is a challenge because:
> 
> a) Dief always has me up at the crack of dawn
> b) There are free roaming sheep
> c) There's no free WiFI !!!
> 
> Try and keep the posting volume down while I'm gone.


Enjoy yourselves....not too much in Dief's case as that would involve sheep .


----------



## kat&molly

Happy hollibobs to Mr, Mrs and Dief, all that livestock training you did recently will come in useful now 

L.Laura- that sounds really scary , pleased you got him back in one piece. 

Walk tonight to the oh so boring field close to home, all the girls were brilliant, and we played lots of Find it, where they have to wait first, and just a nice silly time.

When we came to leave , no way would Short stuff move , she sat less than 10 metres from the edge. After around 20 minutes with no signs of moving, I picked her up and carried her to where she could see both ways. Her little heart was going mad, but I'm sure sat there all that time she was working herself up more 
We just have to leave this walking from home for the time being, she's going backwards here. 

Family arrive tomorrow until Monday, I shall take the girls out every day for a good few hours to some different rivers, hopefully it'll be a break from any bad associations she's made.


----------



## Dogless

Kat - I am sure the break from walking from home will do Evie the world of good. The reason I headed out tonight was that, although Kilo had done well this morning, he was very stressy for the rest of the day. Evie is lucky that she has someone prepared to understand her and build her confidence .

Went to the forest tonight. Up in the cloud so dull and damp at about 1915, dark by 2100. I always have to watch Kilo carefully as the light is fading as he turns into a hunter. Rudi did too tonight. They make some team - Rudi seems to have a much better nose than Kilo but Kilo seems to scan for and be triggered by movement far more than Rudi. Working together they need a good eye on them but they were very good indeed, very pleased with them .

Tried out their new lights on their harnesses - excellent .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Kat - I am sure the break from walking from home will do Evie the world of good. The reason I headed out tonight was that, although Kilo had done well this morning, he was very stressy for the rest of the day. Evie is lucky that she has someone prepared to understand her and build her confidence .
> 
> Went to the forest tonight. Up in the cloud so dull and damp at about 1915, dark by 2100. I always have to watch Kilo carefully as the light is fading as he turns into a hunter. Rudi did too tonight. They make some team - Rudi seems to have a much better nose than Kilo but Kilo seems to scan for and be triggered by movement far more than Rudi. Working together they need a good eye on them but they were very good indeed, very pleased with them .
> 
> Tried out their new lights on their harnesses - excellent .


I hope it does help, its as if everything thats happened in the past is bothering her now. Going around the Loop its the big brown dog she's worrying about- that was months ago. They were all alert for a while after but I thought it was dealt with. The neighbours dog pinning her recently seems to have brought everything to a head.
She heard a noise this morning so now keeps sitting staring at the door and shaking.

Good Kilo got a chance to de stress yesterday - I think you're really brave taking them to the forest at that time of the day/ evening, with all those critters about. Good boys


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> I hope it does help, its as if everything thats happened in the past is bothering her now. Going around the Loop its the big brown dog she's worrying about- that was months ago. They were all alert for a while after but I thought it was dealt with. The neighbours dog pinning her recently seems to have brought everything to a head.
> She heard a noise this morning so now keeps sitting staring at the door and shaking.
> 
> Good Kilo got a chance to de stress yesterday - I think you're really brave taking them to the forest at that time of the day/ evening, with all those critters about. Good boys


Maybe that "stress bath" just started to over flow with the pinning incident? It's awful to see I know .

There aren't any man or dog eating critters (as far as I know ) and I feel pretty safe with the boys with me. I do worry about poachers a bit :nonod:.


----------



## Indiandpuppy

Hi all

M is on her first season and erm our laminate floors look like a scene from texas chain saw massacre has just been rein-acted there... 
Luckily it mops up well!

My mum suggested dog nappies or bellybands but are these things cruel....? 

thanks xx


----------



## Dogless

Indiandpuppy said:


> Hi all
> 
> M is on her first season and erm our laminate floors look like a scene from texas chain saw massacre has just been rein-acted there...
> Luckily it mops up well!
> 
> My mum suggested dog nappies or bellybands but are these things cruel....?
> 
> thanks xx


I think some people use a pair of human knickers or baby bodysuit things with a human sanitary towel in. I am not sure, I have never owned a bitch.


----------



## GingerRogers

Ugh I can't help either ninja was very clean. Sounds like a lot of blood for a little un.

She will decide if its cruel. As in whether she likes it or not, many people clean use small pants rather than anything special, a lot of dogs get quite distressed at the mess they make so she might prefer it contained.


----------



## Nicki85

I don't think my previous bitches have bled that much either- is she alright in herself?

Well I took them both out together today for an hour round the local forest. Had Rusty off lead for the half of it and Shae on a flexi if it was too much. She's really nice on the flexi so that makes things easier  She was really good with him when he was calm and doing what normal dogs do. She'll trot alongside him or come back to me for a game of fetch or a treat (and then walk to heel in the hope of more treats!). But when Rust gets more excited and starts undergrowth diving she struggles to cope... wants to chase him and bring him back. So I put her on the flexi when Rust started doing this and that was fine. I let them off again together at the end and she let him run off and go into the bushes 

She sees Rusty as her "charge" and likes to be able to see him. I just need to get her to understand that it's OK if we can't see him... 

So yes, pleased- it went better than expected. Shae is looking to me for treats if Rusty runs off and will play a game rather than run straight off to him  Lots to work on and we didn't meet anyone either!


----------



## JenKyzer

GingerRogers said:


> What are you feeding her, I find I have to peel bits of chicken if its skin on, she needs to see the meat, but the light cooking thing works as well, ninja wolfs down lightly fried kidneys even though it makes the house smell of wee and old ladies :frown5:


Just chicken breast, no bone - no skin. First meal on tuesday morning, she was wary and had a good sniff and threw bits round the kitchen  but she ate it all in under 5mins and seemed to love it ! Since then... she won't fecking touch it !

So last night we'd had enough as she wasn't even drinking throughout the day :mad2: so it was just getting rather silly. We blended the chicken breast and mixed in some fish4dogs salmon mousse (as i know you can't 'mix' kibble and raw but i thought the mousse would be ok as its just fish&water&seaweed) ... she wolfed it down flat out no problem.. So i'm a bit stuck on what to do next... :huh:

I cant be arsed multi quoting now... so..

LabLaura - Really sorry to hear about Mylo disappearing for a while  I bet that was so scary for both you and for him if he got himself lost. Your dog training classes sound like they are coming on well too 

GR -Your walk sounds fun.. obviously not the small parts where you wasn't too impressed with her.. but all the other bits sound great especially with the sit&watch and her not being reactive 

Nicki - the swimming sounds good  i'm quite impressed with anyone who can get a fetch in water.. Willows a big wuss and leaves them in there!! & well done for shae leaving him alone 

K&M - Glad they had a nice silly time! I love them kinda things  I hope the new different walks do her some good though and she relaxes!

Dogless - Good to hear your pleased with the new lights, me and OH were discussing this the other night and what we're going to do when a good chunk of Willows walks are going to be in darkness but we want to offlead her.. if you have any recommendations - send them our way  sounds like you had a good walk.. even with the deadly double trouble RR hunting twosome ..  such good boys!


----------



## GingerRogers

JSW - I would try the light cooking, literally just to turn the outside white, then gradually reduce it, and try chopping into chunks as well, or feedminces till she gets used to the idea, ninja can still be a bit wary, odd dog that she is but once she gets into she loves it. 

TBH I dont worry too much about the raw and kibble thing, I dont feed them together as a rule but I wouldn't be overly concerned - after all our parents and grandparents dogs never died, I can remember my friends dad filling up a washing up bowl with raw meat and kibble for their great dane  of course each dog is different though.

Nikki - sounds like Shae knows its all ok if she is on the lead and that you are in charge, its only when she is off lead that her natural instinct kicks in and she worries she isnt doing her job properly, its fascinating behaviourwise 

Glad the boys were good in the forest Dogless and the lights were good, I am also interested even if for use on the long line, on the beach where there's no light at all I used to get alarmed when the line went slack 

Kat I do hope the walk plan helps little legs

Stressy walk today, well we were due one!

Its wet so the cars are making scary noises for a start 

Then a man with a cairn AND a big black umbrella  came round the corner. We about turned and went the other way which meant passing a leccy repair van parked in the lane, as we squeezed past I heard the workman was in the back  so I braced myself for surprised barking but she just looked and carried on, the strangest things surprise me with her.

We had a very calm walk down the lane with just a couple of barks, as we passed the taj mahal (dont ask, the most appalling piece of architectural design ever seen :nonod the magic gates opened , unfortunately a lady was coming out of them so she thought the barks were for her.

Round the back up into DS aley and boom!! Shes off into scamper mode, a couple of minutes later I see why, a lady with two dogs ahead, we hang back and then follow, she cuts up into the school and as I cant see her I assume she has gone into the xc course, so we carry on rabbit jumping up the alley, totally not expecting her to to pop back out again 5m in front just where the groundsmen piled sticks and stuff to stop people cutting through 

I turn back down DS (it was proper littered with bakers poos today ) with my snarling tasmanian devil dog but she quietens quite quickly and sits for half a wotsit  (I know :hand: its my latest weapon of choice, just for emergencies, it works so there :001_tongue

We turn back and she is scampering and squeaking like a proper demented excited thing :huh: getting worse as we get to the end of the alley. I have her look at the retreating dogs for another half a wotsit, the crunching sound as I break them draws her attention :001_tongue:

We get across the road with out incident despite the ladies at the bus stop & two young lads wheeling trolleys of fishing gear towards us along with the noisy cars and vans. Round the corner into the estate and there's an enormous WOOF WOOF going on  its not a house we are used to hearing woofs from.

Its a local gardener at work, his big territorial lab is standing unleashed in the unfenced front garden while a little elderly lady stands rooted to the spot shopping trolley in front as a barrier not daring to move past, I dont think he is dangerous just noisy but she certainly thought so and I didn't blame her  

I managed to get my now barking dog round the corner and walked the back way home, with more sitting and wotsits :001_tongue: once she had calmed but we sere still within earshot, everything's a training opportunity after all  I would rather she didn't bark in that sort of situation but am not overly concerned at it TBH I think its natural for a barker, he was shouting at the street so she shouted back.

Anyway I got home, lobbed her through the front door and went out to check on the lady. She had gone so she either got past or was eaten :huh:

I was tempted to say something to the gardener but what could you say, 'please stop doing that I had to walk further to avoid you and you scare old ladies'


----------



## SLB

Haven't had chance to read back/find my last post. 

But I went on my first long walk in a while on my own - they've had to deal with short bursts up the farm for a while because of the road works and the heat and my medical issues. 

Anyway I decided to bite the bullet and walked them around the woods. Well I have never seen my dogs so boring before. So I guess that means all my focus work is paying off 

They even walked by my side, offlead, past a few dogs. Lou recalled from a dog! 

Brilliant walk.


----------



## JenKyzer

GingerRogers said:


> JSW - I would try the light cooking, literally just to turn the outside white, then gradually reduce it, and try chopping into chunks as well, or feedminces till she gets used to the idea, ninja can still be a bit wary, odd dog that she is but once she gets into she loves it.


The blended chicken vaguely resembles mince.. frozen and now thawed.. still turned her nose up.. flash fried (It smelt good to me!!) and still bloody nothing ! Stubborn bitch :cursing:

Will read other posts and actually write a post on good stuff later .. going for a nice afternoon walk by the canal now


----------



## GingerRogers

JenSteWillow said:


> The blended chicken vaguely resembles mince.. frozen and now thawed.. still turned her nose up.. flash fried (It smelt good to me!!) and still bloody nothing ! Stubborn bitch :cursing:
> 
> Will read other posts and actually write a post on good stuff later .. going for a nice afternoon walk by the canal now


Grrrr dogs, have fun! 

ETA Just saw my earlier thread and realised I forgot to say that despite the stress I actually thought she did really well in the face of great ginger adversity 

The feeling when she sits and looks at me for guidance (or wotsits) is amazing :001_wub:


----------



## Canine K9

Right sooo

India- Human panties might work too and make sure she is okay in herself

Nicki- Very glad it went well for you

JSW- Doesn`t sound too good  No advice but hoping she`ll adjust to it in time!

GR-No advice but Sorry your walk wasn`t the best 

SLB- WELL DONE!! On your progress 

For us today. Well I went out for a bit and just got back since walking home from the other side of town. If Mr Bailey thinks a walk is on its way he`s going to have to think again! He can go out later when its cooled down not enjoying this heat again 
Did some training with him before, every walk and every day we are concentrating on recall. I started on Saturday not seen too much progress yet but we WILL and he WILL go off! 
I`ve got him sitting and lying down on a hand signal going to work on limp, beg, jump over a hoop in my arms and some heelwork to top it all off! Proper sad that the highlight of my day is training the dog :lol: I love it  
Of course we are battling his allergies so that`s obviously a bad thing 
The clothes tugging has stopped  So he`s a great little dog at the moment, long may it last!


----------



## Sarah1983

Bit of a mixed day here. Took Spendog down the woods, soon as I took his leash off he sprinted off. I found him down at the stream and had to wade in and haul him out  So yeah, not best impressed. He'd given me no sign that he was likely to take off until he ran. Practised recalls after getting him back on leash and he was perfect. Little sod.

He kinda redeemed himself later though. Jess the Munsterlander called and asked if he could come out to play :lol: so I took him out front. After a quick hello he demanded to work with me instead. We were out about an hour and a half and he spent some time playing with Jess but most of it offering me behaviours.

Stolen shoes


And a quiet moment


Off to catch up with whatever I've missed now


----------



## Dogless

Not caught up with anyone apart from Sarah's post yet (it was at the top of this page ). 

First the good - we had a lovely, very quiet walk in part of the forest that I haven't been to for a while (where we found the stray sheep - Kilo doesn't forget a chase fast ). We were up in the cloud and all we could hear was the dripping of the trees and some birds really as the cloud deadens sound so much it was perfect, boys on their best behaviour .

The bad.....

On way home, got a puncture, not too bad, used the gel stuff, checked tyre after 2 miles all good. Making way home at 45mph and had a total blowout on a busy dual carriageway. No hard shoulder .

So.....I stop where I have to and stand at the side of the road frantically waving traffic to go round us . Terrifying. Dogs still in boot as I couldn't get round safely to get them out and if I did where would they go?

Some police patrol cars passed, none stopped. Finally one stopped and I was asked what had happened - told them and said breakdown cover was waiving it's 90 min time as I was a priority so had an hour to wait. Police said they didn't have an hour to be sitting around so off they went.

Hour went by, no breakdown truck . Was then told 5.10pm bearing in mind blowout was at about 2.30pm

Then the workshop would be shut so vehicle would be left there overnight. NOT GOOD ENOUGH so they agreed to have a mechanic stay behind seeing as it wasn't my fault.

Get collected at 4.50pm, dogs endure stranger driving car then hauled up onto ramp very well.

Arrive at garage, new tyre, new sh*tty gel boll*cks, nice bill. Home at 6pm.

I have to take car back for wheel balancing tomorrow and will receive a free valet .

Poor CHs are sparked, they spent so long in the boot with lorries and cars almost hitting them, then got put on the breakdown truck and back off again and then the car being jacked up and wheel changed.

THEN they both barked at new lady in road's kids (Rudi hadn't barked all day as he doesn't really bark at much bar in play - Kilo barked at the truck and wheel changing experience!) yelling "See told you, just Jack Russells here little doggie woggies"  whilst some of her other kids ran round in mock panic . Perfect end to the perfect day really!


----------



## Dogless

I have read everyones' posts but have forgotten most already - sorry!!! Will read back again later.

Sarah, your photos are lovely and GR Ninja is doing well still .



JenSteWillow said:


> Dogless - Good to hear your pleased with the new lights, me and OH were discussing this the other night and what we're going to do when a good chunk of Willows walks are going to be in darkness but we want to offlead her.. if you have any recommendations - send them our way  sounds like you had a good walk.. even with the deadly double trouble RR hunting twosome ..  such good boys!


I multiquoted this ^^^^ as I read through so....

Collars I like http://www.mybigdog.co.uk/dog-colla...vid-flashing-large-dog-collar-black/c-com003/ - it is really bright and charges from your USB port.

The lights I trialled clipped onto the boys' harnesses last night are: Ruffwear The Beacon Dog Safety Light with Free Delivery at Above and Beyond They were visible zooming about through the trees really easily.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear  that sounds like a very traumatic experience Dogless, I hope the valet is a really good one 

Sarah sounds like silly Spen was suitably chastised by his lapse from sensible


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh dear  that sounds like a very traumatic experience Dogless, I hope the valet is a really good one
> 
> Sarah sounds like silly Spen was suitably chastised by his lapse from sensible


Yup, a long and very stressful day. The CHs are snoring their heads off bless them .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless - Sorry to hear about your stressful afternoon  It sounds horrid - glad the boys coped well with it ! The walk at first sounds so nice though 

Sarah - Nice pics  Silly spencer for running off! Glad he redeemed himself 

CK9 - Thankyou  Good luck with recall, thats my tougie at the mo  glad he's stopped clothes tugging and well done for the hand signals 

SLB - sounds like an amazing walk!! 

GR - Sorry to hear its a stressy day  Wotsits  what a good smelly idea!! Glad u managed to grab attention with these 

----

We had a really nice afternoon walk by the canal today with my friend and my goddaughter who Willow loves and she loves Willow  
1st dog was at the entrance.. i couldn't avoid walking by them.. so had to move quickly and stern 'carry on' she stared a little too much but no pulling or noise.
2nd and 3rd dog came at once, one infront & one behind  we sat at the side soo nicely and watched them both pass by  even my friend commented on how well she was and what a difference :wink: 
4th dog was pulling and huffing to get to her but owner was well in control.. Willow again sat at the side and just watched.
5th&6th were across the canal.. one of them was going wild barking and running up and down the jetty (it was a house that backs onto the canal) then another dog appeared all stern looking and staring.. i said to my friend 'oh here we go.. she's gunna bark..' I was made to eat my words as she stared slightly but then 'carry on' and she carried on.. no noise.. no over looking.. all her hairs were stood up on her back though so she wasn't happy at the other dog shouting at us at all.. i was amazed at her reaction  Needless to say she got lots of fuss when we were out of the way.
Lots of cyclists.. this worried me as we don't experience this alot.. but she did well and was good practice of onlead recall as i had to call her to the side with 'this way' and points.. she didn't get in the way once! Very impressed. She went the correct way then come back to me for a sit whilst they passed  Lots of ducks in the water.. we saw swans with swan babies!.. and geese! She just watched on and didn't mind them  Very pleased with her walk. (Not so pleased with her still refusing to eat :nonod: )


----------



## Guest

We need more pics of your Dog Jen!! Gorgeous!

Holy Cow Dogless! :mad2: At the shitty police and shitty breakdown people, we;ve had that before had to wait 4 hours to be picked up!

Sorry that Spen scarpered sarah, I hope it doesn't happen again!

We have had another day of offlead dogs running up to us and my dog reacting my jumping on them and growling at them till they squeal 
One owner helpfully yelled that their dog had Kennel Cough as it rushed to meet mine... :scared:


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## Dogless

Can't "like" your post LO - hope you have a better day tomorrow.


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## Guest

Dogless said:


> Can't "like" your post LO - hope you have a better day tomorrow.


I am a bit unsure how to go about it really dogless, the trainer we have been seeing reccomends a 'watch me' which we are working on, but of course the more times he reacts negatively the more he is going to repeat it as it works, because the dogs gets taken away/scared off/or I drag him away.

I hope you have better day tomorrow too, and Sarah too.


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## Labrador Laura

K9 - Sounds like bailey is coming along nicely  Keep it up ! 

Sarah: Glad Spencer redeemed himself and the Munsterlander is gorgeous ! Lovely pictures.

Dogless - Wow, what a stressfull event ! You seem to of handled it very well. Glad you got home safely and the boys are okay.

Willow - Well done Willow on your walk  Hope she starts to eat better soon.


-----

You wouldn't believe what happened to me today  ..
I took the boys down to the canal today after yesterdays lovely event, My grandma joined us again today with one of her dogs and the boys were well behaved. We walked up to a pub had a brew and some lunch (won't be eating there again)  then heading back to the car. On the way back I stopped to read a notice out for my grandma which was on the other side of the canal. Whilst I was doing this Zab fell into the canal I don't know how or why he did it but he just went into a blind panic as he's never swam before. I went to help him as he was trying to climb out as I was doing this guess who lost their footing and fell in too  ! Thankfully I was only wet from the waist down, My grandma helped me out whilst I kept hold of Zab then we got him out ! I'm not having much luck with the dogs these pass two days  Alot of squelching came from my shoes as we walked back to the car but we're both okay! But I did have a phone call off my mum about 20mins ago laughing her head off, things don't keep quiet with the women in my family ! 

Staying indoors tomorrow with bubble wrap :thumbup:


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## Dogless

Oh dear LL :scared:. Picturing the scene did make me laugh though I am afraid  .


----------



## Labrador Laura

Dogless said:


> Oh dear LL :scared:. Picturing the scene did make me laugh though I am afraid  .


It was funny once I got out  Atleast I know Zab doesn't sink, he can 
sort of swim.


----------



## JenKyzer

LO - Thanks  theres quite a few of her dotted around the forum .. One of which is this one..

.. But i'll repost just for you :biggrin:
Sorry to hear about your walk  your not alone in hating those offlead dog owners who can't control their dogs! I'm in shock that woman even had her dog off lead with K C !! Slowly but surely, nothing will shock me anymore. 
I always find a nice good day follows a bad day .. you can look forward to that  'watch me' didn't work for us unfortunately .. she was too focused on the dogs  I hope you find something that works for you guys soon 

LL - I'll be honest.. I laughed. I'm sorry! It does sound like a fun walk though  Hope Zab was ok after it though, bless him! Willow was toying with the idea of getting in the canal today.. she chickened out though the big wuss!


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## Guest

:001_wub: Lovely lovely lovely!


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## Nicki85

Oh my, silly Zab falling in and poor you!! I've often wondered if that will be my fate one day.

JSW- sounds like you had a really good walk- well done you and Miss Willow!

Spendog- naughty boy  Number of times RUst has done that to me... starts of pottering and being good and then they are gone! Gr.

DL- sounds like your day has been a bit of a mission   glad you and the boys are home safe though.

Well, went down to a local park to practice Shae in car whilst Rust runs around. All ok, some shreiking but calmed down to gentle whining. DId some running around and being silly with them both  

We are off on holiday on Saturday (stupidly excited!) up to sunny Bala! Packing stuff for dogs... you name it I have it for them. Shae has been very helpful checking food and toys going in. Rusty has been busy looking worried and hiding... So i've got lots of food, treats, chews, towels, dog coats, toys, collars with tags... longlines... harnesses... flexi leads, poo bags, tick removers, ear drops, Rusty's radioactive tracking collar... Need to sort my stuff out now. And I cleaned the car specially! 

Oh and Rusty has learnt "hide" paw on nose  Clever boy! So cute... And Shae started shaping two back feet on a plank for final position on agility equipment, I think* she has it. Will proof tomorrow...


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## Dogless

JSW - you take lovely photos .

Nicki - Hope the holiday is fantastic! I always pack really carefully for the dogs and end up taking too much. For me I throw a few things in a bag .


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## Nicki85

Thanks DL.

Just taken Rust out for a run... he ended up looking like this after he mud dived...










Shae I took round the forest and played a lot of ball and tug... then out into the village where it was bus time so lots (well, 5!) waiting for the bus. She was very good stayed nice and close to me and no lunging to go say hi or barking. Even a person coming out of a gate didn't phase her... gold star for miss. Shae!


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## GingerRogers

Oh Rusty 
ETA the photo of Rusty looking so very pleased with himself distracted me, have a lovely holiday, are you going somewhere nice and are the dogs going too?

ETA again sorry Laura but I laughed too 

Well another mixed walk today, mixed cos of other people and miss monkey brains equally.

We started off by seeing a dog almost straight off but dived down a side street with just two barks, very low key, just wuff wuff, I kept looking back for this dog and the man and boy with it but they had vanished.

We carried on quite happily not seeing anyone till we were naughty and cut up into the xc course , half way through I realised they had been creosoting the jumps so I was bit nervous that we were going to get trampled by a horse charging through, a bit irrational really as I had passed the field where they park up if there's an event and it was empty. So we made it back onto the drive and a lady and girl came towards us, I think she had sensed my tension and I saw her wind herself up and then she barked at them , I apologised then realised I should have used my new found wotsit skills, I will remember next time :

Any way we just toddled back home, past one of the pair of dogs from yesterday staring out its front gate, she looked and just walked on by, back through the estate, just passing the triangle of interesting smells and :yikes: thats where the man and boy and dog went  why are they hiding in the trees in the middle of a housing estate, in any other housing estate I would probably find this quite normal but it isn't here, we are well to do you know , I suspect they might have been waiting to get into a holiday home as they had a girl and a lady and some bags with them (not normally till 4pm so a long old wait for them) but I wish they wouldn't, jolted us right out of our calmness .

I realise I have glossed over passing the dog at the gate but thats because I can only assume she didnt see it, but she must have known it was there, she looked across FGS so I am just amazed and think I should just keep quiet and not question it.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry LL, I laughed at you too 

Spencer is impressed at Rustys mud diving skills.

I videoed a training session with Spencer last night if anyone wants to watch it. It's only 5 minutes long and not very exciting but it's the start of shaping him to stand with his front paws on a book. He can already do it on a large box or a bench but doing it on something he can pick up and/or push around is apparently more difficult for him. I think I need something a bit less slippery and inclined to move though.

[youtube_browser]AT0lZ87mnVc&feature=youtu.be[/youtube_browser]


----------



## Dogless

Rusty :skep: :lol:.

GR - I will say well done but quietly so that it hasn't been said either even though I am very impressed . And the irrational fear? Totally normal I reckon :crazy:.

I have two stressed dogs this morning, Kilo the most by a long chalk, as per.

Cycled to the top fields with Rudi, played about and did some Ready Steady and he is doing really well which makes me proud . He was a bit tired so not too much running about and we came home.

Drove with Kilo to the same field as the other day. I suspect because of yesterday's experience he decided to bark at anything he saw moving from the boot. Then was really pully and jittery when we got out - until he saw I had the big blue tuggy that he loves and we played some fast paced Ready Steady. He was absolutely on the ball again, really enthused and focussed - and then we had a sniff and a wander. But a certain scent made him stop in his tracks and freeze and look around wildly a few times which wasn't good. Can only guess that it was the dog that attacked him's scent maybe? Who knows.

I am looking for a few more games to put into Ready Steady. What we do at present apart from the basics of waiting whilst the toy is thrown is:

1. Wait whilst the toy is thrown all around / human runs / Diz runs / I play with Diz etc and go for the toy when released.

2. Sit or down at a distance then released to get the toy.

3. Toy thrown and emergency stop mid chase with or without a recall after that.

4. Down at a distance mid chase.

5. Any combination of 3 & 4 if I have thrown the toy far enough. 3,4,5 done with dog running towards or away from me.

6. Recall mid chase.

7. Wait with me walking away and then releasing to get toy held in my hand.

Probably some more but that is all I can think of now. I love playing impulse control stuff with Kilo - he LOVES it but my imagination seems to have stalled.

Have seen a set of rally - o cards somewhere that I was tempted with to start setting my own course up as we both really enjoyed the taster session we had too.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - I had to abandon watching your video but will watch when I find my headphones as the tags jingling worried Kilo and the clicker was making them both look for treats . The first minute was good though  .

ETA: watched the rest silently - it is good; Spen's from the Rudi school of delicacy!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - I had to abandon watching your video but will watch when I find my headphones as the tags jingling worried Kilo and the clicker was making them both look for treats . The first minute was good though  .
> 
> ETA: watched the rest silently - it is good; Spen's from the Rudi school of delicacy!


Aww poor Kilo  Not missing anything watching silently, just me clicking and the sound of Spen coughing up a treat to eat it a second time 

And yes, the first couple of sessions will be very much a case of no finesse :lol: He gets a bit too excited to really think when we start working on something new but a couple of sessions and I'll be able to start refining it a bit from "omg, stomp on book" to what it is I actually want. He's so very different from Rupert who was slow and careful and methodical in what he offered.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Aww poor Kilo  Not missing anything watching silently, just me clicking and the sound of Spen coughing up a treat to eat it a second time
> 
> And yes, the first couple of sessions will be very much a case of no finesse :lol: He gets a bit too excited to really think when we start working on something new but a couple of sessions and I'll be able to start refining it a bit from "omg, stomp on book" to what it is I actually want. He's so very different from Rupert who was slow and careful and methodical in what he offered.


Same here - Kilo is methodical and slow and Rudi.....points for enthusiasm! .


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Same here - Kilo is methodical and slow and Rudi.....points for enthusiasm! .


Oh yes, we've certainly got plenty of that  Took me a while to adapt to Spens style at first but I love his eagerness. Rupert was eager but much more restrained and more worried about not getting a click for something.


----------



## Nicki85

Spen looks like he is enjoying thinking and learning  Rusty is a thinker but a quick thinker if that makes sense... Takes Shae longer to get something but that is because she is all 100miles an hour throwing things at me...

DL- in terms of impulse control stuff, what about using two or even three toys? So you can direct him to which ever you want? You probably do that already though  Have you introduced Rudi into the mix? That's the hardest thing ever for Shae.


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless will we be treated to some video I'd love to see you boys in action. Sorry they are stressy today, the breakdown sounds like it was a bit of a nightmare all round. Tink was stressed by the sound of tags and is still a little senstitive if she is can hear them but not see the source. 


Sarah Love Spendog he's such a happy boy, his brain working overtime. 

GR I love the walking past that was great fingers crossed it's a hint of more to come 

Nicki have a lovely holiday... rusty looks positively delightly with his mud facial and well done Shae 

LL sorry I did laugh about your canal dip, it's so easily the sort of thing I would do. I trip over at least once most walks and that's without canine assistance 

JSW lovely pics of Willow

Waves and best wishes to everyone else.


We've had a bit of an up and down week. Staring unsure hackle raised,tail high GSD stood by my car as a finished a walk was probably the low point while it's owner walked off, closer followed by the charging aussie and gsd, On the upside Tink does seem to the shaking off these things by the next walk although a little more cautious at the very start. 

Training wise we're adding, peep and peer looking left and right when stood between my legs.

Adding additional toys to the drawer in the mousetrap retrieve.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Spen looks like he is enjoying thinking and learning  Rusty is a thinker but a quick thinker if that makes sense... Takes Shae longer to get something but that is because she is all 100miles an hour throwing things at me...
> 
> DL- in terms of impulse control stuff, what about using two or even three toys? So you can direct him to which ever you want? You probably do that already though  Have you introduced Rudi into the mix? That's the hardest thing ever for Shae.


Yes, we use a few toys sometimes and he'll be directed.

I tend to train them separately with this game although do train the basics together - Roo isn't near Kilo in terms of control yet. Kilo is very good around Diz in the mix but suspect that all my focus would be on what Rudi is up to if he was offlead . Rudi's "stay" isn't reliable enough to cope with how worked up Kilo gets . Kilo would wait and let me do it with Rudi though.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> *Dogless will we be treated to some video I'd love to see you boys in action*. Sorry they are stressy today, the breakdown sounds like it was a bit of a nightmare all round. Tink was stressed by the sound of tags and is still a little senstitive if she is can hear them but not see the source.
> 
> Sarah Love Spendog he's such a happy boy, his brain working overtime.
> 
> GR I love the walking past that was great fingers crossed it's a hint of more to come
> 
> Nicki have a lovely holiday... rusty looks positively delightly with his mud facial and well done Shae
> 
> LL sorry I did laugh about your canal dip, it's so easily the sort of thing I would do. I trip over at least once most walks and that's without canine assistance
> 
> JSW lovely pics of Willow
> 
> Waves and best wishes to everyone else.
> 
> We've had a bit of an up and down week. Staring unsure hackle raised,tail high GSD stood by my car as a finished a walk was probably the low point while it's owner walked off, closer followed by the charging aussie and gsd, On the upside Tink does seem to the shaking off these things by the next walk although a little more cautious at the very start.
> 
> Training wise we're adding, peep and peer looking left and right when stood between my legs.
> 
> Adding additional toys to the drawer in the mousetrap retrieve.


Yes, promise. Trying to work myself up to it . The whole breakdown was a nightmare, very stressful! They are snoring their heads off right now so all good .

It is amazing how Miss Tinks is shaking things off actually; what would have been a real disaster a while back is now not good by any means, but not a disaster and that is brilliant .


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## Nicki85

Yup, Shae finds it far to exciting at the moment to play the game with her and Rusty! Shae's favourite is having a fluffy toy dragged behind me as I run. She can't quite stay yet if I run around and make it exciting!!


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## LinznMilly

Hi all.

Have had a quick catch up, but a lot has gone out of my head.

Sarah; I agree with Dogless. I'm afraid I stopped the vid as soon as I heard the clicker go off in case either of my 2 numpties decided it was training time (again)  I'll turn the sound off and watch again after this. Spen's training style sounds so very much like Max's  The stuff he knows well he's do with a flourish, but when he's just learning something (like Close the Door) he jumps all over the place and thought/working it out takes a hike.  Milly's more slow and methodical, but she does get there in the end.

Dogless; Sorry to hear Kilo was so stress today after what happened yesterday  Glad he recovered for a game of Ready Steady. I've been away from this thread for a while so that's the first time I'd heard of Ready Steady ... sounds a bit like an ambition of mine, but I don't think I have any chance of even starting it with M&M  :lol:

LL; Sorry, I'm another one who had to laugh at your little predicament  Glad you and Zab are OK though 

I'm pleased to report _Operation Crate Phase-Out _is going very well indeed  My mum took the dogs for a half-hour to 40 minutes walk for me yesterday, and after about an hour of them coming back, I had to leave for a hospital appointment (am on the sick atm, with another eczema flair up, an eye infection, and just generally feeling "burned out"). I was gone for 3 hours, left Milly out of the crate, and when I got back, the living room was as I'd left it  Same again this morning, although only for 2 hours. Even on those occasions when it isn't, tbh, it's usually something like a cardboard box or paper bag that she's found and torn up, rather than something that could potentially be dangerous and/or something I don't want her to destroy. Thoughts??

Also, just today, (for those of you who may not have seen my picture thread) because poor hard-done-to Milly was feeling oh, so left out  I've started another trick/game for her - a useful one this time  "Where's the Kong". I'm sick of bliddy having to hunt for the things so I've started training the dogs to do it - starting, this time, with Mill. She picked it up really quickly, actually, after the initial blank stare and me picking it up, moving it a few feet, then putting it back down and repeating "Where's the Kong", she soon went over, nosed it, and was rewarded with a C&T. I'll have to get a video of it  I've just started teaching Max the same trick/game, although atm, he's so used to the kong having the treats inside it, he's still pushing it over looking for the goodies, bless him.


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## GingerRogers

what a good idea L&M find the things you bluddy lost dog 

spen is so keen Sarah

my brain is fried I have been trying to finish up lots of loose ends for work so I can take next week off it was fried before that hence why I want a week off

but now it here eeeeeeeeeeeee


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> what a good idea L&M find the things you bluddy lost dog
> 
> spen is so keen Sarah
> 
> my brain is fried I have been trying to finish up lots of loose ends for work so I can take next week off it was fried before that hence why I want a week off
> 
> but now it here eeeeeeeeeeeee


Reckon your impulse control for a glass of the good stuff's rubbish right now .


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## Canine K9

Right quickie on my mobile
Liz- sorry you don't feel too well but well done with the dogs  No advice other than do you leave them with stuffed kongs puzzles ect? 
Moon violet- well done for tink shaking things off she's done great!
Dogless- sorry kilo was stressed 

Sorry if I've missed anyone 
Today we went for a long walk and got a few good recalls including off a scent! Recall is really coming on nicely it only took a few extra mins a day  
I filmed him when I went out this morning for 45 mins he barked for around 3 minutes when we left but then he was quiet and slept.


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## LinznMilly

Canine K9 said:


> Right quickie on my mobile
> Liz- sorry you don't feel too well but well done with the dogs  *No advice other than do you leave them with stuffed kongs* puzzles ect?
> Moon violet- well done for tink shaking things off she's done great!
> Dogless- sorry kilo was stressed
> 
> Sorry if I've missed anyone
> Today we went for a long walk and got a few good recalls including off a scent! Recall is really coming on nicely it only took a few extra mins a day
> I filmed him when I went out this morning for 45 mins he barked for around 3 minutes when we left but then he was quiet and slept.


Thanks for the imput CK9.  It really is appreciated. The thought had crossed my mind, too, but last time I tried leaving her with a kong, she'd left an accident on the floor when I got back. :blink: Tbf, that was a while ago now, so I can't remember how long it had been between her last toilet break and me leaving, but IIRC, I don't think I was away that long, so I'm rather loathe to leave her with a kong, unless she's in her crate ... which defeats the whole purpose in the first place ... :blink: :crazy:

*please excuse me while my head explodes* :laugh:


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## Dogless

LinznMilly said:


> Thanks for the imput CK9.  It really is appreciated. The thought had crossed my mind, too, but last time I tried leaving her with a kong, she'd left an accident on the floor when I got back. :blink: Tbf, that was a while ago now, so I can't remember how long it had been between her last toilet break and me leaving, but IIRC, I don't think I was away that long, so I'm rather loathe to leave her with a kong, unless she's in her crate ... which defeats the whole purpose in the first place ... :blink: :crazy:
> 
> *please excuse me while my head explodes* :laugh:


I am scuppered rather than totally ignoring you, sorry . I'll have another think!


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## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> I filmed him when I went out this morning for 45 mins he barked for around 3 minutes when we left but then he was quiet and slept.


That's not too bad at all then; not as much work to do as you had feared .


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## LinznMilly

Just left Milly out of the crate while I went out for the evening. First time I've ever done that. Took the dogs out for an evening walk beforehand, and am pleased to report it looks like Milly's spent the time I've been away, asleep.


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## Dogless

LinznMilly said:


> Just left Milly out of the crate while I went out for the evening. First time I've ever done that. Took the dogs out for an evening walk beforehand, and am pleased to report it looks like Milly's spent the time I've been away, asleep.


That's really good :thumbup:.


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## Dogless

Great walk this morning. Drove both dogs to the top fields (for Kilo) and because I am afraid to walk both dogs together through the estate still ; pleased I did as we saw the dog that attacked him being walked where we would have had to pass them. They hadn't had a zoom and play with their toys together on the field since the attack - so about 5 weeks - and were both very excited :crazy:. I just let them play and play with a few recalls and down / stays thrown in when they were getting a bit too silly. Had two exhausted, tongue - lolling dogs after an hour. My best boys :001_wub:.


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## JenKyzer

We've just got Willow a baskerville muzzle  Hoping to use this when i know we're going to 'doggy' places (eg The woods!) specially when i don't have the OH with me.. I'm hoping people might see it and assume the worst and not let their dogs near  although what i hope and what actually happens i know are two different things. It will make me more confident (hopefully) when a dog approaches without an owner, i know we're making progress but this is just a precaution. Plus, she doesn't seem to mind having it on and i prefer it to her other muzzle. 

Up to the res last night for an offlead walk, she performed perfect recall for OH .. i had to stick with throwing the ball and her bringing it to me  she did some good stays for me and then came back to me when asked.. but still won't just come back to me  i had to stop her first.

This morning .. well.. she deserved 10 gold stars!! She hates cats.. with a passion. I haven't really worked on this, just the usual 'leave' 'carry on' .. the other morning she flew at one under my legs and i ended up on the floor!! .. Today.. she saw it lolling across the pavement over the road.. stared.. looked at me  i gave a firm 'stay' whilst i caught up.. then 'leave & carry on' .. and she did ! I was gobsmacked.. i didn't have to pull her away or lock the lead into short mode.. she just carried on with a little whine but then i gave her loadsa fuss  I'm assuming this is going to be an one off but still  i was pleased at the lack of lunging, barking and gobshite-ness she normally displays with cats 
Did some onlead recalls.. again. She's also getting better at waiting for me .. on corners i cant see round and don't want her going round without me and before we cross roads. I'm assuming this is because we do the same morning walk every day so its becoming habit to stay at these places  pleasing stuff though (for me anyway!) . 

Her eating is progressing but i have that on another thread so not to bore you guys day in day out with raw meat info and poo talk  but hopefully can start clicker-ing again tomorrow if all keeps going well (her refusing to eat meant no treats  )


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## Canine K9

Liz- Thats great stuff 

Dogless- Aww thats great 

JSW- Well done on this morning

Good day here also. Went to puppy agility as usual and he did great!  He got pounced on (playfully) by an OTT Lab and he squealed and panicked, BUT was fine with the other dogs after still. Bless him. Did some clicker training before which went lovely, but his blimmin allergies! Its awful because he needs rinsing down several times a day, and he hates water I have to hold him down


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## GingerRogers

Jen I hope the muzzle will make a difference, if any thing I think its made a big difference to my confidence, it doesn't deter people with dogs they still think ninjas cute, people without dogs, well when she barks near (at ) them, then they think she must be really vicious 

Glad she is coming on with the feeding, I didn't just get a bit over excited when I saw the dog food freezer at the garden centre honest, I can fit a 2kg bag of tripe and another of poultry necks in the dog food drawer of the freezer honest 

We had rain this morning, never thought I could walk from home on bank holiday summer Saturday :thumbsup:

We went down to the marsh and as we are walking along the bank she keeps looking back, finally I see a family with a dog walking along the top path, they are about 100m away and increasing but she kept stopping to look behind so we practiced lots of 'lets go' she didn't even emit a whimper.

The heavens have proper opened up on us by now but ninja has a good zoom about in the wet grass on the way back, I was pleased with her she didn't go mad or run off after the dog or the mice or whatever else she was scenting.

She got a bit freaked by the main road and wet tyres so I turned up past the lundhunds track to get back home back home, nearly back in the estate and a man comes round the corner with a spaniel, the man all wrapped up in waterproofs me in a vest top :laugh: So back we go hoping he will take he other route but no he follows us slowly we get back to the main road, I managed to use the power of wotsit to get back past the lundhunds house with all her attention but then she barked at a lady with an umbrella, see above muzzle comment , I finally cross, but she is wound up now and barks at lots of traffic  I turn to look back up the track and the ruddy man has turned round, obviously just a go as far as needed walk its raining, lazy sod :angry:

I know I keep saying it but I am so pleased with ninja at the moment she is really coming on I think its just everything coming together. Before her spay we had some leaping progress, but now her hormones have settled, I am more confident with the muzzle, think the valerian is kicking in, and she is finally making the decisions herself or looking to me for guidance. Its amazing  and I really despaired it would happen once upon a time, love the little sprite :001_wub:


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## JenKyzer

GingerRogers said:


> Jen I hope the muzzle will make a difference, if any thing I think its made a big difference to my confidence, it doesn't deter people with dogs they still think ninjas cute, people without dogs, well when she barks near (at ) them, then they think she must be really vicious
> 
> Glad she is coming on with the feeding, I didn't just get a bit over excited when I saw the dog food freezer at the garden centre honest, I can fit a 2kg bag of tripe and another of poultry necks in the dog food drawer of the freezer honest


I remember your posts about muzzling and how better you felt  if anything, this helped spur on my decision  I don't want another incident like the other day and me trying to protect the dog that's doing more harm, by holding willow back  of course i don't want her to do damage, but maybe if she was muzzled at that point i would of felt more confident in giving her some slack whilst we walked off  funny how i'm now muzzling my dog even though it was the other dog who got hold of willow :angry: i've now confused myself completely writing this :laugh: !

Anyway, glad she responded to 'lets go'  clever girl. So nice to hear shes decision making or looking to you (for wotsits  !) .. I'm really pleased for you, honestly  You should be so proud


----------



## GingerRogers

I am very proud of her and sooooo pleased my stories are helping you. All the regulars on waywo have supported and helped me so much its really nice to think i can give some of that back.


----------



## Dogless

JSW - well done again . A muzzle helps me to remain calmer and hopefully like you said may deter the idiots. Some of them . Nice to hear GR's post are helping you too, that's what this thread is about .

GR - you have every right to be proud of the Ninja, she really is doing well at present. Sounds like you're having success with the valerian too.

K9 - Sounds awful that Bailey needs rinsing down several times a day when he hates it - quite an ordeal for you both. I'm not sure what to suggest really - you haven't got the luxury of time to do any desensitisation work yet Bailey will be stressed. Rock and a hard place .

I felt a bit woe is me so took off to the forest for the afternoon / early evening. Great remedy, the boys behaved really well for me :001_wub: even though they were full of it today and as if I don't love the place enough discovered a random patch of raspberries growing - thanks to some bird years ago I suspect .

Oh, BAD THING is that Kilo appears to have become intensely dog reactive in the car :thumbdown:. Went mad when we passed the dog that attacked him this morning but I wondered if he recognised him because Rudi did too - but went mad at the sibes who live on our road when we got home this evening when their owner walked them past, strolling past as close to the car as physically possible even though he could hear the single barks becoming frantic and see the car starting to rock. I felt like asking if he'd give them space, but they come up our drive on their flexis when Kilo barks from the porch if I don't sit him in time. I HOPE that it is because the car was on our drive and they passed very close. HOPE. PLEASE LET IT BE THAT!!!


----------



## Guest

Well done JSW and you have reason to be proud GR. 

We have had a "Stop the world I wanna get off!" few days here. :thumbdown:


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Well done JSW and you have reason to be proud GR.
> 
> We have had a "Stop the world I wanna get off!" few days here. :thumbdown:


Not good LO . It does keep on turning....and improve eventually. Apparently. I always have "Tomorrow is another day" on loop in my head when things are shitty.


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## GingerRogers

Oh no LO sorry about that. Share and we will try and help.

Dogless cut them some slack. I would be reactive at the dog that attacked and from what you said the sibes aren't model citizens. The only thing i can suggest is to try and stop it before it becomes habit though. Screen the windows. I have seen people driving with sheets on the windows. Its easy for me though . Stick ninja in her travel crate and she can't see.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Oh no LO sorry about that. Share and we will try and help.
> 
> *Dogless cut them some slack.* I would be reactive at the dog that attacked and from what you said the sibes aren't model citizens. The only thing i can suggest is to try and stop it before it becomes habit though. Screen the windows. I have seen people driving with sheets on the windows. Its easy for me though . Stick ninja in her travel crate and she can't see.


I'm not a tyrant I promise  . Slack will be cut :thumbup1:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I'm not a tyrant I promise  . Slack will be cut :thumbup1:.


Sorry that sounded a bit harsh  but i think they are bound to react to the staffy and i wouldn't blame them. I expect any dog on your street might be fair game. Car guarding is also very very common even with dogs that aren't really territorial normally.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry that sounded a bit harsh  but i think they are bound to react to the staffy and i wouldn't blame them. I expect any dog on your street might be fair game. Car guarding is also very very common even with dogs that aren't really territorial normally.


Yes, Kilo has always guarded the car when stationary and is a very territorial dog anyway - but this was a bit OTT!!!

I have been thinking more and I suspect he's still a bit stressed in there post breakdown. That was quite the day for them both .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Yes, Kilo has always guarded the car when stationary and is a very territorial dog anyway - but this was a bit OTT!!!
> 
> I have been thinking more and I suspect he's still a bit stressed in there post breakdown. That was quite the day for them both .


Yes it certainly was. And for you

Would lots of short trips that end without breakdowns help :001_huh:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Yes it certainly was. And for you
> 
> Would lots of short trips that end without breakdowns help :001_huh:


He jumps in and travels fine in there as he always has done - just goes to sleep. I suspect just ensuring I get him out promptly for now or even stopping somewhere, not getting out and nothing stressful happening. When he is stressed and tired after a long journey he can be like that at the port waiting for the ferry so I suspect that he will settle back down again soon.

I had just forgotten about the breakdown yesterday...how i don't know :frown2:.


----------



## LinznMilly

DL: Sorry to hear about Kilo reacting to the sibes in the car. Presumably sibe owner thinks the dog's in the car, so can't get to his dogs, so no need to give Kilo some space :frown2: I agree with GR's suggestion about maybe blocking the windows out so Kilo can't see the dog? Other than that, I have no real advice, really  Glad he still enjoys travelling though 

LO: Sorry to hear things aren't going so well  Is there anything we could help with? Sometimes, when I have a few bad days with one of mine, I find that ranting about it on here helps, even if the only thing it helps is save my sanity 

_ Operation Crate Phase-Out _took another leap yesterday. Until now, I've left Milly for no longer than 3 hours, but then my SIL phoned and invited me to see the Moscow State Circus yesterday afternoon, so after taking them for a half-hour run [ahem ... sprint, in Milly's case] with the ball launcher, and a quick, 5 minute game of _Where's The Kong_, I left...

I returned home 5 ... yes *FIVE *hours later, and the living room was as I'd left it :w00t: I fully expected Milly to have found something to rip up, or something, but nothing. I was thrilled! 

The crate is still up atm, but the door's shut :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Well done Milly :thumbup1::thumbup1:.


----------



## kat&molly

Hi all, sorry that my post is all me, me, me but brain has turned to mush due to having family over to stay, they leave tomorrow and I'm exhausted 
The girls have to go in the bedroom when they're here as the kids just cant leave them alone 

Evie is doing quite well on her walks, but I'm only doing ones wheres she's happy still,none from home just yet. The close holiday neighbours have left now and the others with the dog that pinned Evie will be returning to the UK soon. When they leave we'll just start from scratch again.

She's even coping with the family being here, because she's not forced to interact with them at all. Over she's a lot less stressed than she was.


----------



## Dogless

k&m - lovely to hear that Evie's stress levels are coming down; you can really make inroads when your visitors leave and the family with the dog that pinned her too :thumbup1:.

Not much from me today - played in the garden this morning and then spent all afternoon in the forest; apart from some recalls / waits / coming in to heel the CHs just did whatever they liked .

Reckon that's pretty much them for the night bar their "snack" a bit later .

(Crap phone pic!!)


----------



## JenKyzer

LurcherOwner said:


> Well done JSW and you have reason to be proud GR.
> 
> We have had a "Stop the world I wanna get off!" few days here. :thumbdown:


Only 'liked' for the first bit, thankyou 
Sorry to hear about your few days  a good patch follows a bad patch i tend to find .. i hope everything evens out for you soon 



LinznMilly said:


> _ Operation Crate Phase-Out _took another leap yesterday. Until now, I've left Milly for no longer than 3 hours ... I returned home 5 ... yes *FIVE *hours later, and the living room was as I'd left it :w00t: I fully expected Milly to have found something to rip up, or something, but nothing. I was thrilled!


Yay, well done to Milly  what a good girl :thumbup1:

K&M - glad to hear Evie is less stressed 

Dogless - Sounds like a great day :thumbup1: the boys all folded down look so adorable :001_wub:

----

Sunday = Willow & OH fun day whilst i go off to work 
Aperantly she's made a new friend today with her new muzzle on  .. OH friends have a rottie - i've never met it, only seen it headbutting their window and going a tad crazy whilst we've walked past their house :eek6: .. so he was muzzled too. They got on really well OH said  aperantly a little too well as he tried to hump her numerous times  but willow warned him off.. they played really nice too though! 
She's also doing really well with her feeding now :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

JSW - I'm pleased Willow's decided to eat, what a relief! . Great that she has made a new friend as well.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> JSW - I'm pleased Willow's decided to eat, what a relief! . Great that she has made a new friend as well.


It did take for the big guns to come out though.. Tuna in spring water. As i couldn't get hold of salmon oil til next week. But we now don't need to mix with tuna and she also loves chicken on the bone! She made a big fuss over nothing, the daft thing  Still using my thread on the nutrition bit for advice though, SLB has been wonderful to us :blushing: as have other members - really don't know how people manage without PF


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> It did take for the big guns to come out though.. Tuna in spring water. As i couldn't get hold of salmon oil til next week. But we now don't need to mix with tuna and she also loves chicken on the bone! She made a big fuss over nothing, the daft thing  Still using my thread on the nutrition bit for advice though, SLB has been wonderful to us :blushing: as have other members - really don't know how people manage without PF


Don't think I caught your thread or at least haven't followed it or I would have helped; sounds as if you're totally under control now though :thumbup1:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Don't think I caught your thread or at least haven't followed it or I would have helped; sounds as if you're totally under control now though :thumbup1:.


If you wanted a little nosey (there are some pics from today  ) - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/321558-willows-raw-feeding-suggestions-welcome.html
Just my way of keeping a diary and anyone who has more experience can steer me in the right direction  .. plus i found the raw diary sticky soo useful so anyone else who's debating to take the raw plunge can have a little nosey too if they wanted whilst we're still new to it. (Plus it stops me writing about raw meat and poop on here  )


----------



## Guest

Well Linz you did suggest a rant...

Its just Zand seems to be getting worse, now with growling and lunging at far away dogs and he's still terrified of the car, and car hubs, and the kitten, and the wheelie bins on occasion, and being terrified of not being allowed into a bedroom at night (Full on shakes then). He leaps on dogs now and growls at them, nobody will give me space and they will say such lovely remarks as "he should be put down." and "people like you shouldn't have dogs" or "Oh I see you still have no control over that mongrel". 
Of course he is good as gold for my mother.

It just fecks me off, I have been going to the training (not that'd you believe me if you ever saw us), I have read all the books and done what I thought was right and I still have a dog with ISHOOS. 

Also personal life is not going amazing. Dead end Job, Cannot drive due to lack of money (and no licence LESSONS ARE EXPENSIVES) yet to get a better job I need to drive (I live in a rich countryside area so BUSES what are they?) I still live at home with parent cause I cannot afford to move out and finding a landlord that will take on a medium to large dog is not possible. 

Okay rant over. Sorry.


----------



## Dogless

Oh LO . I can't "like" your post and really have nothing to suggest at present as you are already seeing a behaviourist.


----------



## Canine K9

LO- Nothing to say but hope all works out for you 

Nothing to report really. He didn`t get a walk today so he`s booked in for a long country walk tomorrow and St Annes next Sunday 
He`s being a good boy, except at bed time he has learned how to open the door and let himself out so he has been locked in= him barking then settling down. That was last night so hoping he is better tonight.
I`m a bit worried about how he will be week on Wed. I`m back at school frown2 and I except he`ll be a little upset I`m not around all day but I expect he`ll adjust again :thumbup1:


----------



## LinznMilly

LurcherOwner said:


> Well Linz you did suggest a rant...
> 
> Its just Zand seems to be getting worse, now with growling and lunging at far away dogs and he's still terrified of the car, and car hubs, and the kitten, and the wheelie bins on occasion, and being terrified of not being allowed into a bedroom at night (Full on shakes then). He leaps on dogs now and growls at them, nobody will give me space and they will say such lovely remarks as "he should be put down." and "people like you shouldn't have dogs" or "Oh I see you still have no control over that mongrel".
> Of course he is good as gold for my mother.
> 
> It just fecks me off, I have been going to the training (not that'd you believe me if you ever saw us), I have read all the books and done what I thought was right and I still have a dog with ISHOOS.
> 
> Also personal life is not going amazing. Dead end Job, Cannot drive due to lack of money (and no licence LESSONS ARE EXPENSIVES) yet to get a better job I need to drive (I live in a rich countryside area so BUSES what are they?) I still live at home with parent cause I cannot afford to move out and finding a landlord that will take on a medium to large dog is not possible.
> 
> Okay rant over. Sorry.


We.....lll that puts my little hissy fit right in its place 

Ignorance must really be blissful. Just allow your dog to amble up to anyone and everyone, get into all sorts of trouble, cause any DINOS dog to go over-threshold by invading their personal space, and then when you've sent that other dog over-threshold because you have no control over your own dog, you should be so considerate and helpful towards the owner of DINOS dog and point out that their dog needs to be PTS as the owner obviously has no control over it :mad2: :mad2:

I'm truly sorry people are so ignorant that they fail to see they're the ones causing the problem in the first place. Max is/was a DINOS, and doesn't like it when other dogs get into his personal space, either, but with him, it was a relatively simple matter of putting him behind my legs, and giving him a place to feel safe that helped him. Not tonight though, but more on that later.

As for cars, Max doesn't like it when people start up their cars too close to him. It startles him and he jumps to the side. If I see a car about to start up, I put myself between him and the car and walk on as normal, but I can't say he has a problem with their hub caps.

-------​
Today's not been that great for me, either. I feel like I've done nothing but drag Max along on walks 

First of all, this afternoon I was looking forward to going to a fun dog show held at a local farm - first one I've ever been to. There was me, my brother, SIL, mum, the kids and the 4 dogs.

We decided to take the dogs for a walk around the field first, then my brother and his son decided to go along a different path to us, seeing as bro knew full well that the higher (and to my 7y/o nephew MUCH more interesting) path eventually joined up to the one we'd initially intended to go along. I carried on with my dogs, who were both on lead, but if there is any collie in Max, it comes to the fore in the form of herding instincts, and he just HAS to keep the family (especially the kids) together, so he neither liked, nor appreciated my bro and the kids wandering off without us, and kept pulling in the opposite direction, trying to find them. Even when he heard, and finally saw, my nephew, bro and niece reappear at the top of the hill, he kept trying to reach them.

Then we joined up with my SIL and mum, who declared the farm too muddy after recent rainfall so whilst the dog show was on, we didn't get to go.  Cue more dragging of Max by me, back to the car and away from the kids (I had loads of treats on me, but he wasn't persuaded by them).

As if that wasn't enough, we've just got back from our evening toilet break, at the very beginning of which, Max spotted his arch-nemesis, a JRT. TBF to the JRT, he wasn't doing anything this time, but Max wasn't having any of it. He just stopped, turned to face the JRT and refused to budge, watching as the other dog minded his own business, scent-marked and trotting off. Only then could Max be persuaded to move, and this time, because I didn't foresee the JRT being there, I hadn't brought any treats out with me.

So yes, today I've probably been a bit childish and probably behaved like a spoilt brat.  Max hasn't been all that helpful, Milly spent the whole car journey - to the farm and back - whining (as she always does) and I was left disappointed. It happens, it's one of those things, I know, but today I was just feeling a little more sensitive, and took the disappointment a little harder than I probably should have.


----------



## Dogless

LinznMilly said:


> We.....lll that puts my little hissy fit right in its place
> 
> Ignorance must really be blissful. Just allow your dog to amble up to anyone and everyone, get into all sorts of trouble, cause any DINOS dog to go over-threshold by invading their personal space, and then when you've sent that other dog over-threshold because you have no control over your own dog, you should be so considerate and helpful towards the owner of DINOS dog and point out that their dog needs to be PTS as the owner obviously has no control over it :mad2: :mad2:
> 
> I'm truly sorry people are so ignorant that they fail to see they're the ones causing the problem in the first place. Max is/was a DINOS, and doesn't like it when other dogs get into his personal space, either, but with him, it was a relatively simple matter of putting him behind my legs, and giving him a place to feel safe that helped him. Not tonight though, but more on that later.
> 
> As for cars, Max doesn't like it when people start up their cars too close to him. It startles him and he jumps to the side. If I see a car about to start up, I put myself between him and the car and walk on as normal, but I can't say he has a problem with their hub caps.
> 
> *I have a theory that it is best to not give a monkey's when you get a dog. All the dogs that have jumped on Kilo's head by the road where he's been onlead from puppies have now grown up and largely grown out of the jumping on his head habit and have become very sociable quiet dogs. Meanwhile Kilo who wasn't reactive to such treatment has become so. Seems that not caring about anyone else at all means that you end up with a lovely bombproof dog. The only problem is at what cost as you leave a trail of upset dogs and owners in your wake  . Mind you, I have known a fair few dogs vanish round here as well so I am guessing if they show anything but over friendliness at all times they are replaced by another pup or worse . And of course the cycle is never broken as the next generation are now terrorising the neighbourhood .*
> 
> -------​
> Today's not been that great for me, either. I feel like I've done nothing but drag Max along on walks
> 
> First of all, this afternoon I was looking forward to going to a fun dog show held at a local farm - first one I've ever been to. There was me, my brother, SIL, mum, the kids and the 4 dogs.
> 
> We decided to take the dogs for a walk around the field first, then my brother and his son decided to go along a different path to us, seeing as bro knew full well that the higher (and to my 7y/o nephew MUCH more interesting) path eventually joined up to the one we'd initially intended to go along. I carried on with my dogs, who were both on lead, but if there is any collie in Max, it comes to the fore in the form of herding instincts, and he just HAS to keep the family (especially the kids) together, so he neither liked, nor appreciated my bro and the kids wandering off without us, and kept pulling in the opposite direction, trying to find them. Even when he heard, and finally saw, my nephew, bro and niece reappear at the top of the hill, he kept trying to reach them.
> 
> Then we joined up with my SIL and mum, who declared the farm too muddy after recent rainfall so whilst the dog show was on, we didn't get to go.  Cue more dragging of Max by me, back to the car and away from the kids (I had loads of treats on me, but he wasn't persuaded by them).
> 
> As if that wasn't enough, we've just got back from our evening toilet break, at the very beginning of which, Max spotted his arch-nemesis, a JRT. TBF to the JRT, he wasn't doing anything this time, but Max wasn't having any of it. He just stopped, turned to face the JRT and refused to budge, watching as the other dog minded his own business, scent-marked and trotting off. Only then could Max be persuaded to move, and this time, because I didn't foresee the JRT being there, I hadn't brought any treats out with me.
> 
> So yes, today I've probably been a bit childish and probably behaved like a spoilt brat.  Max hasn't been all that helpful, Milly spent the whole car journey - to the farm and back - whining (as she always does) and I was left disappointed. It happens, it's one of those things, I know, but today I was just feeling a little more sensitive, and took the disappointment a little harder than I probably should have.


Oh dear . I hope that you have a much better day today, yesterday sounds pretty frustrating!


----------



## SLB

JenSteWillow said:


> It did take for the big guns to come out though.. Tuna in spring water. As i couldn't get hold of salmon oil til next week. But we now don't need to mix with tuna and she also loves chicken on the bone! She made a big fuss over nothing, the daft thing  Still using my thread on the nutrition bit for advice though, SLB has been wonderful to us :blushing: as have other members - really don't know how people manage without PF


Aww thank you  I wouldn't know half of the stuff I do without help myself 

Pennie made the Asda man smile this morning. She'd snuck past me as I was taking the last bag into the kitchen and she'd gotten into the green plastic baskets they use to deliver. Of course he went to fuss her and she sat and gave him a beg, I just came in time to see her sit up. :001_wub: she's adorable sometimes, thankfully he didn't mind as I apologised that she'd just sat in it, even though he'd encouraged her I think. She's got it in her today! Little minx has already stolen the toilet roll - just had to replace the 8 rolls she destroyed the other night!

Phoolf is taking us to Lathkill Dale today - hoping their focus exercises are going to pay off. The past few walks they've rarely strayed more than 30ft from me and either Louie didn't see him or he's getting better but a Spaniel joined us for a short time.  Feeling pretty happy with my dogs. Could be the Kalms tablets I've been taking though..


----------



## Guest

Eurgh Sorry you also had a shite day Linz, here's hoping we both have better days!


----------



## Dogless

Feck :incazzato: Took my camera out to film some impulse control stuff and it's flaming broken .

Apart from that I had a good walk with Rudi, place is empty at present so we just saw lots of workmen all over the place and a very good training session with Kilo who was all over it which was pretty typical when the camera's broken. I'll take my new camera to film when it's dry. Won't attempt to get Kilo working that hard again today though!


----------



## Dogless

I need to admit something "out loud". Although I am a grown woman perfectly capable of being rational and having been in my fair share of scary situations and coping fine I am afraid to walk my dogs from home. I was afraid walking Rudi on the pavements today and afraid when I let him off just to have a break and toilet in the dog walking field. What an idiot :cursing:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I need to admit something "out loud". Although I am a grown woman perfectly capable of being rational and having been in my fair share of scary situations and coping fine I am afraid to walk my dogs from home. I was afraid walking Rudi on the pavements today and afraid when I let him off just to have a break and toilet in the dog walking field. What an idiot :cursing:.


You are not an idiot. Given all the bad experiences you've had in the area and the attack on Kilo it's no bloody wonder you're scared to walk your dog there. I was terrified of walking Rupert there (and anywhere else really) and would be extremely worried walking Spencer there. I'm worried taking Spen out front because of Marley and that's just one dog! And they're pretty good about keeping him away from Spen knowing they don't get on.

LnM, hope you're having a better day today.

LO, sorry you're having a crappy time at the moment 

Spendog hasn't been too bad lately. Bit humpy with another dog at the husky meet but it seems to be ones that haven't been for a while that he does it with, if they come a few weeks in a row the humping is only the first week. He's played nicely with Jess most days this week, he helped entertain guests on Saturday evening and has behaved himself on walks since running off on me the other day. We've done some training sessions outside with Jess too and several on ignoring Marley walking past. He's happy to ignore him and work with me once he's absolutely sure Marley isn't going to come over. He is the ONLY dog he does react badly to so I can't really complain, just a shame it's one who lives so close.


----------



## kat&molly

LO- sorry things aren't great at the moment, hope things improve for you soon and you make some head way with Donkey Boy.

L&M- Hope today was better!!

Dogless- its no surprise you're worried about walking from home, I would be too if I was there  What happened to Kilo was an awful thing, its much safer for you to drive to places. 

Family left today, its been pretty stressful but we coped . The girls only had one walk but we made it a really good one, still aiming to eventually get round the Loop, but letting Evie choose how far we go before turning round and finding another track. 
We didn't get as far today as we did yesterday for some reason, but thats ok. She stopped and looked hesitant a few times in different spots but was daft and responsive mostly  Wasn't the least bit interested in the Sheep fleece I'd collected and put in a sock though. Took me weeks to find some I could use as well. Little madam :smilewinkgrin:


----------



## diefenbaker

I survived the camping trip. Have some catching up to do.... again 

You know if you have kids and there comes a time they will be bigger than you....



For those who will undoubtedly ask.. you know who you are :devil:... that is Dief tied to the stake.. not me.


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## Dogless

k&m - Freedom .

Hi Diefenbaker - I see Dief untied you ready to come home then Singing:.

Found my old point and shoot I take diving; battery charged, camera works .
Escaped to the forest pretty much all afternoon to a part I love, not back long ago. Stopped worrying about half an hour from the end of the walk.....it's back now I'm home, but not as badly .


----------



## tiatortilla

*hugs* to LO, Dogless and L&M, sorry you're all having a hard time.

Sorry I have been reading but I've had a bit of a rough day so my brain is too mushy to form proper responses to the rest of you, well done for all your successes though. I'll be better soon!

---

Everything's been quite rosy here, Tia isn't in any way responsible for my crap day! Yesterday there was a sort of fair in the park, there was a bouncy castle and rides and lots of kids, dogs, everything lol. Tia was like the model dog, she had perfect recalls, totally uninterested in the commotion taking up half the field, didn't try to play with any on lead dogs or anything.. I was very proud .
She hasn't been quite as good today , we went to the park this morning where she was a bit of a sod but we also did a lead walk with some of my family later on and she didn't bark at a GSD so that was good .
Other reactivity... it's been going okay I think. I'm getting pretty good at managing it, knowing what types of dogs to avoid and at what distance. She's pretty good with any dog as long as it's far enough away now, it's just decreasing the distance that's difficult because we rely on passing dogs in the street as I don't know anyone with a suitable dog to do any structured practice. Even though it seems a bit up and down, I do think it's gradually improving!


----------



## SLB

Dogless said:


> I need to admit something "out loud". Although I am a grown woman perfectly capable of being rational and having been in my fair share of scary situations and coping fine I am afraid to walk my dogs from home. I was afraid walking Rudi on the pavements today and afraid when I let him off just to have a break and toilet in the dog walking field. What an idiot :cursing:.


Definitely not an idiot! There is one corner on my Mum's road I refuse to walk the dogs past just incase something might happen.

Time heals all wounds is what my Nan would say. Including the mental scars we have.


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## Canine K9

Hope everyone is OK not had a chance to read through.

Going to get recall better before I let him off although I think he`ll be fine as he loves interacting with me on walks. I`ll be doing attention work around other dogs, bikers and joggers too. 
Vets tomorrow too. Allergies are awful.
Just in case anyone is interested
http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/321960-secret-santa-paws-13-interest-indiandpuppy-caninek9.html


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## diefenbaker

@DL - one event after another seems to be colluding against you. Do you have a fixed escape plan ?

@LO - does Zand have a vest like Kilo's ? Might help keep people away.

@EE ( everyone else ) - sorry if I've forgotten you but I am a bloke

To try and cheer you up... a love story... :001_tt1:

It's a crisp early morning in the glorious Dorset countryside. Diefenbaker's Dad and Timmy Big Nose are up bright and early to take Diefenbaker and Pepper Dawg for their morning walk. They make their way through the sleepy campsite and head out along the public footpath towards Golden Cap. The farmer is up early too. He sits majestically astride his quad bike and conducts his collie army to gather the roaming sheep. Diefenbaker and Pepper Dawg sit and watch from their grassy grandstand and wonder at the skills of their canine relatives as they sweep down through the gate and head off into the distance. Then they continue their morning amble but suddenly the silence is interrupted by a desperate cry. A lone sheep has become detached from his comrades. Alas the gate is firmly shut and the poor lone sheep is in dire danger of spending the whole day stranded. Timmy Big Nose leaps into action. He hands Pepper Dawg's lead to Diefenbaker's Dad and without a thought for his own safety opens the gate allowing the lone sheep to scuttle through. But the lone sheep's trouble is not over. The farmer and all the other sheep have disappeared over the next hill. He calls again this time more urgently. Miraculously his prayers are answered. A single sheep returns and they run towards each other. Greeting as long-lost friends they turn and head off together into the dawn mist.

I'm filling up just writing it..... :cryin:


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## LinznMilly

LurcherOwner said:


> Eurgh Sorry you also had a shite day Linz, here's hoping we both have better days!





Dogless said:


> Oh dear . I hope that you have a much better day today, yesterday sounds pretty frustrating!





Sarah1983 said:


> LnM, hope you're having a better day today. .





kat&molly said:


> L&M- Hope today was better!!


Thanks all.

LO; Hope your day has been better today.
K&M: Glad peace has been restored. 

I've just been taking it easy today. Nothing really exciting to report. Had a morning play session on our walk this morning, played a game of _Where's the Kong_, which then turned into a general training session, then this afternoon, I took the dogs for a 45 minute walk before leaving them for an hour or so to go to my dad's.

However, during our game of _Where's the Kong_, I did learn something, something which will probably show me up as being a bit slow on the uptake here  Milly might know what I mean by Kong, now, but she will not Find the Kong. It has to be Where's the Kong? If I ask her to Find the kong, she gives me a blank stare, as if thinking ----> ut: (pretty much what she does regardless of what it is I'm asking her to Find, really). I find that interesting, because I started teaching the dogs Find It, first, but Milly's just not motivated by it. Ask her Where is it, though, and the tail starts wagging, head goes down, and Milly enters Search Mode.

Interestingly, with Max, both _Find It_ and _Where is it_, are interchangeable.



Dogless said:


> I need to admit something "out loud". Although I am a grown woman perfectly capable of being rational and having been in my fair share of scary situations and coping fine I am afraid to walk my dogs from home. I was afraid walking Rudi on the pavements today and afraid when I let him off just to have a break and toilet in the dog walking field. What an idiot :cursing:.


Not idiotic in the least. When we lived at home, there was a street through which I never passed, and went to any length possible to avoid it. If Kilo's been attacked right on your doorstep, it's hardly surprising you're not comfortable walking them there.


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## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Hope everyone is OK not had a chance to read through.
> 
> Going to get recall better before I let him off although I think he`ll be fine as he loves interacting with me on walks. I`ll be doing attention work around other dogs, bikers and joggers too.
> Vets tomorrow too. Allergies are awful.
> Just in case anyone is interested
> http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/321960-secret-santa-paws-13-interest-indiandpuppy-caninek9.html


Is he on a longline K9? I am sorry, I have forgotten - think he is isn't he? So at least is practising recall outside from interesting things.

Good luck at the vet - I had a scan of your allergies thread in H&N; poor boy sounds in real discomfort.



LinznMilly said:


> However, during our game of _Where's the Kong_, I did learn something, something which will probably show me up as being a bit slow on the uptake here  Milly might know what I mean by Kong, now, but she will not Find the Kong. It has to be Where's the Kong? If I ask her to Find the kong, she gives me a blank stare, as if thinking ----> ut: (pretty much what she does regardless of what it is I'm asking her to Find, really). I find that interesting, because I started teaching the dogs Find It, first, but Milly's just not motivated by it. Ask her Where is it, though, and the tail starts wagging, head goes down, and Milly enters Search Mode.


It sounds as if she doesn't fully understand "Find It" or hasn't been sufficiently rewarded (in her eyes!) for "Find It" when taught. Or maybe you say "Find the Kong" in such a different tone to "Find It!!!" that she doesn't recognise the "Find" in there or it means nothing to her if not paired with "It". For instance I can say to Kilo "where's your....." and he will go and get the toy that I specify as long as I have taught him that toy. If I said "Find your....." maybe he would go and get the toy as he recognises the toy name but if I have hidden it I say "Kilo, where's your......?" so he knows the toy and will look around and pick it up if left at that but not search BUT if I follow that with "Find It!!!" he will actively search.

Not sure if that makes any sense and is probably wrong but that is my theory on only one mug of coffee hmy:.


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## Sarah1983

My silly Spencer got bitten yesterday :crying: The dog he really doesn't get on with slipped his leash and came flying over hell bent on having a go and just latched on to his flank. His owner went to pull him off and I'm screaming "don't just pull him, don't just pull him!"  Probably sounded like a right muppet but all I could see was Spens skin stretching out and the pics MV has posted of Tinks injury. Spen is bruised and tender but no major damage done. The dog who latched on is just 6 months old and quite honestly, that worries me although it's probably saved Spen from real harm so far. If he's so hell bent on attacking Spen at that age what's he going to be like in another 12 months? It's not the first incident we've had and it does seem to be escalating. Last time it was puncture wounds in Spens head, this time a latch on and have to be prised off. I'm normally pretty good at stopping dogs in their tracks before they reach mine if I think they're not friendly but this time my usual methods has no effect whatsoever.

Spen seems fine thankfully, has cried at other dogs passing the balcony as normal and isn't at all anxious out front where it happened. I on the other hand am a bloody wreck, absolutely paranoid about this dog coming around the corner off leash or something while we're out front.


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## LinznMilly

Dogless said:


> It sounds as if she doesn't fully understand "Find It" or hasn't been sufficiently rewarded (in her eyes!) for "Find It" when taught. Or maybe you say "Find the Kong" in such a different tone to "Find It!!!" that she doesn't recognise the "Find" in there or it means nothing to her if not paired with "It". For instance I can say to Kilo "where's your....." and he will go and get the toy that I specify as long as I have taught him that toy. If I said "Find your....." maybe he would go and get the toy as he recognises the toy name but if I have hidden it I say "Kilo, where's your......?" so he knows the toy and will look around and pick it up if left at that but not search BUT if I follow that with "Find It!!!" he will actively search.
> 
> Not sure if that makes any sense and is probably wrong but that is my theory on only one mug of coffee hmy:.


Good theory, but I'm not so sure. Milly does know the Find It command - I scatter treats outside on the grass and Milly dives in looking for them. It's only inside that she doesn't seem to "get it", even if my TOV is exactly the same ... Then again, she'll do a perfect Spin inside the house, but has to be reminded what I want if I ask her to do it outside. 

I'll just have to remember that it's not *Find *the Kong - it's *Where's *the Kong? :lol: Oh ... and work on teaching my little dunce that commands are transferable from inside to out, and vice versa :smilewinkgrin:


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## moonviolet

Sarah so sorry Spendog was attacked very glad he wasn't badly injured , although i'm sure the bruising must be quite sore for him. I am glad i posted Tink's pics if it has helped one dog receive less damage. Hope he remains his silly happy lovely self. 

I hope Marley's owners are able to prevent him " slipping the leash" in future.


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## moonviolet

LinznMilly said:


> Good theory, but I'm not so sure. Milly does know the Find It command - I scatter treats outside on the grass and Milly dives in looking for them. It's only inside that she doesn't seem to "get it", even if my TOV is exactly the same ... Then again, she'll do a perfect Spin inside the house, but has to be reminded what I want if I ask her to do it outside.
> 
> I'll just have to remember that it's not *Find *the Kong - it's *Where's *the Kong? :lol: Oh ... and work on teaching my little dunce that commands are transferable from inside to out, and vice versa :smilewinkgrin:


Most dogs dont' generalise easily so if you have only used "find it" outside with kibble she may not get understand " find it" inside with a kong. So to millie "find it" may mean there is kibble scattered outside and she is quite confused by being inside and there being no kibble!


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## LinznMilly

moonviolet said:


> Most dogs dont' generalise easily so if you have only used "find it" outside with kibble she may not get understand " find it" inside with a kong. So to millie "find it" may mean there is kibble scattered outside and she is quite confused by being inside and there being no kibble!


Sorry, that's my fault for not being specific. When talking about Find It inside, I meant I still scattered treats around the room, and asked her to Find It. Tbh _Find The Kong _yesterday was a slip of the tongue, I'm not deliberately trying to cross the 2 commands ... Yet 

Sorry Sarah - I did read your posts but got a bit tied up in my own ; Sorry to hear about Spendog's attack. Definitely worrying if this dog is so aggressive this young  Hope Spen's bruising isn't too painful for him and glad it wasn't any worse.


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## JenKyzer

Catching up from 2days ago ..

LO - I see no-one has liked your rant and for good reason too  I hope things get better soon.. my thought process when things are bad is 'you can only go so far down til you have to come back up again' .. i hope things start picking up for you real soon 

K9 - Hope bailey enjoyed his long country walk and settle at bed time  I'm sure he'll be fine when your back at school and he'll be all excited to see you when you come home  (thats one of the best parts of my day )

LnM - Sorry about your max dragging walk  & milly having a whiney car trip .. I hope you've had a better walk after this post of yours 

SLB - Pennie with the asda man sounds soo adorable :001_wub:

Dogless - Ohnoo, it would of been great to see what your boys get up to with implulse stuff  
Your not an idiot at all - all the experiences you've had to go through, who can blame you! You work too hard with your boys and love them too much for another dog to set things back again for you guys. I hope this afraid feeling goes soon and you can walk the boys with confidence again on pavement.

Dief - Welcome back  Hope you had a great time.

Sarah - Sorry to hear about spencer being bitten  Hope he is ok and not too sore - poor thing  .

Sorry if i've missed anyone  some good at bad to catch up with there! 

---

Had a good evening walk yesterday, we tried a new walk and got to a corner - Willow froze with her tail wagging franticly, strange i thought, got closer to see another dog and her touching noses having a right good sniff  She carried on so well, even when the 2 Chihuahua's came out with the other dog and starting following her & yapping .. as if to say 'Who are you round our parts, get off our turf, we haven't seen you before round ere'  she just ignored them and carried on walking. So pleased  
Something has come up though that i've been monitoring for a couple of weeks, i've wondered if i was over reacting but this morning was a bit too much.. Willow doesn't like people in hats  .. anyone else she walks past without a blink.. anyone in a hat and all her hairs stand up on her neck/back and she growls/barks .. noticed this when we went to Carnforth and my grandad & uncle both had hats on and she was going wild.. (shes met both of them before a few times too) then a few random people she wasn't happy with either.. Just something i need to be more aware of now  seems as she had a jumpy growl at the postman this morning (not jumping up at him, but jumping towards him) .
So good & bad for us 

Oh we did go and see OH parents new pup 'Frank' .. I thought i'd treat you all to a pic  Hopefully willow will be meeting him this weekend 



Hope everyone has a nice day


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## SLB

JenSteWillow said:


> SLB - Pennie with the asda man sounds soo adorable :001_wub:
> 
> ---
> 
> Had a good evening walk yesterday, we tried a new walk and got to a corner - Willow froze with her tail wagging franticly, strange i thought, got closer to see another dog and her touching noses having a right good sniff  She carried on so well, even when the 2 Chihuahua's came out with the other dog and starting following her & yapping .. as if to say 'Who are you round our parts, get off our turf, we haven't seen you before round ere'  she just ignored them and carried on walking. So pleased
> Something has come up though that i've been monitoring for a couple of weeks, i've wondered if i was over reacting but this morning was a bit too much.. Willow doesn't like people in hats  .. anyone else she walks past without a blink.. anyone in a hat and all her hairs stand up on her neck/back and she growls/barks .. noticed this when we went to Carnforth and my grandad & uncle both had hats on and she was going wild.. (shes met both of them before a few times too) then a few random people she wasn't happy with either.. Just something i need to be more aware of now  seems as she had a jumpy growl at the postman this morning (not jumping up at him, but jumping towards him) .
> So good & bad for us
> 
> Oh we did go and see OH parents new pup 'Frank' .. I thought i'd treat you all to a pic  Hopefully willow will be meeting him this weekend
> 
> 
> 
> Hope everyone has a nice day


Glad to hear Willow took the Chihuahuas in her stride and made a new friend! Looks like you're getting there 

As for the the hat thing - just an excuse to wear stupid hats around the house! 

Frank looks adorable! I always think human names suit bulldogs!

Our walk yesterday was lovely. The dogs behaved better than I thought. Mine especially. Recalled when they were told to, walked with me when they were told too. Ignored walkers and children and a lot of other dogs. Even walking through several livestock fields they behaved well. However it's not fun when the cows are inquisitive. Luckily Jack who Phoolf's Dad had on lead yesterday was very good - especially as the cows seemed to gravitate towards him!  I hate cows! There was one field with a massive adult bull in it. On the path too! :cryin: the rest of the field were either milk cows or young bulls. The milk cows were Ok, although we did pass some that had calves. But they were in a field where people were having picnics and playing about in the river so I didn't worry too much about them. Plus Milk cows are always handled more than meat cows - thats the reassuring thing I told myself anyway!

The sheep were a bit of a different story though, for the most part the clowns ignored them until a ewe got up from resting on the path we were on and walked off and her lamb decided that he would quite like to get back to his Mum. And had a fanny on in front of the dogs. Then ran. I don't know if Lou wanted to go after it because it was running or what but that was a tug and a half on the walking belt! Pen is completely fine with all livestock - I think she'd rather just go hunting than chase sheep anyway. She lunged with Lou but I don't think she figured out he hadn't seen anything of her interest as she didn't follow him round as the sheep ran past. But hey ho, they'll always be on lead in livestock fields anyway so it's not a major problem. Especially as the livestock around here are cows and horses mainly, of which I know both dogs ignore horses and cattle. And Jack was just Jack. A sweetheart.

At the end of it - we all survived, I didn't get trampled, the dogs didn't eat anything and today is a chill out day. In fact the dogs came downstairs for the toilet and their breakfast and all have gone back to sleep..


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## Dogless

Sarah - I am so very angry for you. I am pleased that, for the second time with that dog, Spen is demonstrating that he can bounce back really well. I hope you manage to as well as hard as it is. The point os you just shouldn't have to .

JSW - Frank looks like he'll be trouble...in a good way .

ETA: Not much to report from us today. Drove the boys up top to play with their toys for an hour and do a little bit of training - but not much! Neighbour's cat strolled into our front garden just as I reached our door on the way back. I was caught off guard by the pair of them lunging as Rudi copies Kilo on that front when I have them both. Almost lost my grip on Kilo's lead before a fishwifey "Leave" was shouted at them. Thank goodness I didn't, things would not have ended well for the cat I suspect.


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## Canine K9

Baileys caught and killed a pigeon 
It was a clean catch he grabbed it and shook it and it was instantly dead.


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## missnaomi

Canine K9 said:


> Baileys caught and killed a pigeon
> It was a clean catch he grabbed it and shook it and it was instantly dead.


Ringo did this once, and had previously killed a rat. I was devastated. My boyfriend just said that now he work on Her Majesty's Service as a 00 agent like James Bond cos you need two kills to do that :glare: which didn't make me feel any better.

I think you have to work on recall, and later chase recall, and a good 'leave it' to be able to prevent it as much as possible, but when Ringo got his two "kills" he saw it first and it was over before I could do anything 

Hugs xxx


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## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Baileys caught and killed a pigeon
> It was a clean catch he grabbed it and shook it and it was instantly dead.


Don't be sad, he's just being a dog, doesn't make him bad in any way and at least he killed it straight away. Kilo has caught and killed a few things. And caught but not killed  a stray sheep deep in a forest and a wild goat .


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## Guest

Canine K9 said:


> Baileys caught and killed a pigeon
> It was a clean catch he grabbed it and shook it and it was instantly dead.


Oh mate  I have been in your shoes, Zand caught a friends chicken mid flight and shook it to death in seconds. 
Can't give anymore advice really then what missnioami has said about recall etc.

JSW: FRANK! :001_wub: *makes grabby hands* GIVE HIM HEREEE!


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - I am so very angry for you. I am pleased that, for the second time with that dog, Spen is demonstrating that he can bounce back really well. I hope you manage to as well as hard as it is. The point os you just shouldn't have to .


I think I'm going to have more problems bouncing back than Spen is  I'm a nervous wreck out front at the moment, Spen's his usual self. Went up to camp for a walk today as we usually see other dogs walking there, not a one today! Saw two in their garden on the opposite side of the road and Spen whined at them as usual but that was it. He did jump a mile when we passed the flat where the dog who bit him lives and it barked but I can't blame him for that and once he realised the dog was inside he went back to mooching along and sniffing.

We had a nice walk really, he was a bit pully in places but offered some nice loose leash walking at other times. Didn't really work on anything though.

K9, unfortunately it's the nature of the beast unfortunately. Hardly anyone sees it as a big deal when a cat catches a mouse or bird, it's no bigger a deal when a dog does. It's not nice but at the end of the day they're predators.

JSW, Frank is gorgeous! And well done to Willow for a nice meeting with another dog.


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## GingerRogers

Just a quicky from me have a week off so meant to stay away from the pc but WAYWO is tricky to report on from the phone 

Sorry about the bird K9 but what everyone else said, its what they do occasionally, not nice but natural 

Sarah really sorry about Spen  hope you can bounce back eventually or rather, I hope you dont need to as the other owners step up and take responsibility.


We had a nice day, tireded ninja out, walk this morning which was nice  after I had a bit of a meltdown when I realised I was stuck at the bottom of the marshes because the field had filled up with dog walkers  and felt really useless that I couldn't even walk my dog home. We have had her a year yesterday (or today if you go by dates) and still we are dealing with stuff .

So after I wiped my eyes we strutted off up the river instead and asked hubby to pick me up, then had a drive out with him, just went to the city to pick up a new hedge trimmer for him but came back the scenic route and stopped for a little pee break for the ninja which turned into a lovely long walk.

When I got back we had a parcel, my new dog trailer has arrived


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## zedder

trying to work on ike walking in a straight line not panicking when he see's a car and stopping on command near a road it's really hard work as he get's distracted easily but he's definitely improving a lot.


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## Huskybob

Broder did a couple of minutes of some clicker training this evening to get him to do something useful and earn his keep....

[youtube_browser]KTBbcjMdLTQ[/youtube_browser]


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## LinznMilly

Quick catch up and update before bed.

K9: Sorry to hear about the pigeon. It might be natural to them but it's no less horrible for us watching it. The only consolation I can think of was it was quick and the bird didn't suffer for long. 

GR: Don't really know how to respond to your post tbh   Glad you ended up having a lovely walk after your OH picked you up, and I'm happy that your dog trailer has arrived :thumbup:

Well ... The crate was in use today  I'm determined I'm not going to make it a habit, but I phoned work to let them know I'd be back on Thursday, and was told I'd have to go up for a back to work interview - this afternoon. By that time it was already 1:45 and the person I spoke to on the phone said I was to be there at 2:30, so I didn't have time to take the dogs for a walk/training session. 

Got back, took the dogs for a walk, and before stepping foot outside the door, one, single PF emoticon sprung clearly to mind -----. :crazy: The dogs were going loopy! You'd think they hadn't been out in weeks, never mind hours! Max was going nuts (he usually does ) with his barking, Milly was running around the house like a dog possessed, and the whole getting ready to go out routine was disrupted by a knock at the door. Then, when we did get out and the dogs did get time offlead, I swear Milly broke the land-speed record (even for a lurcher) AND she kept it up for a good 25 minutes, or half the walk. I'm used to her speed, but she normally settles down after about 10-15 minutes, even with the ball. :blink: :crazy: Luckily whilst she had a bad case of the zoomies, she did still recall and carried out the commands I asked of her, so I'm not complaining about her zoomies, just surprised..

_Where's the Kong_ is going great. Both the dogs know what I want of them, I'm hiding the kong in various locations around the house, with the dogs behind the door so they can't actually see where I hide it, and they're still finding it.

Now ... Does anyone have any ideas how to get the dogs to actually pick the kong up and _give _it to me? :blink: :bored:


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## Dogless

LinznMilly said:


> Now ... Does anyone have any ideas how to get the dogs to actually pick the kong up and _give _it to me? :blink: :bored:


You could break it down into tiny stages and clicker train it.

Huskybob - Not ignoring your training video but will have to watch it later as I have a dog snoozing on either side of me and if they hear the clicker they'll be looking for treats!!

GR - pleased yesterday was nice and hope trailer practise is going well.

Sarah - Hope you feel a bit better today, walk by walk.


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## LinznMilly

Dogless said:


> You could break it down into tiny stages and clicker train it.l


Yup, tried that. Admittedly only 1 session though. I remember L4L once advising me to break it down and start at the end, so that if I wanted them to give me something to put away, to click them for giving me the toy. So, thinking it was a good idea, and seeing as Milly had the kong in her mouth anyway, I spent 15 minutes on the floor with them, trying to get them to either pick the kong up, or take it from me so I could C&T, but instead they spent the whole 15min session shuffling it with their front paws (think meerkats killing a millipede and you get the general idea ), or nosing it, or pointing in the general direction of the kong ... but NOT picking it up.

Milly picks the kong up and throws it down on the floor when playing with it (ie, when full) but I'd have to be lying on the floor with my arm outstretched to try and get it that way :lol:


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## Kicksforkills

As per request...


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## Werehorse

LinzandMilly. Start off clicking them for looking at it, then inclining their nose towards it, then touching it with their nose, keep a careful eye out for ANY attempt to open their mouth and put teeth on it and JACKPOT when they do that. Any paw play I would pick the kong up and fold it in my arms and look away from the dog for a few seconds. think about shaping the pickup really really gradually. The very first thing the dog has to do in order to pick something up is look at it... start from there!


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## Sarah1983

If they're not even picking it up then I don't see how you _can_ start with getting them to drop it, let alone put it into your hand. You'd need to get them picking it up reliably first and go from there. So I would be clicking and treating for anything that works towards picking it up.

Huskybob, what a difference between the Lab attitude and the Husky attitude. Spen shuts the door by hurling himself at it, usually while I'm still opening the bloody thing or trying to walk through it. Broder's all like "oh okay, but don't expect me to get up to do it" :lol:

We've been for a half hour potter around the farmers field this morning. I ridiculously anxious and stressed about taking Spencer out after the incident the other night. Which is a bit stupid really as it's one incident with one dog but 8 years with Rupert has made me a wee bit paranoid it seems. Spencer doesn't seem at all stressed, he's his usually self, overjoyed to be out on a walk, looking up at me as if to say "well isn't this absolutely wonderful?" and trotting along exploring and sniffing.

We stood talking to a lady with a Dobe puppy today. Spen didn't actually get to meet the pup as he was a bit unsure of this big bouncy Lab wagging and whining at him. But the fact Spen whined and wagged and did his usual "oooh, a potential new best friend!" thing helped put my mind at rest a bit. Going to take him for another walk there this afternoon since it's only a short walk really.

Got a couple of pics on the walk too, nothing worth their own photo thread so you lot will just have to put up with them :smilewinkgrin:


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## diefenbaker

@K9: Dief's never caught anything. I think the huge shadow makes them run off before he gets there. The cats when they were younger were another matter completely. We used to have a huge wooden TV cabinet in the corner and Keira the girl cat dropped one behind. It must have been there for days and eventually started to honk. When we eventually tracked it down and moved it there were maggots :shocked:

@Sarah: Sorry Spen got bitten. Good that he doesn't seem too bothered. I can't believe the amount of times this happens to people on this thread. I seem to be very lucky here.

@GR: enjoy your holiday and your dog trailer. Can't the Ninja travel in the car with you ? I hope she gets a helmet.

I don't have much to report. Dief is off to the beach in a while and I can't go :crying: I did manage 8K on the treadmill last night. Felt it too.


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## Huskybob

Sarah1983 said:


> Huskybob, what a difference between the Lab attitude and the Husky attitude. Spen shuts the door by hurling himself at it, usually while I'm still opening the bloody thing or trying to walk through it. Broder's all like "oh okay, but don't expect me to get up to do it" :lol:


Hah! We're trying to get him to use his nose rather than his body or his paws. There's enough claw marks on the door from foster dogs!

Lovely pictures of Spen.


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## Sarah1983

Huskybob said:


> Hah! We're trying to get him to use his nose rather than his body or his paws. There's enough claw marks on the door from foster dogs!
> 
> Lovely pictures of Spen.


Thanks  Need to get Spen using his nose to close it really. He doesn't half slam it at the moment coz he just jumps at it.


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## LinznMilly

Sarah1983 said:


> If they're not even picking it up then I don't see how you _can_ start with getting them to drop it, let alone put it into your hand. You'd need to get them picking it up reliably first and go from there. So I would be clicking and treating for anything that works towards picking it up.


Went back to basics and started C&T'ing them for just looking at the kong this morning - got to be quick because Milly looks and instantly reaches for the kong with her paw. Max got waaaay too excited and ended up scratching me, so training session aborted. Will try again later ... or possibly a 1-2-1 with Mill.

Glad to hear Spen's non the worse for his recent ordeal 



Huskybob said:


> Hah! We're trying to get him to use his nose rather than his body or his paws. There's enough claw marks on the door from foster dogs! .


Spen hurls his body at the door, Broder's attitude appears to be I will, but I cba to get up and do it ... and Max just jumps up and knocks it with his paws :lol:


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## Dogless

Sarah - well done to you and Spen this morning, so glad he is just like Spen still :001_wub:.

Good walks this morning on the whole. 

Took Rudi on a walk where we should see lots of people, which we did - didn't speak to any but just being around people politely is all I am after really. Saw the dog reactive JRT who started his fixated stare from a long way off so I crossed the road to give them as much space as I could and kept Rudi looking at me. JRT exploded and Rudi just walked on by. Good boy. Had a bit of offlead on the field - there was the DA DDB on the other side but Rudi just acknowledged that there was a dog there and looked at me so he got a treat and we carried on. At the very end the bonkers spaniel that always runs at us was playing with another dog on a bit of grass we need to cross to get to the road. It started to run at us ignoring it's recall, I stood still for a few seconds to see if it would return to the woman if we were stationary but it didn't and Rudi was starting to get frustrated and bounce so I very rudely turned around and walked off as fast as I could, leaving the poor woman trying to get her dog back. I felt awful but I just have to look after my dogs here now. Rudi is a little anxious around home still, lots of lip licking and a bit skittery which I hope will improve. I suspect it is because I am still irrationally worried around the estate.

Drove (I know, cop out ) Kilo to the top fields to try and video some impulse control stuff. I did some really good ones (well Kilo did) and the camera wasn't filming, then it fell over etc etc etc. Got some slow and fairly unenthusiastic but obedient stuff but we'd been out an hour by then so the poor bugger was fed up .

I'll get OH to film using the decent camera when he is next home in mid September.


----------



## kat&molly

Sarah- I am really sorry about whats happened to Spendog  Pleased it hasn't upset his happy carefree nature- hope you get yours back soon. 

Happy (late) Gotcha Day to the lovely Ninja, she's come a long way since being with you. 

Dogless- driving to the fields is not a cop out , :hand: if it keeps Kilo calm and safe, its worth it.  I have to do it here as well, we shouldn't have to though!!

I know thats not everyone but I am still recovering from having Little People to stay :huh:

Evie made it all the way around the Loop yesterday  but sods law as we left one of the fields 3 women were heading in our direction, so we had a major panic, retreated and then she was on edge all the way back back to the car.
I avoided it today just in case.

Took them out to the river we went to last week, it was quite busy so we drove to another spot after an hour or so, that was better , afew moments with the odd person about but she mostly enjoyed it.
Scruff was really good, gets a bit giddy but its funny to watch (mostly )
Moll is just intent on as many water retrieves as she can get, think she'd have been happy to stay until a week on Sunday.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh the predicaments a Silly Spendog gets into. Apparently he wanted a hug so managed to get himself onto hubbys lap, upside down of course


But it was clearly a precarious perch because the next moment he was all "oh sh*t, I'm falling!"


Hubby lowered him safely to the ground by the way 

And my dog is a fricking superstar. Walked round a corner on the estate this afternoon and came face to face with the dog who bit him. Dog went absolutely nuts at him, Spens hackles went up and he kept an eye on the dog but walked past without a fuss.


----------



## diefenbaker

diefenbaker said:


> @GR: enjoy your holiday and your dog trailer. Can't the Ninja travel in the car with you ? I hope she gets a helmet.


There's me thinking I was joking 

Dog Trailers


----------



## diefenbaker

Sarah1983 said:


> And my dog is a fricking superstar. Walked round a corner on the estate this afternoon and came face to face with the dog who bit him. Dog went absolutely nuts at him, Spens hackles went up and he kept an eye on the dog but walked past without a fuss.


Good lad....


----------



## kat&molly

diefenbaker said:


> There's me thinking I was joking
> 
> Dog Trailers


It'd want another 9 Ninjas to fill one of those hmy:

Great pics Sarah, love his face in the 2nd one , and well done to him for not reacting to the other dog.


----------



## Dogless

A zillion gold stars to Spendog . Brilliant to hear Sarah!!!

Just back from the forest. Pretty windy up there so had two dogs hunting about but they were good. They also had some sort of contest of athletic prowess....I have never seen them run so fast for so long with each other. Awe inspiring stuff - Kilo was so excited he was squeaking away and letting out the odd high pitched bark but the races stopped when either dog stopped and they recalled just fine so I let them get on with it. Unsurprisingly they're fast asleep on the sofa now .


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> It'd want another 9 Ninjas to fill one of those hmy:
> 
> Great pics Sarah, love his face in the 2nd one , and well done to him for not reacting to the other dog.


TEN Ninjas altogether....what are you after? The Nobel Peace Prize? .


----------



## missnaomi

GingerRogers said:


> When I got back we had a parcel, my new dog trailer has arrived


Explain... I've been away for the last few weeks and I am confused as to why Ninja will be pulling a trailer?!


----------



## LinznMilly

K&M; Glad to hear Evie made it all the way around the loop and that she and the others enjoyed the river walk. 

Sarah: Great to read that SuperSpen coped so well with the dog who bit him.

DL: What with Milly yesterday and Sir Kilo and his trusty sidekick today, maybe it's something in the water giving them the mega zoomies hmy:

It's been a rather frustrating day here, with the whole trying to get the dogs to start picking up the kong. 1-2-1 training made no difference. I did get Max looking at the kong (and at a tugger), but he's not picking it up yet.

Milly, however, after giving me the ut: treatment all day, started playing with the kong herself tonight.  I'd put back in their toy box for the night, when she decided she wanted to play with it. She only picked it up and took it out of the toy box herself. :cursing:  I knew there was a brain in there somewhere, she's just determined not to let me see it.  I C&T'ed her and have been doing the same every time she's picked it up since and she's starting to carry it around ... just not to me :bored: 

Max, bless him, doesn't have a clue this time, so purely out of sympathy, I've just been practicing his "Close the Door" trick ... and he's another one who's just been playing at being a dunce, because now he's nice and calm and not far too excited, he's just closed the door nicely 5 times in a row. I get the impression they've been giving me a certain impolite hand gesture today and winding me up. :001_tt2:


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> There's me thinking I was joking
> 
> Dog Trailers


For dief and miss n
The trailer is for my bike. I tried several carriers but apparently ninja is not as small as we thought. But now it looks enormous.

So today amongst relaxing, walking, gardening, lunch, more digging practice @@ more walking more eating and a couple of pints  we have been luring a none too stupid dog into a wobbley dog trailer.

If its not moving or suspended she loves it. When i said bedtime last night guess where she went. @@


----------



## Dogless

LinznMilly said:


> K&M; Glad to hear Evie made it all the way around the loop and that she and the others enjoyed the river walk.
> 
> Sarah: Great to read that SuperSpen coped so well with the dog who bit him.
> 
> DL: What with Milly yesterday and Sir Kilo and his trusty sidekick today, maybe it's something in the water giving them the mega zoomies hmy:
> 
> It's been a rather frustrating day here, with the whole trying to get the dogs to start picking up the kong. 1-2-1 training made no difference. I did get Max looking at the kong (and at a tugger), but he's not picking it up yet.
> 
> Milly, however, after giving me the ut: treatment all day, started playing with the kong herself tonight.  I'd put back in their toy box for the night, when she decided she wanted to play with it. She only picked it up and took it out of the toy box herself. :cursing:  I knew there was a brain in there somewhere, she's just determined not to let me see it.  I C&T'ed her and have been doing the same every time she's picked it up since and she's starting to carry it around ... just not to me :bored:
> 
> Max, bless him, doesn't have a clue this time, so purely out of sympathy, I've just been practicing his "Close the Door" trick ... and he's another one who's just been playing at being a dunce, because now he's nice and calm and not far too excited, he's just closed the door nicely 5 times in a row. I get the impression they've been giving me a certain impolite hand gesture today and winding me up. :001_tt2:


It wasn't zoomies so much as races, serious business it was :shocked:. Maybe it's the BW putting Megapuppy in his place...."See young 'un you're not as good as you think you are" . Neither of them were giving up until they had to .

I am sure Max and Milly will get there with the Kong once they understand what it is you want, a day's not that long really.....although it does seem it sometimes when frustrated I know :mad2:. Maybe just set small fairly easily achievable goals for every day, like carrying the Kong around for Milly yesterday - it's still progress :thumbup1:.


----------



## LinznMilly

Dogless said:


> *It wasn't zoomies so much as races, serious business it was *:shocked:. Maybe it's the BW putting Megapuppy in his place...."See young 'un you're not as good as you think you are" . Neither of them were giving up until they had to .
> 
> I am sure Max and Milly will get there with the Kong once they understand what it is you want, a day's not that long really.....although it does seem it sometimes when frustrated I know :mad2:. Maybe just set small fairly easily achievable goals for every day, like carrying the Kong around for Milly yesterday - it's still progress :thumbup1:.


My mistake 

Can't see Max learning to pick the kong up tbh. Milly does it when it's full to empty it so I have a baseline to work from, but Max has always just rolled it around or hit it with his paw. It doesn't matter, really. I'll be happy if I can get Milly to get her toys out and put them away again, and Max to close the door after me 

In other news - I've just taken the dogs for a quick toilet break - and managed to get out of the door without so much as a single bark from Max, using the Quiet command. :w00t:  He did have a bit of a grumble at Milly, but seeing as she was winding him up, can't say I blame him. If this continues, hopefully it'll mean I can start taking them out earlier without the neighbour complaining about his barking.


----------



## Dogless

LinznMilly said:


> My mistake
> 
> Can't see Max learning to pick the kong up tbh. Milly does it when it's full to empty it so I have a baseline to work from, but* Max has always just rolled it around or hit it with his paw.* It doesn't matter, really. I'll be happy if I can get Milly to get her toys out and put them away again, and Max to close the door after me
> 
> In other news - I've just taken the dogs for a quick toilet break - and managed to get out of the door without so much as a single bark from Max, using the Quiet command. :w00t:  He did have a bit of a grumble at Milly, but seeing as she was winding him up, can't say I blame him. If this continues, hopefully it'll mean I can start taking them out earlier without the neighbour complaining about his barking.


That's a start perhaps. Maybe play "101 Things" but with the Kong rather than a box to see what he does?

Fantastic that "quiet" is working though, really good :thumbup1: .


----------



## diefenbaker

I'm a two dog family for the day. The delightful Honey Bunny has come to stay.


----------



## Dogless

Dief looks chuffed to bits .

Good morning here - up to the top fields to play; they tired fairly quickly after last nights supreme effort. Fast asleep. Good dogs .


----------



## LinznMilly

Dogless said:


> That's a start perhaps. Maybe play "101 Things" but with the Kong rather than a box to see what he does?
> 
> Fantastic that "quiet" is working though, really good :thumbup1: .


Seems that Quiet thing was a bit of a fluke :bored: Took the dogs out later on and it was business as usual with Max's barking. Presumably Max was still drowsy and rather surprised at going out so early  He does know the command, he's just determined to have the last word 

It also appears that he's determined to prove me wrong with regard to picking up the kong (or not). I took their toy box out just after getting back from work (_Operation Crate Phase Out_ still underway and despite me going to and from work, Milly still hasn't been in her crate at all today :thumbup1 and he mouthed it, picked it up, and dropped it ... alas, I was still Carer Linz and not Dog Trainer Linz, so I didn't have my clicker or treats on me. :cursing:

Nothing else to report from me at present. The dogs have had a quick training session, and Milly's busy destuffing her kong, while Max relaxes beside me.


----------



## moonviolet

Dief looks delighted with his visitor, Honey looks happy too.

LnM Is there a reason it need to be a Kong you are training a retrieve with if it's not something max naturally picks up it's going to be an uphill journey, yet you may find once your have trained it with another item it's easier to transfer. Tink prefers fabric lightweight things over heavier smooth objects for instance. If a dog isn't doing something they either don't understand or aren't feeling suitably motivated and that isn't their fault..

Dogless Sounds like the boys had good natured urinating contest :lol: I bet it was an awesome sight.

GR hope the little ninja habituates to her new wheels quickly and you are out and about sharing cycling adventures soon 

Sarah Spen is an absolutely superstar. I hope you are beginning to feel a little less tense.

K&M well done Evie you are doing so well with her 

Sorry my brains gone blank.

We had a little step forward yesterday first retrieves in the park. I have a little video (phone held the wrong way as usual).

[youtube_browser]Mg2209Vu8Dk[/youtube_browser]


----------



## LinznMilly

moonviolet said:


> LnM Is there a reason it need to be a Kong you are training a retrieve with if it's not something max naturally picks up it's going to be an uphill journey, yet you may find once your have trained it with another item it's easier to transfer. Tink prefers fabric lightweight things over heavier smooth objects for instance. If a dog isn't doing something they either don't understand or aren't feeling suitably motivated and that isn't their fault..


The kongs are about the only thing they really play with, other than the ball, and I'm hoping to transfer those skills to the ball eventually. Werehorse advised something similar RE trying with a different toy but the only other toy Max really bothers with is a heavy ring tugger - and even that hardly gets so much as a second glance.

Once again, I'm not too bothered if Max doesn't learn to pick the kong (or another toy) up and give it to me - nor am I annoyed at his apparent lack of effort. What gets me cursing is the fact that I know he CAN do it, because I've _seen _him do it, but haven't been in a situation to begin to train for it. I'm not blaming him. I'm not angry or frustrated with him. It's just I know he can do it - I've seen him do it - he just has a tendency to do it when I'm not in a position to C&T.

My skin's bothering me today too - new medication doesn't seem to be helping much and was awake for most of last night so am probably a bit more irritable than usual anyway.  Luckily I have a 5:00 finish today.


----------



## moonviolet

LinznMilly said:


> The kongs are about the only thing they really play with, other than the ball, and I'm hoping to transfer those skills to the ball eventually. Werehorse advised something similar RE trying with a different toy but the only other toy Max really bothers with is a heavy ring tugger - and even that hardly gets so much as a second glance.
> 
> Once again, I'm not too bothered if Max doesn't learn to pick the kong (or another toy) up and give it to me - nor am I annoyed at his apparent lack of effort. What gets me cursing is the fact that I know he CAN do it, because I've _seen _him do it, but haven't been in a situation to begin to train for it. I'm not blaming him. I'm not angry or frustrated with him. *It's just I know he can do it - I've seen him do it *- he just has a tendency to do it when I'm not in a position to C&T.
> 
> My skin's bothering me today too - new medication doesn't seem to be helping much and was awake for most of last night so am probably a bit more irritable than usual anyway.  Luckily I have a 5:00 finish today.


we only get what you type so if that's where I have got the impression you are frustrated I'm not a fan of calling dogs dunces when we haven't worked the how/whens/whys.

I know Tink *knows* how to retrieve... she could do it in the house in the garden, in class, even at shows in a ring with dogs she knows either side of her. She knows how to retrieve....however she wouldn't so much as pick up a toy in the park, because there were too many distractions. children playing, dogs offlead, runners, cyclists. SO yesterdays retrieve was the product of lots of acclimatising to the summer sounds/sights/smell of the park. Ok so it was a little rather quiet wooded area but it was a huge leap forward.

If you can play instrument beautifully, confidently at home would you be able to play to the same standard in pub? busking? At the albert hall.

Teaching a cue is just the start you then have to start playing with the variables. The 3D's distance, duration distraction If you increase one decrease another until you really do have the cue proofed.

Dont' forget that tired, hot, hungry , thirsty are distractions that we may be less aware of than squealing children etc.

Sorry your skin is bothering you.


----------



## GingerRogers

LinznMilly said:


> ... alas, I was still Carer Linz and not Dog Trainer Linz, so I didn't have my clicker or treats on me. :cursing
> 
> Why not introduce a marker word or a click of your tongue
> And the reward doesn't have to be an instant treat or even a treat. If he understands a marker then praise and/or fuss is a start to reinforcement.


----------



## LinznMilly

moonviolet said:


> we only get what you type so if that's where I have got the impression you are frustrated I'm not a fan of calling dogs dunces when we haven't worked the how/whens/whys.
> 
> I know Tink *knows* how to retrieve... she could do it in the house in the garden, in class, even at shows in a ring with dogs she knows either side of her. She knows how to retrieve....however she wouldn't so much as pick up a toy in the park, because there were too many distractions. children playing, dogs offlead, runners, cyclists. SO yesterdays retrieve was the product of lots of acclimatising to the summer sounds/sights/smell of the park. Ok so it was a little rather quiet wooded area but it was a huge leap forward.
> 
> If you can play instrument beautifully, confidently at home would you be able to play to the same standard in pub? busking? At the albert hall.
> 
> Teaching a cue is just the start you then have to start playing with the variables. The 3D's distance, duration distraction If you increase one decrease another until you really do have the cue proofed.
> 
> Dont' forget that tired, hot, hungry , thirsty are distractions that we may be less aware of than squealing children etc.
> 
> Sorry your skin is bothering you.


Moonviolet, I call them dunces in jest. I don't mean it.

I think I'd better leave this thread for a while. It's just stressing me out and that's not good for my skin. Besides, I'd only end up saying something I'll regret.


----------



## moonviolet

LinznMilly said:


> Moonviolet,* I call them dunces in jest*. I don't mean it.
> 
> I think I'd better leave this thread for a while. It's just stressing me out and that's not good for my skin. Besides, I'd only end up saying something I'll regret.


I can assure this was not the way it came across. I hope your skin improves and your training becomes more fun for you and your dogs.


----------



## Canine K9

Good day really. Had a walk in the field, the woods is planned for tomorrow. The nipping has came back when I try to move him he will bite me but will get off when I tell him to. Recall is pretty good.


----------



## Guest

WE GOT THE PERFECT FIT HARNESS AND I LOVE IT AND ITS AWESOME AND ZANDER WAS SUPER RELAXED AND DIDN'T GRUMP OR LUNGE OR ANYTHING AND I AM SUPER DUPER CHUFFED. :001_wub:

AND A LOCAL RIDING SCHOOL IS GONNA LET ME USE THEIR INDOOR BIT TO LET ZANDER RUN AROUND IN! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!



Eta: just seen LnM, its better to say what you think then bottle it, it may help. Anyways hope you feel better!


----------



## sharloid

LurcherOwner said:


> WE GOT THE PERFECT FIT HARNESS AND I LOVE IT AND ITS AWESOME AND ZANDER WAS SUPER RELAXED AND DIDN'T GRUMP OR LUNGE OR ANYTHING AND I AM SUPER DUPER CHUFFED. :001_wub:
> 
> AND A LOCAL RIDING SCHOOL IS GONNA LET ME USE THEIR INDOOR BIT TO LET ZANDER RUN AROUND IN! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
> 
> Eta: just seen LnM, its better to say what you think then bottle it, it may help. Anyways hope you feel better!


Great news about the harness and riding school. I've been trying a few round here to rent for mine but there aren't any.


----------



## Guest

sharloid said:


> Great news about the harness and riding school. I've been trying a few round here to rent for mine but there aren't any.


Maybe try estate agents about renting a field?? If it wasn't for my mum I wouldn't be able to get there! ( I can't drive)

Quick bad pic of the harness


----------



## moonviolet

Canine K9 said:


> Good day really. Had a walk in the field, the woods is planned for tomorrow. The nipping has came back when I try to move him he will bite me but will get off when I tell him to. Recall is pretty good.


Glad you haad a good day hope the woods is fun tomorrow.
When you say move him how you mean? Training a hand target can be useful to get a dog to make the choice to move where you would like them, So you don't need to move them.

LO DB looks the bees knees in his new harness glad he's taken to it so well. Brilliant news about the indoor school.

Sharloid hope you can find somewhere.


----------



## diefenbaker

Look what you've made me do. You were all encouraging me when what you should have been saying was "Are you out of your Vulcan mind :mad2: ?" You should be ashamed of yourselves doing this to an old man.

Order Inventory:
Product: 14,15/9/13 Moors CaniX BOTH (MBR)
Options: 1. Number of classes entered - 1
Class - 1. CaniX (1-dog)
Donation (to PDSA) - None
Optional Cancellation Cover - No

Quantity: 1
Product Code: EVT1314X062CAM
Price: £25.20


----------



## Canine K9

moonviolet said:


> Glad you haad a good day hope the woods is fun tomorrow.
> When you say move him how you mean? Training a hand target can be useful to get a dog to make the choice to move where you would like them, So you don't need to move them.
> 
> LO DB looks the bees knees in his new harness glad he's taken to it so well. Brilliant news about the indoor school.
> 
> Sharloid hope you can find somewhere.


Pick him up


----------



## missRV

Took Rosie to puppy school tonight.... I was worried it'd be her last one as she turns 1 next week, but I've spoken to the tutor and said I don't want her to move up yet and she said that's fine to keep her with the pups. Her confidence has taken a massive jump forward these last few weeks and I'm worried of pushing her too fast too soon, plus she loves the dogs in puppy school. 

As it's her birthday next week I've got her lots of lovely new things. We're hoping to start agility when her birthday has passed, I've got her a hurdle, tunnel and a slalom for the garden to practise but we will take her to a lesson before I start doing it at home, I want to check that she's not too young still. There are a few schools in the area, but I'm not sure If they have space or if they accept mutts. We're also considering flyball but I have no knowledge on this. We've got her the wooden treat puzzle toys for her birthday (but don't tell her) and I've placed an order on the most adorable custom made harness. 

Her sit and stay has come on leaps and bounds, I still need to work on walking her to heel especially if she's wanting to start agility, she'll walk but as soon as she sees another dog, she's off! 

I'm going to try to find a nice birthday cake recipe for her for next week  my little girl is growing up


----------



## Guest

Canine K9 said:


> Pick him up


Is he accustomed to being lifted? has he had a bad experience with another family member? Not trying to be pedantic, just thought that may be why he could be a be nippy cause he's not used to it or uncomfortable.

Dief you legend! You might see one of DB's siblings in a race one day.


----------



## Canine K9

missRV said:


> Took Rosie to puppy school tonight.... I was worried it'd be her last one as she turns 1 next week, but I've spoken to the tutor and said I don't want her to move up yet and she said that's fine to keep her with the pups. Her confidence has taken a massive jump forward these last few weeks and I'm worried of pushing her too fast too soon, plus she loves the dogs in puppy school.
> 
> As it's her birthday next week I've got her lots of lovely new things. We're hoping to start agility when her birthday has passed, I've got her a hurdle, tunnel and a slalom for the garden to practise but we will take her to a lesson before I start doing it at home, I want to check that she's not too young still. There are a few schools in the area, but I'm not sure If they have space or if they accept mutts. We're also considering flyball but I have no knowledge on this. We've got her the wooden treat puzzle toys for her birthday (but don't tell her) and I've placed an order on the most adorable custom made harness.
> 
> Her sit and stay has come on leaps and bounds, I still need to work on walking her to heel especially if she's wanting to start agility, she'll walk but as soon as she sees another dog, she's off!
> 
> I'm going to try to find a nice birthday cake recipe for her for next week  my little girl is growing up


Little Rosie is ONE!?!?! :shocked: I do puppy agility and my club are fine with Mutts. Bailey is the kind of dog that loves to try and run to other dogs (or was he`s a bit more hesitant now) at puppy agility we all go in together and do groundwork which he tries to get to the other dogs but after that you go in one at a time and do your groundwork with pup offlead and Bailey ignores the others all very close to him because he`s so focused. You may find it the same with Rosie  I`ve got the same equipment as you (but jumps not used yet obvs and weaves) I got it on clearance at [email protected] 



LurcherOwner said:


> Is he accustomed to being lifted? has he had a bad experience with another family member? Not trying to be pedantic, just thought that may be why he could be a be nippy cause he's not used to it or uncomfortable.
> 
> Dief you legend! You might see one of DB's siblings in a race one day.


Nobody lifts him except me but then he`s the kind of dog who will lie next to you but will not go on your lap not for a split second.


----------



## Goldstar

Hi everyone 

So I stayed at my dads last week, OH went camping and I was too afraid to stay home alone (blame the horror movies ). 
My 7 year old step niece was there too and when she came over to stroke Lucky she air snapped at her  
I don't know whether it was because we were in a different environment or what but needless to say I won't be allowing a child to approach her again. 

My step niece didn't hurt her, didn't run up to her, didn't smother her. She just walked over to us (Lucky was sitting next to me on the floor), stroked her back for about 5 seconds then Lucky sort of spun around and air snapped. I quickly removed Lucky from the situation and put her in her crate (I always take her crate when we stay out overnight, helps her settle). She then proceeded to growl whenever she saw her or heard her voice.

She's wonderful with my 12 year old brother, probably because she has grown up around him but her behaviour shocked me a little. I don't know how to work on this, or if I can at all. Maybe the only solution is to keep her away from children she isn't used to?


----------



## GingerRogers

Well done dief rather you than me.

I second the hand target thing k9 especially with terriers they don't like doing things they don't like doing.

Linz sorry you feel stressed thats really not what the threads about. The opposite really its a place to vent and then hopefully get solutions if you are open to them. We really just want the best for the dogs here.

LO such great news harness and runnings 

Sorry others still on phone. Had walks and sea mud and dust baths to try and remove he sea mud. It doesn't work. Then just as o thought rests might be in order it was digging time. Then lazy walks as we just took her to a field where oh used to work and let her run

Then she squealed blue murder while bulls where unloaded then met a couple of old friends (previous owners brother and best mate) and got so excited she exposed my breasts in her hurry to greet them 

Then home for more digging. Her appetite for dirt seems insatiable.

Then da da da 

We did trailer ride. Just a short one with hubby accompanying and i think it will be a success.


----------



## sharloid

LurcherOwner said:


> Maybe try estate agents about renting a field?? If it wasn't for my mum I wouldn't be able to get there! ( I can't drive)
> 
> Quick bad pic of the harness
> 
> View attachment 122041


Unless we have £30k+ to buy our own fields are sadly hard to come by in Sheffield.

Your dog is gorgeous, you don't post enough pics. :001_wub:


----------



## missRV

Canine K9 said:


> Little Rosie is ONE!?!?! :shocked: I do puppy agility and my club are fine with Mutts. Bailey is the kind of dog that loves to try and run to other dogs (or was he`s a bit more hesitant now) at puppy agility we all go in together and do groundwork which he tries to get to the other dogs but after that you go in one at a time and do your groundwork with pup offlead and Bailey ignores the others all very close to him because he`s so focused. You may find it the same with Rosie  I`ve got the same equipment as you (but jumps not used yet obvs and weaves) I got it on clearance at [email protected]
> 
> Nobody lifts him except me but then he`s the kind of dog who will lie next to you but will not go on your lap not for a split second.


yeah my little girl was born on 03 Sep 2012... our puppy school does very basic agility too with the tunnel and weaves but no jumping. Rosie adores it. Id love to get her into agility school, ive phoned a few places but no one has got back to me x

Bailey is soooo sweet x


----------



## Goldstar

GingerRogers - had to laugh at ninja violating your dignity  one of my friends dogs pulled down my top once, wouldn't have been so bad but my friend was male and as he was on his knees trying to get his dog back he ended up having a face full  the embarrassment I felt was like nothing I've ever felt before


----------



## GingerRogers

Goldstar said:


> Hi everyone
> 
> So I stayed at my dads last week, OH went camping and I was too afraid to stay home alone (blame the horror movies ).
> My 7 year old step niece was there too and when she came over to stroke Lucky she air snapped at her
> I don't know whether it was because we were in a different environment or what but needless to say I won't be allowing a child to approach her again.
> 
> My step niece didn't hurt her, didn't run up to her, didn't smother her. She just walked over to us (Lucky was sitting next to me on the floor), stroked her back for about 5 seconds then Lucky sort of spun around and air snapped. I quickly removed Lucky from the situation and put her in her crate (I always take her crate when we stay out overnight, helps her settle). She then proceeded to growl whenever she saw her or heard her voice.
> 
> She's wonderful with my 12 year old brother, probably because she has grown up around him but her behaviour shocked me a little. I don't know how to work on this, or if I can at all. Maybe the only solution is to keep her away from children she isn't used to?


Oh sorry to hear this. Umm what to say. Terriers will snap when unsure. Its very such their nature. Snap first to protect from any perceived threat.
Perhaps she stroked her in a tender spot or too hard or just too much for her with the change. An air snap is a good warning to be heeded though so be pleased about that

If you are comfortable enough keep introducing her to more small people but under very controlled situations. A 12 yr old is a very different scenario to a younger child..


----------



## GingerRogers

Goldstar said:


> GingerRogers - had to laugh at ninja violating your dignity  one of my friends dogs pulled down my top once, wouldn't have been so bad but my friend was male and as he was on his knees trying to get his dog back he ended up having a face full  the embarrassment I felt was like nothing I've ever felt before


Yep this was pretty much it. Male approaches car to say hello she scrabbles to get to him and foot goes down cleavage and top followed:001_huh


----------



## Dogless

Well done Dief :thumbup1:. 

Sorry you can't find anywhere Sharloid, hope you do soon.

Goldstar - I am sorry, no more advice to the good stuff you have already had.

MissRV - sounds as if you're doing really well :thumbup1:.

LnM - Sorry you are stressed, hope your skin improves rapidly for you, it sounds really uncomfortable.

GR - Ninja certainly decided that you needed to make an impression  .

LO - Love DB's new harness; may it bring you many happy walks :thumbup1:.

K9 - hand targetting sounds a good way to move Bailey.

If I have forgotten anyone I am sorry, the thread seems to have had a real flurry of activity and I have only had one coffee this morning .


----------



## LinznMilly

LurcherOwner said:


> Eta: just seen LnM, its better to say what you think then bottle it, it may help. Anyways hope you feel better!


Sometimes, it's actually better to walk away and say nothing - even on a forum.  Glad you've got a perfectly fitting harness sorted, and great news about the riding school.

GR: I'm suddenly glad my 2 dogs are too big to pick up 

GS: Sorry Lucky air-snapped at your step-niece, but it is a good warning sign. Better she gives a warning than to just go straight in for the attack. 

DL: Uncomfortable isn't the word when you literally can't stop scratching and can't concentrate on anything else. :frown2:

Nothing really to report yet. Milly was crated overnight as she'd had an accident on the floor after she'd only been out 2 hours beforehand. She's been to the vet about it - must phone them back and ask for her results. Might have to rethink leaving her in the living room in the long run.


----------



## Dogless

LinznMilly said:


> Sometimes, it's actually better to walk away and say nothing - even on a forum.  Glad you've got a perfectly fitting harness sorted, and great news about the riding school.
> 
> GR: I'm suddenly glad my 2 dogs are too big to pick up
> 
> GS: Sorry Lucky air-snapped at your step-niece, but it is a good warning sign. Better she gives a warning than to just go straight in for the attack.
> 
> DL: *Uncomfortable isn't the word when you literally can't stop scratching and can't concentrate on anything else. :frown2:*
> 
> Nothing really to report yet. Milly was crated overnight as she'd had an accident on the floor after she'd only been out 2 hours beforehand. She's been to the vet about it - must phone them back and ask for her results. Might have to rethink leaving her in the living room in the long run.


I can only imagine how irritating that must be, awful.

I almost hope Milly has a UTI if you know what I mean - so that at least it is something easily treated. Perhaps her accidents are anxiety - related if not an infection?


----------



## kat&molly

L&m- If you've read much of this thread you'll see its the nature of the beast.  We all try to help each other,even if it might not be what we want to hear sometimes.


Ginge- we need some pics of Ninja in her trailer, it sounds as if you're making great progress.

Might take the girls off to the Lakes today, its where Evie bolted the other week so I'm feeling slightly panicky.


----------



## LinznMilly

Dogless said:


> I can only imagine how irritating that must be, awful.
> 
> I almost hope Milly has a UTI if you know what I mean - so that at least it is something easily treated. Perhaps her accidents are anxiety - related if not an infection?


Been on the phone to the vet. Her results were clear. Vet suspected cystitis, but did mention it could be behavioural. If it continues she's to go back for anything from x-rays to exploratory surgery. 

I'm cleaning the messes up with biological detergent, but even so, she's always going in the same general area, but never in the same actual spot - around the door.


----------



## Dogless

LinznMilly said:


> Been on the phone to the vet. Her results were clear. Vet suspected cystitis, but did mention it could be behavioural. If it continues she's to go back for anything from x-rays to exploratory surgery.
> 
> I'm cleaning the messes up with biological detergent, but even so, she's always going in the same general area, but never in the same actual spot - around the door.


If she can hold it overnight and when you are in then I am guessing it must be behavioural. Maybe film what she does when you go out?


----------



## GingerRogers

LinznMilly said:


> Been on the phone to the vet. Her results were clear. Vet suspected cystitis, but did mention it could be behavioural. If it continues she's to go back for anything from x-rays to exploratory surgery.
> 
> I'm cleaning the messes up with biological detergent, but even so, she's always going in the same general area, but never in the same actual spot - around the door.


Do you have anywhere that sells that rugdoctor carpet cleaners. The ones you can rent often supermarkets or diy stores. Their urine remover is ace and very easy to use. We had a problem with rory thought it was the beginning of the end tried allsorts, loads of different cleaners, more walks, restricting water overnight etcetc it was simply that he could still smell his own wee. Saying that the fact that its by the door indicates she is attempting to get out possibly?


----------



## LinznMilly

GingerRogers said:


> *Do you have anywhere that sells that rugdoctor carpet cleaners.* The ones you can rent often supermarkets or diy stores. Their urine remover is ace and very easy to use. We had a problem with rory thought it was the beginning of the end tried allsorts, loads of different cleaners, more walks, restricting water overnight etcetc it was simply that he could still smell his own wee. Saying that the fact that its by the door indicates she is attempting to get out possibly?


I can get that for free  The perks of being a self-employed cleaner's daughter   She knows I need to borrow it, just waiting to get it back from her cousin. I'll ask her about the urine remover.

Yeah, it occurred to me that maybe Milly was trying to get out. I know that if the living room door's open, she'll run down the stairs to the front (inside) door.


----------



## Sarah1983

The dog who attacked Spen is being posted! *happy dance* Only 2 months of having to worry about him. I feel bad saying that coz the owners really do seem nice people but their dog really has it in for poor Spendog and if he's off leash they simply don't have good control. 

Spen doesn't seem at all bothered by the attack. He hackles up and he's watchful when the dog is around but that's understandable given what happened. He's played with other canine friends since, whined at a few strange dogs at a distance (that's normal) and been fine, if a bit bouncy, up close to a Dobe puppy.

K9, you wouldn't be picking Bailey up to move him if he were a great dane or lab so if he's biting when you pick him up don't do it. Teach him to target something (hand, target stick, wooden spoon) and use that to move him. If you're picking him up to get him off sofas or whatever then teach a solid off cue. It's far, far too easy for people to simply pick up a small dog and force it to move and all too often the dog is not happy about it one bit.

GS, sorry your dog snapped at your niece. But at least you've had warning that she's not comfortable with her and can take steps to make her feel more comfortable or manage the situation so nothing more can happen. 

MV, love the video of Miss Tink. She always looks so happy


----------



## kat&molly

MV- sorry forgot, loved the vid of Tink, that was brave of her to do that in the park.

Took the girls off to the lakes, we left the big one and walked up the track , girls were really good, it was short stuffs first time off lead since her melt down the other week. She was brilliant, really happy and bouncy , tail going all the time. Lots of check ins and wanting butt rubs before going off again.
Back to the big lake and a couple had turned up but they were at the other end. That done it and she freaked out again, scared stiff then wouldn't move. She did recover quicker this time, the couple left and we moved on.
Got back to the car and the same couple returned so I put the others away , I kept Evie out and we sat on a bench behind them, she was quite upset so I moved a bit further back and she was sat on my lap, not comfortable but calmish, didnt stay long and then she shook it off when we got back to the car.


Really hard to see her like this, it started so good. Her being on my lap did help, the butt rubs she really loves. Both courtesy of MV and Tink , I nicked them 

Hope everyone else had a good day, and Sarah , great news on the move


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - YIPPEEEEE!!!!! :thumbup1: :thumbup1:. I can imagine how much the posting of that dog means to you.

kat & molly - Evie sounds as if she actually did very well given the circumstances. Very hard to watch her so upset but .... tiny improvements with being calmer on your lap and butt rubs? .

No work done today - just lots of time spent in part of "our" safe place .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Sarah - YIPPEEEEE!!!!! :thumbup1: :thumbup1:. I can imagine how much the posting of that dog means to you.
> 
> kat & molly - Evie sounds as if she actually did very well given the circumstances. Very hard to watch her so upset but .... tiny improvements with being calmer on your lap and butt rubs? .
> 
> No work done today - just lots of time spent in part of "our" safe place .


Dogless- the photos are lovely, its great that Kilo has a safe place. 

It didn't feel like an improvement at the time but I cant expect her to calm down completely can I , or not yet anyway  Being that close to me definately helped though  You should see madam , if its a treat she's after I get the head end , if its a butt rub , I get the other


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- the photos are lovely, its great that Kilo has a safe place.
> 
> It didn't feel like an improvement at the time but I cant expect her to calm down completely can I , or not yet anyway  Being that close to me definately helped though  You should see madam , if its a treat she's after I get the head end , if its a butt rub , I get the other


No, it does sound as if she is going in the right direction though, as disappointing as the walk was . I think you have to look for the little rays of sunshine in amongst the thunder clouds.


----------



## moonviolet

Sarah that's great news about the dog being posted it must be worrying for you having them so close with him really having a thing about Spendog. So pleased Spen is playing with his other friends. Such a star.

GS sorry Lucky air snapped at your niece even dogs that like strokes and fusses have times when they don't enjoy them. 

GR :lol: :lol::lol: Sorry 

Dief woohoo you are committed now 

K&M glad you and the girls had a good time at the lakes, glad Evie likes the butt rubs  Sounds like she did really well with the people when you gave her a little more distance 

We had a fun walk today, despite have to dodge the blokes who drive to the park then sit themselves on a bench and let their 5 GSD's patrol the area around unfortunately today their chosen bench meant their dogs made 3 paths a no go area for us and we managed to avoid them rushing out onto the towpath as they were busy snarking at a dog that had entered the park by the entrance nearest their bench. which of course caused their owners to bellow at them. Tink tensed up but a little lap sit and butt rub and she was soon ready to go again. Would have been nicer if she wasn't wet and muddy  We also did a few retrieves, some balances, her favourite stone and sign jumps, send to mat and recalls and a few tricks and things. There was also some time for giddy cantering and grass rolling, much as the grass rolling looked fun I resisted joining in.

And I got a dirty look from a mother when I dodged her little darling who was running toward us brandishing his plastic shovel. I smiled by way of reply


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Sarah that's great news about the dog being posted it must be worrying for you having them so close with him really having a thing about Spendog. So pleased Spen is playing with his other friends. Such a star.
> 
> GS sorry Lucky air snapped at your niece even dogs that like strokes and fusses have times when they don't enjoy them.
> 
> GR :lol: :lol::lol: Sorry
> 
> Dief woohoo you are committed now
> 
> K&M glad you and the girls had a good time at the lakes, glad Evie likes the butt rubs  Sounds like she did really well with the people when you gave her a little more distance
> 
> We had a fun walk today, despite have to dodge the blokes who drive to the park then sit themselves on a bench and let their 5 GSD's patrol the area around unfortunately today their chosen bench meant their dogs made 3 paths a no go area for us and we managed to avoid them rushing out onto the towpath as they were busy snarking at a dog that had entered the park by the entrance nearest their bench. which of course caused their owners to bellow at them. Tink tensed up but a little lap sit and butt rub and she was soon ready to go again. Would have been nicer if she wasn't wet and muddy  We also did a few retrieves, *some balances*, her favourite *stone and sign jumps, send to mat and recalls and a few tricks and things*. *There was also some time for giddy cantering and grass rolling*, much as the grass rolling looked fun I resisted joining in.
> 
> And I got a dirty look from a mother when I dodged her little darling who was running toward us brandishing his plastic shovel. I smiled by way of reply


What have you been told about embarrassing your poor dog in public? :mad2:. Pleased you had a good walk and dodged the GSDs, bellowing men and child with shovel held aloft :thumbup1:.


----------



## JenKyzer

I haven't caught up for a few days .. I shall do that after i've posted 

Had a huuuge walk yesterday, with some good and some bad bits 

It was the day i hadn't been looking forward to, she reacted to every dog 
-At the shop, the other dog was barking at her, she did some strange jump in the air and as i was hold of her she kinda stayed up there with her back paws on the floor :001_huh:
Then i remembered i forgot her muzzle!! So we went back and got it as we we're going in the woods  she was very sulky! But oh my word, what a difference in people reaction - they all leaded up their dogs  ..  .. I didn't like the mums shufflin their kids to one side as much though and looking at me as if i was walking a vicious child hunting dog :001_unsure: as i know willow loves kids.. but hey-ho it was worth the 'no dog approached us' walk!! Anyway..
1st dog, a lab, sat her down and as they passed instead of carrying on she pulled towards them and took a very stern 'carry on' to keep going and then kept looking back. 
2nd dogs, appeared out of no where once we had passed their owners - didn't come near us but as they tumbled out of the bushes Willow was again pulling towards them and it took some stern words.
3&4th.. this was the worst  .. willow was sat, they passed on completely the opposite side of the path, Willow did the weird jumpy thing and was barking!! She hasn't barked in soo long at a 'just passing' dog .. but.. it was the same breed as the one that got hold of her in the woods the other week.. might have something to do with that? She looked highly adorable jumping and barking in her muzzle anyway  .. Of course i apologised to the ladies. 
5th.. sat.. but then went to pull towards and did a bit of a lunge.
6th.. we had to walk by but i don't think Willow really saw it but had to wait for my sister to catch us up so when she did see it again she was pulling towards it. 
It felt so strange after a really good 2 weeks or so of her just sitting and nicely watching them pass by :sad: so i was quite gutted.
Took my clickery whistle with us and did some simple click stuff.. also tested out the 2 pips of the whistle for recall.. and.. she did it  1st time, straight back to me. 2nd time, she got distracted by a smell so i had to remind her she was coming to me  and 3rd time she did it too. Didn't do much of it as i didn't want her to spend too much time offlead  i'm so nervous of these dogs that just pop up! But at least thats sinking in anyway  Ended up taking the muzzle off after about an hour&half.. as it was just bugging her and she kept rubbing her face into the floor trying to get it off when we were stationary  it ended up with muddy grass stuck all over it  she was happier with it off anyway i just kept her on lead - i was going to let her off lead more with it on as we we're in such a massive area of land. (I'll upload pics on a thread later, we got some good ones  )

Feel like i've let off a bit of steam writing that anyway


----------



## JenKyzer

Since the 27th  

Huskybob - A great video  Something we may have to try with willow then she can earn her keep too 

Linz&Milly - Glad wheres the kong is going great  (even more ideas for me!) & well done to max with the quiet command  :thumbup1:

Sarah - nice pics  glad you relaxed a little as spencer showed you he was relaxed too! Also well done to Spencer for not making a fuss at the dog that bit him  what a good lad!

Dogless - Rudis 'people' walk sounds good & well done to him for ignoring the dogs  Shame the videos didnt go to plan with Kilo - I'll look forward to them in sept  Their racing 'walk' sounds great too .. sounds like they love a good outing together  

GR - I hope we get to see some pics of her in the trailer  

MV - love the vid of tink and her retrieve  shes so adorable! Your walk today sounds good too.. apart from the 5GSD bit 

LO - Yaaay to the harness and zander being non-grumpy&lungey  

K&M - Sounds like a nice overall walk at the lakes.. well before going to the big lake anyway  Nice to hear she recovered quicker though.. 

Sorry if i've missed anything.. i have liked as i've read through too..


----------



## Canine K9

I am sooo pleased with Bailey today. We met MissRV`s Rosie and apart from Rosie being a lovely little girl so sweet and fluffy :001_wub:, Bailey played with her! Since Bailey was attacked he has never played with another dog since. Rosie was the exception! He played with her really well and bless little Rosie she put up with him


----------



## tiatortilla

k9 - Sounds like a lovely meeting for Bailey, glad it went well 

JSW - Willow is doing amazingly, you've done such great work with her.

MV - Glad you had a fun walk, well done for dodging the GSDs! Sounds like Tink coped really well!

k&m - Sorry your walk didn't quite go to plan.. great that the butt rubs help though .

Sarah - I must have missed the posts about Spen being attacked, sorry to hear that. Great that the dog is being posted elsewhere though, that's really lucky!

GR - Trailer sounds great! Tia exposed my boob in a pub once when she was a puppy . Happens to the best of us!

LnM - I hope everything is alright with Milly.

--

Okay I know I've not done all of you but I've been silently lurking since my last post. Still got limited computer access but I'm doing my best!

We've had a couple of brilliant successes since I last posted. The other morning I opened our front door and there was an off lead Weimaraner (sp?) right outside and Tia was just like :001_huh:. No lunges, no barking, nothing. I thought it was a bit of a fluke tbh but there was a little fluffy dog just to the left of our front door too so I went back inside with Tia, pulled the door to and as the little dog walked past he shoved his nose in the doorway :lol:. But she didn't react to that either!! Madness!
She was fine on lead pretty close to a little JRT today too, as well as a few other dogs so it's been going really well. Walking her on lead and knowing we may well bump into other dogs is getting soo much less stressful .
She made friends with a very old deaf Spaniel and a Westie on the off lead portion of today's walk too so she's had a lovely day today, and she's been playing in the park with her JRT friend too recently.
Recall just seems completely random lol. No it's not really, she's just perfect in places with no distractions and hit and miss in places with distractions, it's the transition between the two that's difficult but it's a work in progress still. I do have an added benefit though - she suddenly LOVES playing fetch on walks. She's always been a bit 'meh' about it, play for a bit and then gets bored and wants to zoom/sniff but she's really into it now so it's a useful tool!
Right I'll shut up now .


----------



## missRV

Canine K9 said:


> I am sooo pleased with Bailey today. We met MissRV`s Rosie and apart from Rosie being a lovely little girl so sweet and fluffy :001_wub:, Bailey played with her! Since Bailey was attacked he has never played with another dog since. Rosie was the exception! He played with her really well and bless little Rosie she put up with him


Bailey was an absolute superstar. Rosie kept looking over at him desperate to say 'hello' so we crashed in on Canine's free run on the equipment while the dogs played  Rosie has also been timid of other dogs so it was lovely to see her play with Bailey  we didn't want to force them together too much knowing that he had a bad experience but they really wanted to play. He is doing so well and is such a lovely little dog (as well as gorgeous) :001_wub: was lovely meeting both of you, Rosie and I are well excited for next week  Canine is amazing with Bailey, it's obvious how dedicated she is to her lovely dog 

She had her first go at basic puppy agility today, I can't wait until she's good enough to let off the leash on the course.... I did have to laugh when the trainer was trying to tempt her through the hoop with a beef jerkey, Rosie popped her head through the hoop, stole the jerkey and ran off the other way :thumbup1: clever girl


----------



## diefenbaker

I entered a "parkrun" as a prelude to the CaniX... the good news is I made it to the end... and if the time is correct I'm quite pleased with myself.


----------



## diefenbaker

In a change to the scheduled programming the WWF Super RR Match has been replaced by the DWF ( Dorset Wrestling Federation ) GreenField Challenge. Whilst lacking some of the glitz and glamour of the WWF the DWF does feature a sunflower in the background. Tonight's contest features the Wolfman versus the Coal Miner. For in-bout betting go to www.diefsdaddrinkingfund.com

[youtube_browser]oweaR-SAK5M[/youtube_browser]


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## Dogless

Play and training this morning, forest this afternoon / evening. All good.


----------



## JenKyzer

Willows walk with OH this morn went well & she ignored a lab that followed them all the way round the block 

I wanted to walk in the woods this evening so on went the muzzle & she was fine with it .. We got into the woods entrance and she had a sniff, then started whining and trying to turn back  i tried coaxing her in with treats & making a fuss of her but she just kept coming to me and nuzzling my leg then turning back round to leave the woods whilst whining  .. I even took the muzzle off to see if that helped but she just would not go into the woods. So we went home  Didnt wanna upset her.. She's never done anything like this before and wanted to turn back.. She loves the woods.. Normally..


----------



## kat&molly

JenSteWillow said:


> Willows walk with OH this morn went well & she ignored a lab that followed them all the way round the block
> 
> I wanted to walk in the woods this evening so on went the muzzle & she was fine with it .. We got into the woods entrance and she had a sniff, then started whining and trying to turn back  i tried coaxing her in with treats & making a fuss of her but she just kept coming to me and nuzzling my leg then turning back round to leave the woods whilst whining  .. I even took the muzzle off to see if that helped but she just would not go into the woods. So we went home  Didnt wanna upset her.. She's never done anything like this before and wanted to turn back.. She loves the woods.. Normally..


Oh dear poor Willow, was it yesterday she went there and reacted to the other dogs? There was that silly woman there as well last week. 
I'd give it a wide berth for a bit if you can.


----------



## JenKyzer

kat&molly said:


> Oh dear poor Willow, was it yesterday she went there and reacted to the other dogs? There was that silly woman there as well last week.
> I'd give it a wide berth for a bit if you can.


Thursday was the reactive to every dog day in & out of the woods & yeah there was the incident in there the other week too. But since the incident shes been in there & not reacted to dogs.. Even straight after the incident she seemed ok with other dogs .. *sigh* Strange few days.. Will go res tomorrow after work & let her off lead to let off steam i think with OH  & avoid the woods for a week or so then go in another entrance to test the water after we've avoided it to see what happens..  i hope she was just being soft cos OH was at home with friends so she wanted to be home being fussed over and not walking through sludge&mud with me


----------



## Twiggy

Hello lovely ladies of WAYWO - I'm back...!!

Thank you all for thinking of me and I've kept in touch with Dogless via pm as most of you know.

The last few months have been truly awful but life goes on as they say.

Tremor still isn't right and she's also had to have cosmetic surgery to correct a problem with her vulva; Leafy now has problems with her liver and kidneys and had an ultra-sound scan 10 days ago, I've still to fetch my sister's Barley because I can't face doing it yet, I've had to cancel a very important judging appointment next March because I'm not up to it mentally or physically, etc. etc.

On the plus side Holly is fine and fighting fit, my hubby has been very supportive and pretty wonderful really throughout all of this, as have so many of the competitive obedience fraternity and close friends.

I'm off to a little fun dog show tomorrow with a friend as there will be a 'have a go' agility course and we shall run her two collies and Holly. We've already been to two similar shows and both times Holly actually performed and she got her very first rosette...!! OK it wasn't in obedience or agility - 3rd in best rescue....

I hope you and all your dogs are well and when I get time I'll look back through pages and pages of your posts on this thread in an effort to catch up.


----------



## sharloid

I've had a brilliant day with all 3 dogs at a fun dog show. Kindra got 2nd in prettiest bitch, Yla got 2nd in cutest puppy and Broder came 3rd in best trick. 

Broder had his head collar off after the first hour, and they were all so well behaved that I took all 3 dogs in the ring on my own for the 'pack pick' class and we came 2nd! No whining, lunging, pulling to get to other dogs. Yla did very well and met several dogs and humans, Kindra was beautifully behaved as usual and Broder didn't take his eyes off me or OH whilst in the ring. 

He's doing so so so well that writing this I've got such a big grin on my face and I think I might cry.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Hello lovely ladies of WAYWO - I'm back...!!
> 
> Thank you all for thinking of me and I've kept in touch with Dogless via pm as most of you know.
> 
> The last few months have been truly awful but life goes on as they say.
> 
> Tremor still isn't right and she's also had to have cosmetic surgery to correct a problem with her vulva; Leafy now has problems with her liver and kidneys and had an ultra-sound scan 10 days ago, I've still to fetch my sister's Barley because I can't face doing it yet, I've had to cancel a very important judging appointment next March because I'm not up to it mentally or physically, etc. etc.
> 
> On the plus side Holly is fine and fighting fit, my hubby has been very supportive and pretty wonderful really throughout all of this, as have so many of the competitive obedience fraternity and close friends.
> 
> I'm off to a little fun dog show tomorrow with a friend as there will be a 'have a go' agility course and we shall run her two collies and Holly. We've already been to two similar shows and both times Holly actually performed and she got her very first rosette...!! OK it wasn't in obedience or agility - 3rd in best rescue....
> 
> I hope you and all your dogs are well and when I get time I'll look back through pages and pages of your posts on this thread in an effort to catch up.


So so lovely to see you back twiggy I hope you are ok and see a change in ours dogs. We have missed you.



sharloid said:


> I've had a brilliant day with all 3 dogs at a fun dog show. Kindra got 2nd in prettiest bitch, Yla got 2nd in cutest puppy and Broder came 3rd in best trick.
> 
> Broder had his head collar off after the first hour, and they were all so well behaved that I took all 3 dogs in the ring on my own for the 'pack pick' class and we came 2nd! No whining, lunging, pulling to get to other dogs. Yla did very well and met several dogs and humans, Kindra was beautifully behaved as usual and Broder didn't take his eyes off me or OH whilst in the ring.
> 
> He's doing so so so well that writing this I've got such a big grin on my face and I think I might cry.


That's the most enthusiastic i have heard you. Lively well done. The tears are special.

Eta i am almost tearing reading that but twiggys return has aided.


----------



## sharloid

GingerRogers said:


> That's the most enthusiastic i have heard you. Lively well done. The tears are special


I really couldn't fault any of them. To say Broder would be on two feet lunging and whining every time he saw a dog even if it was far away a few months ago... to standing next to a dog and not even bothering to sniff it...



Well, he was being faultless until he got come and played too rough with Kindra and got put in time out. Bloody idiot.


----------



## GingerRogers

I think like us they always ruin it lol. I know i am in for something when ninjas been good. speaking of tomorrow is another day


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy, it is so fantastic to have you back, we have all missed you - WAYWO wasn't quite WAYWO without you . I hope the fun dog show goes well today and little HB does well!

JSW - I'd steer clear of the woods maybe for a little while too. Willow has been doing so brilliantly but you're bound to have a few set backs. She must have been working really hard on all her improving so maybe she just needs a few "easy" times and who can blame her? The pair of you have made unreal progress .

Sharloid - sounds like a great day.

Dief - LOVE the alternative to RR wrestling; I am sorry I didn't comment yesterday I was tired .

Sorry I didn't comment on the others yesterday either - I did read, I was just worn out for some reason and in one of "those" moods  .


----------



## Werehorse

Lovely to see you back, Twiggy! Well done Holly on her rosette!


----------



## kat&molly

Yay Twiggy, lovely to have you back. You'll never catch up


----------



## JenKyzer

Thankyou for kind words as always Dogless


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Thankyou for kind words as always Dogless


I think what we are all guilty of is seeing things that we need to work on but not what progress we have made (I am especially bad anyway! ) and sometimes people need to point out how far things have progressed for us to see it too. If that makes any sense at all? :crazy:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> I think what we are all guilty of is seeing things that we need to work on but not what progress we have made (I am especially bad anyway! ) and sometimes people need to point out how far things have progressed for us to see it too. If that makes any sense at all? :crazy:.


Makes total sence  i still remember the days when she was barking&lunging at dogs even across the road with cars going past inbetween! So she has done me proud  i just hope i haven't done something wrong to make her anxious of the woods or not done my bit to make her feel safe. But we will take it easy for a week or so  no doubt i'm being daft & i'll go home later and she would of had a fab day with the OH ! I need to relax too i think :laugh: . Thankyou  x


----------



## kat&molly

Think I might try leaving Evie's walks out for a few days, she wont like it but we are going from bad to worse here.
Just a car pulling up yesterday freaked her out, it was a good 60 meters away and we couldn't even see the person get out, only a door shut. It was scary enough that she couldn't move for 10 minutes.

Maybe I'm not helping as I worry about everything that upsets her.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Think I might try leaving Evie's walks out for a few days, she wont like it but we are going from bad to worse here.
> Just a car pulling up yesterday freaked her out, it was a good 60 meters away and we couldn't even see the person get out, only a door shut. It was scary enough that she couldn't move for 10 minutes.
> 
> Maybe I'm not helping as I worry about everything that upsets her.


And then it becomes a vicious circle I'm afraid - Evie's worrying, so you're worrying about Evie, so Evie's worrying more because you're worrying and on and on.

Have you ever tried the Doreen Paige 'Insecurity' remedy? It worked extremely well on Leafy 10 years ago and we've used it successfully on other dogs since.


----------



## Twiggy

Well the fun dog show was pretty much a dead loss so thank goodness it was only about 5 miles up the road.

The stalls, the ring and loads of dogs and owners packed into a tiny square of grass.

The agility was a joke - a straight line of jumps, weaving poles and mini dog walk alongside the fence but not fenced off, so joe public were standing with their dogs amongst it, etc. In fact it was dangerous with children dragging their poor dogs over the jumps on the lead with nobody supervising.

I cleared the course and two friends acted as marshalls whilst we ran the dogs up and down a couple of times and Holly was a really good girl (in a Holly sort of way) and went down and back very well off the lead.

I ran my friend's little collie, who is nervous aggressive and needs space, and wouldn't you know it coming back down the line a black labrador got away from it's owner and hurled itself at her. The owner was apologetic, as they usually are, but the little dog really didn't need that. Anyway I jollied her up and we ran the line again.

We didn't stay long.....!!

At least Holly had a good time busying herself trying to greet every dog and owner present and spent about 15 minutes playing with her Red Setter friend from our agility class.

Oh well we're going to a proper open obedience show next Sunday at a nice venue and hopefully I can at least get Tremor in the ring and do a bit with her.


----------



## Guest

Really really really happy to see you back Twiggy! 

Not much to report here except we had another calm walk, he did lunge at a spaniel but in general seems alot more relaxed in his harness, really wish I had seen the signs earlier.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - the dog show does sound rubbish and actually fairly dangerous; bit of an accident waiting to happen - it made me smile imagining you sorting things out clearing the course and appointing your marshalls!!! Well done to little HB though again - she is a good girl now . I feel for your friend's collie though with the black lab, my heart sinks just thinking about it.

k&m - No walks for a few days sounds like the best plan for Evie. I am sorry you're having a struggle at present.

Well, we had a good walk in the main. Went to my favourite bit of the forest. The weather up there was wild today - really windy - and the CHs were in full hunting mode, so my full attention was taken in watching their body language carefully as they ranged around and in keeping the "lines of communication" between dogs and human open - maintaing that connection if that makes me sound less of an idiot than some folk think I am :crazy:. So, just ensuring they were listening and doing as they were asked and they did - good boys . Tiring for my little brain though!

On our way back after a few hours around a corner appeared Kilo's main trigger - a lone person where we never see people (haven't met anyone in that part in the almost two years we've been going bar the Game Warden in his truck) and...no awful fixation and staring, no stalking  . He looked a bit confused for a while and then came back to me for his lead on. I couldn't believe it, no having to redirect his attention  . Sounds like nothing but for us it was a HUGE moment.

Not all good though . Some of you may recall Rudi had an odd "spooky" day on holiday on Dartmoor where he barked at everything that appeared on a walk (that had to be abandoned because of it) and then was absolutely fine the very next day and has been since. Anyway, his reaction today was to hackle up like a puffer fish and cower and bark. It was hard to get his lead on as the group who were with the first person and who appeared shortly afterwards kept on advancing and Rudi was struggling so hard to get away I fell over . I had to ask them to stop so I could get him under some sort of control . THEN another group were leaning on the gate into the forest eating their lunch and Rudi got so het up about them he barked and leapt into the air attempting to struggle free. I am HOPING that this was just a "one off" spooky day again like on holiday or due to a fear period. I'll take him to the park or PAH tomorrow weather depending and see how he fares or around more people on camp. Suffice to say I said "Sorry" an awful lot  :crazy:.

Anyhow....that's an essay and a half :crazy:.


----------



## Lauren5159

So, Skip has decided he hates certain cars. Not all cars. I think it's cars travelling over a certain speed. He fixates on them and watches them coming towards him and as they pass, he lunges &#128542;

I've realised that it is only one particular road not far from the house. When I walk him to the park, he's fine because the cars are coming from behind him (he does try to outrun some of them) and the cars coming towards us are on the other side. On quiet roads, when the cars slow down to go over the speed bumps, he's fine, no issues at all. He doesn't even look at them, even if they are close to us.

So, for the time being, we're working solidly on 'watch me' and avoiding the main road. If I do have to walk beside the road, I'm crossing over so the cars aren't coming straight at us. 

Issue 2: he does not accept treats or couldn't care less about toys whilst we're out... If I stand still and tell him to 'leave', he won't lunge but he becomes very tense and watches the cars intently. 

At a busy road, stopping and telling him to 'leave' isn't very practical so if 'watch me' doesn't work, it's back to the drawing board...

*sigh* and he was doing so well! 

Does anyone have any ideas that might help? &#128513;


----------



## Holtie

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - the dog show does sound rubbish and actually fairly dangerous; bit of an accident waiting to happen - it made me smile imagining you sorting things out clearing the course and appointing your marshalls!!! Well done to little HB though again - she is a good girl now . I feel for your friend's collie though with the black lab, my heart sinks just thinking about it.
> 
> k&m - No walks for a few days sounds like the best plan for Evie. I am sorry you're having a struggle at present.
> 
> Well, we had a good walk in the main. Went to my favourite bit of the forest. The weather up there was wild today - really windy - and the CHs were in full hunting mode, so my full attention was taken in watching their body language carefully as they ranged around and in keeping the "lines of communication" between dogs and human open - maintaing that connection if that makes me sound less of an idiot than some folk think I am :crazy:. So, just ensuring they were listening and doing as they were asked and they did - good boys . Tiring for my little brain though!
> 
> *On our way back after a few hours around a corner appeared Kilo's main trigger - a lone person where we never see people (haven't met anyone in that part in the almost two years we've been going bar the Game Warden in his truck) and...no awful fixation and staring, no stalking  . He looked a bit confused for a while and then came back to me for his lead on. I couldn't believe it, no having to redirect his attention  . Sounds like nothing but for us it was a HUGE moment.*
> Not all good though . Some of you may recall Rudi had an odd "spooky" day on holiday on Dartmoor where he barked at everything that appeared on a walk (that had to be abandoned because of it) and then was absolutely fine the very next day and has been since. Anyway, his reaction today was to hackle up like a puffer fish and cower and bark. It was hard to get his lead on as the group who were with the first person and who appeared shortly afterwards kept on advancing and Rudi was struggling so hard to get away I fell over . I had to ask them to stop so I could get him under some sort of control . THEN another group were leaning on the gate into the forest eating their lunch and Rudi got so het up about them he barked and leapt into the air attempting to struggle free. I am HOPING that this was just a "one off" spooky day again like on holiday or due to a fear period. I'll take him to the park or PAH tomorrow weather depending and see how he fares or around more people on camp. Suffice to say I said "Sorry" an awful lot  :crazy:.
> 
> Anyhow....that's an essay and a half :crazy:.


Dogless, Kilo coming back to you to have his lead put on is a huge and wonderful step for you and I am really happy to hear this. This is the soppy side of me coming out but to me, it seems that Kilo associates this as security and being near you but you are more than welcome to dismiss this as codswallop!  
I am sorry to hear that Rudi is finding certain things spooky but will keep my fingers crossed that this will debate after time. 
'Sounds Like Nothing' is not acceptable to hear - it is an incredible achievement and so you should be very proud.
Hope you didn't hurt yourself too much apart from your pride.
All the best JT


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> So, Skip has decided he hates certain cars. Not all cars. I think it's cars travelling over a certain speed. He fixates on them and watches them coming towards him and as they pass, he lunges 😞
> 
> I've realised that it is only one particular road not far from the house. When I walk him to the park, he's fine because the cars are coming from behind him (he does try to outrun some of them) and the cars coming towards us are on the other side. On quiet roads, when the cars slow down to go over the speed bumps, he's fine, no issues at all. He doesn't even look at them, even if they are close to us.
> 
> So, for the time being, we're working solidly on 'watch me' and avoiding the main road. If I do have to walk beside the road, I'm crossing over so the cars aren't coming straight at us.
> 
> Issue 2: he does not accept treats or couldn't care less about toys whilst we're out... If I stand still and tell him to 'leave', he won't lunge but he becomes very tense and watches the cars intently.
> 
> At a busy road, stopping and telling him to 'leave' isn't very practical so if 'watch me' doesn't work, it's back to the drawing board...
> 
> *sigh* and he was doing so well!
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas that might help? 😁


Kilo used to lunge at vehicles when he was a puppy, particularly lorries and diesel vans and also used to try and attack wheels when they were pulling up alongside a kerb. He decided to start by almost killing me trying to leap out a lorry one day :crazy:.

My first thing was to buy a front clip harness for better control. I then spent quite some time walking up and down roads where he could see and hear traffic but not be so close as to react and I just said "Yes" and treated if I recall correctly every time we saw one, gradually getting closer - so the LAT game really. Also went out in the rain to do the same A LOT as wet tyres really set him off. Probably the single most helpful thing in terms of the desire to chase at times was controlled chase games.

When he was neutered I had to stop his impulse control games and he suddenly tried to lunge at vehicles again (after having not done it for two years!). As soon as the impulse control games were restarted the lunging stopped so they seem to be what keeps it at bay the most.


----------



## Dogless

JTHolt said:


> Dogless, Kilo coming back to you to have his lead put on is a huge and wonderful step for you and I am really happy to hear this. This is the soppy side of me coming out but to me, it seems that Kilo associates this as security and being near you but you are more than welcome to dismiss this as codswallop!
> I am sorry to hear that Rudi is finding certain things spooky but will keep my fingers crossed that this will debate after time.
> 'Sounds Like Nothing' is not acceptable to hear - it is an incredible achievement and so you should be very proud.
> Hope you didn't hurt yourself too much apart from your pride.
> All the best JT


It's about time Rudi had me over, he's a year old this month and hadn't managed it yet :crazy: .


----------



## Lauren5159

Oh! A front clip harness! Hadn't even thought of that. Thank you! Impulse control seems to be Skip's downfall, so working in that is a good plan &#128522;

Thanks for your help, and for making me feel not so alone &#128522;

Looks like we have some work to do.


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> Oh! A front clip harness! Hadn't even thought of that. Thank you! Impulse control seems to be Skip's downfall, so working in that is a good plan 😊
> 
> Thanks for your help, and for making me feel not so alone 😊
> 
> Looks like we have some work to do.


Impulse control and prey drive have been my biggest challenges with Kilo, and remain so . Well, until he was attacked. Just going out and about with him is a challenge now .


----------



## Holtie

Dogless said:


> It's about time Rudi had me over, he's a year old this month and hadn't managed it yet :crazy: .


A year old this month?!  Where HAS the time gone?!


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> Impulse control and prey drive have been my biggest challenges with Kilo, and remain so . Well, until he was attacked. Just going out and about with him is a challenge now .


Poor Kilo 😞

Ditto prey drive and impulse control. Skip is manic. I guess I'm just lucky that he weight 8kg and not ten times that like your beautiful boys lol.

The joys, huh?

Luckily Skip hasn't been attacked, but Dexter has and for a while that made him even more neurotic...

I'm off to buy a front clip harness 😊 Any recommendations?


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> Poor Kilo 😞
> 
> Ditto prey drive and impulse control. Skip is manic. I guess I'm just lucky that he weight 8kg and not ten times that like your beautiful boys lol.
> 
> The joys, huh?
> 
> Luckily Skip hasn't been attacked, but Dexter has and for a while that made him even more neurotic...
> 
> I'm off to buy a front clip harness 😊 Any recommendations?


I used the Xtra dog at the time, then didn't use a harness again until a few months ago (nothing to do with lunging, more to do with thinking carefully about the tools I use). I now walk both dogs on Mekutis which aren't front clip, rather the lead passes through a ring on the front to attach either side. I really rate them: https://mekuti.co.uk/harness_only.htm


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> I used the Xtra dog at the time, then didn't use a harness again until a few months ago (nothing to do with lunging, more to do with thinking carefully about the tools I use). I now walk both dogs on Mekutis which aren't front clip, rather the lead passes through a ring on the front to attach either side. I really rate them: https://mekuti.co.uk/harness_only.htm


Thanks so much 😊

I'll have a look and order one 😊


----------



## diefenbaker

missRV said:


> As it's her birthday next week I've got her lots of lovely new things. We're hoping to start agility when her birthday has passed, I've got her a hurdle, tunnel and a slalom for the garden to practise but we will take her to a lesson before I start doing it at home, I want to check that she's not too young still.


The only reason for the age restriction that I'm aware of is the jump height. On mine you can adjust the height all the way down to zero. Tunnel and slalom I don't see why you can't do them from a puppy.

ETA: If you practice at home and then go camping with some mates who do go to a club and your dog does it best you can put your smug git face on.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> The only reason for the age restriction that I'm aware of is the jump height. On mine you can adjust the height all the way down to zero. Tunnel and slalom I don't see why you can't do them from a puppy.


Isn't weaving age restricted because of the demands on the body of twisting and turning? Not sure but Twiggy will know .


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Isn't weaving age restricted because of the demands on the body of twisting and turning? Not sure but Twiggy will know .


Possibly it could depend on how good your dog is a it. The top ones on youtube are jumping side to side at speed with no handler in sight. I space the poles for a Dief sized dog and he follows my hand like an oil tanker.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Possibly it could depend on how good your dog is a it. The top ones on youtube are jumping side to side at speed with no handler in sight. I space the poles for a Dief sized dog and he follows my hand like an oil tanker.


I know exactly what you mean.....I always look at Kilo's turning circle and think of an articulated lorry as the smaller dog he outpaced turns on a sixpence and speeds off again .


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Possibly it could depend on how good your dog is a it. The top ones on youtube are jumping side to side at speed with no handler in sight. I space the poles for a Dief sized dog and he follows my hand like an oil tanker.


I'm afraid it's got nothing to do with how good your dog is. The reason most decent agility clubs and private trainers won't entertain a dog under 12 months old it because of pressure/strain on the spine and limbs. Even with older dogs I tend to err on the side of caution and don't overdue things, especially when the ground is as hard as concrete (as it is here at the moment).

The weaving poles are probably the piece of equipment to tackle last.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Isn't weaving age restricted because of the demands on the body of twisting and turning? Not sure but Twiggy will know .


Very well done Kilo - what a good boy.

You don't suppose it was the wind making Rudi jumpy? It can have that effect on horses and dogs.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Very well done Kilo - what a good boy.
> 
> You don't suppose it was the wind making Rudi jumpy? It can have that effect on horses and dogs.


May have been actually - Kilo has always been jumpy in the wind but actually Rudi hasn't been in the forest in high winds yet and was very, very wired all walk - it was wild up there, that part of the forest is on the high ground. I think it was windy that day on holiday too, come to mention it Twiggy - but not as windy as today. It did mean we didn't hear the people coming - I jumped as well as the dogs. The people didn't seem even slightly bothered about a large puppy barking his head off at them! It is very out of character for Rudi.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> May have been actually - Kilo has always been jumpy in the wind but actually Rudi hasn't been in the forest in high winds yet and was very, very wired all walk - it was wild up there, that part of the forest is on the high ground. I think it was windy that day on holiday too, come to mention it Twiggy - but not as windy as today. It did mean we didn't hear the people coming - I jumped as well as the dogs. The people didn't seem even slightly bothered about a large puppy barking his head off at them! It is very out of character for Rudi.


That because they're Irish.....


----------



## tiatortilla

Welcome back Twiggy.

LO - Pleased to hear you had a calm walk 

Dogless - Well done to you and Kilo, that's fab  Hope Rudi's weirdness was a one off!

Lauren - Welcome to the thread. No advice but I hope you manage to get the car thing sorted 

Sharloid - Well done to the doggies for behaving and winning all those prizes!

--

Today's walk was a mixture of brilliant and terrible. The good part is that we saw loads of dogs while she was on lead and she didn't bark at one .

The terrible part was bad judgement on my part I think. We were walking up the Tor, Tia was off lead, and when we got to the top there was a labrador there on lead. I have no idea what happened, tbh I have a suspicion that the dog was "eyeballing" her because what happened next was out of character.. she ran over to the dog and barked. Now I know she's reactive on lead, but I do know what she's like and her triggers etc. and her usual reaction to a dog she doesn't like when she's off lead, is to try and be as far away from it as possible, she's NEVER run up to a dog to bark at it before.

I ran after her immediately, grabbed her and apologised loads but the owner wasn't having any of it. I know I was in the wrong, but it genuinely was a one off, I was extremely apologetic and the guy was acting like Tia had bitten his dog or something, he was just giving me this really horrible look every time I apologised and then said she should be on a lead as "it's a breed characteristic". So I suppose barking at another dog is now a staffy trait.. fgs, I know what he meant by it really, but she isn't aggressive, she didn't attack his dog - she barked like twice.
I know it was wrong, it shouldn't have happened and she'll now be on a lead in places I can't see all around just in case she would do it again. It was a genuine mistake and ofc she wouldn't have been off lead if I had the slightest suspicion she would do that.. I just felt like seeing as I did apologise and get her immediately that my one mistake didn't really deserve the vitriol it was met with. I've never been that horrible to someone whose dog has run up to Tia, especially if they're sorry about it and we've had incidents much worse than that.
tl;dr - I made a mistake, someone was mean to me and now I'm sad. I'll be alright! I don't really expect anyone to read all of that, let alone reply lol, just needed a bit of a vent!


----------



## Tyton

Hi everyone. I must confess to being a regular lurker, but not so good at posting! 

I've heaps to work on with the dogs, but the main thing I'm working on just now is my own confidence with them. This weekend, for the first time, I've taken both Beau and Kahn out separately and let them offlead round our two local fields. Normally I stick to the common outside our house, or have OH with me in the park or down the beach, often with Tyton as well as the puppies as he has a deep loud voice and a more reliable recall with the little ones (Tyton is rather nervous with people and rude and bouncy with dogs so he stays on-lead).

Anyway, that's 2 whole days each pup has done a fairly successful LLW across the common and lane to the field, had an offlead run around with a good (and still offlead ) heel across the v quiet cul-de-sac to the other field and back. I still chicken out when I spot another dog on the path and put the lead on when they do their sit and watch, but I had the courage to trust Kahn to leave a weimy he likes to come on my walk when he spotted it across the field and started towards it. I know it sounds daft, but I'm scared they'll rush off and get lost or bother other dogs when I really ought to trust their recall as they are good pups really 

Wanted to post as it's a huge step forward for me, even if not for the dogs who took it all in their stride.


----------



## moonviolet

Mad weekend for us, day trip to my parents' in Dorset yesterday, sniffing, running around with their dogs and some attempted rolling I do love being blessed with a dog with poor rolling aim :lol: Tink was a star with all the livestock around.

Today was a 2 hour workshop tricks/freestyle she was a little diamond, we are both knackered, but no as tired as the gordon setter who took a nap in class before getting a 2nd wind :lol:

Sorry to tired to think straight, but must say its lovely to see you return Twiggy


----------



## Dogless

TT - oh dear about lab man; maybe he was having a bad day and took it out on you or maybe his dog has been attacked or harassed by a dog who looks like Tia or something and again it got taken out on you and Tia. Still, no harm done. I'd say the onlead behaviour was a huge positive .

Tyton - I know what you mean about your own self confidence. I know that my confidence or not in certain situations really affects the dogs. It sounds as if you and the pups did very well though so hopefully your confidence was built a little and will be built a little more on each walk.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Mad weekend for us, day trip to my parents' in Dorset yesterday, sniffing, running around with their dogs and some attempted rolling I do love being blessed with a dog with poor rolling aim :lol: Tink was a star with all the livestock around.
> 
> Today was a 2 hour workshop tricks/freestyle she was a little diamond, we are both knackered, but *no as tired as the gordon setter who took a nap in class before getting a 2nd wind :lol:*
> 
> Sorry to tired to think straight, but must say its lovely to see you return Twiggy


That is brilliant!! At least his owner knows that he's not stressed in classes .


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> TT - oh dear about lab man; maybe he was having a bad day and took it out on you or maybe his dog has been attacked or harassed by a dog who looks like Tia or something and again it got taken out on you and Tia. Still, no harm done. I'd say the onlead behaviour was a huge positive .


Thankyou. Yeah, it was just one of those things really. Kind of upsetting because I got the feeling he just thought I was some idiot teenager (I'm not but I look like one  ) with an out of control staffy which is just ugh.. I know it was a one-off mistake and won't happen again but y'know, apparently I really care about what some random tourist I'll never see again thinks of me  lol! I'm fairly sure she wouldn't do it again, I think that dog must have done *something* (not excusing what Tia did ofc) but I think now I know it's a possibility I'll just be more careful about where she's off lead.
Yeah the on lead stuff was great though, we even saw a big GSD a few feet away, then followed them down the road and Tia was totally unperturbed .


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Thankyou. Yeah, it was just one of those things really. Kind of upsetting because I got the feeling he just thought I was some idiot teenager (I'm not but I look like one  ) with an out of control staffy which is just ugh.. I know it was a one-off mistake and won't happen again but y'know, apparently I really care about what some random tourist I'll never see again thinks of me  lol! I'm fairly sure she wouldn't do it again, I think that dog must have done *something* (not excusing what Tia did ofc) but I think now I know it's a possibility I'll just be more careful about where she's off lead.
> Yeah the on lead stuff was great though, we even saw a big GSD a few feet away, then followed them down the road and Tia was totally unperturbed .


I had a HUGE go once at a woman who's dogs ran up to Kilo and I on a run once (and I am not someone who is rude very often at all). I couldn't get rid of them and just when I was going to look at their tags to see where I needed to take them back to she came around the corner. I had been tripped up earlier on the same run and chased by dogs so was at the end of my tether!!! . I ended up finding her on FB and apologising .


----------



## JenKyzer

Tia - 'The good part is that we saw loads of dogs while she was on lead and she didn't bark at one' this is amazing  well done! I was taking a look at your 'reactive diary' the other day too .. you've made loads of progress :biggrin5: As for the guy.. we can't please them all can we?! You said sorry, no harm was done.. hopefully his dog wasn't too shocked but you took full responsibility which is really good of you instead of leading her up and mumbling sorry whilst walking away embarrassed .. or not apologizing but walking away whilst shouting at your dog for being 'naughty' (as i got the other week!) .. Try & forget about him :001_smile:

Dogless - Well done Kilo  what a good boy.. no wonder your so proud  glad you've had a 'huge moment' you deserve it :001_smile: . Sorry to hear Rudi had a 'spooky' day .. and made you fall over  .

LO - Glad you had a nice calm walk and he's more relaxed 

Lauren - Good luck with Skips reactivity to cars; no advice from me  but i do wish you luck and hope the new harness helps!  i did have the treat issue though until i started buying proper stinky fish treats for walks only.. its the only thing that grabs her attention and they really helped me progress a little more with her  don't know what treats you've tried but that's my little bit of experience anyway 

Twiggy - Hello  (& welcome back i believe!) Looks like everyone has missed you so sounds like i shall enjoy reading your posts now too  

Tyton - Hello  Well done for your offlead experiences and i hope your confidence continues to grow!  I wouldn't call it 'chicken-ing' out when you lead them back up - if we come across you on our walk i would really appreciate you doing that :thumbup1:

MV - Hope you get a good nights kip  and well done to Tink for being a star!

Edited to say - nothing from me today as its sunday  she hasn't left me alone since i came home though being a softie and snuggling right into me.. nice to know i'm missed after a crappy day at work


----------



## SLB

Not posted for a bit, will look back in a mo. 

I've just been left beaming. Louie's ears have gotten bad again. For a couple of months he was alright, but for the past few days he has had some terrible trouble with his ears. And he's steadfastly refused to let me clean them. Tonight he laid on the sofa and saw the bottle of cleaner and the pot of thornit. He laid there as good as gold, let me do his ears with both and his paws with the thornit.  He then got up, had a shake and asked to play. 

And yesterday.. Pen recalled from a rabbit!


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> I had a HUGE go once at a woman who's dogs ran up to Kilo and I on a run once (and I am not someone who is rude very often at all). I couldn't get rid of them and just when I was going to look at their tags to see where I needed to take them back to she came around the corner. I had been tripped up earlier on the same run and chased by dogs so was at the end of my tether!!! . I ended up finding her on FB and apologising .


Yeah that makes sense, I'd be more likely to be arsey with the third person who has let their dog jump on mine that day than I would with the first or second lol. That was really nice of you to apologise to her though!

Yeah it was just a crap thing to happen, on all accounts. It's easy to judge on a three second encounter, I felt like he got all the wrong impressions like I go around with Tia doing that all the time or something and didn't want to accept the apology, or that she'd never done it before. I know we see that on here all the time people mocking those that say "oh but he's never done that before" or whatever but sometimes it's true lol!


----------



## tiatortilla

JenSteWillow said:


> Tia - 'The good part is that we saw loads of dogs while she was on lead and she didn't bark at one' this is amazing  well done! I was taking a look at your 'reactive diary' the other day too .. you've made loads of progress :biggrin5: As for the guy.. we can't please them all can we?! You said sorry, no harm was done.. hopefully his dog wasn't too shocked but you took full responsibility which is really good of you instead of leading her up and mumbling sorry whilst walking away embarrassed .. or not apologizing but walking away whilst shouting at your dog for being 'naughty' (as i got the other week!) .. Try & forget about him :001_smile:


Thankyou  I'm really pleased with her lack of barking today, it was great! Thanks for reading our blog too, I haven't updated it in a while.. should get on that really!


----------



## JenKyzer

SLB said:


> Not posted for a bit, will look back in a mo.
> 
> I've just been left beaming. Louie's ears have gotten bad again. For a couple of months he was alright, but for the past few days he has had some terrible trouble with his ears. And he's steadfastly refused to let me clean them. Tonight he laid on the sofa and saw the bottle of cleaner and the pot of thornit. He laid there as good as gold, let me do his ears with both and his paws with the thornit.  He then got up, had a shake and asked to play.
> 
> And yesterday.. Pen recalled from a rabbit!


Aw well done Louie - Willow loves having her ears cleaned and nails clipped.. strange dog  . & well done Pen too 



tiatortilla said:


> Thankyou  I'm really pleased with her lack of barking today, it was great! Thanks for reading our blog too, I haven't updated it in a while.. should get on that really!


Yeah you should  it was interesting! But i'm just a complete nosey cow.. but i love reading stuff and taking it all in to try and help my situations too


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Welcome back Twiggy.
> 
> LO - Pleased to hear you had a calm walk
> 
> Dogless - Well done to you and Kilo, that's fab  Hope Rudi's weirdness was a one off!
> 
> Lauren - Welcome to the thread. No advice but I hope you manage to get the car thing sorted
> 
> Sharloid - Well done to the doggies for behaving and winning all those prizes!
> 
> --
> 
> Today's walk was a mixture of brilliant and terrible. The good part is that we saw loads of dogs while she was on lead and she didn't bark at one .
> 
> The terrible part was bad judgement on my part I think. We were walking up the Tor, Tia was off lead, and when we got to the top there was a labrador there on lead. I have no idea what happened, tbh I have a suspicion that the dog was "eyeballing" her because what happened next was out of character.. she ran over to the dog and barked. Now I know she's reactive on lead, but I do know what she's like and her triggers etc. and her usual reaction to a dog she doesn't like when she's off lead, is to try and be as far away from it as possible, she's NEVER run up to a dog to bark at it before.
> 
> I ran after her immediately, grabbed her and apologised loads but the owner wasn't having any of it. I know I was in the wrong, but it genuinely was a one off, I was extremely apologetic and the guy was acting like Tia had bitten his dog or something, he was just giving me this really horrible look every time I apologised and then said she should be on a lead as "it's a breed characteristic". So I suppose barking at another dog is now a staffy trait.. fgs, I know what he meant by it really, but she isn't aggressive, she didn't attack his dog - she barked like twice.
> I know it was wrong, it shouldn't have happened and she'll now be on a lead in places I can't see all around just in case she would do it again. It was a genuine mistake and ofc she wouldn't have been off lead if I had the slightest suspicion she would do that.. I just felt like seeing as I did apologise and get her immediately that my one mistake didn't really deserve the vitriol it was met with. I've never been that horrible to someone whose dog has run up to Tia, especially if they're sorry about it and we've had incidents much worse than that.
> tl;dr - I made a mistake, someone was mean to me and now I'm sad. I'll be alright! I don't really expect anyone to read all of that, let alone reply lol, just needed a bit of a vent!


Aww - I read through it all. I do sympathise but if we're in the wrong I'm afraid we have to take the 'medicine' even if it is over the top at times.

I shall never forget Quiver flying over to a poor woman walking her spaniels along the beach and freezing in front of her, almost daring her to move about 10 years ago now. I've no idea why she did it, although it could possibly have been the fading light or protecting Leafy, but the woman gave me hell and rightly so. It must have frightened her and, being a sensible dog owner, she stood very still and didn't utter a word until I'd got Quiver back on the lead.


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy said:


> Aww - I read through it all. I do sympathise but if we're in the wrong I'm afraid we have to take the 'medicine' even if it is over the top at times.
> 
> I shall never forget Quiver flying over to a poor woman walking her spaniels along the beach and freezing in front of her, almost daring her to move about 10 years ago now. I've no idea why she did it, although it could possibly have been the fading light or protecting Leafy, but the woman gave me hell and rightly so. It must have frightened her and, being a sensible dog owner, she stood very still and didn't utter a word until I'd got Quiver back on the lead.


Thankyou. Yeah I do 100% accept that I was in the wrong, I'm just a big wuss when people are mean to me .


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Thankyou. Yeah I do 100% accept that I was in the wrong, I'm just a big wuss when people are mean to me .


Well don't ever take up judging then....LOL

Believe you me you need a thick skin as I usually find the winner thinks they should have won but so do the other 30-60 handlers in the class....!!


----------



## Guest

tiatortilla said:


> Thankyou. Yeah I do 100% accept that I was in the wrong, I'm just a big wuss when people are mean to me .


I'm like that too tbh! Had a man go "Oh I see you still have no control over that mongrel" the other day and I was somewhere between that feeling where you feel all teary and wanting to actually deck him one, even though he was right as Zand was having a full on lunge fest at the time.

I think I need a confidence book for christmas! :lol:


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy, welcome back to waywo, we've missed you here! Sorry things haven't been great for you lately.

Tia, sh*t happens I'm afraid. We've all had things happen unexpectedly, had our dogs behave out of character, all encountered less than pleasant people. Just a case of learning from it and moving on  

Dogless, huge well done to Kilo for his excellent behaviour today :thumbsup: Fingers crossed Rudis was just a blip. Spen's blown up at people a couple of times for no apparent reason but is generally sweet and friendly to people so I figure either something about the people or situation he really didn't like when it happened. 

MV, glad you had a good time.

We went to the husky meet today where Spencer behaved very well considering there are at least 3 bitches in season somewhere very close to where it's held. I never gave it a thought till we got back even though I found out a couple of days ago. Not that I really need to worry, he can't jump the fence to get out of the field. Unfortunately he did run up to another dog on the way there. There's a narrow path leading around camp and we go along there since he can be off leash. I always put him on coming up to corners coz it's used by horse riders and he generally doesn't run up to other dogs before they're quite close. Well today he saw a dog a good distance away and went haring over. He got snapped and snarled at. Other owner was most apologetic but as I said, it was my fault. My dog was the one who ran up and got in her dogs face even if he was just being friendly. I'd spotted the dog at the same time as him but he'd taken off immediately. Back to basics for a bit on recall I think since he's taken off twice now in the last couple of weeks. I don't want him getting into the habit of approaching other dogs. Although I do sometimes wonder why I bother when nobody else seems to.

But at least I'm now certain that the attack has done no harm when it comes to other dogs. I'm still extremely anxious outside the flat though. I'm not sure that's going to change while they're still here. I've been around dogs long enough and seen enough scuffles and real attacks to know the difference. And this dog worries me massively.


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> I'm afraid it's got nothing to do with how good your dog is. The reason most decent agility clubs and private trainers won't entertain a dog under 12 months old it because of pressure/strain on the spine and limbs. Even with older dogs I tend to err on the side of caution and don't overdue things, especially when the ground is as hard as concrete (as it is here at the moment).
> 
> The weaving poles are probably the piece of equipment to tackle last.


Welcome back. I stand corrected but don't let it happen too often


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Welcome back. I stand corrected but don't let it happen too often


The trouble is, and what most pet owners don't realise, the damage is cumulative and may well not cause problems until several years later.

The top handlers in most dog sports have a back up team of chiropractors, hydrotherapists, canine sports massage therapists, etc. They keep themselves and their dogs very fit for purpose because they don't want their highly trained and talented dogs injuring themselves and therefore not able to compete for possibly months.

I've said this before. My first McTimoney chiropractor did her thesis on injuries to the agility dog and her findings were that it wasn't the experienced handlers but much more pet dogs doing it for fun, because the owners were unaware of the damage they could cause to their dogs.

There is a post on here at the moment from Nicki85 about letting dogs jump out of the car and go racing off, which is on the same tack. It's all about warming up muscles etc. before exercise.

Sorry - lecture over....


----------



## Dogless

Dogs driven up to the top this morning for some play and training before I have to go out. Both behaved well. Saw some workmen and Rudi totally disregarded them so yesterday seems to have been a one off again. If the weather isn't too awful I'll take him to the park this afternoon I think and Kilo to play with Diz later.

Hope everybody has a good day!


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## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Sorry - lecture over....


I don't mind a lecture. The back of our car is quite high. If Dief's getting out on hard ground I will lift him down since he's a lot of weight coming down on his front legs. Picture one of those olympic weightlifters stumbling around trying to plant his feet and you won't be far off. When I get the next car the prime feature will be a low back for him to get in and out of. More than 25MPG will be a bonus.


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## Guest

I actually got my dog to go through a stile today! (we had an exploring walk today, and the field we found was empty and I was SO tempted to let him off lead but I resisted) Took alot of persuasion though, so in the end I just sat on the other side of the stile on the grass and the next thing I know he had wriggled under!


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## Sarah1983

Lovely pic of Zander LO  Well done for getting him under the stile.

I got up and took Spen for a nice walk before I'd even had breakfast this morning. It's about the only way I can be sure of my blood sugar not crashing at the moment and we've been sticking to boring walks around the farmers field for the most part. It's a not very warm, grey, drizzly day here so of course we didn't see a soul on our walk. We were out around an hour and a half and did 6 miles. Well, I did 6 miles, Spencer probably doubled it. I kept him on the flexi through the woods after him buggering off the other week, let him off to have a play in the stream and put him back on again. Once we got up to the fields though I let him off. He had a good run round, we did some training, I threw Piggy a few times for him to fetch and just generally had a rather nice time


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## Dogless

Lovely photos of Zander and Spen - the only way Kilo will do some types of stile is getting under them . Well done LO for not giving in to the offlead temptation - it would have been awful had it gone wrong but I understand why you want to let him run. Seems like Spendog had a lovely morning too .


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## Sarah1983

Spendog also came running out of the bedroom earlier to tell me that the dog who attacked him was walking past and he needed his treat for not going out to bark at him. He got all huffy at another dog coming out of their block last night. It wasn't the dog who bit him, it looked like a puppy, but it was really dark and I couldn't see much more than that it was a dog and 2 people. He didn't bark or take off to it, just went all stiff and huffed a bit, sniffed around, stiffened and huffed a bit more then relaxed, gave me eye contact and told me it was time to give him treats for being good lol. Seeing a pattern here? I sometimes wonder who's training who, I have a feeling this relationship isn't working the way it should :sosp:


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## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Spendog also came running out of the bedroom earlier to tell me that the dog who attacked him was walking past and he needed his treat for not going out to bark at him. He got all huffy at another dog coming out of their block last night. It wasn't the dog who bit him, it looked like a puppy, but it was really dark and I couldn't see much more than that it was a dog and 2 people. He didn't bark or take off to it, just went all stiff and huffed a bit, sniffed around, stiffened and huffed a bit more then relaxed, gave me eye contact and told me it was time to give him treats for being good lol. Seeing a pattern here? I sometimes wonder who's training who, *I have a feeling this relationship isn't working the way it should *:sosp:


Well that depends on who you ask...Spen would say it's going swimmingly I suspect .


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## GingerRogers

Sarah your walk sounds just lovely , sorry Spen has been a bugga, I am sure with a little bit of a recall refresher you will have him back on track  could the in season scents just have him a little confused perhaps, we know what happens to these men when presented with something they like the look of, whether available or not 

Dont hit me diefs dad. Love the description of Dief moving like an oil tanker.

LO more Zander pics his harness really suits him.

Welcome out of the shadows Tyton, its surprising how many people seem to lurk on WAYWO JTHolt, Miss Naomi and Millipoochie included  I find it quite unnerving as I assume only those who contribute read, daft I know, but perhaps those other lurkers could step out to wave occasionally then I wont get such a fright 

Tyton - our confidence is one huge hurdle and is hugely important so well done you. When ever I get a knock I find it quite hard to claw it back again. Even if the knock is hubbys not mine, like when the ninja pegged it from him the other day, I know I never would have allowed that particular scenario to arise but still has made me wary on my walks.

Tia - sorry you felt so chastised, it does seem like a minor over reaction but as said it might have been the last straw that tipped him over. Lets hope he felt a little bit OTT like Dogless did and has apologised to you in his head if nothing else.

Lauren you are not alone, it was a huge issue for me and the ninja, ninja by name and nature, so bluddy quick, very scary indeed for me and the drivers I should think. We still have the odd issue if I dont notice a big rattly lorry or truck coming and of course zooming motorbikes, and occasionally she will just take offence if she has had nothing else to react to on a particular day  Wet tyres as Dogless said are also a bit more of a challenge to ignore. I conquered it (well nearly ) using the clicker to mark her when she didnt react, she wasnt even that bothered by having a treat a lot of the time, so would use my voice after the clicker as a praise reward, but it seemed to be a sound that traveled through the car noise better than my voice. I also found a place where we could do some intensive work on it and stay well back from the cars but move around and get closer as she became more confident. For us it was the church car park, as I could see the cars approaching and they weren't going so fast or so dense that it overloaded her, as I say with the odd alarming exception we have it under control And I always use a harness 

Dogless sorry Rudi put you on your butt  but what an amazing thing for Kilo, well done both of you.

Well as some of you know I have had a week off. We have had a few eventful walks. One involved a beautiful but persistent trail hound called Betty. Who rushed up to a thankfully just re-muzzled ninja and wouldn't take any amount of barking for no  I ended up chatting to the owner and her very funny young daughter for a while. The lady seemed quite clued up on dog (despite her not realising how alarming Bettys approach was ) and was patient enough to wait out the ninjas display of ferocity and once Betty had gone off for a pee, ninja decided she would have to pee over it and stopped barking and said hello, sat down on the ladys foot and that was that .

I do find it very odd that dogs dont seem to hear what I hear, they often times dont seem to mind ninjas noise, perhaps they can hear the uncertainty and want to help  

The next day she unexpectedly got to say hello to the neighbours old crippled dog  she was being very good and staying the right side of our garden gate as I fixed my bike up, the neighbour knows what shes like and knew we were there so why he wheeled his old boy out, for no seeming reason I dont know. Any hoo I of course was watching her, so with my back to the yard and working on my bike so was unable to see him come out and over she dashed, very stiff greeting, but not bad. She didnt even have her collar on  so I picked her up and tossed her back  in the garden before she got over excited with the poor old boy.

Again she confuses me as she offers exactly the sort of OTT greeting she herself hates, whether its a case of I will get in first I dont know  

And we got out a couple of times with the trailer 

[URL=http://s224.photobucket.com/user/tulippy/media/20130831_140631Medium_zpsc4bd2daf.jpg.html]


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## Dogless

GR - I think you need a holiday to get over your holiday. Sounds very mixed but with positive winning by a nose I reckon . Hopefully it won't be long before the Ninja is totally at home in her trailer and you can have some extra freedom the pair of you. Hope she doesn't get too many grand ideas being taxied about .


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Well that depends on who you ask...Spen would say it's going swimmingly I suspect .


Yes, I imagine this whole treats on demand thing is right up his street lol. He actually came head butting the bathroom door last night though because Marley went past while I was having a pee  Most unimpressed he was, scrabbling and banging at the door! Knew as soon as I opened the door that he'd gone past coz Spens hackles were up and he was doing his "I need treats, I've been good!" dance. Better than him going rushing out to aggravate the situation by yelling at him from the balcony though I guess.

Ginge, sounds like the Ninja is doing well really.


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## GingerRogers

Spen is coping with Marley really well bless him, a bit too well, lol!!

I just realised after I typed out my reply to Lauren that there was a time when ninja would not take food outside, I thought it was going to be impossible to ever work on anything.

But the problem was two fold, she was way way over threshold and she had no idea about treats now look, wotsits all the way lol! 

She turned to me again today as we waited to cross the busy road, next to a van which she had seen the occupants get in (big trigger for some reason I cant fathom)  just outside the lundhunds house,so a threefold trigger point, its amazing seeing that little hannibal lektor face looking up at me 

But then she did a good impression of wanting to eat a chap and a girl minding their own business chatting by a car


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## Werehorse

*waves at Ginger* BOO!

I want to play on WAYWO but I haven't got time/energy to respond to everybody most of the time and would only be head-dumping about The MCC without properly contributing, so I'll stay lurking for now.


----------



## GingerRogers

Werehorse said:


> *waves at Ginger* BOO!
> 
> I want to play on WAYWO but I haven't got time/energy to respond to everybody most of the time and would only be head-dumping about The MCC without properly contributing, so I'll stay lurking for now.


Not you silly, you dont lurk, and you didnt scare me  sorry you feel like curling up in the shadows at the moment though  but that is what we are here for, dumping on, well at least thats what I thought anyway .



Dogless said:


> Lovely photos of Zander and Spen - *the only way Kilo will do some types of stile is getting under them *. Well done LO for not giving in to the offlead temptation - it would have been awful had it gone wrong but I understand why you want to let him run. Seems like Spendog had a lovely morning too .


That reminded me of my friends description of trying to heft his wolfhound over one


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> And we got out a couple of times with the trailer


I remember using these at Center Parcs with the kids. We called it a "Cinderella Carriage" to get them in. That would make me a mouse. Anyone frightened of mice ?


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Spendog also came running out of the bedroom earlier to tell me that the dog who attacked him was walking past and he needed his treat for not going out to bark at him. He got all huffy at another dog coming out of their block last night. It wasn't the dog who bit him, it looked like a puppy, but it was really dark and I couldn't see much more than that it was a dog and 2 people. He didn't bark or take off to it, just went all stiff and huffed a bit, sniffed around, stiffened and huffed a bit more then relaxed, gave me eye contact and told me it was time to give him treats for being good lol. Seeing a pattern here? I sometimes wonder who's training who, I have a feeling this relationship isn't working the way it should :sosp:


Err yes I know the feeling. I'm quite sure Holly is doing a remarkable job of training me.....


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I remember using these at Center Parcs with the kids. We called it a "Cinderella Carriage" to get them in. That would make me a mouse. Anyone frightened of mice ?


Yes and rats and spiders.


----------



## Dogless

Took Rudi to the park; it was very busy and he was perfectly behaved for me, bless him. Then the vet just to go there without anything being done and he was wriggly and happy there too, so very pleased indeed with him .


----------



## moonviolet

Dogless Glad rudi was good at the park.

WH Hope that's waving not drowning. Hope the MCC are well.

GR ninja looks so very cute in her carriage... " Home Jeeves"

Dief nope not scared of mice.. so I won't be jumping on a chair squealing 

Hope everyone else is having a positive day.

Interesting walk today, Tink chose to be put onlead every time we saw a dog approaching. I've posted previously she stops and waits until he lead is attached, only when it's attached will she continue. I think it was because it was super busy always the first few days and the last few days of the school hols are this busy. Interestingly only one person attempted to prevent their dog approaching, they failed their dog charged  She didn't appear overly nervous more uninterested in greeting and she is quite happy onlead. ( funny dog)

We did have some lovely offlead time in the park at the end of our walk, some giddy cantering, a little impulse control and some distance control, rebuilding it after being charged at while in a down wait the other day.


----------



## sharloid

I'm just enjoying basic training with Yla. She has her first 'puppy party' at the vets at 7pm. I'm scared she's going to try and play with the other puppies like she does with Kindra and Broder. I'm sure the other owners will be tutting!  

I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do either. Broder went when he was a pup and turned into the devil dog. Kindra didn't go and she's been (mostly) an angel. Coincidence....?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Took Rudi to the park; it was very busy and he was perfectly behaved for me, bless him. Then the vet just to go there without anything being done and he was wriggly and happy there too, so very pleased indeed with him .


Ditto.... I had to take Leafy's urine sample into the vet late morning so I took Holly with me. Just to have a cuddle and tit-bit from the Receptionist.


----------



## Dogless

Went to the top fields with Diz and Kilo was relaxed with his friend. The walk back was about as horrendous as they come really (apart from Kilo wasn't attacked, don't worry). I am totally overwhelmed and let's just say I have a huge amount of work to do. Huge. It feels like too much right now but it has to be done.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Went to the top fields with Diz and Kilo was relaxed with his friend. The walk back was about as horrendous as they come really (apart from Kilo wasn't attacked, don't worry). I am totally overwhelmed and let's just say I have a huge amount of work to do. Huge. It feels like too much right now but it has to be done.


Did you actually walk them back home?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Did you actually walk them back home?


The back way where Kilo has never seen a dog or had a bad experience and there are lots of places to pop into. It was actually near the top fields we had a rough time, not on the estate. I know I am stupid.


----------



## missnaomi

Dogless said:


> The back way where Kilo has never seen a dog or had a bad experience and there are lots of places to pop into. It was actually near the top fields we had a rough time, not on the estate. I know I am stupid.


No you're not, far from it. I think these dogs are sent as some sort of "character building" experience. That's what I keep telling myself anyway! Hugs xx


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The back way where Kilo has never seen a dog or had a bad experience and there are lots of places to pop into. It was actually near the top fields we had a rough time, not on the estate. I know I am stupid.


Hmmm - be very careful (as I know you will). It's very early days as far as Kilo is concerned.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm - be very careful (as I know you will). It's very early days as far as Kilo is concerned.


Yes, last night has left him shattered, me shattered and pretty devastated TBH. I know what I have to do though. It is a good job I don't work!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, last night has left him shattered, me shattered and pretty devastated TBH. I know what I have to do though. It is a good job I don't work!


I feel so sorry for both of you. It's such a 'no-win' situation over there and at the moment there is no escape.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I feel so sorry for both of you. It's such a 'no-win' situation over there and at the moment there is no escape.


Honestly if I could find some fields or had a house with enough room for Kilo to get some decent exercise I don't think I would ever take him out into the "real world" again. Apart from the forest and mountains where we don't see much bar some scraggly sheep or the odd wild goats, foxes and rabbits!


----------



## Nicki85

Back to reality for us  Had a lovely week in Wales, learnt alot about my two... Shae was fab, no issues with anything really. Rusty was a nervous wreck to start with and spent most of his time glued to me for the first couple of days. Then he discovered sheep! Never seen such a dramatic reaction from him to something- think leaping and squeeling if they moved. He has seen sheep before and is not interested in them round here but obviously these wild welsh sheep are different. Not overly concerned as he is leashed round sheep anyhow... I might take him to a field round here with some in it and just do a few focus excercises so I can gauge his reaction.

Had agility with Shae last night, she was really good, totally up for it. Need to work on start line focus- at the moment she is looking to me for her go command whereas I need her to look forward. Also need to do end contacts. Trying to shape two off two on with out a touch pad at the end of the contact equipment but not quite there yet... tricky one as I really need a dog walk in the back garden  Instructor loves Shae and her laid back attitude... no idea why I worried about toy drive tho as she is crazy about playing tug now!! 

Rusty is now offlead again for his walks and so far so good. He was bonkers this morning so we will see how he is this evening. All being well he is to start at nursery agility next week... just doing very basic stuff- no jumping or contact equipment or weaves. Build it up week by week and see how we go. If anything he needs some training and "me" time. looking to book some scent workshops with him next year as well with talking dogs. Rust has also mastered "hide" and does not need me to put seloptape on his nose anymore! Does it to command or if I touch the bridge of his nose as a reminder... Clever lad. His bring is really coming on and he is getting much more confident with that... He's still a bit subdued training inside so try and go outside most of the time. I thought we were getting somewhere and then Shae banged the stairgate and that was that... 

This weekend looks busy too, Shae has an English Shepherd meet in Windsor and I'm going to take Rust on an 8mile walk round the Surrey hills. Not sure about taking Rust to Windsor as it is going to be busy.... 

I've moved to taking the dogs out together everyother day for their walks now and working on them both being offlead. The first 10mins are a bit exciting but they both calm down after that. I just feel sorry for anyone we meet within that first 10mins as they are a whirlwind of excitableness! I get 'em back on lead but still.... Shae is still herding Rusty a bit especially at the start but as the walk goes on she'll drop back and come to me for a treat and then we'll do a bit of heel work/ play whilst Rust charges round. Work in progress  

There update on mine done!!

Twiggy- good to see you back 
DL- sorry to see you had another rubbish time  It's horrible seeing their confidence in tatters...


----------



## Twiggy

Holly was also very good at agility this morning. She had a slight freaky if the horses in the adjacent field came too close to the fence but nothing like as major as last week.

She met the long jump for the first time last week (no problem), and sailed over it today, and we walked her over the see-saw this morning for the first time. I don't think that will be an issue either as she's very confident on the dog walk and A frame now.

All in all she's doing extremely well considering the handful of lessons she had - well in a 'Holly' sort of way.

She's never going to be the grease lightning, boggled eyed type of collie I'm used to running but perhaps that's as well at my age....


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## GingerRogers

Dogless Sorry you had such a traumatic time, as the others have said you will find a way forward for your best boys (Pssttt move soon )

Nikki welcome back, Shae sounds a superstar, sorry Rusty was overly excited about sheep, I know those noises very well 

I too have a super star,  she made me leak a little. Had to walk a bit earlier than normal as had a meeting at 10am and caught all the dog walkers who avoid the the pre work walkers 

First she came and had her muzzle put on, reluctantly, but she came to me :thumbsup: just in case anyone thinks I didnt work hard enough on acclimatisation, she loves playing games with it, we spent 6 months trying to get her to like it, in the end I had to put it on and get used to it, once she gets going she really is fine.

Off we went nice steady walking, a lady got out of a car by the post pox, she was fine  

Then we almost walked on top a lady and her choccy lab (I know her thankfully, she attends the same trainers) coming out an alley, which surprised us a bit, I u turned, she barked of course but soon quieted and we both used it as training knelt down on opposite sides of the road .

Then the lovely ickle Blossom appeared from the lane we were headed for, Blossom JRT has almost as much attitude as the ninja, but in a tinier package, so we headed into a drive, I knew the people but figured with their old dogs rep they wouldn't mind iykwim, she looked but didnt bark, even as we exited.

Then a lady with 3 labs walked towards us all be it at a distance, again a look but no bark 

Over we go into the lane and a lady is coming towards us with her two little girls and pushchair , I have nowhere I can go really, I so dont want her to let out her pent up stress (which I am sure she must be carrying after the choccy lab thing) at these people, they are lovely, I got her in a sit and made her suck a wotsit , no barking so pleased, a little posture but no noise. never managed the sit and quiet before.

Then we have to approach soggy teddy dog who is already barking,round the corner into the close and there's a lady kneeling gardening, looks but nothing, then a gardener on the opposite side and a lady in her wheelchair supervising, very suspicious stares now, so I let her look and the tail gradually starts to wag, if I had let her she would haev ninja jumped onto the ladys lap I think 

With all those triggers, and that first incident, I was so pleased with her.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - I am pleased you had a great time away (_baa_ the sheep noises, I know them well too ). I loved your photo thread too, really gorgeous scenery.

Twiggy - Little HB seems to be doing really well even if her eyes don't boggle quite as much as you're accustomed to .

GR - the Ninja really is a super star. I can well believe that you leaked, I would have done. Brilliant .


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## Twiggy

Well done lovely little Ninja (she's sounds as if she's improved quite a bit in the last few months) bless her.

*Dogless and GR - *Don't mention leaking.....!!

I took a letter into the vets yesterday, along with Leafy's urine sample, addressed to the female vet I spoke to at length on Friday regarding Leafy's ultra-sound scan. I told her that both the specialist and the senior vet thought it was best not to treat Leafy for her leakage with drugs, unless it becomes too much of a problem. I asked her if she thought it was safe to start her on 'Leaks No More' again as it's supposed to be 100% safe with no known side affects. I haven't heard a word because my guess is that she has no more idea than I do..... And we pay them oodles of money for their expertise.


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## GingerRogers

Oh dear Twiggy, liking for the comments, she really does seem to have cottoned on or I have, only taken a year  

Not liking the leaking  you do wonder sometimes, perhaps she is spending the time researching for you?? 

Can I just point out it was my eyes that leaked BTW


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well done lovely little Ninja (she's sounds as if she's improved quite a bit in the last few months) bless her.
> 
> *Dogless and GR - *Don't mention leaking.....!!
> 
> I took a letter into the vets yesterday, along with Leafy's urine sample, addressed to the female vet I spoke to at length on Friday regarding Leafy's ultra-sound scan. I told her that both the specialist and the senior vet thought it was best not to treat Leafy for her leakage with drugs, unless it becomes too much of a problem. I asked her if she thought it was safe to start her on 'Leaks No More' again as it's supposed to be 100% safe with no known side affects. I haven't heard a word because my guess is that she has no more idea than I do..... And we pay them oodles of money for their expertise.


Sorry Grannie!!!!

How frustrating; hopefully they are researching thoroughly for you...hopefully!


----------



## Canine K9

Will look through posts in a minute. Good day today, last day of summer holidays. I took him to the woodlands and didn`t see anyone so that was good. His recall is bad again, even if he is doing nothing if I shout him he looks at me and ignores me.  Sooo i`m going to get a 50ft lead so he has freedom but I can practice recall.


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Oh dear Twiggy, liking for the comments, she really does seem to have cottoned on or I have, only taken a year
> 
> Not liking the leaking  you do wonder sometimes, perhaps she is spending the time researching for you??
> 
> Can I just point out it was my eyes that leaked BTW


 - I didn't think for one minute it was your bladder....!!

No the female vet isn't researching for me - she hasn't got a clue is the simple answer.

In fact none of the 3 vets (or their orthopaedic specialist) have got close to solving Tremor's problems in spite of spending something like £2,000 (partly insurance) since the end of January. Which is why I'm seeing yet another chiropractor a week tomorrow.

Neither do they know with Leafy and goodness knows what the bill for her treatment will be. I told them before they started that given the fact that she has had terrible bouts of chronic diarrheoa over the past 9 years with her food intolerance, plus 100s of antibiotics, her liver and kidneys must have paid the price. She's 12 yrs old next month and they are not going to start chopping her about now. She fine in herself and long may it last. When she isn't fine, there is only one answer as far as I'm concerned.

I shall be having yet more strong words with the owner/senior vet when he gets back off holiday.

The trouble is there aren't any decent and honest vets around here now and this lot are probably the best of the bunch.

My old vet, who I was with for 40 odd years - both horses and then dogs,
never got it wrong and if he didn't know the answer he said so and immediately referred me to someone who did. He was of a different generation; wasn't out to make loads of money and was also the most honourable, moral, honest man I've ever met. He was also a brilliant surgeon. I idolised him with very good reason.

Sorry but I'm really 'off' my vets at the moment.


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## GingerRogers

I am thankful that my vet, a sort of friendly acquaintance before she set up here last year, is young, not long fully trained, but keen and clever, and the learning bug is still in her head, she is also open to new ideas or finding out from colleagues, but most importantly, through the friendly acquaintance thing knows me and not push ideas unnecessarily and will explain things to me frankly.

I am especially grateful that after ninja was spayed and developed an abscess that popped all over the vets face, that she laughed along with me. I was able to repay her for the indignity with an hour of my expertise on her new house a few days later 

It must be awful especially when your dogs have been a just little bit more than pets  to not have the confidence that they can get them fit again.


----------



## moonviolet

Our walk was good this morning, lovely if a little more humid that I had expected, Forgot hair taming device, ended up with huge scary witch hair, of course on a day when I have walked from the house. :lol: This however may have been a good thing when a person who has parked their vehicle with 2 wheels on the pavement decides to reverse at us, not only this but his reversing lights were defective. In a moment of indignation I hamered on the window and informed him about his lights and told him this was doubly dangerous with his proclivity for reversing at people on the pavement.


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I am thankful that my vet, a sort of friendly acquaintance before she set up here last year, is young, not long fully trained, but keen and clever, and the learning bug is still in her head, she is also open to new ideas or finding out from colleagues, but most importantly, through the friendly acquaintance thing knows me and not push ideas unnecessarily and will explain things to me frankly.
> 
> I am especially grateful that after ninja was spayed and developed an abscess that popped all over the vets face, that she laughed along with me. I was able to repay her for the indignity with an hour of my expertise on her new house a few days later
> 
> It must be awful especially when your dogs have been a just little bit more than pets  to not have the confidence that they can get them fit again.


Oh to have a decent vet that you trust - lucky you.


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## tiatortilla

Dogless - Sorry you had a horrible walk back. You're not stupid though, you're doing really well with Kilo, and rushing into something once doesn't negate how well you've done with everything else .

Nicki - Welcome back, sounds like a good holiday . Can relate to the over excitement about sheep!

Twiggy - Glad to hear Holly is doing well. So sorry you're still having problems with your vets.

GR - That is fantastic! Huge well done to you and the ninja .

--

I don't really have anything to report today. We just did a bit of a lazy walk and played lots of fetch, I'll be getting on the recall practice again tomorrow!
Bit of a growl at a lurcher on the other side of the road while she was on lead but she hasn't had a major reaction (lunging and barking repeatedly) for ages now .


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## sharloid

Would you guys see a puppy guarding a toy and air snapping at another puppy a problem? 

Yla went to her first puppy party last night. She's the youngest and also the biggest by double. She was fine with sharing food but took a liking to a meercat toy. When they were onlead she was sat by my feet mouthing the toy when the spaniel pup came up to her. She just moved further away but the owner just gave it more room so it could follow her. After a few more seconds of trying to turn away she air snapped at the pup who quickly retreated to its owners, who didn't look too happy.


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## Nicki85

Sharloid- personally I wouldn't worry to much. Shae was dreadful at puppy classes if the pups got play time... she'd sit on them and not let 'em move. I just made sure that she was never in the situation she could practice the behaviour and socialised her with older dogs with good manners. 

GR- really pleased to hear about your walk earlier. Sounds fab 

Twiggy- Gr at vets  I really hope you can get to the bottom of it all  

MV- grr at bad drivers!!!! 

Had a swimming session this afternoon... swim swim swim!


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## Dogless

mv - your hair sounds like a treat!!! The man reversing was probably terrified  .

TT - sometimes having nothing to report is lovely I think! Tia is doing very well by the sounds of things.

Twiggy - what a horrible situation to be in as regards veterinary advice .

Sharloid - no I wouldn't see that as a problem but would watch carefully.

Went to the forest - just back. The boys enjoyed themselves, we had a Ridgeback Athletics Meet again; it has become ritualised now but the young pretender has an awful lot to work on before he outguns the big fella . Doesn't stop him trying though; optimism of youth perhaps . I must try again to capture some of it on film.

I am afraid I did nothing with them bar a few "this ways" and recalls. I had lots to think about and my "bounce back" has been temporarily deflated both physically and mentally; I have realised quite the scale of what I have to overcome which explains part of the mental and I think I hit the tarmac with more force than I had realised at the time which explains the physical :scared::crazy:. Normal service shall hopefully be resumed soon :sosp:.


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## Guest

Good things about today: Its DB's second B-day. 
Bad things: Another one of our cats Clemence got hit by a car and is at the vets overnight. I think she'll be okay but I am still worried. Thats two cats in less then 9 months.


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## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Good things about today: Its DB's second B-day.
> Bad things: Another one of our cats Clemence got hit by a car and is at the vets overnight. I think she'll be okay but I am still worried. Thats two cats in less then 9 months.


Oh no; really hope Clemence is OK; wishing her a good recovery.

And...Happy Birthday to the handsome Zander!


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## tiatortilla

Sorry about your cat LO, I hope she's okay x


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## GingerRogers

Happy Birthday Donkey Boy 

Swift recovery Clemence 

Poor you LO, I do think cats are a worry

ETA - I am sorry you feel deflated dogless, I hope with a bit of physical mending you can bounce back a little quicker, it is very hard when battling physical and mental trauma, be kind to yourself.


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## Nicki85

Hope Clemence makes a full recovery  We lost our previous cat to a car  Ours are house cats now... easy as we had them from kittens so they knew no different. Harder if they have been used to the outside.

Happy birthday Zander!


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## Twiggy

LurcherOwner said:


> Good things about today: Its DB's second B-day.
> Bad things: Another one of our cats Clemence got hit by a car and is at the vets overnight. I think she'll be okay but I am still worried. Thats two cats in less then 9 months.


Really sorry about Clemence and hope she's OK.

Happy Birthday to Zander. Did he get loads of presents?


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## Dogless

LO - how is Clemence?

Good walk this morning. Went to the forest. I decided to follow the stream all the way up as Kilo in particular likes walking along in it. It wasn't a huge distance - 2 - 3 miles or so maybe but took a couple of hours as there was an awful lot of jumping, scrambling and clambering to be done. The CHs obviously did it with ease whilst the lumbering human had to negotiate things like sheer banks in a more laborious fashion . Not helped by still feeling the effects of tarmac meeting body :sosp:. Anyhow, it was really pleasant and then we came back via some tracks. We were out for a long time and the dogs are suitably exhausted. Rudi has managed a few more good scratches and some skin scraped off his nose . He is a liability .

I feel as if I am doing nothing to help Kilo going off to the forest all the time. Because I am a practical person I feel as if I should be "doing". But doing what exactly? I suppose I am helping by bringing down his stress levels and avoiding any huge reactions like the night before last.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> LO - how is Clemence?
> 
> Good walk this morning. Went to the forest. I decided to follow the stream all the way up as Kilo in particular likes walking along in it. It wasn't a huge distance - 2 - 3 miles or so maybe but took a couple of hours as there was an awful lot of jumping, scrambling and clambering to be done. The CHs obviously did it with ease whilst the lumbering human had to negotiate things like sheer banks in a more laborious fashion . Not helped by still feeling the effects of tarmac meeting body :sosp:. Anyhow, it was really pleasant and then we came back via some tracks. We were out for a long time and the dogs are suitably exhausted. Rudi has managed a few more good scratches and some skin scraped off his nose . He is a liability .
> 
> *I feel as if I am doing nothing to help Kilo going off to the forest all the time. Because I am a practical person I feel as if I should be "doing". But doing what exactly?* I suppose I am helping by bringing down his stress levels and avoiding any huge reactions like the night before last.


I have posted before about Rory. Rory had been in the 'rescue' home for 2 years, he had ribs you could play, a waist I could fit one hand around, he had worn his nails down to the quick and had bitten his tail near off going kennel crazy. Not that I knew or understood about these things at the time but that poor dog was suffering from trauma and stress .

Now we lived in the middle of nowhere on a farm (heaven please can I move back, it wasnt actually but ). After trying to integrate him into real life  we realised it was a lot easier to leave him at home. We literally had to open the back door and walk him into the fields for exercise. What I would now see as a perfect de-stressed environment.

He basically lived there with the odd trip out and about for 3 years. When we had to move to the village we were quite worried how he would cope, after all it hadn't gone well last time 

He was an absolute angel (we wont mention the SA we discovered he had)

Point is that I think he needed some of those 3 years of silence and peace to chill out after such stress, we didn't DO anything just let him be, so you making the effort to allow Kilo to just be is all that might be needed. Sometimes all the learning in the world isn't going to help a dog if things have gone too far and I suspect that is the case for Kilo at the moment and probably you too.

Heres hoping it wont take 3 years before you move!!


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## Twiggy

*Dogless - *I agree with GR totally. You are giving Kilo time to recover and de-stress by taking him up to the forest, which is the best thing you can do at the moment.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless - *I agree with GR totally. You are giving Kilo time to recover and de-stress by taking him up to the forest, which is the best thing you can do at the moment.


Yes, I am not going to go anywhere bar forest / mountains / top fields where we will arrange to meet Diz now and again and that will be it. Promise Grannie .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, I am not going to go anywhere bar forest / mountains / top fields where we will arrange to meet Diz now and again and that will be it. Promise Grannie .


Good girl....

Marwan (my vet) has rung this afternoon, whilst I was instructing, and I'm waiting for him to ring back. I knew the female vet would pass the buck.

I hope little Leafy's urine sample wasn't even more dreadful.


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## kat&molly

Sorry everyone, I'm not doing very well at keeping up at the moment 

Twiggy- thanks for the suggestion , I 've ordered some. I hope everythings ok with Leafys sample.

LO- I hope Clemence is ok. Belated birthday wishes for Donkey. 

Dogless- So sorry you've had a set back, I think you are doing the right thing by going off to the forest though.
I am doing similar with Short stuff, a lot of her walks have been cut out , what she is getting are kept short. I hate it because she knows the others are going out and it feels wrong but...
Dont know when we can start working on things , I just know we cant yet.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - I do hope Leafy's sample isn't too awful. Horrible waiting though/



kat&molly said:


> I am doing similar with Short stuff, a lot of her walks have been cut out , what she is getting are kept short. I hate it because she knows the others are going out and it feels wrong but...
> Dont know when we can start working on things , I just know we cant yet.


I think it is us projecting human feelings sometimes. When I took Rudi to the park and PAH and all that jazz I felt like I was being so unfair on Kilo. Yet i am sure he enjoyed the peace and quiet and the sofa to himself!! . I know exactly what you mean though.


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## Twiggy

My vet rang at gone 8.00 this evening and was on the phone for about 45 minutes.

He had the letter I'd written to his female vet on Monday in front of him and as I thought she'd passed the buck.

We've decided (jointly I might add) to re-scan Leafy in about six months and not to treat her slight leakage, unless it gets much worse.

He didn't totally poo-hoo the milk thistle tablets, although I had to endure about a 15 minute lecture on scientific evidence, blah, blah.

At least we didn't have a row tonight.....:devil:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> My vet rang at gone 8.00 this evening and was on the phone for about 45 minutes.
> 
> He had the letter I'd written to his female vet on Monday in front of him and as I thought she'd passed the buck.
> 
> We've decided (jointly I might add) to re-scan Leafy in about six months and not to treat her slight leakage, unless it gets much worse.
> 
> He didn't totally poo-hoo the milk thistle tablets, although I had to endure about a 15 minute lecture on scientific evidence, blah, blah.
> 
> *At least we didn't have a row tonight.....*:devil:


Well done Grannie; good impulse control .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done Grannie; good impulse control .


Not entirely. I pushed him into a corner when he said there had been a misunderstanding regarding his action plan, following Leafy's ultra-sound, and got him to admit he'd forgotten to ring me.

I also told him not to crow too loudly about Purina HA because Leafy's only been on it for 4 months and she was fine on AG Sensitive for 18 months.

It was all fairly good humoured though.

He did say he doesn't have any other clients like me.....


----------



## Nicki85

Walk and swim at the country park this morning- not a soul to be seen, lovely!

Rust has managed to split a dew claw though, can see the quick but its not bleeding. Will keep an eye on it. That dog is a hazard to his health!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Not entirely. I pushed him into a corner when he said there had been a misunderstanding regarding his action plan, following Leafy's ultra-sound, and got him to admit he'd forgotten to ring me.
> 
> I also told him not to crow too loudly about Purina HA because Leafy's only been on it for 4 months and she was fine on AG Sensitive for 18 months.
> 
> It was all fairly good humoured though.
> 
> *He did say he doesn't have any other clients like me.....*


I can imagine :sosp: .

Nicki - Hope Rusty's claw doesn't cause him any problems.

Nice morning this morning - lead walk for Rudi and I took Kilo up top to play with his new Interball I got him. Diz punctured his last one and he was very excited about the new one .

It was funny walking along with Rudi - him trotting on a nice loose lead, going past anything without a drama, leaving cats no problems....I thought that I probably looks like a fairly OK pet dog handler..and then I thought if anyone had seen me with Kilo the other night they probably thought I was the worst handler on the planet .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *I can imagine* :sosp: .
> 
> What do you mean....!! He was being complimentary (I think) saying I was forward thinking and did my research. The next major row will be about vaccinations - bring it on.....:devil:
> 
> It was funny walking along with Rudi - him trotting on a nice loose lead, going past anything without a drama, leaving cats no problems....I thought that I probably looks like a fairly OK pet dog handler..and then I thought if anyone had seen me with Kilo the other night they probably thought* I was the worst handler on the planet* .


You worry far too much about what other people think.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You worry far too much about what other people think.


Yes, I know. I never used to and it makes me angry!! . And hubby too, he gets cross.

I have no doubt your vet was being complimentary; must be refreshing to have a client who knows what she wants and can back it up with research.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, I know. I never used to and it makes me angry!! . And hubby too, he gets cross.
> 
> I have no doubt your vet was being complimentary; must be refreshing to have a client who knows what she wants and can back it up with research.


I think he likes arguing and wouldn't dare speak to most of his clients the way he does to me.

To be fair he is passionate about veterinary care and I'm passionate about my dogs. I told him last night he's only interested in chemicals and we did talk at length about the fors/against of alternative treatments. We sort of reached a compromise..


----------



## moonviolet

Nicki, hope Rusty's nail grows out without further issue.

Dogless glad you had a good morning goodness knows you deserved one. I very much agree with Gr and Kat. 

Twiggy Glad you are keeping your vet on his toes, sometimes they need a little challenging to get the best from them.

Tuesday great fun games class, Tink was my little superstar. Rather handily the angling club had been using another room in the building and were continuing their meeting outside seemed rude to not make the opportunity to do some " men after dark" counter conditioning. They were very good and didn't seem to notice the mad lady and her beagle :lol:

Morning walks have been fun and successfully avoiding the self appointed GSD security patrol at the park, while their owners sit on a bench smoking and occasionally bellowing when they hear their dogs having a pop at something unseen. 

Evenings ones have incorporated blackberry picking , there will be pies, jams jellies and thanks to Sleeping lion on another thread brandy too


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- I think you must keep your vet on his toes 

Just Moll this morning. OH had taken Scruff out, Jay doesnt do many morning walks and I left Evie behind.

Really nice walk though, except it was one that I had forgotten we dont do in summer months as its full of brambles and ridiciously overgrown. After getting battered I had to turn round, think Moll thought I was a bit of an eejit as she managed ok rrr: 

Evie was upset at being left behind again, might do a bit on the path and driveway with her, just so she feels she's had something 'outside'.


----------



## Nicki85

Hmmm think I need to have a re-think.

I'm trying to teach Shae to stop on a plank with front feet off and back feet on. I've been doing this by first shaping the behaviour and then making her walk a short way down the plank and stopping in the desired position. BUT after a few sessions she still hasn't got it which makes me think I am doing something wrong... I don't know whether to keep trying with this method or use a target pad so she has something to "go to" and stop at. I'm going to give another go today and tomorrow (when its cooler)...and make a decision. I'm not happy at all with it at the moment. Lots of looking at me and I'm catious of luring her rather than it being her decision.

Rusty we did some back up's and he'll now back up onto a washing up bowl. It's cute watching him try to find it with his back legs! His fav. trick at the moment is hide... and bring... now he's figured that if he brings me something he gets lots of rewards. Funny though he prefers all the praise rather than the treats. He is a worrier.

We are going on a walk with Shae's half brother later and their other two dogs- should be entertaining! 

KM- lots of overgrown paths around here too  Hope Evie enjoys her short jaunt outside later and doesn't get too worried. 
MV- bless Miss Tinks, classes sound so fab! If Rust can't cope with the agility we will most likely give them a shot. 
Twiggy- sounds like a positive discussion... (i think!)


----------



## Bagrat

I have finally bitten the bullet and decided to post on this thread, have tried and given up on trying to work out who and where everyone is on the space time continuum but didn't want to start a new thread for the attention of Ginger Rogers and thought she will see this on here.
After yesterdays crow about good boy Jackson http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/323592-jackson-being-normal-dog.html - you were so right G.R. had the walk from hell this morning!!

Sorry if I go on a bit I'm hardwired to use two words when one would do.
Yesterday morning went a different route with Jackson on his double ended lead to collar and harness. He was very twitchy but greeted an acquaintance very well when she knelt down to say hello after chatting for a while. We then stalked a dog and he did well.

This morning feeling relaxed decided to just have lead to Julius K9 not the martingale collar ( he has a very narrow head and the collar is only a backup not used for corrections). We had seen one dog at a distance fairly good response. I decided to quit while we were ahead when a beautiful collie appeared on the other side of the road and I headed down someone's drive. J barked and collie did too but no primeval screaming from J and I decided to head off - I'd been blocking him. As I straightened up, J lunged in the direction of the now passed dog.I grabbed collar ( never had to grab martingale before so no help as he reversed out of it AND the harness and ran over to the dog across a fairly busy road ( deserted at that mo).
The other owner was amazing. her dog was barking and J was doing his totally inappropriate "Hi Hi HI, bounce yap I'm here". She grabbed him by the scruff and held on to him till I got there and was all fingers and thumbs getting harness unbuckled and back on, very shaky.
She said had it been her other dog J would have been at the vets. I tried to apologise and J stood quietly till I left when he started up again.

I'm trying to be positive (ha) Jackson settled very quickly after this nightmare ( unlike his owner) and trotted along beside me all the way home as if nothing had happened. Think I will go back to ezydog collar as (with hindsight)it prevents harness coming off.

So I am working on keeping calm!!


----------



## Twiggy

MV - I absolutely love anything with blackberries - oh the aroma....LOL

Nicki - I stopped Holly on the contacts with a tit-bit and I'm now sometimes stopping her and rewarding and sometimes just carrying on and she's doing it really well.

I'm instructing this afternoon until 7.00pm and it's really too hot. Flipping Met Office; 36 hours ago they said 23 degrees today and it's already 25. Too late to cancel now.


----------



## Twiggy

Bagrat said:


> I have finally bitten the bullet and decided to post on this thread, have tried and given up on trying to work out who and where everyone is on the space time continuum but didn't want to start a new thread for the attention of Ginger Rogers and thought she will see this on here.
> After yesterdays crow about good boy Jackson http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/323592-jackson-being-normal-dog.html - you were so right G.R. had the walk from hell this morning!!
> 
> Sorry if I go on a bit I'm hardwired to use two words when one would do.
> Yesterday morning went a different route with Jackson on his double ended lead to collar and harness. He was very twitchy but greeted an acquaintance very well when she knelt down to say hello after chatting for a while. We then stalked a dog and he did well.
> 
> This morning feeling relaxed decided to just have lead to Julius K9 not the martingale collar ( he has a very narrow head and the collar is only a backup not used for corrections). We had seen one dog at a distance fairly good response. I decided to quit while we were ahead when a beautiful collie appeared on the other side of the road and I headed down someone's drive. J barked and collie did too but no primeval screaming from J and I decided to head off - I'd been blocking him. As I straightened up, J lunged in the direction of the now passed dog.I grabbed collar ( never had to grab martingale before so no help as he reversed out of it AND the harness and ran over to the dog across a fairly busy road ( deserted at that mo).
> The other owner was amazing. her dog was barking and J was doing his totally inappropriate "Hi Hi HI, bounce yap I'm here". She grabbed him by the scruff and held on to him till I got there and was all fingers and thumbs getting harness unbuckled and back on, very shaky.
> She said had it been her other dog J would have been at the vets. I tried to apologise and J stood quietly till I left when he started up again.
> 
> I'm trying to be positive (ha) Jackson settled very quickly after this nightmare ( unlike his owner) and trotted along beside me all the way home as if nothing had happened. Think I will go back to ezydog collar as (with hindsight)it prevents harness coming off.
> 
> So I am working on keeping calm!!


Oh dear poor you. That sounding scary.


----------



## JenKyzer

I have got soo much catching up to do  which i will do later, i promise  
Just a quick one from me now before we go on a nice long walk up to the Tower.. this time without my 9year old sister in tow and going to cut out the wood bit as we still haven't been near there since she refused to go in.

We have a new harness and a 30ft long line  which we used last night at the res. Did some cliker stuff before we left the house and using the whistle, she did really well. 'Touch' is now going good and nose touches straight away. We're now teaching her to give both paws at the same time.. as she did the accidently the other night and it was sooo cute  like a 'beg' . 
The whistle came out with us and she did re-called on 2 pips straight away twice, the third time OH didn't quite blow loud enough  so she looked round as if to say 'was that what i thought it was?!' :laugh: then he did it harder and she came zooming back to sit at our feet  really pleased with how thats going so far.

Dog watch wise... a little yorkie passed us and it was trembling so bad bless it, Willow just sat and watched. Then yesterday a jack russel walked past full of energy and panting, willow sat but then did get up and pull towards - her tail was wagging like mad though so that didn't bother me too much and she carried on when asked with no bother .. Thats the only 2 dogs we've seen all week  Oh apart from puppy Frank! They're introduction went well and willow was lying on her tummy and back for him  he was really unsure as she's the first 'bigger' dog he's met.. bless him! He did some really cute barks then Willows big bellow of a bark made him jump and he ran behind OH's dads legs 

So all calm here - will see how we get on this afternoon 

Hope everyone is ok and having good days! - Will have a good read tonight, sorry to be ignorant right now


----------



## tiatortilla

JSW - Well done to Willow for being so good with the little doggies!

Bagrat - Welcome to the thread. So glad everything was okay, that sounds really scary.

MV - Tink is always a superstar . Sounds like you got a good opportunity with the men after dark!

Dogless - Glad you had good walks with both of the boys .

---

I didn't do anymore recall training yesterday in the end, we did calmness around sheep work instead inspired by Nicki's post on here. It'd been a while since we went to the field of many sheep so I thought it was about time we did it again! She was pretty good, ignored most of them. And her 'leave it' when it comes to sheep poo is improving, after the initial mad five minutes of eating as much poo as possible  .
Did do a bit of recall in our little park today. Also saw a little terrier a couple of times on the footpath bit of the walk and had no barking, and saw a scottie dog on the way home who was completely fixated on Tia and no reaction there either .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- pleased you had good walks with the boys. They do love a new toy dont they. 

Nikki- Hope Rusty's nail is ok.

Moonviolet- hope as the weather cools the GSD owners move on and its too cold for them to just sit there.

Bagrat- that sounds like a proper scare, hope you've calmed down a bit now.

Willow and Tia are doing really well. 

Twiggy- hope it wasn't too hot for you today, its still mad here about 34 again.

I took Evie out on the path and down the drive, passing the neighbours house as I knew he was out, just a few minutes heelwork and bits with the clicker. OH came and tried to encourage her further, so I turned round and came back in. 

Tonight, she decided there was no way I was going to leave her behind. The neighbour was sat out with friends and kids and a strange dog , I was amazed that she still came out and got in the car. They couldnt be seen as another car was blocking but even so 
I'd have put money yesterday that she couldn't do that so I'm really pleased.

Then to top it all, she did a tiny little jump in the garden today, would never do one before even with the bar on the floor 
She looked so pleased with herself. Its the little things ..:lol:


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat - WELCOME  and I am sorry that you had such an horrendous walk; how lucky that the other owner was so sensible. I hope tomorrow is much better.

MV - can't say much apart from well done Miss Tinks .

k&m - I hate being defeated by brambles..I can picture Moll's face . Sounds like short stuff did well too until hubby came along  .

Nicki - I really can't help with contacts at all but I hope that you find a solution.

JSW - Well done to Willow - where's the obligatory photo of Willow in her new harness; it's the rules .

TT - all sounds good with you .

Twiggy - hope the heat didn't ruin your session.

Good afternoon here too. Took Kilo to play with Diz - Diz's human is so lovely that I can drive up top and she'll meet us . They had a good time. Walked Roo up to the top (3rd time I'd been there today but the bottom fields would have been busy at that time and I am afraid of all the loose dogs now ) and did some "Ready Steady" - he's coming on really nicely. Had to slalom through lots of cats on the way home, Roo was excited and snatchy but did very well .

So...to summarise....Roo has had all the work today and Kilo all the play  .


----------



## Nicki85

Hmm now I have a proper conundrum.... For a while i've been thinking about SAR work and as Saxon's dad (Shae's half brother) trains both Saxon and his collie x in SAR we had a chat about it. Did a couple of the initial drills with Shae after the walk to see if she had drive to do it. Well, she did... and she loved it. She only had to go and find him (he had a ball) when he ran out of sight but she was totally up for it. So, now i'm wondering if that's what we should be doing?

I'd have to do a 12week course to do then I could go out with them (without Shae...) and train Shae up. But we both thought she would pass the initial assessment without problem. Really need to think about it properly as it is a huge commitment.... I don't think Rusty would be any good, he'd wander off and chase some rabbits instead! 

Oh and we did some more two off two on stops... pleased to say she has got it. Just need to proof it now with me running, stopping, going past her etc etc


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Dogless- pleased you had good walks with the boys. They do love a new toy dont they.
> 
> Nikki- Hope Rusty's nail is ok.
> 
> Moonviolet- hope as the weather cools the GSD owners move on and its too cold for them to just sit there.
> 
> Bagrat- that sounds like a proper scare, hope you've calmed down a bit now.
> 
> Willow and Tia are doing really well.
> 
> Twiggy- hope it wasn't too hot for you today, its still mad here about 34 again.
> 
> I took Evie out on the path and down the drive, passing the neighbours house as I knew he was out, just a few minutes heelwork and bits with the clicker. OH came and tried to encourage her further, so I turned round and came back in.
> 
> Tonight, she decided there was no way I was going to leave her behind. The neighbour was sat out with friends and kids and a strange dog , I was amazed that she still came out and got in the car. They couldnt be seen as another car was blocking but even so
> I'd have put money yesterday that she couldn't do that so I'm really pleased.
> 
> Then to top it all, she did a tiny little jump in the garden today, would never do one before even with the bar on the floor
> She looked so pleased with herself. Its the little things ..:lol:


34 degrees....!! Phew I couldn't stand that and there's me moaning about 27 degrees.

Good girl Evie and as you say - it's the little things.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hmm now I have a proper conundrum.... For a while i've been thinking about SAR work and as Saxon's dad (Shae's half brother) trains both Saxon and his collie x in SAR we had a chat about it. Did a couple of the initial drills with Shae after the walk to see if she had drive to do it. Well, she did... and she loved it. She only had to go and find him (he had a ball) when he ran out of sight but she was totally up for it. So, now i'm wondering if that's what we should be doing?
> 
> I'd have to do a 12week course to do then I could go out with them (without Shae...) and train Shae up. But we both thought she would pass the initial assessment without problem. Really need to think about it properly as it is a huge commitment.... I don't think Rusty would be any good, he'd wander off and chase some rabbits instead!
> 
> Oh and we did some more two off two on stops... pleased to say she has got it. Just need to proof it now with me running, stopping, going past her etc etc


A friend of mine does lowland SAR work with her collies in Berkshire. It is a huge commitment and she gets call outs at all hours of the day and night. She's also got a young daughter. I think you have to be a very special sort of person to do it. I know I couldn't cope finding dead bodies floating in the Thames, etc.


----------



## Nicki85

I can imagine it's incredibly rewarding though giving a family a sense of "peace" if you can find a deceased person. It's more the commitment... I'm going to go along to a session and see how I get on from there


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> I can imagine it's incredibly rewarding though giving a family a sense of "peace" if you can find a deceased person. It's more the commitment... I'm going to go along to a session and see how I get on from there


People react in an enormous amount of ways to finding bodies and handling them and families don't always react in the way you expect them to either. Worth going to a session as you say - but I always said to people that there is no shame if it is something that they cannot do (I don't do SAR with the CHs, obviously!!! but have been involved in SAR in another capacity and a lot in handling the deceased).


----------



## Bagrat

Thanks folks and yes I have calmed down. Against my better judgement (Jackson used to take ages to recover from going over threshold) but because he was so relaxed almost immediately and I needed to do it, we returned to the scene of the crime this afternoon. He was very good practising LAT with people minus dogs and when I spotted two JRTs before he did, I was able to hide and then follow them at a long distance with no vocalisation. He also stood quietly while I chatted to an elderly neighbour. I love her because she always says "I never greet dogs on leads" he then greeted a complete stranger appropriately after she stopped to admire him!! Different collar and a slight tightening of front strap on harness meant I could have him on one attachment as he is more relaxed with a bit of space to manoeuvre.
It's the guilt trip because I could have avoided this morning's debacle.
Appreciate the welcome - posts will become shorter I promise.


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Thanks folks and yes I have calmed down. Against my better judgement (Jackson used to take ages to recover from going over threshold) but because he was so relaxed almost immediately and I needed to do it, we returned to the scene of the crime this afternoon. He was very good practising LAT with people minus dogs and when I spotted two JRTs before he did, I was able to hide and then follow them at a long distance with no vocalisation. He also stood quietly while I chatted to an elderly neighbour. I love her because she always says "I never greet dogs on leads" he then greeted a complete stranger appropriately after she stopped to admire him!! Different collar and a slight tightening of front strap on harness meant I could have him on one attachment as he is more relaxed with a bit of space to manoeuvre.
> *It's the guilt trip because I could have avoided this morning's debacle.*
> Appreciate the welcome - posts will become shorter I promise.


That's a familiar feeling; think it just means that you care.

Posts can be as long as they need to be - this thread is a good place to just vent and thrash out problems and emotions. It has helped me enormously to have folk who understand.


----------



## Tyton

@Bagrat, this is a good thread to rant on , let off steam on, ask for help on, or even share the good times on. I must confess I use it more to read than post, but that is also really helpful and folks seem very keen to help and support as needed. 

On that note has been all reading this week as 4x12hr shifts have put paid to all but short sprints round the common at 6am for my boys. Can't even salvage anything tonight as they're off to their 'auntie Jo's' at the kennels tonight as we're off on the early boat to get our new dogmobile tomorrow -more of that later in the weekend. 

Just an all round thanks to finish. Reading all your hard workand exploits good and bad keeps me inspired to keep working on the boys and their fraining.


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## GingerRogers

Evening all. I have been very busy with work so not much to report.

Just wanted to say sorry bagrat if i talked Jackson into something 

The fact he relaxed so quickly is awesome though. In a way that's one thing i am most pleased about. When ninja bounces, as always we humans don't necessarily bounce so quick. Hope tomorrow is better. I will read your post again tomorrow when my brain is less tired.


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## Nicki85

Good morning of offlead fun in the forest this morning. Both well behaved apart from when Rust decided that he must go and say hi to two (also offload) poodles. Naughty, as I had called him. 

We then had physio  Chap happy that Rust has put on a load of muscle round his neck and that he is looking good and strong through the shoulder. Still need to build up the tricep and another muscle I forget so have some stupidly specific and difficult excercises to do... No issues with the muscles but the more I can build them up the less chance he has of re-injuring. Few comments about his flexibility again. Seriously costing me a fortune though, need to purchase some balance pad things and also some boots as we can then add stretchy stuff from leg to harness to increase resistance. Also wants to add weights to a dog coat in the area of the muscles that need working... But continue as am with exercise so I am happy  Back in two weeks....


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Good morning of offlead fun in the forest this morning. Both well behaved apart from when Rust decided that he must go and say hi to two (also offload) poodles. Naughty, as I had called him.
> 
> We then had physio  Chap happy that Rust has put on a load of muscle round his neck and that he is looking good and strong through the shoulder. Still need to build up the tricep and another muscle I forget so have some stupidly specific and difficult excercises to do... No issues with the muscles but the more I can build them up the less chance he has of re-injuring. Few comments about his flexibility again. Seriously costing me a fortune though, need to purchase some balance pad things and also some boots as we can then add stretchy stuff from leg to harness to increase resistance. Also wants to add weights to a dog coat in the area of the muscles that need working... But continue as am with exercise so I am happy  Back in two weeks....


I feel for you and Rusty having been in the same predicament since the end of January with Tremor. I'm taking her to a highly recommended chiropractor next Thursday. It's a long way to go and yet more money but....... I think I might take some of the thermal images which were taken back in May.


----------



## Nicki85

Just as well we love our dogs isn't it? The annoying thing with Rust is that it was just one of those things, out on a walk and he comes back from a quick dash in the undergrowth lame. I've no idea how he managed to cause so much damage, I can only imagine he went into a tree or face planted the ground and caused nerve damage to that area. I think the swimming has helped immensely and luckily he loves it. Insurance is covering the physio but they don't cover buying specialist boots, balance pads and pods so you can carry on at home! 

I hope you get to the bottom of Tremor's issue. I'm assuming as you are seeing a chiropractor that it's bones rather than muscles? Money seems such a small issue when you have a lame dog...


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - it does sound as though Rusty's progress is good with his muscle build up which is positive. The impact on your wallet sounds anything but . 

We had a good morning. Nothing to report really as I was lazy and took the boys up to the top fields to play together and didn't do any training. Just policed the play . I started a new tablet which made me feel like I'd drunk way too much last night when I woke up this morning so I had a slow start to the day  .


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Just as well we love our dogs isn't it? The annoying thing with Rust is that it was just one of those things, out on a walk and he comes back from a quick dash in the undergrowth lame. I've no idea how he managed to cause so much damage, I can only imagine he went into a tree or face planted the ground and caused nerve damage to that area. I think the swimming has helped immensely and luckily he loves it. Insurance is covering the physio but they don't cover buying specialist boots, balance pads and pods so you can carry on at home!
> 
> I hope you get to the bottom of Tremor's issue. I'm assuming as you are seeing a chiropractor that it's bones rather than muscles? Money seems such a small issue when you have a lame dog...


No it's definitely soft tissue but her back is sore and her spine needs realigning. Sometimes a really good McTimoney chiropractor can help with soft tissue issues anyway.

I'm pretty sure Tremor's problems started when OH was walking her and she bashed into a tree when she was playing with Holly. They never bash into trees when I walked them - but enough said.....


----------



## GingerRogers

Bagrat said:


> I have finally bitten the bullet and decided to post on this thread, have tried and given up on trying to work out who and where everyone is on the space time continuum but didn't want to start a new thread for the attention of Ginger Rogers and thought she will see this on here.
> After yesterdays crow about good boy Jackson http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/323592-jackson-being-normal-dog.html - you were so right G.R. had the walk from hell this morning!!
> 
> Sorry if I go on a bit I'm hardwired to use two words when one would do.
> Yesterday morning went a different route with Jackson on his double ended lead to collar and harness. He was very twitchy but greeted an acquaintance very well when she knelt down to say hello after chatting for a while. We then stalked a dog and he did well.
> 
> This morning feeling relaxed decided to just have lead to Julius K9 not the martingale collar ( he has a very narrow head and the collar is only a backup not used for corrections). We had seen one dog at a distance fairly good response. I decided to quit while we were ahead when a beautiful collie appeared on the other side of the road and I headed down someone's drive. J barked and collie did too but no primeval screaming from J and I decided to head off - I'd been blocking him. As I straightened up, J lunged in the direction of the now passed dog.I grabbed collar ( never had to grab martingale before so no help as he reversed out of it AND the harness and ran over to the dog across a fairly busy road ( deserted at that mo).
> The other owner was amazing. her dog was barking and J was doing his totally inappropriate "Hi Hi HI, bounce yap I'm here". She grabbed him by the scruff and held on to him till I got there and was all fingers and thumbs getting harness unbuckled and back on, very shaky.
> She said had it been her other dog J would have been at the vets. I tried to apologise and J stood quietly till I left when he started up again.
> 
> I'm trying to be positive (ha) Jackson settled very quickly after this nightmare ( unlike his owner) and trotted along beside me all the way home as if nothing had happened. Think I will go back to ezydog collar as (with hindsight)it prevents harness coming off.
> 
> So I am working on keeping calm!!


Sorry better frame of mind today,  sort of, I was going to say can you look at a harness he cant slip out of as TBF that seems to be the only thing that really went wrong, and thats not him being bad its him behaving normally, I think chalk it up to experience and no harm done it seems as he settled so quickly after but review the equipment to make it safer.

We had a good and bad walk today.

The good: she saw a dog up on a high back and ran after it, I panicked and forgot everything and yelled , there was two banks, a spindly fence and a **** in between her and it but she has been through the **** before after a dog.

It went out of sight and she stopped, I composed myself, remembered my 'this way's' 'lets go's' and she turned and came bounding back 

Now I know that the dog had gone out of sight but its owner was still visible, so I was quite chuffed with that.

The bad: on the way back through the estate, I took the 'safe' route as she was a bit jumpy already, you know the one path that nothing nasty has ever happened on where no dogs have barked or nothing, came past a house I know has two irish rescue collies in and heard a click, didnt think much of it as I could see the door and it was shut, all of a sudden the garage door raises and not two but three collies come dashing out straight up to us, the two smaller ones i know turn straight back but the bigger B&W one sticks around for a couple of extra charges and snarking at a understandably now snarking and lunging ninja.

I think the routine is they rush out the garage and jump straight in the boot, it was the boot opening I heard click you see. 

Bearing in mind I know the chap, an intelligent upstanding member of the community, professional business man and ex client of mine I was pretty disappointed when my ears didn't pick up even a shouted, 'Oh Sorry' heaven forbid a 'Gosh sorry they never do that, are you ok?' or even a wave as he drove past with the prime offender staring out the back windscreen.  and 

TBF ninja coped well at the time, she was happy to move on away from the beast but I think it really shocked her, she was walking far too nicely  and then hesitated at the kerb around the corner, didn't really want to come indoors, so we sat down and tried the infamous butt rubs which helped. She is really jumpy now and frankly I dont blame her.

I am so annoyed as even the most minor outcome might be that she is now jumpy going that way through the estate, where we live , the worst might be that she is more defensive, also reinforced that barking makes scary things go away cos it did in the end.

Thats the third time we have had dogs rush up to us since I started muzzling her , it didnt really happen before  I was just scared it would hence the muzzle, but at least the others were not rushing up snarking. Dont know whether to take her out past there soon or let her calm down for a few days now. Well back to running past the GSD house as at least he has never rushed her, he just barks from indoors.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry better frame of mind today,  sort of, I was going to say can you look at a harness he cant slip out of as TBF that seems to be the only thing that really went wrong, and thats not him being bad its him behaving normally, I think chalk it up to experience and no harm done it seems as he settled so quickly after but review the equipment to make it safer.
> 
> We had a good and bad walk today.
> 
> The good: she saw a dog up on a high back and ran after it, I panicked and forgot everything and yelled , there was two banks, a spindly fence and a **** in between her and it but she has been through the **** before after a dog.
> 
> It went out of sight and she stopped, I composed myself, remembered my 'this way's' 'lets go's' and she turned and came bounding back
> 
> Now I know that the dog had gone out of sight but its owner was still visible, so I was quite chuffed with that.
> 
> The bad: on the way back through the estate, I took the 'safe' route as she was a bit jumpy already, you know the one path that nothing nasty has ever happened on where no dogs have barked or nothing, came past a house I know has two irish rescue collies in and heard a click, didnt think much of it as I could see the door and it was shut, all of a sudden the garage door raises and not two but three collies come dashing out straight up to us, the two smaller ones i know turn straight back but the bigger B&W one sticks around for a couple of extra charges and snarking at a understandably now snarking and lunging ninja.
> 
> I think the routine is they rush out the garage and jump straight in the boot, it was the boot opening I heard click you see.
> 
> Bearing in mind I know the chap, an intelligent upstanding member of the community, professional business man and ex client of mine I was pretty disappointed when my ears didn't pick up even a shouted, 'Oh Sorry' heaven forbid a 'Gosh sorry they never do that, are you ok?' or even a wave as he drove past with the prime offender staring out the back windscreen.  and
> 
> TBF ninja coped well at the time, she was happy to move on away from the beast but I think it really shocked her, she was walking far too nicely  and then hesitated at the kerb around the corner, didn't really want to come indoors, so we sat down and tried the infamous butt rubs which helped. She is really jumpy now and frankly I dont blame her.
> 
> I am so annoyed as even the most minor outcome might be that she is now jumpy going that way through the estate, where we live , the worst might be that she is more defensive, also reinforced that barking makes scary things go away cos it did in the end.
> 
> Thats the third time we have had dogs rush up to us since I started muzzling her , it didnt really happen before  I was just scared it would hence the muzzle, but at least the others were not rushing up snarking. Dont know whether to take her out past there soon or let her calm down for a few days now. Well back to running past the GSD house as at least he has never rushed her, he just barks from indoors.


Oh no - I am sorry. Some owners really are so irresponsible and thoughtless.


----------



## Nicki85

Poor Tremor. At least you know it's soft tissue, I remember how frustrating it was with Rust when the vet had no idea if it was muscular, joint, ligament or bone related... With Rust it's pretty obvious whats happened due to the muscle loss over the shoulder now- sounds like it is not as straight forward with Tremor though.


----------



## Dogless

GR - I am sorry for the rushing dogs; an apology would go a long way in some circumstances I think . BUT Ninja did very well to recall from running after the first dog . I am pleased your frame of mind is improving a little too .


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Oh no - I am sorry. Some owners really are so irresponsible and thoughtless.


Thats what I thought  to be honest even if I hadn't been walking past seeing the way these three rushed out the starting blocks as the door was lifted looked like a disaster waiting to happen. I know the two smaller ones were his but whether the bigger grump was or they were just looking after I dont know but what if I was an old lady or had a child with me, they would be pretty scary and could easily have knocked someone over.

Hope you get some where with Tremor soon  we all know the OHs a lost cause


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Poor Tremor. At least you know it's soft tissue, I remember how frustrating it was with Rust when the vet had no idea if it was muscular, joint, ligament or bone related... With Rust it's pretty obvious whats happened due to the muscle loss over the shoulder now- sounds like it is not as straight forward with Tremor though.


No it certainly isn't....!!

She's been seen to two different vets (senior vet told me it was my over-active imagination)
My chiropractor 3 times
Seen by my vet again and then x-rayed. Plates were shown to orthopaedic specialist who could see nothing to cause lameness.
Canine sports massage therapist
Thermal images taken (which showed problems in both hind-quarters).

I'm seeing a different chiropractor on Thursday, as I said, and if she goes lame again I need to find a specialist would understands the thermal images and is an expert in soft tissue injuries in dogs that compete.

It's a nightmare.


----------



## diefenbaker

Look at my PitaPata. Dief is 3 today. I've sung to him twice but he doesn't seem to get it.


----------



## GingerRogers

Ah what are you singing to him :001_tongue:

Happy Birthday handsome dawg


----------



## JenKyzer

Workin backwards..

Dief - Happy 3rd birthday to Dief 

Twiggy - Sorry to read about your nightmare with Tremor and no one seems to know what they're doing about it 

GR - Yay to the good recall after her running after a dog  not so nice about the rushing dogs and no apology  hope shes on through that bit of the estate the next time you go there.

Dogless - Your lazy morning sounds good! Bet the boys enjoyed just playing too  

Nicki - Nice to hear the physio is happy with Rust's muscles  good luck with the other muscles that need some work too!

Bagrat - Welcome  This thread has helped me too; its a great haven to rant and to share proud moments  i hope you enjoy it as much as i do.

Nicki - good luck with the SAR session - what a kind heart you must have to be considering this  i hope you make the right decision for you and Shae - but 'wow' for even thinking about it  

K&M - well done to Evie for leaving the house and getting in the car even with the neighbours out - i'm glad she pleasantly surprised you 

Tia - Well done to Tia for her no reaction to the other dogs  great stuff!!

MV - I actually thought of Tink today  we have a new point of sale up at work with a man and a beagle.. Tink looks soo much cuter - maybe you could branch out into doggie modeling  Nice to hear your having fun morning walks and managing to avoid the GSD's  

---

Our walk to the tower yesterday was really good  I was naughty and did enter the woods at a different entrance that's more open and a wider path; i was going to carry on but she went into the entrance ahead of me so i thought id give it ago - all was fine and she enjoyed being there  Had the muzzle on for the wood part though; first dog we come across - a lady and her black lab, Willow sat nicely and watched the dog pass by.. the lady stopped and actually complimented me on her wearing a muzzle (as she couldnt manage it with her previous dog) and how nicely she sat and watched her dog walk by without a fuss  .. i actually felt quite pleased with myself :blush: . 
Next dog was in the pool bit and willow led down - refusing to move!! which was embaresing - but just wanted to watch him playing in the water with her tail wagging .. the dog came closer and willow did her 'army crawl' to try and edge closer but then he wandered back off and she just led and watched again.. it was actually quite sweet but it took a good few 'come on, this way' to ger her moving again 
After the woods and out in the open i took the muzzle off and changed her lead to our new 30ft long line  amazing buy! She had plenty of room to run and play without me feeling bad for not letting her offlead 
Passed more dogs nicely and had her sit for walkers&cyclists to pass too. Everyone seemed to be in a really good mood and admired her aswell as saying hello! 
Then we had a really bad timed meet from a husky  Willow was wriggling and rolling in the grass like a loon - rolling in god knows what!! and her paw slipped out her new harness  so it was only loose round her neck and other leg.. then this husky appeared and approached us.. i was holding her tight to me, the husky was ignoring her owners shouts to carry on.. so with this dog staring at her, the owner shouting and me being really tence willow had a bit of a huff  nothing major and she shh'ed when said and sat back down again as the dog moved away. The owner was really apologetic too  nice of him, even had a little chat with a quiet Willow just watching his dog that was wandering off. We then put her back together and enjoyed the rest of our walk home


----------



## Nicki85

Rust got to run on a treadmill to be gait analysed... the data came back that he was lame on three legs lol. But it was so inconsistent and TBH Rust was moving so unnaturally on it i'm not surprised. Apparently he has also got hyper-flexion and his joint range is beyond the normal range. Weird dog. 

You will get to the bottom of Tremor's issues... it's so frustrating though in the mean time. At least the thermal images have shown you where the issue is... Hope Thursday goes well and they are able to give you some answers. Fingers crossed.


----------



## Canine K9

At the moment Bailey barks at people if he doesn`t get his way, he runs up to me randomly and bites and hard. He is deaf to the word come now and just is awful to live with at the moment. In the house he runs about mentally growls barks launches himself at stuff and bites and chews up everything.I`m thinking of giving him an extra hour walk and giving him more mental stimulation although god know`s how until his new kong comes since I`ve lost his other one. So has anyone any ideas for mental stimulation?


----------



## Nicki85

Took Rust down to the allotment to pick some spinach for dinner, he was a bit squizzel crazed but was still listening (most of the time). He's wanted to play with his safestix all day but i'm a bit cautious of fetch with his shoulder... 

Interesting walk with Shae, went to local park to play tug and ball and do a bit of training. Bit on edge and looking for things to react to so I was ready with the treats. After a hyper session of tug we moved on to playing ball. THen, this 7yr old girl comes over... Shae barks at first and is actually a bit worried which I've never seen in her before. Anyhow, I explain to girl to stand there for a sec and let Shae come to her which she did and then they had 20mins of playing ball and having cuddles together. No issues... strange reaction to start and i'll take Shae over to see the kids coming home from school next week. Very good on way back, no grring at anyone or anything even though it was quite noisy out it being a Friday night and us being near the only pub in the village!

K9- what is his routine at the moment?
JSW- sounds like a good walk! And welldone Willow for being such a star, especially with the first two. Two out of three ain't bad... and it doesn't sound like she had much of a choice with the third greeting.


----------



## tiatortilla

Can't do replies this time, just a quick one on my phone but I've done some 'liking' .
Just wanted to say I was brave and walked Tia through town for the first time in months today! Ok so it was 6 in the evening and raining so pretty quiet but we saw 3 dogs, she growled a bit at the first one and ignored the other two . I think I can up the intensity a bit and do a lead walk in busier places maybe once a week or so now..!


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> At the moment Bailey barks at people if he doesn`t get his way, he runs up to me randomly and bites and hard. He is deaf to the word come now and just is awful to live with at the moment. In the house he runs about mentally growls barks launches himself at stuff and bites and chews up everything.I`m thinking of giving him an extra hour walk and giving him more mental stimulation although god know`s how until his new kong comes since I`ve lost his other one. So has anyone any ideas for mental stimulation?


Two things immediately spring to mind:

1. Bailey is reaching the age when many dogs (particularly male) enter the terrible teens and they get rebellious, just like a sullen and defiant teenagers of the human variety. It's their hormones - bless..!!

2. From about 9 - 14 months (depending on breed etc.) the adult teeth settle into the jaw and it's always the worse chewing stage.

Have plenty of chews, stuffed kongs, antlers, etc. for him to munch on because they almost can't help it.

I don't know how much training you've done with him but backtrack a bit and reinforce the basics ie sit - come - leave - etc.


----------



## JenKyzer

Canine K9 said:


> At the moment Bailey barks at people if he doesn`t get his way, he runs up to me randomly and bites and hard. He is deaf to the word come now and just is awful to live with at the moment. In the house he runs about mentally growls barks launches himself at stuff and bites and chews up everything.I`m thinking of giving him an extra hour walk and giving him more mental stimulation although god know`s how until his new kong comes since I`ve lost his other one. So has anyone any ideas for mental stimulation?


Really sorry your feeling this way  I have no advice; just got my fingers crossed for you that its just a 'phase'  . I've seen some of those mental games in our [email protected] ? Where they have to move the blocks and stuff.. seen mixed reviews about them on here though  .. My next 'wish-list' item is a good flirt-pole  maybe something like that would tire him? I honestly don't know - just ideas  I'm sure other will have proper answers for you  wishing you luck!!


----------



## GingerRogers

really sorry k9 Mr Bailey puts you through it doesnt he, second what twiggy says but also JSW

flirt poles are good fun

i saw a bailey just now when i went to the shop but he had big white slpodges and the grey and white ones of MrB

I have decided not to walk ninja tonight, she has been quiet and jumpy all day so some play and training is her lot oh and cuddles. even though the rain has come I cant guarantee no encounters and so would rather not risk it


----------



## Bagrat

Thanks GR .Have sorted the harness malfunction - think Jackson had lost a bit of weight at kennels with all the tearing about with his mates, so tightened the chest bit and have changed to Ezydog collar which being more rigid acts like a washer to prevent him backing out of harness.
The mixed bag of your walk sounds mainly, great pity someone else's lack of thought mucked up the last bit.
Dogless -I think what you call lazy days with no structured training are just as important for our dogs and us. It allows us and our dogs to enjoy each other in a relaxed ( well semi-relaxed in my case) way. I know training is fun too of course and very rewarding ( on the good days).
TiaT - that sounds very promising.
JSW - Hope you can adjust harness, know the sinking feeling when they manage to back out even partially. Hope if you were holding Willow tight to you you didn't get the benefit of what she'd rolled in!


----------



## Canine K9

Thanks everyone  Lol he baffles me he does one minute he is good as gold next he is doing something he shouldnt


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> really sorry k9 Mr Bailey puts you through it doesnt he, second what twiggy says but also JSW
> 
> flirt poles are good fun
> 
> i saw a bailey just now when i went to the shop but he had big white slpodges and the grey and white ones of MrB
> 
> I have decided not to walk ninja tonight, she has been quiet and jumpy all day so some play and training is her lot oh and cuddles. even though the rain has come I cant guarantee no encounters and so would rather not risk it


That sounds eminently sensible.

We desperately need rain here. The wonderful Met Office promised rain from 4.00am this morning and heavy from 7.00am until late afternoon. We didn't have enough to wet the ground....!!

I'm getting too old to be shoving barrows of top soil and filling in cracks in 6 acres..


----------



## JenKyzer

Bagrat said:


> JSW - Hope you can adjust harness, know the sinking feeling when they manage to back out even partially. Hope if you were holding Willow tight to you you didn't get the benefit of what she'd rolled in!


I don't even know how she got her leg out of it so easily  i struggled to get it back in the way it came out! All nice and secure now though  .. :laugh: i don't even know what she was rolling in.. some kind of smell.. it wasn't mucky and i couldn't smell it  she was doing this throughout our walk as modeled in the pictures below.....

All tangled in the line


And bum in the air, face into the floor... very lady like!!


Strange dog..


----------



## Nicki85

Lovely pics- she is having great fun lol!

And I'm still waiting for rain too- I was excited about it and then it never showed


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## JenKyzer

Nicki85 said:


> Lovely pics- she is having great fun lol!
> 
> And I'm still waiting for rain too- I was excited about it and then it never showed


Its been none stop all day here.. so we have a sulky Willow as she hates it  we put her through shower time last night.. then walk her in the rain today.. she thinks we're so evil :001_tongue:


----------



## Sarah1983

Canine K9 said:


> Thanks everyone  Lol he baffles me he does one minute he is good as gold next he is doing something he shouldnt


Typical teenager. He's likely to be up and down and all over the place until he's past adolescence. Spen would be good one minute and horrible the next.

JSW Willow certainly looks like she's enjoying herself

Tia, well done  I really need to do more road walks with Spen and work on getting him past other dogs. He just wants to meet and greet them all but him lunging in front of me to try and sniff one as we pass is not much fun.

We've gone back to working on recall with high value treats and long line or flexi since Spen has seemingly decided he'll do it as and when he pleases and ignore it if he doesn't please. Probably my fault for getting lax with it but I have the feeling I'm going to have to actively work at recall for the rest of his life which is a bit of a daunting thought. He doesn't tend to go running off, he's just "yeah, yeah, in a minute" about it.

Also been working on teaching him to do stuff at the side of me instead of just in front of me. At the moment I ask him to sit and he moves in front of me to do it  So now making being at my side rewarding and hoping to build on that and have him doing sits and downs there too.


----------



## Dogless

JSW - like the photos and it sounds like another very good walk from Ms Willow .

K9 - I am sorry that Bailey's behaviour is trying again; I have no better advice than the excellent stuff you've already had.

GR - very sensible not walking Ninja.

Sarah - back to school for Silly Spendog should get him working hard again .

Bagrat - pleased the harness malfunction's fixed now .

TT - well done for being brave .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LOVELY DIEF!!!


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## Dogless

We just got back from scaring some people rigid and for once it made me laugh .

Went to the forest tonight; by the time we finished it was pretty dark. Had a lovely few hours and just as we were almost back to the car another car pulled up. The area is used for less than reputable activities after dark judging by what I find sometimes and I hung back a little and waited for them to finish pulling up.

They stopped and someone got out, the thunk of their door shutting prompted Roo to do a very, very loud ARRRROOOOOO alert like something from Hound of the Baskervilles . I heard a girl go "Jesus!! What was that, I said it was spooky here!" and then "There's like two red lights, look" and then...she got in and they drove off quick. They can't have had night vision yet having just got out of the car, the moon was covered by cloud and I was dressed in black without a torch on so we must have been pretty much invisible :w00t::w00t:.

To make things EVEN better there are currently "Big Cats" taking or mauling sheep http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...-cat-fears-after-sheep-attacked-29545210.html not a million miles from the area (poachers I would guess, there is a poaching problem there) ...... "We saw one, it was HUGE and had big red eyes"  .

I must make sure to walk at Halloween


----------



## LinznMilly

Hi all.

Not been on for a while, but I assure you I have been working on the training with the dogs. Will have to catch up later as I have a call in 15 minutes. 

Mixed news here today.

Quiet is finally beginning to pay off with Max. Last night we managed to get all the way down the stairs without a single woof from him ... Typically, I'd forgotten the treats so had to go back up the stairs to get them. Still no barking from him, so immensely pleased with him there. Thought it was a fluke, maybe because it was dark, I'd been out and he'd probably been asleep, but this this morning (~9am) he did it again. 

The walk itself was a mixed bag of washing.  The first 10 minutes we were faced with 4 dogs with 3 different owners/walkers coming in the opposite direction. The first dog, a Shih Tzu, had a grumble at my 2, who were, at that point, in a Sit Wait, but instead of ignoring the other dog, they both went over to see what her problem was.  Max recalled fairly quickly, but Milly decided it was a play call (especially as elderly owner was dishing out treats and praise) and this Shih Tzu being carried was far more interesting than me and my treats so recall failed.

Next were a Boxer and ... what I think is a husky x. Milly seen them first, ran over but recalled back and waited in a Sit Wait until they passed us and was released.

Finally was a staffy, and I'm afraid I was one of "_those_" owners.  Milly decided the staffy was her new best friend and just basically gave me the :dita: gesture. Recall went out the window. In the end she simply got bored with her new friend (who didn't want to play) and decided that she might as well go for the chance of a treat. 

Luckily after that, there were no other dogs - at all, during the walk and they had free reign to run around and expend their energy. Threw in some recalls, sits, waits, spins and other ways so that the walk wasn't an unmitigated disaster.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> "There's like two red lights, look"


I take it these were their night lights ? And probably looked like red eyes in the dark. So if they were standing a couple of metres apart.... how big must that animal be ? I bet you enjoyed it more than you're letting on. It could also be the start of a lucrative business...


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## JenKyzer

A crazy start for us today... Willow decided to go nuts at the post lady.. barking and probably waking half the bloody street up! A very stern sit and shush came her way!! Then lots of sorry's to the postlady who only wanted to give me my package as we we're leaving the house before she got to us 

Must be the uniform  ?? As we saw other people she just walked past and another lady appeared suddenly from her house and Willow just let her stroke her :huh:

So that's hats and postman/lady-uniforms on our fancy dress list now to get her used to things :laugh:


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I take it these were their night lights ? And probably looked like red eyes in the dark. So if they were standing a couple of metres apart.... how big must that animal be ? I bet you enjoyed it more than you're letting on. It could also be the start of a lucrative business...


I enjoyed it immensely . Never thought I would gain any pleasure from anyone being afraid of my dogs.....but this was pure entertainment. Yes, the red lights were lights I have clipped to their harnesses so I can see them when they go speeding round in the trees.



JenSteWillow said:


> A crazy start for us today... Willow decided to go nuts at the post lady.. barking and probably waking half the bloody street up! A very stern sit and shush came her way!! Then lots of sorry's to the postlady who only wanted to give me my package as we we're leaving the house before she got to us
> 
> Must be the uniform  ?? As we saw other people she just walked past and another lady appeared suddenly from her house and Willow just let her stroke her :huh:
> 
> So that's hats and postman/lady-uniforms on our fancy dress list now to get her used to things :laugh:


You have a fancy dress list......wasn't you that I almost bumped into last night was it?  :huh: .

LiznMilly - I am pleased that "Quiet" is working again, well done . Maybe pop a lead on when the dogs are in their "sits" waiting for dogs to pass so that they don't break it and run over to them - for the sake of your training in that asking them to sit and wait doesn't become totally meaningless and for the other dogs and owners' sakes too. Sounds like everything's going well overall though .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> You have a fancy dress list......wasn't you that I almost bumped into last night was it?  :huh: .


Oh dear... busted....


----------



## LinznMilly

Dogless said:


> LiznMilly - I am pleased that "Quiet" is working again, well done . Maybe pop a lead on when the dogs are in their "sits" waiting for dogs to pass so that they don't break it and run over to them - for the sake of your training in that asking them to sit and wait doesn't become totally meaningless and for the other dogs and owners' sakes too. Sounds like everything's going well overall though .


Yes, it had occurred to me to put them on the lead/otherwise restrain them :wink: , and I was successful in grabbing hold of, and restraining Max (what with his "aggressive" barking/growling I wasn't taking any chances :nonod: :blush Milly took advantage of that and gave me the slip before I could grab hold of her. Normally, when putting them on their leads, I leash her first so she can't run off, but having been "accused" of Max being "vicious" before, he's my priority if I think he's going to approach other dogs, especially if he were to start barking at them. :yesnod:

Tbf, most of the time they are pretty good at Sit-Wait, and if they start slacking, they'll be leashed until such a time as they can be trusted again...

And Milly's contribution to these allegations?

Who? Meeee???!


Butter wouldn't melt


----------



## Canine K9

All has gone well today and had a lovely walk with him. 
Had a 6 YO round today and Bailey had a stuffed bone. The kid kept talking to him and I said "Oh leave Bailey alone whilst he eats" and he wouldn`t. He tried to take the bone from his mouth  I KNOW that Bailey is capable of biting and will bite if he feels its the right action. So I went ballistic  He then tried to stroke him and Bailey growled. I said "He`s warning; he`s telling you to BACK OFF" It doesn`t help me getting his resource guarding under control.


----------



## Nicki85

We had a lovely 9mile walk round the Surrey Hills this morning. Had him on lead for the most part as didn't need a stiff and sore Springer this evening. Short burst of running offlead through one nice area of common though  All good and we had a lovely time.

Then took him to the Natural Instinct shop and the staff gave him lot treats  Got him an elephant toy with tennis ball feet and a sheeps head for lunch. He's eaten that now and is fast asleep!! I think he has had a good day. 
token pic...









English Shepherd meet tomorrow!


----------



## GingerRogers

That looks an amazing spot for a token photo, hope there's no stiff spaniels in your house tonight, happy birthday rusty bucket 

K9 sorry you weren't able to control your 6 yr old, if you are worried in the future I would probably keep Bailey out of the way especially if he has food, if unruly visitors, old  and young are about. But glad today has been better overall than yesterday .

Linz I am sorry but the one thing that leaps out from your post is that you dont appear to have that much control when they are off lead in that environment it has occurred to me that, rather than dismissing advice, if you cant manage to get them both back on lead when other people/dogs approach then perhaps you shouldn't let them both off together. Sorry if that sounds blunt  I add I dont have much control either but I dont take ninja to that sort of place for walking so she doesn't bother anyone 

Well done on the quiet though.

We are also working on 'quiet' and 'its ok I know the dog next door is really upsetting you' as our temporary neighbours with the barky nervous sheltie are back, just what we didnt need after yesterdays events.


----------



## Bagrat

Well, there's the good bit and the bad bit. Short but rewarding street walk this am. Stopped to chat to an older lady who Jackson kept staring at and he greeted appropriately also an unknown post lady with pink hair (not one for Willow JSW!) who asked permission to approach, then a quick goodbye to put distance between us and a terrier. Lovely country walk this afternoon, some good recalls then woopy do Jackson flushed a small game bird from a clump of grass and took off trailing his long line. The caring bird flew at his shoulder height right across a large field and they both disappeared. It's the first time I've seen him flat out and boy he can run, it was great to watch. I walked calmly round the edge of the field towards him( it had some sprouting crop in it) and called Jackson without using "come" so he could locate me -nothing. Then, I heard heavy breathing. J was crouching in the middle of a thicket of thistles which had snagged the long line very firmly, I'm sure he was trying to get back to me after the way he's been behaving on walks lately.
This detour meant we missed a dog on the track (hooray).
I *know* I'll have to back track with the recall and stick to the long line for a while yet but the speed he took off even with the bungee to my walking belt, I think one of us would be saying ouch.

Nicki it must be so tough to be sensible re exercise when you know Rusty would love to run more.

K9 I'd put the child on a leash!

Dogless - Shame on you for enjoying scaring the not so innocent couple!!:smile5:


----------



## GingerRogers

Silly bird, even the normally stupid ones like pheasant and partridge, the ones that fly in straight lines in front of your car, seem to know to fly straight up when ninja flushes them out and she soon loses interest, even if they land quite close again its the scaring that she enjoys I think, I have described her like the annoying kid at the park before, running through the ducks for that sake of it.

Thank goodness you heard him poor chap.

Dogless I forgot to laugh at your Halloween scaring  be careful they might come on mass for safety next time


----------



## LinznMilly

GingerRogers said:


> Linz I am sorry but the one thing that leaps out from your post is that you dont appear to have that much control when they are off lead in that environment it has occurred to me that, rather than dismissing advice, if you cant manage to get them both back on lead when other people/dogs approach then perhaps you shouldn't let them both off together. Sorry if that sounds blunt  I add I dont have much control either but I dont take ninja to that sort of place for walking so she doesn't bother anyone
> 
> Well done on the quiet though.
> 
> We are also working on 'quiet' and 'its ok I know the dog next door is really upsetting you' as our temporary neighbours with the barky nervous sheltie are back, just what we didnt need after yesterdays events.


Yes, that was a bit blunt.  I'm beginning to feel pushed out of this thread now, so I don't think I'll be contributing again.  I do appreciate the advice, but I'm not thick and the advice given had already previously occurred to me.

It was also a one-off. If I thought I couldn't trust the dogs or my recall, then they wouldn't be offlead together. I've worked hard on their recall and they usually can be trusted. I've been complemented on how well trained they are.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless I forgot to laugh at your Halloween scaring  be careful they might come on mass for safety next time


Yes, I have visions of being hunted :yikes:. Hope karma lets me have that one .



LinznMilly said:


> I do appreciate the advice, but I'm not thick and the advice given had already previously occurred to me.
> 
> It was also a one-off. If I thought I couldn't trust the dogs or my recall, then they wouldn't be offlead together. I've worked hard on their recall and they usually can be trusted. I've been complemented on how well trained they are.


I didn't know what had or hadn't occurred to you - I am guessing you're referring to me as you were sarcastic in your reply. I was just throwing ideas about because of what you had typed rather than trying to imply you were thick. It is hard to know what to say sometimes - maybe you could just ignore my input if you do what I have suggested already? It wouldn't matter and I'd just assume that I had suggested something that you already did.


----------



## Dogless

K9 - I'd just keep Bailey out of the way of small folk in the future, or try a shock collar on them . Is his resource guarding worsening?

Nicki - What a lovely photo and it sounds as if Mr R Buckets had a great birthday; that toy sounds fabulous .

Bagrat - It is splendid to see dogs in full flight isn't it? Although it's never great when it's not meant to be happening  . When we got overrun with the hunt it was amazing seeing Kilo running with the hounds at the same time as being totally horrifying!!

GR - sorry to hear your barky neighbour's back .


----------



## GingerRogers

LinznMilly said:


> Yes, that was a bit blunt.  I'm beginning to feel pushed out of this thread now, so I don't think I'll be contributing again.  I do appreciate the advice, *but I'm not thick and the advice given had already previously occurred to me*.
> 
> It was also a one-off. If I thought I couldn't trust the dogs or my recall, then they wouldn't be offlead together. I've worked hard on their recall and they usually can be trusted. I've been complemented on how well trained they are.


I do not want you to feel pushed out, all advice is given in good faith based on the information you give though, and it doesn't often seem like you do appreciate it (that bolded bit seems to infer that you really dont appreciate it), and if your honest it wasn't a one off they did it several times in one walk. In any case your one off could seriously damage another dogs progress (I am sure the chap yesterday would say his dogs had never flown out his garage door and swarmed a passing dog and owner before )

This thread works so well as we come on with problems and/or just to vent and others give their support or advice and we think about it and mostly we find we learn something even if we dont like what we learn or even if what we learn is something so simple and obvious as using a lead that we had already thought of.


----------



## LinznMilly

Dogless said:


> Yes, I have visions of being hunted :yikes:. Hope karma lets me have that one .
> 
> I didn't know what had or hadn't occurred to you - I am guessing you're referring to me as you were sarcastic in your reply. I was just throwing ideas about because of what you had typed rather than trying to imply you were thick. It is hard to know what to say sometimes - maybe you could just ignore my input if you do what I have suggested already? It wouldn't matter and I'd just assume that I had suggested something that you already did.


No Dogless, I was referring to Ginger's post, not yours.  I realise you don't know what has or hasn't occurred to me, which is why I added smilies to my answer to your post. However, Ginger posted the exact same thing in a more blunt way despite my reply to your own post, so I was more blunt in my reply to her.



GingerRogers said:


> I do not want you to feel pushed out, all advice is given in good faith based on the information you give though, and it doesn't often seem like you do appreciate it (that bolded bit seems to infer that you really dont appreciate it), and if your honest it wasn't a one off they did it several times in one walk. In any case your one off could seriously damage another dogs progress (I am sure the chap yesterday would say his dogs had never flown out his garage door and swarmed a passing dog and owner before )
> 
> This thread works so well as we come on with problems and/or just to vent and others give their support or advice and we think about it and mostly we find we learn something even if we dont like what we learn or even if what we learn is something so simple and obvious as using a lead that we had already thought of.


Ginger, I appreciated Dogless's reply, yes, it had already occurred to me and I pointed that out, however, it appears you didn't read my reply to Dogless, posted the same and said that it looked like I didn't have control over my dogs. I admit this time training failed. However, it was ONE walk in many. I've worked hard on my recall and most of the time it's fairly solid. No dog has 100% recall and this time, for whatever reason, mine failed. I know the advice. I had to keep Milly on a line for the best part of a year because she had 0% recall, despite previously having a good recall and it's only been the past 6 months that I've felt I could trust her offlead again - if that.

As for the comment that I could send another dog owner's training back - they weren't training their dogs. The staffy approached my dogs first, her owner just walked on by and asked if Milly just wanted to play (she did). When I answered yes - and apologised, he carried on. No training, not even asking me to recall my dog. Nothing, so I hardly think I've set anyone's training back.

Now I said my previous post was my last. This one definitely is.

PS: Please take this post as calm. I'm not angry, I don't mean to come across as defensive, but it's difficult when being told I have no control. I realise it's entirely my fault for posting my failings in the first place, but I think this thread has outlived its usefulness for me.


----------



## GingerRogers

LinznMilly said:


> No Dogless, I was referring to Ginger's post, not yours.  I realise you don't know what has or hasn't occurred to me, which is why I added smilies to my answer to your post. However, Ginger posted the exact same thing in a more blunt way despite my reply to your own post, so I was more blunt in my reply to her.
> 
> Ginger, I appreciated Dogless's reply, yes, it had already occurred to me and I pointed that out, however, it appears you didn't read my reply to Dogless, posted the same and said that it looked like I didn't have control over my dogs. I admit this time training failed. However, it was ONE walk in many. I've worked hard on my recall and most of the time it's fairly solid. No dog has 100% recall and this time, for whatever reason, mine failed. I know the advice. I had to keep Milly on a line for the best part of a year because she had 0% recall, despite previously having a good recall and it's only been the past 6 months that I've felt I could trust her offlead again - if that.
> 
> As for the comment that I could send another dog owner's training back - they weren't training their dogs. The staffy approached my dogs first, her owner just walked on by and asked if Milly just wanted to play (she did). When I answered yes - and apologised, he carried on. No training, not even asking me to recall my dog. Nothing, so I hardly think I've set anyone's training back.
> 
> Now I said my previous post was my last. This one definitely is.


I didn't say anything about training, I said progress, I apologise if I might be taking out other peoples ignorance on you but in the last month I have had 3 incidents of off lead dogs rushing up to us  and yes it does seriously set back our progress which makes me cry as ninja had been doing so well and now she is jumping at every sound :crying:.

I did see your reply which read as dismissive and excusing sorry again but I can only go on what you type. And just seen your edit, why post about the failings if you dont want advice.

There has been many times on this thread and on PF in general when I have been pulled up on things I have done and if I am in danger of offending/damaging other dogs or owners then I have appreciated being told. I dont know what else to say, I was blunt overly so and apologise but in the incidents you describe I dont think I was incorrect.


----------



## Guest

Hello guys! Not been on as had a worrying couple of days. Clem got involved in a RTA then went missing for a couple days, of course she is back now like nothing ever happened. Baggage had me properly worried! 

DB has been good. 

Belated Birthday wishes to Rusty! Woo! 

Sorry your barky neighbour is bark Ginge. 

Lol, yeah I also vote putting a lead onto to the smallchild K9! 

Must have been great fun for Jackson Bagrat but slightly heart thudding for you! 

I am sorry you feel that way LnM, maybe it is for the best, as if you don't like the advice given it is best not to read it.


----------



## Dogless

We have had a shamefully lazy day here (well the dogs have) after having yet another very full on week exercise wise. The dogs have snoozed all day bar me driving them up to the top fields this afternoon for an hour or so's running around playing and some gentle training....and they are sparked out again. The fact it's pouring with rain has influenced them too I think .

I have spent the day cleaning and tidying as hubby gets home late tonight from his diving trip and I need a head start as he's sure to create a bit of a bomb site .

LO - SO PLEASED CLEM HAS RETURNED!!


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> K9 - I'd just keep Bailey out of the way of small folk in the future, or try a shock collar on them . Is his resource guarding worsening?
> 
> Nicki - What a lovely photo and it sounds as if Mr R Buckets had a great birthday; that toy sounds fabulous .
> 
> Bagrat - It is splendid to see dogs in full flight isn't it? Although it's never great when it's not meant to be happening  . When we got overrun with the hunt it was amazing seeing Kilo running with the hounds at the same time as being totally horrifying!!
> 
> GR - sorry to hear your barky neighbour's back .


Lol the shock collar sounds good or a prong collar  :hand: A bit although when he has a bone for example I walk past him and toss him a bit of chicken so hoping he gets the idea!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless - Sounds like a nice day  Lazy one here too.. we all had an afternoon power 3hr snooze 

LO - welcome back  glad clem is ok  

LnM - (if your still reading just not posting ) Well done to max for being quiet  even when you had to go back for the treats! Glad the rest of your walk went well when there was no other dogs 

K9 - Sorry to hear about the lil un.. my sister is 9 and when we go round she doesn't leave Willow alone  i drew the line when she stopped here for the night and i heard her using the clicker at willow :scared::yikes: god knows what she was trying to do.. but i had to seperate them anyway before she un-did my training :001_tongue: Hope baileys allergies are ok btw? We had a break through with willows itching and Epi-Soothe shampoo  finally.

Nicki - That pic is stunning  Sounds like a great walk! 

GR - Sorry the noisy neighbours are back  Hope ninja settles down ok with it barking. 

Bagrat - Pink hair! Willow would of been boggled :crazy: . I love seeing Willow do a flat out run  its amazing watching them go isn't it ! Glad you kept calm and J was ok too! Sounds like a good walk overall .. and you managed to avoid a dog too which is always a plus with us 

----

Lazy day here.. Just done some clicker&whistle stuff.. OH distracted her and i went off upstairs and did 2pips and she came to find me straight away; really pleased with how this is going (Edited to say specially this one as normally the OH is waaay more interesting than me  ). She got all confused with some commands as if she was just guessing to see if she ended up with a treat or not  . But it ended well and she's getting used to 'both paws'  she's now gone off on a big walk with OH .. they took the long line so who knows what they'll get up to! Seems as the last walk they had together yesterday she poop-ed on a door step - row of terraced houses - he sheepishly admitted earlier  !! Never ever done anything of the sort with me . (Yes he did have bags and yes he cleaned it up with no mess left behind if anyones wondering  , good job she's on raw and had bone the night before anyway!)


----------



## kat&molly

LO- so pleased the cat came back, what a worry.  

Dogless- the nearly goings on in the forest made me titter. I'd love to know what those people are telling everyone now :huh:

Belated Birthday Wishes to the handsome Dief, and hope Rusty Buckets got a good day too.

Twiggy- I hope you get some answers with Tremor, its been going on such a long time now

JSW- Willow coped really well with the woods  loved her bum in the air 

TT- lovely progress with Tia, such a great feeling when we know we can up the ante a bit.

Ginge-so sorry you had a bad encounter yesterday and now the the dog is back next door  Hope Ninja isn't too bad.

K9- I had adults and children here recently who couldn't be trusted to leave the girls alone, so I put them in another room to get some peace and quiet. Sometimes its best to just play it safe.  

Bagrat- think Jackson enjoyed his flushing , until he got stuck anyway 

Phew!! A really good couple of days with Evie, she is much calmer than she was . Today, especially we were all walking around a field and not far from the entrance a car pulled up , a woman got out and walked down the track with her basket . She panicked initally but but then we stood and watched and she took treats. A little bit on edge after but coped really well  can't quite believe it really. We've had a couple of little sessions out front as well, slowly , slowly but all good.
The other 3 aren't getting much of a mention and obviously they get their walks and bits of training but Evies fears are whats filling my brain cells at the moment.

I did wonder, now I realise a lot of her rolling is a sort of release from stress, she doesn't roll in the rain or when the grounds wet- how is she going to cope with winter?

JSW- that poo , good job no-one opened the door lol


----------



## diefenbaker

Went with the missus on a day trip to Northern Ireland. We stopped off for a quickie in some woods. It was getting dark and there was an almighty howl and I saw a giant red-eyed beast. Drove home as fast as we could without even using a ferry.

Improved my 5K PB to 28:12. That wiped me out for the day. But still managed to get down to the beach. Tide was on it's way out so we waded out to the sandbanks. Must have looked weird from the beach.... like we were walking on water.

Dief has just finished a pig's ear and is now whacked out his beanbag. I'll be joining him soon.


----------



## Canine K9

His allergies are better slightly, he has been upgraded to 1 prition tab a day. 
We are excluding environmental things.


----------



## JenKyzer

kat&molly said:


> Phew!! A really good couple of days with Evie, she is much calmer than she was . Today, especially we were all walking around a field and not far from the entrance a car pulled up , a woman got out and walked down the track with her basket . She panicked initally but but then we stood and watched and she took treats. A little bit on edge after but coped really well  can't quite believe it really. We've had a couple of little sessions out front as well, slowly , slowly but all good.
> The other 3 aren't getting much of a mention and obviously they get their walks and bits of training but Evies fears are whats filling my brain cells at the moment.
> 
> I did wonder, now I realise a lot of her rolling is a sort of release from stress, she doesn't roll in the rain or when the grounds wet- how is she going to cope with winter?
> 
> JSW- that poo , good job no-one opened the door lol


Don't even know what i'd do if i opened my door to someone cleaning up after their dog doing the business on my step  infact, i'd probably be more shocked at them cleaning it up tbh from the state of the streets round here  anyway; 
Glad you've had a good few days with Evie  sounds like she's doing really well. Maybe if you have a wintery coat for her she will still roll in that if she realises it doesn't get her too wet, cold & dirty  I'm sure she'll find a way .. & i'm sure someone else will have a 'proper' answer for you and ideas on how you can help her stress release


----------



## Dogless

Dief!! You dirty so and so.....I reckon the adrenaline is what has improved your 5km time . I got a quick snap of the car.....you've been nailed. Or not thanks to the beast :huh:.


----------



## Twiggy

LinznMilly said:


> Yes, that was a bit blunt.  I'm beginning to feel pushed out of this thread now, so I don't think I'll be contributing again.  I do appreciate the advice, but I'm not thick and the advice given had already previously occurred to me.
> 
> It was also a one-off. If I thought I couldn't trust the dogs or my recall, then they wouldn't be offlead together. I've worked hard on their recall and they usually can be trusted. I've been complemented on how well trained they are.


Oh dear. I'm sorry you feel like that but the whole point of this thread (WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?) is that we all have problems which we are working on with our dogs and we attempt to offer advice, based on our own experiences. We try very hard to be supportive but are often extremely blunt and honest with each other. I am quite certain Moonviolet, Dogless and GR didn't mean to be insulting, they were simply trying to help you.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> I got a quick snap of the car.....you've been nailed


That's not mine. There's no furry dice or traffic-light air freshener.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. I'm sorry you feel like that but the whole point of this thread (WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?) is that we all have problems which we are working on with our dogs and we attempt to offer advice, based on our own experiences. We try very hard to be supportive but are often extremely blunt and honest with each other. I am quite certain *Moonviolet*, Dogless and GR didn't mean to be insulting, they were simply trying to help you.


Certainly not my intention but as anyone who has followed waywo knows I'm not known for tiptoeing around and it's very unlikely to change, personally I prefer direct and adult exchanges. I feel it would be a terrible loss for this thread to lose the clear and open culture it has built over the last 18 months.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> That's not mine. There's no furry dice or traffic-light air freshener.


Wrong. I got NCIS onto it and they found DNA evidence. A Dief hair has exposed your filthy lies and juvenile attempts at subversion.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Certainly not my intention but as anyone who has followed waywo knows I'm not known for tiptoeing around and it's very unlikely to change, personally I prefer direct and adult exchanges. I feel it would be a terrible loss for this thread to lose the clear and open culture it has built over the last 18 months.


Agreed.

I much prefer my trainer when he's being downright vile. If he ever smiled at me and said something like "very nice" I'd know he wasn't remotely interested, whereas when he's letting rip (in front of a whole class of people usually) I know he cares and is doing his very best to sort me out.

I think I've said before that 4 years ago he totally blasted my handling of Tremor on the first morning of a week long course. Within a month she'd won 3 novice classes.....


----------



## LinznMilly

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. I'm sorry you feel like that but the whole point of this thread (WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?) is that we all have problems which we are working on with our dogs and we attempt to offer advice, based on our own experiences. We try very hard to be supportive but are often extremely blunt and honest with each other. I am quite certain Moonviolet, Dogless and GR didn't mean to be insulting, they were simply trying to help you.


I can take blunt. However, I do refuse to be made a scapegoat for other people's frustrations and I feel that GR made it plain, in the post quoted below, that her "advice" was nothing more than her taking out her own frustration on me, after her own dog was approached and her own progress set back when 3 inconsiderate dog owners allowed their dogs to approach hers. The situation I was in this morning was completely different.



GingerRogers said:


> I didn't say anything about training, I said progress, I apologise if I might be taking out other peoples ignorance on you *but in the last month I have had 3 incidents of off lead dogs rushing up to us  *and yes it does seriously set back our progress which makes me cry as ninja had been doing so well and now she is jumping at every sound :crying:. .


The staffy approached MY dogs - not the other way round. The Shih-Tzu challenged MY dogs - mine broke a Sit-Stay and went to check it out. Max's recall didn't fail - Milly's did, but GR put it across that I have NO control over my dogs when they're offlead together.

And yet I'm made to feel like the villain in all this.


----------



## Twiggy

LinznMilly said:


> I can take blunt. However, I do refuse to be made a scapegoat for other people's frustrations and I feel that GR made it plain, in the post quoted below, that her "advice" was nothing more than her taking out her own frustration on me, after her own dog was approached and her own progress set back when 3 inconsiderate dog owners allowed their dogs to approach hers. The situation I was in this morning was completely different.
> 
> The staffy approached MY dogs - not the other way round. The Shih-Tzu challenged MY dogs - mine broke a Sit-Stay and went to check it out. Max's recall didn't fail - Milly's did, but GR put it across that I have NO control over my dogs when they're offlead together.


Yes I think we've got the message about the staffy.

Smile and let it go please - life's too short. Nobody on this thread is taking their frustrations out on you.


----------



## Guest

LinznMilly said:


> I can take blunt. However, I do refuse to be made a scapegoat for other people's frustrations and I feel that GR made it plain, in the post quoted below, that her "advice" was nothing more than her taking out her own frustration on me, after her own dog was approached and her own progress set back when 3 inconsiderate dog owners allowed their dogs to approach hers. The situation I was in this morning was completely different.
> 
> The staffy approached MY dogs - not the other way round. The Shih-Tzu challenged MY dogs - mine broke a Sit-Stay and went to check it out. Max's recall didn't fail - Milly's did, but GR put it across that I have NO control over my dogs when they're offlead together.
> 
> And yet I'm made to feel like the villain in all this.


Look calm down, this is not a thread where you're gonna be handed tea and cakes for every mishap. You are not a scapegoat but we are not going to lie if anyone thinks anything could be handled better in regards to training.


----------



## LinznMilly

Twiggy said:


> Yes I think we've got the message about the staffy.
> 
> Smile and let it go please - life's too short. Nobody on this thread is taking their frustrations out on you.





LurcherOwner said:


> Look calm down, this is not a thread where you're gonna be handed tea and cakes for every mishap. You are not a scapegoat but we are not going to lie if anyone thinks anything could be handled better in regards to training.


I AM CALM. I've been calm - or at least TRYING to REMAIN calm - all bloody day. I don't expect to be given tea and cakes for something going wrong, but I already knew how to fix it.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree over whether or not GR was making me a scapegoat, despite the fact that she plainly admits that she IS taking her frustrations out on me in the bit I quoted above.


----------



## moonviolet

LinznMilly said:


> I AM CALM. I've been calm - or at least TRYING to REMAIN calm - all bloody day. I don't expect to be given tea and cakes for something going wrong, but I already knew how to fix it.
> 
> I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree over whether or not GR was making me a scapegoat, despite the fact that she plainly admits that she IS taking her frustrations out on me in the bit I quoted above.


What do you hope to get out of posting on this thread?


----------



## DogTrainer01

*Sticks toe into thread*... hello... again! I've been lurking for ages and ages. I think I've caught up mostly... but mostly good grief Dogless, Rudi is massive 

Very quick update on my two boys. 

Andy's luxating patella is much better than it was. We've stopped the physio trips and we're finally back to longer walks now, which he is loving every minute of. He has started reacting to bikes and people again which I understand as he has had a very enclosed world for the last however many months (for anyone that doesn't know, when we first rescued Andy he was highly reactive to people, bikes, skate boards, joggers and other dogs). Interestingly, he hasn't (so far) had a step back with other dogs. 

Onto Kobie-pants. Unfortunately he has been attacked by other dogs 4 times now which severely effected both his and my confidence. He's also started spook barking at people which took me by surprise - I didn't see coming at all. I've massively cut back on the agility with him. I'm just absolutely loving enjoying him for what he is (both of them really!) and we'll compete when we compete and in the mean time we'll have fun training. 

I'd lastly like to say a huge sorry for having a bit of a typical teenage huff last time I posted... very unlike me (I hope Nickie85 can back me up that I'm not moody...really ) and completely embarrassing (I'm also not allowed teenage huffs anymore seeing as I'm no longer a teenager :hand!

I look forward to joining in and catching up with you and your progresses!


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## diefenbaker

moonviolet said:


> What do you hope to get out of posting on this thread?


a) Fun. This is most important.
b) Ideas on how to train my dog. On second thoughts this is more important than a).
c) A place to post when things go wrong. This takes a lot of guts. Especially if it's your fault. But can lead to b) This makes c) important. Probably as important as b) although not as easy. More important than a). Unless I've been drinking in which case a) is more important than everything. It's Sunday morning and I haven't been drinking. This means that currently b) and c) are more important than a).
d) Somewhere to hide on PF. The rest of it is plain scary.

This is the internet. It's bound to go a little wrong at times. Shutdown and reboot.


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## diefenbaker

Apparently I'm off to Alice Holt today. I think this is a ploy by somebody to get Sunday dinner out... although I won't be complaining about that. Better fire-up DoggiePubs on the phone.


----------



## Guest

diefenbaker said:


> a) Fun. This is most important.


I had an agility trainer who used to say that having fun is the most important thing. Next to being safe. But if you're not being safe, you're not having fun. Which brings it back to having fun is the most important thing 

Speaking of safety, the great dane dork slammed in to me from behind as she was running laps in the front pasture yesterday afternoon.
She somehow managed to step on the bottom of my foot making it hit the ground top first at an odd angle. I heard about 14 pops and cracks from my ankle and foot. I stood there waiting for the searing pain to start...

But it didn't. In fact, as I carefully wiggled toes and rotated my foot, I realized that the whole thing felt pretty good! I think she gave me an unrequested and very unscientific chiropractic adjustment of the foot and ankle! 
Phew! Major bullet dodged there! I thought I was going to be out of commission for sure!

However, I do have a giant scratch on my arse from either her rabies tag or her tooth. That dog is a hazard....


----------



## Tyton

Bit of a mixture so far this weekend. Dogs had a night in kennels as we were out all day friday collecting our new van -3 adult newfies AND OH's mobility buggy won't all fit in the car. They love the kennels cos they get spoiled rotten by the owner. Bad news was that Beau managed to unpick the fence and get out, followed by Kahn and Tyton. Good news is when they broke out they went straight into the owner's house to see if she had any treats rather than running off down the drive. Gave her one heck of a fright, sitting quietly watching tv one moment and three wet newfie noses in her lap the next. OH has been tasked to go help make the stables fence dogproof before our escape artists are next in!

More work yesterday  but attempt at better walk today. Stepdaughter is staying so three of us took all three down the beach. Flirty off lead lab decided to bounce up to the pups who were twirling on hind legs at the ends of their leads while I had the big fella sitting with me. We escaped her and made it to the beach safely. Had the wee ones off lead to play in the water (Tyton stays on his flexi where we still have some control but he can paddle) then OH decided to walk back to the cafe, stepdaughter had Tyton when the pups spotted 2 BC. One was off lead so fair to approach, the other was a pup on lead. I managed to collect Beau but Kahn went shooting off to hubby, who was standing near the border collies, tyton managed to pull lead from stepdaughter so the poor pup had 2 big newfies bounding at it. I feel rubbish cos I wouldn't have let them. Hate feeling out of control of/with the dogs.  Once all collected, they were then pretty good at the cafe and back to the van. No big problems with the new van either except for the dogs refusung to use the scary steps and preferring to jump/be lifted into the back. 

Wondering if I can be rude and head back out with them myself to have a 'proper'walk and do some training rather than a shambolic firefighting exercise like earlier?


----------



## Dogless

Dief - a) sounds like a plan. I suspect more so after your Sunday Lunch out . Just stay on the mainland this time please .

Tyton - the Great Escape sounds like a close call, the van sounds excellent and the firefighting exercise sounds stressful!! Of course you can pop out for a "proper" walk later, my hubby wouldn't even notice I was missing .

Great walk this morning, perfect in fact . Went to the forest just as it was getting light, very chilly 4c and perfect conditions for scents....so the CHs spent about 3 hours with noses working none - stop just hunting around. They were really good though and did everything that I asked when I asked it so I just gave them free rein. Came back just in time for hubby to have got up and dressed .


----------



## GingerRogers

Wow! I hope I dont have to keep my gob shut now 

I wasn't making anyone a scapegoat Linz, you posted about your day, I responded with a perfectly valid assessment of what you wrote, I was blunt but not out of meanness nor was I saying anything that I dont consider to be true, but I am sorry if I hit a nerve.

Dogless good day well over due for you lady!

LO glad clem has returned 

Ouch Oeusi, you need a smaller dog or a better set of body armour 

Tyton - Goodness it was a bit mixed wasn't it, why would it be rude to try and retrieve some calm from the days walking , with out wanting to offend  how olds the step daughter, perhaps you should take the big boys lead next time ? 

I am sorry but I love the picture in my head of the poor kennel lady with the 3 newfie noses 'in my  house'



Its a bit glum in ninja nook today. After Fridays collie rush we really wanted a nice quiet walk last night unfortunately there were some dubious goings on at our intended place, it was getting to dusk and I did not want to get involved  so we headed off elsewhere only to encounter a chap with 2 offlead labs. I have come across him before, you know how some people just dont grab you, there's something a little off about him, he doesn't have the best control and frankly the labs look as if they take after their owner in temperament , the first time I 'met' them, I was driving round a corner, and one of the labs tried to play chicken with the car , luckily it was a tight corner so I was going very slowly.

Anyway as I say its dusk by now so I hadn't anticipated anyone else being out that way at all, I spot a man, not the dogs, then I realise  who it is, I scramble up the bank though the hedge to the stubble field to avoid them but he cant manage a recall and one of them comes after us hackles up, ninja bless her doesnt make a sound till it charges us and then thankfully it turns tail  but really really fed up. Today she is jumpy as hell at the slightest sound, and utterly ferocious every time the neighbours dog barks.

I feel very  and worried, hubby thinks I am overreacting but she looks pretty stressed to me and I dont quite know what to do, not while the neighbour is here, just what I can to keep everything else stress free and hope she recovers enough to start ignoring the neighbour.

But we went and had a blast in the maize fields this morning,  well she did, I can be pretty sure of not seeing anyone there apart from the game keeper and his dogs are kept in the truck.


----------



## Dogless

I think all you can do is what you did this morning GR . I certainly can't "like" your post as it's glum but I am pleased that this morning was nice for the Ninja at least.


----------



## Guest

GingerRogers said:


> Wow! I hope I dont have to keep my gob shut now


LOL I hear ya...
I think there are some days that no matter how good your intentions, it just doesn't translate in forumlandia. I seem to be having one of those days myself. 
That's what I get for procrastinating on PF instead of tending to the ever-expanding pile of dirty clothes that's mocking me in the laundry room. 

Sorry your Ninja seems stressed. Sounds like you both need a chill day or two...


----------



## Nicki85

Well I am exhausted lol.

Took Rust out for a run am all good although I was suspect one group thought I was a bit grumpy. Rust was on his line running in front and I stopped took him to the side and put him in a sit for them to pass with their two dogs. They couldn't stop them coming over and not even a thank you... grrr grrr grrr... anyhow, i made one of those snide comments of just as well he's friendly. But if I make an effort please make an effort with your dogs. I am such a grump in the morning! 

Anyhow, then we were off to meet a number of other English Shepherds over at Virginia Waters (which was stupidly busy, think dogs, bikes, buggies, mobility scooters, little golf cart things and runners). Took them both, Rust stayed on lead and was a good boy, didn't even retaliate when one of the young entire ES's grumbled at him and try to show him who was in charge, he just recalled away. Shae was just perfect... recalled whenever asked, whatever she was doing. Played nicely with the other dogs and ignored any rude behaviour. She got a bit miffed at one of them that kept trying to steal her treat but that's understandable... 

Dogtrainer- good to see you back  Can't remember the last comment you made lol. Glad to hear Andy is on the mend but sorry to hear Kobie is having a rough time with other dogs  Has it affected his confidence?
DL- glad you had a good morning
GR- sorry to hear that Ninja is feeling  So difficult when you try so hard with them. I hope you have some peaceful walks soon.
Ouesi- What do you expect from a GD?? All those legs! They must be difficult to control!


----------



## Canine K9

We went to a fun dog show today and bailey got 3rd place in child handler, waggiest tail and scruffiest dog. His awards from today








Overall awards as a puppy so far


----------



## Bagrat

GR - I'm sure you can tell if the Ninja is stressy and it is a worry but a quiet few days will help the most ( that's help both of you). I sometimes wish I lived on an uninhabited island 3 days out of 7.
Ouesi - I hate the slow mo thing when you know your body is out of control and something is going to ouch. Sounds like you could set up a new therapeutic manipulation business manned by dogs.
Dogless - glad you've had a good day.
Tyton - Jackson finds two adults a crowd and he's only one dog so I take my hat off to you!
K9 - that is well impressive!
Walkwise all quiet for once. Next doors JRT ( Jackson's bete noir) was sat at the front behind his gate so we did a bit of BAT and J did really well till Benjie had the nerve to stand up, J then did one woof but we were on their front lawn by then so I was pleased.
My son arrived ( he doesn't visit often unless he wants something) so we went through the usual J on leadthen on his mat, but after 5 minutes he was able to carry the lead handle and greet Paul OK as long as he totally ignored him. He's got a mad staffy who he has never attempted to train but at least Paul does as I ask. I relaxed and Paul and his Dad stood up to look at the car which made J a bit stupid with a few leaps, but he came to me when called so things are better.


----------



## kat&molly

K9- congrats on the rosettes, well done to Bailey 

Ginge- sorry Ninja is so stressed. My OH , much as he tries , doesn't see how stressed Evie is sometimes . Hope things get easier for you both.

Took the 3 girls out for one biggish walk today. It was lovely except we ended up getting a bit too close to the barky Setter house which bothered Short stuff a bit, she was ok once she realised we weren't passing them.
Ended up at a little watering hole but didn't stay as there were ducks on the water, Moll ignored them wanting water retrieves instead, Scruff recalled. Luckily Evie was on lead 

The worst bit was that Chasse season started today, I thought we had until the end of the month.  The gunshots bothered Evie and it means we need to walk closer to home, which is a bit of a problem at the moment.

I've been taking Jay out on my bike  not far, I cant with her health and fitness levels plus I have to go so slow I'm in danger of falling off  but for some reason she really enjoys it and it means she actually walks with me rather than plods along.


----------



## Tyton

Pleased to report a much better afternoon walk. Took Tyton out myself. One lunge at a wee bichon frise but then a nice calm greeting with a rather portly spaniel. He was also a star with a young GR that approached us, Tyton sat very still while it circled and sniffed before its apologetic owner came to lead up and collect, cue a few minutes of polite sniffing while we chatted and I'm in a much better mood than this morning.

I compromised with the pups, I took Beau and stepdaughter, Lisa came with Kahn. The pups were pretty good offlead and are now absolutely shattered - fingers crossed for a peaceful evening bar snoring newfies in every room. 

Ps to GR, never be afraid to comment/advise. I ought to have said stepdaughter is almost as old as me and she only had Tyton as I was on poop patrol. I do feel safer when I've got hold of the lead, as I can read him best, he's had OH on his head a couple of times and he ought to be able to handle him as he's an ex bodybuilder who still trains 4 days a week!


----------



## Canine K9

Wondering if anyone could help... Bailey keeps scent marking indoors. Any advice? For the past month or so he has had free run of the downstairs but now he can`t and is back on a long lead indoors bar 1 dog proof room so I can supervise him in case. If I do let him off he cries to go in the kitchen and thats where he scent marks most


----------



## Twiggy

I've been to a 'proper' open obedience show today; the first time Tremor's been in the ring since last March....!!

I only trained her because I simply daren't risk her turning and dropping at speed on the sendaway.

She was very good though and did B stays (2 minutes sit and 5 minutes down out of sight) considering the last time she went into the stay ring was 18 months ago. We also did scent, again the first time in the ring for 18 months.

Her retrieves are usually excellent - a plastic handled washing up brush in Test B and a cluster of plastic rings tied together in Test C. Her heelwork was super, if a tad jolly, and she did the three positions on the move (down, stand, sit) very well. 

She was so pleased to be back working and couldn't believe her luck when we pulled into the venue.

Holly had a lovely time meeting and greeting and reckoned every dog and handler on the showground were her long lost friends....LOL To be fair, she is so well behaved (pet dog wise) it was perfectly safe to have her off the lead quite near to the rings when dogs were working.

Two of my pupils won their classes today and one won yesterday at a show down in Berkshire.

There was a stand today offering free consultations with a canine massage therapist so I went and had a chat. She asked me to fetch Tremor, examined her and pointed out exactly where the soft tissue problems are (plus a few I didn't expect - scar tissue in the right shoulder being one)...!!

Very oddly, as I have never heard of her, she practices about 14 miles from me and lo and behold she uses the same veterinary surgeon as me. I'm extremely annoyed, yet again, with my vet as this therapist is an expert in soft tissue problems and yet he's never mentioned her. I will be sticking a referral form under his nose sometime this week. She is certain that the issue with Tremor's right hind is a hamstring problem, which she can do something about, and she also wants to see the thermal imaging results. Yet more money but if she can get Tremor right this winter it will be so worth it.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - I am so pleased you had such a good day overall. The canine massage therapist sounds like a hopeful prospect for tremor. Fingers crossed!!

k&m - I am pleased that Jay enjoys the bike...even if it's dangerous for you. Maybe that's why...she has an evil sense of humour? :huh:.

Tyton - pleased your afternoon went better.

K9 - what do you clean the areas scent marked with?


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- lovely to hear Tremor enjoyed the show yesterday.  How bizarre that your vet has never mentioned the Therapist  but it all sounds very promising  .


----------



## Nicki85

Right, I'm making the re-decision to always lead up what ever comes our way! Made the mistake of letting them both off to greet a dog approaching. I had recalled them both in and then made the decision to allow them to greet offlead. Anyhow, turned out to be an under-socialised 5month old pup who screamed when mine approached. They recalled away fine and straight away so no issues... But my judgement made them look like terrible dogs. The lady said nothing apart from that it was a pup... So yes, always on lead now.

I have been allowing offlead greetings recently as it is easier than getting both mine to the side (easy bit) to then have the other dogs come over anyhow and then I end up with a tangle of leads, a grumpy Shae as she doesn't like other dogs coming up if she is on lead (which then means I have to distract with treats= other dogs even more interested!). 

Also, Rusty is worried to turn his back on approaching dogs if he thinks they may have a go. This means that if I don't get the recall in quick enough (i.e. before the other dog begins approaching) he will not turn round and come back. He will stop and wait for me to lead him up but will not turn his back on an approaching dog. I know this boils down to being attacked by a number of dogs when he was younger but any thoughts on how to rectify this? He will literally just freeze until the other dog goes past or comes up to greet him or I reach him and put him on lead. He is happy to meet them and have a game but there is obviously some anxiety over the initial greeting. 

So yes, good dogs today- handler needs to improve decision making skills though!

Swimming later for Rust, pre-agility for Shae 

Twiggy- so lovely to hear about Tremor, glad she had such a fab time in the ring!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Right, I'm making the re-decision to always lead up what ever comes our way! Made the mistake of letting them both off to greet a dog approaching. I had recalled them both in and then made the decision to allow them to greet offlead. Anyhow, turned out to be an under-socialised 5month old pup who screamed when mine approached. They recalled away fine and straight away so no issues... But my judgement made them look like terrible dogs. The lady said nothing apart from that it was a pup... So yes, always on lead now.
> 
> I have been allowing offlead greetings recently as it is easier than getting both mine to the side (easy bit) to then have the other dogs come over anyhow and then I end up with a tangle of leads, a grumpy Shae as she doesn't like other dogs coming up if she is on lead (which then means I have to distract with treats= other dogs even more interested!).
> 
> Also, Rusty is worried to turn his back on approaching dogs if he thinks they may have a go. This means that if I don't get the recall in quick enough (i.e. before the other dog begins approaching) he will not turn round and come back. He will stop and wait for me to lead him up but will not turn his back on an approaching dog. I know this boils down to being attacked by a number of dogs when he was younger but any thoughts on how to rectify this? He will literally just freeze until the other dog goes past or comes up to greet him or I reach him and put him on lead. He is happy to meet them and have a game but there is obviously some anxiety over the initial greeting.
> 
> So yes, good dogs today- *handler needs to improve decision making skills though!*
> 
> Swimming later for Rust, pre-agility for Shae
> 
> Twiggy- so lovely to hear about Tremor, glad she had such a fab time in the ring!


Hmmm with the best will in the world it's not easy though is it?

If and when I take mine anywhere (mostly these days they are walked at home, apart from shows) and I see a dog/dogs approaching, I always call them back and drop them into a down stay at my feet. With 4 of them (3 at the moment) there isn't usually time to put them all on the lead in any case. Usually the owners and dogs approaching are either so impressed/frightened that they either do a very wide detour or quickly put their dogs on a lead. Perhaps it's the look on my face and I really don't care what the reason is, but I very rarely have any problems. With nice and/or responsible owners we sometimes shout to each other that our dogs are OK and just let them meet, probably then standing and having a chat before going our respective ways.


----------



## Nicki85

Maybe I need to look more intimidating?  I can't think of the last time someone (successfully) called their dogs off mine when they were on lead next to me! The other day two dogs dived through a fence to come and see us... I think I just need to keep moving- recall, leads on and walk past. If I look purposeful enough maybe it will work?! There are a few dogs I am happy for them to meet offlead but I still want them to come back first and then get a release command. Although this morning, I suspect part of the problem was that they got their release command so they ran off to greet the other dog all happy and bouncy and full of excitement. If I hadn't of said anything they probably would have been calmer.


----------



## DogTrainer01

Tyton I normally find it easier to walk without people  Sounds like your walk with him by yourself went well though. 

GingerRogers - sounds like a stressful walk  I hope she can chill out a little at home. We have a similar situation with our neighbours. Do you know how long they're staying in the house for? 

Canine k9 well done Bailey! He looks very happy with his winnings in the second photo. 

Twiggy - fab that you, Tremor & Holly had a great day. Fingers crossed the massage therapist can help Tremor. 

In response to Nickie85 - as soon as he saw another dog he would start lunging and growling whilst puffing himself up. He would still be stressed when the dog had left his sight and wouldn't eat for 5-10 minutes. He would stress about it for hours when we were home too. 

We've had a calm-ish couple of days. Saturday my dad came out on a walk with me and Kobie. It had been raining so I was expecting more stalk-y behaviour with cars however he did well and only started to creep into the stalking process on the walk back. It was getting dark so the cars had their lights on which ramps up the excitability massively for him. 

Four dogs passed on the other side of the road and we played find it games and LAT. He actually ate the food as they passed and was ridiculously focused on me. This is the first walk we've had where he has eaten food when dogs have gone past us! 
Later on the walk we saw a GSD who thankfully was at a distance. Kobie was offering LAT until the GSD started reacting by lunging/barking to which he then puffed up and started growling. I took a couple of steps away and literally threw food on his head and played find it with him. We did find it for a couple of minutes to calm him down. He was still a little stressed by the time we finished and carried on walking but he was offering LAT to cars in the distance and then different behaviours so he wasn't out of his brain.

Andy had a stress-y growl when someone walked out of their garden and took both me and him by surprise. The lady was very close to us and just kept walking so I quickly asked Andy to jump into my arms and put him down so that I was in the middle of him and the lady. I don't normally like picking him up but I had to act quickly as the lady wasn't slowing down. He played find it games however after she had left he made his stress-y unhappy noises so we continued find it games and had a quick cuddle before setting off again. The rest of the walk was lovely as didn't see anyone! 

Sunday and today have been quite relaxing. We went down the river with them both yesterday and they had bones in the afternoon. Today we've played find it in the house and had some kibble in a ball which kept them amused and sparked them out this morning. We're yet to go for a walk!


----------



## moonviolet

DT1 sounds like you are coping well with the challenges as tehy present themselves :thumbup:

Nicki harness your inner battleship and plough on :lol: :lol: I dont' blame Rusty for not wanting to turn his back on dogs he's uncomfortable with , Tink will do the same and on the occasions she has turned to come back they've usually charged up behind her, so I tend to trust her judgement and go to her without calling her.

Twiggy I'd be one of those giving you a wide arc but i'd also be calling out to thank you  sounds lie you had a really successful time at the show, both int he ring and finding the massage therapist, hope they are able to help.

K&M&J&S&E glad Jay is enjoying running along with the bike, I hope you are a better cyclist than I :lol:

Tyton glad your afternoon walk was better. 

Sorry everyone i haven't mentioned hope it's all going well.

We had a good weekend our usual madness and with additional berry picking. The pinnacle of madness has to be doing heelwork beside football pitches while games were in progress, we began watching from a distance then progressed to practising pivot turns up and down one side. We did get a few odd looks :lol:


----------



## Dogless

DT01 - sounds as if you're doing well .

Nicki - Kilo doesn't like to turn his back on approaching dogs if they worry him so I have him "wait" and a down at a distance until I get there IF I think he's relaxed enough to cope. He often lies down by himself anyway and looks off to one side "I'm not really here" so I sort of try and achieve that first as he can fixate and start to stalk otherwise when concerned; all very pistols at dawn which is just what I don't want!! That said I don't think we'll be meeting strange dogs intentionally for a long, long time!!!

mv - I can imagine you entertaining the footie players with your routine :huh: .

We had an excellent morning this morning.

Rudi is a year old this month and so I took him on his very first run with me this morning which I was really excited about. We were out for about an hour or so but he was only onlead on the pavement for about 20 minutes of that time. We had some excited flying face leaps but they settled by the time we left the estate and he settled into running at heel really nicely. We passed a runner on the same pavement as us coming head on, a fair few people and some barking dogs and he payed them no attention at all. On the offlead bits he only crossed close in front of me once as he zoomed about and only bit my backside (hard :huh once - I used my "You are possibly the worst puppy in the world" voice and he didn't try it again. He was happy and waggy the whole time so platinum stars for Roo .

Kilo really wanted to come running, but I unfortunately can't take him any more . Went round the sports pitches and some other patches of grass (drove there) and did some impulse control exercises, played with his Interball with him and did some silly running about. He was a very good boy too. My best boy :001_wub:.

At least now I don't have to fit my runs in with separate walks some of the time!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Maybe I need to look more intimidating?  I can't think of the last time someone (successfully) called their dogs off mine when they were on lead next to me! The other day two dogs dived through a fence to come and see us... I think I just need to keep moving- recall, leads on and walk past. If I look purposeful enough maybe it will work?! There are a few dogs I am happy for them to meet offlead but I still want them to come back first and then get a release command. Although this morning, I suspect part of the problem was that they got their release command so they ran off to greet the other dog all happy and bouncy and full of excitement. If I hadn't of said anything they probably would have been calmer.


You obviously look all sweetness and light whereas I look like a right old witch...... Or perhaps it's 4 collies in the down and eyeballing that look intimidating.....


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> DT1 sounds like you are coping well with the challenges as tehy present themselves :thumbup:
> 
> Nicki harness your inner battleship and plough on :lol: :lol: I dont' blame Rusty for not wanting to turn his back on dogs he's uncomfortable with , Tink will do the same and on the occasions she has turned to come back they've usually charged up behind her, so I tend to trust her judgement and go to her without calling her.
> 
> Twiggy I'd be one of those giving you a wide arc but i'd also be calling out to thank you  sounds lie you had a really successful time at the show, both int he ring and finding the massage therapist, hope they are able to help.
> 
> K&M&J&S&E glad Jay is enjoying running along with the bike, I hope you are a better cyclist than I :lol:
> 
> Tyton glad your afternoon walk was better.
> 
> Sorry everyone i haven't mentioned hope it's all going well.
> 
> *We had a good weekend our usual madness and with additional berry picking. The pinnacle of madness has to be doing heelwork beside football pitches while games were in progress, we began watching from a distance then progressed to practising pivot turns up and down one side. We did get a few odd looks* :lol:


You're a good girl.... I'm very into distraction training.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> You're a good girl.... I'm very into distraction training.


Thank you Grannie  I do think generally too little emphasis is put on taking training out into the real world, indoors at home or in a training venue are just the beginning. A prime example of that is the man who boasts that his dogs are KCGC good citizens the 2 older golds, the young one bronze yet he takes them all to a local cafe and sits near a children's play area if a child runs past or makes too much noise the dogs lunge bark and turn on one another.... not quite my idea of good citizens. I'm sure in a hall they did all the exercises beautifully.


----------



## tiatortilla

k&m - Bike ride sounds fun .

Twiggy - Glad you had a good time at the show with Tremor . I hope the canine massage therapist turns out to be a useful contact for you!

DT01 - Welcome back to the thread. I don't think I was on here when you were before, sounds like you're doing really well!

MV - Love the things you and Tink get up to, sounds hilarious .

Dogless - Sounds like Rudi had a great time on his first run and Kilo was very good on his nice calm walk .

--
Right, got a lot to update on, I've just been lurking again for a few days.
Saturday we did an on lead walk round the cycle path, I can't even remember if we saw any other dogs.. probably means we either didn't or we did but only at a distance so that's a good thing anyway!

Sunday we found a new on lead walk and I let her have 10 minutes run around in a little field we've been to before too.. We saw a few dogs and got mixed reactions. The first was a black lab which she ignored fine. Also another staffy that she did pretty well with, he was stood still with his owner so we got closer very slowly and she got a treat with each step.. he was whining because he wanted to play which she wasn't quite sure what to make of, she was quiet until we were parallel with them then she had a bit of a grumble. And one lady and her dog popped out of a hedge as we were walking past, Tia was quiet to start off with actually, but unfortunately her dog was a bit reactive too so they ended up lunging and snarling at each other.. not that surprising really, they made me jump! We walked back through town again and she didn't react to a collie though .

I wanted a quiet walk today so we went over to the big fields for some off lead time.. and there were dogs everywhere so didn't quite get the quiet walk I was hoping for . Didn't have any failed recall moments today though so it was good to do some practice with a few distractions - she looked a bit tempted to go and play with pair of border terriers and then a springer spaniel but her recalls were spot on both times, so all the practice is taking effect I hope! One slightly dodgy moment on the way back, she was on lead because of cows and a pointer-y type dog came over, the owner couldn't call him back, Tia did one little growl but got over it very quickly so could have been worse , and didn't react to a cocker spaniel puppy on the way home either. She also decided to really roll in cow poo so she's had a shower and is now sulking with me a bit .


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Thank you Grannie  I do think generally too little emphasis is put on taking training out into the real world, indoors at home or in a training venue are just the beginning. A prime example of that is the man who boasts that his dogs are KCGC good citizens the 2 older golds, the young one bronze yet he takes them all to a local cafe and sits near a children's play area if a child runs past or makes too much noise the dogs lunge bark and turn on one another.... not quite my idea of good citizens. I'm sure in a hall they did all the exercises beautifully.


How very true my child.... If I had a pound for every time I've heard "he/she does it at home" I would have been a multi millionaire many years ago....


----------



## Dogless

TT - sounds like far more positives than negatives still, Tia seems to be certainly moving in the right direction . The recalls in the face of all those distractions is great!

Not much to report tonight - drove the boys up to the top fields and they had a nice play and some basic recalls and "enoughs" and that was it. I wasn't feeling full of energy at all so they just got on with things really .


----------



## kat&molly

TT- Tia is doing really well learning not to react, and the recalls. Lovely.

MV- sounds like football training went well  I can just imagine the looks, good job you dont care. 

Well done to Rudi for his running and ignoring everything, except your arse :blush: Moll has done that to me, it bloomin hurts!!

DT1- sounds like a stressy walk , but ended well.

Nikki- sounds like you have a lot of dogs to contend with!!

Not the best day, I've been going in the car and parking right at the end of our track and taking different routes from there, we've never seen anyone bar the farmer and the lady the other day picking fruit. 
This morning was ok but this afternoon i spotted a chap heading in our direction with his dog a GSD x Beauceron, we've had a problem with him before  I put the girls in the car quickly but it was too late Evie spotted them and went in to panic mode, the dog charged over and was trying to stick his head in, I couldn't get the lid down, and Scruff was going ballistic as she takes car guarding duties very seriously.
The chap was pathetically recalling his dog and I was getting really annoyed , he said something joking but I just had to keep quiet because of the girls. Evie doesn't seem too bad tonight but we shall see tomorrow .

A walk on foot for Jay tonight, 

I had to go out this afternoon, OH was at home. When I got back Evie was on the front path but the doors were shut, and the gate 
The only explanation according to him is she got through the cat flap to look for me, dog knows how she managed it, she's small but hardly Chi sized.Luckily I wasn't out long.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Kat, sounds like chaos this morning, the other owner doesn't exactly sound too switched on. Sorry that they all got stressed .

And Evie :001_tt1:. Is it wrong that I love her even more every time she gets up to something naughty? .


----------



## Twiggy

That's sounds like a very stressful afternoon walk. The dog owners over there seem almost as bad as in NI....!!

That's the sort of explanation my OH would give - except we haven't got a cat flap....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's sounds like a very stressful afternoon walk. The dog owners over there seem almost as bad as in NI....!!
> 
> That's the sort of explanation my OH would give - except we haven't got a cat flap....


They're certainly competition .

My OH would too......


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> TT - sounds like far more positives than negatives still, Tia seems to be certainly moving in the right direction . The recalls in the face of all those distractions is great!





kat&molly said:


> TT- Tia is doing really well learning not to react, and the recalls. Lovely.


Thankyou both . The positive reactions are starting to outweigh the negative ones for most walks now, which is probably making me more relaxed and of course Tia is also more relaxed, and things are just generally starting to fall into place I think.

Sounds like you've had a horrendous day k&m! I hope tomorrow is better.


----------



## Nicki85

We had a fun agility class last night, i'm pretty sure Shae is working up to dislocating my arm though... she is really strong shaking the tug toy.

Separate walks this morning, run with Rust. Few dogs seen and we practiced running to close past them, he was good  Then he had a short run offlead through the common... one owner met with three dogs that barked. Asked Rust to wait and he stood like a rock until I clipped his lead on. One of them circled back for a sniff but Rust was more interested in a smell....

Then took Shae out. Lots of ball play through the forest. She/we got a bit startled by a Spaniel that appeared out of the bushes that led to her grrring but the owner approached and asked if it was OK to come past so I used that as a training exercise and she soon shut up (with the help of some treats). So I put her in a sit and then unclipped her once she was quiet and chilled to say hi to the Spaniel. They had a short game and we were both on our way. Then met Collie coming round a corner, strangely she didn't react at all... I had her by her harness but recognised the dog so let her have a short session of chase and we continued. I'm still trying to figure out why/when she reacts lol. I think it is down to her level of excitement at the time... Also saw another dog come out of a gap, again no reaction. 

Hope every one has a good day- KM, hope you all have a better day that yesterday.


----------



## Dogless

Sounds as if you're having a nice day Nicki . As long as your arm stays in it's rightful place  .

Not much to report again. Went to the forest, dogs were good, now tired and sleeping .


----------



## Twiggy

I had to smile this morning....

Do you remember about three weeks ago when I had Leafy scanned (ultra sound), I stated I was going to put her on milk thistle tablets to support her liver, and in front of the specialist and her nurse, my vet snapped my head off and said he'd never heard of it.

He rang this morning, just as I was about to take Holly to agility, to say he'd done some research and spoken to a couple of specialist and it would be a good idea to give Leafy milk thistle tablets as they are widely used for liver disease.....!!

She's actually been on them for 11 days. I suppose to be fair he did say he would do some research and, true to his word, he has.

We also had a 'chat' about the canine massage therapist and of course he's very happy to sign the referral form.....

Holly was awful at agility this morning. My fault as I handed the trainer my camera, totally forgetting Holly had an absolute freaky when the flash went off about 11 months ago. As soon as she heard the camera click - goodbye Vienna... She did get over it until we tackled the weaving poles later and then had freaky No. 2 at the metal base.

Maureen did manage to get one picture of our bums:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy you have obviously done the classic clever female thing of making a man believe everything was all his idea .

Sorry about little HB and the camera but pleased she made a good recovery....until the weave poles.


----------



## kat&molly

Pleased you've had good days Dogless and Nikki 

Great news on the referral Twiggy, but poor HB and the camera, thats a strong reaction.

A very good day today, took the 3 of them off out to the river about 30/40 minutes away. It was really quiet now the holiday season has passed , no-one there at all bar a farmer. 
After a couple of hours we went to the next spot about 10 minutes away in the car, again very quiet, an old couple were say by the river, Evie was alert but not panicking,she seems to cope if people are still, so I was going to use them, walk past a couple of times , keeping a good distance but they left. That was a bit mean I thought 

I'll probably take the others back out for a little training walk later but not Evie, I'll quit while I'm ahead with her today I think!!

Then Jay can have a walk with the bike, its dodgy trying to stay upright going so slow, might have to ask for some stabilisers :huh:


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



Twiggy you have obviously done the classic clever female thing of making a man believe everything was all his idea .

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> You must be joking....!! I said "I told you that 3 weeks ago and Leafy's been on the tablets for 11 days"
> 
> I also told him that the canine massage therapist and I discussed him, his practice and the K-laser at length on Sunday...:devil:
> 
> He wasn't getting away with that. He snapped my head off at the mere mention of Milk Thistle three weeks ago and I can be just as arrogant as him.


----------



## Dogless

You must be joking....!! I said "I told you that 3 weeks ago and Leafy's been on the tablets for 11 days"

I also told him that the canine massage therapist and I discussed him, his practice and the K-laser at length on Sunday...:devil:

He wasn't getting away with that. He snapped my head off at the mere mention of Milk Thistle three weeks ago and I can be just as arrogant as him.[/QUOTE]

Grannie I take my hat off to you, you are a force of nature .

k&m - thank goodness you have had a nice day, I'm chuffed for you .


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> Pleased you've had good days Dogless and Nikki
> 
> Great news on the referral Twiggy, but poor HB and the camera, thats a strong reaction.
> 
> A very good day today, took the 3 of them off out to the river about 30/40 minutes away. It was really quiet now the holiday season has passed , no-one there at all bar a farmer.
> After a couple of hours we went to the next spot about 10 minutes away in the car, again very quiet, an old couple were say by the river, Evie was alert but not panicking,she seems to cope if people are still, so I was going to use them, walk past a couple of times , keeping a good distance but they left. That was a bit mean I thought
> 
> I'll probably take the others back out for a little training walk later but not Evie, I'll quit while I'm ahead with her today I think!!
> 
> Then Jay can have a walk with the bike, its dodgy trying to stay upright going so slow, might have to ask for some stabilisers :huh:


Really pleased you've had a better day with Evie. Do be careful on the bike (it sounds dangerous)...!!

Yes that was a strong reaction with Holly and the camera. I was hoping she'd forgotten all about the flash as it was so long ago but obviously not. I shall have to desensitise her to it I expect.

I don't know quite what to do about the weaving poles base. She's actually getting worse. It's no good teaching her at home because it's not the poles.


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy - I would not want to be your vet  Poor little Holly (she is a littley isnt she) but well done at the show and finding someone who can hopefully help out with Tremor.

TT well done you really are making great progress.

Kat sorry about your awful yesterday but glad today was better, what makes some one think that sort of behavior is ok, its rude let alone the damage it can do to your dogs.

Dogless glad Roo was good on his run, that should make things a little easier.

We have kept it as quiet as possible the last couple of days, I went to a right out the way place on Sunday, the only person we have ever seen up there is the game keeper and he keeps his dogs in the truck, its not surprising the public route in is a jungle through the reed beds, just nicely reassuring, hubby took her up to his old work place for a good run about yesterday.

So this morning we braved the estate, but avoided the collies house, she was stressy but still listening so that is huge progress really. I was quite stressy TBH  I u turned when I saw the dog walker and waited down an alley but when he didnt arrive I realised he was dropping the dogs off home  I just panicked.

Then we got 'oh dear'd at by an old ******* on a bike when she barked at him, you know that snooty oh good grief what a disaster type of oh dear  one step up from a tut.


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## Dogless

The tutters and oh dearers really do wind me up GR . I am sorry that you were stressy but it is perfectly understandable and the Ninja did very well to still be receptive .


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## GingerRogers

I think I love cold wet windy autumn evenings. We got down the dunes for a blast tonight. Blown my cobwebs out and ninja could pretend to chase wabbits. Perfick.


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## JenKyzer

Mini catch up... i have been lurking on my phone and keeping up to date though  

GR - Sounds like a nice day on sunday  and oh dear to the oh dear-er !! I hope you gave them something to properly oh dear at after it :dita: 

Twiggy - I do have a giggle at your relationship with your vet i have to admit  Wouldn't like to be on the wrong side of you :blush: I hope the (Edit - oops i didnt even finish this sentance! Thats what you get for coming on this whilst making tea).. i hope the new therapist is what your looking for and it turns into something very positive for you both 

K&M - Your walk sounds lovely today  how dare the old couple leave before your training had finished  Evie sounds alot more relaxed though (specially after the dog coming upto the car!)  & the cat flap OH tale made me laugh 

Dogless - Sounds like your having a good few days just relaxing with the boys  The run with Rudi sounds good, almost his birthday too how nice !! Fingers crossed Kilo can go running again too.. You'll get there  

Nicki - Shae sounds like she did really well on her walk this morning  as does Rust with his run! Such good doggies  

Tia - Not remembering other dogs is always a good thing :wink: Well done for her recalls and your walk sounds really good 

Sorry if i've missed other bits n bobs - hope everyone is ok 

Nothing to report from us .. very boring here! But the more uneventful the better i guess. Nice peaceful walks  and clickering in the house.. still hunting for a (cheap enough) freezer for Willows raw feeding though - thats what i'm working on this week  
Also trying to keep things calm and relaxed as Willows spending the day at my mums on sunday.. i'm so nervous!! But we have a christening to go to which is 45mins drive away.. so not like we can pop home here n there.. soo bracing myself for that.

After friday i'm off work for a whole week and a bit.. so i promise to be more productive then guys  this includes a weekend away at the caravan next weekend! Cant wait


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## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Do you remember about three weeks ago when I had Leafy scanned (ultra sound), I stated I was going to put her on milk thistle tablets to support her liver,


Milk thistle tablets ? Was that my idea ?

Haven't posted since Sunday. We went to Alice Holt and followed the blue trail... in the rain.. which promptly stopped when we got back to the car. Had to go home and dry off and change before going to the pub though. Dief went bezerk when I ordered the Waldorf Salad so quickly changed to a Beef Roast. He knows what he likes.

I've got a busy week at work.. then the CaniX at the weekend. I'm starting to get nervous.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Milk thistle tablets ? Was that my idea ?
> 
> Haven't posted since Sunday. We went to Alice Holt and followed the blue trail... in the rain.. which promptly stopped when we got back to the car. Had to go home and dry off and change before going to the pub though. Dief went bezerk when I ordered the Waldorf Salad so quickly changed to a Beef Roast. He knows what he likes.
> 
> I've got a busy week at work.. then the CaniX at the weekend. I'm starting to get nervous.


Good Dog Dief .

Don't be nervous about the Cani-x, you'll have a blast!!! Or everyone else will at your expense :huh: .


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## DogTrainer01

Dogless - Glad you and Rudi had a good run. Even if he did take a cheeky taste!

Tia it sounds like everything is massively falling into place  fab! 

Kat&Molly - Yesterday sounds like a very stressful experience for all of you  Glad today's was better for you all. How rude of those people to not stay to help you train...

Nickie85 Well done little miss Shae!  

Twiggy - poor Holly  Bless her for getting over it though. Do you know what exactly is it about the weave base she doesn't like?

Gingerrogers - Nice that you had a calming time yesterday and she got to explore without dogs bombarding her. I don't get why some people feel the need to make snidey remarks?! Sounds like she had fun tonight too. 

We saw a couple of dogs on Andy's walk today both of whom he offered LAT at twice and then started offering spins and beg :001_tongue: he's so funny. I was silly though and walked off a little too soon when the second dog was still nearly opposite us. He didn't go over threshold but took a little too long a look so I just threw food on his head and asked for LAT again and waited for them to move off further. This was the stage we were up to before he was lame so I get a little bit over excited I think :001_tongue:

Kobie was feeling very fresh this morning.... His morning walk wasn't actually a walk, more like standing at the end of the road doing find it games. He didn't go into the car chasing 'mode' but you could tell he was more alert than usual. The gypsies have finally left the park so he let out a load of energy there. We did some retrieve games and some scent games which he loved. He didn't even bother looking at the cars on the way back so I think he just had loads of pent up energy to burn. Its been difficult in the past week to find a suitable place where we can at least play tug as the gypsies have been on the field and my car has broken down! 
He was a very sleepy boy afterward and slept on my feet most of the afternoon. Really chuffed with that as he's only just started to lay down for five minutes let alone sleep outside of his crate  small steps lol!


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## Twiggy

*Twiggy - I do have a giggle at your relationship with your vet i have to admit  Wouldn't like to be on the wrong side of you :blush: I hope the (Edit - oops i didnt even finish this sentance! Thats what you get for coming on this whilst making tea).. i hope the new therapist is what your looking for and it turns into something very positive for you both *

I spend thousands at my vets, which I can't object to if the treatment and service is first rate. I do object though when they get it very wrong and then charge me for the privilege.

Since January Tremor has been examined by vets, chiropractors, canine sports massage therapists, orthopaedic specialist, had x-rays taken (which I told my vet were a waste of time), thermal imaging and are we any further forward - no...!!

The trip to Lincoln tomorrow will cost another £75.00 at least and if I see the canine massage therapist I met at the show next week, that will be in excess of £120.

They are all very good at telling me what it isn't. I want one of them to tell me what it is and what we can do about it. The poor dog has either been on total rest or restricted exercise for almost 8 months now and she a young energetic collie.

I was most certainly not impressed that my vet had never heard of milk thistle for liver disease, considering the active ingredient (Silymarin) has been used to doctors and vets for many, many years.

The next major heated argument will be about vaccinations. There is no way that anybody is going to stick yet more chemical cosh into Leafy or Tremor.

*Twiggy - poor Holly  Bless her for getting over it though. Do you know what exactly is it about the weave base she doesn't like?*

The base is quite thick and wide metal. Holly doesn't like the feel of it and tries to avoid putting her paws on it, which is nigh impossible. Holly's attitude is that if she doesn't like something she won't go anywhere near it - bless her.


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## Nicki85

Yesterday afternoon we had one of those walks where you wonder if they are your dogs and if you have done any training with them... It was fine, no real dramas but they were just crazy!!! Anyhow, line under that and move on 

Last night they learnt how to get a toy out of a cardboard box, Shae loved the challenge and well Rusty we worked up to getting the toy from the edge of the box very gradually lol. No way near ready to put his head in it yet! 

We had a fab walk this morning, both off lead and listening really well... Lots of bouncing through undergrowth and crazziness but all controlled. We met one dog off lead Shae recalled very nicely and waited for a release command to say hi, Rusty was going to the loo lol so I didn't try and make him wait. No noise or nufin from the gobby one though! Met various people on the return walk as I took them through the school carpark and it was drop off time. Both very good.

Rusty's first agility class in months tonight... Going back to basics and will build up slowly. I think he is going to be pretty happy to be back but will see what toy drive we have...

DT01- we may see you on Sat if you are still at Stuarts, I've just signed Shae up for the 10.30 beginner class. Will be interesting to see how she copes with the increased level of dogs running around... I'm pretty chuffed with her at the moment but i'm very aware that she might get very excited with the added dogs and people. We will see... might invest in some squeezy primula cheese. (and i'm sorry now if she leaps on you, she doesn't do it with everyone anymore but I suspect she might remember you...) 

DB- what on earth are you doing running around Alice Holt?! Far too many hills there lol!
KM- yesterday sounded much more positive  Sometimes i'd love to set up training scenarios but you need strangers for that in the most part...
GR- hate the snidey comments, not needed and doesn't help the situation does it?
DT01- well done Andy and Kobes by the sound of it!


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## Bagrat

Sounds like a goodish weekend on the whole.
GR - there's always one I'm afraid.
Can't help feeling a teensie bit jealous when I read good stuff about off lead work. Think I may be too decrepit by the time J is ready!!
We had a good morning walk - well more "watch" (LAT) and hide in stubble field - depending on Jackson's demeanour! There were several dogs on the field which led J to believe that anything that moved or wasn't there yesterday was a potential canine.
He did manage to watch two dogs playing off lead at a football field width distance and "lessgo" as well. I then popped him in his crate and went to talk to one of the dog's owners to explain if they saw me again I wasn't a stalker.
His dog greeted me and rolled over and he said she only did that when very relaxed! Then said she could be aggressive to people without dogs ( she was on a long line by then), esp joggers. He was very understanding and commiserated, so I felt well supported in my quest for normality.(whatever that turns out to be!!)


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## Dogless

Bagrat - if you find normality please tell me how to achieve it .

DT01 - sounds as if the car chasing (lack of) is going in the right direction!!

Nicki - hope Rusty enjoys the agility tonight and all the work you've put in with the physio and exercises has helped. Shae sounds as eager as ever - I always picture her bounding about!!

Took Rudi for a run in the rain this morning, he was really, really good again. Ran for an hour or so but he only had about 15 minutes on lead at a fixed pace again. He spent most of his time sprinting about in huge wide loops so covered a lot more ground than I did .

Kilo is either going to go out with Diz shortly or I'll take him on his own; I'm awaiting a text . They are wrestling right now so happy enough!


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## kat&molly

Not bloody good here. As Evie's been calmer , I decided to do a little bit from home with her. Within seconds I saw the neighbours friend Sue who has come to stay and stopped to talk to her keeping madam back, she was really worried to start but relaxed more and I kept up a constant stream of treats. 
After about 5 minutes we came away and she was happy to go further. 

We carried on and walked up the bit of scary track, she wanted to pull me in to the nearest field but I carried on as she'd have been too worried to come back out.
Only went a tiny bit of the way when I turned round to come home and then out of nowhere we got charged by the other Neighbours Collie. He doesn't make contact but stops about 3 feet away, barking and lunging puffing himself up.
I actually picked her up today before she started spinning and panicking on her lead. 

I give up , really I do. I can guarantee if something is going to happen its always on this little stretch of track, and its always Evie on the receiving end.

Will catch up in a bit.


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## Dogless

Oh Kat . I am so sorry; I very much understand how you feel and it is so, so demoralising when you keep having these incidents because other people couldn't care less .


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## Twiggy

Oh no Kat. Poor Evie. I'm really sorry.


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## Bagrat

Oh crumbs so sorry Kat. I take longer to recover than Jackson now which I suppose is something. When you try to explain how it makes you feel to"normal" people - I take your point Dogless - they just say really irritating things like "Don't get worked up it's only a dog" arrrgh So glad I found PF


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## Nicki85

Poor little Evie  So sorry Kat


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## DogTrainer01

Ah so sorry Kat  So annoying when you're doing every you can do for her but other people are being pains in bum


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## kat&molly

Thanks, you're all lovely 

She doesn't want to leave the gate again now sadly. Back to not taking her for any walks for a couple of days.

Hope everyone else is having a good day.


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## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thanks, you're all lovely
> 
> She doesn't want to leave the gate again now sadly. Back to not taking her for any walks for a couple of days.
> 
> Hope everyone else is having a good day.


It is what this thread is for. Awful Dog Walks Anonymous (ADWA). Hello, my name is Dogless and I have been having awful dog walks sporadically for almost 2 years. I am ready to admit that I have them and to commence the rehabilitation programme. I look forward to meeting my sponsor.


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## GingerRogers

Bagrat said:


> Oh crumbs so sorry Kat. I take longer to recover than Jackson now which I suppose is something. When you try to explain how it makes you feel to"normal" people - I take your point Dogless - they just say really irritating things like "Don't get worked up it's only a dog" arrrgh So glad I found PF


The first is good, but I am not sure my heart will ever not race when I see a dog whether with ninja or without, its daft, she is coping better but me I still struggle.

The second is so true, OH more or less gets it when its been really bad one but just a minor event and even he is all 'get over it'

Kat really sorry you had such a bad day , sorry Twiggy but I am developing a real wariness for collies, especially with so many rescues, they seem to 'damage' quite easily.

Ninja came to work with me and OH this morning, just went for a walk down a lane and found a footpath sign which lead away from the road into a network of lovely stubble field paths so she had big zooms  and then just as I bent down to lead her up she popped into a ditch and through a hedge and was off again.  She was back within a minute but it was slightly worrying as we knew the farmer was about  I dont mind how far she goes as long as I can see her.


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## Bagrat

GingerRogers said:


> The first is good, but I am not sure my heart will ever not race when I see a dog whether with ninja or without, its daft, she is coping better but me I still struggle.
> 
> The second is so true, OH more or less gets it when its been really bad one but just a minor event and even he is all 'get over it'
> 
> Kat really sorry you had such a bad day , sorry Twiggy but I am developing a real wariness for collies, especially with so many rescues, they seem to 'damage' quite easily.
> 
> Ninja came to work with me and OH this morning, just went for a walk down a lane and found a footpath sign which lead away from the road into a network of lovely stubble field paths so she had big zooms  and then just as I bent down to lead her up she popped into a ditch and through a hedge and was off again.  She was back within a minute but it was slightly worrying as we knew the farmer was about  I dont mind how far she goes as long as I can see her.


Didn't want to "like" GR, as the stomach churning a lot of us experience is not to like one bit. I am getting better at looking round constantly without appearing anxious. That's why I like the long line as me tensing up doesn't reach Jackson through the line. Sounds like a good walk.


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> The first is good, but I am not sure my heart will ever not race when I see a dog whether with ninja or without, its daft, she is coping better but me I still struggle.
> 
> The second is so true, OH more or less gets it when its been really bad one but just a minor event and even he is all 'get over it'
> 
> *Kat really sorry you had such a bad day , sorry Twiggy but I am developing a real wariness for collies, especially with so many rescues, they seem to 'damage' quite easily.*
> 
> Ninja came to work with me and OH this morning, just went for a walk down a lane and found a footpath sign which lead away from the road into a network of lovely stubble field paths so she had big zooms  and then just as I bent down to lead her up she popped into a ditch and through a hedge and was off again.  She was back within a minute but it was slightly worrying as we knew the farmer was about  I dont mind how far she goes as long as I can see her.


Don't apologise - I agree. In fact they're lethal in the wrong hands and oh so many sadly are.

That's one of the reasons why obedience shows are a great way of socialising our pups. I should think 60 per cent of the dogs entered are collies but the huge difference is these collies are well socialised, well trained and mostly in capable hands. I hasten to add that so are the other 40 per cent of breeds.


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## kat&molly

The little madam Ginge, nipping off like that. Still, at least she enjoyed it  And it was stress free for her !!
Think I give up now telling OH , I know he worries about Evie but am sure he's at the 'glazing over' stage now. 

I left Short Stuff behind when we went back out, she's starting to resent the crate because she knows it means she isn't coming.

Starting to work (again) on this problem of Molls not giving up the retrieve article, I give up every now and again when OH messes things up.
I read in a book recently that its the most common toy problem and to stick at it - it could take months. Using 2 tennis balls now, its going well so far, I hide one mostly rather than just throw it, except she gets a bit pedantic sometimes that she likes the balls to be used in order :001_tt2:


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## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> The little madam Ginge, nipping off like that. Still, at least she enjoyed it  And it was stress free for her !!
> *Think I give up now telling OH , I know he worries about Evie but am sure he's at the 'glazing over' stage now. *
> 
> I left Short Stuff behind when we went back out, she's starting to resent the crate because she knows it means she isn't coming.
> 
> Starting to work (again) on this problem of Molls not giving up the retrieve article, I give up every now and again when OH messes things up.
> I read in a book recently that its the most common toy problem and to stick at it - it could take months. Using 2 tennis balls now, its going well so far, I hide one mostly rather than just throw it, except she gets a bit pedantic sometimes that she likes the balls to be used in order :001_tt2:


Yes - Mine got to the 'glazed over' stage years ago as far as the dogs are concerned.

I swear they've got no dog sense at all (well at least mine hasn't).

I ventured into the dog's exercise paddock on Saturday. Since hubby retired he's taken it upon himself to clear the poo every morning, so I rarely go in there. What did I find - huge holes and cracks....!! I was fuming and immediately went up to B&Q and got 10 rolls of turf, to make the paddock safe.


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## Dogless

Glazed over hubby here too...makes appropriate noises when needed and that's about it  .

Twiggy I can well believe the state of the paddock :cursing:.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Glazed over hubby here too...makes appropriate noises when needed and that's about it  .
> 
> Twiggy I can well believe the state of the paddock :cursing:.


I've had enough huge vets bills this year and already have Tremor lame, so I certainly don't need any of them sticking a foot down a hole or crack.

It's idleness - frightened he might have to help to fill them in I expect, or it simply doesn't occur to him.

Thank goodness we've had some rain yesterday and late afternoon today, so at least the turf will bed in now. I was filling in holes/cracks for about 3 hours on Saturday and most of Monday.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've had enough huge vets bills this year and already have Tremor lame, so I certainly don't need any of them sticking a foot down a hole or crack.
> 
> It's idleness - *frightened he might have to help to fill them in I expect, or it simply doesn't occur to him.*
> 
> Thank goodness we've had some rain yesterday and late afternoon today, so at least the turf will bed in now. I was filling in holes/cracks for about 3 hours on Saturday and most of Monday.


Either of those sound plausible .


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## JenKyzer

Still nothing exciting here  just wet walks and willow hates the rain  

Had a bark at a cocker spaniel this morning.. we never see anyone out that early  630am .. We crossed onto the other side of the big path but the lady wanted to stop and talk (at that bloody time in a morning!) and was coo-ing over how beautiful Willow is .. of course  even though the annoying 'he' word was used at first  anyway.. This was well out of willows comfort zone and she broke her sit to have a bark  her tail was wagging and the other dog was ignoring her soo i sushed and sat her back down with me crouched next to her.. then she walked off behind us to sniff a fence and ignored the dog then. Apologised to the lady that we had to go.. seems as she had walked a little closer.. and off we went.. 

I also jinxed myself last night after posting on here about how uneventful things were.. Willow got stuck in a shrubby bushy area!! Silly dog. It was pitch black and she avoids the shrubby bit normally.. but she flew into it and almost took me in with her! But the lead must of got snagged and she wasn't for coming out when calling her so i had to tug the lead but it was just stuck .. whatever she was after was more interesting than me for a good few mins until she appeared again.. must of looked rather silly calling into the bushes in the pitch black anyway  (& I certainly wasn't for going in there in the pitch black ) Edited to say - recall still being worked on quite clearly! *sigh*

I'll catch up on your posts now guys


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## Dogless

Oh dear JSW!!!! Naughty Willow disappearing doing her own thing, made me smile too though in a way. I am sorry you also had a bark - but seems very short-lived and she relaxed easily afterwards so not all bad .

Took the boys to the top fields to play together tonight, they enjoyed it and thankfully nothing to report .


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## Twiggy

I'm off to see the chiropractor with Tremor shortly which is going to be about a 4 hour trip.

I'll let you know how we get on.


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## GingerRogers

Good luck with the visit twiggy I do hope you might finally get somewhere.


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> I'm off to see the chiropractor with Tremor shortly which is going to be about a 4 hour trip.
> 
> I'll let you know how we get on.


Eek at the journey, but very best of luck , I've got everything crossed here.


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Yes - Mine got to the 'glazed over' stage years ago as far as the dogs are concerned.
> 
> I swear they've got no dog sense at all (well at least mine hasn't).
> 
> I ventured into the dog's exercise paddock on Saturday. Since hubby retired he's taken it upon himself to clear the poo every morning, so I rarely go in there. What did I find - huge holes and cracks....!! I was fuming and immediately went up to B&Q and got 10 rolls of turf, to make the paddock safe.


That sounds dangerous , and I hope you didn't lay the turf 
I know mine doesn't have much dog sense at all, he's taken Scruff to work today, but its actually the dog I have more faith in  he certainly couldn't be trusted to take Evie hmy:


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## Nicki85

Twiggy- good luck today- I hope you get some answers.
JSW and GR- naughty pups running off- I have experienced that numerous times with Rust.

We had a lovely time at agility last night, Rusty was very very keen and was running on and wouldn't be called off the equipment, nice to see but a bit naughty. Didn't do all that much but he seems fine today and last night so  He hadn't forgot anything apart from getting his lefts and rights mixed when we were doing blind crosses....

Today they've been to the country park. It's not massive but they get a good, safe, 40min run round the forest and then a 20min swim in the lake. We didn't meet anyone apart from some fisher people. Shae is being a bit of a pest and is very hungry... they may get lunch today lol. Rust is all snuggled up to me in his equi-fleece, he's so cute!!

I think they will get separate sessions at the field later 

Shae is getting much better with herding Rust although I'm having issues now when I recall Rust that she runs alongside him grabbing him... only happens when I call him though. I can get round it by calling Shae first but need to have a think. Might try and train SHae to a whistle recall as I think part of the problem is that she knows I'm calling Rust and not her so she focuses on Rusty... If I can train her to also respond to the whistle to get an ultimate reward hopefully I can get her focus to me rather than waiting for Rust to move.

Oh and here is a video from them having some fun in the forest yesterday- best to watch with the volume up  This is why I didn't let Shae off when she was younger with Rust. She will recall off of him now though if needs be 
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151925958747216


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## DogTrainer01

Nicki85 said:


> DT01- we may see you on Sat if you are still at Stuarts, I've just signed Shae up for the 10.30 beginner class. Will be interesting to see how she copes with the increased level of dogs running around... I'm pretty chuffed with her at the moment but i'm very aware that she might get very excited with the added dogs and people. We will see... might invest in some squeezy primula cheese. (and i'm sorry now if she leaps on you, she doesn't do it with everyone anymore but I suspect she might remember you...)


Yes still there... too nice for my own good :001_tongue:. He sometimes asks me to teach that lesson so get ready to run  I did think of you the other day actually as we nearly had to move our pre-agility classes over to a Thursday because of the venue!

Fab, will be great seeing you both 

Just a short one from me. Fibro has decided it hates me the last couple of days so we haven't done much because I'm too tired and achy. I was working last night so had very chilled out day. We did some calming excercises through out the day which they both enjoyed. They went out for a very short individual walk when I got back from work as I felt too guilty 

Today feeling rough again so we've done some training and will take them out later this evening. Andy has decided he didn't like the noise of the thundershirt (the velcro bits.. obviously very scary) or it being put on him so we're shaping that. Teaching Kobie to nose touch a target stick... at the moment he thinks he should just mouth it


----------



## Twiggy

Just my luck this morning...!! I allowed 1 hr and 20 minutes to get to the chiropractor, although the journey shouldn't have taken more than about 55 minutes, only to find a police car parked across the A15 stopping all the traffic. There had obviously been a bad accident and after sitting in the queue for about 15 minutes I started to panic and managed to find a route down country lanes. I arrived about 3 minutes late which wasn't bad considering.

The chiropractor was very good and worked on Tremor for over an hour. She thinks the hamstring is very tight on the right because her back was 'out' and very sore.

She wants to see her again next Thursday and asked me not to make an appointment with the massage therapist at the moment.

I've had bronchitis for the last two days and now think I've got a heavy cold developing so I'm feeling pretty rough right now. I did get pretty wet on Sunday helping to dismantle one of the judge's Kyham tents. Never mind.


----------



## Barcode

Well, that was not the best of walks.

Off we set, along the river path. About 5 mins in, we see two large dogs approaching. O.K fine, put Scrabble in a sit on verge, wait for them to pass. One sauntered over, Scrabble had a handbags-at-dawn moment. There was no mistaking that she started it. Thankfully, the owner was o.k, I apologized and moved on. Came back home then as no point continuing if she's amped up from an encounter like that.

I guess the worry is: what if she is now the one _starting_ things? She has always reacted if another dog starts first (fair enough), but perhaps this one was deemed to be too close? She was sitting waiting for her biscuit which makes me strongly suspect she thought the other dog may have been coming for food, so sent a warning message.

Am I overthinking this? OH said when she took her out yesterday morning she was _playing_ with a dog (something she hasn't done for ages!) and strolled past six without incident just like the old Scrabble, so I was hoping we'd turned a corner.

But assuming it was food related, that's going to be awkward. It's been working well to get her to sit-stay at a small distance from passing dogs for a reward. Would it be more advisable to clip her on lead and walk past calmly instead of waiting, or let her roam off-lead (she has always been o.k greeting off-lead dogs when both are just passing)?

Some days she does really well, but some days, we are reminded that with, most reactive dogs, it is not a problem that can be fixed, more a case of managing.


----------



## Barcode

And to follow on:

- Has anyone massively benefited from a Halti? My understanding is that the dog will then walk in a straight line with lunging reduced. I think I've realized that putting Scrabble in a SIT may well make her more focused on the approaching dog. I thought they were used to control pulling, but in this situation, they seem useful too? I want her walking past most dogs calmly.

- What about calming solutions? I'm thinking about Zylkene. Not for ages, but in the short-term.

Obviously, nothing is a fix, and training is the way to go, but training in conjunction with some assistance may reduce both our stress levels!


----------



## tiatortilla

Barcode - I'm not sure if I've understood quite what you mean, but it sounds like she's been doing great apart from that one incident so don't let it get to you too much. I think if there's any chance of her breaking the sit/stay to react to another dog like that then I would clip her lead on just in case, and either keep walking or do the same as you've been doing but with her lead attached .

Twiggy - So glad your visit went well. Sounds like getting there was a bit of a nightmare but well worth it!

Nicky - Great video, Tia didn't know what to make of their squeaking .

JSW - I had to laugh at Willow getting stuck in a bush! Sorry about the bark but it sounds like she got over it very quickly .

---

It's been a few days again, it's all been fairly uneventful .

We went blackberry picking yesterday, didn't react to any other dogs I don't think and Tia's recall is beyond perfect when there's blackberries involved lol! Saw a Beagle and a very bouncy labrador while she was on lead which were both ignored!
We were followed by a pair of St Bernards while we were walking on the pavement too and Tia didn't even notice.. We got followed by a Newfie today which Tia didn't notice either! She can be really quite oblivious when she isn't on high alert :lol:.
Today was pretty quiet too, we went to the park for some fetch and recall practice and then on to another field with sheep in. She's getting quite calm around sheep now actually! Recalls could have been better at first (in the park, not the sheep field obv she was on lead in there!) but were fine once I'd got her focus and fortunately we had the park to ourselves anyway.

Think that's everything.. I think she did have a bit of a growl at one dog maybe yesterday or the day before but I can't really remember if I'm honest lol, no major reactions still anyway!


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Eek at the journey, but very best of luck , *I've got everything crossed here.*


That sounds painful; best see a chiropractor .

Twiggy, I am so sorry about the journey and the fact you're not too well at present - please do take good care of yourself. At least the chiropractor was good.

DT01 - hope you're feeling better soon too.

Nicki - I will watch your video later if it needs sound....but am looking forward to it, I like to see the dogs we all talk about in action .

TT - I am so pleased everything's been going nicely the last few days; my pair look at me as if I am trying to place grenades with the pins pulled in their mouths when it comes to blackberries .

Good day today; went to the forest. Damp, cool, in the low cloud but fantastic all the same. The dogs spent hours chasing each other, hunting around or just by my side being my companions, it was lovely. BUT we got a chase recall from Monsieur Reynard twice . First time he ran whilst we were a way off and then, unfortunately for him had run cross country and emerged right in front of us at a run as we were going down another track. The boys gave chase but recalled!!!! . I could not believe it!!! For the last few months we have had recalls from rabbits, wild goats and foxes....I really, really don't want to jinx myself but my holy grail of a chase recall seems to be within my sights....... Touch wood!!!!

NEED to get back to more training though; been a bit preoccupied this week but no real excuse to slack.


----------



## Dogless

Barcode - I think that it's too soon to worry just yet over one incident (says me, who worries about every single thing!) but I'd just remain vigilant. I have used a Dogmatic, not a halti but still a headcollar and Kilo is / was more reactive in one or the reaction is more extreme; I think it is the head restriction that they enforce.

Not used Zylkene but I do use Stress-Less and believe that it does help.


----------



## Barcode

Yes, I think - especially with owners that are bothered enough to come onto a forum - there is a tendency to over-think our dog's behavior rather than putting it down to an occasional moment that _any_ dog can, and will likely, at some point have. And when you have a dog that is known to react, such things become magnified.

I don't think my nerves can cope with walking both at once lately. Well, not unless I can be sure it's fairly isolated and open (and the river path today is not a good place for that). Also, Scrabble is better on her own. We've resolved to only walk them both together when there are two of us (more control) for a while.

I don't know if there is a protective element with Scrabble. On holiday, a Boxer had a go at Matilda (who just sits there zen-like - I haven't worked out if she's so happy all the time because she's too stupid to work out what out what's going on!) which then prompted Scrabble to go up and insert herself between this massive dog and Matilda whilst trying to scare it off. Plus on walks, neither of us are ever allowed out of Scrabble's sight!

OH is not keen on homeopathic stuff (and neither am I), but I think we're going to try the Halti for keeping her moving forward when we see other dogs approaching


----------



## Barcode

Dogless said:


> Barcode - I think that it's too soon to worry just yet over one incident (says me, who worries about every single thing!) but I'd just remain vigilant. I have used a Dogmatic, not a halti but still a headcollar and Kilo is / was more reactive in one or the reaction is more extreme; I think it is the head restriction that they enforce.
> 
> Not used Zylkene but I do use Stress-Less and believe that it does help.


It's so hard to get it right, isn't it? The Halti advertises itself as being calming for dogs ?!?!

If you see a Border Terrier, in a thundershirt, dosed up on Zylkene, in a Halti soon, that'll be us.


----------



## GingerRogers

Barcode said:


> It's so hard to get it right, isn't it? The Halti advertises itself as being calming for dogs ?!?!
> 
> If you see a Border Terrier, in a thundershirt, dosed up on Zylkene, in a Halti soon, that'll be us.


Just be very, very, careful please, I used a gentle leader and to some degree it was calming in general and helped in classes, but when faced with a trigger her reactions were amplified. The whole moving forward thing, if scrabble wants to react she still will, ninja managed to grab the lead connection and essentially rag her own head and it didn't help with moving on when in react mode. The only thing that is working for us is training a good 'u turn/lets go'. So management again, but the longer I manage the less severe her reactions so something is getting there.

Oh I second the Stressless I started using it on dogless recommendation, really rate it. You dont actually notice they are on it but you notice if you forget IYKWIM


----------



## Dogless

Barcode said:


> Yes, I think - especially with owners that are bothered enough to come onto a forum - there is a tendency to over-think our dog's behavior rather than putting it down to an occasional moment that _any_ dog can, and will likely, at some point have. And when you have a dog that is known to react, such things become magnified.
> 
> I don't think my nerves can cope with walking both at once lately. Well, not unless I can be sure it's fairly isolated and open (and the river path today is not a good place for that). Also, Scrabble is better on her own. We've resolved to only walk them both together when there are two of us (more control) for a while.
> 
> I don't know if there is a protective element with Scrabble. On holiday, a Boxer had a go at Matilda (who just sits there zen-like - I haven't worked out if she's so happy all the time because she's too stupid to work out what out what's going on!) which then prompted Scrabble to go up and insert herself between this massive dog and Matilda whilst trying to scare it off. Plus on walks, neither of us are ever allowed out of Scrabble's sight!
> 
> OH is not keen on homeopathic stuff (and neither am I), but I think we're going to try the Halti for keeping her moving forward when we see other dogs approaching


Perhaps rather than making her move forward towards something she might be uncomfortable with or making her move past you could do some "find it" type stuff off to the side, or utilise hand / stick targetting? Reward calming signals like sniffing the ground, move in an arc, play games like tug etc? "Hide" is very useful.



Barcode said:


> It's so hard to get it right, isn't it? The Halti advertises itself as being calming for dogs ?!?!
> 
> If you see a Border Terrier, in a thundershirt, dosed up on Zylkene, in a Halti soon, that'll be us.


Very hard to get it right indeed!! I think you have to experiment until you find what's right for a particular dog.


----------



## Canine K9

Not had a chance to catch up but hope you are all well 

Had a good few days his allergies are just as bad as ever but we shall (hopefully) get there! Other than picking and choosing his times to obey (typical teen ) we are doing quite well.


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## Barcode

Ah, I see. Perhaps it's that, when the dog hates being restrained, this can amplify reactions?

Sometimes, it's so hard to tell what will be a trigger. For instance, a few houses back onto the river path. A lab. was lying at an open gate. Scrabble just plodded past at peace with the world. She also tends to give puppies more or less free reign. We do miss a lot of dog body language and what is not obvious to us is clearly obvious to the dog.

Has anyone found the 'Dog in Need of Space' yellow signs useful? I'm not sure many know what the yellow ribbon means around here, or would notice any signage until too late.

I do reassure myself that Scrabble is far from the worst of the worst, and she's not randomly lunging - there is _always_ a trigger.


----------



## Dogless

Barcode said:


> Ah, I see. Perhaps it's that, when the dog hates being restrained, this can amplify reactions? *That is what I have found; Kilo will react more powerfully and for longer if I have missed signs and he gets as far as reacting with a headcollar on. He fights against the headcollar as well as reacting to the trigger.*
> 
> Sometimes, it's so hard to tell what will be a trigger. For instance, a few houses back onto the river path. A lab. was lying at an open gate. Scrabble just plodded past at peace with the world. She also tends to give puppies more or less free reign. We do miss a lot of dog body language and what is not obvious to us is clearly obvious to the dog.
> 
> Has anyone found the 'Dog in Need of Space' yellow signs useful? I'm not sure many know what the yellow ribbon means around here, or would notice any signage until too late. *Loose dogs can't read unfortunately (if only!!!!) but Kilo's has stopped us being accosted by a few children. Other than that we have had to avoid all dogs so I can't say about those who tow their owners over on lead. The advantage with Kilo's is that you can read it easily due to his size. I am not sure how readable they will be on a small dog. Photo attached to give you an idea of what it looks like.*
> 
> I do reassure myself that Scrabble is far from the worst of the worst, and she's not randomly lunging - there is _always_ a trigger.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy- sorry I got confused  I thought you were seeing the Sports therapist today, forgot you need the referral first. Take care with that poorly chest. 

Dogless- Well done on the chase recall today, thats really good stuff- especially with 2 dogs.  One ickle, incy , wincy Hound in the post 

Nikki- was that Shae making that noise. 

TT- you and Tia are doing brilliantly. 

DT- I hope you are doing better soon, and the dogs are being good for you. 

Barcode- I will third the Stress Less, its helped here .

JSW- I laughed at Willow in the bush, hope no-one spotted you talking to the greenery. 

A good day here, apparently Scruff was brilliant today for OH, I was washing up when she came home and didn't hear her , she was rather pleased to see me, jumped up and winded me at the sink.  
Managed around the Loop today with Moll and Evie, short stuff checked behind her a lot but coped ok .
This afternoon I took her out on her own, she thought about not getting past the gate but did, we went in the opposite direction to the track. She was on edge but responsive , didnt go far and she did well but I know thats because we didn't see anyone.
A lovely on lead walk around the safe part of the village with Moll and she was really good. 
Bike ride for Jay, she loved it again  She's so happy and waggy, even pestering for her walk today !!


----------



## Dogless

Well done Evie!!! I am chuffed for you Kat . No need to post a Teckel here though . It is so lovely that Jay is enjoying the bike too .


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless said:


> Well done Evie!!! I am chuffed for you Kat . No need to post a Teckel here though . It is so lovely that Jay is enjoying the bike too .


Thanks Dogless, I'm surprised myself after yesterday. Ironically we had to pass the house where the Collie charged us yesterday and she could hear him barking! But I guess she's used to that. 

Jay was a bit quicker today  I need to watch I think , in case she does any damage.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Jay was a bit quicker today  I need to watch I think , in case she does any damage.


Yes, but how brilliant that she is enjoying it .


----------



## DogTrainer01

JenSteWillow - Oh lordy Willow! Haha! I'm forever walking into overhanging branches after not looking where I'm going which is pretty embarrassing :crazy:

Nickie85 glad Rusty had fun at agility. That video is so funny... Andy trotted over and got all excited haha 

Twiggy - glad you got results from the chiro. Hope you feel better soon!

Dogless - woohoo! Well done boys. 

Kat&Molly - Oh Scruff ha! Glad that Evie got past the gates - what an awsome girlie 


Myself and Kobie-pants had an awful walk this morning! So many cars rushing around  
He car chased once and tried to bike chase once. I also ran out of food which didn't help matters... think I may have to start taking two treat bags with me! 
Bless him, he did do well to carry on eating like he did as you could see it was a real struggle for him today.. he seemed really heightened to the tiniest of things. 

Think I may go back a step with him in the morning and rather than try to go for a walk and train car chasing at the same time, I'll go out a little earlier and make our self comfy at the end of the road and just do LAT and find it games to make him feel happier about the situation.


----------



## Dogless

DT01 - sounds like a plan to separate walking and desensitising to cars.

Great morning this morning.

Ran with Rudi for an hour or so (mostly offlead for him) and he did amazingly well. There was an event on so lots of people to pass nicely, plus dogs and lots of traffic and he just ran past without a flicker. The only exception was a big dobe on the other side of a chain link fence to us who we passed fine when he was onlead but when the dobe was let offlead he chased up and down the fence and then stood staring (all playful) but it was too much for Roo so I sat him rather than dragging him away until the dobe was under a bit more control and then we ran on. He still did well though.

Kilo and I went to the top fields and he was full of it this morning so we did loads of fast paced impulse control work, the just pottered and mooched to simmer him down a bit, then did a bit of using his nose to find hidden treats and then repeated it all again which filled an hour nicely. We could just about hear some dogs barking now and again in the far distance which he didn't like but he was easily distracted with all our activities which was good.

So...platinum stars for the CHs today . I am worn out though :blink:.


----------



## Nicki85

Well this morning I first managed to lose my phone, then my car!

I went for a run with Rust through the forest and managed to drop my iphone half way round. Got home, realised, so used the locate your iphone app on my macbook. Locked my phone and instated a passcode and Discovered it was in the otherside of the forest... So, printed out location and jumped in the car to go look. Rang it on my work phone and a chap had picked it up  He gave me his address and said he'd be home at lunch. So... I wander off back to the car.... could I find the car?! 10mins looking up and down the perimeter of the forest and eventually I found it again. I am useless! To make it all worse I had a teleconference at 9am that I had to get back to the house for. 
All fine now though, I have my phone and car back   and I was only 10mins late for the teleconference...

So exciting morning, dogs fine- me stressed!!!

DL- well done CHs! Sounds like a good morning 
DT1- at least he was still eating... Sounds like a good plan of action 

Swimming later I think down the river- what can go wrong?!?!?


----------



## GingerRogers

Goodness Nikki, alls well that ends well and we will say no more 

Glad you had a good morning Dogless

DT1 - sounds like a good plan I found working on two things at once fried my brain never mind the dogs.

Kat - glad Evie has had a good day. And you!

We had a later than normal walk, stressy  for no apparent reason, although I am sure she has one. 

We heard some barking dogs from the direction we were headed and she stopped dead which isn't like her, she normally tries to cover up her nerves by steaming forward like a frantic rabbit, we were at a junction so I gave her the option and we went the other way. They sounded like they were guard barking so in someones house/garden but I let her choose anyway.

We had nearly got home when a chap appeared with an almost white lab, we had a bit of a dilemma moment and a bit of noise but she soon decided coming 'this way' was the better option. We headed back the way we had come and down a track and you guessed it he came that way so we went down another, luckily this place was a bit of a spaghetti junction  but the amount of puddle scrounging she did on the way home it was all a bit much. She has been yapping  at the neighbours dog for the slightest noise the rest of the morning, and is currently stuck solid to my legs under the desk.

I am so mad and sad, she seems to have taken a different tack since last weeks events and is now more scared than anything rather than her normal combination of nervous excitement.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Well this morning I first managed to lose my phone, then my car!
> 
> I went for a run with Rust through the forest and managed to drop my iphone half way round. Got home, realised, so used the locate your iphone app on my macbook. Locked my phone and instated a passcode and Discovered it was in the otherside of the forest... So, printed out location and jumped in the car to go look. Rang it on my work phone and a chap had picked it up  He gave me his address and said he'd be home at lunch. So... I wander off back to the car.... could I find the car?! 10mins looking up and down the perimeter of the forest and eventually I found it again. I am useless! To make it all worse I had a teleconference at 9am that I had to get back to the house for.
> All fine now though, I have my phone and car back   and I was only 10mins late for the teleconference...
> 
> So exciting morning, dogs fine- me stressed!!!
> 
> DL- well done CHs! Sounds like a good morning
> DT1- at least he was still eating... Sounds like a good plan of action
> 
> *Swimming later I think down the river- what can go wrong?!?!?[/*QUOTE]
> 
> Well providing you don't accidently lose your phone in the river or drive your car into it......


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Goodness Nikki, alls well that ends well and we will say no more
> 
> Glad you had a good morning Dogless
> 
> DT1 - sounds like a good plan I found working on two things at once fried my brain never mind the dogs.
> 
> Kat - glad Evie has had a good day. And you!
> 
> We had a later than normal walk, stressy  for no apparent reason, although I am sure she has one.
> 
> We heard some barking dogs from the direction we were headed and she stopped dead which isn't like her, she normally tries to cover up her nerves by steaming forward like a frantic rabbit, we were at a junction so I gave her the option and we went the other way. They sounded like they were guard barking so in someones house/garden but I let her choose anyway.
> 
> We had nearly got home when a chap appeared with an almost white lab, we had a bit of a dilemma moment and a bit of noise but she soon decided coming 'this way' was the better option. We headed back the way we had come and down a track and you guessed it he came that way so we went down another, luckily this place was a bit of a spaghetti junction  but the amount of puddle scrounging she did on the way home it was all a bit much. She has been yapping  at the neighbours dog for the slightest noise the rest of the morning, and is currently stuck solid to my legs under the desk.
> 
> I am so mad and sad, she seems to have taken a different tack since last weeks events and is now more scared than anything rather than her normal combination of nervous excitement.


Oh I am sorry. Poor little Ninja.


----------



## Barcode

It's been a better morning.

OH took Scrabble out first thing, reported one barky-thing on-lead and all good off-lead, _even when another dog barked at her_. This is what I mean about her being a touch unpredictable at times. I may well try the Stress-Less as it seems to me she may benefit from something to balance out her moods a little (I wonder if it works on me !).

Then I've just taken Matilda out for an hour. Recall spot-on, working up to longer stays, she walks to heel well, getting her to sit when people pass by - this one's for impulse control as she does have a tendency to nip in excitement and we're working on it. I suspect it may be longer than usual as she can't see the details of what she is trying to befriend! But ... it's better.

Did a few sendaways with Scrabble in the garden, stays, play. She can do more complex stuff these days like be sent left and right. It's not all bad 

And now ... the thesis.


----------



## Barcode

Sorry to hear about Ninja. I wouldn't try to offer advice (I don't know enough!), only to say, you have support in this thread to let off some much needed steam!


----------



## kat&molly

Ginge- I'm sorry, last week has knocked her back somewhat hasn't it  Dont know what to say, just know how you feel. Its horrible seeing them so stressed.


DT- sorry your walk wasn't the best either, your plan sounds a good one 

Nikki- that was a bit chaotic today, poor you. :crazy:

Dogless- pleased someone had a good one, Roo is doing well isn't he. 

On leaving the house this morning , Evie heard the neighbours van and ran back inside scared. Took a few minutes before she came back out again. We walked around the Loop with Moll, who is doing well with this possession problem, only had to show her the 2nd ball once today before she dropped hers. 
Evie did quite well and didn't check behind her as much today as she did yesterday. 
She wouldn't get out the car when we got back though, it took a few minutes before she felt brave enough.

Trying to look on the bright side that she did have a walk and did get out the car in the end.


----------



## diefenbaker

Driving to work this morning through Twyford.. golden lab trotting down the road. Stopped and jumped out managed to grab him/her. Took to closest house and they didn't know the dog but took him/her off me. Back in car and off to work. Hope he/she got home alright. I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't taken the dog. In the car and off to find a vet I suppose. Do I get some WAYWO points for my good deed ?


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh yes you can redeem them at your nearest rescue centre


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Oh yes you can redeem them at your nearest rescue centre


Great. They've exchanged them for 30 dustbin bags full of dog poo. What time shall I bring it round ?

And don't forget to say a little prayer... about 9:30 tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Great. They've exchanged them for 30 dustbin bags full of dog poo. What time shall I bring it round ?
> 
> And don't forget to say a little prayer... about 9:30 tomorrow.


Wooohhhooooo Dief!! Best of luck :w00t: .


----------



## moonviolet

diefenbaker said:


> Great. They've exchanged them for 30 dustbin bags full of dog poo. What time shall I bring it round ?
> 
> And don't forget to* say a little prayer*... about 9:30 tomorrow.


Do you mind if i_ say a little prayer for you_ after I put on my make-up dont' want to scare you, though it could make you run faster.


----------



## Dogless

moonviolet said:


> Do you mind if i_ say a little prayer for you_ after I put on my make-up dont' want to scare you, though it could make you run faster.


Quite Franklin it might be needed .


----------



## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> Great. They've exchanged them for 30 dustbin bags full of dog poo. What time shall I bring it round ?
> 
> And don't forget to say a little prayer... about 9:30 tomorrow.


I live at a 1 dogless square, norn iron.  see you Sunday. Kilos looking hungry.

Good luck Mr diefenbaker


----------



## Bagrat

I am away baby sitting so only have phone. Bit of a mixed bag for most I gather. I guess keep calm and carry on walking. Sometimes I really have to make myself walk Jackson at least further than the back field (small but perfectly formed but not enclosed) which he thinks is his extended garden. He is usually very relaxed there (for him)


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I live at a 1 dogless square, norn iron.  see you Sunday. Kilos looking hungry.
> 
> Good luck Mr diefenbaker


Thanks for putting my address all over the bloody internet :mad2: .

Good Luck this morning Dief's human :thumbup1:.


----------



## kat&molly

Good luck for today, hope it goes well.


----------



## Nicki85

Busy morning 

TOok Rust out for an hour and a bit offlead, he was crazy seeing how fast he could run. Hope he hasn't made himself sore but we will see tonight... Met one dog, lovely recall and back on lead with no fuss.

Shae had her first agility session at the club I used to take Rust to. Rust always found it a bit noisy there (I think) and he never had much drive compared to when I trained him elsewhere... Anyhow, Shae found it all very exciting! She was good, very focused for her toy and the exercises I asked her to do. She wanted to watch the other dogs a lot, especially when they were running over the A frame but as long as i kept feeding her she was fine... It was a noisy class as well, lots of barking so she did well not to join in! I think I should have pulled her out for a 5min break in the car to calm down half an hour in but I kept being given things to do with her so that made it difficult! Anyhow, I was pleased with her  She is now fast asleep and i'm not sure she is going to move for the rest of the day! DT01- good to see you, I really should have given her 5mins time out in the car next time, don't want to blow her little brain!!

One thing I've noticed with her recently though is that if another dog comes over and she is having treats or playing with her toy she will grumble at it. Do you see this as a problem? Remove the treats/toy it's fine... Also, Rusty is allowed the treats and toys- it's just strange dogs that get grumbled at. 

DB- hope you had fun today!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - Rusty sounds as if he thoroughly enjoyed his offlead time and Shae agility, what a nice morning . Rudi will grumble at dogs if he has his toy or I am offering a treat if they come over. If I see a dog pelting over I remove the toy and put treats in a top pocket! Annoying as I am often using them to keep his attention. I don't see it as a problem TBH as dogs we meet politely aren't an issue.

We had a lovely morning in the forest; it was almost gloves temperature when we started out. Found a new route - we have been going there for so long yet I am still finding new parts to explore which I love. The dogs had a ball; it was one of those days that was so peaceful and quiet apart from critters that my voice seemed odd when I recalled or directed! I wish I had worn my new waterproof trousers but wet legs are no biggie really; I thoroughly enjoyed walking with my boys . Tomorrow's forecast is so horrendous that I suspect we won't go and will just walk at home!


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## DogTrainer01

Nicki85 said:


> Busy morning
> 
> TOok Rust out for an hour and a bit offlead, he was crazy seeing how fast he could run. Hope he hasn't made himself sore but we will see tonight... Met one dog, lovely recall and back on lead with no fuss.
> 
> Shae had her first agility session at the club I used to take Rust to. Rust always found it a bit noisy there (I think) and he never had much drive compared to when I trained him elsewhere... Anyhow, Shae found it all very exciting! She was good, very focused for her toy and the exercises I asked her to do. She wanted to watch the other dogs a lot, especially when they were running over the A frame but as long as i kept feeding her she was fine... It was a noisy class as well, lots of barking so she did well not to join in! I think I should have pulled her out for a 5min break in the car to calm down half an hour in but I kept being given things to do with her so that made it difficult! Anyhow, I was pleased with her  She is now fast asleep and i'm not sure she is going to move for the rest of the day! DT01- good to see you, I really should have given her 5mins time out in the car next time, don't want to blow her little brain!!
> 
> One thing I've noticed with her recently though is that if another dog comes over and she is having treats or playing with her toy she will grumble at it. Do you see this as a problem? Remove the treats/toy it's fine... Also, Rusty is allowed the treats and toys- it's just strange dogs that get grumbled at.
> 
> DB- hope you had fun today!


You both did amazing...she coped fantastically. Definitely let her out for car breaks and sniff/pee breaks next time. I'd perhaps not even say anything to Stuart, just pop her back in after an exercise.

When I eventually take Kob back there, I'll be doing exactly the same thing. He finds the intensity of the venue and the other dogs too much to stay in there.

Please thank Shae for my lovely ear kisses too!


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## diefenbaker

I can't hide anymore.. and they wouldn't let me put a bag on my head..

Crikey the start was noisey... almost drowned out the Kajagoogoo on my ipod.

[youtube_browser]KOM3gwubwtg[/youtube_browser]

Listen for his name at the end.. he's gone down in history

[youtube_browser]Ah0lpgQR67k[/youtube_browser]

He did mostly well.. but not too keen on the dogs running up and overtaking when the path was narrow...

And I have to do it all again tomorrow... not sure the legs can take it.. need a massage on my calves. So I've organized a rota...

DL - 2:00 - 3:00 ( only 1 minute to get here )
MV - 3:00 - 4:00

Break 4:00 - 5:00 for Final Score

GR - 4:00 - 5:00

Tea and biscuits will be provided.

Anyone else can bring grapes and drop from a height of approximately 47.3cm while I lounge around.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I can't hide anymore.. and they wouldn't let me put a bag on my head..
> 
> Crikey the start was noisey... almost drowned out the Kajagoogoo on my ipod.
> 
> [youtube_browser]KOM3gwubwtg[/youtube_browser]
> 
> Listen for his name at the end.. he's gone down in history
> 
> [youtube_browser]Ah0lpgQR67k[/youtube_browser]
> 
> He did mostly well.. but not too keen on the dogs running up and overtaking when the path was narrow...
> 
> And I have to do it all again tomorrow... not sure the legs can take it.. need a massage on my calves. So I've organized a rota...
> 
> DL - 2:00 - 3:00 ( only 1 minute to get here )
> MV - 3:00 - 4:00
> 
> Break 4:00 - 5:00 for Final Score
> 
> GR - 4:00 - 5:00
> 
> Tea and biscuits will be provided.
> 
> Anyone else can bring grapes and drop from a height of approximately 47.3cm while I lounge around.


Wow - Mega well done to both of you.


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## Canine K9

Nicki- Sounds like a lovely morning

Dogless- Very glad you had a nice time and enjoyed it; you well deserve it.

Dief- Well done 

Us.. Well not much. I`ve come to the conclusion its impossible to tire this dog out. We went to agility and he had a play with Miss Rosie (well actually lots and lots of plays!) came home and hes running around like a lunatic again  Just wondering is it usual for a dog of his age to never sleep during the day at all unless he is very very tired? :confused5: 
BUT a pretty good day.


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## missRV

Canine K9 said:


> Nicki- Sounds like a lovely morning
> 
> Dogless- Very glad you had a nice time and enjoyed it; you well deserve it.
> 
> Dief- Well done
> 
> *Us.. Well not much. I`ve come to the conclusion its impossible to tire this dog out. We went to agility and he had a play with Miss Rosie (well actually lots and lots of plays!) came home and hes running around like a lunatic again  Just wondering is it usual for a dog of his age to never sleep during the day at all unless he is very very tired? :confused5:
> BUT a pretty good day.*


Lol, that dog has got stamina.... Rosie is flat out! 
I love seeing them play


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## Canine K9

MissRV- I know, i`ve never seen him so outgoing with another dog before its fantastic to see


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## missRV

He plays really well and has lovely manners.... she adores him lol


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## GingerRogers

Dogless sounds almost like a slice of heaven in the hellhole you live in :thumbup1:

K9 glad you and bailey had fun and a good play with rosie sounds just the ticket

nikki hope rusty buckets is ok sounds like a good day overall for you with a tired shae

Well done dief  that was a noisy start, I could only listen to a bit as ninja was cocking her head rather interestedly, although she would have been in terrier heaven, 'yes ok then you can bark today' Was a bit worried with the rota I thought that was for stand in running for a moment  but massage I can manage, I should warn I was taught by a large male swedish guy who was physio to the russian shot put team  Are you going to share your time with us?

I had a bit of a day, decided to take the trailer for a longer outing to a track where I could run the ninja.

Long venting ramble in coming 

Got halfway up the road and found out my back gears weren't working, I was not turning round and looking a pillock (have to pass the hotel) so I carried on with only 3 operational changes - really hard work, easy enough on the flat (thank goodness I live in Suffolk) and woah my legs are spinning too fast 

So instead of the long trip we stop at the church, then I remember its the scarecrow trail weekend so theres lots of people about, and some funny looking stiff ones as well 

We cut onto the stubble and she goes a bit nuts (perhaps theres something in the air Nikki) normally she runs like someone being chased by the mafia, head down and fast, in straight lines little tail curled over her back in alert mode, but today she is wagging it like a mad thing and zooming all over the shop.

Anyway we have a lovely walk :thumbup1:, she gets lots of zooms, we reach happy field, they have put cows on there  thats two lovely little quiet walks gone for the foreseeable (the impassable marsh being one so possibly a good thing, its getting wetter around here) so we turn back, I am getting hungry anyway. Get back on the stubble leading back to the church and let her off,  big mistake, she sees a plastic bag away over so zooms off to investigate, now she is beside the hedge, wind blowing in wrong direction so strong I have to turn round to whistle her FGS, the hedge is muchly interesting, so are the stubble turnips on the other side, she keeps making a few attempts to come back but gets distracted easily  finally she stops to roll halfway back and I take the opportunity to retrieve her rather then take her own sweet time . She has a few more rolls on the way back which I put down to being fed up of her muzzle, its been on best part of 2 1/2 hours after all.

Get back to the church and the scarecrow hunting has picked up there's loads of people and a terrier on one side of the yard and a hound on the other, we make it back to the car park, only to have a van pull up right next to our trailer and a couple jump out with a lab and JRT, I cross the road to dawdle. they only hang around for 15 mins, the reason being they were waiting for others to join them, finally they arrive and stand around chatting :frown2:, come on peeps, do you think I like it over here in the field. Meanwhile we have been trying to use their dogs and all the people coming and going on foot and bike as a training exercise.

Finally get back to the bike and I pop her back in. Realize I have pulled the straining bar off and cant get it back in, I manage a tentative hold, and set off on my challenged bike back home, carefully goes over bumps in case the whole trailer collapses. A dog ahead, a wee few barks from the missy BUT I have to say they were much more of a normal terrier yap yap type than the frenzied lunging noise she makes normally even from the car so the theory might work and it might help her to see and move away from her triggers.

Get home and tip her out in the garden and set to putting the bike and trailer away only for another neighbours dog to start fence barking and kick her off, I think my loud 'Quiet Ginger, that's enough' got the hint through 

Hubby is already home so that prevents me collapsing in frustrated tears and he comes out to see what up with the bike. He fitted a stand for me Thursday and had trapped the gear cable , so I felt a bit better once that was fixed and knew my beautiful bike wasn't broken.

Get in have some food and open a bag of popcorn, Ninja is looking at me adoringly and I notice her eye is drooping like she is tired but only one side, might explain the rolling on the way back, I cant see anything, no scratch, no dust or anything, so will keep an eye on it (scuse the pun) it weeps a little anyway on that side. 


So is it wine o'clock yet. Sorry about that


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## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Was a bit worried with the rota I thought that was for stand in running for a moment  but massage I can manage, I should warn I was taught by a large male swedish guy who was physio to the russian shot put team  Are you going to share your time with us?


I did offer some walkers the chance to take over. Strangely they declined. I don't know my time yet... I don't wear a watch to minimise weight. No pants either. Apparently according to a chap with a GPS watch the course was 5.8K.... so I expect my time to be around the 35-40 minute mark. I'm suffering now... bedtime is not far away.


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## kat&molly

Well done Dief 

Ginge- that sounds a frustrating walk for you, but Ninja actually did very well didn't she  I hope her eye is ok, and of course its time for wine. Its Five 0 'clock somewhere 

K9- Bailey and Rosie sound great friends, I should think he is tired after that lot, he just doesn't know it. 

Nikki- Shae did well at agilty. 

Dogless- sounds a bit cold today, pleased you all enjoyed it though. 

Around the Loop again this morning, trying to stick to this once a day for the moment in the hope Evie relaxes more - she's doing well as she couldn't complete it a couple of weeks ago, a bit nervy still and it was windy today which didn't help.

This afternoon we had proper Norn Iron weather :frown2: Jay went and hid :laugh: no way was she going out in it !!
Took Short Stuff out and she only managed about 10 meters, before turning round, a mixture of the weather and feeling anxious I think.
Was going to walk Moll and Scruff seperate but it was horrendous so we went up the track. Didn't take any toys for Moll but she ran to the apple tree over hanging the track, she seems to know where they all are  and we ended up playing Find the Apple.


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## Dogless

GR - what to say? A day best forgotten I think . I hope the eye's OK.

Dief - :thumbup1: . Well done!!!!  .

k&m - I am sorry you had Norn Iron weather - we are in for a complete battering tomorrow if that's any consolation :shocked:.

K9 - Is it worth teaching Bailey to settle do you think? Otherwise you'll get caught in the vicious cycle of the more exercise and play Bailey gets the more he'll need. A "settle" command is a beautiful thing (otherwise Roo would run all day ).

Busy afternoon. Went running for a few hours. I was just listening to Mr Snoop Dog telling me "I wanna make you sweat" and thinking how he'd missed the boat by an hour or so  when I was flattened by a large black dog of some description. Pleased I didn't have Roo, he wouldn't have been chuffed . Then as my warm down I put the CHs straight in the car and took them up to the top fields for some play and a bit of training; just the basics. They were loons tonight for some reason, but very good .

Came home, made Risotto, now on strike until tomorrow :aureola:.


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## missRV

Sounds like everyone is doing really well.

Update on Rosie; she had a 1-1 session with her puppy school on Thursday. I requested that we kept her in the baby group because I don't want her to go back in her training, she really responds well to the baby approach from the trainer and I don't want her to move up yet  the reason we had a 1-1 was because no one else turned up  we learnt some walking to heel, how to 'wave' and how to do 'peek a bo' between the trainer's legs. I was so proud of her! 

Took her to agility today, she had a lovely play with Bailey and had a go off the leash on the course, she managed pretty well  she still has a lot to learn but for her 3rd lesson I'm happy with her 

She's currently flat out on the bay window, her top spot


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## Canine K9

So we put the long line on for 5 minutes and did some settle work. Mia (baby) decided she`d join us


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## missRV

lol, the way she was having such a good time on that field, I'm not surprised! x That pic is too cute


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## JenKyzer

Not looked through yet.. i will catch up after this 

Nothing major going on here.. Willow went to my mums today for about 8hours.. i was so worried but she did us proud  A* report back anyway!
From the car to the door she was offlead.. spotted a dog walking by and recalled away before she even moved towards it (recall from OH ) which was brill .

Her light up collar arrived for our dark walks 


And we found a new walk 



Going to go for it on the new walk this week whilst i'm off .. we just pottered around to get a feel of the place the other evening.. lots of paths going here there and everywhere  She did well around other dogs.. just long stares really which when told to 'carry on' she did.. and she ignored the ducks  
I've been slacking lately  and she's just had boring walks mostly.. so i can't wait to use my week off to really work on recall (whistle).. but i still don't want to set her up to fail and go walking in 'dog o'clock'  since her reactive day and her keep breaking her sits its really hard not to think back to that amazing run we had of her sitting nicely and watching the dogs pass by.. so going to go back a few steps and load myself up with the super fishy treats and then do a 'carry on' as soon as we can with me inbetween her and the dog. Rather than letting her watch for too long and just expecting her to carry on without looking back 

Hope everyone else has had a good weekend  will have a read now.


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## Canine K9

JSW- Sounds great, and gorgeous photos.

Lazy day here today just a half hour run round the woods.


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## JenKyzer

Dief - Wow well done on your run  I didn't realize you was running together!! Great vids  

GR - sorry to hear the cows have moved onto happy field  .. i can just imagine her listening to you.. then changing her mind.. then having a lil roll..  cheeky monkey! Sounds like a hectic walk with the challenging bike.. glad its not broken though  .. Hope you enjoyed your wine after all that! (Hope her eyes ok too)

K&M - glad to hear evies doing well on the loop  and find the apple sounds fun  

Dogless -  the big black dog doesn't sound too good.. glad the rest of the day was better though  such good CH's 

mRV - 1to1 sounds really nice as do her little tricks 'peekaboo' really cute  

k9 - nice pic of 'settling'  enjoy the relaxing!

Sorry if i've missed anything.. i have been 'liking' whilst on my phone to try and keep up


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## missRV

JSW: I love those pics, that walk looks gorgeous, and the collar is a brilliant idea


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## Dogless

JSW - that new walking spot looks very nice....and you won't miss Willow in that collar .

Far too windy for the forest today as it's up on the high ground . So....top fields twice. Some play and some basic training but I am in a very sad sort of mood really as I never saw a soul anywhere else whilst I was driving to them so could have had nice walks all around the place but I just daren't . 

I am thinking about winter when the forest becomes inaccessible again and ways to keep Kilo especially (as Roo can be walked anywhere...but still) interested. Me too TBH . We do loads of impulse control games, silly running about games and training but I would like other ideas if anyone has any please!! :w00t:.

I can take my garden agility stuff - for when the ground isn't too hard.

I have been looking at sets of Rally-O cards as we enjoyed our taster but have thought about making my own.....aside the real basic commands and the ones I recall from our taster session does anyone have any ideas for cards? Can be anything really...if they are too hard for right now it will give us something to work towards!!


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## Bagrat

Returned from weekend with grandchildren.4 year old decided to sleep in Granny Woo Woo's ( don't ask!!) bed both nights at about 2 am so a bit short on sleep.
Mr Dief that is amazing - I am well impressed.
GR - hope Ninja's eye ok now
Dogless - I don't envy the black dog flattening exercise. I missed a perfectly good trip to the States a couple of years back being flattened by a very small dog. I don't suppose the gaba helps with acute squashing episodes, hope back not rattled.
I am a bit peeved. OH who walks Jackson under duress and does no training to speak of took him out while I was away and arrived at the driveway where he had his meltdown and escape episode. In the drive is the Weimaraner who lives there, off lead. As J walked past on lead same side of road they looked at each other. 
Yep, no response from J at all!! Arrgh.
He is* usually* better if he suddenly comes across a dog and doesn't see it coming but don't know how to build on this as it is only usually. Will be getting back to behaviourist about this as hope to do some work with a "stuffy" in the not too distant future.


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## tiatortilla

Hello everyone!

Dief - Loved the video!
k9 - That picture is adorable :001_wub:
JSW - New walk looks lovely, and Willow is doing so well!
Dogless - Enjoy your strike and your risotto . Well earned I think!
k&m - Sounds like Evie is doing much better, little baby steps but it all helps .

---

It's been a bit hectic here so I really don't have much to report in the way of stuff we're working on, think everything's been going alright!
For those that haven't seen the thread, we have an extra dog here at the moment so any real training might have to take a bit of a backseat for a few days.
I'm doing all I can to find his owner, at first I was convinced he was definitely someone's much loved pet but the longer he's been here I'm not so sure. OH said he just looked at his teeth and they're horrible apparently, he's also quite timid - very obedient but performs commands like he's scared. Not sure if it's just because of the new environment or whatever but we'll see I guess! He also has what looks like a shaved patch on his back, but no scar/wound from an operation or anything so not sure what that's about. Dog warden is coming to check for a microchip tomorrow so if we find out he doesn't have one, he may be with us quite a while (possibly even forever . There's a possibility he could be a traveller's dog from the fair which is now over so they may have left him behind if that's the case..).
Tia was being fine about it all but she's got a bit of a sulk on now so I've left him downstairs with OH and me and Tia have escaped upstairs to the computer. Not sure what she's sulking about really, I think it might be because he doesn't want to play with her . Anyway, just thought I'd pop in despite my lack of on topic things to say .


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## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Returned from weekend with grandchildren.4 year old decided to sleep in Granny Woo Woo's ( don't ask!!) bed both nights at about 2 am so a bit short on sleep.
> Mr Dief that is amazing - I am well impressed.
> GR - hope Ninja's eye ok now
> Dogless - I don't envy the black dog flattening exercise. I missed a perfectly good trip to the States a couple of years back being flattened by a very small dog. I don't suppose the gaba helps with acute squashing episodes, hope back not rattled.
> I am a bit peeved. OH who walks Jackson under duress and does no training to speak of took him out while I was away and arrived at the driveway where he had his meltdown and escape episode. In the drive is the Weimaraner who lives there, off lead. As J walked past on lead same side of road they looked at each other.
> Yep, no response from J at all!! Arrgh.
> He is* usually* better if he suddenly comes across a dog and doesn't see it coming but don't know how to build on this as it is only usually. Will be getting back to behaviourist about this as hope to do some work with a "stuffy" in the not too distant future.


Granny Woo Woo - the pregab doesn't really help but at present I am awash with so many strong meds (started a new one which has floored me :w00t that TBH I am lucky to even remember who I am :w00t:.

I can see why you were peeved....I would be too as my own hubby has nothing to do with training or walking (even with me) if he can possibly help it. That is perhaps the point - he didn't tense and anticipate a problem perhaps? Or just got lucky. Either way no response is better for J's stress levels which should be the raft you cling to in your beautiful pea(ve) green sea .



tiatortilla said:


> Hello everyone!
> 
> Dief - Loved the video!
> k9 - That picture is adorable :001_wub:
> JSW - New walk looks lovely, and Willow is doing so well!
> Dogless - Enjoy your strike and your risotto . Well earned I think!
> k&m - Sounds like Evie is doing much better, little baby steps but it all helps .
> 
> ---
> 
> It's been a bit hectic here so I really don't have much to report in the way of stuff we're working on, think everything's been going alright!
> For those that haven't seen the thread, we have an extra dog here at the moment so any real training might have to take a bit of a backseat for a few days.
> I'm doing all I can to find his owner, at first I was convinced he was definitely someone's much loved pet but the longer he's been here I'm not so sure. OH said he just looked at his teeth and they're horrible apparently, he's also quite timid - very obedient but performs commands like he's scared. Not sure if it's just because of the new environment or whatever but we'll see I guess! He also has what looks like a shaved patch on his back, but no scar/wound from an operation or anything so not sure what that's about. Dog warden is coming to check for a microchip tomorrow so if we find out he doesn't have one, he may be with us quite a while (possibly even forever . There's a possibility he could be a traveller's dog from the fair which is now over so they may have left him behind if that's the case..).
> Tia was being fine about it all but she's got a bit of a sulk on now so I've left him downstairs with OH and me and Tia have escaped upstairs to the computer. Not sure what she's sulking about really, I think it might be because he doesn't want to play with her . Anyway, just thought I'd pop in despite my lack of on topic things to say .


The strike and risotto were yesterday; today was sausage casserole .

Hmmmm - may be a very long shot but the patch may have been shaved for a scan...which maybe showed something not too good....which led to dog being abandoned? I do hope not though. Good luck finding an owner and if not....sounds as if he's landed on his paws as far as a home's concerned . Maybe Tia's nose is just a little out of joint with the new arrival?


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## JenKyzer

Dogless - No ideas here  but interested to see what these 'cards' are?? Abit sad for you at the fact the forest becomes inaccessible  I'm sure you'll make it loads of fun and the CH's won't even notice  

Bagrat - sounds like mine.. OH does no training with her really apart from when he see's my stuff on the go and likes it  .. doesn't do fun clicker treat games.. yet he's the more interesting one and gets perfect recall and she follows him round like he's gunna slip off the earth  .. Good boy J for not reacting though eh 

Tia - ooh i haven't seen your other thread.. will have to look.. i hope theres pics  I hope you find his home.. if its a loving one.. if not then i hope he stays with you for a loving home or find a fab new one  i'm a sucker for a rescue story :blush: Hope tia settles with the new arrival  Willow would be mega jealous if that situation ever happened to us


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> The strike and risotto were yesterday; today was sausage casserole .
> 
> Hmmmm - may be a very long shot but the patch may have been shaved for a scan...which maybe showed something not too good....which led to dog being abandoned? I do hope not though. Good luck finding an owner and if not....sounds as if he's landed on his paws as far as a home's concerned . Maybe Tia's nose is just a little out of joint with the new arrival?


Oops, shows what I get for not looking at the dates! I'm not jealous of the sausage casserole, I really fancy a risotto now though .

That's a good thought. Well, not a good one but you know what I mean, I didn't think of that at all. It's all down to whether he has a microchip really, if he does then great - contact his owners and give him back, but if he doesn't then lots more sharing and postering etc. until it seems futile I suppose! He's a lovely dog though so if his owners don't want him, he's very welcome here.
I think Tia's dealt with it sooo well until the last couple of hours tbh. We went out for a walk and came home with a dog, I can't imagine how confusing that must be for her :lol:. She kept trying to play with him at first but he's quite shy and seemed uncomfortable with it so we stopped her, I think that's what she's sulking about mainly. Don't mind having a visitor, but he must play with me!


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## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Dogless - No ideas here  but interested to see what these 'cards' are?? Abit sad for you at the fact the forest becomes inaccessible  I'm sure you'll make it loads of fun and the CH's won't even notice
> 
> Bagrat - sounds like mine.. OH does no training with her really apart from when he see's my stuff on the go and likes it  .. doesn't do fun clicker treat games.. yet he's the more interesting one and gets perfect recall and she follows him round like he's gunna slip off the earth  .. Good boy J for not reacting though eh
> 
> Tia - ooh i haven't seen your other thread.. will have to look.. i hope theres pics  I hope you find his home.. if its a loving one.. if not then i hope he stays with you for a loving home or find a fab new one  i'm a sucker for a rescue story :blush: Hope tia settles with the new arrival  Willow would be mega jealous if that situation ever happened to us


This is what we had a taster session of at the dog training club I was a member of: Rally It was brilliant fun and right up Kilo's street as it didn't involve lots of repetition and he stayed totally engaged. I saw a set of cards in a dog mag for £80 but thought why not make some of my own just for a fun activity?


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> This is what we had a taster session of at the dog training club I was a member of: Rally It was brilliant fun and right up Kilo's street as it didn't involve lots of repetition and he stayed totally engaged. I saw a set of cards in a dog mag for £80 but thought why not make some of my own just for a fun activity?


Well.. if it saves you £80 then why not! & keeps the boys occupied.. sounds like a win win situation to me  . 
Just looked at the link too.. interesting  i'd love to do something along those lines with willow.. specially after seeing thread after thread of courses and the dogs having so much fun.. maybe one day if/when we get the 'other dog thing' nailed


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> This is what we had a taster session of at the dog training club I was a member of: Rally It was brilliant fun and right up Kilo's street as it didn't involve lots of repetition and he stayed totally engaged. I saw a set of cards in a dog mag for £80 but thought why not make some of my own just for a fun activity?


Sorry ladies haven't caught up on all your posts over the week-end really as I've been in bed most of the time with some sort of horrid flu-like bug.
I'm still coughing my head off but feel slightly better today.

I've had to rely on hubby walking the dogs.... They all appear sound....!!

That taster session you had for Rally was obviously much different to the course I tackled with a friend's dog a few weeks back at a show. It was horribly boring, very repetitive and consisted mainly of "forward - sit".

I suppose, if you make your own cards, it could be as exciting as you wish to make it.

I've always mixed different disciplines into my dogs training.

A jump strategically placed taught little Fidget to 'bounce' into the present on retrieve; a circle of jumps at speed and then the dog called into the heel position for a circle of heelwork, followed by another circle of jumps certainly improves motivation with some dogs, as does many of the heelwork to music moves.

Worth bearing in mind though I like my dogs in very high drive mode....


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## kat&molly

Twiggy- Hope you're feeling better soon and dont have to rely on OH to walk the girls for much longer.!! 

TT- just read your friend has been reunited with his owner, really nice of you to care for him. Hope you dont miss him too much. 

JSW- Willows collar looks as though it will work well. 

Nice seperate walks for the girls this morning. Not getting far at all with Evie before she wants to come home, makes me feel guilty because then she gets less than 10 minutes and thats not much at all!!
So, I took her back out again after the others and she headed a different way , still didn't go far but maybe it suits her better so off to try again in a minute.


----------



## GingerRogers

Boo Twiggy, glad you are feeling a bit better and hope you are back to full form soon, so will the dogs no doubt 

JSW - love the collar, which one is it please I am investigating options, the new walk looks very nice indeedy. Stepping back a bit also sounds like a plan, she will probably improve much quicker. Enjoy your week off.

Kat - if the little and often works for Evie and you can manage it then go for it, just enough for her to go ok I like this and then come home, not pushing it at all will be the hard bit, no thinking she's ok, we will go a bit further, we all know thats when it goes wrong 

Bagrat - I feel your frustration, I think thats exactly way it is though, lack of investment means there's no pressure, no stress, my hubby always comes back from lovely walks in the middle of nowhere saying she was perfect. He doesn't care if she recalls or not and he has the time to take her places where they never see anything (and he sometimes lies ) hope you can catch up on the lost sleep soon 

Dogless and TT I have been trying to work out what strike and risotto was  some kind colloquial term for steak perhaps, then I read back properly 

I dont really get what Rally is I must investigate are there any places you can take Kilo for runs, beaches as well, love a wintery beach, empty  then lots of games at home.

We had a much better day yesterday, quick run through the (I dont mean literally run ) woods first thing, very lucky escape, we got to back to the car park to find the van that belongs to the couple across the road, they have two totally uncontrolled black labs, they both run with them off lead, IPods in  how we managed to miss them I dont know, but i am grateful, its only a tiny wood and although its a wildlife trust lead only place, there's no way they would or could walk them on a lead 

Then  me and the OH went out together, we did the village scarecrow trail, 63 scarecrows and we did it on our bikes, was good fun if not tiring in the wind, the sun was out though and the weather held just until we got home with chippies for lunch 

After a bit of a rest I went out with the ninja, we drove to the place I had aimed to get to Saturday , it was wet and windy and bleak and just perfick  (ie: solitary) and we found a new set of footpaths which will go on the list, she didn't get too much off lead time as I could see some maize stands and feeding stations in the distance and as I didn't know where the pheasant pens might be I was safe, but we didn't come across any so next time the naughty monkey can practice recall/ignoring me a bit more 

Just a quick round the block this morning, still avoiding the collies house as she is pretty nervy out there. But I have to go and meet a builder out near some nice walks after work, well after their work 

Oh I did get a some quiet after she kicked off at a girl coming out an alley, enough for me to be able to apologise 

ETA Sorry her eye seems fine now thank you  it must have just been some dust or something thank fully, they are a worry


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## Dogless

k&m - if the little walks and often are suiting Evie then it seems a good foundation to build upon. Know what you mean about feeling guilty though!!

Twiggy - very pleased that the dogs are all sound having been walked by your OH; seems miracles do sometimes happen . Hope you're fully up and running too soon. The intro to rally that we did was far more interesting than yours sounds....I think I will make my own cards as I do like working Kilo all revved up. All ideas gratefully received....well, polite ones anyway .

GR - Very pleased you've had better walks and a healthy dose of luck ref the labs!!! Yes, we can go to lovely empty beaches, they're further away than the forest even but will start going back now the tourist season's pretty much over.

Good morning here at Concrete Central.

Rudi - took him for a run in the gales and rain. Massively hard work in the horrible weather but we did it and survived :thumbup1:. Roo was good as gold.

Kilo - took him to the sports pitches and a field next to them. We went round a few times; I did heelwork with some commands thrown in on two sides of the pitch, just relaxed sniffs and pottering with some "find its" thrown in on the other two sides and we went into the middle and onto the other field to do fast - paced impulse control stuff. It was great fun and Kilo was absolutely fired up today, probably because of the gales, couldn't have been happier with him apart from when he ate some poo :mad2:.


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> *Twiggy- Hope you're feeling better soon and dont have to rely on OH to walk the girls for much longer.!! *
> 
> TT- just read your friend has been reunited with his owner, really nice of you to care for him. Hope you dont miss him too much.
> 
> JSW- Willows collar looks as though it will work well.
> 
> Nice seperate walks for the girls this morning. Not getting far at all with Evie before she wants to come home, makes me feel guilty because then she gets less than 10 minutes and thats not much at all!!
> So, I took her back out again after the others and she headed a different way , still didn't go far but maybe it suits her better so off to try again in a minute.


Thanks. As we WAYWO ladies know, the longer the OH is walking the dogs the chance of injury/bad behaviour rockets....!!

I have to admit though this morning (probably because I'm not feeling well) I put Leafy on the lead instead of Tremor. I opened the gate and Tremor shot straight down the paddock.....

Did you try giving Evie the Doreen Paige 'Insecurity'? It was almost miraculous with Leafy 10 years ago.


----------



## JenKyzer

GR - Its this one.. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Platube-LED-Flashing-Safety-Collar/dp/B007A0OFU4/ref=cm_cmu_pg__header .. I've just realised too.. on the pics to the left with dogs wearing them - is that a Kilo & Rudi i see??  I like the collar anyway - even looks quite nice without the lights on - but indoors willow is a naked dog anyway  . 
Glad you had a better day yesterday too  Glad her eyes ok 

K&M - Bless evie.. if the smaller but more frequent walks keep her happy then i hope she begins to relax more and then dare to venture further  keeping my fingers crossed for you!

So willow allowed us to sleep in til 11am today  then oh my, she made up for it! Energetic wasn't the word! So we did some good 'stays' as she was mid galloping to the end of her lead / about to cross roads without being told  . Also mixed up her 'usual' morning walk by going down different roads/alleys with 'this way' . Everytime she got to the end of her lead she had to come back to me too (which i have been slacking in recently as her normal morning walk is set to a time so i can then get ready for work and get there in time ).. a nice stand for 3mins  in her own time! Cheeky thing. Then she got the idea. I also love how 'cross' means she can cross over .. but when i say 'cross cross crosss' all excitedly she sets off at a proper run and bounds over the road  so we were having fun.. until the heavens opened and we got soaked. Willow then wanted to turn back and go home :laugh: big softie. After a feed and a trip out in the car she's now snoring on the setee so hopefully i can get some housework done without her bringing me toys every 2mins 

I'm also very excited about my indi-dog order being dispatched today/tomorrow   i was beaming from ear to ear at the preview email i received this morning!!


----------



## JenKyzer

Oops ..

Twiggy - hope you feel better soon  we all know if a lady feels ill then it must be bad!! 

Dogless - Glad you've had a good morning with the boys, apart from the bad weather and bad taste in what to eat


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Thanks. As we WAYWO ladies know, the longer the OH is walking the dogs the chance of injury/bad behaviour rockets....!!
> 
> I have to admit though this morning (probably because I'm not feeling well) I put Leafy on the lead instead of Tremor. I opened the gate and Tremor shot straight down the paddock.....
> 
> Did you try giving Evie the Doreen Paige 'Insecurity'? It was almost miraculous with Leafy 10 years ago.


I ordered it on the 2nd September, and heard nothing. I've emailed twice now but couldn't find a telephone number. Really strange.

I hope it comes soon , we could do with a miracle. 
Naughty Tremor, shooting off like that!!


----------



## Twiggy

kat&molly said:


> I ordered it on the 2nd September, and heard nothing. I've emailed twice now but couldn't find a telephone number. Really strange.
> 
> I hope it comes soon , we could do with a miracle.
> Naughty Tremor, shooting off like that!!


Here's the contact details for Doreen Paige:

*Telephone: 01363 877204 Email us at: [email protected].*

Like most alternative medicines it takes a while to work. If I remember rightly Leafy was given the drops night and morning for about 4 weeks. Then, when it clearly made such a difference, I just used to give it to her for about 3 days before a show.

It was naughty me this morning more than Tremor - she couldn't believe her luck, because she is always on the lead for the first 10 minutes until her muscles have warmed up.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> k&m - if the little walks and often are suiting Evie then it seems a good foundation to build upon. Know what you mean about feeling guilty though!!
> 
> Twiggy - very pleased that the dogs are all sound having been walked by your OH; seems miracles do sometimes happen . Hope you're fully up and running too soon. The intro to rally that we did was far more interesting than yours sounds....*I think I will make my own cards as I do like working Kilo all revved up. All ideas gratefully received....well, polite ones anyway .*
> 
> GR - Very pleased you've had better walks and a healthy dose of luck ref the labs!!! Yes, we can go to lovely empty beaches, they're further away than the forest even but will start going back now the tourist season's pretty much over.
> 
> Good morning here at Concrete Central.
> 
> Rudi - took him for a run in the gales and rain. Massively hard work in the horrible weather but we did it and survived :thumbup1:. Roo was good as gold.
> 
> Kilo - took him to the sports pitches and a field next to them. We went round a few times; I did heelwork with some commands thrown in on two sides of the pitch, just relaxed sniffs and pottering with some "find its" thrown in on the other two sides and we went into the middle and onto the other field to do fast - paced impulse control stuff. It was great fun and Kilo was absolutely fired up today, probably because of the gales, couldn't have been happier with him apart from when he ate some poo :mad2:.


Have you looked on YouTube for ideas for your Rally type cards? Probably the American sites are best as most of the ones I've seen from the UK resemble the very dreary course I did at the show.

I thought the idea of Rally was a cross between competitive obedience/agility, although without the same degrees of accuracy but fun for the average pet owner. I was asked to read through some of the rules etc. before the KC took it under their wing some time ago.

From what I've seen it would kill most dogs stone dead with boredom. There simply doesn't seem to be much 'in it' for the dogs, if you see what I mean. Whereas pure agility is self rewarding for most dogs (well apart from Holly Bolly) and, up to a point, so are HTM moves and even in traditional 'obedience' the dogs get to do retrieve/sendaways/scent which a lot of them love.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Have you looked on YouTube for ideas for your Rally type cards? Probably the American sites are best as most of the ones I've seen from the UK resemble the very dreary course I did at the show.
> 
> I thought the idea of Rally was a cross between competitive obedience/agility, although without the same degrees of accuracy but fun for the average pet owner. I was asked to read through some of the rules etc. before the KC took it under their wing some time ago.
> 
> From what I've seen it would kill most dogs stone dead with boredom. There simply doesn't seem to be much 'in it' for the dogs, if you see what I mean. Whereas pure agility is self rewarding for most dogs (well apart from Holly Bolly) and, up to a point, so are HTM moves and even in traditional 'obedience' the dogs get to do retrieve/sendaways/scent which a lot of them love.


I do just want to keep walks interesting and exciting for Kilo now we are much more limited as to where we can go. Also occupy him as he'll still freeze at a dog barking way in the distance but can be distracted from that.

You Tube is a great idea; thank you. I'd like to do lots of the work he loves at present and learn new things.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I do just want to keep walks interesting and exciting for Kilo now we are much more limited as to where we can go. Also occupy him as he'll still freeze at a dog barking way in the distance but can be distracted from that.
> 
> You Tube is a great idea; thank you. I'd like to do lots of the work he loves at present and learn new things.


Leave it with me. I'll come up with some ideas later.

Kilo would probably love doing fast sendaways between two markers, etc. etc.

I'll try and think up things where you don't need to lug loads of stuff with you....


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Leave it with me. I'll come up with some ideas later.
> 
> Kilo would probably love doing fast sendaways between two markers, etc. etc.
> 
> I'll try and think up things where you don't need to lug loads of stuff with you....


Thanks Grannie, I reckon anything you come up with will be a real challenge  .

At present I can do a sendaway to a mat and Kilo will respond to directional commands so I'll need to put some work in!!


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## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> Here's the contact details for Doreen Paige:
> 
> *Telephone: 01363 877204 Email us at: [email protected].*
> 
> Like most alternative medicines it takes a while to work. If I remember rightly Leafy was given the drops night and morning for about 4 weeks. Then, when it clearly made such a difference, I just used to give it to her for about 3 days before a show.
> 
> It was naughty me this morning more than Tremor - she couldn't believe her luck, because she is always on the lead for the first 10 minutes until her muscles have warmed up.


Thank you  I telephoned and got hold of the lady, it seems to be email problems , so she's sorting it now!!

Ginge- that was a lucky escape with the Labs  hope tonights walk is peaceful. 

JSW- lucky you being allowed to sleep in  that would never happen here, Moll would be hassling me to get up and let the chucks out!! The photos of that walk looked lovely

Dogless- sounds a good morning with the boys. Kilo eeew  isn't Roo doing well. 

A bit strange here . I took Evie back out and walked the bit of village where I thought she was happier, hardly any distance at all before she wanted to turn off again, she led me to a short cut I'd forgotten about that brings you to a section of the track, so we went in to a field for a mooch before coming back. She was on edge but ok, and it was her choice.
Tonight I took her with Moll , just to see and she was happy to carry on past the point she'd previously turned off, we went to another track and some fields. A nice walk and she was quite relaxed, for Evie, but we didn't see anyone.

So whilst I'm really pleased that she did better with Moll being there, I cant help but be upset that she's lost her confidence with just me , she always loved solo walks before.  Things are so up and down with her at the moment.


----------



## Dogless

kat&molly said:


> Thank you  I telephoned and got hold of the lady, it seems to be email problems , so she's sorting it now!!
> 
> Ginge- that was a lucky escape with the Labs  hope tonights walk is peaceful.
> 
> JSW- lucky you being allowed to sleep in  that would never happen here, Moll would be hassling me to get up and let the chucks out!! The photos of that walk looked lovely
> 
> Dogless- sounds a good morning with the boys. Kilo eeew  isn't Roo doing well.
> 
> A bit strange here . I took Evie back out and walked the bit of village where I thought she was happier, hardly any distance at all before she wanted to turn off again, she led me to a short cut I'd forgotten about that brings you to a section of the track, so we went in to a field for a mooch before coming back. She was on edge but ok, and it was her choice.
> Tonight I took her with Moll , just to see and she was happy to carry on past the point she'd previously turned off, we went to another track and some fields. A nice walk and she was quite relaxed, for Evie, but we didn't see anyone.
> 
> So whilst I'm really pleased that she did better with Moll being there, I cant help but be upset that she's lost her confidence with just me , she always loved solo walks before.  Things are so up and down with her at the moment.


k&m - I think perhaps that people and dogs give a different "type" of confidence perhaps rather than being happy with Moll meaning that Evie has lost trust in you at all. I can't really explain what I mean, sorry, I will have a think about how best to phrase what I am trying to say.

Overall though at least short stuff has had a positive couple of days.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thanks Grannie, I reckon anything you come up with will be a real challenge  .
> 
> At present I can do a sendaway to a mat and Kilo will respond to directional commands so I'll need to put some work in!!


Hmmm how much fun is that for Kilo?

I was thinking more on the lines of two small cones (easy to pop in a bag) and teaching him to belt between the two the distance of a football pitch (that sounds much more exciting for Kilo don't you think?)...:devil:

The trouble is if you employ my methods of entertaining/training dogs, you'll either end up locked away or lying in a hospital bed....


----------



## Barcode

So, we have had two days with the Halti. Scrabble has been non-plussed about having it on, and her reactions are more ... subdued. It'll be a work in progress, and she was already massively better than she was a few months ago, I just think I need that extra bit of control when taking the two of them out together.

Today, we were all out (having to walk two at once sometimes as OH abroad), on a muddy path, when FIVE dogs appeared. No escape, the owner stepped to the side to let us pass. I was thinking "PLEASE don't kick off" (a wall of dogs being Scrabble's nightmare) and .... _nothing_. A sniff, and on she toddled. Felt quite chuffed with that, and does show that, when she's chilled, she can be quite friendly.

Something she did today was crouch and sort of try to make herself small as a Boxer approached on-lead. She's not done that before, but then I realized, a Boxer pinned her down sometime ago in the park. I think she is more affected by experiences than I've perhaps realized.

I'm certainly becoming immune to the looks of others. I _know_ Scrabble is not dog aggressive, but she is fearful, and that fear can sometimes manifest itself as seemingly aggressive barking. Looking at her a bit more closely, she's most always trembling and not displaying other aggressive body language. You do have to become immune to the reactions of others with a reactive dog!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm how much fun is that for Kilo?
> 
> I was thinking more on the lines of two small cones (easy to pop in a bag) and teaching him to belt between the two the distance of a football pitch (that sounds much more exciting for Kilo don't you think?)...:devil:
> 
> The trouble is if you employ my methods of entertaining/training dogs, you'll either end up locked away or lying in a hospital bed....


That sounds like a lot of fun for Kilo . I can work Kilo "in drive" and he LOVES the impulse control stuff we do as ultimately he gets to run and to play tug.

How would I achieve the belting between two cones? I understand how I would send him out to one....do I rename the other and send him to whichever I specify then onto the next?

Please forgive me if I am being stupid, my brain is like plaiting fog at present, I have taken my tablets :shocked:.

ETA: Barcode, not ignoring you, just trying to think about anything that may be useful to you!!!


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> That sounds like a lot of fun for Kilo . I can work Kilo "in drive" and he LOVES the impulse control stuff we do as ultimately he gets to run and to play tug.
> 
> How would I achieve the belting between two cones? I understand how I would send him out to one....do I rename the other and send him to whichever I specify then onto the next?
> 
> Please forgive me if I am being stupid, my brain is like plaiting fog at present, I have taken my tablets :shocked:.
> 
> ETA: Barcode, not ignoring you, just trying to think about anything that may be useful to you!!!


Of course you're not being stupid. I went to bed very early last evening as I'm still not feeling very well but I'll send instructions on how you start Kilo off later.

I've got agility with Holly this morning. I don't feel up to running but we're going anyway. We can mess about with the contacts, etc.


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## Nicki85

Good few days here, progress with our "plan" of meeting off lead dogs in the forest. Shae recalls back and comes to close till we collect Rusty who has been put in a wait out front (so he doesn't have to turn his back on the oncoming dog). Both dogs then sit to the side of the path with treats till they've passed. I've had a few comments of "ohh are they aggressive??" so my response is now "no, but they are in training as they are both young dogs full of energy and I don't want them bouncing up to anyone scaring them!!" I'll then either let them greet the other dog or release them once the other dog has moved on. Working so far.... 
Although plans don't always work! Yesterday they were both infront going round a bend to the stream and I didn't have a chance to recall them back. Shae got so excited that there was a person that wanted to talk to her that it prompted zoomies... Rusty then discovered that the dog he was with was an older GS bitch who wanted to play so then he also got over excited and had zoomies. So yes, I suspect I looked just like a person in control of her dogs is supposed to look  As they zoomed round us all... 

Today we had a bit of a blip, we had had a good run round the country park and a swim in the lake. We got back to the car and I got their toys out to do some play work with them. There was a GS in the car next to mine barking but owner didn't appear to be going anywhere quickly so chose the stretch of grass infront of my car to do our exercises on. Shae had been a bit uppity about someone barking at her but was OK. Anyhow, playing fetch and both behaving till the GS gets out... so recall them back. GS is kicking off big time and Shae decides this is not allowed so goes into full blown "I don't like you, gr gr gr" mode. Rusty on the otherhand has also decided that it's all quite worrying and is struggling to get a good view of it all. I'm now knelt down with them both, treats out. Ask Rusty for a down and Shae throws her self on the floor whereas Rust looks on... But the treats work and I get some control over them. The lady then wants her GS to meet mine as it is young and nervy. Fine, mine are now quiet so allow Shae first then Rust to say hi. All good, GS still worried and obviously not sure about what to do so gather mine up to continue play. All good, GS returns a few times (barking) but mine ignore it in favour of playing with their toys. 
So, in some ways i'm happy that they chose to ignore the GS when it returned but the initial bit was a bit much. I should have asked for a down sooner from Shae as she was still responsive whereas Rusty wasn't going to do anything as he was to worried. But they calmed down quickly and greeted the GS nicely when allowed. I need to stop panicking! Without a doubt I made the situation worse for my two. 

It's supposed to rain her later so we'll see about afternoon session. But if it's not too bad I will take Shae on "the school run" (I have no kids so none to pick up lol) for some "look" work. Rust, we will see!


----------



## kat&molly

Dogless- I do get what you're saying re the confidence thing. Evie has taken some good stuff from the other girls, learning that the car was a good place etc. Think it just made me feel a bit sad (and childish )

This morning, I tried her again on my own and she came the whole way, so I'm really pleased , she wasn't as loose in her body as yesterday when Moll was there but did well. I dont really know what to do, taking one of the others seems to help her and any confidence is confidence at the moment but feel like I need to be able to concentrate on just her- plus there is the risk her nerves pass to the others. 
She even wanted to say hello to the young male Pointer that came bounding towards us, I wouldn't be letting him roam the streets if he were mine, he's gorgeous.

Twiggy- hope agaility helps you feel a bit better  and young Holly Bolly is ok.


----------



## Barcode

Dogless said:


> How would I achieve the belting between two cones? I understand how I would send him out to one....do I rename the other and send him to whichever I specify then onto the next?!


Here's how we've done it (in class).

1: Position cones a short distance apart, take dog between each cone. Tap cone, say DOWN (you will eventually just be able to tap).

2: Take dog to one cone (or rather, say AWAY), take a few steps back, say LEFT (or RIGHT, whichever way you want him to go), whilst moving your whole body to the left/right. You will probably need to walk left/right the first few times, until your dog responds to body language.

We took Scrabble on a mini working trials course for a taster of more advanced stuff, and those that were really into it were using a sheepdog whistle, where the different tones corresponded to different directions.

I'd say that Scrabble got the AWAY command pretty quickly, but the Left/Right took a month or so, and even now, it's not perfect (but we're not aiming for too high a level just yet!).

This is the terror herself on a sendaway.


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## Dogless

Thanks Barcode - Kilo knows "left" and "right" pretty well from running and I can send him left and right to find a toy so hopefully (hopefully ) he should be able to cotton on in a reasonable amount of time. Or rather, hopefully I will be able to make myself clear enough for the poor boy in a reasonable amount of time. He learns things very quickly indeed once I work out how to teach them .

k&m - Well done to you and Evie!!

Nicki - the blip sounds like it turned into a little bit of good training for you. 

Walked Rudi onlead on a pavement walk this morning as we haven't done that for a while. He wasn't impressed with the sudden cold temperature and rain so I can confirm that the coat and Mekuti work fine together . He did really well for me, bless him. A woman smoking outside a building said he was beautiful and was I a professional dog walker or was the dog mine? I said mine and she said that she thought it might be my job as he was walking so well. Nice compliment really - he does behave well (in the main ).

His one ear split has almost healed (touch wood!) but the other he seems to have split a little more. I am dithering about vet or not as I am not sure they'll be able to do much. These things just take ages to heal.

I am meeting Dizzy and human very soon with Kilo which should be nice.


----------



## moonviolet

Barcode if it's unavoidable to walk them together is it possible to choose a route with good visibility and where avoiding is possible. As repeatedly putting her in situatiosn she feels overwhelmed is only going to make it more deep seated.
It's no secret i'm not a fan of headcollars ( alothough there are some cases where i can see they are appropriate and I think they be particularly nasty on small dogs when they tighten, lift and twist. Being subdued doesnt' necessarily mean she is feeling any less stressed jsut that she isn't showing it and could internalising it and could long term actually make the issue worse. Alterantives could be shorter seperate walks or skipping a walk in favour of a training session we can get hardwired into they must have walks but sometimes it's not a bad thing to skip a few here or there it's great insurance if we do need to keep them in due to surgery, ill health etc. 
Gorgeous pic scrabble is a cutie.

Nicki i'm impressed your dogs could focus at all with a gsd going mad in a car nearby.

Twiggy hope you are feeling better soon and that Hollybolly exceeds your expectations today.

K&M sounds like Evie did well today fingers crossed you are on a roll.

We're bumbling along as quite nicely don't want to jinx anything. :lol: Do potentially have a bit of a challenge coming up, will say more when it's concrete.


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## JenKyzer

Selfish post  I will catch up later this afternoon..

As we were going out this morning - Willow package was behind the door ( http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...ing-d-our-new-set-up-pics.html#post1063195323 ) so we put them on and off we went  I was a bit wary with the new lead as she's used to her flexi.. but she was amazing; no pulling, not constantly trying to get further (as this lead is shorter) and she stayed pretty close :thumbup1: so say i've never trained 'loose lead' or 'heel work', i was impressed. 
We got half way.. she then decided it was too rainy and wanted to go home :shocked: whiney and whingey until we turned around. 
So we did some simple stuff in the house with the clicker and treats to make up for it and keep her brain moving  Still doing well with the whistle indoors, we seem to of got the hang of 'both paws' now too  Been keeping an eye on the thread of 'forum challenge' i was going to join in - but i'm glad i didn't (too technical video wise and i don't agree with sticky taping my dogs nose :frown2 so might give them a go but at our own pace 

Here's a little snap from this morning of a simple stay whilst i lined some fishy treats up (if i had a HD super camera you would see puddles of drool under her mouth!! :laugh: )


Hope everyone has a good day! I've got a busy afternoon so i will definitely catch up later :thumbup1:


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## Dogless

JSW - what a good girl Willow is...just don't slip in the drool, I really hurt myself once doing that :mad2:.


----------



## Barcode

moonviolet said:


> Barcode if it's unavoidable to walk them together is it possible to choose a route with good visibility and where avoiding is possible. As repeatedly putting her in situatiosn she feels overwhelmed is only going to make it more deep seated.


Yes, I've come to realize this. When I have to walk both together (as I do for a few days until OH returns) I head over to open fields. I'm more confident then, have no problems controlling both at once, and can relax a little more. On the river path ... not so good. The only place to escape is into the river!

In the beginning, when Scrabble arrived, I thought meeting everyone and everything was a good thing (novice mistake). Now, I will not set her up to fail and become stressed. I suspect she'll never be o.k with too many dogs around at once, but certainly, getting her to walk past one without worrying too much should be a feasible aim.



> It's no secret i'm not a fan of headcollars ( alothough there are some cases where i can see they are appropriate and I think they be particularly nasty on small dogs when they tighten, lift and twist. Being subdued doesnt' necessarily mean she is feeling any less stressed jsut that she isn't showing it and could internalising it and could long term actually make the issue worse.


I've got mixed feelings about it, and ideally, would prefer to use _nothing_ at all. A few months ago she was really very, very difficult and would bark at dogs across the street. That's gone now, and we did it by distracting and rewarding in good time. With dogs passing her, I'd say it's about 70/30 as to whether she'll react - certainly still there, but improved from where it was.

For instance, she goes to a dog class and loves it - doesn't kick off at the dogs there, and that's, I suspect, because she knows them. So I don't think we're in too bad a place with her ... but it would be too easy to take the lazy tack and leave it at that.



> Alterantives could be shorter seperate walks or skipping a walk in favour of a training session we can get hardwired into they must have walks but sometimes it's not a bad thing to skip a few here or there it's great insurance if we do need to keep them in due to surgery, ill health etc.


Yup. Our new routine is, OH walks one, me the other (morning), I walk Scrabble in afternoon, and then we all go out for a quick walk when OH comes home (S. needs a little bit more running around than Matilda). But I've also come around to the idea of having chilled days sometimes, training sessions in garden, playing and so forth. And sometimes, that's just as important as building that bond with your dog then goes a great deal towards calmer walks. Today may be one of those days (asthma flare up, thesis needs doing, OH away ....).

Thanks for the advice - helpful to know I'm going along the right sort of lines


----------



## Twiggy

*


kat&molly said:



Dogless- I do get what you're saying re the confidence thing. Evie has taken some good stuff from the other girls, learning that the car was a good place etc. Think it just made me feel a bit sad (and childish )

Click to expand...

*


kat&molly said:


> This morning, I tried her again on my own and she came the whole way, so I'm really pleased , she wasn't as loose in her body as yesterday when Moll was there but did well. I dont really know what to do, taking one of the others seems to help her and any confidence is confidence at the moment but feel like I need to be able to concentrate on just her- plus there is the risk her nerves pass to the others.
> She even wanted to say hello to the young male Pointer that came bounding towards us, I wouldn't be letting him roam the streets if he were mine, he's gorgeous.
> 
> Twiggy- hope agaility helps you feel a bit better  and young Holly Bolly is ok.


Agility was sadly cancelled and the trainer is away next week as well. Bit of a pain as it gets Holly out.

I agree with Dogless - Do you recall all the problems I've had travelling Tremor? The problems are still ongoing (and probably always will be) but Tremor is definitely more relaxed when her little chum Holly is in the car with her. Holly does have some uses....


----------



## moonviolet

Barcode sounds great I love that you see the benefits in bonding through training and games. 

We had a good main walk on the whole great 1 iffy moment when Tink was indulging in a good roll on the grass when i pointer came charging into view followed at some distance by it's owner on a bicycle. I manage to get her on her feet before it arrived at speed to stick it's nose up her chuff got the requisite dirty look when I stepped in front to slow it's arrival. There were no more rolls. I then observed it charge into another dogs game of fetch. we bombed around the trim trail doing some stinkybag retrieves and balancing ( she was doing the impressive stuff i was jsut pleased at remaining upright.) etc. 

The towpath section was interesting watching a dog that was allowed to chase and harass cyclists runners ducks dogs onlead. Until a runner took exception and told the owner to put it onlead, then, of course, it just lunged at all of the above. The fall out from this was I got the nicest "thank you"s i've ever received from runner and cyclists. 

Also I took some poo bags tied in a ribbon and affixed them to the fence at the spot where a dog is repeatedly toileting and it's owner neglects to clean it up. With a little note saying the bags were a gift for the dog's owner. I hope the get the hint.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - pleased Holly has a use at least :thumbup:. Sorry agility was cancelled.

Barcode - hope the new walking regime goes well.

mv - LOVE the gifted poo bags and although Miss Tinks did have an iffy moment the speed with which she recovers now just seems to be getting better all the time; she is doing brilliantly and gives me hope too .

Took the BW up to the top fields and we met Diz and human there as we had arranged. It poured with rain but the pair of them had a lovely hour and a half together - did some training and play combined with Kilo and Diz was just bonkers, loveable Diz.

The one abandoned estate has now been totally closed off where I did lots of training . The pet sitter is letting the 8 dogs at a time in their care off at once in the dog walking field which run up to everyone else (scared Diz the other day) and two other dogs that I have had dramas with before have also run up to Diz barking and howling at him in the last two days. I let Roo off in there this morning but just cannot relax, which is a shame.


----------



## GingerRogers

Barcode I think avoidance is, um, unavoidable when you have a reactive dog, there is one path we will occasionally go down as it leads to lovely open marsh, but my heart is in my mouth, my eyes are on stalks, there's a lets go u turn cue ready on my lips, oddly ninja isn't too bad but she generally hates blind corners and such. You seem to be understanding of her needs and learning all the time, like me, we can only try to do our best 

MV love your present I do hope they appreciate it.

Just a quick one from me, I think I blew ninjas brains up, a little walk, just as its getting a little dark, in a little wood, with just a little of the counties population of pheasants coming into roost.  like a few thousand.

She did stop and get ready to pounce as I wonder at all the noise, sprint to the end of my lead, stop wow all them thingys, run, wow, run, wow, run etc etc so mindblown up she didnt even want her tea when we got in and had to have a sofa cuddle with OH before any interest was shown. :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Hope Ninja's mind has survived the night .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Hope Ninja's mind has survived the night .


I think she has survived but we will have to see if any strange behaviours surface


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Barcode sounds great I love that you see the benefits in bonding through training and games.
> 
> We had a good main walk on the whole great 1 iffy moment when Tink was indulging in a good roll on the grass when i pointer came charging into view followed at some distance by it's owner on a bicycle. I manage to get her on her feet before it arrived at speed to stick it's nose up her chuff got the requisite dirty look when I stepped in front to slow it's arrival. There were no more rolls. I then observed it charge into another dogs game of fetch. we bombed around the trim trail doing some stinkybag retrieves and balancing ( she was doing the impressive stuff i was jsut pleased at remaining upright.) etc.
> 
> The towpath section was interesting watching a dog that was allowed to chase and harass cyclists runners ducks dogs onlead. Until a runner took exception and told the owner to put it onlead, then, of course, it just lunged at all of the above. The fall out from this was I got the nicest "thank you"s i've ever received from runner and cyclists.
> 
> *Also I took some poo bags tied in a ribbon and affixed them to the fence at the spot where a dog is repeatedly toileting and it's owner neglects to clean it up. With a little note saying the bags were a gift for the dog's owner. I hope the get the hint.*




Love it - you're a star Moonviolet....:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Went to the forest this morning just as it was waking up.....cold, very wet apart from a blissful half an hour rain free in the middle and very windy. The boys had to keep moving as they just shivered every time they stopped and there were loads of good scents so they did a lot of hunting and a lot of racing and chasing each other. There's nothing quite like seeing them flat out, it's amazing  . As long as they aren't flat out going somewhere that I don't want them to :scared:.. Must start taking my gloves .


----------



## Twiggy

I'm about to book Holly in on a different agility class a bit further away.

I looked on their website and they use a huge indoor riding school during the winter months, whereas our current class finishes as soon as it starts to get muddy. Jolly good thinks me, so I ring and have a chat with the chap only to be told they no longer use the indoor school and continue to train outside throughout the winter....

Oh well we'll give it a go - well I will, Holly may decide not too....

He did ask the breed and got quite excited when I said young collie bitch. I did try and explain Holly's not your 'normal' hypy collie.....LOL


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I'm about to book Holly in on a different agility class a bit further away.
> 
> I looked on their website and they use a huge indoor riding school during the winter months, whereas our current class finishes as soon as it starts to get muddy. Jolly good thinks me, so I ring and have a chat with the chap only to be told they no longer use the indoor school and continue to train outside throughout the winter....
> 
> Oh well we'll give it a go - well I will, Holly may decide not too....
> 
> He did ask the breed and got quite excited when I said young collie bitch. I did try and explain Holly's not your 'normal' hypy collie.....LOL


Funny you should say about an indoor school this is our next challenge, a sport foundation course in an indoor school. Gaining focus and minimising rolling is going to be a challenge with the grothound


----------



## Nicki85

When Shae first started training in an outdoor riding arena she used to have crazy zoomies from being on the sand... Sand was soooo exciting!!!! My agility sessions are in two different indoor arenas (smug).


----------



## moonviolet

Nicki85 said:


> When Shae first started training in an outdoor riding arena she used to have crazy zoomies from being on the sand... Sand was soooo exciting!!!! My agility sessions are in two different indoor arenas (smug).


The zoomie part is not filling me with confidence :lol: I'm not really doing it for the content it's all stuff Tink likes, but the location and that there will be an agility class at the other end of the school. At least I have an understanding trainer who is fine if we just sit in a corner taking it all in between rolls :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> When Shae first started training in an outdoor riding arena she used to have crazy zoomies from being on the sand... Sand was soooo exciting!!!! My agility sessions are in two different indoor arenas (smug).


Well the indoor sand arena may certainly have that effect on Miss Tinks but I very much doubt it would on Holly Bolly.....


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## tiatortilla

Just a quick phone update today, hope everyone is well!
Had a mainly good walk today, didn't bark at two wee terriers and a whippet when she was on lead, did some LLW practice with a collar as her harness is out of action due to cow poo . And recalls were okay apart from two where I had to go and retrieve her from sniffing something. She did have a bit of a barky moment at a big black fluffy dog who snuck up behind us in the park but I apologised and fortunately the owner understood and didn't mind.


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## kat&molly

MV- hope the dog owner takes the 'subtle' hint and clears up. and that Tink got back to the serious business of rolling today.

Dogless- that sounded very cold today, poor shivery boys- least they keep busy!! 

Twiggy- hope HB enjoys the agility when you go. 

Hope Ninja had a good day.

A good morning walk here, walked through the village to this walk Evie's happier with. Took the 3 together as I had an early client, Short Stuff did really well again until the rain got heavy then she stood there , head down and sulky until we came home. 

This afternoon Jay got a little walk- not far as it started to rain , she detests it as well! Scruff got a run with the bike, not too far , although she's fit she's not used to it, I shouldn't have worried- she never broke out of a trot. I didn't fare so well 

A big stick to beat myself with needed now 

Took Moll and Evie together, Shorty decided she wanted to go up the track, now she hasn't felt safe to go far up this way for a while now, for some reason passing the fence running noisy Setters started to upset her , previously she coped by finding treats as we pass.
It was a lovely walk she really enjoyed the fields and little swim in the river . All until it was time to come back- it was stop start all the way until about 20 meters from the dogs , when she just couldn't move any further, poor little bugger- and to make matters worse a woman came to that house, of all the times to see someone that wasn't the best- although she did eat a couple of treats that I threw on the floor.
Going that way was one decision I shouldn't have let her make- or not go that far anyway.


----------



## JenKyzer

K&M - Sorry she made the wrong decision - you wasn't to know all that was to happen and at least you know for next time she decides to be daring.. the rest of your day sounds good though 

Tia - Well done to her for ignoring the first dogs  there's bound to be always one they react to that little more  and theres always something more interesting to sniff at here aswell  sounds like a good walk all in all though 

Twiggy - Shame the new class isn't still indoors.. but nvm.. gloves hats and scarves all round  hope Holly enjoys it.

Dogless - I'm already on gloves here too  and a scarf this morning! or maybe i'm just soft..  .. sounds like a good time was had by you and the boys this morning though 

GR - Hope ninja's brain recovered from last night  bless her! 

MV - :laugh: i wonder if someone will actually have the guts to use them?? I hope someone is deeply embarrassed when they see them! Good luck with the new challenge also 

Barcode - Lovely picture  I can't even imagine Willow doing stuff like that  i will try left/right one day though .. poor girl was worked with the clicker today and got all confused so i want start adding more just yet 

Horrible day here.. but Willow was good as gold (for me ..) 

First thing to start my day was 2girls knocking on my door saying a cat was stuck in my neighbours window  .. Went out back.. and there the poor thing was trapped and not moving  . Willow was going beserk barking up at it but she went back inside no problem - recall from the yard away from a cat/smell has been a work in progress and it takes my very stern horrible voice and a good point at the door! RSPCA got involved.. such a shame  .

Good walk this morning - just pavement stuff with the usual.

We had looads of good fun indoors today though with clicker and whistle  i boggled her little brain and she got all confused (lying down when i said 'paw' and just a muddled up dog! She seems to do this when i get excited too and i'm yapping out quick commands.. my fault.. slow and steady wins the race and all that  ) so we took a breather.. then carried on. 
Willow was a monkey for the OH and ignored a stay & recall.. but that's his problem and i told him how it was his fault for setting her up to fail.. silly man. Willows now flat out on the sofa  

One day to go until we disappear for the whole weekend


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## Dogless

k&m - don't beat yourself too hard; maybe you did progress things a little too far (haven't we all? ) but it sounds as if you salvaged some good from the situation and Evie was still eating treats which is good :thumbup:.

JSW - hope the cat's OK . Also hope Willow's feeling less boggled now....and as for your OH....men   .

Just took the boys up to the top fields in the car tonight for some play and a little training. They were good and are now sparked out after a cow's ear each .


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## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> JSW - hope the cat's OK . Also hope Willow's feeling less boggled now....and as for your OH....men   .
> 
> Just took the boys up to the top fields in the car tonight for some play and a little training. They were good and are now sparked out after a cow's ear each .


Unfortunately it had been there too long.. By the time RSPCA came it was already out of its misery & gone rigid .. God knows how long the poor thing struggled for. Horrible.  .

Willows copying your boys.. Flat out after a game of tug with some 'leaves' & 'stays' & 'go get it!!!'s' thrown in


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## Twiggy

k&m - I'm with Dogless. Don't beat yourself up, you were doing your best and Evie (much like Holly) isn't the easiest little dog to 'read'.

JSW - Please take a tip from an old lady (whose been training dogs for a very long time). Dogs, much like us of the superior sex, take absolutely no notice of OHs whatsoever, so I shouldn't waste your breathe trying to explain to your OH anything about training. My husband still hasn't mastered the difference between "sit" and "down" and I gave up trying to explain about 30 years ago.....


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## Nicki85

Bit of a manic day here... Early morning walk at 6.30am(!) (yes, I know not early for all- but is for me!). Met a couple of dogs offlead before I could get mine onlead (well, they had got to the other dog before i'd seen it) but all was fine, they recalled away really nicely so happy. Tricky down some of these windy paths when you can't see ahead and the dogs are running around.

Then I had a meeting in London so left instructions for dog walker. This was the first time I said they could let both of them off lead together. I did warn them that Shae can be a bit bonkers running around after Rust and to put him back on lead if that was the case. Anyhow, short note from them saying that she was a bit crazy! I'll leave it up to them to do what they want with keeping them on/off lead... they are walked in the normal forest out back so not much trouble they can get up to and I trust them to make the right decision. I know what Shae can be like and suspect it's ten times worse with a new exciting person... 

Then back from London and off to agility  Got Shae out for a play and I was super pleased with her... two JRT were coming up the road and kicked off big time. I asked Shae for close and watch and she behaved perfectly... so much so that they commented on how good she was! She then got to go play with the hose in the indoor arena... She starts training there next week, i'm a bit worried as she thinks its FABULOUS!!!! there... which is nice but think crazy puppy zoomies allover the place  Rust then came out for his bit, he was lovely- very happy to be working and generally bouncing around all over the place. He did get a bit anxious (big yawns...) with another dog barking a lot which is a shame, but he's going into a different class soon so hopefully won't be an issue. He was still happy to lick his meaty sock and roll around in the dirt so not too badly affected but still some big, anxious yawns going on inbetween runs. Rust much prefers running outside and is alot more confident outside... 

KM- sorry to hear Evie had another scare, bless her  Has she always been so bad or is just an accumulation of incidents that have led to it?
DL- Glad you've had a good day with the boys 
Twiggy- good luck at the new agility venue, hope Holly isn't to worried by the new setting. 
JSW- sounds like you are having fun with the clicker!!- Neither of my two will work nicely for anyone else  And sorry to hear about the poor cat  Poor thing  
MV- hope you enjoy your new classes (and venue) to!


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> JSW - Please take a tip from an old lady (whose been training dogs for a very long time). Dogs, much like us of the superior sex, take absolutely no notice of OHs whatsoever, so I shouldn't waste your breathe trying to explain to your OH anything about training. My husband still hasn't mastered the difference between "sit" and "down" and I gave up trying to explain about 30 years ago.....


See thats where Willow was/is an anomaly in that train of thought.. Recall to OH is spot on offlead.. With me.. well.. she's learning  and other general commands with him are great too.. maybe just after our clicker session she just thought 'you have no treats and never do so stuff you :dita:' and came to find me instead


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> See thats where Willow was/is an anomaly in that train of thought.. Recall to OH is spot on offlead.. With me.. well.. she's learning  and other general commands with him are great too.. maybe just after our clicker session she just thought 'you have no treats and never do so stuff you :dita:' and came to find me instead


I'd say Willow (like most females) is learning how to handle OH.....!!


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> I'd say Willow (like most females) is learning how to handle OH.....!!


Leading him into a false sense of security... then making him jealous when she reacts to me more positively...

... i like her style


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Leading him into a false sense of security... then making him jealous when she reacts to me more positively...
> 
> ... i like her style


Yes very classy....LOL

My little brown bombshell Fidget was the one with men. She was outrageous and had my hubby, vet and even my trainer wrapped firmly round her little paws....


----------



## Freddie and frank

good morning guys. 

i need a bit of advice from you wise folk of WAYWO.

it's about frank.
he's always been a bit of a handful in many ways. very excitable and quite scatty, and now i'm thinking anxious, nervy too.
when i get his collar out for walks, he's so excited but i do ask him to sit and put it on when he's calm. soon as it's on he's jumping again. i can handle that. for off lead walks,so to speak, he is on a harness and a long line. just lately, he hates having his harness on and soon as it's on, he turns around and sits on the floor not moving until it's time to get in the car.
he's fine soon as we get to our walk. 
i have checked around his harness to see if there is anything sticking in him or if it's rubbing him etc...nothing.
it's concerning me as he doesn't look like he's just chilling, it looks like he is upset about something. 

also, at the start of a lead walk, he can never seem to focus on me for the first 5 minutes until he's had a poo. wether he's had one at home or not, it's as if it's the most important thing to do first. 
as soon as he's found the right place, done the poo dance and done the deed, he's focused. still quite scatty and nervous almost.

i hope i've given you all a clear picture of my concerns and i'm sure you all can help in some way.  
i've got to do lots of work so will pop back in later if that's ok. 
i've looked at thundershirts just quickly but don't know much about them. have you guys used them?

i feel a bit pants about it really, hoping i haven't misjudged frank being anxious for something else if that makes any sense 
he's the most chilled out dog in the house, in his own surroundings but is completely different out in the big wide world.
i'm worried about him.


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## Dogless

F&F - I think my very first port of call would be a vet check if you can't see a drama with the harness. Then start to eliminate other possibilities from there.

If it's any consolation I always know when Kilo needs a poo as he becomes very distracted indeed, then fine once he's had one .


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> F&F - I think my very first port of call would be a vet check if you can't see a drama with the harness. Then start to eliminate other possibilities from there.
> 
> If it's any consolation I always know when Kilo needs a poo as he becomes very distracted indeed, then fine once he's had one .


Same here  I often dont realise for some reason then just as I reach the end of my tether, she does the deed and walks like an angel 

Ninja too is very relaxed in the house but a nutter outside, all due to anxiety and excitement. That doesnt really help with the harness stillness though : I would second the vetcheck, there may be some pain/uncomfortableness which is forgotten in the excitement of the walk.


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## kat&molly

JSW- That poor cat , how upsetting.  
Its going well with the clicker , enjoy your weekend away. 

F+F+B- I can only echo getting Frank checked out with the harness thing, not sure I understand all your post(sorry) is being anxious outside a new thing or do you think something in particular has upset him. Either way I hope you get to the bottom of it.

Nikki- that was a very full on day, you must have ants in your pants 
Evie has always been fearful since she came 2 years ago, we were making small improvements until recently, things just built up I think and it took me a while to spot the signs.

Scruff has gone to work with OH again this morning, off she trotted with her little packed lunch.

After cocking up yesterday I took Moll and Evie around the Loop as I felt it was the easiest , she is getting better here, still checks behind occasionally but looking more relaxed. 
Hopefully we haven't done too much damage , it does seem as if she's turning a little corner now. Fingers crossed.

Doing well on this problem of Molls when she is in 'possession' of a toy. It could be a bit of RG as well as going over threshold , she doesn't show any aggression at all but I'm sure she sees me as a threat who's going to 'steal' her toys. She's about 90percent of the way there now. 

Hope everyone's having a good day.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Thanks guys. Will arrange a visit to the vets then. 
He always does a lot of lip licking too which I forgot to mention earlier.

Eta...k&m sorry, I don't explain myself clearly sometimes. 
I've always thought frank was alert on walks but recently I've been thinking have I totally misread it and is he anxious??? It seems to be worse just lately. It takes ages for him to seem to relax and calm down.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> F&F - I think my very first port of call would be a vet check if you can't see a drama with the harness. Then start to eliminate other possibilities from there.
> 
> If it's any consolation I always know when Kilo needs a poo as he becomes very distracted indeed, then fine once he's had one .


Ditto here as well.....


----------



## Twiggy

The chiropractor was better pleased with Tremor this morning.

The hamstring (right hind) is far less tight and her back isn't anything like as sore.

There are still issues and she wants to treat her again in three weeks time but, after the normal rest period today and tomorrow, she said to start working her and gradually increasing the length of training periods....:thumbup:

Phew - I hope we're getting there. It's been a long haul.


----------



## kat&molly

Twiggy said:


> The chiropractor was better pleased with Tremor this morning.
> 
> The hamstring (right hind) is far less tight and her back isn't anything like as sore.
> 
> There are still issues and she wants to treat her again in three weeks time but, after the normal rest period today and tomorrow, she said to start working her and gradually increasing the length of training periods....:thumbup:
> 
> Phew - I hope we're getting there. It's been a long haul.


Woo woo, light at the end of the tunnel. Thats lovely news and I'm cautiously happy for you both. 

F+F- Its easy to miss a lot of things, but once you start looking it sort of becomes obvious. Its finding out exactly what it is thats bothering him, let us know how he goes.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - cautious happiness for Tremor here too; progress finally .

Lead walk for Rudi this morning; he was a bit spooky in the hoolie that's blowing but did well, bless him. It was recycling bin day so the pavement were strewn with luscious morsels :scared: and tantalising smells.

Top fields for Kilo and I just played with him, kicking his ball for him.

Mindless really and I had meant to start on his fun sendaways but the high winds (he gets very chasey and distracted) and other stuff going on meant that I just couldn't muster the focus I needed. I know, excuses .


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## GingerRogers

MV - I hope you and Tink enjoy the next challenge, you are so lucky having great training opportunities, I would love to take ninja back to classes but I haven't found anyone close enough to risk wasting a trip if they wont let me sit out/cant get enough distance.

K&M can only echo the others, we can only trust them so far but we all misjudge things, glad you had a better one today.

JSW - going anywhere nice for the weekend, Sorry if I missed it .

F&F - could it be an accumulation like Kat is experiencing with Evie, dont feel bad if you havent noticed the signs (well I know you will but dont be too harsh on yourself ) you have spotted something is up now and can address it. I thought ninja was just a bit of a monster to walk on lead but realised her frantic scampering is all stress, and there's very little I can do to get her walking nicely when she is in that zone. We all miss things.

Twiggy - thats excellent news, I hope the improvement continues, I am sure Tremor will be glad to get back at it as will you :thumbup:

Well we went back to the wood of exciting pheasant roost today. Met a lady who had an off lead cairn, I am afraid I did have ninja unmuzzled as the car park was empty, so we stepped to one side and I hurriedly put it on, and carried on up the fence line away from the path, she called out hello, so I just said we arent very friendly, oh she said we are the opposite, then panicked as she couldn't recall the dog who was now directly behind us, I decided to let them meet rather than try and carry on as, well, it was already on us 

Good lordy two terriers can make a hell of a row when partaking of their favourite 'bark and bounce' technique of enticing play :scared: it was like a speaking mirror!!

The lady then happily admitted she has 'one of those spray collars at home for when she barks too much' 'terriers are fun arent they' ' we are just getting in our good 4 miles' :frown: and we left. I am afraid to say I was too shocked to express even a little dismay at her collar use but also it clearly wasn't working!!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> MV - I hope you and Tink enjoy the next challenge, you are so lucky having great training opportunities, I would love to take ninja back to classes but I haven't found anyone close enough to risk wasting a trip if they wont let me sit out/cant get enough distance.
> 
> K&M can only echo the others, we can only trust them so far but we all misjudge things, glad you had a better one today.
> 
> JSW - going anywhere nice for the weekend, Sorry if I missed it .
> 
> F&F - could it be an accumulation like Kat is experiencing with Evie, dont feel bad if you havent noticed the signs (well I know you will but dont be too harsh on yourself ) you have spotted something is up now and can address it. I thought ninja was just a bit of a monster to walk on lead but realised her frantic scampering is all stress, and there's very little I can do to get her walking nicely when she is in that zone. We all miss things.
> 
> Twiggy - thats excellent news, I hope the improvement continues, I am sure Tremor will be glad to get back at it as will you :thumbup:
> 
> Well we went back to the wood of exciting pheasant roost today. Met a lady who had an off lead cairn, I am afraid I did have ninja unmuzzled as the car park was empty, so we stepped to one side and I hurriedly put it on, and carried on up the fence line away from the path, she called out hello, so I just said we arent very friendly, oh she said we are the opposite, then panicked as she couldn't recall the dog who was now directly behind us, I decided to let them meet rather than try and carry on as, well, it was already on us
> 
> Good lordy two terriers can make a hell of a row when partaking of their favourite 'bark and bounce' technique of enticing play :scared: it was like a speaking mirror!!
> 
> *The lady then happily admitted she has 'one of those spray collars at home for when she barks too much' 'terriers are fun arent they' ' we are just getting in our good 4 miles' :frown: and we left. I am afraid to say I was too shocked to express even a little dismay at her collar use but also it clearly wasn't working!!*




Perhaps as well there wasn't time for further conversation....!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Perhaps as well there wasn't time for further conversation....!!


I think it possibly was


----------



## JenKyzer

GR - We're going to Carnforth - My grandparents have a static on a little road next to a beach - only about 7 other caravans on there too ..  Willow loved it last time we went just for the day so we're making a weekend of it :thumbup: 
Hope the rest of your walk after the little meet was good and ninja's mind isnt as boggled as before  glad ninja made a friend to bark and bounce with  ..( as for the collar.. no comment  )

Dogless - I don't see excuses, i see you not setting him up to fail  If he's more distracted then why start something new where he needs more focus (that would be my train of thought anyway ).. mindless fun is always great fun anyway and i'm sure it made no difference to kilo and he loved it just as much as being worked 

Twiggy - Sounds like a good visit  I'm happy for you too and long may the progress continue even if its gradual :thumbup:

F&F - no advice from me  i'm still under qualified for the WAYWO-advice-giving yet  but i hope you get to the bottom of it soon and it's nothing too major  I'm sure PF members are always on hand for help and advice too 

K&M - Willow loves it when the clicker comes out the drawer and sits immediately :laugh: Thankyou .. i hope the weather perks up though!
Glad evie was ok after yesterday and i hope you get round that little corner  sounds like she's doing well.. but i feel like i don't want to talk about it incase i jinx it .. maybe messages like this will help, like a whisper!  . Didn't realise you had some toy stuff to work on with moll.. well done for getting 90% of where you want to be though 

All quiet here really.. apart from if you heard Willow barking at the posties again this morning  She wasn't for carrying on and didn't want to turn her back to the post-woman walking in the opposite direction .. so a good sit and stay with a shush got her focused on me.. then carried on.. and she carried on good past the post-guy who was going back in his van, a little grumbly but she stopped staring anyway  . She was very charged this morning though; at the end of her lead like a little steam train, so lots of recalls back to me and we had a little run at the top of the hill where theres no houses or many cars to witness me running  with some stays and sits thrown into the running all of a sudden.. this got rid of her extra energy.. which i'm glad of as it knackered me too  and she was back to normal on the way home  
I've been out though and just got home to the sofa cushions all over and the throw all messy.. so god knows what she's been up to the little madam .. normally there's just a dent in the throw where she's been asleep whilst we're out


----------



## Freddie and frank

Thanks for the replies. 

Well I took frank to see the vet tonight. He checked him over and apart from a slight stiff neck, he couldn't find anything.  gave him rimadyl and got to take him back next week. 
Since I've been home, I've been thinking....whenever I've gone close to franks head, as if to give him a kiss, he has always sort of bowed his head down. It's like he has to get physically lower.(I don't do it now cause he obviously doesn't like it) So I'm wondering if this is what the vet meant. 
Now, I've been thinking a lot more too. . and I'm wondering if it's me and my bad choice of trainers in the past that's had a knock on effect. 

Sorry it's long but I'll try to be quick.....I think frank was about 12 - 18 months old and I had done training classes, good citizen up to and working on silver. His lead walking was becoming a problem as was his greeting other dogs. He used to growl, bark and pull me all over the place. Sometimes in classes. I was told to tread on his lead close to his collar and make him lie down.  he pulled me over a few times so I took him to a one to one and we met the trainers dog and soon as the other dog came close to frank, he growled etc and I had to tread on his lead etc etc. I really struggled with this and looking back now, I can't believe I actually did it. I'm totally ashamed thinking about it now. :crying: poor thing.

I then found a guy who was supposed to be fantastic. Charged a fortune. He wasn't all bad as he introduced me to clicker training and frank does respond really well to the clicker. I stopped going to him when he said I must rough him up a bit, pull his tail and then grab his collar and throw him onto his back to show him who's boss.  I didn't ever do that and I never went back.

On his own, we are walking on a lead and collar now, which has taken a while,but have the dogmatic at hand if needed. All achieved using the clicker.

Bella was a nightmare when she came to me but with positive reinforcement she has become a dream to walk, recalls are really good, all in all she's great.Freddie has never been a problem and I took him to the same good citizens place as frank.

So, I'm thinking it's me and not understanding frank in his early years, plus taking very bad advice that has made him a nervous anxious dog.

How on earth do I turn that one around ??????


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Thanks for the replies.
> 
> Well I took frank to see the vet tonight. He checked him over and apart from a slight stiff neck, he couldn't find anything.  gave him rimadyl and got to take him back next week.
> Since I've been home, I've been thinking....whenever I've gone close to franks head, as if to give him a kiss, he has always sort of bowed his head down. It's like he has to get physically lower.(I don't do it now cause he obviously doesn't like it) So I'm wondering if this is what the vet meant.
> Now, I've been thinking a lot more too. . and I'm wondering if it's me and my bad choice of trainers in the past that's had a knock on effect.
> 
> Sorry it's long but I'll try to be quick.....I think frank was about 12 - 18 months old and I had done training classes, good citizen up to and working on silver. His lead walking was becoming a problem as was his greeting other dogs. He used to growl, bark and pull me all over the place. Sometimes in classes. I was told to tread on his lead close to his collar and make him lie down.  he pulled me over a few times so I took him to a one to one and we met the trainers dog and soon as the other dog came close to frank, he growled etc and I had to tread on his lead etc etc. I really struggled with this and looking back now, I can't believe I actually did it. I'm totally ashamed thinking about it now. :crying: poor thing.
> 
> I then found a guy who was supposed to be fantastic. Charged a fortune. He wasn't all bad as he introduced me to clicker training and frank does respond really well to the clicker. I stopped going to him when he said I must rough him up a bit, pull his tail and then grab his collar and throw him onto his back to show him who's boss.  I didn't ever do that and I never went back.
> 
> On his own, we are walking on a lead and collar now, which has taken a while,but have the dogmatic at hand if needed. All achieved using the clicker.
> 
> Bella was a nightmare when she came to me but with positive reinforcement she has become a dream to walk, recalls are really good, all in all she's great.Freddie has never been a problem and I took him to the same good citizens place as frank.
> 
> So, I'm thinking it's me and not understanding frank in his early years, plus taking very bad advice that has made him a nervous anxious dog.
> 
> How on earth do I turn that one around ??????


From what you've just said, the first thing I would do with Frank is get him to a good McTimoney chiropractor or canine massage therapist asap.

If it was necessary for your vet to prescribe Rimadyl there is obviously something wrong and Frank could well be in pain.

When I asked the massage therapist to look at Tremor almost two weeks ago at a show, she said there was a problem in her neck (as well as all the issues in her hind-quarters).

Tremor had her spine re-aligned last week and again this morning by the chiropractor (who is also a massage therapist) and she worked on the muscles in the neck this morning for a good 20 minutes. She has also told/shown me an exercise to do with her after each training session to loosen up the muscles in her neck.

HTH


----------



## Dogless

Took Roo for a run tonight; he was fabulous. It was blowing a gale so he was excitable but went past a footie match with no more than mild interest. Took the BW to meet Dizzy. Can't type much more as I'm feeling thoroughly floored....chemical cosh :scared:.

Roo HAS to be with me....


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## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> From what you've just said, the first thing I would do with Frank is get him to a good McTimoney chiropractor or canine massage therapist asap.
> 
> If it was necessary for your vet to prescribe Rimadyl there is obviously something wrong and Frank could well be in pain.
> 
> When I asked the massage therapist to look at Tremor almost two weeks ago at a show, she said there was a problem in her neck (as well as all the issues in her hind-quarters).
> 
> Tremor had her spine re-aligned last week and again this morning by the chiropractor (who is also a massage therapist) and she worked on the muscles in the neck this morning for a good 20 minutes. She has also told/shown me an exercise to do with her after each training session to loosen up the muscles in her neck.
> 
> HTH


Ok. Thanks. 
I've just found a couple of numbers to try tomorrow.


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## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Ok. Thanks.
> I've just found a couple of numbers to try tomorrow.


Helen Lightfoot is one of the best and I don't think she's too far away from you.


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## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Helen Lightfoot is one of the best and I don't think she's too far away from you.


Just looked. She's about 40 mins away. 
Thanks for that.


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## moonviolet

Today I have worked on explaining to a professional dog walker and breeder why it is not acceptable to allow more than half a dozen large dogs to run up to an onlead dog. 

Mind you cracking business plan.. breed dogs sell them locally then get paid to walk them by their new owners. 

Will catch up properly when I'm feel less :mad2: :mad2: :mad2:


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## GingerRogers

Sorry mv you had a bad experience I take. 

FF please don't feel bad move on and learn. I have done terrible things according to my current thinking. At the time i thought i was right. We all change and hopefully we can improve.


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## Dogless

mv - hope you are feeling a little better today .

F&F - I agree with GR ref mistakes; hope that the McTimoney chiro can help Frank.

Guess what woke me up this morning? Play getting a bit boisterous in the lounge :incazzato:. For about the second time ever I went to bed before hubby last night....all I asked him to do was put the boys out for a last wee and then to bed. They don't sleep on the sofa in the lounge, they sleep in their beds in the hall :incazzato:. Still I am sure they enjoyed it . Good job he goes back to work for 3 weeks this morning  .


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## Freddie and frank

Gr, dogless, thanks. Think I must be super stressed at the moment as the past just plays on my mind sometimes. Can't erase it so learn from it. 

Mv, hope you're feeling better this morning. 

I've got my mctimoney numbers ready to call today. 

Dogless, love the picture of rudi. Can't believe how much he's grown. 

Thanks again guys.


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## kat&molly

F+F+B- I hope you can get some help sorted for Frank. Agree with the others too, dont beat yourself up, we're all learning all the time. 

MV- I am sorry you and Tink had a bad experience, and that this 'professional' has taken notice. 

Dogless- that sloppy boy Roo 

Some thoughtful person telephoned us at 5 0'clock this morning :yikes:, I jumped out of bed , expecting an emergency somewhere- for whoever it was to put the phone down quickly when they realised it was the wrong number 
I couldn't have been out of bed any more than 30 seconds , when I got back there was a certain little Teckel sleeping in my space


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Today I have worked on explaining to a professional dog walker and breeder why it is not acceptable to allow more than half a dozen large dogs to run up to an onlead dog.
> 
> Mind you cracking business plan.. breed dogs sell them locally then get paid to walk them by their new owners.
> 
> Will catch up properly when I'm feel less :mad2: :mad2: :mad2:


I'd have liked to be standing behind you whist you explained....!!

Dogs are exploited is so many different ways sadly.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> mv - hope you are feeling a little better today .
> 
> F&F - I agree with GR ref mistakes; hope that the McTimoney chiro can help Frank.
> 
> Guess what woke me up this morning? Play getting a bit boisterous in the lounge :incazzato:. For about the second time ever I went to bed before hubby last night....all I asked him to do was put the boys out for a last wee and then to bed. They don't sleep on the sofa in the lounge, they sleep in their beds in the hall :incazzato:. Still I am sure they enjoyed it . Good job he goes back to work for 3 weeks this morning  .


At the risk of repeating myself - OH/Hubbys have no dog sense whatsoever and they don't listen and can't seem to follow the simplest instructions....


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## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I'd have liked to be standing behind you whist you explained....!!
> 
> Dogs are exploited is so many different ways sadly.


Sadly more and more dog walkers and their over excited party dogs are charging around locally ...but of course they are friendly so it's ok for them to charge en masse.... and my dog is poorly trained and badly socialised because she had to be put on lead to prevent her running in fear. In fact should have left her off lead and let her be a dog.

Truly i despair around here, soon you will have to walk in groups to stop being mown down by one.


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## DogTrainer01

Oooh I've got a lot of catching up to do! 

Very quickly from us. We've had a nice relaxing week. I've been driving down the road to the local field so Kob can have a few days of just chilling and playing without worrying about cars. For now I'm going to try and keep that up everyday. Started back on the car chasing training yesterday. I've also taken him off the gentle leader! 

Andy has been lovely out and about. We haven't come across many other dogs or people but when we have he has been great - no funny stress-y noises all week! 

He has started barking in the house though. I *think* because of the dogs behind us and to the left of us. I have no idea how I'm going to start training that yet - any suggestions welcome

Off to do some work and then come back and catch up!


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## Dogless

DogTrainer01 said:


> He has started barking in the house though. I *think* because of the dogs behind us and to the left of us. I have no idea how I'm going to start training that yet - any suggestions welcome
> 
> Off to do some work and then come back and catch up!


Maybe you hear them bark and call him to you for a game or treat. So he hears them bark and comes to you automatically rather than barking back?

Pleased you've had a nice relaxing week, sounds good.


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## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Sadly more and more dog walkers and their over excited party dogs are charging around locally ...but of course they are friendly so it's ok for them to charge en masse.... and my dog is poorly trained and badly socialised because she had to be put on lead to prevent her running in fear. In fact should have left her off lead and let her be a dog.
> 
> Truly i despair around here, soon you will have to walk in groups to stop being mown down by one.


Well of course the 'professionals' are going to be in the right aren't they?
It's good business sense to walk far too many dogs at any given time.

It's about time local councils started investigating but of course they won't.


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## Freddie and frank

Left a message with Helen Lightfoot today, so just waiting on a reply back. 

Waiting for hubby to come back from work so we can take all three on a nice new walk I've found, not a busy one either. . Then up early in the morning to drive 45 miles up the M6 to Bellas gun dog training. 

Dt01, when Bella barks in the house at me for attention, we had to exclude her behind the stair gate. No eye contact, no talking then praise her and let her back in when she had been quiet for a short time. Not sure if this helps as its a different situation than me but just wanted to share what worked with me just incase it is of any use. 

Have a good night and weekend folks. . Will let you know when I have heard from the chiropracter.


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## GingerRogers

We do similar with ninja and its slowly sinking in, her trigger is things on the telly, as soon as she starts a grumbling she is asked for quiet and if she doesn't she is placed on her bed in the dining area, its an open plan house but this is behind the sofa, means she cant see the telly but she loves to be with us so it is a punishment of sorts (she gets a treat for going there ), she will get called back in seconds. Now 9/10 if we say 'do you want to go to your bed' in the sickly patronizing tone people use for their children she will subside into minor grimbles, any more and the threat is followed through. 

I dont like using any form of punishment but nothing else worked and it is very, very frustrating, its about the only thing she does that could be classed as 'naughty' and there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to what she barks at so we cant just avoid certain programs. 

When we had Rory and lived on the farm, he would bark every time someone came into the yard over the cattle grid, which was great apart from at harvest time when we had grain lorries coming and going all day and night. He soon picked up my frustrated, 'shush its only the tractor' meant quiet and I used 'tractor' as his cue for quiet even after we moved 

We had a cruddy walk this morning, my fault I should have stayed in. Doctors visit did go as well as hoped which upset me a bit (nothing wrong dont worry), so was feeling cruddy anyway, in my heart I knew I should stay indoors but the stupid brain said, 'you must walk the dog' 

She was a nervous wreck, probably feeding off me , I tried to sit down with her and give her some adjustment time just as a lab we had barked at last week came round the corner, I leapt up and zoomed into a parking drive bit completely forgetting the DA GSD and his westie partner in crime backed onto it, and have a floor length conservatory :yikes: so we have the three of them kicking off royally, ninja alternating between them and the lab and I am getting disgusted looks from the lab man. The noise woke all the neighbourhood dogs up so getting back home was a trial to say the least, I sat down on our step to let her calm down before we went indoors and she did shake it off and start focusing on me a bit more


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## Twiggy

Really sorry you had such a bad walk GR.

I've just got back from going to see and buying some second-hand agility equipment for Holly Bolly. It's not 'proper' stuff, mostly plastic P&H, but it will do. There is a half decent wooden seesaw, (which is fairly low), a stick in the ground hurdle, a stick in the ground hoop, and weaving poles. Hopefully I can persuade Holly to weave a bit faster - LOL


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## GingerRogers

Actually Twiggy it wasn't all bad, there was a silver lining,  thats why its so good to be able to get these things down. 

She didn't, after all that, bark at the postman or his van even though it pulled up right next to us, the lady getting in her car, or the lady walking past with a big shopping bag (there could be dogs in these bags you know )

Hope little Holly Bolly appreciates your new purchases


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## Dogless

GR - sorry about your "cloudy" walk but I am pleased that there was a silver lining; you are so right that writing things down often reveals unseen pros or cons to situations.

Twiggy - I hope little HB enjoys her new agility equipment!

Went to the forest today. No training at all I am sorry to say; just sporadic recalls and directions to keep the boys where I wanted them. MUST get training properly again, this weekend I hope - just need to be able to give my full attention.


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## kat&molly

Ginge- sorry it wasn't the best walk, why do we still think its a good idea to take them out when we aren't in the right frame of mind ourselves  I'm just as bad and feel like I have to. Pleased she shook it off and was really good with the things she didn't bark at. 

DT- Sounds like a nice calm week for you, just what we need sometimes. 

Twiggy- Hope HB takes to the agility, being plastic should be less freaky than the metal maybe ?

Dogless- hope you enjoy the forest, we all need 'easier' walks sometimes. 

F+F+B- enjoy gundog training. Hope you hear something soon for Frank.

Really dont want to speak too soon but my little Short Stuff is doing really well. I've stuck to the same 2 walks for a few days with Moll as well. She is quite relaxed and enjoying them again .
I know we still have a lot to deal with and not many people would be glad to be back at Square One- but I am. 
Moll is doing good with this toy problem and I've upped the waits whilst I throw or hide.
Scruff has been to work again, I adore that girl but its so quiet without her :laugh: she is forever pestering me or licking me to death. I have a bath and she's there licking all the soap off 
Jay hasn't had a walk, she was coughing a bit today, hope it stops by tomorrow.


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## Dogless

Kat - brilliant about Evie....a very cautious mini celebration at Concrete Central for the troublesome Teckel :laugh:. I hope that Jay is OK, fingers crossed.

Progress with Moll sounds good too and I hope that Scruff's behaved at work!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Actually Twiggy it wasn't all bad, there was a silver lining,  thats why its so good to be able to get these things down.
> 
> She didn't, after all that, bark at the postman or his van even though it pulled up right next to us, the lady getting in her car, or the lady walking past with a big shopping bag (there could be dogs in these bags you know )
> 
> Hope little Holly Bolly appreciates your new purchases


Glad your walk wasn't all bad and the Ninja managed to keep her decorum with the scary shopping bags.

I don't think for one minute Holly Bolly will appreciate the agility equipment...LOL I do need to speed her up through the weaves if I can, but I'm not holding my breathe, otherwise I shall look a right idiot at the new class. It will all be to no avail if their 'proper' weave poles are on a metal base - Holly won't go near them....

It's so annoying. I sold/virtually gave away all my agility equipment about five years ago. Wish I'd kept back 2/3 jumps and the smaller of the two see-saws and dog walks. I had over 20 jumps, including a wall and wishing well. Never mind.


----------



## Bagrat

This is a very fast paced thread I miss one day and you've all done so much.
F & F - I try to put the past in a different place in my brain, cos I can't change the way I trained then, the thing is you were trying to do the right thing by your dog and as others have said we all learn all the time. When we first got Jackson I went to a trainer who had been fine for my previous dog and I knew what she was suggesting wasn't right for J but still let her try it, not a bad thing just not right for him.

Dogless -I was liking the pic of Rudi "helping" you rest, not the chem cosh. hope that is a cocktail that you will adapt to and it will do what is intended.

GR glad that you could see the good bit in the curate's egg walk.

K&M do hope Evie continues to get braver.

My "But it's OK I don't mind" friend called unexpectedly yesterday and probably put J's calm greeting practice by a few weeks. She fussed him vigorously and surprise, he got silly so I removed him to me for a sit and treat. "Oh I've got some come here Jackson, he's lovely isn't he " quoth she "he's doing what my boy does" (her boy is a massive Rottie who nearly flattens me if I call in). Ah well - I say the same thing every time she comes. "This behaviour is not acceptable to me".
On a more positive note if J is loose in the hall and the door bell rings he leaps and slams the door. If I am doing relaxation protocol and he's on his mat - I can walk to door and ring the bell and he doesn't move. Am working on go to mat with distractions - he can do it if all quiet.
New improvement, if he is behind dog gate in kitchen we only get one woof now and he just watches while we greet visitor rather than madness.


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat - nice progress with Jackson's excitability . Shame about the "It's OK" friend but I think we all have one!!

I shouldn't really be on a thread talking about working - went to the forest at about 0730 this morning and we have just got back. There was hunting, racing, trotting and swimming....but no work at all bar some recalls and directional commands . I will resume work again soon - promise .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Good afternoon 

Helen Lightfoot appointment on 8th October booked for frank. :thumbup1:

Gundog training this morning was hmmmm so so. :glare: bella walks to heel like a dream, watches me, sits, etc etc. would she show any interest what so ever in the dummy or anything else suitable for retrieving ????. Would she bugger . More interested in sniffing and rolling in the rabbit poo that the field is covered in.  she will do it out on a walk and in the back garden so I thought maybe taking her to 'rabbit hill' by me to do some training. 

Lots of playing and fetch games on the garden too with all three. . Also worked on the trick thread and a 'wave' is coming on nicely. 

Dogless, sounds like a fab morning. 
Bagrat, hello. The relaxation protocol sounds great. I have parents that occasionally get excited at seeing the dogs at the door and each time I have to say 'please ignore them until they're calm'. 

Hello to everyone else. . 
Now, a little bit of exciting news....shhhh....some of you may remember my sister loosing her dog back in July. Well, mid August, whilst we were on holiday, a litter of labs were born and the stud dogs great grandad was related to Dennis, the dog she lost. She's been to see them this morning and has first pick of the bitches. They were all perfect but identical so she couldn't choose one. They're only about 5 weeks old I think. Shes going back in three weeks to choose one and bring her home. . They're from really good lines and she's been to visit the stud dog, his owner and trainer, the owner of the puppies mom before they were born so she's really done her work. Roll on three weeks time when we will hear the patter of tiny black paws. :001_wub:


----------



## Barcode

A MUCH better week.

We took Scrabble and Matilda over to the Knavesmire yesterday (massive open green space) for a good run around. Whilst Scrabble had her ball, a large dog bounded over and they had a little play. A short time later, a Spaniel with a ball also bounded over and all was well, again, all three played.

I was happy with that as Scrabble can be quite possessive over her ball. It does show that, when she's relaxed, she can be quite dog friendly. Matilda is doing better in her greetings with other dogs. Gone is the launching-self-madly-at-the-others-head and just running side by side - it's taken a bit longer with her, and we suspect that's because she was not in a litter learning 'dog speak' like Scrabble was.

OH asked if I'd done anything different this week. Well, we've had three hour walks most days (me trying to exercise more) and it seems to have calmed her down. That's not sustainable every day, but I'm resolved to get up a bit earlier to make sure she's calm and set up for the day


----------



## Canine K9

Quick catch up 

Barcode- Glad you`ve all had a better week, lets hope it continues! 

Freddie and Frank- Aww sorry about gundog training, little minx Bella :nono: I remember going to a fun dog show and the judge wanted me to do some tricks with him. He wouldn`t do anything  Dogs, who`d have em?  Congratulations to your Sister on her new pup!

Dogless- Sounds a good morning at the forest then. :smile:

Bagrat- Good progress with Jackson then 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well today we went to agility and he loved it as usual. The weather took a change and it became hot, too hot  :cryin: Done lots of training and stuff today, planning on a new walk later maybe  Fun dog show tomorrow :001_smile:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Bagrat - nice progress with Jackson's excitability . Shame about the "It's OK" friend but I think we all have one!!
> 
> I shouldn't really be on a thread talking about working - went to the forest at about 0730 this morning and we have just got back. There was hunting, racing, trotting and swimming....but no work at all bar some recalls and directional commands .* I will resume work again soon - promise .*


*
*

Does it matter? You're dogs are very well behaved in any case.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Good afternoon
> 
> Helen Lightfoot appointment on 8th October booked for frank. :thumbup1:
> 
> Gundog training this morning was hmmmm so so. :glare: bella walks to heel like a dream, watches me, sits, etc etc. would she show any interest what so ever in the dummy or anything else suitable for retrieving ????. Would she bugger . More interested in sniffing and rolling in the rabbit poo that the field is covered in.  she will do it out on a walk and in the back garden so I thought maybe taking her to 'rabbit hill' by me to do some training.
> 
> Pleased you've got an appointment with Helen Lightfoot, who I'm quite sure can help Frank.
> 
> How did you initially teach retrieve?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Does it matter? You're dogs are very well behaved in any case.


Please don't jinx them ...Rudi is a fan of Looking For Trouble :crazy:. It matters in terms of keeping walks around home interesting so when I have to walk here I will work hard.....I like working with them anyway. Apart from the blood and bruises :blink: .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Please don't jinx them ...Rudi is a fan of Looking For Trouble :crazy:. It matters in terms of keeping walks around home interesting so when I have to walk here I will work hard.....*I like working with them anyway. Apart from the blood and bruises :blink: .*




Good - I'm pleased to hear it but it really doesn't matter if you skip a few days does it?

I had to smile: I had an email from the new agility class to say they'd received my completed form and how much they were looking forward to working with me and Holly..... I nearly replied that Holly doesn't do work....socialising, yes - work, no...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Good - I'm pleased to hear it but it really doesn't matter if you skip a few days does it?
> 
> I had to smile: I had an email from the new agility class to say they'd received my completed form and how much they were looking forward to working with me and Holly..... I nearly replied that Holly doesn't do work....socialising, yes - work, no...!!


To someone like me I am sure I'd be amazed by Holly's prowess....to a professional like you Grannie I know that less than 100ml of blood spilt is simply not playing the game  .


----------



## Nicki85

Good day here 
Took Rust to the forest over the road and he ran super super fast all the way round. Listened nicely though and recalled when asked. Quite funny at one point as he was doing his usual bouncing through the undergrowth and a runner ran past looking quite worried/ scared as he couldn't see me or Rusty- must have though it was a Wererabbit!!

Then took Shae to agility. Very exciting and I took her out to chill at the beginning but she calms down nicely towards the end of the session. She'd like to spend a lot of time barking and focusing on the other dogs so we do a lot of calm feeding lol as I don't want a hyper bouncy thing at the end of the lead. She's loving it though and having a blast... 

Then popped into a fun dog event thingy organised by Rust's physio place. Had some fun recalling them (together) through temptation alley and Shae had a good time trying out flyball (we were invited to come train  ). Lots of good socialisation and both dogs were well behaved. There for a good hour but left when the ferret racing came on (!)

Going to do some training with Rust tonight, bit of "hide" and his toy pick up and hold... he finds hold difficult but is starting to understand the concept. May have a think about something else to teach as well.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Freddie and frank said:
> 
> 
> 
> Good afternoon
> 
> Helen Lightfoot appointment on 8th October booked for frank. :thumbup1:
> 
> Gundog training this morning was hmmmm so so. :glare: bella walks to heel like a dream, watches me, sits, etc etc. would she show any interest what so ever in the dummy or anything else suitable for retrieving ????. Would she bugger . More interested in sniffing and rolling in the rabbit poo that the field is covered in.  she will do it out on a walk and in the back garden so I thought maybe taking her to 'rabbit hill' by me to do some training.
> 
> Pleased you've got an appointment with Helen Lightfoot, who I'm quite sure can help Frank.
> 
> How did you initially teach retrieve?
> 
> 
> 
> Oh god, I've probably done it the wrong way but she does a great fetch which I did by getting her really excited about her ball then throwing it small distances at first then recalling her back to me with excitement. If she doesn't bring it back then we put it away and try again praising when she brings it back. To retrieve I use her slip lead, put her in a sit, tell her to wait, throw the toy or dummy and tell her to get it when it's on the floor. She's just begining to wait for me to take it out of her mouth when she gets back to me.
> The trainer said today to try doing it in a long hall or corridor so she can only come to me and not go anywhere else.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Good day here
> Took Rust to the forest over the road and he ran super super fast all the way round. Listened nicely though and recalled when asked. Quite funny at one point as he was doing his usual bouncing through the undergrowth and a runner ran past looking quite worried/ scared as he couldn't see me or Rusty- must have though it was a Wererabbit!!
> 
> Then took Shae to agility. Very exciting and I took her out to chill at the beginning but she calms down nicely towards the end of the session. She'd like to spend a lot of time barking and focusing on the other dogs so we do a lot of calm feeding lol* as I don't want a hyper bouncy thing at the end of the lead. *She's loving it though and having a blast...
> 
> Don't you....?!! Can we swap then? I like bouncy hyper dogs and Holly would suit you (she never bounces or gets hyped up)....


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Oh god, I've probably done it the wrong way but she does a great fetch which I did by getting her really excited about her ball then throwing it small distances at first then recalling her back to me with excitement. If she doesn't bring it back then we put it away and try again praising when she brings it back. To retrieve I use her slip lead, put her in a sit, tell her to wait, throw the toy or dummy and tell her to get it when it's on the floor. She's just begining to wait for me to take it out of her mouth when she gets back to me.
> The trainer said today to try doing it in a long hall or corridor so she can only come to me and not go anywhere else.
> 
> 
> 
> No you haven't done it all wrong at all but the trouble is with the 'throw and pray' method there is no foundation to the hold aspect. Which is what happened today - your bitch found rabbit poo more exciting.
> 
> To teach a solid retrieve, each part needs to be broken down into small sections and the last parts we usually teach is the wait (sit) and throw.
Click to expand...


----------



## Nicki85

I like that she's keen I just don't want it to escalate to barking away at the other dogs running... That would hurt my head! I suspect that might be impossible tho if I take her along to flyball(!)


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> I like that she's keen I just don't want it to escalate to barking away at the other dogs running... That would hurt my head! I suspect that might be impossible tho if I take her along to flyball(!)


I was joking of course and I agree - I don't like dogs that are continually barking when other dogs are working.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Freddie and frank said:
> 
> 
> 
> No you haven't done it all wrong at all but the trouble is with the 'throw and pray' method there is no foundation to the hold aspect. Which is what happened today - your bitch found rabbit poo more exciting.
> 
> To teach a solid retrieve, each part needs to be broken down into small sections and the last parts we usually teach is the wait (sit) and throw.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, the rabbit poo was much more interesting than me or the dummy.
> 
> Would you mind giving me some instructions please twiggy, then I'll give it a go.
> Thanks.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, the rabbit poo was much more interesting than me or the dummy.
> 
> Would you mind giving me some instructions please twiggy, then I'll give it a go.
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm too tired now but I will tomorrow - promise....LOL
> 
> Just remember that on occasions Holly Bolly finds sniffing the grass/bushes/trees far more interesting than me, or tuggy toys, squeaky balls, juicy tit-bits, etc.
Click to expand...


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Freddie and frank said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm too tired now but I will tomorrow - promise....LOL
> 
> Just remember that on occasions Holly Bolly finds sniffing the grass/bushes/trees far more interesting than me, or tuggy toys, squeaky balls, juicy tit-bits, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Ok, me too. Thanks.
Click to expand...


----------



## diefenbaker

What a week.. I'm exhausted.. not Dief related.. just work. So for your delectation... here's the start/finish from last Sunday... not too different from Saturday I suppose.. I just find it sooooo cool when they say his name on the PA.. I can't stop watching it 

[youtube_browser]NncsPmYJXTw[/youtube_browser]

[youtube_browser]Bda8hp0p8mM[/youtube_browser]

Annoyingly.. I think our class was the busiest of all.. so no chance of a rosette by default. 50 can't come quick enough :scared:

I think it was GR who asked about times.. apparently the course was 5.8K..

Saturday 32:13
Sunday 31:43

we've some work to do


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, the rabbit poo was much more interesting than me or the dummy.
> 
> Would you mind giving me some instructions please twiggy, then I'll give it a go.
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> Right here we go. It's a bit of an essay:
> 
> Start in the house/garden with Frank on his own, preferably when he's quite hungry.
> 
> You will need a hard, upright chair (kitchen/dining room type), Frank's dummy or dumbbell and some very tasty treats.
> 
> Sit on the edge of the chair which your legs stretched out in front of you (feet flat on the floor) to make a channel. Call Frank to come and sit in front of you between your out-stretched legs, keeping your hands together roughly above your knees, with a tasty treat in your fingers. When Frank touches your fingers, drop the treat into his mouth.
> 
> Now throw a tit-bit out in front of you, making sure he sees it and say something like "get it". As he eats the tit-bit say "what's this?" and show him the tit-bit in your fingers and recall him again into the sit in front of you. Make sure he touches your fingers before you release the tit-bit into his mouth.
> 
> Repeat several times until he is performing the exercise reliably and then add the word "touch" as he touches your fingers.
> 
> Once Frank is enjoying the new 'game' get him to sit between your legs and touch your fingers for the tit-bit. Now produce the dummy/dumbbell, whilst he is still sitting in front of you. You need to be quite exciting saying something like "what's this" - "look what I've got" - etc. but keep him in the sit. If he takes it from you even for a nano second, try and take it back from him before he spits it out and give him a tit-bit. *Don't*say "good boy", in fact don't say anything to start with (the tit-bit is the praise).
> 
> See how you get on with the first stage and hopefully we'll progress it from there.
> 
> If I get time this afternoon I'll try and persuade hubby to take some pics of Tremor doing it as it will be easier to understand.
> 
> The idea of this is to teach the dogs a reliable hold way before you start throwing articles.
> 
> With our obedience dogs once they get in the higher classes, the retrieve articles are provided by the judge and can be anything from an empty Coke bottle to a lump of metal. Once we have told the dog "hold" (or whatever) we are not allowed to breathe/move/or command them and they must run out, pick up the article cleanly and return into the front present into a sit.
> As you will appreciate the pick up and hold must be set in stone...!!
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> What a week.. I'm exhausted.. not Dief related.. just work. So for your delectation... here's the start/finish from last Sunday... not too different from Saturday I suppose.. I just find it sooooo cool when they say his name on the PA.. I can't stop watching it
> 
> [youtube_browser]NncsPmYJXTw[/youtube_browser]
> 
> [youtube_browser]Bda8hp0p8mM[/youtube_browser]
> 
> Annoyingly.. I think our class was the busiest of all.. so no chance of a rosette by default. 50 can't come quick enough :scared:
> 
> I think it was GR who asked about times.. apparently the course was 5.8K..
> 
> Saturday 32:13
> Sunday 31:43
> 
> we've some work to do


I'm full of admiration....:thumbup:

I'd have been lying under a tree gasping for breathe after the first few hundred yards....LOL


----------



## missRV

Barcode: Lovely to hear that you're having more luck with yours! Well done, it's taken a lot of perseverance. 

Canine K9: Bailey is doing so well  hope he has a fab time at the dog show this morning 

Dogless: I can't believe Rudi is nearly 1! I still think of him as a tiny puppy and of course he finds trouble, that's his job  

Nikki85: Hope the retrieve thing works out well! It would be interesting to see how she does with flyball, that's like barky heaven for dogs so I've heard!

Diefenbaker: That's amazing! I'm also full of awe, I love how controlled he is at running too! 

Not much new for us! Rosie hasn't had a brilliant week with her training and seems to have taken a step back. I blame the fact that I've been poorly this week, seems to have unsettled her. 

Yesterday in agility she did everything bar what I was asking her to do  hopefully she'll get her act together soon. My crazy auntie was over from Liverpool and made a massive fuss of her in the morning so Rosie's head was totally in the clouds!

I also have to re arrange our schedule because I'm back at night college this week for my Spanish so I'm moving her puppy class to Tuesday night but it'll be the same trainer. I'm hoping mixing with different dogs will be a good influence for her! 

I was going to take her to the fun dog show today but I'm taking her to pets at home instead to exchange the toy she destroyed last week. I think she needs a nice quiet day so it'll be pets at home then bath time for little Rosie :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Dief - very cool . I am disappointed that you didn't have sunglasses cam on though .

MissRV - hope things improve soon; I am sure they will.

Good morning here and I actually did some work...well with Kilo.

Took Rudi for a run, he was great as ever bless him :aureola:.

Took Kilo up to the top fields. Planted a pole from our garden agility set and did the first stage of a fun sendaway between two poles....he touched the pole immediately when he got out of the car onto the field as I knew he would as he's a sticky beak so marked it and threw the toy...then we had some frustration whilst he worked out what to do which probably realigned my spine better than any chiropractor :scared: and then...we were away :thumbup:. Kilo has decided that "touch the pole" is a fantastic game . I stopped whilst we were doing well, did some playing and running about like and idiot and then just two more "touches" right at the end. I am really chuffed with him :thumbup:.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Freddie and frank said:
> 
> 
> 
> Right here we go. It's a bit of an essay:
> 
> Start in the house/garden with Frank on his own, preferably when he's quite hungry.
> 
> You will need a hard, upright chair (kitchen/dining room type), Frank's dummy or dumbbell and some very tasty treats.
> 
> Sit on the edge of the chair which your legs stretched out in front of you (feet flat on the floor) to make a channel. Call Frank to come and sit in front of you between your out-stretched legs, keeping your hands together roughly above your knees, with a tasty treat in your fingers. When Frank touches your fingers, drop the treat into his mouth.
> 
> Now throw a tit-bit out in front of you, making sure he sees it and say something like "get it". As he eats the tit-bit say "what's this?" and show him the tit-bit in your fingers and recall him again into the sit in front of you. Make sure he touches your fingers before you release the tit-bit into his mouth.
> 
> Repeat several times until he is performing the exercise reliably and then add the word "touch" as he touches your fingers.
> 
> Once Frank is enjoying the new 'game' get him to sit between your legs and touch your fingers for the tit-bit. Now produce the dummy/dumbbell, whilst he is still sitting in front of you. You need to be quite exciting saying something like "what's this" - "look what I've got" - etc. but keep him in the sit. If he takes it from you even for a nano second, try and take it back from him before he spits it out and give him a tit-bit. *Don't*say "good boy", in fact don't say anything to start with (the tit-bit is the praise).
> 
> See how you get on with the first stage and hopefully we'll progress it from there.
> 
> If I get time this afternoon I'll try and persuade hubby to take some pics of Tremor doing it as it will be easier to understand.
> 
> The idea of this is to teach the dogs a reliable hold way before you start throwing articles.
> 
> With our obedience dogs once they get in the higher classes, the retrieve articles are provided by the judge and can be anything from an empty Coke bottle to a lump of metal. Once we have told the dog "hold" (or whatever) we are not allowed to breathe/move/or command them and they must run out, pick up the article cleanly and return into the front present into a sit.
> As you will appreciate the pick up and hold must be set in stone...!!
> 
> 
> 
> Twiggy, that's brilliant, thanks. :thumbup:
> I understand it completely.
> 
> Think I'll try it with Bella though as she's doing the gundog work, frank is the chiropracter one. . Lol. Although no reason not to do it with all three.....separately of cause
> 
> Deifenbaker...well done. I'd be happy with that time, but then again I'm only a gentle jogger . Did the great north run again last weekend and did 2hr 17mins, shocking . Not my best but not my worst, but then again not much training either.
> 
> Dogless...well done kilo:thumbup:
> 
> Good morning to everyone else.
> Have good days, speak later, I've got a date with a chair, a dummy, the garden and tasty treats.
Click to expand...


----------



## diefenbaker

JenSteWillow said:


> As we were going out this morning - Willow package was behind the door ( http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...ing-d-our-new-set-up-pics.html#post1063195323 ) so we put them on and off we went


Indi-Dogs stuff is top notch and she is such a helpful person too.. all Dief's CaniX stuff is Indi-Dog.. all made to measure and had to go back for some adjustment when I sent photos.. and good value too. I need to order some more stuff.. a collar and a more lightweight harness... maybe like SLB's with the sliding O-ring so the line can drag... just haven't got round to it.


----------



## Barcode

It was dog class this morning after a months break and ... Scrabble ROCKED. I thought she might have been out of sorts, but one of the exercises was to heel in close proximity to others. She then strolled calmly through eight dogs. There was _one_ small bark, namely, when she looked up and saw a giant German Shepherd towering over her - fair enough. In the right environment she can be brilliant.

There has been a shift in my attitude of late, I think. I don't _need_ Scrabble to be that dog friendly and go meeting other dogs, and it is too easy to make the mistake of thinking she is learning by doing that when all that's happening is a reinforcement of any fear. I do, however, need her to walk calmly and not have a Terrier tantrum .... and we're moving forward with that.

As well as patience, I recommend a nightly bottle of wine


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy, when Bella is coming back to me, sitting in between my legs, she is mouthing at my hand with the treat in. Is that ok?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Dief - very cool . I am disappointed that you didn't have sunglasses cam on though .
> 
> MissRV - hope things improve soon; I am sure they will.
> 
> Good morning here and I actually did some work...well with Kilo.
> 
> Took Rudi for a run, he was great as ever bless him :aureola:.
> 
> Took Kilo up to the top fields. Planted a pole from our garden agility set and did the first stage of a fun sendaway between two poles....he touched the pole immediately when he got out of the car onto the field as I knew he would as he's a sticky beak so marked it and threw the toy...then we had some frustration whilst he worked out what to do which probably realigned my spine better than any chiropractor :scared: and then...we were away :thumbup:. Kilo has decided that "touch the pole" is a fantastic game . I stopped whilst we were doing well, did some playing and running about like and idiot and then just two more "touches" right at the end. I am really chuffed with him :thumbup:.


:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: Well done you and well done Kilo.

I thought he'd like it..... Most dogs love obedience exercises providing they are taught using motivational methods.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Twiggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Twiggy, that's brilliant, thanks. :thumbup:
> I understand it completely.
> 
> *Think I'll try it with Bella though* as she's doing the gundog work, frank is the chiropracter one. . Lol. Although no reason not to do it with all three.....separately of cause
> 
> _Sorry I got the wrong dog. Don't do it with Frank until he's been to Helen Lightfoot._
> 
> Deifenbaker...well done. I'd be happy with that time, but then again I'm only a gentle jogger . Did the great north run again last weekend and did *2hr **17mins, s*hocking . Not my best but not my worst, but then again not much training either.
> 
> _I'd have been pleased with two days 17 hours....!! I watched it on TV and felt their pain._
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Twiggy, when Bella is coming back to me, sitting in between my legs, she is mouthing at my hand with the treat in. Is that ok?


Hmm no not really, although unless you were intending to do competitive obedience it's not critical.

Try sticking the tit-bit between your thumb and the palm of your hand but still keep both hands together, fingers pointing down. As soon as Bella touches the tips of your fingers release the tit-bit.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Hmm no not really, although unless you were intending to do competitive obedience it's not critical.
> 
> Try sticking the tit-bit between your thumb and the palm of your hand but still keep both hands together, fingers pointing down. As soon as Bella touches the tips of your fingers release the tit-bit.


Ok. Thanks.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: Well done you and well done Kilo.
> 
> I thought he'd like it..... Most dogs love obedience exercises providing they are taught using motivational methods.


He loved it. What wasn't to love really, it was right up his street. He eeked like for "Ready Steady" a bit .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> He loved it. What wasn't to love really, it was right up his street. He eeked like for "Ready Steady" a bit .


Well can you send Kilo's jolly vibes over the Irish Sea please - I'm going to introduce Holly Bolly to her agility equipment this afternoon.....!!

What's the betting that her reaction will be "Hmm lovely but not as interesting as that blade of grass"...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well can you send Kilo's jolly vibes over the Irish Sea please - I'm going to introduce Holly Bolly to her agility equipment this afternoon.....!!
> 
> What's the betting that her reaction will be "Hmm lovely but not as interesting as that blade of grass"...


With the jolly vibes comes some frustration too......spinal realignment for free :scared:. He wasn't so much jolly as totally focussed and very intent....and then jolly as he pranced about with his prize :thumbup:.


----------



## Canine K9

We had the dog show today. He came 5th in most handsome dog out of 20 and 4th in best trick out of 4. Judge peeved me off a bit, saying "Oh thats a queer looking dog"  But I got over it  
We have his new puppy pen set up, so me and my queer looking dog are happy  

Hope everyone has had a lovely day


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> With the jolly vibes comes some frustration too......spinal realignment for free :scared:. He wasn't so much jolly as totally focussed and very intent....and then jolly as he pranced about with his prize :thumbup:.


My motivational training is very dangerous (you know that).....


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> We had the dog show today. He came 5th in most handsome dog out of 20 and 4th in best trick out of 4. Judge peeved me off a bit, saying "Oh thats a queer looking dog"  But I got over it
> We have his new puppy pen set up, so me and my queer looking dog are happy
> 
> Hope everyone has had a lovely day


I am certain you took the best dog home K9 :thumbup:. Hope the puppy pen is a success.


----------



## missRV

Canine K9 said:


> We had the dog show today. He came 5th in most handsome dog out of 20 and 4th in best trick out of 4. Judge peeved me off a bit, saying "Oh thats a queer looking dog"  But I got over it
> We have his new puppy pen set up, so me and my queer looking dog are happy
> 
> Hope everyone has had a lovely day


Wow, well done Bailey! You certainly did take home the best dog, albeit a queer looking one..... Rosie fancies him anyway 

We have just got back from pets at home, no problem with exchanging her toy. We got a stag bar, some treats and an 'indestructible toy' teddy bear which no longer has a head!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> My motivational training is very dangerous (you know that).....


I do indeed . The boys are snoozing yet again, have been all day. Think they are having a self - imposed rest day after all their forest rampages this week! I had thought about taking them tonight but they're wiped out bless them.


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> It's not 'proper' stuff, mostly plastic P&H, but it will do.


I've got cheap plastic hurdles and weave poles off eBay. Now I've got Dief's Grandma on a mission to make some fabric end wings to make them look more jump-like.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Dief - very cool . I am disappointed that you didn't have sunglasses cam on though .
> .


You will not be surprised to hear that I did consider this. But I was worried that I would look like a weirdo ( any sarcastic response to this will be an immediate red card offence ) and/or I wouldn't be able to see where I was going. I need to get some clear lenses.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> You will not be surprised to hear that I did consider this. But I was worried that I would look like a weirdo ( any sarcastic response to this will be an immediate red card offence ) and/or I wouldn't be able to see where I was going. I need to get some clear lenses.


Nope, I am not surprised in the least :scared:. I have suppressed all manner of responses to avoid the red card.....I do I know that I would have been worried had you been following me :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

Here's the pics of the present on a chair. They're not brilliant as taken by hubby who was moaning (as they do):










Tremor touching my fingers with tit-bit hidden under my thumb










Tremor touching my fingers with a dumbbell in her mouth.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Here's the pics of the present on a chair. They're not brilliant as taken by hubby who was moaning (as they do):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tremor touching my fingers with tit-bit hidden under my thumb
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tremor touching my fingers with a dumbbell in her mouth.


Brilliant. :thumbup: thanks.

We've loved doing it today. She's doing well, I think. She's coming in to me, I ask her to sit then she nudges my hands. I then give her the treat. 
My hands were a bit lower though so will go off now and try it having them higher.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Ok, so we've got to the stage of her sitting in front of me and taking her Kong tails toy, we've only ever used this for training, for a split second. 
I have the treat in my other hand and soon as she has the toy in her mouth, I swap it for a treat. 
It's quite erratic so perhaps I need to slow it down a bit? Hardest part is not saying 'good girl'. 

Will do some more tomorrow. Got work to do then x factor. 

Really appreciate the help. Thanks. 
Ooh, and thanks to your hubby twiggy for taking pics. 

K9..,.Well done bailey for today.


----------



## Dogless

Went to the forest early today just as the night shift critters were finishing and day shift beginning. We saw Monsieur Reynard as we very often do, checking us out. The boys seemed to enjoy themselves as ever, I wasn't very enthusiastic which is unusual as the place usually lifts my spirits (or calms them!!) no end and it was a "one foot in front of the other" job for a couple of hours I must admit . But - the CHs behaved well for me and ran and hunted and raced to their hearts' content which is the main thing.


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless - *I think the vibes from Kilo finally got here this afternoon....

Instead of Holly Bolly it's now *Jolly* Holly.

I don't know what got into her this afternoon but she was very keen and motivated, both obedience exercises and doing her bits of agility. She's not exactly red hot fast but she was at least up for it....:thumbup:

She'll be back to Holly Bolly tomorrow I expect.

Tremor was nuts. Fingers crossed but I did a short retrieve with her yesterday and today, plus a shortish sendaway, and she seems perfectly sound (says I - holding my breathe)....!!

The chiropractor said to start working her, so we'll see.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - fantastic on both fronts :thumbup:. Jolly Holly and a sound (said very quietly) Tremor. You could do with a bit of good fortune . If Tremor was nuts I hope you have the Blood Bank on standby!

Kilo and Rudi seem to have imposed another rest day although they did have a very full on time in the forest this morning.

ETA: They have to life now I have said that...I shall take them to the fields!!


----------



## Nicki85

Hi all.
I could do with some advice/ feedback on Miss Shae...
I tend to do a one on one training session inside with them in the evening or every other evening focusing on simple exercise and teaching them tricks  Mainly with treats as the house is too small to reward with toys! Any how, Shae loves this but she's so manic that it's difficult to actually teach her anything... She throws everything she knows at me almost before i''ve finished saying a command and that means she often gets it wrong, I then have to repeat and it's almost guess work that she gets the right command with the right exercise (this is obv. making her more frustrated and exasperating the situation!) . Trying to teach anything new in this way just gets me a lot of behaviours all in one go... it's all a bit manic!! I'm really pleased that she is so keen to work but I need her to listen first, think and then do it lol. I'm not sure if this is a Collie thing :/ She is better with a toy esp. if a short game of tug is the reward (better focus?) and fine with recalling for treats on walks etc. it's just these short training sessions....

Any how any thoughts would be appreciated 

Twiggy- so pleased Tremor is doing well   Holly has obviously been reading this thread over your shoulder with all these keen dog posts!!
DL- hope you had a good time over the fields  
FandF- good luck with the retrieve work!!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hi all.
> I could do with some advice/ feedback on Miss Shae...
> I tend to do a one on one training session inside with them in the evening or every other evening focusing on simple exercise and teaching them tricks  Mainly with treats as the house is too small to reward with toys! Any how, Shae loves this but she's so manic that it's difficult to actually teach her anything... She throws everything she knows at me almost before i''ve finished saying a command and that means she often gets it wrong, I then have to repeat and it's almost guess work that she gets the right command with the right exercise (this is obv. making her more frustrated and exasperating the situation!) . Trying to teach anything new in this way just gets me a lot of behaviours all in one go... it's all a bit manic!! I'm really pleased that she is so keen to work but I need her to listen first, think and then do it lol. I'm not sure if this is a Collie thing :/ She is better with a toy esp. if a short game of tug is the reward (better focus?) and fine with recalling for treats on walks etc. it's just these short training sessions....
> 
> Any how any thoughts would be appreciated
> 
> Err yes been there a few times.
> 
> That's when I use "wrong". I wouldn't recommend this for a novice handler because your timing needs to be good.
> 
> "Wrong" is just a non-reward marker word and is said in a calm and quiet voice. I use it with manic dogs like Tremor when, as you say, they begin to throw all sorts at you. Don't ever repeat a command; that will add to Shae's frustration.
> 
> Say for instance you've asked for a hand touch and they do something else. I simply leave my hand out (for the touch) and say very lightly "wrong". I don't move and I say nothing else until she touches my hand and then it's "yes" and reward.
> 
> The more you allow them to use their brains and don't interfere the more they concentrate and don't become frustrated.
> 
> If you're not careful, with dogs like Tremor and Shae, you could soon get into a big argument which they will win.
> 
> HTH


----------



## GingerRogers

I was going to suggest something very simple like touch to start her off and get the brain working. Something clear and precise that she knows. Another clever member of waywo suggested that so I can't take the credit can I moonviolet. Lol phone said nonviolent.


----------



## Nicki85

Thanks both. We usually start with a few simple sits and hand touches. I am having to move away from hand touches as she can be a bit forceful(!) with touching my hand, only because she is keen...

I have been repeating the command especially when I know she knows it and you are right, it completely adds to her frustration... I will give it a go and just keep quiet, I tend to use a non-reward marker with Rusty as he likes a very clear indication of what is right and what's not right if you see what I mean, he gives up quickly so I needed something to indicate if he was getting "hotter" or "colder" to the desired behaviour... I'll give Shae a go too  No command repeating, simple stuff to start and non-reward marker when she gives the wrong behaviour (but only when it's clear...)

Thank you  It's so strange working with them one after the other... Rust is a worrier and wants reassurance all the time (lots of cuddles and congratulations you got it right type thing!) . You can see him process things and he picks it up quicker than Shae because he is thinking about it... But then , part of me thinks I haven't worked out the best method for training Shae yet- she is just as clever, just need to rethink my training methods!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Thanks both. We usually start with a few simple sits and hand touches. I am having to move away from hand touches as she can be a bit forceful(!) with touching my hand, only because she is keen...
> 
> I have been repeating the command especially when I know she knows it and you are right, it completely adds to her frustration... I will give it a go and just keep quiet, I tend to use a non-reward marker with Rusty as he likes a very clear indication of what is right and what's not right if you see what I mean, he gives up quickly so I needed something to indicate if he was getting "hotter" or "colder" to the desired behaviour... I'll give Shae a go too  No command repeating, simple stuff to start and non-reward marker when she gives the wrong behaviour (but only when it's clear...)
> 
> Thank you  It's so strange working with them one after the other... Rust is a worrier and wants reassurance all the time (lots of cuddles and congratulations you got it right type thing!) . You can see him process things and he picks it up quicker than Shae because he is thinking about it... But then , part of me thinks I haven't worked out the best method for training Shae yet- she is just as clever, just need to rethink my training methods!


I know exactly what you mean....LOL

When Tremor was Shae's age, we'd go across to the barn and I was in fear of my life.....she was lethal. The first thing I always said was "no biting" and put my hand out with great trepidation.

Something else I used to do was remove my hand if she got too much, along with the word "wrong". Only for a few seconds (just raise my hand out of reach and then put it back). By this time there was usually blood....!!

It's good for the soul working very different types of dogs. Tremor and Holly couldn't be more extremes.


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## Freddie and frank

Good morning. 
Progress report.......Bella is sitting in front of me, taking toy in her mouth for a second then I swap for a treat. 

Hope you all have good mornings. :thumbup1:


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## Dogless

Well done F&F and Bella :thumbup:.

Nicki - my pair couldn't be any more different really either!! Can't add anything to what Grannie has said as I am nowhere near your level of training and Grannie is up in the stratosphere somewhere .

Awesome morning at Concrete Central.

Took Rudi running with me, he passed all distractions including a dog desperately choking itself and barking to get to him. He was a little star . He did decide to try and outpace an Easy Jet flight that was taking off and I had visions of us rising up like ET or Santa towed by his reindeer  . I always think it's funny that the CHs and I might be peoples' first view of Norn Iron - the terminal says "Welcome To Belfast" on one side of the aircraft and on the other there's us .

Took Kilo to a field to do some "touch the pole". You'll be pleased to hear Grannie that he was eeking in the car when I left him to go and put the pole in the ground and pretty much burst out. Safe to say he adores the game - he will do it from 10m now but I quit whilst we were ahead and went for some walking and running about on the sports pitches like loons. A few people were about mowing and the field is opposite a compound that the workmen use (and is alongside the main runway) but he was relaxed and happy...apart from when doing the pole when he is very focussed indeed .


----------



## sharloid

I took Yla to a little field so she could have a run on the long line whilst OH took the big dogs out for long walk. I'm attempting to whistle train a recall... I'm not sure if I'm going about it the right way. 

At the moment I'm waiting until she's away but looking at me, I start walking backwards and toot the whistle twice. She gets a treat when she reaches me and sits... is there something else I should be doing? How to I progress to her recalling away from sniffing or distractions?

I was just thinking earlier how I never see anyone else doing anything other with their dogs apart from walking or occasional fetch. I've never seen anyone stood in the middle of a field practicing down/sit/stay or anything else... what about you guys? Is it only PF members that do this? 


Dogless - When you say 'touch the pole' are you teaching him to target a stick? Are you using clicker training? For agility purposes I have to teach Kindra to target a lid from a distance. Any tips appreciated.


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## Twiggy

*Freddie and Frank* and *Dogless* :thumbup::thumbup1::thumbup:


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## Dogless

sharloid said:


> I took Yla to a little field so she could have a run on the long line whilst OH took the big dogs out for long walk. I'm attempting to whistle train a recall... I'm not sure if I'm going about it the right way.
> 
> At the moment I'm waiting until she's away but looking at me, I start walking backwards and toot the whistle twice. She gets a treat when she reaches me and sits... is there something else I should be doing? How to I progress to her recalling away from sniffing or distractions?
> 
> I was just thinking earlier how I never see anyone else doing anything other with their dogs apart from walking or occasional fetch. I've never seen anyone stood in the middle of a field practicing down/sit/stay or anything else... what about you guys? Is it only PF members that do this?
> 
> Dogless - When you say 'touch the pole' are you teaching him to target a stick? Are you using clicker training? For agility purposes I have to teach Kindra to target a lid from a distance. Any tips appreciated.


With regards to the whistle recall I started in the house; for a week or so I blew it every single time the boys got a meal or a treat, then progressed to blowing it around the house or garden when I knew they'd come, then took it outside and only used it if I knew they would come and so on and so forth; I was extremely careful that I didn't make it too hard too quickly so that they'd succeed - not sure if that's what you have been doing?

Kilo already has a "touch" to target my hand or something I am holding. This is teaching him to go and touch a pole from a distance as the starting point to a fun sendaway between two poles. Barcode posted a good method but I have gone with one Grannie has helped me with as it suits Kilo's erm "style" better. If you read back a little you can see Barcode's too. I have started by getting him to touch a pole in the ground with me there with him - marking it and throwing his tuggy so he gets a fast chase and a game. Moving on to putting the touching on cue and then increasing distance from the pole. He got it very quickly as it's the sort of thing he loves - fast and frantic and lots of running really. I just need to get that very reliable and then Grannie will help me with the next step :thumbup:.


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## Freddie and frank

Just a quick break for lunch....nat yog, honey and granola. Mmmmmm

Nicki, my three are all so so different. Freddie is a thinker then has a eureka moment when he gets it, and is totally food motivated.
Frank is toy and fuss motivated, not bothered about getting a treat for it. Just wants to do more and more. Bella is in between. 

Dogless, what a fantastic morning. :thumbup:

Sharloid, I'm new to using a whistle, but with bella at the end of the lead, I said "bella come" and three toots. So she eventually paired the toots with the "come" Praised when she came to me. Short distances at first. I'm sure someone more qualified will offer better advice.  I've seen the odd one doing bits of training but not many. 

Back to work...busy busy....my three are all lying in the sun :thumbup1:


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## Dogless

F&F - your lunch sounds delicious .


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## sharloid

Dogless said:


> With regards to the whistle recall I started in the house; for a week or so I blew it every single time the boys got a meal or a treat, then progressed to blowing it around the house or garden when I knew they'd come, then took it outside and only used it if I knew they would come and so on and so forth; I was extremely careful that I didn't make it too hard too quickly so that they'd succeed - not sure if that's what you have been doing?
> 
> Kilo already has a "touch" to target my hand or something I am holding. This is teaching him to go and touch a pole from a distance as the starting point to a fun sendaway between two poles. Barcode posted a good method but I have gone with one Grannie has helped me with as it suits Kilo's erm "style" better. If you read back a little you can see Barcode's too. I have started by getting him to touch a pole in the ground with me there with him - marking it and throwing his tuggy so he gets a fast chase and a game. Moving on to putting the touching on cue and then increasing distance from the pole. He got it very quickly as it's the sort of thing he loves - fast and frantic and lots of running really. I just need to get that very reliable and then Grannie will help me with the next step :thumbup:.


Ah, but if I do it in the house then I'll end up with all the dogs coming! How would I then be able to call the dogs individually? Or for instances where you have two in a sit and want to call just one would you use a voice command instead and just the whistle for distance?

Neither Broder or Kindra recall in the house... though Kindra has excellent recall when out in a safe place or on the long line. They just don't bother to get up!

Basically I just need to condition that blowing the whistle = treat, the same as loading the clicker. What happens when a dog doesn't think a treat is worth it and so ignores the whistle?


----------



## Dogless

sharloid said:


> Ah, but if I do it in the house then I'll end up with all the dogs coming! How would I then be able to call the dogs individually? Or for instances where you have two in a sit and want to call just one would you use a voice command instead and just the whistle for distance? *It depends what you are after. My whistle recall is for both dogs, I don't use it to call an individual when training - I use voice for that, mine just means that I want both back, pronto. I don't see any reason why you couldn't start pairing a name with a different whistle pip for each though if that's what you are after. No reason why you can't train each dog separately - shut two in the house whilst you train in the garden for instance or do separate walks and train in a quiet distraction - free place.*
> 
> Neither Broder or Kindra recall in the house... though Kindra has excellent recall when out in a safe place or on the long line. They just don't bother to get up!
> 
> Basically I just need to condition that blowing the whistle = treat, the same as loading the clicker. What happens when a dog doesn't think a treat is worth it and so ignores the whistle?


 *Doesn't have to be a treat - can be anything that the dog will think is worth it. If I KNOW that they won't come when I blow it in training I do not use the whistle.*


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## Nicki85

Phew... exciting hour at Shae's agility lesson.... We've started at our "proper" club doing their starter class. She's the youngest there and biggest lol. I had two aims-
-get into the arena from car with no barking or grring
-get some drive and tug on the toy

We achieved both! She did drag me into the arena so I need to decide whether I want her LLW in or not as i'll have to be consistent from that point forward. I'm thinking I do at the moment. Might need to arrive 15mins early tho- its going to take an age to walk in with her!!

She refused her fleecy toy to start so we had to swap to squeaky space lobber. Half way through though she was back onto her tug toy so pleased  

She was exhausted by the end as she spent the first half an hour alternating between manically giving me behaviours and trying to give all the instructors kisses.... Need to maybe do some calming work before going in? I know it's not essential for her to be totally calm and it is agility but I think we need it a bit calmer... She was laying down really nice and settling towards the end  All the actual exercises she was really good with (apart from when I went flying as she tripped me up going through the tunnel....)

Rust had a good run earlier (photo evidence in our other thread!) met a chap who had no recall... we had a little sit down whilst he came and collected his dog. Luckily Rusty was OK, was a bit concerned as he isn't the greatest with meeting dogs on lead. 

DL- sounds like your boys are FAB!
FF- welldone on your progress!
SL- echo what others have said, only ask for a command if you know they are going to be successful- never set them up to fail... You'll get there


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## JenKyzer

( Lurking & liking to catch up ) Sounds like everyone is doing well  :thumbup1:
V busy & back to reality here  Will update soon-ish with good, bad and pics from weekend (probs in seperate thread so not to clutter this 1 )  

Keep up the great work everyone else  i love reading them all as you know


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## Jet90

We're still working on overcoming separation anxiety with wilz.... We had it susses, but then moved house! & that, understandably, left her unsettled. She is doing amazingly now though - we get the odd accident, today she had pulled something down off the kitchen counter (our fault of course for leaving it there), but didmt bother chewing it so that in itself is pretty damn cool of her, but no barking, crying, screaming, digging the floor up, trying to smash the door down..
. None of that for AGES!  

The maim focus is reducing the "omg you are home i camt believe you are finally home let me bounce up you and lick your face off because YOU ARE HOME!!!" reaction when we return. 
I hate ignoring her when we come in - feel like a mean momma! - but the jumping lark is NOT cool, & we are really noticing an improvement. 

With our pip (chi), we're working on her reactivity to noise, & this fly-killing thing she has going on which has resulted in her lunging close to my face and snapping - not fun. So far we've been doing well with distraction once she's clocked the fly and will come and sit by one of us hooman beans nice and calmly and wait for a bit of a fuss. The noise thing is slow-going coz there are SO many triggers, but we are noticing progress there too. 
Proud of our daft-as-brushes girls! They are ALMOST able to give the impression that they have more than 1 brain cell between them


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## Dogless

Nicki - Shae sounds like a whirlwind - in a good way . I can't ever advise you but I do read your posts!!

Jet - Kilo has an awful fly obsession too, it's ruined a few walks and resulted in some near misses in the house . The boys even had a 2 second dust up over both pouncing for the same fly once when I wasn't paying enough attention .


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## Freddie and frank

I'm taking frank back to vets tonight. 
Yesterday he didn't get up to greet my son from school and I had to coax him off his step to me. Its very out of character fir him. This morning he didn't get off his bed like he normally does but was ok on his walk. 
Not given him his rimadyl today either.


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## Dogless

Oh no F&F. Hope Frank is OK and the vet can provide some answers for you.


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## Dogless

Went to the top fields last night and did some joint training and let them have a good play. They were both really silly - in a good way - Kilo even rolled and did his bucking bronco sort of daft run which he hasn't done in a long time which hopefully means he's feeling less stressed with our immediate surroundings again.

Went to the forest very early this morning to watch dawn break. It went from me not being able to see much because it was dark, to not being able to see much because of the low cloud  but the boys just ran and ran and ran for hours. I just worked on keeping on top of them, letting them range and hunt and track scents but not go that step up a gear where the hunt is really *on* (if that makes any sense). Anyway, we had a lovely time and the CHs have barely moved from the sofa since!


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## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> Oh no F&F. Hope Frank is OK and the vet can provide some answers for you.


I'm hoping perhaps he's feeling a bit pants from the rimadyl. Plus I've been doing the worst thing and looking at the side effects on the Internet. 
Appointment at 5.10 tonight. I'm sure he'll be fine.


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## Dogless

freddie and frank said:


> i'm hoping perhaps he's feeling a bit pants from the rimadyl. Plus i've been doing the worst thing and looking at the side effects on the internet.
> Appointment at 5.10 tonight. I'm sure he'll be fine.


stop googling now!!!


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## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> stop googling now!!!


Stopped.


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## Frollie

Took Ollie to his first group agility class last night. It...didn't really go as I'd expected it to. He was shy (which I did expect) but a 14 month old female dog kept trying to hump him confused and then as we were leaving, one of the dogs coming in for the next class coked his leg above Ollie and literally peed on his head. I was shocked and the owner didn't even say anything, just rolled her eyes at me!


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## GingerRogers

Sorry about Frank, hope he is ok, did I miss something, why is he on the rimadyl??? I know you had concerns he might be in pain and he was 'the chiropractic one'  poor boy, hope he just perks up or theres a simple explanation.

I have been a bit awol, been keeping up with everyone just not had much to post, a few quiet days, but just getting slightly overwhelmed about my ability to deal with ninja.

Some times she just seems like a normal gobby terrier and I am making a big deal out of everything , I know thats what my husband and everybody else thinks most of the time , but then other times I can see the stress pulsing through her, just wish I could fix it for her.


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## tiatortilla

GR - Sorry you're feeling disheartened. I'm sure it'll pass, you're a fab owner!

Frollie - Omg can't believe someone rolled their eyes at you for their dog p*ssing on yours! I hope it goes better next time.

F+F - Sorry to hear about Frank's problems. Good luck at the vets and well done to Bella.

Dogless - So great to hear Kilo is feeling less stressed !

Nicki - Well done Shae for achieving both of the aims .

--

Been a while, I've been lurking and reading all your posts on my phone though . A few things have happened here, some good, some not so good!

Saturday was an absolute nightmare of a walk, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong! Tia got approached by an off lead collie when she was on lead, tried telling the owner that Tia isn't friendly on lead but just got "Oh it's okay mine is and he'll leave her alone if she tells him", fair play to Tia she didn't make a sound until his face was an inch away from hers, collie leapt back and did leave her alone which I suppose is better than these dogs that continue harrassing after she's made it clear she wants them to go away but still.. and then for some reason I thanked the owner? No idea, I'm so spineless sometimes! Then a lady with a boxer came out of her driveway, holding him by the collar and he reared up on his back legs which caused a bit of a fit from madam, then a man with a spaniel crossed the road right in front of us and we couldn't cross over because there was a car coming.. so three unfortunate and unavoidable reactions. She did ignore a border terrier and a pair of standard poodles (!) afterwards though so some good points!
I also slipped down a hill and managed to catch myself on a wooden handrail and now have a nice bruise running up the inside of my arm from my elbow to my armpit, I'm just chalking that walk up to experience but ugh, it really wasn't fun!

Sunday we went over to the big fields for a run around, totally uneventful . Saw a few dogs while she was on lead and she didn't react, even to a JRT who growled at her so that was nice.

Monday we did two little potter abouts in the park. First time she saw her JRT friend, she was being a bit boisterous though so she didn't get to play for long.
The second time we met another staffy, this is where I have a question.. this staffy was really excitable and was jumping up and down in front of me, literally bouncing as high as my face, Tia objected to this and they had a bit of a handbags moment.. is it okay for her to object to that or not, I think it was a jealousy/protective thing? It was fine afterwards anyway, we hung around and had a chat and they were fine with each other then, Tia made friends with the ladies little boy too which she loved!
Her recall seems to be improving again though, haven't had any failed ones for a few days.

Today and yesterday we just did very short, quiet on lead walks and some training at home after the events of the last few days - thought she needed some time for her stress levels to return to normal before we see any more dogs. My mission for the moment is to teach her to lie down on command, I've tried absolutely everything but it's quite embarrassing having a nearly two year old dog that I've not managed to teach to lie down so I'm really cracking on with that.

Anyway that was stupidly long so I'll shut up now!


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> I'm taking frank back to vets tonight.
> Yesterday he didn't get up to greet my son from school and I had to coax him off his step to me. Its very out of character fir him. This morning he didn't get off his bed like he normally does but was ok on his walk.
> Not given him his rimadyl today either.


Oh dear. Something is obviously wrong. Hope your vet can give you some answers.


----------



## Twiggy

Back to Holly Bolly this afternoon in class - big time!!

Somebody was moaning at their dog for grumbling at another dog and it upset Holly.

She wouldn't even pick the dumbbell up, poor little dog. I took her back into the house and worked Tremor instead.

I hope nobody shouts at the new agility class on Monday. Holly just can't hack that sort of thing.


----------



## Twiggy

Frollie said:


> Took Ollie to his first group agility class last night. It...didn't really go as I'd expected it to. He was shy (which I did expect) but a 14 month old female dog kept trying to hump him confused and then as we were leaving, one of the dogs coming in for the next class coked his leg above Ollie and literally peed on his head. I was shocked and the owner didn't even say anything, just rolled her eyes at me!


I'm sorry the class didn't go as planned. It never fails to amaze me what some owners allow their dogs to do.


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## kat&molly

Twiggy- HB is a sensitive little soul isn't she 

F+F+B- I do hope Frank is ok, poor mite.

Ginge- Chin up, I'm sure you're doing your best by Ninja  OH's aren't always helpful are they.:001_rolleyes:

Dogless- pleased to hear Kilo is learning to relax on safer walks  must be lovely to see him being silly. 

Tia- mine are ok with dogs they know getting a bit excitable but I'm not sure they'd be happy with a strange one.

Frollie- I'm sorry your class didn't go well, hope the next one is better for Ollie. 

Not a lot going on here, just trying to keep walks as calm as possible for Evie, she is coping better but is still having trouble when we leave a field, any field , just too worried in case something 'scary' is on the other side I suppose. She has to be allowed to do it in bits at a time, hope she gets braver as we go on.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Just a quickie, will be back in later with a glass of wine....it's needed. 

Saw my usual vet. No stiff neck, back or joints. He really manipulated him quite strongly and thoroughly. Took him off the rimadyl, gave me pardale v. For 5 days. 
He advised me against the chiropracter, until he was sure what, if anything, was wrong. 
Said he was quite a stressed dog, but he hates the vets so that's not surprising. 
Explained about the bad choice of trainers in the past and he said it could possibly be a behavioural problem 

He did a really good check on him as he knows how paranoid I can be. 

So, I really don't know what to do. I've just got him an adaptil collar to see if that helps if he's stressed. I'm at a loss


----------



## sharloid

We had a little walk with all 3 dogs and then had quick session at the end with Broder on the long line working on recall, stays and paying attention to me. It takes a few seconds for him to come from a distraction but his recall from a sit is going well. It's only a short distance I know but I'm happy with him. He's picking up the whistle well.

[youtube_browser]yij_C6Ho9-A[/youtube_browser]


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## kat&molly

Freddie and frank said:


> Just a quickie, will be back in later with a glass of wine....it's needed.
> 
> Saw my usual vet. No stiff neck, back or joints. He really manipulated him quite strongly and thoroughly. Took him off the rimadyl, gave me pardale v. For 5 days.
> He advised me against the chiropracter, until he was sure what, if anything, was wrong.
> Said he was quite a stressed dog, but he hates the vets so that's not surprising.
> Explained about the bad choice of trainers in the past and he said it could possibly be a behavioural problem
> 
> He did a really good check on him as he knows how paranoid I can be.
> 
> So, I really don't know what to do. I've just got him an adaptil collar to see if that helps if he's stressed. I'm at a loss


I'm really sorry, I dont know what to say really. Hope you get to the bottom of it. Poor Frank


----------



## Dogless

Frollie - ih dear, hope the next class goes better. A greyhound cocked his leg and peed all up the side of Kilo once, the owner wasn't too concerned :crazy:.

Twiggy - poor little HB, hope your next class is better too.

F&F - no idea what to suggest really - a behavioural opinion?

Tia - I don't think you were spineless, you sound like you just got a bit overwhelmed.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Went to the top fields last night and did some joint training and let them have a good play.


Whatever gets you through the day. Do you grow your own ? Might snort a line later myself.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Whatever gets you through the day. Do you grow your own ? Might snort a line later myself.


The boys are struggling to roll them unfortunately....lack of opposable thunbs is proving disadvantageous :001_rolleyes:.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Just a quickie, will be back in later with a glass of wine....it's needed.
> 
> Saw my usual vet. No stiff neck, back or joints. He really manipulated him quite strongly and thoroughly. Took him off the rimadyl, gave me pardale v. For 5 days.
> He advised me against the chiropracter, until he was sure what, if anything, was wrong.
> Said he was quite a stressed dog, but he hates the vets so that's not surprising.
> Explained about the bad choice of trainers in the past and he said it could possibly be a behavioural problem
> 
> He did a really good check on him as he knows how paranoid I can be.
> 
> So, I really don't know what to do. I've just got him an adaptil collar to see if that helps if he's stressed. I'm at a loss


Your vet surprises me. Why did he object to the chiropractor?

McTimoney is a very gentle form of manipulation in any case.

Even my old vet, who was dead set against anything remotely alternative/homeopathic didn't object when I took little Fidget many years ago now.

Tremor has been intermittently lame since the end of January. As I've said before she's been seen by two vets (and my vet went all over her), my chiropractor on three occasions, x-rays taken and seen by an orthopaedic specialist, canine massage therapist and I had digital imaging of her back and hindquarters done. All this has cost about £1,500 and nobody could tell me exactly what the problem was. They were all very good at telling me what it wasn't.

I say this with fingers firmly crossed, but since the two visits to Lincoln to see a different McTimoney chiropractor/massage therapist very recently, Tremor is now sound and back in work. I deeply regret not listening to a good friend who recommended her, because Tremor would have been sound by the end of February and I would be £1,450.00 better off....!!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Tbh, I had to explain what the mctimoney method was.  he did say that he didn't want me wasting money 

I've got the appt booked so I think i may still go. She may be able to pick up on something that the vet can't. 

Im not sure whether to call the behaviourist that we had for bella or not. I really don't know what to do. I just hope I haven't caused him to be stressed. 

He had a really good walk tonight though, bless him. 
I'll do some thinking over the weekend.


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## shadowmare

Me and Axel had quite a nice walk in the park today:001_smile: worked on his recall and tried working on being less excited around other dogs. I was almost dragging him to every direction where I could see a dog and then try to keep his attention on me when we would be near them. It worked pretty well. Except for one time when a couple showed up with their off lead maltese x and Ax decided to go check them out. I went up to them as they both seemed to be happy to cuddle my fluff ball and was pleased that he didn't jump on them or the dog. He was being friendly to the terrier but calmed down after seeing that she wasn't very interested and as I called him while walking away he gladly joined me so I guess that's some sort of progress:001_rolleyes: On a slightly bitter note, for the last 2 days he started ignoring me when I ask him to lie down:glare: not even treats seem to interest him in the park (it's our usual park so nothing new to explore there). He just looks at me when I say the command and then looks away. But I have finally found a puppy class which we will start in a week so hopefully we will make more progress:001_smile:


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## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Tbh, I had to explain what the mctimoney method was.  he did say that he didn't want me wasting money
> 
> I've got the appt booked so I think i may still go. She may be able to pick up on something that the vet can't.
> 
> Im not sure whether to call the behaviourist that we had for bella or not. I really don't know what to do. I just hope I haven't caused him to be stressed.
> 
> He had a really good walk tonight though, bless him.
> I'll do some thinking over the weekend.


I don't know what your relationship is with your vet and how much faith and trust you put in him?

You said yourself that he "manipulated Frank quite strongly and thoroughly" and that to me speaks volumes. My vet did similar testing Tremor's cruciates and I wasn't happy.

Personally I'd still go and see Helen and if she finds nothing wrong then think about seeing a behaviourist.

Don't beat yourself up about causing Frank stress. We can all only do our best and some dogs make their own stress, believe me.


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## GingerRogers

Sorry for my woe is me post yesterday , have pulled my socks up and put on my big girls pants today . So dragging myself out of my self centred pity party, heres little bit of recognition of others achievements/disappointments. Sorry in advance for those I miss out you will have to trust that I am thinking of you :tongue_smilie:

Twiggy - You are so right some dogs create their own stress, its really hard (see yesterdays post) but all we can do is be aware of it (once we realise) and minimise it if possible, sometimes thats just not practically possible or even realistic. I am sorry you had to spend so much on Tremor but thank goodness you finally seem to have got to the root of the problem, so pleased for you to have her back working . Sorry Holly is back to bolly 

F&F I would definitely keep the appointment with the chiropractor 

Shadow - could Axel have laid on something spikey or something , perhaps you have to go back to basics and start reinforcing it in the house again and slowly move back outside to the park.

Frollie - how very rude,  I cant believe they didnt say anything I would be mortified, hope the next class is better.

TT - Saturday, all the bad out of your control, and the good, after all that to be able to ignore is very good, I am always very chuffed when ninja manages things like that, and totally surprised  Monday - I wouldn't say its acceptable, ideally we want neutral reactions but I have to say I feel its understandable and I wouldn't feel disheartened. I wish ninja didnt react to things such as the DA GSD who belts out insults at her from behind the safety of her garden wall but I understand why she does, I would probably do the same. I dont like to anthropomorphise but in this sort of circumstance it is often useful to think how would we feel if we were involved in a similar (human) encounter. A few days safety sounds like a good idea. Can you try and capture the down rather than teach it, and make sure your cue isn't something similar to something else, even if you have to change it completely to floor or something.

Kat - glad shortarse is beginning to relax  even if coming out of the fields is still traumatic. Are these fields where you can see out or not. If not she might still be feeding off you, can you stick to ones with lower hedges or something. Ninja and Evie sound very similar except in 'how' they react to stress, Evie quietly freezes and Ninja steams ahead making row, she hates blind corners but rather than stop she strains to get round them, which isn't good if I cant see round them either, obviously I want to check its safe, but in places where she can see shes on constant scan so we cant win either way. 

Sharloid - thats quite and enthusiastic recall from Broder :thumbup1: well done!

Dogless - the best for last! I cant express how lovely it is to hear Kilo is starting to relax and be silly on walks so I wont try, suffice to say it makes my face do this


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## GingerRogers

Back to me me me now 

Grannie can I be cheeky and ask if you can you give me any ideas of simple obedience/training exercises, my ultimate aim is to try and build more focus on me, please. 

I have been given permission to use the beer garden next door (I should call it training area, hic) a couple of times a week but feel a bit like a fish out of water and a tad selfconscious (people eating breakfast can see me) and am unsure of what to do, I only attended a handful of lessons before I caved and gave into the stress. It was a good move, it wasn't doing either of us any good and frankly from what I have gleaned the classes were unnecessarily boring. 

Its quite a large area probably 100ft squareish, fully enclosed, and with hedging on three sides so almost distraction free, not quite though as hedges have gaps at the bottom.

I feel I need to have a purpose each time, almost a lesson plan, so its worthwhile, I can see some progress and if anyone asks what I am doing I can sound vaguely knowledgeable rather than random . 

I would be very grateful.


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## GingerRogers

Bit more me sorry, didnt want to drown my plea for help from Twiggy in one of my epic posts.

I had thought we had a disaster of a walk, but on reflection it was so so, some good some bad, mostly just counting the days till our neighbours bugger off back to Shakespeares country as I am sure thats got a lot to do with her elevated arousal. The other nest door is up for sale, please, please dont have a dog whoever buys it 

Started off barking at a man, (really was at neighbours but he got the brunt) grumbled at non existent cat (it was there yesterday) got barked at by the cairns from their garden, barked back, but hey actually came with when asked, and didnt bark at the man crouched in his garden, our detour meant we passed westiepoos house, who was miserably yapping away even though it looked like his owner was in, she didnt react to that, she seems to ble to distinguish pitiful noises, she never reacts whent he dogs all bark in thunder storms.

We went up an alley where we got both got surprised by a lady walking along, she barked but quieted quickly, you could say I barked too, ooop  then backflipped   and barked at a man in a car from leccy board, almost out of that alley and we see a yellow lab, dont know why I do these things, alleys are always disasters, we can only divert away from it all the while giving it large.

Then the chap with the yorkie pack crosses over the road, I try to hide up another alley realising too late a dog lives backing on to it, thankfully it wasnt about today but the yorkies (I met these yorkies the other day, they are lovely chunky 'working' type) stopped and waited for the leccy man to come back down the alley, so we got a few more accidental barks in  my fault for thinking they had passed. Then headed up the road and did what we had planned which was to go to the beer garden in the neighbouring hotel for some training. 

My plan was just to sit down and treat for focus on me this first time but after all that I didn't think I was going to get much, so we played chasey/tuggy games, with some impulse control instead, she looked so funny running round and round with her new special toy, she just doesnt do that in the garden at home, but we dont have grass, hope to rectify that soon. 

She is now crashed out under my desk.


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## foxyrockmeister

Sorry to just jump in when I haven't been participating in this thread for ages, but just wanted to say to F&F about the McT Chiropractic - I would definitely recommend it!

As a McT Chiropractor myself unfortunately we do get some negative opinions towards us, 99% of this comes from people who have had no experience and know nothing about it. Sadly it is true that some vets (as with many GP's) are not supportive of any alternative forms of treatment. But we specialise in Musculoskeletal problems where as a vet is a general practitioner. The fact that your vet has ruled out any other health problems I would definitely recommend you take Frank for a check up with a Chiropractor.

I really hope you manage to get to the bottom of it.


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## JenKyzer

Right.. here's how it went down over the weekend... Then i'll post to you wonderful guys about how amazing you all seem to be doing  ...

I'll try keep it short-ish.. cos i've gone into stupid detail on what was meant to be a pic thread :laugh: lack of posting over a week seems to have gone to my head :crazy:

Saturday, we had the whole beach almost to ourselves. So Willow was offlead most of the time... we did muzzle at first as we could see people in the distance.. we ended up taking it off as they kept their distance  We leaded up to walk past a few.. but everyone had their dogs under such control.. it was fab.. not one charged up to us even though they were kept offlead.. so the distance was kept and Willow just looked and ignored. 
Willow did have a bark when we stopped to chat to a lady who had a GSD .. but it was more playful as her tail was wagging and there was no lunge or growl and she was relaxed. (Probs my fault as he dropped his pink squeaky ball so i kicked it over to him and he pounced on it  then dropped it for me again .. bless him)

We used the whistle.. and omg.. she did me soo proud... if you see the pics you'll see how far she was zooming off and just having fun chasing birds.. She recalled every time   First time she stopped and looked like .. 'omg, was that..the whistle?! Whistle means treats so... do i go over.. omg look she has the bag of treats... quickkkk!!!' and she ran so fast over to me :laugh: sat at my feet and got a good few fishy treats  all the other times she came straight over without a thought 

Sunday.. omg, i could of wrung the OHs neck!! :mad2: Poor willow was just in a twirl.. too many dogs.. OH didn't give her space.. was just cringey. She was lunging and pulling. But it really was not her fault.. she was just set up to fail too many times. She did have a good meet with a rottie x lab though.. good sniff and she bowed with a wagging tail  .. but that was the only good point about that walk. I know what went wrong and why, so i'm not going to dwell on it 

(Pics from weekend are on this thread; http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/327880-weekend-carnforth-pic-heavy.html#post1063216462)

Ususal quiet walks this week... this morning we played 'dodge the postie'  .. Lady postie was sat havin a cig.. willow clocked her.. but carried on fine... Guy postie.. willow clocked and become tense.. we went a different way and she didn't freeze and stare.. so she did well with 'this way' and 'carry on'.. he then appeared at the next corner  i didn't even give willow time to think.. 'cross' and she crossed over.. she did want to stare at him with her hair standing on end and a few murmurs but a 'leave it' & 'carry on' got her back focused on moving forward .. so no barking or lunging at them today :thumbup1:


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## JenKyzer

GR - Ooh how lovely they're letting you used the beer garden  Sorry to hear about your so-so walk.. sounds like alot went on! The games sound fun though and sounds like she loved em too  (As for your other post... your a fab owner and ninja is lucky to have you to help her control herself.. I know what you mean though.. my OH thinks the same 'she just doesn't like other dogs, aslong as she's onlead whats the big deal.. if the owner lets their dog near then thats their problem' ut 

F+F - I am reading your posts, i didn't want to 'like' them though  I hope you get to the bottom of things soon.. Such a shame your vet is now confusing things and saying not to see Helen but i did feel glad when you said you were still going to go, from what Twiggy says it sounds beneficial  .. I have no advice what so ever though  (Helpful aren't i ) just well wishes for Frank  

Shadow - Good luck with recall and the excited-ness around other dogs :thumbup1:

Dogless & Dief - I'll have whatever you two are on :crazy: 

Sharloid - loved the vid  thats how we started indoors with the short distances  hope yours comes along just as well as ours is :thumbup: 

K&M - Fingers crossed for Evie getting braver with leaving those fields  Bless her. Hope things are still calm for her and its still going well 

Twiggy - Eek.. poor holly  Fingers crossed for no shouting on Monday!

Tia - Sorry to hear about your 'what went wrong did go wrong' walk  we all hate those!! Hope you've had better ones since  As for your question... i wouldn't see it as ok if Willow did that, but i would expect it as i know her.. so i'd try not to put her in that situation.. if that makes sense?  i rarely fuss other dogs around Willow and stand away from them.. it just makes things easier for me and handling her. She lets me fuss her AmBull friend though  Thats just me and what i do though and it works for us  glad Tia was ok with the staffy after though 

Frollie - Sorry your first class wasn't what you expected  I hope they get much better for you both 

Dogless - Kilo doing bucking bronco made me smile! I too hope it means he's not as stressed  Your morning walks sound amazing also, no wonder they were shattered after it  - Happy birthday to Rudi too btw... yday i see i was a day early 

Jet - Aw it'd kill me ignoring Willow when we get home.. luckily she's ususally still half asleep and lies down for a belly rub though so isn't overly excited  Good luck with all that your doing.

Nicki - Good luck with the new 'proper' class  Sounds like Shae was soo excited to be there bless her, looking forward to hearing how she settles into it  

Not ignoring anyone else.. but i'd be here all day if i went back to the last proper post i did  i have been lurking and not ignoring anyone though  (i hope i haven't ignored anyway:001_unsure:!!)


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## tiatortilla

Thankyou for the responses on how she dealt with the over excited dog, I do usually keep her away from overly playful unknown dogs but it doesn't always work out that way.. he ran over and I thought they'd just play and they did for a while.. she would have been fine had he not done the leaping up at me and I had no idea he was going to do that! If we meet another dog like that again I'll just try and remove her from the situation immediately, so it doesn't get to that point.

Well.. I've already had a whiny thread about being ill but it does have its uses! We have mastered lying down . Ish, anyway. She'll only do it on the living room rug for now but it's pretty good for 3 days worth of training I think.

I don't think I've explained about how fixated Tia gets when you have treats before have I? It's really difficult to lure her into any position because she just sits down in front of you, thinking she's being very good indeed and won't break the sit even with encouragement. All she wants is the food! Anyway, what we've been doing instead has worked and she's had lots of fun doing it .

I have a couple of videos, the first one you get to hear my praising her but not asking her to lie down and the second one you get to hear me asking her to lie down but not praising her. Can't multitask that well obviously! Excuse my silly voice .





Hope they work, I've never done videos before!


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## Jet90

We had to go to the hospital yesterday, which meant that the dogs were left home alone for 4 hours before my partner could get home. Came home to no mess, nothing chewed, nothing pulled off counters or out of cupboards, and NO ACCIDENTS!  clever willow!!

Pippa has just started limping again this evening on the leg which was operated on in march for a patella luxation (grade 4), so we are worried and keeping an eye. 
The girls are grumping because they are being stopped from playfighting to reduce the risk of further injury. We have a sulky house tonight!!

Willow rummaged through the bin again today too so she has been slinking around with a guilty face on, pacing and just generally being a nuisance since being caught in the act and told firmly to leave it and get to her spot. 
She is also pestering the cat a fair amount, and then huffing further when the cat is hissing and telling her to back off.

Bloomin' doglets, indeed.


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## JenKyzer

tiatortilla said:


> Thankyou for the responses on how she dealt with the over excited dog, I do usually keep her away from overly playful unknown dogs but it doesn't always work out that way.. he ran over and I thought they'd just play and they did for a while.. she would have been fine had he not done the leaping up at me and I had no idea he was going to do that! If we meet another dog like that again I'll just try and remove her from the situation immediately, so it doesn't get to that point.


Ooops.. i didn't mean my post for you to explain yourself.. Sorry if it came across that way  i know that you take great care in Tia and other dogs anyway.. I just thought i'd write what we do in dog meets as Willow gets jealous/protective of me even with people nvm dogs  i wasn't looking down my nose at you if that's what you thought  i like reading about tia and what you guys do as some things are similiar to mine and willow's situation - Sorry if you though i was being odd.. it wasn't intended... or if i'm over thinking things now? :laugh: i'm super paranoid about how i come across in the world of just typing things out  *shuts up before i dig a hole for myself*

Ps, your videos do work  Clever girl tia!!


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## Canine K9

Will read through in a moment. Just had the fright of my life. Walking Bailey in the fields I went to the bin and mum was holding his lead and he pulled to get to me and mum dropped the lead and he ran to me and had zoomies so legged it past me towards the main road! He paused just exiting the car park and thank The Lord turned back round and recalled. Had a [email protected] day at school so not feeling too great but baileys been good bless.


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## tiatortilla

JenSteWillow said:


> Ooops.. i didn't mean my post for you to explain yourself.. Sorry if it came across that way  i know that you take great care in Tia and other dogs anyway.. I just thought i'd write what we do in dog meets as Willow gets jealous/protective of me even with people nvm dogs  i wasn't looking down my nose at you if that's what you thought  i like reading about tia and what you guys do as some things are similiar to mine and willow's situation - Sorry if you though i was being odd.. it wasn't intended... or if i'm over thinking things now? :laugh: i'm super paranoid about how i come across in the world of just typing things out  *shuts up before i dig a hole for myself*
> 
> Ps, your videos do work  Clever girl tia!!


No it didn't at all, I was just explaining anyway . Definitely overthinking! Dw I do it too though, I'm always paranoid I've said something to upset someone or they'll think I'm being judgemental or whatever .
I'd have taken her out of the situation much earlier if I had even the slightest inkling she'd not be okay, if I see a big dog heading towards us then we're off as I know she doesn't like them! Lol I'm doing it again... just like to make things clear .


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## tiatortilla

Canine K9 said:


> Will read through in a moment. Just had the fright of my life. Walking Bailey in the fields I went to the bin and mum was holding his lead and he pulled to get to me and mum dropped the lead and he ran to me and had zoomies so legged it past me towards the main road! He paused just exiting the car park and thank The Lord turned back round and recalled. Had a [email protected] day at school so not feeling too great but baileys been good bless.


Sounds scary. So glad that all your hard work on recall has paid off though, well done you.


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## JenKyzer

tiatortilla said:


> No it didn't at all, I was just explaining anyway . Definitely overthinking! Dw I do it too though, I'm always paranoid I've said something to upset someone or they'll think I'm being judgemental or whatever .
> I'd have taken her out of the situation much earlier if I had even the slightest inkling she'd not be okay, if I see a big dog heading towards us then we're off as I know she doesn't like them! Lol I'm doing it again... just like to make things clear .


Phew! Glad i didn't seem like i was being funny with you 
I know what you mean... we try and get out of the way as much as poss with any dog too  having gone back a few steps recently though  but we'll get there :wink:.. i hope


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## JenKyzer

Canine K9 said:


> Will read through in a moment. Just had the fright of my life. Walking Bailey in the fields I went to the bin and mum was holding his lead and he pulled to get to me and mum dropped the lead and he ran to me and had zoomies so legged it past me towards the main road! He paused just exiting the car park and thank The Lord turned back round and recalled. Had a [email protected] day at school so not feeling too great but baileys been good bless.


Well done bailey for the recall  glad all was ok! Hope you have a nice cuppa to calm down with biscuits  - that's what i always need after a heart fluttering moment on a weekday..


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## Freddie and frank

Evening all. 
Frm, I didn't know you were a mctimoney chiropracter. 
I agree with you. People who don't understand things are the first to dismiss or make a joke. 

Thanks to everyone else for the advice about frank. I've been so stressed out about him. I haven't got a favourite, but, dare I say it, I've always felt more protective over frank cause he wasn't the healthiest of puppies.  and I never let anyone walk him or do anything with him apart from me. I don't trust anyone else with him. 

I do really want to comment on everyone's posts eventually. Feel a bit self centered reading back, sorry. 

What do you guys think about the adaptil collars???.
I put one on frank last night and this morning, he seemed less jittery on his walk and more responsive. Tonight, I took all three out, with frank on a new 15mtr longline I had made.It was the most enjoyable walk all week. I'd had a crappy few days and the walk really helped. Every single time I recalled him, he came back. He wasn't pulling me from here to there, he just seemed happier and more relaxed. It was an absolute pleasure, honestly. Without thinking, when he recalled, I treated then really fussed him and bent down to kiss his head.....he kept his head up and looked at me.  normally, he would bow his head and move away. I was so thrilled, as he doesn't normally seem so relaxed and at ease. 

Really not sure how to put my thoughts into words....I want to believe that the collar is working straights away, like it should, but am I trying to just convince myself???? He seemed to be more fun loving, with not a care in the world. 

Twiggy, I would love to progress with the retrieve training and bella when you have time to explain the next step. 

My parents moved up to Hudswell, north yorks, a few weeks ago, close to my sister. I'm missing them terribly as they only lived 15 mins from me. We went up two weeks ago and tomorrow, we will be visiting with the dogs for the weekend :001_unsure:
There is a stair gate, towels, and bed reay for the visit plus....they have a 2 acre field for them to run around in.  I have long lines for frank....incase he jumps the drystone walls to get to the sheep in neighbouring fields and plenty of walks planned. I'm going to be in my element. 

I will try and catch up with everyone, have a good day tomorrow. 
Thanks again guys. :thumbup1:


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## GingerRogers

Glad you had a better day F&F. Its horrible worrying so much especially if no one really understands around you. I haven't used adaptil I have wondered about it hey are quite pricey I believe so never got round to trying one. It seems to be one of those things people swear by or pooh pooh so if its working that's great even if its just helping you and in turn helping him.


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## Dogless

F&F - I have used Adaptil when we moved with Kilo - a collar and then a diffuser in the new house. I couldn't see a discernible difference in him TBH but then he was quite a calm, but sensitive, dog back then so maybe now he has a lot of stress I would be able to see one perhaps.


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## Dogless

TT - sweet little videos, it's nice to see Tia in action!

JSW - pleased you had a good time away...as for OH's messing things up  you have my sympathies there .

K9 - Very pleased that Baliey didn't run onto the road; what a scary moment though! Hope you've recovered . Hope that things are better at school too.

Jet - hope Pippa's leg just needs rest.

GR - I like the idea of a little training programme for the beer garden. My suggestion to thrown into the pot is "hide" as that might help for when you spot dogs.

shadowmare - pleased things are going well in the main.


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## kat&molly

Jet- Hope Pippas leg is ok, what a worry!.

K9- well done to Bailey on the recall, have a better day at school , at least its Friday.

JSW- loved the photos, and woo on the whistle work. 

TT- Good girl Tia, learning the down 

F+F+B- good to hear Frank had a good walk, if you think the Adaptil has helped all the better 

Ginge- just reading that made me dizzy, thats hard work trying to avoid all these things. The beer garden sounds good though- except handler drinking wine is not classed as a distraction :biggrin5:
They do sound similar Ninja and Evie, maybe its a Hound versus Terrier way of dealing with things? 
We haven't got fields with low hedges, they are all high. The track all links up and we avoid chunks of it so need to use the fields , I dont know if leaving them is going to get easier for her or habit forming 

Took Moll and Evie off to the nice river yesterday in the car. It took madam a couple of minutes to come out the car as a couple of men passed, she was a mixture of relaxed and on edge for the whole time really. We then went to the next spot about 10 minutes away and she was better there.
Had to pass a chap asleep in his car, we've seen him before so I'm guessing thats how he spends his lunch times :Yawn:

We had a Flexi break on us the day before yesterday, she stopped when I asked for a wait  pretty good as there were sheep on the other side of the fence eek.


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## JenKyzer

K&M - River walk sounds lovely  I hope it was more 'relaxed' than 'on edge' bless her. As for than man snoozing in his car... typical man :001_rolleyes: Yay for the 'wait' too 

-

Last night i was pondering over whether to go to the woods this morning or not.. still gets me a tad nervey  .. Woke up to sunshine with a cool breeze so it would of been a wasted opportunity if we didn't go 

Dog watch...

1st - She saw before me, she looked at me, went on the other side of me and just carried on sniffing the wooden panels next to her with me saying 'carry on' 
2nd was more of a distraction, kids feeding ducks and they had every duck possible up to the path, willow carried on nicely without even a lingering sniff
3rd.. was 3 dogs all offlead.. : .. we went 'this way' well out of the path and she almost pulled me into the water .. she looked round and saw the dogs.. but did a good carry on round the edge and was more interested in the water 
4th.. lady throwing a big stick into the big pool area for her jack russ, we went round the pool the opposite way and again willow was more interested in trying to get into the water so i let her have a paddle in the lil stream that runs into the pool, so she barely acknowledged the jack russ 
5th .. 3 more dogs : again... i allowed a paddle so she just looked at them then 'this way-ed' into the water 
6th.. by this time it was going too well! Got to the narrowest point and a lady appeared with a husky, i got willow on the opposite side almost in a bush, the husky was lunging and growling so willow pulled but she carried on without a fuss and no noise... for some reason i said sorry to this lady :001_rolleyes: and she said 'its ok' .. god knows what i was apologising for but nvm  this dog was pretty much in arms reach of us so i thought Willow did well.. maybe i should of just 'this way-ed' backwards and got behind the bush but that was an after thought unfortunately :001_rolleyes:
7th.. we crossed over before willow saw it.. she saw it when she was on the other side.. just carried on 

All the way round i was using 'this way' 'carry on' and she got treats every now and again thrown onto the floor to forage out in the leaves .. and of course got treats after every dog  not using the 'sit' for them going by again yet, 'carry on' is working much better at the moment.

Very pleased with her this morning :thumbsup:
After sundays song and dance with most dogs i was abit worried.. but it worked out great 

Hope everyone else has a good day!


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Back to me me me now
> 
> Grannie can I be cheeky and ask if you can you give me any ideas of simple obedience/training exercises, my ultimate aim is to try and build more focus on me, please.
> 
> I have been given permission to use the beer garden next door (I should call it training area, hic) a couple of times a week but feel a bit like a fish out of water and a tad selfconscious (people eating breakfast can see me) and am unsure of what to do, I only attended a handful of lessons before I caved and gave into the stress. It was a good move, it wasn't doing either of us any good and frankly from what I have gleaned the classes were unnecessarily boring.
> 
> Its quite a large area probably 100ft squareish, fully enclosed, and with hedging on three sides so almost distraction free, not quite though as hedges have gaps at the bottom.
> 
> I feel I need to have a purpose each time, almost a lesson plan, so its worthwhile, I can see some progress and if anyone asks what I am doing I can sound vaguely knowledgeable rather than random .
> 
> I would be very grateful.


Yes there's loads you can do.....

Hand touch and then progress to a left and right hand circle out on your hand (or a target stick as the Ninja is so small).

Distance Control (sit - down - stand). Terriers are usually very good at it and it impresses Joe Public...!!

Recall to front. Then progress to angled ones.

Recall to heel.

Dare I say retrieve?

Sendaway to a mat, marker, ball or pot of tit-bits.

If I get time I'll explain any that take your fancy in greater detail later.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Evening all.
> Frm, I didn't know you were a mctimoney chiropracter.
> I agree with you. People who don't understand things are the first to dismiss or make a joke.
> 
> Thanks to everyone else for the advice about frank. I've been so stressed out about him. I haven't got a favourite, but, dare I say it, I've always felt more protective over frank cause he wasn't the healthiest of puppies.  and I never let anyone walk him or do anything with him apart from me. I don't trust anyone else with him.
> 
> I do really want to comment on everyone's posts eventually. Feel a bit self centered reading back, sorry.
> 
> What do you guys think about the adaptil collars???.
> I put one on frank last night and this morning, he seemed less jittery on his walk and more responsive. Tonight, I took all three out, with frank on a new 15mtr longline I had made.It was the most enjoyable walk all week. I'd had a crappy few days and the walk really helped. Every single time I recalled him, he came back. He wasn't pulling me from here to there, he just seemed happier and more relaxed. It was an absolute pleasure, honestly. Without thinking, when he recalled, I treated then really fussed him and bent down to kiss his head.....he kept his head up and looked at me.  normally, he would bow his head and move away. I was so thrilled, as he doesn't normally seem so relaxed and at ease.
> 
> Really not sure how to put my thoughts into words....I want to believe that the collar is working straights away, like it should, but am I trying to just convince myself???? He seemed to be more fun loving, with not a care in the world.
> 
> *Twiggy, I would love to progress with the retrieve training and bella when you have time to explain the next step. *
> 
> I tried a DAP collar and the spray with Quiver for her travelling phobia 3 yrs ago but it didn't make one scrap of difference. To be fair neither did anything else I spent about £250 on...!! As with all these things; some work really well on some dogs and not on others.
> 
> Tell me exactly how far you've got on the retrieve training and I'll attemmpt to explain the next phase.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Yes there's loads you can do.....
> 
> Hand touch and then progress to a left and right hand circle out on your hand (or a target stick as the Ninja is so small).
> 
> Distance Control (sit - down - stand). Terriers are usually very good at it and it impresses Joe Public...!!
> 
> Recall to front. Then progress to angled ones.
> 
> Recall to heel.
> 
> Dare I say retrieve?
> 
> Sendaway to a mat, marker, ball or pot of tit-bits.
> 
> If I get time I'll explain any that take your fancy in greater detail later.


Thank you there's lots of ideas there, some we can do/understand others we dont.

I am embarrassed to say I dont really understand what a sendaway is, I think I do but not really sure - is it getting the dog to move away from you to a target of some kind  We can do 'go to mat' in the house (this is for training so different from bed) but not sure if thats the same and would like to try different targets. So can you explain that for starters  please.

Also distance control how do you go about setting that up, I can get her to stay and if she moves then I can get her back down sometimes  but thats a bit backwards I feel

You can dare to say retrieve  but boy she makes that one hard work. Sometimes she brings things sometimes she doesn't but never ever on cue. For some reason yesterday she kept bringing me the manky tail end of her chew bone, not exactly something I can play tug with which is her usual game  I threw it a few times but I dont think that was quite what she wanted.

ETA JSW that sounds fantastic :biggrin5:


----------



## tiatortilla

Just a quick phone update today. Tia was a little star this morning, went to the park and did lots of training. Sit/stay/recalls, walking to heel off lead, even managed some lying down! She thought about running over to a pair of spaniels but she recalled . Happy today!
We're going to stay with my dad for the weekend, my auntie is getting married and Tia is allowed to come to the reception because it's outside.. I'll let you know how she behaves, I'm sure it's going to be REALLY exciting so wish us luck!


----------



## Dogless

JSW - Dog Watch report very thorough, duly noted and a big "Well Done" to Willow  .

GR - Not ignoring you but will obviously leave Twiggy to explain distance control and all that jazz. Although mine isn't awful (well, you have seen a video ) I am certainly not a patch on Super Grannie .

TT - Well done to you too and I hope you have a lovely time at the wedding.

Good day here in the main.

*Rudi* - we went for a run this morning, Roo was as wiggly and excited to go as ever, we passed a fair number of dogs, most who were desperate to meet, some runners, some workmen etc. He was just a little star for me again .

*Kilo* - we had an hour and a half playing on the top fields with Dizzy and human. They had a great time . Not so good on the way there though: we saw the dog that had attacked him when we were in the car on the way there. We were waiting at a junction and he walked behind us and then dropped his ball right by the car so his owner had to backtrack and get it. Then her toddler fell and all the time the dog was there - I couldn't pull out and Kilo had an absolute FIT in the back throwing himself about and screaming and barking; I was afraid that he'd hurt himself. He barked all the rest of the way down the next two turns even though the dog was long out of sight and growled and whined all the way up to the top fields. Pretty upsetting TBH .


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless, I have liked for your response to me and for Rudi being good. So sorry about Kilo getting upset though, I hope he's okay poor boy.


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Dogless, I have liked for your response to me and for Rudi being good. So sorry about Kilo getting upset though, I hope he's okay poor boy.


He's fine; first big stress he's had in a couple of weeks I think. Just upsetting knowing how much we have to do if we are ever going to get him OK with dogs again.


----------



## Freddie and frank

quick catch up.

jsw...i love your photo thread of willow. she's stunning.

k9...hope you've had a better day today. 

gr...beer garden training. i like the sound of that. hope it goes well. 

twiggy...thanks, bella will hold the toy for a second whilst i hold it. i can drop it on the floor and say 'get it' and she picks it up, holds it and lets me touch it. in class we got them into a sit, wait, threw the dummy, told them to get it and we followed with them on the lead, then back to the start point. bit like the ready steady game??? but bella, like i mentioned, wasn't interested. so that's what i'm aiming for....long way to go but i don't mind. 

dogless...:thumbsup: for rudis run and kilo's play with dizzy. sorry to hear he got upset. 

hello to everyone else, 

all calm here, fingers crossed it'll continue. 
i'm off up north in a couple hours so catch you all later. hope you all have good weekend walks.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> quick catch up.
> 
> twiggy...thanks, bella will hold the toy for a second whilst i hold it. i can drop it on the floor and say 'get it' and she picks it up, holds it and lets me touch it. in class we got them into a sit, wait, threw the dummy, told them to get it and we followed with them on the lead, then back to the start point. bit like the ready steady game??? but bella, like i mentioned, wasn't interested. so that's what i'm aiming for....long way to go but i don't mind.
> 
> OK but that's not what I meant.
> 
> How far have you got with the sitting on a chair method, which I explained several pages back, and Bella touching your fingers?


----------



## Twiggy

*Freddie and Frank*

*This is the post I mean:*

Right here we go. It's a bit of an essay:

Start in the house/garden with Frank on his own, preferably when he's quite hungry.

You will need a hard, upright chair (kitchen/dining room type), Frank's dummy or dumbbell and some very tasty treats.

Sit on the edge of the chair which your legs stretched out in front of you (feet flat on the floor) to make a channel. Call Frank to come and sit in front of you between your out-stretched legs, keeping your hands together roughly above your knees, with a tasty treat in your fingers. When Frank touches your fingers, drop the treat into his mouth.

Now throw a tit-bit out in front of you, making sure he sees it and say something like "get it". As he eats the tit-bit say "what's this?" and show him the tit-bit in your fingers and recall him again into the sit in front of you. Make sure he touches your fingers before you release the tit-bit into his mouth.

Repeat several times until he is performing the exercise reliably and then add the word "touch" as he touches your fingers.

Once Frank is enjoying the new 'game' get him to sit between your legs and touch your fingers for the tit-bit. Now produce the dummy/dumbbell, whilst he is still sitting in front of you. You need to be quite exciting saying something like "what's this" - "look what I've got" - etc. but keep him in the sit. If he takes it from you even for a nano second, try and take it back from him before he spits it out and give him a tit-bit. Don'tsay "good boy", in fact don't say anything to start with (the tit-bit is the praise).

See how you get on with the first stage and hopefully we'll progress it from there.

If I get time this afternoon I'll try and persuade hubby to take some pics of Tremor doing it as it will be easier to understand.

The idea of this is to teach the dogs a reliable hold way before you start throwing articles.

With our obedience dogs once they get in the higher classes, the retrieve articles are provided by the judge and can be anything from an empty Coke bottle to a lump of metal. Once we have told the dog "hold" (or whatever) we are not allowed to breathe/move/or command them and they must run out, pick up the article cleanly and return into the front present into a sit.
As you will appreciate the pick up and hold must be set in stone...!!


----------



## missRV

Canine K9 said:


> Will read through in a moment. Just had the fright of my life. Walking Bailey in the fields I went to the bin and mum was holding his lead and he pulled to get to me and mum dropped the lead and he ran to me and had zoomies so legged it past me towards the main road! He paused just exiting the car park and thank The Lord turned back round and recalled. Had a [email protected] day at school so not feeling too great but baileys been good bless.


Hope you've had a better day at school today chick


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> JSW - Dog Watch report very thorough, duly noted and a big "Well Done" to Willow  .
> -----_eek.. i proper went off on one didn't i.. i was just so pleased after the eventful sunday and the lungey walks before that too.. i have to admit i was a tad overly thorough and don't expect anyone to read it _ -------
> 
> GR - Not ignoring you but will obviously leave Twiggy to explain distance control and all that jazz. Although mine isn't awful (*well, you have seen a video* ) I am certainly not a patch on Super Grannie .
> 
> TT - Well done to you too and I hope you have a lovely time at the wedding.
> 
> Good day here in the main.
> 
> *Rudi* - we went for a run this morning, Roo was as wiggly and excited to go as ever, we passed a fair number of dogs, most who were desperate to meet, some runners, some workmen etc. He was just a little star for me again .
> 
> *Kilo* - we had an hour and a half playing on the top fields with Dizzy and human. They had a great time . Not so good on the way there though: we saw the dog that had attacked him when we were in the car on the way there. We were waiting at a junction and he walked behind us and then dropped his ball right by the car so his owner had to backtrack and get it. Then her toddler fell and all the time the dog was there - I couldn't pull out and Kilo had an absolute FIT in the back throwing himself about and screaming and barking; I was afraid that he'd hurt himself. He barked all the rest of the way down the next two turns even though the dog was long out of sight and growled and whined all the way up to the top fields. Pretty upsetting TBH .


*A video*?? Am i missing something  ?! I haven't spotted any videos of the CH's :sad:

Well done to Rudi for being a star  Such a good boy!
Poor kilo - sorry he got upset  i hope his playtime with Dizzy took his mind off it and he was relaxed on the way home. Hope your not too shaken by his reaction x

Tia - your walk this morning sounds great  Well done to tia!! Have fun at the wedding 

FF - Thankyou  Enjoy your time with us northern-ers


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> *A video*?? Am i missing something  ?! I haven't spotted any videos of the CH's :sad:
> 
> Well done to Rudi for being a star  Such a good boy!
> Poor kilo - sorry he got upset  i hope his playtime with Dizzy took his mind off it and he was relaxed on the way home. Hope your not too shaken by his reaction x
> 
> Tia - your walk this morning sounds great  Well done to tia!! Have fun at the wedding
> 
> FF - Thankyou  Enjoy your time with us northern-ers


Wasn't on waywo; I sent it via PM to a few folk for opinion - I was too shy to put it on the thread but will try and get another one for here .

Kilo's reaction just makes me feel hopeless TBH but onwards and upwards 'eh? .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Wasn't on waywo; I sent it via PM to a few folk for opinion - I was too shy to put it on the thread but will try and get another one for here .
> 
> Kilo's reaction just makes me feel hopeless TBH but onwards and upwards 'eh? .


Oh that'd be lovely if you did share one. You can always send me video's anytime too  .. I won't offer an 'opinion' other than how gorgeous the CH's are and how fond i am of them 

Well we all know your not hopeless  and i'm sure your boys know it too! Your already onwards and upwards with him and doing your total best to keep Kilo relaxed.. more than what most owners would do i would imagine! Have a nice glass of wine or something tonight and you relax too!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Oh that'd be lovely if you did share one. You can always send me video's anytime too  .. I won't offer an 'opinion' other than how gorgeous the CH's are and how fond i am of them
> 
> Well we all know your not hopeless  and i'm sure your boys know it too! Your already onwards and upwards with him and doing your total best to keep Kilo relaxed.. more than what most owners would do i would imagine! Have a nice glass of wine or something tonight and you relax too!


Well, I had been trying for an hour to get a good video and kept mucking up with the camera so although Kilo did exactly as I asked it wasn't as "snappy" and excited as he usually is. The quality is also awful!! I keep meaning to ask hubby when he is next home to come with us and use the decent camera to film!!!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Well, I had been trying for an hour to get a good video and kept mucking up with the camera so although Kilo did exactly as I asked it wasn't as "snappy" and excited as he usually is. The quality is also awful!! I keep meaning to ask hubby when he is next home to come with us and use the decent camera to film!!!


& we all know what asking the Oh's to do something is like... :mellow: So i'll just keep my eyes peeled and hope i see one before xmas  maybe the CH's playing in the snow could be their debut


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy...oh sorry, I can be so dizzy sometimes. 
Bella will touch my fingers whilst I'm on a chair and she's in a sit. She will hold the toy in her mouth and let me touch it for a second before dropping it. 
Hope that's ok.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Wasn't on waywo; I sent it via PM to a few folk for opinion - I was too shy to put it on the thread but will try and get another one for here .
> 
> *Kilo's reaction just makes me feel hopeless TBH* but onwards and upwards 'eh? .


You're doing it again.... It's still very early days with Kilo given what happened.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Twiggy...oh sorry, I can be so dizzy sometimes.
> Bella will touch my fingers whilst I'm on a chair and she's in a sit. She will hold the toy in her mouth and let me touch it for a second before dropping it.
> Hope that's ok.


Hmmm - So Bella is sitting in front of you holding the toy?

What sort of toy?

She should be touching your fingers, not you touching the toy (exactly the same as on the recall to front).

What do you do/say when she drops the toy?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You're doing it again.... It's still very early days with Kilo given what happened.


I know; I won't give up Grannie  but it just really knocks out my stuffing for an hour or two to see a reaction like that.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm - So Bella is sitting in front of you holding the toy?
> 
> What sort of toy?
> 
> She should be touching your fingers, not you touching the toy (exactly the same as on the recall to front).
> 
> What do you do/say when she drops the toy?


It's a smal kong with tails at both ends. It's the only thing she's shown interest in. It's only used for training. 
Has she got to be holding the toy whilst touching my hands then. 
I don't say anything when she drops the toy cause she only has it in her moth for a second. 
I'm hard work, I know.  
Doing this on my phone in the car....feel a bit sicky so would it help if I try and post a video over the weekend ? 
I do have eureka moments. Honest. 
Thanks anyway.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> It's a smal kong with tails at both ends. It's the only thing she's shown interest in. It's only used for training.
> Has she got to be holding the toy whilst touching my hands then.
> I don't say anything when she drops the toy cause she only has it in her moth for a second.
> I'm hard work, I know.
> Doing this on my phone in the car....feel a bit sicky so would it help if I try and post a video over the weekend ?
> I do have eureka moments. Honest.
> Thanks anyway.


Yes a video would help a lot. If you can video the recall to front on a chair and then Bella holding the kong, that would be great.

You're not hard work and it isn't easy trying to explain in writing. Some of the handlers that train here, still don't get it when they've been shown loads of times.


----------



## Nicki85

Hi All!

Well all good here 

All a bit of a mess this morning, Rust had physio at 9,30 and i had the bright idea of walking them on the way in a small patch of forest. had avoided it before as it is too small for Rusty to be off lead but as he had physio I didn't want him coated in mud  Shae was fine offlead and spent most of the time have zoomies then collapsing in a heap in the grass.... She also found this boggy stream thing and had lots of zoomies through that lol. Rusty pulled me around on his cannix stuff and still had a good time I reckon! Anyhow, lost the car so was 10mins late to physic...

Poor lad, he had boots put on and then theraband to add resistance. He said that any muscle soreness in the evening is muscle fatigue rather than he has done something else to it as the muscle still needs building up. I only notice if he has been galloping around a lot for an hour or so in the evening... hopefully it will ease off as the muscle grows. So once his posh shoes come I can start doing that with him to help the muscle....

We had seperate walks this afternoon, Rusty hadn't had a chance to run for a while so took him to the other woods and he was loopy. Proper zoomie Spaniel mode! Didn't see much of him but could hear him  Then i'd hear him coming up very fast behind me.... He was listening though and recalled after a deer that he put up (So he won't chase deer but loves wild hill sheep?!) but was a bit naughty with some ducks in the lake.

Shae went to the field and played with her toys and some fun training. She was a good girl, think her teeth are settling in at the moment as there is a lot of chewing going on! She usually picks a toy to chew on but its' toys she ruins so I have to replace it with a chew or something. Not that she minds.... both of mine have no resource guarding issues!
Here she is "speaking" the jumping up part wasn't quite what I was after but made me laugh!! We had been doing "speak" for a little while so she was obviously getting a bit bored lol...
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151960935327216&l=8057197138815425797

Twiggy- I have been trying your retrieve method just for fun! Rusty has really got it and Shae is coming in and touching my hands. Shae isn't coming in as much as i'd like but i'm encouraging her in and she's getting there. Rusty has moved on to bringing a toy in and touching my hand. He sometimes drops it so I just ask him to bring it again... Since Rusty has discovered bringing toys= treats he loves it. He used to be quite worried about carrying things around.


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - Rusty's physio sounds really good; I am sure all the work you're putting in will pay off - certainly is so far isn't it! Shae looks like she's bossing you about with the expression on her face when "speaking!!"

OK morning here at Concrete Central.

The boys were tired (had been up at 0430 to go to the forest and watch the sun rise, but that didn't go to plan  with a grumpy tired Kilo so I let them sleep until 0930 when they decided to wrestle). Anyway....

*Rudi* I took on a walk up to the top fields. The weather's really nice and there were lots of dogs out. We got run up to by a springer in the shop car park - the first few times that this dog has run up to us and followed I was nice enough to walk all the way back to return him but the owner has always either not acknowledged me at all or has been fairly unpleasant as it's clearly my fault - so I turned and went back the way we'd come, across some grass, across the road again and he eventually ran back to his owner once he was well out of sight. I retraced my steps again and the owner was still stood talking and she shot me a look .The dog was occupied being fussed by someone thankfully. Then we saw the DA JRT which I HATE as the dog gets jerked about and hit for barking and the woman addresses something to him rather than me every time. She never crosses roads or practises any avoidance so I went round behind some bushes, but he zipped round on his flexi anyway. Then we were run up to by a small child and lab offlead. All of this was by roads .

Finally we reached the top fields and had a play. Walking back one of the security men stopped us with the classic opener "You could put a saddle on that, he's lovely" and we had a quick chat - he told me he sees me with the dogs a lot and how it's nice to see well trained dogs which made me really, really proud . Then we walked home without any incidents, thank goodness. It was exhausting really . Makes me feel a little sad as all that lack of regard for anyone else is why I can't walk Kilo round there any more .

*Kilo* I drove round to one of the fields and the plan was to let him have a sniff and potter and then do some training. When we got out of the car he was really, really worried and froze every couple of steps  which is perhaps because of yesterday. So, I got the pole out of the car and he transformed into a dancing, eeking, eager dog . We played "touch the pole" and a lot of impulse control stuff, particularly downs at a distance when running for his toy and then just lots of other stuff mixed in. *Grannie* he will now reliably run to touch the pole from 20m - I know as his longline is 15m and I was 5m beyond the end of it .


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry Kilo had a bad experience again, perhaps your should just let Rudi eat the offending dog on the QT : and why wasn't it any of these other owners who were at the receiving end of him, not that I should be wishing him on anyone but 

Glad Rusty is improving every day Nikki 

The trouble I had with Twiggys retrieve method last time she posted it for was getting ninja in close enough, she tends to work a little way off  and would come in close so I gave up 

Fabulous morning at ninja nook. Was going to get the trailer out and cycle to a quiet byway and try cycling with ninja alongside but forgot I broke it last time and need a hand to fix it 

So rather than get in a tiz I shoved the bike in the back of the car and drove there. Got it out and away we went  I wanted to try this out before shelling out on a bike attachment (really need a bike rack for the car, it takes me a little while to get the bike IN the car on my own) 

She got the hang straight away  we only did just over a mile with a few second breaks, she did once dart across but it was behind me thankfully and with the attachment wouldn't be able to do that. Only thing was she naturally went to the right of me :frown5:

Then we had a lovely hours walk on the long line (which will be employed for the foreseeable till shooting season ends I reckon) way too many release pens about here, the area is full of small hamlets, each hamlet has a 'big house' each house has an 'estate', each estate has a shoot = lots and lots of game birds and lots of grumpy game keepers 

I am off to a Talking Dogs Foundation Scent work course tomorrow (observer place only ). She will spend the day at my mums chilling which will do her good and the neighbours are taking themselves and their barking sheltie back to Stratford on Thursday :biggrin5:

So do you see a plan formulating; tire her out physically, harness her chase instinct with some of Twiggys obedience exercises, occupy her nose with scent work training and hopefully have one tired happy dog who might just might start to focus on me rather than other dogs.


----------



## missRV

Sorry Dogless that things have been so difficult  I really do wish that people would have more regard when controlling their dogs (and indeed their children) 

Glad Ninja is doing so well. She'll get there 

Glad Rusty is doing so well Nikki



Well we had a much better agility lesson today. It was just Rosie and Bailey today which was fab (sounds horrible but Rosie is terrified of the bigger dogs at agility and they freak her out a bit) 

She cleared the 2 pole hurdle, that's the highest she's ever jumped.... the trainer raised the bridge to maximum height, I'd say it was about 5ft high and she was introduced to the see saw! I think I was more scared than Rosie  She'd have got through the course no problem only that I took her the wrong way  

I'm sure Caninek9 will be on here soon with an update on Bailey from the lesson, but he did so well too 


Other news, Rosie's doing really well with her roll over command, it's only taken us months lol


----------



## zedder

Off lead recall must admit it's not going great but he's getting there slowly.


----------



## Canine K9

Sorry Dogless 
Ginger and rusty both did well 
Rosie's roll over sounds great now missRV 

Agility was fab. I swear baileys the next dog actor he was acting so tired at the agility and once the lesson was over he went bonkers having off lead zoomies with Rosie. (Well kind of) I had no chance of recall though lol


----------



## missRV

Canine K9 said:


> Sorry Dogless
> Ginger and rusty both did well
> Rosie's roll over sounds great now missRV
> 
> Agility was fab. I swear baileys the next dog actor he was acting so tired at the agility and once the lesson was over he went bonkers having off lead zoomies with Rosie. (Well kind of) *I had no chance of recall though lol*


We got them back though  although we did manage to catch each other's dog then swap  Bailey is far more interesting than me!


----------



## Dogless

GR - Sounds like a perfect morning, I am pleased  and I am jealous of your workshop tomorrow, hope you enjoy it. I have no idea why these other dogs haven't been at the receiving end of that dog TBH bar the fact we were walking just past his gate which may have had some bearing on it. I do suspect Kilo hasn't been the only one though.

K9 - well done Bailey at agility.

zedder - keep on going, sure it will come right .

The boys slept all day until springing to life late afternoon so I drove them up to the top fields for a good play .


----------



## Kicksforkills

Did half an hour training recall and waits with Dexter on the empty field. He did better on the recall then the waiting.

Then a dog we know came and he had ten minutes playing, during which he recalled well to me twice.


----------



## Tyton

Sorry haven't posted for ages. Do keep up with you all by reading and stealing lots of tips for when I get more time with the boys. 

Mainly been working on stopping OH from killing/giving away the pups or leaving home himself as they have been holy terrors with running off, chewing, systematically killing the local frog population, etc 

Do seem to have turned a corner this week though and the kitchen doorframe has been intact for 6 days now and I've come home to smiling husband and smiling dogs. We also had a fabulous day today meeting up with a local family who have one of the pups' sisters ( see my other thread) 

Again sorry for being so quiet but been too busy at work and a bit disheartened by dog/husband arguments at home.


----------



## Nicki85

Well, I think it was a mistake to say Rust was doing so well- he's been limping today after a hour or so off this morning. My mistake  Should have taken him for a run this morning after him having a session off lead yesterday as well. Anyhow, on lead walks for a few days and then see where we are. It's not as bad as last time but he's obviously re-injured it a bit. See where we are after a couple of days back on lead... I think it's when he has been doing a lot of galloping and he's been doing a lot of that for the past two days! Have to remember that it's going to be a long road to recovery- not a short, sharp fix.

Shae had agility today- she was fab  Lovely, happy keen pup. Worked on our rear-cross and cueing that. She got it much quicker than what I thought she would... She's so gangly though- got a long way to go till shes a streamlined super sonic shepherd! But she is only a baby 

TOok them both swimming the afternoon, both had a lovely time.... 

So yeah, bit "meh" about Rust but I suspect he will bounce back pretty quick with some onlead stuff... I just need to be more careful about letting him gallop around for multiple days... if that makes sense!! 

DL- your boys sound fab as always. I'm glad Kilo perked up when you got the training stuff out... You really should be chuffed with the chaps comments!
K9 and MRV- welldone at agility 
GR- hope you have fun tomorrow, I'm keen to take Rust along to one in the not so distant future- reckon he'd love it... Sure Ninja will enjoy her day chilling as well!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Well, I think it was a mistake to say Rust was doing so well- he's been limping today after a hour or so off this morning. My mistake  Should have taken him for a run this morning after him having a session off lead yesterday as well. Anyhow, on lead walks for a few days and then see where we are. It's not as bad as last time but he's obviously re-injured it a bit. See where we are after a couple of days back on lead... I think it's when he has been doing a lot of galloping and he's been doing a lot of that for the past two days! Have to remember that it's going to be a long road to recovery- not a short, sharp fix.
> 
> Shae had agility today- she was fab  Lovely, happy keen pup. Worked on our rear-cross and cueing that. She got it much quicker than what I thought she would... She's so gangly though- got a long way to go till shes a streamlined super sonic shepherd! But she is only a baby
> 
> TOok them both swimming the afternoon, both had a lovely time....
> 
> So yeah, bit "meh" about Rust but I suspect he will bounce back pretty quick with some onlead stuff... I just need to be more careful about letting him gallop around for multiple days... if that makes sense!!
> 
> I'm so sorry Nicki and yes it makes perfect sense as I have been there so many, many times over the years with my dogs and wretched soft tissue injuries. The times I've let mine do just a little bit too much and then almost back to square one again.
> 
> I've just found out that the only show left this season where I've entered Tremor is now going to be indoors on a concrete floor and as there is no way I can risk her doing retrieve and sendaway on concrete, we won't be going. Very disappointing but there you go.


----------



## Twiggy

Talking of retrieve girls, I've been judging all day miles away at a show down South.

As it was the top class (C) I took a fairly difficult retrieve article which was a plastic cog type wheel fastened to a beer mat. the dogs did it pretty well and not one of them failed scent. I set 10 cloths in a T shaped pattern with the decoy cloth second one out and mine at the top of the T... They all made it to the back marker sendaway as well, although one or two took the scenic route.

I actually enjoyed my day, although I'm shattered now. It's always good to see really well trained dogs working beautifully and enjoying themselves as well.


----------



## Nicki85

Thanks Twiggy. It's just so difficult, he loves to run but yet I can't let him do it all the time  But, there is a lot of other things we can do and he loves going to new places, even if he is on the lead so that's good. I just need to get the balance right. He will be onlead till Weds and then he's going to do a bit of controlled running (agility with no jumps or contact equipment basically! ) assuming he looks fine that is... then bring up the offlead walks again. 

Sorry to hear the show is on concrete, I can understand your concerns  Can you take her and train her rounds the part you are happy with her doing? Not sure it works like that in obedience though!


----------



## Hanwombat

Recall - I got a whistle today and Io took to it straight away so fingers crossed.


----------



## Dogless

Hanwombat said:


> Recall - I got a whistle today and Io took to it straight away so fingers crossed.


Kilo says Cat !!!! on the waywo thread !!!!!!  . I have told him we will be working on his impulse control much more.


----------



## Hanwombat

Dogless said:


> Kilo says Cat !!!! on the waywo thread !!!!!!  . I have told him we will be working on his impulse control much more.


Hehe

Io's recall is awful so been meaning to get a whistle and today she was doing brilliantly. Managed to recall her from the cat too  She also knows to sit once she comes back to me.


----------



## Dogless

Hanwombat said:


> Hehe
> 
> Io's recall is awful so been meaning to get a whistle and today she was doing brilliantly. Managed to recall her from the cat too  She also knows to sit once she comes back to me.


She is so, so young that I would just take little baby steps with everything. I wouldn't try recalls from the cat etc TBH until she is solid elsewhere. Just never set her up to fail - if you think that she might not come back go and get her even. For the first couple of weeks I would blow the whistle each time meals and treats are given, then work up to using it for recall games in the house and garden. You don't want to ruin it by jumping ahead. It is tempting and we have all done it - but it takes a lot more work "fixing" a problem you have created than not creating it in the first place - if that makes any sense at all?????


----------



## Hanwombat

Dogless said:


> She is so, so young that I would just take little baby steps with everything. I wouldn't try recalls from the cat etc TBH until she is solid elsewhere. Just never set her up to fail - if you think that she might not come back go and get her even.


oh yes ive had to collect her many times


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Thanks Twiggy. It's just so difficult, he loves to run but yet I can't let him do it all the time  But, there is a lot of other things we can do and he loves going to new places, even if he is on the lead so that's good. I just need to get the balance right. He will be onlead till Weds and then he's going to do a bit of controlled running (agility with no jumps or contact equipment basically! ) assuming he looks fine that is... then bring up the offlead walks again.
> 
> Sorry to hear the show is on concrete, I can understand your concerns  Can you take her and train her rounds the part you are happy with her doing? Not sure it works like that in obedience though!


I could but that would be removing the bits she really loves.

I remember Quiver at the same venue about 2/3 weeks before she won the championships at Crufts. I'd only just been given permission by my chiropractor to start working her so I didn't attempt the sendaway. She looked at me and then the sendaway and pretty much said "haven't you forgotten something?" as we left the ring.....!! She was not a happy bunny.


----------



## Nicki85

I can understand that  Maybe not an option then.


----------



## tiatortilla

Just thought I'd let you know how Tia was at the wedding reception! She was fine for a few hours, not bothered by noisy music, children running about etc.  Once it started getting dark and people were clapping after speeches she got very overwhelmed and decided she'd had enough so I spent the last hour or so sat in the car with her, useful to know how long she can handle that kind of environment for though and I didn't mind hiding either . Will catch up properly with everyone once I'm home!


----------



## Dogless

No work today...took the boys to the top fields to play this morning and to the forest tonight .


----------



## pogo

Just a little something that happened today!

Obviously been for a walk to the woods today.

Well fast forward to the boys chasing about with Chance on his long lead, the OH then gets his foot caught in a rabbit hole, falls over and drops Chance's lead, which sends Chance running full pelt towards the trees!

Harvey off lead anyway and has no problem with recall, so he's running along with Chance, used the whistle and shouted chance to try and get him to recall.

All i saw was the top of his tail in the long grass stop, spin around in circles  and runs full pelt back to us, and flops at my feet! 

All my constant recall work must have sunk in somewhere in that head of his! but very proud of the lump!


----------



## Twiggy

Wish me luck girls...!!

Holly is going to her new agility class at 2.00 this afternoon. What's the betting she won't do a thing, apart from sniffing the grass.

I'll let you know later just how awful she was and how embarrassing it was...LOL


----------



## Nicki85

Good luck Twiggy


----------



## Freddie and frank

Good luck twiggy,


----------



## Dogless

Good Luck Grannie!!! Hope little HB finds some enthusiasm and at least a little blood is spilt .


----------



## Freddie and frank

Went up to visit family in north Yorkshire this weekend. 
And I am so proud of my three at how well behaved they were.

Ok, Friday they were a bit of a whirlwind, knocking my red wine over  but that was all the drama they caused. 
Saturday, we went to Masham sheep fair. I was being positive but also was concerned that they would behave for everyone else as I'm the one who does everything with them, and I'm terrible at delegating but was pleasantly surprised. :thumbup1: Dogmatics were used though on the boys 

Hubby was In charge of Freddie, sister had bella and I had frank. In the crowds, whilst watching the dancing sheep we just did a few 'watch me' and they were little angels. Just one little handbag incident when a dog walked close behind Freddie and he did a little bark, nothing major, but a lady without a dog commented "he needs more discipline" . Other than that, they all seemed really chilled....even frank, bless him. 

We didn't do any on lead greetings, as Im not keen and just put plenty of space between them and other dogs when passing. 
We saw sheep racing, geese herding, soooo many varieties of sheep....Freddie got close enough to have a sniff to one. . Bella had a good sniff in a lady's shopping bag whilst my sister was talking to her...oops 

We had a stop off to do a river walk on the way back, and they all had a fabulous play to cool off.
And....ooh...a friend of my sisters breeds and works vizslas so we popped down to see him....and his 9 dogs.....oh god, they were gorgeous, and I've fell in love with them.  
Sunday, they had a play in the field and a walk up the lane and again, they were so well behaved, we passed several other dogs, and of cause sheep, and all was good. 

Hoping to put up a photo thread later when I have some emailed to me. 
So so so pleased with my three and how they behaved. My hubby never wants to go away with them as he thinks its hassle, so I'm so pleased they did me proud. :001_wub::001_wub::001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

Well that all went rather well....

Apart from a minor blip, when the trainers wife was trying to take photos of her, Holly excelled herself...:thumbup:

The jumps were a bit higher than she's used to but it didn't bother her and the dog walk was full size (so much taller than the one in the class I've been attending) but again she was fine.

I expected the other six dogs to be much more advanced but actually Holly was by far the most obedient, even if she wasn't the fastest.

I think she enjoyed it. It was flipping hot and it was a huge area. I haven't run that fast for years and now need to lay in a darkened room to recover...!!


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy - Glad it went well , well done Holly!

Nicki - Sorry to hear Rusty's leg is bad again. Sounds like you have a good plan in place for not overdoing it though .

Dogless - The owners where you are really are awful, aren't they! Rudi sounds like he's being very good and taking it all in his stride though! Glad Kilo perked up on his walk too .

GR - Sounds like a great cycle with Ninja. Your plan sounds very good .

--

Right, a proper post now! As I said the wedding reception went pretty well until near the end, I didn't mention what excellent practice it was for not jumping up too.. nobody is likely to say "Oh it's alright.." as so often happens when they're in all their finery for a wedding  so she had lots of strokes and I managed to keep her from jumping up even though she was super excited .
We went to a barbeque on the Sunday too which Tia really enjoyed, got lots of fuss from people and she got a burger that had fallen on the floor amongst other things! Got lots of compliments on her being well behaved too which was nice, I worry she might be a bit much because she can be a bit of a nutter at times but she was really good .
She's absolutely shattered today, we went out for a little walk at around 2 and have done a tiny bit of training at home but other than that she's been asleep all day, I'm going to leave her to it I think and let her have a 'recovery' day . Training-wise, lie down is coming along nicely, and we're increasing the length of her stay too.

Unfortunately I think she might have a UTI so we're off to the vets tomorrow.. kind of dreading it because of her reactivity - I will wait outside until it's our turn but I do have to take her in to let them know we're there and walk through to get to the consultation room.. she might be fine but yeah, we'll see!


----------



## Dogless

F&F - I am pleased that your three behaved so well; it's great when you can really be proud of them .

TT - hope the vet goes as well as it can tomorrow. Tia obviously did very, very well at the weekend, brilliant!



Twiggy said:


> Well that all went rather well....
> 
> Apart from a minor blip, when the trainers wife was trying to take photos of her, Holly excelled herself...:thumbup:
> 
> The jumps were a bit higher than she's used to but it didn't bother her and the dog walk was full size (so much taller than the one in the class I've been attending) but again she was fine.
> 
> I expected the other six dogs to be much more advanced but actually Holly was by far the most obedient, even if she wasn't the fastest.
> 
> I think she enjoyed it. It was flipping hot and it was a huge area. I haven't run that fast for years and now need to lay in a darkened room to recover...!!


Grannie that is fantastic!!!!! . Of course she was the most obedient...she's yours . I hope the running hasn't taken too much of a toll - you'll find out for sure in the morning .

Good day today.

Took both dogs up to the top fields for a play this morning. They were still fairly tired from last night and I had an appointment so it was shorter than normal but they didn't need more to be honest.

This afternoon I took Rudi for a run in the gales and under the black skies and he was fabulous apart from hitting the pavement on his belly at a scooter parked on it, right across the exit of a zebra crossing (someone being lazy). He is used to push bikes and hubby's motorbikes and fine with scooters when they are moving but apparently scooters parked on the pavement are scary beasts indeed .

I took Kilo up to the top fields for some "touch the pole" - we did lots of that interspersed with some calming down minute or twos of pottering and sniffing and some of our usual impulse control stuff. Needless to say Kilo LOVED it. I stuck at 20m for the touching the pole as it was windy which can send Kilo a bit bonkers and there were the odd snatches of barking from farm dogs coming in when the wind gusted. I made a new game up which was throwing the tuggy and having a good play if he touched it but if he touched it very, very fast and excitedly one of his other very favourite games happened - which is me sprinting away as fast as I can until Kilo catches up and grabs the tuggy (all of about 3 seconds ) then I carry on running as fast as I can around the outside of two tennis courts and he keeps pace with me....then maintains that pace as I run out of steam and can't keep up anymore. When I let go of the tuggy he does a quick victory dance and then comes back to play tug. So, we had fantastic fun although my back and shoulders are paying already  .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> F&F - I am pleased that your three behaved so well; it's great when you can really be proud of them .
> 
> TT - hope the vet goes as well as it can tomorrow. Tia obviously did very, very well at the weekend, brilliant!
> 
> Grannie that is fantastic!!!!! . Of course she was the most obedient...she's yours . I hope the running hasn't taken too much of a toll - you'll find out for sure in the morning .
> 
> Good day today.
> 
> Took both dogs up to the top fields for a play this morning. They were still fairly tired from last night and I had an appointment so it was shorter than normal but they didn't need more to be honest.
> 
> This afternoon I took Rudi for a run in the gales and under the black skies and he was fabulous apart from hitting the pavement on his belly at a scooter parked on it, right across the exit of a zebra crossing (someone being lazy). He is used to push bikes and hubby's motorbikes and fine with scooters when they are moving but apparently scooters parked on the pavement are scary beasts indeed .
> 
> I took Kilo up to the top fields for some "touch the pole" - we did lots of that interspersed with some calming down minute or twos of pottering and sniffing and some of our usual impulse control stuff. Needless to say Kilo LOVED it. I stuck at 20m for the touching the pole as it was windy which can send Kilo a bit bonkers and there were the odd snatches of barking from farm dogs coming in when the wind gusted. I made a new game up which was throwing the tuggy and having a good play if he touched it but if he touched it very, very fast and excitedly one of his other very favourite games happened - which is me sprinting away as fast as I can until Kilo catches up and grabs the tuggy (all of about 3 seconds ) then I carry on running as fast as I can around the outside of two tennis courts and he keeps pace with me....then maintains that pace as I run out of steam and can't keep up anymore. When I let go of the tuggy he does a quick victory dance and then comes back to play tug. So, we had fantastic fun although my back and shoulders are paying already  .


That sounds fun but exhausting. Perhaps you'd better join me in the darkened room....


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Twiggy - Glad it went well , well done Holly!
> 
> Nicki - Sorry to hear Rusty's leg is bad again. Sounds like you have a good plan in place for not overdoing it though .
> 
> Dogless - The owners where you are really are awful, aren't they! Rudi sounds like he's being very good and taking it all in his stride though! Glad Kilo perked up on his walk too .
> 
> GR - Sounds like a great cycle with Ninja. Your plan sounds very good .
> 
> --
> 
> Right, a proper post now! As I said the wedding reception went pretty well until near the end, I didn't mention what excellent practice it was for not jumping up too.. nobody is likely to say "Oh it's alright.." as so often happens when they're in all their finery for a wedding  so she had lots of strokes and I managed to keep her from jumping up even though she was super excited .
> We went to a barbeque on the Sunday too which Tia really enjoyed, got lots of fuss from people and she got a burger that had fallen on the floor amongst other things! Got lots of compliments on her being well behaved too which was nice, I worry she might be a bit much because she can be a bit of a nutter at times but she was really good .
> She's absolutely shattered today, we went out for a little walk at around 2 and have done a tiny bit of training at home but other than that she's been asleep all day, I'm going to leave her to it I think and let her have a 'recovery' day . Training-wise, lie down is coming along nicely, and we're increasing the length of her stay too.
> 
> Unfortunately I think she might have a UTI so we're off to the vets tomorrow.. kind of dreading it because of her reactivity - I will wait outside until it's our turn but I do have to take her in to let them know we're there and walk through to get to the consultation room.. she might be fine but yeah, we'll see!


Well done Tia. What a good girl.

Hope your vet visit goes well tomorrow.


----------



## Nicki85

Good couple of days here 

Yesterday took them both out with KellyNelly on here, Rust was on lead but still had fun pulling me around (so glad i've got a good canni-x belt, harness and bungee lead!!) and Shae had fun at first trying and then eventually playing with Nell. Her stamina far exceeded Nell's though so she then went back to trying... Both were good listening to each others body language so I didn't have to do too much calming down (of Shae). 
On the way back we had a lovely compliment of how well behaved they were when I took them both to the side to let two young boys and their dad walk past. The dad was trying to calm them down as they were being rowdy young boys.. not that the dogs cared 

Then in the afteroon took them to a rather busy park alongside the Thames. Rust was his usual bouncy self on lead (coupled with the we're going swimming excitement...) but Shae excelled herself  Loads of dogs and people and she was a star. Didn't go up to anyone and remained in a sit as asked when a Spaniel came and sniffed her- lovely and calm  

I've been in London today so we had an early (dark) walk and the dog walker came at lunchtime. We are going to do some balancing on a peanut balance ball I picked up the other day later  Heaven only knows what they get up to during these days though they are always so sleepy in the evenings!

Rusty's looking loads better. He had 20mins off with the dog walker today and is all good. I just need to balance the offlead stuff better.... 

I've been thinking though, Shae is sooooo responsive outside to the point you mention her name in conversation and she'll be at your side. Then I look at Rust and I think I need to focus on him a bit!! I struggle as he is so nervous any impulse control work is difficult as he just shuts down when I say leave... but I need to work on it as in a "real" situation his chase drive is bigger than the worry (does that make sense?!). His recall ain't bad but again, it's the impulse control that I need to work on. Also, he's pretty "fixed" as in can't focus especially in an environment with lots of dogs or a new place. I need to get him out by himself and CT focus on me... It's going to be a long road though!! The local forests are fine but i'll start there and build it up. I guess I haven't worked on this so much as it hasn't been a problem but seeing how Shae is I want him to be as good...

Twiggy- so pleased to hear that Holly had a good(?) time  
DL- your boys sound fab. I think Shae would like to come live with you and do all that chasing the tug toy- it's her favourite game too 
TT- Tia sounds like she has done really well  Hope the vets visit goes well
FF- welldone your lot as well! They sound fab!


----------



## Twiggy

*Nicki*

I'm about to dish up dinner but I'll reply to your post (re: Rusty) later.


----------



## Freddie and frank

TT...Well done Tia.  hope the vets goes ok. 
Nicki...Crikey, your lot keep you busy too. All sounds well behaved though. 
Dogless, twiggy,....I'm in a darkened room just reading....fab though. 

My three are still shattered after their busy weekend.
Not long come back from a walk with the three of them, and still a bit concerned about frank. 
We'd been out of the car for about 5 mins and I turned around and he was sitting having a scratch. Nothing strange about that but I went up to him and he just lay there for about 1 minute, not moving. It looked like he was chilling. 
I said "c'mon frank, this way" and all the usual encouragement, but he just looked at me. After a minute, he got up and carried on as normal so god knows what that was. I shall be mentioning it to the chiropracter next week.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> TT...Well done Tia.  hope the vets goes ok.
> Nicki...Crikey, your lot keep you busy too. All sounds well behaved though.
> Dogless, twiggy,....I'm in a darkened room just reading....fab though.
> 
> My three are still shattered after their busy weekend.
> Not long come back from a walk with the three of them, and still a bit concerned about frank.
> We'd been out of the car for about 5 mins and I turned around and he was sitting having a scratch. Nothing strange about that but I went up to him and he just lay there for about 1 minute, not moving. It looked like he was chilling.
> I said "c'mon frank, this way" and all the usual encouragement, but he just looked at me. After a minute, he got up and carried on as normal so god knows what that was. * I shall be mentioning it to the chiropracter next week*.


To be honest I don't think you'll need to. Helen certainly knows her stuff and is very experienced and held in high esteem.

One of the handlers that trains with me has a daughter who's recently qualified as a McTimoney Chiropractor. Her mentor was Helen Lightfoot....!!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Good couple of days here
> 
> Yesterday took them both out with KellyNelly on here, Rust was on lead but still had fun pulling me around (so glad i've got a good canni-x belt, harness and bungee lead!!) and Shae had fun at first trying and then eventually playing with Nell. Her stamina far exceeded Nell's though so she then went back to trying... Both were good listening to each others body language so I didn't have to do too much calming down (of Shae).
> On the way back we had a lovely compliment of how well behaved they were when I took them both to the side to let two young boys and their dad walk past. The dad was trying to calm them down as they were being rowdy young boys.. not that the dogs cared
> 
> Then in the afteroon took them to a rather busy park alongside the Thames. Rust was his usual bouncy self on lead (coupled with the we're going swimming excitement...) but Shae excelled herself  Loads of dogs and people and she was a star. Didn't go up to anyone and remained in a sit as asked when a Spaniel came and sniffed her- lovely and calm
> 
> I've been in London today so we had an early (dark) walk and the dog walker came at lunchtime. We are going to do some balancing on a peanut balance ball I picked up the other day later  Heaven only knows what they get up to during these days though they are always so sleepy in the evenings!
> 
> Rusty's looking loads better. He had 20mins off with the dog walker today and is all good. I just need to balance the offlead stuff better....
> 
> I've been thinking though, Shae is sooooo responsive outside to the point you mention her name in conversation and she'll be at your side. Then I look at Rust and I think I need to focus on him a bit!! I struggle as he is so nervous any impulse control work is difficult as he just shuts down when I say leave... but I need to work on it as in a "real" situation his chase drive is bigger than the worry (does that make sense?!). His recall ain't bad but again, it's the impulse control that I need to work on. Also, he's pretty "fixed" as in can't focus especially in an environment with lots of dogs or a new place. I need to get him out by himself and CT focus on me... It's going to be a long road though!! The local forests are fine but i'll start there and build it up. * I guess I haven't worked on this so much as it hasn't been a problem but seeing how Shae is I want him to be as good...*
> 
> Whilst I admire your aspirations and I'm certainly not suggesting improvements
> can't be achieved, just remember that Rusty is a Spaniel bred for many generations to use his nose. Shae, on the other hand, is a Shepherd bred to listen, obey and respond quickly to commands from man.
> Also bear in mind that your handling skills have probably improved in the interim as well.
> I know they are all dogs but I think you have to allow some leeway, based on breed, temperament, etc.
> The little Parson Jack Russell that trains here is a brilliant obedience dog and has done a lot of winning this year but if a dear little bunny popped out of it's burrow just behind the stay ring at any show, she would do what any self respecting JRT would do.....
> I vividly remember my sister's collie Sammy in the ring working (the top class 'C') when about 15 sheep came through the rings after escaping from an adjacent field - she left my sister and was up behind them in a flash.....!!
> What I'm trying to say is that the hard-wired instincts to do what they have been bred for can take over at times....
> Just my opinion of course.


----------



## Canine K9

Bailey has caught a rat/mouse now!  (cant tell difference) just seen him run and be grabbed shook it and came up very proud with it! I told him to drop it. Nothing I should worry about is there? Blumming terriers


----------



## Nicki85

I do see what you mean  I love the fact that you take him out and that he loves it soooo much. He shakes with excitement if we pull up at a new walk. Shaes like, yeah new walk that's nice... treats? toy? (and then... OH WOW RUSTY IS RUNNING AROUND!!! GET HIM!!!!) 

Maybe what I should work on is get him more response when he "blocks me" when over-faced by a new environment (excitement) or a large number of dogs (excitement/nervousness). I'd like him to re-focus when asked... 
For example, if a person comes towards us on a single track path Shae will recall and sit next to me. Rust will recall and then fidget and have to be held... if it's another dog he'll not turn around (as he's been attacked a couple of times) so again I have to hold him. If I can get him to re-focus and move over that would be lovely! He won't even accept treats on walks he'll recall to a toy but that's it. 

You are right though, it's silly to aspire the level of attention that Shae gives me from Rust, out on walks anyhow....

I guess there is another solution though... chop off his nose!!!! (I mean, take him to some more scent work classes so we can learn to enjoy this amazing skill that he has been bred for!!)


----------



## Albatross

Book number 2. Half way through now, hopefully to be published by Feb 2014.

Another farcical story about the barmy antics of an adopted rescue dog - very different from the ones in the first book - and his young owner.

http://viewBook.at/WhyreYouPutTogetherAllWrongLikeThat


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Bailey has caught a rat/mouse now!  (cant tell difference) just seen him run and be grabbed shook it and came up very proud with it! I told him to drop it. Nothing I should worry about is there? Blumming terriers


Don't worry K9, he's just being a terrier .


----------



## Barcode

Scrabble continues to have the odd grumble but nothing overly worrisome. And looking at it this week, I'm no longer sure it's HER with the problem. Why? Well, it _almost always_ occurs when an off-lead dog charges over and invades her space.

We were walking along the river a few days ago, all nice and peaceful. Had passed through the car park which had about seven dogs in calmly. On the path, a large dog kept approaching, and I could see Scrabble telling it to back-off in dog body language. In fact, she 'told' it to about five times before she barked and tried to chase it away.

Guess who then got told they had an out of control dog? (you know, the one that quickly recalled to me and carried plodding along at heel after the dog got the message).

If someone kept invading my personal space after I'd told them to leave me alone, then I might lose my temper too. Whilst none of us wants a reactive dog, sometimes it can be instructive to look at the context and ask yourself: are they really being reactive, or is it a last-resort telling off? (and Scrabble's 'last-resort' telling off is a bark and chase, when it could be worse!)


----------



## Dogless

I am going to be working on getting warm. We spent the day pretty much in the forest again. It was great in a breath - stealingly windy, horizontally rainy, bone chillingly cold sort of a way . But the CHs had a ball playing:





Running:



Hunting:





Posing (not so chuffed with staying still in the face of the onslaught ):



It was the first true test of my new waterproofs and I award them 10/10 :thumbup1:.

ETA: I do still muzzle Kilo BTW I just remove it in safe spots or for photos and put it back on again.


----------



## GingerRogers

I have been rubbish and not posted for a few days again, got a few things going on/going wrong  so I will start all over again. i ahve been reading and keeping up.

Anyway as some of you will have seen I had a fabulous day on Sunday at the talking dogs scent course. I received my course book and catnip today and am scenting up two 'mice' I made. My husband is away working for a week so as the saying goes, while the cats away the mice will play 

We had a nice walk this morning on her new long line, the area had lots of pheasant feeders but I realised I hadn't actually seen a bird so it may have been pretty pointless, until I trod on a hare 

Ninja had shown her nose works and was nuttily running round in circles ahead of me, I was just wondering what had got her excited when the bloody thing sprang out from about a foot away from me  and 'hared' it across the field towards a tractor, thank goodness for long lines hey (but they hurt at full speed  I know gloves)

ETA I know I said I would start again with comments but had to say lovely pics dogless, so jealous! And I didnt muzzle ninja this morning , I sort of forgot as it was in my bag with my secret stash of new leads etc instead of on the hook with her old leads etc


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless - Great photos 
GR - Sounds like you had a good time on the course, I hope little Ninja enjoys doing the things you've learned 

--

Vet visit went okay. She had a major reaction to a collie on the way there so I was a bit nervous, they let us wait in the farm animals entrance instead though  and she was okay. There were two other dogs, a lurcher who she largely ignored apart from when we had to walk past him to get her weighed, and a pointery type dog that came out of a consultation room while we were waiting to get her medication, she did bark a couple of times but settled down quickly.
I didn't manage to get a urine sample last night as she stood up and stopped weeing every time I tried, but seeing as she's totally fine in herself otherwise they've decided to treat it as a UTI and then look into other causes if it doesn't clear up with antibiotics and metacam.
I finally got around to admitting she's raw fed too (it hasn't come up before) because the vet mentioned crystals being a possible cause but I know it's less likely in raw fed dogs, but I got a very good reaction so that was a relief :thumbup:.

Our walk earlier was very uneventful, did some very good stays and recalls etc. nothing too exciting but she was very good . I let her run through the park on the way back from the vets too - also uneventful apart from some brief posturing at a rottie who was in the tennis courts and staring at her, but she recalled straight away so all was fine.


----------



## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> Dogless - Great photos
> GR - Sounds like you had a good time on the course, I hope little Ninja enjoys doing the things you've learned
> 
> --
> 
> Vet visit went okay. She had a major reaction to a collie on the way there so I was a bit nervous, they let us wait in the farm animals entrance instead though  and she was okay. There were two other dogs, a lurcher who she largely ignored apart from when we had to walk past him to get her weighed, and a pointery type dog that came out of a consultation room while we were waiting to get her medication, she did bark a couple of times but settled down quickly.
> I didn't manage to get a urine sample last night as she stood up and stopped weeing every time I tried, but seeing as she's totally fine in herself otherwise they've decided to treat it as a UTI and then look into other causes if it doesn't clear up with antibiotics and metacam.
> I finally got around to admitting she's raw fed too (it hasn't come up before) because the vet mentioned crystals being a possible cause but I know it's less likely in raw fed dogs, but I got a very good reaction so that was a relief :thumbup:.
> 
> Our walk earlier was very uneventful, did some very good stays and recalls etc. nothing too exciting but she was very good . I let her run through the park on the way back from the vets too - also uneventful apart from some brief posturing at a rottie who was in the tennis courts and staring at her, but she recalled straight away so all was fine.


Glad it went reasonably well, that the vet was sympathetic about the lack of wee and the raw feeding but I love the idea of having a farm animal entrance, round here they take the vet to the farm not the other way round lol


----------



## Dogless

GR - sorry to "hare" you got caught "on the hop" so to speak. Sorry  . I am pleased you had a good walk bar the sore hands and hope your home made mice go down well. 

TT - pleased that the vet was supportive of you feeding raw and the fact that you came "unarmed". Sounds as if it went pretty well all being said - I too LOVE the idea of a farm animals entrance. I have all manner of pictures in my head :w00t:.


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> Glad it went reasonably well, that the vet was sympathetic about the lack of wee and the raw feeding but I love the idea of having a farm animal entrance, round here they take the vet to the farm not the other way round lol





Dogless said:


> TT - pleased that the vet was supportive of you feeding raw and the fact that you came "unarmed". Sounds as if it went pretty well all being said - I too LOVE the idea of a farm animals entrance. I have all manner of pictures in my head :w00t:.


Thanks . I did warn them that she's quite particular about the situations in which she will wee... ie. often won't wee in the rain, won't wee with a coat on etc. so it wasn't particularly surprising she wouldn't wee with me holding a container underneath her .
It was such a relief to find they like raw feeding . They've never tried to push any other food on me, or even offered it actually so they seem to have a decent amount of trust in their clients to look after their pets properly . She just said as long as it's balanced then it's great!

The farm animal entrance really isn't that exciting :lol:, I've never seen any farm animals in there and I assumed that you would normally take the vet to the farm rather than the other way round so I'm not really sure what it's for. They do have a bigger car park at that end for bigger vehicles I suppose so I think they must have big animals in there sometimes.. I really have no idea though!

I forgot to mention something else she did... She ran full pelt into a string mesh fence that's used for closing off the cricket area in the park . No idea why, we walk there loads and she's never missed it before! I feel a bit mean for laughing because she probably could have hurt herself if she'd done it at an unfortunate angle but luckily she didn't, I think she has a teeny tiny bit of fur missing from her face from the friction but nothing major. Really though, silly dog .


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> I forgot to mention something else she did... She ran full pelt into a string mesh fence that's used for closing off the cricket area in the park . No idea why, we walk there loads and she's never missed it before! I feel a bit mean for laughing because she probably could have hurt herself if she'd done it at an unfortunate angle but luckily she didn't, I think she has a teeny tiny bit of fur missing from her face from the friction but nothing major. Really though, silly dog .


Maybe she was trying to prove to herself that she still existed and hadn't entered some parallel universe where she was in fact a farm animal :w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

TT - Pleased your visit to the vets went reasonably well. My vet has some sort of 'gadget' which he uses to take a sample from the stomach if you haven't managed to obtain one.

Dogless - Super pics but it does look bleak and cold.

GR - Glad you had a good day on Sunday - was it with Pam McKinnon?


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> TT - Pleased your visit to the vets went reasonably well. My vet has some sort of 'gadget' which he uses to take a sample from the stomach if you haven't managed to obtain one.
> 
> Dogless - Super pics but it does look bleak and cold.
> 
> GR - Glad you had a good day on Sunday - *was it with Pam McKinnon?*


It was, she is very infectious


----------



## Dogless

Oh, Grannie - what distance do I ideally need Kilo reliably and confidently going out to touch the pole from? Not that I'm in a great hurry at all to move on....Kilo has decided it's the best thing ever! .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh, Grannie - what distance do I ideally need Kilo reliably and confidently going out to touch the pole from? Not that I'm in a great hurry at all to move on....Kilo has decided it's the best thing ever! .


As far as you like (or Kilo likes)...

You could start to up the anti by occasionally dropping him at the pole...

Obviously you would do it virtually right next to the pole to start with.

That's why I always use two back markers when I'm teaching sendaway - I might drop them at one then send them flying to the other one.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> It was, she is very infectious


She's quite local to me. I met her once in my vets.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> As far as you like (or Kilo likes)...
> 
> You could start to up the anti by occasionally dropping him at the pole...
> 
> Obviously you would do it virtually right next to the pole to start with.
> 
> That's why I always use two back markers when I'm teaching sendaway - I might drop them at one then send them flying to the other one.


I will do that then - just now and again. He has a good down at a distance which should help once he has understood what I want but I think he'll be very persistent in touching and then muzzle punching the pole initially to make the fun start!! I predict frustrated leaping at me again :w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I will do that then - just now and again. He has a good down at a distance which should help once he has understood what I want but I think he'll be very persistent in touching and then muzzle punching the pole initially to make the fun start!! I predict frustrated leaping at me again :w00t:.


Well you know how dangerous my methods are...

The method you're employing isn't half as bad as the bungy rope method..!!

You buy yards and yards of bungy rope and attach one end to a tree or stout post. On the other end you attach the dog's favourite tuggy ball on a rope and whoopee....

I suggested this method some years ago to a very experienced handler having trouble with her youngster.... sadly she hadn't tied the rope securely enough to a post... The bruising on her stomach and legs was horrendous.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well you know how dangerous my methods are...
> 
> The method you're employing isn't half as bad as the bungy rope method..!!
> 
> You buy yards and yards of bungy rope and attach one end to a tree or stout post. On the other end you attach the dog's favourite tuggy ball on a rope and whoopee....
> 
> I suggested this method some years ago to a very experienced handler having trouble with her youngster.... sadly she hadn't tied the rope securely enough to a post... The bruising on her stomach and legs was horrendous.


I'll stick with the one we're using thanks :w00t: .

Good (wet) morning here.

Took Rudi for a run in light rain, he was very good bar making a run for the fertiliser they're spreading on the sports pitches :nonod:. No vehicles were moving as they were having a break and he ignores people so thought we'd be fine sticking to one half....wrong.....he bombed off at the speed of light :nonod:. Luckily recalled so didn't quite get there but I can imagine he thought I'd booked him a spa day - all that rolling to be done :w00t: :nonod:. I am very pleased indeed he didn't reach it .

Took Kilo up to the top fields for some "touch the pole" and impulse control stuff again. The heavens opened and sent really torrential rain so I didn't faff about trying to get a down at the pole today, just did not stop sprinting and running games as rewards until Kilo and I were just about knackered (well, I was ) after half an hour. I had to keep it intense or he would have curled up in a ball on the floor and cried or made a break for the car :w00t: . He was very good. Ignored the van that pulled up just behind us and the men that got out and ran (because of the rain) back and forth doing something with the garages .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I'll stick with the one we're using thanks :w00t: .
> 
> Good (wet) morning here.
> 
> Took Rudi for a run in light rain, he was very good bar making a run for the fertiliser they're spreading on the sports pitches :nonod:. No vehicles were moving as they were having a break and he ignores people so thought we'd be fine sticking to one half....wrong.....he bombed off at the speed of light :nonod:. Luckily recalled so didn't quite get there but I can imagine he thought I'd booked him a spa day - all that rolling to be done :w00t: :nonod:. I am very pleased indeed he didn't reach it .
> 
> Took Kilo up to the top fields for some "touch the pole" and impulse control stuff again. The heavens opened and sent really torrential rain so I didn't faff about trying to get a down at the pole today, just did not stop sprinting and running games as rewards until Kilo and I were just about knackered (well, I was ) after half an hour. I had to keep it intense or he would have curled up in a ball on the floor and cried or made a break for the car :w00t: . He was very good. Ignored the van that pulled up just behind us and the men that got out and ran (because of the rain) back and forth doing something with the garages .


What good boys....!!

I think you're a spoilsport - the dogs lurve the bungy sendaway...

I well remember a handler bringing her 'ticket' dog here for help because he'd gone sour on sendaway. By the time I'd taken him and used the bungy for about 20 minutes, he was obsessed. The embarrassing thing was the dog didn't want to go home and lay staring at the rope, despite his handler's calling. She got quite nasty with me, her poor husband (who was only the driver) and the dog. You can't please em all and the dog had a wonderful time.


----------



## Nicki85

Wednesdays shall now be know from now on as agility day....

We had an early private agility lesson so took them out for a quick 10mins round the forest. Then onto agility...
Shae first, she was having a great time- lots of contacts, waits and forward focus... she was good  She did a bit of grid work- just three jumps, poles on floor. First time she knocked the second jump, second time she knocked the last jump and last time she got it perfect! She is such a big girl it must be quite hard for her to adjust her stride... She did get tired quick though!

Rust came out bouncy  We were in a new arena, outdoors next to bushes(!) but fenced. I was expecting a naughty Spaniel with his nose down but a reminder at the start set him up and then he was happy to play. He was very keen and wanted his special ball(stuffed with a chicken neck) in a sock thrown lots. I've got a lot to work on handling wise but he was fab. 

We had one issue where Shae jumped out of the car window to get to us. I wasn't aware that she could fit between the rear headrests and the roof but apparently she can... lesson learnt. 

We've just had a short walk again... Rust offlead as I think he deserved some "free" time to sniff and be Rusty. Shae I kept onlead as she seemed slightly stiff on her front right (thinking it is linked to the car incident). Nothing horrendous but not taking any chances so she'll be on lead rest/ swimming until I am happy.

We have another agility session (Rusty) later so we are resting up till then!!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Wednesdays shall now be know from now on as agility day....
> 
> We had an early private agility lesson so took them out for a quick 10mins round the forest. Then onto agility...
> Shae first, she was having a great time- lots of contacts, waits and forward focus... she was good  She did a bit of grid work- just three jumps, poles on floor. First time she knocked the second jump, second time she knocked the last jump and last time she got it perfect! She is such a big girl it must be quite hard for her to adjust her stride... She did get tired quick though!
> 
> Rust came out bouncy  We were in a new arena, outdoors next to bushes(!) but fenced. I was expecting a naughty Spaniel with his nose down but a reminder at the start set him up and then he was happy to play. He was very keen and wanted his special ball(stuffed with a chicken neck) in a sock thrown lots. I've got a lot to work on handling wise but he was fab.
> 
> *We had one issue where Shae jumped out of the car window to get to us. I wasn't aware that she could fit between the rear headrests and the roof but apparently she can... lesson learnt. *
> 
> We've just had a short walk again... Rust offlead as I think he deserved some "free" time to sniff and be Rusty. Shae I kept onlead as she seemed slightly stiff on her front right (thinking it is linked to the car incident). Nothing horrendous but not taking any chances so she'll be on lead rest/ swimming until I am happy.
> 
> We have another agility session (Rusty) later so we are resting up till then!!


Naughty Shae...!! I hope she's OK.

You'd be surprised how small a space they can escape from if they're really determined.

I had to lay on top of Twiggy in the car when I took her to watch my sister and her Sammy sheepdog trialing at East of England Showground. She was trying to bite through the glass in her haste to get to the sheep....


----------



## Nicki85

Bloomin too clever (and determined) for their own good collies hey?! I feel so stupid, I normally leave the windows closed, or at least only slightly open- just in case. She's never squeezed through there before... I think she's OK, she is a bit sore when she gets up but after two steps is fine... Certainly no response to prodding and she would be one to yelp or show pain if she was in any!! And I got it wrong- its the left front (same as Rust!!) Gah.

She's currently destroying a plastic hedgehog toy that we've had forever- it used to be my previous Springers favourite  I'm feeling a bit sentimental about her destroying it but then it is an old toy and she is getting a lot of enjoyment out of destroying it(!)


----------



## Dogless

Did a big reply which vanished . Took the CHs to the top fields tonight. Suspect a lab leaving as we arrived (stayed in the car, obviously) was a bitch in season - only ever seen one or two dogs up there in two years. Boys behaving very much as if an in season bitch had been up there and had lots of grumbling and posturing at each other over what must have been patches of urine and marking everywhere so I kept them occupied until, thank goodness, light rain turned to stair rods and washed the scents away. Hope the dog wasn't in season and isn't going to be taken up there every day, the sports pitches aren't good to walk round at present and the top fields and one other field are my only options for walking Kilo locally .


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## tiatortilla

Oh Dogless how annoying for you. I hope it doesn't become a regular walk for them.

--

Not much to report today. Saw lots of dogs and did quite a bit of hiding behind cars but no reactions . We ended up following a collie for a while and Tia was really cute, she kept looking at the collie then looking back at me for her treat, very good girl.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Did a big reply which vanished . Took the CHs to the top fields tonight. Suspect a lab leaving as we arrived (stayed in the car, obviously) was a bitch in season - only ever seen one or two dogs up there in two years. Boys behaving very much as if an in season bitch had been up there and had lots of grumbling and posturing at each other over what must have been patches of urine and marking everywhere so I kept them occupied until, thank goodness, light rain turned to stair rods and washed the scents away. Hope the dog wasn't in season and isn't going to be taken up there every day, the sports pitches aren't good to walk round at present and the top fields and one other field are my only options for walking Kilo locally .


Well knowing your luck I expect she will be up there every day for the next two weeks....!!

Do you still have private access to the farmer's fields?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well knowing your luck I expect she will be up there every day for the next two weeks....!!
> 
> Do you still have private access to the farmer's fields?


They have livestock on at present, the sports pitches have the fertiliser issue and that leaves one field that is open to a road (very quiet) and alongside the main runway (not very quiet!) which I do use to train Kilo on his longline fairly often. It is a good space with visibility of anything coming from all directions so perfectly suitable. I just feel like our world is narrowing!!

I do hope it's not an every day thing Twiggy, hope so much.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> They have livestock on at present, the sports pitches have the fertiliser issue and that leaves one field that is open to a road (very quiet) and alongside the main runway (not very quiet!) which I do use to train Kilo on his longline fairly often. It is a good space with visibility of anything coming from all directions so perfectly suitable. I just feel like our world is narrowing!!
> 
> I do hope it's not an every day thing Twiggy, hope so much.


Oh dear. It would appear that your options are very limited at present. Let's hope the in season bitch was a one off.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. It would appear that your options are very limited at present. Let's hope the in season bitch was a one off.


I don't know it was one - or even a bitch. But from the boys' behaviour I suspect so. Kilo is actually OK with wherever as long as he gets his games, it's me that gets driven crackers with the same scenery :w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

Oh btw girls, following Holly's decent performance on Monday at the new agility class, I've only gone and entered her for her first agility show....

It's the week-end after next...:w00t:

I may well get there and not run her at all if I think the courses are too difficult, or if she isn't happy with the presence of lots of dogs but we'll see....

I've persuaded the owner of Holly's friend Lacey (Red Setter) to enter as well and she's never been to an agility show before. I've assured her it will be fine....!!


----------



## Nicki85

Well back from another agility session with Rust  He was fab, really enjoying himself. Had an issue with the weaves and popping out at the last two each time- very odd for him... but anyhow, he had a good time. His contacts are spot on at the moment... The toy of choice at the moment is a plastic ball with a hole in it with a chicken neck in that wrapped in a sock.... yum... at the end he gets the chicken neck  

DL- sorry to hear about your field issues... 

Twiggy- yay you and Holly! Which show is it? I'm thinking about entering rust in an unaffiliated show in a couple of weeks... just to test the water and see where we are!


----------



## Dogless

Go Little HB!! :w00t: .

And Rusty too .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Go Little HB!! :w00t: .
> 
> Now don't get carried away...!! Rusty may well go and Holly may well not.
> 
> It's down the A1 Nicki near Biggleswade and yes it is unaffiliated. There is no way I would enter Holly for a KC open agility show (somebody might know me and it would be too embarrassing should she decide to sniff the grass)..


----------



## Nicki85

Ah we are (possibly) going to Scrambles in Surrey. We'll see, not worrying about it otherwise if I get my heart set on it he'll go lame!!


----------



## Nicki85

Good hour and a bit down at the country park  Didn't see anyone...

They both had a short time off lead separately and then lots and lots of swimming... Rusty put up a pheasant which he was really excited about. So much so, he put it up again 30secs later! He is so funny, he does this celebratory lap after putting it up, I'll have to read a gundog book to him that says Springers are supposed to sit after flushing game....

Both looked sound this morning so fingers crossed they look OK this afternoon as well after a chance to get stiff!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - Sounds like a lovely walk, very peaceful . Very pleased they were both sound too.

We have been out all day until now. The walk was brought to me by howling winds and persistent rain with very capable supporting acts of Altberg, Paramo and Bridgedale :w00t:. The boys ran and hunted and had a ball (but listened still - good boys) and I enjoyed myself too. Kilo went to chase a wild duck, got into his stride, then came to a juddering, forced stop and....looked back at me . He had chosen not to chase!!!!! BIG event in my life . Rudi fell in a deep drainage channel and needed hauling out (nothing new there ) and skinned a toe joint on a back foot pretty well (no surprise either ).

*The BW always finds a patch of higher ground to survey his kingdom...*



*Rudi's default whenever we come over from a sheltered side into the sudden shock of one that the rain and wind are battering...*



*The forest is teeming with frogs. This lucky fella escaped Rudi's "trample in a bog until something jumps then pounce" hunting technique. I only saw him just as we were about to trample him....*



I stopped at the little local shop on the way back for eggs and milk and the woman in there asked me what it was like to walk in the forest (bearing in mind it is huge and on her doorstep). She said it was far to creepy for her :w00t:. When I told her I walked at night it made her squeal in horror .... wonder if she's heard the tale of the red eyed monster who howls like a Hound of the Baskervilles :w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

Great pics Dogless. It looks a bit wild though.

Rain stopped play here for a while this afternoon. I managed to do a bit of training with mine and then it threw it down, so I became the dutiful wife and made two apple and blackberry pies, a plum tart and cheese scones...

Fortunately the rain stopped so I set up the bits of agility equipment to give Holly a run round. A friend has lent me two jumps so I can now set up a mini course. I've got two tunnels somewhere - probably lurking in the bowels of the garage..!!

I gave the dogs their second walk a bit early whilst it was dry.


----------



## tiatortilla

Our best walk has cows in now . They've put electric fencing round the whole field apart from about 2 ft which you can still walk in, I'm so gutted. We still have the footpath leading up to the fields but it's not very long.
On the plus side, Tia was wonderful today. We went to a park we don't usually go in because I'm not sure if dogs are allowed but it was raining and quiet and we'd walked that far so I thought sod it! Her recalls were fab and she ignored some dogs on lead so we had a good walk anyway.


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy- can I ask you how do you start getting a "proper" heelwork position? I've been doing a bit of googling and started Shae off with getting her front feet on a book and i'll teach her to go round in a circle with front feet on book still... then I will stand next to her and CT when she comes round in a circle and touches my leg. Is that a good method? I've seen a lot about a "nose bridge" as well which seems like something I could teach them but why do I want to?

We are still doing the retrieve stuff as well... Rusty adores it, he thinks it is fab. Although today he gave me a playbow whilst holding the toy... I had to stop myself from laughing. He tries to incorporate a play bow into most exercises such as contact work and his "hide" trick... no idea why but it's quiet entertaining. I'm not happy with Shae and her touching my hands yet so I haven't moved on to a toy with her. I want her coming in closer but it gets a bit scary as she headbuts my hand it's quite close to my face and she's not too worried about hiding her teeth away(!)

DL- lovely pics you look (and sound) like you had a fab time 
TT- Sorry to hear about losing your fav walk but very pleased to hear she was so fab for you!


----------



## Twiggy

*


Nicki85 said:



Twiggy- can I ask you how do you start getting a "proper" heelwork position? I've been doing a bit of googling and started Shae off with getting her front feet on a book and i'll teach her to go round in a circle with front feet on book still... then I will stand next to her and CT when she comes round in a circle and touches my leg. Is that a good method? I've seen a lot about a "nose bridge" as well which seems like something I could teach them but why do I want to?

Click to expand...

*


Nicki85 said:


> Sorry Nicki but it would be impossible to explain via posts how to teach the correct position for competitive style heelwork and you would need to find an experienced instructor to help you.
> 
> We start puppies/youngsters off out on the hand on a right hand circle but even then at least 80% of handlers get in wrong - dog too far forward/back, dog not in a straight line, head twisted either in or out, etc. etc.
> 
> I won't allow handlers to bring their dog in onto the leg until I am satisfied they are maintaining position out on the hand including all turns. Bringing the dog from out on the hand onto the left leg is fraught with danger....LOL
> 
> Here's a couple of pics of Tremor when she was younger which sort of explains what I mean:


----------



## Nicki85

No worries- i'm not aiming for competition, just want them to look pretty! Something else to attempt  Tremor looks beautiful.

We have just had "one of those walks".... took them through some farmland that neither had been through before. All going well, Shae listening beautifully and Rusty on lead having great fun bouncing away on the end of his canny-x lead trying to get to all the newly released pheasants. Until... the lead snapped. Rusty grasped the opportunity to put up one million thousand pheasants before deciding to respond to my panicked yells.... and crossing infront of me and responding to my "down" command. He was very happy with him self... It was right infront of the farmers cottage as well 

Anyhow, all was OK, got him on Shae's lead and she was fine off. Then we lost the footpath and had to climb over a barbed wire- lined fence (YAY)... 

Managed to get home in the end and the black cat was hiding in the hedge cue Rust jumping into the hedge (still on lead!)

Hoping for a less stressful day now....


----------



## Twiggy

I'm bored now, although I've had quite a busy day.

I've just made two dishes of cauliflower cheese (husband hates it...) but I could happily live on it.

He took me out of lunch and we tried a different pub. He thought it was very good as the menu consisted of chips, beef-burgers, sausages and all manner of junk food. We won't be going there again.

I've packed my judging bag ready for Sunday and have printed off 40 Test A sheets and sorted out 40 clean scent cloths. I still haven't washed the cloths from last Saturday's C round. Judging starts at 8.30am, so it means getting up at 4.30am.....lovely!!

Holly was a good girl this afternoon and is beginning to speed up through my four weaving poles. Dogless you'll be pleased to learn she was hanging off my arm quite a bit both obedience and agility training....

So what have you all been up to today?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm bored now, although I've had quite a busy day.
> 
> I've just made two dishes of cauliflower cheese (husband hates it...) but I could happily live on it.
> 
> He took me out of lunch and we tried a different pub. He thought it was very good as the menu consisted of chips, beef-burgers, sausages and all manner of junk food. We won't be going there again.
> 
> I've packed my judging bag ready for Sunday and have printed off 40 Test A sheets and sorted out 40 clean scent cloths. I still haven't washed the cloths from last Saturday's C round. Judging starts at 8.30am, so it means getting up at 4.30am.....lovely!!
> 
> Holly was a good girl this afternoon and is beginning to speed up through my four weaving poles. Dogless you'll be pleased to learn she was hanging off my arm quite a bit both obedience and agility training....
> 
> So what have you all been up to today?


I love cauliflower cheese!!

Standard day really; we got soaked in the forest this evening and the boys acted like loonies to keep warm I think!!

I very much approve of little HB's new found zest for training .


----------



## Twiggy

Yes well when she starts doing the light fantastic in the back of the car as we arrive at a show or agility training, I'll start to believe we're getting there..:wink:

No wonder Ireland is so lush and green - it's always raining!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> I've just made two dishes of cauliflower cheese (husband hates it...) but I could happily live on it.


Cauliflower cheese makes my wee smell funny :blush: There's not much to report dog-wise in the Diefy household. Still working on focus. Did a nice marked walk through Otterbourne which finished off at a garden centre with a tea room. They do carvery too so might get some repeat business. I wonder if they'll have cauliflower cheese ?


----------



## moonviolet

Not much to report things bobbling along nicely a workshop on Sunday and 10 days 'til the sports foundation course, but the thing i wanted to share was poo bag success.

My gift of poo bags was taken and the offending poo has been cleared up and has, as yet, not returned


----------



## Symone

Hello! Long time no see  How is everyone? 

Shamaya and I are doing just fine.  She has really settled down and seems so happy and relaxed with herself. She needs to go under the knife soon, though!
She has had her first season, and.. I do not want her to have a second. It was so dreadful for her.  She was so depressed and not herself. Already fussy with eating and she pretty much refused to eat at all. I was cooking her chicken at one point just to get her to eat. She ended up losing 2 kg and I do not want that to happen again.
Luckily she is now eating much better! She's completely back on to raw now and she will eat it. Have to say that I am relieved  I do not like how much I can feel her ribs and spine, though. She's still far too skinny. 
She also needs to get her left dew claw removed. She had an accident and it looks like it will be easier to remove  I'm off to the vets on monday to see if they can do it the same time as her spay. If not she will have it done first.

we also have a new addition to the family. A pup called Arya. The OH bought her for me as a birthday pressie, I had no idea! One moment and I thought we were picking up shamayas food for the week, next thing I know and we have a pup! I think he only did it because I was brooding over a puppy as I'm sure you guys remember :/ I think that's why he bought her for me. 
She's a merley BC, and you couldn't get a pup more different from Shamaya. She's noisy, lazy, and loves food, lol! Currently working on lead training her nicely as when I walk both of the girls together she decides shamayas lead is a skipping rope.. So far it is going really well, though! I should have taught her to walk nicely with shamaya right away but the OH was always there to walk the girls with me.. Had no idea that there was a problem until he got a full time job!
BTW I've told the OH no more dogs, but I am still happy.. haha.. Luckily it has been easier and not harder. Shamaya loves her wee sis! (Unless she steals Shamayas ball. Then Shamaya just cries until one of us gets it for her, lol!)

Training wise with the girls it does now take more time as there are two more lots of sessions a day. An alone session with each girl and a joint one. I however don't mind this as my heart swells up with pride each time one of them learns something new! Arya's currently learning roll over, and Shamaya's working on standing on her hind legs. She does it against objects and we're working on her holding it without leaning on something. She seems to enjoy it!

I did try to clicker train but I realised that I made a huge mistake.. We have automatic air refresheners and they make exactly the same click sound lol. Arya being a little greedy fattie came running over to me each time she heard the air refreshener. Took me a while to realise why she kept running lol. Do you guys know if I can get a clicker with a different sounding click else where? It would be useful lol  I've not found one on ebay but it can't hurt to ask. 

Shamaya's first birthday is this Sunday and she has already been treated to a new collar, a new head collar (just because I'm paranoid when I walk the girls together. It can't hurt to be too safe.) and she has a cake due to arrive tomorrow! She also has some chuckit balls that aren't here yet, a new tuggy and a new bed. However she's getting a new human sized bed saturday next week, as I'm sure she and Arya will kick the OH and I out of it! In fact Shamaya already does that.. We awake in the morning by Shamaya squeezing between us, kicking the oh to push herself onto her back, then licks my nostrils until I give her a tummy rub.. Then Arya decides that Sid shouldn't continue to sleep and tries to eat his beard. It does bring a smile to my face every morning  Sid being the working one does grumble though!

Also in case anyone is wondering, we've decided to no longer move to Switzerland. My parents visited for my birthday.. And while I love them I realised that they can be a bit over the top, lol! Would rather live somewhere where they can't just randomly pop over. 
So we've decided to move to Germany. I have no idea if it will happen or not but I think it will. We're eyeing up the town Verden, it's in the north and they have one of the biggest pet healthcare companys there. My friend in the netherlands does buisness with them and has said that he will put in a good word for me. So, I'm going to do some animal health care courses here then hopefully we will do the move! It will be great if I can get a job there, but I really do need the experience first.. I'm thinking maybe volunteering with some rescues here may help.. 

So, here's an updated photo of Shamaya!










One of the girls together.. You can see Shamayas body more in this one :/










And here are two of the (not so) wee fattie, Arya. 


















I hope that you are all doing well!


----------



## Dogless

MV - LOVE the poo bag success, brilliant!!!  :w00t:.

Symone - welcome back . I am a bit mind boggled with all the surprises in your post, big change of plans but I am sure things will work themselves out in the end . Welcome to Arya, I'm pleased it's a surprise that paid off well but your OH took a fair old gamble doing that - I would kill mine I think :w00t:. Hope that all the training together continues to go so well. Ref the clicker - you could use a marker word instead or any noise you want really. I think some people click a biro.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Cauliflower cheese makes my wee smell funny :blush: There's not much to report dog-wise in the Diefy household. Still working on focus. Did a nice marked walk through Otterbourne which finished off at a garden centre with a tea room. They do carvery too so might get some repeat business. I wonder if they'll have cauliflower cheese ?


I love a carvery, especially if there's cauliflower cheese....


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Not much to report things bobbling along nicely a workshop on Sunday and 10 days 'til the sports foundation course, but the thing i wanted to share was poo bag success.
> 
> My gift of poo bags was taken and the offending poo has been cleared up and has, as yet, not returned


Well done you on the poo bag front...:thumbup:

Explain the sports foundation course please.


----------



## Twiggy

*Symone*

My word you have been busy with new plans and a new puppy...!!

Arya looks very cute and I'm pleased she gets on well with big sister.

You could could "yes" instead of a clicker. That's what I do.

Just a bit of advice - I wouldn't teach Arya things like roll over yet. Those sort of moves put too much pressure on a very young and developing spine.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I love a carvery, especially if there's cauliflower cheese....


Now, if we wanted to train you, we know what motivates you......we'd just need some cauliflower cheese and the recall would be nailed in no time :w00t:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Now, if we wanted to train you, we know what motivates you......we'd just need some cauliflower cheese and the recall would be nailed in no time :w00t:.


I'd be putty in your hands....


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Well done you on the poo bag front...:thumbup:
> 
> Explain the sports foundation course please.


My understanding is that these are the the sort of exercises we will be doing if Tink stops rolling long enough. 
Motivation, focus, body awareness, balance, following handler's body language, targeting.


----------



## Canine K9

At the moment we are working on his seperation anxiety.


----------



## GingerRogers

Symone Hello Stranger - wondered what had happened to you?  surprise puppy  but she looks lovely so hope that it all works out in the end, but really!! you should have learnt the lead walking thing silly, with all the trouble you had with shamaya   hasnt she grown up, we had the same problems with ninja in season and then phantom pregnancy you might want to be aware for the signs.

As for the clicker thing, get new air fresheners??? 

We had a  :crying: moment that turned into a  moment last night.

Had a very busy day starting with the vets for jabs which ninja was unimpressed with shall we say  even though she loves the vet and squealed when she saw her  

We came home and had a bit of play/training in the beergarden, tried dogless ready steady and got barkquealing 

But then I had appointment after appointment and it was nearly dark before I could take ninja out, I dont normally do the beach on Fridays as its near the campsite and so quite busy, but ninja needed a run about and it was too dark for the fields (they scare me a little, the trees come alive )

Anyhoo there's a few dogs about a girl with a lurchery thing arrives just as we do so I wait in the car till she has gone ahead. Off we go toddling along quite happy on the dunes as everyone else is on the beach, all of a sudden I hear tags behind me and the lurchery thing has zoomed up, says boo, runs around us in a circle a couple of times and says bye before he zooms off again.  

But ninja had a little growl, which could well have been play, no barking, no doubt in part due to the surprise , and didnt try and run after it when it left as abruptly as it arrived.   

Difference??? I think it was as she was on her long line, I didn't have time to anticipate her reaction and the line was slack so she could move naturally and couldn't feel any tension.

So even though it gave my heart a good work out, it was a nice lesson to learn.

ETA we also did started some basic searches this week, wow what a success, the first time wasn't so great  as I was hiding the item I spotted her favourite tug toy on the floor so put it in my pocket, she spotted it and lost concentration and then before I could say 'what are you up to' she stole it from me 

But the second time was awesome, it is so great watching THEM do the work and it comes so naturally. It really does tire her out, 3 simple searches and she was asleep for the afternoon.


----------



## MariaB

A note to Mophie
Completely off topic but I just have to say I'm in love with your dogs :001_tt1:

One of the best things I ever taught my other dogs was the 'long stay'. Once they had established this, all other training seemed easy. We have just started this with Jaques because we feel he's ready.

Also doing some shaping work on 'hands up, bang, lay dead' and we are as far as hands up and fall down but not yet got as far as rolling onto the back.


----------



## GingerRogers

MariaB said:


> A note to Mophie
> Completely *off topic *but I just have to say I'm in love with your dogs :001_tt1:
> 
> One of the best things I ever taught my other dogs was the 'long stay'. Once they had established this, all other training seemed easy. We have just started this with Jaques because we feel he's ready.
> 
> Also doing some shaping work on 'hands up, bang, lay dead' and we are as far as hands up and fall down but not yet got as far as rolling onto the back.


Off topic is allowed in fact encouraged in the land of WAYWO 

I have just started working on youre dead (lying on side, tricky as she likes rolling around too much) but never thought to string it with hands up etc


----------



## MariaB

GingerRogers said:


> Off topic is allowed in fact encouraged in the land of WAYWO
> 
> I have just started working on youre dead (lying on side, tricky as she likes rolling around too much) but never thought to string it with hands up etc


I followed this link Bang Trick - How to teach the best dog trick EVER - YouTube with Kristin Crestejo and was surprised how easy it is.

My problem has been getting Jaques to role off his pelvis. He doesn't like being encouraged with the hand but Kristins tip on the treat behind and over him is helping a lot.


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> My understanding is that these are the the sort of exercises we will be doing if Tink stops rolling long enough.
> Motivation, focus, body awareness, balance, following handler's body language, targeting.


That sound interesting and exciting....


----------



## Twiggy

Husband - the dog training expert....!!

Hubby found one of my agility tunnels in the garage and put it in the paddock for me.

He asked to see Holly go through it and around the other equipment.

Why oh why after nearly 50 years of married bliss don't I ever learn....:nonod:

I duly rang her round and she was pretty keen for Holly. So much so that she was having a quick go at my arm between some of the obstacles.

This was the experts opinion: "You don't want to have that ball in your hand. She's jumping up you too much"....

He took huge offence when I retorted through gritted teeth "I'm trying to speed her up. Agility is against the clock if you can remember that far back"....!!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Symone Hello Stranger - wondered what had happened to you?  surprise puppy  but she looks lovely so hope that it all works out in the end, but really!! you should have learnt the lead walking thing silly, with all the trouble you had with shamaya   hasnt she grown up, we had the same problems with ninja in season and then phantom pregnancy you might want to be aware for the signs.
> 
> As for the clicker thing, get new air fresheners???
> 
> We had a  :crying: moment that turned into a  moment last night.
> 
> Had a very busy day starting with the vets for jabs which ninja was unimpressed with shall we say  even though she loves the vet and squealed when she saw her
> 
> We came home and had a bit of play/training in the beergarden, tried dogless ready steady and got barkquealing
> 
> But then I had appointment after appointment and it was nearly dark before I could take ninja out, I dont normally do the beach on Fridays as its near the campsite and so quite busy, but ninja needed a run about and it was too dark for the fields (they scare me a little, the trees come alive )
> 
> Anyhoo there's a few dogs about a girl with a lurchery thing arrives just as we do so I wait in the car till she has gone ahead. Off we go toddling along quite happy on the dunes as everyone else is on the beach, all of a sudden I hear tags behind me and the lurchery thing has zoomed up, says boo, runs around us in a circle a couple of times and says bye before he zooms off again.
> 
> But ninja had a little growl, which could well have been play, no barking, no doubt in part due to the surprise , and didnt try and run after it when it left as abruptly as it arrived.
> 
> Difference??? I think it was as she was on her long line, I didn't have time to anticipate her reaction and the line was slack so she could move naturally and couldn't feel any tension.
> 
> So even though it gave my heart a good work out, it was a nice lesson to learn.
> 
> ETA we also did started some basic searches this week, wow what a success, the first time wasn't so great  as I was hiding the item I spotted her favourite tug toy on the floor so put it in my pocket, she spotted it and lost concentration and then before I could say 'what are you up to' she stole it from me
> 
> But the second time was awesome, it is so great watching THEM do the work and it comes so naturally. It really does tire her out, 3 simple searches and she was asleep for the afternoon.


Up the Ninja....:thumbup: What a good girl with the lurcher.

Really pleased she is enjoying the scent work and I agree it is awesome watching them use their brains.

Let's hope the dear little doggies use their brains on scent tomorrow. Class A is the first class they are required to do a scent test and sometimes they make a right pigs ear of it.


----------



## Symone

Dogless : It was a mix between wanting to kill and wanting to hug! The little bundle of cuteness.. Oh well, I suppose he has learned his lesson, now.. lol.. At least it won't happen again. Or there may surely be some killing! We did have a really long conversation about it though.
Btw Happy belated birthday to Rudi.  I saw your thread but I was on my phone and my phone doesn't let me write on PF, no idea why. 
He really looks lovely. 

Twiggy : It's more of a key word to something she already does. Whenever she wants a tummy rub she gets really excited and rolls onto her back, and then keeps rolling over until she gets said rummy rub. She's associated "tumtum rub" with rolling on her back, but when she gets to her excited stage I've started saying roll over. If that makes sense haha  
That's the main reason why I was trying to clicker train.. to catch when she does stuff like that! 
I'll just say "yes" like you suggested  
And I'll wait a bit for teaching a phrase when she rolls over, so hopefully she won't do it too much. I'll work more on other things  Thanks 

GR: Well, the thing is she walks lovely when we just have one lead in our hand! It's just with walking with Shamaya when the walker has both of their leads. No idea why but she probably views it as a game.  . But when the OH and I walk them together but each have a lead each she walks fine. She does get excited easily but she is just a pup  And she's doing really well with sitting and waiting when she's excited as well. I'm lucky that she's such a well behaved girl. (Apart from the "skipping" rope thing..!!)
btw Shamaya now walks really nicely. She walks slightly in front but with a slack lead. Most pavements on our solo walks are narrow which is why she walks slightly in front. On thick ones she's normally right next to my right leg. Sometimes I just feel really happy when I walk her because of it. It's weird how little things like that that just make me really happy, lol! 
However she does still try to pull into the pet shop.. lol.. I think that must be her most favourite place! But it's just a tight lead, no mountain climbing for the pet shop.. Walks really are more enjoyable with the little Moo! 

And yay for Ninja not barking and not trying to run after!  Sounds like you've really come far with her  


Talking about colliflour cheese, I love it! I always put a small bit of garlic in mine. The OH doesn't like garlic that much so it means more for me  
Our oven packed in last week though, and I always made it in there  Annoyingly I've really wanted to make a roast, bake a cake, bake bread, etc, since it went kaput! I bet that I only want to do it because I can't.

Edit : forgot to say I'll look up stuff about a phantom, thanks.  However she isn't nursing any teddies and seems like her normal self again. It can't hurt to know though ^^


----------



## diefenbaker

PB at the parkrun for Dief's Dad today... 27:14. There's a paced event in a couple of weeks where I could go lower. Hoping to do the Alice Holt CaniX in November.


----------



## diefenbaker

So we've just been playing hide and seek in the house... send someone to hide... then 'find name' and off he goes. I started wondering whether using 'name' actually helped or whether he just went and found the person he knew had left the room. So I sent multiple people to hide and made sure he didn't see who had the treat. He got it right first time every time. Next I'm wondering if I can make him find the right person by sniffing an item of clothing. That could turn into a great outside game.


----------



## Canine K9

Dief- That sounds great well done 

-----------------------------------------------------

Very pleased with Bailey today. I`ve already wrote it in my blog so I`ll write a quickie here. He recalled away from 2 dogs in nearby distance and then recalled after greeting 2 other dogs we know. I left when a young bouncy Golden was left to its own devices because we know that dog and him and Bailey didn`t jell last time.


----------



## Dogless

Well done Dief .

Well done to Bailey too.

Standard few days here - forest last night; run with Rudi and some impulse control and "touch the pole" training with Kilo this morning. Kilo slid on wet grass getting his tuggy near to the end and is now slightly lame on his left foreleg; shoulder muscle strain I would think as his front end stayed largely where it was and back end slid away from it and to one side. So no second walk for Kilo tonight and see how he is in the morning before I decide what to do exercise - wise. A gentle potter and sniff for Kilo I expect just to keep things moving and not stiffening up.


----------



## GingerRogers

Hope Kilo is ok 

Well Done Bailey :thumbup1:

And Dief, clever dawg 

As can be seen in my picture thread I had a lovely day and so did ninja :smile5:


----------



## moonviolet

Dief your game sounds great fun.

Symone lovely to see you back. 

Dogless sorry to hear Kilo is injured hope it's very minor and a good night's sleep works it's magic.

GR yoru pics are lovely, Ninja is looks os full of life and spirit I have floofy tail envy :lol:

CK9 well done Bailey

Twiggy. Mmmm cauliflower cheese. I never make it because OH isnt a fan but next time he's away i think i might spoil myself.  

Our workshop was fun today, Tink was very good focused and keen. I shall remember it fondly when i'm tearing my hair out next monday :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

moonviolet said:


> Dief your game sounds great fun.
> 
> Symone lovely to see you back.
> 
> Dogless sorry to hear Kilo is injured hope it's very minor and a good night's sleep works it's magic.
> 
> GR yoru pics are lovely, Ninja is looks os full of life and spirit *I have floofy tail envy* :lol:
> 
> CK9 well done Bailey
> 
> Twiggy. Mmmm cauliflower cheese. I never make it because OH isnt a fan but next time he's away i think i might spoil myself.
> 
> Our workshop was fun today, Tink was very good focused and keen. I shall remember it fondly when i'm tearing my hair out next monday :lol:


Do you know I am not sure it would suit you 

Glad you hd a good day even if your tails werent floofy :001_tongue:


----------



## moonviolet

GingerRogers said:


> Do you know I am not sure it would suit you
> 
> Glad you hd a good day even if your tails werent floofy :001_tongue:


I can barely cope with 4 limbs... a tail would be beyond my capability. :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done Dief .
> 
> Well done to Bailey too.
> 
> Standard few days here - forest last night; run with Rudi and some impulse control and "touch the pole" training with Kilo this morning. Kilo slid on wet grass getting his tuggy near to the end and is now slightly lame on his left foreleg; shoulder muscle strain I would think as his front end stayed largely where it was and back end slid away from it and to one side. So no second walk for Kilo tonight and see how he is in the morning before I decide what to do exercise - wise. A gentle potter and sniff for Kilo I expect just to keep things moving and not stiffening up.


Hope Kilo is OK today?

It was very wet early yesterday morning at the show, although once the sun came out is was a beautiful day.

I put my waterproof boots on and had sopping wet feet within 5 minutes. and the bottom 6" of my jeans were also very wet.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hope Kilo is OK today?
> 
> It was very wet early yesterday morning at the show, although once the sun came out is was a beautiful day.
> 
> I put my waterproof boots on and had sopping wet feet within 5 minutes. and the bottom 6" of my jeans were also very wet.


He seems fine Twiggy thank you, but I am just going to let him potter gently today - no running about.

I hate having wet feet!


----------



## Twiggy

I can't believe Holly.....!!

We just got back from our agility class. After walking behind 30 odd dogs judging yesterday the last thing I needed was to be running today but anyway.

We had a mini competition towards the end of class today, which was basically jumping, tunnels, tyre and control. Guess who won....::biggrin:

I'm feeling ridiculously smug because all the other handlers are, at the very least, half my age....


----------



## Dogless

Well done Grannie and Little HB - that is brilliant!!!!!!! Best get yourself a cup of tea and a sit down to recover.


----------



## Dogless

Kilo just had a gentle potter and sniff and I hid some treats and did a bit of "find it" this morning. He started to limp again slightly (I think - sometimes I watch so closely I'm not sure whether I am imagining things!!!). Anyway, I stayed out for an hour just so he had some time outside and he was perfectly happy sniffing through piles of leaves. We didn't really walk much at all but it's nice for him to be out I think.

Rudi did his first mountain and did me proud. He was a mountain goat just like Kilo is and is intuitive about the rocks etc again the same as Kilo. What isn't the same as Kilo is that he is pretty relaxed around sheep, even in fairly close proximity! http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/329740-rudis-first-mountain-pics.html

I was upset as I cannot think of many mountain walks that don't involve a long path / track from a car park so can't do them with Kilo as most of the farms up them have dogs that will rush out or we may have to pass dogs in close proximity - but this one we can do. It is only very short...but is something .


----------



## ciarasmum

I've not been a member long but have come across this thread and after a period of lurking D) I'm wondering if I could join in? 

I'll try and keep it short but I'm a bit of a waffler:

Ciara is my 5yo GSD. Bought from what we now know are the worse kind of BYB. Couldn't see the dad, breeder tried to push her on us at 5 weeks, never socialised and kept outdoors without much interaction with any dogs/people. We got her just before 6 weeks (I know  ) and have always had a problem with her being nervous of people and dogs.

With dogs she can show this as reactivity, barking/lunging. But after a few years hard work, and a huge learning curve for me (LAT, BAT etc), she hasn't barked/lunged at another dog in over a year (unless they bark at her first and are close). 

With people she keeps her distance, avoidance is always her first choice but if really pushed by someone to interact (if on lead or at home) she will grumble at run off. I'm very strict with people now (I've learned to be confident to protect her). 

I made a huge mistake and joined a GSD walking group. There were a few steady dogs who were great (one member on here has one of them) but a lot were reactive. We'd made progress enough over the years that with proper introductions she'd be fine with other dogs, but on the walks she was getting snarled at for saying hello in a polite way.

I've now seen a huge backtrack in her progress. I stopped the group walks a month ago (we did about 1 month of them, once maybe twice a week). Since then she can't disengage from another dog even 3/4 times her previous threshold distance, she is panicking on walks and generally more stressy.

I've been in tears over my stupidity but she is genuinely good with other steady dogs. I just didn't realise there were so many other reactive ones. So now we're back to the drawing board and there's lots of work to be done. I love her the way she is, but I know she can be more comfortable around dogs, we've done it before, so I owe it her to show her they are not scary again.

Ok so there's my huge introduction! 

Last night: had a beach walk. Two girls called out from in the dark and were lost. They were heading in the wrong direction and very scared. Me and my friend (plus Ciara and my aunts lhasa apso) walked them back to the car park and gave them a lift home. I was so proud of Ciara for being so relaxed around these strangers, especially in the dark and especially in her own car. She even tried to get in the front seats with them :blush:

Today's walk: saw 4 dogs in 2 mins. Both owners had 2 dogs each. I recalled and put Ciara on lead and moved way off to the side. Neither owner recalled their dog or was even close to them. I couldn't really ask them to recall as their dogs weren't coming up to us, but had stopped on the path and 3 out of 4 were eyeballing her without moving which didn't help. We did a little BAT once they had gone but she wasn't really into it.

Ok so I told you I waffle! Now that I've sort of introduced us, I'm sure any other posts will be shorter  Looking forward to contributing!


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> I've not been a member long but have come across this thread and after a period of lurking D) I'm wondering if I could join in?
> 
> I'll try and keep it short but I'm a bit of a waffler:
> 
> Ciara is my 5yo GSD. Bought from what we now know are the worse kind of BYB. Couldn't see the dad, breeder tried to push her on us at 5 weeks, never socialised and kept outdoors without much interaction with any dogs/people. We got her just before 6 weeks (I know  ) and have always had a problem with her being nervous of people and dogs.
> 
> With dogs she can show this as reactivity, barking/lunging. But after a few years hard work, and a huge learning curve for me (LAT, BAT etc), she hasn't barked/lunged at another dog in over a year (unless they bark at her first and are close).
> 
> With people she keeps her distance, avoidance is always her first choice but if really pushed by someone to interact (if on lead or at home) she will grumble at run off. I'm very strict with people now (I've learned to be confident to protect her).
> 
> I made a huge mistake and joined a GSD walking group. There were a few steady dogs who were great (one member on here has one of them) but a lot were reactive. We'd made progress enough over the years that with proper introductions she'd be fine with other dogs, but on the walks she was getting snarled at for saying hello in a polite way.
> 
> I've now seen a huge backtrack in her progress. I stopped the group walks a month ago (we did about 1 month of them, once maybe twice a week). Since then she can't disengage from another dog even 3/4 times her previous threshold distance, she is panicking on walks and generally more stressy.
> 
> I've been in tears over my stupidity but she is genuinely good with other steady dogs. I just didn't realise there were so many other reactive ones. So now we're back to the drawing board and there's lots of work to be done. I love her the way she is, but I know she can be more comfortable around dogs, we've done it before, so I owe it her to show her they are not scary again.
> 
> Ok so there's my huge introduction!
> 
> Last night: had a beach walk. Two girls called out from in the dark and were lost. They were heading in the wrong direction and very scared. Me and my friend (plus Ciara and my aunts lhasa apso) walked them back to the car park and gave them a lift home. I was so proud of Ciara for being so relaxed around these strangers, especially in the dark and especially in her own car. She even tried to get in the front seats with them :blush:
> 
> Today's walk: saw 4 dogs in 2 mins. Both owners had 2 dogs each. I recalled and put Ciara on lead and moved way off to the side. Neither owner recalled their dog or was even close to them. I couldn't really ask them to recall as their dogs weren't coming up to us, but had stopped on the path and 3 out of 4 were eyeballing her without moving which didn't help. We did a little BAT once they had gone but she wasn't really into it.
> 
> Ok so I told you I waffle! Now that I've sort of introduced us, I'm sure any other posts will be shorter  Looking forward to contributing!


Ciara is a very beautiful girl. I'm sorry the group walks went so very wrong. Trouble is we can all be wise after the event and, at the time, you thought you would be helping your girl.

GSDs can be stressy/nervous dogs in any case. They can also be quite territorial and sometimes bond with one person only.

I had a fabulous dog train here a few years ago. His heelwork was a joy to watch and he won at least 4 novice classes. Sadly we could never persuade him to do out of sight stays, (required for the higher classes) which was a terrible shame as his ring work was superb.


----------



## Hanwombat

Currently working on a little bit of everything with Io and the puppy classes really helped me and her. She working on Sit and Wait, Leave and Heel


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hi folks.
Not long got back from visiting Helen Lightfoot with frank. 

What first struck me was the HUGE aga in the kitchen, and how warm, cosy and inviting it was. So frank was calm to begin with. 
She checked him over, every single inch of him. All very gentle but very thorough. 
His toes were a bit sore which in turn was making his neck and shoulders sore and out of line. Said this was probably caused in him using his feet as brakes when charging around and running after balls in the garden. 
His spine was curved a little bit and she corrected that. All the time she was explaining to me what was happening, which totally made sense but trying to relay it all now is impossible, sorry 

The harness I have is not the best one so with his neck and shoulders being sore already, it would make him not want to have it on and then cause more discomfort. Does that make any sense ???? Also, it was restricting his shoulder movements which then affected other things. 

She sorted him out and said not to walk him tonight, only two ten mins tomorrow as he will be quite sleepy. Bless him. . 

She recommended a walking harness from SASS, so have just emailed them about a made to measure one. They're busy so will take a couple of weeks.
And she wants to see him in one months time, then if everything's ok, a visit every 6 months will be fine.  also recommended hydrotherapy about once a month too. The place that I've taken them all to for a fun swim with me, in the past,was where she recommended which I was pleased about.

I was very impressed with her and how she handled frank, and it was nice seeing him relaxed. He's flat out now, little pudding.:001_wub:

Thanks twiggy for mentioning her. I'm very grateful. 

I WILL get around to eventually putting a video of bella up. 

Hope you're all ok.


----------



## ciarasmum

Twiggy said:


> Ciara is a very beautiful girl. I'm sorry the group walks went so very wrong. Trouble is we can all be wise after the event and, at the time, you thought you would be helping your girl.
> 
> GSDs can be stressy/nervous dogs in any case. They can also be quite territorial and sometimes bond with one person only.
> 
> I had a fabulous dog train here a few years ago. His heelwork was a joy to watch and he won at least 4 novice classes. Sadly we could never persuade him to do out of sight stays, (required for the higher classes) which was a terrible shame as his ring work was superb.


They always say hindsight is useful. At least I know now what went wrong. She's very good with anyone in my family and friends of mine and the family she has had time to get to know.

The lost girls on the beach last night asked if she was vicious and whether she would protect us if anyone approached us (despite her not reacting at all to their approach in the pitch black)  I had to explain that my aunts lhasa apso was their best bet for protection lol!

Hmm, I don't think I could manage out of sight stays with Ciara either. In the house yes, but outside I think she would just follow incase I was abandoning her to her doom 

Looking forward to getting to know you all!


----------



## Dogless

Ciarasmum - Welcome . Your girl is beautiful - I have nothing to add to Grannie's words really. Hope that you manage to get back to where you were without too much trouble - it is awful being set back .

Hanwombat - IO looked like she was being very good in your photo thread; long may it continue .

F&F - I am so pleased that Helen Lightfoot was so helpful - hopefully you'll get Frank feeling better soon.

Great day so far today at Concrete Central. Not sure if the butcher had added rocket fuel to the pet mince but I had two spring lambs rather than dogs!

*Rudi* - we went for a run; he was an absolute little star as usual, even when a whole cavalcade of Police motorbikes passed us. When I let him offlead and ran round and round the sports pitches Rudi had huge, max speed big looping zoomies, play bowed, bounced, growled....the lot :w00t:. Goodness knows how far he ran compared to me but he was full of it .

*Kilo* - is sound . Went up to the top fields but didn't do any "Ready Steady" or the fun send aways because of the sharp stops and turns. However, he was doing his silly, puppyish bucking bronco thing and running about all over the place. We just played with his favourite toy at present that Diz's human bought for him. One of these - Extreme Medicine Ball


----------



## tiatortilla

ciarasmum - Welcome to the thread! There's a few of us on here with reactive doggies so it's a good place to vent, get understanding and advice .
F+F - Glad your visit went well, I hope it's really helpful for Frank .
Dogless - Good to hear Kilo is doing well! And Rudi sounds like a little monster (in a good way!), I always wonder how many more miles Tia covers than I do on an off lead walk...!
Twiggy - Well done to you and Holly on your win .


----------



## tiatortilla

Right, now for us! A lovely walk today, various footpaths on lead and off lead run about in a couple of fields. We followed a VERY big, brown dog for a while and Tia was chilled out about that which was good . Also saw a JRT and a king charles spaniel that she ignored too. Did let a single bark at a black lab but she didn't get fixated.
I think we're out of this dodgy recall phase too, it's been consistently good again for a while which is a relief!
Still working on lie down and longer stays too .


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Hi folks.
> Not long got back from visiting Helen Lightfoot with frank.
> 
> What first struck me was the HUGE aga in the kitchen, and how warm, cosy and inviting it was. So frank was calm to begin with.
> She checked him over, every single inch of him. All very gentle but very thorough.
> His toes were a bit sore which in turn was making his neck and shoulders sore and out of line. Said this was probably caused in him using his feet as brakes when charging around and running after balls in the garden.
> His spine was curved a little bit and she corrected that. All the time she was explaining to me what was happening, which totally made sense but trying to relay it all now is impossible, sorry
> 
> The harness I have is not the best one so with his neck and shoulders being sore already, it would make him not want to have it on and then cause more discomfort. Does that make any sense ???? Also, it was restricting his shoulder movements which then affected other things.
> 
> She sorted him out and said not to walk him tonight, only two ten mins tomorrow as he will be quite sleepy. Bless him. .
> 
> She recommended a walking harness from SASS, so have just emailed them about a made to measure one. They're busy so will take a couple of weeks.
> And she wants to see him in one months time, then if everything's ok, a visit every 6 months will be fine.  also recommended hydrotherapy about once a month too. The place that I've taken them all to for a fun swim with me, in the past,was where she recommended which I was pleased about.
> 
> I was very impressed with her and how she handled frank, and it was nice seeing him relaxed. He's flat out now, little pudding.:001_wub:
> 
> Thanks twiggy for mentioning her. I'm very grateful.
> 
> I WILL get around to eventually putting a video of bella up.
> 
> Hope you're all ok.


I'm so very pleased you took Frank to see Helen as I was absolutely certain she could help.


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> They always say hindsight is useful. At least I know now what went wrong. She's very good with anyone in my family and friends of mine and the family she has had time to get to know.
> 
> The lost girls on the beach last night asked if she was vicious and whether she would protect us if anyone approached us (despite her not reacting at all to their approach in the pitch black)  I had to explain that my aunts lhasa apso was their best bet for protection lol!
> 
> *Hmm, I don't think I could manage out of sight stays with Ciara either. In the house yes, but outside I think she would just follow incase I was abandoning her to her doom *
> 
> Looking forward to getting to know you all!


Exactly...!! That's how GSDs think.


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## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> I'm feeling ridiculously smug because all the other handlers are, at the very least, half my age....


Hehe.. I was like this over the summer. I've never gone to a class.. we just practice in the ( small ) garden and take the gear on holiday with us. Tunnel, jumps and weaves is what we do. When camping with a big group we setup in a field. The "class" man struggled while Dief spanked it. Being smug never hurt anyone . I'm think of making him a see-saw next. It will have to start very low to ( on ) the ground. He seems to have a bit of a phobia for treading on wobbly things.


----------



## diefenbaker

diefenbaker said:


> I'm think of making him a see-saw next. It will have to start very low to ( on ) the ground. He seems to have a bit of a phobia for treading on wobbly things.


NEW DOG AGILITY/TRAINING SEESAW | eBay

£85 :w00t: Are they having a laugh ? Mind you it says they've sold 5. No thanks.. I'll make my own. Who wants one ?


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> NEW DOG AGILITY/TRAINING SEESAW | eBay
> 
> £85 :w00t: Are they having a laugh ? Mind you it says they've sold 5. No thanks.. I'll make my own. Who wants one ?


Pop one over on the next ferry - blue and orange colours please Dief!


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Pop one over on the next ferry - blue and orange colours please Dief!


Dear DL. Unfortunately the item you have ordered is currently out-of-stock. There has been a problem with our supplier. Apparently his OH has told him to finish the bathroom before he starts on anything else. Your credit card has not been charged.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Dear DL. Unfortunately the item you have ordered is currently out-of-stock. There has been a problem with our supplier. Apparently his OH has told him to finish the bathroom before he starts on anything else. Your credit card has not been charged.


Dief. I am leaving you negative feedback. I will not be using you in the future. I would pursue the matter but feel that finishing the bathroom is punishment enough.


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## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> NEW DOG AGILITY/TRAINING SEESAW | eBay
> 
> £85 :w00t: Are they having a laugh ? Mind you it says they've sold 5. No thanks.. I'll make my own. Who wants one ?


The see-saw I bought a few weeks back cost £20 and is virtually new.

Pity you're not a bit closer I could do with some 'proper' jumps.

I've now got 3 stick in the ground jumps (2 of which are borrowed), a hoop, see-saw, 4 weaving poles and a tunnel.


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## sharloid

Yla did really well at puppy class. She's really calm and usually focused. 

I'm annoyed at the trainer again though. We were doing long distance recalls and we had Yla on a longline. The trainer wants us to let her off lead and kept going on about it until the OH said 'it's not up for discussion' and walked off. All he heard was her saying something about it being a shame... .


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## missRV

Dief and Twiggy: Pitty about the seesaw. It looks great but £80 is a bit steep!

Sharlid: Sounds like Yla did really well, shame it sounds like she's got such a misunderstanding teacher.



Not all that much to report on Rosie, she had a pampering session yesterday and got a pretty new collar and lead set. I've just taken her to puppy school but I'm now regretting asking if she can be kept back. I feel like all she's doing is playing and not actually working! At the end of the class I had Rosie next to me with her leash on the floor while I was playing with her, I didn't realise the trainer opened the door and Rosie shot out! I ran after her, luckily another dog owner shouted her too, so when she looked at me I ran back into the room and she followed! At least her recall is good! 

I don't know how to approach the question of if she's ready for the grown up obedience class! She seems to have made no progress at all in the last 5 weeks or so!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> I'm so very pleased you took Frank to see Helen as I was absolutely certain she could help.


yes, me too. only took me 35 mins to get there so not far at all.
may take freddie in the future for a once over to make sure he's ok.

well me and bella have an assesment on sunday at gundog training 
only a basic one. we are doing a 'stay' for one miute, steadiness, heelwork off lead to a marker then a sit at the end, and a recall. 
my trainer said we're ready for it and we've been doing lots of training in different places, so fingers crossed.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> yes, me too. only took me 35 mins to get there so not far at all.
> may take freddie in the future for a once over to make sure he's ok.
> 
> well me and bella have an assesment on sunday at gundog training
> only a basic one. we are doing a 'stay' for one miute, steadiness, heelwork off lead to a marker then a sit at the end, and a recall.
> my trainer said we're ready for it and we've been doing lots of training in different places, so fingers crossed.


I would take Freddie personally.

Because I work my dogs, I usually get them checked over by a McTimoney chiropractor 3-4 times a year as a precaution. If the spine is aligned correctly there is less chance of injuries.

Now I've started agility with Holly, she will also be going.


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## tiatortilla

We'd done two really great walks today, saw a greyhound, a JRT, two other biggish dogs and two small ones at a distance too and Tia didn't react to any of them 
Right at the end of our second walk though, a woman came out of a house with a barking dog, we crossed the road but she let go of the dogs' lead and it ran at Tia barking. Tia didn't bark back actually but she was visibly really scared, I just picked her up and walked off but I'm a bit upset because that'll be the bit she remembers tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

TT - sounds as if things are going very well in the main. Shame about the barking dog though .

I am working on recovering from hefting the CHs over stone walls today, it really takes it out of me . Apart from that we are hunky dory. The boys are fast asleep and I suspect will remain so for the rest of the evening. Good day had by all .


----------



## GingerRogers

TT liked because Tia had been so good, I know just how heart wrenching it is when you see them genuinely scared  ninja was like that with the collies a few weeks back, she has just about calmed from it.

Welcome Ciarasmum hopefully with your past experiences it wont take long for you to get back to where you were, at least being comfortable if not happy.

Dief you make me laff 

F&F very glad the chiro was able to help you and Frank 

We have had quite good days.

Monday we saw a PRT and had only a minor reaction, well quite major but not for too long, and she stopped BEFORE he was out of sight. Yesterday morning we had to walk past a westie, the owner kindly leashed him up, and she screamed like a banshee  (this dog can make some god awful noises) but again only when we got very close and not for ages after he had passed.

Then she spent all afternoon in the car with me as I had to pick hubby up from the airport. I did not enjoy that little mission, I dont DO big roads I have to concentrate too hard but we survived. She only tried to bark at one coloured gentleman in a traffic jam :blush2:

She has been very relaxed while he has been away, who knows if its relevant  

This morning we had a quick stomp round the estate with out incident and a play in the beer garden, this evening I sent her out with hubby. He did the lazy option and took her to a safe field for a good blow out which she enjoyed immensely apparently and was good as gold.

Her recall is improving I do believe just a little and by no means bombproof but improving is improving.


----------



## Dogless

GR - brilliant to hear that Ninja's recall is slowly improving and she has been more relaxed this week. I can well believe the correlation between stress and OH hmy:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Thankyou both. Yeah things are going well mainly .
I hate seeing her scared and it's a really frustrating thing to happen when the rest of today went so well - because of trying to keep her calm, which she is if she doesn't need to react/nothing scary happens, but then when something does happen the "chain" starts again so we can't keep improving all the time, if that even makes any sense..
Lol that was not at all coherent but it's good to at least try and put my thoughts into words .


----------



## GingerRogers

No it makes sense to us. Those things out of our control just set you back so much but you need to remember how much is in the bank. They are brilliant at setting us straight and moving on.


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## sharloid

I'm glad we've found somewhere suitable to use a long line. There's plenty of space so I don't have to worry. I took Kindra this morning to practise whistle training a recall.

[youtube_browser]sdt53v3Up1k[/youtube_browser]

I think she's got a pretty impressive recall to say it's not something we've worked on much.


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## Twiggy

I've just got back from the chiropractors with Tremor. She was really pleased with her and apart from a small area at the base of her spine, she's good.:thumbup:

She suggested seeing Tremor again before next show season starts but for peace of mind I've booked her in for another session in a months time. I'm also taking Holly (just as a precaution) as she's now doing agility.

It's a 3 hour round trip but well worth it.


----------



## L/C

Hello, hello!

Long time no speak - but I have been dipping in and out when I can. I hope everyone is well and it's great to see you back Granny.

It is all go at Chez Pointy at the moment - I'm on week 3 of my masters and really enjoying it. Lots to think about, lots to read and a long day twice a week but definitely worth it. In addition to that I'm working part time (Wed to Fri) for the next few weeks, doing 1-2-1 appointments Wed to Sun and teaching classes on Saturday morning. So not much time to stop.

We're still training despite that and doing a lot of impulse control work with Ely as he's been quite jumpy recently. We had a wonderful walk this morning where he was able to play with his squeaky ball (very, very exciting for him) but drop into a down instantly when I asked him to. So very pleased with him.

Gypsy has taken me being out of the house 4:30am till 9pm on Monday and Tuesday quite hard so I'm doing a bit of separation training with her. She's fine with what is our normal routine but this change has thrown her. 

I hope everyone is good and I'll try to be around more often!


----------



## JenKyzer

I have been lurking and trying to keep up, honestly! 

Twiggy - Glad it went well with Tremor at the chiropractors  

Sharloid - Lovely vid.. I have to admit though, one the best bit about your posts is your sig.. yla melts my heart everytime :001_wub: 

GR - good that her recall is improving  Hope the beer garden visits are going down well 

Tia - Hope the barking dog hasn't stuck in Tia's mind, bless her for being scared  

F&F - glad the visit Helen was productive  good luck for sunday!

MissRV - Hope puppy school starts feeling more productive for you soon whatever decision you make about what class to attend 

Dief - hope that bathrooms coming along nicely!!

Dogless - Hope you have recovered from the stone walls with the CH's ... and i loved the Rudi first mountain walk thread 

Ciarasmum - Hello and welcome :thumbup: hope you enjoy joining in with WAYNO-ness as much as i do and find everyones input/advice/opinions/stories/pics etc helpful aswel as them bringing a smile  although please be aware... this is a highly addictive thread :lol:

Sorry i haven't gone all the way back and wrote back to everyone  

Not much happening here... which i always think is a good thing, no drama's to tell anyway.
Willow's been a little star recently  just in general, walking well (stopping before crossing etc), not making a huge fuss out of cats with a 'leave it', re-calling offlead.. we haven't really seen any dogs either..

Although one guy had his lil fluffy pooch offlead at 630am.. so i was bleary eyed, half asleep and really not expecting them  we've seen him before and he knows Willow is reactive, yet instead of crossing over to the other path.. he crossed over onto our path and walked straight towards us and let his dog run upto Willow.. which willow was more bothered about sniffing the wall next to her.. until we carried on then the dog came up behind her.. and rightly so (imo), willow told it to go away  the guy was saying 'you know who that dog is, youve seen her before, leave her alone' ... of course this was his version of recall and to no surprise, it was ignored. Once willow made her feelings very clear the dog soon ran off. Nice start to my day that was... :mad2:

Other than that.. all is good :thumbup:

Oh... apart from she decided to empty the contents of a bin bag from the back door, through the kitchen, into the living room and into the hallway to the front door  her version of a welcome home present maybe?? (my fault for forgetting to put the bag out!) and instead of bounding down to greet me coming home.. her little head was poking out the bedroom door in a very sheepish manner with her giving me the 'how can you be mad at my cute face' face :blush: . Very out of character for her to do anything but sleep whilst we're out... but OH brother said a few people had knocked on the door that afternoon, so maybe it sent her a little crazy ut:


----------



## Skinnywhippet

New to this thread but glad i clicked, cos i noticed Charlotte has a pointy crew and i'm looking for followon classes for my whippet pup *off to website now* 

We are working on:
- Minding our own business when offlead in the communal garden / walkway area in our flats. IE, not belting up to other people and dogs barking like a loon..someone in the block has taken a positively vindictive dislike to another pup which was barking a bit during the day, and now reports to the management company every time a dog so much as sneezes in their hearing. Makes every early or late potty trip a minefield of stress and staring into the distance for anyone leaving their flat 

- recall. recall, recall, recall. and she's just discovered squirrels, damn their fluffy little tails, and our nearest park is overrun with the twitchy nosed little b*stards...heaven help me!


----------



## Sarah1983

I have been MIA from this thread for a while  While I'm usually not so rude as to be all "me, me, me" and not respond to what others have posted this time I'm afraid you'll have to forgive me, I don't stand a cat in hells chance of catching up any time soon :scared: I hope everyone is doing well though and I shall be back to posting responses next time round when I'm more up to date.

Me and Spencer haven't been doing anything special really. More work on recall, specifically on getting a faster response instead of the "yeah, in a minute, just sniffing this. Oh and must pee on that over there" response I have been getting. A lack of treats for slow responses has quickly convinced him that he needs to come when I call him, not when he's finished reading his pee mail. He still does the occasional "yeah, in a sec" but is much improved over all.

We're having major problems when it comes to other dogs though. Once he's met them he is happy to come away. Until he's met them they are the most exciting thing in the world and there is absolutely zero chance of me recalling him. Working hard on recall and wait and we can recall from a dog in the distance but once it gets within a certain range no chance. And if one appears suddenly it doesn't need to be so close (not a huge distance, he won't go tearing across a field to introduce himself but he'll run further than he would to one he's seen coming).

He's also had kennel cough recently and I can see why owners who couldn't be bothered walking him would rehome him, he's been a nightmare to live with despite training sessions and Kongs and Tug a Jugs.

I'll leave you with a couple of pics. Not really worth their own photo thread
Practising a down stay on the field with another dog in sight. I'm not sure what the odd expression is all about lol.


And the best way to deal with a Kong Wobbler is to hide in the curtains with it


----------



## Canine K9

Sarah- Great photos, sorry about the niggles but you`ll get there I`m sure 

Skinnywhippet- Recall is a pain but you`ll be fine, good luck

JSW- Sorry about the walk people who cant control their dogs really are a pain  Glad everything else is fine though

L/C- Glad your enjoying it

Twiggy- Thats brilliant news, very glad your trip was worth it

sharloid- Well done Kindra 

-----------------------------

Not the best day ever with us, still a lot of barking, biting again (and it still hurts when he decides to go RAWR and bite your feet ) Its because I`m at school I think I obviously don`t have enough time in the day when I get home to do proper physical and mental stimulation. I cant walk him in the dark so he is getting much shorter walks and no AM walk which is probably contributing. Le sigh.


----------



## Dogless

SkinnyWhippet - WELCOME .

L/C - Lovely to see you again; your Masters sounds fascinating, life exhausting....but in a very productive and positive way :thumbup:.

JSW - It is very good to have nothing to report usually . Sorry about your "rubbish" welcome home...yuck.

Twiggy - Very pleased that Tremor seems to be progressing well.

Sarah - Can't resist a pic of Spendog in the curtains . Glad he's out and about again after being cooped up (if only all owners were as responsible as you ) but not pleased about the dog thing again....I am certain you will get there but don't have any bright ideas I am afraid .

K9 - sorry things aren't good. Could you manage a walk before school maybe? 

Great day here; lead walks this morning, Rudi on the pavements and Kilo round the sports pitches and open areas for obvious reasons. Both boys were fantastic for me :thumbup:.

This afternoon / evening I went running with Rudi and met up with Dizzy and human with Kilo - and again both boys were fantastic for me :thumbup:. Gold stars for the CHs today.

Even though today was sunny and bright the cold weather seems to have signalled the start of hibernation for most of the local dogs. Over the past two days I haven't seen a single one out walking when we have been out and only one or two that I have driven past in the car. Great for the CHs and I, not so good for the dogs who will next see the light of day next spring.


----------



## Twiggy

*L/C* - My word you've been busy, although I'm sure all the hard work will be worth it. Good to hear from you though...

*Sarah1983* - Love the pics of Spen, particularly his expression in the first one.

*Dogless *- Pleased the boys were good today and delighted the locals hibernate with their ill-mannered dogs through the Winter. At least it gives you breathing space with Kilo for a while.

I haven't had time to do any training with Holly since her agility lesson on Monday afternoon. I took her out with me yesterday in class but too many loud people and dogs so that was that and I took her back inside. It doesn't exactly bode well for the show on Saturday but we'll see.

Tremor is bored off her clogs but that's the downside of chiropractor treatment, having to be rested for two days.


----------



## Dogless

It is with the greatest pleasure I can announce that forestry operations have ceased in one of our very favourite parts of "our" forest which has been inaccessible for the best part of a year  . Kilo was overjoyed to be back and remembered all his favourite spots (I think Rudi only went once or twice as a little puppy) so was absolutely crackers running about exploring them again.....and Rudi is pretty much crackers all of the time so goodness knows how far they both ran today :crazy::crazy:. So....good day so far at Concrete Central.

Hubby is home on leave later so I am sure that my nice tidy house and calm, sleeping boys will be disrupted :skep:  .

ETA: Hubby is home and has declared both dogs too thin - Rudi certainly is, he's a rack of ribs, and looking at Kilo he is too all of a sudden; colder weather I think.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It is with the greatest pleasure I can announce that forestry operations have ceased in one of our very favourite parts of "our" forest which has been inaccessible for the best part of a year  . Kilo was overjoyed to be back and remembered all his favourite spots (I think Rudi only went once or twice as a little puppy) so was absolutely crackers running about exploring them again.....and Rudi is pretty much crackers all of the time so goodness knows how far they both ran today :crazy::crazy:. So....good day so far at Concrete Central.
> 
> Hubby is home on leave later so I am sure that my nice tidy house and calm, sleeping boys will be disrupted :skep:  .
> 
> ETA: Hubby is home and has declared both dogs too thin - Rudi certainly is, he's a rack of ribs, and looking at Kilo he is too all of a sudden; colder weather I think.


Brilliant news that you have 'your' forest back....!!

You should know by now not to take the slightest notice of husbands (I've told you often enough)....

Your boys look in superb condition in your recent pics.

Talking of husbands - I noticed today that the muddy working boots have crept back into the kitchen (half hidden under the kitchen table). I've also noticed over the past week or so there appears to be piles of grass/debris/fir tree on the bathroom carpet every time a certain person has a shower. I wonder how that got there....: It's about time I had another little word.....

Really looking forward to the agility show tomorrow. The Met Office are saying heavy rain all day. Sadly my friend is keen to go. I shan't be running Holly if I don't consider it safe. I went and bought some waterproof lightweight boots/trainers this morning so hopefully my feet will be dry. I've also packed two waterproof suits and a towel for the dogs...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Brilliant news that you have 'your' forest back....!!
> 
> You should know by now not to take the slightest notice of husbands (I've told you often enough)....
> 
> Your boys look in superb condition in your recent pics.
> 
> Talking of husbands - I noticed today that the muddy working boots have crept back into the kitchen (half hidden under the kitchen table). I've also noticed over the past week or so there appears to be piles of grass/debris/fir tree on the bathroom carpet every time a certain person has a shower. I wonder how that got there....: It's about time I had another little word.....
> 
> Really looking forward to the agility show tomorrow. The Met Office are saying heavy rain all day. Sadly my friend is keen to go. I shan't be running Holly if I don't consider it safe. I went and bought some waterproof lightweight boots/trainers this morning so hopefully my feet will be dry. I've also packed two waterproof suits and a towel for the dogs...


Thank you. We have still always had "our" forest luckily - but this is one of our favourite areas of it .

If only you were as good at training men Twiggy as you are dogs you could have made millions!!! .

Hope you stay safe, warm and dry tomorrow too....doesn't sound like good conditions at all.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thank you. We have still always had "our" forest luckily - but this is one of our favourite areas of it .
> 
> *If only you were as good at training men Twiggy as you are dogs you could have made millions!!! .*
> 
> Hope you stay safe, warm and dry tomorrow too....doesn't sound like good conditions at all.


Well it's not for the lack of trying......

The last time I mentioned the piles of debris outside the shower, he got the hoover out (and there's me thinking he didn't know how to use it all these years).


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well it's not for the lack of trying......
> 
> The last time I mentioned the piles of debris outside the shower, he got the hoover out (and there's me thinking he didn't know how to use it all these years).


You have reminded me - a while ago we were talking with friends about hoovers for some reason and hubby chimed in about how good ours was . I asked him how he knew as he didn't even know how to switch it on :001_rolleyes:  .


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## diefenbaker

It is with deep regret that I have to announce that the kids bought Dief a bandana. However, it is with much deeper regret, that I have to announce I kinda like it. I suspect a picture may follow.


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## Dogless

OK walks this morning, both dogs seemed pretty tired from their full on week!!

Took Rudi for a pavement lead walk, he was good. No one at all was out and I was thinking how I could have taken both dogs out together (don't worry, I daren't!!) when we were rushed by a small yapping thing and then passed the DA pug, us giving them space as usual as they always just come past close by and let their dog get in a big stressed out lather . 

Then took Kilo for an onlead potter round the sports pitches and open spaces as per. After about 25 minutes we saw a dog come on (just about visible). Kilo clamped his tail up to his belly and started whining and shaking and pulling around in all directions . I managed to get his attention enough to get some space between us fast but he just tried to haul me back to the car, so back to the car we went and I came home. No point prolonging the agony.


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- Sorry about your walks, hearing Kilo`s reaction makes me so sad 

Dief- Yes we need a picture!

---------------------------------------------------------

Well today. We went to agility and there was another young male there who Bailey kept growling and barking at. When he was behaving I allowed him to greet and he was fine  But when he couldn`t get to him he growled and barked and lunged. 
But I was so proud of how well he did at agility.
He has had some clicker training. We still have issues with barking and biting but overall ok.


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## Dogless

I "liked" the good parts of your post K9. Have you asked the trainer about the biting still being a drama?


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## Canine K9

Dogless said:


> I "liked" the good parts of your post K9. Have you asked the trainer about the biting still being a drama?


No but I`ll make a point of asking next time


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## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> No but I`ll make a point of asking next time


Just thought with them knowing you and Bailey they might be able to give a few pointers to finally stop it.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless - So sorry about Kilo, must be really hard to see him like that.
Twiggy - Hope your agility show today went well!
JSW - Good Willow apart from destroying the bin bag! 
k9 - Well done for the good bits and good luck sorting the not so good bits.
Welcome to Skinnywhippet and welcome back L/C and Sarah 1983


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## tiatortilla

Things are okay here. Unfortunately the barky dog the other day does seem to have had a bit of an effect on Tia, she's been very quick to react since. We've been doing quiet walks and they've all been very nice anyway, found a new walk and she's getting quite calm around sheep now too.
She did kick off at a westie and a little spaniel that we had to walk past today but didn't even notice a dalmation (bigger distance but not a huge one) which is confusing but good. Hopefully things will be alright anyway.


----------



## Twiggy

Well we all survived the agility show..

It was throwing it down when we left home but had just about stopped by the time we got to the venue and was actually reasonably nice all day.

I was absolutely delighted with Holly. Unfortunately there was a collapsable tunnel in both her jumping classes which she baulked at because she doesn't understand them yet and has only been through a couple of times with someone holding the end up. On her third run she was actually getting quite excited and bit me a couple of times...:thumbup:

Tremor was a bit naughty (in the nicest possible way). I sat holding her watching the mini dogs and I think she thought they were performing rabbits (or some kind of small furries) and she got more and more animated until I eventually put her back in the car...LOL

I'm shattered now. I'd forgotten just how long a 'proper' agility course is. I wasn't exactly speedy 20+ years ago and it nearly killed me today..:biggrin5:
The new waterproof boots I bought yesterday didn't help; they felt like to lumps of lead.

All in all it was good fun though and the friend that came with me got placed with her setter bitch, which was brilliant as it was her first agility show.

I don't think I'll bother with the obedience show tomorrow. The weather sounds ghastly and I can't work Tremor on concrete in any case.

The only downside today was that Tremor was awful travelling. She's always worst when the roads are wet. She hasn't been out in the car very much this year. I shall have to start taking her up to Tescos and other local journeys again.


----------



## Dogless

So pleased that all went so well Grannie bar Tremor's dislike of travelling. How lovely that Tremor was naughty and that little HB bit you .


----------



## missRV

I'll have a look through everyone's comments in a bit 

Rosie is still not getting much from any of her classes and she seems to be extra naughty at the moment, she's suffering with a sore ear at the moment so we're thinking it has something to do with that, but she keeps on running away from me during training (agility and obedience) her sit and wait seems to have gone down the pan too. 

I've been emailing another agility school who have said to bring her along this week, hopefully a change of scene will do her some good but I'm hoping for some suggestions on sorting out her recall, and some assurance that she'll get better with this  she's driving me mad at the moment, and I'm leaving every class thinking "what a waste of time and money!"


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> So pleased that all went so well Grannie bar Tremor's dislike of travelling. How lovely that Tremor was naughty and that little HB bit you .


Yes Tremor thought the minis were terribly exciting. She was doing the light fandango and the more she watched, the more wound up she got. When it reached the point that she almost pulled me off my chair, as each one started, I thought it was time to take her back to the car.

I think Holly was saying "can't you go a bit faster?"...


----------



## Twiggy

missRV said:


> I'll have a look through everyone's comments in a bit
> 
> Rosie is still not getting much from any of her classes and she seems to be extra naughty at the moment, she's suffering with a sore ear at the moment so we're thinking it has something to do with that, but she keeps on running away from me during training (agility and obedience) her sit and wait seems to have gone down the pan too.
> 
> I've been emailing another agility school who have said to bring her along this week, hopefully a change of scene will do her some good but I'm hoping for some suggestions on sorting out her recall, and some assurance that she'll get better with this  she's driving me mad at the moment, and I'm leaving every class thinking "what a waste of time and money!"


How old is Rosie now?

How have you taught the recall (or been shown how to teach the recall)?

If she's running away from you, there has to be a reason for it. Forgive me asking but you don't get cross or frustrated with her if she doesn't sit and stay do you?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes Tremor thought the minis were terribly exciting. She was doing the light fandango and the more she watched, the more wound up she got. When it reached the point that she almost pulled me off my chair, as each one started, I thought it was time to take her back to the car.
> 
> I think Holly was saying "can't you go a bit faster?"...


I'm not sure I've ever congratulated anyone on being bitten......or been proud to tell anyone that my own dogs have bitten me  . I can picture you sailing through the air on the end of Tremor's lead too!!!


----------



## missRV

Twiggy said:


> How old is Rosie now?
> 
> How have you taught the recall (or been shown how to teach the recall)?
> 
> If she's running away from you, there has to be a reason for it. Forgive me asking but you don't get cross or frustrated with her if she doesn't sit and stay do you?


thanks

shes 13 months

ive taken her to puppy class and the way we do it is on a long line with ait and wait then walk to other end of the room and call the dog... I dont get cross with her and ive never scolded her or raised my voice at her in any way.... today i was feeling fed up with the way the class was going so i put the leash back on her to complete the course we are very close but the bond between us is broken when she sees another dog...


----------



## Twiggy

missRV said:


> thanks
> 
> shes 13 months
> 
> ive taken her to puppy class and the way we do it is on a long line with ait and wait then walk to other end of the room and call the dog... I dont get cross with her and ive never scolded her or raised my voice at her in any way.... today i was feeling fed up with the way the class was going so i put the leash back on her to complete the course we are very close but the bond between us is broken when she sees another dog...


OK that how I thought you've probably taught her.

It's certainly not the way we teach young dogs. Why most dog training classes insist on boring the dogs rigid and teaching young dogs sit and down stays at a very early age I shall never understand.

Look at it from Rosie's point of view. The onus, using your method is on the sit and stay. Therefore the dog has already lost interest way before you call her.

We start puppies off with me holding onto them and their mummy/handler/owner running away and then calling them and when the puppies get to them they are showered with praise and stuffed with tit-bits.
There is no sits, and certainly no stays involved..!!

I've yet to teach Holly either a sit or down stay and yet on the 3 runs she did today she sat beautifully on the start line whilst I walked round the first jump and called her over it.

I work very, very hard to bond with and motivate my dogs until I am the centre of their universe, to the point when nothing distracts their attention from me.

OK I allowed Tremor a bit of free rein today because she's been on the lead for the previous two days after her visit to the chiropractor, so she deserved a bit of fun.


----------



## missRV

We have a fantastic relationship at home.... the only time I'm not rolling round with her on the floor I'm on here lol; but is it too late to do this with her now? As soon as I even let the leash go for her to run through the tunnel, she does the tunnel then she's away at the other end of the pen to roll over another dog!

She used to be totally focused on what I wanted her to do until about 3 weeks ago then that's it!


----------



## Twiggy

missRV said:


> We have a fantastic relationship at home.... the only time I'm not rolling round with her on the floor I'm on here lol; but is it too late to do this with her now? As soon as I even let the leash go for her to run through the tunnel, she does the tunnel then she's away at the other end of the pen to roll over another dog!
> 
> She used to be totally focused on what I wanted her to do until about 3 weeks ago then that's it!


Yes I'm sure you have a fantastic relationship at home - most handlers have. If I'd been given a £1 for every time I've heard "he/she will do it at home" I'd be a multi-millionaire several times over.

Today was the first time I'd been to an agility show for 20 years and it was quite interesting that both rings were fully fenced - when I used to compete years ago there was just a ring rope....!! Far too many dogs were 'bogging off' either at the start or part way round the course, which has nothing whatsoever to do with agility training. It's down to basic obedience training.

In fact when agility first started in the UK many KC registered clubs insisted the dogs were up to novice standard obedience before they were allowed into the agility classes. Sadly not these days.

Personally with Rosie I'd work very hard on your recall. Arm yourself with high value tit-bits (cheese, sausage, liver cake, chicken, etc.), throw a piece out and say something like "get it" and as she eats it, run off, saying something like "Rosie, I've got this one" (waving another piece about) and give it to her the minute she comes back to you. It all has to be fun and at the end of the day the dogs have got to want to be with you. I find it hugely insulting if my dogs find another dog or person more interesting than me - and believe me I've been there and know the feeling....!!


----------



## missRV

Twiggy said:


> Yes I'm sure you have a fantastic relationship at home - most handlers have. If I'd been given a £1 for every time I've heard "he/she will do it at home" I'd be a multi-millionaire several times over.
> 
> Today was the first time I'd been to an agility show for 20 years and it was quite interesting that both rings were fully fenced - when I used to compete years ago there was just a ring rope....!! Far too many dogs were 'bogging off' either at the start or part way round the course, which has nothing whatsoever to do with agility training. It's down to basic obedience training.
> 
> In fact when agility first started in the UK many KC registered clubs insisted the dogs were up to novice standard obedience before they were allowed into the agility classes. Sadly not these days.
> 
> Personally with Rosie I'd work very hard on your recall. Arm yourself with high value tit-bits (cheese, sausage, liver cake, chicken, etc.), throw a piece out and say something like "get it" and as she eats it, run off, saying something like "Rosie, I've got this one" (waving another piece about) and give it to her the minute she comes back to you. It all has to be fun and at the end of the day the dogs have got to want to be with you. I find it hugely insulting if my dogs find another dog or person more interesting than me - and believe me I've been there and know the feeling....!!


Thanks Twiggy  rep coming your way  I'll try that with her tomorrow


----------



## Twiggy

missRV said:


> Thanks Twiggy  rep coming your way  I'll try that with her tomorrow


Good girl....

To be honest I'm not all that enamoured with our new agility class. I'm having to bite my lip because his training methods differ wildly, in many respects, to mine. On the plus side it's reasonably local and at a convenient time but if there is ever the slightest suggestion that I *make* Holly do anything, he will be told in no uncertain terms...


----------



## missRV

Thanks again 

As a teacher Im trained to believe that every learner should leave the lesson knowing more than they did when they came into the classroom.... I wish rosie could take something from every class she attends but recently shes blended into the background, I know Im sounding spoilt here but as this problem materialised a while ago and i raised the trainer to it weeks ago its still not been acknowledged and Ive now had better acknowledgement off someone on a forum in the space of an hour than a few weeks of lessons to me isnt good enough!


----------



## Twiggy

missRV said:


> Thanks again
> 
> As a teacher Im trained to believe that every learner should leave the lesson knowing more than they did when they came into the classroom.... I wish rosie could take something from every class she attends but recently shes blended into the background, I know Im sounding spoilt here but as this problem materialised a while ago and i raised the trainer to it weeks ago its still not been acknowledged and Ive now had better acknowledgement off someone on a forum in the space of an hour than a few weeks of lessons to me isnt good enough!


I sympathise and know exactly what you mean as I've also been in that situation, where the trainer concentrates, and spends more time with, some dogs more than others. It annoys and irritates me immensely.

I adore and respect my competitive obedience trainer but I well remember travelling quite a long way to his class and paying exactly the same as everyone else, only for him to be very rude and dismissive of Quiver aged about 10 mths old. I got about 10 minutes of his time and his assessment of her was that she wasn't the 'right material' for competition work.

Six months later she began winning every class we entered, culminating a few years later by winning the 'big one' - Crufts Obedience Championships. My trainer was in the audience and was the first person to congratulate us....!!
He still insists to this day that Quiver was never a suitable candidate for obedience work...

In the classes here the dogs and handlers are very much of mixed ability from very experienced 'ticket handlers' to total beginners and they all get exactly the same amount of individual attention.

Everyone has their own talents; some handlers are very good at motivating their dogs, some are brilliant with nervous and sensitive dogs and others shine at teaching certain exercises. I like to give them all an equal chance to development and hone their skills, but more importantly to enjoy and have fun with their dogs.


----------



## RioDa

I'm trying to teach her 'hold it' on command. She will hold the tasty sticks (obviously) but whenever I try and move up to this more hard treat I have she just turns her head away. I keep rewarding her for holding the other ones though but all she wants to do is eat them and it's almost as if I'm rewarding her for just eating something tasty?


----------



## ciarasmum

Twiggy said:


> Yes I'm sure you have a fantastic relationship at home - most handlers have. If I'd been given a £1 for every time I've heard "he/she will do it at home" I'd be a multi-millionaire several times over.
> 
> Today was the first time I'd been to an agility show for 20 years and it was quite interesting that both rings were fully fenced - when I used to compete years ago there was just a ring rope....!! Far too many dogs were 'bogging off' either at the start or part way round the course, which has nothing whatsoever to do with agility training. It's down to basic obedience training.
> 
> In fact when agility first started in the UK many KC registered clubs insisted the dogs were up to novice standard obedience before they were allowed into the agility classes. Sadly not these days.
> 
> Personally with Rosie I'd work very hard on your recall. Arm yourself with high value tit-bits (cheese, sausage, liver cake, chicken, etc.), throw a piece out and say something like "get it" and as she eats it, run off, saying something like "Rosie, I've got this one" (waving another piece about) and give it to her the minute she comes back to you. It all has to be fun and at the end of the day the dogs have got to want to be with you. I find it hugely insulting if my dogs find another dog or person more interesting than me - and believe me I've been there and know the feeling....!!


I do this with Ciara even now she's 5 lol, but I like to play different recall games. With her being reactive I need to keep her recall sharp and fun, thankfully she turns back to me as soon as she sees a dog now.


----------



## ciarasmum

Ok I'm going to try and reply to everyone but really hope I haven't missed anything, I've only managed to look back 2 pages. And sorry if I'm completely missing the point in my replies, I'm new to WAYWO so hopefully I'll catch up soon 

*RioDa* - sorry I have no advice on the 'hold it', I've never been able to get Ciara to pick up or hold anything on command! Could you maybe try with something else than food? I'm new to the WAUWO thread so sorry if I'm suggesting something that you've already tried 

*missRV* - I would be annoyed with that too! I've been in that situation too and it is frustrating, especially when you are paying the same as others that are getting much more of the trainers attention and are being left to merge into the background.

*Twiggy* -  love the thumbs up for Holly biting you in excitement! I feel like I'm late to the party and need to catch up with everyones 'working on' things. Glad she is having a great time with the agility, she sounds really enthusiastic 

Lol at Tremor! Sorry she isn't doing too good with the car journeys, but sure she will be fine with some smaller journeys. Ciara's the same walking down the road if it's been raining, everything always sounds louder doesn't it!

*tiatortilla* - sorry the barking dog has been affecting Tia, but glad you have some quiet walks you can do to de-stress a little. I think it always helps to have a few days of quiet walks without seeing as many of the stressy things (for both dog and us) Great that she is calm around sheep 

*CanineK9* - Good boy Bailey for being good when allowed to greet  sometimes Ciara lunges more in a frustrated way than 'go away' lunge but I'm still not sure I can spot the difference.

*Dogless* - made me sad to read about Kilo's reaction to the dog. Poor boy  You did the right thing by cutting short the walk. I do that with Ciara if she has come across too many triggers as she just ends up walking around huffing and puffing with stress otherwise 

*diefenbaker* - hope we can see a pic of Dief in his bandana


----------



## RioDa

ciarasmum said:


> *RioDa* - sorry I have no advice on the 'hold it', I've never been able to get Ciara to pick up or hold anything on command! Could you maybe try with something else than food? I'm new to the WAUWO thread so sorry if I'm suggesting something that you've already tried


Okay it's fine  I think I'll try her with a 'pigs ear' later as she likes them and it's abit more hard so she may grip other things of the same texture?


----------



## ciarasmum

Hope I replied to everyone in my last post.

Ciara was kept in yesterday and we just played games in the house, give her a frozen kong and generally just tried to de-stress. Friday we met loads of stressy things in our usual quiet place 

There were tractors/trucks/vans with people coming in and out down a narrow lane which leads to a lovely walk. Lots of banging and shouting from the men. We did a little BAT at distance but got to the point where we had to walk past, she practically dragged me past all the scary things with her tail tucked.

Next we met a dog. I recalled her straight away at a huge distance, put her on lead, on the opposite side of me and moved to the side. Other owner left his collie running up then backing off towards her until we got past. She did pull when we passed but more to sniff and didn't lunge/bark. She had her thundershirt on but this didn't seem to help.

We had a lovely 90 mins then round the woods, lots of play, she was playing in the water and a dog appeared on the path. She looked, then carried on playing 

But on the way back we had to either pass all the scary tractors/trucks etc or go down another footpath. I wasn't sure where it led to, but it came out at a garden centre car park so we had to walk through there and down the main road to get back to the car. Lots of her trying to pull into the road to get away from the houses who's front doors backed onto the pavement  she's clever enough to know that 'scary hoomans' may come out of them. Breaks my heart to see her like that and I don't ever think she will learn to be not afraid of people. 

Aside from bad breeding and not being handled by the breeder (pups were shoved outside and practically ignored  ), we have done everything to help her. Countless behaviourists, some better than others (bad advice such as taking her to dog shows and flooding her ignored), we have made huge progress with her fear of dogs, but I don't ever think we will get there with people.

Sorry for such a waffle, I felt so upset on Friday. 

Today we're going to head out soon under the cover of rain and hope we don't see anyone, then tonight I'll take her to the country park where it is empty after dark. Fingers crossed for a stress free day!


----------



## RioDa

Damn, got some more 'holds' for her to hold and she still doesn't want none of the whole 'hold this non tasty thing'. She will only hold tasty things. Maybe I'll just have to keep trying :001_rolleyes:


----------



## Dogless

Ciarasmum - hope you had a much better walk under cover of rain. I am sorry your last one was stressful - the anticipation of scary things is heartbreaking to see in your dog isn't it?

Good day today so far .

Took Rudi for a run - there's some cadre or something happening and lots of people about and on the sports pitches so I kept him on lead round them and then was going to give him a lap or three offlead in the dog walking field but there was a maelstrom of loose barking running dogs so we went on past. He had to content with a few onlead stops for a sniff and a pee but was a really good dog for me as ever .

Took Kilo to the top fields to do the fun sendaway stuff and lots of "ready steady". He had a ball and totally wore me out . There were some workmen checking the security cameras so goodness knows what they made of it all :skep:. There were some dogs barking at each other on the street behind ours just as we went to the car so his tail clamped, head went down and whirling about started but once we were at the fields he relaxed quite quickly .


----------



## ciarasmum

Glad Kilo managed to de-stress quickly once on the fields, it's awful seeing them frightened isn't it.

Rudi sounds like a lovely dog too 

We didn't have a nice walk at all  Went to what is usually a deserted field with a farm on one side. Last year we had a horrible incident with 4 dogs running from the farm charging and barking at Ciara. Not happened since, until today 

Only 2 dogs this time, but 2 too many! Both came pelting across the field barking and charging at Ciara. She isn't a dog that will hurt any other dog but she was really stressed by this. I recalled her and put her in a sit/stay so I could scare the dogs off, but they kept coming trying to charge her (they are all noise, JRT and westie). In the end Ciara chased them back onto the farm. They stopped before they got there and stood still not knowing what to do, she stopped too and seeing that they were calm, came back to me (she doesn't attempt to hurt any dogs), but they followed her again barking/charging when her back was turned as she ran with her tail between her legs until the farmers whistled them back 

We made it onto another field, but had to pass back in the same field with the dogs on the way home. Thankfully they weren't there so we did some focus/control games. Me chucking her ball over a mound of grass with her in a wait (down or stay), then as she's raring to chase it, asking for a hand touch before releasing. This seemed to get rid of some of the stress and she has slept ever since, but really not what we needed today


----------



## Dogless

Sounds awful ciarasmum - but you handled it all very well under the circumstances I think.


----------



## Sarah1983

RioDa said:


> Damn, got some more 'holds' for her to hold and she still doesn't want none of the whole 'hold this non tasty thing'. She will only hold tasty things. Maybe I'll just have to keep trying :001_rolleyes:


What exactly are you trying to teach? Her to hold something in her mouth? I'm a little confused  If that's what you're trying to teach then how exactly are you going about it?

Twiggy, glad Holly bit you. I thought of you the other day when I was working with Spen on the field and ended up with a blood blister from him. I know it's not quite up to your standards but it's a start  And glad Tremor was naughty too lol. Sorry about the travelling issues though 

Ciarasmum, been there, done that and it's heartbreaking. Even knowing you've done everything you can doesn't help when you see your dog in a state 

Dogless, glad you had a reasonably pleasant walk with Rudi and sorry about Kilo. If only the idiots who had out of control rude or aggressive dogs had to deal with the issues their dogs cause others perhaps they'd learn. But no, they wouldn't, they'd just carry on with what they do now.

MissRV, how old is Rosie? Wondering whether adolescence could be playing a part as well as boredom. You've said she's learning nothing new at class and finding doing the same old things with no challenge may be boring her to tears. Spen and I still have recall issues around other dogs though. He's happy to recall when he's said hello but a dog he hasn't met is much more interesting than me 

We have been to the husky meet today as usual. We were there nearly 3 hours today although most people left before an hour was up. Spencer ignored a dog who was trying to get a reaction out of him, just wouldn't give him time of day at all let alone rise to the challenges being thrown out. I kept stepping in when I could but when they're half way across a field it's difficult to get in quickly. The dog gave up in the end and they politely ignored each other.

He played with the love of his life Willow. He's horribly rude and pushy with her at times and for some reason she tolerates it from him and even rewards it by playing with him whereas any other dog gets told in no uncertain terms that behaviour like that is not acceptable  He does not behave like this with other dogs so not sure whether I should worry about it or not. I do try to stop him but it's like talking to a brick wall since she encourages him.

And then he went into work mode for about 20 minutes. Just ignoring the other dogs and offering to work with me. Which obviously I rewarded massively. This was after about 90 minutes of play but it's a start. And even before that he'd been coming to me and checking in every so often. So well happy with him today


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> I do this with Ciara even now she's 5 lol, but I like to *play different recall games*. With her being reactive I need to keep her recall sharp and fun, thankfully she turns back to me as soon as she sees a dog now.


Exactly...!! When your training becomes predictable many dogs will then 'switch off' or at the very least become less sharp.

I never stop training or playing with my dogs whatever age they are..

In fact I've just trained Leafy (aged 12 yrs). It was too wet and cold to take her over to the barn with the other two and as she looked so disappointed when we came back in, I've just done heelwork, distance control, recall to heel and front up and down the hall. She's a happy bunny now:biggrin5:


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> Ok I'm going to try and reply to everyone but really hope I haven't missed anything, I've only managed to look back 2 pages. And sorry if I'm completely missing the point in my replies, I'm new to WAYWO so hopefully I'll catch up soon
> 
> *Lol at Tremor! Sorry she isn't doing too good with the car journeys, but sure she will be fine with some smaller journeys. Ciara's the same walking down the road if it's been raining, everything always sounds louder doesn't it! *
> 
> I'm afraid Tremor will never be relaxed travelling. She was fine for the first 18 months and one of only a very few of my collies that haven't been car sick initially.
> 
> I have no idea what upset her but it's gone on now for 3.1/2 years.
> 
> I've spent an awful lot of money on various remedies, DAP spray and collar, Thundershirt, etc. etc. and all the usual things ie feeding her in the car, short journeys, crate, covered crate, someone sitting with her, other dogs, other vehicles....... The only thing that works is Valium, and I can't give her that when we're going to a show.
> 
> I don't think Tremor actually knows what she's fearful of. I think it's so ingrained now that when she gets in the car her attitude is "I'm scared".


----------



## missRV

Thank you everyone for the advice  I'm feeling much better today, I guess I also needed a rant! I emailed the trainer from puppy school last night to say about her behaviour in agility so hopefully she'll have taken the clue that she needs work! 

I've tried Twiggy's suggestions with sending her away to find a reward then re-calling her back, she loved it..... we even incorporated this game into our walk to the park and she's improved a great deal already but it'll take time.... I even got a massive jump and cuddle off her when I made a fuss of her  it's obviously pleasing her to see success...... I've been talking to another agility school who have a max of 5 dogs per session, and each lesson has a different learning outcome, so we're hopefully giving them a go this week. She turned 1 in September so I do think adolescence has hit her with some things, she refused to sit the other week in puppy school but we appear to have got out of that!

I've ordered a high frequency whistle so I can practise recall over a long distance seeing as she's learnt to ignore her name in my high pitched voice! Change of command seems better, I've been whistling to her today which has been successful but I'm not very good at it!

________________________________________________________________________

Ciarasmum: hope you're ok hun  
Dogless: Kilo is very much an amazing boy  I do wish people had more control but sadly some people will never learn.
RioDa: Wish I could offer advice, are you clicker training? This is supposed to help a lot if you are
Sarah1983: Sounds like a good day


----------



## Canine K9

Ciarasmum- Doesn`t sound too good, hope your feeling okay.
Dogless- Well done Kilo on being such a good boy, and of course Rudi too!
Sarah- Sounds great well done Spen dog
MissRV- Glad things are better today, well done Rosie
--------------------------------------------------------------
Not a lot today, he has been on the go since 9am and I`m exhausted trying to get him to just settle down  Went to a new large field and he was great it was on a short lead because I forgot his long line. He had offlead zoomies when we got back though. I`m so glad I worked on his recall though he the garden gate flung open whilst he was out and he legged it outside and one "Here!" and he was next to me. Starting good citizen training and flyball in the new year


----------



## missRV

Well done Bailey


----------



## RioDa

Sarah1983 said:


> What exactly are you trying to teach? Her to hold something in her mouth? I'm a little confused  If that's what you're trying to teach then how exactly are you going about it?


I'm trying to teach her to hold it, yes. I get something tasty like a soft tasty chew stick which she will willingly take in her mouth which I then reward her for and add the verbal cue 'hold it'. However when I move onto something harder like this rawhide thing I have she doesn't want any of it. Hope that clears things up.


----------



## Sarah1983

RioDa said:


> I'm trying to teach her to hold it, yes. I get something tasty like a soft tasty chew stick which she will willingly take in her mouth which I then reward her for and add the verbal cue 'hold it'. However when I move onto something harder like this rawhide thing I have she doesn't want any of it. Hope that clears things up.


Does she have things she'll pick up or take from you naturally? Other than food items I mean.


----------



## RioDa

Sarah1983 said:


> Does she have things she'll pick up or take from you naturally? Other than food items I mean.


Hmmm.. I'm not too sure what you mean. Such as an item? She doesn't play with toys or anything like that and wouldn't pick up another item like a towel etc.


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## GingerRogers

Dief - piccies please of the handsome dog in his new attire, i would never get away with a bandana 

Dogless - pleased about your forest bits re-opening, glad the boys enjoyed it

Twiggy - glad you survived ad got bitten  and lovely to get Tremor back out there too I should think even if she was terrible travelling. hopefully with a bit of practice she will get used to it again.

Ciara - Ciara is beautiful, sheps hare not a dog I normally admire but she looks so kind and gentle and inquisitive, I love her!! I know its a struggle but you sound like you understand her needs very well.

Sarah - that must be some feeling when Spen chooses to come and work with you rather than play 

RioDa as you can see from my posts in the challenge thread, I cant help you, just persevere 



Well we have been not much working on anything. 

We had two saluki type things run up to us on the beach AGAIN  just as I was trying to put a poo bag in an overturned bin , Fridays really are bad days, this week it was so grim out I didnt think there would be anyone else. Ninja had a bit of a growl then tried to say hello nicely while they growled and bounded about.

I went from angry for ninja, to indignant that I had my dog under control, and then mad for the other dogs, they were over the dunes out of sight from their owners and barely 75m from the road across a bunny filled expanse of dune, I never let ninja off her long line as she would be off, surely a hound  

Then we had a little walk in the woods on Saturday, before seeing the deer, we went out of the way thinking it would be quiet but it was the 'offlead ginger terrier convention' it seemed  all very friendly but ninja was not, I am still careful but it is good to have her muzzled so we dont have to run away in awkward spots as the two meetings we had were pretty difficult to avoid. One owner did say 'come on take the hint **** ' and herded her away. So why not put her on a lead seeing as we were on a road 

Yesterday I kept quiet apart from an accidental sighting of a standard poodle.

Today we had an entirely new thing to contend with, other than the lazy, 'I will just go as far as possible and then turn round and annoy you again' owner  Only a ruddy full sized gypsy caravan complete with not one but two horses and a proper Romany man escorting it up the road and into town, I foresee trouble in town from the nimbys 

Needless to say ninja was not very enamored of this new scary vision, I thought it was lovely!

She redeemed herself by not barking at 'father ted and his wife' (she always barks at them its very embarrassing as we see them at least 3/4 times a week) not barking at the ex police dog handler who has to ride his bike as he has been a naughty driver , this also makes me ridiculously embarrassed . And fianlly not barking at the people doing the traffic survey in our ever so busy (not) housing estate nor the lady from down the road with the pushchair :biggrin:


----------



## ciarasmum

Sarah - Well done Spencer for checking in  I wouldn't worry about his behaviour with his friend if she encourages it, if she was worried that would be different. Sounds like a lovely walk 

Twiggy - what breeds of dogs do you have? So lovely when they love to train! Poor Tremor. Could have been something as simple as seeing something odd through the car window one day that upset her. I'm useless at this stuff. But I do understand. I've spent loads of remedies for Ciara's general anxiety but to no avail. Zylkene being the most expensive in one go.


missrv - really pleased Rosie is enjoying the recall games  I love seeing them running back with loads of enthusiasm. Whistle is a great idea, I have acme 210.5 whistle. Only problem is a few other owners I walked with had the same one, so when I recalled I had all the other dogs running to me 

CanineK9 - Well done Bailey for the brilliant recall! 

RioDa - Can't find if you said you are using a clicker for the hold? I found it brill for teaching Ciara the subtle things that I'm too slow to mark lol but not sure if that's something you've tried  

-----------------------------------------

Last night we had a lovely walk to the country park in the dark. My cousin came with me with my aunts lovely lhasa apso Smudge. We got there just before dark, Ciara growled at a man minding his own business  First time she has ever done that without there being an obvious threat to her (ie them trying to stroke her :001_rolleyes. She did realise he was ok afterwards and tried to pull to sniff but I just kept walking. Gave her the benefit of the doubt and she was fine when two fishermen appeared in the dark with a headlamp and huge fishing nets. She was on edge but we moved to the side and no growling. Same when we were walking back down the canal and a man got off his boat to lift the bridge. So I dunno what happened with the first man.

This morning we just went to a field that is usually quiet. And thankfully it was today. Weren't out long, but did lots of recall games. Lots of control work, so asking for waits while I hid cheese in the grass for her to sniff out. And some self control with her ball again, so asking for waits then throwing it, but asking for another behaviour, either hand touch or run through my legs etc before releasing her to get it.

Does anyone have any ideas of things we can do if we just go to a plain bog standard field. She does have HD/ED and arthritis so can't do too much ball throwing or she just lies down. She is also becoming quite reluctant to sit. Not sure if this is just her ignoring the command because she can't be bothered, or if her hips are hurting so not sure what to do when she does this. I started to just ask for a stand/wait instead but this isn't as solid as her down/sit waits so something to work on.

She doesn't have a high drive to work really, and she is very sensitive so I try not to ask her to do much. She loves things that involve movement, so the recall games where I throw treats then run etc. Not so much stuff like heelwork. She gets bored and lags behind. Would love any ideas of fun stuff to do that involves some kind of moving, but not anything that will hurt her hips like too much turning or sudden stops etc. If anyone has any that would be brilliant 

Sorry to ramble! Hope you're all having a good day x


----------



## RioDa

ciarasmum said:


> RioDa - Can't find if you said you are using a clicker for the hold? I found it brill for teaching Ciara the subtle things that I'm too slow to mark lol but not sure if that's something you've tried


I have a clicker but haven't really introduced it as my dog (in the past) hasn't really liked the noise but I think I will try it


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## Dogless

GR - Fridays sound like a good day to hibernate round your way . What a chaotic time you've had - however Ninja has done very well on balance hasn't she? And you too of course by default  .

Ciarasmum - nice to hear that you had nice walks; you deserved them!! I do a lot of impulse control stuff incorporating emergency stops, downs at a distance, things like that. Could be modified to just a stop with a standing wait because of the HD I guess. 

Also a fun sendaway that I am building up with help from Twiggy - at present we are able to send Kilo out to touch a pole at about 20 - 25m and we're starting to do a down once there as well. All my stuff revolves around Kilo's high drive to tug and chase though - I'll sit him at one end of a field for example and then call him in to get his tuggy over that whole distance and sometimes throw stops etc in....it can be painful (for the human)!!

Maybe scentwork would suit your girl? Much better for joints than anything I can suggest although I am sure others will have much better ideas than me.




We were up early this morning so went to the forest to watch day break and spent the whole morning there. Found a wild goat, a putrid black flesh stretched over bones sort...it hummed  and saw the hoof prints of a few more in the mud by a stream. We worked on just having fun . The boys pretty much ran non stop and have only moved for food since .


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## Dogless

RioDa said:


> I have a clicker but haven't really introduced it as my dog (in the past) hasn't really liked the noise but I think I will try it


You could try clicking a pen or something like that or choose a marker word if the clicker noise is too loud for your dog.


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## tiatortilla

Dogless - Sounds like a lovely walk, apart from the rancid goat lol!
Ciarasmum - Glad you had a good walk, sounds like you both deserved it after your previous posts!
GR - Oh dear at the stressful walks. But well done to new and improved quiet Ginge, and you ofc. Great stuff .
K9 - Well done on the emergency recall again!


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## tiatortilla

We've been trying to avoid dogs on lead still so nothing to report on that front. We went to the park earlier so she could watch some dogs while she was off lead and that was all fine but it always is lol. Amazing the difference a lead makes.
An uneventful but nice walk anyway, just did a few bits and pieces of training and played some fetch.
OH's sister and her OH came to visit last week, Tia was an overfriendly little PITA. Need to work on impulse control around wanting to be everybody's best friend!


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## Sarah1983

Ciarasmum, how about some of the scent work stuff? If she enjoys sniffing out cheese then perhaps doing some of the more advanced stuff would appeal to her. Me and Spencer mostly practise the basics while out and about. I sort of lurch along at a faster pace than normal (I really can't call it running lol) and throw in some downs, sits, waits, touches and various other things. All mine have enjoyed the faster paced heelwork much more than the regular paced stuff.

Dogless...rancid goat? I bet Rupert would have loved that! I'm not sure how I'd have removed it from him, rotting hedgehog was bad enough lol. Sounds like a lovely walk though.

GR, I think Rupert would have just shut his eyes and pretend the romany caravan wasn't there. Sounds like you had a good day overall though.

We had a bit of a mixed walk today. We went through the woods which is somewhere we haven't been for weeks due to me having problems with my blood sugar dropping dramatically, usually when we're at the furthest point of the walk  So of course Spen was all excited to start with once he realised we were going there. About 20 metres into the woods we spotted his nemesis Marley. I have no idea what it is with the two of them but they really do not like each other. Spen used to be okay ignoring him as long as he didn't come too close but since being bitten by him has to have a bark before turning to work with me. All I saw today was Marley running towards us and his owner running behind him. Sh*t myself thinking he was loose and was all prepared to try and prevent a fight but he was on leash out for a run with his owner so all was well.

Then Spen had a splash in the stream. Reached the fields where I let him off leash for all of 10 minutes before spotting two other people with their dogs heading our way. Back on he went. Passed them without too many issues although one gave us a massive amount of space and the other dog barked at us and earned itself a whack round the head  Spen just sort of went "yeah, whatever" and walked past. Did some training for about 15 minutes after that. The basics and then some finding treats I tossed into the long grass. Checked my blood sugar, on the verge of a hypo so I sat on the bench by the cemetery, ate some Dextro and did some eye contact work with Spen while waiting for it to rise again. I swear I'm going to start taking a picnic with me! 

Once it had risen we wandered around another field, sat off the path and waited for two women with a GSD to pass us. Looked like it might have been a session with a trainer as we passed them again a while later and one was giving instructions while the other handled the dog. Given the chance to do so Spen would have rushed up from about 20m away but passing it? Barely a glance in its direction. More training on the way home, mostly recall and loose leash walking, plus a splash in the stream (Spencer kindly came out and shook all over me) and past his friend on the way home. We had a whine and a dance at her but she was on the other side of the road.

For once Spencer actually seems tired. Who is he and where is my Spendog? Oh and I took my camera out hoping to get some wonderful pics for the folks of PF. Forgot to put the memory card in didn't I?


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> Sarah - Well done Spencer for checking in  I wouldn't worry about his behaviour with his friend if she encourages it, if she was worried that would be different. Sounds like a lovely walk
> 
> *Twiggy - what breeds of dogs do you have?* So lovely when they love to train! Poor Tremor. Could have been something as simple as seeing something odd through the car window one day that upset her. I'm useless at this stuff. But I do understand. I've spent loads of remedies for Ciara's general anxiety but to no avail. Zylkene being the most expensive in one go.
> 
> My girls are Border Collies/Working Sheepdogs:
> 
> This is Tremor and Holly:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And this is Leafy (doing her Meerkat impression):


----------



## Twiggy

Forgot to say earlier WAYWO ladies I've got a very poorly car...

I went off to my agility class at lunchtime and thought the wretched thing was sluggish through the gears. I thought maybe the handbrake was sticking as we've had so much rain and it's been left out for the past few days. Anyway when I got on the bypass the fastest it would go was 50mph...!!

I drove the 13 odd miles to class but it was just as bad coming home so I rang the main Fiat dealer in town, which is where it came from and where it is now.

I've only had it a year and it's only done 7,500 miles...

On the plus side Holly was really good today and is getting so much more confident and I've had to cancel my dentist appointment for tomorrow lunchtime, due to having no transport...


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear twiggy. I sympathise due to spending best part of £500 a month or so back o injector issues only to have an injector fault warning light pop up last week. Another £80 and 4 hours in the renault garage we are just keeping fingers crossed. Mechanics advice


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Twiggy; hope the car is sorted soon . Pleased that Little HB really seems to be coming on in terms of confidence these last few weeks .

Sarah - I can empathise with the total fear for no reason moment of Marley running towards you - horrible!! Spendog sounds as if he was a total star though.....don't worry I am sure he'll be back to his usual energiser bunny ways soon  .


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Oh dear twiggy. I sympathise due to spending best part of £500 a month or so back o injector issues only to have an injector fault warning light pop up last week. Another £80 and 4 hours in the renault garage we are just keeping fingers crossed. Mechanics advice


Mine is still under manufacturers warranty thank goodness. I shall flip my lid though, if the dealer tries to charge me for the diagnostic check. It damn well shouldn't need checking at only 7,500 miles..!! No warning lights came on either.

This is the 4th Fiat Doblo I've had and up to now they've been very reliable.


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## GingerRogers

I forgot to say how lovely to see pictures of your girls twiggy 

Lets hope they sort it out. I was pretty peeved to have to pay £80 for what essentially seemed to be a glitch in their systems. No matter how old the car.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry to hear about your car Twiggy, hope it's on the mend soon. Lovely to see pics of your girls though, we don't see enough of them. Hint hint 

Spen still seems rather tired today so a quiet one for us I think. Might see how he is this evening and possibly do a night walk around the corn fields and pretend I'm in a horror movie again :lol: I think perhaps 3 hours at the husky meet with training as well and then a 2 and a half hour walk with lots of training has taken it out of him.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Sorry to hear about your car Twiggy, hope it's on the mend soon. Lovely to see pics of your girls though, we don't see enough of them. Hint hint
> 
> Spen still seems rather tired today so a quiet one for us I think. Might see how he is this evening and possibly do a night walk around the corn fields and pretend I'm in a horror movie again :lol: *I think perhaps 3 hours at the husky meet with training as well and then a 2 and a half hour walk with lots of training has taken it out of him.*




Well it would certainly take it out of me....LOL


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Well it would certainly take it out of me....LOL


Lol, me too Twiggy but nothing usually takes it out of Spencer.


----------



## ciarasmum

*GingerRogers *- I think we posted at the same time yesterday so sorry that I missed yours! Thank you for the compliment about Ciara, she is a beautiful girl but then I am biased!

How annoying that owners of the sighthounds not only let their dogs run up to yours, but let them out of sight so not really caring about what they are getting upto! Ninja sounds like she coped really well 

Sorry you had a stressful walk in the woods. Nothing worse than keeping your dog on lead and having others allowed to come over. You'd think with Ninja being muzzled that people would take extra care as well.  Well done Ninja for not barking at father ted and traffic people 

*Dogless* - Thank you for the ideas. I'd love to do scentwork. She loves using her nose. Your early walk sounds lovely! I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to be in the forest in the dark but I wish I was! The goat sounds grim though ! Sounds like the boys had a great walk!

*tiatortilla* - Well done Tia around the dogs at the park  These days, an uneventful walk is usually a good walk for me  Glad she had fun 

*Sarah* - I think Ciara would enjoy faster paced stuff. When I do normal heelwork, I look round and she is behind me sniffing a piece of grass 

Glad all went well with Spen's nemesis! I would be the same if we bumped into one of Ciara's (the collie down the road). I can't help tensing up as much as I know I should stay calm. Glad you managed to keep your blood sugar up, must be scary. I have no idea how it works so I'm completely thick, but is there any way to keep it up, small bits of sugar things often? I'm probably barking up the wrong tree (pun not intended), glad you both had a nice walk. Hope you both enjoy some quiet walks while he recovers from his busy weekend 

*Twiggy * - Thank you for sharing the pics of your beautiful girls <3. Hope your car is better soon! Mine is making all sorts of dodgy noises recently despite being in the garage loads. They have no idea what is wrong


----------



## Dogless

We have had a great morning .

*Rudi:* We went for a run. I am so, so pleased with the little fella. I can now sling the lead across my body and apart from the first two streets when he is excited to be going for a run and perhaps seeing a dog or cat, I don't have to touch it; he just runs past and through things steadily and nicely. As we got to the dog walking area for a lap or two as part of our route a physical training instructor was finishing a sprint that ended at the gate. He was lovely enough to warn me that lots of sprinting people were about to arrive if that kind of thing bothered my dog . Went in the field, let Rudi off and even with people sprinting the length of the fence (on the other side), all the shouting and clapping and milling about he stayed with me or ran round the field. It sounds really smug and boasty but I am so, so pleased with him :001_wub::001_wub:.

*Kilo:* was really keen this morning and we did lots of "ready steady" and "touch the pole". He exhausted me . Hubby was just getting dressed as we came back - I really want him to come and film one day to show my boy off to you all....and reveal my ineptitude too I suspect .

So, platinum stars for the CHs today :001_wub::001_wub:.

As far as who has broken who..... Ridgebacks 1 Human 0


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> We have had a great morning .
> 
> *Rudi:* We went for a run. I am so, so pleased with the little fella. I can now sling the lead across my body and apart from the first two streets when he is excited to be going for a run and perhaps seeing a dog or cat, I don't have to touch it; he just runs past and through things steadily and nicely. As we got to the dog walking area for a lap or two as part of our route a physical training instructor was finishing a sprint that ended at the gate. He was lovely enough to warn me that lots of sprinting people were about to arrive if that kind of thing bothered my dog . Went in the field, let Rudi off and even with people sprinting the length of the fence (on the other side), all the shouting and clapping and milling about he stayed with me or ran round the field. It sounds really smug and boasty but I am so, so pleased with him :001_wub::001_wub:.
> 
> *Kilo:* was really keen this morning and we did lots of "ready steady" and "touch the pole". He exhausted me . Hubby was just getting dressed as we came back - I really want him to come and film one day to show my boy off to you all....and reveal my ineptitude too I suspect .
> 
> So, platinum stars for the CHs today :001_wub::001_wub:.
> 
> As far as who has broken who..... Ridgebacks 1 Human 0


You boast away.... Good boy Rudi..!!

I'd love to see a video of Kilo, particularly touching the pole, but persuading hubby to film may take some time (if he's anything like mine).


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You boast away.... Good boy Rudi..!!
> 
> I'd love to see a video of Kilo, particularly touching the pole, but persuading hubby to film may take some time (if he's anything like mine).


I have tried to do it myself a few times Twiggy, but at best got some sedate - ish "Ready Steady" as poor Kilo had put up with me faffing about and getting him to do it for an hour or so. The problem I have is the distance he tends to cover to gain any speed - I need a person who can follow him with the camera. Hubby usually does one walk or often no walks at all per leave period and then I don't see him again for 3 weeks or so. One day maybe....:skep: .


----------



## Nicki85

Haven't posted for a while but have been reading. 

Rusty is good at the mo. lots of pheasants released recently so i'm having to be careful about having him on the lead (as always!) on farmland.... we walked past a flock of Mallard ducks today-he was so excited bouncing around on the end of the lead!
Training wise i'm working on getting him to keep two front feet on his mat and completing a circle (does that make sense?) and the retrieve work. Oh and lots of balancing which he adores... I have to literally push him off to finish or move the ball around! He's progressed to standing on his peanut ball which I think is quite a feat!

Shae is also doing fab (most of the time!). Her barking/ reacting to dogs on walks has got less as long as I have treats ready. Yesterday I took her to the playingfield next to the school during let out time for the kids. Loads of kids and parents milling and running around... She was fab- focused on her ball and me. One dog was walking around the outside so she looked at it and then looked back to me for her treat  She was really really good... Unfortunately though we walked past the dog at fairly close proximity (I thought it was onlead) and it ran up to us barking  circled us barking  Shae got uppity and started displaying and was then "high" for the rest of the walk home. She calmed down to accept treats fairly quickly but it certainly spoiled a good training session...

She's got a lot of energy at the moment which I'm enjoying  Not sure if it's down to the cooler weather or her growing up but she is just up for anything... especially if it involves a ball or tug toy  

Agility wise Rust is on top form and loving it... hitting all his contacts and listening well. Shae is OK, very much enjoying it but needs me to distract her/focus her away from the other dogs when not running. We had our first proper "fail" last Sat when she broke away from the contact to jump on a little dog playing with a squeaky toy... first time ever I think she's properly broken a command and then failed to recall. Anyhow, one of those things and it won't happen again  We are trying out a new agility club on Sunday


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I have tried to do it myself a few times Twiggy, but at best got some sedate - ish "Ready Steady" as poor Kilo had put up with me faffing about and getting him to do it for an hour or so. The problem I have is the distance he tends to cover to gain any speed - I need a person who can follow him with the camera. Hubby usually does one walk or often no walks at all per leave period and then I don't see him again for 3 weeks or so. One day maybe....:skep: .


No you can't do it yourself - I've also tried when I've been fed up waiting for husband to spare me a few minutes of his valuable time.


----------



## Twiggy

I've got the car back... They reckon it was a split pipe on the turbo something or other that was letting air in, hence no warning light.

I was expecting a row about paying for the diagnostic check but there was no charge.

I'm certain there is a great big red star next to my name on their computer as I've had several arguments over the years and insisted on speaking to the service manager several times. I've also rung Fiat UK and complained about them more than once...


----------



## tiatortilla

Found another dog today! A really lovely yellow lab. I managed to trap her in someone's garden so I didn't have to try and grab her with Tia growling and risk her running into the road, fortunately a man down the road knew her owners and we got her back home. Tia got used to her really quickly too.
Not much else to say about today, she refused to walk past a cat (she got jumped by one not long ago for those that don't know) but it was staring at her and she hasn't been bothered by other cats fortunately!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - pleased all is going well and Rusty is sound and back doing well at agility.

TT - glad the lab's owners got their dog back quickly!

Twiggy - I can imagine your name sets off some sort of alarm at the garage .

Just back from a nice play and some joint training in the top fields with both dogs . Roo was a bit silly, but good in the main!!


----------



## Nicki85

Back from agility with loopy Shae. She was FULL OF IT! But in a good way, when allowed she flirted and wound up all the other dogs- every dog she went near resulted in the same response- craziness. She is a wind up merchant. 
But, in between socialising she concentrated really nicely on all the exercises and made no unaccompanied trips to discuss training tactics with her colleagues. 

DL- sounds like a good trip with the boys... Makes me laugh when one/both of them are in a silly mood! (which is quite often for Shae...)
TT- hate finding strange dogs, glad that the owner and dog were reunited quickly though.
Twiggy- pleased to hear you got your car back!  Poor garage


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Back from agility with loopy Shae. She was FULL OF IT! But in a good way, when allowed she flirted and wound up all the other dogs- every dog she went near resulted in the same response- craziness. She is a wind up merchant.
> But, in between socialising she concentrated really nicely on all the exercises and made no unaccompanied trips to discuss training tactics with her colleagues.
> 
> DL- sounds like a good trip with the boys... Makes me laugh when one/both of them are in a silly mood! (which is quite often for Shae...)
> TT- hate finding strange dogs, glad that the owner and dog were reunited quickly though.
> Twiggy- pleased to hear you got your car back! Poor garage


You lucky, lucky girl.... Shae sounds wonderful.

Our agility trainer said yesterday that he thought Holly was never going to be a really fast dog but by the time she gets to 5-6 yrs old she will be a confident and accurate agility dog...!! I replied that when Holly reaches 6 yrs old I most certainly won't be capable of running...


----------



## missRV

Nicki: sounds like a fab agility lesson

Everyone else, I'll have a read through 

Just had a really successful puppy lesson with Rosie  I'm feeling so much better about everything, her clicker and whistle came today so we can start that tomorrow. 

Tonight, she had to do a sit and wait for an extended period of time, but I focused on her recall and making a fuss of her, a long distance recall past a line of dogs, which she aced, fun agility (which I kept her on the leash for) and lots of fun doggy games  she had a great lesson! When waiting for instructions to keep her occupied, I had her doing tricks and she did a perfect roll over  the trainer also commented on how patient Rosie is with the little and nervous pups, which filled me with pride  

We've also heard from the other flyball and agility school and they're willing to take her this weekend for beginner flyball and developers agility. Hopefully they can re cover the basics for us, I've told them of her problems and they don't seem bothered.


----------



## Nicki85

She is a lot of fun! She loves to do anything that involves working... I'm learning to relax with her a bit more now and trust her. I am really pleased with her  She's a happy thing! 

You'll just have to get your distance control up to scratch  Sure i've seen a video on Youtube where this chap literally stands in the middle and directs his dog... he is really fast too!!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> She is a lot of fun! She loves to do anything that involves working... I'm learning to relax with her a bit more now and trust her. I am really pleased with her  She's a happy thing!
> 
> You'll just have to get your distance control up to scratch  Sure i've seen a video on Youtube where this chap literally stands in the middle and directs his dog... he is really fast too!!


Hmmm it won't work with Holly. That's what I used to do with Twiggy 20 odd years ago but it's so much easier with a fast and keen dog.


----------



## Nicki85

Very true... Holly may still surprise you though


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Very true... Holly may still surprise you though


As far as agility goes it's probably as well that Holly isn't going to turn into a maniac. At my age I wouldn't be capable, physically or mentally, of coping with that sort of dog now....

She was a little star on Monday and apart from mad Tremor winding her up on the first run, she didn't put a foot wrong. She got all her contacts and didn't baulk at anything.


----------



## Dogless

We have had a nice day here. Went to the forest for the morning and _just_ beat the rain; it started as we got back to the car . The boys ran and played and found a goat that had been shot recently; last 12 - 24 hours I am guessing. Looked more like a pre dawn job so I will be careful when walking very early or late - guessing they used quad bikes and dogs from the tracks so will know if they're in any way. The boys behaved very well for me again and listened to all their instructions, even when called away from the fascinating carcass so they can have gold stars .


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## ciarasmum

*Dogless* - Sounds like you've had some lovely walks lately, dead goats aside! Well done Rudi on his fab focus while running  Would love to see a vid of Kilo if you manage to get one 

*Nicki* - Well done Rusty for doing so well in his training! Sorry your walk with Shae didn't end on a good note, but she did really well to just look at the other dog, and it wasn't your fault if it ran at her barking and circling her. Glad she calmed down for treats though. And sounds like you are on the right track with her reactions becoming less in general 

*Twiggy* - yay, glad the car is back and especially  that there was no charge! I love when that happens! Always a lovely surprise. I wish I had a bit more guts to argue with them. I took my car in for one problem, they didn't fix it and caused another problem which they now can't fix. Apparently both are non dangerous...just annoying noises but I am paranoid.

*tia* - Well done Tia for getting used to the dog you found, sorry about the cat. Some can be quite aggressive can't they! One down our road sits on top of the gravestones in the dark and attacks your legs if you walk by 

*missRV* - Glad you are feeling better about your training now. I always get really excited for clickers/whistles etc in the post. It's nice to get started with something new isn't it. Great job on the recall past! the dogs! What kind of doggy games do you play? I'm always looking for something new for Ciara  Well done Rosie for being so good with the other puppies. Good luck for the new class 

------------------

We seem to have had a run of good walks after Sunday's horror where she was charged by the farm dogs. *touches wood*. Today's walk was in full on rain but was great as we were the only ones about. Nothing much to report really.

I noticed a few people mentioned scent work. Does anyone have any games or tips to get started? We can't go to a class or work with an instructor because of her fear of people so will have to be something that we do on our own but that's ok.

She is very good with her nose. Last winter when it snowed loads I asked her to wait, picked up some snow and rubbed my hands on it, then hid it among other snow so that it didn't look out of place and asked her to find. She picked out the bit with my scent on really well. Would love to develop it, but she prefers stuff that have an element of 'games' about them. She loves me to hide treats round the house but I'd like to do more stuff outside if anyone has any ideas


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy - good news on the car, and Holly, sounds like you have a dog to suit your time of life  although Tremor might keep you on your toes a bit longer

Tia - glad you found the labs home, how do you find these stray dogs???

Miss RV -Glad you are feeling happier with classes. Well done Rosie.

Ciarasmum - I recently did a Talking Dogs Scent 1 class, you can attend as a spectator as I did , really enjoyed it though, but also she has a book which explains about how to get started. Welcome to Talking Dogs Scentwork

Nikki - sounds like your two are doing well, I feel the pheasant pain, I have resorted to long line again for the foreseeable they are everywhere here 

Well we had an angry scampering rabbit on the lead this morning, I blame the micro pigs 

They were on the telly first thing and she really wanted to kick off but we managed to get her to quieten but she was quivering as she was lying down  we thought, well thats good she did really well, as once we would have had to turn it over, but I suspect the anger got stored up  and although she wasnt terribly barky, she was very on edge, not helped by the sound of a 'new' dog on the estate, lets hope it was just a visitor.

Stopped to chat to a friend (right next to the spot where the gypsy caravan appeared to be fair) and his girlfriend came home by bike, cue first bout of barking, she took the bike in the garage and re-appeared in the porch via the house, cue second bout of barking :001_rolleyes:

Never mind another lesson learnt


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear *GR* your morning sounds.....ear splittingly noisy . Those micro pigs are tricky beasts  . As you said, lesson learnt, no more pre - walk pig viewing.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Oh dear *GR* your morning sounds.....ear splittingly noisy . Those micro pigs are tricky beasts  . As you said, lesson learnt, no more pre - walk pig viewing.


Well we will try 

They weren't actually micro pigs, they had grown into huge full sized pigs and people had them living in their conservatory!! Perhaps ninjas was just objecting on behalf of the silly people who bought them


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## tiatortilla

GR - I've found three since we've lived here I think, might have been four actually and I've forgotten one. I have no idea! They're just wandering along the street and they find us! A lot of people walk their dogs off lead in stupid places here which I think might have something to do with it... although apparently the one yesterday escaped from her garden and so did the one before actually, not sure about the others though.

Sorry about little Ninja's outbursts, she did well not to bark at the micro pigs on telly though and as you say, lesson learnt .

MissRV - Glad you're feeling better about your classes, sounds like Rosie is doing great!

Ciarasmum - The snow thing sounds really impressive! I'm sure she'd be good at it and really enjoy some scent work, we just do "find it" which you already do but I'm sure someone will have some better ideas!
That cat sounds scary too .

Dogless - Well done to your boys for not eating the goat . Finding some lovely things at the moment, aren't you!

Nicki - Well done Shae , she sounds like a little star!

---

Bit of a mixture here. Tia seems to be getting increasingly scared of loud noises, I have no idea what has set it off. Yesterday a car backfired outside and she shook for 10 minutes . She's never liked loud noises but she's never reacted that badly either...
Also on our walk today, we were in some fields near the industrial estate (it's a lot nicer than it sounds haha) and something was being chucked and crashed about, maybe scrap cars or something. Tia looked a bit worried the first 3 or so times, but I just carried on as normal but the next time it happened, she tried to get further away from the noise and went into the overwhelmed state where she just wants to leave. Really luckily she recalled and I put her on lead straight away, then she just pulled still trying to get away from the noise.

Any ideas about what I can do to help her with loud noises will be really appreciated, because she is a bit of a flight risk when she's scared which is worrying. I was thinking of getting some stuff for firework night, like adaptil or something or maybe a thundershirt but I'd rather try and desensitize her to stuff when we're out in case those things don't work, or something catches us by surprise.

On the plus side, our walk was lovely until then and afterwards! We passed a little white fluffy dog on a country lane and Tia didn't react at all, it wasn't a big distance at all so I'm dead impressed with that .
Didn't do much training today, just recalls and a couple of stays, they were all perfect anyway. I'll be a bit less lazy tomorrow .


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy - good news on the car, and Holly, sounds like you have a dog to suit your time of life  although Tremor might keep you on your toes a bit longer
> 
> Tia - glad you found the labs home, how do you find these stray dogs???
> 
> Miss RV -Glad you are feeling happier with classes. Well done Rosie.
> 
> Ciarasmum - I recently did a Talking Dogs Scent 1 class, you can attend as a spectator as I did , really enjoyed it though, but also she has a book which explains about how to get started. Welcome to Talking Dogs Scentwork
> 
> Nikki - sounds like your two are doing well, I feel the pheasant pain, I have resorted to long line again for the foreseeable they are everywhere here
> 
> Well we had an angry scampering rabbit on the lead this morning, I blame the micro pigs
> 
> They were on the telly first thing and she really wanted to kick off but we managed to get her to quieten but she was quivering as she was lying down  we thought, well thats good she did really well, as once we would have had to turn it over, but I suspect the anger got stored up  and although she wasnt terribly barky, she was very on edge, not helped by the sound of a 'new' dog on the estate, lets hope it was just a visitor.
> 
> Stopped to chat to a friend (right next to the spot where the gypsy caravan appeared to be fair) and his girlfriend came home by bike, cue first bout of barking, she took the bike in the garage and re-appeared in the porch via the house, cue second bout of barking :001_rolleyes:
> 
> Never mind another lesson learnt


It's just astounding what some dogs react to.

A friend rang me today to tell me how she got on at the show on Sunday with her young Malinois. He's normally a very confident boy but as she entered the ring with him, he seemed frightened of the judge. She asked said judge to speak and pat him before she started the round. He didn't go very well and seemed fixated on the judge. As she was taking him back to her car she realised that the clipboard the judge was using had an A4 picture of a GSDs head on the back....!!


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> GR - I've found three since we've lived here I
> 
> ---
> 
> Bit of a mixture here. Tia seems to be getting increasingly scared of loud noises, I have no idea what has set it off. Yesterday a car backfired outside and she shook for 10 minutes . She's never liked loud noises but she's never reacted that badly either...
> Also on our walk today, we were in some fields near the industrial estate (it's a lot nicer than it sounds haha) and something was being chucked and crashed about, maybe scrap cars or something. Tia looked a bit worried the first 3 or so times, but I just carried on as normal but the next time it happened, she tried to get further away from the noise and went into the overwhelmed state where she just wants to leave. Really luckily she recalled and I put her on lead straight away, then she just pulled still trying to get away from the noise.
> 
> Any ideas about what I can do to help her with loud noises will be really appreciated, because she is a bit of a flight risk when she's scared which is worrying. I was thinking of getting some stuff for firework night, like adaptil or something or maybe a thundershirt but I'd rather try and desensitize her to stuff when we're out in case those things don't work, or something catches us by surprise.
> 
> On the plus side, our walk was lovely until then and afterwards! We passed a little white fluffy dog on a country lane and Tia didn't react at all, it wasn't a big distance at all so I'm dead impressed with that .
> Didn't do much training today, just recalls and a couple of stays, they were all perfect anyway. I'll be a bit less lazy tomorrow .


Hmm that's not good and is likely to escalate.

Years ago I had a little collie bitch called Jessie, who was a clever and confident dog under normal circumstances.

I was travelling in my sister's estate car down a motorway when it began to snow quite heavily. Jessie was in the back and went into blind panic mode when the rear windscreen wipers had to be used.

To cut a long story short that one incident started off a chain reaction, until she was frightened travelling in any car (she jumped on my knee crossing the Orwell Bridge), frightened of bikes coming up behind her, then loud noises, people walking behind her, etc. etc.

It took about 3/4 years to get her over it.

I had a collie here a couple of years ago for training that was really noise sensitive (they couldn't even have football on the TV) and we used a combination of a Thundershirt and Doreen Paige 'Insecurity' remedy. They made a tremendous difference and he won his first novice class with a motorbike revving up nearby...!!


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## tiatortilla

Well got to say, that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence 
I'm just not experienced enough to deal with this stuff, first the lead reactivity and now this too.. it's all so complicated and I don't know what to do if it does escalate. I'm so scared I'm just going to end up ******* her up because I can't do anything right...
Sorry haven't felt this crappy in ages but now I just feel like a huge failure.


----------



## Canine K9

Quickie on phone
Tiatortilla- you are not a failure! You do your best by Tia that's obvious no advice tho sadly

Pretty good day here. My mum didnt want to walk him with me today so went out by myself with him and I was very pleased with myself. Sorry that sounds so cheesy  he met a lovely fluffy puppy though and a cocker girlie. No doubt tomorrow ill be up early to make his birthday cake, give him his presents and walk him before school


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## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Well got to say, that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence
> I'm just not experienced enough to deal with this stuff, first the lead reactivity and now this too.. it's all so complicated and I don't know what to do if it does escalate. I'm so scared I'm just going to end up ******* her up because I can't do anything right...
> Sorry haven't felt this crappy in ages but now I just feel like a huge failure.


I'm sorry and I didn't mean to scare you but you do need to be aware, if Tia is becoming increasingly reactive to loud noises, before it gets out of hand.

You could try wrapping the widest crepe bandage you can find around her, to see if it makes a difference, before investing £30 or so in a Thundershirt.

You could also give the lady at Doreen Paige a call and explain Tia's problems to her. Their remedies are not expensive (about £15.00 per bottle) and we've used several of them on various breeds of dog that train here.

They have a website: www.doreenpaige.com/


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## tiatortilla

Thankyou k9 and Twiggy.
Sorry about that, I've had a cry and a cuddle with Tia and calmed down a bit now. OH has assured me I'm not a sh!t owner and it's not my fault that Tia is a sensitive dog. I just hate that she's scared and it makes me feel so guilty.
Will have a look into the stuff you mentioned Twiggy, thankyou.


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## Dogless

Chin up TT . At least you can make a plan now and hopefully prevent things worsening.


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## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Chin up TT . At least you can make a plan now and hopefully prevent things worsening.


Thankyou


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## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Thankyou k9 and Twiggy.
> Sorry about that, I've had a cry and a cuddle with Tia and calmed down a bit now. OH has assured me I'm not a sh!t owner and it's not my fault that Tia is a sensitive dog. I just hate that she's scared and it makes me feel so guilty.
> Will have a look into the stuff you mentioned Twiggy, thankyou.


Of course you're not a sh!t owner and you have no reason to feel guilty either.

Many, many dogs are noise sensitive and we can only try our best for them.


----------



## Twiggy

I've just been outbid on ebay yet again for some used agility equipment - damn it!!

Husband has just announced that he can make me 5 hurdles and a set of weaving poles for about £20.00 using plastic piping.

On the downside it will probably take 5 years before he gets round to it, judging by his other little projects..!!

He was going to re-do the paving slabs outside the barn. We've had the slabs at least 3 years - and he was also going to run a channel between the two roofs on the barn. That project was pencilled in for Summer 2012...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just been outbid on ebay yet again for some used agility equipment - damn it!!
> 
> Husband has just announced that he can make me 5 hurdles and a set of weaving poles for about £20.00 using plastic piping.
> 
> On the downside it will probably take 5 years before he gets round to it, judging by his other little projects..!!
> 
> He was going to re-do the paving slabs outside the barn. We've had the slabs at least 3 years - and he was also going to run a channel between the two roofs on the barn. That project was pencilled in for Summer 2012...


I suspect ours are somehow distantly related Twiggy. Mine is always giving grand speeches and plans. I often end up doing it. Then I get the offended "I told you I was going to do that" .


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## missRV

tia: you're doing fine dont blame yourself

Caninek9 happy birthday to Bailey


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I suspect ours are somehow distantly related Twiggy. Mine is always giving grand speeches and plans. I often end up doing it. Then I get the offended "I told you I was going to do that" .


Yes I know the feeling. Not quite sure how good I'd be with a hacksaw cutting up plastic pipe....


----------



## Nicki85

Hmm not sure what to make of today. I was in London so my Mum in charge of them... her knee prevents her from walking far or fast but she wanted to take them out (I do have a dog walker we use sometimes as well so it was optional!)

Anyhow, two out of three meetings with dogs were apparently OK. One was a dog that has jumped on Rusty a few times so he did his usual wait and watch till mum got his lead on. Shae recalled. Second dog they had a good game with... Third dog was a disaster  

It was another one of Rust's worry dogs (one that he can't turn his back on incase it comes after him) and they met on a cross roads with mum a bit behind because of her knee. Anyhow, Rust began grumbling as they literally walked into each other. So chap stopped and put his dog on lead and waited for mum to do the same. All good...Rust on lead and fine now. Until Shae decides that this is very exciting and has crazy zoomies coupled with nipping the other dog and general grring (a bit collie like- trying to get him to run I suspect). Poor other dog is scared and Shae I think looked like a scary wolf banshee thing. Shae eventually responded to a "down" command... 

You know those moments when you wonder if you ever train your dogs?! I know mum doesn't train them or take them out often but you expect them to be a bit more well behaved... 

No harm done but still... Neither have behaved quite so badly before... Poor other dog was fine and I went and apologised to the owners when I got home this evening (they did indeed think Shae was the devil dog...) and they were, like me, surprised- the dogs have all met and got along fine before (just Rust, just Shae and together). THis time Rusty obviously took offence to something and Shae lost her mind.

(wanted to add- we'll have a think about mum walking them next time... maybe just let one of at a time etc.-it won't happen again)

Not sure what to take from it... i'm taking Rust to the vets any how to discuss chemical castration as he is getting more "fixated" with male dogs on walks. But knowing he is a nervy lad I don't want to commit to the chop to then have an even more nervous dog on my hands... In agility he is fine with all dogs- male, female etc etc. 
Shae just needs to learn to calm down when asked and I suspect would have responded immediately to me. 

Rust also had a good agility lesson and even played with a normal tug toy! 

One of those days...


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hmm not sure what to make of today. I was in London so my Mum in charge of them... her knee prevents her from walking far or fast but she wanted to take them out (I do have a dog walker we use sometimes as well so it was optional!)
> 
> Anyhow, two out of three meetings with dogs were apparently OK. One was a dog that has jumped on Rusty a few times so he did his usual wait and watch till mum got his lead on. Shae recalled. Second dog they had a good game with... Third dog was a disaster
> 
> It was another one of Rust's worry dogs (one that he can't turn his back on incase it comes after him) and they met on a cross roads with mum a bit behind because of her knee. Anyhow, Rust began grumbling as they literally walked into each other. So chap stopped and put his dog on lead and waited for mum to do the same. All good...Rust on lead and fine now. Until Shae decides that this is very exciting and has crazy zoomies coupled with nipping the other dog and general grring (a bit collie like- trying to get him to run I suspect). Poor other dog is scared and Shae I think looked like a scary wolf banshee thing. Shae eventually responded to a "down" command...
> 
> You know those moments when you wonder if you ever train your dogs?! I know mum doesn't train them or take them out often but you expect them to be a bit more well behaved...
> 
> No harm done but still... Neither have behaved quite so badly before... Poor other dog was fine and I went and apologised to the owners when I got home this evening (they did indeed think Shae was the devil dog...) and they were, like me, surprised- the dogs have all met and got along fine before (just Rust, just Shae and together). THis time Rusty obviously took offence to something and Shae lost her mind.
> 
> (wanted to add- we'll have a think about mum walking them next time... maybe just let one of at a time etc.-it won't happen again)
> 
> Not sure what to take from it... i'm taking Rust to the vets any how to discuss chemical castration as he is getting more "fixated" with male dogs on walks. But knowing he is a nervy lad I don't want to commit to the chop to then have an even more nervous dog on my hands... In agility he is fine with all dogs- male, female etc etc.
> Shae just needs to learn to calm down when asked and I suspect would have responded immediately to me.
> 
> Rust also had a good agility lesson and even played with a normal tug toy!
> 
> One of those days...


Personally I wouldn't read anything into it. Put it down to Shae having a mad moment...


----------



## tiatortilla

Thanks for making me feel better everyone . I do have a bit of a tendency to be all like "it's the end of the world and everything is terrible" when something goes wrong lol, once I've got that out of my system I can actually look at things clearly!


----------



## Nicki85

TT- me too! 

I always have to have a plan...

Thanks Twiggy.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Personally I wouldn't read anything into it. Put it down to Shae having a mad moment...


What wise Grannie said ^^^^^. Hopefully all will be good on your walks today .


----------



## Nicki85

Alright, I take it all back...

Went to the river for swimming this morning Shae lost her toy early on so we had to take turns. Two off lead GSPs were running around and coming in quite close, Shae was on alert but responded to a down command when they came in a bit too close. We then walked up the river and saw them both coming back towards us so put Shae on lead (Rust already on) without drama, threw some treats at Shae and sat them to the side so they could pass. GSPs came over to say hi (owner couldn't recall  ), bitch had a grumble at Rust (weird.) but Rust ignored and stood to the side. Shae was fine... Then met two JRs so put Shae on lead again and threw treats... JR kicked off but again no drama- mine ignored them and waited to for them to pass. Once again though the owner wanted them to all meet- they were fine- but why?!

Went to the vets and discussed Rust- she said it sounded more nervousness than full out extra testosterone but she'd order in supralorin and wanted me to think about it in the meantime... Not sure what to do at the moment!!

Then decided to take them to the dog field individually for 20mins. Shae did an excellent job ignoring lots of other dogs playing etc with balls and each other... concentrated on her tuggy and me. Allowed her to greet two dogs offlead once we were close enough not to get the "charge!!!" in- she was very polite and invited one to play that wanted to and was respectful of a slightly elderly (and grumpy) lab. recalled off both when asked.

Rust had 20mins with his toy being silly... saw one dog on the side of the field (where did they all go?!) but ignored it.

Potentially time to stop panicking I think.... 

Hope everyone else has had a good morning!


----------



## JenKyzer

Hi guys  I will do a little catch up post later on in the day, i am still reading through posts each day on my phone 

Nothing to report here. 
We had a lovely walk last night, the moon was so bright and lit up the whole field/res.. we even had shadow's from the moon, which i've never experienced before but the OH was smug in saying he had  I forgot my phone to take some snaps though :thumbdown: Willow loves it up there as she rarely has to be leaded up... and since it was muddy, wet, windy and past 8pm.. of course there was no-one around  So she was a rocket of pink flashes, because of her collar, zooming around everywhere at all the night time smells!

Still haven't seen many dogs recently.. we saw the lil yorkie that approaches her all the time yesterday morning, offlead again!! The guy passed me, as it was early and still dark i didn't recognise him until Willow whipped round to find his dog trying to sniff her bum (so the dog must of been walking on the road on the other side of the parked car as he passed us on the pavement :skep: ) He full well knows from the two previous times that Willow will tell her off.. but guess he isn't bothered  stupid man. (He even crossed over into our path, again! :mad5: ) Willow was good though, better than last time anyway , and with a firm leave it and carry on she ignored her and didn't look back.. a bark did escape though  .

Hope everyone is having a lovely week


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Alright, I take it all back...
> 
> Went to the river for swimming this morning Shae lost her toy early on so we had to take turns. Two off lead GSPs were running around and coming in quite close, Shae was on alert but responded to a down command when they came in a bit too close. We then walked up the river and saw them both coming back towards us so put Shae on lead (Rust already on) without drama, threw some treats at Shae and sat them to the side so they could pass. GSPs came over to say hi (owner couldn't recall  ), bitch had a grumble at Rust (weird.) but Rust ignored and stood to the side. Shae was fine... Then met two JRs so put Shae on lead again and threw treats... JR kicked off but again no drama- mine ignored them and waited to for them to pass. Once again though the owner wanted them to all meet- they were fine- but why?!
> 
> Went to the vets and discussed Rust- she said it sounded more nervousness than full out extra testosterone but she'd order in supralorin and wanted me to think about it in the meantime... Not sure what to do at the moment!!
> 
> Then decided to take them to the dog field individually for 20mins. Shae did an excellent job ignoring lots of other dogs playing etc with balls and each other... concentrated on her tuggy and me. Allowed her to greet two dogs offlead once we were close enough not to get the "charge!!!" in- she was very polite and invited one to play that wanted to and was respectful of a slightly elderly (and grumpy) lab. recalled off both when asked.
> 
> Rust had 20mins with his toy being silly... saw one dog on the side of the field (where did they all go?!) but ignored it.
> 
> Potentially time to stop panicking I think....
> 
> Hope everyone else has had a good morning!


Glad you've stopped panicking. They are living creatures after all and you can't expect perfection all of the time (which is why I allowed Tremor to be a bit naughty at the show last week-end)... Well that's my excuse...


----------



## GingerRogers

Well I did reply last night but my phone swallowed it 

Tia T - sorry you are (hopefully only were now) feeling bad, you really are not a shitty owner, remember dogs are just like humans they all have their little 'quirks'  be that not liking loud noises or other dogs or cars or bikes or even liking them too much

Ginge is actually the first dog I or my family has owned that hasn't minded loud noises (although the fighter jet thing that flew over this morning got a bit of a whoa  from her) who knows if that because her first owner was a gunman and got her habituated (at least he did something right ) or just that she doesn't care. Its very odd walking a dog that often doesnt even look up when a birdscarer goes off next to her but then considering how much row she can make its probably a good thing 

Both Rory and Misty were absolutely terrified and there was little we could do to help them, but we didnt know about calmatives or thundershirts then. We sedated Misty one firework night and she still ate the middle out of my bedroom rug. Was the only bonus about Rory going deaf 

Our friends collie has been terrible. Planting herself and refusing to move, and once she has heard her first firework of the season she responds to any bang the same way, even car doors shutting, he can barely walk her even during the day. Another friends little chap is equally terrified but will bolt and hide. Last year I convinced them to try Thundershirts, I know they dont work on all dogs, but the pair of them were so much better, even if they weren't wearing them any more, it seemed to calm them enough for them to realise the noises were not so bad after all.


Nikki - I typed that I would trust Grannie too :biggrin: but it seems you have calmed a bit and they have been good pups today.




Today we had no micro pigs 

But we left the house at the same time as hubby (he was off to a little job interview ) as I was chatting to him, he pointed out a lab coming behind the hedge, so I u-turned to try and dive back in the porch - cue - bark bark bark - but by the time we got to the porch she had shut up  the dog was still passing, the lady owner was laughing thankfully  so I didn't shut the door and shoveled cheese in as she watched it instead :thumbup1: -cue - squeak squeak squeak - as we then tried to progress down the road in the opposite direction  

We just had a dash round the estate today and then to the beer garden for some offlead heel work, love that little face looking up at me (I mean cheese) some target practice, some find its (thats one of the worst things about the muzzle, I cant scatter treats as a tool on walks any more ) and some play with the beginning of Dogless 'Ready steady' 

ETA - JSW sounds a lovely walk, I had a similar one on the beach on Tuesday, the moonlight reflecting off the sea followed me up the shore and the sea was calm and all was very serene, it makes it quite bright as the light reflects off the sand as well. Well done Willow for only letting out a little bark


----------



## Guest

Holy banana's how many pages have I missed!? Hope you are all fabulous as always and hope you and your dogs are okay!

Well we have had very bad days here where DB has been a bit of a hooligan grumpy monster and I have had several WOE I am a FAILLLUUUURRRREEE moments. Db has also decided that the now 6 month old kitten is suddenly THE most exciting thing so we are back onlead for socialising now.
BUT, we have also had some progress, we are not lunging at dogs till AFTER they have gone past, he will sit at a distance (we usually go the other side of the road) from them and the best bit is that we have found somewhere SAFE where he can be offlead and I can actually practice recall without having to untangle a longline from the fence he has vaulted over. Its an indoor riding school near me and the owner is lovely and lets me use it for a full hour undisturbed for a fee. 
We seem to be no longer fearful of people but I know when to take him away when he is showing signs of discomfort. (He does think that everyone is out for his cuddling benefit though)

ETA: Did I tell you that Db turned two? Well he has! Can't blame his hooliganism on his age now :lol:

Ooh and look PHOTO's!!








[/URL][/IMG]


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## ciarasmum

Will look through the posts I've missed later 

After saying yesterday that we'd had some nice walks, today was another disaster. Why oh why can't people teach a solid recall?! 

Saw one man with a springer up ahead off lead. I recalled, put Ciara on lead, he did the same, no issue passing. Ciara was a little stressed but seemed to calm down at the point I thought she was going to lunge and bark

After 30mins more of nice peaceful walking, I saw a little white dog pop his head round a bush in front of us, followed by 2 more. All whippets. Ciara was huffing but recalled her and popped her on lead and moved into the field off the path. Man called out thanks, but then didn't recall his dogs, letting one run up and down growling, and the other run in circles round Ciara incredibly fast, with Ciara at the end of her lead trying to run after it. No attempt at recall. Couldn't have let her off her lead to escape as she wouldn't have been able to resist running after it with the speed it was going.

Still no attempt to recall his dogs and I couldn't move as the dog was just following and circling us. Ciara wasn't barking or growling, think she just wanted it to stop as she isn't keen on dogs that zoom a lot on walks.

When we finally got away, enjoyed 10mins of peace, then saw a woman up ahead with 2 dogs in the woody bit so not much space. Ciara spotted before I did as I saw her tense up and she was incredibly stressed by this point. Just as she was thinking about running up, I recalled her and she came to me while I put her on lead and moved out the way. I called out that she was frightened of other dogs but the woman said she 'looks so imposing'. Tbh she probably did, she had her hackles up and was huffing and puffing, but the woman let one of her dogs come up to her for a sniff anyway!  Ciara sniffed it politely (despite the stress and 'imposing' nature) but I wasn't going to get into the details of just because she isn't cowering, doesn't mean she isn't frightened. She once hid in a bush when she saw a group of dogs coming round the corner, and another time she ran off in the opposite direction when she was cornered by 3 golden retrievers. 

So proud of Ciara for not barking or growling at any of the dogs, but so disappointed that she has been put under so much stress again because of other people. She never runs up to other dogs and makes a nuisance of herself and I know that if other people recalled or at least didn't let their dogs approach her while on lead she would probably progress a lot quicker!

ETA: just seen a note from my mum saying she wouldn't eat her breakfast this morning. So she's not had any Metacam today (trying to get her to eat now) so probably felt rubbish (last night she kept lying down on her walk, only does that if her legs are hurting). So really pleased she didn't react especially if she wasn't feeling great <3


----------



## GingerRogers

ciarasmum said:


> Will look through the posts I've missed later
> 
> After saying yesterday that we'd had some nice walks, today was another disaster. Why oh why can't people teach a solid recall?!
> 
> Saw one man with a springer up ahead off lead. I recalled, put Ciara on lead, he did the same, no issue passing. Ciara was a little stressed but seemed to calm down at the point I thought she was going to lunge and bark
> 
> After 30mins more of nice peaceful walking, I saw a little white dog pop his head round a bush in front of us, followed by 2 more. All whippets. Ciara was huffing but recalled her and popped her on lead and moved into the field off the path. Man called out thanks, but then didn't recall his dogs, letting one run up and down growling, and the other run in circles round Ciara incredibly fast, with Ciara at the end of her lead trying to run after it. No attempt at recall. Couldn't have let her off her lead to escape as she wouldn't have been able to resist running after it with the speed it was going.
> 
> Still no attempt to recall his dogs and I couldn't move as the dog was just following and circling us. Ciara wasn't barking or growling, think she just wanted it to stop as she isn't keen on dogs that zoom a lot on walks.
> 
> When we finally got away, enjoyed 10mins of peace, then saw a woman up ahead with 2 dogs in the woody bit so not much space. Ciara spotted before I did as I saw her tense up and she was incredibly stressed by this point. Just as she was thinking about running up, I recalled her and she came to me while I put her on lead and moved out the way. I called out that she was frightened of other dogs but the woman said she 'looks so imposing'. Tbh she probably did, she had her hackles up and was huffing and puffing, but the woman let one of her dogs come up to her for a sniff anyway!  Ciara sniffed it politely (despite the stress and 'imposing' nature) but I wasn't going to get into the details of just because she isn't cowering, doesn't mean she isn't frightened. She once hid in a bush when she saw a group of dogs coming round the corner, and another time she ran off in the opposite direction when she was cornered by 3 golden retrievers.
> 
> So proud of Ciara for not barking or growling at any of the dogs, but so disappointed that she has been put under so much stress again because of other people. She never runs up to other dogs and makes a nuisance of herself and I know that if other people recalled or at least didn't let their dogs approach her while on lead she would probably progress a lot quicker!
> 
> ETA: just seen a note from my mum saying she wouldn't eat her breakfast this morning. So she's not had any Metacam today (trying to get her to eat now) so probably felt rubbish (last night she kept lying down on her walk, only does that if her legs are hurting). So really pleased she didn't react especially if she wasn't feeling great <3


Oh big sigh. Whats the whippet man on?? 'Oh, Thank you for not letting your big whippet eating dog run up to mine' but its ok now if mine run up to yours of course  and WHY WHY WHY when you explain to people that your dog is scared can they not understand, its scared stay away please. Next time I meet someone whose scared of, oh, I dont know birds, shall I lock them in an aviary 

But on another note, Hello LO :biggrin: and look at handsome Donkey Boy  (slightly) grown up (dont think 2 us a magic number somehow ) handsome DB who has got over his fear of people, well done, dont worry about the blips we all have them. Dont forget where we are.


----------



## Nicki85

Ciara- liked your post for the positives and that although stressed she coped well. I swear people still have the mis-conception that dogs should meet/greet/play/socialise on walks even though it is not necessary or indeed not positive for both dogs. I always find it odd that people let their dogs come up to mine when I've obviously taken a lot of care to get them on lead and out the way... 

LO- he looks so HAPPY! and Happy Birthday too.

GR- sounds like a good session although, I was a bit worried that you mentioned cheese and then squeaking... does Ninja turn into a mouse when she eats cheese?! Only kidding, I can imagine it is frustrating with a muzzle and not being able to do "find it". It's something that works really well for Shae if there is a dog approaching she hasn't met before- prevents the frustrated "I want to go talk to it!!!!" response.


----------



## ciarasmum

I feel awful now. I hope people don't misread my post. I wrote it in frustration, but I do understand that sometimes with the best will in the world, a recall can fail. If I'd have left Ciara off lead and the dog had ran round in circles after her, she would have been so worked up that at that point I don't think she would have recalled if she was mid chase.

I just meant why do people not at least try and recall. This summer has been horrendous for off lead dogs being allowed to charge up, even if I call out for them to please get their dog, some just don't bother. I still get upset for Ciara if a dog has ran up to her, but if they've tried to recall then I at least acknowledge that, even if it hasn't worked.

I just hate seeing her so upset. She's such a sensitive girl. Will make sure I reply to everyone later. I'm considering just walking at 5am and at nighttime now


----------



## GingerRogers

ciarasmum said:


> I feel awful now. I hope people don't misread my post. I wrote it in frustration, but I do understand that sometimes with the best will in the world, a recall can fail. If I'd have left Ciara off lead and the dog had ran round in circles after her, she would have been so worked up that at that point I don't think she would have recalled if she was mid chase.
> 
> I just meant why do people not at least try and recall. This summer has been horrendous for off lead dogs being allowed to charge up, even if I call out for them to please get their dog, some just don't bother. I still get upset for Ciara if a dog has ran up to her, but if they've tried to recall then I at least acknowledge that, even if it hasn't worked.
> 
> I just hate seeing her so upset. She's such a sensitive girl. Will make sure I reply to everyone later. I'm considering just walking at 5am and at nighttime now


Why do you feel awful I hope it wasnt my 'super ironic, sarcastic, easily misunderstood response'  ranting in frustration is just one of the things we are here for, and when a lot of us suffer from the same annoyances we tend to get upset for others too.

It sounds like no-one did bother to recall or heed your request to keep their distance, verbal or implied by body language.

I get annoyed with people even if they do do all the right things, how dare they even try to walk in the same place at the same time as ME  :frown2:


----------



## ciarasmum

GingerRogers said:


> Why do you feel awful I hope it wasnt my 'super ironic, sarcastic, easily misunderstood response'  ranting in frustration is just one of the things we are here for, and when a lot of us suffer from the same annoyances we tend to get upset for others too.
> 
> It sounds like no-one did bother to recall or heed your request to keep their distance, verbal or implied by body language.
> 
> I get annoyed with people even if they do do all the right things, how dare they even try to walk in the same place at the same time as ME  :frown2:


Oh no of course not!! It was someone else on another forum that said that there are reasons that recalls fail sometimes etc. So I didn't want to imply that I thought noone should have a dog that ever dares break a recall  Didn't want to offend anyone that's all.

Haha I'm the same. Because I take loads of time to plan walks, even going at night and scaring myself to death, I still get an internal annoyance at someone just being there lol!


----------



## GingerRogers

ciarasmum said:


> Oh no of course not!! It was someone else on another forum that said that there are reasons that recalls fail sometimes etc. So I didn't want to imply that I thought noone should have a dog that ever dares break a recall  Didn't want to offend anyone that's all.
> 
> Haha I'm the same. Because I take loads of time to plan walks, even going at night and scaring myself to death, *I still get an internal annoyance at someone just being there lol![/*QUOTE]
> 
> And my husband thinks I am unreasonable


----------



## ciarasmum

GingerRogers said:


> ciarasmum said:
> 
> 
> 
> Oh no of course not!! It was someone else on another forum that said that there are reasons that recalls fail sometimes etc. So I didn't want to imply that I thought noone should have a dog that ever dares break a recall  Didn't want to offend anyone that's all.
> 
> Haha I'm the same. Because I take loads of time to plan walks, even going at night and scaring myself to death, *I still get an internal annoyance at someone just being there lol![/*QUOTE]
> 
> And my husband thinks I am unreasonable
> 
> 
> 
> Haha, only kidding!
Click to expand...


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## GingerRogers

ciarasmum said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Haha, only kidding!
> 
> 
> 
> Oh I wasnt  well only about being annoyed at the OH, I know I am unreasonable but people should just know!!
Click to expand...


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## Dogless

Nicki - pleased that the panic's over and today has gone well .

LO - LOVE the DB photos, he's brilliant!

Ciarasmum - I understand all your frustrations, right down to an unreasonable annoyance at someone daring to be anywhere where I have planned a quiet walk. Even if they ignore us entirely and have a dog under great control .

GR - good luck with "Ready Steady" - I'd get yourself typed and crossmatched and get the Blood Bank to have a unit or two on standby :skep: .

JSW - sounds like Willow is doing brilliantly and you're having some nice walks .



Good day so far at Concrete Central.

Took Rudi running - my new trainers came yesterday afternoon so I had that huge excitement to get my road ones on :thumbup1: . Might take both dogs and try my trail ones out in the forest tomorrow . I love new trainers :001_wub:. Rudi was brilliant - handsfree on the pavements bar twice, a cat on the pavement and the bin mothership.

Took Kilo just for a potter and sniff and some gentle training as we are meeting Dizzy this evening :thumbup1:.


----------



## Symone

LO : He looks lovely! So happy.  Happy 2nd birthday to him! 


Hello hello! 
I went poof for a couple of days then, lol. 

Shamaya Finally turned 1, but had a few mishaps! First cake was late, then the next day after having the cake the girls were ill.. They enjoyed eating it at the time though. Most of it got chucked because of the girls getting ill. 
Then most of Shamayas pressies got stuck in the post..!! 

However everything is now here, girls are fine again after being ill.. new bed also came which the girls believe belongs to them.. so all in all fun times!!!

Girls have been really good on walks lately, but Shamaya had a sudden burst of naughtyness the other day! Went to the small forest.. She was fine there, but walking back she had a slack lead, then jumped over a small wall! I was not impressed but she was sure happy with herself. Lead was wrapped around my hand having her right at my side after that. 

Arya massively Enjoyed the forest, she was so well behaved.  She was running around like a loon but she recalled every time, she never went out of sight.. I was very proud of her!  She loved it there so I'm going to make sure that we go there a few times in the week.  

--

Was also wondering what's better for not slipping, Dogmatic or Gencon? A friend has a GSD that pulls a lot, and she said that she even pulls with a choke collar on (Not sure if it's a choke chain, she didn't specify). Apparently she can slip out of everything else :/ Was wondering if you guys had any recommendations for a non-pull device like so to help her along with training? She said that her husband has to do the walking with her because she finds it very hard to try to walk her now. :/
I know there isn't a magic solution, but if you have any suggestions that could help her that would be great


----------



## Nicki85

Just back from pm walk- they were both fab. Had them both off lead and we met, wait for it... 15 dogs (!) none of which I think we've met properly before. Anyhow, I recalled and leashed them up when we came across them and they both responded nicely, even Rust (he must have been listening at the vets this morning...) no standing and staring, apart from one dog. 

They met all dogs on lead and there were no dramas, all very polite sniff and move on. I let them off to play with a young (entire) male BC who Rusty initially did his starring thing at before I got him on lead. When allowed to say hi though it was obvious there was no tension so let them off to play. Bonkers 5mins whilst they all ran round like loopy things. 

Did lots of recall work as well and they were just nice and calm. They are flat out now- think we've done our socialisation training for a week!!

Oh and Ciara- out of all those dogs only two owners tried to recall and put them on leads when they saw that mine were on lead... 

DL- which trail trainers do you have? i need a new pair mainly for agility on wet grass but also running with Rust- again usually on wet grass/ forest paths... I suspect no trainers are going to be 100% waterproof so need to get some waterproof socks...


----------



## tiatortilla

Nicki - Glad today went better, I think yesterday was just one of those days and to be chalked up to experience but not worried about too much .

JSW - Your night walks sound lovely, wish I wasn't such a wuss about walking in the dark! The man with the yorkie sounds like a tit, but well done Willow!

GR - Thankyou for that. I think it's just because her reaction has suddenly gone from "a bit put out" about loud noises to "terrified" and I feel a bit like I should have done more before it got to this point so I'm feeling like it's my fault. She's still fine with some things though, we saw motorbikes and lorries today and she wasn't upset about them at all so I am feeling a bit better today .
Well done Ginge for not barking too much at the lab, sounds really good!

LO - Welcome back, lovely pictures and even though you might have had a few setbacks it sounds like things are going brilliantly overall.

Ciarasmum - Sorry about poor Ciara getting charged by all those dogs. I totally agree with you, it's when people don't even try to recall that I get annoyed. If they're at least trying then it shows they care and I don't really mind that but when someone happily lets their dog run up to your on lead dog it's sooo infuriating. Well done to Ciara for not reacting though and I hope tomorrow is better!

Dogless - That all sounds lovely. Well done to Rudi and I hope Kilo has fun with his friend later on!

---

A mainly lovely walk today. First the sheep fields, lots of work on "leave it" for the sheep poo. She did very well and didn't eat any when I managed to get in there first with a leave it, but she did manage to grab a few mouthfuls when I wasn't looking properly . She's fab around sheep now though, she barely looked at them today :thumbup:.
Then on to another field with cows in, unfortunately they were all over the path so we only got to use half the field and couldn't walk on to where were planning on going but nevermind, another good opportunity for practising "leave its" with poo lol. We also saw some horses that aren't normally there, I wondered if she might be a bit interested in them but nope, totally ignored those too so I'm very proud as she does find horses quite fascinating (and she can be reactive to them if they're walking on the road and clip clopping lol). Anyway that was all lovely, we saw a couple of dogs and no barking from Tia.

Then a slightly crap bit, I decided to let her have a run about in a field on the way back because all of that had been on lead and the guy with two collies let them charge at Tia as we walked into the field before I'd got her off lead, not even an attempt at a recall . We've met them before and he *knows* Tia can be nervous and also knows the young male one is not a good match for Tia because last time his dogs charged her, her and the male one had a bit of handbags at dawn.. The older female one is fine, but I still don't want her coming over when Tia's on lead.
I managed to get back out of the field before they got to us anyway, the male followed but I just shouted at him to go away and it worked lol, Tia didn't react more than a tiny growl either so it could have been worse. We waited a little way away from the entrance for them to leave and Tia didn't react when they came out so fortunately I don't think she was too bothered by it, and she didn't react to a couple of dogs afterwards either so yeah, all in all not too bad just a bit annoying.

I'm looking at calming stuff for the loud noises thing today, have looked at the link Twiggy posted yesterday and trying to decide which one to get.. I had no idea there would be so many different types, not sure whether I'd describe it as slightly nervous, emotional trauma or apprehensive?! I suppose it would make sense to get one that might help with her confidence around other dogs as well as the loud noises maybe? Will have to think about it a bit and probably phone up and ask them what they would recommend for her!

Sorry about the ridiculously long post


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Just back from pm walk- they were both fab. Had them both off lead and we met, wait for it... 15 dogs (!) none of which I think we've met properly before. Anyhow, I recalled and leashed them up when we came across them and they both responded nicely, even Rust (he must have been listening at the vets this morning...) no standing and staring, apart from one dog.
> 
> They met all dogs on lead and there were no dramas, all very polite sniff and move on. I let them off to play with a young (entire) male BC who Rusty initially did his starring thing at before I got him on lead. When allowed to say hi though it was obvious there was no tension so let them off to play. Bonkers 5mins whilst they all ran round like loopy things.
> 
> Did lots of recall work as well and they were just nice and calm. They are flat out now- think we've done our socialisation training for a week!!
> 
> Oh and Ciara- out of all those dogs only two owners tried to recall and put them on leads when they saw that mine were on lead...
> 
> DL- which trail trainers do you have? i need a new pair mainly for agility on wet grass but also running with Rust- again usually on wet grass/ forest paths... I suspect no trainers are going to be 100% waterproof so need to get some waterproof socks...


I have always been loyal to Salomon but after my last two pairs weren't as good quality - fell apart too soon - I have gone with the Mizuno Wave Ascend this time. I wear Mizunos as my road shoes and haven't tried these but they are built around the same last and certainly feel and look as if they will do the job.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> --
> 
> Was also wondering what's better for not slipping, Dogmatic or Gencon? A friend has a GSD that pulls a lot, and she said that she even pulls with a choke collar on (Not sure if it's a choke chain, she didn't specify). Apparently she can slip out of everything else :/ Was wondering if you guys had any recommendations for a non-pull device like so to help her along with training? She said that her husband has to do the walking with her because she finds it very hard to try to walk her now. :/
> I know there isn't a magic solution, but if you have any suggestions that could help her that would be great


I rate the Dogmatic if I am going to use a head collar. I haven't used one in a long time as the Mekuti harness allows me to hold my dogs easily (Kilo will lunge at cats etc, not pull consistently). I wouldn't use the Gencon due to it's unlimited tightening potential - it would probably work but through discomfort.


----------



## Nicki85

I've always had Salomon up till now... will have a look at Mizuno as well  

TT- sounds like a positive experience on the whole


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> I've always had Salomon up till now... will have a look at Mizuno as well
> 
> TT- sounds like a positive experience on the whole


Yes, I really like the fit and feel of Salomons and have had them for years and years but have been really disappointed with my last couple of pairs .

ETA: Inov8 are worth a look too.


----------



## Dogless

TT - very bad that you got charged, but well done to you for repelling the pest and well done to Tia for only reacting slightly . I can't help with noise phobias at all, sorry.


----------



## Dogless

Lead walk with Roo this afternoon - went past some play parks and down busy streets where all the kids were playing out; Roo was very nicely behaved. It was my idea of hell .

Took Kilo for an hour and a half with Dizzy; he was very good too :thumbup1:.

Someone apparently has a pet sheep. Good luck with all the loose dogs walking it I say .


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Someone apparently has a pet sheep. Good luck with all the loose dogs walking it I say .


How strange, sheep are nice and everything but I can't really see why you'd want one as a pet!
I imagine it'd probably be happier in a field with other sheep too rather than someone's house but I could be wrong I suppose, I've never met one that didn't live in a field lol.

Glad you had two good walks this afternoon .


----------



## Canine K9

Glad everyone has had a good day 

Good day here too, his walk was in the woodlands and park and he went offlead and recalled well.


----------



## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> How strange, sheep are nice and everything but I can't really see why you'd want one as a pet!
> I imagine it'd probably be happier in a field with other sheep too rather than someone's house but I could be wrong I suppose, I've never met one that didn't live in a field lol.
> 
> Glad you had two good walks this afternoon .


We had baby one, when hubby was a shepherd and we lived on the farm, well we had a few, but Stevie sticks in my mind most, I still feel sad when I think of him .

Hubby named him, he was black and blind , the boss had given up on him, so we had a try, only had him 3 days, getting up in the night to feed him, closest thing to a puppy or baby I ever had. I came home one evening to find him on hubbies lap having spasms :sad: them mother sheep were very clever really at knowing their babies wouldn't survive. Rory was very patient with him as he followed him about trying to suckle his lipstick .

We had a full grown ram for a while as well, that went down less well with rozza :

But you are right they prefer farms and other sheep, the boss took on another that had been hand reared, stuck him down with the others and one day they got a call from a holiday home, converted barn near the field.

:skep: Apparently they thought he looked lonely so invited him in for some chocolate cake and he charged at the 80 yr old grandmother and broke her leg  they wanted to sue the boss :frown2:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Aw the baby story is sad, poor little sheep. I can see why you'd have one in that situation though, to hand rear it - that makes sense!
Sounds like it doesn't always end well though, a sheep breaking a woman's leg is quite shocking


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> We had baby one, when hubby was a shepherd and we lived on the farm, well we had a few, but Stevie sticks in my mind most, I still feel sad when I think of him .
> 
> Hubby named him, he was black and blind , the boss had given up on him, so we had a try, only had him 3 days, getting up in the night to feed him, closest thing to a puppy or baby I ever had. I came home one evening to find him on hubbies lap having spasms :sad: them mother sheep were very clever really at knowing their babies wouldn't survive. Rory was very patient with him as he followed him about trying to suckle his lipstick .
> 
> We had a full grown ram for a while as well, that went down less well with rozza :
> 
> But you are right they prefer farms and other sheep, the boss took on another that had been hand reared, stuck him down with the others and one day they got a call from a holiday home, converted barn near the field.
> 
> :skep: Apparently they thought he looked lonely so invited him in for some chocolate cake and he charged at the 80 yr old grandmother and broke her leg  they wanted to sue the boss :frown2:.


A farmer friend of my sister had loads of cattle and sheep. I remember one of their orphan lambs (raised for too long in the kitchen, along with all their many cats, kittens and dogs) until it eventually thought it was a dog and was frightened of the sheep...LOL


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Nicki - Glad today went better, I think yesterday was just one of those days and to be chalked up to experience but not worried about too much .
> 
> JSW - Your night walks sound lovely, wish I wasn't such a wuss about walking in the dark! The man with the yorkie sounds like a tit, but well done Willow!
> 
> GR - Thankyou for that. I think it's just because her reaction has suddenly gone from "a bit put out" about loud noises to "terrified" and I feel a bit like I should have done more before it got to this point so I'm feeling like it's my fault. She's still fine with some things though, we saw motorbikes and lorries today and she wasn't upset about them at all so I am feeling a bit better today .
> Well done Ginge for not barking too much at the lab, sounds really good!
> 
> LO - Welcome back, lovely pictures and even though you might have had a few setbacks it sounds like things are going brilliantly overall.
> 
> Ciarasmum - Sorry about poor Ciara getting charged by all those dogs. I totally agree with you, it's when people don't even try to recall that I get annoyed. If they're at least trying then it shows they care and I don't really mind that but when someone happily lets their dog run up to your on lead dog it's sooo infuriating. Well done to Ciara for not reacting though and I hope tomorrow is better!
> 
> Dogless - That all sounds lovely. Well done to Rudi and I hope Kilo has fun with his friend later on!
> 
> ---
> 
> A mainly lovely walk today. First the sheep fields, lots of work on "leave it" for the sheep poo. She did very well and didn't eat any when I managed to get in there first with a leave it, but she did manage to grab a few mouthfuls when I wasn't looking properly . She's fab around sheep now though, she barely looked at them today :thumbup:.
> Then on to another field with cows in, unfortunately they were all over the path so we only got to use half the field and couldn't walk on to where were planning on going but nevermind, another good opportunity for practising "leave its" with poo lol. We also saw some horses that aren't normally there, I wondered if she might be a bit interested in them but nope, totally ignored those too so I'm very proud as she does find horses quite fascinating (and she can be reactive to them if they're walking on the road and clip clopping lol). Anyway that was all lovely, we saw a couple of dogs and no barking from Tia.
> 
> Then a slightly crap bit, I decided to let her have a run about in a field on the way back because all of that had been on lead and the guy with two collies let them charge at Tia as we walked into the field before I'd got her off lead, not even an attempt at a recall . We've met them before and he *knows* Tia can be nervous and also knows the young male one is not a good match for Tia because last time his dogs charged her, her and the male one had a bit of handbags at dawn.. The older female one is fine, but I still don't want her coming over when Tia's on lead.
> I managed to get back out of the field before they got to us anyway, the male followed but I just shouted at him to go away and it worked lol, Tia didn't react more than a tiny growl either so it could have been worse. We waited a little way away from the entrance for them to leave and Tia didn't react when they came out so fortunately I don't think she was too bothered by it, and she didn't react to a couple of dogs afterwards either so yeah, all in all not too bad just a bit annoying.
> 
> I'm looking at calming stuff for the loud noises thing today, have looked at the link Twiggy posted yesterday and trying to decide which one to get.. I had no idea there would be so many different types, not sure whether I'd describe it as slightly nervous, emotional trauma or apprehensive?! I suppose it would make sense to get one that might help with her confidence around other dogs as well as the loud noises maybe? Will have to think about it a bit and probably phone up and ask them what they would recommend for her!
> 
> Sorry about the ridiculously long post


You need to telephone the very nice lady at Doreen Paige before ordering anything. She will advise you and may even make up a remedy specifically for Tia.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I have always been loyal to Salomon but after my last two pairs weren't as good quality - fell apart too soon - I have gone with the Mizuno Wave Ascend this time. I wear Mizunos as my road shoes and haven't tried these but they are built around the same last and certainly feel and look as if they will do the job.


So if I order a pair of Mizuno Wave Ascend will I run round an agility course like the clappers out of hell?...:biggrin:


----------



## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> Aw the baby story is sad, poor little sheep. I can see why you'd have one in that situation though, to hand rear it - that makes sense!
> Sounds like it doesn't always end well though, a sheep breaking a woman's leg is quite shocking


It was them inviting it in for chocolate cake that shocked me.

Twiggy I can believe that of the sheep, despite being clever mothers they are quite stupid animals over all.

And of course the trainers will make you run like dogless, let me know and I will order a pair too


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Hi guys,

been a long while since my last post because I just couldn't face coming on. I've been suffering panic attacks & anxiety about our situation and am scared it's all my fault.

I just dunno what to do. Paddy is a 20 month old lovely sweet and gentle collie, but he just seems to get too worked up sometimes. I've tried to remove/limit everything that can cause overexcitement, and have practised recalls, sit stay, heel etc. His confidence and obedience is coming on leaps and bounds...

... and that brings us to me problem, leaps and bounds...

We live in a village (which is the problem I think) and we got him at 6 months old. In the last year had a 4/5 run ins with other dog owners. I believe in dogs socialising and have always tried to encourage friendly supervised meetings. I tried never to let him off lead unless we were alone. 

Occasionally, on our field Paddy has been off lead, and before I noticed another dog to control the meeting, he's bounded over to say hi, and either not stopped in time, running the dog over/banging into them and the dog has then taken exception to his friendly interest, or the owner has just not wanted interaction. The owner has then given me a mouth full about 'keeping him under control' (not always, he has some 'doggie pals' who he romps around with)

This has now got him the reputation as a crazed mental dog, despite no harm being caused & we're getting horrible looks off the local dog walkers as they cross the road to avoid coming anywhere near us (even though no issue on lead)

Paddy seems to be sensing the tension from other people and this seems to be in turn making him reactive to other dog walkers as we pass, and was at one point briefly starting to lunge at people though I think I have stopped this.

I have on another thread discussed Paddy's excitement with balls, and last week I was walking Paddy on the street and I stumble and for a moment dropped his lead, he saw a young boy with a tennis ball in his hand, bounded over to him, didn't stop in time & knocked the boy over and tried to get his ball. The child was not bitten in anyway, and the parents were fine with what had happened, and no issue was made. However this has now also spread round the village and there was talk of a petition being started to get him put down as a menace.

What the hell have I done? I feel like I have exposed him to such open contempt that it could turn him into the dog they think he is, when all I've tried to do is train my dog the way I think is right, and admittedly made mistakes.

I've now started to dread taking him out for fear of who we'll see, and when I do see someone I feel sick and shaky, which I'm sure he senses as fear, again perpetuating the problem. I was so upset last week that I did wonder whether the best thing for him was for someone else to take him and give him a fresh start, though it would break my heart...


----------



## Nicki85

Well you see that's why I was asking DL... I need all the help I can get!! Anything named "Wave Ascend" are bound to make you run fast


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> It was them inviting it in for chocolate cake that shocked me.
> 
> Twiggy I can believe that of the sheep, despite being clever mothers they are quite stupid animals over all.
> 
> *And of course the trainers will make you run like dogless, let me know and I will order a pair too*


I don't think you will....!! Me thinks that Dogless is a secret millionairess - I've just looked at the price on them....

There's a pair on Ebay in shocking pink and they're £84.00.


----------



## GingerRogers

hahgiwoofa - oh dear, I dont really know what to say . 

Can you try to approach some of the more approachable members of the dog community and walk with them to demonstrate his non devilness.

Have you thought about a long line or even some kind of walking belt as a back up should the accidental happen again.

Its not good you having panic attacks, have you tried any herbal remedies, there was a time when both ninja and I were doped up to the eyeballs on valerian. It helped me get through a bad patch, she is still taking them lol.


----------



## Nicki85

Hahgi- I am sorry you are in such a terrible situation  And with people with such a lack of understanding. I too have a boisterous young collie and at times can get too much... Only yesterday I was practically in tears after hearing of her over excited behaviour towards another dog...

You say he loves balls- could you use these for training? Distracting him when he does see another dog? Do you have any good, collie savvy, training clubs nearby? Even something like agility that would provide a safe outlet for his energy?

Also, what is he fed? What kind of exercise/ training do you do with him regularly?

And remember, your dog can't hear what other people are saying- he will get a sense of feeling from you though!

Others will be along (if not already by the time I post this!) xx


----------



## JenKyzer

Ok, as promised  ..

CK9 - Hope bailey had a good birthday and got spoilt  his birthday walk sounds good :thumbup1:

Dogless - Pet sheep ey.. the dogs might lay off your CHs now then and just go for the sheep! Fingers crossed  . Sounds like you had a good afternoon 

Tia - i love dark walks  i get excited about using Willows pink light up collar though  . Well done for the poo leave's .. sorry to hear about the charging dogs and loud noises though  Hopefully you find something settling before bonfire night 

Nicki - 15 dogs  wow. I bet that beats our records round here  glad you had a good walk though .. bet your so proud :thumbup1:

Symone - Sorry about the birthday blunders! Eek. Forest walk sounds lovely 

Ciarasmum - You seem to have caught the 'jinx'  i get it.. say on here how well we're doing.. then bam! something bad happens.. i now feel like whispering when something good happens and get a tad nervous  on a more serious note, i'm sorry you had a stressful walk  
'' _So proud of Ciara for not barking or growling at any of the dogs, but so disappointed that she has been put under so much stress again because of other people. She never runs up to other dogs and makes a nuisance of herself and I know that if other people recalled or at least didn't let their dogs approach her while on lead she would probably progress a lot quicker!_ ''
^^ this! Is us! Annoying isn't it. I love the fact we now see hardly anyone  Well done to Ciara for no noise :thumbup1: i hope she relaxs more on her next walk 

L/O - missed pages.... story of my life at the moment too  gives some nice night time reading though  Glad your making progress and what lovely photos !! 

GR - Yay to no micro pigs  I find the muzzle frustrating for treats too  i have to poke my fingers under the bottom bar bit and poke it under her flabby lips  so sometimes just the smell of fishy treats is well done enough for Willow  (Good luck to the OH for interview)

That's all i can manage i'm afraid  Sorry everyone else!! I do read and keep up though :thumbup1:

Another night walk today.. with.. Frank the baby bulldog  First walk together now he's bigger.. and it went amazingly. So proud of Willow tonight. When we first got onto the res field there was 4 dogs... soo we turned off onto the estate and went to Franks house to invite him out to play  Then we had the whole fields to ourselves. Frank was running trying to keep up with willow as much as possible.. they were playing.. frank was rolling onto his back and willow was licking his belly and then running off :001_wub: Willow recalled away from him everytime (he was onlead, she was offlead) as she did a few runs up and charged into him wanting him to chase her.. her tail and his stump were both wagging like mad all night. OH mum thought willow was soo well behaved offlead  she was showing off her recall, 'this ways', carry on's, stays.. loved it.

We got back onto the drive and took some pics.. flash ruined them so they're not worth their own thread so here's some for you guys to see.

I'm so pleased at how relaxed willow was around him :biggrin: he couldn't leave her alone and i was wary of her telling him off.. but there wasn't one moment when things got too much :thumbup1:





Cheeky frank having a jump up 


Hope everyone's having a good night 

Edit to say - there's been posts whilst i was typing this  sorry - i wasn't being ignorant!


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Nicki85 said:


> Hahgi- I am sorry you are in such a terrible situation  And with people with such a lack of understanding. I too have a boisterous young collie and at times can get too much... Only yesterday I was practically in tears after hearing of her over excited behaviour towards another dog...
> 
> You say he loves balls- could you use these for training? Distracting him when he does see another dog? Do you have any good, collie savvy, training clubs nearby? Even something like agility that would provide a safe outlet for his energy?
> 
> Also, what is he fed? What kind of exercise/ training do you do with him regularly?
> 
> And remember, your dog can't hear what other people are saying- he will get a sense of feeling from you though!
> 
> Others will be along (if not already by the time I post this!) xx


Yeah, that's what I mean. I worry that my stress at what the village is saying may be affecting him, as well as the openly hostile body language some people are displaying.

I use his ball for training/distraction but was trying not to use it too much as overuse seemed to make him more ball crazy! He is really good with it, fetching, searching, retrieving and making a 'down' between throws.

I've been really working hard on his recalls, and he's making good progress, but it's too late, his reputation is shot. There are 4 or 5 dogs and owners that we (me and dogs) are friends with - proper dog people who understand they need to be allowed to 'grow up' and play with other dogs, and they've been fighting our corner, and we have been seen regularly walking/playing with these other dogs, but it seems to make no difference (the dogs we have had issues with have all been lone owned dogs that are treated more like children)

We took him to a fun family dog show last week, with about 100 other dogs there and didn't have a single bit of trouble with his interactions/behaviour so I know he isn't a 'problem dog' he's just young, a bit daft and over excitable at times.

I know I just need to ignore the village and concentrate on my gorgeous boy...


----------



## hahgiwoofa

GingerRogers said:


> hahgiwoofa - oh dear, I dont really know what to say .
> 
> Can you try to approach some of the more approachable members of the dog community and walk with them to demonstrate his non devilness.
> 
> Have you thought about a long line or even some kind of walking belt as a back up should the accidental happen again.
> 
> Its not good you having panic attacks, have you tried any herbal remedies, there was a time when both ninja and I were doped up to the eyeballs on valerian. It helped me get through a bad patch, she is still taking them lol.


I'll try that, thanks


----------



## Twiggy

hahgiwoofa said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> been a long while since my last post because I just couldn't face coming on. I've been suffering panic attacks & anxiety about our situation and am scared it's all my fault.
> 
> I just dunno what to do. Paddy is a 20 month old lovely sweet and gentle collie, but he just seems to get too worked up sometimes. I've tried to remove/limit everything that can cause overexcitement, and have practised recalls, sit stay, heel etc. His confidence and obedience is coming on leaps and bounds...
> 
> ... and that brings us to me problem, leaps and bounds...
> 
> We live in a village (which is the problem I think) and we got him at 6 months old. In the last year had a 4/5 run ins with other dog owners. I believe in dogs socialising and have always tried to encourage friendly supervised meetings. I tried never to let him off lead unless we were alone.
> 
> Occasionally, on our field Paddy has been off lead, and before I noticed another dog to control the meeting, he's bounded over to say hi, and either not stopped in time, running the dog over/banging into them and the dog has then taken exception to his friendly interest, or the owner has just not wanted interaction. The owner has then given me a mouth full about 'keeping him under control' (not always, he has some 'doggie pals' who he romps around with)
> 
> This has now got him the reputation as a crazed mental dog, despite no harm being caused & we're getting horrible looks off the local dog walkers as they cross the road to avoid coming anywhere near us (even though no issue on lead)
> 
> Paddy seems to be sensing the tension from other people and this seems to be in turn making him reactive to other dog walkers as we pass, and was at one point briefly starting to lunge at people though I think I have stopped this.
> 
> I have on another thread discussed Paddy's excitement with balls, and last week I was walking Paddy on the street and I stumble and for a moment dropped his lead, he saw a young boy with a tennis ball in his hand, bounded over to him, didn't stop in time & knocked the boy over and tried to get his ball. The child was not bitten in anyway, and the parents were fine with what had happened, and no issue was made. However this has now also spread round the village and there was talk of a petition being started to get him put down as a menace.
> 
> What the hell have I done? I feel like I have exposed him to such open contempt that it could turn him into the dog they think he is, when all I've tried to do is train my dog the way I think is right, and admittedly made mistakes.
> 
> I've now started to dread taking him out for fear of who we'll see, and when I do see someone I feel sick and shaky, which I'm sure he senses as fear, again perpetuating the problem. I was so upset last week that I did wonder whether the best thing for him was for someone else to take him and give him a fresh start, though it would break my heart...


I'm so sorry you are still having problems with your young collie; and I remember all your original posts from last year.

It sounds as if you are in dire need of experienced help with Paddy now, to work with you through his issues.

Whereabouts in the UK are you as I may know an experienced behaviourist/trainer/handler in your area?

To be fair to other dog walkers, they are not going to appreciate a big young
collie banging into their dogs however friendly his intentions. He could actually injure them.

Have you contacted the rescue centre where he came from for advice? Many centres have their own behaviourist/trainer.


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Nicki85 said:


> Hahgi- I am sorry you are in such a terrible situation  And with people with such a lack of understanding. I too have a boisterous young collie and at times can get too much... Only yesterday I was practically in tears after hearing of her over excited behaviour towards another dog...
> 
> You say he loves balls- could you use these for training? Distracting him when he does see another dog? Do you have any good, collie savvy, training clubs nearby? Even something like agility that would provide a safe outlet for his energy?
> 
> Also, what is he fed? What kind of exercise/ training do you do with him regularly?
> 
> And remember, your dog can't hear what other people are saying- he will get a sense of feeling from you though!
> 
> Others will be along (if not already by the time I post this!) xx


ps forgot
he's fed on Wainwrights food, natural with no additives (I steer clear of anything 'Bakers' like with food and treats. He gets 3 walks a day and at least one is over an hour. We do agility training every couple of weeks - his enthusiasm way overshadows his concentration and ability at the moment!!


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Twiggy said:


> I'm so sorry you are still having problems with your young collie; and I remember all your original posts from last year.
> 
> It sounds as if you are in dire need of experienced help with Paddy now, to work with you through his issues.
> 
> Whereabouts in the UK are you as I may know an experienced behaviourist/trainer/handler in your area?
> 
> To be fair to other dog walkers, they are not going to appreciate a big young
> collie banging into their dogs however friendly his intentions. He could actually injure them.
> 
> Have you contacted the rescue centre where he came from for advice? Many centres have their own behaviourist/trainer.


Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that he could be scary when he's running at u full pelt, for both the other dog and their owner, and that he could injure them. I'm not trying to excuse him, I know it was not acceptable, and that it was my fault - which makes me feel even worse.

I have contacted a company called 'Bark Busters' but they want £400 payable on the first consultation and we haven't got that kind of money...


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> I'm so sorry you are still having problems with your young collie; and I remember all your original posts from last year.
> 
> It sounds as if you are in dire need of experienced help with Paddy now, to work with you through his issues.
> 
> Whereabouts in the UK are you as I may know an experienced behaviourist/trainer/handler in your area?
> 
> *To be fair to other dog walkers, they are not going to appreciate a big young
> collie banging into their dogs however friendly his intentions. He could actually injure them.
> *
> Have you contacted the rescue centre where he came from for advice? Many centres have their own behaviourist/trainer.


Sorry i've been reading but not posting for a while but i didn't feel i could let this pass without a comment from the other side.

Incidents with collies banging into, herding. pinning, nipping have been the bane of my life and setback Tink's progress so many times. An incident of this nature would ruin not only that walk, but sometimes for weeks after. So while I do *understand* this is a challenging and upsetting situation for their owner keeping a dog on a longline prevents them having a detrimental effect on others.


----------



## Twiggy

hahgiwoofa said:


> Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that he could be scary when he's running at u full pelt, for both the other dog and their owner, and that he could injure them. I'm not trying to excuse him, I know it was not acceptable, and that it was my fault - which makes me feel even worse.
> 
> I have contacted a company called 'Bark Busters' but they want £400 payable on the first consultation and we haven't got that kind of money...


That's a ridiculous sum and 'Bark Busters' are a franchise rip-off.

You would be better off at a training club where there are experienced collie handlers.

When you go to agility classes how does Paddy behave with the other dogs and do you run him off the lead?


----------



## hahgiwoofa

Twiggy said:


> That's a ridiculous sum and 'Bark Busters' are a franchise rip-off.
> 
> You would be better off at a training club where there are experienced collie handlers.
> 
> When you go to agility classes how does Paddy behave with the other dogs and do you run him off the lead?


He's enthusiastic, friendly and bouncy. we run him both on and off leade depending on what equipment we're doing.

The agility instructors both have collies and have said that he's a typical young male collie and aren't concerned


----------



## hahgiwoofa

moonviolet said:


> Sorry i've been reading but not posting for a while but i didn't feel i could let this pass without a comment from the other side.
> 
> Incidents with collies banging into, herding. pinning, nipping have been the bane of my life and setback Tink's progress so many times. An incident of this nature would ruin not only that walk, but sometimes for weeks after. So while I do *understand* this is a challenging and upsetting situation for their owner keeping a dog on a longline prevents them having a detrimental effect on others.


I understand totally, and am getting a longline tomorrow


----------



## moonviolet

hahgiwoofa said:


> I understand totally, and am getting a longline tomorrow


 well done


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> So if I order a pair of Mizuno Wave Ascend will I run round an agility course like the clappers out of hell?...:biggrin:





Nicki85 said:


> Well you see that's why I was asking DL... I need all the help I can get!! Anything named "Wave Ascend" are bound to make you run fast


Hmmmmm I can't necessarily live up to the name unfortunately . Maybe in the past . Worth a shot though .


----------



## Dogless

hahgiwoofa - agree with everyone else's advice and getting a longline sounds like a very good plan indeed for everyones' sakes. Any chance you could drive to other walks for a while to give yourselves a break and a de stress? I can see both your side of the story and empathise with the huge stress and can also very much see the other owners' sides. Finding some other walks would probably mean that some of the gossip dies down as well as helping you to relax.


----------



## Nicki85

Not a bad morning walk here, met a few dogs mostly on lead greetings again. Dogs came to the bridge over the stream quicker than me (surprise!) and the chap with 3 Springers and 3 JRs was coming over. Shae recalled but Rust dropped and froze in a half playbow half lay down. He stayed there till the JR came over to him and then skirted round the rest to get to the other side. This is making me think it is def. a nervy issue rather than a neutering question.

At one point they ran into the cows on a zoomie session which meant they cows trotted off- this set Rust off into super sonic fast mode which is always a bit tricky to control! No dramas just slipped his lead on to calm him down now and then.


----------



## Twiggy

hahgiwoofa said:


> He's enthusiastic, friendly and bouncy. we run him both on and off leade depending on what equipment we're doing.
> 
> The agility instructors both have collies and have said that he's a typical young male collie and aren't concerned


Well without seeing him I would also say he's a typical young collie but I would be concerned that he needs to learn his manners around other dogs.

It is concerning if he is upsetting all the local dog walkers and reducing you to a state of anxiety.

I would have thought your agility class would be a good place (in between running him) to teach him instant recalls, sit and down stay and to pay full attention to you.


----------



## Sarah1983

Typical young collie or not I can certainly see where the other dog owners are coming from I'm afraid Hahgi. Regardless of his intentions he'd have knocked down and trampled my infirm collie and likely gotten himself torn a new one once Shadow had picked himself up. Rupert would have made every attempt to kill him and been set back massively in his "other dogs aren't awful" training. Not something that would be good for any of the dogs involved. I think even Spencer would object to behaviour like that and he's very much into other dogs. So much so that he's often on a long line because he too will go off to introduce himself to other dogs although he's at least polite about it. So yeah, I feel for you but also for the other owners coz I'm certainly less than impressed when we're accosted by a dog like that. And sadly it's not something they seem to grow out of, it's a training issue. 

We had a wet and very blustery day here yesterday which of course meant a fantastic walk for me and Spencer. He loves the rain and it's so difficult to find it miserable and uncomfortable when you've got a Labrador grinning up at you every few minutes as if to share just how wonderful a time he's having. We didn't see a soul on our walk so he got to be off leash a fair bit. We played tug, did some training, I did some of what I won't call running and we just generally had fun.

Another wet and windy day here today so more of the same I think. He's had a play with his friend Jess already out in front of the flats but I'm sure he'll appreciate a proper walk too.


----------



## Dogless

*Sarah* - I can see Spendog dancing down the road, smile on his face to "Singing In The Rain" .

Well....I had a brilliant time this morning. I haven't run with Kilo since he was attacked as running makes him more alert and if he is going to react or worry it heightens it. He is truly relaxed now in the forest so, for the first time, I took _both_ my boys out running; Roo's first time running anywhere but local to home too. It was a real battle against the elements and a real snot and tears sort of run as I chose a very hilly route and.....my CHs were perfect for me - they even went "on by" the goat's carcass without even a little deviation :thumbup1:. It was the sort of beautiful agony I love .

*Nicki *- the trail shoes are superb. A firmer ride than a road shoe but not really stiff. The route went over mud, sand, grass, moss, shale and a broken track and through a ford and they were lovely and grippy. Better than the Salomons that I thought were the bees knees in fact .


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## GingerRogers

Sarah and Dogless what lovely posts 

Heres another...........

I think some aliens must have changed ninjas brain over night. She was an absolute star this morning. Typical as I didnt have too long to spare 

She:

Walked out the door all calm and happy and didnt pull round any corners.

Only had two small barks at two really big lorrys

Didnt bark at the dog handler trying to fix his bike, the invisible cat, the 3 dogs we saw, admittedly from a distance but wasnt even that bothered by them.

Then a chap walked down the road towards us, as he got closer I realised it was a coloured chap, ( we have a strong suspicion ninja is a little bit colour prejudiced) thankfully he popped into a drive, but then popped out again  as we were passing, but she barely even looked at him (which I suppose is also rude but not as rude as racist barking ) we were able to walk down the road having a conversation with him (he had been barked at by little Blossom a few minutes earlier and when he saw ninjas muzzle asked if all the dogs were vicious, so she really did pick a good time not to react ). 

She didnt bark as we passed the DA GSD house not even the big rattly flat bed that passed (she has started to bark at other stuff as we pass their house through nerves I guess, but it sets them off @@) 

She didnt bark at any of the other traffic not the bus or the numerous vans.

She didnt only not bark she was barely noticing them, 4 people cycled past us, nothing.

What was different, no idea, she had some turkey for breakfast but thats it really??? 

Whatever it was I was over the moon


----------



## Dogless

GR - that's really fabulous. I know the moon was full but didn't think it was blue  .


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## Canine K9

Ginger- Well done Ninja what a little star you`ve been 

Sarah- Sounds good, happy Spen Dog! 

--------------------------------------------
Pretty decent day today. Mr Bailey kept tugging on his lead but I managed to get him to stop  I am starting to love walking from around 3:30pm to 5pm on weekdays. Hardly anyone is about 
He had an offlead run again in the enclosed area. He had zoomies in a safe area and it was obvious how much he loves to be freeeee  :thumbup1: The only time he didn`t recall was when he was zooming other than that he recalled really nicely. He had an hour exercise, some training, a play session and a puzzle toy and is content.


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## Twiggy

Well done Dogless, Sarah, GR and Canine K9 (and your doggies of course)...:thumbup:

I've not had such a good day as poor little Leafy is lame. It's her right shoulder, which is a worry, as it means she's putting more weight on her dodgy left one.
I hummed and aahed but eventually gave her a Rimadyl and just hope it doesn't upset her extremely delicate stomach. I've also booked her in for laser treatment at the vets on Tuesday.

Hubby decided we would go to B&Q this afternoon and look at plumbing pipe and fitments for my agility project....!! Me thinks he's going to make such a fuss that it may well be better for my sanity to order some ready made jumps.


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## Dogless

Oh no Twiggy, if it isn't one thing it's the other .

Sounds as if hubby is planning the age old "hard work" tactic :frown2:.


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## diefenbaker

Howdy Pardners. They call me the Kid... the WAYWO Kid. Ain't nobody faster on the draw than me. There's pigs ears in that there mine. I'm staking my claim. Yeehaaar !!


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh no Twiggy, if it isn't one thing it's the other .
> 
> Sounds as if hubby is planning the age old "hard work" tactic :frown2:.


Why do men always make things soooo complicated....:mad5:

He decided he needed a 4-way tee connector. He would, wouldn't he - there is *one* company in the USA that manufacture them....!! It took me about 2 hours on the web to glean that information and that was before wandering aimlessly around B&Q..:frown2:


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Howdy Pardners. They call me the Kid... the WAYWO Kid. Ain't nobody faster on the draw than me. There's pigs ears in that there mine. I'm staking my claim. Yeehaaar !!


It's only 9.15pm. Are you already halfway through a bottle of Malt Whiskey? Or have you also spent the afternoon in B&Q..?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Why do men always make things soooo complicated....:mad5:
> 
> He decided he needed a 4-way tee connector. He would, wouldn't he - there is *one* company in the USA that manufacture them....!! It took me about 2 hours on the web to glean that information and that was before wandering aimlessly around B&Q..:frown2:


Of course he would . He's waiting for the "Just forget it, I'll sort things myself" . Then he can take the moral high ground and say "Look, I told you I'd do it" .


----------



## Dogless

Dief looks like he's reaching out to the internet community for help...his eyes are imploring us all to do something about his predicament .


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Of course he would . He's waiting for the "Just forget it, I'll sort things myself" . Then he can take the moral high ground and say "Look, I told you I'd do it" .


You're quite right of course. That is just what he'll do..... in about 5 years time!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Dief looks like he's reaching out to the internet community for help...his eyes are imploring us all to do something about his predicament .


Nobody makes fun of the WAYWO Kid you pesky varmint. I'm putting a bounty on your head you no good snake-eyed cattle rustler. There'll be a fair trial followed by a good ole public hanging. Yeehaaar !!


----------



## Twiggy

Happy and relieved to say that little Leafy seems much better this morning and is almost sound.

She's currently 'shouting' because Holly has pinched her toy...LOL


----------



## diefenbaker

Just got back from Havant Parkrun. I don't take Dief.. it's a little too busy for him at the moment I think. Maybe in a few weeks when it's a real mudfest ( that'll please OH ) and the numbers go down. I think I may have PBed again. If I did sub-27 the WAYWO Kid will give a celebratory Yeehaaar !!. Managed a 10K training ( treadmill ) run midweek. That's certainly the furthest in the past 20 years.. if not the past 50. Well.. apart from that time we did a runner from the curry house and they chased us with machetes. That was a 30K run, a 5K swim and a 50K cycle. I need to catch up on all the goings on in WAYWO... falling behind a bit. But I'm absolutely shattered now...... :Yawn:


----------



## diefenbaker

diefenbaker said:


> If I did sub-27 the WAYWO Kid will give a celebratory Yeehaaar !!.


The text has come through..... 26:36..... Yeehaaar !!


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## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> The text has come through..... 26:36..... Yeehaaar !!


Yeehaar indeed :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Well done Dief :thumbup1: .

Twiggy - pleased Leafy's much better .

Good morning here. Pavement walk for Rudi, he was great for me although it was the only break in the torrential rain we've had for days so lots of dogs out. I had to use food to get past the little mini schnauzer going batshit as always and he was so snatchy and stressed I nearly lost a finger :frown2: . Near home we saw the two huskies screaming and howling to get to us with owner just managing to hold them; had to use food then too but no real reaction so Roo was fab. We just pottered and sniffed really and did some bits and pieces of heelwork, hand targetting and hides.

Same deal for Kilo but drove to the sports pitches and went round them and all the open areas around them. He was fabulous for me too .

I feel totally drained today, no idea why. Had to make myself go and walk the CHs which is very rare. Woe is me  . I will take a tissue for my ishoos .


----------



## Twiggy

This is mine and Fidget's 'Yeehaa' moment. Performed to spagetti western music 'Hang Em High':



















It was 16 years ago so the pics are a bit faded (just like me)...


----------



## Dogless

Love the photos Twiggy!!! :thumbup1: .


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Love the photos Twiggy!!! :thumbup1: .


What about this one then; although terribly politically incorrect these days? I found it when I was looking for the yeehaa ones. It's my granddaughter - she was 18 yrs old last week..!!

The dogs were all rescue collie crossbreeds (except for the puppy):


----------



## Symone

Well, got some bad news. Shamaya had a minor epileptic fit today.. She was shaking and kicking for about 5 mins. I phoned the vet after it finished and booked an appointment. Just been and he was the one that said it was a minor epileptic fit. I had no idea that it was that before going to the vet  
He said there's a chance that she'll never have one again, have the odd small one, or she may get full blown seizures. 
She had her blood sugar tested which was fine, her heart beat was a little too fast (He said that could be due to excitement though) and temp. was higher than it should be. She's going in for blood tests next week. 

Will catch up with everyones posts later.. Feel a bit too sad right now. Shamaya has strict instructions to remain calm and not get over excited so she's just getting tons of chin and tummy rubs (her favourites). She's milking it but I don't mind. I think she can tell that I'm upset. 

Otherwise she was a little angel with going there. Their vet surgery in my town was closed for Saturday so I went to the one they own in the next town. She loved the taxi ride. Made me want to buy a car, just for her. And the driver on the way there loved her. The one on the way back didn't like dogs, which made me wonder why he was one of the taxi drivers that say yes to dogs being in their car! 

The vet also hasn't really told me much about how I will care for her if she does have a fit again, if there's any meds or what not. I think he could tell that I was upset.. Or maybe he did say and I didn't take it in. It's like going there was just on auto pilot after he mentioned epilepsy.. Will have to make sure that we have a long talk about it when I take shamaya in for her blood tests.  Am about to google it now.

I'm probably over worrying. After all the vet did say there's a chance she'll never have a fit again.. I suppose it doesn't hurt to be prepared though.


----------



## Twiggy

Symone said:


> Well, got some bad news. Shamaya had a minor epileptic fit today.. She was shaking and kicking for about 5 mins. I phoned the vet after it finished and booked an appointment. Just been and he was the one that said it was a minor epileptic fit. I had no idea that it was that before going to the vet
> He said there's a chance that she'll never have one again, have the odd small one, or she may get full blown seizures.
> She had her blood sugar tested which was fine, her heart beat was a little too fast (He said that could be due to excitement though) and temp. was higher than it should be. She's going in for blood tests next week.
> 
> Will catch up with everyones posts later.. Feel a bit too sad right now. Shamaya has strict instructions to remain calm and not get over excited so she's just getting tons of chin and tummy rubs (her favourites). She's milking it but I don't mind. I think she can tell that I'm upset.
> 
> Otherwise she was a little angel with going there. Their vet surgery in my town was closed for Saturday so I went to the one they own in the next town. She loved the taxi ride. Made me want to buy a car, just for her. And the driver on the way there loved her. The one on the way back didn't like dogs, which made me wonder why he was one of the taxi drivers that say yes to dogs being in their car!
> 
> The vet also hasn't really told me much about how I will care for her if she does have a fit again, if there's any meds or what not. I think he could tell that I was upset.. Or maybe he did say and I didn't take it in. It's like going there was just on auto pilot after he mentioned epilepsy.. Will have to make sure that we have a long talk about it when I take shamaya in for her blood tests.  Am about to google it now.
> 
> I'm probably over worrying. After all the vet did say there's a chance she'll never have a fit again.. I suppose it doesn't hurt to be prepared though.


I'm really, really sorry. Epilepsy is a horrible thing and, unfortunately, rife in collies.

Your vet is right though, she may never have another one or maybe just the occasional petit mal (minor fit).

If you go on the web there is a helpline and a website with lots of useful information.

It's a waiting game now to see if Shamaya fits again before your vet prescribes medication.

My sister's bitch Penny started having fits (full blown ones) at about 2.1/2 yrs old. With careful management (and my sister eventually discovering the trigger) the fits stopped. The bitch also has a heart condition but has been on the same meds for both her heart and the lowest dose possible of Phenobarbitone for years. She coming up for 10 yrs old now and hasn't had a fit for over 6 years...

Try and remain calm and positive.


----------



## Canine K9

Twiggy- Glad everything seems OK and great photos!

Dogless- Well done Roo and Kilo 

Synome- Poor Shamaya- it doesn`t sound nice. I hope everything comes back fine and she or you never have to experience another fit again! 

-------------------------------------------------------
Pretty good day today. Hes being a real lazy toerag. Lounged about most of the morning with just a game of fetch with his bouncy rubber ball and a chew on his rawhide bone. Took him to agility and he did well but got lazy about half way through! He`s made friends with Kiki a Leonberger though!  
He had a bit of a paddy when we got home which I assume was because he was over tired. He has settled now and is lightly sleeping.


----------



## missRV

Symone: So sorry  hope she's ok, getting lots of fuss and it all gets sorted, my friend's dog suffers with seizures, but deffo take the vets advice, it could be a one off.

Caninek9: Well done Bailey  he's such a lovely boy and you can't call him lazy or a toe rag or you'll have me to answer to  


I took Rosie to a different class today for agility and a taster in flyball. She did super well, within a few minutes the lead instructor was on the floor with her and Rosie was loving the attention. She wasn't really digging the flyball (she's not mad for balls!) but she did love running past the hurdles in a straight line. It was amazing that the trainer knew so much about Rosie within a few minutes of meeting her, she picked up on her timidness with other dogs (which she's managed to hide) and gave me some really good strategies. Agility went well too so we will be back there next week. 

She's currently on the bay window barking at Mr Whippy (why on earth he comes in October is beyond me!) 

I'm so pleased she had a good lesson, I was worried sick about her after last week!


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> This is mine and Fidget's 'Yeehaa' moment. Performed to spagetti western music 'Hang Em High':


You've picked one of my favourites. I love all the Eastwood Spaghettis. Although I do have to say in the picture you strike me as more of a Henry Fonda. 'Once Upon a Time in the West' surpasses them all.

This makes me chuckle...

[youtube_browser]cHI6Hl7FUqA[/youtube_browser]


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## diefenbaker

Symone said:


> Well, got some bad news. Shamaya had a minor epileptic fit today..


Don't have any advice as I have no experience of the condition but very sorry it's happened. Fingers crossed for you it doesn't progress into something too bad.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> You've picked one of my favourites. I love all the Eastwood Spaghettis. Although I do have to say in the picture you strike me as more of a Henry Fonda. 'Once Upon a Time in the West' surpasses them all.
> 
> This makes me chuckle...
> 
> [youtube_browser]cHI6Hl7FUqA[/youtube_browser]


We did perform to 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' on one occasion. Make of that what you will...


----------



## Nicki85

Symone- sorry to hear about Shayma. I hope you get to the bottom of it quickly, poor love.
DL- sounds like a good couple of sessions with the boys. Shae still needs treats to get past most dogs lol.
Twiggy- loving the pics!
Deif- loving the bandana- suits him 
Rosie- glad you had fun at the new agility class  
K9- sounds like you have had a nice relaxed pup today!

Separate walks this morning. Out with Shae far longer than expected as met two people we see fairly often so stopped and chatted for a while. Shae was fine very zoomy round the people and dogs but alot of laying down as well to try and get the other dog to play. And no zooming in to the other dog or people- just round the outside! 
Rusty had his super sonic legs on and did a lot of zooming and general running. We met a male BC that we walked part the way round with. They had a good game of chase 

Then Shae had agility, she was a bit tired (probably from all the socialising earlier...) . We were doing rear crosses and she was trying really hard, so hard that one I gave her the command to go left she span on the spot... instead of taking the jump and going left. Just a timing issue on my part! 

Then Rust had another hour walk... played tree agility over the forest and find the tea bag. He was on top form again and very excited about everything. We had our session intrupted twice by two different sets of dogs. All OK, couple of anxious shakes after the second one and he was very willing to sit by me whilst the owner came to collect. He then got pounced on by a big wolf look alike that I thought was going to cause an issue but I recalled and he sprinted back. We sat on the floor whilst the wolf dog circled and woofed at us. We then had some treats and watched the owner attempting to recall/control. After we'd calmed down we carried on. Then to top it all off we met the big black terror that Rust is scared of. Luckily another walker who knows Rust's issues grabbed it (owner in a wheelchair) before it went over to him. Rust was doing his stop and watch... Anyhow, moved on from that and popped him on lead and he had a bit of a (very) quiet growl on the way past- guess he's a bit braver once on lead.

That all sounds quiet manic but it was fine lol.


----------



## Symone

Thanks for all of your kind words  

Twiggy : I'll look up that website now, thanks.  I did have a google earlier but I think I was over whelmed. Calmed down a lot now though.  
I'm glad that Penny is doing fine now.  Gives me hope..  It's great that she hasn't had one for 6 years 

Shamaya seems to be fine at the moment. She did have the shakes as I got her ready to take out out for a quick wee. I calmed her down before we left and she was fine outside. Had Arya with us and it was a nice quick walk. We were all together becuase the OH has a rare day off. 
Nothing exciting happened on the walk apart from a staffy randomly popping around the corner and Arya wanting to play with it!
Going to get the girls more used to singular walks for times when Shamaya just needs a calm wander about. They're happy with them right now, but I will just add more to what we already have.  

Arya's doing better with walking with Shamaya now, no longer is the lead treated like a skipping rope. She does try to sniff everything but I'm getting her more used to having sniffing times when we get to point B. I think she's slowly getting the idea. She does learn really quickly.  She's a bright wee star.


----------



## Dogless

Symone - I am sorry; I don't have any advice and I hope that it was a one off.

Pleased everyone else has had a good day. Just took mine up to the top fields and watched orange and yellow lights whizz about as they played and explored.


----------



## Freddie and frank

hi, just being nosey... and couldn't leave without posting

twiggy, love those photo's :thumbup1:

symone....sorry to hear about shamaya, hope it was a one off.

hello everyone else.


----------



## Dogless

Hi F&F .

Symone - hope that Shamaya's OK today.

Nicki - sounds like you had a crazy day :yikes:.

Went to the forest for the morning this morning, lovely time, the boys were crackers and in full "hunt" mode so goodness knows how far they ran but they behaved so all was good . 

Got home seething with resentment to hubby still in dressing gown with mugs and plates abandoned everywhere. He is back to work on Wednesday and as usual this leave gave the Big Speech about not being lazy and doing more with us. Well, he hasn't as ever; no idea why I get disappointed every time but I do . I'll have 3 weeks on my own to forgive and look forward to seeing him again anyway!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hi F&F .
> 
> Symone - hope that Shamaya's OK today.
> 
> Nicki - sounds like you had a crazy day :yikes:.
> 
> Went to the forest for the morning this morning, lovely time, the boys were crackers and in full "hunt" mode so goodness knows how far they ran but they behaved so all was good .
> 
> Got home seething with resentment to hubby still in dressing gown with mugs and plates abandoned everywhere. He is back to work on Wednesday and as usual this leave gave the Big Speech about not being lazy and doing more with us. Well, he hasn't as ever; no idea why I get disappointed every time but I do . I'll have 3 weeks on my own to forgive and look forward to seeing him again anyway!


Poor you and sending hugs. I'm afraid most of them are a totally different species. I had to bite my lip again yesterday. After dusting and hoovering right through the house, a certain person had a shower before going out last night and what do I find in the bathroom - half a fir tree plus bl..dy talcum powder all over the place...!!

On a happier note I won a brand new pair of running trainers on Ebay last night....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Poor you and sending hugs. I'm afraid most of them are a totally different species. I had to bite my lip again yesterday. After dusting and hoovering right through the house, a certain person had a shower before going out last night and what do I find in the bathroom - half a fir tree plus bl..dy talcum powder all over the place...!!
> 
> On a happier note I won a brand new pair of running trainers on Ebay last night....


I know Twiggy - he will be clueless about the whole thing .

Ooooh what trainers? :thumbsup:.


----------



## Tyton

Hi everyone, sorry been long time lurking again and not posting. 

Symone, really sorry to hear about shamaya. OHs last dog developed epilepsy age 6, sometimes she went weeks seizure free, at other times had several a day. I think when she had a fit he tried to just sit with her and hold her til she was out of it again, help her to water as she got dehydrated aftera fit, then need to keep a really close eye on her as she would get groggy and disorientated for a time afterwards. Will hope was just a one off for Shamaya, or at least that the vetcan help control the fits with meds if that's needed.

I've been trying hard to concentrate on lead work with my three. Tyton is pretty good, but barely controlable physically if he does lunge. I've been taking him a bit more on road walking and he's been walking nicely on a loose leash -apart from a scary incident which involved him trying to jump backwards through a closed gate when an old fella in a mobility scooter stopped to talk to us 

The pups are claiming to have never heard the word 'heel' before and would rather dance on the ends of their leads! Beau had to get corrected and back to heel every few steps, but did improve on the road walk BACK from the fields after an offlead run around. Kahn took 5 min to get down the drive as he wouldn't calm down even to go in a sit for me til I got him focussed. After we got across the common he was then a bit better than Beau even, so some improvements with both today.

Ive been thinking lately, with tge recent thread about letting your dog play with others and with an incident last w/end where Tyton met three lovely big dogs (Great Dane sized but broader and longer haired) that were calmly offlead. Their owner asked if he was ok to meet and if he ever got offlead to play. While I was explaining that he doesn't due to poor recall he went from a sniff to a big paw on one of them and there was a quick scuffle. I realised I don't know how to get from my current practice - attempting to keep my dog sitting quietly with me or standing still to sniff as opposed to whining, jumping, barking, pawing at the other dog; to greeting with maners or knowing how to play? Do I just keep persisting with trying to get calm and control and reduced reactivity or should I be doing anything else to improve their reaction/interactions with other dogs? I think my preferred option at the moment is complete avoidance, but that's not always possible and I think is fuelling the excitement when we do meet others. Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Sorry that turned into a mammoth post!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I know Twiggy - he will be clueless about the whole thing .
> 
> Ooooh what trainers? :thumbsup:.


Not 'posh' ones like yours.... These are Karrimor but they were only £14.00 including postage....!!

I shouldn't think for one minute they'll make me go any faster but never mind. The hearts willing even if the legs are not...


----------



## Dogless

Tyton said:


> Hi everyone, sorry been long time lurking again and not posting.
> 
> Symone, really sorry to hear about shamaya. OHs last dog developed epilepsy age 6, sometimes she went weeks seizure free, at other times had several a day. I think when she had a fit he tried to just sit with her and hold her til she was out of it again, help her to water as she got dehydrated aftera fit, then need to keep a really close eye on her as she would get groggy and disorientated for a time afterwards. Will hope was just a one off for Shamaya, or at least that the vetcan help control the fits with meds if that's needed.
> 
> I've been trying hard to concentrate on lead work with my three. Tyton is pretty good, but barely controlable physically if he does lunge. I've been taking him a bit more on road walking and he's been walking nicely on a loose leash -apart from a scary incident which involved him trying to jump backwards through a closed gate when an old fella in a mobility scooter stopped to talk to us
> 
> The pups are claiming to have never heard the word 'heel' before and would rather dance on the ends of their leads! Beau had to get corrected and back to heel every few steps, but did improve on the road walk BACK from the fields after an offlead run around. Kahn took 5 min to get down the drive as he wouldn't calm down even to go in a sit for me til I got him focussed. After we got across the common he was then a bit better than Beau even, so some improvements with both today.
> 
> Ive been thinking lately, with tge recent thread about letting your dog play with others and with an incident last w/end where Tyton met three lovely big dogs (Great Dane sized but broader and longer haired) that were calmly offlead. Their owner asked if he was ok to meet and if he ever got offlead to play. While I was explaining that he doesn't due to poor recall he went from a sniff to a big paw on one of them and there was a quick scuffle. I realised I don't know how to get from my current practice - attempting to keep my dog sitting quietly with me or standing still to sniff as opposed to whining, jumping, barking, pawing at the other dog; to greeting with maners or knowing how to play? Do I just keep persisting with trying to get calm and control and reduced reactivity or should I be doing anything else to improve their reaction/interactions with other dogs? I think my preferred option at the moment is complete avoidance, but that's not always possible and I think is fuelling the excitement when we do meet others. Any advice on this would be appreciated.
> 
> Sorry that turned into a mammoth post!


Kilo (when he was walked anywhere near other dogs!!) used to hate dogs who put their paws on his back or round his neck by way of introduction - not that he was perfect himself, but that was a bugbear of his. Maybe rather than a static meet you could walk alongside calm dogs or around them until Tyton's calm and responding to you and then let him offlead if the area's secure (for the poor recall thing!)? I also reward any calming signals or good behaviour. For example if Kilo isn't sure about things he will usually lie down and look away "I'm not here, honest, I won't hurt you" which I am working on having as a default when he spots another dog with friendly dogs that we know in the hope that he will do that when we finally do start to see strange dogs, rather than returning a posture and stare if one is offered to him. I hope someone has some better advice for you - Rudi likes to be with me and Kilo no longer meets dogs!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Not 'posh' ones like yours.... These are Karrimor but they were only £14.00 including postage....!!
> 
> I shouldn't think for one minute they'll make me go any faster but never mind. The hearts willing even if the legs are not...


Of course they'll make you go faster Twiggy, new trainers always do :laugh:. In my mind, anyway!!!


----------



## Bagrat

Although silent I have been trying to play catch up but can't possibly respond to all the traumas, successes and OH bashing ( with which I concur wholeheartedly). I can say categorically that all talk of running, trainers and other accessories for indulging in physical activity go right over my head. It is hard enough for me to turn and jog happily away aka BAT and Grisha Stewart!!

I think we all deserve lots of small smelly treats and frequent reminders not to blame ourselves for our beloved dogs shortcomings. Ditto the fact that they do not miraculously improve consistently is not our fault either.

A couple of days ago Jackson was distracted successfully ( or so I was led to believe)from encounters with three dogs when out with OH. Well, he didn't bark(J) but had to be dragged away I gather. Also parked cars were used as a shield to good effect. The following day this had all proved too much I fear (is that stacking??). I remember GR warning me about the effect of good behaviour before! and on my outing everything from a leaf to a bag was a cause for concern.

Today we went to my favourite walk for J up a bridle path where I have only ever seen two dogs. Halfway back to the car he was excited by something and he started with scorpion tail and tall dog leaning forward so we returned very slowly one step at a time as well as a load of circles as we try not to walk forward when he is pulling. Never did find out what it was.

Wondered whether I should have been doing BAT even though I didn't know what the trigger was!!

Anyway keep smiling.


----------



## Twiggy

Bagrat said:


> Although silent I have been trying to play catch up but can't possibly respond to all the traumas, successes and OH bashing ( with which I concur wholeheartedly). * I can say categorically that all talk of running,* *trainers and other accessories for indulging in physical activity go right over my head. It is hard enough for me to turn and jog happily away aka BAT and Grisha Stewart!!*
> 
> And me...!! Which is why I gave up agility 20 odd years ago and HTM about 13 yrs ago.
> 
> Unfortunately my young rescue collie seems to prefer agility to obedience work and I've got to do something with her.
> 
> I couldn't run 20 years ago and believe me my 'running' is pathetic now - I'm much too old.


----------



## Dogless

Really nice to see you posting Bagrat . Pleased that things are ticking along for you and J .

Twiggy - I reckon you'd still give lots of folk a run for their money :thumbsup: .


----------



## Nicki85

Not a particularly exciting day here...
Swimming this morning inbetween the rain- lovely! Two other people seemed to be a tad lost as they must have walked past us 3 times or so... didn't ask for directions though! Shae did a lovely recall when she spotted a dog on the far side of the field when we entered the open area.

We were supposed to have agility this afternoon but it was too wet  So we went for a walk round a part of the common that we haven't been to before. Rust on lead as one of those stretches that is long and narrow with roads either side- no good for a hunting Spaniel. Anyhow, they had a fab time- Shae trotting along in front and Rust bouncing around on his lead... he is a happy lad on the lead- tail going, nose down bouncing away. 
There was thunder and lighting and it was tipping it down but we still had fun. Dogs looked a bit puzzled when it thundered but that was it! 

Might do some balance work with them when/if they wake up!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Really nice to see you posting Bagrat . Pleased that things are ticking along for you and J .
> 
> Twiggy - *I reckon you'd still give lots of folk a run for their money* :thumbsup: .


It's when the competitive edge kicks in....


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Not a particularly exciting day here...
> Swimming this morning inbetween the rain- lovely! Two other people seemed to be a tad lost as they must have walked past us 3 times or so... didn't ask for directions though! Shae did a lovely recall when she spotted a dog on the far side of the field when we entered the open area.
> 
> We were supposed to have agility this afternoon but it was too wet  So we went for a walk round a part of the common that we haven't been to before. Rust on lead as one of those stretches that is long and narrow with roads either side- no good for a hunting Spaniel. Anyhow, they had a fab time- Shae trotting along in front and Rust bouncing around on his lead... he is a happy lad on the lead- tail going, nose down bouncing away.
> There was thunder and lighting and it was tipping it down but we still had fun. Dogs looked a bit puzzled when it thundered but that was it!
> 
> Might do some balance work with them when/if they wake up!


I have a nasty feeling our agility class will probably be cancelled tomorrow afternoon as well as it talks of heavy rain..


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It's when the competitive edge kicks in....


I understand that very well :laugh:.


----------



## Twiggy

Here's another classic from hubby...:thumbdown:

In between a pile of ironing and several telephone calls I cooked a roast tonight for dinner. As we ladies know, that means rather a lot of saucepans, roasting tin, etc. to be washed up. I'm damned sure whilst I was answering the phone, hubby went into the kitchen, saw the big pile of dishes and made sure he was engrossed in some drivel on the TV.....!!

I uttered a few expletives whilst I was washing up.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Here's another classic from hubby...:thumbdown:
> 
> In between a pile of ironing and several telephone calls I cooked a roast tonight for dinner. As we ladies know, that means rather a lot of saucepans, roasting tin, etc. to be washed up. I'm damned sure whilst I was answering the phone, hubby went into the kitchen, saw the big pile of dishes and made sure he was engrossed in some drivel on the TV.....!!
> 
> I uttered a few expletives whilst I was washing up.


Yup. Then you do it and again "You should have left that darling, I was going to do it". Of course you were .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yup. Then you do it and again "You should have left that darling, I was going to do it". Of course you were .


Laziness is yet another of their endearing traits.....

btw One of the phone calls this evening was from one of my Wednesday class members to say her Sheltie had won his last Class B today, making him 'C only'. I think there are only two other Shelties in the UK working the top class....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Laziness is yet another of their endearing traits.....
> 
> btw One of the phone calls this evening was from one of my Wednesday class members to say her Sheltie had won his last Class B today, making him 'C only'. I think there are only two other Shelties in the UK working the top class....


Great news Twiggy; bet you're proud .

Part of the Grand Speech is stopping being so lazy and doing things with the dogs and I :mad2::mad5:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Great news Twiggy; bet you're proud .
> 
> _I'll be even prouder when the Jack Russell wins her last Class B... She'll be the *only *JRT that's C only._
> 
> Part of the Grand Speech is stopping being so lazy and doing things with the dogs and I :mad2::mad5:.


_In your dreams I'm afraid._


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> _In your dreams I'm afraid._


I know; yet he gets frustrated on the few times per year he does come out as the dogs don't "listen" to him. They're attentive, they just don't have a flipping clue what he wants :eek6:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Ok i haven't done a 'proper' post for a while  so here we go seems as the OH has been dropped off at work, willow has been walked and we're back in bed with a cuppa  - i actually have spare time :eek6:

Willows itching has got soo much better... a patch on her tail is now growing back, the fur on her hocks is growing back and she isn't licking her paws constantly like it's an OCD . 
Ears are still a re-occurring issue which we manage but i'm thinking of trying 'thornit powder' to see if that increases the length of time between flare ups.
(This angered me soo much yesterday, i am still lost for words :angry: .. 2 year old Shar Pei free to a good home | Birmingham, West Midlands | Pets4Homes .. :incazzato: fudging disgusting owners! If i was near to there i'd of got her! :sad: )

Walks wise, last night she had a grumble at a dog that was across the road  the dog was pulling and growling at her.. willow just threw a wobbler and lunged with a bark  *stands on square one* .. yet she did a super 'leave it' from her cat on the window sill that she looks for on every walk!

We're still just doing the usual clicker stuff and whistle re-calls  OH shocked me when he was asking his mum about teaching Frank recall and that the whistle was the best way and how well i'd done teaching it to willow and he's sure i'd help her as it's one of the most important things to teach from a young age... At this point i thought who is this guy and where's my OH?!! He also recommended the clicker :eek6: the thing he laughs at most and once said it was 'weird and pointless..'  Obviously me ignoring him and just showing him what me and willow get up to whilst he's not around has actually sunk in 

Also working on her excitement.. i love her getting excited but she muddles stuff up! Sit becomes hover bum off the ground and still move around. Stay becomes lie down and army crawl. Lie down becomes go and run and jump onto the setee, play bow whilst on setee, then come back to lie down.  So instead of getting all tangled up trying to put her harness on for a walk, she only gets it on once she's nice and calm in a sit. She's getting the idea  (seems as treats are now involved if she's quick enough)

Nothing new from us really... just a little review of things so far 

Oh.. she now also knows 'wheres ya nip nips?' means roll over for a tummy rub :laugh: .. oops!  

I also found a video of her in the centre before we brought her home, OH was trying to put treats on the floor for her and she had no self control at all and would not let him put them down before her mouth was there :drool: ! Funny to realize how far she's come along


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Ok i haven't done a 'proper' post for a while  so here we go seems as the OH has been dropped off at work, willow has been walked and we're back in bed with a cuppa  - i actually have spare time :eek6:
> 
> Willows itching has got soo much better... a patch on her tail is now growing back, the fur on her hocks is growing back and she isn't licking her paws constantly like it's an OCD .
> Ears are still a re-occurring issue which we manage but i'm thinking of trying 'thornit powder' to see if that increases the length of time between flare ups.
> (This angered me soo much yesterday, i am still lost for words :angry: .. 2 year old Shar Pei free to a good home | Birmingham, West Midlands | Pets4Homes .. :incazzato: fudging disgusting owners! If i was near to there i'd of got her! :sad: )
> 
> Walks wise, last night she had a grumble at a dog that was across the road  the dog was pulling and growling at her.. willow just threw a wobbler and lunged with a bark  *stands on square one* .. yet she did a super 'leave it' from her cat on the window sill that she looks for on every walk!
> 
> We're still just doing the usual clicker stuff and whistle re-calls  OH shocked me when he was asking his mum about teaching Frank recall and that the whistle was the best way and how well i'd done teaching it to willow and he's sure i'd help her as it's one of the most important things to teach from a young age... *At this point i thought who is this guy and where's my OH?!! He also recommended the clicker :eek6: the thing he laughs at most and once said it was 'weird and pointless..'  Obviously me ignoring him and just showing him what me and willow get up to whilst he's not around has actually sunk in  *
> 
> Also working on her excitement.. i love her getting excited but she muddles stuff up! Sit becomes hover bum off the ground and still move around. Stay becomes lie down and army crawl. Lie down becomes go and run and jump onto the setee, play bow whilst on setee, then come back to lie down.  So instead of getting all tangled up trying to put her harness on for a walk, she only gets it on once she's nice and calm in a sit. She's getting the idea  (seems as treats are now involved if she's quick enough)
> 
> Nothing new from us really... just a little review of things so far
> 
> Oh.. she now also knows 'wheres ya nip nips?' means roll over for a tummy rub :laugh: .. oops!
> 
> I also found a video of her in the centre before we brought her home, OH was trying to put treats on the floor for her and she had no self control at all and would not let him put them down before her mouth was there :drool: ! Funny to realize how far she's come along


What...!! Is your OH an eminent brain surgeon or barrister? After almost 40 years my husband still hasn't mastered that 'sit' and 'down' are two separate commands...


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> What...!! Is your OH an eminent brain surgeon or barrister? After almost 40 years my husband still hasn't mastered that 'sit' and 'down' are two separate commands...


:laugh: .. He makes office furniture, dab hand at DIY .. I'll send him to help with your agility equipment  . Although my bathroom flooring is priority atm.. Will see how long these 'japenese ash wood planks' , that he's proudly brought home from work and cut to size himself, are sat outside the bathroom for...  .. Then he's all yours  .. I'll pay you to foster him??


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> :laugh: .. He makes office furniture, dab hand at DIY .. I'll send him to help with your agility equipment  . Although my bathroom flooring is priority atm.. Will see how long these 'japenese ash wood planks' , that he's proudly brought home from work and cut to size himself, are sat outside the bathroom for...  .. Then he's all yours  .. I'll pay you to foster him??


Ooh yes please..... Perhaps he could make a start on all the projects my hubby has yet to begin....(and never will).


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Ooh yes please..... Perhaps he could make a start on all the projects my hubby has yet to begin....(and never will).


Well mines great at begining! He struggles with the finishing (although when he talks about work he seems to be 'king finisher'  )
.. So you could train him on finishing, beers/home made food will motivate him for his 'reward' .. Or someone else will have to lend their OH to complete the job  i'm sure if we all pull together your equipment will come along nicely :thumbsup:


----------



## Nicki85

Good morning here. Took them out for an hour and half or so for some off lead free time. We went to a quiet area of forest and I basically let them get on with it (apart from the usual recalls and i'm going this way!) and they had a blast running around. We saw two people with dogs and both times they recalled nicely (well, as usual Shae recalled and Rusty waited) and waited for them to pass. Shae had a woof (one woof lol) at a BC running past and a bit of a naughty grrr (frustration at not being able to say hi) at the second. No drama, I find it strange that she is a lot more vocal if we don't see many people. If we see lots then she is perfect. 

On the way out of the forest we cross over to another patch of common land... there were three (Norfolk?) terriers in the carpark, all off lead. It's one of those car parks that is just a pull in area off the road. The owner(s?) were chattering away and the next thing I know is that one of the Terriers is darting across the road to come see us! Owner then comes running over with another Terrier in her arms... Apparently it had been naughty and jumped out of the car with out its lead on.... No harm done, we waited with it whilst owner got control but it is a busy road. Shae gave a running commentary of whines and grrs coupled with little woofs here and there as this was going on (obviously my two were on lead!). She really doesn't have an aggressive bone in her body but she is blooming vocal- especially on lead!

Did wonder if I should give them a bit of helpful advice- ie. don't let your dog near roads without having complete control of them.... 

JS- sounds like Willow is doing well with her commands  And well done on the progress from when you got her 

No thoughts on the OH front- I think this is one of the reasons I like being single!!


----------



## ciarasmum

Am gonna catch up properly with everyone later or tomorrow. There are so many new pages since I last came on  and don't want to miss anyone.

Had a lovely walk today. 2.5hrs round Tatton Park in the pouring rain. Saw a few dogs but all sensible owners so no issues. It's full of deer and now sheep. Ciara never bothers about the deer as they're mostly all just still but today 2 were rutting and ran straight towards us. I'd put her on lead when I'd seen them rutting and we both stood still as they flew past us. Later on they appeared out of nowhere, Ciara ran a few feet to give chase but a well timed recall made her come back. I did feel a little guilty as instead of the usual high pitched friendly recall, I was a bit panicky so probably barked 'come here' but made sure she had lots of fuss for listening. Back on lead then past the rest but she wasn't interested in those. 

Last night wasn't so great. We were walking by the canal and passed 2 dogs, all dogs were off lead (I'd kept Ciara off because I didn't know they were there until I was literally right next to them in the dark). Ciara sniffed bums with one and it had a proper snap at her face. She backed off and came away. We then met them again but in a more lit area. Put her on lead and moved out of the way. They put one of their dogs on lead after seeing us and exclaiming 'oh f-ing hell' (charming) but didn't put the other on. So we had to wait on a narrow path while the off lead one went past, Ciara grumbled at it but I wasn't sure if it was the one that had snapped at her or not. 

Anyway, better walk today. I love the rain! I was supposed to be going up the moors but I only have wellies and didn't fancy clambering over slippy rocks


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## Twiggy

Well agility was on....!!

It was throwing it down to start with and very, very muddy. I didn't go very well and neither did Holly.

To be fair they run it as a business so I suppose unless it's either frozen solid or several feet of snow the classes run.

To be honest I can't see them lasting the winter in that field - it's just going to be a quagmire.

The back of my car is now disgusting and I had to wash Holly's legs and my wet weather suit when I got home.


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## tiatortilla

Twiggy - That sounds... muddy lol.

Ciarasmum - Glad you had a nice walk today. Well done to Ciara for not chasing the deer 

Nicki - It's worrying when people are so careless about their dogs isn't it. Sounds like a nice walk overall though 

JSW - All sounds fab 

Bagrat - That was a lovely, encouraging post. Pleased things are going well!

Symone - Really sorry to hear about Shamaya. I hope it isn't too serious.

Dogless - So happy for you that you could take both boys running, great that Kilo is relaxed enough .

Sorry to anyone I haven't replied to, I have managed to catch up but that's as much as I remembered from 9 or so pages!

---

Things here are difficult, if I'm honest. I've done my "it's the end of the world" thing before posting this time and I am trying to be all sensible about it instead of just panicking but I'm really not coping well.

Tia has been reactive to people at night time for quite a while, I don't think I've ever really brought it up on here as I felt we were dealing with it okay. It's not everyone by any means, just the occasional person that's being shouty/drunk/otherwise irritating and I think a lot of it is picking up fear from me because I'm really nervous around people at night.

However, I think it's escalating. There has been a few people in the day time that she's barked at lately, in every instance except one (I'll get to that) the person has been acting strangely in some way.
For example the other day we were walking along a street, a lady was stood behind her front gate and froze when she saw us coming. It was fine until we were level with the gate then Tia did a skittish sort of jump, I don't think she realised the woman was there but the woman made an odd noise and leapt back (I assume she was scared of dogs but Tia didn't do anything and she was on the other side of a gate) which scared the life out of Tia, who then barked. That sort of thing I can deal with, but the thing that's really worried me was her growling at someone who hadn't done anything... we were waiting to cross the road and the walked behind us and Tia just swung round and growled. Obviously it shocked the hell out of me and them, I just feel awful about it. The only thing I can think is that there was a dog a little way up the road and maybe they'd been stroking it, or she just smelled it and sensed movement behind her and panicked but obviously that isn't okay on any level.
The thing is it seems really random, although I suppose it isn't to her. Like we went to the wedding last month and she was just fantastic, so friendly and happy and relaxed with people and there were so many people there.. I can't get my head around why that isn't stressful to her but two people walking behind her can be.
I know she isn't aggressive, she's just ridiculously vocal about anything that worries her but I have been thinking about muzzling her just so it looks better on me, if that makes sense. If someone thinks she's aggressive then they'd be less worried if she was muzzled.. idk.

I've been thinking and I don't think Tia is happy where we live. We don't have a garden so I don't have any option but to take her out into the street for wees and it does get very busy out there, particularly at weekends. I think she's really stressed out a lot of the time, the noise from drunk people at the weekends really bothers her and there are dogs walking past very frequently.
I know she is happy a lot of the time, when she's running about on a walk or playing with her toys or getting cuddles or rolling around the living room floor on her back lol... but I also think she spends a lot of time feeling stressed and it's causing her to be more reactive generally. I know how she feels, I'd rather live in the middle of nowhere too but unfortunately moving isn't really an option any time soon.
I know it's impacting on me too, Idk if some of you know I struggle with my mental health and anxiety is quite a big part of it. I feel stressed just stepping out my front door in case there's something there she might kick off at, and also the horrible guilt I feel that I'm not doing enough to make her happy.. Money is a real issue because I can't work right now and if I could afford it I'd have got a behaviourist in months ago, and I do feel terrible that I didn't think of things like that when I got her but hindsight is a wonderful thing and all that. I didn't know she would end up with issues, I don't think I even knew behaviourists existed, I just planned for the "normal" dog owning things like vet bills, food, toys etc.

So anyway, I know this is really long and I'm sorry to always do this in WAYWO but everyone who posts in here is lovely and I'm feeling ridiculously fragile right now so don't really want to open up my stressed out ranting to critique from some of the harsher members of the forum.

I do have a plan in place with using the remedy stuff that Twiggy has suggested (just need to wait until I have a spare £20 that hasn't already been allocated for something else!) and possibly muzzling just so I'm not stressed about what people think but I needed to get all that out. Thankyou if you actually read all of that!


----------



## sharloid

It sounds like most people have had some good walks this weekend. 

We went to an Alaskan Malanute rescue fun day on Saturday and the Robin Hood country fair on Sunday. I was dreading having all 3 dogs out with us but they were fine, I had a very good weekend. They had a go at a couple of activities and won some rosettes at the dog show on Sunday (Yla came 1st in coolest puppy, Kindra came 4th in prettiest bitch and we came 3rd in best family).

I'm very pleased with Broder, he reacts more to huskies and mals but there were no frustrated grumbles or anything and he got to say hello to lots of dogs.

Here he is having a go at agility:


----------



## Nicki85

I'm surprised it was on... i'm always concerned about slipping and it causing injury. Especially with contact equipment and tunnel entries! Saying that, I am overly protective of Rust even though he probably doesn't need my help.

Took the pups over to the field where there is usually loads of dogs to do some socialisation/ control round other dog work. There wasn't many lol. I'm starting to think i'll never get Shae to spot a dog without reacting (a little bit). To be fair its usually a quiet grr and thats it as I distract her with a treat. Once distracted a dog can come to within a foot of her and then the greeting is absolutely what i'd look for in a young dog- polite and then ask to play. I don't allow offlead greetings often so i'm not sure how she reacts in these situations but if I am caught of guard she never causes the other dog offence. Again its strange as if there are lots of dogs or it is a busy environment then there is no reaction. 
She is a very vocal dog in general so I wonder if its just all part of it! 

Ciara- Well done with the deer, wouldn't stand a chance with Rusty... The evening walk- sometimes you can't help these things and the situation sets you up for a "fail" (although, it wasn't that big a fail by the sounds of it!!)


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> What...!! Is your OH an eminent brain surgeon or barrister? After almost 40 years my husband still hasn't mastered that 'sit' and 'down' are two separate commands...


And that, Twiggy, gives me a glimpse of what my future holds for me :sosp:.

*JSW* - very glad to hear that Willow's itching's better and it made me smile about realising how far she's come after you saw the video. I'll bet you're really proud - I would be .

*Ciarasmum* - sounds like you needed today's good walk after last night's encounter. Some people are charm itself  .

Went trail running with the CHs today for a couple of hours. Punishing route with lots of bog and hills....anger management tool (me in a low woe is me mood still + hubby not doing anything with us type spat  ). Came home feeling better; hubby was waiting as he wanted to go furniture shopping...so we did and then into PAH for a few secret santa bits and bobs. Long day somehow yet not much done :Yawn:.

A boast - met the Game Warden and his wife as I ran over the brow of a hill. Looked for the dogs - ranging around behind me and they had come in right behind me and stood still (relaxed, not fixated) for their leads on. Best boys :001_wub::aureola:.


----------



## Kicksforkills

Dexter had an operation today to remove three puppy teeth.

This is what he was like when he got home:

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/...47C1884F-434-0000004AACBE9F53_zps7cc40e66.mp4

His teeth;

http://i.imgur.com/xKGfVAw.jpg


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## Dogless

TT - I am sorry that you struggle so much with anxiety; it really compounds things doesn't it? I can identify with struggling with the idea that where you live not being the best for your dog - but have no advice at all bar factoring in a plan to move if that is what you want and is within your scope. I think that a muzzle is a good idea even if it is just to relax you. I think Tia is quite small but if she would fit a size 4 Baskerville Ultra I can send you one (got the wrong size for Kilo initially..it only fitted over the end of his nose really!!!).


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> TT - I am sorry that you struggle so much with anxiety; it really compounds things doesn't it? I can identify with struggling with the idea that where you live not being the best for your dog - but have no advice at all bar factoring in a plan to move if that is what you want and is within your scope. I think that a muzzle is a good idea even if it is just to relax you. I think Tia is quite small but if she would fit a size 4 Baskerville Ultra I can send you one (got the wrong size for Kilo initially..it only fitted over the end of his nose really!!!).


Thankyou. Yeah it does make things worse because we feed off each other I think, it makes what should be a small-ish problem into a huge one because of my inability to deal with anything stressful.

About moving... basically, we rent at the moment. Our rent is insanely cheap for the size of our house, we have a lovely landlord who allows the dog and won't kick us out if the rent is a teeny bit late occasionally. It's a difficult thing to give up, if that makes sense? The only kind of place we could get for the same price probably wouldn't be in the right kind of area either and we'd be paying for a box. I desperately want to move because I'm not keen on being this close to town either but it's a really big decision to make and could potentially be a terrible idea because of losing out on the benefits I mentioned. This is going to sound awful, but I still have a Great Grandma (not something most people in their 20s can say!) and sadly, that does mean I'll probably be getting some inheritance in the next few years, so it'd be a lot easier to move when that does happen and putting a deposit on a house is a possibility rather than trying to find somewhere else to rent.

I'm not sure what size muzzle Tia would need, she is quite little but she's relatively big for a Staffy. I will have a look at the sizes, do they have them on the website? Thankyou so much for that offer, really appreciated .


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> I'm not sure what size muzzle Tia would need, she is quite little but she's relatively big for a Staffy. I will have a look at the sizes, do they have them on the website? Thankyou so much for that offer, really appreciated .


Yes, think they are on website. Failing that you could try one for size in a pet shop and not buy!


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Yes, think they are on website. Failing that you could try one for size in a pet shop and not buy!


We only have one pet shop around here, their stock is quite limited and definitely no muzzles! It's mainly food and a few cheap toys, nothing decent unfortunately.

Okay I've had a look at the sizing, don't have a tape measure to hand and Tia is asleep so I won't wake her up to start fiddling with her face lol and I'm useless at guessing but I will measure her later and let you know. Thanks so much for that .


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> We only have one pet shop around here, their stock is quite limited and definitely no muzzles! It's mainly food and a few cheap toys, nothing decent unfortunately.
> 
> Okay I've had a look at the sizing, don't have a tape measure to hand and Tia is asleep so I won't wake her up to start fiddling with her face lol and I'm useless at guessing but I will measure her later and let you know. Thanks so much for that .


Well, I'll send it for free (of course) and as I am never going to use it for my dogs then if it doesn't fit Tia maybe you could give it to a local rescue?


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Well, I'll send it for free (of course) and as I am never going to use it for my dogs then if it doesn't fit Tia maybe you could give it to a local rescue?


Aw well if you're happy to do that it would be really great. Do you want me to pay for the postage, surely it will cost a fair bit to send?


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Aw well if you're happy to do that it would be really great. Do you want me to pay for the postage, surely it will cost a fair bit to send?


No thank you, it's fine. If you could PM me an address where I can send it (if you trust me ) then I'll get it done. I have sent things to a fair few folk on here if that puts your mind at ease any!!


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> No thank you, it's fine. If you could PM me an address where I can send it (if you trust me ) then I'll get it done. I have sent things to a fair few folk on here if that puts your mind at ease any!!


Thankyou so much, you're a star . Will PM you now!


----------



## Bagrat

TiaTortilla
I can understand your angst. Our street walks are very short at present as Jackson seems to be ramping up very quickly especially with me. I give off so much adrenaline I think he inhales it, also being anxious does not make me fight or flee just seems to turn my brain to mush. I think that's why he's (allegedly) better with OH who is oblivious to some of his signals.
I think as long as you are doing the best you can then you should be able to give yourself a pat on the back. Just think what Tia would be like in some families!!
A while back taught J to close door.Now if he wants to be noticed he nudges anything that moves -doors, washing machine door, table leaf that hangs down and squeaks if he pushes it. I thought he knew "go play" meant training over but apparently not. We had non stop door closing for 10 minutes tonight. I had to reward the good ones in the end!!


----------



## tiatortilla

Bagrat said:


> TiaTortilla
> I can understand your angst. Our street walks are very short at present as Jackson seems to be ramping up very quickly especially with me. I give off so much adrenaline I think he inhales it, also being anxious does not make me fight or flee just seems to turn my brain to mush. I think that's why he's (allegedly) better with OH who is oblivious to some of his signals.
> I think as long as you are doing the best you can then you should be able to give yourself a pat on the back. Just think what Tia would be like in some families!!


Thankyou . I know exactly what you mean, OH only takes her out for short toilet walks in the mornings but apparently her reactions are much less extreme with him, I think it's because he doesn't really worry about it like I do!

Love the video, Jackson is so cute! I love his little sit afterwards, Tia does that too like "Look at how good I am! Treats pleeeease!".


----------



## GingerRogers

Tia - as you know I muzzle ninja and thats more for my own peace of mind. It really has helped as I can relax when loose dogs run up. Well in theory 

I will sound a bit been there done it  but she is also reactive to, well everything, , but people, and randomly like Tia, and particularly at night or when we are out in the middle of nowhere. I do feel a muzzle helps the perception a bit. Although not to the girl we passed on Saturday who leapt out the way when ninj made a noise like a sheep  At the very least you know that they cant make contact although it doesnt sound like tia is likely too.

However again a bit of encouragement, we can walk on the beach in the near dark and ninja hasn't barked at any of the people we have seen for weeks. You say Tia is random but any thing can seem strange to dogs, skin colour (another one we conquered) umbrellas anything that changes the outline of the person, ninja doesnt seem to like old people walking along the street, I think its because they shuffle, BUT nor does she like people approaching from behind .

I do hope you can relax, it doesnt sound like the situation in which you live is the best for keeping stress down but we have to make do with what we have. Chin up  its not as bad as you think and you are a very caring owner thats easy for anyone to see, thats all that Tia really needs.

Ninja does bark at the yellow labs that charge up to us growling like tonight  I was terrified as I had forgotten the muzzle  but thankfully her barking in turn scared it off. She had maybe 15 secs of reaction and then did a MASSIVE shakeoff, so pretty pleased with her really , she was pretty cool this morning as well, and the weekend was fairly nice and calm. Pretty pleased with the munchkin.

Symone hope shamaya is ok and it was a one off


----------



## Canine K9

Ginger-Well done Ninja 

Will look through everyone else`s soon 
----------------------------------
Today I took Bailey to the field and local park with the enclosed area. Ended up cutting it short since the local dog walking idiots made an appearance. 
Tomorrow we will be trying a new walk providing I don`t get lost (again ).
His behavior has been pretty good, selective recall again but we`ll get there!


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> Tia - as you know I muzzle ninja and thats more for my own peace of mind. It really has helped as I can relax when loose dogs run up. Well in theory
> 
> I will sound a bit been there done it  but she is also reactive to, well everything, , but people, and randomly like Tia, and particularly at night or when we are out in the middle of nowhere. I do feel a muzzle helps the perception a bit. Although not to the girl we passed on Saturday who leapt out the way when ninj made a noise like a sheep  At the very least you know that they cant make contact although it doesnt sound like tia is likely too.
> 
> However again a bit of encouragement, we can walk on the beach in the near dark and ninja hasn't barked at any of the people we have seen for weeks. You say Tia is random but any thing can seem strange to dogs, skin colour (another one we conquered) umbrellas anything that changes the outline of the person, ninja doesnt seem to like old people walking along the street, I think its because they shuffle, BUT nor does she like people approaching from behind .
> 
> I do hope you can relax, it doesnt sound like the situation in which you live is the best for keeping stress down but we have to make do with what we have.  Chin up  its not as bad as you think and you are a very caring owner thats easy for anyone to see, thats all that Tia really needs.
> 
> Ninja does bark at the yellow labs that charge up to us growling like tonight  I was terrified as I had forgotten the muzzle  but thankfully her barking in turn scared it off. She had maybe 15 secs of reaction and then did a MASSIVE shakeoff, so pretty pleased with her really , she was pretty cool this morning as well, and the weekend was fairly nice and calm. Pretty pleased with the munchkin.
> 
> Symone hope shamaya is ok and it was a one off


Yeah I was just saying to Dogless in PM that I don't think she really "needs" a muzzle at all tbh but on a dog that could easily be misjudged as acting aggressively, it just looks more responsible and while I really don't think she would bite even another dog as she's had ample opportunity to but never has, but like you say it's just peace of mind in case anything ever does push her too far.
Thankyou for saying I'm a caring owner, I do try  and thanks for the encouragement too.

Sorry about the labs, but it sounds like Ginge wasn't too stressed out by it


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> I'm surprised it was on... i'm always concerned about slipping and it causing injury. Especially with contact equipment and tunnel entries! Saying that, I am overly protective of Rust even though he probably doesn't need my help.
> 
> If it gets too bad I shan't be going. The contact equipment is all non-slip surface but as you rightly say it's the tunnel entries and also skidding on turns between jumps, etc.
> 
> Took the pups over to the field where there is usually loads of dogs to do some socialisation/ control round other dog work. There wasn't many lol. I'm starting to think i'll never get Shae to spot a dog without reacting (a little bit). To be fair its usually a quiet grr and thats it as I distract her with a treat. Once distracted a dog can come to within a foot of her and then the greeting is absolutely what i'd look for in a young dog- polite and then ask to play. I don't allow offlead greetings often so i'm not sure how she reacts in these situations but if I am caught of guard she never causes the other dog offence. Again its strange as if there are lots of dogs or it is a busy environment then there is no reaction.
> She is a very vocal dog in general so I wonder if its just all part of it!
> 
> Does it really matter if Shae reacts a bit, especially if she doesn't cause offence? Generally most dogs don't react in a busy environment and where there are a lot of dogs; It's much more likely to be in a quiet place when one 'strange' person or dog appears.


----------



## Canine K9

Also another little issue of ours lately. When another dog greets him his ears go back, tail tucked and tries to escape it. When the dog lays off him he goes in for a sniff usually then gets anxious again. Its really confusing :sosp:


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Twiggy - That sounds... muddy lol.
> 
> ---
> 
> Things here are difficult, if I'm honest. I've done my "it's the end of the world" thing before posting this time and I am trying to be all sensible about it instead of just panicking but I'm really not coping well.
> 
> Tia has been reactive to people at night time for quite a while, I don't think I've ever really brought it up on here as I felt we were dealing with it okay. It's not everyone by any means, just the occasional person that's being shouty/drunk/otherwise irritating and I think a lot of it is picking up fear from me because I'm really nervous around people at night.
> 
> However, I think it's escalating. There has been a few people in the day time that she's barked at lately, in every instance except one (I'll get to that) the person has been acting strangely in some way.
> For example the other day we were walking along a street, a lady was stood behind her front gate and froze when she saw us coming. It was fine until we were level with the gate then Tia did a skittish sort of jump, I don't think she realised the woman was there but the woman made an odd noise and leapt back (I assume she was scared of dogs but Tia didn't do anything and she was on the other side of a gate) which scared the life out of Tia, who then barked. That sort of thing I can deal with, but the thing that's really worried me was her growling at someone who hadn't done anything... we were waiting to cross the road and the walked behind us and Tia just swung round and growled. Obviously it shocked the hell out of me and them, I just feel awful about it. The only thing I can think is that there was a dog a little way up the road and maybe they'd been stroking it, or she just smelled it and sensed movement behind her and panicked but obviously that isn't okay on any level.
> The thing is it seems really random, although I suppose it isn't to her. Like we went to the wedding last month and she was just fantastic, so friendly and happy and relaxed with people and there were so many people there.. I can't get my head around why that isn't stressful to her but two people walking behind her can be.
> I know she isn't aggressive, she's just ridiculously vocal about anything that worries her but I have been thinking about muzzling her just so it looks better on me, if that makes sense. If someone thinks she's aggressive then they'd be less worried if she was muzzled.. idk.
> 
> I've been thinking and I don't think Tia is happy where we live. We don't have a garden so I don't have any option but to take her out into the street for wees and it does get very busy out there, particularly at weekends. I think she's really stressed out a lot of the time, the noise from drunk people at the weekends really bothers her and there are dogs walking past very frequently.
> I know she is happy a lot of the time, when she's running about on a walk or playing with her toys or getting cuddles or rolling around the living room floor on her back lol... but I also think she spends a lot of time feeling stressed and it's causing her to be more reactive generally. I know how she feels, I'd rather live in the middle of nowhere too but unfortunately moving isn't really an option any time soon.
> I know it's impacting on me too, Idk if some of you know I struggle with my mental health and anxiety is quite a big part of it. I feel stressed just stepping out my front door in case there's something there she might kick off at, and also the horrible guilt I feel that I'm not doing enough to make her happy.. Money is a real issue because I can't work right now and if I could afford it I'd have got a behaviourist in months ago, and I do feel terrible that I didn't think of things like that when I got her but hindsight is a wonderful thing and all that. I didn't know she would end up with issues, I don't think I even knew behaviourists existed, I just planned for the "normal" dog owning things like vet bills, food, toys etc.
> 
> So anyway, I know this is really long and I'm sorry to always do this in WAYWO but everyone who posts in here is lovely and I'm feeling ridiculously fragile right now so don't really want to open up my stressed out ranting to critique from some of the harsher members of the forum.
> 
> I do have a plan in place with using the remedy stuff that Twiggy has suggested (just need to wait until I have a spare £20 that hasn't already been allocated for something else!) and possibly muzzling just so I'm not stressed about what people think but I needed to get all that out. Thankyou if you actually read all of that!


I'm really sorry you're having a difficult time and I know the impact stress and anxiety can have.

You have no reason to feel any guilt with regards to Tia. You are doing your best and that's all any of us can do.

Try and look at it from a different perspective. Tia (and any of our very pampered pooches) could be kept outside on a chain 24 hours a day, could be starved or kicked, etc. etc. There are many thousands of dogs that have truly awful lives one way or another. All the dogs on the WAYWO thread are very lucky indeed..!!


----------



## moonviolet

Tonight was the first session of our sports foundation course.

Despite all my predictions of rolling and being unable to focus with an agility class being carried out at the other end of the indoor school. I was proved very wrong indeed. Tink focussed beautifully worked very well offlead all session, only glancing over there from time to time when there as a particularly vocal dog running, but returned her attention to me when she had established it was no threat. Completely delighted


----------



## Nicki85

MV- what is the rolling about? I've not had a roller before and don't understand the behaviour... is it a stress release thing? an enjoyment thing? Hope you don't mind me asking, just never come across it! Glad you had a good session and Miss TInks didn't find it too stressful. Rusty doesn't like dogs that bark at agility... one of the reasons we had to leave one club. If we had it his way all dogs would be banned from agility except the little pom that he flirts with! He's comfortable in his classes at the moment though.


----------



## Dogless

mv - WELL DONE!!!!!! to Miss Tink and you . What a lovely testament to your hard work .


----------



## moonviolet

Nicki85 said:


> MV- what is the rolling about? I've not had a roller before and don't understand the behaviour... is it a stress release thing? an enjoyment thing? Hope you don't mind me asking, just never come across it! Glad you had a good session and Miss TInks didn't find it too stressful. Rusty doesn't like dogs that bark at agility... one of the reasons we had to leave one club. If we had it his way all dogs would be banned from agility except the little pom that he flirts with! He's comfortable in his classes at the moment though.


It seems to be a bit like zoomies., some are joy, some are stress relief. There also seems to be a scent element to it as well, whether that's her gaining the local scent or putting her scent on the ground or a combination of both i'm not entirely sure. It's a behaviour that's only returned in full force this summer after her being too nervous to expose her belly in public. The reason i thought she might roll was the scent of horses, however she's not much of a poo roller.


----------



## Guest

My name's McKenzie's Mum and my dog's addicted to my cat. 

Some of you may have seen my thread a few days ago about being at my wits end with Kenzie and Tala the cat. Kenzie, being Kenzie, is always contrary so since writing that thread she's actually been much better. 

I've figured out that it's not Tala Kenzie has a problem with, it's her movement. If Tala stays still, Kenzie is completely fine. 

I just did a bit of training with her now - Tala is sat on the chair and I sat Kenzie on the floor literally right beside the chair. If Kenzie had gone for Tala I probably wouldn't have been able to grab her in time, but they were both really chilled so I took the chance. I sat on the floor with Kenzie and treated away for every time she looked at Tala and then back at me voluntarily. At two points Kenzie actually sniffed Tala's butt (at which Tala mewed indignantly) and then back to me. So that training is definitely working. In fact, at one point I wanted to go across the room to get my phone to take a photo of it so I left Kenzie in a 'wait' with a bit of food in front of her, completely unattached to anything. And, she just waited until I released her  

BUT I need to work on her impulse control when her prey drive kicks in. I think the main thing is I need to somehow 'catch' her before she gets TOO worked up, because one she gets all terrier-ry that's all she has on her mind.

Anyway, if you'all don't mind I'll post my progress on here - provided we make progress!!!


----------



## moonviolet

Kenzie glad you are seeing progress. Hope you don't mind a suggestion.

If it is movement triggered doing some work on your impulse control training and including stays or waits with moving distractions may help like rolling a ball past, tying a toy to a piece of string etc. In that way you can help address the movement trigger without Tala


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Tonight was the first session of our sports foundation course.
> 
> Despite all my predictions of rolling and being unable to focus with an agility class being carried out at the other end of the indoor school. I was proved very wrong indeed. Tink focussed beautifully worked very well offlead all session, only glancing over there from time to time when there as a particularly vocal dog running, but returned her attention to me when she had established it was no threat. Completely delighted


Well done Miss Tinks, although I'm not in the slightest bit surprised.

She is a very well trained dog and it's a testament to your patience, motivation and common sense....


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> Kenzie glad you are seeing progress. Hope you don't mind a suggestion.
> 
> *If it is movement triggered doing some work on your impulse control training and including stays or waits with moving distractions may help like rolling a ball past, tying a toy to a piece of string etc. In that way you can help address the movement trigger without Tala *




Probably not with the cat in the same room though.....

I now have this vivid comical image in my head - sorry..!!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Well done Miss Tinks, although I'm not in the slightest bit surprised.
> 
> She is a very well trained dog and it's a testament to your patience, motivation and common sense....


Aww thank you very much.


Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Probably not with the cat in the same room though.....
> 
> I now have this vivid comical image in my head - sorry..!!


Oh dear i have that image too now :lol: :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Kenzie - she is a terrier she will be alert to movement, ninja is equally less reactive to still things, as soon as they move its game on. You may have to resign yourself to them always having a typical cat and terrier relationship and just trust/ensure that Tala can escape or give as good as she gets to avoid major injuries. Some things cant be trained out all the time, but hope that the suggestion from MV might help.

MV well done to you and Tink for the course and well done for controlling your rolling tendencies , it sounds fascinating.

Nikki - I agree with MV, ninja loves a roll and sometimes its just pure ecstasy sometimes its a stress thing. Exactly like zoomies.


I have a poorly ninja this morning  I had to relocate to the sofa due to some major roadworks going on on the other side of the bed 

I had just about managed to drop off when I was woken by a retching dog, just a bit of white foam so I let her out and cleaned that up and we tried to get back to sleep. Needless to say it wasn't very restful after that. She started trotting about and jumping on me around 7 so I let her out again and she ate lots of grass and her belly was rumbling and grumbling almost as loud as the husbands snoring . She completely refused breakfast which I decided should be yummy fish mousse as easily digested  unheard of refusal.

So we went out for some fresh air a bit earlier than normal and of course minus tablets. I can safely say the Stressless and/or Valerian tablets have been making a difference.

Of course the earlier time did mean we encountered lots lots more dogs. The whippets, the puggle pup mad a choccy lab I have never seen before (had to appear just as she was about to poo so she didnt in the end) a black lab and a westie, and another couple of labs, the last two entries she didn't react to and neither did she react to any of the people we saw but every other leaf/bird/squirrel needed pouncing on. So the tablets definitely take the edge off her manic alertness :yesnod:

It worked in that she came back and ate but is now lying under the desk groansighing intermittently. I will see how she is after lunch. The night time sick wouldnt worry me too much in itself as she had a raw meal for tea a little earlier than her normal kibble so the digestion rates could have contributed to empty tummy but the refusal of fish mousse and general grumbling and sighing is a little worrying


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Kenzie - she is a terrier she will be alert to movement, ninja is equally less reactive to still things, as soon as they move its game on. You may have to resign yourself to them always having a typical cat and terrier relationship and just trust/ensure that Tala can escape or give as good as she gets to avoid major injuries. Some things cant be trained out all the time, but hope that the suggestion from MV might help.
> 
> MV well done to you and Tink for the course and well done for controlling your rolling tendencies , it sounds fascinating.
> 
> Nikki - I agree with MV, ninja loves a roll and sometimes its just pure ecstasy sometimes its a stress thing. Exactly like zoomies.
> 
> I have a poorly ninja this morning  I had to relocate to the sofa due to some major roadworks going on on the other side of the bed
> 
> I had just about managed to drop off when I was woken by a retching dog, just a bit of white foam so I let her out and cleaned that up and we tried to get back to sleep. Needless to say it wasn't very restful after that. She started trotting about and jumping on me around 7 so I let her out again and she ate lots of grass and her belly was rumbling and grumbling almost as loud as the husbands snoring . She completely refused breakfast which I decided should be yummy fish mousse as easily digested  unheard of refusal.
> 
> So we went out for some fresh air a bit earlier than normal and of course minus tablets. I can safely say the Stressless and/or Valerian tablets have been making a difference.
> 
> Of course the earlier time did mean we encountered lots lots more dogs. The whippets, the puggle pup mad a choccy lab I have never seen before (had to appear just as she was about to poo so she didnt in the end) a black lab and a westie, and another couple of labs, the last two entries she didn't react to and neither did she react to any of the people we saw but every other leaf/bird/squirrel needed pouncing on. So the tablets definitely take the edge off her manic alertness :yesnod:
> 
> It worked in that she came back and ate but is now lying under the desk groansighing intermittently. I will see how she is after lunch. The night time sick wouldnt worry me too much in itself as she had a raw meal for tea a little earlier than her normal kibble so the digestion rates could have contributed to empty tummy but the refusal of fish mousse and general grumbling and sighing is a little worrying


Oh no poor little Ninja. Have you got any Prokolin or Cannikur in the cupboard? I always keep a tube of either for stomach problems.


----------



## Twiggy

I've just got back from the vets with Leafy. We applied the laser to both front shoulders today and I'm booking her in for a 'top up' next week. She is almost sound on her right shoulder now thank goodness, as putting too much weight on her gammy left shoulder isn't good.

It was the vet I like so we have an in-depth discussion on vaccinations, titre testing, lepto and all the many 'grey' areas that are open to debate.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Oh no poor little Ninja. Have you got any Prokolin or Cannikur in the cupboard? I always keep a tube of either for stomach problems.


I had put some prokolin in the fish mousse  (along with her tablets) She has eaten it now, and is out in the garden with husband thing helping with digging, so hope the little bit of mousse and paste in her belly has helped.

ETA Glad leafy appears on the mend, and I hope that you are well not withstanding the charging around in the mud?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - pleased that Leafy's making progress.

GR - hope that Ninja's better soon; poorly dogs are always worrying .

McKenzie - hope that you make good progress.

I have only walked Rudi this morning as we're meeting Diz shortly and I had an appointment. He was totally superb - saw loads of dogs and running, screaming kids (school bus time) and he paid attention to me, not them, every time he was asked to. Then coming home we bumped into a man collecting litter in a narrow alley and Rudi just sat whilst we had a quick chat about the weather and then squeezed past. What a little star.

When I say "Shall we see Dizzy?" to Kilo he'll spring to life and go to the porch for his harness on .


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I had put some prokolin in the fish mousse  (along with her tablets) She has eaten it now, and is out in the garden *with husband thing* helping with digging, so hope the little bit of mousse and paste in her belly has helped.
> 
> ETA Glad leafy appears on the mend, and I hope that you are well not withstanding the charging around in the mud?


Errmmmm what one of them?......

My new trainers/running shoes arrived this morning. Pity I've got a damn great big corn on my toe - I could have gone running round the paddock....!!


----------



## Ponkies

Hi

Can I join in please?

I'm working on recall training with my beagle. He's fine indoors but it's outside that's he's worse. I've had some good advice from people on here so going to give some of that a go. Watch this space...


----------



## Twiggy

Ponkies said:


> Hi
> 
> Can I join in please?
> 
> I'm working on recall training with my beagle. He's fine indoors but it's outside that's he's worse. I've had some good advice from people on here so going to give some of that a go. Watch this space...


You can do it....

btw Moonviolet is our resident Beagle expert.


----------



## tiatortilla

Just wanted to say thankyou again for yesterday, you're all so great. Feeling a lot better today .

Walk wasn't perfect, she had a biiiig growl at what I can only assume was a collie x from the way he was staring at her, made me think of the thread about 'collie eye' as we rarely see starey collies but this one had a serious stare!
And she got a bit freaked out at something later on, not sure what, and had to go back on lead just in case but I can see it coming before she gets to the non responsive stage, she's a very easy to read dog fortunately. So not perfect but definitely not too bad .


----------



## Kicksforkills

Ponkies said:


> Hi
> 
> Can I join in please?
> 
> I'm working on recall training with my beagle. He's fine indoors but it's outside that's he's worse. I've had some good advice from people on here so going to give some of that a go. Watch this space...


Just keep at it


----------



## Guest

Thanks everyone - I know tala will probably always trigger krnzies prey drive but the problem is Kenzie gets SO stressed by her - if tala is just walking slowly around the room Kenzie will be going mental - whining, panting, lip licking and takes ages to settle down. I worry what it does for her health. So I don't mind if Kenzie always wants to chase tala, I just don't want her to be so stressed.


----------



## Nicki85

This morning we went out for a couple of hours as I am now in Brussels for a meeting  Work always gets in the way of the fun!

Rust was on lead as he had a long session off lead yesterday. He was fab, having a great time pulling me left right and centre (but it's allowed as he was on the walking belt..)

Shae was offlead and was as usual a good pup. Stayed nice and close, recalled of deer without even a pause... so strange having a dog without a prey drive (or should that be live prey seeing as she likes chasing toys!). She recalled from the two dogs we met. Strangely no noise or reaction to a cocker in an open field but a big Setter did get a grr. But then the man wanted to chat (tried to give her a biscuit which she spat out lol). So she had zoomies round us all... Rusty took quite a fancy to the big Setter and kept poking his ears. 

DL and Twiggy you will also be pleased to hear that I to have won a pair of trainers on ebay... we should so have a race  Wonder who would win????!!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> This morning we went out for a couple of hours as I am now in Brussels for a meeting  Work always gets in the way of the fun!
> 
> Rust was on lead as he had a long session off lead yesterday. He was fab, having a great time pulling me left right and centre (but it's allowed as he was on the walking belt..)
> 
> Shae was offlead and was as usual a good pup. Stayed nice and close, recalled of deer without even a pause... so strange having a dog without a prey drive (or should that be live prey seeing as she likes chasing toys!). She recalled from the two dogs we met. Strangely no noise or reaction to a cocker in an open field but a big Setter did get a grr. But then the man wanted to chat (tried to give her a biscuit which she spat out lol). So she had zoomies round us all... Rusty took quite a fancy to the big Setter and kept poking his ears.
> 
> *DL and Twiggy you will also be pleased to hear that I to have won a pair of trainers on ebay... we should so have a race  Wonder who would win????!!*


*
*

Well I can hazard a guess on who would be last...LOL

What brand are your's?


----------



## DogLover101

Trying to teach socks that it's not necessary to eat everybody he sees. He doesn't do it aggressively, he is just very over excited and wants everyone to play rough with him! I guess that's just him being a 6 month old puppy but his getting too strong for me to handle now, god knows what ill do when he is fully grown!!

As for Gucci, she is being influenced by the puppy into being badly behaved. I'm working on trying to get her back to walking off of the lead good as gold again as she used to before the puppy brainwashed her into being naughty!

I will get there eventually!


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## Canine K9

Evening all 

Ponkies- You and me both! Your other thread got tons of suggestions so I`ll pinch a few of them too 

McKenzie- It does sound like Kenzie is quite stressed by Tala. I have no suggestions though 

Nicki- Sounds like fun  Well done dogs, they both sound like they did pretty well on the whole.

DogLover- I`m sure you`ll get there. Relaxed calm greetings with people and lots of attention work with Socks. Hopefully Gucci will stop being badly influenced? Maybe try separate walks for a small while if possible to try and get her behaving well again? 

-----------------------------------

Typical day here really. Did some training with him and a play session this morning. Did some more training in the early afternoon then took him out at 2:30pm for a walk. Went round the woods first, ankle deep in Mud (thank goodness for wellies!), came across a dog at the end of the walk which Bailey did really well with. Took him across the field then walked to the park in the hope of letting him have a run in the enclosed area. Some Children were playing there so that was scrapped. Took him round half the park instead, was going to finish the other half but someone with a pack of uncontrolled dogs was there so I walked the long way back home. Tried to have a game of fetch whilst out but he wasn`t interested. He still got a solid 80 minutes. He has just chilled out since then with a few training and brain game sessions thrown in. 
We are still working on the recall really; it was going really well now its gone again. Soo I decided to whistle train and it is going well. Tomorrow I am hoping to wait until he isn`t distracted on the walk then practice some recall. I am hoping for at least an okay recall by Sunday so from tomorrow am going to do tons of recall and attention work at home and out on our walk. Fingers crossed!


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## Nicki85

Mine are Salomon XA 3D PRO 2 - £30  Bound to make me go fast with that name though, right?!


----------



## Bagrat

Greetings one and all.
Dog lover 101 your dogs are just gorgeous lookers. I would love a second dog but have a miscreant on my hands so need lots more progress first. We have a very over enthusiastic greeter too. All the usual advice made him worse so to start with we just made sure he had something else to carry in his mouth, often his lead if I wasn't holding it once he was calmer. Now we try to make sure we are more interesting than visitors or passers by having rewards for attention to us falling from the sky.
Ponkie - our first dog as newly weds was a beagle and we knew nothing about dogs before during or after we had him!!! We lived near hunt kennels and sometimes met the hounds being exercised by men in white coats - oh joy!
To certain people - they know who they are - enough already with the new trainers.
Jackson and I had two jolly(if short) street walks today. Seemed calmer generally. Have been having him on slightly longer leash so he could have the opportunity to make good decisions on his own., Today I went back to the double ended lead as he had been twitchy yesterday and he was very good. Met neighbour at top of street and we walked back together for practice and J managed without jumping at him or even trying to, there were a few under the breath whines but 100% better than last year. Then we practised approaching the little Westie behind his back gate opposite. For some reason J is totally unphased by this dog. It yaps constantly and J only shows mild interest. It has a limb injury of some sort and rarely goes out so I wonder what the yaps would be translated?

Symone - any news, or have I missed it?
TT - keep going, so weird when they are spooked by something you can't see or hear or smell.


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## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Mine are Salomon XA 3D PRO 2 - £30  Bound to make me go fast with that name though, right?!


Just watch the bloody sole doesn't drop off . Hopefully it won't .


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## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Mine are Salomon XA 3D PRO 2 - £30  Bound to make me go fast with that name though, right?!


With a name like that you'll fly like the wind...


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Just watch the bloody sole doesn't drop off . Hopefully it won't .


Well if it does I hope it's halfway through our race....:devil:


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## GingerRogers

McKenzie said:


> Thanks everyone - I know tala will probably always trigger krnzies prey drive but the problem is Kenzie gets SO stressed by her - if tala is just walking slowly around the room Kenzie will be going mental - whining, panting, lip licking and takes ages to settle down. I worry what it does for her health. So I don't mind if Kenzie always wants to chase tala, I just don't want her to be so stressed.


Keep doing what you are doing then or manage it. Kenzie is shown classic signs of frustration. Perfectly natural. Ninja displays similar behaviours when we are working on micro pig or other tv triggers. She gets she isn't supposed to react and doesn't but it still stresses her almost more than the reacting does. But i am sure you know this. Not sure what magic wand you want tbh. does tala mind being chased?

Actually although we almost use her bed as a control system it does calm her. Gives her the the out to stop all the stressy signals. Have you tried go to bed or mat work as a calmer.


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## Twiggy

DogLover101 said:


> Trying to teach socks that it's not necessary to eat everybody he sees. He doesn't do it aggressively, he is just very over excited and wants everyone to play rough with him! I guess that's just him being a 6 month old puppy but his getting too strong for me to handle now, god knows what ill do when he is fully grown!!
> 
> As for Gucci, she is being influenced by the puppy into being badly behaved. I'm working on trying to get her back to walking off of the lead good as gold again as she used to before the puppy brainwashed her into being naughty!
> 
> I will get there eventually!
> 
> View attachment 125475


Have you thought about enrolling Socks in a local dog training class? It might be a good idea before he gets any older or stronger. It will help to teach him to control himself around other people and dogs.

There are some good clubs in and around the London area.


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## L/C

McKenzie said:


> Thanks everyone - I know tala will probably always trigger krnzies prey drive but the problem is Kenzie gets SO stressed by her - if tala is just walking slowly around the room Kenzie will be going mental - whining, panting, lip licking and takes ages to settle down. I worry what it does for her health. So I don't mind if Kenzie always wants to chase tala, I just don't want her to be so stressed.


Unfortunately you're unlikely to achieve one without the other. If you can't redirect her desire to chase from Tala then she is going to be continually stressed around her. You need to teach her to control herself when she wants to chase and also give her an appropriate outlet (flirt pole/ball/toy). Dogs who need to chase (and I don't use need lightly - it is a need) and can't will exhibit signs of stress and quite often destructive behaviour. You won't be able to work on the stress without working on the desire to chase - they are completely intertwined.

If you want I can post up on controlling predatory chasing and redirecting it.


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## GingerRogers

L/C said:


> Unfortunately you're unlikely to achieve one without the other. If you can't redirect her desire to chase from Tala then she is going to be continually stressed around her. You need to teach her to control herself when she wants to chase and also give her an appropriate outlet (flirt pole/ball/toy). Dogs who need to chase (and I don't use need lightly - it is a need) and can't will exhibit signs of stress and quite often destructive behaviour. You won't be able to work on the stress without working on the desire to chase - they are completely intertwined.
> 
> If you want I can post up on controlling predatory chasing and redirecting it.


So for instance, yes i am hijacking.  rather than just bed and treating g for calm i could perhaps bed and or redirect to toy to satisfy that urge.


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## Twiggy

*GR* How's my favourite Ninja today? Is her upset stomach any better?


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy, she appears much better thank you , still not quite her normal self but her bark has returned  and some lightly fried kidney and heart mixed up with yoghurt :001_unsure: went down a treat for brekky. 

Actually she perked up a lot almost immediately after her tea last night although she was still delightfully snuggly and not demanding :001_wub:, which makes me think the empty tum theory holds some weight, shes just needs to realise if she starts to feel icky from hunger she needs to eat rather than refuse to  but I think perhaps there was a little bug there too.


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy, she appears much better thank you , still not quite her normal self but her bark has returned  and some lightly fried kidney and heart mixed up with yoghurt :001_unsure: went down a treat for brekky.
> 
> Actually she perked up a lot almost immediately after her tea last night although she was still delightfully snuggly and not demanding :001_wub:, which makes me think the empty tum theory holds some weight, shes just needs to realise if she starts to feel icky from hunger she needs to eat rather than refuse to  but I think perhaps there was a little bug there too.


Oh that's good news.

Leafy is lame again this morning on her right shoulder, so it's obviously still not right. Poor little girl is so fragile these days. She's 12 yrs old now and to be honest I'm not sure whether her gammy left shoulder will give out first or whether it will be her kidneys/liver packing up. It would be good to get her to 13 but somehow I doubt it.


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Oh that's good news.
> 
> Leafy is lame again this morning on her right shoulder, so it's obviously still not right. Poor little girl is so fragile these days. She's 12 yrs old now and to be honest I'm not sure whether her gammy left shoulder will give out first or whether it will be her kidneys/liver packing up. It would be good to get her to 13 but somehow I doubt it.


Oh no , poor girl and poor you! She doesnt have much luck, I am sure you are deserving of some soon though


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Oh no , poor girl and poor you! She doesnt have much luck, I am sure you are deserving of some soon though


Thanks. What will be will be. It's been apparent for some years that she wasn't going to make old bones, although I've had 'creaking gates' before and some have gone on to 15 yrs old plus.


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## ciarasmum

I'm probably going to miss out a lot of people by accident. My own fault for not posting in days! Will keep on top of it but have just gone back a few pages so sorry if I seem rude! 

tiatortilla - I read your post yesterday and felt so bad for you. I know how you feel. I have the same internal guilt about Ciara, but then like Twiggy says, who knows what would have happened to them without us being patient owners. I always worry that if Ciara had gone to another home they may not have coped with her and either dumped her or flooded her to interact with the scary things and caused her to be quick to use her teeth out of fright.

Ciara usually gives people a wide berth and won't growl unless she feels really threatened but the other day she growled out of the blue at a man walking past minding his own business. First time she has ever done that but she hasn't done it since. Sometimes they just pick up on something we can't see. Glad you are feeling better though and it's great that she is so easy to read 

Ponkies - Hi  Glad you have had some good advice about the recall. I've found the best thing with Ciara is to make it really exciting. So maybe chucking a treat in the opposite direction then calling her in happy/excited voice while running away from her etc. I'm going to read back when I get a chance and see some of the other suggestions, I'm always looking for ways to keep Ciara's recall good.

Twiggy - Sorry Leafy isn't too good   Everything crossed she picks up again very soon  

Nicki 85 - Will you get to see much of Brussels while you are there? Glad you had lovely walks with Rusty and Shae before you went though 

DogLover - Sorry if I've missed another reply, but do you go to any training classes with Socks? It may help him learn to concentrate on you in the presence of exciting things.

CanineK9- Sounds like a lovely walk, aside from uncontrolled dog pack! I love doing brain training sessions, I love seeing them plonked out just from using their mind! Glad the whistle training is going well! 

GR - Glad Ninja is feeling better and has got her bark back  

I have a poorly ninja this morning  I had to relocate to the sofa due to some major roadworks going on on the other side of the bed  Really glad the Valerian/stressless tablets seem to be making a difference  

Dogless - Well done Rudi and you of course for his lovely walk. Must be lovely to see Kilo running around with his mate. Ciara only has 1 friend (lol!) so it's always nice to see her playing.


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## ciarasmum

_whispers_ we have had a few days ok quiet walks  Yesterday we went out under cover of rain and didn't see anyone else until we were heading back to the car. Saw the collie she lunged/barked at a few weeks ago but although she did climb on top of a pile of 'stuff' to get a better look, she didn't react.

This morning we just went to the local field (again in the rain to avoid people/dogs) and played some games. I fear I have created a OCD monster though 

A year or two ago I ended up playing a game which involved kicking water on the grass for her to chase. Now I literally cannot walk past a puddle (when we're off lead) without her getting so excited and bounding over and just standing staring at me until I kick the water. She won't even play in the stream 'normally' anymore, and just stares at me to kick water there, same in the sea. She's so focused on it that dogs have walked past her and she hasn't moved her eyes off me!

Same with wanting me to kick leaves or grass for her to chase. Started off with some blowing in the wind one day, and now she wants me to do it all the time. If I do oblige I try and get her to do some control stuff first, but she is so excited that instead of targeting my hand with her nose, she bites it! Well not biting exactly, but has her mouth wide open and isn't controlling her face. I asked her to 'go through', so go through my legs, she was so out of control that she jumped up at me, grabbed hold of the whistle that was round my neck and almost pulled me over with it!! 

It's actually the only time that I see her with any kind of drive (if that's the right word). That and when I ask her to sit/wait while I hide her toy, I then make her hand target or do something before releasing her to find it and she is quite out of control then.

Wish I could bottle that focus and use it when we see dogs  I feel so guilty if I ignore her when she wants me to play in the water, she always looks so miserable lol! So I do play but then we can't walk past any water without the 'pleeeeeeeease kick it' look. Not a problem really, but I do need to work on the control when she is really excited so I don't end up being strangled by my own whistle!!


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## GingerRogers

I am sure there is a way to bottle it, its sounds like she has the drive you just haven't figured out how to trigger it.

I am no help but I bet someone can come up with an idea.

It sounds like its the multiple droplets/leaves that is getting her excited, several small balls or other object that you could throw as a game


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## ciarasmum

GingerRogers said:


> I am sure there is a way to bottle it, its sounds like she has the drive you just haven't figured out how to trigger it.
> 
> I am no help but I bet someone can come up with an idea.
> 
> It sounds like its the multiple droplets/leaves that is getting her excited, several small balls or other object that you could throw as a game


Yeh I'm not sure what exactly it is that is exciting her. I tried throwing her normal ball into the water while she was staring at me and she wouldn't even look at it. I have a hole in my wellies (I know, I know!) and had to wade in to get it back so wasn't pleased! 

It's weird because I never thought she had any drive, but I'm glad to see that she does. Like you say, just finding a way to use it would be good. I do play a game where I kick her ball around, as though I'm dribbling it. Instead of watching the ball she keeps eye contact with me for some reason, then will suddenly lunge and grab the ball. Most of the time she's so sedate it's quite odd to see her so focused


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## Skinnywhippet

GingerRogers said:


> I am sure there is a way to bottle it, its sounds like she has the drive you just haven't figured out how to trigger it.
> 
> I am no help but I bet someone can come up with an idea.
> 
> It sounds like its the multiple droplets/leaves that is getting her excited, several small balls or other object that you could throw as a game


Could you *actually* bottle it? Use a sport-cap bottle or spray bottle on very coarse and spray some water at a low level for her to catch, as a reward? She might not think it's the same thing at all, but maybe worth a try if you've found something which gets her going?


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## Dogless

Ciarasmum - I created the same with Kilo and throwing stones into water - he runs to any at all and stares at me. I have started rewarding him for going "on by" or just walking past and then recalling him and very, very occasionally rewarding with a few thrown stones. Progress has been quite fast once I got "strict" about it!!

GR - very pleased that Ninja is better.

Twiggy - sorry that Leafy's not good again .

We had a good morning. Took Rudi running for just over an hour, most of it offlead for him; he was a little star. Then took Kilo to the sports pitches - I was going to do some training but he loves running so much that I decided why not run round and round the sports pitches with him seeing as I had built them up as somewhere pretty safe in the months following his attack? So Kilo got an hour's run too, although I slowed to a jog or even a walk on a few occasions when he became hypervigilant - running tends to amp him up and make him more likely to react - and did a little easy training; some hand targetting, sits etc.


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## ciarasmum

Skinnywhippet said:


> Could you *actually* bottle it? Use a sport-cap bottle or spray bottle on very coarse and spray some water at a low level for her to catch, as a reward? She might not think it's the same thing at all, but maybe worth a try if you've found something which gets her going?


You know I did think of that actually. When my brothers were playing with their water pistols in the garden over the summer she loved it. She's the same with the hose. Just would have to make sure she didn't wind up the other dog herself!



Dogless said:


> Ciarasmum - I created the same with Kilo and throwing stones into water - he runs to any at all and stares at me. I have started rewarding him for going "on by" or just walking past and then recalling him and very, very occasionally rewarding with a few thrown stones. Progress has been quite fast once I got "strict" about it!!
> 
> We had a good morning. Took Rudi running for just over an hour, most of it offlead for him; he was a little star. Then took Kilo to the sports pitches - I was going to do some training but he loves running so much that I decided why not run round and round the sports pitches with him seeing as I had built them up as somewhere pretty safe in the months following his attack? So Kilo got an hour's run too, although I slowed to a jog or even a walk on a few occasions when he became hypervigilant - running tends to amp him up and make him more likely to react - and did a little easy training; some hand targetting, sits etc.


Sounds like a lovely day, I wish I was as fit as you! Do they run by you off lead or on a harness?

I did manage to stop the behaviour in the water for a while but made the mistake of giving in after a few months just once and it all started. My fault, now she just watches me walk to see if I'm splashing through. I feel awful ignoring her though as she loves it and she so rarely looks enthusiastic


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## tiatortilla

k9 - Fingers are crossed for your recall training 

Mckenzie - Good luck with the cat chasing. Tia chased my mum's cats a bit when she was a puppy but it was just puppy silliness rather than actual prey drive and she grew out of it really quickly so I don't really have any advice. The only thing I'd suggest that might help would be working on Tala's confidence so she'll stand her ground and trigger Kenzie's prey drive less often.

Nicki - Well done to both Rusty and Shae for being so good 

DogLover101 - Your dogs are beautiful!

Bagrat - Well done to Jackson for not trying to jump on your neighbour  And good that there's a dog he's not bothered by too even if you're not sure why! Sounds like you're making great progress.

GR - Glad Ginge is feeling better 

Twiggy - I'm sorry about Leafy's shoulder.

Ciarasmum - Thankyou for that. Yeah, I worry what would have become of Tia if she'd gone to a different home too. She's always been a bit nervy and while I've definitely not been perfect I've done my best to deal with it appropriately, she could have ended up a lot worse tbh. Tia's always been incredibly sociable with people until really recently though, when she's got a bit wary of the occasional person so it's a bit of a learning curve for me! Glad your last few walks have been good 

Dogless - Glad you've had a good morning, it sounds like Kilo is getting a bit more "normality" again, must be really great to see 

---

Today was okay, nice and quiet so we went to the park. Did a little bit of training and then we bumped into Tia's staffy friend Ralph and his owner so that was nice for her too, he was more into sniffing and pottering than playing today but she let him get on with it rather than barking at him to play this time :thumbup:. Also recalled away from a different dog, who's owner was rather irritatingly following us around (we weren't just walking around the edge either, she really was following us!)... still, it gave us a chance to practice a recall from a distraction I suppose..!

She had another slightly 'off' moment though, after we'd been out about half an hour she started walking off. She recalled fine but I am wondering whether I should be letting her off lead if there's a risk of her deciding she wants to leave and possibly not recalling. I'm just not sure whether it's more her trying to show me she wants to leave, or if she really would go. Might just stick to lead walks for a bit while I make a decision on that.

So anyway, she's only had that short walk because we went home after that. She's quite sleepy though so I think I'll just let her sleep and relax for today.


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> Yeh I'm not sure what exactly it is that is exciting her. I tried throwing her normal ball into the water while she was staring at me and she wouldn't even look at it. I have a hole in my wellies (I know, I know!) and had to wade in to get it back so wasn't pleased!
> 
> It's weird because I never thought she had any drive, but I'm glad to see that she does. Like you say, just finding a way to use it would be good. I do play a game where I kick her ball around, as though I'm dribbling it. Instead of watching the ball she keeps eye contact with me for some reason, then will suddenly lunge and grab the ball. Most of the time she's so sedate it's quite odd to see her so focused


I was having an indepth conversation after class this afternoon about the very same subject. We were discussing IPO/Shutzhund Mals and GSDs that are taught to be so 'high drive' that they watch the handlers face when they want their ball....!!


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## Bagrat

GR glad the "convalescence" is going well
Twiggy - sorry Leafy is having problems

Dogless- sounds like a good day, It's great when you have walks (runs) that the dogs can enjoy and not display any of their angst.

Doglover101 - Please don't take blunt comments to heart ( on one of your other threads) there's lots of help and advice on here, it's just difficult for people to be diplomatic in print.

Ciaras mum - have you come across that video of the GSDs catching water from the old type soda bottles? No help at all but they just loved it.

TiaT - sometimes think you just somehow know if it's an OK off lead day or not, well I did with the previous incumbent. Barney used to be fine for weeks and then would decide to take off. He always came back eventually and it was a very safe area -no livestock except rabbits and ducks but if that happened you knew it would happen again. For the last few years I would yell "wait" and he stopped dead even if his pals were on the run which was very satisfying. I fear I'll be on my walking frame before J masters that!

We had a quiet day lots of watching me which to confuse I call "Look" and LAT which I cue as "watch"!!! Tried to do ground work round flowerpots a while back and he just froze then got the zoomies so have been doing watered down version round a group of trees spaced out. Today he reacted to the exercise as if they were flowerpots,freezing then running to end of lead and grabbing it. Hey ho.


----------



## Dogless

Will go back and read in a sec. Rudi had a nice second walk in the dark.

Just got run up to out with Kilo by same dog 3 times . I had driven to the field next to the sports pitches and we were just having a potter. I was just on the pitches and was about to leave when I heard the wind blow the gate at the far corner shut which is very noisy (heavy metal gate) which didn't bother me too much as it's 4 pitches and a patch of grass away from the exit we were using.

We carried on with our walk (but slightly faster!!!) and I suddenly heard panting behind us and turned to see a dark staffy with a white blaze stood right behind us motionless - like the one who attacked Kilo; my heart started hammering . Kilo hit the ground and froze and I used the voice of doom and it ran off. Same happened again another twice. I could just about make out the owner at the far side as he walked across some lights. No attempt at recall, no attempt to come and get his dog . 

Kilo was lit up like fecking Blackpool Illuminations in the brightest collar known to man as well . He is knackered and has gone straight to sleep. I am still shaking; it was a little too much like the format the attack took for my liking and for poor Kilo .


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## Twiggy

Oh no Dogless. I'm so sorry and hope it doesn't upset Kilo even more.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh no Dogless. I'm so sorry and hope it doesn't upset Kilo even more.


I just do not understand people.


----------



## Canine K9

tiatortilla- Sounds like its been pretty good overall then, only you can make the decision about letting her off though 

Dogless- Oh no, sorry about that with Kilo  People really are idiots aren`t they, if your dog runs over at least try and get your dog! 

------------------------------------
Today was okay. Went to "Our" field and someone was letting their dog run havoc as per usual. It really annoys me because 1) I (and many others!) don`t like dogs running over and 2) The reason I keep MY dog on a lead is because he will do the same as their offlead dog!
So we went through a second woodland instead. Muddy but peaceful. 
Then we went to the local park which surprisingly was empty. He had an offlead run in the enclosed area for a bit then we went around the park and did some training and scent work. I left our whistle at home though  Silly me. 
We clocked 1.5hrs and minus a few play and training sessions and one zoomie session has pretty much chilled out since then


----------



## tiatortilla

Really sorry to hear that Dogless, I hope you and Kilo are okay.


----------



## Dogless

ciarasmum said:


> Sounds like a lovely day, I wish I was as fit as you! Do they run by you off lead or on a harness?


Oh lord!!! You'll wish you never asked!!!!

Trail running - they are offlead in the main UNLESS in the deer sanctuary forest where Cani X harness and line and running belt are used.

Running in the local area - onlead by roads etc with Rudi, offlead on sports pitches / dog fields etc. Kilo I have only run him for the first time in the local area today as running makes him more vigilant and more reactive so it was onlead around the sports pitches.

I can wear the lead across my body and Rudi will run nicely to heel (his natural pace). Kilo also runs to heel naturally but I hold the lead.

Erm....probably loads more permutations.


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## Bagrat

Dogless that must have been just sh*te. Really sorry, would a large glass of wine mess up your analgesia beyond repair?
Seriously - people have no idea the mayhem they leave in their wake


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Dogless that must have been just sh*te. Really sorry, would a large glass of wine mess up your analgesia beyond repair?
> Seriously - people have no idea the mayhem they leave in their wake


I have no wine and TBH it would just make me very sleepy I think - I am on a drug for being bonkers that is still being dosage - adjusted and advises no alcohol. I'll drink a glass or two once all the side effects recede a little - it makes me hungover the next day anyway .

Sorry; what a rambling load of stuff you didn't need to know :sosp:. I would almost post something on our local FB page but suspect I would be ripped to bits or at least told to wind my neck in .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I have no wine and TBH it would just make me very sleepy I think - I am on a drug for being bonkers that is still being dosage - adjusted and advises no alcohol. I'll drink a glass or two once all the side effects recede a little - it makes me hungover the next day anyway .
> 
> Sorry; what a rambling load of stuff you didn't need to know :sosp:. I would almost post something on our local FB page but suspect I would be ripped to bits or at least told to wind my neck in .


You're not bonkers. You are just stressed out of your head over there and for good reason.


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## Twiggy

*NICKI85*

Check this out - awesome:

''Gape'' rila planina SLALOM DISTRACTIONS (bite work) .

Holly's got her bag packed, I just need their address (somewhere in Slovenia I think).


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## Bagrat

Dogless, the trouble is we know too much. I think someone should do a trial on medication and the informed v the uninformed and non compliant. Though I agree if it makes you feel rubbish ( for want of a better word) it's not worth it.
Good old Kilo sleeping off his experiences, if only it was that easy for us!!


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Dogless, the trouble is we know too much. I think someone should do a trial on medication and the informed v the uninformed and non compliant. Though I agree if it makes you feel rubbish ( for want of a better word) it's not worth it.
> *Good old Kilo sleeping off his experiences*, if only it was that easy for us!!


Think the fright 3 times just knackered him. I am hoping that not too much damage was done. At least he never saw the dog running up (dark and was behind us each time) as it would have given him time to explode and get into a frenzy.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless I can't express how angry I am for you and kilo but just wanted to say I am sorry. Can i come over and be your bodyguard come shooter at people. I think i would enjoy shouting a lot

Eta shouter not shooter =-O


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless I can't express how angry I am for you and kilo but just wanted to say I am sorry. Can i come over and be your bodyguard come shooter at people. I think i would enjoy shouting a lot
> 
> Eta shouter not shooter =-O


Shooter  . Sounds good :thumbup1:. TBH even if I had yelled my head off the owner couldn't have heard me last night. I only heard the gate as it was really windy but blowing in my direction and it had blown it shut (very heavy metal gate clanging against metal fence). He / she was over 4 sports pitches away :mad5:. I suspect they were walking deliberately slowly as their dog tore off as I am CERTAIN that they could see Kilo, his collar is so bright - one of these Leuchtie Premium - LEUCHTIE LED light safety collar for dogs and the only lights on the pitches are from the next door airfield. We were in the lightest part but still I am positive we could be seen.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Shooter  . Sounds good :thumbup1:. TBH even if I had yelled my head off the owner couldn't have heard me last night. I only heard the gate as it was really windy but blowing in my direction and it had blown it shut (very heavy metal gate clanging against metal fence). He / she was over 4 sports pitches away :mad5:. I suspect they were walking deliberately slowly as their dog tore off as I am CERTAIN that they could see Kilo, his collar is so bright - one of these Leuchtie Premium - LEUCHTIE LED light safety collar for dogs and the only lights on the pitches are from the next door airfield. We were in the lightest part but still I am positive we could be seen.


Ahhh but if you loaned me your new trainers I could run after them and shout/shoot whichever you preferred. Hope today is a better day.

I love those collars  darent get one for the rabbit hole inspector though. Bit too expensive to use as a rabbits sitting room lamp.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Ahhh but if you loaned me your new trainers I could run after them and shout/shoot whichever you preferred. Hope today is a better day.
> 
> I love those collars  darent get one for the rabbit hole inspector though. Bit too expensive to use a rabbits sitting room lamp.


I sincerely hope today is a better day too, for both you and Kilo.


----------



## Nicki85

Morning all 

Twiggy- that link is um i'm not sure- amazing or scary lol! Shae would love it there! All those high powered games so she can hang off a tug toy or an arm  Her idea of heaven! Could just imagine Rusty's (and Holly's I suspect) face though... as they both freeze and wander off to do some sniffing elsewhere and ignore the crazy people 

DL- sorry to hear about Kilo and you being pounced on by another dog (again)  I really do hope you have a better day today- you both deserve it. How is Kilo today?

Yesterday I was in Brussels- lovely, not. But i was pleased to hear that the dogs behaved first for mum who went and played fetch with them in the forest as she can't walk far and then for the dog walker at lunchtime. Mum said Shae wouldn't listen to her and kept stealing Rusty's toy which she isn't allowed to do and is very naughty!

We have been to the canal this morning for longer than expected. It was lovely down there- the sun was shining and we had lots of fun playing fetch and doing some swimming. We met two GSP which I allowed them to meet offlead, Shae very bravado about the whole thing but soon became a game. Then three offlead labs. Rust was in the water but again allowed Shae to greet offlead and all fine after the initial "I can't believe you are coming down OUR path" discussion. Rusty made no attempt to greet any of these dogs but was polite when they did say hi. 
I was pleased though as I let Rusty off lead to swim and play in the field which I don't usually do as I don't trust his recall with the birds. But he was ace, really listening and engaging with me. A lot of it is me worrying- he never goes particularly far but I am ever so good at imagining scenarios for losing him. But, baby steps we did one big field today all offlead so maybe next week we'll do the field adjacent to that. It's a safe area with no farm animals so no issues really. I just make sure he is on lead going past the weir as I don't want to loose him down there!

(just wanted to add, although I allowed offlead greetings Shae wasn't allowed to belt up to the other dogs, I just kept her close until it was obvious that they were coming over to say hi...)


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Morning all
> 
> *Twiggy- that link is um i'm not sure- amazing or scary lol! Shae would love it there! All those high powered games so she can hang off a tug toy or an arm  Her idea of heaven! Could just imagine Rusty's (and Holly's I suspect) face though... as they both freeze and wander off to do some sniffing elsewhere and ignore the crazy people *
> 
> DL- sorry to hear about Kilo and you being pounced on by another dog (again)  I really do hope you have a better day today- you both deserve it. How is Kilo today?
> 
> Yesterday I was in Brussels- lovely, not. But i was pleased to hear that the dogs behaved first for mum who went and played fetch with them in the forest as she can't walk far and then for the dog walker at lunchtime. Mum said Shae wouldn't listen to her and kept stealing Rusty's toy which she isn't allowed to do and is very naughty!
> 
> We have been to the canal this morning for longer than expected. It was lovely down there- the sun was shining and we had lots of fun playing fetch and doing some swimming. We met two GSP which I allowed them to meet offlead, Shae very bravado about the whole thing but soon became a game. Then three offlead labs. Rust was in the water but again allowed Shae to greet offlead and all fine after the initial "I can't believe you are coming down OUR path" discussion. Rusty made no attempt to greet any of these dogs but was polite when they did say hi.
> I was pleased though as I let Rusty off lead to swim and play in the field which I don't usually do as I don't trust his recall with the birds. But he was ace, really listening and engaging with me. A lot of it is me worrying- he never goes particularly far but I am ever so good at imagining scenarios for losing him. But, baby steps we did one big field today all offlead so maybe next week we'll do the field adjacent to that. It's a safe area with no farm animals so no issues really. I just make sure he is on lead going past the weir as I don't want to loose him down there!
> 
> (just wanted to add, although I allowed offlead greetings Shae wasn't allowed to belt up to the other dogs, I just kept her close until it was obvious that they were coming over to say hi...)


Holly actually enjoys taking lumps out of me and has been encouraged to do so...

That's pretty much how I've trained my dogs for years but the speed they got with the Mals through the weave was brilliant. I agree it was also scary though and I'm much too old to have a Mali attacking me at that speed..!!


----------



## Nicki85

Oh yeah, my arms are normally covered in bruises after working them when they are fired up. Shae made me bleed lots at agility the other day. And she didn't say sorry :0

Rusty is much more gentle though and only leaves bruises, no blood  He treats me like a dead bird I think....


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Ahhh but if you loaned me your new trainers I could run after them and shout/shoot whichever you preferred. Hope today is a better day.
> 
> I love those collars  darent get one for the rabbit hole inspector though. Bit too expensive to use as a rabbits sitting room lamp.


They come with a link that you can use to attach it to the dog's normal collar.

Nicki - pleased you had fun this morning.

Cold and bright here this morning - first iced up car of the season. We went to the forest, saw no one. Kilo seems OK today - I back the car up the drive when I'm not sure he'll want to walk down it so he has only gone from door to boot and back today!!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> They come with a link that you can use to attach it to the dog's normal collar.
> 
> Nicki - pleased you had fun this morning.
> 
> Cold and bright here this morning - first iced up car of the season. We went to the forest, saw no one. Kilo seems OK today - I back the car up the drive when I'm not sure he'll want to walk down it so he has only gone from door to boot and back today!!


Glad kilo seems ok 
*covers eyes when reading 'iced car' * dreading it  !

Will try & play on WAYWO properly tonight  couldnt read n run!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> They come with a link that you can use to attach it to the dog's normal collar.
> 
> Nicki - pleased you had fun this morning.
> 
> Cold and bright here this morning - first iced up car of the season. We went to the forest, saw no one. Kilo seems OK today - I back the car up the drive when I'm not sure he'll want to walk down it so he has only gone from door to boot and back today!!


So pleased to hear Kilo seems OK, although it's a different scenario going to the forest.

How about you?


----------



## GingerRogers

Glad the forest was good for you both Dogless

 I woke up in a ridiculously good mood which makes a change 

I fully expected ninja to be a reactive nightmare to bring me back to earth but she was awesome. 

Yesterday my husband took her muzzle to work  so we walked with out it. It was so much nicer, she wasn't constantly scanning and kept looking up for cues. I felt so much MORE connected if possible. I find it really hard to do any training with her with the muzzle on as I cant use treats easily, cant scatter, play games etc obviously cant use toys 

So I made the decision that for our morning pavement potters which have always been our training walks, around the housing estate and up the main road we are not going to use the muzzle any more. I think it has served its purpose, it has increased my confidence to the point where I dont panic at every little occurrence any more and i hope to be able to continue like that. Also she has improved no end because of this I think but we were becoming a bit stagnant.

If people are stupid enough to have their dogs off lead then sorry but I refuse to sacrifice our progress any more. On walks where its reasonable to encounter off lead dogs she will be muzzled but she is far less 'bothered' by it on those type of walks, there's more exciting smells and critters to be chased.

So off we went 'naked' 

She was brilliant, I can work on LLW properly again, fuzzy face peering up at me saying am I doing good now? Yes you are ginger one, have a treat, find a treat. Focus on me, lovely 

We didn't see any dogs but there were lots of people doing different things including cutting grass and she barely blinked let alone batted an eyelid 

I was just trying some positive association with the 'scary' corner (lots of dogs live near or have been encountered there) when she spotted the red overall clad person of a neighbour and her tail got all excited so we went down to say hello, they were clearing out their garage, now she always barks at this ladys husband, no idea why but she didnt, to start with, then she did decide he needed talking to and set off the DA GSD  in turn setting her off. Then she stopped and turned and looked at me and ignored the frenzy of barking and sat looking at me with a :biggrin: on her face. She got lots of treats of course.

Gawd knows what this afternoons walk will involve


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> So pleased to hear Kilo seems OK, although it's a different scenario going to the forest.
> 
> How about you?


To be honest Twiggy I am still angry. Angry that I am scared to walk my own dogs.

I typed a post to our local Nosy Book page asking that if people want to walk their dogs in the dark to please consider others and please use a lead or be sure that your dog is under sufficient control to not approach other users of the pitches. I then deleted it as I would be hit by a barrage of people saying that dogs needed to socialise and all that jazz :mad5:. I cannot believe that I was shaking so much last night; it is pathetic, but it was a precise re - enactment of the attack bar the actual attack. I am pleased with how I handled it each time as I managed to leave Kilo's lead slack and get rid of the dog without sounding angry or worried and alarming Kilo - then did a bright "Come On Then" each time and he was happy enough to walk with me - with titbits bolt fed to stop him panicking and looking round.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Glad the forest was good for you both Dogless
> 
> I woke up in a ridiculously good mood which makes a change
> 
> I fully expected ninja to be a reactive nightmare to bring me back to earth but she was awesome.
> 
> Yesterday my husband took her muzzle to work  so we walked with out it. It was so much nicer, she wasn't constantly scanning and kept looking up for cues. I felt so much MORE connected if possible. I find it really hard to do any training with her with the muzzle on as I cant use treats easily, cant scatter, play games etc obviously cant use toys
> 
> So I made the decision that for our morning pavement potters which have always been our training walks, around the housing estate and up the main road we are not going to use the muzzle any more. I think it has served its purpose, it has increased my confidence to the point where I dont panic at every little occurrence any more and i hope to be able to continue like that. Also she has improved no end because of this I think but we were becoming a bit stagnant.
> 
> If people are stupid enough to have their dogs off lead then sorry but I refuse to sacrifice our progress any more. On walks where its reasonable to encounter off lead dogs she will be muzzled but she is far less 'bothered' by it on those type of walks, there's more exciting smells and critters to be chased.
> 
> So off we went 'naked'
> 
> She was brilliant, I can work on LLW properly again, fuzzy face peering up at me saying am I doing good now? Yes you are ginger one, have a treat, find a treat. Focus on me, lovely
> 
> We didn't see any dogs but there were lots of people doing different things including cutting grass and she barely blinked let alone batted an eyelid
> 
> I was just trying some positive association with the 'scary' corner (lots of dogs live near or have been encountered there) when she spotted the red overall clad person of a neighbour and her tail got all excited so we went down to say hello, they were clearing out their garage, now she always barks at this ladys husband, no idea why but she didnt, to start with, then she did decide he needed talking to and set off the DA GSD  in turn setting her off. Then she stopped and turned and looked at me and ignored the frenzy of barking and sat looking at me with a :biggrin: on her face. She got lots of treats of course.
> 
> Gawd knows what this afternoons walk will involve


I fully agree that you are doing the right thing with Ninja GR for what it's worth!! Can't "like" this post enough for being full of positivity and happy walks :thumbup1: .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> To be honest Twiggy I am still angry. Angry that I am scared to walk my own dogs.
> 
> I typed a post to our local Nosy Book page asking that if people want to walk their dogs in the dark to please consider others and please use a lead or be sure that your dog is under sufficient control to not approach other users of the pitches. I then deleted it as I would be hit by a barrage of people saying that dogs needed to socialise and all that jazz :mad5:. I cannot believe that I was shaking so much last night; it is pathetic, but it was a precise re - enactment of the attack bar the actual attack. I am pleased with how I handled it each time as I managed to leave Kilo's lead slack and get rid of the dog without sounding angry or worried and alarming Kilo - then did a bright "Come On Then" each time and he was happy enough to walk with me - with titbits bolt fed to stop him panicking and looking round.


Liked because of how you handled it at the time, big well done, its the hardest thing in the world for me to remain outwardly calm let alone with the history for you!


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Liked because of how you handled it at the time, big well done, its the hardest thing in the world for me to remain outwardly calm let alone with the history for you!


I am sure Kilo picked up on the fact my heart was thudding in my chest TBH - I must have wafted out loads of adrenaline . The fact it was the same breed, same markings as the one that attacked certainly didn't help; it may even have been him. The sudden appearance and then standing behind us was the same too. The light wasn't good enough to be sure, but not bad right where I was stood as we were near to a perimeter light.


----------



## L/C

GingerRogers said:


> So for instance, yes i am hijacking.  rather than just bed and treating g for calm i could perhaps bed and or redirect to toy to satisfy that urge.


If the trigger is safely out of harms way (i.e. cat outside the window/on TV) then I would try that approach - if the trigger is a cat in the same room then I would be doing everything in my power to keep the atmosphere calm and arousal low.

Teach control around movement (there have been some good ideas about games), get a flirt pole to chase and build on that.

Dogless - poor you and Kilo. What a bloody awful place you live in.


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## tiatortilla

GR - That sounds like a great walk, really pleased for you 

Dogless - Glad you managed to get Kilo out without any dramas today. I hope you're both feeling a bit better.

---

Today's walk was... interesting. We went to a foot/cycle path for an on lead walk, it's predominantly used as a cycle path but not too busy during the week. I always think the chances of us encountering off lead dogs there is pretty much zero due to the bikes and it being a narrow path, cows on the fields each side and swans in the water however that wasn't the case today!
Luckily I saw them quick enough as their dogs were all seriously out of control, one of them had gone through the water and was in the field on the other side and I could hear all sorts of noises so decided to walk back to the beginning and wait for them to leave as they were heading towards us.

So we waited at the beginning of the track, two of the dogs were back on lead now with a man holding them but two still off, I had to pick Tia up for a second and tell one dog to go away but the other off lead dog didn't come over. She was okay anyway, not too worried by them because there was enough space out in the road, she'd have panicked if we met them on the footpath though.

Then the lady walked up and explained their dogs had just killed two swans . I think I just went "Oh lovely" lol, I didn't really know what to say... It's a pretty stupid place to have a dog off lead IMO anyway, let alone ones that are going to run riot! I just explained Tia was scared of other dogs when she's on lead and that was why we were hiding from them, I hadn't actually realised what the noises were but the owner had assumed that was why we'd walked off. I don't know... people!

Apart from that anyway, we had a perfectly nice walk! She hasn't been freaked out by any more people, I think it might just be the volume of people at the weekends compared to in the week, she's a lot more chilled out just passing the occasional person than she is having to weave through lots of them.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> To be honest Twiggy I am still angry. Angry that I am scared to walk my own dogs.
> 
> I typed a post to our local Nosy Book page asking that if people want to walk their dogs in the dark to please consider others and please use a lead or be sure that your dog is under sufficient control to not approach other users of the pitches. I then deleted it as I would be hit by a barrage of people saying that dogs needed to socialise and all that jazz :mad5:. I cannot believe that I was shaking so much last night; it is pathetic, but it was a precise re - enactment of the attack bar the actual attack. I am pleased with how I handled it each time as I managed to leave Kilo's lead slack and get rid of the dog without sounding angry or worried and alarming Kilo - then did a bright "Come On Then" each time and he was happy enough to walk with me - with titbits bolt fed to stop him panicking and looking round.


You have every right to be angry and I think most of us would have been shaking last night in your situation, I know I would.

It sound as if you did really well under the circumstances, maintaining a loose lead and a reasonably calm voice.


----------



## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> GR - That sounds like a great walk, really pleased for you
> 
> Dogless - Glad you managed to get Kilo out without any dramas today. I hope you're both feeling a bit better.
> 
> ---
> 
> Today's walk was... interesting. We went to a foot/cycle path for an on lead walk, it's predominantly used as a cycle path but not too busy during the week. I always think the chances of us encountering off lead dogs there is pretty much zero due to the bikes and it being a narrow path, cows on the fields each side and swans in the water however that wasn't the case today!
> Luckily I saw them quick enough as their dogs were all seriously out of control, one of them had gone through the water and was in the field on the other side and I could hear all sorts of noises so decided to walk back to the beginning and wait for them to leave as they were heading towards us.
> 
> So we waited at the beginning of the track, two of the dogs were back on lead now with a man holding them but two still off, I had to pick Tia up for a second and tell one dog to go away but the other off lead dog didn't come over. She was okay anyway, not too worried by them because there was enough space out in the road, she'd have panicked if we met them on the footpath though.
> 
> Then the lady walked up and explained their dogs had *just killed two swans *. I think I just went "Oh lovely" lol, I didn't really know what to say... It's a pretty stupid place to have a dog off lead IMO anyway, let alone ones that are going to run riot! I just explained Tia was scared of other dogs when she's on lead and that was why we were hiding from them, I hadn't actually realised what the noises were but the owner had assumed that was why we'd walked off. I don't know... people!
> 
> Apart from that anyway, we had a perfectly nice walk! She hasn't been freaked out by any more people, I think it might just be the volume of people at the weekends compared to in the week, she's a lot more chilled out just passing the occasional person than she is having to weave through lots of them.


Um :frown2: I think I might be a bit gobsmacked at that, I wonder what the Queen would say  Well done Tia though (for not killing swans :skep:, shrug, )


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> Um :frown2: I think I might be a bit gobsmacked at that, I wonder what the Queen would say  Well done Tia though (for not killing swans :skep:, shrug, )


I know it was a bit shocking.. She was so blasé about it too, I'd have been horrified if it was my dog!

Lol I can't see Tia killing a swan somehow... she can even be a bit wary of chickens when they're really close  (although she does want to eat them from a distance I think). I'd still never have her off lead if there was any risk of bumping into a swan though and tbh she's much better behaved than their dogs were!


----------



## Bagrat

Tia T- am not liking the dead swans just your reasonable walk. Lucky the swans didn't take lumps out of their dogs. Won't they get sent to the tower for that?? 
Dogless- It is horrible when you have to psyche yourself to take the plunge with your dog as you say walks are supposed to be the highlight of the day not shrouded in adrenalin.
GR - so pleased you saw immediate progress minus muzzle. Hooray for Ninja ( and you)

Jackson quiet walks in new perfect fit harness. I think he'll be unable to back out but erred on the side of safety with the only dog we saw today. He kept looking longingly after it but I stayed further back than usua land he didn't bark.

Been thinking about little westie behind gate. He's OK with that. Maybe it's the fact other dogs are on lead that he freaks , perhaps had bad experience with on lead dog? He wants to greet them though - however inappropriately:confused5:


----------



## L/C

tiatortilla said:


> GR - That sounds like a great walk, really pleased for you
> 
> Dogless - Glad you managed to get Kilo out without any dramas today. I hope you're both feeling a bit better.
> 
> ---
> 
> Today's walk was... interesting. We went to a foot/cycle path for an on lead walk, it's predominantly used as a cycle path but not too busy during the week. I always think the chances of us encountering off lead dogs there is pretty much zero due to the bikes and it being a narrow path, cows on the fields each side and swans in the water however that wasn't the case today!
> Luckily I saw them quick enough as their dogs were all seriously out of control, one of them had gone through the water and was in the field on the other side and I could hear all sorts of noises so decided to walk back to the beginning and wait for them to leave as they were heading towards us.
> 
> So we waited at the beginning of the track, two of the dogs were back on lead now with a man holding them but two still off, I had to pick Tia up for a second and tell one dog to go away but the other off lead dog didn't come over. She was okay anyway, not too worried by them because there was enough space out in the road, she'd have panicked if we met them on the footpath though.
> 
> *Then the lady walked up and explained their dogs had just killed two swans *. I think I just went "Oh lovely" lol, I didn't really know what to say... It's a pretty stupid place to have a dog off lead IMO anyway, let alone ones that are going to run riot! I just explained Tia was scared of other dogs when she's on lead and that was why we were hiding from them, I hadn't actually realised what the noises were but the owner had assumed that was why we'd walked off. I don't know... people!
> 
> Apart from that anyway, we had a perfectly nice walk! She hasn't been freaked out by any more people, I think it might just be the volume of people at the weekends compared to in the week, she's a lot more chilled out just passing the occasional person than she is having to weave through lots of them.


Holy hell - that's some brass neck just to announce that to you! We have some very terrifying swans on the ponds near us that are very aggressive to people and dogs - precisely because they have been attacked. It's so upsetting.

I'm glad you had a nice walk - swan murder aside!


----------



## ciarasmum

*tia* - How lovely to bump into one of Tia's friends  And good girl from recalling from the annoying owner following you! Could you perhaps use a long line on a harness so she still has a bit of freedom? I'm thinking of doing this with Ciara after an incident last night (will post when I've replied to others). Can't believe the idiot with their dogs running and killing swans 

*Twiggy* - that's really interesting about the IPO dogs being taught that. I have no idea why Ciara does it. If I'm obliging with the kicking water game she will stare at my feet, then look up to my eyes every now and then if I'm not playing, but with the ball she's moving with it, but keeping focus on my face. In that moment I'd say she was engaged, normally she is very low drive but maybe I'm wrong?

*Bagrat-* I haven't seen the video but I can imagine  Ciara just loves anything like that. Is the groundwork you're doing kind of TTouch? I don't have any poles but would love to do it.

*Dogless *- So sorry poor Kilo was so frightened  How irresponsible for the other owner to allow his dog so far away from him. I'm lucky that Ciara doesn't bog off, but I would never allow her to if she did. Glad you had a better walk seeing no-one today but what a fright for you both 

I'd love to do running with Ciara but not sure if she could with her hips/elbows? Plus if I run she jumps up and tries to mouth me. Norty dog. You must be super fit!

*Canine* - Sounds like a lovely walk, and a good mix of play, chilling and training. Annoying about the dog running havoc but glad you managed to escape!

*Nicki* - Sounds like a lovely walk down the canal. Rusty sounds like he's doing brilliant, yay for be ok offlead 

*GR* - Well done ninja!! And you of course! I think that's a good decision. If other owners let their dogs off lead by the roads then that isn't your problem. Brilliant that the muzzle has increased your confidence and well done ninja for not reacting to the GSD


----------



## ciarasmum

We had a lovely walk this morning. Just round some local fields. Saw one dog with it's owner on lead so did a little stealth stage 2 BAT. Although I think perhaps I shouldn't get the treat out until we have actually moved away as she seems to be just waiting for the treat. 

Saw an elderly springer with a man heading towards the same gap in the trees we were heading towards but from a different direction. First thought was to speed up and get there before him but then common sense kicked in and we just stayed still and played some 'find it' in the grass and did a boring sit/stay/recall combi. Ciara had seen the dog but was more interested in treats 

Last night was not a good night though  My fault and I feel terrible. Took Ciara down to the flash, we have to walk down the side of the canal for about 10-15mins before reaching the country park. I only go at night so I don't see anyone. Had a lovely hour or so wandering round the park, as we were walking back down the canal it really was pitch black, it was hard to see much in front. 

Before I knew it Ciara's tail had gone up and she had spotted a pug in front of her and rushed to it. It then ran away from her as she was being so rude. When it stopped she sniffed it. I recalled her and she came away but as it made it's escape she tried to run after it again. She didn't go far before recalling but was put back on lead. I didn't show any disappointment or anger, after all it was my fault. I've not had a light on her in the past as we have never seen anyone else down there and I prefer not to let people know where I am if I'm alone. 

No harm done and no harm intended but this is actually a major problem that I have with Ciara. On the very rare occasion if a dog appears if she is off lead her first reaction is to rush up to them. This mostly causes them to run away, she chases and then sniffs when they stop. She even tries the same thing on lead. So she'll walk then suddenly pull forward to sniff instead of approaching calmly.

It's not even like she is doing it for a reaction to start a fight. If they tell her off she backs off straight away and stops instead of snapping back. I think it is a defence mechanism, if they don't run and stand still she will sniff and come away or if we carry on walking with them she will be fine unless they start running.

We walked with one of my aunts dogs for nearly 2 hours. He was on a long line and Ciara off lead on the beach. Ciara had shared the car with him for the 45mins to the beach and there was no issue. My aunt let him off lead after a few hours and as soon as he started running she was chasing him crazy fast. When he did stop she sniffed and came away. He was put back on lead for chasing a seagull and she ignored him or interacted in a nice way with him after that and no issue on the way home in the car either 

But of course it is not acceptable. Please don't think this is a regular thing, very very rare she is allowed to greet off lead, and only when we are caught unawares. We've made so much progress with her reactions to dogs but I can't get this first reaction to change at all. 

So from now on if we are down by the canal (or anywhere I can't see properly in front of us no matter how quiet it usually is), she will have a long line and harness on and I'm going to get her a light for her collar.

Feel awful, especially after reading Dogless's post about poor Kilo. Plus if a dog had chased Ciara like that I would be really annoyed and so would Ciara.

The owner of the pug wasn't interested and actually walked off and left her dog but I feel terrible for Ciara's rudeness.


----------



## Dogless

*TT* - I hope HRH Queen Elizabeth II isn't a regular lurker on Pet Forums or even a member :frown2: . Her Majesty's finest would be round to interview you pronto and the lady who talked to you would be marched off to the Tower . Seriously though, unbelievable that she'd just announce that and unbelievable that the swans didn't cause some injury themselves to the dogs!!

*ciarasmum* - I am fairly fit; have run for years so it's normal. Kilo used to jump and mouth when we first started but then he's very excitable, especially by movement; Rudi has always been great apart from a hard nip on the backside the first time :skep:. I am sorry you didn't have a great walk last night, but in the scheme of things it was a dropped ball - as you say you do not allow it to occur regularly. It sounds like a prey driven behaviour though, or as you say she tries to rush them so they move away; but I'd be concerned about prey drive kicking in either way I think. Not that I am an expert so I may be waaaay off the mark!!!

*Bagrat* - pleased you had a good walk and you're pleased with the new harness. Kilo funnily enough can be more alarmed by onlead dogs than off but those that do alarm him are the eyeballers who have owners that pull them along regardless or walk forwards regardless in a straight line. I am wondering if it's the lead hampering the showing of appropriate body language by either dog e.g., walk in a curve whereas offlead dogs can display body language unhampered?


----------



## ciarasmum

Dogless said:


> *ciarasmum* - I am fairly fit; have run for years so it's normal. Kilo used to jump and mouth when we first started but then he's very excitable, especially by movement; Rudi has always been great apart from a hard nip on the backside the first time :skep:. I am sorry you didn't have a great walk last night, but in the scheme of things it was a dropped ball - as you say you do not allow it to occur regularly. It sounds like a prey driven behaviour though, or as you say she tries to rush them so they move away; but I'd be concerned about prey drive kicking in either way I think. Not that I am an expert so I may be waaaay off the mark!!!


I'm no expert either so I really struggle to know exactly what it is she is doing, I have thought about the prey thing. She does it with dogs big or small. If they are running playing with each other she will run after them but I don't know if she is just controlling their movement?

I have a video where she is walking normally with my friends springer, as soon as the springer starts zooming after a scent, she is chasing him and the springers hackles go up. So she is definitely attracted to movement, but then there have been times we have come across a dog sniffing the ground and she rushes up to it. There may even be a difference between the rushing up chasing and the chasing once she is walking, but I'm not experienced enough to know 

I walked with a group of GSD owners, she started chasing one who was running. I asked one of the owners who's had dogs for 40 years what she was doing and she said it looks like a clumsy attempt to play, yet she doesn't like being chased herself and she definitely isn't confident enough to play with a new dog so that doesn't explain the rushing up to unknown dogs in that way.

She isn't really prey driven with 'normal' things, cats, birds, sheep, deer etc so that's why it surprises me that she is like this with dogs. We met a bird with a broken wing once that was just hopping along and she was so gentle, same with anything really except dogs (she's not a biter or attempted biter though).

The only difference is that she isn't scared of the other things but she is scared of dogs? Once the initial bluster is over, her body language does a complete 180 and it's very obvious she is scared, but not at first. Either way, she isn't allowed to do it anymore than I would let her chase sheep or deer etc

Just wanted to edit and add: I hope noone thinks badly of me as an owner  I really don't let her make a habit of behaving that way


----------



## Canine K9

TT- Um wow, killing swans is not something to just announce  Bailey is a bird killer so he'd never be off near swans. Why cant everyone else do the same? Glad your walk was nice though.
Ciarasmum- Glad today was ok for you; sorry about last night though 
Bagrat- Glad today has been good, and you like the new harness
Dogless- glad there was no drama with poor kilo today 

---------------------------------
We went to the woods today all was well he met his pug friend. Went to the park and came across some dogs and some children but all were fine thankfully. All the fair weather walkers are out due to our nice sunny weather! 
Saw a little ginger terrier that looked like Ninja!  
He went to [email protected] and chose a pigs ear with lots of treats from staff. 
He is over tired and won't sleep think he. Is over stimulated so he's in the utility room. 
Soo all has been ok today


----------



## Nicki85

DL- glad the boys had a peaceful time in the forest. You coped with it all so well last night but I can understand that it must be so very hard to move forward  
Ciarasmum- Shae will rush into other dogs given half the chance but she's young and wants to show off other dogs/ talk to them. Thankfully her recall is well established so I rarely get a "fail". She also likes dogs running and gets very excited by it- for her its partly wanting to control the other dogs and herd them. I wonder if yours is doing similar? I think these things do happen, however hard we try to prevent them- no harm done and you have to put it behind you and learn from the mistakes... 
TT- I would be horrified if my dogs did anything like that... especially swans... that must have been some battle poor animals.
K9- Glad you've had a good day

We had separate walks this afternoon. Took Shae to the playingfield to well, play... She was good as gold but it was a bit hot and she took herself into the shade for a lay down a few times!! Couple of dogs came onto the field and she did a bit of a show off bounce but carried on with her game of ball. 
Rusty had fun in the forest.. lots going on as they are taking some trees out and the farmer was calling for the cows. Slipped his lead on past the cows just in case he though it wise to go check it out... Met one dog that ran up to him and he dropped to the floor till I managed to get to him. Owner apologised, one of those things- Rust was happy once he knew (the small terrier...) wasn't going to kill him and all was OK in his world...


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> I'm no expert either so I really struggle to know exactly what it is she is doing, I have thought about the prey thing. She does it with dogs big or small. If they are running playing with each other she will run after them but I don't know if she is just controlling their movement?
> 
> I have a video where she is walking normally with my friends springer, as soon as the springer starts zooming after a scent, she is chasing him and the springers hackles go up. So she is definitely attracted to movement, but then there have been times we have come across a dog sniffing the ground and she rushes up to it. There may even be a difference between the rushing up chasing and the chasing once she is walking, but I'm not experienced enough to know
> 
> I walked with a group of GSD owners, she started chasing one who was running. I asked one of the owners who's had dogs for 40 years what she was doing and she said it looks like a clumsy attempt to play, yet she doesn't like being chased herself and she definitely isn't confident enough to play with a new dog so that doesn't explain the rushing up to unknown dogs in that way.
> 
> She isn't really prey driven with 'normal' things, cats, birds, sheep, deer etc so that's why it surprises me that she is like this with dogs. We met a bird with a broken wing once that was just hopping along and she was so gentle, same with anything really except dogs (she's not a biter or attempted biter though).
> 
> The only difference is that she isn't scared of the other things but she is scared of dogs? Once the initial bluster is over, her body language does a complete 180 and it's very obvious she is scared, but not at first. Either way, she isn't allowed to do it anymore than I would let her chase sheep or deer etc
> 
> Just wanted to edit and add: I hope noone thinks badly of me as an owner  I really don't let her make a habit of behaving that way


Nicki got it spot on. It's natural instinct for herding breeds - trying to control movement.

The collies I have now don't do it but some of the ones my sister and I have had in the past would 'stack up' in a line behind the matriarch waiting for her to move...


----------



## Twiggy

Holly was very good this afternoon both obedience and agility training (I've got one or two bruises to prove it)... She got sufficiently wound up that she had a little bark. Hardly the speed of the IPO Malinois but....

Even hubby (who is always ultra critical, not that he's ever trained a dog of course) was astounded by how much she's improved.

It hasn't done my lovely corn (between my toes) much good but never mind. It's only agonising pain at every step....!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Holly was very good this afternoon both obedience and agility training (I've got one or two bruises to prove it)... She got sufficiently wound up that she had a little bark. Hardly the speed of the IPO Malinois but....
> 
> Even hubby (*who is always ultra critical, not that he's ever trained a dog of course*) was astounded by how much she's improved.
> It hasn't done my lovely corn (between my toes) much good but never mind. It's only agonising pain at every step....!!


Of course 

Pleased that you've had a good day, bar the corn :skep: . Did you wear your new trainers?


----------



## Nicki85

Go Holly! Official cheering squad ready and waiting


----------



## Bagrat

Ciara's Mum - Re groundwork, sort of TTouch just about sums it up. I do basic TTouch massage on Jackson and me, often at the same time. behaviourist suggested it when we first got J and then went on a half day group session with her minus J as the other dogs would have been too much. On our first assessment she suggested walking him round flower pots and also ov er poles made of canes or broom handles etc. Sadly as I said he really finds it so hard to be good and calm for those few minutes that he soon starts ragging the lead.
he walks quite calmly on the back field on loose lead and sometimes tolerates some figure of eights round trees on double ended lead

Canine and Nicki 85 - sounding good.

Twiggy - I've always got bruises too but nothing as agile as agility - just clumsy.
Dogless -a good point about reduced readability of signals from dogs on leads.
Just been to choir and for the first 15 mins I was the only alto ::


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Of course
> 
> Pleased that you've had a good day, bar the corn :skep: . Did you wear your new trainers?


No. I haven't dared put them on yet because they will hurt, thanks to the corn, and then I'll be disappointed. It's flipping Wellingtons that start it off every year and I really must go and get a new decent pair.


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Ciara's Mum - Re groundwork, sort of TTouch just about sums it up. I do basic TTouch massage on Jackson and me, often at the same time. behaviourist suggested it when we first got J and then went on a half day group session with her minus J as the other dogs would have been too much. On our first assessment she suggested walking him round flower pots and also ov er poles made of canes or broom handles etc. Sadly as I said he really finds it so hard to be good and calm for those few minutes that he soon starts ragging the lead.
> he walks quite calmly on the back field on loose lead and sometimes tolerates some figure of eights round trees on double ended lead
> 
> Canine and Nicki 85 - sounding good.
> 
> Twiggy - I've always got bruises too but nothing as agile as agility - just clumsy.
> Dogless -a good point about reduced readability of signals from dogs on leads.
> Just been to choir and for the first 15 mins I was the only alto ::


Hope you knocked em dead with your voice :thumbup1:.


----------



## moonviolet

ciarasmum said:


> We had a lovely walk this morning. Just round some local fields. Saw one dog with it's owner on lead so did a little stealth stage 2 BAT. Although I think perhaps I shouldn't get the treat out until we have actually moved away as she seems to be just waiting for the treat.
> 
> Saw an elderly springer with a man heading towards the same gap in the trees we were heading towards but from a different direction. First thought was to speed up and get there before him but then common sense kicked in and we just stayed still and played some 'find it' in the grass and did a boring sit/stay/recall combi. Ciara had seen the dog but was more interested in treats
> 
> Last night was not a good night though  My fault and I feel terrible. Took Ciara down to the flash, we have to walk down the side of the canal for about 10-15mins before reaching the country park. I only go at night so I don't see anyone. Had a lovely hour or so wandering round the park, as we were walking back down the canal it really was pitch black, it was hard to see much in front.
> 
> Before I knew it Ciara's tail had gone up and she had spotted a pug in front of her and rushed to it. It then ran away from her as she was being so rude. When it stopped she sniffed it. I recalled her and she came away but as it made it's escape she tried to run after it again. She didn't go far before recalling but was put back on lead. I didn't show any disappointment or anger, after all it was my fault. I've not had a light on her in the past as we have never seen anyone else down there and I prefer not to let people know where I am if I'm alone.
> 
> No harm done and no harm intended but this is actually a major problem that I have with Ciara. On the very rare occasion if a dog appears if she is off lead her first reaction is to rush up to them. This mostly causes them to run away, she chases and then sniffs when they stop. She even tries the same thing on lead. So she'll walk then suddenly pull forward to sniff instead of approaching calmly.
> 
> It's not even like she is doing it for a reaction to start a fight. If they tell her off she backs off straight away and stops instead of snapping back. I think it is a defence mechanism, if they don't run and stand still she will sniff and come away or if we carry on walking with them she will be fine unless they start running.
> 
> We walked with one of my aunts dogs for nearly 2 hours. He was on a long line and Ciara off lead on the beach. Ciara had shared the car with him for the 45mins to the beach and there was no issue. My aunt let him off lead after a few hours and as soon as he started running she was chasing him crazy fast. When he did stop she sniffed and came away. He was put back on lead for chasing a seagull and she ignored him or interacted in a nice way with him after that and no issue on the way home in the car either
> 
> *But of course it is not acceptable. Please don't think this is a regular thing, *very very rare she is allowed to greet off lead, and only when we are caught unawares. We've made so much progress with her reactions to dogs but I can't get this first reaction to change at all.
> 
> So from now on if we are down by the canal (or anywhere I can't see properly in front of us no matter how quiet it usually is), she will have a long line and harness on and I'm going to get her a light for her collar.
> 
> Feel awful, especially after reading Dogless's post about poor Kilo. Plus if a dog had chased Ciara like that I would be really annoyed and so would Ciara.
> 
> The owner of the pug wasn't interested and actually walked off and left her dog but I feel terrible for Ciara's rudeness.


I just wanted to say thank you for taking it seriously and not brushing it off as_ just a herding breed thing_.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Go Holly! Official cheering squad ready and waiting


Do remember it was just me and Holly in the paddock. I don't think she would appreciate cheering....

btw What method is used at your agility club to teach the weaves? I'm not happy with the method used at our class. In fact I'm not too happy with the methods full stop. Too much testing and not enough training as far as I'm concerned. It's good for socialisation but.....


----------



## Nicki85

two by twos is how I taught Rust...

it's awesome, Rust and I managed it all by ourselves (I'm very proud of this) ... At club they use mainly channels which I don't think are very good, especially if you're only doing it once a week.

anyhow, this explains it well-

2 X 2 Weave Pole Training - Part 1 (Zelda) - YouTube

I will train Shae this way as well when shes a bit older. She is a big pup though so probably wait till she's 15 months or so...

Which way are they doing it at class? V weaves? Channels?

(PS Shae's put her pom-poms away for now....)


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> two by twos is how I taught Rust...
> 
> it's awesome, Rust and I managed it all by ourselves (I'm very proud of this) ... At club they use mainly channels which I don't think are very good, especially if you're only doing it once a week.
> 
> anyhow, this explains it well-
> 
> 2 X 2 Weave Pole Training - Part 1 (Zelda) - YouTube
> 
> I will train Shae this way as well when shes a bit older. She is a big pup though so probably wait till she's 15 months or so...
> 
> Which way are they doing it at class? V weaves? Channels?
> 
> (PS Shae's put her pom-poms away for now....)


Thanks for that and 2 x 2 is how I'm going to teach Holly once I've got sufficient weaving poles.

I don't think I dare tell you the method used at club - one person each side of the poles using their knees to block the dog running out... Needless to say Holly wasn't impressed and I'm going to ask if I can leave the weaves out on Monday.


----------



## Nicki85

Wow, that is a new one! They do know they can can get weave guides that attach to the poles don't they? Rusty wouldn't go near the weaves if there were people there... 

2x2's is good- they can understand the concept and as its shaped they can learn in their own time. We only ever had 6 poles (well, garden stakes...) and he still managed to figure it.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Wow, that is a new one! They do know they can can get weave guides that attach to the poles don't they? Rusty wouldn't go near the weaves if there were people there...
> 
> 2x2's is good- they can understand the concept and as its shaped they can learn in their own time. We only ever had 6 poles (well, garden stakes...) and he still managed to figure it.


Oh yes they know. They compete at top level, which is why I don't want to argue too much but I'm not doing that again with Holly.

I've currently only got four poles and one of them is broken.


----------



## Guest

Ok an update on McKenzie and the cat.

I think we are making very slow progress  

Kenzie's getting really good at ignoring the cat provided she's not moving. A few times I've had her untethered, just with lead trailing, while Tala's been sleeping on the sofa. She listens when I tell her to leave it (if she gets too close) and is happy to just ignore her.

She still gets worked up when Tala moves, but I've been doing heaps of clicking and treating when she voluntarily looks away from Tala and it definitely helps with her stress levels. She hasn't been nearly as worked up as previously - well except for right now and that's because she saw another cat in the garden! 

Fingers crossed we're on the right track.


----------



## Nicki85

McKenzie- sounds like things are moving in the right direction. These things take time don't they?

We've had a couple of hours in the forest this morning with a friend and her two Spanners from agility. All had a blast, Rust spent the whole time ignoring them (both are males) and was a bit bonkers hunting a bit far. His recall still worked though so can't really complain. Shae thought she'd died and gone to heaven- we had a new shiny person with us and she kept coming back and squeaking at her and she had to more boy Spanners to play with. 

Unfortunately we did meet two (out of three) of Rustys dislikes. THe first a great big black russian terrier that used to come up to Rust and worry him when he was younger. Owner in a wheel chair and never in sight- not much recall either  So, Rust got very worried and a lot of growling even though I tried to put him behind me. For the second dog Rust was off lead but I noticed him stop and panic so recalled (he didn't freeze- yay!) and put him on lead. He didn't grumble just wanted to keep his distance. This is the dog that started it all off by coming over and attacking Rusty no less than three times when he was onlead. The owner takes a lot more responsibility over her dog now so I can't complain. It did make me frustrated though when she said that her dog was now scared of offlead packs (we had 4 between us- all leashed at this point, none had made contact) as her dog had been chased by them. I couldn't help myself and said "well yes, thats why Rusty is so nervous of some male dogs now because yours came up to him and attacked him". She just agreed and tried to change the subject... I guess I should think myself lucky that Rusty is only really worried by the dogs that have given him cause for concern before but still.

Pleased with Shae though, she did a bit of running and chasing Rust with yipping but listened when I wanted her back and didn't bother the other Spaniels or the other dogs we met.


----------



## ciarasmum

*Canine* - Glad you had a good day yesterday. Amazing how the fair weather walkers seem to appear at the first bit of sun!

*Nicki* - Think you are right about the herding/controlling movement. No idea how to stop it though  Sounds like you had two lovely walks yesterday.

*Twiggy* - Well done Holly!!  The corn sounds so painful 

*Bagrat* - I think I will go to a TTouch session when i get some pennies, I think Ciara would really benefit. My aunts dog rags his lead when he is fed up of waiting. In fact he sometimes grabs Ciara's lead and tries to drag her round the house! She is 32kg and he is a lhasa apso and she is such a dope that she just lets him do it  Does Jackson enjoy the massages?



moonviolet said:


> I just wanted to say thank you for taking it seriously and not brushing it off as_ just a herding breed thing_.


I definitely won't brush it off. If another GSD did it to Ciara I'd be annoyed and Ciara would be upset so I'd hate for that to happen to another owner or another dog be frightened of her.

*McKenzie* - That's great that you are making progress with the cat  Sounds like you are on the right track and I'm sure the c&t will really help.

--------------------

Thank you all for your insights and advice on the herding/chasing thing. Now I just need to stop it! I will continue what I do anyway which is to recall anytime we see a dog and put her on lead. She does have a brilliant recall and had I spotted the dog first I think she would have listened if I had given the command before she had got herself into a panic.

Also I will make sure in dark places like the canal that she is on a harness and long line.

I had a similar thing with her chasing birds. She had never been bothered about them for years, then last year she just started chasing a particularly annoying one that was swooping at her. She must have realised the thrill of it and started to do it more often to the point where I was having to stop her off lead time and just use a longline as she was fixating on them. We did manage to sort it by a mixture of just not letting her do it, and self control work and click&treat for spotting the bird without reaction. She is fine around birds now and walked happily through a field where there seemed to be about 50 birds swarming around, but will take a lot longer for her feelings about scary dogs to change.

No walk this morning as I have an interview soon. Why am I procrastinating on here instead of preparing. I'm absolutely terrified, both if I don't get the job, and if I do as I have no confidence at all  I'd interviewed for another role on Tuesday but they said I was overqualified and after meeting me want me to apply for a higher role today. There's me and one other woman but I just am so scared. Feel a bit sick 

But I'll be rewarding myself with a nice walk with Ciara (hopefully ), and then Big Bang Theory on catch up with a cuppa and an M&S cheesecake!

Hope you all have a great day!


----------



## Nicki85

CM- good luck today- I'm sure you will do fine.
In terms of controlling herding instinct Shae isn't allowed to demonstrate that behaviour on dogs we don't know. She is very responsive usually so not an issue... but if she shows any sign of it she is back on lead. Our main problem is in agility and barking at other dogs running so we have to do lots of distraction work with treats and/or simple commands or take her out if she gets too bad.

Edited to add... not all dogs are averse to the herding type play. One of Rusty's best play mates is a proper herdy BC and he has a great time with him (this was before Shae as well). So I always judge each situation as they come.... If the other dog is happy (and owner is too) then I will let Shae play at herding.


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> *Canine* - Glad you had a good day yesterday. Amazing how the fair weather walkers seem to appear at the first bit of sun!
> 
> *Nicki* - Think you are right about the herding/controlling movement. No idea how to stop it though  Sounds like you had two lovely walks yesterday.
> 
> *Twiggy* - Well done Holly!!  The corn sounds so painful
> 
> *Bagrat* - I think I will go to a TTouch session when i get some pennies, I think Ciara would really benefit. My aunts dog rags his lead when he is fed up of waiting. In fact he sometimes grabs Ciara's lead and tries to drag her round the house! She is 32kg and he is a lhasa apso and she is such a dope that she just lets him do it  Does Jackson enjoy the massages?
> 
> I definitely won't brush it off. If another GSD did it to Ciara I'd be annoyed and Ciara would be upset so I'd hate for that to happen to another owner or another dog be frightened of her.
> 
> *McKenzie* - That's great that you are making progress with the cat  Sounds like you are on the right track and I'm sure the c&t will really help.
> 
> --------------------
> 
> Thank you all for your insights and advice on the herding/chasing thing. *Now I* *just need to stop it!* I will continue what I do anyway which is to recall anytime we see a dog and put her on lead. She does have a brilliant recall and had I spotted the dog first I think she would have listened if I had given the command before she had got herself into a panic.
> 
> Also I will make sure in dark places like the canal that she is on a harness and long line.
> 
> I had a similar thing with her chasing birds. She had never been bothered about them for years, then last year she just started chasing a particularly annoying one that was swooping at her. She must have realised the thrill of it and started to do it more often to the point where I was having to stop her off lead time and just use a longline as she was fixating on them. We did manage to sort it by a mixture of just not letting her do it, and self control work and click&treat for spotting the bird without reaction. She is fine around birds now and walked happily through a field where there seemed to be about 50 birds swarming around, but will take a lot longer for her feelings about scary dogs to change.
> 
> No walk this morning as I have an interview soon. Why am I procrastinating on here instead of preparing. I'm absolutely terrified, both if I don't get the job, and if I do as I have no confidence at all  I'd interviewed for another role on Tuesday but they said I was overqualified and after meeting me want me to apply for a higher role today. There's me and one other woman but I just am so scared. Feel a bit sick
> 
> But I'll be rewarding myself with a nice walk with Ciara (hopefully ), and then Big Bang Theory on catch up with a cuppa and an M&S cheesecake!
> 
> Hope you all have a great day!


I'm not sure you will as it hard wired into them. It's more a case of managing it.

I hope your interview goes well. Deep breathes and half a bottle of Rescue Remedy will help...!!


----------



## Dogless

*McKenzie* - pleased you're making progress .

*Nicki* - pleased you had a good morning in the main; it's good that the woman with the dog who went for Rusty takes responsibility now - at least some people do listen!! .

*ciarasmum* - very best of luck with the interview; cheesecake and Big Bang Theory sounds like a great reward to me .

We went to one of my favourite parts of the forest this morning and ran for a few hours, it was lovely if not a bit of a battle against the elements . Well I ran steadily and the boys chased about!


----------



## L/C

ciarasmum said:


> Before I knew it Ciara's tail had gone up and she had spotted a pug in front of her and rushed to it. It then ran away from her as she was being so rude. When it stopped she sniffed it. I recalled her and she came away but as it made it's escape she tried to run after it again. She didn't go far before recalling but was put back on lead. I didn't show any disappointment or anger, after all it was my fault. I've not had a light on her in the past as we have never seen anyone else down there and I prefer not to let people know where I am if I'm alone.
> 
> No harm done and no harm intended but this is actually a major problem that I have with Ciara. On the very rare occasion if a dog appears if she is off lead her first reaction is to rush up to them. This mostly causes them to run away, she chases and then sniffs when they stop. She even tries the same thing on lead. So she'll walk then suddenly pull forward to sniff instead of approaching calmly.
> 
> It's not even like she is doing it for a reaction to start a fight. If they tell her off she backs off straight away and stops instead of snapping back. I think it is a defence mechanism, if they don't run and stand still she will sniff and come away or if we carry on walking with them she will be fine unless they start running.
> 
> We walked with one of my aunts dogs for nearly 2 hours. He was on a long line and Ciara off lead on the beach. Ciara had shared the car with him for the 45mins to the beach and there was no issue. My aunt let him off lead after a few hours and as soon as he started running she was chasing him crazy fast. When he did stop she sniffed and came away. He was put back on lead for chasing a seagull and she ignored him or interacted in a nice way with him after that and no issue on the way home in the car either
> 
> But of course it is not acceptable. Please don't think this is a regular thing, very very rare she is allowed to greet off lead, and only when we are caught unawares. We've made so much progress with her reactions to dogs but I can't get this first reaction to change at all.
> 
> So from now on if we are down by the canal (or anywhere I can't see properly in front of us no matter how quiet it usually is), she will have a long line and harness on and I'm going to get her a light for her collar.
> 
> Feel awful, especially after reading Dogless's post about poor Kilo. Plus if a dog had chased Ciara like that I would be really annoyed and so would Ciara.
> 
> The owner of the pug wasn't interested and actually walked off and left her dog but I feel terrible for Ciara's rudeness.


I going to take a bit of issue with the idea that it's just herding behaviour - from the little that you've posted of her body language I think that there's a good dose of anxiety/fear motivating her and the herding behaviour is what she falls back on because she doesn't know what else to do.

TBH up until the situation de-escalting when the movement stops you could be describing exactly what Ely does (unfortunately it ends much more badly when he's involved). He is motivated by fear and uses chase and hunting patterns to cope and it sounds like Ciara is doing the same thing.

Is she generally nervous of other dogs?


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- That sounds lovely 

Ciarasmum- Good luck, I am sure you`ll do fine in your interview.

Nicki- Sounds good fun, sorry you saw Rust`s enemies but glad all ended up okay. Shae sounds like she did well, well done.

McKenzie- Glad things are starting to pick up and do well now 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today has been great for us, best walk in ages. Took him to a new field and he met a lovely Irish Setter. 
It was a nice walk round, It was so warm! I took him back to "Our" park to finish off the walk and he had a great walk around then had offlead zoomies in the enclosed area and chased his frisbee for a bit. I was hoping to take him for another lap round the park but he lay down and wouldn`t move obviously tired (no wonder with all the running he did!) so I took him home. 
We`ve been a bit slack today actually and just did 1 training session of teaching a new trick and heelwork and a game of fetch. 
At the minute he is lounging around, staying awake cos there is food cooking 
I am so so pleased with him lately, its been a great week for us and I am going to miss him so much when I drop him off tomorrow evening


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy - Well done to you and Holly 
Mckenzie - Glad the cat situation is going a bit better.
Nicki - Sounds good apart from Rusty being scared by a few dogs. Good that the owner takes more responsibility now though.
Ciarasmum - Good luck with your interview . Like L/C I wondered if it might be a nervous thing, can't offer you any advice but good luck with that too!
Dogless - Sounds like a good morning!


----------



## ciarasmum

Nicki - I also put Ciara on lead when she shows this type of behaviour. She does it to my aunts dog who she has known since she was a pup so I know it's not always aggression. But I think what she does when she's walking with a dog is different to the rushing up and chasing when she first greets (if she ever gets caught unawares)

Twiggy - had some rescue remedy, boy it's grim tasting! But felt fairly calm in the interview! 

Dogless - Sounds like a lovely walk, hope you didn't have any of the storm we've had here! I walk in all weathers but am too scared of lightning to venture out in it! 

L/C - Yes I think you are right. She is nervous of other dogs, so I think that the initial rush up is definitely fear motivated. She never reacts to a telling off but I do agree with you.

Canine - How lovely to have such a great walk and a great week! 

-----------------------------

Thanks for the good luck  Just got back. Tbh it's really not what I want. When I went on Tuesday it was for a receptionist/admin job. They told me today that I was the best candidate for it and would have given it me if they hadn't have been recruiting for this role (I hate saying anything positive about myself so please don't think I'm being a bighead!). But to be honest it's not a role I would have ever applied for .

I'm really not cut out to do project manager type stuff and it involves travelling down and staying in London for days on end very often. I couldn't take Ciara obviously and not prepared to leave her with my parents so often. They would either not walk her, or just walk her round the street where she would be in a constant state of stress  Plus I've never wanted to work in a job like that. I kind of feel it;s been forced on me (if I got it) and just feel sick at the thought of it. 

Of course my parents are mad at me now which makes things worse. When I questionned the agency this wk they just ignored me and would not give me any more info on the role. It's a real shame as they seem like lovely people but it just isn't me


----------



## tiatortilla

Today's been alright. Very nearly had another incident with a cat, different street and different cat... Poor Tia backed away growling when it popped out of a hedge and it tried to follow us, fortunately she didn't get leapt on this time and we got away!
All good apart from that, we saw lots of people and she was relaxed around all of them apart from some noisy teenage boys, she didn't react too much though, just a few throaty noises lol. She got a stroke from a nice lady and she enjoyed that though .


----------



## ciarasmum

tiatortilla said:


> Today's been alright. Very nearly had another incident with a cat, different street and different cat... Poor Tia backed away growling when it popped out of a hedge and it tried to follow us, fortunately she didn't get leapt on this time and we got away!
> All good apart from that, we saw lots of people and she was relaxed around all of them apart from some noisy teenage boys, she didn't react too much though, just a few throaty noises lol. She got a stroke from a nice lady and she enjoyed that though .


Stupid cat! Some of them are so bolshy aren't they! Hope Tia wasn't too frightened. Good girl for not reacting to the teenagers


----------



## Hanwombat

Just took Io for her afternoon walk, her heel is coming along very well, sometimes its a tad too in front but the fact she avoids other distractions is great.


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> Nicki - I also put Ciara on lead when she shows this type of behaviour. She does it to my aunts dog who she has known since she was a pup so I know it's not always aggression. But I think what she does when she's walking with a dog is different to the rushing up and chasing when she first greets (if she ever gets caught unawares)
> 
> Twiggy - had some rescue remedy, boy it's grim tasting! But felt fairly calm in the interview!
> 
> Dogless - Sounds like a lovely walk, hope you didn't have any of the storm we've had here! I walk in all weathers but am too scared of lightning to venture out in it!
> 
> L/C - Yes I think you are right. She is nervous of other dogs, so I think that the initial rush up is definitely fear motivated. She never reacts to a telling off but I do agree with you.
> 
> Canine - How lovely to have such a great walk and a great week!
> 
> -----------------------------
> 
> Thanks for the good luck  Just got back. Tbh it's really not what I want. When I went on Tuesday it was for a receptionist/admin job. They told me today that I was the best candidate for it and would have given it me if they hadn't have been recruiting for this role (I hate saying anything positive about myself so please don't think I'm being a bighead!). But to be honest it's not a role I would have ever applied for .
> 
> I'm really not cut out to do project manager type stuff and it involves travelling down and staying in London for days on end very often. I couldn't take Ciara obviously and not prepared to leave her with my parents so often. They would either not walk her, or just walk her round the street where she would be in a constant state of stress  Plus I've never wanted to work in a job like that. I kind of feel it;s been forced on me (if I got it) and just feel sick at the thought of it.
> 
> Of course my parents are mad at me now which makes things worse. When I questionned the agency this wk they just ignored me and would not give me any more info on the role. It's a real shame as they seem like lovely people but it just isn't me


Pleased the Rescue Remedy helped. I down it by the bottleful when I'm airborne as flying terrifies me.

That a shame about the Project Manager job. It's a pity they didn't explain what it entailed before interview stage. I know jobs are not easy to get in the current climate but if it's not for you, and it would make you unhappy, then best to decline I would have thought.


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> Dogless- That sounds lovely
> 
> Ciarasmum- Good luck, I am sure you`ll do fine in your interview.
> 
> Nicki- Sounds good fun, sorry you saw Rust`s enemies but glad all ended up okay. Shae sounds like she did well, well done.
> 
> McKenzie- Glad things are starting to pick up and do well now
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Today has been great for us, best walk in ages. Took him to a new field and he met a lovely Irish Setter.
> It was a nice walk round, It was so warm! I took him back to "Our" park to finish off the walk and he had a great walk around then had offlead zoomies in the enclosed area and chased his frisbee for a bit. I was hoping to take him for another lap round the park but he lay down and wouldn`t move obviously tired (no wonder with all the running he did!) so I took him home.
> We`ve been a bit slack today actually and just did 1 training session of teaching a new trick and heelwork and a game of fetch.
> At the minute he is lounging around, staying awake cos there is food cooking
> I am so so pleased with him lately, its been a great week for us and I am going to miss him so much when I drop him off tomorrow evening


That's good. It sounds as if Bailey is turning into a well-mannered young man...


----------



## JenKyzer

I actually have time to play WAYWO tonight 

This week has seen a big change in Willows morning routine (OH motorbike broke so i've been taking him to work, normally we stay in bed until he leaves).. and i don't think she coped well 
Monday we came home to the bin on it's side and bin bag contents in a neat line from kitchen, through living room and upto the front door. She stank... she must of had great fun rolling in it and got knows what else (she has done this once before except the bag was sat at the back door.. this time.. she got the bag out the bin!)
Tuesday, came home to some of her bedding chewed... never done this before and she had been scratching :crying:
So i've ordered a kong (she only has a kong wobbler) and a new toy for her seems as her rag rope is now no-more (lasted almost 5months!!) [email protected] don't do the same one so we got the 'new version'.. it lasted 1week :glare: 
So i'm assuming she's just got bored, paired with the fact OH can't come home from work on dinner now either (OH bro lives with us so she's rarely actually on her own) so she's probably wondering where her dinner time play mate was, it was a disaster waiting to happen really . No harm done.. just didn't like the thought of her stressing out (i'm paranoid since watching the programme on ch4....) making her do things so out of character.

Since then, her kong wobbler has has new treats in each day and has been left at the bottom of the stairs... i also found a hollow rubber ball to fill with goodies and plug a bigger bit in the hole to hide in her bed upstairs.. which has tied her over nicely until her new goodies arrive  also had a bath in epi-soothe to try and combat the scratching aswell as the smell from bin day!! & (touch wood) no more out of character things have happened 

We had a good walk with Frank last night  Some pics here http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...-offlead-antics-pic-heavy.html#post1063292459 .. they get on really well. Willow was a star! She recalled to me everytime from just my voice (no whistle)   not even dilly-dally recall.. a full on pelt of a run back to me.. :w00t: :001_wub: *trys not to get too excited so to jinx it* she loved the company of Frank too.. hopefully this might help her relax at the sight of other dogs.. we did see another dog on the walk and she didn't make a murmour.. pulled a bit but carried on swiftly enough 

Sorry its a long one 
I will catch up with you guys now


----------



## JenKyzer

Tia - Glad todays been ok for you and Tia seemed relaxed  apart from throaty noises, but well done to her for no big noises 

Ciarasmum - Sorry to hear the job didn't end up being for you  Hope something more suitable comes along soon  (The rescue where willow came from had a full time job going the other week .. i was soo tempted  maybe one day when i need a new direction in life  )

CK9 - Sounds like bailey is doing great, you should be so proud!! 

Dogless - Glad you had a nice morning run with the boys  (Hope you and Kilo are both relaxed since the other day too)

Nicki - Sounds like fun in the forest! Sorry for rusty seeing 2 of his dislikes  Sounds like he handled it well though  well done's to shae too 

Mckenzie - Fingers crossed that the progress carries on sounds like your on the right track to me  well done to Mckenzie! ('slow' progress is what we're good at too )

Twiggy - Glad to hear you and holly had a great time yesterday, big yay for holly ! Hope the corn isn't suffering too much today because of it 

So much gets written, i'm struggling to catch up actually  
Cuppa tea is needed to re-fuel  then i will use the 'likes' to show i have caught up properly


----------



## Dogless

JSW - I'm sure Willow will settle again; just sounds as if she's sensitive to the change of routine. I'll go and look at your photo thread now - looking forward tp seeing her in action .

Just went for separate walks tonight. Pavement for Rudi, lots of drunk folk out. Had an idiot in part of the estate where all the lights are out who approached us on the pavement to walk past as closely as he possibly could (he could definitely see us, Rudi had his collar on - we had just seen our neighbours who said "he'll not get lost anyway!!") just brushing my shoulder. I said "evening" to him but no reply so told Rudi "on by". He was going by anyway but it also means "all is OK" really. Rudi didn't put a paw wrong, bless him and the man said "yes, on by Roo" in a stupid voice as he walked away. Place is full of idiots. Despite my whinging we actually had a good walk.

Took Kilo round the sports pitches and open areas next to them. I had to; I'm not having our world reduced even further than it is. He wasn't happy to start with but lots of working for titbits and he soon stopped worrying so much. Saw no one which suited us fine.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> JSW - I'm sure Willow will settle again; just sounds as if she's sensitive to the change of routine. I'll go and look at your photo thread now - looking forward tp seeing her in action ..


I feel so silly for not even considering her and just assuming she'd be her ususal sleep-allday self  and the fact i didn't pick up on her having nothing to keep her busy without her dinner time game of tug and who knows what else! I felt so mean. So she also got a special delivery from fish4dogs too 

Grr.. silly drunken idiot. Glad you had a lovely walk despite that though  & Glad kilo relaxed when he got into the swing of things, bless him. And so your world shouldn't be reduced more either!! I feel so annoyed for you  but pleased for you that you saw no-one tonight  hope you now have your feet up with two relaxed CH's


----------



## Nicki85

Not a bad morning here.
Shae was hyped this morning as a dog walking past the back gate barked at her as we were getting ready to go out so we waited a bit till the dog had gone past before going out. But it was still there (no owner- just dog!) so cue loads of barking at Shae... Shuffled her back inside again. FInally managed to get out but I was feeling frustrated and Shae hyped so it wasn't going to be a good walk from the start!

Soon met a lab- put Shae on lead but it kept coming up, Shae broke her sit and bounced to the end of the lead to meet it. This was coupled with all manner of excited noises. The owner then accused Shae of attacking her dog as she was "growling". By this time her lab had told off Shae for bouncing (fair enough)... I tried to explain that she was just very vocal and pointed out that Shae had now gone into a play-bow but she wasn't having any of it. 

We also met a little cocker who Shae had a little game with but I called her away as she was still quite bouncy.

Then we went to the agility place and we had a fab time  Nice fenced in area outside in a field and Rusty was pretty good, not too distracted and focused on his toy. It chucked it down though and that was a bit nasty!! Really nice class so we will be going back. Took Shae out after and she had a bit of a game of tug and let her watch all the BCs running around before the next class. She was fab, lots of treats and saying hi to the other people. 

Then took them down to the park for a quick run as Shae hadn't done much. Shae first two dogs already out so worked on her focusing on her ball. She did really well when a big white fluffy dog wanted to come talk to her. She focused on her ball till it was literally next to her then quick greeting and she brought the ball back. Then a little puppy vizla (cute!) came up so played find it till the pup was close enough for her to sniff. They had a lovely game of chase and she was very gentle. A little terrier then came over to investigate but again I put the treats on the floor and she ignored it till it jumped on me lol.
Rust came out and had a quick game of fetch- he had fun!

THink thats it... 

Hope everyone is having a good day


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - pleased your morning was good over all .

Good morning here too in the main. The boys "helped" me to rearrange the lounge and dining room and then I did separate walks.

Took Rudi just around and about; did some impulse control stuff with a ball on a rope and then he carried it proudly all the way home!! He coped with the fact it was blowing a gale and with kids on roller skates, small bikes and scooters hell bent on getting as close to us as possible . He was really good though and not especially bothered .

Drove Kilo up to the top fields, the fact that the whole floor (leaves and grass cuttings) was moving and that the wind was carrying the sound of the farm dogs barking meant that I just kept things low - key and he pottered and sniffed and did some find - its as he gets really hyped in the wind. Then a couple pushing a buggy went past about 15m away which doesn't usually bother him at all but his tail clamped and he absolutely fixated on them. The best I could get from him was a "down" and I threw treats in between his paws. Realised it was the couple who own the dog that attacked him and the man had been quite "grabby" trying to look him over afterwards. He recovered fast enough when they turned around and carried on with their walk and then it started pouring with rain so we called it quits!


----------



## Canine K9

Hanwombat- Thats good about Io`s heelwork well done Io and you

Twiggy- Thank you very much  

JSW- Sounds great, photo thread was fantastic. Great shots!

Nicki- Sounds like a great morning, sorry about the lab and its owner but everything else sounds great :wink:

Dogless- Sounds good, well done Kilo and Rudi 

------------------------------------------------------------
He was home alone all morning got home and did a bit of training. Took him to agility and he did really well although he wasn`t too keen on some of the jumping! He looooves the tunnels. I forgot the course though, felt a right plonker  Starting Competitive classes mid Nov.
We are back home now and he`s chilling out at my feet, dropping him off at six, gonna miss him :crying:


----------



## missRV

Canine K9 said:


> Hanwombat- Thats good about Io`s heelwork well done Io and you
> 
> Twiggy- Thank you very much
> 
> JSW- Sounds great, photo thread was fantastic. Great shots!
> 
> Nicki- Sounds like a great morning, sorry about the lab and its owner but everything else sounds great :wink:
> 
> Dogless- Sounds good, well done Kilo and Rudi
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> He was home alone all morning got home and did a bit of training. Took him to agility and he did really well although he wasn`t too keen on some of the jumping! He looooves the tunnels. I forgot the course though, felt a right plonker  Starting Competitive classes mid Nov.
> We are back home now and he`s chilling out at my feet, dropping him off at six, gonna miss him :crying:


Have a fab time hun; give Bailey a massive cuddle for me before you drop him off  he's a little love x


----------



## missRV

I have a lot of reading and catching up to do!

We had a bit of a break through today!

She played with 2 weimaraners this morning in agility! Those of you who don't know about Rosie's timidness won't think this is a big thing, but she's terrified of any dog bigger than a cocker spaniel! The owner said her dogs were very friendly and to try socialising them, and the tutor of the dog school said Rosie was curious! She then couldn't get enough of them! I was almost crying!

She was a super star in agility too! Tutor was really understanding about my unawareness of left/right and broke the instructions down as I was doing them (I am severely dyslexic and have short term memory loss; and only disclosed this today!) We had the best agility lesson ever! Rosie even went off lead and only ran off once to have a poo in the corner! Her recall was so much better, especially as her new friend was in the waiting area! 

All round good day for us


----------



## sailor

JenSteWillow - shame about Willow not fully appreciating her new 'me time' and entertaining herself with the bin and bedding, but great news about her walk with Frank  (she needs to give Toppa some tips!)

Dogless - Rudi sounds like he is growing into a lovely young dog and as for poor Kilo, despite his worries, it sounds like you are keeping him on the right track 
I must have missed the 'attack' on Kilo, hope it wasn't bad and altho he clearly still remembers it and by whom, I do hope he overcomes it with time.

Canine K9 - Congrats to Bailey for doing well at agility, not so congrats on you forgetting the course  but atleast it sounded like you both had fun and that is what it is all about!

MissRV - Rosie sounds like a sweetie, well done to you both on your agility too! It is nice to read she overcome her issues with big dogs to make a coupld of friends too 

........................................

Hello people (and pups) 
I find it really difficult to keep up in here.... but I must come back for abit of advice or moral support with Toppa!
He has done really well and I believe the last time I was in here was way back when he didn't have a recall  he would stay close and recall, but always just out of reach, so I couldn't catch him and when I tried he would simply avoid me.
He is now recalling beautifully 90% of the time, he loves running free, sniffing everything and generally being a dog 

Now to our 'problem' 
Toppa (little JRT) is a 'bully'. He has never really played with another dog, he always acts the wee hard man, he will stand still have a quick sniff and then his hackles will go up and he will try to get on the other dogs back (if small enough) or give a growl and nip (if bigger than him). He stands his ground with EVERY dog, no matter how big and has only once tried to start a fight with another dog who was smaller than him and very relaxed and calm with him.

Today on a walk we saw a lovely friendly Staffy who ran upto Toppa and gave him a sniff wagging her tail, Toppa was on lead and his hackles instantly went up and he growled at her, she air snapped at him but looked more like a playful telling off. Toppa was not amused, hackles remained up and he continued to growl til they passed... then he just continued to pull on the lead wanting to run after her so I changed direction so she wasn't in his line of sight and he calmed down.
Then whilst offlead he saw one dog and he could have ran towards it, but he stopped to sniff and I distracted him (the dog was the little calm nice one he previously tried to start a figt with, hence the distraction) and we walked on a different route, no problems.
Then we saw another dog (much bigger than Toppa), Toppa gave a bark to the lady and her dog (he sometimes alert barks when startled or thinks someone/thing is suspicious). The lady continued to walk on and her dog stopped in its tracks. Toppa was instantly aware the dog was nervous and gave chase barking at it all the way down the track  
He didn't recall or I didn't call him (can't remember I just remember being embarressed), but luckily as the dog was a sighthound it out ran Toppa and Toppa gave up the chase and ran straight back to me, looking very pleased with himself. I immiedately put his lead on.
I saw the dog coming back looking really nervous still, so not wanting to worry the dog further I picked up Toppa and stepped aside for the dog to make her getaway to run past us to her owner. (the owner was not concerned at all, she had carried on walking infact).

At the moment Toppa is not being out right aggressive, it is more vocal and just him seeming to act the hard man (he is 14 months old and not neutered), but I am worried that this could be the start of something that could become a problem if not kept in check, as he just doesn't seem to get on with any dog at all, even the nice calm old ones can't escape his attitude. 
I feel it is him trying to be dominant over other dogs, he just seems to be trying to put all dogs in their place? 
All I am doing is distracting him away from dogs where I can and recalling/collecting him when he starts any unwanted behaviour with other dogs.
I walk a husky and when Toppa sees him he even tries to put him in his place... when Ice puts Toppa in his place Toppa takes it as an invitation to fight  and the size difference is HUGE!
A friend has a patterdale male which Toppa sometimes walks with and I have noticed he will happily walk with this dog and they wont play/interact. Once on leads and if walked too close together it is a different story, he hates him with a passion!

Anyhow, I am just not sure if I am doing the right thing with distrcting him from some dogs and then recalling/collecting him from others when he shows unwanted behaviours.
And is this just a phase because of his age and the fact he still has his bits?
Or is he simply a trouble maker :w00t:


----------



## missRV

Thanks Sailor

Sorry I don't have brilliant advice, but I hope you get it sorted


----------



## Dogless

Just a separate walk for Rudi tonight. I appear to have broken my toe which happened about half an hour before I walked him. It was smarting a little and Kilo wasn't in a rush to go out, just made a big sleep noise and buried into the sofa - something to do with the rain perhaps Sir K? . Saw the woman with the sheltie who walks with Kilo and I sometimes...I like meeting her as her dog has impeccable manners and she's a good "stand / sit nicely whilst we chat" practice woman and dog . Feel guilty that I took one and not the other but Kilo doesn't seem to mind, it's just me being daft. Yet again .


----------



## Dogless

*Sailor* - thanks; the 'attack' was fairly severe and lead to him being stitched back together again under GA. Left the poor fella very scared and very sore! We were walking home and someone had left their gate open. We walked past the gate and then heard a bark, turned around and a staffy flew at Kilo. He screamed and screamed and didn't attempt to retaliate and Rudi ran about scared on the periphery. Owner paid vet bills.

I think that calling Toppa and keeping him close and distracting him around other dogs when he shows unwanted behaviours seems like a good idea (thank goodness you've sorted his recall!! ) or maybe even keeping him on a longline to guide him away?

Hope others have better advice than me .


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless - Ouch, hope your toe is better soon! Don't feel bad about not taking Kilo, I'm sure he had a lovely snooze while you were gone 
MissRV - That sounds wonderful. I know exactly how you must feel, Tia is the same although her size limit is collies but she's a tad bigger than Rosie so that makes sense 
K9 - Hope you have fun on holiday 
JSW - I'm sure Willow will get used to the change in routine and stop destroying bins. All sounds good apart from that


----------



## Nicki85

Sailor- I don't know if its just a phase or if he just doesn't like other dogs. Only thing i'd say is keep him on a longline till you know you can recall him from another dog. You may be able to help him by rewarding good behaviour around other dogs as well... 

DL- know all about that feeling guilty even when the dogs don't care lol. How did you break your toe?! 

MissRV- glad you had a good session  It's lovely when they play nicely. 

Went out for an afternoon walk- both offlead, Rusty was crazy running around like a loon. Didn't meet anyone though.


----------



## tiatortilla

All good here today 
Didn't react at all to a lab puppy we saw and she only had a teeny growl at a scottie dog at a very small distance. Coped very well with some children who went past her on scooters while she was having a wee too!
There's also some kind of "zombie walk" (No idea! There was me thinking halloween was for children lol) going on tonight so it's very busy and lots of lairy drunk people but she's pretty relaxed . Hopefully it'll stay that way as the evening goes on!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Sailor- I don't know if its just a phase or if he just doesn't like other dogs. Only thing i'd say is keep him on a longline till you know you can recall him from another dog. You may be able to help him by rewarding good behaviour around other dogs as well...
> 
> DL- know all about that feeling guilty even when the dogs don't care lol. *How did you break your toe?! *
> 
> MissRV- glad you had a good session  It's lovely when they play nicely.
> 
> Went out for an afternoon walk- both offlead, Rusty was crazy running around like a loon. Didn't meet anyone though.


I broke it (I think broken anyway) stubbing it very hard against a solid wooden chest trying to avoid tripping over Rudi . So I hopped to a dining chair and made aarrrgghhhh hmmmph noises very quietly. Kilo looked at me with cocked head and worried expression; Rudi decided that the appropriate action was to take a flying leap into my lap :w00t:. But he then panicked with there not being room and pulled a mug of freshly brewed hippy tea off the table which then landed in my lap so that hurt even more :nonod: . Flaming dog!! At least he was OK .


----------



## Nicki85

Oh gawd- that would have been something worth catching on camera  

Glad you are all OK though... (apart from the toe....) dogs should come with a hazard sheet!!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Oh gawd- that would have been something worth catching on camera
> 
> Glad you are all OK though... (apart from the toe....) dogs should come with a hazard sheet!!


Yep, fine. It smarts a fair bit but is no big deal....Rudi is fine which is what counts - Kilo stayed well clear on the sofa .


----------



## Guest

I just gave a like to the first question  Should have checked the year and the number of posts... Anyway, I am trying to separate Oscar and Zazi, as Zazi is in season. Oscar got a hormonal shot that should have made him totally ignore Zazi´s condition, but it did not work so well. It did before, so this was unexpected. 

So literally I order Oscar to stay away, con him to go out when she is in or just push him away. The last bit is a bit hard, as he weighs more than me. 

Saturday night fever indeed. Poor Oscar though. His romantic ideas will never be fulfilled.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Just a separate walk for Rudi tonight. I appear to have broken my toe which happened about half an hour before I walked him. It was smarting a little and Kilo wasn't in a rush to go out, just made a big sleep noise and buried into the sofa - something to do with the rain perhaps Sir K? . Saw the woman with the sheltie who walks with Kilo and I sometimes...I like meeting her as her dog has impeccable manners and she's a good "stand / sit nicely whilst we chat" practice woman and dog . Feel guilty that I took one and not the other but Kilo doesn't seem to mind, it's just me being daft. Yet again .


What do you mean - 'you appear to have broken your toe'?

Are you going to A & E?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> What do you mean - 'you appear to have broken your toe'?
> 
> Are you going to A & E?


No; definitely wouldn't bother A&E for something trivial that I have done before a few times. I strap it to it's next door neighbour and get on with it. Blood supply is fine as capillary refill is rapid and it's straight. No big drama at all bar it smarting but I have a small nation's supply of pharmaceuticals in my cupboard due to my glass back!


----------



## Twiggy

sailor said:


> JenSteWillow - shame about Willow not fully appreciating her new 'me time' and entertaining herself with the bin and bedding, but great news about her walk with Frank  (she needs to give Toppa some tips!)
> 
> Dogless - Rudi sounds like he is growing into a lovely young dog and as for poor Kilo, despite his worries, it sounds like you are keeping him on the right track
> I must have missed the 'attack' on Kilo, hope it wasn't bad and altho he clearly still remembers it and by whom, I do hope he overcomes it with time.
> 
> Canine K9 - Congrats to Bailey for doing well at agility, not so congrats on you forgetting the course  but atleast it sounded like you both had fun and that is what it is all about!
> 
> MissRV - Rosie sounds like a sweetie, well done to you both on your agility too! It is nice to read she overcome her issues with big dogs to make a coupld of friends too
> 
> ........................................
> 
> Hello people (and pups)
> I find it really difficult to keep up in here.... but I must come back for abit of advice or moral support with Toppa!
> He has done really well and I believe the last time I was in here was way back when he didn't have a recall  he would stay close and recall, but always just out of reach, so I couldn't catch him and when I tried he would simply avoid me.
> He is now recalling beautifully 90% of the time, he loves running free, sniffing everything and generally being a dog
> 
> Now to our 'problem'
> Toppa (little JRT) is a 'bully'. He has never really played with another dog, he always acts the wee hard man, he will stand still have a quick sniff and then his hackles will go up and he will try to get on the other dogs back (if small enough) or give a growl and nip (if bigger than him). He stands his ground with EVERY dog, no matter how big and has only once tried to start a fight with another dog who was smaller than him and very relaxed and calm with him.
> 
> Today on a walk we saw a lovely friendly Staffy who ran upto Toppa and gave him a sniff wagging her tail, Toppa was on lead and his hackles instantly went up and he growled at her, she air snapped at him but looked more like a playful telling off. Toppa was not amused, hackles remained up and he continued to growl til they passed... then he just continued to pull on the lead wanting to run after her so I changed direction so she wasn't in his line of sight and he calmed down.
> Then whilst offlead he saw one dog and he could have ran towards it, but he stopped to sniff and I distracted him (the dog was the little calm nice one he previously tried to start a figt with, hence the distraction) and we walked on a different route, no problems.
> Then we saw another dog (much bigger than Toppa), Toppa gave a bark to the lady and her dog (he sometimes alert barks when startled or thinks someone/thing is suspicious). The lady continued to walk on and her dog stopped in its tracks. Toppa was instantly aware the dog was nervous and gave chase barking at it all the way down the track
> He didn't recall or I didn't call him (can't remember I just remember being embarressed), but luckily as the dog was a sighthound it out ran Toppa and Toppa gave up the chase and ran straight back to me, looking very pleased with himself. I immiedately put his lead on.
> I saw the dog coming back looking really nervous still, so not wanting to worry the dog further I picked up Toppa and stepped aside for the dog to make her getaway to run past us to her owner. (the owner was not concerned at all, she had carried on walking infact).
> 
> At the moment Toppa is not being out right aggressive, it is more vocal and just him seeming to act the hard man (he is 14 months old and not neutered), but I am worried that this could be the start of something that could become a problem if not kept in check, as he just doesn't seem to get on with any dog at all, even the nice calm old ones can't escape his attitude.
> I feel it is him trying to be dominant over other dogs, he just seems to be trying to put all dogs in their place?
> All I am doing is distracting him away from dogs where I can and recalling/collecting him when he starts any unwanted behaviour with other dogs.
> I walk a husky and when Toppa sees him he even tries to put him in his place... when Ice puts Toppa in his place Toppa takes it as an invitation to fight  and the size difference is HUGE!
> A friend has a patterdale male which Toppa sometimes walks with and I have noticed he will happily walk with this dog and they wont play/interact. Once on leads and if walked too close together it is a different story, he hates him with a passion!
> 
> Anyhow, I am just not sure if I am doing the right thing with distrcting him from some dogs and then recalling/collecting him from others when he shows unwanted behaviours.
> *And is this just a phase because of his age and the fact he still has his bits?
> Or is he simply a trouble maker *:w00t:


Probably a combination of all those things.

JRTs tend to be fiesty. My sister had one a few years back. She was brilliant with people but never all that sociable with other dogs and had a few 'spats' with her collies from time to time.

Toppa's a rescue isn't he?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> No; definitely wouldn't bother A&E for something trivial that I have done before a few times. I strap it to it's next door neighbour and get on with it. Blood supply is fine as capillary refill is rapid and it's straight. No big drama at all bar it smarting but I have a small nation's supply of pharmaceuticals in my cupboard due to my glass back!


Hmmm me thinks you're telling Grannie fibs...!! Just be careful; it sounds painful.


----------



## toryb

ALOT! :w00t:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm me thinks you're telling Grannie fibs...!! Just be careful; it sounds painful.


No fibs Grannie, honest!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> No fibs Grannie, honest!!


Sorry I don't believe you...LOL Have you broken the same toe several times before then?


----------



## Twiggy

toryb said:


> ALOT! :w00t:


Yes aren't we all...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Sorry I don't believe you...LOL Have you broken the same toe several times before then?


You don't believe what? That I have bust it (I only suspect I have)? Yes, have broken toes a few times, including this one. Middle toe on left foot so just get on with things. I have had far, far worse being a clumsy idiot!!


----------



## sailor

Think I might try out a longline for now and as mentioned, only reward good/or no behaviour around other dogs, see how he goes.
That was the first time he has actually chased another dog in that manner and I hope the last.


----------



## Tyton

Dogless said:


> No; definitely wouldn't bother A&E for something trivial that I have done before a few times. I strap it to it's next door neighbour and get on with it. Blood supply is fine as capillary refill is rapid and it's straight. No big drama at all bar it smarting but I have a small nation's supply of pharmaceuticals in my cupboard due to my glass back!


Sorry, intended to keep lurking quietly and not posting, but having just returned from a nine hour shift at the local walk-in centre I had to 'like' your post and gjve you a big :thumbup::thumbup: for being so sensible and pragmatic  -wish there were more people like you over here!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You don't believe what? That I have bust it (I only suspect I have)? Yes, have broken toes a few times, including this one. Middle toe on left foot so just get on with things. I have had far, far worse being a clumsy idiot!!


Oh I certainly believe you've broken it. It's the fact you're making out it's no big deal that worries me, especially with two big boys to walk.


----------



## Twiggy

toryb said:


> ALOT! :w00t:


Aww - how cute...!!


----------



## Dogless

Tyton said:


> Sorry, intended to keep lurking quietly and not posting, but having just returned from a nine hour shift at the local walk-in centre I had to 'like' your post and gjve you a big :thumbup::thumbup: for being so sensible and pragmatic  -wish there were more people like you over here!


Having worked in A&E and pre - hospital trauma care and primary care areas.....def wouldn't attend with a buggered middle toe when CRT is good and it's straight :nonod: .

Are you in NI? Thought you were on the mainland :w00t:.



Twiggy said:


> Oh I certainly believe you've broken it. It's the fact you're making out it's no big deal that worries me, especially with two big boys to walk.


Oh, I see . It is no big deal at all Twiggy strapped to it's neighbour and then in a boot; business as usual. I have a high pain threshold apparently anyway!! I didn't try and walk them both together tonight at least which had been my plan :w00t:.


----------



## moonviolet

Thanks to a little nudge from GR we are starting work on a little vignette of Christmas themed tricks. 

Dogless hope the toe heals fast

Sailor from what you posted it sounds like Toppa is a bit worried by other dogs and in true JRT style is getting feisty. The longline and the counter conditioning sound a good idea in addition i'd avoid greetings when he's on a short lead, as he doesn't have the choice to get away if he feels overwhelmed by another dogs attentions.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Having worked in A&E and pre - hospital trauma care and primary care areas.....def wouldn't attend with a buggered middle toe when CRT is good and it's straight :nonod: .
> 
> Are you in NI? Thought you were on the mainland :w00t:.
> 
> Oh, I see . It is no big deal at all Twiggy strapped to it's neighbour and then in a boot; business as usual. I have a high pain threshold apparently anyway!! I didn't try and walk them both together tonight at least which had been my plan :w00t:.


Well I'll repeat again - just be careful.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well I'll repeat again - just be careful.


Yes Grannie; I will be, don't worry .


----------



## Twiggy

*


moonviolet said:



Thanks to a little nudge from GR we are starting work on a little vignette of Christmas themed tricks.

Click to expand...

*


moonviolet said:


> Dogless hope the toe heals fast
> 
> Sailor from what you posted it sounds like Toppa is a bit worried by other dogs and in true JRT style is getting feisty. The longline and the counter conditioning sound a good idea in addition i'd avoid greetings when he's on a short lead, as he doesn't have the choice to get away if he feels overwhelmed by another dogs attentions.


Do we get to see you both perform said tricks?... A video maybe?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Do we get to see you both perform said tricks?... A video maybe?*


*

I'm hoping for one; I love seeing Miss Tinks in action!*


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless you nutter, how you act like its no big deal is beyond me, be very careful


----------



## sailor

Twiggy said:


> Probably a combination of all those things.
> 
> JRTs tend to be fiesty. My sister had one a few years back. She was brilliant with people but never all that sociable with other dogs and had a few 'spats' with her collies from time to time.
> 
> Toppa's a rescue isn't he?


As I thought, but still worth further training and more control.

He is a rescue.
From what I was told he was teathered to a kennel in a garden and looked after by a child. The owner said he was 'a great guard dog for a puppy'.
I was told he was 3/4 months old. I know he was young as he had all his baby teeth when he arrived and not long after they started to fall out, so I assume he could have been anything upto 6 months?
He has never acted in a playful puppy manner, he would either ignore/avoid other dogs, or if he felt threatened he would stand his ground and bark.
He did start to ignore them more than react to any and I thought we was making good progress, but recently he has started to act like he has to put all dogs in their place. And today, with him chasing that nervous dog. Little bugger! 
I dont mind that he ignores other dogs or gives them a little growl to say leave me alone. But his started to act abit more of a bruiser, hence wanting to nip that in the bud!
I am going to see where the long line and reward for good behaviour takes us... then hopefully be happy with the results or try a plan B!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes Grannie; I will be, don't worry .


I'm not nagging honest....

I broke my arm falling off a horse in my younger days and was back riding whilst it was still in plaster...!!


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Do we get to see you both perform said tricks?... A video maybe?*


*

Of course, we only do it for a bit of fun.*


----------



## Dogless

Canine K9 said:


> Dogless you nutter, how you act like its no big deal is beyond me, be very careful


It is no big deal K9, my back was a big deal, a toe isn't .



Twiggy said:


> I'm not nagging honest....
> 
> I broke my arm falling off a horse in my younger days and was back riding whilst it was still in plaster...!!


Yes....same here but bike .


----------



## JenKyzer

Evening 

Nicki - Sorry shae was a little bouncy this morning, bless her! The agility sounds great as does the walk in the park 

Dogless - Such helpful boys you have  Bless Rudi and his 'proud walk' with his ball.. willow does this, i love it, i can just imagine Rudi doing his  Sounds like Kilo did his best too.. hope he enjoyed it whilst he was there and before the couple turned up.. do they follow you or what  ?! (Hope the toes ok!)

CK9 - I must of missed where you going?? Hope you have a brill time.. I'm sure bailey will miss you but have fun without you too  Your day sounds great.. especially the agility! 

MissRV - Aww i'm so pleased you had a *moment* .. Well done to Rosie  It sounds so lovely - As does the rest of your day  Very pleased for you.

Sailor - I'm not really sure what to say.. i'm not in a position for advice but we are in a similar position with Willow so i'll just say what works for us .. maybe except the fight bit/putting dogs in their place.. she grumbles, barks, lunges - generally lets them know she doesn't want them to go near us.. we got to a great point, now back a few squares but i can manage it better. We use 'carry on' when passing dogs.. and quicken pace.. once out of sight, she gets a treat. So hopefully she can begin to realise, dog.. quick walk away.. treat. Sometimes she does go OTT but the 'carry on' 'this way' distracts her from looking at the dog and she rarely keeps looking behind for more, its just the passing we need to nail. TBH if a dog runs up to willow.. i can't avoid her reaction but i get inbetween them and shoo the other away, friendly or not - it is unacceptable to run up to my dog. Sorry to hear Toppa gave chase.. i haven't had this with Willow. Always on lead if we can't be sure about dogs being around, if offlead we are in places that give clear sight so we spot the dogs before her so we've never been in a position to test her recall away from dogs.. if she does see them, we use 'stay' as thats stronger than 'come' for us and she stays until we catch up to lead up  Good luck.. it is hard, but i'm sure you'll get there 
(Ps. i picked up on 'Quote- distrcting him from some dogs and then recalling/collecting him from others when he shows unwanted behaviours - maybe don't put him in the position where he has to be recalled/collected.. try and stick to distracting and keeping distance & on lead.. with lots of treats ? I have accepted Willow is not social and does not want to make friends with every dog we see, she's never approached a dog, they always approach her  with me advising their owners strongly against it but getting 'its ok he's friendly..' yeah but mines not!! Grr.  ) Hope to see regular great updates !! *Sorry if i've wrote stuff thats been repeated after your post.. i'm working my way through  *

Tia - yay well done done  sounds great! 

MV - Ooh i hope we get to see some nice new videos of the stunning tink and her christmas tricks :blush:

Think thats everyone??


----------



## JenKyzer

Now for our day.. I'll try keep it short and sweet as some stuff is on here.. http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...s-another-new-friend-pics.html#post1063295476 - yes another new thread  but Willow made another friend today  I'm so pleased 

Thread also mentions our trip back to Willow's rescue centre.. we came out pretty smug and Willow loved the fuss she got 

Willow had a blast with Roxy.. showed off her stay in mid run when she went too far .. then 'this way-ed' back to us  so very pleased with her today. We had tea at my mums and she showed off all her tricks to my mums new fella... little show off. He loved her and she loved him, so he passed the first test  (ex-fella was 'allergic' to her.. so she disliked him :laugh


----------



## Canine K9

JSW- I`ll be in the Sunshine State  4:30am start not goood :nonod:


----------



## JenKyzer

Canine K9 said:


> JSW- I`ll be in the Sunshine State  4:30am start not goood :nonod:


I'm not jealous at all... not one tiny bit.. nope.....

Any room in your case for me :w00t: :w00t: ??? ...  ...

Hope you have an amazing time x


----------



## Dogless

Good morning here . Had intended to go to the forest but it is blowing an absolute gale here, never mind what it would be like high up in the forest and I worry about a branch falling on the car when it's left parked so I didn't.

I took Rudi for a run; he was a really good boy. Toe nipped a bit but nothing too major.

I took Kilo to the top fields for some "ready steady" and "touch the pole" where we got rained on torrentially towards the end as well as blown about :nonod:. Kilo was really good for me too, worked very hard. Toe nipped a lot :w00t:.

Hope everyone else is having a good day .


----------



## ciarasmum

Jen - Just checked out your other thread, Willow looks like she's having a real ball with her new friend. Also saw another thread with Frank <3. What a good girl! You must be really proud of her 

Dogless - Sorry about your toe! You're a much braver person than I am! Glad you had two nice walks with your boys this morning, but be careful on that toe, it sounds sore!

Nicki - Can't believe the lab owner accusing Shae of attacking  Sounds like a great day afterwards though 

Canine - Would love to see some vids of his agility  I also think I've missed where you are going.. the welcome home will be brilliant 

missRV - You must have been so happy seeing Rosie play with the weimaraners <3 I would have been almost crying too  Sounds like a great agility lesson too 

sailor - Glad you have got a great recall. I've not been on WAYWO long so not sure of Toppa's story. Unfortunately my GSD Ciara does the chasing thing if she gets the chance  Ciara is nervous of other dogs and uses it as a defence thing. Thankfully like Toppa she has amazing recall so if we do see another dog and I give the command then she will recall and she is popped back on lead. 90% of the time she isn't the problem (as she is on lead, and it's the other dog that has ran up to her), but if we have bumped into another dog unexpectedly in the past (the other day in the pitch black was one) then at times she has given chase. So now unless we can see 100 % clearly she is on a long line. I don't think I will stop the chasing so just have to manage it. 

I would say you are doing the right thing by distracting him. Could you try some 'look at that'? Don't know if you have a clicker, or you can just use a word to mark behaviour, but maybe just clicking (or marking) when he looks at a dog, and then giving super tasty treats for the look? It has improved Ciara's fear of dogs quite a lot. 

tia - Well done Tia for not reacting to the lab puppy  I've seen a few zombie walks advertised too! Glad she was relaxed though 

MrsZee - Don't have any advice sorry as I haven't been in the same situation, hope it's all going ok though! 

moonviolet - what kind of tricks are you doing? Christmas themed sounds fun!


----------



## ciarasmum

Phew! Hope I didn't miss anyone in my last post.

Friday night we had a bad walk (at first). Took her to the country park and within the first 3 mins we had bumped into a man and his two dogs. I already had hold of Ciara and he recalled his dogs but they didn't listen so I had both of them running round Ciara barking and snarling at her, with her growling back and trying to escape  

When we got past them we did have a lovely walk and she seemed ok. She was a bit spooked at the lights from the cars parking up by the lake (mostly teenagers chatting with their mates but I know it is a spot for more amorous goings on!). But as there were so many puddles she was easily distracted by water play.

This morning we didn't see any dogs/people but did meet a scary generator that was blocking some of the entrance to the field and making a loud scary noise. Managed to get her past (read - her dragging me past) but knew I'd have trouble getting her past it again on the way back. Played some games, find it etc then did a little BAT with the generator. She did slowly but surely get closer but I couldn't see her getting past it comfortably. I didn't want to just make her go past and undo the point of the BAT so we found a longer route off the field. We did have to walk down the main road though which we usually avoid but she was ok as nothing _too_ scary was about.

Have a walked planned for this evening before Downton so fingers crossed it is stress free for us both.

Hope you're all enjoying the weekend  x


----------



## Nicki85

We've had a good day here 

Took them for a run this morning over at Greenham Common there was a lot of this to start-









But Shae soon calmed down and we had more of this-









Rust went over to the cows on the common and barked at them which is a first. He recalled back and the cows weren't spooked but no idea what was going on there as we walk with cows every day in the forest. I put him on lead and we did some work and treating next to the cows so I could gauge his reaction. He was worried by them but wanted to sniff their back legs so we practiced recall away on the lead. Put him on lead past the horses as well and he showed no interest (apart from one having a roll that he was curious about lol). 
We did a lot of recall work with Rusty and made some good progress, got him racing back for his toy and some roast beef (he won't take the kibble Shae works for...). So I was chuffed. Quite a few others walking around but kept them both away from other people and dogs so was happy.

This afternoon walk it was windy and dark... Was going to keep Shae on the flexi as I wasn't sure I was up to coping with them both off lead (Shae yipping and just the general craziness!) but let her off when we got to a quiet bit of woodland. Again worked on Rusty's recall to treats and toy and he was listening nicely. We also worked on him staying within a 10m range- lots of recalls to keep him there but hopefully I can establish it... At the moment he is either flat out or walking to close! Shae had a scare at some people on the other side of a gate but immediately recalled when I realised something was amiss.

I've always been a bit slack with "making" Rusty do too much recall practice as he is always so busy having fun in the forest and I feel bad interrupting him (how bad is that?!)... this coupled with a belief that If I don't recall him too much he'll check in more often and be more aware of when I am changing direction but... But still, seems that recalling him and rewarding with toy and treat and doing more repetitions (not just when required..) are generally improving my confidence in what he is doing and where he is. He's just soo excitable when out it can be difficult keeping a cap on it!

I didn't do much with Shae, she was a good girl- listened when asked, didn't chase Rust when asked and recalled/ stayed close as well when I wanted her to.

Ciara- sorry about your run in last night  that does not sound like fun at all. Glad you had a better morning walk though. 
MV- can't wait for the video! Tinks tricks superstar!
DL- glad you had a good morning walks with the boys and that your toe wasn't too bad...
Tia- sounds like she was good with the lab puppy, zombie walks?!?!?


----------



## Dogless

Ciarasmum - sounds like Ciara didn't do too badly in the face of the rude dogs the other night .

Nicki - hope Rusty and the cows is sorted soon!

Had superb walks with the boys tonight. Just as I started Roo's walk we met a couple with a lovely cocker spaniel I'd met a few times but had thought they had moved away. Anyway they haven't moved away and Roo got an hour's play. I worry about him not meeting enough dogs but I was really pleased with his manners. He played very nicely, checked in with me and recalled when asked to. Couldn't have been better and we had a lovely time.

Walked Kilo on the sports pitches and surrounding open areas again. He was a bit jumpy and vigilant so we did some find its, touches, hides, sniffing through piles of leaves etc. He was good and listened well. We are going to try Kilo and the cocker as they had met a few times before the attack and were fine so I am assuming he'll be fine still as he has been with other dogs he's met and had good experiences with before.


----------



## moonviolet

A message for Rusty



Sorry I couldn't resist :lol: :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

Not having much time for WAYWO at the moment... spent most of this weekend on the bathroom. Need to get that finished so I can get on with designing DL's seesaw. I've an idea for an enhancement which when Kilo jumps on one end will catapult you over the fence. I see something about a damaged toe which could make landing awkward.

Now I know that Tink is the undisputed Word Champion of canine tree stump posing... but these guys take the biscuit Goats in Trees 2014 Wall Calendar. Stocking filler MV ?


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Not having much time for WAYWO at the moment... spent most of this weekend on the bathroom. Need to get that finished so I can get on with designing DL's seesaw. I've an idea for an enhancement which when Kilo jumps on one end will catapult you over the fence. I see something about a damaged toe which could make landing awkward.
> 
> Now I know that Tink is the undisputed Word Champion of canine tree stump posing... but these guys take the biscuit Goats in Trees 2014 Wall Calendar. Stocking filler MV ?


Oh yes Dief good idea :w00t:. Don't worry about the toe, it will be well healed by the time you actually get around to it if you're anything like the rest of your species :nonod:.


----------



## JenKyzer

DL - Your walks last night sound lovely, i hope the meet with Kilo and the cocker goes well when it happens - sounds like a good idea  

N85 - Sounds like a good day overall  Hope Rust isn't bothered by the cows again and he was just having a loopy moment  

CM - Hope you didn't get too wet/blown away on your walk before downton ! Sounds like Ciara had a good walk before that.. it's a shame other peoples dogs ruin it and add stress.. one is bad enough, nvm two of them running up! 

Not much going on here, back working sundays now so willow had her day with OH. 
Walked this morning, we are now listening to the rain hammering and bouncing off the window.. we just missed getting caught in it :w00t: 
Managed to avoid the bedlington terrier who just gets let out of his/her house each morning with no owner/lead etc.. i spotted him/her about to come out so we quickly got out the way  
Lots of 'this ways' with pointing and darting down each street/alley just to keep her on her toes. 

Hope everyone has a nice day and doesn't get too much bad weather that everyone near me seems to be banging on about as if we've never seen wind/rain before


----------



## Ponkies

Have updated my thread on Recall Training, let him off the lead for a bit at the weekend and :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Hope everyone over the water is OK .

Cold and clear here this morning; took the boys up to the top fields for an hour for a little joint training but mostly some running about playing; they were very good. I had a fail in that I thought gloves wouldn't be necessary...they were :w00t:. Then I went out for the morning to an appointment and I think I'll take them to the forest once I've had some yummy soup for lunch .


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless - Glad the boys were good for you this morning  Have fun at the forest later.

JSW - Well done for your escape from the terrier and the rain 

Nicki - Well done for your progress with Rusty's recall  It's always odd when they bark at something unexpected you see all the time isn't it! Shae sounds like she's doing well too.

Ciarasmum- Crappy about the dogs in the park but it sounds like Ciara didn't get too stressed out by it 

---

Yesterday's walk was ridiculously eventful but actually quite good in the end! Encountered our first off lead dog when we'd been out of the house for all of about 5 minutes , a little Patterdale popped round the corner and came straight up to Tia. She had a little grumble at first but... she actually had a sniff! Like, a proper greeting ! Really impressed with that.
She didn't react at all to a JRT we saw right afterwards too, even when he stopped for a poo and we had to walk past him 

So we carried on our way, managed to get about ten minutes away from where we were heading when someone came along with an off lead staffy (in the middle of the road, in a place with no pavements naturally...) and an on lead but VERY bouncy rottie. I asked her not to let the staffy come over and she didn't thankfully, Tia had another little grumble at the rottie but ignored the staffy so that went pretty well too! They went in the direction we were going to go, and a man came down towards them with a little terrier off lead, cue handbags at dawn between the terrier and rottie, so we picked our moment and escaped down a different road!

Ended up somewhere we've never been before and found a really good new walk though  It's two big fields with a long narrow track either side.. bit nerve wracking going down the tracks in case we encountered any more off lead dogs but luckily we didn't, and the fields were really nice 
There was a very scary concrete trough in one of the fields which Tia had to be convinced about though lol. I had to go over first, then she came to investigate too, realised it was an inanimate object and stopped worrying 

Also been working extensively on 'leave it' at the moment as it seems to have lapsed a bit and she's suddenly become really interested in those little red berries that fall off trees. Obviously I have no idea if they're safe or not so we've been doing a lot of work on not eating them!

Today has been less eventful thankfully!
She's also been much more relaxed about people this weekend, I've been trying to make sure she has enough space always, which admittedly is difficult in a place with ridiculously narrow pavements, but we've been crossing over where possible and it seems to be working


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *Hope everyone over the water is OK* .
> 
> Cold and clear here this morning; took the boys up to the top fields for an hour for a little joint training but mostly some running about playing; they were very good. I had a fail in that I thought gloves wouldn't be necessary...they were :w00t:. Then I went out for the morning to an appointment and I think I'll take them to the forest once I've had some yummy soup for lunch .


We had torrential rain in the early hours that lasted until about 9.00am but didn't get the damaging winds, thank goodness. There's an awful lot of water laying on the fields now...!!

Holly was very good at agility this afternoon. We were split into two groups - Holly and two other more experienced dogs were sent into the other paddock to do our own thing...!! It was great as we devised our own courses and I could play with Holly more. There was, however, one little snag. Because I'm a 'wind up' merchant, the dogs in the other group were leaving their handlers and coming to the dividing fence and trying to join me..:devil: Pleased I haven't lost my touch...LOL


----------



## ciarasmum

Nicki - Lovely photos! Your dogs are gorgeous! Hope Rusty is ok with the cows and it was just a blip. Sound like some lovely walks otherwise 

Dogless - Well done Roo for his lovely manners with the cocker, hope the meeting with Kilo goes well  Have fun at the forest later! Do you go in the dark?

diefen - That calendar is really random lol! 

Jen - Glad you missed the rain! Although I admit to preferring to walk in the rain  The bedlington owner sounds irresponsible  Glad you managed to avoid him/her! 

tia - Tia sounds like she did brilliantly with all those dogs! Why oh why do people walk their dogs off lead in inappropriate places! I love finding new walks too, sounds like a lovely one! And brill that she is calmer around people too! 

Twiggy - Well done Holly! Haha, love your devil side 

------------

We had a lovely walk last night with my friend. There were way too many boy racers at the country park so we drove to some quiet fields. Nothing much to report.

This morning we went to the woods. Rain was very heavy but we only saw one other dog with a woman and two children. They started off behind us but the kids were being quite loud so Ciara was panicking. Ended up hiding in a field and letting them get ahead. But we had so much fun. The fields were flooded and so there were loads of playing in the water opportunities. So nice to have a non-eventful walk for a change! She's just having a frozen kong now then gonna head out for a short walk later.

In more personal news. I emailed the agency and said that I would have to pull out of the recruitment process for the job as I couldn't travel to London so often. They have passed on the message and apparently the company is very keen to have me and can manage the London situation, whatever that means! So will have to see what happens. If I do get it then I am terrified that I won't be good at it. I feel alternatively sick, faint and like I want to cry!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - pleased you haven't lost your touch...even if other handlers aren't :w00t: :hand:.

TT - pleased all is well despite lots happening!!



ciarasmum said:


> Have fun at the forest later! Do you go in the dark?


We got back to the car just before it got dark tonight - I will go in the dark but they seem to be hunting goats in the dark at the moment so I'm being careful!!

The company seems to very much want your skills if they will accommodate your needs - brilliant!! .

We had a nice walk this afternoon, if a little wet :w00t:. We saw three goats, didn't notice until we were on top of them...they ran, the boys chased and......the boys came back when called :w00t: :w00t: .


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## GingerRogers

CM - sorry you are feeling so nervous about the possibility of the job coming off, but it may be a really good thing for you 

TT - glad Tia is relaxing a bit (can she have words with a small ginger thing please )

Twiggy - bet its good to know 'the touch' is still in place 

DL - Well done to the boys

We discovered a great new walking place yesterday. Followed a footpath across a muddy field and found a whole network of permissive footpaths, all laid out with signs and wide grassy tracks, well mown and fenced, spreading over 3 different landowners farms, more than 15km of them, all part of the countryside steward scheme. Think that might be my new favorite escape, its so close to some lovely walks across heaths, marsh and woods never mind beaches that no-one bothers with farmland, its was all mine :w00t:

With the wind I waited till lunch to take ninja out for a quick potter (its getting so I cant function without my training walk never mind her) she was bonkers barking at two separate people so we went back home to start again twice but once she had calmed she was walking lovely, loose lead like a feather,  so really pleased with the decision to drop the muzzle for all walks.

Hubby took her for a run this afternoon, she came back stinking to high heaven, he didn't realise she had rolled in something (fox by the smell ) till he got in the car, then said he nearly gagged. Teach him for taking his eye off the ball  I did ask how it happened when he said he was going to keep her on the lead  then she tried to have post bath zoomies in my teeny tiny office


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - pleased you haven't lost your touch...even if other handlers aren't :w00t: :hand:.
> 
> TT - pleased all is well despite lots happening!!
> 
> We got back to the car just before it got dark tonight - I will go in the dark but they seem to be hunting goats in the dark at the moment so I'm being careful!!
> 
> The company seems to very much want your skills if they will accommodate your needs - brilliant!! .
> 
> *We had a nice walk this afternoon, if a little wet :w00t:. We saw three goats, didn't notice until we were on top of them...they ran, the boys chased and......the boys came back when called :w00t: :w00t: .*




:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

How's the toe btw?


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> CM - sorry you are feeling so nervous about the possibility of the job coming off, but it may be a really good thing for you
> 
> TT - glad Tia is relaxing a bit (can she have words with a small ginger thing please )
> 
> Twiggy - bet its good to know 'the touch' is still in place
> 
> DL - Well done to the boys
> 
> We discovered a great new walking place yesterday. Followed a footpath across a muddy field and found a whole network of permissive footpaths, all laid out with signs and wide grassy tracks, well mown and fenced, spreading over 3 different landowners farms, more than 15km of them, all part of the countryside steward scheme. Think that might be my new favorite escape, its so close to some lovely walks across heaths, marsh and woods never mind beaches that no-one bothers with farmland, its was all mine :w00t:
> 
> With the wind I waited till lunch to take ninja out for a quick potter (its getting so I cant function without my training walk never mind her) she was bonkers barking at two separate people so we went back home to start again twice but once she had calmed she was walking lovely, loose lead like a feather,  so really pleased with the decision to drop the muzzle for all walks.
> 
> Hubby took her for a run this afternoon, she came back stinking to high heaven, he didn't realise she had rolled in something (fox by the smell ) till he got in the car, then said he nearly gagged. Teach him for taking his eye off the ball  I did ask how it happened when he said he was going to keep her on the lead  then she tried to have post bath zoomies in my teeny tiny office


The network of footpaths sound like my idea of heaven...

Sadly we have nothing like that around here.


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> Nicki - Lovely photos! Your dogs are gorgeous! Hope Rusty is ok with the cows and it was just a blip. Sound like some lovely walks otherwise
> 
> Dogless - Well done Roo for his lovely manners with the cocker, hope the meeting with Kilo goes well  Have fun at the forest later! Do you go in the dark?
> 
> diefen - That calendar is really random lol!
> 
> Jen - Glad you missed the rain! Although I admit to preferring to walk in the rain  The bedlington owner sounds irresponsible  Glad you managed to avoid him/her!
> 
> tia - Tia sounds like she did brilliantly with all those dogs! Why oh why do people walk their dogs off lead in inappropriate places! I love finding new walks too, sounds like a lovely one! And brill that she is calmer around people too!
> 
> Twiggy - Well done Holly! Haha, love your devil side
> 
> ------------
> 
> We had a lovely walk last night with my friend. There were way too many boy racers at the country park so we drove to some quiet fields. Nothing much to report.
> 
> This morning we went to the woods. Rain was very heavy but we only saw one other dog with a woman and two children. They started off behind us but the kids were being quite loud so Ciara was panicking. Ended up hiding in a field and letting them get ahead. But we had so much fun. The fields were flooded and so there were loads of playing in the water opportunities. So nice to have a non-eventful walk for a change! She's just having a frozen kong now then gonna head out for a short walk later.
> 
> *In more personal news. I emailed the agency and said that I would have to pull out of the recruitment process for the job as I couldn't travel to London so often. They have passed on the message and apparently the company is very keen to have me and can manage the London situation, whatever that means! So will have to see what happens. If I do get it then I am terrified that I won't be good at it. I feel alternatively sick, faint and like I want to cry!*




Let's be logical about this. (A) You've obviously got what it takes otherwise the company wouldn't be very keen to accommodate you, especially the London situation (B) What have you got to lose in giving it a go?

Many, many years ago I applied for a job as a secretary/comptometer operator. They had a lot of applicants who were either secretaries or comptometer operators but I was the only one that could do both. In truth the nearest I'd been to a comptometer was walking through the department where I used to work. I spent the first couple of weeks in my new job bluffing (saying the machine was different to the one I'd used) but as the company won the first two major contracts I worked on, it all went swimmingly..


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
> 
> How's the toe btw?


Thanks - sore and blue and yellow but getting there .

GR - your new walking place sounds brilliant......Ninja's eau de fox poo less so :nonod:. Hope OH was in charge of the clean up op seeing as it happened whilst "on lead" .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Thanks - sore and blue and yellow but getting there .
> 
> GR - your new walking place sounds brilliant......Ninja's eau de fox poo less so :nonod:. Hope OH was in charge of the clean up op seeing as it happened whilst "on lead" .


Oh yes 

She is now looking rather lion like and floofy god knows what kilo would make of the mini maned one :w00t:


----------



## Bagrat

I am working on being calm with two grandchildren knowing Jackson is 200 miles away with OH in charge till Wednesday when he comes here and J goes to kennels.
Bulletins say "he's fine" "he barked a bit but not ape sh*t". Oh yeah I've done a bit of training in the house". etc etc.
Oh well.....
Apologies have not caught up yet, if ever - somewhat occupied. Kids appalled by 5 hour power cut - no phones no ipad no TV!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Bagrat said:


> I am working on being calm with two grandchildren knowing Jackson is 200 miles away with OH in charge till Wednesday when he comes here and J goes to kennels.
> Bulletins say "he's fine" "he barked a bit but not ape sh*t". Oh yeah I've done a bit of training in the house". etc etc.
> Oh well.....
> Apologies have not caught up yet, if ever - somewhat occupied. Kids appalled by 5 hour power cut - no phones no ipad no TV!!


Goodness not sure which is scariest

Oh in charge of dog

No charge for grandkids gadgets


----------



## Nicki85

Hello all!

Yesterday I attempted (and eventually succeeded) in driving up to my meeting in Atherstone. Mum took them out am fir 30mins and played with toys- she said they were fab except Shae kept stealing Rusty's toy. I need to work on this with her but as she is on crutches at the moment it's a bit tricky  Dog walker came at lunchtime and gave them a good hour in the forest- reported that she was worried she wouldn't see Rusty again but he turned up!

Today we went swimming am. Kept Rusty onlead in the forest as there were thousands of pheasants and couldn't face the drama letting him off would involve! He managed to flush quite a few on the path so he was pleased. Shae did some brilliant recalls away from deer. She's not really a chaser but saw them today running away from her at a very close distance and she followed :O But one word and she was back for a treat lol. Rusty was also good as when he got out of the lake a pheasant called to the right of him... he was about to charge off but I asked (well, shouted) a wait and he did! Loads of treats and another throw of the toy for that one... Didn't meet any dogs- saw a couple of people that Shae went to go see but recalled when asked.

THis afternoon I took Rust out by himself as Shae has agility later. He was really really good- nice and responsive, still going out and hunting but coming back in when called. Engaging with me when asked and just generally being a lovely dog to walk. We did lots of recall practice to a toy being thrown and roast beef and he was really good  He did go off to see the cows again but I wanted to see what he was doing so let him- he went down to them, sniffed them and then I recalled and he came back and then ignored them... the cows didn't move... strange dog. We met a few dogs out and about and I recalled and leashed up- he is certainly nervous of other males in particular and wanted out, not in.


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## Dogless

I'd be really careful around the cattle Nicki. An ex colleague of mine had a sibe that approached some placid enough looking horses in a field. She got kicked so hard that she was catapulted through the air, lost an eye and suffered some brain damage .


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## Dogless

Nice day here so far; several hours' trail running on a very hilly route this morning. I felt sad as it was 4c and all the piles of grit had been replenished by the roads and I wondered how long the top parts of the forest would remain accessible for. We had true Norn Iron weather so got chilled to the bone when we stopped as we got back to the car :w00t:.

Meeting Diz with Kilo this evening and then I'll take Roo for a short potter.


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## Sarah1983

No way I'd be letting my dog go running up to and sniffing cattle :yikes: All too easy for them to be seriously injured. Not to mention I'd be worried about my do being shot for harassing livestock. If you can recall him from them why on earth are you risking him???

Dogless, glad you had a good run although it sounds exhausting!

Bagrat, I'm terrified whenever my OH is in charge of the dog lol.

Twiggy, nice to hear you haven't lost your touch.

GR, sounds like a fab walk 

Spencer and I went exploring today but it turned out to be quite disappointing and only led to our normal walk around the farmers fields. Added about 2 miles to it though. Still working on getting a snappy recall. I'm not bothered about him coming racing back as fast as his legs can carry him, it's more the coming as soon as he's called. Not when he's had a pee or sniffed or whatever. We're getting there though. He gets a good boy for slow recalls and food or fun for the fast ones so the fast ones are far out numbering the slow now. I do make an exception when he's recalled from a big distraction though, even if it's slow he gets a good reward.

Couple of pics from today.




And one of the horses we saw on the route we were going to take.


Yes...I'm going getting my eyes checked  I've been struggling for weeks trying to figure out whether it's a bush or a tree or a person or a dog or a rock lol, this is the last straw. Have to wait for pay day but next week I shall be going seeing the optician.


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## Nicki85

No you are right- I won't be letting him approach from now on- i'd never underestimate the damage they could do.

We "know" these cows a bit though as they live in the forest that backs on to the garden, we've met them every day (pretty much) for the past year and a half. That's why I am so puzzled by him.

Actually, thinking about it this may be all my fault... the other day we came home via the back gate into the garden and had to move five cows out the way. I left the dogs on the other side of the fence (fence to the forest and then gate from forest into garden...) and the dogs got worried and barked- probably as I was having to use a "stern" voice to move the cows over. This is what we were faced with.









I wonder if that's what started this "interest" off?


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## ciarasmum

Dogless - You're braver than I am  I go round the fields in the dark or I will brave slightly more daring places if I have my friend or mum with me but too much of a woos to go into anything near trees on my own 

Well done boys for recalling away from the goats. Hope you have some lovely walks with the boys and Diz 

GR - Oh I love finding new places! Especially quiet ones! Do you use this?

Bing Maps - Driving Directions, Traffic and Road Conditions

Just put your postcode in and change the map to ordnance survey and you may find some footpaths/wooded areas shown nearby 

Twiggy - I know you are right re: the job  They rang me today to try and ease some concerns. Love your way of blagging through it! My friend gave me a brilliant quote 'fake it til you make it' 

Bagrat - Hope your having fun with the grandchildren, and that the power is now back on!

Nicki - Well done Shae on the deer recall especially mid chase  And good boy Rusty for choosing treaties instead of pheasants 

I'd be terrified of cows! I've heard too many horror stories about dogs and people being trampled  Hope you have fun at agility tonight!

Sarah - Gorgeous pics of Spencer  Looking lovely and fit  Ahh I'm glad to see what others do for a slow recall as I have a question about that myself.

---------------

Had a lovely walk today. No dogs again! Last time we had so much luck and I bragged we had a horrible time the next day   We had so much fun and Ciara seemed to be the happiest I've ever seen her. Although we did have some recall issues:

First, we came round the corner of some trees in the field and there were pheasants stood in a group. Ciara gave chase and would not return until they had all escaped then came back looking very pleased. A while later a squirrel ran in front of her and she gave chase. Not surprising as it was just too tempting. Off she went into the trees jumping obstacles and enjoying herself after the poor thing, again she didn't listen to the recall.

However once she had stopped chasing both times I recalled and when she came I did give her a treat. But it's the same treat she would get for a super recall (minus lots of enthusiasm). So I was just wondering what you do after a failed recall when they eventually come back to you? Do you treat as usual or just give a 'good boy/girl'. Ciara would not see that as a reward lol! She's too foody but I do still like her to think that coming back to me is a good thing, even if it takes a while.

Is it a case of recall training around distractions? She will recall from a dog (unless she is already giving chase but you know my views on that (rare but not acceptable)) but if I throw a toy and ask for a recall she will grab the toy first then come back, so need some way or building up distractions without setting her up to fail I think!

Off to do some scatter feeding later, she loves this and as it's already dark it'll hopefully tire her out mentally with all the scenting!

Edit: Do you all walk through fields with horses in? A lot of our usual footpaths round here through fields now have horses in. So far we've had no trouble but I can't say I feel too great about it as we tend to be followed by a group of them til we can escape. Yesterday a huge horse was heading towards us and Ciara decided it was a great time to do her business!!


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## Nicki85

CM- I loved that pic you put up on the thread- she is so pretty!

With Rusty I reward all recalls with a treat but if it's super quick he gets his toy thrown which is his ultimate reward. For Shae she only gets rewarded with a treat if it's a quick recall as she is much better than Rusty. 
If I don't think they are going to come back I won't recall to avoid a "failed" recall. So, in your situation I would have recalled after the chase if that makes sense? Obv. this isn't ideal but hopefully they won't be chasing in a dangerous situation. 

In terms of walking through fields of horses... well i won't walk through fields full of unknown cows most of the time as they can be scary. In terms of horses i'd judge the situation. If they are "frisky" then no. If they are ignoring and grazing then probably yes... Depends as well on the field and if I can get out easily.

The cows in the forest that Rust went up to today are very used to people and dogs doing all manner of things and not much phases them so I have no worries moving them on. In the past i've moved them off the road and back in to the forest when they have escaped. I wouldn't do that with cows I didn't know though.


----------



## Sarah1983

ciarasmum said:


> Sarah - Gorgeous pics of Spencer  Looking lovely and fit  Ahh I'm glad to see what others do for a slow recall as I have a question about that myself.


Thanks  I am determined not to have a Flabrador! Plus if he doesn't get enough exercise he goes stir crazy :lol:



> However once she had stopped chasing both times I recalled and when she came I did give her a treat. But it's the same treat she would get for a super recall (minus lots of enthusiasm). So I was just wondering what you do after a failed recall when they eventually come back to you? Do you treat as usual or just give a 'good boy/girl'. Ciara would not see that as a reward lol! She's too foody but I do still like her to think that coming back to me is a good thing, even if it takes a while.
> 
> Is it a case of recall training around distractions? She will recall from a dog (unless she is already giving chase but you know my views on that (rare but not acceptable)) but if I throw a toy and ask for a recall she will grab the toy first then come back, so need some way or building up distractions without setting her up to fail I think!


I've been working off the idea that you get what you reward. So by rewarding Spen with food or toys for slow recalls that's what I've been getting. Now that I've stopped rewarding them with high value stuff and just giving a "good boy" and a pat his recall has gotten quicker. When he does do a slow one though and I've released him to go again I tend to do another recall within seconds as he'll generally turn on a dime and come rushing back then so I can sort of reinforce that doing that gets the good stuff whereas taking your time doesn't. And if I don't think there's a good chance he'll start making his way back to me within a fairly short time I don't recall, I'll go and get him or do stuff to get his attention before giving the cue.

When out on a walk and there's important sniffing to be done Spen doesn't seem to notice what the treat is, just gulps it down, so I haven't done this with him with recall but if she has foods that are different values you can use a low value food for slow recall and high value for the instant ones. I've done this with other things though and it's worked quite well.

Interested to hear what others do as well as it's something I do seem to be having issues with. He's much better but he does still go "just a minute, need to sniff/pee/look around" more frequently than I'd like.


----------



## ciarasmum

Nicki - Thank you, she was such a happy dog today, she is mostly on her walks but with her being quite nervous by nature she can get a bit stressy at times. 

Makes sense to not recall in a 'fail' situation definitely. I don't usually if she's in the middle of a sniff for instance so don't know why I bothered when she's in hot pursuit of a furry. It jumped out about 4ft in front of her so I had no chance. Yeh thankfully it wasn't dangerous, just fields and she doesn't go far. 

Yeh I agree cows can be scary. Ciara has a fascination with them if she sees them behind a fence, but that's as close as we get. She does luff horses though and always wants to nose sniff through fences but I just keep her moving if we're in an open field and don't give eye contact to them 

Sarah - Spencer looks like the perfect weight <3 There is a gorgeous black lab down our road who looks just like him (weight terms), she's a girlie so probably smaller but just gorgeous. I saw the lab who won one of the groups at crufts last year and was shocked at the weight on him.

That's a great idea to take a mix of high and low value treats. Low value would probably be just kibble. She would be disgusted if I produced that as a reward but perhaps I've been spoiling her with cheese, chicken, and homemade fish cake etc! No wonder she doesn't recall fast if she gets yummy things for a perfect recall, and yummy things for bogging off after squirrels and returning when she is done thank you very much  

Good idea about recalling again once you have released him. I do play a recall game which she loves but good to reinforce the fast ones. 

I always wonder if you should try and extinguish any kind of chasing, or give them a different outlet to do it? So use a flirt pole or something? Or would this just encourage chasing in other areas as they know how good it feels?


----------



## Dogless

I shall look back in a moment but.....went out with Kilo to walk with Dizzy tonight. Started a short way from the top fields, walked up there and had an hour and a half just playing and pottering.

Then on the way back....we saw a dog crossing over in the distance and Kilo tensed and stared *but *would take food   (snatchy and stressed but still...). Then behind us two dogs who always bark at other dogs crossed the car park. Kilo didn't see them and I was busy getting distance but then they started to whine and pull to get to us, so Kilo whirled around and let out two barks BUT I could get him back under control and taking food   . It was better than I had dared to hope . I will keep him away from all dogs again for a few days to let stress levels settle, but the time away from all dogs seems to have helped. It may not sound much at all to anyone....but I could almost cry with happiness  .

Then I took Roo out just for half an hour. Passed a fair few dogs and people and he did well .


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## Nicki85

That is fab news DL- well done you and Kilo  So pleased for you!


----------



## Twiggy

That's brilliant news Dogless. Well done Kilo.


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## Kicksforkills

First agility lesson, full height dog walk.


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## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks  I am determined not to have a Flabrador! Plus if he doesn't get enough exercise he goes stir crazy :lol:
> 
> I've been working off the idea that you get what you reward. So by rewarding Spen with food or toys for slow recalls that's what I've been getting. Now that I've stopped rewarding them with high value stuff and just giving a "good boy" and a pat his recall has gotten quicker. When he does do a slow one though and I've released him to go again I tend to do another recall within seconds as he'll generally turn on a dime and come rushing back then so I can sort of reinforce that doing that gets the good stuff whereas taking your time doesn't. * And if I don't think there's a good chance he'll start making his way back to me within a fairly short time I don't recall, I'll go and get him or do stuff to get his attention before giving the cue.*
> 
> When out on a walk and there's important sniffing to be done Spen doesn't seem to notice what the treat is, just gulps it down, so I haven't done this with him with recall but if she has foods that are different values you can use a low value food for slow recall and high value for the instant ones. I've done this with other things though and it's worked quite well.
> 
> Interested to hear what others do as well as it's something I do seem to be having issues with. He's much better but he does still go "just a minute, need to sniff/pee/look around" more frequently than I'd like.


That's more or less the tack my daughter and I employed with some of her rescue dogs. She had a Spaniel/Collie cross called Lady who was a little so and so initially and on several occasions left us and the other dogs chasing birds two or three fields away. When she returned (and she always did thankfully) my daughter would call her when she was pretty much with us and praise. Then we would wait until she decided to sniff a blade of grass, or whatever, and get a 'proper' recall in with praise and yummy tit-bits.

In theory of course you should never call them when you know they are going to ignore you but that's easier said than done on some occasions.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's brilliant news Dogless. Well done Kilo.


An absolutely enormous way to go but tonight showed me that there is something that can be built on. I was feeling pretty hopeless if I am honest, really hopeless .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> An absolutely enormous way to go but tonight showed me that there is something that can be built on. I was feeling pretty hopeless if I am honest, really hopeless .


Hopeless as in 'there is no solution' I hope?

Given how damaged Kilo has been, and the relatively short time span, I'd say that is a huge step forward.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hopeless as in 'there is no solution' I hope?
> 
> Given how damaged Kilo has been, and the relatively short time span, I'd say that is a huge step forward.


Yes Twiggy, just wanting a little glimmer of something positive for Kilo in terms of other dogs. He wasn't a happy boy at all, but it was a great start.


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> That's more or less the tack my daughter and I employed with some of her rescue dogs. She had a Spaniel/Collie cross called Lady who was a little so and so initially and on several occasions left us and the other dogs chasing birds two or three fields away. When she returned (and she always did thankfully) my daughter would call her when she was pretty much with us and praise. Then we would wait until she decided to sniff a blade of grass, or whatever, and get a 'proper' recall in with praise and yummy tit-bits.
> 
> In theory of course you should never call them when you know they are going to ignore you but that's easier said than done on some occasions.


Yes, much easier said than done lol. Sometimes I can be 99.9% sure Spen will come to me, then I call him and he ignores me because he's suddenly caught scent of something he just HAS to sniff first. By fairly short time I mean a few seconds, not the 5-10 minutes other dog owners I know seem to think is an excellent response time :nonod:

Ciarasmum, I think giving them an outlet for their natural instincts where possible is best personally. If that need is being met in an appropriate manner and under your control then it is easier to stop it when it's not appropriate. Or at least to redirect it to the appropriate games.

And yeah, I thought the same with recall and treats. Spen was getting cheese or sausage or whatever for great recalls and the same for "yeah, be with you in 5 minutes" ones. His face was a picture the first time he came back with multiple stops to sniff along the way and got a "good boy, off you go" :lol: When he does turn instantly I do my best to make it more fun too, I run away from him which is something he seems to really enjoy and wave his leash around and invite him to tug on it. We seem to be getting somewhere, he's much better than he was although still easily distracted.

Dogless, so glad you had a good walk with Kilo. And glad he wasn't as upset about seeing another dog as you expected. It's a start and I have no doubt you'll work through this. Living in that hell hole won't help you but you've got the skills, patience and willingness to help him.


----------



## Dogless

ciarasmum said:


> I always wonder if you should try and extinguish any kind of chasing, or give them a different outlet to do it? So use a flirt pole or something? Or would this just encourage chasing in other areas as they know how good it feels?


Kilo has a very high prey drive and absolutely lives to chase. Trainers in the past have advised me to cut any sort of chasing out; not even a toy. The issue I have had with this is, because Kilo isn't allowed to chase anything, he displays frustrated chase behaviour if you like, reacting to things like bikes moving away from him, car tyres etc.

I play lots of impulse control games and reward with a chase of a toy and using throwing a toy has allowed me to divert from a chase too in "real life" a few times and get the foundations of a chase recall in.

When he was neutered and on onlead walks only therefore not playing chasing games he decided one day to suddenly lunge and pull at some lorry wheels :001_huh: when I was walking him and was interested in all sorts of moving stimuli that he had last been interested in at around 6 - 7 months of age, so 2 years or so ago at the time. That was the day I allowed him offlead again so I could allow him to chase a toy, it was better than being run over by a lorry!!!

Also I find sort of letting them think you're controlling the chase when you aren't helps. For instance yesterday the boys took off after a rabbit that I hadn't seen until they took off. The moment they moved I said "OK dogs" as in "it's fine to chase" then followed it up 5 seconds or so later with a recall if that makes any sense? I was too late to prevent the chase but didn't want to allow them to vanish over the horizon and didn't want to try and recall at the very second of taking off as it would have been blown off.

Not sure any of that makes sense, sorry, I can be terrible at explaining things!!


----------



## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



Kilo has a very high prey drive and absolutely lives to chase. Trainers in the past have advised me to cut any sort of chasing out; not even a toy. The issue I have had with this is, because Kilo isn't allowed to chase anything, he displays frustrated chase behaviour if you like, reacting to things like bikes moving away from him, car tyres etc.

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> I play lots of impulse control games and reward with a chase of a toy and using throwing a toy has allowed me to divert from a chase too in "real life" a few times and get the foundations of a chase recall in.
> 
> When he was neutered and on onlead walks only therefore not playing chasing games he decided one day to suddenly lunge and pull at some lorry wheels :001_huh: when I was walking him and was interested in all sorts of moving stimuli that he had last been interested in at around 6 - 7 months of age, so 2 years or so ago at the time. That was the day I allowed him offlead again so I could allow him to chase a toy, it was better than being run over by a lorry!!!
> 
> Also I find sort of letting them think you're controlling the chase when you aren't helps. For instance yesterday the boys took off after a rabbit that I hadn't seen until they took off. The moment they moved I said "OK dogs" as in "it's fine to chase" then followed it up 5 seconds or so later with a recall if that makes any sense? I was too late to prevent the chase but didn't want to allow them to vanish over the horizon and didn't want to try and recall at the very second of taking off as it would have been blown off.
> 
> Not sure any of that makes sense, sorry, I can be terrible at explaining things!!


Frankly that just proves what a load of 'bulls..t' most of the so called trainers talk...LOL

The herding breeds (collies, GSDs, etc.) are also high on the list of known bike, car, prey, etc. chasing breeds but to deny them any form of chasing at all would be ridiculous IMHO.

Call my old fashioned if you like but to my mind it all comes down to basic training and building a good relationship with your dogs.

On Monday we were instructed to leave our cars in a lay-by the other side of a busy A road because the field was too wet. I wasn't very happy as it was quite a trek, the lay-by was very muddy and Holly has never been road walked in her life. She had to cope with huge juggernauts travelling at speed.
She was fine, although I did get her to sit and semi shielded her if the lorries were really huge.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *
> 
> Frankly that just proves what a load of 'bulls..t' most of the so called trainers talk...LOL
> 
> The herding breeds (collies, GSDs, etc.) are also high on the list of known bike, car, prey, etc. chasing breeds but to deny them any form of chasing at all would be ridiculous IMHO.
> 
> Call my old fashioned if you like but to my mind it all comes down to basic training and building a good relationship with your dogs.
> 
> On Monday we were instructed to leave our cars in a lay-by the other side of a busy A road because the field was too wet. I wasn't very happy as it was quite a trek, the lay-by was very muddy and Holly has never been road walked in her life. She had to cope with huge juggernauts travelling at speed.
> She was fine, although I did get her to sit and semi shielded her if the lorries were really huge.*


*

Yes, but the shame is that they speak with such authority and certainty that the average pet owner (me) struggles with what is right. It feels "wrong" to contradict them when you are told that allowing chase behaviour is going to cause you big problems. I obviously have contradicted them, but I worried at first!!*


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, but the shame is that they speak with such authority and certainty that the average pet owner (me) struggles with what is right. It feels "wrong" to contradict them when you are told that allowing chase behaviour is going to cause you big problems. I obviously have contradicted them, but I worried at first!!


Sadly that is very true.


----------



## Nicki85

Good morning here, took the dogs for a good run over a nearby forest. Went through the back gate and the cows were scattered through the common. Didn't see them till we got out of the trees so recalled Rusty and asked him to walk to close through them. All good. 

Rust was very fast and chasey today and was difficult to manage. I could tell from the start of the walk it was going to be exciting after he chased a squirrel up a tree straight away. Anyhow they were fine- just one moment when Rust led Shae on a forest rampage for what felt like 5mins but was more like 40-60 secs. After that I did a lot more work engaging him with his toy. His ultimate recall reward is a toy being thrown in the opposite direction away from me so he charges towards me, then past me chasing the toy and the returns with it to have it thrown again. Not a bad walk- Rusty just required managing- he is so bloomin fast! and was on top form today  He also didn't chase the ducks on the lake at my request later on in the walk so the engagement and toy play was obviously helping. 

We didn't meet anyone on the walk- just one dog on the way back on the pavements. Both were perfect and ignored him.


----------



## Dogless

It's really stormy here so no forest today.

Waited for a break in the rain to take Roo out as had every dog owner and child in the vicinity which I like when I have him as we can practise manners or ignoring as appropriate. He was very good indeed for me. It would have been a total nightmare with Kilo . Heard non stop high pitched barking from a street away before we met two small children walking two "mini jackapoos" (litter mates) that they had been bought for half term. Lots of yelling "No" and lead jerking going on and just that barking. Incessant - it would drive me up the bloody wall :001_huh:.

It started to chuck it down just as I got home with Rudi which was fine by me as it was time to take Kilo out . Went to the sports pitches and open grass areas around them again. We were having a nice walk and had nearly finished when I noticed a little dog on it's own just sniffing about in some leaves. It hadn't seen us and Kilo hadn't seen it so I turned him around and started to go in the opposite direction. Unfortunately it clocked us and ran up behind us. Kilo let it have a sniff without melting :thumbup1: and we went to walk off fast but it wouldn't leave us alone for any money and Kilo started to bark - just a high pitched excited bark, no growls or lunges. I think it was just sheer panic as he jumped about a bit too but nothing like the intense reaction that pulled me into the road that time. I did lose control though, had to just restrain him again really .

I was just wondering what on earth do do about this ownerless dog when a man who had been mending something on the other side of the field finally decided to see what the barking was about - the dog turned out to be his. He came to within about 20m of us and finally managed to get his dog back to him. I shouted "Thanks, that was just brilliant"  in a very sarcastic voice as I was fuming and he took me literally and smiled (genuinely) and waved and said "you're alright love, noisy fella isn't he?" :skep:.

We also saw another dog in the distance and the BW tensed but would take food. That dog wasn't looking in our direction at all which helped.

ETA: Got home and Kilo snatched to eat something on our front lawn. A nice big fresh dogsh!t which will have been left by one of the many happy wanderers :mad5:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It's really stormy here so no forest today.
> 
> Waited for a break in the rain to take Roo out as had every dog owner and child in the vicinity which I like when I have him as we can practise manners or ignoring as appropriate. He was very good indeed for me. It would have been a total nightmare with Kilo . Heard non stop high pitched barking from a street away before we met two small children walking two "mini jackapoos" (litter mates) that they had been bought for half term. Lots of yelling "No" and lead jerking going on and just that barking. Incessant - it would drive me up the bloody wall :001_huh:.
> 
> It started to chuck it down just as I got home with Rudi which was fine by me as it was time to take Kilo out . Went to the sports pitches and open grass areas around them again. We were having a nice walk and had nearly finished when I noticed a little dog on it's own just sniffing about in some leaves. It hadn't seen us and Kilo hadn't seen it so I turned him around and started to go in the opposite direction. Unfortunately it clocked us and ran up behind us. Kilo let it have a sniff without melting :thumbup1: and we went to walk off fast but it wouldn't leave us alone for any money and Kilo started to bark - just a high pitched excited bark, no growls or lunges. I think it was just sheer panic as he jumped about a bit too but nothing like the intense reaction that pulled me into the road that time. I did lose control though, had to just restrain him again really .
> 
> I was just wondering what on earth do do about this ownerless dog when a man who had been mending something on the other side of the field finally decided to see what the barking was about - the dog turned out to be his. He came to within about 20m of us and finally managed to get his dog back to him. I shouted "Thanks, that was just brilliant"  in a very sarcastic voice as I was fuming and he took me literally and smiled (genuinely) and waved and said "you're alright love, noisy fella isn't he?" :skep:.
> 
> We also saw another dog in the distance and the BW tensed but would take food. That dog wasn't looking in our direction at all which helped.
> 
> ETA: Got home and Kilo snatched to eat something on our front lawn. A nice big fresh dogsh!t which will have been left by one of the many happy wanderers :mad5:.


Dogless you paint a very vivid picture of just how bludy awful it is over the Irish Sea... I can only say how sorry I am for you all.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless - The muzzle arrived today, thankyou again  I think it might be a bit big tbh but at the very least I can use it to get her used to having something on her nose before I re-gift it to a rescue haha.
I'm glad Kilo's reactions to other dogs are better than you expected, it sounds like he's actually come on really well considering how much he was affected by the attack.

I have read everyone else's posts - just don't have a lot to contribute that hasn't been said already 

---

We've had a really good few days, reactions to other dogs-wise. I won't list all the dogs she's ignored because there's been loads :thumbup1:, some at quite a small distance too. She has had a few growls too, but only little ones at big dogs so I think things are going fairly well on that front!

Our favourite fields were cow-free again yesterday so she had some off lead time which was nice  A few other dogs about but it's such a big area that it's easy to avoid everyone which is exactly why I like it so much !

She tried to roll in a dead bird this morning but luckily didn't do a very good job of it , did very well at ignoring the sheep too, she's really chilled out around them these last few weeks.

Still been working on 'leave it' a lot.. does anyone have any suggestions for ways of making that a bit more fun?! It's not the most exciting thing to spend ages on but it is very necessary at the moment!

Aaand she did some lovely LLW for me this afternoon too  Think that's everything!


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Dogless - The muzzle arrived today, thankyou again  I think it might be a bit big tbh but at the very least I can use it to get her used to having something on her nose before I re-gift it to a rescue haha.
> I'm glad Kilo's reactions to other dogs are better than you expected, it sounds like he's actually come on really well considering how much he was affected by the attack.
> 
> I have read everyone else's posts - just don't have a lot to contribute that hasn't been said already
> 
> ---
> 
> We've had a really good few days, reactions to other dogs-wise. I won't list all the dogs she's ignored because there's been loads :thumbup1:, some at quite a small distance too. She has had a few growls too, but only little ones at big dogs so I think things are going fairly well on that front!
> 
> Our favourite fields were cow-free again yesterday so she had some off lead time which was nice  A few other dogs about but it's such a big area that it's easy to avoid everyone which is exactly why I like it so much !
> 
> She tried to roll in a dead bird this morning but luckily didn't do a very good job of it , did very well at ignoring the sheep too, she's really chilled out around them these last few weeks.
> 
> Still been working on 'leave it' a lot.. does anyone have any suggestions for ways of making that a bit more fun?! It's not the most exciting thing to spend ages on but it is very necessary at the moment!
> 
> Aaand she did some lovely LLW for me this afternoon too  Think that's everything!


I thought Kilo's muzzle was a bit big initially - couldn't get used to the size of the gap needed under it for panting etc if that makes any sense. I looked at the picture of the dog on the website loads and came to the conclusion that it fitted well in the end. Hence the smaller one - got a size down but it only just went over the end of his muzzle!!

Sounds like Tia's doing really well at the moment :thumbup1:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> I thought Kilo's muzzle was a bit big initially - couldn't get used to the size of the gap needed under it for panting etc if that makes any sense. I looked at the picture of the dog on the website loads and came to the conclusion that it fitted well in the end. Hence the smaller one - got a size down but it only just went over the end of his muzzle!!
> 
> Sounds like Tia's doing really well at the moment :thumbup1:.


Yeah I'm not really sure right now, haven't actually tried it on properly although the first thing Tia did when I got it out was shove her nose into it so that's promising  It looked like the straps around the back will be too big but we'll see  If it only fitted over the end of Kilo's nose I'm sure her head can't be that much smaller than his really, even though she's obviously a much smaller dog!


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Yeah I'm not really sure right now, haven't actually tried it on properly although the first thing Tia did when I got it out was shove her nose into it so that's promising  It looked like the straps around the back will be too big but we'll see  If it only fitted over the end of Kilo's nose I'm sure her head can't be that much smaller than his really, even though she's obviously a much smaller dog!


I have no idea what size head the straps accommodate - the amount of spare strap is HUGE!!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> I have no idea what size head the straps accommodate - the amount of spare strap is HUGE!!!


This. I could have wrapped ours around Ruperts neck twice! The muzzle I have now is too big for Spencer as it belonged to Rupert but I've used it to work on him getting used to it. The Chirag Patel muzzle video is excellent if you haven't seen it.


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> I have no idea what size head the straps accommodate - the amount of spare strap is HUGE!!!


I suppose I could always stick an extra hole in if it's only a little bit too big... I'll do what you did and study the dog on the website and compare it to how it looks on Tia


----------



## tiatortilla

Sarah1983 said:


> This. I could have wrapped ours around Ruperts neck twice! The muzzle I have now is too big for Spencer as it belonged to Rupert but I've used it to work on him getting used to it. The Chirag Patel muzzle video is excellent if you haven't seen it.


Is it on youtube? Will have a look - thankyou


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> I suppose I could always stick an extra hole in if it's only a little bit too big... I'll do what you did and study the dog on the website and compare it to how it looks on Tia


That is how Kilo's fits. He has worn it a lot and it seems to be right.


----------



## tiatortilla

I think that looks more snug than Tia's did but as I said, I've not really tried it properly yet so this is basically guesswork atm


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## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> I think that looks more snug than Tia's did but as I said, I've not really tried it properly yet so this is basically guesswork atm


The gap at the bottom looks a lot smaller than it is there. I'll get another later if I remember!!!!


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## Nicki85

We had a good afternoon walk  Shae has been very busy today helping with housework- we've been hoovered and washed the carpets... She really is funny thing! Apparently the vanish carpet cleaner I was using had to be rolled on, the hoover had to be attacked and I had to be followed around closely. Rusty in the meantime slept... 

Took Shae out round the common this afternoon with a view of meeting and greeting  First met a cocker so recalled and put on lead and then treats- she was really good. THe chap was really worried about her though until I walked up, put Shae in a sit and explained that she was just a youngster... Apparently she looked lively and being black looked very intimidating. Poor love! She greeted his dog nicely and dropped into a play bow. He thought she was a Rottie but once he understood she was a Collie he was happy (nothing like breedism!).

Moved on, and heard voices off the path we were on so I carefully navigated on to their path. TUrned out to be 10 + offlead dogs with a few people. Shae was clearly out of her depth (tail down, ears down, worried looks) so we backed off a bit to give her room but I knew some of them from agility and they were all calm, polite dogs (and under control!). They called the younger dogs away and one person got down to chat to Shae which she loved. She had a chat to one of the older males and then we came away. 

Saw another dog playing ball which she was interested in so we did some focus work whilst he was in sight. 

She was lovely though, so easy to walk and attentive. We had a lot of fun playing ball too.

Rusty has agility later so I took him on a quick spin round the common next to the house. He was bouncy as ever....


----------



## GingerRogers

Good girl for helping with the housework Shae  ninja always rounds up spiders then gets sad when she kills them 

Tia the strap is enormous and has the ridiculous design of invisible holes, how you are supposed to get it on a dog in an emergency I dont know. Good luck i hope it makes you feel better.

Ninja came and helped me at work today and got herself completely covered in cobwebs, like a cobweb toupee, I did take photos but the memory card decided to break. We then went on a fearsomely exciting little used walk through woods full of animal smells and past a quarry.


----------



## Bagrat

Like TT I have had a good read.







This is Jackson in his muzzle TT. It wasn't done up tight as it could be on this pic.

Dogless it does sound as if Kilo is coming round, you must take hope from his recent behaviour.


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## Canine K9

Quick one 
GR- That sounds great 

Nicki- I`m glad your walk was nice! 

Dogless- Sounds like Kilo is coming round 

------------------
Bailey is at the home boarder and going by the photos and updates is a happy fellow. So at the moment we are working on my separation anxiety :frown2:


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## JenKyzer

CK9 - Glad you needn't worry about Bailey  Enjoy your holiday!

Sarah - Lovely pics of Spen  and the er.. horse... :blink: ..  I'm sure you'll nail that recall soon 

Nicki - Your garden leads into woodland  ... not jealous at all...  even if you do have visits from the cows - that'd scare me having to move them out of the way!

CiarasM - Glad you had a nice walk even with the chasing - i'm sure Ciara would of had loads of fun  . Sarah mentioned a thread?? *Goes to find* 

DL - Fab news about Kilo and his progress, i'm so happy for you  Even with the dog on the field it sounds like he did well  As for the owner... :glare: .

Tia - Sounds great that she's ignored loads of dogs  Hope the muzzle helps 

From pics of the muzzles (DL & BR)... ours is a Baskerville too.. but has the strap going between the eyes... have you both took this strap off? Or do i just have a different one :blink: ? I'll try and get a pic up later (the one i have of her in muzzle isn't v good)... i hope i haven't been doing it wrong 

Not much going on here..

Her kong, peanut butter and new toy arrived on monday.. She isn't keen on the PB (what a shame that i shall have to have it instead  ) So been stuffing the kong with fish4dogs mousse and a bit of PB round the edges. I opened the front door to leave.. she didn't bat an eyelid..

Pic taken whilst behind me the front door was open  
No mishaps with rubbish bins or chewing her bedding this week 
Edited to say - the floor cover is so then i didn't end up with fish mousse being worked into my carpet!! 

We played 'dodge that dog' yesterday morning.. Westie was infront, she saw and ignored but we went a different way anyway .. Man with lab ended up behind us, dog has jangly tags so willow looked round.. she 'carried on' and didnt get fixated. Which was great news for us as the past few times she really hasnt liked these dogs and made it clear  but no noise was made and the residents of darwen were not awoken by crazy barking dog 

Had fab offlead rainy muddy walks in the evenings up at the res  Of course we saw no-one, as what crazy person walks their dog in the rain and in the mud?!


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## Nicki85

We had a good agility session last night. I was worried Rusty would fall asleep in between runs as he was very laid back lol. But he was on top form when it came to actually running.

Just back from morning walk, it was OK. Had them both off for half of it and Shae on flexi for the other half. The main reason is the chasing Rusty and yipping through the forest. It is easier to put her on lead when he bounces off... she likes to chase him and it all gets a bit too exciting! They do listen but they are bouncy... Think this is the best way forward till I feel 100% in control of the situation. When Rusty is calm they are lovely to walk- but he is a Springer!!

Met a few dogs and owners- first a very lost looking lab came up to us. Shae was very defensive but soon calmed down after the initial greeting. Started to look for the owner as she didn't want to leave us and then a chap came round the corner with his multiple Springers and JRs. Turns out it was a newly rescued lab that he walks for the owners. It was the owners that were out with it... Anyhow, off loaded the lab with him and continued on our way. Dogs were good, stayed close and chatted to all of his dogs nicely. Then walked down the path and found the owners walking down going to collect their lab  Shae met the other two labs nicely. 
Rusty's recall work wasn't bad- good for general distractions and when he was generally hunting through the bushes and it's improving in these situations. Not so good when he is out of sight still... 

K9- I'm always like that if I am away for the day!! I hope you enjoy your holiday


----------



## tiatortilla

GR - I'm glad you mentioned the invisible holes, I couldn't find them for ages when I first looked - I was so confused!! :lol:
Ninja sounds like she was very helpful at work 

Bagrat - What size is Jackson's muzzle? I would imagine Tia is a bit bigger than him, so probably in between his size and Kilo's size! He's so cute btw :001_wub:

JSW - Willow looks like she's loving the kong! Sounds like she's doing really great with other dogs too 

Nicki - Well done for returning the lost lab! Everything else sounds like it's going nicely 

---

We haven't really done a lot today! Tia stepped in broken glass and cut the pad on one of her toes yesterday so we've only done a couple of really little walks to give it time to heal. It's only a little cut even though it bled everywhere so should probably be fine to go for normal walks tomorrow 
My mum came to visit us and Tia did pretty well on not jumping all over her.. still definitely a work in progress but she is getting better, especially considering she hasn't burnt off much energy today!

Just hoping we don't get trick or treaters here so she doesn't spend the whole evening getting excited that we have visitors and then disappointed that we don't


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## Nicki85

Not a good afternoon walk  Really got us all a bit scared and rattled!!

We were down by the river for a swim- there are big fields alongside the river so loads of space for everyone, although it is usually very very quiet. There were two dogs running around at the bottom of the field- I think great, some dogs to practice walking past nicely with  Then the two dogs just ran as fast as they could towards us... owner makes no attempt to recall or do anything... I'm panicking, as is Rusty (who is on a flexi lead), Shae isn't taking much notice as she's not bothered by dogs a long way away. But get her on lead anyhow and then the dogs are with us. Two staffies, bouncing around all over them and me. Shae is not happy, she's growling and trying to chase them away. Rust is trying to escape as well. The staffies start back at Shae and i'm wondering if I'm about to have to separate a fight... Rusty is being growled at by the other staffie and is still trying to back away. Inbetween trying to chase the staffies away Shae is grabbing at my treats that i'm offering and finding the ones i've scattered but it's a bit difficult to distract when you have two dogs bouncing all over you. Then I get jumped on... Shout at the owner to recall her dogs once she is in hearing distance and eventually they respond to her. No apology, just a nice smile and an "oh yes they can look intimidating when they both run up!" and "I know you now- i'll make sure to put them on lead next time!" 

I was so angry, they are both nervous of other dogs running up to them and i'm not sure many dogs would stand there and do nothing when two dogs approach that fast from that distance. I'm annoyed that Shae was put in that position so that she thought she had to defend herself. I'm annoyed at myself for just not turning around and making a quick retreat... 

We met a BC later on that I saw from miles away (as did Rusty who wouldn't take his eyes off him) Shae did a great job concentrating on her treats and my quick fire commands whilst he walked past. She bounced forward a step to meet him when he was level with her but no noise/aggression.

I'm not sure if it was acceptable behaviour from Shae though... I can understand her reaction though. She greets dogs at close range off lead and on fine... it's dogs approaching at speed that are the problem. Her recall is good so I can (usually) always prevent interactions if the other owner has control and if they don't I can usually diffuse it so that she feels comfortable.
Poor Rusty just wanted to escape. 

anyhow... rant over, sorry. 
Sorry to hear Tia hurt her foot  Feet do bleed lots don't they? Hope it heals fast.


----------



## tiatortilla

Nicki85 said:


> Not a good afternoon walk  Really got us all a bit scared and rattled!!
> 
> We were down by the river for a swim- there are big fields alongside the river so loads of space for everyone, although it is usually very very quiet. There were two dogs running around at the bottom of the field- I think great, some dogs to practice walking past nicely with  Then the two dogs just ran as fast as they could towards us... owner makes no attempt to recall or do anything... I'm panicking, as is Rusty (who is on a flexi lead), Shae isn't taking much notice as she's not bothered by dogs a long way away. But get her on lead anyhow and then the dogs are with us. Two staffies, bouncing around all over them and me. Shae is not happy, she's growling and trying to chase them away. Rust is trying to escape as well. The staffies start back at Shae and i'm wondering if I'm about to have to separate a fight... Rusty is being growled at by the other staffie and is still trying to back away. Inbetween trying to chase the staffies away Shae is grabbing at my treats that i'm offering and finding the ones i've scattered but it's a bit difficult to distract when you have two dogs bouncing all over you. Then I get jumped on... Shout at the owner to recall her dogs once she is in hearing distance and eventually they respond to her. No apology, just a nice smile and an "oh yes they can look intimidating when they both run up!" and "I know you now- i'll make sure to put them on lead next time!"
> 
> I was so angry, they are both nervous of other dogs running up to them and i'm not sure many dogs would stand there and do nothing when two dogs approach that fast from that distance. I'm annoyed that Shae was put in that position so that she thought she had to defend herself. I'm annoyed at myself for just not turning around and making a quick retreat...
> 
> We met a BC later on that I saw from miles away (as did Rusty who wouldn't take his eyes off him) Shae did a great job concentrating on her treats and my quick fire commands whilst he walked past. She bounced forward a step to meet him when he was level with her but no noise/aggression.
> 
> I'm not sure if it was acceptable behaviour from Shae though... I can understand her reaction though. She greets dogs at close range off lead and on fine... it's dogs approaching at speed that are the problem. Her recall is good so I can (usually) always prevent interactions if the other owner has control and if they don't I can usually diffuse it so that she feels comfortable.
> Poor Rusty just wanted to escape.
> 
> anyhow... rant over, sorry.
> Sorry to hear Tia hurt her foot  Feet do bleed lots don't they? Hope it heals fast.


Sorry to hear you had such a crap walk.. The other owner obviously seemed to think her dogs behaviour was acceptable, I don't understand why people don't at least try to call them! If it's any consolation it sounds like you dealt with it well, even if it all felt a bit hectic at the time. Hope your dogs are both okay.

Thanks, Tia's fine luckily! She's 'ard :lol: I don't think she even really noticed she's hurt her foot and she doesn't fuss when I make her bathe it in saline solution  It did bleed a lot though! She was jumping around too because it was dinner time and she was excited haha so it went everywhere!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - sorry about your rubbish walk; sounds scary .

JSW - yes I removed the strap that goes between the eyes. Looks a little "serial killer" to me :yikes:.

TT - hope Tia heals fast.

Working on recovering from our traumatic day really, not much else right now :eek6:.


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## Dogless

Today I am working on .... nothing. The boys are still flat out and I intend to let them snooze all day if that is what they want. I have one on each side giving me a cuddle :001_wub:.


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## Nicki85

DL- I bet- enjoy 

We had a really good walk this morning. I was actually feeling a bit nervous after the staffie incident but it all went swimingly...

We did a route out of one of walking books (this one, in case anyone is interested!

More road work than we are all used to and lots of people but the coped well. We met 4 dogs, first in the car park Shae wanted to react to but was easily distracted by treats. It was an elderly Dalmation so we didn't greet. Then a Westie popped out of a gate and ran across the road barking at us... Shae was fab, put her in a sit and she ignored. Owners of the Westie came out hollering at it... Then a Spanner on the other side of the fence we were going through, lots of play bows ... and lastly a GR off lead that approached at quite a distance. I did panic a bit but kept my cool and asked Shae for a sit and the GR came within sniffing distance. It was fine, Shae was nervy as was the GR but she had a quick zoom and we left the GR to it. No noise or anything though so really pleased. Rusty spent the whole walk bouncing around on the end of the lead, mostly ignoring my attempts to engage- he is bonkers!!

We had a lovely walk


----------



## ciarasmum

Twiggy - so do you think getting a flirt pole or giving some other chase outlet is a good idea? I do have to be careful letting her chase balls with all the twisting/turning because of her legs. Not sure if a flirt pole would be any better! She isn't lame or anything, but I don't want to make things worse.

Dogless - Had a quick read of your other thread  this morning on my phone but couldn't type a proper reply. That must have been terrifying for you all! So glad you managed to find Kilo before dark. Enjoy your relaxed day. (also Kilo sounds like he's coping brilliantly with rude dogs, well done!)

tia - Hope tia's pads are healing ok?

GR - Aww, what a shame we can't see pics of Ninja wrapped up in cobwebs! Bet she loved the animal smells in the woods!

K9 - Glad Bailey is having a good time at the home boarder 

Jen - Bet Willow loved the fish4dogs mousse! Have you seen the pack for the guide dogs they do? It's £4 and you get some mousse and some other treats. Glad she was better this week with the kong to keep her busy  Sounds like a good walk by the res!

Nicki - Glad you had a better walk today after the incident with the staffs. Shae sounds like she reacted just fine, Ciara would be frightened too with 2 dogs running up to her. And Shae sounds good with other dogs in general  Hope she has recovered. 

---------------------

We've had some good walks this week. This morning we got told off by the farmer for being somewhere we shouldn't. I honestly thought I was following a footpath as it was all trodden in and the sign was a bit ambiguous.

Anyway, we were soon being followed by a big car. Put Ciara on lead and he came out and was miffed but I apologised and he was ok. We weren't in a crop field anyway and were round the edge but I can see why he was annoyed. Ciara was fine until we saw another man with a springer walking round the same field. I moved out of the way and as he passed I warned him about the farmer. His dog was on it's back legs (excited) and pulling towards Ciara who did 2 big girl barks then sat down when asked.

Not the best reaction but assuming she reacted to him/her being on two feet and being generally excited. Saw a group of people with 3 off lead dogs 5 mins later. Ciara just pulled me into a bush to avoid them so much better than reacting. Think she was more scared of all the people than the dogs.

That's probably the only thing to report from the last few days.

Oh and I decided to accept the job offer  I start on Tuesday. I'm really worried about changing Ciara's walking routines and making sure she is back in time to be fed before I go to work. Also worried because she is usually fed a few hours before her walk so she can have her Metacam but it'll have to be a walk first and Metacam later  My plan is just to do a short 30min-40min stroll in the morning and let her plod and do a proper walk as soon as I get in from work. She won't be alone all day but I wouldn't trust my brother to walk her while she has so many issues/needs. 

Off to find some threads about bed recommendations. Is it bad I'm going to spend my first wage on Ciara


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> JSW - yes I removed the strap that goes between the eyes. Looks a little "serial killer" to me :yikes:.


Lol, I left it there for that very reason. Awful as it sounds I wanted my dog to look that way. Not because I wanted a status dog but because I wanted people to bloody keep their dogs away from him. If I'd known about them I'd have bought one of those awful looking barbed wire patterned things or something. The really obvious "look, my dog is muzzled, he must be vicious" ones.


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## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> Twiggy - so do you think getting a flirt pole or giving some other chase outlet is a good idea? I do have to be careful letting her chase balls with all the twisting/turning because of her legs. Not sure if a flirt pole would be any better! She isn't lame or anything, but I don't want to make things worse.
> 
> Well you could try. Even something like a 'chuckit' or a ball on a rope and just be very careful. It's the excitement you create more than long throws.
> 
> I was still throwing toys for Quiver up until I lost her in July, by which time her old joints were really deteriorating. The difference with old or injured dogs you simply moderate how you throw. In quiver's case I would hold her collar, be really exciting and virtually put the toy about 12" in front of her. She was happy with that because in her mind she was still having her turn.
> 
> Well done on the job and I sincerely hope it works out well.


----------



## GingerRogers

ciarasmum said:


> GR - Aww, what a shame we can't see pics of Ninja wrapped up in cobwebs! Bet she loved the animal smells in the woods!
> 
> Oh and I decided to accept the job offer  I start on Tuesday. I'm really worried about changing Ciara's walking routines and making sure she is back in time to be fed before I go to work. Also worried because she is usually fed a few hours before her walk so she can have her Metacam but it'll have to be a walk first and Metacam later  My plan is just to do a short 30min-40min stroll in the morning and let her plod and do a proper walk as soon as I get in from work. She won't be alone all day but I wouldn't trust my brother to walk her while she has so many issues/needs.
> 
> Off to find some threads about bed recommendations. Is it bad I'm going to spend my first wage on Ciara


I was ridiculously annoyed with the little bit of plastic, she looked very funny 

Big congratulations on the job,  I am sure you will shine and Ciara will adapt.

JSW - I took the Hannibal Lector strap off too 

We had a shocking potter this morning  ninja was very edgy for some reason but culminating in an encounter with an incredibly high pitched JRT  whose owner thought it was funny that the pair of them were gobbing off as we passed on opposite sides of the road (thank goodness ninja doesnt sound like this one did tho ) whereas I felt like sitting down and bawling, probably the rotten cold thats got me in its grip but we were due a bad day.

She really ragged her lead something rotten, it has been suggested I try a tuggy or tuggy lead for these occasions so I can look even more of a mad dog lady and turn it into a game


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## Dogless

GR - sorry for the crappy walk....I'll have you know my lead suggestions were absolutely not to make you look like a mad dog lady .... but if they do make sure you get a picture :laugh: :yikes:.


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## Dogless

*Congratulations Ciarasmum!!!*


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## Nicki85

Ciara- congratulations on the new job  I'm pretty sure the majority of my wages go on the pups lol. 

GR-  Sorry to hear about the rubbish walk. A tug toy to redirect to may be helpful... Shae likes to tug something on the way out of the gate. Loads of different tuggy leads out there. It's amazing how one person can spoil a walk though... Here's hoping for a better walk tomorrow


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## JenKyzer

Dogless - Hope you and the boys have had a lovely relaxing day 

Nicki - Shae sounds like she did brill this morning :thumbsup:

Ciarasmum - Congratulations on the new job, i'm sure Ciara will settle into her new routine as will you  the £4 f4d offer is the one we get each time, it last's us ages as the kibble we use as treats as fish treats are the only ones Willow responds to on walks - even if its just the smell, it gets her attention 

GR - sorry to read about edgy ninja.. i'm sure she'll make it up to you though and hopefully have a better potter tomorrow 

Dogless, Sarah and GR - i need to try it without the strap! I thought it had to be there :eek6: Didn't realise the muzzle still stayed on without it  she doesn't mind it though, will try it out tomorrow 

Not much here, i managed to walk willow but then didn't manage to go to work, first 'sicky' in about 2yrs :sad:
We saw the lab this morning, slap bang infront of us as we turned the corner.. Willow was growling but no big noise/lunge and she 'this way-ed' out of the alley and up the road with no look backs. I must say this lab is very patient, god knows what he/she thinks of my mad dog with the pink light up collar having a hissy at 6am  me and the owner never speak.. i've apologised for willows behaviour in the past and been blanked. So now i know he expects it and gives us a wide birth anyway, this morning he took hold of his dog and they froze. Guess that's a good thing?  Bet he hates seeing us though and i do feel bad.. :thumbdown:


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## Bagrat

Have hopped on just to tell Tia T the size of Jackson's baskerville.I looked came upstairs and now I've for gotten arrrgh. back down..... SIZE 2!!!
Hope to be back later to have a read. Am going to "your end of the lead" workshop day tomorrow - Janet Finlay. Help for relaxing me I hope.


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## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Have hopped on just to tell Tia T the size of Jackson's baskerville.I looked came upstairs and now I've for gotten arrrgh. back down..... SIZE 2!!!
> Hope to be back later to have a read. Am going to "your end of the lead" workshop day tomorrow - Janet Finlay. Help for relaxing me I hope.


I was looking at that workshop - hope you have a very useful day.


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## Twiggy

Sorry ladies I didn't really catch up very well yesterday evening.

I went and collected my late sister's 6 yr old bitch, Barley, last Sunday and she's proving to be a nightmare at the moment.

She hasn't been out and about much for the past five years, due to my sister's illnesses, and has lived in the quiet fields and wood of rural Sussex all her life.

We live in an arable farming area and have got wretched gas guns discharging all over the place.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy with Barley and also knew she was frightened of fireworks and thunder, but I didn't expect quite such a strong reaction to the dull thud of the gas guns.

She is terrified of them and we currently have one very close that is discharging about every 10 minutes from dawn to dusk - great!!

Last night I gave her 2mg of Valium well before a big firework display started about half a mile up the road and whilst I was sorting out the CD player, putting it on at full volume, she peed in the middle of my duvet. We've got another local display tonight and tomorrow.

Poor little dog, she must absolutely hate it here, but it's starting to impact on my 3 girls sadly.

Any brilliant ideas welcomed on a postcard...


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## GingerRogers

Oh dear Twiggy, I am so sorry, I dont think I have any useful suggestions. It is awful there is so little you can do, I guess you just have to ride the fireworks out and then try and work on the bird scarers. I am sure you know all the tricks in the book. I am sorry its affecting the others though.

I always say that one good thing about ninja (perhaps its the lack of collie in her as both previous dogs have been colliex and terrified of bangs) she is not bothered by them thank goodness as the only places we can walk peacefully is round the farmers fields. 

I have given up walking with my friend though as her little chap is petrified of them, they can only go to the beach/town marshes where there too many people/dogs for ninja. The only place he appears to find safe at this time of year is the Harbour Inn Public House, its solid walls and background noise soothe him so they have to spend all the hours of darkness there  dont suppose thats an option for poor scared unsocialised Barley.

A thundershirt did seem to help him cope better with the noises, he still doesnt like them but doesnt turn tail and run. And he doesnt wear it all the time either.


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## Nicki85

Twiggy- I have no advice to offer- I hope the situation improves for all of you.

Morning walk over the common fine, Shae had a quiet growl at a Springer trying to approach when I moved her off the path for them to go past. The Springer barked back. No biggie though- probably my fault for pulling her off the path.

Rusty had agility- he loved it lots lol. We had lots of fun... Shae had fun as well meeting all the BCs and other dogs there and playing a bit of tug.

Took them to the park on the way back- played a lovely game of ball with Shae until a Greyhound approached. She was absolutely fine looking at him then looking to me for a treat until he came right up. She the went to chase him off. The Greyhound didn't take heed though and circled back. Anyhow, put Shae into a sit and watch me and she was fine until the GH responded to his owner. Also saw a little terrier that came over- she was fine though when distracted with treats.

So I don't know, she doesn't try and approach strange dogs or respond to them from a distance. It's only when they come up to her when she is engaged with me that there seems to be a problem. i'm tempted to have a chat to the local behaviourist about it to make sure i'm doing the right thing. Her recall is fab so I have no worries about her going up to dogs and greetings in these situations are fine anyhow. It's just dogs running up to her un controlled that we can't cope with.


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## Dogless

Twiggy - I don't have any fabulous suggestions for you at all; I am sorry. What you don't already know isn't worth knowing unfortunately . All I can think of is building a "den" with a crate or in a small space with lots of duvets and blankets. I am so sorry her anxieties are having such an impact on your girls.

Good walks this morning . It's wet and stormy here but I took Rudi running with me in a break in the weather and he was extremely good for me .

Took Kilo for a lead potter around some of our quiet places, he is still pretty tired. BUT we saw a dog in the distance, going away from us and it went well :thumbsup:. Kilo started breathing heavily, tail out like a rod and then he did the "plunge" that precedes a full blown panic (he jumps up in the air and then sort of bounces forwards) but I managed to catch him in time with a sharp "no" and then started to throw treats on the floor, asking for touches etc. I didn't turn him around as the space was being increased anyway by the other dog and I wanted him to see the dog, see that it wasn't even aware of his presence and bombard him with good things.


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## Twiggy

Thank you ladies.

My Thundershirt was returned in the post today before I walked the dogs so I put it on Barley, who also had another dose of Doreen Paige 'Crisis'.

She was very slightly better.

It's sad to see her struggling and she really wants to join my 3 in playing with their outdoor toys but she's too scared.

GR I did think about simply leaving her in the house for several days, although her ears go back and she leaves the room when the gas gun discharges anyway.

I also tried a different tack yesterday morning because husband was working in the garden. I took all 4 out to the paddock gate being extremely jolly but with Barley off the lead. Sadly she did what I thought she'd do - stand by the paddock gate for 50 minutes and watch us from a distance.

The trouble is I can't take away the source of her fear.

I've rung several friends within a 5 mile radius but they all tell me there are scare guns where they exercise their dogs.

The only solution would be to drive 25-30 miles away into Rutland or somewhere, but I neither have the time nor the funds to do that on a daily basis.


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## Dogless

Twiggy I am pleased that you saw a slight improvement in Barley; I do hope she starts to gain confidence as she settles in with you.

I just braved the stormy weather to do two separate walks with the boys; didn't want to take them up to the top fields to play as I wanted to keep their stress levels low after Thursday. It is horrendous out there so unsurprisingly we didn't see a soul bar a man who stopped to ask directions (I know :yikes so nothing to report - unless you can count a near miss with a flying wheelie bin :eek6:. The boys were all bundled up in their coats for the first time this season.


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## JenKyzer

Twiggy - I'm really sorry to hear about Barley and her anxieties, bless her. I am glad she has you helping her and i'm very sure she is in the best hands now. I hope she starts to relax and your 3 girls aren't affected much longer. My fingers are crossed for you. (Sorry i have no brilliant idea )

Dogless - Glad you managed a good run with Rudi when the weather calmed. Kilo's progress seems to be coming along too  Well done to him for not full on panic-ing, my fingers are crossed for you two also 

Nicki - Bless shae, how dare that GH interupt time with you and her  I don't see how shae is in the wrong really, but i hope the chat with the behaviourist goes well  Glad agility was fun for Rust 

Nothing exciting here.. was wondering how Willow was going to cope with fireworks.. she hasn't even batted an eyelid. She's more bothered about OH brother having an XBox game with a meow-ing cat  had to ask him to turn it down as it was really unsettling her.. and pretty annoying me tbh, even i thought it was a real cat and went out front, out back and stood all around the house until i asked him 'can you hear that cat?!'  idiot. 
OH has gone to a bonfire.. in the rain  so me and willow are chilling watching 'the dog rescuers' but it's quite upsetting  the chocolate ice-cream makes me feel better though 
Hope everyone else has a lovely evening.


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## Nicki85

Mine aren't interested in fireworks either lol. There was a shoot going on when I had them out for agility as well... Rust cocked his head but that was it. I wonder what the basis is of the reaction? Why do some react and others not? 

Shae hates animals/animal noises on TV to! I put dog tv on for her once- she hated it.

I think we are going to start at the behaviourists training classes in the new year (no spaces for now) and just work on avoiding/ preventing the situation in the meantime. I'm always one of those people that wants to tackle the bull by the horns (so to speak lol) so I kind of want to take her out and expose her to loads and loads of dogs running up to her... but that obviously isn't probably the best thing to do!! Pretty sure it's fear based with a bit of resource guarding (me, toy, treats etc) , once she knows the dog is friend or the meeting is "neutral" she is happy as larry offering all sorts of play behaviour. At agility/training she's everyones friend... 
Anyhow, enough about this... my ultimate aim is to have her dog neutral so she can sit whilst a dog approaches and ignore... she can do this in agility just not out and about yet!

She's starting a new agility class on Fri (with only one other youngster so should be good and calm) and flyball (I think- concerned about the excitement!) soon...


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## Bagrat

Well I'm back home and Jackson is back from kennels in a slightly weird mood.

Twiggy - so sorry Barley is suffering and it's having a knock on effect for your dogs. I am so fortunate that the one thing that DOESN'T affect Jackson is fireworks and bangs!
Dogless - good job with Kilo and dog, sounds good.
JenSW - going back a couple of days to the kong ,have you tried primula squeezy cheese with ham or prawns in it. Probably full of additives but I like it as well as J!!. Just been looking at your pics of Willow - she is gorgeous.
Nicky - Sounds like good work with Shae.
Ciara'smum belated congrats on new job.

Jackson was so excited to see us when we picked him up then came home and had zoomies with his soft squeaky toy but in spite of being desperate for a wee has had to be taken out on lead because it's windy and raining!!
Did a bit of work on J's attempts to separate OH and me if we get too close. Called him up to us while we stood with arms round each other ( sorry too much info I know) to prevent the long dash and leap; then scattered hot dog treats on kitchen floor. Result, no bruised legs and back for me so will persevere then introduce a sit command. We usually just tolerate the threesome so to speak. It's fine if he's close to us, just if he spots us from a distance.
Was reading about default behaviours in the CU book. Jackson's is a sit but he also seems to have taught himself that touching doors might result in a treat too ( since I taught him to close doors) so he will go round kitchen touching doors at random including the washing machine then look at me expectantly!! I treat that randomly but don't know if I should??


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## JenKyzer

Bagrat said:


> JenSW - going back a couple of days to the kong ,have you tried primula squeezy cheese with ham or prawns in it. Probably full of additives but I like it as well as J!!. Just been looking at your pics of Willow - she is gorgeous.


Tube Cheese and Prawn | Primula 
'Contains no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives' :thumbsup:
But the fat content puts me off (12% sat fat!)... aswell as the dairy factor... i'm sure her poop's would knock me for 6 
I'm sure she'd love it though 

Bless his closing of doors, that's cute. Glad he was excited to see you


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## Twiggy

Pleased to report that Barley has been a bit better today. She's still very worried by the blasted gas gun and her ears are flat on her head when the damn thing discharges but again late afternoon I let her off the lead after half an hour and she didn't flee the bottom field. In fact when I was issuing tit-bits to the other 3 she came back and joined us. When we got into the top paddock she actually asked my permission to go off chasing Tremor and Holly...

Here's a couple of pics taken this afternoon of one of my new jumps made by hubby. I have to say (begrudgingly) he's done a good job:










This is mad Barley:










He's made me 5 jumps so far with varying wings. I need to either paint the poles or put some coloured tape around them and we have more jump cups on order.

Hope you've all had a good day and also hope we don't get too many more fireworks tonight.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> *Pleased to report that Barley has been a bit better today.* She's still very worried by the blasted gas gun and her ears are flat on her head when the damn thing discharges but again late afternoon I let her off the lead after half an hour and she didn't flee the bottom field. In fact when I was issuing tit-bits to the other 3 she came back and joined us. When we got into the top paddock she actually asked my permission to go off chasing Tremor and Holly...
> 
> Here's a couple of pics taken this afternoon of one of my new jumps made by hubby. I have to say (begrudgingly) he's done a good job:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is mad Barley:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> He's made me 5 jumps so far with varying wings. I need to either paint the poles or put some coloured tape around them and we have more jump cups on order.
> 
> Hope you've all had a good day and also hope we don't get too many more fireworks tonight.


That is very good news


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> That is very good news


Well we've still got a heck of a long way to go and I hate seeing Barley so upset, but hopefully there is now a little ***** of light through the dark clouds. She is enjoying play training with me and almost, but not quite, forgets about the gun whilst she's working.

I know the farmer who the gas gun belongs to and if it's moved behind our far hedge (which is possible as they haven't set that field yet) I might ring him and very politely request that he moves it to the other side of the field. They are breaking the law as it is, as they should only discharge maximum of 4 times an hour.

Barley was also better last night with the wretched fireworks although they were nearer Friday night when she peed in the middle of my duvet..!!


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## Nicki85

I've only been near one of those gas fired bird scarers once and remember Rust running up to take a closer look. It scared the life out of me when it first went off... and every time after that. I feel for poor Barley, can't be fun at all  But it sounds like she is becoming accustomed to it and on the positive firework season isn't for too much longer.

I love your new jumps- very jealous


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## ciarasmum

GR - Grrr I hate when owners think it is funny when their dog is gaarrring at things! One of my pet peeves - excuse the pun - as we put so much work into our dogs and some people just think it is funny, usually if they are small (not all small dog owners tho of course). Hope you are feeling better? I'm not sure on the tuggy as I haven't used one, but could you use it as a reward for ignoring other barking dogs?

Jen - Sorry the lab owner ignores you when you apologise. I think it's only polite to acknowledge an apology, especially as you have Willow under control so are doing your best. I did have to laugh at you looking outside for the cat noise though, sorry  

Nicki - Does Shae react if dogs bound up to her being rude? Or just approach calmly? Glad you have a date for seeing the behaviourist. I always think it helps to get another perspective on it  

Dogless - Sounds like some good walks this week  Glad Kilo seemed ok with the dog in front other than a bit of huffing. I agree that it's a good idea to see the other dog. Do you do any Look at That? Where you reward the dog for looking calmly at the dog? I was told years ago that Ciara should watch me when we saw a dog, but I found she was much better if I allowed her to look at it.

Bagrat - Oh bless Jackson touching the doors. No advice on the treating sorry  Bet you're glad to see him again 

Twiggy - Oh Barley is just gorgeous! Glad you are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, poor mite 

------------

We've had two lovely walks today. This morning we saw a woman with 2 dogs. We weren't far away but there was a ditch inbetween the field we were in and the one they were in. Ciara is not averse to running through ditches so we did some Look at That and she really seemed to enjoy the game and didn't get huffy or raise her hackles 

We went out at 5 this afternoon. Forgot about it getting dark earlier so had a spooky walk through some overgrown footpaths and fields. Some fireworks were going off but thankfully they aren't one of the many things that bother her so she didn't even raise her head. We're now snuggled up while she eats her frozen kong.

I've decided to buy her a Tuffies bed. I'll have to wait til I've been paid a few times (I'll be paid weekly for the first 12wks) but I've wasted so much money on those cushion type ones only for them to flatten or bunch up so I'm going to invest. Just deciding on a fleecy cover similar to vet bed or the waterproof one (that one doesn't look as cosy though!)


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> I've only been near one of those gas fired bird scarers once and remember Rust running up to take a closer look. It scared the life out of me when it first went off... and every time after that. I feel for poor Barley, can't be fun at all  But it sounds like she is becoming accustomed to it and on the positive firework season isn't for too much longer.
> 
> I love your new jumps- very jealous


I've been reading up about the gas guns on the web and it sounds as if they've caused quite a lot of trouble in some areas, particularly with horse-riders and dog walkers. There also appears to have been loads of complaints about noise nuisance and on one site there are specimen letters which you can copy to your MP or Environmental Health Officer.

I have to say when one of the things was behind our hedge a couple of years ago it used to make me jump more than my dogs..!!

Thanks. I'm quite pleased with the jumps as well. At this rate I shall soon have a full set of equipment again. I hope Holly appreciates it...


----------



## Nicki85

CM- it is usually only when the other dog comes in to fast. However, if the dog comes in calm I still need to sometimes "remind" her not to chase off. This only happens when she is engaged with me with treats/ball which is why i'm thinking resource guarding. 

Today she greeted an offlead black lab bitch with no issues what so ever. She ran back when called glancing over her shoulder grrring but it was in play rather than I want to get rid of you... She is very vocal about play... Controlled greetings (onlead, or off lead when calm) always result in play or ignore. 

The classes in Jan are run by a qualified behaviourist but are aiming for the bronze award... I should be able to pick their brains wether I need a "proper" appointment or not.

Sounds like you have both had a good day  Lucky Ciara with her new bed... I keep looking at those as well!!


----------



## Bagrat

Twiggy. So pleased Barley has settled -even if it's only a little bit

Ciara's Mum - sounds like two good walks.

Jackson was in the hands of OH today. Quiet walk am and saw one dog this aft. It was behind them and OH was about to treat for LLW so J was more interested in treats and apart from acouple of over the shoulder "Looks" he was fine!!!

I meanwhile was learning lots at the Janet Finlay workshop "The Other End of the Lead". It was fab for me. We did lots of all sorts including wearing wraps, being led round a ground work course each taking a turn as the dog! Then "dog" was blindfolded. 
I have got lots of things to practice, one being talking myself through walks we do,observing problem areas and "escape routes" but without the dog.
Really enjoyed it. Also we got lots of treats for interacting ( chocolates!!) so am feeling very full!!

She runs on line courses too which go into more depth than you can cover in a day


----------



## Nicki85

Ohhh I forgot to say that Rusty BARKED at me whilst running at agility on Saturday! I was so amazed/ surprised I forgot the course lol.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Ohhh I forgot to say that Rusty BARKED at me whilst running at agility on Saturday! I was so amazed/ surprised I forgot the course lol.


What a good boy..:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Bagrat said:


> Twiggy. So pleased Barley has settled -even if it's only a little bit
> 
> Ciara's Mum - sounds like two good walks.
> 
> Jackson was in the hands of OH today. Quiet walk am and saw one dog this aft. It was behind them and OH was about to treat for LLW so J was more interested in treats and apart from acouple of over the shoulder "Looks" he was fine!!!
> 
> *I meanwhile was learning lots at the Janet Finlay workshop "The Other End of the Lead". It was fab for me. We did lots of all sorts including wearing wraps, being led round a ground work course each taking a turn as the dog! Then "dog" was blindfolded. *
> I have got lots of things to practice, one being talking myself through walks we do,observing problem areas and "escape routes" but without the dog.
> Really enjoyed it. Also we got lots of treats for interacting ( chocolates!!) so am feeling very full!!
> 
> She runs on line courses too which go into more depth than you can cover in a day


Please you enjoyed the course and found it helpful.

That reminds me of a week-end competitive obedience course my sister and I did for the Southern Shetland Sheepdog Club several years ago.

I remember the course for several reasons; one, spending an awful night in my sister's tent with creepy crawlies - two, being invited to lunch on the Sunday at what can only be described as the poshest flats ever (think Stately Home) and traipsing down to the communal dining room to meet Lady .... and the Hon Mrs ...... with a huge ladder in my tights - three, stripping off behind my car to change into HTM garb to perform a routine with somebody's husband leering at me...!!

But the main reason I remember it so well was an awful handler (ex MI5) who spent all week-end being as difficult as possible and arguing about every suggestion my sister and I made. My sister being my sister got her own back on the Sunday afternoon when she announced that we would be finishing the course by playing team games. She split the handlers into 4 teams and made MI5 leader of one. The last game was as you describe - blindfolded handlers being instructed by a fellow team member around an obstacle course. MI5 ended up right down the other end of the field...YES


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry incoming rant warning 

Remember the stupid squeaking JRT from the other day and its red coated owner (great flag for me if I get the chance to spot them )

Guess who we bumped into again today, we had been really working hard on keeping quiet in the face of:

people gardening, 
workmen poking their heads over fences 
workmen barrowing loads of soil around the estate
RAC vans parked on our 'problem' corner (very annoying apparently) 
lab came round the corner 
lady at the bus stop saying 'wow shes excitable' 

I am thinking is that all it is? Is that lady better at reading my dog than me? I remembered the tuggy toy in my pocket a bit late, by the time I got it out she was like meh rather sniff and pull thanks @@ 

We went up the road a bit but now she was really lunging at trucks so rather than go up the lane where there are a few trigger spots and a strong likelihood of seeing other dogs inc off lead ones, I decided to turn back. J

ust as we approach the 'problem' corner again around it comes squeaky dog and the lady in her bright red coat  eek, eek, eek, eek, I automatically u-turn but ninja has already kicked off (still forgot the tuggy toy ) I glance over my shoulder, has the woman slowed, stopped, waited, turned round herself. 

No!! She's steaming towards us huge grin on her face with her squeaking terrier triggering dog scrambling ahead of her.  

Luckily its wide verges so I veer off to the side as I just cant walk quick enough with ninja scrabbling behind me to escape, I cant do any work there's just no time or distance. I remember the tuggy finally but she is too far gone and pretty fairly just wants to eat this squeaky thing. 

The worst thing  - my husband is working in the house on the corner and I just know he can see my epic fail of dog handling. In the end I just stand there at a complete loss , thankfully the DA GSD and his mate must be out so they dont join in the fuss, I feel such a failure. Hubby comes out and asks what all the row is about, I tell him its the stupid squeaking dog, he says 'I could see that what was that woman's problem couldnt she have slowed, stopped, waited, turned round herself' Hooray he has got some idea! 

Anyway I am nearly in tears by now and he has to get on so we walk off round the corner, dont know why but I had the urge to pick ninja up and give her a cuddle so I do ! A little butt rub and some comforting words and I put her back down she scampers off towards the road where one of her favourite sniffing greens is so we cross over, just as we go round the corner I see a lady in a familiar red coat, it cant possibly be, there's no way she can have got that far so quick surely, u-turn again luckily ninja hasn't seen them this time but it is :eek6:

We have a very good walk up the road and then I realise I haven't got the tuggy toy in my pocket. 

Such a long rant but this is where it gets good. I retrace our steps sure enough its lying on the ground where I picked her up. I can see it and tell her to find it , she gets all excited then chases when she spots it, we have a good game of tuggy then :thumbsup:, and some throwing/tugging games ensue. Then carry on with our walk and finally make it home and have some more tuggy games on the grass out the front 

So just maybe if we keep this up we can use it to our advantage, we haven't ever really managed to play much outside apart from in specific places so perhaps I just need to re-associate outside.

Sorry I am done thanks for giving me space :angry:

Bagrat the course sounds great :thumbsup:

Twiggy I am sure with some more of your loving care and attention you can restore Barleys zest for life, she must be missing your sister greatly too!  Take care!


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat - I am pleased that the workshop went well; I'd be pretty interested in the online course.

Ciarasmum - Tuffies beds are the dogs' danglies I reckon :laugh:.

Twiggy - I am so, so pleased that there is a tiny little seed of hope planted with Barley. I am certain that it your hands she'll grow in confidence.

Nicki - Pleased that Rusty barked....if Twiggy says it's a good thing it must be :thumbsup:.

GR - what an awful walk . You weren't an epic fail at handling, sometimes things just take us by surprise. I am always amazed at people who just carry on walking towards you / past whilst their dog goes utterly batshit on the lead . Pleased it ended well though :thumbsup:.


----------



## Dogless

We had a nice walk in the forest yesterday and then today went to the scene of Thursday's "crime". I put Kilo in his Cani-x harness and line and wore my running belt - not run him in it since he was attacked. I forgot how much he LOVED it. We ran full pelt until I thought to myself we seemed to have got a very long way; checked my watch and it was just over an hour.....turned round and came back and the last half hour pretty much broke me  :yikes:. It was a lovely morning. So glad Kilo was onlead as that stray sheep was in the exact same place but on the opposite side of the track.

It was freezing, dogs' teeth chattered (not in excitement!!) and they shivered and whinged before and after we ran, bless them.







Sorry for the awful phone pics!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Lol I just had a google of the Janet Finaly Course and guess what comes up as the first hit

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/229731-what-you-working-1868.html


----------



## ciarasmum

Nicki - Sounds like maybe she is just chasing them off if they are being rude? Ciara hates dogs rushing her but if introduced properly she will normally be ok.

Bagrat - The workshop sounds fab! May have a look at the online ones! Glad Jackson was ok with the dog behind him 

GR - Rant away! Sorry you had a bad walk  Pleased though that it ended on a good note with the fun play with the tuggy. Really hope you don't bump into woman in red anytime soon!!

Dogless - Great pics! I'm tired just reading about your running for an hour and half  Looks like a lovely place to walk/run.

---------------

We had a couple of nice walks yesterday, in fact I'm losing the plot as I actually wrote about them last night 

Today we met up with a friend and 2 of her dogs, a GSD and Rough Collie, both girls. I took my aunts lhasa apso along for moral support. Well Ciara was absolutely brilliant!! We walked all dogs on lead for a while with me and Ciara at the back and me treating for looking at the dogs and not reacting. She did amazingly well as the GSD was turning round and the rough collie barking at her. No malice from them, just excitement but not sure Ciara can tell the difference.

When we reached the fields we let the two smaller ones off lead first then let the two sheps off. Apart from Ciara having a bit of a grump when she was having a wee and the other shep sniffed her lady areas she was brilliant. She wasn't shut down or unhappy, just really chilled. So proud of her! She even took lots of treats off the woman I walked with who she has never met. This is the first time she's had any interaction with another dog (bar barking at them ) since we stopped the group walks so I'm just so pleased  We also passed a couple of other dogs and no bad reactions 

Here's a pic or two. She had her Thundershirt on to help her a little.

She looks like she's walking with her head quite low but she's actually mid 'bunny hop' so bum in air and body low. She was having a mad zoom.


----------



## Freddie and frank

i'm being nosey again, sorry. 

twiggy, i'm sorry to hear about your sister, i didn't know. but had thought about you a few times. hope things work out with barley.

didn't want to read and run.

frank's got his second chiropractor appointment next week, but he still hates having his harness on 

hello to everyone.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry incoming rant warning
> 
> Remember the stupid squeaking JRT from the other day and its red coated owner (great flag for me if I get the chance to spot them )
> 
> Guess who we bumped into again today, we had been really working hard on keeping quiet in the face of:
> 
> people gardening,
> workmen poking their heads over fences
> workmen barrowing loads of soil around the estate
> RAC vans parked on our 'problem' corner (very annoying apparently)
> lab came round the corner
> lady at the bus stop saying 'wow shes excitable'
> 
> I am thinking is that all it is? Is that lady better at reading my dog than me? I remembered the tuggy toy in my pocket a bit late, by the time I got it out she was like meh rather sniff and pull thanks @@
> 
> We went up the road a bit but now she was really lunging at trucks so rather than go up the lane where there are a few trigger spots and a strong likelihood of seeing other dogs inc off lead ones, I decided to turn back. J
> 
> ust as we approach the 'problem' corner again around it comes squeaky dog and the lady in her bright red coat  eek, eek, eek, eek, I automatically u-turn but ninja has already kicked off (still forgot the tuggy toy ) I glance over my shoulder, has the woman slowed, stopped, waited, turned round herself.
> 
> No!! She's steaming towards us huge grin on her face with her squeaking terrier triggering dog scrambling ahead of her.
> 
> Luckily its wide verges so I veer off to the side as I just cant walk quick enough with ninja scrabbling behind me to escape, I cant do any work there's just no time or distance. I remember the tuggy finally but she is too far gone and pretty fairly just wants to eat this squeaky thing.
> 
> The worst thing  - my husband is working in the house on the corner and I just know he can see my epic fail of dog handling. In the end I just stand there at a complete loss , thankfully the DA GSD and his mate must be out so they dont join in the fuss, I feel such a failure. Hubby comes out and asks what all the row is about, I tell him its the stupid squeaking dog, he says 'I could see that what was that woman's problem couldnt she have slowed, stopped, waited, turned round herself' Hooray he has got some idea!
> 
> Anyway I am nearly in tears by now and he has to get on so we walk off round the corner, dont know why but I had the urge to pick ninja up and give her a cuddle so I do ! A little butt rub and some comforting words and I put her back down she scampers off towards the road where one of her favourite sniffing greens is so we cross over, just as we go round the corner I see a lady in a familiar red coat, it cant possibly be, there's no way she can have got that far so quick surely, u-turn again luckily ninja hasn't seen them this time but it is :eek6:
> 
> We have a very good walk up the road and then I realise I haven't got the tuggy toy in my pocket.
> 
> Such a long rant but this is where it gets good. I retrace our steps sure enough its lying on the ground where I picked her up. I can see it and tell her to find it , she gets all excited then chases when she spots it, we have a good game of tuggy then :thumbsup:, and some throwing/tugging games ensue. Then carry on with our walk and finally make it home and have some more tuggy games on the grass out the front
> 
> So just maybe if we keep this up we can use it to our advantage, we haven't ever really managed to play much outside apart from in specific places so perhaps I just need to re-associate outside.
> 
> Sorry I am done thanks for giving me space :angry:
> 
> Bagrat the course sounds great :thumbsup:
> 
> Twiggy I am sure with some more of your loving care and attention you can restore Barleys zest for life, she must be missing your sister greatly too!  Take care!


GR you rant away.

I actually found your post interesting as that is the same tack I am pursuing with Barley. I've trained her every day, which has consisted mainly of lots of excited squeaky tennis ball throwing and tugging, and I'm now beginning to transfer that excitement into walks. She is still very frightened when the gas gun discharges but I've started to let her off the lead for the last third of the walk AND SHE IS COMING BACK TO ME AND NOT MAKING A RUN FOR THE BACK DOOR.

I'm actually shattered because I'm having to be extremely exciting all the time, dancing about, jolly songs, etc. etc. I took Holly to agility this afternoon and ran pretty much for an hour, got home and gave both Tremor and Barley 15 minutes training and then walked them all. I'm not 21 sadly and I'm tired but I do think I'm making progress with Barley...


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> i'm being nosey again, sorry.
> 
> twiggy, i'm sorry to hear about your sister, i didn't know. but had thought about you a few times. hope things work out with barley.
> 
> didn't want to read and run.
> 
> frank's got his second chiropractor appointment next week, but he still hates having his harness on
> 
> hello to everyone.


Thanks. It's been a terrible year.

I'm taking Tremor and Holly to my chiropractor tomorrow.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> GR you rant away.
> 
> I actually found your post interesting as that is the same tack I am pursuing with Barley. I've trained her every day, which has consisted mainly of lots of excited squeaky tennis ball throwing and tugging, and I'm now beginning to transfer that excitement into walks. She is still very frightened when the gas gun discharges but I've started to let her off the lead for the last third of the walk AND SHE IS COMING BACK TO ME AND NOT MAKING A RUN FOR THE BACK DOOR.
> 
> I'm actually shattered because I'm having to be extremely exciting all the time, dancing about, jolly songs, etc. etc. I took Holly to agility this afternoon and ran pretty much for an hour, got home and gave both Tremor and Barley 15 minutes training and then walked them all. I'm not 21 sadly and I'm tired but I do think I'm making progress with Barley...


It is tiring being exciting isn't it I feel so I am sure you do  on the other hand the stress is tiring for them as well 

Well done Ciara and Ciaras mum for being brave :thumbsup:

Hope the chiro goes well F&F&B


----------



## Twiggy

*Ciarasmum* I think Ciara is one of the most beautiful bitches I've ever seen. I feel I could almost melt in her eyes.

*Dogless* I meant to say I absolutely loved the photo of your boys in the frost/light snow yesterday.

btw I put my new running shoes on this afternoon for the first time. They were brilliant. So comfortable and very non-slip. I'm sure I went at least 30 mph faster - not..


----------



## Twiggy

I'm mulling over whether to go to a lecture on arthritis in dogs, followed by a demonstration of hydrotherapy, at the local vets tonight or whether I'm just too tired.

It's not my vets - he'd want at least £25.00 per ticket...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm mulling over whether to go to a lecture on arthritis in dogs, followed by a demonstration of hydrotherapy, at the local vets tonight or whether I'm just too tired.
> 
> It's not my vets - he'd want at least £25.00 per ticket...!!


Is it the kind of thing that you'll be pleased you went to if you manage to get out there in this freezing weather? I suspect you know most of it already....


----------



## Bagrat

Ciarasmum - what cracking pics and such a successful walk too - yippee
Dogless - if I ran for an hour i wouldn't be capable of looking at my watch. Lovely pics and glad you ALL enjoyed it apart from the physical fallout for you!!.
GR - sorry you had such a stressy walk. The Janet Finlay website is Canineconfidence.com
She is going to do three variants one with just the course, one with forum content and one with one to one support , priced accordingly.
There will be home work for 5 days out of 7 each week but nothing arduous she said.
Twiggy I love the tale of the ratbag of a bloke ending up at the wrong end of the field!!
Obviously being full of enthusiasm today I have done my breathing ex's, bit of mindfulness for me, TTouch - new one to me called the zebra which J is not too convinced about esp at his back end.
Then tried to persevere with some ground work figure of eights round trees close together as if I lay out plant pots to walk round he gets all stressy and silly with it. He did really well. By the time we walked up the road he was fairly calm and we played LAT with various people esp old lady who even I thought had a dog hidden about her person as she jingled when she walked!!
On the way back I spotted a dog and we retreated to what sometimes is a safe distance but the dog crossed the road with owner so we got a few barks but diverted with food.
Did some impulse control with tuggy and then his breakfast, throwing handfuls at him and saying wait then "take it". At least I thought I was SAYING "wait" but I videoed it and discovered I was nearly yelling wait.:thumbdown:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Is it the kind of thing that you'll be pleased you went to if you manage to get out there in this freezing weather? *I suspect you know most of it already....*




Sadly true - it was a bit boring. I was talking to the lecturer before it started and was saying that's it's always interesting to keep up with the latest advances in veterinary treatments like the use of lasers and thermal imaging. She went a whiter shade of pale. I wonder why?

I actually went to have a nose at their hydrotherapy pool and it was certainly impressive. It sort of resembled a very high class Roman bathhouse and far superior to the human equivalent up the road at the leisure centre... Pity the prices were 'high-class' too.


----------



## GingerRogers

We haven't had a walk this evening. Sort of on purpose after the morning but also as i am at mums for the night (thrilling seminar on water control in the morning  the building kind not doggy this time ) so she has had a good run round their garden and the excitement and she showed off all her tricks as well as some scent searches and finished off with fickle lap puddles * with mum (she tried dad but he wasn't interested ) I am no longer needed.:frown:

I agree with twiggy. Ciara is an absolute beauty

ETA  they were cuddles not puddles goodness, dont think Mum would have been very accommodating with puddles


----------



## Dogless

There has been both good and bad at Concrete Central today.

The good; took Kilo for a nice, calm potter and sniff and went a little further out of our comfort zone onto a quiet street - slowly pushing the boundaries of our world out a little. He did very well indeed .

Took Rudi for his walk where it was busy with building work, people around etc and he did very well too .

The bad - after Kilo's walk I noticed that there was blood everywhere. There must have been some broken glass hidden amongst the piles of leaves we were walking through as the top of his one paw pad has been sliced clean off . I cleaned and dressed it myself and then went to the vet's for some replacement dressings and bandages which they were happy to provide :thumbup1:.



He has had extra Stress Less as we are due a delivery of furniture today anyway so hopefully that's helping a little! He's fast asleep anyway.


----------



## Twiggy

Why doesn't that surprise me...!! Poor Kilo. Well that's put paid to the forest for a few days I suppose.

I've just got back from the chiropractor. Good journey there, although it was pouring with rain, grey and dark, but awful journey home behind tractors and juggernauts, consequently 4 hour round trip.

She was pleased with Tremor and Holly Bolly had her first treatment. There wasn't very much wrong with her just a bit of stiffness one side of her spine.

Fingers crossed, and providing nothing goes wrong in the meantime, their next visit will be the beginning of March.


----------



## Dogless

Didn't "like" your awful journey Twiggy but that she is happy with Tremor :thumbup1:.

I can't think why you aren't surprised some lazy git has broken glass and left it on the pavement here Twiggy  .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Didn't "like" your awful journey Twiggy but that she is happy with Tremor :thumbup1:.
> 
> I can't think why you aren't surprised some lazy git has broken glass and left it on the pavement here Twiggy  .


Guiness bottles I expect...:thumbdown:


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh fer dogless sake its never ending isnt it, can we all club together and buy Dogless and the CH's a big protective bubble.

Glad the chiro was pleased Twiggy, as you too deserve some good luck 

Ninja had an adventure this morning too, no injuries though. Last night Mum kept on at Dad, is the garden secure, are you sure, (they have been moving fences about) 'Oh for goodness sake of course it is Wendy, it s the same as last time they were here' 

This morning she spotted a cat through Mums patio doors, needless to say she got quite excited :crazy:. I called her away and went to get ready, literally 2 mins from going out the door and I hear Dad calling her from the garden :frown2:.

I run next door, (its an empty house and owned by Mum and Dad, long story, but hence the moving fences) and am calling her thinking its ok she wont go far and she will come back when I hear the people in the garden that backs on to them calling out to me. I shout out that I will run round and they say they will meet me out the front, so I have to leg it all the way down their cul de sac and all the way up the long drive and she is being carried under arm by a dear little lady  

I get back, by now, out of breath and late, for mum to explain that she thought it would be exciting for her to chase the cat :mad2: and Dad to show me the 3' :frown2: high fence behind their shed that he thought would keep her in . 

My brother is visiting tonight with his year old vizsla 

Ironically the garden she escaped into is a home for people with learning difficulties, who thinks I should put Mum and Dads name down


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear GR - sounds worthy of some comedy background music :shocked:. I can picture it all so well, right down to your Mum thinking it would be exciting for the Ninja to chase the cat (well, she wasn't wrong technically......but then that's not quite the excitement that needs encouraging ) and your Dad thinking the low fence would keep her in. I am pleased that it ended well and thank goodness for the swiftly moving OAP who nabbed the escapee :thumbup1:.


----------



## Nicki85

We have had a couple of quiet days here  I think Shae was more affected by the two Staffies running up to us than I first realised. So anyhow, taking a step back and doing quiet walks... she'll get to see all her buddies over at agility and I'm hoping to arrange some walks with friends to get her confidence back up. Rusty is fine, I think as he is older he brushes these things off a lot better now. She is a lot happier when we are out with Rusty (and especially when he is on lead so he doesn't disappear) so using that to our advantage and separate walks in the afternoon in places I know dogs aren't going to approach. She's fine seeing them at close distance in these "safe" places.

here she is practicing pavement walking (she only tripped up the path once from concentrating on me too much lol) 









I'm currently sporting a swollen thumb as Shae got a tad over excited when I was giving the chickens some corn (I have no idea why this activity is so exciting...) and managed to catch me. Needless to say we'll be doing some impulse control work on this activity...

DL- the fun never stops does it?! Hope poor Kilo heals quick.
GR- fun never stops at yours either... glad it all had a happy ending. Every one looks at me in amazement when I check gardens out before letting Rusty out...
Twiggy- glad the appointment went well. I want to get Rust done at some point... although i'm a bit scared as to what they may find.


----------



## tiatortilla

Hello everyone 

Sorry about Kilo's paw Dogless, hope he's better soon!
Sorry to hear about Ninja's escape mission too GR!

I've got a bit behind but will catch up properly later!
Not much to report really, Tia behaved very well at a family dinner on Sunday which was good  Also doing great with not barking at other dogs, I really want to do some controlled set ups for BAT now, but I need to find someone who wants to help us! If we did more in a more structured way I think we'd be able to.make some really decent progress in general.
She's not doing too badly with the fireworks either actually, she's not happy and has been shaking a bit but she isn't totally inconsolable so it could be worse 

Sorry for any mistakes.Lol, I just got a kindle and while it'll definitely be better for keeping up to date on waywo I'm still getting used to the touchscreen keyboard haha


----------



## Bagrat

Dogless - oh good grief did you really need dressing practice? Poor Kilo - it must stop soon.
Nicki85 - I do think quiet days are important after any sort of angst. Lovely pic too.
Twiggy - sorry the trip turned into a marathon but good that she was pleased .
GR - oh crumbs. That's not funny for you but I did smile. We had a beagle that disappeared at in-law's house years ago. I thought he'd snuck out the front door so search parties were dispatched until elderly ladies in the next door semi rang to say they'd seen him looking in their first floor bedroom window. He'd walked out of our window along a sloping set of ornamental tiles and peeked in!! They caught him with a dressing gown cord

Jackson has had two quiet outings and stood quietly while I chatted to a neighbour


----------



## Twiggy

*I think I've cracked it:thumbup:*

I'm absolutely whacked but I think all will be well with Barley now.

I took her over to the barn for 15 minutes play training late afternoon and then took them all out for a walk. Tremor and Holly have to stay on the lead today and again tomorrow, after their visit to the chiropractor (they are not happy), so when we got into the bottom field I let Barley off.

Although she's not exactly relaxed with the wretched gas gun she stayed with us throughout the walk and even went off having a bit of a sniff with Leafy.

Phew....!! I'd have felt a dismal failure if I'd had to send her back down to Sussex and I did make a promise to my sister to care for her.

It's been an extremely stressful and tiring 10 days but I feel a bit happier now.

It's been good old-fashioned dog training and grim (and I mean very grim) determination to succeed on my part that's saved the day (hopefully)....


----------



## Dogless

WELL DONE TWIGGY!!!!! I am genuinely so very, very pleased...even if you're exhausted!!  .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> WELL DONE TWIGGY!!!!! I am genuinely so very, very pleased...even if you're exhausted!!  .


Thank you Dogless. Of course it's the 5 November so I may well be even more exhausted later....


----------



## Nicki85

So pleased for you Twiggy- what a relief that you are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel


----------



## Bagrat

Oooh Twiggy I do li9ke it when a plan comes together. Jolly good show!!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy, so pleased you seem to be making progress with Barley now  Early days yet so I'm sure you'll get there in the end. Hopefully without being too exhausted!

Dogless, sorry to hear poor Kilo is in the wars yet again. Just not his year at all this year is it? Tell him his new years resolution must be to have no accidents or incidents okay.

Ciarasmum (I cannot bring myself to call you CM as that makes me think of The Great White Toothed One) glad you had a nice walk with other dogs. Ciara is so pretty!

GR, my parents expected a 3ft fence to contain Rupert. Needless to say, it didn't but thankfully he liked the neighbours dog a lot.

We've been working on loose leash walking again (I know, I know, I started out on this thread working on it, I'm useless!) since Sunday. I insisted on a loose leash all the way to the husky meet much to his dismay. The last couple of days it's been walks around the estate with me insisting on a loose leash no matter how exciting that lamp post 10ft away smells or whether there's a dog across the street. He is not best impressed but I am sick to death of having my arm yanked at regular intervals on every walk and am starting to get angry with him over it at times which really isn't fair since I'm the one who hasn't put the work in to teach him to walk nicely. He walks fairly well on a collar but the harness is another matter so we're working on that. I find I can't be quite as consistent since I don't want him in a set place on it as it's what I use with a long line and flexi when he can't be off leash. But he's getting the idea it seems. Around the estate at least. I think perhaps tomorrow we'll try going a bit further afield. No destination in mind, just off the estate.

Also working on recall still. We seem to have made progress but the other day he completely ignored me. Or at least I thought he did, he may have genuinely not heard with the wind and the traffic on the autobahn. When he turned around to check where I was (I've noticed he's good with this, he'll check on me every so often) and I gave him a hand signal to come back he did immediately so I'm leaning towards him having not heard. And he did come back when we saw sheep so really pleased with that. I really, really wish you got some warning about livestock being put in fields. I've been walking in these fields on and off for nearly 2 years now and this is the first time I've encountered sheep there. Just rounded a corner and there they were.


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## dogkrazy

We're working on dinnertime behavior. The dogs go bonkers about getting their food and it's totally out of control at the moment, and Cody tries to steal the other dogs food. We are trying to teach them impulse control, and to all wait until they are released to eat. So far it's not going particularly to plan


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## Dogless

Sarah - I can imagine Spendog isn't best impressed with the new regime but he's a very clever dog so I'm sure he'll work out that it's the best option in no time :thumbup1:.

dogkrazy - sorry to hear it's not going too well!

Nice lead walk tonight with Diz and human. Saw lots of dogs, all good bar one. A husky at the end of it's flexi started to stalk towards Diz utterly fixated down a narrow ish path we were going down. The owner announced that he HAD to meet every dog and jump on them, so I took Roo off to the side and had him sitting and focussed on me. The husky got told off by Diz for lunging at him, then the woman paused by us to explain he had to jump on dogs - meanwhile the husky was totally fixated and pulling like mad to get to us. I was screaming "just go past" in my head but......husky lunged and Roo told him off (fine by me). The GSDs in the next garden then started barking so husky towed his owner over to the gate up on his back legs, growling and barking. I want to say to owners "But how do you not SEE what is going on?" :shocked: . And breathe, rant over. We actually had a very good walk :thumbup1:.

Kilo on the other hand....


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## Nicki85

Poor Sir Kilo! And oh my at the husky... how can people think that is what walking a dog should be like?! 

We've just got in from agility, as usual Shae flirted with the boys, chatted with the girls and performed her exercises as asked. She was very good for me  

We were barky getting out the car so it took a while to get to the barn but it's dark now and she's not used to it- we don't do much at night! 

One thing... i've realised i've never done a sit stay and gone back to her multiple times! Usually I put her in a sit throw the toy and release to the toy... But when I keep going back to her she wiggles her bum so she can watch me all the time. This isn't going to go down well in obedience training lol. She doesn't get up, just wiggles- coupled with a very waggy tail... it's quite cute! THe other thing she struggles with is watching me and doing nothing else. Ask for watch me- perfect. Then I get, move back, spin left, spin right, nose but, lay down, talk, speak on repeat. Do I just very slowly increase the length of the watch me I ask for before treating?


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## Twiggy

Poor Kilo - he must be fed up.

I meant to say that when I got to agility yesterday (and we are still having to park in the muddy lay-by and walk down an A road) I'd just got in the gateway when a GSD lunged and went for Holly. She almost pulled backwards into the road. I didn't mince my words because I was fuming. The instructor was standing next to her too. He's supposed to be a behaviourist as well, but to let a group of dogs congregate just inside an open gateway leading onto a very busy A road is extremely dangerous IMO.

btw I've just discovered another of Barley's phobias. She's scared of the ironing board...!!


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## Dogless

Twiggy - I can imagine you not mincing those words; quiet rightly too .
Hmmmmmm maybe I can tell hubby I have developed a phobia of the ironing board - although I am convinced he has one already, so that would make both of us :shocked: :aureola:.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - I can imagine you not mincing those words; quiet rightly too .
> Hmmmmmm maybe I can tell hubby I have developed a phobia of the ironing board - although I am convinced he has one already, so that would make both of us :shocked: :aureola:.


Hubby's only got a phobia of the ironing board? Are you sure? Most men have a phobia of the hoover, washing machine, tea towel, etc. etc. etc...


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hubby's only got a phobia of the ironing board? Are you sure? Most men have a phobia of the hoover, washing machine, tea towel, etc. etc. etc...


Oh no Twiggy; all the normal phobias apply - I haven't got a superior model .


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## Nicki85

Well it's official... I have a VERY naughty Spaniel.

We had a private agility lesson outdoors in a outdoor arena- fence all the way round but not sheep netted or anything. Now, I'd say that I can usually work Rusty in most places by getting his attention on his favourite toy. Today he proved me wrong... We were doing a simple exercise and he bolted off under the fence into the farmyard and straight into the woods nearby. Luckily the instructor also has a very.naughty.spaniel. so off we went to go get him back. Thankfully Rust had also decided that hunting on his own was no good so circled back to us. He'd probably been out of sight for no longer than 2-3min but it always feels longer!!! After that I had to be a bit more strict with him and he did some really nice work so it wasn't all bad... I couldn't trust him to really work him at a distance but he was listening and we ran the course correctly 

So yes, Spaniel required very high value treats and a toy filled with a chicken neck (don't ask) to work for me.

Shae required boring kibble and any old toy out of the bag.... and still gave me more attention... she's such a good girl!


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## beccax20

Hi I am new to this so don't quite know how it all works with posts.

Me and my partner have a 15 week old malamute, he is the typical pup and loves to play, he is very loving and seems to be of really good nature but all this aside when he is playing he just likes to bite, I know pups like to explore with using their mouths but I am wondering if he will soon be out of this stage of biting us. It doesn't hurt because he has small teeth but he does have a string grip when he bites, he is not vicious when he bites and never shows aggression towards us but I don't fancy getting bit when he is a lot larger! We are not worried that he is going be to a vicious dog as he is just as soft as a little teddy bear! Also he never listens to his name any suggestions on teaching his name would be appreciated.

If you don't know much about mals they can be a very stubborn breed and they like to be the dominant one so you can imagine the stubbornness of him ignoring his name calls.

Thanks B.


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## Nicki85

Hi Becca. Congrats on your new pup  Re the biting, what do you do when he bites at the moment? As you say, it's not aggression- just the natural way dogs play. I would be giving him a time out so putting him in a room away from you when he bites, or you leave the room- which ever is easiest. 

Responding to name can take a while... the easiest way is to get some really nice treats (cooked chicken, hotdog cheese etc) and say his name when he is looking away from you and then when he looks to you he gets a really yummy treat. Eventually he'll figure out that name=treats. Others will be along to offer more advice soon I expect


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## Twiggy

beccax20 said:


> Hi I am new to this so don't quite know how it all works with posts.
> 
> Me and my partner have a 15 week old malamute, he is the typical pup and loves to play, he is very loving and seems to be of really good nature but all this aside when he is playing he just likes to bite, I know pups like to explore with using their mouths but I am wondering if he will soon be out of this stage of biting us. It doesn't hurt because he has small teeth but he does have a string grip when he bites, he is not vicious when he bites and never shows aggression towards us but I don't fancy getting bit when he is a lot larger! We are not worried that he is going be to a vicious dog as he is just as soft as a little teddy bear! Also he never listens to his name any suggestions on teaching his name would be appreciated.
> 
> If you don't know much about mals they can be a very stubborn breed and they like to be the dominant one so you can imagine the stubbornness of him ignoring his name calls.
> 
> Thanks B.


Congratulations on your new pup.

Remember your puppy has spent several weeks honing his skills on play biting with the rest of his siblings in the litter and now thinks you and your partner are his new playmates.

I suggest you read through the sticky on the 'training and behaviour' page of this forum *Help with a nipping pup* as there is loads of advice in there.

Mals are dogs and are no more stubborn than any other breed. Teaching your puppy his name and manners is down to you and how you approach his training.

Have you thought about enroling in a decent puppy or training class in your area, where you will be shown basic training?


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## Sarah1983

Well we made it to the farmers fields on a loose leash today without it taking forever. Had to turn a fair few times but he really did seem to be trying. Once there I let him off leash to channel his inner Beagle for a while and then I became one of those awful owners with a ball launcher lol. It's very rare that one of our walks consists of little more than me lobbing a ball for him to chase but todays did. Ask for a sit or a down or a target, throw ball, leg it in the opposite direction so he has to chase me to return it. I'm more knackered than he is but we both had fun. Called an end to it when we saw the worlds biggest Weim coming onto the field, leashed Spen and we passed without incident. Walked home on a loose leash too.


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## Dogless

Hi Becca - congratulations on your new pup .

Nicki - BAD Rusty :shocked: .

Sarah - a HUGE well done to you and Spendog. I know practising LLW isn't your favourite thing.

Good day here. I went out trail running with Rudi, we only actually ran for 1hr 40 mins but the terrain in the part I chose today was arduous. There's a section of bog that always fires my imagination....I always imagine a sign nailed to a post saying "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" with a skull and cross bones on it!! There had been wild goats about so it was relaxing having just Rudi really.

I felt awful as Kilo was left for 4 hours in total  as I popped into Tesco too but he seems to have just spent the day relaxing and is asleep again now. He's stepping on his wounded foot a little more and hopped to the front door to go out for a walk after I got home, but obviously he didn't get one. He may well be enjoying his day off .


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## tiatortilla

Sarah - well done for the LLW  sounds like a nice lazy walk, it's needed sometimes!

Becca - welcome to the thread and congrats on the new pup! The biting sounds totally normal to me, when Tia was little I just stopped playing and left the room when she bit me, it worked for us  as for learning their name, I treated each time she looked or came to me after saying it.

Nicki - Oh dear naughty Rusty! Glad everything else went well though 

Dogless - Husky owner sounds like a nightmare! Glad the rest of your walk was good, how's Kilo today?

Dogkrazy - welcome to the thread  do you think feeding them in separate rooms might help, you could work on their excitement individually?

---

All good here today  one growl at a lab who went passed us on the other side of the road, but he was a bit starey and she ignored a few other dogs 
Did a little bit off lead as she's been far less skittish the last little while and that was all good too.
I also have a support worker who comes to my house now and luckily she's a doggy person, Tia has been staying on lead and allowed to go and say hello once she's calm and it's gone pretty well twice now 

She did get a bit scared of the fireworks last night, she's worse when they're pretty much constant and she doesn't get a chance to destress between each bang, but she coped surprisingly well so I'm really relieved about that


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## Twiggy

*Sarah 1983* Well done with the Chuckit. That's the only thing Leafy was remotely interested in 11 yrs ago....LOL

*Dogless* Pleased you had a good run and I'm sure Kilo wouldn't have thanked you for it and is quite happy resting his wound.

*Nicki* Naughty Rusty but I'm sure it was a one off.

Barley has been off lead on both walks today and even picked up a toy for me to throw. Her ears still flatten when the flipping gun discharges and she listens for the second boom but she's getting there. I'm currently having a heck of a job trying to stop her and Holly wrestling and tearing round the house, as Holly is supposed to be resting until tomorrow following her trip to the chiropractor yesterday. I may well give up trying in a minute as they are currently doing 100mph up and down the hall.


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## Dogless

Had a good walk this morning; Roo behaved very well for me but I was / am feeling all tired and rubbish and "woe is me"  so he didn't get much excitement, bless him.

Kilo's dressing was taken off this morning as he managed to wee on it . Not a speck of blood in it and the wound looks really good so I'm leaving it undressed. When the boots come I'll get a light bandage on and he can start going out. He wouldn't be ready today as he's still hopping a bit but won't be long. He certainly doesn't seem to be suffering through not being walked, he has taken up aristocratic residence on the sofa, snoozing away .


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Had a good walk this morning; Roo behaved very well for me but I was / am feeling all tired and rubbish and "woe is me"  so he didn't get much excitement, bless him.
> 
> Kilo's dressing was taken off this morning as he managed to wee on it . Not a speck of blood in it and the wound looks really good so I'm leaving it undressed. When the boots come I'll get a light bandage on and he can start going out. He wouldn't be ready today as he's still hopping a bit but won't be long. He certainly doesn't seem to be suffering through not being walked, he has taken up aristocratic residence on the sofa, snoozing away .


Sorry you're feeling rubbish. I feel shattered after the last 11 days of angst with Barley.

This morning out on a walk she was throwing toys at me and Leafy wasn't going to be left out so I consequently had all 4 of them at it....!!

This afternoon they will all want to do training and I expect all 4 will be throwing toys at me again when we walk late afternoon. I keep telling them I'm an old lady...

Oh btw the World's leading expert in canine behaviour put his oar in this morning; he walked them yesterday afternoon whilst I was instructing. I'm duly informed that Thundershirts work in much the same way as a rabbit's foot in your pocket for luck and make no difference to a dog's anxiety levels whatsoever. Moreover all drugs, pills and potions are likewise a waste of time and all you do is say "Come on" to achieve the desired effect....:mad2:
The expert also pointed out that he's had almost 40 years experience in dealing with collies -  Errmm


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## Dogless

Well, who knew there was such a mine of useful expertise right under your very nose all these years Twiggy? Shame he didn't solve all the problems you have ever had rather than keeping his knowledge to himself :shocked: :frown2: :mad2:.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well, who knew there was such a mine of useful expertise right under your very nose all these years Twiggy? Shame he didn't solve all the problems you have ever had rather than keeping his knowledge to himself :shocked: :frown2: :mad2:.


They come out with this drivel with such conviction too...!!

He has, however, just constructed two more very smart agility jumps this morning and is going to 'knock up' a two/thirds height agility walkway...


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> They come out with this drivel with such conviction too...!!
> 
> He has, however, just constructed two more very smart agility jumps this morning and is going to 'knock up' a two/thirds height agility walkway...


Wow :shocked: same decade as you asked for them - now that *is* impressive :thumbup1:.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Wow :shocked: same decade as you asked for them - now that *is* impressive :thumbup1:.


True. Although he hasn't got much else to do and prefers being tucked away at the back of the garage (where I can't see him) in case I ask him to do 'real' work...


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## Nicki85

We've had a good day here 

Went down to the canal this morning it was lovely and quiet and the dogs had lots of fun swimming and chasing their toys. The river is a bit fast now so we've moved down to the canal... Shae is happy to swim in the river but Rusty isn't so i'm taking Rusty's advice and moving to calmer water!! We saw two GSPs offlead that we've met twice before. Shae was ready to kick off as they approached but took her to one side and started giving her treats. Rusty was out infront and I left him to his own devices (felt a bit bad about this but he is proving to be a well-rounded lad currently and he'd met them before without issue). Shae saw Rusty talking to them and calmed down almost immediately, so I let her approach from a short distance. She then went into a massive attack of zoomies... i'm assuming this was stress relief. The GSPs watched her in amusement while i chatted to the owner lol. We saw them again coming back down the path and Shae had the same reaction. 

Second walk she was again really good, two dogs seen at a distance which I treated her for looking calmly. Third dog we met on a narrow path so put her in a sit (again leaving Rust to his own devices, although he was on lead). She was fab, really calm watched Rust greet the dog and looked for more treats. She didn't try and approach or follow. She did have an attack of the sneezes after this time though....


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## Bagrat

Becca - welcome, I think all things bitey have been mentioned although we used a fleece tuggy with Jackson when he leapt on us when we'd been out. He was two though with no "off" switch for self calming at that point.
Someone suggested soaking fleece tug toy in water or chicken stock and freezing it for when pups are teething. I guess that would depend how houseproud you are!

Sarah - sounds like the hard ( rather boring) work is beginning to pay off

Dogless - hope your rubbish feeling is receding a bit - you see, good nursing is healing Kilo's pad.

Tia T - glad outings were mainly good and that Tia is coping with visitor. Jackson meets people on leash too. That's come out wrong. Sometimes I wish the people were on leash!!

Twiggy - Glad Barley is getting the hang of her new environment. My OH never offers opinions re training aids etc but he just drifts off into his own little world as I talk WITH him about J.

Nicki - those sorts of reactions would be like heaven to me! J does stressy zooming and lead grabbing.

Well Jackson has a had a strange day. This morning we went on the back field ( usually his safe place) with him in equafleece and harness. He did not want to go anywhere. He's never done the freezing thing before but would go a few yards and stop and look round apparently examining every blade of grass and gazing into every tree. I could get him to move again but he really didn't want to, we headed off up the road instead which was fine. This afternoon we tried the field again but spotted neighbour with lab. Dog not in sight but J decided to bark at Robin just in case. We retired till we got the all clear yell, and then he was fine walking. Did a bit of BAT with a cat under a car and tonight have been doing "shaping" behaviour with a biggish box. He will now push it from standing on it's long end to standing on it's short end. After several days of one paw in two paws in click and treating, now he sits in the box! baby steps.


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## Dogless

Bagrat - I wonder what made J freeze? Perhaps a strange scent? Funny just how much we don't see / hear / smell of the world we live in.

Nicki - pleased you had a good day :thumbup1:.

Frustrating second walk with Rudi in a way. He was very good but a dog that always runs up to us ran up to us on the pavement by a fairly busy road. I just kept on walking as the woman gets sh!tty with you if you turn round and go back with her dog. She got the dog back eventually, then a man walking two dogs towards us appeared - they always strain on the lead and jump all over other dogs, so I crossed the road. Unfortunately so did the first dog. Same again and the woman got him back. Crossed back over and the first dog ran up to us *again.* Third bloody time. I crossed again and put Rudi in a sit and just let them get well ahead of us. It's frustrating when I have Rudi but ultimately no big deal, but I felt so irritated as if that had been Kilo he would have had a meltdown .

Oh, and a cat ran from us in the shadows. Rudi wanted to chase it so I sat him and he had one of his huge, vocal tantrums that he hasn't had since he was a little puppy. It was funny but I had to try so hard not to laugh - it sounded as if I was doing unspeakably cruel things to him :shocked: .

Hopalong is steadily hopping a little less, playing with Rudi and has done fine without a dressing today .


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Bagrat - I wonder what made J freeze? Perhaps a strange scent? Funny just how much we don't see / hear / smell of the world we live in.
> 
> Nicki - pleased you had a good day :thumbup1:.
> 
> Frustrating second walk with Rudi in a way. He was very good but a dog that always runs up to us ran up to us on the pavement by a fairly busy road. I just kept on walking as the woman gets sh!tty with you if you turn round and go back with her dog. She got the dog back eventually, then a man walking two dogs towards us appeared - they always strain on the lead and jump all over other dogs, so I crossed the road. Unfortunately so did the first dog. Same again and the woman got him back. Crossed back over and the first dog ran up to us *again.* Third bloody time. I crossed again and put Rudi in a sit and just let them get well ahead of us. It's frustrating when I have Rudi but ultimately no big deal, but I felt so irritated as if that had been Kilo he would have had a meltdown .
> 
> Oh, and a cat ran from us in the shadows. Rudi wanted to chase it so I sat him and he had one of his huge, vocal tantrums that he hasn't had since he was a little puppy. It was funny but I had to try so hard not to laugh - it sounded as if I was doing unspeakably cruel things to him :shocked: .
> 
> Hopalong is steadily hopping a little less, playing with Rudi and has done fine without a dressing today .


I'm afraid I'd have probably lost my rag with sh.tty woman long before I crossed the road for the third time.

Really pleased that Kilo is healing.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm afraid I'd have probably lost my rag with sh.tty woman long before I crossed the road for the third time.
> 
> Really pleased that Kilo is healing.


There is just no point Twiggy. I have been nice and taken her dog back, which she objects to IF she acknowledges your presence , I have lost my rag and she objects to that. So I just pretended she wasn't there tonight .

It was just annoying with Rudi. With Kilo it would have been a disaster  .

She is one of those people who seems to have to have her dog offlead no matter where they are.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> There is just no point Twiggy. I have been nice and taken her dog back, which she objects to IF she acknowledges your presence , I have lost my rag and she objects to that. So I just pretended she wasn't there tonight .
> 
> It was just annoying with Rudi. With Kilo it would have been a disaster  .
> 
> She is one of those people who seems to have to have her dog offlead no matter where they are.


I'll take your word for it given where you live. They are a law unto themselves over the water...!!


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## Sarah1983

Oh dear Dogless, I HATE people like that. Glad it was Rudi you had and not Kilo.

Bagrat, perhaps he smelled or heard something that worried him? Maybe someone letting fireworks off on the field and he could still smell them? We once had a hissy fit over a small campfire having been lit the night before on the field we used lol. Dogs can be strange.

We had a bit of a disastrous first walk this morning. Only around the block to work on loose leash walking but could we do it? Nope. And then just as we passed a group of people talking on the other side of the road Spen anticipated me turning back and got his paw stepped on. Let out the most ear splitting screech ever which of course resulted in everyone turning to look 

This afternoons attempt was pretty much aborted. I'd managed to time it so that we hit the school bus coming in  I got within about 30 metres of the crowd of adults kids and dogs and figured it simply was not going to happen so we turned around and I ran up and down the street with him throwing in some waits, downs, sits, recalls and touches. He did really well once we'd gotten a bit further from the crowd and really engaged with me. It was actually a lot of fun and I simply ignored the strange looks I got lol. 

Also done a little more work on teaching him to spin. And played some tug. And done the laundry. Tomorrow I think we'll brave the fields again. If we can get there in a reasonable time without pulling. Was going to go this afternoon but with how bad our attempt this morning was I thought I'd get too frustrated trying to get him to walk nicely somewhere more exciting.


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## JenKyzer

Helloo  

Sarah - sounds like your loose lead walking is going great aswell as you demonstrating to the school busy people how keen you are :crazy:  i bet spencer had a fab time!

Dogless - How annoying your walk with Rudi must of been  silly woman. I am glad it wasn't Kilo but either way it shouldn't happen should it  Glad Kilos paw is healing well  I couldn't help but 'awww' at his sad expression on the pictures you posted, bless him!

Bagrat - Sounds like an eventful day.. well done for the shaping of sitting in a box 

Nicki - Sounds like a good day  and Shae sounds like she's doing really well with her meetings  

Twiggy - I chuckled at your 'world expert' post.. it took me a while to realise you meant your hubby  Glad your agility equipment is coming alone though  I'm also enjoying reading about Barleys progress, it must be such an amazing feeling seeing him come out of his shell. Hope all 4 of them didn't run you ragged last night though with the toy throwing 

Will only go back until yesterday otherwise i'll be here all morning  sorry everyone else but you all know by now i do read and keep up 

Quiet week so far for us - Last week we saw a dog every morning almost - this week, we saw none. Fab!
Today is the first day i've walked Willow in daylight  it was nice to see the autumn colours on the leaves on the floor and see the frostyness around!
We saw 'Blue' the bedlington terrior - on his own again just being let out the house - Willow and him both stood and stared at each other.. but Willow 'This way-ed' out of it and we re-directioned with no noise/fuss/whines which was very pleasing  We we're having such a lovely walk and got back onto our road when there was a lady with an old 'puggle' (Seen them before a few times but never with Willow) Puggle was pulling towards us and making those 'im pulling but im struggling to breathe' noises.. Willow turned into Bat Dog and attempted a flying lunge  with all her strength and a bark then some whines ... we were 5doors away from home and having a nice walk :mad2: .. so i got her into the alley at the side of the houses and into a sit to calmy watch the Puggle walk away. Then we went in.


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## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Helloo
> 
> Sarah - sounds like your loose lead walking is going great aswell as you demonstrating to the school busy people how keen you are :crazy:  i bet spencer had a fab time!
> 
> Dogless - How annoying your walk with Rudi must of been  silly woman. I am glad it wasn't Kilo but either way it shouldn't happen should it  Glad Kilos paw is healing well  I couldn't help but 'awww' at his sad expression on the pictures you posted, bless him!
> 
> Bagrat - Sounds like an eventful day.. well done for the shaping of sitting in a box
> 
> Nicki - Sounds like a good day  and Shae sounds like she's doing really well with her meetings
> 
> Twiggy - I chuckled at your 'world expert' post.. it took me a while to realise you meant your hubby  Glad your agility equipment is coming alone though  I'm also enjoying reading about Barleys progress, it must be such an amazing feeling seeing him come out of his shell.* Hope all 4 of them didn't run you ragged last night though with the toy throwing *
> 
> Will only go back until yesterday otherwise i'll be here all morning  sorry everyone else but you all know by now i do read and keep up
> 
> Quiet week so far for us - Last week we saw a dog every morning almost - this week, we saw none. Fab!
> Today is the first day i've walked Willow in daylight  it was nice to see the autumn colours on the leaves on the floor and see the frostyness around!
> We saw 'Blue' the bedlington terrior - on his own again just being let out the house - Willow and him both stood and stared at each other.. but Willow 'This way-ed' out of it and we re-directioned with no noise/fuss/whines which was very pleasing  We we're having such a lovely walk and got back onto our road when there was a lady with an old 'puggle' (Seen them before a few times but never with Willow) Puggle was pulling towards us and making those 'im pulling but im struggling to breathe' noises.. Willow turned into Bat Dog and attempted a flying lunge  with all her strength and a bark then some whines ... we were 5doors away from home and having a nice walk :mad2: .. so i got her into the alley at the side of the houses and into a sit to calmy watch the Puggle walk away. Then we went in.


I've just ordered 3 more Lob It Space Hoppers as they are Holly's favourites and they are easier to kick for them. The trouble is Holly destroys them pretty quickly despite my best efforts with sticking plasters, tyre repair kits. I really need a job lot..

Sounds as if you're doing a very good job with Willow - pity about the owners that don't bother with any sort of training and seem hell bent on upsetting those of us that do.


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> I've just ordered 3 more Lob It Space Hoppers as they are Holly's favourites and they are easier to kick for them. The trouble is Holly destroys them pretty quickly despite my best efforts with sticking plasters, tyre repair kits. I really need a job lot..
> 
> Sounds as if you're doing a very good job with Willow - pity about the owners that don't bother with any sort of training and seem hell bent on upsetting those of us that do.


They look good fun. I can imagine they wouldn't last too long here either  Glad you have survived to tell the tale anyway  I couln't imagine trying to entertain 4 dogs  hats off to you!


----------



## Twiggy

I've taken the Thundershirt off Barley for walks now and after tonight I'm stopping the 'Crisis' remedy.

Naturally the leading authority on canine behaviour is 'crowing' like mad with a nasty "I told you so" smirk on his face but I can live with that. He's been doing it for the past 48 years...!!

I think little Holly Bolly has been a major influence. She certainly has her uses bless her. Tremor's nose has been put out of joint as she considers Holly her property, but she'll get over it.


----------



## zedder

Currently Leg weaving tunnel crawl and paw for some reason he struggled with paw but got it eventually may try high five next learns super quick though having to teach myself more tricks faster lol.


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Currently Leg weaving tunnel crawl and paw for some reason he struggled with paw but got it eventually may try high five next learns super quick though having to teach myself more tricks faster lol.


That's a new one on me... What exactly is 'leg weaving tunnel crawl' please?


----------



## zedder

Leg weave is a figure eight through your legs and tunnel crawl is on his belly through the backs of knees getting him ready for agility but he's not big enough to do it yet.


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Leg weave is a figure eight through your legs and tunnel crawl is on his belly through the backs of knees getting him ready for agility but he's not big enough to do it yet.


Oh I see thanks. How old is he?


----------



## zedder

Just over 6 months


----------



## paddyjulie

Hope no one minds me asking a quick question rather than post a thread 


Noticed that when we put Chester back on lead when we see someone approaching in the distance , he starts to get himself stressed out before he even knows anyone is coming  shaky , eyes as wide as saucers, grumbling etc

What to do ?

Would it be a good idea to start and put him on and off the lead even when no one is about ? To try and change his thinking


----------



## Dogless

paddyjulie said:


> Hope no one minds me asking a quick question rather than post a thread
> 
> Noticed that when we put Chester back on lead when we see someone approaching in the distance , he starts to get himself stressed out before he even knows anyone is coming  shaky , eyes as wide as saucers, grumbling etc
> 
> What to do ?
> 
> Would it be a good idea to start and put him on and off the lead even when no one is about ? To try and change his thinking


That's what I would do. I had to cross the road randomly, say "Morning!" to no one at all (I know ), recall and put the lead on and off randomly and a few other things with Kilo as he was anticipating seeing a dog - so I try to desensitise him to any cues that mean he is about to see something he dislikes.


----------



## paddyjulie

Dogless said:


> That's what I would do. I had to cross the road randomly, say "Morning!" to no one at all (I know ), recall and put the lead on and off randomly and a few other things with Kilo as he was anticipating seeing a dog - so I try to desensitise him to any cues that mean he is about to see something he dislikes.


Thanks Dogless 

I was starting to think he may not want putting on the lead , so then start having the trouble of him not coming back to me . So best nip it in the bud right away


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy (kindle just corrected that to "wiggly" lol!!) - Sounds like things are going a lot better with your guest, good to hear!

JSW - Annoying about the puggle  it's even more frustrating when you're nearly home isn't it! Everything else sounds good though 

Dogless - Really sorry your walk with Rudi was tainted by that annoying woman  quite relieved for you that you didn't have Kilo instead though!

Bagrat - Odd when they're scared of something invisible isn't it! Was it windy? Tia sometimes goes a bit funny in the wind, I thought it maybe because it's carrying all sorts of smells, specifically the smell of every other dog who walked in that place on the same day!

Nicki - Shae sounds like she's doing really well, sounds like Rusty's confidence is good at the moment too!

---

Apart from having to practically scream at a guy with a Bassett hound to recall his dog from the other side of a park this morning, things are still going well here  lol, I absolutely was not letting all our hard work go to waste by another dog approaching before I'd had a chance to get her lead off, she's been doing so well lately! Luckily the dog didn't come over all the way, think it was more our running away than the man's "recall" that did it though  
In better news.. have seen so many dogs and not had a reaction, even turning a corner and coming face to face with a jrt yesterday  and walking past a house that has two very barky jrts and then seeing another dog straight after! And two Labradors today, including starey one from my last post. So very impressed with her


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Just over 6 months


Oh I see.

Well of course it's your choice but personally the last thing I'd be doing is figure of eight weaves and crawling under knees with a 6 month old puppy. Far too much strain on developing limbs and spine. That's the very reason why most decent agility classes won't accept dogs until they are well over 12 months old.

Exactly the same rules apply to heelwork to music classes and competitions, and technically weaving through the legs and crawling along the floor are both HTM moves.

If you want your puppy to stay sound into decent old age, and not develop problems like spondylosis, you would be better off teaching a good recall, loose lead walking, etc. for the time being.


----------



## zedder

Tbh I fail too see how he could possibly manage too strain anything doing the light activities we practice every trick I've taught him has had joint development in mind ie no jumping.I was unaware crawling would do any harm so I'll cut that.


----------



## GingerRogers

zedder said:


> Tbh I fail too see how he could possibly manage too strain anything doing the light activities we practice every trick I've taught him has had joint development in mind ie no jumping.I was unaware crawling would do any harm so I'll cut that.


Psst Zedder I think you might find Twiggy has the experience to know what she is talking about  of course perhaps you are a nationally recognised Obedience and Agility trainer whos owned multiple champions 

I have been working on nothing apart from worry , got up to find parcels from both ends this morning and poor ninja has been feeling very sorry for herself.

She keeps poking me now so I think she is feeling better now though.

She has been a bit off for a few days, I just put it down to fireworks (teach me for gloating) very odd as she really doesn't mind gunshot and bird scarers at all. She also had her lepto top up yesterday so dont know if that can have contributed or if its something else entirely or a combination.


----------



## zedder

Hmm okay then might I indeed.


----------



## MariaB

Ginger Rogers, I do hope your pooch is better now.

Jaques is working on his bark (he hasn't really got one) and when he does bark he looks so surprised, he's a picture! He is doing great with his heel work, fantastic with his recall and 'off' and his retrieve and release is coming on great. 

I am however, having problems with those little grasshopper legs of his. He jumps off all fours all the time. He will jump right into your arms if you let him, which would be great except he's too young. He's been going to puppy class since he was ten weeks and now in his first adult dog class. The teacher has given up on trying to stop him jumping into the air but just uses him in the class as a bad example


----------



## JenKyzer

zedder said:


> Hmm okay then might I indeed.


:shocked: ...


----------



## JenKyzer

GR - sorry ninja isnt feeling herself  hopefully its nothing to worry about & will be back to her usual self soon, big hugs her way!


----------



## ciarasmum

Sorry I've been out of the loop this week. I'll try and catch up with everyone tomorrow.

First week of the job over and I miss Ciara so much. I was off work for a few months so I've been with her a lot.

Anyway, we've not had much to report this week. We've seen two dogs since our walk with my friend on Monday. One last night that appeared out of the dark but both recalled to owners so no issue. Tonight we saw one running with his owner (on lead) when we ventured for 30 secs onto the main road to find a poo bin! No reaction, just watched and we did some Look at That.

Tomorrow morning we're meeting with 2 GSDs. I've learned my lesson from the big group walks and am just picking very small groups (1 or 2 dogs) to walk with who I know have good temperaments so that she hopefully can have good experiences rather than in the big groups where she was snapped at quite a bit.

Catch up with you all tomorrow. Hope you've had a good week


----------



## Dogless

Ciarasmum - Nice to see you've survived work :thumbup1:.

TT - despite some trying times you still seem to be doing excellently .

Twiggy - hope the World Renowned Dog Expert isn't still being smug :frown2:.

Maria - Jacques sounds like Zebedee!!

GR - I hope that Ninja gets her bounce back soon, poor girl .

ETA: Hi JSW!!! I missed you out, sorry!

Good day here - walk in the forest with Rudi and then a pavement walk for him just now. He was very good for both :thumbup1:.

Kilo is still being very regal reclining on the sofa, but when he's up he's putting his "bad" paw down far more often and it's healing well .

As an aside.....don't have bean, lentil and barley soup even 3 1/2 hours before you run. Indigestion central :frown2:.


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Hmm okay then might I indeed.


Zedder I really wasn't being unkind and have you and your pup's best interest at heart. I'm also very pleased that you intend to take part in agility classes.

It's just that I've probably been competing, judging and training dogs since before you were born and I know the pitfalls and all about soft tissue injuries, spinal problems and pretty much every other injury that can befall 'sports' dogs.

Believe me when I say these type of injuries are not only frustrating, distressing but also very, very expensive to treat and many can so easily be avoided providing you are sensible.

If you really think about it you have a 6 month old puppy who's spine is not yet fully developed. Think about the pressure that is applied when a dog is moving at speed through either weaving poles or your legs.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thank you for the good wishes. She just made go out for a drenching. Has dried herself on the sofa and devoured a handful of biscuits so she must be feeling better. She loses her appetite very easily 

Oh and now barking a t Felix he cartoon advert cat 

Only on phone so Will catch up tomorrow.


----------



## Hanwombat

Trying to do Io's recall currently. Its very difficult with her when out on walking as she just attacks the long line when I recall her back, so being doing it in the house tonight and shes been very good... as long as hot dogs are present


----------



## zedder

Okay point taken could have worded it better I'm only trying to do my best for my dog.


----------



## Twiggy

MariaB said:


> Ginger Rogers, I do hope your pooch is better now.
> 
> Jaques is working on his bark (he hasn't really got one) and when he does bark he looks so surprised, he's a picture! He is doing great with his heel work, fantastic with his recall and 'off' and his retrieve and release is coming on great.
> 
> I am however, having problems with those little grasshopper legs of his. He jumps off all fours all the time. He will jump right into your arms if you let him, which would be great except he's too young. He's been going to puppy class since he was ten weeks and now in his first adult dog class. The teacher has given up on trying to stop him jumping into the air but just uses him in the class as a bad example


Explain in greater detail and I'll attempt to help. There's are various techniques to stop the leaping - all 'nice' ways too....


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Psst Zedder I think you might find Twiggy has the experience to know what she is talking about  of course perhaps you are a nationally recognised Obedience and Agility trainer whos owned multiple champions
> 
> I have been working on nothing apart from worry , got up to find parcels from both ends this morning and poor ninja has been feeling very sorry for herself.
> 
> She keeps poking me now so I think she is feeling better now though.
> 
> She has been a bit off for a few days, I just put it down to fireworks (teach me for gloating) very odd as she really doesn't mind gunshot and bird scarers at all. She also had her lepto top up yesterday so dont know if that can have contributed or if its something else entirely or a combination.


Poor Ninja. Hope she's feeling much better very soon.

Don't mention flipping lepto. I think I've read practically every scientific paper on the WWW about lepto - vaccinations - titre testing and the more I've read the more of a grey area it all becomes. The 'experts' all contradict each other in any case. What I do know is that Tremor developed a skin tag 3 years ago after a full vaccination, a sebaceous cyst on her neck two years ago after the lepto/parainfluenza top-up and a mystery lump on the base of her spine early this year after the second top up of lepto. She's due a full vaccination just before Christmas and I'm in a quandry.


----------



## Twiggy

ciarasmum said:


> Sorry I've been out of the loop this week. I'll try and catch up with everyone tomorrow.
> 
> First week of the job over and I miss Ciara so much. I was off work for a few months so I've been with her a lot.
> 
> Anyway, we've not had much to report this week. We've seen two dogs since our walk with my friend on Monday. One last night that appeared out of the dark but both recalled to owners so no issue. Tonight we saw one running with his owner (on lead) when we ventured for 30 secs onto the main road to find a poo bin! No reaction, just watched and we did some Look at That.
> 
> Tomorrow morning we're meeting with 2 GSDs. I've learned my lesson from the big group walks and am just picking very small groups (1 or 2 dogs) to walk with who I know have good temperaments so that she hopefully can have good experiences rather than in the big groups where she was snapped at quite a bit.
> 
> Catch up with you all tomorrow. Hope you've had a good week


We all want to know how the new job is going. Will you tell us tomorrow?..


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Poor Ninja. Hope she's feeling much better very soon.
> Don't mention flipping lepto. I think I've read practically every scientific paper on the WWW about lepto - vaccinations - titre testing and the more I've read the more of a grey area it all becomes. The 'experts' all contradict each other in any case. What I do know is that Tremor developed a skin tag 3 years ago after a full vaccination, a sebaceous cyst on her neck two years ago after the lepto/parainfluenza top-up and a mystery lump on the base of her spine early this year after the second top up of lepto. She's due a full vaccination just before Christmas and I'm in a quandry.


I was going to ask about all this soon... I've seen posts both for and against boosters etc.. A girl at work seemed horrified when i said i was going to look into it more before i took Willow for anything as she was telling me about a £99 payment and her dog is covered for life for its yearly boosters/jabs whatever it has.. when she pays £50ish each time anyway.

Is there any injections Willow actually needs? or are they all optional/to preference 

Any website links would be much appreciated 
Sorry if i sound silly..  Just wondering what you ladies of WAYWO thought on the matter


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *
> As an aside.....don't have bean, lentil and barley soup even 3 1/2 hours before you run.* Indigestion central :frown2:.


I'll bear that in mind early tomorrow morning...

I'm off to an agility show hopefully. I intend to take Barley as well as Holly and Tremor but if I get there and hear any bird scarers, or if it's a sea of mud, I shall come straight home.

It's not very far and I can only run NFC as I missed entries. I'm just interested to see if Holly can cope with an indoor riding school before I enter the December Show.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'll bear that in mind early tomorrow morning...
> 
> I'm off to an agility show hopefully. I intend to take Barley as well as Holly and Tremor but if I get there and hear any bird scarers, or if it's a sea of mud, I shall come straight home.
> 
> It's not very far and I can only run NFC as I missed entries. I'm just interested to see if Holly can cope with an indoor riding school before I enter the December Show.


What's NFC? Not for competition??? That's all I can think of . Hope little HB does you proud - hope she at least draws blood once .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> What's NFC? Not for competition??? That's all I can think of . Hope little HB does you proud - hope she at least draws blood once .


Yes it is 'not for competition'.

If Holly doesn't have a complete meltdown in the indoor school I shall be very pleased. If she decides it's OK and bites me even better...


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Poor Ninja. Hope she's feeling much better very soon.
> 
> Don't mention flipping lepto. I think I've read practically every scientific paper on the WWW about lepto - vaccinations - titre testing and the more I've read the more of a grey area it all becomes. The 'experts' all contradict each other in any case. What I do know is that Tremor developed a skin tag 3 years ago after a full vaccination, a sebaceous cyst on her neck two years ago after the lepto/parainfluenza top-up and a mystery lump on the base of her spine early this year after the second top up of lepto. She's due a full vaccination just before Christmas and I'm in a quandry.


Have you read anything about adverse reactions twiggy. I have been trying to research myself. She still isn't right poor thing. Quite worried now.


----------



## JenKyzer

GR - Poor ninja  & poor you for having to worry.. i feel so useless with no 'advice' but i really hope she perks up soon x

Nice walk this morning, dog free!
Lots of 'leave its' as we came across half eaten kebabs, chips.. oh and a bird with all its guts hanging out on a doorstep  yuk. She was great with every leave it .. she did stare at the 'bird' but then 'this wayed' away .. i was dreading having to fish it from her mouth! 
We did some running around like loons to warm up too as the wind was icey cold! We're both now nice and warm back in our beds


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> GR - Poor ninja  & poor you for having to worry.. i feel so useless with no 'advice' but i really hope she perks up soon x
> 
> Nice walk this morning, dog free!
> Lots of 'leave its' as we came across half eaten kebabs, chips.. oh and a bird with all its guts hanging out on a doorstep  yuk. She was great with every leave it .. she did stare at the 'bird' but then 'this wayed' away .. i was dreading having to fish it from her mouth!
> We did some running around like loons to warm up too as the wind was icey cold! We're both now nice and warm back in our beds


Bird guts aside, that sounds perfect :thumbup1:.


----------



## Dogless

OK morning here. Kilo's pad is healing ridiculously fast, which is brilliant, there's just a small hole left now and he's limping only slightly :thumbup1:. His disposable boots also arrived today - I ordered black but have received pretty purple .

Took Roo for a run this morning. Met the huskies who snapped and snarled and squeaked to get to us as the owner told them to relax. We just ran on as Roo started to bounce - I felt bad for running as it probably didn't help matters for him but I just cannot have Rudi becoming dog reactive, no way. Apart from that it was all good, I was really proud of him as we had to pass a fair few people / things and he just ran on relaxed :thumbup1:.


----------



## Twiggy

I got home from the agility show about an hour ago. So pleased I decided not to take Barley as they were shooting in very close proximity and she would have been terrified.

As I suspected the car-park was a sea of mud (yuk) but the indoor school was nice and there was a decent track to walk the dogs straight off the farm.

I took Tremor into the school with Holly to give her confidence first thing this morning and Holly seemed fine so I entered her (not for competition) in just the two morning classes.

Guess what - she got a clear round rosette....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Considering it was only her second show and she's only had a handful of lessons I was absolutely delighted with her.


----------



## Dogless

*WELL DONE LITTLE HB!!!!* That's brilliant Twiggy, hasn't she come such a long way?

The billion dollar question......did she bite you? .


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Have you read anything about adverse reactions twiggy. I have been trying to research myself. She still isn't right poor thing. Quite worried now.


Yes I have and the Lepto vaccine seems to be the worse offender.

It's all so subjective and nobody can give you a straight answer.

Take lepto for instance. Most of the vaccines in the UK only cover two strains (4 in the USA), nobody can tell you for how long your dog will be protected and you also need to know which strain is prevalent in your area.

If instead you decide to titre-test that's even more of a 'grey' area as current research seems to suggest that a titre-test reading is just a snapshot of your dog's immunity levels at the time the bloods are taken and doesn't necessarily mean anything in a months time. Titre-testing only covers the three core diseases (Hepatitis, Parvo, Distemper) in any case. Also even if the reading is low it doesn't always mean your dog needs vaccinating is what the 'experts' are now saying. There is a titre-test for lepto but it's no more reliable than the vaccine, so consequently a waste of time and money.

Very confusing isn't it?

I'm thinking of vaccinating Tremor for the 3 core diseases but not lepto/parainfluenza - Nobivac which supposedly will cover her for three years.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *WELL DONE LITTLE HB!!!!* That's brilliant Twiggy, hasn't she come such a long way?
> 
> The billion dollar question......did she bite you? .


Sadly not...

To be fair she is really beginning to concentrate and run on, which makes life a lot easier for ancient old me.


----------



## Twiggy

Now ancient old me has 4 dear little doggies saying isn't it about time they went training in the barn. No wonder I'm a wreck and then said little dears will all want their second walk.

The house needs hoovering and I need to fit in a trip to flipping Tescos as the little dears are almost out of fresh chicken...LOL

Spoilt and pampered springs to mind - no wonder hubby says he wishes he was a dog..


----------



## GingerRogers

JenSteWillow said:


> GR - Poor ninja  & poor you for having to worry.. i feel so useless with no 'advice' but i really hope she perks up soon x
> 
> Nice walk this morning, dog free!
> Lots of 'leave its' as we came across half eaten kebabs, chips.. oh and a bird with all its guts hanging out on a doorstep  yuk. She was great with every leave it .. she did stare at the 'bird' but then 'this wayed' away .. i was dreading having to fish it from her mouth!
> We did some running around like loons to warm up too as the wind was icey cold! We're both now nice and warm back in our beds


Today we also, well ninja, found deer with guts, then as I was photographing it. She legged it and found well rotted rabbit. Then I found maggot ridden rook 

And we wonder why she's ill. Lol. She's much better now. Much brighter in herself although her output is still undesirable I have come to the conclusion it might be stress induced collitis  I tried the vets but mine wasn't open. The big vets wanted me to take her in for 'something to settle her' but ignored any reference to the lepto vax !!!

Twiggy what she had was a booster jab. She had the normal booster a month ago and was offered a return visit to boost the lepto to 85% of strains. A new nobivac procedure. Hence why a small bit of me feels it holds some blame for her drop in health.


----------



## GingerRogers

Well done Holly Bolly !!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Today we also, well ninja, found deer with guts, then as I was photographing it. She legged it and found well rotted rabbit. Then I found maggot ridden rook
> 
> And we wonder why she's ill. Lol. She's much better now. Much brighter in herself although her output is still undesirable I have come to the conclusion it might be stress induced collitis  I tried the vets but mine wasn't open. The big vets wanted me to take her in for 'something to settle her' but ignored any reference to the lepto vax !!!
> 
> Twiggy what she had was a booster jab. She had the normal booster a month ago and was offered a return visit to boost the lepto to 85% of strains. A new nobivac procedure. Hence why a small bit of me feels it holds some blame for her drop in health.


That's exactly what Barley used to do through the woods of Sussex. She ended up in the vets overnight on at least two occasions and my sister had to buy a basket muzzle for her. She'll be lucky to find any animal parts in our fields because Holly has pretty much got through them all...!!

I had heard of the new Nobivac lepto but my understanding is that it covers 4 of the major strains and still doesn't necessarily deal with the local.

Hmmmm let's just say I'm a bit wary of lepto vaccines right now.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> That's exactly what Barley used to do through the woods of Sussex. She ended up in the vets overnight on at least two occasions and my sister had to buy a basket muzzle for her. She'll be lucky to find any animal parts in our fields because Holly has pretty much got through them all...!!
> 
> I had heard of the new Nobivac lepto but my understanding is that it covers 4 of the major strains and still doesn't necessarily deal with the local.
> 
> Hmmmm let's just say I'm a bit wary of lepto vaccines right now.


Luckily ninja is no scavenger thankfully. Steams over for sniffs then warily leaves it.


----------



## MariaB

Twiggy said:


> Explain in greater detail and I'll attempt to help. There's are various techniques to stop the leaping - all 'nice' ways too....


I appreciate that Twiggy. We live in France and the dog classes are challenging because they use very old fashioned methods for certain things.

What he does is spring off all fours. He does it when we are out for a walk and he's running ahead and sees something or smells something that excites him. He does it when he wants to look over a wall. He does it when we walk through the door and he's been home alone and he does it when we are training and he tries to anticipate what's going to happen next. He never touches my legs when he does it, though sometimes he will jump and hurl his full body in my direction. Its like he has these springs in all fours and the jump is always from a standstill, just like what a spring buck does. He's never been encouraged in any way to do this and if he jumps when we train, I distract him with a command.


----------



## Dogless

I am happy to report....nothing.....just had a very nice lead walk with Rudi and Diz :thumbsup: .


----------



## Twiggy

MariaB said:


> I appreciate that Twiggy. We live in France and the dog classes are challenging because they use very old fashioned methods for certain things.
> 
> What he does is spring off all fours. He does it when we are out for a walk and he's running ahead and sees something or smells something that excites him. He does it when he wants to look over a wall. He does it when we walk through the door and he's been home alone and he does it when we are training and he tries to anticipate what's going to happen next. He never touches my legs when he does it, though sometimes he will jump and hurl his full body in my direction. Its like he has these springs in all fours and the jump is always from a standstill, just like what a spring buck does. He's never been encouraged in any way to do this and if he jumps when we train, I distract him with a command.


OK. What breed is he and how old?


----------



## Nicki85

Argh, well we are also off to an agility show tomorrow... my biggest worry is that Rusty is going to leave the ring. But as it's in the middle of London (near Hampton Court) i can't imagine there will be all that much to tempt him lol. Famous last words.... 

Twiggy- well done you and Holly  
GR- I hope the Ninja is up and at her usual tricks soon 
DL- uneventful= good!


----------



## moonviolet

Nicki85 said:


> Argh, well we are also off to an agility show tomorrow... my biggest worry is that Rusty is going to leave the ring. But as it's in the middle of London (near Hampton Court) i can't imagine there will be all that much to tempt him lol. Famous last words....
> 
> Twiggy- well done you and Holly
> GR- I hope the Ninja is up and at her usual tricks soon
> DL- uneventful= good!


Scrambles, Walton-on-Thames? more leafy stockbroker belt than middle of London if it is and plenty of wildlife around  good luck


----------



## Nicki85

that's the one- I was thinking at least no pheasants... and thanks


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Argh, well we are also off to an agility show tomorrow... my biggest worry is that Rusty is going to leave the ring. But as it's in the middle of London (near Hampton Court) i can't imagine there will be all that much to tempt him lol. Famous last words....
> 
> Twiggy- well done you and Holly
> GR- I hope the Ninja is up and at her usual tricks soon
> DL- uneventful= good!


Good luck Nicki. Try and think positive because if you fear Rusty will leave the ring, he probably will...!! Remember dogs have a sixth sense and he'll pick up on your doubts. Walk the courses well and then when you go in totally concentrate on Rusty, encouraging more than you would normally do in training or more than he actually needs.

Most of all enjoy yourself...


----------



## Nicki85

I'll try and enjoy it- i'll enjoy it when we've done our runs  This is our third try at competing (the other two were NFC though) and he didn't bog off at either of those and they were much more "tempting" venues - so yes, positive thoughts!! 

Aim one- stay in the ring, aim two- remember the course......


----------



## MariaB

Twiggy said:


> OK. What breed is he and how old?


He's a Prague Ratter and he is just short of six months old


----------



## Twiggy

MariaB said:


> He's a Prague Ratter and he is just short of six months old


Oh he's just a baby then. I know absolutely nothing about Prague Ratters. They are very small terrier type dogs aren't they?

I was going to suggest you teach him to hand touch but if he's really teeny tiny you might need to use a target stick.


----------



## Dogless

Had a nice potter with Roo this morning; funny how you don't see anyone else when it's 0c outside early on a Sunday. We're going to walk with Diz and human in a while too.

The brilliant news is Kilo's pad's healed over. He has really wanted a walk today but the skin is so brand new and soft I am pushing it until tomorrow when I think I'll take him on soft surfaces with a pretty purple boot on.

He is always so calm in the house, bless him, but this afternoon has seen high speed zoomies with high pitched excited barking round and round the lounge and dining room :crazy:. I am uninjured and the house is still standing...just :. Mind you, our carpet's probably as abrasive as tarmac TBH, luxury it isn't :skep:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Had a nice potter with Roo this morning; funny how you don't see anyone else when it's 0c outside early on a Sunday. We're going to walk with Diz and human in a while too.
> 
> The brilliant news is Kilo's pad's healed over. He has really wanted a walk today but the skin is so brand new and soft I am pushing it until tomorrow when I think I'll take him on soft surfaces with a pretty purple boot on.
> 
> He is always so calm in the house, bless him, but this afternoon has seen high speed zoomies with high pitched excited barking round and round the lounge and dining room :crazy:. I am uninjured and the house is still standing...just :. Mind you, our carpet's probably as abrasive as tarmac TBH, luxury it isn't :skep:.


So pleased to hear Kilo's pad has healed. That's a lot of dog to go zooming round the lounge - my little collies are dangerous enough...

It's been a lovely day here. Mostly bright sunshine.

I'm not sure how long I can keep up with 4 collies all wanting me to throw toys constantly on both walks. I keep telling them I'm old..!! I think I might have made a rod for my own back being very jolly to help Barley overcome her fear of the gas guns. Leafy's like something possessed as well at the moment and won't be left out. She now insists on 'training' along with the others and is so potty I can hardly walk doing heelwork with her - bless. Obviously I have to be extremely careful because of her damaged shoulder and the fact she's 12 yrs old.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> So pleased to hear Kilo's pad has healed. That's a lot of dog to go zooming round the lounge - my little collies are dangerous enough...
> 
> It's been a lovely day here. Mostly bright sunshine.
> 
> I'm not sure how long I can keep up with 4 collies all wanting me to throw toys constantly on both walks. I keep telling them I'm old..!! I think I might have made a rod for my own back being very jolly to help Barley overcome her fear of the gas guns. Leafy's like something possessed as well at the moment and won't be left out. She now insists on 'training' along with the others and is so potty I can hardly walk doing heelwork with her - bless. Obviously I have to be extremely careful because of her damaged shoulder and the fact she's 12 yrs old.


Even better when Rudi gets involved and they chase each other.....best part of 100kg of dog hurtling about : :frown2:. Nice to see him better though.

Oh dear Twiggy...if you will be fun then you'll reap the rewards :frown2:. It's nice to hear how Leafy's feeling though - I take it she's settled on her food now too?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Even better when Rudi gets involved and they chase each other.....best part of 100kg of dog hurtling about : :frown2:. Nice to see him better though.
> 
> Oh dear Twiggy...if you will be fun then you'll reap the rewards :frown2:. It's nice to hear how Leafy's feeling though - I take it she's settled on her food now too?


It's always fingers crossed with Leafy but at the moment she appears to be very well. I hardly dare say she hasn't had a bout of diarrheoa for over six months and I've been able to add broccoli and carrot to her dinner. She's also been on the milk thistle tablets since August and they appear to be supporting her liver.
I did say to the chiropractor last week that if Leafy is still with us next March, I would like her to give me an honest opinion on her damaged left shoulder. There may be nothing she can do but alternatively if I have to travel up to Lincoln every week for a couple of months, if she thinks it will be beneficial, so be it. Her left paw is so twisted now with arthritis (as a result of the damaged shoulder) and yet she is sound and it doesn't seem to bother her.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It's always fingers crossed with Leafy but at the moment she appears to be very well. I hardly dare say she hasn't had a bout of diarrheoa for over six months and I've been able to add broccoli and carrot to her dinner. She's also been on the milk thistle tablets since August and they appear to be supporting her liver.
> I did say to the chiropractor last week that if Leafy is still with us next March, I would like her to give me an honest opinion on her damaged left shoulder. There may be nothing she can do but alternatively if I have to travel up to Lincoln every week for a couple of months, if she thinks it will be beneficial, so be it. Her left paw is so twisted now with arthritis (as a result of the damaged shoulder) and yet she is sound and it doesn't seem to bother her.


She certainly sounds as if she's feeling chipper and youthful at the moment :biggrin:.


----------



## Nicki85

Well we survived ! and....









He was such a good lad... there was no ring to leave but he stayed with me the whole time and tried his hardest to listen to commands. He got very confused in agility as he couldn't figure out the tunnel- he walked all the way over the top of it from one end to the other (twice). Gave everyone a laugh anyhow... the kind judge person eventually called him through from the other end. It was round a large tree and he obviously didn't understand lol.

I didn't compete him as four runs on his shoulder at standard height may have been too much so dropped him down to medium and ran him for clear round only. So in two of the rounds we had an issue with the tunnel being round a tree and got a refusal, then the third one the course was set wrong for the league above us and I went wrong (but he got the weave entry and listened well!) and the last run we went clear!

Shae also had lots of fun and spent most of her time attached to her tug toy.... there were lots of cones around so she played go round cones and tug. She was fab. And she was quiet in the car when I took Rusty away so I could leave the door open.

So yes, a good day 

Twiggy-pleased to hear that your four are keeping you on your toes... I think Shae would love it there- when shall I send her?
DL- glad that Kilo is feeling good  and that your house is lasting the assault! Here is hoping the potter tomorrow will stop the zoomies


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> She certainly sounds as if she's feeling chipper and youthful at the moment :biggrin:.


Yes she is which is more than me. The girls are all zonked out after their training and second walk and I've got a meal to cook and a damned great big pile of ironing to do, which I may well leave until tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes she is which is more than me. The girls are all zonked out after their training and second walk and I've got a meal to cook and a damned great big pile of ironing to do, which I may well leave until tomorrow.


Ironing...yuck.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Well we survived ! and....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> He was such a good lad... there was no ring to leave but he stayed with me the whole time and tried his hardest to listen to commands. He got very confused in agility as he couldn't figure out the tunnel- he walked all the way over the top of it from one end to the other (twice). Gave everyone a laugh anyhow... the kind judge person eventually called him through from the other end. It was round a large tree and he obviously didn't understand lol.
> 
> I didn't compete him as four runs on his shoulder at standard height may have been too much so dropped him down to medium and ran him for clear round only. So in two of the rounds we had an issue with the tunnel being round a tree and got a refusal, then the third one the course was set wrong for the league above us and I went wrong (but he got the weave entry and listened well!) and the last run we went clear!
> 
> Shae also had lots of fun and spent most of her time attached to her tug toy.... there were lots of cones around so she played go round cones and tug. She was fab. And she was quiet in the car when I took Rusty away so I could leave the door open.
> 
> So yes, a good day
> 
> Twiggy-pleased to hear that your four are keeping you on your toes... I think Shae would love it there- when shall I send her?
> DL- glad that Kilo is feeling good  and that your house is lasting the assault! Here is hoping the potter tomorrow will stop the zoomies


Mega well done to you both....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

No thanks (lovely as Shae is) I think she would just about finish me off....


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Well we survived ! and....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> He was such a good lad... there was no ring to leave but he stayed with me the whole time and tried his hardest to listen to commands. He got very confused in agility as he couldn't figure out the tunnel- he walked all the way over the top of it from one end to the other (twice). Gave everyone a laugh anyhow... the kind judge person eventually called him through from the other end. It was round a large tree and he obviously didn't understand lol.
> 
> I didn't compete him as four runs on his shoulder at standard height may have been too much so dropped him down to medium and ran him for clear round only. So in two of the rounds we had an issue with the tunnel being round a tree and got a refusal, then the third one the course was set wrong for the league above us and I went wrong (but he got the weave entry and listened well!) and the last run we went clear!
> 
> Shae also had lots of fun and spent most of her time attached to her tug toy.... there were lots of cones around so she played go round cones and tug. She was fab. And she was quiet in the car when I took Rusty away so I could leave the door open.
> 
> So yes, a good day
> 
> Twiggy-pleased to hear that your four are keeping you on your toes... I think Shae would love it there- when shall I send her?
> DL- glad that Kilo is feeling good  and that your house is lasting the assault! Here is hoping the potter tomorrow will stop the zoomies


Well done Rusty!!! . All his antics sound very entertaining :biggrin: and pleased that Shae was good too.


----------



## Nicki85

thanks both, I'm so pleased with both of them  He was concentrating so hard for me


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> thanks both, I'm so pleased with both of them  He was concentrating so hard for me


They'll sleep well tonight :thumbup1:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Well done Rusty :thumbup1:

And Shae 

And Nikki sounds exhausting 

Ninja is much much better today, no asking to go out for nothing to come out and just licked the pattern off her plate, she is still on 'jamaican' chicken'n'rice but so relieved, that was an alarming 36 hours, still going to call and talk to 'my' vet tomorrow though just for the record.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Ironing...yuck.


Dogless I know what I've been meaning to ask you. You know you said you would like to try agility, well have you looked on Agilitynet?

I was looking through the list of training clubs a few days back and there appears to be quite a lot in NI.


----------



## Twiggy

I've discovered yet another of Barley's little foibles..:frown2:

Now she's much more confident she's always the last one in at night and I had my suspicions as to why...... two small piles of sick on the kitchen floor this morning. Coprophagia - dirty little madam and she will undoubtedly teach Holly.


----------



## Twiggy

Agility class is off this afternoon as it's pouring with rain so I'm about to make a plum tart for dinner...:biggrin: Hubby's pleased.

The girls are not impressed so I expect I shall have to trek over to the barn and train them all before their second walk.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Agility class is off this afternoon as it's pouring with rain so I'm about to make a plum tart for dinner...:biggrin: Hubby's pleased.
> 
> The girls are not impressed so I expect I shall have to trek over to the barn and train them all before their second walk.


Mmmmmm plum tart, delicious!!! But what selfish girls, can they not see that you need a day off??? Honestly, the dogs of today .



Twiggy said:


> Dogless I know what I've been meaning to ask you. You know you said you would like to try agility, well have you looked on Agilitynet?
> 
> I was looking through the list of training clubs a few days back and there appears to be quite a lot in NI.


What puts me off is the trainer who's classes I left is involved in a fair number of them and......we hope to be moved by June....please let it be so!!!! Unless you personally know any of the clubs are force - free and know the trainers I am really reluctant over here .



Twiggy said:


> I've discovered yet another of Barley's little foibles..:frown2:
> 
> Now she's much more confident she's always the last one in at night and I had my suspicions as to why...... two small piles of sick on the kitchen floor this morning. Coprophagia - dirty little madam and she will undoubtedly teach Holly.


Yuck; you have my sympathy....Kilo still likes the odd "snack" when we're out and about .

Today has been great .

Took Rudi out for a walk before Kilo and he was very good for me.

Then...took Kilo out for his first walk in ages. He let me put the disposable boot on without any fuss or fear which surprised me as it was a faff.....but putting his foot on the ground whilst wearing it was absolutely no dice; his teeth chattered, he drooled, shook and clamped his tail under his belly - even opening the door as I knew he wanted to go out didn't work - he just hopped out, so I took the boot off I wasn't pushing it. The good bit....I took him for a potter round some of our open spaces and he was far more chilled out than he has been in ages. Not walking at all must have dropped his anxiety levels farther than they have been for ages . I checked his foot lots of times and the skin's intact so all is good.

Not felt so pleased in a long time.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh that is excellent dogless 

I am wondering about ninja as we have had a few days of low stress, single walks, obviously she hasnt been having her tablets either, so been reluctant to take her on the streets................


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Mmmmmm plum tart, delicious!!! But what selfish girls, can they not see that you need a day off??? Honestly, the dogs of today .
> 
> *Well they all did the training and then second walk. I wish I could video it's flipping frantic. I throw/kick for one and then the other three are right in front of you wanting their go....it's a nightmare - I'm shattered...!!*
> 
> What puts me off is the trainer who's classes I left is involved in a fair number of them and......we hope to be moved by June....please let it be so!!!! Unless you personally know any of the clubs are force - free and know the trainers I am really reluctant over here .
> 
> *You could look on Agilitynet and see if each individual club/class has a website. You might be able to glean their methods off there, or if not go and watch.
> *
> 
> Yuck; you have my sympathy....Kilo still likes the odd "snack" when we're out and about .
> 
> Today has been great .
> 
> Took Rudi out for a walk before Kilo and he was very good for me.
> 
> Then...took Kilo out for his first walk in ages. He let me put the disposable boot on without any fuss or fear which surprised me as it was a faff.....but putting his foot on the ground whilst wearing it was absolutely no dice; his teeth chattered, he drooled, shook and clamped his tail under his belly - even opening the door as I knew he wanted to go out didn't work - he just hopped out, so I took the boot off I wasn't pushing it. The good bit....I took him for a potter round some of our open spaces and he was far more chilled out than he has been in ages. Not walking at all must have dropped his anxiety levels farther than they have been for ages . I checked his foot lots of times and the skin's intact so all is good.
> 
> Not felt so pleased in a long time.


*Well done Kilo. I've never got on very well with boots on mine. I tend to wait until the pad is semi-healed and then use something like "Extraskin" which offers some protective and assists the healing anyway.*


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Well done Kilo. I've never got on very well with boots on mine. I tend to wait until the pad is semi-healed and then use something like "Extraskin" which offers some protective and assists the healing anyway.*


It's healed pretty well but is just soft, I'll just go easy. He was just not having any of it with the boot on .


----------



## Twiggy

I know I go on but here's gratitude for you...!! Hubby said the plum tart was nice but what about the bucket load of cooking apples he picked last week. Through gritted teeth I said that unfortunately I hadn't got a spare hour to peel, core and slice the bl..dy things today.

He's spent most of the afternoon lurking at the back of the garage busy doing nothing but.... late afternoon he invited me to have a look at what he'd been up to and he's almost completed a two third size agility walkway....:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Thank goodness hubby was actually being productive Twiggy .

I could cry tonight - in a good way  . Met Diz and human for a lead walk with Kilo - it was lovely anyway but then it got even better.....we were on a big piece of open ground before crossing the road to the sports pitches and, about 15m away we saw two people out running with their dogs. I was about to do a u - turn with Kilo when he clocked them and.....looked at me  . Diz's human burst out with "good boy Kilo!!!!" at the same time as me and, bless him, he looked pleased with himself . I think it was that the dogs were on leads, moving away and not taking any notice of him whatsoever....but I am SO PROUD and (dare I say it) a little hopeful  .

Then walked Rudi where we encountered a few things and he did very well .

So...one of the nicest 3 hours I have spent walking round this place .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Thank goodness hubby was actually being productive Twiggy .
> 
> I could cry tonight - in a good way  . Met Diz and human for a lead walk with Kilo - it was lovely anyway but then it got even better.....we were on a big piece of open ground before crossing the road to the sports pitches and, about 15m away we saw two people out running with their dogs. I was about to do a u - turn with Kilo when he clocked them and.....looked at me  . Diz's human burst out with "good boy Kilo!!!!" at the same time as me and, bless him, he looked pleased with himself . I think it was that the dogs were on leads, moving away and not taking any notice of him whatsoever....but I am SO PROUD and (dare I say it) a little hopeful  .
> 
> Then walked Rudi where we encountered a few things and he did very well .
> 
> So...one of the nicest 3 hours I have spent walking round this place .


Fingers crossed but it does sound as if Kilo is becoming a bit more relaxed.

I still can't wait for you all to get the hell out of there...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Fingers crossed but it does sound as if Kilo is becoming a bit more relaxed.
> 
> I still can't wait for you all to get the hell out of there...!!


Nor me Twiggy!!!

He has been relaxed because of not leaving the house for days until today I think. I also gave him Stress Less with dinner as well as breakfast today.


----------



## Dogless

We have had a superb morning here. 

Rudi was really well behaved on his walk. The policemen that I talked to about dog matters were coming along a path towards us and stopped to chat; Rudi stopped very nicely and sat, looking up at me, bless him. The one said my dogs were so biddable I was lucky....made me laugh as biddable is not a word I'd use to describe RRs, particularly coming from the owner of a working bred lab .

Then Kilo, beautiful Kilo. Pretty much exactly the same situation with a dog as last night, only this time the dog was walking and was a mal who always sort of barks and howls and stares.....Kilo just sat himself down, looked at the dog, then at me repeatedly . He got very snatchy with treats so I started to drop them on the floor and then had a huge shake off once the dog was out of sight but I am so, so chuffed with him .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> We have had a superb morning here.
> 
> Rudi was really well behaved on his walk. The policemen that I talked to about dog matters were coming along a path towards us and stopped to chat; Rudi stopped very nicely and sat, looking up at me, bless him. The one said my dogs were so biddable I was lucky....made me laugh as biddable is not a word I'd use to describe RRs, particularly coming from the owner of a working bred lab .
> 
> Then Kilo, beautiful Kilo. Pretty much exactly the same situation with a dog as last night, only this time the dog was walking and was a mal who always sort of barks and howls and stares.....Kilo just sat himself down, looked at the dog, then at me repeatedly . He got very snatchy with treats so I started to drop them on the floor and then had a huge shake off once the dog was out of sight but I am so, so chuffed with him .


And I'm chuffed for you - long may it continue.

I'm about to start peeling apples....


----------



## Canine K9

Good afternoon WAYWO! Not been commenting for a while

Dogless- Well done wonderful boys!! Rudi and Kilo really are brilliant well done 

GR-Poor Ninja I hope everything is okay 

------------------------------------------------------
Bailey has kennel cough so not much. He has been snuggling in the house all day whilst I was at school. Took him for a gentle 40 minute walk had lots of coughing, wheezing and sneezing.  Hes home now and is lying down, workmen are coming in and out so hes on his flexi he is not impressed! Hes been getting goats milk and manuka honey hopefully it helps soothe him.


----------



## GingerRogers

Canine K9 said:


> Good afternoon WAYWO! Not been commenting for a while
> 
> Dogless- Well done wonderful boys!! Rudi and Kilo really are brilliant well done
> 
> GR-Poor Ninja I hope everything is okay
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Bailey has kennel cough so not much. He has been snuggling in the house all day whilst I was at school. Took him for a gentle 40 minute walk had lots of coughing, wheezing and sneezing.  Hes home now and is lying down, workmen are coming in and out so hes on his flexi he is not impressed! Hes been getting goats milk and manuka honey hopefully it helps soothe him.


She is getting there still very clingy though, hope Bailey improves soon.

Welcome back, hope you had a good hols, not nice to come back to a kennel cough ridden Bailey though 

I hope you dont mind me saying this, I am sure you are desperate to get back out with him but you should be very careful walking him, not only for his sake, as you found out moving aggravated him, but as he coughs he is spraying it around for other dogs to catch, a short walk if you have somewhere out of the way where other dogs are unlikely would be better, if you have to take him out at all 

Its spread by them snotting everywhere you see !!!


----------



## Canine K9

GingerRogers said:


> She is getting there still very clingy though, hope Bailey improves soon.
> 
> Welcome back, hope you had a good hols, not nice to come back to a kennel cough ridden Bailey though
> 
> I hope you dont mind me saying this, I am sure you are desperate to get back out with him but you should be very careful walking him, not only for his sake, as you found out moving aggravated him, but as he coughs he is spraying it around for other dogs to catch, a short walk if you have somewhere out of the way where other dogs are unlikely would be better, if you have to take him out at all
> 
> Its spread by them snotting everywhere you see !!!


Ahh yes I did walk in a very empty area and saw nobody. Will do it shorter next time as well then


----------



## tiatortilla

Oh dear I'm a bit behind again!
Dogless that is fantastic!! So pleased for you and Kilo!

GR how is Ninja doing, has she not been well?

K9 sorry to hear Bailey has kennel cough! Bet you're glad to be back together though 

I don't really have much to report, everything's fine here and still going well with seeing other dogs on lead . Will do a proper post next time!


----------



## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> Oh dear I'm a bit behind again!
> Dogless that is fantastic!! So pleased for you and Kilo!
> 
> GR how is Ninja doing, has she not been well?
> 
> K9 sorry to hear Bailey has kennel cough! Bet you're glad to be back together though
> 
> I don't really have much to report, everything's fine here and still going well with seeing other dogs on lead . Will do a proper post next time!


She hasnt been on top form, wont give you the gories , she had her lepto jab on thursday and has been off colour since, I have spoken to the vet, we dont think it was related, we think its stress induced colitus (ooh missus spellcheck wanted to change that :blushing brought on by the ruddy fireworks  which were still going off last night  but she is going to send a report in anyway.

She is on the mend now though.


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> She hasnt been on top form, wont give you the gories , she had her lepto jab on thursday and has been off colour since, I have spoken to the vet, we dont think it was related, we think its stress induced colitus (ooh missus spellcheck wanted to change that :blushing brought on by the ruddy fireworks  which were still going off last night  but she is going to send a report in anyway.
> 
> She is on the mend now though.


Aw that's not nice, poor girl  Glad she's on the mend though!

---

Oh that reminds me though, I do have one thing to report concerning fireworks! Apart from holding in wees for a ridiculous amount of time, Tia has coped remarkably well with all the fireworks as long as she's inside - the last couple of nights she has actually slept through them!
I actually can't believe it, but it's good to know her noise sensitivity might not be as bad as I initially thought. Still going to get some stuff to hopefully ease her stress a bit (I actually have some money so can afford it now!), it's quite a weight off that she wasn't freaking out and climbing all over everything though .


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> Ahh yes I did walk in a very empty area and saw nobody. Will do it shorter next time as well then


It's airborne and can linger for at least 30 minutes, therefore other dogs can catch it long after you and Bailey have gone.


----------



## Canine K9

Twiggy said:


> It's airborne and can linger for at least 30 minutes, therefore other dogs can catch it long after you and Bailey have gone.


Oops sorry, won`t walk tomorrow then if hes no better, tbh its usually a very empty area though and I`ve never seen anyone else using it (although to be fair I`ve only been going there for a few weeks) but as said wont take him out tomorrow


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> She hasnt been on top form, wont give you the gories , she had her lepto jab on thursday and has been off colour since, I have spoken to the vet, we dont think it was related, we think its stress induced colitus (ooh missus spellcheck wanted to change that :blushing brought on by the ruddy fireworks  which were still going off last night  but she is going to send a report in anyway.
> 
> She is on the mend now though.


What did your vet actually say about the Lepto? I'm curious.


----------



## Dogless

K9 - welcome back; hope that Bailey's back to his cheeky self soon!!

GR - pleased that the Ninja's on the mend .

TT - really good that Tia coped well with the fireworks.

Went for a run with Rudi tonight; he was really good apart from one part where people with a lab decided to throw the ball for him repeatedly towards us rather than anywhere else on the huge field. It was trying but no big deal .

Walked with Diz and human with Kilo. Really nice walk again; saw two dogs coming towards us but opted to go a different way; didn't want to push my luck or Kilo's stress levels.


----------



## Twiggy

It was a lovely afternoon here so I put some of the new jumps out in the paddock with Leafy helping. Did some sendaway training with Tremor and then agility with Holly and Barley. It was Jolly Holly today. Dogless you will be pleased to know she was lethal with the gnashers, particularly doing the weaving poles.

All four of them have finally zonked out. They've pretty much been at it since about 8.00am this morning. It's exhausting and I shall soon have bigger muscles in my legs than Wayne Rooney, kicking the space hopper lob its on every walk...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It was a lovely afternoon here so I put some of the new jumps out in the paddock with Leafy helping. Did some sendaway training with Tremor and then agility with Holly and Barley. It was Jolly Holly today. Dogless you will be pleased to know she was lethal with the gnashers, particularly doing the weaving poles.
> 
> All four of them have finally zonked out. They've pretty much been at it since about 8.00am this morning. It's exhausting and I shall soon have bigger muscles in my legs than Wayne Rooney, kicking the space hopper lob its on every walk...!!


Sounds fab Twiggy....apart from mentioning Space Lobbers, gives me shivers  .


----------



## Nicki85

Hmmm what have we been up to?

Yesterday we went swimming in the am, both good. Met one dog (I was so surprised- it's usually empty and it was raining!) anyhow, I spotted first so popped Shae on lead. No reaction... then the dog decided to come up to us and circle, barking. Shae was actually pretty good, not really retaliating back and happy to take treats. Eventually the owner came and got her dog (it was young with no recall apparently lol...) and I allowed Shae to say hi- nice greeting so we moved on. 

PM- we had a walk in the forest, Rusty was stupidly fast and chaotic... Shae and me came back super stressed watching his antics and wondering when he was going to pop up next.

Today, I had to be in Coalville for 10am so we had a walk in the dark walk around the forest- they were fab, both off lead and stayed close and recalled well  Didn't meet anyone, thankfully, not sure Shae could cope with people appearing in a dark forest.

Then pm took Rust for a sunset walk- we played toy all the way round the common and he was lovely. Apart from an incident when it looked like I was trying to take out a cyclist (I can't throw...) thankfully Rusts leave/wait command worked and we avoided a collision...
Then just back from pre-agility with Shae. Mega hectic class with lots going on. She was fine, had an almost incident when a dog tried to approach with his toy. Out of control dog approaching she really doesn't like and is the main situation I need to gain more control over. I told her to back off this time and body blocked her which worked. She then greeted the same dog fine.... She is bonkers though, when allowed she spends most of her time zooming from one end of the lead to the other when talking to all her friends. This combined with "bitey face" and grrrrrs makes her look a bit like a Tasmanian devil....

DL- so pleased and happy that Kilo is starting to show signs of relaxing  and good to hear Rudi is still being a star! 
Twiggy- your girls sound like fun!!!! Shae's getting proper grrrrr-y with me and the toy now... i'm worried for my arm sockets!!! She's a proper "shaker" and she likes the space lobbers too but she always wants to play tug with them but she brings it back all slobbery and it's hard to get a grip....
GN- hope the Ninja is back to her old tricks soon 
K9- likewise, hope the KC clears soon. Thankfully not something we've experienced yet.
TT- all sounds very positive


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hmmm what have we been up to?
> 
> Today, I had to be in* Coalville *for 10am so we had a walk in the dark walk around the forest- they were fab, both off lead and stayed close and recalled well  Didn't meet anyone, thankfully, not sure Shae could cope with people appearing in a dark forest.
> 
> _I've been to obedience shows at Coalville loads of times over the years._
> 
> Then just back from pre-agility with Shae. Mega hectic class with lots going on. She was fine, had an almost incident when a dog tried to approach with his toy. Out of control dog approaching she really doesn't like and is the main situation I need to gain more control over. I told her to back off this time and body blocked her which worked. She then greeted the same dog fine.... *She is bonkers though, when allowed she spends most of her time zooming from one end of the lead to the other when talking to all her friends. This combined with "bitey face" and grrrrrs makes her look a bit like a Tasmanian devil....*
> 
> _Oh if only I was 20 years younger I'd have a Shae._
> 
> Twiggy- your girls sound like fun!!!! Shae's getting proper grrrrr-y with me and the toy now... *i'm worried for my arm sockets!!!* She's a proper "shaker" and she likes the space lobbers too but she always wants to play tug with them but she brings it back all slobbery and it's hard to get a grip....
> 
> _Err yes - I know the feeling._..


----------



## Nicki85

i've never known a dog so determined to shake the toy... she's getting more and more determined with each session- going have to hold on with two hands soon! She's good though, stops the minute I say and then will grab back on when she gets her cue.

I'm lucky to have her- she is a fab girl and I can't wait to do "proper" stuff with her!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> What did your vet actually say about the Lepto? I'm curious.


Well not much. To be fair the symptoms didn't really fit a reaction to the jab and are more likely to be coincidence given all over circumstances. But she took it seriously and said she would be reporting it and watching for other reactors. I trust she did. Take it seriously that is.

I did forget to mention the bit i read about not giving it to dogs under a certain weight though. I was in a real tiz yesterday then mum phoned up. I told her what i had been up to and she told me her beautiful home bred afghan Anzaro was taken by lepto and how terrible it was to see.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Well not much. To be fair the symptoms didn't really fit a reaction to the jab and are more likely to be coincidence given all over circumstances. But she took it seriously and said she would be reporting it and watching for other reactors. I trust she did. Take it seriously that is.
> 
> I did forget to mention the bit i read about not giving it to dogs under a certain weight though. I was in a real tiz yesterday then mum phoned up. I told her what i had been up to and she told me her beautiful home bred afghan Anzaro was taken by lepto and how terrible it was to see.


This is the trouble isn't it? Lepto is a horrible disease.

There is an interesting article on Obedience UK about new research into vaccinations, in which they are saying that vaccinations can over stimulate the dogs immune system causing all sorts of problems.


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## sharloid

We went out for a couple of hours yesterday and came home to 2 wees, a poo and this:










They decided they'd rather play with their toy box than their toys!

I hope they weren't too stressed and it was just a little slip up by Yla.


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## Twiggy

Oh dear Sharloid. Looks as if they enjoyed themselves getting up to mischief.


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## Nicki85

Hmmm just been offered a place on the John Rogerson rally working trials course.... next weekend. I thought Shae would enjoy it and they've had a last minute cancellation. I'm not sure whether to go for it or not!! Rust went on a recall week with him and enjoyed it (although did go and chase the birds mid- recall, Rusty you are hilarious...)

I've never done/been/seen working trials before lol. it's the last two pages of this- http://www.johnrogerson.com/2013coursesschedule.pdf

What do we reckon? I'm worried that she's so young- it's a long day for her....


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## Twiggy

It's up to you Nicki.

Personally I wouldn't. Not if you intend to have a go at competitive obedience with Shae in the near future.

Can't you go and spectate?


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hello again everyone. 

Well, tonight, i've been hanging on to a lamp post ...with Frank on the other end of the lead going mental at another dog.

This hasn't happened for absolutely ages. I'm normally well prepared and can sense it coming on, but tonight we had crossed over a road to avoid a blind corner only to be met by a very quiet dog and his owner. They were about 3mtrs away and Frank just started barking and lunging. Thankfully, i was next to the lamp post and just grabbed it. They went the opposite way.
It was probably only a few seconds but it seemed like ages. But i did regain control with the help of liver pate in a tube. Asked him to 'sit' 'watch me', treated him then carried on. All calmly, thank god. Then he flippin' squated and poo'd right outside the vicarage 

Only a short walk for Frank tonight as he had his chiropracter yesterday, which went well. Have booked the other two in just for an MOT.

Hope everyone is ok.


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## Twiggy

Oh no F&F that's the last thing you needed Frank to do after being treated by the chiropractor. Hope he hasn't undone all her good work.

I took Tremor to my chiropractor last week and also took Holly along, just to be on the safe side now she's doing agility.


----------



## Nicki85

Hmmm I might take Rusty in that case- I have no intention of doing any sort of competitive obedience with him. Who knows, maybe it would be his cup of tea? 

I heard back from Di by the way- pay as you go sessions, £5 which I think is pretty good... I might see if I can get a private first so I know what i'm doing. Hate going into a group session and feeling lost lol. 

Just back from agility with Rusty, he was a good lad  

F and F sorry to hear Frank had a set back... sometimes they can surprise you can't they?. Hope he recovers quick and you have a quieter day tomorrow....


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Hmmm I might take Rusty in that case- I have no intention of doing any sort of competitive obedience with him. Who knows, maybe it would be his cup of tea?
> 
> I heard back from Di by the way- pay as you go sessions, £5 which I think is pretty good... I might see if I can get a private first so I know what i'm doing. Hate going into a group session and feeling lost lol.
> 
> That's why I didn't think it was a good idea to take Shae. Competitive obedience heelwork, retrieve, etc. differs from the criteria of WTs in some respects. Not only would Shae be confused but so would you...


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Oh no F&F that's the last thing you needed Frank to do after being treated by the chiropractor. Hope he hasn't undone all her good work.
> 
> I took Tremor to my chiropractor last week and also took Holly along, just to be on the safe side now she's doing agility.


I know, hopefully he's ok. She thought he had perhaps slipped down a rabbit hole or something cause he had a 'clicky' toe  Just need to take him three times a year now, just to keep on top of anything. Also need to book them in for a swim session which i love as i can get in with them. 

How did you get on ?


----------



## Dogless

Good day yesterday, took the boys to the forest, Kilo's foot was fine. One part of it has branches sawn down and laid along the track to maybe mark a route and had been obliterated by lots of horses so obviously some sort of event had been on - lots of sniffs for the boys.

Short walk each in the evening, all good.

F&F - sorry about the lamp post hanging, hope it was just a blip.
Sharloid - looks like they had fun!!!


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> I know, hopefully he's ok. She thought he had perhaps slipped down a rabbit hole or something cause he had a 'clicky' toe  Just need to take him three times a year now, just to keep on top of anything. Also need to book them in for a swim session which i love as i can get in with them.
> 
> How did you get on ?


Great thank you. She doesn't want to see either of them until about the end of February next year, unless of course they go lame in the meantime...


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## Dogless

Good walks this morning, nothing major to report in the main as it was freezing cold, wet and stormy. BUT with Kilo we saw a dog walking towards us (good distance away) and I managed to interrupt Kilo's plunge and got away with the jump and a quick growl but not the whole panic routine. Threw treats on the ground in front of us as we beat our retreat.


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## Nicki85

Well done Kilo 

Good day here, canal for swimming this morning- met the two GSPs and Shae hardly reacted. Also met a black lab that she initially growled at so put her in a sit and let Rusty go say hi and I had a chat to the man. Once she calmed down (she'd been sat by her self grumbling quietly) asked her to come over and she greeted man/dog lovely. Nice of the man to be patient so thanked him for that. 

This afternoon seperate walks, Shae playing ball over the field. She broke her toy by tugging to hard  We saw a dog on a flexi desperate to get to us but she ignored it. She trotted along next to me the whole way round the common...

Rusty had an hour round the forest, he was fab. The squirrels were winding him up rotten but he was listening to every whistle and responding. At one point a deer ran out in front of me shortly followed by Rust, a string of whistles brought him back though so really pleased. Popped his lead on for a short while to prevent him going back onto the scent after that played fetch the whole way home (his request, not mine!). He then refused to come in and laid down on the common until I asked him if he was hungry. Apparently he was cause he decided to come in then! Monkey pup...


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## tiatortilla

Nicki - Sounds like Shae did well, nice of the man with the lab to help you . Well done to Rusty for not chasing the deer!

Dogless - Glad you've had another success with Kilo and a dog, well done .

F and F - Sorry about your lampost incident! Hopefully it was a one off setback.

---

All good here. First dog we saw was a little westie on the other side of the road, Tia was pretty good, she had a little lunge but no growl, and then the dog barked at her (I did apologise as it was probably her lunge that set it off!) but she didn't bark back :thumbsup:. Then a lab that she didn't notice so that was fine! Also passed a pair of shih tzus on the same side of the road, albeit a very wide bit of pavement and we ran past, but she didn't react at all .
Off lead for the whole walk (minus roads obviously), recalls were all fab, bar one where she was eating an apple and didn't want to come back  :lol:. She did some great "leave it"s with cow poo, even at a distance - the smelliest tripe treats ever are my new secret weapon .


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## Dogless

I walked Kilo with Diz tonight. An offlead staffie came to within about 15 - 20m of us and barked - Kilo came with me on a loose lead away from the dog (even if he nearly took my fingers off he was snatching so hard for titbits). I was so, so proud of him ......then Diz barked back at the dog and Kilo joined in. I got him under control within 2 or 3 barks and he wasn't panicking or lunging hard either. I don't like that he barked but I feel it is still progress .

Perhaps the total rest when he cut his pad was the best thing that could have happened to him in terms of stress levels. I know that we are going to have setbacks (especially living here!!!) or even total disasters....but just for now I am going to be happy. 

Walked Roo and he was a star for me, no dramas .


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## Nicki85

TT- sounds like a fab birthday walk! Happy birthday Tia 
Whoop! Go Kilo  !

Just back from a local general obedience class with Shae. She gave me loads of attention and did everything as asked. For the main she was very calm albeit a little stressed. She went in a bit huffy and puffy, tail up hair up you get the picture but soon calmed down and didn't respond to any of the other dogs barking or lunging (not that there was much of it.)

She didn't like the dogs being recalled towards her so I moved her so she couldn't see... not worth the hassle of if the dog comes to close... 

She greeted a couple of the dogs lovely after class when calm and wanted to go into crazy spinny mode but moved her on quick lol.


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## diefenbaker

Not had the time to do WAYWO justice recently. I hope everyone and everyone's dogs are OK. You will notice from the times of my posts that I am either:

a) a Vampire
b) on the wrong side of the Atlantic

Either way I am sans Dief  and in an anti-McDonalds statement "not lovin it".


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Not had the time to do WAYWO justice recently. I hope everyone and everyone's dogs are OK. You will notice from the times of my posts that I am either:
> 
> a) a Vampire
> b) on the wrong side of the Atlantic
> 
> Either way I am sans Dief  and in an anti-McDonalds statement "not lovin it".


Those two things don't need to be mutually exclusive, maybe you're a vampire on the wrong side of the Atlantic? I was wondering where you were - I really hope that you're OK and back to Dief soon.


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## Dogless

Very good day today; took the boys for a run in the forest and then up Slievanorra / Orra More. I had Kilo on his running harness and cani-x line and Rudi loose; good job as there were two sheep that I spied just off the path - they were all over the road today so I am guessing some bolted in in a panic as it's a fair way from livestock fields.

The forest tracks were easy enough although Kilo seemed to want to run at the speed of a thousand gazelles  and I did my best to go as fast as I could for him....then we had an energy sapping, knee twisting, face planting, ankle snapping, trainer sucking ascent through bog and heather up Orra More. I had taken a camera to get a photo at the top but it was completely shrouded in cloud. Then came the brutal descent and a runaway train type run back along forest tracks to the car. 

I am broken and the boys are sound asleep . Thoroughly enjoyed my day so far .


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## Nicki85

Sounds lovely DL (not for me but for you lol)

Bit of a boring day here... 5.30am walk this morning, both off lead with their glow collars. All good, met one of the people we often meet (I say often, once a month?!) Shae went into bonkers zooming and then rolling monster pup lol. THen I had to go off to Rugby... Mum took them a little way in the afternoon in to the forest to play fetch- all good. Then when I got back took them round the roads and park- Rusty was chaotic but Shae tried hard  

Bit worried about Rusty, he's dropped down to 18.3kg now- he was 19.3kg about two-three weeks ago. He's visibly ribby now but not underweight, I don't think. Just a bit puzzled, exercise hasn't changed nor has his food/amount of food. Going to try increasing his food a bit and see if I can at least get his weight stable, may be get some goats milk in. Other wise off to the vets we go!!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Sounds lovely DL (not for me but for you lol)
> 
> Bit of a boring day here... 5.30am walk this morning, both off lead with their glow collars. All good, met one of the people we often meet (I say often, once a month?!) Shae went into bonkers zooming and then rolling monster pup lol. THen I had to go off to Rugby... Mum took them a little way in the afternoon in to the forest to play fetch- all good. Then when I got back took them round the roads and park- Rusty was chaotic but Shae tried hard
> 
> Bit worried about Rusty, he's dropped down to 18.3kg now- he was 19.3kg about two-three weeks ago. He's visibly ribby now but not underweight, I don't think. Just a bit puzzled, exercise hasn't changed nor has his food/amount of food. Going to try increasing his food a bit and see if I can at least get his weight stable, may be get some goats milk in. Other wise off to the vets we go!!


Rusty's weight loss may well be due to the drop in temperature I would have thought? Mine have both dropped, Rudi to toast rack ribs and Kilo to all visible - I have upped both their food.

To pack weight on fast sixstar's Lactol, Manuka honey, raw egg "drink" really does the job.


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## Nicki85

that could make sense... hadn't thought that the drop in temp could have been the cause. I can up the number of raw eggs he gets and get some honey in too- and lactol.

I like my dogs lean but he's a bit like cuddling a bag of bones at the moment!! Shame the same can't be said for Shae, she's a bit porkier than i'd like. 

Watching him and Shae run round the house with a slowly being de-stuffed elephant toy- there is certainly nothing wrong with him!!


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## GingerRogers

Oh dear Nikki, hope its nothing serious, the drop in temperature perhaps, needing more to keep warm 

Dogless I agree with Nikki, I am sure YOU and the CH's had a lovely time :001_unsure:

Not much going on here, glad the chiro doggies are doing well, well i hope Frank is after the lamp post incident hmy:

I have been trying to keep up with everything, just not had anything to say really been trying to keep ninja quiet to make sure she settles again. There has been a noticeable regression in her behaviour, as she had a few days off the stressless and valerian.

So I was quite down for a bit as it felt like it was only the tablets that had brought any change and all my efforts were for nothing but then I stood back and realised that IF she had been stressed enough to have that effect physically then it was going to take time for her to come down and feel comfortable again and for the valerian to kick in again too I suppose. Also IF it was the fireworks that had stressed her, then outside and particularly outside in the dark (yes I am an eejit :frown2 were going to take a bit of re-association with good stuff.

So a few days off pavement walks and some fun pheasant chasing ones, just the one mouthful of feathers hmy: she was still a nut job yesterday but I did actually get a game of tug out of her on the green, until she chowed down on my finger tips, you know how that sort of thing really hurts when you have cold hands  sure Twiggy will be pleased with that. Along with the fat lip she gave me later that evening 

Had a stunning moonlit beach walk last night, sea was fairly calm but with a strong southerly current so the waves were breaking across the beach, kept spooking the pair of us as you caught the fast moving black (dog ) shadow in the curve of a wave, then it was lapping back into the lagoons and rippling (like dog paws on stones ) across.

Today's pavement potter was better, till she took offence at the postie so we followed him down on the opposite side until he got fed up and came to say hello  she is such a wiggle bum tart, does make me wonder if all her noise really is her just being friendly, still scares me what other dogs make of it though.

However as most of you have seen I did manage to retrieve cobweb dog pictures 

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/336024-meet-my-new-dog.html#post1063344002


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## Twiggy

*Dogless* Pleased you enjoyed your slog up a mountain. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

*GR* I agree it hurts like hell when your hands are freezing cold and dear little doggies decide to have a nip....LOL

*Nicki* Hope you manage to get a bit of weight back on Rusty. Mine are all on diets except for Holly. I do think Barley looks a bit leaner now and she's certainly fitter, whereas I'm fit to drop. It's all the kicking of the space lobbers...

We met a friend for lunch today which was very nice, except it was 3 hours out of the middle of the day and it gets dark so early now, so the dogs didn't get trained. They did come out into the paddock and 'helped' me set the jumps out for about 20 minutes, so Barley and Holly did get a couple of run rounds each before they were all walked.

I've got two friends coming over early tomorrow afternoon to do some obedience training with their collies so my lot can join in.


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## Twiggy

Oh I know what I meant to say:

When we met our friend for lunch today, the expert in dog behaviour was extolling the virtues of the 'cum here' method which he finds works extremely well with noise sensitive dogs... Fortunately our friend knows absolutely nothing about dogs, thank goodness, but she looked suitable impressed whilst he rambled on. I didn't open my mouth, mainly because the expert has still to finish to jump stands and the dog walk....:devil:


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## JenKyzer

I've been rubbish at keeping up this week  Not enough hours in a day kind of week!

Twiggy - Hope you have a lovely morning tomorrow with your friends collies and yours too 

GR - Loved the thread  Your beach walk sounds lush!

Nicki - Hope you manage to plump rust up a bit easily  Hope he enjoys the course your taking him on!

DL - Sounds like a monster of a run yesterday  Hope you haven't paid the price for it today 

Dief - Hope your back to being a mcdonalds ad soon  (I vote vampire though..)

Tia - Sounds like a good day  as for tripe on a walk... yuk  glad its working for you!


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## Canine K9

Twiggy- Hope your morning is nice

GR- Beach walk sounds fabulous 

Dogless- Glad you had a nice day

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since Bailey has been not allowed for walks I`ve been doing lots of training. His recall is coming on nicely, hopefully it will be the same outside when he can go for walks again.


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## JenKyzer

Willow hasn't had much fun this week... normal boring walks, me being an idiot in the house with her... she did get a Snake from ikea which she loved disemboweling all over the house  £7 of fun right there.. now she carries it's skin around with her very proudly as a souvenir of her courageous act. 

Anyway, so we went to [email protected] last night  she pee'd in there and was sick in there after drinking the horrible water in a bowl that had probably been there all day .. OH was on dog lead duty of course :mad2: I was too busy eyeing up Willow xmas day outfit and all the other goodies, the VIP card offer has caught my eye - a hamper with toys and treats meant to be £30 but its £15 until the 21st.. but of course our [email protected] don't stock the good stuff  
She got a nice squeaky kong ball out of it anyway - her fave 

This morning i went up to the Woods with her.. haven't been for a while.. first part was lovely, all the autumn colours and half bare trees - silence, with birds singing, ducks quacking on the side of the water, squirrels running up in the trees and cyclists saying good morning.. was bliss 
Until we came to the opening  2 collies having a rough play.. so we hung back... then a red dog would not leave us alone (no sure of breed, some kind of cocker/spaniel cross i think?) but no one seemed to claim this dog or call him/her away from us... Willow had a bark and just wouldn't settle cos it was following us.. so i went up a path we hadn't used before.. steps all the way up a hill.. and just Wow, we found a lovely quiet part at the top and we could see/hear all the commotion below us of the dogs being loud and running around but we enjoyed such a lovely walk...
I then realised i didn't know where we were  but following the houses backed onto the woods i knew it wouldn't be long until we came to an exit.. we came out at 'the tower pub' which is half way up to Darwen tower! Bit further than i wanted but nvm  We did some really good leave's, carry on's and crosses over to avoid dog walkers on the way down and she just looked over at them for a glance but that was all  

Willows now spark out on the sofa.. bless her.
She's spending the afternoon at my mums house too as me and ste are being taken on a day out with his dad, south lakes animal park - should be good, just gutted about having to leave Willow on a day we normally spend together :crying:

No real point to this, well done if you got this far.. i'm just making up for lack of posting i guess


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## Nicki85

Well, I think the dogs are truly exhausted lol.

Am walk round a bit of the roman wall- only half an hour as Rust had agility. Loads of people out.... first one was a black lab approaching us (quite amusing as the chap was whistling away on his "special gun dog whistle" cause she's a gun dog don't you know..) the lab had zero recall so just kept on coming. Shae was good, entertained her with treats and then allowed her to greet the lab when it was next to her for all of one sec before asking for a sit stay so owner could collect lab. She sat lovely concentrating on me whilst this lab sniffed her. Then two bigger older dogs she had a bit of a grr at but again greeted fine once in sniffing distance. Both greetings were a bit to "high" for my liking but easy enough to control. Then a couple of terriers tried to sniff her as we left but she paid them no attention. 

Next was agility for Rust- he was a super boy, managed an apparently grade 6 weave entry bless him (he wasn't supposed to do it but that's beside the point  ) Rust spent a lot of time flirting with all the boys.. he is actually quite embarrassing... One negative point was one owner lost control of her dog and he stole Rusts toy as I threw it at the end of Rusts run. Rusty being the good boy he is politely gave it up and came back to me looking sad. Glad it wasn't Shae not sure she would have been so polite. No harm done anyhow... Shae came out before and after the class and socialised lovely with all the people and dogs. Lots of spinning and bitey face...

then I decided we needed some fresh air so went on a 2 and a bit hour walk round Theale. Rust on lead in fact two leads at one point as we were walking parallel to the M4 and there were pheasants around and I was scared what might happen  It was a nice walk though, Rusty started shrieking at one point in excitement over the pheasants... Shae chased a pheasant(!) but recalled the second I asked. We had to walk right through a farm yard where it sounded like someone was abusing a pig (we didn't investigate) and a lab appeared. Shae was great, no noise slow approach to lab, quick greeting and move on. Rust was very excited about some piglets running around so we moved on quick lol. 

Final dog was a big GS on the other side of the road, not even a glance so all good. 

I've just had some Heston Mulled Cider which I might go get another mug of.... i'm still laughing at the "special gun dog whistle" may be I should get one for Rust?!


----------



## Guest

Twiggy said:


> Oh I know what I meant to say:
> 
> When we met our friend for lunch today, the expert in dog behaviour was extolling the virtues of the 'cum here' method which he finds works extremely well with noise sensitive dogs... Fortunately our friend knows absolutely nothing about dogs, thank goodness, but she looked suitable impressed whilst he rambled on. I didn't open my mouth, mainly because the expert has still to finish to jump stands and the dog walk....:devil:


OMG, thought Id try to catch up with whats going on on this thread, and this was the first post on the page.... cum has an ENTIRELY different meaning in the US  and I just spat coffee all over the keyboard! Dying here.... 
:lol: :lol:

Will try and compose myself to read some more and to get the gist of that trainer LOL!


----------



## Guest

I have been working on calming signals from Kikopups video on youtube and find its a great way of helping my dog relax in situations she finds uncomfertable and have had some great sucess!

Day before yesterday we went on one of our usual routes and this day it was very windy. We encounted a bin that had fallen over on its side and the lid was flapping loudly and making Millie frightend. I yawned and sighed got down on my knees and Millie approached gingerly and took the treat the first couple of times she dashed away with her tail between her legs but then she began to accept the frightening bin and thats when we left. 

Todays walk we passed catermeran (think thats the spelling) Millie was weary of it but accepted that it was an every day object and walked passed much more easily then she would have had we not done the calming signals. 

Thanks to Kikopups videos Millie is starting to relax more and is less nervous of strange new things and more accepting. 

This week for the first time I sucessfully taught Millie to role over she now knows the following commands

Sit
leave it
Stay/wait
Speak
Play dead
Weave between my legs.
Come to my side
Left and right paw
Beg
Roll over

Millie is my first dog ever!


----------



## tiatortilla

Nicki - "special gun dog whistle" - lol!! Walk sounds nice anyway  hoping Rusty's weight loss is just down to the weather!

JSW - It is dried out tripe, not just raw . Good to see you posting again, all sounds fab minus the little accident in pets at home!

GR - Love the cobweb dog! Glad you're not feeling too down anymore, definitely don't think all your effort has been wasted, you do a great job with her!

Dogless - That sounds fun... I think! Sounds like things are a little closer to resembling "normality" with Kilo 

---

I'm not sure if we had a good walk or not today..! It was good really, just bloody stressful but it was the prevention of anything happening that was stressful rather than anything that actually did happen 

It's carnival night so insanely busy, I thought we'd be absolutely fine to go out at half three but I was so very wrong! The good bits included seeing a cavalier king Charles spaniel, a lab and a terrier, another lab and a collie, four little fluffy dog, yet another lab and a GSD and not barking at any of them , and a nice off lead field walk with perfect recalls and leave it's which was all great!

Just as I'd got her back on the lead to go home about an hour, hour and a half later, there were some gunshots not too far away (so lucky with the timing there!). They came from the direction we were going to go in and Tia didn't want to walk that way so we went another way and just got stuck.. we kept seeing dogs coming towards us on every possible different route home, couldn't cross over because it was so busy because of other roads being closed for the carnival, so we ended up walking up and down the same four roads for half an hour, dodging people with dogs, noisy kids and everything else! It got so stressful I nearly cried 

But! Tia did cope really well, I really didn't want to get caught up in it all, but sometimes these things just happen..! I am very impressed that she didn't get stressed and bark at anyone or bark at all of those dogs, so I suppose it was a good walk really


----------



## GingerRogers

Lol at the special whistle, they are special 'gundogs' though  sounds like he was the 'special' one 

Tia sounds like Tia did very well even if you had a less than relaxing time 

Ouesi 'Cum' also means something else here and I did have a chuckle at the 'things Twiggys husband talks about at table' 

We spent some time in the garden his morning, mostly filling in holes as soon as ninja dug them  oh well the aim was to make her like the garden again, she has been a bit wary since fireworks so I think that was successful

A bit of shopping, popped into [email protected] to take advantage of the free treats on the counter, then had a walk http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/336164-share-todays-walk.html I didn't see much of my dog  oh well she got lots of exercise which again was the aim


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Lol at the special whistle, they are special 'gundogs' though  sounds like he was the 'special' one
> 
> Tia sounds like Tia did very well even if you had a less than relaxing time
> 
> Ouesi 'Cum' also means something else here and I did have a chuckle at the 'things Twiggys husband talks about at table'
> 
> We spent some time in the garden his morning, mostly filling in holes as soon as ninja dug them  oh well the aim was to make her like the garden again, she has been a bit wary since fireworks so I think that was successful
> 
> A bit of shopping, popped into [email protected] to take advantage of the free treats on the counter, then had a walk http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/336164-share-todays-walk.html *I didn't see much of my dog  oh well she got lots of exercise which again was the aim *




Well I've seen far to much of mine today....!!

They had an hour's walk this morning followed by almost 2 hours training this afternoon with friends and another 45 minutes walk after that. Barley and Holly are now charging round the lounge playing tug, ripping some poor unfortunate toy to bits....

It might be an enforced rest period in a minute.


----------



## Dogless

Separate walks twice each today - saw lots of dogs with Rudi and none with Sir K both times . I at least knew "the lab" had been out this evening as I heard the owner before I saw him with the usual loud whistling and shouting on loop as per :skep:. I saw him but not his dog; he was probably still busy on the street that the owner had walked from "being friendly" or having a sh!t in someone's front garden . A good day here anyway .

I am currently looking at ex police dog vans and the like as we are considering a "dog vehicle" in addition to our car.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Separate walks twice each today - saw lots of dogs with Rudi and none with Sir K both times . I at least knew "the lab" had been out this evening as I heard the owner before I saw him with the usual loud whistling and shouting on loop as per :skep:. *I saw him but not his dog; he was probably still busy on the street that the owner had walked from "being friendly" or having a sh!t in someone's front garden . A good day here anyway *.
> 
> I am currently looking at ex police dog vans and the like as we are considering a "dog vehicle" in addition to our car.


Very succinctly put.... Made me laugh even if it's not funny living in NI.

A separate "dog vehicle" sounds like a good plan, especially when you walk in muddy bogs, etc.

Mine is disgusting at the moment, thanks in the main to the 'lovely' car-park at the show last week-end. I ought to clean it but if agility goes ahead on Monday the lay-by we park in is also pretty revolting.


----------



## Twiggy

What have you all been up to today then as it's very quiet on here?

I've been honing my footballing skills on the wretched space lobbers again today and did a bit of agility training with Holly and Barley this afternoon. Then did some sendaways with Tremor and Leafy did whatever she wanted really but at least she had her go.

Hubby is driving me mad with the dog walk he's supposedly making and I've been scouring the web. He reckons the planks need to be 10 ft long but the trouble is most plywood sheets are 4 x 8 and scaffold planks are 9" wide so they're no good. He also wants to know the angle of descent, etc. etc. I knew it would be a nightmare...LOL


----------



## GingerRogers

I had a free day, was supposed to be helping hubby with some work but he has another migraine. So have been playing with my camera and walk the ninja on her long line today, monster that she was yesterday, although, I filmed this to show how theres no way I could let her off lead somewhere such as this as she would not come back when called 

[youtube_browser]dihHduWQdMU[/youtube_browser]

I only whistled to get her to come out of the bracken before she got tangled, again


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> What have you all been up to today then as it's very quiet on here?
> 
> I've been honing my footballing skills on the wretched space lobbers again today and did a bit of agility training with Holly and Barley this afternoon. Then did some sendaways with Tremor and Leafy did whatever she wanted really but at least she had her go.
> 
> Hubby is driving me mad with the dog walk he's supposedly making and I've been scouring the web. He reckons the planks need to be 10 ft long but the trouble is most plywood sheets are 4 x 8 and scaffold planks are 9" wide so they're no good. He also wants to know the angle of descent, etc. etc. I knew it would be a nightmare...LOL


Even the mention of space lobbers makes me shiver . I have been looking at vans, cages, options.....my head is in a swim!!! Oh dear about hubby - hope he's solved it!!

GR - Watched vid on mute as I have a dog snuggled in either side but wow is Ninja fast!!

This is copied and pasted from a local Nosy Book site.....tells you about Roo's walk really (or the end of it...the rest was lovely):

_Please, please can I ask that those walking their dogs offlead around the streets ensure that they do not run up to other dogs being walked on lead. I was rude to someone earlier who had dogs that ran up to my youngest outside my house and for that I apologise, I had reached the end of my tether. BUT you do not know what issues other dogs may have and they are onlead for a reason. Luckily my youngest is fine with other dogs but I am training him and part of being on a lead means that he does not get to greet other dogs (and no, he was not out of control for pulling to try and play with the loose dogs that ran up to him). My eldest dog has issues that I am constantly working on due to being attacked several times - he needs his space. Every single time an off lead dog walks towards him or runs up to him, however friendly, he panics and ALL of my careful work is undone. The point of this rant (sorry ladies) is just to PLEASE do your best to consider others - enjoy your walk but what is of no consequence to you may upset other people._

Kilo's walk was great - we saw a dog at the end of one road and did a swift about turn and all was well, saw a malamute running with his owner about 20m away twice and got belt fed titbits. Saw "the lab" owner approaching us at the end which meant that the dog was about somewhere in the vicinity so did a very rapid u - turn and scuttled down another street and all was well. Good boy Kilo .


----------



## Twiggy

Well put Dogless. Don't hold your breathe that it will make the slightest difference though.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well put Dogless. Don't hold your breathe that it will make the slightest difference though.


I tried to post it on both local sites; the admin wouldn't approve it on one as she said it was confrontational and would cause a huge argument so I sent a link to the "dog walking etiquette" blog post that mv always links to. Have asked her if she would consider that. She has been lovely about it and said she will do her own post on safety if I would like, which I suppose is a compromise but not quite what I was getting at. I feel as nervous as anything about posting it, but it is done now.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I tried to post it on both local sites; the admin wouldn't approve it on one as she said it was confrontational and would cause a huge argument so I sent a link to the "dog walking etiquette" blog post that mv always links to. Have asked her if she would consider that. She has been lovely about it and said she will do her own post on safety if I would like, which I suppose is a compromise but not quite what I was getting at. I feel as nervous as anything about posting it, but it is done now.


I can understand that although in many respects it's better that you feel nervous than poor Kilo. It must be like batting your head against a brick wall over there.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Even the mention of space lobbers makes me shiver . I have been looking at vans, cages, options.....my head is in a swim!!! Oh dear about hubby - hope he's solved it!!
> 
> GR - Watched vid on mute as I have a dog snuggled in either side but wow is Ninja fast!!
> 
> This is copied and pasted from a local Nosy Book site.....tells you about Roo's walk really (or the end of it...the rest was lovely):
> 
> _Please, please can I ask that those walking their dogs offlead around the streets ensure that they do not run up to other dogs being walked on lead. I was rude to someone earlier who had dogs that ran up to my youngest outside my house and for that I apologise, I had reached the end of my tether. BUT you do not know what issues other dogs may have and they are onlead for a reason. Luckily my youngest is fine with other dogs but I am training him and part of being on a lead means that he does not get to greet other dogs (and no, he was not out of control for pulling to try and play with the loose dogs that ran up to him). My eldest dog has issues that I am constantly working on due to being attacked several times - he needs his space. Every single time an off lead dog walks towards him or runs up to him, however friendly, he panics and ALL of my careful work is undone. The point of this rant (sorry ladies) is just to PLEASE do your best to consider others - enjoy your walk but what is of no consequence to you may upset other people._
> 
> Kilo's walk was great - we saw a dog at the end of one road and did a swift about turn and all was well, saw a malamute running with his owner about 20m away twice and got belt fed titbits. Saw "the lab" owner approaching us at the end which meant that the dog was about somewhere in the vicinity so did a very rapid u - turn and scuttled down another street and all was well. Good boy Kilo .


That's just bumbling speed. I will have to try and get with a purpose speed.

Tbf its little legs make her look speedy same as little ponies. Rising trot on one of them if much more energetic than on a big shire .

Really sorry you had yet another encounter with the particular brand of stupid they breed round you.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I can understand that although in many respects it's better that you feel nervous than poor Kilo. It must be like batting your head against a brick wall over there.


I HATE yelling in the street, rudeness and confrontation but just felt at the end of my tether. Had that been Kilo not Roo things would have been far worse. And because we haven't lost it at seeing a dog for a short while (like tonight - awesome although the dogs were a way away) I would have been even more upset as I watched all my work going down the pan AGAIN .


----------



## Nicki85

Today we have walked, walked some more and slept 

Am walk was Rusty off lead and Shae on flexi to avoid the chasing and yipping... She really doesn't like not being able to control Rust, she still listens if I ask for a recall or what not but it's difficult trying to keep her from running after him as he is loopy. And no, it's not a big issue as they both recall... I just can't cope with the chasing, yipping, craziness.... Anyhow, Shae reacted to every dog we saw, not terribly mind you and she listened when I told her to be quiet and gave her a treat.

But this afternoon, Rust was onlead and Shae was off. We met many dogs, Shae reacted to none, greeted all politely and ignored one that had a grr at us. You'd have thought it was a different dog from this mornings walk...

Think there is a bit of a theme here... when Rust is off being loopy she is getting stressed and can't cope with other dog interactions as well. I try to avoid walking them both if I only want Rusty off but occasionally I do need to give Rust an offlead run with her... I need to start building the time they are both off lead again together and in the meantime avoid dog greetings with Shae if she's onlead and stressing about Rusty. (and also there is an added problem that Shae can't keep up with Rust so comes back and stresses with me till he reappears..)

DL- I hope the post gets some responses... It sounds like Rudi copes with it well. I am sure Shae would be terrible in those situations and it must be so hard getting Kilo's confidence up.

Twiggy- sounds like he is taking his job very seriously lol. You will have a fantastic DW when he is done!!

GN- I give up with pheasants, Rust sings at them now... he's on a short lead attached to my waist so I can cope with the boinging. Luckily the local forest is fairly pheasant free...


----------



## donna160

keeping poppy calm (no mean feat) ..i know it's very early but she's doing great we've been up 1hr 15 mins and so far she's been amazing, yesterday was her calmest day ever and last night she did really really well! she was calm all evening ..im so proud of her


----------



## Dogless

donna160 said:


> keeping poppy calm (no mean feat) ..i know it's very early but she's doing great we've been up 1hr 15 mins and so far she's been amazing, yesterday was her calmest day ever and last night she did really really well! she was calm all evening ..im so proud of her


Have you done any mat work so that she can settle on her mat in different situations? Sounds as if you're doing well regardless!


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## JenKyzer

Morning 

CK9 - fingers crossed the recall carries on progressing and he can have huge zoomies and come back when he goes out again 

Nicki - Rusts agility sounds lovely, apart from his toy being stolen - bless him and his sad face! Well done to shae for recalling from the pheasant 

Prowl - Glad your pleased with your progress with Millie  

Tia - ahh i see, i did imagine a bag of raw tripe mince i have to admit  i suppose its just as bad as me and our dried fish skins from F4D, yuk! Sorry to hear about your busy walk, sounds like you both handled it well though 

Dogless - V jealous of your dog vehicle idea.. ! I keep pratting on about this but the hint has not been taken  lol. Sorry to hear about the end of Rudis walk  sounds like Kilo did brilliantly  

Twiggy - Your day with the lobber-ing sounds fun yesterday  as for the hubby.... *sigh* ... my bathroom floor is still in planks propped up outside the bathroom 

GR - Loved the vid of of her havin a good run round  and i loved the pics on the other threads.. shes so adorable :001_tt1:

Edited to add Donna - Well done for the calming so far and i hope this progresses for you  Not sure of what Poppy was like before you started doing this? Sorry if i've missed a post/thread 

Sorry if i've missed anyone.

Willow did brilliantly at my mums.. she settled well when we left (With her kong and kong wobbler - 1st time using them at my mums, and her new fleecey throw to lie on) and didnt cry once even when my sister went out she didnt cry after her  (Last time, sister went to bed and willow was crying outside her bedroom and scratching at her door  ) Willow never crys at home even when we're out, or so OH bro informs us anyway.. so i'm glad she feels settled at my mums from start to finish now instead of it taking half an hour before shes finished looking round the house for us  
Very glad we didn't leave her at home as we were out for 9hrs :huh: alot longer than what i expected.

Y'day was her chill day with OH.. who knows what they get up to!

This morning we had a lovely walk.. managed to dodge some cats with just a glance. Saw the lady and her puggle coming down our street as we were heading down to come home.. she waved her arms so that i noticed her and she crossed over! Obviously didn't want a repeat of last time and she was very considerate  Although we had sped up so i got to our door before Willow had chance to think about the puggle being there, i hung back to say thanks before i went in but she didn't look our way.. i was grateful though  I'm assuming she's on the same wave length as us and its a shame other people aren't like her!


----------



## Nicki85

Early morning walk as I'm in London today. Both off lead with their red halo collars... quite amusing watching them both (particularly Rust...) dance around. They are easy in the dark as Rust doesn't get so distracted by things to chase and Shae is happy as he is staying closer to me. She's cute though, she'll watch him trot off, look at me, come back for a treat and then set off after him if allowed and stop him mid-run! We didn't see anyone.

JSTW- lovely when you meet someone nice and considerate isn't it? Sounds like Willow was fab at your mums as well


----------



## donna160

thankyou it's lovely to be able to be so positive about her for a change 



Dogless said:


> Have you done any mat work so that she can settle on her mat in different situations? Sounds as if you're doing well regardless!


errm no  mostly she's been sitting with me having a lovely cuddle together, but i like it that way i admit that's not ideal but once she's a calmer girl all round i will gradually work on that too, as she's hyper all the time and one behaviour leads to another i'm finding that having some me and her time to be a bit more productive.
atm it's nice to not be so stressed and tired all the time (the constant lunging,nipping and barking was all day long and wearing me out) and we love snuggling up together we're bonding really well now.

i'll be doing my housework soon then having a play together/mental stimulation and a walk using stop/start so the giddiness will kick back in..after we will work on the calming down again,no nipping,jumping lunging etc,she seems to respond better this way and using praise and affection rather than treats has a much better outcome..she does get treats too once she is fully calm.
She's getting fetch, sit and wait off pretty good now and i will introduce other things bit by bit..it's very early days but hopefully i'm doing something right.


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## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Today we have walked, walked some more and slept
> 
> *Twiggy- sounds like he is taking his job very seriously lol. You will have a fantastic DW when he is done!!*


Yes but the big question is when....!! 6 months, a year, 3 years who knows.


----------



## JenKyzer

donna160 said:


> thankyou it's lovely to be able to be so positive about her for a change
> 
> errm no  mostly she's been sitting with me having a lovely cuddle together, but i like it that way i admit that's not ideal but once she's a calmer girl all round i will gradually work on that too, as she's hyper all the time and one behaviour leads to another i'm finding that having some me and her time to be a bit more productive.
> atm it's nice to not be so stressed and tired all the time (the constant lunging,nipping and barking was all day long and wearing me out) and we love snuggling up together we're bonding really well now.
> 
> i'll be doing my housework soon then having a play together/mental stimulation and a walk using stop/start so the giddiness will kick back in..after we will work on the calming down again,no nipping,jumping lunging etc,she seems to respond better this way and using praise and affection rather than treats has a much better outcome..she does get treats too once she is fully calm.
> She's getting fetch, sit and wait off pretty good now and i will introduce other things bit by bit..it's very early days but hopefully i'm doing something right.


Ahh yes, i remember now..  You've only had her a couple of weeks, rescue shar pei X ?

Following what Dogless said there was a programme on CH4 where they used a matt and a kong to calm the dog.. it was for them leaving the house, but they started training with the matt whilst they were in then progressed to leaving the house ... Dogs: Their Secret Lives - 4oD - Channel 4 .. think its this one? Might be good to watch then research some more on how you could use it  (I'm crap at advice but i thought it was good what they did with the matt and kong - we do something similar now before we go out)

Still early days don't forget  Your in the right place for advice! This thread is amazing for us


----------



## Dogless

JSW - how lovely to meet someone considerate, it always makes my day or even week when I do .

Good walk for the boys in the forest today. Heading out with the BW to meet Diz shortly and then Roo will get a road walk. Really hope I don't meet the woman from last night although it is the first time I have met her - although have met her dogs out and about on their own before.


----------



## donna160

thankyou for the link i will definately check it out..and your kind words JSW 

just to update poppy has had another great day, im so very proud of her,even the lead pulling was ever so slightly better.


----------



## Canine K9

Donna- Thats good about Poppy; long may it continue 

Dogless- Glad it was nice in the forest, hope you have a good time

---------------------------------------
Bit fed up with him lately tbh  He has started to have accidents in the house again. Today I let him out for a wee, brought him back in (he didn`t do anything) and he toileted inside instead.  The SA has come back, just when I thought we`d cracked it. 
On the positive side I forgot to give him his antibiotics today and we have only had a few small coughs when he got realllyyy excited. I`m not sure when it`d be safe to take him back out though.


----------



## Dogless

K9 - maybe collect a urine sample and pop it into the vet to check for a UTI? I am sorry you're having a hard time.

donna - pleased that Poppy had another good day .

We had two great walks tonight .

Kilo and I walked with Diz. We saw the huskies and another dog walking with them heading towards us and I got him turned around on a nice loose lead although dancing a bit and concentrating one me as we got some distance. Then a staffy ran up to us three separate times on the rest of our walk and I got Kilo concentrating on me and taking food even though Diz was barking. Saying I am happy and proud is an understatement . I shall try and keep things quiet for him tomorrow.

Rudi and I walked around in the bitter cold and saw nothing and no one. Managed to keep good control of him when a cat ran from us though and past footie training on the astro turf .


----------



## Nicki85

We had a nice walk this evening, both offlead again just for 45mins round the forest in the dark. They were good pups  I hope one day I can get them like this in the daylight too! 

K9- I guess Bailey is probably upset and out of routine with coming back from the home boarder and then being poorly and having to stay in. As DL says, may be worth checking him out for a UTI as well. Hopefully the SA will start to ease once he gets back into his routine.

DL- pleased you had good walks  So pleased for you and Kilo  

Donna- your girly sounds lovely  As you say, all about getting to know each other- she sounds like a bundle of fun though  Enjoy her!


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* - That sounds very positive with Kilo now. Let's hope some idiot owner doesn't spoil things now he's making progress.

*Nicki*Pleased you had a nice walk in the dark (you're braver than me!!)

Leafy and Tremor are currently being pains. I had agility this afternoon so there wasn't time to train them before their second walk and consequently they're bored tonight.

Oh no I've just discovered what Leafy is after..... She keeps coming to the door barking and then shooting back into the lounge and looking longingly at the 3 soft toys on the mantlepiece awaiting repair. She's also stirred the other two up so I've now got all four of them expecting me to play. I keep telling them I'm old...

Right I'm off to get a needle and thread as Leafy intends to keep this up all evening and I haven't the heart to tell her to go and lie down.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless* - That sounds very positive with Kilo now. Let's hope some idiot owner doesn't spoil things now he's making progress.
> 
> *Nicki*Pleased you had a nice walk in the dark (you're braver than me!!)
> 
> Leafy and Tremor are currently being pains. I had agility this afternoon so there wasn't time to train them before their second walk and consequently they're bored tonight.
> 
> Oh no I've just discovered what Leafy is after..... She keeps coming to the door barking and then shooting back into the lounge and looking longingly at the 3 soft toys on the mantlepiece awaiting repair. She's also stirred the other two up so I've now got all four of them expecting me to play. I keep telling them I'm old...
> 
> *Right I'm off to get a needle and thread* as Leafy intends to keep this up all evening and I haven't the heart to tell her to go and lie down.


I have an "animal hospital" on top of the fridge . It's a shame that the dogs don't appreciate your age Grannie but when they want to play......well.....you're fighting a losing battle .


----------



## bella2013

only had tess three weeks so working of everything, she knows her name , sit and down and what 'come here' means whenever she choses to listen . and the house training, just need to find willing volunteers to help with the socialisation. we walked home this morning with a very nice, but elderly, westie called McCloud


----------



## Nicki85

I don't know what I do to mine  Two walks about an hour each and they sleep the rest of the day/night away!! I wanted to do training tonight but they are too busy snoozing.... but then they have had a busy weekend. Enjoy Twiggy!! 

I like walking in the dark- you can see anyone coming and Rust stays closer so Miss Shae is happy! 

DL- awww at your animal hospital! Mine go in the bin :/ but they aren't doing much toy play at the moment... if they weren't still energetic on walks/ agility i'd be worried!


----------



## Twiggy

*


Nicki85 said:



I don't know what I do to mine  Two walks about an hour each and they sleep the rest of the day/night away!! I wanted to do training tonight but they are too busy snoozing.... but then they have had a busy weekend. Enjoy Twiggy!!

Click to expand...

*


Nicki85 said:


> I like walking in the dark- you can see anyone coming and Rust stays closer so Miss Shae is happy!
> 
> DL- awww at your animal hospital! Mine go in the bin :/ but they aren't doing much toy play at the moment... if they weren't still energetic on walks/ agility i'd be worried!


I wish mine would have a sleep...!! I've just sewn the toys up and now all 4 are throwing them at me.

I might have to resurrect 'ballie up the hallie' which I've done in the past with bored collies in the winter. We've got a really long wide hallway that pretty much runs the length of the bungalow and I used to sit against the front door and lob balls down the hall for them. Hubby doesn't appreciate it though, as they get madly excited plus it doesn't do the hall carpet much good...


----------



## Twiggy

It's like a mad house here and it's only 9.30am...!!

Leafy is swearing her head off because somebody has taken her toy. and there is white stuffing all over the place because Barley and Holly are playing a very rough game of tug.
So much for sewing several soft toys up last night.

I think it's safe to say Barley has settled in but it might be nice when the novelty of her being here has worn off a bit...!!

They really are being loony collies at the moment and Leafy at 12 yrs old, with a gammy shoulder and iffy liver/kidneys, is the worse offender.

I meant to say a couple of handlers at agility yesterday commented that I was running faster. Must be all the kicking and throw of toys and space lobbers....


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## GingerRogers

Really really glad to see she is settling  even if its given you a few more grey hairs


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - I'm pleased Barley's settled in.......and your oldie is being bonkers .

Out into the rain / sleet / snow for a run with Rudi who behaved impeccably for me  and then coat on for me, fleece for Sir K and we went to the top fields for some play and training. Nothing too exciting as I want to keep his stress levels in a manageable place following his fabulous non - reaction to dogs last night . 

I could see snow on the high ground all around us - very pretty - but we were just slushy .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - I'm pleased Barley's settled in.......and your oldie is being bonkers .
> 
> Out into the rain / sleet / snow for a run with Rudi who behaved impeccably for me  and then coat on for me, fleece for Sir K and we went to the top fields for some play and training. Nothing too exciting as I want to keep his stress levels in a manageable place following his fabulous non - reaction to dogs last night .
> 
> I could see snow on the high ground all around us - very pretty - but we were just slushy .


Sounds hideous and far too cold for me.

I'm not sure I'm pleased because they are all bonkers. The trouble is Barley has started to shed her surplus fat and is getting much fitter as indeed is Tremor, as her exercise is not as restricted as it has been for the past 9 months.

I honestly need to lie down in a darkened room after I've walked them for about 50 minutes. In fact I'm shattered after the first 20 minutes or so.

I'm going to take them out training over to the barn in a minute. Holly and Barley first and then Tremor and Leafy. Hopefully they might be a bit better tonight.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Sounds hideous and far too cold for me.
> 
> I'm not sure I'm pleased because they are all bonkers. The trouble is Barley has started to shed her surplus fat and is getting much fitter as indeed is Tremor, as her exercise is not as restricted as it has been for the past 9 months.
> 
> I honestly need to lie down in a darkened room after I've walked them for about 50 minutes. In fact I'm shattered after the first 20 minutes or so.
> 
> I'm going to take them out training over to the barn in a minute. Holly and Barley first and then Tremor and Leafy. Hopefully they might be a bit better tonight.


Oh dear Grannie...watch out.....those new trainers will be worn out in no time at all .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh dear Grannie...watch out.....those new trainers will be worn out in no time at all .


Never mind the trainers, it's the poor old feet in them...!!

Well they've just had an hour and 20 minutes between them and you'll be pleased to know Holly Bolly has taken several chunks out of me and ripped a few more holes in my coat....

She's much more animated doing agility here than she is in class, in fact she's pretty lethal.

I was pleased with Barley today. She's beginning to understand what I'm asking regarding her head position on heelwork.


----------



## Dogless

The weather's brutal tonight so not many folk out!

Walked Kilo with Diz and human and it was a lovely walk. Saw a car pull up on the one field we were on but we recognised it as someone's with an old dog who just drives them for a sniff and potter and they bother no one. We could see the outline of the dog and flashing collar and Kilo was air scenting. They were about 40m away and Kilo alerted and stiffened but I "caught" him early and he came easily with me on a loose lead, doing some hand touches and walking in the odd circle etc so I am as proud as punch of him again.

Nice walk with Rudi, then near the end the same woman that I had a bit of a set - to with the other night's dogs ran across a main road to us, bringing a car and the one behind it to a screeching halt. It really shook me up as I was sure that the one would be hit. She walked on calling their name and did yell sorry to me as she headed off to give her her due.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The weather's brutal tonight so not many folk out!
> 
> Walked Kilo with Diz and human and it was a lovely walk. Saw a car pull up on the one field we were on but we recognised it as someone's with an old dog who just drives them for a sniff and potter and they bother no one. We could see the outline of the dog and flashing collar and Kilo was air scenting. They were about 40m away and Kilo alerted and stiffened but I "caught" him early and he came easily with me on a loose lead, doing some hand touches and walking in the odd circle etc so I am as proud as punch of him again.
> 
> Nice walk with Rudi, then near the end the same woman that I had a bit of a set - to with the other night's dogs ran across a main road to us, bringing a car and the one behind it to a screeching halt. It really shook me up as I was sure that the one would be hit. She walked on calling their name and did yell sorry to me as she headed off to give her her due.


They really are bonkers over there....!!

I think I told you that when I was judging near Dublin, we were collected from the airport by our host and had only travelled about 3 minutes when she said "where do we go now?"..... I think I replied "Well if you don't know and your a resident, I most certainly don't, never having been to Dublin before".

It was pretty much the same when I was judging and instructing near Belfast. The arrangement was that my host would meet me at a given point just outside the airport. Twenty minutes later I rang her mobile phone to be told she was sitting in her car in the car-park....:huh:


----------



## Nicki85

All good here  Am walk in the dark again round the forest, they were both good pups 
Rust had another half an hour when I got home again in the dark... we (well, I) came across one person with dog on lead but as Rust was running in the undergrowth through a small valley/stream I didn't bother calling him just told the chap that my dog was running around and wouldn't come near- I think he thought me a bit strange walking around without a dog in sight. Rust met up with me after the man had gone. I usually know where he is even if I can't see him!

Shae had agility she was fab, she's watching the toy to much now so i've had to pass it onto the instructor to throw for us lol. Her send on's and waits are great- she's getting proper collie stare at it and does the whole leaning forward, head down as I start her count down... 

Twiggy- hope your lot are out for the count now 
DL- glad you had a good day  Can't believe the lady letting her dog across the road... unbelievable...


----------



## donna160

Poppy's lead pulling wasnt too bad today although i'm still having to keep her walks short as she soon gets giddy and goes like a steam train  stop and start well that's kind of hit and miss,she spots somebody or something and that's it she literally kangaroo jumps to get to them..it would be funny if it wasn't such hard work! it's certainly amusing the neighbours 

she hasn't been quite so calm today i had a support worker come see me and in the end we had to go sit in her car because poppy was going crazy, she has no inhibitions and gets excited (now that's an understatement!) frantically jumping up,mouthing and barking when people visit,how i even start with that one i dont know.

she's settled down now but it took some time to get there, she's chewed up and destroyed her lovely new bed and toy that i bought her today.

seems like we've all had a pretty hectic day


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> All good here  Am walk in the dark again round the forest, they were both good pups
> Rust had another half an hour when I got home again in the dark... we (well, I) came across one person with dog on lead but as Rust was running in the undergrowth through a small valley/stream I didn't bother calling him just told the chap that my dog was running around and wouldn't come near- I think he thought me a bit strange walking around without a dog in sight. Rust met up with me after the man had gone. I usually know where he is even if I can't see him!
> 
> Shae had agility she was fab, she's watching the toy to much now so i've had to pass it onto the instructor to throw for us lol. Her send on's and waits are great- she's getting proper collie stare at it and does the whole leaning forward, head down as I start her count down...
> 
> Twiggy- hope your lot are out for the count now
> DL- glad you had a good day  Can't believe the lady letting her dog across the road... unbelievable...


She didn't plan to let them both cross the road; she was shouting their names a lot but they decided to ignore her and cross regardless .

Sounds like you have had a great day too; Shae sounds deadly!!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> All good here  Am walk in the dark again round the forest, they were both good pups
> Rust had another half an hour when I got home again in the dark... we (well, I) came across one person with dog on lead but as Rust was running in the undergrowth through a small valley/stream I didn't bother calling him just told the chap that my dog was running around and wouldn't come near- I think he thought me a bit strange walking around without a dog in sight. Rust met up with me after the man had gone. I usually know where he is even if I can't see him!
> 
> *Shae had agility she was fab, she's watching the toy to much now so i've had to pass it onto the instructor to throw for us lol. Her send on's and waits are great- she's getting proper collie stare at it and does the whole leaning forward, head down as I start her count down... *
> 
> *Twiggy- hope your lot are out for the count now *
> DL- glad you had a good day  Can't believe the lady letting her dog across the road... unbelievable...


That's great. Good girl Shae.

I wasn't very pleased with Holly yesterday at agility class. I know she's a very nervous little girl that can quickly take offence but she lacked 'spark' and wouldn't even pick up her favourite ball. She ran OK but not how I want. She was however much better here at home this afternoon.

Yes my lot are all asleep tonight thank goodness. It just shows how a training session tires them out so much more than walks.


----------



## Twiggy

donna160 said:


> Poppy's lead pulling wasnt too bad today although i'm still having to keep her walks short as she soon gets giddy and goes like a steam train  stop and start well that's kind of hit and miss,she spots somebody or something and that's it she literally kangaroo jumps to get to them..it would be funny if it wasn't such hard work! it's certainly amusing the neighbours
> 
> she hasn't been quite so calm today i had a support worker come see me and in the end we had to go sit in her car because poppy was going crazy, she has no inhibitions and gets excited (now that's an understatement!) frantically jumping up,mouthing and barking when people visit,how i even start with that one i dont know.
> 
> she's settled down now but it took some time to get there, she's chewed up and destroyed her lovely new bed and toy that i bought her today.
> 
> seems like we've all had a pretty hectic day


How old is Poppy and what breed?


----------



## donna160

she's a rescue dog shar pei x staff about 10/11 months old but has had no training other than toileting which is why she's so difficult but she is trying bless her  it's pretty hard going tbh having a 13+ kilo dog with the mind and behaviours of a 3mth old pup.I'm hoping to find out about a training class in the morning, we'll get there eventually


----------



## Nicki85

She is getting that way... toy has to come out the minute we get to agility otherwise life is too exciting... Strange to think only 6 months ago she didn't like playing with her toy!!!

Twiggy- I get that with Rust, does the exercises but i'd love him to have a bit more drive about it. he is very sweet though and gives the best cuddles in between runs lol and he is very reliable. He much prefers to be outside training. 

Good luck with the training class Donna- a good one can be a lifesaver!


----------



## Twiggy

donna160 said:


> she's a rescue dog shar pei x staff about 10/11 months old but has had no training other than toileting which is why she's so difficult but she is trying bless her  it's pretty hard going tbh having a 13+ kilo dog with the mind and behaviours of a 3mth old pup.I'm hoping to find out about a training class in the morning, we'll get there eventually


Well a decent training class will help hugely. Teaching basic exercises makes a massive difference to their manners...

I hope you hear tomorrow.


----------



## Twiggy

*Twiggy- I get that with Rust, does the exercises but i'd love him to have a bit more drive about it. he is very sweet though and gives the best cuddles in between runs lol and he is very reliable. He much prefers to be outside training. 
*

Our class is outside....!!

I rather feel I'm at odds with our instructor to be honest. Like so many teachers in agility and obedience the emphasis is all wrong IMO. Too much focus on accuracy and technique and nothing like enough on motivation and the dog actually enjoying itself. I very much work on attitude here and if you've got that the accuracy will come.


----------



## Twiggy

I found this rather nice photo of Barley and Tremor taken abut 3 years ago when they were best friends. Sadly Barley has now swapped allegience to Holly and poor Tremor's nose is out of joint:


----------



## Dogless

Lovely photo Twiggy . Poor Tremor - I'm sure she'll get over it though .

Brutal weather here again so no forest but good walks nevertheless. Just did some impulse control and recall games with Rudi - nothing and no one seen.

The gales here seem to be unsettling Kilo, they usually make him more vigilant but more playful but today he was frightened by lots of leaves blowing towards him which was strange. We played some impulse control games, he saw a dog on the other side of the road and separated from us by a fence and hedge (so just glimpses) and tensed but I threw treats in the air for him to catch and on the ground and he was easily distracted which was great. Then we also saw a dog coming towards us at the far end of the road; I carried on walking towards it until Kilo had clocked it, then turned and went the other way with him nice and relaxed. He is slowly doing well I think (touch wood!!).


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Lovely photo Twiggy . Poor Tremor - I'm sure she'll get over it though .
> 
> Brutal weather here again so no forest but good walks nevertheless. Just did some impulse control and recall games with Rudi - nothing and no one seen.
> 
> The gales here seem to be unsettling Kilo, they usually make him more vigilant but more playful but today he was frightened by lots of leaves blowing towards him which was strange. We played some impulse control games, he saw a dog on the other side of the road and separated from us by a fence and hedge (so just glimpses) and tensed but I threw treats in the air for him to catch and on the ground and he was easily distracted which was great. Then we also saw a dog coming towards us at the far end of the road; I carried on walking towards it until Kilo had clocked it, then turned and went the other way with him nice and relaxed. He is slowly doing well I think (touch wood!!).


Even the weather is vile over there isn't it?

Off to take my Wednesday class now.


----------



## Nicki85

Am walk down the canal, only an hour as it was freezing and raining  Rust did some swimming, Shae did some zooming and we saw no one. I'd love to be brave enough to let Rust off here, maybe in the summer when the pheasants have dispersed as we found a couple in hedges today.... I need to trust him more but it's so tricky!! I let him off for a short time to play fetch and he was of course fine lol. But then I know he's going to have an offlead run this evening so it's not a real issue...

Meeting up with Shae's half brother and his collie friend for a walk this eve then Rust has agility- hopefully he'll save enough energy for agility as well!

Twiggy- lovely pic, hope your class goes well.
DL- Kilo sounds like he is improving, baby steps....


----------



## Dogless

Went out into the brutal weather to walk Kilo with Diz and human. He was hypervigilant with all the stuff flying through the air but OK. No one out at all. Had to fish yoghurt pots, garlic mayo pots, butter wrappers etc out of chops as all the bins were getting blown over and it was bin day tomorrow. Think he thought his name was "leave" down the one road .

I was in the porch and opened the door to walk Roo when a very plump, bonkers yellow lab flew in. Roo gave a startled bark and got shoved back into the hall by me as the confines of a tiny porch really isn't the greatest setting for intros. The dog had a collar and tag on, but the tag only had the dog's name on. I door knocked and searched for 40 minutes until I found her home. The lady just said they had a hole in her fence and her hubby was out driving around looking for her.

After that I walked Roo. We were good samaritans and moved a few branches out of the road to stop the cars swerving to avoid them at the last minute. No one out again. He got spooked by a bin barrelling past but recovered well.

I am finally home and having a late dinner!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Went out into the brutal weather to walk Kilo with Diz and human. He was hypervigilant with all the stuff flying through the air but OK. No one out at all. Had to fish yoghurt pots, garlic mayo pots, butter wrappers etc out of chops as all the bins were getting blown over and it was bin day tomorrow. Think he thought his name was "leave" down the one road .
> 
> I was in the porch and opened the door to walk Roo when a very plump, bonkers yellow lab flew in. Roo gave a startled bark and got shoved back into the hall by me as the confines of a tiny porch really isn't the greatest setting for intros. The dog had a collar and tag on, but the tag only had the dog's name on. I door knocked and searched for 40 minutes until I found her home. The lady just said they had a hole in her fence and her hubby was out driving around looking for her.
> 
> After that I walked Roo. We were good samaritans and moved a few branches out of the road to stop the cars swerving to avoid them at the last minute. No one out again. He got spooked by a bin barrelling past but recovered well.
> 
> I am finally home and having a late dinner!


Ye Gods the weather sounds awful.

Well the Lab knew exactly where to come to be rescued didn't he....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Ye Gods the weather sounds awful.
> 
> Well the Lab knew exactly where to come to be rescued didn't he....


She was crackers when I put a lead on, not sure she walks on one usually but every single time you said her name you had her total attention; she'd even walk backwards bless her to hold some eye contact. I reckon you could get her beautifully trained in no time. She was really lovely and practically begged to please me.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> She was crackers when I put a lead on, not sure she walks on one usually but every single time you said her name you had her total attention; she'd even walk backwards bless her to hold some eye contact. I reckon you could get her beautifully trained in no time. She was really lovely and practically begged to please me.


Awww....she sounds lovely.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> She was crackers when I put a lead on, not sure she walks on one usually but every single time you said her name you had her total attention; she'd even walk backwards bless her to hold some eye contact. I reckon you could get her beautifully trained in no time. She was really lovely and practically begged to please me.


Always seems to be people who do sod all with them that get dogs like this. I get one who'd f*ck me off to sniff at any opportunity lol, I swear he's a Beagle in a Lab suit sometimes.

Twiggy, lovely pic. Poor Tremor being pushed out in favour of Holly though lol.

I have given up on loose leash walking on the harness. It was making both me and Spencer utterly miserable on walks and it's just not worth that. I'm completely stumped on how to teach him not to pull like a bloody steam train on a long line but I'm not prepared to make our walks completely miserable to do it. I'd rather put up with the pulling. We're still working on it on the collar and he did really well today, most of the way through town with no pulling at all, not even when being barked at by a little dog on the other side of the road.

Lovely walk today. Sat at the bottom of a hill while a large dog stood at the top of it. I'm not sure what breed or what its intentions were due to the sun in my eyes but Spen sat watching it for a few moments then turned to me and wagged his tail. Might not seem a big deal to some but for Spen to turn away from a dog like that of his own accord is unusual. A little later in the walk we rounded a corner and found ourselves literally inches away from a Teckel. Poor little thing froze in terror, Spen sat down and wagged his tail. Spencer was most disgruntled at not being allowed to swim in the river (around 5 degrees here, he's stuck on leash and it's a good 40 minute walk home) but other than that seemed to really enjoy the walk. Must have been a lot of lovely smells coz half the time he sniffed along at a snails pace lol. Not in an unhappy sort of snails pace way, just stopping to sniff, moving a step forward, sniffing some more, darting to the side slightly to sniff etc.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> *Always seems to be people who do sod all with them that get dogs like this. * I get one who'd f*ck me off to sniff at any opportunity lol, I swear he's a Beagle in a Lab suit sometimes.
> 
> Twiggy, lovely pic. Poor Tremor being pushed out in favour of Holly though lol.
> 
> I have given up on loose leash walking on the harness. It was making both me and Spencer utterly miserable on walks and it's just not worth that. I'm completely stumped on how to teach him not to pull like a bloody steam train on a long line but I'm not prepared to make our walks completely miserable to do it. I'd rather put up with the pulling. We're still working on it on the collar and he did really well today, most of the way through town with no pulling at all, not even when being barked at by a little dog on the other side of the road.
> 
> Lovely walk today. Sat at the bottom of a hill while a large dog stood at the top of it. I'm not sure what breed or what its intentions were due to the sun in my eyes but Spen sat watching it for a few moments then turned to me and wagged his tail. Might not seem a big deal to some but for Spen to turn away from a dog like that of his own accord is unusual. A little later in the walk we rounded a corner and found ourselves literally inches away from a Teckel. Poor little thing froze in terror, Spen sat down and wagged his tail. Spencer was most disgruntled at not being allowed to swim in the river (around 5 degrees here, he's stuck on leash and it's a good 40 minute walk home) but other than that seemed to really enjoy the walk. Must have been a lot of lovely smells coz half the time he sniffed along at a snails pace lol. Not in an unhappy sort of snails pace way, just stopping to sniff, moving a step forward, sniffing some more, darting to the side slightly to sniff etc.


The bolded part - totally!! :cursing:.

The sidelining of the harness LLW does sound like a good plan Sarah - no point making walks miserable . Pleased you had a great walk today too - Spendog did well .


----------



## cheesecake

Not posted on here for ages =/ 

Jessie has definatly gone back to square 1 with me , on walks.

I keep trying to take her out but she will only go as far as few hundred yards down our road. 

If my brother comes with me she is fine and will go anywhere.

I admit I have given up a bit. Treats don't work anymore ,ive tried everything.

I would get the dog trainer back but theres no point when other people in my family ignore her advise *shrugs

Well done to everyone else who's making progress though


----------



## Nicki85

Am walk round fields full of pheseants for a couple of hours. Rusty bounced around on the end of his lead and Shae as usual stayed nice and close recalling when ever asked. I have noticed though if I say something (good girl, come, that's it, leave... anything really) she'll turn towards me and lick her lips expectedly as she knows a treat is likely to follow lol. I guess the "learn to earn" principle worked well when she was younger on our walks!! I'm still very liberal with treats when out (although it's kibble in the main... don't tell her that).

We met one dog that came up to us to stay hi, I left Shae off and monitored her approach and she was really good. Didn't go in to fast, greeted correctly and dropped to a play bow. The older collie bitch she was greeting wasn't all that amused and gave her a bit of a snarly face which sent Shae into zoomies but recalled immediately when asked. Rusty was on lead so she was calm.

Rust lacked some energy at agility last night but I thought I may be pushing my luck taking him on a second walk that late in the day! Not to worry, he did everything as asked so I can't complain... 

Shae has general obedience at the local hall later- she gets very wound up with the recalls down the hall and last time I took her out as it was clear that she couldn't cope if the dogs were coming towards her. She can cope if they are going away but not when they come towards. Is that the best thing to do? Just remove her so she doesn't get in the practice of barking and lunging at dogs running?

DL- I always thought NI was a lovely place full of mountains and lovely scenery... but I am starting to get a different picture! The weather sounds especially delightful  Can't believe the lab... 
Sarah- it's a constant battle with Rusty as well on walking on a loose lead. Have to admit as we don't do much of it I have been very bad with it... It's frustrating for both of us and I can't find anything that will reward LLW thats better than pulling and sniffing... so, I either stick his headcollar on or his canny-x harness so at least he is allowed to pull!


----------



## GingerRogers

cheesecake said:


> Not posted on here for ages =/
> 
> Jessie has definatly gone back to square 1 with me , on walks.
> 
> I keep trying to take her out but she will only go as far as few hundred yards down our road.
> 
> If my brother comes with me she is fine and will go anywhere.
> 
> I admit I have given up a bit. Treats don't work anymore ,ive tried everything.
> 
> I would get the dog trainer back but theres no point when other people in my family ignore her advise *shrugs
> 
> Well done to everyone else who's making progress though


Hello again, have you done any of the things that were suggested previously?

We can only help Jessie if you give us more information and are willing to change things yourself


----------



## GingerRogers

I have been rubbish at keeping up here well done and commiserations and all that , I do read and like.

Kilo sounds like he is doing enormously well  so pleased for you both.

Nikki your routine tires me, how do you find time

Twiggy lovely picture of the girls poor Tremor :sad: its always the naughty girls that get all the friends 

Sorry for being lazy but I do just have to share this mornings little bit of entertainment with you.

You know how lots of dogs dont do hi viz 

You know how they also find groups of people quite intimidating 

You know how ninja doesnt do bicycles :angry:

However she does find children hugely exciting to the point of brain explosions :yikes:

We get past the workmen and are about to head up round the corner when I spot something, the junior school was only doing some kind of cycling proficiency thing in the estate :eek6:

*15 kids on bikes wearing hi viz* :eek6:

I decided to use it as an opportunity, they were training  so was I  and it would do them good to have an extra obstacle to overcome so to speak :laugh:

We watched from a distance and slowly approached and she was awesome, kept looking to me, to them then turning back to me, she was hesitating but moving forward herself nicely (almost) relaxed. At one point the community bus was also involved coming to pick someone up.

Once we left them we went round the corner to the poo bin and the bus was there as well, using the wheelchair ramp this time, clunkity clunk, she just looked and we clicked and treated some more .

The whole walk there was lots of people about, walking and getting in and out of cars and houses which normally spooks her.

We had another session with the little cyclists and she was again awesome , I was carefully watching for any signs she was getting overwhelmed and left it before we got there.

The only 'fails'  (she is a superstar she cant fail) she had was at the beginning of the walk with a bit of barking at a workman in a hole, wearing hi vis of course  but she could only see his head , I understand that one, but we overcame that hurdle too, dont what he made of it , and after the second encounter with the bus, she did lunge and bark as it drove past us, but we were at a tricky point right opposite and next door to two houses that have dogs so stress was up anyway :thumbsup:.

I let her chase two pigeons on the triangle of interesting smells as a big reward. :laugh:

ETA she had turkey for breakfast again, I cant just feed her turkey can I, I wonder if there are any decent turkey kibbles hmmmmm


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Am walk round fields full of pheseants for a couple of hours. Rusty bounced around on the end of his lead and Shae as usual stayed nice and close recalling when ever asked. I have noticed though if I say something (good girl, come, that's it, leave... anything really) she'll turn towards me and lick her lips expectedly as she knows a treat is likely to follow lol. I guess the "learn to earn" principle worked well when she was younger on our walks!! I'm still very liberal with treats when out (although it's kibble in the main... don't tell her that).
> 
> We met one dog that came up to us to stay hi, I left Shae off and monitored her approach and she was really good. Didn't go in to fast, greeted correctly and dropped to a play bow. The older collie bitch she was greeting wasn't all that amused and gave her a bit of a snarly face which sent Shae into zoomies but recalled immediately when asked. Rusty was on lead so she was calm.
> 
> *Rust lacked some energy at agility last night but I thought I may be pushing my luck taking him on a second walk that late in the day! Not to worry, he did everything as asked so I can't complain... *
> 
> Shae has general obedience at the local hall later- she gets very wound up with the recalls down the hall and last time I took her out as it was clear that she couldn't cope if the dogs were coming towards her. She can cope if they are going away but not when they come towards. Is that the best thing to do? Just remove her so she doesn't get in the practice of barking and lunging at dogs running?
> 
> Yes I know the feeling as that is exactly what Holly was like on Monday - did everything but with no sparkle.
> 
> I would take Shae out. I've got one or two here that we have to remove when retrieve is going on because it just winds them up into a frenzy.


----------



## Twiggy

I've just got in after 6 hours of instructing without a break. I'm shattered now and getting much too old. Still at least all the dogs went well...LOL


----------



## Dogless

GR - the Ninja did amazingly with hi viz, cycling, wheelchair ramp, noisy distractions .

cheesecake - don't give up, a defeatist attitude will just not get you anywhere, no matter how fed up you feel.



Nicki85 said:


> DL- I always thought NI was a lovely place full of mountains and lovely scenery... but I am starting to get a different picture! The weather sounds especially delightful  Can't believe the lab...


NI does have beautiful scenery and mountains; it's just where I live that's the drama :yikes: :laugh:. I can believe it....unfortunately. Never a dull day here .



Twiggy said:


> I've just got in after 6 hours of instructing without a break. I'm shattered now and getting much too old. Still at least all the dogs went well...LOL


6 hours Grannie? That's impressive stamina....hope you can put your feet up now.

We had a wonderful morning - went to the forest trail running (Kilo in his running harness attached to me!) for a few hours. It was clear, cold and crisp - about -2c - and there was snow left in the forest so it was perfect, a Winter Wonderland all of our own. Kilo really made sure that I had a good run :yikes: and both boys were as good as gold .

I got back to the car and realised that hubby had helpfully "tidied" the car meaning taking my fleece out which was a shame as I needed to get warm :incazzato: but at least I had put the boys' in this morning so they were OK :laugh:.


----------



## Canine K9

GR- Well done Ninja!

Dogless- Sounds a great walk, well done boys

-----------------------------------------
Pretty good day here- he has still toileted in the house. I don`t think he`s associating the garden with toileting since its no longer grass. But I can`t take him for walks yet so am a bit buggered really. 

But hes been well overall


----------



## GingerRogers

Your days all sound tiring. Dogless twiggy and nikki combined.

Hope Bailey is coping and feeling good.

Ninja is on fire today. Beach in the dark. She kept running back to me and sitting for treats. She never ever does that. Needless to say she got them.on the way back we drove past 3 dogs with not a whimper or a grr then she managed to shut a door.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Your days all sound tiring. Dogless twiggy and nikki combined.
> 
> Hope Bailey is coping and feeling good.
> 
> Ninja is on fire today. Beach in the dark. She kept running back to me and sitting for treats. She never ever does that. Needless to say she got them.on the way back we drove past 3 dogs with not a whimper or a grr then she managed to shut a door.


Well done the Ninja.... She is definitely improving GR - many more positives than negatives these days..!!


----------



## Dogless

Well done again Ninja .


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## Dogless

Well it was perfect this morning; bright and sunny and -5c so beautiful. Went to the forest....all was good for most of the walk then we came across 3 wild goats stood in the middle of the track (Roo came back easily, Kilo reluctantly, but still back ) for starters. As we were nearly back to the car crossing a patch of bogland we have crossed for two years Rudi started screaming his head off. He had managed to impale one leg on a single spike of barbed wire and was stuck. I pulled it out and luckily it had just slid under the skin - went home via the vet's for a check and for some antibiotics. So...not the most relaxing walk in the world in parts...but not the worst by any stretch either .


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## Twiggy

Oh no - poor Rudi. Pleased to hear he's OK.


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## GingerRogers

Goodness Rudi Roo please can you and your 'brother' for the love of dog give your human a bluddy break.

We had a noisy start and end to the walk today, I was nervous about taking her out as we had such a good one yesterday and she seemed to have a monkey brain head on this morning just in the house but apart from barking at a person straight out and a couple when nearly home she was ok 








Alright so we didn't actually see anything else  but she was good focused and walking nicely. I found a tree on the estate that would be a good sausage tree but its right at the furthest point for loading up before I go out  some other doggy might get there first :hand:


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## diefenbaker

Flying visit. Working too hard. 3:30 AM last night. Glad everyone seems to be going ok. Dief is on reduced exercise and Metacam. He developed a limp in his front left leg. Vet thinks it is tendon or similar. We've been working on the "forum challenge". I've spent 3 years trying to get him to come to me.. and now I'm sending him away. WTF. Actually I've tailored the forum challenge for my own needs. To be honest I couldn't give a stuff whether or not he can shut a door. But running off to touch something and then come back. Now that's a game we can take on the road. So far I've got him wandering around the kitchen touching a square of tissue paper which I keep moving around. He obviously thinks I'm an idiot but Flame Grilled Steak Ridged McCoys sure taste nice.


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## Dogless

Don't "like" limpy Dief  but do like the send away stuff. Hope that work lets up on you a little soon, just look at what happened to Jack.


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## tiatortilla

Dief - Good to see you posting again, sorry to hear about Dief's limp 

GR - Sounds like you and the Ninja are doing fantastically  Extra special well done for kids on bikes in high vis! Tia isn't keen on those jackets either, I wondered if the colour looks odd to them because they see colours differently to us but idk really!

Dogless - Oh poor Rudi, glad he's as okay as can be and that the rest of your walk went okay 

Sorry to people I've missed, I have done reading and liking 

---

We had a bit of an odd moment on our walk last night, we saw the man with the Bassett hound who I had to ask to call him back the other day. I think maybe he hates us now or something, we were walking down a path and we saw him at a sort of cross section bit, we waited so we could follow at a "safe" distance but the man decided to just stand and stare at us until we had to go the other way  then let his dog follow us because it was off lead (in a really bloody stupid place for any dog, especially one that doesn't come when called!). So yeah, that was a bit horrible and creepy, luckily I had OH with me but I'm not looking forward to bumping into him on my own... 

Everything's been okay apart from that though, she's had a few growls at other dogs but nothing major  Nice, uneventful walk today! Just went to the fields and played with her new ball, saw a couple of other dogs which she ignored so all good


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## GingerRogers

that is a bit odd isn't it T, dont blame you for feeling a bit uncomfortable, hopefully there was nothing in it  if he does approach you will have to let Tia do her stuff


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Flying visit. Working too hard. 3:30 AM last night. Glad everyone seems to be going ok. Dief is on reduced exercise and Metacam. He developed a limp in his front left leg. Vet thinks it is tendon or similar. We've been working on the "forum challenge". I've spent 3 years trying to get him to come to me.. and now I'm sending him away. WTF. Actually I've tailored the forum challenge for my own needs. To be honest I couldn't give a stuff whether or not he can shut a door. But running off to touch something and then come back. Now that's a game we can take on the road. So far I've got him wandering around the kitchen touching a square of tissue paper which I keep moving around. He obviously thinks I'm an idiot but Flame Grilled Steak Ridged McCoys sure taste nice.


Why is it always the flipping left shoulder...!! I've got Barley lame as well.

I knew her shoulder was iffy and I was pushing my luck in some respects throwing balls and the Lob It for her, but I had to overcome her fear of the wretched gas guns.

If Dief doesn't come sound in two or three days I'd go and see this lady (she's brilliant). She has treated several of my late sister's dogs and she's in your area:

Julia Robertson - Galen Therapy Centre Canine Myotherapy - Galen Therapy and Galen Training Academy - Dog Massage Therapy


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Why is it always the flipping left shoulder...!! I've got Barley lame as well.
> 
> I knew her shoulder was iffy and I was pushing my luck in some respects throwing balls and the Lob It for her, but I had to overcome her fear of the wretched gas guns.
> 
> If Dief doesn't come sound in two or three days I'd go and see this lady (she's brilliant). She has treated several of my late sister's dogs and she's in your area:
> 
> Julia Robertson - Galen Therapy Centre Canine Myotherapy - Galen Therapy and Galen Training Academy - Dog Massage Therapy


Thankyou. Do you think she'd do my back and shoulders at the same time ? I could wear a muzzle if it helps.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Thankyou. Do you think she'd do my back and shoulders at the same time ? I could wear a muzzle if it helps.


Very possibly and yes it would probably be advisable to wear a muzzle, judging by my hubby's reaction when he was treated for his bad back...!!

He likened the therapist to Hitler and took huge offence when I happened to say that the dogs never complained....


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## Sarah1983

Glad Rudi is okay Dogless. And well done on the recall :thumbup1:

Dief, hope he's sound again soon.

Tia, some people get really offended over being asked to get their dog and I have no idea why  Hope you don't run into him again.

Major brag for us this morning. Had him out front and he's pottering around at the end of a 10m line when who should appear a few metres from him but his arch enemy? What did Spen do? Well he looked at him for a moment then turned and, with every hair on his back standing on end and a bit of huffing, he came to me and demanded I give him his treats. He got them of course! I had actually expected a reaction given how close the dog was and how far away I was but my Silly Spendog became Sensible Spencer for a moment and made the right choice :thumbup1: Then he had zoomies (I assume as stress relief) realised he could still see his nemesis and came back demanding more treats. 

I'm now thinking I should perhaps put the same methods into practise around strange dogs. I think perhaps I've also made a bigger effort with this particular dog knowing what will happen if they actually meet. But if I can get an automatic recall from a dog he feels this strongly about surely I should be able to get one from dogs he doesn't even know?


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## Twiggy

Sounds like a good plan to me. 

Well done the Spen dog....!!


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## Dogless

Sarah - sounds like a fab plan and that's a huge thing to have achieved...good boy Spendog.

Good walks here this morning, nothing of note apart from I saw a cat that ran from us with Kilo and he managed to hold it together...just , He was totally hypervigilant and up on his toes all walk so I decided not to walk him tonight as it's foggy again and he must still be a little stressed from yesterday. Don't want to undo the progress we have made - deciding to cancel a walk is still a big deal to me.

Then I went to walk Roo just now and he doesn't want to come . He has big red tired eyes as well as Kilo so I am giving him the night off too .

I suppose they have had a busy week and got about an hour and a half each this morning so have had something today at least. Wish he'd decided before I got my walking stuff on though  .


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## JenKyzer

GR - your beach in the dark walk sounds good  well done ninja! Of course monkey brain was on the cards after such a good walk  still sounds good though 

Dogless - ohnoo, i hope Roo's leg is ok  ? So much drama for you guys!! On the other hand... well done to them for coming away from the goats  enjoy your night of rest! 

Dief - Hope his leg starts to get better soon, poor guy.. as for the crisp! Who wouldnt work for mccoys ?!  Hope you feel better soon too from being mr work alot. 

Tia - Sorry to hear about the creepy guy :huh: Everything else sounds good though 

Sarah - Yay big well done to spendog for being 'sensible'  I'm sure the same training around strange dogs will go down nicely  you should be so proud!

Been trying my best to keep up 

Had a busy few days here with it being my birthday yesterday (Some of you may of seen my other thread with the canvas of Willow i received ) so Willows walks haven't been too exciting but she's had lots of naughty treats  and lots of goofing around the house with some new toys she got too  We also got her an xmas day outfit ... animal cruelty at its best  but the rudolph jumper and jingly elf bells collar was too cute to resist  got her xmas pressie sorted too - first xmas present i've bought so far and its for the blummin dog!  
She's been really well behaved past few days, people coming and going and us visiting.
She met Bruce the shih-tzu yesterday (OH Aunty dog)... she thought he was some kind of fluffy play toy that needed chasing  so we seperated them and she didn't bother aslong as he didn't go near (No growls, barks, lunges.. she actually just wanted to run round and chase him.. her tail was going mad, but bruce was a tad scared of her rough play!).. poor bruce had to watch while she played with his toy basket  and OH uncle had a certain.. errr.. dog whispering... tactic he tried out on willow when she didn't even do anything wrong :huh: he nearly deafened me anyway and if i was willow i'd of took his waggy 'no' finger right off  strange. So needless to say, we didn't stay long  but i now know why Bruce isn't great at doing as he's told.. so of course we showed off how amazing willow is before we went  I wasn't smug at all... nope... :wink:


----------



## Nicki85

Knackered here!!

Well, we tootled off to done the M3 to a quaint little village, both dogs in car ready for some fun(!) on the Rally working trials course. Got there with the intention of working Rusty so not to confuse Shae with working trials and obedience as we are going to have some private sessions in obedience training next year&#8230; Anyhow, got Rust out of the car and it soon became apparent that he was lame. On closer inspection he'd got a thorn caught in his foot that had worked it's way up in between the fleshy parts. I removed it but he still was sore so we went to plan B.

Had a chat to John about Shae and wanting to do obedience but he said it was for fun not proper working trials so we'd be fine. He was right, it was more based on useful exercises than "proper" working trials stuff. So, we have done a load of exercises today, played with lots of dogs (yup, bitey face and zoomies&#8230; at one point she even started throwing her toy at her new best friend) and basically had a good time. Couldn't have asked for anything more from Shae, she tried so hard for the whole day and behaved well. She was off lead for the majority and gave me all her attention. 
We&#8230;
Did send aways to a pole (lots of fun&#8230;.)
Retrieves (of a sort)
Back tracking to retrieve lost articles (managed to retrieve my gloves and targeting keys)
Send over jump, recall over jump, send over human jump&#8230;.
Emergency stops
Bits of heel work with turns and commands

We have a test tomorrow, three levels to work up. I want to pass the bronze level and I will be happy. Sounds like John has some tricks up his sleeve for tomorrow&#8230; talk of walking to close offlead whilst eating cream crackers, siting on the chair and doing the track back&#8230;. retrieving a "lost" £5 note&#8230;. We are allowed to use rewards throughout the test which is nice and it's judged on our handling- so as long as you get to the end result it doesn't matter how you got there. 

Rusty had a wobble around and a little play, I suspect he'll be fine in a couple of days- it was nothing serious but I didn't want to train him on a sore foot. There were a lot of hedges around so may be it wouldn't have been the best place to train him. 

So yes, Monkey Pup did good!! And I was going to leave her with my parents this morning but she gave me puppy dog eyes&#8230;.


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> GR - your beach in the dark walk sounds
> 
> *She met Bruce the shih-tzu yesterday (OH Aunty dog)... she thought he was some kind of fluffy play toy that needed chasing * so we seperated them and she didn't bother aslong as he didn't go near (No growls, barks, lunges.. she actually just wanted to run round and chase him.. her tail was going mad, but bruce was a tad scared of her rough play!).. poor bruce had to watch while she played with his toy basket  and OH uncle had a certain.. errr.. dog whispering... tactic he tried out on willow when she didn't even do anything wrong :huh: he nearly deafened me anyway and if i was willow i'd of took his waggy 'no' finger right off  strange. So needless to say, we didn't stay long  but i now know why Bruce isn't great at doing as he's told.. so of course we showed off how amazing willow is before we went  I wasn't smug at all... nope... :wink:


Willow would make a good pal for Tremor then....

Tremor definitely thought the mini dogs at the agility show were rabbits or some sort of furry creatures and she was doing her level best to 'help' them, including pulling me off my chair.


----------



## egroeg

Nicki85 said:


> Knackered here!!
> 
> Well, we tootled off to done the M3 to a quaint little village, both dogs in car ready for some fun(!) on the Rally working trials course. Got there with the intention of working Rusty so not to confuse Shae with working trials and obedience as we are going to have some private sessions in obedience training next year Anyhow, got Rust out of the car and it soon became apparent that he was lame. On closer inspection he'd got a thorn caught in his foot that had worked it's way up in between the fleshy parts. I removed it but he still was sore so we went to plan B.
> 
> Had a chat to John about Shae and wanting to do obedience but he said it was for fun not proper working trials so we'd be fine. He was right, it was more based on useful exercises than "proper" working trials stuff. So, we have done a load of exercises today, played with lots of dogs (yup, bitey face and zoomies at one point she even started throwing her toy at her new best friend) and basically had a good time. Couldn't have asked for anything more from Shae, she tried so hard for the whole day and behaved well. She was off lead for the majority and gave me all her attention.
> We
> Did send aways to a pole (lots of fun.)
> Retrieves (of a sort)
> Back tracking to retrieve lost articles (managed to retrieve my gloves and targeting keys)
> Send over jump, recall over jump, send over human jump.
> Emergency stops
> Bits of heel work with turns and commands
> 
> We have a test tomorrow, three levels to work up. I want to pass the bronze level and I will be happy. Sounds like John has some tricks up his sleeve for tomorrow talk of walking to close offlead whilst eating cream crackers, siting on the chair and doing the track back. retrieving a "lost" £5 note. We are allowed to use rewards throughout the test which is nice and it's judged on our handling- so as long as you get to the end result it doesn't matter how you got there.
> 
> Rusty had a wobble around and a little play, I suspect he'll be fine in a couple of days- it was nothing serious but I didn't want to train him on a sore foot. There were a lot of hedges around so may be it wouldn't have been the best place to train him.
> 
> So yes, Monkey Pup did good!! And I was going to leave her with my parents this morning but she gave me puppy dog eyes.


That sounds like a super session. Who's doing the training and whereabouts?

Cheers,

Nicky


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - sounds like Shae was a little superstar for you; hope today has gone well too. Is Rusty OK today?

JSW - Sounds like quite the experience with OH's Uncle; pleased you didn't stay long for Willow's sake and it's great to be smug about her behaviour :aureola:.

Good morning here. A sloooww walk with Kilo. He was no longer hypervigilant which was great but he was very cautious today. Lots of standing still for up to 2 - 3 minutes whilst air scenting and then proceeding. Some scents seem to unsettle him and I would rather stand still looking like a melon than make him anxious and march onwards towards something causing him concern. Chilly weather to be doing it in though :scared:. 

Went for a run with Roo, he behaved really well for me, even past a few dogs at various points :aureola:.


----------



## Twiggy

Just got back from a local agility show and guess what Holly was a little star.
She ended up 11th out of around 100 entrants and there were only 15 clear round...:thumbup:

Hope this link will work (you know how I am with computers)..!!

Holly - YouTube

Not bad for a scared little girl who hasn't been doing agility for very long.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Just got back from a local agility show and guess what Holly was a little star.
> She ended up 11th out of around 100 entrants and there were only 15 clear round...:thumbup:
> 
> Hope this link will work (you know how I am with computers)..!!
> 
> Holly - YouTube
> 
> Not bad for a scared little girl who hasn't been doing agility for very long.


Works for me Twiggy :thumbup:. I don't know anything about agility but that looks impressive to me - I see what you mean about being animated too .


----------



## Canine K9

Twiggy- Not bad at all; well done 

Dogless- Glad your morning was good 

------------------------------------------------------------------

Today because Bailey hasn`t been exercised for 2 weeks now I took him to a friend who doesn`t have dogs to have a free run in her garden. As soon as the lead was unhooked he had zoomies for about ten minutes then pottered about very content. He recalled to me perfectly every time too :thumbup:
He has done a lot of relaxing and SLEEPING today! After a play session, scent work or training session I told him to relax and he did just that. Very pleased today. (and no accidents!)
He does still have KC but not as bad. Am hoping it goes very soon!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Works for me Twiggy :thumbup:. I don't know anything about agility but that looks impressive to me - I see what you mean about being animated too .


I know coming back at me and biting costs valuable time but I'm pretty much encouraging it at the moment. It's nothing to do with a clear round, much more that she actually looks as if she's enjoying herself. I couldn't let her go racing across the dogwalk either as she hasn't seen one since the last show and isn't very experienced yet. I was delighted with her attitude, she was almost keen...LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I know coming back at me and biting costs valuable time but I'm pretty much encouraging it at the moment. It's nothing to do with a clear round, much more that she actually looks as if she's enjoying herself. I couldn't let her go racing across the dogwalk either as she hasn't seen one since the last show and isn't very experienced yet. I was delighted with her attitude, she was almost keen...LOL


To me she looked very keen...I'm not used to wired to the moon dogs .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> To me she looked very keen...I'm not used to wired to the moon dogs .


Trust me she isn't. I was looking longingly at some of the really nutty dogs competing today - not that I would live with one side of them these days...

Tremor didn't limit herself to the mini dogs today. She wanted to 'assist' them all regardless of size. When she started frothing at the mouth I took her out..!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Trust me she isn't. I was looking longingly at some of the really nutty dogs competing today - not that I would live with one side of them these days...
> 
> Tremor didn't limit herself to the mini dogs today. She wanted to 'assist' them all regardless of size. When she started frothing at the mouth I took her out..!!


I meant that she is tame compared to the wired to the moon dogs that you are used to.....but not tame to me . Mind you, Sir K has his moments!


----------



## Nicki85

Great video Twiggy- Holly looks like she is having a lot of fun! Great to see you two in action  
K9- hope the KC clears up soon&#8230;

Another good day on our course&#8230; it was test day so set up like Rally O with signs etc. but exercises to do more with working trials. Exercises-
1. Heelwork and right turn (not tight heelwork- just keeping the dog with you&#8230
2. Wait and call dog 
3. drop £5 
4. send dog back to "mark" £5
5. recall over a jump
6. Some weird 270 degree turns&#8230;.
7. send away to marker
8. emergency stop towards handler 

Shae did fab in the bronze and only lost one mark for having to be re-commanded to find the £5 note. We went on to the silver test but it was to much and the scent backs to far, send away to far etc. She tried hard but she wasn't experienced enough and I suspect I didn't help  The gold test eventually ended with directional sendaways, speak, retrieving a bonio and an egg and the owners sock&#8230; Lots of fun and Shae loved it all. 
We did a lot of play work and found some cones to practice agility&#8230; I wanted to see how fired up I could get her- turns out very&#8230;. my gloves now have holes in them(!) She also spent some time rolling around on the floor playing with the toy and made great friends with a staffy x that played in a very similar style to her 

Rust is OK, probably could have worked him today TBH. I left him at home with instructions for lead walks only. It was just one of those things, he'd picked up the thorn out in the morning I suspect and then it had worked it's way in to the webbing between toes.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Great video Twiggy- Holly looks like she is having a lot of fun! Great to see you two in action
> K9- hope the KC clears up soon
> 
> Another good day on our course it was test day so set up like Rally O with signs etc. but exercises to do more with working trials. Exercises-
> 1. Heelwork and right turn (not tight heelwork- just keeping the dog with you)
> 2. Wait and call dog
> 3. drop £5
> 4. send dog back to "mark" £5
> 5. recall over a jump
> 6. Some weird 270 degree turns.
> 7. send away to marker
> 8. emergency stop towards handler
> 
> Shae did fab in the bronze and only lost one mark for having to be re-commanded to find the £5 note. We went on to the silver test but it was to much and the scent backs to far, send away to far etc. She tried hard but she wasn't experienced enough and I suspect I didn't help  The gold test eventually ended with directional sendaways, speak, retrieving a bonio and an egg and the owners sock Lots of fun and Shae loved it all.
> *We did a lot of play work and found some cones to practice agility I wanted to see how fired up I could get her- turns out very. my gloves now have holes in them(!) * She also spent some time rolling around on the floor playing with the toy and made great friends with a staffy x that played in a very similar style to her
> 
> Rust is OK, probably could have worked him today TBH. I left him at home with instructions for lead walks only. It was just one of those things, he'd picked up the thorn out in the morning I suspect and then it had worked it's way in to the webbing between toes.


That's my girls...:thumbup: I love holes in gloves, coats, arms, legs, etc...


----------



## Nicki85

I was sending her round goal posts- she was grrring round the corners and launching herself at me when I gave her "yes" command! need thicker gloves!


----------



## Dogless

Well done Nicki - a very successful day :thumbup:.

Rudi's second walk was fine, he was good for me again, bless him.

Just back from Kilo's evening walk. He did very well but we were walking somewhere very poorly lit when I spotted a bike about to pass us and alongside the bike was a dog....no time to turn Kilo really so I had to tell him firmly "no" each time he went to throw himself into a barking, panicking frenzy and feed treats like mad. He did extremely well and managed just one bark after the bike and dog were well past us. So Kilo did really, really well, I could have handled it way, way better I am sure.
He also kept it together when a cat ran across the road in front of us .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well done Nicki - a very successful day :thumbup:.
> 
> Rudi's second walk was fine, he was good for me again, bless him.
> 
> Just back from Kilo's evening walk. He did very well but we were walking somewhere very poorly lit when I spotted a bike about to pass us and alongside the bike was a dog....no time to turn Kilo really so I had to tell him firmly "no" each time he went to throw himself into a barking, panicking frenzy and feed treats like mad. He did extremely well and managed just one bark after the bike and dog were well past us. *So Kilo did really, really well, I could have handled it way, way better I am sure.*
> He also kept it together when a cat ran across the road in front of us .


I really don't see how you could have handled it any better - there wasn't time...!!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless - Bless kilo on his cautious walk yesterday and good boy Rudi on his run  & well done to both of you on the bike passing, i'm sure you handled it perfectly - don't doubt yourself 

Twiggy - Love the vid!  And your celebratory leaps at the end! I've never realised how long the courses are.. no wonder your so fit nvm the dogs  ! Big well dones to Holly, thats amazing 

Ck9 - Well done to bailey for his recalls and his resting  hope the kc clears up soon 

Nicki - Your day sounds such fun  Glad shae tried hard and had fun too  Glad rust is ok.. hopefully heals up soon 

--

Yesterday we went to a 'christmas fun day' event in a park about 10min drive away, with my friends and their kiddies.. as it was outside we took Willow. She was a tad overwhelmed at first at how busy it was, food on the floor, dogs walking past :w00t: so perfect for training  .. We changed direction from all dogs and 'this way-ed' or 'whats this' to remove her stare, she then got her fishy treats. Food on the floor, 'leave' and got her treats instead.. People coming up to stroke her.. she sat for her treats from me whilst kids/adults fussed her. She was very pully on lead at first.. after 10/15mins she settled very well and loose lead for rest of it.. even when we stopped to let the kids play on something she just sat by mine/OH feet. She had one bark at a doberman that was sat staring at her.. but other than that she was amazing  (no crazy dog ppl that wanted to let their dog meet everybody elses - result!)

We then started decorating our living room when we got home so she slept on the covered up sofa for a good 4/5hrs whilst we got cracking - i thought her being in the same room as us whilst theres stuff everywhere and alot going on would be hardwork, but she tucked herself up and stayed there 

This morning, lots of energy! She didn't just 'cross' the roads, she sprinted over them! We saw the lab.. she was mid sniff on the grassy bank and they were walking towards me so i walked over to her and this-wayed further over the bank.. she came, barked, sniffed her grass, barked, sniffed her grass again.. then came over to me  her bark wasn't the usual growl-y stay away bark.. a more of a frustration of 'i wanna lunge and bark at you but i wanna sniff my grass but the human wants me over there, omg mind boggle!!' no lunging towards them or anything, so better.. but not what i wanted.. we'll get there 
We then saw them again.. and she this-wayed perfectly away from them without a 2nd thought ut:
We also managed to avoid the puggle... but it seems they have a cat that follows them too!! (must be their cat) i thought we'd timed it perfectly and got behind cars whilst they were on the other side.. they passed.. but she saw the blummin cat!! So had a bark.. but then given a swift 'carry on' and she did with a little girly cry.. we were almost home so i just fussed her a little then we had a game of tug inside to vent her stress of not being able to bark more/chase stuff.. shes now curled up fast asleep 
I should be carrying on stripping walls..... :001_rolleyes:


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Dogless - Bless kilo on his cautious walk yesterday and good boy Rudi on his run  & well done to both of you on the bike passing, i'm sure you handled it perfectly - don't doubt yourself
> 
> *Twiggy - Love the vid!  And your celebratory leaps at the end! I've never realised how long the courses are.. no wonder your so fit nvm the dogs  ! Big well dones to Holly, thats amazing *
> 
> Ck9 - Well done to bailey for his recalls and his resting  hope the kc clears up soon
> 
> Nicki - Your day sounds such fun  Glad shae tried hard and had fun too  Glad rust is ok.. hopefully heals up soon
> 
> --
> 
> Yesterday we went to a 'christmas fun day' event in a park about 10min drive away, with my friends and their kiddies.. as it was outside we took Willow. She was a tad overwhelmed at first at how busy it was, food on the floor, dogs walking past :w00t: so perfect for training  .. We changed direction from all dogs and 'this way-ed' or 'whats this' to remove her stare, she then got her fishy treats. Food on the floor, 'leave' and got her treats instead.. People coming up to stroke her.. she sat for her treats from me whilst kids/adults fussed her. She was very pully on lead at first.. after 10/15mins she settled very well and loose lead for rest of it.. even when we stopped to let the kids play on something she just sat by mine/OH feet. She had one bark at a doberman that was sat staring at her.. but other than that she was amazing  (no crazy dog ppl that wanted to let their dog meet everybody elses - result!)
> 
> We then started decorating our living room when we got home so she slept on the covered up sofa for a good 4/5hrs whilst we got cracking - i thought her being in the same room as us whilst theres stuff everywhere and alot going on would be hardwork, but she tucked herself up and stayed there
> 
> This morning, lots of energy! She didn't just 'cross' the roads, she sprinted over them! We saw the lab.. she was mid sniff on the grassy bank and they were walking towards me so i walked over to her and this-wayed further over the bank.. she came, barked, sniffed her grass, barked, sniffed her grass again.. then came over to me  her bark wasn't the usual growl-y stay away bark.. a more of a frustration of 'i wanna lunge and bark at you but i wanna sniff my grass but the human wants me over there, omg mind boggle!!' no lunging towards them or anything, so better.. but not what i wanted.. we'll get there
> We then saw them again.. and she this-wayed perfectly away from them without a 2nd thought ut:
> We also managed to avoid the puggle... but it seems they have a cat that follows them too!! (must be their cat) i thought we'd timed it perfectly and got behind cars whilst they were on the other side.. they passed.. but she saw the blummin cat!! So had a bark.. but then given a swift 'carry on' and she did with a little girly cry.. we were almost home so i just fussed her a little then we had a game of tug inside to vent her stress of not being able to bark more/chase stuff.. shes now curled up fast asleep
> I should be carrying on stripping walls..... :001_rolleyes:


Yes I'd forgotten just how long the agility courses are as it's a good 20 odd years since I last competed. I did need to sit on a chair for 5 minutes afterwards...LOL

Great that you took Willow to the 'fun day'. It's so good for them to socialise in different environments and pleased to hear she coped well.

Although you can't tell from the video, that was an enormous indoor arena yesterday with hundreds of people and dogs, 3 agility rings running, plus trade stands etc. and Holly did have one little 'moment' when the tannoy blasted off just above our heads. She soon got over it though which is more than she would have done less than a year ago. In fact I doubt whether I've have actually got her in there at all.


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Yes I'd forgotten just how long the agility courses are as it's a good 20 odd years since I last competed. I did need to sit on a chair for 5 minutes afterwards...LOL
> 
> Great that you took Willow to the 'fun day'. It's so good for them to socialise in different environments and pleased to hear she coped well.
> 
> Although you can't tell from the video, that was an enormous indoor arena yesterday with hundreds of people and dogs, 3 agility rings running, plus trade stands etc. and Holly did have one little 'moment' when the tannoy blasted off just above our heads. She soon got over it though which is more than she would have done less than a year ago. In fact I doubt whether I've have actually got her in there at all.


I've just been watching Agility - Singles Final - Small, Medium and Large - Crufts 2012 - YouTube after watching Hollys video, just to be nosey! All dogs must be soo well behaved to stay focused (the course looks so confusing on that vid too!) with people all around and the commentary going on too aswell as dogs barking/being near.. Just shows how much of a credit your dogs are to you  So pleased for you both (even with the tannoy going off) she did so well


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> I've just been watching Agility - Singles Final - Small, Medium and Large - Crufts 2012 - YouTube after watching Hollys video, just to be nosey! All dogs must be soo well behaved to stay focused (the course looks so confusing on that vid too!) with people all around and the commentary going on too aswell as dogs barking/being near.. Just shows how much of a credit your dogs are to you  So pleased for you both (even with the tannoy going off) she did so well


Thank you - that's very kind. Honestly it's just basic training really.


----------



## ciarasmum

I've been so rubbish recently. I will try to get on properly this week or at least over the weekend to read everyone elses news!

Not much to report here, most of our walks are now in the dark due to my work hours and as we still go to the fields we rarely see anyone.

Yesterday we walked up to Darwen Tower. It was quite busy so lots of times I had to put her on lead to pass other dogs but she was a star. The other owners were so considerate, some dogs were already on lead so we did the same, those that weren't were put on when they saw me putting Ciara on. Just makes everything less stressful for me and Ciara.

Only one time she half reacted was when the owners shouted that their little dog was ok (it was on lead), Ciara was on lead too and was ok'd to say hello (she likes little dogs). It snapped and snarled quite a bit. She pulled away and when it carried on she growled a little. The owners then mentioned that their dog reacts like that with big dogs 

We passed lots of walkers so it was a bit overwhelming for Ciara but I keep her off lead past those with no dogs and she tends to do a big arc to keep her distance from people. She got so many compliments for being a pretty poppet and for her behaviour in general. Really proud.

Two piccies from yesterday:


----------



## Twiggy

Ciara is more than pretty - she's absolutely stunning.

Holly was a good girl at agility this afternoon and was quite jolly. It's a nice little group now and we are all getting to know and encourage each other. There's a wonderful West Highland White who's quite a character, a super Spaniel, Toy Poodle cross and Holly's bestest friend the Red Setter.


----------



## Nicki85

JSW- Sounds like a lovely day! Well done Willow  
CM- Ciara is as always gorgeous, sounds like she did really well too  

I'm amazed at the variation in German Shepherds&#8230; at the workshop this weekend there was a massive one that was very very high drive (but beautifully controlled) an amazing dog. The ones I am familiar with are usually slightly nervy and very fluffy! I guess it's a bit like the working vs show bred springers.

Good day here kinda- dogs fab, rather speedy on their half hour evening walk&#8230;. Shae was LOUD and Rusty was zoomie&#8230; it was all very crazy lol. I've been in Cardiff all day at a meeting. Well actually i've spent most of the day at train stations cause all the trains were delayed but there you go&#8230; 
I bought some Sherpa hand warmers which are the warmest things I've ever had on my hands&#8230; Shae also loves them&#8230;. !!!!

Tomorrow Shae has her control test to pass her pre-agility class. Not overly worried (although, may be I should be?!) as she/we have been doing the exercises for a long time&#8230; and after all I put her through at the weekend i've got a lot of confidence in her to keep it together 

Forgot- Rust's foot is looking fine, small hole where the thorn went in so washing it after walks in salt water&#8230;.


----------



## Twiggy

Tomorrow Shae has her control test to pass her pre-agility class. Not overly worried (although, may be I should be?!) as she/we have been doing the exercises for a long time and after all I put her through at the weekend i've got a lot of confidence in her to keep it together 

Forgot- Rust's foot is looking fine, small hole where the thorn went in so washing it after walks in salt water.[/QUOTE]

Good luck for tomorrow, although I'm sure Shae will be ace.

Pleased Rusty's foot is healing nicely.


----------



## JenKyzer

Nicki - Good luck with shae - i'm sure she'll do you proud  Glad rusts foot is well  

Twiggy - Agility in the afternoon sounds good, good girl Holly :thumbsup:

CM - So strange seeing my back garden view on your pics  We're going to get up there a few times this week i hope  Hope the jobs going ok, Ciara sounds like she did really well on her walk and passing the dogs :thumbsup: (as for the snarly snappy dog thats 'ok'... :confused1: !) nice to see you posting again 

Another good walk this morning.. the puggle was doing its 'air scenting & staring' thing .. Willow froze into a stare but a 'carry on' got her going again, she did keep try looking over the road so i quickened pace (for the whole 5 doors down to our house!) and she forgot about the puggle and quickened up with me wondering what was going on.. and she got a big fuss  again not perfect, but no barking/noise/pull/lunge is good.
We also had a springer spring out behind her  i heard a door open and it leaped out from the corner whilst Willow was having a sniff at some grass, it froze when it saw her.. then excitedly jumped into the air.. Willow didn't even realise and just followed me back down the grass, phew :lol: then i just prayed it didn't follow us, which it didn't


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy - love the video of Holly in action! Great stuff, glad she coped with the tannoy 

Nicki - Sounds like you had a great day with Shae at the workshop! Good luck for tomorrow 

JSW - Wow well done to Willow at the fun day, sounds like she was fantastic!

CM - Beautiful photos, Ciara is just stunning! Glad you had a good walk with lots of lovely considerate people, minus one... there's always one!

---

I've been really crap lately, we've just been doing a lot of very lazy but nice walks. Did actually get my arse in gear and do a bit of training today, only stays, waits, recalls and directing her where I want her but it's better than nothing 

She's got me wrapped around her little finger though I realised today! One of our walks has barbed wire separating the footpath from the rest of the field and I'm pretty sure she's worked out that when she gets within a couple of inches of it, I call her back and she gets a treat so she keeps going over to it  little sod!
She also decided to use one part of it as a hurdle today  No idea why, she's never done it before. She cleared it no problem luckily but it was a bit scary!

She did "leave it" with a dead bird so she definitely redeemed herself  I'm ridiculously impressed with that, we have been working on it a lot with cow and sheep poo which has been going great but I never would have expected it to work with a surprise meal in the middle of a field 

We had a bit of a moment with a very barky daschund which went surprisingly well too! They turned the corner while Tia was on lead, why she didn't wait I don't know - I suppose when you have a daschund rather than a Staffy no one worries when it's lunging and barking like a nutter! Anyway, this dog was only a couple of feet away from Tia, really going for it, and while Tia did lunge to the end of her lead and stay there on just her back legs lol, she didn't make a sound and she actually looked more interested/baffled than stressed so that went probably as well as it could have done!


----------



## Nicki85

Good day here…
Rather longer walk than expected this morning- both good  One moment when we walked past a gun dog training session with some very well behaved labs… and then there was Rust bouncing around on the end of his lead just acting bonkers. Wondered if I should have tied him to one of their land rovers…. he'll go through any cover 

Anyhow, they had a lot of fun and Rust came back looking like this-









So, home we went and straight into the bath… lots of conditioner and half an hour later and he was free of them!

Shae had her test this eve, get the results next week but she was fab there as usual. Trying to move away from socialisation now and straight to focus on toy/me. I'm considering crate training her (again) for in-between runs as she is hyped and wants to shout at the other dogs running… I know some use it to keep there dogs quiet but not sure how it would work in practice. At the moment i'm distracting with toys/ food… hmmm something to think about! Oh and she bit me again lol.

JSW- Well done Willow 
TT- Wlldone on the leaving the dead bird  Rust doesn't like dead things and skirts round them…. wierdo considering he's raw fed. Rust also tries to jump through and over barbed wire- gives me a heart attack… and yes they do figure out how to get treats out of us don't they?


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Good day here
> Rather longer walk than expected this morning- both good  One moment when we walked past a gun dog training session with some very well behaved labs and then there was Rust bouncing around on the end of his lead just acting bonkers. Wondered if I should have tied him to one of their land rovers. he'll go through any cover
> 
> Anyhow, they had a lot of fun and Rust came back looking like this-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, home we went and straight into the bath lots of conditioner and half an hour later and he was free of them!
> 
> Shae had her test this eve, get the results next week but she was fab there as usual. Trying to move away from socialisation now and straight to focus on toy/me. I'm considering crate training her (again) for in-between runs as she is hyped and wants to shout at the other dogs running I know some use it to keep there dogs quiet but not sure how it would work in practice. At the moment i'm distracting with toys/ food hmmm something to think about! Oh and she bit me again lol.
> 
> Well done Shae. Shame you have to wait a week for the results though.
> 
> I can imagine Shae getting pretty worked up at the other dogs running. I told you I took Tremor out on Sunday when she started foaming at the mouth...!!
> 
> All those burrs stuck to poor Rusty reminded me of Treacle, a little black Shetland pony, I had years ago. He was forever getting the wretched things tangled in his mane and tail.


----------



## Nicki85

Yes I remember you saying about Tremor! Shae gets excited especially as she hears the other owners giving their dog the release command or similar lol. She'd like nothing better than to bark and bark at them coupled with lunging  Sounds like Tremor would like a go?! Guessing with her shoulder thats a no though 

I hate burrs. and they really hurt if they stick in your clothing too!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Yes I remember you saying about Tremor! Shae gets excited especially as she hears the other owners giving their dog the release command or similar lol. She'd like nothing better than to bark and bark at them coupled with lunging  Sounds like Tremor would like a go?! Guessing with her shoulder thats a no though
> 
> I hate burrs. and they really hurt if they stick in your clothing too!


I'm quite sure Tremor would like a go but I doubt she would stay sound, plus it would totally blow her brain and there is no way I would live with one side of her anyway....LOL To be fair, even when she was foaming at the mouth, I only had to say "close" and she immediately went into heelwork mode right along the side of all three agility rings with 100% concentration. She is a super bitch.


----------



## JenKyzer

Tia - Yay well done for the 'leave'  & aren't we all wrapped around little fingers with them in some way shape or form   

Nicki - I had to laugh at Rust modeling the doggy ear-ring range  they don't look comfy though  Hope shae's test comes back with a big gold star 

Not much going on here.. simple walks - which is my fault.. hopefully the doc will sort me out today so that me and willow can tackle a few good long walks before my week off ends. We did some clicker stuff in the house last night - Willow loves it!.. OH even joined in (he's still amazed that Willow knows 'touch' and keeps asking me how she knows what to do  .. simple minds and all that!) We got everything she knows in one go at first she was that excited at what we was doing  Now slowly getting the hang of 'Paw, Paw down, Other Paw, Paw down, Both Paws' as a little sequence just for fun 
Last night i finally got a 2nd freezer!! After what.. 3months of raw feeding  £20 bargain from a facebook ad and it was 5mins drive away! Can't wait to fill it up - my butcher will be so pleased  

Wasn't best pleased with OH brother last night.. saying to me 'Willow barks after you when you go, u do know don't you'
Me - :blink: erm. no!? .. When.. ? You havent said before?! *panic sets in* ...
'Oh just the once, a few weeks ago i think' ...
flippin idiot. I wait at the bloody front door just to make sure she settles and peek through the letter box at her being more bothered about her kongs than me leaving the house! That moment of waiting for his answer was the longest moment ever, thinking she was upset at me leaving and thinking i'd failed with the kong tactic  She's a cool cucumber though, phew :001_smile:


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Tia - Yay well done for the 'leave'  & aren't we all wrapped around little fingers with them in some way shape or form
> 
> Nicki - I had to laugh at Rust modeling the doggy ear-ring range  they don't look comfy though  Hope shae's test comes back with a big gold star
> 
> Not much going on here.. simple walks - which is my fault.. hopefully the doc will sort me out today so that me and willow can tackle a few good long walks before my week off ends. We did some clicker stuff in the house last night - Willow loves it!.. OH even joined in (he's still amazed that Willow knows 'touch' and keeps asking me how she knows what to do  .. simple minds and all that!) We got everything she knows in one go at first she was that excited at what we was doing  Now slowly getting the hang of 'Paw, Paw down, Other Paw, Paw down, Both Paws' as a little sequence just for fun
> Last night i finally got a 2nd freezer!! After what.. 3months of raw feeding  £20 bargain from a facebook ad and it was 5mins drive away! Can't wait to fill it up - my butcher will be so pleased
> 
> Wasn't best pleased with OH brother last night.. saying to me 'Willow barks after you when you go, u do know don't you'
> Me - :blink: erm. no!? .. When.. ? You havent said before?! *panic sets in* ...
> 'Oh just the once, a few weeks ago i think' ...
> flippin idiot. I wait at the bloody front door just to make sure she settles and peek through the letter box at her being more bothered about her kongs than me leaving the house! That moment of waiting for his answer was the longest moment ever, thinking she was upset at me leaving and thinking i'd failed with the kong tactic  She's a cool cucumber though, phew :001_smile:


Well done on your bargain freezer.

I had to smile at your comments on OH and his brother - typical men and just confirms my belief that they're a different species....

I met my daughter for lunch yesterday and then we did a bit of Christmas shopping. On returning home I found the agility dog walk being constructed and hubby reckons it will be finished by the end of the week. I was speechless, although I do wonder which 'end of the week' it will be.


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Well done on your bargain freezer.
> 
> I had to smile at your comments on OH and his brother - typical men and just confirms my belief that they're a different species....
> 
> I met my daughter for lunch yesterday and then we did a bit of Christmas shopping. * On returning home I found the agility dog walk being constructed and hubby reckons it will be finished by the end of the week. I was speechless, although I do wonder which 'end of the week' it will be*.


Well done hubby!
My bathroom floor is still outside the bathroom  & no decorating was done last night in the living room.. so i'm assuming the 'It'll be done by thursday ' quote does not stand anymore  (Although i'm not carrying on with it until later this afternoon either..  )


----------



## GingerRogers

Ciara is a stunner, so soft and snuggly looking as well, does she take a lot of grooming, your pics always look like they have been done in soft focus  sounds like seh did well in the face of stupid person 

Twiggy - lovely to see Holly in action what a star she was, must be the handler  look forward to hearing of the dogwalks completion by Sunday too 

Nikki - glad rusts foot is ok, hope the test results come back A OK with a big gold star  poor rustys ear, I had a complete burr covered long line saturday, I could have sprayed it silver and used it as tinsel  and stupid me tried to pull them off, whilst wearing woollen gloves, I did get myself in a bit of a pickle for a while .

JSW - glad to see all your hard work is still paying off with Willow, and that she IS ok when left  (still laughing at Krinkle I am afraid :laugh keep it up :thumbsup:

Well done tia on the daxie and the dead bird but  at the fence hurdling, glad she cleared it.



To us well :001_wub:

I have an angel instead of a ninja today, we didnt see anything major but she walked nicely almost the whole time and didnt bark at the few people we see even though they were normally triggers, a gas man in his van, the really odd couple, he who looks like father ted and always has a 'shopping bag that could be a dog' and a lady in a strange coat, we got past all the houses with cats or dogs in with out a fuss. 

Yep turkey mince for breakfast  she has had a little nearly everyday, I cant say if its really helping really but its a jolly nice coincidence 

I have just had a small bag of Wainwrights Grain Free Turkey kibble delivered to see if getting a bit more in her helps, I asked sixstar and although only an orange on her list its the best she knew of so we will see.

More than makes up for the minx pegging it after a deer yesterday  I just kept begging the deer to veer in the right direction ie away from the roads and was almost on the pint of panicking as she had gone out of sight when I heard what I thought was a pheasant squawking as it got sent up so thought ok she isnt far away but it was actually her breathing as she ran back round the corner


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Ciara is a stunner, so soft and snuggly looking as well, does she take a lot of grooming, your pics always look like they have been done in soft focus  sounds like seh did well in the face of stupid person
> 
> Twiggy - lovely to see Holly in action what a star she was, must be the handler  look forward to hearing of the dogwalks completion by Sunday too
> 
> Nikki - glad rusts foot is ok, hope the test results come back A OK with a big gold star  poor rustys ear, I had a complete burr covered long line saturday, I could have sprayed it silver and used it as tinsel  and stupid me tried to pull them off, whilst wearing woollen gloves, I did get myself in a bit of a pickle for a while .
> 
> JSW - glad to see all your hard work is still paying off with Willow, and that she IS ok when left  (still laughing at Krinkle I am afraid :laugh keep it up :thumbsup:
> 
> Well done tia on the daxie and the dead bird but  at the fence hurdling, glad she cleared it.
> 
> To us well :001_wub:
> 
> I have an angel instead of a ninja today, we didnt see anything major but she walked nicely almost the whole time and didnt bark at the few people we see even though they were normally triggers, a gas man in his van, the really odd couple, he who looks like father ted and always has a 'shopping bag that could be a dog' and a lady in a strange coat, we got past all the houses with cats or dogs in with out a fuss.
> 
> Yep turkey mince for breakfast  she has had a little nearly everyday, I cant say if its really helping really but its a jolly nice coincidence
> 
> I have just had a small bag of Wainwrights Grain Free Turkey kibble delivered to see if getting a bit more in her helps, I asked sixstar and although only an orange on her list its the best she knew of so we will see.
> 
> More than makes up for the minx pegging it after a deer yesterday  I just kept begging the deer to veer in the right direction ie away from the roads and was almost on the pint of panicking as she had gone out of sight when I heard what I thought was a pheasant squawking as it got sent up so thought ok she isnt far away but it was actually her breathing as she ran back round the corner


Well done the Ninja and at least she came back yesterday....


----------



## Dogless

Good walks and trail runs over the last few days; kept things quiet for Kilo with a trip to the mountains after his one bark at that surprise dog the other night (I am over the moon with just that - but still!!), a quiet seeing nothing day yesterday and a few hours' trail running today which is best described as gruelling - for the weak human, not the dogs :yikes:. Walking with Diz later and then need to do Roo's walk too......exhausted thinking about it.

GR - Ninja deserves a double platinum star today :001_wub:. And I know exactly how deer chasing feels :thumbdown:.

JSW - hope you're feeling better - and easy walks won't have done Willow any harm...maybe even some good .


----------



## tiatortilla

GR - That all sounds great, well done Ninja for today  Glad she didn't disappear after the deer too!

Dogless - You sound tired! Hope everything is okay 

JSW - £20 for a freezer is great! Willow sounds like she's enjoying learning her new tricks 

---

Just a pavement walk today, my wellies have started rubbing for some reason and my poor ankles needed a break in the form of comfy shoes! Very uneventful but quite nice, I really must do a bit of work on LLW though, it has slipped a bit 

Then she had a vets appointment, just a yearly check up. Decided not to get the lepto vaccine, not sure if I've made the right decision but I've done loads of research, it's such a bloody minefield.. I know this isn't what WAYWO is for lol I'll stop going off topic, the last thing I want to do is start a debate about vaccs here 
She's all fine anyway, vet was especially impressed with her teeth  and she impressed the receptionist by sitting when he got her a biscuit out when we went to pay lol. Luckily no other dogs in there today so it all went smoothly!
She's always very sleepy after the vets so we're just having cuddles on the sofa, think she'll probably be flat out until tomorrow now


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> GR - That all sounds great, well done Ninja for today  Glad she didn't disappear after the deer too!
> 
> Dogless - You sound tired! Hope everything is okay
> 
> JSW - £20 for a freezer is great! Willow sounds like she's enjoying learning her new tricks
> 
> ---
> 
> Just a pavement walk today, my wellies have started rubbing for some reason and my poor ankles needed a break in the form of comfy shoes! Very uneventful but quite nice, I really must do a bit of work on LLW though, it has slipped a bit
> 
> Then she had a vets appointment, just a yearly check up.* Decided not to get the lepto vaccine, not sure if I've made the right decision but I've done loads *of research, it's such a bloody minefield.. I know this isn't what WAYWO is for lol I'll stop going off topic, the last thing I want to do is start a debate about vaccs here
> She's all fine anyway, vet was especially impressed with her teeth  and she impressed the receptionist by sitting when he got her a biscuit out when we went to pay lol. Luckily no other dogs in there today so it all went smoothly!
> She's always very sleepy after the vets so we're just having cuddles on the sofa, think she'll probably be flat out until tomorrow now


That's what I've decided with Tremor as well, also after loads of research.

What was your vet's reaction? I know what my vets will be....


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy said:


> That's what I've decided with Tremor as well, also after loads of research.
> 
> What was your vet's reaction? I know what my vets will be....


He was okay with it actually, he said he has to make sure I'm making an informed decision and got me to explain why I was choosing for her not to have it and obviously he was pretty pro vaccinating so did spend a lot of time going over the reasons for having it done, but he said in the end it's my choice and wasn't pushy about it. I think the fact I want her to have her parvo and distemper ones next year worked in my favour because it shows I'm not just an anti vaccination person lol and I have really thought about it.

Good luck with your vet, I find it so nerve wracking bringing up anything I'm not sure if they'll agree with! I'm sure you're much better at it than me..


----------



## Dogless

TT - pleased that you came to a decision you are happy with ref vaccination; it's a hard one. Thanks for asking - I am OK but totally exhausted :yikes:.

Walked Sir K with Diz; had to wake him to do so but he needs to go out to toilet or would hold until morning!! Rudi categorically did not want another walk so I let him be. Goodness how far he ran this morning as he was offlead and is a dog who flies about all over the place!!


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> He was okay with it actually, he said he has to make sure I'm making an informed decision and got me to explain why I was choosing for her not to have it and obviously he was pretty pro vaccinating so did spend a lot of time going over the reasons for having it done, but he said in the end it's my choice and wasn't pushy about it. I think the fact I want her to have her parvo and distemper ones next year worked in my favour because it shows I'm not just an anti vaccination person lol and I have really thought about it.
> 
> Good luck with your vet, I find it so nerve wracking bringing up anything I'm not sure if they'll agree with! I'm sure you're much better at it than me..


It depends greatly on which vet I see. The only one I'm likely to have trouble with is the owner/senior vet but we are well practised in rowing like hell with each other anyway...


----------



## JenKyzer

GR - Thanks  Yay well done to Angel-Ninja  .. i bet your loving the nice coincidences turkey mince keeps giving you, long may it continue  i'm really pleased for you!

DL - Wow, busy busy for you! You and your boys sounds knackered! Bet they love it though  ! (No better here should be on 'rest' under docs orders but i just can't waste my week off work! Still feel crappy for Willow that we haven't done exciting off lead walks)

TT - Glad all went well at the vets & she impressed them all  Your uneventful walk sounds lovely  I'm sure LLW will slot back in nicely soon!

Every dinner time this week, we've been to see OH at work and Willows excitement of the week has been in the form of playing football for 20mins with a group of men  Y'day we were still in the car and she was sat staring, her tail going mad, at them with the ball until she was allowed out, so i'm glad shes getting a good fun run round in even if it isn't with me! They all love her which is nice  (One guy asking where did you get her from? 'rescue centre' do they have ones like her in all the time then??  :blink but she's now learnt the ball is for play and not for sinking teeth into which is good.

We did a late walk last night.. 10pm ish.. so she was in high alert mode.. sniffing every post, corner, stone.. whatever it was, it got a sniff ! She did a really good 'leave' on some chips.. which i was pleasantly surprised at  and we dodged some cats! Aswell as 'enough'/'thisway' being used to stop a sniff that was lasting waaay too long.. she came away each time though which was brill  

Also made our own tuggy yesterday  from a fleece tutorial someone gave me on a thread a few weeks ago.. well.. it went down a treat ! So we had a fab game of tug after our late walk.. will defo carry on making them rather than keep buying them.. will work out so much cheaper so it doesn't matter than she can chew them to bits afterwards


----------



## GingerRogers

TT - I am still pondering the lepto thing, although I do think it was more likely a coincidence ninja being ill after hers you cant help but wonder, and it made me research it, and realise how useless it might be anyway, I dont think I really buy into the health scares as they are all 'well 2 weeks after my dog got........' or '6 months after my dog got ......' all could perfectly feasibly be coincidence my dog once ate a leaf and then died aged 16, it must have been the leaf type thing  but I had almost decided against it next year. The lump ninja had was huge, it took a good 2 weeks to subside, is just a little pea now  and boy did she squeal.

Then my mum told me about her afghan who died from lepto  and she does like drinking murk, we do do lots of wet walks as no one else goes there.

What made you both reach the decision to say no if you dont mind telling me, waywo is for everything after all you should know that by now TT?

Tia did very well anyway.

JSW - sorry you are feeling rubbish, hope its nothing serious, well no more serious than not being able to walk  glad willow is getting to play though I can just picture it 

Dogless you have broken the CH's finally 

We had another good walk 

The greyhound what got loose appeared as ninja squatted for a poo :blink: not loose today, looked like the woman had a double ender at last. Ninja just looked at it  then at the wotsit I offered , I am not sure the idea of eating eating and pooing was welcomed  

I could see her sort of breathing in ready to launch which she did once she had finished  but a handful of treats scattered in front of her made her stop and she watched it trot round the corner while she snuffled it up so quite chuffed with that , very chuffed actually.

I magicked some cheese trees, I had been looking for sausage trees but all the estate trees are those smooth barked specimen things with no low branches then I realised cheese sticks to anything, I was true mad dog lady today 

I have a talking dogs scent work 2 course tomorrow, so we are off to mums for a couple of days.


----------



## Twiggy

GR - Hope you enjoy your course.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> GR - Hope you enjoy your course.


Thank you I am sure I will if only because its lovely to spend a day with enthusiastic like minded doggy people.

I just realised what this sentence reads like 

_The greyhound what got loose appeared as ninja squatted for a poo not loose today, looked like the woman had a double ender at last._

What I meant was ninja was having a poo

the greyhound was not loose

the owner had a double ended lead


----------



## Dogless

JSW - Lucky Willow getting to play footy - Kilo loves it .

GR - I hope that the course is as good as it sounds; I am sure it will be. And...well done Ninja on choosing Wotsits over noise!!

Two good walks today with the boys, gentle road walks, both behaved very well for me . I nearly had a heart attack walking past the house that the dog that attacked Kilo lives at when walking Roo - heard the familiar bark and saw head and front paws appear under the fence...thankfully the rest of the dog wasn't able to follow. Also got home to find sloppy dog poo in my front garden :mad5:. One of the Happy Wanderers no doubt .


----------



## Izzysmummy

Twiggy said:


> Just got back from a local agility show and guess what Holly was a little star.
> She ended up 11th out of around 100 entrants and there were only 15 clear round...:thumbup:
> 
> Hope this link will work (you know how I am with computers)..!!
> 
> Holly - YouTube
> 
> Not bad for a scared little girl who hasn't been doing agility for very long.


A bit late but this is a great video Twiggy! She's progressed so quickly!


----------



## Nicki85

You know, the dogs are being good here at the moment... almost a bit too good....

I was out all day yesterday so morning walk in the dark round the forest, no one seen apart from the cows who gave Rust a scare when he tried to bounce into a hedge that contained a cow. No problems, quick recall and we moved on. 

When I eventually got home yesterday Shae almost knocked me out with a rather over enthusiastic greeting... Apparently she'd spent the whole day ignoring my mum who was looking after her. Even to the point that she went up to another dog and wouldn't recall when she took her out for 30mins with Rust. She was trying to get it to play .... Naughty puppy.

Today we went round the roman wall, Rust was in a very happy mood and spent a lot of time bouncing around on his longline. Shae almost rolled off the roman wall which was a bit scary (rolling on a stone at the top and almost rolled off and over...) might walk along the bottom next time!
I've just taken Rust out for the second walk- offlead round the BIG forest (it's big cause the paths and trees are big...) ,over the road to the "normal" forest. He was bonkers but lovely. Listened to every whistle, bounced around like a very happy dog and we had lots of fun. The second half of the walk he was determined that I would throw his toy for the whole way round... preferably into the bushes so he could bounce in and try and find it. Needless to say I complied but it did take twice as long to get round the walk! Shae has basic obedience later so no walk for her. 

It's all change with agility again, Rust is moving up classes now he is fully fit (well for agility...) and I've managed to get a slot with a different club for Shae as I want to start progressing with her a bit more. We went to this instructor when she was a pup for pre-agility and really liked it so I'm pleased we've got a slot with her! The only problem is it means I will have to hold her back at a lower level at the club we are currently at as the class she should be in is on the same day...

GR- enjoy the course, I want to do talking dogs with Rust next year, I'm sure it would be right up his street. Sounds like the ninja did well today.
DL- well done boys, grrr at the loose dog pooing on your lawn.
JSTW- Willow sounds like she likes football! She needs one of those big balls with handles!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> You know, the dogs are being good here at the moment... almost a bit too good....
> 
> I was out all day yesterday so morning walk in the dark round the forest, no one seen apart from the cows who gave Rust a scare when he tried to bounce into a hedge that contained a cow. No problems, quick recall and we moved on.
> 
> When I eventually got home yesterday Shae almost knocked me out with a rather over enthusiastic greeting... Apparently she'd spent the whole day ignoring my mum who was looking after her. Even to the point that she went up to another dog and wouldn't recall when she took her out for 30mins with Rust. She was trying to get it to play .... Naughty puppy.
> 
> Today we went round the roman wall, Rust was in a very happy mood and spent a lot of time bouncing around on his longline. Shae almost rolled off the roman wall which was a bit scary (rolling on a stone at the top and almost rolled off and over...) might walk along the bottom next time!
> I've just taken Rust out for the second walk- offlead round the BIG forest (it's big cause the paths and trees are big...) ,over the road to the "normal" forest. He was bonkers but lovely. Listened to every whistle, bounced around like a very happy dog and we had lots of fun. The second half of the walk he was determined that I would throw his toy for the whole way round... preferably into the bushes so he could bounce in and try and find it. Needless to say I complied but it did take twice as long to get round the walk! Shae has basic obedience later so no walk for her.
> 
> It's all change with agility again, Rust is moving up classes now he is fully fit (well for agility...) and I've managed to get a slot with a different club for Shae as I want to start progressing with her a bit more. We went to this instructor when she was a pup for pre-agility and really liked it so I'm pleased we've got a slot with her! The only problem is it means I will have to hold her back at a lower level at the club we are currently at as the class she should be in is on the same day...
> 
> GR- enjoy the course, I want to do talking dogs with Rust next year, I'm sure it would be right up his street. Sounds like the ninja did well today.
> DL- well done boys, grrr at the loose dog pooing on your lawn.
> JSTW- Willow sounds like she likes football! *She needs one of those big balls with handles*!


We have one, it's brilliant!!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you I am sure I will if only because its lovely to spend a day with enthusiastic like minded doggy people.
> 
> I just realised what this sentence reads like
> 
> _The greyhound what got loose appeared as ninja squatted for a poo not loose today, looked like the woman had a double ender at last._
> 
> What I meant was ninja was having a poo
> 
> the greyhound was not loose
> 
> the owner had a double ended lead


Yes I think we got the giste GR....


----------



## GingerRogers

Are you sure I dont need to explain it again, a different way, I know how us dog owners like talking about ....................


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> You know, the dogs are being good here at the
> 
> *JSTW- Willow sounds like she likes football! She needs one of those big balls with handles!*




What big balls with handles?

I ordered two 7" footballs for Holly and Barley. They were an overwhelming success - NOT..!! Neither of them were remotely interested. They like latex.

I need to find a wholesaler for the Goodboy Lob It Space Hoppers at this rate. Holly had the last one on Monday and it's now ripped to bits. That's three in just over 3 weeks. I keep telling her they're not cheap....!!


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> TT - I am still pondering the lepto thing, although I do think it was more likely a coincidence ninja being ill after hers you cant help but wonder, and it made me research it, and realise how useless it might be anyway, I dont think I really buy into the health scares as they are all 'well 2 weeks after my dog got........' or '6 months after my dog got ......' all could perfectly feasibly be coincidence my dog once ate a leaf and then died aged 16, it must have been the leaf type thing  but I had almost decided against it next year. The lump ninja had was huge, it took a good 2 weeks to subside, is just a little pea now  and boy did she squeal.
> 
> Then my mum told me about her afghan who died from lepto  and she does like drinking murk, we do do lots of wet walks as no one else goes there.
> 
> What made you both reach the decision to say no if you dont mind telling me, waywo is for everything after all you should know that by now TT?
> 
> Tia did very well anyway.


No I don't mind  as long as no one else minds the little detour from the original purpose of the thread 

It's not really the worry of an adverse reaction that's the main thing for me, I also try not to get drawn in by the horror stories, although it's definitely in my mind because my younger brother had an awful reaction to a vaccination when he was a toddler and almost died so there is a bit of a personal reason there.
Mostly it's just the risk v. benefits and while I think it's worth it for parvo and distemper to take the risk every three years or so, I don't think it is for lepto every year because of a few reasons.. first being the vaccination only covering two strains albeit the most common two, and also that the vaccination has been shown to not be effective for the whole year so I don't think I'm comfortable taking that risk every year for what may not even be effective cover.

I get the worry about walking in certain places, I don't think there are many rats even in the wetter places we walk but knowing she hasn't had the vaccination this year I'll definitely be thinking twice before letting her swim in the weir next summer.

I think a lump is perfectly normal, from what I gather it doesn't necessarily mean an adverse reaction. It's like one dog in 10,000 or something that does have a bad reaction so I know the risk isn't huge, it's just there. My vet said he'd seen one adverse reaction to a lepto jab in 10 years and it was easily sorted with steroids and antihistamines.. just thought I should provide a balanced answer 

I know this isn't the most eloquent reply lol but I hope it helps 

Dogless - So annoying that there was a poo in your garden! I used to live next door to a lovely wee Staffy who used to jump the fence and sh!t in our garden, or just get out and come in through the gate to go in the front garden  know how annoying it is! Glad the dog who attacked Kilo didn't get out today and that you had an otherwise good walk!

JSW - Sorry you're still not feeling better. Sounds like Willow is having a good time anyway, she's a very good girl to have learned not to eat the ball! There's been a couple of times lads with footballs have tried to let Tia join in and I just have to warn them not to unless they enjoy trying to play with a deflated sack 

Nicki - glad the dogs are being good  great that Rusty is well enough to progress in agility and that you got a place for Shae with another trainer you like 

---

Uneventful for us again, over to the big fields for a run about. Tia seems to have gotten over her little skittish phase off lead and has been totally fine again recently which is nice, it's one less thing to worry about when I can trust her off lead.
Saw a really tiny Dalmatian lol, it was on the other side of a fence so I couldn't see that well but it didn't look like a puppy but was definitely a Dalmatian, just teeny  Tia was on lead at that point and didn't bark anyway.
Also saw the daschund from the other day, Tia went "gr", the smallest, quietest growl so not too bad considering what she put up with from it when we saw them before!

Ugh I just spent so long typing that my tea went cold, yuck. Probably a sign I should stop rambling on :lol:


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy- these Toy Info

not latex tho!! How about one of the large holl-eee rollers? I've got one for Shae with a squeaky ball stuffed in side- she loves it. THe squeaky ball died along time ago but the rest of the toy is still good. Think it was from paws-trading Rubber


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Twiggy- these Toy Info
> 
> not latex tho!! How about one of the large holl-eee rollers? I've got one for Shae with a squeaky ball stuffed in side- she loves it. THe squeaky ball died along time ago but the rest of the toy is still good. Think it was from paws-trading Rubber


Thanks for the link. They look ideal but are they hard rubber or reasonably soft?

I've got several of the holl-ee rollers (all stuffed with squeaky toys) in my training bag but Holly isn't fussed. Not that Holly is fussed with most things, apart from £6.00 a go Lob Its...!!


----------



## Twiggy

Twiggy said:


> It depends greatly on which vet I see. The only one I'm likely to have trouble with is the owner/senior vet but we are well practised in rowing like hell with each other anyway...


Well lo and behold I've just had God's gift to the veterinary profession on the phone. I knew he wouldn't sign the referral forms for the clinical canine massage therapist for Leafy and Barley without ringing, and they've had the forms since Monday. He's a ..........!!

We then had a reasonably civilised conversation about vaccines and titre testing, resulting in him agreeing that Tremor will not be having the Lepto this time.


----------



## Canine K9

Hi all! 
Dogless- That sounds bad about the poo, but good you had an otherwise good walk!
JSW- Sounds like willow is having a good time, hope you feel better soon though!

---------------------------------------------
Today Bailey`s kennel cough has completely cleared. So we went for a pavement plod. He got swiped across the nose by a cat (but he did deserve it and didn`t get hurt!), reacted at motorbikes and buses, then went ballistic growling, barking and lunging for ages at 2 Labs. The Labs were the confident dogs with their tails up. Maybe thats what set him off? He can be a funny bugger!


----------



## JenKyzer

GR - I had to laugh at the loose, squatting, greyhound, eating, pooping double ender bit!! Took me a while to realise what you really meant  Well done to the ninja for finding the treats more interesting  (I can just imagine you wagging a wotsit infront of her nose whilst shes tryna poop :laugh & what have i missed?? cheese tree? sausage tree??

DL - Gentle road walks sound lovely  nice break from all that running! Apart from coming home to slop :001_unsure: Glad nothing major happened when walking past '*the* house with *that* dog' .. don't blame you for being nervous!

Nicki - Do you mean this - Interball By PetBrands | Pets at Home - ? If so.. already had one and she didn't bother.. we gave it away to Ozzy the staffie down the road as he appreciated it more, she didn't even bat an eyelid when he played with it infront of her  I think she just enjoys chasing the ball between the 5 or so men! Anyway.. i hope you havent done a jinx post  normally when we say all is good and well and how pleased we are.. something happens! I hope they are still being good for you  as it sounds lovely!

Ck9 - Thanks  . Glad his cough has finally cleared! Baileys walk sounds eventful and enough to keep you on your toes 

Twiggy - i tried willow with a mini reindeer lobber... she loved it.. but it lasted 10mins 

Tia - Normal circumstances.. she will eat the ball! The lad next door knows to keep his ball to himself when we come out  Thanks for sharing your vacc stuff.. something i've been looking into recently too  Glad offlead is now not a concern for you and Tias enjoying herself 

Well my lie in went down the pan this morning.. OH woke up for work at 6 and realised he 'forgot' to walk willow last night whilst i was in the bath  i'm annoyed at myself for not realising!! Not that willow was bothered still fast asleep.. but i couldn't really settle back to sleep knowing she hadn't been out last night  .. then she woke up and decided to be sick  .. so we we're out the door by 6.45  
Very high alert walk.. she spent most of it almost at the end of her lead - not pulling but any further and she would of been - sniffing the air, sniffing every corner, jumping at cans blowing in the wind and the wind swirling packets up into the air .. she kept checking back on me and waiting for me to 'catch up' then did a quick trot to the end of the line again.. strange walk really but she was v good  
Now back in bed with a cuppa and she's snoring away.


----------



## diefenbaker

Diefenbaker will be travelling to France again next April to stay at CenterParcs. He loves to play badminton. This dog gets more holidays than I ever had as a kid. Most likely he'll get another 2 weeks in France in the summer and already has a week booked in a cottage near Alton Towers for February. Scout camp was as good as it got for me. The dogs of today don't know how lucky they are.


----------



## Dogless

JSW - funny what men "forget" isn't it? .

Dief - Nice to see you again. I didn't have Dief down as a badminton player, more croquet or boules.

The boys and I ran up and over two good hills and back again this morning. Very good run even if the wind on the one side of the hills was a challenge :sosp:. They have been snoozing away ever since whilst I have done jobs...typical men :sosp: .

I swear there was a sonic boom when we ran past where Kilo got the goat chase the other day as he engaged afterburner :crazy:.


----------



## Twiggy

Holly had her best friend to play this afternoon (Red Setter).

We trained them plus Tremor in the barn for about 45 minutes and then intended to run them round the agility jumps. Holly and best friend had other ideas and belted round the paddock chasing each other for about 20 minutes instead - bless...!!


----------



## Twiggy

It's done (the dog walk that is)....!!

I've always said what a wonderful man my hubby is...

I've got to undercoat it now and order the rubber non-slip top coat paint, which is extremely expensive but never mind.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It's done (the dog walk that is)....!!
> 
> I've always said what a wonderful man my hubby is...
> 
> I've got to undercoat it now and order the rubber non-slip top coat paint, which is extremely expensive but never mind.


You have indeed Twiggy never, ever doubted your husband's abilities or common sense :aureola:Singing:.

Exhausting morning here. Walked the boys for an hour and a half or so each; gentle lead potters (because yesterday's trail running was adrenaline - fuelled) - a pocket full of the Fish4Dogs little treats and a fleece tuggy and we just did lots of little games and training bits and pieces all the way around. Just saw a few runners and a few lads doing the Walk Of Shame with Kilo and saw a few dogs out with Rudi - he watched me when asked to and went past nicely, so gold star for him . Amazing how differently dogs react to my two - we came round a corner and practically ran into a big black lab that doesn't like Kilo at all....he started to growl and get huffy at Rudi...but Rudi just gave him a hard look and he stopped and we walked on..amazing. Would have been a disaster with Sir K I think.

Then I went on a quick 45 minute run because my hamstrings and glutes are wound so tight after yesterday's run and I wanted to shake them out. It was vile until the last ten minutes


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You have indeed Twiggy never, ever doubted your husband's abilities or common sense :aureola:Singing:.
> 
> Exhausting morning here. Walked the boys for an hour and a half or so each; gentle lead potters (because yesterday's trail running was adrenaline - fuelled) - a pocket full of the Fish4Dogs little treats and a fleece tuggy and we just did lots of little games and training bits and pieces all the way around. Just saw a few runners and a few lads doing the Walk Of Shame with Kilo and saw a few dogs out with Rudi - he watched me when asked to and went past nicely, so gold star for him . Amazing how differently dogs react to my two - we came round a corner and practically ran into a big black lab that doesn't like Kilo at all...*.he started to growl and get huffy at Rudi...but Rudi just gave him a hard look and he stopped and we walked on..amazing. Would have been a disaster with Sir K I think.*
> 
> *Then I went on a quick 45 minute run because my hamstrings and glutes are wound so tight after yesterday's run and I wanted to shake them out.* It was vile until the last ten minutes


Ah you see Rudi is of the same ilk as me....:devil: I good hard stare usually does the trick.

Personally I never ask my hamstrings how they're feeling after agility on a Monday afternoon, as I know they'd complain along with my feet, back, calf muscles etc...


----------



## Twiggy

Well it's a lovely morning here, soon to be spoilt by an hour's teaching, which will probably run into two. Lovely lady but pity both of her dogs are out-of-control hooligans...!! I think the only time they get trained is when they come here.

This afternoon I've more or less been told to attend the open day at my vets so I might pop up there for an hour. I'd rather train the girls but there you go....

Have a good day everyone.


----------



## GingerRogers

Wow twiggy done by Sunday after all.

I had a great day at the course. Some old faces some new. Poor Pam had a lergy so wasn't her normal energizer bunny self but rallied very well.
One of the highlights was seeing a young whippet work. Totally different technique to the manic frenzy of the other dogs. Just a scratch of her chin in ponderation and almost went straight to it every time lol. Very cool collected for a sighthound.


----------



## Twiggy

Pleased you enjoyed the course. I'm rather fond of whippets. Clever little dogs although can overthink things at times.

I might see Pam this afternoon at the vets.


----------



## Dogless

GR - pleased that you enjoyed the course. I find whippets quite fascinating little dogs; I love them.



Twiggy said:


> Well it's a lovely morning here, soon to be spoilt by an hour's teaching, which will probably run into two. *Lovely lady but pity both of her dogs are out-of-control hooligans*...!! I think the only time they get trained is when they come here.
> 
> This afternoon I've more or less been told to attend the open day at my vets so I might pop up there for an hour. I'd rather train the girls but there you go....
> 
> Have a good day everyone.


Shhhhh Twiggy I asked you not to talk about our training times on here :frown2: .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> GR - pleased that you enjoyed the course. I find whippets quite fascinating little dogs; I love them.
> 
> Shhhhh Twiggy I asked you not to talk about our training times on here :frown2: .


Nonsense your boys are a credit to you...:thumbup1:

Actually the hooligans were better behaved today and I think the handler had at least put some work in. They are actually both clever and talented dogs.

Went up to my vets for an hour and met the new vet that starts just before Christmas. She appeared to be a nice girl - time will tell whether she's a good vet. They all seem to be women these days.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Nonsense your boys are a credit to you...:thumbup1:
> 
> Actually the hooligans were better behaved today and I think the handler had at least put some work in. They are actually both clever and talented dogs.
> 
> Went up to my vets for an hour and met the new vet that starts just before Christmas. She appeared to be a nice girl - time will tell whether she's a good vet. They all seem to be women these days.


They do a good line in thuggery still...Rudi especially  .

Hope the new vet turns out to be a caring and professional one.


----------



## shadowmare

We had a great wee walk with Axel this sunny afternoon :biggrin: We went to the park and it was busy with dog walkers and families. I wasn't sure how the walk will go because I was gone for a few days and Axel was left with a pet sitter who walks dogs during the day. But after 15 minutes of commands he remembered that he's meant to listen to me:001_rolleyes: so as a reward he was allowed off lead and the frisbee was pulled out of my pocket:w00t: He would look up at me when asked and came back nicely. Except for one time when he found a pile of mud that was apparently much tastier than my stinky ziwipeak treats:skep: then he also decided to run away from me when I called him because my voice gave away my annoyance. But that was my fault I guess... the newly developed mud tasting skills are slightly bothering me. Then when we saw a guy with a dutchhund coming up our way (the dog was off lead) I asked axel to sit and he did. I allowed him to go play after he looked up to check with me first. While they were enjoying their game of chase a slightly huffy looking shar-pei came up and started chasing Axel. The game started to look more like bullying when I noticed Axel's tail between his legs and the other dog making slightly angry noise while trying to get to his tail so I called Axel to come to me which he did. And then we went home. Now he is exhausted and I'm fairly proud of my boy:biggrin:


----------



## Nicki85

Hello all! Hope you have all had a good weekend  

Dogs are still behaving although Rusty is poorly  Last night he seemed "off" and this morning he refused a pigs tail. Then we've had sickness and diarrhoea on off for the rest of today. He's very uncomfortable now and trying out every bed  Given up- just took him round the garden (much to his delight&#8230 and he has now settled by the fire. 
I can see that small amount of weight i got on him disappearing!!
He hasn't had anything Shae hasn't had and she's fine so we will see how we go. Hate seeing them restless and feeling rough though.


----------



## Dogless

Oh no Nicki, hope Rusty's better soon; I hate seeing them feeling bad .


----------



## Twiggy

Poor Rusty. Have you got any Prokolin or Cannikur?


----------



## Nicki85

Yup got some pro-kolin in the cupboard so he's had some tonight&#8230; he's sleeping now thankfully. I've got no idea what has caused it considering he was on lead yesterday&#8230; he did take a dip in a particularly muddy puddle but that is a common occurrence. Shae got in to have a drink before I got there and she is fine. 

I hate starving as well when they are thin  He's had some chappie and rice and kept that down&#8230; see how we go in the morning. I could tell his stomach was uncomfortable (tucked up in horses!) this morning when we were having cuddles. I've got lactose free milk and eggs at the ready to get some weight back on&#8230;


----------



## tiatortilla

Nicki - Sorry to hear Rusty is poorly. Tia was the same last night with trying out every different place to sleep, she ate too many apples on our walk and gave herself an upset tummy! Luckily she was only fine after a rather squishy poo and a few hours... Hopefully Rusty has just eaten something dodgy too.

Twiggy - Hope the vet is as good as she is nice! Glad your teaching went well too and the dogs were on their best behaviour 

GR - Pleased you enjoyed your course 

Dogless - Sounds like two good walks, well done to both 

---

We've had a very busy weekend! Yesterday we had a very long but fairly uneventful walk, mostly kept Tia on her long line because of various animals. She was very good anyway so there's not much to report about that 

Today we had another very long walk, slightly more eventful than yesterday's... I already put up a thread detailing the not good bit so I won't get into that again!
It was a nice walk anyway, we had to go through a field with a very friendly horse in it! Bless him, I'm pretty sure he wanted to come and say hi but I wasn't going to risk it because Tia's never been up close with a horse before! She likes them when they're on the other side of fences but it's not quite the same  She liked him at a distance though, she's cute with how interesting she finds horses and cows.. it's nice to see her watching another animal that's so much bigger than her but being relaxed and happy... not like how she feels about huge dogs!
The footpath actually runs through Milfield prep school's grounds too which was odd... especially as they had a sign saying you can't have dogs on the grounds but as it was at the end of the footpath when you came from the direction we did, it isn't a very useful sign! No harm done anyway 

Had to do a fair amount of dog dodging towards the end of the walk but we managed all apart from one! Luckily it was a littlie and we were passing through a field so Tia could go off lead. They had a sniff, Tia got a bit grumbly when the dog outstayed it's welcome but the owner (who was halfway down the path on the other side of the field ) did eventually get it back.

So a good weekend, if a little busy. Don't think she's going to be up for much tomorrow, will probably have a fairly quiet day!


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## Dogless

TT - glad you had a good weekend in the main. I read your other thread and agree with reporting.

Great morning at Concrete Central.

Rudi and I went out for an hour with a mixture of on and offlead walking and he didn't put a paw wrong, bless him, even when a dog was straining and squeaking at the end of it's flexi to get to us by the road :thumbup1:.

Kilo and I had half an hour's very intense "Ready Steady" and practising our distance commands in a small field and he was a sprinting, growling, squeaking dog. Perfect. Then we had half an hour's gentle lead walking - we saw a dog passing us at a good distance (about 25m) in the car park and he was very good - looking at me and nudging for reassurance. The we saw a dog heading towards us on the pavement so I did a quick U-turn and Kilo came with me on a loose lead . Once the dog had crossed and was heading away from us I turned Kilo round again and we followed for a short distance with the dog about 25m away again and he was a bit skippy but paid attention to me, nudged and took food so a success :thumbup1:. We did have a few seconds of sheer panic when a small leaf blew into his back and stuck in his ridge until I removed it :crazy:. 

I much prefer the freezing and nudging at me for reassurance that Kilo has started to do than his other default of lunging at anything that worries him .


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## Twiggy

Holly was really good at agility this afternoon. I took the short handled 'chuckit' and she even chased after the ball. We got to the very last run (which would have been the easiest one for me as it was virtually standing in the middle of the jumps) and she went right into one. I thought she'd tweaked something but no......simply having a Holly 'turn'. She really is a strange little dog.


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## GingerRogers

Well done Holly, I think :skep:

Nikki hope Rusty is improving poor lad 


Dogless Kilo is doing really well, I think his enforced rest just unlocked enough for him to remember you are there to protect him 

As is the ninja

I walked her to the two bus stops at the end of the road, she doesnt really like them much but I wanted to put up notices about some keys I found on the same corner (police were nearer to comatose than uninterested when i reported them) and she coped very well indeedy :biggrin:

There was no barking at the man putting lights on the christmas tree or the lorries which was good as that sets the nearby boxer and the GSD off, she did let herself down by barking at a lady with bag that could have been dog but she was swinging it and the lady apologised  she has to remind us of her roots that one 

She walks really nicely most of the time now but I have no illusions its likely as she is feeling safer and other less familiar streets would be worse I suspect but still its a huge stride :biggrin:


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## Twiggy

Well done the Ninja....

Nicki - How is Rusty tonight?

I've still not heard whether the massage lady has received my referral forms. According to one of the receptionists yesterday at the vets they were sent via email on Friday.

I'll leave it until tomorrow lunchtime and then create merry hell...:mad5:


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## Nicki85

He is certainly brighter today  he's had a couple of short walks. The second was supposed to be calm but he had other ideas and flushed a pheasant in the scrub close to the path&#8230; it was very exciting, I have no idea what was going on but there was a lot of bushes rustling and I think yipping in excitement (either that or he had his ear caught in the bush&#8230 but he reappeared eventually without a pheasant and his heart was pounding! We took a break and I gained some control eventually 
He has had some chappie (stinks- yuk) and rice today x3 and has kept it all down. He is tired tonight though.

Had a good afternoon walk with Shae, we took special pink ball to the playing field. There are three traffic cones over there that we dragged out and played send round the cone and put in some front crosses and other things. Also worked on increasing the distance I could send her from to go round&#8230; she was fab. Met a JRT on the way back that became her new best friend (although he didn't want to play bitey face just chase  she tried all the tricks- laying down snapping etc etc) . 

Twiggy- sounds like you had a good session overall? And Holly in enjoyed most of it? 
GR- well done Ninja, she knows it's almost christmas!!
DL- well done boys, especially Kilo- great that he is putting so much trust in you


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## Dogless

Twiggy - well done to little HB..Kilo loves the short handled chuckit ball too .

GR - well done the Ninja; you're making real progress.

Nicki - pleased that Rusty's on the mend.

This evening I ran with Roo and he was very good for me then walked Kilo with Dizzy and we didn't really see anyone or anything and he was good too. Gold stars for the CHs today .


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## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> He is certainly brighter today  he's had a couple of short walks. The second was supposed to be calm but he had other ideas and flushed a pheasant in the scrub close to the path it was very exciting, I have no idea what was going on but there was a lot of bushes rustling and I think yipping in excitement (either that or he had his ear caught in the bush) but he reappeared eventually without a pheasant and his heart was pounding! We took a break and I gained some control eventually
> He has had some chappie (stinks- yuk) and rice today x3 and has kept it all down. He is tired tonight though.
> 
> Had a good afternoon walk with Shae, we took special pink ball to the playing field. There are three traffic cones over there that we dragged out and played send round the cone and put in some front crosses and other things. Also worked on increasing the distance I could send her from to go round she was fab. Met a JRT on the way back that became her new best friend (although he didn't want to play bitey face just chase  she tried all the tricks- laying down snapping etc etc) .
> 
> Twiggy- sounds like you had a good session overall? And Holly in enjoyed most of it?
> GR- well done Ninja, she knows it's almost christmas!!
> DL- well done boys, especially Kilo- great that he is putting so much trust in you


Please to hear Rusty seems to be on the mend. Mine get Chappie (it's the only thing I dare add a bit of to Leafy's dinner).

Holly went really well and was full of fun until the last 5 minutes. I really thought she'd hurt herself as I set her up for the last run as she was so reluctant over the first jump. Goodness knows what goes through her head. All the dogs in our group are best friends, nobody was shouting, the jumps hadn't been moved - I really don't know what upset her.


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## Twiggy

Well I finally heard from the clinical canine massage therapist this morning.

I was assured by the receptionist at the vets open day on Sunday that both referral forms had been emailed to her when in fact she was handed one at the open day and received Leafy's late last night....!!

What a pity she arrived on Sunday just after I left. We could have jointly backed our dear vet into a corner and hit him. I shall want an explanation the next time I'm in there.

Anyway both Leafy and Barley have their first treatments on Thursday - 2 hours each, so that will be most of the day gone.


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## GingerRogers

I really wouldnt like to be on the receiving end of one of your tongue lashings Grannie let alone with back up 

Glad its finally sorted and hope that its beneficial.

Nikki pleased to hear Rusty is on the mend  and hasn't lost his character 

Ninja had a weird moment last night got all excited at tea time and then didnt want it, just said nah!! We tried all sorts of coaxing, her belly was grumbling but whether that was poorliness or hunger I dont know. Even took her for a walk even though I had already climbed into my pjs. Tried mixing with warm water still 'nah' . Tricked her with a fingerful of pate and she decided to eat the biscuits after then  weird dog. Seemed perfectly ok but she did get a bellyful of grass this morning so dropped some prokolin in her tripe all output as normal so who knows.

However it hasn't stopped her being a superstar again. The cairns were out in their yard and she certainly had a grumble and a gambol as we passed but for once they made more noise than her, she didnt really make any more fuss than she would have done just passing the house TBH so very pleased with her. So I think all my work at that little tricky point is working 

She did bark at the leaflet delivery man who jumped out from behind a bush and then asked if she had been fed yet :Yawn: I may have not tried very hard to stop her lunging at him - idiot :frown2: (she wouldnt have bitten him and I wouldn't have let her get that close anyway but I thought it funny watching him skip away after he took the mick :devil


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## Dogless

Hope the Ninja's just a bit off colour GR and will be back to normal soon. Pleased she was a star again for you .

We went trail running for the morning today, it was eventful but ultimately worked out well.

The first event was about 20 minutes into the run, Kilo in his harness and Rudi running back and forth and through the trees as usual. Kilo suddenly alerted and I saw a sheep going through the trees just followed by Rudi at a curious trot - who recalled no problem :thumbup1:. Kilo however WANTED the sheep so took off to jump over a wide fire ditch into the trees with all the power he could muster. That took me off my feet and I landed with a giant thud....and of course became a dead weight so Kilo didn't make the jump and landed in the ditch :crazy:. All OK though :thumbup1:

Then the Ulster Way joins the forest tracks for a short way and for the first time in that part of the forest for over 2 years a man and dog were coming down the track where it joins; they were about 25m away. I recalled Rudi who was very interested but nevertheless came back, good boy . Because I wasn't worried about Kilo as much because he was attached to me he just stood there with a relaxed line (not happy, but not panicking) until Rudi came back and we ran on :thumbup1:. Just shows how much my anxiety passes to him really 

Then on the way back the man and dog were coming down the track we were running up so I recalled Rudi who came straight away, good boy again . The dog was a huge mal type dog and he was straining on his lead and pulling the man forward. He shouted that he was friendly but he was very head high tail straight up in the air and Rudi was standing with all his weight forward and head and tail high. I was going to turn around anyway as Kilo is nowhere near ready for a dog to come head on and pass but if they had met I have a feeling it would have been awfully tense :shocked: So....we turned around and I ran back the half mile or so to the Ulster Way junction the man had come from and then an extra 200m or so into a big turning area for the forestry trucks and played a few games and did a bit of training until I saw the man go up the track and then turned round and we ran back to the car. 

Kilo was worried all the way back - stuck to my leg, ears back, chops tense, tail carried low BUT better than the panicking screaming lunging Kilo. Rudi was BBB all the way back - all puffed up, muscles tense, head and tail high; I could almost see the testosterone coursing through his body :001_huh::laugh:.

Anyhow, as I said to Mo after the medals ceremony, if it hadn't been for those few small things we would have thrashed him this time. He just smiled his kind and knowing smile and did the Mobot for the eagerly assembled paparazzi


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## GingerRogers

Your account made me smile Dogless  and didnt Kilo do well all things considered, hope neither of you suffer from the thuds.

BBB  

Say Hi to Mo next time will ya!

Judging by ninjas poor starving dog eyes at lunch she is fine now


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Your account made me smile Dogless  and didnt Kilo do well all things considered, hope neither of you suffer from the thuds.
> 
> BBB
> 
> Say Hi to Mo next time will ya!
> 
> Judging by ninjas poor starving dog eyes at lunch she is fine now


Yes, Kilo did brilliantly . I felt like a nut job turning and running from the man :shocked: but I have to protect Kilo. With Rudi I would have sat him and let them pass. I hate seeing Kilo afraid and cowed and worried but at least he is in a state of mind where he will look to me and respond to me; when he is panicking all I can do is restrain him really .

Pleased Ninja's OK now and yes, I'll give your regards to Mo next time - or Usain if we go to any of the routes where the wild goats have been spotted :thumbup1:.


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## Nicki85

Non eventful day here! Morning walk with Rust on a long line in a different forrest, to small and surrounded by roads to risk him off&#8230; both had a lovely time, saw a couple of dogs&#8230; one I deliberately avoided and went down a different path as I couldn't bear the thought of long-line tangles. 

This afternoon I clipped Rust's feet (I was in the Bad Owner Book for half an hour&#8230; ) and ran the clippers over one of Shae's. I don't clip her feet but thought it was good to get her used to the sensation. Shae dealt with it as she deals with everything else- as if it's a great game lol.

Then took Rust out in the forest, he was fun! He actually bit me at one point and barked at me&#8230; I was trying to get him to jump through a tree but he was hyped and springing round it one way then the other&#8230; and got awfully frustrated with me. we did get there though! We did lots of tree agility and he was very much up for it. I love it when he's like that&#8230; He disappeared for 60secs on the way back to look for the pheasant he put up yesterday, tyke. There were loads of people out though! Never seen so many in the forest&#8230; Rust ignored, greeted and laid down as appropriate. 

Shae has her end of pre-agility course party tonight and we get to find out our scores from last week. I haven't given her a second walk- I want to see how buzzy I can get her for the party games  

DL- I'm sorry but the sheep and Kilo made me laugh! Rusty has done it to me a few times but doesn't have me over as he's only 17kg! Glad you were both OK. Sounds like both boys did well with the stranger on their patch. I have no idea what your last para is about though!!
GR- hope Ninja is OK. Sounds like she is doing well!


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## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Non eventful day here! Morning walk with Rust on a long line in a different forrest, to small and surrounded by roads to risk him off both had a lovely time, saw a couple of dogs one I deliberately avoided and went down a different path as I couldn't bear the thought of long-line tangles.
> 
> This afternoon I clipped Rust's feet (I was in the Bad Owner Book for half an hour ) and ran the clippers over one of Shae's. I don't clip her feet but thought it was good to get her used to the sensation. Shae dealt with it as she deals with everything else- as if it's a great game lol.
> 
> Then took Rust out in the forest, he was fun! He actually bit me at one point and barked at me I was trying to get him to jump through a tree but he was hyped and springing round it one way then the other and got awfully frustrated with me. we did get there though! We did lots of tree agility and he was very much up for it. I love it when he's like that He disappeared for 60secs on the way back to look for the pheasant he put up yesterday, tyke. There were loads of people out though! Never seen so many in the forest Rust ignored, greeted and laid down as appropriate.
> 
> Shae has her end of pre-agility course party tonight and we get to find out our scores from last week. I haven't given her a second walk- I want to see how buzzy I can get her for the party games
> 
> DL- I'm sorry but the sheep and Kilo made me laugh! Rusty has done it to me a few times but doesn't have me over as he's only 17kg! Glad you were both OK. Sounds like both boys did well with the stranger on their patch. *I have no idea what your last para is about though!!*
> GR- hope Ninja is OK. Sounds like she is doing well!


I was just joking - Mo Farrah .

Sounds like you've had a lovely day and I hope Shae enjoys her party games tonight .


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## Nicki85

I'm such a numpty&#8230; i only recognised the name when GR had posted about it!!!


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## Twiggy

GR - I'm sure the Ninja and Holly would get on famously as they are both so weird....LOL

DL - If the dog you saw in the forest was a male Malanois I'm not surprised your boys were up on their toes. Judging by the ones that come here they give off a certain 'aura' and I can quite see why they are the popular choice for Schutzhund and PPI.

Could you ask your friend Mo if he would give me a private lesson on how to run?

Nicki - Have a good time at the party and I'm quite sure Shae's marks from last week will be excellent.

I've re-jigged some games that we've done before for our dog party a week tomorrow. I've been doing it for so long now I'm running out of ideas. We've done working other handler's dogs, HTM, knockout competitions, etc. etc. and every variation of all party games known to man.

They are all very competitive, even when it's supposed to be a bit of fun.

Here's this years games - unless any of you can think of anything different:

GAMES

*1.	Novice Recall*

All dogs must be in the sit in the present before next handler starts but last dog must remain in the sit (with distractions) before being called.

FASTEST TEAM WINS

*2.	Relay Heelwork*

Heelwork in a square around four markers with dogs on the lead but each handler must carry a cup of water in the same hand as the lead.

TEAM WITH MOST WATER LEFT IN CUP WINS

*3.	Retrieve Relay*

Dog's collars may be held whilst handler places dumbbell and turns to face dog. Dog must be sitting in the present before next handler starts but last dog must remain in the sit whilst handler places judges article and must then present.

FASTEST TEAM WINS

*4.	Sit to Heel*

Dog's collars may be held by team members but two handlers must swap dogs. Dogs must be in the heel position before next dog starts.

FASTEST TEAM WINS

*5. Retrieve*

Retrieve a dog chew.

TEAM WITH MOST CHEW LEFT INTACT WINS

*6.	Weaving Pole Heelwork  heel free*

Heelwork at normal pace through weaving poles and back but one handler must balance a book on their head and start again if it falls.

FASTEST TEAM WINS

RULES:
Five members of each team to compete in each race .
Toys, titbits and verbal encouragement are allowed as are tactics (providing they are not harmful or upsetting to the dogs).


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## Canine K9

Will read through in a moment Just need to vent.

Went for a walk and Bailey was fine on the way to the park. Got there he started jumping up tugging the lead and nothing could make him let go. He then saw 2 dogs and starting growling and barking. Then he repeated the tugging the lead. On way home he picked up some tissue and ripped it apart then starting the tugging the lead. Then he found some $hite and tried to eat it Only positive thing we had some okay recalls. Hes been a pain recently.


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## Dogless

Twiggy - those games sound good (I'll get my thinking hat on to see if I can think of anything else but I doubt it!!). We would definitely not do well at the retrieving a dog chew :frown2:. Mo is a very nice man; I am sure he'd be willing to help .

K9 - Sounds like a rubbish walk; I expect that once you were feeling frustrated Bailey picked up on that - Kilo certainly does. All you can do I would think is have some slow quiet walks, take a deep breath and go back to the real basics even down to leaving the house and entering the park in a quiet manner.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - those games sound good (I'll get my thinking hat on to see if I can think of anything else but I doubt it!!). We would definitely not do well at the retrieving a dog chew :frown2:. Mo is a very nice man; I am sure he'd be willing to help .
> 
> I don't mind Usain if Mo isn't available...


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## Nicki85

Back from pre-agility party. Shae was very excited and spent the whole time either hanging on to the end of her tuggy or shouting at the other dogs&#8230; oh and trying to wind up the other dogs to play with her  BUT she did pull off the fastest recall over four jumps (She must have also been talking to Mo or more likely Usain- (I am SO with it!))and a 2min down stay. She got 99.5% for her test last week so super pleased 

Nice comments to that she a fun dog, lots of potential just needs a bit more focus at times (but maybe that last one is aimed at me  ) and that she is still quite puppyish which i'd agree with. Although, recently she's certainly growing up  But she is only 10months!

I can't wait to start running her properly!!


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## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Back from pre-agility party. Shae was very excited and spent the whole time either hanging on to the end of her tuggy or shouting at the other dogs oh and trying to wind up the other dogs to play with her  BUT she did pull off the fastest recall over four jumps (She must have also been talking to Mo or more likely Usain- (I am SO with it!))and a 2min down stay. She got 99.5% for her test last week so super pleased
> 
> Nice comments to that she a fun dog, lots of potential just needs a bit more focus at times (but maybe that last one is aimed at me  ) and that she is still quite puppyish which i'd agree with. Although, recently she's certainly growing up  But she is only 10months!
> 
> I can't wait to start running her properly!!


Very well done Shae (and you of course Nicki)....:thumbup1:


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## Nicki85

Twiggy said:


> Very well done Shae (and you of course Nicki)....:thumbup1:


Thanks Twiggy, she is a good girl


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## GingerRogers

Well done both of you. Nice comments too.


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## Dogless

Well done Nicki and Shae :thumbup1: .


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## Nicki85

GingerRogers said:


> Well done both of you. Nice comments too.





Dogless said:


> Well done Nicki and Shae :thumbup1: .


Thanks both  And look, I am on roll check out my double quoting!! 

To celebrate we are planning a beach walk for Friday as I have the day off :


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## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> Thanks both  And look, I am on roll check out my double quoting!!
> 
> To celebrate we are planning a beach walk for Friday as I have the day off :


Taking your camera I hope.....


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## Nicki85

I will see what I can do !! One dog on long line and one running free + camera is surely not a recipe for disaster&#8230; is it?! Although I might be able to find somewhere safe for Rust to go off&#8230; I'm looking through my Country Walking magazines for a decent walk


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## Dogless

Good morning this morning .

The weather is lovely - very cold and clear and sunny and it hasn't been great for a few days and is totally foul tomorrow so.....everyone seemed to have decided to take their dogs out this morning. Very unusual to see so many!

With Rudi we did a lead walk and passed lots of dogs well or sat to let them pass. He even did quite well with the loose lab having his ball thrown all over the road and pavements and exciting all the dogs - food was needed as a distraction, but he contained his excitement so I was pleased :thumbup1:. A woman on her bike and kids on theirs cycled over to us to say she had just had to come and say how handsome he was and how well behaved - I was so, so chuffed .

Because all the dogs were out and about I took Kilo on the road round the runway perimeter - pretty boring unless you are doing some exercises like we were but it has the advantage of a low fence and flat ground so you can see someone approaching a good 5 - 10 minutes before they reach you and formulate a plan of action  plus no one really tends to walk up there. We didn't see any dogs which was good as Kilo was in full pausing every few seconds, air scenting and lip licking, nudging me for reassurance and then walking on mode. It requires patience BUT I do feel that it's a step up from the high stepping dressage horse hair trigger dog looking to react that he has been following the attack as he is more willing to look to me rather than just panicking.

Anyway, sorry for the essay - no one else would understand why just a slow walk makes me so happy  .


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## GingerRogers

Well done Kilo, we understand, dull and slow is GOOD :thumbup1: and how nice of the lady, I bet you were chuffed. He is a handsome well behaved boy 



Not such a good day today, bit up on her toes, hmmm  but actually as I think of what to write, not that bad either, saw two dogs that she didnt react to and SSD that she did but well expected I think it is her new nemesis. It was cold today as well so she may have felt that.

First off the houdini pointy was walking away around the corner, she just looked :thumbup1:. But then barked at another lady on the opposite side of the road JIC :frown2:

Then we had to avoid SSD Owner (stupid squeaky dog owner, stupid owner not dog) she just lunged a bit this time, but we diverted anyway. So saw a GR, again just looking and no barking at a lady who wanted to get into her car :thumbup1: No barking at a lady filling up her bird feeders in her own back garden 

Then I skilfully avoided  'madlab's lab (not seen her for ages) which appeared to have a good sniff, and no doubt pee or worse, in someones front garden while mad lab was down the lane out of sight :frown2:

Then then SSD Owner appeared again, she walks fast  but at least I know her routine now :smile: We had a little bark this time but I cant say I blame her, I felt like doing the same :devil:. Ironically the dog did not squeak, I wonder how they stopped that, given her apparent complete lack of consideration for me or mine, nor her own dog, I cant imagine it was nice .

But straight after she then managed to walk past the cairns house and Max without a peep :thumbup1:.

We also had lots of cheese trees :drool:.


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## Dogless

GR - actually sounds like the Ninja did well on balance; not relaxed but not reacting to every little thing hugely either.

Oh, your post reminded me..."the lab" is back . Think he is going away again very soon. Hope so .


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - actually sounds like the Ninja did well on balance; not relaxed but not reacting to every little thing hugely either.
> 
> Oh, your post reminded me..."the lab" is back . Think he is going away again very soon. Hope so .


Liked because she did really considering, thats why its so good to get it down on (virtual) paper!

Not liking the lab back, I thought it was going for good .


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Liked because she did really considering, thats why its so good to get it down on (virtual) paper!
> 
> Not liking the lab back, I thought it was going for good .


Nope; funny how much better I feel walking when he's away .


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## Twiggy

I'm instructing at 2.00pm but it's the last one, apart from the Christmas party next week, until towards the end of January.

Last training day for this year on Saturday as well and then last agility class on Monday.

I might find time to properly train my lot over Christmas....


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## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Nope; funny how much better I feel walking when he's away .


Not funny at all completely natural 

Twiggy, a well deserved break I should imagine, enjoy!


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## Nicki85

We have had a good couple of hours wandering around a different part of the Hampshire Countryside  Apart from all the signs (PRIVATE, DOGS ON LEAD, DOGS MUST KEEP TO FOOTPATH&#8230 everywhere which got me a bit on edge- what are they doing there I wonder?! Anyhow, no problem as Rust was on lead anyhow and Shae trots out in front 5m ahead&#8230; We found a huge lake full of ducks so I suspect there are some shooting operations in the area. We saw no one! Both were good, Shae trots along in front and Rust leaps from one side to the other of me perfectly happy (or so his tail would say&#8230

Rust has agility later and Shae seems tired so I suspect that will be it for today. 

Sounds like they are all on their toes today&#8230; the wind was up round here and bringing the leaves down (do you know if leaves are falling from the trees there just might be a squirrel up there?!? or so Rusty tells me&#8230. 
DL- I don't remember the lab  I hope he goes away again soon though.


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## Dogless

Excellent, excellent walks tonight...I am going to be all boasty  .

Walked Kilo with Diz. Waiting for Diz outside his house a loose lab was just disappearing down an alley - just one whine from Kilo :thumbup1:. Then on our walk we followed a woman with a lab on a lead about 20m in front of us and nothing from Kilo bar nudging me all the time for reassurance and food. Then we had a nice quiet walk until the end. There were loads and loads of screaming, shouting, running, fighting people all over near the shop / chip wagon / car park, some in fancy dress and all very, very drunk. Think the lads must have had their Christmas meal today!! Nightmare...only it wasn't...I stayed calm and Kilo just kept looking at me and nudging. We quickly walked away from all that only to see a loose ambull about 20m away again - he is never on a lead and his owner was about 30m away - he always just walks and relies on his dog to follow - never looks back but swings a check chain and lead and looks at you almost daring you to say a word :frown2: . Anyway Kilo saw the dog and nudged and we did a swift U - turn (Diz's human understands these things!!) and went another way. Kilo must have been so, so tested tonight yet did really, really well. I think I can award him a platinum star today; I am beyond thrilled with him :001_wub:

Roo...was Roo :aureola:. We saw a few dogs, lots of people and he trotted along happily. A woman was walking a huge husky and was with her friend with two small dogs who were all pulling to get to us, so I crossed the road. The husky came bounding across on his flexi and the small dogs pulled at us and...the woman thanked me for crossing the road in a very sarcastic manner as her dog had nearly had her over . Oh well, just this place. Roo did really well .


----------



## JenKyzer

Phew! 6 pages read and caught up on 
Sounds like your all having a great week :biggrin5:

Will hopefully post tomorrow when on laptop
Phone writing is very annoying! :glare:


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Phew! 6 pages read and caught up on
> Sounds like your all having a great week :biggrin5:
> 
> Will hopefully post tomorrow when on laptop
> Phone writing is very annoying! :glare:


Nice to see you though .


----------



## moonviolet

*waving not drowning* still working on christmas tricks and now props. My hands are spending a fair amount of time covered in red and gold paint and hot glue burns :lol:

Happy walks and good progress to all.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Nice to see you though .


Was nice to read everyones posts too  
I try to stay up to date 

GR - i didn't see an answer to what
a sausage/cheese tree is 
Don't leave me hanging  please!
I hope i haven't missed your reply


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Excellent, excellent walks tonight...I am going to be all boasty  .
> 
> Walked Kilo with Diz. Waiting for Diz outside his house a loose lab was just disappearing down an alley - just one whine from Kilo :thumbup1:. Then on our walk we followed a woman with a lab on a lead about 20m in front of us and nothing from Kilo bar nudging me all the time for reassurance and food. Then we had a nice quiet walk until the end. There were loads and loads of screaming, shouting, running, fighting people all over near the shop / chip wagon / car park, some in fancy dress and all very, very drunk. Think the lads must have had their Christmas meal today!! Nightmare...only it wasn't...I stayed calm and Kilo just kept looking at me and nudging. We quickly walked away from all that only to see a loose ambull about 20m away again - he is never on a lead and his owner was about 30m away - he always just walks and relies on his dog to follow - never looks back but swings a check chain and lead and looks at you almost daring you to say a word :frown2: . Anyway Kilo saw the dog and nudged and we did a swift U - turn (Diz's human understands these things!!) and went another way. Kilo must have been so, so tested tonight yet did really, really well. I think I can award him a platinum star today; I am beyond thrilled with him :001_wub:
> 
> Roo...was Roo :aureola:. We saw a few dogs, lots of people and he trotted along happily. A woman was walking a huge husky and was with her friend with two small dogs who were all pulling to get to us, so I crossed the road. The husky came bounding across on his flexi and the small dogs pulled at us and...the woman thanked me for crossing the road in a very sarcastic manner as her dog had nearly had her over . Oh well, just this place. Roo did really well .


Wow didn't Kilo do well - a solid gold star I'd say.....:thumbup1:


----------



## Twiggy

moonviolet said:


> *waving not drowning* still working on christmas tricks and now props. My hands are spending a fair amount of time covered in red and gold paint and hot glue burns :lol:
> 
> Happy walks and good progress to all.


Eh...? Would you care to expand on the Christmas tricks and props?


----------



## GingerRogers

Whooping hoo at kilo brave lad.

Hi Jen. Sausage tree is one you can hide treats or sausages in but as they are all until branched smooth barked ones I realised cheese would stick to them. Today I realised other treats will stick to the cheese :-D

Phone typing is rubbish isn't it.lol. But your posts have been almost poetic. Hope you feeling better.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Eh...? Would you care to expand on the Christmas tricks and props?


 Hopefully I'll be able to show you before Christmas, if the filming isn't too wobbly :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Wow didn't Kilo do well - a solid gold star I'd say.....:thumbup1:


I can barely believe it Twiggy . Thankfully (or not!) the weather is so foul, the likes of which I haven't seen for a long time, there shouldn't be folk out so quiet walks for us if we can dodge flying items. Definitely not a day to venture to the forest or mountains .


----------



## Hanwombat

Io's recall and leave commands are still very good on off-lead walks so I just try to do a few of each on every walk.

I haven't done much heel work recently with her, so I shall be doing some at the weekend to see if she has gone backwards much.

Will be nice when I can go to some of these group walks as then her recall will be tested!

I was proud yesterday as she had found something very interesting and was going crazy, I whistled and she came a running


----------



## JenKyzer

GingerRogers said:


> Whooping hoo at kilo brave lad.
> 
> Hi Jen. Sausage tree is one you can hide treats or sausages in but as they are all until branched smooth barked ones I realised cheese would stick to them. Today I realised other treats will stick to the cheese :-D
> 
> Phone typing is rubbish isn't it.lol. But your posts have been almost poetic. Hope you feeling better.


Soo you send the ninja into a 'find' sort of cue from 
different distances? Is that right?
Or have i got the wrong end of the .. Tree!? 

 sorry i couldn't resist! But keen to know 
It sounds fun!!


----------



## JenKyzer

moonviolet said:


> Hopefully I'll be able to show you before Christmas, if the filming isn't too wobbly :lol:


I love the suspence !! 
How exciting!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Soo you send the ninja into a 'find' sort of cue from
> different distances? Is that right?
> Or have i got the wrong end of the .. Tree!?
> 
> sorry i couldn't resist! But keen to know
> It sounds fun!!


Loads of ideas like that are in "Chase! - Managing Your Dog's Predatory Instincts" by Clarissa von Reinhardt.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Loads of ideas like that are in "Chase! - Managing Your Dog's Predatory Instincts" by Clarissa von Reinhardt.


Ah i shall have a look into it  thanks.
With my tiredness & still doing dodgy phone posts last 
night i rudely didn't mentioned how thrilled i am for
you at how Kilos walk went yesterday  Amazing!!
Your hard work is paying off G, what a good lad!!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Ah i shall have a look into it  thanks.
> With my tiredness & still doing dodgy phone posts last
> night i rudely didn't mentioned how thrilled i am for
> you at how Kilos walk went yesterday  Amazing!!
> Your hard work is paying off G, what a good lad!!


Thank you, he's a good boy .


----------



## GingerRogers

JenSteWillow said:


> Soo you send the ninja into a 'find' sort of cue from
> different distances? Is that right?
> Or have i got the wrong end of the .. Tree!?
> 
> sorry i couldn't resist! But keen to know
> It sounds fun!!


Well I don't as I do it to liven up our pavement potters but you certainly could. :thumbup1:

I just hide stuff when she's otherwise interested in smells of which there's lots around trees 

I want tat book now dogless you have mentioned it lots of times.


----------



## Dogless

Well, this morning's weather is brutal to say the least . The boys got only about 50 minutes each but it was hard going!! Walking into wind was slow progress and when the wind gusted even harder it was no progress; disadvantage of living on an airfield....poor Roo even got blown over when he cocked his leg to pee :frown2:. 

Rudi got a little offlead on the sports pitches, Kilo got none as he is crackers in the wind and everything moving really stimulates him. Not much seen at all as not many people are daft enough to go out in this weather :frown2: .


----------



## donna160

Poor Roo,Poppy was going crazy too.
I'm trying to stop pulling on lead but tbh it's getting worse no matter what i do i'm obviously going wrong somewhere :frown2:
Today was even worse and with the wind blowing us everywhere it was an absolute nightmare,I had to cut the walk short as it was getting dangerous so poor pops only had about 10 minutes. Hopefully it will settle down a bit later so we can try again though i doubt it will.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh dear poor Roo 

Sorry I sniggered  Ninja did a somersault in the bracken trying to recall/chase pheasants yesterday so you can laugh at her too!

Donna one of my light bulb moments was realizing I was never ever going to get nice LLW walking at any point when ninja was aroused by something, be it excitement or fear or whatever. Just worth bearing in mind, I dont know if its applicable, but she is still very, very new to you and your environment  try to just take it down a peg or two or give up and start again another day. And we are still working on it 18 months on so dont get disheartened when it doesn't come quickly (just get disheartened that it can take that long )

I was a bit worried with the wind that ninja would be a walking bag of naughty monkeys this morning but she was actually really really good :001_wub:despite the hoolies of leaves zooming down the streets like some kind of wilde-leaf migration.

Until the stupid woman and her poor squeaking dog appeared behind us again (wheres the fist shaking smiley ). I spent the rest of the walk absolutely furious at her and actually muttering quite loudly at how bloody ignorant she was in the hope she might hear or at least someone might. Got home and the neighbour popped out for a chat so I ranted at her and then came indoors and burst into tears :frown:, it just feels like you are fighting a losing battle sometimes, it really does.

However ninja was still my super star, I cant blame her for reacting at the stupid woman and we used the energy to haev a game of tug on the green, we had some more cheese trees and while I was talking to the neighbour she was a little angel, cuteness personified :thumbup1: :001_wub:


----------



## shadowmare

Oh dear I think I jinxed Axel's recall:mad2: Just went out for a quick run around the nearest dog walking place and Axel decided it's time to run around like crazy:crazy: Because he was running around too fast for my liking (the grass is wet, covered with wet slippery leaves and there's a lot of branches in some places after the storm) I tried to get him back to me. He was having too much fun trying to get me to run around with him and I failed... So then I tried running away from him as it usually works, but all I got him to do is to follow me while doing fast wide circles around me:glare: And every time he would get closer and I would try to come up to him he would run off again:mad2::cursing: Got pretty angry with him AND myself and now am sitting at home sulking:001_rolleyes: The most frustrating part is that I went on that walk as my break from studying (I've got some exams coming up) and was hoping to get some fresh air and relax. Instead now I am feeling stressed and annoyed!:incazzato: Someone isn't getting his bull pizzle tonight. Instead he will have to listen to me read long boring psychology papers:


----------



## Twiggy

It's been a long day...!!

Left home at 9.15am with Leafy and Barley for their appointment at 10.00 and didn't get back until almost 2.30pm.

Lovely lady and she certainly knows her muscles, ligaments, tendons, etc. and just adores dogs. I think we may well become friends. She's having noise sensitive issues with one of her dogs and I can help with that and behavioural issues with her entire male, which I can also help with....


----------



## Twiggy

shadowmare said:


> Oh dear I think I jinxed Axel's recall:mad2: Just went out for a quick run around the nearest dog walking place and Axel decided it's time to run around like crazy:crazy: Because he was running around too fast for my liking (the grass is wet, covered with wet slippery leaves and there's a lot of branches in some places after the storm) I tried to get him back to me. He was having too much fun trying to get me to run around with him and I failed... So then I tried running away from him as it usually works, but all I got him to do is to follow me while doing fast wide circles around me:glare: And every time he would get closer and I would try to come up to him he would run off again:mad2::cursing: Got pretty angry with him AND myself and now am sitting at home sulking:001_rolleyes: The most frustrating part is that I went on that walk as my break from studying (I've got some exams coming up) and was hoping to get some fresh air and relax. Instead now I am feeling stressed and annoyed!:incazzato: Someone isn't getting his bull pizzle tonight. Instead he will have to listen to me read long boring psychology papers:


I'm not being unkind but it does beg the question who is training who. He's a collie pup and if he's already giving you the run around at 6 months it's going to get worse. It's no good getting angry with him, he doesn't understand.

Are there no decent training classes in your area, preferably with a collie savvy instructor who can help you with basic training?


----------



## Dogless

donna and shadowmare - didn't "like" your posts as you had rubbish walks, wasn't ignoring you. Tomorrow is another day is always my motto...almost the theme tune to my life at times  .

GR - sniggering karma. Done . Ninja did fabulously not to have monkey brains...and can't blame her for reacting to SDW (squeaky dog woman ) at all :aureola:.

Twiggy - sounds like a good trade; behavioural help for musculoskeletal help :thumbup1:.


----------



## shadowmare

Twiggy said:


> I'm not being unkind but it does beg the question who is training who. He's a collie pup and if he's already giving you the run around at 6 months it's going to get worse. It's no good getting angry with him, he doesn't understand.
> 
> Are there no decent training classes in your area, preferably with a collie savvy instructor who can help you with basic training?


Well he's not a collie so am not sure if there's a difference whether the trainer is a collie savvy or not. We recently finished the puppy class training and will continue our training after new year since all training classes that follow the puppy class were already full or just about to finish and no one starts training during christmas period (at least not around here). Also, this is the first time he's done it and I'm not ready to call this giving me a run around. This is a thread called "What are you working on???" right?:001_huh: or do we all just come here and only share what the dog has achieved and great at?:001_huh: (not trying to be cheeky just am a little bit confused about your reaction...)


----------



## GingerRogers

shadowmare said:


> Well he's not a collie so am not sure if there's a difference whether the trainer is a collie savvy or not. We recently finished the puppy class training and will continue our training after new year since all training classes that follow the puppy class were already full or just about to finish and no one starts training during christmas period (at least not around here). Also, this is the first time he's done it and I'm not ready to call this giving me a run around. This is a thread called "What are you working on???" right?:001_huh: or do we all just come here and only share what the dog has achieved and great at?:001_huh: (not trying to be cheeky just am a little bit confused about your reaction...)


What is he then  sorry I should know but he looks like a collie.

Yes it is for what you are working on which infers that even though its the first time hes done it its something you wish to work on and without giving any further details we can only work on what you give 

If you had read the thread you will know that it is by no means a place for boasting, its a place we come to to share the good the bad and the ugly and get help when we need it.

So I assume twiggy assumed that was what you were asking for 

From my part, the fact that you moaned that he had ruined your relaxation (as if on purpose) and talked about not allowing him his pizzle as a punishment :001_huh: for an act that had no malice behind it says you do in fact need some more training help


----------



## donna160

GingerRogers said:


> Donna one of my light bulb moments was realizing I was never ever going to get nice LLW walking at any point when ninja was aroused by something, be it excitement or fear or whatever. Just worth bearing in mind, I dont know if its applicable, but she is still very, very new to you and your environment


I feel really dumb, i never put it down to excitement -the pulling i mean- i know she gets giddy ,i just put it down to her.. well i dont know really  lol
i'm not used to young dogs i've only had an older rescue dog before and she was as good as gold bless her, i don't think i realised how easy i had it!

I would love to have seen ninjas somersault lol

shadowmare i'm sure axel will be fine on recall tomorrow, i think this weather just had an affect on them, poppys usually bad on the lead but today she was much worse - seems a bit of a coincidence to me 

Twiggy it sounds like a good mutually beneficial relationship


----------



## shadowmare

He's an Australian shepherd 
We work on his recall every day at all of our walks and in different environments. We work at home, in the park and at dog parks. As I said we attended training classes so we did work there too. In all honesty, this is the first time he took my call as a game. His recall always was good for a puppy that age, which is why I started my post by saying that I jinxed his recall - I was always pretty proud of how quickly he would come back to me even if he was in the middle of a game with another dog. Today just reminded me that he is still young and I have to continue working hard on his training:001_smile:


----------



## Dogless

donna160 said:


> I feel really dumb, i never put it down to excitement -the pulling i mean- i know she gets giddy ,i just put it down to her.. well i dont know really  lol
> i'm not used to young dogs i've only had an older rescue dog before and she was as good as gold bless her, i don't think i realised how easy i had it!
> 
> I would love to have seen ninjas somersault lol
> 
> shadowmare i'm sure axel will be fine on recall tomorrow, i think this weather just had an affect on them, poppys usually bad on the lead but today she was much worse - seems a bit of a coincidence to me
> 
> Twiggy it sounds like a good mutually beneficial relationship


The wind is a HUGE factor with Kilo - everything moving about and probably the feeling on his coat and all the scents swirling, the odd noises get him really excited. I have to be careful where I let him off the lead even - even in places he's normally well behaved.


----------



## GingerRogers

Don't feel dumb Donna, I only figured it out a few weeks ago, I have only had ninja since Sept 2012 

Shadowmare I hate to say it but could it be the dreaded adolescence  if so I think the advice is to keep up with what you have been doing and it all comes good in the end :thumbup1: honest :001_huh:

I wouldnt know I have never been silly enough to own a puppy dawg


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Don't feel dumb Donna, I only figured it out a few weeks ago, I have only had ninja since Sept 2012
> 
> Shadowmare I hate to say it but could it be the dreaded adolescence  if so I think the advice is to keep up with what you have been doing and it all comes good in the end :thumbup1: honest :001_huh:
> 
> *I wouldnt know I have never been silly enough to own a puppy dawg *


Just a calm, ploddy, terrier who isn't an ounce of trouble :shocked: :aureola: .


----------



## Twiggy

shadowmare said:


> Well he's not a collie so am not sure if there's a difference whether the trainer is a collie savvy or not. We recently finished the puppy class training and will continue our training after new year since all training classes that follow the puppy class were already full or just about to finish and no one starts training during christmas period (at least not around here). Also, this is the first time he's done it and I'm not ready to call this giving me a run around. This is a thread called "What are you working on???" right?:001_huh: or do we all just come here and only share what the dog has achieved and great at?:001_huh: (not trying to be cheeky just am a little bit confused about your reaction...)


Sorry he looks like a collie in your avatar. Is he an ASD then? If so same rules apply.

This was part of your post:

*. So then I tried running away from him as it usually works, but all I got him to do is to follow me while doing fast wide circles around me And every time he would get closer and I would try to come up to him he would run off again Got pretty angry with him *

Personally I'd say that's giving you the run around and I can't see the point in getting angry with him when he clearly doesn't understand what you are asking of him. If you need to run away from him then there is already a break down in his recall training which will get progressively worse.

Of course we are all working on improving some aspects of our dogs training/behaviour on WAYWO but *getting angry* (your words) with a puppy certainly isn't the way forward IMO.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Just a calm, ploddy, terrier who isn't an ounce of trouble :shocked: :aureola: .


Well yes :confused5: I dont know what you are inferring she is an angel

:lol:


----------



## Dogless

This morning's trail run was sponsored by lots and lots of hills and snow. It was hard to get to the forest / moors because of snow on the road , but we did and had a few hours of running in a Winter Wonderland - pine trees covered in snow is very Christmassy. We got very wet thanks to a continuous drizzle of that fine snow that doesn't settle but that was fine as all was well with the world today :thumbup1:. A tired human and two dogs who haven't moved from the sofa apart from for food since....although shortly when I say "Kilo, do you want to go and see Diz?" there will be a sudden sprint to the front door by Sir K .

We did well today - Mo and Usain cancelled due to weather conditions though. No commitment that pair :frown2:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> This morning's trail run was sponsored by lots and lots of hills and snow. It was hard to get to the forest / moors because of snow on the road , but we did and had a few hours of running in a Winter Wonderland - pine trees covered in snow is very Christmassy. We got very wet thanks to a continuous drizzle of that fine snow that doesn't settle but that was fine as all was well with the world today :thumbup1:. A tired human and two dogs who haven't moved from the sofa apart from for food since....although shortly when I say "Kilo, do you want to go and see Diz?" there will be a sudden sprint to the front door by Sir K .
> 
> *We did well today - Mo and Usain cancelled due to weather conditions though. No commitment that pair* :frown2:.


That'll be elf 'n safety reasons no doubt. They're just not dedicated dog owners like you....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That'll be elf 'n safety reasons no doubt. They're just not dedicated dog owners like you....


Honestly Twiggy, they won't get anywhere without putting in the ground work. If I have told Mo once I've told him a thousand times .


----------



## Dogless

Lead walks tonight in the drizzle - the sort of weather that almost tempts me to walk the boys together round the streets; don't worry, I won't, just going out in it twice can be soul destroying :frown2:. Walked Kilo with Diz and Rudi on his own; both did well :thumbup1:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Honestly Twiggy, they won't get anywhere without putting in the ground work. If I have told Mo once I've told him a thousand times .


They're not very good friends are they? I'm quite offended that neither of them has been in touch to help me with the 'running'.....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Lead walks tonight in the drizzle - the sort of weather that almost tempts me to walk the boys together round the streets; don't worry, I won't, just going out in it twice can be soul destroying :frown2:. Walked Kilo with Diz and Rudi on his own; both did well :thumbup1:.


I'm supposed to be walking Barley and Leafy separately today as they are only allowed short on lead walks. This afternoon though I took all 4 out (with Leafy and Barley on the lead). I figured it was better to give them a bit longer than tearing my hair out trying to stop Holly and Barley belting round the house playing...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm supposed to be walking Barley and Leafy separately today as they are only allowed short on lead walks. This afternoon though I took all 4 out (with Leafy and Barley on the lead). I figured it was better to give them a bit longer than tearing my hair out trying to stop Holly and Barley belting round the house playing...!!


Yes...mine have a racetrack from the lounge, round the dining room table. They are too big to try running full pelt round our little house!!!


----------



## Dogless

Not the best start this morning as I stepped out of my front door to find someone's dog had left a load of sloppy poo on the drive...Kilo trod in it and I got the hosepipe out :mad2:.

After that I took Kilo to the top fields as the road up to them has finally been opened again. He was all zoomy like a puppy and full of it so we did loads of "Ready Steady" and play and just had fantastic fun. I love going up there as it is his "safe" place. On the way there we passed a house that has been empty for ages but which is now very much occupied; we heard furious barking and stood with his paws up on the 4ft fence was a huge DDB . Kilo froze, cowered, looked away and lip licked a lot - I got him moving and he had a good shake off and carried on our way . Won't be going past that way again in a hurry, it's an accident waiting to happen.

Took Roo out for a run; he was fab. I ignored the calls of owners to their offlead dogs who wanted to come and say hello to us alongside the main road; didn't even look back I am ashamed to say. 

Both boys had a lovely, long time and have played since which is ideal as we're out tonight so they'll just sleep .


----------



## Twiggy

I was instructing for 6.1/2 hours today without a break. I am now well and truly shattered. It's the concentration without a let up that does it and competitive obedience is so technical these days.

Still on the plus side all the dogs went well and we had a good day. Even more on the plus side that's it now until almost the end of January (apart from the Christmas party on Wednesday)....


----------



## Nicki85

All good here!! We've had a few good days, today was a bit more challenging.

Started with swimming down the canal and it was all a bit manic! Rusty was on his longline but refusing to come out of the canal where I asked him to (in the sensible bit where he could actually get out) so I had to keep pulling him out by his harness. Shae was being bonkers and wanting to get Rusty to play so kept jumping on him and biting his ears/scruff. Oh and stealing his toy. So lots of leave it's for Shae. This was coupled with loads of cyclists and joggers that although both ignore led to difficulty with longlines and swimming&#8230; 

This afternoon I decided they obviously needed separate sessions chasing something. So Shae first over the field with her chuckit ball&#8230; went round the village first, all good- loose lead walking fine&#8230; Then we saw the first dog of the walk (which is always greeted with growls- excitement+frustration of not being able to say hi= growls/barking) after we've seen one dog then the growls and barking vanish. Anyhow, it was a lab that stares a lot and then lays down and jumps up to greet. I made a bad decision and allowed Shae to greet without her being calm which resulted in a handbags moment. No real drama but I knew I should have walked her past. The other dogs we saw on the playing field we didn't react to and ignored&#8230; She had a lot of fun playing with her ball though 

Rusty went round a section of the forest and chased squirrels&#8230; we did do a bit of chase the toy as well!!

I've been putting the decorations up here- Rusty is sitting looking worried in he bed and Shae is busy helping. Talk about polar opposites! 

DL- grrrr at off lead dogs. 
Twiggy- glad you had a good day, sounds tiring though!!!!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - that mad eme feel exhausted reading it!! Hope you have less chaos in your day today . Oh, and that your decorations look lovely too, of course.

The offlead dogs didn't cause us much drama yesterday. I have just got to the feck 'em stage near the main road when it's the repeat offenders. If it's someone who's dog has darted of an estate that a child has let out of the front door or something I'll of course always help them catch their dog .


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy - Time to relax and breathe 

Nikki - silly Rusty does he not know squizzells escape , ninja does but she still likes to run about watching them in the trees, squizzells are the best things she thinks, she hasn't fell over anything, Yet! Rory hadn't a clue where they went  he would run round the base of a tree for hours I reckon trying to figure out where it had gone. Buffer my friends boy knows they go up trees but thinks barking up at them will make them come down again, and he hasn't figured out they can move from tree to tree

We just had a lovely if unplanned walk. Were going to our wood but its clearly the day the whole village goes to steal holly  so we tried happy field but there was two big lurchers just arrived so ended up elsewhere, I had now decided it was going to be a one longer walk today instead of two. We walked across the first field ninja got a good off lead run and some luvverly recalls  then heard shots in the direction I had planned so we explurred the other direction, past the big house and then  towards the main road, normally avoid the paths that lead to the main road its the A12 its quite busy, not good walking  we came out by the public toilets  apparently men visit at night :shocked: were there was surprisingly a footpath, (I didnt know that, cant see it from the road ) so we walked past the traffic heading for a farm that I know has tracks running through it then I remember its a xmas tree farm  and sure enough I can see from that distance its very busy, they do tractor rides and all sorts, so I pause and look about, theres a footpath sign opposite, we have to cross the road and we are in the land no one walks , why would they its by the road but perfect for me and my little dog on a long line, she nearly got herself stuck as she wedged her self under some breached rabbit fencing :frown2: cant take her anywhere but we kept taking different turns not really sure where I was and ended up near happy field after all , thats when I remembered the two big lurchers in the vicinity  so we turned back.

But it was the longest I have managed for ages as my ankles have been really hurty  which stops me doing explurration walks as you dont know how long they will be, today they felt great till I was nearly back at the car 

Think ninja needs to build up a bit slower she is tired bunny now!


----------



## Twiggy

GR Glad you had a nice long walk and that little Ninja was a good girl. How are you're ankles now?

I met my younger sister for lunch today. We met halfway between her home in Rugby and here; just off the A14 between Thrapston and Kettering. Lovely village pub and a super meal. We had a good long chat for two hours over lunch and I've promised faithfully to go and see her new house once spring is on the way.

Got home just in time to give the girls their second walk - not ideal on a very full stomach....!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Ugh no walking when full is unpleasant 

Thats the most annoying thing Twiggy my ankles are fine given a a bit of rest (apart from sleep rest then I walk like a 90 yr old ) but agony on walks. I did go to the doctors who referred me for physio, I got an appointment a few days later, very efficient  apart from it was telephone consultation :confused5:

Telephonic physio :frown2:


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Ugh no walking when full is unpleasant
> 
> Thats the most annoying thing Twiggy my ankles are fine given a a bit of rest (apart from sleep rest then I walk like a 90 yr old ) but agony on walks. I did go to the doctors who referred me for physio, I got an appointment a few days later, very efficient  apart from it was telephone consultation :confused5:
> 
> Telephonic physio :frown2:


Did either the doctor or physio give you any idea why your ankles hurt after sleeping or when you walk?


----------



## Dogless

GR - Ankles sound painful and annoying .

This morning the dogs got a nice long walk each; we'll go out later again too, nothing to report which is best at times :thumbup1:.


----------



## zedder

Nice walk today and ike thanked me by digging my mums lawn up the swine that he is


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Did either the doctor or physio give you any idea why your ankles hurt after sleeping or when you walk?


No, I diagnosed overpronation causing strain on the achilles, for which I have been sent some nice leaflets detailing calf strengthening exercises 

Dogless uneventful is def good


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> No, I diagnosed *overpronation* causing strain on the achilles, for which I have been sent some nice leaflets detailing calf strengthening exercises
> 
> Dogless uneventful is def good


What the Dickens does that mean?


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> What the Dickens does that mean?


Sorry  my feet wring over inwards, kind of like fallen arches, which in turn pulls at the achilles tendons, which are the base of the calf muscle apparently 

Imagine all those young girls in their ugg boots feet all twisted and slid to the side


----------



## Dogless

Good day today - two good separate walks each.

Morning walks were lots of impulse control training, "Ready Steady" etc etc - quite exciting and lots of running. Evening walks were steadier lead potters - Kilo with Dizzy and Roo on his own.

We have seen a few dogs in the distance but approaching us today and Kilo has seen them, nudged at me and U-turned very nicely, so I am still very pleased with the teeny bits of progress we are making .

Also noisy, running kids off to youth club tonight and again Kilo was very calm and very well behaved.

Not much seen with Roo but he behaved very nicely indeed for me for our bits of training and just in general.

So...two best boys today . Now I just have to hear Masterchef over the snoring .


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry  my feet wring over inwards, kind of like fallen arches, which in turn pulls at the achilles tendons, which are the base of the calf muscle apparently
> 
> Imagine all those young girls in their ugg boots feet all twisted and slid to the side


Are there no built up insoles that would help correct your feet when walking?


----------



## Twiggy

Took Holly Bolly to agility this afternoon and she was very good by Holly standards.

Our instructor was telling me this afternoon that his wife (who takes the less experienced group) really covets one of the collies that train there.

 She's clearly deranged....!!


----------



## lupie

Wondering if I might join in on this monster of a thread to help keep me inspired/motivated 

Winter has meant dark walks which has meant very few on-lead dog encounters which has been very nice for us...but I think it's meant Ruska's gotten used to not seeing other dogs whilst on lead. Saw three in quite quick succession this morning and she was worse than she's been in MONTHS. Full on lunging, barking and some growling in there. I was shocked  We've mostly gotten to the point of her barking and maybe 1 or 2 small lunges but that's it, nowhere near the extent of this morning. 

Back to square one. Think I need to try and make the effort at the weekends to try and have a few walks where we might do some controlled dog exposure instead of going to exciting offlead places (she's fine offlead), as her reaction this morning I can only think is from having so many dog-free walks? 

Hope I'm welcome here


----------



## Anibaz

We are constantly working on getting completely comfortable meeting dogs while they are on leash. Smilla is insecure since she got attacked really bad, and Arach is just over friendly and gets frustrated when he's not allowed to rush up to other dogs. We are getting there, we are making progress every day.
That's what we are working on when it comes to general obedience.

Smilla and I are putting all our energy on the practical things we have to show on the clicker trainer examination, Arach and I are training freestyle tricks. Right now I'm trying to get him comfortable being around my legs, we are doing a lot of progress


----------



## donna160

Lead pulling..still ongoing!
Poppy has been wearing her harness the last few days which is a bloody nightmare to get on her 
she's actually doing quite well with it and our walks are a bit less stressful but due to an encounter with two aggressive cockers she has developed a habit of laying on the floor the minute another dog appears on the horizon, which i'm seriously concerned about. previous to this i've had to stop her from jumping around with excitement around other dogs!

Hope you've all had a good dog day


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Wondering if I might join in on this monster of a thread to help keep me inspired/motivated
> 
> Winter has meant dark walks which has meant very few on-lead dog encounters which has been very nice for us...but I think it's meant Ruska's gotten used to not seeing other dogs whilst on lead. Saw three in quite quick succession this morning and she was worse than she's been in MONTHS. Full on lunging, barking and some growling in there. I was shocked  We've mostly gotten to the point of her barking and maybe 1 or 2 small lunges but that's it, nowhere near the extent of this morning.
> 
> Back to square one. Think I need to try and make the effort at the weekends to try and have a few walks where we might do some controlled dog exposure instead of going to exciting offlead places (she's fine offlead), as her reaction this morning I can only think is from having so many dog-free walks?
> 
> Hope I'm welcome here


Of course you're welcome . Everyone is!!

I have found with Kilo that stopping any exposure and lowering his stress levels actually helps him when he is reintroduced to an environment but I guess every dog is different and it may not help Ruska. Maybe it was the surprise factor this morning?


----------



## Fluffster

I've been trying to work on Daisy's behaviour on-lead and today I was really chuffed when we managed to walk past someone without her straining to go and say hi  She did a casual glance at them and then eyes forward again  Her pulling pre-walk was quite bad though, although it was good post-walk. 

We also met a couple of off-lead dogs and Daisy was very measured, she waited for them to approach and when I started walking on, she came right away. She even did a sit/stay for a while when I stood talking to a woman 

She must have read my thread yesterday :lol:


----------



## donna160

Well done Daisy  and you of course Fluffster


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello all you new people

Twiggy yes i have insoles already otc ones. i think i was hoping the physio might result in proper ones but well they might need to see me for that
Nothing doing today. Busy for me. Had a quick shoot round the estate and she was brill 

Hubby took her out this afternoon. Apparently she is miraculously getting a pleasure to walk  nowt to do with my work on the long line then.

Fluff glad you are feeling better.

Donna i don't know if i would be horrifically concerned about he lying down. It sound like she had a bit of a fright but is dealing with it by trying to show she's no threat rather than complete freaking but i don't really know


----------



## Twiggy

Anibaz said:


> We are constantly working on getting completely comfortable meeting dogs while they are on leash. Smilla is insecure since she got attacked really bad, and Arach is just over friendly and gets frustrated when he's not allowed to rush up to other dogs. We are getting there, we are making progress every day.
> That's what we are working on when it comes to general obedience.
> 
> *Smilla and I are putting all our energy on the practical things we have to show on the clicker trainer examination, Arach and I are training freestyle tricks. Right now I'm trying to get him comfortable being around my legs, we are doing a lot of progress *




That sounds interesting, tell us more please.

What exercises are you doing for the clicker trainer examination and what are the freestyle tricks?


----------



## donna160

GingerRogers said:


> Donna i don't know if i would be horrifically concerned about he lying down. It sound like she had a bit of a fright but is dealing with it by trying to show she's no threat rather than complete freaking but i don't really know


I know but she always bounded up to other dogs all excited wanting to play ..a bit of a nightmare sometimes admittedly lol.. but now she's just subdued and tbh it's sad to see her like that, yesterday she layed down then got into a pounce position and looked very tense and wary which was a bit worrying, today she just lay down.

hopefully i'll get her out of it and i'll be back to stopping her doing a tigger on speed impression whenever she sees another dog


----------



## Fluffster

Daisy sometimes does the lying down thing if it's a dog she's not sure of and waits for it to approach her. Usually if it's a bigger dog that isn't a lab (she thinks every lab is her best pal). I always think it's just her showing she's no threat - she's quite submissive when playing with bigger dogs too, she'll often roll onto her back when being chased and she's "caught".


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Of course you're welcome . Everyone is!!
> 
> I have found with Kilo that stopping any exposure and lowering his stress levels actually helps him when he is reintroduced to an environment but I guess every dog is different and it may not help Ruska. Maybe it was the surprise factor this morning?


Thank you!

Yes, I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand I don't want to expose her to stress but on the other it feels like the less she sees them she almost "forgets" all the work we've done.

I'm also wondering if it was the fact that it was dawn, so semi-light, and all the dogs were wearing flashing lights (which she does too) so maybe they were a bit out of the ordinary for her.

I guess I won't know until we see another dog...and can gauge from there my next steps


----------



## GingerRogers

lupie said:


> Thank you!
> 
> Yes, I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand I don't want to expose her to stress but on the other it feels like the less she sees them she almost "forgets" all the work we've done.
> 
> I'm also wondering if it was the fact that it was dawn, so semi-light, and all the dogs were wearing flashing lights (which she does too) so maybe they were a bit out of the ordinary for her.
> 
> I guess I won't know until we see another dog...and can gauge from there my next steps


I read something the other day about tv. But it had to do with flicker so don't know if that has anything to do with it i have heard of a few dogs not liking the flashing collars.

Personally i make sure we have a balance. I do away walks. But always almost a pavement potter where we may or may not see actual dogs but there's plenty in houses yards potentially wandering or have wandered. I agree with dogless though as well lol.
For chronic stress complete isolation really helps. We lived on a farm with our old boy. We didn't have to take him anywhere for three years. By the time we moved he was a different calm dog. But his probs were caused by being in kennels for two years. But then ninja problems are caused by only being on the same farm for the first year


----------



## Anibaz

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> That sounds interesting, tell us more please.
> 
> What exercises are you doing for the clicker trainer examination and what are the freestyle tricks?


Are you interested in clicker training? If you are familiar with the method I'm sure you know about the positive reinforcement, the 80 % rule and how the method works. I'm doing an clicker training education righ now, if I pass all the theory work and the practical examination I will become a certified clicker trainer which is the start if you want to become an instructor. The exercises are based on basic skills, things that comes with the general obediance but also things that is very useful in continued training, for example obediance and other dog sports. Every thing is based on shaping, you want your dog to try it self in to progress, without being interupted by me trying to show the dog what to do. It's very interesting and fun, and siince i started this my dog has become so much more happy in training.

The freestyle tricks could be any trick, basically. Right now we are working on slalom between my legs, but Arach is a very sensitive and insecure dog and he finds it uncomfortable being under things, me for example. But he's doing well and now he actually walks under him self! :smile5:


----------



## Dogless

donna160 said:


> I know but she always bounded up to other dogs all excited wanting to play ..a bit of a nightmare sometimes admittedly lol.. but now she's just subdued and tbh it's sad to see her like that, yesterday she layed down then got into a pounce position and looked very tense and wary which was a bit worrying, today she just lay down.
> 
> hopefully i'll get her out of it and i'll be back to stopping her doing a tigger on speed impression whenever she sees another dog


I would say be pretty careful, but also pleased in a way that Poppy is displaying calming signals rather than active aggression if it is being scared of appraching dogs that is motivating this change in behaviour. Kilo does / did used to lie down and look away to let most dogs approach him - he used to stay lying down and let them sniff him, then stand up.

If I had my time again I would probably be more robust about types of dogs dogs approaching at all (by body language, not breed!!!) and would get in front and block them.


----------



## lupie

GingerRogers said:


> I read something the other day about tv. But it had to do with flicker so don't know if that has anything to do with it i have heard of a few dogs not liking the flashing collars.
> 
> Personally i make sure we have a balance. I do away walks. But always almost a pavement potter where we may or may not see actual dogs but there's plenty in houses yards potentially wandering or have wandered. I agree with dogless though as well lol.
> For chronic stress complete isolation really helps. We lived on a farm with our old boy. We didn't have to take him anywhere for three years. By the time we moved he was a different calm dog. But his probs were caused by being in kennels for two years. But then ninja problems are caused by only being on the same farm for the first year


Every dog is so different! I think a balance is what we need too. But a very constructed balance - where we see only 1 or 2 dogs where they have no chance of running up to her. Difficult to achieve! 
We won't see any dogs today anyway, we're going up to the heath where no one walks at night. And if we did see anyone she'll be on her long lead so she'll be fine.

Interesting about the flickering, thank you. I am wondering if it was a combination of surprise/lights/quick succession.


----------



## Twiggy

Anibaz said:


> Are you interested in clicker training? If you are familiar with the method I'm sure you know about the positive reinforcement, the 80 % rule and how the method works. I'm doing an clicker training education righ now, if I pass all the theory work and the practical examination I will become a certified clicker trainer which is the start if you want to become an instructor. The exercises are based on basic skills, things that comes with the general obediance but also things that is very useful in continued training, for example obediance and other dog sports. Every thing is based on shaping, you want your dog to try it self in to progress, without being interupted by me trying to show the dog what to do. It's very interesting and fun, and siince i started this my dog has become so much more happy in training.
> 
> The freestyle tricks could be any trick, basically. Right now we are working on slalom between my legs, but Arach is a very sensitive and insecure dog and he finds it uncomfortable being under things, me for example. But he's doing well and now he actually walks under him self! :smile5:


Thank you for explaining and good luck with your examination.

Yes I've always been interested in clicker training, having been introduced to it way back in the early 1990's. I agree that it's fascinating stuff and I get my kicks these days watching dogs use their brains. I also agree that it can be applied to many of the dog 'sports' too...


----------



## Twiggy

Anibaz said:


> Are you interested in clicker training? If you are familiar with the method I'm sure you know about the positive reinforcement, the 80 % rule and how the method works. I'm doing an clicker training education righ now, if I pass all the theory work and the practical examination I will become a certified clicker trainer which is the start if you want to become an instructor. The exercises are based on basic skills, things that comes with the general obediance but also things that is very useful in continued training, for example obediance and other dog sports. Every thing is based on shaping, you want your dog to try it self in to progress, without being interupted by me trying to show the dog what to do. It's very interesting and fun, and siince i started this my dog has become so much more happy in training.
> 
> The freestyle tricks could be any trick, basically. Right now we are working on slalom between my legs, but Arach is a very sensitive and insecure dog and he finds it uncomfortable being under things, me for example. But he's doing well and now he actually walks under him self! :smile5:


I've just read your introductory post. Welcome.

I've been instructing, judging and competing in competitive obedience for many, many years and also used to compete in heelwork to music (as it was called then) when it first started in the UK back in 1996-1997.


----------



## Dogless

Good day today for the CHs so far. A morning's trail running in the high winds....Sod's Law dictated that it was against us for a large portion of the way back :w00t: :crazy: . We only got back about two hours ago so they're snoring away still.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Good day today for the CHs so far. A morning's trail running in the high winds....Sod's Law dictated that it was against us for a large portion of the way back :w00t: :crazy: . We only got back about two hours ago so they're snoring away still.


It's been pretty calm here for the last few days. That sound extremely tiring - I'd be having a rest every five minutes....

I've just cleaned the inside of my car as I'm collecting a friend on Thursday evening and we're going for a festive meal. She's not a doggie person and wouldn't appreciate dog hairs and mud all over her clothes. The outside of the car really needs doing again. I did it last Friday as I met my younger sister for lunch on Sunday. Tough, I haven't got time.

I'm trying to get organised for the dog club party tomorrow. Friday I'm taking Leafy and Barley for their second session with the clinical canine massage therapist and Saturday evening I'm off to the agility group quiz night/buffet.

Then I can relax a bit. I really must try very hard not to invite too many handlers for a training session during my 6 week break (there's quite a few already).....


----------



## Dogless

Flaming heck Twiggy, you're very busy...I'll take the running over some of your commitments any day . Not too long until it calms down for you for Christmas...well IF you manage not to invite lots of handlers to that session as you say .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Flaming heck Twiggy, you're very busy...I'll take the running over some of your commitments any day . Not too long until it calms down for you for Christmas...well IF you manage not to invite lots of handlers to that session as you say .


It's not one session sadly - it's lots....!!

One of the handlers that was here on Saturday twisted my arm to help her with a 10 month old collie bitch that she's struggling with, I've invited Holly's best friend Lacey over for basic training/agility because the handler isn't being sufficiently motivating (yesterday Lacey was much more interested in Holly than running the course), I've promised to have the Aussies over after Christmas, and there's a couple of handlers with puppies that I daren't leave to their own devices for six weeks.

That's before they all ply me with wine tomorrow....


----------



## Anibaz

Twiggy said:


> I've just read your introductory post. Welcome.
> 
> I've been instructing, judging and competing in competitive obedience for many, many years and also used to compete in heelwork to music (as it was called then) when it first started in the UK back in 1996-1997.


Thank you! 
I've been competing in competitive obediance a few times, but my dogs are not the right material so now we are just training for fun. Heelwork to music looks so interesting, might be a future sport for me and my next dog.


----------



## GingerRogers

You are too good Twiggy 

We had a daft day, well I did. Handler fail.

Just got out and a fluffy lab/shorthaired retriever  came around the corner. 

Instinctively I turned and tried to get down the road and into the nearest safe point which was our garage court  

What I think I should have done  was carry right on, I was on the opposite side of a wide road and it would have been far less traumatic and over and done with quicker if I had.

But now writing it down, I wonder, would that teach ninja that I am going to ignore her concerns although to be frank she didnt seem concerned more like over the top excited the way she squeaked and scampered back on to the road once it had passed . 

Then we finished the walk with our neighbour popping out for a card for us, and  'just a little pressie for Ginger, not much only a few pennies worth'  Bless her they had their last collie pts earlier in the year and she said she missed having a dog to buy for :crying: they wont get another as they feel they couldn't manage a pup now they are 'getting on'.

That dog will have more pressies than humans at this rate, hubby is eyeing up expensive collars for her and all 

Oh and ordered adaptil finally so fingers crossed


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It's not one session sadly - it's lots....!!
> 
> One of the handlers that was here on Saturday twisted my arm to help her with a 10 month old collie bitch that she's struggling with, I've invited Holly's best friend Lacey over for basic training/agility because the handler isn't being sufficiently motivating (yesterday Lacey was much more interested in Holly than running the course), I've promised to have the Aussies over after Christmas, and there's a couple of handlers with puppies that I daren't leave to their own devices for six weeks.
> 
> That's before they all ply me with wine tomorrow....


The Aussies :huh: :nonod: . Glutton for punishment .


----------



## Dogless

GR - not sure what the best to do would have been this morning; things are always so much easier after the event aren't they? :huh: . The presents for Ninja made me smile as does your hubby eyeing up collars......I won't ask what it took to achieve that :huh: .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - not sure what the best to do would have been this morning; things are always so much easier after the event aren't they? :huh: . The presents for Ninja made me smile as does your hubby eyeing up collars......*I won't ask what it took to achieve that* :huh: .


I have no idea, he seems to have come round to her a bit recently, it might be as she is miraculously behaving better for him on walks, nothing whatsoever to do with our training, at all, of course


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I have no idea, he seems to have come round to her a bit recently, it might be as she is miraculously behaving better for him on walks, nothing whatsoever to do with our training, at all, of course


Yes I can relate to that....


----------



## Twiggy

Right I've sorted out most of the Christmas cards for the party tomorrow, picked two really difficult retrieve articles and an alarming squeaky toy (that should test their sit stay)....:devil: I've got a new stop watch which is digital. Hope it works tomorrow as it's just taken half an hour to work out which is button A, B and C..

I've now got to sift through show catalogues to find addresses because I forgot to take cards over to the barn last Saturday - damn...!!


----------



## Twiggy

I've just had a lovely email from the clinical canine massage therapist to say that my suggestions for door manners with her rough collies is going very well.

I think she's already had two behaviourists in and was about see No. 3 when I told her to cancel the visit last week. I know the girl in question and she would have been throwing good money after bad. The so called behaviourist had already said she wasn't prepared to come unless the male dog was muzzled....LOL 

I said I'd accompany her on a walk next week to see how problematical her dogs are. Poor little doggies.....meeting Grannie....:devil:


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just had a lovely email from the clinical canine massage therapist to say that my suggestions for door manners with her rough collies is going very well.
> 
> I think she's already had two behaviourists in and was about see No. 3 when I told her to cancel the visit last week. I know the girl in question and she would have been throwing good money after bad. The so called behaviourist had already said she wasn't prepared to come unless the male dog was muzzled....LOL
> 
> I said I'd accompany her on a walk next week to see how problematical her dogs are. Poor little doggies.....meeting Grannie....:devil:


Good Luck little doggies :crying: :nonod: .


----------



## lupie

GingerRogers said:


> You are too good Twiggy
> 
> We had a daft day, well I did. Handler fail.
> 
> Just got out and a fluffy lab/shorthaired retriever  came around the corner.
> 
> Instinctively I turned and tried to get down the road and into the nearest safe point which was our garage court
> 
> What I think I should have done  was carry right on, I was on the opposite side of a wide road and it would have been far less traumatic and over and done with quicker if I had.


I've done this so many times - once saw a dog coming and because it was narrow decided quickly to u-turn and go down a different path. Only to have another dog come up behind and be sandwiched in the middle 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing 

Met one dog out today unusually and Ruska was actually on her lead and headcollar at that point & the dog was wearing a flashing collar. It was running offlead with a runner. I let Ruska clock it, bodyblocked her from the dog and pretty much gave her a jackpot of treats. No bark, no lunge, no nothing, and they were past. Off we trotted... I'm now not sure what to think about yesterday morning's escapades. Some of her worst behaviour in months followed by some of her best.  But very pleased with a bark & lunge free dog encounter, however brief


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Good Luck little doggies :crying: :nonod: .


Perhaps I should wear a muzzle.... I haven't bitten anyone in a long time honest..!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Perhaps I should wear a muzzle.... I haven't bitten anyone in a long time honest..!!


Maybe not a muzzle but carry a rolled up newspaper to beat yourself about the head with if you get the urge :hand:.


----------



## donna160

Poppy didn't lay down today when she spotted a dog across the road  
i hope it continues as this is just not her nature; she's a friendly inquisitive lively little thing so to see her so subdued just didn't sit right.
The harness is still working a treat, it's not going to fix the problem but it's giving me something to work with.

Getting the harness on is an entirely different matter  even using treats doesn't help, this morning was a nightmare and i made things worse by getting stressed.

We didn't have a lunchtime walk as i was out, but this evening i somehow managed to get the harness on, more by luck and sleight of hand than poppys obedience if i'm honest


----------



## Dogless

donna160 said:


> Poppy didn't lay down today when she spotted a dog across the road
> i hope it continues as this is just not her nature; she's a friendly inquisitive lively little thing so to see her so subdued just didn't sit right.
> The harness is still working a treat, it's not going to fix the problem but it's giving me something to work with.
> 
> Getting the harness on is an entirely different matter  even using treats doesn't help, this morning was a nightmare and i made things worse by getting stressed.
> 
> We didn't have a lunchtime walk as i was out, but this evening i somehow managed to get the harness on, more by luck and sleight of hand than poppys obedience if i'm honest


Kilo used to freak at his running harness; clicker training him to accept and like it was successful.


----------



## Twiggy

donna160 said:


> Poppy didn't lay down today when she spotted a dog across the road
> i hope it continues as this is just not her nature; she's a friendly inquisitive lively little thing so to see her so subdued just didn't sit right.
> The harness is still working a treat, it's not going to fix the problem but it's giving me something to work with.
> 
> Getting the harness on is an entirely different matter  even using treats doesn't help, this morning was a nightmare and i made things worse by getting stressed.
> 
> We didn't have a lunchtime walk as i was out, but this evening i somehow managed to get the harness on, more by luck and sleight of hand than poppys obedience if i'm honest


Am I right in thinking that Poppy is a rescue and that you haven't had her very long?


----------



## Dogless

Good day at Concrete Central so far.

Had a calm walk with Rudi, some on lead some off, as he ran about like a lunatic yesterday trail running - goodness knows how far he goes . Anyway, he was very good .

Had a walk to the sports pitches and big open field next to them with Kilo where we played a lot of "Ready Steady" and he had a potter and sniff too. Higher octane for him as he was attached to me yesterday so no chance to loon about. He was also very good .

I got in a bad mood (not with Kilo) because he managed to snatch about 4 big mouthfuls of poo at various points. This place is just carpeted with it. Vile .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Good day at Concrete Central so far.
> 
> Had a calm walk with Rudi, some on lead some off, as he ran about like a lunatic yesterday trail running - goodness knows how far he goes . Anyway, he was very good .
> 
> Had a walk to the sports pitches and big open field next to them with Kilo where we played a lot of "Ready Steady" and he had a potter and sniff too. Higher octane for him as he was attached to me yesterday so no chance to loon about. He was also very good .
> 
> I got in a bad mood (not with Kilo) because he managed to snatch about 4 big mouthfuls of poo at various points. This place is just carpeted with it. Vile .


Sorry Dogless. The whole place sounds vile to me. Fingers crossed you won't be there too much longer.


----------



## Twiggy

Would just like to say that this WAYWO thread has now been running for about 20 months and we are starting to produce superstars:

MEGA CONGRATULATIONS TO MOONVIOLET AND MISS TINKS.

Our very own WAYWO diva!!


----------



## Twiggy

Well the Christmas Party went well and the games ran smoothly. As always the dogs were brilliant, shame the same can't be said of some of the handlers...

One of the beginners was a star, handling her Munsterlander heel free through the weaving poles and balancing a book on her head....!!

They all did well holding a paper cup full of water and the lead in the same hand whilst doing heelwork and I thought it was going to be a tie until team leader B went to hand the cup back to me and her dog nudged her hand - it counted..:devil:

Now I'm free for almost 6 weeks (well sort of)...:thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

Woohoo Twiggy !!!! Break open the Gluhwein .


----------



## Dogless

A lead walk this evening each and back in time for Masterchef . Both dogs behaved very well - Kilo saw a few dogs in the distance and nudged at me; he was tense but "workable". We also met Diz out with Kilo and had the rest of our walk with him and his human, which is always nice .


----------



## Nicki85

All good here!
Shae was properly up for agility last night&#8230; it took us a long time to get in the hall in-between the spinning and barking. She was very very drivey doing the short courses that were set up and didn't put a foot wrong. My hands did pay the price though&#8230; I need to be careful with the waits at the start as she's getting edgy. She's not breaking yet but she is certainly on tenterhooks waiting for her release!!

Rusty had agility tonight and was a good lad  My handling left a lot to be desired when I tried to handle a sequence on the wrong side of the jumps&#8230; But we got there! Poor Rusty. We did a lot of easy round the edge of the hall stuff which he enjoys as well. His weaves are ace, he loves to weave! More so than tunnels or contact equipment these days&#8230; 

Last sessions till the new year now  

Shae has her final general obedience class tomorrow&#8230; apparently it's a fun and games night(!) lets not hope it is too exciting as there are some rather excitable dogs in there (and I'm not talking about Shae!). It's an OK class but some of the owners are inconsistent with their handling&#8230; and as a result the dogs are poorly behaved not knowing what is expected of them&#8230; 

Anyhow, glad every one has had a good day (apart from the poo DL!) and the xmas party sounds fab Twiggy


----------



## lletty11

Dogless said:


> Still working on walking past other dogs nicely on lead without having to say hello (phase he has been going though recently!) and not pulling to get there when he is allowed to meet. I have been putting a huge amount of effort in for the past month or so and (touch wood!) we are there; had a lovely walk this morning and met quite a few dogs nicely. The good thing is, is that people do stop and chat when Kilo is walking nicely or sitting so he does get to greet dogs whereas they avoid us if he is being a bit excitable!


Any tips, Libby has a tendency to bark at any dog who walks past until they show any interest and then she tries to hide behind me.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> All good here!
> Shae was properly up for agility last night it took us a long time to get in the hall in-between the spinning and barking. She was very very drivey doing the short courses that were set up and didn't put a foot wrong. My hands did pay the price though I need to be careful with the waits at the start as she's getting edgy. She's not breaking yet but she is certainly on tenterhooks waiting for her release!!
> 
> Rusty had agility tonight and was a good lad  My handling left a lot to be desired when I tried to handle a sequence on the wrong side of the jumps But we got there! Poor Rusty. We did a lot of easy round the edge of the hall stuff which he enjoys as well. His weaves are ace, he loves to weave! More so than tunnels or contact equipment these days
> 
> Last sessions till the new year now
> 
> Shae has her final general obedience class tomorrow apparently it's a fun and games night(!) lets not hope it is too exciting as there are some rather excitable dogs in there (and I'm not talking about Shae!). It's an OK class but some of the owners are inconsistent with their handling and as a result the dogs are poorly behaved not knowing what is expected of them
> 
> Anyhow, glad every one has had a good day (apart from the poo DL!) and the xmas party sounds fab Twiggy


Well whether my instructor likes it or not I sit Holly on the start line, walk round the first jump and tell her from a distance what a good sit she's doing and then return and tit-bit her before we start...!!

My handling mostly leaves a lot to be desired. We had a proper numbered course on Monday - it was miles...!! I needed to lie down halfway round and then my handling is dreadful....

Yes the party went well. The dogs were super really. On the novice recall game there was a handler from the opposing team with a squeaky ball in one hand and a cooked sausage in the other deliberately trying to distract them. Some of them gave a cursory glance but all went by and sat in the present with their handlers.


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy said:


> Well whether my instructor likes it or not I sit Holly on the start line, walk round the first jump and tell her from a distance what a good sit she's doing and then return and tit-bit her before we start...!!
> 
> My handling mostly leaves a lot to be desired. We had a proper numbered course on Monday - it was miles...!! I needed to lie down halfway round and then my handling is dreadful....
> 
> Yes the party went well. The dogs were super really. On the novice recall game there was a handler from the opposing team with a squeaky ball in one hand and a cooked sausage in the other deliberately trying to distract them. Some of them gave a cursory glance but all went by and sat in the present with their handlers.


I need to start doing that (sounds like my instructor is a lot more open about these things as it is seen as a very good thing going back and rewarding) the problem is that Shae is a wiggler, she keeps her bum firmly on the floor but her front legs and head follow me round :hand: I've never seen a dog capable of doing a full 360 turn with their bum still on the floor I am trying to combat that by only moving a short distance to her side and rewarding for staying looking forward but it's slow progress.

I also forget that she isn't Rusty who can literally be walked up to the jump and with no command wait their till his release but I had the opposite problem with him- he wouldn't release!!

Oh god a squeaky ball?!?! SHae would have been over there in a second mugging them for it :blush:


----------



## Dogless

lletty11 said:


> Any tips, Libby has a tendency to bark at any dog who walks past until they show any interest and then she tries to hide behind me.


She sounds nervous (which is what Kilo now is....long thread, long story :`().
I have a U-turn to gain distance fast as we cannot walk past or be closer than about 25 - 30m from a dog now - it stops any panicking and allows Kilo to be more confident.

Teach Libby to look at a dog then at you for food or a toy / game.

Teach "hide" (going in behind you) and walking.

Teach Libby to watch you as you go past (all attention on you).

Feed, feed, feed if she is foodie when you see a dog.

There are a few tips there...it really is as individual as what works for you and Libby.


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> I need to start doing that (sounds like my instructor is a lot more open about these things as it is seen as a very good thing going back and rewarding) the problem is that Shae is a wiggler, she keeps her bum firmly on the floor but her front legs and head follow me round :hand: I've never seen a dog capable of doing a full 360 turn with their bum still on the floor I am trying to combat that by only moving a short distance to her side and rewarding for staying looking forward but it's slow progress.
> 
> I also forget that she isn't Rusty who can literally be walked up to the jump and with no command wait their till his release but I had the opposite problem with him- he wouldn't release!!
> 
> Oh god a squeaky ball?!?! SHae would have been over there in a second mugging them for it :blush:


But Nicky it's called basic training.....

A sit is a sit whatever the handler does and that can be running round them clapping their hands, bouncing a ball, squeaking a ball, releasing the dog on either side, etc. etc. etc.

Di Martin will soon sort that out....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Good walks this morning - mixture of on and offlead for both.

Went down a street where we rarely venture this morning where the bigger houses are with Rudi. It was school bus time and there were kids everywhere - running, screaming, shouting, on scooters etc . Would have been a no-go for Kilo but Roo did really well; walked beautifully to heel and at the odd point excitement threatened to overwhelm him I just sat him until he was in control. He did well and one on the mums smiled at me (so it seems I am not invisible after all  ) and told me he was beautiful and she wished all dogs behaved like him :001_wub:. After that we just had a mixture of on and off lead; did some waits, stays and random lead clipping on and off and he didn't put a paw wrong, good boy Roo .

With Kilo we spent half the walk trying to reach an open grass area to do some "Ready Steady" and some pottering and sniffing about as there were dogs at almost every turn so we did a lot of step retracing and alternative route finding. There were also loads of workmen out and noises and Sir K did brilliantly . The area we were playing "Ready Steady" on is a short cut for the building site and place of work for some of the guys and Kilo was fine with random people appearing at intervals (he was on his longline as it's open to the road too). We had a "bad" moment when he saw a dog walking past the other side of the fence and about 25m away - he hackled up straight away, up on his toes, weight forward and started to run / strut towards it BUT I recalled him and he came back straight away and got on with playing with me. I am guessing his "rationale" was that offence is the best defence. Something else to be aware of BUT he remained able to listen and to work with me .

So....I'll give the boys gold stars so far .


----------



## GingerRogers

Boasty post from me 

I did a little happy dance. As we went past the lapphunds who were all gathered round their front door (theres four or five of them and a glass door and they bark bark bark) ninja reacted only a little  for some reason I decided to go back past them again waving a wotsit in front of her and she skipped past all adoring eyes on me, we turned back again, obviously as we were going in the wrong direction now, and again all eyes on me (ok the wotsit ), when she finally got the wotsit she was drooling all over the place lol. But I was quite surprised with my random experiment and very pleased with ninja 

Then naturally she let herself down when she barked at a man going into his house, I did apologise but all I got was a grumpy 'huh I think thats aimed at me' comment to his wife. He was wearing a rather hideous purple fleece with cape type combo . Frankly if she is barking at people and I apologise and they still get offish then stuff them, its not ideal but at least people can (should be able to anyway ) see that rationally unlike dogs.

But in distracting her from that I turned her around and she calmly watched a lady with 3 dogs walk down the road, a long way down the road but still 

Dogless well done to Kilo coping with the people and remaining focused. Roo is a just a VGB


----------



## Dogless

GR - Fleece with cape???? No wonder Ninja barked; that so's 1990s . Well done for the rest of the walk ....Wotsits seem to be the key to an awful lot of good behaviour, they are yummy though; if I tried to use them it would be on a "two for me, one for you" type basis .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - Fleece with cape???? No wonder Ninja barked; that so's 1990s . Well done for the rest of the walk ....Wotsits seem to be the key to an awful lot of good behaviour, they are yummy though; if I tried to use them it would be on a "two for me, one for you" type basis .


I never ever do that when I load up on my way out the door :nonod: honest 

I only take 2/3 with me they are emergency things or for moments like that, eg: earlier I held one and let her suck on it as a bus passed. The crunch as you snap them in two is very attention grabbing as well :smile5:


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I never ever do that when I load up on my way out the door :nonod: honest
> 
> I only take 2/3 with me they are emergency things or for moments like that, eg: earlier I held one and let her suck on it as a bus passed. The crunch as you snap them in two is very attention grabbing as well :smile5:


Good thinking Batman!


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## GingerRogers

wotsits and turkey, I really really think thats helping, its the only thing that has had a really noticeable effect, we got some mince the other day, she just has an ice cube sized lump with breakfast


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> wotsits and turkey, I really really think thats helping, its the only thing that has had a really noticeable effect, we got some mince the other day, she just has an ice cube sized lump with breakfast


Turkey for tryptophan?


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Turkey for tryptophan?


Yep that was the thinking, I really must read up more on it, all I know is turkey is high in tryptophan which has something to do with serotonin, which in turn helps mental dogs :001_tongue: but it seems to be true, it is a similar thinking to that behind the stressless I believe


----------



## Dogless

Warning; I am feeling smug and boasty  .

Took Rudi for a run just now. He really is a good boy. The woman with the DA JRT was out so she stood on the pavement as usual, turned her back on us and her staring, fixated dog and let us make a detour round her whilst her dog kicked off royally. She never makes any space, leaves it up to the other person as her dog's easily held I guess; not a big issue with Roo but can be a mare with Kilo if she is in the middle of a junction!! She also always snaps "Shut up!" and occasionally hits said dog for display. Although Roo had a brief moment of high - stepping, chest - puffing, "look" giving he ran right on past, no pulling, no need for me to put my hand on his lead (I wear it across my body). He went past workmen, a mini schnauzer running at us snarling (doesn't like dogs on leads apparently ) and a few more dogs and kids running from the school bus nicely too. Good boy Roo.

Just Kilo's second walk to do later when it's quieter .


----------



## GingerRogers

Boasty days all round then (I couldnt manage smug tbh) Well done Roo.

Fancy running with Roo on a lead, how stupid of you not to realise what that would do to his dog :nonod:


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I never ever do that when I load up on my way out the door :nonod: honest
> 
> I only take 2/3 with me they are emergency things or for moments like that, eg: earlier I held one and let her suck on it as a bus passed. The crunch as you snap them in two is very attention grabbing as well :smile5:


Honestly GR if anyone read the above not realising it was a dog forum goodness knows what they'd think....


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Boasty days all round then (I couldnt manage smug tbh) Well done Roo.
> 
> Fancy running with Roo on a lead, how stupid of you not to realise what that would do to his dog :nonod:


Sadly I can't boast today.

I took the girls over to the barn for about half an hour this afternoon. Admittedly it's the first time they've been trained for about a week, because I've been so busy, and used the same retrieve article for Tremor that I used yesterday at the party. It was a quite small hard red plastic cone and not the easiest thing to pick up. After attempt number 6 she finally picked it up cleanly. Very good job the stop watch wasn't timing her.... She was pretty much off her trolley.


----------



## Fluffster

Grr I'm cross at my bundle of fluff today!

Her recall around other dogs has been really good lately, when I walk on she always follows. Today we walked past a guy with an offlead dog, Daisy went over to play and they had a little chase, then I carried on walking and expected Daisy to follow me as usual. She didn't, she kept following the man and his other dog instead. I was calling her and I don't know if she was trying to get back but was being chased, or was just ignoring me, but I had to start walking towards her. Eventually she decided to come tearing over to me. I praised her as always but I was very disappointed  This hasn't happened to this extent before, she's always been good at coming when called and especially when I walk away.

Just a few mins earlier I'd spent about 20 mins chatting to this bloke we know who has a lovely staffy boy. He's not overly keen on other dogs, but permitted Daisy to follow him round the place. I don't know if she was frustrated because he wouldn't play with her even though she was running round in circles around him so when we met another dog, she got a bit over excited.

Sooo, going to see what she's like tomorrow and if it was just a blip. If not, back to recall training with a vengeance and back on the lead when offlead dogs appear!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Honestly GR if anyone read the above not realising it was a dog forum goodness knows what they'd think....


:lol: I guess :blush:


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster - don't be cross at Daisy; she's only a pup and will have moments of "exploring her limits" as it were. I find going upstairs (dog free zone!!) or a nice bit of chocolate or something restores my good mood .

Kilo's walk was good until the end tonight; we did our usual walking round dark, abandoned places where most folk are too scared to walk . Just as we were ending our walk we saw a lady with a husky and a small dog that I have seen before - she was getting dragged along to see us and every time she managed to stop she jerked the lead so hard the husky almost did a somersault.....the little dog was getting dragged along behind. Needless to say swift U-turn and change of route for us - Kilo just had a shake off and that was it. Then as we came to a corner at the end of our amended route I heard jangling dog tags so again a swift U - turn. It was the same lady but much closer this time, the BW did a growl and a vertical massive leap but I managed to "catch" his panic and we marched away with lots of jolly praise . I could hear the woman yelling something...."He's friendly" I suspect but carried on our way. Again a shake off and Kilo was fine again. I am pretty pleased with him .

Huskies, Malamutes, Akitas and mixes of them "Huskamutes" and "Huskitas" being the favourites are really, really en vogue here at present and folk just don't seem to be able to provide what they really need in terms of training and exercise.


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> Fluffster - don't be cross at Daisy; she's only a pup and will have moments of "exploring her limits" as it were. I find going upstairs (dog free zone!!) or a nice bit of chocolate or something restores my good mood .
> 
> Kilo's walk was good until the end tonight; we did our usual walking round dark, abandoned places where most folk are too scared to walk . Just as we were ending our walk we saw a lady with a husky and a small dog that I have seen before - she was getting dragged along to see us and every time she managed to stop she jerked the lead so hard the husky almost did a somersault.....the little dog was getting dragged along behind. Needless to say swift U-turn and change of route for us - Kilo just had a shake off and that was it. Then as we came to a corner at the end of our amended route I heard jangling dog tags so again a swift U - turn. It was the same lady but much closer this time, the BW did a growl and a vertical massive leap but I managed to "catch" his panic and we marched away with lots of jolly praise . I could hear the woman yelling something...."He's friendly" I suspect but carried on our way. Again a shake off and Kilo was fine again. I am pretty pleased with him .
> 
> Huskies, Malamutes, Akitas and mixes of them "Huskamutes" and "Huskitas" being the favourites are really, really en vogue here at present and folk just don't seem to be able to provide what they really need in terms of training and exercise.


Funnily enough, some advent calendar chocolate later and I'm fine  I wasn't really cross at her, more at myself for sometimes expecting too much of her. She's so good for her age, I forget she's still a baby sometimes and will get carried away.

Yay for Kilo and for you too, sounds like some really good progress is being made  I've seen quite a few huskies/husky crosses around here of late, sometimes with some really unlikely looking owners for them and I wonder how they get on. We don't ever meet any properly when out as we generally go off-lead places and not somewhere you would take on-lead dogs really.


----------



## moonviolet

Twiggy said:


> Would just like to say that this WAYWO thread has now been running for about 20 months and we are starting to produce superstars:
> 
> MEGA CONGRATULATIONS TO MOONVIOLET AND MISS TINKS.
> 
> Our very own WAYWO diva!!


Aww thank you 

I wonder if you'll think the same when I put some of the outtakes together. The working title is " No Johnny is not getting an orange."

I will endeavour to keep up with all on Waywo now I'm not building sleighs and painting gluing etc.

[youtube_browser]OpmvHXgl7rM[/youtube_browser]


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## lupie

Dogless said:


> Huskies, Malamutes, Akitas and mixes of them "Huskamutes" and "Huskitas" being the favourites are really, really en vogue here at present and folk just don't seem to be able to provide what they really need in terms of training and exercise.


They are here too. There's someone with a ginormous malamute who is always offlead and doesn't listen to a thing the owner says, and doesn't seem to get an awful lot of exercise judging from how rotund it is. (I know mals are big but this is the wrong kind of big...)

We had a good walk today. We did some canal and some railway line on-lead & on long line. We were coming down into a large field when I noticed lights behind me and saw someone coming with a large dog. I've seen this dog around and know it's quite fearful so I didn't want Ruska reacting at it, so we moved well into the field. I was faffing with Ruska's leads anyway so I thought it best we let it past. I put Ruska into a sit and treated her as it went past - not a woof! 

Unfortunately even with me giving them loads of time to get well ahead, they seemed to be dawdling at an even slower pace than a dawdle. I called ahead to him to ask if he would prefer us to pass, stay well back or go a different route, and he said that his actually had problems with being followed so could we pass? so he moved his well to the side, and we passed. Ruska barked a bit but kept her focus on me. As we passed we did the very British "Thank you" "nono thank YOU"...

It wasn't an ideal situation at all but am proud of how Ruska coped, and am pleased the man was nice as well in an awkward situation.


----------



## zedder

Why do people try too walk into my dog could of lamped one of em that huffed at me when I asked if we could get by ffs.


----------



## Twiggy

Had a lovely meal last night with an old friend.

Now I'm off to the clinical canine massage therapist with Leafy and Barley in a minute.

Will catch up later.

It's been frantic this week but will hopefully calm down by Sunday...!!


----------



## Dogless

I am pleased you had a nice meal out Twiggy - and roll on Sunday when you can put your feet up a little...well as much as the girls let you anyway .

We had a minor Christmas miracle this morning. It was pouring with rain and blowing a gale when.....I asked hubby for the met, put my faith in it and drove to the forest for a run. Just as we got there the sun came out and the wind dropped. Perfect, perfect run on one of our favourite routes - I even added in an extra hill .



There was a film being shot on the moors, lots of generators, catering etc etc...wonder what it was.


----------



## Twiggy

Well the massage went well today and the therapist thinks she may be able to straighten poor Leafy's arthritic foot out which would be really good.

They both enjoyed it, in fact Leafy looked in Heaven.

The downside of course is that they cannot be walked today and only a short walk on the lead tomorrow, to give the muscles a rest. I haven't told them yet but they are only allowed about a third of their dinner tonight as well.....!! Oh dear.


----------



## Fluffster

Today we met Daisy's Staffy "pal" again ( I say pal but he mainly ignores her) so she had a good 15 mins of chasing him while he chased his ball, but she came away immediately when asked. Pulled a lot on lead on way to offlead bit, but on way home was much better until we turned into our street. Annoyingly, the bit up the back we always go has been fenced off and I think they are turning it into landscaped parks/gardens for a new housing deevlopment instead of the acres of long grass it currently is, which is a bit annoying. Luckily the community woodland is only 5 mins up the road.

Lovely pic Dogless, I wonder what they were filming!


----------



## lupie

Well Ruska is on season. So going to be very limited walks from now on!


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Today we met Daisy's Staffy "pal" again ( I say pal but he mainly ignores her) so she had a good 15 mins of chasing him while he chased his ball, but she came away immediately when asked. Pulled a lot on lead on way to offlead bit, but on way home was much better until we turned into our street. Annoyingly, the bit up the back we always go has been fenced off and I think they are turning it into landscaped parks/gardens for a new housing deevlopment instead of the acres of long grass it currently is, which is a bit annoying. Luckily the community woodland is only 5 mins up the road.
> 
> Lovely pic Dogless, I wonder what they were filming!


Game of Thrones I suspect.


----------



## JenKyzer

Wow.. i've been slacking.. badly.
Even reading back to page 1911 i'm still lost 
I will try to catch up  so expect some out of date likes 

Helloo and welcome to the new names i see  I look forward to catching up and reading all about your ventures!

Hope everyone else is ok and having a good week :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Hi JSW, nice to see you . Hope all is sailing along nicely :thumbup1:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Hi JSW, nice to see you . Hope all is sailing along nicely :thumbup1:.


Yep that ^^


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Well Ruska is on season. So going to be very limited walks from now on!


Oh dear - lots of training in the house then I guess!


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Oh dear - lots of training in the house then I guess!


Yep, I thought we might get some good walks this weekend before she came in ...cheeky bugger!  

Have to find lots of varied training/games for house/garden times for the next few weeks...


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless - ohnoo.. a DDB :mad2: Hope it turns out to be one of the 'good guys' and doesn't add to the drama where you are.
edited to add, your run looked lovely  fab pics as always of the boys! 

GR - Hope the ankles are feeling better - sounds painful  you using wotsits still makes me smile  love the boasty post :thumbup1:

Lupie - Helloo and welcome  we've had similar experiences to you regarding barking/lunging etc... there is light at the end of the tunnel though :thumbup1: specially with the help of people on here  Ruska looks beautiful btw :001_wub:

Anibaz - Helloo and welcome  good luck with the exams 

Twiggy - sounds like you've had a busy week, dog-wise and social-wise!

Nicki - Your posts always sound fun and tiring  but sounds great!

Fluff - Hope you didn't stay cross at Daisy for long & the recall was just a little puppy one off  bless her

MV - i love the outtakes .. and loved the actual vid even more  well done miss tinks!! & well done you 

:aureola: phew!

And us...
All is calm and good here :001_cool:
Willow is just super lately ... *touch wood* we haven't seen a dog in ages... :001_huh: even the 6am westie&lab have disappeared! So, lovely walks! Even people surprising us in the dark she is alot calmer now and a 'leave it' gets her to ignore em  I am back to normal and not on 'rest'  but today Willows spent all afternoon asleep.. on top of me! cheeky :001_wub: .
Living room newly decorated  & xmas decs up.. which Willow has no interest in what so ever


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Game of Thrones I suspect.


I expect it's a remake of Escape from Alcatraz but they were waiting for you, as leading lady, to turn up and it will be called Escape from NI.....


----------



## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> Lupie - Helloo and welcome  we've had similar experiences to you regarding barking/lunging etc... there is light at the end of the tunnel though :thumbup1: specially with the help of people on here  Ruska looks beautiful btw :001_wub:


Thank you for the encouraging words  I find it easy to get discouraged so nice to know others have had success.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I expect it's a remake of Escape from Alcatraz but they were waiting for you, as leading lady, to turn up and it will be called Escape from NI.....


I put Roo onlead before I normally would as, although we were about 500m from their "camp" I could smell hotdogs or something that they were having for lunch and Rudi was air scenting like mad....I could imagine him going up onto the moor, steaming through a scene being filmed and on to the catering bus :frown2: .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I put Roo onlead before I normally would as, although we were about 500m from their "camp" I could smell hotdogs or something that they were having for lunch and Rudi was air scenting like mad....I could imagine him going up onto the moor, steaming through a scene being filmed and on to the catering bus :frown2: .


Spoilsport...!! Rudi might have made you famous....


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> I put Roo onlead before I normally would as, although we were about 500m from their "camp" I could smell hotdogs or something that they were having for lunch and Rudi was air scenting like mad....I could imagine him going up onto the moor, steaming through a scene being filmed and on to the catering bus :frown2: .


I'm sure Rudi would've made an excellent new character in Game of Thrones.


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> I'm sure Rudi would've made an excellent new character in Game of Thrones.


Hubby said they both would - because they're big apparently. I have never seen it myself just know it's filmed here.


----------



## JenKyzer

lupie said:


> Thank you for the encouraging words  I find it easy to get discouraged so nice to know others have had success.


It's hard isn't it .. When you feel discouraged, this thread is the best place, imo anyway  we started out with Willow lunging/barking/growling at dogs that were even across the street.. Really looking out of control & aggressive .. With me looking like a crazy lady always apologising 
Now.. She has doggy friends for off&onlead walks.. She still grumbles but rarely lunges/barks unless we've been taken by big surprise/in the dark etc.. Still progress to be made but i don't dread walks  
I look forward to seeing your progress which i'm sure you'll make!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> It's hard isn't it .. When you feel discouraged, this thread is the best place, imo anyway  we started out with Willow lunging/barking/growling at dogs that were even across the street.. Really looking out of control & aggressive .. With me looking like a crazy lady always apologising
> Now.. She has doggy friends for off&onlead walks.. She still grumbles but rarely lunges/barks unless we've been taken by big surprise/in the dark etc.. Still progress to be made but i don't dread walks
> I look forward to seeing your progress which i'm sure you'll make!


Can't believe the progress you've made; it's fantastic  :thumbup1:.


----------



## Dogless

Very, very stormy day today with winds gusting 70mph.

Both dogs were like dressage horses in it - Kilo was a bit of a handful . It also meant that not many people would be out :thumbup1:.

Just saw a few runners when I was out with Rudi. I got blown over in front of one who was a gent and said "Never mind, it's because you're tiny" which was extremely nice of him; I didn't ask him what big was if I was tiny  .

Saw a few dogs out with Kilo. One about 50m away - he tensed, we U-turned and all was fine. Then when almost home saw two springers out who escape a lot - no owners in sight and they always approach so I retraced my steps to go another way. There was another dog being walked on our alternate route but at the edge of a car park so I just got lots of space rapidly. The man walking that dog knows that Kilo has dramas, and does put a lead on his dog and give us space which is very nice of him. 

The BW has started to add a shoulder high vertical jump into his U-turn. I think it is because he almost goes to enter panic mode then checks himself. I'm not bothered really because it is absolutely preferable to total panic mode. Must look odd though :shocked: .


----------



## GingerRogers

Our adaptil arrived yesterday, a plug in and spray, it had only been plugged in about 6 hours when I took her out yesterday evening for a fast trot round the block in the dark. We didnt see anything but it was the most chilled she has ever been in the dark, she did startle and leap when we heard the terrier on the corner barking but was able to carry on with less trouble than normal, cant believe it was working that quickly. 

This morning I sprayed some on her collar before we went out, we passed a dog in the car, it was a bit sudden so I couldn't really distract her, I told her to leave it, she gave one (big) woof, none of the normal leaping, throwing her self at the window, snarling and bashing her head.

All could have been temporary blips in her efforts to destroy the world but fingers crossed very tightly please folks


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Our adaptil arrived yesterday, a plug in and spray, it had only been plugged in about 6 hours when I took her out yesterday evening for a fast trot round the block in the dark. We didnt see anything but it was the most chilled she has ever been in the dark, she did startle and leap when we heard the terrier on the corner barking but was able to carry on with less trouble than normal, cant believe it was working that quickly.
> 
> This morning I sprayed some on her collar before we went out, we passed a dog in the car, it was a bit sudden so I couldn't really distract her, I told her to leave it, she gave one (big) woof, none of the normal leaping, throwing her self at the window, snarling and bashing her head.
> 
> All could have been temporary blips in her efforts to destroy the world but fingers crossed very tightly please folks


Crossed for you here; it would be wonderful if the adaptil is helping that much .


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Our adaptil arrived yesterday, a plug in and spray, it had only been plugged in about 6 hours when I took her out yesterday evening for a fast trot round the block in the dark. We didnt see anything but it was the most chilled she has ever been in the dark, she did startle and leap when we heard the terrier on the corner barking but was able to carry on with less trouble than normal, cant believe it was working that quickly.
> 
> This morning I sprayed some on her collar before we went out, we passed a dog in the car, it was a bit sudden so I couldn't really distract her, I told her to leave it, she gave one (big) woof, none of the normal leaping, throwing her self at the window, snarling and bashing her head.
> 
> All could have been temporary blips in her efforts to destroy the world but fingers crossed very tightly please folks


Figners firmly crossed here for the Ninja and I know some owners have had really good results with it.

I did try a collar and spray with Tremor in the car but it made no difference at all. Having said that neither did anything else apart from Valium.


----------



## Twiggy

I've got the agility club quiz, presentations and buffet tonight and will now be going with a very sore hand.

Because I'm out tonight, I took Tremor and Holly over to the barn for about 45 minutes training to tire them out a bit and Tremor bit me....!!

After the fracas with retrieve on Thursday, when the lunatic was going in so hard on the cone that it was shooting all over the floor, I decided to use one of Holly's tuggies tied in a knot. She did the actual retrieve nicely but as I went to take it she snatched at the ball in my hand and got me instead....

Good job it was the last exercise and I'd worked Holly first.

They were both extremely animated and I'm seriously thinking of putting a HTM routine together with Holly Bolly as she is now doing lots of moves pretty quickly, in fact she's weaving through my legs almost as fast as Twiggy and Fidget used to do.....

She may be a strange little dog but she certainly doesn't lack brains or stamina.


----------



## Nonnie

Might not seem much to most, but im currently working on getting Alfie to look at me, and make eye contact.

Not easy.


----------



## Twiggy

Nonnie said:


> Might not seem much to most, but im currently working on getting Alfie to look at me, and make eye contact.
> 
> Not easy.


How are you going about it?


----------



## lupie

GingerRogers said:


> Our adaptil arrived yesterday, a plug in and spray, it had only been plugged in about 6 hours when I took her out yesterday evening for a fast trot round the block in the dark. We didnt see anything but it was the most chilled she has ever been in the dark, she did startle and leap when we heard the terrier on the corner barking but was able to carry on with less trouble than normal, cant believe it was working that quickly.
> 
> This morning I sprayed some on her collar before we went out, we passed a dog in the car, it was a bit sudden so I couldn't really distract her, I told her to leave it, she gave one (big) woof, none of the normal leaping, throwing her self at the window, snarling and bashing her head.
> 
> All could have been temporary blips in her efforts to destroy the world but fingers crossed very tightly please folks


Fingers crossed here - if it is the adaptil helping then that is majorly good news :thumbup1:


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> I've got the agility club quiz, presentations and buffer tonight and will now be going with a very sore hand.
> 
> Because I'm out tonight, I took Tremor and Holly over to the barn for about 45 minutes training to tire them out a bit and Tremor bit me....!!
> 
> After the fracas with retrieve on Thursday, when the lunatic was going in so hard on the cone that it was shooting all over the floor, I decided to use one of Holly's tuggies tied in a knot. She did the actual retrieve nicely but as I went to take it she snatched at the ball in my hand and got me instead....
> 
> Good job it was the last exercise and I'd worked Holly first.
> 
> They were both extremely animated and I'm seriously thinking of putting a HTM routine together with Holly Bolly as she is now doing lots of moves pretty quickly, in fact she's weaving through my legs almost as fast as Twiggy and Fidget used to do.....
> 
> S*he may be a strange little dog* but she certainly doesn't lack brains or stamina.


Makes you realise what an impact the early days and time in the womb can have, she has been raised presumably the same as all your other dogs and despite them all being different no doubt and with all your experience you still find her 'strange' . I am convinced that ninjas formative days/gestation had a serious effect on her.



Nonnie said:


> Might not seem much to most, but im currently working on getting Alfie to look at me, and make eye contact.
> 
> Not easy.


Nope its not, I cant often manage it, she will stare at me quite often but as soon as you look she looks away. And had no luck teaching a watch me at all.


----------



## Nonnie

Twiggy said:


> How are you going about it?


Bribery. Alfie is deaf, and his eye sight is a bit lousy, so its trial and error.

Mainly i have a treat he likes (hot dog or custard cream) and i let him sniff/see it, and when i makes eye contact, i give him the reward. Currently working on him holding eye contact for a couple of seconds.

Just trying to improve my relationship with him tbh, as its almost nonexistant. The way he reacts to me sometimes you would have thought i beat him. If i sit near him, or touch him, half the time he will get up and leave the room. Or even jerk away violently at the slightest of touches


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Makes you realise what an impact the early days and time in the womb can have, she has been raised presumably the same as all your other dogs and despite them all being different no doubt and with all your experience you still find her 'strange' . I am convinced that ninjas formative days/gestation had a serious effect on her.
> 
> I'm quite sure you're right GR and apart from the fact poor little Holly was horrendously thin and had parainfluenza at about 8 weeks old, I would guess the only human contact she had was occasionally being scuffed. I'm convinced something 'nasty' happened to Holly at a very early age. It's little wonder she has such old and wise eyes for such a young bitch.
> 
> It's taken me the best part of two years to gain her trust and I'm not totally there yet.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> GingerRogers said:
> 
> 
> 
> Makes you realise what an impact the early days and time in the womb can have, she has been raised presumably the same as all your other dogs and despite them all being different no doubt and with all your experience you still find her 'strange' . I am convinced that ninjas formative days/gestation had a serious effect on her.
> 
> I'm quite sure you're right GR and apart from the fact poor little Holly was horrendously thin and had parainfluenza at about 8 weeks old, I would guess the only human contact she had was occasionally being scuffed. I'm convinced something 'nasty' happened to Holly at a very early age. It's little wonder she has such old and wise eyes for such a young bitch.
> 
> It's taken me the best part of two years to gain her trust and I'm not totally there yet.
> 
> 
> 
> Only sort of like if you know what I mean, that you are getting there.
Click to expand...


----------



## Twiggy

Nonnie said:


> Bribery. Alfie is deaf, and his eye sight is a bit lousy, so its trial and error.
> 
> Mainly i have a treat he likes (hot dog or custard cream) and i let him sniff/see it, and when i makes eye contact, i give him the reward. Currently working on him holding eye contact for a couple of seconds.
> 
> Just trying to improve my relationship with him tbh, as its almost nonexistant. The way he reacts to me sometimes you would have thought i beat him. If i sit near him, or touch him, half the time he will get up and leave the room. Or even jerk away violently at the slightest of touches


Oh I see. Do you think he might be jerking away from you at sudden movement because his eyesight is failing, or does it run deeper than that?

How old is Alfie now?


----------



## Nonnie

Twiggy said:


> Oh I see. Do you think he might be jerking away from you at sudden movement because his eyesight is failing, or does it run deeper than that?
> 
> How old is Alfie now?


He is 14, so i dont push him too much, and respect his boundaries/wishes.

His eyesight isnt that bad, so its not the movement. He just seems to be adverse to me touching him. So i tend not to now unless i have to, and only when he is awake and can see what im doing.

But, for example, i have to at times, like today when i was trying to get him over a stile, and only one side was open for dogs, and i had to guide him back around the foot plate to show him the hole, and he jerked away from my touch quite violently, and i barely brushed him with my fingers.

He has had some ear issues recently, so im such that factors in, but he has been avoiding my touch for a while now. I dunno, i guess i take offense to it, silly as that seems. I feel like ive lost both my dogs tbh, and had Alfie been younger, i wonder if id consider rehoming him, as i get no enjoyment, only misery, out of owning him. I know its not his fault, and nothing is intentional, but there is no companionship from him. He seems to dislike me intensely.


----------



## rona

Nonnie said:


> He is 14, so i dont push him too much, and respect his boundaries/wishes.
> 
> His eyesight isnt that bad, so its not the movement. He just seems to be adverse to me touching him. So i tend not to now unless i have to, and only when he is awake and can see what im doing.
> 
> But, for example, i have to at times, like today when i was trying to get him over a stile, and only one side was open for dogs, and i had to guide him back around the foot plate to show him the hole, and he jerked away from my touch quite violently, and i barely brushed him with my fingers.
> 
> He has had some ear issues recently, so im such that factors in, but he has been avoiding my touch for a while now. I dunno, i guess i take offense to it, silly as that seems. I feel like ive lost both my dogs tbh, and had Alfie been younger, i wonder if id consider rehoming him, as i get no enjoyment, only misery, out of owning him. I know its not his fault, and nothing is intentional, but there is no companionship from him. He seems to dislike me intensely.


No he doesn't

What's he like with your mother?


----------



## Nonnie

rona said:


> No he doesn't
> 
> What's he like with your mother?


Oh the sun shines out of her ass.

I do anything and everything for him, and he ignores and blanks me most of the time.

She shouts, he doesnt do anything. I only slightly raise my voice and he is off and as far away from me as possible.

I just dont get it tbh.


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Nonnie thats really sad, I am sorry you feel that way. 

It seems obvious but could it be skin sensitivity? I would expect some kind of visible signs, flakiness, dandruff if it was but maybe not?

Have you tried gentle ttouch (not that that works here  ninja is allergic to it) has he always been like this or is it grief reaction, he may be too old but they do those fake hands dont they for dogs who are sensitive (scared) of touch? I dont know I just feel very sad for you and him!


----------



## Nonnie

GingerRogers said:


> Oh Nonnie thats really sad, I am sorry you feel that way.
> 
> It seems obvious but could it be skin sensitivity? I would expect some kind of visible signs, flakiness, dandruff if it was but maybe not?
> 
> Have you tried gentle ttouch (not that that works here  ninja is allergic to it) has he always been like this or is it grief reaction, he may be too old but they do those fake hands dont they for dogs who are sensitive (scared) of touch? I dont know I just feel very sad for you and him!


I dont really try to touch his head now unless i really have to as he ducks and shies away like an abuse case. He still likes a rump rub, so thats ok.


----------



## GingerRogers

Nonnie said:


> I dont really try to touch his head now unless i really have to as he ducks and shies away like an abuse case. He still likes a rump rub, so thats ok.


A lot of dogs dont like head approaches tbh, some are happier if you come from underneath, but this sounds a bit more than that, its nothing to do with his growth?? Can you work up from the butt rubs?


----------



## moonviolet

Nonnie said:


> Might not seem much to most, but im currently working on getting Alfie to look at me, and make eye contact.
> 
> Not easy.


Have you tried blinking at him, unbroken eye contact can be quite uncomfortable at first.

GR glad the Adaptil seems to be working keeping my fingers tightly crossed.


----------



## Nonnie

GingerRogers said:


> A lot of dogs dont like head approaches tbh, some are happier if you come from underneath, but this sounds a bit more than that, its nothing to do with his growth?? Can you work up from the butt rubs?


He never used to mind. He was a stupidly friendly dog for years and years, and lapped up any and all attention he could get. Kisses, cuddles, rubs etc he adored.

Maybe its just an old age thing. I just let him do what he wants.

He just walked into the room and towards me, so i made a fuss and put out my hand to sniff and he just turned around and walked out again. If i ignore him when he walks in the room, he'll just stand there, with his eyes half closed looking all dejected.



moonviolet said:


> Have you tried blinking at him, unbroken eye contact can be quite uncomfortable at first.
> 
> GR glad the Adaptil seems to be working keeping my fingers tightly crossed.


He doesnt look at me long enough to blink, and he blinks enough for both of us combined.


----------



## moonviolet

Nonnie said:


> He never used to mind. He was a stupidly friendly dog for years and years, and lapped up any and all attention he could get. Kisses, cuddles, rubs etc he adored.
> 
> Maybe its just an old age thing. I just let him do what he wants.
> 
> He just walked into the room and towards me, so i made a fuss and put out my hand to sniff and he just turned around and walked out again. If i ignore him when he walks in the room, he'll just stand there, with his eyes half closed looking all dejected.
> 
> He doesnt look at me long enough to blink, and he blinks enough for both of us combined.


 What a heart breaking situation, enjoy those butt rubs, i hope with some patience and custard creams he comes around. I hope L/C sees your posts as i know she was particularly interested in enriching the lives of older dogs and might have some ideas to share.


----------



## Dogless

Oh Nonnie . I can't "like" your posts, how heart breaking. As moonviolet said, hopefully L/C will be along with some good ideas.

Twiggy - sounds as little HB has turned a corner.....HTM routine; you never would have thought you'd be doing that a short while ago . And I'm, erm, pleased for you that Tremor bit you .


----------



## Nicki85

We have had a good day here. First we met up with Shae's half brother Saxon and his owners other dog, a collie x. Both are in training to be SAR dogs and progressing well  We had a lovely time, the forest was full of people and dogs&#8230; Rusty stayed on a line (even though it's his off-lead forest) as he had agility later. He was fab  I let him off a couple of time as he wanted to play with the other dogs. Shae had a great time bossing around and playing with the other boys. We met loads of dogs and owners and they all recalled as asked and greeted other dogs nicely when allowed. Shae got a bit snarky when Saxon tried to steal my treats and at one point when Saxon was receiving a treat off his owner. Need to watch that and be aware&#8230; She doesn't go up to other people anyhow so not really an issue but need to be conscious that it doesn't escalate.

Then Rusty had agility and it was tricky! Lots of turns and snakes (hate snakes) and he tried his best and I didn't do too bad  We got told the wrong time as well so lots of different dogs to work around&#8230; lots of barking collies&#8230; and he coped really well 

I also took him to the garden centre and he behaved lovely, he didn't like the motorised nativity display though!!!!

Nonnie- sorry to hear about your old boy. It gets incredibly difficult when they get older&#8230; Has he had a vet check to make sure there is no pain? I wonder if a trial of metacam (or similar) would be worth trying just to see if that makes his behaviour any different&#8230; sorry if you've tried it or i'm coming from the wrong angle  I just remember my elderly Springer was a lot more comfortable when she was on a broad range pain killer...


----------



## GingerRogers

Just to add to be kind to yourself Nonnie as well , you sound very defeated already with this but I have read into other posts that you are really grieving quite hard, and understandably, but it can take an awful long time to recover from losing a dog  it may be he is feeding off this in some way.


----------



## lupie

Gosh Nonnie that does sound very hard.  I hope you see some improvement with some hot dog smellies. And as GR said, be kind to yourself. 


Boring day here with Ruska being in season. Did an early morning walk up on the common where people don't go, but she's come in properly today so that'll be it really. Luckily I bought a cheap agility set in the amazon sales so we can use that at weekends for some fun 

Felt bad, went on a walk in the afternoon with her buddy Fell, a 1 year old border collie. Cheating on her! 

From a selfish point of view was a little sad to see how absolutely fab his recall is and how happy go lucky and playful and such a well-rounded dog he is growing up to be. It was such a stress-free walk, no Ruska disappearing after squirrels, no watching every corner for dogs... I love Ruska to bits but I had forgotten how easy other dogs can be!


----------



## Dogless

Nicki - that does sound like a good day :thumbup1:.

Busy afternoon / evening here....walked Roo before the boys were fed, then I went for a run whilst they slept dinner off. After that I had my dinner and then walked Kilo .

Took a while to get off the estate with Kilo; the rain had only just stopped which meant everyone was outside having a smoke - with that comes their loose dogs pottering about. Tried 3 roads but finally managed it. Nothing seen after that as I knew that the weather was too rubbish and it's Saturday night.

Having gone for years (well, since I was about 13 so 2 1/2 ish decades!!!) with only showerproof running jackets I splashed out on a waterproof one recently and I tried it out tonight - it was fabulous :thumbup1:.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless - Nice to see some people do actually have manners near you  v busy afternoon for you.. glad you managed to escape from the estate with no trouble though 

GR - Fingers firmly crossed here for the Ninja  Sounding great so far.

Twiggy - Hope you have a lovely night  Sounds like Hollys doin you proud 

Nonnie - not easy at all.. :frown2: .. i gave up on 'watch me'  Your posts are really sad to read  I share the posts of others by saying i hope someone else more experienced can help, i do hope things get better for you both. 

Nicki - Sounds like you all had a lovely day .. well done to shae and rust 

Lupie - Least you managed to get out to the common  I'm sure she'll love playtime in the garden though! As for the selfish bit.. i'm sure we all see other dogs doing something ours doesn't  round here is prime for people not training their dogs/walking them proper etc.. yet they walk to heel offlead down the street while the owner has a can of special brew in 1 hand and a cig in the other with dog looking at them like they are God  


Nice walks here.. even in the rain, although she whinged to go back home  used the normal lead instead of flexi and she weirdly walked at the side of me almost all the way round :001_huh: maybe i was just blocking the rain  .. 
She did give out a bark at a rather manly lady with a hood up lurking at a front door.. even made me jump.. but then didn't follow it through with a usual growl/lunge that normally follows a bark.. just a bark then carried on sniffing around  i apologized and she just laughed, no harm but it was strange :shocked: .

She was super in [email protected] today when we took my sister to buy her first 2 hamsters.. OH insisted she came :001_huh: .. but she was really good around all the small furries and ignored fayes 2 when we brought them back to our house  OH has gone on a 'lads night' so we are curled up on the sofa loving the peace and quiet


----------



## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> Dogless - Nice to see some people do actually have manners near you  v busy afternoon for you.. glad you managed to escape from the estate with no trouble though


"Escape from the Estate" sounds like one of those board games you bring out when all the family are around to try and pass the time :lol:

Sounds like you had a good walk, and glad to know I'm not the only human who has been used as a rain-shield


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- Sounds busy!
GR- Sounds great 
Twiggy- Have a nice night 
Nonnie- I do hope things get better for you 
Nicki- Well done Shae and Rust 
lupie- The Agility set should be good fun 
JSW- Glad you had a nice walk and trip to [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------
Went out for a walk this morning the park was lovely and empty as was the secure area so we had offlead zoomies then a nice walk round the fields on the flexi. 
On the way back across the road was 2 terriers who growled and barked and lunged at him and Bailey returned the favor. But he was great at agility very little reacting.
This afternoon we met up with Ted his poodle friend and he had an amazing time zooming around offlead with him. We got some nice recalls.
In Agility we had agility races against the other dogs and Bailey won chew sticks and a doggy stocking  
I was proud in agility when I went to fix a jump the blummin wind knocked over, I put him in a stay and he stayed from the other side of the field then recalled perfectly :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Well done Bailey!!!!!! Hope he enjoys his hard won prizes .


----------



## Twiggy

Nonnie said:


> He never used to mind. He was a stupidly friendly dog for years and years, and lapped up any and all attention he could get. Kisses, cuddles, rubs etc he adored.
> 
> Maybe its just an old age thing. I just let him do what he wants.
> 
> He just walked into the room and towards me, so i made a fuss and put out my hand to sniff and he just turned around and walked out again. If i ignore him when he walks in the room, he'll just stand there, with his eyes half closed looking all dejected.
> 
> He doesnt look at me long enough to blink, and he blinks enough for both of us combined.


Nonnie I'm really sorry.

I would guess it's a combination of things. You and probably Alfie are still in mourning for starters, plus many old dogs are not overkeen on being touched, which is possibly due to old and aching joints and mental and physical faculties beginning to fail.


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> Dogless- Sounds busy!
> GR- Sounds great
> Twiggy- Have a nice night
> Nonnie- I do hope things get better for you
> Nicki- Well done Shae and Rust
> lupie- The Agility set should be good fun
> JSW- Glad you had a nice walk and trip to [email protected]
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> Went out for a walk this morning the park was lovely and empty as was the secure area so we had offlead zoomies then a nice walk round the fields on the flexi.
> On the way back across the road was 2 terriers who growled and barked and lunged at him and Bailey returned the favor. But he was great at agility very little reacting.
> This afternoon we met up with Ted his poodle friend and he had an amazing time zooming around offlead with him. We got some nice recalls.
> In Agility we had agility races against the other dogs and Bailey won chew sticks and a doggy stocking
> I was proud in agility when I went to fix a jump the blummin wind knocked over, I put him in a stay and he stayed from the other side of the field then recalled perfectly :thumbup1:


Well done Bailey...!! Sounds as if he's really coming on now...


----------



## Dogless

Went out into the bitter cold and howling gales again this morning.

Kilo was a dressage horse in the gales again; we went to the top fields and did loads of "Ready Steady" practising our distance commands and recalls and Kilo was an absolute star - total concentration and eager to work. He was super, super obedient for our whole walk, love him .

Rudi I took for a run and he was also very good; I only needed to put my hand onto the lead to pass a young black lab who is always keen to meet. Now the sports pitches are out of bounds I ran up to the top fields twice on our route and did some laps of the festering, disgusting dog walking fields so Roo got some offlead.

Walking past the sports pitches with Kilo I could see a man walking his dogs and ignoring the ban - he was one of those who I have never seen pick up poo so is one of the people that got us all banned :mad2:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Went out into the bitter cold and howling gales again this morning.
> 
> Kilo was a dressage horse in the gales again; we went to the top fields and did loads of "Ready Steady" practising our distance commands and recalls and Kilo was an absolute star - total concentration and eager to work. He was super, super obedient for our whole walk, love him .
> 
> Rudi I took for a run and he was also very good; I only needed to put my hand onto the lead to pass a young black lab who is always keen to meet. Now the sports pitches are out of bounds I ran up to the top fields twice on our route and did some laps of the festering, disgusting dog walking fields so Roo got some offlead.
> 
> *Walking past the sports pitches with Kilo I could see a man walking his dogs and ignoring the ban - he was one of those who I have never seen pick up poo so is one of the people that got us all banned :mad2:.*




Why am I not surprised....


----------



## Twiggy

It's pretty windy here now Dogless and pouring with rain. If you could keep your nasty weather over there I'd be grateful.

About an hour ago (before the rain started) I decided to get the cheapo collapsible tunnel out and have a practice with Holly, as she doesn't really understand them yet and we have a show just after Christmas. What a performance, the wretched tunnel was blowing every which way. I managed to clamp the rigid bit down but the collapsible part was a nightmare and I was on the verge of giving up. Anyway I sort of fixed it, went and got Holly and she went straight through it three times....:thumbup:


----------



## lupie

Disgusting weather here also. 

Today we decided to learn a new trick - I'm keen on learning anything that involves Ruska stopping mid run/chase/whatever as hopefully working on impulse control to perhaps one day be able to recall her off a chase. 

Any suggestions of other impulse control games/tricks greatly welcomed :thumbup1:

Anyway today we decided to work on stopping half way through running back to me. We can do stopping on mid send-away most of the time (for a treat/ball, not when it comes to small furries obviously) but never tried it on the reverse. 

She did well, now when running towards me I can raise my hand and say stop and she stops! She also sometimes sits as well as I think she thinks it's a distance sit haha. Very impressed with her :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Sorry Twiggy - thought I'd send you a blast . Sounds like a right palaver with the tunnel!!! Good little HB though :aureola:.

Lupie - For Kilo getting him steady to lots of toys being thrown about; gently at first and graduating to ones whizzing past him at speed and only being allowed to chase now and again has been useful.

Stopping him mid toy chase with an emergency stop and graduating to a down at a distance.....started by using the stop cue and then down as the stopping calmed him enough to listen but now he will do a snappy down. He is more "solid" lying down.

Diverting from a chase of one toy onto another is good.

A lot of the work depends on getting him wound right up and "in drive" so bouncing and squeaking and yipping to go, playing tug with loads of growls - really, really getting him worked up as he would be chasing for real. And then calming him quickly and repeating!! If I don't manage to provoke that drive the exercises are fairly easy - but then the adrenaline isn't flowing if that makes sense?

Sorry, foggy brain from spending the afternoon wrapping presents to send tomorrow. Who would know you could feel so lonely and isolated living in the midst of loads of other people? .


----------



## Fluffster

I was too hungover today to take Daisy out so my OH has had to, I feel quite wretched! And Daisy doesn't understand the "Mummy has a very sore head and doesn't want to be jumped on" vibes I am giving out :lol: 

Sounds like fun with the tunnel! I need to work on Daisy's impulse control, we've been trying a bit with her ball but she's too obsessed with it so I think we need to start with something more boring and work up!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Sorry Twiggy - thought I'd send you a blast . Sounds like a right palaver with the tunnel!!! Good little HB though :aureola:.
> 
> Lupie - For Kilo getting him steady to lots of toys being thrown about; gently at first and graduating to ones whizzing past him at speed and only being allowed to chase now and again has been useful.
> 
> Stopping him mid toy chase with an emergency stop and graduating to a down at a distance.....started by using the stop cue and then down as the stopping calmed him enough to listen but now he will do a snappy down. He is more "solid" lying down.
> 
> Diverting from a chase of one toy onto another is good.
> 
> A lot of the work depends on getting him wound right up and "in drive" so bouncing and squeaking and yipping to go, playing tug with loads of growls - really, really getting him worked up as he would be chasing for real. And then calming him quickly and repeating!! If I don't manage to provoke that drive the exercises are fairly easy - but then the adrenaline isn't flowing if that makes sense?
> 
> Sorry, foggy brain from spending the afternoon wrapping presents to send tomorrow. Who would know you could feel so lonely and isolated living in the midst of loads of other people? .


What are you saying.....!! That sounds like a personal invite into the "how to get bitten arms and hands club"....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> What are you saying.....!! That sounds like a personal invite into the "how to get bitten arms and hands club"....


I got bitten today....and thought of you .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I got bitten today....and thought of you .


What a shame.....

Tremor is lethal at the moment. Whether she's feeling better now the chiropractors got her right, but her reactions are like grease lightning and sadly mine are not. She very nearly caught my hand which is still sore after her efforts yesterday.


----------



## GingerRogers

JSW nice to see you back hope you are feeling better, well done Willow, you have made enormous progress with her 

K9 - Well done bailey on the prizes and the stay :thumbup1:

Oh dogless there has to be those who think the rules dont count and they are the ones who mess it up for everyone else in the first place :mad2:

Well done boys though 

Lupie - funnily enough we are working ont hat Dogless has been very helpful, its this weeks forum challenge, didn't think I had a hope in hell, we cant even do recalls very well, so wasnt even sure I wanted to start teaching her to stop halfway back, and its just not the sort of thing we have ever attempted so didnt know if she would understand. But she got it so quick, we even have a kilo style gerumoh as she lands into her down 

Talking of poor ninja, she has been stuck in the car all afternoon as we have been shopping or attempting to (a doormat and two soup bowls does not a successful shop make) apart from a very quick wee break, which must have been soooo disapointing.

It was getting dark as we drove home so shane dropped us off so we could walk back along the sea wall by the marshes.

She zoomed along the sea bank and fell off and rolled all the way down  then zoomed about in embarrassment for a bit.

Then zoomed up and over and into the sea side where the samphire mud banks are, fell in a creek and panicked me as she didnt come straight out  even made me run 

Then proceeded to bound through the mud back up the bank and did like post bath zoomies for 20 minutes trying to get rid of the mud daft begger 

So glad it was a miserable day and there was no one about as I had absolutely no control over her at all  

Even though we came back through the wet field she still needed a bath when we got in, sticky sea mud :frown2:.

I think its safe to say she made up for her confinement :thumbup1:.


----------



## Dogless

GR - sorry Ninja's activities ended in a bath.....I'm sure she enjoyed herself though .

And......well done clever Ninja picking up distance commands so fast :thumbup1:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - sorry Ninja's activities ended in a bath.....I'm sure she enjoyed herself though .
> 
> And......well done clever Ninja picking up distance commands so fast :thumbup1:.


Well not that much distance, only tried it in the living room


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> JSW nice to see you back hope you are feeling better, well done Willow, you have made enormous progress with her
> 
> K9 - Well done bailey on the prizes and the stay :thumbup1:
> 
> Oh dogless there has to be those who think the rules dont count and they are the ones who mess it up for everyone else in the first place :mad2:
> 
> Well done boys though
> 
> Lupie - funnily enough we are working ont hat Dogless has been very helpful, its this weeks forum challenge, didn't think I had a hope in hell, we cant even do recalls very well, so wasnt even sure I wanted to start teaching her to stop halfway back, and its just not the sort of thing we have ever attempted so didnt know if she would understand. But she got it so quick, we even have a kilo style gerumoh as she lands into her down
> 
> Talking of poor ninja, she has been stuck in the car all afternoon as we have been shopping or attempting to (a doormat and two soup bowls does not a successful shop make) apart from a very quick wee break, which must have been soooo disapointing.
> 
> It was getting dark as we drove home so shane dropped us off so we could walk back along the sea wall by the marshes.
> 
> She zoomed along the sea bank and fell off and rolled all the way down  then zoomed about in embarrassment for a bit.
> 
> Then zoomed up and over and into the sea side where the samphire mud banks are, fell in a creek and panicked me as she didnt come straight out  even made me run
> 
> Then proceeded to bound through the mud back up the bank and did like post bath zoomies for 20 minutes trying to get rid of the mud daft begger
> 
> So glad it was a miserable day and there was no one about as I had absolutely no control over her at all
> 
> Even though we came back through the wet field she still needed a bath when we got in, sticky sea mud :frown2:.
> 
> I think its safe to say she made up for her confinement :thumbup1:.


Aww bless her. Like Holly, the Ninja certainly doesn't lack brainpower or stamina.

You be careful GR. You start running you don't know where it will stop. Look at me at my age running round agility courses - bonkers....!!

Husband and I are going Christmas Shopping on Tuesday - yes that's right - together.... A sure fired recipe for disaster....LOL


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Lupie - For Kilo getting him steady to lots of toys being thrown about; gently at first and graduating to ones whizzing past him at speed and only being allowed to chase now and again has been useful.
> 
> Stopping him mid toy chase with an emergency stop and graduating to a down at a distance.....started by using the stop cue and then down as the stopping calmed him enough to listen but now he will do a snappy down. He is more "solid" lying down.
> 
> Diverting from a chase of one toy onto another is good.
> 
> A lot of the work depends on getting him wound right up and "in drive" so bouncing and squeaking and yipping to go, playing tug with loads of growls - really, really getting him worked up as he would be chasing for real. And then calming him quickly and repeating!! If I don't manage to provoke that drive the exercises are fairly easy - but then the adrenaline isn't flowing if that makes sense?
> 
> Sorry, foggy brain from spending the afternoon wrapping presents to send tomorrow. Who would know you could feel so lonely and isolated living in the midst of loads of other people? .


Thanks for this, I'll have a go at some of those. My issue is that Ruska doesn't really get worked up about toys - which would make it much easier to get her into that chase mode. She has a few squeaky balls (which have now lost their squeak so she's not as interested and I can't find similar ones!!) which I can use, but most of the time I have to use food as she is 100% food orientated. But it's just not the same as a bunny or a squirrel! 



GingerRogers said:


> Lupie - funnily enough we are working ont hat Dogless has been very helpful, its this weeks forum challenge, didn't think I had a hope in hell, we cant even do recalls very well, so wasnt even sure I wanted to start teaching her to stop halfway back, and its just not the sort of thing we have ever attempted so didnt know if she would understand. But she got it so quick, we even have a kilo style gerumoh as she lands into her down


I didn't realise it was the forum challenge, I should duck into that thread more often for ideas 
Sounds like you've done well with it! I will have to try Ruska stopping and going into a down, that sounds good. Though earlier we did it and someone opened the fridge so she merrily diverted past me and to the fridge :mad2:


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Thanks for this, I'll have a go at some of those. My issue is that Ruska doesn't really get worked up about toys - which would make it much easier to get her into that chase mode. She has a few squeaky balls (which have now lost their squeak so she's not as interested and I can't find similar ones!!) which I can use, but most of the time I have to use food as she is 100% food orientated. But it's just not the same as a bunny or a squirrel!
> 
> I didn't realise it was the forum challenge, I should duck into that thread more often for ideas
> Sounds like you've done well with it! I will have to try Ruska stopping and going into a down, that sounds good. Though earlier we did it and someone opened the fridge so she merrily diverted past me and to the fridge :mad2:


If she really really wants to chase critters then I reckon there's a toy out there that you could get her wanting to chase - it's finding the right one and being exciting enough (no room for embarrassment) with it. How about a flirt pole?


----------



## GingerRogers

Flirt pole worked really well to get ninja excited about toys, she didnt know what a toy was when she came she only had twigs and stones (and bunnies and rats and squirrels etc  ) to play with 

The skinneez type stuffing less toys work well as do ones that dont actually squeak but sort of honk  like a duck  IYKWIM and the one with some rustle in as well, but for some reason her kong wubba friend is her favourite (poor mr foxy has been related) ATM


----------



## Dogless

Or the Tug-e-nuff toys with food in https://tug-e-nuff.co.uk


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> Thanks for this, I'll have a go at some of those. My issue is that Ruska doesn't really get worked up about toys - which would make it much easier to get her into that chase mode. She has a few squeaky balls (which have now lost their squeak so she's not as interested and I can't find similar ones!!) which I can use, but most of the time I have to use food as she is 100% food orientated. But it's just not the same as a bunny or a squirrel!
> 
> You can 'engineer' the play and/or teach them to play.
> 
> This is the method we use, particularly for Shelties but any breed that prefers food to toys:
> 
> Get an old tennis ball and make a slit in it then stick a really smelly, tasty titbit inside. Have the dog sitting or standing near you and say something like "what's this" whilst holding the ball above their nose. When the dog looks up, squeeze the ball (slit down side) so that the tit-bit virtually falls into their mouth. Repeat over several days until the dog is really interested in the ball.
> Once you've achieved that try holding the dogs collar and rolling the ball a little way in front of them, at the same time making encouraging and exciting comments "look, where's the bally going" " you going to get it" - that sort of thing. Take the ball from the dog (should they pick it up) and squeeze the tit-bit out saying something like "did you get it".
> 
> In no time at all we find the dogs are only too happy to chase the ball...


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> If she really really wants to chase critters then I reckon there's a toy out there that you could get her wanting to chase - it's finding the right one and being exciting enough (no room for embarrassment) with it. How about a flirt pole?





Dogless said:


> Or the Tug-e-nuff toys with food in https://tug-e-nuff.co.uk


I've managed to do it with new toys - she mostly likes things that squeak so I've got her a few squeaky fluffy ones, and she is MEGA excited about them for like, 2 days. And then no matter what I do with it, she's bored.  Literally her purple squeaky balls that are now dead are the only thing I've managed to keep her interest in. I have considered a flirt pole, surely that must appeal to her chasing needs! Will have to look at it again :thumbup1: Really like the look of those food toys too. Might get her running after that, haha!



GingerRogers said:


> Flirt pole worked really well to get ninja excited about toys, she didnt know what a toy was when she came she only had twigs and stones (and bunnies and rats and squirrels etc  ) to play with
> 
> The skinneez type stuffing less toys work well as do ones that dont actually squeak but sort of honk  like a duck  IYKWIM and the one with some rustle in as well, but for some reason her kong wubba friend is her favourite (poor mr foxy has been related) ATM


Yes she likes her honking duck - but she gets mega excited by the sound and then as soon as I produce the toy she's like..nah. Funny bean! Glad the flirt pole worked well for Ninja, I'll have to look into it for sure 



Twiggy said:


> You can 'engineer' the play and/or teach them to play.
> 
> This is the method we use, particularly for Shelties but any breed that prefers food to toys:
> 
> Get an old tennis ball and make a slit in it then stick a really smelly, tasty titbit inside. Have the dog sitting or standing near you and say something like "what's this" whilst holding the ball above their nose. When the dog looks up, squeeze the ball (slit down side) so that the tit-bit virtually falls into their mouth. Repeat over several days until the dog is really interested in the ball.
> Once you've achieved that try holding the dogs collar and rolling the ball a little way in front of them, at the same time making encouraging and exciting comments "look, where's the bally going" " you going to get it" - that sort of thing. Take the ball from the dog (should they pick it up) and squeeze the tit-bit out saying something like "did you get it".
> 
> In no time at all we find the dogs are only too happy to chase the ball...


I tried this with a tennis ball after some advice but I left the food in it, assuming it was the smell that would make her interested in it. Didn't work at all. I will try this method, I think she might actually be more interested if she gets a treat out of it!

Thanks to all, such wonderful advice :thumbup:


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> I've managed to do it with new toys - she mostly likes things that squeak so I've got her a few squeaky fluffy ones, and she is MEGA excited about them for like, 2 days. And then no matter what I do with it, she's bored.  Literally her purple squeaky balls that are now dead are the only thing I've managed to keep her interest in. I have considered a flirt pole, surely that must appeal to her chasing needs! Will have to look at it again :thumbup1: Really like the look of those food toys too. Might get her running after that, haha!


You could keep one especially for this training which is in itself exciting. So the toy itself and the training is exciting if that makes sense. For instance if we go to a certain place Kilo will think we're going to do "Ready Steady" and badger me, or if I have put the pole in the ground for his fun sendaway he will fly over and touch the pole without being asked (have to get the cue in quick, like it was my idea!!!!) in order to start all the fun off.


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> I've managed to do it with new toys - she mostly likes things that squeak so I've got her a few squeaky fluffy ones, and she is MEGA excited about them for like, 2 days. And then no matter what I do with it, she's bored.  Literally her purple squeaky balls that are now dead are the only thing I've managed to keep her interest in. I have considered a flirt pole, surely that must appeal to her chasing needs! Will have to look at it again :thumbup1: Really like the look of those food toys too. Might get her running after that, haha!
> 
> Yes she likes her honking duck - but she gets mega excited by the sound and then as soon as I produce the toy she's like..nah. Funny bean! Glad the flirt pole worked well for Ninja, I'll have to look into it for sure
> 
> I tried this with a tennis ball after some advice but I left the food in it, assuming it was the smell that would make her interested in it. Didn't work at all. I will try this method, I think she might actually be more interested if she gets a treat out of it!
> 
> Thanks to all, such wonderful advice :thumbup:


It takes time and patience, as I know full well with dear little Holly.

18 Months ago I tried every toy and tit-bit know to man and she wasn't interested but little by little.......

Dogless made a good point - keep the special toys for training only. I have a separate training bag with the high value toys (squeaky tennis balls, tuggies, etc.) which they only get when training.


----------



## Dogless

Nice morning this morning. We went to the forest just as it was getting light. It's a bitterly cold, windy, clear day so perfect for walking. Also perfect for lots of good scents!! The boys were in full - on hunting mode from the second we started so they had a ball and I am tired from keeping the balance of letting them roam and hunt but still being under control . Hard work at times as they're a bit of a formidable team. Still, they were good for me so I can't complain .

They're now wrestling even though we have only just got back .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Nice morning this morning. We went to the forest just as it was getting light. It's a bitterly cold, windy, clear day so perfect for walking. Also perfect for lots of good scents!! The boys were in full - on hunting mode from the second we started so they had a ball and I am tired from keeping the balance of letting them roam and hunt but still being under control . Hard work at times as they're a bit of a formidable team. Still, they were good for me so I can't complain .
> 
> They're now wrestling even though we have only just got back .


Yes I think you're ghastly weather is over here now...!! It was supposed to be a calm, dry and sunny day today but instead it's windy and has been pouring with rain. It was so bad when I nipped up to Tescos that I sat in the car for 10 minutes during a torrential downpour.

I was going to do some agility with Holly Bolly but it's too wet and horrid so I think it will have to be the barn. They're all bored off their heads and Holly and Barley are playing very rough games and belting round the house. Barley is supposed to be resting her shoulder... I hate this time of year with regards to the dogs - there isn't enough daylight hours.


----------



## lupie

Twiggy said:


> Yes I think you're ghastly weather is over here now...!! It was supposed to be a calm, dry and sunny day today but instead it's windy and has been pouring with rain. It was so bad when I nipped up to Tescos that I sat in the car for 10 minutes during a torrential downpour.
> 
> I was going to do some agility with Holly Bolly but it's too wet and horrid so I think it will have to be the barn. They're all bored off their heads and Holly and Barley are playing very rough games and belting round the house. Barley is supposed to be resting her shoulder... I hate this time of year with regards to the dogs - there isn't enough daylight hours.


Agree wholeheartedly re daylight hours. Especially as I work full time so everything I do during the week is in the dark. Built up my confidence though, and Ruska doesn't mind it except that she can't go offlead or she'd hunt down every squirrel in Surrey. But means quality training time and extra fun weekend walks.

Left her this morning in a very blue mood, her last season she had a blue day a few days in so I'm not too worried but going to see how she is this evening/tomorrow morning. She's spending the day with her german shepherd bitch friend and 2 lab bitches so maybe they will cheer her up!


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- Glad you had a nice walk

--------------------------------------

Fine today. Took him for an afternoon walk and went to the field. I dropped his lead and he did fine with recalls (no other dogs) At the end of the walk (well nearly) I decided to try him off lead. He legged it zoomy style towards the exit. I was terrified and I screamed his name. He turned around and I yelled Here and he came running back. I gave him a ton of treats and put him back on lead. Tomorrow I`m still going to try him off lead but far away from the exit. Perhaps I`ll try the woods.


----------



## Fluffster

Daisy was very bad with pulling on our walk today. Way back she was much better. We only met two collies who were on-lead, so Daisy went on-lead although the guy said he was happy for them to meet so they had a sniff. Other than that, it was just me and Daisy, which was really quite nice


----------



## Dogless

K9 - well done :thumbup1:.

Fluffster - looks like a nice place for a walk.

Great walk with Kilo and Diz tonight; we dodged a malamute dragging it's owner towards us at top speed by rather embarrassingly running away . Didn't help the poor shouting man getting pulled along but we got away with a few bounces, no barking or growling :thumbup1:.

Only got halfway round Rudi's walk when we saw a tiny little yorkie on the pavement which kept running away as it was scared of Roo I suspect. It ran into the churchyard. So I took Roo home, drove over there and searched for a while. No luck. I really hope it has found it's way home as it's freezing cold out there tonight and is all clipped down. I have put notices on our FB pages but no response yet. If I don't hear anything soon I will get my warm kit back on and go and have a search again.


----------



## Fluffster

It's a great place for a walk, it's only five mins from the house and is a pretty large area. Everyone takes their dogs down there so Daisy often meets up with loads of pals, but I know if I go about 12ish, it's usually pretty quiet and I was feeling antisocial today :lol: The only problem with it is that me and Daisy keep falling in holes that this other working cocker digs every time he goes there! :lol:

I hope that little Yorkie is back home, that's so nice of you to spend time looking for it, the world needs more people like you!


----------



## Dogless

Been back out; just home again. Dog found .


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> Been back out; just home again. Dog found .


That's brilliant news! Did you find it, or run into someone who had?


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> That's brilliant news! Did you find it, or run into someone who had?


Searched where I last saw him; didn't find. Searched everywhere else then returned to where I had seen him with some others and there he was.


----------



## lupie

Glad the dog was found! Not a night to be out on your own. 

Got Ruska going from stop to sit to down fairly snappily earlier. Very impressed. Will proof some more around the house, would like to see how she goes in the garden. 

She picks things up so damn quickly, boggles my mind how she can still be reactive! But I know it's a different kettle of fish entirely. 

Feels weird not going out for a walk. Feels really wrong!


----------



## Twiggy

Poor Leafy had raging diarrheao last night about an hour or so after her dinner.

On the suggestion of the clinical canine massage therapist I've been trying to introduce Riaflex to aid her arthritis, but it's not going to work I'm afraid.

The trouble is when she starts and has to go back on ABs it knocks everything else out of kelter, so she didn't have her milk thistle tablet last night. Hopefully I can get her stabilised again quite quickly as she has been doing very well on Purina HA with a bit of broccoli and carrot added, plus the milk thistle.

That's the trouble when dogs have multiple issues; it's a very fine balancing act with supplements and medication.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - Oh no, poor Leafy; I do hope she's back on an even keel soon. What a tricky balancing act though .

This morning I didn't walk Kilo as he had to go for his vaccinations and the vet stresses him hugely. I gave him extra stress less and took him to the morning surgery as it tends to be quieter. He was scared stiff as per usual but behaved very well for me . He even took fusses off the vet who was the one male vet I like which is really unusual. I got complimented on his superb condition as usual which is still nice .

We came out of the consulting room and there was a big black dog in the waiting room that pulled and squeaked to try and get to us. Kilo growled and went to go bonkers but I managed to turn him round fast and put him behind a dog food display thing. Then to my great surprise the woman with the dog asked what she could do to help me   I said to stand in the far corner if possible and turn her dog away from us. So she did and Kilo bolted for the door to get away. So not a total disaster. Frank the practise cat wasn't there or in the car park either which was lucky as it was a skating rink and if Kilo had seen him I would have been on my backside quick as a flash!!!

Took Rudi for a run. Bit dicey on the ice but he kept a nice slack lead like a very good dog and we survived :thumbup1:. Got to take him for his vaccinations later today, evening surgery.

If it stays cold there'll be no getting to the forest but we'll cope!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Oh Twiggy - sorry to hear that hope you get her back on the straight and narrow again soon. It must be so hard, we had a bit of a balancing act with Rory but nowhere near as hard as yours.

K9 - well done Bailey and K9 all your work is paying off. 

Dogless - pleased about the little dog poor thing. Very nice lady in the vet, thats an unusual turn up in your parts , even more glad Frank was not about 

Fluffster - sorry but am chuckling at you falling in cocker holes 



lupie said:


> She picks things up so damn quickly, boggles my mind how she can still be reactive! But I know it's a different kettle of fish entirely.


I ask this every day 'How, when you are such a clever little spark have you not figured out not to bark at everything or at least that you dont need to, i will look after you' :frown2:

She never answers, just barks at a passing car or something normally.

We are just about to go out, I need to remember to pick up the poo that she did at 11.30 last night when I had to traipse out, in the rain, in my pjs  as she was refusing to go in the garden. She then proceeded to walk past all the normal sure fire pee spots. I had thought about pulling my waterproofs on but hadn't , I was getting wetter and then she decided she needed a poo, I only had a till receipt and half a tissue in my pocket :frown2: No way not in the wet. Its in an out of the way spot 

I got home and checked my waterproofs, sure enough they had bags in the pocket 

Oh she had a pee finally about 5m from the front door :mad2:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hello all  Hope you're all ok.

Can i ask you guys for a bit of advice please.

I'll try to be short.
I'm struggling to decide what to do, training wise with my three.I'm bad with making decisions tbh and making the right one. 
Freddie is good on lead, off lead, recall is good cause i always have treats. He's not that interested in fetch or anything like that. He has his silver good citizen award. He does jump up though which ends up with me having a nose butt sometimes. :frown2: i had 15 tennis balls delivered this morning for them and chucked them all in the air, several times. It was lovely to see Freddie 'playing' and excited about something.

Frank is good ish on lead, he calms down after he's done his business, we still cross over the road if we see other dogs coming. I can cope with that, it's a lot better than it used to be. Recall is not brilliant, hence the long line.Has a high prey drive. He's ok when i have tennis balls and loves a game of fetch. He has his bronze good citizen award.

Bella is good on lead, off lead, recalls, meeting other dogs, will chase bikes if given the chance so i always have to be on the lookout. Our gundog training was something we enjoyed but after the last one went a bit pants, i'm questioning if i'm cut out fot it. I would like to continue, but not sure what to do???? I know Twiggy, you did help me with the retreive and my busy work schedule just took over things for a while.

Feel like we've come to a bit of a standstill really and not sure what direction to go in. I do seperate walks every morning. If i'm working at home, i take them all together for an off lead walk in the afternoon. If i'm out at work, i take Bella on her own then the boys with their dogmatics in the evening. Weekends are always walks together. I'm always doing recall practise, loose lead walking.

I want to make their days exciting for them, and at the moment i don't think they are. I've slacked, i know so any ideas to help me get my bum into gear, get organised and training ?????  Please be honest with me.

Thankyou.


----------



## Fluffster

We had a bit of a weird walk today. It was totally deserted so me an Daisy had a play with her frisbee. We were walking past this sort of ridge when suddenly she went stock still and started growling and barking. She's never made a noise outside before, so I was quite surprised! I couldn't see anything but she wouldn't go near the ridge, and as we walked on, she kept glancing back at it.

On the way back though she completely ignored it 










She was pulling my arm off on the way to where we were going, but actually walked nicely for a bit on the way back. I've got 10 days off over Xmas so I'm really going to work on the loose lead walking as it's not much fun for either of us at the moment! When she goes into season too I'm going to spend lots of time marching her up and down the garden :lol:


----------



## lupie

Twiggy said:


> Poor Leafy had raging diarrheao last night about an hour or so after her dinner.


Poor Leafy - I really hope she picks up soon. Always a struggle with finding a balance. Not just dogs either - my Dad has various medications and when they tweak one it often sets something else off! 



Dogless said:


> We came out of the consulting room and there was a big black dog in the waiting room that pulled and squeaked to try and get to us. Kilo growled and went to go bonkers but I managed to turn him round fast and put him behind a dog food display thing. Then to my great surprise the woman with the dog asked what she could do to help me   I said to stand in the far corner if possible and turn her dog away from us. So she did and Kilo bolted for the door to get away. So not a total disaster. Frank the practise cat wasn't there or in the car park either which was lucky as it was a skating rink and if Kilo had seen him I would have been on my backside quick as a flash!!!


Wow - Coming across an owner like that is fab. Restores a little faith! Good boy Kilo :thumbup1:



GingerRogers said:


> I ask this every day 'How, when you are such a clever little spark have you not figured out not to bark at everything or at least that you dont need to, i will look after you' :frown2:
> 
> She never answers, just barks at a passing car or something normally.


I know, it'd make me so happy  She learns tricks in 2 seconds and yet still thinks other dogs are gonna steal me away. 



Fluffster said:


> She was pulling my arm off on the way to where we were going, but actually walked nicely for a bit on the way back. I've got 10 days off over Xmas so I'm really going to work on the loose lead walking as it's not much fun for either of us at the moment! When she goes into season too I'm going to spend lots of time marching her up and down the garden :lol:


Haha - Ruska is in season so I feel like we're going to resort to this soon!!

We had a major breakthrough last night - completely unrelated to recall/impulse control/reactivity.

Ruska chased Poppy down the garden and up a tree when she first arrived and Poppy has been terrified of her since. We've been making steady progress, slowly and surely.... and last night....










It was short. As soon as I had finished preparing her dinner Poppy ran away so I'd have to bring it to her but this is incredible. She normally won't set foot below the bottom step of the stairs normally.

I'm so proud of Ruska for just ignoring Poppy & Poppy having the confidence. I never thought we'd see this day.


----------



## Twiggy

Well we managed to go Christmas shopping and had lunch out. I pretty much rushed hubby round the shops so we were only gone about 3.1/2 hours. All was well with Leafy when we got back - thank goodness.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Twiggy - Oh no, poor Leafy; I do hope she's back on an even keel soon. What a tricky balancing act though .
> 
> This morning I didn't walk Kilo as he had to go for his vaccinations and the vet stresses him hugely. I gave him extra stress less and took him to the morning surgery as it tends to be quieter. He was scared stiff as per usual but behaved very well for me . He even took fusses off the vet who was the one male vet I like which is really unusual. I got complimented on his superb condition as usual which is still nice .
> 
> We came out of the consulting room and there was a big black dog in the waiting room that pulled and squeaked to try and get to us. Kilo growled and went to go bonkers but I managed to turn him round fast and put him behind a dog food display thing. Then to my great surprise the woman with the dog asked what she could do to help me   I said to stand in the far corner if possible and turn her dog away from us. So she did and Kilo bolted for the door to get away. So not a total disaster. Frank the practise cat wasn't there or in the car park either which was lucky as it was a skating rink and if Kilo had seen him I would have been on my backside quick as a flash!!!
> 
> Took Rudi for a run. Bit dicey on the ice but he kept a nice slack lead like a very good dog and we survived :thumbup1:. Got to take him for his vaccinations later today, evening surgery.
> 
> *If it stays cold there'll be no getting to the forest but we'll cope!!*


Well at least all the dog mess, by which you are surrounded, will be frozen solid so Kilo can't eat it and it won't stick to your shoes....

I've got to take Holly and Tremor tomorrow late morning for their vaccinations. Depending which vet I see there may well be strong words when I say Tremor isn't having the Lepto...!!

I'm then meeting the massage therapist to try and sort out her Rough Collies. That should be fun.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> We had a bit of a weird walk today. It was totally deserted so me an Daisy had a play with her frisbee. We were walking past this sort of ridge when suddenly she went stock still and started growling and barking. She's never made a noise outside before, so I was quite surprised! I couldn't see anything but she wouldn't go near the ridge, and as we walked on, she kept glancing back at it.
> 
> On the way back though she completely ignored it
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> She was pulling my arm off on the way to where we were going, but actually walked nicely for a bit on the way back. I've got 10 days off over Xmas so I'm really going to work on the loose lead walking as it's not much fun for either of us at the moment! When she goes into season too I'm going to spend lots of time marching her up and down the garden :lol:


Is Daisy on an ordinary collar and lead? If so have you ever tried looping the lead between her front legs so that it comes up behind one front leg and into your hand?

That's what I'm doing with my late sister's bitch, Barley, at the moment as loose lead walking is work in progress. It's not Barley's fault but she's been running rings around my brother-in-law for the past 18 months.


----------



## Fluffster

She is, she's usually on a harness but we were only going 5 mins down the road today so just whacked her collar on. It's funny you suggest that as sometimes she manages to get the lead tangled round her in that way and it does stop her pulling, but I never thought about doing it on purpose!

We have a Dogmatic head-collar for her, I've used it twice I think when we've had to do a street walk somewhere and she does walk well on it, but if we pause for any length of time she's scrabbling to get it off and she can actually get it off her nose, little minx.

We have so many things, head collar, Julius K9 harness, anti-pull harness (which doesn't work!), Mekuti harness, Dogmatic...

She's just not that interested in treats when we are out, she responded well to clicker training LLW in the house but when we got outside, she didn't care that treats were being dropped  We've tried the stop when she's pulling thing and the change direction (the neighbours must have thought I was mental!)


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Hello all  Hope you're all ok.
> 
> Can i ask you guys for a bit of advice please.
> 
> I'll try to be short.
> I'm struggling to decide what to do, training wise with my three.I'm bad with making decisions tbh and making the right one.
> Freddie is good on lead, off lead, recall is good cause i always have treats. He's not that interested in fetch or anything like that. He has his silver good citizen award. He does jump up though which ends up with me having a nose butt sometimes. :frown2: i had 15 tennis balls delivered this morning for them and chucked them all in the air, several times. It was lovely to see Freddie 'playing' and excited about something.
> 
> Frank is good ish on lead, he calms down after he's done his business, we still cross over the road if we see other dogs coming. I can cope with that, it's a lot better than it used to be. Recall is not brilliant, hence the long line.Has a high prey drive. He's ok when i have tennis balls and loves a game of fetch. He has his bronze good citizen award.
> 
> Bella is good on lead, off lead, recalls, meeting other dogs, will chase bikes if given the chance so i always have to be on the lookout. Our gundog training was something we enjoyed but after the last one went a bit pants, i'm questioning if i'm cut out fot it. I would like to continue, but not sure what to do???? I know Twiggy, you did help me with the retreive and my busy work schedule just took over things for a while.
> 
> Feel like we've come to a bit of a standstill really and not sure what direction to go in. I do seperate walks every morning. If i'm working at home, i take them all together for an off lead walk in the afternoon. If i'm out at work, i take Bella on her own then the boys with their dogmatics in the evening. Weekends are always walks together. I'm always doing recall practise, loose lead walking.
> 
> I want to make their days exciting for them, and at the moment i don't think they are. I've slacked, i know so any ideas to help me get my bum into gear, get organised and training ?????  Please be honest with me.
> 
> Thankyou.


Well the World's your oyster really....LOL

What do you fancy doing with them?

My lot play with balls out on walks morning and late afternoon which they all enjoy, then most afternoons they do some sort of training. Sometimes I take them out individually to train and sometimes together, either in the paddock or training barn. It consists of competitive obedience type exercises, tricks, impulse control and, with Holly, agility training. Hopefully Barley will also be able to do a bit of agility if I can get her shoulder fixed.

I'm currently thinking of having a go at HTM with Holly as she knows a lot of tricks. I may also put a routine together with Tremor for HTM not freestyle. Two thirds of the routine has to be heelwork (as per competitive obedience) and I can soon teach her a few additional moves/tricks.

All of mine (including Holly these days) go berserk if I start cutting up cocktail sausages or reach for the training bag.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> She is, she's usually on a harness but we were only going 5 mins down the road today so just whacked her collar on. It's funny you suggest that as sometimes she manages to get the lead tangled round her in that way and it does stop her pulling, but I never thought about doing it on purpose!
> 
> We have a Dogmatic head-collar for her, I've used it twice I think when we've had to do a street walk somewhere and she does walk well on it, but if we pause for any length of time she's scrabbling to get it off and she can actually get it off her nose, little minx.
> 
> We have so many things, head collar, Julius K9 harness, anti-pull harness (which doesn't work!), Mekuti harness, Dogmatic...
> 
> She's just not that interested in treats when we are out, she responded well to clicker training LLW in the house but when we got outside, she didn't care that treats were being dropped  We've tried the stop when she's pulling thing and the change direction (the neighbours must have thought I was mental!)


Well give looping the lead under her front legs a go then. Don't forget to praise when she isn't pulling. I use a sing song voice with Barley and say things like "that's nice steady" etc. When she's walking nicely I un-loop the lead but pop it back if she starts to pull again. She's particularly bad when we set off down the paddock to walk in the back field. As I say it isn't her fault as she's spent the last 18 months winding up at the gate and then charging down the paddock back home in Sussex.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Well the World's your oyster really....LOL
> 
> What do you fancy doing with them?
> 
> My lot play with balls out on walks morning and late afternoon which they all enjoy, then most afternoons they do some sort of training. Sometimes I take them out individually to train and sometimes together, either in the paddock or training barn. It consists of competitive obedience type exercises, tricks, impulse control and, with Holly, agility training. Hopefully Barley will also be able to do a bit of agility if I can get her shoulder fixed.
> 
> I'm currently thinking of having a go at HTM with Holly as she knows a lot of tricks. I may also put a routine together with Tremor for HTM not freestyle. Two thirds of the routine has to be heelwork (as per competitive obedience) and I can soon teach her a few additional moves/tricks.
> 
> All of mine (including Holly these days) go berserk if I start cutting up cocktail sausages or reach for the training bag.


Thanks, not sure what I want to do really. 
Impulse control sounds good, sometimes when frank pricks his ears up and goes stiff, I do worry about him pulling the longline from me, which he has done. It's like he gets fixated and it's difficult getting his attention back.

Ideally I want to get to a stage where they all behave really well when out together. On their own, they're great but all together, bellas recall can be a bit iffy. It's like she wants to come back but half way back to me she decides she wants to stay with frank.

How do I stop bella chasing bikes? She doesn't always do it so I never know when she's going to do it. If I see them I put her on a lead but she's chased them when theyve come up behind me and it's too late, she's off. It's quite worrying really. Would be nice to walk her without the worry of a bike coming out of the blue. We all have bikes and have thought about perhaps taking her with me, but I'm a flat, leisurely, canal towpath cyclist. 

Eta...when I met other PF members a couple of weeks ago for a group walk, bella was really well behaved. Recalled each time I saw a bike so I could pop the lead back on, but at the end, saying our goodbyes, she decides to chase one of the dogs round and round and round. God knows why. She wouldn't listen to me and I felt so stupid. In the end she did come to me but I don't want that happening again.


----------



## Dogless

Will catch up in a sec...I had an amazing moment at the vet's when I took Roo for his booster tonight. He growled just as he felt the injection. The vet asked me whether or not I told him off for growling. I told him no and explained why and he said he had never heard the theory before but that it made absolutely perfect sense and he was going to look into it more :thumbup1:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Will catch up in a sec...I had an amazing moment at the vet's when I took Roo for his booster tonight. He growled just as he felt the injection. The vet asked me whether or not I told him off for growling. I told him no and explained why and he said he had never heard the theory before but that it made absolutely perfect sense and he was going to look into it more :thumbup1:.


Well done my child....:thumbup: That's what I like to hear. You've obviously been listening to Grannie (who will most certainly be explaining her theory to whichever vet I see regarding the Lepto vaccine tomorrow)....


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Thanks, not sure what I want to do really.
> Impulse control sounds good, sometimes when frank pricks his ears up and goes stiff, I do worry about him pulling the longline from me, which he has done. It's like he gets fixated and it's difficult getting his attention back.
> 
> Ideally I want to get to a stage where they all behave really well when out together. On their own, they're great but all together, bellas recall can be a bit iffy. It's like she wants to come back but half way back to me she decides she wants to stay with frank.
> 
> How do I stop bella chasing bikes? She doesn't always do it so I never know when she's going to do it. If I see them I put her on a lead but she's chased them when theyve come up behind me and it's too late, she's off. It's quite worrying really. Would be nice to walk her without the worry of a bike coming out of the blue. We all have bikes and have thought about perhaps taking her with me, but I'm a flat, leisurely, canal towpath cyclist.
> 
> Eta...when I met other PF members a couple of weeks ago for a group walk, bella was really well behaved. Recalled each time I saw a bike so I could pop the lead back on, but at the end, saying our goodbyes, she decides to chase one of the dogs round and round and round. God knows why. She wouldn't listen to me and I felt so stupid. In the end she did come to me but I don't want that happening again.


It's called basic dog training - honestly...!!

IMO you can teach 99% of dogs to do anything, or not as the case may be providing you are patient, consistent, fair and most importantly make it interesting and fun for the dog to learn.

Reading through what you've said about Bella above, you need to work on a 100% recall (well 99% - they all have their moments..!!). You also need to work on a solid "leave it" command. Bike chasing is very dangerous and that most certainly needs stopping. What is your reaction when she has given chase?


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> It's called basic dog training - honestly...!!
> 
> IMO you can teach 99% of dogs to do anything, or not as the case may be providing you are patient, consistent, fair and most importantly make it interesting and fun for the dog to learn.
> 
> Reading through what you've said about Bella above, you need to work on a 100% recall (well 99% - they all have their moments..!!). You also need to work on a solid "leave it" command. Bike chasing is very dangerous and that most certainly needs stopping. What is your reaction when she has given chase?


When she's gone after a bike, i call her, shout 'this way' ,'where's your ball', anything to get her back and make me more appealing than the bike. The first time she did it, the bike stopped and she came back. Another time, she went out of sight and a few seconds later came running back. I made a huge fuss when she came running towards me, arms waving, and treated her once i had the lead on.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> When she's gone after a bike, i call her, shout 'this way' ,'where's your ball', anything to get her back and make me more appealing than the bike. The first time she did it, the bike stopped and she came back. Another time, she went out of sight and a few seconds later came running back. I made a huge fuss when she came running towards me, arms waving, and treated her once i had the lead on.


Hmmmm personally I'd teach a solid 'leave it' command.

Have you done any of the Good Citizen tests with Bella? The reason I ask it that in the Gold Test the dogs are required to do an emergency stop, which would also be useful to teach. Whilst I think the Good Citizen tests are a good thing, some of the judging is woeful and far too many dogs pass the tests without having completed the exercises properly. If taught and executed correctly an emergency stop should be just that, not dogs trotting halfway up a small village hall but dogs actually chasing something at speed and the handlers being able to stop them.

Do you have friends/relatives with bikes? If so I'd be inclined to set Bella up once you've got the 'leave it' and an emergency stop advanced a bit.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> Hmmmm personally I'd teach a solid 'leave it' command.
> 
> Have you done any of the Good Citizen tests with Bella? The reason I ask it that in the Gold Test the dogs are required to do an emergency stop, which would also be useful to teach. Whilst I think the Good Citizen tests are a good thing, some of the judging is woeful and far too many dogs pass the tests without having completed the exercises properly. If taught and executed correctly an emergency stop should be just that, not dogs trotting halfway up a small village hall but dogs actually chasing something at speed and the handlers being able to stop them.
> 
> Do you have friends/relatives with bikes? If so I'd be inclined to set Bella up once you've got the 'leave it' and an emergency stop advanced a bit.


I haven't done any of the Good Citizens with her. The place that i took F & F to has them starting after xmas i think so may look into doing that with her.I got on quite well with the boys and it was easy for me to understand. I'm getting rather confused just lately. 
I did one gold course with Freddie but his emergency stop was more like what you've described, but in slower motion.

We all have bikes so setting something up later wouldn't be a problem.

She knows the 'leave it' command when i'm in the kitchen preparing food, placing her food bowl down,holding treats in my hand, also when we've been throwing a dummy in training. What do i need to do in order to get a solid leave it all the time?

Thanks for all your advice, Twiggy. I know what i've done...i've thought they've got it and not reinforced it enough, or been too slack. It's basic stuff, as you've said.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> I haven't done any of the Good Citizens with her. The place that i took F & F to has them starting after xmas i think so may look into doing that with her.I got on quite well with the boys and it was easy for me to understand. I'm getting rather confused just lately.
> I did one gold course with Freddie but his emergency stop was more like what you've described, but in slower motion.
> 
> We all have bikes so setting something up later wouldn't be a problem.
> 
> She knows the 'leave it' command when i'm in the kitchen preparing food, placing her food bowl down,holding treats in my hand, also when we've been throwing a dummy in training. What do i need to do in order to get a solid leave it all the time?
> 
> *Thanks for all your advice, Twiggy. I know what i've done...i've thought they've got it and not reinforced it enough, or been too slack. It's basic stuff, as you've said.*




Correct....!! But that applies to all of us not just you.

I've been doing a bit of impulse control/reinforcing work with Tremor....

Now she's finally allowed to run, having been intermittently lame for about 9 months, I've been throwing her favourite squeaky dumbbell out of walks. Erring on the side of caution I've held her collar until the dumbbell has landed and she's been getting gradually more manic and has, on occasions, done a pretty good job of trying to break my fingers. So this last week or two I've actually told her to sit some of the time whilst I've thrown the toy and that it just what I mean - sit is sit until told to move regardless of how excited they are or how much they want to get the toy, chase the bike, etc. etc.

Do you get my drift?


----------



## lupie

Freddie and frank said:


> She knows the 'leave it' command when i'm in the kitchen preparing food, placing her food bowl down,holding treats in my hand, also when we've been throwing a dummy in training. What do i need to do in order to get a solid leave it all the time?
> 
> Thanks for all your advice, Twiggy. I know what i've done...i've thought they've got it and not reinforced it enough, or been too slack. It's basic stuff, as you've said.


Don't worry, I'm sure this is something all owners go through at one stage or another  I'm still getting my head around proofing. Ruska is similar, she knows a fantastic "leave it" in the house. But out on a walk...no chance. I'm really concentrating on getting my commands solid in the house and gradually moving them up to garden - "safe" walks etc. 
It can be frustrating at times and I've gotten too eager and set myself back a stage before.

I think using friends with bikes to "set up" situations with you would be great practice once you've got the commands down nicely.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Correct....!! But that applies to all of us not just you.
> 
> I've been doing a bit of impulse control/reinforcing work with Tremor....
> 
> Now she's finally allowed to run, having been intermittently lame for about 9 months, I've been throwing her favourite squeaky dumbbell out of walks. Erring on the side of caution I've held her collar until the dumbbell has landed and she's been getting gradually more manic and has, on occasions, done a pretty good job of trying to break my fingers. So this last week or two I've actually told her to sit some of the time whilst I've thrown the toy and that it just what I mean - sit is sit until told to move regardless of how excited they are or how much they want to get the toy, chase the bike, etc. etc.
> 
> Do you get my drift?


I do yes. 
So no more letting her run straight after the ball until I say so??


----------



## Dogless

A tricky leg and lung - busting trail running route for our morning's activity.....well, for me; the boys just look at me with contempt when I start to puff  :frown2:. 

We did a lot as this afternoon and evening's forecast is horrendous - back to solid rain and 80mph winds followed by bitterly cold :shocked:. The plan is to do a little bit of training and play inside and not venture into the teeth of the gale. The boys may have no choice.....I am broken .


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> A tricky leg and lung - busting trail running route for our morning's activity.....well, for me; the boys just look at me with contempt when I start to puff  :frown2:.
> 
> We did a lot as this afternoon and evening's forecast is horrendous - back to solid rain and 80mph winds followed by bitterly cold :shocked:. The plan is to do a little bit of training and play inside and not venture into the teeth of the gale. The boys may have no choice.....I am broken .


Can you tell that nasty weather to divert and not come this way please? 

Had the evening to myself last night with Ruska. Was nice, we did lots of play and training.

Thanks to all the help with toys everyone - I discovered that I'm not quite going far enough. I get a toy out and get excited and if after a bit she doesn't look interested I put it away. I persevered this time and made a right prat out of myself - jumping around and squealing and running about. She got the hint and we had a lonnnggg play and by the end of it I was puffed and hoarse! 

She's off to the vets tonight to get some bloods taken as the breeder will be mating her during this season so checking progresterone levels. Then I've got my work Christmas party so she's being dogsat by my mum, which will probably mean lots of food & cuddles for Ruska :thumbup1:


----------



## Fluffster

Absolutely wild out here today, thought Daisy was going to take off the way her ears were flapping in the wind! Pretty deserted again, usually is when weather is bad, but we met her staffy pal again and she had mad zoomies around him while he ignored her  She's now playing with her favourite new toy - one of my old slipper boots with her ball at the bottom  after spending a while playing stairs chicken with my cat Lily.

Hope you have a nice time at the party, Lupie!


----------



## Twiggy

Well the trip to the vets went swimmingly... It happened to be the young lady vet I like and she was perfectly happy not to give Tremor the lepto and agreed with me that it wouldn't be wise to vaccinate Leafy any more.

She also complimented me on the condition of both Tremor and Holly and ran her hand admiringly over Holly's toned muscles.

The visit/walk with the Rough Collies went equally as well. It took me all of five minutes to discover why the male is not remotely interested in toys and tit-bits and why he does a runner, although to be fair he did take tit-bits from me and sort of play. I got Tremor and Holly out of the car and all he was interested in was trying to mount them, particularly Holly....!!

There is basically nothing wrong with either of them except the dog needs the snip and the bitch has picked up some bad habits that need a bit of sorting.

The owner has already had two behaviourist out and was about to see a third one, until I told her to cancel it 11 days ago. The behaviourist which should have been visiting this week insisted the male was muzzled before she entered the house. What rubbish; there's absolutely no aggression in either of them.

I'm having both of them over here after Christmas for some basic training - well train the owner actually.... That's yet another day of my so called holiday gone...

Just to add what a very good girl Holly was. It was the first time she'd been to a country park type place, with bikes, pushchairs, joggers, etc. Good as gold and came back immediately every time I called her. Tremor just wanted to do training after sniffing about for five minutes....:thumbup:


----------



## GingerRogers

Just a quickie from me.

Glad the vets went well Twiggy. And teh roughs, of course you can sort them out  Do you really think the snip will solve all his problems, I thought it wasnt the cure all its often made out to be?

Sorry you are broke Dogless 

Have fun tonight Lupie. Baby Ruskas  how do you feel about that, obviously it must have been something you knew would be on the cards, but to agree at the start and the realty are rather different I imagine???

Hope Daisy doesnt blow away Fluffster



I am very busy but wanted to share a nice thing. Today on our pavement potter a lady called across 'he's getting there!' I forgave her the gender confusion . 

I often tell people when they ask 'she is getting there but not that you would notice' 

So it was so lovely to know someone has noticed 

Ironically it was probably one of our worst days recently  and she almost had to shout it over ninjas barking at her :001_huh:


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Just a quickie from me.
> 
> Glad the vets went well Twiggy. And teh roughs, of course you can sort them out  *Do you really think the snip will solve all his problems, I thought it wasnt the cure all its often made out to be?*
> 
> Sorry you are broke Dogless
> 
> Have fun tonight Lupie. Baby Ruskas  how do you feel about that, obviously it must have been something you knew would be on the cards, but to agree at the start and the realty are rather different I imagine???
> 
> Hope Daisy doesnt blow away Fluffster
> 
> I am very busy but wanted to share a nice thing. Today on our pavement potter a lady called across 'he's getting there!' I forgave her the gender confusion .
> 
> I often tell people when they ask 'she is getting there but not that you would notice'
> 
> So it was so lovely to know someone has noticed
> 
> Ironically it was probably one of our worst days recently  and she almost had to shout it over ninjas barking at her :001_huh:


Aww that is nice when your hard work is acknowledged.

No castration isn't the cure all but this dog was obsessed. Even on the lead he was trying to mount Holly pretty much all the time. I also learnt that when he ran off about two weeks ago, and frightened his owner, it was after a bitch. He's been kept on the lead since.


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> Aww that is nice when your hard work is acknowledged.
> 
> No castration isn't the cure all but this dog was obsessed. Even on the lead he was trying to mount Holly pretty much all the time. I also learnt that when he ran off about two weeks ago, and frightened his owner, it was after a bitch. He's been kept on the lead since.


It is  makes me a bit misty to think we might be getting there.

Ah ha. Proper randy bugger then


----------



## Dogless

I'm not really broke GR  . Was just tired .


----------



## lupie

GingerRogers said:


> Have fun tonight Lupie. Baby Ruskas  how do you feel about that, obviously it must have been something you knew would be on the cards, but to agree at the start and the realty are rather different I imagine???


Yes, it's the reason she was imported, so I've obviously known it was going to happen. But I do feel a bit weird about it now, I feel like they are going to be my grandkids LOL! 
Luckily the breeder is very experienced and well respected within the lappy community and absolutely fab, so I know she will be in good hands. She'd like me to have a daughter of Ruska's if she was promising enough to have a litter from in the future but I think I've rather got my hands full haha. As much as it's gonna kill me seeing all her puppies going off to their fab new homes 

Glad someone acknowledged your hard work - any progress is fab :thumbup1:

I also looked at my diary wrong and it's vets & christmas work do tomorrow, not tonight. Senile moment and I'm still in my twenties...


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Senile moment and I'm still in my twenties...


And it's all downhill from there :frown2: :001_huh: .


----------



## Fluffster

lupie said:


> I also looked at my diary wrong and it's vets & christmas work do tomorrow, not tonight. Senile moment and I'm still in my twenties...


Whoops! Good thing you found out before you turned up :lol:


----------



## Fluffster

My OH just sent me this pic - my sister in law's presents she sent us have arrived, and Daisy obviously has sensed there's some in it for her :lol:










Think we're going for a forest walk tomorrow, been avoiding it due to high winds cos last time some trees came down but hopefully it will be ok! Need to try stop Daisy jumping in the lake though cos she gets shivery and whines all the way home!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I'm not really broke GR  . Was just tired .


What's the weather like over the Irish Sea tonight Dogless?

It's pretty wild here now.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> And it's all downhill from there :frown2: :001_huh: .





Fluffster said:


> Whoops! Good thing you found out before you turned up :lol:


Yes and I can fully foresee my colleagues' hilarity when I tell them tomorrow I almost had christmas dinner by myself  Good job me!

The weather is crazy right now. Not going to lie, I'm rather glad I can't take Ruska out


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> What's the weather like over the Irish Sea tonight Dogless?
> 
> It's pretty wild here now.


Horrendous Twiggy; truly awful :shocked:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Horrendous Twiggy; truly awful :shocked:.


Oh dear. I hate gale force winds more than anything, it's frightening.

Hope your electricity stays on - the lights are flickering here.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. I hate gale force winds more than anything, it's frightening.
> 
> Hope your electricity stays on - the lights are flickering here.


NI electricity has forewarned that it might be disrupted. Flickering here too. Good job all my Christmas candles are out!


----------



## Fluffster

It's still wild here but not as bad as NI I think, saw in the news some poor woman has died 

I hate the wind too, much more than rain or anything, it kept me up last night for ages it was so loud and we are quite sheltered too!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Good evening. 
Gr, how nice that someone noticed and bothered to tell you. :thumbup1:
Dg,weather sounds awful, don't blame you not going out. Can you send me some of your energy please. 
Lupie, I know exactly where you're coming from, I have those moments daily. 
Fluffster, stairs chicken sounds ermm, scarey 
Twiggy, Glad your day went well. 

I've been to proper work today so pavement walks morning and evening. 
Took bella before the wind got up, but had to delay boys walks until after. Thankfully it's died down a bit now. Found myself singing Christmas songs in my head whilst walking. Must be all the lights outside folks houses. . Seemed to calm the dogs though. 

Have done some 'leave it' with Bella tonight. Only indoors and back to basics really. Starting with treats in my hand, asking her to leave, which she does then progressing onto dropping them onto the floor. 
Thought by starting at the beginning again, it'll reinforce what she already knows then we can move forward from that. At home on Friday so we can do some in the light, outside. :thumbup1:


----------



## Nicki85

Shae and I braved the wind and sideways rain (not used to this stuff living in the barmy south&#8230 to go to a new agility class. It's in a lovely barn with sides and fab lights&#8230; on a lovely surface. We had a great time, everyone was really inviting and it's a nice small class. We used to train with the lady when Shae was tiny in a field but that stopped when it got too dark  A space became available in this class so we are lucky to train with her again. 

Anyhow, lots of little sequences and tunnel send-ons. We had problems with a recall over two jumps and then send on in a different direction as it's not something i've done much of so wasn't much help to Shae lol. But broke it down and we got there&#8230; Also started with going through the first set of 2x2s for weaving which I need to do at home as she was properly confused. She was very drivey and i've got a lovely canine shaped bruise and lump on my wrist from her&#8230; She thought all the new dogs and people were there for her entertainment as usual !! 

Rust is doing well too. He's getting a longline walk somewhere exciting in the morning with Shae and an offlead walk in the forest in the afternoon. He's currently obsessing over his toy so much on his offlead walk that I see more of him than i've ever done on a walk. Today we saw two deer crossing a path in front of us followed by a terrier in full chase mode. I recalled, he came and watched and we moved on.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> It's still wild here but not as bad as NI I think, saw in the news some poor woman has died
> 
> I hate the wind too, much more than rain or anything, it kept me up last night for ages it was so loud and we are quite sheltered too!


Whereabouts in the UK are you situated?


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Good evening.
> Gr, how nice that someone noticed and bothered to tell you. :thumbup1:
> Dg,weather sounds awful, don't blame you not going out. Can you send me some of your energy please.
> Lupie, I know exactly where you're coming from, I have those moments daily.
> Fluffster, stairs chicken sounds ermm, scarey
> Twiggy, Glad your day went well.
> 
> I've been to proper work today so pavement walks morning and evening.
> Took bella before the wind got up, but had to delay boys walks until after. Thankfully it's died down a bit now. Found myself singing Christmas songs in my head whilst walking. Must be all the lights outside folks houses. . Seemed to calm the dogs though.
> 
> Have done some 'leave it' with Bella tonight. Only indoors and back to basics really. Starting with treats in my hand, asking her to leave, which she does then progressing onto dropping them onto the floor.
> Thought by starting at the beginning again, it'll reinforce what she already knows then we can move forward from that. At home on Friday so we can do some in the light, outside. :thumbup1:


There's a good girl...LOL Well done...


----------



## Fluffster

Aberdeen so we quite often have wild weather here :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Shae and I braved the wind and sideways rain (not used to this stuff living in the barmy south) to go to a new agility class. It's in a lovely barn with sides and fab lights on a lovely surface. We had a great time, everyone was really inviting and it's a nice small class. We used to train with the lady when Shae was tiny in a field but that stopped when it got too dark  A space became available in this class so we are lucky to train with her again.
> 
> Anyhow, lots of little sequences and tunnel send-ons. We had problems with a recall over two jumps and then send on in a different direction as it's not something i've done much of so wasn't much help to Shae lol. But broke it down and we got there Also started with going through the first set of 2x2s for weaving which I need to do at home as she was properly confused. She was very drivey and i've got a lovely canine shaped bruise and lump on my wrist from her She thought all the new dogs and people were there for her entertainment as usual !!
> 
> Rust is doing well too. He's getting a longline walk somewhere exciting in the morning with Shae and an offlead walk in the forest in the afternoon. He's currently obsessing over his toy so much on his offlead walk that I see more of him than i've ever done on a walk. Today we saw two deer crossing a path in front of us followed by a terrier in full chase mode. I recalled, he came and watched and we moved on.


Shae sound very much my sort of dog (especially the bitemarks, lumps and bruises)...


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy said:


> Shae sound very much my sort of dog (especially the bitemarks, lumps and bruises)...


She made me yelp today when she caught my wrist (not that she noticed.) She's very keen and enthusiastic whatever the task the enthusiasm increases 10 fold once she understands the task as well. I'm a bit worried about when it actually comes to running a complete course with her- I need to improve our distance handling as I have no hope of keeping up with her!


----------



## Fluffster

Apaprently our lights are now flickering at home  I'm at work, not looking forward to the drive home! There's a severe wind warning for us tomorrow so forest walk looking unlikely as don't want to risk it given about three trees came down a couple of weeks ago


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> She made me yelp today when she caught my wrist (not that she noticed.) She's very keen and enthusiastic whatever the task the enthusiasm increases 10 fold once she understands the task as well. I'm a bit worried about when it actually comes to running a complete course with her- I need to improve our distance handling as I have no hope of keeping up with her!


Yes I know the feeling. I only ever saw Twiggy's tail disappearing into the distance....!!

It will come with experience though. You will find with Shae you only have to sprint to certain points on the course, like tunnels, weaving poles for instance.

Nicky I'd much rather run a really fast dog that is in with a chance of winning than getting clear round rosettes with a plodder.


----------



## Dogless

Well a mixed morning here. It is bitterly, bitterly cold and very windy.

Rudi's walk was fine apart from a large section down the main road that I suspect an in season bitch is being walked down as Rudi was pulling like mad, lunging at scents, whining and crying and drooling like mad. So that was trying - and it will remain so I guess if my theory is correct . The rest of the walk he behaved very nicely though .

My nerves are still jangling from Kilo's although nothing actually went wrong. Right at the beginning a man asked if I had seen two huskies running about (staying with the folk on our road with the huskies that are always escaping I am guessing as they were theirs) - I hadn't but that gave me knots in my stomach for the walk as these dogs mug rather than approach and are pretty much a guaranteed approach too. Then we saw a dog about 20m in front of us up a long straight road and another dog in front of them. They were walking in the same direction as us, so I followed; Kilo was a bit too anxious at 20m but we dropped back until we were at about 40m and he settled and relaxed, but could still see at least the dog in front of us. Then we saw a dog off to the side of us on a big grass area which was fine; he nudged me and we carried on and finally two springers being walked towards us so we did a rapid u turn and went down another side route. Phew. So...actually all went well but it wasn't the most relaxing walk ever!!!

This place is like a ghost town so I obviously picked the time that everyone remaining decided to walk their dogs when I took Kilo out - much later than normal as I cleaned the house this morning whilst they snoozed their breakfasts off.


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* - Not a nice feeling when you're totally on edge the whole time. Pleased nothing untoward actually happened though.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Well a mixed morning here. It is bitterly, bitterly cold and very windy.
> 
> Rudi's walk was fine apart from a large section down the main road that I suspect an in season bitch is being walked down as Rudi was pulling like mad, lunging at scents, whining and crying and drooling like mad. So that was trying - and it will remain so I guess if my theory is correct . The rest of the walk he behaved very nicely though .


Sorry to hear it was a challenge. But just wanted to thank you for this, I've been feeling a bit guilty about not taking Ruska out - family/friends keep saying it's cruel and that I'm not responsible for other peoples' dogs etc and I don't see any any dogs blah blah. I've held strong so far but I'm glad to see that I'm doing the right thing seeing the effect that it has on Rudi. She's not crying for a walk though so that makes it easier, think she's feeling a bit glum.

Glad that Kilo also had a mostly trouble free walk. :thumbup1:


----------



## Twiggy

This terrible year just goes on and on....

Went shopping to Tescos this morning and when I got home a friend of hubby's had popped in to see him. I noticed Leafy was limping a bit of her bad shoulder/paw but took her out with the others anyway. I had to bring her back as she just didn't seem right.

I took the other three over to the barn to do a bit of training early afternoon and when we got in Leafy was very lame, arched back and looked in pain. I immediately rang the vet and took her straight in.

I saw Marwan and he thinks its spine. She has an MRI booked at Cambridge Vet College at 8.30am tomorrow morning. He had to twist their arm to get me an appointment before Christmas. He prescribed Tramadol for pain relief - just hope it doesn't give her raging diarrheoa. I've got to keep her separate from the other dogs. Marwan said cage her but I'm not doing that at her age.

I just feel shattered and I'm going to have a very early start tomorrow because the traffic going into Cambridge at that time of the morning is horrendous.

Just to make things worse, we should have been going out with a group of friends for a Christmas meal tomorrow night, so husband's really cheesed off.

It's like there's a curse on me at the moment....!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> This terrible year just goes on and on....
> 
> Went shopping to Tescos this morning and when I got home a friend of hubby's had popped in to see him. I noticed Leafy was limping a bit of her bad shoulder/paw but took her out with the others anyway. I had to bring her back as she just didn't seem right.
> 
> I took the other three over to the barn to do a bit of training early afternoon and when we got in Leafy was very lame, arched back and looked in pain. I immediately rang the vet and took her straight in.
> 
> I saw Marwan and he thinks its spine. She has an MRI booked at Cambridge Vet College at 8.30am tomorrow morning. He had to twist their arm to get me an appointment before Christmas. He prescribed Tramadol for pain relief - just hope it doesn't give her raging diarrheoa. I've got to keep her separate from the other dogs. Marwan said cage her but I'm not doing that at her age.
> 
> I just feel shattered and I'm going to have a very early start tomorrow because the traffic going into Cambridge at that time of the morning is horrendous.
> 
> Just to make things worse, we should have been going out with a group of friends for a Christmas meal tomorrow night, so husband's really cheesed off.
> 
> It's like there's a curse on me at the moment....!!


Oh no Twiggy, so sorry you have had an absolute shocker havent you, I think you beat Dogless TBH

I do hope the vets wrong and its just a minor twinge  all fingers and toes crossed that you can do something for her if not.


----------



## Fluffster

Oh Twiggy  so sorry to read this, I hope the MRI is clear and it's nothing serious. Thinking of you x

Dogless, I've decided not to take Daisy out when she goes into heat cos I don't want to make all the boys crazy! Hoping it will come when the weather is still cold and horrible.

We had a nice walk in the forest today, my OH is off work so was able to join us which was nice as it's usually just me and Daisy in the week. I've got a stinking cold though so had to go for a sleep afterwards!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - I am sorry . What a rotten year indeed. I do hope that the MRI provides some answers.

Walked Kilo in the bitterly cold gales and sleet and snow with Diz tonight. One dog seen and dodged successfully .

No second walk for Roo. He's been a bit subdued and red eyed (eyes go red when the CHs are tired) today and wasn't keen. Possibly tired as he's been very energetic this week or maybe a little under the weather from his boosters. Not sure.


----------



## lupie

Oh I'm so sorry Twiggy  Really hope all is well and things pick up soon 


Ruska was pretty good at the vets. 2 labs in there whilst we waited so I had her concentrating on me and doing "doggy pushups" and things to get her focusing. A few barks but that was about it. Jack russel and a lurcher in there as we left and I had to pay so she was being a bit barky but not too bad. We've made real progress I think - the first time I took her to the vets 6 months ago she was barking and lunging at all of them. 

Was a star getting her bloods taken too :thumbup1:


----------



## Freddie and frank

Oh twiggy, sorry to hear about leafy.
Hope things can be sorted.


----------



## Twiggy

Leafy's at the vet college and they will ring me later.

The specialist was a lovely young man and eminently sensible. We spent an hour going through all her various issues and examining her. He's going to take a urine sample and full bloods and then x-ray her back and hips. He doesn't really want to do an MRI but will if necessary so they may keep her in overnight if that's the case.

Leafy was brighter this morning and her back wasn't so arched so that's a positive, especially as she wasn't allowed a Tramadol this morning.

I woke up at half four and couldn't get back to sleep. Left home at 6.45am and sod's law had a pretty good run there so arrived at about 7.50am and of course the place was shut....!!

They should be in touch late afternoon to hopefully tell me to collect her.

Fingers crossed that it isn't something awful.


----------



## GingerRogers

Fingers crossed here too Twiggy. Hope you have plenty to keep you occupied.

Stressful walk this morning, started by Toby, a little terrier similar to ninja in looks and personality , he spotted her down the street and kicked off before she did (its bad but I do like to know I am not the only/worst one ) she knows where he lives but is normally ok walking past but of course after this she was very antsy today (after they had gone  )

We carried on and she shook it off nicely and even walked past the wheely bin cleaning truck without a fuss.

Down the lane and suddenly she alerted up again, I could see there were no dogs coming. 

This time it was a cat  so excitably aroused and right up there now, nice loose walking out the window, we are approaching the lapphunds house. 

I have a handful of ham and chicken out ready to distract. We make it past :thumbup1: but shes really quite stressy now, approaching the main road now there's lots of lorry's today typically, I try my best to distract and distance us but she gets herself even more wound up lunging and barking at them ( I am sure they all tested their brakes as they went past today )

Then we approach the 'awkward' corner, I can hear the DA GSD barking but at the back of the house, should have been a clue for what happened next  as a lady walks round the corner with two yorkie types and a lurcher. This is tricky I could cross in three directions and go away from them but I dont know which way they are going to go and I have done this so many times and got it wrong every time 

I make the decision and cross over and pass them on the opposite side, better than being followed down a road I dont want to be on. 

Ninja rags her lead, really ferociously , I have a light bulb moment and relax the lead, she has no pressure to rag against and stops . 

Meanwhile the two yorkie types are giving it large right back, the womans looking from me, to ninja, to her dogs, and then she raises her fist :frown2:, I glare  and it just gets shaken at them 

Ninja is still giving it some back but actually its not the mental fits she used to do, and she is walking away and barking occasionally rather than getting stressed and straining. Suddenly she is walking along beside me looking up like an angel 

The wheely bin cleaner gets barked at this time  not surprising really, bless her, then we see one of her fans and she even gives him a little growl, as he gives her fuss, never done that before, just more evidence thats its brain explosions. She does not know how to handle over excitement and the fear together. 

So phew haven't had one one of those for a while, hope we dont have another for a while too . All in the name of dropping off christmas cards 

But over all she is coming on leaps and bounds, sure she kicks off and stresses out but she is listening and learning and calming herself much quicker than she did. :thumbsup::001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

Well I've got Leafy home...!!

It's not exactly good news but it isn't too bad either. Basically it's old age wear and tear. There is some arthritis in her hips and spondylosis in her spine and a particularly bad patch in the middle of her back which obviously went into trauma yesterday (pinched nerve or slightly bulging disc). The blood tests showed no abnormality in either the red or white counts and the raised enzyme liver count is about the same as it was back at the beginning of August.

He said that if it was his old dog he wouldn't want invasive surgery carried out and to try and manage the back/hip pain with Tramadol. Plus keep her on the milk thistle to support the liver.

He suggested two weeks total rest and then gradually introduce exercise and see how she goes.

It could have been a lot worse.

We're supposed to be going out for a Christmas meal with a big group of friends tonight but I'm not very happy about leaving Leafy as she's very dopey. They didn't sedate her fully but she had some anaesthetic. I also feel dead on my legs and would really like several hours sleep.

Husband desperately wants me to go but.....


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy you do whats best for you and Leafy, tell hubby I said so he will listen to me :001_huh:

Seriously you have had one hell of a year and on the one hand some R&R would do you good not on trauma day if you arent up fro it. Look after yourselves.

Glad it wasn't terrible news and I know she is in the best hands


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Twiggy you do whats best for you and Leafy, tell hubby I said so he will listen to me :001_huh:
> 
> Seriously you have had one hell of a year and on the one hand some R&R would do you good not on trauma day if you arent up fro it. Look after yourselves.
> 
> Glad it wasn't terrible news and I know she is in the best hands


Well I didn't go out last night. In fact I was so shattered I lay on the bed (along with Leafy) and went to sleep. I woke up at about 10.15pm let the dogs out and went to bed. I didn't even get myself anything to eat.

Happy to report Leafy is much better this morning so the painkillers are doing their job. Just fingers crossed they don't give her diarrheoa.


----------



## Dogless

I am pleased about Leafy Twiggy; hope her stomach's still more settled.

We have been having unremarkable walks here which has been nice!! This morning with Kilo we saw 5 dogs (sun came out ) and he did brilliantly with each - we still obviously kept our distance or changed direction but he kept on listening and taking food and just had a huge shake off after each one .


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* - Good boy Kilo. He's doing so well and I just keep crossing my fingers that there are no more 'incidents' with him until you can move from there.

I spent 2 hours this afternoon training in the barn with a couple of friends and their collies. It was very relaxed and we virtually did every exercise. Holly was amazing and it's the best she's ever gone when other people are in the barn with us. I'll get her into an obedience ring yet....LOL

It was actually quite funny and just shows that Holly Bolly certainly doesn't lack intelligence - we did scent starting with Tremor, who is the most advanced, and one of my friends scented up two cloths for me, then we did an A scent (handler's cloth) with their dogs and Barley which just left Holly. She hasn't done a scent test for months and wasn't doing the complete exercise anyway. I let her off the lead and was getting a ball out of my training bag, turned round and she was working the line of cloths and correctly picked her cloth up. Clever little girl.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy - keeping my fingers crossed too. Just got in from tonight's icy walk. We were on the dark abandoned estate and I could hear some people calling a dog who was obviously somewhere in the dark. I U - turned as quietly and quickly as I could and we jogged away from the estate!!!

Well done Little HB; she's a bright spark indeed when in the mood .


----------



## JenKyzer

Very selfish post 
I will try and catch up soon i promise - not enough hours in a day lately.. blummin xmas shopping and trying to get things wrapped and delivered..  anyway!

Had a fab few days here..

Yesterday we arranged a meet with a couple and their Akita, friend of a friend. They're selling him which is sad.. but OH insisted we go see them and check they know what they're doing and recommend the rescue where we got Willow from. Willow was just... amazing :001_wub: . I was beaming all day after our morning walk with the Akita.. they greeted almost perfectly, she jumped away when he went in to fast for a sniff but then he froze - she sniffed - she moved away and let him sniff. He was a little too interested in Willow and was pulling his poor lady owner to sniff even more.. we let them off for a run and he was tryna mount her  Willow was very tolerant. She thought it was a big game of chase and just ran round with huge zoomies. Eventually he settled for a while and they had sniffs together.. until he tryed it on again  this cycle of events got repeated a few times until even i was fed up of him tryna hump my poor girl! .. 
_I did wonder why he was so interested as Willow is spayed? or is this normal just cos she's a girl _ ...
anyway.. the both got distracted with a sniff... he wouldn't come closer and willow ignored her name.. so the trusty whistle came out and like a shot she came running to me  (the other 2 owners just gawped.. i was not smug at all......  ) we may of shown off a few tricks too... :aureola:
Willow didn't want to leave him either.. she had loads of fun covering herself from head to all 4 paws in mud! Hopefully we will get another walk in with them before they sell him  .

We also did a big darwen tower walk... we saw a lil JRT who boucned right over to us and ignored numerous recalls from owner.. body blocked as much as i could.. Willow was fine though, he was just too bouncy which Willow dislikes & was running circles round her. She was just jumping about tryna keep an eye on him.. no noise though  Saw no-one else.. was bliss!!  With OH so she was offlead all through the woods too which she enjoyed.. i still don't dare  i still prefer my big open spaces to see ahead for offlead.

I'm so sorry i haven't caught up  i will try in the morning. I just had to share how lovely Willow has been 

*Hope everyone and all pooches are well  Hope your all set for Christmas too*  we had a good 'leave it' session whilst i was wrapping willows pressies and sticking treats to the outside of them.. just had a puddle of drool on the floor. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

JSW - I just can't believe how far you and Willow have come . It's amazing .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> JSW - I just can't believe how far you and Willow have come . It's amazing .


You'll make us blush :blushing:


----------



## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> You'll make us blush :blushing:


I'm so happy at the progress it looks like you've made  :yesnod:

(Gives me hope too!  )


----------



## Twiggy

Well Leafy was throwing toys at me at 7.00am this morning. She has her bed in my bedroom and was a bit put out when she had to spend the night in it rather than on the bed but tough biscuits, I need my sleep.

It sounds as if it's going to be really wild weather today. Please be careful everyone and stay safe. It won't kill your dogs if they don't get a walk just the once.

Love Grannie....LOL


----------



## lupie

As Twiggy said, please be careful in this weather everyone. It's getting really bad here, dreading driving home later. 

Saw it's supposed to be particularly bad in NI - thinking of you Dogless, stay safe!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well Leafy was throwing toys at me at 7.00am this morning. She has her bed in my bedroom and was a bit put out when she had to spend the night in it rather than on the bed but tough biscuits, I need my sleep.
> 
> It sounds as if it's going to be really wild weather today. Please be careful everyone and stay safe. It won't kill your dogs if they don't get a walk just the once.
> 
> Love Grannie....LOL





lupie said:


> As Twiggy said, please be careful in this weather everyone. It's getting really bad here, dreading driving home later.
> 
> Saw it's supposed to be particularly bad in NI - thinking of you Dogless, stay safe!


Thanks both; we survived our walks this morning but the weather was brutal. Full "up a mountain" kit on round the estates . Definitely not safe to go to the forest .


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello, I dropped off again,  mostly as we have been busy and trying to keep things quiet after the indiana jones run of the other day, she has been pretty high and reactive, but gradually settling. When I think what I used to put her through  day after day after day.

Jen- sounds like Willow has done amazingly, big fat well dones from me and ninja too :thumbsup:

Twiggy -  your little christmas star 

Keep safe Dogless, my Mum and Dad are driving back from my brothers today, from the welsh borders to East Anglia  hope they are ok.

We had to go shopping yesterday, bloody horrible that was , so hubby actually came walking with us on the way, we had a lovely off lead walk up on the flat ground above the marshes, was a cold and windy but sunny day Ninja didnt stop. 

At one point we got her wubba friend out for play and she ran off with it  we were worried she was gonna leave it down some random rabbit hole but she dropped it and took off after a scent, then came zooming right back :yesnod:

After we food shopped, hubby looked all embarrassed, I asked what was up, he said he had sworn at an old lady  an old lady in a wheelchair  he had got so mad with everybody


----------



## Dogless

I'm pleased that Ninja had a lovely walk - not so pleased that the shopping was such an ordeal. My plan is to go lateish tonight. See how that one works!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I'm pleased that Ninja had a lovely walk - not so pleased that the shopping was such an ordeal. My plan is to go lateish tonight. See how that one works!!


I always say late evening on xmas eve or the day before is best but would he listen, no, he wanted to go on a sunday afternoon


----------



## Fluffster

Weather is wild here and I've come down with some horrible cold/throat thing so Daisy has just been having inside play today. She has been in the garden but came in again almost right away and is now asleep, so I don't feel so bad! OH will prob take her out when he's home from work 

We've been doing some impulse control with her ball today which has actually gone quite well. She will sit, leave the ball for me to pick up and stay while I throw it until I tell her she can go - although she is almost vibrating with excitement while waiting to go retrieve it! She's been dropping it when asked too, which is rare!

We've also been doing a lot of "where's your ball" today, where I hide it somewhere and ask her to go find it, and some recall training in the house and garden. So I hope she isn't too bored.


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> I'm pleased that Ninja had a lovely walk - not so pleased that the shopping was such an ordeal. My plan is to go lateish tonight. See how that one works!!


We got ours delivered today and for the £13 I paid for what was meant to be a two-person turkey crown, I got a 5kg turkey worth £65!


----------



## GingerRogers

Fluffster said:


> We got ours delivered today and for the £13 I paid for what was meant to be a two-person turkey crown, I got a 5kg turkey worth £65!


I liked that but then though maybe not, if theres only two of you


----------



## Fluffster

GingerRogers said:


> I liked that but then though maybe not, if theres only two of you


I know! /Monica from friends

However, Daisy can have some and we can have turkey sandwiches for the rest of the week :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> We got ours delivered today and for the £13 I paid for what was meant to be a two-person turkey crown, I got a 5kg turkey worth £65!


It's the poor buggers expecting a 5kg turkey and getting the turkey crown I feel for .


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> It's the poor buggers expecting a 5kg turkey and getting the turkey crown I feel for .


That's what I'm worried about! But I think they may have been out of stock of the crowns and substituted this instead. The guy said when he arrived what a large turkey we had, I was looking at it in horror when I saw it said £65, but when I checked my receipt, I'd only paid £13 










Serves 10-12 :w00t:


----------



## Twiggy

I gave my girls (not Leafy) an extra long walk this morning in case it's too bad shortly for their second walk. 

Went up to Tescos just before lunch and drove round the car-park four times before I could find a space...!!

I've been cooking this afternoon including a plum tart for dinner....LOL


----------



## Canine K9

Fluffster- Sounds good, I`m sure Daisy is fine 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Took him out for an hour today this morning. The weather was awful  Bailey kept getting blown off his feet and he isn`t that light 
We did some mental games and had a good game of tug and retrieve.
He`s being a good boy :001_wub:


----------



## Dogless

Two stormy walks last night and a run. Just one person and dog seen when I had Rudi - not many people mad enough to be out in this weather. 

The weather still sounds awful out there and the second storm to hit with winds up to 90mph is due in the next few hours....still no trail running today then .

Feel sorry for all those driving home for Christmas as all ferries are cancelled.

ETA: We are having a blizzard. Snow deep already .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Two stormy walks last night and a run. Just one person and dog seen when I had Rudi - not many people mad enough to be out in this weather.
> 
> The weather still sounds awful out there and the second storm to hit with winds up to 90mph is due in the next few hours....still no trail running today then .
> 
> Feel sorry for all those driving home for Christmas as all ferries are cancelled.
> 
> ETA: We are having a blizzard. Snow deep already .


Take care. It seems to have died down here. Gonna take the ninja out now while its ok.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Two stormy walks last night and a run. Just one person and dog seen when I had Rudi - not many people mad enough to be out in this weather.
> 
> The weather still sounds awful out there and the second storm to hit with winds up to 90mph is due in the next few hours....still no trail running today then .
> 
> Feel sorry for all those driving home for Christmas as all ferries are cancelled.
> 
> ETA: We are having a blizzard. Snow deep already .


Hope you are OK Dogless. Let us know?

I was talking to a friend in Hampshire last night and she said it was horrendous down there.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Take care. It seems to have died down here. Gonna take the ninja out now while its ok.


Yes it's calmed down here now and I can't see any obvious damage looking out of the window, thank goodness.


----------



## Fluffster

Breezy here, meant to get worse about midday. We met a couple of VERY cute mini schnauzers today, I actually wanted to scoop them up and take them home. Daisy tried to entice them to play by running in circles like a mad thing but they came to me for a fuss instead :lol: 

Noticed Daisy's radius around me that she goes off lead is getting a bit bigger, although she is still checking in. Might have to do some hiding behind trees just to keep her on her toes (and amuse other walkers)

Hope snow doesn't get too bad Dogless! Christmassy at least!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hope you are OK Dogless. Let us know?
> 
> I was talking to a friend in Hampshire last night and she said it was horrendous down there.


We are fine; snow turned to sheet ice thanks to the wet roads, so took the boys for separate walks (of course!) before the worst wind hit. It hit just as I came back in with Kilo so at least they've each had a good run around and leg stretch each today if it is still awful this evening. Didn't see anyone out funnily enough!

They've decided that today is for unrelenting play so far so will be tired, that's for sure .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> We are fine; snow turned to sheet ice thanks to the wet roads, so took the boys for separate walks (of course!) before the worst wind hit. It hit just as I came back in with Kilo so at least they've each had a good run around and leg stretch each today if it is still awful this evening. Didn't see anyone out funnily enough!
> 
> They've decided that today is for unrelenting play so far so will be tired, that's for sure .


That's good and thanks for letting me know. Just be careful. Love Grannie.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That's good and thanks for letting me know. Just be careful. Love Grannie.


Of course Grannie .


----------



## Symone

I know that I've been (very) inactive, but I just wanted to pop in and say Merry Christmas!
I hope that you all have a lovely time.


----------



## Dogless

Symone said:


> I know that I've been (very) inactive, but I just wanted to pop in and say Merry Christmas!
> I hope that you all have a lovely time.


Merry Christmas to you and yours too .


----------



## diefenbaker

Merry Christmas WAYWO. Dief says one more sleep....










And Dief's Dad says...

[youtube_browser]YMudsuyU9dM[/youtube_browser]


----------



## Dogless

Dief!!! I was just wondering how you were getting on; I do hope all is OK and you're "merely" overworked? Love the photo and well, the tree train - wouldn't expect anything less .

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and happy and healthy 2014.


----------



## Guest

Oo'er I have been a bit absent. 

MERRY XMAS YOU LOT! 






(small update here, DB is in kennels, but we had a brilliant bit of praise from the behaviourist, saying they'd like to use as as inspiration on their website. 
DB is doing alright, we're still very grumpy lungey at times and we cannot seem to be rid of fleas in our house. I have a few low moments myself I am afraid but working on that too)


----------



## Dogless

LurcherOwner said:


> Oo'er I have been a bit absent.
> 
> MERRY XMAS YOU LOT!
> 
> (small update here, DB is in kennels, but* we had a brilliant bit of praise from the behaviourist, saying they'd like to use as as inspiration on their website.*
> DB is doing alright, we're still very grumpy lungey at times and we cannot seem to be rid of fleas in our house. I have a few low moments myself I am afraid but working on that too)


Now that's a fabulous Christmas present .


----------



## diefenbaker

Christmas day walk in the Queen's Inclosure ( yes that is the correct spelling.. must be German ). The Queen never turned up. Maybe she was recording her speech. Met up with Merlin and his family for snacks and Champagne.


----------



## lupie

Merry Christmas all - hope you've all had a good day! 

Took Ruska out the back to the flooded areas and she thought we were off for a walk and got all happy and I felt bad  

Going a bit stir crazy, I miss our walks. Though I guess she couldn't have picked a better time to be in season with this weather!


----------



## Bagrat

Belated happy Christmas to the WAYWO gang. No excuses that I've been missing till this week when I've just been a bit taken up with sudden changes to Christmas arrangements. Due to granddaughter getting chicken pox a planned trip to India for daughter and family turned into a last minute visit to sunny Yorkshire. Of course no chance of kenneling J so from coping (just) with one day with a houseful a few months back, he was suddenly faced with 4 days ( and nights) including lunch for 8 on Christmas Day.

With a few sleepless nights for me planning a military exercise to make sure he was always 2 closed doors from the youngest who is not very confident with dogs esp bouncy ones, I wish to announce we have survived with only one minor hiccup. OH forgot yesterday afternoon and walked through to say something and inadvertently let J follow. J galloped in and rushed the youngest who was sitting playing on the floor ( she's 5). He licked her and she screamed, OH dragged J off and then hid in conservatory with dog as he was so upset he'd let it happen. All well after 10 mins.

J was fine in the mornings wandered round while we had breakfast but obviously couldn't cope with excited children and the playing of /with toys so was walked or left with a kong in kitchen. Christmas lunch there were 8 of us eating in the kitchen ( we only have a biggish kitchen and small sitting room)
J had a kong in the conservatory and for a few minutes he was like a jack-in-a-box bouncing to look into kitchen from half glazed door in conservatory.

When left he soon settled and slept. He was very good with grandson ( because grandson is very calm and quiet with him)who on the first night got an allergic reaction to something swollen eyes blotchy face which we had to assume was dog saliva. Antihistamines sorted it and he was fine after, but a lot of handwashing needed!!

Once kids in bed J came in sitting room with adults and was good as gold. I am really pleased over all.
What a ramble and after a long absence too - I've got a nerve!!

Dogless, glad you've survived the weather. We've just got fog today, it's got worse as the day's gone on. I'm starting the Other End of the Lead on line course at the end of January so I hope to be a little more chilled out on walks.


----------



## JenKyzer

Merry Christmas all  !
Hope you, dogs & families are having a wonderful Christmas!
I now have a kindle so no excuses for slacking now  
Willow was fantastic yesterday.. we had a busy one.. 5houses visited, 2 of which with dogs.. Frank the bulldog pup isn't so small anymore.. but they got on great! Willow wasn't overly interested in Bruce the shitzu either so v calm there unlike the last visit to them. No snow or bad rain here.. Just had a wet muddy walk up at the res.. big zooms! Now we're snuggled under 2 blankets before we go visiting again tonight... busy busy! 

Enjoy the rest of Christmas everyone. 
Hopefully will get some pics up at some point


----------



## Dogless

Merry Christmas to one and all!!

Bagrat - sounds as if J has done brilliantly :thumbsup: and Willow too JSW :thumbsup:.

The boys have been for their walks and runs as usual - but no forest due to the weather; either too stormy or too icy to get up there!! All have been unremarkable I am extremely pleased to say until tonight.

I was walking Kilo down a street when all the horrible teenagers came out en masse. the boys started to make barking noises at Kilo and the girls screamed at him repeatedly . Then a boy started to making a high pitched "Beep Beep" noise at him which lead another to say "Hey, what about x's rape alarm?"...so that was duly set off  . I am pleased to report that, although skittering like a dressage horse and snatching in a very stressy way at treats Kilo managed to concentrate on walking with me with a quick sit every now and again behind a parked car to have a quick breather. So....he did very well and I am immensely pleased with him .

Then.....after 10 minutes the storm that is due to last for twenty four hours pretty much hit and we walked home at a sharp trot :scared: .

The difference between the boys is immense. We saw a woman clearly smashed weaving her way towards us on his walk and he just glanced and decided that as I wasn't bothered he needn't be either. Kilo would have been highly suspicious.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> I was walking Kilo down a street when all the horrible teenagers came out en masse. the boys started to make barking noises at Kilo and the girls screamed at him repeatedly . Then a boy started to making a high pitched "Beep Beep" noise at him which lead another to say "Hey, what about x's rape alarm?"...so that was duly set off  . I am pleased to report that, although skittering like a dressage horse and snatching in a very stressy way at treats Kilo managed to concentrate on walking with me with a quick sit every now and again behind a parked car to have a quick breather. So....he did very well and I am immensely pleased with him


This sounds horrible. Well done Kilo though! I see so many kids like this it makes me worry for...well, the future :eek6:  :scared:

Hope the storm isn't too bad Dogless. I've got to go to work for a few hours tomorrow so I'd like to be able to get there in one piece!!

In other news Ruska was mated today. She was a very good girl, and the stud was brill. Breeder said it was the one of the easiest matings she's seen so far, and she's been doing it a long time. :thumbsup:


----------



## Twiggy

*Bagrat* Well done J and well done you..!! My stress levels would have been off the Richter scale trying to separate children and dog.

*JSW* Willow sounds as if she's doing brilliantly. Good girl.

*Dogless* What can I say except I hope the move isn't too much longer coming.

All is peace and calm here. We had friends for a very late lunch. Not particularly doggie folk but like my girls.


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> Merry Christmas to one and all!!
> 
> Bagrat - sounds as if J has done brilliantly :thumbsup: and Willow too JSW :thumbsup:.
> 
> The boys have been for their walks and runs as usual - but no forest due to the weather; either too stormy or too icy to get up there!! All have been unremarkable I am extremely pleased to say until tonight.
> 
> I was walking Kilo down a street when all the horrible teenagers came out en masse. the boys started to make barking noises at Kilo and the girls screamed at him repeatedly . Then a boy started to making a high pitched "Beep Beep" noise at him which lead another to say "Hey, what about x's rape alarm?"...so that was duly set off  . I am pleased to report that, although skittering like a dressage horse and snatching in a very stressy way at treats Kilo managed to concentrate on walking with me with a quick sit every now and again behind a parked car to have a quick breather. So....he did very well and I am immensely pleased with him .
> 
> Then.....after 10 minutes the storm that is due to last for twenty four hours pretty much hit and we walked home at a sharp trot :scared: .
> 
> The difference between the boys is immense. We saw a woman clearly smashed weaving her way towards us on his walk and he just glanced and decided that as I wasn't bothered he needn't be either. Kilo would have been highly suspicious.


Bloody hell, what a horrible bunch, why would anyone behave like that?! Glad Kilo was able to rise above it, what a clever chap he is.


----------



## Bagrat

Oh good grief Dogless I am tempted to hope that "X's rape alarm" is one that only works once but as the fairly morally sound woman that I am, feel that if X was then raped it would be my fault!!
Kilo is star quality by the sound of it. Have you got a wall chart for when you move??


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Bloody hell, what a horrible bunch, why would anyone behave like that?! Glad Kilo was able to rise above it, what a clever chap he is.


Because they are bored, their parents are most likely smashed somewhere and they are also most likely smashed. Feckers. It was a real test for Kilo bless him. What's worse is I couldn't tell them off or say anything as I was just interested in keeping Kilo OK.



Bagrat said:


> Oh good grief Dogless I am tempted to hope that "X's rape alarm" is one that only works once but as the fairly morally sound woman that I am, feel that if X was then raped it would be my fault!!
> Kilo is star quality by the sound of it. Have you got a wall chart for when you move??


Nope.....we have had so many "possibles / probables" that wall charts would have been and gone and I'd most likely have been incarcerated in the asylum on the outskirts of town :scared: .


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> This sounds horrible. Well done Kilo though! I see so many kids like this it makes me worry for...well, the future :eek6:  :scared:
> 
> Hope the storm isn't too bad Dogless. I've got to go to work for a few hours tomorrow so I'd like to be able to get there in one piece!!
> 
> *In other news Ruska was mated today.* She was a very good girl, and the stud was brill. Breeder said it was the one of the easiest matings she's seen so far, and she's been doing it a long time. :thumbsup:


How are you feeling about the whole thing?


----------



## zedder

Getting off the bloody sofa cheeky sod lol.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> How are you feeling about the whole thing?


Weird! I trust the breeder 100% - she's absolutely fab and knows what she's doing and has many many years experience behind her in the lappy world. But now it's actually been done and she's brewing puppies (hopefully) I feel very odd! :eek6:


----------



## GingerRogers

Well dogless you know what word i would be using for them. 
Merry Christmas everyone else.


----------



## Fluffster

Windy and wet here but we had a good walk. Loads of ball throwing and I've worked out a technique for getting her to drop it and leave it so we don't have to do battle every time she brings it back! Met a few other dogs but Daisy not overly interested as we had her ball, so she had an obligatory sniff and moved on which was good as feeling quite antisocial today  

Introduced a cue word for our loose lead walking, she was quite good on the way back, even when a bicycle whizzed past us!


----------



## Dogless

The weather is absolutely horrendous here, very windy and rainy indeed. The whole area is carnage with trees, fences, walls etc etc down.

Took Kilo out first. About 50 minutes into his walk the rain stopped and sun came out for 10 minutes and suddenly all these dogs who I haven't seen since before Christmas were brought out for their 5 - 10 minutes leg stretches / poos just as we got to the abandoned estate with small field opposite one of the more lived in roads here. We saw six dogs in total so did a lot of turning around and going in random directions BUT we had no total panic and no noise. The odd growl and jump and skitter but he came away with me of his own volition each time and just about managed to remain in control. I am really proud of him, really proud . We're still talking 30-40m distances but still; he knows that the dogs are dogs and it is still a little more progress.

Took Roo out and he spooked at something near to the end of his walk. He rarely spooks (unlike Sir K who spooked at every branch in the road, carrier bag in tree, wheelie bin on it's side etc etc....) so I looked in the direction he was. Very good job I did as I just managed to get us out of the way of a whole section of fence that came crashing down :scared:. I told hubby when I got home and he was pretty dismissive, assuming I meant just a panel.....so I showed him when we drove into Belfast and he said "Bloody hell, I didn't think for a second you meant the whole fence" .

Anyway.....that was this morning. A "red" warning has just been issued for late this afternoon / evening as we're going to get hit again. Perhaps I'll got out in a tin hat - the colander will have to do, work didn't let me keep my helmet :lol:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The weather is absolutely horrendous here, very windy and rainy indeed. The whole area is carnage with trees, fences, walls etc etc down.
> 
> Took Kilo out first. About 50 minutes into his walk the rain stopped and sun came out for 10 minutes and suddenly all these dogs who I haven't seen since before Christmas were brought out for their 5 - 10 minutes leg stretches / poos just as we got to the abandoned estate with small field opposite one of the more lived in roads here. We saw six dogs in total so did a lot of turning around and going in random directions BUT we had no total panic and no noise. The odd growl and jump and skitter but he came away with me of his own volition each time and just about managed to remain in control. I am really proud of him, really proud . We're still talking 30-40m distances but still; he knows that the dogs are dogs and it is still a little more progress.
> 
> Took Roo out and he spooked at something near to the end of his walk. He rarely spooks (unlike Sir K who spooked at every branch in the road, carrier bag in tree, wheelie bin on it's side etc etc....) so I looked in the direction he was. Very good job I did as I just managed to get us out of the way of a whole section of fence that came crashing down :scared:. I told hubby when I got home and he was pretty dismissive, assuming I meant just a panel.....so I showed him when we drove into Belfast and he said "Bloody hell, I didn't think for a second you meant the whole fence" .
> 
> Anyway.....that was this morning. A "red" warning has just been issued for late this afternoon / evening as we're going to get hit again. Perhaps I'll got out in a tin hat - the colander will have to do, work didn't let me keep my helmet :lol:.


Be careful. Better the boys miss a walk and you all remain safe.

I wondered this morning whether you still had power in the storm force winds.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Be careful. Better the boys miss a walk and you all remain safe.
> 
> I wondered this morning whether you still had power in the storm force winds.


Lights flickering but, just for once, we have kept it (touch wood - the wind's just getting right up again!!). Kilo is exhausted from last night and this morning's efforts and Roo is pretty tired too so I may miss a walk . We shall see. Better than getting knocked over by a flying bin or something. The Police have advised folk to stay away from pylons after one crashed through two houses and set on fire earlier, poles, fences etc and against all non essential travel. It certainly is very wild indeed out there. Not been to the forest for a while either .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Lights flickering but, just for once, we have kept it (touch wood - the wind's just getting right up again!!). Kilo is exhausted from last night and this morning's efforts and Roo is pretty tired too so I may miss a walk . We shall see. Better than getting knocked over by a flying bin or something. The Police have advised folk to stay away from pylons after one crashed through two houses and set on fire earlier, poles, fences etc and against all non essential travel. It certainly is very wild indeed out there. Not been to the forest for a while either .


Don't you dare go walking in the forest until the storms die down..!! Better off being hit by a wheelie bin than a damn great big fir tree.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Don't you dare go walking in the forest until the storms die down..!! Better off being hit by a wheelie bin than a damn great big fir tree.


Couldn't even make the drive in the nice weather recently because of the ice here which means road would be impossible up there. Hubby would kill me never mind a tree if i tried to go in this weather :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Couldn't even make the drive in the nice weather recently because of the ice here which means road would be impossible up there. Hubby would kill me never mind a tree if i tried to go in this weather :scared:.


Good for hubby....LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Good for hubby....LOL


That's probably both the first and last time you'll say that :lol: :lol:. Not uttered often on waywo :eek6:.


----------



## lupie

Glad you avoided the fence Dogless 

Fluffster - sounds like you are making lovely progress with Daisy


----------



## ciarasmum

Hi all,

So sorry I've been out of touch for so long. Once work is over and I've walked Ciara I just end up going to bed!

Well for the past 2 months most of Ciara's walks are in the dark apart from weekends. This has a bonus that we rarely see other dogs, and so if we do meet any at the weekends, she has the whole week to destress.

I'm not sure if that is the reason, but she seems to be doing a lot better with other dogs when she does actually meet them. I still need to work on her initial reaction, but once she actually says hello she is fine. She's even had a little play with one dog that bounded over (after a minute of lungy barking with the other owner doing nothing to get his dog back).

Last week we were walking through the country park in the dark. I saw a husky with a group of people so put Ciara back on lead. They couldn't get their dog back so I had Ciara on lead greeting an off lead husky (she isn't good at reading their body language with the tail). Apart from a growl when she saw it, she actually greeted it very politely and carried on with the walk. Yesterday we walked up the moors, she barked at a collie that was minding its own business, but greeted another GSD very nicely, and said hello nicely to 2 off lead beagles that approached her while she was on lead.

Just as we were ending the walk, 4 dogs approached. She took herself off about 15ft to the side to avoid them and stayed there til they passed. Unfortunately two of the dogs decided to run up to me barking and trying to nip my feet. She bolted over barking at them, but when they stopped going after me she greeted them politely too. She's still not comfortable so we still go out of our way to avoid dogs, but she's doing ok.

Christmas morning we had a long walk. 2 labs ran over to her. She ended up in a lab sandwich with each sniffing one side of her face. Her tail was tucked up to her belly and she was terrified. All the other owner could do was shout that they were friendly while Ciara bolted and refused to go past them. It's only when she started to grumble that he actually managed to grab them, typical ey!

Sorry it's quite a ramble, but in general she is doing very well.

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday, I hope to catch up properly in the next few days! Couple of pics from yesterday and today:

You know the expression, as happy as a pig in.... well that is Ciara to a T!



Up on the moors



Looking like a chunk with all that fur!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> That's probably both the first and last time you'll say that :lol: :lol:. Not uttered often on waywo :eek6:.


Yes I'm quite sure you're right...


----------



## Twiggy

The beautiful Ciara with mud all over her face - whatever next...LOL


----------



## ciarasmum

Twiggy said:


> The beautiful Ciara with mud all over her face - whatever next...LOL


She is probably one of few dogs in the world that can walk in minus temperatures on frozen ground up on the moors and still come home head to toe in mud, every single time I take her out it's the same! She's very grim


----------



## zedder

Ike has a tummy bug and a very runny bum so been Vets and got tablets for him feels very sorry for himself so not working on anything at minute.


----------



## tiatortilla

Just thought I'd pop in and say I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas  Sorry I've not updated much lately, it's all been a bit hectic! Welcome to anyone who's joined in while I've been absent 
Will do a proper post about what we've been up to soon, I have done a little bit of catching up and it looks like you're all doing rather well


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Ike has a tummy bug and a very runny bum so been Vets and got tablets for him feels very sorry for himself so not working on anything at minute.


Oh dear. I hope he's feeling better soon.


----------



## zedder

Me too he's not been right all day not nice cleaning it up this morning either.


----------



## Dogless

Ciara is an absolute stunner, really feminine looking. Sounds as if she's doing well though under some testing circumstances.

Hi TT - hope that you are having a good Christmas.


----------



## Twiggy

*There's nowt queerer than dogs*

Earlier this evening I was making copious amount of turkey and vegetable soup. Without thinking I started the blender and poor little Holly fled in terror. Barley, on the other hand who has dreadful noise sensitivity issues and is scared stiff of the ironing board, sat next to me going "what's her problem?"

Work that one out....!!


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless - sorry to hear the forest is off limits, glad the boys are doing well  as for the teenagers... stupid. Sounds like today's walks were a test but sounds like the boys were fab! 

Lupie - I might of missed something but I didn't realise you were breeding her. Good luck. 

Fluff - sounds like your walk went well today, well done  

Twiggy - wise words to DL  the blender obviously means yummy things!

CM - hello stranger  beautiful pics! Sounds like ciara is doing really well  

TT - hello, hope u & yours are well 


Not much here.. had a very windy offload walk at the res but she loved it  of course we saw no1 whilst there - bumped into Frank on the way home though & they're such good friends  lovely to see, greeted with kisses!


----------



## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> Lupie - I might of missed something but I didn't realise you were breeding her. Good luck.


Not me personally  I've heard and seen enough to leave the breeding to the professionals for sure. 

She was imported by a lappy breeder in order to widen up her breeding program. I was in contact with her about potentially having a puppy and she gave me the opportunity to have Ruska in the understanding she would go back to the breeder for a litter.


----------



## JenKyzer

lupie said:


> Not me personally  I've heard and seen enough to leave the breeding to the professionals for sure.
> 
> She was imported by a lappy breeder in order to widen up her breeding program. I was in contact with her about potentially having a puppy and she gave me the opportunity to have Ruska in the understanding she would go back to the breeder for a litter.


Ah, I see. I don't know much so can't say much but I hope all goes well for her and the potential pups


----------



## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> Ah, I see. I don't know much so can't say much but I hope all goes well for her and the potential pups


Haha that's okay, it sounds a bit weird when I explain it, but it's a fairly common thing in the lapphund community due to the lack of them in the uk.

Thanks, fingers crossed!


----------



## Dogless

Good morning this morning; took the BW up to the top fields and we played lots of "ready steady" and generally ran about like loons. We saw no one and nothing at all which was exactly what was needed after the past few days. At one point he misaimed and got my whole hand in his mouth (gloved, thankfully!) which made me think of Grannie . "The lab" is back but I kept repeating to myself that I WILL NOT lose the confidence and bit of ground I have made with Kilo. I just can't :scared:. Right at the end I had a big fail....threw one of Kilo's fleece tuggies up into a tree :mad2:. I used long branches to try and get it back and I could touch it with them but just not get it down. Kilo started off crying and standing up against the tree trunk, moved to sitting back and just letting out the odd high pitched bark to then jumping up at me in frustration. I had a job getting him to leave his precious toy, but we found a piece of plastic pipe on the road and he carried that most of the way home which was some consolation .

I took Roo out for a run, it was a rare sunny spell so every dog on camp seemed to be out again which was a little annoying in parts, but Rudi did well and we had a good time. I did see something so distressing though . I could see a runner in the distance who was clearly starting for the first time in her life (which is good!) but she had a dog with her that kept jumping up into the air. Roo was a bit excited at that so I crossed the road and he leant on my legs for his fusses as he does . When she got closer I could see that the lady had a cocker spaniel who was clearly in a halti for the first time too. The lead the lady had was so short that the cocker could only just have it's front feet on the ground and kept jumping up into the air to try and paw the halti off, then falling and getting dragged by it's head and was making some awful noises. All the lady did was keep jerking the lead and saying "Heel, heel, heel" in a really cross voice :'( .


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Not me personally  I've heard and seen enough to leave the breeding to the professionals for sure.
> 
> She was imported by a lappy breeder in order to widen up her breeding program. I was in contact with her about potentially having a puppy and she gave me the opportunity to have Ruska in the understanding she would go back to the breeder for a litter.


Does she go back there to whelp then? Tell me to bugger off BTW if all my questions are too nosy!! .


----------



## Twiggy

* I did see something so distressing though* . I could see a runner in the distance who was clearly starting for the first time in her life (which is good!) but she had a dog with her that kept jumping up into the air. Roo was a bit excited at that so I crossed the road and he leant on my legs for his fusses as he does . When she got closer I could see that the lady had a cocker spaniel who was clearly in a halti for the first time too. The lead the lady had was so short that the cocker could only just have it's front feet on the ground and kept jumping up into the air to try and paw the halti off, then falling and getting dragged by it's head and was making some awful noises. All the lady did was keep jerking the lead and saying "Heel, heel, heel" in a really cross voice :'( .[/QUOTE]

The whole place sounds distressing to me.

I've been out with my daughter for some retail therapy most of the day. Walked the dogs early and got back in time to walk them late afternoon.
I bought far too many tops, to add to the ones already hanging in my wardrobe that I've yet to wear, but never mind. My daughter didn't buy a thing and didn't even try anything on.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> * I did see something so distressing though* . I could see a runner in the distance who was clearly starting for the first time in her life (which is good!) but she had a dog with her that kept jumping up into the air. Roo was a bit excited at that so I crossed the road and he leant on my legs for his fusses as he does . When she got closer I could see that the lady had a cocker spaniel who was clearly in a halti for the first time too. The lead the lady had was so short that the cocker could only just have it's front feet on the ground and kept jumping up into the air to try and paw the halti off, then falling and getting dragged by it's head and was making some awful noises. All the lady did was keep jerking the lead and saying "Heel, heel, heel" in a really cross voice :'( .


The whole place sounds distressing to me.

I've been out with my daughter for some retail therapy most of the day. Walked the dogs early and got back in time to walk them late afternoon.
*I bought far too many tops, to add to the ones already hanging in my wardrobe* that I've yet to wear, but never mind. My daughter didn't buy a thing and didn't even try anything on.[/QUOTE]

Isn't that the point of sales shopping??? :scared: :lol:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The whole place sounds distressing to me.
> 
> I've been out with my daughter for some retail therapy most of the day. Walked the dogs early and got back in time to walk them late afternoon.
> *I bought far too many tops, to add to the ones already hanging in my wardrobe* that I've yet to wear, but never mind. My daughter didn't buy a thing and didn't even try anything on.


Isn't that the point of sales shopping??? :scared: :lol:.[/QUOTE]

The first thing hubby said when I got home was "Did you buy a top?"...!!

Sarcastic b.........


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Isn't that the point of sales shopping??? :scared: :lol:.


The first thing hubby said when I got home was "Did you buy a top?"...!!

Sarcastic b.........[/QUOTE]

I buy lots and think "ooh that looks lovely". Problem is it doesn't really matter what it looks like under my layers of rainproof clothing walking the dogs here :lol:.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Right at the end I had a big fail....threw one of Kilo's fleece tuggies up into a tree :mad2:. I used long branches to try and get it back and I could touch it with them but just not get it down.


This made me laugh, poor Kilo and his tuggie!

Slight consolation - we were playing ball in the garden earlier and I was throwing it low along the ground to get her into "chase" mode as she prefers that over lobbing it high. Just as I let it go out my hand she went for it and turned straight into the path of it and it THWACKED her in the eye!!!    She yelped and came running at me with a squinty eye and I felt just HORRIFIC. We had some cuddles and she winked it a few times but then was eager to go after the ball and I can see no damage to it now. She's not holding it shut or anything. I feel like an awful owner but she just turned straight into it!! 



Dogless said:


> Does she go back there to whelp then? Tell me to bugger off BTW if all my questions are too nosy!! .


No not at all, questions are always welcome! Yes she will, she will stay with me until a week or so before she's due, and then go over to the breeder to prepare for whelping. She only lives 20 minutes away so Ruska's been there lots and is comfortable there. The breeder's last two litters have happened like this as they've been puppies she bred and homed to local people in partnership, and as they turned out very nicely they came back for a litter and it works out well.

It'll just be me rattling around whilst Ruska's off raising her gang


----------



## Dogless

Well....Roo was very good on his walk :aureola: .

Kilo was....amazing :thumbup:.

We were walking home on the main road tonight and I heard loud jangling tags behind us and a man running with his dog towards us fast :scared:. We were just opposite a bus stop thank goodness so I nipped across the road, behind the bus shelter - even though it's clear physical barriers give Kilo confidence. Kilo sat for me and stayed sat although tense and took bits of an emergency tripe stick I carry lol: :lol as the dog went past. No lunging, no growling, nothing . Can't believe it . He then jumped up at me a few times (stress) and had two massive shake offs and I burst into loads of praise and fooling about with him. I told him how proud I was all the way back home, couldn't care less who heard :lol: .

I feel as if I have won a massive, massive prize of some sort .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Well....Roo was very good on his walk :aureola: .
> 
> Kilo was....amazing :thumbup:.
> 
> We were walking home on the main road tonight and I heard loud jangling tags behind us and a man running with his dog towards us fast :scared:. We were just opposite a bus stop thank goodness so I nipped across the road, behind the bus shelter - even though it's clear physical barriers give Kilo confidence. Kilo sat for me and stayed sat although tense and took bits of an emergency tripe stick I carry lol: :lol as the dog went past. No lunging, no growling, nothing . Can't believe it . He then jumped up at me a few times (stress) and had two massive shake offs and I burst into loads of praise and fooling about with him. I told him how proud I was all the way back home, couldn't care less who heard :lol: .
> 
> I feel as if I have won a massive, massive prize of some sort .


Yaaaay!!! Amazing!! What a good boy - & so you should be proud! :thumbup:

Twiggy- hope u had fun shopping! I've managed to avoid it yet 

All quiet here. Willows heat rash is back like summer  her tummy is red hot to touch too, poor babe. So gave her a rest from wet muddy walks, cleaned & creamed her up and she's lying on the cool laminate floor instead of snuggling  might be a bath in episoothe job tomorrow. Other than that, all is good :001_cool:


----------



## Twiggy

We've not long got back from the agility show. Holly was super and I was really pleased with her. She went clear in the jumping but ran by a jump in the agility, which was my fault not hers. Considering she was running against vastly more experienced dogs, many of which were getting eliminated in both classes, she did extremely well.

Tremor didn't stay in the arena very long as she quickly became much too animated, not only bouncing and drooling but starting to bark as well. Pity there isn't a field where I could give her a damn good run.

There is a very good dog stall there and I bought 4 more Spacehopper Lob Its, a squeaky latex animal with a tail for Barley, a long plush toy and a big blue Mobydick plush toy supposedly for Leafy. Big Mobydick has already lost an eye and his teeth have been unravelled because Holly has one end of him and Barley the other...!! Poor Mobydick.


----------



## Bagrat

Just wanted to give Kilo and Dogless another Woo Hoo for their success. hard work from both.

JenSteW sorry to hear of Willow's heat rash. 

Hello Lupie, will have to catch up with your posts.

Twiggy it's great to hear about your exploits and the way you are so sensitive to your dogs needs. How do you cope with the others who don't see when their dogs are ready for the off.?

We had good (if short) walk. I spotted white and black collie a way off down the street and J saw it but only glanced so we turned round and set off then waited for him to have another look. Same response but started looking over his shoulder a bit so we went about 30 yards into our road and did some watch me and then he looked at collie as it walked across the top and looked back to me for treats. Yay! He has learnt "behind (me)" very quickly and can do it when people are coming near ( but they aren't a big problem). 
Was thinking rather than "behind" I should have named the manoeuvre A**e or S**t as that's the first words I think when I need him to be behind me!!


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat - Ar*e or sh*t made me laugh...so true :lol: :lol:.

Twiggy - well done little HB (again - there's starting to be a real trend here....:thumbup and poor Moby Dick .

Good morning walks - mixture of on and offlead for both. Treacherously icy meaning no one was out despite the lovely clear sunshine. Nothing and no one seen (well, I saw a dog but Sir K didn't!!). Kilo was very spooky and hesitant which is from last night I think so I just didn't go anywhere that he didn't want to and we mainly pottered with a bit of gentle play with his ball on a rope as I didn't want to raise his adrenaline levels. He frightened a cat out from under a car on the way back, he stopped trying to chase when I told him, but not after I'd slid about two steps and after my shoulder muscles had been a little torn :mad2:.

Oh well, gales and rain just starting again too. It's like someone is having a laugh, keeping the forest out of bounds :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Bagrat - Ar*e or sh*t made me laugh...so true :lol: :lol:.
> 
> Twiggy - well done little HB (again - there's starting to be a real trend here....:thumbup and poor Moby Dick .
> 
> Good morning walks - mixture of on and offlead for both. Treacherously icy meaning no one was out despite the lovely clear sunshine. Nothing and no one seen (well, I saw a dog but Sir K didn't!!). Kilo was very spooky and hesitant which is from last night I think so I just didn't go anywhere that he didn't want to and we mainly pottered with a bit of gentle play with his ball on a rope as I didn't want to raise his adrenaline levels. He frightened a cat out from under a car on the way back, he stopped trying to chase when I told him, but not after I'd slid about two steps and after my shoulder muscles had been a little torn :mad2:.
> 
> Oh well, gales and rain just starting again too. It's like someone is having a laugh, *keeping the forest out of bounds* :scared:.


Yes Holly has certainly been consistent and I don't even consider she's going to throw the towel in now. It's me that's the problem.. I am running a bit better and faster but I really need to stop smoking and take up jogging...

Huge gold star for Kilo. It still worries me greatly though that there are so many aggressive and out of control dogs (and idiot owners) in your area and it must be like being on a knife edge all the time.

Don't even think about the forest, however tempting it may seem.


----------



## Fluffster

Lovely weather today! We went out and played ball with Daisy. We'd just thrown her ball for her, wel my OH had kicked it so it went really far, so she was running off for that when we noticed a black lab behind us. It charged past us at full pelt towards Daisy  the owner was miles back! Daisy was more interested in her ball, however, she kept trying to bring it back to us but getting tumbled over by the lab  who was very sweet but very boistrous.
Eventually, the owner caught up, apologised for his dog being a nuisance, and they carried on, but I was very proud of Daisy


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Don't you dare go walking in the forest until the storms die down..!! Better off being hit by a wheelie bin than a damn great big fir tree.


There's a couple of trees down in the local woods.. big ones too... and lucky they didn't fall the other way otherwise they'd have come crashing down on people's houses. Fortunately the worst winds here seem to be at night... not during the day ( must be the sprouts ).


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes Holly has certainly been consistent and I don't even consider she's going to throw the towel in now. It's me that's the problem.. I am running a bit better and faster but I really need to stop smoking and take up jogging...
> 
> Huge gold star for Kilo. It still worries me greatly though that there are so many aggressive and out of control dogs (and idiot owners) in your area and *it must be like being on a knife edge all the time.*
> 
> Don't even think about the forest, however tempting it may seem.


This - absolutely this. I have developed an amazing knack for scanning all the time whilst looking OK ish in terms of relaxation Diz's human reckons. I always say "we need to turn round, there's a man with a dog in the distance approaching" and she always says "how did you see that??? :scared:". She's a great friend; she's hidden behind cars and bushes with me, gone all the way back the way we've come, nipped into the churchyard etc :lol:.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Ciara is an absolute stunner, really feminine looking. Sounds as if she's doing well though under some testing circumstances.


Seconded. Diefy in lurve.


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> *There's nowt queerer than dogs*
> 
> Earlier this evening I was making copious amount of turkey and vegetable soup. Without thinking I started the blender and poor little Holly fled in terror. Barley, on the other hand who has dreadful noise sensitivity issues and is scared stiff of the ironing board, sat next to me going "what's her problem?"
> 
> Work that one out....!!


I've got a big home cinema system. The world can be ending.... literally... the room is shaking by a big active subwoofer... and the White House is bring blown apart by rocket bombs... nothing... except him snoring. A little gunshot in the distance when we're out and he wants back in the car.


----------



## Guest

I am working on fetch at the moment Millie is doing really well I will next teach her to put things in something.

I like hideing the object in clothes or towels and she has great fun trying to fetch it. ^^


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> There's a couple of trees down in the local woods.. big ones too... and lucky they didn't fall the other way otherwise they'd have come crashing down on people's houses. Fortunately the worst winds here seem to be at night... not during the day ( must be the sprouts ).


Yes I know it's been pretty bad in your neck of the woods. I friend of mine lives in Bordon, near Farnham.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> This - absolutely this. I have developed an amazing knack for scanning all the time whilst looking OK ish in terms of relaxation Diz's human reckons. I always say "we need to turn round, there's a man with a dog in the distance approaching" and she always says "how did you see that??? :scared:". She's a great friend; she's hidden behind cars and bushes with me, gone all the way back the way we've come, nipped into the churchyard etc :lol:.


Haha, glad it's not just me!

I often walk with a friend and I'll say "there's a dog up ahead" and she'll go "no there isn't, I can't see it"....10 seconds later there comes bounding up said dog.

It's like a superpower! Except only of any use to our dogs. :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Finally the weather was good enough to get up to our precious hills and forest  :thumbup:.

The hedges on the roads up there had been obliterated by the winds and there were trees down everywhere. It must have been WILD up top :scared:. Anyway, we spent a pleasant morning trail running - some hills, some forest, some heath, some bogs. It was raining the whole time but it didn't matter to us - we were back where we belong .

The boys were very good - dogs and human exhausted; perfect .


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Finally the weather was good enough to get up to our precious hills and forest  :thumbup:.
> 
> The hedges on the roads up there had been obliterated by the winds and there were trees down everywhere. It must have been WILD up top :scared:. Anyway, we spent a pleasant morning trail running - some hills, some forest, some heath, some bogs. It was raining the whole time but it didn't matter to us - we were back where we belong .
> 
> The boys were very good - dogs and human exhausted; perfect .


Glad the weather was nice enough to get up to the forest again. Bet it was sad to see how many trees were down - I always feel a little sad, they've seen so much!

Horrendous weather here this morning. Finally just started drying up so we've been out in the garden in the slop doing some recall training and ball-playing. Been a very boring morning full of kongs, antlers, training, carrots, etc :scared:

Can't wait to get back out on walks again.


----------



## Fluffster

Bloody awful weather here! We both got soaked but did a lot of ball play. Met another cocker Daisy plays with but she is in season and on lead, and was quite grumpy which I think confused Daisy. Also met a ginormous Newfoundland who was such a sap, he was lovely although Daisy was a bit wary! I now have a cold, wet spaniel all cuddled up on the sofa


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear, Daisy's using her "sad eyes" to full effect there!! :001_wub:.


----------



## diefenbaker

lupie said:


> I often walk with a friend and I'll say "there's a dog up ahead" and she'll go "no there isn't, I can't see it"....10 seconds later there comes bounding up said dog.


Dief knows when anything's coming... but if it's out of sight he's not quite sure what it is yet... if it's a runner or a cyclist he's very disappointed. They almost look put out that he blanks them when he realises they have no dog. I also tell him a lot of "leave it" when I have no idea what I'm telling him to leave. He's obviously aware of something off in the woods though.


----------



## diefenbaker

One muddy lateish walk today... didn't see a soul. I wasted most of the day waiting for tyres to be fitted. Grrrr.... On the plus side he was very good when a baby came round.. he doesn't get to see many really young ones.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> One muddy lateish walk today... didn't see a soul. I wasted most of the day waiting for tyres to be fitted. Grrrr.... On the plus side he was very good when a baby came round.. he doesn't get to see many really young ones.


Good lord, what was the baby doing coming round by itself? :scared: . Kids these days 'eh!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Good lord, what was the baby doing coming round by itself? :scared: . Kids these days 'eh!


They come to see the "tree train". It's a pilgrimage.


----------



## Dogless

Great walks this morning; rain stopped just in time :thumbup:.

Both had a long lead walk. Saw no one on Roo's bar a few runners and just one dog with Kilo. Came out of a side road about 30m in front of us and he was very tense (but not totally fixated) so dropped back to about 50m and he was relaxed again . He still seems quite highly - strung and hypervigilant after his amazing behaviour the night before last so I am avoiding everything I can until he settles back down a little.

*Wishing all waywo - ers a very happy and healthy 2014.....and may your training goals be accomplished .*


----------



## Fluffster

Lovely forest walk today with a couple of friends and their black lab/springer cross. Daisy's was v well behaved and did everything she was told. In the house now and don't plan to leave again till 2014 as the weather is crap! Have a good one all x


----------



## diefenbaker

What would you do if you'd gone out for a walk in the rain... expecting to see nobody else.. and you came across a shifty bloke wearing camouflage trousers and a hoodie.. can't quite see his face.. walking a huge wolf-like dog.. in a harness.. can't quite make out the writing on it... last word looks like "junkie".. both covered in mud... BUT... he's singing "Ding Dong Merrily on High".

Happy New Year WAYWO

Glooohohohooooorrroooohohohoooorrrroohohhhooorrrrria.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> What would you do if you'd gone out for a walk in the rain... expecting to see nobody else.. and you came across a shifty bloke wearing camouflage trousers and a hoodie.. can't quite see his face.. walking a huge wolf-like dog.. in a harness.. can't quite make out the writing on it... last word looks like "junkie".. both covered in mud... BUT... he's singing "Ding Dong Merrily on High".
> 
> Happy New Year WAYWO
> 
> Glooohohohooooorrroooohohohoooorrrroohohhhooorrrrria.


It would be just another day in Paradise :scared:.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> It would be just another day in Paradise :scared:.


The walk was ultra-muddy. Our area has a lot of clay so the drainage is rubbish. Singing in the rain.. but more like Eric Morecambe than Gene Kelly. I don't know if he understands what "Mummy won't be happy" means but it always seems to come before a kick of the ball or a splosh through the mud.


----------



## diefenbaker

@DL. Somebody posted an article about "Best Dogs for Running" from Runner's World. RRs were in the category "Best in the Heat". Mals were in "Best in the Cold". So you get Hawaii and I get Siberia. Brilliant :mad2:


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> @DL. Somebody posted an article about "Best Dogs for Running" from Runner's World. RRs were in the category "Best in the Heat". Mals were in "Best in the Cold". So you get Hawaii and I get Siberia. Brilliant :mad2:


I saw the list - dogs*t much????? Some really sweeping statements and generalisations :mad2:.

I get South Africa .


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> @DL. Somebody posted an article about "Best Dogs for Running" from Runner's World. RRs were in the category "Best in the Heat". Mals were in "Best in the Cold". So you get Hawaii and I get Siberia. Brilliant :mad2:


What did the article say about collies then? Best for running round agility courses with very old ladies....


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> What did the article say about collies then? Best for running round agility courses with very old ladies....


They were in there.... "Most Obedient on Heavily Used Trails".


----------



## diefenbaker

Just throw the f***in biscuit !!!


----------



## Dogless

Dief, the faces on that photo :thumbup:.

Well I did the last walks for my boys of 2013 this evening. Nothing really encountered bar the odd unsteady person clutching a can or bottle. 

I was thinking as I walked that, on days like today when I do four dog walks and a separate run, that I do about 22 - 24 miles around camp. I also thought that, despite the Grand Speech hubby makes every now and again about effort, that he has done about 4 walks this year - a couple to the forest and a couple on camp. (He did do most walks on our holiday to Dartmoor though...trapped ). So, really, I walk and run every mile pretty much alone even when hubby is on leave. And that is an upsetting realisation about how lonely you can be in the midst of people and how good intentions and words really sometimes aren't enough .

Roll on 2014 - almost here .


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> Dief, the faces on that photo :thumbup:.
> 
> Well I did the last walks for my boys of 2013 this evening. Nothing really encountered bar the odd unsteady person clutching a can or bottle.
> 
> I was thinking as I walked that, on days like today when I do four dog walks and a separate run, that I do about 22 - 24 miles around camp. I also thought that, despite the Grand Speech hubby makes every now and again about effort, that he has done about 4 walks this year - a couple to the forest and a couple on camp. (He did do most walks on our holiday to Dartmoor though...trapped ). So, really, I walk and run every mile pretty much alone even when hubby is on leave. And that is an upsetting realisation about how lonely you can be in the midst of people and how good intentions and words really sometimes aren't enough .
> 
> Roll on 2014 - almost here .


Wow that amount of walking is incredible, I find that quite inspirational. I really need to improve my fitness and think I am getting here thanks to Daisy but a long way to go! I am hoping by the time the weather improves, we can start going for much longer walks at weekends.

Sorry to hear that you feel lonely sometimes though  I think sometimes people find it hard to understand that it IS possible to be lonely even when you are surrounded by people. I hope 2014 brings you a change of scenery x


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Wow that amount of walking is incredible, I find that quite inspirational. I really need to improve my fitness and think I am getting here thanks to Daisy but a long way to go! I am hoping by the time the weather improves, we can start going for much longer walks at weekends.
> 
> Sorry to hear that you feel lonely sometimes though  I think sometimes people find it hard to understand that it IS possible to be lonely even when you are surrounded by people. I hope 2014 brings you a change of scenery x


I don't do that every day - most days when I walk from home I do though, I have no choice really!!. Trail running is usually around 9 - 10 miles as it's always very hilly / boggy and that can be the only walk of the day. Same with some of the forest and mountain walks - if we cover a lot of distance/ the dogs go bonkers / go over really arduous terrain then that's it for the day.


----------



## Fluffster

I'm not sure what we do distance wise. Daisy is always sprinting about so does about five times what I do, so she makes sure she gets her exercise, but I could definitely do with increasing the distance for my own fitness. Especially when I just stand there for 20 mins and throw her ball


----------



## Dogless

Happy New Year All .

We started the New Year by me taking the boys for separate walks in the howling wind and driving rain whilst hubby had a nice lazy morning lounging about. Started the year as it will go on, no doubt . Still, the boys and I had great fun. Kilo and I played "Ready Steady" for ages with a new pheasant toy a friend bought for the boys and Rudi and I did a little "Ready Steady" and lots of playing and mucking about too .

The BW enjoying his new toy....


----------



## lupie

Happy new year all! Really hope 2014 brings everyone some lovely times. 2013 had some pretty big downers so I'm hoping we can shoo-shoo them away. 

About to head out with Ruska on our first walk in over 3 weeks (onlead, obviously) :scared: Shocking weather but I think she needs to get some air after the fireworks scaring her last night and she's on day 22 now with her "bits" pretty much back to normal, so I think we're pretty safe. Plus I live in the land of fair-weather dog walkers so hoping no one else is mad enough :thumbup:

And Dogless - you're a massive inspiration over this way too, hope that doesn't make me sound stalkerish! Wishing you a great 2014


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Happy new year all! Really hope 2014 brings everyone some lovely times. 2013 had some pretty big downers so I'm hoping we can shoo-shoo them away.
> 
> About to head out with Ruska on our first walk in over 3 weeks (onlead, obviously) :scared: Shocking weather but I think she needs to get some air after the fireworks scaring her last night and she's on day 22 now with her "bits" pretty much back to normal, so I think we're pretty safe. Plus I live in the land of fair-weather dog walkers so hoping no one else is mad enough :thumbup:
> 
> And Dogless - you're a massive inspiration over this way too, hope that doesn't make me sound stalkerish! Wishing you a great 2014


Well if tramping around in foul weather's your thing I am pleased to be of assistance :lol: :lol:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Dief, the faces on that photo :thumbup:.
> 
> Well I did the last walks for my boys of 2013 this evening. Nothing really encountered bar the odd unsteady person clutching a can or bottle.
> 
> I was thinking as I walked that, on days like today when I do four dog walks and a separate run, that I do about 22 - 24 miles around camp. I also thought that, despite the Grand Speech hubby makes every now and again about effort, that he has done about 4 walks this year - a couple to the forest and a couple on camp. (He did do most walks on our holiday to Dartmoor though...trapped ). So, really, I walk and run every mile pretty much alone even when hubby is on leave. And that is an upsetting realisation about how lonely you can be in the midst of people and how good intentions and words really sometimes aren't enough .
> 
> Roll on 2014 - almost here .


Look on the bright side. Would you really want hubby accompanying you on most walks? I know I wouldn't and my heart is usually in my mouth when he throws toys inappropriately, etc. etc. etc. I don't even really like walking with friends and their dogs unless they are really dog savvy.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Happy New Year All .
> 
> We started the New Year by me taking the boys for separate walks in the howling wind and driving rain *whilst hubby had a nice lazy morning* lounging about. Started the year as it will go on, no doubt . Still, the boys and I had great fun. Kilo and I played "Ready Steady" for ages with a new pheasant toy a friend bought for the boys and Rudi and I did a little "Ready Steady" and lots of playing and mucking about too .
> 
> Well because it was teeming with rain and hubby couldn't beetle off clipping bits of hedge (which gets him out of doing anything useful) I gave him the choice of cleaning the cooker or applying the rubber paint to my new dog walk. Obviously he chose painting the dog walk in the garage with the radio on, well out of my way.....:devil:
> 
> I did make him some cheese straws and sausage rolls as a reward. The grand-children scoffed the last lot....LOL


----------



## AdMed

Dogless said:


> Dief, the faces on that photo :thumbup:.
> 
> Well I did the last walks for my boys of 2013 this evening. Nothing really encountered bar the odd unsteady person clutching a can or bottle.
> 
> I was thinking as I walked that, on days like today when I do four dog walks and a separate run, that I do about 22 - 24 miles around camp. I also thought that, despite the Grand Speech hubby makes every now and again about effort, that he has done about 4 walks this year - a couple to the forest and a couple on camp. (He did do most walks on our holiday to Dartmoor though...trapped ). So, really, I walk and run every mile pretty much alone even when hubby is on leave. And that is an upsetting realisation about how lonely you can be in the midst of people and how good intentions and words really sometimes aren't enough .
> 
> Roll on 2014 - almost here .


I know I only really lurk on this thread (for lots of good ideas and pointers) but I just wanted to say I know exactly what you mean, although in my case after a "state of the nation" type conversation about our relationship hubby decided to start coming on walks a bit more...only for me to realise that I actually didn't really want him there, he was slow, didn't want to do the distance and changed the dynamic 

Double the loneliness and now with some big decisions to make in 2014 I fear :mad2:


----------



## Dogless

AdMed said:


> I know I only really lurk on this thread (for lots of good ideas and pointers) but I just wanted to say I know exactly what you mean, although in my case after a "state of the nation" type conversation about our relationship hubby decided to start coming on walks a bit more...only for me to realise that I actually didn't really want him there, he was slow, didn't want to do the distance and changed the dynamic
> 
> Double the loneliness and now with some big decisions to make in 2014 I fear :mad2:


"Liked" for your reply, not the content of your post . I hope that you are able to come to the best decisions for all involved xx.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Dogless said:
> 
> 
> 
> Happy New Year All .
> 
> We started the New Year by me taking the boys for separate walks in the howling wind and driving rain *whilst hubby had a nice lazy morning* lounging about. Started the year as it will go on, no doubt . Still, the boys and I had great fun. Kilo and I played "Ready Steady" for ages with a new pheasant toy a friend bought for the boys and Rudi and I did a little "Ready Steady" and lots of playing and mucking about too .
> 
> Well because it was teeming with rain and hubby couldn't beetle off clipping bits of hedge (which gets him out of doing anything useful) I gave him the choice of cleaning the cooker or applying the rubber paint to my new dog walk. Obviously he chose painting the dog walk in the garage with the radio on, well out of my way.....:devil:
> 
> I did make him some cheese straws and sausage rolls as a reward. The grand-children scoffed the last lot....LOL
> 
> 
> 
> At least he did something useful...I asked hubby what he'd been up to as I arrived, soaking wet and freezing cold after Rudi's walk. "Getting ready" - bearing in mind he just wears jeans and a T shirt . Oh and bloody boots in the house :mad2: :mad2:.
Click to expand...


----------



## GingerRogers

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL WAYWO WORKERS

I HOPE EVERYONE HAS ALL THEY DREAM OF THIS YEAR, DOG KNOWS WE DESERVE IT 



AdMed said:


> I know I only really lurk on this thread (for lots of good ideas and pointers) but I just wanted to say I know exactly what you mean, although in my case after a "state of the nation" type conversation about our relationship hubby decided to start coming on walks a bit more...only for me to realise that I actually didn't really want him there, he was slow, didn't want to do the distance and changed the dynamic
> 
> Double the loneliness and now with some big decisions to make in 2014 I fear :mad2:


Sorry to hear you too had to have that type of convo 

But  we had similar recently and I thought the same. He went a different route down the beach and everything. I have grown to love my solitary head sorting wind shouting walks. Hope you sort things out.


----------



## Siskin

Hi. Can I join in this thread. I haven't read all of it...... there are rather a lot of pages

My ultimate goal is to be able to stop Isla rushing off to greet people or dogs that she sees when we are out, she's tremendously friendly but not everyone wants a big lumpy puppy around them. Also to be able to do a "stop" command, basically want her off the lead under my control.

Nice little breakthrough today, only because there were no distractions of course.
I've been working on her not going too far in front of me, she keeps close if it's somewhere new, but on our normal walk she goes ahead. She is good about looking back to make sure I'm still there particularly as I sometimes will go and hide. If she starts to go too far I call out 'Isla, wait' and she will stop and watch me as I walk towards her, the problem is she gets bored waiting and trots on. Today I called her to wait and she stopped as usual, so I called out sit and gave the sit hand signal and blow me she sat! When I've tried this before she comes racing back and then sits. I was able to get her to wait until I got right to her, so lots of praise and a treat. Little baby steps, but they all count.


----------



## Dogless

Welcome Siskin . What do you mean you haven't read every single post on here? :scared:.


----------



## Fluffster

I'm working today so OH took Daisy out. I always worry a bit when it's just the two of them, I don't know why  too much of a control freak I guess!

The other day, I saw on the local news page on Facebook that there had been a dog attack on our usual walking route. I'm a bit worried that it's the staffy that me and Daisy meet most days  The post said it was known to be tempremental with new dogs, which he is, and that the owner is usually careful, which he is, he always puts him on lead when unknown dogs approach. The staffy attacked a man's dog, and then the man got bitten when he tried to intervene.

I feel a bit wary about going up there now. This dog has never really liked Daisy much, the first time they met, he pinned her down but she just went limp and then he just ignored her. Now when we meet, he just ignores her and she ignores him largely, although he sometimes growls if she gets a bit close when he's got his ball. I'm not sure what to do now if we see them  Especially as I'm not 100% sure it IS this dog, but all the stuff added up from the post. I don't want to put Daisy in danger, but we've seen them every day for the past couple of weeks almost and me and the owner have stood chatting while the dogs amuse themselves - the staffy chewing on his ball, and Daisy just racing around.

And I don't want to judge and start just walking on or ignoring them, especially if it's NOT this dog, but how do you ask someone if their dog attacked another?!


----------



## lupie

Welcome Siskin - off you trot to catch up on all the pages. We will sit here with a cup of tea  :lol:

Dog owning has changed me - just got back from a walk and it was windy and wet but I had my wellies and waterproofs and my new sealskin gloves and I was pretty much toasty and dry and I loved it! Ruska was thrilled to be out again even if she didn't get to go offlead. 

And we had FOUR yes FOUR pass-bys with other dogs - one with NO barking, and the other 3 with some barks but no lunging, no growling! I could dance a jig! :lol:


----------



## AdMed

GingerRogers said:


> HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL WAYWO WORKERS
> 
> I HOPE EVERYONE HAS ALL THEY DREAM OF THIS YEAR, DOG KNOWS WE DESERVE IT
> 
> Sorry to hear you too had to have that type of convo
> 
> But  we had similar recently and I thought the same. He went a different route down the beach and everything. I have grown to love my solitary head sorting wind shouting walks. Hope you sort things out.





Dogless said:


> "Liked" for your reply, not the content of your post . I hope that you are able to come to the best decisions for all involved xx.


Thanks guys, it's a bit grim but hey life is like that at times, perhaps I should actually start posting on here a bit :aureola:


----------



## Twiggy

AdMed said:


> Thanks guys, it's a bit grim but hey life is like that at times, perhaps I should actually start posting on here a bit :aureola:


You'll get massive support on this forum when life is a bit grim I promise you.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> I'm working today so OH took Daisy out. I always worry a bit when it's just the two of them, I don't know why  too much of a control freak I guess!
> 
> The other day, I saw on the local news page on Facebook that there had been a dog attack on our usual walking route. I'm a bit worried that it's the staffy that me and Daisy meet most days  The post said it was known to be tempremental with new dogs, which he is, and that the owner is usually careful, which he is, he always puts him on lead when unknown dogs approach. The staffy attacked a man's dog, and then the man got bitten when he tried to intervene.
> 
> I feel a bit wary about going up there now. This dog has never really liked Daisy much, the first time they met, he pinned her down but she just went limp and then he just ignored her. Now when we meet, he just ignores her and she ignores him largely, although he sometimes growls if she gets a bit close when he's got his ball. I'm not sure what to do now if we see them  Especially as I'm not 100% sure it IS this dog, but all the stuff added up from the post. I don't want to put Daisy in danger, but we've seen them every day for the past couple of weeks almost and me and the owner have stood chatting while the dogs amuse themselves - the staffy chewing on his ball, and Daisy just racing around.
> 
> And I don't want to judge and start just walking on or ignoring them, especially if it's NOT this dog, but how do you ask someone if their dog attacked another?!


Hmmmm difficult. Personally I'd carry on as you are. If it is this dog then it doesn't sound as if he's going to attack Daisy from what you've said ie that you stand chatting to the owner and the Staffie ignores her.


----------



## Siskin

Fluffster said:


> I'm working today so OH took Daisy out. I always worry a bit when it's just the two of them, I don't know why  too much of a control freak I guess!
> 
> The other day, I saw on the local news page on Facebook that there had been a dog attack on our usual walking route. I'm a bit worried that it's the staffy that me and Daisy meet most days  The post said it was known to be tempremental with new dogs, which he is, and that the owner is usually careful, which he is, he always puts him on lead when unknown dogs approach. The staffy attacked a man's dog, and then the man got bitten when he tried to intervene.
> 
> I feel a bit wary about going up there now. This dog has never really liked Daisy much, the first time they met, he pinned her down but she just went limp and then he just ignored her. Now when we meet, he just ignores her and she ignores him largely, although he sometimes growls if she gets a bit close when he's got his ball. I'm not sure what to do now if we see them  Especially as I'm not 100% sure it IS this dog, but all the stuff added up from the post. I don't want to put Daisy in danger, but we've seen them every day for the past couple of weeks almost and me and the owner have stood chatting while the dogs amuse themselves - the staffy chewing on his ball, and Daisy just racing around.
> 
> And I don't want to judge and start just walking on or ignoring them, especially if it's NOT this dog, but how do you ask someone if their dog attacked another?!


Next time you see him perhaps you could ask him if he has seen the piece on Facebook and ask him if knows who it might be (bit of sneaky detective work, watch his face). You may be able to tell if it was him or someone completely different. On the other hand, if it was him you may not see them again. If you are far enough away and you spot him coming is there opportunities to stroll off in another direction.


----------



## Fluffster

Yeah that's what I was thinking. If he was going to attack her, I think he would have in the early days when she persisted in trying to play with him, now she understands he's not interested and doesn't try and engage with him. Although she does like to chase his ball with him, but doesn't dare go pick it up :lol: She just waits for him to get there if she's ahead! 

It's such a shame if it is this dog cos his owner is a lovely man and obviously cares for him a lot  We were having a discussion the other day about feeding raw and how we were finding it, and he spends hours a day out with him playing with his ball and his flirt pole. His staffy sometimes comes over to me for a fuss and he's such a softy with people. I'll probably go down there tomorrow and see if he's around, he's there at the same time every day so if he's not there, might be an indication


----------



## Siskin

lupie said:


> Welcome Siskin - off you trot to catch up on all the pages. We will sit here with a cup of tea  :lol:


Ok finished! What shall I do now



lupie said:


> And we had FOUR yes FOUR pass-bys with other dogs - one with NO barking, and the other 3 with some barks but no lunging, no growling! I could dance a jig! :lol:


Isn't it a great feeling when something goes well.


----------



## Fluffster

Siskin said:


> Next time you see him perhaps you could ask him if he has seen the piece on Facebook and ask him if knows who it might be (bit of sneaky detective work, watch his face). You may be able to tell if it was him or someone completely different. On the other hand, if it was him you may not see them again. If you are far enough away and you spot him coming is there opportunities to stroll off in another direction.


Yes, you can see people coming from miles away down there so we could always turn and go the other way! I like the sneaky detective work idea


----------



## Fluffster

I've been reading the stuff about OHs on walks with interest. My OH will always come with me and Daisy if he's not working, and I do enjoy it. But I do also like it just me and Daisy as we have a different dynamic I think, and OH doesn't really bother to train her recall or anything (hence why she never comes when he calls, only me :lol: ) whereas me and Daisy do a lot of training when we're out.

The way it works for us at the moment is during the week, I walk Daisy solo during day, he sometimes takes her out in evenings too, but not lately with weather as it has been. Then at weekends, we go out together so it's quite a good balance. I do sometimes wish he would do a bit more with her, he wants to lose weight but his idea of taking Daisy out is 20 mins out the back while he throws her ball


----------



## GingerRogers

Siskin said:


> Ok finished! What shall I do now
> 
> .


I call liar lol


----------



## Mumtomaddog

Hi everyone!..

Happy New Year to you all. 

I think its about time i joined this thread if thats ok.. Really need to start the New Year trying to 
get some structure in place with Max for all his carrying on like a lunatic, and this might be a good way to start if ive to 'report in' here 

I'm going to have to go and try to have a read through as many of the previous posts as i can. Wish me luck, i may be gone some time!


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> I'm working today so OH took Daisy out. I always worry a bit when it's just the two of them, I don't know why  too much of a control freak I guess!
> 
> The other day, I saw on the local news page on Facebook that there had been a dog attack on our usual walking route. I'm a bit worried that it's the staffy that me and Daisy meet most days  The post said it was known to be tempremental with new dogs, which he is, and that the owner is usually careful, which he is, he always puts him on lead when unknown dogs approach. The staffy attacked a man's dog, and then the man got bitten when he tried to intervene.
> 
> I feel a bit wary about going up there now. This dog has never really liked Daisy much, the first time they met, he pinned her down but she just went limp and then he just ignored her. Now when we meet, he just ignores her and she ignores him largely, although he sometimes growls if she gets a bit close when he's got his ball. I'm not sure what to do now if we see them  Especially as I'm not 100% sure it IS this dog, but all the stuff added up from the post. I don't want to put Daisy in danger, but we've seen them every day for the past couple of weeks almost and me and the owner have stood chatting while the dogs amuse themselves - the staffy chewing on his ball, and Daisy just racing around.
> 
> And I don't want to judge and start just walking on or ignoring them, especially if it's NOT this dog, but how do you ask someone if their dog attacked another?!


Hard one; the dog that attacked Kilo is still walked offlead and unmuzzled and still approaches dogs. The woman says that he is fine with other dogs and the man says he can be a bit iffy BUT he doesn't attack the majority of dogs he meets clearly.....I think it is irresponsible in the extreme in case a dog annoys him and he decides to tell it off....so....perhaps ask this man whether he has seen the FB piece and whether or not he knows the dog involved. I don't know really - if he is fine with Daisy then carrying on as normal wouldn't do any harm either...it's the "what ifs" for me .



lupie said:


> Welcome Siskin - off you trot to catch up on all the pages. We will sit here with a cup of tea  :lol:
> 
> Dog owning has changed me - just got back from a walk and it was windy and wet but I had my wellies and waterproofs and my new sealskin gloves and I was pretty much toasty and dry and I loved it! Ruska was thrilled to be out again even if she didn't get to go offlead.
> 
> And we had FOUR yes FOUR pass-bys with other dogs - one with NO barking, and the other 3 with some barks but no lunging, no growling! I could dance a jig! :lol:


I am willing to bet it's because Ruska has missed walks recently with being in season and her stress levels have dropped. Maybe. I'm a bit skint post sales shopping :scared:.


----------



## lupie

Siskin said:


> Ok finished! What shall I do now


Ummmm...biscuit? :lol:



Dogless said:


> I am willing to bet it's because Ruska has missed walks recently with being in season and her stress levels have dropped. Maybe. I'm a bit skint post sales shopping :scared:.


Yes that must be it. Hopefully we can keep them nice and low.


----------



## diefenbaker

Spent New Year with 2 Springers, a Labradoodle.. and Dief. Our New Years Day walk was at the Devils Punchbowl. There were lots of trees down and it was startting to blow a gale so I made everyone walk down the old A3 which was left to go back to nature when they built the Hindhead tunnel. They were not impressed to get 9 sodden walkers turn up at the Cafe just as they'd cleaned up for closing.


----------



## lupie

diefenbaker said:


> Spent New Year with 2 Springers, a Labradoodle.. and Dief. Our New Years Day walk was at the Devils Punchbowl. There were lots of trees down and it was startting to blow a gale so I made everyone walk down the old A3 which was left to go back to nature when they built the Hindhead tunnel. They were not impressed to get 9 sodden walkers turn up at the Cafe just as they'd cleaned up for closing.


Love the devils punchbowl! Still find it weird walking down the old a3...
Must go there for a walk soon, such a nice one. Bet the cafe just loved you all!


----------



## Dogless

Went for a morning's trail running bright and early this morning. The boys were like greyhounds out of the traps for some reason - because it was very cold and windy??? - which was fine for Rudi but I was attached to Kilo so the first few minutes were fast and brutal and the sort of running where your breath is forced out as you're landing so hard. It went something like "Agh - ooff - ugh - arrrggghhh - Steady!!!!" :crazy: until I managed to get a fast but steady and doable (for me!!) pace going. Roo managed to flush out rabbits, a hare, grouse, woodcock.....and about 40 minutes into the run three wild goats  :scared:. BUT I managed to keep Kilo on the track using just verbal commands (no holding the line) rather than pulling off to the side where the goats were running even though he was squeaking with excitement which was a big victory :thumbup:. It just meant that the next mile or so was at supersonic speeds - the boom as he broke the speed of sound is probably still echoing around the glens :scared: :lol:. Roo is no dramas BTW with chasing - he leaves be when asked to; he doesn't go round chasing wildlife, just has an amazing nose that finds anything :scared:.

So - a tough run, but absolutely fantastic :thumbup:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Went for a morning's trail running bright and early this morning. The boys were like greyhounds out of the traps for some reason - because it was very cold and windy??? - which was fine for Rudi but I was attached to Kilo so the first few minutes were fast and brutal and the sort of running where your breath is forced out as you're landing so hard. It went something like "Agh - ooff - ugh - arrrggghhh - Steady!!!!" :crazy: until I managed to get a fast but steady and doable (for me!!) pace going. Roo managed to flush out rabbits, a hare, grouse, woodcock.....and about 40 minutes into the run three wild goats  :scared:. BUT I managed to keep Kilo on the track using just verbal commands (no holding the line) rather than pulling off to the side where the goats were running even though he was squeaking with excitement which was a big victory :thumbup:. It just meant that the next mile or so was at supersonic speeds - the boom as he broke the speed of sound is probably still echoing around the glens :scared: :lol:. Roo is no dramas BTW with chasing - he leaves be when asked to; he doesn't go round chasing wildlife, just has an amazing nose that finds anything :scared:.
> 
> So - a tough run, but absolutely fantastic :thumbup:.


Ye Gods woman...!! It made me feel very tired just reading your post.


----------



## Siskin

Same here, I'm exhausted


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Ye Gods woman...!! It made me feel very tired just reading your post.


I am sure little HB would be up for a spot of Grannie towing :scared: :lol:.


----------



## diefenbaker

See this is why you need to get your OH's out more.. you're missing moments like this..

We've walked Dief up the the second field... and played a little with his tennis ball. The ball is all slobbery and muddy.. Mrs Dief puts it in a poo bag and we carry on up through the woods and round the stream. Going round the stream Dief answers the call of nature. Poo bag with ball goes in pocket and Mrs Dief carries bag with dog log. Back into second field and Dief looks expactantly for his tennis ball again. Mrs Dief "Where is it ?" Mr Dief "You've got it". Hand goes in bag... uhoh. I didn't laugh.. much.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> See this is why you need to get your OH's out more.. you're missing moments like this..
> 
> We've walked Dief up the the second field... and played a little with his tennis ball. The ball is all slobbery and muddy.. Mrs Dief puts it in a poo bag and we carry on up through the woods and round the stream. Going round the stream Dief answers the call of nature. Poo bag with ball goes in pocket and Mrs Dief carries bag with dog log. Back into second field and Dief looks expactantly for his tennis ball again. Mrs Dief "Where is it ?" Mr Dief "You've got it". Hand goes in bag... uhoh. I didn't laugh.. much.


Uuuuuurrrrggghggghhhhhhhhh :scared:. Hubby doesn't "do" carrying poo so it can't happen to him .


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> See this is why you need to get your OH's out more.. you're missing moments like this..
> 
> We've walked Dief up the the second field... and played a little with his tennis ball. The ball is all slobbery and muddy.. Mrs Dief puts it in a poo bag and we carry on up through the woods and round the stream. Going round the stream Dief answers the call of nature. Poo bag with ball goes in pocket and Mrs Dief carries bag with dog log. Back into second field and Dief looks expactantly for his tennis ball again. Mrs Dief "Where is it ?" Mr Dief "You've got it". Hand goes in bag... uhoh. *I didn't laugh.. much.*


No of course you didn't. You would have been very sympathetic....


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I am sure little HB would be up for a spot of Grannie towing :scared: :lol:.


Holly's not strong enough. Those two ASDs that train here would - I might even beat you and Kilo with them pulling me along...:lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Sigh 

After spending the whole of the Christmas period staying away from the tourists and their holiday dogs in an attempt to keep ninja stress free she seems to have ramped herself up to an extraordinary level.

Had a lovely walk yesterday in the wind and driving rain, felt confident enough there would be no one about so had her off lead nearly the whole way. Just heading up the last stretch and we are face into the wind so I put her on lead as there's no way she would hear me if I need to call her.

And someone comes over the brow of the hill with an offlead lab, I dive down the hedgerow at right angles, sadly she spots it, from a mile off :frown: and gets herself worked up.

Any whoo later on quick trot round the block before bed and we nearly bump into the houdini greyhound (on lead this time, had a chat with the lady a few weeks back, she got a double ender after seeing mine :thumbup but still I manage to escape with just a little fuss.

Today she has been nuts  there was a little dog barking somewhere on our pavement potter this morning, she was nuts all morning after to teh point my hubby actually got annoyed, he doesn't normally bother, this afternoon she barked at a man on the road a whole field away :frown: she has been barking at people a lot more. 

Just dont know why she has suddenly got so antsy when we have had such a calm time


----------



## Dogless

GR - I am sorry . Do you think it might have been partly the strong wind? Or the TV stressing her again meaning she is generally stressed? . Some kind of extinction burst? I have no idea but am really rooting for you.

Good about the greyhound lady listening to you though, at least that's a small positive .


----------



## Fluffster

GingerRogers said:


> Sigh
> 
> After spending the whole of the Christmas period staying away from the tourists and their holiday dogs in an attempt to keep ninja stress free she seems to have ramped herself up to an extraordinary level.
> 
> Had a lovely walk yesterday in the wind and driving rain, felt confident enough there would be no one about so had her off lead nearly the whole way. Just heading up the last stretch and we are face into the wind so I put her on lead as there's no way she would hear me if I need to call her.
> 
> And someone comes over the brow of the hill with an offlead lab, I dive down the hedgerow at right angles, sadly she spots it, from a mile off :frown: and gets herself worked up.
> 
> Any whoo later on quick trot round the block before bed and we nearly bump into the houdini greyhound (on lead this time, had a chat with the lady a few weeks back, she got a double ender after seeing mine :thumbup but still I manage to escape with just a little fuss.
> 
> Today she has been nuts  there was a little dog barking somewhere on our pavement potter this morning, she was nuts all morning after to teh point my hubby actually got annoyed, he doesn't normally bother, this afternoon she barked at a man on the road a whole field away :frown: she has been barking at people a lot more.
> 
> Just dont know why she has suddenly got so antsy when we have had such a calm time


Sorry to hear this  I hope it was just a blip and she's a bit more settled next time.

After my post yesterday about OH only taking Daisy up the back for a ball throw, it seems my subtle (ahem) suggestions have paid off! He took her to the forest today by himself :thumbup: and sent me some pics and a video of their trip, so that's made me smile at work. Although he took his eye off her to send them and she had jumped in the pond and got filthy :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

GR I agree with Dogless - it could be the wind. It does funny things to dogs and horses and can make them very flighty.


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Sorry to hear this  I hope it was just a blip and she's a bit more settled next time.
> 
> After my post yesterday about OH only taking Daisy up the back for a ball throw, it seems my subtle (ahem) suggestions have paid off! He took her to the forest today by himself :thumbup: and sent me some pics and a video of their trip, so that's made me smile at work. *Although he took his eye off her to send them and she had jumped in the pond and got filthy* :lol:


You can't have everything I suppose :lol: but I reckon he did well :thumbup:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> GR - I am sorry . Do you think it might have been partly the strong wind? Or the TV stressing her again meaning she is generally stressed? . Some kind of extinction burst? I have no idea but am really rooting for you.
> 
> Good about the greyhound lady listening to you though, at least that's a small positive .


I really dont know Dogless, the wind yesterday was unsettling but its calmed again today.

It wasn't the telly first thing, she has been reacting to it since the morning walk, but when I turned it on as I got up I realised that normal service has not resumed and there appeared to be animals on every channel so I turned it off again 

I have just realised she had wet food today for brekky, it was turkey but not raw turkey :confused1:

If its an extinction burst that would be great but I think not somehow 

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed today I have to say  what if she never improves past here, I have at least 15 years of coping and management and as you know it can be very very tiring and upsetting :scared:

ETA sorry just new year blues I think 

And she doesn't deserve any sympathy  she killed a mole the other day, she pounced on it on our walk and it was lying in the path today :frown: RIP moley, feel bad not to haev let her finish it off but I was like  its a mole a real live mole, dont kill the mole


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I really dont know Dogless, the wind yesterday was unsettling but its calmed again today.
> 
> It wasn't the telly first thing, she has been reacting to it since the morning walk, but when I turned it on as I got up I realised that normal service has not resumed and there appeared to be animals on every channel so I turned it off again
> 
> I have just realised she had wet food today for brekky, it was turkey but not raw turkey :confused1:
> 
> If its an extinction burst that would be great but I think not somehow
> 
> *I am feeling a bit overwhelmed today I have to say  what if she never improves past here, I have at least 15 years of coping and management and as you know it can be very very tiring and upsetting* :scared:


Yes, I know . I think we all have days where we get overwhelmed....but in a way we just cannot afford to think that things will never improve somehow if you understand my meaning? We are all allowed to cut ourselves some slack sometimes though and I think today is one of those where you need to be kind to yourself too. I truly hope that tomorrow is better.


----------



## Fluffster

If my short time on here and owning a dog in general has taught me anything, it's that dogs are so adaptable and CAN change their behaviour for the better. I've also learnt that sometimes it can feel like you are going backwards, but you aren't. Every positive experience you (and she) have, is building a stronger foundation, they all matter. But you are definitely allowed to be sad about it sometimes too, that's only natural. But you'll pick yourself back up again and tomorrow the two of you will be out again, working together 

*hug*


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I really dont know Dogless, the wind yesterday was unsettling but its calmed again today.
> 
> It wasn't the telly first thing, she has been reacting to it since the morning walk, but when I turned it on as I got up I realised that normal service has not resumed and there appeared to be animals on every channel so I turned it off again
> 
> I have just realised she had wet food today for brekky, it was turkey but not raw turkey :confused1:
> 
> If its an extinction burst that would be great but I think not somehow
> 
> I am feeling a bit overwhelmed today I have to say  what if she never improves past here, I have at least 15 years of coping and management and as you know it can be very very tiring and upsetting :scared:
> 
> ETA sorry just new year blues I think
> 
> Come on GR. The Ninja *has* improved. You're having a bad day.


----------



## lupie

Sorry to hear you've had a bad day GR - hopefully it's just an off day and Ninja will surprise you


----------



## shadowmare

Oh GR sorry to hear you've been having bad days :sad: Don't forget that all of us get our bad days. But the good moments are always worth it!


As promised I have been working on Axel's recall and he's been on the long line for the most of the time. And the last couple of days have been really great. Yesterday we went for a long walk in our large park where he stayed on the long line (although most of the time i would just drop it). And I did a lot of general training as well as recall from various distance, while he was sniffing about, focus on some pigeons or chase his ball. Today when we went for a quick walk I continued working on his recall and today he started coming back to me before even reaching his ball (without me calling):laugh: I guess the old cheese in my pocket was a better reward then the toy:drool: He would even come back from his zoomies :thumbup: I do hope I'm not going to jinx it though!:glare:


----------



## Twiggy

I had a bit of good fortune today...

On Wednesday hubby and I had a lucky dip for the National lottery. I checked the numbers on TV and told him we'd won £25. Hubby duly trots off the the papershop yesterday to claim our winnings only to be told, after they'd checked the numbers twice, that it wasn't a winning ticket. He said it was very embarrassing and all my fault of course.

Anyway this morning when I was tidying up I found a lottery ticket.....!!

I've treated myself to a rather nice jersey jacket greatly reduced in the Viyella sale.....:thumbup:


----------



## AdMed

diefenbaker said:


> See this is why you need to get your OH's out more.. you're missing moments like this..
> 
> We've walked Dief up the the second field... and played a little with his tennis ball. The ball is all slobbery and muddy.. Mrs Dief puts it in a poo bag and we carry on up through the woods and round the stream. Going round the stream Dief answers the call of nature. Poo bag with ball goes in pocket and Mrs Dief carries bag with dog log. Back into second field and Dief looks expactantly for his tennis ball again. Mrs Dief "Where is it ?" Mr Dief "You've got it". Hand goes in bag... uhoh. I didn't laugh.. much.


You evil, evil man :lol:


----------



## lupie

Finally got myself into gear to go out for a run after work. 

It's probably been at least 3 months :scared: I only did 4.2km as I had no idea how me or Ruska would do. Went okay! Apart from Ruska stopping and making me step on our canicross lead and she whacked her head on my knee! :scared: Hope she's okay, felt bad. 

Only came across 2 dogs and they were together. We stopped and pulled to the side, I let her clock them and fed her. They left the path to go down a sidepath and i let her watch them leave before we set off again. No barking   SO chuffed 

Though we were standing in some thick mud, i think she was more concerned about how muddy her feet were getting :lol:

On our way back up my road she stopped and grabbed something, and I bent down to see...to my horror it was a whole cooked chicken carcass!  :scared: I had to pretty much pry it out of her mouth. I think she thought all her Christmasses had come at once. :scared:


----------



## AdMed

GR I echo the others with days of feeling overwhelmed. I hope tomorrow seems a little brighter.

I left work early to have a daylight walk with Barney, we had a good hour with some lovely on lead walking and some good "let's go" away from sheep and birds and other hidden wildlife.

But...it was a bit of a cop out as I could have made it to one of our off lead walks but we've had some failed recall issues recently which have dented my confidence with him again. I know I need to go back to the long line and walking round the countryside like some kind of weird dominatrix with a rabbit tug toy attached to a lunge whip to go back through the proofing stage, and he does always come back after a wander but today I just needed something "easy".

We've done some training since we got back, which he loves, and reminds how good he is really.


----------



## Mumtomaddog

Dogless said:


> Went for a morning's trail running bright and early this morning. The boys were like greyhounds out of the traps for some reason - because it was very cold and windy??? - which was fine for Rudi but I was attached to Kilo so the first few minutes were fast and brutal and the sort of running where your breath is forced out as you're landing so hard. It went something like "Agh - ooff - ugh - arrrggghhh - Steady!!!!" :crazy: until I managed to get a fast but steady and doable (for me!!) pace going. Roo managed to flush out rabbits, a hare, grouse, woodcock.....and about 40 minutes into the run three wild goats  :scared:. BUT I managed to keep Kilo on the track using just verbal commands (no holding the line) rather than pulling off to the side where the goats were running even though he was squeaking with excitement which was a big victory :thumbup:. It just meant that the next mile or so was at supersonic speeds - the boom as he broke the speed of sound is probably still echoing around the glens :scared: :lol:. Roo is no dramas BTW with chasing - he leaves be when asked to; he doesn't go round chasing wildlife, just has an amazing nose that finds anything :scared:.
> 
> So - a tough run, but absolutely fantastic :thumbup:.


Sounds like a fun run, Dogless! despite lots of puffing and panting 



diefenbaker said:


> See this is why you need to get your OH's out more.. you're missing moments like this..
> 
> We've walked Dief up the the second field... and played a little with his tennis ball. The ball is all slobbery and muddy.. Mrs Dief puts it in a poo bag and we carry on up through the woods and round the stream. Going round the stream Dief answers the call of nature. Poo bag with ball goes in pocket and Mrs Dief carries bag with dog log. Back into second field and Dief looks expactantly for his tennis ball again. Mrs Dief "Where is it ?" Mr Dief "You've got it". Hand goes in bag... uhoh. I didn't laugh.. much.


Eugghh! Poor Mrs Dief 



GingerRogers said:


> Sigh
> 
> After spending the whole of the Christmas period staying away from the tourists and their holiday dogs in an attempt to keep ninja stress free she seems to have ramped herself up to an extraordinary level.
> 
> Had a lovely walk yesterday in the wind and driving rain, felt confident enough there would be no one about so had her off lead nearly the whole way. Just heading up the last stretch and we are face into the wind so I put her on lead as there's no way she would hear me if I need to call her.
> 
> And someone comes over the brow of the hill with an offlead lab, I dive down the hedgerow at right angles, sadly she spots it, from a mile off :frown: and gets herself worked up.
> 
> Any whoo later on quick trot round the block before bed and we nearly bump into the houdini greyhound (on lead this time, had a chat with the lady a few weeks back, she got a double ender after seeing mine :thumbup but still I manage to escape with just a little fuss.
> 
> Today she has been nuts  there was a little dog barking somewhere on our pavement potter this morning, she was nuts all morning after to teh point my hubby actually got annoyed, he doesn't normally bother, this afternoon she barked at a man on the road a whole field away :frown: she has been barking at people a lot more.
> 
> Just dont know why she has suddenly got so antsy when we have had such a calm time


Sorry things arent going well GingerRogers. Hopefully things will get better and you will realize the progress that has been made. 



shadowmare said:


> Oh GR sorry to hear you've been having bad days :sad: Don't forget that all of us get our bad days. But the good moments are always worth it!
> 
> As promised I have been working on Axel's recall and he's been on the long line for the most of the time. And the last couple of days have been really great. Yesterday we went for a long walk in our large park where he stayed on the long line (although most of the time i would just drop it). And I did a lot of general training as well as recall from various distance, while he was sniffing about, focus on some pigeons or chase his ball. Today when we went for a quick walk I continued working on his recall and today he started coming back to me before even reaching his ball (without me calling):laugh: I guess the old cheese in my pocket was a better reward then the toy:drool: He would even come back from his zoomies :thumbup: I do hope I'm not going to jinx it though!:glare:


Glad the recall is coming along well. 



Twiggy said:


> I had a bit of good fortune today...
> 
> On Wednesday hubby and I had a lucky dip for the National lottery. I checked the numbers on TV and told him we'd won £25. Hubby duly trots off the the papershop yesterday to claim our winnings only to be told, after they'd checked the numbers twice, that it wasn't a winning ticket. He said it was very embarrassing and all my fault of course.
> 
> Anyway this morning when I was tidying up I found a lottery ticket.....!!
> 
> I've treated myself to a rather nice jersey jacket greatly reduced in the Viyella sale.....:thumbup:


Woohoo!.. excellent find! 



lupie said:


> Finally got myself into gear to go out for a run after work.
> 
> It's probably been at least 3 months :scared: I only did 4.2km as I had no idea how me or Ruska would do. Went okay! Apart from Ruska stopping and making me step on our canicross lead and she whacked her head on my knee! :scared: Hope she's okay, felt bad.
> 
> Only came across 2 dogs and they were together. We stopped and pulled to the side, I let her clock them and fed her. They left the path to go down a sidepath and i let her watch them leave before we set off again. No barking   SO chuffed
> 
> Though we were standing in some thick mud, i think she was more concerned about how muddy her feet were getting :lol:
> 
> On our way back up my road she stopped and grabbed something, and I bent down to see...to my horror it was a whole cooked chicken carcass!  :scared: I had to pretty much pry it out of her mouth. I think she thought all her Christmasses had come at once. :scared:


 Glad you managed to get it off her!

This morning its blowing a real old gale here and blustery winds. Not sure how far we'll get out today, Max isnt over keen on all this bad weather.

Had a good walk yesterday. I was needing to get out in the morning for some stuff for son to go back to school so was only intending to go for a quick walk at that time and maybe field later on.
Anyhow, as i set off for what would be our usual on lead route, realized i was making good time so kept going on, then came to the field where i usually go into. Max kind of looked at me and i felt so guilty so i thought, well ok, 5 mins charge about. Was only as i'd sent him off that i realized id no treats, no toys etc.  Panicked a bit as he ran off like a bat out of hell, but as soon as i called him, he looked across and came shooting over... Cue loads of praise and 'scruffles'. My heart was in my mouth in case another dog came as i hadnt my squeeky or anything to distract him. No dogs and perfect recall from Max, so very proud of him. Recall is coming along excellent nowadays. 

Last night on his last 'wee' walk we saw the usual cat sitting on its window outside its house. Max usually slobbers, up on hind legs and snapping and growling but just gave him the odd glance, every second or two. I was so busy telling Max what a good boy he was, while Max was still eyeing the kitty cautiously, that i didnt actully realize that a parked car was so close and of course, neither did Max, so of course Max walked into the car  thought it would set him off but he was still fine! So pleased with him. 

Hope ive managed to acknowledge everyones posts here, i'm not used to multiquoting so much! Sorry if ive missed anything.


----------



## Freddie and frank

happy new year all.

we have been doing lots of 'leave it' with bella.inside and some outside. it's come in handy in lots of situations around the house...filling the dishwasher up, she sits now instead of helping to pre wash the plates  it also came in handy when taking the christmas tree down, we eat our meals at the breakfast bar and she jumps up occasionaly. i used to say 'off' but now i'm using 'leave it' and she responds better. slowly but surely, we'll get there.

i'm not accepting half measures from any of them either so fingers crossed we're on the right road. lets just hope others will stick to it and use the same commands...hmmmm 

hubby is 40 in a few weeks so we're off on holiday for a few days. my parents are coming down to look after son and dogs so we're doing LOTS of seperate loose lead walking so that they're all well behaved for them.

will have a read through tonight, but for now hope you're all ok.


----------



## Dogless

Vile stormy weather - check.

Separate onlead walks - check

Kilo walking nicely to heel and sitting to cross roads when we saw the policeman I moan about out of control dogs to which can be a feat in very windy weather - check

6 hours awake and only 11.5 to go, not that I am counting.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thanks for the support yesterday, I had a good nights sleep and feel much better, have resumed raw turkey diet and have a ninja lying on my feet in anticipation of a walk.

We have also been progressing with this weeks forum challenge which I am delighted with as I really didnt think she would get it at all, but kitty is being lobbed into a box with gusto (on occasion) 

Admed- no cop out at all (as F&F knows ) there is no point going out and setting 'yourself' up for disappointment as the cycle starts again, I cop out a lot in places I know hubby would let her run riot but I dont want her practicing that behavior  I 'cop out' for days after we have an incident, I find if I have one or two places I can safely let her offlead even if for 5 mins I can at least build my confidence again but even those are hard to come by.

 MTMD I have had those impromptu walks were I didnt take treats, didnt need them then :yikes: I have no crutch  then I remember hubby doesnt need them  :angry:

Twiggy - devious it will come back to bite you, enjoy the jacket 

F&F - pleased you are making progress, when I first started training classes I was told a good strong 'leave it' will work wonders, just march her by with a leave it and she will stop barking. I was bit like yeah of course it will  but actually the more ingrained the command gets the more uses it seems to have although I still feel rude blurting out 'leave it' as we walk past people in the street 

Dogless liked because Kilo didnt embarrass you in front of mr plod  otherwise you sound exhausted, take care.


----------



## Siskin

Freddie and frank said:


> happy new year all.
> 
> we have been doing lots of 'leave it' with bella.inside and some outside. it's come in handy in lots of situations around the house...filling the dishwasher up, she sits now instead of helping to pre wash the plates  it also came in handy when taking the christmas tree down, we eat our meals at the breakfast bar and she jumps up occasionaly. i used to say 'off' but now i'm using 'leave it' and she responds better. slowly but surely, we'll get there.)


I've been using the "leave it" command during a 'tuggy' session, getting her to stop and let go then we start playing it again, just as some impulse control. Consequently she is responding better to 'leave it' then 'off' which I was using for her to get off things or when she jumps up on us. 
Know what you mean about the doggy prewash!


----------



## Guest

Well I have had a very 'ploddy' lurcher these past couple days, probs cause its pouring with rain and we all know sighthounds think they are going to melt in the rain! :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> happy new year all.
> 
> *we have been doing lots of 'leave it' with bella.inside and some outside*. it's come in handy in lots of situations around the house...filling the dishwasher up, she sits now instead of helping to pre wash the plates  it also came in handy when taking the christmas tree down, we eat our meals at the breakfast bar and she jumps up occasionaly. i used to say 'off' but now i'm using 'leave it' and she responds better. slowly but surely, we'll get there.
> 
> i'm not accepting half measures from any of them either so fingers crossed we're on the right road. lets just hope others will stick to it and use the same commands...hmmmm
> 
> I've just returned with Barley after a session with the clinical canine massage therapist.
> 
> I've been helping her with her two Rough Collies. She's already had 3 behaviourist to them and was about to engage the 4th until I told her to cancel the visit.
> 
> I have to say she's done as she was told and put some work in and they were much better behaved this morning.
> 
> Not only were they belting out of the back door barking their heads of at 6.00am at a neighbouring cat but the bitch was flipping her lid when the cutlery drawer was opened, the dishwasher, etc. etc.
> 
> We progressed the 'leave' and 'good quiet' cues this morning....:thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

I've just had the specialist vet from The Queens Veterinary School Hospital, Cambridge, on the phone. Really nice guy who was pleased to hear that Leafy is doing OK. He says I can ring him at any time if I'm worried or need advice.


----------



## Dogless

GR - so pleased to hear that your day was much better today . Loved your photo thread too.

Twiggy - how lovely to have someone so caring when it comes to Leafy.

Night time walk done here, lots of drunk folk about. Rudi only, not Kilo, as folk tend to "bark" and make noises at dogs round here for some reason and he wasn't mad keen on coming anyway. Didn't want to stress him. Still feel bad I only walked Roo though but never mind. Tomorrow's another day.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> GR - so pleased to hear that your day was much better today . Loved your photo thread too.
> 
> Twiggy - how lovely to have someone so caring when it comes to Leafy.
> 
> Night time walk done here, lots of drunk folk about. Rudi only, not Kilo, *as folk tend to "bark" and make noises at dogs round here for some reason and he *wasn't mad keen on coming anyway. Didn't want to stress him. Still feel bad I only walked Roo though but never mind. Tomorrow's another day.


There's no answer to that....:frown2:


----------



## Fluffster

Cos they're a bunch of animals. Bloody t*ats.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Night time walk done here, lots of drunk folk about. Rudi only, not Kilo, as folk tend to "bark" and make noises at dogs round here for some reason and he wasn't mad keen on coming anyway. Didn't want to stress him. Still feel bad I only walked Roo though but never mind. Tomorrow's another day.


I was once followed whilst out walking Ruska and got miaowed at the whole way. I just...don't get it. 

Glorious, uneventful walk here. No dogs, some brilliant LLW. Mud, wind, rain yada yada.


----------



## Nicki85

Hello! Sorry I've been absent  Holidays mean less computer time  but back to work now....

We are all good here, the dogs were thoroughly spoilt over Christmas (as they are every day of the year in my opinion...) and all their new soft toys are still intact! They play less together due to being worn out I think... they will occasionally play but spare time is spent snoozing so toys are lasting longer. 

Rust is in a good routine now to keep his legs in order and also reduce my stress levels. We are doing the morning walk with him on the longline (perhaps back to the running in the dry weather) and Shae off and then separate afternoon walks where he gets to run round offlead in the forest. I feel bad keeping him on lead in the morning but in all honesty my nerves can't cope with Shae chasing him and trying to bring him back and then them both disappearing into the distance... this coupled with his leg not being able to cope with more than an hour and a half off lead per day does really mean the long line is the best option. He seems happy enough anyhow... and the offlead walks I can engage him more with his toy (he won't take the toy if Shae Is around). It's strange, his behaviour hasn't changed on walks (he still does flypasts and disappears for 40-60secs) but it now really panics me when he goes into full on hunt mode. I don't let him off in unknown areas anymore just incase whereas in the past I would have. 

Shae is fab, she's loving the wet fields. Her toy drive is still increasing and I have to be careful getting her across the road to the field to play ball as she knows what's coming! Lots of stopping and waiting for her to calm down  I need to work on calming her down after winding her up... SHe's also discovered squirrels recently but is easy to recall around them. I want to start her weaves off but it's so wet I can see us trashing the lawn. 

Both are currently learning to place a left paw on a coaster and then we'll do the right paw as well. Rusty has got it but Shae is still a bit manic and needs further proofing! 

Hope every one had a lovely Christmas and new year


----------



## Freddie and frank

good evening. 

mtmd...no treats  well done on the recall max. 
admed...re the long line, as gr said it's no cop out. i have issues with frank and keep him on a long line most of the time when we're doing 'off lead' walks. i used to think that he wouldn't be happy unless he was totally off lead, but after he ran off after deer scents a couple of times, i don't chance it now unless i'm in a secure place. i will occasionaly let it trail on the floor but most times i have hold of it. 
dogless...i cant understand why people would do that  morons. tomorrow is another day and hopefully they'll all be in bed with a hangover. 
gr...sorry you had a bad day yesterday, but looked like a fab walk today in the rain.

well, bellas 'leave it' was put to the test tonight. was just putting the ham joint slices on our plates tonight, when i turned around to get some parsley sauce...someone had jumped up and grabbed the half that was left on the chopping board  i shouted 'leave it' just as it was half in her mouth, and she sort of dropped it...then grabbed it again  i got it off her with not much of a struggle, but don't think i said 'leave it' though when i turned my back like i normally do so perhaps she thought it was ok to make a grab for it. 
it'll be cut up for treats now.


----------



## Nicki85

My previous spanner was a thief.... Even to this day I push everything right back on the counters  you will get there with Bella! I guess just go back a stage and proof the leave it before trying that move again ;-) 

Rusty is too worried to even look at food on the counter (previous home experience... I haven't done anything to him!) but he will sit next to me now while I est lunch and dinner without looking worried. It makes it even more difficult teaching him impulse control as he gets so worried in those training situations... Shae usually has her halo on and will sit and whine when there is something within her reach that she wants!


----------



## Mumtomaddog

Freddie and Frank: Hope everyone manages to use the same commands and that while you're away , your parents manage to keep up the good work with the dogs.
Hopefully the next Ham joint will survive!

GingerRogers: Not sure what the forum challenge is, but hope that Ninjas doing well with it. Glad you got a good nights sleep and are feeling a bit better now.

Siskin: Hopefully 'leave it' will continue to improve. 

Twiggy: Hope Barley enjoyed the Massage session!

Dogless: Cant give any answers as to the barking drunks, can't fathom that behaviour at all. Hopefully Kilo will get a good walk today... weather seems to have died down a bit here. 

Lupie: Glad you've had an uneventful walk and successful LLW.

Nicki: Hope the 'coaster work' continues to go well and improve.


The weather is definitely better here this morning so i intend to get Max out as soon as possible. Will take treats but maybe only use them on odd recalls, rather than every time and see how we go. 

I do actually need to work on his toy stuff as he often wont give it back, he gets so excited and often wont let me take it back from him. He's fine inside, will 'drop' or 'leave' but in the field he seems to go a bit loopy but we'll continue to work with it and hopefully one day he'll sit nicely after dropping his toy and allow me to throw it for him to retrieve!


----------



## Twiggy

*Mumtomaddog:*
_I do actually need to work on his toy stuff as he often wont give it back, he gets so excited and often wont let me take it back from him. He's fine inside, will 'drop' or 'leave' but in the field he seems to go a bit loopy but we'll continue to work with it and hopefully one day he'll sit nicely after dropping his toy and allow me to throw it for him to retrieve!_

*Nicki85*
_Rusty is too worried to even look at food on the counter (previous home experience... I haven't done anything to him!) but he will sit next to me now while I est lunch and dinner without looking worried. It makes it even more difficult teaching him impulse control as he gets so worried in those training situations... Shae usually has her halo on and will sit and whine when there is something within her reach that she wants!_

As with all these things it's how the approach, adapt and work through these problems. As far as the dogs are concerned if it's all part of the game then they will happily comply.

I had to smile to myself yesterday morning as the therapists two rough collies sat looking adoringly at me (she thinks I'm a genius)....LOL The last behaviourist she was about to employ wouldn't even come in the house unless the dog was muzzled, and the advice proffered by the other three (for which she paid a considerable sum of money) was ridiculous and diabolical at say the least.

I fully intend to go out walking with her when the weather picks up with my dogs and I know they will all be off the lead, they will all come back when called and we will have some lovely walks with well mannered dogs.

Well that's until she gets her Afghan puppy...!! I know absolutely nothing about them apart from the fact they look beautiful when they move, but I would guess training them might be challenging.


----------



## Siskin

I think I've just taught Isla how to counter surf

We were going out last night and were being picked up by out friends. We were waiting for them to arrive and in order to be ready to go I got the biscuits out that I normally give Isla for going into her crate before we leave her. I put them on the kitchen worktops, then went to get my coat. When I got back I could hear crunching and a slightly guilty Isla stuck her head round the door, then went back to the kitchen. When I got into the kitchen, there she was front paws up on the counter trying to reach her biscuits. She's only tried to counter surf once when she was younger and got short shrift and hadn't done it again. This morning when I was getting my breakfast together, up went her front paws onto the counter again! Not well received by me and another bit of finger wagging and frowns (usually fairly effective with Goldens). Just hope it's a minor blip and only need to keep an eye on her for repeat performances before she fully appreciates it's a no no.
Just when you think.........................


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy- agree... He's no longer running out the room when I say leave it. Outside he won't consider playing with a toy if he thinks a leave it exercise is involved. But recently he has got happier with me holding his collar and throwing his special recall toy then sending him... This I can work with! I know I'd never lose him out on walk but I need a bit more control. 

We've had a grotty walk round the forest which was fine. Saw no one surprisingly!!


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Twiggy- agree... He's no longer running out the room when I say leave it. Outside he won't consider playing with a toy if he *thinks a leave it exercise is involved. But recently he has got happier with me holding his collar and throwing his special recall toy then sending him*... This I can work with! I know I'd never lose him out on walk but I need a bit more control.
> 
> We've had a grotty walk round the forest which was fine. Saw no one surprisingly!!


Exactly..!! Tone of voice is very important and you could now incorporate a 'leave it' when you hold his collar before throwing his toy. Say something like "are we going to do leave it" in a jolly voice so that the actual words are not perceived as a threat.

So many owners threaten their dogs and don't realise they are doing it. Anyone that trains with me is banned from staring at their dogs, using a threatening hand signal, or a 'hard' wait, stay or leave, command. It can do a lot of harm and is so not necessary.


----------



## lupie

Really glum grot walk this morning. Id hoped to go up to the heathland that is one of my favourite local walks, but the road up there was flooded so I had to turn around  ended up elsewhere in the mud. Ruska's first offlead walk in a month and I think our indoor training has paid off as she was very responsive. She didn't stray too far either which she is normally guilty of. There's a big open green bit on that walk and we did some "stays" and recall training. Pretty good overall! She only saw one dog and she was offlead. She is fine at offlead greetings- she can just be a bit barky and intimidate them. But she was perfect, not a woof and very polite manners. 

Hope the weather perks up soon!


----------



## Dogless

Seems like everyone has the grotty weather .

Went out in the rain with Kilo this morning. He was amazing. First off we saw two dogs walking across in front of us as we approached the end of a road. Kilo initiated the U-turn and although we had to sort of turn and turn about and get round behind some bushes :scared: he was brilliant - took treats and nuzzled at me . Then we were on a big open area of grass near a building site and a family with a lab walked across it about 30m from us on the way to a big grass area that is across the road and behind a wire fence from where we were. Kilo tensed and fixated BUT sat when asked to and squeaked and whined but apart from that, that was it. He took treats and would play "find it" with them in the grass. The family with the lab then played on the other area of grass at a distance from us of about 40 - 50m. Kilo was able to relax and play "Ready Steady" with me and his precious disarmed pheasant within a short amount of time. He stiffened and looked every time he heard a whistle or shout on the wind but would follow commands so.....:thumbup: .

Went running with Roo, he was perfect for me, even passing a dog that I knew would kick off at him. I gave them as much space as I could (crossed the road) but really I should have turned round I suppose; I just get tired of doing that with Kilo sometimes .


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Seems like everyone has the grotty weather .
> 
> Went out in the rain with Kilo this morning. He was amazing. First off we saw two dogs walking across in front of us as we approached the end of a road. Kilo initiated the U-turn and although we had to sort of turn and turn about and get round behind some bushes :scared: he was brilliant - took treats and nuzzled at me . Then we were on a big open area of grass near a building site and a family with a lab walked across it about 30m from us on the way to a big grass area that is across the road and behind a wire fence from where we were. Kilo tensed and fixated BUT sat when asked to and squeaked and whined but apart from that, that was it. He took treats and would play "find it" with them in the grass. The family with the lab then played on the other area of grass at a distance from us of about 40 - 50m. Kilo was able to relax and play "Ready Steady" with me and his precious disarmed pheasant within a short amount of time. He stiffened and looked every time he heard a whistle or shout on the wind but would follow commands so.....:thumbup: .
> 
> Went running with Roo, he was perfect for me, even passing a dog that I knew would kick off at him. I gave them as much space as I could (crossed the road) but really I should have turned round I suppose; I just get tired of doing that with Kilo sometimes .


I don't see why you should have turned around if Rudi is happy passing at that distance, you crossed the road and created space which is a lot more than most people do.

So, so glad to hear how well Kilo is doing. It sounds like you're doing really well working with the issues the attack has left him with. And I know it's far from easy there.

We've not been here for a while  I've managed to pull my back somehow so right now the only thing I'm working on is trying not to laugh, cough, sneeze or hiccup coz it hurts like hell if I do! Spencer in the last couple of days has finally gotten to grips with spin. It's taken forever for it to actually click with him what I want but we seem to have it now. Now I just have to name it. We had a fantastic training walk the other day. Just around the estate on leash doing sits, downs, paw, recall, stay and stop. He was brilliant and so engaged with me until given the release to "go sniff" where he sprang away to do exactly that lol, however next time I called him to me and asked him to work he was back to being really engaged.

Last week someone turned up to the husky meet who hasn't been for about 6 months and apparently Spencer has changed massively. Not only does he look more mature but apparently his behaviour is much improved. He was managing to sit or lie down quietly despite the other dogs being around until he was released to play. Always nice when someone else recognises how much your dog has improved lol.

I have decided that as soon as my back is better we're going to start loose leash walking work again with a vengeance. 10 minutes a day is going to be spent working on it. I know that's not really a lot but it's 10 minutes more than I do at the moment and considering I hate it it's a start. And 10 minutes a day over a week is over an hours work on it. It's going to pay off eventually isn't it?

Anyway, hope everyone here is well. Apologies for not being able to catch up and respond to everyone this time but I shall try to do better in future and keep up more.


----------



## Siskin

You have my support Dogless. It's such hard work with difficult dogs isn't it. Jodi just didn't like strange dogs and always seemed to think they would attack her so got in there first, so kept her away as much as possible. If she was given time and introductions were quiet and calm, she would relax a bit and be reasonably friendly.
When we started looking round for a puppy again I was paranoid about getting one with as good a temperament as possible. So far Isla is fantastic and has fairly good manners, it's such a blessing.


----------



## Twiggy

*Lupie* Great news that your training is paying off with Ruska.

*Dogless*Well done Sir Kilo and Rudi of course.

*Sarah1983* Well done the Spen dog and yes your 10 minutes a day LLW will pay off.

We've also got the foul weather and the garden and paddock is getting very waterlogged. I walked Tremor and Holly this morning and I'll take Leafy and Barley for a short wander in a bit. Both Leafy and Barley are depressed on restricted exercise, although the neurologist vet at Cambridge said with Leafy to play it by ear but just be cautious. At least he seemed to fully understand, far more than my vet, that psychological frustration is almost worse than pain with most collies; even old arthritic ones...!! I shall take Tremor and Holly over to the barn later and train them/tire them out...LOL


----------



## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> I still feel rude blurting out 'leave it' as we walk past people in the street


I double dare you to finish off with "they're not worth it" :devil:


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> *Mumtomaddog:*
> _I do actually need to work on his toy stuff as he often wont give it back, he gets so excited and often wont let me take it back from him. He's fine inside, will 'drop' or 'leave' but in the field he seems to go a bit loopy but we'll continue to work with it and hopefully one day he'll sit nicely after dropping his toy and allow me to throw it for him to retrieve!_
> 
> As with all these things it's how the approach, adapt and work through these problems. As far as the dogs are concerned if it's all part of the game then they will happily comply.


The way I did this with Dief was to offer no resistance. I used the "give" command and kept my hold of the toy but stopped tugging or trying to remove it. If he pulled I just moved with him. Pretend you are a robot who has had it's plug pulled. When he releases power back up. Of course I make the power down/power up noises.. that is optional.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> The way I did this with Dief was to offer no resistance. I used the "give" command and kept my hold of the toy but stopped tugging or trying to remove it. If he pulled I just moved with him. Pretend you are a robot who has had it's plug pulled. When he releases power back up. Of course I make the power down/power up noises.. that is optional.


Yep that's one way of doing it. Swap for a tit-bit (or another toy) is another. There are several variations on a theme, as with everything.


----------



## Dogless

Siskin said:


> You have my support Dogless. It's such hard work with difficult dogs isn't it. Jodi just didn't like strange dogs and always seemed to think they would attack her so got in there first, so kept her away as much as possible. If she was given time and introductions were quiet and calm, she would relax a bit and be reasonably friendly.
> When we started looking round for a puppy again I was paranoid about getting one with as good a temperament as possible. So far Isla is fantastic and has fairly good manners, it's such a blessing.


Yes, difficult - Roo is the opposite of Kilo luckily. I say "luckily" as I do love them both as much but just couldn't cope with trying to rehabilitate two dogs after an attack .

Sarah - I am so pleased to hear about all the positives with Spendog; lovely when someone else notices isn't it? Sorry about your back and glad you're on the mend!! And yes, I couldn't really imagine anywhere more difficult to try and responsibly work with a dog!!!

Twiggy - that neurologist really sounds like a good one; very understanding.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, difficult - Roo is the opposite of Kilo luckily. I say "luckily" as I do love them both as much but just couldn't cope with trying to rehabilitate two dogs after an attack .
> 
> Sarah - I am so pleased to hear about all the positives with Spendog; lovely when someone else notices isn't it? Sorry about your back and glad you're on the mend!! And yes, I couldn't really imagine anywhere more difficult to try and responsibly work with a dog!!!
> 
> *Twiggy - that neurologist really sounds like a good one; very understanding.*




I would imagine he's very popular with staff and clients alike, judging by the response from the receptionist at Cambridge. She said "Oh you've got Ed. You'll really like him and he's brilliant with the dogs" and she was right...

Leafy's self heating pad for her bed has arrived. Let's hope she approves. The one small snag is that she's sleeping in the bedroom at the moment and although the top of the pad is fleece/sheepskin the underside makes a crackling noise. Might be a long night...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> I would imagine he's very popular with staff and clients alike, judging by the response from the receptionist at Cambridge. She said "Oh you've got Ed. You'll really like him and he's brilliant with the dogs" and she was right...
> 
> Leafy's self heating pad for her bed has arrived. Let's hope she approves. The one small snag is that she's sleeping in the bedroom at the moment and although the top of the pad is fleece/sheepskin the underside makes a crackling noise. Might be a long night...!!


It might indeed be a long night but I know that you will think it is worth every second of wasted sleep if it helps Leafy .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> It might indeed be a long night but I know that you will think it is worth every second of wasted sleep if it helps Leafy .


Errmmmm if you say so....!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Errmmmm if you say so....!!


Course I do Grannie...you're a softy really :scared: .

I have my trainers on ready to run when you read that :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Course I do Grannie...you're a softy really :scared: .
> 
> I have my trainers on ready to run when you read that :scared:.


Yes a skint softy at the moment. I got the bill from Cambridge yesterday £696..!! Fingers crossed the insurance company cough up 75%.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes a skint softy at the moment. I got the bill from Cambridge yesterday £696..!! Fingers crossed the insurance company cough up 75%.


I do hope they do Grannie, fingers crossed here for you too.


----------



## zedder

Ike had a rude bichon frise interrupt him today wouldn't bugger off lovely little thing though.


----------



## Dogless

Just taken the boys for separate lead walks in the freezing cold - nothing seen with Kilo which was perfect. Couple of dogs with Roo including a very big, very obese black dog - lab x rott at best guess - with hackles up and straining to get to us....held by two giggling kids in PJs. Yikes :scared:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Just taken the boys for separate lead walks in the freezing cold - nothing seen with Kilo which was perfect. Couple of dogs with Roo including a very big, very obese black dog - lab x rott at best guess - with hackles up and straining to get to us....held by two giggling kids in PJs. Yikes :scared:.


Phew...!! The mind boggles.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hi, 
Twiggy, hope leafy likes the heat pad. 
Sarah, hello and lovely that someone has commented on spen and your hard work. 
Deif, lol, I'm going to try that one....under my breath though. 
Dogless, you really inspire me to get running again...well jogging at a slow pace. 

Had some sad news this morning, hubby's nan passed away early hours today (was expected) so we've only had one walk today cause of visiting MIL. All together off lead in the wet. Suprisingly busy though.

Good news is that I showed hubby how to get bella to 'sit' and 'leave it' when filling dishwasher.....and he did it...yeah....and he was impressed so hopefully he will carry on. :thumbup:


----------



## Hudson87

This week we have been doing some down stays with nice ham inbetween me and him. Then we upgraded to down stays with him downstairs and me upstairs out of sight. 

He did that for up to 3 mins, I didn't try and go any longer I was bored at that point lol.


----------



## Sarah1983

Hudson87 said:


> This week we have been doing some down stays with nice ham inbetween me and him. Then we upgraded to down stays with him downstairs and me upstairs out of sight.
> 
> He did that for up to 3 mins, I didn't try and go any longer I was bored at that point lol.


Aww, I love teaching solid stays, they should be fun not boring! Spen gets really into staying put while I do all kinds of bizarre stuff. Throwing food around, dancing around with a toy, jumping up and down, running past him etc. It's a fab game.

F&F, sorry to hear about your OH's nan. Well done on the hubby training though! Mine surprises me at times with what he's actually learned.

Twiggy, hope the bed helps Leafy and that you get used to the noise of it quickly.


----------



## Dogless

F&F - sorry about your OH's Nan; hubby lost his too a few days ago. RIP to them both and I hope that your MIL is as OK as she possibly can be.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Dogless said:


> F&F - sorry about your OH's Nan; hubby lost his too a few days ago. RIP to them both and I hope that your MIL is as OK as she possibly can be.


Sorry to hear your sad news too, and same back to you.


----------



## Twiggy

Hmmm not the most peaceful night with all the rustling coming from Leafy's new self heating blanket. Still at least she slept on it which is something.

Whether it helped I don't know but she was bringing me a collection of toys to play with at 7.00 this morning...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm not the most peaceful night with all the rustling coming from Leafy's new self heating blanket. Still at least she slept on it which is something.
> 
> Whether it helped I don't know but she was bringing me a collection of toys to play with at 7.00 this morning...!!


Oh dear Grannie - earplugs??? Still, Leafy seems to have perked up which can only be good :thumbup:.


----------



## Fluffster

Sorry to hear your news F&fF X

WE HAD LOOSE LEAD WALKING TODAY!!!! :thumbup:

I bought an Ancol no pull harness but didn't have much hope as the last "anti pull" harness didn't work at all. Anyway this one you loop the lead round the front of the harness so when the dog pulls, it turns to face you.

It worked!!! On the way back, Daisy was walking with a perfectly loose lead and didn't mind the harness at all, unlike the head collar which she spends the whole time trying to get out of. Felt much more relaxed walking on the pavement without her pulling all over the place, much nicer for us both I think.

We met a couple of dogs but Daisy point blank ignored one of them as I had her ball out, the poor other dog looked a bit forlorn!


----------



## Dogless

Well, we got very, very wet and very windswept on our walks today - but they were perfect .

With Kilo I had what was the best walk we have had from home since he was attacked  http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...de-me-cry-when-i-got-home.html#post1063459326 ETA: I almost forgot - we saw the same couple of dogs in the same place as yesterday too and Kilo initiated the U-turn and came away on a loose lead nicely!! He looked back now and again - but no hackles, no growling, no lead tension. Good boy Sir K!!

With Roo I played some "Ready Steady" and he is able to sit nice and solidly whilst I throw his favourite toy around, run, make noises etc now which I am pleased with :thumbup:. He was a very good boy.


----------



## lupie

Really pleased for you Dogless - amazing, amazing progress 

Glad the harness is working out well Fluffster! Daisy will crack it in no time 

Was chuffed to be out in the non-rain today. There was even a frost this morning, Ruska charged out into the garden in sheer and utter joy at the frost....and then promptly put up a pheasant that was hiding in the bushes! 

Had a nice walk, had to put her on and off the lead a lot as she was wandering a bit.

We passed a group of 8 or 9 huskies on the way up into the woods and Ruska went a bit beserk, but they were woo-woo-ing at her and there were so many I kinda forgave her. I tried to my best to keep her focus but it was all so sudden and so many of them that I just got her away from them as soon as possible.

Got out onto the downs and we did a lot of sit-stay and down-stay practice. She sometimes has a habit of rushing up to other offlead dogs, which I've 99% gotten on top of now, but as this was a large open space with lots of offlead dogs passing through I did some "stays" whilst dogs went past to reinforce the work we've done. She was fab  Really, really barky though - she always is when the wind is up. Got a few funny looks.










She had a play with a little bichon that came running up which was nice to see as well. 

Now the rain is back.


----------



## Lauren5159

I'm going to start using this thread a bit more  

I love reading all the trials and tribulations of everyone and their dogs and the support on here is fab 

So, recently, I've discovered Skip has a bit of an issue with dogs the same size as him  My aunt was here over Christmas with her JRT and Skip just didn't like him from the word go... They've met before but this was the first time they have met since Skip hit maturity... To be fair, it was Skip being the brat and starting the fights with Max (intact JRT). A few days before they arrived, Skip was jumped on and scuffled by another terrier. 

Today, on our walk, a Yorkie came running up to him and Skip just went berserk! It was all noise and teeth, no damage and Skip was on his lead so was easy enough to pull away but he was looking at the Yorkie and screaming at it once they had been separated 

So... After so much progress with Skip and his reactivity towards cars, his iffy recall which was great and now, with his hatred of fellow small dogs, is lacking, and his bad walking habits which we have worked with and now he walks nicely, it looks like it's going to have to be the long-line from now on  I'm a bit gutted to be honest but it seems that around dogs his own size, he's not great...

I'm seriously considering neutering now too... It seems to me that those daman testis are not helping lol.


----------



## diefenbaker

Had a nice walk at Queen Elizabeth Country Park. Managed to avoid the Cafe and cake. Dief was very good.. especially with people/cyclists/pushchairs. Recalls and walks by my side. Now if only I could get him to be the same with other dogs I could leave this damn thread forever


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Had a nice walk at Queen Elizabeth Country Park. Managed to avoid the Cafe and cake. Dief was very good.. especially with people/cyclists/pushchairs. Recalls and walks by my side. Now if only I could get him to be the same with other dogs *I could leave this damn thread forever *


Ah, I see you didn't read the small print...there IS no getting out of waywo :scared:.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Ah, I see you didn't read the small print...there IS no getting out of waywo :scared:.


I am sure I could come up with something to get myself expelled. Good to see some progress with Sir K. Hopefully you will come across this chap again.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well, we got very, very wet and very windswept on our walks today - but they were perfect .
> 
> With Kilo I had what was the best walk we have had from home since he was attacked  http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...de-me-cry-when-i-got-home.html#post1063459326 ETA: I almost forgot - we saw the same couple of dogs in the same place as yesterday too and Kilo initiated the U-turn and came away on a loose lead nicely!! He looked back now and again - but no hackles, no growling, no lead tension. Good boy Sir K!!
> 
> With Roo I played some "Ready Steady" and he is able to sit nice and solidly whilst I throw his favourite toy around, run, make noises etc now which I am pleased with :thumbup:. He was a very good boy.


My word. So there is at least one civilised dog owner in NI.....

Well done Kilo but fingers still firmly crossed for no more upsets.


----------



## Twiggy

I had two friends with their collies join us for training this afternoon which was very enjoyable.

Holly was a very good girl and is really improving now. However I do think I might have to modify the biting a little....


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> I'm going to start using this thread a bit more
> 
> I love reading all the trials and tribulations of everyone and their dogs and the support on here is fab
> 
> So, recently, I've discovered Skip has a bit of an issue with dogs the same size as him  My aunt was here over Christmas with her JRT and Skip just didn't like him from the word go... They've met before but this was the first time they have met since Skip hit maturity... To be fair, it was Skip being the brat and starting the fights with Max (intact JRT). A few days before they arrived, Skip was jumped on and scuffled by another terrier.
> 
> Today, on our walk, a Yorkie came running up to him and Skip just went berserk! It was all noise and teeth, no damage and Skip was on his lead so was easy enough to pull away but he was looking at the Yorkie and screaming at it once they had been separated
> 
> So... After so much progress with Skip and his reactivity towards cars, his iffy recall which was great and now, with his hatred of fellow small dogs, is lacking, and his bad walking habits which we have worked with and now he walks nicely, it looks like it's going to have to be the long-line from now on  I'm a bit gutted to be honest but it seems that around dogs his own size, he's not great...
> 
> I'm seriously considering neutering now too... It seems to me that those daman testis are not helping lol.


That's a lot to work on but I am sure it can be done piece by piece. If you think that the problems are testosterone - fuelled but have some doubts you could try suprelorin before a surgical castration?



Twiggy said:


> I had two friends with their collies join us for training this afternoon which was very enjoyable.
> 
> Holly was a very good girl and is really improving now. *However I do think I might have to modify the biting a little*....


Never thought I'd see the day.....well done little HB :thumbup:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Sorry it wasn't a great nights sleep for you Twiggy.

Dogless, so pleased you met a nice owner who was willing and able to help Kilo have a good experience 

Dief, you may be able to leave for a while but you'll get sucked back in 

We had a wet and grey husky meet today. Got there just after Demon and Willow arrived at the other end of the field to where we entered. Had Spen off leash walking over and he went to rush up at one point but recalled when I called him and waved (didn't want to give the recall cue in case it failed). We went about another 30 metres before he took off again, this time I let him go since I could see them making their way over off leash. He also managed to hold a stay while another dog passed on the other side of the fence.

Spencer has gone from doing nothing but pester Willow at the meets to just pestering Willow when he needs a breather from fetching his ball. He's a brat with her. But she puts up with it and even seems to encourage him! God forbid he goes off and plays with a different dog, she's right there going "oi, it's me you play with, not them" lol. Just as we were leaving Bolt and Khan turned up so we ended up staying nearly another hour. Spen is currently crashed out on his bed knackered.

A pic from todays meet


----------



## Twiggy

Never thought I'd see the day.....well done little HB :thumbup:.[/QUOTE]

My arms look dreadful and I was pouring blood this afternoon.

Holly is speeding up considerably on all exercises, which is brilliant, but she's also speeding up flying at my arms and I don't always see it coming (being old and doddery)....


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> That's a lot to work on but I am sure it can be done piece by piece. If you think that the problems are testosterone - fuelled but have some doubts you could try suprelorin before a surgical castration?


I know... *sigh*

Everything seems to have taken a step backwards since he decided he doesn't like other Terriers  He's constantly on the lookout for them now and when none are around, he's started to focus his attention more on cars than.he ever has before 

I have a bit of a plan though... 
No off-leash time. Only long-line.
More focus and impulse games (on long-line) 
More street walks (to work on leash manners and car/dog manners)
Only separate walks for both dogs for the foreseeable future as the last thing I need, is Skip's bodyguard, Dexter, feeling like he constantly has to look out for the little man... Dexter always takes Skip's side, regardless of which dog started it.

Every walk and every moment outside is going to be training... It sounds a lot, but nothing overlaps which I think, is a bonus 

I just need to get my backside in to gear...

I honestly think neutering is the best option  I didn't want to but to be honest, I really think it's needed.


----------



## Fluffster

I need to do more pavement walks with Daisy, we literally only do about 5 mins a day of them and that's just to get to and from places  I'm hoping if she continues walking nicely on her harness, I might start upping that a bit as I won't be so worried about her pulling into the road. I think she's a bit scared of cars, or rather larger trucks things, as she sometimes gets in a bit of a fluster when they go past so I need to brave it and show her it's not scary (even though I get scared of being near roads  )

Sorry you're having some issues with Skip, Lauren, but your plan sounds very sensible and I'm sure it will pay off. I don't know much about boy dogs and neutering so can't really comment on that, but you have to do what's right for you and your boy and if it makes you both happier, then that's the main thing 

I'd like to do some more impulse control stuff with Daisy. I'm able to throw her ball in the house and get her to stay until I say "Go on then!", but outside, not a chance :scared: Today she was utterly fixated on her ball, she didn't even notice a spaniel pass right by her, she didn't even glance at it  It was quite odd, she usually at least has a look! 

She was good at dropping it at the start too, but got a bit more possesive as the walk went on. She'll drop it, then when you go to pick it up, snatch it again and back pedal a bit - rinse/repeat. If you've got a treat then she'll drop it, but I don't want to bribe her with treats every time! If you are quick when she drops it and get your foot on it, she backs off and lets you pick it up. She's not aggressive with it, you can take it out of her mouth without any growl or anything and she just waits for you to throw it, but it's becoming a bit of a pest that she refuses to drop ANYTHING, not just her ball as she's a kleptomaniac in the house and stole my bra this morning and ripped it in half before I could get it off her


----------



## Lauren5159

Fluffster said:


> I need to do more pavement walks with Daisy, we literally only do about 5 mins a day of them and that's just to get to and from places  I'm hoping if she continues walking nicely on her harness, I might start upping that a bit as I won't be so worried about her pulling into the road. I think she's a bit scared of cars, or rather larger trucks things, as she sometimes gets in a bit of a fluster when they go past so I need to brave it and show her it's not scary (even though I get scared of being near roads  )
> 
> Sorry you're having some issues with Skip, Lauren, but your plan sounds very sensible and I'm sure it will pay off. I don't know much about boy dogs and neutering so can't really comment on that, but you have to do what's right for you and your boy and if it makes you both happier, then that's the main thing
> 
> I'd like to do some more impulse control stuff with Daisy. I'm able to throw her ball in the house and get her to stay until I say "Go on then!", but outside, not a chance :scared: Today she was utterly fixated on her ball, she didn't even notice a spaniel pass right by her, she didn't even glance at it  It was quite odd, she usually at least has a look!
> 
> She was good at dropping it at the start too, but got a bit more possesive as the walk went on. She'll drop it, then when you go to pick it up, snatch it again and back pedal a bit - rinse/repeat. If you've got a treat then she'll drop it, but I don't want to bribe her with treats every time! If you are quick when she drops it and get your foot on it, she backs off and lets you pick it up. She's not aggressive with it, you can take it out of her mouth without any growl or anything and she just waits for you to throw it, but it's becoming a bit of a pest that she refuses to drop ANYTHING, not just her ball as she's a kleptomaniac in the house and stole my bra this morning and ripped it in half before I could get it off her


We're the exact same with pavement walks... Just don't do it enough, which needs to change since Skip has decided again that cars are fair game... He was doing so well and now, it seems as though we have been blown backwards 

It doesn't help that he is not treat or toy motivated whilst outside  Only makes things harder... I can literally throw treats at his head and he doesn't bat an eyelid. His favourite squeaky toy, that he loves in the house, doesn't even bother him outside, it's like I don't even have it... Again, I could throw it at his head and he wouldn't even care.

I think impulse control is the key to Skip's mind... If I can master that, he'd be a dream.

Good for you and Daisy that you are progressing. I'd much rather my dog be more focused on a ball than a passing dog. Dexter is like that  if I have a ball, he doesn't care if there's a herd of sheep passing by, he just wants his ball.

I honestly think neutering is the best idea for Skip, as well as impulse games... It will take a long time and a lot of hard work but it will be so worth it... I'm also going to start walking with a woman who lives close by and has two lovely mannered Westies, one which is just a couple of months younger than Skip and the only dogs his size he seems to like at the minute... The lovery lady offered to start meeting me so I can walk Skip with her two 

Fingers crossed.

And here's to more road walks and impulse games for Skip and Daisy


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> I know... *sigh*
> 
> Everything seems to have taken a step backwards since he decided he doesn't like other Terriers  He's constantly on the lookout for them now and when none are around, he's started to focus his attention more on cars than.he ever has before


Do you think the increased problems in other areas are more indicative of a general rise in stress as he's so obsessed with looking for other dogs? Perhaps some good quiet walks away from dogs and cars rather than an increase in them might help to let his stress levels settle and to make walks a pleasure again? And then reintroduce the dog and car work?


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> Do you think the increased problems in other areas are more indicative of a general rise in stress as he's so obsessed with looking for other dogs? Perhaps some good quiet walks away from dogs and cars rather than an increase in them might help to let his stress levels settle and to make walks a pleasure again? And then reintroduce the dog and car work?


This sounds like a good iea. Also maybe it will help with getting Skip focussed on you more so when you do reintroduce dogs/cars, you can get his attention on you more easily and he's more likely to listen? I know sometimes dog-free walks really help me and Daisy bond more through games etc when we dont have distractions and other people ruining it :lol:


----------



## Dogless

I like this Reactive Champion: The Stress Bathtub to illustrate what I mean.

I would try and get a clean slate "empty bathtub" and then start to work on each issue one by one.

It has taken me a long time to really get this kind of mentality. For instance, Kilo has been totally wiped out after this morning - the whole effort exhausted him. Perhaps before I would have still had the "he MUST get two walks per day" mentality (I still struggle with it, in truth!!!) but now I understand that, were I to take him out tonight and we saw another dog and were taken by surprise that he more than likely would react unfavourably as he is stressed from earlier. Rather, letting him settle and making an effort to have quiet walks in terms of seeing dogs in the next few days is the plan. I will do lots of training and play with him - but allow him to regroup in terms of dogs if possible.

Does that make any sense? Feels like I am rambling on!!


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> I need to do more pavement walks with Daisy, we literally only do about 5 mins a day of them and that's just to get to and from places  I'm hoping if she continues walking nicely on her harness, I might start upping that a bit as I won't be so worried about her pulling into the road. I think she's a bit scared of cars, or rather larger trucks things, as she sometimes gets in a bit of a fluster when they go past so I need to brave it and show her it's not scary (even though I get scared of being near roads  )
> 
> Sorry you're having some issues with Skip, Lauren, but your plan sounds very sensible and I'm sure it will pay off. I don't know much about boy dogs and neutering so can't really comment on that, but you have to do what's right for you and your boy and if it makes you both happier, then that's the main thing
> 
> I'd like to do some more impulse control stuff with Daisy. I'm able to throw her ball in the house and get her to stay until I say "Go on then!", but outside, not a chance :scared: Today she was utterly fixated on her ball, she didn't even notice a spaniel pass right by her, she didn't even glance at it  It was quite odd, she usually at least has a look!
> 
> She was good at dropping it at the start too, but got a bit more possesive as the walk went on. She'll drop it, then when you go to pick it up, snatch it again and back pedal a bit - rinse/repeat.* If you've got a treat then she'll drop it, but I don't want to bribe her with treats every time! If you are quick *when she drops it and get your foot on it, she backs off and lets you pick it up. She's not aggressive with it, you can take it out of her mouth without any growl or anything and she just waits for you to throw it, but it's becoming a bit of a pest that she refuses to drop ANYTHING, not just her ball as she's a kleptomaniac in the house and stole my bra this morning and ripped it in half before I could get it off her


Why do you think it's bribery if it works?


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> Why do you think it's bribery if it works?


I suppose you're right, but it relies on me always having a treat in my hand. She'll only do the behaviour if she can see and smell the treat, she doesn't do the behaviour on the chance she'll get something good out it, she does it because she can see I'm holding a treat that she'll get if she does it.

Outside this is fine, I always have treats in my pocket, but in the house, if I want her to drop something, I have to go and find a treat, wave it in front of her nose and wait till she decides if it's a good enough treat to drop the item in favour of :lol:

I'm happy with giving her treats when she does good things, but I don't want her to only do things if she can physically see I have a treat, that doesn't feel right to me for some reason  It happens sometimes with other stuf too, ie/ not listening to sit unless she can see I have a treat in my hand.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> I suppose you're right, but it relies on me always having a treat in my hand. She'll only do the behaviour if she can see and smell the treat, she doesn't do the behaviour on the chance she'll get something good out it, she does it because she can see I'm holding a treat that she'll get if she does it.
> 
> Outside this is fine, I always have treats in my pocket, but in the house, if I want her to drop something, I have to go and find a treat, wave it in front of her nose and wait till she decides if it's a good enough treat to drop the item in favour of :lol:
> 
> I'm happy with giving her treats when she does good things, but I don't want her to only do things if she can physically see I have a treat, that doesn't feel right to me for some reason  It happens sometimes with other stuf too, ie/ not listening to sit unless she can see I have a treat in my hand.


OK explain to me in precise detail exactly what you do and say when you want her to drop something.


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> Do you think the increased problems in other areas are more indicative of a general rise in stress as he's so obsessed with looking for other dogs? Perhaps some good quiet walks away from dogs and cars rather than an increase in them might help to let his stress levels settle and to make walks a pleasure again? And then reintroduce the dog and car work?


Quite possibly... That does make sense. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a place that is completely dog-free. There is one place I go where I never used to see other dogs, but recently, I've met a few people there... The good thing about that place though, is that I have to walk over a hill to get to it, so I can see if other dogs and their owners are about... If they are, I can change direction before Skip sees them. Thanks 



Fluffster said:


> This sounds like a good iea. Also maybe it will help with getting Skip focussed on you more so when you do reintroduce dogs/cars, you can get his attention on you more easily and he's more likely to listen? I know sometimes dog-free walks really help me and Daisy bond more through games etc when we dont have distractions and other people ruining it :lol:


Unfortunately, it's not quite that easy... At the minute, Skip is so alert to _everything_, if it's not dogs or cars, it's squirrels, mice, cats, moving trees, rustling grass... Anything. But I have some impulse games written down that I'm going to try. Thank you 



Dogless said:


> I like this Reactive Champion: The Stress Bathtub to illustrate what I mean.
> 
> I would try and get a clean slate "empty bathtub" and then start to work on each issue one by one.
> 
> It has taken me a long time to really get this kind of mentality. For instance, Kilo has been totally wiped out after this morning - the whole effort exhausted him. Perhaps before I would have still had the "he MUST get two walks per day" mentality (I still struggle with it, in truth!!!) but now I understand that, were I to take him out tonight and we saw another dog and were taken by surprise that he more than likely would react unfavourably as he is stressed from earlier. Rather, letting him settle and making an effort to have quiet walks in terms of seeing dogs in the next few days is the plan. I will do lots of training and play with him - but allow him to regroup in terms of dogs if possible.
> 
> Does that make any sense? Feels like I am rambling on!!


Lol, that makes perfect sense to me 

Thanks a lot. I'm going to try that.

I think I have the same mentality... I just think that my boys need at least a couple of hours exercise per day... Quantity rather than quality and that's what I have to change... An hour in an empty field, on a long line and doing training and impulse exercises would knacker Skip out... I need to just stick to it rather than letting him run riot for a couple of hours and thinking that will tire him out more... It's my mindset that quite obviously needs to change 

Thanks guys!


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> OK explain to me in precise detail exactly what you do and say when you want her to drop something.


Well, when we were training her, we would let her have her ball or one of her toys in her mouth, then we would let her see we had a treat in our hand, we would move it towards her face and say "drop it", then when she dropped the ball, she would get the treat and our "good girl" marker.

Now, it's pretty much the same - we give the drop it cue but you have to let her see and smell the treat to get her to drop it. She will very rarely drop something she's got a hold of if you don't have a treat to waft in front of her.

I suspect we've made a rod for our own backs and it's entirely our fault 

As I said, it's fine outside because I always have treats, but there are times in the house when she's got hold of something she shoudn't have and I have had to run to the treat jar and get something to get her to let go of it. I don't really care when it's clothes etc but she picked up a can lid today with sharp edges and I was terrified it was going to cut her mouth.


----------



## lupie

Fluffster said:


> Well, when we were training her, we would let her have her ball or one of her toys in her mouth, then we would let her see we had a treat in our hand, we would move it towards her face and say "drop it", then when she dropped the ball, she would get the treat and our "good girl" marker.
> 
> Now, it's pretty much the same - we give the drop it cue but you have to let her see and smell the treat to get her to drop it. She will very rarely drop something she's got a hold of if you don't have a treat to waft in front of her.
> 
> I suspect we've made a rod for our own backs and it's entirely our fault
> 
> As I said, it's fine outside because I always have treats, but there are times in the house when she's got hold of something she shoudn't have and I have had to run to the treat jar and get something to get her to let go of it. I don't really care when it's clothes etc but she picked up a can lid today with sharp edges and I was terrified it was going to cut her mouth.


I don't know if it helps, but the way I was taught to teach drop is by asking them to drop, and when they do drop it give loads of praise and give it _immediately_ back. That way they don't learn that "drop" means that the fun thing is being taken away. But means that when they do have something they shouldn't then they will hopefully drop it, only you won't give it back!

I don't know if that's a good method or not, but it has worked pretty well for us.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> Well, when we were training her, we would let her have her ball or one of her toys in her mouth, then we would let her see we had a treat in our hand, we would move it towards her face and say "drop it", then when she dropped the ball, she would get the treat and our "good girl" marker.
> 
> Now, it's pretty much the same - we give the drop it cue but you have to let her see and smell the treat to get her to drop it. She will very rarely drop something she's got a hold of if you don't have a treat to waft in front of her.
> 
> I suspect we've made a rod for our own backs and it's entirely our fault
> 
> As I said, it's fine outside because I always have treats, but there are times in the house when she's got hold of something she shoudn't have and I have had to run to the treat jar and get something to get her to let go of it. I don't really care when it's clothes etc but she picked up a can lid today with sharp edges and I was terrified it was going to cut her mouth.


Thanks for explaining.

No it isn't your fault but I would suspect the 'technique' leave a bit to be desired.

Do you say "drop it" and if she doesn't then run to the sweet jar? - be honest with me....

Forget the bribery bit. What you are actually doing is conditioning a response which if seen through correctly means that eventually your dog will drop anything on the command, regardless of whether you have sweets in your hand or not.

That, pretty much, applies to most exercises we teach our dogs.


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> I don't know if it helps, but the way I was taught to teach drop is by asking them to drop, and when they do drop it give loads of praise and give it _immediately_ back. That way they don't learn that "drop" means that the fun thing is being taken away. But means that when they do have something they shouldn't then they will hopefully drop it, only you won't give it back!
> 
> I don't know if that's a good method or not, but it has worked pretty well for us.


Good girl....:thumbup: You are thinking about this particular exercise from your dogs point of view.


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> Thanks for explaining.
> 
> No it isn't your fault but I would suspect the 'technique' leave a bit to be desired.
> 
> *Do you say "drop it" and if she doesn't then run to the sweet jar? - be honest with me....*
> 
> Forget the bribery bit. What you are actually doing is conditioning a response which if seen through correctly means that eventually your dog will drop anything on the command, regardless of whether you have sweets in your hand or not.
> 
> That, pretty much, applies to most exercises we teach our dogs.


Sometimes 

That makes sense with the taking and giving back, I'll get started on that tomorrow  Thanks


----------



## JenKyzer

Ok so I've got behind again  
Will catch up proper when I can  hope all is well with everyone & 2014 is starting out to be a good year (finally rid of the 13!) 

Twiggy - toys at 7am!? She must of had a good sleep. 

Fluffster - great news on the loose lead walking  I'm glad you've found something that works for you both. 

Dogless - as I said on.your thread, I'm over the moon for you and your boys with the day you've had  such fantastic news, just what I love to read! Such good boys! 

Lupie - lovely pic  sounds like u both had a great walk whilst the rain held off. 

Lauren - welcome & I hope you and skip get some great advice from here. Sorry to hear about his issue with other doggies his size. 

Dief - we're all here for the long run I think :scared: I hope dief finds your get out of jail feee card.. in the mean time his walk today sounded lovely! 

Sarah - sounds like a busy day, good boy some though & lovely pic 

We hit another 'proud moment' on Friday, we dogsat a 2yr old French bulldog for our neighbours ... not theirs - family members I think - and I felt sorry for the poor guy, didn't even know 'sit'  & he pee'd in willows food bowl :confused1: but anyway, willow walked so nicely with him .. bit wary at first but nothing to say she wasn't happy.. then ignored him. She was great about him coming into our house.. first dog to do this.. I was so scared cos it's 'her home&safe place' but she just led there while he jumped around everywhere .. he was very humpy but willow was fine about it and just kept tryna hide behind me .. we separated them for a bit.. then they snoozed together  then we did some sit for treats .. he soon copied and Sat nicely on cue lol bless him. Was lovely to see her so relaxed in her own space with another dog :thumbup: he went back & she got super snuggles and fuss! 

Other than that, just the usual here.  she's been brilliant for a while now, touch wood!! 
Booked tickets for crufts on the Saturday though, very excited about that!


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> Sometimes
> 
> That makes sense with the taking and giving back, I'll get started on that tomorrow  Thanks


Personally I'd change your command because you've now taught your dog that "drop it" only means when you have a sweet right on her nose.

"swap" is quite a good one...


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> Personally I'd change your command because you've now taught your dog that "drop it" only means when you have a sweet right on her nose.
> 
> "swap" is quite a good one...


That's a good idea. I quite fancy a total nonsensical word like "flubbins" or something though to annoy my OH, who already has to squeak "HERE" in a high pitched voice for her recall :lol:


----------



## Nicki85

Hello all!
Well yesterday was a bit of a washout&#8230; We had a morning walk round the water meadow (which was surprisingly very wet&#8230 and saw no one. Shae actually disappeared out of sight :0 
I then took Rust to 3, yes 3, garden centres and pets at home  He enjoys these trips&#8230; looking for rats, ignoring the people that try and talk to him, looking for people with biscuits and generally trotting around having attention from me. Stuck him on the scales at [email protected] and we are stuck at 18kg which is 2kg under what he was at the vets last year. They said he was perfect last year but in all honesty i'm happy with him at the moment&#8230; as long as he drops no more. So we will see what they say when he has his jabs later this month. 
We did some training in the evening and Rusty is learning to place an item in a box (we are struggling slightly as he thinks he has also got to get in the box&#8230 and general bring/ hold work. He has also mastered jumping through my arms but is very clumsy and we end up in all sorts of undignified poses!! Shae has mastered her left paw on a coaster so we will start on right soon&#8230; her hold work is coming on and her hand targeting (in particular for a smart recall and prep for retrieve) are looking great, consistently holding contact instead of head butting&#8230; 

Today we went on a 7 and a bit mile trek through mud round Buckleberry village. Both were well behaved for the main, Shae had a "moment" with the squirrels but was fine once engaged with treats/toy&#8230; just need to reinforce the recall again which I have slipped on as she is so consistent and easy (usually!!). She was very good with all people and dogs we met, even when a doodle came up (I did ask the owners to keep him away but hey ho) when she was finding her treats. She took it all in good jest and initiated a game and recalled smartly when asked. I was in a grumpy mood (no idea why) and I suspect that didn't help with the squirrel recall&#8230; 

Tomorrow we will have an easy joint walk in the morning and then tree-agility for Rust in the afternoon and Shae will do some toy work over the field&#8230; her idea of heaven. I need to video it and see what you guys think we need to move on to next&#8230; she is sooo much fun over their getting her all wired and bonkers! 

I'm also hoping that I will be the proud owner of a few jumps soon so we can do some training sessions over the local playing field  and start Shae's two by two weave training&#8230; 

I'm also very excited to be planning a three week trip to the Scottish Highlands for May! We will be visiting Shae's relatives and doing some walks and sight seeing  Really looking forward to it but it's a mammoth task planning it all and considering driving/ where to stay by myself! 

Twiggy- glad to hear that Miss Holly is enjoying life  Long may it continue!!
DL- saw your main post, so so pleased for you and Kilo  I'm hoping you see this guy again!!
Fluffster- nothing to add apart from what has already been said&#8230; i'm sure you will get there  Being fixated on a ball (that you obviously control) isn't a bad thing  use it to your advantage!
Lauren- good luck with your Terror  Sounds like you have a plan of action&#8230; if it's any help Rust my Spanner would not take treats out side but is now improving and will do so&#8230; I can use it as a gauge to how "high" he is and if he will listen to me if allowed to free run&#8230; 
JSW- so pleased to hear that Willow is still being FAB!!!!


----------



## Fluffster

Thinking of doing this method, we have a clicker and have used it for things before but have slacked with it of late. Any thoughts?

How to Teach Give: A Winning Recipe | Karen Pryor Clicker Training

We have settled on "give", boring boyfriend doesn't want to say flubbins in public :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> Thinking of doing this method, we have a clicker and have used it for things before but have slacked with it of late. Any thoughts?
> 
> How to Teach Give: A Winning Recipe | Karen Pryor Clicker Training
> 
> We have settled on "give", boring boyfriend doesn't want to say flubbins in public :lol:


Yes that sounds fine.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hello 

Twiggy, hope you get more sleep tonight.
Dogless, so pleased for you both :thumbup:
Sarah, lovely picture of spen, 
Fluffster, that's exactly the same as me with bella. :frown: so I'll be working on that one too. Thanks for posting the link. 

Nothing to report here really, good off lead wet walks again. Having to dodge the poo though at the start of the walk  there's loads of it. Really pees me off. 
Done some 'leave it' and impulse control with all three in the house...one at a time .


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster I use"Dead" if you think "Give" is too boring . I prefer command words to end in a "harder" sound so that I can place emphasis on the end. "Give" also sounds a little similar to "sit" to me. "Mine" is another possibility.


----------



## Lauren5159

Well, I've order a whistle  Should be here tomorrow...

So today, we're just going to do some training games inside and a few short walks until I can start working with the whistle and long line


----------



## Dogless

Hi JSW - great to see you again . Willow has turned into a real superstar hasn't she? Amazing transformation that you've achieved, well done .


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> Hello
> 
> *Twiggy, hope you get more sleep tonight.*
> Dogless, so pleased for you both :thumbup:
> Sarah, lovely picture of spen,
> Fluffster, that's exactly the same as me with bella. :frown: so I'll be working on that one too. Thanks for posting the link.
> 
> Nothing to report here really, good off lead wet walks again. Having to dodge the poo though at the start of the walk  there's loads of it. Really pees me off.
> Done some 'leave it' and impulse control with all three in the house...one at a time .


Yes I had a much better night's sleep thank you because I remove the flipping pad from Leafy's bed. It's far too noisy. Back to the drawing board..!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Yes I had a much better night's sleep thank you because I remove the flipping pad from Leafy's bed. It's far too noisy. Back to the drawing board..!!


No wonder she's stiff if you make her sleep on a drawing board  .

You thought about the sort of heat pads that breeders use for new pups? I am sure you have but just throwing an idea in there!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> No wonder she's stiff if you make her sleep on a drawing board  .
> 
> You thought about the sort of heat pads that breeders use for new pups? I am sure you have but just throwing an idea in there!!


I think I'll look at orthopeadic beds and the Hurtta Back on Track mesh dog coat/rug.

No wonder I'm so poor...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I think I'll look at orthopeadic beds and the Hurtta Back on Track mesh dog coat/rug.
> 
> No wonder I'm so poor...!!


You can get memory foam off cuts from some companies making human mattresses etc. I wonder if you contacted some you could get something suitable for Leafy cheaper than a specialist dog product?


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless great great update on kilo 

Lauren welcome to the dark side (but as mentioned to dief you may never leave ) I have to say with my own experience of scruffy terrier and what you have said on other threads before Skip sounds a bit high, the constant scanning is what ninja does, it really will make a difference giving him a break if you can, and you as well. 
My trainer gave me permission to not feel the need to work on everything at once, hence why we still dont really have dash back to me recall or perfect LLW but we can get past cars without barking and spot a dog at a hundred paces and my arms arent pulled out my sockets on every walk. Ninja doesnt have a preference as to what she barks at but it is small dogs that worry me most. It was a fellow terrier she grabbed that awful day, over a year ago now but seems like yesterday  I think they just reflect everything thats 'bad' about her back at her or they look like vermin  (our nemesis squeaky dog ruddy sounds like it ).

Fluffster we use 'mine' too. You can whine it in a special way just to annoy OH 

Twiggy glad you got some sleep despite the blood loss.

Nikki - love your description of rusty in the garden centres  and ninja also thinks its much better if she gets in the box too 

We have had some great walks, ninja is being a bit of a star after my meltdown last week. I broke her on Saturday as I got a little disorientated and we were out for a little longer than normal, she couldn't even get off the sofa for tea but was bouncing back in good health yesterday 

On saturdays walk we saw more people than normal, she didnt bark, just glared at a group of walkers and almost ignored the two dogs running about on the other side of a fence. Yesterday she did a bit of a naughty but she came back eventually and was good as gold from then on.

ETA JSW hello again, you have done wonders with Willow, I feel very lowly in comparison.


----------



## Lauren5159

Thanks GR 

I think Skip and Ninja are very similar lol... I also think that other Terriers reflect too much likeness back at Skip and he doesn't like it. I think he takes it as 'game on'.

I've realised that so far, the issue has definitely been mostly me... It's _me_ that assumes he needs a good run around off-leash every day, it's _me_ that lets him off with certain things (because he's a terrier) and it's _me_ who has been confusing him with on/off training 

From now on, he is having no off leash time at all. He's staying on his long line until I feel confident that he will ignore all stimuli and listen to me. He was doing so well with cars until literally last week, but again, that's because I got a bit too comfortable and didn't keep up with the training because I just assumed, wrongly, that he was fine...

Funnily enough, Skip is great with bigger dogs... He loves them, but again, will happily ignore me to go play... But fellow Terriers (apart from a select few) his first instinct is to fight 

I'm definitely sticking to our training routine this time though... I'm picturing anew Uggie-like perfect terrier 

I'm glad you and Ninja are progressing  She's such a gorgeous girl and it's always great when you have a few days where they show you just how great they can be... It's those days I keep at the forefront of my mind when we're going through a bad stage


----------



## GingerRogers

Lauren5159 said:


> Thanks GR
> 
> I think Skip and Ninja are very similar lol... I also think that other Terriers reflect too much likeness back at Skip and he doesn't like it. I think he takes it as 'game on'.
> 
> I've realised that so far, the issue has definitely been mostly me... It's _me_ that assumes he needs a good run around off-leash every day, it's _me_ that lets him off with certain things (because he's a terrier) and it's _me_ who has been confusing him with on/off training
> 
> From now on, he is having no off leash time at all. He's staying on his long line until I feel confident that *he will ignore all stimuli and listen to me*. He was doing so well with cars until literally last week, but again, that's because I got a bit too comfortable and didn't keep up with the training because I just assumed, wrongly, that he was fine...
> 
> Funnily enough, Skip is great with bigger dogs... He loves them, but again, will happily ignore me to go play... But fellow Terriers (apart from a select few) his first instinct is to fight
> 
> I'm definitely sticking to our training routine this time though... I'm picturing anew Uggie-like perfect terrier
> 
> I'm glad you and Ninja are progressing  She's such a gorgeous girl and it's always great when you have a few days where they show you just how great they can be... It's those days I keep at the forefront of my mind when we're going through a bad stage


Crikey I think you might be setting yourself up for failure there but good luck .

Dont be so hard on yourself, ninja will kick off at cars (and everything ) when she is running high, whereas on a good day she will ignore them, if you sit down and really think I bet you will see that there has perhaps been one incident after another that have built up for him (might be only little things) hence he has resorted to the default behaviors again. If he is struggling around other dogs but you haven't been able to keep him away, even if it seems he is ok with big dogs, it will be building up and up. It took me a long time to learn and ironically given dogless  comments it was her and MV who kept drumming it in to me .


----------



## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> Crikey I think you might be setting yourself up for failure there but good luck .
> 
> Dont be so hard on yourself, ninja will kick off at cars (and everything ) when she is running high, whereas on a good day she will ignore them, if you sit down and really think I bet you will see that there has perhaps been one incident after another that have built up for him (might be only little things) hence he has resorted to the default behaviors again. If he is struggling around other dogs but you haven't been able to keep him away, even if it seems he is ok with big dogs, it will be building up and up. It took me a long time to learn and ironically given dogless  comments it was her and MV who kept drumming it in to me .


Lol, I did word that like I was wanting a bit too much! What I meant was, he doesn't necessarily have to ignore stimuli, as long as when I ask him to, he will come back  Just avreliable recall lol, that's all I want...

That's what else I'm worried about. As much as it's easy to get in to mindframe of, 'it's only Terriers he doesn't like', I know it's only a matter of time before he thinks he can do the same to any dog of any size and that worries me  Naturally, being a terrier, he thinks he's a Rottweiler so no dog is too much 

So, before it escalates out of control, I'm going to work on it now... And get him neutered as there's no way that isn't a tiny part of it.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> You can get memory foam off cuts from some companies making human mattresses etc. I wonder if you contacted some you could get something suitable for Leafy cheaper than a specialist dog product?


Great minds think alike.... There's two companies on Amazon that do them fairly cheaply.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Dogless great great update on kilo
> 
> Lauren welcome to the dark side (but as mentioned to dief you may never leave ) I have to say with my own experience of scruffy terrier and what you have said on other threads before Skip sounds a bit high, the constant scanning is what ninja does, it really will make a difference giving him a break if you can, and you as well.
> My trainer gave me permission to not feel the need to work on everything at once, hence why we still dont really have dash back to me recall or perfect LLW but we can get past cars without barking and spot a dog at a hundred paces and my arms arent pulled out my sockets on every walk. Ninja doesnt have a preference as to what she barks at but it is small dogs that worry me most. It was a fellow terrier she grabbed that awful day, over a year ago now but seems like yesterday  I think they just reflect everything thats 'bad' about her back at her or they look like vermin  (our nemesis squeaky dog ruddy sounds like it ).
> 
> Fluffster we use 'mine' too. You can whine it in a special way just to annoy OH
> 
> Twiggy glad you got some sleep despite the blood loss.
> 
> Nikki - love your description of rusty in the garden centres  and ninja also thinks its much better if she gets in the box too
> 
> We have had some great walks, ninja is being a bit of a star after my meltdown last week. I broke her on Saturday as I got a little disorientated and we were out for a little longer than normal, she couldn't even get off the sofa for tea but was bouncing back in good health yesterday
> 
> On saturdays walk we saw more people than normal, she didnt bark, just glared at a group of walkers and almost ignored the two dogs running about on the other side of a fence. Yesterday she did a bit of a naughty but she came back eventually and was good as gold from then on.
> 
> ETA JSW hello again, you have done wonders with Willow, *I feel very lowly in comparison.*




Nonsense...!! You're doing a wonderful job with the Ninja. You're having far more successes than failures these days....:thumbup:


----------



## diefenbaker

Fluffster said:


> Sometimes
> 
> That makes sense with the taking and giving back, I'll get started on that tomorrow  Thanks


I do this a lot with tug. I use the "give" command.. then conduct a fake inspection of the toy.. and resume the game. I think the key is to keep the ratio in the dog's favour.


----------



## peds

I'm pretty much 100% with "Hands up!" with fingers in a gun shape (go to begging position), and "Bang!" as you pretend to shoot (lie on your side _really really quickly_.

Taking a little more time is "achoo!" (bring me a tissue - but only one, and don't destroy it, and don't just bring me one whenever you want).


----------



## Dogless

Good walks this morning. Top fields with Kilo; lots of play and "Ready Steady" and running about. He was very cautious walking there with lots of freezes with tail up against belly so we just took our time and went whatever route Kilo wanted. He seems to be like this for a few days after every major step forwards we have - think it takes it right out of him so I use it as "recovery".

Ran with Rudi; very hard work indeed with the winds this strong but all OK bar a Roo - eating black bin bag blowing up the road.


----------



## GingerRogers

Thank you Grannie, means a lot to hear you think so.

Ironically given the conversation we are having here we just had a perfect exercise in trigger stacking and stress levels just now on our pavement potter. Ninja is quite good at irony, wish she weren't 

Rounding a corner I see man coming out a house, so does ninja, this is enough to prick her radar, but then I remember to scan some more (just like I know she will) and see another man with a dog coming round the corner, so does ninja . 

I didn't even wait to see who it was, it looked quite big and lively and as everyone round here has perfect dogs  I have no idea who it might be, anyway speed U turn and she gave one little gruff and then came with me and looked at me so sweetly as if to say 'thats right mum isnt it'  'yes petal it is, almost perfect' have a (fake) wotsit

Now this dog managed to set off one of the other neighbourhood barkers, ninja keeps stopping and looking back to see where the barks are coming from then back at me, so as we pass a car, engine running, driver inside I suspect I need to work to get past with out incident (she doesnt like people sitting in cars, another relic of the barking great dane in tiny micra thing I think) sure enough she barks and lunges, the man drives off.  

Then we see the betterware lady, she collects the catalogues with a shopping trolley and as such is a little unusual, 'we' (royal we ) looked but passed, with jolliness and wotsit, but no barking 

Then a man getting out of a van ditto 'Its just a man and his van ninjey, lets go' 

Then the van drives past us at a corner, bam, lunge and bark 

We past the cairns house, and the GSD house. Nervy but no lunging or barks, they werent out but that makes no difference to ninja, they might have been 

Then a big NHS laundry van comes past, complete meltdown 

All those things she kicked off at at I could have managed if it hadn't been for that first dog raising her stress to a point where the triggers stacked and stacked.

Thats literally all it takes with a dog that has their stress levels raised as high as ninja always is despite all we try she never relaxes, not never! Theres a lesson in mismanagement from our early weeks with her and not listening to those who were trying to help.


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> Thanks GR
> 
> I think Skip and Ninja are very similar lol... I also think that other Terriers reflect too much likeness back at Skip and he doesn't like it. I think he takes it as 'game on'.
> 
> I've realised that so far, the issue has definitely been mostly me... It's _me_ that assumes he needs a good run around off-leash every day, it's _me_ that lets him off with certain things (because he's a terrier) and it's _me_ who has been confusing him with on/off training
> 
> From now on, he is having no off leash time at all. He's staying on his long line until I feel confident that he will ignore all stimuli and listen to me. He was doing so well with cars until literally last week, but again, that's because I got a bit too comfortable and didn't keep up with the training because I just assumed, wrongly, that he was fine...
> 
> Funnily enough, Skip is great with bigger dogs... He loves them, but again, will happily ignore me to go play... But fellow Terriers (apart from a select few) his first instinct is to fight
> 
> I'm definitely sticking to our training routine this time though... I'm picturing anew Uggie-like perfect terrier
> 
> I'm glad you and Ninja are progressing  She's such a gorgeous girl and it's always great when you have a few days where they show you just how great they can be... It's those days I keep at the forefront of my mind when we're going through a bad stage


Like I was saying last night I am not sure that going in so hard with the training right now and wanting perfection is what I would do. I would probably relax, even miss a few walks and train in the house / garden to let stress levels settle. That way you will know whether the return of car chasing is maybe a symptom of increased stress levels brought about by the dog reactivity - perhaps he has reacted so much recently that his stress is sky high? It does make me wonder whether a new strict regime might just be a little much right now - perhaps write down your "problems" in order of priority and tackle things step by step?

I also wonder that whether reacting to small dogs and not large means that his reaction is fear - based rather than testosterone - driven and that he is just too afraid to use offense as the best form of defence with large dogs as his first instinctive reaction?

I am not sure, you know your dog best obviously - just saying that with Kilo increased stress leads to all sorts of behaviours that have been "sorted" for years resurfacing.


----------



## lupie

GR I second Dogless - Ever since Ruska was kept in for her month due to being in season she has been wonderful. Her stress levels have been RIGHT down. 

I'm not sure now as we had a stressful encounter with those huskies but definitely the last few walks we've had she's almost been a different dog. 

Before her season I was quite focussed on trying to get her positive experiences with dogs and getting her out and about but after her season I have really seen the benefit in letting her stress levels go RIGHT down before attempting any chance encounters. 

You know her best but seeing how quickly Ninja's stress levels rise it might be worth thinking about  - just adding my experience!


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> Like I was saying last night I am not sure that going in so hard with the training right now and wanting perfection is what I would do. I would probably relax, even miss a few walks and train in the house / garden to let stress levels settle. That way you will know whether the return of car chasing is maybe a symptom of increased stress levels brought about by the dog reactivity - perhaps he has reacted so much recently that his stress is sky high? It does make me wonder whether a new strict regime might just be a little much right now - perhaps write down your "problems" in order of priority and tackle things step by step?
> 
> I also wonder that whether reacting to small dogs and not large means that his reaction is fear - based rather than testosterone - driven and that he is just too afraid to use offense as the best form of defence with large dogs as his first instinctive reaction?
> 
> I am not sure, you know your dog best obviously - just saying that with Kilo increased stress leads to all sorts of behaviours that have been "sorted" for years resurfacing.


Thanks Dogless  That makes a lot of sense.

I wrote a list of his problems last night, in order, with his main problems that I want to work on first being at the top... First up is cars.

I think you're right about his stress levels and skipping the walks for a couple of days and working in doors (I hate skipping walks but that's my 'he must be walked' mentality)... However, it does make perfect sense.

If I can work with his reactivity towards cars first, avoiding and working with triggers, then I will be a happier person and no doubt he will be a happier dog 

I'm not too sure if his reaction to other small dogs is fear based. It seems very predatory to me. Like he's playing macho man... He looks at smaller dogs the same way he looks at cats and squirrels. Everything about him tenses, his tail is high, rigid and stock still, his ears prick high and his eyes are so intent... If he ever shows fear or uncertainty, his tail droops, almost like there's a kink in it, his ears go back and he becomes jumpy, if I touch him.

So for now, we're going to work on his reactivity towards cars 

Thank you


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you Grannie, means a lot to hear you think so.
> 
> Ironically given the conversation we are having here we just had a perfect exercise in trigger stacking and stress levels just now on our pavement potter. Ninja is quite good at irony, wish she weren't
> 
> Rounding a corner I see man coming out a house, so does ninja, this is enough to prick her radar, but then I remember to scan some more (just like I know she will) and see another man with a dog coming round the corner, so does ninja .
> 
> I didn't even wait to see who it was, it looked quite big and lively and as everyone round here has perfect dogs  I have no idea who it might be, anyway speed U turn and she gave one little gruff and then came with me and looked at me so sweetly as if to say 'thats right mum isnt it'  'yes petal it is, almost perfect' have a (fake) wotsit
> 
> Now this dog managed to set off one of the other neighbourhood barkers, ninja keeps stopping and looking back to see where the barks are coming from then back at me, so as we pass a car, engine running, driver inside I suspect I need to work to get past with out incident (she doesnt like people sitting in cars, another relic of the barking great dane in tiny micra thing I think) sure enough she barks and lunges, the man drives off.
> 
> Then we see the betterware lady, she collects the catalogues with a shopping trolley and as such is a little unusual, 'we' (royal we ) looked but passed, with jolliness and wotsit, but no barking
> 
> Then a man getting out of a van ditto 'Its just a man and his van ninjey, lets go'
> 
> Then the van drives past us at a corner, bam, lunge and bark
> 
> We past the cairns house, and the GSD house. Nervy but no lunging or barks, they werent out but that makes no difference to ninja, they might have been
> 
> Then a big NHS laundry van comes past, complete meltdown
> 
> All those things she kicked off at at I could have managed if it hadn't been for that first dog raising her stress to a point where the triggers stacked and stacked.
> 
> Thats literally all it takes with a dog that has their stress levels raised as high as ninja always is despite all we try she never relaxes, not never! *Theres a lesson in mismanagement from our early weeks with her and not listening to those who were trying to help.*




GR You are much too hard on yourself. Stop beating yourself up. Luv Grannie.


----------



## Twiggy

*Lauren5159*

Have you ever read Karen Pryor's 'Don't shoot the Dog'? I read it years ago and the bit that really stuck in my mind was about the learning plateau. She explains that in many cases when you hit a problem it is better to just leave it alone and walk away for a few days/weeks/months, rather than keep niggling away at it or upping the training in an effort to sort it out. It does work - honest.

Well agility was cancelled due to a water-logged field which wasn't a surprise really.

Hubby suggested we go out to lunch as he wanted to book a table for the end of the month for eight of us at a local pub. When we got there the kitchen was closed due to refurbishments which was disappointing so he suggested we go and try the new Ranch House Diner in our small town. Hmmmm - he thought it was wonderful and I suppose it was if you like beefburgers, sticky ribs, all day breakfasts, etc. - yuk...!! I can't move now and I didn't manage half the beefburger....

I've ordered Leafy a memory foam mattress which I hope is going to be more successful than the self-heating pad.


----------



## Fluffster

Oooh sticky ribs, yum!!! All I've had today is cereal










Another day, another loose lead walk  Daisy was great today, we had a nice walk to our offlead bit, and the weather was so foul we saw barely anyone, except a spaniel that Daisy ignored cos she was palying with her new ball on a rope that arried in her Pet Munchbox today.

We saw the man with the staffy when leaving, wind was so high we just basically said hi, commented on the weather and carried on, so I didn't get to mention the dog attack. He had his dog on a lead, but he always does on that bit as you can't see too far ahead. His dog lunged a bit at Daisy but I had her on lead too so just kept her away - he's not great on the lead anyway. So I'm none the wiser!

We used our new Gencon all in one for the walk today, it's a headcollar type thing attached to a lead, and after a few frenzied attempts to get it off, she walked nicely and on the way back she didn't bother trying to get it off and was actually walking to heel beside the road  It also feels more secure than the other headcollars we've used and was less of a faff to get on and off than the harness so might stick with that and keep harness as a back up.


----------



## Fluffster

Here's a video of us on the way back, at this point on a collar she's usually straining and almost crawling along the ground sometimes so this is a great improvement!
Sorry for the swishy noise of my waterproof trousers 

[youtube_browser]HRkUpu8ZYVM[/youtube_browser]


----------



## Siskin

I've tried something new today, I expect you're all doing this anyway, but thought it worth mentioning.
Isla's at the stage where if she's off lead and spots people and/or dogs approaching, she's off like a rocket to see them. Most of the people on our walk are local so ok to a degree, but there are one or two dogs and there owners who are a bit on the elderly side who wouldn't really welcome her loving attentions.
So, I bought a Kong safestick. Two reasons the main one being to try and wean her off picking up tree sticks and possibly having an accident with one and secondly to get her doing some retrieving. The added bonus has been that she is becoming more interested in having the safestick thrown or played with and it's easy to distract her from staring ahead to see if anyone is coming. As it happens we haven't met anyone over the last couple of days so I'm not sure if chasing and playing with the stick is going to win over a possible playmate. The advantage it does give me though, is that I can keep an eye open to see if anyone is coming whilst she is concentrating on fetching.


----------



## Fluffster

Siskin said:


> I've tried something new today, I expect you're all doing this anyway, but thought it worth mentioning.
> Isla's at the stage where if she's off lead and spots people and/or dogs approaching, she's off like a rocket to see them. Most of the people on our walk are local so ok to a degree, but there are one or two dogs and there owners who are a bit on the elderly side who wouldn't really welcome her loving attentions.
> So, I bought a Kong safestick. Two reasons the main one being to try and wean her off picking up tree sticks and possibly having an accident with one and secondly to get her doing some retrieving. The added bonus has been that she is becoming more interested in having the safestick thrown or played with and it's easy to distract her from staring ahead to see if anyone is coming. As it happens we haven't met anyone over the last couple of days so I'm not sure if chasing and playing with the stick is going to win over a possible playmate. The advantage it does give me though, is that I can keep an eye open to see if anyone is coming whilst she is concentrating on fetching.


This works great for us. Daisy doesn't really bother with people now, but she still approaches some dogs unless called back etc. However if I've got her ball, she is utterly focussed on it. Yesterday, a spaniel came and stood right beside her and she didn't even turn to look at it! All because I was holding her ball and she was waiting for me to throw it.

I always take her ball on walks, even forest walks when we don't tend to play ball, just as a back up if I need to kepe her attention.

Hopefully the stick works as well for you!


----------



## Nicki85

Good day here  Morning walk round the roman wall, nothing exciting seen... Shae was fab with the three dogs and people we met. desperately wanted to engage one in a proper game but even with her trying to play gently the Springer was not confident enough. Not an issue...

I managed to get a couple of decent agility jumps and six weave poles so that was a result 

This afternoon we had separate walks, Rust was fab offlead in the forest... really focused and watching what I was up to which was lovely. We did a little bit of impulse control and I managed to keep it upbeat enough so he considered it was still all a game 
Took Shae to the field and worked on placing the toy/reward behind us, sending her round a tree and then on to the reward. She was really good, she executed one (un-required) rear cross which was a bit naughty so I need to watch her running on one side... I noticed that she was getting very herdy with me and the obstacles so need to watch that as well... All in all we had a lot of fun! 

I took the best treats out today on our walk and any recall/ squirrel issues have been resolved lol. In fact she spent a lot of time glued to my leg in the hope a treat would follow!! I need to take a mixed bag of treats out I think... 

Ninja- I think your posts are definitely sounding more and more positive... yes it's a long haul but you are getting threre!! 
Lauren- I think you have a good plan of action  sure you will see an improvement as you put the hard work in... 
Twiggy- ribs yum!! bit of a meat fest though hey?! 
DL- glad your walk was good and that Kilo remained under threshold...


----------



## Dogless

*Fluffster *- are you happy with the mechanism of action of the Gencon? I only ask as it may be more successful but it does work on pulling = pain and I do wonder about possible accidental associations being made....see a dog = pull in excitement = pain.......might become see a dog = pain = react aggressively as dogs = pain. Pleased you enjoyed your walk though.

*Twiggy* - pleased Leafy has a new bed on the way for you and for her!! Good night's sleep all round.

*Nicki* - sounds as if you have had a great day!!!

*GR* - I second Grannie; you are doing a superb job so cut yourself some slack .

Siskin - Safestix are fab aren't they? I got ours when Kilo was about 12 weeks old and it's still going strong...I take it out especially when we meet up with Diz and human as she gets embarrassed by it :devil:.


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> *Fluffster *- are you happy with the mechanism of action of the Gencon? I only ask as it may be more successful but it does work on pulling = pain and I do wonder about possible accidental associations being made....see a dog = pull in excitement = pain.......might become see a dog = pain = react aggressively as dogs = pain. Pleased you enjoyed your walk though.
> 
> *Twiggy* - pleased Leafy has a new bed on the way for you and for her!! Good night's sleep all round.
> 
> *Nicki* - sounds as if you have had a great day!!!
> 
> *GR* - I second Grannie; you are doing a superb job so cut yourself some slack .
> 
> Siskin - Safestix are fab aren't they? I got ours when Kilo was about 12 weeks old and it's still going strong...I take it out especially when we meet up with Diz and human as she gets embarrassed by it :devil:.


Hmm it doesn't seem to cause her any pain I checked that it wasn't too tight and checked her afterwards for any rubbing and it seemed ok. I read lots of reviews about it and everyone said it was gentle. It seemed to upset her less than the Dogmatic collar too. I wouldn't want to hurt her though  I'll have a look next time she has it on to see if she's in any discomfort. I did keep the clip fairly loose so it had a little give on it, she was still able to carry her ball in her mouth and pick it up/drop it etc so hopefully it's not tightening too much.

ETA: She's not a lunger at dogs or people, she was when she was smaller but she walks past them without really paying them attention these days, which is a good thing! She used to be a pain for trying to lunge to go and say hi to people, but she seems to have realised people are generally quite dull :lol:


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> *Lauren5159*
> 
> Have you ever read Karen Pryor's 'Don't shoot the Dog'? I read it years ago and the bit that really stuck in my mind was about the learning plateau. She explains that in many cases when you hit a problem it is better to just leave it alone and walk away for a few days/weeks/months, rather than keep niggling away at it or upping the training in an effort to sort it out. It does work - honest.


I haven't read it, no. But thank you, I might.just have to order it and add it to my collection  The only issue is that we have to face cars every day  Anywhere we walk, cars are inevitable  But I get what you're saying. So I'm not going to focus on long line training at the minute and I'm going to road walks and road walks only with Skip... That way, we are less likely to encounter any other dogs and all the stimuli that comes with woodland. That way, we can focus purely on his issue with cars for the next month and not have to worry about other dogs etc setting our training back.

Thanks a lot 

I'm just about to sit on the floor with Skip and do some focus training, no outdoor walks for him for the next couple of days  and it's Dexterous day at Doggy Daycare tomorrow so I can purely focus on Skip and training


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Siskin - Safestix are fab aren't they? I got ours when Kilo was about 12 weeks old and it's still going strong...I take it out especially when we meet up with Diz and human as she gets embarrassed by it :devil:.


What size do you have ? I've been looking on Amazon.. the large is 70cm.. which seems huge.. the medium is 50cm which is still fairly big... and a fair chunk cheaper too.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> What size do you have ? I've been looking on Amazon.. the large is 70cm.. which seems huge.. the medium is 50cm which is still fairly big... and a fair chunk cheaper too.


They only did one size when I bought it - it is 70cm I suspect; definitely bigger than 50cm. It is really big and, having seen the medium in the flesh, a medium would be fine for the CHs.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> They only did one size when I bought it - it is 70cm I suspect; definitely bigger than 50cm. It is really big and, having seen the medium in the flesh, a medium would be fine for the CHs.


It's made of flesh ? Looks plastic to me. Medium it is then. There goes my Amazon Christmas voucher.


----------



## GingerRogers

lupie said:


> GR I second Dogless - Ever since Ruska was kept in for her month due to being in season she has been wonderful. Her stress levels have been RIGHT down.
> 
> I'm not sure now as we had a stressful encounter with those huskies but definitely the last few walks we've had she's almost been a different dog.
> 
> Before her season I was quite focussed on trying to get her positive experiences with dogs and getting her out and about but after her season I have really seen the benefit in letting her stress levels go RIGHT down before attempting any chance encounters.
> 
> You know her best but seeing how quickly Ninja's stress levels rise it might be worth thinking about  - just adding my experience!


Thank you I do manage it as best I can, we dont have a big enough garden to not walk her at all and we generally dont see anything.

I was more trying to explain how easy it is to step over threshold with a dog thats already stressed to Lauren, even over something seemingly minor.

You probably have a point though, a few days of no walks would do her stress levels the world of good  unfortunately the fall out on her behaviour at home is not something I can even think about dealing with my stress levels would be through the roof what with her reacting to the tv and other 'stuff' I have going on at the moment, our walks are my only sane moments.


----------



## Siskin

diefenbaker said:


> What size do you have ? I've been looking on Amazon.. the large is 70cm.. which seems huge.. the medium is 50cm which is still fairly big... and a fair chunk cheaper too.


I ended up getting the smallest!
I agree the longest seems vast. I find the size fine for Isla (GR) and is plenty big enough for her. The other point is what to with it when you're not chucking it around. I can put it, and my hand, into a pocket together and although it sticks out it's not too bad, or else I tuck it lengthwise into my armpit. As it doesn't protrude too much, Isla doesn't see it and doesn't keep trying to grab it.
Not sure how else to carry it when not in use unless you have any bright ideas.

When it arrived, my husband looked at it and said 'what's that'. I explained and he then said 'oh, I thought it was some kind of sex toy'.


----------



## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you I do manage it as best I can, we dont have a big enough garden to not walk her at all and we generally dont see anything.
> 
> I was more trying to explain how easy it is to step over threshold with a dog thats already stressed to Lauren, even over something seemingly minor.
> 
> You probably have a point though, a few days of no walks would do her stress levels the world of good  unfortunately the fall out on her behaviour at home is not something I can even think about dealing with my stress levels would be through the roof what with her reacting to the tv and other 'stuff' I have going on at the moment, our walks are my only sane moments.


I totally get what you mean, GR. Skip is exactly the same as Ninja. One little thing and he spends the rest of the walk highly strung and on the look out...

My garden is big, Skip hasn't had a walk since our short one this morning and we've just spent 30 minutes doing training ('touch' and 'watch me')... He won't settle  He's pulled all his toys out the box, has stolen a piece of paper off the table and won't give me a minutes peace 

But I'm going to stick by my guns and not walk him... We are going to do a lot more training tomorrow, in the house and in the garden whilst Dexter is at Daycare... I've never not walked him for atleast an hour... I think he's finding this just as hard as I am... I'm very determined though lol... We're going to do another 30 minutes of 'touch' and 'watch me' training before bed and hopefully that will settle him.


----------



## diefenbaker

Siskin said:


> When it arrived, my husband looked at it and said 'what's that'. I explained and he then said 'oh, I thought it was some kind of sex toy'.


Does it come with a mains adapter ? I think I'm okay.. it wasn't me that started it this time :hand:


----------



## GingerRogers

Lauren5159 said:


> I totally get what you mean, GR. Skip is exactly the same as Ninja. One little thing and he spends the rest of the walk highly strung and on the look out...
> 
> My garden is big, Skip hasn't had a walk since our short one this morning and we've just spent 30 minutes doing training ('touch' and 'watch me')... He won't settle  He's pulled all his toys out the box, has stolen a piece of paper off the table and won't give me a minutes peace
> 
> But I'm going to stick by my guns and not walk him... We are going to do a lot more training tomorrow, in the house and in the garden whilst Dexter is at Daycare... I've never not walked him for atleast an hour... I think he's finding this just as hard as I am... I'm very determined though lol... We're going to do another 30 minutes of 'touch' and 'watch me' training before bed and hopefully that will settle him.


I have done it in the past and it does really help, I just have too much going on to deal with the other side of it at the moment .


----------



## lupie

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you I do manage it as best I can, we dont have a big enough garden to not walk her at all and we generally dont see anything.
> 
> I was more trying to explain how easy it is to step over threshold with a dog thats already stressed to Lauren, even over something seemingly minor.
> 
> You probably have a point though, a few days of no walks would do her stress levels the world of good  unfortunately the fall out on her behaviour at home is not something I can even think about dealing with my stress levels would be through the roof what with her reacting to the tv and other 'stuff' I have going on at the moment, our walks are my only sane moments.


I have to use PF on my phone at work and usually get mighty confused between posts :blush: Maybe I need reading glasses...:lol: :001_tongue:


----------



## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> I have done it in the past and it does really help, I just have too much going on to deal with the other side of it at the moment .


Was Ninja a bit unsettled when you did it before?

Skip is following me around like a bad smell!

Sorry about the other things you have going on  I hope everything gets better soon.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Does it come with a mains adapter ? I think I'm okay.. it wasn't me that started it this time :hand:


All I'm saying is just don't buy the pink one...!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Lauren5159 said:


> Was Ninja a bit unsettled when you did it before?
> 
> Skip is following me around like a bad smell!
> 
> Sorry about the other things you have going on  I hope everything gets better soon.


Gosh hard to say really she was so wound up like a spring before we rested her her behaviour was erratic in any case. I suspect he will settle eventually as long as you let him, dont give in to the feeling you must be doing stuff 24/7 because he hasn't been walked.

And thank you so do I...............sigh


----------



## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> Gosh hard to say really she was so wound up like a spring before we rested her her behaviour was erratic in any case. I suspect he will settle eventually as long as you let him, dont give in to the feeling you must be doing stuff 24/7 because he hasn't been walked.
> 
> And thank you so do I...............sigh


He's finally sleeping... Sssshhhh! 

I'm too scared to move lol.


----------



## GingerRogers

Lol  I know the feeling we have a little routine of an evening which seems to settle her so I get at least and hour of relaxation making sure I have chocolate, wine and tv remote at my side.


----------



## Fluffster

If I fidget too much when Daisy is sleeping on my lap, she takes herself off to her bed and settles down with a HUGE sigh


----------



## Lauren5159

I'm too scared to reach for my wine... He'll get up :/

Catch 22... Wine or sleeping terrier? Which would you prefer? 

It's worse than having a baby!!!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> All I'm saying is just don't buy the pink one...!!


I'm starting to think I've bought the wrong thing....


----------



## GingerRogers

Lauren5159 said:


> I'm too scared to reach for my wine... He'll get up :/
> 
> Catch 22... Wine or sleeping terrier? Which would you prefer?
> 
> It's worse than having a baby!!!!


Lesson learnt 



diefenbaker said:


> I'm starting to think I've bought the wrong thing....


 :blush: dief :hand:

Which one arrived first then?


----------



## lupie

Bah - two offlead dogs who weren't wearing lights or anything so I didn't see them until too late raced up to Ruska earlier tonight. I didn't really have a hope in hell, desperately tried bodyblocking but they were small so just got round me. Growling, lunging, barking, the works from Ruska.  The owner just kept trying to call them away even though they weren't coming. 

Feel like a failure for not spotting them.


----------



## Fluffster

lupie said:


> Bah - two offlead dogs who weren't wearing lights or anything so I didn't see them until too late raced up to Ruska earlier tonight. I didn't really have a hope in hell, desperately tried bodyblocking but they were small so just got round me. Growling, lunging, barking, the works from Ruska.  The owner just kept trying to call them away even though they weren't coming.
> 
> Feel like a failure for not spotting them.


It's not your fault at all. If I'm taking Daisy out at night and going offlead (or even staying on-lead!), I make sure she's wearing her light-up collar as she's a black dog and totally invisible if we're somewhere with no street lights. I do this so people can see her approaching, but also as an owner, I don't like to not know where she is at all times, even though she doesn't stray far.

Especially if a dog has dodgy recall, it shouldn't be allowed to race up in the dark to unknown dogs. Poor Ruska and poor you x


----------



## Freddie and frank

good morning folks.

twiggy...hope the memory foam bed is a hit with leafy. 
nicki...that sounded a fab day. what fun 
lauren...sounds like you have a good plan. hope things work out. 
gr...sending you a hug, cause you sound like you need one. i'm not too great on advice but i hope your other things get sorted for you.  

and the rest of you, you know who you are, going on about safestix...:hand::lol: siskin...hope it works with the focus.

the stress levels stuff make total sense to me, as did dogless's bath post the other day. that's why it's good coming on here, cause i learn something new nearly every day. 

well, i've booked me and bella in to do a KCGCDS bronze class. we start 20th january. :thumbup1:
i've been thinking for a while now that i need to go back to basics with each of them, reinforce what they know and really stick to it. i know i've mentioned this before, but if i can set myself more realistic goals and move slowly, i'll be more confident with things. 
i got very disheartened with bellas gundog training because i think i got confused, and wasn't sure what i was doing. so if i go to this new class with her, i know i can do it, and understand everything so i wont have the fear of doing it wrong, which in turn would confuse her   then maybe once i've got to a confident stage, we could always go back to the gundog training. but i'm not going to rush anything. 
i may even enrol F&F back into the silver and gold classes...we'll see. 

congratulations if anyone understood a word of that !!!

hope you all have good days.


----------



## Lauren5159

*F&F* good for you and Bella  
Sounds exciting! 
Like you, I'm going back to basics with Skip. It seems that somewhere along the lines, both our brains and training got a bit jiggled and things then started to go downhill. 
Good luck with it  Believe it or not, Skip has his Puppy Foundation and Bronze award bit we didn't keep refreshing the basics 

*Lupi* I'm sorry you didn't have the best walk  it sounds stressful for both you and Ruska... I hope you are feeling better this morning.

So... It has now been 24 hours since the Toerag had a walk. Last night he didn't settle much. He was up every now and again, moving around  I took Dexter to Daycare this morning and when I came back, Skip had shredded the mail... Then a delivery driver knocked on the door and Skip ran, barking and slammed himself in to the door so quickly that it's a wonder he didn't snap his front legs 

The whistle still hasn't arrived 

So today, the plan of action is training... More 'touch' and 'watch me'... We're also going to work on 'drop' and 'leave' 

He's currently sitting on the floor, staring at me and crying


----------



## lupie

Fluffster said:


> It's not your fault at all. If I'm taking Daisy out at night and going offlead (or even staying on-lead!), I make sure she's wearing her light-up collar as she's a black dog and totally invisible if we're somewhere with no street lights. I do this so people can see her approaching, but also as an owner, I don't like to not know where she is at all times, even though she doesn't stray far.
> 
> Especially if a dog has dodgy recall, it shouldn't be allowed to race up in the dark to unknown dogs. Poor Ruska and poor you x


Thank you. I know, just frustrating - I wear a head torch, bright clothing, Ruska has hi-viz harness and flashing red light, enough to shout to people a mile away that I am there with dog! And these guys were just invisible.

Ah well, calmer this morning, just in mourning for the wonderful progress we'd had recently.


----------



## Twiggy

Freddie and frank said:


> good morning folks.
> 
> twiggy...hope the memory foam bed is a hit with leafy.
> nicki...that sounded a fab day. what fun
> lauren...sounds like you have a good plan. hope things work out.
> gr...sending you a hug, cause you sound like you need one. i'm not too great on advice but i hope your other things get sorted for you.
> 
> and the rest of you, you know who you are, going on about safestix...:hand::lol: siskin...hope it works with the focus.
> 
> the stress levels stuff make total sense to me, as did dogless's bath post the other day. that's why it's good coming on here, cause i learn something new nearly every day.
> 
> well, i've booked me and bella in to do a KCGCDS bronze class. we start 20th january. :thumbup1:
> i've been thinking for a while now that i need to go back to basics with each of them, reinforce what they know and really stick to it. i know i've mentioned this before, but if i can set myself more realistic goals and move slowly, i'll be more confident with things.
> i got very disheartened with bellas gundog training because i think i got confused, and wasn't sure what i was doing. so if i go to this new class with her, i know i can do it, and understand everything so i wont have the fear of doing it wrong, which in turn would confuse her   then maybe once i've got to a confident stage, we could always go back to the gundog training. but i'm not going to rush anything.
> i may even enrol F&F back into the silver and gold classes...we'll see.
> 
> congratulations if anyone understood a word of that !!!
> 
> hope you all have good days.


I understood every word of it and I think it's a good plan.

Years ago (when I was keen) I always gave my girls November/December off from training and would start in January right from scratch, as if they'd never been trained. It didn't matter how old they were or how advanced their training; we went right back to basics.


----------



## diefenbaker

lupie said:


> Thank you. I know, just frustrating - I wear a head torch, bright clothing, Ruska has hi-viz harness and flashing red light, enough to shout to people a mile away that I am there with dog! And these guys were just invisible.
> 
> Ah well, calmer this morning, just in mourning for the wonderful progress we'd had recently.


How do you all find your dogs in the dark ? I tend not to go out because Dief seems slightly more on-edge. He's always very interested in whatever is approaching and finds it more difficult to make out what/who in the dark.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> How do you all find your dogs in the dark ? I tend not to go out because Dief seems slightly more on-edge. He's always very interested in whatever is approaching and finds it more difficult to make out what/who in the dark.


Blow the dogs. I'm much too frightened to go out in the dark. If it was ever necessary to walk mine in the dark I'd send hubby....!!


----------



## lupie

diefenbaker said:


> How do you all find your dogs in the dark ? I tend not to go out because Dief seems slightly more on-edge. He's always very interested in whatever is approaching and finds it more difficult to make out what/who in the dark.


I work full time so we have no choice in winter. Ruska doesn't really act any different - except she has to stay on lead/long-line because there are so many more things to chase.

Sometimes if someone's approaching and she can't work out what it is (for example a cyclist coming from far away with a multitude of lights) she will strain forward and maybe give a woof until it's close enough for her to realise it's just a bike. 
Other than that and the extra critters about no different really


----------



## GingerRogers

F&F thats sounds a plan, and thanks for the hug, it was needed!

Lauren is there really nowhere you can get to that will have no one about even for 10 mins if the no walking doesnt suit. Its a lack of stress that he needs not to increase his frustration. Ninja did the same last time I tried the not walking I had left her for 10 mins top and hubby was in the house, she had been so good and patient for nearly a fortnight that while I was out I had decided she deserved a treat and was going to take her up to the woods which would be deserted. Came home to a little pile of chewed things, she doesn't eat stuff just liked to chew small plastic things, think that time it was something like a pen, a pencil and my rescue remedy lid, she was sat next to her pile wiggling her little tail like such a proud girl with her treasures 

Dief sometimes its easier to go in the dark to avoid people, ninja is much more alert though so we have to be on the ball and I dont let her off, its a lead walk round the estate or long line on the dunes, which is favourite as ninja likes to make sure all the rabbits have been put to bed  we do have a light up collar even with the line as its much more fun watching it bounce about and like lupie says I think its quite important to let people know we are there, or rather the dog is, I rarely use a torch as there is normally enough light to see by, especially on the beach.

Lupie sorry about your ruined walk 

We just had a quick run round the fields between downpours, timed to perfection  

I went to see a client this morning with an darling staffy boy, the one with the dangerous kitten  they have a new puppy, a little black pug to replace the one they lost last year. He escaped when the postman came and was run over, only 8 months old . She showed me the video of when their daughter 'discovered' the new puppy 'Poppy'

They had set up a pen in her bedroom and asked her to hide from her brother but she was refusing to shut the door and turn round, then it made a noise and the look on her face was priceless, she burst into tears  and stayed that way snuggling the pup all day, needless to say they have a gate by the front door now so they have exit management. I know puppys for Christmas for 10 year old girls are frowned on but this one has a good home  just hope its a healthy one  it puppy snorts already.


----------



## Nicki85

I take mine round the forest in the dark when needs must... I love it! Rust stays closer to me as he's more worried about loosing me so it's an easy walk. Neither are more on edge but I make sure to leash them up if I see head torch in the distance. We can have a few issues if we come across the cows (nothing major, usually just Rust running into one and getting a shock) and that can result in barking but a quick recall and they both come back.

We had an OK morning walk, it was wet... I got jumped on by a lab which wasn't much fun and no apology from the owner. I think she was on the phone... As usual I took mine to the side in the hope that the owner would recall. She tried once and the dogs just kept coming! All was OK, Shae was fine and Rust was the gentleman as always.
We also saw a woman with a lurcher obviously desperate to avoid us so I hung back when ever we saw her... much to Shae's confusion. 

This afternoon's walk with Rusty was really good though and I'm so chuffed with him. He was doing a lot of supersonic running and usually this makes him difficult to control.... but, when ever I asked him to come a different way or to return for a game he did  At one point I even decided to go into the wilder woods (less people= more wildlife) and saw he was racing through the woodland a good 100m or more away... I recalled thinking no chance (and also, why am I recalling If I don't think he'll respond?) but he looped round and came straight back. We had a lot of happy excited voices and a game! As it was all going so well I decided to come out on the other side of the village and practice LLW. It took a lot of stopping but he did some really nice work  He still thinks the white stone on the otherside of the road is a cat though....

Shae has agility later... I'm prepared for an hour of a very excited Shae!


----------



## Dogless

A good morning's trail running; the weather was just about OK to get to our beloved hills and forest. The boys were very well behaved for me .

Dief - the dark. Interesting. At dawn and dusk the pair of them turn into hunters; Kilo especially - he becomes very predatory and if I cannot be certain that nothing is going to appear he is on lead. Things in the distance that he disregards in the day become interesting. Hard work. BUT, once it is pitch dark it almost has a calming effect on Kilo. I think it is because he is so hypervigilant and spends so much time just scanning, scanning, scanning in the day and the dark cuts out so much that he has less to worry about. People approaching suddenly he isn't keen on (nor Roo) in the dark but Kilo cannot see far enough ahead to get worked up about what may be approaching. Like nature's calming cap.


----------



## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> Lauren is there really nowhere you can get to that will have no one about even for 10 mins if the no walking doesnt suit. Its a lack of stress that he needs not to increase his frustration. Ninja did the same last time I tried the not walking I had left her for 10 mins top and hubby was in the house, she had been so good and patient for nearly a fortnight that while I was out I had decided she deserved a treat and was going to take her up to the woods which would be deserted. Came home to a little pile of chewed things, she doesn't eat stuff just liked to chew small plastic things, think that time it was something like a pen, a pencil and my rescue remedy lid, she was sat next to her pile wiggling her little tail like such a proud girl with her treasures


I'll admit... I took him out  Only for ten minutes. I just watched him. Let him walk without me trying to correct him or stop him from pulling. I've done it before but not with as much determination and as clear a head as today...

I put his Thundershirt on him and filmed quite a bit so I could watch it back when I got home in case I missed anything.

I also filmed his reaction inside the house when I put his Thundershirt and harness on and I had a lightbulb moment. He is stressed! He won't take treats when he's stressed. Someone on here mentioned it and I had never thought about it before but the video I took shows it perfectly. He's running around, trying to get his harness off, he's yawning and huffing... I offer him chicken and he's not interested at all. So I wait it out. Eventually he calms down so much that he starts to fall asleep whilst standing, I then offer him chicken and he TAKES it!

Before, all I had done was left the house whilst he's stressed. He's stressed before we even leave the house. Granted, he wasn't interested in the chicken whilst outside and he pulled and lunged at cars, but that was mainly so I could observe him. On the way home, I made him walk beside me and wait as cars passed and about 100 metres from home, he started wanting the chicken  He was working for food whilst outdoors 

I feel great but I also feel so sorry for him and a bit like a horrible owner for never noticing all his signs before. I just thought he was being a little git. I always got annoyed at him and the whole time, he was stressed. He was clearly telling me he was stressed and I ignored all the clear signals :crying:

I now have a clear direction and although.I'm a bit upset about missing what was right in front of me, I now know what I need to work to... I need to make him comfortable and happy whilst walking on the lead.


----------



## GingerRogers

:smile5: Lauren I dont like Skip being stressed but I do like you have spotted what we were trying to say , the waywo ladies did the same with me.

After she bit me in the pub - Ginge do you think she might be stressed perhaps you should stop taking her.

After she ragged my ankles on a walk - Ginge do you think she might be stressed perhaps you should stop exposing her to so much.

After she bit the other terrier - Ginge......................

I think I took longer to cotton on though 

That nearly falling asleep standing up thing, stress is very very tiring as I am sure you know.

Filming is a great idea I keep meaning to do that on a walk, need diefs sunglasses cam, mind at this time of year I would probably look as daft as I would carrying the camera.

I will try and remember some tips for keeping him calm, given out on the course I went to. 

Remember to try and limit distress and eustress during a period of calm, perhaps the training and play you were doing were too arousing. 
Limit exciting games of tug etc and concentrate on calm training like hand targets and mat work. I know its 'really hard' but its beneficial for the period of stress reduction the course was over 6 weeks and we had to try and keep them calm through out (which reminds me we have a refresher on 18th best try and get ninja back on track)

As you know food plays a big part, I am now relying on turkey, just an ice cube of raw turkey mince in the morning. We also use valerian and skullcap (think it helps) and nupafeed stressless (def works but in a very subtle unnoticed way till you run out ) recently started using an adaptil plug in (which is expensive but seems to be helping keep her less stressed in the house too hope that wont be forever). Other people swear by mashed potato and vit b6 but have no idea why 

If you cant avoid a stressful situation try and limit the experiences prior to it, so we were advised not to walk the day before the course unless we could guarantee a good experience. Umm sorry got on my hobby horse again............


----------



## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> :smile5: Lauren I dont like Skip being stressed but I do like you have spotted what we were trying to say , the waywo ladies did the same with me.
> 
> After she bit me in the pub - Ginge do you think she might be stressed perhaps you should stop taking her.
> 
> After she ragged my ankles on a walk - Ginge do you think she might be stressed perhaps you should stop exposing her to so much.
> 
> After she bit the other terrier - Ginge......................
> 
> I think I took longer to cotton on though
> 
> That nearly falling asleep standing up thing, stress is very very tiring as I am sure you know.
> 
> Filming is a great idea I keep meaning to do that on a walk, need diefs sunglasses cam, mind at this time of year I would probably look as daft as I would carrying the camera.
> 
> I will try and remember some tips for keeping him calm, given out on the course I went to.
> 
> Remember to try and limit distress and eustress during a period of calm, perhaps the training and play you were doing were too arousing.
> Limit exciting games of tug etc and concentrate on calm training like hand targets and mat work. I know its 'really hard' but its beneficial for the period of stress reduction the course was over 6 weeks and we had to try and keep them calm through out (which reminds me we have a refresher on 18th best try and get ninja back on track)
> 
> As you know food plays a big part, I am now relying on turkey, just an ice cube of raw turkey mince in the morning. We also use valerian and skullcap (think it helps) and nupafeed stressless (def works but in a very subtle unnoticed way till you run out ) recently started using an adaptil plug in (which is expensive but seems to be helping keep her less stressed in the house too hope that wont be forever). Other people swear by mashed potato and vit b6 but have no idea why
> 
> If you cant avoid a stressful situation try and limit the experiences prior to it, so we were advised not to walk the day before the course unless we could guarantee a good experience. Umm sorry got on my hobby horse again............


No! Stay on that hobby horse  It's really helping me out 

I've decided that for now, even if his walks only consist of a really boring place with no distractions, that is fine... It will do him the world of good. No cars, no animals, no stress... Just me and him, some chicken and slow, calm training. I have a patch of grass close to where I stay that is beside the woods and no one ever goes there so it is calm and quiet... I'm going to work with him there for the foreseeable future.

It's so enfuriating (aimed at myself) that I've always told people 'he won't work for treats or toys' when in fact, he won't work for treats and toys when he's _stressed_. Like that time I took him to the OB class ran by the awful trainer. I was devastated that the trainer used harsh methods because half way through, Skip really started working and listening to me. Looking back, that was nothing to do with the class and everything to do with his stress levels :blush:


----------



## Fluffster

Glad you've had a lightbulb moment wth Skip, Lauren! Don't feel bad for not recognising he was stressed, feel good that you've spotted it now and can start working on it 

Pretty bog standard walk today, didn't see anyone as it was blowing a gale and everyone else seems to disappear :lol: So we did some ball chucking for a while. Going to start working on our new "give" (altough that word is still in discussion, I am still campaigning for flubbins!) command this weekend as I have five days off work, then I have a week off the week after so lots of time to do work.

Me and OH are off to NY in May for a week and Daisy will be staying with my mum and stepdad. They have a large house in the country and a lot of land, so Daisy is in her element wen we visit. But I want to get some stuff with her sorted before then so I've got a deadline to work towards. Particularly her obedience in the evenings. She tends to pick and choose when she obeys stuff like sit, and even silly stuff like paw. She knows the commands but sometimes you ask her and she just looks at you like "And why should I"? Little madam! 

I don't know what it is but I feel quite flat at the moment, I'm bloody knackered but not sleeping properly and when I came down today a bit later than usual, Daisy had destroyed the door mat, obv cos she was bored, but I need a kick up the backside I think


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> Glad you've had a lightbulb moment wth Skip, Lauren! Don't feel bad for not recognising he was stressed, feel good that you've spotted it now and can start working on it
> 
> Pretty bog standard walk today, didn't see anyone as it was blowing a gale and everyone else seems to disappear :lol: So we did some ball chucking for a while. Going to start working on our new "give" (altough that word is still in discussion, I am still campaigning for flubbins!) command this weekend as I have five days off work, then I have a week off the week after so lots of time to do work.
> 
> Me and OH are off to NY in May for a week and Daisy will be staying with my mum and stepdad. They have a large house in the country and a lot of land, so Daisy is in her element wen we visit. But I want to get some stuff with her sorted before then so I've got a deadline to work towards. Particularly her obedience in the evenings. She tends to pick and choose when she obeys stuff like sit, and even silly stuff like paw. She knows the commands but sometimes you ask her and she just looks at you like "And why should I"? Little madam!
> 
> I don't know what it is but I feel quite flat at the moment, I'm bloody knackered but not sleeping properly and when I came down today a bit later than usual, Daisy had destroyed the door mat, obv cos she was bored, but I need a kick up the backside I think


Oh dear. Sounds like the January blues...


----------



## Siskin

I noticed that stressed dogs won't eat with my last dog, Jodi. She was dog reactive so I took her along to some training classes locally in order to get her used to being in the company of well trained dogs who left her alone. She was an obedient dog and did all the walk to heel,sits and stays as much as you liked, but she flatly refused to lie down when asked, something she normally did no problem. We tried everything to persuade her, the trainer came over with a selection of the smelliest, tastiest treats she had, but no avail. She would just turn her head to one side and this is a retriever we're talking about, a breed well known for their love of food. It was decided that it was ok for Jodi not to lie down if she didn't want to and the class moved onto some off lead work. The dogs were all put into a lie down (Jodi sat) and we all stepped back a few steps. Suddenly a dog from the other side of the room jumped up and went for Jodi and there was a squabble in the middle of the hall. We went home then and didn't go back. I often wonder if Jodi was aware of the other dog right from the start and didn't want to put herself into a vulnerable position. It was also when I became aware that a stressed dog is unlikely to eat.


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear. Sounds like the January blues...


I think it is! It's permanently dark or getting dark it seems, the weather is crap and I have no motivation to get out of bed! Luckily I obviousy predicted I'd feel like this when the work holiday rota was going round last year and I've got a week's holiday coming up at least.

Daisy doesn't care for the bad weather though! This was her on today's walk, she's a puddle fiend!


----------



## Lauren5159

Siskin said:


> I noticed that stressed dogs won't eat with my last dog, Jodi. She was dog reactive so I took her along to some training classes locally in order to get her used to being in the company of well trained dogs who left her alone. She was an obedient dog and did all the walk to heel,sits and stays as much as you liked, but she flatly refused to lie down when asked, something she normally did no problem. We tried everything to persuade her, the trainer came over with a selection of the smelliest, tastiest treats she had, but no avail. She would just turn her head to one side and this is a retriever we're talking about, a breed well known for their love of food. It was decided that it was ok for Jodi not to lie down if she didn't want to and the class moved onto some off lead work. The dogs were all put into a lie down (Jodi sat) and we all stepped back a few steps. Suddenly a dog from the other side of the room jumped up and went for Jodi and there was a squabble in the middle of the hall. We went home then and didn't go back. I often wonder if Jodi was aware of the other dog right from the start and didn't want to put herself into a vulnerable position. It was also when I became aware that a stressed dog is unlikely to eat.


I liked not because of your old dog being stressed but for confirming my thoughts 

Poor soul. It's always scares me how sometimes dogs just _know_ that they shouldn't relax. That there's something to be stressed about.

Fluffster, I'm sorry that you're not feeling yourself. January is a horrible month. I'm going to New York in March or possibly April, so I need to try and find someone that is capable of sticking to my training with Skip, that can look after him... I'm going with my parents but I may just tell my dad that he can't come as he's someone who will really take Skip's training on board and do all he can to help... So he can stay and look after him :blush:


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## GingerRogers

I was linked to this which I found very concise

The Five Things Our Dogs Want for Christmas » TheOtherEndoftheLeash

And this has some useful tips 
Your End of the Lead Online January 2014 - Canine Confidence 
particularly the advent calendar

Although I admit I find the whole ttouch thing a bit hippyfied sorry everyone  but am willing to accept that if it works its worth a try


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## Lauren5159

Here's the video, if anyone wants to see:

I do giggle but that's only because at that point I hadn't figured it out... I feel awful about giggling now. I stop giggling as soon as I start to suspect what you guys had been telling me.


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## GingerRogers

Tis set to private!


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## Fluffster

Yeah I can't see it either


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## Lauren5159

Oops, hang on... I'll try to fix it.


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## Lauren5159

I've fixed it, I think  

Sorry guys... Link should work now


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## Fluffster

Yes working! Skip is SOOOO cute, I love him! I want to cuddle him 

He does do a bit of yawning and licking of his lips, particularly at start which is suggesting he is stressed. You can visibly see the change in his body language nearer the end of the vid compared to the start!


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## Lauren5159

Fluffster said:


> Yes working! Skip is SOOOO cute, I love him! I want to cuddle him
> 
> He does do a bit of yawning and licking of his lips, particularly at start which is suggesting he is stressed. You can visibly see the change in his body language nearer the end of the vid compared to the start!


That's what I thought, when it finally clicked. He constantly tries to get his harness and Thundershirt off... Then, when I give him his space and let him have his moment, he relaxes. Before, even when he was running around and throwing stress signals at me, I would just take him straight out


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## Fluffster

Lauren5159 said:


> That's what I thought, when it finally clicked. He constantly tries to get his harness and Thundershirt off... Then, when I give him his space and let him have his moment, he relaxes. Before, even when he was running around and throwing stress signals at me, I would just take him straight out


Thing is, it's easy to re-watch and pick up the signs, but when you're in the moment, it's much harder as you can't pause or rewind real life! It's easy to mistake it just for excitement at going out - Daisy tears around the place when I put her collar and harness on cos she's so excited about going out, it's the smaller signs like the yawning and licking lips that are easy to miss.


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## Siskin

We had a particularly nice walk today.
It stopped raining and we went to a place we haven't been to for ages. It's by a roman villa which is closed for the winter at the moment, so good parking and is set in woodlands. It's big advantage is that there is an old railway line close by. It's not been developed and is a nature reserve and just has the railway ballast stuff underfoot. It was great. Why? Because it was DRY underfoot. Isla hardly got mucky and just needed a bit of towelling off when we got home. Nobody else was about all we heard were birds including a croaky old Raven and the breeze in the trees. Lovely.


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## GingerRogers

He is a different coloured version of ninja  although she doesn't do the before a walk stuff the lip licks and yawns are her classic signs, I had the sound down but turned it up to see if he was a noisy yawner and ninja dashed out her cave to see whose tags were jingling 

Ninja also does the face rolling stuff but when we come in from a walk. I am goign to watch her a bit more carefully before we go out now though. very brave to post that thank you!

Mind you that does look like a pink harness you make make him wear, just saying


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## tiatortilla

Hi! I can't catch up on everything I've missed, but I'm back now 

Tia's doing really well  She's a lot less stressed out than she was when we had that really crappy little while, she's totally stopped reacting to people again, so I'm not really sure what was going on there but she's happier anyway so that's all that matters! She's ignoring the people outside at weekends too, and not getting wound up by them 

Seems to be a bit better with other dogs when she's on lead, I went for a walk with a friend who hadn't seen her since she was a puppy last week and warned him we'd probably have to do some dog dodging in case she kicked off. We ended up seeing loads of dogs in places we had nowhere to escape from them and she ignored every one except a rottie (too big!) and even then it was only one quiet growl. Dogs just like making us look like liars I'm sure :lol:

Christmas was pretty good. She got a bit stressed out visiting family on Christmas day, there were a lot of people there, but as soon as two of them went to bed she was fine and settled nicely. Doing great at not jumping on people too!
She did make a child cry  But she really didn't do anything wrong and it was family lol not just a random child. He's not really used to dogs, the only one he knows is my auntie's dog who is nervous of people and just ignores most strangers. At first he was quite excited by a dog who wanted to be stroked and sniff him etc. but he did a sudden movement by her, and she did a little jump and playbow at him which made him jump. His mum said he was just overtired so no harm done but I did feel bad that she upset him, even if she just thought he was playing with her.

Oh dear I have rambled on haha, I was going to mention some things from Tia and Monty's (auntie's dog) walk and ask for some advice but maybe I'll save that for my next post now 

I'll do more replying next time too!


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## Lauren5159

Fluffster said:


> Thing is, it's easy to re-watch and pick up the signs, but when you're in the moment, it's much harder as you can't pause or rewind real life! It's easy to mistake it just for excitement at going out - Daisy tears around the place when I put her collar and harness on cos she's so excited about going out, it's the smaller signs like the yawning and licking lips that are easy to miss.


I know... Bless him.

Forgot to add to the previous post, he does give great cuddles


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## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> He is a different coloured version of ninja  although she doesn't do the before a walk stuff the lip licks and yawns are her classic signs, I had the sound down but turned it up to see if he was a noisy yawner and ninja dashed out her cave to see whose tags were jingling
> 
> Ninja also does the face rolling stuff but when we come in from a walk. I am goign to watch her a bit more carefully before we go out now though. very brave to post that thank you!
> 
> Mind you that does look like a pink harness you make make him wear, just saying


I know! I noticed his harness looks very pink in the videos lol.. It is berry red and I promise it looks more red in real life lol... Poor boy.

As for being brave... If I can't post it here, then there is no hope for me... If anyone can notice anything else, feel free to tell me.


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## L/C

Hi - just popping in briefly after my second exam today (ethics today and multiple choice on the development and regulation of behaviour yesterday!) which was actually fun, my paper on separation anxiety is proceeding slowly and my new round of classes start this weekend (puppies on saturday and adults on sunday). So it is still all go here at chez pointy - except for the poor pointies who are being a little bit neglected training wise (although Gypsy has been my demonstrator for a few of my assignments.

Cannot possibly catch up so I hope you are all well and had lovely christmases.

Here is Ely as a lap dog to say sorry for neglecting my WAYWO ladies (ad Dief!):



Lauren - I had a look at the video and I had a few questions. Is his behaviour the same if he isn't wearing the thundershirt? To me it looks like he is trying to get the shirt off (the shake off at the start where he drops his back end and the drop and roll) and I would think if he was trying to remove the harness that you would see much more emphasis on the head and shoulders.

At the end of the video I don't think he's relaxing when he takes the food - it looks more like learned helplessness. If he finds the shirt aversive but can't connect it to any event then he is going to stop reacting and offering any behaviour because he can't understand what to do/what not to do to make it stop. It's why non-contigent punishment is such a bad idea.

I know thundershirts are very popular but tbh I have yet to see dogs with them on who aren't shut down and unhappy. There's nothing backing up any of their claims except self reporting and one very shoddy study from the state on anxiety wraps. Seeing as the vast majority of dogs don't like close body contact like that I am very skeptical of them.


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## Lauren5159

Thanks.L/C... His behaviour isn't quite that neurotic when he's not wearing the Thundershirt, but he still shakes himself when wearing the harness on it's own... This was the first time he had worn his Thundershirt since November. I just gave it a try to see if it may help him. 

He runs away from his harness and acts similarly when wearing just that... The step forward is that he ate something whilst wearing his harness... He never eats when.he's outside or in a situation like the video. 

Therefore, I don't believe he shut down nearer the end... But to be honest, I've just noticed he's stressed so you may well be right and he may in fact, have shut down. 

Thanks for your help. I'm not going to use the Thundershirt again for walks, especially if it may be causing him more stress  

I'm going to work with him in the house whilst wearing just his harness to see if that may be adding to his issues. 

Thanks again.


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## L/C

I wouldn't even put the harness on him to start with. Go right back and just have it around so he gets used to it - similar to muzzle training. Let him get used to it without him having to wear it and, crucially, without having to go for a walk in it. You want to change his emotional response to it - so present the conditioned stimulus (the harness) and then pair it with the unconditioned stimulus (the food treat).


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## Lauren5159

L/C said:


> I wouldn't even put the harness on him to start with. Go right back and just have it around so he gets used to it - similar to muzzle training. Let him get used to it without him having to wear it and, crucially, without having to go for a walk in it. You want to change his emotional response to it - so present the conditioned stimulus (the harness) and then pair it with the unconditioned stimulus (the food treat).


Thank you  I'll give that a try.


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## speug

I've been doing a lot of work on recall with Angus recently as although he is generally very good at coming when called (even breaking off from chasing squirrels, rabbits or deer) we have a bit of a blind spot when he's stolen a toy from another dog or found something he thinks is theirs and has to run with it showing off and in these cases he won't come until he's finished.

Today he managed to find a bone in the field (someone either threw a lot of bones into the long grass in the middle of the field at some point or a deer met a sticky end) and was running around showing off to the other two dogs with us. I shouted for him to come and show me what he had and he came almost immediately and almost straight to me only with just a little detour into a spot of long grass where he hid the bone so I couldn't take it off him. 

Not sure whether to be proud that he basically did what he was told and resisted the urge to make it into a long drawn out game or miffed that the sneaky wee sod thought he could just hide the forbidden object and run back for it when I wasn't looking (didn't work because I've had collies before and know the game that goes "I'm being good and running nicely, then turning and bolting back for the forbidden thing then running nicely again" and know when to point out that I'm still watching and what does he think he's doing).


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## diefenbaker

Lauren5159 said:


> Thank you  I'll give that a try.


It may be because Dief has a completely different type of harness but it does look a little tight around his armpits. Dief's under-chest strap tends to sit further back. I may have missed it but what's he like with his collar ? Maybe try something less as a stepping stone like a bandana ? Just don't get me started on the WAYWO kid.


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## lupie

Some brilliant advice being given these last few pages....really love this thread.

No dogs met today- very glad. Given us a chance to chill out. 

Nearly all our walks are flooded out currently so I'm limited to two, bit extremely similar. Ruska doesn't seem to mind but I'm very bored of them. Please go away soon rain, I miss our other fun walks.


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## Lauren5159

diefenbaker said:


> It may be because Dief has a completely different type of harness but it does look a little tight around his armpits. Dief's under-chest strap tends to sit further back. I may have missed it but what's he like with his collar ? Maybe try something less as a stepping stone like a bandana ? Just don't get me started on the WAYWO kid.


His harness is really loose around his armpits... I often worry about it because it's so loose. I can fit my whole hand between his harness and his armpits 

With his collar he is absolutely fine. Doesn't bother about it at all and doesn't run away when.I put it on him.


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## Nicki85

Lauren- I personally would remove the thunder shirt and harness and walk him on his collar (maybe get a martingale one so he can't back out of it). Have you tried any other styles of harness with him? Rust has the haquihana (sp!) and it's a really good fi t...

Lupie- glad you had a quiet walk. Rubbish about most of your walks being flooded :-( 

We have just come back from agility  Shae was very attentive and very into her toy... Hit a new problem with running round obstacles which I think is herding. Now I've got a couple of proper jumps I can start reinforcing over the jump , not round the outside  i was also really pleased when two different dogs came up (uninvited, and out of control) and she didn't tell them off, just looked to me and tried to play with the second. She's very full on but I'm enjoying her!


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## diefenbaker

Lauren5159 said:


> His harness is really loose around his armpits... I often worry about it because it's so loose. I can fit my whole hand between his harness and his armpits
> 
> With his collar he is absolutely fine. Doesn't bother about it at all and doesn't run away when.I put it on him.


I'm trying to work out which bit he objects to.. doesn't seem like it's the bit around his neck. There's a between the front legs strap ? Generally that just hangs rather than applies any pressure. And the bit around his body. Can you part dismantle the harness ? Not that I'm suggesting experimenting on your dog.. what if you put something just around his body to see his reaction ? Like holding a fabric tape measure. He might think he's getting a new suit. But if you do his inside-leg warm your hands first. I'm rambling now. I suppose I have an advantage.. Dief is a big dog.. the weight of the harness is nothing to him.


----------



## Lauren5159

Nicki85 said:


> Lauren- I personally would remove the thunder shirt and harness and walk him on his collar (maybe get a martingale one so he can't back out of it). Have you tried any other styles of harness with him? Rust has the haquihana (sp!) and it's a really good fi t...


Yeah, he has a couple of harnesses, all of which he acts the same in 

The only issue with just a collar is that he pulls quite a bit. Backing out of it isn't a problem but since we won't being doing any proper walks any time soon, when I do take him out to train, I'll just use his collar... Thank you.

I must admit, I did want to cry an hour or so ago... I placed his harness in the corner of the room, on the floor and Skip's whole demeanour changed  He obviously really hates it. It makes him so uncomfortable. He totally seized up.

I just left him be for a bit and he lay under the window, just staring at it. He wouldn't move. After 15 minutes, I tried to engage him in play and he gave me nothing. Skip is super playful so it really hit home. He would look at me, look back at the harness on the floor and go and lie back under the window... It really upset me to see him like that. I brought out his dehydrated liver and he would go to take a bit, look at the harness and back off.... All the time not taking his eyes off the harness. When he did come over to me, he slinked along the bottom of the sofa, still watching it...

I really, really just wanted to cry. It was horrible seeing him like that :crying:

I felt dreadful. He looked like he was in pain and so, so uncomfortable...

Then... 10 minutes ago, he came over and started nudging my hand. So I tried him with some treats and he took them  I then started testing the water and throwing the treats on the floor... He kept going to get them. Eventually, he was taking treats that were lying right next to his harness.

He seems to have relaxed a lot in the last few minutes and is walking around a lot more...

I honestly cannot thank you all enough for your help and advice. Skip's issues seem to have escalated so quickly and I just didn't know what to do. I felt like the worst owner in the world.

I've been given so much great advice and now, the Thundershirt is going to be put away in a drawer and his harness is going to be worked on but when he does go out, it's collar only.

Honestly, thank you all so, so much x


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## Lauren5159

diefenbaker said:


> I'm trying to work out which bit he objects to.. doesn't seem like it's the bit around his neck. There's a between the front legs strap ? Generally that just hangs rather than applies any pressure. And the bit around his body. Can you part dismantle the harness ? Not that I'm suggesting experimenting on your dog.. what if you put something just around his body to see his reaction ? Like holding a fabric tape measure. He might think he's getting a new suit. But if you do his inside-leg warm your hands first. I'm rambling now. I suppose I have an advantage.. Dief is a big dog.. the weight of the harness is nothing to him.


He hates things being put over his head, so maybe it's that he's not comfortable with? 
He used to have a step-in harness when he was younger though, and he didn't like that either 

I'm just going to scrap the harness until I can built up his confidence around it.


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## GingerRogers

Don't feel bad lauren. Well no worse than the rest of do when we have all made realisations like that. Some of us more than others. You care enough to spot it and work on it.

I saw a little old lady today with a little jrt type in a head collar. He was ragging his lead and she was tugging so he was tugging harder so she hit him with the lead.  I almost steamed in but she was an old lady but now i feel bad for the poor dog.

My karma for not helping that little doggy came later. I got back to that car after a lovely walk on the dunes in the dark. Put my hand on the door and heard a crunch. I desperately tried to get ninja in the car but too late. I had no idea if the bloke had his two sheps on lead or not so tried my hardest to keep the banshee that was ninja in the car. Couldn't let go to shut the door and man she moves when she's mad. I got a bite in the fracas. 

Sorry little dog.


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## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> Don't feel bad lauren. Well no worse than the rest of do when we have all made realisations like that. Some of us more than others. You care enough to spot it and work on it.
> 
> I saw a little old lady today with a little jrt type in a head collar. He was ragging his lead and she was tugging so he was tugging harder so she hit him with the lead.  I almost steamed in but she was an old lady but now i feel bad for the poor dog.
> 
> My karma for not helping that little doggy came later. I got back to that car after a lovely walk on the dunes in the dark. Put my hand on the door and heard a crunch. I desperately tried to get ninja in the car but too late. I had no idea if the bloke had his two sheps on lead or not so tried my hardest to keep the banshee that was ninja in the car. Couldn't let go to shut the door and man she moves when she's mad. I got a bite in the fracas.
> 
> Sorry little dog.


Oh no! Poor little dog, poor Ninja and poor you x

I don't know what a fracas is (I can guess) but a bite there sounds sore 

I'm sorry your walk didn't end well. But at least you guys got out... Skip is jealous


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## Fluffster

GingerRogers said:


> Don't feel bad lauren. Well no worse than the rest of do when we have all made realisations like that. Some of us more than others. You care enough to spot it and work on it.
> I saw a little old lady today with a little jrt type in a head collar. He was ragging his lead and she was tugging so he was tugging harder so she hit him with the lead.  I almost steamed in but she was an old lady but now i feel bad for the poor dog.
> 
> My karma for not helping that little doggy came later. I got back to that car after a lovely walk on the dunes in the dark. Put my hand on the door and heard a crunch. I desperately tried to get ninja in the car but too late. I had no idea if the bloke had his two sheps on lead or not so tried my hardest to keep the banshee that was ninja in the car. Couldn't let go to shut the door and man she moves when she's mad. I got a bite in the fracas.
> 
> Sorry little dog.


Sorry to hear your walk didn't end nicely  *hug*

Lauren, sounds like progress with Skip. It's funny how obvious their unhappiness seems after you realise and you wonder how you didn't notice in the first place! But it's great that you've pinpointed the source and can work on it. He'll be back to normal in no time, I'm sure with you supporting him 

Daisy and I have something else to work on and I'd value any opinions. We have two cats, six and seven, who have always been indoor cats. Lily is very cuddly and loving with everyone, she doesn't love Daisy but tolerates her as long as she isn't too close, and Daisy generally leaves her be.

Max on the other hand is...well...difficult. He doesn't like people really, apart from me. Everytime my OH appears he takes himself away and will only tolerate one stroke or pat really before he swipes. We joke that he's a little s*it but he's my little boy and I love him to bits, even though he's a pest. He and Lily tolerate each other but aren't really cuddly, although he is quite protective of her.

Anyway, Daisy is OBSESSED with him. I think it's cos when she approaches him, he makes a continual growling sound that gets her really excited, then she starts barking. He just sits there and growls and swipes if she gets too close, she playbows and ruffs. The noise of his growling is slowly driving me and my OH insane 

I know she just wants to play, she's not aggressive towards him, and she won't dare pass him on the stairs etc. It's hard to tell if it's stressing him out too, he likes to torment her by sitting at the door to "her" room, staring through the glass at her. And he chooses to come downstairs when she is in the living room when he could easily be upstairs instead.

I'm struggling to decide the best way to deal with it. I thought about keeping Daisy on a lead in the house, but I'm not sure how practical that would be for longer than half an hour or so. I've tried using the "leave it" command and also "stay" but while she obeys for a few seconds, the lure of the small black cat from hell is too much for her.

Do you think clicker training would be of value? Ie, clicking when I get her attention back from the cat, clicking when she stays etc? Or trying to redirect her with a toy? Although she just takes it and then takes it over to show Max


----------



## lupie

Fluffster said:


> I'm struggling to decide the best way to deal with it. I thought about keeping Daisy on a lead in the house, but I'm not sure how practical that would be for longer than half an hour or so. I've tried using the "leave it" command and also "stay" but while she obeys for a few seconds, the lure of the small black cat from hell is too much for her.
> 
> Do you think clicker training would be of value? Ie, clicking when I get her attention back from the cat, clicking when she stays etc? Or trying to redirect her with a toy? Although she just takes it and then takes it over to show Max


I can only offer what has worked for us - but take or leave whatever you find valuable!

I would definitely advise a lightweight training line in the house. It's that added bit of security. Plus, similar to a recall, you can use it to encourage her away from Max and reward her.

Obviously she's much younger so more playful, but what worked really well for us was clicking anytime Ruska was calm around the cat. So if she looked at the cat, and then back to me - click and treat. Ruska barked all the time at first around the cat so again - any silence, click and treat. Inch by inch you will get there. Perhaps try rewarding her for coming away from the cat with a fun game with you - so she learns that you are where the fun games lie and not with the cat!

The other thing to try - if the growling is antagonising Daisy - is to have someone interacting with Max to stop him growling (I don't know if he's food orientated but we used dreamies), so we used to have someone sat with Poppy giving her Dreamies to distract her from Ruska, whilst having someone sat with the dog rewarding any good behaviour there.

Just a few things we tried that worked well, don't know if it helps any!


----------



## Fluffster

lupie said:


> I can only offer what has worked for us - but take or leave whatever you find valuable!
> 
> I would definitely advise a lightweight training line in the house. It's that added bit of security. Plus, similar to a recall, you can use it to encourage her away from Max and reward her.
> 
> Obviously she's much younger so more playful, but what worked really well for us was clicking anytime Ruska was calm around the cat. So if she looked at the cat, and then back to me - click and treat. Ruska barked all the time at first around the cat so again - any silence, click and treat. Inch by inch you will get there. Perhaps try rewarding her for coming away from the cat with a fun game with you - so she learns that you are where the fun games lie and not with the cat!
> 
> The other thing to try - if the growling is antagonising Daisy - is to have someone interacting with Max to stop him growling (I don't know if he's food orientated but we used dreamies), so we used to have someone sat with Poppy giving her Dreamies to distract her from Ruska, whilst having someone sat with the dog rewarding any good behaviour there.
> 
> Just a few things we tried that worked well, don't know if it helps any!


That's a good idea. He does like treats but not as much as Lily, which is typical  . He only growls when Daisy's within a certain radius of him on his scratching post or on the stairs - if she's on the sofa with us he's not bothered, but it's trying to keep her there once she's noticed that he's sitting on the stairs, or in his hammock. I've taken to shooing him upstairs just to get some peace, but I feel bad as he loves his hammock 

Ideally I'd just like Daisy to ignore him. He's never scratched her, but I sometimes wonder if it would be better if he had got her with his claws, not badly, just enough so she realises he's not being playful and she stays away. Then I feel mean for even thinking that as I wouldn't want her to be scared or hurt in any way! But he bats at her, and she dodges, and then it' s back to playbowing and woofing while he growls at her 

I'll enlist OH to help with keeping her calm while I try to keep Max calm, although when he's in his hammock he doesn't really like being bothered, even by me :lol:

Here's a pic of the horrible little moggy


----------



## Dogless

GR - I really, really hope you have a better day today xx.

Lauren - Can't add any more to the superb advice you've been given, it will be interesting to see what Skip is like on his collar.


----------



## Lauren5159

I really have hijacked this thread, huh? Sorry guys :blush:

I'm back at work today... The boys are in the house on their lonesome. My cousin is going up this afternoon to check on them and take Dexter for a walk. He usually takes Skip too but I've asked him to just let Skip out for a loo break and take Dexter a nice walk  

That way, when I get home tonight, I can do training with Skip outside and his stress levels should be okay... No harness. 

My dad has also said that he'll take Dexter a run tonight so I don't have to worry about that 

I do feel sorry for Dexter... I'm focusing everything I have on Skip at the minute. I'm sure he doesn't mind though, he's being exercised, fed and still gets to cuddle on the sofa with me in the evenings  

Had a thought aswell, I was thinking that Skip doesn't like things being put over his head, but he has a Leuchtie and doesn't bat an eyelid when that gets put over his head  I'm beginning to think it's just things on his body he doesn't like


----------



## Freddie and frank

good morning guys.

this is going to be a long one...sorry 

i've been reading the last few pages about skip and his stress levels. 
lauren, don't feel bad. you've recognised it and are now doing something to help skip. we all miss things, i know i do a lot and i think maybe by now, and certainly with my boys being 6 and nearly 6, i should have sorted things out. fact is, until i start reading about others on here and talking to people, i don't realise what's going on.  thankfully, there's a lot of great advice and support on here.

remember back when i said frank didn't seem to like his harnes on and i ended up taking him to see helen lightfoot, the chiropractor ? well looking at the video of skip, is similar to how frank is. i'm glad we went to see helen as he was a bit 'out of line' and she sorted him out. we will also be going back for check ups to make sure he's ok.

i'll try to describe franks reaction when i get him ready for a walk.
i get his collar out and he's jumping all over the place really excited. i wait for him to calm down then he backs away and starts licking his lips as i approach him to put his colar on. when it's on i then put his harness on with holding a treat in one hand and slipping it on over his head with the other one. he licks his lips and backs away a lot. he then does similar to skip as in darting about with his head low then settles on his bed. or on occasions, he has just frozen still and not moved. soon as we go out the door and into the car, he's fine. 
i have him on a harness and long line for off lead walks and just a collar and lead for on lead walks, with occasionaly a dogmatic.

last nights walk with frank was very stressy. 
he never settles until he's had a poo and wee first, and he's not bothered in the slightest with treats until he's done. 
i'm working on his LLW but always have his dogmatic in my pocket if needed. 
his posture was quite low and as if he was getting ready to stalk, but darting about a lot. he wasn't interested in treats much and it was very hard work getting his attention. he responds to the clicker so we use this a lot, but i noticed last night that when i clicked for him walking calmly by me, he licked his lips each time.  now was this because a treat was coming up or because of stress and he wasn't happy with something 

it took about 15 mins for him to calm down and relax. i always let him have a sniff about and say 'ok come on' to move him along. 
all was going well until we saw a cat in the distance. normally i could distract him or cross over the road, but he was fixated on this cat. we waited for it to go out of sight then carried on. i had to put his dogmatic on because he wasn't interested in treats, commands, anything. at least i knew i had him under control with it on and we finished our walk. 

after reading last nights posts,this morning i showed frank his collar and he backed away licking lips. i then showed him his harness and did the same, then lied down. 

now just to go on a bit more...sorrry..
when i'm cooking, as soon as the ignition goes on the hob or the fan goes on, frank runs out, tail and body low, through the dog flap and sits outside. he does this in all weathers and won't come back in until he's ready. 
i've tried enticing him back in with treats but he's not bothered and just sits on the step by the back door.
i've got a couple of theories why he reacts like this, but i think i've gone on a bit already. but going back to the stress levels, i'm wondering if him having high stress levels when i'm cooking then taking him out afterwards is not allowing his levels to drop???? 

i'm sorry for going on a lot and i hope someone can make sense of my post. 
it's not until i actually read about others and sit back and think about things that i realise that perhaps frank is stressed out too.  and not being unruly, like people have pointed out to me in the past.

oh crikey...i am sorry for the mammouth post.


----------



## Lauren5159

F&f now that you mention it, Skip can be very skittish too... Like plastic bags. He hates them. He hardlyvever comes in to the kitchen unless it's to eat or go outside 

If I'm doing anything in the kitchen, he will sit or lie at the threshold... When I feed him, he picks food out of his bowl and takes it in to the hallway to eat...

I might start doing training sessions in the kitchen to make him more comfortable in there. 

It sounds like we do have a bit of the same problem... I'm going to buy anew Adaptil Plug in to see if that helps a tiny bit... 

Weirdly, like I said before, Skip has no issues at all with his collar or Leuchtie... He sits nicely and doesn't back off when I put it on him.

Sorry I can't be much help, this is all pretty new to me :blush:

Also, Skip is becoming excessive on walks and I have now put this down to his stress levels. He fixated on any moving things, he's never relaxed... Always on the look out and always alert.


----------



## diefenbaker

Had a good walk at the beach... he was the best with defocussing on other dogs than I think he's ever been. Only one retriever that seemed to get his attention ( I don't know why that one out of the 15 or so dogs he must have seen ). I lined him up and coaxed him away. It's the stalking behaviour I'm trying to eradicate. Apart from that it must be extremely disconcerting for the dogs and humans coming the other way.. I think it puts him in the wrong frame of mind. We even had a dog come into the zoomie bowl while we were running around. I ran off the other way and he followed me. It's made me feel positive that if we keep on working hard I'll have him off lead by the road in no-time. Did I get you with that one ? :001_tongue:

Also a poor little King-Charles looking dog that got lost. When you're lost and that small probably the last thing you want is to come face-to-face with Dief. We'd seen her before and I knew she was running in the wrong direction. After running away from us she then bumped into a barky German Shepherd. Fortunately she then just sat down and I could direct the owner to where she was. It wouldn't be the first time I'd had to go running off down that beach after somebody else's dog


----------



## diefenbaker

Fluffster said:


> Do you think clicker training would be of value? Ie, clicking when I get her attention back from the cat, clicking when she stays etc? Or trying to redirect her with a toy? Although she just takes it and then takes it over to show Max


It's sad when they're desperate to befriend the cat but the cat's not interested. We have 2 cats.. they were 14 when we got Dief. He gets on well with the girl but not the boy ( although to be fair the boy doesn't get on with anyone ). Mostly he just wants to sniff them rather than play. Strangely he seems to have recently lost his appetite for cat poo. Perhaps it was the looks he got when returning from the conservatory with cat litter on his nose.

I think clicker training is worth a try.. it's cheap. Timing is the key. Plenty of books. Also, don't be afraid to take your clicker on the road.. I always have one in my pocket.


----------



## GingerRogers

Lauren5159 said:


> Oh no! Poor little dog, poor Ninja and poor you x
> 
> I don't know what a fracas is (I can guess) but a bite there sounds sore
> 
> I'm sorry your walk didn't end well. But at least you guys got out... Skip is jealous


:001_tongue: sorry Lauren the bite was on my arm, my fracas is intact 

_Fracas: A noisy, disorderly fight or quarrel; a brawl._

F&F I think there are a lot of kitchen noises that would seem alarming to a dog. Our old family dog hated the microwave. Of course we didn't really care enough to find out why  Frank does sound as though he has very similar reactions to Skip and ninja but its finding out why thats the key. But same goes for you dont beat yourself up about it, not like I do 

To both of you dont get too focused on one thing being the cause its likely to be a combination of things, it might not be the harness for instance it might something they associate with the harness finding out well anyone's guess.


----------



## Lauren5159

GingerRogers said:


> :001_tongue: sorry Lauren the bite was on my arm, my fracas is intact
> 
> _Fracas: A noisy, disorderly fight or quarrel; a brawl._


:lol: :lol: I have never heard that word in my life :lol: :lol: I guess you learn something new every day 

Right now, all I'm focusing on is Skip's stress levels in the house  With little walks in between


----------



## Fluffster

diefenbaker said:


> Also, don't be afraid to take your clicker on the road.. I always have one in my pocket.


This made me chuckle as I did that today, and lost the bloody thing somewhere! Have ordered a pack of three! We did some this morning, clicking when she looked at me etc but god only knows where we (well, I) lost it! Retraced our steps but no sign, think I might have put it in a poo bin 

Was proud of Daisy on our walk today, we went past a picnic bench with a man on it speaking in a very loud and expressive language on his phone and besides a little look, Daisy just carried on  we went back that way and a friend had joined him, but we walked on past again no issues.

We were walking behind two German shepherds on way back though, one off less on a road (albeit a quiet one). It ran up to some workmen and just stood there barking at them, and the owner didn't make any attempt to recall it  I walked last smugly with a well behaved Daisy :w00t:

Unfortunately, we cant have it all. I got in and decided her bed needed washed so stripped it and put a throw on it so she still had a cosy place while it was in wash. This, alas, coincided with some post bath zoomies which culminated in her peeing on the throw  She's so funny with new fabrics and things, it's only ever throws she seems to pee on and this was one I'd never used before so had no residual pee smell. So now she's lying on an uncovered bed looking at me pathetically!


----------



## Siskin

It's very easy to fixate on problems so much so you can't see the wood for the trees. Don't be too hard on yourselves. We now live in a world where there are far more dogs then there used to be making it harder to find quiet places to be and there is this need for everything to be perfect. My last dog was never perfect and would never be how ever hard we tried. We just learnt to manage the situation and tried desperately to put any incidents behind us. I'm inclined to make mountains out of molehills, so anything that went wrong was terrible and I had to learn to tone my feelings down a bit. Ah,happy days:wink:

Fluffster, you sound as if things got a whole lot better. I bet because you are relaxing, Daisy is.


----------



## Dogless

Today we have worked on nothing . Lovely clear morning so went to the forest and just let the dogs muck about - hard work for me as they were in total hunting mode so there was that fine line between letting them indulge their instincts and losing control to tread. But they recalled every time or waited (the only things we did!!) so they are my best boys today .


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## diefenbaker

Fluffster said:


> This made me chuckle as I did that today, and lost the bloody thing somewhere! Have ordered a pack of three! We did some this morning, clicking when she looked at me etc but god only knows where we (well, I) lost it! Retraced our steps but no sign, think I might have put it in a poo bin


I did this once.. had a poo bag in one hand.. and a treat bag in the other hand. I'm walking up to the poo bin chanting "don't put the treats in the poo bin". I get there and in they go. Senior moment.


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I did this once.. had a poo bag in one hand.. and a treat bag in the other hand. I'm walking up to the poo bin chanting "don't put the treats in the poo bin". I get there and in they go. Senior moment.


A "friend" of mine once did the same with a letter to post and their wallet. Idiot Singing:Singing:. They may have had to go back and wait for the postie at collection time...


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## Siskin

Dogless said:


> A "friend" of mine once did the same with a letter to post and their wallet. Idiot Singing:Singing:. They may have had to go back and wait for the postie at collection time...


Where my SIL lives, there is a modern square red postbox and a dog poo bin also painted red right next to each other. I just wonder how many mistakes have been made over the years.


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## Fluffster

For a split second I considered having a rummage, but I think I'll just pay a few quid and get some new ones :lol:


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## GingerRogers

We just had a short but fun walk  in our near guaranteed quiet spot, well apart from the big red beet monster from the other day, but we didn't go that far, it was munching up a couple fields over, I had considered walking further but just thought I would keep it short and positive to build both of us up again .

We had more zoomies, fetch, chase and tuggy and sniffles and find its and it was lovely. 

Hmm lovely apart from her sudden penchant for rabbit poo  why would rabbit poo suddenly taste good  and the flooded boardwalk where we were wading through ankle deep (well me, more like armpit deep for ninja) slurry like stuff


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## Sarah1983

Fluffster said:


> This made me chuckle as I did that today, and lost the bloody thing somewhere! Have ordered a pack of three! We did some this morning, clicking when she looked at me etc but god only knows where we (well, I) lost it! Retraced our steps but no sign, think I might have put it in a poo bin


I have mine on a wrist strap. I've not lost one on a walk in the last 2 years. Inside the house however is another matter  I must have about 50 clickers but I know where just 2 are.

Not done a lot here today as I'm still recovering with my back. Managed to take Spen for a half hour walk around the farmers fields though. He was an absolute star. Had him off leash for the first half of the walk but had to put him on for the 2nd as it runs by the railway and it just seems too big a risk to leave him off. He checked in with me, was willing to do some sits, downs and touches and just generally act like a nice, well trained dog. Not bad considering he's been cooped up so much the past 2 weeks. I feel awful about it but the fact I literally couldn't stop him if he put even slight pressure on the leash meant I didn't dare walk him. Hubby's taken us to the husky meet on Sundays and has given him a run around with the ball a few times but walks have been sadly lacking.

We didn't see a soul on our walk until right at the end when we saw an elderly man with what looked very much like a walking rug  I have no idea what his dog actually is but it looks like a ginger rug. It's short, rectangular and doesn't see to have legs, head or tail, just hair. Spen had a whine but wasn't lungey or anything and held a sit waiting to cross the road.


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## Fluffster

Sarah1983 said:


> I have mine on a wrist strap. I've not lost one on a walk in the last 2 years. Inside the house however is another matter  I must have about 50 clickers but I know where just 2 are.
> 
> Not done a lot here today as I'm still recovering with my back. Managed to take Spen for a half hour walk around the farmers fields though. He was an absolute star. Had him off leash for the first half of the walk but had to put him on for the 2nd as it runs by the railway and it just seems too big a risk to leave him off. He checked in with me, was willing to do some sits, downs and touches and just generally act like a nice, well trained dog. Not bad considering he's been cooped up so much the past 2 weeks. I feel awful about it but the fact I literally couldn't stop him if he put even slight pressure on the leash meant I didn't dare walk him. Hubby's taken us to the husky meet on Sundays and has given him a run around with the ball a few times but walks have been sadly lacking.
> 
> We didn't see a soul on our walk until right at the end when we saw an elderly man with what looked very much like a walking rug  I have no idea what his dog actually is but it looks like a ginger rug. It's short, rectangular and doesn't see to have legs, head or tail, just hair. Spen had a whine but wasn't lungey or anything and held a sit waiting to cross the road.


Was it Dougal from the Magic Roundabout? :lol:









Good idea about the wrist strap. My clicker did have a wrist strap but Daisy ate it


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## Twiggy

I had yet more friends over for training this afternoon. I'm a glutton for punishment..!!
One of them has an 8 month old collie dog who will soon be Great Dane size...
Just given my girls their second walk and lo and behold it throws it down again.

The won't get trained tomorrow as I'm meeting my mad vicar friend for lunch about 25 miles away.


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## Sarah1983

Fluffster said:


> Was it Dougal from the Magic Roundabout? :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Good idea about the wrist strap. My clicker did have a wrist strap but Daisy ate it


Lol, it actually does look very much like Dougal come to think of it.


----------



## L/C

Granny - mad vicar sounds fun and it seems like you're really busy. I have an 8 month old Great Dane in my last class and he's a monster. Very sweet dog but the owner had let him start chasing joggers (we had stern words about that). Can you imagine how scary it is?!

Dogless, Sarah and Ginge - sounds like you had lovely walks.

Fluffster - I think you made the right decision to leave the clicker where it is! 

Well Gypsy just had her first training walk in ages (MSc + business + Battersea) has meant that I've had almost no spare time for the poor pointies recently.

I am pleased to report she was a little star! Lots of nice impulse control work, left some food that she scavenged, did 3 complicated tracks (including cross overs), lots of find it and she actually interacted with a toy outside!

I have a new plan for trying to improve her toy drive which I'm going to put into practice. I'm going to pick one (possibly a skineez) and take it out - hype her up and then just get her to interact with the toy in some way. Then put it away as soon as she's done anything with it.

So she starts to associate it with high levels of arousal and therefore fun.

Not sure if it will work but watch this space!


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> *Granny - mad vicar sounds fun* and it seems like you're really busy. I have an 8 month old Great Dane in my last class and he's a monster. Very sweet dog but the owner had let him start chasing joggers (we had stern words about that). Can you imagine how scary it is?!
> 
> Dogless, Sarah and Ginge - sounds like you had lovely walks.
> 
> Fluffster - I think you made the right decision to leave the clicker where it is!
> 
> Well Gypsy just had her first training walk in ages (MSc + business + Battersea) has meant that I've had almost no spare time for the poor pointies recently.
> 
> I am pleased to report she was a little star! Lots of nice impulse control work, left some food that she scavenged, did 3 complicated tracks (including cross overs), lots of find it and she actually interacted with a toy outside!
> 
> I have a new plan for trying to improve her toy drive which I'm going to put into practice. I'm going to pick one (possibly a skineez) and take it out - hype her up and then just get her to interact with the toy in some way. Then put it away as soon as she's done anything with it.
> 
> So she starts to associate it with high levels of arousal and therefore fun.
> 
> Not sure if it will work but watch this space!


Hmmm mad vicar friend is sort of fun....!! She would have travelled here and we could have had lunch locally but I don't fancy her wild little sheepdogs belting round the paddock churning it up whilst it's so wet. I don't know exactly how many she has now but probably 10 plus.

My sister used to teach a lady with two Greyhounds. They wouldn't play initially but my sister got them playing and one of them went on to do quite well at obedience shows. She certainly won a Beginners class.


----------



## tiatortilla

Ah there's so many people on this thread atm :lol: I'm struggling already!

Great discussion about stress levels etc. Lauren don't feel bad, you've taken advice and recognised the problem, then gone straight into doing work on it - sounds like some quieter time will be really good for Skip 
I think we've all made mistakes in that area, it's easy to do. I carried on letting Tia play with other dogs for ages when she first became reactive on lead, working on the idea that good experiences would outweigh negative ones, but the important thing I was forgetting was about arousal and that it didn't matter whether it was good stress or bad stress, she was still highly stimulated. Stopping that "intense" kind of exercise has made her generally a bit calmer. That seemed like it related to your situation more when I thought of it, and now written down it doesn't seem to :lol: nevermind!

Fluffster, good luck with the Daisy and your boy cat, he's very beautiful! Does he have lots of high up places to escape to if Daisy is worrying/annoying him? Pleased you had a successful walk today 

GR glad your walk today was better  short and positive sounds great!

---

Tia growled at some people again today  What was that I was saying about dogs making us look like liars?! They were sat on a bench at the end of a path we were coming down. Perfectly normal looking people, no hats or pushchairs or anything so I'm not sure what worried her. I thought maybe she mistook my walking incredibly slowly due to slippery mud and inappropriate footwear for apprehension but maybe that's reading too much into it.

Everything else was fine though  Saw a few dogs all in the distance, all ignored and a lab on the other side of the road that she was a bit lungey with but didn't make any noises!

Right I do have one thing that I want a bit of advice on. Tia hasn't had much to do with any other dogs lately, as I said up there ^^^ we've just been avoiding anything overly stimulating so she's a bit out of practice with how to behave.
We went for a walk on Christmas eve with Monty the Cocker Spaniel. They played with each other and got on pretty well last year, unfortunately Tia had a couple of crappy things happen with other dogs right before this year so wasn't at her best lol.
She was alright and they were totally happy to walk along pretty much ignoring each other but she does this playbow and bark thing which to me looks like she thinks she wants to play and then does a nervous bark right after and sort of changes her mind. It's not remotely aggressive, Monty told her off for it once and she stopped that time, but it didn't stop her doing it again.

ETA: I don't let her do this, and do call her away whenever she does it 

What do I do about this? I think she needs to start socialising with other dogs more often again, because she does like them and I'd hate for that to change because I've kept her away from them for too long. But obviously she can't really just be around any dog because there are plenty who take exception to her mixed signals about wanting to play so now I'm avoiding other dogs even more!

I don't really know many people with dogs, there were a few I bumped into regularly but I stopped walking in that place as there were usually a few too many dogs there and I don't see them any more. There aren't any trainers I've found that would do like a one to one with a stooge dog or anything like that and a class full of dogs would be too much still.
OH's dad does have a dog, but she had puppies a while ago (that I didn't mention on here because I knew most people wouldn't agree with them and I didn't want to be shouted at for something that had nothing to do with me ) and they kept one, so I've been waiting til the little one is a bit older before Tia sees them again but they will be an option at some point, but that's two tiny dogs when she's fine with tiny dogs anyway!

Sorry this is long but yeah... any advice please?


----------



## L/C

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm mad vicar friend is sort of fun....!! She would have travelled here and we could have had lunch locally but I don't fancy her wild little sheepdogs belting round the paddock churning it up whilst it's so wet. I don't know exactly how many she has now bu*t probably 10 plus*.
> 
> My sister used to teach a lady with two Greyhounds. They wouldn't play initially but my sister got them playing and one of them went on to do quite well at obedience shows. She certainly won a Beginners class.


10+! That would give the paddock quite a churning!

Gypsy is very good at the exercises we do and she will play but she just doesn't see the point of toys. I've tried dragging them, filling them with food, hiding them in leaves and then pulling them out as she goes past, rabbit skin, sheep skin, squeakers, no squeakers, tuggy toys, a flirt pole, a weird duck call, rabbit scent....the list is endless.

What she likes to do is chase me but that is very tiring!


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> 10+! That would give the paddock quite a churning!
> 
> Gypsy is very good at the exercises we do and she will play but she just doesn't see the point of toys. I've tried dragging them, filling them with food, hiding them in leaves and then pulling them out as she goes past, rabbit skin, sheep skin, squeakers, no squeakers, tuggy toys, a flirt pole, a weird duck call, rabbit scent....the list is endless.
> 
> What she likes to do is chase me but that is very tiring!


So what's the method you're about to employ - do tell....


----------



## Fluffster

tiatortilla said:


> Fluffster, good luck with the Daisy and your boy cat, he's very beautiful! Does he have lots of high up places to escape to if Daisy is worrying/annoying him? Pleased you had a successful walk today


Yes he does, he loves being up high! He has his scratching post, which he likes to sit at the top of like the King of the Castle. He also likes to sit on the bookcases, on top of the boiler and on the stairs!










Not sure what to advise re: Tia, maybe you could see if there are any PFers around you who could help - if I was nearer, I'd def bring Daisy along for a walk with you!

What would happen if you didn't call her away after the barking?


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## tiatortilla

Fluffster said:


> Yes he does, he loves being up high! He has his scratching post, which he likes to sit at the top of like the King of the Castle. He also likes to sit on the bookcases, on top of the boiler and on the stairs!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure what to advise re: Tia, maybe you could see if there are any PFers around you who could help - if I was nearer, I'd def bring Daisy along for a walk with you!
> 
> What would happen if you didn't call her away after the barking?


Aw that looks so lovely, I really want a cat and I'm jealous 

I would love if any PFers would walk with us, I'm not sure if there's anyone local with a suitable dog. I've met one lady who lives really close but our dogs should probably never meet haha. I keep thinking about making a thread to ask if anyone would but I'm a bit worried about what kind of responses I'll get 

If I don't call her away, she does it a couple more times then stops herself, I just think it's unfair on the other dog though


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## GingerRogers

Sorry Fluff I wasnt ignoring your cat dilemma I just know nothing about cats.

Tia as you might remember thats what ninja does and my trainer advised keeping a line on her and just moving her away when she does it, as soon as she is quiet letting her approach again but you do need compliant dog friends for that. We haven't got to practice it though as we haven't got compliant dog friends .


----------



## Fluffster

tiatortilla said:


> Aw that looks so lovely, I really want a cat and I'm jealous
> 
> I would love if any PFers would walk with us, I'm not sure if there's anyone local with a suitable dog. I've met one lady who lives really close but our dogs should probably never meet haha. I keep thinking about making a thread to ask if anyone would but I'm a bit worried about what kind of responses I'll get
> 
> If I don't call her away, she does it a couple more times then stops herself, I just think it's unfair on the other dog though


You should make a thread, I know people on here have had success before with people from PF helping them out by offering their dogs up as stooges :lol: Benboy in particular was able to have her dog withut a muzzle after a few playdates with PF dogs I believe


----------



## tiatortilla

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry Fluff I wasnt ignoring your cat dilemma I just know nothing about cats.
> 
> Tia as you might remember thats what ninja does and my trainer advised keeping a line on her and just moving her away when she does it, as soon as she is quiet letting her approach again but you do need compliant dog friends for that. We haven't got to practice it though as we haven't got compliant dog friends .


Yeah compliant dog friends aren't easy to come across are they! I can't work out why I know so few people with dogs, it seemed like everyone I knew had a dog when I was younger and now I've got one no one else has!
Tbh I'm not sure that would work with Tia unless it's something she still does once her lead reactivity is sorted, because if she's on a line and by a dog she'll be barking at it anyway lol, and it'd be much more likely to end up in handbags too. It's so awkward 



Fluffster said:


> You should make a thread, I know people on here have had success before with people from PF helping them out by offering their dogs up as stooges :lol: Benboy in particular was able to have her dog withut a muzzle after a few playdates with PF dogs I believe


Yeah, her success has made me really wish I could do something like that with Tia. The only thing that puts me off is I did ask for opinions about putting up a little note in the vets or pet shop asking for someone to walk with and a few people were a bit funny about it, lots of people weren't though so I should probably stop being a wuss


----------



## Fluffster

That's the thing with forums, there's always going to someone who takes exception. I think sometimes people just like to play devil's advocate for fun but that's not always helpful when you're looking for advice. At the end of the day, you are trying to find something to help your dog progress and that is highly commendable  Plenty of people wouldn't put in the effort.


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## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> Yeah compliant dog friends aren't easy to come across are they! I can't work out why I know so few people with dogs, it seemed like everyone I knew had a dog when I was younger and now I've got one no one else has!
> *Tbh I'm not sure that would work with Tia *unless it's something she still does once her lead reactivity is sorted, because if she's on a line and by a dog she'll be barking at it anyway lol, and it'd be much more likely to end up in handbags too. It's so awkward


I am not convinced it would work with ninja either lol  as its a play with me thing and moving her away equates to the same thing ie oh good someone is playing with me


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## diefenbaker

tiatortilla said:


> The only thing that puts me off is I did ask for opinions about putting up a little note in the vets or pet shop asking for someone to walk with and a few people were a bit funny about it, lots of people weren't though so I should probably stop being a wuss


At the vets is probably a lot safer than asking on the internet. Any respondee is likely to be registered at the vet. Or maybe offer your services to assist a dog walker.. they always look like they could do with an extra pair of hands.


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## Dogless

*Fluffster* - I can't help with cat dramas I am afraid.

*Grannie* - hope you have got your feet up now.

*L/C* - I would LOVE all those who claim that greyhounds are just plodders to see Gypsy in action!!

*TT* - Tia really is being a star these days, well done. (The growl isn't too much in the scheme of things I don't think).

*Sarah* - I am the same with clickers - have one on me when out but put them all over the place indoors. Oh well!!! Spen sounds as if he was a model pupil today.

Good walk with Diz for Kilo just now. About 5 dogs seen and avoided easily which I was really pleased with, Diz's human thought Kilo had really come on in the weeks she's been away...he has made good progress and it is brilliant to walk with someone who cares - and doesn't mind hiding or taking strange routes!!

Rudi declined a walk tonight. He ran himself ragged today and has tired red eyes, so I let him off .


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## Lauren5159

*Fluffster* I too am.not much help with cats... At least Daisy doesn't try to kill them like Skip does, or herd them like Dexter 

*Dogless* Go Kilo! sounds like a great walk... Where do I get one of those friends? And poor Rudi  He must really have knackered himself out, bless him 

*TT* I haven't been using this thread for long so don't know how far Tia has come, sorry...But she sounds like she's doing great  An improvement is still an improvement at the end of the day  Take it as it is 

Well, it's dat two of no walks for Skip and you know what, he's been pretty sleepy... It doesn't seem to be bothering him too much. After the initial night of restlessness, he's calmed right down. Did some more focus training tonight and he's okay working in the same room as his harness  I also did a bit of work with his excitement when I came home from work... Just the basics. Telling him to sit before he got loves. He calmed down really quickly and was being such a good boy 

I was going to take him out to a secluded area tonight for a little while but I've decided to leave it until tomorrow... Just in case 

Can I ask a bit of a silly question? skip randomly walks up to his harness and sniffs it... Should I be praising him when he does this or just ignore it? I thought earlier that I should praise him but then wondered if that would draw too much attention to it  I want it to be no big deal, so should I acknowledge it when he does?


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## Sarah1983

Aww, if we were close I'd bring Spen to meet up with Tia. He's pretty good at ignoring reactive dogs as long as they're not right in his face barking and is more interested in his Very Important Sniffs when walking than he is in playing. We'd just have to sort of fall in to walking as soon as we met as otherwise Silly Oafish Spencer comes out to play.

A few play dates is often not going to be enough to fix reactivity issues however. If I'd taken Rupert on group walks it would have been a blood bath :yikes: Either that or he'd have shut down from the stress of it all. Slow, careful introductions were necessary and even then he never generalised it to strange dogs, only the dogs he was actually introduced to and who he felt were safe. I'm not meaning to belittle anyones efforts here but there seems to be the thinking that group walks will fix reactivity issues and I personally think that's VERY dangerous thinking.


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## tiatortilla

Sarah1983 said:


> Aww, if we were close I'd bring Spen to meet up with Tia. He's pretty good at ignoring reactive dogs as long as they're not right in his face barking and is more interested in his Very Important Sniffs when walking than he is in playing. We'd just have to sort of fall in to walking as soon as we met as otherwise Silly Oafish Spencer comes out to play.
> 
> A few play dates is often not going to be enough to fix reactivity issues however. If I'd taken Rupert on group walks it would have been a blood bath :yikes: Either that or he'd have shut down from the stress of it all. Slow, careful introductions were necessary and even then he never generalised it to strange dogs, only the dogs he was actually introduced to and who he felt were safe. I'm not meaning to belittle anyones efforts here but there seems to be the thinking that group walks will fix reactivity issues and I personally think that's VERY dangerous thinking.


Thanks anyway 

Oh no I absolutely don't expect it to do anything for her reactivity, this is purely about wanting her to be comfortable around dogs off lead, because she mostly is anyway, I'm not sure if you meant me but I don't think that at all  I wouldn't do group walks either, that would terrify Tia! She can handle one medium sized (same as her) dog or two little ones and that's her limit. I don't want anyone to think I'd put her in a situation that would stress her out or result in anything bad happening


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## Sarah1983

tiatortilla said:


> Thanks anyway
> 
> Oh no I absolutely don't expect it to do anything for her reactivity, this is purely about wanting her to be comfortable around dogs off lead, because she mostly is anyway, I'm not sure if you meant me but I don't think that at all  I wouldn't do group walks either, that would terrify Tia! She can handle one medium sized (same as her) dog or two little ones and that's her limit. I don't want anyone to think I'd put her in a situation that would stress her out or result in anything bad happening


No no, it wasn't you I meant  I see it a lot, people thinking that all it takes to get a dog comfortable with other dogs is to basically throw it in at the deep end with a big group of dogs and hope for the best. And it has the potential to go horribly, horribly wrong. A group meet worked wonders for Spencer but he wasn't nervous, just your typical young Labrador with no manners and an "everybody loves me!" attitude. We still go simply because he enjoys it and it's the one day of the week I can guarantee some socialisation for the both of us lol.

I think group walks with very carefully chosen stooge dogs could be fantastic for a dog who is at a stage they could handle that. But even then it's not the same as walking alone and encountering other dogs alone.


----------



## Twiggy

Well so much for the Met Office promising us 4 days of dry weather...!! It threw it down again from 4.30pm yesterday. I'm getting very sick of it now and the paddock is too wet to do any agility with Holly. I want to try out the new dog walk which hubby has now completed.


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## Nicki85

Just thought I'd check in and say hello!

Not much going on here, I've been working in London for the past two days so morning walks in the dark, very very muddy forest have been all I have managed with them. It's yuck out there in the light let alone in the dark... Anyhow, can't complain they both have been well behaved and I even took Rust over the common so he could do some important rabbit hunting... he listened well and responded as requested 

Agility tonight for Rust, not sure what we'll be faced with as we've moved up a class. Only thing that will let us down is my handling skills... Rust is very genuine when it comes to agility and always tries his hardest to do what I ask, even if it doesn't make sense!!

Tomorrow as long as it stays dry I'm going to take my two new jumps to the playing field and do some simple exercises with the two of them. I want to make sure I have a plan of what I want to do and achieve with each session otherwise i'll mess it up and have confused dogs....


----------



## Phoolf

Yesterday I tried to teach Kes to roll over. We hit two barriers: Lack of space for her stupidly big body, and it seems like she finds it very hard to roll her whole weight over onto the other side. Is roll over harder for bigger dogs or is it just a silly Kes?


----------



## Nicki85

Phoolf said:


> Yesterday I tried to teach Kes to roll over. We hit two barriers: Lack of space for her stupidly big body, and it seems like she finds it very hard to roll her whole weight over onto the other side. Is roll over harder for bigger dogs or is it just a silly Kes?


I think bigger dogs do find it harder, also some just don't like it! Is Kes a natural roller around on the floor type dog? Space can be difficult too...

With both of mine I taught side- so lay down and lay flat on side and then lured them onto their other side with a treat if that makes sense...


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## Dogless

Phoolf said:


> Yesterday I tried to teach Kes to roll over. We hit two barriers: Lack of space for her stupidly big body, and it seems like she finds it very hard to roll her whole weight over onto the other side. Is roll over harder for bigger dogs or is it just a silly Kes?


I have been told that it is more difficult for larger dogs and also dogs with certain builds. I have never tried with mine but just anatomically speaking it wouldn't be easy for them I don't think.


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## Dogless

Good walks this morning from home. Only one road open at the part where some of the school bus stops are so I passed dog after dog after dog and a zillion buggies (it felt like!!) with Roo and he was really good. He was also good at the very start when a toddler I hadn't noticed came into our front garden to see the "doggie". I am pleased it was Roo as he doesn't seem to give a monkey's about territory or guarding so just looked interested in a "Hello, strange being" way. Kilo would have barked in his face .

Nothing seen with Kilo which I was aiming for because he saw a few dogs last night and was a bit jumpy this morning.


----------



## Phoolf

Nicki85 said:


> I think bigger dogs do find it harder, also some just don't like it! Is Kes a natural roller around on the floor type dog? Space can be difficult too...
> 
> With both of mine I taught side- so lay down and lay flat on side and then lured them onto their other side with a treat if that makes sense...


She'll sometimes lie on her back but I don't recollect her ever rolling over, she's not the type I suppose.



Dogless said:


> I have been told that it is more difficult for larger dogs and also dogs with certain builds. I have never tried with mine but just anatomically speaking it wouldn't be easy for them I don't think.


Phew. Glad it's not just me. I was just trying to thnk of things to do indoors to took out my copy of 'Train your dog like a pro' and that's one trick I haven't taught. I might give it a rest and try a different one


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## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> Good walks this morning from home. Only one road open at the part where some of the school bus stops are so I passed dog after dog after dog and a zillion buggies (it felt like!!) with Roo and he was really good. He was also good at the very start when a toddler I hadn't noticed came into our front garden to see the "doggie". I am pleased it was Roo as he doesn't seem to give a monkey's about territory or guarding so just looked interested in a "Hello, strange being" way. Kilo would have barked in his face .
> 
> Nothing seen with Kilo which I was aiming for because he saw a few dogs last night and was a bit jumpy this morning.


sounds like an interesting morning... Toddlers on the loose terrify me : Skip wouldn't do much but Dexter is very wary around children and if he was uncomfortable or caught.off guard, I don't know how he'd react. So I try to keep him out of those situations. well done Rudi 

I'm glad Kilo had a nice quiet walk without any interruptions... Sounds like it's just what he needed.

Well, this morning, I got up at 7am and took Dexter for a run... It was nice to spend some time outside with the lump  He's a very calming dog and it really helped to clear my head... We went over the golf course and he stayed right by my side, like he always does. We jogged for a good 45 minutes, didn't see another soul and the last 15 minutes was spent playing fetch...He's been my saviour and calming iinfluence recently 

At 9am, I decided to take Skip to the little patch of grass I was talking about. I only put h.collar on him and took a long line... We just ended up working with his collar and regular leash but as soon as I arrived, I realised a few flaws in my little plan. The grassy area is right next to the woods, the same area I used to let the boys run riot... Oops! Skip was instantly excited as soon as we arrived but he calmed down very quickly  We worked on walking.by my side (just on the grass) by introducing the word 'side' and treating him when he took a couple of steps right beside me. We then carried on with our 'touch' and 'watch me' commands... He did so well  A few.little hiccups but I wasn't expecting him to be perfect on our first outing in two days  We were only out for 30 minutes but I don't want to bombard him and we finished by having a sniffing fest, which he really enjoyed 

Same again tonight for Skip and I 

He worked so well for his cheese.and didn't pull or choke himself too badly with his collar.

The harness is still laying by the fireplace and he hasn't even looked at it today 

Both boys are now cuddled on the sofa and I have a cuppa soup 

I'm feeling great about all the little scruffpot's issues... Like if we work hard, there is a light at the end of the tunnel


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## Siskin

Now I think about it, I've not noticed Isla roll onto her back very much, but she's young there's plenty of time yet! My last retriever was smaller then average and shorter in the back and spent quite a bit of time rolling from one side to the other as she enjoyed having a good back scratch on the carpet and was easy to teach to 'roll over'. Isla is more of a traditionally shaped female retriever and longer in the back. I wonder if it's back length that makes it less easy.


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## lupie

Sarah1983 said:


> A few play dates is often not going to be enough to fix reactivity issues however. If I'd taken Rupert on group walks it would have been a blood bath :yikes: Either that or he'd have shut down from the stress of it all. Slow, careful introductions were necessary and even then he never generalised it to strange dogs, only the dogs he was actually introduced to and who he felt were safe. I'm not meaning to belittle anyones efforts here but there seems to be the thinking that group walks will fix reactivity issues and I personally think that's VERY dangerous thinking.


This is why I find Ruska's reactivity so interesting. She's fine on group walks, I've been on a fair few with her. She isn't allowed to greet anyone onlead, we walk with the group for a few mins and she barks for a while, then she shuts up and interacts like a normal dog. As soon as she's offlead she might give a few a sniff but usually will just carry on like she would on a normal walk. Sometimes she "buddies up" with a particular dog and spends the rest of the walk tearing about with them.

But stranger dogs in pass by situations are when she stresses out. Very weird!

We've had some quiet walks recently which is nice. Nothing to report :thumbup1:

Sounds like some wonderful progress being made all round!


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## Fluffster

Not much to report here. Did a five mile forest walk with Daisy today, the longest she has been on and we both enjoyed it  Didn't meet many people but did meet a poodle called Bob which made me smile  She did nick his ball tho, she jumped and caught it in the air and his owner was like "Woah, that took Bob ages to learn!" And was quizzing me about her ball skills  I think we might do flyball with her when she hits one.

We met another working cocker puppy but its owners didn't seem too keen for it it to play with Daisy. They started chasing each other as pups do but they were trying to call theirs back so so I got Daisy back and put her on the lead and they did same. Shame really as the two pups were desperate to play!


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## JenKyzer

15 pages since i last posted   You guys are really on the ball for 2014 



Nicki85 said:


> JSW- so pleased to hear that Willow is still being FAB!!!!





Dogless said:


> Hi JSW - great to see you again . Willow has turned into a real superstar hasn't she? Amazing transformation that you've achieved, well done .


Thanks guys 



GingerRogers said:


> JSW hello again, you have done wonders with Willow, *I feel very lowly in comparison*.


Thanks GR .. but i'm afraid i have to disagree with the part in bold. As i've told you before all of you on here inspire me  you included.. with your wotsits! You probably work so much harder with ninja than i do with Willow and you should be soo proud.. i really do 'look up' to your posts and ninja seems to of come on in leaps and bounds :thumbup1:

I really am struggling to keep up with everything and everyone on here, i really do apologise for just keep turning back up in the middle of it all but not contributing daily 

Lauren - I'm really sorry to hear about Skip and his harness  I hope you find a way around it eventually - i like the idea you've been doing of just having it on the floor and giving treats  you've been given some fantastic advice. Your walk/jog with Dexter this morning sounds lovely. As for skip, well done :thumbup1: sounds like he did really well for his first walk 

Fluff - Aw Daisy sounds so adorable trying to play with Max (Taking her toys to show him made me smile) - even though it's causing issues - bless her for trying. I'm of no help i'm afraid but i'm sure there will be lots of help to hand off more experienced cat and dog people 

F&F - Sorry to hear Frank is worrying you. I hope you get to the bottom of it soon with any great advice you will get from others.

GR - Your walk in the quite spot sounds great apart from the rabbit poo feast 

Sarah - Poor you with your back  Sounds like Spen is coping well though, good boy 

LC - Well done to Gypsy and good luck with your new plan of action with the toys 

Tia - Lol, your first part is exactly how i feel '' Ah there's so many people on this thread atm I'm struggling already! '' glad i'm not the only one  Well done Tia for her no noises around other dogs  .. You and Tia seem to be in the same pickle as us regarding wanting to avoid dogs yet needing to socialize too.. Is there no-one on the forum close to you? or even the dog meets that go on? (The user BenBoy caught my eye as i think they worked on him and other dogs and he was muzzled and (i think!) some members helped them out - since then there has been wonderul pics of him not muzzled and with other dogs - or i might just be going mad and got the wrong end of the stick with that situation) A shame we don't live near, we could of helped each other. haha i've just read further down as i reply one post at a time.. and i've just repeated what others have said - sorry guys!!  The note in the vets sounds good though - i'd of never of thought of that.

Dogless - Sounds like a great walk yesterday with Diz and human.. it must be so great to hear from her that she can see a difference too.. fantastic news  Well done to Rudi for this morning.. even with the strange being  Willow loves the lil ones and wants to lick their faces 

Nicki - Good luck to you and Rust in the new class :thumbup1: Sounds like you've had a good few days - hope tomorrow stays dry for you.

Sorry if i've missed anyone or anything.

Today we were out for 2hours.. trying to make the most of no rain (almost) and daylight!
We went up to the Res and the first half was amazing.. it was so sludgy and muddy i knew we wouldnt see many people (if any) .. i stupidy forgot my whistle :mad2: and she seemed to venture further than she normally does.. also had selective hearing.. so i was kicking myself!! .. so obviously after the first 'come' failed i sacked it off and used 'Willow, whats this...' all excitedly whilst waving my arms around and then running off.. which got a 'omgomgomgg whats the human found and what she doing running away' reaction from Willow and in she came  followed by lots of fuss. We did some 'stays' and 'bring' with her ball. But i just let her do her own sniffy thing as shes hated the rain the past few days so her walks havent been the best. She was really good and always checking in.
Then it took a turn  .. Willow clocked a dog down the bank, stood and stared.. but she carried on when told.. the person came up the bank with their offlead dog and followed us all the way round the res.. i had willow back on the lead, there was quite alot if distance between us and willow wasnt looking back so i thought i wont hang back and let her gain focus on an approaching dog.. eventually they caught up so i got willow right out the way off the path and near the wall with a loud 'stay' Willow was brill.. no noise, no staring and kept her stay.. the woman said 'is *he* rolleyes: no pink on her today) friendly' .. before i get chance to answer her dog is in willows face and theres some almighty snarls and baring of teeth from both of them.. her dog got tangled in our lead and willow could of done some real damage if she put her mind to it, she didnt.. just bared teeth and lunged but didn't make mouth contact just kinda used her body and pushed the other dog. The woman shouted her dog away a few times and off it went.. she asked if i was ok.. i apologized for willows reaction she said it was ok... even though we was out the way and on lead :mad5: i felt a rush of emotion as we haven't had an incident like this for a while.. willow shook it off and i let her in the res whilst they gained distance. But i just thought how stupid.. she asked a question, yet before i answered her dog was already there.. we was not out the way and up against the wall with willow on the short lead for no reason at all. Grr. anyway.. i pulled myself together and enjoyed the rest of our walk.. it then rained, heavily. 

Tbh, i was not sad at Willows reaction. Is it bad that i don't blame her? I'd be pretty annoyed if someone run at me and stuck their face in mine if i was out the way and avoiding them. But then i thought why the hell didn't i find a safe place to hang back and let them pass earlier.. not that it would of made a difference as her dog was offlead running around so more than likely would of still approached.. and why didn't i get the first word in and warn her first .. annoyed at myself really as i wasnt exactly caught off guard as i clocked them first thing from a distance. :mad2: was more busy getting out the way. Lesson learnt.

Sorry for babbling. Had to get it off my chest


----------



## GingerRogers

We had another quiet run up the fields, I was a bit paranoid and struggled to let her off lead, daft really as the incident the other night she was on lead, just a control thing I guess . It was windy and I kept hearing dogs everywhere, there were none 

ETA I understand how you feel JSW, I can't blame ninja for barking at barking dogs, its like well fair play, their is no point in the woman asking is there if its too late already, if she thought to ask she must have had an inkling that things werent ok, sigh.....


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## JenKyzer

GingerRogers said:


> We had another quiet run up the fields, I was a bit paranoid and struggled to let her off lead, daft really as the incident the other night she was on lead, just a control thing I guess . It was windy and I kept hearing dogs everywhere, there were none
> 
> ETA I understand how you feel JSW, I can't blame ninja for barking at barking dogs, its like well fair play, their is no point in the woman asking is there if its too late already, if she thought to ask she must have had an inkling that things werent ok, sigh.....


This ^^ Ohmy, you sound like me. I must of missed your incident post though - i will backtrack a few more pages.
Sorry to hear your walk wasn't as great as you wanted  I hope your paranoia dies down soon and you enjoy the next drama free quiet walk. Hard isn't it when the 'what ifs' are whirring around in your head  My OH is so much more confident and off lead she goes as soon as its not a road area  *sighs*


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## GingerRogers

Yeah same here although whether the OH is more confident or just careless I am not sure :frown2: although it would be nice not to be so concerned all the time.

It was just an incident with two very close GSD? just as we got back to the car in the dark and ninja went as batshit as she has ever gone  she hasn't done that at all in so many months it set me back a bit. I got bitten on the arm in the process. One of those what could I have done differently situations and not sure there was much, it would have been nice if the other walker had had the nounce to just give us 5 secs grace but you cant/shouldnt expect that


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## JenKyzer

GingerRogers said:


> Yeah same here although whether the OH is more confident or just careless I am not sure :frown2: although it would be nice not to be so concerned all the time.
> 
> It was just an incident with two very close GSD? just as we got back to the car in the dark and ninja went as batshit as she has ever gone  she hasn't done that at all in so many months it set me back a bit. I got bitten on the arm in the process. One of those what could I have done differently situations and not sure there was much, it would have been nice if the other walker had had the nounce to just give us 5 secs grace but you cant/shouldnt expect that


I'm really sorry to hear this  Hope you bounce back soon, i'm sure you will 
I always think things can only go so well for so long.. then something bad will happen. I never expect anything from other walkers now.. which is why i get cross at myself when things slip. But we can't dwell on the past.. Here's to you and things getting better and fingers crossed for no repeat incidents x


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## Lauren5159

*JSW* I'm glad your walk turned out to be okay. And well done for trying your hardest to enjoy the rest of it. It's hard to do when you've had a situation like you described... When I first got Dexter, he wasn't good with other dogs at all (except Rocky) and I used to find it so hard to cope with, until I realised why he wasn't good with them. He was terrified! He was so scared of other dogs that his first instinct was to lash out... Not a week went by that I didn't have a break down and cry after atleast one walk. One woman was so horrible to me and all because her dog ran up to Dexter (Dexter was on leash and muzzled) and Dexter attacked it, or tried to... She told me that I should not take my dog to parks if he is so aggressive and I told her that my dog is aggressive because he is terrified and she should do something about her rude dog! I'm good at acting tough at the time but breaking down after...

That was a long time ago and Dexter is now a lot better with other dogs... He doesn't bother about them running up because he has a solid 'leave' and comes with me as soon as he's called (puppy Skip helped too). If he becomes uncomfortable I've grown a thick skin and am not afraid to tell other people to recall their dog, if needed.

I think what I learned was that you have to be your dog's advocate... Other people don't quite understand and I made it my job to tell them and enlighten them to the fact that not all dogs are as bouncy and friendly as thiers.

I'm a bit behind on this thread but it does sound like you both have come such a long way... There's nothing to be ashamed of when Willow is letting you and the other dog know that she is not comfortable... It sounds like she showed a lot of self-control 

*GR* I totally get what you mean about having your confidence knocked sometimes... I do that too. But we're only human, aren't we? I'm glad you and Ninja got and and had a nice walk after what happened with the GSDs  I bet you both felt good afterwards 

I felt great after my jog with Dexter this morning  Never did I think my severely neglected, ex-working, fear aggressive Border Collie would be my saving grace :lol: He really is amazing now... It's just the Toerag I have to work on


----------



## JenKyzer

Lauren5159 said:


> *JSW* I'm glad your walk turned out to be okay. And well done for trying your hardest to enjoy the rest of it. It's hard to do when you've had a situation like you described... When I first got Dexter, he wasn't good with other dogs at all (except Rocky) and I used to find it so hard to cope with, until I realised why he wasn't good with them. He was terrified! He was so scared of other dogs that his first instinct was to lash out... Not a week went by that I didn't have a break down and cry afree atleast one walk. One woman was so horrible to me and all because her dog ran up to Dexter (Dexter was on leash and muzzled) and Dexter attacked it, or tried to... She told me that I should not take my dog to parks if he is so aggressive and I told her that my dog is aggressive because he is terrified and she should do something about her rude dog! I'm good at acting tough at the time but breaking down after...
> 
> That was a long time ago and Dexter is now a lot better with other dogs... He doesn't bother about them running up because he has a solid 'leave' and comes with me as soon as he's called. If he becomes uncomfortable I've grown a thick skin and am not afraid to tell other people to recall their dog, if needed.
> 
> I think what I learned was that you have to be your dog's advocate... Other people don't quite understand and I made it my job to tell them and enlighten them to the fact that not all dogs are as bouncy and friendly as theres.
> 
> I'm a bit behind on this thread but it does sound like you both have come such a long way... There's nothing to be ashamed of when Willow is letting you and the other dog know that she is not comfortable... It sounds like she showed a lot of self-control
> )


Sounds like you've done really well with Dexter :thumbup1: 
I know its the 'space' thing that triggers Willow now. It used to be that she kicked off at dogs in distance as she was probably worried they were going to come near and felt the need to 'warn' them off in her own way.. we worked and worked.. i needed her to know she didnt have to warn them off, i would do that and i would keep her safe. Now, like you, we have a great 'leave' and use 'carry on' (carry on walking and point in a direction for her to go) . If a dog approaches nicely and calmy.. great but still careful. If it whizz's in all guns blazing and suddenly halts infront of her... game over. If it approaches then isn't interested in wanting to sniff her or is on lead and can't get to her (EG walking past a dog with her on one side of me and other dog at opposite side of their owner), great, she will ignore perfectly aslong as it stays at arms length and i distract her from staring.


----------



## Lauren5159

JenSteWillow said:


> Sounds like you've done really well with Dexter :thumbup1:
> I know its the 'space' thing that triggers Willow now. It used to be that she kicked off at dogs in distance as she was probably worried they were going to come near and felt the need to 'warn' them off in her own way.. we worked and worked.. i needed her to know she didnt have to warn them off, i would do that and i would keep her safe. Now, like you, we have a great 'leave' and use 'carry on' (carry on walking and point in a direction for her to go) . If a dog approaches nicely and calmy.. great but still careful. If it whizz's in all guns blazing and suddenly halts infront of her... game over. If it approaches then isn't interested in wanting to sniff her or is on lead and can't get to her (EG walking past a dog with her on one side of me and other dog at opposite side of their owner), great, she will ignore perfectly aslong as it stays at arms length and i distract her from staring.


I think it's because I found the Border Collie mindset a lot easier to work with than I'm findingthe terrier mindset... Even when I was dealing with fear aggression.

In that case, you have came such a long way  It's a long road and I sometimes wish we could control other people's dogs and the way they approach, but alas, we can't


----------



## Twiggy

Well Leafy now has the best mattress in the house (3" thick memory foam)....!! She looked very comfy last night and I didn't hear a sound - bliss.

I had a very nice lunch and long chat with my mad vicar friend. She only had 8 wild sheepdogs with her... Mercifully they stayed in her vehicle whilst we were in the pub.


----------



## Dogless

JSW - Willow's reactivity threshold has come down so far it's amazing really. Testament to your hard work, well done :thumbup1:. I understand how you feel too BTW after your "incident" - I think it just shows we care. I hope!!!

Just walked Rudi this afternoon, decided to rest Kilo as he was a real dressage horse trotting and dancing this morning (following seeing plenty of dogs last night I guess. STILL doesn't sit well with me but the benefits to him cannot be denied). Pleased it was Roo as we saw the dog who attacked Kilo, two loose BCs out on their own and a loose cocker on her own too. Phew  :frown2:.


----------



## Nicki85

Back from agility with Rusty Buckets. The new class wasn't particularly challenging but enough to make me think and I handled it correctly. Rust was (can't believe I'm saying this....) really bouncy and full of it!!! It was helped with lots of new dogs so that was exciting and he found a new boyfriend... He spent every moment when not being entertained or running singing to a male castrated Springer. He even woofed at him... He was completely infatuated with this other dog and it was a little embarrassing!!!! He is always overly interested in nuetered male springers but not usually to this extent. 

Twiggy- surprised you weren't in there training them all! Glad Leafy likes her new bed.
Gr- sorry didn't see the post yesterday. Very sorry to hear about the two dogs coming over and you getting bitten  you've made such progress as well... But she wasn't ready for that yet :-(
DL- hope Kilos stress levels are back to norm tomorrow


----------



## Dogless

Smitten Rusty!! , Sounds like you both did really well; if it was easier than other classes you attend maybe he was a bit less pressured and that explains the liveliness?


----------



## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> Sounds like you've done really well with Dexter :thumbup1:
> I know its the 'space' thing that triggers Willow now. It used to be that she kicked off at dogs in distance as she was probably worried they were going to come near and felt the need to 'warn' them off in her own way.. we worked and worked.. i needed her to know she didnt have to warn them off, i would do that and i would keep her safe. Now, like you, we have a great 'leave' and use 'carry on' (carry on walking and point in a direction for her to go) . If a dog approaches nicely and calmy.. great but still careful. If it whizz's in all guns blazing and suddenly halts infront of her... game over. If it approaches then isn't interested in wanting to sniff her or is on lead and can't get to her (EG walking past a dog with her on one side of me and other dog at opposite side of their owner), great, she will ignore perfectly aslong as it stays at arms length and i distract her from staring.


This sounds very like Ruska - obviously her thresholds are much smaller at the moment. You've made some amazing progress, I can only hope to achieve the same things as you 

Mostly quiet walk. Met the same owner twice, completely black & with black dog. Luckily my headtorch caught the pinpricks of light from the dog's eyes (I'm getting really good at spotting these, like _really_ good). His dog was sounding like it was going to have a fit with its breathing! Ruska barked a lot but I think she was a bit weirded out, we've not met too many dogs that sounds like steam trains!

A dog that is kept behind a fence on one of our walks and kicks off at any passing dog set her off. We had to pass it twice and on the way back she was loads better. The dog barked, she looked at me :thumbup1: She just had a few passing woofs as if to say "yeah yeah what's all the fuss about"

I am really proud that now, most of the time, if she hears a dog barking in the distance her ears prick but she looks straight to me.


----------



## Nicki85

Dogless said:


> Smitten Rusty!! , Sounds like you both did really well; if it was easier than other classes you attend maybe he was a bit less pressured and that explains the liveliness?


You could well be right, I was handling confidently and not messing up and having to repeat bits. He gets quite down heartened if I mess up, I try and reward his effort but he knows when I've got it wrong as my mood will change.

And yes completely smitten!!! I did try and have a chat to him about boys but I don't think he wanted to listen :cornut: the other dog seemed a little concerned so I kept him away and distracted him as required!!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Beach again this morning... and we're off to Lulworth for the weekend.. so will be more beach I suspect. He was very good with all the dogs he met... even the German Shepherd barking in his face. I'm very lucky his personality is to walk away.


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## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Beach again this morning... *and we're off to **Lulworth for the weekend.. *so will be more beach I suspect. He was very good with all the dogs he met... even the German Shepherd barking in his face. I'm very lucky his personality is to walk away.


And very nice too...!! Have a good week-end.


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## diefenbaker

I've had a bit of a footwear frenzy. First these...

The North Face Men's Tempest Mid GORE-TEX® Hiking Boot

followed closely by these...

Bogs Blaze Camo Wellington

Bring on the bad weather. Yes you read that right. I'm ready for -40.


----------



## lupie

diefenbaker said:


> I've had a bit of a footwear frenzy. First these...
> 
> The North Face Men's Tempest Mid GORE-TEX® Hiking Boot
> 
> followed closely by these...
> 
> Bogs Blaze Camo Wellington
> 
> Bring on the bad weather. Yes you read that right. I'm ready for -40.


Those hiking boots look very nice :thumbup1:


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## Fluffster

Boots look great! I splurged on some a couple of months ago and haven't regretted it once, especially with the weather we've had of late!

http://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/anatom-quadra-3-boot-32110367?id_colour=143

Got a call from my pal this morning asking if I wanted to go for a walk with him and his dog, so off we went. He has problems with recall with his but when Daisy is with her, she sticks a lot closer and comes back so she was able to go off lead. They had fun chasing each other and balls  Daisy even dropped it when asked!


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## Dogless

Dief - have a lovely weekend away .

I am working on recovering from spending a morning trail running. Found a slightly different route - so first and last 25 minutes or so were the new route and the bit in the middle we joined one of our favourite known routes. Snoozing dogs and aching human. Perfect :thumbup1: .


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## diefenbaker

One of my Jesse Jump jumps post modification ( thanks to Dief's Grandma )


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## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> Beach again this morning... and we're off to Lulworth for the weekend.. so will be more beach I suspect. He was very good with all the dogs he met... even the German Shepherd barking in his face. I'm very lucky his personality is to walk away.


My brother likes it at Lulworth, run very fast if you see a 'friendly' vizsla, she is very friendly


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> My brother likes it at Lulworth, run very fast if you see a 'friendly' vizsla, she is very friendly


I know a very friendly Vizsla.....very. They certainly can jump very high .


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## Twiggy

Finally managed to get the dog walk up in the paddock. I think hubby made a pretty good job of it and Holly Bolly went straight over it no problem...:thumbup1:

What do you think:


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## GingerRogers

Wow Twiggy thats great :thumbup1: well done Grandad 

Your grass looks really green still


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## Dogless

Love it Grannie!! I am impressed that your grass hasn't given way to mud too .


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## Jazmine

Twiggy said:


> Finally managed to get the dog walk up in the paddock. I think hubby made a pretty good job of it and Holly Bolly went straight over it no problem...:thumbup1:
> 
> What do you think:


I don't usually post in here but I've just shown that picture to Scout & Mira and they are both very jealous!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Wow Twiggy thats great :thumbup1: well done Grandad
> 
> Your grass looks really green still


It's very boggy and wouldn't be green very long if I did too much agility...LOL

Holly has her Red Setter friend coming tomorrow to do some agility but they're not going roaring round the field afterwards and yes I am a rotten spoilsport..!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Finally managed to get the dog walk up in the paddock. I think hubby made a pretty good job of it and Holly Bolly went straight over it no problem...:thumbup1:


The paddock :thumbup1:
The dog walk :thumbup1:
The hat :thumbup1:


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## Twiggy

Jazmine said:


> I don't usually post in here but I've just shown that picture to Scout & Mira and they are both very jealous!


I'm going to paint the jump poles yellow/blue in the Spring. The weaving poles and hoop already are so that's my colours. The special rubber non-slip paint for the dog walk was £30 for a small tin....


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## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> The paddock :thumbup1:
> The dog walk :thumbup1:
> The hat :thumbup1:


Don't you start...!! I'm an old lady and I need to keep my head warm...


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## Jazmine

Twiggy said:


> I'm going to paint the jump poles yellow/blue in the Spring. The weaving poles and hoop already are so that's my colours. The special rubber non-slip paint for the dog walk was £30 for a small tin....


My jumps and weave poles are purple and white. Scout did object, he would prefer a more masculine colour, but Mira and I outnumber him. 

Considering how much our club has just spent on new aluminium contacts, you should give your hubby a big gold star for that dog walk! The prices are shocking.


----------



## Siskin

How nice to have your very own paddock, seriously envious here.:thumbup1:

Had fun at training this morning. I go to a local man in a nearby village. He does one to one as well as small groups in general obedience and gundog work. There's just the two of us, me and Isla and her brother Murray and his owner. We are trying to get a good recall with the dogs. They just adore each other so it's quite difficult. We have been doing the hiding thing which usually gets the dogs going. This time we went and hid in separate places and whistled our dogs, Murray came to me and Isla went to my friend! . We also did some retrieves with a dummy, throwing them, walking away then sending the dogs back for the dummy. I was very chuffed when Isla suddenly realised what was required, she was heading off to have a play with Murray. She rushed off into the bushes found the dummy and nearly bought it back to me, the pull of a play with Murray was a bit too strong.
Going to meet up with some friends tomorrow who have a manic spaniel which Isla should enjoy.


----------



## Sarah1983

Jealous of your paddock, dog walk and hat Twiggy. I can never find a hat I like, I apparently have a large head and they're all too bloody small.

Dief, hope you have a good weekend away.

Me and Spen had a nice walk today. Mostly just relaxed and walked but we practised our recall, our stopping on cue and some basic obedience. He did fantastic until we encountered several dogs and then his brain went to mush for a bit. He re-engaged it a little later though and we played 101 things to do with a bench and a water bowl. We met another yellow Lab who was allowed to approach (owner did ask if it was okay) but then started growling very loudly at him. Spen was all "yeah, whatever mate" and lost interest in him since he clearly wasn't a new Bestest Friend Ever. Owner retrieved him, apologised, no harm done. The dog dwarfed Spen though, a good 4 inches or so taller and a hell of a lot heavier. My poor, weedy little Labradork  

He's now crashed out half under his beloved curtains. Until I move anyway, then he'll be up and ready to rock and roll. Oh, we've also danced around the living room this morning to the Turisas cover of Rasputin. But shhh, that's a secret


----------



## Dogless

Sarah1983 said:


> Jealous of your paddock, dog walk and hat Twiggy. I can never find a hat I like, I apparently have a large head and they're all too bloody small.
> 
> Dief, hope you have a good weekend away.
> 
> Me and Spen had a nice walk today. Mostly just relaxed and walked but we practised our recall, our stopping on cue and some basic obedience. He did fantastic until we encountered several dogs and then his brain went to mush for a bit. He re-engaged it a little later though and we played 101 things to do with a bench and a water bowl. We met another yellow Lab who was allowed to approach (owner did ask if it was okay) but then started growling very loudly at him. Spen was all "yeah, whatever mate" and lost interest in him since he clearly wasn't a new Bestest Friend Ever. Owner retrieved him, apologised, no harm done. The dog dwarfed Spen though, a good 4 inches or so taller and a hell of a lot heavier. My poor, weedy little Labradork
> 
> He's now crashed out half under his beloved curtains. Until I move anyway, then he'll be up and ready to rock and roll. * Oh, we've also danced around the living room this morning to the Turisas cover of Rasputin.* But shhh, that's a secret


Don't worry...that's, erm, normal :skep: :frown2: .


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## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Don't worry...that's, erm, normal :skep: :frown2: .


Well it is here. I tend to keep my curtains closed now after I turned around one day and found a group of women standing outside laughing at me  I guess they don't dance with their dogs lol.


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## AdMed

Oh this thread is bad for me, I want a dog walk, and poles and and and...however I have a dog that loves toast more than anything and is currently laid at my feet with an exceptionally hopeful look on his face, I have a fire going and a newly opened bottle of red...life is good!

And in the spirit of this thread. I braved the weird dominatrix look and I had the most responsive and attentive dog in the world with my whip and rabbit tug combination. He loves it so much, but I do think I need to do some impulse control with it too as he gets so hyped up?


----------



## AdMed

Oh and we have the odd dance too...although B isn't so keen, he'd rather wrestle on the floor


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## Fluffster

Just done some clicker training heel work in house and she was really picking it up after a couple of mins  Hopefully this is the start of getting her pulling sorted!


----------



## Lauren5159

*Dief* Have a fab weekend! I'm jealous!

*Twiggy* What can I say?.. Can we come and stay?  The walk, the paddock... Amazing! As for the hat, looks like your the main trendsetter of this thread. I need,to get myself one of those 

*Siskin* Your training session sounded like great fun... The retrieve really made me laugh 

*Sarah* I can just imagine Spend saying, "yeah, whatever mate" :lol:

Today for me, was spent at work Boo! I Took Dexter for a jog at 6:30am to wake us both up and to spend some quality time in our favourite way 

I took Skip out for 30 minutes when I got home (collar and lead only) to our little secluded grassy area to work on focus games and LLW. It took him a little while to focus, but I put that down to the sheer excitement of getting out... Eventually, he started working like a dream for cheese... He nearly tripped me up a few times because he was walking so close to me 

A few hiccups... It sounded like a dog fight broke out in the distance and I lost his attention for a couple of minutes but I wasn't expecting miracles this early on in his training... I just let him stand and listen, waited a little while and then called his name and it seemed to work  He didn't strain on the leash, just stood and listened which I was okay with  He did try to pull me over to some trees a couple of times but I stood my ground and waited for him to slacken the leash.

The fact that he is working for food outside is amazing  I never thought I would see that day 

I then took Dexter for a nice, chilled street walk for 45 minutes, came home and worked on 'touch', 'watch me' and 'leave' with both boys for a little while... They're now passed out and not looking like they want to move anytime soon 

Oh! And Skip's whistle arrived  It's way too early in his training to start using it, but I was super excited when I came home and it was there 

It's crazy to believe that Skip is having about 30 minutes of exercise a day and he's perfectly content. Granted, he's training a lot _but_ it just goes to show that it's not purely about exercise quantity 

Sorry for the novel


----------



## Fluffster

Lauren, you are making so much progress already, it's amazing!!!


----------



## Lauren5159

Fluffster said:


> Lauren, you are making so much progress already, it's amazing!!!


Thank you  I'm over the moon and so proud of Skip... We have a long way to go but I'm seriously starting to believe that it's possible now 

And it's all thanks to you guys. You are all my hero's xxx


----------



## Dogless

Freezing fog and sheet ice here this morning so the boys have had a careful lead walk each :blink:. Nothing seen with Rudi. Kilo's walk was a bit stressful for the first 20 minutes as we saw a dog and turned round but for the next 20 minutes they followed us, no matter what odd route I took. I was going at a fair old clip but they seemed adamant to catch us up - they didn't!! The man walking the dog was one of those who appears to delight in setting off reactive dogs then sailing on by with his perfectly calm one :. Then right at the end I saw a lady pushing a pram with a loose dog running all over the roads and in and out of gardens so I did another u turn and approached home from a different way!!


----------



## lupie

Glorious walk this morning. The weather was just :001_wub: Sunny and crisp, mmm.

The flooding had gone down :thumbup1: So I could finally get up onto the heathland. Unfortunately it seemed everybody else had had the same idea so it was a pretty busy walk. Lovely 2 hours though, saw hundreds of dogs but Ruska was mostly offlead so it was bark bark bark ignore. I can now recall her away from 90% of dogs. Just one or two gets her goat and she HAS to go sniff, but most of the time it's cause they are running up to her anyway.

Had an interesting moment where we passed an on-lead akita cross. Reactive - it had hackles up, growling straight away. We passed at close proximity so they were pretty close, when it started at her she growled back and then came straight away back to the other side of me whilst it barked and lunged. I think this is pretty good, for a dog that if she was on lead would've let all hell loose when that one kicked off. Maybe I'm wrong!

Her recall is definitely still a WIP. She buggered off a few times so I kept her on lead for the dangerous bits. I was trying to interact with her more on walks so she's less tempted to go wandering after squirrels.

Any tips for what games to play when on offlead walks? She's so un-toy-orientated that bringing toys would be hopeless, so I do a mixture of sit-stays, 'find it', hide-and-seek, recall work, but then I start to run dry (and so does my treat bag :lol: )

On the way out the car park was RAMMED and I had trouble trying to reverse out between two cars that had kindly boxed me in - and a man with an adult Ridgie and a puppy Ridgie stopped and directed me so I could squeeze out. Made me think of you Dogless - gorgeous Ridgies and a very helpful owner! 

Here's a photo of this morning's squirrel-searching Ruska for anyone who read this needless essay


----------



## GingerRogers

AdMed said:


> And in the spirit of this thread. I braved the weird dominatrix look


 I dont think we know what you mean, innocent souls here  well done pupil you have gained the key to the first level of the WAYWO tower 

Lauren - loving your enthusiasm and so glad some of the ideas are helping little Skip 

Dogless - cant like your post freezing fog, following and loose dogs sounds stressful for you both, hope you have a better one later.

Lupie - love the squirrel searching, ninja does the same 

Sarah - dancing with your dog is perfectly normal, I used to do it with Rory, holding the front paws ??  cant do it with ninja, my back isnt up for it so I have to cradle her like a baby, she seems to like it 

We had a midday trot around the wet woods, they are getting wetter and muddier, soon they will be all ours again as people dont seem to like wandering round in ankle deep water 

A very quick evening walk on one of the paddocks up on the common, I am right back to paranoid android at every little noise  but its not somewhere we normally go and 10 mins seemed enough exposure for ninja too. Then she had some scent work, then hid her tea in boxes, we had a zoom round the estate later on and she is relaxing much more at night which is excellent.

I am currently sat here waiting for my hair dye to develop


----------



## Fluffster

Aww Ruska is gorgeous!

We had a nice forest walk this morning. Managed to keep her attention with cyclists and runners going past and get her to stay by using her ball. She also dropped it every time at our feet when asked 

At the end, we met two cockers who looked exactly like Daisy, it was hilarious watching them all run around together. One of the owners said Daisy was very calm?! But I think that was just cos it was the end of the walk and she was knackered! Hopefully we managed to take the right one home :lol:


----------



## GingerRogers

Fluffster said:


> Aww Ruska is gorgeous!
> 
> We had a nice forest walk this morning. Managed to keep her attention with cyclists and runners going past and get her to stay by using her ball. She also dropped it every time at our feet when asked
> 
> At the end, we met two cockers who looked exactly like Daisy, it was hilarious watching them all run around together. One of the owners said Daisy was very calm?! But I think that was just cos it was the end of the walk and she was knackered! *Hopefully we managed to take the right one home :lol:*


 ..............


----------



## Twiggy

Well the best laid plans of mice and men.....

Teatime yesterday I started to feel queasy and spent all evening and well into the night throwing up... Freezing cold and aching limbs as well. Obviously some sort of bug.

I felt a bit better this morning, not quite so nauseous, but have a splitting headache and still aching all over.

Sadly I've had to cancel agility training with Holly's friend this afternoon which is frustrating but never mind.


----------



## Twiggy

Siskin said:


> *How nice to have your very own paddock*, seriously envious here.:thumbup1:
> 
> I'd rather live in glorious Gloucestershire/Hampshire/Etc and have somewhere nice to walk the dogs. There is nowhere around here without driving several miles.


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Well the best laid plans of mice and men.....
> 
> Teatime yesterday I started to feel queasy and spent all evening and well into the night throwing up... Freezing cold and aching limbs as well. Obviously some sort of bug.
> 
> I felt a bit better this morning, not quite so nauseous, but have a splitting headache and still aching all over.
> 
> Sadly I've had to cancel agility training with Holly's friend this afternoon which is frustrating but never mind.


Oh-no  Sounds terrible. Hope you feel better soon.


----------



## Dogless

*Twiggy* - oh no. Hope that the bug passes quickly.

*GR* - actually do you know the walk wasn't too stressful. Why? Because my confidence has come on over the last few weeks with Kilo and the small steps forward we have had. He didn't like the dog behind us and had a few looks but mostly just walked with me on a relaxed lead.

*lupie* - "Chase! Managing Your Dog's Predatory Instincts" has a few good ideas and introduces the concept of "communicative walks" which is a term I like!!


----------



## Guest

Well, as I posted in the Crate and Rotate thread, were working on two visiting girlies stress levels. 

I was joking with my trainer how its relatively easy to teach a dog to ignore other dogs (that would be Breez), but teaching appropriate interactions in all the myriad of different contexts out there is infinitely harder. 

Lots of if onlys going on. If only Breez would throw out a calming signal to RR.
If only RR would tell Breez off - Breez takes and respects correction, even from females. In fact this same friend has a very small terrier mix who will tell Breez off in a skinny minute, and Breez gets along with that terrier mix just fine.

But... things are improving, so thats a plus. 

If it ever stops raining Ill post some pictures. Right now were under a tornado watch and no one has had a proper walk - including me LOL!


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy, hope you feel better soon.

Ouesi, is this your friends RR you've got staying? Remember you mentioning it at some point.

Lupie, would second the Chase! book recommendation. There's also one by David Ryan (I think!) that's supposed to be very good too but haven't read that one.

I'm here for a huge, HUGE brag today. I've just got back from a walk around the farmers fields with Spen. Not my favourite time to walk as it was just getting dark, I'd rather be out in the light or out in the dark, not that half way point lol. Anyway, had Spen off leash since there was nobody else around as far as I could tell. Now Spen doesn't exactly stick close, he'll be way off up front or way behind sniffing but he does come back and check in with me regularly so I don't worry about it. So he's off leash about 30 metres in front of me, I'm just pottering along behind keeping one eye on him and one on where I'm walking. Next thing I know a load of deer burst out of the trees on one side and go bounding across the path right in front of him :yikes: Well I absolutely sh*t myself. I had visions of an "oh jesus christ, Spencer!" moment coming. But no, he stopped and watched them for a moment and then when I made some noise to attract his attention he turns and comes trotting back. I just emptied about half his treat bag on the ground, clipped his leash on and started waffling to him about how amazing he was and how he shouldn't chase deer and all sorts of random crap. Glad nobody was around to hear me 

Apart from that one incident our walk was lovely. Very relaxed, Spencer was off leash and doing his own thing but regularly coming back to nudge my hand and walk beside me for a few steps. He was able to do some basic obedience stuff and we just had a really, really nice walk in general.


----------



## Siskin

Clever boy Spencer, that takes some doing to ignore the deer.


We also had a lovely walk on a gorgeous day. We are beginning to rediscover some walks which we haven't done in years due to having elderly dogs for what seems like ages.

Met up with some friends at a great pub with the most incredible view looking over the Stroud valley. They have a working cocker called Bobby who is quite manic and I guess (correctly) that he would happily play with Isla until she fell down from exhaustion. Although Isla's used to coming into pubs with us, having another dog to play with under the table prevented any calm, relaxed settle downs and wait til we've finished, actions. After lunch we drove to Rodborough common to have a walk, we only just managed to park the cars as there were so many people there. It's the first nice day for ages and everyone wanted to go out for a walk on the highest points to get away from the flooding. There were loads of people and dogs there and I was concerned what Isla would be like with all those distractions considering how young she is still. I could see three points in my favour. She was in a strange place, she had a very willing playmate that she had made friends with under the table, and it wouldn't be too long before she became tired. She was so good and I was very proud of her. She did go up to a few people, but she didn't try to jump up and came away quickly. Lots of dogs came over and either joined in the play or came for a sniff. Bobby is a confident, friendly dog and Isla tended to stand back to let him say hello and let the new dog come to her. She was a bit shy but in a good way as she didn't fling herself on strange dogs which might have set them off. She was brilliant with some little terriers that came over as she must seem huge to them. She just gently sniffed noses and trotted off again. She was taken aback by a very large Weimaraner who came ambling over and she tucked her tail in and came back to us. To be honest I couldn't have asked for a better walk with her. Now had we just been on our own without Bobby to be with and show her the ropes, it could have been completely different with her running all over the place to greet people and dogs, or maybe it wouldn't have been. Who knows. Will have to go again and see what happens. Luckily everyone we met were very relaxed and all the dogs were friendly. Lovely day.


----------



## Dogless

Sarah - WOW!!!!! Well done - that is my DREAM scenario which will sadly never happen I don't think. I have the David Ryan book on chasing too (surprise, surprise!!) but it is more a protocol to follow rather than ideas of games etc like the other one.


----------



## Twiggy

I'm afraid I've had to leave the dog walking to hubby today as I still feel pretty grotty.
I've had a good look and they all appear to be sound...LOL

Hope I feel better tomorrow as I've got a busy week.

Sounds as if you all had wonderful walks today in the sunshine.


----------



## Sarah1983

Dogless said:


> Sarah - WOW!!!!! Well done - that is my DREAM scenario which will sadly never happen I don't think. I have the David Ryan book on chasing too (surprise, surprise!!) but it is more a protocol to follow rather than ideas of games etc like the other one.


Thanks  It would never have happened with Rupert either. Spencer likes a good game of chase but it really is just fun to him, there's no real intent there. He'll call off cats or birds mid chase but a group of deer might be another matter entirely! My dream scenario is him recalling away from another dog before he's said hello lol.


----------



## lupie

Thanks - I will take a look at that book. I've heard David Ryan's mentioned too, perhaps I will look at that also. Never have too much reading!


Sarah - that's amazing!! The idea of Ruska just watching a herd of deer go by is just.....non-existent. Good boy Spen!


----------



## zedder

Ike has test driven his new ezydog harness very impressed looks good fits well and he seems really comfortable in it.


----------



## Dogless

Good morning here. Took the boys separately up to the top fields to do some "Ready Steady". They both did really well - Roo's distance commands are coming on nicely . Kilo was a dressage horse from the second we left home because of the really strong winds so he was bonkers and sprinted full pelt when we were playing with lots of squeaking and jumping at me thrown in. I took his beloved pheasant and talisman of course. He walked home a lot less prancy after all that :scared: .


----------



## lupie

Canal has finally dropped low enough for us to do our canal walk. It may not be as interesting as some of our other walks but it's a lot more relaxing as there's only 2 places she can disappear. It was all icy and frosty and lovely  
Quite sobering seeing all the damage the flood has left though, ripped up fencing, planking, trees just strewn everywhere "high tide" marks with debris piled up, crazy. 

Very enjoyable though and not a lot to report, did some recall work, though it was ace because there was nowhere for her to go hunting haha. Find it, stays, etc. 

Got that book downloaded onto my kindle so that'll be next reading. 

Did come across an 'aggressive' akita (owners words not mine) though and the owner was using Pet Corrector on it -even when it had displayed no behaviour. We literally turned the corner, it was there, it got sprayed! Eek. We passed very well with liver treats


----------



## Dogless

Just took Roo running in the pouring rain for an hour. 55 minutes of that was enjoyable. Near the end of the run we were just going up a small set of steps when I heard a woman calling a dog. Well, the dog ran over growling, barrelled into us and tried to pin Roo who was having NONE of it and went Cujo - all handbags. Meanwhile I had been pulled over as I run with Roo with a training lead across my body so I can be hands free as he's a good boy....as the "meet" happened the lead got pulled up around my neck as I bent forwards to try and free it just as Roo lunged. The woman retrieved her dog and Roo was fine once the dog was taken away from his immediate vicinity. What was said "I don't know why he does that, he's such a silly sausage" and I did hear "oopsie!!" as I fell / got dragged over by my neck . This place has defeated me so, so much that I just said that a lead might be a good idea quite politely because I honestly thought I might cry  .

Anyway, we ran home without further drama. Roo has a small cut on his ear, I am sore but otherwise all fine. He is currently going bonkers with the "Quack Attack" toy driving me mad - one because he's wet and two because he's still stressed I would imagine.


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> Just took Roo running in the pouring rain for an hour. 55 minutes of that was enjoyable. Near the end of the run we were just going up a small set of steps when I heard a woman calling a dog. Well, the dog ran over growling, barrelled into us and tried to pin Roo who was having NONE of it and went Cujo - all handbags. Meanwhile I had been pulled over as I run with Roo with a training lead across my body so I can be hands free as he's a good boy....as the "meet" happened the lead got pulled up around my neck as I bent forwards to try and free it just as Roo lunged. The woman retrieved her dog and Roo was fine once the dog was taken away from his immediate vicinity. What was said "I don't know why he does that, he's such a silly sausage" and I did hear "oopsie!!" as I fell / got dragged over by my neck . This place has defeated me so, so much that I just said that a lead might be a good idea quite politely because I honestly thought I might cry  .
> 
> Anyway, we ran home without further drama. Roo has a small cut on his ear, I am sore but otherwise all fine. He is currently going bonkers with the "Quack Attack" toy driving me mad - one because he's wet and two because he's still stressed I would imagine.


Bloody hell  Glad you and Roo are ok. "Oopsie"    I'd be mortified if my failure to control my dog ended up in someone getting hurt!

Our walk was low key, just round the field near us and some ball throwing. I feel bad today as we slept in longer than usual and when we got up, Daisy had done a huge pee at the front door  she'd obviously held it as long as she could so I feel quite guilty today. So I went to [email protected] and bought lots of toys and treats!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Just took Roo running in the pouring rain for an hour. 55 minutes of that was enjoyable. Near the end of the run we were just going up a small set of steps when I heard a woman calling a dog. Well, the dog ran over growling, barrelled into us and tried to pin Roo who was having NONE of it and went Cujo - all handbags. Meanwhile I had been pulled over as I run with Roo with a training lead across my body so I can be hands free as he's a good boy....as the "meet" happened the lead got pulled up around my neck as I bent forwards to try and free it just as Roo lunged. The woman retrieved her dog and Roo was fine once the dog was taken away from his immediate vicinity. What was said "I don't know why he does that, he's such a silly sausage" and I did hear "oopsie!!" as I fell / got dragged over by my neck .* This place has defeated me so, so much that I just said that a lead might be a good idea quite politely because I honestly thought I might cry  .*
> 
> Anyway, we ran home without further drama. Roo has a small cut on his ear, I am sore but otherwise all fine. He is currently going bonkers with the "Quack Attack" toy driving me mad - one because he's wet and two because he's still stressed I would imagine.


Unbelievable....!! I'm pretty sure it would defeat me over there as well.

There's nothing I can say except I hope the cut on Roo's ear heals quickly and that you're not as stiff as a board tomorrow.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Unbelievable....!! I'm pretty sure it would defeat me over there as well.
> 
> There's nothing I can say except I hope the cut on Roo's ear heals quickly and that you're not as stiff as a board tomorrow.


Roo's ear is a nick at the bottom of it, nothing at all really. I am trying to resist contacting the woman to check that her dog is unhurt. I didn't see any contact by Roo and there wasn't any yelping - just a lot of horrible noises and bared teeth. My back and neck aren't too clever and my shin took a pounding but nothing awful in the grand scheme of things.

The weather is still gales and pouring rain. Meeting Diz and human at 6 for Kilo's second walk so at least we'll have company!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Roo's ear is a nick at the bottom of it, nothing at all really. I am trying to resist contacting the woman to check that her dog is unhurt. I didn't see any contact by Roo and there wasn't any yelping - just a lot of horrible noises and bared teeth. My back and neck aren't too clever and my shin took a pounding but nothing awful in the grand scheme of things.
> 
> The weather is still gales and pouring rain. Meeting Diz and human at 6 for Kilo's second walk so at least we'll have company!!


Hmm that's if you haven't stiffen up by then. Be careful.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Just took Roo running in the pouring rain for an hour. 55 minutes of that was enjoyable. Near the end of the run we were just going up a small set of steps when I heard a woman calling a dog. Well, the dog ran over growling, barrelled into us and tried to pin Roo who was having NONE of it and went Cujo - all handbags. Meanwhile I had been pulled over as I run with Roo with a training lead across my body so I can be hands free as he's a good boy....as the "meet" happened the lead got pulled up around my neck as I bent forwards to try and free it just as Roo lunged. The woman retrieved her dog and Roo was fine once the dog was taken away from his immediate vicinity. What was said "I don't know why he does that, he's such a silly sausage" and I did hear "oopsie!!" as I fell / got dragged over by my neck . This place has defeated me so, so much that I just said that a lead might be a good idea quite politely because I honestly thought I might cry  .
> 
> Anyway, we ran home without further drama. Roo has a small cut on his ear, I am sore but otherwise all fine. He is currently going bonkers with the "Quack Attack" toy driving me mad - one because he's wet and two because he's still stressed I would imagine.


Yikes - poor you. Hope you aren't too stiff after the fall and that Roo bounces back.

"oopsie" ?! I have no words.


----------



## Sarah1983

Bloody hell Dogless, I hope you and Rudi are both okay! Bloody "oopsies", I'd have given her bloody oopsies! He sounds a confident, well adjusted boy though so this one incident shouldn't have a huge effect on him long term. Spencer wouldn't simply back down to a dog trying to pin him either! A growl, yes, an attempt to physically bully him, no way.

We had our husky meet again today. Not the best one. Someone came along with a mastiff puppy, pup did something to warrant a telling off from one dog, another dog weighed in, pup screamed like she was being murdered and ran and Spen chased her all around a picnic bench before I could grab him. I have no idea what his intentions were, he made no attempt to bite her or anything, just chased her. He has a tendency to want to lick the face of dogs who yelp so could be he just wanted to do that but he didn't exactly help as she was terrified of him at that point. Dogs were barking, puppy was crying, kids were screaming, adults yelling and trying to grab the pup so it was utter chaos really. No injuries found on the pup thankfully.

Other than that Spen was great though. He didn't attempt to steal Jack the toddlers sausages. Him and Demon played nicely with tennis balls, he played well with Willow and only attempted to hump her a couple of times. He said hello to a boxer bitch through the fence then went off to play ball again. On the way there he ignored a boxer on the opposite side of the road who planted itself and refused to move until we'd gone away. 

I've noticed a big difference in him since switching him from raw to kibble. On raw he liked food but on kibble he loves food  He's more excited about his meals and a hell of a lot more interested in treats. He also has more energy. Not in a hyperactive sort of way, he's just more lively. The switch was only meant to be temporary, I misjudged and didn't order enough raw to last over Christmas and New Year so had to buy kibble but now I'm thinking of keeping him on it. Although if I do it will be a higher quality one than he's currently got.


----------



## Siskin

Dogless, I hope you both recover ok. What a horrid thing to happen (once again). Have a soak in a bath tonight in case you stiffen up.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Hello. I'm going to weigh in on this thread if that's ok as I have a few things I'm working on and thought if I write it down it might help with motivation.....

My six month springer poodle cross went off the rails a little bit at about 4 months. Resource guarding, body handling issues, anxious, generally just super stressed out and over aroused. Prior to that we'd been storming through basic training at puppy class and he learned really fast. The last couple of months we've stepped back on a lot of the stuff I previously had been working on and have been working on confidence, calmness, being handled and his guarding issues. It's been hard work but definitely seen progress and now he's like a different dog. Finally he's able to focus again so I'm determined to take advantage and get back on track.

Current main aims are
1) loose lead walking - last couple if days have actually managed to keep his focus long enough to do a short walk with no pulling, a major achievement (previously constantly stressed about everything going on around him). Now determined to work on this daily rather than taking the easy option of heading to the moors in the car where he can then walk off lead.
2) recall - reasonably good without distractions but definitely room for improvement. Working on the total recall program, trying to resist the urge to rush it.... 
3) not jumping up when greeting (he now doesn't jump at me or partner much, but is terrible with visitors for first few minutes - he gets completely frantic)
4) not jumping up at the table/counters (also not going well and not quite sure how to achieve this using only positive training)

Unfortunately I think none of the above issues will have quick fixes so invisage my list of things to work on isn't going to change much in the next few months......


----------



## Lauren5159

Oh gosh Dogless, poor you and Roo  I hope you are both okay and your shin recovers. 

I'm glad Roo seems no worse for wear, apart from his ear. Bless him. 

Sarah, sounds like you had an eventful afternoon... Spen sounds a bit like Skip in those situations. Skip just wants to be involved (after the telling off). Something similar happened to us a while ago... A puppy got told off, ran off terrified and Skip ran after it, no harm intended but it was like he just wanted to be part of the commotion and all the excitement... Crazy dogs! 

Fluffster, don't feel too bad about sleeping in. I've done that a couple of times before and it's resulted in Skip not being able to hold his bladder any longer... Dexter seems to have a bladder made of steel! Sometimes you just need a lie in  

Not much to report here. Skip is still doing well. His LLW is coming along nicely without distractions but we're slowly going to start adding them in. 

Last night, in our little secluded spot whilst training, a couple decided to walk through with their Scottie. Skip was attacked by a Scottie when he was younger and because of this, he went a bit beserk, barking and crying but both dogs were on lead so no harm was done. About 10 minutes later, a man walked past with two Border Terriers and Skip was absolutely fine. He looked but didn't make a sound and walked straight back to my side when I told him to 

Same again tonight  I don't think he's ready to add too many distractions just yet so we're going to go back to our little spot tonight and for the next few nights just to keep on top of his focus and LLW... I'm really enjoying all the training at the minute, I didn't think I would but it's proving very beneficial for the both of us


----------



## Dogless

Uneventful walk with Diz and human with Kilo. Not our usual hour and a half or so potter and chat; we had to shout to each other to be heard above the wind and the rain was horizontal so we did our route in an hour :scared: .


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Bloody hell Dogless, I hope you and Rudi are both okay! Bloody "oopsies", I'd have given her bloody oopsies! He sounds a confident, well adjusted boy though so this one incident shouldn't have a huge effect on him long term. Spencer wouldn't simply back down to a dog trying to pin him either! A growl, yes, an attempt to physically bully him, no way.
> 
> We had our husky meet again today. Not the best one. Someone came along with a mastiff puppy, pup did something to warrant a telling off from one dog, another dog weighed in, pup screamed like she was being murdered and ran and Spen chased her all around a picnic bench before I could grab him. I have no idea what his intentions were, he made no attempt to bite her or anything, just chased her. He has a tendency to want to lick the face of dogs who yelp so could be he just wanted to do that but he didn't exactly help as she was terrified of him at that point. Dogs were barking, puppy was crying, kids were screaming, adults yelling and trying to grab the pup so it was utter chaos really. No injuries found on the pup thankfully.
> 
> Other than that Spen was great though. He didn't attempt to steal Jack the toddlers sausages. Him and Demon played nicely with tennis balls, he played well with Willow and only attempted to hump her a couple of times. He said hello to a boxer bitch through the fence then went off to play ball again. On the way there he ignored a boxer on the opposite side of the road who planted itself and refused to move until we'd gone away.
> 
> I've noticed a big difference in him since switching him from raw to kibble. On raw he liked food but on kibble he loves food  He's more excited about his meals and a hell of a lot more interested in treats. He also has more energy. Not in a hyperactive sort of way, he's just more lively. The switch was only meant to be temporary, I misjudged and didn't order enough raw to last over Christmas and New Year so had to buy kibble but now I'm thinking of keeping him on it. Although if I do it will be a higher quality one than he's currently got.


Good boy Spen. It does sound as if the Husky meets are helping in the main. At least it's somewhere to socialise him.

What kibble have you currently got him on?


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> Oh gosh Dogless, poor you and Roo  I hope you are both okay and your shin recovers.
> 
> I'm glad Roo seems no worse for wear, apart from his ear. Bless him.
> 
> Sarah, sounds like you had an eventful afternoon... Spen sounds a bit like Skip in those situations. Skip just wants to be involved (after the telling off). Something similar happened to us a while ago... A puppy got told off, ran off terrified and Skip ran after it, no harm intended but it was like he just wanted to be part of the commotion and all the excitement... Crazy dogs!
> 
> Fluffster, don't feel too bad about sleeping in. I've done that a couple of times before and it's resulted in Skip not being able to hold his bladder any longer... Dexter seems to have a bladder made of steel! Sometimes you just need a lie in
> 
> Not much to report here. Skip is still doing well. His LLW is coming along nicely without distractions but we're slowly going to start adding them in.
> 
> Last night, in our little secluded spot whilst training, a couple decided to walk through with their Scottie. Skip was attacked by a Scottie when he was younger and because of this, he went a bit beserk, barking and crying but both dogs were on lead so no harm was done. About 10 minutes later, a man walked past with two Border Terriers and Skip was absolutely fine. He looked but didn't make a sound and walked straight back to my side when I told him to
> 
> Same again tonight  I don't think he's ready to add too many distractions just yet so we're going to go back to our little spot tonight and for the next few nights just to keep on top of his focus and LLW...* I'm really enjoying all the training at the minute, I didn't think I would but it's proving very beneficial for the both of us *




Mega well done Lauren (and Skip of course)...:thumbup1:

Call me old-fashioned but to my mind basic training can fix about 95% of problems and once you really get into it it's enjoyable for you and your dog.

I had to smile (yet again) when I took Leafy to see the Senior Neurologist at Cambridge Vet College just before Christmas as he said exactly the same as every vet/consultant/specialist I've seen with my dogs over the years. "Why can't they all be like this? It would make my job so much easier". A trained dog has impeccable manners whatever the circumstances....


----------



## lupie

Lauren5159 said:


> Same again tonight  I don't think he's ready to add too many distractions just yet so we're going to go back to our little spot tonight and for the next few nights just to keep on top of his focus and LLW... *I'm really enjoying all the training at the minute, I didn't think I would but it's proving very beneficial for the both of us*


I was dreading Ruska's season without getting out on walks but it meant getting really inventive with training and doing all sorts of different things and working on areas of training that might get neglected because of her reactivity. I'm enjoying walks again but want to keep up some of the training games we were doing whilst she couldn't go out.

Glad you are enjoying it, it's refreshing and will all pay off :thumbsup:


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Mega well done Lauren (and Skip of course)...:thumbup1:
> 
> Call me old-fashioned but to my mind basic training can fix about 95% of problems and once you really get into it it's enjoyable for you and your dog.
> 
> I had to smile (yet again) when I took Leafy to see the Senior Neurologist at Cambridge Vet College just before Christmas as he said exactly the same as every vet/consultant/specialist I've seen with my dogs over the years. "Why can't they all be like this? It would make my job so much easier". A trained dog has impeccable manners whatever the circumstances....


Thank you 

I get exactly what you mean... My main issue with Skip was the fact that I was over thinking everything and over complicating it all... I now know know that going back to basics can solve the majority of problem behaviours... It was easier with Dexter because when I got him at a year old, he was a clean slate with no previous day to day training. Skip, who.I've had since eight weeks old, made me question and over complicate everything. I thought I had done everything right, but didn't keep refreshing the basics.

I'm feeling elated about it all and it's mainly down to doing what is right for Skip and the amount of invaluable advice I've received from all you fabulous WAYWO ladies (and Dief).., so thank you all so much x


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Hello. I'm going to weigh in on this thread if that's ok as I have a few things I'm working on and thought if I write it down it might help with motivation.....
> 
> My six month springer poodle cross went off the rails a little bit at about 4 months. Resource guarding, body handling issues, anxious, generally just super stressed out and over aroused. Prior to that we'd been storming through basic training at puppy class and he learned really fast. The last couple of months we've stepped back on a lot of the stuff I previously had been working on and have been working on confidence, calmness, being handled and his guarding issues. It's been hard work but definitely seen progress and now he's like a different dog. Finally he's able to focus again so I'm determined to take advantage and get back on track.
> 
> Current main aims are
> 1) loose lead walking - last couple if days have actually managed to keep his focus long enough to do a short walk with no pulling, a major achievement (previously constantly stressed about everything going on around him). Now determined to work on this daily rather than taking the easy option of heading to the moors in the car where he can then walk off lead.
> 2) recall - reasonably good without distractions but definitely room for improvement. Working on the total recall program, trying to resist the urge to rush it....
> 3) not jumping up when greeting (he now doesn't jump at me or partner much, but is terrible with visitors for first few minutes - he gets completely frantic)
> 4) not jumping up at the table/counters (also not going well and not quite sure how to achieve this using only positive training)
> 
> Unfortunately I think none of the above issues will have quick fixes so invisage my list of things to work on isn't going to change much in the next few months......


Patience and perseverance he's only a puppy. He's also a dynamic cross isn't he?

Have you thought about having him on a lead when visitor's arrive and asking them to ignore him until he's calm?

Does he jump up at the table/counters when your present or when you're out of sight?


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Anyway, we ran home without further drama. Roo has a small cut on his ear, I am sore but otherwise all fine. He is currently going bonkers with the "Quack Attack" toy driving me mad - one because he's wet and two because he's still stressed I would imagine.


Swearing in exasperation for you. I'm not sure "oopsie" quite cuts it when your dog has caused someone to have been dragged over by their neck. Glad Roo isn't badly hurt and hope he bounces back.

Lulworth was great even at this time of year and met a lovely GSD named Lloyd ( he was found as a stray outside Lloyds bank ). He was part of the wider group we were with. They'd never met before but were buds after 5 minutes.

Oh yeah. I got very, very drunk and did Karaoke.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Swearing in exasperation for you. I'm not sure "oopsie" quite cuts it when your dog has caused someone to have been dragged over by their neck. Glad Roo isn't badly hurt and hope he bounces back.
> 
> Lulworth was great even at this time of year and met a lovely GSD named Lloyd ( he was found as a stray outside Lloyds bank ). He was part of the wider group we were with. They'd never met before but were buds after 5 minutes.
> 
> Oh yeah. I got very, very drunk and did Karaoke.


Never a dull moment eh Dief?? :lol:. Love the reason for LLoyd's name, very good!


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Swearing in exasperation for you. I'm not sure "oopsie" quite cuts it when your dog has caused someone to have been dragged over by their neck. Glad Roo isn't badly hurt and hope he bounces back.
> 
> Lulworth was great even at this time of year and met a lovely GSD named Lloyd ( he was found as a stray outside Lloyds bank ). He was part of the wider group we were with. They'd never met before but were buds after 5 minutes.
> 
> Oh yeah. I got very, very drunk and did Karaoke.


Naughty boy...!! Was there any beige woolly hats for sale down in Dorset?...!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Twiggy said:


> Good boy Spen. It does sound as if the Husky meets are helping in the main. At least it's somewhere to socialise him.
> 
> What kibble have you currently got him on?


He's certainly learned some manners from the meets. With most dogs anyway. Willow gets humped to within an inch of her life but she seems to encourage him! His off leash manners these days are generally good but on leash he's still stupidly over excited and "I'm gonna dance on your head!"  This time last year at the meets I didn't exist for him. Now he's wanting to play fetch and even offering to work with me at times.

He's currently on Markus Muhle which isn't too awful but isn't brilliant. Can't afford top of the range ones like Orijen but there are better ones I can afford.


----------



## Fluffster

I need a bigger house without obstacles to practice our LLW! 

I'm wondering, should I be introducing a cue word for her walking to heel without the lead on, or not? Obv when the lead is on I always want her to walk without pulling, but offlead I don't always want her stuck to me like a limpet! I've been doing without a cue word and just using our cue word for her going off to play to end the session ("go play") but I wonder if I should be using heel or something? And if so, should/how often should the command be repeated?


----------



## Twiggy

Please don't let it pour with rain tonight as I need to get to Holly's agility class tomorrow. We haven't been since the beginning of December as they had a break over Christmas and it was cancelled last week due to the weather. I've got a show on Saturday.

Although I didn't feel brilliant I did drag the see-saw out this afternoon and put some jumps up, admittedly into a very easy circle. It was freezing cold and Holly was a tad revved and biting for England.

I was however delighted with her and Barley earlier in the barn. The heelwork is really coming with both of them now. Particularly pleased with Barley as I'm asking for a totally different heelwork position, which is a big ask at 6.1/2 yrs old.

Holly Bolly is now knocking six bells out of a squeaky ball when I'm training either Barley or Tremor - a very good sign.....:thumbsup:


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> Please don't let it pour with rain tonight as I need to get to Holly's agility class tomorrow. We haven't been since the beginning of December as they had a break over Christmas and it was cancelled last week due to the weather. I've got a show on Saturday.
> 
> Although I didn't feel brilliant I did drag the see-saw out this afternoon and put some jumps up, admittedly into a very easy circle. It was freezing cold and Holly was a tad revved and biting for England.
> 
> I was however delighted with her and Barley earlier in the barn. The heelwork is really coming with both of them now. Particularly pleased with Barley as I'm asking for a totally different heelwork position, which is a big ask at 6.1/2 yrs old.
> 
> Holly Bolly is now knocking six bells out of a squeaky ball when I'm training either Barley or Tremor - a very good sign.....:thumbsup:


Fingers crossed the rain stays away. We have horrible frost here as well as rain spells  I slipped last night and cut my knee open 

Way to go Barley and Holly :thumbsup:

Those squeaky balls really do take a battering, huh?

Sounds like a house full of training  Is there anything better?


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> Fingers crossed the rain stays away. We have horrible frost here as well as rain spells  I slipped last night and cut my knee open
> 
> Way to go Barley and Holly :thumbsup:
> 
> Those squeaky balls really do take a battering, huh?
> 
> *Sounds like a house full of training  Is there anything better? *


I still thoroughly enjoy it even after all these years.

I've been meaning to ask. Is that your horse at the bottom of your posts?


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> I still thoroughly enjoy it even after all these years.
> 
> I've been meaning to ask. Is that your horse at the bottom of your posts?


Yeah, that's Cooper  I got him when I lived in Cyprus (as a project). He's a TB x Arab. When I left Cyprus I couldn't bear to leave him over there so he came back with me  He's a handful but an absolute diamond  He was badly treated in Cyprus but has quickly adapted to be a pampered pony lol.

ETA: my phone keeps changing 'Cooper' to 'Trooper' for some silly reason.


----------



## zedder

ikes sister came round today two collies caked in mud within about 10 seconds looked bloody fun they love a good chase round and tumble.


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> Yeah, that's Cooper  I got him when I lived in Cyprus (as a project). He's a TB x Arab. When I left Cyprus I couldn't bear to leave him over there so he came back with me  He's a handful but an absolute diamond  He was badly treated in Cyprus but has quickly adapted to be a pampered pony lol.
> 
> ETA: my phone keeps changing 'Cooper' to 'Trooper' for some silly reason.


He's got a nice head and I assumed he was part TB. I had a show cob called Copper (he was liver chestnut).


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> He's got a nice head and I assumed he was part TB. I had a show cob called Copper (he was liver chestnut).


I had a cob when I was younger... Gorgeous horse and completely bombproof  One day I'll have another one 

Yeah, he does have a nice head... He has great conformation and paces but it took a lot of work before we discovered the latter lol. The Arab side of him tends to make him a little hot to handle


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> I had a cob when I was younger... Gorgeous horse and completely bombproof  One day I'll have another one
> 
> Yeah, he does have a nice head... He has great conformation and paces but it took a lot of work before we discovered the latter lol. The Arab side of him tends to make him a little hot to handle


Err yes I wouldn't say my cob was bombproof. He frightened the life out of my sister in the main ring at a big county show...!! It was every time the steward blew the hunting horn to change pace.


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> Err yes I wouldn't say my cob was bombproof. He frightened the life out of my sister in the main ring at a big county show...!! It was every time the steward blew the hunting horn to change pace.


Lol, he sounds like he was fun  That's one thing I learned about cobs... They are born with an inbuilt ability to manipulate and get what they want, when they want  But mine was an older lad when I got him... Not like Cooper lol.

Here's some pictures of how far we've come... From a neglected horse on a Cyprus farm who had never seen grass or an arena, let alone a jump or a saddle


----------



## lupie

Lauren5159 said:


> Lol, he sounds like he was fun  That's one thing I learned about cobs... They are born with an inbuilt ability to manipulate and get what they want, when they want  But mine was an older lad when I got him... Not like Cooper lol.
> 
> Here's some pictures of how far we've come... From a neglected horse on a Cyprus farm who had never seen grass or an arena, let alone a jump or a saddle


Stunning horse :001_wub: :001_tt1:


----------



## Lauren5159

lupie said:


> Stunning horse :001_wub: :001_tt1:


Thank you  He knows it too :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> Stunning horse :001_wub: :001_tt1:


Well done you...!!


----------



## petlovermark

Been working on leaving my German shepherd Gemma alone, started off with a hour and every week doing an hour so I can feel happy when I come home and house is not chewed up.


----------



## GingerRogers

lupie said:


> Stunning horse :001_wub: :001_tt1:


Second that, he is my kind of horse,:thumbup1: stunner :biggrin: I love a good sturdy cob preferably coloured with a huge long mane  but my favourite ever horse to ride was a big TB x bay with conformation very much like Cooper, complete fruitcake he was always a challenge 

Dogless I do despair  you should have got smaller dogs then you could just make up a race track in the back garden and hibernate until posting.

Lupie & Lauren I love our training walks, I feel really bonded am goign to miss them this week as we are doing a refresher session with the trainer on Saturday and need to try and ensure I go with a calm dog, after last weeks shenanigans its going to be tricky as she is still running high.

So we arent working on much but we need to work on hare chasing abilities  and my ability to spot these things and not daydream too much.

I knew she had her eye on something but as I couldn't see it I assumed it was a clump of grass or a leaf 

So I had a little daydream, then I was ooh feck  as she took off across a ploughed field towards the distant but very busy road.

Clever hare manage to dink away as it passed over the crest of a hill, ninja couldn't see that being teeny and carried straight on losing sight of it, then spent 5 mins trying to pick up the scent again while doing an almost passable impression of slowly coming back to me . So what was planned as a short walk was made shorter, as I turned round and walked back to the car :frown2: that will teach her 

However the evening was better, I spent the afternoon out with my friend and her two dogs, would love to be able to walk together but they are a little reactive and encourage each other. Also we stick to quiet farmland walks Buffer cant go to because of the bird scarers  but any way we had a good catch up and a couple of pints or three  then I took ninja out round the estate, possibly a daft idea but we saw two dogs both of which she lunged for but came very well as soon as I relaxed the lead and gave a 'lets go' cue lots of slightly tipsy cooing over my clever little sausage 

I am hoping the weekends refresher things will really help establish a change :001_huh:


----------



## diefenbaker

Fluffster said:


> I need a bigger house without obstacles to practice our LLW!
> 
> I'm wondering, should I be introducing a cue word for her walking to heel without the lead on, or not? Obv when the lead is on I always want her to walk without pulling, but offlead I don't always want her stuck to me like a limpet! I've been doing without a cue word and just using our cue word for her going off to play to end the session ("go play") but I wonder if I should be using heel or something? And if so, should/how often should the command be repeated?


I use "close". What I'm trying to do is get him to target my closed fist down by my side. When we're past the obstacle I open my palm for him to "touch" then treat and "go play". If I manage to get him to do this with a dog ( he doesn't know ) coming the other way you will hear the "whoop" across the globe.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Tonight we are back at obedience class after 3 weeks away. Our pups behaviour is sooooo much better over recent weeks, but he's struggled to cope with the class setting since going up from the puppy starter class to the next level, resorting to taking his frustration out on my hands and legs. I'm hoping he manages to hold it together tonight, if not I think we'll be giving it a miss for a month or so. The other dogs in the class are beautifully obedient and I always feel like the other owners are looking at us in horror. I always end up feeling like a complete failure 

We did some lovely loose lead walking around town today though, complete with other people and traffic noise (big lorries) - something which a month ago would have sent him into crazy nipping/jumping/not coping mode. Today he was focused on me and walking beautifully. I just need to focus on the progress he is making rather than comparing him to the perfect dogs at class.......


----------



## Dogless

Will catch up later, promise!! Calm but damp and cold here this morning = gales and horizontal sleet trail running. Pretty testing but we got it done. Not the most pleasant morning and a very, very long shower trying to warm up :crazy::crazy:. Then food shopping and other fascinating tasks :frown2:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Hello again! I think I'm going to have to take a wee break from this thread  Real life keeps getting in the way, I can't keep up and I think it's rude not to reply properly to everyone (or at least try)!

Just thought I should mention it, I haven't suddenly decided I hate you all  I'll be back


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I use "close". What I'm trying to do is get him to target my closed fist down by my side. When we're past the obstacle I open my palm for him to "touch" then treat and "go play". If I manage to get him to do this with a dog ( he doesn't know ) coming the other way you will hear the "whoop" across the globe.


If it collides with my "Whoop" coming from the opposite direction as Kilo does it past wild goats it may cause the earth to pause on it's axis and may bring about The End :skep:.


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Hello again! I think I'm going to have to take a wee break from this thread  Real life keeps getting in the way, I can't keep up and I think it's rude not to reply properly to everyone (or at least try)!
> 
> Just thought I should mention it, I haven't suddenly decided I hate you all  I'll be back


Well, I don't find it rude, but if you feel that way I certainly understand and look forward to welcoming you back .

I hope that I am not speaking out of turn when I say that if you are stuck, or down, or annoyed PLEASE come on here if it will help you to vent / sound things out etc even if you haven't replied to a single one of us xx


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Well, I don't find it rude, but if you feel that way I certainly understand and look forward to welcoming you back .
> 
> I hope that I am not speaking out of turn when I say that if you are stuck, or down, or annoyed PLEASE come on here if it will help you to vent / sound things out etc even if you haven't replied to a single one of us xx


Haha I just think if I'm doing something I should do it properly, I don't like ignoring people  Thanks Dogless  xx


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Tonight we are back at obedience class after 3 weeks away. Our pups behaviour is sooooo much better over recent weeks, but he's struggled to cope with the class setting since going up from the puppy starter class to the next level, resorting to taking his frustration out on my hands and legs. I'm hoping he manages to hold it together tonight, if not I think we'll be giving it a miss for a month or so. The other dogs in the class are beautifully obedient and I always feel like the other owners are looking at us in horror. I always end up feeling like a complete failure
> 
> We did some lovely loose lead walking around town today though, complete with other people and traffic noise (big lorries) - something which a month ago would have sent him into crazy nipping/jumping/not coping mode. Today he was focused on me and walking beautifully. I just need to focus on the progress he is making rather than comparing him to the perfect dogs at class.......


The other owners are probably too busy concentrating on their own pups to think you're awful - although I must admit it often doesn't feel that way!! I'd almost keep going _because_ you don''t find it easy as the trainers should be able to help rather than stop just when you need it. I have polar opposite dogs so know how it feels from each side of the "fence" . However, they have each both made me very proud and extremely embarrassed in turn at some point or another .


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Haha I just think if I'm doing something I should do it properly, I don't like ignoring people  Thanks Dogless  xx


Well just so you know .


----------



## GingerRogers

tiatortilla said:


> Hello again! I think I'm going to have to take a wee break from this thread  Real life keeps getting in the way, I can't keep up and I think it's rude not to reply properly to everyone (or at least try)!
> 
> Just thought I should mention it, I haven't suddenly decided I hate you all  I'll be back


Same as what dogless said, we all dip in and out at times, some more than others and some stick through thick and thin

Sometimes I comment on everyone sometimes I am too rude too and CBA :

But please come back if you need anything, we are here, we joke but its not a club you need to contribute to  we will miss you 

Ginge had baths twice, once in reedbed water and once when we got home, Hare yesterday, Deer today, bloody wildlife, ruined a perfectly lovely afternoons walk


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Same as what dogless said, we all dip in and out at times, some more than others and some stick through thick and thin
> 
> Sometimes I comment on everyone sometimes I am too rude too and CBA :
> 
> But please come back if you need anything, we are here, we joke but its not a club you need to contribute to  we will miss you
> 
> Ginge had baths twice, once in reedbed water and once when we got home, Hare yesterday, Deer today, bloody wildlife, ruined a perfectly lovely afternoons walk


Shouldn't that be hare today, gone tomorrow......I'll get my coat .

Sorry you had a trying walk again. Third time lucky I hope .


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> Shouldn't that be hare today, gone tomorrow......I'll get my coat .
> 
> Sorry you had a trying walk again. Third time lucky I hope .


:frown2:

I tried that in my head but wasn't sure where the deer fitted in :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

It's been pretty hectic today and I still don't feel great.

I left home before 9.30 to take Barley to the clinical canine massage therapist and called in the my vets on the way home to pick up more Tramadol for Leafy. Got in at 12.30 and took Holly to agility just before 1.00pm...!!

I've just given Holly and Tremor a decent walk and then took Leafy once round the back field on her own. Barley is on complete rest today and a very short walk tomorrow, so she's totally fed up.

Agility was horrendous in that it was thick oozing mud, much as I expected it to be. Holly was a good girl but I just couldn't run in it. It probably didn't help that my stomach still feels as if I've been kicked by a mule. Hey ho.

*Dogless* How are you feeling today after yesterday's mishap?


----------



## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> It's been pretty hectic today and I still don't feel great.
> 
> I left home before 9.30 to take Barley to the clinical canine massage therapist and called in the my vets on the way home to pick up more Tramadol for Leafy. Got in at 12.30 and took Holly to agility just before 1.00pm...!!
> 
> I've just given Holly and Tremor a decent walk and then took Leafy once round the back field on her own. Barley is on complete rest today and a very short walk tomorrow, so she's totally fed up.
> 
> Agility was horrendous in that it was thick oozing mud, much as I expected it to be. Holly was a good girl but I just couldn't run in it. It probably didn't help that my stomach still feels as if I've been kicked by a mule. Hey ho.
> 
> *Dogless* How are you feeling today after yesterday's mishap?


 that sounds grim, can you put your feet up for a bit now ??


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> :frown2:
> 
> I tried that in my head but wasn't sure where the deer fitted in :lol:


"Oh deer!! Still, hare today, gone tomorrow....." .



Twiggy said:


> It's been pretty hectic today and I still don't feel great.
> 
> I left home before 9.30 to take Barley to the clinical canine massage therapist and called in the my vets on the way home to pick up more Tramadol for Leafy. Got in at 12.30 and took Holly to agility just before 1.00pm...!!
> 
> I've just given Holly and Tremor a decent walk and then took Leafy once round the back field on her own. Barley is on complete rest today and a very short walk tomorrow, so she's totally fed up.
> 
> Agility was horrendous in that it was thick oozing mud, much as I expected it to be. Holly was a good girl but I just couldn't run in it. It probably didn't help that my stomach still feels as if I've been kicked by a mule. Hey ho.
> 
> *Dogless* How are you feeling today after yesterday's mishap?


I have a few rickety and hurting bits but ran a good way today and came home with all the parts I went out with so can't be too awful!!

Sorry you're still not great though Grannie .


----------



## Sarahliz100

Tonight is the last one we've paid for in advance. I'm going to go as he's had a break and is a bit more mature and will perhaps do better. But the majority of previous sessions at this class he's ended up tethered at the other end of the room for a lot of the class as every time he is brought closer he gets worked up and starts nipping at me. I'm not sure that's especially productive. Also a lot of the stuff the class has been working on is a bit beyond where we are at at the moment. 

Currently I feel that it would probably be more productive to spend the money we would spend on 6 classes where he can't concentrate and we are stuck in the corner watching on a couple of one to one sessions where we can focus on more immediately useful stuff like recall away from distractions. I would love to go back to the class in a month or two with a calm dog and start working on preparation for agility and close heelwork etc. But for now I want to concentrate on the basics.

I'll see how it goes tonight - maybe he'll be an angel......


----------



## Dogless

Sunday afternoon when hubby popped home to get something for work....

"I was talking to xx today and he asked about bootliners and tailgate guards for Volvos and I said ours were good, what are the makes?"

"Hatchbag and Barjo - want me to write them down for you?"

"Don't be silly...I'll remember"

Text received just now....

"Can you text me the makes of the bootliner and tailgate guard please darling?"

I rest my case .


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Tonight is the last one we've paid for in advance. I'm going to go as he's had a break and is a bit more mature and will perhaps do better. But the majority of previous sessions at this class he's ended up tethered at the other end of the room for a lot of the class as every time he is brought closer he gets worked up and starts nipping at me. I'm not sure that's especially productive. Also a lot of the stuff the class has been working on is a bit beyond where we are at at the moment.
> 
> Currently I feel that it would probably be more productive to spend the money we would spend on 6 classes where he can't concentrate and we are stuck in the corner watching on a couple of one to one sessions where we can focus on more immediately useful stuff like recall away from distractions. I would love to go back to the class in a month or two with a calm dog and start working on preparation for agility and close heelwork etc. But for now I want to concentrate on the basics.
> 
> I'll see how it goes tonight - maybe he'll be an angel......


Maybe he will - fingers crossed!! :thumbup1:.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Tonight is the last one we've paid for in advance. I'm going to go as he's had a break and is a bit more mature and will perhaps do better. But the majority of previous sessions at this class he's ended up tethered at the other end of the room for a lot of the class as every time he is brought closer he gets worked up and starts nipping at me. I'm not sure that's especially productive. Also a lot of the stuff the class has been working on is a bit beyond where we are at at the moment.
> 
> Currently I feel that it would probably be more productive to spend the money we would spend on 6 classes where he can't concentrate and we are stuck in the corner watching on a couple of one to one sessions where we can focus on more immediately useful stuff like recall away from distractions. I would love to go back to the class in a month or two with a calm dog and start working on preparation for agility and close heelwork etc. But for now I want to concentrate on the basics.
> 
> I'll see how it goes tonight - maybe he'll be an angel......


In all honesty it doesn't sound like a very good class to me.

The instructor should be helping you, not banishing you to a corner, and you should never come away from class feeling like a failure.

Your pup sounds as if he's very frustrated.


----------



## Bagrat

Twiggy said:


> I'm going to paint the jump poles yellow/blue in the Spring. The weaving poles and hoop already are so that's my colours. The special rubber non-slip paint for the dog walk was £30 for a small tin....


I could knit you a yellow and blue hat to match the poles. Could be finished by spring!!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> In all honesty it doesn't sound like a very good class to me.
> 
> The instructor should be helping you, not banishing you to a corner, and you should never come away from class feeling like a failure.
> 
> Your pup sounds as if he's very frustrated.


He definitely has issues with frustration. He had been getting into cycles of frustration and getting more and more worked up. He has other issues (resource guarding, body handling etc) and we've been working with a veterinary behavioural team with him. He's come on loads in the last month and frustration levels and general stress levels are TONS better. I'm not sure how he'll respond to going back into the class situation though. One of the reasons I'm not too fussed about continuing with the group classes is that we do have the support of the rehab trainers from the veterinary team who are fab, so we do have a source of guidance. If he was engaging and benefiting from the group classes I would continue, but if it remains a source of stress for both him and us then I don't think we'll bother.

You never know, I MIGHT later be posting about his amazing heel work in front of an admiring audience...............


----------



## Siskin

All set today to do a rerun of the fab walk we went on Saturday, this time minus the manic spaniel and probability of it being quieter as it is a weekday. Wanted to see if Isla behaved as well off lead without the manic spaniel keeping her with us. So the plan: up to the lovely pub with our friends from up the road, for lunch, then off to the common for a walk. Morning was lovely here as we drove to the pub and we sat at the table with the beautiful view and ate fish and chips. We watched as the sun vanished and clouds came over and the rain set in. it became obvious that the walk on the common wasn't going to happen so I took Isla for a trot round and that's when the rain really decided to go for it and I returned looking like a drowned rat!
Went home and we all commiserated over a bottle of wine.


----------



## Dogless

Siskin - "liked" for the wine, not the weather!! Isla is lucky - my pair got taken for a trail run regardless, poor buggers :skep:.


----------



## Fluffster

I quite like walking in the rain. It's the wind I hate  

Quiet walk for us today, gave her new ball thrower a whirl which she seemed to like! Her bed finally bit the dust last night when I took the cover off to wash it and she decided to pee on the mattress. So at the moment, she's sleeping on a fleecy cover and a towel, but payday tomorrow so I'll get her a new one!

Got my car back from garage today too so we can go a bit further afield for walks now. I am, however, £359 worse off!


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> I could knit you a yellow and blue hat to match the poles. Could be finished by spring!!


Slim chance but you don't knit human and canine invisibility cloaks do you? I reckon whoever made the Emperor's New Clothes might have some wool left over .


----------



## Siskin

Fluffster said:


> I quite like walking in the rain. It's the wind I hate


I don't worry about the rain too much as it usually means no one else is about and I feel happier letting Isla off for a run round. However, I only had my fleece jacket and it chucked it down!


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> that sounds grim, can you put your feet up for a bit now ??


No as I had a meal to cook and a big pile of ironing to do. I don't need to tell you ladies of WAYWO what men are like!! If you're not in bed and you're breathing then you must be OK to resume normal service....


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Slim chance but you don't knit human and canine invisibility cloaks do you? I reckon whoever made the Emperor's New Clothes might have some wool left over .


I got something for Christmas which might help. Promise not to laugh and I may be able to conjur up a photo.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I got something for Christmas which might help. Promise not to laugh and I may be able to conjur up a photo.


Oh god. Remember it's pre - watershed Dief :. Can't promise not to laugh - that starts me off before I even know....my mind is boggling!!!


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I got something for Christmas which might help. Promise not to laugh and I may be able to conjur up a photo.


OMG I dread to think....


----------



## Lauren5159

Fluffster said:


> I quite like walking in the rain. It's the wind I hate
> 
> Quiet walk for us today, gave her new ball thrower a whirl which she seemed to like! Her bed finally bit the dust last night when I took the cover off to wash it and she decided to pee on the mattress. So at the moment, she's sleeping on a fleecy cover and a towel, but payday tomorrow so I'll get her a new one!
> 
> Got my car back from garage today too so we can go a bit further afield for walks now. I am, however, £359 worse off!


I would like your post but I didn't think there's much about being £359 worse off and Daisy peeing on her bed, that is good 

Dogless, I'm glad your still able to run after your run in... Go you :thumbup1:

Twiggy, sorry agility was still water logged and that you still feel rubbish. Get better soon x

GR, I agree with Dogless... Third time lucky  I feel your pain in regards to the bathing. The amount of times I've had to bath Skip after a walk because of the awful things he's found, is ridiculous!

Siskin, I'm sure your day could have been worse... A trip to the pub, fish and chips, a bit of a walk in the rain and then a glass of wine... Sounds nice to me :lol:

Well! Skip was great tonight  We managed a walk around the block on a fairly loose leash  He still has his moments when he just _needs_ to sniff a lamppost, but he's been allowed to for so long, so that will take a bit longer to eradicate. He had a great moment tonight when he discovered that he doesn't have to keep looking at me constantly whilst walking and that he can in fact, look back at me every few paces and still receive a treat  He has also realised that if he pulls and hears 'ah ah' and turns back to me, he gets a treat... He even seen a car from a distance tonight and when I said his name, turned straight back to me and the car was forgotten 

It was a rainy night of training. All in all, we were out for 45 minutes but I love getting home, drying Skip off and pouring a glass of wine 

I have two very contented boys tonight. Dexter went for a jog with my dad at the same time I took Skip out


----------



## AdMed

Wow I had a lot of catching up to do!



GingerRogers said:


> I dont think we know what you mean, innocent souls here  well done pupil you have gained the key to the first level of the WAYWO tower :


I feel like I belong now....thank you  I love my whip carrying look



Lauren5159 said:


> Thank you
> 
> I get exactly what you mean... My main issue with Skip was the fact that I was over thinking everything and over complicating it all... I now know know that going back to basics can solve the majority of problem behaviours...


Ummm me too, I know totally what you mean.



Dogless said:


> Sunday afternoon when hubby popped home to get something for work....
> 
> "I was talking to xx today and he asked about bootliners and tailgate guards for Volvos and I said ours were good, what are the makes?"
> 
> "Hatchbag and Barjo - want me to write them down for you?"
> 
> "Don't be silly...I'll remember"
> 
> Text received just now....
> 
> "Can you text me the makes of the bootliner and tailgate guard please darling?"
> 
> I rest my case .


Hmmmm, yours too? On another note, sorry to read about Rudi's run in, I hope everything is quiet and peaceful currently

Well since I last wrote we've had a couple of ok walks, but I think the whip will be with us for a while longer. And an interesting chat with the OH where he told me that I worry too much and keep B too closely under control. The trouble is he is a big husky looking dog with a ruffty tuffty face (probably a staffy or rottie heritage in there) and I worry about how people perceive him.

On the other hand he behaved impeccably at our friends on Saturday night. Somehow I got the portable, take anywhere, dog training down to a fine art. Now I just need to keep his attention whilst out and off lead!


----------



## Lauren5159

Here's a little video I took tonight... It'snot the best, it was so dark and he still has his little pulling moments but the difference in him is crazy! This was a dog that last week, I couldn't walk in just a flat collar because of how much he pulled and because of how much he choked himself...

This was also before he discovered that he doesn't have to watch me all the time to get a treat


----------



## Sarahliz100

Sarahliz100 said:


> He definitely has issues with frustration. He had been getting into cycles of frustration and getting more and more worked up. He has other issues (resource guarding, body handling etc) and we've been working with a veterinary behavioural team with him. He's come on loads in the last month and frustration levels and general stress levels are TONS better. I'm not sure how he'll respond to going back into the class situation though. One of the reasons I'm not too fussed about continuing with the group classes is that we do have the support of the rehab trainers from the veterinary team who are fab, so we do have a source of guidance. If he was engaging and benefiting from the group classes I would continue, but if it remains a source of stress for both him and us then I don't think we'll bother.
> 
> You never know, I MIGHT later be posting about his amazing heel work in front of an admiring audience...............


Hooray, hooray, hooray! It was great! I'm so proud! There were moments of jumpy/nippy/frustratedness generally triggered by his lead draping across his back or around his legs which usually sets him off anyway. But there were other dogs barking and whining and he lay there calmly at my feet whilst the instructor was talking without getting in a state at all (although there was some turkey related bribery going on). We worked on shaping a sit-stay on a marker and he really focused and got it quickly and didn't break his stay despite quite a bit of distraction. Amazing! We've signed up for another block as I figure if he can maintain some focus around other dogs then that in itself is probably good practice. Plus next week is starting a bit of distance and direction control which I want to do. Yay! Go Tryfie dog!


----------



## Siskin

Lauren5159 said:


> Here's a little video I took tonight... It'snot the best, it was so dark and he still has his little pulling moments but the difference in him is crazy! This was a dog that last week, I couldn't walk in just a flat collar because of how much he pulled and because of how much he choked himself...
> 
> This was also before he discovered that he doesn't have to watch me all the time to get a treat


Wow, that looked great, he seemed nice and relaxed too. Well done both of you.


----------



## Lauren5159

Siskin said:


> Wow, that looked great, he seemed nice and relaxed too. Well done both of you.


Thank you  I have noticed a huge difference in how relaxed he is... Before, he had no interest in treats because he was so stressed and hyped... He was so alert and pulled so much, choked himself so much that a treat was the last thing he was interested in... It helps keep me motivated and calm when I see him working for food


----------



## lupie

Dief - you've left us all in suspense!  :crazy:

AdMed - Sounds like I could do with borrowing your whip. And that is not a sentence I would ever expect to utter  

Lauren - That video is great - Skip looks really relaxed and doing great. Very pleased for you  

Sarahliz - glad the training class went well :thumbup1:

Fairly uneventful here. We walked past a parked car and I nearly had a heart attack as a JRT threw itself against the window yapping and snarling  Ruska went to woof and I said "leave it" and she stopped and looked at me and I danced a jig  (after treating her, obviously  )

On the way back she was offlead for one bit - it's closed in both sides by fences so there's nowhere for her to go so I use it to do some focusing on me off-lead work in the dark. I suddenly heard the pitter-patter of paws on mushy ground and Ruska shot forwards with ears forward. I shouted "Ruska" full of panic, and she STOPPED and came back to me.   I grabbed her collar and clipped the lead on to see a shape run into the bushes to the side and obviously panic as it was enclosed by fences - I think it was a fox. Ruska had locked on now and was whining and straining to get at it but I calmly asked her to look at me, gave a treat and then made her walk on with me. 

I don't know if perhaps she didn't see it quite well enough, or doubted herself but I am in SHOCK that she stopped and came back to me. I've never recalled her off an animal before apart from my own cat. 

Will probably not let her off in that bit now I know that foxes visit, had no problems before but not worth the risk really  Absolutely amazed she came back though. 

Everytime I come here I seem to write an essay, apologies!!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Lauren5159 said:


> Here's a little video I took tonight... It'snot the best, it was so dark and he still has his little pulling moments but the difference in him is crazy! This was a dog that last week, I couldn't walk in just a flat collar because of how much he pulled and because of how much he choked himself...
> 
> This was also before he discovered that he doesn't have to watch me all the time to get a treat


That does look great. I'm also impressed by your dexterity in managing to film whilst walking. I struggle to coordinate lead, clicker and treats - I definitely can't add in filming!


----------



## Lauren5159

Sarahliz100 said:


> That does look great. I'm also impressed by your dexterity in managing to film whilst walking. I struggle to coordinate lead, clicker and treats - I definitely can't add in filming!


Lol, it is a bit difficult but we're getting there... We don't use a clicker so that's one less thing to worry about, I suppose  I can manage treats, a leash and my phone now


----------



## Lauren5159

lupie said:


> Dief - you've left us all in suspense!  :crazy:
> 
> AdMed - Sounds like I could do with borrowing your whip. And that is not a sentence I would ever expect to utter
> 
> Lauren - That video is great - Skip looks really relaxed and doing great. Very pleased for you
> 
> Sarahliz - glad the training class went well :thumbup1:
> 
> Fairly uneventful here. We walked past a parked car and I nearly had a heart attack as a JRT threw itself against the window yapping and snarling  Ruska went to woof and I said "leave it" and she stopped and looked at me and I danced a jig  (after treating her, obviously  )
> 
> On the way back she was offlead for one bit - it's closed in both sides by fences so there's nowhere for her to go so I use it to do some focusing on me off-lead work in the dark. I suddenly heard the pitter-patter of paws on mushy ground and Ruska shot forwards with ears forward. I shouted "Ruska" full of panic, and she STOPPED and came back to me.   I grabbed her collar and clipped the lead on to see a shape run into the bushes to the side and obviously panic as it was enclosed by fences - I think it was a fox. Ruska had locked on now and was whining and straining to get at it but I calmly asked her to look at me, gave a treat and then made her walk on with me.
> 
> I don't know if perhaps she didn't see it quite well enough, or doubted herself but I am in SHOCK that she stopped and came back to me. I've never recalled her off an animal before apart from my own cat.
> 
> Will probably not let her off in that bit now I know that foxes visit, had no problems before but not worth the risk really  Absolutely amazed she came back though.
> 
> Everytime I come here I seem to write an essay, apologies!!


YAY Ruska!!! Let's not question it too much  You were a step ahead of her and she came back when you called  That's what matters right now. And hey, at least you know that there are foxes about so from now on, you can keep an eye out  
She already knew something was there and chose to come back rather than go explore... If Skip were to ever do that, now that he's hit maturity, I'd be on cloud nine 

I'm so pleased for you 

And the JRT! That's two successes in one walk! Amazing!

We all write essays on here from time to time (me especially) so I wouldn't worry about that  I always read every post, regardless of length and try to like and reply as much as possible... That's what makes this thread great


----------



## AdMed

lupie said:


> Dief - you've left us all in suspense!  :crazy:
> 
> AdMed - Sounds like I could do with borrowing your whip. And that is not a sentence I would ever expect to utter
> 
> Lauren - That video is great - Skip looks really relaxed and doing great. Very pleased for you
> 
> Sarahliz - glad the training class went well :thumbup1:
> 
> Fairly uneventful here. We walked past a parked car and I nearly had a heart attack as a JRT threw itself against the window yapping and snarling  Ruska went to woof and I said "leave it" and she stopped and looked at me and I danced a jig  (after treating her, obviously  )
> 
> On the way back she was offlead for one bit - it's closed in both sides by fences so there's nowhere for her to go so I use it to do some focusing on me off-lead work in the dark. I suddenly heard the pitter-patter of paws on mushy ground and Ruska shot forwards with ears forward. I shouted "Ruska" full of panic, and she STOPPED and came back to me.   I grabbed her collar and clipped the lead on to see a shape run into the bushes to the side and obviously panic as it was enclosed by fences - I think it was a fox. Ruska had locked on now and was whining and straining to get at it but I calmly asked her to look at me, gave a treat and then made her walk on with me.
> 
> I don't know if perhaps she didn't see it quite well enough, or doubted herself but I am in SHOCK that she stopped and came back to me. I've never recalled her off an animal before apart from my own cat.
> 
> Will probably not let her off in that bit now I know that foxes visit, had no problems before but not worth the risk really  Absolutely amazed she came back though.
> 
> Everytime I come here I seem to write an essay, apologies!!


I have to say that the lung whip and rabbit tug toy is quite the best thing ever! Barney loves to chase and it gives him a controlled opportunity to, where he gets to catch too.

Go for it, it cost me about £15 for the set up, I just get a bit "uncomfortable" carrying it whilst walking around the countryside :biggrin:


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Oh god. Remember it's pre - watershed Dief :. Can't promise not to laugh - that starts me off before I even know....my mind is boggling!!!


It's a given that I am a master of disguise... and some of you may struggle with this.... and will have to look at the photograph very carefully... I suspect most will simply give up.... nothing to be ashamed of. Here is a photograph of Dief... the question is can you spot me ?


----------



## Lauren5159

diefenbaker said:


> It's a given that I am a master of disguise... and some of you may struggle with this.... and will have to look at the photograph very carefully... I suspect most will simply give up.... nothing to be ashamed of. Here is a photograph of Dief... the question is can you spot me ?


Nope... I'm stumped! Are you behind Dief? Or under the table?

Loving your lamp... Where did you get it from?


----------



## Fluffster

Sure I saw that lamp in IKEA! :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

Lauren5159 said:


> Nope... I'm stumped! Are you behind Dief? Or under the table?
> 
> Loving your lamp... Where did you get it from?


Poundland. It was a waste of money. I think the bulb has blown.


----------



## Lauren5159

diefenbaker said:


> Poundland. It was a waste of money. I think the bulb has blown.


Maybe it's just wired wrong?


----------



## Dogless

Feck me Dief you must be in between where the socks end (schoolboy error) and lampshade begins (unless it's one of those newfangled hovershades folk have been raving about?) . 9.5 / 10 for effort. A scant 0.5 / 10 for sartorial elegance :frown2:.


----------



## diefenbaker

Lauren5159 said:


> Maybe it's just wired wrong?


Are we still talking about the lamp ?


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Feck me Dief you must be in between where the socks end (schoolboy error) and lampshade begins (unless it's one of those newfangled hovershades folk have been raving about?) . 9.5 / 10 for effort. A scant 0.5 / 10 for sartorial elegance :frown2:.


I take it from this muddled response you gave up ?


----------



## Lauren5159

diefenbaker said:


> Are we still talking about the lamp ?


Who knows?! :001_huh:


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I take it from this muddled response you gave up ?


Eh? Who am I? 1984 you say? Karma Karma Karma Karma Chamelon...Karma Chameee-ee-ee-leon


----------



## lupie

Dief can you hook us all up with an outfit like that? That outfit, an AdMed whip 'n' rabbit creation, and I'm set for no one ever bothering us out on walks ever again! :lol:

It's like the reactive dog's human's armour kit :thumbup1:


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Poundland. It was a waste of money. I think the bulb has blown.


I'm absolutely positive the 'bulb' blew a very long time ago....


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> All I'm saying is just don't buy the pink one...!!


It's come in Pink !!!! It's all your fault. Dief is not impressed.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> A scant 0.5 / 10 for sartorial elegance :frown2:.


I have taken your destructive criticism about my fashion sense on board. In any case I was finding the onesie a little lacking in the waterproof department. So I have bought this...

Craghoppers Dark Navy Kiwi Long Jacket- at Debenhams.com

I'm on a bit of an online-shopaholic roll at the moment.


----------



## Sarah1983

Nice lamp Dief 

I should know better than to take a day off reading this thread, it moves so damn fast! Tiatortilla, feel free to post even if you can't keep up, especially if you have a major brag or a major need to vent. If I'm really behind I tend to just comment on the last few posts, sorry folks lol. I don't like completely ignoring others on here but sometimes there are just far too many to catch up with and remember.

Lauren, sounds like things are going well with Skip.

Lupie, well done on the ignoring the jrt and the recall from the fox.

We had a lovely walk yesterday, Spen was Mr Perfect again. We had a very nice walk today too right up to the end. We're just crossing the road to come back onto the estate and he spots a dog. I'd already seen the dog and it was at a distance where we'd normally have no issues, he'd look, maybe whine but just carry on walking so I thought nothing of it. Well I ended up with a lunging, crying, squealing, drooling, brainless maniac on the end of the leash :yikes: He looked like he had rabies with all the foam dripping from his jaws! I had to literally manhandle him across the rest of the road to avoid being hit by a car and then he was all over the place. The rest of the walk home he was lunging to the end of the leash back the way this dog had gone and air scenting. Then when we got home he paced and whined for a while. 

So we haven't done our loose leash walking practice today yet. Usually do it on the way back from the field but there was no way it was happening today.


----------



## lupie

Sarah1983 said:


> Nice lamp Dief
> 
> I should know better than to take a day off reading this thread, it moves so damn fast! Tiatortilla, feel free to post even if you can't keep up, especially if you have a major brag or a major need to vent. If I'm really behind I tend to just comment on the last few posts, sorry folks lol. I don't like completely ignoring others on here but sometimes there are just far too many to catch up with and remember.
> 
> Lauren, sounds like things are going well with Skip.
> 
> Lupie, well done on the ignoring the jrt and the recall from the fox.
> 
> We had a lovely walk yesterday, Spen was Mr Perfect again. We had a very nice walk today too right up to the end. We're just crossing the road to come back onto the estate and he spots a dog. I'd already seen the dog and it was at a distance where we'd normally have no issues, he'd look, maybe whine but just carry on walking so I thought nothing of it. Well I ended up with a lunging, crying, squealing, drooling, brainless maniac on the end of the leash :yikes: He looked like he had rabies with all the foam dripping from his jaws! I had to literally manhandle him across the rest of the road to avoid being hit by a car and then he was all over the place. The rest of the walk home he was lunging to the end of the leash back the way this dog had gone and air scenting. Then when we got home he paced and whined for a while.
> 
> So we haven't done our loose leash walking practice today yet. Usually do it on the way back from the field but there was no way it was happening today.


What a reaction! Poor you & Spen for it ruining the walk.

Maybe it was in season...to get that big of a reaction when normally it wouldn't? Just a thought.

Beautiful weather here - would rather be out walking than stuck in the office. Ah well.


----------



## Sarah1983

lupie said:


> What a reaction! Poor you & Spen for it ruining the walk.
> 
> Maybe it was in season...to get that big of a reaction when normally it wouldn't? Just a thought.
> 
> Beautiful weather here - would rather be out walking than stuck in the office. Ah well.


It's the only thing I can think of  I mean he's ridiculously sociable but he doesn't normally react that way to dogs even much closer. We might get a lunge and some whining if we have to pass within a few feet but not the carry on we got this morning!


----------



## Fluffster

Poor Spen, I agree with the bitch in season suggestion if it is so out of character for him!

Woodland walk for us today, took a wet food pouch along and did some special treat recall training. I'm waiting for Daisy's season any time now so I want to reinforce her recall in the world as much as possible as she'll have three weeks without being off lead and I don't want her to forget everything! She was very good, met a few dogs but by that time we were playing with her ball so she blanked them. I did have two spaniels for a while as one could obv smell the wet food and followed us for quite some time! :lol: 

Tried a new strategy for getting her to ignore Max and it's working so far - stolen shamelessly from Cheryl89's visit from a dog behaviourist!  When Max is around and Daisy starts to approach him, I say "There's Max!" in a cheery voice and throw a treat the opposite direction to him. After a few goes, she actually let him get off his post and go upstairs without trying to chase  And best of all, NO GROWLING! 

Bought her her new bed today, sad how excited I am about it getting here


----------



## Zella

May I join you ladies and gent? Another one with a reactive rat bag here I'm afraid....

I have been reading for a while and got loads of help and ideas from this thread, so thought I best declare myself  OK intro time:

I have 2 monsters in doggie coats...

Dax, a 2 year old Lab/Goldie cross. Has basic training (which he chooses to forget at times), decent manners, a heart of gold and a rock solid personality - very few things worry him or affect him, and far to laid back for his own good.

I have lost my connection with him a bit as my OH has been walking him - while he has been off work- while I have been concentrating on the troubled one, so need to step up my work on him too.

and Clueso a 1 year old Shar-pei mix - we were told crossed with a husky, but everyone thinks he has a fair old whack of Bull Terrier in there, who we adopted in Septemer. This is my reactive one 

He is an absolute sweetheart, loves his cuddles (too much really), gets on fabulously with Dax, loves the kids an amazing dog to have around the house. Outside is where it all goes a wee bit pearshaped - to begin with we had the full on Tazmanian Devil whirling, lunging, whining and sometimes barking on the end of a lead  .

We have had input from a behaviourist and are working on this and making slow progress - but we are making progress... At the moment I am concentrating on being able to walk past other dogs (no closer than the other side of the road) without reacting, We are now sometimes able to do this with the other dog in plain sight but we do use parked cars etc to our advantage. His looks really don't help as everyone thinks he is a mega aggressive bull breed on the end of a lead rather than a frustrated pup who wasn't taught how to walk on a lead.

He is very clever though and loves to train, when I got him he pulled like a steam train constantly, now he walks on a loose leash (obviously going past doges is a bit differerent) 90% of the time. Loves trick training so we are learning some and also working on some impulse control - he tries so hard, bless him.

So thats us in a nutshell  Sorry it was a bit of an essay....


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I have taken your destructive criticism about my fashion sense on board. In any case I was finding the onesie a little lacking in the waterproof department. So I have bought this...
> 
> Craghoppers Dark Navy Kiwi Long Jacket- at Debenhams.com
> 
> I'm on a bit of an online-shopaholic roll at the moment.


Ooooh very, very nice Dief :yesnod:.

*Fluffster* - hope the new bed arrives soon - I get excited about any dog paraphernalia arriving too .

*Sarah* - must have been a bitch in season, Kilo used to be like that with them. Hope he's settled now.

*zella* - welcome zella; sounds like you'll fit in here well with your two - love the photos .

OK walks here this morning. I waited for the worst of the ice to melt until I ventured out with Kilo first. Unfortunately so had a lot of other people. We saw 8 dogs at closeish quarters (for us - 30m or so for 6 and about 20m for two happy wanderers). I found it hugely stressful but Kilo did very, very well indeed. The two happy wanderer BCs barked like mad at us so we didn't come away very smoothly but still, no noise, no meltdown. Saw Mrs "oopsie" from our run the other night. She was stood chatting whilst her dog (on lead!) fixated on us and barked non stop. Anyhoo - lots of dogs seen, no noise, no meltdown, paying attention to me so huge gold star for Kilo. I was left hugely stressed and so was Kilo TBH judging by his behaviour since so I am not planning to take him out tonight.

Good walk with Roo - no dogs seen (typical!!!) and a quick chat with one of hubby's work colleagues and nothing else of note. It was a good destress .


----------



## Fluffster

diefenbaker said:


> I have taken your destructive criticism about my fashion sense on board. In any case I was finding the onesie a little lacking in the waterproof department. So I have bought this...
> 
> Craghoppers Dark Navy Kiwi Long Jacket- at Debenhams.com
> 
> I'm on a bit of an online-shopaholic roll at the moment.


Ooh fancy! I love Craghoppers stuff, I have some fleece lined waterproof trousers by them and they are SO cosy



Dogless said:


> *Fluffster* - hope the new bed arrives soon - I get excited about any dog paraphernalia arriving too .


Glad it's not just me! Daisy gets a monthly "pet munchbox" pack with games and treats in it, and I get mega excited when it arrives. I think it's more for my benefit than hers!

Welcome Zella! Gorgeous dogs and sounds like you are making good progress already, look forward to hearing more x


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I have taken your destructive criticism about my fashion sense on board. In any case I was finding the onesie a little lacking in the waterproof department. So I have bought this...
> 
> Craghoppers Dark Navy Kiwi Long Jacket- at Debenhams.com
> 
> I'm on a bit of an online-shopaholic roll at the moment.


Oh btw I see my woolly hat has started a fashion trend in high circles. Zara Phillips was sporting a similar model in 'The Mail' newspaper yesterday..:yesnod:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> It's the only thing I can think of  I mean he's ridiculously sociable but he doesn't normally react that way to dogs even much closer. We might get a lunge and some whining if we have to pass within a few feet but not the carry on we got this morning!


From Spen's reaction it does look like a bitch in season, in which case you can't really blame him.


----------



## Twiggy

Holly had her bestest friend Lacey, the Red Setter, over this afternoon. We did some obedience training in the barn for about 45 minutes with them both, plus Tremor, and then braved the cold and did agility with them.

They were both excellent, especially Lacey who didn't bog off once even though hubby was down the paddock doing something to the fence.

Because they were both such wonderful girlies we let them spend about 10 minutes belting round the field together.... It didn't do the grass much good but they had a great time.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh btw I see my woolly hat has started a fashion trend in high circles. Zara Phillips was sporting a similar model in 'The Mail' newspaper yesterday..:yesnod:


Well...if it's good enough for Grannie......:yesnod:.


----------



## diefenbaker

A minor success. We play treat games in the first field. One of the games is to sit while I go and hide some treats at the edge of the field. Then I return and release him to find them. Today I upped the ante and got him to "close" in a small square before going to find them. You could tell he wanted to go but he did it for me. Good boy.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> A minor success. We play treat games in the first field. One of the games is to sit while I go and hide some treats at the edge of the field. Then I return and release him to find them. Today I upped the ante and got him to "close" in a small square before going to find them. You could tell he wanted to go but he did it for me. Good boy.


Working Trials or PPI next then?


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Working Trials or PPI next then?


Neither. Sausage herding.


----------



## Lauren5159

*Zella* Welcome  Love the pictures! You have a super cute gang 

*Sarah* I agree with everyone else... Sounds to me like a bitch in season... Glad Spen was very good for the start of the walk 

*Fluffster* Good idea to keep on top of training before Daisy's season arrives  Sounds like you're very prepared 

*Twiggy* Sounds like a nice day  I'm sure the dogs had a fab time... Me and my two would 

*Dogless* such a shame that 'oopsies' lady doesn't really care. You are a calmer person than me :incazzato:

Not much to report tonight... I took Dexter to obedience earlier but I felt horrible... Think the flu is inbound  I'm just about to make some dinner and then take Skip out. We're going to.progress to a quieter road tonight... Very few cars and spaces that we can practice 'touch' and 'watch me'... I have venison sausages left over from Dexter's OB class and Skip has been pestering me all night for one so I figured, step up training, step up treats 

I'll let you all know later, how we get on... Wish me luck!


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Neither. Sausage herding.


:ciappa::ciappa::ciappa:


----------



## Zella

Thank you all  I think my boys are rather gorgeous too.

We have made so much progress already but its so easy to forget where you started - part of the reason I took the plunge in posting here.

Our evening walk was ok, not a lot seen until literally 2 minutes from home (isn't that always the way?) Saw a dog over the road he had a whinge and a whine but was doing well until 2 more little terriers were coming our way, the westie is ok but will react to Clueso's noises so we had to turn round - passing the first dog again (cue more whining but slightly louder now) - to gain space so as not to have a full Tasmanian devil moment 

So not perfect by any means but only 3 weeks ago that would have been a full on lunging barking incident that would have taken ages to calm down from.

And tbh just writing this has really made me think, 3 months ago (before we met our behaviourist for the first time) it wouldn't have even been 'not a lot seen' as he had to at least look at everything we past, often stopping or pulling to do so. Now we can walk past most things without worry - groups of people, children on scooters, buggies etc. cats and Squirrels can still pose problems though, when they decide to run in front of us (and dogs obviously)


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> *Zella* Welcome  Love the pictures! You have a super cute gang
> 
> *Sarah* I agree with everyone else... Sounds to me like a bitch in season... Glad Spen was very good for the start of the walk
> 
> *Fluffster* Good idea to keep on top of training before Daisy's season arrives  Sounds like you're very prepared
> 
> *Twiggy* Sounds like a nice day  I'm sure the dogs had a fab time... Me and my two would
> 
> *Dogless* such a shame that 'oopsies' lady doesn't really care. You are a calmer person than me :incazzato:
> 
> Not much to report tonight... I took Dexter to obedience earlier but I felt horrible... Think the flu is inbound  I'm just about to make some dinner and then take Skip out. We're going to.progress to a quieter road tonight... Very few cars and spaces that we can practice 'touch' and 'watch me'... I have venison sausages left over from Dexter's OB class and Skip has been pestering me all night for one so I figured, step up training, step up treats
> 
> I'll let you all know later, how we get on... Wish me luck!


Good luck.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> :ciappa::ciappa::ciappa:


Showing your backside Grannie....how unbecoming .


----------



## Dogless

Good luck Lauren.....


----------



## Twiggy

Zella said:


> Thank you all  I think my boys are rather gorgeous too.
> 
> We have made so much progress already but its so easy to forget where you started - part of the reason I took the plunge in posting here.
> 
> Our evening walk was ok, not a lot seen until literally 2 minutes from home (isn't that always the way?) Saw a dog over the road he had a whinge and a whine but was doing well until 2 more little terriers were coming our way, the westie is ok but will react to Clueso's noises so we had to turn round - passing the first dog again (cue more whining but slightly louder now) - to gain space so as not to have a full Tasmanian devil moment
> 
> So not perfect by any means but only 3 weeks ago that would have been a full on lunging barking incident that would have taken ages to calm down from.
> 
> And tbh just writing this has really made me think, 3 months ago (before we met our behaviourist for the first time) it wouldn't have even been 'not a lot seen' as he had to at least look at everything we past, often stopping or pulling to do so. Now we can walk past most things without worry - groups of people, children on scooters, buggies etc. cats and Squirrels can still pose problems though, when they decide to run in front of us (and dogs obviously)


That's a lot of progress in 3 short months - well done you...!!


----------



## Fluffster

I've bought a treat pouch! It sort of looks like a bumbag, which has amused OH to no end


----------



## Lauren5159

So, back from a 40 minute stroll with Skip...

Can you believe that tonight of all nights, the night I was hoping we would see a car (from a distance), nothing! Not a vehicle of any sort to be seen :sosp:

So, instead, we just worked on LLW. He's still rather patchy and loves a sniff but we are a million times better than last week  No choking, no constant strain on the leash -in fact, I'd say the leash is now slack more than it's strained  That's huge for us! 

We did see a little Yorkie and Skip was okay, until it growled at him  He decoded to answer back in the form of a high-pitched squeal and then, lots of spinning on the leash... He recovered very quickly though, which is promising.

One question that if anyone could answer, I'd be super grateful... When we see another dog, should I automatically walk away, even though he's spinning, and try and distract him? Or, if he's quiet, no pulling on the leash, just watching, should I let him stand whilst the dog passes?

I'm thinking that walking away is my best bet, but I'm not too sure  I'm applying this rational to cars too... I think the issue is letting him watch the car and effectively, building up his stress and the inevitable as he doesn't lunge until last minute, right as the car is passing.

I hope I've made sense


----------



## Lauren5159

Oh! And my copy of 'Don't Shoot The Dog' arrived today :yesnod: 

I've started reading and I'm really enjoying it


----------



## lupie

Welcome Zella! Sounds like you've already made an amazing amount of progress.



Lauren5159 said:


> One question that if anyone could answer, I'd be super grateful... When we see another dog, should I automatically walk away, even though he's spinning, and try and distract him? Or, if he's quiet, no pulling on the leash, just watching, should I let him stand whilst the dog passes?
> 
> I'm thinking that walking away is my best bet, but I'm not too sure  I'm applying this rational to cars too... I think the issue is letting him watch the car and effectively, building up his stress and the inevitable as he doesn't lunge until last minute, right as the car is passing.
> I hope I've made sense


I really think only you know what's best. For example with Ruska if she's seeming calm and controlled I will allow the pass by. If it's looking like it's going to be a difficult situation, I u-turn if the situation allows. If there's no get-away, I pull to the side as far out the way I can, bodyblock and try to keep her focus on me. 
I judge the situation and the factors and her body language and try to judge accordingly.

You'll know Skip's stress levels, if it seems too much just don't risk it. 

Lovely walk here - up on the heathland, full moon, not a soul. Ruska was on her long line and I even dropped it a few times she was being so good.  Recall was nigh on fab too, though it usually is on the longline.


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> Oh! And my copy of 'Don't Shoot The Dog' arrived today :yesnod:
> 
> I've started reading and I'm really enjoying it


Well before you get too disappointed I need to break the bad news - it doesn't work on boyfriends, OHs or husbands....!!

Trust me on this one and it wasn't for the lack of trying....


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Showing your backside Grannie....how unbecoming .


The woolie hat could and should have been used.


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> Well before you get too disappointed I need to break the bad news - it doesn't work on boyfriends, OHs or husbands....!!
> 
> Trust me on this one and it wasn't for the lack of trying....


Damnit. I've been thinking about trying to clicker train OH of late. I love him to bits, but he can be a pest where the dog is concerned.

I get the impression he thinks all my training ideas and efforts are a bit mental, he just sort of watches while I stride about the living room with Daisy and the clicker. And he doesn't do a bit of it himself.

And as for walks, GAH. He hasn't really taken her out any distance since we got her so his fitness is crap and he walks really slow, whereas me and Daisy are used to a faster pace. I really want to do longer walks with her, but he isn't keen at all. And then when we DO do one, in about twice the time it would take me and Daisy, we can't do another longer one for days after cos his legs hurt. He prefers to just stand and chuck balls, which is fine, Daisy gets what she needs, but part of the reason we got a dog was to improve our own health too.

He loves her to bits, they're always cuddling in the house and she gets plenty of attention from him. But sometimes I wish he'd try to do some training with her off his own back 

Aaaaand breathe.

 I feel a bit mean but slightly better after writing that.


----------



## lupie

Fluffster - liked for the getting it off your chest part rather than the lazy OH part. 

Now you just need to work out how to clicker train the two of them 

As much as I sometimes feel a bit poop for being single, at least I'm not battling anyone when it comes to Ruska's training I guess.


----------



## Dogless

*Lauren* - ref your question. I would try and walk away from another dog _before_ he is spinning if you can. Even if you see the dog at 50m the second Kilo notices a dog and tenses then we do a "jolly" u turn and away and the distance gradually decreases. We are at the point that Kilo will initiate a turn away himself even though stressed which is great. Other things and hopefully dogs one day I aim for Acknowledge, Accept, Ignore. So Kilo will look at a trigger - look at me, get treated / praised; NOT lunge / react any further; walk on. Does that make any sort of sense?

Also "Hide" is a great thing to teach - static and then on the move.


----------



## Dogless

*Fluffster* - my hubby has managed about 4 walks in the past year with us bar a short holiday!! I am booking a cottage in Scotland to do some Munros and hubby is......coming on his motorbike to ride around the area. No way would I get him up a small hill , never mind a Munro :sosp:.


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> *Lauren* - ref your question. I would try and walk away from another dog _before_ he is spinning if you can. Even if you see the dog at 50m the second Kilo notices a dog and tenses then we do a "jolly" u turn and away and the distance gradually decreases. We are at the point that Kilo will initiate a turn away himself even though stressed which is great. Other things and hopefully dogs one day I aim for Acknowledge, Accept, Ignore. So Kilo will look at a trigger - look at me, get treated / praised; NOT lunge / react any further; walk on. Does that make any sort of sense?
> 
> Also "Hide" is a great thing to teach - static and then on the move.


That makes perfect sense, thank you  The jolly u-turn sounds fun and I know Skip would like that lol... He's worse with cars than with dogs from that distance but I can employ that technique to both situations, so thank you


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> *Fluffster* - my hubby has managed about 4 walks in the past year with us bar a short holiday!! I am booking a cottage in Scotland to do some Munros and hubby is......coming on his motorbike to ride around the area. No way would I get him up a small hill , never mind a Munro :sosp:.


Ooh whereabouts in Scotland?

I've spoken to him about it and he says it's his lack of fitness which is stopping him, but he won't DO anything to improve it :incazzato: so I said from now on, me and Daisy will do our walks and if he feels he can come along then great, but I'm not going to push it any more. We're both off on holiday next week and we would usually walk Daisy every day together so we shall see!

Men! rrr: (Some men  )


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> *Damnit. I've been thinking about trying to clicker train OH of late. I love him to bits, but he can be a pest where the dog is concerned.*
> 
> I get the impression he thinks all my training ideas and efforts are a bit mental, he just sort of watches while I stride about the living room with Daisy and the clicker. And he doesn't do a bit of it himself.
> 
> And as for walks, GAH. He hasn't really taken her out any distance since we got her so his fitness is crap and he walks really slow, whereas me and Daisy are used to a faster pace. I really want to do longer walks with her, but he isn't keen at all. And then when we DO do one, in about twice the time it would take me and Daisy, we can't do another longer one for days after cos his legs hurt. He prefers to just stand and chuck balls, which is fine, Daisy gets what she needs, but part of the reason we got a dog was to improve our own health too.
> 
> He loves her to bits, they're always cuddling in the house and she gets plenty of attention from him. But sometimes I wish he'd try to do some training with her off his own back
> 
> Aaaaand breathe.
> 
> I feel a bit mean but slightly better after writing that.


Forget it honest. You'll only end up bitter and twisted.


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> Fluffster - liked for the getting it off your chest part rather than the lazy OH part.
> 
> Now you just need to work out how to clicker train the two of them
> 
> *As much as I sometimes feel a bit poop for being single, at least I'm not battling anyone when it comes to Ruska's training I guess. *




Oh there's no battle in this house. The dogs take no more notice of hubby's pathetic commands than I do....:ciappa: (In real life mine's much, much bigger than this...!!


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Oh there's no battle in this house. The dogs take no more notice of hubby's pathetic commands than I do....:ciappa: (In real life mine's much, much bigger than this...!!


This does give me pleasure. When I call Daisy in from the garden, she comes first time. She just ignores OH. :dita:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *Fluffster* - my hubby has managed about 4 walks in the past year with us bar a short holiday!! I am booking a cottage in Scotland to do some Munros and hubby is......coming on his motorbike to ride around the area. No way would I get him up a small hill , never mind a Munro :sosp:.


I'm sorry Dogless. I really shouldn't be sitting here with tears of laughter rolling down my face but that cracked me up...!!

Says it all really. Mine would probably take a pair of shears and a wheelbarrow so he could look busy doing nothing in Scotland rather than here.


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> That makes perfect sense, thank you  The jolly u-turn sounds fun and I know Skip would like that lol... He's worse with cars than with dogs from that distance but I can employ that technique to both situations, so thank you


They key for me is to practice desensitising the dog to your "evasive actions". So I randomly cross the road quickly, u - turn, ask for a hide etc etc. I act as if I have seen something when I haven't and gradually crossing the road fast comes to mean....nothing. It really helps.



Fluffster said:


> Ooh whereabouts in Scotland?


Glenshiels.



Twiggy said:


> I'm sorry Dogless. I really shouldn't be sitting here with tears of laughter rolling down my face but that cracked me up...!!
> 
> Says it all really. Mine would probably take a pair of shears and a wheelbarrow so he could look busy doing nothing in Scotland rather than here.


At least he is honest Twiggy; I'd prefer that happened (IF he can come - looks doubtful TBH but I wanted a holiday as he's off to Spain in July) than he moans his way slowly up part of a Munro and then we give it up as a bad job and come back home :incazzato:. I am not super fit but I am fit enough to tackle those walks and runs.......hubby is not. Actually...compared to the average person I probably am super fit. Get me . That's about all I have to offer at present though. I can run a long way up some steep hills or walk forever. Ask me to do anything useful and I'm stumped :sosp: .


----------



## Fluffster

Ah not near me then, I'm east coast. That's a lovely part of the country though, you'll have a great time! My Dad is a keen hillwalker and has done all the Munros, he's often up that way.

I'm not really very fit either but I'm trying to get better. I was proud of myself for doing five miles the other day, particularly as some of it was up a steep hill, as I haven't done that much in one go in years. And some friends have suggested we do a nine mile walk around a loch one weekend which I'm looking forward to


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Ah not near me then, I'm east coast. That's a lovely part of the country though, you'll have a great time! My Dad is a keen hillwalker and has done all the Munros, he's often up that way.
> 
> I'm not really very fit either but I'm trying to get better. I was proud of myself for doing five miles the other day, particularly as some of it was up a steep hill, as I haven't done that much in one go in years. And some friends have suggested we do a nine mile walk around a loch one weekend which I'm looking forward to


Five miles is a good start; once you have your basic fitness the rest comes quickly :yesnod:.


----------



## Sarah1983

Oh don't even get me started on husband training or husbands coming on walks. I cant remember the last time hubby came on a walk with us. His idea of coming for a walk involves driving somewhere then standing around throwing a toy. Next to no walking involved. I don't think I'd get up a munro unless you tied me to Kilo and Rudi and had them pull me up it but I can walk more than a mile without complaining I'm tired and want to go home! Honestly, when he does come it can be like having a toddler along. Well worse actually coz I can't pick him up and carry him!

And if he tells Spencer to stay once more as he's walking out the door to go to work I'm going to rip his fecking vocal chords out!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Aaarrrggghhh! After a few weeks of amazing progress it's all gone pear shaped . A nightmare day where guarding behaviour is back with a vengeance after my mum tried to confiscate something from him (so frustrating as we've been going to great lengths not to do this). Poor thing has been super stressed all day, possessive over everything. Lots of growls, stiffening, wary looks. Lots of frustration and nipping. All sorts of sounds outside/upstairs that wouldn't usually bother him are getting him all worked up and barky (sorry neighbours). Went for a nice calming walk this evening and he managed to find a carcass we had to drag him away from which of course made everything worse - of all the days for that to happen!

He's too worked up to settle properly so I'm sat on the stairs at midnight faffing on the iPad in the hope he'll decide sleeping is a good idea. At the moment he's sat on the other side of the baby gate getting all stressy when I move. Good thing I'm off work at the moment, could be a rubbish night..... Feels like we're back to square one. Have to see what tomorrow brings. Hoping to wake up to a calm, relaxed, non-guardy pup......


----------



## Sarah1983

Don't get too discouraged, it's often one step forwards, two steps back, a few to the side, a mad rush forward, several steps back and so on. And we always seem to take a massive step backwards after a run of good stuff. But we don't go all the way back to the beginning. One of the most useful pieces of advice I've had when dealing with behaviour issues is to keep a diary of your progress. Doesn't have to be long winded or hugely detailed but it really does help to be able to look back and see the ups and downs and exactly how far you've come, what works, what doesn't etc.

Have you seen the stress bathtub link?
Reactive Champion: The Stress Bathtub

Worth trying to give him a couple of quiet, stress free days if you can and letting him get back to normal.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Thanks. I know it's never all going to be constant improvement, I guess I'd been lulled into a false sense of security, and really wanted to believe he was "cured". We were given an analogy of the "emotional sink" which sounds pretty similar to the bathtub one. His sink /bathtub is definitely overflowing just now! Luckily we had a few quiet days planned anyway. I shall aim for doggy zen!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> They key for me is to practice desensitising the dog to your "evasive actions". So I randomly cross the road quickly, u - turn, ask for a hide etc etc. I act as if I have seen something when I haven't and gradually crossing the road fast comes to mean....nothing. It really helps.
> 
> Glenshiels.
> 
> At least he is honest Twiggy; I'd prefer that happened (IF he can come - looks doubtful TBH but I wanted a holiday as he's off to Spain in July) than he moans his way slowly up part of a Munro and then we give it up as a bad job and come back home :incazzato:. I am not super fit but I am fit enough to tackle those walks and runs.......hubby is not. Actually...compared to the average person I probably am super fit. Get me . That's about all I have to offer at present though. I can run a long way up some steep hills or walk forever. *Ask me to do anything useful and I'm stumped :sosp: .*




Nonsense...!!

I gave up on holidays a long time ago. It was too stressful trying to accommodate husband and dogs. I had to do all the planning and then it was all my fault if hubby didn't like the area, cottage or whatever.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> *Lauren* - ref your question. I would try and walk away from another dog _before_ he is spinning if you can. Even if you see the dog at 50m the second Kilo notices a dog and tenses then we do a "jolly" u turn and away and the distance gradually decreases. We are at the point that Kilo will initiate a turn away himself even though stressed which is great. Other things and hopefully dogs one day I aim for Acknowledge, Accept, Ignore. So Kilo will look at a trigger - look at me, get treated / praised; NOT lunge / react any further; walk on. Does that make any sort of sense?
> 
> Also "Hide" is a great thing to teach - static and then on the move.


What does your hide involve dogless?


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Oh don't even get me started on husband training or husbands coming on walks. I cant remember the last time hubby came on a walk with us. His idea of coming for a walk involves driving somewhere then standing around throwing a toy. Next to no walking involved. I don't think I'd get up a munro unless you tied me to Kilo and Rudi and had them pull me up it but I can walk more than a mile without complaining I'm tired and want to go home! Honestly, when he does come it can be like having a toddler along. Well worse actually coz I can't pick him up and carry him!
> 
> *And if he tells Spencer to stay once more as he's walking out the door to go to work I'm going to rip his fecking vocal chords out!*




That's my girl....:thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Aaarrrggghhh! After a few weeks of amazing progress it's all gone pear shaped . A nightmare day where guarding behaviour is back with a vengeance after my mum tried to confiscate something from him (so frustrating as we've been going to great lengths not to do this). Poor thing has been super stressed all day, possessive over everything. Lots of growls, stiffening, wary looks. Lots of frustration and nipping. All sorts of sounds outside/upstairs that wouldn't usually bother him are getting him all worked up and barky (sorry neighbours). Went for a nice calming walk this evening and he managed to find a carcass we had to drag him away from which of course made everything worse - of all the days for that to happen!
> 
> He's too worked up to settle properly so I'm sat on the stairs at midnight faffing on the iPad in the hope he'll decide sleeping is a good idea. At the moment he's sat on the other side of the baby gate getting all stressy when I move. Good thing I'm off work at the moment, could be a rubbish night..... Feels like we're back to square one. Have to see what tomorrow brings. Hoping to wake up to a calm, relaxed, non-guardy pup......


Oh dear I'm sorry. What make and model is your dog and what's his age?


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear I'm sorry. What make and model is your dog and what's his age?


He's a springer poodle cross. 6 months. Problems started at about at about 15 weeks, but he'd been loads better over the last 3 weeks. Thought we'd cracked it. Still super stressed today on high alert. Didn't settle until after midnight, up at 5 (will usually be asleep before 10 and go through till we get up in the morning). Something's really bothering him outside - barking, growling, pacing. There's a noisy persistent bird outside somewhere which isn't the norm so perhaps it's that. Not sure what I can do about it though! Tried to block it out with music/radio (he's used to both and it usually helps if there's a dog barking or something). Now have put an audio book on to see if some calming talking will help. We'll go wonder the moors somewhere quiet with his beloved tennis ball and see if that helps.

Haven't seen him on such high alert before, but he does have a habit of introducing new behaviours into his repertoire just when you've got on top of the existing problem!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Nonsense...!!
> 
> I gave up on holidays a long time ago. It was too stressful trying to accommodate husband and dogs. * I had to do all the planning and then it was all my fault if hubby didn't like the area, cottage or whatever*.


Yup . I will most likely be going on my own but if hubby comes I have already told him EXACTLY what I plan on doing. The owner of the cottage I have booked is lovely. She has a dog and has given me some great walk ideas where she has never seen a soul.



Sarahliz100 said:


> What does your hide involve dogless?


It involves getting the dog to step in behind my legs on cue, graduating to sitting behind, walking behind on the move etc. I filmed myself showing how it was trained but the vid is awful. I can try again for you if my explanation's a bit rubbish!! It is great as a dog cannot see the other, cannot return or start any posturing etc and you have more chance of getting the other owner to control their dog or of allowing them past without drama.

We have had a wonderful day so far, spent the morning getting soaking wet in the forest as the boys ran and ran and zoomed themselves daft. Went to one of my favourite parts that I haven't been to in several months as there was a lost sheep in there 3 visits on the bounce and Kilo remembers when he has had a good chase for a long time. Thought I'd try today and the boys were great and no sheep seen so hopefully it's back on our regular walk options now!!!

And......Roo's running harness has arrived, plus two dog line and panic snap (that reassures me!!!). I might have ordered another for Kilo too so that they match  .


----------



## Siskin

What's a panic snap, dogless?

I've ordered a walking belt from Indi-dog and am now considering how I will be walking Isla in it, no running for us, knees too creaky. I will need one with a D ring on the back which the current one doesn't have. It's an Easy walk harness which has been great for training LLW and keeping her under control when there is a major distraction ahead like a person or a dog or just a fluttering leaf. But it is only front fastening. I'm dithering over the Mekuti, which I know you use Dogless or a Perfect Fit one which I like the look of. I still want the ability to use the front fastening part of it as well as the back. I'm going to try to see if I can adapt the Easy Walk or put it on upside down so the ring is on the back and see if that will work. Whatever I do, I will wait until she is full grown now and not rush into anything. I've also been looking into leads as I think her usual one will be a little short to allow her to walk far enough in front without me kicking her back feet. I like the look of leads I've seen which have a grab handle near where it is connected to the harness, but I do have a short grab handle type lead used years ago when I was doing agility with a dog. Clipping it onto the back of the harness could be a useful 'grab handle' when she is off the lead.


All these things to think about and try. Looking forward when we can go to Suffolk in March as the walks are great there.


----------



## Fluffster

Looks very smart, Dogless!

Quiet walk for us today down by the sea, grotty weather. Did some ball throwing but I feel quite rotten today so we spent afternoon snuggled on sofa watching TV, Daisy with her kong. She was quite confused as OH came home for his lunch today which he never does so that sparked some zoomies 

Got nine days off work coming up and lots of grand plans of doing some training with Daisy but we shall see. The anti-Max training is going ok, she hasn't really gone near him since, a couple of times she's started too but I've done the "There's Max!" thing and thrown the treat the other way and she's gone and got it, then come back and sat on sofa instead. Bizarrely I think he's a bit upset he's being ignored! He was mooching about at ground level today trying to get her attention by squeaking :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Siskin said:


> What's a panic snap, dogless?
> 
> I've ordered a walking belt from Indi-dog and am now considering how I will be walking Isla in it, no running for us, knees too creaky. I will need one with a D ring on the back which the current one doesn't have. It's an Easy walk harness which has been great for training LLW and keeping her under control when there is a major distraction ahead like a person or a dog or just a fluttering leaf. But it is only front fastening. I'm dithering over the Mekuti, which I know you use Dogless or a Perfect Fit one which I like the look of. I still want the ability to use the front fastening part of it as well as the back. I'm going to try to see if I can adapt the Easy Walk or put it on upside down so the ring is on the back and see if that will work. Whatever I do, I will wait until she is full grown now and not rush into anything. I've also been looking into leads as I think her usual one will be a little short to allow her to walk far enough in front without me kicking her back feet. I like the look of leads I've seen which have a grab handle near where it is connected to the harness, but I do have a short grab handle type lead used years ago when I was doing agility with a dog. Clipping it onto the back of the harness could be a useful 'grab handle' when she is off the lead.
> 
> All these things to think about and try. Looking forward when we can go to Suffolk in March as the walks are great there.


This is my walking belt set up:

Indi - Dog walking belt
Hooner leads (traffic handle plus extra rings which gives you the ability to make them into a normal, non - stretchy, short leads. They are very helpful and will set a lead up to your requirements: http://www.hooner.co.uk
Ruffwear Webmaster Harnesses: Ruffwear Web Master Mine are actually the "Palisades Packs" - you can have the packs on or remove them, but the basic harness is the webmaster.



A panic snap helps you to separate the dogs from yourself in an emergency. For example, once Kilo and I were running and got ambushed and chased by two rotties. He was panicking and trying to get away but I ended up dragged over and hurt and all wound up in the line as I hadn't been able to release him. It would have been useful then and I think it only makes sense to have one now I am going to have two very strong, powerful, fast dogs attached to me .

Panic Snap or Quick Release Attachment


----------



## Siskin

Thanks Dogless. Your boys look very good and carrying all their stuff too:biggrin5:

Will check out the links and think some more.


----------



## Dogless

Siskin said:


> Thanks Dogless. Your boys look very good and carrying all their stuff too:biggrin5:
> 
> Will check out the links and think some more.


Here's some of the Webmaster without packs - not got any good ones but shows the top and sides.



Sorry for Kilo's straps hanging loose - I must have been in the middle of adjusting them or something; I hate them hanging down!!!


----------



## Twiggy

Hanging strap or not - it doesn't spoil Kilo's good looks though..!!

Majestic boys indeed.


----------



## Twiggy

I had yet another friend over for training today with her 2 yr old bitch and 10 weeks old collie pup.

My word what a sharp little lad. He's going to be a handful in a few months time. Fortunately she's a very experienced handler.

He came into the barn and wasn't the slightest bit fazed by my two bitches, even though Tremor was showing her teeth when he got too close (Holly wanted to play with him)..LOL He was also happy to do his little bits of hand touching, distance control, tugging with me as well as his handler. Very impressive, although he'd be too strong for me these days. He's going to be a real powerhouse of a dog.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> He's a springer poodle cross. 6 months. Problems started at about at about 15 weeks, but he'd been loads better over the last 3 weeks. Thought we'd cracked it. Still super stressed today on high alert. Didn't settle until after midnight, up at 5 (will usually be asleep before 10 and go through till we get up in the morning). Something's really bothering him outside - barking, growling, pacing. There's a noisy persistent bird outside somewhere which isn't the norm so perhaps it's that. Not sure what I can do about it though! Tried to block it out with music/radio (he's used to both and it usually helps if there's a dog barking or something). Now have put an audio book on to see if some calming talking will help. We'll go wonder the moors somewhere quiet with his beloved tennis ball and see if that helps.
> 
> Haven't seen him on such high alert before, but he does have a habit of introducing new behaviours into his repertoire just when you've got on top of the existing problem!


He's very young and it will get better as he ages.

I'm of the opinion that the behaviour/temperament you see in puppies doesn't always translate into what you get in the adult dogs.

I've had several collie pups that have been terrors at that age but have matured into very well rounded, sweet tempered adults.

I've also had a few butter-wouldn't melt sweet little souls that have matured into raving nut-cases....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I had yet another friend over for training today with her 2 yr old bitch and 10 weeks old collie pup.
> 
> My word what a sharp little lad. He's going to be a handful in a few months time. Fortunately she's a very experienced handler.
> 
> He came into the barn and wasn't the slightest bit fazed by my two bitches, even though Tremor was showing her teeth when he got too close (Holly wanted to play with him)..LOL He was also happy to do his little bits of hand touching, distance control, tugging with me as well as his handler. Very impressive, although he'd be too strong for me these days. He's going to be a real powerhouse of a dog.


Yikes!!! Powerhouse by your standards would be insanely bonkers by mine .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yikes!!! Powerhouse by your standards would be insanely bonkers by mine .


Insanely bonkers might be right actually. Said friend is a real wind up merchant and this puppy doesn't need any winding up..!!

She was very impressed by the improvement in Holly and reckons she's good enough to win a Novice class now. Very sweet of her to say so but Holly needs at least another six months. Holly did however do heelwork for her, so that I could see how's she's going, and I have to say she looks a lot better than she feels....LOL


----------



## AdMed

Fluffster said:


> Damnit. I've been thinking about trying to clicker train OH of late. I love him to bits, but he can be a pest where the dog is concerned.
> 
> And as for walks, GAH. He hasn't really taken her out any distance since we got her so his fitness is crap and he walks really slow, whereas me and Daisy are used to a faster pace.





Dogless said:


> *Fluffster* - my hubby has managed about 4 walks in the past year with us bar a short holiday!! I am booking a cottage in Scotland to do some Munros and hubby is......coming on his motorbike to ride around the area. No way would I get him up a small hill , never mind a Munro :sosp:.





Fluffster said:


> Ooh whereabouts in Scotland?
> 
> I've spoken to him about it and he says it's his lack of fitness which is stopping him, but he won't DO anything to improve it :incazzato: so I said from now on, me and Daisy will do our walks and if he feels he can come along then great, but I'm not going to push it any more. We're both off on holiday next week and we would usually walk Daisy every day together so we shall see!
> 
> Men! rrr: (Some men  )





Twiggy said:


> Forget it honest. You'll only end up bitter and twisted.





Sarah1983 said:


> Oh don't even get me started on husband training or husbands coming on walks. I cant remember the last time hubby came on a walk with us. His idea of coming for a walk involves driving somewhere then standing around throwing a toy. Next to no walking involved. I don't think I'd get up a munro unless you tied me to Kilo and Rudi and had them pull me up it but I can walk more than a mile without complaining I'm tired and want to go home! Honestly, when he does come it can be like having a toddler along. Well worse actually coz I can't pick him up and carry him!
> 
> And if he tells Spencer to stay once more as he's walking out the door to go to work I'm going to rip his fecking vocal chords out!


I'm starting to think this thread needs to be renamed the "WAYWOand how much is your OH annoying you?" thread 

Seriously thoughgiven the state of play in my life it does at least make me feel less alone.

I'm not going to rant about DH thoughits same old, same old.

Had a lovely walk with B this evening, all lead and in the dark but no pulling and perfect heel on the way back. My challenge is now to get the perfect loose lead walk from the moment we walk out the door, the trouble is I feel sorry for him being on lead and end up letting him roam and sniff rather than concentrate and work.

The stupid thing is I "know" he thrives on "working" for me but yet I can't seem to get over my own psychology of thinking all he wants to do is charge around.

Arghhh! is it possible to clicker train oneself?

Dogless - love your boy's and their kit

Twiggy - there is a lot to be said for a bonkers pup you can send home, its sounds tons of fun

Fluffster - enjoy the time off, be a little bit selfish with regard to walks if it is right for you and the pup, I know I've regretted it when I've overly compromised


----------



## Twiggy

*


AdMed said:



I'm starting to think this thread needs to be renamed the "WAYWOand how much is your OH annoying you?" thread 

Click to expand...

*


AdMed said:


> Seriously thoughgiven the state of play in my life it does at least make me feel less alone.
> 
> *Twiggy - there is a lot to be said for a bonkers pup you can send home, its sounds tons of fun*
> 
> Two things I should point out:
> 
> Although I swear most men come from a different planet, hubby and I will be celebrating 50 years wedded bliss (or whatever) next year..
> 
> Obviously I'm very old and my days of handling boggled eyed manic collies are sadly over. Having said that the friend training with me today is actually older than me so I can only wish her well with little pup-pup....


----------



## JenKyzer

I'll try catch up best i can :001_rolleyes: ...
Even more new people  hello all .. :biggrin:

Lauren - Wow, your training with Skip sounds amazing! I bet your over the moon  The video is fab, he's so adorable! .. (Willow perked up at his jangly tags and started barking at the door haha oops :001_rolleyes: ) 

Sarahliz - Hello and welcome  i haven't seen previous posts but your training class sounds like a success, well done both of you  Sorry to hear about yesterday and his previous behaviours resurfacing  Hope you've had a better day today.

Lupie - Wow, well done Ruska for the recall from the mystery animal  amazing. 

Dief - Love the pic and love the outfit :laugh: You'd fit right in round at our gaff.. not that we wear lampshades all the time :001_rolleyes: oh and thanks to you my internet banner things are now showing me coats.. nice coats.... expensive ones... but i will resist  stupid cookies. Nice coat though 

Sarah19 - Two sarahs now  .. i'm the same i'm afraid, last few posts over a day or so is all my brain can manage  . Glad to hear spen was mr.perfect apart from his lunatic moment  hope it didn't bother you too much  

Fluff - Well done with Daisy and Max with the cheery voice and treat tactic, i hope it carries on working for you  Good luck with the recall even with the 3weeks of onlead.. i'm sure you'll still find a way to train it even if shes onlead  and omg, i think we might be sharing a OH  he sounds like mine! :laugh: 'doesnt like long walks' .. i've given up and go on my own  then he gets jealous and wants to do one - figure that one out :mellow: 

Zella - Hello and welcome :biggrin: i hope you know what you've gotten yourself into.. theres no turning back  Ah, another shar-pei  He's so cute, very unusual looking! I wish you the very best of luck with him and getting to a point where your both happy. Sounds like alot of progress in 3months, well done 

Dogless - Wow, sounds like your walk with Kilo and seeing 8 dogs was a big test.. sounds like he managed it well though, clever boy  Hope he destressed quickly back at home. Loving the boys new outfits  the pics are fab too.

Twiggy - Sounds like a lovely afternoon yesterday  and a busy one today with the pup. 

That took a while  Sorry if i missed anything.

Not much going on here, Willows still whinging about the rain  off work tomorrow so fingers crossed for a break in the weather then we get a nice big walk. 
She got a tad posessive over a pig trotter last night - new to her and there was lots of growling at the OH invloved :frown5: so we did some work on calling her away, us touching it ut:, calling her back, giving it to her and stroking her whilst we're all near it. Is it bad that i was smug that she let me near with no problem   . Anyway, no harm done, just didn't want anything to escalate / any unwanted behaviours to appear - least she enjoyed it  (first order from a proper raw supplier) 
Other than that, all is good and calm which is always good news even if it may be boring


----------



## Dogless

I have just looked at the extended forecast for the weather station on one of the hills we run up and around which our forest spreads.......rain until next Wednesday so fay . Got to love Norn Iron .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I have just looked at the extended forecast for the weather station on one of the hills we run up and around which our forest spreads.......rain until next Wednesday so fay . Got to love Norn Iron .


In all honesty it's not a lot better over here. There is water lying everywhere. We don't normally do mud but it's getting very squelchy now and with more rain forecast tonight.


----------



## Lauren5159

JSW - welcome to the raw club  
It sounds like you did great with willows little moment... And don't worry, we all get a little smug when something works out better for us than someone else  I do anyway :lol:

Sorry peeps, I'll try to keep up but this thread is moving 100mph at the minute :crazy:

Twiggy - That pup sounds like great fun  and I'm glad you got to see Holly working.from a different angle... Getting my two to work for someone else is near impossible, they just take the mick! But that's something we can work on after everything else lol. 

Dogless - As ever, Kilo and Roo are looking great... Loving all their gear  and enjoy your time up here in bonny Scotland  If you like hills, it's definitely the place to be lol. 

So... Skipper and I have only done a bit of training today, mainly around the block and in the house as the flu has hit me like a freight train  But both boys seem to be very understanding.and are busying themselves by keeping me warm... Now, if only they'd make me a Lemsip 

Tomorrow, I'm planning on getting out very early for a jog with Dexter (no rest for the wicked) and then taking Skip a bit further afield to really work on focus games and LLW  Putting.some of Dogless' fab advice in to practice... We're going to see how we get on with changing direction when we see something that may prove difficult...

Here's hoping


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> He's very young and it will get better as he ages.
> 
> I'm of the opinion that the behaviour/temperament you see in puppies doesn't always translate into what you get in the adult dogs.
> 
> I've had several collie pups that have been terrors at that age but have matured into very well rounded, sweet tempered adults.
> 
> I've also had a few butter-wouldn't melt sweet little souls that have matured into raving nut-cases....


Thanks, that makes me feel better. He definitely has the potential to be fab - he's lovely when he's not stressed out. He's super smart - picks things up really quick. Unfortunately he's also very good at figuring out what we are up to so it's increasingly hard to tempt/distract/bribe him away from stuff he shouldn't have. My repertoire of exciting noises/events I can make happen nearby is running dry! My boyfriend could coax him into the next room with a fart sound for a while (men) but he's bored of that now (puppy, not boyfriend - he'd still happily make fart noises whenever required). I think highly strung and highly intelligent are a tricky combination......


----------



## lupie

I'm a Bad Owner today. I haven't walked Ruska. Had a beyond horrendous day at work, some bad news, and decided that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to react well if we had any run ins. Ruska had three hours at our friend's house with her 3 other doggie chums this morning, and we've done lots of training and cuddling. 

Been working on "cross the paws" and getting her to place her paws on things. Made good progress on both of those tonight. 

I feel guilty but I feel like we had better quality bonding time and she helped to calm me by giving me cuddles, a walk could've ended up with us both even more stressed. Difficult one to weigh up. 

I will make sure she gets a really good one tomorrow to make up for it.


----------



## shadowmare

I had a very good walk today with Axel  went for a walk with lots of treats in a pocket and a ball in the hand :biggrin: I didn't take the long line as in this weather and mud it was simply impractical. But Axel did great today. He recalled every time. Even if he went to meet another boisterous pup who was off lead. When we would see another dog off lead I would tell him to sit and wait, and when I saw that the dog was approaching us in a nice way, I would let Axel to go and greet the other dog. I would allow him to play for a bit until I was ready to walk away. He would react when I called his name and would follow me promptly.
He did release himself from "wait" at one point and decided to catch up with me in a zoomies style, but as soon as I told him to sit and wait he went back to where he was previously  Am feeling quite proud of my baby today!


----------



## Dogless

*lupie*- I'm sorry you had a rotten day yesterday ; I still fight my Must Walk Twice A Day Every Day "demons" at times despite evidence in front of my very eyes that it isn't always best . It sounds as if you made the right decision for both of you and that Ruska had plenty of interaction anyway . Hope today's a better one.

*shadowmare* - what a great walk!!!

*Lauren* - hope you're feeling a little better. The walking away things comes from BAT http://empoweredanimals.com I have the training manual by Grisha Stewart which is excellent but (like so many of the books I have) many parts rely on you having access to a controlled environment with calm stooge dogs available. I adopt the principles as best as I can and it seems to be the best thing I have found so far with dogs as the behaviour is definitely fear - based, although I see how it would work equally as well on pure over excitement. For some other bits and pieces I adopt other peoples' training methods - I think the key is in identifying as best you can why what is happening, is happening, and in then figuring out how you can stop it / modify it rather than adopting one approach to every drama.

The boys had a lead walk each last night; Kilo's was with Diz. We were followed for a short way by a (drunk????) man weaving along a bit. He kept looking over and muttering something and sort of approaching which was odd so I lagged behind Diz (he runs interference for over eager touchy humans for me!!).....the man suddenly sort of approached Diz and went to touch him. Diz looked really uncomfortable as he was touched which is very unusual and that seemed to trigger Kilo barking at the man. First barking we've had on a walk in a really long time but I told him to sit and he did (still whining!!) until the man finally decided to leave us alone. So...I am not upset with that barking so much, the whole thing was odd :skep:.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Thanks, that makes me feel better. He definitely has the potential to be fab - he's lovely when he's not stressed out. He's super smart - picks things up really quick. Unfortunately he's also very good at figuring out what we are up to so it's increasingly hard to tempt/distract/bribe him away from stuff he shouldn't have. My repertoire of exciting noises/events I can make happen nearby is running dry! My boyfriend could coax him into the next room with a fart sound for a while (men) but he's bored of that now (puppy, not boyfriend - he'd still happily make fart noises whenever required). *I think highly strung and highly intelligent are a tricky combination......*




Yes I agree but just to cheer you up even more my Quiver was extremely intelligent, very sensitive and made her own stress by the bucketload. I was told by various experts (including my trainer) that she would never make a competitive obedience dog; far too highly strung.

Here she is winning Crufts Obedience Championships a few years later:


----------



## Lauren5159

*Twiggy* WOW!!! quiver looks great and what a backdrop... It's only Crufts. I'm happy enough with Dexter walking to heel in the park, but wow... Crufts! And to win... I'm in awe!!!

*Lupi* Don't feel bad about not getting out with Ruska... The boys didn't get out much yesterday due to me feeling like I'd been hit by a bus, but it doesn't seem to bother them at all. Skip especially lol, he's used to his training regime now and doesn't take walks for granted  It doesn't seem to be effecting him at all though  At least you managed to fit some.brain games and training in :thumbup1:

*Shadowmare* Sounds like Axel is doing great  Sit and stay around dogs is something that took me a long time to master with Dexter... Skip, I still haven't managed it but it's on my training list  Well done 

*Dogless* thanks  I've ordered the BAT book from Amazon so I'll see how we get on with it 

Took Dexter out for a jog this morning... It took me a while to drag my sorry as out of bed, but I got there and it made me feel a lot better...

I got home and took Skip out for 30 minutes... LLW and focus games. Guess what?!!!

Breakthrough!!!

We managed to walk down the road and THREE cars passed without him kicking up a fuss. Just as a trial, when I heard a car coming that I wasn't expecting, I threw a handful of treats on to the grass and told him to 'go find'... He did! Didn't even.look at the car and was calm enough to focus on the food and not the car  He has NEVER taken a treat when a car has driven past... Followed by lots of praise 

There was a couple of times when he heard a car and went in to alert mode, but I managed to distract him quick enough that there was no lunging at all 

As we were walking back home, someone had obviously started their car to heat it up and left the engine running... I took it as another opportunity and told Skip to 'go find' whilst throwing treats on thebpath beside it... He didn't bother about the car at all 

I'm a very proud, happy bunny at the minute


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy - I always feel like your a celebrity in the dog world  What a great pic and mini story of Quiver. I do love your posts of knowledge and life experience 

Dogless - What a strange drunk :skep: I wouldn't be upset for kilo barking either.. if that was Willow i'm sure crazy maniac dog would of been on the cards not just a bark - we have drunken 'crack heads' across the road whom she hates, yet they think shes amazing for bein a loon and 'protecting me' as they see it :001_huh: (We don't live on James Turner St, honest!  - if you have seen the channel4 prog, you'll understand  ) Hope you all have great stress free walks today 

Shadow - Sounds like a fab walk, well done 

Lupie - Sorry you had a bad day  Hope your feeling better today. Personally, i think you did the right thing by noticing you didn't feel in the right frame of mind and how that could of affected Ruska; a main thing i've learnt on here is 'Don't set yourself up to fail' I bet Ruska had a ball with the other doggies, loved all the cuddles and didn't even realise there was no walkies 

Sarahliz - your farting post made me laugh  maybe try different animal toys that make different sounds? Willow goes wild for animal sounds that don't come out of the TV  but she is rather silly sometimes, yours might figure out that there actually can not be a pig in the house so doesn't fall for it  

Just going for a walk here... tryna figure out if i dare chance the res... i bet its a mud fest :frown2: We'll see how we go


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy - Wow I'm in awe! I didn't realise we had a star in our midst! So great you are on here to share your experiences x

Dogless - That drunk man sounds quite sinister! Sounds like Kilo was in protective mode and obv sensed something wasn't right with the guy.

Lauren - Yay for Skip! (And you!) Sounds like you're coming on in leaps and bounds now!

We had a nice walk today down at the sea. We met a lady and her boxer who we had met before a few months ago. I remember her telling me at the time she was struggling with the boisterous, but lovely, boxer girl as her husband has cancer and they got a dog with the intention of being a companion for him, but the boxer is too boisterous for him. The lady said she bred boxers in South Africa but said over there they are quite low energy dogs! Anyway she was so grateful I said she could play with Daisy, she said people are often put off by her size and exuberance but Daisy will play with anyone! So off they went, haring around, and we all got covered in boxer slobber 

Also met Tara the lovely black lab who wanted to play, but I'd just taken Daisy's ball out of my pocket so she was fixated on that.

My sexy treat pouch arrived today :cornut:


----------



## zedder

I think we need too work on personal space if I'm in the bog I can see no reason why he needs to "check" on me the little swine.


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Twiggy - I always feel like your a celebrity in the dog world  What a great pic and mini story of Quiver. I do love your posts of knowledge and life experience
> 
> Thanks ladies. You're very kind...
> 
> I should have been judging the obedience championships at Crufts this year but due to my twin sister's awful battle with cancer and her untimely death at the end of June last year I had no choice but to write to the KC and explain why I simply couldn't do it. All so very sad.


----------



## Siskin

zedder said:


> I think we need too work on personal space if I'm in the bog I can see no reason why he needs to "check" on me the little swine.


I get escorted to the loo and back. If I shut the door it then gets tapped on until I come out.


----------



## Dogless

*Lauren* - well done . You are progressing so fast. All I will say is please don't be upset if you have the odd setback .

*Fluffster* - pleased you like your treat pouch .

*JSW* - hope you didn't get stuck in the mud .

*Twiggy* - I think you did the right thing in writing to the kc and declining the judging appointment this year; do you think you will get another chance as your circumstances were exceptional? .

Well....Rudi didn't make his debut in harness alongside Kilo today!! I faffed and faffed and decided their harnesses were too small after all and have sent them back to exchange for some larger ones. I'd hate to injure the boys so I suspect next week will be his big moment .

So, stayed at home for separate walks as we'll go to the forest trail running tomorrow anyway unless the weather is too shocking.

Took Rudi for a run - he was very good, we got soaked but what's new?? :skep:.

Took Kilo for a walk, still in the pouring rain :frown2:. The start was a bit fraught as we heard "the lab" on the way so dodged down a different street, in which two little dogs rushed out from their garden barking. Kilo managed to just jump up and down on the spot a few times giving blood curdling growls but not progressing to barking and I regained control of him fast to walk away so pretty good . A woman following us had a bit of a go as I walked away as her toddlers has started screaming and crying when Kilo bounced and growled as they are scared of big dogs. I felt sorry but quite honestly wasn't going to stick around or he would have combusted and scared them stupid!!! :frown2:. I know those dogs live there but they usually just run at the gate barking and, funnily enough, Kilo is fine with dogs that he knows will run at fences or gates (expecting the barking); he really does gain tremendous confidence from physical barriers.

After that, we went to the mudbath which had been the top fields and played lots of fast paced "Ready Steady" with his precious pheasant toy; he was very good - and then we had a nice, calm walk home until the last minute when we saw some dogs approaching, did a quick U-turn and then U-turned again after they had turned into a different road .


----------



## lupie

Thanks for the kind words everybody - I don't feel like toooo much of a horrendous owner now  She's so easygoing that she doesn't cry for her walk anyway and almost seemed happier getting cuddles and play. Maybe it's the hormones. :biggrin:
Things are calmer today and we'll do a nice walk later. 

Lauren - sounds like you had an amazing walk, I'm so chuffed for you - I bet you came home grinning from ear to ear! 

Dogless - shame the harnesses were too small - they look gorgeous in the photos. I'm not a collar addict but I think I am a harness addict...Already lusting after another one and we have an indi-dog one and a Hurtta Pro!

ETA Fluffster are you going to model your fab new treat pouch?!


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Thanks for the kind words everybody - I don't feel like toooo much of a horrendous owner now  She's so easygoing that she doesn't cry for her walk anyway and almost seemed happier getting cuddles and play. Maybe it's the hormones. :biggrin:
> Things are calmer today and we'll do a nice walk later.
> 
> Lauren - sounds like you had an amazing walk, I'm so chuffed for you - I bet you came home grinning from ear to ear!
> 
> Dogless - shame the harnesses were too small - they look gorgeous in the photos. I'm not a collar addict but I think I am a harness addict...Already lusting after another one and we have an indi-dog one and a Hurtta Pro!
> 
> ETA Fluffster are you going to model your fab new treat pouch?!


Hmmmmmm....can you have too many harnesses; is there such a thing? :skep:.


----------



## Fluffster

lupie said:


> ETA Fluffster are you going to model your fab new treat pouch?!


:lol: I'll get OH to take a pic this weekend!


----------



## Siskin

Kilo keeps you on your toes doesn't he. 

My last dog knew where all the barky dogs lived and ,unlike Kilo, became more and more tense as we approached whilst I tried to get her attention onto me. It's hard work isn't it, I found that any lapses such as an unexpected dog in a garden or being chased down the road by a barking dog, destroyed all the hard work put in previously.


----------



## Dogless

Siskin said:


> *Kilo keeps you on your toes doesn't he. *
> 
> My last dog knew where all the barky dogs lived and ,unlike Kilo, became more and more tense as we approached whilst I tried to get her attention onto me. It's hard work isn't it, I found that any lapses such as an unexpected dog in a garden or being chased down the road by a barking dog, destroyed all the hard work put in previously.


That's one description for it :yikes::yikes::lol:. Puts years on me more like!!! Mind you on my toes is better than my finest hour, face planting tarmac off the pavement, onto the road and almost getting hit by a van :frown2: . I am pleased we have moved on a little .


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Yes I agree but just to cheer you up even more my Quiver was extremely intelligent, very sensitive and made her own stress by the bucketload. I was told by various experts (including my trainer) that she would never make a competitive obedience dog; far too highly strung.
> 
> Here she is winning Crufts Obedience Championships a few years later:


Brilliant I love it! I think I'm too sensitive for competitive anything never mind the dog, but he definitely enjoys training so we'll do lots. He'd probably enjoy some gundog type training on a just for fun basis as he LOVES chasing and hunting out a ball or retrieving dummy in the heather/reeds/undergrowth. He's brilliant at finding things and it's impossible not to smile watching him bouncing around in the heather with his tail manically going.

Jenstewillow - the funny sounding toys would probably work once or twice but he'd get wise. He knows if he has something he shouldn't (and he does know when he has something he shouldn't) anything we are doing is likely to be to "trick" him. Last night saw me and boyfriend looking like prize idiots having an animated game of fetch together with tryfan's favourite ball as I figured he would want to come and play. However he just stood on the threshold of the room with his prize (a book) in his mouth and an expression of disgust on his face as he watched us make fools of ourselves.

Dogless your dogs are very majestic. I'm in awe that you can manage to run with them - your control and training must be amazing, I imagine they could pull you over pretty easily. My guy can almost pull me over if it's slippy underfoot and he's only 10kg at the moment (must keep working on loose lead walking....).

Today has been a mixed bag. He had my boyfriends sandwiches for breakfast which wasn't ideal. We had a fab first half of our walk on the moors practicing whistle recalls (back like a rocket each time) with a bit of retrieving thrown in. I stupidly decided to carry on for another 5 mins as he was having so much fun when I knew he'd probably had enough excitement and of course it all went pear shaped. He found a dirty nappy (on the moors - why?) and although I called him away from it fairly easily by waving the retrieving dummy around madly it was enough to get in overexcited mode and trigger jumpy/bitey nastiness. He pulled it together but then almost immediately a guy appeared carrying a huge tripod creating an odd silhouette which scared him, then there was a big group of hikers with poles etc. all far too much and he lost it big time. Coat has several new holes to show for it. As the moor is usually deserted his lead was in my bag so I had to grab his harness and pretty much pin him down whilst wrestling the lead out and onto him. He finds this sort of confrontation really threatening, but I didn't feel I had much choice as I couldn't risk him transferring his horrible biting onto the hikers (who we're looking on in horror). Boo. Really annoyed at myself for not quitting whilst I was ahead, especially as I did the same thing yesterday. Lesson learnt (hopefully).

Anyway he was truly filthy and covered in twigs so he's been bathed and brushed and is now crashed out looking thoroughly exhausted. I'm off to try to tryfan-proof the house a bit better in the hope of stopping him pinching things (I do this every few days but he's wiley, and we are messy so he still gets stuff).


----------



## Siskin

Oh dear Sarah what an awful end to a good bit of training. Isn't it always the way, the moment you let them off the lead hundreds of people appear from nowhere.

We also did a bit of recall training. She's great when there are no distractions and responds really well to the whistle, so we did lots of short recalls with sits and releases. Then we did a few 'waits' when she was ahead of me, just general control really, but that's when there is nobody else about. Training class tomorrow morning which always has a slight hysterical element. Good fun though.


----------



## JenKyzer

Fluff - Sounds like a lovely walk with the boxer  the ball fixation makes me smile every time.

Twiggy - I like your post for the fact you are at a level to judge crufts  thats amazing. (Our tickets arrived yesterday, very much looking forward to going for the first time) - as for the last part, very sad indeed. I hope you may be able to judge the future ones 

Dogless - Sounds like a very dog full walk but seems Kilo took it all in his stride, i'm sure the play with the pheasant made it worth it  Sorry the harnesses were too small.. but i'm eagerly awaiting the pics of them modeling them 

Sarahliz - Sorry - i laughed  a book?! obviously thats faaar more interesting than a ball  Is there any pics of your boy?  I've tried being nosey from previous posts of yours but can't see any  Sorry your walk started off fab then had a rocky ending  well done to him for the recalls 

Siskin - it must be recall day today  Hope you have fun tomorrow 

So we had a fab-ish 2hour outing 
We did go to the res.. how could i not.. plus it seemed a better idea than the woods which i assume would be busy-ish as the rain hasn't hit here yet today, i didn't want to chance it anyway.
We also did recall stuff today with the whistle. It started off perfect as its always been outside.. came rushing back into a sit at my feet looking up adoringly for the treat.. then on the 3rd one she ignored it :yikes: my mouth literally hit the floor as she's never ignored it before. So.. *if it did this wrong, please set me straight*  .. i did the 2pips once more, but again to no avail - not even a glance from her :frown2: .. so i just walked off away from her without a word. After about a minute she came running back to me at stayed at my feet with a very wrinkly worried looking face looking up at me.. i made a big fuss, but no treats. Then sent her off again. After this, i kept just suddenly turning around and walking back aswell as hiding in some bushes and behind walls  just to try and get the point across of 'im more interesting no matter how much fun your having' kinda thing. I didn't try the whistle again. Thought i'm better off leaving it and reinforcing it at home like how we did at the beginning of using it. Obviously, the recall wasn't needed at the time of ignoring it.. but if it was.. i'd of been in a right muddle. Did i do the right thing? What else can i do from here? I may buy a book on it... i hadn't felt the need up until today as it was going so well and she's never ignored it before. :idea:

Sorry for the essay on failing 

We saw a lady with a .. what looked like a bulldog, but with longer legs.. it was bright white so got willows attention straight away as it really stood out on the green grass. The lady clocked us, made a swift decent of the hill and mooched around at the bottom.. her dog kept stopping and staring at us (she didn't lead it up) but she kept it moving but it would run ahead of her.. then stare. Willow ignored at first.. then clocked it staring.. so she started getting fixated  .. so with a 'leave it' and a fuss.. then me running off like a loon :crazy: with her onlead.. she soon forgot about the dog. As i looked back, the lady was coming back up the hill .. so she must of gone down there to avoid us :thumbup1: which was nice of her (if she hadn't of gone down first, i would have :laugh so i can only assume her dog isn't great with others either.

Straight in the bath for her when we got home seems as she was caked in mud. She seems to have a limp too so keeping an eye on that before i start doing stuff in the house with her  Can't see anything in her paw/on her leg so hopefully it'll be nothing to fuss over. Other than all the above, we had a great walk :biggrin:

Sorry for such a long post


----------



## Lauren5159

Gosh, I think we're the only ones not working on recall today  

Sarah, I'm sorry your fab walk ended the way it did... I'm another one who tends to forget when enough is enough  Pity the walk didn't end on a good note.

Siskin, sounds like you guys are doing great with recall... Hopefully Skip and I will be able to start adding in recall work within the next couple of weeks... In the house to start. 

JSW, do you have the book Total Recall by Pippa Mattison? That's great for whistle training... I've had it for a while but haven't used any of the techniques with Skip yet as our whistle only arrived last week and we have a bit more training to work on before we start that... It sounds like that could be the right book for your situation though  

Dogless, I am prepared for a day when we take a couple of steps back, mentally that is... He's been progressing so fast that sometimes I think it's a dream lol... You may have to pick up the pieces when our 'bad' day hits though  But for now, I'm concentrating on the good... Maybe if I concentrate and keep in the forefront of my mind, how great he's been, when my bad day arrives, I won't feel too down about it 

Who knows lol... Only time will tell


----------



## Sarahliz100

Yes he will pinch anything. Doesn't matter what it is, he just cruises every surface he can reach and grabs what he can. He's determined - he bounces up and down on his hind legs, stretches out his tongue as far as it will go to try and dislodge something...... His new thing is emptying the bookshelves. Grrrr

Can't figure out how to get a photo in my post on my iPad and can only seem to attach a single photo, so attached (I hope) is one of him today on his walk looking very bedraggled. He's pretending to be a gundog. He is currently much whiter and fluffier post bath!


----------



## Sarahliz100

And one post bath being very lazy on the sofa


----------



## Siskin

You attached alright Sarah

Handsome boy.

Know what you mean about the iPad and pics. I've worked out a method of depixelating my photos, then going through TinyPic to get the pic to add to the bottom of a post so that you get. Full size pic rather then a thumbnail, but it's so long winded. Must be a better way, but haven't worked it out yet.


----------



## Fluffster

I have an app called Imgur or something which lets you upload pics from within your iPad and then get the forum code for them, I find it quite useful!


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> Dogless, I am prepared for a day when we take a couple of steps back, mentally that is... He's been progressing so fast that sometimes I think it's a dream lol... You may have to pick up the pieces when our 'bad' day hits though  But for now, I'm concentrating on the good... Maybe if I concentrate and keep in the forefront of my mind, how great he's been, when my bad day arrives, I won't feel too down about it
> 
> Who knows lol... Only time will tell


I wasn't trying to discourage you....just sort of gently reminding as the good folk of waywo have done with me at times .


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Fluff - Sounds like a lovely walk with the boxer  the ball fixation makes me smile every time.
> 
> Twiggy - I like your post for the fact you are at a level to judge crufts  thats amazing. (Our tickets arrived yesterday, very much looking forward to going for the first time) - as for the last part, very sad indeed. I hope you may be able to judge the future ones
> 
> Dogless - Sounds like a very dog full walk but seems Kilo took it all in his stride, i'm sure the play with the pheasant made it worth it  Sorry the harnesses were too small.. but i'm eagerly awaiting the pics of them modeling them
> 
> Sarahliz - Sorry - i laughed  a book?! obviously thats faaar more interesting than a ball  Is there any pics of your boy?  I've tried being nosey from previous posts of yours but can't see any  Sorry your walk started off fab then had a rocky ending  well done to him for the recalls
> 
> Siskin - it must be recall day today  Hope you have fun tomorrow
> 
> So we had a fab-ish 2hour outing
> We did go to the res.. how could i not.. plus it seemed a better idea than the woods which i assume would be busy-ish as the rain hasn't hit here yet today, i didn't want to chance it anyway.
> We also did recall stuff today with the whistle. It started off perfect as its always been outside.. came rushing back into a sit at my feet looking up adoringly for the treat.. then on the 3rd one she ignored it :yikes: my mouth literally hit the floor as she's never ignored it before. So.. *if it did this wrong, please set me straight*  .. i did the 2pips once more, but again to no avail - not even a glance from her :frown2: .. so i just walked off away from her without a word. After about a minute she came running back to me at stayed at my feet with a very wrinkly worried looking face looking up at me.. i made a big fuss, but no treats. Then sent her off again. After this, i kept just suddenly turning around and walking back aswell as hiding in some bushes and behind walls  just to try and get the point across of 'im more interesting no matter how much fun your having' kinda thing. I didn't try the whistle again. Thought i'm better off leaving it and reinforcing it at home like how we did at the beginning of using it. Obviously, the recall wasn't needed at the time of ignoring it.. but if it was.. i'd of been in a right muddle. Did i do the right thing? What else can i do from here? I may buy a book on it... i hadn't felt the need up until today as it was going so well and she's never ignored it before. :idea:
> 
> I think you did great and although I don't use a whistle, I'd have done something similar...


----------



## Dogless

*JSW* - I think you did well; pleased you had a nice walk .


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Yes he will pinch anything. Doesn't matter what it is, he just cruises every surface he can reach and grabs what he can. He's determined - he bounces up and down on his hind legs, stretches out his tongue as far as it will go to try and dislodge something...... His new thing is emptying the bookshelves. Grrrr
> 
> Can't figure out how to get a photo in my post on my iPad and can only seem to attach a single photo, so attached (I hope) is one of him today on his walk looking very bedraggled. He's pretending to be a gundog. He is currently much whiter and fluffier post bath!


I know it's a pain but try and remove anything he's likely to pinch because it can become habit forming and then difficult to stop.

When I have a puppy all ornaments, books, houseplants, etc. are either placed out of reach or in the spare bedroom.


----------



## Fluffster

I actually left Daisy downstairs for the first time today while I had a shower, unsupervised with the run of the house  Usually she goes in her room! I came down and she was still on sofa, playing with her toy - no cat poo eaten, no cats being harrassed, nothing destroyed. I'm sure it was a one-off though and she's lulling me into a false sense of security :skep:

The cats are sods though for just sitting on the bookshelves and swiping things off with their paws for no reason other than they are little s*its :frown2: :lol:


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> I wasn't trying to discourage you....just sort of gently reminding as the good folk of waywo have done with me at times .


No no! I didn't take it like that  I took it as you meant it... Just read back what I wrote and it does sound like I was being sparky


----------



## Dogless

I am so excited :crazy::crazy: email from the company that is dealing with converting a van for a dog van for me........they have found the perfect van  . Hubby is calling them in the morning; shame he didn't check his emails a tiny bit earlier!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> I know it's a pain but try and remove anything he's likely to pinch because it can become habit forming and then difficult to stop.
> 
> When I have a puppy all ornaments, books, houseplants, etc. are either placed out of reach or in the spare bedroom.


Yeah we try to. He keeps being able to get to places we didn't know he could though! Also our house isn't huge with limited storage, so it's hard to keep all surfaces clear. Going to clear the bottom couple of book shelves later, dont quite know where everything is going to go though......


----------



## JenKyzer

Lauren5159 said:


> JSW, do you have the book Total Recall by Pippa Mattison? That's great for whistle training... I've had it for a while but haven't used any of the techniques with Skip yet as our whistle only arrived last week and we have a bit more training to work on before we start that... It sounds like that could be the right book for your situation though


I've seen the book being mentioned quite alot. I shall look into it 



Twiggy said:


> I think you did great and although I don't use a whistle, I'd have done something similar...


Phew, thanks 



Dogless said:


> *JSW* - I think you did well; pleased you had a nice walk .


Thanks :thumbup1: Ooh, how exciting about the van :biggrin: !!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I am so excited :crazy::crazy: email from the company that is dealing with converting a van for a dog van for me........they have found the perfect van  . Hubby is calling them in the morning; shame he didn't check his emails a tiny bit earlier!


Wow - fingers crossed...!!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Yeah we try to. He keeps being able to get to places we didn't know he could though! Also our house isn't huge with limited storage, so it's hard to keep all surfaces clear. Going to clear the bottom couple of book shelves later, dont quite know where everything is going to go though......


Sorry I shouldn't laugh but they can indeed get into almost impossible places.


----------



## Fluffster

JenSteWillow said:


> I've seen the book being mentioned quite alot. I shall look into it


It's great, I can't praise it enough. Recall is the one thing that Daisy has been consistently good at and I credit that book and following the methods in it from when we got her. We don't use a whistle, so I just substituted the whistle stuff in there for my recall word, but it's still worked a treat


----------



## Sarahliz100

He's managed to jump the baby gate. I've no idea how - he's not big, only 10kg! We found him on top of the dining room table once. He is also a really good pickpocket. He's smart, he's athletic, he definitely keeps me on my toes! Bit of a baptism of fire for our first dog!


----------



## JenKyzer

Fluffster said:


> It's great, I can't praise it enough. Recall is the one thing that Daisy has been consistently good at and I credit that book and following the methods in it from when we got her. We don't use a whistle, so I just substituted the whistle stuff in there for my recall word, but it's still worked a treat


I shall be downloading it onto the Kindle tomorrow  See how we get on from there.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> I am so excited :crazy::crazy: email from the company that is dealing with converting a van for a dog van for me........they have found the perfect van  . Hubby is calling them in the morning; shame he didn't check his emails a tiny bit earlier!


Calm down. This sounds like man stuff to me. Forget about what colour it is and just tell me the BHP.


----------



## Fluffster

HP sauce? :lol:

That sounds fab Dogless!

Oh and... what colour is it?


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> HP sauce? :lol:
> 
> That sounds fab Dogless!
> 
> Oh and... what colour is it?


No idea on the colour. I hope not white but TBH not fussed really; just looking forward to it all being fitted out for me!!! Don't yet know much til hubby rings.


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> No idea on the colour. I hope not white but TBH not fussed really; just looking forward to it all being fitted out for me!!! Don't yet know much til hubby rings.


Ooh then you would be white van (wo)man! :lol: Very exciting  My car is so tiny it can barely fit me and Daisy, when my 6ft 4 OH is added into the equation, we are like sardines in a tin!


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Ooh then you would be white van (wo)man! :lol: Very exciting  My car is so tiny it can barely fit me and Daisy, when my 6ft 4 OH is added into the equation, we are like sardines in a tin!


Our car is actually great for the dogs but I go on a lot of small, muddy, pot hole-y roads, there is dog stuff all over the back of the car on the seats etc etc. The idea is hubby gets pristine car and I get van. Chuffed!


----------



## Frollie

Ollie and I just had a really good play for ~20 minutes. It may not seem like much, but it was fantastic for him as usually he's not interested after a couple of minutes. It was really, really nice to see him so animated and excited about our game. 

I think I'm learning better how to engage him.


----------



## Fluffster

One of our favourite walks has a car park with the biggest pot hole in the world, my little car almost goes sideways when it goes over it!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> He's managed to jump the baby gate. I've no idea how - he's not big, only 10kg! We found him on top of the dining room table once. He is also a really good pickpocket. He's smart, he's athletic, he definitely keeps me on my toes! Bit of a baptism of fire for our first dog!


He's obviously going to make a talented agility dog...


----------



## Twiggy

Frollie said:


> Ollie and I just had a really good play for ~20 minutes. It may not seem like much, but it was fantastic for him as usually he's not interested after a couple of minutes. It was really, really nice to see him so animated and excited about our game.
> 
> I think I'm learning better how to engage him.


Well done and good for you...:thumbup1:


----------



## lupie

Bah - awful walk. Two GSDs who were lurking in the dark ripped off on one at Ruska and she gave hell back, there was nowhere we could've got out the way. Had to get away from them fast so the route i had planned went out the window and we ended up doing a pavement walk in the peeing rain. 

My stress levels are clearly not back down - I almost cried when the GSDs set off at her - ridiculous aren't I 

And then, of all days, coming up my road...bear in mind in the dark and especially in the rain I NEVER see dogs walking down my road...we saw TWO. And clearly the GSDs had hyped up Ruska's stress as she reacted pretty badly with both - normally we can pass dogs perfectly if they are on the other side of the road but not today. The first owner even had the audacity to try to exchange pleasantries. Very nice of him but I am CLEARLY trying to engage with my dog! 

Oh well. Maybe third day is the charm... :skep:


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> Bah - awful walk. Two GSDs who were lurking in the dark ripped off on one at Ruska and she gave hell back, there was nowhere we could've got out the way. Had to get away from them fast so the route i had planned went out the window and we ended up doing a pavement walk in the peeing rain.
> 
> My stress levels are clearly not back down - I almost cried when the GSDs set off at her - ridiculous aren't I
> 
> And then, of all days, coming up my road...bear in mind in the dark and especially in the rain I NEVER see dogs walking down my road...we saw TWO. And clearly the GSDs had hyped up Ruska's stress as she reacted pretty badly with both - normally we can pass dogs perfectly if they are on the other side of the road but not today. The first owner even had the audacity to try to exchange pleasantries. Very nice of him but I am CLEARLY trying to engage with my dog!
> 
> Oh well. Maybe third day is the charm... :skep:


Pour yourself a drink or have a coffee and calm down. These things happen and upsetting as they are tomorrow is another day.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> He's obviously going to make a talented agility dog...


Maybe . We did some foundation for agility stuff at puppy class (getting them to engage with wobble boards etc) and he was loving it. He's fearless about jumping off stuff, there's been times I'm convinced he won't land it and will break something but he's always fine. But then if he gets a big twig caught on his fur he gets all scared - silly boy:frown2:


----------



## Dogless

Oh *lupi*e, think we've all been there . Here's to a good day today - a quiet one if possible .


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Dogless your dogs are very majestic. I'm in awe that you can manage to run with them - your control and training must be amazing, I imagine they could pull you over pretty easily. My guy can almost pull me over if it's slippy underfoot and he's only 10kg at the moment (must keep working on loose lead walking....).


Sorry, wasn't ignoring this before!! They could pull me over if they wanted to, yes, easily. They weigh about 35kg more than me combined. I can only run with Rudi on the pavement currently, he runs to heel naturally really as does Kilo - I think a run for me being a trot for them is a more natural pace for them than walking. That said they don't pull when walking unless on the walking belt (allowed). I can run with Kilo on pavement at present as it increases any reaction he is going to have.

On the trails / in the forest Roo has so far always run offlead and Kilo a mixture of on his running harness and line (allowed to pull) or offlead - wildlife situation dependent.

Not sure about my control of training TBH . They know "steady" "wait" "left and right" and "on by" which is pretty much all you need!!


----------



## lupie

Twiggy said:


> Pour yourself a drink or have a coffee and calm down. These things happen and upsetting as they are tomorrow is another day.





Dogless said:


> Oh *lupi*e, think we've all been there . Here's to a good day today - a quiet one if possible .


Thanks - the wine's in the fridge for tonight just in case :lol:


----------



## diefenbaker

It will not have escaped your attention... unless you actually have a life... that we are nearing post #20000. As the reigning #10000 post champion I feel confident of retaining my title. In the words of Sherlock "Ladies of WAYWO The Game is On".


----------



## Siskin

Well that was a wet and muddy training session.

It didn't rain too much, but it's very soft and slippery underfoot. The pups just wanted to play with each other and not concentrate at all. They pulled us this way and that and we slid after them. We tried some retrieves which Isla is less interested in. She would chase after the thrown object, but then rush off to see Murray spitting out the retrieve on the way. So we did some recalls mainly to see which way Isla would go, to me or to Murray. It seems she needs me more probably because she in over attached to me, but useful for recalls. As we were both having so much trouble controlling the dogs the trainer broke out the halters. He uses the rope figure of eight type lead which is not my preferred option, but I was getting mighty fed up with being dragged about. It took a while for Isla to give in and accept the headcollar and we could actually have the pups sat next to each other without wanting to wrestle, they just licked each other's faces instead.
I've got the headcollar on loan to get Isla more used to it. I think we may have to use headcollars during the training just to calm the dogs down so they actually learn something. Just have to work out how to put it on again.

We arrived home covered in mud and Isla had yet another complete wash down. Do wish it would stop raining and go nice and frosty.


----------



## diefenbaker

Siskin said:


> Well that was a wet and muddy training session.


Indeed. Saw nobody on this mornings walk. The stream was the highest I think I've seen it. My new wellies are great though. Feet dry and toasty. And of course his behaviour was impeccable with all the other dogs that we didn't see.


----------



## GingerRogers

I haven't been commenting much this week had lots of stuff going on  and have just been trying to keep ninja quiet for the reactive dog refresher tomorrow, so nothing to report :thumbup1: which as we all know is good.

Welcome to the new WAYWO'ers adn well done Lauren you are doing so well, jealous, much 

I am afraid though I had to comment on this 



Siskin said:


> Well that was a wet and muddy training session.
> 
> It didn't rain too much, but it's very soft and slippery underfoot. The pups just wanted to play with each other and not concentrate at all. They pulled us this way and that and we slid after them. We tried some retrieves which Isla is less interested in. She would chase after the thrown object, but then rush off to see Murray spitting out the retrieve on the way. So we did some recalls mainly to see which way Isla would go, to me or to Murray. It seems she needs me more probably because she in over attached to me, but useful for recalls. As we were both having so much trouble controlling the dogs the trainer broke out the halters. He uses the rope figure of eight type lead which is *not my preferred option*, but I was getting mighty fed up with being dragged about. It took a while for *Isla to give in and accept the headcollar* and we could actually have the pups sat next to each other without wanting to wrestle, they just licked each other's faces instead.
> I've got the headcollar on loan to get Isla more used to it. I think we may have to use headcollars during the training just to calm the dogs down so they actually learn something. Just have to work out how to put it on again.
> 
> We arrived home covered in mud and Isla had yet another complete wash down. Do wish it would stop raining and go nice and frosty.


I am sorry and really not wanting to offend but I have speak up and say that sounds (I appreciate the written word and all that, I wasnt there etc etc but from what you have written) pretty brutal to the poor pups.

If it was not your preferred option why did you allow it, oh you said, to make it easier for you :frown5:, what about the dog?

The spirit of this thread is in positive training and what you have described sounds so very far from it, if you dont care fine but I would rather give other people the chance to think before they do similar.

I know from bitter experience you shouldn't just plonk a head collar of any kind on a dog. Sure it might have seemed like they accepted it eventually but the fact that she' took a while to give in' suggests she was fighting it and just gave in, thats called learned helplessness . Is that really the sort of association you want to give her to a headcollar? You may well need to use it for valid reasons but that doesn't mean you have to force it?

If you want to continue to use a head collar and give Isla a positive feelings towards it, make it so she wants to wear it and associates it with fun stuff, please go right back to basics and introduce it slowly and carefully. The principles in this video are the same whatever type you use.

Jean Donaldson gets conditioned emotional response while fitting Gentle Leader - YouTube

As I say I dont want to offend but frankly the actions you describe upset me on behalf of your pup :frown5:


----------



## GingerRogers

lupie said:


> Bah - awful walk. Two GSDs who were lurking in the dark ripped off on one at Ruska and she gave hell back, there was nowhere we could've got out the way. Had to get away from them fast so the route i had planned went out the window and we ended up doing a pavement walk in the peeing rain.
> 
> My stress levels are clearly not back down - I almost cried when the GSDs set off at her - ridiculous aren't I
> 
> And then, of all days, coming up my road...bear in mind in the dark and especially in the rain I NEVER see dogs walking down my road...we saw TWO. And clearly the GSDs had hyped up Ruska's stress as she reacted pretty badly with both - normally we can pass dogs perfectly if they are on the other side of the road but not today. The first owner even had the audacity to try to exchange pleasantries. Very nice of him but I am CLEARLY trying to engage with my dog!
> 
> Oh well. Maybe third day is the charm... :skep:


Oh Lupie sorry about this , sounds similar to my experience the other week, 2 GSDs as well I think, tbh it was too traumatic to really note in the dark, perhaps someone is reading waywo and travelling about the country to give us something to work on , just when it starts to go well, take care this was nearly 2 weeks ago and ninja is still riding high despite my trying for stress free.

At least you didnt get chunked, my scab is just about falling off so I might not have a battle scar for tomorrow after all, you know when we sit down and talk about how things have gone 

Like mine sounds like just one of those things and try not to let it ruin what might be a normally great walk (I haven't been back to the beach, darent, maybe next week )


----------



## Siskin

It wasn't forced onto her Ginger. I went through practically all of my treat bag to encourage her along in fact it didn't that long, about five minutes tops, it certainly wasn't shoved on her and she was dragged about until she stopped trying to get it off. I've used halters before and understand how to use them. My preferred option would have been one of my headcollars which I plan to try on Isla to see if they fit, but she has a small head so I suspect not. I will choose my words more carefully in future.


----------



## Twiggy

Siskin said:


> It wasn't forced onto her Ginger. I went through practically all of my treat bag to encourage her along in fact it didn't that long, about five minutes tops, it certainly wasn't shoved on her and she was dragged about until she stopped trying to get it off. I've used halters before and understand how to use them. My preferred option would have been one of my headcollars which I plan to try on Isla to see if they fit, but she has a small head so I suspect not. I will choose my words more carefully in future.


I hate to say it but I agree with GR and it's not the way I would have approached it had I been instructing.

We have puppies here all the time for training and very often from the same litter. Most of the time they don't even have a lead on, never mind a headcollar.


----------



## lupie

GingerRogers said:


> Oh Lupie sorry about this , sounds similar to my experience the other week, 2 GSDs as well I think, tbh it was too traumatic to really note in the dark, perhaps someone is reading waywo and travelling about the country to give us something to work on , just when it starts to go well, take care this was nearly 2 weeks ago and ninja is still riding high despite my trying for stress free.
> 
> At least you didnt get chunked, my scab is just about falling off so I might not have a battle scar for tomorrow after all, you know when we sit down and talk about how things have gone
> 
> Like mine sounds like just one of those things and try not to let it ruin what might be a normally great walk (I haven't been back to the beach, darent, maybe next week )


Thanks - gosh, it does sound like someone is lurking around making trouble for us 
I will - I asked my mother to take her out today so that she could get a nice offlead romp and apparently she raced around like a mad dog and had a ball, so that's good news. I am lucky in that it's only on-lead she has most of her problems.

Sorry that you got injured in everything! Thankfully I've only been pulled over once and that was because an offlead dog came straight at ruska and they went crazy at my feet and I had no chance.

Weekend soon - I'm going to do the half hour drive to my absolutely favourite place to walk if the flooding hasn't cut it off again, which with all this weather could be likely :skep:









Excited!


----------



## Siskin

Ive just noticed a typo in my post.

I should have said

It certainly wasn't shoved on her and she *wasn't* dragged about until she stopped trying to get it off

I've just put it on her again and she wasn't at all worried, didn't fuss and was very obliging, she's not upset or depressed in any way. She didn't run off at the mere sight of the halter nor cower nor refuse to move, she followed me about quite happily. 
I know from past experience that using a halter is a transient thing, once she has learned that there are times I want her to remain calm and focused on me and other times she will be allowed to play, then I won't use it. 
My friend and I deliberately chose to go to training classes together in order to get a good recall from our dogs. I could go to training on a one to one basis there and Isla will behave beautifully and have an excellent recall, but the distraction of another dog and it all goes to pot. If we can get our dogs to recall to us with the huge distraction of a best buddy close by, then our aim will have been achieved. The classes are held outdoors which is an advantage as that is where we are going to meet other dogs, when we are out walking, not in a village hall in a controlled scenario. If there has to be the temporary use of a headcollar in order for her to focus on me, then so be it. She's not being badly treated or shouted at, she's being treated kindly with lots of positive reinforcements - praise and treats.

I have always tried to do my best for my dogs and treat them very well and I am mortified that anyone should think I was in any way being cruel.


----------



## GingerRogers

Siskin said:


> It wasn't forced onto her Ginger. I went through practically all of my treat bag to encourage her along in fact it didn't that long, about five minutes tops, it certainly wasn't shoved on her and she was dragged about until she stopped trying to get it off. I've used halters before and understand how to use them. My preferred option would have been one of my headcollars which I plan to try on Isla to see if they fit, but she has a small head so I suspect not. I will choose my words more carefully in future.


I still dont like the idea of it but I dont like headcollars anyway :frown5: and its your pup, I felt something had to be said, as I say WAYWO is a little safe haven of positivity for our dogs, and I am aware lots of people lurk, I would hate anyone to use a headcollar in the way it came across.



Twiggy said:


> I hate to say it but I agree with GR and it's not the way I would have approached it had I been instructing.
> 
> We have puppies here all the time for training and very often from the same litter. Most of the time they don't even have a lead on, never mind a headcollar.


And why do you hate to agree with me Grannie 



Lupie hope you get out to your favorite walk

I asked hubby take her today as I am busy, I said please make sure its stress free she needs an empty bathtub for tomorrow 

Well he took her somewhere quiet :thumbsup:, and kept her on the lead as he couldn't see ahead :thumbsup: apparently :skep:. She was so good he decided to let her off for a bit when he could see no one was about 

Well we had to fill up a different type of bathtub  second time in a week, my god this time it was fox, urgh, she still smells I think and we are going to my mothers for the weekend :frown5:

The funniest thing was, and Grannie you will like this, they can listen sometimes, we were talking and I said that one of the few times I raise my voice, just an, 'Oi' or 'hey gerroff that' if she is a bit aways and she will move off a roll sometimes. He said 'Well I didn't say anything as I didn't want to stress her at all like you said, she was only having a bit of fun' :mellow:

ETA second bath done  poor stinky ninja


----------



## Twiggy

Siskin said:


> Ive just noticed a typo in my post.
> 
> I should have said
> 
> It certainly wasn't shoved on her and she *wasn't* dragged about until she stopped trying to get it off
> 
> I've just put it on her again and she wasn't at all worried, didn't fuss and was very obliging, she's not upset or depressed in any way. She didn't run off at the mere sight of the halter nor cower nor refuse to move, she followed me about quite happily.
> I know from past experience that using a halter is a transient thing, once she has learned that there are times I want her to remain calm and focused on me and other times she will be allowed to play, then I won't use it.
> My friend and I deliberately chose to go to training classes together in order to get a good recall from our dogs. I could go to training on a one to one basis there and Isla will behave beautifully and have an excellent recall, but the distraction of another dog and it all goes to pot. If we can get our dogs to recall to us with the huge distraction of a best buddy close by, then our aim will have been achieved. The classes are held outdoors which is an advantage as that is where we are going to meet other dogs, when we are out walking, not in a village hall in a controlled scenario. If there has to be the temporary use of a headcollar in order for her to focus on me, then so be it. She's not being badly treated or shouted at, she's being treated kindly with lots of positive reinforcements - praise and treats.
> 
> I have always tried to do my best for my dogs and treat them very well and I am mortified that anyone should think I was in any way being cruel.


Of course you always do your best for your dogs and I'm quite sure you treat them very well. IMHO the trainer was at fault as there are much better methods in these enlightened times.


----------



## Dogless

*lupie* - fingers firmly crossed for a good one for you today .

Superb morning, where do I start?

Lovely trail run with the boys. Kilo wasn't going to pull for one second today as I had connected the two - dog line to him and he seemed to notice the extra weight / feel of it  . That said he was happy and ran alongside me or slightly in front and was full of beans. For the last 2km or so I attached Roo in his normal harness to the line alongside Kilo to see how they were together and they were great. Roo need encouraging to get out front and pull (Kilo was prepared to once he only had one clip attached to his harness ) but there were no attempts at stopping / sniffing / playing so I was really pleased . We didn't see a soul and the sun actually came out from time to time .

Added to that I wore my new running watch and can upload our runs to the computer which I think is cool. 16.14 km today - very hilly and lots of bogs to negotiate and trees to climb under and over so quite challenging . Lots of wiggly lines and figures for me to look at .

As if that wasn't good enough I have had another email from the very lovely owner of the cottage I have booked for our holiday talking dogs and walks etc. I liked this bit about the deserted glen she has been telling me about:

_I notice that your dogs are Rhodesian Ridgebacks - beautiful! I can just picture them romping through that deserted glen I told you about. As far as I know, nobody keeps any livestock there (I've never seen any in 13 years) and a small hill blocks you from the rest of civilisation (12 houses!) and you can wander for miles through that glen. There is also a hilltop lochan which is very pretty. There are deer but when you go it won't be hunting season and they'll be well up the mountains._

FINALLY - if anyone has got this far :skep:. The perfect dog van has been found, we have finalised details of exactly how I would like it to be fitted out and a deposit has been put down. It will be ready in 3 - 4 weeks .

Phew....well done, have a biscuit for getting this far!!  .


----------



## Sarah1983

Lupie, I lost count of the number of times an incident with Rupert would have me in tears. And me and Rupe fed off each other, the more stressed he got, the more stressed I got and the more stressed I got the more stressed he got  I hope your next walk is much better.

Dief, you'd best be on the ball to get that 20,000th post in lol.

Me and Spen had a mostly fantastic walk today. A little spoiled when we bumped into a ridgeback and a lab who gave us as wide a berth as possible in the area but still sent Spen right to the point where he was close to tipping over the edge into frustration barking and lunging. I made the decision to have him sit and wait and shovelled treats into his mouth which I'm not sure went down too well with them but apart from a strange sounding gurgle and some whines kept Spen quiet.

We managed some heel work off leash and on the flexi on the fields today. We won't be giving Twiggy a run for her money at Crufts any time soon :lol: but just the fact he was able to walk by my side _off leash_ for anything between 2 and 20 steps off the leash when he really wanted to be off sniffing is amazing. Okay so he was lured with food but still huge progress for us. And then on the way home he did even more brilliantly at it without a food lure.

ETA: Oops, sorry Dief, Dogless got in with a post before me and I stole the 20,000th one


----------



## diefenbaker

Sarah1983 said:


> ETA: Oops, sorry Dief, Dogless got in with a post before me and I stole the 20,000th one


WTF !! I have reported you both.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Added to that I wore my new running watch and can upload our runs to the computer which I think is cool. 16.14 km today - very hilly and lots of bogs to negotiate and trees to climb under and over so quite challenging . Lots of wiggly lines and figures for me to look at .


Good job. What have you got ?



Dogless said:


> FINALLY - if anyone has got this far :skep:. The perfect dog van has been found, we have finalised details of exactly how I would like it to be fitted out and a deposit has been put down. It will be ready in 3 - 4 weeks .


Good job. What have you got ?


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Good job. What have you got ?
> 
> *Only a Forerunner 10; don't need anything fancier. Can you see this? Untitled by RidgebackKR at Garmin Connect - Details Snail's pace but it's hard going in places with bog and felled trees so scramble over and under.....honest guv :skep: .
> *
> Good job. What have you got ?


09 Plate VW Caddy with double sliding doors at front, 50 000 on the clock. Bulkhead being removed and replaced with wire mesh so room for leads, bit of luggage etc. Two crates with escape hatches and lockable drawers running the length of them underneath. Electric fan being fitted (the whirly top job!!!).

*Sarah -*well done!!!!! On pipping Dief to the post and on your walk!!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> 09 Plate VW Caddy with double sliding doors at front, 50 000 on the clock. Bulkhead being removed and replaced with wire mesh so room for leads, bit of luggage etc. Two crates with escape hatches and lockable drawers running the length of them underneath. Electric fan being fitted (the whirly top job!!!).
> 
> *Sarah -*well done!!!!! On pipping Dief to the post and on your walk!!!


I've been googling....


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## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I've been googling....


That's it!!! I am having LEDs all along the front grill too .


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## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Only a Forerunner 10; don't need anything fancier. Can you see this? Untitled by RidgebackKR at Garmin Connect - Details Snail's pace but it's hard going in places with bog and felled trees so scramble over and under.....honest guv .


Cool. Stopped off in the woods at 16:40 I see. How many times have I told you to go before you leave home ?

Those are some mighty impressive elevation statistics. King of the Mountains. I don't even go for 1% on the treadmill.


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## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> I still dont like the idea of it but I dont like headcollars anyway :frown5: and its your pup, I felt something had to be said, as I say WAYWO is a little safe haven of positivity for our dogs, and I am aware lots of people lurk, I would hate anyone to use a headcollar in the way it came across.
> 
> And why do you hate to agree with me Grannie
> 
> 
> 
> Lupie hope you get out to your favorite walk
> 
> I asked hubby take her today as I am busy, I said please make sure its stress free she needs an empty bathtub for tomorrow
> 
> Well he took her somewhere quiet :thumbsup:, and kept her on the lead as he couldn't see ahead :thumbsup: apparently :skep:. She was so good he decided to let her off for a bit when he could see no one was about
> 
> Well we had to fill up a different type of bathtub  second time in a week, my god this time it was fox, urgh, she still smells I think and we are going to my mothers for the weekend :frown5:
> 
> *The funniest thing was, and Grannie you will like this, they can listen sometimes, we were talking and I said that one of the few times I raise my voice, just an, 'Oi' or 'hey gerroff that' if she is a bit aways and she will move off a roll sometimes. He said 'Well I didn't say anything as I didn't want to stress her at all like you said, she was only having a bit of fun' :mellow:*
> 
> ETA second bath done  poor stinky ninja


Good gracious if my hubby had said that I think I might have fainted...!!

When can I send him down to you for training?


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> 09 Plate VW Caddy with double sliding doors at front, 50 000 on the clock. Bulkhead being removed and replaced with wire mesh so room for leads, bit of luggage etc. Two crates with escape hatches and lockable drawers running the length of them underneath. Electric fan being fitted (the whirly top job!!!).
> 
> *Sarah -*well done!!!!! On pipping Dief to the post and on your walk!!!


Sorry to be a typical female Dogless but what colour is your van?


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> That's it!!! I am having LEDs all along the front grill too .


Sorry to be a typical female (again) but what the heck is LEDs?


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## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> Sorry to be a typical female (again) but what the heck is LEDs?


Some sort of lights, OH keeps going on about replacing my car's interior lights with them but I don't know why!


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## diefenbaker

Fluffster said:


> Some sort of lights, OH keeps going on about replacing my car's interior lights with them but I don't know why!


Light Emitting Diodes. They are low power. The 4x50W halogens in the kitchen got replaced by 4x3W LEDs. The halogens were always blowing as well. The LEDs haven't gone yet.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Sorry to be a typical female Dogless but what colour is your van?


Blue .



Twiggy said:


> Sorry to be a typical female (again) but what the heck is LEDs?


I was only joking Grannie - was just looking at the van Dief posted and imagining what the owner of such a van might do!! Lights around the grill like all the "boy racers" have .

*Dief -* The stop was in the bog not for the bog . I had a "comfort break" before we started to run  .


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Light Emitting Diodes. They are low power. The 4x50W halogens in the kitchen got replaced by 4x3W LEDs. The halogens were always blowing as well. The LEDs haven't gone yet.


*Light Emitting Diodes* Err right....


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## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> *Light Emitting Diodes* Err right....


Also known as: lights :lol:


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## lupie

Dogless - you should get Strava, it's what all the cool kids have  (and then I can follow you and feel massively inferior about my running ) :lol:
Pleased about your run and the van and your whole post made me smile 
I do hope along with the LEDs you might get a nice big mural of Kilo and Rudi  And a double exhaust?!

On a serious note my brother has that van for his bikes and photography gear and it's lasted him really well, he loves it pieces. 

Sarah - congrats on the 20k post! I'd start running, I think I see Dief after you....

Ruska got over an hour of haring about with my mum earlier today, so I decided for my own sanity I'm not going to walk. I've got loads of training I want to do and we'll be out first thing tomorrow. 

My new whistle arrived!! It's an acme one, my old one was a [email protected] one and I lost it on a walk somewhere  I got it in BRIGHT ORANGE so I can't lose it this time :lol: It's obviously of superior quality - I blew it earlier to test if Ruska reacted differently as it's a different sound to the other one and nearly gave the whole household a heart attack!! 
Will start from the basics with Pippa's Total Recall to make sure she's acclimatised to the new sound.


----------



## Fluffster

We've got an Acme whistle and I nearly peed myself the first time I blew on it, it was so loud! I was in doorway and neighbour popped his head out his door and asked if everything was ok :lol:


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## lupie

Fluffster said:


> We've got an Acme whistle and I nearly peed myself the first time I blew on it, it was so loud! I was in doorway and neighbour popped his head out his door and asked if everything was ok :lol:


Glad it wasn't just me!!


----------



## zedder

Anyone used the flexi giant really need to nail recall with my dog but can't risk it round here letting him off will be for field use only back on lead for walking.


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## Canine K9

lupie- The new acme whistle sounds good, but yes they are loud :lol:

With us, its going well. I don`t know if you guys saw my post yesterday, but we have him at a good point recall wise. Yesterday I took him to the secure area and let him off first time he was perfect, although I didn`t recall him when he was on a strong scent or saw another dog. I shouted "Whats this!" and he came back. Second time in the there just before home, he didn`t even need recalling he just wanted to play games.
Today I took him to the field, he was on his flexi and I got some good recalls. I tried using tug as a reward. He wasn`t interested at first, but after I acted like an idiot with it he was delighted. 
The best part was he saw another dog other than some whining didn`t react AND he recalled!!  
We still have issues with reactivity- mainly reacting to other dogs and traffic. With dogs I can predict this and gain his attention first which works well. But with traffic it is unpredictable, some days he is fine with cars other days he reacts for example, so at the moment I`ve decided to do some more pavement plods and a lot of engaging during these, to try and stop him reacting.
Tomorrow he is going for a pavement walk AM and a small grassy area for recall practice with chicken (On a flexi because its right next to a road with no fencing) and in PM he has fun agility.


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## Dogless

Walked with Diz tonight with Kilo, all good . Roo didn't want to walk but I dread to think how far he ran today offlead, he never stopped  so I let him off .


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## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> lupie- The new acme whistle sounds good, but yes they are loud :lol:
> 
> With us, its going well. I don`t know if you guys saw my post yesterday, but we have him at a good point recall wise. Yesterday I took him to the secure area and let him off first time he was perfect, although I didn`t recall him when he was on a strong scent or saw another dog. I shouted "Whats this!" and he came back. Second time in the there just before home, he didn`t even need recalling he just wanted to play games.
> Today I took him to the field, he was on his flexi and I got some good recalls. I tried using tug as a reward. He wasn`t interested at first, but after I acted like an idiot with it he was delighted.
> The best part was he saw another dog other than some whining didn`t react AND he recalled!!
> We still have issues with reactivity- mainly reacting to other dogs and traffic. With dogs I can predict this and gain his attention first which works well. But with traffic it is unpredictable, some days he is fine with cars other days he reacts for example, so at the moment I`ve decided to do some more pavement plods and a lot of engaging during these, to try and stop him reacting.
> Tomorrow he is going for a pavement walk AM and a small grassy area for recall practice with chicken (On a flexi because its right next to a road with no fencing) and in PM he has fun agility.


Well done. Sounds as if Bailey is doing really well now.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Walked with Diz tonight with Kilo, all good . Roo didn't want to walk but I dread to think how far he ran today offlead, he never stopped  so I let him off .


No, like Rudi, I wouldn't have been over-keen either...

I'm entered at an agility show tomorrow but debating on whether to go. It was a filthy mud-hole in November so goodness knows what it's like now.

Apart from the fact that the car, Holly, etc. is going to get plastered, if the sand then sticks to Holly's muddy legs she won't be able to run properly.

It's not very far (about 40 minutes) so I might go and see just how bad it is. I can always withdraw her.


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## Lauren5159

Gosh, this thread is progessing at crazy speeds lol... Sorry that I can't reply to everyone.individually but my brain is frazzled... 

Dogless - LOVE the van!!! It's amazing! 

So, the day I had been dreading and trying to prepare myself for, came today. Our walk was hideous! Skip was not interested in me at all  He pulled towards every tree and was hyper-alert. I had to stop a few times just to gather myself and not take my frustration out on him  At one point, I just wanted to storm home... 

I literally stood, stock still and waited on Skip focusing his attention back on me. It look a good couple of minutes of deep breaths but eventually he would look at me and in return, he got a treat. I held off on the praise as it tends to make him even more excitable, just a quiet 'good boy'. We were out for just over half an hour before I called it quits as we were getting nowhere  

There was a good point though. We were at the end of a quiet road when all of a sudden, four cars came out of nowhere  All going in different directions. Skip spinned to look at them and was blowing of my 'go find' game, but he didn't lunge... Just watched. Hos body was rigid and he was uncomfortable but he didn't lash out, which was a bonus  

Focus on the good, right? 

Tomorrow is another day... But, wow, was I gutted  

He's now curled up in his bed, so I don't think he's any worse for wear. 

Back to square one tomorrow but just to refresh everything.

Deep breaths and a glass of wine on the go


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## lupie

Sorry to hear that Lauren  It is gutting. 

But definitely look at the positives with the cars. That shows that even when he's alert and not responding elsewhere, the work you've been doing has helped him  

Wine is a good choice :thumbup1:


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## Sarahliz100

I've been on a mission to tire out the crazy pup today as he decided that 4am was wake up time this morning and I want a better nights sleep tonight. So the poor pup has been subjected to - short boring morning walk in the dark (no issues apart from not wanting his lead on), loose lead walking around town, then some heel work around the house. Later we had a fab walk on the moors with my boyfriend who was off work. Boyfriend managed to throw the ball into a big bog which defeated tryf's finding skills so he had to go and join the search. I was a bit worried he'd start his over excited jumping and nipping routine but luckily he contented himself with just sticking his muddy paws up on me a few times - not ideal but a big improvement over the teeth!

Being the mean owner I am I put him back to work this evening working with the clicker on being more comfortable with collar touching, attaching the lead and grooming. I also taught watch me. Another bit of loose lead walking practice and now he's crashed out. I'm hoping that the inevitable excitement that will ensue when my boyfriend gets in will be enough to ensure a pup tired enough to sleep until at least 7am........


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> I've been on a mission to tire out the crazy pup today as he decided that 4am was wake up time this morning and I want a better nights sleep tonight. So the poor pup has been subjected to - short boring morning walk in the dark (no issues apart from not wanting his lead on), loose lead walking around town, then some heel work around the house. Later we had a fab walk on the moors with my boyfriend who was off work. Boyfriend managed to throw the ball into a big bog which defeated tryf's finding skills so he had to go and join the search. I was a bit worried he'd start his over excited jumping and nipping routine but luckily he contented himself with just sticking his muddy paws up on me a few times - not ideal but a big improvement over the teeth!
> 
> Being the mean owner I am I put him back to work this evening working with the clicker on being more comfortable with collar touching, attaching the lead and grooming. I also taught watch me. Another bit of loose lead walking practice and now he's crashed out. I'm hoping that the inevitable excitement that will ensue when my boyfriend gets in will be enough to ensure a pup tired enough to sleep until at least 7am........


Well done.

Training usually tires them out far more than simply exercise...


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## Dogless

*Lauren* - try and keep things as quiet as you can after yesterday's stresses . Skip sounds as if he actually did pretty well with the cars so I would try and avoid cars today (easier said that done I know ). Hope you enjoyed your wine and here's to a lovely day today .


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## Dogless

Separate lead walks out in the rain this morning. Both boys were very good and nothing seen bar Diz coming home just as I had swapped Rudi for Kilo .


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## Sarahliz100

Lauren - just wanted to say I can completely sympathise with how disappointing the setbacks are. We have issues with resource guarding and I've been working on a swap command for 2 months - gradually swapping more and more valuable items for a treat. Earlier in the week my mum who had seen me working on this tried (with well meaning intentions) to swap a very valuable item with him. He freaked out big time and since then just hearing the word swap is enough to get him worked up. However, I've started back from the beginning today (gradually moving my hand towards his most boring toy -yawn) and things are progressing quite fast. So hopefully we'll be back where we were fairly quickly, and I hope you will too!


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## Sarah1983

For those struggling with setbacks, keep a diary! Not necessarily a greatly detailed diary but just a brief description of each days progress. I really can't stress just how helpful it is to look back and see that despite being in the midst of a set back you're so much further along than you were say six months ago. Setbacks happen and they're hugely disappointing and it can give a real boost to know you're not actually as far back as you thought  Plus it helps to be able to look at what you've been doing, see what works, what doesn't etc. 

Took Spen around the farmers fields this morning and didn't dare let him off. He was sniffing, snorting and drooling a good chunk of it so I think perhaps an in season bitch has been walked around there. So he stayed on his flexi today. And very unimpressed about it he was too lol. However, he met a lovely 11 week old puppy quite politely. I'd stopped and had him sit on seeing them coming and the owners asked if it was okay to let pup say hello which was nice. Pup was a bit unsure so I told Spen to wait and he managed to hold a sit while the pup approached him. Then jumped all over the pups owner  

We did some basic obedience stuff such as sits, downs, a stay every time I picked up poo, recalls etc. And again I was able to get some heel work out of him on the field. As I say, we won't be competing at Crufts with it any time soon but him simply walking next to me on cue is amazing. Did some more of it on the walk home too and he did really well again. 

Then to top off the walk I was just dumping the tub of used poo bags I accumulate every walk into the bin when his nemesis comes out of the next block. Spen looked at him and turned to me :thumbup: Not a raised hackle in sight and not even the slightest huff and puff, just turned to me and got his treats.


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## Twiggy

Got home from the agility show about an hour ago and I'm still frozen....!!

It was very muddy although not as bad as I expected it to be and the sand arena had been rolled nice and flat which was good.

Poor Holly fell off the dog walk..!! Happy to say she was fine and it didn't put her off as we did it again immediately and then carried on around the course. I'd only entered her in two classes and she went clear yet again in the jumping. She's getting quite keen now and is really starting to run on - bless her.

I really should take Holly, Barley and Tremor over to the barn and train them but I'm too cold so I'll give them an extra long walk shortly.


----------



## JenKyzer

Not much going on here.. had a great blip free walk at the res this afternoon.. OH cut it short as he was 'cold, muddy & not dressed right' ... yet he knew exactly what he was in for before we even set off... men :huh:
Decided not to use whistle until I've read through the total recall which I purchased yesterday  start fresh & properly . Plus you guys now have me wanting one of these house shuddering whistles :w00t: thinking the training with a new sound might be better than with my current whistle . The current one is just handy as its a clicker too . Haven't made my mind up on that part yet..


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## Canine K9

Lauren- I sympathize! I hope today was better for you

Dogless- Great, sounds like everything is going well then 

Sarah- The diary is a good suggestion. YAY well done Spendog! He is doing really well, well done both of you

Twiggy- Poor Holly for falling off  But at least she is okay 

JSW- Sounds like you had a nice walk, other than your OH :lol:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not a lot here today. Pavement plod AM with a lot of engaging. He walked past people on a loose lead (Normally he tries to jump up) ignored traffic and basically did great  Fun Agility PM which I know is supposed to be fun but we spent more time watching Agility than doing it. I doubt we will be going back  We`ve been there a few months but its getting repetitive now. 
Looking back; he has matured a lot now. He is definitely out of the teenage phase. Thank goodness!


----------



## lupie

I am grinning from ear to ear :w00t:

We went up to the heath today, there was no way I was making it to my favourite walk, massive flooding over night. Luckily the heath was clear bar a small flood that was safe to drive through. 

Anyway. Amazing walk. The trainer who ran the obedience classes I went to when I first got Ruska said "Your walk is like a conversation with your dog, you wouldn't want someone you were chatting with just walking off mid-conversation would you?"
And a lot of off-lead walks are like that - she just buggers off for a few minutes ignoring all recall and appears when she likes. She's never gone for long and always comes back to where you are, but it's been an issue. 

Today I really stepped up the interaction. We were recalling all over the place, using my new whistle when there weren't any other distractions, acting like a loon to get her attention if it looked like she was going off somewhere, stopping and doing sit-stays, down-stays, find-its, playing hide and seek, getting her to stand on tree stumps (this is her favourite game?!  )

And I didn't lose sight of her ONCE. She found a few squirrels up trees not far from the path and wouldn't come - but i jumped around and got her attention and she came away and I went a bit mental with praise :lol:

She barked a LOT for the first 20 minutes or so, but she greeted dogs really nicely. Think she was letting out some of the stress of the week by just barking haha. Then she shut up and even ignored lots of offlead dogs, which 6 months ago would've been very difficult. 

Aaah it was just the most FUN walk. It was like a conversation - I was telling her things and she was doing them and she was with me and I'm on cloud 9  
Being engaging is clearly the key - gonna get reading the book I was recommended as I literally used an entire bag of food 

Sorry for the essay, just ecstatic.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Hooray it sounds like lots of people are having a good day (well apart from holly falling off the dog walk , that doesn't sound good). Your walk sounds fab lupie - I've found being very exciting has really helped with recall. I take a ball and throw it somewhere it's hard to find - he loves it. He is now constantly looking back to check in on me to see if I'm going to do anything fun and doesn't wander far at all.

Our day is going really well too - hopefully things are on the up. We've done lots of training - swap, lead on without getting excited, settle, heelwork (he's amazing at this in the house, sticks to me like glue even if I dance around in circles), stay on a marker (stayed even when I left the room - so proud). Walked around town centre and although his loose lead walking wasn't great he coped with all the distractions admirably.

We had a brilliant walk on the moors, he did so well. He got pounced on by a group of three very excited very barky dogs (no owner in sight, grrrrr) whilst off lead and although he was scared he just ran back to me let me put the lead on and then carried on as if nothing had happened. Later a border collie came up to us and growled and snapped at him but again he just walked away with me (he was on lead already) and then a red setter ran up to him barking frantically - he was still fine! To add to all this we had underestimated the length of the walk so were out for ages, so between that and all the over the top other dogs it could have been a disaster. What a star! He's shattered now though!

Hoping this is the beginning of an upward curve


----------



## Twiggy

*Sarahliz100* Fingers crossed it's onwards and upwards now.

*Lupie* Well done on your training walk today.


----------



## zedder

Walked him up to the fields today then on a flexi for a bit of recall training coming along steady but happy with his progress.


----------



## Dogless

Absolutely love this; 7 Mistakes You're Making in Behavior Modification


----------



## Dogless

Well it's a cold but beautifully sunny morning here.....not seen the sun in weeks :w00t:.

Pleased I took Kilo out early - we went up to the mud and mire of the top fields and played lots and lots of "ready steady" with his precious pheasant toy. Loads of running about for him (and me!!).

Went running with Rudi and it seemed like every dog and every child on camp was out . Roo was very good, even when we had to go down the middle of the road becasue the pavement each side was full of roller blading kids on walkie talkies to each other with the female contingent screaming "aaaawwwww doggiiieeeeee" :w00t:. We had one fail where a very enthusiatic lab lunged to greet and I hadn't allowed enough space so Roo did too. Quick, adolescently rude, in your face greeting and we ran on with me apologising repeatedly . However, I lost count of the number of dogs, children, walkers and runners we passed very nicely (or sat to allow past a few times) so I shall forgive him his Kevin moment .


----------



## lupie

Same here Dogless - sunny and beautiful but the whole world has come out to play  Good boy Rudi with all those distractions to cope with!

We did it again - perfect walk. She ran around a little bit more than last time but because she wears bells I could tell she was not far away at all - and the moment I called her she came :w00t: :w00t: :w00t:

Once or twice she did ignore me, I used the whistle and ZAP she was back. 

She only found one squirrel up a tree, so I waited for her squirrel-bark to calm down, then I whistled her, and she came 

Met lots of dogs and she greeted very nicely. As yesterday, by the end she was ignoring them anyway. 

And the cherry on top - she picked up a pigeon wing at the end and I asked her to leave it and she dropped it :thumbup:

Such a beautiful day I could've walked all day but unfortunately had to get back as I'm in the midst of a redecoration project I rather wish I hadn't started 

This weekend has well and truly made up for the godawful week last week.


----------



## Lauren5159

I'm so glad everyone seems to have had lovely walks today  

Lupie, the whistle sounds like it's working really well and Ruska sounds as though she really responds to it  

Well, where to start. Today on our walk, I cried. I just got so frustrated and overwhelmed and I broke down. We were in the middle of nowhere so no one saw lol...

It was like we went right back to the start. Like I hadn't been working on anything for the past week or so 

Skip lunged at everything, including cars that we were nowhere near but he could see. 

We walked to the golf course and he pulled the whole way... It took us 30 minutes to get there (it's a walk that usually takes five minutes) and he just wasn't engaging with me, wouldn't look at me and didn't want any treats... He just wanted to pull. 

There were no dog's at the golf course, thankfully, so we worked on some LLW in the middle of the biggest open space. He was okay, but not as good as he has been. He was super alert and looking out for anything. We stayed there for 30 minutes before heading home. 

Again, cars. He lunged, pulled and wouldn't stop spinning whenever we saw one. I couldn't March away because he would just spin and not turn from the cars. At this point, I was so down about everything. I was so upset and just stormed home, pulling Skip after me. As things would have it, 200 metres from home, he was walking perfectly. 

One couple were walking down the road towards us and I couldn't see if they had a dog with them. At one point I thought they did, then the next time I looked I couldn't see it. So I moved to the side, put Skip in a sit and waited for them to pass. They did have a dog. It was off leash and trotting about 10 steps behind them next to a road  Well, their dog stopped as it passed Skip and just stood, staring at him... Before I could ask them to call their dog, Skip had started barking in frustration (frustration that he couldn't meet the dog) and the couple were laughing at Skip's reaction... I just stormed off. 

I know it's not Skip's fault. I've let him get to this stage... 

But I just got so frustrated today. 

Looks like it's just going to be very boring, short walks from now on... I'm going to step up training in the house and stay positive. 

Back to square one... There's nothing else for it and I'm going to start a diary. 

Sorry for the essay :blush:


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless, just saw that article you posted. THANK YOU! It's fab and has really made me feel a lot better  

I think I was doing most things she says not to do 

I'm going to print it off and put it somewhere that I see it every day


----------



## Fluffster

Sorry it wasn't a good day, Lauren but onwards and upwards x

We've had an odd couple of days. Daisy's behaviour has seemed very odd and I'm wondering if she's going into season. Yesterday and today when we have returned from a walk, she has gone utterly manic. Digging frantically in the sofa, on the floor, rolling around making snuffling sounds. And today she has peed twice inside which she never does! I've checked her feet etc and they look fine. It lasts for about a couple of hours then she calms down. It's like she just can't settle. She'll lie down a second and then get up and go mad again  I've had to go upstairs and leave her with OH as it's upsetting me a bit, she's just frantic!


----------



## Sarah1983

Lauren, sorry you had a bad day with Skip. 

Dogless, did you send the NI weather over here? It's been cold and damp here today.

Husky meet today for us. Well, it's more like the Spen, Demon and Willow show these days as everyone else seems to have stopped coming  Spencer was a bit of a nightmare really. Very humpy with Willow and when he wasn't busy humping he was generally busy air scenting. Someone posted on a facebook group last week that their bitch had just come into season and I know they live not far from where we meet each week so I'm assuming that was the cause of Spens brains migrating to a certain other part of his body today. He wasn't too terrible really, doesn't attempt to go off in search, just misplaces his brain  He's always humpy and obnoxious with Willow (she allows and even encourages him!) but he took it to a whole new level today. Demon was in an "all the balls are mine even if they're nowhere near me!" mood today too, not that Spen was really interested in chasing a ball today anyway. 

Spen did stay away from people doing weird stuff at the other end of the field though. He kept looking at them but didn't attempt to go over to them. Nor did he steal the sausage the toddler belonging to Demon and Willow was eating. He did have to come and demand a treat for not attempting to steal it though lol. He makes me laugh with his "hey, did you see that? I was really good and need a treat for it!" nudge and grin.


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## Lauren5159

Fluffster, sorry I can't help with your question. I've never had a bitch  

Sarah, thank you and it sounds like you guys had a good afternoon. Spen sounds like he's doing well, even if he misplaces his brain sometimes  

I already feel loads better. I've been reading some articles since I got home and I've just put everything down to expecting too much from Skip too soon. I feel bad  Poor boy. 

My dad has just told me that there is a walk that takes me through the woods and on to the golf course without walking down the road! I had no idea! So he's going to come on my walk with Dexter later and show me the way  That way, I can work with Skip on a walk without encountering cars  

For now though, we're going to go back to our little patch of grass and keep working on focus games  

I feel so much better knownin that everything that happened today wasn't Skip being a little sod, it was because I asked too much of him and he got overwhelmed. Adolescence really is kicking our butts at the minute lol.


----------



## Fluffster

She has calmed down now and is munching on a pigs ear. I've done some reading and it does sound like she's going into season, she has some of the classic signs so just have to wait and see! No walks until I'm sure though, and could be three weeks without! Hopefully can knuckle down with training during that time, if she's not too mopeish around the place. Going to miss our walks though! 

I think sometimes we do expect too much of our pups, I know I certainly do and forget she's still a baby! Skip is obviously a v clever chap so a bit more time and he'll have it all sorted  New walk sounds good, hope it works out!


----------



## Canine K9

Dogless- Sounds great fun, well done Roo other than your Kevin moment :lol:

lupie- Sounds wonderful, so glad that the whistle has made a difference for the better 

Lauren- I`m sorry  I don`t know about anyone else with a reactive dog but it feels like the entire world has perfect dogs and yours is there acting like a manic, despite all your training. The diary sounds a good idea. I have often thought when people laugh at Baileys reactivity, "What if he was a GSD or Rottie? I bet they wouldn`t be laughing then!" 

Fluffster- Can`t be much fun. I`m glad Daisy has started to settle though.

Sarah- Shame people seem to have stopped coming to the meet. It may have well been the female causing Spen to act like that. Well done at the end though Spen, the part about the treat made me laugh 

--------------------------------------------------------
We have been pretty good. This morning we discovered a new walk. A bridlepath. It was really nice, tough terrain but nice. We came across cyclists, horse riders (which we have never seen before- he did well!) and other dog walkers which were all great and gave us space and when we gave space they said thanks. Only had an issue with two women and their dogs- I`ll just copy and paste this : I`m walking along a bridle path. Every single person and dog we have come across have been able to move aside or we have been able to move aside. Its not hard. But heading down the bridle path on the way home we meet 2 women and 3 dogs. Their dogs obviously have no recall. 2/3 dogs run over. My dog tenses up. He is reactive, he is unsure (he has been attacked in the past) and there are 2 dogs tumbling him down. I pick him up to get him out of the way, whilst these 2 dogs jump all over me. Owners about a million miles behind shout "They are friendly!" I shouted back "Well mine isn`t!" They then decided to attempt to grab their dogs. By attempt I mean chase dogs around with a lead whilst the dogs scale walls and hills. This would of been comical if it wasn`t my own dog getting very worked up about it all.
Anyway, I had a blonde moment. I got home and went on google maps discovering a huge woodlands right near where we walked we could`ve gone to.  We`ll go there next weekend.
This afternoon we have done a mix of trick training, HTM, scent work, frisbee, tug and a game of catching his blue bouncy ball lol  We did some football in our postage stamp garden too.
He`s happily chilled out right now, and he has found a piece of rawhide that he is now chewing


----------



## Dogless

*Lauren* - tomorrow's another day . Cheesy but I have to tell myself that a fair bit!!! Pleased the article cheered you up a little.

*Fluffster* - hope you find out if Daisy's coming into season soon; sounds like a plausible reason for the strange behaviour.

*Sarah* - Spen is like Roo and Kilo for the coming over for a treat for doing something good!!! I am sorry the husky meet has dwindled off and also sorry that Spen was so distracted, I am sure he'll get back to his normal good self soon if the bitch in season is the explanation.

*lupie* - pleased you had a good day.

*K9* - sounds like you had a mainly good day too apart from the "friendly" dogs.

Well, the nice weather lasted until about 1130 and it's rained constantly since . Good weather forecast for tomorrow though . Separate uneventful pavement walks tonight .


----------



## lupie

Lauren - sounds like you've got some excellent plans in place to help Skip, but sorry it was such a horrible walk. Fingers crossed for slow and steady. 

Fluffster - it does sound a bit like she might be coming into season. Weeing more is Ruska's sure-fire signal that she's coming in. Except she starts the weeing about 2 weeks before she actually comes into season!  So just to warn you but obviously all are different.


----------



## Fluffster

lupie said:


> Except she starts the weeing about 2 weeks before she actually comes into season!  So just to warn you but obviously all are different.




Thank god for laminate floors!!!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Lauren - sounds like a rough day. Sounds like you're giving yourself a hard time too. I'm not sure specifically what Skip's issues are, but I'm sure it's not due to you bring a bad owner. When Tryfan went of the rails a couple of months ago I was convinced it was my fault and I felt awful. I had visions of him continuing to spiral out of control and getting put down and it all being down to me. When one of the behavioural rehab trainers came she told me her puppy (9 months) had very similar issues. I asked how long she'd had the puppy, expecting her to say she'd rescued it from some awful abusive home. But no, she'd had the dog since it was a tiny puppy. And this lady really is an expert in the field of behavioural problems. Even in the hands of experts, some dogs are difficult. I can't tell you how much better this made me feel. All we can do is do our best, and it sounds like you are doing all the right things.

The start of the week was pretty awful for us but a few days later things are very definitely on the up. It was my birthday today and we went on a lovely outing. We were out walking for ages and he must have been shattered but he was ace. He's definitely got his "quirks" but he's fab, and now I feel pretty confident things will work out


----------



## Lauren5159

Thank you  That also makes me feel a lot better  

It's nice to know that behaviourists have problems with their dogs too  

Skip has been super sleepy after our walk today so at least one good thing came out of it  I've made a new pact... Instead of letting Skip out in to the garden for toilet breaks, I'm going to put his lead on and walk him around our (very quiet) street... We did it an hour or so ago and he was very well behaved. He even spotted a cat but didn't make a sound and walked away with me when I asked  Only looking back once  

That just proves that today was too much for him. I asked too much too soon.

We're over that now and like Dogless says, tomorrow is another day


----------



## pogo

Just a little boast if i may.

A walk the other night, which always involves the boys on my walking belt, and towards the end is an area where Harv goes for a mooch about off lead.

He's always had quite big prey drive, although no where near Chance's, but funnily enough not really over foxes, anyway that got put to the test when he went to pee on a bush about 15 feet from me, when a fox walked out infront of him, no further then a foot - no joke. Chance went ballistic, and the fox shot off over the hill into the trees, I told harv to leave it and put him in a stay at a distance. Harv stopped peeing watched the fox run off, looked at me and went back to peeing.

Honestly i could have roared i was so chuffed with him.  end of my little boast!


----------



## Sarah1983

Lauren, I'll just say be careful not to over do it. Give him time to come down after things have happened. Keep on exposing him and exposing him with no break and you run the risk of that bathtub overflowing. If you've had a bad day today I'd be tempted to go for a really quiet day tomorrow and let him relax after it rather than up the ante.

K9, sounds like Bailey did well. Sorry you encountered numpty owners though. 

Dogless, as soon as the bitch in season goes away he'll likely be back to his normal self. Thankfully he's not really bad, just a bit sniffy and drooly and extra humpy with Willow.


----------



## Dogless

*Pogo* - well done!!


----------



## Sarah1983

Just back from a shorter than normal walk this morning. My boots were rubbing  Spencer walked part of the way to the field by my side and he walked ALL the way home by my side. He was given the opportunity to wander and sniff several times but chose to walk with me instead. And what a far cry from the days where I was really focusing on loose leash walking too. Then he was stressed, I was stressed, walks weren't enjoyable and even when the leash was loose there was no real connection. These days he's trotting along, tail up, eager expression on his face and it feels like he's there because he wants to be there, not because he has to be there. 

So yeah, already our very short (I don't even think we're managing the 10 minutes I said I was going to do  ) daily session on loose leash walking is starting to pay off. He's also offered it a couple of times on the field although there he's clearly torn between walking with me for treats and going sniffing lol. So I keep expectations very low there, a couple of steps next to me, treat and send him off.


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## diefenbaker

Sarah1983 said:


> Then he was stressed, I was stressed, walks weren't enjoyable and even when the leash was loose there was no real connection. These days he's trotting along, tail up, eager expression on his face and it feels like he's there because he wants to be there, not because he has to be there.


Cool. Stress-free walks.... well done. Walks with Dief are enjoyable... but I wouldn't say stress free... depending on who we meet. It's that 1 dog in 50 he seems to take exception to. I see his body language change and have to move him on quick.


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## Twiggy

Well we went to agility but it was thick oozing mud - yuk. My coat went straight into the washing machine the minute I got in and I had to hosepipe Holly's legs and stomach.

She was a good girl though and went really well considering the going. I took her into the other paddock and put her over the dog walk about four times, after the incident on Saturday when she slipped off, and she was fine.


----------



## Dogless

*Sarah * - how annoying having rubbing boots!!! Chuffed your LLW training is beginning to pay off .

*Twiggy* - yuk!! Sounds as if HB was on form though .

We didn't work on anything but the dogs not pulling me to an untimely death today :w00t:. They're pretty good boys at listening and doing as I say though .


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## Sarah1983

Thanks Dogless, I'm really pleased we're seeing results, it's motivating me to keep at it lol. My own fault about the boots, I noticed yesterday they were rubbing (the bottom of my foot which is weird) and meant to check them but forgot until part way round the field  Wasn't going to undo them and drag them off in the middle of a bog so just limped home. Love your pics from today.

Dief, I wouldn't say stress free walks, just no stress about loose leash walking  Todays walk involved bouncing stupidly and whining and huffing at the fox terrier in the garden of the house by the fields. They're fine if the gate is open and the terrier comes over to Spen but when the gate is shut it's another matter. And then there was someone with a jrt coming on behind us so of course Spen had to dance and bounce and cry at that coz he was all worked up about the other terrier 

Twiggy, glad the incident with the dog walk hasn't put Holly off


----------



## GingerRogers

Hello everybody I cant possibly catch up been away for the weekend so I will just wave  and then waffle about my saturday.

We had a some training, refreshers for the Reactive Dog Course I went on last year.

We did both 2hour sessions, dog being out for about an hour both times. The first session there were four dogs, the second only 3 and one of the handlers was also at the first session as they have two JRT (boy & girl litter mate both reactive  and they are about to buy another pup from the same breeder ) all of which meant we got some 121 time with the ttouch lady . I was chuffed about that as last time we couldn't get ninja in the hall with the other dogs so I missed out on that aspect completely.

Each session consisted of a catch up, and discussions about specific problems and general making each other feel better , then the trainers ran through some new ideas for lead handling and a re-orientation exercise.

Outside we went where there was lots of poles and cones laid out for some ttouch groundwork and a special set of cones for me and ninja off to the side but unfortunately by the road with lorries 

*BUT *there was a huge improvement in ninja's distance and threshold which was really good to see especially as we were placed next to the road  but best of all was her reactions when they happened were so much less frantic and she was shaking it off and carrying on, the trainers also noticed how much better she was, which you would hope in near on a year , but still was nice to be told 

There was a JRT, the little black cocker from last time who is doing really well, does group walks and classes and all sorts, (not jealous much ) and a bigger shepherd mix which ninja was really wary of but eventually initiated a slow molehill sniff over towards her station :w00t:

Second session she was more reactive and stressed, lots of hole digging and head burying along with lunging and barking, which was understandable in a way although I had hoped the thunking time might have had the opposite effect. According to the trainers though she was reacting to the boy JRT who was much higher energy than any of the other dogs so 

But we did get some nice relaxation tips and managed to get her into the porch of the hall, not in the same room as the other dogs but still :smile5: unfortunately she reacted to one of the male handlers deep voice quite badly :nonodtherwise we would have done even better.

All in all it was really good to go back and have some feedback, it was brilliant to have the opportunity to work her around dogs in such a well controlled environment, and we picked up a few really good tips.

And she has been absolutely shattered since bless her, think she was glad to get home today and have normal working hours resumed so she could sleep away the afternoon.


----------



## lupie

Had a nice quiet walk this evening. Had a 20 minute stretch in the middle where I did some offlead work with some serious attention focusing and engagement and she was fabulous. 

Unfortunately the JRT kept in the car on our road was back  Kicked off, throwing itself at the window, and Ruska did have a few barks at it. I'm going to have to see if it's a certain day that it appears or what 

Other than that no problem, very very foggy, couldn't see far ahead at all so I don't think I would've seen dogs coming!

Trying to keep things low stress as much as possible today and tomorrow as her scan is on Wednesday.

GR - sounds like overall there's huge improvements  Sounds like a great workshop too, would love to do something like that.


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## Sarahliz100

Our day started well with a lovely walk where he coped well with various distractions I won't bore you with. Some nice loose lead walking practice later and we also worked on shaping the delivery after a retrieve. He's decided he hates his harness (again - I spent weeks working on this previously) so we've gone back to the beginning (click and treat for looking at the harness etc:nonod which is a bit soul destroying.

He was a bit of a nightmare at obedience class, in full on frustrated/angry jumping/nipping mode. It was actually quite productive though as the trainer (who is also a behaviouralist, but not the one our vet referred us to) had a long chat with us. Apparently tryfan is the kind of dog behaviouralist like as he really makes them think.......... I'm not sure that's a good thing ! Anyway she thinks some TTouch might be useful for him so I'm going to look into that (I've read a bit of the book before and found it a bit woolly but I'll give it another bash). Tryfan got his act together in the second half of class and we did some work on sending the dog away which was great and something I want to practice at home. It's just up Tryf's street as he loves rocketing about. Just need a pole. And a field. Hmmmmm.

GingerRogers - I noticed you talked about TTouch in your post. Have you found it helpful. That course sounds great by the way. May I ask specifically what it was?


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## Lauren5159

GR, sounds like a great course and that it has benefited Ninja... I would love to go on one 

Lupie, I'm glad your walk went well... Shame about the JRT, but at least Ruska seemed.to do well when faced with it  

Sarahliz100, I know how you feel. Skip has decided he hates his harness too... So we've scrapped it for a while until we can descenatise him to it. I'm sorry he didn't do so well at obedience. Seems like a lot of our dogs problems are the same.

Not much went on here today... Skip went out for literally 20 minutes and I made sure to take him somewhere that we wouldn't see cars  He did well. Lots of LLW and ice started to integrate the clicker back in to our training... I think he remembers it from when he was younger  He responds very well to it, the only reason I stopped using it before was because I kept forgetting to use it and I wasn't consistent enough... Oh well, this time I'm determined  

Tomorrow, I think is going to be pretty much the same  

Oh, and I've started the training diary that Sarah suggested... It's rather therapeutic


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## Fluffster

Nothing to report here, no walk today and none until I'm sure Daisy isn't in season, she's actually been v calm, no manic episodes like the last couple of days and no peeing on random things! She met my dad today which was cause for great excitement, she was pretty well behaved though apart from trying to steal his hat :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks Dogless, I'm really pleased we're seeing results, it's motivating me to keep at it lol. My own fault about the boots, I noticed yesterday they were rubbing (the bottom of my foot which is weird) and meant to check them but forgot until part way round the field  Wasn't going to undo them and drag them off in the middle of a bog so just limped home. Love your pics from today.
> 
> Dief, I wouldn't say stress free walks, just no stress about loose leash walking  Todays walk involved bouncing stupidly and whining and huffing at the fox terrier in the garden of the house by the fields. They're fine if the gate is open and the terrier comes over to Spen but when the gate is shut it's another matter. And then there was someone with a jrt coming on behind us so of course Spen had to dance and bounce and cry at that coz he was all worked up about the other terrier
> 
> *Twiggy, glad the incident with the dog walk hasn't put Holly off *


Thanks Sarah. So am I. Holly could so easily have thrown in the towel big time (and probably would have done even 3 months ago). I suppose it shows how much confidence she gained and how much she's enjoying agility now. Pity the same can't be said of her handler; I find it totally exhausting.


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## GingerRogers

GingerRogers - I noticed you talked about TTouch in your post. Have you found it helpful. That course sounds great by the way. May I ask specifically what it was?[/QUOTE]

No not yet as i never got her to accept it. I was too stressed and she is too stressed and i pushed it too far too fast. That's why it was great to have the time with the specialist on Saturday. I agree i think its a bit woolly and a bit fairified but am willing to give it a go as so many people swear by it. When you look a bit deeper there is science behind it though.

I went on a course designed specifically for dog reactive dogs. One of very few like it run in the country. It was 4 sessions a fortnight apart and worked on what we do in the home and about. Saturday was a refresher session. They get people from far and wide doing it. They also run them for people reactive dogs.


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## Dogless

*Lauren and Fluffster* - it's often best when there's nothing much to report!!!

*GR* - your refresher sounds productive and it must be lovely to see where Ninja has improved plus get some time with the TTouch lady. I think when I move to the mainland I might ask you for the course details .

*Sarahliz* - I did a TTouch workshop with Kilo when he was about 6 - 7 months old. It was a great day and he enjoys it. Rudi doesn't seem to so much.

Well, yesterday's perfect weather seems like it was all a dream as we're back to gales and pouring rain here :frown2:.

Walked both dogs separately round home. Nothing to report bar seeing a dog coming towards us when I had Kilo who initiated a u-turn so promptly and with so much effort that he twisted my leg and pain shot from my hip and knee. It was the sort that makes you wonder if you're going to vomit or faint, stars were seen :crazy::crazy:. Anyway I quickly located a spine for myself and had to carry on with a ridiculous limp as the dog was getting closer :crazy: but after 40 minutes or so the real pain eased off nicely . I have joints that dislocate horribly easily and it felt as if my hip or knee (or both) had maybe subluxed a little and gone back in as the pain felt very "post dislocation". Anyway, not much pain now, just the odd bolt and boys snoozing nicely . The litmus test will be whether or not that leg is "runnable" tonight .

Well done Kilo for doing as I want him to anyway  :thumbup1:.


----------



## GingerRogers

Um ooh not sure I can like that as its made me make faces :bored: :crying: :scared: a bit like a combination of all these  but well done Kilo, sort of , need a bit of work on your technique though lad, cant be dislocating your human while you are at it ................


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## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> Um ooh not sure I can like that as its made me make faces :bored: :crying: :scared: a bit like a combination of all these  but well done Kilo, sort of , need a bit of work on your technique though lad, cant be dislocating your human while you are at it ................


I know, bless him, he did as I wanted; just unexpectedly vigorously :. Don't think I will be running tonight; my hip is actually fecked - every time I move all the muscles tighten up horribly and painfully. Going to see if a bath helps. Honestly, I'll relocate my backbone again soon, promise .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I know, bless him, he did as I wanted; just unexpectedly vigorously :. Don't think I will be running tonight; my hip is actually fecked - every time I move all the muscles tighten up horribly and painfully. Going to see if a bath helps. Honestly, I'll relocate my backbone again soon, promise .


You be careful and don't even think about taking the dogs out tonight..!!


----------



## GingerRogers

Dogless said:


> I know, bless him, he did as I wanted; just unexpectedly vigorously :. Don't think I will be running tonight; my hip is actually fecked - every time I move all the muscles tighten up horribly and painfully. Going to see if a bath helps. Honestly, I'll relocate my backbone again soon, promise .


Hope it helps and you keep yourself indoors missus


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## lupie

Be careful Dogless! Rest up 

Leash Walking Technique for Aggressive, Reactive or Over Excited Dogs - YouTube

Someone on my facebook linked this earlier today, and I just thought I'd put it here in case it was of interest to anyone.

I think I might try teaching it, at the moment we can pass very well at certain distances, but I think if she has a job to do whilst we're passing that might make them easier and ultimately help on those closer encounters, and just in general it'll help to improve her focus on me whilst another dog is in the vicinity. Will start the teaching and proofing anyway and see how it goes.


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless - ouch! Definitely doesn't sound like running us a good idea!

I was a mean owner and didn't give Tryf any breakfast, and wow what a difference it made. He definitely made up for his slightly dismal performance at obedience last night. We did some lovely loose lead walking IN THE PARK! Yes that was IN THE PARK with lots of dogs and balls and everything! Sorry for shouting but this is an event I didn't think possible . Later we went to the moors and he walked to heel off lead. Only for 5-10m and then he'd wonder off for a sniff around after getting his treat before coming back for another go, but still the best he's done. Whoo hoo!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You be careful and don't even think about taking the dogs out tonight..!!


I was going to take them out and then go running :lol: although I would kill any patient of mine that even thought about it . But, TBH not sure I will manage it. The boys will be happy enough after yesterday's day out where they worked hard .


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Dogless - ouch! Definitely doesn't sound like running us a good idea!
> 
> I was a mean owner and didn't give Tryf any breakfast, and wow what a difference it made. He definitely made up for his slightly dismal performance at obedience last night. We did some lovely loose lead walking IN THE PARK! Yes that was IN THE PARK with lots of dogs and balls and everything! Sorry for shouting but this is an event I didn't think possible . Later we went to the moors and he walked to heel off lead. Only for 5-10m and then he'd wonder off for a sniff around after getting his treat before coming back for another go, but still the best he's done. Whoo hoo!


Did he have his breakfast as training rewards then? . Sounds really good!


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Did he have his breakfast as training rewards then? . Sounds really good!


He had lots of Turkey/bit of cheese and some treats. I don't find kibble that good for training as he can't eat it as quickly and he doesn't get so excited for it. He had some kibble lunchtime-ish when we got in. He's napping with a full belly now!


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## GingerRogers

lupie said:


> Be careful Dogless! Rest up
> 
> Leash Walking Technique for Aggressive, Reactive or Over Excited Dogs - YouTube
> 
> Someone on my facebook linked this earlier today, and I just thought I'd put it here in case it was of interest to anyone.
> 
> I think I might try teaching it, at the moment we can pass very well at certain distances, but I think if she has a job to do whilst we're passing that might make them easier and ultimately help on those closer encounters, and just in general it'll help to improve her focus on me whilst another dog is in the vicinity. Will start the teaching and proofing anyway and see how it goes.


I quite like that, thank you, although the idea that sitting will stop ninja wanting to react seems quite laughable  :frown2:

Its actually very similar to one of the exercises taught on saturday but with added sits.

That one was also a reorientation exercise. Place a cone (or other thing ) as a marker and take 1/2/x number of paces then get the dog to turn to you and walk backwards back towards the cone reward when you get to the cone.

So the reward was for moving with you rather than just turning to you. The cone just allows you to gauge distances moved and work upwards.

Also good for teaching LLW apparently.

Ninja seemed to like it so I might throw some sits in and see what happens.


----------



## Dogless

GingerRogers said:


> I quite like that, thank you, although the idea that sitting will stop ninja wanting to react seems quite laughable  :frown2:
> 
> Its actually very similar to one of the exercises taught on saturday but with added sits.
> 
> That one was also a reorientation exercise. Place a cone (or other thing ) as a marker and take 1/2/x number of paces then get the dog to turn to you and walk backwards back towards the cone reward when you get to the cone.
> 
> *So the reward was for moving with you rather than just turning to you*. The cone just allows you to gauge distances moved and work upwards.
> 
> Also good for teaching LLW apparently.
> 
> Ninja seemed to like it so I might throw some sits in and see what happens.


That is what I reward with Kilo, moving away from something with me. I also reward turning to me when something worries him a little but for big triggers we move away.


----------



## Bagrat

I find it impossible to keep up with this thread though I do read and like if I can -sorry folks.
Dogless -why can't we accept the advice we would give others?? Is it a control thingy or what. Acute pain is a warning to rest! I know chronic pain is a completely different kettle of fish. This particular one sounds acute to me.

GR - Sounds like a great course. I'm hoping once I finish my "Other end of the Lead "online course that J may be ready to venture to York with me again for some outdoor sessions on similar lines .
He has a cough at present, started 10 days since in kennels, it is now day 5 and improving slowly. Not poorly at all and using Blondie's blackcurrant, honey and Teatree remedy. Am assuming viral cough AKA kennel cough, but seems very mild so will only resort to vet if it gets worse. Sleeps all night and only coughs on going out or in, or when v.excited (which surprisingly is not often).


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> I find it impossible to keep up with this thread though I do read and like if I can -sorry folks.
> Dogless -why can't we accept the advice we would give others?? Is it a control thingy or what. Acute pain is a warning to rest! I know chronic pain is a completely different kettle of fish. This particular one sounds acute to me.


Yup, I reckon it's a control thing - I like to control everything . And yup, t'is acute (I am well used to chronic and to ignoring advice ref it!!!!)....I know exactly what I _should_ do and am resting it for tonight. I have that stupid sort of half wooden leg, half goose stepping walk at present anyway  .


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> I find it impossible to keep up with this thread though I do read and like if I can -sorry folks.
> Dogless -why can't we accept the advice we would give others?? Is it a control thingy or what. Acute pain is a warning to rest! I know chronic pain is a completely different kettle of fish. This particular one sounds acute to me.
> 
> GR - Sounds like a great course. I'm hoping once I finish my *"Other end of the Lead "online course *that J may be ready to venture to York with me again for some outdoor sessions on similar lines .
> He has a cough at present, started 10 days since in kennels, it is now day 5 and improving slowly. Not poorly at all and using Blondie's blackcurrant, honey and Teatree remedy. Am assuming viral cough AKA kennel cough, but seems very mild so will only resort to vet if it gets worse. Sleeps all night and only coughs on going out or in, or when v.excited (which surprisingly is not often).


Would you recommend the online course? Poor J, hope he's better soon!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yup, I reckon it's a control thing - I like to control everything . And yup, t'is acute (I am well used to chronic and to ignoring advice ref it!!!!)....I know exactly what I _should_ do and am resting it for tonight. I have that stupid sort of half wooden leg, half goose stepping walk at present anyway  .


Well at least you've seen sense my girl and are resting this evening.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well at least you've seen sense my girl and are resting this evening.


Yes Grannie :aureola:.


----------



## Bagrat

Dogless said:


> Would you recommend the online course? Poor J, hope he's better soon!!


I'll let you know when I'm into it. Starts this Friday. I enjoyed the day I did with Janet Finlay hosted by our behaviourist, who, by the way, runs with her dogs.
Did make me feel more normal, not the mad dog woman!! Lots of good tips like doing your usual walks minus the dog so you can make scanning for problems more practised as it is when you're driving. Analogy being most of our driving behavior becomes automatic with practice and walking will be more relaxed if we are prepared even for some situations!


----------



## tiatortilla

Hope your hip is better soon Dogless, ouch!

Just a quick update on us until I come back properly! I've read a few pages and you all seem to be doing well  Tia's doing really well too 
We actually had my worst nightmare scenario at the weekend, an off lead GSD (doesn't specifically need to be a GSD lol, it could be a Malamute or anything else big and fluffy with pointy ears!) on a country lane... so glad I had OH with me so he could ask them to pop him on a lead to pass us because I think if Tia ever got jumped by a dog that size, it'd probably be the end of her ever liking another dog again! I blocked Tia in a corner and it all went remarkably well considering. Saw a Collie straight after and she did growl at him instead but still.. 

Other than that we've seen a few other dogs, she's great with following if we end up behind another dog now. Even big ones, as long as they're walking away from her, she can handle being on the same side of the road now without her tail sticking up like an antenna lol  She just looks at me every few seconds and gets a treat. Just need to get to a point where she's alright with a dog on the other side of the road but walking towards us and I'll be pretty happy with that!

Still undecided about what I'm going to do about the socialising business I was on about last time. I've met OH's dad's puppy now and she's proper dog sized now so I think I'll take Tia to meet her soon and she knows and loves Katie already.

I do have another possible option too. Not sure if anyone remembers when we found the whippety cross dog and he stayed with us for the weekend until his owner rang the dog warden... well I've seen her a few times since and she asked for copies of the photos I took (hippy significant dates stuff ) so I'm going to drop them round to her this week. I thought I could ask her about a meet up for the dogs? She's also an older lady and has mentioned she sometimes struggles to give him longer walks so I thought I could offer to take him out sometimes, as Tia is okay with dogs on lead once she knows them. Any thoughts?

Sorry for yet another gargantuan post


----------



## Dogless

I think that offering to help with walks is a very kind idea - you could always just see how Tia goes .


----------



## Sarahliz100

Ooooooh. I've got a new favourite training aid. Squeezy cheese! I'm sure it's not at the top of the list of things you "should" feed your dog but Tryfan loves it and I'm totally going to exploit it! There's a couple of things we have to do he hates - grooming (which given he's a long haired dog who loves getting covered in mud/heather etc is pretty essential) and having his harness put on. I'm reserving the special squeezy cheese for these scenarios and boy what a difference. He's now patiently (mostly) letting me work on the knots in his fur whilst eyeing up the cheese tube. We've not made so much progress with the harness but at least he's not running away from it......


----------



## lupie

TT - That sounds good, if the owner is for it you could try just a short session or two and see if it's helping Tia.  Otherwise sounds like some successful times, especially with the following dogs. 

Sarahliz - I bought some squeezy cheese after seeing it recommended somewhere here. I think it's fine as long as you aren't feeding it all day everyday! I stick it in my pocket if we're going on a walk where I feel like we're going to see more dogs than I'd like, or if I feel like it's going to be one of those days, she loves it. 

We had a lovely quiet walk today. A little proud of myself - there's a walk that we do all the time in the summer but I've not done it in the dark yet as the car park on the other side of it is regularly used for dogging/smokers (in a quiet little Surrey village, what). But walking from home it's about a 20 minute walk to get to the route and we don't have to go near the car park so I decided to brave it. Was lovely, not a soul in sight. Up the top of the hill is Rabbit Central so I had a bit of a crazy Ruska on the end of the lead but I worked on allowing her a sniff and then focusing on me and trying to get her walking nicely but that was a bit too much 

No dogs, apart from a barky so-and-so in the garden of a house on the way back home. :thumbup1:


----------



## zedder

Recall again getting pretty bored of it tbh and it's going slowly one step forward two steps back (thank you offlead husky lol)so might try some different stuff at the weekend maybe some new tricks.


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* How are you feeling this morning? Don't do anything stupid will you?


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless* How are you feeling this morning? Don't do anything stupid will you?


OK thanks Grannie - walked the boys and it eased off nicely by the end. I may or may not run tonight; not yet decided - I think not but won't dismiss it altogether .

Separate walks with the boys round home again. Kilo's was immensely stressful but he did very well indeed. Started off with some dogs crossing at the front of us - he skipped a bit but then remembered to look at me (and nudge at me for food ) :thumbup1:. Then went to the top fields. Played about half an hour of Ready Steady doing various things that only needed me to be animated in voice and arm waving  type things and then two dogs appeared . Never seen anyone else up there. No big deal I thought, we were right in a corner and there was loads of space but they began to tow their owners over. I quickly packed up and played tug with Kilo and went to the next corner pretty fast....but the dogs were still pulling towards us. So..I crossed the road onto the next grassy area but couldn't relax. The dogs had been let off in the old tennis court by this time so we went past quickly with Kilo behaving nicely and took a convoluted way home to avoid dogs.....then as we came out onto the main road the dogs from the fields were about 30m away and started to tow towards us again making all manner of barking and howling noises....so we scuttled home  . I know they aren't my fields but still...I was pretty much running away so clearly didn't want to "socialise" my dog.

Rudi's walk was OK - played some Ready Steady; we were interrupted briefly by an offlead dog but no big deal.

So, the boys were great but my nerves are shredded - again  .


----------



## Twiggy

It's horrendous over there. My nerves would also be permanently on edge as well.

Don't go running if your back stiffens up - pretty please.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless - sounds like really inconsiderate owners. Although I'm not sure I appreciated prior to having a slightly tricky dog how much of a nightmare it can be having 'friendly' dog interfering can be. I always have pockets full of tasty treats so when a dog appears it's difficult to get away from them as they are always sniffing my pockets!

I wasn't feeling the love for wandering the moors in the rain today so we squelched around the park. The rain meant it was pretty quiet. There was a boxer around so I worked on loose lead walking (going well, yay) until we were the other side of the field before doing some whistle recall and some stays. Unfortunately the boxer pelted across from the other side of the park with his owner frantically hollering. I was worried Tryf would chase after him (he is a nightmare to catch once he gets excited, as when his arousal levels get high he HATES having his collar touched) but he let me put his lead on without issue. Hurrah! We went into the tennis court to escape and did some heel work practice (starting from the beginning) which went surprisingly well. So I'm pretty pleased! 

More loose lead walking and heelwork later. We're making progress so I'm hoping if I keep at it I'll get him walking well enough on a flat collar that I can give up on the harness battle.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It's horrendous over there. My nerves would also be permanently on edge as well.
> 
> Don't go running if your back stiffens up - pretty please.


Mine are too around home - but when the weather's this rubbish it's about our only option. Forecast until the weekend is vile but will try and get out somewhere!! Hope the replacement running harnesses will arrive tomorrow :thumbup1:.

On a positive note the vet bed to line the cages in my new dog van has arrived . Not that I am childishly excited about the whole thing  .

Oh....and childishly excited about my holiday in June...I am route planning all manner of routes at present .


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> Mine are too around home - but when the weather's this rubbish it's about our only option. Forecast until the weekend is vile but will try and get out somewhere!! Hope the replacement running harnesses will arrive tomorrow :thumbup1:.
> 
> On a positive note the vet bed to line the cages in my new dog van has arrived . Not that I am childishly excited about the whole thing  .
> 
> Oh....and childishly excited about my holiday in June...I am route planning all manner of routes at present .


I would be excited too Dogless. The van sound just amazing :thumbup1: and the holiday too, I hope I can plan something similar this year.

Childishly excited here too - breeder is picking Ruska up for her scan this afternoon. I'd have gone with but I work in an accountancy firm so this month is beyond insanely busy - so we aren't allowed to take time off.


----------



## tiatortilla

Thanks for the input Dogless and lupie  I'll ask her if she'd like me to take him out then, she might not want to as she had some problems with a family who used to do a similar thing for her but then decided they didn't want to anymore but continued to approach them in the street etc., which unsettled the dog which was why he ran off in the first place apparently (looking for them). But obviously I wouldn't do anything like that and I think she trusts me seeing as I got her dog back to her so hopefully it'll be alright! Even if she doesn't want me to walk him I'm sure she'd probably be okay with the idea of a "play date" 

Lupie - good luck with the scan  did you say Ruska's breeder was breeding her, not you? I vaguely remember skimming something about it!

Dogless - I got followed by a man with a spaniel today too, people are annoying sometimes. I think if I was about to walk around a field and another person kept looking over their shoulder, clearly trying to avoid me, I'd walk the other way round! Glad you managed to get away and well done to Kilo 

Nice walk for us today, just playing fetch and being silly in puddles mostly 
We followed a little Westie on our way home and Tia was brilliant apart from one moment when I didn't notice they'd stopped and I took one step too close and she lunged a bit. That's not as bad as it sounds, we weren't directly behind them or anything! I'm a useless judge of distance but I think her happy distance for this dog was <5m which is really good!

I think I can probably keep up enough now so I'll end my WAYWO break lol


----------



## Dogless

tiatortilla said:


> Thanks for the input Dogless and lupie  I'll ask her if she'd like me to take him out then, she might not want to as she had some problems with a family who used to do a similar thing for her but then decided they didn't want to anymore but continued to approach them in the street etc., which unsettled the dog which was why he ran off in the first place apparently (looking for them). But obviously I wouldn't do anything like that and I think she trusts me seeing as I got her dog back to her so hopefully it'll be alright! Even if she doesn't want me to walk him I'm sure she'd probably be okay with the idea of a "play date"
> 
> Lupie - good luck with the scan  did you say Ruska's breeder was breeding her, not you? I vaguely remember skimming something about it!
> 
> Dogless - I got followed by a man with a spaniel today too, people are annoying sometimes. *I think if I was about to walk around a field and another person kept looking over their shoulder, clearly trying to avoid me, I'd walk the other way round! Glad you managed to get away and well done to Kilo*
> 
> Nice walk for us today, just playing fetch and being silly in puddles mostly
> We followed a little Westie on our way home and Tia was brilliant apart from one moment when I didn't notice they'd stopped and I took one step too close and she lunged a bit. That's not as bad as it sounds, we weren't directly behind them or anything! I'm a useless judge of distance but I think her happy distance for this dog was <5m which is really good!
> 
> I think I can probably keep up enough now so I'll end my WAYWO break lol


Welcome back Tia :thumbup1:  .

The part in bold....you don't half feel like a prat though don't you? Especially as there were two of them - probably talking about the weird scuttling woman  .


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> Welcome back Tia :thumbup1:  .
> 
> The part in bold....you don't half feel like a prat though don't you? Especially as there were two of them - probably talking about the weird scuttling woman  .


So much :frown2: 
I just think I look like I'm either insane, or have a really aggressive dog (don't really mind them thinking the latter if it means they avoid us, mind!) but yeah... so awkward!


----------



## zedder

Testing my new gadget out flexi giant it's good so far can give him a bit more freedom getting annoyed with the harness slipping round think I need to adjust them.


----------



## Dogless

Tested my hip out with a gentle run - it is fine running. I see stars if I try and twist so maybe I have a small labral tear, who knows? .

Just walked Rudi tonight; planned to walk Kilo too but he wasn't keen to go out at all and I respected that, I suspect this morning took it out of him a little.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Mine are too around home - but when the weather's this rubbish it's about our only option. Forecast until the weekend is vile but will try and get out somewhere!! Hope the replacement running harnesses will arrive tomorrow :thumbup1:.
> 
> *On a positive note the vet bed to line the cages in my new dog van has arrived . Not that I am childishly excited about the whole thing  .
> 
> Oh....and childishly excited about my holiday in June...I am route planning all manner of routes at present .*




All the more reason to be very careful and not totally mess your back up..!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> All the more reason to be very careful and not totally mess your back up..!!


TBH Grannie my back is beyond help  :frown2: .


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Dogless - sounds like really inconsiderate owners. Although I'm not sure I appreciated prior to having a slightly tricky dog how much of a nightmare it can be having 'friendly' dog interfering can be. I always have pockets full of tasty treats so when a dog appears it's difficult to get away from them as they are always sniffing my pockets!
> 
> I wasn't feeling the love for wandering the moors in the rain today so we squelched around the park. The rain meant it was pretty quiet. There was a boxer around so I worked on loose lead walking (going well, yay) until we were the other side of the field before doing some whistle recall and some stays. Unfortunately the boxer pelted across from the other side of the park with his owner frantically hollering. I was worried Tryf would chase after him (he is a nightmare to catch once he gets excited, as when his arousal levels get high he HATES having his collar touched) but he let me put his lead on without issue. Hurrah! We went into the tennis court to escape and did some heel work practice (starting from the beginning) which went surprisingly well. So I'm pretty pleased!
> 
> *More loose lead walking and heelwork later. We're making progress so I'm hoping if I keep at it I'll get him walking well enough on a flat collar that I can give up on the harness battle.....*


*
*

You can do it...!! You can do anything if you're really determined to succeed.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> TBH Grannie my back is beyond help  :frown2: .


No it isn't otherwise you'd be in a wheelchair. Conservative management and being sensible as it's obviously precarious.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> You can do it...!! You can do anything if you're really determined to succeed.


Thanks! We went out again this afternoon and he was really good again on the lead. For the first time in months I can actually believe I might end up with a dog who walks nicely on lead. I'm back to work in 3 months, so I want him to be good by then so I can send him out with a dog walker with a clear conscience!


----------



## JenKyzer

Everyone seems to be doing so well :thumbup1: 

Hope the backs ok DL
Nice to see you back Tia
Hope Ruskas scan goes well and has the result your hoping for Lupie 
Sounds like your making good progress SarahL
Nice to see you back posting GR the session sounds really interesting 

Sorry if i've missed much  I said i'd keep up now that i have the kindle... i haven't even started reading Total Recall yet either  i'm terrible. Day off tomorrow though so i'll try and make it productive :aureola:

Not much going on here.. we saw 3 dogs yesterday morning all before 630am  all of which well avoided :thumbup1: 2 i've seen before and know their route.. 1 we don't know and he stood letting his dog stare at us, pulling towards us on its 2 back legs it was pulling that much.. i stopped and stared back at the guy. He soon moved along.. i don't know if he was expecting doggie-playtime if we caught up or what. Strange. 
No big news is always good news anyway :thumbup1: Sorry to be boring


----------



## Sashathon Expert

Hi all, well Sasha is 4 months old now, she's a staff x (patterdale or lab?). Been trying to get her to do a few tricks, I swear she never gets tired so thought i'd try tiring her out mentally! lol. She's learned to sit, stay, give paw, lie down, rollover, she fetches...but she doesn't like to give her ball back once she gets it lol, she's getting better with that though.

I'm currently trying to get her to play hide n seek with her ball, she loves it so I tend to keep hold of it so she thinks playing with it is really exciting! I've uploaded a video on youtube of her playing hide n seek with her ball, think she is getting the hang of it now :thumbup1:

Sasha staff x lab puppy trying to find her ball!! Trick - YouTube


----------



## diefenbaker

I'll try and read later. Been working until stupid o'clock again.

On the dog training side... I got Dief to recall past a pig in the hallway.

Okay... it was a dead pig.
Okay... it was a freeze dried dead pig.
Okay... it was a freeze dried dead pig's ear.

Still.. it's his favourite treat.


----------



## lupie

tiatortilla said:


> Lupie - good luck with the scan  did you say Ruska's breeder was breeding her, not you? I vaguely remember skimming something about it!


Oh yes, not me, I've barely been a dog owner less than a year, certainly not qualified! She was imported so the breeder could have a litter from her to open out her breeding lines.  Leaving all the complicatedness to her haha.



Dogless said:


> Tested my hip out with a gentle run - it is fine running. I see stars if I try and twist so maybe I have a small labral tear, who knows? .
> 
> Just walked Rudi tonight; planned to walk Kilo too but he wasn't keen to go out at all and I respected that, I suspect this morning took it out of him a little.


Do keep an eye on it though. Brother's currently down and out with a stress fracture, certainly not fun to be out of action 



Sarahliz100 said:


> Thanks! We went out again this afternoon and he was really good again on the lead. For the first time in months I can actually believe I might end up with a dog who walks nicely on lead. I'm back to work in 3 months, so I want him to be good by then so I can send him out with a dog walker with a clear conscience!


Sounds like it's coming along nicely :thumbup1:



JenSteWillow said:


> Sorry if i've missed much  I said i'd keep up now that i have the kindle... i haven't even started reading Total Recall yet either  i'm terrible. Day off tomorrow though so i'll try and make it productive :aureola:


Don't worry, I haven't managed to start the Chase book that I've been meaning to start to get ideas on engaging Ruska on walks. Time!!

Well...don't see any harm in telling you guys  Ruska was scanned for 6 puppies  Breeder is over the moon as the last litter she bred was unfortunately a singleton, so to have a nice sized litter is a bonus! I feel funny knowing there are pups in there now 

We had a nice relaxed pavement walk today after her exciting day. Saw 3 dogs - first I didn't see as I was concentrating on my shoe as something was in it - bad owner - so she did bark and lunge a bit.  But we passed 2 on the way home with just one woof, and lots of treats


----------



## Twiggy

Sashathon Expert said:


> Hi all, well Sasha is 4 months old now, she's a staff x (patterdale or lab?). Been trying to get her to do a few tricks, I swear she never gets tired so thought i'd try tiring her out mentally! lol. She's learned to sit, stay, give paw, lie down, rollover, she fetches...but she doesn't like to give her ball back once she gets it lol, she's getting better with that though.
> 
> I'm currently trying to get her to play hide n seek with her ball, she loves it so I tend to keep hold of it so she thinks playing with it is really exciting! I've uploaded a video on youtube of her playing hide n seek with her ball, think she is getting the hang of it now :thumbup1:
> 
> Sasha staff x lab puppy trying to find her ball!! Trick - YouTube


What a little cutie.


----------



## Fluffster

Sashathon Expert said:


> Hi all, well Sasha is 4 months old now, she's a staff x (patterdale or lab?). Been trying to get her to do a few tricks, I swear she never gets tired so thought i'd try tiring her out mentally! lol. She's learned to sit, stay, give paw, lie down, rollover, she fetches...but she doesn't like to give her ball back once she gets it lol, she's getting better with that though.
> 
> I'm currently trying to get her to play hide n seek with her ball, she loves it so I tend to keep hold of it so she thinks playing with it is really exciting! I've uploaded a video on youtube of her playing hide n seek with her ball, think she is getting the hang of it now :thumbup1:
> 
> Sasha staff x lab puppy trying to find her ball!! Trick - YouTube


She is lovely! And very clever 

Not much to report here. After two days without walks, no further signs of Daisy being in season so we went for a shortish walk today. Pleased to report no manic episodes afterwards! She did get a bit excited when she met another spaniel puppy so they had a little play. Recall was excellent, probably as I had liver paste with me!

Dief, not sure if you saw the thread, but Daisy is loving her new bed you recommended so thanks for that!

She had her first egg shell tonight, and seemed a bit confused at first but ate it in the end!

Dogless, hope your back is ok, I winced reading your post!


----------



## Sashathon Expert

Haha thanks guys! As you can see from her bed she likes to chew a lot!! Trying to keep her distracted


----------



## Fluffster

Oh and as promised, my treat "bumbag" :lol:

Apologies for my batman PJs


----------



## Dogless

*lupie* - 6 puppies!! Is that an average kind of litter size for the breed? .



lupie said:


> Do keep an eye on it though. Brother's currently down and out with a stress fracture, certainly not fun to be out of action


Don't worry; Ive been out of action plenty of times through injury both minor and major :nonod:. I will take it easy.

*Fluffster* - lovely PJs and bumbag .

*Dief* - impressive recall past the Guard Pig.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> *lupie* - 6 puppies!! Is that an average kind of litter size for the breed? .


About 4-5 is average, so just above! Being a Northern breed they don't have large litters, and the breeder has had some small litters in the last few years - between 3 and 4, so she is especially happy 

Fluffster - loving the bum bag :lol: :w00t:


----------



## Hanwombat

lupie said:


> Oh yes, not me, I've barely been a dog owner less than a year, certainly not qualified! She was imported so the breeder could have a litter from her to open out her breeding lines.  Leaving all the complicatedness to her haha.
> 
> Do keep an eye on it though. Brother's currently down and out with a stress fracture, certainly not fun to be out of action
> 
> Sounds like it's coming along nicely :thumbup1:
> 
> Don't worry, I haven't managed to start the Chase book that I've been meaning to start to get ideas on engaging Ruska on walks. Time!!
> 
> Well...don't see any harm in telling you guys  Ruska was scanned for 6 puppies  Breeder is over the moon as the last litter she bred was unfortunately a singleton, so to have a nice sized litter is a bonus! I feel funny knowing there are pups in there now
> 
> We had a nice relaxed pavement walk today after her exciting day. Saw 3 dogs - first I didn't see as I was concentrating on my shoe as something was in it - bad owner - so she did bark and lunge a bit.  But we passed 2 on the way home with just one woof, and lots of treats


Congrates! Be nice if I could hopefully get a puppy this year, fingers crossed


----------



## JenKyzer

Sasha - What a clever pup  even the 'stay' whilst you went into another room impresses me  Willow still finds that difficult.. unless i keep repeating stay over and over  

Dief - Well done to him passing that pig!! I'm assuming he took it out in the end and saved you all from it... ? :w00t: 

Lupie - I'm sure the breeders over the moon  I'm going to be really nosey now and ask what are probably stupid questions  Will your walks/exercise with her have to change the later into the pregnancy 'you' (Edited to say, SHE gets... not you  haha sorry ) get? Did i read before that she goes to the breeders to have the pups? - if so, how long does she stay there for and at what stage does she go there? (Does she and the pups then come to you or do they all stay with the breeder until the pups are old enough to go to their new homes?) I am a real nosey parker i know  i just find it interesting :blush: 

Fluff - well done to daisy for her recall  .. willow always leaves the shell :blink: she didnt at first.. but a few eggs in she found a way round eating it  just started her on garlic this week.. she also left those (teeny tiny!) pieces in her bowl .. so i now wrap it in ham and down it goes 
she looks v pleased with her new bed!

Working on patiently waiting for a delivery .. its been in the depo near me for 2days now (tracked it..) i spose thats what i get for using the cheap free super saver amazon option  its normally quicker than this though seems as it got dispatched on saturday  Willow will help by alerting me when someone is at the door :001_tongue: 
Toying with the idea of going up to the tower today as i fancy a proper good looong walk... if not it will our usual thursday afternoon around the res  will see what the met office weather website says.


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless* I do hope you're not out as we speak, trekking up a mountain somewhere in NI....!! Love Grannie.


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## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> Lupie - I'm sure the breeders over the moon  I'm going to be really nosey now and ask what are probably stupid questions  Will your walks/exercise with her have to change the later into the pregnancy 'you' (Edited to say, SHE gets... not you  haha sorry ) get? Did i read before that she goes to the breeders to have the pups? - if so, how long does she stay there for and at what stage does she go there? (Does she and the pups then come to you or do they all stay with the breeder until the pups are old enough to go to their new homes?) I am a real nosey parker i know  i just find it interesting :blush:


Not at all! You should see the amount of questions I ask the breeder :lol:

Yes, I've been keeping up normal exercise with her until now, apart from a run in the early days I avoided any hard exercise after that, breeder said it would be okay but I'm a worrier  Now definitely no hard exercise, long onlead walks and when she's offlead she'll regulate herself apparently, and slow down when she starts to feel the effects. I'm not convinced - I reckon if she saw a squirrel it wouldn't matter if she was the day before whelping she'd be off :w00t: :w00t:
Yes she will. She knows the breeders house well as we've gone to visit lots so she'll go there a few days before she's due to settle in, and then stay for the 7 weeks or so until the pups go to their new homes. :cryin: Then I will get her back. If I haven't smuggled all the puppies home with me :w00t:

Lovely weather here today - wish I was out walking. I'm going to plan some walks we haven't done in a while for the weekend I think!


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## Bagrat

Have been trying to keep up, but failing miserably as usual. Lupie it must be so exciting, congrats all round. 
Sasha, very clever pup and so young.
Dief, for one terrible very non pc moment, the thought of a uniformed officer being "left" flashed through my mind. I watch too much rubbish tv I guess.
Dogless - feeling stars in your spine does not sound like it's really running material. 
Tia T - Jackson is better behind dogs but a long way more behind than you were sounds good.
We have been practising "behind" which is ok but J peers out from "behind" to make sure he's not missing anything so not sure it would work for dogs at all, but maybe over enthusiastic people.
Have started a right turn and sit, with me backing a couple of steps then another sit. Thanks for the link GR. He was doing well but bouncing out of the sit as soon as treated. Today he really got it, watching me all the time. In fact we were both so engrossed that when a neighbour said "that's good" we both jumped.
We then had the unexpected arrival of a JRT as we came out of our road. It was about 15 yards away .Like TiaT I'm not good on judging distances. We did a smart "lessgo" 180 but for once my adrenalin levels were OK and my brain didn't turn to mush so I stopped sooner than usual. In spite of three retreating barks(no lunge or scream) J did manage to sit etc and take (well snatch) treats. so quite pleased. especially as we'd seen cats and dogs at a distance this morning with no vocalisation!!


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## Hanwombat

Thought I'd do an Io update

I haven't done at heelwork with her in MONTHS! I know very very naughty but its just so much easier to take her out on off lead walks

Anyways on Sunday I met up with a few people off the forum and you had to do quite a bit of heel working.... well I took cooked mince with me to really get her attention and she was brill! She had a good heel, was very attentive and listened - very proud!

She also met lots of doggies and had lots of fun! Sometimes she may not meet another dog for months and then when she does she loves it and shows no anxiety!

Her recall was also very good considering she had lot's of doggie to distract her

:w00t:


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## Dogless

Will catch up in a bit; morning spent running around the forest (the boys, not me; I was walking). Home for quick shower and respectable clothing on (me, not the boys!!) and out for an appointment this afternoon. Quite a contrast - I had the lovely creak of fresh snow under my boots for hours this morning  and this afternoon was sat in an overstuffy office :w00t: :nonod:.

The boys' exchanged running harnesses arrived today but tomorrow's weather looks like a no-no to get to out forests and hills.


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## Dogless

Bagrat - sounds pretty good for J all in all - know what you mean about getting a mushy brain!!! And the stars are hip related not spine, don't worry .


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## Dogless

Sorry JSW - missed you out . Hope that you both got your delivery and managed to get to the tower for a lovely long walk .


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## tiatortilla

Bagrat - well done you and Jackson, sounds like that went pretty well with the JRT 

lupie - Congrats on many puppies! How exciting 

JSW - hope your delivery arrives soon, I hate waiting in for parcels!

Fluffster - well done Daisy on her recall 

---

Good walk again today  Started off on our big hill with lots of sheep, luckily being chased by sheep at the weekend hasn't restored Tia's interest in them and she ignored them nicely!
Then we walked along the river and down to the weir, quite a few dogs there today which I wasn't expecting, but they all had nice owners who kept them under control  Tia was very relaxed watching a Collie who was particularly obedient so we got a bit closer to an off lead dog with her on the long line than I'd usually risk, it was nice!

Only had to run past one dog today  A Lab on the other side of the road when we walking home, she coped with running past though and didn't make any noises


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## Lauren5159

Hi all 

Sorry I haven't been around here much but I've not had much to report 

I fell off my horse on Tuesday so have been on strict rest for two days... Completely my fault and all to do with misjudging a 5ft jump  Poor Cooper tried to stretch himself and get over the jump but I asked too much of him and I ended up falling very ungracious and at high speed straight on the the hard ground (felt like concrete!) Anyways, this resulted in me not being able to walk the boys as I've been in agony. My cousin has been taking them out. Bless him, he's only 20 but really loves spending time with them. This does however, mean that Skip's training has gone down the pan  My cousin has been taking them to the golf course and letting Skip run riot until his little heart is content... I can't complain too much, the dogs coming home shattered has been a god send!

So today was the first time I was able to take them for a short walk. Skip's LLW has pretty much disappeared, _but_ by the end of the walk he was a lot better and seemed to remember what I was asking of him... We passed a house and a dog (black Lab) came flying around from the back of the house and flew at the gate just as we were passing. It was definitely not a friendly dog and Skip reacted quite badly but I couldn't blame him for that, even a Dexter would have reacted badly to that encounter but the dog's owner was very apologetic so I don't mind too much... No harm done.

So... It's back to square one. I'm still keeping a diary and am remaining positive about everything 

I have a busy few months ahead so I have a goal and I want Skip to be a lot better when I have to leave him and Dexter for five days in March (going to New York) and again in June for a weekend (been invited to the Garden Party at Buckingham Palace... Check me )

Sorry for the essay...

Lupie - WOW! Six puppies! That's amazing! Well done, Ruska! I had no idea you were planning on breeding her 

Dogless - I'm glad I'm not the only cripple around here. Hope you're taking it easy, missus!

Sorry for those I have missed out but I've tried to keep up as best as I could... My memory is like a seive at the minute :blush:


----------



## Fluffster

Oh ouch Lauren, that sounds really sore! Glad you are on the mend now though x and check you with your Buckingham Palace invite, fancy!!! 

We are also off to NY for a week but in May so that's a deadline for some of the stuff I want to do with Daisy as she'll be staying with my mum and stepdad for a week! 

We didn't have a proper walk today, we just had several bouts of loose lead walking up and down the drive. This was made more difficult by OH who decided he had to spend two hours cleaning his car  but after a while Daisy focused on me more and we had some LLW in just her collar and lead. Liver paste is a god send at the moment, although it bloody stinks! We've been doing some clicker training around letting me put her collar and lead on without getting crazy excited too.

It's funny, she hasn't had as much physical exercise as normal today but she's totally crashed out at my feet! It's true what they say about mental stimulation being just as tiring!


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## Fluffster

Feeling a bit meh this evening 

OH's mum died of cancer two years ago (and his dad died six months later  ). She had two cocker spaniels, family dogs really, who have continued living with my OH's stepdad. They are getting on a bit now, they are about 12, but they are the loveliest dogs and the reason we got a cocker spaniel ourselves. They are both from the same litter, his mum left with one and then turned round to get the second as she couldn't bear to leave her!

OH just got a text from his sister to say Jessie, the orange roan, hasn't been well. She's been having mobility issues for a while but she's become very slow and struggling to move lately so she's off to the vet at the weekend to see what they can do. OH moved to the other end of the country to live with me last year so he's not near at all  

I feel very sad thinking this might be it for Jessie. Sad because it's a link with his mum that will go and sad because her sister Belle will be very lonely if she goes, they have always been together.

Not any need for replies really, just had to vent a bit. I'm cuddling Daisy extra tightly this evening.


----------



## tiatortilla

Fluffster - I know you said no need for replies but I'm sorry to hear about Jessie, that's very sad 

Lauren - Sorry to hear about it you falling off your horse! Hope you're all better soon.

Hugs to both of you xx


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## Dogless

Oh dear Lauren!!! :blink:. Wishing you a speedy recovery .

Fluffster - enjoy hugging Daisy tonight; I do hope it helps you feel a little better .


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear Lauren. I know the agony caused by falling off horses at speed - broken collarbone on one occasion and broken arm on another....!! Hope you feel better soon.

Fluffster - sending you a hug. Dogs belonging to family members who have lost their personal battle with cancer is a subject very close to home at the moment.


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## JenKyzer

Quick post.. 
Hope you have a speedy recovery Lauren, sounds painful  
Fluff, sorry your feeling down  hope you feel better soon . 

Parcel didn't arrive :/ it's damaged at the depo . By Saturday now .
We made it to the tower & tested out my new fitness tracker  4.6miles and lots of calories burnt . Took pics which I'll try upload soon


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## lupie

Lauren - Yikes, that sounds really really painful. Hope you have a speedy recovery! Too many injuries on WAYWO at the moment - can everyone stop it please 
And thanks re puppies - not me breeding her, a lovely very experienced Lapphund breeder. I worry about mentioning it in case people think I'm some kind of BYB  All above board and in the right hands haha. But yes very excited for her and Ruska. Even if I am going to want to steal them all when I get to visit :w00t:

Fluffster - thinking of you, give Daisy a cuddle. These things are never nice.


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## JenKyzer

lupie said:


> Lauren - Yikes, that sounds really really painful. Hope you have a speedy recovery! Too many injuries on WAYWO at the moment - can everyone stop it please
> And thanks re puppies - not me breeding her, a lovely very experienced Lapphund breeder. I worry about mentioning it in case people think I'm some kind of BYB  All above board and in the right hands haha. But yes very excited for her and Ruska. Even if I am going to want to steal them all when I get to visit :w00t:
> 
> Fluffster - thinking of you, give Daisy a cuddle. These things are never nice.


Rude of me to not answer you  
Thanks for answering  omg 7weeks without her, eek! Hope all goes well for her and pups .. can't wait for pics


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## Sashathon Expert

Thanks for the likes guys 

JenSteWillow- I know what you mean with trying to get them to stay still, Sasha will stay in the house on command and if I go into another room (most of the time) but I have to keep repeating the stay command otherwise she just 'forgets' 

I'm working on trying to stop her nibbling so much at the moment now, she gets so excited everytime she meets new people, so ends up trying to nibble people's hands when we go for walks, guess I just have to get her to interact with as many people as possible and hopefully she will stop getting so excited!

Trying to take loads of videos cause I know i'll wanna remember what she was like as a puppy when she's older, so made another video 

Puppy dancing / rollover / give paw - YouTube


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## Dogless

Sashathon Expert said:


> Thanks for the likes guys
> 
> JenSteWillow- I know what you mean with trying to get them to stay still, Sasha will stay in the house on command and if I go into another room (most of the time) but I have to keep repeating the stay command otherwise she just 'forgets'
> 
> I'm working on trying to stop her nibbling so much at the moment now, she gets so excited everytime she meets new people, so ends up trying to nibble people's hands when we go for walks, guess I just have to get her to interact with as many people as possible and hopefully she will stop getting so excited!
> 
> Trying to take loads of videos cause I know i'll wanna remember what she was like as a puppy when she's older, so made another video
> 
> Puppy dancing / rollover / give paw - YouTube


Just a quick one; I wouldn't do the "dancing" whilst Sasha's a pup - she is adorable though .


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## Sashathon Expert

I thought that was just with larger breeds you shouldn't do things like that? My bad :nono:


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## Dogless

Sashathon Expert said:


> I thought that was just with larger breeds you shouldn't do things like that? My bad :nono:


I thought all pups but then maybe I'm wrong....Twiggy will know .


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## Lauren5159

Thanks for all your well wishes guys  

I am trying my best to take it easy but it's rather difficult with these boys going about  One of the girls at the yard is looking after Copper for me this week so I don't have to worry, which is nice  

Lupie, that's fab! I don't think I'd trust myself to raise a litter and go through the birth/whelping process either... But 7 weeks without Ruska  I can only imagine how much you'll miss her. I can send you Skip for 7 weeks if you want? :lol:

fluffs, big hugs to you xxx it's so difficult when an older family dog starts to go down hill  Fingers crossed she makes a full recovery x


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## Sarahliz100

Hurrah another successful walk. Sticking with interchanging free running and recalls with bits of loose lead walking and off lead heelwork and it's coming along nicely. We were pounced on by a group of 3 dogs who were very over the top and a bit growly. Their owner was shouting "they're friendly" whilst Tryf was cowering and yelping. He obviously couldn't control them. Very annoying, especially as the owner must have seen me call Tryf and put him on lead. I never know what to do for the best - part of me wants to let him off so he can get out of the way but I suspect if he ran they would chase and getting him back on lead would be a nightmare. Still he seemed none the worse for wear and got stuck into some nice loose lead walking again . We were also foiled by some well meaning walkers who got him a bit over excited (he loves people and isn't at all fearful, but we are still trying to work on calm greetings and he is very far from calm at the moment!). 

Twiggy - thanks for the tip, I'll bear that in mind. 

Dogless - I still feel calm is a way off, but we're definitely moving in the right direction 

Nicki - I'm trying to shape a retrieve too. He'll go and get a dummy without a problem but I've fallen flat on getting him to hold it - he just spits it out at my feet and looks proud of himself! Have you seen the clicker retrieve on the totally gundogs site? That's what I'm trying to follow - with limited success!


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## Nicki85

Strange thing is I've got a retrieve for most objects (shaped as we have had previous issues of him not wanting to bring me anything... I got him at 6 months from a rescue and can only assume he was told off for bringing something he shouldn't?!) anyhow, the dummy was treated as a balance object and no reasoning with him was going to make him pick it up! To be honest, that's fine if he wants to do that with it... 

Sounds like a good walk apart from the three offlead and out of control!!


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Hurrah another successful walk. Sticking with interchanging free running and recalls with bits of loose lead walking and off lead heelwork and it's coming along nicely. We were pounced on by a group of 3 dogs who were very over the top and a bit growly. Their owner was shouting "they're friendly" whilst Tryf was cowering and yelping. He obviously couldn't control them. Very annoying, especially as the owner must have seen me call Tryf and put him on lead. I never know what to do for the best - part of me wants to let him off so he can get out of the way but I suspect if he ran they would chase and getting him back on lead would be a nightmare. Still he seemed none the worse for wear and got stuck into some nice loose lead walking again . We were also foiled by some well meaning walkers who got him a bit over excited (he loves people and isn't at all fearful, but we are still trying to work on calm greetings and he is very far from calm at the moment!).
> 
> Twiggy - thanks for the tip, I'll bear that in mind.
> 
> Dogless - I still feel calm is a way off, but we're definitely moving in the right direction
> 
> *Nicki - I'm trying to shape a retrieve too. He'll go and get a dummy without a problem but I've fallen flat on getting him to hold it - he just spits it out at my feet and looks proud of himself! Have you seen the clicker retrieve on the totally gundogs site? That's what I'm trying to follow - with limited success!*




If he spits it out at your feet and looks proud it's because you haven't taught him to hold it....!!

If you trawl right back through the pages on this topic I explained to Werehorse how to teach retrieve with her spaniel cross about a year ago and she videoed the progress.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> If he spits it out at your feet and looks proud it's because you haven't taught him to hold it....!!
> 
> If you trawl right back through the pages on this topic I explained to Werehorse how to teach retrieve with her spaniel cross about a year ago and she videoed the progress.


Great I'll have a look back. I've been trying to teach him to hold it by trying to "click" only the slightly longer holds, in the hope of phasing out the shorter ones. No result yet, but To be fair I've only done a couple of sessions. I'll try and find your video though. Thanks.


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## tiatortilla

Tia can be a snatcher with treats too, she is much better now though. She usually catches my fingers if she's stressed, I don't tend to worry about that too much but I'm stricter about it when she's happy! I like Dogless' idea, I use that for impulse control but hadn't realised it could apply to taking food gently too.
Tia makes me laugh because when you catch her taking something that isn't hers, she takes it ever so gently just between her front teeth so I know she can do it!

We've had a bit of a lazy day 
We found another pet shop the other day, it's loads better than the one in town and it's on the industrial estate which means Tia can come and she loves going to shops. She's an odd girl  So we went there again earlier today, bought lots of cheap tripe and some duck necks, Tia got a fuss from the lady and got to sniff everything 

And that's pretty much it haha. We'll go for another walk in a while but she's currently sleeping/washing and getting on with other important business so I'm making the most of not being out in the cold 

We're also working on being alone. I've been appalling at leaving Tia on her own, and she's rarely spent more than an hour or two alone and definitely not regularly enough. She quite often gets left for like 10-30mins while I go to the shop and OH's at work or whatever, but I don't think it's really long enough to make a difference.
Despite this, she's actually pretty happy being left, I do wonder if it kind of works the opposite way and if you don't leave them hardly at all they just assume you'll come back because you're always there? Not that I'd recommend testing that lol! But I still think she should spend a little more time alone, because I'm not planning on never working again and I want to make sure she's definitely fine about it while she's still young.
So lately she's been staying in the front room while OH and I make dinner, and I pop through and give her something tasty every now and then. She's usually asleep on the sofa, her bed or the floor and wakes up to eat but remains lying there when I leave so I really don't think she cares much!


----------



## donnas1977

Recall with rogue, she can be quite stubborn and sometimes doesn't listen. We are now off to dog training with her on Monday so hopefully this will be resolved in the next few weeks


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## Dogless

*TT* - a new pet shop.....so many money - sapping possibilities :yikes: :laugh:.

*Nicki* - nice to see you again and hear that all's well in your canine world in general .

Today I took the brave step of harnessing Roo up alongside Kilo for a trail run of 13 - 15 miles or so and wondered whether he'd want to do his 100mph zooms like he does running offlead with us, try to play or otherwise have a drama or get frustrated. No such thing, he was perfect. I am so, so chuffed with him and with Kilo - they were very good boys . I hereby award them a platinum star each :laugh:. I apologise for being so boasty and smug. I shall eat a slice of humble pie for dessert .

ETA: Got home just in time to do a webinar on understanding fear based behaviour in dogs. It was really good!


----------



## tiatortilla

Dogless said:


> *TT* - a new pet shop.....so many money - sapping possibilities :yikes: :laugh:.
> 
> *Nicki* - nice to see you again and hear that all's well in your canine world in general .
> 
> Today I took the brave step of harnessing Roo up alongside Kilo for a trail run of 13 - 15 miles or so and wondered whether he'd want to do his 100mph zooms like he does running offlead with us, try to play or otherwise have a drama or get frustrated. No such thing, he was perfect. I am so, so chuffed with him and with Kilo - they were very good boys . I hereby award them a platinum star each :laugh:. I apologise for being so boasty and smug. I shall eat a slice of humble pie for dessert .


I know! She already got a stag bar last time but I did get lots of food for a pleasantly small amount of money today so hopefully I won't end up spending too much in there! They do have great toys though... :aureola:

No need to apologise for your bragging, you and the boys have earned it  Well done to them both!

ETA: We went for our second walk, she didn't bark at some JRTs or the GR from down the road though we did have to jog past him! All good anyway, some nice LLW too 
Got a friend visiting in a bit, one of Tia's favourites so we can do some not jumping on people then too


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> *TT* - a new pet shop.....so many money - sapping possibilities :yikes: :laugh:.
> 
> *Nicki* - nice to see you again and hear that all's well in your canine world in general .
> 
> Today I took the brave step of harnessing Roo up alongside Kilo for a trail run of 13 - 15 miles or so and wondered whether he'd want to do his 100mph zooms like he does running offlead with us, try to play or otherwise have a drama or get frustrated. No such thing, he was perfect. I am so, so chuffed with him and with Kilo - they were very good boys . I hereby award them a platinum star each :laugh:. I apologise for being so boasty and smug. I shall eat a slice of humble pie for dessert .
> 
> ETA: Got home just in time to do a webinar on understanding fear based behaviour in dogs. It was really good!


Smugness is definitely allowed. Both for your trail running and the dogs amazing behaviour! I aspire to be able to do something similar once I'm no longer being poisoned by the oncologist and Tryf is a big (and better behaved) dog . In the meantime I'm all about the walking and training non-lunatic type behaviour!


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> *TT* - a new pet shop.....so many money - sapping possibilities :yikes: :laugh:.
> 
> *Nicki* - nice to see you again and hear that all's well in your canine world in general .
> 
> Today I took the brave step of harnessing Roo up alongside Kilo for a trail run of 13 - 15 miles or so and wondered whether he'd want to do his 100mph zooms like he does running offlead with us, try to play or otherwise have a drama or get frustrated. No such thing, he was perfect. I am so, so chuffed with him and with Kilo - they were very good boys . I hereby award them a platinum star each :laugh:. I apologise for being so boasty and smug. I shall eat a slice of humble pie for dessert .
> 
> ETA: Got home just in time to do a webinar on understanding fear based behaviour in dogs. It was really good!


13-15 miles  :yikes: I can but dream... won't be running now until Ruska goes off to have the pups, leaving me just over a month to get back into shape for my 10k race in april. Oops.

Boast away - Sounds like they were amazing and what a relief for you. 
The webinar sounds very interesting!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> If he spits it out at your feet and looks proud it's because you haven't taught him to hold it....!!
> 
> If you trawl right back through the pages on this topic I explained to Werehorse how to teach retrieve with her spaniel cross about a year ago and she videoed the progress.


Found it! Page 443 if anyone else is interested. Very different from the method I've been using but I'm seeing more progress. Hurrah. He'll now hold the dummy fir a few seconds until I take it, and if he drops it when he doesn't get a treat he'll figure it out and pick it back up and shove it at me. So I guess I now make him hold it gradually a little longer?


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## Sarahliz100

Oooooh. Now he'll pick it up and sit with it in his mouth waiting for me to take it. Well chuffed. You're a genius, thanks!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Found it! Page 443 if anyone else is interested. Very different from the method I've been using but I'm seeing more progress. Hurrah. He'll now hold the dummy fir a few seconds until I take it, and if he drops it when he doesn't get a treat he'll figure it out and pick it back up and shove it at me. So I guess I now make him hold it gradually a little longer?


Well done....!! It's all about allowing the dogs to use their brains and work out what's in it for them ie the treat/ball.

I've been an instructor for well over 30 years now and I've never had a dog and handler here that haven't learnt how to perform a reasonable retrieve...


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## Nicki85

Excellent afternoon training today  Took the jumps and the dogs down to a local playing field and set up a few simple exercises. I was worried with Rust that his nose would get carried away and he'd run off after that elusive pheasant&#8230; but he was focused and played tug and was enthusiastic with the exercises I was probably a tad over the top with keeping him entertained but we can go back and again and hopefully i'll be more relaxed.

Shae was great. We had one offlead Basset Hound come over and she had been watching it round the field. Lots of little woofs and grrrs as it approached as she sees playing with me very important and doesn't like to be interrupted. The chap tried to recall but the Bassett was having none of it... I prepared for a meet and greet so put Shae behind me, hackles still up&#8230; then she relaxed so I stepped back and a game of chase began lol. 
She recalled straight away when asked and concentrated again even when the Bassett returned for a bit more play.

DL- glad you had a good time running and running and running some more in the forest!! I can just about manage Rust for 4miles lol. Will def. have Shae loose when the weather dries up&#8230; (yup, I am a seasonal runner!)
Sarah- sounds like the retrieve is coming on nicely now.
TT- Rusty loves shops as well, but not small, cramped shops cause then things can fall and that's scary  I know what you mean about alone time as well&#8230; mine get left rarely but when I do go out they are fine, no worry or anything.


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## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Excellent afternoon training today  *Took the jumps and the dogs down to a local playing field and set up a few simple *exercises. I was worried with Rust that his nose would get carried away and he'd run off after that elusive pheasant but he was focused and played tug and was enthusiastic with the exercises I was probably a tad over the top with keeping him entertained but we can go back and again and hopefully i'll be more relaxed.
> 
> Lucky you..!! It's far too wet here. I went to my agility class on Monday and it was thick squelching mud. My coat was covered, Holly was covered and the grey Vetbed in the car is now brown. I just couldn't run in it even with hiking all terrain trainers on. I don't intend to go again until everywhere dries up a bit.


----------



## Nicki85

it's not a very well used playing field and is managed very well so wasn't bad at all! The ground looked a bit bad once we'd finished but it's a big field so we can just move around it&#8230; training outside with the club has finished for now though until the weather improves  Luckily the other two clubs train inside!


----------



## Dogless

*Sarahliz* - you deserve a prize for trawling back for the video...no one can say you're not dedicated :scared: :thumbup:.


----------



## Twiggy

Lucky me...!! I'm instructing from 10.00am until about 4.30pm non-stop. Bit of a culture shock after virtually 2 months off.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Lucky me...!! I'm instructing from 10.00am until about 4.30pm non-stop. Bit of a culture shock after virtually 2 months off.


Good Luck - hope all your students behave (and their dogs too ).


----------



## lupie

Yikes Twiggy! Good luck!


I'm in two minds here. Got a package coming which I want to wait for, and is due for delivery between 7:00 and 13:00. But the good weather is this morning...and I've planned a nice 7 mile route... :cryin:

Might blow the package, hope my neighbours are in to sign for it and go walking  Second time I've tried to have it delivered though :mad2:


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Yikes Twiggy! Good luck!
> 
> I'm in two minds here. Got a package coming which I want to wait for, and is due for delivery between 7:00 and 13:00. But the good weather is this morning...and I've planned a nice 7 mile route... :cryin:
> 
> Might blow the package, hope my neighbours are in to sign for it and go walking  Second time I've tried to have it delivered though :mad2:


I hate waiting in for packages .


----------



## lupie

Argh and I just let her into the garden before we got ready to go and there was a pheasant I didn't see! It ran into a corner daft thing and she caught it  
Feel awful. Really hope this doesn't make her prey drive even worse....


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> *Sarahliz* - you deserve a prize for trawling back for the video...no one can say you're not dedicated :scared: :thumbup:.


I actuality happened on it really quickly - it was about the 4th page I looked at!


----------



## Dogless

Just nipped on for two minutes before collecting hubby from work for a few hours at home - marvellous .

Separate walks in the foul, foul weather. It was soul destroying dropping Kilo off in the warm house and heading back out with Roo :frown: . Saw the DA JRT with Kilo who started his posturing and barking (the JRT, not Kilo!!) and we did a u-turn and walked away nicely with just a growl :thumbup:.


----------



## Fluffster

We did some LLW clicker training on the way to the off lead bit today. Took us a while to get there as every time she pulled, I stopped and waited until she came back to me before clicking,treating and carrying on. On the way back she was great though, trotting beside me on flat collar and lead  Her new favourite toy is her kong frisbee so we played with that, and then when we got home I made her a toy out of knotted together socks, which she has fallen asleep with :001_wub:

It seems the issue we are struggling with is getting attention and keeping it when she's excited to be out. A few times she didn't respond to the click, although in the house she pays rapt attention. I was using the highest value treats we have, liver paste and the natures menu meat treats which are really soft and squishy. Just need to persevere I think and keep at it in the house.


----------



## lupie

We'll Ruska was definitely on high alert on our walk after Pheasantgate. Think I'm going to have to do extra work on impulse control to try and get back to where we were. Kicking myself I didn't see the damn bird but it was hiding in the flower bed. Don't know if it lived or not. 

On the plus side despite her being on the lookout for anything to chase I actually managed to keep her with me for the whole walk. (With the help of an entire bag of treats :lol: ) I popped the lead on if she got overexcited. So that's a result!


----------



## Nicki85

Well we had a morning trekking around a different part of Hampshire and another section of the Wayfarers walk. I always find it strange that we never ever see anyone on these walks&#8230; we were out for a good three hours and saw one couple with a dog. (that I handled very badly) But both were well behaved, Rust got very excited by cars travelling at speed on a road below us at one point. He was on lead so not an issue but interesting to see his reaction. I can only assume that the sun glinting off the windscreens made them look exciting :/
Shae wasn't interested in anything apart from her ball!

Then got home and the nephew wanted to take Rust down to the stream so off we went again&#8230; left Shae at home so Rust got lots of fetch games and helped dig sticks from the stream!

Off out in a bit for the annual agility club bash so that should be fun!

DL- grr at rubbish weather, I really can't wait for the summer to start&#8230;
Lupie- sorry to hear about the pheasant  I can't let Rust off round pheasants as he is completely obsessed with them. Glad you had a good walk in the end, did you get the package?!
Fluffster- sounds like a good day, Rust is the same outside&#8230; Shae is as attentive outside as inside thankfully&#8230; but Rust and that Spanner brain is more of a challenge. I can get him to accept treats outside now if it isn't too exciting but it's a work in progress.
Twiggy- how did it go?


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Well we had a morning trekking around a different part of Hampshire and another section of the Wayfarers walk. I always find it strange that we never ever see anyone on these walks we were out for a good three hours and saw one couple with a dog. (that I handled very badly) But both were well behaved, Rust got very excited by cars travelling at speed on a road below us at one point. He was on lead so not an issue but interesting to see his reaction. I can only assume that the sun glinting off the windscreens made them look exciting :/
> Shae wasn't interested in anything apart from her ball!
> 
> Then got home and the nephew wanted to take Rust down to the stream so off we went again left Shae at home so Rust got lots of fetch games and helped dig sticks from the stream!
> 
> Off out in a bit for the annual agility club bash so that should be fun!
> 
> DL- grr at rubbish weather, I really can't wait for the summer to start
> Lupie- sorry to hear about the pheasant  I can't let Rust off round pheasants as he is completely obsessed with them. Glad you had a good walk in the end, did you get the package?!
> Fluffster- sounds like a good day, Rust is the same outside Shae is as attentive outside as inside thankfully but Rust and that Spanner brain is more of a challenge. I can get him to accept treats outside now if it isn't too exciting but it's a work in progress.
> *Twiggy- how did it go?*




I actually enjoyed it (I don't always)...!! There are some super dogs on my monthly group now. Missed my favourite Spaniel because she's sadly ruptured her cruciate, poor little dog. We did every exercise thoroughly apart from sendaway because it was just too boggy outside and I'm not keen doing it indoors.

Quite a nice day until about 3.00pm when it got very dark and windy and then the heavens opened - lashing rain, then thunder and lightning and big hailstones. Lovely...!!

My poor dogs didn't get their second walk because the weather was so foul, so they've had a very boring day. I feel shattered now but will play throwing toys round the sofa in the lounge later with them to compensate.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Fluffster said:


> We did some LLW clicker training on the way to the off lead bit today. Took us a while to get there as every time she pulled, I stopped and waited until she came back to me before clicking,treating and carrying on. On the way back she was great though, trotting beside me on flat collar and lead  Her new favourite toy is her kong frisbee so we played with that, and then when we got home I made her a toy out of knotted together socks, which she has fallen asleep with :001_wub:
> 
> It seems the issue we are struggling with is getting attention and keeping it when she's excited to be out. A few times she didn't respond to the click, although in the house she pays rapt attention. I was using the highest value treats we have, liver paste and the natures menu meat treats which are really soft and squishy. Just need to persevere I think and keep at it in the house.


We have the exact same thing with LLW - perfect inside, massively distracted outside. Maybe it's a spaniel puppy thing ! I got fed up with not getting anywhere and have been somewhat obsessed with it the last couple of weeks and we are finally making progress. I've been doing what you describe and with the stopping when he pulls. I've also found doing short bits of LLW when he would usually be off lead (ie call him back and walk on lead for a couple of mins) has helped - he seems to find it a fun mid walk game (or excuse for lots of treats - he's very greedy). We've also been doing lots of heel work and that seems to be helping. Taking him out when hungry rather than after feeding seems to help motivation too...... He's still far from perfect though - pulled me over on a slippy patch yesterday.


----------



## Bagrat

Sarahliz not liking the slipping over but the commitment! 
Twiggy glad you enjoyed it apart from the weather.
Fluffster- it's worth it when you see improvement isn't it? Till the next blip! !
Lupie - Had similar with Jacko yesterday. He was showing by body language that something was on the field behind our house.We owed thro hedge. Nothing. Turned into field with one very alert dog and neighbours JRTwas just outside his garden in the hedge.Did manage an emergency u turn with only three barks.


----------



## Dogless

*Twiggy*- very pleased that you enjoyed yesterday!!

*Sarahliz* - it's lethally muddy out there; sorry you fell over .

*Nicki* - Kilo will take off after a car in the distance if I am not careful when the sun glints of the windscreen.

*lupie* - you couldn't have helped the pheasant episode, don't kick yourself too hard .

Long walk with Kilo this morning and loads of "ready steady" with his precious pheasant toy. He was very good. The fields are more lakes but he was fine once he realised he was going to get wet regardless . ETA we saw a dog, turned and walked away on a lovely loose lead and when we turned back again and the dog was walking away at right angles to us Kilo was interested but kept a loose lead still. Good boy!!

A longer, much faster, run than I had planned with Rudi - he was full of it and his enthusiasm was infectious . Some onlead on the pavements and some offlead around fields.


----------



## Bagrat

So pleased you had two good walks Dogless.
OH had rubbish walk as he and J were suddenly presented with small black dog on lead rounding a corner without warning. J had a full blown "ape sh*t do" as OH described it. I have to look on the bright side, he did not escape parental control, just his own AND it hasn't happened for simply ages AND we did encounter yappy dogs yesterday at a distance which he nearly coped with. I do think keeping fairly calm on one occasion is a great strain and maybe?? also ups his chorizo sorry cortisol as well as the actual experience. I will never know.
I find editing very fiddly on this tablet!!


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## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> So pleased you had two good walks Dogless.
> OH had rubbish walk as he and J were suddenly presented with small black dog on lead rounding a corner without warning. J had a full blown "ape sh*t do" as OH described it. I have to look on the bright side, he did not escape parental control, just his own AND it hasn't happened for simply ages AND we did encounter yappy dogs yesterday at a distance which he nearly coped with. I do think keeping fairly calm on one occasion is a great strain and maybe?? also ups his chorizo sorry cortisol as well as the actual experience. I will never know.
> I find editing very fiddly on this tablet!!


Mmmmmm chorizo . I agree that keeping calm does really wear them out as it must take considerable self control - Kilo tends to be more stressed after a walk that has tested him but when he has also managed to remain OK.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless - sounds like a good walk. What does ready steady involve?
Bagrat - setbacks are horrible aren't they

Weather is rubbish here. We trudged up the hill regardless but I let Tryf off the LLW routine as he was all shivery so we stuck to lots of running and recall practice which was all good. He had one episode of getting worked up when we tried to put his lead on with another dog on the scene, but then let me put it on ok a few times after. So all in all pretty good

Managed to set off another episode of resource guarding that I'm now kicking myself for. He knocked his wobbler (food toy) under a cabinet. He was sat next to it looking at me woefully like he wanted me to get it out. So I reached for it and he freaked out and went for me. No harm done (to me) but every episode like this reinforces his sense that he needs to guard stuff and that getting aggressive works. So I'm annoyed as I should have known better . 

I have had some success with some of his other issues though - grooming and being towelled off. He also gets very grumpy around leaving whatever position he is settled in in the lounge at bedtime. We use a houseline but he has started growling/lunging/snarling if he sees us reach for it so did some work on that with the clicker yesterday which went quite well. I'm hoping that if I keep it up bedtime might become less stressful!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *Twiggy*-* very pleased that you enjoyed yesterday!!*
> 
> *Sarahliz* - it's lethally muddy out there; sorry you fell over .
> 
> *Nicki* - Kilo will take off after a car in the distance if I am not careful when the sun glints of the windscreen.
> 
> *lupie* - you couldn't have helped the pheasant episode, don't kick yourself too hard .
> 
> Long walk with Kilo this morning and loads of "ready steady" with his precious pheasant toy. He was very good. The fields are more lakes but he was fine once he realised he was going to get wet regardless . ETA we saw a dog, turned and walked away on a lovely loose lead and when we turned back again and the dog was walking away at right angles to us Kilo was interested but kept a loose lead still. Good boy!!
> 
> A longer, much faster, run than I had planned with Rudi - he was full of it and his enthusiasm was infectious . Some onlead on the pavements and some offlead around fields.


I got absolutely soaked and very cold walking the dogs this morning - minus Leafy. It was much too wet and cold for her.

I've just had a fantastic training session though with the two Aussies. Really, really pleased that the handler has put some work in, both domestic and obedience training. Her youngster is showing a huge improvement and will probably be ready to enter shows by the middle of the summer.

It's been a busy week-end what with teaching all day yesterday. I've hoovered right through this morning and put the washing machine on, plus got a roast in the oven for dinner this evening. Husband has made me two cups of tea....!! Need I say more.......


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## Dogless

*Sarahliz* - sorry about the RG episode again; take comfort in your other small victories; at least things are moving in the right direction . "Ready Steady" is all our impulse control and chase games / training. It involves getting Kilo all worked up and squeaking and squealing and keen - when he is going to be released / or to do a command like sendaway to a pole I say "Reeeaaddddddy Steeadddddy" just to work him up and then "gedittttttt!!!" or "pole" in the case of touching a pole!! Nothing special really but he loves it and it helps with his desire to chase and general impulse control - gives him an acceptable outlet!


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## lupie

Dogless said:


> *Sarahliz* - sorry about the RG episode again; take comfort in your other small victories; at least things are moving in the right direction . "Ready Steady" is all our impulse control and chase games / training. It involves getting Kilo all worked up and squeaking and squealing and keen - when he is going to be released / or to do a command like sendaway to a pole I say "Reeeaaddddddy Steeadddddy" just to work him up and then "gedittttttt!!!" or "pole" in the case of touching a pole!! Nothing special really but he loves it and it helps with his desire to chase and general impulse control - gives him an acceptable outlet!


I was actually going to ask you to explain your ready steady again Dogless. I thought it would really help us after Pheasantgate. Thanks for pre-empting 

Just had 3 hours out in the wet and wind. I forgot my waterproof trousers so the middle part of me got drenched :skep:

Ruska kept glaring at me to say "you realise I gave up snowy NORWAY for this muddy wet pile of crap you call England?!" :lol:

Mixture of offlead and on. She saw a squirrel about 2/3 of the walk, luckily on-lead but it really set her off, and her LLW went to shot for a lot of the rest of the walk.  But I guess it can't be helped when she's on high alert. We saw a pheasant  But I saw it first and grabbed her to put her lead on 

I think the rain brought all the wildlife out 

Oh well, apart from the constant high alert, we had some excellent recalls. She has so far... fingers crossed....responded to the whistle EVERY SINGLE TIME since my ACME one arrived. :thumbup1: I need to start proofing it against bigger distractions now, difficult!


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## Twiggy

I meant to say when we were training yesterday one of the handlers has a young Sheltie bitch. She's not your normal 'won't play' Sheltie in fact she's a fiesty little thing.

Anyway on the last training day at the beginning of December Holly Bolly went through her repertoire of tricks (which is all she can do really - ) Yesterday the Sheltie handler tells me she's been teaching her bitch HTM moves so I insisted she show me....!!

She could do all the ones I've taught Holly, except she was much better at most of them, plus she's taught her to jump over her legs backwards and forwards.
I told her in true sporting fashion that if she teaches her any more she'll be banned.....


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## Sarah1983

We must have met very different Shelties Twiggy, the few I've known have be feisty little buggers 

We've been to the husky meet today. Well it's not really a husky met any more, I've heard rumours that most of them are meeting on a Saturday now because there were too many incidents and injuries at the Sunday one  Neither of us who are there every single week have any clue what they mean by that though. There's been a few handbags incidents but nothing major. But anyway, Spen, Demon and Willow seem to have been left out of this new meet up so it's just the 3 dogs now. They still have fun but we're a little p*ssed off that nobody has had the balls to say anything to us if it's one of our dogs that they see as the issue. And I'm getting more than a bit annoyed about the number of people who've been told to be careful of Spencer as he's dominant and aggressive! I've had 5 or 6 people say the same sort of thing in the last couple of months and I honestly can't understand it. No, he won't tolerate rude, obnoxious behaviour but he's perfectly appropriate if he does warn another dog and he's polite and friendly with 99% of dogs. If I find out who's been saying it I'll be having words.

But anyway, we went to the meet today. Cloth ears got to be off leash for the first time since it snowed. Sadly his nose goes into overdrive in the snow and his ears switch off, he's happy to recall if he notices me asking him to but it takes a hell of a lot of work to get him to notice me. The polo pitch is enclosed so it didn't really matter that he disappeared right over the other end of the field and forgot I existed  Then Demon and Willow arrived so he stuck around lol. He wrestled with Willow, played some fetch and begged for treats. At one point Willow jumped the fence to play with a dog who was passing and I grabbed Demon just as he was about to follow (he can be a bit iffy with strange dogs at first) then passed him to his owner and went to retrieve Willow. Spencer was NOT happy. He can't jump the 3ft fence but he stood there with his front paws on top of it doing this pathetic little hop, completely ignoring the liver cake being waved in front of him by Willow and Demons owner. He even ignored Willow when she jumped back over the fence and oh he was so, so pleased when I came back in through the gate lol. I honestly didn't think he'd bother, he could see me the entire time and was with someone he knows.

I got a pic of him that I really like today too.


Oh, and to fuel the fire with the nasty rumours, we left lots of blood soaked snow behind us today. Demon caught his dew claw and tore the tip of. It gushed blood as they do.


----------



## Dogless

*Sarah *- I think that's the nicest photo of Spen I have ever seen ; he looks so happy and fit and healthy (and still!!!). It's gorgeous . I'd be upset about people not having the balls to be honest too...but I am almost pleased that you left blood soaked snow behind :devil:. Not pleased for poor Demon, obviously .

Just had to pop out for something to town; it's gone really cold and the gritters are all out....skating not walking in the morning I guess .


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## Twiggy

I agree; it's a fabulous pic of the Spen dog.

*Sarah* Most of the Shelties I see are 'precious' wimpy little show dogs, even some that train here. I've done a Sheltie obedience training day in March for years but again most of them are show dogs.


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## Sarah1983

Thanks Dogless and Twiggy, it's so rare I manage to get a pic of him standing still and not looking all miserable coz he'd rather be off sniffing :lol: He was watching for Demon and Willow arriving there. 

We had a laugh about the blood soaked snow, it did look rather like a murder scene. It stopped bleeding pretty quickly though. We're just really annoyed that despite being asked everyones like "oh no, there's no problem" yet the rumours are persisting.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarah1983 said:


> Thanks Dogless and Twiggy, it's so rare I manage to get a pic of him standing still and not looking all miserable coz he'd rather be off sniffing :lol: He was watching for Demon and Willow arriving there.
> 
> We had a laugh about the blood soaked snow, it did look rather like a murder scene. It stopped bleeding pretty quickly though. We're just really annoyed that despite being asked everyones like "oh no, there's no problem" yet the rumours are persisting.


Sadly whenever you get groups meeting for any dog type activities there are always rumours, gossip and trouble it seems. It's such a shame there has to be back-biting.


----------



## GingerRogers

Sorry I have been absent again way too much on and going on. 

Bagrat I wholeheartedly agree with Dogless and you, the raised chorizo levels  and keeping calm are really really tiring.

Ninja slept almost solid for two days after last saturdays sesssion of what was essentially 2 hours of BAT work and, I think it was friday, we had a stressy walk, went across one field to cross the road and a person pulled up in their car so I hung back to let them get ahead, we walked up another field edge behind them for a bit but ninja started snatching treats and then refused them off the floor so I decided to turn back as she was clearly getting too stressed and there was only someone coming up the rear  we had no choice but to carry on and sure enough as i turned again, she gave 3/4 short barks and lunges towards the direction of the first dog. The worst bit was the front person was a slow walker and the behind person was a fast one but we managed to survive. I had a very huffy and pully dog but it was good to remember she used to be like that ALL the time so something is working 

Sarah dont blame you for being annoyed pretty gutless and from what you say about spen absolutely out of order.

Lovely picture of him he looks great 

Dogless glad you have had some good walks, but can you take your weather back now please 



Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> Quite a nice day until about 3.00pm when it got very dark and windy and then the heavens opened - lashing rain, then thunder and lightning and big hailstones. Lovely...!!


Tell me about it Twiggy I guess it headed our way after you  I was out with my friend and her two little dogs. I was literally wringing as I discovered my coat was not in the slightest bit waterproof any more and the lightning was right above us as we walked across the very exposed sea defence bank : even my knickers were full of water  glad ninja wasnt with us as she hates that sort of rain and hail and poor buffer did very well as he has a noise phobia

Ninja wasn't with me as I lost her temporarily yesterday , she took off after a hare again, in the same spot as a fortnight ago :frown2: cue half an hour of frantic hunting and calling, I caught sight of her once as she was running the hedge line to the main road :crying: when I called her she legged it in the opposite direction but at least away from the busy traffic. I was listening out for squealing brakes till I found her though 

She had made her way back to the car across a huge ploughed field but the funny bit (if there was one) was she had followed the footpath route which takes a weird angle, I guess an old hedgeline, instead of going straight, I could see her footprints on the way back !!

So I was quite glad of the horrific weather today as it gave me the excuse to relax and laze and we only had a short walk trying to work on 'communicative walks'  according to Clarrissa von Dontplayexcitingpreygames its important to help kerb your dogs chase instinct.


----------



## Twiggy

GingerRogers said:


> Sorry I have been absent again way too much on and going on.
> 
> Bagrat I wholeheartedly agree with Dogless and you, the raised chorizo levels  and keeping calm are really really tiring.
> 
> Ninja slept almost solid for two days after last saturdays sesssion of what was essentially 2 hours of BAT work and, I think it was friday, we had a stressy walk, went across one field to cross the road and a person pulled up in their car so I hung back to let them get ahead, we walked up another field edge behind them for a bit but ninja started snatching treats and then refused them off the floor so I decided to turn back as she was clearly getting too stressed and there was only someone coming up the rear  we had no choice but to carry on and sure enough as i turned again, she gave 3/4 short barks and lunges towards the direction of the first dog. The worst bit was the front person was a slow walker and the behind person was a fast one but we managed to survive. I had a very huffy and pully dog but it was good to remember she used to be like that ALL the time so something is working
> 
> Sarah dont blame you for being annoyed pretty gutless and from what you say about spen absolutely out of order.
> 
> Lovely picture of him he looks great
> 
> Dogless glad you have had some good walks, but can you take your weather back now please
> 
> Tell me about it Twiggy I guess it headed our way after you  I was out with my friend and her two little dogs. I was literally wringing as I discovered my coat was not in the slightest bit waterproof any more and the lightning was right above us as we walked across the very exposed sea defence bank : even my knickers were full of water  glad ninja wasnt with us as she hates that sort of rain and hail and poor buffer did very well as he has a noise phobia
> 
> Ninja wasn't with me as I lost her temporarily yesterday , she took off after a hare again, in the same spot as a fortnight ago :frown2: cue half an hour of frantic hunting and calling,* I caught sight of her once as she was running the hedge line to the main road :crying: when I called her she legged it in the opposite direction but at least away from the busy traffic. I was listening out for squealing brakes till I found her though *
> 
> She had made her way back to the car across a huge ploughed field but the funny bit (if there was one) was she had followed the footpath route which takes a weird angle, I guess an old hedgeline, instead of going straight, I could see her footprints on the way back !!
> 
> So I was quite glad of the horrific weather today as it gave me the excuse to relax and laze and we only had a short walk trying to work on 'communicative walks'  according to Clarrissa von Dontplayexcitingpreygames its important to help kerb your dogs chase instinct.


Oh GR I'm so sorry. That must have been a heart-stopping few moments.

I don't blame you for having a lazy relaxing day today. Too many days like yesterday and you'd be a nervous wreck.


----------



## lupie

Yikes GR, glad you got ninja back safe. Enough to give you a heart attack!


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## Sarahliz100

Eeek that sounds horrible ginger Rogers. How stressful.

Sarah it is indeed a beautiful photo. I don't really have any good ones. Crazy pup doesn't stay still.

Think today is a dog training day to be forgotten. After the earlier food toy related snarling episode he was very chilled so I thought I'd work on our swap command. Probably should have left it for the day. Worked with stuff we've done before and was initially completely fine, but then he freaked out. Worst bit of aggression he's directed towards me, first time he's broken my skin in anger. OH was close by when he went for me so perhaps with two people there he felt threatened. Either way I'm kicking myself for pushing too hard. Grrr:frown2:. Deep breath, start again tomorrow, take it slow.

He did entertain me this evening by being very interested in the herd of cows on TV on country file. When one walked off the side of the picture he went round the back of the TV to look for it .


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## zedder

Currently trying not to fart as new doggy has his head on my lap and desperately trying to make a good impression lol.


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## GingerRogers

Thank you all. It was a 'bit' of a panic moment. But tried very hard not to break down as i could hear my voice cracking 

Hope he didn't do too much damage sarahliz. Its not nice when your own lovely pooch turns. Its a different type of drawing blood than twiggys after I believe.

My little princess is pretending butter doesn't melt at the moment


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## Sarahliz100

GingerRogers said:


> Thank you all. It was a 'bit' of a panic moment. But tried very hard not to break down as i could hear my voice cracking
> 
> Hope he didn't do too much damage sarahliz. Its not nice when your own lovely pooch turns. Its a different type of drawing blood than twiggys after I believe.
> 
> My little princess is pretending butter doesn't melt at the moment


No it was through my jeans, so little damage done, shallow cut is all. Mostly just a shock. If I'd had bare legs it would have been painful.......


----------



## sheepboxer

Recall! We recently took on our boxer/collie cross 'Bruce' let him off lead and he goes instantly deaf and rapidly becomes a distant dot on the horizon, my better half has been attempting to train him on a long line lead and things have being ok until this morning when whilst working with him her husband threw a ball for our other dog and Bruce bolted and propelled her head first and I mean head first into a big,freezing cold,muddy puddle! needless to say quiet walk home.


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## Twiggy

sheepboxer said:


> Recall! We recently took on our boxer/collie cross 'Bruce' let him off lead and he goes instantly deaf and rapidly becomes a distant dot on the horizon, my better half has been attempting to train him on a long line lead and things have being ok until this morning when whilst working with him her husband threw a ball for our other dog and Bruce bolted and propelled her head first and I mean head first into a big,freezing cold,muddy puddle! needless to say quiet walk home.


Oh dear. I shouldn't laugh but it does create a comic vision. I take it your the husband who had to endure silence you could cut with a knife all the way home?


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## Bagrat

GR sorry you had to cope with the disappearing Ninja bet your chorizo levels were a bit raised today. Glad there was a happy ending though.
SarahLiz - the temptation is always there isn't it, to try a bit too much and regret it at leisure. Hope you are not too sore.
Sarah1983 - what an ace pic.

Quiet walk tonight after this morning's whirling dervish act. J is a bit too attentive of people who belong to the Ministry of Silly Walks. That can be anyone who looks different from his picture of normal. We have a group of people with learning difficulties living next door but one, and they all have little idiosyncrasies in gait. J gives them a hard stare as they pass us and stands to watch. If he gets too fixated I click and treat when he looks at me otherwise I like him to look and gather information and turn away when he's ready for which he's clicked and treated.


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## Bagrat

sheepboxer said:


> Recall! We recently took on our boxer/collie cross 'Bruce' let him off lead and he goes instantly deaf and rapidly becomes a distant dot on the horizon, my better half has been attempting to train him on a long line lead and things have being ok until this morning when whilst working with him her husband threw a ball for our other dog and Bruce bolted and propelled her head first and I mean head first into a big,freezing cold,muddy puddle! needless to say quiet walk home.


That isn't the video going round on facebook at the moment is it??


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## GingerRogers

Oh dear bagrat i feel the funny walk thing. We have lots of funny walkers round here. I think its why she barks at older people as they move differently. She was only used to her young owner and his brother and friends.


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## lupie

GingerRogers said:


> So I was quite glad of the horrific weather today as it gave me the excuse to relax and laze and we only had a short walk trying to work on 'communicative walks'  according to Clarrissa von Dontplayexcitingpreygames its important to help kerb your dogs chase instinct.


Oh dear this makes me nervous as I'm finally starting to read this tomorrow


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## sheepboxer

Twiggy- yes i am the guilty one I could of got away with it as my wife didn't see me throw the ball so couldn't understand why he bolted but i confessed, luckily for me she has a sense of humour and laughed about it .....eventually.

Bagrat- No unfortunately I didn't catch it on video, if i had I'd be £200 better off courtesy of you've been framed, both her feet left the ground and she literally bellyflopped the puddle I'm sure it would of made it on! Oh well maybe next time.


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## Dogless

*GR* - I can just imagine your heart stopping moment; awful. Hope you've recovered enough today to brave walking Ninja!!

*Bagrat* - Sir K (surprise, surprise!!) is disturbed by those from the ministry of silly walks too and also people running towards him that aren't runners in running kit. Runners running towards him he doesn't flicker, non runners running towards him he has a deep suspicion of.


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## Nicki85

Not a particularly good morning here! Started with a young lab following us for part of the walk. Shae was engaging in some fairly vocal/ over the top play but the lab kept coming back for more. Took a while for the owner to notice as she was chatting at the gate but eventually began recalling it (we were down a forest path so she couldn't see us), so we stopped for a while whilst the lab decided to go back or stay... 

Then, the lab and it's two companions caught up with us. All fine, Rusty doing a grand job ignoring everyone and Shae looking a little concerned with all three of them but coping OK. Then they managed to get Shae into a corner and started barking at her  Couple of half-hearted "leave her a lone" from the other owners but I ended up hollering at their three dogs to get away... which they did. Did get a kind-of apology... 

We then went back via the local forest that is Rust's "offlead forest", it backs on to the garden and is relatively safe. It was all going fine, let the both off and they were being good and Rust staying close. We were coming up the final path towards home, Shae with me and Rust in the gorse bush next to the path. Then Shae darts off up ahead, assuming Rust had just re-appeared I didn't recall her. Anyhow, next thing I know both of them have disappeared.... I can then hear Shae very nearby alert barking... Walk to the end of the path were the forest ends and a gravel track begins- Shae comes haring up the gravel track towards me so put her on lead. Then a couple of mins (prob only 60secs!) Rust also reappears further down the track racing back towards us....

I've just been back into the forest with Rust to re-walk that area to see where/what he got up to and I think he slipped under a gate probably after a rabbit... then ran up to the path that runs inbetween the forest and the road and tracked me back from there. Needless to say he was perfectly behaved and response offlead for the 20mins we were out looking at fencing!! 

So, lesson learnt... careful eye on Rust in that area of the forest!! Scary stuff even though there weren't any roads involved, just gravel tracks leading to a few houses and they were out of sight for less than 5mins...

GR- must be something in the air I reckon... scary stuff  I hope the next walk in the area is better... strange the way they decide to retrace steps rather than take a direct route...
Bagrat- maybe you need to adopt a strange walk to help her become accustomed to people with different gaits?!


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## Twiggy

Oh dear Nicki. I hope it's not catching.....


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## Nicki85

Spring is in the air round here today, the sun is out... and so are the rabbits!! He often follows the fence line for that section instead of the path but I don't think he's ever gone under the gate before... certainly never followed the gravel track round to the forest entrance. Shae was just following along, if I had recalled earlier I could have avoided her following- she often races ahead and waits for him to reappear but she obviously got sight of him in the bushes going the wrong way. 

Oh and Shae's slightly lame which I think is down to standing on a prickly branch as she yelped... really wasn't a good morning... Might take Rust out (again) in a bit to try and get some calmness... they are both going out with Shae's brother later as well but not till 5pm.


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## Dogless

Oh dear Nicki on all counts .

We didn't do any work today. We went to the forest for the morning whilst rain, hail, sleet and snow were hurled at us . The boys had a ball running everywhere at a million miles an hour to keep warm and I was cocooned in all manner of layers so was warm enough too .


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## lupie

Oh dear Nicki 


Maybe they've all heard about Ruska's pheasant incident and want a piece of the action?! 


Dogless - I quite enjoy the awful weather if I'm adequately dressed for it. My peaked hood on my waterproof makes me feel like I'm looking out at the rain sometimes  (whilst Ruska looks on at me in absolute disgust)


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## Nicki85

Rusty redeemed himself on our afternoon walk. We did a lot of play work and some sending him after one article and recalling for the second... worked everytime and he was loving it ( I hadn't done this before with his toy recall command so surprised to see how ingrained that whistle is to him that it = a chase ). I had trouble getting rid of him though... But the few times he went off to hunt and I threw in the "toy" recall command he came whizzing back for it. Went past the spot he disappeared this morning off lead and couldn't fault him. I just need a balance of play and hunt!! Guess we'll keep at it and who knows, one day i'll trust him not to lead Shae on a merry chase!!


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## Bagrat

"Bagrat- maybe you need to adopt a strange walk to help her become accustomed to people with different gaits?!"
Nicki - sounds like your last outing got things back on track. What is it with people and their "friendly" dogs? 

As far as funny walks are concerned I can do lots!!

We have been doing "mat" for various distractions like OH walking in in outdoor clothes ( snatch and grab material), people walking past house. The reward for both is a treat then being allowed to go back to the distraction. This works as by the time he is released to go back whatever it was has gone or in the case of OH is no longer of interest.


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## zedder

Tidying the house back up lurchy boy smashed the place up ah well no harm done he's got really bad sa(understandably) tried the radio on low doesn't seem too have worked.


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## Sarahliz100

How is your new chappie otherwise zedder? Do you have to leave him for long during the day?

I've had a day of polar opposites - really good and really bad. The bad was pretty awful, a major episode of resource guarding. He brought his rawhide and sat under my chair but then got really stressed and growled when ever I moved. I managed to retreat to the corner of the room but once he finished the chew he was still freaking out if I moved (growling, snarling, snapping) I ended up sat on the counter out if reach until he calmed down. Ive never seen him so angry once the guarded object has gone. I think we'll have to just not give him anything tasty that can't be devoured within seconds. I've been on the phone to the behaviouralists and got some more advice.

BUT the good bits of the day were really good. Two good walks, with some LLW, heel work and recall. And he was AMAZING at obedience class. We did heelwork around a course of cones and control through a gate. He was completely perfect, the best in the class and everyone else was told to pay attention to our technique. We did the same exercise in our first week at the intermediate class a couple of months ago and he was a disaster so it was nice to see how far he's come.

I seem to remember a children's book that had a phrase something along the lines of "when they were good they were really good, when they were bad they were horrid". Sums up my day


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## Nicki85

Sarahliz100 said:


> How is your new chappie otherwise zedder? Do you have to leave him for long during the day?
> 
> I've had a day of polar opposites - really good and really bad. The bad was pretty awful, a major episode of resource guarding. He brought his rawhide and sat under my chair but then got really stressed and growled when ever I moved. I managed to retreat to the corner of the room but once he finished the chew he was still freaking out if I moved (growling, snarling, snapping) I ended up sat on the counter out if reach until he calmed down. Ive never seen him so angry once the guarded object has gone. I think we'll have to just not give him anything tasty that can't be devoured within seconds. I've been on the phone to the behaviouralists and got some more advice.
> 
> BUT the good bits of the day were really good. Two good walks, with some LLW, heel work and recall. And he was AMAZING at obedience class. We did heelwork around a course of cones and control through a gate. He was completely perfect, the best in the class and everyone else was told to pay attention to our technique. We did the same exercise in our first week at the intermediate class a couple of months ago and he was a disaster so it was nice to see how far he's come.
> 
> I seem to remember a children's book that had a phrase something along the lines of "when they were good they were really good, when they were bad they were horrid". Sums up my day


Liked for the good bits  I have no experience of resource guarding but I guess not presenting him with the opportunity to demonstrate the behaviour is a good place to start as you say. Quick eats only! Must be stressful of both of you .


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> How is your new chappie otherwise zedder? Do you have to leave him for long during the day?
> 
> I've had a day of polar opposites - really good and really bad. The bad was pretty awful, a major episode of resource guarding. He brought his rawhide and sat under my chair but then got really stressed and growled when ever I moved. I managed to retreat to the corner of the room but once he finished the chew he was still freaking out if I moved (growling, snarling, snapping) I ended up sat on the counter out if reach until he calmed down. Ive never seen him so angry once the guarded object has gone. I think we'll have to just not give him anything tasty that can't be devoured within seconds. *I've been on the phone to the behaviouralists and got some more advice.
> *
> BUT the good bits of the day were really good. Two good walks, with some LLW, heel work and recall. And he was AMAZING at obedience class. We did heelwork around a course of cones and control through a gate. He was completely perfect, the best in the class and everyone else was told to pay attention to our technique. We did the same exercise in our first week at the intermediate class a couple of months ago and he was a disaster so it was nice to see how far he's come.
> 
> I seem to remember a children's book that had a phrase something along the lines of "when they were good they were really good, when they were bad they were horrid". Sums up my day


May I ask what the behaviourist advised?


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## zedder

Sarahliz100 said:


> How is your new chappie otherwise zedder? Do you have to leave him for long during the day?


 He seems alright it is quite a while I have to leave about 2x4 hours due to work split in two with hour at home with dogs at dinner.but even If i walk out the room for a second he goes potty whining and yelping.really stressful and he's freaking my other dog out who's trying his best to stay away from him.


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## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> May I ask what the behaviourist advised?


Just tweaking what we are already doing. We've been doing work around the foodbowl for a while and that no longer seems to be an issue. We've also been working on a swap command where we swap an object for a treat then give it back. I've been doing it repeatedly whilst sat on the floor with him, quite clearly am exercise (and he very much knows the difference between an exercise and real life). She suggested I make it a bit more real life by walking up to him whilst he has something and swapping it if it's low value and walking off again, or if he's looking tense just dropping treats near him and walking off so he gets used to us coming up to him when he has something.

We're also supposed to practice making exciting things happen in other rooms at random times then praising him when he comes to investigate so he's less suspicious if we have to do it to distract him away from something.

I'm annoyed at myself as the events over the last few days were all related to me giving him things which obviously could have been easily avoided. We've been doing really well with him not getting hold of anything he shouldn't - he hasn't pinched anything in weeks so everything was nice and calm. He's banned now from anything nice like raw hides/kongs/food toys which is a shame really as They do keep him occupied for a good while. We can't give them to him when we are out or in another room as he saves them for when we are back and then greets us all happy and waggy with it in his mouth, but then remembers he needs to guard it and panics - leading to some nice doorway confrontations...

The above suggestions seem sensible but to be honest I'm not super optimistic that we will ever get him reliable around foody things. The fact the extent if the aggressive response has escalated is worrying. I'm always on super high alert if anyone else is around as people just don't understand the issues. He's so sweet, cute, affectionate and obedient the vast majority of the time that people just can't believe he has the potential to bite. If they drop a glove and he picks it up they don't understand why they can't just take it off him and clearly think I'm a lunatic for making a big song and dance about distracting him away. We were going to get a cleaner when I'm back at work, but I'm too worried about the potential for him stealing and guarding a duster or something. I'm not sure how confident I am with him going out with a dog walker either (although the trainers at the class do dog walking an fat least they are knowledgable and sensible). And if we were ever to have kids...........

And to think we got a puppy as I was worried a rescue dog would come with issues!!!


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## Sarahliz100

zedder said:


> He seems alright it is quite a while I have to leave about 2x4 hours due to work split in two with hour at home with dogs at dinner.but even If i walk out the room for a second he goes potty whining and yelping.really stressful and he's freaking my other dog out who's trying his best to stay away from him.


Oh dear. Are you back at work straight away? Did the rescue say he had separation anxiety? Perhaps it's just him needing a few days to settle in?


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## Dogless

*Sarahliz* - I am pleased you had some good in with the bad yesterday but the resource guarding escalating sounds like a real nightmare . Hope all your work starts to move you forwards again very soon.

*zedder* - could you get your new boy to a friend's, relatives, dog sitter or have a dog walker come in? I'd just worry that as your other dog's a pup that they might start to exhibit some of the same behaviour? And even if they don't (as you say they do their best to stay away) they must be pretty stressed by the experience. Just in the interim whilst you work on the issue I mean.


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## zedder

Yeah the Mrs is off today but going to sort something out ike is his usual independent self loves being in the garden keeping the two separate for now as I'm really worried he's going to stress ike out.


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Just tweaking what we are already doing. We've been doing work around the foodbowl for a while and that no longer seems to be an issue. We've also been working on a swap command where we swap an object for a treat then give it back. I've been doing it repeatedly whilst sat on the floor with him, quite clearly am exercise (and he very much knows the difference between an exercise and real life). She suggested I make it a bit more real life by walking up to him whilst he has something and swapping it if it's low value and walking off again, or if he's looking tense just dropping treats near him and walking off so he gets used to us coming up to him when he has something.
> 
> We're also supposed to practice making exciting things happen in other rooms at random times then praising him when he comes to investigate so he's less suspicious if we have to do it to distract him away from something.
> 
> I'm annoyed at myself as the events over the last few days were all related to me giving him things which obviously could have been easily avoided. We've been doing really well with him not getting hold of anything he shouldn't - he hasn't pinched anything in weeks so everything was nice and calm. He's banned now from anything nice like raw hides/kongs/food toys which is a shame really as They do keep him occupied for a good while. We can't give them to him when we are out or in another room as he saves them for when we are back and then greets us all happy and waggy with it in his mouth, but then remembers he needs to guard it and panics - leading to some nice doorway confrontations...
> 
> The above suggestions seem sensible but to be honest I'm not super optimistic that we will ever get him reliable around foody things. The fact the extent if the aggressive response has escalated is worrying. I'm always on super high alert if anyone else is around as people just don't understand the issues. He's so sweet, cute, affectionate and obedient the vast majority of the time that people just can't believe he has the potential to bite. If they drop a glove and he picks it up they don't understand why they can't just take it off him and clearly think I'm a lunatic for making a big song and dance about distracting him away. We were going to get a cleaner when I'm back at work, but I'm too worried about the potential for him stealing and guarding a duster or something. I'm not sure how confident I am with him going out with a dog walker either (although the trainers at the class do dog walking an fat least they are knowledgable and sensible). And if we were ever to have kids...........
> 
> And to think we got a puppy as I was worried a rescue dog would come with issues!!!


I'm really sorry you are having these issues. I think you will overcome them providing you are fair and consistent and of course continue with his training.

Personally if he were mine, I wouldn't give him chews, food toys, etc for the time being. Anything that he's likely to guard.

What about ordinary toys? Does he have free access to them?

How far have you got with him regarding training a retrieve, because if taught properly that will help?

I had horrendous issues with Tremor as a puppy/youngster guarding food/toys from my other bitches. It wasn't entirely her fault as her arrival wasn't good timing and as the litter had moreorless been bred for me I had to have her.
At the time Fidget was 15 yr olds and very frail, partially deaf and blind and therefore I had to keep them separated quite a lot of the time, leaving Tremor to her own devices with the other two bitches which wasn't good. Tremor was fed on her own in the hall and on one occasion she bit my husband when he walked past her whilst she was eating.

I lost Fidget when Tremor was about 9 months old and then I made a mammoth effect to sort her out. She was fed in the kitchen with the other two bitches under strict supervision. The toy box in the lounge was put away and I selected a toy for them each which I handed out. I was up and down off the sofa like a yo-yo for about 4-5 days until Tremor learnt the rules of playing nicely and not snatching toys from the others, collecting them into a little pile and guarding them.

At the same time she was trained intensively pretty much every day over in the barn or paddock. Training IMO makes a massive difference because it's all about mutual respect between dog and handler and working as a team.

By the time Tremor reached a year old she had won three novice classes and was totally over her guarding issues.

She is still a fiesty big bitch but a perfectly 'nice' well mannered girl.

Hope that cheers you up a bit...


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## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> I'm really sorry you are having these issues. I think you will overcome them providing you are fair and consistent and of course continue with his training.
> 
> Personally if he were mine, I wouldn't give him chews, food toys, etc for the time being. Anything that he's likely to guard.
> 
> What about ordinary toys? Does he have free access to them?
> 
> How far have you got with him regarding training a retrieve, because if taught properly that will help?
> 
> I had horrendous issues with Tremor as a puppy/youngster guarding food/toys from my other bitches. It wasn't entirely her fault as her arrival wasn't good timing and as the litter had moreorless been bred for me I had to have her.
> At the time Fidget was 15 yr olds and very frail, partially deaf and blind and therefore I had to keep them separated quite a lot of the time, leaving Tremor to her own devices with the other two bitches which wasn't good. Tremor was fed on her own in the hall and on one occasion she bit my husband when he walked past her whilst she was eating.
> 
> I lost Fidget when Tremor was about 9 months old and then I made a mammoth effect to sort her out. She was fed in the kitchen with the other two bitches under strict supervision. The toy box in the lounge was put away and I selected a toy for them each which I handed out. I was up and down off the sofa like a yo-yo for about 4-5 days until Tremor learnt the rules of playing nicely and not snatching toys from the others, collecting them into a little pile and guarding them.
> 
> At the same time she was trained intensively pretty much every day over in the barn or paddock. Training IMO makes a massive difference because it's all about mutual respect between dog and handler and working as a team.
> 
> By the time Tremor reached a year old she had won three novice classes and was totally over her guarding issues.
> 
> She is still a fiesty big bitch but a perfectly 'nice' well mannered girl.
> 
> Hope that cheers you up a bit...


Thanks Twiggy, your words of advice and experience have once again cheered me up no end 

Yes I've definitely decided not to give him anything food related other than his meals and training treats for the time being. I do generally leave a few chew type toys out for him - nylabone type things and an antler. He's never seemed to guard them and he will often go and get one to chew on whilst we are sat at the table or chilling out, which I feel is quite good behaviour so I'm inclined to leave them. The only toys he will get possessive over are fabric things which he will actually eat, so I try to pick those up after we've finished playing tug.

To be honest the retrieve ground to a halt as the dummy is in my boyfriends car and I keep forgetting to get it off him . Must remember tonight.

I've been working really hard on general training, and he's clearly enjoying that and it's paying off. The heelwork at class last night was amazing. He was completely focused on me and clearly enjoying himself, tail wagging constantly. He even kept his focus walking right past the instructor (who he adores and is usually pretty much strangling himself in an effort to go and greet). I'm likely to be off work for another 2 or 3 months (which will take him through to 9-10 months) so perhaps if he I keep it up he'll be more reliable and able to cope when I 'm back part time.

He's been fab on his walk today, walked beautifully (mostly) on his lead all the way to and from the park which is the longest stretch we've done in one go. Although on getting home I glanced in the mirror and realised my face was splattered in mud. It's made me wonder whether I've been wandering around with a mud splattered face without realising on other days....


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Thanks Twiggy, your words of advice and experience have once again cheered me up no end
> 
> Yes I've definitely decided not to give him anything food related other than his meals and training treats for the time being. I do generally leave a few chew type toys out for him - nylabone type things and an antler. He's never seemed to guard them and he will often go and get one to chew on whilst we are sat at the table or chilling out, which I feel is quite good behaviour so I'm inclined to leave them. *The only toys he will get possessive over are fabric things which he will actually eat, so I try to pick those up after we've finished playing tug.*
> 
> To be honest the retrieve ground to a halt as the dummy is in my boyfriends car and I keep forgetting to get it off him . Must remember tonight.
> 
> I've been working really hard on general training, and he's clearly enjoying that and it's paying off. The heelwork at class last night was amazing. He was completely focused on me and clearly enjoying himself, tail wagging constantly. He even kept his focus walking right past the instructor (who he adores and is usually pretty much strangling himself in an effort to go and greet). I'm likely to be off work for another 2 or 3 months (which will take him through to 9-10 months) so perhaps if he I keep it up he'll be more reliable and able to cope when I 'm back part time.
> 
> He's been fab on his walk today, walked beautifully (mostly) on his lead all the way to and from the park which is the longest stretch we've done in one go. Although on getting home I glanced in the mirror and realised my face was splattered in mud. It's made me wonder whether I've been wandering around with a mud splattered face without realising on other days....


That sounds very sensible. Mine have a box full of 'indoor' toys as there are no issues with any of them at the moment but if any form of RG reared it's ugly head, the box would be removed and I would allow them to have one each of *my* toys which I would take back when* I* decided.

I keep higher valued toys for training only - things like squeaky tennis balls, tuggies, etc. and I find it useful to have two identical of each. That also may help with your boy because you are swapping like for like.


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## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> That sounds very sensible. Mine have a box full of 'indoor' toys as there are no issues with any of them at the moment but if any form of RG reared it's ugly head, the box would be removed and I would allow them to have one each of *my* toys which I would take back when* I* decided.
> 
> I keep higher valued toys for training only - things like squeaky tennis balls, tuggies, etc. and I find it useful to have two identical of each. That also may help with your boy because you are swapping like for like.


How do you work the removal of toys? Do you do it when they aren't looking? I worry that if I take things away in front of him it will add to his sense that we are a threat and reinforce that he needs to guard.


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> How do you work the removal of toys? Do you do it when they aren't looking? I worry that if I take things away in front of him it will add to his sense that we are a threat and reinforce that he needs to guard.


No. In this house everything belongs to me - toys, tit-bits - dinner/diner bowls, etc. etc. *but* I am not having the RG issues that you are.

I was thinking more about when you play the swap game - giving like for like.


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## Dogless

Good day so far; nice trail run of just over 12 miles - pretty hilly and demanding but absolutely lovely . 

Considering we rarely see a soul we saw some forestry workers in a van and had a brief chat at about the 5 mile point, then on the way back a man clearing some forest came for a quick chat - Kilo turned his back on him and put me in between him and the man - fine by me, a very clear "not interested" which the man respected (good boy Kilo and well done the man  ) and Rudi sat nicely whilst we talked . Then, just as I had put the dogs in the car, the Game Warden pulled up. I was pleased to see him as it gave me a chance to tell him not to worry if he saw a blue VW Caddy within the next few weeks, it would only be me. He also said someone was shooting goats and dumping them (I had seen a few bodies and told him where) and also that two goats had been found horribly mauled by dogs recently but he knew it wouldn't be mine (phew!!!).

Oooh and my brand new walking boots have arrived ready to be broken in before our holiday  .

ETA: That filming ages ago? Wasn't for Game of Thrones but for a horror film set on Exmoor! (The Game Warden knows all the goss!!).


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## Nicki85

Dogless- sounds exhausting as ever but glad you had fun  People and dogs mauling goats though- really that's crazy stuff! Rusty does that thing of going behind me and turning his back when someone stops to talk to us... well done Kilo, especially considering all the stuff you went through last year with him.

We've had a good day, couple of hours spent this morning wandering the footpaths of SIlchester, not a soul seen on the walk apart from a person on the way back. It was a chap that owns a very nice young Springer bitch but he's started having issues. It recently got in with the sheep and chased them round and now they want to stop it pulling... He wanted to know if the harness (Manmat one) and longline Rusty was wearing would stop her pulling... I said it would probably make her pull more as that is what it was designed for lol. Anyhow, he'd tried twisting the lead round her nose but that hadn't worked (head-desk) so I advised a dogmatic and training lol. 

I also need to improve my throwing skills after chucking SHae's ball over a barbed wire fence twice and getting it tangled in a tree once... Strangely Rusty was ever so worried about me fetching it from the tree... he had zoomies after and turned all wiggly which is really unlike him on a walk... 

Rust's afternoon walk went well, toy recall worked well and he's coming off some major hunting sessions now to chase the toy. I'm pretty sure he flushed a deer at one point as there was a chase bark... but he recalled to the toy fairly promptly especially as this was all out of sight so can't complain. 

Shae has agility later and it's also her Birthday! No presents as I will get something at crufts when I go


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Good day so far; nice trail run of just over 12 miles - pretty hilly and demanding but absolutely lovely .
> 
> Considering we rarely see a soul we saw some forestry workers in a van and had a brief chat at about the 5 mile point, then on the way back a man clearing some forest came for a quick chat - Kilo turned his back on him and put me in between him and the man - fine by me, a very clear "not interested" which the man respected (good boy Kilo and well done the man  ) and Rudi sat nicely whilst we talked . Then, just as I had put the dogs in the car, the Game Warden pulled up. I was pleased to see him as it gave me a chance to tell him not to worry if he saw a blue VW Caddy within the next few weeks, it would only be me. He also said someone was shooting goats and dumping them (I had seen a few bodies and told him where) and also that two goats had been found horribly mauled by dogs recently but he knew it wouldn't be mine (phew!!!).
> 
> Oooh and my brand new walking boots have arrived ready to be broken in before our holiday  .
> 
> ETA: That filming ages ago? Wasn't for Game of Thrones but for a horror film set on Exmoor! (The Game Warden knows all the goss!!).


Pleased you had a lovely walk/run. Poor goats; obviously being shot for sport. Nowhere is safe these days is it?

I've spent most of the day driving in the pouring rain up to Lincoln and back with Barley to see the chiropractor. There were quite a number of flood warning signs along the A15..!!

The Chiropractor wants to see Barley again next Tuesday and was pretty horrified by the state of her back, which she reckons has been 'out' for a very long time. I'm going to take Holly along as well just to get checked over considering she fell off the dogwalk 10 days ago.

I've just given Holly and Tremor half an hour in the barn before walking them. They were both potty...!! Holly is getting almost as nuts as Tremor these days I'm pleased to say. As well as obedience training we're plugging away at heelwork to music moves and I've introduced two poles now. NO WE'RE NOT DOING A POLE DANCING ROUTINE before you ask....


----------



## Twiggy

*Nicki* - Wish the beautiful Shae a very happy birthday from me and give her a Grannie hug...


----------



## Dogless

Happy Birthday Miss Shae  . I am sure you'll get a big haul from Crufts.

Here are the hills for Dief (and anyone else who wants to look!!) by at Garmin Connect - Details I always feel reluctant to post what looks like a very slow run so have to make the struggling through bogs, over / under fallen trees, tripping on tree roots, hills and generally tough terrain disclaimer every time . I did work hard, honest .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Happy Birthday Miss Shae  . I am sure you'll get a big haul from Crufts.
> 
> Here are the hills for Dief (and anyone else who wants to look!!) by at Garmin Connect - Details I always feel reluctant to post what looks like a very slow run so have to make the struggling through bogs, over / under fallen trees, tripping on tree roots, hills and generally tough terrain disclaimer every time . I did work hard, honest .


It won't allow me to view it. Says I don't have sufficient privileges..


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It won't allow me to view it. Says I don't have sufficient privileges..


I'll change it. Should work now .

Oh the goats - the Game Warden shoots them; I have to tell him where they are as they are invaders and are destroying the forest BUT someone else has been in shooting them and leaving the bodies and some are being found mauled by dogs.


----------



## Nicki85

Twiggy said:


> It won't allow me to view it. Says I don't have sufficient privileges..


I'm still not privileged enough either :001_tt2:


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> I'm still not privileged enough either :001_tt2:


Oh crap. Why?? It worked last time. I am a computer imbecile. NOW it should work Untitled by RidgebackKR at Garmin Connect - Details maybe . It's not even anything special, just a route we do a fair bit but Dief likes the hills!!


----------



## Nicki85

I can see what you mean now, it was a very very slow run wasn't it?! ut: you only stopped moving for 5mins  

I don't know much about running apart from that it is hard work but that looks like really really hard work  I bet your boys love it


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh crap. Why?? It worked last time. I am a computer imbecile. NOW it should work Untitled by RidgebackKR at Garmin Connect - Details maybe . It's not even anything special, just a route we do a fair bit but Dief likes the hills!!


No still locked out and now I really, really, really want to see it....!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> No still locked out and now I really, really, really want to see it....!!


Did you try that link Grannie not the first one? No idea why you can't see it . This is def unlocked to "everyone" not "everyone except Grannie!!"  Untitled by RidgebackKR at Garmin Connect - Details


----------



## Dogless

Nicki85 said:


> I can see what you mean now, it was a very very slow run wasn't it?! ut: you only stopped moving for 5mins
> 
> I don't know much about running apart from that it is hard work but that looks like really really hard work  I bet your boys love it


It was reasonable for the terrain...I would have been ashamed on the road though with it  . It was beautifully hard work....oh and I had to talk to the forestry man, he did love a chat as the Irish tend to . Very nice man though!!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> It was reasonable for the terrain...I would have been ashamed on the road though with it  . It was beautifully hard work....oh and I had to talk to the forestry man, he did love a chat as the Irish tend to . Very nice man though!!


When I was running (trained for a marathon once) I was only really averaging a 10 minute mile on the road, so I'm well impressed with achieving that on a hilly trail. I'm going to use the excuse of being a midget (not quite 5 foot) with short legs though. You've inspired me to get my act together. Gym kit is getting pulled out and I'm going tomorrow (well maybe). I now have an idyllic image of running effortlessly across the moors accompanied by my angelic dog who shall be cured of any resource guarding/lead pulling/jumping at passers by type behaviour. I can dream.


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> When I was running (trained for a marathon once) I was only really averaging a 10 minute mile on the road, so I'm well impressed with achieving that on a hilly trail. I'm going to use the excuse of being a midget (not quite 5 foot) with short legs though. You've inspired me to get my act together. Gym kit is getting pulled out and I'm going tomorrow (well maybe). I now have an idyllic image of running effortlessly across the moors accompanied by my angelic dog who shall be cured of any resource guarding/lead pulling/jumping at passers by type behaviour. I can dream.


TBH a lot of it is about not losing your trainers in a bog where I run and negotiating fallen trees . No passers by though (we rarely, rarely see a soul, today was unusual!!) and nothing to guard .

I have done a few marathons. Not a fan TBH of onroad ones although I like half marathons and 10ks on roads.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> TBH a lot of it is about not losing your trainers in a bog where I run and negotiating fallen trees . No passers by though (we rarely, rarely see a soul, today was unusual!!) and nothing to guard .
> 
> I have done a few marathons. Not a fan TBH of onroad ones although I like half marathons and 10ks on roads.


I dunno. I reckon he might find a goat carcass interesting..... I'm not really a fan of marathons either. I'm not a natural runner, was just something I wanted to achieve. Unfortunately I injured my hamstring a few weeks before hand (once I was up to running 20 miles and fairly confident of finishing) so never got to run it. Running lost it's appeal somewhat after. But I'm giving it another go!


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> I dunno. I reckon he might find a goat carcass interesting..... I'm not really a fan of marathons either. I'm not a natural runner, was just something I wanted to achieve. Unfortunately I injured my hamstring a few weeks before hand (once I was up to running 20 miles and fairly confident of finishing) so never got to run it. Running lost it's appeal somewhat after. But I'm giving it another go!


Oh no, what horrible luck .


----------



## lupie

Dogless your trail run looked gorgeous 

And I rarely get a 10min mile on the relatively flat trails round here...so in my view, amazing 

Sarahliz - as ever sounds like Twiggy has given you some fantastic advice and hope. Really hope you see some improvement 

Oh and I'll join you in that vision of effortless running with angelic dog who won't disappear off chasing rabbits/squirrels/killing pheasants/barking at other dogs


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> When I was running (trained for a marathon once) I was only really averaging a 10 minute mile on the road, so I'm well impressed with achieving that on a hilly trail. I'm going to use the excuse of being a midget (not quite 5 foot) with short legs though. You've inspired me to get my act together. Gym kit is getting pulled out and I'm going tomorrow (well maybe). I now have an idyllic image of running effortlessly across the moors accompanied by my angelic dog who shall be cured of any resource guarding/lead pulling/jumping at passers by type behaviour. I can dream.


Well as long as you don't expect any help or advice from those unreliable friends of Dogless. I think one was called Mo and the other Usain something or other. Neither of them had the decency to even contact me.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Well as long as you don't expect any help or advice from those unreliable friends of Dogless. I think one was called Mo and the other Usain something or other. Neither of them had the decency to even contact me.....


That's right Twiggy; I am ashamed to even call them my friends now  .


----------



## Bagrat

Dogless - so unfair I could see the map and times but once I saw 12 miles , I fainted and missed the rest!! Sounds like a good day all round.

SarahLiz. Our resource guarding probs are minor compared with yours and I'm the resource we think. If OH gets near me or vice versa Jackson launches and jumps up but no grabbing now. Also greedy sod (J not OH on these occasions) is easily distracted by cue "sit" and treat. We just have to remember every time.
Sorry you have got to cope with a tetchy dog in this situation. 
Twiggy is the all knowing guru - I mean that; it's not sarcasm or irony( can never remember which is what) Very sound advice. Twiggy I think you could branch out into dog/ pole/ dancing.
Nicki - sounds like ace progress and Happy Birthday to Shae


----------



## JenKyzer

* Sneaks back in to attempt to catch up..  * Helloo all 

Sarah1983 - Sorry to hear about the husky meet not actually being a husky meet anymore .. Some silly people around with tittle tattle :001_unsure: . That pic of spen is really nice 

GR - Thats my worst nightmare, one walking infront then one appearing behind  Bet it was nice realising how much your hard work is paying off though  Sorry ninja disappeared though - glad there was a little funny side for you after you knew she was safe and sound 

Sarahliz - Sorry about the 'day of training to be forgotton'  The cow bit made me laugh though  good luck with the RG, i hope things start to pick up again for you.

Nicki - Oops at Rust.. but i'm sure he had a ball on his adventure under the fence! Least you know for next time what to look out for  Sounds like they both handled the 3dogs really well though 

Dogless - The weather sounds wild where you are  sounds like the boys had fun with their ball and you dressing like an eskimo  hope you enjoyed your a run more today though . Ooh i love the garmin links.. you are the reason i have a new slight obsession with the app on my phone that tracks us  except no running for me  yet! thats my work in progress though  and omg you have nothing to feel reluctant about, at all ut: !!

Twiggy - had to laugh at your disclaimer about pole dancing  fingers crossed the chiropractor goes well on tues.. sorry to hear about barleys back 

Not much going on here  we did end up having a fab walk on thursday though - very behind i know - we worked on seeing the dog, walking past / letting it pass.. then sitting for a treat.. towards the end she automaticly sat infront of me waiting for a treat as if to say 'yeah i saw the dog and i didnt do anything so dish me the fish human!' glad she caught on though  The woods are soo dog busy but she did me proud. She was a bit pully towards them but no lunges or noises  except on our road just as we got back... the man who speaks to his dog like 'now you know that big doggie doesnt like you so dont go near..' :001_unsure: .. the bloody thing ran at willow from across the road!! I was fuming. I don't apologise or speak to this man anymore as he never has it on a lead and it always causes a very stressed Willow  He's now a 6.30am regular.. but we manage to avoid.. the 3.30pm caught me off guard and all willows effort of being nice with all the other dogs went out the window and she turned into lungey high pitched whiney dog. The dog stood in the middle of the road  yapping at her and jumping on the spot. Untill we ran off - i had to let willow vent her stress so i did a 'go go gooo quick quickkkk...!!!' and ran home with sudden 'stops' then 'go go goo!'-ing again  :laugh: god knows what the man thinks of me but i honestly don't care :ihih: ! 
Seen no dogs since then though so its been stress free apart from her hating the rain. Just the usual indoor stuff. *Avoids the fact i still haven't started the recall book.... *

Here's our beloved tower ... so high up it was super hat-blowing-off windy and was the only part of the thursday walk i allowed her offlead for a crazy 15mins


----------



## Sarahliz100

Darwen Tower?


----------



## JenKyzer

Sarahliz100 said:


> Darwen Tower?


Yes  have you been?


----------



## Sarahliz100

Yes. I live in lancs too, but Peel Tower is my local haunt. Darwen Tower up from roddlesworth reservoir is a lovely walk though.


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## JenKyzer

Sarahliz100 said:


> Yes. I live in lancs too, but Peel Tower is my local haunt. Darwen Tower up from roddlesworth reservoir is a lovely walk though.


Ah there was a member on here a short while ago that went up that way  haven't seen that side of it. We pass 2 reservoirs though ... this thread from ages ago is the main part of the walk after passing through sunnyhurst woods http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat/322855-darwen-tower-walk-pic-heavy.html - I think i remember your opening thread about being in lancs


----------



## diefenbaker

There is good news and bad news for working US time. The good new is I get to take Dief out in the morning while they're all asleep. Bad news is I'm cream-crackered because of working into the early hours every day. Still.. got a holiday in a couple of weeks.

Can anyone explain why ox-tail smells so bad ? I know it spends it's whole life being crapped on by a cow but even so. Doesn't seem to put Dief off though.


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## lupie

Looks like a fab walk JSW! Wish we had some a bit like that round here. 

Good walk today. On lead only. Definitely trying to track and scent more than normal - Pheasantgate has well and truly scuppered things. 

Shorter in mileage than perhaps I'd like but we were doing heavy training, find it, stays, focusing on me, LLW, etc. 

My plan of action is to combine communicative walks a la Clarissa Von don'tplaygames (GR's term :lol: ) but working on impulse control at home - thanks to GR's thread in training I know where to get a rabbit skin to help with that. 

Didn't see any dogs on the walk  dog barked in the distance and she looked straight at me. Little things to remind me we have made progress.  

Working on "gently" with all your guys' help. Realised I too need to be patient - worked out that on walks I was treating her in a way that encouraged her to snatch. Now if possible I'm stopping and making sure I offer it in a way that discourages snatching


----------



## Sarahliz100

Arrgghh. My future in laws (who don't like dogs, and didn't want us to get a dog) want to take me and Tryf out to "get to know him" tomorrow. He's getting better but he's not exactly a shining example of perfect doggy behaviour. I feel this might not go well.......


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## Twiggy

Oh dear. Can't you think up an excuse? If they don't like dogs they are likely to criticise even if he's well behaved.


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## Twiggy

Well I don't know what the chiropractor did to Barley's back yesterday but I am having a heck of a job containing her this morning.

I lay in bed with my early morning cup of tea and heard Barley, Tremor and Holly going berserk round the lounge and up and down the hall...

I brought Holly into the bedroom to separate them and I've just had to stop them all play chasing again. Me thinks it's going to be a long two days.....


----------



## Sarahliz100

They're trying to be nice and I feel rude. I suggested leaving dog behind but they want him to come. It would all be on lead (national trust property) which isn't the easiest type of walk for him. If he started his frustrated jumpy, jumpy, bitey, bitey routine they would be horrified! I might suggest that if they really want to spend time with him we walk on the moors where at least he can run about and they can admire his recalls and ball hunting skills. He's pretty good most of the time out on our usual walks, but Sod's law says the time they are there he would be a disaster (and he definitely has disaster potential)!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> They're trying to be nice and I feel rude. I suggested leaving dog behind but they want him to come. It would all be on lead (national trust property) which isn't the easiest type of walk for him. If he started his frustrated jumpy, jumpy, bitey, bitey routine they would be horrified! I might suggest that if they really want to spend time with him we walk on the moors where at least he can run about and they can admire his recalls and ball hunting skills. He's pretty good most of the time out on our usual walks, but Sod's law says the time they are there he would be a disaster (and he definitely has disaster potential)!


Very difficult. The trouble is you are going to be uptight, hoping and praying he behaves himself and that's always the time they decide to show you up.


----------



## Dogless

Rest day for the boys today as the past two days have been full on physically for them. Each will get one walk (Roo had his this morning - Kilo's will be with Diz and human this evening) and then just some training and play.

They have both snoozed the day away bar a small bit of play though so far TBH!! They aren't daft either - it is raining and there clearly isn't a forest or mountain walk to be had as they haven't been put in the car  .


----------



## Fluffster

Trying to catch up and failing miserably 

Nothing to report here, OH has been taking Daisy out as I haven't been well, got docs next Weds but hopefully will be able to take her out myself before then as I miss it  And it means she's having to wait till 4pm for her walk which isn't ideal. 

Sounds like Roo and Kilo have been busy boys, I'm tired just reading about it!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Very difficult. The trouble is you are going to be uptight, hoping and praying he behaves himself and that's always the time they decide to show you up.


Agree. My parents often say they should get to know the boys better but I just don't mix the two - Mum is nervy of the breed and Dad is very "this is my property and I will go where I damn well please" even if it means loudly and stridently walking into where we are staying without a knock - both of which set me totally on edge, not to mention the "very friendly chocolate labradors" that two of their tenants own who would be straight over!!!

Hope you're still all in one piece with all that play Grannie BTW!!!!

Get well soon too Fluffster!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Agree. My parents often say they should get to know the boys better but I just don't mix the two - Mum is nervy of the breed and Dad is very "this is my property and I will go where I damn well please" even if it means loudly and stridently walking into where we are staying without a knock - both of which set me totally on edge, not to mention the "very friendly chocolate labradors" that two of their tenants own who would be straight over!!!
> 
> *Hope you're still all in one piece with all that play Grannie BTW!!!!*
> 
> Get well soon too Fluffster!!


Yes I'm still in one piece thank you. It was class this afternoon. I didn't take any of my dogs as we're rather full house at the moment but as I'm a glutton for punishment I worked several dogs, of all shapes and sizes. They were all very jolly I'm pleased to say and we have a super Terv pup that's joined the class. I can soon knock his young handler into shape. Being young she's very quick on the uptake and doing really well.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> Trying to catch up and failing miserably
> 
> Nothing to report here, OH has been taking Daisy out as I haven't been well, got docs next Weds but hopefully will be able to take her out myself before then as I miss it  And it means she's having to wait till 4pm for her walk which isn't ideal.
> 
> Sounds like Roo and Kilo have been busy boys, I'm tired just reading about it!


I hope you feel better very soon.


----------



## zedder

Well I've got both dogs in the same room now and their as bad as each other they like playing together and are currently wrestling each other and bounding all over the place.


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Well I've got both dogs in the same room now and their as bad as each other they like playing together and are currently wrestling each other and bounding all over the place.


You have my sympathy...LOL

I'm trying very hard to stop mine until at least tomorrow lunchtime as Barley is supposed to be resting.

I'm taking Barley and Holly to the chiropractor next Tuesday so the folowing two days will be even more of a nightmare trying to keep them calm...


----------



## Fluffster

zedder said:


> Well I've got both dogs in the same room now and their as bad as each other they like playing together and are currently wrestling each other and bounding all over the place.


This is what puts me off getting a second! Any time we've spent an evening with someone else with a pup, Daisy and said pup wrestle CONSTANTLY. And I mean constantly. They were at it for five hours last time I was at my mum's and my stepsister's Collie pup was there. We assumed after an hour they would get fed up, but nope. Then the next morning, they woke up and were at it again until we left.  I don't think I could cope with that day in day out!


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> This is what puts me off getting a second! Any time we've spent an evening with someone else with a pup, Daisy and said pup wrestle CONSTANTLY. And I mean constantly. They were at it for five hours last time I was at my mum's and my stepsister's Collie pup was there. We assumed after an hour they would get fed up, but nope. Then the next morning, they woke up and were at it again until we left.  I don't think I could cope with that day in day out!


The novelty wears off......and training them so you can say that enough is enough helps!! It does get better .


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> The novelty wears off......and training them so you can say that enough is enough helps!! It does get better .


Haha, I suppose. We were sitting there watching them going "Aww, look at them playing" for about an hour. Then it moved to "They must be getting tired" and by midnight "WE'VE GOT CRAZY BIONIC PSYCHO DOGS" :lol:

This smiley has just appeared on the panel and I've never noticed it before so I'm going to use it, even though it has no relevance to this post.

:ihih:


----------



## zedder

Yeah one stops the other starts so on so forth doesn't help their both at their.most bouncy ages trying to ignore them at the minute.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Fluffster said:



Haha, I suppose. We were sitting there watching them going "Aww, look at them playing" for about an hour. Then it moved to "They must be getting tired" and by midnight "WE'VE GOT CRAZY BIONIC PSYCHO DOGS"

Click to expand...

*


Fluffster said:


> :lol:
> 
> This smiley has just appeared on the panel and I've never noticed it before so I'm going to use it, even though it has no relevance to this post.
> 
> :ihih:


A Cocker and a Collie pup can certainly keep it up for hours and hours...!!


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Yeah one stops the other starts so on so forth doesn't help their both at their.most bouncy ages trying to ignore them at the minute.


Remind me again of their breed and age.


----------



## Dogless

A blissfully unremarkable walk with Diz this evening. One large black dog heading towards us so we turned and went into the churchyard, a few on the peripheries which were coped with with minimal stress and lots of people out as there was a break in the rain. Kilo was very good and does noticeably relax when he's had a few days of walking away from home.

Some fire engines passed us and put their sirens on....and Diz put his head back and howled at them  he's never howled before and Sir K just looked at him as if he were a bit odd .


----------



## zedder

Twiggy said:


> Remind me again of their breed and age.


 A border/bearded collie 8 and something months and a lurcher who's mostly greyhound some whippet we think at best guess he's under a year pair of nut jobs.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The novelty wears off......and training them so you can say that enough is enough helps!! It does get better .


Does it?

Barley is 6.1/2, Tremor is 5.1/2 and Holly is now 2...!!

To be fair if I intervene and tell them to lie down they will but I always feel like the baddie for spoiling their fun.

It's like Leafy now she's sleeping in the bedroom. The minute the alarm goes off she's up and throwing toys at me. She's only 12.1/2....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Does it?
> 
> Barley is 6.1/2, Tremor is 5.1/2 and Holly is now 2...!!
> 
> To be fair if I intervene and tell them to lie down they will but I always feel like the baddie for spoiling their fun.
> 
> It's like Leafy now she's sleeping in the bedroom. The minute the alarm goes off she's up and throwing toys at me. She's only 12.1/2....


Mine play all the time, but not as wildly as the early days. The play novelty remains but they'll spend ages playing tug rather than trampling me and each other. Sometimes they do still trample, but not as badly as initially . They bring me toys all day when they are awake (not that often being lazy hounds), but if ignored settle again quickly.

Mine are tame beasties compared to your collies though. I am not woman enough for one of yours, that's for sure .


----------



## Fluffster

Daisy will take or leave other dogs outside these days, she'll completely blank them if we're playing with the ball or frisbee. But she's always been obsessed by them in the house, although we've not had any doggy visitors for a while. My friend was talking about coming round for dinner and bringing their black lab/springer cross though, but part of me is in a panic about the chaos that combo could inflict on my poor little house :lol:

It's funny what you say, Dogless, about bringing you toys. If I call Daisy in the house, more often than not she has to stop to pick up a toy and bring it with her. But she doesn't want you to take it from her, it's like it's just to show you!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Mine play all the time, but not as wildly as the early days. The play novelty remains but they'll spend ages playing tug rather than trampling me and each other. Sometimes they do still trample, but not as badly as initially . They bring me toys all day when they are awake (not that often being lazy hounds), but if ignored settle again quickly.
> 
> Mine are tame beasties compared to your collies though. I am not woman enough for one of yours, that's for sure .


My current ones are reasonably tame compared to some I've had.

Twiggy as a youngster was horrendous. She never stopped all day, every day. On occasions I'd put her in a crate in the spare bedroom to get some peace for an hour or so.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> My current ones are reasonably tame compared to some I've had.
> 
> Twiggy as a youngster was horrendous. She never stopped all day, every day. On occasions I'd put her in a crate in the spare bedroom to get some peace for an hour or so.


Sounds like she would have killed me .


----------



## lupie

Pavement plod this evening. Mum very kindly took her out for a 45 minute off lead blast this morning. I always ask her to "report" back - not very barky with other dogs, running around like a mad thing but she didn't lose her, and came when called 99% of the time  I asked if she'd kidnapped a different dog to take for a walk!!! 

Evening walk uneventful. Being disciplined with myself to stop and give her treats in a manner that helps her take them gently. Did some LLW work too. No dogs  no cats  I try to limit pavement plods as I feel they aren't very fun for her, but I actually enjoyed tonight and it's a good opportunity to work on general manners. 

Caught 45 mins or so of that webinar from Sarah Whitehead, looked like it was heading interesting places but had to quit to get out with Ruska.


----------



## Sarahliz100

I will stick just with the one lunatic thank you! I can't imagine having 4 energetic collies around the place! 

I had big plans for working on sendaways today, found a field above the park that is rarely frequented, and took a pole up there. But he was really spooked by something and was Mr Distracted so we didn't get very far. Instead I spent ages working on attention and eye contact. It seems to have paid off as he has spent a lot of the rest of the day trying to gaze into my eyes.

Successful bit of loose lead walking round the block this afternoon, but then turned into crazy hound again this evening when we took him out. Just as we turned to come home he started the jumping/biting routine and was incredibly persistent. We just couldn't get him to stop . Went on for about 20mins. Tried standing still and ignoring, tried walking off, tried putting him on lead (involved wrestling him to get it on) and standing on the lead, tried holding him on lead out of reach. Nightmare. It was very much targeted at me rather than other half so in the end I ended up walking off. Interestingly that was the one thing that snapped him out of it. He started crying/whining and desperately trying to get to me, then did sit when I asked and accepted some calm praise and seemed back to normal. Very odd. There's usually a fairly obvious trigger but there was nothing remotely interesting happening as far as I could tell. And I'm not sure why he does it to me and not my boyfriend. Because he wants reassurance? Because he thinks my boyfriend won't let him get away with it? 

Hopefully he's offloaded his stress now and will be an angel tomorrow

Oh and I finally went to the gym. Sadly it seems my career as a fell runner is not happening any time soon..........


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> I will stick just with the one lunatic thank you! I can't imagine having 4 energetic collies around the place!
> 
> I had big plans for working on sendaways today, found a field above the park that is rarely frequented, and took a pole up there. But he was really spooked by something and was Mr Distracted so we didn't get very far. Instead I spent ages working on attention and eye contact. It seems to have paid off as he has spent a lot of the rest of the day trying to gaze into my eyes.
> 
> Successful bit of loose lead walking round the block this afternoon, but then turned into crazy hound again this evening when we took him out. Just as we turned to come home he started the jumping/biting routine and was incredibly persistent. We just couldn't get him to stop . Went on for about 20mins. Tried standing still and ignoring, tried walking off, tried putting him on lead (involved wrestling him to get it on) and standing on the lead, tried holding him on lead out of reach. Nightmare. It was very much targeted at me rather than other half so in the end I ended up walking off. Interestingly that was the one thing that snapped him out of it. He started crying/whining and desperately trying to get to me, then did sit when I asked and accepted some calm praise and seemed back to normal. Very odd. There's usually a fairly obvious trigger but there was nothing remotely interesting happening as far as I could tell. And I'm not sure why he does it to me and not my boyfriend. Because he wants reassurance? Because he thinks my boyfriend won't let him get away with it?
> 
> Hopefully he's offloaded his stress now and will be an angel tomorrow
> 
> Oh and I finally went to the gym. Sadly it seems my career as a fell runner is not happening any time soon..........


Why do you think he has these episodes - stress - frustration - puppy type tantrums?

Generally the one thing dogs hate the most is being completely ignored. They would rather we shout at them, smack them or shake them; anything as long as we interact with them but they really don't like being ignored. Not, of course, that I'm suggesting any of us smack, shake or shout at our dogs. Ignoring them completely is a very powerful tool.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> Why do you think he has these episodes - stress - frustration - puppy type tantrums?
> 
> Generally the one thing dogs hate the most is being completely ignored. They would rather we shout at them, smack them or shake them; anything as long as we interact with them but they really don't like being ignored. Not, of course, that I'm suggesting any of us smack, shake or shout at our dogs. Ignoring them completely is a very powerful tool.


Generally I would say stress - he usually does it when to many exciting or scary things happen. He'll sometimes do it when frustrated. I'm not sure what cussed it yesterday though. Perhaps it was frustration/tantrum at us turning back towards home - he's never done this before though.

He does settle quickly if we walk away from him (at puppy class he has on occasion done this persistently and we've tethered him in the corner briefly) but he'll usually start up again. I was surprised yesterday that the shock of me leaving seemed to snap him out of it completely. Even when a couple of slightly stressful things happened (meeting another couple of dogs) he was completely fine - usually when he's had an stressy episode any little thing will set him back off.

Unfortunately I'm usually out alone with him with nowhere to tether him so leaving him is tricky


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Generally I would say stress - he usually does it when to many exciting or scary things happen. He'll sometimes do it when frustrated. I'm not sure what cussed it yesterday though. Perhaps it was frustration/tantrum at us turning back towards home - he's never done this before though.
> 
> He does settle quickly if we walk away from him (at puppy class he has on occasion done this persistently and we've tethered him in the corner briefly) but he'll usually start up again. I was surprised yesterday that the shock of me leaving seemed to snap him out of it completely. Even when a couple of slightly stressful things happened (meeting another couple of dogs) he was completely fine - usually when he's had an stressy episode any little thing will set him back off.
> 
> Unfortunately I'm usually out alone with him with nowhere to tether him so leaving him is tricky


What has your behaviourist suggested when he has these episodes when out for a walk?

When Tremor was a pup I had 3 other dogs including old Fidget (as I've said before). My dogs are walked on private land but our neighbour at the time had two Spaniels who would listen for my dogs being walked and belt down their paddock screaming and barking with excitement the other side of the conifer hedge - it was the only stimulation they got...!! Because Fidget was so old and frail I had to keep Tremor on a lead until the old girl had completed her circuit of the back field and taken herself home up our paddock as I didn't want Tremor knocking her over. It was a nightmare. We'd get through the paddock gate and round the corner to be met by screaming Spaniels and Tremor would totally flip her lid....!! I never said a word (there wasn't any point plus my others were so sensitive they would get upset). Tremor would be standing on her hind legs going ballistic. I would simply put my hand through her collar and stand there, which wasn't easy as she was a big lump and I did get bitten a few times.

Happily as her training progressed and she learnt unconditional "leave" and "sit" commands it all got so much better until eventually she would ignore the Spaniels.

All I can suggest, without actually seeing your boy, is to push on with his training as much as you can as once commands are rock solid you should be able to manage his stress/frustration much more easily.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Initially we were advised to do a few obedience type commands that he is really solid on (sit/down) - this is ok when he is only slightly worked up, it calms him and regains focus. When he's completely lost it though its like he can't hear what I'm saying and he's in his own little world. They suggested ignoring and wearing wellies to protect legs, but now he's jumping high enough to bite my shoulder! If he's wearing his harness then I can grab the back and hold him still which will eventually settle him, but he hates his harness and trying to get it on causes all sorts of stress for him. Getting hold of his collar is hard (he's often off lead) and he finds it quite threatening so I think makes it worse. I'm not sure there is a good solution.

Avoiding the episodes is the best way and I can often predict what might set him off or see when he's starting to ramp up. If I do a food scatter after something exciting has happened that helps calm him before he hits his crazy zone. Otherwise if I get him to do a few easy obedience things that helps too.

I'm now wondering whether last night was a temper tantrum because I was 'ignoring' him and chatting to boyfriend rather than constantly interacting with (and feeding) him. I've been working with him a lot on the majority of our walks recently and being something of a treat dispenser so maybe he was frustrated at the lack of attention. Or maybe I've been working him too hard and his stress levels are generally high.........

At least my boyfriend has now seen him in crazy mode so he now understands why I'm so cautious on walks and insist on getting Tryfan on lead as soon as I see any potential threat on the horizon!

I love how you've had a dog with any of the problems I've come up with and managed to turn them into a super dog. It's very encouraging!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Initially we were advised to do a few obedience type commands that he is really solid on (sit/down) - this is ok when he is only slightly worked up, it calms him and regains focus. When he's completely lost it though its like he can't hear what I'm saying and he's in his own little world. They suggested ignoring and wearing wellies to protect legs, but now he's jumping high enough to bite my shoulder! If he's wearing his harness then I can grab the back and hold him still which will eventually settle him, but he hates his harness and trying to get it on causes all sorts of stress for him. Getting hold of his collar is hard (he's often off lead) and he finds it quite threatening so I think makes it worse. I'm not sure there is a good solution.
> 
> Avoiding the episodes is the best way and I can often predict what might set him off or see when he's starting to ramp up. If I do a food scatter after something exciting has happened that helps calm him before he hits his crazy zone. Otherwise if I get him to do a few easy obedience things that helps too.
> 
> I'm now wondering whether last night was a temper tantrum because I was 'ignoring' him and chatting to boyfriend rather than constantly interacting with (and feeding) him. I've been working with him a lot on the majority of our walks recently and being something of a treat dispenser so maybe he was frustrated at the lack of attention. Or maybe I've been working him too hard and his stress levels are generally high.........
> 
> At least my boyfriend has now seen him in crazy mode so he now understands why I'm so cautious on walks and insist on getting Tryfan on lead as soon as I see any potential threat on the horizon!
> 
> I love how you've had a dog with any of the problems I've come up with and managed to turn them into a super dog. It's very encouraging!


I agree that in your case grabbing the collar most certainly wouldn't be a good idea. For one thing timing is critical and although mine is pretty good, after 35 years plus training dogs, even I got bitten a few times.

I'll tell you about my late sister's bitch Sammy this evening - she was much, much worse than Tremor...!!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> I agree that in your case grabbing the collar most certainly wouldn't be a good idea. For one thing timing is critical and although mine is pretty good, after 35 years plus training dogs, even I got bitten a few times.
> 
> I'll tell you about my late sister's bitch Sammy this evening - she was much, much worse than Tremor...!!


Thanks! I shall look forward to it 

The more I think about it I think that it's probably a result of my over zealous training on walks. I've been working on LLW and heelwork pretty much every daytime walk. He really enjoys it and gets loads of treats. In the evening I don't really do any training, but do recall him a lot and treat him for returning. Last night I pretty much left him to his own devices. I think he was frustrated/confused at lack of interaction - "WHERE ARE MY TREATS!!!!!!!!!" I didn't do all that much training on our walk this morning - just rewarding him for "checking in" and he had a few brief crazy moments, though nowhere near as bad as last night.

In the house we've had to work on encouraging his independence and decision making as he had a tendency to constantly be demanding attention or looking for instruction and was unable to relax. I reckon I've now tipped him into that behaviour out on walks where he was previously happy. Doh!

That's my amateur dog psychology opinion anyway. I'll bug the behaviouralist later and see what they think


----------



## Lauren5159

*slouches back in chair, exhausted*

Good god! I've caught up! 

*Dogless* stop all this running!!! It's making me jealous!  Seriously though, I'm glad you and the boys are doing well 

*Grannie* Can Skip and I come and stay with you? We have no good trainers around here  I can even throw in another BC  Dexter and Skip would love your gang 

*Sarahliz* Keep at it! You sound like you're doing so well and there will be a light at the end of the tunnel if you stick with it  It sounds like you're going through a very tough time so BIG hugs to you.

*GR* Sounds terrifying  I'm glad everything ended well. I've lost Dexter before for about 45 minutes and it was awful. I also lost my old boy, Rocky, for 12 hours once and I was a mess! He chased some deer (wasn't like him at all). He must have turned back and got disorientated... I was so relieved and a crying mess when I finally found him... Walking along the side of the motorway, 10 miles from where I lost him and heading in the direction of home... I pulled over to the closest lane to him, opened my door and called him. He jumped straight in to the car and on to my lap as I was driving  Poor boy slept for a week. Add to that the fact that there was about 30 soldiers looking for him on the highlands... It was rather traumatic!

I honestly can't keep up so sorry to those I've missed out.

My back is not in a good way so nothing too much has been happening here... I _was_ on the mend, but I got ahead of myself and went for a ride  The following day, I couldn't move Slap on the wrist for me!

My dad has been an absolute gem through the whole thing... Taking Dexter for a jog every morning and even taking him to his OB classes (my dad had the time of his life and wants to keep going back with me)... He's even been taking Skip on little short walks and has listened to everything I've told him about his training  He's really enjoying spending time training with Skip as he doesn't hide the fact that he wants to steal Skip (my dad grew up with terriers). I even looked at his phone yesterday and his screensaver is a selfie of him and Skip out walking :lol: Poor Dexter!

A little setback yesterday... I was at work and my mum text me to let me know that she had given my house keys to my cousin to take the boys to the golf course :crying: Dexter is fine but I had told her that Skip can't yet go to the golf course. Especially because my cousin won't care that Skip lunges at cars and will just let him run riot off leash 

I haven't taken him out today as his stress levels seem to be sky high  My dad came round this morning to get Dexter and when I told him, he was annoyed too...

I've started scent games with Skip indoors and that seems to tire him out quite a bit 

Oh! And I've ordered a lovely martingale collar from Tillymint  Should be here soon


----------



## Lauren5159

Oh, and I forgot to add:

As for having two or more dogs...

DO NOT EVER GET A BORDER COLLIE AND THEN ADD A TERRIER TO THE MIX!!!

You have all been warned....












Seriously... 















Don't do it....


----------



## Dogless

Will catch up shortly. Mountains today :thumbsup:.

My dog van has fallen through; it was mechanically unsound when they went to see it. Another one has been found with only 40000 on the clock, same year. But....it's white . No idea why I am disappointed when all that matters is that it suits us and is reliable .


----------



## zedder

I think ike pushed playtime with lurchy too far tonight and got "told" put the fear of God in him but perhaps he needed it he was being a cheeky little shiite tbh is this about normal neither are using teeth and it's a short load of noise and sorted other than that they have been getting on ok.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Will catch up shortly. Mountains today :thumbsup:.
> 
> My dog van has fallen through; it was mechanically unsound when they went to see it. Another one has been found with only 40000 on the clock, same year. But....it's white . No idea why I am disappointed when all that matters is that it suits us and is reliable .


Oh dear I'm sorry the van hasn't worked out. I know what you mean about white. I don't do white, which is stupid really if the vehicle fits the bill.


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> Oh, and I forgot to add:
> 
> As for having two or more dogs...
> 
> DO NOT EVER GET A BORDER COLLIE AND THEN ADD A TERRIER TO THE MIX!!!
> 
> You have all been warned....
> 
> Seriously...
> 
> Don't do it....


Why? Explain please.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear I'm sorry the van hasn't worked out. I know what you mean about white. I don't do white, which is stupid really if the vehicle fits the bill.


Yes, I am still excited though :thumbsup:. Our car is white but it's nice in that colour (and the advantage of it is that people think you're the Police and pull in to let you past :lol.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yes, I am still excited though :thumbsup:. Our car is white but it's nice in that colour (and the advantage of it is that people think you're the Police and pull in to let you past :lol.


Or _white van man_....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Or _white van man_....


I know  :lol:.


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> Why? Explain please.


Wrestling... Constant wrestling.

About four months ago I had to teach both boys the 'enough' command because their constant wrestling was driving me mad... Dexter likes to make noise whilst he's wrestling so it was a constant grumbling and groaning, clattering of teeth, banging of heads and zoomies... It was crazy lol.


----------



## zedder

Lauren5159 said:


> Wrestling... Constant wrestling.
> 
> About four months ago I had to teach both boys the 'enough' command because their constant wrestling was driving me mad... Dexter likes to make noise whilst he's wrestling so it was a constant grumbling and groaning, clattering of teeth, banging of heads and zoomies... It was crazy lol.


 I now understand how you feel gets stressful when you've got two nutcases thundering around.


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> Will catch up shortly. Mountains today :thumbsup:.
> 
> My dog van has fallen through; it was mechanically unsound when they went to see it. Another one has been found with only 40000 on the clock, same year. But....it's white . No idea why I am disappointed when all that matters is that it suits us and is reliable .


Sorry the van fell through  But hey, a white van is just as good as a blue one  I'm sure you and the boys will love it regardless of colour


----------



## Twiggy

I met my daughter for lunch today at a largish garden centre. We then wandered round the various outlets and I bought the dogs some reduced toys from the pet department.
One of them is a large red plush car that bleeps. Barley absolutely loves it and has been playing with it for hours. Sadly the constant bleeping is starting to do my head in and I may have to be a big meanie and hide it in a minute.


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> Wrestling... Constant wrestling.
> 
> About four months ago I had to teach both boys the 'enough' command because their constant wrestling was driving me mad... Dexter likes to make noise whilst he's wrestling so it was a constant grumbling and groaning, clattering of teeth, banging of heads and zoomies... It was crazy lol.


Ah I see, although that's not exclusive to collies and terriers....


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> Ah I see, although that's not exclusive to collies and terriers....


I know, it was just a joke


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I met my daughter for lunch today at a largish garden centre. We then wandered round the various outlets and I bought the dogs some reduced toys from the pet department.
> One of them is a large red plush car that bleeps. Barley absolutely loves it and has been playing with it for hours. Sadly the constant bleeping is starting to do my head in and I may have to be a big meanie and hide it in a minute.


Yes, our "Quack Attack" duck that both dogs adore is often hidden!!!


----------



## Lauren5159

So... Skip hasn't been out today. I thought keeping him in would be a good idea after his run around yesterday... He's been very subdued :confused1:

I'm going to do some training with him in a bit  

Back to real training tomorrow... Hopefully his 'run riot' walk hasn't hindered our progress too much


----------



## Twiggy

Lauren5159 said:


> So... Skip hasn't been out today. I thought keeping him in would be a good idea after his run around yesterday... He's been very subdued :confused1:
> 
> I'm going to do some training with him in a bit
> 
> Back to real training tomorrow... Hopefully his 'run riot' walk hasn't hindered our progress too much


Nay - you'll be fine...


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> I now understand how you feel gets stressful when you've got two nutcases thundering around.


Try four...!!


----------



## Lauren5159

Twiggy said:


> Nay - you'll be fine...


Well I just took him for a short jaunt around the block... He was really good  He pulled a little more but whenever I stopped he came right back to my side and whenever I asked him to, he sat and looked at me straight away 

Maybe he deserves a little more credit than I've given him, poor thing.



Twiggy said:


> Try four...!!


HA! No chance!!! Hopefully in a couple of years I'll add another pooch but right now, I couldn't imagine Skip and Dexter with another two  lol.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Try four...!!


No thanks :lol:.


----------



## zedder

Twiggy said:


> Try four...!!


 Haha there's no chance twos more than enough for me


----------



## lupie

Dogless - sorry about the van. You can always spray paint it.... :lol:

Lauren - you deserve a medal for catching up!! :thumbsup: and your dad sounds like he's being ace with helping you out  

Quiet walk here. About a 20 minute offlead section where we did loads of exercises. Saw one dog, but I crossed the road.....and she didn't even see it?! Too busy taking treats. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing? 

Looking forward to the weekend. Even if it is meant to be pissing it down again.....


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Haha there's no chance twos more than enough for me


And me at my age but there you go...!!

Tremor's now got the bleeping car and is guarding it so Barley is heartbroken. On the plus side at least the ruddy thing isn't bleeping..

I really ought to go and get another one (or two) over the week-end as they were very cheap but would I be able to stand the noise...


----------



## lupie

Twiggy said:


> And me at my age but there you go...!!
> 
> Tremor's now got the bleeping car and is guarding it so Barley is heartbroken. On the plus side at least the ruddy thing isn't bleeping..
> 
> I really ought to go and get another one (or two) over the week-end as they were very cheap but would I be able to stand the noise...


Your house would sound like a blooming car park!! :lol:


----------



## Twiggy

Guess what - it's throwing it down yet again. I'm beginning to think I can see Springerpete's old man in a white robe building a boat....!!

I gave the girls an extra long walk this morning as we're out with friends for a meal tonight. Apart from Leafy I'm going over to the barn in a minute and train the little devils until they look shattered. Fat chance of that of course...LOL I expect it will be me that tires first and I really don't want bite marks and bruises on my hands and arms when we go out later.


----------



## Dogless

Braved driving through the horrendous storm this morning and then blizzards to get to the forest. The boys had a really good run which is great whilst I tried not to freeze to death. I try my best to let them have a whole morning's freedom on a Friday as we tend to stay at home at the weekend!! they were really good boys for me .

Still....the dogs are happy...that's what matters. They have had a corker of a week as far as activities go .


----------



## Dogless

Woke up to howling gales and fairly deep snow this morning. Looks like I'll be working on staying upright today . At least it's the CH's "day off" today with usually only one local walk.


----------



## Bagrat

Fluffster said:


> Trying to catch up and failing miserably
> 
> Nothing to report here, OH has been taking Daisy out as I haven't been well, got docs next Weds but hopefully will be able to take her out myself before then as I miss it  And it means she's having to wait till 4pm for her walk which isn't ideal.
> 
> Sounds like Roo and Kilo have been busy boys, I'm tired just reading about it!


Sorry you have been poorly, hope you're on the mend. I too feel exhausted reading about the NI three aka Dogless and co.
I have developed a cough redolent of a fog horn but feel fine (ish)

Lauren - Jackson has the snatchy zooming grabbing episodes and he's three. He doesn't need to wee often but this often signals need to go! Don't know if he doesn't realize he needs to go or the zoom and leap has a diuretic effect.

J is doing OK. Don't know whether to stop teaching new stuff for a while and concentrate on proofing what he already knows. Am trying to do more intermittent food treating but am always so happy when he's good I forget. Am not good at phasing out the click when he knows things well either. I think it's a conditioned response from me!!

Dogless sorry you are likely to be white van person. At least you'll be camouflage with the snow though hope it doesn't last too long for you. I always snort when people choose car for color but I nearly changed my Jazz for a newer one but the colors are so boring!! Pot and kettle spring to mind.

Ooh there's a yellow ball in the sky :thumbup1:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Woke up to howling gales and fairly deep snow this morning. Looks like I'll be working on staying upright today . At least it's the CH's "day off" today with usually only one local walk.


Yuk and it's all heading our way. Hopefully it won't make it as far east as us..!!


----------



## lupie

It's so gloriously sunny here I can't wait to get out for a walk. Unfortunately I'm being forced to rub Ruska's belly and she won't let me leave 

There's something wrong with this situation.....


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> It's so gloriously sunny here I can't wait to get out for a walk. Unfortunately I'm being forced to rub Ruska's belly and she won't let me leave
> 
> There's something wrong with this situation.....


That made me laugh !!!!!

Just took Roo for an hour's steady run, he was good as ever bless him :aureola: and I will take my still snoozing (or pretending to be - because of the grim weather!!!) Kilo out for his turn this evening. I think they like their relaxed Saturdays - it's become a habit. I NEVER thought I would give just one walk a day when we stayed local before but it seems to do them good; lets them recharge their batteries a little .


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Sorry you have been poorly, hope you're on the mend. I too feel exhausted reading about the NI three aka Dogless and co.
> I have developed a cough redolent of a fog horn but feel fine (ish)
> 
> Lauren - Jackson has the snatchy zooming grabbing episodes and he's three. He doesn't need to wee often but this often signals need to go! Don't know if he doesn't realize he needs to go or the zoom and leap has a diuretic effect.
> 
> J is doing OK. *Don't know whether to stop teaching new stuff for a while and concentrate on proofing what he already knows*. Am trying to do more intermittent food treating but am always so happy when he's good I forget. Am not good at phasing out the click when he knows things well either. I think it's a conditioned response from me!!
> 
> Dogless sorry you are likely to be white van person. At least you'll be camouflage with the snow though hope it doesn't last too long for you. I always snort when people choose car for color but I nearly changed my Jazz for a newer one but the colors are so boring!! Pot and kettle spring to mind.
> 
> Ooh there's a yellow ball in the sky :thumbup1:


I don't really mean I won't like the van....just would prefer blue over white. Still, it's exciting!!! And I am sorry we exhaust you....but "the NI three" is cool, like some gangsters on the run .

The bit in bold might be good a period of consolidation and reflection never did any harm. Might allow you and J to relax a little too before the challenge of learning new stuff. I hope the fog horn cough goes soon...although along with crazy dog lady hat certainly makes you stand out from the crowd :crazy:.


----------



## lupie

Well....mixed bag today.

We had nearly 2 hours of the most fantastic walk. Like, I barely had to recall her, she was in my vicinity for most of the time. Still running around but checking in on me really often and _coming when called_. I was grinning from ear to ear. We played games - find it, the "sausage tree", a bit of hide and seek, recall, sit-stays...and in general just walked. Glorious day! I've got some lovely pics I might upload in a minute 

And then about 2 hours in we were nearing the car park and I thought "I'm not ready to go back yet" so went to do an extra loop that I like to do.

Suddenly, a small herd of deer just ran past us. I had no idea deer went there - i've never seen any! or signs of.

So of course, off she went. Fenton moment. :crying: I *stupidly* blew my whistle - but I panicked. She was nowhere near fast enough, and I could see the deer she had chosen to chase gaining distance rapidly. They got to the foresty bit and disappeared, and her barking stopped shortly. About a minute later she appeared back, panting and very pleased with herself. I had to grit my teeth to not be angry at her cause she came back, put her on lead, and march off to the car! I had a quick game of find it and recalling as we got to a big open bit before the car just to try reassure us.

I'm not really sure how to feel!! Pride comes before a fall eh!  Pleased she came back. Angry at myself for not seeing the deer. But proud of the first 2 hours of the walk! :eek6:


----------



## Twiggy

Don't beat yourself up. Most dogs would have found a herd of deer running past their noses much too tempting and at least Ruska did come back....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Don't beat yourself up. Most dogs would have found a herd of deer running past their noses much too tempting and at least Ruska did come back....


This ^^^^^ a herd of deer would be my nightmare with Kilo  :sosp:.


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> This ^^^^^ a herd of deer would be my nightmare with Kilo  :sosp:.


I've never seen deer that close before. They just bumbled into view and all hell broke loose!

Glad to know it wouldn't just be Ruska though....I literally had visions of her being miles and miles away like she has done with rabbits. Not sure what made her come back so quick apart from the realisation she wouldn't get it but thankful for it!

Now we have Pheasantgate and Deergate :lol: :001_unsure:


----------



## Fluffster

Oh no @ the deer!!! At least no harm done! Daisy would be terrified I think,,she's scared of my friends house rabbit!

Well was a lovely morning here, cold but sunny. And of course, OH decided then was a good time to replace his brake pads  so by the time we took Daisy out, it was lashing it down with sleet and mad wind. His only saving grace is that we took her to a field near the shops and he kept her busy while I went and bought wine :lol:


She's asleep now with her head on my knees, bloody uncomfy but I daren't move!


----------



## Dogless

Took Kilo on his walk in the torrential rain and gales before I fed the boys, he was very good. I am so pleased I had just been to the hairdresser's though .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Took Kilo on his walk in the torrential rain and gales before I fed the boys, he was very good. I am so pleased I had just been to the hairdresser's though .


That made me laugh. Although my hair desperately needs a perm I've just had a dry cut for the past 4 months. I can't see the point when most of the time it's covered up by a less than glamorous woolly hat...!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> That made me laugh. Although my hair desperately needs a perm I've just had a dry cut for the past 4 months. I can't see the point when most of the time it's covered up by a less than glamorous woolly hat...!!


Mine really, really needed a cut (it's v short so obvious!) and really, really needed a colour as since I went bright copper last time faded orange with dark roots was my look  .


----------



## lupie

Met up with a couple who are getting one of Ruska's puppies today for a walk. They were lovely. 

Best thing was - 99.9% recall :thumbup: :thumbup: she didn't go out of sight and when she was looking like she was gonna charge off I called her and she came. 

It wasn't such a training walk as we were nattering away  but I let her range around me because she was being so responsive to my calls! But I think she enjoyed letting loose. She's flopped out now!!

Makes up a little for Deergate!


----------



## zedder

Building and insulating a kennel for when the builders are renovating our house it's looking awesome huge though hopefully finished it all next weekend.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Mine really, really needed a cut (it's v short so obvious!) and really, really needed a colour as since I went bright copper last time faded orange with dark roots was my look  .


My hair disappeared with chemo in the autumn and is now coming back a fetching shade of grey. I'm hoping it means I won't get ID'd quite so often.......

Lupie - sounds like you handled "deergate" pretty well to me and it sounds like Ruskas recall is coming along really well. Must be nice to know puppies are going to a good home.

I spoke to the behaviouralist about Tryfans latest bonkers behaviour and she thinks the recent acting up on walks is due to frustration from having very high expectations of interaction due to my recent over zealous training:001_unsure:. So I made things worse by trying to do the right thing. Sigh. Anyway onwards and upwards.

We've been away staying in a pub in north wales and he was so so good. Really good in the room, only one minor strop at not being allowed on the bed and slept in his own basket happily after that. Really calm in the pub, settling under the table and even relaxing enough to sleep despite there being lots going on. The only time he got worked up was when a drunken man, who of course was a dog expert, wouldn't leave him alone despite my polite protestations that Tryf needed to calm down. But of course said man knew better and proceeded to get him in a proper state whilst telling us all the things we were doing wrong.

We had a few really good walks. He had a whale of a time following the scents of pheasants (and chasing a couple). Hopefully it won't have undone all the work I've done on getting him to focus and recall.

We didn't do much training apart from "settle". He's nice and relaxed so I'm hoping for a week in which his numpty owners don't turn him back into a crazy dog!


----------



## Twiggy

I walked the dogs early this morning as I promised a 'non-doggy' friend I'd go for some retail therapy to a big shopping outlet with her. We didn't get back until almost 4.00pm, having had lunch out as well.

Although it was an enjoyable day, tad annoying that today has been the nicest day weatherwise we've had for months and I could have got the agility equipment out for Holly and done some sendaways with Tremor. Never mind; they've just had a good second walk.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Yes, I am still excited though :thumbsup:. Our car is white but it's nice in that colour (and the advantage of it is that people think you're the Police and pull in to let you past :lol.


Now they'll just think you're the K-9 Unit. Carry a walkie-talkie and practice making "static" noises in the back of your throat.


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Woke up to howling gales and fairly deep snow this morning. Looks like I'll be working on staying upright today . At least it's the CH's "day off" today with usually only one local walk.


Snow... where's mine ?


----------



## diefenbaker

lupie said:


> Suddenly, a small herd of deer just ran past us. I had no idea deer went there - i've never seen any! or signs of.
> 
> So of course, off she went. Fenton moment. :crying: I *stupidly* blew my whistle - but I panicked.


I find this impossible. I play tons of recall games with Dief... but I know that if he spotted a deer/fox and it ran... unless I could stop him before he's taken 2 paces it's game over. I just can't think how you could proof against it. The wildlife is just so uncooperative.

Strangely the local cats have become cooperative now they're used to him. He doesn't chase them so they don't bolt so he doesn't chase them etc.


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> TI can't see the point when most of the time it's covered up by a less than glamorous woolly hat...!!


I haven't said a word.


----------



## diefenbaker

Went to the beach today. A surprisingly large number of people there and all manner of dogs. Dief was on his bestest behaviour.. quite focused on us.. I may have done some mini "whoops". And I lost his kong on a rope in the sea. The undercurrent dragged it out and he looked at me as if to say "You threw it.. you get it".


----------



## Bagrat

zedder said:


> Building and insulating a kennel for when the builders are renovating our house it's looking awesome huge though hopefully finished it all next weekend.


At least if you've made it that big there'll be room for you should the need arise - or was that your intention?

I'm going to be permanently on line if I'm not careful to ration myself. My online course has just started and it has it's own forum, sub groups as well so if you can't keep up ( they obviously know me) you can at least provide feedback for a small group.
There's also a "coffee shop " section to chat about anything so forgive me if I'm missing on and off!!

We saw three dogs today. First one we saw in the distance turned away and then turned back to have another look - all good then we headed off down our road and did some sits and stuff but he had to offer one woof and then was overwhelmed with excitement at his good behaviour and ragged the lead but did stop when asked for another sit. Second one was at a good distance and he had a good look and turned away without prompting. We then got back to the area he thinks is his field turned the corner and next door's JRT ( the one whose collar he grabbed once) was out. As soon as he saw J he shot back into his garden(always does). J did an excellent U turn with me and then we returned to take advantage of the vacated area so he had to give one woof and was over threshold so we came home.
He loves his new sale price black plush bed. Should have thought it through really, black plush, terrier getting comfy, scrat scrat. oatmeal carpet........


----------



## Dogless

Good walks today; some very smooth turning and coming with me on a loose lead by Kilo when dogs were spied . Other than that, nothing to report, nie change .


----------



## zedder

Bagrat said:


> At least if you've made it that big there'll be room for you should the need arise - or was that your intention?


 More than likely The builders are taking out the entire ground floor of our house all floors and walls back to brick so keeping them in the house wouldn't be possible/dangerous and I thought about it and after seeing some kennels went for one on ebay that was more than big enough and it means I can still see my dogs and they will be coming in at night.just got to felt the roof and wait for the floor mat to arrive and it'll be finished.


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> More than likely The builders are taking out the entire ground floor of our house all floors and walls back to brick so keeping them in the house wouldn't be possible/dangerous and I thought about it and after seeing some kennels went for one on ebay that was more than big enough and it means I can still see my dogs and they will be coming in at night.just got to felt the roof and wait for the floor mat to arrive and it'll be finished.


Goodness...!! That really is major renovations. I think I'd prefer to be in the kennel with the dogs...

Good luck...


----------



## Nicki85

Morning! Hope everyone had a good weekend 

Ours was spent wandering the Ridgeway on Saturday and training on Sunday.

Our agility club had organised for Sian Ilingworth to hold a three hour workshop so off we went. I'd taken Rust out for 45mins to settle him in the morning and the workshop started at 9am. He was a very good boy, he's a bit too relaxed at the agility barn and spent most of the time inbetween runs snoozing.... But Sian got him reved up for me lol (either that or he was trying to get away from the scary lady...) I always find these sessions a bit difficult as Rust really does switch off inbetween runs. He's great once he's going and into it but not as easy as Shae to switch on! Anyhow, a lot of it (all of it!) was about our handling, running the course so the dog takes the most efficient line. We learnt how to execute the silly European turns- ketschers which I got hopelessly confused with... At one point I confused Rust so much he came and did a bow infront of me... whoops. But we got there in the end! At least Rust is polite, Shae would have been leaping all over me!

Then once I'd got him home he was absolutely desperate for a run over the common so we went over there and he became properly alive, racing around and having a ball. I used some of this to practice our turns again. He is so much more fun to train in the forest!

Funniest comment from Sian was that his physique resembled a pitbull lol. He is very muscular... but he's not been compared to a putbull before!


----------



## Bagrat

Nicki - sounds like a great weekend
Dief - sorry about lost kong, it couldn't have been a cheap throw ball could it?

Mino breakthrough this morning. Heading up the road and spotted man's head round the corner. Carried on and lo!! it was the chap at the top of the road coming home with his noisy terrier ( he's seeing a dog whisperer by the way!! ex police dog trainer and the letters after his name mean nothing to me except as a cert in health and safety!) Anyway other terrier did not bark, Jackson looked at it - I had a massive adrenalin rush ( which I hope my course will help reduce)as we were much too close for J's comfort or mine. Managed an emergency U turn, ran happily away(sic!)though did rag the lead a bit, while I showered J with treats. RESULT.
Got back to our house and turned to see them both still visible but a good distance so hid behind neighbour's motor home while we both relaxed. Came out STILL there but J just did his "watch that" ( "look" is for looking at me) and turned away and came in with me on a loose leash.

before GingerR comments - I know this afternoon's walk will probably a nightmare!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless what have you done. You've got me all excited about new cars. The Essex boy with a mid-life crisis and a dog to consider has turned from South Korea back to Dagenham's finest.

Ford Mondeo 2.2 TDCi Titanium X Sport 5dr


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Dogless what have you done. You've got me all excited about new cars. The Essex boy with a mid-life crisis and a dog to consider has turned from South Korea back to Dagenham's finest.
> 
> Ford Mondeo 2.2 TDCi Titanium X Sport 5dr


Nice....!!


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Dogless what have you done. You've got me all excited about new cars. The Essex boy with a mid-life crisis and a dog to consider has turned from South Korea back to Dagenham's finest.
> 
> Ford Mondeo 2.2 TDCi Titanium X Sport 5dr


Well....if it's good enough for Captain Cook......

*Bagrat* - HUGE well done!!! I can empathise with the huge adrenaline dump into the bloodstream .

*Nicki* - a rare Pitbull Spaniel eh? Just think how much puppies would sell for .

We had a great morning's trail running battling the gales and torrential rain, got home freezing cold and soaking wet to a power cut . Power clearly now back on and both dogs and human warm and dry .

The boys hover sitting in the cold!!


----------



## tiatortilla

My keeping up lasted all of two posts :lol: so sorry! Think I shall just have to be an intermittent contributor until I get my act together 

We've had a very good weekend! Went to the vets on Saturday (she's not ill dw, just paying for something I forgot to pay for last time!) and Tia was the least reactive dog in there  I was so proud I didn't even have time to get annoyed that I was the one with the least noisy dog, and also the one taking the most precautions to make sure she didn't upset the other dogs, lol.
So Tia - 1, collie and JRTs - 0 :001_tt2: :laugh: The people with the JRTs even came to pay at the same time as us, I did pick Tia up at that point because I know she won't kick off if I do and they were a bit close, but I'm just so proud of her  We had a nice little walk after too, she found a Kong squeeze ball and thought it was the best thing ever so I'll have to get her one of those (the one we found was a bit knackered so we left it there!)

Massive walk yesterday, Tia was a little star. Saw quite a few dogs on the on lead parts and she was great, she got loads of off lead time too so we'll definitely be doing that route again 

And today has been good too, saw a few dogs and no reactions  Apart from a bit of a lunge at a mini schnauser but he started it, haha so that's okay 

So everything is going really well actually! Not sure if we've been lucky and only seen small enough dogs at big enough distances but I don't think she's actually barked at another dog for ages! She's also stopped stressing about noise outside on the weekends and I've managed to get her to stop barking at people shouting outside when we're in bed too, just by strokes and praising for being quiet (strangely enough I don't tend to take treats to bed :lol.

Sorry for such a horrible gloaty post haha, everything is just going rather well for once and I'm happy  Off to catch up a bit now!


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## Dogless

Woohoo TT!!!! What a lovely update :thumbup1:.


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## Bagrat

Tia T go missing anytime if you come back with news like that. 
Just started making a few notes in a spiral bound pad re my first on line lesson went into kitchen and noticed the silence so returned to find J with the notebook in his mouth and a small lump missing. Am hoping that's the seal of approval and cooperation ( not).
Dogless - love the hover sit, J tends to do that in the kitchen (cushionfloor too cold?)


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## Twiggy

TT - You gloat away, you deserve to.

Bagrat - Do you think J is trying to tell you something about your online curse?...LOL

Dogless - Please try and keep your ghastly weather over there.

Apparently agility was on this afternoon but I didn't fancy slipping and sliding in the mud or me, Holly and the car caked in the stuff. No dedication obviously..!!


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> TT - You gloat away, you deserve to.
> 
> Bagrat - Do you think J is trying to tell you something about your *online curse*?...LOL
> 
> Dogless - Please try and keep your ghastly weather over there.
> 
> Apparently agility was on this afternoon but I didn't fancy slipping and sliding in the mud or me, Holly and the car caked in the stuff. No dedication obviously..!!


Yikes!!! :001_huh: .


----------



## Twiggy

Off up to Lincoln shortly to see the chiropractor with Barley and Holly. A friend is coming to keep me company which is nice.

Wish me luck trying to contain the little dears for the next 48 hours...!!


----------



## Dogless

Hope all goes well Twiggy .

Separate walks today - walked to some fields to play some "Ready Steady" with them and then home again. One dog seen with Kilo - a bulldog who I haven't seen for about 4 months so assumed they had moved away who is a 100% approach probability. When we first met them he was "only 2 months old and wants to be everyones' friend" last time we met he was "only 18 months old" and as it happens he is pretty rude when he does meet a dog. Anyway....we were on a pavement by a road and he started his run up from about 100m away, I turned Kilo away and we headed off at a fast walk. It wasn't as relaxed as normal as he knew a dog was running up behind us and the woman's recalls were getting a little more desperate so Kilo kept hopping to turn and look behind us but no noise from him and no panic. Luckily he is a badly built bulldog with a very flat face, short thin legs and a huge barrel body with a few extra kgs on top so he was caught before he reached us :thumbsup:.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> Off up to Lincoln shortly to see the chiropractor with Barley and Holly. A friend is coming to keep me company which is nice.
> 
> Wish me luck trying to contain the little dears for the next 48 hours...!!


Good luck, sounds a nightmare. I worry that if Tryf was to injure himself with his acrobatics and need to be confined he REALLY wouldn't cope.

Today's walk was something of as disaster - my stupidity to blame. First half of the walk he was great, we did some LLW and some "dry runs" putting lead on and off. But at the furthest point (why is it always at the furthest point things go wrong?) he freezes having seen something around the corner I can't see yet. I know it's freaked him and he's not going to recall so I jog purposefully accross the moors away from the path and he follows. Turns out it is a couple of horses (and riders). He's only seen horses once before and obviously doesn't know what to, dashing about looking anxious. The horse riders aren't especially helpful and continue towards us even though I haven't yet got him under control. Tryfan predictably starts the jumpy jumpy bitey bitey routine and I end up pretty much wrestling him to the floor (Cesar Milan style) to get hold of his collar as him running up to the horses is obviously not acceptable.

At this point I realise I've lost the lead! Idiot! It was draped accross my shoulders and presumably fell when I ran off the path. It takes the horses an age to get out of sight, and the world and his dog decided to walk past at that moment so I'm stuck holding his collar. Eventually he calms down and the coast is clear. But I can't find the lead anywhere so I end up stuck with an agitated off lead dog at the top of a hill. He's so ramped up that as soon as I start moving he starts jumping and nipping again. I had to pick him up when a group with dogs came towards us (they thought I was nuts) and I contemplated carrying him down but he's heavy and wriggly. In the end I walked down with him jumping and nipping my arms (shredded coat) and bum (OUCH!!) most of the way. Luckily he flipped back into well behaved mode and walked to heel off lead for the last few minutes and calmly let me hold his collar whilst a big group of hikers walked past.

When he gets in this state it seems he's unaware of what's going on around him. I hope this is the case as I had to grab him by the collar/scruff and use brute force to get him under control a couple of times - hope he doesn't remember

I've definitely learnt a lesson. Rucksack with spare lead shall be coming everywhere with me now!


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Sarahliz, I have been there with the shredded coat and massive bruises with Kilo, he was awful for doing it as soon as things got too much for him . I think that your walk is just one to chalk up to experience&#8230;and tomorrow really is another day .

I carry a slip lead across my body whenever we go out - maybe that would do for you as a spare? It can be put through the loop on a normal collar or harness, then passed through itself if that makes sense if Tryf is too agitated for it to be used as intended? Can also be made into a emergency head collar.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Oh dear Sarahliz, I have been there with the shredded coat and massive bruises with Kilo, he was awful for doing it as soon as things got too much for him . I think that your walk is just one to chalk up to experienceand tomorrow really is another day .
> 
> I carry a slip lead across my body whenever we go out - maybe that would do for you as a spare? It can be put through the loop on a normal collar or harness, then passed through itself if that makes sense if Tryf is too agitated for it to be used as intended? Can also be made into a emergency head collar.


Yes that's a good idea. I suppose a slip lead would also be a back up in the case of a collar malfunction too.

I shall count myself lucky that I imagine the bruises from my little dog are probably not as bad as the ones you had from your much bigger dog!


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Yes that's a good idea. I suppose a slip lead would also be a back up in the case of a collar malfunction too.
> 
> I shall count myself lucky that I imagine the bruises from my little dog are probably not as bad as the ones you had from your much bigger dog!


You wouldn't believe it. Ouch. He was horrendous. We have worked on impulse control, impulse control and more impulse control :lol: :eek6:.


----------



## lupie

TT - your post made me very happy for you - you must be so, so chuffed  

Dogless - I'm glad Ruska isn't the only one with a hover sit in horrible conditions!! 

Sarahliz - sounds awful for you. I hope you manage to get out for a calmer one soon! And I second the idea of a slip lead. You can get them pretty cheaply and they aren't very big, and you can just carry one around you. I've been known to be walking around with my longlead, Ruska on a lead and a spare lead in certain circumstances :lol: But I am a worrywort. 

Nothing much to report here - saw one dog yesterday on the other side of the road and she was barking at it. Couldn't work out if she was straining at the lead to get to it, or to the food in my hand. But rest of walk was uneventful. 

She's putting on weight now - every fibre of me is thinking ack, got to get her to lose it, gonna be chubby, but it's just the pups growing.


----------



## Twiggy

*Dogless *- your account of the bulldog made me laugh, nuisance that it was.

*Sarahliz* - that sounds like the walk from hell. I'm sorry.

I've just got back from the chiropractor. As I had a friend with me, we stopped on the way home for lunch and very nice it was too.

The chiropractor doesn't want to see Barley again for four weeks so I shall take Tremor with me next time as she is due a visit. She was pleased with Barley, although there's still an area lower back that isn't quite right.

There was some tension along Holly's spine and surprisingly left shoulder. Both possibly caused when she fell off the walkway just over two weeks ago. Anyway all is well now and she doesn't want to see her again for the time being.

She is such a genius and I'm really pleased a friend recommended her to me last Autumn.

She's another one to fall under Holly's spell. She's thinks Holly is very pretty and so sweet.


----------



## Dogless

Sounds like a very successful and enjoyable day Twiggy :thumbsup:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Sounds like a very successful and enjoyable day Twiggy :thumbsup:.


It was... So much nicer to have someone to chat to all the way up there and back, especially as it was dog chat.

Holly and Barley were such good girls too. You didn't know they were in the car quite honestly and both were so well mannered and obliging in the treatment room, bless them.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It was... So much nicer to have someone to chat to all the way up there and back, especially as it was dog chat.
> 
> Holly and Barley were such good girls too. You didn't know they were in the car quite honestly and both were so well mannered and obliging in the treatment room, bless them.


Little HB certainly knows how to gain friends :001_wub:.


----------



## Nicki85

Good day here in general  

Walk in the Big Forest this morning, Shae off and Rust on a longline. We met a couple with two large (husky/mal and some sort of lean type mastiff?) and a JRT on lead. Rust was really unhappy which is completely out of character for him and he just froze and stared. Nothing I could do to get him our of it so just kept him on a very short lead out of the way. Shae was doing fine, brought her over to the side as well so they could pass few low growls (as usual when I hold her harness/ collar and dogs are approaching). We met them again later on and Shae was really good, walked off lead to close and continued with her walk after they passed without any looking back. But, one of the growled at Rust which made him really defensive. Again so unlike Rust who gets on with 99.9% dogs he meets. This also made Shae have a quick growl as well but she didn't break away from me.

Then we met a lady with three bassets (nice ones, not the really long ones) and a Collie. Bless her, she spotted I had Rust on a yellow lead so mustered all her dogs up as she thought he needed space. So I thought I'd better drag my two to the side again... but eventually we both figured out that our dogs were all fine lol. Of course where I had had Shae on lead she was defensive but it was nice to see her snap out of it and interact fine with the dogs once off. 
I certainly need to work on her reactivity/nervousness when on lead and dogs approach. She's fine if off and has the freedom to decide what to do but on lead she gets very defensive and then more stressed with it so that if she does get to greet the dog onlead it's bound to go wrong. Only happens out in the forest though, agility shows and training environments she's happy to meet and greet on or off.

Then... on to Rusty's off lead run in the forest. He was such a good lad for me, certainly deserves a gold star or two! We were out for 2hrs in the end and he put up one pheasant and two deer... The deer he recalled off of really nicely (and quickly!) and he calmed down pretty quickly after the pheasant. He also heard two pheasants but kept his brain in gear and listened to me. I'm really pleased with him as pheasants especially can send him into overdrive... I let him race off once he flushed it (in the opposite direction to the way it had flown lol) and then recalled and he came back nicely. Super boy!! The addition of a whistle followed by me throwing his toy to chase seems to have really helped. 
Shae has agility later 

Twiggy- sounds like a really nice morning  and that it is doing the world of good for your guys!
DL- love the bulldog story, well done Kilo by the sounds of it
Lupie- exciting stuff about the puppies! When are they due? 
Sarahliz- that sounds like a nightmare of a walk  Tomorrow is another day though and I bet you anything its' the last time you loose your lead!


----------



## tiatortilla

Thanks for all the nice comments on our success 

Dogless - well done to Kilo for not reacting to the bulldog, sounds like he's doing so much better 

Sarahliz - sounds like a stressful experience, all in all it sounds like you dealt with it pretty well though! Slip lead sounds like a good idea, I've always got a normal length lead and a longline with me just in case!

lupie - must be so odd knowing there are little puppies inside Ruska! Very exciting though 

Twiggy - glad the chiropractor visit went well and you had a nice day 

---

Good walk again today  Our huge field had sheep in, but they were right over the other side which is a really long way away, and Tia's recall and focus has been spot on lately so I decided we could play fetch at a big distance from them... don't think she even noticed they were there  So we did that, played some silly chasey games in the park next to it and went through a sheepless field too, perfect behaviour from Tia apart from one failed "leave it" with some particularly delicious poo  

On my last post I said "Not sure if we've been lucky and only seen small enough dogs at big enough distances..." but today we ended up between a Weirmaraner (never sure if I've spelled that right!) and a Lab and she was fine  There was a reasonable distance between but not huge and that's two very big dogs by Tia's standards! I don't want to get too ahead of myself but I think we are really getting somewhere


----------



## Dogless

*Nicki* - I hereby formally award a couple of gold stars to Rusty :lol:.

*TT* - some for Tia too; she's doing so well :thumbsup:.

Took Roo for his second walk; just on lead. The next cold front has arrived so the winds have picked up and in comes the rain again…hope there's room on the ark for us :eek6:.

Walking Kilo with Diz and human later.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *Nicki* - I hereby formally award a couple of gold stars to Rusty :lol:.
> 
> *TT* - some for Tia too; she's doing so well :thumbsup:.
> 
> Took Roo for his second walk; just on lead. *The next cold front has arrived so the winds have picked up and in comes the rain againhope there's room on the ark for us :eek6:.*
> 
> Walking Kilo with Diz and human later.


We're going to get your foul weather tonight and tomorrow. Great - I spent about two hours yesterday removing all the mud from the barn floor but after class tomorrow afternoon it will be just as bad again....


----------



## Sarahliz100

Oooooh - sounds like there have been lots of beautifully behaved dogs today. It's so nice to hear about dogs who have had some issues getting along so well. I live in hope!

We've had a much more successful afternoon. Did some work on the retrieve - he'll now go and fetch the dummy, bring it back, sit nicely holding it then deliver to hand. He sometimes gets excited and runs about a bit or lies down to chew it and needs some verbal encouragement to bring it to me so I'm working on consistency. He's not always that "tidy" either, sometimes dangling it by the loose fabric at the end, so still stuff to work on but nice progress. The training school I go to has started a monthly gun dog workshop using clicker training so perhaps we'll give that a whirl at some point.

I'm also working on recall indoors. He's mostly great outdoors but indoors it's hard to get him out of the mindset that we might be trying to trick him away from something he wants to do. I've decided to really go for premium rewards to try to get the behaviour established so am carrying round a little tub of wet dog food for him to lick out on successful recalls (I have to hold it as if I gave him the tub he'd get possessive over it...). So far so good. I'm actually achieving recalling him when he's settled on the sofa which has previously been pretty much impossible .


----------



## Dogless

*Twiggy* - don't blame me :lol:if I could control our weather it would be pretty different to the urgent state :scared: .

Nice walk tonight for Kilo with Diz, nice company for me with Diz's human. Nothing to report, just how I like it .


----------



## Twiggy

I've just let the dogs out before my Wednesday class gets here and out of the window I see Holly go flashing by from the garden into the exercise paddock and then join Barley doing a ton and 10 around the perimeter.

Little devils...!! I knew they'd be a nightmare. So much for keeping both of them on the lead this morning out walking.


----------



## lupie

Last night's walk was dry but a very blowy affair - Ruska actually attempted to chase a few leaves and things which she's never done before - the wind must've weirded her out a little bit. 

Had her off for about 10 minutes down a safe bit - river on one side and chainlink fence on the other so she can't go anywhere - and she was a star. 

Dreading tonight's walk however. Rain & wind has arrived in full force. :scared:


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## Dogless

Uh oh Twiggy - naughty dogs :lol:.

We went to the forest. We survived. That is all . The dogs had fun belting about though!!


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## tiatortilla

Another wet and windy walk here! An entire section of our walk was just a huge puddle  Tia enjoyed that bit :lol:
Nothing much to report, we only saw one dog. He's an ambull type thing, not sure what but he's very big and beautiful, seems like a lovely dog too, I see him around quite a lot. We were trying to cross the road so I didn't notice him quite quick enough, Tia did a quiet little growl and a bounce but a quick "come on" and a few steps in the other direction and she was fine so not too bad really


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## Fluffster

God it's awful weather! Our route was blocked by a huge puddle so we had to go off-road a bit. We are both absolutely soaking! We sacked off LLW today as I couldn't face stopping in the wind and rain every time she pulled  so she went on the flex and got us tangled in a tree.


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## Sarahliz100

Yup we've got the rain too. Nice unexciting day here. I had an appointment this morning so ended up walking at prime dog walking time. Went to the park which unsurprisingly was busy. Didn't fancy letting him off lead as it was all a bit too exciting, but we did lots of nice loose lead walking, and some work on eye contact which is coming along well. I'm hoping to engineer it so that when he sees another dog he looks at me so I can either give him permission to go play or move away. He got scared by an off lead German shepherd that followed us around growling  but then a nice encounter with a bouncy cockerpoo puppy (I'd have let him off to play but was worried the German shepherd would get involved).

I was at the hospital for a few hours and I'm pretty sure he slept the whole time (he was certainly napping when I got back) which bodes well for when I get back to work. He's still pretty sleepy - I think he's telling me he doesn't want to go back out in the rain which is fine by me!


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## Twiggy

We've been quite lucky today. I managed to get the dogs out this morning after it had stopped throwing it down and hubby also got them out late afternoon in the dry. It's been extremely windy and everywhere is squelching again but nothing like as bad as some of you are experiencing.

Class went well again this afternoon and we have a real mixture of breeds now, which I find more interesting than mostly collies (much as I love them). The young Malinois bitch is to die for and the young JRT is doing stunning heelwork and is a credit to his handler. I love my little Shelties and I'm very fond of the Munsterlander, who is one of Holly's bestest friends.


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## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> We've been quite lucky today. I managed to get the dogs out this morning after it had stopped throwing it down and hubby also got them out late afternoon in the dry. It's been extremely windy and everywhere is squelching again but nothing like as bad as some of you are experiencing.
> 
> Class went well again this afternoon and we have a real mixture of breeds now, which I find more interesting than mostly collies (much as I love them). The young Malinois bitch is to die for and the young JRT is doing stunning heelwork and is a credit to his handler. I love my little Shelties and I'm very fond of the Munsterlander, who is one of Holly's bestest friends.


I had to look up Malinois and munsterlander. I think if I saw them out and about if have thought they were German shepherds and springers respectively. Shows I'm definitely a novice!

I decided to take an inventory of things that are going better. So far I have:
1) loose lead walking (still needs lots of food based encouragement)
2) other dogs - now much better at greeting without getting bonkers or terrified. Stood nicely by my side whilst I chatted to a setter owner today despite the fact the setter was right there too. Also played with a golden retriever nicely then came back
3) grooming - squeezy cheese beauty regimen starting to pay off!
4) food bowl - now looks up hopefully when I walk past and he is eating in anticipation of a tasty treat
5) boot of car - will now let me reach in to take his lead, previously used to have a major meltdown if hands reached towards him in the boot. 
6) lying in his bed whilst we are eating instead of jumping up at the table
7) lying/sitting in the corner of the room whilst I get ready to take him out instead of "helping" with my laces etc
8) retrieve

He's still definitely a dog with issues, but it seems a few months of relentless treats and clicking has had some effect


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## Dogless

Well done sarahliz for what you have achieved so far .

We had good walks this morning, just long slow lead potters . Nothing really of note for Roo apart from a bizarre woman telling me to let Roo be a dog :crazy:.

Kilo

1. Stood in the porch and watched small kids come up our drive with just a small growl.
2. Stood in our garden after the walk and watched people go past the fence with not a bother.
3. Saw a dog on our walk and turned so happily and so relaxed and trotted away with me I felt like hugging him. It was a small dog which really helps but still.
4. Disregarded small kids yelling "ddooogggiiieeeeeee"
5. At the corner where he was attacked a loose springer ran up to us and round and round and round us in circles. Nightmare. I just kept on walking whilst the owner recalled repeatedly (which, from their voice, was annoying them but still :roll eyes: ). He was very, very tense, very dressage horse and was growling in a truly blood curdling fashion but still - no panic, barking or lunging.

I am convinced that, the less time we spend walking from home, the better Kilo feels. His stress levels obviously reduce a fair amount.


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> I had to look up Malinois and munsterlander. I think if I saw them out and about if have thought they were German shepherds and springers respectively. Shows I'm definitely a novice!
> 
> I decided to take an inventory of things that are going better. So far I have:
> 1) loose lead walking (still needs lots of food based encouragement)
> 2) other dogs - now much better at greeting without getting bonkers or terrified. Stood nicely by my side whilst I chatted to a setter owner today despite the fact the setter was right there too. Also played with a golden retriever nicely then came back
> 3) grooming - squeezy cheese beauty regimen starting to pay off!
> 4) food bowl - now looks up hopefully when I walk past and he is eating in anticipation of a tasty treat
> 5) boot of car - will now let me reach in to take his lead, previously used to have a major meltdown if hands reached towards him in the boot.
> 6) lying in his bed whilst we are eating instead of jumping up at the table
> 7) lying/sitting in the corner of the room whilst I get ready to take him out instead of "helping" with my laces etc
> 8) retrieve
> 
> He's still definitely a dog with issues, but it seems a few months of relentless treats and clicking has had some effect


Well done and I'm sure you'll get there.

Malinios are the most high drive of the Belgium Shepherd dogs and not for the faint hearted.....LOL


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Well done sarahliz for what you have achieved so far .
> 
> We had good walks this morning, just long slow lead potters . Nothing really of note for Roo apart from a bizarre woman telling me to let Roo be a dog :crazy:.
> 
> Kilo
> 
> 1. Stood in the porch and watched small kids come up our drive with just a small growl.
> 2. Stood in our garden after the walk and watched people go past the fence with not a bother.
> 3. Saw a dog on our walk and turned so happily and so relaxed and trotted away with me I felt like hugging him. It was a small dog which really helps but still.
> 4. Disregarded small kids yelling "ddooogggiiieeeeeee"
> 5. At the corner where he was attacked a loose springer ran up to us and round and round and round us in circles. Nightmare. I just kept on walking whilst the owner recalled repeatedly (which, from their voice, was annoying them but still :roll eyes: ). He was very, very tense, very dressage horse and was growling in a truly blood curdling fashion but still - no panic, barking or lunging.
> 
> I am convinced that, the less time we spend walking from home, the better Kilo feels. His stress levels obviously reduce a fair amount.


Poor Roo. All that mountain walking, fell running, playing with his pal. Certainly sounds like doggy hell. I get really annoyed with random people who think they are dog experts telling me what to. The number of times I've been told to put him in his place, spray him with water, stop "spoiling" him with treats etc. the best one was to pretend to eat his food to fix the resource guarding - and that was from the breeder.......

Kilo sounds like he's doing so well. I like to read these posts


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## Twiggy

Two fairly big successes with Barley...

I've been saying "first one in gets the sweeties" when I let them out of toilet, in an effort to get Barley back in and to stop her indulging in her disgusting habit of Coprophagia. Last night Leafy was first to the back door followed swiftly by Barley, who is usually a good 10 minutes after everyone else...YES..!!

This morning, after their walk round the back field, I forgot to put Barley back on the lead before Tremor and Holly go shooting up the paddock towards home. I simply said "Barley" and she came back to me. I daren't let her join them belting up the paddock until I'm sure her shoulder is 100%. What a good girl...


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## Sarahliz100

Twiggy - I love your first one in gets the sweeties routine, it's ingenious and would never occur to me. Do they understand that only the "winner" gets the treat?

We've had a great few days. No guarding, hardly any frustration just a lovely chilled out pup. Some nice greeting of other dogs, most of the time nice and relaxed but even when he's been frightened he's just shaken it off and diverted his focus on to me. And today..........big drumroll........ a really good off lead play with a little spaniel. I think it's the first time he's looked properly happy and relaxed playing with another dog (usually he wants to approach but then gets overwhelmed if the other dog gets animated and does a crazy approach, retreat, dash around barking in frustration routine). And after a few minutes of play when I went to fetch him he let me take his collar and put his lead on without a flinch. Hooray, hooray. I'm a happy owner


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Twiggy - I love your first one in gets the sweeties routine, it's ingenious and would never occur to me. Do they understand that only the "winner" gets the treat?
> 
> We've had a great few days. No guarding, hardly any frustration just a lovely chilled out pup. Some nice greeting of other dogs, most of the time nice and relaxed but even when he's been frightened he's just shaken it off and diverted his focus on to me. And today..........big drumroll........ a really good off lead play with a little spaniel. I think it's the first time he's looked properly happy and relaxed playing with another dog (usually he wants to approach but then gets overwhelmed if the other dog gets animated and does a crazy approach, retreat, dash around barking in frustration routine). And after a few minutes of play when I went to fetch him he let me take his collar and put his lead on without a flinch. Hooray, hooray. I'm a happy owner


No...LOL They're clever girls but not that clever....!! They've all been getting the sweets irrespective of how quickly they come in. It's really just for Barley's benefit and it is working.

Sounds as if you've had a brilliant day with your pup and there's light at the end of the tunnel. Well done.

btw with regard to impulse control/stays I never ask for a wait on retrieve until the rest of the exercise is 100% and by that I mean the dog is going out to the article fast, picking it up cleanly, returning at the same speed, not mouthing the article and is presenting perfectly straight in front of me. I have to get it right to compete, other people may not need to be so precise.

There are many, many methods to teach a solid sit/down stay but the way I do it is to have the dog on the lead with me in the heel position. The lead is not used but as I start to up the anti it is there to stop them running off, as I need to get the dog back into position quickly. I tell the dog to sit, move away sidewards about 12", return to the heel position and release the dog, praise and play. The next time I would repeat but count to 5 before returning, the next time I might step 12" to the side and then take a pace forward and so on and so on until eventually I can walk a circle around the dog clockwise and anti-clockwise. Once we've got this far I take a step 12" away sidewards and gently clap my hands, until I can do the circles clapping my hands, which gradually gets louder and I might even sing...!! I then do the circles stamping my feet, running, squeaking a toy, bouncing a ball, etc. etc. The lead stays on until I can pretty much do anything and the dog holds position. If the dog moves (and of course they do) I simply pop them back into the sit exactly where they were as quickly as possible. Obviously the dog is never told off, 'sit' is said in a normal voice (not in a threatening manner), and no finger pointing in a stern manner either.

I can ask Tremor to sit or down, run away and turn and lob her favourite toy over her head, jump over her, play a mad game with another dog, etc. etc. and she won't move.

Just don't ask how far I've got with Holly....!!...


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## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> No...LOL They're clever girls but not that clever....!! They've all been getting the sweets irrespective of how quickly they come in. It's really just for Barley's benefit and it is working.
> 
> Sounds as if you've had a brilliant day with your pup and there's light at the end of the tunnel. Well done.
> 
> btw with regard to impulse control/stays I never ask for a wait on retrieve until the rest of the exercise is 100% and by that I mean the dog is going out to the article fast, picking it up cleanly, returning at the same speed, not mouthing the article and is presenting perfectly straight in front of me. I have to get it right to compete, other people may not need to be so precise.
> 
> There are many, many methods to teach a solid sit/down stay but the way I do it is to have the dog on the lead with me in the heel position. The lead is not used but as I start to up the anti it is there to stop them running off, as I need to get the dog back into position quickly. I tell the dog to sit, move away sidewards about 12", return to the heel position and release the dog, praise and play. The next time I would repeat but count to 5 before returning, the next time I might step 12" to the side and then take a pace forward and so on and so on until eventually I can walk a circle around the dog clockwise and anti-clockwise. Once we've got this far I take a step 12" away sidewards and gently clap my hands, until I can do the circles clapping my hands, which gradually gets louder and I might even sing...!! I then do the circles stamping my feet, running, squeaking a toy, bouncing a ball, etc. etc. The lead stays on until I can pretty much do anything and the dog holds position. If the dog moves (and of course they do) I simply pop them back into the sit exactly where they were as quickly as possible. Obviously the dog is never told off, 'sit' is said in a normal voice (not in a threatening manner), and no finger pointing in a stern manner either.
> 
> I can ask Tremor to sit or down, run away and turn and lob her favourite toy over her head, jump over her, play a mad game with another dog, etc. etc. and she won't move.
> 
> Just don't ask how far I've got with Holly....!!...


Thanks, that makes sense. Definitely no wait on the retrieve yet then. With the stay if I'm working indoors with him I can walk in circles around him, leave the room and come back etc without him moving. He's much less reliable outside, but of course the distractions are much greater and it needs more work.

Have just been playing tug with him and periodically getting him to sit and wait whilst I put the toy on the floor a few feet away. He did ever so well and waited until released each time, but he wanted the toy SO bad it clearly used every ounce of his self control. He's a good boy really, tries very hard. As ever I probably did one repetition too many and his frustration got the better of him in the end and he launched a brief frenzied attack on the sofa. Still, not too long ago said attack would have been directed at my leg so I'm happy enough.


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Thanks, that makes sense. Definitely no wait on the retrieve yet then. With the stay if I'm working indoors with him I can walk in circles around him, leave the room and come back etc without him moving. He's much less reliable outside, but of course the distractions are much greater and it needs more work.
> 
> Have just been playing tug with him and periodically getting him to sit and wait whilst I put the toy on the floor a few feet away. He did ever so well and waited until released each time, *but he wanted the toy SO bad it* clearly used every ounce of his self control. He's a good boy really, tries very hard. As ever I probably did one repetition too many and his frustration got the better of him in the end and he launched a brief frenzied attack on the sofa. Still, not too long ago said attack would have been directed at my leg so I'm happy enough.


Yes they do...!!

Tremor is loony on retrieve and never takes her eye off the article once I've thrown it, in fact I could offer her a piece of prime steak and she wouldn't be interested, but she sits there whilst I do everything possible to persuade her to anticipate/move. That's the beauty of training.


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## Dogless

Yesterday nothing bar run about for hours and get excited about some sun..



And then lead walks; Kilo with Diz. The weather by the evening was so vile we saw no one :thumbup1:.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Yesterday nothing bar run about for hours and get excited about some sun..
> 
> And then lead walks; Kilo with Diz. The weather by the evening was so vile we saw no one :thumbup1:.


Yes - don't get too excited about seeing the sun. The weather sounds vile for several weeks yet. I think we're all getting heartily sick of it now. Oh for some calm frosty weather.

My ploy with the 'first one in gets the sweeties' is certainly working. Barley was the first one back to the door this morning....:thumbup1:


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## diefenbaker

Well... I've been a mean Dad this week. Dief's shoulder hasn't cleared up completely so he had X-rays and was groggy for a couple of days. Nothng showed up on X-rays at vet or specialist. Now on reduced walks and... ahem... less treats :incazzato:


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## Dogless

*Dief* - I am pleased that there's been nothing serious found . Hope it clears soon though.

Run for Rudi this morning. A black lab steamed in barking and snarling, hackles up and made contact four times before I finally kicked him hard enough to get him to leave us alone. Person walking him (not owner as far as I know) kept calling him but didn't approach any closer, hold a hand up in apology or shout sorry, just turned her back on us . Rudi is fine, few small nicks. He went batshit but really, who can blame him? I am fine bar being bloody furious .


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> *Dief* - I am pleased that there's been nothing serious found . Hope it clears soon though.
> 
> Run for Rudi this morning. A black lab steamed in barking and snarling, hackles up and made contact four times before I finally kicked him hard enough to get him to leave us alone. Person walking him (not owner as far as I know) kept calling him but didn't approach any closer, hold a hand up in apology or shout sorry, just turned her back on us . Rudi is fine, few small nicks. He went batshit but really, who can blame him? I am fine bar being bloody furious .


Sounds awful, don't blame you for being furious. I suppose the handler was embarrassed and wanted to distance themselves, not that that is any sort of excuse though. Do you have a lot of aggressive dogs your way? Or maybe your dogs being larger attract unwanted aggression from other dogs. It must be very frustrating for you when you clearly go to great lengths to ensure your dogs are well mannered and under control.


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## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Sounds awful, don't blame you for being furious. I suppose the handler was embarrassed and wanted to distance themselves, not that that is any sort of excuse though. Do you have a lot of aggressive dogs your way? Or maybe your dogs being larger attract unwanted aggression from other dogs. It must be very frustrating for you when you clearly go to great lengths to ensure your dogs are well mannered and under control.


Yup lots of aggressive and out of control dogs. With mine being larger it seems that folk think it matters less if their dogs have a go, they're almost impressed that theirs have the guts sometimes. Kilo has always attracted unwanted attention - he really has the ultimate "kick me" sign . With Roo this was our first incident pretty much - he has been rushed by a muzzled GSD once and was with me when Kilo was attacked last summer but dogs seem not to want to mess with him - opposite of Kilo. He is entire but it still doesn't warrant trouble!!


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Yup lots of aggressive and out of control dogs. With mine being larger it seems that folk think it matters less if their dogs have a go, they're almost impressed that theirs have the guts sometimes. Kilo has always attracted unwanted attention - he really has the ultimate "kick me" sign . With Roo this was our first incident pretty much - he has been rushed by a muzzled GSD once and was with me when Kilo was attacked last summer but dogs seem not to want to mess with him - opposite of Kilo. He is entire but it still doesn't warrant trouble!!


Maybe giving off anxious signals triggers aggression. I've had a lot of dogs growl at/chase Tryf, even ones that the owners say are never aggressive. Being a proper wimp he squeals and cowers. It's never escalated but I'm not sure whether that's because he's a pup. I'm a bit worried that as he grows up he'll learn to aggress in response


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## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Maybe giving off anxious signals triggers aggression. I've had a lot of dogs growl at/chase Tryf, even ones that the owners say are never aggressive. Being a proper wimp he squeals and cowers. It's never escalated but I'm not sure whether that's because he's a pup. I'm a bit worried that as he grows up he'll learn to aggress in response


Kilo was always the anxious puppy that got chased and hounded. Some of the minor attacks that he suffered he wasn't aware of the dog until they attacked him (head in bush / pitch dark and sniffing along etc) and the major attack last summer he had his back to the dog and we only became aware of him when he barked once. We all turned round and whether Kilo made eye contact or threw out some other signal I don't know but it was him, not Rudi, who was attacked. I often wonder if he secretes a particular scent that invites trouble. Fascinating really.

I'd say to teach Tryf to get behind your legs "hide" if you can. I have taught Kilo and Rudi now but really, really wish I had done so when Kilo was a puppy. That and be more assertive at seeing unwelcome dogs off. Essentially protecting him more than I did.


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Kilo was always the anxious puppy that got chased and hounded. Some of the minor attacks that he suffered he wasn't aware of the dog until they attacked him (head in bush / pitch dark and sniffing along etc) and the major attack last summer he had his back to the dog and we only became aware of him when he barked once. We all turned round and whether Kilo made eye contact or threw out some other signal I don't know but it was him, not Rudi, who was attacked. I often wonder if he secretes a particular scent that invites trouble. Fascinating really.
> 
> I'd say to teach Tryf to get behind your legs "hide" if you can. I have taught Kilo and Rudi now but really, really wish I had done so when Kilo was a puppy. That and be more assertive at seeing unwelcome dogs off. Essentially protecting him more than I did.


Poor Kilo. Yes I should definitely be more assertive. I often want to scream "call your dog off now!!!" when another dog is pestering and frightening him but I'm pathologically polite and always end up going into an apologetic explanation of how he's a bit timid, yes their dog might just be playing but it's not fun for my dog as he's very scared, it could cause problems in the future, if it's not too much trouble would they be so kind as to retrieve their dog......:frown2:. I need to man up! Of course often they can't recall their dog.....


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## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Poor Kilo. Yes I should definitely be more assertive. I often want to scream "call your dog off now!!!" when another dog is pestering and frightening him but I'm pathologically polite and always end up going into an apologetic explanation of how he's a bit timid, yes their dog might just be playing but it's not fun for my dog as he's very scared, it could cause problems in the future, if it's not too much trouble would they be so kind as to retrieve their dog......:frown2:. I need to man up! Of course often they can't recall their dog.....


I am / was pathologically polite too - I am now far more assertive and wish I had been far sooner. Still, no point dwelling on the "what ifs".


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## Bagrat

Dogless, what can I say poo and double poo , preferably on the shoes of the hapless helpless dog guardian.

I know most of you will have seen this or something similar but in case you haven't I will try and post link.
Haven't caught up yet. Course has it's own forum and sub groups so am getting square eyes!!


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I am / was pathologically polite too - I am now far more assertive and wish I had been far sooner. Still, no point dwelling on the "what ifs".


And I am most certainly not pathologically polite as far as my dogs are concerned.

I'd be throwing the Dangerous Dogs Act, solicitors, etc. etc. if any dog attacked mine.

Even that minor skirmish when one of the handler's collies had a go at Holly about 18 months ago on a course here, I created a huge fuss, stopped the training for about 20 minutes and insisted several handlers brought their 'nice' dogs over to say hello to Holly.

Quite honestly in your case Dogless there isn't much you can do as they seem totally pig ignorant in your part of NI, other than carry a large walking stick.

I know my sister used her walking stick on a lurcher that attacked Tilly a few years ago. She hit it good and hard to get it off Tilly's back and then really ripped into the owner. Knowing my sister I was quite surprised she didn't clout her as well.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> And I am most certainly not pathologically polite as far as my dogs are concerned.
> 
> I'd be throwing the Dangerous Dogs Act, solicitors, etc. etc. if any dog attacked mine.
> 
> Even that minor skirmish when one of the handler's collies had a go at Holly about 18 months ago on a course here, I created a huge fuss, stopped the training for about 20 minutes and insisted several handlers brought their 'nice' dogs over to say hello to Holly.
> 
> Quite honestly in your case Dogless there isn't much you can do as they seem totally pig ignorant in your part of NI, other than carry a large walking stick.
> 
> I know my sister used her walking stick on a lurcher that attacked Tilly a few years ago. She hit it good and hard to get it off Tilly's back and then really ripped into the owner. Knowing my sister I was quite surprised she didn't clout her as well.


The person wasn't who I thought it was; so I am guessing the woman walking the dog was his owner. I am still fuming as she didn't even raise an arm in apology, shout sorry, nothing. I am trying to find out who it is currently. I would like to have a word.


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## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Well... I've been a mean Dad this week. Dief's shoulder hasn't cleared up completely so he had X-rays and was groggy for a couple of days. Nothng showed up on X-rays at vet or specialist. Now on reduced walks and... ahem... less treats :incazzato:


Hmmm sounds like a soft tissue injury.

See how your go but I'd be taking him to either Julia Robertson (Galen technique) or a good animal McTimoney chiropractor.

As you know Tremor was intermittently lame for about 9 months and was seen by two vets, chiropractor, canine massage therapist, Ortho specialist, had x-rays and thermal imaging done but it was an excellent McTimoney chiropractor that got her sound.


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## Bagrat

SarahLiz - sounds fantastic progress and so good to make a list or you forget how far you've both come.
Dief - these dogs just want to make sure we've got something to worry about i think.
All fairly quiet here. We have been practising "Say Hi". J goes to other person does a "touch "of their hand,I click and he rushes back to me to get a treat .
Works well in the house to prevent OH getting the full frontal greeting when he comes in.
Tried it on willing male neighbour this morning. Sort of OK. Didn't mob or mouth him but in no rush to come for treat without a gentle suggestion down the lead.
J also managed to "watch" his unfavourite JRT half way up the road through the window without barking. Owner and willing male were having a good gossip so JRT was just sitting (in the middle of the road !!)on flexi. Am working on "mat" when J goes to window barking when he returns to the mat he is released to "go see" again. Is that Premacking??: it's quite good as whatever it was is further away by then and not so much of a draw so by second "go see" he can really take it or leave it.


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The person wasn't who I thought it was; so I am guessing the woman walking the dog was his owner. I am still fuming as she didn't even raise an arm in apology, shout sorry, nothing. I am trying to find out who it is currently. *I would like to have a word.*


*
*

A very strong word I hope. I feel so angry for Rudi and you of course.


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## Twiggy

Bagrat said:


> SarahLiz - sounds fantastic progress and so good to make a list or you forget how far you've both come.
> Dief - these dogs just want to make sure we've got something to worry about i think.
> All fairly quiet here. We have been practising "Say Hi". J goes to other person does a "touch "of their hand,I click and he rushes back to me to get a treat .
> Works well in the house to prevent OH getting the full frontal greeting when he comes in.
> *Tried it on willing male neighbour this morning. Sort of OK. Didn't mob or mouth him but in no rush to come for treat without a gentle suggestion down the lead.*
> J also managed to "watch" his unfavourite JRT half way up the road through the window without barking. Owner and willing male were having a good gossip so JRT was just sitting (in the middle of the road !!)on flexi. Am working on "mat" when J goes to window barking when he returns to the mat he is released to "go see" again. Is that Premacking??: it's quite good as whatever it was is further away by then and not so much of a draw so by second "go see" he can really take it or leave it.


Remember the dogs need to learn the rules of any new game. Try and discover what tit-bit J would sell his soul for and use that when you take him out to greet people. You could use a lesser value tit-bit in the house.

The progress sounds good....:thumbup1:


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## Nicki85

Today we went to a small agility show with both of them. Rust went in very worried (more so than I imagined he ever would!) and I had to coax him round the first agility course. But he still went clear and came away with 3rd place. Next was jumping and his confidence had grown and he went clear again and came away with a second place. Last was steeplechase but he was getting tired and demolished a couple of jumps. I put him in a wait on the start line which worried him so he rushed to catch up and got too flat. Really pleased with him though, surprised that he was so worried but we can work on that 

Shae also came along and was the perfect pup, politely greeted every one (dog and person) when invited and had great fun playing in the field with the other dogs. She also played with me and ignored the other dogs playing ball… She ignored the yard cat as requested and was generally a lovely, polite girly. Sooo pleased with her behaviour 

Really good day all in all and here's Rusty Buckets with his winnings!









DL- sorry to hear about your walk  What is it about the people round your way?! Hope Rudi manages to brush it off…
Bagrat- all sounds very good and positive!
SarahLiz- same as above! Well done you and your doglet


----------



## Dogless

Very successful day then Nicki? Winnings plus a perfect pup in the form of Miss Shae :thumbup1: .


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Today we went to a small agility show with both of them. Rust went in very worried (more so than I imagined he ever would!) and I had to coax him round the first agility course. But he still went clear and came away with 3rd place. Next was jumping and his confidence had grown and he went clear again and came away with a second place. Last was steeplechase but he was getting tired and demolished a couple of jumps. I put him in a wait on the start line which worried him so he rushed to catch up and got too flat. Really pleased with him though, surprised that he was so worried but we can work on that
> 
> Shae also came along and was the perfect pup, politely greeted every one (dog and person) when invited and had great fun playing in the field with the other dogs. She also played with me and ignored the other dogs playing ball She ignored the yard cat as requested and was generally a lovely, polite girly. Sooo pleased with her behaviour
> 
> Mega well done Rusty....:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


----------



## Twiggy

I took Tremor, Barley and Holly over to the barn for half an hour this afternoon and I thought the roof was going to come off as it was blowing a gale. The plus is that it's drying the ground out and I might be able to do a bit of agility with Holly tomorrow and hopefully go to class on Monday. We've got a show next week-end but I won't be going unless I can do a bit with her this week.

Holly was very good training this afternoon particularly her HTM moves and we're now starting on some of the technically more difficult ones, like reversing round my legs at speed. She certainly doesn't lack intelligence or stamina. I've got a few more rips in my coat though....LOL


----------



## Bagrat

Twiggy - thanks for the advice - I need all I can get.
Bit sad  said to OH how much we had learnt through adopting J and he looked puzzled. So said "I've found out so much to help him and it's helped me too, what about you?" "no". Hey ho, They get on well though and J's favourite place is standing facing OH, head between his knees so he can have a slow neck massage. 

Nicki that sounds fab well done all three ( sorry four - you deserve a well done too)


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> I am trying to find out who it is currently. I would like to have a word.


Is it the 'F' word ? I don't understand the complete lack of responsibility. I wonder if they have the same attitude for themselves and would leave the scene of an accident. I see myself as responsible for whatever he does... even if I wasn't there.


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm sounds like a soft tissue injury.
> 
> See how your go but I'd be taking him to either Julia Robertson (Galen technique) or a good animal McTimoney chiropractor.
> 
> As you know Tremor was intermittently lame for about 9 months and was seen by two vets, chiropractor, canine massage therapist, Ortho specialist, had x-rays and thermal imaging done but it was an excellent McTimoney chiropractor that got her sound.


Thankyou. You gave me a local link before. It is filed.:thumbsup:


----------



## zedder

Ike had a very bad day today mini tantrum and zero concentration bit disappointed as I thought we'd got over that stage now obviously not so back to basics for him.


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Ike had a very bad day today mini tantrum and zero concentration bit disappointed as I thought we'd got over that stage now obviously not so back to basics for him.


What breed is Ike?


----------



## zedder

Border/bearded collie


----------



## Dogless

Just had a lovely walk with Kilo and Diz (and his human!!). Saw a dog coming head on and Kilo executed a lovely relaxed turn and walk with me into the graveyard where we skulked until dog went past . Diz's human is really seeing the difference in Kilo now - I know he is doing better but it's lovely having her noticing too as she knows him so well.


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Border/bearded collie


Super cross....

When you say mini tantrums and no concentration what exactly do you mean?


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Is it the 'F' word ? I don't understand the complete lack of responsibility. I wonder if they have the same attitude for themselves and would leave the scene of an accident. I see myself as responsible for whatever he does... even if I wasn't there.


I cannot understand it either Dief, it really, really amazes me and saddens me too. I totally agree with you - I am responsible for my dogs' actions and I step up to the plate if needed.

*Bagrat* - I am sorry . Still, onwards and upwards and J seems to be flourishing with you.

*Grannie* - you'd best patch that coat up in this weather  . You going to compete with little HB at HTM or is it just to occupy her?


----------



## zedder

He's done it ever since he was small one moment fine then the next he'll go nuts yanking and turns on me got a lot less frequent and I am getting help from a trainer who's great no health reason for it either just his personality I guess.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I cannot understand it either Dief, it really, really amazes me and saddens me too. I totally agree with you - I am responsible for my dogs' actions and I step up to the plate if needed.
> 
> *Bagrat* - I am sorry . Still, onwards and upwards and J seems to be flourishing with you.
> 
> *Grannie - you'd best patch that coat up in this weather  . You going to compete with little HB at HTM or is it just to occupy her?*




I'll see how it goes but yes I would like to compete with her. It's a hell of a lot of work putting a routine together though. Teaching the tricks is the easy bit.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> I'll see how it goes but yes I would like to compete with her. It's a hell of a lot of work putting a routine together though. Teaching the tricks is the easy bit.


I can only imagine!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I can only imagine!!


Of course the other problem might well be that we get a super routine up to scratch then arrive at the venue only to find Holly has stage fright....!!

That's exactly what happened to my sister with Sammy and it was a brilliant routine.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Of course the other problem might well be that we get a super routine up to scratch then arrive at the venue only to find Holly has stage fright....!!
> 
> That's exactly what happened to my sister with Sammy and it was a brilliant routine.


Well Grannie, only one way to find out and you're not a woman who is easily daunted :thumbup1:.

Your poor sister though, what a shame!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well Grannie, only one way to find out and you're not a woman who is easily daunted :thumbup1:.
> 
> Your poor sister though, what a shame!


It was certainly a shame for her. Not for me and Fidget though - we won..LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> It was certainly a shame for her. Not for me and Fidget though - we won..LOL


All's fair in love and war .


----------



## lupie

Busy few days here. 

Lappy walk meet up today. Ruska did pretty well considering there were some very bouncy younger puppies. She had a growl at some that got too in her face, but I figured that was pretty normal. 

Her recall was amazing, I got lots of compliments. I think her hormones might be having a part to play in that but hey, I won't complain 

We ended up back at one of the owner's houses which would've been way too high pressure with all the younger dogs running around so I crated her in a separate room and she settled down nicely. 

Puppies are crazy though...maybe I'll rethink my stealing all of Ruska's plans 

Sorry to hear about the run-in with Rudi Dogless - like you need anymore events like that 

Hope everyone else is doing well - briefly skimmed as I am knackered :shocked:


----------



## Twiggy

Is it bedtime yet? The girls are being horrendous tonight and just won't settle.

Leafy's barking in indignation because somebody has taken her toy. Barley keeps flinging toys at the computer and then nudging me. Tremor's on the bed with Barley's favourite toy and Holly keeps scrounging tit-bits.

They had a long walk this morning, training this afternoon and another walk before dark.

I can't play 'bally up the hally' because hubby has started to decorate.

I hope JessicaFCR knows what she's letting herself in for, having chosen a collie bitch pup.


----------



## Dogless

Hmmmmm&#8230;.Mum said she used to put a little rum in my milk when I wouldn't settle   . It's that or you get some ear defenders and go up to bed!!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hmmmmm.Mum said she used to put a little rum in my milk when I wouldn't settle   . It's that or you get some ear defenders and go up to bed!!!


It would help if I could give them filled kongs or rawhide chews to amuse them but I can't because of Leafy and her food intolerance.

Barley is absolutely full of it and is getting much fitter but I can't go too mad with her either otherwise she'll be lame again.

It's very obvious that nobody has told Leafy she's on borrowed time and has arthritis in her spine and hips. She's every bit as bad as the rest even if she is 12.1/2 yrs old.....LOL

If it's dry tomorrow I'm going to walk them for even longer in the morning and then train them for hours tomorrow afternoon.

I hate this time of year. When it's drier and lighter they usually help me fill in holes in the paddocks and pull up weeds for several hours....


----------



## diefenbaker

So.. the cutting out treats isn't going too well. He's just had Crispy Hog followed by Liver and Bacon and finished off with Ice Cream at the Bat and Ball.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> So.. the cutting out treats isn't going too well. He's just had Crispy Hog followed by Liver and Bacon and finished off with Ice Cream at the Bat and Ball.


Ooops . Washed down with a pint and chaser or is the sobriety resolution still standing? .


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Ooops . Washed down with a pint and chaser or is the sobriety resolution still standing? .


Thankfully I'm not that bad a Dad. Mine was washed down with a Lemsip. Yes I am looking for sympathy.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Thankfully I'm not that bad a Dad. Mine was washed down with a Lemsip. Yes I am looking for sympathy.


Manflu? I have more sympathy for Mrs Dief :laugh:.

Spent the morning trail running this morning. We usually walk from home at the weekend but didn't want to risk Roo having a stressful walk again this morning - I know that sounds over protective . I also want to give them a few days' hard exercise before they get a rest when I go away next week for a few days!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Manflu? I have more sympathy for Mrs Dief :laugh:.
> 
> Spent the morning trail running this morning. We usually walk from home at the weekend but didn't want to risk Roo having a stressful walk again this morning - I know that sounds over protective . I also want to give them a few days' hard exercise before they get a rest when I go away next week for a few days!!


It doesn't sound over protective at all considering what happened.

I gave mine an extra long walk this morning and extra time training this afternoon. I also put a few jumps up and the tunnel and ran Holly two or three times, although it took longer chasing the tunnel across the paddock and replacing poles that the howling gale kept blowing off...!! Very frustrating. They've just had their second walk and woe betide any of them that starts whilst I'm watching Dancing on Ice....


----------



## lupie

Lovely walk this morning. She's being an absolutely bloody dream at the moment. Recalling, keeping an eye on me....not searching for squirrels tooooooo much. 

I'm assuming it's the hormones but boy, do I love it! I'm making sure to actively encourage all this behaviour so that maybe it'll carry over for when she comes back....hmmm.... 

Met up with a friend later on in the day and she was saying about how her dog is a bit stir crazy - I asked why and she said that they had barely been able to walk him because of the weather.  She said that because they can't do their local walks they've not been able to take him very many places and the places they do take him are so muddy he has to stay on the lead or he gets too dirty. :yikes: Put some wellies on, get the hose ready, big deal. They live 2 miles away from me so they could walk all the places I walk that aren't flooded!

Oh - he's a working line border collie. I asked if she had any house left.


----------



## zedder

Kennel roof fixed floors down just got to gently acclimatise them to going in and out of it now plenty of time for it any tips perhaps feed them in it sometimes treats maybe.


----------



## Fluffster

Trying in vain to catch up!!!

That's a shame, Lupie, about the collie  I think Daisy actually likes it better when it's wet and muddy! And as for the dirt, don't get an active working strain dog if you don't like dirt! No wonder the poor thing is stir crazy 

Yay for Ruska behaving  Can't believe she's going to be a mummy, so exciting!!!!

Quiet times here, apart from an incident yesterday where I think Daisy stood in nettles and was so agitated in the house for about 45mins/an hour  Back to normal today.

The walk yesterday was good pre-nettlegate, but she's SO obsessed with toys when we're out. We met a lovely working cocker who was desperate to play with her, and Daisy wouldn't even look at him as we had been playing frisbee prior to this and she was just focused on us waiting for us to throw the frisbee. I put it out of sight and did the "No more" command, which is what I use at the end of games, but to no avail  Thing is, she does love playing with other dogs and if we hadn't had the frisbee out, the pair of them would have chased each other all over the place, but she's so single-minded once she knows there's a frisbee or ball about! Felt bad for the poor other cocker who stood watching and wondering why he was being ignored!


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> Lovely walk this morning. She's being an absolutely bloody dream at the moment. Recalling, keeping an eye on me....not searching for squirrels tooooooo much.
> 
> I'm assuming it's the hormones but boy, do I love it! I'm making sure to actively encourage all this behaviour so that maybe it'll carry over for when she comes back....hmmm....
> 
> Met up with a friend later on in the day and she was saying about how her dog is a bit stir crazy - I asked why and she said that they had barely been able to walk him because of the weather.  She said that because they can't do their local walks they've not been able to take him very many places and the places they do take him are so muddy he has to stay on the lead or he gets too dirty. :yikes: Put some wellies on, get the hose ready, big deal. They live 2 miles away from me so they could walk all the places I walk that aren't flooded!
> 
> *Oh - he's a working line border collie.* I asked if she had any house left.


I'm not surprised he's going stir crazy. Collies lurv mud, wind and rain.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> Trying in vain to catch up!!!
> 
> That's a shame, Lupie, about the collie  I think Daisy actually likes it better when it's wet and muddy! And as for the dirt, don't get an active working strain dog if you don't like dirt! No wonder the poor thing is stir crazy
> 
> Yay for Ruska behaving  Can't believe she's going to be a mummy, so exciting!!!!
> 
> Quiet times here, apart from an incident yesterday where I think Daisy stood in nettles and was so agitated in the house for about 45mins/an hour  Back to normal today.
> 
> *The walk yesterday was good pre-nettlegate, but she's SO obsessed with toys when we're out*. We met a lovely working cocker who was desperate to play with her, and Daisy wouldn't even look at him as we had been playing frisbee prior to this and she was just focused on us waiting for us to throw the frisbee. I put it out of sight and did the "No more" command, which is what I use at the end of games, but to no avail  Thing is, she does love playing with other dogs and if we hadn't had the frisbee out, the pair of them would have chased each other all over the place, but she's so single-minded once she knows there's a frisbee or ball about! Felt bad for the poor other cocker who stood watching and wondering why he was being ignored!


I know many handlers that strive to get that sort of attention from their dogs and fail dismally....


----------



## Fluffster

Haha, I'm never happy! :lol: It does really come in handy when cyclists/runners/small children appear though, she will sit and just stare at her ball without blinking! I just don't want her to be _too_ obsessed and interact with other dogs and people sometimes when the toy goes away!

On a positive note, she has started dropping her ball for it to be thrown. On a negative note, it's always in the muddiest puddle she can find!


----------



## Fluffster

Right think I've finally caught up!

So sorry to hear about your incident with the lab, Dogless, seems you and the boys really can't catch a break  And for the owner not even to acknowledge what had happened is just awful, I'd be horribly upset and apologetic.

Nicki, how brilliant of Rust to get those rosettes! He looks very pleased with himself  and well done Shae for being so well behaved too  

How are your two getting on now Zedder? Your project sounds like it's progressing well!

Hope you don't have manflu Dief, if you do call 999 asap as it's a killer! 

Hope you got to watch Dancing on Ice in peace, Twiggy 

Not seen Lauren posting lately, hope you and the lovely Skip are ok x


----------



## Twiggy

I think I'll be brave and go to agility this afternoon....!! The grounds dried out here quite a lot over the past three days so fingers crossed the agility field isn't a mud bath.


----------



## Nicki85

Well I have a video of our runs from Saturday! Hopefully you can see how much he improves in confidence as the day goes on... I didn't dare do any waits as that would lead to more poles down as he tries to catch up with me. He's a tricky one as if you try and rush him he panics and sends poles flying (see the last round!).

Nicki and Rusty Springs! - YouTube

Bit worried today though as he seems to have pulled something in his good shoulder and he's pretty sore  Fine before and during the morning walk so must have done something when out  rest for the week I think and some metacam if I have any in the cupboard...


----------



## Fluffster

Hope he's feeling better soon, Nicki!


Not a great start to our walk today  Went up one of our usual routes but there was a digger in the field beside the path and Daisy wouldn't go any further, she was terrified. I tried coaxing and even carrying her, but in the end she bolted and in desperation I grabbed hold of the cord of her flex lead and now have a huge welt on my hand!

We went somewhere different after that and played ball for a while, and she met her black lab pal Tara who was keen to play, but of course the ball was out so that didn't really happen. I had to laugh though, Tara obviously not impressed at being ignored starting using Daisy as some sort of agility equipment, jumping over her, running in circles round her, jumping over her again :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Forest walk this morning, the boys tired themselves out and we just missed the rain - it hit as soon as we reached the car. Winner all round really .


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Well I have a video of our runs from Saturday! Hopefully you can see how much he improves in confidence as the day goes on... I didn't dare do any waits as that would lead to more poles down as he tries to catch up with me. He's a tricky one as if you try and rush him he panics and sends poles flying (see the last round!).
> 
> Nicki and Rusty Springs! - YouTube
> 
> Bit worried today though as he seems to have pulled something in his good shoulder and he's pretty sore  Fine before and during the morning walk so must have done something when out  rest for the week I think and some metacam if I have any in the cupboard...


I agree. You could clearly see how much more confidant Rusty became on the second and third run.

Sorry he seems to have injured himself and I think you're wise to rest him.

Holly was a good girl at agility, especially as she's hardly done any since Christmas. It wasn't as muddy as the last time I went two weeks ago but I was still slipping a bit and my coat and Holly got pretty covered.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy and nicki - very impressed by the agility antics. Hope we can do it one day. Oh and Rusty is sooooo handsome

Dogless - remain as ever in awe if the all trail running. I did made it back to gym and managed a short dismal treadmill performance so you never know. One day......

Lupie - Ruska sounds brill. I would blame your hard work not the hormones

Fluffster - Tryfan is the same when there is a ball around. He LOVES to search for it in deep undergrowth and nothing else matters when he's "finding"

We've had a few good days of generally excellent behaviour. Was even good when the dog disliking future in laws came round (phew). On walks some more nice doggy greetings, and a quick recovery when he got chased squealing by a growling springer. I'm still plugging away relentlessly at loose lead walking, which I think is getting there, but still have moments of barely keeping my footing when he forgets about the lead and tries to dash off. I've had a couple of numpty moments at home where I've left a hat or some gloves within reach which if course he's pinched, but to my amazement he brought them to me and swapped them for treats and lots of praise .

He wasn't quite so perfect at obedience class last night. Getting quite frustrated and barking as he wanted to greet all the other dogs. But he only took his frustration out on me once, whereas once he would have spent the whole time nipping at me. We did lots of work on leave which I had been struggling to make much progress with at home for months, so she gave me some tips and now we're much further along. I feel a bit of a numpty as I probably should have figured it out myself but hey I guess that's why I go to class. I had a chat with the trainer about organising some individual sessions to work on recall away from distractions, so hopefully with a bit of work we'll be able to recall from other dogs. I intend to see if she's anything to add around loose lead walking too. Didn't cost as much as I feared either so might do a few sessions. Win!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Twiggy and nicki - very impressed by the agility antics. Hope we can do it one day. Oh and Rusty is sooooo handsome
> 
> Dogless - remain as ever in awe if the all trail running. I did made it back to gym and managed a short dismal treadmill performance so you never know. One day......
> 
> Lupie - Ruska sounds brill. I would blame your hard work not the hormones
> 
> Fluffster - Tryfan is the same when there is a ball around. He LOVES to search for it in deep undergrowth and nothing else matters when he's "finding"
> 
> We've had a few good days of generally excellent behaviour. Was even good when the dog disliking future in laws came round (phew). On walks some more nice doggy greetings, and a quick recovery when he got chased squealing by a growling springer. I'm still plugging away relentlessly at loose lead walking, which I think is getting there, but still have moments of barely keeping my footing when he forgets about the lead and tries to dash off. I've had a couple of numpty moments at home where I've left a hat or some gloves within reach which if course he's pinched, but to my amazement he brought them to me and swapped them for treats and lots of praise .
> 
> He wasn't quite so perfect at obedience class last night. Getting quite frustrated and barking as he wanted to greet all the other dogs. But he only took his frustration out on me once, whereas once he would have spent the whole time nipping at me. We did lots of work on leave which I had been struggling to make much progress with at home for months, so she gave me some tips and now we're much further along. I feel a bit of a numpty as I probably should have figured it out myself but hey I guess that's why I go to class. I had a chat with the trainer about organising some individual sessions to work on recall away from distractions, so hopefully with a bit of work we'll be able to recall from other dogs. I intend to see if she's anything to add around loose lead walking too. Didn't cost as much as I feared either so might do a few sessions. Win!


Well done to the pair of you. Onwards and upwards....


----------



## Fluffster

Well done Sarahliz! 

Pleasing walk for us today. A dog on lead appeared very suddenly but I was able to get Daisy off the track and waiting at my feet using her ball until they passed.She didn't even react to the dog lunging and panting to try to get to her (not in an aggressive way, I think it just wanted to play!) so I was very pleased with that. We saw the digger at a distance today and sh was very anxious and reluctant to go that direction 

Quite a funny incident while we were out. A gorgeous staffy boy appeared by us when we were playing ball. As Daisy dropped it at my feet, the staffy (who I later found out was called Rufus) grabbed it, obviously to entice Daisy to chase him. She didn't, but I chatted to his owner for a while and Daisy ran around trying to find her ball even though it was in Rufus's mouth.

They made to move off and the owner tried to get the ball off Rufus but he was playing the ol cat and mouse game. I said "I've got liver paste if that would help?" and he said "Oh he's not interested in treats when out"

Now if there's one thing I've learnt on here, that often means "He's not interested in my boring dried up kibbly treats" 

He said "You can give it a go though"

So I crouched down, did my excited voice "RUFUS, what's this?!." Instantly ball was dropped and he was at my feet licking some liver paste :lol:

The guy looked stunned!


----------



## Twiggy

I cancelled training class this afternoon because the Met Office reckoned it was going to be the worse storm of the winter so far, with teeming rain and wind speeds in excess of 60mph. It hasn't actually been as bad as last Wednesday and now the sun has come out....!! Oh well; better to be safe than sorry and quite a number of handlers travel a fair distance.

I've spent most of the day applying emulsion paint to our gigantic hall - lovely. That's the easy bit of course. It's the nine door frames which will need glossing that's really time consuming and very boring.


----------



## JenKyzer

I will have a read through in a sec  Hope everyone is well and managing to keep dry.... ish... ! 

Poor Willow has been hating her walks :thumbdown: 
I hope the bad weather is to blame for her skin flaring up but i'm a little concerned after finding a lump (slightly raised and hard).. about the size of a 2p.. quite fiery red with a lil purpley/blue centre.. aswell as other redness on her hocks & paws.. which is usually manageable, never had a lump before :sad: 

Other than that.. we're all good  Will have a catch up now  or try to!


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> I will have a read through in a sec  Hope everyone is well and managing to keep dry.... ish... !
> 
> Poor Willow has been hating her walks :thumbdown:
> I hope the bad weather is to blame for her skin flaring up but i'm a little concerned after finding a lump (slightly raised and hard).. about the size of a 2p.. quite fiery red with a lil purpley/blue centre.. aswell as other redness on her hocks & paws.. which is usually manageable, never had a lump before :sad:
> 
> Other than that.. we're all good  Will have a catch up now  or try to!


Oh dear poor Willow. A trip to your vet perhaps?


----------



## Sarahliz100

Things still good here in Lancs. Did several short sessions at the park yesterday working on leaving things. Intended to "leave" some of the rubbish that is invariably knocking about the park but found the council had come to clean it up! Worked on leaving other dogs instead - did really well at calmly observing one - until it came and jumped on his head and made him squeal. 

Today we walked through town up onto the moors. Some really good loose lead walking through town - only pulled to try to get into the fancy butchers. Nice recall on the moors.

The crazy pupster isn't so talented at relaxing, so I thought I'd try to teach relax on a mat. He eats all sorts of fabric things, so I got some vetbed as I'd heard puppies chew it less. As soon as I got it out he humped it enthusiastically for quite a while, then chewed a big piece out of it. So not so relaxing really. The vetbed has now been relegated to the boot of the car (at least he'll be toasty post walk), and he shall have to learn to relax on the floor.


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear poor Willow. A trip to your vet perhaps?


It may be on the cards... Will see how it is tomorrow morning, glad it's my day off just incase! She hasn't been trying to bite/itch it though which i don't know if thats a good or bad thing. I didn't know whether to put an antiseptic cream on it to try and dry it up or coconut oil to soothe it.. :confused1: OH isn't even here to tell me i'm worrying over nothing!


----------



## zedder

Took both dogs out myself for the first time got too say definitely not enjoyable between lead tangles and trying too pick poo up with no free hand got to be a easier way:eek6:


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> It may be on the cards... Will see how it is tomorrow morning, glad it's my day off just incase! She hasn't been trying to bite/itch it though which i don't know if thats a good or bad thing. I didn't know whether to put an antiseptic cream on it to try and dry it up or coconut oil to soothe it.. :confused1: OH isn't even here to tell me i'm worrying over nothing!


Well you probably are worrying over nothing but then we all do with our precious dogs.

Do you think it's an abcess? I can't think putting antiseptic cream on it will do any harm. Pure Aloe Vera cream is very soothing if you have any.


----------



## Twiggy

zedder said:


> Took both dogs out myself for the first time got too say definitely not enjoyable between lead tangles and trying too pick poo up with no free hand got to be a easier way:eek6:


Try walking four of the little dears together....LOL


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Well you probably are worrying over nothing but then we all do with our precious dogs.
> 
> Do you think it's an abcess? I can't think putting antiseptic cream on it will do any harm. Pure Aloe Vera cream is very soothing if you have any.


This is it... (Sorry for the pic guys!) 


From absess's that i've seen on pictures.. i don't think so.. but its not 24hrs old yet as it wasn't there this morning. Fingers crossed it doesn't progress into anything. Your thoughts would be appreciated  - even just to stop me worrying ! No aloe vera.. i'll put the cream on and see how we go


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> This is it... (Sorry for the pic guys!)
> 
> 
> From absess's that i've seen on pictures.. i don't think so.. but its not 24hrs old yet as it wasn't there this morning. Fingers crossed it doesn't progress into anything. Your thoughts would be appreciated  - even just to stop me worrying ! No aloe vera.. i'll put the cream on and see how we go


I've no idea I'm afraid. She hasn't caught herself on a bramble or something like that has she?


----------



## zedder

Twiggy said:


> Try walking four of the little dears together....LOL


 You must have mad ninja skills respect


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> I've no idea I'm afraid. She hasn't caught herself on a bramble or something like that has she?


Nope - boring onlead pavement walks since sunday with just grassy patches.. nothing she could of caught herself on. :001_unsure: Will asses the situation in the morning  now i need to put the kettle on and calm down  she's even gone and moved onto the other sofa away from me fussing over her lol!


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Nope - boring onlead pavement walks since sunday with just grassy patches.. nothing she could of caught herself on. :001_unsure: Will asses the situation in the morning  now i need to put the kettle on and calm down  she's even gone and moved onto the other sofa away from me fussing over her lol!


How is she today, or rather how's the lump?


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> How is she today, or rather how's the lump?


No redness apart from a scab & the skin is barely raised up .. A little bump rather than a lump now. So, much better. The cream really helped. Panic over  if the bump doesnt go down completely over the weekend then will get her to the vets but im wondering if it was a bite .. Who knows


----------



## Bagrat

I am still here in spirit but the course has it's own forum including the equivalent of dog chat and there's about 29 of us all with dogs who react in unacceptable ways to certain triggers so it's a life's work trying to keep up!! ( We have sub groups too in case we can't keep up so you can concentrate on about 6 people and dogs) We also have a daily practical task with our dogs and a lesson each week written and video.
I've learnt lots already and we have only just started.
Jen S hope bump disappears.


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> No redness apart from a scab & the skin is barely raised up .. A little bump rather than a lump now. So, much better. The cream really helped. Panic over  if the bump doesnt go down completely over the weekend then will get her to the vets but im wondering if it was a bite .. Who knows


Oh that's good news. Yes I suppose it could have been a bite.


----------



## diefenbaker

WAYWO thought of the day: If dogs are so intelligent why can't they eat the cat food quietly.


----------



## Dogless

Well, I haven't yet had a chance to read through anything, but the dogs survived their time with hubby  and were then taken out into the snow to trail run for 16 miles by me today so are happy .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well, I haven't yet had a chance to read through anything, but the dogs survived their time with hubby  and were then taken out into the snow to trail run for 16 miles by me today so are happy .


Did you count their legs when you got back, like I always do....


----------



## lupie

Yesterday evening we had the most amazing walk, clear sky & full moon so we went to the heathland and I didn't need my headlight at all. I had her on the long lead and I dropped it for 90% of the walk, she was being such a good girl - didn't see any prey at all though. 

Her belly is taking its toll now - we did just under two hours and about half way through she dropped to trotting by my side, which is unheard of for her haha. 

I've not taken her out today apart from half an hour round the block this morning - I battled home from work through squall and gale and picked her up from the dogsitters where she was today. I'd passed several new fallen trees and I've decided it's not worth it. There's branches down all down the road and I just dislike the idea of getting bonked on the head! Plus it's absolutely peeing it down and she wouldn't even go outside to wee just now, even with me getting my gear on and the lead she planted all four and refused. I'll go out first thing tomorrow when it's calmer, so it's been training and cuddles for the evening!


----------



## Bagrat

Twiggy said:


> Did you count their legs when you got back, like I always do....


Made the mistake of watching OH out of window with J today............
Stopped myself from saying "look at the dog.........reward that behaviour..... stop, turn away oh s**t, never mind.

I've got J a toy just for walks, to redirect him when he rags the lead when we move quickly away from a trigger. Will try it tomorrow. Wanted something to go in my pocket but am now thinking I'd better wear thick gloves in case he grabs my hand instead of toy.
May fashion a handle for it. 
Have had workmen in and J has been really good behind the baby gate - no whingeing and with the lad who is scared of dogs he was a star just totally ignored him as of course the lad was not looking at him either. This poor lad suffers from the daft dog owners mantra as much as we do "oh he's fine he's really friendly". Bearing this in mind poor lad has been jumped on by all sorts of woofs which scared him sh****ss including a large rottie.
The boss "loves staffys" and in spite of me galloping across the kitchen saying "don't touch he'll get silly" insisted on fussing him on top of the head so J mouthed, I said "leave" and he did but said bloke said "oh he's fine" and did the same thing so J grabbed his sleeve. I said "leave" and he did and came to me for a treat. Bloke said "someone should teach you not to do that, you're spoilt aren't you" aaaargh.


----------



## Twiggy

Bagrat said:


> Made the mistake of watching OH out of window with J today............
> Stopped myself from saying "look at the dog.........reward that behaviour..... stop, turn away oh s**t, never mind.
> 
> I've got J a toy just for walks, to redirect him when he rags the lead when we move quickly away from a trigger. Will try it tomorrow. Wanted something to go in my pocket but am now thinking I'd better wear thick gloves in case he grabs my hand instead of toy.
> May fashion a handle for it.
> Have had workmen in and J has been really good behind the baby gate - no whingeing and with the lad who is scared of dogs he was a star just totally ignored him as of course the lad was not looking at him either. This poor lad suffers from the daft dog owners mantra as much as we do "oh he's fine he's really friendly". Bearing this in mind poor lad has been jumped on by all sorts of woofs which scared him sh****ss including a large rottie.
> The boss "loves staffys" and in spite of me galloping across the kitchen saying "don't touch he'll get silly" insisted on fussing him on top of the head so J mouthed, I said "leave" and he did but said bloke said "oh he's fine" and did the same thing so J grabbed his sleeve. I said "leave" and he did and came to me for a treat. Bloke said "someone should teach you not to do that, you're spoilt aren't you" aaaargh.


I rest my case....!! Men - they know best and just don't listen....


----------



## Sarahliz100

Glad Willow is ok
Ruska sounds like she's still doing so good
16 miles trail running in the snow is mind boggling!

We're still working hard on LLW still with steady progression. Also working on focus around other dogs which is coming along well - been doing it for a few days and he's much better. We have unfortunately had a couple of minor sheep chasing episodes which is obviously not acceptable so it's now going to have to be on lead anywhere there is a possibility of sheep (which unfortunately is most of the countryside around here) whilst we get to work on that issue. Previously he's not been interested in chasing stuff out in the distance, and I've just put him on lead if sheep are in relatively close proximity, but now it seems that he's discovered that white fluffy things are fun. I've started back on working on getting him to accept a harness as I'd like to be able to take him to the moors on a long line, but don't like the idea of doing that on his flat collar as he rockets around like a lunatic. I'm currently at the point of click and treat for not running away from the harness so it'll be ages before I can get it on him


----------



## zedder

With harness I just whacked it on and distracted him soon forgot he was wearing it what type do you have some are dead fast and painless to put on step throughs are a pita if your dog squirms about.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Bagrat said:


> The boss "loves staffys" and in spite of me galloping across the kitchen saying "don't touch he'll get silly" insisted on fussing him on top of the head so J mouthed, I said "leave" and he did but said bloke said "oh he's fine" and did the same thing so J grabbed his sleeve. I said "leave" and he did and came to me for a treat. Bloke said "someone should teach you not to do that, you're spoilt aren't you" aaaargh.


Oh this drives me potty too! Get it all the time. Both the fussing without permission resulting in dog practicing unwanted behaviour and the criticism for spoiling the dog because of using positive training methods grrrrr


----------



## Sarahliz100

zedder said:


> With harness I just whacked it on and distracted him soon forgot he was wearing it what type do you have some are dead fast and painless to put on step throughs are a pita if your dog squirms about.


We have a padded fleece one by dog games. It goes on quickly and easily enough. But if I "trick" him into it it makes him even more fearful of it next time - previously I've ruined several weeks work acclimatising him to it by rushing putting it on him and the next day we're back to day one and he's running away from it. He's a stressy little guy!


----------



## zedder

Ah perhaps not the best approach to take with him then


----------



## Dogless

I would say that I took both dogs out in the storms for separate walks from home this morning, only I am wondering if someone had substituted another dog for Kilo. We walked nicely past a cat (still, of course!! but with back arched and all puffed up) and then, the postman had a brief chat with me and not a flicker of unease from Kilo. The postie went "Nice one!! Well done!!" and stuck his thumb up as he got back into his van . Totally normal for most people I realise .


----------



## Twiggy

I've just given my girls their second walk after spending 6+ horrendous hours instructing in the barn thinking the roof was going at any minute...
Flipping Met Office reckoned the wind would ease here from about 9.00am - Yer right...!!


----------



## tiatortilla

Helloo!

Just a quick update, everything is still going well  We followed a westie, two jack russells and a flatcoat and a Labrador today! The flatcoat and lab combo was unavoidable, she was a bit stressy but quietly stressy and nothing major, she just could have been happier. Westie and jack russells she was fine with 
I don't think anything much has happened since my last post here actually, which is usually a good thing 

Hope everyone is doing well and I haven't missed too much. I'll try to be a bit better at popping in this week


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Helloo!
> 
> Just a quick update, everything is still going well  We followed a westie, two jack russells and a flatcoat and a Labrador today! The flatcoat and lab combo was unavoidable, she was a bit stressy but quietly stressy and nothing major, she just could have been happier. Westie and jack russells she was fine with
> I don't think anything much has happened since my last post here actually, which is usually a good thing
> 
> Hope everyone is doing well and I haven't missed too much. I'll try to be a bit better at popping in this week


If you live in Somerset and you're not waist high in water then you must be doing well..


----------



## tiatortilla

Twiggy said:


> If you live in Somerset and you're not waist high in water then you must be doing well..


Haha yeah we're fine here actually! My OH nearly got washed away at work yesterday but where we live isn't at all likely to flood. A lot of our walks are sort of ankle deep in water but it's nothing like as bad here as most of the rest of Somerset!


----------



## Twiggy

tiatortilla said:


> Haha yeah we're fine here actually! My OH nearly got washed away at work yesterday but where we live isn't at all likely to flood. A lot of our walks are sort of ankle deep in water but it's nothing like as bad here as most of the rest of Somerset!


I'm very pleased to hear that...


----------



## lupie

Very glad you are not entirely flooded out TT :thumbup1:

Took me 45 minutes to get to a walk today. Absolute joke, every which way I went there were trees down. Bah 

Once we finally got there, lovely walk. She's definitely slowed right down now, she's loving her walks still but she doesn't range very far from me at all. Bless her and her belly. 

The walk started and ended a bit annoyingly though - I parked in the car park and was getting my wellies on and an offlead dog came barrelling up. Now bear in mind this car park is next to a main road with a 30mph speed limit it was strange for me to see the dog offlead but okay....

It jumps up at me. 

And then JUMPS IN MY CAR.    
Poor Ruska is still in the boot and gives the most ferocious bark-growl volley. I grab the dog and get it out ASAP whilst the owner totters up apologising. 
Needless to say I let them get a headstart, clock which way they go and head off in the opposite direction! 

And then after a nice calm long walk, we are back at the carpark, and there's a different, but again, offlead dog?! And of course it runs straight up to Ruska, luckily I think tiredness perhaps meant she wasn't as quick off the mark and I had bodyblocked, shrieked "get your dog on a lead" and shooed it away before she really clocked it. 

Maybe it's just me but dogs offlead in a carpark next to a main road just boggles my mind. Ho hum.


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> Very glad you are not entirely flooded out TT :thumbup1:
> 
> Took me 45 minutes to get to a walk today. Absolute joke, every which way I went there were trees down. Bah
> 
> Once we finally got there, lovely walk. She's definitely slowed right down now, she's loving her walks still but she doesn't range very far from me at all. Bless her and her belly.
> 
> The walk started and ended a bit annoyingly though - I parked in the car park and was getting my wellies on and an offlead dog came barrelling up. Now bear in mind this car park is next to a main road with a 30mph speed limit it was strange for me to see the dog offlead but okay....
> 
> It jumps up at me.
> 
> And then JUMPS IN MY CAR.
> Poor Ruska is still in the boot and gives the most ferocious bark-growl volley. I grab the dog and get it out ASAP whilst the owner totters up apologising.
> Needless to say I let them get a headstart, clock which way they go and head off in the opposite direction!
> 
> And then after a nice calm long walk, we are back at the carpark, and there's a different, but again, offlead dog?! And of course it runs straight up to Ruska, luckily I think tiredness perhaps meant she wasn't as quick off the mark and I had bodyblocked, shrieked "get your dog on a lead" and shooed it away before she really clocked it.
> 
> *Maybe it's just me but dogs offlead in a carpark next to a main road just boggles my mind. *Ho hum.


Not just you, no, but I think we're in the minority  :nonod:


----------



## Twiggy

Well I dragged my poor old bones out of bed and went to the agility show with Holly and Tremor.

Unfortunately Holly had a minor freaky at the dog walk, due undoubtedly to falling off at the last show, so got 5 faults. Other than that she was really good again and went clear in the jumping. I don't know whether we were placed as I came home. They had a huge entry today and the car-park was crammed which meant the classes were taking much longer.

I feel shattered now, especially after teaching yesterday, but the girls are bored and want to 'do', so I'd better go and do something with them otherwise they'll all be a nightmare this evening.


----------



## Dogless

Hope the girls behave for you this evening Grannie :w00t: . And poor HB having a freak BUT at least it didn't put her off everything else too .

Went trail running today; one of our more demanding routes. Wasn't planning on it today but the sky was blue and sun was shining today and the forecast for tomorrow is appalling so I grabbed the opportunity!! We ran through unspoilt snow with an ice crust on then a really light dusting on top so it was all sparkling in the sun and totally beautiful. Hard work again, but very worth it, 12 miles today and snoozing dogs now .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hope the girls behave for you this evening Grannie :w00t: . And poor HB having a freak BUT at least it didn't put her off everything else too .
> 
> Went trail running today; one of our more demanding routes. Wasn't planning on it today but the sky was blue and sun was shining today and the forecast for tomorrow is appalling so I grabbed the opportunity!! We ran through unspoilt snow with an ice crust on then a really light dusting on top so it was all sparkling in the sun and totally beautiful. Hard work again, but very worth it, 12 miles today and snoozing dogs now .


If you move back to England perhaps you can run Holly. You're much fitter than me.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> If you move back to England perhaps you can run Holly. You're much fitter than me.....


Nice try Grannie :w00t:. I would muck poor little HB up so badly :nonod:.


----------



## tiatortilla

Lupie, it isn't just you! Shocking isn't it. Can't believe the dog jumped in your car, wow! Tia probably would jump in a strangers car given half the chance but you know... I don't give her that chance lol.

Dogless, sounds like a good day 

Nice walk for us today, did part of a route we've done before and then some new bits. One slightly unfortunate part, there was a sort of "pen" with about four St. Bernards in, all going mental. Obviously that wasn't fun for Tia, I had to carry her past them because she was pulling me so much she'd have had me over! But apart from that we're all good and the rest was uneventful


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Nice try Grannie :w00t:. I would muck poor little HB up so badly :nonod:.


Of course you wouldn't. I expect she'd love you; you'd be her new best friend...


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Of course you wouldn't. I expect she'd love you; you'd be her new best friend...


Well yes, someone else to put holes in :w00t:.


----------



## Sarahliz100

I'm so happy, had a couple of really good dog days

We've been practicing leaving things all week, and set off to the moors to continue this yesterday. As it was the first nice day in ages there were loads of people out and he successfully ignored lots of people, dogs, sheep and about 10 mountain bikers.

We went to a family do where all my family (who are besotted with him) were fussing over him and he was (mostly) really calm. Even lay down and properly rested whilst exciting people were around. Much better than at Xmas which isn't that long ago really.

Today was obedience class. He was amazing. Worked on leaving food and he was really good. Walking to heel past food on the floor and not chasing food when thrown. Big deal for him as he is spectacularly food obsessed. Also did his 1 min stay 3 times with no problem despite moving barking dogs around him. At the end all the owners and dogs stood together in a small huddle and the instructor (possibly the most exciting person in the world for Tryfan) walked amongst us and he lay on the floor in a settle quite calmly. Last time we did this he was prancing around and barking in frustration and we had to back off because he couldn't cope.

Oh, and no more holes made in my coat!

TTouch session arranged for Thursday, and private session with the instructor and her puppy to work on recall around distractions booked in next week.

Sorry, slightly annoying gloating post, but it's very exciting for us as he's been through a really difficult phase recently. Hope at the end of the tunnel!

Hope everyone is surviving the continuing sogginess


----------



## Barcode

A bit exasperated with Scrabble this weekend.

I thought we could chill. We have had months and months of her strolling around past other dogs calmly, sitting as they pass, etc. Then OH returned home a bit upset from dog class yesterday.

Apparently, Scrabble had tried to steal something from another dog (or maybe thought it was hers to begin with), and a scrap ensued. OH said it was the worst she had seen Scrabble (though no damage was done to the other dog). Thing is, she has had a scrap with this same dog before, and I now fear she's going to have a bad rep!

Trainer said it was due to possessiveness, that she is doing well on the whole, and to just keep them away during class. I guess my question is this:

- Is such a thing indicative of a bigger issue, or is it possible for one dog to simply take this sort of dislike to another? 

She very, very rarely grumbles at Matilda (our other dog), and they play every day, sleep together of their own accord etc. They have never had any sort of scrap. I want to keep it that way.

Next week, I think I'll take a small toy for the other dog and a big apology. Not about right or wrong, but no one wants to feel uncomfortable in dog class. 

Just when you are chilled, something else pops up to remind you that THEY are the ones in charge.


----------



## diefenbaker

Hmm... so... arriving at cottage in Derbyshire.. wife reads small print on instructions. "This cottage welcomes one small dog." Ah... Dief.. bend your knees and look cute and adorable.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> I'm so happy, had a couple of really good dog days
> 
> We've been practicing leaving things all week, and set off to the moors to continue this yesterday. As it was the first nice day in ages there were loads of people out and he successfully ignored lots of people, dogs, sheep and about 10 mountain bikers.
> 
> We went to a family do where all my family (who are besotted with him) were fussing over him and he was (mostly) really calm. Even lay down and properly rested whilst exciting people were around. Much better than at Xmas which isn't that long ago really.
> 
> Today was obedience class. He was amazing. Worked on leaving food and he was really good. Walking to heel past food on the floor and not chasing food when thrown. Big deal for him as he is spectacularly food obsessed. Also did his 1 min stay 3 times with no problem despite moving barking dogs around him. At the end all the owners and dogs stood together in a small huddle and the instructor (possibly the most exciting person in the world for Tryfan) walked amongst us and he lay on the floor in a settle quite calmly. Last time we did this he was prancing around and barking in frustration and we had to back off because he couldn't cope.
> 
> Oh, and no more holes made in my coat!
> 
> TTouch session arranged for Thursday, and private session with the instructor and her puppy to work on recall around distractions booked in next week.
> 
> Sorry, slightly annoying gloating post, but it's very exciting for us as he's been through a really difficult phase recently. Hope at the end of the tunnel!
> 
> Hope everyone is surviving the continuing sogginess


That's brilliant......well done to both of you....:thumbup1:


----------



## Twiggy

Barcode said:


> A bit exasperated with Scrabble this weekend.
> 
> I thought we could chill. We have had months and months of her strolling around past other dogs calmly, sitting as they pass, etc. Then OH returned home a bit upset from dog class yesterday.
> 
> Apparently, Scrabble had tried to steal something from another dog (or maybe thought it was hers to begin with), and a scrap ensued. OH said it was the worst she had seen Scrabble (though no damage was done to the other dog). Thing is, she has had a scrap with this same dog before, and I now fear she's going to have a bad rep!
> 
> Trainer said it was due to possessiveness, that she is doing well on the whole, and to just keep them away during class. I guess my question is this:
> 
> - Is such a thing indicative of a bigger issue, or is it possible for one dog to simply take this sort of dislike to another?
> 
> She very, very rarely grumbles at Matilda (our other dog), and they play every day, sleep together of their own accord etc. They have never had any sort of scrap. I want to keep it that way.
> 
> Next week, I think I'll take a small toy for the other dog and a big apology. Not about right or wrong, but no one wants to feel uncomfortable in dog class.
> 
> Just when you are chilled, something else pops up to remind you that THEY are the ones in charge.


I wouldn't overthink it and yes it is very possible for one dog to dislike another, much the same as us....!!

I don't however agree that THEY are the ones in charge.


----------



## Barcode

Oh, that was a bit flippant!

Certainly, a major thing in getting her calmer with other dogs was me being calm, not instinctively tightening the leash and such-like, and being more pro-active with dogs that were not under owner control. She knows what is expected (I think!).

I was not there, so only have OH's report. The last handbags moment occurred, said OH, when both dogs approached the trainer at the same time, and became possessive. I suspect the other dog is a bit like Scrabble, although perhaps, not as quick to turn.

OH said the trainer was fairly chilled (and we have a v. good one!), and said that, had it been another dog, Scrabble probably would not have had that reaction. There are obviously canine cues that each are sending out.

I don't *think* any real damage has been done.


----------



## Twiggy

*


Barcode said:



Oh, that was a bit flippant!

Click to expand...

*


Barcode said:


> Certainly, a major thing in getting her calmer with other dogs was me being calm, not instinctively tightening the leash and such-like, and being more pro-active with dogs that were not under owner control. She knows what is expected (I think!).
> 
> I was not there, so only have OH's report. The last handbags moment occurred, said OH, when both dogs approached the trainer at the same time, and became possessive. I suspect the other dog is a bit like Scrabble, although perhaps, not as quick to turn.
> 
> OH said the trainer was fairly chilled (and we have a v. good one!), and said that, had it been another dog, Scrabble probably would not have had that reaction. There are obviously canine cues that each are sending out.
> 
> I don't *think* any real damage has been done.


Which part of my reply did you think was flippant?

It is true that some dogs take an instant dislike to another and that is most certainly also true of the human race?


----------



## Barcode

No. I meant that *I* was being flippant, viz., saying that dogs are in charge!

Yes, on the dislike. I s'pose I was just surprised to realize Scrabble could have an episode like that ...


----------



## Sarahliz100

Pride comes before a fall. Bad day today. Very disappointing after recent progress. Of course I know there will always be setbacks, but every time things go well for a few days I always hope things have magically been fixed.

Freaking out around collar touches which hasn't been a problem for a while and lots of jumpy jumpy bitey bitey on the walk. Yesterday the park was really busy so went to the moors today where I thought it would be quiet. Unfortunately there were sheep, other people with dogs and.....a film crew (yes really)! I also don't think I handled it particularly well as with the jumpy bitey routine he managed to catch me in a way that really hurt so I wasn't feeling particularly patient and ended up pretty much pinning him down to get the lead on so we could get home. There was no way he was going to walk nicely on the way home so he pulled like a lunatic on his collar. I'm sure it must hurt his neck which probably doesn't help with the collar issues. Really wish he wasn't so terrified of harnesses. Continuing work on harness acclimatisation every day, but I don't have high hopes of getting him into one any time soon.

Tomorrow's TTouch day. Maybe they can help....


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Pride comes before a fall. Bad day today. Very disappointing after recent progress. Of course I know there will always be setbacks, but every time things go well for a few days I always hope things have magically been fixed.
> 
> Freaking out around collar touches which hasn't been a problem for a while and lots of jumpy jumpy bitey bitey on the walk. Yesterday the park was really busy so went to the moors today where I thought it would be quiet. Unfortunately there were sheep, other people with dogs and.....a film crew (yes really)! I also don't think I handled it particularly well as with the jumpy bitey routine he managed to catch me in a way that really hurt so I wasn't feeling particularly patient and ended up pretty much pinning him down to get the lead on so we could get home. There was no way he was going to walk nicely on the way home so he pulled like a lunatic on his collar. I'm sure it must hurt his neck which probably doesn't help with the collar issues. Really wish he wasn't so terrified of harnesses. Continuing work on harness acclimatisation every day, but I don't have high hopes of getting him into one any time soon.
> 
> Tomorrow's TTouch day. Maybe they can help....


Oh dear I'm sorry. That's it with training dogs though - one step forward then three steps back at times. Perhaps tomorrow will be another good day.


----------



## Fluffster

Sorry to hear it wasn't a great walk today Sarahliz  Just focus on how much progress you have made. A bad day is just that, one day. Don't beat yourself up about it xx

Not a great deal going on here. Been trying to get a balance of Daisy's walks with and without her ball (or B-A-L-L as we have to call it now as she's learned the word ball!). Out today without the ball up to the nature reserve. She was alright, bit bouncy and jumped up at another dog walker which I wasn't pleased about. Also she got very excited about a playful spaniel and even though she did recall when I asked, she ended up running between me and the other owner and her dog for a couple of minutes until they took a different path!

She is really good with cyclists and runners now though, there were a few runners today and she wasn't interested. I called her into the side just in case but she barely glanced at them so that's a good thing!

She was in every puddle though and everyone we met said "Ooh your dog looks wet!". Who are these people whose dogs don't go in puddles!!!!

At the end of our walk we met a gorgeous five-month-old beagle called Daisy. I remember when my Daisy was a pup she would jump up at other dogs faces and they would tolerate her cos she was a puppy. Well today, little Daisy was doing the exact same thing to my Daisy, it was so funny to watch! My Daisy was so good with her, didn't react at all to a being jumped up at and played very nice and gently with her. Although trying to recall them to separate places was fun with both of us calling "Daisy!!!" :lol: In the end I grabbed my Daisy's collar (her emergency backup collar as we lost her usual one) and she wiggled out of it and then sat there looking smug


----------



## Sarahliz100

Fluffster said:


> Sorry to hear it wasn't a great walk today Sarahliz  Just focus on how much progress you have made. A bad day is just that, one day. Don't beat yourself up about it xx
> 
> She was in every puddle though and everyone we met said "Ooh your dog looks wet!". Who are these people whose dogs don't go in puddles!!!!
> 
> o


Thanks. And I think the puddle thing must be another spaniel thing. Tryf is always the muddiest dog around. Every single walk someone tells me he needs a bath! He's also mostly white, with longer fur than Daisy so usually looks a complete state by the end of the walk. Oh well!


----------



## Dogless

Sorry for my absence, must catch up. We have been doing well (touch wood!!) and spent all day yesterday in the mountains so can't complain.

Will read through everyones' posts soon .


----------



## Dogless

Well today was a perfect illustration of how much the "stress bath" analogy is true.

Took Rudi out for a walk from home first. Our front garden was full of workmen turfing over where they removed the hedge and he only looked at them with interest when he was stood in the porch getting his harness on; normal Roo, he doesn't seem to "do" guarding of the house really. It would have been hard to stop Kilo going off on one . Anyway, we had a lovely walk, he was good as gold .

Then took Kilo out - the workmen had disappeared off for a tea break or something. Anyway we had a lovely walk too - we saw a toddler screaming "dogggiiieeeee" and running towards us and Kilo managed to come away with me, happily and relaxed. Then we didn't really see much else until home, when the workmen were back; he walked past them beautifully relaxed and didn't even give huff in the porch, just watched them. If he were having a stress day he would have gone bonkers, but he was perfect .

The less I walk from home the less former challenges actually stress Kilo out - *us* out if I am truthful - and the more confidence we both gain :thumbup1:.

And then…I took myself for a nice run to shake out any kinks from yesterday's adventure . The workmen must think I am crackers. I have left the house and returned home three times in a row - first with different dogs and then straight away on my own :frown2: .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> The workmen must think I am crackers. I have left the house and returned home three times in a row - first with different dogs and then straight away on my own :frown2: .


They probably needed a tea break rest just from watching you 3 ! You bunch of hard workers 

On a serious note, all sounds calm and relaxed :thumbup1: Which is nice to read.

Willow is spending the day spread across me and the sofa.. i was meant to be going out but plans have changed.. the hail & rain also means willow won't want a nice 5mile walk  so we are, chilling  my week off work after tomorrow should make up for todays lazy day though


----------



## Twiggy

Just had a brilliant 2.1/2 hour training session with two friends.

We did every exercise except sendaways (which you can't really do in the barn) and all the dogs were super - even Holly....LOL

Holly has her friend Lacey, the Red Setter, coming tomorrow afternoon to do some training and then agility.

I've got to do a home check for one of the big rescues tomorrow morning about 12 miles away so it's going to be another busy day.


----------



## lupie

Been a bit absent, lots on at work and just been trying to spend quality time with Ruska as I say goodbye to her this weekend 

Walks have been mostly uneventful - she's so big now that she tires quite quickly bless her. 

Will try and catch up on everyone's posts ASAP


----------



## Sarahliz100

lupie said:


> Been a bit absent, lots on at work and just been trying to spend quality time with Ruska as I say goodbye to her this weekend
> 
> Walks have been mostly uneventful - she's so big now that she tires quite quickly bless her.
> 
> Will try and catch up on everyone's posts ASAP


Aw, bet you'll miss her. How long will she be gone for? Presumably you can visit her and coo over the pups? Exciting!

The little pupster is still a bit stressed and doing his jumpy bitey routine on walks, but getting himself under control better. No major disasters in the last few days.

He went to the groomers today. He's been a couple of times before mostly to get used to it - just had a bath and nail clip. Today was his first proper "haircut". I was a bit worried as it was a different groomer, quite a bit younger, and I didn't know how she'd handle him. I spent most of the 2 hours he was in there convinced he'd get really freaked out and it would end in disaster. However, I'm obviously over paranoid as when i came to pick him up he was lovely and relaxed. Chilling out with his new pal (big standard poodle), and clearly quite comfortable with the groomer who seemed fab. She said he was really good, I think the squeezy cheese grooming practice has paid off! He seems quite pleased with his new big boy haircut.


----------



## Twiggy

The home check I carried out this morning went well so fingers crossed another little rescue finds a loving new home.

Barley has a hissyfit entering the barn this afternoon - I don't think she's ever seen an Irish Setter before (Holly's best friend Lacey)....LOL She got over it.


----------



## Barcode

A much improved week. Scrabble has redeemed herself with lots of calm walks. We also passed mad daschund lady (walks six at once that are highly reactive) without incident. I think there's something to be said for overthinking every incident that occurs when, sometimes, scraps will just happen. We'll see what Sunday class brings.

It's interesting. There is a large, muzzled Stafford that I see frequently. It has growled at Scrabble a few times, and has obvious aggression issues. But quite often, I prefer seeing this dog as it's also clear that the owner has it well under control. Better that than these dogs that just sprint up to Scrabble and then don't understand canine speak for 'leave me alone' with the result that YOU are blamed for the tiniest of growls towards their dog that they cannot control.


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## Dogless

Barcode said:


> It's interesting. There is a large, muzzled Stafford that I see frequently. It has growled at Scrabble a few times, and has obvious aggression issues. But quite often, I prefer seeing this dog as it's also clear that the owner has it well under control. Better that than these dogs that just sprint up to Scrabble and then don't understand canine speak for 'leave me alone' with the result that YOU are blamed for the tiniest of growls towards their dog that they cannot control.


Pleased you are doing well. Ref ^^^^^ I agree - I'd rather see under control DA dogs than all the "friendly" dogs in the world who bring me to tears!!

*Twiggy* - glad that your home check went well; I'd be terrified of one from you I can imagine you have exacting standards (quite rightly!!). Bet little HB had a great time tearing about with Lacey as per usual!!!

*Sarahliz* - pleased the groomer's went well too.


----------



## lupie

Sarahliz100 said:


> Aw, bet you'll miss her. How long will she be gone for? Presumably you can visit her and coo over the pups? Exciting!


Yes, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with my evenings/days....  
Yes, I'll be able to see her out on walks for the first little while if I meet up with the breeder, but I can't see the pups until a few weeks in in case of infection etc. Exciting, and weird!

She was out on a big group walk today with my Mum, and was the best behaved dog there apparently ut: I asked her if she'd traded her in! She got lots of compliments on her recall, whilst the other members of the group lost one dog (they found it by the car in the car park), another dog ran off and across a road (the dirt track kind, but still a road) and the other one was haring around all over the place and couldn't be recalled for anything apparently.

Felt proud of her, and hoping that this behaviour will continue when she comes back from being a mama!


----------



## Dogless

Another day another crappy encounter here.

Had a lovely walk with Roo, did some bits and pieces of recall, heel work etc. On the way back two offlead dogs ran over to him, stood over him posturing. Rudi tucked his head and tail and tried to bolt - only I couldn't drop his lead as we were by a road with a car coming. So he hit the end of the lead with these two dogs hassling him and resorted to a snap and snarl. The lab went back to his owner straight away but the staffy replied in kind - no harm done, just handbags. The woman said she was sorry but she ALWAYS says she is sorry. If she meant it she'd stop it happening time and again .

Good walk with Kilo. We took a very strange route as there were dogs everywhere but he did very well .


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Another day another crappy encounter here.
> 
> Had a lovely walk with Roo, did some bits and pieces of recall, heel work etc. On the way back two offlead dogs ran over to him, stood over him posturing. Rudi tucked his head and tail and tried to bolt - only I couldn't drop his lead as we were by a road with a car coming. So he hit the end of the lead with these two dogs hassling him and resorted to a snap and snarl. The lab went back to his owner straight away but the staffy replied in kind - no harm done, just handbags. The woman said she was sorry but she ALWAYS says she is sorry. If she meant it she'd stop it happening time and again .
> 
> Good walk with Kilo. We took a very strange route as there were dogs everywhere but he did very well .


The start of our walk today involved lots of dog encounters. As we are working on focus (and I don't trust his recall around other dogs) I had Tryfan on lead, moved off the path and got him to sit each time a dog was passing. I think it was pretty clear we weren't after playtime. But not one owner made any attempt to stop their dog approaching, none apologised when their dog growled at him or tried to mug me for treats.

Luckily Tryf is now mostly happy with other dogs so it didn't really cause problems apart from interfering with my "leave" training but it's really made me realise how hard it must be for people with truly dog fearful/dog aggressive dogs to get through a walk. I think this forum (and this thread in particular) has made me pretty obsessed with control around other dogs - if I see another dog Tryfan goes on lead, and will do until I can trust him to recall and not run around like an overexcited loon.

It's much easier to just have your dog off lead and let it just do it's thing than to scan the horizon and put it on lead every time a distraction appears and I guess that's why people don't bother. They use the fact their dog is friendly as an excuse. Plus people don't want to admit to themselves they don't have their dog under control. My boyfriend gets annoyed when I repeatedly put Tryf on lead. He over estimates our degree of control and is inclined to think (hope!) that he won't run off after the dog/bike/sheep/car. Luckily I do 90% of the walking. Just have to hope he doesn't develop a sheep chasing habit or get run over in the remaining 10% of the time!


----------



## Dogless

Two quiet walks this afternoon as rugby is on. Saw the dog that attacked Kilo on his walk, we managed to turn away and walk off without any drama which I am chuffed about but it exhausts me. They walked fast after us, always seem to. Maybe proving a point. Who knows? .


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> The start of our walk today involved lots of dog encounters. As we are working on focus (and I don't trust his recall around other dogs) I had Tryfan on lead, moved off the path and got him to sit each time a dog was passing. I think it was pretty clear we weren't after playtime. But not one owner made any attempt to stop their dog approaching, none apologised when their dog growled at him or tried to mug me for treats.
> 
> Luckily Tryf is now mostly happy with other dogs so it didn't really cause problems apart from interfering with my "leave" training but it's really* made me realise how hard it must be for people with truly dog fearful/dog aggressive dogs to get through a walk*. I think this forum (and this thread in particular) has made me pretty obsessed with control around other dogs - if I see another dog Tryfan goes on lead, and will do until I can trust him to recall and not run around like an overexcited loon.
> 
> It's much easier to just have your dog off lead and let it just do it's thing than to scan the horizon and put it on lead every time a distraction appears and I guess that's why people don't bother. They use the fact their dog is friendly as an excuse. Plus people don't want to admit to themselves they don't have their dog under control. My boyfriend gets annoyed when I repeatedly put Tryf on lead. He over estimates our degree of control and is inclined to think (hope!) that he won't run off after the dog/bike/sheep/car. Luckily I do 90% of the walking. Just have to hope he doesn't develop a sheep chasing habit or get run over in the remaining 10% of the time!


It can be soul destroying at times TBH .


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Two quiet walks this afternoon as rugby is on. Saw the dog that attacked Kilo on his walk, we managed to turn away and walk off without any drama which I am chuffed about but it exhausts me. They walked fast after us, always seem to. Maybe proving a point. Who knows? .


I liked because you managed to get away.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I liked because you managed to get away.


Me too AND without any bouncing or growling or barking. We looked under control - point proved .


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> Two quiet walks this afternoon as rugby is on. Saw the dog that attacked Kilo on his walk, we managed to turn away and walk off without any drama which I am chuffed about but it exhausts me. They walked fast after us, always seem to. Maybe proving a point. Who knows? .


Poor Rudi on your first walk  I'm glad it didn't escalate more than handbags . The owner obviously needs to wobble her head if she's 'always' sorry ! Sounds like your havin a testing day on the dog walking front .. Hope a nice glass of wine or the equivalent helps you relax on a Saturday evening  & a deep breathe as tomorrow is a new day .. fingers crossed for a better one!

Full of germs here so nothing productive from us .. Just games of tug & find its with nice relaxing pavement potters


----------



## diefenbaker

Back from a week in the Peak District. I posted a link to the cottage in the "Cottages" sticky. It was a really good one.

In summary....

1. Trentham Estate... lovely walk around the lake. Family went to the Money Forest while I took the other monkey on a longer walk. Stopped for his dinner in the shopping area. He was really good there.. it was crowded and lots of dogs. He just lay there and even let other dogs sniff him while he was laying down.

2. Heights of Abraham. Dief didn't like the cable-car on the way up so walked him back down.

3. Tissington Water... big reservoir ending at coffee shop. Millionaire shortbread and vanilla latte for Dief's Dad 

4. Lake Rudyard.. since he didn't like the cable-car didn't bother with the train so walked the track... but he was very good as it went past... I'm not sure if he noticed half his "pack" were on it.

5. Cromford Canal... got his toes wet ( oops )... then on the way back.. the car park is next to the Rugby Club.. and the playing fields were covered in sheep... he was my bestest boy.

I've lost a day somewhere


----------



## JenKyzer

diefenbaker said:


> Back from a week in the Peak District. I posted a link to the cottage in the "Cottages" sticky. It was a really good one.
> 
> In summary....
> 
> 1. Trentham Estate... lovely walk around the lake. Family went to the Money Forest while I took the other monkey on a longer walk. Stopped for his dinner in the shopping area. He was really good there.. it was crowded and lots of dogs. He just lay there and even let other dogs sniff him while he was laying down.
> 
> 2. Heights of Abraham. Dief didn't like the cable-car on the way up so walked him back down.
> 
> 3. Tissington Water... big reservoir ending at coffee shop. Millionaire shortbread and vanilla latte for Dief's Dad
> 
> 4. Lake Rudyard.. since he didn't like the cable-car didn't bother with the train so walked the track... but he was very good as it went past... I'm not sure if he noticed half his "pack" were on it.
> 
> 5. Cromford Canal... got his toes wet ( oops )... then on the way back.. the car park is next to the Rugby Club.. and the playing fields were covered in sheep... he was my bestest boy.
> 
> I've lost a day somewhere


Sounds great ! Hope you all had a brill time  also sounds like you'll need a day or so to relax from all the fun! Nice to see a chilled post from you after all the hard working one's, bet the time away was well earnt


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> Back from a week in the Peak District. I posted a link to the cottage in the "Cottages" sticky. It was a really good one.
> 
> In summary....
> 
> 1. Trentham Estate... lovely walk around the lake. Family went to the Money Forest while I took the other monkey on a longer walk. Stopped for his dinner in the shopping area. He was really good there.. it was crowded and lots of dogs. He just lay there and even let other dogs sniff him while he was laying down.
> 
> 2. *Heights of Abraham. Dief didn't like the cable-car on the way up so walked him back down.*
> 
> 3. Tissington Water... big reservoir ending at coffee shop. Millionaire shortbread and vanilla latte for Dief's Dad
> 
> 4. Lake Rudyard.. since he didn't like the cable-car didn't bother with the train so walked the track... but he was very good as it went past... I'm not sure if he noticed half his "pack" were on it.
> 
> 5. Cromford Canal... got his toes wet ( oops )... then on the way back.. the car park is next to the Rugby Club.. and the playing fields were covered in sheep... he was my bestest boy.
> 
> I've lost a day somewhere


Never mind Dief, I didn't like the bl..dy cable car either when we went..LOL

Sounds as if you had a great holiday...


----------



## Dogless

Sounds like a fab time away Dief..that "lost" day.was there a pub involved? :devil: .


----------



## lupie

Sounds positively perfect Dief! And we all lose days somewhere... :skep:

Sorry about the stressy walks Dogless. It just takes a split second of consideration from other people and yet... 

Yesterday was fab - our last offlead glorious walk in the morning. She was very good, not even as barky as she normally is. 

Then in the afternoon I took her for a slow potter down the railway line. It was getting a bit dusky so we saw a few squirrels but luckily during the on-lead bits so she couldn't do anything. 

Taking her over to the breeder's later where we will have a walk before settling her in. And saying goodbye :crying:


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> Sounds positively perfect Dief! And we all lose days somewhere... :skep:
> 
> Sorry about the stressy walks Dogless. It just takes a split second of consideration from other people and yet...
> 
> Yesterday was fab - our last offlead glorious walk in the morning. She was very good, not even as barky as she normally is.
> 
> Then in the afternoon I took her for a slow potter down the railway line. It was getting a bit dusky so we saw a few squirrels but luckily during the on-lead bits so she couldn't do anything.
> 
> Taking her over to the breeder's later where we will have a walk before settling her in. And saying goodbye :crying:


Awww....!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Sounds like a fab time away Dief..that "lost" day.was there a pub involved? :devil: .


I found it !! It was Alton Towers. I dress Dief up as a little boy raised by wolves in the Amazonian jungle and we get in the priority queues. I'm not sure there are wolves in the Amazonian jungle but I got away with it... although they were a little sceptical about his tail. His favourite ride was Nemesis. He howls when it does a loop-the-loop.


----------



## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I found it !! It was Alton Towers. I dress Dief up as a little boy raised by wolves in the Amazonian jungle and we get in the priority queues. I'm not sure there are wolves in the Amazonian jungle but I got away with it... although they were a little sceptical about his tail. His favourite ride was Nemesis. He howls when it does a loop-the-loop.


Have you been on the 'pop' already this morning, or still hung over from last night?


----------



## Hanwombat

lupie said:


> Sounds positively perfect Dief! And we all lose days somewhere... :skep:
> 
> Sorry about the stressy walks Dogless. It just takes a split second of consideration from other people and yet...
> 
> Yesterday was fab - our last offlead glorious walk in the morning. She was very good, not even as barky as she normally is.
> 
> Then in the afternoon I took her for a slow potter down the railway line. It was getting a bit dusky so we saw a few squirrels but luckily during the on-lead bits so she couldn't do anything.
> 
> Taking her over to the breeder's later where we will have a walk before settling her in. And saying goodbye :crying:


Hope everything goes well with Ruska


----------



## JenKyzer

lupie said:


> Sounds positively perfect Dief! And we all lose days somewhere... :skep:
> 
> Sorry about the stressy walks Dogless. It just takes a split second of consideration from other people and yet...
> 
> Yesterday was fab - our last offlead glorious walk in the morning. She was very good, not even as barky as she normally is.
> 
> Then in the afternoon I took her for a slow potter down the railway line. It was getting a bit dusky so we saw a few squirrels but luckily during the on-lead bits so she couldn't do anything.
> 
> Taking her over to the breeder's later where we will have a walk before settling her in. And saying goodbye :crying:


Aww .. Hope she settles in fine  and hope you feel ok once your home  best wishes to you both !


----------



## diefenbaker

lupie said:


> Taking her over to the breeder's later where we will have a walk before settling her in. And saying goodbye :crying:


Take handcuffs and lock yourself to the radiator before swallowing the key. You are very brave. Not something I could do.


----------



## zedder

The dogs kennel for when the builders start work it now has lighting just trying to make it as cosy as poss will only be for during the day.


----------



## lupie

Thanks all. She's all settled in over there now. Not going to lie, shed a tear or two. Fingers crossed for a smooth whelping!

I'll try and keep popping in here...don't have anything to work on now but I'd like to keep up with all the successes!


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> Thanks all. She's all settled in over there now. Not going to lie, shed a tear or two. Fingers crossed for a smooth whelping!
> 
> I'll try and keep popping in here...don't have anything to work on now but I'd like to keep up with all the successes!


Pleased to hear she settled at the breeders. Try not to worry, I'm sure she'll be fine.


----------



## JenKyzer

lupie said:


> Thanks all. She's all settled in over there now. Not going to lie, shed a tear or two. Fingers crossed for a smooth whelping!
> 
> I'll try and keep popping in here...don't have anything to work on now but I'd like to keep up with all the successes!


Have nothing to work on? Let us know how she's doing  and the all important puppy picturessss !!!!  :biggrin:
Hope there's no more tears


----------



## Dogless

*lupie* - hope all goes well for Ruska and she settles well .



diefenbaker said:


> I found it !! It was Alton Towers. I dress Dief up as a little boy raised by wolves in the Amazonian jungle and we get in the priority queues. I'm not sure there are wolves in the Amazonian jungle but I got away with it... although they were a little sceptical about his tail. His favourite ride was Nemesis. He howls when it does a loop-the-loop.


I think he was there when I went for the weekend for my hen party .

Today we went on a trail run; shade under 14 miles. Had been going for a longer one but changed location last minute so the boys could have lots of offlead as well as being attached to me. It was arduous TBH, very, very muddy and boggy and lots of fallen trees again so hard work. Here you are Dief, I know you like to see hills . Untitled by RidgebackKR at Garmin Connect - Details


----------



## diefenbaker

Dogless said:


> Here you are Dief, I know you like to see hills . Untitled by RidgebackKR at Garmin Connect - Details


I do and I am in awe. That looks like one heck of a descent/ascent at mile 7. I love watching the cross-country skiing and the biathlon at the Winter Olympics... I think you could be a contender :thumbup1:

Edit: Better put something I've done.. been to the beach.. he was a very good boy.. took his football to keep him amused/focused... still too choppy for the wanger retrieve.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> I do and I am in awe. That looks like one heck of a descent/ascent at mile 7. I love watching the cross-country skiing and the biathlon at the Winter Olympics... I think you could be a contender :thumbup1:


I used to adore skiing sadly fecked back means it is no more  and march and shoots - used to love those too :thumbup1:. I know the timings look poor when you look at them but the terrain is arduous….honest  .

ETA: Beach + football = perfect recipe for happy dog!!


----------



## Freddie and frank

hello.  a very quiet one cause I don't want to jinx anything. 

well, after nearly 6 years, frank is starting to walk sort of nicely on lead. :thumbup1: still take dogmatic in pocket just in case. 
he still seems very on edge at the start and normally takes us ten mins for him to calm down on each walk and be interested in his treats. 

Freddie still has on-going ear trouble...another vet visit on Friday and another possible flush out. poor fella is struggling at the moment.  we're having plenty of walks with just me and him to give him some special one on one time and hopefully make him feel a bit better. after march i'll be working at home constantly...yeah...so i'll be able to get back in to Rally with him.

ssshhhhhh...me and bella have our bronze good citizen test tonight. she's done so well but i'm soooo nervous. I feel a bit bad cause she's the oldest in the class, at nearly two, and all the others are a lot younger. one of the instructors I know from when the boys were younger has taken a strong liking to her and has asked if we want to join them for some gundog training when they start up again. just casual stuff on a sunday morning I think and they're very local to me.  

hope all is ok with everyone.


----------



## Dogless

Good Luck Bella for tonightsee, I whispered it . Sorry about poor Freddie's ears still . Poor boy must be fed up by now.

Two quiet walks for us this morning. Both boys were very good for me AND it didn't pour with rain :thumbup1:.


----------



## Dogless

Another quiet walk with Roo this afternoon and about to take Sir K out with Diz and human. The wind and pouring rain are backbut at least that means fewer chances of bumping into dogs!!


----------



## Twiggy

F&F - Wishing you the best of luck tonight with Bella.

Holly wasn't very good at agility this afternoon and I can't blame the mud and weather because it had dried out a lot and the sun was shining.

We were supposedly teaching the dogs to run on, except Holly was running under the poles which is something she's never done before. Great - we've got a show at the week-end. Hopefully I can get her over some jumps at home later in the week and restore confidence.


----------



## Barcode

A much calmer week.

Scrabble was fine at class, not perfect, but a massive improvement. She is able to be around the dog she has had a scrap with providing nothing that has perceived value is present. Keeping S on-lead when the other is off-lead doing exercises. Simples. It did make me sad that one or two seemed to be purposefully keeping their dog away from S when they were the ones she likes, but I suppose they are being mindful and it will all settle down in time.

We took them over to the local-ish woods today. S loves it there, and was unfazed by:

- Collie appearing in her face as we rounded a bend.
- Two horses (on lead, obvs.)
- A mountain biker.
- A Sheltie that was about an inch away from her as we were doing a 'Watch me.'

She really was brilliant, and it makes me wonder how much of a role the environment plays. When we're walking locally, I'm always alert for certain dogs and perhaps S picks up subtle cues and reacts more? The woods are so much better - you only get people who want to be out and about with their dogs and can control them.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> F&F - Wishing you the best of luck tonight with Bella.
> 
> Holly wasn't very good at agility this afternoon and I can't blame the mud and weather because it had dried out a lot and the sun was shining.
> 
> We were supposedly teaching the dogs to run on, except Holly was running under the poles which is something she's never done before. Great - we've got a show at the week-end. Hopefully I can get her over some jumps at home later in the week and restore confidence.


Hopefully it's a blip and the lure of ripping your coat some more will prove so irresistible she'll get her mojo back!



Barcode said:


> She really was brilliant, and *it makes me wonder how much of a role the environment plays. When we're walking locally, I'm always alert for certain dogs and perhaps S picks up subtle cues and reacts more? The woods are so much better *- you only get people who want to be out and about with their dogs and can control them.


For Kilo and I HUGE. Absolutely massive.

We had a good walk with Diz and human this evening. Saw dogs and avoided, all good!


----------



## Fluffster

Nice to hear everyone seems to be getting on well 

I've been struck down with a bad cold this weekend so OH has been doing most of the Daisy "walks" IE. taking her up the back and chucking her ball for 30 mins! As a result, she's been a bit more hyper in the evenings than usual but I fashioned a flirt pole made out of socks for her yesterday and had her leaping around while I lay on the sofa, so that tired her out a little. Hoping to be able to take her out longer tomorrow as OH goes back to work.

Hew new collar and lead have been dispatched so I'm quite excited about that 

OH has been training her (shock!!!!) to catch a ball in the air as I told him I wanted to do flyball with her. She's actually getting really good at it! She's going to love flyball I think, I've found a club nearby that does it and looks great but have to wait till she's a year. I can't wait to channel her energy and her love of her ball into something that we will both enjoy


----------



## Twiggy

Barcode said:


> A much calmer week.
> 
> Scrabble was fine at class, not perfect, but a massive improvement. She is able to be around the dog she has had a scrap with providing nothing that has perceived value is present. Keeping S on-lead when the other is off-lead doing exercises. Simples. It did make me sad that one or two seemed to be purposefully keeping their dog away from S when they were the ones she likes, but I suppose they are being mindful and it will all settle down in time.
> 
> *She really was brilliant, and it makes me wonder how much of a role the environment plays. *When we're walking locally, I'm always alert for certain dogs and perhaps S picks up subtle cues and reacts more? The woods are so much better - you only get people who want to be out and about with their dogs and can control them.


I agree with Dogless - it makes a massive difference in so many different ways.

Regarding my post above - no dog went well at agility this afternoon, in fact most of them were dire. All about environment and atmosphere.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I agree with Dogless - it makes a massive difference in so many different ways.
> 
> Regarding my post above - no dog went well at agility this afternoon, in fact most of them were dire. All about environment and atmosphere.


The more I watch and learn from Kilo the more fascinating I find the ways in which even subtle differences in environment or handling affect him. If he had a far more confident handler round here he would be better I am certain. But it is hard not to get a jolt of adrenaline when loose dogs can fly at you from anywhere, not all friendly!!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> The more I watch and learn from Kilo the more fascinating I find the ways in which even subtle differences in environment or handling affect him. If he had a far more confident handler round here he would be better I am certain. But it is hard not to get a jolt of adrenaline when loose dogs can fly at you from anywhere, not all friendly!!


It is fascinating to observe dogs in different environments, etc. but perhaps not in your circumstances. I doubt any handler would feel confident in your particular environment.


----------



## Fluffster

I think I would be a nervous wreck if I lived where you do, Dogless 

We're very lucky here as everyone's dogs are friendly and although maybe not that well trained in that they run over to say hi and sometimes from quite a difference and at quite a speed, they are all lovely and I've never felt Daisy has been in any danger.

It's funny though, I did go to a new place the other day with her and I felt quite nervous about being there around dogs we didn't know, if that makes sense  She got growled at three times on that walk too which is unusual for us - a spaniel at the start, a staffy with a stick halfway round and a collie at the end, and I felt quite stressed about it, although Daisy seemed fairly oblivious. I've done that walk with OH before and felt fine, but on my own with Daisy I felt a bit nervous so I might keep that for a weekend walk when he's able to come with us.


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> I think I would be a nervous wreck if I lived where you do, Dogless
> 
> We're very lucky here as everyone's dogs are friendly and although maybe not that well trained in that they run over to say hi and sometimes from quite a difference and at quite a speed, they are all lovely and I've never felt Daisy has been in any danger.
> 
> It's funny though, I did go to a new place the other day with her and I felt quite nervous about being there around dogs we didn't know, if that makes sense  She got growled at three times on that walk too which is unusual for us - a spaniel at the start, a staffy with a stick halfway round and a collie at the end, and I felt quite stressed about it, although Daisy seemed fairly oblivious. I've done that walk with OH before and felt fine, *but on my own with Daisy I felt a bit nervous so I might keep that for a weekend walk when he's able to come with us*.


Hubby doesn't walk with us as he said it makes him feel anxious. I went mad and said how the flaming heck (or something like that ) did he think I felt??? He said he didn't know how I did it . Mind you, he does;t come on walks to anywhere else either so ….. .


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> Hubby doesn't walk with us as he said it makes him feel anxious. I went mad and said how the flaming heck (or something like that ) did he think I felt??? He said he didn't know how I did it :roll eyes:. Mind you, he does;t come on walks to anywhere else either so .. :roll eyes:.




My OH is so laid back he's horizontal, I can only imagine what him and Daisy get up to on their walks, probably stuff I would shriek at if I was there! He is quite a calming influence though and does tend to take charge when I'm having a flap so I do like him being there, although not when he's moaning about us walking "too fast" for him and we have to walk at a snail's pace


----------



## Sarahliz100

Things are pretty calm here. Very good on walks, recalling pretty well away from distractions. Tried the "sausage tree" thing which was fun, but a bit of a faff so not sure it'll become standard repertoire.

He's getting chewier at the moment and taking it out on things he's not supposed to (7 months - secondary chewing phase?). I feel bad that he doesn't have much desirable to redirect onto as I've confiscated his favourite fabric toys as he eats them. Decided to VERY cautiously reintroduce kongs and gave him one this afternoon. So far so good with no hint of guarding. Just going to give them when there's just me around initially and make sure I act studiously disinterested in him when he has it. Fingers crossed.

Not so good (but not a disaster) at obedience class. I think he was tired as we'd been on the go all day. He did his settle really well at every possible opportunity - I think he just wanted to lie down and nap really. Wasn't so keen on working at anything else and got really frustrated at one point. He showed off his stay whilst toy is thrown which impressed the instructor though.

Been practicing putting things over his head (collar/loops of lead/cord etc) in hope of getting a harness on him and he's actually now happily hand targeting through a loop and letting me drape things on his back now so I've gone ahead and ordered a shiny new Mekuti harness. Going to go at snails pace acclimatising him to it in the hope of getting him to love it.



Fluffster said:


> OH has been training her (shock!!!!) to catch a ball in the air as I told him I wanted to do flyball with her. She's actually getting really good at it!


My boyfriend is training this too! Must be "manly" training. He's not so fussed on training the boring stuff. Tryfan isn't especially talented at this - for ages he jumped but forgot to open his mouth. He can now catch it about 30% of the time if you throw it directly to him. Don't think he'll be a flyball dog!


----------



## Fluffster

Sarahliz100 said:


> Things are pretty calm here. Very good on walks, recalling pretty well away from distractions. Tried the "sausage tree" thing which was fun, but a bit of a faff so not sure it'll become standard repertoire.
> 
> He's getting chewier at the moment and taking it out on things he's not supposed to (7 months - secondary chewing phase?). I feel bad that he doesn't have much desirable to redirect onto as I've confiscated his favourite fabric toys as he eats them. Decided to VERY cautiously reintroduce kongs and gave him one this afternoon. So far so good with no hint of guarding. Just going to give them when there's just me around initially and make sure I act studiously disinterested in him when he has it. Fingers crossed.
> 
> Not so good (but not a disaster) at obedience class. I think he was tired as we'd been on the go all day. He did his settle really well at every possible opportunity - I think he just wanted to lie down and nap really. Wasn't so keen on working at anything else and got really frustrated at one point. He showed off his stay whilst toy is thrown which impressed the instructor though.
> 
> Been practicing putting things over his head (collar/loops of lead/cord etc) in hope of getting a harness on him and he's actually now happily hand targeting through a loop and letting me drape things on his back now so I've gone ahead and ordered a shiny new Mekuti harness. Going to go at snails pace acclimatising him to it in the hope of getting him to love it.
> 
> My boyfriend is training this too! Must be "manly" training. He's not so fussed on training the boring stuff. Tryfan isn't especially talented at this - for ages he jumped but forgot to open his mouth. He can now catch it about 30% of the time if you throw it directly to him. Don't think he'll be a flyball dog!


Haha, manly training! Yes I think it must be, OH isn't interested in loose lead walking, sit/stays blah blah. But catching a ball or frisbee in mid air, preferably while jumping, yes sir! Or his latest "trick", putting a sock over her nose and seeing how long it takes her to get it off. They're weird, she gets so excited when he looms towards her with this sock, and he does a weird magician like gesture before it goes on, then when she gets it off she brings him the sock and rinse/repeat!

Very impressed at the sit/stay while a toy is thrown, I need to do more training on that with Daisy. She struggles with impulse control. She can with food/treats, but her ball is a whole different ball game (excuse the pun!) Even on the odd occasion she does stay while it's rolled very gently away from her, she is visibly vibrating with excitement :lol: And the minute you open your mouth to tell her she can get it, she's off!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Fluffster said:


> Very impressed at the sit/stay while a toy is thrown, I need to do more training on that with Daisy. She struggles with impulse control. She can with food/treats, but her ball is a whole different ball game (excuse the pun!) Even on the odd occasion she does stay while it's rolled very gently away from her, she is visibly vibrating with excitement :lol: And the minute you open your mouth to tell her she can get it, she's off!


Daisy sounds a lot more chilled. When Tryfan gets frustrated (which he does really easily) I am liable to end up with holes in my clothes so I'm working quite hard on impulse control. If I had a sweet, laid back little Daisy I'm not sure I'd be obsessing about it so much


----------



## Fluffster

Sarahliz100 said:


> Daisy sounds a lot more chilled. When Tryfan gets frustrated (which he does really easily) I am liable to end up with holes in my clothes so I'm working quite hard on impulse control. If I had a sweet, laid back little Daisy I'm not sure I'd be obsessing about it so much


She is chilled in the sense she doesn't get frustrated and take it out on us, she is just very excited. She's like a cup that you keep filling up and suddenly it just goes over the top and she explodes into zoomies :lol: She had zoomies today sparked by my OH asking her to leave the crumpets alone after the Sainsbury's shop came ut: We had to open the door and let her out into the garden.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Hubby doesn't walk with us as he said it makes him feel anxious. I went mad and said how the flaming heck (or something like that ) did he think I felt??? He said he didn't know how I did it . Mind you, he does;t come on walks to anywhere else either so .. .


Ditto - nuff said really.


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Things are pretty calm here. Very good on walks, recalling pretty well away from distractions. Tried the "sausage tree" thing which was fun, but a bit of a faff so not sure it'll become standard repertoire.
> 
> He's getting chewier at the moment and taking it out on things he's not supposed to (7 months - secondary chewing phase?). I feel bad that he doesn't have much desirable to redirect onto as I've confiscated his favourite fabric toys as he eats them. Decided to VERY cautiously reintroduce kongs and gave him one this afternoon. So far so good with no hint of guarding. Just going to give them when there's just me around initially and make sure I act studiously disinterested in him when he has it. Fingers crossed.
> 
> Not so good (but not a disaster) at obedience class. I think he was tired as we'd been on the go all day. He did his settle really well at every possible opportunity - I think he just wanted to lie down and nap really. Wasn't so keen on working at anything else and got really frustrated at one point. He showed off his stay whilst toy is thrown which impressed the instructor though.
> 
> Been practicing putting things over his head (collar/loops of lead/cord etc) in hope of getting a harness on him and he's actually now happily hand targeting through a loop and letting me drape things on his back now so I've gone ahead and ordered a shiny new Mekuti harness. Going to go at snails pace acclimatising him to it in the hope of getting him to love it.
> 
> My boyfriend is training this too! Must be "manly" training. He's not so fussed on training the boring stuff. Tryfan isn't especially talented at this - for ages he jumped but forgot to open his mouth. He can now catch it about 30% of the time if you throw it directly to him. Don't think he'll be a flyball dog!


You and Fluffster are very brave allowing men to have a hand in dog training.


----------



## Fluffster

Stupid in my case I fear!  Worst thing is, he's going to potentially have to take Daisy to about 50% of her flyball classes as I will be working for around half of them  It'll be like a Mr Bean sketch


----------



## Dogless

Working onthis Georgina Harrison is fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support

Apologies for the shameless plug . Not my usual style but this isn't my usual trail run!!


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> Working onthis Georgina Harrison is fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support
> 
> Apologies for the shameless plug . Not my usual style but this isn't my usual trail run!!


Wow that's amazing. Will definitely sponsor you for that. A cause close to my heart as well as my mum had breast cancer a couple of years ago, thankfully she is fully recovered now. I did a sponsored run at the time for it too, nowhere near as long as yours though!


----------



## zedder

finally got lurch off the bed and into his crate major breakthrough for him ike has been naughty nipping the Mrs so a bit cheesed off with him at minute dunno what his beef is tbh.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You and Fluffster are very brave allowing men to have a hand in dog training.


Yup!!! I salute you both .


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Working onthis Georgina Harrison is fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support
> 
> Apologies for the shameless plug . Not my usual style but this isn't my usual trail run!!


Wow. Just wow. Having the dubious honor of being a cancer patient I like Macmillan, so count me in.


----------



## Freddie and frank

We have passed    thanks for the good lucks.

my god, I've never been so nervous...ok, apart from when I did it with the boys.
she did me proud, and all our hard work is paying off. 

the examiner said our heelwork was perfect and that it shows how much work I've put in with her. everybody loves her there and says how good she is....would love to hear what they say if they ever see me being dragged through the chase with frank attached to a long line  not such a pretty sight !!!

on the subject of husbands doing dog stuff.....mine is very good if I ask him to come out with them all off lead, but he thinks by using totally different commands that they don't know, they'll behave perfectly...like 'sit down' :mad5: mine know 'sit' and 'lie down'. then if I try and help him, i'm being bossy :frown2:

dogless...100k  crikey, well done. you really are super woman.  I will too sponsor such a worthy cause. all the best for your challenge. :thumbup1:


----------



## Dogless

Well done F&F!!!!!   .

Thanks for any donations; v covert Dief as ever . I haven't done the race so maybe no superwoman comments deserved yet  .


----------



## Sarahliz100

Irritating walk this morning due to out if control dogs, but the pupstar was pretty good apart from some lead pulling.

When we got back his shiny new Mekuti harness was here. Very impressed given I only ordered it yesterday afternoon. It's very smart, he'll look very handsome I think. All the recent practice seems to be paying off as he's actually letting me put it over his head and drape it across his back. I'm trying to resist the urge to rush it and put it on properly (owner impulse training required).....

Am I a complete freak that my day has been made by being able to put a harness over my puppies head? Maybe I need to get a life


----------



## Barcode

Yes, I think it's time to start finding further away walks. This is one big reason why I've been having driving lessons - to go further afield and make things a little more interesting. Hope to pass the test in a few months!

Round here, we have a lot of very small dogs owned by retired ladies (sorry to generalize, but this is the local area!) who seem to think that their dog is just friendly when zipping about to all and sundry. It says it all that Scrabble's best local doggy friend is a big Dobermann - she loves him and will play happily.


----------



## lupie

Sarahliz100 said:


> Things are pretty calm here. Very good on walks, recalling pretty well away from distractions. Tried the "sausage tree" thing which was fun, but a bit of a faff so not sure it'll become standard repertoire.


I found the "sausage tree" a little bit of a faff too. However it's only taken a few attempts at it for Ruska to notice me standing by a tree and go OH MY GOD SAUSAGE TREE. So it is something I will continue with I think.

Hmm the slightly rare plus point of being single, no OH to mess with training 

Congrats F&F - we had faith in you


----------



## Sarahliz100

lupie said:


> I found the "sausage tree" a little bit of a faff too. However it's only taken a few attempts at it for Ruska to notice me standing by a tree and go OH MY GOD SAUSAGE TREE. So it is something I will continue with I think.
> 
> Hmm the slightly rare plus point of being single, no OH to mess with training
> 
> Congrats F&F - we had faith in you


Mostly moorland around here, not so many trees. Maybe I can do "sausage grass" instead.....?


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Mostly moorland around here, not so many trees. Maybe I can do "sausage grass" instead.....?


You could put little sealed boxes of sausage pieces in amongst the heather maybe?


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> You could put little sealed boxes of sausage pieces in amongst the heather maybe?


Tupperware that has had sausage in would likely be guarded. Complicated little dog. I can maybe just wait till he's not looking and toss some treats into the heather then be all excited at having found them.


----------



## lupie

Sarahliz100 said:


> Tupperware that has had sausage in would likely be guarded. Complicated little dog. I can maybe just wait till he's not looking and toss some treats into the heather then be all excited at having found them.


I do this also - throw some when she's not looking and try and make my behaviour look as if I've spotted something and help her find them.


----------



## Dogless

The boys each ran 5.5 of my 21 miles today - separately of course as I ran from home!! First time Kilo has run here since he was attacked; I chose to take him today as the weather was so bad we saw hardly a soul out .

Walking Kilo with Diz and human shortly and the Roo on his own with me. The rest. I hope!!


----------



## Twiggy

I met my daughter for lunch today at a retail outlet and treated myself to a pair of Skecher Active running shoes. I had the young lad assistant and my daughter in stitches explaining why an old lady wanted running shoes...LOL


----------



## diefenbaker

Sarahliz100 said:


> Mostly moorland around here, not so many trees. Maybe I can do "sausage grass" instead.....?


I do sausage grass... but I let him watch me... then distract him.. so he loses where it is... then send him off to find it. I suppose I'm trying to build some impulse control into it.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I met my daughter for lunch today at a retail outlet and treated myself to a pair of Skecher Active running shoes. I had the young lad assistant and my daughter in stitches explaining why an old lady wanted running shoes...LOL


See you at the start line 3rd of May :devil: :ihih:


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> See you at the start line 3rd of May :devil: :ihih:


You'd leave me for dead.....


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You'd leave me for dead.....


I don't know Grannie..you're not shabby!


----------



## Freddie and frank

Hmmm. Sausage tree???? sounds fun. 
I do something similar with Freddie....throwing his treats when were out for him to find them. Keeps him interested.


----------



## Dogless

We spent the morning in the pouring rain in the forest today; but the boys had a ball blasting about so that's what matters  . They were very good for me .


----------



## Sarahliz100

Uneventful walk in the rain today. Afterwards we did some work with his new harness - and put it on properly!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!! Been working up to this for weeks so very happy.

We had a fantastic 1 to 1 session with our dog trainer today, the first time we've done this (usually we just go to the weekly class). We were working on recall. I was really impressed, she understands him really well and had some great suggestions for things I can do differently/better. Now that I can get him in a harness I'm raring to go with the long line and really get his recall sorted


----------



## lupie

Sarahliz100 said:


> We had a fantastic 1 to 1 session with our dog trainer today, the first time we've done this (usually we just go to the weekly class). We were working on recall. I was really impressed, she understands him really well and had some great suggestions for things I can do differently/better. Now that I can get him in a harness I'm raring to go with the long line and really get his recall sorted


Really wish we could find a trainer like this. I saw a behaviourist about Ruska's reactivity and she was helpful to some extent, but advocated some methods I wasn't a fan of.

Just popping in to let those who are interested know that Ruska had her pups this morning/early afternoon. Slight surprise at the end, there were 7, not 6!! All is going well and Ruska is a fantastic mum apparently, the breeder is chuffed to bits with her.


----------



## Fluffster

Aww that's brilliant lupie, well done Ruska! So glad it went smoothly for her!


----------



## Bagrat

Great news lupie . Glad Ruska is doing well.


----------



## Twiggy

Oh well done Ruska and congratulations to you....!!


----------



## Bagrat

Just saying hello and the course is amazing. Doing our own first signs of stress as well as dogs calming signals. Daily exercise to do and weekly lesson. We report back to forum for feedback from course leader ans other course members.
Sounds like that on the whole everyone is making progress and think we are too.
I used to be a Mac Dogless so am very impressed by your impending effort.


----------



## Sarahliz100

lupie said:


> Really wish we could find a trainer like this. I saw a behaviourist about Ruska's reactivity and she was helpful to some extent, but advocated some methods I wasn't a fan of.
> 
> Just popping in to let those who are interested know that Ruska had her pups this morning/early afternoon. Slight surprise at the end, there were 7, not 6!! All is going well and Ruska is a fantastic mum apparently, the breeder is chuffed to bits with her.


Yes we are very lucky that we've had some really good input from various professionals locally (veterinary behavioural team, local trainer, ttouch lady). Thoroughly impressed with them all, it's made a huge difference having somewhere to turn for advice I have faith in. Prior to that I was driving myself potty trying to work out how to manage him via internet pages etc.

Very exciting about the pups. How long do you have to wait to see them? Will you be tempted to have a new addition......?


----------



## JenKyzer

Lupie - Well done Ruska  Glad all has gone well and she's enjoying being mum! (Hope you're ok too)

SarahL - Fab progress with the harness! Well done. Good luck with the recall, the 1to1 session sounds productive.

Dogless - Ohno to the weather, it's been good all day here. Glad the boys enjoyed it though!

Twiggy - Fancy running shoes eh! Definitely some competition for Dogless now 

F&F - well done for the pass, sounds like you got some really nice compliments, you should be proud 

Regarding posts further back - for those of you involving OH's in training.. brave bravee ladies!!  Our walk the other day ended up with us not speaking for the last half of it and the car journey home :laugh:

We went to a new walk yesterday, i've been wanting to venture to these 'woods' for ages but the weather hasn't been great or if the weather was nice the OH was at work - i didn't want to go on my own first time round  and oh my word... it was like heaven tucked away - here's some pics as they aren't worthy of their own thread...

As we emerged out of the woodland we were greeted by this almighty reservoir


The path went all the way round, it was huge! Along with other entrances and paths into different parts of the woods which also pretty much surrounded the res. Amazing. I can see us having hours of fun down there and it's only 10min drive away!

Watching the ducks..


Anyway!! Back on track....

We saw lots of dogs around this piece of heaven .. 2 offlead one's (husky and lab) approached her as their owner was round the corner still.. no fuss.. just polite sniffs untill the owner called them away and apologised a few times, bless him. Passed some more who put their 2 on leads and sat them as we passed.. Willow didn't even bat an eyelid at them sat there all regal (beautiful weimaraner's) and a few more passed us too. The only fuss we had was Willow watching a collie who was having tons of fun having a stick thrown for him/her .. Willow obviously thought the dog was so rude not looking at her and lying down infront of a stick that she had to squeal to make her presence known  half bark half whimper, it was a weird noise! Almost as if she was frustrated and wanted to play too. All in all, a great walk  .

Today, we went to another new place - for willow it was new anyway. Lots of hills and ponds. Saw a guy - who turned out to be OH's uncle (family he's only just started seeing properly) with his two hugeee am-bull's.. from a distance i was really wary of them, he put them on leads as we leaded up willow.. i left her paddling in the pond out the way as they passed. Once we realised who it was, she came out and stood staring at them... then just turned away and wanted to carry on walking :thumbup1: Didn't let them greet as Willow obviously wasn't bothered so no point really.. i'd rather her acknowledge and make her own decision to ignore - it's what i want all of the time really, was a bit of a proud moment  oh and she also started chasing some ducks, which she never really does :laugh: OH panic-ed and started running after her  i just carried on walking, shouted 'willow, this way' and she came running back  my little star today :001_wub: (OH obviously thought his little princess was about to run away forever  and obviously running after her was the best plan.. amazing skills on recall there. :laugh: i was quite smug when OH came closer with a red face embarrassed from his slight panic  )

Sorry for the length, but haven't posted a proper one for a while, just been lurking


----------



## Sarahliz100

JenSteWillow said:


> Lupie - Well done Ruska  Glad all has gone well and she's enjoying being mum! (Hope you're ok too)
> 
> SarahL - Fab progress with the harness! Well done. Good luck with the recall, the 1to1 session sounds productive.
> 
> Dogless - Ohno to the weather, it's been good all day here. Glad the boys enjoyed it though!
> 
> Twiggy - Fancy running shoes eh! Definitely some competition for Dogless now
> 
> F&F - well done for the pass, sounds like you got some really nice compliments, you should be proud
> 
> Regarding posts further back - for those of you involving OH's in training.. brave bravee ladies!!  Our walk the other day ended up with us not speaking for the last half of it and the car journey home :laugh:
> 
> We went to a new walk yesterday, i've been wanting to venture to these 'woods' for ages but the weather hasn't been great or if the weather was nice the OH was at work - i didn't want to go on my own first time round  and oh my word... it was like heaven tucked away - here's some pics as they aren't worthy of their own thread...
> 
> As we emerged out of the woodland we were greeted by this almighty reservoir
> 
> 
> The path went all the way round, it was huge! Along with other entrances and paths into different parts of the woods which also pretty much surrounded the res. Amazing. I can see us having hours of fun down there and it's only 10min drive away!
> 
> Watching the ducks..
> 
> 
> Anyway!! Back on track....
> 
> We saw lots of dogs around this piece of heaven .. 2 offlead one's (husky and lab) approached her as their owner was round the corner still.. no fuss.. just polite sniffs untill the owner called them away and apologised a few times, bless him. Passed some more who put their 2 on leads and sat them as we passed.. Willow didn't even bat an eyelid at them sat there all regal (beautiful weimaraner's) and a few more passed us too. The only fuss we had was Willow watching a collie who was having tons of fun having a stick thrown for him/her .. Willow obviously thought the dog was so rude not looking at her and lying down infront of a stick that she had to squeal to make her presence known  half bark half whimper, it was a weird noise! Almost as if she was frustrated and wanted to play too. All in all, a great walk  .
> 
> Today, we went to another new place - for willow it was new anyway. Lots of hills and ponds. Saw a guy - who turned out to be OH's uncle (family he's only just started seeing properly) with his two hugeee am-bull's.. from a distance i was really wary of them, he put them on leads as we leaded up willow.. i left her paddling in the pond out the way as they passed. Once we realised who it was, she came out and stood staring at them... then just turned away and wanted to carry on walking :thumbup1: Didn't let them greet as Willow obviously wasn't bothered so no point really.. i'd rather her acknowledge and make her own decision to ignore - it's what i want all of the time really, was a bit of a proud moment  oh and she also started chasing some ducks, which she never really does :laugh: OH panic-ed and started running after her  i just carried on walking, shouted 'willow, this way' and she came running back  my little star today :001_wub: (OH obviously thought his little princess was about to run away forever  and obviously running after her was the best plan.. amazing skills on recall there. :laugh: i was quite smug when OH came closer with a red face embarrassed from his slight panic  )
> 
> Sorry for the length, but haven't posted a proper one for a while, just been lurking


Angelzarke?


----------



## JenKyzer

Sarahliz100 said:


> Angelzarke?


I forget you are local-ish.. but no. This - Turton and Entwistle Reservoir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  really worth a visit if you're ever over that way


----------



## Dogless

HOBSON'S CHOICE.

Hubby either has 4 years more here or one year in Hereford from mid - May and then back here for 3 years. We have the weekend to decide. If I move back I will need to get both our houses sold and either another one bought or a nice one rented by the time he is due back here.

OR I stay here for 4 years.

OR I move back for a year and then back here for 3.

All I can think about here is that I have mental health help that is just starting to stabilise me. Nowt else.

But staying here gives us 1 year apart and staying in Hereford 3 years apart.

Hmmmmmmm. Gah.

Not thinking about it tonight. I will need a clear head and lots of lists!!!


----------



## Dogless

Wow!!!! Pups for Ruska already???? Seems to have gone so fast :yikes:. Pleased all is good with Mum and Pups .


----------



## Fluffster

Oh yikes Dogless, tough decisions ahead  A weekend to decide isn't long too!

From what I can gather, you really don't like where you are now. Maybe you could do Hereford for a year and then reassess whether you feel like you can move back for a few years, or whether you feel you can stay? It's tough though if you feel you have the support you need where you are though 

Deffo make lists, I love lists


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless said:


> HOBSON'S CHOICE.
> 
> Hubby either has 4 years more here or one year in Hereford from mid - May and then back here for 3 years. We have the weekend to decide. If I move back I will need to get both our houses sold and either another one bought or a nice one rented by the time he is due back here.
> 
> OR I stay here for 4 years.
> 
> OR I move back for a year and then back here for 3.
> 
> All I can think about here is that I have mental health help that is just starting to stabilise me. Nowt else.
> 
> But staying here gives us 1 year apart and staying in Hereford 3 years apart.
> 
> Hmmmmmmm. Gah.
> 
> Not thinking about it tonight. I will need a clear head and lots of lists!!!


Wow, big decision to be made then . Good luck with lists and thinking it all through x


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> HOBSON'S CHOICE.
> 
> Hubby either has 4 years more here or one year in Hereford from mid - May and then back here for 3 years. We have the weekend to decide. If I move back I will need to get both our houses sold and either another one bought or a nice one rented by the time he is due back here.
> 
> OR I stay here for 4 years.
> 
> OR I move back for a year and then back here for 3.
> 
> All I can think about here is that I have mental health help that is just starting to stabilise me. Nowt else.
> 
> But staying here gives us 1 year apart and staying in Hereford 3 years apart.
> 
> Hmmmmmmm. Gah.
> 
> Not thinking about it tonight. I will need a clear head and lots of lists!!!


Oh Dogless I'm so sorry. None of the options are very appealing are they?

I was hoping you could both get away from there this year and not have to return.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Oh Dogless I'm so sorry. None of the options are very appealing are they?
> 
> I was hoping you could both get away from there this year and not have to return.


I can do if I manage to sell our houses and buy or rent another within that year. There don't seem many positive trainers etc round there for the dogs. I was pretty certain we'd be close to moonviolet and her amazing classes / trainer. Not to be it seems .


----------



## lupie

Thanks for all the kind words about the pups! Absolutely chuffed how well she's done.

Dogless yes it has gone quickly. She started labour last night so I'm glad it all went smoothly. 
Sarahliz - one pup is earmarked for us, but unfortunately it's not my decision to make as due to the wonderful housing climate, I live at home whilst working full time. My Mum kindly looks after Ruska for me during the day, and she doesn't think she could manage a pup. Which is of course fair enough. It's very difficult to listen to head over heart right now when I'm seeing all the gorgeous photos :yikes: :lol: 

Dogless - that's an awfully big decision. I too was hoping you would both be able to make it back here. I don't feel it's my place to give advice but lists are always good  As is gut instinct. 
And there are friendly faces on this side of the water


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> I can do if I manage to sell our houses and buy or rent another within that year. There don't seem many positive trainers etc round there for the dogs. I was pretty certain we'd be close to moonviolet and her amazing classes / trainer. Not to be it seems .


I think there are some decent trainers and clubs over by the Welsh borders. If you do decide on that option, I'll put my feelers out.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> HOBSON'S CHOICE.
> 
> Hubby either has 4 years more here or one year in Hereford from mid - May and then back here for 3 years. We have the weekend to decide. If I move back I will need to get both our houses sold and either another one bought or a nice one rented by the time he is due back here.
> 
> OR I stay here for 4 years.
> 
> OR I move back for a year and then back here for 3.
> 
> All I can think about here is that I have mental health help that is just starting to stabilise me. Nowt else.
> 
> But staying here gives us 1 year apart and staying in Hereford 3 years apart.
> 
> Hmmmmmmm. Gah.
> 
> Not thinking about it tonight. I will need a clear head and lots of lists!!!


Sorry to hear this. Big life decisions are tough, especially under time pressure.

If you were to move you could ask your current mental health team to make contact with your future one to smooth the way. No reason you shouldn't get equally good care and continue to make progress (although I appreciate that having a doctor/CPN you can trust is important).

Hope you and your husband find a good solution.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Good morning. 

sarah...good luck with the recall.

lupie...congratulations on the pups. how lovely. 

bagrat...i'm not a frequent visitor to waywo, so can I ask you what course you're doing? it sounds interesting. 

jsw...lovely pics and looks a lovely walk. nice to have good walks close by. 

dogless...gosh, that's a toughie. I hope you can make the best decision for all of you. i'm sure you will.  

I was thinking about gingerRogers yesterday, and although i'm not on pf everyday just lately, I haven't seen her much. Hope her and ninja are ok. 

We had a lovely walk yesterday, met a lady with two EBT and a man with a Weimerana x lab who was gorgeous. all dogs had a run around then parted with no trouble.

Freddie has his check up in morning at the vets and possibly another flush out so no breakfast for him  

eta...thanks for the well done's for our bronze. 

hope you all have good days.


----------



## Fluffster

Lovely day here! Working an earlier shift today though so just stayed local for our walk today, and played frisbee. We met the guy with the DA staffie, I saw them coming from a while away and put Daisy on the lead, and I was amazed that she was content to lie at my feet while I chatted to him across the path. His staffie looked a bit more chilled out as well, no growls or lunging towards Daisy at all. Usually when I've stopped to speak to people and she's on lead, she's like a whirling dervish at the end of it, so this was really nice  and hopefully not just a one off.

Hope Freddie's checkup goes well


----------



## Bagrat

Dogless, words fail me. As if you haven't had enough c**p thrown at you now you've got decision making too. I make lists, then I try saying right, this is the only choice trying out each option and see which one makes me least fed up.
My OH used to fly people from Hereford in the Hercules.
Selling houses yuk, staying put, only you can answer that.
Sarah, hooray for the harness progress.
Freddie and Frank, it's an online course run by Janet Finlay called "Your end of the Lead"
Website is canineconfidence.com
It's looking at our responses to our dogs reactive behavior and how to try and predict their responses by being more observant. Lots of tips for recognizing our own stress and what helps, so self assessment too. Has its own forum which is why my input here is a bit spasmodic


----------



## Sarahliz100

Ugh. Spoke to soon on the harness front. He's wary again today. Gone for a change of tactics and going to try and associate it with play/fun rather than sitting on the floor with a bag of treats and trying to coax him into it. So spent the afternoon galloping around the house carrying it with him chasing me then putting his head through it to grab a treat on catching me. Did result in him getting very overexcited and nipping my bum though.

Really nice walk though round a reservoir and through some woods. Played lots of the recall games I learnt from the trainer yesterday which he enjoyed. I hid behind a tree at one point and when he found me he was massively excited and clearly thinking "whooo sausage tree" so I felt obliged to sneak a few bits of sausage into the knots in the trunk and help him find them.


----------



## Dogless

Recall games sound as if they're going well *Sarahliz100 *- I am sure you'll get there with the harness.

*Bagrat* - the "least fed up" thing is what I do .

Well today we worked on nothing bar me running up a hill and back - the dogs adore the route as there's a huge expanse of moorland with neither livestock or grouse pens so they can run flat out and I can relax as I have great vision all around. It was exceptionally hard going today as it was so boggy - I tend to only do it when the weather has been drier but thought it would be good training!! :crazy:. The boys absolutely loved it anyway, they went crackers mucking about .


----------



## Sarahliz100

JenSteWillow said:


> I forget you are local-ish.. but no. This - Turton and Entwistle Reservoir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  really worth a visit if you're ever over that way


Entwistle reservoir is lovely, but not been for ages. Was it busy? There's a little crag next to it where we used to go climbing. Have you been to Calf Hey reservoir off the Grane Road - it's pretty peaceful, especially if you head into the woods or up the hill.


----------



## higratuit

kat&molly said:


> I have had enough of my girls pulling my arm sockets out
> On their own they aren't too bad but together walking they are a nightmare.
> Jay has always been good, Evie is ok but criss crosses me. Moll and Scruff think they're Sled dogs. So I have vowed to sort it once and for all, its all my fault for always loading them in the car because its easier, but my car is in for repair[thank you post lady] so its now or never. I've got my patient, determined head on and its off in to battle I go.:blink:
> 
> Tell us what you're working on and we'll have progress reports at the end of the week










..


----------



## Freddie and frank

Good morning.

I'm currently hiding upstairs cause it's breakfast time and Freddie's appointment is at 9.20 which means no breakfast for him. :yikes: 

sarah...i'm sure you'll get there with the harness 

dogless...I bet seeing your boys having a great time helped you take your mind off the 'hill' slightly. 

eta...had to leave Freddie at the vets for another ear flush out. got to call at 2pm then pick him up later.

eta again...Freddie is back home, very drowsy. vet thinks he will need surgery on his ear canal, so just waiting for results of cultures and then we'll know.


----------



## JenKyzer

F&F - As said on your other thread, big hugs to Freddie & i hope you finally start to get some progress.. fingers crossed the results come back as good as they can .

SarahL - Wasn't too busy.. came across more people than we would normally do but Willow did well so i don't feel anxious about going back  I can imagine it being really busy when the sun comes out though! Never been to that one or the angelzarke one - i shall add calf hey to my 'to go' list  Hows project harness going? 

DL - Hope your not wearing them boys out too much  or is it the other way round..  Hope the training is going well and the weathers being kind to you  

Hope everyone has a good weekend


----------



## Bagrat

Jen SW - so pleased did Willow did well with more activity around
F&F - sorry to hear about Freddy's ear - missed other thread - hope it can be sorted soon 
Apologies for the long ramble below - but you don't have to read it, just helps me to write it somewhere - should maybe start a blog ( note to me Google how to blog!!)

I woke up feeling calm and relaxed and decided I was going to take Jackson somewhere he'd never been before to observe himand so hopefully he could have some dog fun sniffing etc.
We went here Yorkshire Arboretum :: Castle Howard
It's about 7 miles away 120 acres, totally enclosed to keep deer out. Dogs are allowed on lead in certain parts and off lead but "under control" in others.
I was the first paying customer this season as I arrived as it opened. 
First hurdle man with dog ahead of us going in so we lurked with a v. excited J and me juggling cash , long line, gloves and after paying, map and offer of annual membership. J was anxious to look over reception desk ( turns out she had her dog under the desk!) but all well.

Once in and J on long line he was very excited, sniffing and marking a lot, something he rarely does usually. He would come back if I called but too excited to accept treats for first half hour. Didn't see a soul in this time. I was well chuffed as by now he was accepting treats and could just about manage a sit before dashing off again. Then we both spotted a young woman who we both assumed had a dog somewhere. It was a young pointer and J and I were heading away, him still on long line looking over his shoulder, when it dashed up from nowhere with my inner dialogue going "OMG", followed by a frenetic risk assessment. I decided (with hind sight, wrongly) that as they had greeted quietly, soft tails and curved bodies and there was lots of scrub and bushes to snag the line if they played,and I would only have to search 120 acres(!!) that I would let J off.

After I let him off I suddenly thought that J would probably mug the owner at some point ( he likes to leap and this is very much a work in progress)which he did half way through the encounter ( don't know if he was saying "Call your dawg orf" or just pleased to see her.) 
The dogs dashed at each other EEK! and Jackson gave a couple of warning barks on two occasions so I decided to head off. Hadn't thought through how I would achieve this!! I turned away and just said J's name as I had no conviction he would obey a "come" command. he did run back to the dog a couple of times - he does like the last word, and then streaked back to me, YAY!!

When we got back to the entrance there were more people about. We hurriedly did a big circle away from a black spaniel which was not big enough( the circle!) and I was definitely over threshold as well as J as he did his silent scream, back and lunge when I worry he'll get out of the harness. He didn't and we lurked behind a hut coming out to see a golden retriever which he nearly ignored at the same distance.

What have I learnt.
Observing dog body language when stressed is definitely not my strong suit!!
Much as I was pleased to see his interaction with the other dog I mustn't and shouldn't have let him off while he is still leaping on people when excited.
Next time will leave the long line on definitely. I guess I just wanted him to have fun. 
I think I managed my fears better than I would have done a few weeks ago. Didn't feel sick or panicky.


----------



## JenKyzer

Bagrat - I hope you had a cup of tea/coffee after writing that  Sounds like J had a ball.. overall sounds like a good walk and at least you did a 'mini self assessment' after it so you know what to watch out for / do different next time :thumbup1: Well done you for staying calm too (no sick/panic feeling) .. i'm sure J will pick up on that too.. I always think Willows reaction depends on how i handle the situation before her reaction  if that makes sence... :skep: I hope you have more fun walks to come :biggrin:


----------



## Dogless

*Bagrat* - sounds good overall; despite the "shouldn't have done thats" which we all have who would have thought that J would be interacting that well all that time ago? .

The boys got just an hour of lead potters this morning, recovering from all their running and all the looning about offlead they got during the week!! Another potter this evening I think. I throw lots of bits of training in.not as boring as I make them sound :thumbup1:. They were both very good for me .

Then, tomorrow morning they get a rest, I head off to run in the region of 30 miles, come home and then will need to take them out. Suspect I'll sleep well tomorrow night .


----------



## Twiggy

I'm going to an agility show tomorrow with Holly and I obviously had a brainstorm as I've entered 4 classes...!!

Either I shall be on my knees or Holly will run under the first jump and we'll come home...LOL


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm going to an agility show tomorrow with Holly and I obviously had a brainstorm as I've entered 4 classes...!!
> 
> Either I shall be on my knees or Holly will run under the first jump and we'll come home...LOL


Well..my vote is on Holly running you ragged . Good job you've got new trainers.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Well..my vote is on Holly running you ragged . Good job you've got new trainers.


Let's hope you're right and she decides to perform.

I most definitely won't be wearing my new trainers tomorrow as it will be very muddy, judging by the last time I was there.


----------



## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> Let's hope you're right and she decides to perform.
> 
> I most definitely won't be wearing my new trainers tomorrow as it will be very muddy, judging by the last time I was there.


I do hope so Grannie, best of luck.


----------



## Bagrat

Went shopping for new wellies in our wonderful sells everything from pig buckets to washing machines store. Wisely took OH with me and persuaded him as I fall over so easily and am a weak person needed the best grippy soles on lightest boots so came home with early birthday present Aigles + boot remover!!
Would happily loan them to you Twiggy if the post wasn't so slow these days!! oh and if you are a 5.


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Went shopping for new wellies in our wonderful sells everything from pig buckets to washing machines store. Wisely took OH with me and persuaded him as I fall over so easily and am a weak person needed the best grippy soles on lightest boots so came home with early birthday present Aigles + boot remover!!
> Would happily loan them to you Twiggy if the post wasn't so slow these days!! oh and if you are a 5.


Not a bad haul I am impressed :thumbup1: .


----------



## Twiggy

Bagrat said:


> Went shopping for new wellies in our wonderful sells everything from pig buckets to washing machines store. Wisely took OH with me and persuaded him as I fall over so easily and am a weak person needed the best grippy soles on lightest boots so came home with early birthday present Aigles + boot remover!!
> Would happily loan them to you Twiggy if the post wasn't so slow these days!! oh and if you are a 5.


Bless you. They sound wonderful and yes I am a 5. Pity they wouldn't get here in time....


----------



## lupie

Hope all you wonderful people are well 

Just thought I'd introduce you to Ruska's puppies:

Litter Feb 2014 - Ruska's Puppies - TabanyaRuu Finnish Lapphunds

:thumbup1:

Good luck with the show Twiggy!


----------



## JenKyzer

lupie said:


> Hope all you wonderful people are well
> 
> Just thought I'd introduce you to Ruska's puppies:
> 
> Litter Feb 2014 - Ruska's Puppies - TabanyaRuu* Finnish* Lapphunds
> 
> :thumbup1:
> 
> Good luck with the show Twiggy!


How cute! Bet you can't wait for puppy snuggles! 
Am I reading it correctly that there's 2 possible dads and you find out which it is soon?  I hadn't realised she'd been a mum before either, I'm so rubbish at keeping up!! Are all the pups sold/promised? Twister looks v cheeky with his tongue out  hope your keeping busy without ruska!


----------



## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> How cute! Bet you can't wait for puppy snuggles!
> Am I reading it correctly that there's 2 possible dads and you find out which it is soon?  I hadn't realised she'd been a mum before either, I'm so rubbish at keeping up!! Are all the pups sold/promised? Twister looks v cheeky with his tongue out  hope your keeping busy without ruska!


Yes, the KC allowed dual sire mating last summer, so it's a really great way of promoting genetic diversity within a litter. Quite common in Europe I believe.

Yes she has, but in Finland, not in the UK  she's a complicated lady. I'm missing her terribly but I seem to have over-filled my time, and I have a 10k race soon so that's keeping me out of trouble


----------



## JenKyzer

lupie said:


> Yes, the KC allowed dual sire mating last summer, so it's a really great way of promoting genetic diversity within a litter. Quite common in Europe I believe.
> 
> Yes she has, but in Finland, not in the UK  she's a complicated lady. I'm missing her terribly but I seem to have over-filled my time, and I have a 10k race soon so that's keeping me out of trouble


When I wrote that post I thought two possible dads but only one of them is the dad, I never realised there could be two dads in 1 litter  how amazing yet complicated ! I didn't even know that was physically possible! Wow you are a busy lady then, good luck with the run  I'd be chuffed if I could run 10mins nvm the standard you ladies put on here  I'm so impressed !!


----------



## Bagrat

They are just gorgeous. Know nothing about breeding. Didn't know you could have two Dad's pups in one litter.


----------



## Dogless

*lupie *- Ruska's pups are cute. Had no idea the KC now sanctioned dual sire mating.

*Twiggy* - hope all went well today :thumbsup:.

Did a training run for my 100km race today. Ran part of the actual route. It was muddy, grassy, stony, sandy. Had stiles, gates, bridges, scrambling and wading. I managed 25.3 miles with 3500ft of elevation (and three good falls!! ) at a nice steady pace in 5:10 so I am really chuffed. Much faster than I had expected to complete and still have fresh legs and plenty in the tank :thumbsup:. Sorry for the boast  but I am so pleased.







Watch your step!!



Seeing the sun up



Sorry ^^^^^ copied and pasted from another thread .

Dog - wise I have just taken Rudi for a nice walk. Pleased it wasn't Kilo as it was a sunny spell and everyone with a dog, or small children, or both seemed to be out :yikes:. Roo was great for me. I felt all proud when a man with a boxer on a choke chain desperately trying to get to us (sat at the side across the road to give him space) said "You've got much better control than me"  .

ETA: Kilo will be going after our dinner - I'm not leaving him out!!!


----------



## Bagrat

Words are not enough - Respect for all you have endured and all you are doing now! It's great when someone actually notices we are getting it right with our dogs isn't it?


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless - Um, I'm pretty sure just casually knocking out a marathon and still having fresh legs is cause for a boast! Carry on! 

I've been away at a hen do so boyfriend has been in charge of puppy. They've had some lovely walks together and lots has gone well - but he did let his guard down and there was a spot of sheep chasing. I expect loose lad walking will have deteriorated as it always does when he's been in an environment when he needs to be on lead but is way to excited to concentrate.

I've been plugging on with the harness. Trying to make it all fun and exciting for him by running about, hiding, whipping toys out of my pocket etc and he is getting better. Slow progress though - still looks quite uncomfortable when it is on his back, but is much better about having it put over his head.

Been managing to get a bit of TTouch in. I think it's helping (but maybe it's just wishful thinking!).


----------



## Dogless

*Sarahliz* - glad you had a good weekend. Sorry about the sheep chasing .

Kilo has just had his walk. That's me exhausted for the day :laugh:.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *Sarahliz* - glad you had a good weekend. Sorry about the sheep chasing .
> 
> Kilo has just had his walk. That's me exhausted for the day :laugh:.


I expect you are exhausted - it makes me tired just imagining running that far....!! Beautiful pics of a stunning landscape. What a pity the dog owners are not so majestic.

Holly was extremely naughty at the agility show and it's her worse performances so far. In three classes she ran under jumps and wasn't really concentrating. On the plus side she did get all the contacts, did the weaves very well and was also very animated and jolly. I debated whether to run her in the last class as I didn't want to make the problem worse but I back tracked a bit doing a lot of "overs" and waving my arms about. She went clear but my arm is black and blue and I wish I'd kept my thick coat on..... 
As far as Holly is concerned she had a wonderful day, taking the mickey out of me and making lots of new friends. Tremor also thought is was very exciting although she doesn't compete.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> I expect you are exhausted - it makes me tired just imagining running that far....!! Beautiful pics of a stunning landscape. What a pity the dog owners are not so majestic.
> 
> Holly was extremely naughty at the agility show and it's her worse performances so far. In three classes she ran under jumps and wasn't really concentrating. On the plus side she did get all the contacts, did the weaves very well and was also very animated and jolly. I debated whether to run her in the last class as I didn't want to make the problem worse but I back tracked a bit doing a lot of "overs" and waving my arms about. She went clear but my arm is black and blue and I wish I'd kept my thick coat on.....
> As far as Holly is concerned she had a wonderful day, taking the mickey out of me and making lots of new friends. Tremor also thought is was very exciting although she doesn't compete.


Oh dear that doesn't sound fun. Is your black and blue arm from doggy teeth or from bashing into poles etc?


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Oh dear that doesn't sound fun. Is your black and blue arm from doggy teeth or from bashing into poles etc?


Doggy teeth...!! Every time I raise my arm dear little Holly had a good chomp. I don't care though I got her round and she certainly enjoyed herself.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Oh not just me that happens to then


----------



## Dogless

Oh dear Twiggy!!! Must admit the description of little HB being naughty and enjoying showing you up made me laugh . I am sorry you had a rubbish time though, even if Holly had a ball :yikes:.


----------



## Dogless

ps. Only one choice to be made really. Off to Hereford and then apart for 3 - 4 years. Done!

We'll go mid May and Nige is away for most of March and April having to do various things so it will come quickly :yikes:.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> ps. Only one choice to be made really. Off to Hereford and then apart for 3 - 4 years. Done!
> 
> We'll go mid May and Nige is away for most of March and April having to do various things so it will come quickly :yikes:.


Well done for making the decision. Does that mean you'll be in Hereford for the 4years? It's lovely round there - some stunning quiet places to go with the dogs. I lived in South Wales for 7 years and do miss it. Perhaps you won't have so many irresponsible dog owners to contend with and will be able to chill a bit more on your walks.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> ps. Only one choice to be made really. Off to Hereford and then apart for 3 - 4 years. Done!
> 
> We'll go mid May and Nige is away for most of March and April having to do various things so it will come quickly :yikes:.


Well that does sound the best option from very limited choices. I hope it all works out.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Oh dear Twiggy!!! Must admit the description of little HB being naughty and enjoying showing you up made me laugh . I am sorry you had a rubbish time though, even if Holly had a ball :yikes:.


I don't care as long as Holly Bolly enjoyed herself and she certainly did that, launching herself at me instead of concentrating....


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Well done for making the decision. Does that mean you'll be in Hereford for the 4years? It's lovely round there - some stunning quiet places to go with the dogs. I lived in South Wales for 7 years and do miss it. Perhaps you won't have so many irresponsible dog owners to contend with and will be able to chill a bit more on your walks.


I didn't make the decision; I could tell that hubby really wanted that and to be frank I have completely given up.

I took the boys for a nice fairly long walk each this morning. They both got some once sprinting about playing "ready steady" and some pottering, sniffing and just general fun interaction. Only four hours and it starts again!


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> ps. Only one choice to be made really. Off to Hereford and then apart for 3 - 4 years. Done!
> 
> We'll go mid May and Nige is away for most of March and April having to do various things so it will come quickly :yikes:.


At least the decision is made now and you can prepare for it so to speak.

My Mum grew up in Hereford and she always says how absolutely stunning it is.


----------



## Freddie and frank

Lupie...those puppies are delightful. bet you're super excited. I didn't know about dual sire mating either 

dogless...boast away cause you're doing fantastic. lovely scenery. well done.  hope your move goes well and you enjoy Hereford. 

twiggy...ooops  at least holly enjoyed herself. 

we've had a mixed few walks really. 
Saturday morning, frank had no interest what so ever in me, or his ball, or treats so I spent the whole walk being pulled from pillar to post on the end of his long line.  yet the other day, we had a whole walk off lead at the same place. he was so focused on me and I thought we were getting somewhere.  sunday morning, he was completely opposite again...Velcro dog. 

he's normally more focused when it's been raining, and I put that down to any smells being dampened????? not sure if that's the case.

we had 2 labs run up to us so I did un clip his long line cause im always wary of getting legs tangled up and injuring any of them. all 5 labs had a run around.......and my three came back to me when I called them...woo hoo proud mom alert.  
on the same walk, bella recalled away from a bike. she had seen it but hadn't started to chase it. 

I may have got a bit lost today with Freddie...
i'm normally really good with a sense of direction, but today we went to parts of Cannock chase that I've never been to. think we were out for approx. 3 hours, and don't even know how far we went, but i'm not a slow walker. I phoned hubby to track me and tell me where I was heading but I hadn't any 3g. I did stick to mainly paths but just didn't recognise anywhere. 

anyway, we had a lovely walk and as always, Freddie was golden.


----------



## Twiggy

Just got back from Holly's agility class. Little devil didn't put a paw wrong, didn't lurch at me or run under any jumps in fact she was really good. Apparently she was placed yesterday; she could have won that class if she hadn't been so naughty.


----------



## Barcode

On the environment making a difference.

Off we went to the local-ish woods again, and ...

Scrabble whizzed through the trees playing with a dog: she was brilliant, and it must have done her the world of good. She's unfazed by most everything there and seems very much in her element. Of course, I can't take her there daily, but I'll certainly be avoiding the local river path more where things seem, if they are going to, happen.

We've got to sort out Matilda's leaping at people. It's a tricky one as she doesn't do it to me (I come in, she does a DOWN, I fuss her, then calm), but she thinks the whole world is her friend. I don't let her leap, obviously - it's more when people come to fuss her and she can be mouthy. It's as if my work is undone by well-meaning strangers. Still, as far as problems go, it's not the worst one to have.


----------



## Nicki85

Freddie and frank said:


> Lupie...those puppies are delightful. bet you're super excited. I didn't know about dual sire mating either
> 
> dogless...boast away cause you're doing fantastic. lovely scenery. well done.  hope your move goes well and you enjoy Hereford.
> 
> twiggy...ooops  at least holly enjoyed herself.
> 
> we've had a mixed few walks really.
> Saturday morning, frank had no interest what so ever in me, or his ball, or treats so I spent the whole walk being pulled from pillar to post on the end of his long line.  yet the other day, we had a whole walk off lead at the same place. he was so focused on me and I thought we were getting somewhere.  sunday morning, he was completely opposite again...Velcro dog.
> 
> he's normally more focused when it's been raining, and I put that down to any smells being dampened????? not sure if that's the case.
> 
> we had 2 labs run up to us so I did un clip his long line cause im always wary of getting legs tangled up and injuring any of them. all 5 labs had a run around.......and my three came back to me when I called them...woo hoo proud mom alert.
> on the same walk, bella recalled away from a bike. she had seen it but hadn't started to chase it.
> 
> I may have got a bit lost today with Freddie...
> i'm normally really good with a sense of direction, but today we went to parts of Cannock chase that I've never been to. think we were out for approx. 3 hours, and don't even know how far we went, but i'm not a slow walker. I phoned hubby to track me and tell me where I was heading but I hadn't any 3g. I did stick to mainly paths but just didn't recognise anywhere.
> 
> anyway, we had a lovely walk and as always, Freddie was golden.


Hello all... still following just not very good at posting regularly lol.

But FandF can see similarities between your relationship with Frank and mine with Rusty! I've found when he is fed to be a deal breaker- if he's hungry he's much more likely to hunt and ignore me but if he's been fed an hour or so before his walk he's loads more responsive...

We are all good here, Shae is getting a lot better greeting strange dogs out on walks, on and off lead so that's nice. She still finds greeting people super super exciting and it usually results in zoomies but we'll get there lol. She's also reining in her play style to get a response from more timid dogs which is nice to see... She likes nothing better than to have her ball and get the other dog to chase her with it. She throws it at the toher dog to entice it to play with her- she is funny! 
Rusty is his usual self! Both are currently learning to do a handstand against a wall and touch a stick (harder than you think with Shae who is very mouthy lol).

They were both measured for agility the other day, Rust was large for the second time so that rules him out of KC agility due to his shoulder. Shae was obviously large lol. Rust was terrible though, so so worried by the whole experience and wouldn't leave my lap. Luckily the measuring people were lovely and spent a good 5-10 mins giving him treats and showing him the measuring equipment but he still wouldn't allow it. I hadn't realised we were still that nervous and it was horrible to see  Shae loved the whole experience!!


----------



## Fluffster

Hope your move goes well, Dogless. Excuse my ignorance, but when you say you'll be apart from your hubby for three to four years, will you be able to see him at weekends etc or will he be abroad? Hope Hereford has some nicer dog owners than where you are currently!

We were at the local woods today, Daisy had fun playing with a giant labradoodle! She also met and greeted a lot of other dogs nicely, including a spaniel, a beagle, a collie, two schnauzers and a whippet. I took my eye off her for a sec to tie my bootlace though and she was in the pond  I'd even gone a different route to avoid the really wet and muddy part of the forest, but it was all in vain!

She's jumped up at people a couple of times lately on walks, although last time she tried I was able to stop her as I could tell she was about to. Hoping this is just a phase as she had stopped doing it for a while before now! She didn't try today, thankfully, even when a woman squealed at her and told her how cute she was


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Hope your move goes well, Dogless. Excuse my ignorance, but when you say you'll be apart from your hubby for three to four years, will you be able to see him at weekends etc or will he be abroad? Hope Hereford has some nicer dog owners than where you are currently!
> 
> We were at the local woods today, Daisy had fun playing with a giant labradoodle! She also met and greeted a lot of other dogs nicely, including a spaniel, a beagle, a collie, two schnauzers and a whippet. I took my eye off her for a sec to tie my bootlace though and she was in the pond  I'd even gone a different route to avoid the really wet and muddy part of the forest, but it was all in vain!
> 
> She's jumped up at people a couple of times lately on walks, although last time she tried I was able to stop her as I could tell she was about to. Hoping this is just a phase as she had stopped doing it for a while before now! She didn't try today, thankfully, even when a woman squealed at her and told her how cute she was


I will see him most weekends in Hereford and every 22 days or so when he is back here, same as I do now. Officially - here he can pop in for a coffee though if passing and is on the same island at least!

Good walks this afternoon with Roo and this evening with Kilo (met Diz and human). Saw three dogs with Kilo and he detoured nicely with me without too much stress .


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> I will see him most weekends in Hereford and every 22 days or so when he is back here, same as I do now. Officially - here he can pop in for a coffee though if passing and is on the same island at least!
> 
> Good walks this afternoon with Roo and this evening with Kilo (met Diz and human). Saw three dogs with Kilo and he detoured nicely with me without too much stress .


That sounds tough but at least you have your lovely boys to keep you company! And hopefully a better environment with less mental dog owners will mean you can have some more relaxing walks. Have you been online looking at places to walk nearby yet?!

Glad you've had a good day  x


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> That sounds tough but at least you have your lovely boys to keep you company! And hopefully a better environment with less mental dog owners will mean you can have some more relaxing walks. Have you been online looking at places to walk nearby yet?!
> 
> Glad you've had a good day  x


No, I just cannot think about it right now.


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> No, I just cannot think about it right now.


I don't blame you, I hate moving just within the same city so I can't imagine the situation you are in  I hope it all goes smoothly for you and I'm sure it will be worth it to be somewhere you will hopefully be happier 

Daisy's ball thrower has broken (bloody OH!) Disaster! :yikes: Need to buy a new one asap as my throws are pathetic  OH tried to show me how good her catching was getting the other day - cue Daisy getting hit in the face three times by her ball and NOT catching it :lol:


----------



## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Daisy's ball thrower has broken (bloody OH!) Disaster! :yikes: Need to buy a new one asap as my throws are pathetic  OH tried to show me how good her catching was getting the other day - cue Daisy getting hit in the face three times by her ball and NOT catching it :lol:


Men   .


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> I don't blame you, I hate moving just within the same city so I can't imagine the situation you are in  I hope it all goes smoothly for you and I'm sure it will be worth it to be somewhere you will hopefully be happier
> 
> Daisy's ball thrower has broken (bloody OH!) Disaster! :yikes: Need to buy a new one asap as my throws are pathetic  OH tried to show me how good her catching was getting the other day - cue Daisy getting hit in the face three times by her ball and NOT catching it :lol:


Get the very short handled one - much easier to use.


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> Get the very short handled one - much easier to use.


We had a shorter one originally but I couldn't fling it very far even with that, whereas with the longer one we got subsequently I seemed to be able to get it much farther. Maybe my technique is lacking! 

I also have a ball on a rope/elastic thing that you're meant to fire like a catapult but the two times I tried, it dropped at my feet much to the disappointment of a very excited Daisy!


----------



## Sarahliz100

Still plodding along trying to get him to like his harness. Someone suggested giving him a new treat he only gets with the harness. So I cooked up some liver, expecting he'd go wild for it. He looked at it in disgust, then reluctantly took it, carried it off, spat it out then proceeded to sit and stare at it in a very suspicious fashion. Oh well.

We had obedience tonight. He was pretty distracted for quite a bit of it, but then pulled it together. We worked on a close sit in front, a nice heel position and wait in the heel position. He did well at that - his stay is really good now thanks to all the hide and seek we play. 

Nicki - a handstand! That is seriously cool. Totally want to do that!


----------



## Lauren5159

Hi guys  

Sorry I haven't been on here in so long... Life has got a bit in the way and any time I've been on PF, it's been for 10 minutes or so...

I managed to skim through a few posts but there is about 100 pages I need to catch up on, so I'll have to promise to join in from now  

I did however, read that Ruska had her pups  AMAZING! Have I missed pictures, Lupie?

Dogless, how's training going? I saw a few pics a couple of pages back. All I can say is, ouch! Good luck 

Skip and I are doing really well. He was neutered last week so we haven't been doing too much exercise but over the past few weeks, I've read so many books and we've come so far. Skip has met 10 dogs over the past week and not even growled at one, instead he wanted to play  We've been working on his threshold and with other dogs, we've come so far... Cars and recall are still an issue but I'm starting to see improvements which is awesome 

Hope everyone is well and sorry for not being able to read though all I've missed


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> Hi guys
> 
> Sorry I haven't been on here in so long... Life has got a bit in the way and any time I've been on PF, it's been for 10 minutes or so...
> 
> I managed to skim through a few posts but there is about 100 pages I need to catch up on, so I'll have to promise to join in from now
> 
> I did however, read that Ruska had her pups  AMAZING! Have I missed pictures, Lupie?
> 
> Dogless, how's training going? I saw a few pics a couple of pages back. All I can say is, ouch! Good luck
> 
> Skip and I are doing really well. He was neutered last week so we haven't been doing too much exercise but over the past few weeks, I've read so many books and we've come so far. Skip has met 10 dogs over the past week and not even growled at one, instead he wanted to play  We've been working on his threshold and with other dogs, we've come so far... Cars and recall are still an issue but I'm starting to see improvements which is awesome
> 
> Hope everyone is well and sorry for not being able to read though all I've missed


Pleased Skip's improving . Training is going well, thanks for asking; ran the route of the Causeway Coast Marathon yesterday at training pace and was much faster than I had anticipated being which is good - lots left in the tank and fresh - isn legs . The marathon covers the last part of the 100km run so it was good to do.


----------



## Bagrat

Meet our new addition, Digby the stuffy. Soon our neighbour will know I've lost it as I wish to rub (or ask neighbour to rub) Digby on his labrador!!









Adapted with the help of you tube
Making a Bendable Plush Toy Dog or a &#39;BAT&#39; Decoy Dog - YouTube


----------



## Lauren5159

Dogless said:


> Pleased Skip's improving . Training is going well, thanks for asking; ran the route of the Causeway Coast Marathon yesterday at training pace and was much faster than I had anticipated being which is good - lots left in the tank and fresh - isn legs . The marathon covers the last part of the 100km run so it was good to do.


That's fab  I miss training and it's always good to have a goal and something to train for  100km is a crazy amount! I bet the boys aren't even up for that distance lol.


----------



## Dogless

Bagrat said:


> Meet our new addition, Digby the stuffy. Soon our neighbour will know I've lost it as I wish to rub (or ask neighbour to rub) Digby on his labrador!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Adapted with the help of you tube
> Making a Bendable Plush Toy Dog or a 'BAT' Decoy Dog - YouTube


I have been thinking about getting a toy dog to work with Kilo with funnily enough. Don't envy you the conversation you'll be having with your neighbour though :yikes: :laugh:.


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> We had a shorter one originally but I couldn't fling it very far even with that, whereas with the longer one we got subsequently I seemed to be able to get it much farther. Maybe my technique is lacking!
> 
> I also have a ball on a rope/elastic thing that you're meant to fire like a catapult but the two times I tried, it dropped at my feet much to the disappointment of a very excited Daisy!


Oh dear....!! I just can't hack the long handled ones but I'm pretty ace with the short one - maybe it's because I'm also very short....


----------



## Fluffster

Twiggy said:


> Oh dear....!! I just can't hack the long handled ones but I'm pretty ace with the short one - maybe it's because I'm also very short....


I'm not exactly Gulliver myself  I find the longer handled ones quite useful as Daisy likes to drop her ball in holes and it requires less bending down to retrieve  but it is a pest to carry about the place, I actually managed to drop one on a walk somewhere and I didn't realise until we got home. Never found it to this day!  I need some sort of machine gun instrument that can fire them really far, that'll tire her out :lol: or scare her!


----------



## Dogless

Lauren5159 said:


> That's fab  I miss training and it's always good to have a goal and something to train for  100km is a crazy amount! I bet the boys aren't even up for that distance lol.





Fluffster said:


> I'm not exactly Gulliver myself  I find the longer handled ones quite useful as Daisy likes to drop her ball in holes and it requires less bending down to retrieve  but it is a pest to carry about the place, I actually managed to drop one on a walk somewhere and I didn't realise until we got home. Never found it to this day!  I need some sort of machine gun instrument that can fire them really far, that'll tire her out :lol: or scare her!


I find ball on ropes go far further for me - some of the heavy Kong toys like Kong Aqua are brill, even the cheap "Good Boy" ones from Tesco go a long way. Odd how we all differ even in this :laugh:.


----------



## lupie

Fluffster said:


> I also have a ball on a rope/elastic thing that you're meant to fire like a catapult but the two times I tried, it dropped at my feet much to the disappointment of a very excited Daisy!


I do feel for you, I do, but this image had me giggling away to myself!!



Lauren5159 said:


> Hi guys
> 
> I did however, read that Ruska had her pups  AMAZING! Have I missed pictures, Lupie?


Photos are here: Litter Feb 2014 - Ruska's Puppies - TabanyaRuu Finnish Lapphunds

I can't wait to go and see her  Apparently she is absolutely loving it. :laugh:



Fluffster said:


> I'm not exactly Gulliver myself  I find the longer handled ones quite useful as Daisy likes to drop her ball in holes and it requires less bending down to retrieve  but it is a pest to carry about the place, I actually managed to drop one on a walk somewhere and I didn't realise until we got home. Never found it to this day!  I need some sort of machine gun instrument that can fire them really far, that'll tire her out :lol: or scare her!


So you need a really, really big field, and one of those tennis ball machines that tennis players use to practise with


----------



## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> I'm not exactly Gulliver myself  I find the longer handled ones quite useful as Daisy likes to drop her ball in holes and it requires less bending down to retrieve  but it is a pest to carry about the place, I actually managed to drop one on a walk somewhere and I didn't realise until we got home. Never found it to this day!  I need some sort of machine gun instrument that can fire them really far, that'll tire her out :lol: or scare her!


She should see my pathetic efforts in kicking Holly Bolly's ball out of walks. I gear myself up to kick it miles and it goes about 3 ft...!!


----------



## Lauren5159

Oh my gosh, Lupie! Ruska did good!!! Those puppies are the cutest  

Go girlie  

What's your plans? Are you thinking of keeping one? 

I'm so glad everything went well and Ruska is having fun... She looks like a fab mum


----------



## Sarahliz100

Lauren - glad Skip is doing well
Bagrat - is the stuffy to act as a stooge dog? Sounds a good idea, although I can guarantee that if it came out at my house it would get humped into submission!

Feels like I'm going backwards a bit here. He's still not keen on the harness (he's fine when it's on and he's outside but doesn't want it put on) so still having to walk on his flat collar. He's Mr Distracted at the moment so pulls a lot of the time and his loose lead walking seems back to square one. He's going a bit selectively deaf at times and there are places I'd really like to get him on a long line but can't really without harness. So it's either short lead (pulling and ruining all the LLW practice) or off lead with him deciding to ignore me on occasion. Neither seems ideal.

He's also really distracted in the house. Whining quite a bit and acting a bit odd. Also obsessed with humping me - spending a lot of time prising him off my leg........ Maybe there's a bitch in heat nearby or something?

Back to the harness training now:rolleyes5:


----------



## Lauren5159

Sarahliz100 said:


> Lauren - glad Skip is doing well
> Bagrat - is the stuffy to act as a stooge dog? Sounds a good idea, although I can guarantee that if it came out at my house it would get humped into submission!
> 
> Feels like I'm going backwards a bit here. He's still not keen on the harness (he's fine when it's on and he's outside but doesn't want it put on) so still having to walk on his flat collar. He's Mr Distracted at the moment so pulls a lot of the time and his loose lead walking seems back to square one. He's going a bit selectively deaf at times and there are places I'd really like to get him on a long line but can't really without harness. So it's either short lead (pulling and ruining all the LLW practice) or off lead with him deciding to ignore me on occasion. Neither seems ideal.
> 
> He's also really distracted in the house. Whining quite a bit and acting a bit odd. Also obsessed with humping me - spending a lot of time prising him off my leg........ Maybe there's a bitch in heat nearby or something?
> 
> Back to the harness training now:rolleyes5:


Sarahliz100, Skip also hates his harness. We've been working on it quite a bit and similar to your situation, he's fine once he's out in it bit putting it on him is a struggle 

I've literally been sitting the harness in the middle of the living room floor and getting him accustomed to being around it without wearing it. Before, even the sight of the harness used to worry him.

He's mostly on a flat collar now but there are times when I have to put him in his harness (in the car, for example)...

Stick with it. Skip is slowly but surely getting better with it


----------



## Sarahliz100

Lauren5159 said:


> Sarahliz100, Skip also hates his harness. We've been working on it quite a bit and similar to your situation, he's fine once he's out in it bit putting it on him is a struggle
> 
> I've literally been sitting the harness in the middle of the living room floor and getting him accustomed to being around it without wearing it. Before, even the sight of the harness used to worry him.
> 
> He's mostly on a flat collar now but there are times when I have to put him in his harness (in the car, for example)...
> 
> Stick with it. Skip is slowly but surely getting better with it


He'll let me put it over his head happily enough 80% of the time, but shies away sometimes. Can't seem to get past this point. If I do it up he looks sad for a minute but I can distract him by doing something exciting and then he's fine with it. But the next time he will shy away again. I guess I need to just not go any further until he is 100% happy with it being placed over his head onto his shoulders. But I feel that could take a long time.....


----------



## Dogless

Sarahliz100 said:


> Lauren - glad Skip is doing well
> Bagrat - is the stuffy to act as a stooge dog? Sounds a good idea, although I can guarantee that if it came out at my house it would get humped into submission!
> 
> Feels like I'm going backwards a bit here. He's still not keen on the harness (he's fine when it's on and he's outside but doesn't want it put on) so still having to walk on his flat collar. He's Mr Distracted at the moment so pulls a lot of the time and his loose lead walking seems back to square one. He's going a bit selectively deaf at times and there are places I'd really like to get him on a long line but can't really without harness. So it's either short lead (pulling and ruining all the LLW practice) or off lead with him deciding to ignore me on occasion. Neither seems ideal.
> 
> He's also really distracted in the house. Whining quite a bit and acting a bit odd. Also obsessed with humping me - spending a lot of time prising him off my leg........ Maybe there's a bitch in heat nearby or something?
> 
> Back to the harness training now:rolleyes5:


If he is fine when outside in it, could you try maybe carrying it and popping it on outside when there are lots of good sights and smells to distract him? Harness on = get a good offlead run or a good training session. Something like that - make good associations.


----------



## Dogless

We had a great morning. Ran a few miles down forest paths until we reached the hill with the clear moorland we ran up last week. I let the boys off and they ran themselves ragged whilst I did lots and lots of hill reps. Kilo made me laugh - every time I turned around to do it again he looked at me really intensely&#8230;I am sure he was saying "Have you lost your mind? We have walked this bit already. Twice . What is wrong with you?". And then we ran the few miles back to the car!

In other news the film crew were back. This time with a big smoke machine and on the way back I saw the typical female horror movie lead stumbling about in torn clothes, wet hair in and out of the edge of the forest :laugh:. If they had been a few days earlier she might have met two big red beasties in that part :yikes: .


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> We had a great morning. Ran a few miles down forest paths until we reached the hill with the clear moorland we ran up last week. I let the boys off and they ran themselves ragged whilst I did lots and lots of hill reps. Kilo made me laugh - every time I turned around to do it again he looked at me really intenselyI am sure he was saying "Have you lost your mind? We have walked this bit already. Twice :roll eyes:. What is wrong with you?". And then we ran the few miles back to the car!
> 
> In other news the film crew were back. This time with a big smoke machine and on the way back I saw the typical female horror movie lead stumbling about in torn clothes, wet hair in and out of the edge of the forest :laugh:. If they had been a few day earlier she might have met two big red beasties in that part :yikes: .


There might have been a bit of a plot twist in their planned storyline.....


----------



## Dogless

lupie said:


> There might have been a bit of a plot twist in their planned storyline.....


As two big dogs barge through on their way to the holy grailthe catering truck :laugh:.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> As two big dogs barge through on their way to the holy grailthe catering truck :laugh:.


Love it!:laugh:

Thanks for the suggestion re the harness. Does sound eminently sensible. However I've found that distracting him whilst putting it on works for that instance, but then he's massively mistrustful next time. It's like he sees it as an abuse of his trust (tricking him into it). Yesterday I decided to try putting it on him immediately prior to leaving the house so that the walk was the reward, and although he wasn't especially distressed whilst I put it on (happily stuck his head through for a piece of sausage) and was fine out on the walk he wouldn't come near me when i got it out later. I think I need to either accept he's never going to like it and just get it on him (not ideal as he sees it as confrontation) or continue to go at snails pace (which I suck at as I'm intrinsically impatient).


----------



## Twiggy

The visit to the chiropractor went well this morning. She was very pleased with Barley and Tremor wasn't tooooo bad - a bit stiff in her hip and lower back.

She doesn't want to see any of them now until the beginning of July (barring accidents) and also said there is no reason why I can't do a bit of agility with Barley....


----------



## shadowmare

Hopefully I will not jinx myself here.... But I had a great afternoon walk with Axel today!:w00t:
Today I thought I would make a big change to our Tuesday walk and instead of a walk along the river or in the park I will go into town to work on Axel's behaviour in the city centre:yikes: Was really nervous as even though he's almost 10 months now and we've been travelling on trains, buses and walked through some city streets, we didn't have a proper chance to do some walks in the actual city centre. So I gathered all my courage and loads of treats... and it was brilliant! One of the rare walks where I didn't get annoyed about something or someone and Axel was such a star:001_wub: At first we just stood in the middle odf the main shopping street and watched all the people around us (the street is in a sort of down hill position so we could see everything bellow us). I got Axel to do some simple sits and downs to get his confidence up and get his focus and we slowly started going down the street in the middle of all the people. It was just after lunch time so although it wasn't crazy busy, it still had enough distracting business people on phones, student groups chatting and laughing and of course tourists with suitcases. After a few clicker clicks and treats my little man really understood walking to my heal and walked really nicely without pulling to the side or to the front (he never really pulls but I do allow him to walk in front of me without a tension in the lead). Even when he would speed up a little bit and go a few steps in front of me he would quickly come back to my side and wait for a treat:laugh: We had a nice 40 minute walk with him being a great boy. He was petted by a few people and although he managed to stand on his back feet a couple of times I didn't care about it much since I was just so proud of him behaving in such a stressful place. We did meet a guy outside of a bank who started calling axel and wanted to pet him so I got axel into a sit and allowed the guy to come up, but axel for some reason didn't want to be petted by this lad and walked to my side instead But then the guy got all exciting with higher voice and all and Axel got a little jumpy to which the guy made a snarky comment that if I got him trained he would be a pretty good dog:angry: Then I turned around and walked away.
Now the little man is sleeping in his bed all tired from so much concentration and excitement. I could see by his panting that he is still a little bit overwhelmed by the business of city but he will be great after a few such sessions:001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

shadowmare said:


> Hopefully I will not jinx myself here.... But I had a great afternoon walk with Axel today!:w00t:
> Today I thought I would make a big change to our Tuesday walk and instead of a walk along the river or in the park I will go into town to work on Axel's behaviour in the city centre:yikes: Was really nervous as even though he's almost 10 months now and we've been travelling on trains, buses and walked through some city streets, we didn't have a proper chance to do some walks in the actual city centre. So I gathered all my courage and loads of treats... and it was brilliant! One of the rare walks where I didn't get annoyed about something or someone and Axel was such a star:001_wub: At first we just stood in the middle odf the main shopping street and watched all the people around us (the street is in a sort of down hill position so we could see everything bellow us). I got Axel to do some simple sits and downs to get his confidence up and get his focus and we slowly started going down the street in the middle of all the people. It was just after lunch time so although it wasn't crazy busy, it still had enough distracting business people on phones, student groups chatting and laughing and of course tourists with suitcases. After a few clicker clicks and treats my little man really understood walking to my heal and walked really nicely without pulling to the side or to the front (he never really pulls but I do allow him to walk in front of me without a tension in the lead). Even when he would speed up a little bit and go a few steps in front of me he would quickly come back to my side and wait for a treat:laugh: We had a nice 40 minute walk with him being a great boy. He was petted by a few people and although he managed to stand on his back feet a couple of times I didn't care about it much since I was just so proud of him behaving in such a stressful place. We did meet a guy outside of a bank who started calling axel and wanted to pet him so I got axel into a sit and allowed the guy to come up, but axel for some reason didn't want to be petted by this lad and walked to my side instead But then the guy got all exciting with higher voice and all and Axel got a little jumpy to which the guy made a snarky comment that if I got him trained he would be a pretty good dog:angry: Then I turned around and walked away.
> Now the little man is sleeping in his bed all tired from so much concentration and excitement. I could see by his panting that he is still a little bit overwhelmed by the business of city but he will be great after a few such sessions:001_wub:


Oh well done you (and Axel of course)....:thumbup:


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## Dogless

Today we went to the Mourne mountains. We went up three peaks as fast as we could (well as fast as I could, the dogs weren't even panting!) and almost killed myself with effort, then down from a col gently to a reservoir that is secure (ladder stiles in and out) so livestock free and has no vegetation so awesome view all around and let the boys off to zoom and chase away their excitement and then potter and sniff. And thengently back to the car. Lovely day; no one seen as the mountain summits were up in thick cloud so not exactly a day for views!!!


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## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> Today we went to the Mourne mountains. We went up three peaks as fast as we could (well as fast as I could, the dogs weren't even panting!) and almost killed myself with effort, then down from a col gently to a reservoir that is secure (ladder stiles in and out) so livestock free and has no vegetation so awesome view all around and let the boys off to zoom and chase away their excitement and then potter and sniff. And thengently back to the car. Lovely day; no one seen as the mountain summits were up in thick cloud so not exactly a day for views!!!


That sounds heavenly except I'd never make it up three peaks.....


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> Today we went to the Mourne mountains. We went up three peaks as fast as we could (well as fast as I could, the dogs weren't even panting!) and almost killed myself with effort, then down from a col gently to a reservoir that is secure (ladder stiles in and out) so livestock free and has no vegetation so awesome view all around and let the boys off to zoom and chase away their excitement and then potter and sniff. And thengently back to the car. Lovely day; no one seen as the mountain summits were up in thick cloud so not exactly a day for views!!!


Sounds like my dream day (unless you were running it, in which case it would be a nightmare). Looking forward to little dog growing up so we can hit the mountains (at a sensible walking pace).

All good here. Got over yesterday's despondence and remembering all the things that are going so much better - haven't had any new holes in my coat for ages, and not a single bruise on my legs. Also have achieved getting harness on whilst he stands calmly. Whooo hoo. Hopefully a few more days of being super cautious with it and we might be ready to use it out and about. Watch out world, training on a long line will begin.


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## Sarahliz100

shadowmare said:


> Hopefully I will not jinx myself here.... But I had a great afternoon walk with Axel today!:w00t:
> Today I thought I would make a big change to our Tuesday walk and instead of a walk along the river or in the park I will go into town to work on Axel's behaviour in the city centre:yikes: Was really nervous as even though he's almost 10 months now and we've been travelling on trains, buses and walked through some city streets, we didn't have a proper chance to do some walks in the actual city centre. So I gathered all my courage and loads of treats... and it was brilliant! One of the rare walks where I didn't get annoyed about something or someone and Axel was such a star:001_wub: At first we just stood in the middle odf the main shopping street and watched all the people around us (the street is in a sort of down hill position so we could see everything bellow us). I got Axel to do some simple sits and downs to get his confidence up and get his focus and we slowly started going down the street in the middle of all the people. It was just after lunch time so although it wasn't crazy busy, it still had enough distracting business people on phones, student groups chatting and laughing and of course tourists with suitcases. After a few clicker clicks and treats my little man really understood walking to my heal and walked really nicely without pulling to the side or to the front (he never really pulls but I do allow him to walk in front of me without a tension in the lead). Even when he would speed up a little bit and go a few steps in front of me he would quickly come back to my side and wait for a treat:laugh: We had a nice 40 minute walk with him being a great boy. He was petted by a few people and although he managed to stand on his back feet a couple of times I didn't care about it much since I was just so proud of him behaving in such a stressful place. We did meet a guy outside of a bank who started calling axel and wanted to pet him so I got axel into a sit and allowed the guy to come up, but axel for some reason didn't want to be petted by this lad and walked to my side instead But then the guy got all exciting with higher voice and all and Axel got a little jumpy to which the guy made a snarky comment that if I got him trained he would be a pretty good dog:angry: Then I turned around and walked away.
> Now the little man is sleeping in his bed all tired from so much concentration and excitement. I could see by his panting that he is still a little bit overwhelmed by the business of city but he will be great after a few such sessions:001_wub:


Sounds amazing. What a star. Axel is beautiful. What breed is he?


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Sounds like my dream day (unless you were running it, in which case it would be a nightmare). Looking forward to little dog growing up so we can hit the mountains (at a sensible walking pace).
> 
> All good here. Got over yesterday's despondence and remembering all the things that are going so much better -* haven't had any new holes in my coat for ages*, and not a single bruise on my legs. Also have achieved getting harness on whilst he stands calmly. Whooo hoo. Hopefully a few more days of being super cautious with it and we might be ready to use it out and about. Watch out world, training on a long line will begin.


Errmmmmm no comment....LOL

Always good to focus on the positives and not the negatives..


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## Bagrat

Wow, everyone ( and their dogs)seems to be on the ball this week.
Just a quick follow up, this is a video of Jackson NOT meeting Digby the stuffie.
He did get close up later sniffed his a***e and nudged him and he fell over.
Digby is still working well at a distance and now smells of a dog OH met last night in the pub as he has been rubbed with OH's trousers!!!


He's like an advert for calming signals!!!


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## JenKyzer

Bagrat - Good luck with Jackson and Digby .. it's interesting to watch the training that isn't just a video set up to advertise the method! I hadn't even known about the idea of using a stooge dog... what a good idea 

SarahL - Eek, eagerly waiting the ultimate harness-put-on post... my fingers are crossed for you, sounds like your doing well  Then the fun of a long line :scared: 

Dogless - Sounds like a dream, once you got to the Res.. Those boys still puttin you through your paces gettin there though  Glad you had a good day.

Shadow - Well done Axel  Always nice to see a proud post! :thumbup: 

I'm hoping you lovely ladies might be able to help me with a little something that's worrying me   I think Willows going through an odd phase of struggling whilst we're out - chewing her back paws.. so she's having to be dog-sat  OH bro lives with us but normally keeps himself to himself and just checks on her whilst he's around, but she's got a bodyguard now  I've been toying with the idea of posting about this as i've been eliminating 'whats ifs' first (foods, environment outside etc)... but it's definately triggered when we leave her (nothing last week when we had a week off work, but we nipped out, come home and she'd chewed her back paw red-raw, so much concentration on chewing she didn't even hear us come back and i saw her doing it), even though she's left with stuffed kongs, wobbly kongs, toys and her 'settle' blanket. Some kind of anxiety... ?  So i've been looking up anxiety products but i can't find any similar stories that any product has helped with... they all seem to be when the dog barks, howls/whines, chews items/furniture, wee/poops when people are out... nothing on chewing themselves .. don't know if anyone can point me in a direction of anyone else that has come across this? As if we make a trip to the vets i want to know what they're talking about and not just accept any expensive product/advice they want to 'try' on her and them take me for a little mug (like last time) so i want to do a little research first (If that makes sence).. although i am toying with the idea of going to see a Holistic vet next time we need a vet trip but then there's also one that 'specializes' in shar-peis . So many decisions! 

I know i haven't been posting much lately (although trying to keep up) and i didn't want to just turn up with a problem  Sorry! Thanks for reading if you got this far..

On a better note.. we just did a pavement potter and as we got round a corner a white staffy was directly in Willows path, almost nose to nose :scared: its owner shouted so loud i almost jumped out my skin and panic-ed thinking he was shouting a warning.. It flew round to sniff willows behind, Willow didn't even react :thumbup: even when it flew back to its owner, nothing from Willow and she 'this way-ed' away from staring back at it. I'm guessing the guy scared her into silence as much as he scared me  he did say sorry too which was nice  I was expecting a full on whiney/growling meltdown. Phew.


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Bagrat - Good luck with Jackson and Digby .. it's interesting to watch the training that isn't just a video set up to advertise the method! I hadn't even known about the idea of using a stooge dog... what a good idea
> 
> SarahL - Eek, eagerly waiting the ultimate harness-put-on post... my fingers are crossed for you, sounds like your doing well  Then the fun of a long line :scared:
> 
> Dogless - Sounds like a dream, once you got to the Res.. Those boys still puttin you through your paces gettin there though  Glad you had a good day.
> 
> Shadow - Well done Axel  Always nice to see a proud post! :thumbup:
> 
> I'm hoping you lovely ladies might be able to help me with a little something that's worrying me   I think Willows going through an odd phase of struggling whilst we're out - chewing her back paws.. so she's having to be dog-sat  OH bro lives with us but normally keeps himself to himself and just checks on her whilst he's around, but she's got a bodyguard now  I've been toying with the idea of posting about this as i've been eliminating 'whats ifs' first (foods, environment outside etc)... but it's definately triggered when we leave her (nothing last week when we had a week off work, but we nipped out, come home and she'd chewed her back paw red-raw, so much concentration on chewing she didn't even hear us come back and i saw her doing it), even though she's left with stuffed kongs, wobbly kongs, toys and her 'settle' blanket. Some kind of anxiety... ?  So i've been looking up anxiety products but i can't find any similar stories that any product has helped with... they all seem to be when the dog barks, howls/whines, chews items/furniture, wee/poops when people are out... nothing on chewing themselves .. don't know if anyone can point me in a direction of anyone else that has come across this? As if we make a trip to the vets i want to know what they're talking about and not just accept any expensive product/advice they want to 'try' on her and them take me for a little mug (like last time) so i want to do a little research first (If that makes sence).. although i am toying with the idea of going to see a Holistic vet next time we need a vet trip but then there's also one that 'specializes' in shar-peis . So many decisions!
> 
> I know i haven't been posting much lately (although trying to keep up) and i didn't want to just turn up with a problem  Sorry! Thanks for reading if you got this far..
> 
> On a better note.. we just did a pavement potter and as we got round a corner a white staffy was directly in Willows path, almost nose to nose :scared: its owner shouted so loud i almost jumped out my skin and panic-ed thinking he was shouting a warning.. It flew round to sniff willows behind, Willow didn't even react :thumbup: even when it flew back to its owner, nothing from Willow and she 'this way-ed' away from staring back at it. I'm guessing the guy scared her into silence as much as he scared me  he did say sorry too which was nice  I was expecting a full on whiney/growling meltdown. Phew.


Hmmm it does sound like SA from what you've said and you are probably wise to seek the advice of an holistic vet.

The only other thing I can suggest is have a look on the Doreen Paige website at their remedies. The 'Insecurity' one may well help.


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## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Hmmm it does sound like SA from what you've said and you are probably wise to seek the advice of an holistic vet.
> 
> The only other thing I can suggest is have a look on the Doreen Paige website at their remedies. The 'Insecurity' one may well help.


I remembered you talking about this quite a while a go and have got it book marked  did you say if you e-mail them, they're quite helpful? (If i remember correctly!) other things i'd come across whilst searching was the usual adaptil plug in.. scullcap&valerian.. then there's the thundershirt  i feel a bit out of my depth with this once.. specially seems as she's stopping over at my mums on friday night until we return from Crufts on saturday night :frown: Was hoping to find a thread with a similar case to show me there's light at the end of the tunnel


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## Fluffster

I hope you can get something sorted for Willow, bless her xx

We had a great walk yesterday at the forest. Decided to do all the smaller routes that go a bit offroad and found some really great little places where no one else was! Daisy was a bit of a menace, there were lots of dogs around and she was in friendly mode. She tried to take the stick from the mouth of another dog, which wasn't a great success, but she seemed totally unphased. 

I made a thread about this, but we are off to flyball on Saturday! I'm SO excited


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## Sarahliz100

jenstewillow - nothing clever to add, sorry, but hope things get better

Fluffster - yay for flyball! I would be ridiculously excited. I really want to do some agility with a Tryfan when he's old enough.

Still faffing around with the harness. He's getting better slowly (but still has the potential to take a passionate dislike to it). Took him out on it and long(ish) line today - nice to be able to have him under control without him doing Darth Vader style breathing whilst pulling on his flat collar. Some very nice dog owners out who recalled their dogs when they saw he was on lead, or at least as soon as they saw he was a bit overwhelmed by their dogs' attentions:thumbup:.

He was being hyper and mouthy this afternoon so did some work on settle. I'm rewarding for a relaxed chin on the ground type pose. He's got it, but is very cute and funny as he rests his head for a minute then if he doesn't immediately get a reward keeps sneaking little glances up to make sure I've not forgotten about him.


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## Dogless

Oh no, poor Willow; can't suggest anything that hasn't been already but I hope you manage to get things sorted* JSW *xx

I am exhausted today. 5 miles speed session whilst the dogs still snoozed off yesterday's efforts then a long lead walk for them each. Kilo was last and by that time I was so tired that my body was all relaxed and floppy.which demonstrated perfectly just how my tension and anxiety affects Kilo. He was really attentive, sailed past a few things that would normally bother him and even didn't get too worked up at a dog about 25m away, just left it when gently told and looked for a treat (then kept looking at dog then me for a treat, as he does :aureola. Anyway, the boys were both little stars.

Rest day Saturday (apart from walking the boys of course!). Can't wait!!! .


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## Fluffster

Very odd experience on our walk today 

We had just arrived at forest and I got out of the car to go and get Daisy out. I saw a car on the other side of the car park with a woman and a choc lab. The lab was lying down quite relaxed on the floor on-lead and this woman was just standing there saying its name repeatedly. I mean she must have said it 50 times in the time it took me to get Daisy out of the car  Just like "Nyla, nyla, nyla, nyla" constanly, over and over again. The dog seemed to be completely ignoring her.
Then I heard the woman say "Look at the puppy dog, look at the puppy dog" over and over, so I don't know if she wanted us to go and say hi  but "Nyla" was completely uninterested in anything so I just made a beeline for the forest. I looked back when we reached the entrance and Nyla was getting into the car.

It was very weird!


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## Dogless

Fluffster said:


> Very odd experience on our walk today
> 
> We had just arrived at forest and I got out of the car to go and get Daisy out. I saw a car on the other side of the car park with a woman and a choc lab. The lab was lying down quite relaxed on the floor on-lead and this woman was just standing there saying its name repeatedly. I mean she must have said it 50 times in the time it took me to get Daisy out of the car  Just like "Nyla, nyla, nyla, nyla" constanly, over and over again. The dog seemed to be completely ignoring her.
> Then I heard the woman say "Look at the puppy dog, look at the puppy dog" over and over, so I don't know if she wanted us to go and say hi  but "Nyla" was completely uninterested in anything so I just made a beeline for the forest. I looked back when we reached the entrance and Nyla was getting into the car.
> 
> It was very weird!


Maybe Nyla was usually reactive and it was an anxious handler trying to soothe / soothing / playing some kind of LAT game?


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## Sarahliz100

Arrrggghhh! Lousy day. In a rush to get out this morning before hospital appointment and stupidly rushed putting the blasted harness on, briefly holding his collar, and now back to square one (running round and nipping at me when harness appears).

Spent a couple an hour or so trying to undo the damage this afternoon, but probably should have left it alone as we were both frustrated. Then went to the park on the long line - spectacularly unsuccessful - he was getting very frustrated at being on the long line and doing the jumpy-bitey routine. Recall also non-existent. Not even interested in the tub of wet dog food when shoved right under his nose which is his ultimate high value treat.

Must get better at accepting when I'm not going to get anywhere rather than stubbornly pushing on and getting him more wound up.


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## diefenbaker

Well.. I'm going to get Dief a collar with the tag built in. So I was googling the information that needs to be put on the tag and was looking at the exceptions.

"(c) any dog while being used for the capture or destruction of vermin,"

Does that include the yobs that hang around drinking lager and frightening old ladies by the Tesco Express ?


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## Fluffster

Some progress for us today with Daisy and being scared of diggers, she was able to play happily with her ball on the field right beside an active digger which I was so proud of her for as those diggers terrify her.

[youtube_browser]O68pzOxaUBE[/youtube_browser]

Flyball tomorrow, excited but a little nervous how Daisy will cope with lots of new dogs at once, particularly if they are noisy which is likely!


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## zedder

went training yesterday going great guns until ike got eyeballed by another collie then that was it bloody hard too snap him out of it when he wants something but eventually distracted him with cheese and sausage but definitely got more work too do did some awesome recalls and fetches impressed me.


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## diefenbaker

The sun is out and the beach was calling... he was pretty good at the beach.. waves not too big.. so kept him busy with the wanger in and out of the sea. Finished off with a Sunday carvery.


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## Fluffster

Happy Sunday everyone!

You've probably seen my thread, but we had an amazing time at flyball yesterday! Daisy was great, very excited on arrival in a new place and with all the setting up of gear, plus the arrival of a barky cockapoo, but once the ball came out and we started training with her, she was utterly focused. They said they'd love to see her back as she picked it up so fast and took to it like a duck to water  So we are going back next week. She was knackered after it too, slept all the way home in the car and was content just to laze about for rest of day.

Today we went to one of our usual forests, which was nice as the sun was out. I've bough three new harnesses in two days  so I'm banning myself from all dog websites for the next week (until I get paid again :lol: )

Hope all of you down south are enjoying the sun and warmth, not a bit jealous, not at all.... :lol:


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## Twiggy

Fluffster said:


> Happy Sunday everyone!
> 
> You've probably seen my thread, but we had an amazing time at flyball yesterday! Daisy was great, very excited on arrival in a new place and with all the setting up of gear, plus the arrival of a barky cockapoo, but once the ball came out and we started training with her, she was utterly focused. They said they'd love to see her back as she picked it up so fast and took to it like a duck to water  So we are going back next week. She was knackered after it too, slept all the way home in the car and was content just to laze about for rest of day.
> 
> Today we went to one of our usual forests, which was nice as the sun was out. I've bough three new harnesses in two days  so I'm banning myself from all dog websites for the next week (until I get paid again :lol: )
> 
> *Hope all of you down south are enjoying the sun and warmth, not a bit jealous, not at all.*... :lol:


No I haven't been enjoying the sun. I've been stuck in the house decorating..


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## Fluffster

Aww  At least you're being productive!


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## JenKyzer

Morning  Hope everyone's had a good weekend.
Seems the sun has just got to us this morning instead of over the weekend  

Twiggy - You need a medal for decorating.. i hate it :yikes: 

Fluffster - Wow, Go Daisy  Glad she enjoyed it and you can channel that focus of a ball into something really fun for all of you! 

Dief - Sounds like the perfect day!

SarahL - Hope things have got better after the iffy day a few days ago

Dogless - Thanks for the well wishes. Hope you and the boys have had a good but tiring weekend 

Well my panic over leaving Willow friday night until Saturday night wasn't needed. My mum said it was like her 2nd home and they felt as if they'd had her as their own .. she just fitted right in and was a dream. She even slept downstairs in her bed whilst everyone was upstairs ... which i was really shocked at, she sleeps in our room in her bed so i thought she'd never settle downstairs away from everyone  She didn't chew/lick her paws either which was fab.. they're still healing nicely from her 'off day' last monday, since then she's left them alone and settled with OH bro when we've been out which is good  I couldn't of wished for better 'feedback' on Willows sleep over, i'm really chuffed with how good she was 

As for crufts, i loved it  even the OH loved it and wants to go back... and.. wants to go to other shows during the year :yikes: he's got the bug.. which is just what i wanted!! I didn't dream of him being interested and thought i'd be on my own with this just dragging him along for company. We saw PF'er Pearltheplank with her shar-pei Storm which was lovely to meet her and Storm was just lush :001_wub: .. it was also nice to put faces to names of people/dogs throughout the shar-pei 'world' . 
OH is also keen to take Willow to some classes now and wants to see how she gets on with flyball/agility :yikes: (After seeing all the events in the arena) We'll see how far that idea goes.. but it's great that he's keen :laugh: oh, aswell as wanting one of those padded arms the police force use to train their dogs...  

Had a nice early morning walk in the sun this morning whilst it was still crisp and cold.. lovely


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## Dogless

*JSW* - really pleased Willow settled.

*Fluffster* - sounds great but we've not seen any mythical sun!!

*HUGE BOAST ALERT :Yawn:*. Absolutely OVER THE MOON with Kilo. He sat and watched a dog go past on the other side of the road this morning. Admittedly a wide road and from behind a low wall we hopped behind but still..a huge achievement!!!! It's only taken 7 months of hard work!!


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> *JSW* - really pleased Willow settled.
> 
> *Fluffster* - sounds great but we've not seen any mythical sun!!
> 
> *HUGE BOAST ALERT :Yawn:*. Absolutely OVER THE MOON with Kilo. He sat and watched a dog go past on the other side of the road this morning. Admittedly a wide road and from behind a low wall we hopped behind but still..a huge achievement!!!! It's only taken 7 months of hard work!!


:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

That's brilliant!!!!!!!


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless said:


> *HUGE BOAST ALERT :Yawn:*. Absolutely OVER THE MOON with Kilo. He sat and watched a dog go past on the other side of the road this morning. Admittedly a wide road and from behind a low wall we hopped behind but still..a huge achievement!!!! It's only taken 7 months of hard work!!


Hooray hooray


----------



## lupie

Dogless said:


> *JSW* - really pleased Willow settled.
> 
> *Fluffster* - sounds great but we've not seen any mythical sun!!
> 
> *HUGE BOAST ALERT :Yawn:*. Absolutely OVER THE MOON with Kilo. He sat and watched a dog go past on the other side of the road this morning. Admittedly a wide road and from behind a low wall we hopped behind but still..a huge achievement!!!! It's only taken 7 months of hard work!!


Absolutely thrilled for you Dogless - big thumbs up to you and Kilo!!

Fluffster flyball sounds amazing.  It's one of the sports I'd love to try but it wouldn't be Ruska's cup of tea at all.


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## Fluffster

Nice walk today, sun was out for once although Daisy still managed to get filthy by wallowing in a puddle! 

Bit of a "eek" moment though, we were at our usual place playing with her ball when suddenly acros the horizon, a whole class of primary one children (or nursery, they were tiny!) appeared, obv on some sort of outing!  Daisy was very good and came with me and sat at the side waiting till they all went past, even ignoring the "doggieeee!" shouts and the random shrieking. She loves kids but they were so small, she'd have knocked them over. Of course she only did this as I was the wielder of the magical ball, she just sat staring at me constantly for about two minutes as I held it, slightly creepy but did the trick! :lol:


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## Twiggy

Well done Kilo that's brilliant news.

I had a break from flipping decorating this afternoon and took Holly Bolly to agility. She was fab. Not only was she super running the courses, she was also animated and playing with her lead...!! Spring must be in the air....


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## Guest

Impulse controll 

I am attempting to keep the gencon off for as long as possible and then putting it on again random or when needed. Eventually the aim is to wean her off it entirely.

I want to use it less when at the park and only on public paths for extra security.


Recall and heal work are being worked on again. Her healwork at home is excellent its none existent at the park.

on her longline her recall is pretty good but her recall off is 50/50 

Distractions are distracting I'm thinking of getting some arden grange liver paste.


----------



## Fluffster

Daisy loves that liver paste, I'll need to get some more of it as I accidently left a tube in the back of the car on the way home from forest the other day and she ripped it apart and got liver everywhere  

I tried some traffic training with Daisy today but she was very distracted. She did snatch at some squeezy cheese. Better on the way back, we stood and watched a couple of cars go past and I praised her lots for not spinning around. Lot of work still to do though.


----------



## Guest

Fluffster said:


> Daisy loves that liver paste, I'll need to get some more of it as I accidently left a tube in the back of the car on the way home from forest the other day and she ripped it apart and got liver everywhere
> 
> I tried some traffic training with Daisy today but she was very distracted. She did snatch at some squeezy cheese. Better on the way back, we stood and watched a couple of cars go past and I praised her lots for not spinning around. Lot of work still to do though.


I think part of were we are going wrong is that Millie can't see the treats as they are kibble.

I also have the issue that kibble stains pockets and its not a good look!

I don't want to use cooked treats or chease for the same reasons as the kibble. My big jacket doesn't anywere I could attatch a treat bag and I would not want to spend £5 on a treat bag only to have it stained as well.

I find plastic bags are a big annoying in deep pockets but I do like the look of the bumbag flexi that does look like a usefull peice of equipment.

I think if Millie can identify something easily as a treat that soley for outside rewards it would improve our training.


----------



## Fluffster

I have a treat pouch with a easily wipeable liner inside that attaches round the waist. I've used kibble in it and not noticed any staining.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mikki-Train...F8&qid=1394479134&sr=8-1&keywords=treat+pouch

Not going to win any fashion awards but it does the trick!


----------



## Dogless

Prowl said:


> I think part of were we are going wrong is that Millie can't see the treats as they are kibble.
> 
> I also have the issue that kibble stains pockets and its not a good look!
> 
> I don't want to use cooked treats or chease for the same reasons as the kibble. My big jacket doesn't anywere I could attatch a treat bag and I would not want to spend £5 on a treat bag only to have it stained as well.
> 
> I find plastic bags are a big annoying in deep pockets but I do like the look of the bumbag flexi that does look like a usefull peice of equipment.
> 
> I think if Millie can identify something easily as a treat that soley for outside rewards it would improve our training.


I think there comes a time where looks have to be unimportant and a little money spent in order to achieve what we want..I won't win any prizes for sartorial elegance that's for sure :sosp:.

Well, another good walk for Roo and.Kilo played a blinder again tonight. A dog popped out coming towards us; I hurried with Kilo to reach a side road junction to divert down and reached it just as the dog went to pass us. He was very snatchy for treats and jumped up at me so was stressed BUT not a sound, not a lunge, no fixation. Can't believe how amazing he has been today. Tomorrow we shall go somewhere to destress .


----------



## Guest

Fluffster said:


> I have a treat pouch with a easily wipeable liner inside that attaches round the waist. I've used kibble in it and not noticed any staining.
> 
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mikki-Train...F8&qid=1394479134&sr=8-1&keywords=treat+pouch
> 
> Not going to win any fashion awards but it does the trick!


oooo I have seen those in PAH I think I will have to have a nosey again when I get back from holiday or see if I can buy a bum bag on holiday at the airport.


----------



## Dogless

*Twiggy* - well done to little HB and nice that you had break from the decorating .


----------



## Fluffster

Dogless said:


> *I think there comes a time where looks have to be unimportant and a little money spent in order to achieve what we want…..I won't win any prizes for sartorial elegance that's for sure :sosp:.*
> 
> Well, another good walk for Roo and….Kilo played a blinder again tonight. A dog popped out coming towards us; I hurried with Kilo to reach a side road junction to divert down and reached it just as the dog went to pass us. He was very snatchy for treats and jumped up at me so was stressed BUT not a sound, not a lunge, no fixation. Can't believe how amazing he has been today. Tomorrow we shall go somewhere to destress .


God yes, I look like a bag lady most of the time. Covered in mud in my waterproofs with my bumbag and poo bags hanging out my pockets. I was at the doctor's the other day and he said "Er do you have a dog by any chance?". I replied "Yes..." and he said "You've just dropped a poo bag on the floor" :lol:

Well done Kilo and you for today xx


----------



## Guest

Fluffster said:


> God yes, I look like a bag lady most of the time. Covered in mud in my waterproofs with my bumbag and poo bags hanging out my pockets. I was at the doctor's the other day and he said "Er do you have a dog by any chance?". I replied "Yes..." and he said "You've just dropped a poo bag on the floor" :lol:
> 
> Well done Kilo and you for today xx


I was tipping the hair dresser last week and dropped a few bits of kibble out of my hand o.0 
I thought I had removed them all from my pocket


----------



## Fluffster

Prowl said:


> I was tipping the hair dresser last week and dropped a few bits of kibble out of my hand o.0
> I thought I had removed them all from my pocket


I regularly turn up at work with leads, balls, treats, Primula tubes etc in my pockets, it's become a running joke


----------



## Sarahliz100

Prowl said:


> I was tipping the hair dresser last week and dropped a few bits of kibble out of my hand o.0
> I thought I had removed them all from my pocket


I opened the change pocket if my wallet and it was full of dog treats. No idea why. Didn't help with paying for parking though!

Pretty good here over the last few days. Very happy that spring appears to have arrived in Lancashire. Some lovely walks on the moors. He no longer seems to feel the need to hare off after dogs in the distance, just greeting them when they are a sensible distance away so I've been leaving him off lead (providing the approaching dog is off lead) and he's had some lovely interactions. He's mostly coming away nicely with me too. Unless they're spaniels - he loves spaniels and goes a little hyper around them.

He even managed to behave for a longish walk with future in laws (who don't like dogs). Luckily he was in a tennis ball obsessed mood and was massively attentive, recalling every time and occasionally depositing ball at future father in laws feet in a winning fashion.

Not quite so good this evening. Decided he was not going to have his lead removed and launched himself snarling at me when I tried after his walk. I was so suprised I fell off my chair backwards! Think it's because he's started to chew it and it's fraying - once he's started to destroy something he tends to get possessive over it. Bit rubbish at obedience class too - but not surprising given he was stressed to start with. And don't get me started on that blasted harness!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *Twiggy* - well done to little HB and nice that you had break from the decorating .


Thank you. I was delighted with Holly today, more so on the fact that she was happy and playing and so much more confident.

Back to decorating tomorrow morning, although only glossing to do now, thank goodness.


----------



## JenKyzer

Dogless- amazing kilo!!! I'm so pleased.for.you both  

Twiggy - well done to holly for agility  glad she had fun. 

Willow was fine being.left today, no setback so still healing nicely  

Sorry to everyone else.. on kindle and its hard to reply!


----------



## Dogless

JenSteWillow said:


> Dogless- amazing kilo!!! I'm so pleased.for.you both
> 
> Twiggy - well done to holly for agility  glad she had fun.
> 
> *Willow was fine being.left today, no setback so still healing nicely *
> 
> Sorry to everyone else.. on kindle and its hard to reply!


Brilliant :thumbup:.


----------



## lupie

If anyone fancies there are some updated piccies here - Litter Feb 2014 - Ruska's Puppies - TabanyaRuu Finnish Lapphunds

I should be able to go and see her in a week or so. Can't flipping wait! The longest I've ever gone without her is 5 days and now it's weeks!

I am enjoying doing "non-doggy" stuff, including a few dates  but it's shocked me how much having her has done for my mental health and well being... She gives me something to focus on no matter what, and it's very weird having that not around!!!

Sounds like everyone is doing really well


----------



## Hanwombat

At the moment with Io I am working on some new tricks - we have pretty much got Spin BUT at the moment she will only do it if I do a hand movement, ideally I want her to do it without a hand movement eventually.
Roll over is another one but this is going slow as the daft dog just isn't getting it


----------



## diefenbaker

Prowl said:


> I find plastic bags are a big annoying in deep pockets but I do like the look of the bumbag flexi that does look like a usefull peice of equipment.


Tesco's Sandwich bags are what you want in your pockets for treats. Just the right size and you get 100 for a couple of quid... all sorts of treats and no stains. Apart from wiping my muddy hands all over.


----------



## Twiggy

Hanwombat said:


> At the moment with Io I am working on some new tricks - we have pretty much got Spin BUT at the moment she will only do it if I do a hand movement, ideally I want her to do it without a hand movement eventually.
> Roll over is another one but this is going slow as the daft dog just isn't getting it


I saw your post on watch to teach your puppy next a few days ago.

How old is she now?


----------



## Hanwombat

Twiggy said:


> I saw your post on watch to teach your puppy next a few days ago.
> 
> How old is she now?


She is 8 1/2 months


----------



## Twiggy

Hanwombat said:


> She is 8 1/2 months


In that case I'd personally be a little bit cautious about teaching roll-over and similar type tricks. Too much pressure on a young spine.


----------



## Fluffster

Gaaaawjus day here! Forest was lovely, we did some exploring and didn't meet anyone  Amazing how much cheerier a sunny day can make you feel! I'm a total doofus though and ordered the wrong size for Daisy's new Julius K9, - I ordered "mini mini" instead of "mini" and it's titchy! So it'll have to go back and the right one ordered. Doh. Her new daisies collar came though and it's lovely


----------



## Hanwombat

Twiggy said:


> In that case I'd personally be a little bit cautious about teaching roll-over and similar type tricks. Too much pressure on a young spine.


I am teaching it on a bed as our floor is all wooden, but to be honest I don't see it happening that quick as she doesn't quite understand. Spin is pretty much there so may see about teaching another one.


----------



## Nicki85

How about spinning in the other direction Hanwombat?


----------



## Hanwombat

Nicki85 said:


> How about spinning in the other direction Hanwombat?


Yes I have taught her right and left spin 

I may next teach her back up and her stand could do with a little more work.


----------



## Nicki85

Weaving in and out of legs with you walking along and stationary? Back up is a good one too  

The other things mine like doing are placing different feet on objects so front feet on cushion, back feet on cushion... then getting them to move in a circle whilst the feet stay on the object. 

I'm attempting cross paws at the moment, currently have my Springer targeting a post it note with his paw (corresponding to which ever hand I hold it out with). Shae is finding it a bit harder as she's convinced just placing her paw on the paper is not enough, yesterday she picked the piece of paper up waved it in my face and waved her paw at the same time... she really is quite bonkers!!


----------



## Barcode

Aaaargghhhhh!

It is officially spring, and the idiots are out and about.

We were five minutes from home having had a lovely 3-mile-ish walk in the sun. Spot a woman with two Border's and a Lab. Move off the path to allow them to pass. Then this occurred:

Woman: Are yours o.k with dogs?
Me: My Border can have her moments, but will be o.k if you just pass (as she has been for months, and especially in the past few weeks she's even been playing with the odd dog which is massive).

So what do her dogs do?

The Lab approaches. Begins, er, humping Scrabble. Scrabble goes behind my legs. Lab starts it again. Woman is trying to call her dog.

Mine were in their harnesses, on lead.

Her Borders approach. One then bites Scrabble! Scrabble does not instantly respond. She is still trying to get behind my legs. Woman still calling them. Dogs not listening. 

Scrabble then responded to being bitten, and then the two Borders pin her down and begin biting!

I pick up Scrabble (because what else could I do? The woman was only calling and not actively dealing with it) only to be bitten myself by one of her Border's. I don't think it's too bad. Very minor cut, but there is going to be a massive bruise - can see a raised shape that corresponds to her dogs teeth marks.

When she DID approach, she mumbled something about me kicking her dog. Note: not violently - I was trying to stop it leaping at Scrabble. She then looks at me like WE are in the wrong.

After turning a real corner with Scrabble, this could massively set her back and I am f*****d off. Predictably, she went mental at a dog we passed right after this.

I am proud of her for not responding right away. Mad that the woman let her dogs approach despite my warning. Mad that I've been bitten. Mad that she can't see what her dog did - it was quite plain that her Border was attacking Scrabble!

Mad that we might be back to square one. OH said she's going to get up earlier this week and give Scrabble some lovely walks where unlikely to see dogs.

I wish we could buy our own wood and not see any one else!


----------



## Hanwombat

Nicki85 said:


> Weaving in and out of legs with you walking along and stationary? Back up is a good one too
> 
> The other things mine like doing are placing different feet on objects so front feet on cushion, back feet on cushion... then getting them to move in a circle whilst the feet stay on the object.
> 
> I'm attempting cross paws at the moment, currently have my Springer targeting a post it note with his paw (corresponding to which ever hand I hold it out with). Shae is finding it a bit harder as she's convinced just placing her paw on the paper is not enough, yesterday she picked the piece of paper up waved it in my face and waved her paw at the same time... she really is quite bonkers!!


What command do you do to get them to weave in and out of legs? I was thinking as she knows spin to get her to spin around my leg, but would i use a command such as leg spin or something?


----------



## Fluffster

I would just get her doing it first then introduce the word command later. I'd go for something completely different to avoid confusion - just weave would probably be fine.


----------



## Nicki85

I'm no expert on trick training I'll admit that (Twiggy knows a lot lot more than me lol) but if I was going to teach go round leg/ legs I'd teach a separate command completely. I'd use the same command for going round different objects as well if you see what I mean. I'd probably use "circle" as "go-round" I use a lot in agility... 

For weaving I use "through" which, to be honest, is used in a load of situations.... jumping through arms, going through the hoop jump in agility, going through a fence out on walks etc. etc. But they seem to get it lol.


----------



## Nicki85

Barcode- sorry to hear about your walk and the horrible woman  Why can't people just put their dogs on the lead??

I hope little Scrabbles is OK and hasn't set her back too much. Hope your hand is OK as well.


----------



## diefenbaker

Barcode said:


> Aaaargghhhhh!
> When she DID approach, she mumbled something about me kicking her dog. Note: not violently - I was trying to stop it leaping at Scrabble. She then looks at me like WE are in the wrong.


As you'd been bitten you should have asked for her number for the police report. If nothing else it would probably have stopped her coming back to your woods. Some people I think are just in complete denial... and probably the same with their kids. I'm always watching Dief and if I think he's not as relaxed as he should be or too fixated intervene.

Although he was on his bestest recall behaviour in the woods today. There's no greater sight than 50kg of Demi-Mute bombing out of the woods towards you when you call him tongue lolling out.


----------



## Barcode

diefenbaker said:


> As you'd been bitten you should have asked for her number for the police report. If nothing else it would probably have stopped her coming back to your woods. Some people I think are just in complete denial... and probably the same with their kids. I'm always watching Dief and if I think he's not as relaxed as he should be or too fixated intervene.
> 
> Although he was on his bestest recall behaviour in the woods today. There's no greater sight than 50kg of Demi-Mute bombing out of the woods towards you when you call him tongue lolling out.


I hadn't thought of that. I suppose I just wanted to get out of there! We have made mistakes with Scrabble, but she hasn't sped across a field to attack a dog. It's just a no-brainer: if your dog has patchy recall and/or is aggressive in any fashion, then leash it at the very least.

If I see her again and I'm with my partner, I may say something.

For now, it is a few days of being calm (stress bathtub). Early walks when less dogs are about and lots of fun and games in the day  We'll take her out to her favourite place at the weekend and see how we get on.


----------



## diefenbaker

Proof the Demi-Mute can fly....


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Weaving in and out of legs with you walking along and stationary? Back up is a good one too
> 
> The other things mine like doing are placing different feet on objects so front feet on cushion, back feet on cushion... then getting them to move in a circle whilst the feet stay on the object.
> 
> I'm attempting cross paws at the moment, currently have my Springer targeting a post it note with his paw (corresponding to which ever hand I hold it out with). Shae is finding it a bit harder as she's convinced just placing her paw on the paper is not enough, yesterday she picked the piece of paper up waved it in my face and waved her paw at the same time... she really is quite bonkers!!


Nikki what are you thinking of..... The very last thing you would teach an 8 month old Rottie puppy is weaving. That goes for between the legs or weaving poles. Even more pressure on an under-developed spine.

There's a very good reason why young dogs are not allowed to compete in heelwork to music and agility....!!

There are plenty of other exercises that can be taught to a puppy/youngster - sit, down, stand, nose targetting, foot targetting, fetch, scent, recall to front, recall to heel, to name just a few.


----------



## Twiggy

Hanwombat said:


> What command do you do to get them to weave in and out of legs? I was thinking as she knows spin to get her to spin around my leg, but would i use a command such as leg spin or something?


Please, please don't teach your puppy to weave yet. I'm really not trying to spoil your fun or training but you could cause damage to her spine.


----------



## Twiggy

Barcode said:


> Aaaargghhhhh!
> 
> It is officially spring, and the idiots are out and about.
> 
> We were five minutes from home having had a lovely 3-mile-ish walk in the sun. Spot a woman with two Border's and a Lab. Move off the path to allow them to pass. Then this occurred:
> 
> Woman: Are yours o.k with dogs?
> Me: My Border can have her moments, but will be o.k if you just pass (as she has been for months, and especially in the past few weeks she's even been playing with the odd dog which is massive).
> 
> So what do her dogs do?
> 
> The Lab approaches. Begins, er, humping Scrabble. Scrabble goes behind my legs. Lab starts it again. Woman is trying to call her dog.
> 
> Mine were in their harnesses, on lead.
> 
> Her Borders approach. One then bites Scrabble! Scrabble does not instantly respond. She is still trying to get behind my legs. Woman still calling them. Dogs not listening.
> 
> Scrabble then responded to being bitten, and then the two Borders pin her down and begin biting!
> 
> I pick up Scrabble (because what else could I do? The woman was only calling and not actively dealing with it) only to be bitten myself by one of her Border's. I don't think it's too bad. Very minor cut, but there is going to be a massive bruise - can see a raised shape that corresponds to her dogs teeth marks.
> 
> When she DID approach, she mumbled something about me kicking her dog. Note: not violently - I was trying to stop it leaping at Scrabble. She then looks at me like WE are in the wrong.
> 
> After turning a real corner with Scrabble, this could massively set her back and I am f*****d off. Predictably, she went mental at a dog we passed right after this.
> 
> I am proud of her for not responding right away. Mad that the woman let her dogs approach despite my warning. Mad that I've been bitten. Mad that she can't see what her dog did - it was quite plain that her Border was attacking Scrabble!
> 
> Mad that we might be back to square one. OH said she's going to get up earlier this week and give Scrabble some lovely walks where unlikely to see dogs.
> 
> I wish we could buy our own wood and not see any one else!


That's made my blood boil just reading your post. I know it's easy to be wise after the event but she needed reporting. Her dogs sound dangerously out of control.

I'm really sorry, especially for poor Scrabble.


----------



## Nicki85

Sorry - didn't see how young she was... Just which trick next lol. Maybe teach her to cross paws ? That's paw targeting with a twist! 

Just got in from agility with Shae and I'll be purchasing some gardening gloves soon we are getting very bitey! But a lot of fun  I think you'd like her Twiggy...


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> Sorry - didn't see how young she was... Just which trick next lol. Maybe teach her to cross paws ? That's paw targeting with a twist!
> 
> Just got in from agility with Shae and I'll be purchasing some gardening gloves soon we are getting very bitey! But a lot of fun  I think you'd like her Twiggy...


I absolutely know I'd love Shae.

I think you're a big chicken if you put gardening gloves on. You should bear the cuts, scratches and bruises proudly like me....

This afternoon Barley missed the tuggy ball and got the back of my hand instead, Tremor snatched a bit of sausage and almost took two of my fingers and Holly got my arm several times. Do I care - not a bit. They all worked very well.


----------



## Nicki85

But it's getting a bit scary with a massive black thing leaping up and down trying to get the toy  I had a new tug toy today which made it a lot more fun as well... We were getting some strange looks lol. But I do love it, her enthusiasm is infectious! She's crated during class now and released from the crate straight on to the toy rather than winding everyone else up and it's working a treat. 

I guess At least I've only got one to bite me.... Glad your three are working well- when is barleys first comp


----------



## Twiggy

Nicki85 said:


> But it's getting a bit scary with a massive black thing leaping up and down trying to get the toy  I had a new tug toy today which made it a lot more fun as well... We were getting some strange looks lol. But I do love it, her enthusiasm is infectious! She's crated during class now and released from the crate straight on to the toy rather than winding everyone else up and it's working a treat.
> 
> I guess At least I've only got one to bite me.... Glad your three are working well- when is barleys first comp


I've entered a show at Easter but it will be training rounds with both Tremor and Barley because neither of them have competed for almost 3 years due to my late sister's battle with cancer.

It's a big ask with Barley. She's already won a Class A with my sister which means that's where we have to start. Class A is heel free with no extra commands as is the recall to heel and retrieve. The down stay is out of sight as well so it's asking a lot for a dog that hasn't even been socialised for nearly 3 years. I shall just train her until I think she's ready and confident enough to compete. Same with Tremor in some respects; she's very 'ring rusty' but she certainly doesn't lack confidence.


----------



## lostbear

Barcode said:


> Aaaargghhhhh!
> 
> It is officially spring, and the idiots are out and about.
> 
> We were five minutes from home having had a lovely 3-mile-ish walk in the sun. Spot a woman with two Border's and a Lab. Move off the path to allow them to pass. Then this occurred:
> 
> Woman: Are yours o.k with dogs?
> Me: My Border can have her moments, but will be o.k if you just pass (as she has been for months, and especially in the past few weeks she's even been playing with the odd dog which is massive).
> 
> So what do her dogs do?
> 
> The Lab approaches. Begins, er, humping Scrabble. Scrabble goes behind my legs. Lab starts it again. Woman is trying to call her dog.
> 
> Mine were in their harnesses, on lead.
> 
> Her Borders approach. One then bites Scrabble! Scrabble does not instantly respond. She is still trying to get behind my legs. Woman still calling them. Dogs not listening.
> 
> Scrabble then responded to being bitten, and then the two Borders pin her down and begin biting!
> 
> I pick up Scrabble (because what else could I do? The woman was only calling and not actively dealing with it) only to be bitten myself by one of her Border's. I don't think it's too bad. Very minor cut, but there is going to be a massive bruise - can see a raised shape that corresponds to her dogs teeth marks.
> 
> When she DID approach, she mumbled something about me kicking her dog. Note: not violently - I was trying to stop it leaping at Scrabble. She then looks at me like WE are in the wrong.
> 
> After turning a real corner with Scrabble, this could massively set her back and I am f*****d off. Predictably, she went mental at a dog we passed right after this.
> 
> I am proud of her for not responding right away. Mad that the woman let her dogs approach despite my warning. Mad that I've been bitten. Mad that she can't see what her dog did - it was quite plain that her Border was attacking Scrabble!
> 
> Mad that we might be back to square one. OH said she's going to get up earlier this week and give Scrabble some lovely walks where unlikely to see dogs.
> 
> I wish we could buy our own wood and not see any one else!


This is awful - what a selfish cow - and all your hard work ruined. There are more dogs spooled by owners like this - it makes my blood boil!


----------



## Barcode

Twiggy said:


> That's made my blood boil just reading your post. I know it's easy to be wise after the event but she needed reporting. Her dogs sound dangerously out of control.
> 
> I'm really sorry, especially for poor Scrabble.


Do you report things like this to the dog warden? I'm thinking police seems extreme, but would certainly be happy for someone to have a word with her.

Thing is, her dog's behaviors do not come out of the blue. You know if your dog reliably recalls or not, and if they don't, on-lead they must go - this whole thing could have been easily avoided had she been able to recall. Mine were on-lead when we got to the path precisely because I know there are likely to be dogs and I'd just rather walk past than have greetings that can easily get out of control.

I don't think she understands what she has got, namely, aggressive Terriers and an over-friendly Lab, and would certainly benefit from being told she must control them in public areas.


----------



## Barcode

lostbear said:


> This is awful - what a selfish cow - and all your hard work ruined. There are more dogs spooled by owners like this - it makes my blood boil!


OH took Scrabble out this morning and, perhaps unsurprisingly, reported her barking at some dogs. The very thing that has / had massively calmed down. I'm going to keep her home for the rest of the day. Not only for her, but my stress levels too! - I don't want to see other dogs.

Then we've got some walks planned a bit further afield at the weekend. I cannot finish my driving lessons quick enough - SO looking forward to be able to go non-local-ish places most days and have happier walks.


----------



## Dogless

*Barcode* - I cannot add anything bar that I am sorry . So frustrating .

We have been running for the past two days in a row; gorgeous weather for once although that has meant we have seen the odd person :nonod: .

And.a blue VW Caddy has been purchased and will be picked up within the next few days and then refitted just for us .


----------



## diefenbaker

Barcode said:


> I cannot finish my driving lessons quick enough


Speeding before you've passed your test ? Being able to get to the middle of nowhere does seem to have it's advantages. Some of the scenery that DL ( Norn Iron ) and Moobli ( Scotland ) have posted recently has been stunning... you can see for miles.. and not a person in sight.


----------



## Dogless

diefenbaker said:


> Speeding before you've passed your test ? Being able to get to the middle of nowhere does seem to have it's advantages. Some of the scenery that DL ( Norn Iron ) and Moobli ( Scotland ) have posted recently has been stunning... you can see for miles.. and not a person in sight.


I adore Norn Iron when I am out in the sticks .


----------



## Barcode

Argh. I'm only on lesson 13. Have gone through:

- manoeuvres (reverse around corner, parallel parking, 3-point turn, bay park)
- dual carriageway
- roundabouts
- junctions

I'm driving our own car quite a lot in-between lessons (obv. not on own!). Instructor says average no. of lessons before test is 47 (?!?!?!?!) but that (thankgod for my wallet) we are well ahead of that. Aim to be SAFE, not rush through.

We've got the Yorkshire Dales not miles away, and stunning scenery around York (Howardian Hills, lots of countryside). I just need to get away from local dog walks for a while!


----------



## diefenbaker

Dief met one of his nemesis dogs again today... and... they played :thumbsup:. The difference being..... Benji's nuts are no more. Now.. to be fair.. Dief has got progressively better with him... but... I'm thinking that a largish excited adolescent entire male is what puts Dief on edge... and frequently they are black labs.


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## Twiggy

Barcode said:


> Do you report things like this to the dog warden? I'm thinking police seems extreme, but would certainly be happy for someone to have a word with her.
> 
> Thing is, her dog's behaviors do not come out of the blue. You know if your dog reliably recalls or not, and if they don't, on-lead they must go - this whole thing could have been easily avoided had she been able to recall. Mine were on-lead when we got to the path precisely because I know there are likely to be dogs and I'd just rather walk past than have greetings that can easily get out of control.
> 
> I don't think she understands what she has got, namely, aggressive Terriers and an over-friendly Lab, and would certainly benefit from being told she must control them in public areas.


That depends on what your local dog warden's duties are. In my area all they do is collect stray dogs but it could possibly cover out of control dogs in your area.

If the dog bit you then it's a matter for the police under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

Personally I'd get in touch with both.


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *Barcode* - I cannot add anything bar that I am sorry . So frustrating .
> 
> We have been running for the past two days in a row; gorgeous weather for once although that has meant we have seen the odd person :nonod: .
> 
> And.a blue VW Caddy has been purchased and will be picked up within the next few days and then refitted just for us .


Brilliant...!! You won't be 'white van man' after all.....


----------



## Fluffster

Blue van woman is MUCH more distinguished 

Barcode I've only just read about your experience  How awful, hope you are feeling less shaken today x

Forest again for us today, we're becoming regulars there  It's just so lovely in the sun though and so much stuff for Daisy to explore and sniff. She went for a little swim as well, thankfully in a non-muddy pool for once! Her Hurtta harness had arrived when we got back, it's really lovely


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> If the dog bit you then it's a matter for the police under the Dangerous Dogs Act.
> Personally I'd get in touch with both.


I think you played this down when you described it. If Dief bit someone even by mistake trying to get to their dog I'd be mortified and at the very least muzzle him.


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## diefenbaker

Fluffster said:


> Her Hurtta harness had arrived when we got back, it's really lovely


I think you have the same bed as Dief.. albeit in a different colour and smaller. Did it come with matching cushions ?


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## Fluffster

diefenbaker said:


> I think you have the same bed as Dief.. albeit in a different colour and smaller. Did it come with matching cushions ?


Yes! But Daisy almost ate one so we had to take the other away


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## Sarahliz100

Barcode - what a horrible experience. Stupid woman 
Fluffster - Daisy looks very athletic in her harness!
Twiggy - hope the competition training goes well
Dogless - yay for blue van!

Big day for the little dog. Forest walk this morning, then the moors via town in the afternoon. I hadn't intended to stay out all that long as he had a vets appointment, but it was so glorious out we stayed for a couple of hours (although we weren't on the go for all of it). He was really good. Let a few people fuss him in town without jumping up (although he did rather rudely shove his nose up a poor unsuspecting mans bum whilst we were waiting at some traffic lights). I sat down for fifteen mins or so on the moors a few times to admire the view and soak up the sun and he actually chilled out lying next to me - for him that's a big deal as he never relaxes out and about. One of our stops was about 10-15m from some sheep and after one very brief attempt to run over to them (foiled by the long line) he lost interest in them completely. We walked straight from the moors to the vets, and having his anal glands squeezed was enough to finish him off so he's now collapsed looking exhausted. Don't think he'll be any bother this evening!


----------



## Fluffster

I couldn't find this thread today and had a small panic! Where are you all? :lol:

Things are good with us. We had our second flyball session last night, an indoor one this time at a horsey place, the sandy floor amused Daisy for quite some time! She was great, full runbacks from start and we did some work on her taking the ball from the box and her turns. She was really good, there were a couple of not overly friendly dogs there barking and lunging and she didn't bat an eyelid  There were also two cockers she had a great time playing with! And they (the organisers, not the cockers!) were impressed with her speed and said she was almost as fast as the border collie who was there, so I felt childishly proud about that 

Forest walk today and probably one of the best we've had. She was so, so good. Came when called every time, came away from other dogs after playing, even when they were still chasing her, sat when I asked, and was just a pleasure 

I've had a bit of a revelation - I've been having some health issues lately, extreme fatigue etc which the doctors still aren't sure what is causing it. Even though I've forced myself out for at least an hour a day with Daisy, I think I've probably been less than enthusiastic with her when out, just cos I'm so bloody knackered. I felt a lot better today and tried to be mega excited and enthusiastic, and she responded so much better, so she was obviously picking up on my tone of voice and general manner before. So I feel a bit bad for that as I'd stupidly assumed that as I was still taking her out, that was enough, but I can see I need to make a bit more effort on that front so I will 

Flyball again tomorrow, back outside again, think we will be doing more box work!

Hope everyone else is good and the lack of posts on this thread is cos everyone is out having a great time


----------



## Dogless

*Fluffster* I am sorry that you aren't well; sometimes I find that I exhaust myself simply trying to do the best by everyone, humans and canines. Take good care .

Well, all pretty good here. Some running and some walks and play around home. Kilo saw three dogs yesterday; just glimpses each time crossing in front of us and although anxious he was excellent, I am so, so pleased and proud at present.

Today we went up to our top fields which are accessible again and the dogs went bonkers running and playing and rolling ( Rudi  ).

One mixed blessing. Went to cross a stile the other day and the dogs suddenly decided that they could jump both stile and stock fence (don't worry no stock, and still on their running lines!!) from a sitting start rather than me heaving them over. So..I am pleased they'll finally jump stiles - it does remain to be seen if they'll do it on request however  - but their offlead opportunities out and about have just been reduced considerably as many of our routes are surrounded by fields of sheep. I cannot risk them offlead when I now know that hopping over into a field is so easy for them - and they know it. Oh well, they get a varied enough life anyway I think; shame though .


----------



## L/C

Hello ladies (and Dief) - one of my sporadic updates here.

Pointies are doing very well. Ely has come on leaps and bounds and is learning to use his words when he is upset with strange dogs rather then go straight to trying to grab them (big improvement). Gypsy and I have increased our running and are considering entering a cani-x event if I can get her to start pulling rather then running politely to heel. We've also taken up Rally O (just in the local park) thanks to the inspiration of another PF member and she is really enjoying.

Business is going very well and so is my masters. I can't remember if I told you all but I have gone part time with it so I can be sure to do all the reading that I need to . It's much more manageable now.

And now here's the really exciting part - I am on the waiting list for a malinois puppy! Mating is planned for April next year and I am very excited!


----------



## Twiggy

Dogless said:


> *Fluffster* I am sorry that you aren't well; sometimes I find that I exhaust myself simply trying to do the best by everyone, humans and canines. Take good care .
> 
> Well, all pretty good here. Some running and some walks and play around home. Kilo saw three dogs yesterday; just glimpses each time crossing in front of us and although anxious he was excellent, I am so, so pleased and proud at present.
> 
> Today we went up to our top fields which are accessible again and the dogs went bonkers running and playing and rolling ( Rudi  ).
> 
> *One mixed blessing. Went to cross a stile the other day and the dogs suddenly decided that they could jump both stile and stock fence (don't worry no stock, and still on their running lines!!) from a sitting start rather than me heaving them over. So..I am pleased they'll finally jump stiles - it does remain to be seen if they'll do it on request however*  - but their offlead opportunities out and about have just been reduced considerably as many of our routes are surrounded by fields of sheep. I cannot risk them offlead when I now know that hopping over into a field is so easy for them - and they know it. Oh well, they get a varied enough life anyway I think; shame though .


You could always buy a portable jump and teach them "over" on command.
They only cost about £10.00 and your boys might enjoy it.


----------



## Twiggy

L/C said:


> Hello ladies (and Dief) - one of my sporadic updates here.
> 
> Pointies are doing very well. Ely has come on leaps and bounds and is learning to use his words when he is upset with strange dogs rather then go straight to trying to grab them (big improvement). Gypsy and I have increased our running and are considering entering a cani-x event if I can get her to start pulling rather then running politely to heel. We've also taken up Rally O (just in the local park) thanks to the inspiration of another PF member and she is really enjoying.
> 
> Business is going very well and so is my masters. I can't remember if I told you all but I have gone part time with it so I can be sure to do all the reading that I need to . It's much more manageable now.
> 
> And now here's the really exciting part - I am on the waiting list for a malinois puppy! Mating is planned for April next year and I am very excited!


Pleased to hear you and the pointies are all doing well. Sounds as if you've been really busy.

A Malinois pup....!! You're very brave....


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## GingerRogers

Hello strangers  Hope you are all doing well, apart from Barcode , what an utter shithead that person was. Hope you are feeling a bit bouncier soon.

I have been absent awhile. I haven't been going through the best of times and although you WAYWO regulars dont mind a little off topic chat I didnt want to turn it into a relate clinic.  Sadly my husband and I have decided to separate, things have been bad for a long time, he is still living here for now, but I am starting to look forward to a new chapter in my life.  those of you who know me through fb dont need to pretend this is a surprise 

So I am feeling a whole lot stronger and level headed so I may join in again on occasion, not regular as still very busy trying to keep up with work and sort 'stuff' out but just try to keep up a little better.

Personal life and the obvious affect that all the angst has been having on ninja aside  She has been my little saviour :001_wub: and is a superstar, she has been coming along great guns, probably not least because I have been making extra effort to get away from it all for walks (as therapy), we have finally started proper BAT/CC type training and Smokeybears adage 'Train dont Test' is ringing in my ears everyday. I no longer wait to see IF she reacts I pre-empt it every time. But the reactions are becoming fewer and less frantic every day. She gets lots of over enthusiastic praise  one side effect of our split is I am more confident in my ability to make the judgement calls and follow my head :thumbsup:

We even set up a meeting with Tilly my brothers 18 month vizsla last weekend, cant say it went brilliantly , unsurprisingly they have very different play styles and initiation flirts, ninja was none too keen on tigger bouncing play bows and Tilly was most uncertain about hysterical barking play bows but we had an hour without any major incident so maybe I will get to spend family time with my big bro sometime over the next 15 years 

Enough of me for now I will try and keep up so I can comment on your all .


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## lupie

GR I had been thinking about you recently and hoping you were okay. I am sorry to hear about your situation, that must've been very hard. 

Thinking of you!


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> You could always buy a portable jump and teach them "over" on command.
> They only cost about £10.00 and your boys might enjoy it.


We have a garden agility set. They adore it. They will also jump fallen trees etc on "hup" - good job they're not gun dogs . Stiles had always been something they balked at and considering so many are topped or surrounded by barbed wire I had always been worried that they would try it, be under confident and hurt.

*GR* - always here if needed; pleased you are feeling a little stronger. I think you are amazingly strong if that counts for anything.

*L/C* - if anyone deserves business success it is you, you work so very hard. And a Malinois!!! So exciting - can't wait to hear puppy news as and when.


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## Twiggy

OH GR what can I say except I'm very sorry. I did assume all was not well in your World but sincerely hope you will see a ***** of light at the end of the tunnel before too long.

Really pleased little Ninja has been a comfort to you during dark days.


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## Dogless

Second walks went well today. Walked Sir K with Diz, he was still really puppyish like this morning bouncing about; strange but lovely . Walked Roo on his own, he was a good boy again. I LIKE not having much to report! :thumbup1: .


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## Twiggy

*


Dogless said:



We have a garden agility set. They adore it. They will also jump fallen trees etc on "hup" - good job they're not gun dogs . Stiles had always been something they balked at and considering so many are topped or surrounded by barbed wire I had always been worried that they would try it, be under confident and hurt.

Click to expand...

*


Dogless said:


> *GR* - always here if needed; pleased you are feeling a little stronger. I think you are amazingly strong if that counts for anything.
> 
> *L/C* - if anyone deserves business success it is you, you work so very hard. And a Malinois!!! So exciting - can't wait to hear puppy news as and when.


Yes the majority of stiles are barbed wired over here as well. I think the idea is to deter walkers and dogs. Shame.


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## Canine K9

Hey! I have been absent! But I`m back at least for now 

Fluffster- Sounds like Daisy is doing very well.  Well done on the recall front especially!

Dogless- Well done boys especially Kilo! Its a shame but I`m sure they won`t mind 

L/C- Well done and I bet your excited! 

GR- Well done Ninja- sorry for your break up x

-------------------------------------------

Well we are fine here. His recall has been going well, I managed a recall away from another dog and from a tree he was going to sniff. I`d say he gets 9/10 recalls. But I`m too scared to let him off! How does anyone have the courage to let their dog off?!?  My Nan is in Hospital, so I went to see her today so he hasn`t had a walk today. He didn`t get a very long one yesterday so feeling a bit guilty! His dog situation is a hit and miss although unless we have to walk right past a dog on a narrow footpath he usually doesn`t react. We are getting a lot more attention round other dogs which is good.


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## Sarahliz100

GingerRogers - sorry to hear about your difficult time.

Things are pretty good here. Haven't really achieved the zen like acceptance of the harness I'd hoped for, and seeing as I've been working on it for months now I've decided he's just going to have to "man up" ("dog up"?) and get on with it. 
So it's now going on every single time we go out, and if he starts playing silly beggars and jumping about/mouthing I just calmly turn around and leave the room and come back in a couple of minutes. He wants to go out so he eventually let's me put it on - as soon as it's on he's at the door tail wagging so I don't think he's too traumatised. It does mean it takes forever to get out of the house, so hoping the process gets quicker very soon!

Walks are SO much better, having the option of having him on a long line makes such a difference. We went to the Peak District today and there were very occasional sheep about - a couple of weeks ago when he had to be on his flat collar I'd have been stuck either with him pulling away and choking himself or being offlead with me being hyper vigilant and hoping to see any livestock before him. Today I kept him on the long line (practicing my long-line technique which needs some polishing) and it was nice to chill a bit knowing he couldn't go sheep chasing. He showed interest in a few sheep (and would have run off I expect if he wasn't on the line) but diverted his attention to me nicely. I'm hoping a few months of walking on the moors safely on a long line will be enough to make the sight and scent of sheep much less enticing.

Also working a lot on attention and eye contact. I'm trying to make it a default behaviour: you want to be let off lead - eye contact, you want to go through the gate - eye contact, you want to greet that dog - eye contact (you get the gist). The first few days were very frustrating with him being at the end of his lead whining in frustration, but he's getting the idea now.


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## JenKyzer

SarahL - Wow, sounds like you've made some progress and you seem on a mission now  At least the harness means he gets to go for a walk and his walks with a longline must be more fun so it all adds up in his favour if he puts it on  

CK9 - Hii.. i was wondering where you had got to, then i saw your thread a few days ago about you being back and how well Bailey is doing. Great stuff and welcome back  Best wishes to your nan.

Dogless - Glad you have nothing much to report  touch wood it stays that way! Great news about the Van  Glad things are back on track with that now. 

GR - Helloo  I'm so sorry to hear what you're going through, i agree with others that i think your very strong and glad that you are looking forward to the new chapter in your life - may it be filled with lots of smiles and laughter. Glad Ninja has been a little rock for you and it sounds like she's doing amazingly well  Fantastic, i'm really pleased for you both. 

LC - You sound so busy! Ely and Gypsy sound like they're both doing well  as for the pup.. beautiful! But now we have over a year to wait for pics  how can you do this to us  

Fluff - I'm so pleased flyball is going so well for you guys  She's such a little star! Hope you feel better soon though, take good care of yourself  Her harness looks lovely too 

Barcode - Ohmy, what an awful walk you had  i'm really fuming for you. I hope Scrabble has bounced back ok and hasn't put your right back to sq1? And your cut from the bite is ok? I can't believe the woman :frown2: 

Sorry for anyone else i have missed out 

All quiet here. 
Her self inflicted scabs have gone now so she has lovely white skin bald patches  which is good as she has let it all heal and hasn't done any biting of herself this week :thumbup1: as much as i hate to admit, i'm really grateful for OH bro keeping an eye on her.. she'd had enough of him by thursday and refused to go with him into his room lol so even though she was on her own in the living room with regular check-up-on's she just relaxed and slept  
As for walks, all good and nothing to report. She has a beautiful new harness from Sid at Ind-Dog.. will post pics when her matching lead arrives :thumbup1: (My mum sounded gutted for Willow that i hadn't got her a lead to match her new lovely harness so told me to order one and she'd buy it ! Obviously has a real soft spot for her after the sleepover!! Hadn't even crossed my mind to get a matching set  how evil of me  )

Hope everyone has a good weekend  No sun here yet


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## Twiggy

I'm instructing today from 10 until about 4.00pm. It's the last Saturday one and then we switch to Thursday afternoons once a month as the shows start in earnest very soon.

Hubby will be waking the dogs this morning - always a worry....


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## Freddie and frank

good morning.

just popped on for a nose...supposed to be working.

Gr...i was thinking about you and had wondered where you were. sorry to hear about your situation, but glad that you're feeling stronger.  Bless little ninja being there for you. Hope you are ok. take care. x

me and bella started our silver class on thursday. she did a two min down stay no prob, came away from distractions, but got a tad bouncy on the controlled greeting when we had to go up to the instructor for them to say 'hello' to our dogs, so we need a LOT of work on this. not sure what command to use. hmmmm 

Frank is getting sooo much better at recalls and we do have some proper off lead times, but only when i'm confident...don't want to ruin it 

freedie's ears are hopefully getting better, so fingers crossed he'll be spared surgery.:thumbup1:

And i'm now working on getting some really good photo's of them cause i've asked sailor to do me a drawing of each of them for my lounge. :thumbup1:

I will pop back in later...have to get work finished to post before 11.00


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I'm instructing today from 10 until about 4.00pm. It's the last Saturday one and then we switch to Thursday afternoons once a month as the shows start in earnest very soon.
> 
> Hubby will be waking the dogs this morning - always a worry....


Yikes!! Counting their legs this evening then .

*JSW* - so pleased you still have nothing much to report . I'll look forward to the photos of Willow in her new harness!!

*Sarahliz* - very good progress on the sheep front!

Well._for the first time in 7 months since the attack I walked the boys together from home._ We were up very early, it's the weekend and the weather wasn't great so wasn't expecting to see anyone. The boys were a bit tense and dressage - horsey at first but soon settled and walked nicely. We went up to the top fields, had a play and did a little training and then came home. Rudi was very nervy indeed passing where the attack happened which was odd as he is OK on his own.obviously associates being walked together and passing with Bad Things. We unfortunately saw "the lab" who began to approach but his owner got him back in time thank goodness. Kilo did two barks and then we turned and walked away nicely, very little fuss, which was amazingly good. I am drained from doing it as I was ashamedly very nervous  . Milestone for us though in some ways.


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## Dogless

OK second walk with Roo; rugby on + sun = feral kids out, with / without dogs who haven't been out since the last nice weather. It was a trial with children, adults and dogs absolutely everywhere. Roo did well, even just huffing when a boy climbing a tree jumped out of it pretty much on top of us (on purpose, I had said hello to him loudly as we passed through the alley ). Walking Sir K with Diz later, it's clouding over so we can hope!!! Unless drunk folk post rugby decide to walk with a bottle or two :thumbdown:.


----------



## Fluffster

That's great news about the joint walk, Dogless! Well done to you all 

We had flyball this morning, loads more dogs today, about six at its peak and a lot of barking, running around etc but Daisy was a star  She did her runbacks great but dropped the ball on some as she was anticipating the second ball throw again so we are going to try just with playing with the ball in her mouth as a reward when she brings it back. So we have homework!


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## Dogless

Wow. Kilo is the best dog in the world right now :001_wub:. Saw two dogs straining to get to us on flexies, we backed off quickly to a safe distance and he sat and watched as they eyeballed their way down the next turning . He was stressed as he was really snatchy with treats instead of his usual gentle self&#8230;but he did so, so well. They are both having a quiet day tomorrow.


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## Dogless

I worked on running a fairly long way today….the photo was taken from my turn - around point and the arrow shows where the car is parked - behind that mountain. The run started with a quick scramble up said mountain .



I raced home thinking the boys would be desperate for a walk….they greeted me all excitedly, we played for a few minutes, they had a rice bone and promptly returned to the sofa where they have been flat out snoring ever since :laugh:.

I shall walk them later, but I think they love the odd rest day!! Ideal actually after Kilo's fabulous behaviour yesterday, his stress levels could do with dropping.


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## Twiggy

I've just spent an hour and a half with the holigan Aussie boys.....!!

I'm now recovering....

I'll go and train my girls shortly as they've hardly seen me for the past two days.


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## Dogless

Twiggy said:


> I've just spent an hour and a half with the holigan Aussie boys.....!!
> 
> I'm now recovering....
> 
> I'll go and train my girls shortly as they've hardly seen me for the past two days.


Oh dear Grannie, bet that was tiring .


----------



## Bagrat

Dogless:- that run looks like a marathon already and mega congrats for a two dog walk.
Twiggy:- Assume all dogs present and correct after a walk without you!
F&F ;- Exciting stuff, for greeting J does (is supposed to do) "Say Hi" which is a hand touch to "stranger" and immediate return to me for a treat. sadly we are still at the stage that if the stranger attempts to greet HIM he gets silly.
GR -thought there must be a reason for your absence -sorry to hear your news, a lot of upheaval, emotional and physical no doubt.

Just passing through I'm afraid. This husband dog walking thing doesn't get better does it?? J had a melt down with OH Friday as he(OH) has a walk ritual and cannot deviate from it. Two dogs one carried, came out of house so OH dashed into the next door drive to hide!! J was utterly not unaware and had be restrained. This morning in my most non confrontational manner I said "have you thought if there was any other way you could have dealt with the situation?" "NO" I then suggested he could have walked on briskly and left the situation behind "BUT I never go down there" AArgh.
Today I did what I think passed as BAT 2. left stuffie on field and fetched J and let him just wander at a distance. Each time when we were far enough away he glanced at "Digby" and ran back to me for a treat. Once closer I had to click or "tickle " the lead but still happy to come back. Pretty sure he doesn't think it's a dog now but good practice for him and my handling skills which need all the help they can get.
Two years yesterday since Barney died. It's gone very quickly in some ways but we still miss him.


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## Dogless

*Bagrat* - sorry about the hubby walking situation. Think it sounds like the work with J and the stuffy has gone very well. Also hope that you've been enjoying some good memories of Barney as well as remembering sadder times .

The run was further than a marathon .


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## Fluffster

Dogless, I'm in awe! Seriously amazing, I'm quite jealous  

Sorry about husband situation, Bagrat, they can be harder to train than our dogs!

Forest walk for us today, Daisy was very good. We are away this weekend coming so leaving her with my mum and stepdad for the weekend, eek!


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## Canine K9

Dogless- Wow thats amazing!!

Twiggy- I hope you`ve recovered haha 

Bagrat- Sorry about the Husband 

--------------------------------------------------------
Nice day here. Went to a popular spot for a 2hr walk today and only came across one very sweet JRT. I love rain  He gave me eye contact when walking past dogs on the street though, which was much better than reacting. We had some very good recalls. I`m just about to give him a bath. I`m sure that will be fun :yikes: And we are preparing for a new puppy.


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## Twiggy

Bagrat said:


> Dogless:- that run looks like a marathon already and mega congrats for a two dog walk.
> Twiggy:- Assume all dogs present and correct after a walk without you!
> F&F ;- Exciting stuff, for greeting J does (is supposed to do) "Say Hi" which is a hand touch to "stranger" and immediate return to me for a treat. sadly we are still at the stage that if the stranger attempts to greet HIM he gets silly.
> GR -thought there must be a reason for your absence -sorry to hear your news, a lot of upheaval, emotional and physical no doubt.
> 
> Just passing through I'm afraid. This husband dog walking thing doesn't get better does it?? J had a melt down with OH Friday as he(OH) has a walk ritual and cannot deviate from it. Two dogs one carried, came out of house so OH dashed into the next door drive to hide!! J was utterly not unaware and had be restrained. This morning in my most non confrontational manner I said "have you thought if there was any other way you could have dealt with the situation?" "NO" I then suggested he could have walked on briskly and left the situation behind "BUT I never go down there" AArgh.
> Today I did what I think passed as BAT 2. left stuffie on field and fetched J and let him just wander at a distance. Each time when we were far enough away he glanced at "Digby" and ran back to me for a treat. Once closer I had to click or "tickle " the lead but still happy to come back. Pretty sure he doesn't think it's a dog now but good practice for him and my handling skills which need all the help they can get.
> Two years yesterday since Barney died. It's gone very quickly in some ways but we still miss him.


No the husband dog walking never ever gets better even after 40 years sadly.

Sorry you're missing Barney. I don't think we ever totally get over losing them however many years go by. I know I still miss mine, particularly Twiggy, and she's been gone over 13 years now.


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## Sarahliz100

Dogless - hooray for Kilo! So brave and clever
Bagrat - sorry about the dog walking/husband situation. To be honest I worry a bit when my OH takes him out. He's very good really, but hates having him on lead so has a tendency to undo all my hard work on not running up to other dogs etc.

Tryfan was SO good yesterday I was really proud. We went to the hill behind my house then onto the moor twice to work on ignoring the sheep (on a longline of course). The sheep were hiding the first time but it turns out there was a charity abseil happening. So there were lots of people, dogs, people in daft costumes etc. he was fairly unfazed. I had a minor freak out when a small child ran up to him, grabbed at his head then ran off squealing but Tryfie just sat there, tried to shirk his head away but didn't snap or anything and didn't chase the small squealing being.

The second walk we encountered two flocks of sheep. Both times he wandered a few steps in the direction of the sheep for a look, stopped and looked at me. I clicked, he ran back for his treat and then lost interest in the sheep. We've also been practicing heel work, with the longline just dragging - so offlead really. On the morning walk he wasn't great, could get about 5m out of him before he got bored, but the afternoon walk he was walking to heel for about 50metres (for lots of treats).

Finally we went to my parents in the evening, my sister and her other half were there. They all adore him, but previously the attention has had a tendency to make him overexcited and he can usually only manage shortish periods before having to go for a chill out in the car. Last night we were there for nearly 5 hours and he was a delight, no time outs needed. Hardly jumped at all on greetings, worked the room sitting at people's feet for attention and absolutely no mouthing. When I got his toys out he invited people to play nicely by presenting them with a toy and again didn't spill over into crazy. Didn't jump up at the table at all while we ate and then played a board game after, just lay there and konked out. Amazing. Maybe he's finally growing up and learning to cope with life.

Today is obedience class. We've been practicing our homework (recall to front, lead on, finish to heel, lead off, stay, walk off, recall and repeat cycle). He's really slick at home so we'll see how he gets on. He's quite variable at class - his focus can be great or non-existent.


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Dogless - hooray for Kilo! So brave and clever
> Bagrat - sorry about the dog walking/husband situation. To be honest I worry a bit when my OH takes him out. He's very good really, but hates having him on lead so has a tendency to undo all my hard work on not running up to other dogs etc.
> 
> Tryfan was SO good yesterday I was really proud. We went to the hill behind my house then onto the moor twice to work on ignoring the sheep (on a longline of course). The sheep were hiding the first time but it turns out there was a charity abseil happening. So there were lots of people, dogs, people in daft costumes etc. he was fairly unfazed. I had a minor freak out when a small child ran up to him, grabbed at his head then ran off squealing but Tryfie just sat there, tried to shirk his head away but didn't snap or anything and didn't chase the small squealing being.
> 
> The second walk we encountered two flocks of sheep. Both times he wandered a few steps in the direction of the sheep for a look, stopped and looked at me. I clicked, he ran back for his treat and then lost interest in the sheep. We've also been practicing heel work, with the longline just dragging - so offlead really. On the morning walk he wasn't great, could get about 5m out of him before he got bored, but the afternoon walk he was walking to heel for about 50metres (for lots of treats).
> 
> Finally we went to my parents in the evening, my sister and her other half were there. They all adore him, but previously the attention has had a tendency to make him overexcited and he can usually only manage shortish periods before having to go for a chill out in the car. Last night we were there for nearly 5 hours and he was a delight, no time outs needed. Hardly jumped at all on greetings, worked the room sitting at people's feet for attention and absolutely no mouthing. When I got his toys out he invited people to play nicely by presenting them with a toy and again didn't spill over into crazy. Didn't jump up at the table at all while we ate and then played a board game after, just lay there and konked out. Amazing. Maybe he's finally growing up and learning to cope with life.
> 
> Today is obedience class. We've been practicing our homework (recall to front, lead on, finish to heel, lead off, stay, walk off, recall and repeat cycle). He's really slick at home so we'll see how he gets on. He's quite variable at class - his focus can be great or non-existent.


Very well done you (and Tryfan of course)......:thumbsup:

If only all dog owners would put the groundwork in with their puppies. There wouldn't remotely be all the problems owners have with their dogs later on. Sigh.....


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## Freddie and frank

dogless...i'm very pleased for you and Kilo. great news. :thumbsup:
bagrat...i know where you're coming from with the husband and dog walking situation. i've not yet lost a dog, so don't fully know how you're feeling. Hope you have lots of fond memories of Barney.
sarah...all sounds fab apart from the little incident with the child. Good luck in your class tonight.

I took Frank down to the river by me on saturday, with his ball. he loved it....rolling in cow pats then jumping into the river to fetch his ball and for a clean.  We did have an off lead beagle come running over to us, and my heart sank, but i managed to get his focus on me and his ball. he wasn't interested in the other dog, thankfully. It doesn't sound much but it's a huge step for me and Frank. 

bumped into my two BIL when i walked Bella on saturday so i practised our greeting. She was very excited so it took a while for her to calm down and 'sit'. All went to pot when they said hello...she's very excitable and wriggly and loves attention, so this one is going to be a toughie. The trainer said it may take a couple of courses to pass the silver, but i really want to pass first time around.  I've got no worries about any of the other tasks, just this one. Think i might use 'say hi' as suggested by bagrat. :thumbsup:


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## GingerRogers

Dogless - Kilo is a true superstar, well done to you on your mammoth step of walking them together, I can only imagine the stress that caused you.

JSW - how could you forget the matching lead, and collar  piccies please cant wait 

SarahL - sounds like Tryfan was a trooper too :thumbsup:

Bagrat - you know my opinion on OH'S so I wont comment

Dief - feel free to make me feel better about OH's with one of your funnies

Everyone - thank you for your kind thoughts :crying:

Ninja is continuing to be the best little pickle. I walked her sat am and then did some work, popped to a local game fair for a couple of hours and planned to take her for another quick half hour before meeting a friend who needed cheering up late afternoon. (Returning the cheering up favour was nice to do ) 

Anyhoo we timed it with the lord of the manors afternoon stroll with his westie. They are both old and slower than the slowest westie I have come across yet :sad: (you know they always seem to be at least 5 paces behind they walker ) they popped out of his track onto the field footpaths so I slowed a bit, and so he had to stop and wonder what I was up to  so we turned back a bit and had a game with the new rabbit skin ball I bought at the fair 

I gauged I had given him a head start and carried on, only for 3 hikers to appear so back we went towards the track the old boy had come from to wait for them to pass, and a jogger is coming up from the other way :eek6:. 

So I am hiding in the track waiting for them all to pass and the jogger turns and sprints towards us, woah  just a little lunge no barks thankfully but what does he expect, no idea what he is up to cos he doesn't live down there, I know!!

Then the hikers arrive, and they only ruddy turn down our track too :yikes: this prompted some barking but only in friendly states (doesnt work, I keep telling her no one understands dog )

Any way we finally carry on somewhat delayed by all this, but eventually even though I was dawdling we catch up with the lord bless him , he's poo picking, which is good to see but which you can imagine took a while, so we do some 'this ways' and she comes beautifully, I then use them as stooges all the way back to the car (I think if I had crawled I would still be faster than them ) and throughout it all ninja was brilliant  not a whimper.


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## Sarahliz100

GingerRogers - sounds like an exhausting but productive walks. I have ones like that when it seems everyone is out to foil me.

We got through obedience class without a single episode of frustrated jumping/nipping for the first time in months. Whooooo! Usually he ends up getting tethered for a brief time-out to calm down a few times but he was beautifully behaved throughout tonight. He executed the sequence we've been practicing (recall to front, finish to heel, stay and repeat) beautifully, let me take his lead off without freaking out when his collar was touched and remained attentive off lead. Did beautiful heel work past other dogs for the most part. Only lost his focus for the last exercise (which was a bit of a shame as it was the only one where it was just me and him on the floor with everyone watching) but still a major improvement from the last few weeks. Clever boy. Tired puppy now though!


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## zedder

Gentle walks round the park with ike while his leg is still a bit iffy must say his whole demeanour is much more laid back and relaxed recently really good to see going to try some new tricks when he's 100%.


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## Twiggy

I had to smile:

Holly had her friend the Red Setter join us for training yesterday. We worked on food refusal as she had her Good Citizen Silver test last night, which she failed the last time on that particular exercise. Anyway she passed with flying colours.

The amusing bit was about three weeks ago she was telling me that she's never got further than Lacey holding a gun-dog dummy and she will never retrieve or even pick it up off the floor.

I do so love a challenge and don't believe 'won't/can't' so last week I set about back-chaining the exercise. Lo and behold this week Lacey was indeed picking the dummy up off the floor and we're nearly there.....


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## JenKyzer

Twiggy - Sounds like your working your magic on Lacey, sounds great 

SarahLiz - Class sounds like it went really well .. glad your seeing an improvement it must be such a nice feeling.

GR - Well what a badly timed walk eh  i'm so chuffed for you that ninja is doing soo well and being such a love for you :001_wub: Hope you've had uninterupted walks since then  

Hope everyone else is doing well.. seems a little quiet on here  

All quiet here still  OH bro has started walking her in the afternoons now  which i'm very on edge about.. but if it keeps her busy and entertained for a bit then off to sleep after it, how can i complain :blink: I have 2days off now though so fingers crossed the weather stays nice then we can have some good walks  
She ran at the poor bedlington this morning (its front door just gets opened and out it comes alone  ) Haven't seen it out that early before, poor thing ran off.. Willow just came back and carried on like a gem  no noise or anything, don't know what the run was about! We then had to walk inbetween 2cats  so abit of pulling but she didnt know which 1 to pull towards  but again, she distracted from them eventually  2 is obviously too many to cope with 1st thing in a morning 

ETA - The lead is still being made by the lovely Sid so no pics yet


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## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Twiggy - Sounds like your working your magic on Lacey, sounds great
> 
> SarahLiz - Class sounds like it went really well .. glad your seeing an improvement it must be such a nice feeling.
> 
> GR - Well what a badly timed walk eh  i'm so chuffed for you that ninja is doing soo well and being such a love for you :001_wub: Hope you've had uninterupted walks since then
> 
> Hope everyone else is doing well.. seems a little quiet on here
> 
> All quiet here still  OH bro has started walking her in the afternoons now  which i'm very on edge about.. but if it keeps her busy and entertained for a bit then off to sleep after it, how can i complain :blink: I have 2days off now though so fingers crossed the weather stays nice then we can have some good walks
> She ran at the poor bedlington this morning (its front door just gets opened and out it comes alone  ) Haven't seen it out that early before, poor thing ran off.. Willow just came back and carried on like a gem  no noise or anything, don't know what the run was about! *We then had to walk inbetween 2cats  so abit of pulling but she didnt know which 1 to pull towards * but again, she distracted from them eventually  2 is obviously too many to cope with 1st thing in a morning
> 
> ETA - The lead is still being made by the lovely Sid so no pics yet


Errmmmm I think I might have struggled with my 4 collies between two cats...


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## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Errmmmm I think I might have struggled with my 4 collies between two cats...


yeah rather you than me with that one


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## Freddie and frank

Gosh, it is quiet on here. i remember when i had to have a notebook handy to write down replies. 

Sarah...sounds like your class went very well. fab. :thumbsup: I get sooo nervous being the only one doing stuff, while all the others are watching. 
Gr...crikey, a walk full of distractions. Ninja sounds like she's being a little star. 
twiggy...:thumbup: Do you teach the good citizen scheme?
JSW...enjoy your two days off, hope you have some nice weather. One cat is enough for my boys, let alone 2 

Freddie's check up at the vets tonight, so fingers crossed it'll be the last one for a while. He's doing another culture to see how the Pseudomonas is going...hopefully it's dying off. 

Silver class tonight with Bella, so i'm going about 20 mins early to practice the road walk. I want to get used to the route with her. Still got a lot of work to do with the greeting of the instructors, but i'm determined to get there. 

Hope you all have good days.


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## GingerRogers

JSW - well done Willow, I think ninja would have done 'no I cant see anything I will just walk this way and pretend my brain is not about to explode '
Enjoy your time off (correcting all the bad things she has been taught by the BIL lol)

SarahL- Well done Tryfan too you've made big progress since you joined WAYWO

Twiggy - I set you the challenge of once again helping me teach ninja a retrieve/fetch type thing, she will do it on occasion now but not consistently, I would just like to enjoy a game of fetch occasionally to be honest. When I feel like it not when she does. Mostly she will fetch it and run away back to her bed with it, although she has started to bring me toys 


F&F - good luck tonight both times 

I had a realisation moment yesterday. Took ninja out for an early drive as I had a meeting about half an hour away, had 5 mins on the way back so parked up and walked a way down a little footpath, we hadn't gone far when a woman came towards us, but I successfully uturned before ninja saw her :thumbup:. 

Then ninja managed to hook herself up by her harness on a stick  so in unhooking her it was enough time for the woman and her dog to become visible.

But she came with me with no fuss whatsoever (is that 1 word or 3  ??)

But bad me had no treats with me , so lots of praise had to suffice.

Then we got back to the road and a man with a choccy lab passed on the other side. She had some scampering whingey barks literally only as it passed us then quietened and came with me very settled with a few leave its.

This is when it occurred to me how much calmer and better both she and I are. We haven't really done that for months, passed a dog, I only pavement walk on our estate and always u turn. I guess the unfamiliar place stopped me and actually I think the result was better.

She has come a long long way :001_wub:.

ETA later on our proper walk we saw a fox red lab which she did react to but as soon as she heard the wotsit crunch she turned and sat while the dog was still in sight. Never thought I would get that either  Then the worst was the lapphunds were all in their front yard, noisy , I never heard so much barking. Again she reacted, understandably, but again she quietened for wotsit and sat calmly.

Love the lickle pickle


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## diefenbaker

Today we practised jumping on and walking along logs.. it was hard to find a log big enough.. just trying to build up his confidence... and give us something else to do on walks.


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## diefenbaker

GingerRogers said:


> Again she reacted, understandably, but again she quietened for wotsit and sat calmly.
> 
> Love the lickle pickle


You wouldn't believe what I would do for a cheesy wotsit.


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## GingerRogers

diefenbaker said:


> Today we practised jumping on and walking along *logs*.. it was hard to find a log big enough.. just trying to build up his confidence... and give us something else to do on walks.


I thought you said dogs 



diefenbaker said:


> You wouldn't believe what I would do for a cheesy wotsit.


I might


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## Dogless

Sorry folks I am here and I am reading, just not writing much at present!! . All is OK here, the boys are being great for me and we are doing our usual mix of mountains, running and training. Ticking along .


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## Twiggy

*Dogless* Hope you are OK? Granny worries.

*F&F* No I don't teach the Good Citizens tests, I was just helping a friend.

*GR* We'll have an in-depth discussion about the Ninja's retrieve. Can we wait until after the end of the month as I'm trying to get my head round a judging appointment on 29 and 30 March, which is totally different to the norm? In fact it's giving me a headache already.

I went and bought two more pairs of track pants this afternoon, after ruining my best pair whilst painting last week. The assistant showed me several pairs with go faster stripes down the side and looked bewildered when I said "you must be joking, not at my age thanks".....

I've got an agility show on Saturday and I've entered 4 classes, one of which is 'power and speed'. I expect we'll be last.....


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## GingerRogers

Twiggy said:


> *Dogless* Hope you are OK? Granny worries.
> 
> *F&F* No I don't teach the Good Citizens tests, I was just helping a friend.
> 
> *GR* We'll have an in-depth discussion about the Ninja's retrieve. Can we wait until after the end of the month as I'm trying to get my head round a judging appointment on 29 and 30 March, which is totally different to the norm? In fact it's giving me a headache already.
> 
> I went and bought two more pairs of track pants this afternoon, after ruining my best pair whilst painting last week. The assistant showed me several pairs with go faster stripes down the side and looked bewildered when I said "you must be joking, not at my age thanks".....
> 
> I've got an agility show on Saturday and I've entered 4 classes, one of which is '*power and speed*'. I expect we'll be last.....


I thought that said power assisted . At least the track pants and trainers will get a work out. Think I need to get me eyes tested today .

Of course I can wait, I most definitely dont want to add to your headache.


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## Sarahliz100

Diefenbaker - I be been looking out for logs and things to do some "groundwork" on, they seem scarce around here!

Twiggy - sounds energetic! 

f&f - poor Freddie. pseudomonas is a pest (or it is in people anyway) - where is he growing it? We're doing the good citizen scheme too. He can do all the stuff the other dogs are struggling on (stay etc) but I think we'll fall down on the straightforward bits like grooming/being able to examine mouth etc. 

GingerRogers - it's great when you realise that there's been a lot of progress isn't it?

jenSteWillow - sorry that the Lancashire rain is back for your time off

Young Master StressyPants wasn't keen on the harness yesterday, so by the time we got out the door his walk time had diminished significantly and we only had time for a quick trip to the park. I feel a bit like the teacher who won't let their naughty class out to play until they behave - "it's your time your wasting not mine....." I didn't have high hopes for the park as it's usually a bit too exciting for him and I get irritated by the out of control dogs. But we actually had a lovely time - he was very attentive and I felt very smug as he sat and stayed until I released him to chase his ball. We did the same today but I think my expectations were a bit high on the back of yesterday and he wasn't as good and was a bit selectively deaf on the recall. So we went back to basics and did some recalls on the hill in the rain this afternoon without distractions from other dogs. Have to remind myself not to push things too fast - not too good at this proofing lark


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## Freddie and frank

Freddie has had the all clear from the vets. YIPPEE. 
No more ear drops or cleaning for two weeks. We have a final check in two weeks then that's that. Can't believe it almost came to surgery. I'm so relieved. 

Training went well...ish. 
Recall, two min stay, playing with toy and giving it up, walking under control, coming away from distractions, but bella jumped up and kissed the instructor when she said hello to her. :nono:
I've got my work cut out with that one. 

Need a bit of a rant, sorry. 
Wouldn't it be better if everyone used positive reinforcement instead of just raising their voice and giving no praise. Winds me up and doesn't impress me.  bit cryptic sorry but it's a public forum if you know what I mean.


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## diefenbaker

I told you we needed a big log...


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## Twiggy

Got back from the agility show about an hour ago and I'm now shattered.

I had a brilliant day though, catching up with some old 'obedience' friends and making some new agility ones.

Holly was a little star. We did 3 classes and she went clear in all of them, including placed 5th in the jumping and 8th in the agility. I came home before the results of the last class were in so we may well have been placed in that too. I pulled her out of the power and speed class as it was getting late and I thought we'd quit whilst we were ahead.

Barley was also a good girl, considering she's hardly been off the premises since arriving here at the end of October. She took it all in her stride and I even took her in the 'pay on the day' practice ring so she had a jump round too.

I must be getting a bit fitter because I was on my feet for most of the 7.1/2 hours including training Tremor and Barley between runs with Holly and walking them all a few times....LOL Still can't run fast enough though - it's so frustrating.


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## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> Got back from the agility show about an hour ago and I'm now shattered.
> 
> I had a brilliant day though, catching up with some old 'obedience' friends and making some new agility ones.
> 
> Holly was a little star. We did 3 classes and she went clear in all of them, including placed 5th in the jumping and 8th in the agility. I came home before the results of the last class were in so we may well have been placed in that too. I pulled her out of the power and speed class as it was getting late and I thought we'd quit whilst we were ahead.
> 
> Barley was also a good girl, considering she's hardly been off the premises since arriving here at the end of October. She took it all in her stride and I even took her in the 'pay on the day' practice ring so she had a jump round too.
> 
> I must be getting a bit fitter because I was on my feet for most of the 7.1/2 hours including training Tremor and Barley between runs with Holly and walking them all a few times....LOL Still can't run fast enough though - it's so frustrating.


Sounds exhausting! I'm impressed.

Little doglet is really stressed today. Barking at everything. Had a stroppy episode on the walk for the first time in a while. The adaptil diffuser ran out a couple of days ago and we thought we'd see how he got on without it. I guess it does make a difference (although it could be coincidence). Off to the pet shop to get another first thing tomorrow I think. Poor boy.


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Sounds exhausting! I'm impressed.
> 
> Little doglet is really stressed today. Barking at everything. Had a stroppy episode on the walk for the first time in a while. The adaptil diffuser ran out a couple of days ago and we thought we'd see how he got on without it. I guess it does make a difference (although it could be coincidence). Off to the pet shop to get another first thing tomorrow I think. Poor boy.


Oh dear. I'm sorry you haven't had a very good day.


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## diefenbaker

Well.. it was a bit fresh at the beach today. Dief went with his Springer friends Will and Bow. They buggered off to the sea when they weren't meant to. Dief didn't :thumbsup: Gundogs 0 Demi-Mute 1.

This is my current desktop picture... not from today.. but this is Dief and Bow in the sea.


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## lupie

diefenbaker said:


> Well.. it was a bit fresh at the beach today. Dief went with his Springer friends Will and Bow. They buggered off to the sea when they weren't meant to. Dief didn't :thumbsup: Gundogs 0 Demi-Mute 1.
> 
> This is my current desktop picture... not from today.. but this is Dief and Bow in the sea.


Stunning photo :thumbsup:


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## diefenbaker

lupie said:


> Stunning photo :thumbsup:


I can't actually take credit for it.. it was Bow's owner took it.. he's got a proper piece of SLR kit and knows how to use it


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## Twiggy

diefenbaker said:


> I can't actually take credit for it.. it was Bow's owner took it.. he's got a proper piece of SLR kit and knows how to use it


Well whoever took it, it's a truly stunning pic...


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## Sarahliz100

Oooh obedience was really fun tonight!!! We did intro to scent work and Tryfan loved it. He won the competition at the end (quickest dog to find the treat) and was super focused on his task - I decided to try it off lead (most of the dogs were on a long line) and he was great. 

I've also signed us up for a 6 week intro to agility course (for puppies under 12 months so no jumping/weaving). Really excited - he loves running/jumping/climbing so am hoping he'll take to it. Starts on Friday - Yay!


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Oooh obedience was really fun tonight!!! We did intro to scent work and Tryfan loved it. He won the competition at the end (quickest dog to find the treat) and was super focused on his task - I decided to try it off lead (most of the dogs were on a long line) and he was great.
> 
> I've also signed us up for a 6 week intro to agility course (for puppies under 12 months so no jumping/weaving). Really excited - he loves running/jumping/climbing so am hoping he'll take to it. Starts on Friday - Yay!


Pleased you had a good time at training and well done Tryfan on winning the scent competition.

I'm sure he'll love agility too.

I took Barley to class this afternoon and gave her a run round over low jumps and the tunnel. She was pretty good.


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## Freddie and frank

WAYWO on page 6...  

Hope everyone is ok.

Does it just 'click' one day ??
I ask, because after a few truly awful trainers, blood shed, tears, tantrums, PF advice, consistency, and nearly 6 years.....i think it finally has with Frank. :thumbup: I'm thinking oh my god, we've actually had an amazing breakthrough. 

This last week, his on lead walks have been...well...excellent. No pulling, no reacting to other dogs, cats, flying bags, etc, etc,. We do always cross over or divert if we see on coming dogs. 
About 3 years ago, every time we saw other dogs, he would go mental. He would bark, growl, jump up at me and bite my hands. It used to bring me to tears at the end of each walk. Since being on PF, i've picked up a lot of good advice and used it. We do a lot of 'watch me' and keeping calm.

He's become so much better on off lead walks too. Really focusing on me...except when there's a muddy puddle that needs sitting in :scared:
The only thing that concerns me is over doing it. He would fetch a ball all day long, and i do limit this, but on the other hand this is what's kept him focused on me. His tennis ball...only the kong squeaker one...is like a piece of steak to him. I'm going to book him in for another chiropractor visit soon, just for a check up.

sorry for the long post, but one one hand i'm thinking 'yes, it's finally clicked with Frank' and on the other i'm thinking 'is he ill, cause he's really calm on his walks' 
He does follow me around a lot more so i'm hoping he thinks i'm the best thing since sliced bread...which is great. 

oh, and i think he has a hot spot so off to the vets this morning.


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## Nicki85

f&f- Sshhh but Rusty is also being really calm on walks  and spending his whole time pestering me for his kong safe stix. Fabulous BUT now it takes twice as long to do our normal route lol.


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## Sarahliz100

Freddie and frank said:


> WAYWO on page 6...
> 
> Hope everyone is ok.
> 
> Does it just 'click' one day ??
> I ask, because after a few truly awful trainers, blood shed, tears, tantrums, PF advice, consistency, and nearly 6 years.....i think it finally has with Frank. :thumbup: I'm thinking oh my god, we've actually had an amazing breakthrough.
> 
> This last week, his on lead walks have been...well...excellent. No pulling, no reacting to other dogs, cats, flying bags, etc, etc,. We do always cross over or divert if we see on coming dogs.
> About 3 years ago, every time we saw other dogs, he would go mental. He would bark, growl, jump up at me and bite my hands. It used to bring me to tears at the end of each walk. Since being on PF, i've picked up a lot of good advice and used it. We do a lot of 'watch me' and keeping calm.
> 
> He's become so much better on off lead walks too. Really focusing on me...except when there's a muddy puddle that needs sitting in :scared:
> The only thing that concerns me is over doing it. He would fetch a ball all day long, and i do limit this, but on the other hand this is what's kept him focused on me. His tennis ball...only the kong squeaker one...is like a piece of steak to him. I'm going to book him in for another chiropractor visit soon, just for a check up.
> 
> sorry for the long post, but one one hand i'm thinking 'yes, it's finally clicked with Frank' and on the other i'm thinking 'is he ill, cause he's really calm on his walks'
> He does follow me around a lot more so i'm hoping he thinks i'm the best thing since sliced bread...which is great.
> 
> oh, and i think he has a hot spot so off to the vets this morning.


Yes whenever Tryfan is particularly calm my first thought is generally that he must be ill! Couldn't possibly be all the training paying off.......


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## Twiggy

Well done girls (F&F, Sarahliz and Nicki85) it does sound as if all your hard work is paying off.

I've spent most of the afternoon glitzing sendaway markers, sorting out retrieve articles and scent cloths ready for my two day judging stint this week-end. The judges and competitors are also expected to glam up and wear bling....!! Sadly I don't do sparkly normally and will have to rummage through my wardrobe tonight to try and find something. I do have a fairly blingy jacket that I wore at Crufts the second time I competed with Quiver but whether I can still get in it remains to be seen....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

Is this thread dying now?......!!

Just to say I'm absolutely shattered but have had a brilliant two days judging at the new British Competitive Obedience Society Show.

The atmosphere was electric, the trophies and rosettes were amazing and the dogs were fantastic. It was like a mini Crufts and I loved every minute of it.:thumbup:


----------



## diefenbaker

Twiggy said:


> Is this thread dying now?......!!


Charging 200. CLEAR !!!!

I'm working on drowning my dog. I throw this into the sea but he always makes it back.


----------



## Fluffster

Not much to report here, back from holiday on Monday and have had a quiet week! Daisy seems to be calming down a little bit (unless OH lies on the floor, which sends her into a frenzy!)


----------



## Freddie and frank

I flippin hope this thred ain't dying. 

All ok here. 
I had my behaviourily challenged nephew at my house toady. rrr:
Bella took an instant dislike to him for some reason. He is honestly naughty, so I took him and bella out into the garden together and gave him the whistle. 
Sort of challenged his 'naughtiness'. .....so to speak. 

Under my instruction, he asked bella to sit, we threw the dummy, she 'found it', he whistled 3 times,she retrieved it, and gave it to us. 
Dyou know, just spending a few minutes with him, and showing what he could do was amazing and so rewarding.
eta...I was with him ata all times and supervising.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Not much going on here. I've been a bit lax on the training front to be honest - OH has had a few days off work and we've just been having nice fun walks. Tryfan is starting to develop a love of water - loving rescuing his precious tennis ball from the river. He won't swim though so if the water gets too deep he looks for help. Generally very pleased with his doggy interactions - he's not barrelling off all gung-ho anymore so I have time to decide whether to let him approach or not. Providing they are off lead I mostly let him go greet these days and I think he's mostly nice and polite. He will occasionally not take the hint that they've had enough so I have to be ready to go and retrieve him, but mostly I think it's all very positive. I'm trying very hard not to be one of those inconsiderate "he's friendly!!!" owners though.....

I've finally finished radiotherapy so don't have to traipse to the hospital everyday. Hurrah. So 6 weeks left for full on training before I go back to work leaving my perfectly trained little angel (yeah right) to go out with a dog walker.....


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Not much going on here. * I've been a bit lax on the training front to be honest - OH has had a few days off work and *we've just been having nice fun walks. Tryfan is starting to develop a love of water - loving rescuing his precious tennis ball from the river. He won't swim though so if the water gets too deep he looks for help. Generally very pleased with his doggy interactions - he's not barrelling off all gung-ho anymore so I have time to decide whether to let him approach or not. Providing they are off lead I mostly let him go greet these days and I think he's mostly nice and polite. He will occasionally not take the hint that they've had enough so I have to be ready to go and retrieve him, but mostly I think it's all very positive. I'm trying very hard not to be one of those inconsiderate "he's friendly!!!" owners though.....
> 
> I've finally finished radiotherapy so don't have to traipse to the hospital everyday. Hurrah. So 6 weeks left for full on training before I go back to work leaving my perfectly trained little angel (yeah right) to go out with a dog walker.....


Yes I've been extremely lax on the training front in that I haven't touched the girls for a week. I've just been too busy. The judging stint took a lot of preparation and I've been out all week-end.

Well done on finishing your radiotherapy and hopefully all that will be behind you now.


----------



## Fluffster

I've also done almost nowt on the training front  Although we did have a bash at some non-verbal commands today and she picked up sit and lie down quite nicely. Probably because I had ham in my hand :lol:


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> Yes I've been extremely lax on the training front in that I haven't touched the girls for a week. I've just been too busy. The judging stint took a lot of preparation and I've been out all week-end.
> 
> Well done on finishing your radiotherapy and hopefully all that will be behind you now.


Thanks.

He's been a good boy today, hoping it lasts for obedience tonight. Played around in the river this morning with his ball and practiced some recalls. Braved the park on the longline this afternoon. Got the usual disapproving looks from some of the people at the park for having him on a longline - they seem to think I must be either inept for needing to use the line (although his recall is better than half the dogs at the park, just not as good as I'd like it), or cruel for not allowing him to run riot. We did meet a nice lady with some sort of huge wolfhound puppy who stopped to ask me about the longline - she was struggling with recall and was wondering if it might be worth trying. Yay.

He also managed a reasonable pretence of being a nice calm dog at pets at home until we were stuck in the queue and loads of people came to fuss him. I had my arms full of dog food and toys so was struggling somewhat and wishing I'd left him in the car! He is however now the proud owner of the squeaky snake made famous by Daisy.


----------



## Fluffster

Ooh how is he enjoying said snake?! Ours has no head anymore, but the rest is still intact and played with regularly!

We are just back from braving the v popular park. It wasn't actually too busy today as weather isn't great, but we had a lot of ball throwing and Daisy was very good and didn't approach any other dogs. We met a gorgeous little Scottie dog called Maisie near the end, she was only 8 months and bless her, had no recall. Once she spied another dog, she was off across the park, her little legs going like the clappers! I gave some advice to her owners (she's their first dog) about recall and using a longline, and some good websites so hopefully that helps them out.. Daisy was very good, she just lay there and watched as Maisie hurtled off to another dog :lol: although did get confused as she kept thinking Maisie=Daisy and was going to the other people expecting a treat when they called!


----------



## Sarahliz100

He likes the snake! Although maybe a bit too much as I've seen a little glint of the old resource guarding on occasion with it for the first time in a while....... Just a tense body posture on occasion - no growling/snapping so I'm seeing how it goes.

He's been such a good boy, I'm really proud. We had obedience on Monday, and we did some offlead heelwork for the first time there and he was great. Tues we had intro to agility which he loved and was really good for. Yesterday we managed recall away from a thrown ball and thrown treats which was a first. Today we did some more of that and lots of off lead heelwork at the park (well dragging the longline) and he was super attentive. 

He did want to run off after a couple of cocker spaniels (but I was a meanie and didn't let him). He adores cocker spaniels - if I'm ever brave enough to get another dog I think it might have to be a working cocker!


----------



## Fluffster

Spaniels love other spaniels, I think! Daisy's favourite dogs are other spaniels  Sounds like he's doing well  

I've slacked off big time on training lately  I should be focussing on her traffic sensitivity and lead work but I've been purposely avoiding both scenarios for an easy life  I need to sort myself out!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> He likes the snake! Although maybe a bit too much as I've seen a little glint of the old resource guarding on occasion with it for the first time in a while....... Just a tense body posture on occasion - no growling/snapping so I'm seeing how it goes.
> 
> He's been such a good boy, I'm really proud. We had obedience on Monday, and we did some offlead heelwork for the first time there and he was great. Tues we had intro to agility which he loved and was really good for. Yesterday we managed recall away from a thrown ball and thrown treats which was a first. Today we did some more of that and lots of off lead heelwork at the park (well dragging the longline) and he was super attentive.
> 
> He did want to run off after a couple of cocker spaniels (but I was a meanie and didn't let him). He adores cocker spaniels - if I'm ever brave enough to get another dog I think it might have to be a working cocker!


There were some fabulous spaniels entered at the British Competitive Obedience Show at the week-end. A lovely Cocker bitch who was placed in my Pre-Beginner class and a loony Springer dog with oodles of drive and commitment. He went on to win Class B on the Sunday.


----------



## lupie

Sorry I've just gone off on a liking spree - sorry if I've spammed anyone!

Sounds like there's been some good goings on here 

I miss this thread!

Have some Pupdates to keep you all amused: 
R having some fun with her pups:








Me in puppy bliss:








And again:








The lone brown:

















It's so lovely now I can go over there. Ruska has developed a few bad habits being over there - namely rushing up barking to people  She's currently living with 4 other dogs there so I think it's a pack mentality thing as they all do it. Will be working on that the moment she comes home! 

Hope you all WAYWO-ers are doing well


----------



## Fluffster

Ohhhh they are gorgeous, so chunky and fluffy! How tempted are you to steal one? :lol:


----------



## lupie

Fluffster said:


> Ohhhh they are gorgeous, so chunky and fluffy! How tempted are you to steal one? :lol:


I almost want to cry every time I leave 

Especially Mivvi - the one in the last photo - she's going to be a mini-Ruska. Adorable.

I've met all the new puppy owners now though and they are just wonderful. They are all going to amazing homes


----------



## Twiggy

Oh Lupie you must be so proud of Ruska. The pups are beautiful.


----------



## lupie

Where are all the WAYWO-ers?  


Ruska is home.  so will be working on a lot of things again...!


----------



## Fluffster

I'm here! Daisy is in season so we haven't been doing much. Been doing some target training with her for flyball, she's picking it up quite quickly! Otherwise we've just been snuggling on sofa watching TV together 

You must be glad to have Ruska home again!


----------



## Bagrat

Lupie, the pups are so gorgeous, so glad they have all got super homes and you've had a chance to meet the new guardians. I'm only dashing in and out as am on on line course ( dog related) with it's own forum so a bit hectic.

Went for a structured walk with our behaviourist last week with her young dog to practice parallel walking. I didn't know how Jackson would be but in fact by the end of the walk having started 40 yards from each other, we ended up about 12-15 feet apart. I explained I couldn't tell if J wanted to play with other dogs or make sure they were leaving and her thoughts were that he is conflicted and doesn't know himself because he is so anxious in new situations. She's suggested we try Kalm Aid which we have started ( I've been away this week - just back) so will see how he is on walks tomorrow.
Anyone used it? We are to concentrate on fun training.
Will try to catch up with everyone else tomorrow.


----------



## Twiggy

Bagrat said:


> Lupie, the pups are so gorgeous, so glad they have all got super homes and you've had a chance to meet the new guardians. I'm only dashing in and out as am on on line course ( dog related) with it's own forum so a bit hectic.
> 
> Went for a structured walk with our behaviourist last week with her young dog to practice parallel walking. I didn't know how Jackson would be but in fact by the end of the walk having started 40 yards from each other, we ended up about 12-15 feet apart. I explained I couldn't tell if J wanted to play with other dogs or make sure they were leaving and her thoughts were that he is conflicted and doesn't know himself because he is so anxious in new situations. She's suggested we try Kalm Aid which we have started ( I've been away this week - just back) so will see how he is on walks tomorrow.
> Anyone used it? We are to concentrate on fun training.
> Will try to catch up with everyone else tomorrow.


Yes I gave Kalm Aid a go with Tremor for her fear of travelling. It didn't make any difference but to be fair neither did anything else, apart from Valium.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Those are some spectacularly gorgeous puppies.

Things are good here. We've started agility so are working on right and left commands which is going quite well. Also doing lots of work on being calm around other dogs which is also coming along - I've found a really big park where most of the dogs are under control which is a great place for training.

Practicing recall a lot. Recall from other dogs is still too much to ask if they are in close proximity, but I'm trying lots of other "recall games". We're doing sit-throw ball (or food) - recall away from ball (or food) which he's nailed, and also recall past food/toy which he can do no problem too. Anyone got any other suggestions?


----------



## shadowmare

We are working on a few things for obedience as well as agility. And in between we both are working on our summer bodies:laugh:


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Those are some spectacularly gorgeous puppies.
> 
> Things are good here. We've started agility so are working on right and left commands which is going quite well. Also doing lots of work on being calm around other dogs which is also coming along - I've found a really big park where most of the dogs are under control which is a great place for training.
> 
> Practicing recall a lot. Recall from other dogs is still too much to ask if they are in close proximity, but I'm trying lots of other "recall games". We're doing sit-throw ball (or food) - recall away from ball (or food) which he's nailed, and also recall past food/toy which he can do no problem too. Anyone got any other suggestions?


Sounds as if you're doing very well without further suggestions.

How much distraction training goes on at your obedience class?

For instance can you keep your dog's attention on heelwork with the instructor/another dog and handler squeaking a toy alongside you?

Will your dog recall if the instructor rolled a ball or tit-bit between you and your dog just as you've called him?

Etc. etc. etc.


----------



## missnaomi

This is back!! I am so glad - I was looking for this thread for ages!! Where was it hiding??!


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## Twiggy

missnaomi said:


> This is back!! I am so glad - I was looking for this thread for ages!! Where was it hiding??!


Several pages back......!!

Sadly the founder members don't seem to post these days.


----------



## missnaomi

Twiggy said:


> Is this thread dying now?......!!
> 
> Just to say I'm absolutely shattered but have had a brilliant two days judging at the new British Competitive Obedience Society Show.
> 
> The atmosphere was electric, the trophies and rosettes were amazing and the dogs were fantastic. It was like a mini Crufts and I loved every minute of it.:thumbup:


It can't die now! I just found it again 

Tell us more about the event Twiggy! Is there anywhere that we can see photos?


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> Sounds as if you're doing very well without further suggestions.
> 
> How much distraction training goes on at your obedience class?
> 
> For instance can you keep your dog's attention on heelwork with the instructor/another dog and handler squeaking a toy alongside you?
> 
> Will your dog recall if the instructor rolled a ball or tit-bit between you and your dog just as you've called him?
> 
> Etc. etc. etc.


His stay is pretty solid at obedience class with all sorts of distractions, and heelwork past distractions is coming on but not perfect, but we don't do much recall there - it's mostly on lead. We're actually having a bit of a break from obedience whilst we have a brief agility stint (couldn't really justify paying for 2 classes a week as they're not the cheapest). Still, I figure he's still having to concentrate on me around other dogs at agility. Meanwhile we'll be plugging away at obedience exercises out on walks as he's now able to concentrate outdoors better.

I'll enlist my OH to throw some extra distractions in. A moving ball will be a challenge - he'll stay whilst a ball is thrown then recall, but I think if he was on the move whilst it was thrown he would automatically divert to chasing. I guess we just start with a tiny gentle roll and progress........


----------



## JenKyzer

* Adding our bit to try and keep this thread alive  *

I really hope all is ok with everyone ?? 

We've been v quiet for a while... Willows paws are still not 100% - we are on anti-histamines and waiting for fur to grow back now.. also going back to basics with Raw feeding so just chicken, tripe and fish for a month to see if that helps. My next idea was going to a decent kibble.. seems as looking back on pictures her hocks/paws started giving us grief once we'd started feeding Raw. So we will see how this works out first 

We've also decided to move house at the latest of July.. which i'm very excited about. Back to my family home where i grew up as my mum is buying a new house with her husband-to-be. So a lovely big house with a back yard and a *garden*  with a huge fields that are right next door with a little stream. Dog-owner heaven  and i'm happy that Willow knows the house and area anyway so it will be minimum stress for her.. My mum and sister are only moving the next street along so they are going to help with Willow during the day whilst we're at work which i think they're thrilled about - more so than us living closer, they just want Willow 

That's our 2 main big bits of 'news' 

Here's an easter themed picture 



That chick is 3years old; it was one of the first things Ste bought for me when we first started 'dating'  Willow loves (Aka - wants to throw it around and chew on it) it and we've been working on her not destroying things.. she seems to get the idea this isn't hers to destroy and had a lazy afternoon on the setee with it all snuggled up :001_wub:


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> * Adding our bit to try and keep this thread alive  *
> 
> I really hope all is ok with everyone ??
> 
> We've been v quiet for a while... Willows paws are still not 100% - we are on anti-histamines and waiting for fur to grow back now.. also going back to basics with Raw feeding so just chicken, tripe and fish for a month to see if that helps. My next idea was going to a decent kibble.. seems as looking back on pictures her hocks/paws started giving us grief once we'd started feeding Raw. So we will see how this works out first
> 
> We've also decided to move house at the latest of July.. which i'm very excited about. Back to my family home where i grew up as my mum is buying a new house with her husband-to-be. So a lovely big house with a back yard and a *garden*  with a huge fields that are right next door with a little stream. Dog-owner heaven  and i'm happy that Willow knows the house and area anyway so it will be minimum stress for her.. My mum and sister are only moving the next street along so they are going to help with Willow during the day whilst we're at work which i think they're thrilled about - more so than us living closer, they just want Willow
> 
> That's our 2 main big bits of 'news'
> 
> Poor Willow. Sorry to hear she's still having problems.
> 
> Really exciting news about your house move though. You must be thrilled.


----------



## Bagrat

Jen I am a weird one who loves moving house. We've been here 15 years and it's the longest I've lived anywhere. But it's perfect for us. Sorry about Willow's feet.
Went and got my Arboretum annual pass today and discovered I can "Swipe" my way in 2 hours before the pay by the day guys and before cafe opens.
Cafe is by exit and today we had to lurk in a sinister fashion while two dogs and owners enjoyed a snack outside. The whole area is deer proofed so it's the only way out. J was totally on edge with this fairly new experience so any leaf, twig, person on horizon was cause for concern.
This aft he coped well with two dogs one at a reasonable distance for him another came up behind us in the street but I managed to break into a shambling trot with him grabbing the lead till we reached a good distance with no noise at least!!


----------



## diefenbaker

Monsieur Dief has been in France for a week.. but no WiFi gratuit. Center Parcs.. 4 humans.. 1 dog.. 3 bikes. Hmm.. something doesn't quite add up there. Dief did a lot of running :eek6:... boy can he fly when Mum is ahead.


----------



## lupie

Glad everyone is doing so well from the sounds of things  

Ruska has come back a bit bonkers :eek6: The walks we've been on I've struggled to keep her in sight and only been able to because of the whistle-training that I've ingrained in her so we're focussing on keeping that really top notch. 

She's obsessed with rabbits/squirrels more so than perhaps she was. I think I got used to walking a pregnant dog and now she's got so much energy and running everywhere at 100mph! 

She has re-started her habit of barking and charging up to other dogs, but we're rapidly making progress with that, I think she's suddenly remembered that we don't do that with me! I had her in a sit-stay whilst an offlead dog trotted past about 20 metres away earlier today.  

We also had an on-lead greeting  which I do my utmost to avoid because normally that results in teeth and fur! But it took us both by surprise as we came round a corner and couldn't avoid it, but luckily it was such a way I could thrust treats at her whilst saying "leave it" and hurrying her on quickly. Lots of praise afterwards, I'm not sure she really had time to process it all but either way I'll take it!


----------



## Maria_1986

I know I have not been around in forever but I just wanted to pop in and say a huge thank you to everyone who gave me advice and support on training Chevy.

We still have lots to work on and we are still far from perfect but we had our Pets as Therapy assessment recently and I was so proud of how far she has come. I don't know if we will be accepted but there was only one tiny pull on the lead (a bit different from her trying to strangle herself when I first got her), treats were taken gently and she was generally a well behaved dog that I was proud to be on the other end of the lead to. I still feel like the worlds worst dog owner on around half the days in a week but we are getting there slowly and I know that this thread is part of what kept me from beating myself up or feeling like a total failure in the beginning.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Maria - I'm not sure of Chevy's background but it all sounds good
Lupie - must be lovely to have Ruska back, hopefully you can get back on track pretty quickly. You must have done a great job with the whistle training though if that's still solid.
JSW - great news on the house. I'd love to get a house with a big garden for the dog. One day........ Willow looks angelic in the photo. Tryfan would have humped the chick into submission then destroyed it rapidly. He can't be trusted with fabric. I hope one day to be able to get the cushions out again....
Bagrat - the sinister lurking made me smile - I've been known to do that too and get funny looks

We've had a wonderful few days and I'm really happy. We've been going to a really big park over the last week or so working on being calm around distractions. With the fantastic weather this week, the school holidays and a funfair going on it has been REALLY busy this week. There have been children of every size, shape and colour, on bikes/scooters, in pushchairs, with balls, with ice-cream, squealing and running. Tryfan has been amazing - trotting right alongside me on a looselead looking completely relaxed and happy. It is ridiculous how proud I was walking down that path amidst all the chaos with him trotting next to me - shouldn't be a big deal, but it felt like a major milestone.

As he was so good yesterday I let him have some offlead time there today in some of the quieter areas and he was awesome - managed some offlead heelwork and some lovely stays/basic obedience exercises with other dogs running around on the periphery. We even managed to get working on a fledgling chase recall with his tennis ball - a work in progress (I can recall him right after throwing it before he gets too invested in chasing, but it's a starting point).

We had agility yesterday too. So much fun! He had his first go in the tunnels and had a blast. I was a bit sad that we didn't get to try out the right/left commands we've been working on - but there's always next week

Sorry, smug post. But I've made quite a few woeful disastrous posts when it's all been going horribly wrong, so I figure I should even it out a bit


----------



## Bagrat

SarahLiz - I love good news, sounds like a fab day. Many pats on the back for all your hard work. Come to think of it why is a pat on the back a reward anyway??
Maria - sounds like lots of progress Chevy sounds as if she's turning into a star. I am doing a course where we are being encouraged to turn everything round to a positive, so you must feel like the world's best dog owner on the other days?
Lupie -I'm sure you have everything in hand, how long do bitches hormones take to settle down after whelping?


----------



## JenKyzer

SarahL - Sounds amazing, well done to the both of you and enjoy being proud 

Lupie - Wow, sounds like a very excited Ruska  plenty to keep you on your toes, i'm sure you'll have her back to your standard in no time  

Dief - Sounds fab, Dief must have an amazing life - you always seem to be getting out and about and doing fun stuff  

J - had to laugh at you 'swiping' in before people arrived.. v well thought out  

Twiggy - What fun would having a dog be with no problems  always something to watch out for with this one.

Having a good week with her itchiness so far.. the anti stuff seems to be doing the job and she had a nice epi-soothe bath on monday so i'm sure that's probably helped  Her back right paw-pad seems to be worn down and cracked and causing a limp as she won't put too much pressure down on it.. any ideas whats best for sore pads? So no big walks for us anytime soon  i'll be glad when this 'one thing after another' period blummin stops! 

Walk wise... just the usual. Few scatty dog moments at 3 dogs this week.. the westie who she she has a mutual disliking with  a dog we haven't seen before who also disagree'd with her walking past him/her.. and the little yorkie dog which is never on a lead and always runs up to her... was on a lead!! :yikes: but there must be some hard feeling there as even from across the street she was pulling and whining towards it 

We had a lovely meet with Frank the bulldog y'day, we haven't seen him for a while and oh my, he's huge now!! We're meant to be going to a walk this evening with him so i'll try get some pics if the rain stays away - overcast today  . They met beautifully and Frank just wanted to play.. Willow was very waggy tailed and gave him a lick but then was more interested in getting on to the field and wasn't interested in poor Frank after that . 

Hope everyone has a good day


----------



## diefenbaker

JenSteWillow said:


> Dief - Sounds fab, Dief must have an amazing life - you always seem to be getting out and about and doing fun stuff


I think he's very lucky too. When I was a kid.. holiday once a year was 2 weeks Scout Camp. I looked forward to it and enjoyed it.

Nowadays I tend to work long hours and often away so plan lots of holidays in the UK and France.. and he always comes. Hoping to get him to the Alps next year.


----------



## Twiggy

Went to my first obedience show of the year yesterday. I had a good day meeting old friends and some of my late sister's, who all said how happy Barley looked with my girls, which was nice.

I only did training rounds as Tremor is so ring rusty, not having competed for 3 years, and Barley and I are still getting to know each other workwise.

We are all off to an agility show tomorrow - Holly's chance to perform....LOL


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy - sounds like you had a nice day at the obedience show  hopefully that rust will wear off and barley will settle right in and you can enjoy it even more. Hope Holly performs well for you tomorrow 

Dief - Sounds amazing 

No fun here at all. Willow is a bit of a mess so we're off to the vets next week.. going to ring on Monday to book us in. Back right paw, she still can't put pressure down onto the floor so is still limpy.. had it bandaged up with padding underneath so she could at least put her paw down hoping it would heal (ETA - i don't even know what needs to heal.. i can't see anything wrong with it, no cuts or scratches.. just looks a tad swollen compared to the left paw and one part is very sensitive to touch.. little bit of cracking but nothing the other paw doesn't have .. ) .. no such luck. As she's putting more pressure on her back left paw.. a funny lumpy-warty looking thing as formed inbetween her 'toes' which is very sore to touch and wouldn't stop bleeding last night - the scab came off part of it. So that paw was also bandaged up over night  On a plus note, she isn't itching, paw-licking or anything so at least she's leaving them alone. We're both bored to death though, nice weather and can't go anywhere ... I was going to try the beach tomorrow then at least it's soft for her to walk on - not sure if it's a good idea or not  but the back-yard is no fun  

Sorry for the crappy post!! I'm so jealous of everyones sunny picture threads :cryin: .. Hope your all having summery easter fun


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Twiggy - sounds like you had a nice day at the obedience show  hopefully that rust will wear off and barley will settle right in and you can enjoy it even more. Hope Holly performs well for you tomorrow
> 
> Dief - Sounds amazing
> 
> No fun here at all. Willow is a bit of a mess so we're off to the vets next week.. going to ring on Monday to book us in. Back right paw, she still can't put pressure down onto the floor so is still limpy.. had it bandaged up with padding underneath so she could at least put her paw down hoping it would heal (ETA - i don't even know what needs to heal.. i can't see anything wrong with it, no cuts or scratches.. just looks a tad swollen compared to the left paw and one part is very sensitive to touch.. little bit of cracking but nothing the other paw doesn't have .. ) .. no such luck. As she's putting more pressure on her back left paw.. a funny lumpy-warty looking thing as formed inbetween her 'toes' which is very sore to touch and wouldn't stop bleeding last night - the scab came off part of it. So that paw was also bandaged up over night  On a plus note, she isn't itching, paw-licking or anything so at least she's leaving them alone. We're both bored to death though, nice weather and can't go anywhere ... I was going to try the beach tomorrow then at least it's soft for her to walk on - not sure if it's a good idea or not  but the back-yard is no fun
> 
> Sorry for the crappy post!! I'm so jealous of everyones sunny picture threads :cryin: .. Hope your all having summery easter fun


I'm really sorry. Poor Willow and poor you. I saw your post about seeking the advice of an holistic vet and I personally think that's a good plan, as they are usually very good at dealing with skin complaints.


----------



## Bagrat

Jen - Sorry Willows foot thing is persistingI had a beagle years ago who had what was diagnosed as eczema between his pads - though I didn't know anything back then so who knows. Nothing worked ( it was 40 years ago) steroid injections, kaolin poultices (that was fun) the only thing that did help was salt water soaks. Maybe the beach would be good!
Twiggy - great when other people see what you already know about Barley
We've had a quiet day today. Am trying all sorts of TTouches and wraps on Jackson ( and on me - I find them very relaxing). He likes some and not others.


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> I'm really sorry. Poor Willow and poor you. I saw your post about seeking the advice of an holistic vet and I personally think that's a good plan, as they are usually very good at dealing with skin complaints.


Thanks Twiggy  Some people have wrote their views in there which sound promising. Also keeping an eye on another thread which isn't keen on the idea of homeopathic methods, interesting views on both sides but i am looking forward to going, even if it is on unfortunate terms 

Bagrat - We've done a salt water paw-bath tonight.. and then some epi-soothe shampoo.. i'm hoping that's why the itching is keeping at bay  .. and wraps?? What are you up to? Like a thunder-shirt idea?


----------



## Bagrat

JenSteWillow said:


> Thanks Twiggy  Some people have wrote their views in there which sound promising. Also keeping an eye on another thread which isn't keen on the idea of homeopathic methods, interesting views on both sides but i am looking forward to going, even if it is on unfortunate terms
> 
> Bagrat - We've done a salt water paw-bath tonight.. and then some epi-soothe shampoo.. i'm hoping that's why the itching is keeping at bay  .. and wraps?? What are you up to? Like a thunder-shirt idea?


Yes, same idea as thundershirt. Jackson has had a go before at his first behavioural session ages ago, it's all part of TTouch and helping your dog know where his body is in relation to the world, or like swaddling a baby for comfort. Some people on the course have had amazing results. J likes some of the TTouches but not all, ditto the wraps but I have found them amazing for aches and pains and neck tension etc for me.

Hope feet get a bit better soon.


----------



## Twiggy

Just got back from the agility show. The weather was pretty awful; damp, windy and cold.

Holly went clear in all her runs and ended up third in the Triple A class. She was quite naughty though, launching herself at me and biting between jumps.

I put Barley in the jumping class 'not for competition' as it was only jumps and tunnels and she went clear, bless her. In fact she did a better time than Holly which was brilliant considering it was her first time in the ring.

I must be getting fitter as I ran five times plus I took Tremor into the back field and trained her and Barley.


----------



## Bagrat

Twiggy I am in awe of your fitness - I break into a shambling trot rather than run at all!!


----------



## lupie

Sorry to hear about Willow JSW! Hope it improves.

Well done Twiggy! 

Things are so-so here....I went on a lovely bluebell walk on Friday but she was awful. I was not in control at all, she ignored the whistle, half climbed a tree after a squirrel.... she ended up on lead and then pulled literally the entire rest of walk 

Then had a nice walk on Saturday morning - we did a canal walk so she didn't have too many places to bugger off to. She is definitely even more prey-obsessed than before she left. But overall a nice walk. We did some sit-stays and some down-stays in a park whilst dogs were playing in the distance. She did bark but stayed put and took treats. 

Had a walk at a National Trust place later that day where she had to be onlead the whole time. She pulled a lot! Had some nice passbys though apart from one which was way too close and nothing I could do so she snarled/barked. 

Today we went to the beach  She was a star - I guess nothing for her to chase so she actually walked a lot of the walk by my side which never happens. 

She did run up to a bunch of 3 flatcoats, who delightedly ran around her and sniffed her and I think she decided she'd bitten off more than she could chew, she just kinda stood there barking looking a bit bewildered as these 3 giant flatcoats sniffed her haha! 

Lots and lots of things for us to work on it seems! :glare:


----------



## Twiggy

lupie said:


> Sorry to hear about Willow JSW! Hope it improves.
> 
> Well done Twiggy!
> 
> Things are so-so here....I went on a lovely bluebell walk on Friday but she was awful. I was not in control at all, she ignored the whistle, half climbed a tree after a squirrel.... she ended up on lead and then pulled literally the entire rest of walk
> 
> Then had a nice walk on Saturday morning - we did a canal walk so she didn't have too many places to bugger off to. She is definitely even more prey-obsessed than before she left. But overall a nice walk. We did some sit-stays and some down-stays in a park whilst dogs were playing in the distance. She did bark but stayed put and took treats.
> 
> Had a walk at a National Trust place later that day where she had to be onlead the whole time. She pulled a lot! Had some nice passbys though apart from one which was way too close and nothing I could do so she snarled/barked.
> 
> Today we went to the beach  She was a star - I guess nothing for her to chase so she actually walked a lot of the walk by my side which never happens.
> 
> She did run up to a bunch of 3 flatcoats, who delightedly ran around her and sniffed her and I think she decided she'd bitten off more than she could chew, she just kinda stood there barking looking a bit bewildered as these 3 giant flatcoats sniffed her haha!
> 
> Lots and lots of things for us to work on it seems! :glare:


Oh dear that's a shame as you were doing so well before she had the pups.

Hopefully things will improve with a bit of training.


----------



## Sarahliz100

JSW - poor Willow with her itchiness. tryfan had a horrible spate of itchiness lasting months when we first got him. It was eventually diagnosed as sarcoptic mange and he was like a different dog when it was finally treated.

lupie - hope things get back on track soon. Maybe stick to the easier walks where she's less tempted to go off hunting for a bit?

twiggy - all the agility sounds very impressive

Bagrat - we're doing some TTouch too (or we're supposed to be but I've slacked off a bit........)

We've had a great bank holiday weekend. He's had his first mountain day in Snowdonia on Friday in the sun. He was pretty good, recalling nicely etc. we did have an incident when he got a bit possessive over some poo (human I think - yuck) and my OHs friend who was walking with us went to pull him away - both me and OH shrieked "NOOO" simultaneously and terrified the poor guy, but disaster was averted. The pupstar and I didn't do the whole walk as it was a bit far for him so we chilled out at the cafe at the bottom for a while and he was nice and relaxed whilst lots of people and dogs buzzed around. We stopped off at the beach on the way home too - tired pup by the end! 

We had some more nice walks in the sun, not much to report apart from he did his first bit of swimming. Recall and lead walking pretty good at the moment.

Agility tonight. Apparently we're doing eggs and peanuts?!?!? A bit of googling leads me to believe this is possibly stability ball related, but we'll see!


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> JSW - poor Willow with her itchiness. tryfan had a horrible spate of itchiness lasting months when we first got him. It was eventually diagnosed as sarcoptic mange and he was like a different dog when it was finally treated.
> 
> lupie - hope things get back on track soon. Maybe stick to the easier walks where she's less tempted to go off hunting for a bit?
> 
> twiggy - all the agility sounds very impressive
> 
> Bagrat - we're doing some TTouch too (or we're supposed to be but I've slacked off a bit........)
> 
> We've had a great bank holiday weekend. He's had his first mountain day in Snowdonia on Friday in the sun. He was pretty good, recalling nicely etc. we did have an incident when he got a bit possessive over some poo (human I think - yuck) and my OHs friend who was walking with us went to pull him away - both me and OH shrieked "NOOO" simultaneously and terrified the poor guy, but disaster was averted. The pupstar and I didn't do the whole walk as it was a bit far for him so we chilled out at the cafe at the bottom for a while and he was nice and relaxed whilst lots of people and dogs buzzed around. We stopped off at the beach on the way home too - tired pup by the end!
> 
> We had some more nice walks in the sun, not much to report apart from he did his first bit of swimming. Recall and lead walking pretty good at the moment.
> 
> Agility tonight. Apparently we're doing eggs and peanuts?!?!? A bit of googling leads me to believe this is possibly stability ball related, but we'll see!


Come on then now you're back from agility explain eggs and peanuts....


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> Come on then now you're back from agility explain eggs and peanuts....


Eggs and peanuts postponed until next week. A google search lead me to believe they are egg and peanut shaped stability balls. I guess I'll have to wait to find out for sure though.....!

We did the dogwalk instead, which was fun. He's not at all phased by it. We've been practising dropping to a sit on command whilst walking at heel - I was pleased he was able to transfer it to dropping to a sit on command whilst trotting along the dogwalk. Yay


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Eggs and peanuts postponed until next week. A google search lead me to believe they are egg and peanut shaped stability balls. I guess I'll have to wait to find out for sure though.....!
> 
> We did the dogwalk instead, which was fun. He's not at all phased by it. We've been practising dropping to a sit on command whilst walking at heel - I was pleased he was able to transfer it to dropping to a sit on command whilst trotting along the dogwalk. Yay


That's good. Barley isn't phased by any of the contact equipment either, in fact she's almost too brave for her own good. Holly, on the other hand, makes a big trauma out of the dog walk, although to be fair she did fall off one at a show in the winter.


----------



## missnaomi

Twiggy said:


> That's good. Barley isn't phased by any of the contact equipment either, in fact she's almost too brave for her own good. Holly, on the other hand, makes a big trauma out of the dog walk, although to be fair she did fall off one at a show in the winter.


I'm a bit out of sync... who's Barley?


----------



## JenKyzer

I'll do a little selfish post first then a nice one for everyone 

We went to the vets and i was pleased with the vet.. but i'm unsure on our news.. lots to take in and i'm not sure whether to be upset about some issues coming to light on her back right leg.. all the rambling info is on this thread - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-heal...-vets-skin-ears-lump-limp.html#post1063651265 - if you wanted to have a look  didnt want to bog down this thread with it all  but.. the lump isn't anything to worry about, wahoo :thumbsup:

Still boring here due to the limp. Tomorrows gunna be no better. I need some ideas on fun stuff i can do that isn't going to make issues worse  i'm so fed up of not doing much! Specially when Willow really wants to run free.. then even after her potter around she crys and the limp really makes walking a struggle soo she then pants. :sad:

On another crazy note :crazy: ... the OH has persuaded me that we are getting a puppy :scared: i'm petrified. But he is sooo blummin cute  .. (Its from the GSD who was rescued and they didnt know she was pregnant and they come down to puppies in the morning...) i went to see them the other night and they are so big, walking around and playing now :001_wub: i wanted to take them all home! I am just about sold on the idea and i know i must be insane to give in ut: .. but i couldnt imagine him going to a better home than us tbh  saves him going to some down n outs.. or having to go through a rescue process.. plus we're not funding a BYB or anything sooo... *here he is....*



So my plans of a well bred shar-pei pup to work towards showing are well and truely on hold now. I'm sure he'll keep me occupied when he comes to us in 4weeks. He's crossed with something but it could be anything and he doesn't have a name yet  we have ideas but we cant agree :lol:

so thats my selfish post done. 

Hope everyone is ok and having a better week than us! x


----------



## JenKyzer

Bagrat - The wraps sound great  as does the TTouch. Hows it going?

Twiggy - Your agility did sound like a tiring day - your fitness would probably put me to shame! Well done to Barley for showing her potential  as for holly... well... bless her  good result with 3rd though!

Lupie - A mixed little bag but it does sound like shes having fun  Lots to keep you busy with whilst the sun is out!

SarahL - your BH weekend at snowdonia sounds lovely  (except the poo bit ) You've got me waiting for the eggs and peanuts bit now too, sounds interesting  Glad agility and the walk went well.


----------



## Sarahliz100

JenSteWillow said:


> I'll do a little selfish post first then a nice one for everyone
> 
> We went to the vets and i was pleased with the vet.. but i'm unsure on our news.. lots to take in and i'm not sure whether to be upset about some issues coming to light on her back right leg.. all the rambling info is on this thread - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-heal...-vets-skin-ears-lump-limp.html#post1063651265 - if you wanted to have a look  didnt want to bog down this thread with it all  but.. the lump isn't anything to worry about, wahoo :thumbsup:
> 
> Still boring here due to the limp. Tomorrows gunna be no better. I need some ideas on fun stuff i can do that isn't going to make issues worse  i'm so fed up of not doing much! Specially when Willow really wants to run free.. then even after her potter around she crys and the limp really makes walking a struggle soo she then pants. :sad:
> 
> On another crazy note :crazy: ... the OH has persuaded me that we are getting a puppy :scared: i'm petrified. But he is sooo blummin cute  .. (Its from the GSD who was rescued and they didnt know she was pregnant and they come down to puppies in the morning...) i went to see them the other night and they are so big, walking around and playing now :001_wub: i wanted to take them all home! I am just about sold on the idea and i know i must be insane to give in ut: .. but i couldnt imagine him going to a better home than us tbh  saves him going to some down n outs.. or having to go through a rescue process.. plus we're not funding a BYB or anything sooo... *here he is....*
> 
> 
> 
> So my plans of a well bred shar-pei pup to work towards showing are well and truely on hold now. I'm sure he'll keep me occupied when he comes to us in 4weeks. He's crossed with something but it could be anything and he doesn't have a name yet  we have ideas but we cant agree :lol:
> 
> so thats my selfish post done.
> 
> Hope everyone is ok and having a better week than us! x


Sorry Willow's still having a rough time. I skimmed your other post and noticed you said you were looking for insurance. I've been very pleased with petplan (have the lifetime cover) - they've paid out over £1000 for behavioural work for the lunatic pup without any problem. They also pay the vet directly so I've not had to stump up any money at all beyond the initial excess or bother about repeatedly sending in paperwork to claim money back. Don't know how they compare to others but I've certainly been happy with them.

That puppy is soooooooooo cute!!!!! Jealous (although not of the toilet training.......). Looks like he's gonna be a big lad - Tryfan was tiny at that age. Exciting!


----------



## Bagrat

JenSW - that is one chunky pup. What a lot to take in at the vets . Better stock up on dog gates as well as insurance or "chunky" will be interfering with the surgery when it's needed!!

We had what is a breakthrough for me and J today. I turned into our road with J to avoid a Weimeraner approaching only to find neighbour + Springer and grand daughter in push chair coming towards us at a distance of about 20 yards. Nowhere to retreat to apart from up someone's short drive where I stood between J and oncoming dog feeding him madly with rather ordinary treats.
They passed without incident on the other side of the road which is the best and closest he's ever done. J then watched the back of the Springer as it left and had to give a couple of barks, but no screams lunges or retreats. 
Have got a second wrap ( horse tail bandage) as was sharing one between me and J!! He seems to like them. The half body one he will go to sleep in but because his legs are sensitive to touch - though we practice each day, he was not keen on wearing scrunchies on his legs!!! I have yet to meet someone apart from the people on the course who don't think I'm leaning towards doggy witchcraft!:sad::confused1:


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> I'll do a little selfish post first then a nice one for everyone
> 
> We went to the vets and i was pleased with the vet.. but i'm unsure on our news.. lots to take in and i'm not sure whether to be upset about some issues coming to light on her back right leg.. all the rambling info is on this thread - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-heal...-vets-skin-ears-lump-limp.html#post1063651265 - if you wanted to have a look  didnt want to bog down this thread with it all  but.. the lump isn't anything to worry about, wahoo :thumbsup:
> 
> Still boring here due to the limp. Tomorrows gunna be no better. I need some ideas on fun stuff i can do that isn't going to make issues worse  i'm so fed up of not doing much! Specially when Willow really wants to run free.. then even after her potter around she crys and the limp really makes walking a struggle soo she then pants. :sad:
> 
> On another crazy note :crazy: ... the OH has persuaded me that we are getting a puppy :scared: i'm petrified. But he is sooo blummin cute  .. (Its from the GSD who was rescued and they didnt know she was pregnant and they come down to puppies in the morning...) i went to see them the other night and they are so big, walking around and playing now :001_wub: i wanted to take them all home! I am just about sold on the idea and i know i must be insane to give in ut: .. but i couldnt imagine him going to a better home than us tbh  saves him going to some down n outs.. or having to go through a rescue process.. plus we're not funding a BYB or anything sooo... *here he is....*
> 
> 
> 
> So my plans of a well bred shar-pei pup to work towards showing are well and truely on hold now. I'm sure he'll keep me occupied when he comes to us in 4weeks. He's crossed with something but it could be anything and he doesn't have a name yet  we have ideas but we cant agree :lol:
> 
> so thats my selfish post done.
> 
> Hope everyone is ok and having a better week than us! x


Gosh how exciting. Well even if you can't show him there are lots and lots of other dog disciplines you can do with him.


----------



## JenKyzer

Twiggy said:


> Gosh how exciting. Well even if you can't show him there are lots and lots of other dog disciplines you can do with him.


Exactly  i'm so keen for puppy classes  obedience stuff with the bronze silver gold awards etc... then if i still like the idea of showing we could do ringcraft classes for a practice run (i was going to look into this with Willow anyway to see if we like it) i'm looking forward to doing as much as i can anyway 



Bagrat said:


> JenSW - that is one chunky pup. What a lot to take in at the vets . Better stock up on dog gates as well as insurance or "chunky" will be interfering with the surgery when it's needed!!
> 
> We had what is a breakthrough for me and J today. I turned into our road with J to avoid a Weimeraner approaching only to find neighbour + Springer and grand daughter in push chair coming towards us at a distance of about 20 yards. Nowhere to retreat to apart from up someone's short drive where I stood between J and oncoming dog feeding him madly with rather ordinary treats.
> They passed without incident on the other side of the road which is the best and closest he's ever done. J then watched the back of the Springer as it left and had to give a couple of barks, but no screams lunges or retreats.
> Have got a second wrap ( horse tail bandage) as was sharing one between me and J!! He seems to like them. The half body one he will go to sleep in but because his legs are sensitive to touch - though we practice each day, he was not keen on wearing scrunchies on his legs!!! I have yet to meet someone apart from the people on the course who don't think I'm leaning towards doggy witchcraft!:sad::confused1:


Pupster is going to be kept seperate anyway if we're out  already having dividers made for the doorways and bottom of stairs from OH work . 
Amazing news for the breakthrough  you must be so pleased!



Sarahliz100 said:


> Sorry Willow's still having a rough time. I skimmed your other post and noticed you said you were looking for insurance. I've been very pleased with petplan (have the lifetime cover) - they've paid out over £1000 for behavioural work for the lunatic pup without any problem. They also pay the vet directly so I've not had to stump up any money at all beyond the initial excess or bother about repeatedly sending in paperwork to claim money back. Don't know how they compare to others but I've certainly been happy with them.
> 
> That puppy is soooooooooo cute!!!!! Jealous (although not of the toilet training.......). Looks like he's gonna be a big lad - Tryfan was tiny at that age. Exciting!


I looked at petplan and it was £60pm :scared: affordable but just seems alot to pay per month.. but if we have to then at least theyre offer is there  i've seen some more and a [email protected] seems reasonable - i've posted details on the other thread if you want to have a look and tell me what you think of it? i feel a bit out of my depth  
As for the pup... theres a rumour of it being crossed with an american bulldog :confused1: as the brother of OH friend (who has the dogs now) has since seen the original owner and they had an agreement he was ok to keep her and pups to do what he likes with :sosp: as when he called out to her she wouldnt go near him  but who knows!! It'll be interesting to watch as he grows


----------



## Sarahliz100

JenSteWillow said:


> Exactly  I looked at petplan and it was £60pm :scared: affordable but just seems alot to pay per month.. but if we have to then at least theyre offer is there  i've seen some more and a [email protected] seems reasonable - i've posted details on the other thread if you want to have a look and tell me what you think of it? i feel a bit out of my depth
> As for the pup... theres a rumour of it being crossed with an american bulldog :confused1: as the brother of OH friend (who has the dogs now) has since seen the original owner and they had an agreement he was ok to keep her and pups to do what he likes with :sosp: as when he called out to her she wouldnt go near him  but who knows!! It'll be interesting to watch as he grows


Yikes £60! I can see why you'd think twice about that. I'm paying £21 I think (not that that helps you, sorry). I suppose it must be related to age/breed etc - I guess they assume a crossbreed puppy is less likely to run into problems than an adult shar pei. To be honest, I didn't really do much research I just got lucky - the vet gave us 4 weeks free insurance with petplan when we took him for vaccinations and said they recommended them. I left it till the last minute, realised the insurance was going to run out, had a very quick look at alternatives then just though "sod it" and renewed!

I had a quick look at the pets at home policy. I thought the bit about paying 10% of the claim cost (if I'm interpreting that correctly) could potentially work out expensive - a vets bill in the thousands could leave you paying out hundreds. I guess it depends what it costs though - if it works out a couple of hundred pounds a year cheaper then probably worth it. I'm a bit rubbish on all this stuff though (never read the small print etc) hence going with the easy option with petplan. Luckily it's worked out ok for us!


----------



## JenKyzer

Morning everyone 

Well our week is horrible.. 1 set of tablets shes on came with a little precaution that willow will need to wee more and drink more.. i didn't think anything of it.. untill she's shown shes struggling to hold her wee in  .. little trickle at first so nothing major.. but then in her sleep she wee'd on the OH whilst they were snuggled up on the sofa.. and y'day morning she wee'd on the rug whilst we were at work (even though i'd rolled it up and put it on the sofa to prevent her getting on to them and laid blankets on the floor  she'd climbed up and fell asleep on top of it!) she seems mortified with herself as she doesn't even wee in our backyard or on our street nvm in the house! bless her :sad: luckily we're on the last 2 of these tablets tonight 

So this morning to forget all the crap i drove up to the entrance of west pennine moors which is my favourite part of the walk when we go to darwen tower - i did feel a cheat driving there but obviously that cant be helped  - she had a nice off lead potter and i just stood and watched as she took advantage of a nice big field .. i just let her do her own thing and come back to me once she'd had enough  we were only out about 20mins but it was better than an onlead pavement potter. Was lovely and quiet up there and very refreshing even if it was raining 



Hope everyone has a nice weekend x


----------



## Arcwarp

Cas and I are currently working on left and right. It would be useful to be able to direct him from a distance, especially since we just got the hang of over and under. 

...That and fetch. For some reason I CANNOT get him to fetch anything. He'll chase it, pick it up, realise it's no fun and drop it again. Any tips?


----------



## JenKyzer

Arcwarp said:


> Cas and I are currently working on left and right. It would be useful to be able to direct him from a distance, especially since we just got the hang of over and under.
> 
> ...That and fetch. For some reason I CANNOT get him to fetch anything. He'll chase it, pick it up, realise it's no fun and drop it again. Any tips?


Have you seen this thread on 'fetch' ?  - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-tricks-games/358837-fetch-fao-twiggy-anyone-else.html - smokeybear and twiggy are the one's we all love to listen to 

Good luck and have fun 

eta - Cas is stunning!! Welcome to the forum


----------



## Arcwarp

JenSteWillow said:


> Have you seen this thread on 'fetch' ?  - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-tricks-games/358837-fetch-fao-twiggy-anyone-else.html - smokeybear and twiggy are the one's we all love to listen to
> 
> Good luck and have fun
> 
> eta - Cas is stunning!! Welcome to the forum


Thank you for the link! I'm going to try the backtraining, starting tonight! 

Thankfully he already has the dropping things into my hand down pat. We'll just have to work on him actually picking it up for himself and dropping it into my hand!.

Hehehe, thank you. He's a little b*gger though.


----------



## JenKyzer

Arcwarp said:


> Thank you for the link! I'm going to try the backtraining, starting tonight!
> 
> Thankfully he already has the dropping things into my hand down pat. We'll just have to work on him actually picking it up for himself and dropping it into my hand!.
> 
> Hehehe, thank you. He's a little b*gger though.


How've you been getting on?


----------



## JenKyzer

Morning 

Hope everyone has had a nice weekend and done some fun stuff in the sun?

We've been back up to the moors again this morning, will probably make it a regular morning thing now, on the mornings where i drop OH off at work and then come back home, as its only a 5min drive up to it. 
It wasn't as quiet as Sat morning though.. we passed a hugee dark long fur-ed GSD looking dog at first.. dunno if its just a certain type or what, but it was gorgeous ! The lady walking him got him right up to the side and hid his view so he couldnt see us.. so we passed by nicely and just said good morning 
Then a more regular looking GSD with a man was further down the path.. Willow was off lead and so was his, she stayed beautifully whilst i leaded up and he did too  we passed each other nicely, another friendly one who said good morning  Was soo nice to encounter nice people so early in the morning. 
I let willow off lead for a little bit.. but she got giddy after rolling in poo  which she never does!! So i leaded her back up so she didn't pull her leg, as this morning the limp isn't as bad which is good news. So she calmed down and just pottered alongside me  
We saw a lady with 2 labs, one had his back leg bandaged up, poor guy  and they were taking it nice and slow. Then as we got back to the car park.. a lady pulled in.. and this springer shot out of the car and was bouncing around like one of those small bouncy balls that go wild when you bounce them really hard :scared: so we hung back. She then decided to go back into her car and left the dog loose.. so i quickly hurried in and didn't give willow much chance to see him being excited. He kept his distance.. just stared at us, such a beautiful dog! Off they went into the woods... with no lead, eek. Glad our walk now doesn't include the woods to be honest  

It also dawned on me how much hard work it's actually going to be with 2 dogs if i want to walk them together on my own. Willow that needs leading up to pass nicely and one that's going to probably end up double the size of Willow anyway. I enjoy my walks with just me and Willow, i am content with just the 1 dog .. i am scared i have to admit. Also excited to get my teeth stuck into something though  He comes home with us on the 14th May.. exactly a year since we brought Willow home which is his 8week old mark too. I feel bad for being apprehensive.. but i felt exactly like this before getting Willow.. i wasn't 100% on that idea either :lol: now it's turned into be the best idea the OH ever had  

Sorry for the length


----------



## Twiggy

JenStW - I feel exactly the same every time I have a pup, and I've had a lot over the years. You are bound to feel a mixture of apprehension, doubt and excitement. It's quite normal honestly.

I went to visit my younger sister in Rugby yesterday which was nice. She's not a 'doggy' person though.


----------



## Arcwarp

JenSteWillow said:


> How've you been getting on?


Been doing really well actually, considering how little time I've had. I've got all three pups at the moment (my flatmate's and the little one my boyfriend is _supposed_ to be training) and they're holding us up a little since they can't be left alone much without trying to eat each other.

Cas has sort of progressed to picking up the ball from the floor and dropping it in my hand, but once he realises there are treats on the go, the last thing he's interested in is the ball, so it takes some persuasion to get him to go and pick it up again! XD

We've been doing some socialization too when we've been out. Cas has a new best friend, Dave the staffy, and they've been learning to play... sort of nicely together. I'm actually loving having a dog that can play with almost anyone.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152396232145180&l=8860707096229776299


----------



## JenKyzer

The plot thickens and my apprehension grows - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-bree...-weeks-little-help-please.html#post1063659461 - :mad2: :001_unsure:

Fingers crossed my period of unluckiness will end now after this last blow


----------



## lupie

JenSteWillow said:


> The plot thickens and my apprehension grows - http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-bree...-weeks-little-help-please.html#post1063659461 - :mad2: :001_unsure:
> 
> Fingers crossed my period of unluckiness will end now after this last blow


Golly, congratulations on the pup!! But good luck on the earlier than planned homecoming!

Photos please 

Been mixed here. Really trying to work on her not buggering off but it's very trying. We've had some great on lead encounters and some not very good ones. Ho hum!

Finally started some new tricks too, currently working on roll over. Trying to think of new fun ones to teach!


----------



## JenKyzer

lupie said:


> Golly, congratulations on the pup!! But good luck on the earlier than planned homecoming!
> 
> Photos please
> 
> Been mixed here. Really trying to work on her not buggering off but it's very trying. We've had some great on lead encounters and some not very good ones. Ho hum!
> 
> Finally started some new tricks too, currently working on roll over. Trying to think of new fun ones to teach!


Photos and pup updates here... http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-chat...ew-puppy-dog-into-chat-puppy-pic-warning.html 

Our new addition is called Kyzer. (Like kaiser... just spelt funny )

Willow is doing amazingly with him and i am just bursting from the seams with love and proudness for her. She's everything and more that i could of wanted out of this situation. He blummin adores her too! It's soo nice to see. I hope they remain best pals as he grows up 

Willow has been back at vets tonight.. he's super pleased with how well her skin is.. most of her fur is growing back - the difference is amazing tbh. The cyst has almost gone  Her ears.. left 1 is fine, we just need the right one to clear up now so still on ear-drops... we're hoping it'll clear with 1 more week of daily drops then down to weekly drops.. then it's manageable and not an issue  Her limp is still bad.. actually got worse tonight and foot is off the floor.. but she's had a busy day with pup and OH so lady humans rules tomorrow and she's on rest! 

Hope everyone is ok x


----------



## Sarahliz100

Aww Kyzer is so cute. Glad I'm not the only one with a dogs name you have to spell out

We've been doing some longer walks to build up for our Scottish highlands holiday in July. He's doing pretty good. We also went for our first run together and he was much better than expected. Didn't nip my bum once:thumbup:! We're doing the couch to 5k program so interspersing running and walking. I foolishly decided to do it at the park so of course we were interrupted by loose dogs bouncing around and Tryfan got a bit over threshold at one point so I'll be looking for somewhere quieter next time.

He's the proud owner of a ruffwear webmaster harness now so we used that for running. He wasn't thrilled about having it put on, but forgot about it soon enough when we were running. It looks great, just the thing for a mountaineering dog. Can't wait for our next mountain trip. I'm also waiting for a walking belt very impatiently (and a new collar, shhh don't tell my OH).

We missed agility as otherwise engaged. So I may never find out about the eggs and peanuts. Sorry to those who may have been waiting to hear (I'm sure you've been losing sleep over it.....). 

He's currently shattered after spending the morning at the groomers. He has a rather severe haircut and looks all skinny. So he's going on extra rations for a bit as I feel like a meany! 

Only other new development is I've decided to go back to training a proper retrieve and do it properly this time. So we've got a cheap dumbbell from the petshop (the canvas dummy I have is hard work for him to hold as he's little) and are currently working on shaping the present/hold. We were getting on quite well until halfway through the session he decided it was much more fun to hurl it around the room whilst pouncing on it and play growling. That step didn't feature in the instructions in my book, but it was ever so cute........


----------



## Arcwarp

Okay...

...So right now Cas' training has dropped for one reason and one reason alone. 

The puppies.


Our GSD bitch Freyja and her sister Artemis (who lives with us but isn't ours, she's our flat mate's) are... HORRIFIC at the moment. They stand at opposite ends of the room and bark at each other, get into snarling vicious arguments and generally cause chaos.

We are now working on their manners, trying to get them to play constructively instead. I'll take a video if I can of one of their b*tch fights... it's pretty annoying.

I don't think I've been able to sit down and relax for the last three days.

But on another note, Cas has outgrown his X-large puppy crate from Pets at Home and therefore now is trusted to sleep in the bedroom with the crate door open and can choose whether he wants to curl up on the soft bed or cool down on the floor. I got woken up today by kisses from my darling Rottie at 6am.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Arcwarp said:


> Okay...
> 
> ...So right now Cas' training has dropped for one reason and one reason alone.
> 
> The puppies.
> 
> Our GSD bitch Freyja and her sister Artemis (who lives with us but isn't ours, she's our flat mate's) are... HORRIFIC at the moment. They stand at opposite ends of the room and bark at each other, get into snarling vicious arguments and generally cause chaos.
> 
> We are now working on their manners, trying to get them to play constructively instead. I'll take a video if I can of one of their b*tch fights... it's pretty annoying.
> 
> I don't think I've been able to sit down and relax for the last three days.
> 
> But on another note, Cas has outgrown his X-large puppy crate from Pets at Home and therefore now is trusted to sleep in the bedroom with the crate door open and can choose whether he wants to curl up on the soft bed or cool down on the floor. I got woken up today by kisses from my darling Rottie at 6am.


Wow, sounds tough. How old are the puppies? Cas is a pup too isn't he (or did I make that up)? Sounds like hard work, rather you than me!


----------



## Arcwarp

Sarahliz100 said:


> Wow, sounds tough. How old are the puppies? Cas is a pup too isn't he (or did I make that up)? Sounds like hard work, rather you than me!


They're just 3 months but bundles of energy. We just started walkies this week which hopefully will burn some of this off. Poor Cas is exasperated with getting landed on and attacked... or Artemis trying to lick his face constantly and peeing to show she respects him. He just gets pee'd off if you get my drift. XD

Cas is 6 months and a couple of weeks so he's only a baby too but much more grown up than these two.


----------



## Fluffster

Yikes sounds tough! I know bitches from the same litter can sometimes not get on well, I hope it can be resolved.

Daisy's season is almost over! Might be able to go back to flyball on Saturday!


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## Hanwombat

Io's new taught tricks are speak, through and spin!! :thumbup:

Is there a way I can put the video on here from facebook?


----------



## JenKyzer

Arcwarp - Sounds like Cas is getting to be a big boy  as for the bitches.. i have nothing helpful to say apart from i hope you manage to sort it.. can't be good for them either, poor girls. Us female species are a funny breed  as for the pee-ing to show she respects him? I haven't heard of that before  sounds err.. lovely.....

Fluff - I'm sure daisy will love to be back at flyball  Hows she gettin on with it? Glad her season is nearly over, it must be difficult having to down tools on stuff for a bit.

Hanwombat - Sounds like you've been busy with Io  i'm a technophobe so no help from me, sorry 

Willow is still amazing me at how good she is with Kyzer. He's getting a little rough with his play but she's very tolerant and eggs him on  i'd rather she told him off as some of it makes me cringe so i end up seperating them to cool off. Got a little vid which i'll attempt at uploading later. For a 6wk old in with a 2yr old bitch who he's known for a whole 2 days.. he's very confident.


----------



## Fluffster

JenSteWillow said:


> Arcwarp - Sounds like Cas is getting to be a big boy  as for the bitches.. i have nothing helpful to say apart from i hope you manage to sort it.. can't be good for them either, poor girls. Us female species are a funny breed  as for the pee-ing to show she respects him? I haven't heard of that before  sounds err.. lovely.....
> 
> *Fluff - I'm sure daisy will love to be back at flyball  Hows she gettin on with it? Glad her season is nearly over, it must be difficult having to down tools on stuff for a bit.*
> 
> Hanwombat - Sounds like you've been busy with Io  i'm a technophobe so no help from me, sorry
> 
> Willow is still amazing me at how good she is with Kyzer. He's getting a little rough with his play but she's very tolerant and eggs him on  i'd rather she told him off as some of it makes me cringe so i end up seperating them to cool off. Got a little vid which i'll attempt at uploading later. For a 6wk old in with a 2yr old bitch who he's known for a whole 2 days.. he's very confident.


She's doing great, she's so keen and excited about it and everyone loves her. She's not even bothered by the other dogs running about and barking. We're trying to get her more excited about playing tug as that seems quite important for getting control of your dog after they've done a run. Her season has been a lot easier than I thought it would with three weeks of no walks! She's actually been very calm and generally well behaved around the house, but I think we'll both be glad to get back to normal!

That's so lovely about Willow, I'd love to see a vid of them, and she'll be teaching pup things that it's much harder for humans to try teach!


----------



## Arcwarp

JenSteWillow said:


> Arcwarp - Sounds like Cas is getting to be a big boy  as for the bitches.. i have nothing helpful to say apart from i hope you manage to sort it.. can't be good for them either, poor girls. Us female species are a funny breed  as for the pee-ing to show she respects him? I haven't heard of that before  sounds err.. lovely.....


Cas is. he's my big baby to be fair... I know I shouldn't but I dote on that little rascal. Freyja is well behaved when it's just her but when all three are playing around it just gets too vicious.

We're starting to put in place time outs when it gets bad, one dog in the yard, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom but it takes some coordinating. LOL.

This article quotes submissive urination, sort of trying to show respect anyway.

It's messy, particularly when she accidentally pee'd ON him. He was not best pleased.

Freyja now has sit, paw and lie down clocked. We're going to start on wait and gentle (for taking biscuits) because she still snaps.

Also, you can show your facebook videos on here, if you click on share I think you can get the URL link. It's either share or send. Can't remember which.


----------



## Hanwombat

Share and send doesn't give me a URL link :/


----------



## Canine K9

Fluffster- Hope you`ll soon be able to go back to agility!

Hanwombat- Well done Io!

JSW- Well done Willow, being a good girl 

----------------------------------------------------

On Saturday agility training he seemed quite bored with it, so I decided to give him a break from Wednesday`s lesson. We have our HTM routine very well now. I`ve been very lazy this week  I am not a morning person at all, and I just had 2 weeks off school and getting up whenever and still having time for 2 daily walks. But I really haven`t had the energy to get up at 6am  I`ve set the alarm and everything, just clicked snooze and gone back to sleep  So I`m working on getting up!!

I did let him off lead today but he ran off and ignored me, so I finally managed to get him back on his lead and kept him on. More recall work needed me thinks!

I`m having the most issues with recalling from other dogs. Problem is nobody will volunteer them and their dogs to help us! So we are really relying on random dogs in the field and hoping they don`t run over, otherwise it sets back everything


----------



## Arcwarp

Hanwombat said:


> Share and send doesn't give me a URL link :/


Sorry, it's the options button and then click get link!

Like so


----------



## Sarahliz100

Canine K9 said:


> I`m having the most issues with recalling from other dogs. Problem is nobody will volunteer them and their dogs to help us! So we are really relying on random dogs in the field and hoping they don`t run over, otherwise it sets back everything


I have the same problem. We could team up if your dog would be ok with a loony adolescent spaniel cross.........(I'm not a million miles away)


----------



## Twiggy

Hanwombat said:


> Io's new taught tricks are speak, through and spin!! :thumbup:
> 
> Is there a way I can put the video on here from facebook?


Well done on the tricks.

Yes you can put a video from Facebook on here but I think you need to go through a site like Photobucket.


----------



## Fluffster

I am on Cloud 9!

Had our first small walk today in 3.5 weeks, a lead walk which I usually avoid but I'm determined for her to walk nicely on the lead. After about five minutes of stopping/changing direction when she pulled, I suddenly had a little cocker spaniel walking to heel and focused on me! With liberal use of liver paste, we did around 10 mins of walking to heel on the country road beside us. When a car came, she walked beside me into verge and SAT WHILE IT PASSED!!! 

I feel like I've won the lottery! I know it's only one day but she has never behaved this well on the lead before, I am so proud of her.


----------



## JenKyzer

Aw i hate it when this thread goes quiet  i hope it picks up again properly soon  even though i could barely catch up last time it got into a good swing 

Hope you've all had a nice bank holiday weekend? 

I only had Saturday off work so not much fun for me  We had a nice day saturday though and both dogs had a ball at my mums house running round like loons inside at out. I soo can't wait to move into that house  just having the back door constantly open for some freedom for the dogs will be amazing.

Anyway, all good here.
Kyzer's 'sit' is coming along nicely :thumbup1: the most exciting time of day is feeding time (obviously!) and can just about get a sit out of him then before putting the food down.. a very wobbly one with lots of squeaks  
His toileting is also going down nicely.. he had 1 wee in the night last night and woke us up at 6.40am having a good cry.. went outside and he did 2 poops and a big wee  quite pleased he didn't do it inside.

Willow, her fur looks amazing! I will have to get some before and afters up.. its so nice to know shes now comfortable and doesn't have a constant need to itch/chew herself. Her limp is no better or no worse  (Really missing our big walks  ) Kyzer is tiring her out as all they do is play and sleep.. she's doing soo well with him i'm chuffed to pieces with her. We had a nice little walk together just me and her this morning which was lovely.. did some basic stuff and she got treats along the way just to keep her happy 

Today is the first day of a new routine.. i leave the house at 11.30am, OH gets home at 4.45pm .. OH bro will be checking on pup until 2pm.. then there will be no humans in the house! We've been practising going in his little 'area' .. for example - when i fed him this morning he went in there and me&willow went out.. when i got back he was all tucked up in his bed.. so hopefully thats a nice sign he can settle nicely in there *fingers crossed* our neighbour is going to let us know if she hears anything, eek. Will have to see how we get on 

Here's a pic just for you WAYWO lot  2 peas in a pod x


----------



## Sarahliz100

Fluffster - yay for the lead walking
JSW - all sounds fab. Love the photo of the two of them cuddled up together.

We've had a bit of a blip recently . Took him out on the moors on sat, on the lead because of sheep, and he was the worst he's been in ages. Mouthing at and pulling at the lead and getting VERY frustrated. I'm not sure if it's because he was thirsty (I didn't think to bring water as we weren't out that long but it was quite hot). He was much better after he'd had a drink from a stream and a brief potter off lead.

I went to London for a few days and I think my OH had a bit of a tough time with him. He had him up both nights (which is really unusual for him) and on the second night he was sick and got him self in a proper state. Wouldn't let OH near him (he always "guards" his vomit) but got upset if he tried to leave too. So poor OH was up with him from 03.30 to 05.30, then back up again at 6.

I got home last night, and went crazy on the calmatives (sprayed adaptil over his bed in addition to the diffuser, relaxing music, brief relaxing "sniffing" walk before bed) and we had an Uneventful night. He did still mouth at his lead a little bit on the walk this morning though, mostly when there was another dog nearby. I think it's frustration. Quite embarrassing in the middle of town though.

Maybe this is the start of an adolescent stressy phase. I'll be gutted if we go back to tantrum filled nightmare walks. Any suggestions?


----------



## Twiggy

*JenStW*

Really pleased to hear Willow's coat/itching has improved and pup is settling in nicely. They certainly look very happy together.

I went to an obedience show high up in the Chiltern Hills on Sunday. Beautiful venue and the added bonus of one of my late sister's best friends being there.

It's the first time in almost three years that I've worked Tremor and she was joint second in a strong and big class. I was delighted with her. I also put my sister's Barley in Class A for a training round and I was pleased with her too. Holly was a bit put out when she couldn't see any jumps, tunnels or see-saws in any of the rings but she had a nice time socialising.....LOL


----------



## Twiggy

I can understand your concern and it's true with puppies/youngsters that you make three strides forward and then two back at times.

Personally from all your posts and the amount of work you've done, I don't think he'll regress too much and you're better equipped to deal with him now in any case.


----------



## JenKyzer

Sarahliz100 said:


> Fluffster - yay for the lead walking
> JSW - all sounds fab. Love the photo of the two of them cuddled up together.
> 
> We've had a bit of a blip recently . Took him out on the moors on sat, on the lead because of sheep, and he was the worst he's been in ages. Mouthing at and pulling at the lead and getting VERY frustrated. I'm not sure if it's because he was thirsty (I didn't think to bring water as we weren't out that long but it was quite hot). He was much better after he'd had a drink from a stream and a brief potter off lead.
> 
> I went to London for a few days and I think my OH had a bit of a tough time with him. He had him up both nights (which is really unusual for him) and on the second night he was sick and got him self in a proper state. Wouldn't let OH near him (he always "guards" his vomit) but got upset if he tried to leave too. So poor OH was up with him from 03.30 to 05.30, then back up again at 6.
> 
> I got home last night, and went crazy on the calmatives (sprayed adaptil over his bed in addition to the diffuser, relaxing music, brief relaxing "sniffing" walk before bed) and we had an Uneventful night. He did still mouth at his lead a little bit on the walk this morning though, mostly when there was another dog nearby. I think it's frustration. Quite embarrassing in the middle of town though.
> 
> Maybe this is the start of an adolescent stressy phase. I'll be gutted if we go back to tantrum filled nightmare walks. Any suggestions?


I've nothing amazing to add, sorry  i hope he settles down again soon and you get it under control, i'm sure you will 



Twiggy said:


> *JenStW*
> 
> Really pleased to hear Willow's coat/itching has improved and pup is settling in nicely. They certainly look very happy together.
> 
> I went to an obedience show high up in the Chiltern Hills on Sunday. Beautiful venue and the added bonus of one of my late sister's best friends being there.
> 
> It's the first time in almost three years that I've worked Tremor and she was joint second in a strong and big class. I was delighted with her. I also put my sister's Barley in Class A for a training round and I was pleased with her too. Holly was a bit put out when she couldn't see any jumps, tunnels or see-saws in any of the rings but she had a nice time socialising.....LOL


Sounds like you had a really good day.. bet the dogs slept that night


----------



## Fluffster

Lovely trip to the park today, had the place pretty much to ourselves! Daisy was great, she didn't even chase birds that were right beside where I threw her ball! We did some lead walking too and she was pretty good, we did a few rounds of putting her lead on and doing about two minutes of trying LLW, before she was let off and we did more ball throwing etc.

There was one scary moment when we got out of the car in the car park, I hadn't used the particular harness we were using in a while and since her haircut, it was obviously a bit big for her as she slipped out of it  I shouted though and she stopped, and jumped back in the car for me to sort it! Whew!


----------



## JenKyzer

Fluff - Daisy sounds like such a good girl, well done her 

We've been up to the moors this morning, nice and early before anyone got there so Willow could be offlead and stay relaxed  Getting to the point where we turn back around was great.. off lead potters, some recalls etc. (keep it simple as still resting the leg - her limp has improved to it barely being noticeable which is great)
Going back to the car was a little too much... i stupidly (more fool me!) took Kyzer to carry along with me, thought he'd enjoy the fresh air and new scenery. A guy was approaching with 2 dogs, he leaded the offlead one up and put them both to one side which was really nice of him  he then wanted a conversation (about the pup) which set Willow off a little  he then looked at me as if i owned a devil dog .. its one thing for an unknown man to talk to me, but one with 2 dogs.. just sent Willow over the edge so i had to apologize and just keep walking . Then i saw a springer running wildly from once side of the path to another.. owner was on her mobile stood still with her back to us  she did start to walk closer and more into our path, so we moved to the side and went into a sit.. she then saw us, stopped, turned her back and stayed there whilst he dog was still running round her. I waited a good few mins.. still no movement from her. Kyzer was getting agitated as we'd stood still.. Willow was intensely watching the springer spring around  she would of still been pent up from the guy and his two dogs so i was praying it didn't spring towards us! Then it ran into the bushes.. so i made a run for it :w00t: we got passed without any confrontation, phew! But the ignorance of the woman wound me right up!! 
Both dogs are now zonked out and i might have a little snooze myself :001_tongue:


----------



## Twiggy

JenSteWillow said:


> Fluff - Daisy sounds like such a good girl, well done her
> 
> We've been up to the moors this morning, nice and early before anyone got there so Willow could be offlead and stay relaxed  Getting to the point where we turn back around was great.. off lead potters, some recalls etc. (keep it simple as still resting the leg - her limp has improved to it barely being noticeable which is great)
> Going back to the car was a little too much... i stupidly (more fool me!) took Kyzer to carry along with me, thought he'd enjoy the fresh air and new scenery. A guy was approaching with 2 dogs, he leaded the offlead one up and put them both to one side which was really nice of him  he then wanted a conversation (about the pup) which set Willow off a little  he then looked at me as if i owned a devil dog .. its one thing for an unknown man to talk to me, but one with 2 dogs.. just sent Willow over the edge so i had to apologize and just keep walking . Then i saw a springer running wildly from once side of the path to another.. owner was on her mobile stood still with her back to us  she did start to walk closer and more into our path, so we moved to the side and went into a sit.. she then saw us, stopped, turned her back and stayed there whilst he dog was still running round her. I waited a good few mins.. still no movement from her. Kyzer was getting agitated as we'd stood still.. Willow was intensely watching the springer spring around  she would of still been pent up from the guy and his two dogs so i was praying it didn't spring towards us! Then it ran into the bushes.. so i made a run for it :w00t: we got passed without any confrontation, phew! But the ignorance of the woman wound me right up!!
> Both dogs are now zonked out and i might have a little snooze myself :001_tongue:


Oh dear that sounded stressful. I would imagine Kyzer is no lightweight pup if he starts struggling.


----------



## Bagrat

The Your end of the lead course is beginning to remind me of the 12 days (aka weeks) of Christmas. I am now on week 12 with three practice weeks interspersed and am learning so much that if I practiced it all each day with Jackson, food and sleep would have to be missed out!
Have just about caught up on this thread as it seems to have slowed down on content. Glad all dogs and guardians are enjoying their outings even if some are a bit hairy!!

Well..... what an exciting walk by our standards. J walking happily off lead on bridle path when sees bird hovering in middle of cornfield (corn now a bit taller than him). Heads off into field doing impression of a wallaby or member of "where the ***k are we Association. All goes quiet and I see nice young man (as it turns out) approaching with two dogs. Feeling relieved J is lost in field and explain he is out there somewhere but should he appear, he is a bit short on manners. NYM asks for description and says he'll look out for him. I walk on about 20 yds when I see a dot on the horizon travelling faster than the speed of light towards me on path, "good boy, come" then J hurtles straight past to see dogs aaaargh.
As luck would have it - two good dogs who J submits to then runs towards me YAY, followed by the lab cross bitch -boo. She recalls after a bit and J goes too, fine with dogs, leaps and barks at owner but thank goodness no sleeve grabbing that I could see. NYM provides me with a new positive description of J. "He's very energetic isn't he" says "no worries" and even offers to curtail his walk ( it's a back the way you came one) but not needed as J and I set off ahead. J is fine once on lead and beside other dogs when he's met them.


----------



## Canine K9

Surely this thread hasn't died??

Anyway thought I would update with our day. We went to a fun dog show. He got 3rd, 2nd and 4th places. He was an embarrassment on the agility though, he ran off and decided he wouldn't come back  But overall it was a nice day. We have also decided to quit agility classes. (Nothing to do with today though  )


----------



## Twiggy

Canine K9 said:


> Surely this thread hasn't died??
> 
> Anyway thought I would update with our day. We went to a fun dog show. He got 3rd, 2nd and 4th places. He was an embarrassment on the agility though, he ran off and decided he wouldn't come back  But overall it was a nice day. We have also decided to quit agility classes. (Nothing to do with today though  )


 I think this thread had died.....

Anyway well done on your places today.

I've been to an championship/open obedience show today. I was judging all day there yesterday from 9 in the morning until 6.00pm last night but managed to summons up the energy to drive back today and actually train my dogs.

I'm at the same venue again next week-end for an agility show.


----------



## Fluffster

Nothing much to update here, quite happy with where we are at the moment. Lead pulling still an issue but she's been very well behaved off lead and we are having fun at flyball. Off for a walk tomorrow with a pal from flyball and her two spaniels so I'm sure that will be manic!


----------



## lupie

I miss this thread 

We've had some amazing progress. Lots of playing with dogs that I've never seen her so before. 

Still not great on lead but we've had some good passbys but also some not great ones. 

I think her general relationship with dogs is relaxing a little, she's learning she can have fun with them now. Hopefully that will eventually lead to affecting her on-lead behaviour. 

Congrats to k9 and twiggy on your shows  and fluffster for your all round successes


----------



## Sarahliz100

Resource guarding remains an issue for us, but not as bad as it once was. But otherwise he's doing ace! General obedience is really good, recall is really reliable even from other dogs (unless they're cocker spaniels/cockerpoos.......). Today we managed recall from chasing a tennis ball whilst birds were flying around his head which I was really pleased with. Agility is going well too, hopefully we can move up to the next class soon as we keep having to go back to the beginning when new people start so I don't think we're progressing as fast as we could. 

He met his new dog walker yesterday. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm completely neurotic as I was telling her that he gets really easily stressed, can be a handful etc and then he went out with her and was completely unphased by her two collies and behaved beautifully. She put some photos on Facebook from the walk and I was ridiculously proud when I saw one of him trotting happily along on a loose lead next to her collies on the way to the park. I showed my OH but he didn't quite see what the big deal was. Maybe I am crazy.......


----------



## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> Resource guarding remains an issue for us, but not as bad as it once was. But otherwise he's doing ace! General obedience is really good, recall is really reliable even from other dogs (unless they're cocker spaniels/cockerpoos.......). Today we managed recall from chasing a tennis ball whilst birds were flying around his head which I was really pleased with. Agility is going well too, hopefully we can move up to the next class soon as we keep having to go back to the beginning when new people start so I don't think we're progressing as fast as we could.
> 
> He met his new dog walker yesterday. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm completely neurotic as I was telling her that he gets really easily stressed, can be a handful etc and then he went out with her and was completely unphased by her two collies and behaved beautifully. She put some photos on Facebook from the walk and I was ridiculously proud when I saw one of him trotting happily along on a loose lead next to her collies on the way to the park. I showed my OH but he didn't quite see what the big deal was. *Maybe I am crazy*.......


No you're not. Nobody knows him as well as you.

On the same tack (sort of) one of the naughtiest dogs that trains here has recently started agility classes where I also train. The instructor was proudly telling me that the dog hadn't put a foot wrong during the first 3 lessons to which I replied "give him time to weigh things up and then you'll see". Sure enough the owner was telling me at the week-end that he did about 20 laps round the agility paddock last week and refused to stop....


----------



## Freddie and frank

yay. WAYWO is back. :thumbup:

well i'm still working on Franks lead walking...after nearly 6 years, it's still not brilliant and i had 'one of those walks' tonight where i just wanted to sit on the floor and cry. 

it's hit and miss as to whether he is interested in any sort of treat, from sausage to squeezy cheese. i try so hard with him and keep my cool and stay calm. i even let him have the odd day without walks so his stress levels can go right back down. nothing seems to work just lately. even been to the chiropractor and everything is fine. 
for the first time in ages, he jumped up at the lead, growled and kept biting it..and my hand. this was just after spotting a cat. nothing will distract him when he's like this and i can't predict when he'll be like it. 

oh well, tomorrow is another day.

hope everyone is good.


----------



## Twiggy

Oh dear F&F I know just how frustrating it can be. I've had my late sister's bitch, Barley, since the end of October and I'm still having issues about walking on a loose lead. She is better but I still have to chant the same mantra twice a day, every day "Barley steady" "Barley *Steady" "*Barley* S T E A D Y"*....LOL


----------



## Fluffster

I hear you about the lead walking, it can be quite frustrating - I've been close to tears sometimes too and the worse thing is that it's all my own fault for not persevering with it 

In other news, we are off camping next weekend on the shores of Loch Ness  Daisy's first camping trip, and there's a dog friendly pub we might venture into if she's behaving (might need to knacker her first!)


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## Fluffster

Nice trip to park today. We've been struggling at flyball with getting her to pick up and bring back a "dead ball", ie. one that hasn't been thrown first, so we've been doing some impulse control stuff where I get her in a down/stay, place the ball away from her, walk back and do a "ready, steady, GO", she goes to collect it, and I run away from her and she runs bringing it back to me. Hopefully this will transfer to flyball as we're still in the beginners section and all her pals have graduated :lol:

We met a lot of dogs today which was nice. In recent months, Daisy has stopped really playing with other dogs, she'll have a sniff, but then is content to ignore them. We spent some time with two gorgeous puppies, another cocker and a mini schnauzer who were having a ball playing with each other, but Daisy just lay there and watched like a slightly disapproving school marm or something! :lol: She's very tolerant though, she had puppies stealing her ball out her mouth and jumping up at her face and she didn't get annoyed, although she did take herself away at one point to lie down out of reach of them, bless her! Everyone we met said how calm and obedient Daisy was, she doesn't seem like that to me, really, but it's nice that other people think she is!

She's totally out for the count now, she was mega warm when we got home so I had to hose her down.


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## Sarahliz100

Fluffster said:


> I hear you about the lead walking, it can be quite frustrating - I've been close to tears sometimes too and the worse thing is that it's all my own fault for not persevering with it
> 
> In other news, we are off camping next weekend on the shores of Loch Ness  Daisy's first camping trip, and there's a dog friendly pub we might venture into if she's behaving (might need to knacker her first!)


We're off to Loch Ness for a week at the weekend too. I'll keep an eye out for well behaved black cocker spaniels

We've had a successful day of playing with our new flirt pole, apparently it's very tiring as he's now out for the count. Agility later - he was a pain last week for the first time in ages (I think because it was really busy) so hoping he's better tonight as my hands and sleeves suffer when he gets over the top!:yikes:


----------



## Fluffster

Sarahliz100 said:


> We're off to Loch Ness for a week at the weekend too. I'll keep an eye out for well behaved black cocker spaniels
> 
> We've had a successful day of playing with our new flirt pole, apparently it's very tiring as he's now out for the count. Agility later - he was a pain last week for the first time in ages (I think because it was really busy) so hoping he's better tonight as my hands and sleeves suffer when he gets over the top!:yikes:


You'd be better off keeping an eye out for the cocker spaniel stealing picnickers' food and sticking her head in people's tents :lol: We are there from next Fri to Sun, just doing two nights in case Daisy's tent manners are horrendous!

Glad the flirt pole is working out, a guy near us uses one with his staffy who is DA and can't go offlead safely, but the flirt pole gives him really good exercise just on his flex lead. I often use Daisy's big long tuggy as a sort of flirt pole, I might invest in a proper one at some point!


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## Twiggy

Sarahliz100 said:


> We're off to Loch Ness for a week at the weekend too. I'll keep an eye out for well behaved black cocker spaniels
> 
> We've had a successful day of playing with our new flirt pole, apparently it's very tiring as he's now out for the count. Agility later -* he was a pain last week for the first time in ages (I think because it was really busy) so hoping he's better tonight as my hands and sleeves suffer when he gets over the top!:yikes:*




Yes Holly got a bit animated and argumentative at our agility class yesterday. I've got a few teeth marks on my hand and arm. I can't moan though as I encourage her and at least she was keen.


----------



## Sarahliz100

Twiggy said:


> [/B]
> 
> Yes Holly got a bit animated and argumentative at our agility class yesterday. I've got a few teeth marks on my hand and arm. I can't moan though as I encourage her and at least she was keen.


Oh dear. I'm a wimp and don't enjoy such activities so am definitely not encouraging him! He gets studiously ignored whilst misbehaving and if he won't settle he gets tethered in the corner until he offers some calm. Keenness isn't really a problem just self-control. He's a bit excitable this evening so I'm crossing my fingers.......


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## Dogz85

i'm working on getting her better with strange dogs and people


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## Fluffster

*waves*


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## diefenbaker

Fluffster said:


> *waves*


Good times. I'm fillin' up.


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## lupie

Revived!!

It's probably about time as we start back at Rally next week and I'm a bit nervous! Haha!


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## Sarah1983

Wow, it's been a while since I saw this one! Love this thread.


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## Guest

Currently obsessed with nosework. Anyone else doing nosework?
Bates has really taken to it 
He is on Birch right now, interior searches. He has a freeze alert nose on source, may add a sit or down, but don't want him looking to me yet until he's got the nose on source thing super solid. If his freeze is good enough we may just use that...

Anyway, I'm in full-on learning mode and totally fascinated watching dogs search in class.


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## diefenbaker

I'm doing this with Dief tomorrow... http://www.thediscoveryrun.com/

No doubt there will be pictures.


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## Fluffster

We are hoping to start fun agility classes with a really great, positive trainer we did a taster with last year. Group classes too which will be good for Daisy as she sometimes struggles to focus when there's lots going on!


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## Canine K9

Yay to this thread again!


ouesi said:


> Currently obsessed with nosework. Anyone else doing nosework?
> Bates has really taken to it
> He is on Birch right now, interior searches. He has a freeze alert nose on source, may add a sit or down, but don't want him looking to me yet until he's got the nose on source thing super solid. If his freeze is good enough we may just use that...
> 
> Anyway, I'm in full-on learning mode and totally fascinated watching dogs search in class.


Yeah we do nosework. Bailey loves it too and is really valuable for tiring him out now he rarely gets off leash. 
I do Talking Dogs Workshops to learn stuff and did go to classes but they closed down due to lack of people 
Mine can find tea and catnip, he retrieves the find or scratches and barks if he can`t access it. 
It`s really fun 

For us I`m working on getting him back off leash again. His obsession with other dogs and people has raised its head again..


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## Fluffster

ouesi said:


> Currently obsessed with nosework. Anyone else doing nosework?
> Bates has really taken to it
> He is on Birch right now, interior searches. He has a freeze alert nose on source, may add a sit or down, but don't want him looking to me yet until he's got the nose on source thing super solid. If his freeze is good enough we may just use that...
> 
> Anyway, I'm in full-on learning mode and totally fascinated watching dogs search in class.


I'd love to do some of this.


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## Cleo38

ouesi said:


> Currently obsessed with nosework. Anyone else doing nosework?
> Bates has really taken to it
> He is on Birch right now, interior searches. He has a freeze alert nose on source, may add a sit or down, but don't want him looking to me yet until he's got the nose on source thing super solid. If his freeze is good enough we may just use that...
> 
> Anyway, I'm in full-on learning mode and totally fascinated watching dogs search in class.


We do different types of nose work. Archer has been tracking today & the older two have been searching for scented articles in the outbuildings. Toby's hardest one was half a scented cotton bud in an old moisturiser tub in a box .... toook him a while but he got it!!


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## Sarah1983

We play some scent games for fun, just find the toy really. They started teaching them in class this week and we had problems because where they want the indication (freeze, sit, down, whatever) we've always played them with toys and Spen gets the toy and a game of tug when he finds it. He was convinced he was supposed to be "finding" the very obvious cloth on the floor rather than the treats hidden under it so got rather confused. 

We probably do it all wrong but we have a lot of fun with it which is the main thing  Spen gets really into it and he is oh so happy when he finds the item and I love watching him search.


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## Sarah1983

Anyway, what are we working on? Well we passed our Bronze KC award last night so I guess we're working towards our Silver now  Loose lead walking is, rather embarrassingly since it's been 3 years since this thread started, still a work in progress. We're working on a stop cue. Stand stay. Proofing a sit stay. He's happy to stay in one spot but his position of choice is the down and if he's there for more than about 20 seconds will go into a down. Not a big deal for me but they want all 3 at class so we're working on that. Finish (dog going around you to heel position) and dog sitting in front of you super close with chin pressed against your belly (in the case of a dog Spens size) are being worked on for class. Again, not important things to me but they give us something to work at  Targeting my belly with his chin is Spens current favourite thing to offer.


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## Guest

Canine K9 said:


> Mine can find tea and catnip, he retrieves the find or scratches and barks if he can`t access it.
> It`s really fun


Really? For us it's a major "no no" for your dog to scratch at the source or pick it up to retrieve. We had to extinguish both those for Bates as they're both in his repertoire. 
We do NACSW - will be trialing this summer hopefully


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## Cleo38

Canine K9 said:


> Yay to this thread again!
> 
> Yeah we do nosework. Bailey loves it too and is really valuable for tiring him out now he rarely gets off leash.
> I do Talking Dogs Workshops to learn stuff and did go to classes but they closed down due to lack of people
> Mine can find tea and catnip, he retrieves the find or scratches and barks if he can`t access it.
> It`s really fun
> 
> For us I`m working on getting him back off leash again. His obsession with other dogs and people has raised its head again..


Yes, we've done The TDS workshops, loved them & learnt alot. It was especially beneficial when my older two were on restricted exercise due to injuries & after their ops.


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## Freddie and frank

YAY. It's back. 

Atm I'm working on catching up with my work cause I'm so behind due to little Ollie. 
Will pop on later x


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## Fluffster

I want to hear EVERYTHING about little Ollie!


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## Sarah1983

ouesi said:


> Really? For us it's a major "no no" for your dog to scratch at the source or pick it up to retrieve. We had to extinguish both those for Bates as they're both in his repertoire.
> We do NACSW - will be trialing this summer hopefully


I guess it depends what you want  For us it's just fun and games and so picking up the item and having a game of tug is fine. No intention of trialing or anything. But class want the freeze/sit/down indication. I think I'm just going to use 2 separate cues to be honest, it's not a deal breaker to me if he's never super reliable at not picking up the item.


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## Canine K9

ouesi said:


> Really? For us it's a major "no no" for your dog to scratch at the source or pick it up to retrieve. We had to extinguish both those for Bates as they're both in his repertoire.
> We do NACSW - will be trialing this summer hopefully


At the workshops I`ve done, not just Talking Dogs and at our previous classes the dogs had to do an active alert so retrieving if they can. 
It was helpful that that was my dogs first response anyway


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## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> I guess it depends what you want  For us it's just fun and games and so picking up the item and having a game of tug is fine. No intention of trialing or anything. But class want the freeze/sit/down indication. I think I'm just going to use 2 separate cues to be honest, it's not a deal breaker to me if he's never super reliable at not picking up the item.


Oh definitely.
You know, come to think of it, I've seen several trials where dogs did use pawing as an alert. 
Our instructor though is very picky about wanting a nose on source freeze, so I'll have to ask her about that. 
As I said, I'm in major learning mode here 

In working dogs I can see the benefit of a more passive alert


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## Dimwit

We have done 5 TDS workshops, I was hoping to do scent 6 this year but it doesn't look like that will happen  But it is still something we love. Other than that still working on dimwit's many issues and trying to keep him healthy and injury-free (not with much success).


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## Sarah1983

ouesi said:


> Oh definitely.
> You know, come to think of it, I've seen several trials where dogs did use pawing as an alert.
> Our instructor though is very picky about wanting a nose on source freeze, so I'll have to ask her about that.
> As I said, I'm in major learning mode here
> 
> In working dogs I can see the benefit of a more passive alert


Particularly in certain working dogs, you don't really want your land mine detection dog pawing to alert 

Ours was picky about wanting the indication and nothing else. In some ways it makes sense, I just don't see it as necessary for us really since it's just a fun game. But we'll work on it for class, no reason I can't have 2 cues for 2 different types of search and indicate  If he's never 100% reliable about just indicating...well a piece of tangerine or a catnip toy isn't likely to do us any harm. It's another thing to teach so that's always good.


----------



## Guest

Sarah1983 said:


> Particularly in certain working dogs, you don't really want your land mine detection dog pawing to alert
> 
> Ours was picky about wanting the indication and nothing else. In some ways it makes sense, I just don't see it as necessary for us really since it's just a fun game. But we'll work on it for class, no reason I can't have 2 cues for 2 different types of search and indicate  If he's never 100% reliable about just indicating...well a piece of tangerine or a catnip toy isn't likely to do us any harm. It's another thing to teach so that's always good.


I'd like to trial Bates in NACSW eventually... We'll see. 
For trials there has to be a change in behavior, and the handler has to call the alert. I think they prefer a passive alert (but don't know for sure, will ask.)

In the fall our training group is putting on a competition with the local police department - our dogs against theirs. I wasn't planning on putting Bates in that one (we were just going to volunteer, not compete), but he's coming along really quickly and a trial environment doesn't faze him at all, so he may end up representing our group. Him I'm not worried about, his handler is the weak link


----------



## paddyjulie

Ellol  back at training with Chester now after an 18 month break, I'm paying particular attention to impulse control excercises , hoping it helps with his reactiveness , also doing a little of zen training in class, so if anyone has any links I would really appreciate it


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## Sarahliz100

Hooray! This thread made me feel so much better when Tryfan was a stressed out mess!

Behaviour wise we've nailed resource guarding (yay) and he's good around the house. We're working on lead reactivity and wariness of strangers.

Training wise we've been doing agility and gundog training. He's been a little reactive in agility since a dog pounced on him there so might stop for a while once this block we've paid for is over. Enjoying gundog, but the sessions are sporadic and I can't make all of them so we've not had many sessions. He's got a lovely retrieve and stop whistle is pretty solid. Finally got to the point where I can stop him on the whistle whilst he's hunting for the dummy (or ball) and redirect him. I love watching him search - much like the nose work being discussed - he's so focused and tail is wagging like it never does any other time. I love the sense of teamwork when I can stop him and point him in the right direction too (well the stop is reliable but he doesn't yet always go off in the direction I'm trying to send him:Shamefullyembarrased).

Bit confused about training though. I've always thought we were doing things right and had good feedback but we saw a different rehab trainer from the behavioural team who was very negative. She thought he was far too attentive to me, giving too much eye contact etc. Told the vet student with her he was a "poor thing" for being trained from a young age and really wasn't a fan of the clicker. I don't know how to train differently - I've always worked by rewarding for attention and focus but this is apparently all wrong? Got an appointment with our usual rehab person next week so will get her take on it (she's always been really happy with how I manage him).


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## Nicky10

Focus is a bad thing now? 

We're mostly just focusing on trick training when I have the time. Some scent games as well which he loves.


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## Dogloverlou

Continually working on a retrieve, which we seem to be struggling with at times. And also a self settle. It's got to the point that I'll walk around the village and take a seat at random benches dotted around and Cash will drop down and settle while I reinforce him.

Working towards his silver CGC too.


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## Maria_1986

I loved this thread when I first got Chevy, learnt so much from it! 

We are working on leg weaves and scentwork - Chevy wouldn't work for a toy/scented article so she searches for cheese and loves it, I was hoping to do TD scent 2 in a couple of weeks but it looks like it wont be running due to low numbers


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## Lauren5159

Yay!!! So great to see this thread back  

It's almost like the 'catch up' thread  

Glad to read of everyone's progress! I'll read back and catch up now


----------



## Dogloverlou

Sarahliz100 said:


> Hooray! This thread made me feel so much better when Tryfan was a stressed out mess!
> 
> Behaviour wise we've nailed resource guarding (yay) and he's good around the house. We're working on lead reactivity and wariness of strangers.
> 
> Training wise we've been doing agility and gundog training. He's been a little reactive in agility since a dog pounced on him there so might stop for a while once this block we've paid for is over. Enjoying gundog, but the sessions are sporadic and I can't make all of them so we've not had many sessions. He's got a lovely retrieve and stop whistle is pretty solid. Finally got to the point where I can stop him on the whistle whilst he's hunting for the dummy (or ball) and redirect him. I love watching him search - much like the nose work being discussed - he's so focused and tail is wagging like it never does any other time. I love the sense of teamwork when I can stop him and point him in the right direction too (well the stop is reliable but he doesn't yet always go off in the direction I'm trying to send him:Shamefullyembarrased).
> 
> Bit confused about training though. I've always thought we were doing things right and had good feedback but we saw a different rehab trainer from the behavioural team who was very negative. She thought he was far too attentive to me, giving too much eye contact etc. Told the vet student with her he was a "poor thing" for being trained from a young age and really wasn't a fan of the clicker. I don't know how to train differently - I've always worked by rewarding for attention and focus but this is apparently all wrong? Got an appointment with our usual rehab person next week so will get her take on it (she's always been really happy with how I manage him).


A trainer I saw last week said mostly the thing - that Cash looks to me for direction to much. Part of the self settle training is to teach him to make the right choices when I'm 'switched' off from him. But I was really confused too because I want his focus and undivided attention, but I do trust this trainers judgement, so we shall see.


----------



## diefenbaker

Discovery Run done. Weather good for dogs at that time of day... and there was a lake for dipping.



This was after we'd finished. That's his WAYWO Kid bandana soaked in water to cool down a bit.


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## Sarah1983

Nicky10 said:


> Focus is a bad thing now?


I suppose it depends what's meant by "focus". I want my dog to be paying some attention to me, to be able to respond if I call him and to focus on me when I ask him to. But I don't want the sort of obsessive focus I've seen from some dogs, where they literally just hang around waiting to be told what to do and doing nothing off their own back. I don't think that's healthy, they need to just be a dog at times. Yet it's what some people want of their dogs.


----------



## Magyarmum

Sarah1983 said:


> I suppose it depends what's meant by "focus". I want my dog to be paying some attention to me, to be able to respond if I call him and to focus on me when I ask him to. But I don't want the sort of obsessive focus I've seen from some dogs, where they literally just hang around waiting to be told what to do and doing nothing off their own back. I don't think that's healthy, they need to just be a dog at times. Yet it's what some people want of their dogs.


Well focus to me means the dogs paying attention to me when we're out and about in public and not being distracted by what's going on around them. At home and in the garden they're quite free to behave like happy healthy dogs.


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## Canine K9

@Sarahliz100 - Sounds like you`re both coming on well! 
@diefenbaker- Looks like you both had good fun, Dief certainly looks pleased with himself!


----------



## Dimwit

@Sarahliz100 I have been working on something similar with Sprocket in our reactive dog classes. The way it was explained to me was that his focus on me is very good, but that he does rely on me a lot for constant feedback/instruction and he finds it difficult to switch off and just "be a dog". 
What we want him to do is be able to assess a situation and make his own decisions (obviously, in classes situations are managed to enable him to make correct decisions). So, when we encounter a dog I have been rewarding him for seeing the dog and choosing to turn and look at me, rather than me cueing him to look at me. It is a subtle difference but it has made a big difference to him. But, for him to be able to do this he has had to learn to cope when I have disengaged with him (on my terms rather than him just wandering off when he feels like it), We have also worked on a solid hand touch so I can redirect him if he is getting over threshold.

As for not liking clicker-training; well, it's personal choice but I have found that people who say things like that either do not have much experience/understanding of clicker training or have not done it properly (I am no expert myself). Clicker training works really well for my dog as it is instant and give him clear and immediate feedback.

On a separate note, we had our reactive dog class today and I am so pleased with the little dimwit - he was so good, and worked brilliantly. We git to the point where we started working with people and he was able to approach 3 people and take treats from them with no problems (massive progress for him). Then, with the help of a stuffed dog we started teaching him to greet appropriately. We still have a way to go, but I am a very proud owner right now!


----------



## Dogloverlou

Dimwit said:


> @Sarahliz100 I have been working on something similar with Sprocket in our reactive dog classes. The way it was explained to me was that his focus on me is very good, but that he does rely on me a lot for constant feedback/instruction and he finds it difficult to switch off and just "be a dog".
> What we want him to do is be able to assess a situation and make his own decisions (obviously, in classes situations are managed to enable him to make correct decisions). So, when we encounter a dog I have been rewarding him for seeing the dog and choosing to turn and look at me, rather than me cueing him to look at me. It is a subtle difference but it has made a big difference to him. But, for him to be able to do this he has had to learn to cope when I have disengaged with him (on my terms rather than him just wandering off when he feels like it), We have also worked on a solid hand touch so I can redirect him if he is getting over threshold.
> 
> As for not liking clicker-training; well, it's personal choice but I have found that people who say things like that either do not have much experience/understanding of clicker training or have not done it properly (I am no expert myself). Clicker training works really well for my dog as it is instant and give him clear and immediate feedback.
> 
> On a separate note, we had our reactive dog class today and I am so pleased with the little dimwit - he was so good, and worked brilliantly. We git to the point where we started working with people and he was able to approach 3 people and take treats from them with no problems (massive progress for him). Then, with the help of a stuffed dog we started teaching him to greet appropriately. We still have a way to go, but I am a very proud owner right now!


Exactly the same way it was explained to me....but seen as we have the same trainer that's no surprise  It's REALLY hard for me to not cue him though. More training for me than him.

Good job Dimwit on your class today! Great progress.


----------



## Cleo38

Sarah1983 said:


> I suppose it depends what's meant by "focus". I want my dog to be paying some attention to me, to be able to respond if I call him and to focus on me when I ask him to. But I don't want the sort of obsessive focus I've seen from some dogs, where they literally just hang around waiting to be told what to do and doing nothing off their own back. I don't think that's healthy, they need to just be a dog at times. Yet it's what some people want of their dogs.


I am one of those people! 

Archer doesn't do his own things when we are out, I've never deliberately stopped this but we do train & play when we are out rather than walk so he naturally just stays with me. Having had to work so hard with Roxy & then worry about her b*ggering off chasing when she is a bit bored that I love this focus now. I know alot of people might find this annoying if they just wanted a nice walk when they are out but I love this & it's exactly what I wanted.


----------



## Fluffster

Sarah1983 said:


> I suppose it depends what's meant by "focus". I want my dog to be paying some attention to me, to be able to respond if I call him and to focus on me when I ask him to. But I don't want the sort of obsessive focus I've seen from some dogs, where they literally just hang around waiting to be told what to do and doing nothing off their own back. I don't think that's healthy, they need to just be a dog at times. Yet it's what some people want of their dogs.


Yes this is me too. Some walks I will play and do training with Daisy, but plenty of others she just gets to be a dog, run about and sniff and explore. I love seeing her do what comes naturally.

I also wouldn't want that dependence to transfer inside the house, I like that Daisy is able to amuse herself and isn't constantly seeking attention from us or waiting for us to engage with her - she'll go and create her own amusement, most of the time by doing something she's allowed to! Belle is a bit crap, she's lost any intitiative in her old age so doesn't know how to entertain herself. She paces until we engage with her. Thankfully as she's old she sleeps a lot!


----------



## Dimwit

I struggled for years to get my dog to focus on me at training classes, and still do sometimes, so I am very happy to have him offering me focus. But, especially given his character, I can see how allowing and encouraging him to make his own decisions is a good thing for him (as long as I can then get his focus back on me when I want it). His constant need for feedback from me also doesn't do him any favours in classes when he is not actually working and so teaching that sometimes he does not get my undivided attention, and teaching him to self-settle has been very good for him. I'm not explaining it very well but, for Sprocket, it is important to get the balance right so that he is focused on me when I want him to be, but also that he is able to choose behaviours and to switch off.


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## MollySmith

@Dimwit just picking up your comments about focus as we've had much more success with using Developing Dogs method of Molly taking responsibility herself for her actions and making her choices.

We've not really done masses of stuff with Molly as I've had study commitments but we've been attending a Sunday scent work class with up to four other dogs since March. Molly is fine (with space) inside the marquee and utterly loves scent work. We have missed the sociability classes that we've been going to with Dimwit due to life and Molly's dicky tummy but hoping to go back, but the lessons we did have there have been useful as I have been able to transfer those to Molly in the scent work when she's watching another dog work.

We're (?) me, since I have not taught Molly to read - also reading about some gun dog technique and thinking of adding those to our training. OH is having a few prey drive issues and we're working on some focus techniques on walks.

But she's an awesome dog and we're so pleased with her.


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## Dogless

I haven't had time to do a thorough catch up with everyone on here, but will do. I almost "needed" this thread when it was in it's heyday and I owe a great deal to it and to the wonderful folk who took their time to listen to me and to help and to support me. Got me through some tough times.

I am happy to report that Kilo has become a different dog since moving back to the mainland - it has taken a great deal of work but we can almost, almost be "normal". I am very much enjoying walking and running with him again and although he will never be relaxed when offlead dogs run up or be able to closely pass staring or barking dogs without me needing to distract and reward him he is very much better. We do a variety of walks, some where we meet and chat to other dog owners and Kilo has a little fan club of elderly folk around where I live. He is known as a handsome "placid" (other folks' words, not mine!) boy with good manners and very rarely reacts beyond a huff at things that worry him. I do however still walk him separately to Rudi on many walks as he does still require careful management and all my attention should a loose dog come barrelling along. Seeing another dog is no longer the end of the world and that feeling is priceless!!

Rudi is still very, very puppyish at over 2 1 /2 years of age and I suspect will remain so for his entire life!! Not that that is a bad thing - he is bonkers and playful, loves running with me and all his walks and is just generally fun to have around.

As for how they are together - chalk and cheese in most respects and that seems to mean that they are still rubbing along very nicely indeed.


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## Sarah1983

Cleo38 said:


> I am one of those people!
> 
> Archer doesn't do his own things when we are out, I've never deliberately stopped this but we do train & play when we are out rather than walk so he naturally just stays with me. Having had to work so hard with Roxy & then worry about her b*ggering off chasing when she is a bit bored that I love this focus now. I know alot of people might find this annoying if they just wanted a nice walk when they are out but I love this & it's exactly what I wanted.


It's a fine line for me. I want my dog to be paying some attention to me, not to just be buggering off and doing what they please. But at the same time I don't want to be constantly entertaining them. We do a lot of training and play games on walks but it's in short bursts with Spen pottering around and sniffing in between. I like that I can produce a ball and have that border collie like focus but put it away, give him his "off you go" and him go back to pottering and sniffing. Or do 10 minutes of training then release him and him go off and read his pee mail for 10 minutes before doing something else.

I'm not sure anyone here really wants the slavish attention some people seem to want from their dog. There's a hell of a difference between a dog who is genuinely enjoying engaging with its owner while out and about and a dog whose owner expects the sort of slavish attention I mean. I love seeing owner and dog clearly enjoying themselves together and making walks a fun thing to do together rather than the dog just doing its own thing while the owner stomps along oblivious or talks on the phone. I don't love seeing the dogs who look like they're out for a forced march, glued to their owners side with no attention paid to them unless it's to correct them for doing something they haven't been told they can do. Those dogs usually look so tense and stressed and not like they're enjoying a walk at all. While the owners (I've had conversations with a fair few) are generally so proud that their dog "knows its place" and is so beautifully behaved that it just plods by their side and never engages with anything at all.


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## Cleo38

Sarah1983 said:


> It's a fine line for me. I want my dog to be paying some attention to me, not to just be buggering off and doing what they please. But at the same time I don't want to be constantly entertaining them. We do a lot of training and play games on walks but it's in short bursts with Spen pottering around and sniffing in between. I like that I can produce a ball and have that border collie like focus but put it away, give him his "off you go" and him go back to pottering and sniffing. Or do 10 minutes of training then release him and him go off and read his pee mail for 10 minutes before doing something else.
> 
> I'm not sure anyone here really wants the slavish attention some people seem to want from their dog. There's a hell of a difference between a dog who is genuinely enjoying engaging with its owner while out and about and a dog whose owner expects the sort of slavish attention I mean. I love seeing owner and dog clearly enjoying themselves together and making walks a fun thing to do together rather than the dog just doing its own thing while the owner stomps along oblivious or talks on the phone. I don't love seeing the dogs who look like they're out for a forced march, glued to their owners side with no attention paid to them unless it's to correct them for doing something they haven't been told they can do. Those dogs usually look so tense and stressed and not like they're enjoying a walk at all. While the owners (I've had conversations with a fair few) are generally so proud that their dog "knows its place" and is so beautifully behaved that it just plods by their side and never engages with anything at all.


Tbh I've never really seen that .... more like the opposite where dogs hardly notice their owners & have b*ggered off annoying others or they are left to their own devices as their owners are on their phones.

All my dogs are quite different so I have different times out with them. Archer is very focussed, Roxy I have to work hard for & Toby .... well, he does what he wants nowadays although if he thinks I have food then he won't leave my side some days 

Usually, with Archer I will work on a certain exercise but do short bursts. We are working on heelwork mainly atm so only do short distances for this as I want to get it right. We are also working on his excitement when we go out tracking which he's doing so well at .... he has so much enthusiasm which is great but it just needs a bit more self management which we work on. We've also started doing sendaways & positions at distances which he picked up straight away .... didn't really need to 'teach' that as such.

The older two I am going to start doing more tracking with them as Toby is getting on a bit now & his dodgy legs means long walks aren;t always the best idea. Poor Roxy has also had further problems with her spine & her hips are drwadul so she is also on reduced exercise for the foreseeable future. Luckily they both love nosework activities & I now have lots of ideas for different types of tracking after attending a seminar by smokeybear a couple of weeks ago


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## Nicky10

We do a mix of obedience and some scentwork and just running and playing. Slavish devotion and robotic dogs aren't my thing, but if it's the dog's choice to stay by their owner that's a different matter to a dog being forced to heel and never get to relax.


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## Dogloverlou

Cash is usually very focused on me during walks, however, just this past week he blew his recall for the first time ever and approached another dog..... He's been so good up until that, but he was with Ty at the time and for some reason he's completely different when walking with him. So that further confirms joint walks just can't really happen with them.

I've also noticed lately he's becoming more distracted by smells. He dropped his toy twice this evening to stop and sniff. Any tips on how to prevent that would be welcomed! 

Aside from that he did a great 'down' mid recall and his retrieve was good 80% of the time.


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## Sarah1983

Cleo38 said:


> Tbh I've never really seen that .... more like the opposite where dogs hardly notice their owners & have b*ggered off annoying others or they are left to their own devices as their owners are on their phones.


I've seen a fair few, nowhere near as many as those who just ignore their dogs and let them do what they want though! They're not as noticeable though as they don't have any impact on other users of the area. Well, unless they decide to stop and inform you your dog is badly behaved or dominant or something because it's up ahead of you sniffing or has lagged behind to mark a tree. Which I've had a couple of times lol.

As I say, nothing at all against those who are genuinely engaging with their dogs and both they and their dogs are having fun, I think it's fantastic when people do engage with their dogs while out  I do all sorts with Spen. Find the toy games, fetch in the river, fetch on the field, practicing recalls, stays, walking by me, fun tricks, whatever. Sometimes on rainy walks we have great fun splashing through puddles together. And there are walks where he's practically glued to my side, more interested in working than pottering lol. I have to keep him engaged to some extent or he gets so engrossed in following his nose that he forgets about me and his ears switch off. I just like to be able to let him have his time to do his own thing too. If he wants to.


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## Cleo38

Sarah1983 said:


> I've seen a fair few, nowhere near as many as those who just ignore their dogs and let them do what they want though! They're not as noticeable though as they don't have any impact on other users of the area. Well, unless they decide to stop and inform you your dog is badly behaved or dominant or something because it's up ahead of you sniffing or has lagged behind to mark a tree. Which I've had a couple of times lol.
> 
> As I say, nothing at all against those who are genuinely engaging with their dogs and both they and their dogs are having fun, I think it's fantastic when people do engage with their dogs while out  I do all sorts with Spen. Find the toy games, fetch in the river, fetch on the field, practicing recalls, stays, walking by me, fun tricks, whatever. Sometimes on rainy walks we have great fun splashing through puddles together. And there are walks where he's practically glued to my side, more interested in working than pottering lol. I have to keep him engaged to some extent or he gets so engrossed in following his nose that he forgets about me and his ears switch off. I just like to be able to let him have his time to do his own thing too. If he wants to.


I suppose after Roxy I didn't want to have a dog that went self employed so have worked hard to make sure this doesn't happen again. I also suppose it depends on what you want with your dog. Atm Archer is not interested in anyone or anything else which is great, although I am not complacent enough to think it will always be like this.

He does find it difficult to switch off when we are out but isn't too demanding when I do say 'enough' .... he will try it on a bit though! At home he's great & despite being a young WL GSD he settles down in the evening as do the older dogs. They all have their chew & we all relax ... I supose this was the routine we adopted straight away & he's always been good like that ... mainly!


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## Sarahliz100

Regarding the whole focus thing I think the trainer was concerned because once the treats came out, and we were in an enclosed paddock he went into "training mode" and basically started doing heelwork/offering behaviours. I think she was concerned he was like this all the time and never relaxed, but I think it was just that it was clearly a training situation and that's his he's used to behaving at training.

In terms of out and about I'm really happy with the balance. He potters about doing his own thing, nose to the ground mostly but glances back to see where I am very frequently and never goes out of site for more than a few moments. Couldn't lose him if I tried! If a ball comes out he's completely attentive and I can recall or get him to do an emergency stop pretty easily. Inside - i probably should work on a self settle. He's ok if it's just me but if my OH is around he wants attention, and when he settles down he's up again at the slightest movement.


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## Guest

The 'too much focus' thing resonates with me. Kenzie can get obsessive about treats and sometimes on walks she spends her time trying to win treats from me rather than 'being a dog'.

I've recently discovered Kenzie has issues with groups of people (3 or more) approaching her when out on walks. I have no idea where this fear came from and I'm not sure the extent of it.


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## Tyton

Nice to see the return of WAYWO. I never contributed much, but did do a lot of lurking and reading!

Formally we're working on Ronin to his bronze KCGC award (test on 7 July), and Beau and Kahn towards their silver (test on 28th July) and tentatively planning to put Ronin in for the silver too as he's worked in the silver class a few times and is probably MORE ready than his 2 bigger brothers! We're also in the process of organising some competitive obedience training with Ronin and a 10 month old dobe we know from our other class as they both seem to have a bent towards this.

Informally we continue to work on Tyton's anxiety when out, that and managing the constantly changing pack dynamics in the household as wee Ronin is losing his 'puppy license' at 8 months old and starting to bully the biggies a bit.


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## MollySmith

We have been to scent work today. I have discovered that Molly is much better if she goes into the marquee last and was really interested but quiet with the other dogs. She only barked twice because two of the other three dogs did a wuff too. She's now able to look at me about fifty percent of the time when another dog looks at her for her treat with no direction.

We had two directed searches, one was a speedy minute and the other 7 minutes. The location is a rather unloved marquee and there was a hole in the wall by the cheese we were meant to find and the wind made this much harder but we got there. She really was a super dog and we were praised for our focus on each other which meant a lot to me, I find it a bit of a spacial challenge myself and Molly is adjusting her pace with me.

Sadly her tummy is being very running these evening so she's fast asleep. I just want the vet results back asap so I can find out what's causing it. We're still on chicken and rice with a tiny bit of Arcana kibble and I've kept all her treats as meat only and I'm wondering if it's a chicken allergy.


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## Magyarmum

Yesterday at training as there was only my two and another owner with an Amstaff we did city road and traffic walking which is great for the two G's as we live in a small village so they haven't much experience of walking in heavy traffic with loads of people milling around. I was proud of them when they walked past dozens of people arriving for a football match without batting an eyelid. Mind you, they were both tired when we got back to the car and Georgina couldn't wait to climb onto the back seat and have a well deserved sleep!


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## Dimwit

MS, I'm glad Molly enjoyed sniffing yesterday, but sorry she is still not right. Hopefully the test results will shed some light on the problem. Just a thought though, do you think it could be the rice that is causing a problem? The dimwit can't tolerate rice so when he is ill he has boiled chicken with boiled potato (or sweet potato).

After being such a star on Saturday, we had a quiet day yesterday - mainly because I had to go to London and collect my new car  (it was my sister's old car and is very nice). The only problem is that now I think I may have to rehome the dimwit as: a) this car is nice and clean and doesn't smell of wet dog, and b) he no longer matches my car (old car was black)


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## Canine K9

Had a fantastic Nosework session with Bailey tonight. At the start of our Nosework `journey' he was quite anxious about everything and now he amazes me with how much more confident he is. Jumping up onto walls to sniff the ledges, jumping over obstacles in his way and going into enclosed spaces. He had an especially difficult hide tonight as the wind was blowing the odour in the opposite direction to him but after about 10 minutes he discovered it  
He had great fun too as always


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## Dimwit

Well this week we will mainly be working on "leave it" and sendaways. He has everything else we need to do for our assessment nailed but leave it is a problem - the exercise is: "The dog will, off lead, be called from two separate moderately interesting items on the floor, example, dried food from a dish covered with mesh or similar. The dog should show an immediate clear response". He is fine walking past toys etc. but food is a bit more of a challenge (he can do it, but only if we work up to it very slowly so needs improvement). We are also allowed to do this on lead, as long as the lead is loose and I am not using it to pull him away - but as there are other dogs in the room, it is safer to have him on lead if we are wandering around the room.
Sendaways are also a little bit of a problem as we have to send them 4.5m away and it seems that anything much more than 3m worries him


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## lupie

So Rally wasn't a car crash, which I'm chuffed about. She was quite barky at the beginning but did settle down, but as soon as she got bored (others demonstrating, waiting for instruction etc) she would bark. Definitely something to work on, although I'm not sure how! 

She had a grumble at a collie at the end, he came up to us and I said "Be careful, she's a little unpredictable on lead" and they greeted nicely once but then it came back for more and I didn't intercede as the bloke was asking me questions so she growled it off. She also growled & snapped at a spaniel on our walk this morning because it walked past her then circled back to sniff her bum. She really hates that.  So some work to do there, but I'm pleased mostly with her Rally behaviour. 

The agility is run in the other half of the riding school, and at times there were some very high pitched squeaking and shouting, and I got quite a few really solid "looks" during this behaviour which I"m pleased with!


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## Dogloverlou

http://vid238.photobucket.com/albums/ff144/Lou20_album/2015-03-06 18 47 57.mp4

A short vid showing what we practice every day. A short down stay....gradually increasing to myself out of sight, but we're building that up. A fetch/retrieve game, and a send away attempt last thing, but we have to work on distance control.

The vid you have to enlarge on PB...and turn your volume down if you don't want to hear the music


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## Cleo38

Archer & I had our monthly training day in Essex today with Kamal Fernandez & practised our heelwork again. Lots of different exercises to work on this, was a really enjoyable class


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## Dimwit

Sounds good!
We had a fairly rubbish walk today - took dimwit to his favourite place as he is a bit scared of my new car and I wanted him to have a nice experience. Except he had a run-in with another dog, who launched himself at Sprocket, pinned him down and nipped him :Arghh (And Sprocket had been so good - recalled when I saw the other dogs (there were 2) and didn't even growl).

So now I have a limping dog, and I have no idea how he will react next time he sees another dog...


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## dogsaintdumb

I remember those days, Dimwit.  Sorry you had a rough walk. For future reference, I found that purposely walking by other dogs (leashed, preferably) after a crappy encounter would give me a chance to even the playing field.


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## Dimwit

Thanks. With the dimwit, it is best to avoid other dogs as much as possible for a few days to give him a "stress holiday". He was a bit stiff this morning as well, so I don't want to risk him making that worse. We have arranged to go for a walk at the weekend with my parents and their dog (who he loves) so I will give him a quiet few days and then a (hopefully) positive experience.


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## dogsaintdumb

Awe man, poor guy.  I hope all goes well. It's really annoying when somebody else messes up all your hard work.


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## Cleo38

Dimwit said:


> Thanks. With the dimwit, it is best to avoid other dogs as much as possible for a few days to give him a "stress holiday". He was a bit stiff this morning as well, so I don't want to risk him making that worse. We have arranged to go for a walk at the weekend with my parents and their dog (who he loves) so I will give him a quiet few days and then a (hopefully) positive experience.


Such a shame, hope he's ok.

I might be taking Archer back to Sian's soon for some sociability classes. He's doing great but as we rarely meet anyone when out I want to keep concentrating on working around other dogs to ensure this continues. So far he's not interested in other dogs but I don't want to get complacent as he's now an adolescent. He sees other dogs at our IPO club which we got to every weeek but it's different there as he just loves going there & is so excited when we turn in ... he sees the field & can't wait to get out & get started! Just want to do some work in different locations & with other (under control) dogs.


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## Dimwit

He's still a but limpy, but otherwise seems ok. Had another quiet walk and then did some approaching/getting into the car practice. I was so gutted yesterday as he has been doing so well, but it figures that we were due another setback. 

Archer sounds like he's doing brilliantly, but I can see why you want to take him somewhere different. He'll probably be a brilliant stooge dog for the rest of us!


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## Cleo38

Dimwit said:


> He's still a but limpy, but otherwise seems ok. Had another quiet walk and then did some approaching/getting into the car practice. I was so gutted yesterday as he has been doing so well, but it figures that we were due another setback.
> 
> Archer sounds like he's doing brilliantly, but I can see why you want to take him somewhere different. He'll probably be a brilliant stooge dog for the rest of us!


Hahaha, or the basket case in the corner! I like it at Sian's, it nice & relaxed so is a good environment for him. Am tempted to go back to Ely County Park soon (he had an incident with a Border Terrier chasing him the other week which really worried him at the time) & know I shouldn't hide him away so may brave it at the weekend but stay well away from everyone, maybe do some training at the entrance so the dogs coming in should be on lead at that point & under control .... well that's the idea!!


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## Dimwit

Yes, the classes there have been brilliant for Sprocket, and, as you said, it is so relaxed that it is the best that Sprocket has ever been at a training class.

Poor Archer - training at the entrance sounds like a good plan, t least then you have a good escape route as well!


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## Cleo38

Thought I would leave the park until another day, we are attending a competitive obdience competition (spectating, no way competing!!) in Thetford at the weekend so will have plenty of opportunities to work around other dogs there .... & they should be on leads which will make things easier.

Todays training involved going over the leisure centre & working in the grounds. there was a small child playing football with his mum so we worked around them. Archer was qyuite interested in joinging in initially but once we started playing/training he was very focussed again. Was a good lesson as I have learnt from previous experience that children playing football is a BIG interest for him so the fact he didn't even glance over again as we got going was great. Really pleased wih him


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## Dimwit

Today was a very good day for the dimwit - we went for a walk with my parents and their border terrier, who he loves. Saw a few other dogs and people and he was brilliant. Also did lots of self-control practice around cowpats etc.
Then we did some scentwork this afternoon - the first time in ages he has done any with other dogs around (and good practice for me doing blind searches) and he was a little star!


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## lupie

Dimwit said:


> Today was a very good day for the dimwit - we went for a walk with my parents and their border terrier, who he loves. Saw a few other dogs and people and he was brilliant. Also did lots of self-control practice around cowpats etc.
> Then we did some scentwork this afternoon - the first time in ages he has done any with other dogs around (and good practice for me doing blind searches) and he was a little star!


"Self control around cow pats" that could be the name of a training book! Haha!

We were hoping to pop along to the village fete today to do some training around distractions/dogs/food etc. But we did a 2 hour walk and she was rather hot and tired so we gave it a miss!


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## Tyton

Wee Ronin had his first 'proper' obedience class yesterdy. There are three of them working together, Ronin, a 10 month old dobe called Chilli and a wee springer/collie cross, Bella. It was just baby steps, an overview of the exercises in competitive obedience, some straight heelwork and practicing right turns. Then a bit of footwork for the humans without the pups in tow. Ronin was well behaved (apart from a shouting match with some chickens at the start of the class!) And is quick on the uptake. Hopefully we can progress well and see if we can take him as far as competition level.

PS he was also a wee star in his good citizen class this afternoon, not breaking his stay even when the two dogs to the side of him jumped up to have a scuffle round the hall!


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## Dimwit

Well done Ronin - sounds like he made a great start!

Yesterday at training class the dimwit managed this:









I am so pleased with him - he did really well. No certificate yet as our instructor wasn't expecting him to pass all of the exercises this week.
He did slightly blot his copybook near the end of the class, though. There was one other person in class yesterday, and her son was waiting in the car, but then he came into the training barn just before the end of the class and Sprocket had a bit of a meltdown. He did recover pretty quickly, though, so he has definitely made progress...


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